"Captaincy!" he repeated, taken aback by my audacity. "Captaincy! That is beyond all reason."

"Yet if I succeed beyond reason--?"

"In such event--But let that wait until your return."

"If ever I do return," I added.

"True; but you can thank yourself that you are thrusting your head into the noose, with your eyes open."

"Then Your Excellency gives me leave to join as a volunteer?"

"We shall see--we shall see."

"But, Your Excellency, a man likes time for preparations."

"That is your own affair, sir,--though I may say that, at present, I feel disposed to grant you the favor. I shall let you know in good time."

With this I was forced to be content. The General rose to enter his office, with a pompous gesture of dismissal.

But upon my return to my friend's quarters, he and Mrs. Pike and Lieutenant Wilkinson joined in a.s.suring me that, since the General had not refused me point blank, I had every reason to expect a favorable decision.

CHAPTER XIV

THE LURE

It was well in line with the General's character that he kept me on tenterhooks until the very afternoon before the intended day of marching. Then, as it were at the eleventh hour, he included in his written orders to Lieutenant Pike, to march the following day, a brief paragraph to the effect that I was to accompany the expedition as a volunteer surgeon.

Notwithstanding the orders of the General, we did not start in the morning, but were forced to wait over until the fifteenth of July, owing to the unreadiness of our savage charges, the Osage captives who had been rescued from the Pottawattomies and who were to be returned to their people under our escort.

The first stage of our journey, up the devious Osage River, was one tedious to all and exceedingly laborious to those whose duties confined them to the navigation of the boats. In confirmation I need only add that the Summer was fast nearing its close before we arrived at the Osage towns.

There, instead of the generosity which we had a right to expect from an Indian tribe to whom we had restored so many members, we were delayed many days by their ungrateful reluctance to supply us with horses, and in the end obtained with greatest difficulty only a few of their least desirable animals.

Yet, relieved of the boats and our Indian charges and possessed of these few pack-beasts and saddle horses, our march on toward the p.a.w.nee Republic, when at last we did get under way again, soon carried us into the prairie which lies westward of the three-hundred-mile belt of half-forested lands along the Mississippi. We had come to that vast extent of desert plains which, though abounding in game, is all but dest.i.tute of timber. In consequence of this fact, young Wilkinson and I agreed with Pike that the arid waste is destined to serve forever as the Western boundary of the Republic's settled population.

About the middle of September I was sent on ahead of the party to the p.a.w.nee Republic, accompanied by a young p.a.w.nee called Frank, one of the half-dozen of his people attached to the expedition at St. Louis. We were well mounted, and travelled rapidly in a northwesterly direction, across the lower fork of the Kansas River and the three branches which flow into the Republican Fork from the south and west.

At first we kept a sharp outlook for hunting and war parties of the Kans, who at the time were not on the best of terms with their cousins the Osages. But throughout our trip we saw nothing more dangerous than the numerous panthers which thrive on the superabundant game. Though bold, these tawny beasts were too well fed to trouble us. The same was true of the gray wolves, a small pack of which followed us day after day to feast upon the carca.s.ses of the buffaloes we killed.

Evening of the fourth day brought us into the vicinity of the p.a.w.nee Republic. We were riding along over a broken, hilly country, and my savage companion was telling me, in a mixture of bad French and worse English, that we should soon come within sight of the Republican Fork and his home village, when suddenly we rode into a broad track which could only have been made by a large body of hors.e.m.e.n, over two hundred at the very least.

"Hold!" I cried, reining up and pointing at the signs. "Look. Many people went south, on horses, two or three weeks ago. Your people? They have gone to the Arkansas?"

"_Non!_" grunted Frank, and leaping off, he caught up and handed to me a tent pin. "p.a.w.nee? _non!_ Stick no grow in p.a.w.nee hunting-ground. White man's knife cut him. _Voila!_"

"White man!" I repeated in amazement.

How was it possible that there could have been so large a party of white men traversing this remote wilderness? As I sat staring at the wooden pin, studying its grain and shape, Frank circled around through the beaten gra.s.s in search of further signs. A guttural cry from him compelled my attention.

He was holding up a broken spur.

"Espana!" he called.

One glance was enough to convince me that he was not mistaken. The spur was of Spanish make.

More puzzled than ever, we clapped heels to our horses, and galloped up the track, which Frank declared led direct from the village. Within a few minutes we topped a line of high hills, and found ourselves looking down into the valley of the Republican and upon the rounded roofs of the big p.a.w.nee lodges.

One look was enough to relieve our fears regarding the safety of the village. I had never seen a more peaceful-appearing Indian town. The women were at work dressing buffalo robes near the lodges or harvesting their corn and pumpkins in the little patches of field near-by. The children were scattered far and wide, the girls playing with their puppies or tagging their mothers, the boys practising with bows and arrows or watching the hoop-and-pole games of the few men who were to be seen. The young warriors, probably, were off on hunting or war parties, and of the men who remained in the village, most were dozing in their lodges or lolling in the shade outside.

But I did not look long at the savages. My eye was almost immediately caught by a red-and-yellow flag afloat above the front of the great council-lodge. Even at that distance I could not fail to recognize it as the flag of Spain. So astonished was I at the sight that I drew up short, unable to credit my eyes. The flag solved the mystery of the track, only to raise the puzzling question of the presence of so large a body of Spaniards at so great a distance from their present boundaries.

A loud shouting and commotion in the village roused me from my bewilderment. We had been sighted. The women and children were fleeing to the lodges, and all the men capable of bearing arms were advancing toward us, with threatening guns and bows and lances. However, Frank at once made the wolf-ear sign which showed them that he was a p.a.w.nee, while I held up the wampum belt intrusted to me by Pike. A moment later Frank was recognized, and the news shouted back to the village.

At the same time the men, both mounted and afoot, charged down upon us, whooping and piercing the air with their shrill war whistle and flourishing their weapons as if about to tear us to pieces. A man unused to Indians, no matter how brave, might well have trembled at finding himself thus confronted by hundreds of yelling, half-naked savages. The p.a.w.nee warriors are particularly formidable-looking, being tall and well shaped, and their height accentuated by the bristling roach of short hair which runs back over their shaven heads to the feathered scalp-lock. I was, however, too well versed in the Indian character either to show or to feel any trepidation.

As the wild band closed about us in mock attack, a stately warrior whom Frank said was Characterish, or White Wolf, the grand chief of the nation, forced his horse through the mob and greeted me with a guttural "_Bon jour_!" Upon my return of the salute, he invited me to his lodge.

This was gratifying, for I could see by the Spanish grand medal he wore suspended from his neck that he had been particularly favored by the Spaniards, and so might very well have felt ill-disposed toward all Americans.

When we advanced, escorted by the warriors, we were met by all the rest of the population, running and shouting and leaping with excitement at the arrival of their fellow-tribesman and the white man. But at a word from Characterish, not only the women and children but the warriors as well quitted their clamor and gave us free pa.s.sage into the village.

Unlike the mat and slab lodges of the Osages, the p.a.w.nee houses are substantial structures. Their wattled walls and gra.s.sed roof, supported by a double circle of posts, are covered with a thick layer of sods and earth above and over all. This makes them cool in Summer and warm in cold weather; yet, like the Osages, the p.a.w.nees always move down into the timbers for the Winter.

Arriving at the lodge of White Wolf, I was shown in through the covered portico which gave the lodge quite the aspect of a civilized home.

Within I found the chief's wives and men-servants busily cooking a meal for us on the fire in the middle of the wide pit which occupied the greater part of the lodge's interior. That there might be no doubt of his hospitality, the chief at once a.s.signed to me one of the snug little curtained compartments built against the wall, around the edge of the pit. My room was in the place of honor, beneath the sacred medicine bundle, on the far side of the lodge.

By the time I had my rifle and saddle stowed away, the chief's cook, a maimed old warrior, called us to come and eat. I sat down with my host and his two sons to a none too savory stew of dried buffalo meat, thickened with pumpkin. To this was added a mess of corn cooked in buffalo grease. But a prairie traveller is seldom troubled with a dainty stomach, and I managed to compliment my host by making a hearty meal of it.

As soon as we had eaten, White Wolf sent out a crier to call in the chiefs and a few of the foremost warriors of the village. They seated themselves with us in a circle, and the head chief's calumet was pa.s.sed around without any man refusing to smoke.

When the pipe came back around to White Wolf, he addressed me in p.a.w.nee, which was interpreted by Frank: "Let the white man speak; tell why he come p.a.w.nee terre."

I held up the wampum belt, and answered briefly: "I come in friendship from the war chief of the great white father at Washington."

"Ugh! Washington!" grunted the least stolid of the warriors. Even these remote prairie savages knew that ill.u.s.trious name.

"--From the war chief sent by the high chief of my people to bring gifts and peace to the p.a.w.nee people," I continued. "It is his wish that you send out your young men to guide him to your town as a guest."

As Frank interpreted this I thought I could detect a shade of change beneath the stolid look of the grim warriors. What was still more ominous, when the pipe was pa.s.sed around the second time, no one smoked.

But when it came back to White Wolf, after some delay and hesitation, he smoked, and thereupon announced laconically: "I go--heap grand comp'ny meet white capitan."

Again the pipe was started around. It was taken by one of the sub-chiefs. When he had smoked, he rose majestically, and, drawing up his buffalo robe about his naked body, pointed dramatically to the westward. There could be no mistaking the menace in his terse, guttural declamation.

I looked to Frank, who explained, with evident trepidation: "He Pitaleshar, grand war chief. He say: ''Merican white braves no go to setting sun; no march over p.a.w.nee hunting-grounds. Espana chief grand--heap big; p.a.w.nees grand--heap big; 'Merican soldiers _non_!'

_Voila! Comprenez-vous?_"