"He 'ain't got much of a pack," Jones commented, and at that moment "stables" sounded, and the men ran out to form and march to their grooming. Jack Long stood at the door and watched them file through the snow.

Very few enlisted men of the small command that had come in this morning from its campaign had ever seen General Crook. Jones, though not new to the frontier, had not been long in the army. He and c.u.mnor had enlisted in a happy-go-lucky manner together at Grant, in Arizona, when the General was elsewhere. Discipline was galling to his vagrant spirit, and after each pay-day he had generally slept off the effects in the guard-house, going there for other offences between-whiles; but he was not of the stuff that deserts; also, he was excellent tempered, and his captain liked him for the way in which he could shoot Indians. Jack Long liked him too; and getting always a harmless pleasure from the mistakes of his friends, sincerely trusted there might be more about the peddler.

He was startled at hearing his name spoken in his ear.

"_Nah!_ Johnny, how you get on?"

"h.e.l.lo, Sarah! Kla-how-ya, six?" said Long, greeting in Chinook the squaw interpreter who had approached him so noiselessly. "Hy-as kloshe o-c.o.ke sun" (It is a beautiful day).

The interpreter laughed--she had a broad, sweet, coa.r.s.e face, and laughed easily--and said in English, "You hear about E-egante?"

Long had heard nothing recently of this Pah-Ute chieftain.

"He heap bad," continued Sarah, laughing broadly. "Come round ranch up here--"

"Anybody killed?" Long interrupted.

"No. All run away quick. Meester Dailey, he old man, he run all same young one. His old woman she run all same man. Get horse. Run away quick. Hu-hu!" and Sarah's rich mockery sounded again. No tragedy had happened this time, and the squaw narrated her story greatly to the relish of Mr. Long. This veteran of trails and mines had seen too much of life's bleakness not to cherish whatever of mirth his days might bring.

"Didn't burn the house?" he said.

"Not burn. Just make heap mess. Cut up feather-bed hy-as ten-as (very small) and eat big dinner, hu-hu! Sugar, onions, meat, eat all. Then they find litt' cats walkin' round there."

"Lor'!" said Mr. Long, deeply interested, "they didn't eat _them_?"

"No. Not eat litt' cats. Put 'em two--man-cat and woman-cat--in mola.s.ses; put 'em in feather-bed; all same bird. Then they hunt for whiskey, break everything, hunt all over, ha-lo whiskey!" Sarah shook her head. "Meester Dailey he good man. Hy-iu temperance. Drink water.

They find his medicine; drink all up; make awful sick."

"I guess 'twar th' ole man's liniment," muttered Jack Long.

"Yas, milinut. They can't walk. Stay there long time, then Meester Dailey come back with friends. They think Injuns all gone; make noise, and E-egante he hear him come, and he not very sick. Run away. Some more run. But two Injuns heap sick; can't run. Meester Dailey he come round the corner; see awful mess everywhere; see two litt' cats sittin' in door all same bird, sing very loud. Then he see two Injuns on ground.

They dead now."

"Mwell," said Long, "none of eer'll do. We'll hev to ketch E-egante."

"A--h!" drawled Sarah the squaw, in musical derision. "Maybe no catch him. All same jack rabbit."

"Jest ye wait, Sarah; Gray Fox hez come."

"Gen'l Crook!" said the squaw. "He come! Ho! He heap savvy." She stopped, and laughed again, like a pleased child. "Maybe no catch E-egante," she added, rolling her pretty brown eyes at Jack Long.

"You know E-egante?" he demanded.

"Yas, one time. Long time now. I litt' girl then." But Sarah remembered that long time, when she slept in a tent and had not been captured and put to school. And she remembered the tall young boys whom she used to watch shoot arrows, and the tallest, who shot most truly--at least, he certainly did now in her imagination. He had never spoken to her or looked at her. He was a boy of fourteen and she a girl of eight. Now she was twenty-five. Also she was tame and domesticated, with a white husband who was not bad to her, and children for each year of wedlock, who would grow up to speak English better than she could, and her own tongue not at all. And E-egante was not tame, and still lived in a tent.

Sarah regarded white people as her friends, but she was proud of being an Indian, and she liked to think that her race could outwit the soldier now and then. She laughed again when she thought of old Mrs. Dailey running from E-egante.

"What's up with ye, Sarah?" said Jack Long, for the squaw's laughter had come suddenly on a spell of silence.

"He!" said she. "All same jack-rabbit. No catch him." She stood shaking her head at Long, and showing her white, regular teeth. Then abruptly she went away to her tent without any word, not because she was in ill-humor or had thought of something, but because she was an Indian and had thought of nothing, and had no more to say. She met the men returning from the stables; admired Jones and smiled at him, upon which he murmured "Oh fie!" as he pa.s.sed her. The troop broke ranks and dispersed, to lounge and gossip until mess-call. c.u.mnor and Jones were putting a little snow down each other's necks with friendly profanity, when Jones saw the peddler standing close and watching them. A high collar of some ragged fur was turned up round his neck, disguising the character of the ancient army overcoat to which it was attached, and spots and long stains extended down the legs of his corduroys to the charred holes at the bottom, where the owner had scorched them warming his heels and calves at many camp-fires.

"h.e.l.lo, uncle," said Jones. "What y'u got in your pack?" He and c.u.mnor left their gambols and eagerly approached, while Mr. Jack Long, seeing the interview, came up also to hear it. "'Ain't y'u got something to sell?" continued Jones. "Y'u haven't gone and dumped yer whole outfit at the commanding officer's, have y'u now?"

"I'm afraid I have." The low voice shook ever so little, and if Jones had looked he would have seen a twinkle come and go in the gray-blue eyes.

"We've been out eight months, y'u know, fairly steady," pursued Jones, "and haven't seen nothing; and we'd buy most anything that ain't too d.a.m.n bad," he concluded, plaintively.

Mr. Long, in the background, was whining to himself with joy, and he now urgently beckoned Keyser to come and hear this.

"If you've got some cheap poker chips," suggested c.u.mnor.

"And say, uncle," said Jones, raising his voice, for the peddler was moving away, "decks, and tobacco better than what they keep at the commissary. Me and my friend'll take some off your hands. And if you're comin' with new stock to-morrow, uncle" (Jones was now shouting after him), "why, we're single men, and y'u might fetch along a couple of squaws!"

"Holy smoke!" screeched Mr. Long, dancing on one leg.

"What's up with you, y'u ape?" inquired Specimen Jones. He looked at the departing peddler and saw Sergeant Keyser meet him and salute with stern, soldierly aspect. Then the peddler shook hands with the sergeant, seemed to speak pleasantly, and again Keyser saluted as he pa.s.sed on.

"What's that for?" Jones asked, uneasily. "Who is that hobo?"

But Mr. Long was talking to himself in a highly moralizing strain. "It ain't every young enlisted man," he was saying, "ez hez th' privilege of explainin' his wants at headquarters."

"Jones," said Sergeant Keyser, arriving, "I've a compliment for you.

General Crook said you were a fine-looking man."

"General?--What's that?--Where did y'u see--What? _Him?_" The disgusting truth flashed clear on Jones. Uttering a single disconcerted syllable of rage, he wheeled and went by himself into the barracks, and lay down solitary on his bunk and read a newspaper until mess-call without taking in a word of it. "If they go to put me in the mill fer that," he said, sulkily, to many friends who brought him their congratulations, "I'm going to give 'em what I think about wearin' disguises."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'AIN'T Y'U GOT SOMETHING TO SELL?'"]

"What do you think, Specimen?" said one.

"Give it to us now, Specimen," said another.

"Against the law, ain't it, Specimen?"

"Begosh!" said Jack Long, "ef thet's so, don't lose no time warnin' the General, Specimen. Th' ole man'd hate to be arrested."

And Specimen Jones told them all to shut their heads.

But no thought was more distant from General Crook's busy mind than putting poor Jones in the guard-house. The trooper's willingness, after eight months hunting Indians, to buy almost anything brought a smile to his lips, and a certain sympathy in his heart. He knew what those eight months had been like; how monotonous, how well endured, how often dangerous, how invariably plucky, how scant of even the necessities of life, how barren of glory, and unrewarded by public recognition. The American "statesman" does not care about our army until it becomes necessary for his immediate personal protection. General Crook knew all this well; and realizing that these soldiers, who had come into winter-quarters this morning at eleven, had earned a holiday, he was sorry to feel obliged to start them out again to-morrow morning at two; for this was what he had decided upon.

He had received orders to drive on the reservation the various small bands of Indians that were roving through the country of the Snake and its tributaries, a danger to the miners in the Bannock Basin, and to the various ranches in west Idaho and east Oregon. As usual, he had been given an insufficient force to accomplish this, and, as always, he had been instructed by the "statesmen" to do it without violence--that is to say, he must never shoot the poor Indian until after the poor Indian had shot him; he must make him do something he did not want to, pleasantly, by the fascination of argument, in the way a "statesman"

would achieve it. The force at the General's disposal was the garrison at Boise Barracks--one troop of cavalry and one company of infantry. The latter was not adapted to the matter in hand--rapid marching and surprises; all it could be used for was as a reinforcement, and, moreover, somebody must be left at Boise Barracks. The cavalry had had its full dose of scouting and skirmishing and long exposed marches, the horses were poor, and n.o.body had any trousers to speak of. Also, the troop was greatly depleted; it numbered forty men. Forty had deserted, and three--a sergeant and three privates--had cooked and eaten a vegetable they had been glad to dig up one day, and had spent the ensuing forty-five minutes in attempting to make their ankles beat the backs of their heads; after that the captain had read over them a sentence beginning, "Man that is born of a woman hath but a short time to live, and is full of misery"; and after that the camp was referred to as Wild Carrot Camp, because the sergeant had said the vegetable was wild carrot, whereas it had really been wild parsnip, which is quite another thing.

General Crook shook his head over what he saw. The men were ill-provided, the commissary and the quartermaster department were ill-provided; but it would have to do; the "statesmen" said our army was an extravagance. The Indians must be impressed and intimidated by the unlimited resources which the General had--not. Having come to this conclusion, he went up to the post commander's, and at supper astonished that officer by casual remarks which revealed a knowledge of the surrounding country, the small streams, the best camps for pasture, spots to avoid on account of bad water, what mules had sore backs, and many other things that the post commander would have liked dearly to ask the General where and when he had learned, only he did not dare. He did not even venture to ask him what he was going to do. Neither did Captain Glynn, who had been asked to meet the General. The General soon told them, however. "It may be a little cold," he concluded.

"To-morrow, sir?" This from Captain Glynn. He had come in with the forty that morning. He had been enjoying his supper very much.

"I think so," said the General. "This E-egante is likely to make trouble if he is not checked." Then, understanding the thoughts of Captain Glynn, he added, with an invisible smile, "_You_ need no preparations.

You're in marching order. It's not as if your men had been here a long time and had to get ready for a start."

"Oh no," said Glynn, "it isn't like that." He was silent. "I think, if you'll excuse me, General," he said next, "I'll see my sergeant and give some orders."