CHAPTER XXII.

THE "TEA DANCE."

When Ambrose and Simon Grampierre arrived at the tea-dance they found present as many of the Kakisas of both s.e.xes as could be wedged within Jack Mackenzie's shack.

All around the room they were pressed in tiers, the first line squatting, the second kneeling, the third standing, and others behind, perched on chairs, beds and tables, that all might have a clear view of the floor.

The cook-stove occupied the center of the room, and around it a narrow s.p.a.ce had been left for the dancers. The air was suffocating to white lungs, what with human emanations combined with the thick fumes of kinnikinic.

Watusk, still sporting the frock coat and the finger-rings, had improved his costume by the addition of a battered silk hat with a chaplet of red paper roses around the brim.

He squatted on the floor in the center of the back wall, and places had been left at his right and left for Ambrose and Simon. He was disposed to be gracious and jocular to-night.

For very slight cause, or for none at all he laughed until he shook all over. This was his way of appearing at his ease.

As they took their places Ambrose was struck by the pretty, wistful face of a girl who knelt on the floor behind Watusk. It had a fine quality that distinguished it sharply from the stolid flat countenances of her sisters.

It was more than pretty; it was tragically beautiful, though she was little more than a child. What made it especially significant to Ambrose was the fact that the girl's sad eyes instantaneously singled him out when he entered.

As he sat in front of her he was aware that they were dwelling on him.

When he caught her glance, the eyes navely suggested that she had a communication to make to him, if she dared!

The fun had not yet commenced. The two drummers sat idle in a corner, and all the company sat in stolid silence. Only Watusk chatted and laughed. The women stared at Ambrose, and the men looked down their noses. All were somewhat embarra.s.sed by the presence of a white man.

Ambrose, looking around, was struck by the incongruity of the women's neat print dresses and the men's store clothes taken with their savage, walled faces. Such faces called for blankets, beads, war paint and eagles' feathers.

Ambrose, seeing the entire tribe gathered here as it seemed, thought a little anxiously of the flour he had been at such pains to grind.

Mackenzie's house was a good distance from the teepees, and the shack they were using for a store-house almost as far on the other side.

"Is anybody watching your flour?" he asked Watusk.

"I send four men to watch," was the reply.

"Good men? Men who will not sneak up to the dance?"

"Good men," said Watusk calmly.

Watusk presently gave a signal to the stick-kettle men, and they commenced to drum with their knuckles. The drums were wide wooden hoops with a skin drawn over one side.

The drummers had a lamp on the floor between them, and when the skin relaxed they dried it over the chimney. Like dances everywhere this one was slow to get under way. No one liked to be the first one to take the floor.

Gradually the drummers warmed to their work. The stick-kettle had a voice of its own, a dull, throbbing complaint that caused even Ambrose's blood to stir vaguely.

Finally a handsome young man arose and commenced to hitch around the stove with stiff joints, like a mechanical figure. The company broke into a wild chant in a minor key, commencing on a high note and descending the whole gamut, with strange pauses, lifts and falls.

Half way down the women came in with a shrill second part. It died away into a rumble, ever to be renewed on the same high, long-drawn note. Ambrose was reminded of the baying of hounds.

The dancer knotted his handkerchief as he circled the stove. Dancing up to another man, he offered him the end of it with some spoken words.

It was accepted, and they danced together around the stove, joined by the handkerchief.

The hunching, spasmodic step never varied. Ambrose asked Watusk about it.

"This is the lame man's dance," his host explained.

"What lame man?" asked Ambrose. "How did it begin?"

Watusk shrugged. "It is very old," he said.

The first man dropped out, and the second chose a new partner.

Sometimes there were two or three couples dancing at once. Partners were chosen indiscriminately from either s.e.x.

In each case the knotted handkerchief was offered with the same spoken formula. Ambrose asked what it was they said.

"This is give-away dance," Watusk explained. "He is say: 'This my knife, this my blanket, this my silk-worked moccasins.' What he want to give. After he got give it."

Ambrose observed that each dancer laid two matches on the cold stove as he took his place, and when he retired from the dance picked them up again. He asked what that signified.

Watusk shrugged again. "How do I know?" he said. "It is always done."

Ambrose learned later that this was the invariable answer of the Kakisas to any question concerning their customs.

Watusk was exerting himself to be hospitable, continually pressing cups of steaming bitter tea on Ambrose and Simon. Ambrose, watching him, made up his mind that the chief's unusual affability masked a deep disquiet.

The sharp, shifty eyes were continually turning with an expectant look to the door. Ambrose found himself watching the door, too.

To Ambrose the uncouth dance had neither head nor tail; nevertheless, it had a striking effect on the partic.i.p.ators and spectators.

Minute by minute the excitement mounted. The stick-kettles throbbed faster and ever more disquietingly. It seemed as if the skin of the drums were the very hearts of the hearers, with the drummers' knuckles searching out their secrets.

Eyes burned like stars around the walls, and the chant was renewed with a pa.s.sionate abandon. The figures. .h.i.tched and sprang around the homely iron stove like lithe animals.

Suddenly the noise of running feet was heard outside, and a man burst in through the door with livid face and starting eyes. The drumming, the song, and the dance stopped simultaneously.

The man cried out a single sentence in the Kakisa tongue. Cried it over and over breathlessly, without any expression.

The effect on the crowd was electrical. Cries of surprise and alarm, both hoa.r.s.e and shrill, answered him. A wave of rage swept over them all, distorting their faces. They jammed in the doorway, fighting to get out.

"What is it?" cried Ambrose of Watusk.

Watusk's face was working oddly with excitement.

But it was not rage like the others. The difference between him and all his people was marked.

"The flour is burning!" the chief cried.

"This was what he expected," thought Ambrose.