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It was quiet ... we heard nothing but a coyote howling in the far-off
distance. The cattle bedded down and seemed content. After a time I went to my
blankets and turned in, but I kept a six-gun in my hand, and my rifle close
by.
Cotton got up shortly before midnight, added some water to the coffee, and
Tom joined him. Cotton rode out to relieve Jim, and after having his coffee,
Tom went out, too. Jim idled about the fire and I went to sleep with him still
there. We had agreed amongst us that either Tom or Cotton would ride up to the
fire off and on during the night to sort of keep an eye on things after Jim
turned in.
It was about two hours after midnight that I woke up. It was time for Handy
and me to relieve the others. For a few minutes I lay still, just listening,
studying the night with my ears.
From where I lay I could see the fire, which was down to red coals. There was
some smoke drifting up, mingling with a mite of steam from the pot. All of a
sudden I saw one of the Indians move under his blanket. He came out from under
it like a snake, and he had a knife in his hand.
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I don't know what he had in mind. With an Indian, a body never knows. We had
a lot of fixings around camp that an Indian could use, and to an Indian
anybody not of his tribe is fair game. To his way of thinking, to stick a
knife into each one of us would be a fine piece of business. But I wanted no
trouble unless it was necessary, so I merely eared back the hammer of
myWinchester .
ThatCheyenne froze as if somebody had nailed his feet to the ground, but I
just got up, easy-like and walked over to the fire, seeming to pay him no
mind. He could see the hammer was back on myWinchester , and he could make his
own choices.
He simply picked up a stick and began cutting some shavings to kindle up the
fire, as if that had been his idea all the time ... and maybe it was.
The fire began to blaze up and I poured him a cup of coffee and handed it
across the fire to him with my left hand. Andhe taken it, also with his left
hand. I thought I glimpsed a bit of a twinkle in his eyes.
We both drank coffee, and then Corbin came up to the fire. I could tell from
his eyes that he, too, had been awake. And so could theCheyenne . If he had
lifted that knife to anybody, he would have been blasted right out of his
tracks by at least two rifles and well he knew it.
When daylight came the Indians rode off, and a few hours later they were back
with some saddle stock. We made a swap, picking up six fresh ponies, and
theCheyennes left with us a buffalo quarter for good measure.
We shook hands, that bigCheyenne and me, and grinned at each other. Neither
of us was fooled, and each of uswas liking the other.
He had walked his horse some thirty yards when he turned in the saddle.
"Where you go?"
"Somewhere up on the Powder."
"That'sCheyenne country."
"We don't figure to cause any trouble. We're just going to run a few head of
cattle up there. You come and see me. I'll have a beef for you."
They rode away, and we watched them go, and then we started our cattle again.
In the cool of the evening we came up to the red wall that Tom Hacker had
told me about. We'd been taking our time, and the cattle were fat and sassy.
The wall towered up above the grassy plain, barring all progress.
"You say there's a hole in that? How far up?"
"I'm guessing," Jim said, after studying the country and the wall, "but I'd
say four, five miles north. The Middle Fork of the Powder runs through it, and
it's a big, wide hole. That's not to say that a few riflemen couldn't hold it
if they were of a mind to. There's water and grass in behind it ... good
grazing alongBuffalo orSpring creeks."
A couple of hours later we rode through the Hole-in-the-Wall and let the herd
spread out a mite along the Middle Fork. It was almost dark, but we let them
eat a little before we bunched them for the night.
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Two days later we found the spot we were searching for, a hollow of the hills
with some scattered trees and brush, and a creek that turned around under the
edge of the fringing cliffs that shaded the water. It was good water, sweet
and cold. There was good grass around, mostly bluegrama on the flatlands and
low hills, wheat-grass on the higher ridges.
We turned the herd loose in the rock-walled basin and set to work to build a [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]