Golden Face: A Tale of the Wild West

Dismounting, the Minneconjou chief gravely sat down upon the ground. Then filling his pipe, and applying a light to the bowl, he handed it to Vipan without a word. In silence the latter received it, and after a few puffs handed it back.

“What was said just now about Sitting Bull?” he enquired at length.

“This. I have come out to look for you, Golden Face. Sitting Bull is anxious that you should visit him.”

“Oho, I begin to see,” said the adventurer to himself, as he lazily watched his late captors draw their ponies out of the crowd and ride sullenly away.

Now, in the debate just held, his rescuer had justified his action on twofold ground. War Wolf having allowed his prisoner to escape had forfeited all claim to him; secondly, the said prisoner, being an Englishman, his presence was required by Sitting Bull, the renowned chief of the hostiles, for political purposes.

Chapter Thirty Two

The Village of the Hostiles

All night long – with a brief halt towards morning – the war-party, with Vipan in its midst, pushed forward at a rapid pace.

The sun rose. They had passed the intricate defiles of the Bad Lands, and were now threading the rugged and broken country beyond. Piled in chaotic confusion, the great peaks leaning towards each other, or split and riven as by a titanic wedge, caught the first red glow upon their iron faces. Dark pinnacles soaring aloft, huge and forbidding, stood in the first delicate flush like graceful minarets; and here and there through a vista of falling slopes, the striped and fantastic face of a mesa would come into view, seamed with blue and black and red, according to the varying strata of its soft and ever-crumbling formation. A hundred bizarre shapes reared their heads around. Here a clean rock shaft, so even and perpendicular in its towering symmetry that it seemed impossible to have been planned by the hand of Nature alone, standing side by side with some hugely grotesque representation of a head, changing from animal to human with every fresh point of view, so distorted yet so real, so hideous and repelling as to suggest involuntary thoughts of a demon-guarded land. There a black and yawning fissure whose polished sides would hardly seem to afford resting-place for the eyrie of yon great war-eagle soaring high above, his plumage gleaming in the lustre of the new-born day. Dark, cedar-clad gorges rent the mountain sides, and on the nearer slopes the flash of something white through the tall, straight stems of the spruce firs showed where a deer, alarmed by this redoubtable inroad on his early grazing ground, had darted away, with a whisk of his white “flag.”

And in thorough keeping with its surroundings was the aspect of the wild host, threading its way through these solitudes. A clear, dashing mountain brook curved and sparkled along a level bottom carpeted with the greenest of sweet grass, and along this, strung out to the distance of a mile, cantered group after group of mounted savages, the fantastic adornments of themselves and their steeds streaming out to the morning breeze; their waving plumes, and painted faces, their shining weapons and brilliantly-coloured accoutrements, and the easy grace with which they sat their steeds as they defiled along the ever-winding gorge, forming about as striking and wildly picturesque a sight as would be happened upon, travel we the whole world over.

All fear of pursuit being now over, the warriors rode anyhow, broken up into groups or couples as the humour possessed them. Most of them were chatting and laughing with that ease and light-heartedness which in their hours of relaxation is characteristic of most savage peoples, a light-heartedness and freedom from care which renders them akin to children. Near the rear of the party rode Mahto-sapa and his prisoner, together with three or four warriors of high rank.

For that he was such, Vipan himself was not left in any doubt, nor was there room for any. Though relieved from the indignity of bonds, yet his arms had not been returned to him, not even a knife. Moreover, the steed he bestrode was far from being the best in the party. All of which he had hinted as delicately as possible to the chief. The latter’s reply was characteristic.

“Patience – Golden Face. It is not we who have taken your weapons; it is War Wolf and his party. As for horses, my young men are none of them too well mounted. Besides,” added the Indian, a humorous gleam lighting up his fine face as he noted the other’s deprecatory shake of the head, “besides – Golden Face has shamefully neglected his red brothers since the Mehneaska waggons came along. Why do they bring beautiful white girls into a country where the ground is too rough for their tender feet? No. Have patience. My young men would be more than angry did you leave them now to go and look after a white woman. She is safe now, but both she and the Brown Beaver would have fallen into the hands of War Wolf had you not acted as you did,” he continued. “Wagh! Golden Face, it is not like you to throw away your life for a squaw!”

The adventurer made no reply, but the other’s remark set him thinking. It left, so to say, an unpleasant taste. He was at an age when most men have parted with their illusions, and he himself certainly was no exception. To his keen, cynical nature absolute trust was well-nigh impossible. Would he ever see Yseulte Santorex again, and even if he did, would he not be in the same position as before – a king in these Western wilds, in civilisation a pauper? He knew the world – none better. It was one thing for this beautiful and refined girl to feel drawn towards a companion and protector in the midst of the perilous vicissitudes of Western travel, but that after months of reflection on her return to safety and comfort she should still continue to think of a man whose antecedents were doubtful, of whose very identity she was ignorant, in the face, too, of the opposition of friends and relatives, was quite another. For long he rode in silence, and his thoughts were very bitter.

All day the march continued. That night the Indians, being comparatively beyond fear of pursuit, camped for a long rest, and resuming their progress at dawn, towards nightfall reached the bank of a river. This was immediately forded, and then halting on the opposite bank the whole band collected together. Then, after a word of instruction from their chief, the warriors formed into line, and with a loud and prolonged whoop dashed forward at a brisk canter.

The shout was answered from some distance ahead, and lo! as by magic, there sprang up the red glow of many a fire, and among the thinly-scattered timber bordering the stream tall lodges might be descried, standing in groups or in long irregular lines, hundreds and hundreds of them. Then in the gloaming the whole village swarmed with dusky shapes. Squaws flung down their burdens, or abruptly quitted their household employments, and, dancing and singing, crowded around to welcome the returning war-party. Young bucks, eager to know what had been done in scalps and plunder, turned out by the dozen. Children yelled and curs barked and howled, and still the ever-increasing crowd gathered about the returned warriors.

Suddenly the latter, reining in their ponies, burst into a wild war-song. It was taken up by the motley crowd following upon their ponies’ heels, and as the savage horsemen, in all the trappings of their martial bravery, paced at length into the centre of the village, the shrill, weird chorus echoing from many thousand throats, while the red light danced and glowed upon plumed crests and burnished weapons rising above the sea of fierce painted visages, the bold mind of the white adventurer was filled with admiration as he gazed upon this stirring picture which for grandeur and awesomeness left nothing to be desired.

Thus they entered the camp of the hostiles.

“Listen, Golden Face,” said Mahto-sapa, as he spread a buffalo robe for his guest. “It will not be well to wander in the camp alone.”

“No, I am a prisoner, and unarmed.”

The other smiled slightly, with a significant glance at an old leathern wallet hanging to the pole. Then he left the lodge.

The adventurer, following his glance, promptly explored the receptacle. He found an old single-barrelled pistol and a scalping-knife. The pistol was capped and loaded.

Chapter Thirty Three

Sitting Bull

The morning after his arrival in the village of the hostiles Vipan was seated eating his breakfast in the lodge of his host, in company with the latter and one of his brothers, when the door of the teepe was darkened, and an Indian entered.

Now there was nothing in the appearance of this warrior to denote special rank. His dress was strikingly plain, the beaded blanket thrown around his shoulders was considerably the worse for wear, not to say shabby, and his head was adorned with a single eagle quill stuck in the back of his hair. Yet a glance at the powerful, thickly-built frame, the deep-set, though penetrating eyes, the square jaw and slightly pock-marked countenance, and Vipan felt instinctively that this was none other than the redoubtable war-chief of the hostiles himself.

With a grunt of salutation, the new arrival sat himself down among the inmates of the teepe, then, without a word, and as a matter of course, proceeded to help himself out of the three-legged pot containing the smoking and savoury stew which constituted the repast. Not a word was spoken, not a question asked, and the four men proceeded with their meal in silence.

Tatanka-yotanka, or Sitting Bull, was at that time in the very zenith of his pride and influence. He represented the fearless and implacable war-faction in the nation, and in his persistent and uncompromising hostility to the Americans and the United States Government he differed from the more diplomatic Red Cloud. As in the case of the latter, however, Sitting Bull was not born to hereditary chieftainship, yet at that time the influence he had achieved among his countrymen by his personal prowess and skilful generalship was so solid and far-reaching that sagacious and powerful war-chiefs such as Mahto-sapa deemed it sound policy to co-operate with him; for the authority of a chief among the Plains tribes, in addition to his prowess in war, depends not a little on his conformity with the sense and wishes of his tribesmen, and he who should commit himself unreservedly to a peace policy in opposition to the desires of his people would soon find himself in the position of a chief without any adherents. Yet as savages rarely do things by halves, it followed that however inclined for peace they might be at first, such chiefs and warriors once they stood committed to war threw themselves into the prosecution of hostilities with all the ardour and aggressiveness of their more bloodthirstily disposed brethren.

Sitting Bull – like many another savage leader – was a shrewd thinker. The experience of the last campaign had inspired him with profound contempt for the United States Government. The latter’s demands had then been successfully resisted, and after a sharp and sanguinary struggle, culminating in the Fort Phil Kearney massacre, the Government had retired, almost precipitately. The Sioux nation had never been conquered. The Sioux warriors were as daring and warlike to-day as then, and were better armed, for they could obtain, and had obtained, from unscrupulous traders as many weapons of the latest improved patterns and as much ammunition as they could afford to purchase. The Government, he reasoned, had not kept faith with them in the matter of the Black Hills and other sections of their country, then full of white men; therefore, let the Government look to itself. That the Indian leader’s reasoning was sound according to his lights, was proved by subsequent events, among them the calamitous massacre of nearly three hundred brave soldiers, together with one of the most dashing cavalry officers and successful Indian fighters the United States army has ever possessed.[5 - General George A. Custer, who fell into an ambuscade on the Little Bighorn river, and perished with his entire command at the hands of the hostile Sioux, under Sitting Bull, on the 25th June, 1876.] But no savage of his race and instincts could be expected to take into his reckoning the steady tide of immigration pouring into the American continent from the Old World, for the simple reason that his conception of the very existence of an Old World was of so shadowy a nature as to be practically legendary.

The meal over, each of the three Indians wiped his knife upon his leggings or the soles of his moccasins with a grunt of satisfaction. Then the inevitable pipe was filled, lighted, and duly passed round.

Vipan, thoroughly restored by a good night’s rest, and with perfect confidence in himself, looked forward to the keen skirmish of wits which was at hand, and in which the slightest failure in coolness and wariness might cost him his life, with feelings not far short of downright enjoyment.

After the pipe had gone round in silence, Sitting Bull spoke. He had often heard of Golden Face, the friend of the Dahcotah nation, he said. Now he was glad to have an opportunity of smoking with him, and learning from his lips.

The speaker paused, and Vipan merely acknowledged the compliment by a grave bend of the head. The chief continued:

Golden Face, he had been given to understand, had been a great fighting man among his own people, and a leader of warriors. He was not of the Mehneaska, the nation with whom no faith could be kept. Why, then, had he fought for the Mehneaska against his Dahcotah brethren?

Vipan, with due deliberation, replied that those for whom he fought were his own countrymen – not Americans. They were subjects of the Great White Queen, whose dominions lay to the north (Canada). Why had the Dahcotah attacked them and run off their stock?

“Were they all King George men?” asked the shrewd chief, half closing his eyes and looking into space.

This was a staggerer, but Vipan was equal to it.

“They were not,” he said. “Only the leader and his household. For the rest, they bore me as little love as they do the Dahcotah warriors who ran off their horses and cattle. Listen now, and mark.” Then he graphically narrated the circumstances under which he had warned Winthrop’s outfit of the lurking war-party, making it appear that his warning had been due simply and solely to his recognition of his fellow-countrymen among the travellers.

Not a muscle of Sitting Bull’s crafty countenance moved as he listened.

“How!” he said, quietly, when the speaker ceased. “Did not Golden Face declare that he owned no nationality?”

This was another staggerer, and a more serious one than before. But Vipan’s imperturbability was of a quality warranted to stand shocks. Inwardly he laughed over the other’s shrewdness in bringing up his own words in judgment against him.

That was true, he replied. But apart from the fact of that particular white man being his fellow-countryman, and therefore one against whom the Dahcotah nation had no quarrel, he was the son of a man who had once rendered him a most important service. Who worthy of the name and dignity of a warrior ever forgot to requite a good turn once rendered, even at the peril of his life?

This answer, if not altogether received as gospel by his hearers, sent him up ten per cent, in their estimation. Nowhere is diplomatic talent and readiness in debate held in such high respect as among savage races.

“The white girl who hunted with Golden Face is very beautiful,” went on Sitting Bull. “Was it for her he lifted his rifle against his Dahcotah brethren?”

“Who would not fight for a beautiful woman, be she white or red?” answered Vipan, with a burst of well-timed frankness. “Sitting Bull is a great chief, let him judge if my words are straight. Did War Wolf and his followers come to me as to a friend? No; they attacked me as enemies. Then when they treated me as an enemy and an ordinary prisoner of war, did I complain? Sitting Bull is a great chief, a warrior of renown, but who is War Wolf? Who is he, I say? Enough: I have smoked in council with Red Cloud and the chiefs of the Dahcotah nation. My words are for the ears of chiefs, not for those of boys, who passed the Sun-dance but yesterday.”

The ghost of a smile flitted across Sitting Bull’s grim features at this reply, while a murmur of approbation escaped the other two auditors. No one understood better than the speaker the advantage of making the most of himself among these people, nor was the dexterous compliment to his own eminence thrown away upon the bold and sagacious warrior who had, so to say, risen from the ranks.

“But,” rejoined the latter, “if the white girl was of the race of King George, with whom we have no quarrel, why did not Golden Face bring her among his Dahcotah brethren, where he might have lived with her in peace and safety?”

Vipan explained that a white girl such as her of whom they were speaking would never consent to accompany him unless as his wife, and even then she must be married according to the customs of her people. To this the wily chief quoted the case of his friend and brother, Mahto-sapa, who had a white wife. She had been taken to wife according to Dahcotah custom; and whose lodge was more comfortable than hers; who was cared for better than she?

Now Vipan was aware of the existence of this personage, yet strange to say, bearing in mind his friendship with the Minneconjou chief, had never seen her. He was aware, too, that she was originally a white captive, seized by the Indians during one of their dreaded raids upon a settlement or waggon train some years previously, but that was the extent of his knowledge. It must be confessed he felt a good deal of curiosity on the subject, but he was not the man to allow any sign of it to appear. His answer, however, was ready and to the point.

That might be true, he replied; but it was a matter of which he, Vipan, knew nothing, nor did it concern him in any way. What he did know was this: The white girl in question was of very considerable account in her own country. True, most of the warriors in Sitting Bull’s village were his – the speaker’s – brethren. But some were not. There were some in it at that moment who looked upon him as an enemy, who had treated him as one. What if he had brought this white girl with him, and she had met – with harm at the hands of any of these? Would not her people require a heavy reckoning? The Dahcotah hunting-grounds were bounded on the north by the British line. Would it be the act of a friend to do anything which should embroil the Dahcotah nation with two strong Powers instead of one, in such wise too that they should be surrounded with enemies on every side?