CHAPTER XII.

THE MISSION OF WHITE-EYED MOSES.

Uncle Sam’s flag had been flying and his blowpipe going for a week or more, when one day White-eyed Moses came out of Gopher Gabe’s, his fiddle in a green bag under his arm, and a bundle of clothing in another bag he hoisted over his shoulder on a stick.

Apparently, White-eyed Moses was about to depart from Blossom Range.

But when some one asked him about it, he set his pack on the ground, and explained:

“You see, it is this way: The Utes are going to haf a dance, and they want some music which is not all tom-tom. So I am going out to aggommodate the Utes.”

“Taking your clothing?” was the smiling question.

“Ah, yes! I ditn’t mention that. I am gommissioned to bring them some clodings and blankets. I sell them to them and git a gommission. That is why I say I am gommissioned.”

He waved his hands and smirked, then hoisted his bundle to his shoulder and went on.

At least ten times in getting out of Blossom Range White-eyed Moses was asked those questions and made those answers.

“It is foony,” he said to himself, when he hit the trail north of the town and plodded on toward the distant Ute village. “It is nopody’s pusiness vere I am going, yet eferpody makes it his pusiness.”

It took him three hours to reach the Ute village.

Just before coming to it he mounted to the top of a hill which gave him a good view of the backward way; there he remained for nearly an hour, watching, to make sure that he had not been followed.

Satisfied at last, White-eyed Moses took his way into the village, apparently without fear, though lately the Utes had been in no good temper toward the white men, chiefly because of the encroachments of miners and prospectors.

As the Utes gathered round him, the fiddler stood looking about.

He did not understand their language, so it was of no use to try to speak with them; but he had a universal language in his fiddle.

He took it out of the green bag, twanged the strings with his fingers, tuned it, and began to play.

No sooner had the strains of “Money Musk” floated among the tepees than a man appeared, jumping hurriedly out of one. He was a white man, small of frame. A blanket was round him, covering his ordinary clothing, and his face had been smeared with grease and dirt. As he was clean shaven, with that blanket on him he looked, at a little distance, like one of the Utes.

“I t’ought it would fetch him!” muttered the fiddler, with a smile. “He was hiding.”

The blanketed white man was quickly at the fiddler’s side.

“How did you get here?” he demanded.

White-eyed Moses stopped fiddling, extended his hand, and smiled.

“My feet brought me. How you are?”

“Good. What’s the news downtown?”

“Juniper Joe is still in chail.”

“So I supposed.”

“And he aind’t going to git oudt easy.”

“I s’pose not.”

The Indians standing round were staring; others were hurrying up, and the lodges continued to yield still more.

“Vere can we go for a little talk?” asked White-eyed Moses.

“In that lodge I come out of. Of course you’re here to see me?”

“Of gourse. But before I go avay dere must be some dancing and chumping, in Indian fashion; to make me be able to keep my wordt, you know.”

“There comes Iron Bow now. What shall I say to him?”

“Tell him I heardt that the Utes was going to have a dance, and wanted some white man’s music. I vill blay for them by and by, afdher we have hadt that talk. You understand? Gopher Gabe he sendt me.”

“Oh!”

“You have been doing some roadt-achent work ladely?”

“Some has been done, hey?”

The blanketed white man grinned under his grease and dirt.

“Some holdt-ups. Gabe says idt was you done ’em. I told him I ditn’t think you vouldt be so reckless.”

Iron Bow came up with a number of his warriors. By this time a considerable crowd of curious redskins surrounded the two white men. But they showed no hostile feelings. The fiddle had caught their fancy; they kept telling the fiddler to work it again, though he did not understand them.

“How?” said Iron Bow gravely.

White-eyed Moses put out his hand.

“I am gladt to see you,” he said. “Afdher a liddle we will have some music and a dance. My friend here can explain it to you petter than I. Idt is a peautiful location you have here for a willage; cooler and higher than in the town. I think myself I should enchoy it.”

He shook hands with some of the warriors.

None of them had said a word except the chief, but they shook his hand limply when he held it out. Now and then they looked at the blanketed white man, as if for an explanation.

He gave it to Iron Bow in Ute, telling the chief that the man with the music-maker had come out to amuse them, so that they could have a dance if they wished; but that first he wanted to talk.

Iron Bow grunted what seemed an assent, and the white men went into the lodge.

“Iron Bow knows me,” explained the blanketed figure, who was none other than the road agent, Tim Benson. “So I hit this place when Cody and his gang crowded me too hard; and I’ve been here ever since.”

“Excebt when you was road achenting!”

Benson nodded.

“I’ve been out just twice.”

“Dare have been more holdt-ups than shust two.”

“Others are jumpin’ in, eh?”

“It is hinted that this Fool of Folly Mountain is in it.”

“Likely he is. What I got I cached, and it’s where I can lay my hands on it when I need it. How is Juniper Joe?”

“He couldn’t pe worse.”

“It’s rough to be in a hole like that.”

“Wery rough. Gopher Gabe triedt to get him out on bail, and couldn’t. He is held for murder, you understandt--for shooting that man, John Ward.”

“Well, he could expect that. It’d be the same for me if they could lay hands on me. Cody there yet?”

“Righdt there.”

The outlaw ground out some ugly words between his teeth.

“As we couldn’t git Juniper Joe out in no way, Gopher Gabe has sent me to see you,” explained the fiddler.

“That so? Does he think I can do anything?”

“He knows idt. I have here clodings and everything, so that you can make shanges in your looks. I can cut your hairs while I am here, too, and give you another shave.”

Benson stared.

“I was wondering what you had in that bag,” he said.

“The oudtfit--everything you will needt. It is a desperate situvation. Gopher Gabe says that you are the only man what can work it, so as to get Juniper Joe out of the chail. And so I am here.”

They talked for half an hour, then were forced to stop, because the curious Indians, peering in on them, gave them no peace.

“You’ll have to give that dance, now that you’ve promised it,” said Benson.

“It is vhat I wandt; so that I can surely say, vhen I go back, that I have been blaying the fiddle for an Indian dance.”

“It’s known that you came?”

“Oh, yes! Vhat was the use to try to hide idt? It couldn’t been didt.”

“You could have made a sneak in the night.”

“Idt was only this morning that Gopher Gabe came to the notion he wouldt sendt me; and he insisted I shall gome at once.”

“How in thunder did you fellers know that I was here?”

“Vell, _he_ guessed it; that last holdt-up was like your work, he said; and he felt sure if you was round here you must be hiding with the Utes.”

“Yes; he knew I was friendly with them and old Iron Bow.”

“So it was, and he sent me.”

He took his fiddle and went outside.

Tim Benson came out, also; and, standing by him, announced to the Indians that the white man would furnish music if they desired to dance.

The Indians were willing enough, yet the thing was a failure; the Utes had no knowledge of any dancing steps suited to the music of White-eyed Moses, nor could the latter adapt his fiddling to the jerky hops of the Utes. Aside from this, dancing is not, with Indians, the light-hearted and light-heeled affair it is with white men, but something solemn, or fierce, or fanatical.

The Utes gave it up after a while. Yet White-eyed Moses continued to please them with his music; for they enjoyed the strains of his fiddle, even though they could not dance to them.

After the fiddling and the dance failure, White-eyed Moses went back into the tepee which was being used by the road agent, where they took up the thread of their talk. He also shaved Benson and gave him a haircut.

“This is going to be a risky thing,” Benson commented. “If I’m caught, it means the jail, and maybe hangin’, for me; but I’ll tackle it, anyhow. Juniper would do as much for me, likely.”

“Gopher Gabe says that you are the only one who can vork idt,” urged the fiddler.

“The thing I don’t like is that Cody and his gang are still in the town. That’s a feller I’m afraid of.”

“Idt’s a vonder,” said White-eyed Moses, “that he ain’t been oudt here looking for you.”

“Did you think he hadn’t?”

The fiddler stared.

“Vell, if he has ve ditn’t know idt.”

“He has been here twice, and old Iron Bow tells me that once, besides, it’s known he was out on the hills, off there, watching the village.”

“That interesds me. And it will be news to Gopher Gabe.”

“The first time he come,” explained Benson, “was in broad daylight; right after I’d made my escape. I think it was the second day I was here. I was expecting it, and stayed close in the tepee; and he didn’t see me. Iron Bow fed him lies, and he went away. Though that had seemed to satisfy him, he was back that same night. He sneaked in that time, thinking he’d catch me if I was hiding here; but he didn’t. He had an Indian blanket round him, and how long he had been in the village before the Indians caught on, nobody knows. He revealed himself accidentally, by catching his blanket against a snaggy limb and stripping it from his head and shoulders. After which, when he saw that the jig was up, he laughed and told them some fishy yarn about trying to fool them.

“When Iron Bow--he wasn’t here at the time--heard about it, the thing made him mad as fire. He doesn’t particularly like Cody, anyway; so I took pains to make him madder, showing him that it was an insult. So if Cody does it again, and is caught, there’s going to be trouble.”

White-eyed Moses listened to this uneasily.

“Maype he is oudt on the hills now?” he suggested.

“I don’t think it. You see, since he was seen here I have had two Utes hired to stay out on the hills and watch for him.”

“If he saw that fiddling and dancing it will be a gifaway!”

“I don’t see why, since you say you told in the town that you was coming out here to play for a dance.”

This considerably relieved the apprehension of the fiddler.

“But if he saw me with you?” he questioned.

“He would think I’m an Indian, wouldn’t he? I’m looking out for that.”

White-eyed Moses looked at the road agent with a glance of admiration.

“You are a smardt man,” he said, “and that is why Gopher Gabe haf picked you oudt for this chob.”

“Jest the same, I’d been glad to have him pick another.”

“What shall I tell him vhen I go back?”

Benson got up and closed the flap of the skin tepee, to keep the Utes from peering in. But as he came back he laughed; for shadows dropping down showed that they had sought the ground, and he saw then the lower edges of the skins lifted and black eyes looking in.

“Yet there are some people who say that an Indian is a stolid thing, without curiosity!” he commented. “Take a look at that line of eyes, will ye?”

“I am seeing them,” said White-eyed Moses. “What was you going to do?”

“I was going to look at the clothing and stuff you brought me, but I won’t do it now. You can tell me about it; not many of them understand English.”

“There is a suidt of cloding,” said the fiddler. “Also vhiskers and mustache, and a vig; nothing cheap, you understand, but expensive goodts, the best that could be had in ’Frisco. He sent Swansea Bill to ’Frisco to get them for this very occasion. Dhen there are paints and dyes, and all dhat. You will find idt gomplete.”

“What’s my lay?”

“Gopher Gabe left it to you. But he said if you could appear dare as some officer with authoridy to act, you could get through the chail easy enough. Chust what that authoridy would be he dit not know; he left it to you. But he said, too, that vonce you was in the newspaper line, and you might use that.”

“Is he prepared to back me?”

White-eyed Moses shrugged his shoulders.

“Vell,” he said, “you know how it is! Gopher Gabe will spendt his money like vater; but vhen it gomes to daking personal risks, he ain’t dare. You can’t exbect much from him. But he couldt furnish fighting men, if it was needet.”

“Nobody is allowed to see Juniper, I reckon?”

“I t’ink not.”

“You haven’t seen him?”

“No.”

“No chance, I suppose, to bribe the jailer?”

“It’s Matt Shepard; you know him.”

“No chance there, and Shepard will be a hard man to fool. He’ll shoot, too. He wouldn’t like anything better than to turn his gun loose on me.”

“So you will haf to be careful.”

“Well, I guess. I wish it was any man but Shepard.”

They talked the matter over at length, suggesting and discussing various plans, with the chances for and against each. The afternoon was well gone when they were through.

“I’ll try it,” said Benson resolutely; “I’ll make a break to do something for pore old Joe; I know he would for me. You see, pals in this line have got to stick together, or make a try to, even at the risk of going under. If I don’t do something for him, I reckon he will have to hang. That would be a pity, for the feller he killed had it in for him, and deserved to be put under the sod.”

“That is righdt, too,” assented White-eyed Moses.

He was ready at last to go.

“I vill tell Gopher Gabe that you vill undertake it.”

“That’s right. Say to Gabe that he’ll hear of me doing something inside of twenty-four hours.”