CHAPTER VI

AN ANCIENT MASSACRE

It was warm and pleasant where they sat, in the sun and out of the wind, though on the mountain behind them great drifts of snow lay in the ravines. Hugh had taken from his pocket a black wooden pipe and a plug of tobacco, and was shaving off the tobacco into the palm of his hand. Soon he had a pipeful, and crushing it between his palms, he filled his pipe and lighted it. As he leaned back and blew out the streams of white smoke from his nostrils, he pointed to a near-by hill and said:

"We'll go around that hill going back, and I'll show you a place where there was quite a killing of Indians a good many years back. It was before my time in this country, more than forty years ago, but I knew some of the men that was in the fight, if you can call it a fight where there wasn't no fighting. There's lots of old lodge poles and bones lying on the ground there yet, and I can remember years ago, they was old rotten robes and all kinds of truck lying around. The men that did the killing didn't carry anything away. They just killed everything in the camp that was alive, and then went off and left it."

"I think I've heard my uncle tell about that, but I wish you would tell me the story, Hugh. I'd like to hear it," said Jack.

"I'll tell you all I've heard of it, but let's wait till we get to the place. Now we've got to sit here and smoke, and then we'll go home that way, and then this afternoon I want you to take your rifle and come out and we'll see how it's sighted. Then maybe in two or three days we'll go out and kill a buck antelope. That's about the only meat that's good now. Well," he continued after a time, as he knocked the ashes from his pipe, "let's be moving. Let's see you mount now. That's good.

"Now, we'll have to ride a little faster if we're going to stop at that old killing ground. So come on. Try to hold your saddle tight between your legs, and swing with your horse. You'll get into it in only a short while. Come on, now."

Hugh started his horse, and Jack did the same, and they galloped off together. At first the boy bounced about a good deal, but after a little he began to see what Hugh meant, and by sitting back a little in the saddle and easing himself with his toes when the horse struck the ground, he sat more comfortably, and before he had gone very far he began to enjoy his ride. The cool wind blew against his face and through his hair, the sun was bright, little birds rose from the prairie as they galloped along, and it was very pleasant. He looked up at Hugh, who was watching him with a kindly smile, and laughed outright. "It's splendid, isn't it?" he said. Hugh answered something, but the wind blew his words away.

Presently Hugh drew in his horse and they turned and rode up over a little hill and stopped, looking across a narrow valley through which a little stream flowed. On the other side, only a short way off, in a half circle, rose another hill on which grew many cedar bushes among the great rocks. In the valley many grey sticks were lying on the ground, and here and there among the sticks were spots of white. "There's the place," said Hugh, "where the camp was wiped out. Let's 'light down here, and I'll fill my pipe and tell you the story."

When his pipe was going well he turned to Jack, and said: "It was a camp of fifteen lodges of 'Rapahoes, and the white men was a bunch of thirty trappers. This is the way I heard it. It was more than forty years ago that a war-party of 'Rapahoes attacked a small train of emigrants and killed them all, except one young boy about as old as you, who hid in the brush when the charge was made. A few days later a couple of trappers came along that way and found the boy. He told them the story, and when they looked around over the place where the killing was done, they found that it was 'Rapahoes that done it. These two men took the boy with them, and they made up their minds that the 'Rapahoes had got to sweat for this, and when they got into the Fort they told other men about it, and they all figured on it the same way.

"This killing was done in the summer, and the next spring, when the men were coming in from their trapping they camped somewheres near here in the hills, and stopped two or three days. Before they started on into the Fort, one of the men who was out hunting saw a camp of Indians coming--a small party--and he watched 'em until they camped, and then crawled up close to the lodges. After he'd watched them awhile, he made out that they were 'Rapahoes, and he took the news to camp. The men there turned out, and during the night they got all around the Indians and cached on the hillside among the cedars and rocks. You can think how it must have been that night, the lodges all standing here white in the darkness, and the men lying hid on the hillside waiting for day. At last it began to grow grey in the east, and then light, and pretty soon a smoke began to come from one lodge and then from another, and then a man stepped out, or a woman started down to the creek to get water, or a boy to bring in the horses, and then the first shot came and the people began to run out, and to run this away and that away, but as fast as they came out they were shot down. After all the people were killed, they killed the dogs and horses; everything that there was alive, and then they went away. They never went down into the camp."

He paused to relight his pipe, and Jack said: "But how did they know that these were the people who killed the emigrants?"

"They didn't," said Hugh, "but they knew that they were 'Rapahoes. That's the way it used to be in them days; if a Piegan or a Sioux, or a Cheyenne killed a white man, his friends killed the next Indian they met of the tribe that had done the killing. The Indians did the same, and many a man has been killed in revenge for something that he had never heard of."

"That seems very unfair," said Jack, "I never heard of anything like it before."

"Well, it don't seem just right; that's so," said Hugh, "but anyhow, that's the way it used to be in old times. Come on now. Let's go down to where the camp stood."

They rode down to the little flat and stopped their horses in the middle of this old camp-ground. Hugh pointed to several spots where there were a few broken, bent and weathered sticks, and said: "You see, the lodges stood wherever you see those lodge poles. If you look in the middle of each of those circles you will find the old ashes of the fire and the stones that were around it. See here!" Dismounting, he walked to one of the circles and picked up two or three pieces of charred wood, which he held up. "That fire once cooked a man's dinner, and look here!" he added, stooping down and feeling in the dirt for something which he released with a hard pull "Here's a knife, a regular old-fashioned bowie-knife; what we used to call an Arkansas toothpick." He knocked the heavy blade against a stone, to free it from the dirt which clung to it, and passed it to Jack.

"Why, what a big knife," said Jack. "It's almost like a sword; but it isn't very sharp."

"Not very," said Hugh, "but notice how it's whetted, round on one side and flat on the other. That's the way Indians always whet their knives. Queer, isn't it? Let's look around for something more. Let your horse go, after you've thrown down the reins; he won't move." The two separated and began to look over the ground, and in a moment Jack called out in a solemn way. "Oh, Hugh, look here; see what I have found!" and as the old man came up to him, he pointed out a human skull that lay half buried in the dirt in a little washout. "That's one of 'em," said Hugh, as he picked it up. It was very old, grey with weather, and all the teeth had fallen out. Higher up the hill were splinters of bones and even some whole bones of legs and arms, and sticking out of the ground among them was a long piece of iron, which when dragged from its resting-place, proved to be a rifle barrel.

"Well, now," remarked Hugh, "if we keep this up we'll have a horse-load of truck to pack home with us."

They looked further, gathering up one thing after another, and at length when they were ready to go home they had five Indian skulls, the rifle barrel, the knife, an old-fashioned T. Gray axe, such as was used in trade with the Indians in early days, some pieces of the wood of saddles, a couple of elk-horn fleshers and a stone scraper. All these things were very old; the iron deeply rusted, the bones and wood grey and split with age and weather.

Hugh bundled these things into his coat and tied it on behind his saddle, and they set out for the ranch. Just as they got to the corral, the dinner horn sounded, and after unsaddling and putting their treasures upon the roof, which Hugh easily reached from the ground, they went to the house. Jack thought that he had never tasted a dinner quite as good as that one, and when he had finished he felt quite uncomfortable.

A little while after dinner, Hugh said to Jack: "Now, son, go in and bring out your rifle, and let's see how it's sighted and how it pulls off. A man always must learn how his gun shoots before he can expect to kill anything. I've seen young fellows from the States come out to hunt, and start in and shoot away a heap of ammunition without hitting anything, and come to find out, they had never sighted their guns, and didn't know anything about where they shot. 'Course they couldn't hit anything. You get a box of ca'tridges and your gun, and we'll try to find out just what it can do, and afterwards what you can do."

When the gun was in his hands he explained its working to his hearer, and then took it apart, put it together again, and told Jack to do this, correcting his mistakes and telling him a good deal about guns in general and this gun in particular. Then he proposed to go out on the prairie to shoot at a mark, and told Jack to carry his gun and to hold it so it would not point at any one. "I'm always scary about a gun," he said, "and the older I get the more afraid of 'em I am. I've seen a heap of accidents in my time from guns, and once, when I was young, I came near killing my best friend, just by foolishness. So I like to see everybody as careful of a gun as he knows how to be. You've been told, I expect, never to point your gun at anything except what you mean to shoot at. This business of sighting your gun at people and animals, and saying to yourself, 'Oh, couldn't I just hit that,' is just baby play, and I don't think there's any need to tell you not to do that. There's another thing. Don't carry a ca'tridge in your gun unless you're expecting game to jump up in front of you any time. Don't carry your gun loaded on your horse. Something may happen. You may kill the man you're riding with, or his horse, or your own horse. In old times we had to carry our guns loaded, but since we've got these britch-loaders it ain't needful. I expect you'd feel mighty mean if you killed a man, just by your carelessness, or if he killed you the same way. I came mighty near getting killed that way once by an Indian I was travelling with. We sat down side by side on top of a high hill to look over the country, and he had his rifle across his knees with the muzzle pointing toward me, and he was playing with the hammer of his gun, raising and lowering it. I didn't like it very much, and got up and walked away, thinking I'd come back and sit down on the other side of him. In less than a minute after I moved, his gun went off, and if I had been sitting there the ball would have gone through me. I was scared some when I thought how near I'd come to being bored through, but I wasn't a patch on the Indian. He was scared grey. You see it was known that he and I were together, and if he had killed me by accident, it would have been hard for him to prove it, and he'd likely have got killed for murdering me.

"We'll try the gun at that hill over there. Do you see that white rock, the small one to the left of that sage-bush? That's about a hundred yards away. Load your gun and shoot at that. First sight at the rock. See that the top of the foresight just shows over the notch of the hind sight. Hold the gun tight to your shoulder and pull the trigger slowly. Try to hold your gun steady on the mark, and when the sight is on it, pull. Don't load it yet."

Jack had been listening carefully and trying to remember all that Hugh had said to him, and now he raised the rifle to his shoulder and sighted at the stone. He was surprised to see how large it looked through the sights of the rifle, and how it seemed to jump about. He could not hold the gun steady, and at last took it down, saying, "I can't hold it still."

"Try it a few times, and then you can fire a shot. Put your gun up and, as soon as the foresight is on the mark, pull." Jack did this two or three times, and the last time said, "That time I think I would have hit it." "Good," said Hugh. "Now put a ca'tridge in the gun and shoot. Remember, you must keep the butt of your gun pressed close to your shoulder. If you don't do that, the gun will kick your shoulder and hurt. I don't want that to happen, it might spoil your shooting." Jack put a cartridge in the gun, closed the breech, and partly raised the gun to his shoulder.

"Haven't you forgot something?" said Hugh.

"I don't know; what?" answered Jack.

"We most generally cock our guns before we shoot," said Hugh, drily. A little ashamed, Jack cocked his gun, aimed and fired. At the report he was pushed back a little, but he was made glad by seeing a little puff of dust rise from the ground somewhere near the stone.

"That was a right good shot," said Hugh earnestly. "If you can do as well as that every time we'll be sending you out to get meat for the ranch pretty soon. The ball struck the ground only two or three inches to the left of the rock. That shot would have killed an antelope if you'd aimed at his heart. Try another, and let's see if you can do it again."

The second shot was not quite so good, and when Jack took down the gun he said to Hugh: "It kicked harder that time."

"Not so," was the reply, "you forgot to hold the butt close to your shoulder, as I told you to. You must always do that. After a little, you will do it without thinking about it. Now let me fire two or three shots. I want to see how the sights are myself."

He fired several shots, the first two striking a little above the mark, the third just below it, while the fourth did not knock up any dust, but seemed to jar the stone, and was followed by a curious screaming sound, loud at first, and quickly dying away. "That was the ball singing," said he, in answer to Jack's question. "The lead hit the rock and glanced off and went sailing away over the prairie. You must just see the tip of the foresight on the mark. Draw it fine. If you pull the trigger when it's there, you will hit every time."

An hour more was spent in shooting at this mark, and before it was over, Jack had come to understand a great deal about his gun, and had received much praise from his teacher. "You're doing well, my son, and it won't take you long to learn how to shoot. If you pick up riding, roping and packing as easily as you do shooting, your uncle will be hiring you to work for wages before snow flies. Now let's go up to the house and wipe out the gun."

After Hugh had shown Jack how to clean his rifle, and had explained to him the importance of keeping it clean, free from rust and sand, and always ready for use under all circumstances, he said, "Of course, in these days we don't have to look out for enemies like we used to in old times. Nowadays the wars are pretty much over in these parts, yet of course there's plenty of places where the Indians are bad yet, and nobody knows when they'll make trouble anywhere. Why, nobody will ever know how many people got killed there when they were building the railroad back on the plains. I scouted from Julesburg west to Cheyenne at that time, and it was an everyday matter to find two or three graders stuck full of arrows along the track. That was the time when the Pawnee scouts were guarding the road, and it was fun to see them fellows get out when there was an alarm and chase the hostiles. Them Pawnees just loved a fight, and they had never been whipped when Major North was leading them, so they did not know what fear was. They'd turn out at any time of the day or night and chase the Sioux and Cheyennes as long as their horses could run. It was a picnic for them.

"I had some good friends in that camp. One fellow, especially, that they called Itching Buffalo, was brave, and he had powerful medicine. They said he had been down into one of them houses where the medicine animals have their councils. The others used to say that he couldn't be killed, and it's sure that he was always in the front of the fighting and never got hit. There's surely something queer about Indian medicine. Take old Whirlwind, the Cheyenne, in that fight he had with the Sacs. Every feather was cut from his war bonnet, but not a bullet hit him, nor his medicine that he carried on it.

"But I'm forgetting that you don't know anything about these things. It's likely you will though, if you and I are much together. What I started to say was this. In old times a man's life often depended on his having his gun ready for use. If he went out for his horse, picketed close to camp, or went for wood, or down to the creek for water, he carried his gun with him, and it was always in good order and ready for use. It isn't that way here or now, but it may be so yet. So you'd better learn to keep your gun clean, and to have it with you always. It ain't much trouble to learn this, and it may save your life sometime.

"Well, there comes the men with a bunch of horses. Let's go down to the corral and look 'em over."