Beadle's New York Dime Library No. 272 — page 6: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

6 a **T should say you was coddin’ me.” ‘*Well, 1’m not. I was born in Western New York, within two miles of an Indian reserva- tion, and I have an uncle who was adopted into the tribe of the Mohawks as a boy, and who taught me the language.” Montana George scratched his head. ‘* Mohawks, they ain’t Injuns, are they?” ‘* Certainly they are; did you never bear of them? The dad to be a great tribe, once,” Montana looked dubious. “Maybe they was, but that ain’t nothin’ here. Ive beard of most of ’em, but 1 never heard of a Mohawk Injun round these parts.” ‘* Where were you born, George?” “Durned if I know,” returned George, in a good-humored way. ‘‘ Reckon in Illinois, but ain’t sure. Used to be Illinois Injuns once, I’ve heard say, but that ain’t no’countnow. Reck- o6 your Mohawk Injuns won’t help you much ero, “Perhaps not, George, bu6é suppose I know the sign language?” “Well, that’s something of course, but not en to take you among the Sioux, to get a chief's medicine-bag.” ‘Pm aware ofthat, George. What I want to do is to get hold of a man who can talk Sioux, and who uuderstands the people, to go with me. Do you know such a man?’ | yee Tinos rnin, ‘but % get him.” * Yes, ow him, you can’t get him. “Why not?” ' ** Because I reckon you haven’t money enough to pay him,” was thedryreply. ‘* Bat Richards ain’t the kind of a man to take his life in his band for pg, “* And who is Bat Richards?” ” o Vane sar Baptist Richards,” ** French Canadian?” ‘‘Reckon so, There used to be a lot of them Frenchmen round here, in the days of the old fur company, 30 I’ve heard my dad say, Used to run bateaux up and down theriver. Bat’s quite an old feller.” ‘* And you say he talks Sioux?” “Ought to. He lived among’em nigh ten ears afore the war, and was with ’em in the innesota massacres. It was after that he got over to our side, and the Government pardoned him wane ‘For what?” Montana Serer gave him a queer Jook, “For what? Well, Mr. Slucum, me and you was both kids then, I reekon; but they de say as the squaw-men was the worst of all in the ‘* And what’s a squaw-man?’ “A man that lives with Injuns and takes squaws to wife. Mostly they’re a bad lot, but Baptist ain’c as bad as some, Ireckon. Any- how he got pardoned and made the interpreter for the Government, till the Sioux left Minne- sota for good. Now he lives at Gladstone.” Gladstone was the name of the town from which they had started; the terminus of the road as far as laid, ** 1X think it would be possible to hire this Baptist for guide and interpreter?” the y onatnent ed. ntana rge looked doubtful. ‘If the company paid bim and took care of bis family, he might come, but you couldn’t -. touch him alone.” ‘Well, that’s what I mean, George. All I _ want you to do is to come with me and see this Bae yy If he and bn will go with me, ['m willing to take the risk.” Mostana looked at him in his keen and scru- gs way. a rippove your life is worth as much to you asany otherman, If Baptist agrees to go with so"'l I, but you can’t get him, I reckon.” ar vy not?” pie “tae g-ttin’ too old to face the winter, and I tell you, Mr, ocum, we're going to have a rip-sp ‘ing old winter. At ledst we can try, Geor And nothing more was Moag d till they got to Gladstone. . , “ CHAPTER VL THE SQUAW-MAN, Tue town of Gladstone, ten years ago, was a coilection of frame shanties, sod huts, wall tents and all sorts of temporary erections, clustered around some big framo store-houses which were painted yellow and surmounted by the national flag. The store-houses belonged to the Quarter- master’s D+partment and Indian Bureau, and were the nucleus around which the town had organized itself, | Uncle Sam sent to Gladstone, every month, enough beef, pork and flour with ail the etcet- eras of commissary stores, including unlimited whisky, to supply the posts on the ouri for several hundred miles, and nearly a dozen In- n reservations and agencies. Gladstone was the distributing point for these stores. which were protected by a fort on the gpponite side of the river; and it was from distene that the wagon-trains and steamboats went out to carry the stores, giving wages toa &mell army of teamsters, packers and other em- : Seth Slocum, Ra ployees of the departments and the bureau for the service, Gladstone was therefore a thriving and grow- ing place, with nearly a thousand regular in- habitants, of whom fifty-seven kept gin- mills. Five poker parlors flourished on and after every pay-day, aud one faro table to every five gin-mills represented the gambling element of the frontier in its most attractive light. Out in the suburbs of Gladstone, the broad plains stretcbed, without a tree, for miles and miles, till the flat was broken by a few prairie farms, surrounded with barbed wire fences, the nearest about half a mile off. Going down the bank of the river, however one soon came toa little hollow, where there had at one time been a break in the bluffs, making a deep bay or indentation. Some trifling cause, like the lodging of a float- ing tree in former times, had started the river into forming a new channel, and it had cut an- wa 5 place at the opposite bank, which still ex- isted, The abandoned turn speedily filled up with alluvial soil, and had in course of time me higher than the stream, although lower than the bluffs which line the Missouri river. In this little hollow, which was full of tim- ber, like all river bottoms in the West, the peo- le of Gladstone often saw a blue cur! of smoke the daytime, and it was a matter of remark that ‘some feller lived there” though no one troubled himself much about the bormit, who never came to town and was very rarely seen outside the hollow, When he was visible, he appeared to be a dark, Indian-looking man, dressed in the tog- ery of the mountain-men of amu’ np be- oo and carrying an old-fashioned, flint-lock rifle. One or two townsmen had visited his dwell- ing and found it to be an Indian teepee or wir- wam, which disgusted them so that they went no further, for, of all the things an average frontiersman hates, it is an Indian; and a man who lives in Indian style ranks even below a full-blooded savage in their estimation. Nevertheless it was to this little hollow, known to the Gladstonians as ‘‘ Squaw-man’s Hole” that Seth Slocum and Montana George took their way about three days after their safe arrival at the town of Giadstone, They rode over the level plain in the soft light of a September afternoon, and when the arrived at ‘“Squaw-man’s Hole” George too tho lead, Slocum following. They found the little hollow, which only measured about three bundred yards across, densely filed with tim- ber and underwood, with no path visible. The leaves were just beginning to turn and presented a pretty picture of brightly glowing colors, but abt firat there was no token of human habitation in the hollow of the bank. Montana George, however, took the lead and plunged down through the brushwood, till he came to the black bottom, which was so near a swamp that the horses sunk up to the crown of the hoof in the soft soil. Slocum followed him blindly, and after a great deal of thrashing about in the bushes, ey emerged on an open space of about an acre anda half, planted with Indian corn and surrounded by trees, through which, on one side, the white gleam of the river showed. On this side, hidden from view, alike from the bank above and from passing boats on the stream, stood an Indian teepee, covered with buffalo-hides, which had been tanned white and painted with all sorts of strange hieroglyphics. In front of this teepee sat two Indian women one suckling a baby, the other skinning a dea coyote or prairie wolf, while through an opened flap of a doorway Slocum could see the form of & mas crouched over a fire on the ground, from which tho smoke ascended to the top of the tee- pee a passed out, ‘That’s tha old man,” said Geerge in a low tone to Slocum, “Get off your horse and we see what he’s got to say.” The two women in front of the tent never looked up at their C1 ato though Slocum saw that they were fully aware of his presence, for they kept muttering to each other as they went on with their occupations. He and ge dismounted from their horses and tied them to trees, then went forward to the entrance of the teepee, when George called out: “ Hallo, Bat! That you?” There was no change in the attitude of the crouching figure inside the hut, but Slocum heard a grunt like that of a pig, and Montana George, without further ceremony, walked into the popes and gave the croucher a ringing slap on the back. “ Hallo, Bat!” he repeated. ‘‘ What ye doin’ here, old man? Why don’t ye say how do?” The man at the fire slowly turned toward George a dark, forbidding face, with a thin fringe of scanty black beard round his mouth, eer pair of keen, glittering eyes set close te- ether. ; ° It «vac a broad face, with high cheek-boves and buchy black hair falling over the forehead, while tho lit persed to show a row of very white teeth in an ugly grin, ilroad Surveyor. —- ‘Vat you vant?” he asked, with a strong meos accent, ‘‘ What do we want?” Montana George laughed at the question, and said to Slocum: ‘‘Sitdown. Ill manage the old cuss,” There was not much chance to sit down on anything but tho ground in the teepee, but Montana George went to one side, where a pile of furs were laid, yanked outa buffalo- robe and said to Slocum: “Sit down, sir, sit down. Baptist’s a darned noms always was; but we'll bring him to his milk,’ Thon he coolly seated himself beside his com- panion on the skin ond continued: **Now, Cot Tichards, I want to talk to you.” The other man had been squatting on his heels over the fire in the usual Indian attitude - + vanteoenee and he did not deign to turn his ead, ‘“*T want to talk to you, repeated George in a louder tone, ‘‘and I want you to attend to me. Do you bear that?” Bat Richards grunted. ‘* This is the matter,” said George continuing. “This gentleman wants to pay a visit to the Sioux tribes at once.” Bat slowly turned his head till his glowing eyes rested on Slocum, whom he surveyed from head to foot. A grunt was his only comment on the news he bad received, and Slocum felt that he could hardly bave experienced a keener or a more contemptuous one, Montana George went on as calmly as before tu the uncivil man: ‘You can grunt all you please; but what we want to know’s this, what’ll you take to go pracy Dg iusorpreter and take us to Sitting Bull’s cam Bat Richards slowly rose to his feet, went to the side of the teepee and pulled out another robe, on which he seated himself cross-legged before he answered, Then he turned on them a face no longer stolid and forbidding, but full of keonness, as he asked wal yc much you give “ ocum was about to speak, when Montana George pulled his skirt. ; ‘*How much do you want?” he asked. Gat shook bis head. ‘‘ How much you give? Want a heap.” Montana nodded, “I know tbat, you old sinner; but I ain’t cheapening any man’s goods, I don’t know whetbor you can take us there at all.” Bat tossed his head scornfully. ‘*t take you dere, sure; you pay.” ‘“Ay, ay, 1 can do that myself,” answered Creorge dryly. ‘* We've been there already and seen allwe want to. What I’m after is this: can you take us there safely without any fight- ing, and bring us back?” Slocum looked at the Frenchman in great waa! | Bat Richards appeared to be considering over his answer, for it was nearly a minute before he said: | “I doit. How much you give?” Montana answered indifferently: ‘Well, it’s worth ’bout a hundred dollars and a new rif, and horse.” Bat Richards looked at him from head to foot and spat in the ‘Ire. | ‘‘ No cood,” be said sententiously, Bonen oh then oon his shoulders. “Very wel, then, what do you w Bat looked him in the eye. ‘ waa BPR ha thousand Fi r, t’ree hoss, for self and squaws, wagon and oxen. M Tired of Gladstone. Can't cnt gy, ee tana checked him a second time. “Too much,” he said, “ We may as well go home, eng yo kin stay here and starve all the winter. ow!” With that he signaled Slocum to rise, and tho two comrades were going to leave the teepee when Bat said in rude French: pe Tiens—pas si vite Vat you gif?” i ‘*T’ve told you,” ed nd i Ge. e pausin eS te ila dollars and a borse and rig. That’s ‘But vat become of my vife?” asked the renchman, with more animation than be bad hitherto shown, ‘‘See, Monsieur Shorge, 1 must take care my familee.” Montana looked at the two women in a doubt- ful wey asking: ‘* What tribe are they?” ‘‘ Sioux,” was theeager reply. ‘‘ Great chief's daughter, dat one with baby. Sitting Bull bim- self, fader.” Montana smiled scornfully. ‘Oh, tell that to the greenhorns, Well, I'll tell you what we’lldo, They shall bave rations while we're gone.” | ‘‘ Who gif de ration?’ asked Bat sharply. ‘The railroad company,” was the reply. Bat shook his bead. “Don’t know de company. Know de quar- termaster.” “You will know the company th plainsman retorted. ‘‘We don’t. ough,” the 0 to_no quartermaster’s, when we want anything. You > ial * ' ‘ ‘ ¥ « * >= cCOomicpoo * - & Slocum was again about to speak, when Mon- 7 ae