Originally published: 1874
Genres: Western
Goodreads link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/201406326-dead-shot-or-the-white-vulture---a-romance-of-the-yellowstone
Gutenberg link: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/65527
Chapters: 12
Warning: This may include outdated and derogatory language and attitudes.
CHAPTER I
FORT BENT AND THE WAGON TRAIN
It was at the close of a bright May afternoon; the last rays of the sinking sun shone down gayly upon the broad prairie, through which, like a great yellow serpent, rolled the turbid waters of the Yellowstone River—a river that took its rise at the base of the Rocky Mountains and then flowed eastward, until it poured its current into the great Missouri. Just at the junction of the Yellowstone and the Powder Rivers, the sun’s rays shone down upon the whitewashed walls of Fort Bent, a frontier post, located at the confluence of the two rivers, to guard the wagon trail to Montana. The advance of civilization has now caused the fort to be removed, but at the time at which we write it was the last halting place for the wagon trains bound for any of the small settlements nestled here and there upon the golden-streaked rocks of Montana. After leaving Fort Bent, the trail ran by the banks of the Yellowstone, two hundred miles or so, then turned abruptly north toward the Rocky Mountains. This was called the Southern Trail. The northern route was by the bank of the Missouri.
Fort Bent was garrisoned by a single company of United States troops—a hundred men or so. Under the shelter of the fort, a few trading houses had sprung up, designed to supply the wants of the emigrants in powder, ball, blankets, or any of the little articles necessary for a journey of three hundred miles through the wilderness. For, as we have said, after leaving Fort Bent, the way led through the fertile valley of the Yellowstone, a valley abounding in rich grasses, the little clumps of timber that fringed the river being filled with game, the stream itself well stocked with fish—a country that only needed the strong right arm of civilization to bloom and blossom like a fruitful garden.
The wagon trail through this lovely country was not without its dangers. Near Fort Bent, the fierce Mandan tribe of Indians flourished; their hunting grounds stretching from the Big Horn river to the little Missouri. Sometimes, too, wandering bands of the Sioux, the ruthless marauders of the Missouri, extended their forays as far as the Powder River. Deadly foes were they of the Mandan tribe.
And then, after following the wagon trail along the bank of the Yellowstone, passing where the Big Horn River emptied its waters, swollen always by the melting snows of the Rocky Mountains, into the first named stream, we enter upon the dominion of the Crow nation, the Indian kings of the north-west—the tribe whose warriors wear the claws and teeth of the grizzly bear as necklaces around their necks, sign and symbol of their prowess—the greatest fighting men of all the tribes that roam the great wilderness of rock and prairie from the Gulf of California in the south, to the Columbia and Missouri rivers in the north—the warlike tribe that has fought the powerful “Blackfeet” for ages, and yet more than held their own against them—the tribe whose war-cry is a terror to the gold-diggers of Southern Montana.
And so, after passing the junction of the Big Horn and the Yellowstone rivers, the old mountain men, the prairie guides, prepare for danger; and few wagon trains, unless large in numbers, pass through the valley and turn northward to Montana, without losing stock or men on their passage.
Now that we have described the scene of our coming story, we will return to Fort Bent, where a wagon train is at the moment resting, preparatory to daring the dangers of the march through this wilderness.
The fort and its vicinity present a lively scene. The soldiers are chatting with the members of the train, inquiring about the news from the East and eagerly perusing the newspapers that have been brought by the emigrants.
The train was composed of some twenty wagons, containing, perhaps, sixty souls all told, men, women, and children. There were twenty-three men in the party, besides the two guides, a force sufficient to beat off any ordinary Indian attack, if handled skillfully, of which there could be but little doubt, for the two guides—the captains of the train—were men skilled in Indian warfare and had a reputation as Indian-fighters second to none on upper Missouri.
The two guides stood together by the foremost wagon, leaning on their rifles, surveying the scene before them with a listless air. They were known as Abraham Colt and David Reed—called Abe and Dave, commonly, by their friends. Abe was the elder of the two, a man of about forty years of age. Tall and straight, he stood nearly six feet high; but weighed not more than a hundred and fifty pounds—all muscle, bone, and sinew, no useless flesh about him. A professional prize-fighter would have looked at him in admiration. From his earliest boyhood, he had been accustomed to the wildlife and dangers of the prairie. His father had been a guide before him and had reared his son to his calling. The father had died on the prairie, shot through the temple in a Crow attack on a wagon train—had died in his son’s arms, almost instantly after receiving the ball. From that hour Abe had sworn an oath of vengeance against every red-skin in whose veins ran the blood of the Crow nation.
The story of the death of Abe’s father, and of the oath of vengeance of the son, was of course well known to all the frontier men; and he was looked upon as a sort of a hero, for, since his father’s death, which occurred some twenty years before the time at which we write, Abe had encountered the braves of the Crow nation in many a desperate fight on the prairie trail by the Yellowstone; and in every contest the guide had been victorious; every time the Crows had attacked a train in which Abe acted as guide, they had been repulsed with great slaughter; his presence seemed to be fatal to them.
Abe would never have been taken by a stranger for the famous Indian fighter; there was no sign of the desperado about him. His face was well browned by the prairie winds and the rays of the sun; his eyes were large, and gray in color; his chin was shaven as smooth as a young girl’s; his features were strongly marked, and the deep wrinkles about the eyes and mouth told of hard service and troubles. He was dressed in Indian fashion, in a hunting shirt of deer skin, trimmed with porcupine quills; leggings of the same material, fitting tightly to the leg; moccasins, ornamented with little leaden tags, curiously shaped; upon his head, he wore a cap, formed of a portion of a coyote’s skin, with the tail hanging down behind. His hair, black as an Indian’s, was worn short and curled in little ringlets tight to his head. He was a picture worthy of the pencil of the artist as he stood leaning carelessly upon his rifle, gazing upon the little groups before him. One approaching him from the rear would have taken him from his dress to be an Indian chief.
His companion, the other guide, was a young man, probably not over twenty, called David Reed. His history was a strange one. A party of United States troops, some nineteen years before the time of which we write, had surprised a party of Blackfeet Indians encamped near the headwaters of the Missouri. The savages had been on a raid against the white frontier settlements on the upper Missouri, and the soldiers had followed in pursuit. They surprised the Indians and a bloody fight ensued; the Indians were outnumbered and nearly exterminated. After the fight, the soldiers found a baby boy snugly wrapped in a blanket near the Indian camp. From his dark complexion and from the outline of his features, they concluded that he was a half-breed, possibly the child of one of the Indian braves by a white wife, because it is a very common thing for the Indians to carry off white girls in their frontier raids and force them to become their wives. Why the child should have been carried with the war party contrary to the usual custom of the savages puzzled the old Indian fighter, who acted as a guide to the soldiers. He carefully examined the encampment and finally discovered the footprints of a woman. It was evident, then, that there had been a squaw with the party, and possibly that squaw was one of the white wives that the great chiefs sometimes have; though why the chief should carry her on a marauding expedition was a mystery.
The soldiers took the child back with them to their post; the infant was apparently a year old. The captain in command of the troops acted as sponsor to the child thus strangely found in the desert, and called it David Reed.
The infant grew apace. Years passed on: the child became a man and adopted the profession of prairie guide, and was noted on the upper Missouri as one of the surest shots and best guides in all the upper valley.
In appearance, he was a fine-looking fellow, standing about five feet nine, well proportioned and well built; his face was pleasing; there was something noble about it—an air of native dignity, akin to that of the red-skins; his eyes were large, jet-black and full of fire; his nose long and straight; the chin, square and well-formed, firm-set lips, that showed resolution and strength of purpose; his bronzed face, the high cheek-bones and jet-black hair, that slightly curled at the ends, worn long and floating down over his shoulders, alone showed the Indian blood.
He was dressed roughly. A red shirt, thrown open carelessly at the neck and exposing his finely-formed throat; a pair of dark butternut homespun pantaloons that had been cut open at the side and fitted into the leg, Indian fashion; a pair of moccasins, which, from the peculiar trimming, an old Indian-fighter would have pronounced to be of Sioux manufacture; a belt of untanned deer-skin girded around his waist, supporting a broad-bladed hunting-knife and a serviceable-looking revolver, and we have the pen-picture of Dave Reed.
Reed had met the “Crow-Killer” in Montana, some three years before the time at which we commence our story. A singular friendship had sprung up between the two men, and from that time they never had separated. Lucky was the wagon train that obtained the services of the “Crow-Killer” and young Dave Reed, as his friends called him, for a trip across the upper plains!
“Does that fellow there belong to our train?” asked Dave of the “Crow-Killer,” directing his attention to a man who stood apart from all the rest near the bank of the river.
“Whar?” asked “Crow-Killer,” turning his eyes in the direction indicated.
“That one there, wrapped up in the blanket as if he had the chills,” and Dave pointed to a man standing near the river, with his back to the two guides. The stranger was wrapped in a dirty red blanket which completely covered him. On his head he wore a common black felt hat, from under which long black locks fell down over his shoulders, forming a striking contrast to the red blanket.
Abe took a long look at the motionless figure.
“Well, do you know him?” asked Dave.
“Nary time!” answered Abe. “He looks like an Injun, durned if he don’t. He’s a powerful big feller, I should judge.”
Just then the stranger turned round and exposed a face a few shades darker than that of Dave’s, but not dark enough to proclaim the owner to be an Indian, or, if he was one, one much lighter in color than the generality of his race. The face of the stranger was an odd one; high cheekbones, the dark color, the flashing black eyes, no sign of a beard—all these would proclaim him an Indian; yet, the long black hair curled slightly at the ends, and was much finer than the usual coarse locks of the red-skin.
As he faced the two guides, the eyes of the stranger wandering listlessly over the talking crowd, Abe got a good full view of his face and started in astonishment.
“What’s the matter?” questioned Dave.
“That man’s face!” answered Abe, still staring intently at the stranger.
“Well, what of it?”
“Why, he’s the perfect image of you!”
Dave now started in surprise and turned his keen glance upon the stranger. As Abe had said, save that the unknown was darker in color, there was, indeed, a wonderful resemblance between the two men—the same long black hair, curling at the ends—the same flashing black eyes, the same expression on the face, almost the same size, and features marvelously like those of the young guide.
“Yes, he does look like me,” said Dave, surveying the stranger with a puzzled air.
“Like you! You couldn’t be more alike if you were run in the same mold,” said the “Crow-Killer.”
“It is very strange, to say the least,” Dave spoke thoughtfully.
“Strange, you bet!” answered Abe, tersely.
And yet, at this very moment, to a close observer, there was something else stranger than all, and that was the resemblance in the general expression of the features that both Dave Reed and the stranger bore to Abe, the “Crow-Killer.” Their eyes were black and his were gray, and yet they looked alike. Had they been clad alike, a stranger would have taken the three for father and sons.
“He looks like an Injun, and yet he is too light-colored for one,” said Dave.
“Yes,” responded the “Crow-Killer,” watching the unknown with a keen glance, “he ain’t one of our party I know. I guess he’s a stranger hyar too, for he don’t seem to know any of the folks round. He don’t look exactly like an Injun, but he may be one with white blood in him; that would account for his light color.”
“I’ll go over and find out who he is,” said Dave.
“Go it, young hoss!” answered the “Crow-Killer,” “that’s a good idea.”
One of the corporals attached to the post at this moment approached the two guides.
“Who is that chap over thar? do you know him?” asked the guide.
The corporal took a good look at the motionless figure, wrapped in the gaudy blanket.
“I don’t know him; a stranger in our ranch, I reckon.”
“You have never seen him before then?” said Dave.
“I think not. I guess he’s one of the Mandan Injuns come in to get some whisky or something of that sort.”
“He ain’t no Mandan,” said Abe, after another good look.
Dave bent his steps toward the stranger.
Comments