CHAPTER VIII GOOD SEED.

THE young Shawanoe smiled, shook his head and looked into the keen eyes before him.

“Deerfoot thanks his brother, but he never tasted of liquor and will die before he wets his lips with it.”

The amazement of the trapper was not without its humorous feature. He remained leaning toward the youth, his hand outstretched with the uncorked flask in it and staring at him as if literally paralyzed. Then he drew a deep breath, swung back and exclaimed:

“Wal, I’ll be skulped! You’re the first Injin I ever seed that wouldn’t sell his moccasins for a swaller of red eye. It gits me!”

Deerfoot watched him with amused interest. Jack Halloway held up the flask at arm’s length and surveyed it thoughtfully. Once he started to place it to his lips, but shook his head, then jammed the cork back in place (the screwed tops were unknown in those days) and thrust the flask into his pocket again.

“Ef you won’t drink with me, Shawanoe, I won’t drink afore you.”

“Let my brother do as he feels like doing.”

“Which the same is what I’ve done. As I was sayin’, I allers take a keg of the extract of happiness with me and manage things so it will last till I get back to St. Louis; but bein’ as I stayed longer than usual, I’ve come so near running out that that flask has got to keep me alive for some weeks to come. I tell you it’s powerful tough, but there’s no help for it. Every trapper or hunter that I run across—if I run across any—will be as bad off as me.”

“When my brother gets to St. Louis what will he do with his peltries!”

“Why, sell ’em, of course. What did you think?”

“He has a good many,” remarked Deerfoot, glancing at the piles on the ground near at hand.

“You’re right. It has been a good season, and them skins is vallyble. There’s one black fox that’s the same as a hundred dollars to me, and the rest will bring three hundred dollars more.”

“My brother has much money saved from his labor.”

“Much money! Not a blamed cent, though I orter have. Shawanoe, the biggest fools—I admit it—is we trappers, who spend winters in the mountains, freezin’, starvin’ and dodging redskins, and then travel hundreds of miles to git back to St. Louis, where we can sell our peltries as quick as a wink. Then we go onto a big, glorious spree, and at the end of a week or two haven’t enough left to buy a plug of ’backer. We loaf around, doin’ ’nough odd jobs to keep us from starvin’ till the weather begins to git cold, when we’re off for the mountains agin. And so it goes year after year, and we’re fools to the end.”

“Is my brother alone in the world?”

“Lucky I haven’t any wife or children, but I’ve got the best old mother that ever drawed breath. She has a little home which she manages to hold onto by takin’ in sewin’ and doin’ little fancy things for the neighbors, who be kind to her. If they warn’t I don’t know what would become of her, for I’m no good; I don’t deserve such a mother,” added the trapper with a sigh, “for she is never as happy as when I’m with her, and she’d work her fingers off for me. ’Bout all she does is work and pray, and never an unkind word to say to her good for nothin’ son.”

“By and by she will close her eyes and go to the Great Spirit, and when my brother walks into the little home she will be gone and”——

“Thar! thar! Don’t say nothin’ more!” interrupted the trapper with a wave of his hand. “I can’t stand it. If I go back home and find her dead, as I ’spose I shall some day, I’ll die myself; if I don’t, I’ll blow my worthless brains out, for I won’t want to live.”

“My brother longs to see his mother again. If he should kill himself or do wrong he will never see her more. Let him live right and they shall dwell together forever. Let him go back to St. Louis and drink no more. Let him give the money to the mother who loves her son and has suffered much for him. Then my brother will make her face shine with happiness, and she will live much longer.”

Jack Halloway turned his head and stared at Deerfoot for a full minute without stirring or speaking. The Shawanoe kept his gaze upon the fire, but he knew the scrutiny he was under, and he “waited.” When the trapper spoke it was in a low voice, as if addressing himself:

“To think of an Injin talkin’ that way to Jack Halloway! Why, I never had a white man do it; but his words are as true as gospel. Fact is, they are gospel.”

He relapsed into a reverie which lasted so long that Deerfoot gently interposed.

“My brother tells me that his mother prays. Does my brother pray?”

Jack started and again stared at the dusky youth.

“This beats all creation. Yas, I used to pray, but it was a long time ago, when I was a younker and bowed my head at my mother’s knee. I’ve been a wild, wicked scamp that ain’t worth the prayer of such an angel as she is. Shawanoe, do you pray?”

“Once when Deerfoot was a child he was as wicked as Satan himself; but he was made a prisoner by the palefaces. There was a good woman among them who told him about the Great Spirit who is a loving Father to all His children, and she taught him to pray to Him. Deerfoot prays to his Father every morning and night, and often through the day, and his Father always listens and does that which is best for him. Let my brother do the same. He will give him strength to drink that poison no more, and when he dies he will see his mother again.”

Again Jack Halloway asked himself whether he was awake or dreaming. He had heard in a vague way of the missionaries and their labors among the Indians. He had been told that there were some converts among the red men, but never until now had he seen one. Like most of his calling, he looked upon all Indians as bad, and therefore the implacable enemies of the white men. He had had more than one desperate encounter with them, and when he groped his way into the mountains it was always a contest of wits between him and them, with the prospects more than once against him. He looked upon them as he looked upon so many rattlesnakes, that were likely to be found coiled at any moment in his path.

And yet here was a full-blooded Indian talking to him better than he had ever heard any missionary talk. The trapper knew from the build, the alertness, the assurance of movement of the youth, and a certain something impossible to describe that he would be a terrific antagonist in a fight, but nothing seemed further from the Shawanoe’s thoughts. He talked with the persuasive gentleness of a woman, and in all his experience never had the grizzled trapper felt such an arrow pierce right into the core of his heart.

In a few simple words Deerfoot had drawn a vivid picture of that sweet, patient, forgiving, praying parent, waiting in her far-away home the return of the rough, profane, wicked son, for whom she was ready to sacrifice her life at any time, and, indeed, was sacrificing it to his thoughtlessness and indifference. Most astounding of all, the Shawanoe had held out a hope to him that he had never known of or in fact dreamed had an existence.

With that fine-grained tact which was one of Deerfoot’s most marked traits, he refrained from breaking in upon the meditation of the other. He knew the leaven was working and did not wish to interfere with it.

Jack Halloway, the trapper, now did a singular and unexpected thing. Without a word, he rose to his feet and faced the stream flowing past the camp. The youth, who was watching his movements, saw him bring the flask from his breast pocket and swing his arm backward. Then he brought it quickly forward, striking and checking his hand smartly against his hip and making the throw known as “jerking.” The flask shot from his grasp and sped out in the gloom, falling with a splash that was plainly heard in the stillness.

“Thar, Shawanoe!” he exclaimed, facing about, “you’ve made me do what I never believed any man could, make Jack Halloway do. Now I’ve got to travel all the way to St. Louis without a swaller of the infarnal stuff. It’ll take two or three weeks, and I know it’ll be powerful tough, but I’m going to do it!”

Deerfoot had risen to his feet and, in a voice tremulous with emotion, he said:

“My brother has done well. He will never be sorry. The Great Spirit will make him strong, but my brother must pray to Him for himself.”

“Pray!” repeated the trapper; “that’s goin’ to be ’bout all I’ll do atween here and St. Louis, and I won’t let up till the good Lord does what you say, and what I know He’ll be powerful glad to do for such a miserable scamp as me.”

The next act of the trapper was as remarkable as the former one. He strode out to where he had sent the three horses, roused each and began reloading them and saddling and bridling his own. Suspecting his purpose, Deerfoot asked:

“Will not my brother wait till morning?”

“Not a minute longer than I have to. I’m afeard that mother of mine will die afore I can git to her and beg her to forgive and help me to be a half-decent man.”

Instead of protesting, Deerfoot aided in reloading the animals. Neither spoke while this was going on. When it was finished and the massive trapper had swung again into his saddle, he reached his broad palm down to his new friend.

“Good-bye, Shawanoe. May I ax you when you’re at your prayers to put in a word for me! I’ve an idee that the Lord will be more pleased to hear from you than me.”

“Deerfoot will never forget to do as his brother asks, and he is sure that all will now be well with his brother.”

“I’ll make a big wrastle for it. Good-bye!”

He struck his heels against the side of his horse, who, though roused from rest, moved off, followed by the pack animals as if they were a couple of docile dogs. They soon disappeared in the moonlight, but Deerfoot stood for a long time gazing thoughtfully toward the point where he had last seen the man who had come so strangely into his life and then passed out again.

“Something tells Deerfoot that his brother shall do well and they shall meet again.”

The Shawanoe, as we shall learn in due time, was right in this belief.

A soft rustling caused him to look round. The Blackfoot was standing at his side.

“My brother is late in awaking Mul-tal-la,” he quietly said.

“My brother did not need to be awakened, for he heard the words of the white man who has just gone.”

“Yes; Mul-tal-la heard all that was said by him and Deerfoot. The Great Spirit is pleased with Deerfoot.”

“Deerfoot prays that He will ever be pleased with him. He is striving to live so the Great Spirit will not frown upon him.”

Forgetting in his ardor the somewhat formal manner of speaking, the Blackfoot earnestly said:

“If you are not good, then there never was a good man. Let my brother rest, for the Great Spirit will watch over him like a father.”

The Shawanoe walked to the place vacated by the other and lay down, while the Blackfoot took upon himself the duty of sentinel for the remainder of the night.

As Deerfoot stretched out he recalled the singular disturbance heard earlier in the evening, and he shifted the enveloping blanket so as to allow him to rest one ear against the cool, damp earth.

As he did so he caught the same faint, curious pulsing again. It was more distinct and instantly drove all thought of sleep from his brain. It was as if thousands of feet were striking the ground, mingling, running into one another, and yet preserving a certain regularity that was puzzling to the last degree.

Because the noises were heard more plainly he believed that whatever caused them was drawing near the camp. Still the approach was slow, which it would seem could not have been the fact if the unknown animals were approaching. They must be following a course that, while bringing them somewhat closer, would carry them by on one side or the other.

The strange peculiarity already noted again presented itself. By and by the sounds grew fainter, as if the creatures, whatever their nature, were receding. This suggested the odd theory that they were traveling in a great circle and might again approach. Deerfoot rose and walked to where Mul-tal-la was standing near the resting horses, which still showed no signs of uneasiness. The Shawanoe told of the puzzle that troubled him.

The Blackfoot had not observed anything of that nature. When lying on his blanket it interposed between him and the earth, and thus shut out the almost inaudible throbbings that mystified his companion. Mul-tal-la now knelt and pressed his ear against the ground, Deerfoot doing the same.

Both held their position for some time and then rose.

“They are strange sounds,” remarked the Blackfoot, “but very soft.”

“They were a little louder when Deerfoot first heard them. They must be made by some animals that cannot be buffaloes.”

“No, the noise would be different. Mul-tal-la knows what they are, for he heard them when he came this way many moons ago and his eyes rested on the animals.”

“What are they?” asked the surprised Deerfoot.

“Wild horses,” was the answer.

The Shawanoe was astonished, for he had never thought of anything of that nature. He had heard rumors, as far away as his own home, of droves of wild horses that roamed over the western plains, numbering many thousands. Reports of the same nature reached him when in St. Louis. Some one had told him that when the Spaniards came to the Southwest, more than two centuries before, a few of their horses had wandered off, and it was from them that the numberless droves had descended.

You need not be reminded that this is a fact. A century ago enormous droves of wild horses roamed over the Llano Estacado and in northern Texas, to which region and neighborhood they mainly confined themselves, though many of them were met on the plains a considerable distance to the northward. It would not be strange if our friends came in contact with them, though not one had yet been seen.

Mul-tal-la said that he and his companion encountered a herd that was as numerous as the buffaloes that had lately threatened them, and at one time the two were in danger of being run down by the equine rovers. By hard work, however, they got out of their way.