The Steel Box Read online

  It was true that Spotted Antelope was far away to the south and not expected for many days. In the meantime, the Sioux village for which the march was aimed had been shifted from its old site to one a little more southerly, among the lower hills, between two shallow streams of water. It was a scant half-day’s march distant. There was no dream of danger threatening among the villagers. They felt that Spotted Antelope was an ample shield between them and the Cheyennes. In conclusion, the youth begged a knife thrust that would end his wretched life, since he had proved a coward and betrayed his people.

  Even that mercy was denied him. Rising Hawk felt that something more could be gained, perhaps, from this glib talker. For now, all was as he wished. There were some sixty or seventy braves within the village. One rush should carry it, and, after that, there would be the scalps of women and children—cheaply taken, and just as valuable as the scalps of matured warriors.

  They pushed on until the evening. Rising Hawk himself, riding in advance, spied on the enemy from the crest of a hill and came back with the report that the Sioux were in their hands. All the village was preparing for the night; the horses were being driven in in the most leisurely fashion. Should they not attack now and overwhelm that town with a single rush?

  They turned to Torridon for an answer. He answered with simply an instinct to delay the horror that seemed sure to come. Let them rest throughout the night. They were weary, now, from the long march. In the morning they would be fresh, and the Sioux would be cold with sleep. In the gray dawn the blow should be struck. Rising Hawk submitted to this advice with some grumbling, but he did not make any appeals. It was felt that the mighty medicine of Torridon alone was worthy of credit for having brought them undetected into the heart of the enemy’s country, and he was looked upon with great respect.

  They pitched their camp at the throat of a blind cañon. It ran straight in toward the heart of the higher hills, and, around the first bend, they camped for the night. The cañon was a pocket that would conceal them from the foe. In the morning they would break out and slaughter!

  Wrapped in his blanket, Torridon lay long awake, staring at the distant, cold shining of the stars. He felt weak and small. It was not the cold of the night that made him tremble. And he wished, with closed, aching eyes, for the end of tomorrow, whatever it might bring.

  He slept and dreamed that the attack took place and that he himself rode in the forefront, shouting, and that in the village he was slaughtering more than all the rest—slaughtering women and children, until the iron hand of a Dakota warrior fell on his throat. He wakened, half choking. There was a touch on his shoulder.

  It was Rising Hawk. All around him stood the shadowy forms of the warriors. The horses had been brought in, soundlessly.

  “What has happened?” asked Rising Hawk.

  “There is danger,” panted Torridon.

  “Aye, White Thunder,” said the chief. “There is danger. Last night you would not let us strike. Now the time has passed. The Dakota boy has escaped and gone to warn his people. What medicine have you now to give us a victory, White Thunder? Or rather, after all our work, what medicine have you that will take us safely home?”

  Torridon staggered to his feet. Across the sky was stretched a thin, high-riding mist. Behind it rode a young moon. Everything could be half seen—the tall, ragged rocks at the sides of the ravine, the tall gloomy forms of the Cheyennes.

  He thought he could see, too, the arrival of the Dakota boy at the village, the mustering of the warriors, and then what? According to the plan that had been made and that the boy could not have failed to know, the Cheyennes were to wait until morning to attack. What band of Dakotas could hear this plan without determining on a counterstroke? No, they were already out and coming, moving swiftly and softly across the plain—on foot, perhaps, to make sure of greater noiselessness. And then the Sioux would come to the mouth of the ravine—perhaps they were here already, and creeping up, rifles ready, murder in their savage hearts!

  Torridon looked wildly around him. How should they escape? The walls went up like perfect cliffs. No horse could mount them. And if the men saved themselves, they would be saved only for the moment. On foot, this vast distance from home, they would be hunted down and speared, like starved wolves.

  “What are we to do?” asked Rising Hawk more harshly. “Do you tremble, maker of medicine?”

  Bitterness and mockery was in his voice, and Torridon said in husky answer: “Leave the horses here . . . go down the ravine . . . every man softly . . . every man softly. Do you hear me, Rising Hawk?”

  “I hear,” said the war chief. “Are we to leave our horses and have them caught . . . while we . . . ?”

  That was not the thought in the mind of Torridon, but suppose that they tried to move from the valley on horseback, and gave to the Sioux the huge targets of man and horse together? So he thought and he insisted almost angrily: “Leave the horses here with the boys. Move out with the rifles. Quickly, quickly, Rising Hawk!”

  “It was at dawn that we were to take scalps,” the chief reminded him with a voice like a snarl. “Now we shall be lucky if we save our own.”

  Nevertheless, he gave the order, and they moved down the cañon slowly, softly. The warriors were both angry and nervous—angry because after all their march they now appeared to be turned back with but a single scalp, nervous because they dreaded any move, no matter how short, without their horses under them.

  They passed down the ravine—Torridon in the rear, stumbling, making more noise than all the rest of that shadowy party, for his knees were very loose and wobbly beneath him. Yet they gained the mouth of the ravine unhindered. Not a shot had been fired against them, and the way home across the prairie was open.

  He could have shouted for joy, but he was withheld by the fierce rush of another thought upon him. Somewhere across the dimness of the moonshine, surely the Sioux were advancing with all their warriors—their boys left at home with the old men and the women to keep guard against the chance of any counterstroke. So they were coming, or else they were unworthy of the name that they gained in generations of fierce campaigning until all their kind upon the plains trembled at the dreadful name of the Dakotas. Tribe after tribe they had thinned to the verge of extinction; tribe after tribe they had thrust west and south. Their pride and their courage and their self-belief were all equally great.

  So they would surely come, to rush the Cheyennes in the throat of the valley. They would come hastily, though silently. Once they closed the mouth of that ravine, the Cheyennes to the last man were theirs, and they would make even the late crushing victory of the great Spotted Antelope seem like child’s play compared with the slaughter that they would make among the rocks.

  So thought Torridon, and then he saw the great opportunity. No rushing of a village. No butchery of women and children. But a stroke of war!

  It lay before him so clearly that already he seemed to see the dark figures trooping. He found Rising Hawk.

  “Half on each side of the ravine, among the rocks . . . scatter the men, Rising Hawk,” he advised. “Then wait and wait. The Dakotas are sure to come. They come to trap us, and they will be trapped like fish in a net. Every Cheyenne will be drenched with blood, and there will be scalps in every teepee.”

  Rising Hawk hesitated, not from doubt, but because the incoming of that thought numbed him with pleasure. He gave the orders instantly, and the idea spread like fire through the ranks. Despite all discipline and the necessity of silence, a grim murmur ran among the braves. They split into two sections. One rolled to the eastern side of the valley, the other rolled to the western side, and in a trice all sight and sound of them had disappeared among the shrubs, among the splintered rocks.

  Even Torridon could hardly believe that the ground was alive with such a dreadful little host of trained fighters. But up the valley, from the place where the boys still kept the horses, there was occasionally the sound of a hoof striking against a rock, or the distinct nois
e of a snort or a cough, as one of the grazing animals sniffed dust up his nostrils.

  And now only time could ripen the tragedy and bring it to perfection. But as he lay, he heard a whisper of one warrior to another: “We cannot fail. How can we fail? The Sky People fight for us. They will lead our bullets into the hearts of the Sioux. Hai! We have strong medicine with us this night.”

  Torridon found his lips stretching into a stiff and painful smile, and his heart was hot and glad. He had hunted beasts before this day. Now he was a hunter of humans, and his veins were running with hot wine.

  VII

  The moon was westering fast. The light it cast seemed to grow dimmer, but this was only in seeming and not in fact, for the sky was mottled with a patterning of broken clouds, and in the distance the curve of the river was beginning to be visible, like a streak of smoke across the lower ground.

  Torridon began to take sights with his rifle, aiming at rocks on the farther side of the valley, shifting to shadowy bushes, and promising himself that it would be difficult work to strike a target by such a light as this. A light that constantly changed. Yes, when he looked now down toward the river, he saw that it was no longer a strip of smoke, but a width of dull, tarnished silver. Then he understood, the dawn was coming.

  He was cold and stiff with lying in one place. Dew clogged his hair and moistened the tips of his ears. But wild excitement made him forget such minor evils. The dawn was coming, the light slowly, slowly, was freshening—and then suddenly out of the lowlands came a troop of figures!

  They were like black, striding giants through the ground mist. And, he could see, faintly, the shimmer of light on their rifles. They had taken long, long to come, but now they were coming swiftly.

  He turned his rifle toward them—then remembered that their keen eyes might detect the shining of the steel of the barrel. Hastily he muffled the gun under his robe.

  Surely fifty other men among the rocks were making similar movements, but there was not so much as a whisper of sound. Very well that this was so, for there was no wind. The morning was deathly still, and the sky was turning milk-white with the coming of the day.

  Straight on came the Dakotas. With a wildly beating heart Torridon counted them. Forty—sixty—seventy-two striding forms, black as jet through the land mist. Coming rapidly and yet without a whisper of sound.

  They gained the throat of the ravine. Let not a Cheyenne move. Another ten strides, and the foe would be in the mouth of the trap.

  But in the mouth of the ravine, as though suspicious of the greatness of their luck, the Sioux made a considerable halt, until, up the valley, came the sound of stamping and snorting horses. Then with one accord, no signal or order given, they moved forward, drawn by their lust for horseflesh and their burning hunger for Cheyenne blood. They went with their straight bodies now bent well forward, their rifles swinging, and presently they were well within the gap . . .

  At that instant, a single rifle clanged from the opposite side of the ravine. In the middle of the Sioux band a warrior bounded into the air with a cry that seemed to Torridon the hugest sound that ever left human lips.

  Before the dead body reached the ground, fifty rifles had spat fire and the Dakotas went down like toppling grass. They were all in a close body. If a bullet missed one it was almost sure to strike another. A great shout of woe and terror rose from them, and, as it fell, the shrill yell of dying men still hung high in the air. They wavered—then they broke back for the mouth of the ravine. Too late! Loading as they moved, the Cheyennes were slipping from among the rocks. That instant of wavering was costly. Against freshly charged weapons the Dakotas made their rush, and the blast of the second volley withered and curled them up and sent them scampering in plain panic down the valley.

  After them went the Cheyennes, for they remembered, now, the horses and the boys with whom their trap had been baited. They rounded the turn of the ravine. The ground was littered with fallen guns, which the enemy had dropped in their flight, and in the growing light the Dakotas could be seen clambering hastily up the sheer walls of the rocks.

  There were few loaded weapons to fire after them. But there was enough work to secure those who had not managed to gain the rocks. The fleetest of the Cheyennes had overtaken them, and, in the largeness of their hearts, a few prisoners were taken.

  Madness took the Cheyennes by the throat. Up and down that ravine men danced and yelled in the fury of their joy. The scalps had been torn from the dead or the dying. The weapons had been gathered, the fallen stripped of clothing.

  Before full day showed the real horror of the cañon, Torridon took Ashur and rode him down the valley, the stallion snorting with disgust. At the mouth, facing the brightening lowlands, he waited for the Cheyennes to come after him and begin the southward march. And then it was that temptation swelled big in the heart of Torridon. There was no one near him. Once away, no horse among their numbers could overtake Ashur.

  But his promise held him—that and the knowledge that he was deep in hostile country where, in a day or two, scores of manhunters would be on the trail.

  So he hesitated, and at last the torrent of warriors poured out around him. Their work was finished. Twenty-six dead men lay in the cañon. Five captives, their feet tied beneath the bellies of ponies, were carried along, and among them—strange chance—the boy who had escaped from them and given that warning by which the Sioux had been drawn into this dreadful man trap.

  As every man went by Torridon he cast a present or a promise to the white man. Beaded moccasins, hunting knives, a deer-skin shirt, even one or two rifles were donated. A spare pony was loaded with these gifts, and well burdened by them.

  But this was not all. Rising Hawk was hot to go at once against the Dakota village and strike it while its defenders were away and before those stragglers across the hills could regain the town.

  He was dissuaded with difficulty. The way across the high hills was very short. It was certain that the stragglers from the battle already had carried themselves and their tale of woe to the town, and at that very moment the Dakotas were able to throw into the field a greater manpower than that of the invaders.

  But though dissuaded from an attack, upon one point Rising Hawk had made up his mind. Among his prisoners was a tall youth, wounded through the left calf and bleeding freely in spite of what bandaging they could do. He never could live through a single day of riding. But he was the son of Spotted Antelope, and in the camp of the Sioux, still living and reserved for the return of Spotted Antelope, was Standing Bull. Why not exchange the son of the chief for the big Cheyenne?

  They journeyed rapidly around the hills toward the town. Before they saw it, they heard a sound like the noise of a rising wind. It was the many-throated wail from the village. And as they came in view and drew nearer, they heard the noise increasing, a sound that took from the heart of Torridon all the hot pride of victory.

  Such a victory never had been before—twenty-six Sioux fallen and five taken, and not a single Cheyenne had been lost!

  Yet all the manhood of those stern Dakotas was not broken. Re-armed with every chance weapon they could pick up, the survivors of the late battle, reinforced by old men and young boys, sat their horses in a long line. They were drawn up close to the outer line of the lodges, to be sure, but nevertheless it was plain that they intended to fight their defensive fight, in case of need, in the open field and not from behind shelter. Up and down their ranks rode an old chief, no doubt exhorting them to be of good heart in spite of the disaster.

  Rising Hawk sent in the boy who had been captured before. It was only a few minutes that they had to wait. Evidently the son of Spotted Antelope was highly prized in the Dakota camp, and presently the great form of Standing Bull was seen riding out from the village, with an escort of two warriors.

  The son of the Sioux chief was sent forward to meet them, likewise accompanied by two Cheyenne warriors. So the parties met. The Cheyennes took their comrade and turned away. The S
ioux returned to the village.

  And so it was that Torridon clasped hands with Standing Bull again.

  The giant Indian made no secret of his joy at finding himself among his friends again, but he declared that he never had had a doubt that his good friend, White Thunder, would devise some means for his delivery. He had been assured in a dream, he vowed, that White Thunder was coming to his aid, with the Sky People. Now it was accomplished.

  The happiness of Standing Bull, indeed, was complete. For, having brought Torridon into the tribe and recaptured him after his escape, he felt that everything that was done by the medicine of the white man redounded largely to his credit. In this belief he was not crossed by the remainder of the Cheyennes.

  Of the entire party of fifty, there was not a single man who had not at least counted a second or a third coup. And twenty-six scalps hung dripping at their saddlebows. They were enriched with honor, and they had avenged a recent defeat so thoroughly that the whole Cheyenne nation and all the most distant tribes of it would rejoice with them.

  Rising Hawk was now a man of note. On the strength of this brilliant action, performed while he was yet wounded from the other battle, he stood fair to succeed High Wolf when that old man at last died or resigned his leadership of the tribe.

  As for Torridon, he did not receive so much honor for his suggestion of the trap at the mouth of the ravine. It was rather because he had predicted the time at which they would take scalps. And even for that the regard he received was of a peculiar nature. To be sure he had done well. He had fought with the foremost. But still there was little honor paid to his person. It was to his magic powers that honors were accorded in the most liberal sense. They looked upon him not so much as a brave or wise man but as a peculiar instrument to which the spirits had confided an overwhelming power. He was hardly thought of as an individual at all.

  Trusting in that power, straight south rode the war party. If they met with Spotted Antelope, they were wildly confident that victory again would be theirs. So Torridon spent anxious days until the river was crossed and at last they entered the comparatively friendly prairie where the power of the Cheyennes ruled.