"what is this, brother?" whispered tawannears beside me.
i explained, and kachina and peter rolled closer to listen.
"wah!" gasped the girl, when i had finished. "this god hawenneyu is a great god! he has sent the horse to aid us to escape."
"how can that be?" i answered her peevishly. "we lie here bound and helpless. if the whole herd came and waited next the stallion we could not use them."
"nevertheless, it is good medicine," insisted tawannears. "my heart grows strong again."
"ja," agreed peter with more interest than he usually exhibited. "we hafe der middle of an egscape. if we get der first part——"
sunkawakan-kedeshka's silken ears shot forward across my face. i heard the padding of moccasined feet.
"the herd-guard!" i exclaimed. "remember, i am crying out in fear. the stallion is biting me."
and straightway i gave vent to a series of fearsome shrieks, at which the spotted stallion drew back in amazement, unable to understand the antics of the man he considered his friend. the youthful herdsman broke into a run, and tawannears hailed him in a mixture of dakota and comanche phrases:
"come quickly! is this the way to treat captives? the horse is biting my white brother!"
the comanche laughed, peering through the starlit darkness, and i noted with interest that as soon as he identified the horse he approached with marked caution.
"the spotted horse will give him an easier death than our warriors at the torture-stake," he exulted. "what are teeth and hoofs to the knife and fire? if i leave the horse he will soon make an end of the taivo.* but to-morrow will tell another story. the taivo will linger for hours, begging for the hatchet."
* white man.
"they say your father would dress you in women's garb and beat you with switches if any harm came to the taivo before the council decided his fate," said tawannears sternly. "mount the horse and ride him away."
"mount the spotted horse!" returned the boy with derision. "never! not one of our warriors has been able to back him since we raided him from the teton."
"no, for they are comanches," sneered tawannears.
the boy dealt him a lusty kick in the ribs, and drove off the stallion with thrusts of the light lance he carried. hoofs sawing and teeth flashing, sunkawakan-kedeshka gave me one look of regret, emitted a whinny of hurt inquiry and faded into the darkness.
"what do you mean, peter, by the middle of an escape?" i whispered curiously as soon as the herd-guard was out of hearing.
"der first part," answered the dutchman, "is getting off der thongs. dot we hafe to do. der middle part is finding a way to leafe der village. dot we hafe in der horse——"
"how?" demanded tawannears.
"he is a king of horses," returned peter placidly. "hafe you forgot der lidtle band of mares he ledt at nadoweiswe's village? what he does, der herd will do."
"'tis true," i assented eagerly. "with him to aid us we could stampede the herd."
"but why talk of such things when we are helpless?" was tawannears' gloomy comment.
"we are not helpless," interrupted kachina.
she rolled herself over and over until she lay on her stomach close to tawannears.
"the warrior who bound my wrists did not tie them so tight as yours," she explained. "i smiled at him, and i think he means to ask the comanche chief to let him take me into his teepee—the ant! if he did i would kill him with his own knife. if your teeth are sharp as mine you can gnaw the knots loose. then i will free the rest of you."
and as tawannears hesitated in bewilderment at her suggestion, she continued:
"hurry! the eagles are singing of victory in the sky. they say we shall defy the comanche."
"yes, yes," i pleaded. "make haste, brother. the herd-guards may come again."
so tawannears rolled himself into a position where he could bring his strong teeth—the teeth of a barbarian, exempt from white man's ills—to bear upon the girl's knotted wrists, triced in the small of her back just above the hips. and whilst he labored at the tough hide thongs, peter and i kept watch for the return of the adolescent. had he come we planned to give warning, and kachina and tawannears would have resumed their customary attitudes but we saw no more of him. i think he and his friends were taking turns sneaking into the village to listen outside the council teepee to the debate of the warriors on our fate, and this meant more work for those watching the grazing horses. for twice i heard the distant whinny of sunkawakan-kedeshka, evidently challenging my attention, and i suspect it required one boy's vigilance to restrict his wanderings, alone.
time dragged slowly, and the seneca's lips became slippery with blood from his torn gums. i took his place, and when i was worn out, peter's heavy jaws assumed the burden. 'twas he wrenched the last knot loose; but several moments passed before kachina was able to restore the circulation in her hands. then she unbound her ankles, and without waiting to rub her feet back to life, fell to upon our lashings. in ten minutes we were all four free, crawling—we could not have walked had we tried—toward the herd.
our plan was simple. it had to be. we advanced until we could descry the figures of two of the herd-guards against the faint starlight, unkempt, naked striplings, lances wandlike in their right hands. on this, the village side, the task was easier, and so most of the guards were on the flanks and opposite to our position. beyond the two guards was the restless mass of horses, some hundreds of them, grazing, fighting, rolling, sleeping.
tawannears and i stripped off our shirts and breeches, and so assumed the general aspect of comanche warriors, crawled back a short distance and then ran forward openly, as though we were carrying a message from the village. the two guards heard the patter of our moccasins and rode in to meet us, quite guileless, probably taking us for certain of their comrades. when they called to us, we answered with grunts, puffing mightily. they never suspected us. i was beside my man, had one hand on his thigh, before he guessed aught was wrong, and as he opened his mouth to cry a warning i had him by the throat and throttled the life out of him. his cry was no more than a gurgle in the night. tawannears was even more expeditious.
to our left we heard another pair of guards talking together. they may have detected the choked cry of the one i killed. at any rate, we could not afford to pause to establish a plan for meeting them. tawannears softly called up kachina and peter, and i rode into the herd, whistling for sunkawakan-kedeshka. he answered me at once. a long-drawn-out whinny of delight, and he battered his way to my side with flying hoofs. i swung from the herd-guard's horse to his back, and trotted over to my friends.
"quick, brother!" hissed tawannears.
he pointed at two mounted figures that loomed perilously close. one of them hailed at that moment, mistaking me for a brother guard. i growled something indistinct in my throat, and heaved kachina up in front of me, holding her in my arms and twisting my fingers in the stallion's mane in place of reins. he did not tremble under the extra weight, only tossed his head and wickered—much to my gratitude, for i was by no means sure how he would regard a double load, and i could not leave the girl by herself, considering she had never ridden before, nor to one of the others who were scarcely less ignorant of horsemanship.
tawannears and peter climbed gingerly on the horses of the slain guards, and we plunged into the center of the herd.
"ha-yah-yah-yaaaa-aaa-aa-ah-hhh-yeeee-eee-ee!"
the war-whoop of the long house split the silence of the night. i excited sunkawakan-kedeshka to a frenzy. tawannears and peter thrust right and left with their captured lances. half-tamed at best, these horses were restless of all restraint, and they reacted immediately to the turmoil. a shrill scream from the spotted stallion produced a chorus of responses. mares fought to reach his side. other stallions fought to keep them away. the herd went wild. kicking, biting, neighing, screaming, it smashed aside the efforts of the herd guards to stop it and pelted southeast into the open prairie.
and in the midst of it my comrades swayed in their seats, in danger at any instant of being knocked to the ground. and kachina and i clung desperately to the bare back of the stallion, his great muscles lifting him along at a stride which soon placed him in the fore of the stampede.
i saw one boy go down in the path of the mad rush, he and his mount trampled to a pulp. others rode wide, shouting the alarm. the village behind us rocked to the thunder of hoofs; a cry of dismay rose to the stars that blinked in the dim vault overhead. then teepees, herd-guards, warriors, trees and river were gone in the darkness. we were alone with our plunder on the prairie, all around us tossing heads and manes, flirting hoofs, lean barrels stretched close to the ground, tails flicking the grass-tips.
mile after mile, the cavalcade pounded on, and i knew the discomforts my comrades must be suffering. but i could not stop. nobody could have stopped that wild flight. i doubt if i could have stopped the spotted stallion in the first hour. all i could do was to grip him tight with my knees, cling to kachina and pray he and his fellows would pick fair ground in the darkness.
it was near dawn when i judged there was a chance of success to stay the herd. i began with the stallion, calming him, soothing his nerves, and gradually, my influence extended to the horses surrounding him, mostly his attendant mares, as well as a few colts. no foals could have kept up with our rush. in fact, we had been dropping horses by the way for three hours or more. those that were left were the hardiest, and their eyes were bloodshot, their flanks wet with foam, their lungs bursting. i slowed the troop to a canter, to a trot, tawannears and peters seconding me as well as they could. finally, we pulled them to a walk, and induced them to graze.
i felt safe enough. we had traveled at a terrible pace, and the comanche had no means of keeping up with us. also, we were all exhausted, and i had designs for making use of our plunder which made me unwilling to founder the herd. so we sought shelter in a grove of trees, driving in there the stallion's immediate following, and permitting the other horses to graze at will, whilst we four slept through the forenoon.
upon awaking, we killed a colt for food, taking pains to dispatch him in a part of the wood down-wind from his kind, and after eating i put into effect the plan i had designed to cover our future trail. tawannears, peter and i cut out of the ruck of the herd a score of the choicest ponies, which we drove into the wood to join sunkawakan-kedeshka's cohort, guarded for the time being by kachina. and this being done, we chased the remainder south, frightening them with bunches of burning grass. if the comanches or others picked up our trail now they would be much more likely to follow the larger body, as was evidenced by the area of hoof-prints, and we might continue undisturbed upon our eastward journey, with a quantity of superfluous horseflesh to trade for weapons or food, besides a provision of mounts for ourselves to expedite our progress.
we left the grove at sunset and rode at a leisurely pace until the stars told us it was midnight, camping in the open close to a rivulet where there was ample grass and water for the horses. the next day we traveled as far as a second grove of trees on the banks of a considerable stream, which we concluded was the river we had followed eastward from the base of the sky mountains, and we made a halt of two days here to rest the herd and determine in our minds what our next step should be. i was all for continuing as we were, but tawannears and peter held that our wisest course was to cross the river and head north to the dakota country, where we should be among friends and might be able to rely upon an escort to the mississippi. but, as usual, fate intervened, and relieved us of the burden of the decision.
we were arguing back and forth on the afternoon of the second day, the horses grazing in the confines of the grove under the supervision of kachina, who, with a little practice, had become as skilled a herd-guard as a shepherdess of turkeys, when we were disturbed by a call from her. she beckoned us to the bluff above the river.
"strange people over there," she said, pointing.
the stream here was not more than a hundred or two hundred yards wide and in the clear air we could see the newcomers distinctly. they were plainly a returning war-party, travel-stained, badly cut-up, the worse for their adventures. of sixty or more warriors within view ten or a dozen bore evidence of wounds. their lances were broken. their buffalo-hide shields were cut and hacked. but their horses were in the saddest plight of all. one lay down and died as we looked. others could never move from where they stood.
tawannears' eyes gleamed.
"here is fresh favor from hawenneyu," he exclaimed.
"how so!" i demanded.
"these people need horses. we need arms. we will make a trade with them."
"they look like very bad people," objected kachina.
and in all truth, they were an evil group of swart, thick-set, cruel-visaged savages.
"no matter," asserted the seneca. "they are on the far side of the stream from us. we will see that they stay there until we have finished our business with them. otetiani and tawannears will ride across and talk to their chief, and gahano and peter must move briskly about the wood to appear a numerous band. lead the horses around where they can be seen. call to one another. walk about where they can see a part of you. we shall fool them. their need is bitter."
none of us was disposed to argue with him, for if the need of the strange savages was bitter, ours was no less so. we had two lances wherewith to hunt and to defend ourselves, not even a knife amongst the four of us. weapons we must have to dare traverse this tremendous sweep of open country, roamed by the most predacious indians on the continent.
i whistled up the spotted stallion and one of his mares, and tawannears and i mounted and rose forth from the trees, making a great play as we came into the open on the river bank of handing over our lances and other dummy weapons to peter, who straightway marched back into the wood. we also pretended to shout orders to different points along the bank, and the dutchman and kachina whooped the answers to us or responded with whistle-signals. the band on the opposite bank had dragged themselves to their feet, and stared sullenly at us as we splashed into the shallows, and with upraised arms signaling peace.
"they look much stouter than any tribe we have seen," i remarked. "why, they wear body-armor, cuirasses of buffalo-hide. there is one who has an arrow still sticking under his arm."
tawannears frowned.
"kachina was right," he said. "these are bad people. i remember now. they are the tonkawa."*
* literal meaning—"they-all-stay-together."
"who are they!" i asked.
we were not yet within earshot of them as they clustered on the bank.
"chatanskah often told tawannears of them when i first dwelt with corlaer in his teepee years ago. they are the scourge of the plains. they have no home, but go wherever they please, hunting and killing. their hands are raised against all other people's. they have no allies, no brothers. they make no treaties. they never receive ambassadors. they are ravaging one year in the spanish countries in the south, or matching lances with the apache; and the year after they strike the dakota or the cheyenne. they are like the wolf-pack. they never abandon their prey, and you must kill all before they abandon an attack. their favorite food is human flesh."
i shuddered, eying askance the bestial visages lowering on the bank, faces as depraved, if more intelligent, than those of the awataba.
"and we are to bargain with these!" i exclaimed.
"we must, brother. they are great warriors. if we yield to them they will think we fear them, and they will pursue us. our horses would be bait enough. no, we have come so far, and we cannot draw back. we must carry it with a high hand. be bold. scowl at them. show contempt. we have them at our mercy, but it is not convenient for us to attack. that is our position."
we kicked our horses up the slope of the bank, and drew rein in the midst of the half-circle of tonkawa warriors. not a weapon was displayed, for that would have been a gross violation of indian etiquette, and even these freebooters respected the fundamental precepts of the race to some extent. but we were subtly made to feel that every man there itched to twist his knife in our hearts.
i found myself drawing back my lips from my teeth in an animalistic snarl of reciprocal hatred as tawannears thrust out his two hands with the forefingers crossed at right angles, the figure in the universal sign-language for the desire to trade. when a young warrior tried to crowd his horse closer i touched sunkawakan-kedeshka with my heel, and the spotted stallion shoved the offender off the bank. the youngster scrambled up again, a murderous look on his face, but the tonkawa chief, a broad-shouldered giant of a man, wearing the hide cuirass and a feathered helmet, spat out a guttural order which curbed the tide of hatred.
"what do you want?" he demanded roughly in the broken jargon of comanche, which passed for the trade language of the plains.
