“King?” Healy whispered. “Wake up!
Something’s wrong! The snow’s melting.” Mabry lifted his head a little. He could hear the steady drip of snow melting from the trees, and feel the warm softness of the air. He lay back on leis bed, smiling. “It’s all right,” he said. “It’s the chinook.” “I couldn’t figure what was happening.” “It’s a warm wind, that’s all. By morning there won’t be a snowdrift in the country.” Mabry stretched out again, listening to the lulling sound of dripping water. They could travel faster now. And it would simplify the feed problem for their horses.
The snow had been getting deep even for mountain-bred stock.
When he awakened the sun was shining in his eyes and the sky was wide and blue.
BY KEEPING to the high ground where there was less runoff and so less mud, they made good time. The air was clear and they could see for a great distance.
Nowhere was there any smoke, nor did they come upon the tracks of any party of horsemen.
Mabry scouted well in advance, studying the country. He knew all the signs, and watched for them, noticing the tracks of animals, grass bent down, and watching for any sudden change of direction in the tracks of animals he saw.
Such a change might indicate the presence of men in the vicinity. At least, at the time the animal passed.
Yet by nightfall, when they came down off the hills to camp in a coulee, they had seen nothing, and had miles behind them. All were toughened to walking now.
It was Healy that saw the tracks first, the tracks of unshod ponies. Healy spoke quickly, indicating them. A moment later, they saw the Indians.
The party was large, numbering at least twenty.
Even as they were sighted, the Indians started walking their horses toward them. “It’s all right,” Mabry said. “They’re Shoshones.” They came on, spreading out a little as they drew near, the leader lifting his right hand, palm out. He was a wide-shouldered man with graying hair. As they came together, he lowered his hand to grip Mabry’s palm. “Me High Bear. Friend to Gray Fox.
You know Gray Fox?” “Knew him in Arizona,” Mabry said. Aside to the others, he added, “Gray Fox was the Indian name for General Crook.” Mabry glanced at the dozen spare horses they were driving with them. Those horses could be an answer
their greatest problem. The point was, would the Shoshones trade? Yet he should know, he told himself, that an Indian loves nothing better than a trade.
“Trade horses with the Crows?” he asked.
High Bear chuckled. “We trade. This time they know it.” He glanced at the followers of Mabry.
“Where you horses?” Mabry explained, taking his time and giving the story as an Indian would tell it, in great detail and with many gestures. He told of the fight with the renegade Sioux on the Red Fork, and the flight of their party. The story was more than a mere account.
Mabry told it for a purpose, knowing well that the Shoshones were old enemies of the Sioux, and that they would read the story themselves if any tracks remained.
So he told the story of their flight, of the shelter and the sick woman. It was a story most Indians had themselves experienced, and they listened with attention.
The story was also a prelude to a horse trade. The Shoshones, knowing they had fought enemies, would be more willing in a trade now than they might have been otherwise. The fight with the Sioux made them allies of a sort. “Camp close by,” High Bear said. “You come?” Swinging in behind the Shoshones, they followed a half mile down the coulee to a camp of a dozen lodges. Indian children and dogs came running to meet them and to stare with wide eyes at the strangers. Within a few minutes they were all seated around a fire, eating and talking. King Mabry brought the spare weapons from the horses and laid them out neatly on a blanket near the fire. He made no reference to them, but managed an effective display that drew immediate attention from the Shoshones. The rifles were in good shape, but the handguns were old and much used. The Shoshones cast many sidelong glances at the weapons. Indians were always short of ammunition and rarely had rifles enough to go around. It was upon this that Mabry was depending. If a trade could be arranged, they might get horses enough to elude Barker and get to the Montana settlements in quick time.
High Bear picked up the fine-looking Winchester 73 that had belonged to Griffin and turned it over in his hands. He obviously had a fighting man’s appreciation of a good weapon. “You swap?” he suggested. “Maybe,” Mabry admitted, without interest. “We could use three or four ponies.” High Bear continued to study the gun. That he liked the balance and feel of it was obvious. Mabry picked up an older disrifle and showed it to the Chief. “Two ponies,” he said gravely.
The Shoshone did not even glance at the rifle, but continued to examine the Winchester.
Mabry took out his tobacco sack and passed it around. High Bear rolled a smoke as quickly as any cow hand, but most of the Indians smoked pipes.
“That bay pony,” Mabry said, “and the grulla. I might be interested in them.” High Bear put down the Winchester and picked up the nearest handgun, an old Colt .44. “No good,” he said. “No shoot far.” Mabry reached for the gun. “Look.” He gestured toward a pine cone thirty yards off: It was a big cone, wide as a man’s hand, and longer.
As he spoke, he fired. The pine cone split into many pieces. “Waa-a-ah!” The awed Indians looked from the pine cone to Mabry. Mabry picked three pine cones from the ground near the fire. “Throw ’em up,” he said to Healy. “Throw ’em high.” Healy tossed the cones into the air and Mabry blasted the first two as they went up, then shifted the old gun to his left hand, palmed his own gun, and fired. The cone was dropping fast when the bullet struck. It shattered into bits.
The Shoshones talked excitedly, staring at the gun. High Bear took the Colt from Mabry and examined it.
“You shoot fast,” he admitted. “Gun shoot good.” He turned the weapon over in his hands. “Maybe all right.. How much you want?” For an hour they argued and protested, trading the guns from hand to hand. They shared the meal the Shoshones had prepared and Janice made coffee, which the Indians drank with gusto. Finally, after much argument, a deal was consummated.
In exchange for the Winchester 73, an old Spencer .50, and the worn-out Colt, they got three ponies. By distributing the packs among all the horses, none carried too much weight.
At daybreak, with a fresh supply of jerked meat traded from the Indians in exchange for extra ammunition and a blanket, they returned to the trail. Healy rode up and joined King Mabry, who was once more riding the black. “That meat was mighty tender,” he said, “and had a nice flavor.
What was it?” “Venison.” “I never tasted anything quite like it. How do they get it so tender?” “Squaw chews it,” Mabry replied matter-of-factly. “What?” Healy searched Mabry’s face for some indication that he might be joking, his sick expression betraying his own feelings. “You don’t mean to tell me-was “Sure,” Mabry said. “Squaw chews the meat until it’s tender. Then she cooks it. Never cared for the idea, myself.” High Bear had been interested in Mabry’s account of the renegade Sioux, and promised to backtrack the party and see if they could be rounded up. Knowing the ancient enmity between the Shoshones and the Sioux, and considering the sizes of the two parties, Mabry was sure that if High Bear found the Sioux, that would be one party less to worry about. But High Bear assured him his party had come upon no tracks of white men or shod horses.
All the Shoshones in the party had been among those who had served with General Crook under Chief Washakie at the Battle of the Rosebud.
They were friendly to the white men, and had been fine soldiers in that battle. Riding steadily north under a sky as balmy as that of spring, they found little snow remaining except on the hillsides away from the sun. Nevertheless, Mabry was uneasy.
Yet despite his wariness, the quietness of the country, and the reassurance of the Shoshones, they almost walked into an ambush. Tom Healy was riding point, with Mabry scouting off a hundred yards to the left, when the Indians struck without warning.
Suddenly, with no previous indication of their presence, a half-dozen Indians arose from a ravine. Only Healy’s shouted warning saved them.
Healy had been watching a bird, the only movement in all that vast sweep of land and sky, and he had seen it suddenly swoop for a landing in some brush at the ravine’s edge. When it was about to land it fluttered wildly and shot up into the air again.