Jubal Sackett

Chapter Eleven.

"One leg no good," Keokotah said, and took another bite from the meat in his hands.

"I fell," I explained.

"Not you." He pointed into the brush where I had fought the panther. "Him." He chewed for a minute. "No catch deer, catch you."

"You mean that cat had a bad leg?" I struggled to sit up.

He motioned for me to be still. "You stay. You much scratch. I fix."

With gentle fingers I felt of my wounds. Where the flesh had been torn by the panther's talons my wounds were bound with some kind of poultice. It had not been a dream, then. My wounds had been treated. "I'm obliged," I said. "Are you a medicine man, too?"

He chuckled and gave me a wry look. "No medicine man. All know." He showed me the slender trunk of a young pine no thicker than two of my fingers. Then he indicated the inner bark of the plum. He had pounded them together with some wild cherry bark also, boiled the concoction, and made a poultice.

"You no come. I know something wrong. I come to look." He pointed. "I find him. He dead. Some meat gone, so I look for you."

He had killed a deer, and he made a broth of the meat, bone marrow, and some herbs. I ate it slowly, savoring every bit. Then I was tired and I lay back, resting and willing to rest.

"Kapata was here?" said Keokotah.

When I had told my story he shrugged. "I find tracks. They go to Great River." He chewed in silence and then glanced at me again. Then he placed my bow and quiver close at hand and lay down and went to sleep.

It was night and I was tired, but no longer wished to sleep. Keokotah had come back to look for me, and a lucky thing. Could I have survived? I think so. I knew of herbs to treat wounds. I could have survived, yet he had returned. He was my friend.

Listening to the night I heard no sounds but those natural to the forest and the night--only the wind in the long grass of the cove and the chuckling sound from the stream near the cave mouth. I closed my eyes but not to sleep, only to think.

When I was up and about, we must move with speed. Kapata would seek Itchakomi and might find her before we could. He was a hard, stubborn man and not to be frustrated by any woman, yet from what Ni'kwana had said this was no ordinary woman. Still, we must hurry. I would deliver the message from Ni'kwana and protect her from Kapata if that were necessary, and then go on about my business.

It was a new land out there, and I wished to see it. I wanted to wander down the long hills, seek out the wooded canyons, follow its running streams. I wanted to live from the country, breathe the air of the high mesas, and climb where the streams were born from under the slide rock.

Now I must become well quickly. It was no time to be lying here. I finished what remained of the broth. I would need strength for the bow, strength for walking the long miles, strength for the paddle of my canoe.

Did Kapata have a canoe? Perhaps not. In that might lie an advantage.

Wind bent the tall grass, stirred among the leaves, fluttered the small flame of my fire. I closed my eyes. A morning would come.

Gently, I eased my broken leg. I could manage that leg in a canoe. I would have to sit and not kneel as I most often did, but the bone would knit as well in a canoe as lying here.

How many days had passed? I had kept no record, had only the vaguest idea. I had slept and awakened, but how long had I slept? Was I not unconscious a part of the time? No matter. It was time to move on and I would move, if only a mile a day.

How long had Keokotah been with me? Again I had no idea and when I asked he merely shrugged.

Yet for two days longer I rested, gathering strength, moving about the camp, making a better crutch, planning our move. Of one thing I was sure. Someday I would return to this place, to this grassy cove.

There was a trail that led through it, and Keokotah was convinced the stream in the cave was the same that issued far below in the Sequatchie valley. I had seen but little of the valley, yet it was a place I could come to love. It was a place where we Sacketts belonged.

On a tree near the cave I carved an A, but this time I carved an arrow beneath it, pointing down.

The first day we traveled but five miles before I tired too greatly to go on, but on the second day we reached my canoe.

The river called Tenasee flowed south, described a great curve, and turned back to the north to empty into the river the Iroquois called Ohio. There was, Keokotah warned, a great whirlpool not far south of where we were. Many canoes had been lost there and Indians drowned. Keokotah had sat on the cliffs above and watched canoes go through or into the Suck, as it was sometimes called. It was a place where Indians said, "the mountains look at each other." The waters above were about a half mile wide, but where they entered the deep gorge they were compressed into a space of less than seventy yards.

"Can we go through?" I asked.

Keokotah shrugged. "It is best to hold to the south," he said. "I have seen some canoes go through."

There was a whirlpool where boats were seized and swept round and round, and some were carried into the depths, whence only bits and pieces came to the surface.

We beached our canoe above the narrow river, and on a small point of land among some willows we ate and slept. Keokotah had not known chicory before but was developing a taste for it. I shaved some of the dried and roasted root into a bark dish and made enough for each of us.

It was in my mind to collect more of the root, for I had seen less and less of it and doubted it would grow beyond the Great River, where not many white men had been.

We rested there above the gorge, and at night when all was still we could hear the muffled roar of the waters below us. It was a dangerous place for a man to go, even more so with my crippled leg. If I had to swim against a powerful current ...

Well, one must take some chances, and to go west and not to follow the river would be hard indeed.

When evening came I paused by the water before going to sleep, and stood there facing westward toward the unknown lands.

What mystery lay waiting to be solved? What strange lands to be seen? I might well be the first white man other than the men of De Soto to see these lands. Even he had seen but little, and the Far Seeing Lands beyond ... who knew of them?

Even the Indians had not seen most of those lands. Water was scarce and a man could not carry enough. Someday men would come with horses that could carry them far out on those wide, mysterious plains.

Were there buffalo there? Could a man break a buffalo to ride? The idea seemed ridiculous, but it stayed with me. Why not, if one was captured young and taught from birth to be friendly to a man and if the man fed and cared for it and broke it gradually to the idea?

When morning came we put the canoe into the water and shoved off, but no sooner were we in the current than we felt the difference. The river seemed to have taken on a new power. The water was dark and swift and the canoe shot forward. There was no visible turbulence, no white water, just a sense of rushing power that swept us along. Keokotah, who was in the bow, turned once to glance at me and then gave all his attention to the canoe.

Faster and faster we went until suddenly the canoe shot around a point of rocks and plunged into a rocky defile where the river hurled itself against the rock walls, against great boulders, throwing water high into the air. Keokotah was a master, and crippled though I was I had great skill at handling canoes both in rivers and on the sea. The river roared and foamed about us. Dead ahead was a mighty shelf of rock fallen from the cliff above and we were thrown at it with what seemed tremendous force, and then the water whipped us away just as we seemed about to crash. Our eyes were blinded by splashing water as spray was hurled like stones into our faces. We dipped a paddle here and there, fighting for the south edge, which had seemed safest to Keokotah watching from above.

Suddenly the great whirlpool was just before us, and we whipped around it, but riding the high side toward the south we were flung free and in a moment were sliding downstream at a faster speed than I had ever traveled in a canoe. Then we were in swift but quiet water. Drenched in cold sweat I looked at Keokotah, but his back was squarely toward me and I could not judge his fear, had there been any.

We were in a deep canyon and found no place to escape the river. Chewing jerked venison we traveled on. It was after sundown when we came upon an island. Easing behind it, we found a small beach of gravel where he could draw up our canoe.

We prepared no food, nor did we talk. Exhausted, we rolled in our blankets and slept, and did not awaken until the sun was high.

There followed days of traveling the river. We fished, we hunted, we slept on the banks, and twice we had brief fights with strange Indians, but my longbow carried yards further than could their bows. In the first encounter, the Indians drew off after a man was wounded before they were within bow range. On the second occasion there was an ineffectual exchange of arrows, and then our lighter and faster canoe drew away from them.

We saw game everywhere--numerous deer and occasional small herds of buffalo. For mile upon mile we saw no human life or signs of any. Several times we saw bears fishing at the edges of rivers. They ignored us for the most part, one standing up to see us the better. After looking us over and deciding we were of no consequence it went back to scooping fish from the water.

The river turned north, and after a while we entered the Ohio, a much larger river. There was an Indian village near where the Tenasee entered the Ohio but we passed it at night. Dogs barked and a few Indians came from their lodges to look about. We were far out on the water and they saw us not. Some miles further we camped the night on a sandbar covered with willows, building a small fire for the smoke to keep the mosquitoes away, and at daybreak we were in the canoe once more. Ahead of us lay the Great River, which some Indians called the Mississippi.

My leg was now much better, and soon I would discard the crutch. Whenever possible I moved without it, trying to get the muscles working again.

Having no experience with broken limbs I had no idea when to get rid of the crutch.

The Mississippi, if such it was called, proved a different river. It wound and twisted through the land, carrying much debris, huge trees torn from its banks, once even a cut board, which puzzled us indeed. The other river for which we sought would be several days travel away to the south. How far I did not know.

Keokotah had been there, of course. He had waited there for me and had come looking only when he was sure something had gone wrong.

We camped on the Great River, on a sandy island partly made up of gigantic old trees that had drifted together, moored to the bottom by their own roots and branches. These were drifted trees from somewhere far upstream. Debris and mud had gathered about them, and an island had been created of several acres. Willows had grown up and some other larger stuff had started. No doubt the island would remain until some spring flood tore it loose and scattered its bits and pieces.

Our fire was going in a sheltered place behind great roots, and fish were broiling.

I said to Keokotah, "The Englishman? How did he come to be with you?"

Direct questions rarely brought a response. He shrugged, and stripped the backbone from a fish in his hands. "He good man." He glanced at me. "Talk, all the time talk."

"To whom?"

"To me. He talk to me. He say I am his brother." Keokotah chewed a moment. "He come in canoe. Like yours. He not a big man. Smaller than you, but strong."

After a few minutes of silence he added, "He cough, much cough. I think he sick. I say so."

The fire crackled, and I added sticks. "He say he not well and he say, 'You wrong. No sick. I die soon.'

"He look much at small packet." He shaped a rectangle with his fingers. "Many leaves sewn at the back. The leaves have small signs on them. He looks at them and sometimes he smiles or speaks from them. I ask what it is and he say this isbook and it speaks to him.

"I listen, no hear it speak."

"The signs in this book spoke to him," I said. "When you look at a trail in the morning, it speaks to you of who passed in the night. It was so with him."

"Ah? It could be so." He looked at me. "You have book?"

"At my home there were many books," I said, "and I miss them very much." I tapped my head. "Many books up here. Like you remember old trails, I remember books. Often I think of what the books have said to me."

"What do books say?"

"Many things, in many ways. You sit by the knees of your old men and hear their tales of warpath and hunt. In our books we have made signs that tell such stories, not only of our grandfathers but of their grandfathers.

"We put upon leaves the stories of our great men, and of wars, but the best books are those that repeat the wisdom of our grandfathers."

"The Englishman's book was like that?"

"I do not know what book he had, but you said he read from the book. Do you remember what he read?"

"What he reads sings. I think he has medicine songs, but he say, 'Only in a way.' He speaks of the 'snows of yesteryear.' "

"Frangois Villon," I said.

"What?"

"That line was written by a French poet, a long, long time ago."

"French? He say Frenchmans his enemy!"

"That was probably right," I said, "but that would not keep him from liking his poetry. Did you never sing the songs of another tribe?"

He started to say no and then shrugged. "We change them. Anyway, they were our songs once ... I think."

"My leg is better. Tomorrow I shall walk without a crutch."

"Better you walk," Keokotah said. "I think much trouble come. I think we have to fight soon."

We slept, and once I awakened in the night. Our fire was down to coals, and above us the stars had gone. The air smelled like rain and I thought of us alone in all that vast and almost empty land.

It was a lonely, eerie feeling. Alone ... all, all alone!

I drew my blanket around my shoulders and listened to the rustling of the river.

It was a long time before I was again asleep.

Chapter Twelve.

Now I made ready my pistols. I did not wish to use them but the need might be great. My bow was ever beside me, an arrow ever ready.

Endlessly wound the river along its timbered banks, brushing the roots of leaning trees, heavy with foliage. Dead trees, uprooted far upstream, were a danger to birchbark canoes, and at no time dared we relax. Around each bend, and the twists and turns were many, might lie enemy Indians or some obstruction to rip our bottom out.

Yet there was beauty everywhere and we were lonely on the river. The forest was dark and deep with shadows where cypress trees were festooned with veils of Spanish moss. Water oak, hickory, tupelo gum, and many other trees clustered the banks, and hummingbirds danced above the water, opalescent feathers catching the light as if they played with their own beauty.

We startled a flock of ducks, and Keokotah killed one with an arrow. We lived on and off the river, catching fish, killing wood pigeons and geese. Often we saw bears, but they seemed more curious than aggressive. Ours was an easy life.

"No mans here," Keokotah suggested.

"Sometimes it is better so."

He threw me a quick glance over his shoulder, a glance of agreement. Perhaps that was why Keokotah traveled, to be alone with all this, or almost alone. How long would it remain so? Knowing the driving, acquisitive people from whom I came, I did not give it long. We were among the first and the most fortunate. A man might travel forever here, living easily off the country, untrammeled and free.

"The Englishman? You knew him long?"

He held a hand above the water. "I am no higher when he come. I am a man when he die."

This surprised me, for I had not realized he had been with them so long. This was a mystery. Why would an educated, intelligent man choose to live his life away from all he knew? And how had he come there in the first place?

"It is good to have a friend."

He made no reply, but after a few minutes he said, "It bad. No good for me."

"No good to have a friend? But that's--"

"I ver' small. He tell stories. I like stories. No stories of coyote. No stories of owl. Stories of men in iron who fight on horseback." He paused. "What is horse?"

Of course, he had never seen a horse. "It is an animal. Larger than an elk. It has no horns. Men ride them."

"Ride?"

"Sit astride of them and travel far."

"He has long tail? Two ears ... so?" He held up two fingers.

"That's it."

"I have seen him. Run ver' fast."

"You've seen ahorse? But that could not be, you--!" I stopped in time. There had been that other day when he spoke of what could only be an elephant, but with long hair. I had made him angry then. "Where did you see it?"

"Many." He gestured off to the south. "I kill young one. Eat him." He looked at me to see if I believed. "Only one toe. Ver' hard."

I'd be damned. I'd be very damned. Horses here? But then, the story had it that when De Soto died his men built boats and went down the river. What did they do with their horses? If they had turned them loose they might well have gone wild. And the Spanish were inclined to ride stallions, using mares or mules for pack animals.

Horses ... now wouldn't that be something! If we could catch and break a couple of horses--

If a man had something to ride, those plains in the Far Seeing Lands might not seem so vast.

Our canoe glided smoothly upon the waters of the Mississippi and as night came on we held closer to the western shores. Once we saw a thin smoke but kept well into the stream, for we would find no friends here. At night we camped on a muddy point and killed a water moccasin as we landed. It was a big snake.

Keokotah puzzled me. That the Kickapoo were wanderers we had learned from the Cherokees, but I sensed something else in him. Had his boyhood teacher been too good? Had the lonely Englishman taught his pupil too well? Had the Englishman's teaching created a misfit, as I was?

The thought came unbidden, unwanted, unexpected. Yet was I not a misfit, too? Had not Sakim's teaching given me ideas I might never have had?

Kin-Ring and Yance were better fitted for survival in the New World than I. Yance perhaps best of all, for he asked no questions. He accepted what he found and dealt with it in the best way he could. He lived with his world and had no thought of changing it. If a tree got in the way of his plowing he cut it down. If an Indian tried to kill him, he killed the Indian and went on about his business. Kin-Ring was much the same, although Kin was a planner, a looker-ahead.

Sakim had been a philosopher and a scientist in his own way, and like those of his time and country his interests had extended into all things. He had questions to ask and answers to seek. He had learning to do, as I had.

Keokotah had a restless mind. The Englishman had aroused something in him that took him away from his people. I began to see that his thinking was no longer theirs.

We were strange ones, Keokotah and I, but the result was less for me than for him. The Indian peoples I had known belonged to clans, and the clans demanded that each member conform. The Indian seemed to have lived much as he had for hundreds of years, and now here and there an Englishman, a Scotsman, a Frenchman was coming among them with disturbing new weapons, new ideas. Keokotah was a victim of change. His Englishman had dropped a pebble into the pool of his thinking, and who knew where the ripples would end?

"Big village soon." Keokotah pointed ahead of us. "Quapaw." He swept a hand to include the country we were in and where we had come from. "Osage. Ver' tall mans." His hands measured a distance of a foot or more. "Taller than me."

Six and a half or seven feet tall? It was a lot. By signs he indicated they were slightly stooped and had narrow shoulders.

"No good for us. Kickapoo fight him."

The village was on the eastern shore so we hugged the western, watching for the mouth of the Arkansas River, which would soon appear. It flowed into the Mississippi from the northwest and despite its flow of water could be easily missed because of the bayous and convolutions of the Mississippi.

According to Keokotah the Quapaw were allied to or a part of the Osage people, but were inclined to be more friendly than the Osage, who were very jealous of their lands along the river.

At dusk we killed a deer.

Night came suddenly to the river. The shadows under the trees merged and became one, the day sounds ended and the night sounds began, tentatively at first. Bullfrogs spoke loudly in the night, and some large thing splashed in the water. "Alligator," Keokotah said, "a big one."

Alligators here? It could be. We often saw them in Carolina, and Yance had seen many when he went south to trade with the Spanish for horses.

The thought of our flimsy canoe with alligators about was not a pleasant one.

He made a motion for silence and began dipping his paddle with great care. The canoe glided through the dark, glistening water. There was a smell of rotting wood and vegetation from the shore. Once, on a fallen tree lying in the water we passed only the length of a paddle from a huge bear. He was as startled as we, but we slid past in the dark water and he gave only a surprised grunt.

It was very still but for the sounds from the forest and the soft rustle of water. In the distance and across the river we heard the beat of drums and occasionally a shrill yell. Then a large island came between us and the village.

"Soon," Keokotah whispered.

Several long minutes passed. Peering into the darkness of the western shore I saw nothing but a wall of blackness where the trees were. The air was damp and still. The current was strong.

We felt the movement of water before we saw it. There was a push against the right side of the canoe, thrusting us toward the middle of the stream.

"Now," Keokotah said. "It is here!"

He turned the bow into the now strong current from our right and then he dug in, paddling with strength. No longer drifting with a current, now we were breasting one, and a strong one at that.

It was a rich and lovely country and there was beauty where the river ran. Once a canoe with four warriors tried to overtake us, but their clumsy dugout canoe was no match for our lighter craft and we drew steadily away from them until finally they gave up.

My wounds had healed well. There were scars on my skull from the teeth of the cat, and there would always be claw marks on my thighs and one hip.

Without doubt Keokotah had been correct. The panther who had attacked me had had one injured leg and could no longer capture and kill a deer except with the greatest good luck. It must have depended upon slower, less agile game. I must have seemed a perfect catch. I had been fortunate in seeing the beast before it leaped.

The wounds had healed, but the scars would be mine forever. There were none on my face. Not that it mattered. I smiled at myself. Where I was going no one would care about my looks, and my mother and Lila were far away.

The Arkansas wound about as much as had the Mississippi, and its banks were heavy with fine timber. One of the cargoes we had often sent to England for sale or trade was timber for the masts of ships. Here there were many tall, fine trees. My eye had learned to measure them, for often as a boy I had gone timber cruising with my father or Jeremy Ring.

Often we had sat long hours studying the crude charts we had and maps my father had put together from the stories of Indians and our wanderings. Somewhere to the south was a great gulf into which the Mississippi must flow. Someday men would build ships here and send their timbers, furs, and whatever else there was down the river to that gulf and to the sea.

The great civilizations had often been born of rivers or at river crossings. The Nile, the Tigris-Euphrates, the rivers of India, the Tiber, the Seine, and the Thames. One day such a civilization might grow along the Mississippi.

Always my eyes were alert for what could be found. This had been our way at Shooting Creek, for whenever we returned from a hunt our father had questioned us as to what we had seen. He wanted not only animal or Indian sign, but the kind of rocks, the timber, possible sources of minerals of which we always stood in need.

We had located deposits of sulphur, iron, and lead and of course were always alert for gems. Some had been found of real quality, and one such might buy the entire cargo of a small ship.

We had double reason for being alert now. Any Indian whom we saw was a possible enemy, and we must now watch for signs of Itchakomi and her party.

Several times we stopped at places that offered campsites, but we found nothing. How were they traveling? By canoe or over the land? The Natchee were a river people, so they must have canoes.

Our first discovery was by chance. Weary with a long day's struggle against a strong current, we had sighted a creek entering the river, and we turned our canoe into the mouth of the creek and pulled it up on the muddy bank. Keokotah had leaped ashore to scout the place and as I tugged the canoe higher and made it secure with a length of rawhide rope tied to a root I glimpsed something in the mud.

Taking hold I started to pick up what seemed like a bit of metal, and it resisted. Surprised, I dug around it and found that what I had was chain mail.

It needed time, but I dug the mud from around it and then dipped it into the stream to rinse more mud away. It was a coat of mail once worn by some Spanish soldier. One of De Soto's men? Probably not, but it was possible. De Soto had come to the Mississippi something like a hundred years ago, but other Spanish soldiers might have been around since then.

Keokotah had a fire going, and when I came up with the coat of mail he showed me the remains of another fire. He had built his own away from it so I might see. It was an Indian fire, and just back from it at the edge of the woods a shelter had been built of woven branches, some from living trees.

"Natchee," he said.

It had been a shelter for one person, and a bed of boughs and cattails had been carefully prepared. It was old. Weeks, but more likely months, had gone by. The cattails, evidently green when laid in place, were dried out and dead now.

It was a shelter for one person. Itchakomi?

There were no tracks. No other signs. Yet others had camped here; probably the wearer of the coat of mail had been one of them, in some bygone year.

Sitting by the fire that night I cleaned the mail still more, working the rust out of it and rubbing it with sand to bring back the brightness. I explained its purpose to Keokotah.

We kept our fire small, for we had no wish to attract attention. The finding of the coat of mail on the same site as what could have been Itchakomi's camp did not surprise me. Others had stopped here for the same reason we had, and as still others would in years to come. A good campsite for one is also good for another.

Looking down at the bed where Itchakomi could have slept I wondered how she fared? Was she still alive? Had she found the place she sought?

She was a Sun, a great lady among her people, yet when she traveled it must be like any other. Among the Indians we had known there was nothing comparable, although we had heard many stories of the Natchee. She was seeking a new home for her people just as my father had done, and as I had been doing when I sought the valley of the Sequatchie. I wished her success.

As for Kapata ... we would meet again.

I was sure of it, and when we did I would be on my feet and armed.

I hoped it would be soon.

Chapter Thirteen.

There was sunlight on the water that morning, but shadows still lurked under the trees along the banks. The trees leaned over the river, brushing our heads with their leaves as we passed. We paddled on into the morning, wary of what might come, knowing that danger could await beyond every bend of the river.

Kapata was somewhere ahead of us, I believed. Our good fortune was that he did not know we followed. How long we would have such fortune we did not know.

Peace lay upon the land, the ripples caught diamonds from the sun, and a kingfisher flew up, skimmed the water ahead of us, and then veered suddenly. Keokotah shipped his paddle and took up his bow, notching an arrow. Something had startled the kingfisher, something ahead of us, just beyond the point of trees. I handled the paddle as gently as possible to provide a good shooting platform for Keokotah.

A tumble of dead trees on the point obscured what lay before us. Dipping the paddle deep I propelled the canoe past the point, ready to backwater into the protection of the driftwood.

Smoke slowly rising from burned lodges, a bloody man standing erect amidst a welter of sprawled bodies, skulls stripped of their flesh bobbing on stakes or poles, broken pots and kettles strewn about--a village destroyed, looted, its people slain. Never had I seen the like.

As we pushed our canoe ashore the standing warrior fell and we went to him. His skull was bloody, for his scalp had been ripped away when they believed him dead or did not care. A terrible gash, straight and clean, had laid open his body for all of twenty inches, and there were similar gashes in his thighs. The wounds had bled badly, but his eyes were open and aware.

He had fallen among other bodies, mutilated and dead, so we lifted him away and Keokotah brought the campfire to life and dipped water from the river into a piece of broken pot, to be heated.

We bathed his wounds clean and with sinew such as we always carried we stitched the slashes in his legs and body. He lay still, perfectly conscious, but making no sound as we worked.

No others lived. I put out a few fires, wandering about through the scene of horror. Everything of value had been carried away or destroyed. It was apparent the raid had caught them still asleep and had been totally unexpected. What weapons that had not been carried away had been thrust into the dead or dying.

I brought water from the creek, and the wounded Indian drank thirstily. When I took the cup from his lips, he spoke, looking at me.

"He say he is Quapaw," Keokotah said.

I gestured to Keokotah. "He is Kickapoo," I said.

"He knows what I am," Keokotah said. "He knows not you."

What could I say? That I was an Englishman? He would not recognize the tribe, and who was I, really? I had been born here, in this land, so I could be called an American. But what did that mean? The Quapaw was born here, too.

"I am Sackett," I said, "a son of Barnabas."

"Ah?" he whispered. "Sack-ett!"

He knew the name. Had my father's reputation traveled so far, then? It was true that he had been in America for most of thirty years, and much of that had been lived at Shooting Creek. Indians of many tribes had traded with us and we ourselves had wandered.

We moved the bodies to one side. We straightened up the camp nearest the shore and we prepared a broth for the wounded man, scarcely believing he would survive. Our treatment was whatever we each knew, Keokotah from his own people and I from mine. Sakim had spoken of the necessity of cleaning wounds, and this we had done. He had commented on the fact that wounds healed more quickly in America than anywhere he had been. Fewer people? Cleaner air? More simple food? I did not know, nor did he.

Who had attacked the village? We gathered it was a tribe from the south, the Tensas, but they were led by a man not a Tensa, and some of the warriors had been Natchee.

"They look for woman," the Quapaw said, "a beloved woman."

I knew the term from the Cherokee--a beloved woman was one who through wisdom, bravery, or both had won a revered place among her people. She was a woman whose word could stop or turn aside a war party, could overrule a chief. They occurred but rarely.

"A Natchee woman?" I asked.

"Natchee ... gone, long time gone."

We had fumbled together a way of speaking. He knew some Cherokee, as we did, although Indians who knew the language of another tribe were rare, usually the sons or daughters of captured women or adopted sons. It was a custom among many tribes to adopt a son from among prisoners taken to replace one lost or slain.

"Big Natchee warrior want her. He lead war party. Say to Tensa he get many scalps for them. Come with him, his medicine is strong."

Kapata ...

Yet why attack a village where he must know she would not be? To win prestige and gain followers?

Keokotah agreed when I expressed my thoughts. "He big man now. Take many scalps. His medicine strong."

Young warriors eager for renown would follow any leader who promised success. Now, after taking the Quapaw scalps, the young men of the Tensa would be eager to follow this leader. No matter that he was not of their tribe. Such things had happened before and no doubt would again.

Kapata would have no following from among the Natchee beyond the two or three who had come west with him. He would need to win followers to make up a strong party.

Who knew with what eloquence he had spoken to persuade them? But the young men of all tribes were eager to take scalps and the prestige that followed. No doubt Kapata had scouted the Quapaw village and knew that most of its young men were away and that it would be an easy victory. He would have known that Itchakomi was not there.

The passions that stir Indians are no different from those of Europeans or Asiatics. Ambition, hatred, fear, greed, and jealousy are ever-present. Kapata was the son of a Natchee man and a Karankawa woman, and the Karankawa were despised by the Natchee. Kapata must have grown to manhood righting to overcome that stigma and striving to assert himself and his manhood. To marry a Sun would be the ultimate, to be himself regarded as a Sun ... He knew of no such thing happening before, but his fierce Karankawa mother had instilled in him the feeling that he could do anything. She must have told him of the Karankawa warriors, feared by all.

Sitting beside the wounded warrior, who was now either unconscious or asleep, I tried to understand he who had become my enemy.

It was not until the third day, when we had moved well upstream, that the men of the massacred village returned. We heard their wailing and I went down by canoe, approaching them warily.

Seeing me, they rushed to the shore, and I motioned for them to follow. After a moment of hesitation, several armed and dangerous warriors did follow.

Akicheeta--for that was the name of the wounded Quapaw--was awake when they entered our camp, and he explained what had taken place. He also explained that we were seeking the Natchee woman.

I asked about the river. "Spring much water," he drew a route with his finger in the earth. Making zigzag lines to indicate mountains, he showed how the river emerged from a great cleft in the rock. Between us and where the river emerged from the canyon he showed a place where the waters would be shallow at midsummer. "No canoe," he said, making signs to indicate the water would be only a few inches deep.

"How far to the mountains?" I asked.

He shrugged, and I held up ten fingers. "More!" he replied.

"Spanishmen?"

He shook his head. "Conejeros!" He swept a wide area before the mountains and made a gesture of lifting my scalp. "You see!" he warned.

The name was strange to me, but Keokotah spoke longer with him and told me later it was the name of a very fierce tribe of Indians who lived at the edge of the mountains. They hunted buffalo and then retired in the hotter months into higher country. In the winter they hid their lodges in sheltered places where there was wood to burn.

The Quapaws treated Keokotah with respect while he ignored them, holding himself aloof for the most part.

Several commented on my scarcely healed wounds, the deep claw marks on my body, and Keokotah told them, with some embellishment I am sure, of my killing the panther with a knife when I had a broken leg. I could grasp enough of what he was saying to know that I lost no stature in the telling and that the panther had suddenly grown larger than I remembered.

Suddenly, and for the first time, Keokotah brought out a necklace of the panther's claws. Evidently he had taken them from the dead cat while I had been sleeping, and he had carefully strung them on a rawhide string. Looked at now, the claws were formidable and longer than I remembered. To tell the truth, I had been rather too busy to notice dimensions.

The Quapaw had treated me with respect before, but now my stature had grown. With a gesture, Keokotah put the necklace around my neck. He had said nothing about the cat's crippled leg, and who was I to spoil a good story, especially when it made me look so good?

All I could remember was the sudden attack, the wild, terrible scramble among trees and brush, and the hot breath of the panther, the scrape of his teeth on my skull and my stabbing and stabbing with the knife. All I had been was another animal fighting wildly, instinctively for life. The cat, in all honesty, had been a big one. I could remember its weight on me and my frantic efforts to escape it.

My broken leg had knitted well, though I still limped a little, but whether it was necessity or habit I did not know and began consciously trying to correct it.

We left the Quapaw and moved upstream slowly. The current was still strong, but there were fewer obstructions. We rarely saw drifting trees, although once we did paddle through a dozen or so dead buffalo. The stench was frightful, and we paddled vigorously to escape them.

Only rarely did we see the smoke of a village, and we passed no canoes on the river. There were trees close to the banks but we often caught glimpses of bare, grass-covered hills beyond.

Coming upon a clump of chokecherry bushes we camped to make arrows--many Indians favored the slender branches of the chokecherry over all others, although reeds and some other woods were used by some tribes, with much depending on what was available and light enough. The arrows made by Keokotah were about twenty-eight inches in length, and those I made for my longbow somewhat longer. His bow was about four feet long and he could use it with amazing speed and skill.

Every move was made with caution, as ambush was a favored tactic of the Indians, and we knew not what awaited us. Food during those weeks was no problem. There were fish, ducks, and geese, and now we found wild turkeys again and occasionally a deer. Lower down we had had to be watchful for alligators, but we saw them no longer.

On the second day after the arrow making we saw where several canoes had been drawn up at some time not long since. Edging in, we found a camp, now abandoned.

Three canoes, good-sized ones. Several warriors, maybe as many as a dozen. Keokotah found Kapata's moccasin print among them. After we had studied the ground we decided there were at least ten of the Tensa as well as Kapata and his few Natchee. They were but a few days ahead of us. Somehow, if we were to warn Itchakomi, we must overtake and pass them without their being aware.

Every day we saw buffalo, usually in small herds of two dozen or less, but many herds within a short distance of each other, so we might count fifty such within the range of our eyes.

Our supply of food was running low and so we needed to hunt, not only for food but for the warm robes of the buffalo. The cold season was coming on and the nights were already growing chill. Despite the numbers of the buffalo, we had no success in getting near them, for they had been lately frightened, no doubt by Kapata and his people.

We killed several antelopes, but their skins, while useful, would not do for the intense cold of the prairies. The water was growing more shallow, the river itself wandering from side to side in its sandy bed. Here and there in the bottom there were strips of gravel and even clumps of brush. Often the course of the stream was heavily walled by brush, and the trees along the banks grew very dense.

Long before Sakim had left us he had suggested to each that we learn as much as we could of the Indians, of their nature and customs. When we returned from hunts or visits with the Indians we had always gone to him to relate what we had learned, until the study had become a habit for each of us.

On the long days in the canoe I plied Keokotah with questions. At first he shied from direct questions, but after a while we began comparing notes on our peoples. He had never known a case of baldness and it was necessary that I describe it to him before he understood. He then recalled seeing a white man who was bald, but never an Indian. Nor had I. Nor had I seen one crippled by rheumatism, and decayed teeth were rare.

Coming upon a thick stand of willow and cottonwood we decided to abandon our canoe. The water had been growing less and we could see a strip ahead where it seemed to disappear completely. We lay the canoe bottom up among several dead logs, and scattered debris across it both to shelter it from the sun and to mask its appearance.

Our packs were small, for now our need for food had grown. For days we had found no fish, and the game shied from us. Yet that very night our fortunes changed.

We had been following the riverbed, keeping to the shelter of trees and brush when possible, and suddenly we came on a pool where a buffalo cow and a small bull calf were watering. The distance was great, so Keokotah yielded the chance to me and I brought the cow down with one arrow. The calf ran off a short distance and we moved in to skin the cow and cut out the meat.

On the shore, in a hollow we found, we built a small fire and cutting the meat into strips began the tiresome process of curing what meat we could. We gorged ourselves on fresh buffalo steaks, for I had acquired something of the Indian habit of eating enormously when there was food against the times of famine that would surely follow.

At daybreak when I went down to the thin stream of running water to bathe, I saw the buffalo calf. It stared at me, seeming unsure of whether to run or not. I spoke to it, and pitying it, I left a small mound of salt on a flat rock. As I walked back to camp I saw the calf sniffing at where I had stood. When I walked back to look again, the calf was licking the rock where I had left the salt.

Chapter Fourteen.

We saw the rain from afar when we topped a ridge a quarter of a mile from the river. We saw its steel battalions arching across the plains toward us, but there was no shelter. A lone tree with arching branches offered itself but we knew better, for it is the lone trees that draw the lightning.

We moved to lower ground, skirting the trees along the riverbed. Within minutes that riverbed was no longer dry sand with a trickle of water but a rushing river, a flash flood brought by the rain.

The oilskin preserved from my father's seagoing days was quickly donned, more to shelter my guns and keep their powder dry than for myself.

The storm approached and we could see the metallic veil it drew across the country. Then it hit us and in a minute we were dripping. But we walked on, the grass slippery under our feet. Then there was mud, and we turned down the hill toward the forest along the river where we might find fuel. Glancing back I saw the buffalo calf, woebegone and lonely. "Come on!" I called. "Come with us!"

It lingered, staring after us wistfully. I called again and it advanced a few steps and then hesitated. We dipped down a slippery bank into the trees.

All was wet and dripping, but we found a place where the tightly woven branches of several trees had kept the leaves almost dry. We stopped there and wove a few branches and slabs of bark from fallen trees into the mesh of branches above to offer more protection.

Under the canopy lay a network of fallen trees and limbs, crisscrossing each other. It reminded me too much of the place where I had broken my leg, and I walked with care. From some of the fallen trees great slabs of bark hung down, and beneath their shelter bark and leaves were still dry. We gathered some and nursed a small fire into being.

Ours was a sheltered place, deep among the trees. We laid boughs above us from one tree to the next, resting them on branches or the stubs of branches until we had made ourselves a crude but effective shelter. Large cold drops fell but they were nothing, and outside the rain poured down and winds blew.

Keokotah began working on the buffalo robe taken from the cow we had killed. He scraped away what flesh was left and staked out the hide to stretch it. All this should have been done completely before this but there had been no time. I set myself to making a pair of moccasins from the hide of a deer killed long before.

Looking around, I saw the buffalo calf not over fifty feet away, and I spoke to it. Keokotah looked and grunted something and when I looked at him again he made a derisive gesture implying the calf thought I was his mother.

"He'll leave us when we come up to some other buffalo," I said, and believed it.

From time to time we arose and added to our shelter, placing more bark to keep out especially disturbing drips. It was a makeshift camp, but pleasant enough and well hidden.

Moving about, I pushed further away from our camp and came on several elms weighted down with grapevines. A bear had been feasting here but many grapes still hung, and I gathered as many as could be carried and took them back to camp. We ate, enjoying the change from a diet of fresh meat. I carried a couple of bunches to the calf but it moved off. Still, I left the bunches I carried and later saw him nuzzling them. I suspect he ate them but did not watch, for as I returned to camp I heard the sharp crack of a breaking branch.

Crouching where I was, I wished for my bow, two dozen feet away. Instead, I drew my knife, waiting.

Our fire smoldered. Keokotah had disappeared but would be waiting somewhere near. A bow would do little good in this dense stand of trees and brush, anyway. He would have his spear.

All was still for a long moment, but then I heard something stirring not far off, and the sounds of movement such as a man might make. Then there was a sort of clicking as of sticks being piled together. Easing a step to one side, I peered through the trees.

There was a small open space nearby, and an old Indian was gathering firewood. He seemed uneasy, straightening up to look around, and I glanced around also, watching him from the corners of my eyes. He gathered more sticks, picked up his bundle, and started away, pausing to look back.

His eyes missed me, as I did not move, and finally he turned away again, walking through the trees. I had only to follow some dozen yards to see the camp, a small cluster of Indians, at least three women, several children, and a half dozen men. All but one of the men were getting on in years.

That one was a boy, not yet sixteen, at a guess. At that age or older he would be out with the warriors.

Keokotah had followed. Now he whispered, "Pawnee!"

The name was unfamiliar, but there were many tribes of which I did not know.

"We speak." He spoke softly, and then he called out. The Indians turned to face him as he stepped out, lifting a hand, palm out.

Several held weapons and they waited. Then I appeared and there was a murmur of surprise from among them. Although the sun and wind had made me almost as dark as Keokotah it was obvious that I was not an Indian, or at least none such as they had ever seen.

Keokotah spoke again, some word which they understood but I did not. We walked down to their camp, and soon he was talking to them. From time to time they looked at me, and I could see he was explaining me. How, I had no idea. It developed that only one of them had ever seen a white man before. The Pawnees were a strong tribe, only moving into the area now, and where they originated I did not know. What was important was that they had seen Itchakomi.

They had also seen Kapata, but had remained hidden among the trees atop a long ridge as the Natchee and the Tensa went along the valley bottom a half mile away.

Much talk went on of which I understood nothing until Keokotah translated for me. Apparently they were fleeing back to their own people. The Conejeros--a branch of a people called Apache, of which there were many tribes--were on the warpath.

The Conejeros were destroying any other Indians they came upon, and had even killed some of the Spanishmen who had gotten too far from home. They were fierce and desperate fighting men who seemed to have conquered all between the river we followed and another great river to the south.

"What of Itchakomi?" I asked.

"They are near the mountains, but the Pawnees believe they will be killed."

"What of the Tensa?"

"They believe the Tensa are friendly to the Conejeros, but they do not know."

We talked long, and Keokotah at my prodding asked many questions about the country, the rivers, the mountains, and the game.

There were many buffalo and great herds of antelope, too. There were several kinds of deer, including a large kind that must be the wapiti or elk. There were not many Indians apart from a few small tribes of Apaches, some of whom planted cornfields along the rivers when the season was right.

When we left them to move on, the rains had ceased, although it was still muddy along the hillsides and the river still ran with a strong current in a wide bed. More clouds hovered in the west. Soon, the Pawnees told us, we would see the mountains.

The growth along the riverbanks was less dense now, and the country away from the river was prairie country, covered with buffalo. We moved cautiously, knowing our danger and wanting no trouble.

Overhead the sky was a vast blue dome, dotted with drifting clouds. Around was a sea of grass with only occasional groves of trees along the ridges. We saw no Indians, found no tracks. Several times we sighted black bears, and once a bobcat that leaped away at our approach and then returned to where it had been feeding on a recently killed rabbit.

Twice we came upon the tracks of a gigantic bear, the tracks dwarfing those of the black bears we often saw.

When we first saw the mountains they appeared as a low blue cloud on the western horizon, and when they became clearer I thought of my father and his love of those far, blue mountains he had wished to explore. Well, he had seen them and he had gone beyond them, but what would he have thought of these?

Suddenly, Indians were there. On the open plain not more than one hundred yards off! Keokotah and I crouched in the willows from which we had been about to emerge. My heart was beating heavily, for there were at least twenty warriors in the group yonder, obviously a war party.

They had not seen us and they were following a route that took them away from us.

"Conejeros!" Keokotah whispered.

The group paused at the stream, some of them dropping down for a drink. One mounted a low hill to look around. Had we been a few steps further along we should have been seen.

That night we lighted no fire and made our beds in a thick stand of aspen. We had advanced what I believed to be about eight miles that day, leaving our tracks to mingle with the tracks of the war party ahead of us in the event anyone was following.

We had moved with great care, always studying the land before and around us before crossing any open space. The river, its waters no longer depleted by evaporation or the thirsty sand, ran with a strong current.

Where was Itchakomi now? Had Kapata found her yet? If so, we might be too late. The thought worried me and I could not sleep. I slipped out of camp and climbed a small bluff nearby. In the distance I could see the faint glow of a campfire, probably reflecting off a clay bluff. It could have been a mile off, or even further. In such clear air distances deceived.

A long time I sat in silence upon the bluff, drinking in the beauty of the night and the stars. We had traveled far in an almost empty land and now the mountains lay before us, far greater mountains than any I had seen, and the most distant seemed covered with snow. The thought brought back the need for buffalo robes and warmer clothing. Autumn would bring cold winds and more rain and we were ill-fitted for it.

We crossed the river at a rocky ford, wading waist deep in the water. Finding no fresh tracks, we started off at a swinging trot, keeping to low ground and what cover we could find. As the war party was moving slowly we felt sure we had passed them by. Although the season was late we walked through many wildflowers, most of them of varying shades of yellow.

We were in camp among some cottonwoods when Keokotah spoke suddenly. "The Englishman, he say he live in big city," Keokotah swept a wide gesture, "many big house. Some Kickapoo think he lie. Did he speak false?"

"He spoke the truth. I have not seen it but my father had been there, and some of the other men who lived with us. They had seen it, and one at least was from there. It is called London."

"Yes ... London. It is true then, the things he said?"

"That much was true. I believe all he said was true."

Keokotah was pleased. "I think he speak true. I think so."

He was silent for a time and then after a while he said, "After they say he lie he talk only to me of wonders. Not to them."

"I can understand why." Pausing, I then went on, trying to choose my words. "There are many nations. Kickapoos do not think like Natchees. But Kickapoos live much as do other Indians. It is so in Europe. The tongues they speak are often different, but the way they live is much the same."

"They hunt?"

"Only for sport. Because they wish to hunt."

"No hunt for meat?"

"There is not enough game to feed them. Many villages. Many big, big villages. No place for game. They plant corn. They raise cattle, sheep."

"Cattle?"

"Some men own many cows. Like buffalo. They keep them in big corrals and when they want meat, they kill one."

He considered that. "No hunt buffalo?"

"We have no buffalo. Cows."

"Ah? I see him, Spanishmans have cows. He talk 'city'? City is big village?"

Slowly, taking my time, I explained what was meant by a city and described the many occupations of the people who lived there, trying to keep to those occupations he would understand the best.

"Clothing is made by tailors, and there are men who make weapons--knives, guns, and armor. There are houses in which strangers can sleep, and places where they can go to eat."

This he had been told before, but his was a curious, interested mind. Uninformed he might be, unintelligent he was not, and I could see why the Englishman had been drawn to him. Undoubtedly the man had been lonely and he had taken on the teaching of the young Indian, opening his mind to possibilities Keokotah could not have imagined.

The mountains loomed before us, and now the river was running with a strong, powerful stream, sixty or seventy yards wide. Rains had been falling in the upper mountains and there was more snow upon the peaks. We saw fewer and fewer buffalo but we pushed on. Now I was searching for tracks, for some indication of Itchakomi's direction.

We had seen occasional indications in the past, a place where they had camped long since, a place where they had crossed a stream. I had come to know her footprints, partly from their small size and delicate shape, unusual for an Indian woman, for most of them were accustomed to carrying heavy burdens.

I wished to find her, discharge my mission, such as it was, and go on about my business. If business it could be called, for I wished to wander, to explore, to learn, to see. And with winter coming on we must find shelter and kill some buffalo or gather other skins for warm clothing. I had no time to waste.

Kapata ... he was another story. I had never wanted to kill a man. But Kapata? I might make an exception.

If we had not wanted a buffalo so desperately it might not have happened, but the buffalo was there, a big one with a fine robe. And three others trailing behind him.

They had our attention and I drew my longbow and let fly an arrow. We were directly in front of the bull and he had not seen us. His left foreleg was back at the end of its stride, just before he lifted it to bring it forward, and my shaft must have gone right to the heart.

He seemed to stagger and then stopped, evidently puzzled. Keokotah let fly with an arrow of his own at the cow that was behind the bull, and then two more before one could think. The cow staggered and fell. The bull shook his head and blood ran from his nostrils. He started forward but then slowly toppled.

From behind me there was a savage yell and they were upon us. Conejeros. Five of them. My second arrow was ready so I turned and let go. A big warrior took it right through the throat in midstride.

Then the others were upon us, with knives and spears. A sweaty body hurtled at me, my bow fell, my knife came up, and then there was blood all over my hand and I was withdrawing the knife.

Chapter Fifteen.

Low and gray were the clouds above us, the earth damp from a shower that had passed. Fresh was the air with a hint of more rain to come, and I stood with a bared and bloody knife above the body of a man whom I had killed.

The attack had been sudden, unexpected, and must have seemed a certain victory for the attackers. Our attention had been upon the buffalo whose robes and flesh we needed, our only warning the grate of gravel under the moccasin of a leaping Indian, and then the yell. But the warning had been enough. Keokotah had turned like a cat, swift and sure, and another warrior had gone down before him.

The two remaining had disappeared, dropping off into an arroyo. Keokotah glanced at me. I thrust my knife into the earth to clean the blade and went over to the buffalo bull.

"They will come back," Keokotah said.

"So let them come. We need the robes."

To skin a buffalo bull weighing over a thousand pounds, and I suspected this one weighed half again that much, is not an easy thing nor one quickly done. We knew we should be off and away, but winter would soon be upon us. We worked swiftly, while keeping a sharp lookout.

Three warriors had died, and the Conejeros were fierce fighting men who would not permit them to lie unavenged.

We skinned out the bull and then the cow. We took only the tongue from the bull but from the cow we took the best cuts of meat. We shouldered our burdens and started away, but such hides are heavy and our movements were slow. We turned away from the river, heading southwest toward the mountains. It was rolling, sometimes rough country cut by a number of small creeks, some dry, some running with small streams. The bull's hide, which I carried, was a very heavy as well as awkward burden.

Several times we paused to look back. Pursuit depended on how far the Conejeros must go to reach their camp and on whether warriors were there. The mountains toward which we were headed were hours away. The place where the river ran out from its canyon was away to the north.

Shouldering our loads we started on. The robes would be lighter in weight when they had been scraped and cleaned, but there was no time for that now.

The nearest mountain was a sort of hogback, and to the north of it were several scraggy peaks. We held our course to reach the mountains between the two. When we had gone what I believed was about five miles we found ourselves following a rocky creek. We drank and then studied the terrain.

How far had the Conejeros to go for help? By now, without burdens, they should have reached their camp.

"They might have horses," I suggested.

He stared at me. "Horses?"

'They could steal from the Spanish." I waved a hand off to the south. "There are Spanish down thataway."

We had heard stories of them from the Indians. Keokotah would have heard them as well. Even before this I had been to the Great River and touched upon the plains beyond. The Cherokees told stories of Spanishmen beyond the Far Seeing Lands.

"If they have horses they could be here soon," I said. As I spoke I was thinking of how much better it would be if we had even one horse to carry the hides. I was unusually strong, but a buffalo hide was no small weight.

When we camped it was in a small cove against an overhanging cliff where an ancient river had cut away the rock into a shallow cave. Keokotah went out to cover as much as he could of our trail while I broiled meat over a small fire.

We ate, slept an hour or so, and then when the moon arose we moved out, heading toward the mountains again. By daybreak they were looming before us, though still some distance off. Keokotah moved on before me.

We plodded on, resting often, studying the terrain at every pause. Still, the Conejeros did not come. "Maybe farther than we think," Keokotah suggested. "He may go far, far out!"

It was true, of course. I had assumed their camp was not far off, but the party that had attacked us might be a war or hunting party a long distance from their camp.

We saw antelope but no buffalo. Several times we saw wolves, attracted by the still-bloody hides we carried. By the time the sun was high we had fallen upon a dim game trail that seemed to come from the mountains before us. We held to the trail.

We found our way to a small elevation, a level place with a hollow behind it where we could build a small fire of dry sticks that would give off no smoke. On the flat ground we staked out our hides and began the tedious task of scraping them clean of excess flesh. The place where we worked was backed by a brush-covered cliff, so we could not easily be seen.

Our view took in a wide sweep of country, a country seen by few white men and not by many Indians except for the few who lived in the area. There were Indians in the mountains, we had heard, but whether they were real or imagined we did not know.

"Apache!" Keokotah commented. "Many tribe! All bad!"

"All?"

He shrugged. His people were The People, and all others were mere interlopers. Some he tolerated, but for most he had no use at all. Pa had been a tolerant man and we boys had grown up feeling the same. We accepted all people as they were and trusted nobody until they had proved themselves trustworthy.

We worked hard at scraping the skins and then took some time to broil buffalo steaks and eat, while watching the plains before us. We knew what to look for. Movement is easily seen, but Indians would keep under cover until close, so we studied the places that offered cover. Many times we looked straight out over the plains, letting the corners of our eyes look for any movement.

And movement there was. A wolf, a coyote, and once a great, lumbering bear. It was at least a half mile off but we knew what it was by its movement.

We saw no Indians.

Keokotah slept then while I worked at the hides. Facing toward the plain, I could work and keep an eye on all that lay before me, careful not to let my movements fall into a pattern. Often one looks up at certain intervals, and an enemy approaching can time those intervals and remain still.

Now to find Itchakomi--somewhere out there, or perhaps even in the mountains themselves. I had given my word to Ni'kwana, and I would be faithful to the promise.

Once I had found her and made sure she was warned of Kapata and told of the illness of the Great Sun, we could be on about our business.

Off to the south there were twin peaks that towered into the sky, and to the north there were others. This was where the great Far Seeing Lands ended against the wall of the mountains. From here all streams ran to the Mississippi.

Sometimes I ceased from scraping and working on the hides and took time just to look out over the vast plains. My thoughts went back to Shooting Creek. Did it survive still? For surely the Seneca would come again, or the Tuscarora. Would our small island stand against them without Pa? And what of Brian and Noelle? They were across the sea now in England, he studying for the law and she growing wise in the ways of the city and of the people there. Ways I would never know, and a city I would never see.

But how many could see what I saw? How many would cross those plains, hunt the buffalo on its native grass, and penetrate the unknown mountains that lay behind me? This was my destiny, as I had known from the first. This land was mine.

Others would come. Oh, I knew they would come! There would be others like Pa, who could not rest for not knowing what lay about. They would seek out these lands until all was known, all was recorded.

The Indians? I shrugged. Many acres were needed to feed even one Indian, living as they did, but men would come who would grow grain where only grass grew. They would plant orchards and herd cattle and sheep, and they would provide for a still larger world, still more people. There were too many landless ones back in Europe, too many willing to risk all to better themselves, too many--

Something moved!

It was still far away. From where I sat I could see for miles, for all the while we had been moving we had been climbing, and all the land before me slanted away to the Arkansas River and from there to the Mississippi.

I saw it again, just a faint stir of movement down there that fitted no normal pattern. I longed for my father's telescope, retained from his seafaring days. I chose landmarks so that my eyes could focus upon the spot again, and I went on with my work.

After a while I looked again, bringing my eyes into focus on the chosen landmarks and seeking out from them.

I needed only a minute or two before I had them again. A small party--how many I could not tell, for they were indistinct with distance. If they continued as they were going their path would cross the one we had used.

There was a stir behind me. I turned. Keokotah shaded his eyes to look. "What do you see?"

I showed him my landmarks and he picked the movement out of the landscape at once. Quicker than I had.

He stared for several minutes, looked away, and looked again.

"How many?" I asked.

"Ten ... I think. It is Itchakomi," he added.

"Itchakomi? How could you know that?"

He shrugged. "She has more than ten. Some are women. They travel slowly. They keep to low ground."

I stood up and looked again. It needed a moment for me to find them. They were coming toward the mountains, and as we watched, Keokotah said, "They come back. Something is wrong, I think."

"Come back? What do you mean?"

"You see? They are far out. Why, unless they have start home? And why do they come back to mountains? Something is wrong."

It was a bit more than I was willing to accept, yet it could be true. Why, at this point, would they be coming to the mountains? Unless--

"Maybe they haven't even been here yet," I suggested.

He shrugged.

The rain clouds still lowered above us, but there had been no more rain. When we looked again we could see nothing. Our travelers, whoever they were, followed a riverbed, not a wise thing in this weather unless there was something they feared more.

Had they been cut off from the river by a war party? Or ... had Kapata found them?

Keokotah watched while I slept. We would move again at night, getting closer to the mountains. Or that had been our plan. If that was Itchakomi, it was up to us to intercept her.

When I awakened it was dusk. Keokotah had folded the hides. Gathering them and our weapons we went down off the lookout point and found the trail we had been traveling. The only tracks were those of a deer.

We stopped and I looked toward the mountains where I wished to be going. But if that was Itchakomi ...

"The Conejeros will come looking for us," I said, "and will find them."

"It is so."

"We will wait," I said. "If they walk by night--"

"They will." He squatted on his heels. "She is much trouble, this woman. It is better to look at mountains. To find rivers. We do not need this woman."

"I gave my word."

It was many days since I had drunk chicory. I felt the want for it now, yet to build a fire was dangerous. I mentioned it and he shrugged and began putting together a fire.

When water was boiling we added the shavings from the root. I used it with care. Perhaps there was no more to be found. Perhaps it did not grow here. Keokotah had come to like it, too, and he watched as I added it to the water and put twigs into the fire. Ours was a very small fire, hidden from sight, yet it was a risk. I could not smell the smoke but I could smell the chicory.

We often had it at home, added to our coffee to make the coffee go farther. Coffee was hard to come by at Shooting Creek, and we used a lot of it.

Pa told me that in London there were shops, where men gathered to drink coffee and tea and to talk. Much business was done there, but there were those who believed the drinking of coffee sinful. Sakim had told me there were riots in Bagdad against the drinking of coffee.

Ours tasted good. I took my time, enjoying every drop, aware that it might be long before I had more.

Yet I should have been watching out for it. Who knows where it might grow? Such seeds might be carried far by birds or blown on the wind. It was a plant that made itself at home quickly.

We heard the footsteps before we saw anyone. Keokotah faded into the darkness, an arrow ready. I drew my knife.

She stepped from the darkness, and she was tall, almost as tall as I, and slender. She stood just for a moment and then she said, "I am Itchakomi, a Sun of the Natchee."

"I am Jubal Sackett, a son of Barnabas."

Chapter Sixteen.

"What," her tone was cool, "is a 'Barnabas'?"

"Barnabas Sackett was my father, a man of Shooting Creek, and formerly of England."

She dismissed me from her attention and turned to Keokotah. "You are a Kickapoo? What do you here?"

"We look upon mountains," he said, "and he brings you word from Ni'kwana."

She turned to me again as if irritated by the necessity. "From Ni'kwana? You?"

"We were asked to seek you out and to tell you the Great Sun is failing. He grows weaker."

"He wishes me to return?"

"That was what he said, but I felt that he wished you to decide for yourself. He spoke first as Ni'kwana, second as a father."

"He is not my father!"

"I said he spoke as a father. As one who wished you well." Also, I added, "you have been followed by a man named Kapata."

"Kapata?" Her contempt was obvious.

"He intends to wed you," I spoke cheerfully, "and become a Sun, perhaps even the Great Sun."

Her eyes were cold, imperious. "One does not 'become' a Sun. One is or is not a Sun."

"I understand that does not matter to him. He has his own ideas. He will marry you and usurp the power." I shrugged. "However, it is none of my business. I know nothing of your people or your customs."

"Obviously!"

She turned her attention to Keokotah. "You know of this?"

"We met the Ni'kwana. He spoke with us. He spoke most to him." Keokotah paused. "We have done what was asked. You may go."

"Imay go? You dismissme? I shall go where I choose, when I choose."

"Then please be seated," I said. She looked at the fire where the chicory bubbled slightly. "We do not have much, but--"

"It ismayocup entchibil! I smell it from far!" She was no longer imperious but like a very young girl.

"She speaks of the 'dark root,' " Keokotah said. "It is one way of speaking what you drink."

Filling a cup made of bark, I handed it to her. She accepted it, and then a woman came forward and placed a mat upon the ground near the fire. Itchakomi seated herself and sipped the drink. Slowly the others came into the camp and gathered about.

Seating myself opposite her I waited until she had drunk from the cup. "Kapata is close," I spoke carefully. "He has some of your people but more of the Tensa. They seek you."

"He is nothing."

"He is a strong, dangerous man."

"You fear?"

"I? What have I to fear? He seeks you, notme. I shall be gone with Keokotah. You have warriors."

This I said, but I had seen her warriors. Three of them were old men, well past their prime. They had come for their wisdom, not for their strength or fighting ability. Against the Tensa they would prove a poor match. Some of the younger ones looked able enough, but they were too few. I shifted uneasily. None of this was any affair of mine. I wished only to be away, and Keokotah felt the same.

One of her Indians added fuel to the fire.

"There are also the Conejeros," I suggested. "You have seen them?"

"Their feet have left marks on the way we walk. I know them not."

"They are dangerous men. They are warriors and there are many."

"You fear?"

Irritated, I said, "We have met them. Three are dead. Two have gone for others. I suggest you find a place that is safe for the winter. Soon the snows will come. You cannot cross the plains."

"We have canoes. The water is strong."

She ignored me, speaking to Keokotah. Yet her eyes strayed to my guns in their ornate scabbards. That she was curious was obvious, but I had no intention of gratifying her curiosity.

She was, I must admit, uncommonly beautiful, and would have graced any gathering, anywhere. She had poise and intelligence and quick wit. I suspected she was not entirely of Natchee blood, judging by her appearance, but that was merely a suspicion.

We had been speaking in Spanish interspersed here and there with an English or Cherokee word, but I soon discovered that her command of English was not small. We had heard of Englishmen as well as Spanish who lived among them, and some of De Soto's men had stayed on with the Natchee, preferring the safety of the Indian villages to the long, doubtful trek that would have awaited them.

Knowing what I did of the Europeans who had lived among the Indians I was not surprised. When De Soto first landed he discovered a man named Juan Ortiz already living among the Indians, and when the French Hugenots living at Charlesfort abandoned their settlement, one young lad, Guillaum Rufin, decided not to trust himself to the frail craft they had constructed and remained with the Indians. Several of the Frenchmen in a later colonizing attempt by Jean Ribaut had escaped a Spanish attack and gone to live with the natives.

"The Tensa and Kapata look for you. The Conejeros are everywhere. To get to the river, find your canoes, and then escape will be very hard."

"So?"

"Go into the mountains, wait there for a week, then go quickly. They look for you now. If you leave no tracks, they can find none." I gestured toward the path they had followed to us. "This goes into the mountains. We will follow it."

She considered what I had said, and then Keokotah spoke. "The Ni'kwana trusted him. He thought--"

"We do not know what he thought. Only what he said." She paused. "We will do it. For three days we wait."

She arose and went to where the women had made a bed for her. She lay down and composed herself with a woman lying on each side of her, but each at least ten feet away.

Keokotah looked at me, shrugged, and rolled up in his own blankets. I withdrew the longer sticks from the fire to let it die to coals, and then lay down myself. First I checked my guns. The night was overcast. It was very still. Once a brief flame struggled against the darkness and then faded and died.

When morning came we left quickly, but not until I had gone off some distance to where there was an old campsite. Gathering some of the ancient coals I brought them back to scatter over our fire. Then I lifted handsful of dust and let it drift from my fingers over the fire, carried by the slight breeze. To casual glance our campfire would look months or even years old.

We moved out quickly, going down a slight declivity to the stream that flowed past the hogback mountain we had used for a landmark. There seemed to be an opening through which the stream flowed that would allow access to the mountains.

The stream had cut through the dark rock, and the game path along the stream was narrow. With Keokotah leading the way we climbed a steep hill and came out on top in a lovely valley. We camped where we could watch the entrance and settled down to rest, and to complete work on our buffalo hides. Keokotah and I moved our camp under several large old trees some fifty yards from the camp of the Natchee.

At daybreak I was up and scouting. The hole in which we had taken shelter must have embraced a thousand acres of fertile land, surrounded by rugged hills and cliffs covered with timber, mostly pine. Or so it seemed from where I studied them.

For several hours I scouted about. There were a number of caves, one a death trap. I tried dropping a stone into the darkness and it took some time to hit bottom. It was a place to avoid.

Here and there wildflowers still bloomed and I saw other plants I remembered--mountain parsley, wild mint, choke-cherry, and a half dozen others that might be useful. Already I was planning for the coming winter. No matter what Itchakomi decided to do, this would be a good place for Keokotah and I to winter.

Game would be apt to shelter here, and if we kept our presence small the supply would be sufficient to provide us with meat. Building a shelter was not out of the question, but one of the caves might be all that was needed.

As I studied the valley and the surrounding hills I heard the song of a meadowlark, always a favorite, and several times I stumbled upon flocks of quail. The hills would give us shelter from the worst storms and there would be fuel.

Itchakomi's people were gathered about their fire when I returned. Keokotah had built our own fire. He was broiling meat, and I joined him, bringing more fuel.

"A cold time is coming," I said.

He cut a sliver from the meat with his knife and began chewing.

"There are caves. I see many deer. I see bear tracks. Quail." I cut a sliver from the meat. "It is a good place," I said.

"What they do?"

I shrugged. "She will decide. I think they will go."

"They will stay," Keokotah said. "Itchakomi has eyes for you."

"For me? No chance of that. She despises me."

Sitting beside the fire I considered their problem. If they left now and could get to the Arkansas they might float down the river to its mouth. The severe drouth that had hit the plains before we had come was gone. The river was running full and strong. To get so far as the river would call for considerable luck, and we had been fortunate so far. They must have canoes somewhere not too far off if they had not been discovered by the Conejeros.

On the other hand the Conejeros might know of this valley or might find our tracks. We had seen no signs of recent occupation or of hunting or travel, so it was possible they had not found this place. Here we might last out the winter in comparative shelter. We would need more food, of course. A little judicious hunting would take care of that. Most of all we needed a fat bear, for of all things, fat is the hardest to come by in the wilderness.

One of Itchakomi's young warriors came to our fire and squatted on his heels. "You stay?" he asked.

"We stay."

He was uneasy. "Snow?"

"Much," I said, "and much cold."

The Indian poked a stick into the fire. "Natchee not much cold," he said.

Keokotah said nothing, but I glanced around at him and said, "Living where they do on the lower Mississippi they wouldn't have much experience with cold and snow. You know better than any of us what we'll have to do."

Keokotah was silent for several minutes, and then he made a sweeping gesture. "Snow!" he said. He picked up a stick from the small pile of fuel. "No find tree for fire, all cover! No find game! Snow! Much, much snow! Stay in lodge!"

"Then we'd better hunt," I said. "We'll need meat, and we'll need a fat bear or two. We'll need to gather what seeds we can before they're all covered with snow."

They sat silent, waiting. "Keokotah? You know the problems."

The Kickapoo shook his head vigorously. "You speak! You chief!"

"The women and the older men should gather wood," I said. "We must hunt, but hunt far away from where we live. We must not drive game away from us."

There was time yet, so we went quietly about what must be done. There was much wood lying about, trees that had blown down or fallen from age or lightning, many with limbs broken off. As in all such wild areas there was no limit to the available deadwood, and we gathered it close to the cave we had chosen.

My leg was still a handicap. Undoubtedly I had begun using it, even with the crude crutches, sooner than I should have done. I limped, but also the leg tired rapidly. My other wounds had healed, although the scars on my scalp and legs would always be reminders. My strength had not returned, and I had to work in spells, resting from time to time.

"She think you weak," Keokotah said, smirking a little, "I tell her you strong. Tell her you kill big animal."

"She can think what she likes," I replied irritably. "It does not matter to me."

Yet I was angry with myself that I could do no more, for winter was coming on and we were ill prepared for the cold. We had found good shelter in the caves, and we had brought much wood close by, not touching that already close but bringing wood from afar, where it would be hard to go when winter brought snow and ice.

Keokotah and two of the younger braves from the Natchee ventured down into the plains where they killed several buffalo and bought home the meat and the hides.

At dusk on the day after the return of Keokotah I killed a large bear, killed him with three arrows and skinned him out, saving much fat meat.

Keokotah went again to the plains but returned only with an antelope.

"No good," he said. "I look. Many tracks where we kill buffalo. I think Kapata find. Now he look close by."

I did not often swear but I did then, softly and to myself. I had hoped they would not find us and would go back down the river to avoid the winter. Now we would urge them to stay on and to find us.

My leg worried me. One month, I had thought when first injured, but now the summer had gone and it was still not what it should be. Was I to be permanently crippled? I could not accept that, although I had known brave men who had been and who had achieved greatly and lived well despite it. Many hurt worse than I had gone on to lead active lives. Yet I was alone.

Keokotah was my friend but I could not impose a burden upon him, and I had no family closer than a thousand miles.

Deliberately I began going further afield. I pushed myself to hunt, to extend my movements. When I tired, I rested, but I continued to hunt, to bring wood, and to collect seeds. And then I set myself another task, to check for tracks.

Of course, along the game trail following the stream was the likely route by which an enemy might come, yet they might also come over the mountains. I tried to leave nothing to chance, but to be aware of tracks wherever I was.

Although her women dressed skins and gathered what seeds and herbs could still be found, I saw nothing of Itchakomi.

Not that I was looking. I had no business with her and no doubt she was about business of her own. Yet she was nowhere in sight, and I wondered. When Keokotah was about I never looked toward her cave. We had our own cave, our own fire. It was sufficient.

And then the snow fell.

There was a night when the skins with which we covered ourselves were not enough, there was a morning when I walked out into the crisp, cold air to find the hills about the valley white with freshly fallen snow.

That was the morning we knew winter had come. That was the morning I knew Itchakomi would not be going away downriver. It was already too late.

Icy winds would be blowing down from the north, and other Indians would be sitting warm in their lodges. Soon the rivers would freeze and no canoe would be able to travel upon them. Itchakomi had been foolish to wait so long, yet I would say nothing of that. I felt better that she ... they ... were staying. After all, I'd not like to think of them freezing out on those ghastly plains--ghastly in the winter, at least.

On the second morning Keokotah returned from a hunt begun before the snow, and he brought with him a prisoner, an Indian girl, an Apache.

Chapter Seventeen.

The girl was young and quite pretty. Furthermore, she did not seem at all put out by her capture.

"Where'd you find her?"

"She hides."

"From you?"

"No from me. She does not see me. She is Acho Apache, and she is taken from her village in a raid. She makes runaway and hides. I see her. I tell her 'come!' She is here."

"I see she is." She drew nearer to him. "Does she wish to return to her people?"

Even as I spoke I could see how foolish the idea was. If ever I had seen anyone who was pleased to be right where she was it was this Indian girl. "She is your problem, Keokotah," I said. "Just so she doesn't run off and bring them back on us."

"She no run," he said, and I believed him.

Limping, I walked outside. The air was cool off the snow-covered mountains. We had a few more days before the snow fell here, or so I hoped. Still, we were as ready as we were likely to be. We had buffalo robes, we had meat, and we had shelter. At the edge of the brush near the creek, something stirred. My eyes held, waiting.

It moved again. It was a buffalo calf.

I spoke to Keokotah. "The calf. Tell them not to kill it."

"They know. I speak strong to them."

Several times when I was close to the calf I spoke to it. Once I reached out to touch it, but it moved away, though not too swiftly, and I felt the poor creature was lonely. I talked to it, and sometimes when I went down by the stream it walked along not too far away, keeping pace with me. One day when Keokotah's Acho woman made fry bread I offered a piece to the buffalo calf. It smelled and then tugged it from my hand and ate it. Gradually, we became friends.

The snow came in the night, softly, silently, very white, very thick, and soon very deep. The Natchee stayed by their fires, as did we. However, later in the day I went out and after much persuading and tugging, got the calf into the cave. He would not stay, but ran outside and into the snow.

"He like snow," Keokotah said. "Animal like snow."

"Tell them not to hunt near the opening of the valley," I suggested to Keokotah. "There will be no tracks to see."

The days went by slowly, and when I could I talked to the Natchee or to Keokotah and his woman.

Her people hunted southeast from us, she told us. As to where they had come from she did not know, only that it had been a very good place. It was "over there" and now she was "here." It did not seem to matter, for they had always been somewhere. Her grandfather had lived far from here, and his father still farther.

When I could I led her to talk, and when she understood that Keokotah approved she talked willingly enough. Gradually her story became the story of many small migrating tribes, moving from place to place over the years. Often they remained for many years in one general area, and then, pushed out by others or because of drouth or the scarcity of wildlife, they moved on. Their warriors went off on raids or were raided.

I saw little of Itchakomi. She held herself aloof, although once or twice I caught her looking our way. My message had been delivered and my responsibility had ended. Yet she had spoken with Keokotah and with his Acho woman.

In all this time we saw nothing of Kapata or of the Conejeros. Faithfully, we all stayed away from the opening into the valley so as to leave no visible indication of our presence. We kept our fires to a minimum and tried not to burn them when the wind would take the smoke down through the opening along the creek. Nevertheless, I knew it was merely a matter of time.

Despite the early snow the aspen trees were a river of gold flowing along the mountain and spilling down its sides. I stood by the creek one day simply soaking up the rare beauty of the late autumn, when suddenly Itchakomi was nearby.

On this day she wore white buckskins, beaded and worked with porcupine quills. She was, without doubt, a woman of rare beauty.

Standing there with a background of the golden leaves of the aspen she was something no one could look at and remain unmoved.

"You are beautiful!" I said, the words bursting from me, without warning.

She turned her head and gave me a cool, direct look. "What is it 'beautiful'?" she asked.

The question put me at a loss for words. How to explain beauty? "The aspen are beautiful," I said. "The sunrise is beautiful."

"You think me like the aspen?"

"Yes." How did I get into this? "You are slender and lovely to look at."

She looked at me again. "You are courting me?"

The question stopped me cold. I gulped, hesitated, and then said, "Well, not exactly, I--"

"It does not matter!" she spoke sharply. "I am a Sun. You arenothing , a stranger."

"To you I am nothing. To me I am something."

She shrugged, but she did not walk away. "What will happen if you are not there and the Great Sun dies?" I asked.

For several minutes she did not speak, but I had an idea the question had been worrying her, also. "There will be another to take his place until I return."

"A woman can rule?"

"It has been so."

"Often?"

"No ... once, I believe."

"The plains are wide and very cold. There are terrible storms of wind and snow, or I would take you back--"

"I do not need to be taken. When I wish to go, I shall go." She gestured. "This is a good place."

A soft wind stirred the aspens into shimmering golden beauty. A few leaves fell, dropping like a shower of golden coins onto the snow. The red leaves of the scrub oak clung stubbornly, not to be worried by any such gentle wind. The stream rustled along its banks, a thin coating of ice near its edges slowly dissolving into water again.

"Did you find the place you sought?"

She hesitated. "I did not. I found where the river comes from the mountains. It is a good place." She looked around. "This also is a good place." She glanced at me. "It is yours?"

"We found it, Keokotah and I. It is yours if you wish it."

"If it be not yours you cannot give it." Her chin lifted. "The earth belongs to the Great Sun. He lives where he wishes."

"It is a good place where you live," I said, "a pity to leave it."

She shrugged. "We shall not. I came to find a new place because the Great Sun wished it. I do not believe there is danger."

"You were visited by a trader?"

"No trader. A boat with men came. They stopped with us. They traded some things. They went away." She shrugged. "It was nothing."

We were silent for a few minutes and then I said. "There will be change. White men are coming, and they will not come only to pass on. Some will stay. They will not believe in the Great Sun. Their way of life will be different. Some of your people may wish to trade. Some of them may change."

"They will not. Our way is the best way. Our people know it."

Reluctantly I said, "There are Englishmen in what we call Virginia, and in Carolina. There are Spanishmen in Florida. The people who live near them are changing. They often make war on the English or Spanish and often it is because they want things they cannot trade for.

"The tribes who live near the white man are coming to desire the white man's things. They sometimes do not wish to live in the old way."

"The Natchee will not change."

For a long moment I hesitated and then I said, "I fear there will be no future for those who do not change. When there are no new ideas things can remain the same, but strangers are coming with different ways--"

"There are strangers in our villages. There has been no change."

"I noticed one of your men with a steel knife, a white man's knife. That is change. I saw one of your women sewing with a steel needle. That is change. Do not others want such knives and needles?"

"We do not need them."

"Need and desire have no connection," I said. "Many people desire things they do not need. Happiness can be measured by what one does not need, but often to see is to want.

"For many years," I spoke quietly, "all was the same in the villages of the tribes. There were no new ideas. You knew all that lay about you. The weapons your warriors had were the same as those of other tribes. Now some tribes will have guns, and all will change. In the north the Dutch and the English have traded guns to the Iroquois, and the Iroquois--"

"I do not know Iroquois."

"It is said that several tribes have come together to fight as one. The Seneca are one such tribe. Now they have begun destroying the tribes that live near them.

"And what of the Creeks? Your neighbors? Some of them have guns. It is whispered they are no longer friendly."

She was silent, and I knew she was thinking of what I had said. She did not like it, but she was thinking about it. Leaves fell again from the aspen, and some fell into her hair, making there a small diadem of gold. I looked away.

This was no time for me to be thinking of a woman's beauty. I had mountains to cross.

"You live on a great river," I said, "and men have always sought the great rivers because they lead to the sea, and to trade with other peoples. They will come to your river, too, and they will come in greater numbers than all your people, and they will come with their weapons and their desires.

"They will know nothing of the Great Sun, nor will most of them care. They will have their own beliefs and their own rulers, and you will have to defend your land, by talk if possible, by war if necessary."

After a moment she said, "I cannot believe what you speak. The man you call De Soto and his Men of Fire came, and they are gone, and nothing happened. The Great Sun said they would go and be forgotten, and they were.

"Whispers have come to us of other Men of Fire wearing iron shirts who came into the Far Seeing Lands, and they, too, are gone."

"Others will come who will not go away. At first they will look for gold or pearls but then they will want land. Your people must be prepared for this."

She shook her head. "Nothing will change. Nothing ever has."

Well, what could I say? She spoke from her experience and the remembered experience of her oldest men. Year followed year, season followed season, and day followed day, and the rites of the seasons were performed and all remained the same.

There had to be a way to reach her, yet ... "Itchakomi, your people have not lived here forever. Have you not found old graves, old stone tools, different kinds of arrowheads?"

"So?"

"Those who passed on before you did not expect change, either, but change came. Does the leaf on the tree know winter is coming? Does the leaf know it will fall and crumble away among other leaves? If your people would survive they must be prepared.

"You are here because some among your wise men believed a new home must be found, but a new home is not the answer, for when they come they will leave no place untouched.

"See?I am here. Why? Because I wanted to see, to know, to understand. I wanted to go beyond the Great River. I wanted to go beyond the plains. I want even to go beyond these mountains where we now are. I think I am in this world to find beauty in lonely places. At least, that is what I wish to think.

"My father was the same. Why did he leave his home in the fens? Why did he cross the sea to this far land? Why, when he had a home at Shooting Creek, did he wish to go beyond the far blue mountains? I do not know, but I think it is something buried within us, something that makes us long for the far places.

"Nor do I believe it will stop here. When men have gone down the longest rivers, climbed the highest mountains, and crossed the greatest deserts there will still be the stars."

"Thestars? "

"Sakim, my old teacher, told me that some wise men in India and China believed the stars were suns like ours and that somewhere out there were other worlds. Who knows if this is true or not? But do you think men will be content to wonder? Someday they will find a way to the stars and an answer to their questions."

She looked at me with wonderment. "You talk strangely. Why are you not content with this?"

"It is man's nature, Itchakomi, to wonder, and thank all the gods for it. It is through wonder that we come to know." I was silent for a moment, thinking how long their world must have remained undisturbed, their people slowly becoming content with what they had and what was near. With us in Europe it was otherwise. Our rivers and our many harbors had let strangers come with strange ideas, and our people had changed. There had been migrations from other parts of Europe and Asia, each bringing new customs, new ways. It had brought war and trouble, but it had brought change also.

We stood together in silence, I with my thoughts and she with hers, the stream rustling at our feet. Low clouds had come, and they rested in the silent valleys among the hills, and with mountains looming above. Slowly a few flakes began to fall, drawing a thin, delicate veil across the morning.

"We had better go back," I said.

She turned and looked straight at me for a moment, but said nothing. We walked back together, and then she went to her cave and I to mine.

Several days passed in which I hunted, and scouted the mountains to the west, finding another even higher valley than this where we were, and one to which we might retreat if necessary. I found a shelter and gathered wood against a time of need. It was ever my way to prepare for the possible, even if improbable. Now, in the event we had to flee from where we were, we would know where shelter was and where wood was gathered. I moved away from the place, choosing landmarks and other trail markers that could be found at night.

It was a good place, that upper valley, and I spoke of it to Keokotah, telling him of the shelter cave and the wood. "There may be a better place," I said, "but at least it is a place."

Somewhere out there was Kapata, for I did not believe he was one to quit. Somewhere were the Conejeros, but the snow was still falling and there was hope they would not discover our retreat.

That day I began for the first time to set traps for fur. If the time came when I returned to civilization I would need money, and furs were the most certain source. But we might need the furs for ourselves. I was afraid it was going to be a long winter.

Keokotah hunted each day, and each day returned with game. Often he went alone, sometimes with one of the Natchee. One night beside the fire he spoke suddenly.

"They look for us."

Startled, I looked around at him. "Who?"

He shrugged. "Conejeros. Kapata. I do not know. Somebody. "

"You saw tracks? Inside the valley?"

"Outside. I am over the mountain. I am in the trees. Among the trees," he amended. "I see five mans. They look for tracks."

That sounded like Kapata. I doubted the Conejeros believed we were still about, but Kapata would be sure of it. The Conejeros did not need to find us, but Kapata did.

Of course, it came as no surprise. We had known he would be searching for us.

It was on the third day of the snow that I went to the cave mouth and looked out. All was white and still. The snow was no longer falling, but the tree branches bent under their weight of snow and wherever we looked it was a white, white world. Turning, I walked back into the cave. Keokotah was sleeping.

Suddenly I wished I had a book. It had been so long since I had read. Could a man forget how to read? The idea worried me. I checked our supply of meat. There was enough to last a long time, but we would need to hunt when we could. I found myself wishing for Keokotah's pasnuta, the creature with the long nose. Some kind of long-haired elephant would provide us with enough meat to last for a long time.

The thought amused me. The only elephants I had heard of had been from India or Africa, places that were warm most of the time. It was unlikely an elephant could survive in this country in winter, but I knew little of the beasts. In any event it was purely idle speculation.

Returning to the cave mouth I stood where I could look out over the valley. Because of falling snow I could not see the entrance to the valley.

Should we move to the upper valley now? It would be colder, and we would not have as much fuel. Our meat we could take with us.

Glancing around I saw Itchakomi. She put her hand out to catch a snowflake. It hit her palm and then vanished. She gave a little cry of amazement. "It is gone!"

"They melt quickly sometimes."

She looked at me. "You have seen snow?"

"Much of it on the mountains, and once we hunted far to the north and there was snow. We returned home."

"Will it stay?"

"For months, I think. Five or six moons," I suggested. "I do not know. Some years are colder than others."

"It is not a good place for my people," she said. "They do not understand."

"They could learn, and there is much game." I pointed toward the western hills. "They could lose themselves in the mountains. It is beautiful there."

"I shall go back," she said.

"I shall go west, I think. Or perhaps I'll stay here, at the edge of the plains." I had not thought of it until that moment but suddenly I decided. I would stay. I would find a place somewhere along the edge of the mountains, and stay.

The thought was strange to me, who thought only of wandering. A foolish thought that would go away. I was sure of that. Yet the idea lingered.

"Here?" she looked around. "But you are alone! There will be nobody!"

I shrugged. "I am often alone. It is my nature."

"But you would need a woman!"

"In time I'd find one." I smiled. "Maybe even a Conejero woman. Or an Acho, like Keokotah."

Her eyes were cool. She glanced at me and then looked away.

"Indian men need women to prepare the hides for them," I said. "After a hunt there is much work, but I can do my own, and have done them. On this trip I have made moccasins, and when necessary I can make my leggings and jacket. When I marry it will be for love."

"Love? What is love?"

It was something of which I knew nothing, yet something of which I had thought a good deal. Too much for a man who did not intend to take a woman ... yet.

"It is something between a man and woman, something that goes beyond just being man and woman. It is a feeling between them, a sharing of interests, a walking together, it is--"

Keokotah was suddenly there. "Somebody comes!" he said.

Stepping to a place where I could look through the trees, I saw them.

Two men standing beside the creek, looking toward us.

Chapter Eighteen.

We held ourselves still, knowing a movement might be seen, hoping no smoke was visible from the caves behind and above us. After several minutes of looking around they turned to go, crossing the stream and walking back toward the way they had come.

"Conejeros!" Keokotah said.

Neither of us replied. We simply watched. I know my heart was beating slowly, heavily. I thought of my guns back in the cave. It was foolish to have them and not carry them always. When their time would come I did not know, but they were something on which to rely, something that might save us all.

The Conejeros had probably fought the Spanishmen, so they would be familiar with guns, but mine were far more accurate than any other firing weapons I had ever seen. Of their kind they were masterpieces, as their maker had intended them to be. My future might depend on them, and that of Itchakomi.

Now the strangers were gone, or apparently gone. Still we did not move, for they might yet be within sight of us, might turn and look back. "Thank God," I said, "there were no tracks!"

Itchakomi turned and looked at me. "Who is God?" she asked.

For a minute I just stood there. How to answer such a question? I was no preacher or priest. I was no student of religion. I knew so very, very little!

"He is the Father. He is present in all things. He--"

"--is the Sun?"

"That would be one way in which he reveals himself. I believe he is more than just the sun."

"Justthe Sun?" Her eyes were cool. "The Sun gives life to all things." She turned her dark eyes to me. "The Sun was our ancestor."

Religion was a topic I avoided. I felt myself inadequate to discuss it. Each man seemed to have a different idea about it. Moreover I had discovered that few things led more quickly to anger. "Perhaps you are right," I replied mildly. "Men have found many explanations and perhaps each contains some element of truth. I am not a scholar, only one who wishes he could be."

"What is it, a scholar?"

"I suppose a scholar is one who studies the origins of things, the laws of society and how men came to be what they are and where they are. I am not a scholar, and I have known but one, my teacher Sakim."

"He was an Englishman?"

"No." I squatted above the snow and with a twig I drew a rough map of Europe, Asia, and Africa, "England is here, and Sakim came from over here." I indicated a place in Central Asia not far from Samarkand, yet the map was unbelievably crude. "Long ago many scholars came from there. Now they seem to come from further west."

"Why?"

I shrugged. "I know only that civilizations seem to be like people. They are born, they grow to maturity, then they age and lose their vitality and they die, only to be born again in later years."

"And where are we?"

I moved back, indicated the breadth of the Atlantic, and then North America and a place on it. "We are about here. The Natchee lived about there." I indicated a place on a river above a gulf.

For a long time she studied it. Then the wind began to grow chill, and I shifted my feet, wiggling my toes against the cold in my moccasins.

"It is so, this?"

Keokotah had looked at it and then looked away. I do not believe he was interested. It all seemed remote to him, remote from the lands he knew, remote from these mountains.

"I do not believe this," she smudged the map suddenly with her toe. "I have heard nothing of this. Even the Ni'kwana has not spoken of it."

"You asked."

We walked back to the cave together, neither of us speaking. At the path between our two caves she stopped. "You are from this place, England?"

"My father was."

"The Warriors of Fire? They come from there?"

"From nearby. They are enemies of England, most of the time. They have many ships, many soldiers. They have conquered lands to the south. They killed many, made slaves of others. They destroyed their gods."

"They cannot destroy the Sun."

"No." I smiled. "They would not wish to. They need its warmth as we do."

She lingered. "The tracks in the snow? Could you do them for me again?"

"I shall try. Maybe on a bark, or better still a deer hide."

"I do not believe it but I should like to see what you believe. If such strange tribes had been, the Ni'kwana would have spoken of them."

"Before my father came to America he had never heard of the Natchee. The Englishmen who live near Plymouth have never heard of the Natchee. Even the Indians who live nearby do not know of the Natchee, yet the Natchee are important people. No man knows all the peoples. No man knows all the lands. So far as we know I am the first of my people to come this far, and perhaps none of my people will ever know that I came here, or that I met you."

She was silent and then her eyes lifted to mine. "Is it important that you have met me?"

"It is to me," I surprised myself by saying, "perhaps not to them."

She turned her eyes away, and then she said, "I am a Sun."

"And I am not."

She shook her head. "No, I think you must be a Sun, too. Although from another tribe, another place."

"I could be a Stinkard," I said, smiling. "I do not place much faith in names or titles."

"Do you have Suns in your country?"

"They are called royalty. We have another class as you have, called the nobility, and we also have our Respected Men."

"And you?"

"In our country we have another class, I believe. They are called 'yeomen,' and my father was one of them. It is said that there were some respected men among my ancestors, too, but my father paid little attention to that. He judged each man by himself and not by his ancestors."

We each returned to our caves, and on that day we restricted our moving about, fearful the men we had seen might come again, and we wanted to leave no more tracks in the snow. Yet already I was making plans. When another heavy snow came we would move into the higher valley, further back in the hills. We would need heavy snow to cover our tracks. Until then we would enjoy our caves.

There were many deerhides among us, some simply cured, some well tanned. One of the finest I secured from a Natchee. I would have traded, but when he discovered I wished to make a present for Itchakomi he presented me with it.

To draw a map from memory is not easy, yet Sakim had taught me well and I did the best I could, using all the space on the deerhide. Itchakomi was a girl of unusual intelligence, as I had recognized from the first, but when one is teaching one always assumes a certain degree of preknowledge or awareness, and her world was one that embraced only areas with some two or three hundred miles around, and only rumors of much of that.

She had seen the Gulf of Mexico, but knew it only as a vast body of water. Some of her people had once been to Cuba and even to Jamaica. Long ago there had been trade with Yucatan, but that was a misty tradition from a time before the Spanishmen came, which was more than one hundred years before. Ni'kwana had been one of those who had made the last voyage to Yucatan. They had found the Spanish there and had fled.

My father's last crossing of the Atlantic had taken him, if I remembered correctly, sixty-two days. It was difficult for her to imagine such a great body of water. I tried to explain about the many countries, the large cities, the riverboats.

We had food and fuel so there was no need to stir outside the caves. Nor did we wish to attract attention. Always, there was someone on guard. Often I was the one, sometimes Keokotah or one of the Natchee. We saw no movement. A little snow fell, but only a very little. Within the cave, by firelight, I began the drawing of the map.

Long ago, when only a small boy, Sakim had each of us draw this map, and he tried to explain to us the world as he knew it, and the world we should know. Sakim was a Moslem, and Mecca was the center of the Moslem world. To it other Moslems came on pilgrimages from every part of the world bringing with them their knowledge of peoples far away and lands strange to any but themselves.

Only within the past century had Europe become aware of the many lands and beliefs that lay in the farthest corners of the world. It was required of a good Moslem that at least once during his lifetime he make a pilgrimage to Mecca, and they came by the thousands.

Pausing to replenish the dying fire I looked about to discover that everyone slept. Several of the Natchee had begun coming to our cave to sleep, to leave more freedom to Itchakomi and her women.

The night was still, with only an occasional crackle from the fire or a hissing whisper as the flames found dampness.

Why was I doing this? Why was I drawing a map of the world she would never see for an Indian girl who probably had no wish to know of it? Even when the map was finished how could I make her comprehend the vastness of that world out there? Moreover, was it fair to her? She had been the center of her world, but now she would find it pitifully small. Did she want that? Did I want it?

For a moment I thought to cast my map into the flames, but the task itself now engrossed me. I had a desire of my own to complete it. Supposing someday I became the father of a child? Would I not want him or her to know the world in which we lived?

Irritably, I shook my head. Such an idea was foolish. I had no plans for a family, nor plans for a wife. When spring came I was going deeper into the mountains. There was a lot of country out there I wished to see.

Yet I returned to the map, slowly tracing in the Black Sea and the Caspian. Sakim himself had come from a land near the Caspian Sea and had wandered on to Tashkent and Samarkand before going to Bagdad and Aleppo. Finally, I rolled up the map and lay down to sleep.

For a long time I lay awake, my mind alive with ideas. How to make Itchakomi understand my world? How to make her realize her own would never be the same again? If she found a place in the mountains, it would be only a temporary refuge, and one could not hide from change. One must adapt or die.

Already among my own people I had seen it. I had seen them shed the old customs and adapt to the new. I had seen them find ways of doing things never tried before.

When I awakened I was cold, colder than I had ever been before. Crawling from my blanket and buffalo robes I stirred the fire and added fuel, peering from the cave mouth. Nothing moved in a white world. The sky was a dull flat gray and when I looked at the stream it was a shining path of ice.

No one stirred in the cave of Itchakomi. I walked to the opening, the snow crunching under my feet, and stepping inside I stirred their fire also and brought life from the ash-buried coals. When a good blaze was taking the chill from their cave I tiptoed out and went back to my own. Beside the fire I shivered, my face burning, my back chilled. Yet slowly the cave warmed, and I got out my deerskin and began again on the map. My fingers were cold and it was hard to work, but now I was gripped by my task. Yet as I worked, I was bothered by doubts.

What would my revelations mean to her? Would she believe? I knew most Indians doubted the stories told by Europeans, and so might she.

Suppose she did believe? What would it do to her world? Her beliefs? Her personal assurance?

She was a Sun, which among her people meant she was most important. She could walk with pride among her people and the neighboring tribes, respected and looked up to. What would happen when she realized her people were unknown in the wider world and her beliefs unaccepted? I hesitated over my map and put it aside. I added fuel to the fire and stared into the flames.

It might be well to forget my map, to let her live out her days believing what she now did. But would that happen? The French, Spanish, English, and Dutch all claimed land. They would be moving in to settle, and there was no way to prevent that. Better to prepare her for what was to come. She seemed a very intelligent girl, or was I reading something into her because I wished to find it?

That stopped me. Why should I wish it? She meant nothing to me. When the weather broke we would be moving on. Further west for me, and back to her homeland for her.

Still, if she had the map and realized what had happened in other lands she might be better prepared for what would happen here.

I went to the cave's opening and looked out upon the white, empty land before me. Even the trees were lost under the heavy fall of snow. Everything before me was frozen in the icy grip of winter.

We had fuel, and knew where more could be had, and we had meat. We could last out this cold and longer. Then we must hunt again. It would be impossible to escape eastward across the plains. Yet we would have little to fear from the Conejeros now. They would be holed up in their lodges, as any sane Indian would be. Of Kapata I was not so sure.

He was a vengeful man, and he was also a man in a hurry. I did not believe the snow would stop him, or the cold. It might rob his followers of some ambition, but not Kapata himself.

As I stood at the cave's mouth, half shielded by brush and trees, which both provided concealment and helped conserve our heat, I thought of Kapata and tried to decide what his next move might be.

Our tracks had vanished beneath the snow, yet his was a shrewd mind, and he would try to decide where we had gone. Our need for shelter was the same as that of others, and a first consideration was the wind. We must have shelter from the wind. A cliffside then, or a thick grove. We could have built a shelter or found a cave. If a cave, then the mountains would be the logical place.

My thinking left me uneasy. Surely, the possible hiding places along the creeks and rivers would be few and easily found. Kapata would know of the Conejeros, and if he had not allied himself with them he would know where they had been, so one by one the possibilities would be eliminated.

It was cold out there now ... cold!

Kapata would be seated in a shelter now, fuming at the delay, impatient to be out and doing. At any time the cold could break, and then he would come seeking.

Itchakomi's fighting men were few and not so fierce as those they must meet, for the Natchee by shrewd diplomacy had avoided wars and fighting more than most. The Conejeros were not interested in peacemaking.

Nothing moved out there. The snow stretched away white and endless. I looked again and then returned to my map-making.

Keokotah slept. Few Indians moved about in the cold, knowing too well the dangers and how easily a man might die if injured. It was the Indian way, the sensible way, to lie by the fire. It was storytelling time for them.

I added fuel to the fire.

Before the day was out I would have to bring more fuel into the cave, for the flames were hungry and the dry wood burned swiftly. After a while I put down my map and broke off a piece of frozen jerky, which snapped like wood. Tucking the piece into my mouth I went again to the cave mouth.

Nothing stirred.

Going to a fallen tree I broke some of the larger branches and carried them back inside. Working steadily, I had in a few minutes gathered wood for the day and most of the night.

With a last armful of wood I was turning back to the cave when a movement caught my eye. I stopped dead still, and then slowly turned my head.

Out there, in the snow, and yet far away, something moved! Something, a man or an animal, moving toward us.

Fascinated, unbelieving, I stood, watching.

How far away? A mile? Oh, more than that! Perhaps two miles?

What was it? Who was it?

I waited, watching.

Chapter Nineteen.

Keokotah was beside me. "He hurt," he said. "No walk good." We watched the distant figure struggling through the snow, and my feelings were not Christian. Whoever it was down there could bring us nothing but grief. Whatever else he was doing he was marking a trail right to our door at a time when we could not afford to attract attention.

He seemed to be alone, which probably meant that he was fleeing from something--perhaps he had been a prisoner of Indians and was escaping.

"He know about caves," Keokotah said.

It was the only explanation. We had deliberately not moved about, so he could not know of our presence. The only reason he could have for coming this way was that he knew about the caves and was seeking shelter from the cold. He was still a long way off and was having a hard time of it. We looked beyond him but saw no pursuit in sight.

The man paused then and looked back. Was he followed? Or merely afraid of being followed? In this snow, following his tracks would offer no problem. All our efforts to remain hidden were being wasted.

Now he was coming toward us again. The snow was deeper out there than we had believed. Once he stopped and shaded his eyes toward the cliff where the caves were. He looked right where we stood, but we knew he could not see us, for we stood among trees and brush.

Drawing back a bit further against the cliff, where there was a depression caused by runoff water, I went to the next cave. The Natchee Unstwita was on guard there. He spoke neither English nor Creek, so I made signs to indicate a man was coming. He went at once to look, and then vanished within the cave, where I heard a low mutter of voices.

Itchakomi came to the mouth of the cave, stooping to emerge. She went to look, and then turned to me. "He is a white man."

A white man?Startled, I looked again. Yes, it could be. But a white man?Here?

Well, I was here. And there were French far to the north and Spanishmen to the south. I drew my blanket about me to conceal my guns.

"Let them stay inside," I suggested. "Only Unstwita and Keokotah."

She agreed, and studied the man again. "Keokotah says he is hurt," I commented.

"It is so."

He must have been desperate indeed. An injured man has small chance of survival in intense cold, and the day had grown no warmer. I looked back the way he had come. There was no pursuit. Had he escaped scot-free then? Or were they taking their time, knowing he could not go far in this weather?

We waited, watching him flounder through the snow. He was quite close when he stopped suddenly, crouched as if to turn, and glanced wildly about. He had seen where we had been gathering fuel and some fragments of bark atop the snow.

"It is all right," I spoke quietly, "you may come in."

His only visible weapon was a stout stick that he must have taken up from the ground somewhere. He stared toward us but could see nothing, for we had remained behind the brush and trees.

"Who is it?" He spoke in Spanish.

"A friend," I replied in the same language, "if you are friendly."

He came on few steps further and then halted. Now he could see me, and he could see Keokotah. "Who are you?"

"Travelers," I said, "and you?"

He did not reply, but came a few steps closer. "I am hungry," he said.

"Are they far behind you?"

"Who?" He stared at me. "Nobody is behind me." He peered at me. "I need a horse. I can pay."

"We have no horses," I replied.

"Nohorses? " He almost screamed his frustration. "I must have a horse! At once!"

"We have no horses," I repeated. "You are escaping from the Indians?"

He was facing me now, a squarely built, not unhandsome rascal, bearded and with what seemed a freshly broken nose. He was Spanish without a doubt, and he had recently been in a fight of some kind.

"I have seen no Indians," he replied stiffly. "Not lately, anyway. I must get back to Mexico."

"It is a long way," I replied. "You can get a horse in the Spanish settlements."

"Days!" He spoke angrily, impatiently. "Every minute is precious!"

"There is food," Itchakomi said.

He glanced at her, looked again. "My God," he said. "You're beautiful!"

I was suddenly angry. Who did he think he was, anyway? "She is a Sun," I spoke coolly, "a Sun of the Natchee. She is a princess."

"I can believe it." He looked at her again. "Such a woman! In such a place!"

He irritated me, so I grabbed his arm and pointed the way. He tore his arm free and reached for his belt. There was a dagger there.

He glared at me and I shrugged. "Keep on going, then. You've a long way before the settlements."

He swore. Then he said, "I am a fool! You spoke of food?"

Indicating our cave, I led the way. When I glanced back Itchakomi was watching me. I thought she was smiling, and for some reason, that made me angrier still.

He was no common soldier--that was obvious. Perhaps the leader of a wiped-out expedition? I asked him. "No," he replied to my question, "not wiped-out." He accepted the food I offered and began to eat. "We quarreled," he said then. "Diego wished to go no further. I wanted to push on. We fought."

"You lost?"

"I won." He swallowed, gulped water, and then examined the piece of meat he was eating and chose the place to bite. Then he looked over at me. "I won," he repeated, "and that dog of a Diego set the others upon me."

He ate, drank, and then paused again, gesturing with the hand that held the meat. "They tied me. They would take me back to be tried for mutiny. It would mean my death. My death, d'you hear?

"So I escaped. I shall return and tell my story first, and then we shall see! Moreover"--there was a gleam of satisfaction in his eyes--"I shall have something to offer."

"A bribe?"

"A gift. A very special gift." He smiled at me. "Thank you, my friend, for being here. I was wondering what I could do, how I could appeal to a man of his very special tastes. Now I know."

He talked no more, but he had aroused my curiosity. He recovered amazingly. With the food, the drink, and a bit of rest he was a new man.

"You might think I was a fool to challenge Diego," he commented. "He was the leader and I but a follower, yet had anything happened to him, I would have been captain. I was the only man of rank, and Diego, the fool, insisted on holding to his orders, which were to go so far and no farther and not to risk hostility from strange Indians.

"Trade! That was what was wanted! Trade bedamned, as you English would say. Gold is what I wanted, and I knew where to find it!Gold!

"I could not make him see reason so I risked all." He glanced up at me. "A man who will not risk all is a fool! A child!"

"If it is gold you want," I suggested. "Diego evidently thought first of duty."

His contempt was obvious. "Duty? A word for slaves! For servants! A man's first duty is to himself!" He shot me an impatient glance. "Of course it is gold I want! Gold can buy whatever it is you wish. It can buy power, position, women ... whatever." Then he smiled suddenly and said, "And women can buy all those things as well."

He threw a sly glance my way.

"You did not see any Indians when coming here?"

He shrugged. "A camp that I avoided. A dozen lodges on the bank of this river out there." He looked thoughtful. "Six or seven miles beyond the opening yonder."

His eyes were busy, estimating everything. What he had in mind I did not know, but he was making a quick judgment of all we had and what we might be doing here.

"English?" he asked.

"I am. I was born here, in America."

"You'll be thrown into prison if the Spanish find you here," he commented, "although I might intercede for you."

He sat back and looked around him again. "Diego, now, he would arrest you at once and return you to Santa Fe. Then you would be sent to Mexico, in chains."

"We hope to avoid that," I said. "We do not expect to meet your Diego."

"I could speak for you," he said, "if you will do something for me."

"When spring comes and we can travel again, we shall be leaving here."

Leaving him there with Keokotah I went outside and looked back over the route he had used. His tracks were visible for some distance. He had pointed a finger at us and if he was pursued they would certainly find us all. Moreover, any Indian who discovered his trail would follow it. I looked at the gray, overcast sky.

Itchakomi was seated by the fire when I entered her cave. The women were working, and one of the men was chipping an arrowhead. I never ceased to marvel at their skill in chipping the finest flakes, especially the bird points, small arrowheads used in killing feathered game.

She looked up as I entered, and I went and sat across the fire. We sat for several minutes in silence, and then I spoke.

"You must have a care. He has left a trail the blind could follow."

She said nothing and irritably I shifted my seat. "He is a dangerous man."

She was amused. No doubt she thought me jealous, but what had I to be jealous of? Yet he worried me.

"He has something on his mind. I could see it when he looked at you."

There was laughter in her eyes. "Most men do," she said.

My cheeks were flushing with impatience and irritation. "I did not mean that. I meant something more. I do not know what. Just be careful."

"Oh, I shall!"

A bit longer I sat, feeling uncomfortable, and then I got up and walked out. Again I looked across the fields of snow. Nothing in sight but the tracks, a furrow in the snow pointing right at us. And after all our care!

Gathering some wood from under nearby trees I made a pile near the cave mouth. It was something to keep my hands busy while my thoughts took off down another trail. Our only advantage lay in the fact that he was in a hurry to be off. From what I gathered he wished to be in Santa Fe to tell his story first, and he had implied he had something to offer.

That night, when alone in the cave for a few minutes, I donned the coat of mail I had found near the village on the Arkansas. Over it I put my fringed buckskin hunting jacket, drawing the laces tight. Feeling with my fingers I assured myself no part of it was visible. Had I a mirror ...

I had not seen a mirror since leaving the settlement on Shooting Creek, almost a year ago. A year! And what had I done in that year? I had broken a leg and crossed the plains to the Shining Mountains. It was little enough, but when spring came we would be over the passes and into the lands beyond.

My broken leg had mended well. True, I limped somewhat, but I could still walk and run. Of course, I had accomplished the mission given me by the Ni'kwana. I had found Itchakomi and delivered the message entrusted to me.

Again I looked across the snow, but my mind was puzzling over the Spanishman. I could not make him out. Well, he wished to be on his way, and the sooner the better.

When I went back inside he was sleeping. He was a powerfully built man and seemed quick in his movements despite the cold that must have stiffened his muscles. He would be a dangerous antagonist.

Keokotah glanced at me but said nothing. I knew he did not like or trust the Spanishman and would be alert for mischief.

Let the Spanishman rest and eat and be off. He would have caused us trouble enough.

He thought only of his destination and what he would do there and had given no thought to hiding his trail, even had he been capable of it.

Outside I looked toward the mountains, white with snow under the cold gray sky. A low wind stirred the snow, sending faint waves of it dusting across, settling, and then stirring again. It was bitterly cold still. I carried wood into the cave, then more wood.

How lonely those icy ridges! Yet what treasures might lie there? Gold and silver, yes. Beauty intrigued me more, beauty and the glorious wonder of walking where none had walked before me. What else might await discovery? Strange plants and animals, unknown hollows in the hills, green and lovely in the summer. I could not wait to be wandering along their flanks, following nameless streams into nameless valleys. What more could man want than this? A land to discover, food for the hunting, a quiet place to rest when night falls.

When I came back into the cave the Spanishman was sitting up.

"We must talk together, you and I," he said. "We are men of the world, and we can settle this small matter between us."

"What have you in mind?"

He smiled, that quick, assured smile. "I want to buy the woman," he said. "The tall one."

For a moment I was stunned. "You want tobuy her?"

"Why not? She is an Indian, is she not? There are many women for you, and she can be useful to me for trading purposes. With her I could buy--"

"I do not traffic in women," I said, "nor is she mine to sell. She is her own woman."

"Bah!" He waved a careless hand. "No woman is her own, least of all an Indian woman. If you will not sell her or trade, I shall simply take her."

Chapter Twenty.

The man's audacity amazed me. For a moment I just looked at him. "Tomorrow," I said, "you will be fit to travel. I would suggest you do just that."

"Of course," he said.

"You will leave here at daybreak and you will leave alone."

He smiled, showing a fine set of white, even teeth. "And if I do not choose to?"

"Bodies do not lie long upon the ground. The coyotes dispose of them."

His eyes were mocking but suddenly wary. He measured me carefully. Then his eyes shifted to Keokotah.

"Do not think of him. It is I who would kill you. Itchakomi is one of our party. I am the head of that party. If she needs protection, I shall protect her."

"You said she was not your woman?"

"She is not, yet she is under my protection."

We had not heard her enter. How long she had been standing there I did not know. We saw her at the same moment standing tall and still inside the cave mouth. A slight movement of air stirred her skirt.

"She who is not your woman thanks you, but I shall need no protection." As she spoke the Spanishman sat up, his eyes on hers.

For the first time he realized the kind of woman she was, and certainly no queen upon a throne could have been more cool and imperious.

"My name is Gomez," he said. "You would be wise to remember it."

"Kitch!"She used the word contemptuously, and although he knew not its meaning he recognized the tone, and his face flushed.

Ignoring him, she spoke to me. "We talk, you and me. We talk soon, yes?"

"Of course."

She left the cave and he stared after her, his anger showing. "What does it mean, 'kitch'?" he asked.

"It is a Natchee word for dung," I said cheerfully. "In this case it was an expression of opinion, I believe."

His face flushed with anger. "I'll show that--!"

Keokotah spoke suddenly. "You think fool! She brave! She strong! She have strong medicine! You nothing to her."

Gomez swore. He got to his feet, staggering a little. I watched him, noting that he favored his side. He started to speak again but I interrupted.

"You are a guest here. Tomorrow you go. We will give you meat. Your settlements are to the south. Whatever you are, have been, or wish to be I do not know or care. You are conducting yourself as no gentleman would, and if you raise your voice or speak against anyone here, you will leave tonight."

His hand rested upon his waistband. He had a pistol there that I had glimpsed.

"I do not wish to kill you, but if you were to draw that pistol under your hand, I would."

He had not seen my guns, but I was wearing them under the buffalo coat, which I had not removed since returning to the cave.

He wanted to call my hand. It was in his mind, and I was ready.

"What could you have better than a pistol?"

My smile was cheerful. "A better pistol," I said, "or something of the sort."

Abruptly, he sat down. "All right!" He waved a dismissing hand. "Forget what I have said! I am impatient! I did not know what manner of woman she was." He looked at me. "She is truly an Indian?"

"She is. She is like no Indian you have met. Pizzaro might have met someone similar in Peru."

"She is an Inca?Here? "

"There may be a connection. I do not know. She is with us now, but she was the leader of her group."

"Group?"

He had seen only four of us. I smiled at him. "She has ten strong fighting men with her, and some women. She has my protection if she wishes, but she does not need it. She has ten men who would have your scalp in no time, or they might simply geld you."

"Geldme?" His face flushed and then paled. "What kind of talk is that?"

"It has happened," I said, "to men who thought themselves too important." I smiled again. "You are in a different land, my friend, and before you swagger too much you had best learn the customs of the country and the people."

A cold wind was blowing up outside, swirling the snow. We added fuel to the fire and then I went to my bed beyond the flames. Gomez, if that was his name, was staring into the fire, thinking.

He was a bright man, and brave enough, I suspected, but his plans had gone awry, and now he would be considering his next move. That he did not wish to arrive back among his people empty-handed was obvious, as it also was that he had contempt for anyone's feelings but his own. Yet he was no fool. He was a man of whom to be wary. In this, the smaller cave, there were but three of us.

Whatever else Gomez was, he was now desperate. Beaten and driven from Diego's expedition, he had stumbled upon us, hoping for a horse. Now he must head south through the snow to Santa Fe. I did not know the distance but it was many days travel, and I could not believe he was anxious for it.

That night I slept not well. At every move he made my eyes flared open, and Keokotah was equally on edge, yet at daybreak he shouldered the small pack of food we gave him and without so much as a thank-you he walked off into the snow, going back the way he had come.

We watched him move away, and Keokotah followed him, after he disappeared from sight, to see if he continued on his way.

When he was gone I went to Itchakomi's cave.

Two women were making moccasins, another was stitching furs together for a robe, a fourth was cooking.

We seated ourselves together near the wall. No men were in the cave. "They hunt for meat," she explained. "The winter is long, and we eat much."

"This place is good," I said. "You will bring your people here?"

She was silent for several minutes. "I do not know. My people have lived long beside the river. It is warm there and what they plant will grow. Here they must learn new ways. The planting seasons will be different. I do not believe they will wish to leave the warmth and the river. They will stay, and hope for the best."

"But you will tell them of this place?"

"People do not lightly leave what they have always known. Our old ones are buried there. The young who died are buried there also. Our memories are there, and they will turn their eyes from danger."

"And you?"

"Their place is my place also. I must be with them. I must lead and I must advise."

"If the Great Sun dies while you are gone?"

"If I do not return in time, another will take his place."

For a time we did not speak and then I said, tentatively, "It is lovely here, and in the spring--"

"When very young I went one time to the mountains. I went with my mother, my father, and the Ni'kwana. There were others, too. We went to trade. We went to a long valley with forest all about and a small stream. There was a stockade--"

"It was my home."

She looked at me. "I do not know--"

"There was no other, except far away near the sea. We traded with the Cherokee, the Creek, and yes, the Natchee."

"We walked for many days after the river. When I saw the mountains I could not believe. Ni'kwana had spoken of mountains, but--"