The Scarlet Eye

“I tell you that fellow is an Indian!  You can’t fool me!  Look at the way he walks!  He doesn’t step; he pads like a panther!”

Billy ceased speaking, but still pointed an excited forefinger along the half-obliterated buffalo trail that swung up the prairie, out of the southern horizon.  The two boys craned their necks, watching the coming figure, that advanced at a half-trot, half-stride.  Billy was right.  The man seemed to be moving on cushioned feet.  Nothing could give that slow, springing swing except a moccasin.

“Any man is welcome,” almost groaned little Jerry, “but, oh, how much more welcome an Indian man, eh, Billy?”

“You bet!” said Billy.  “He’ll show us a way out of this.  Yes, he’s Indian.  I can see his long hair now.  Look!  I can see the fringe up the sleeves of his shirt; it is buckskin!”

“Do you think he sees us?” questioned Jerry.

Billy laughed contemptuously.  “Sees us!  Why, he saw us long before we saw him, you can bet on that!”

Then Billy raised his arm, and whirled about his head the big bandanna handkerchief which he had snatched from his neck.  The man responded to the signal by lifting aloft for a single instant his open palm with fingers outstretched.

“Yes, he’s Indian!  A white man would have wiggled his wrist at us!” sighed Jerry contentedly.  “He’ll help us out, Billy.  There’s nothing he won’t know how to do!” And the little boy’s eyes grew moist with the relief of knowing help was at last at hand.

Ten minutes more and the man slowed up beside them.  He was a tall, splendidly made Cree, with eyes like jewels and hands as slender and small as a woman’s.

“You savvy English?” asked Billy.

“Little,” answered the Indian, never looking at Billy, but keeping his wonderful eyes on the outstretched figure, the pallid face, of young Jerry, whose forehead was wrinkled with evident pain.

“We have met with an accident,” explained Billy.  “My little brother’s horse loped into a badger hole and broke its leg.  I had to shoot it.”  Here Billy’s voice choked, and his fingers touched the big revolver at his belt.  “My brother was thrown.  He landed badly; something’s wrong with his ankle, his leg; he can’t walk; can’t go on, even on my horse.  It happened over there, about two miles.”  Here Billy pointed across the prairie to where a slight hump showed where the dead horse lay.  “I got him over here,” he continued, looking about at the scrub poplar and cottonwood trees, “where there was shelter and slough water, but he can’t go on.  Our father is Mr. MacIntyre, the Hudson’s Bay Factor at Fort o’ Farewell.”

As Billy ceased speaking the Indian kneeled beside Jerry, feeling with tender fingers his hurts.  As the dark hand touched his ankle, the boy screamed and cried out, “Oh, don’t!  Oh, don’t!” The Indian arose, shaking his head solemnly, then said softly, “Hudson’s Bay boys, eh?  Good boys!  You good boy to bring him here to trees.  We make camp!  Your brother’s ankle is broken.”