Adventure Magazine Cover — page 101: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Pay Gravel current of the Belle Fourche, where once the Cheyennes had raised their corn. On the north bank an hour’s halt was made among the cottonwoods to give the man with the mirror time to rejoin them. He came up at a handsome gallop and the jour- ney was resumed. A few miles north of the river and on the head of Crow Creek warriors and captives rode into a temporary camp. Ahead in the north was the dark- blue outline of Slave Butte with its range of hills through which the band would pass before swinging northeast to make the permanent village of Crazy Horse. ‘A dozen warriors rushed forward, shout- ing and brandishing their knives, as the prisoners were brought into camp. Little Big Man shouted for several minutes in a stentorian voice, Scissors interpreted for Dinsdale. * The leader was telling of the capture and bragging mightily and demand- ing a new song be made for him. He talked into an anti-climax when a camp warrior informed him that the signals from the butte had been caught and a message sent to Crazy Horse. Little Big Man ordered the white men to be placed in a lodge with their hands tied behind them and their bodies roped to the center pole. Suspended from a medicine pole beside the lodge was a strangled puppy, war medicine, Scissors explained. Hanging in- side the lodge was a cavalry guidon, and an officer’s glove, proofs of this particular band’s participation in the fight on the Little Big Horn. “Now what happens to us?” asked Dins- dale after they had been trussed up to the center pole and left-alone. “Ym wakan,” doggedly replied Scissors. “T’ve placed stones to Tunkan. I must get you out of this. When I say for you to go, you scoot! Don’t wait for me. They'll never harm me. I’m a big mystery man. I know their dream songs, their war songs. I’ve listenéd to their council songs, and I’ve sang their grass dance song! Little Big Man thinks he’s got me in a hole because I ran away. I went away to renew my medicine —just one weak spot; just one mistake. I’m sorry I said that about your being a friend to old High Wolf, the Cheyenne. Bah! He’s up on the Little Missouri. Who’s afraid? We are not.” “We'd better have chanced it with Easy’s gang,” muttered Dinsdale. ; “tt would have been over the quicker,” 95 moodily retorted Scissors. Then with a flare of his old egotism: ‘But I’ve spoken to Wakantanka. A man is never down so long as he can hope.- Crazy Horse thought a lot of my medicine. Now look happy; some one is coming.” Three men, bearing a kettle of meat,~ entered the lodge. Dinsdale remembered he had eaten nothing since morning, and despite his serious predicament he was very hungry. The kettle gave off a savory odor. Two of the braves unloosed the thongs so the prisoners could bring their elbows to their sides and extend their hands forward. A bowl and a wooden spoon was given to each. For some minutes Dinsdale ate as if famished, then asked— ‘What is it?” ‘Wild onions boiled with dog.” “T don’t think I’m hungry any more.” “Washte-helol (Very good.) If Id said elk or deer you’d come for a second helping. Shows what language does for a man.’ And Scissors asked the brave to dish up ~ more of the stew. “Horse doesn’t seem so bad, but dog—’”’ muttered Dinsdale. The kettle was removed and their arms were tightly pinioned. Scissors requested that the flap of the tent be pulled back the full width. This allowed them to see what was going on in front of the lodge. Near the entrance two men were making shields of inch-thick hide taken from a buffalo bull’s neck. The hide was pegged down on a thin layer of clay and was then covered with burning coals. This process hardened it sufficiently to turn a lance point, or a round bullet. It was a striking incongruity of the campaign, bows and arrows and shields by the side of magazine rifles and metallic cartridges. Never again would the Plains witness such a mingling of the old and the new. Another fantastic touch was given the scene in the person of an aged warrior, who was chipping out arrow-heads from ‘frag- ments of beer bottles. In his youth the old man had watched his grandfather fashion points from flint and himself had made them from the outer thickness of ribs or marrow bones. In -his prime he had advanced to points of steel, and later had cut them from the frying-pans taken from trappers, trad- ers, or soldiers. Now he grafted the ancient craft on : to the ultra-modern and utilized the white micboo KS (ECO) -