The Ferguson Rifle by Louis L’Amour Page B

scalps?”
    How to explain that without offending him or seeming weak? “The Great Spirit knows of my victories. It is enough.”
    â€œYour medicine is strong,” he said.
    Yet we rode with care. The air was cooler, the wind a little stronger, and the coulees deeper. The greater the distance from the settlements, the greater the danger. We were all aware of this, and aware, too, that we were being watched. Twice tracks were seen where horsemen had observed us for some time, and by now they knew our numbers. Without doubt they also knew of an encampment of Cheyennes to the west, toward which we were obviously pointing.
    If they wished to destroy us, they must attack soon, and Walks-By-Night was aware of this, as was Buffalo Dog.
    We found a camp in a shallow place where there was green grass from a seep, and a few gooseberry bushes growing about. One lone ash tree grew nearby and there was a dead tree lying on the ground.
    While the others made a fire, Walks-By-Night and I rode a circle wide about the camp, scouting every rise in the ground, but we saw nothing but a few buffalo.
    During the passing days, my meager supply of Cheyenne words had increased so that with it and what English Walks-By-Night knew, we managed to communicate. I was also acquiring some skill with sign language, and then to my surprise I discovered that the Indian talked very passable French.
    He shrugged at my astonishment. “Many French trapper,” he said. “All the time they come. Live in village. Ride with us. My people long time lived beside Great Lakes, then beside river far to north.”
    â€œThis is not your homeland then?”
    â€œNo. My people lived north of Great Lakes in what you call Canada. The Cree were our people, too … far, far ago. All Indians have moved. No Indian lives where he once lived.”
    â€œIt is the same with us … with all peoples. A long time ago our ancestors lived in what we call Russia … or beyond in Central Asia. Then they came west … many, many people came west, and some of them occupied empty lands, some took lands by driving others out.”
    â€œThey were white men?”
    â€œYes. There was not one migration, but many. The horse made it easy for them to move, and with the horse to ride they became more powerful.”
    â€œIt was so with us,” Walks-By-Night said. “The Sioux have become strong with the horses.”
    We dismounted on a hillside. There in the sand around an anthill he drew me a rough picture of the western Great Lakes and showed me where once his people had lived and how they had moved west to the Sheyenne River in what was now the lands of the Dakotas or Sioux.
    The Sioux had got the horse by trade or by theft from southern Indians who had them by theft from the Spanish. And once mounted the Sioux had pushed west from their homeland to conquer much of the Dakota lands of Nebraska, part of Montana and Wyoming.
    It was growing darker. “Some say you people came from here”—I sketched in the northern steppes of Siberia—“and that you migrated across this water to America. They say my people came from here too.”
    He put his finger on the western Tarim and southwestern Russia. “And you from here? Then once our people may have ridden together … there?” He put a finger making a wide sweep of Central Asia.
    â€œIt could be,” I said. Standing up I gathered my reins and stepped into the saddle. “Your people went east and north, mine went west and south, and now we meet again … here.”
    â€œIt is far? This land we come from?”
    â€œVery far. Perhaps three hundred suns of riding … perhaps more.”
    â€œWe have come far.” He looked at me. “We have come far to fight again here.”
    I smiled. “But not you and me, Walks-By-Night. I think there is friendship between us.” I held out my right hand. “Between us let there never be