Page:Amazing Stories Volume 21 Number 06.djvu/98

98 bother with the law, eh?"

"Yeh, it's funny so many Indians would get ready for a long trip thataway. They could be taking a dead one to some special place to bury him, I guess."

"Been a lot of Indians dying lately. Nearly every day I read something about a dead Indian. Maybe they're wiser than we think."

"Could be, could be "

"Indians around Butte here have always had a reputation for knowing what's coming next. There's always been something mysterious about it. Never could figure it out. Maybe that is more than a funeral and maybe it ain't. We'll never know. I'll bet a dime we never see those Indians again, though."

Similar conversations could have been heard along the highway leading out of Butte. But nobody thought of asking the Indians what it was all about.

That night, as the long caravan made camp, they dug a grave for Ace Kitka. His weeping wife and two papooses; the solemn faces of the men of the caravans; the grim knowing that the road into the dark deathland gaped for all of them in this land of the white man just as it had for their ancestors was a terrible thing. To know that every day one of them must die Why? The aching hearts asked and asked the bewildered minds and there was no answer. Just the unseen threat, the knowing that it was the ancient secret, killing again as it always had in the past. Killing, killing Why must the secret always be the reason for death instead of the key to greatness for all men as it should be? Their eyes raised to the darkening sky for a sign from the great father, for the "breath" of the "master," for some hope from the beneficence of the unseen. But only the grim knowledge that every day one of them must die answered them. Their ancient Gods gave no other sign that night.

Each night, as they drove slowly southward, one grave was dug, one strong young brave, dead, was placed in the earth. Their prayer implored Eemeeshee to speak again as he had when the exodus was decided upon, but Eemeeshee did not answer. Hampered by the number of aged, wornout cars, the children, the old women, they drove slowly, keeping together for mutual aid when needed.

HEN they reached that part of the great American desert where the Humboldt sinks into the sands—that day they had no grave to dig! Gravely Lane looked at Stevens.

"Here in this desert must be our home. Here something keeps the curse of the daily death from us. Under our feet within the ancient rock some power for good still lives on. If we pass on, the deaths will begin again. For the evil ray people are single-minded; once set upon a course such as our deaths they don't stop until we are all dead. You know that. Upon the other side of this invisible influence, they will follow and kill us again."

"You may be right. It is hard to understand. They are not like men; the people of the underworld. They are not civilized like ourselves. It is hard to understand their slaying and cruelty, their dogged persistence in such cursing of surface men with death. But we know it is so."

A leaning sign post pointed off along a little used desert trail. "YUKA" said the sign, noncomittally. But there were scribbled Indian writings under the word, writings that only an Indian could read.

The forty cars that were left of the fifty that had started turned off the concrete into the dusty road. The wind blew hotly, lonesomely, across the wide, yellow waste. Mournfully the stolid faces looked at each other, knowing how the other's heart was hurting at this turning to the desert from their loved homes.

They had sold the cars that had broken down, and those of their dead they did not need and put the money into the common pool. Lane knew their only hope was to face their troubles with complete unity.

HAT night they sat within the lodge of Secumne in his desert fastness. There were now but twenty-five young men, and some dozen aged men. Some of them were veterans, but they knew better than to go to the military with their tale. For all of them knew no white man understood the ancient secret—not to openly admit it anyway. They thought all white men cowards never to discuss the ancient secret. (But in truth white men