Page:Weird Tales Volume 2 Number 2 (1923-09).djvu/44

Rh ruthless, but now lost or depleted, ancestry. In a sense the thing was symbolic.

The weather was of that wonderful type we sometimes dream about, which comes so clear and still in September across the western plateaus. The earth lay silent, motionless—decked in an endless multitude of autumn colors. Above it the sun beat down, white-hot and brilliant, like a spotlight on a painted picture. The very universe seemed holding its breath, as if in a tense attitude of listening.

Out of this silence arose the endless coughing of the steam shovels, the sudden shriek of the donkey whistle, the rattling bump of couplings, the burst of escaping steam, the hoarse shouts of men, echoing mile upon mile up and down the valley, as the S. P. & S. construction crew drove headlong and with feverish haste, at its work on the Clearwater line.

Charley Eaglefeather, in his general demeanor, had not particularly changed. He pursued his task as before—stoically and without comment.

Yet, observing him more closely, I felt sure I could discern a subterranean difference. There seemed to be a deeper—in a certain respect, a wilder—look in his eyes. At times it reminded me of the look on the face of Chief Witchipa as he squatted there that morning beside his campfire, gazing at us over his shoulder: the suppressed look of an eagle in a cage, or of a king who has lost his throne, yet is still a king.

We had finished the cut at Number Two Hill; we were beyond the Indian burying ground now. Not only had we bisected this region with a forty-foot railway cut, but in our haste, and absence of alternative, we had desecrated the surrounding area, grooving and scalloping the earth's surface, scattering, with plow and scraper, the little stone pyramids that marked the final resting place of warrior and chieftain, for a hundred yards or so on either side.

Yet throughout this unhallowed transaction Charley Eaglefeather spoke no word, vouchsafed no sign of protest. He simply and painstakingly leveled up the grade behind the construction crew, and continued as before, speechless.

This statement, however, could not equally apply to the construction gang. The fact that they sensed some abnormal condition began to play upon their imaginations. There must have been ancestor-worshippers among the S. P. & S. crew, or heathen of some sort. In any event, they raised a considerable hue and cry over the situation, built drama out of it, even hyperbole; raked over the dead past hundred years of Kennisau history, assembled and digested it—or failed to digest it, and so had mental dyspepsia.

As for the rest of us, we proceeded with our work as best we could, under the prevailing handicaps. Courtney set a night watchman over the flood gates at Number Two Cut, with orders to keep an eye on the construction train. We had laid a temporary wire up the Clearwater to the N. P. main line, connecting the world at large by 'phone; Weatherford, therefore, called up Spokane, ordering more picks and shovels; and that was the end of the pick and shovel incident.

T WAS, I believe, the second night after Courtney had placed the watchman at Number Two Cut, that the fellow reported.

He did it abruptly; he all but broke down the door getting into the improvised office. Courtney and I were there at the time, figuring over the next day's yardage. The fellow seemed greatly exorcised.

"There's a bunch of Indians over at Cut Number Two," he babbled. "Actin' awful queer. Two or three hundred of 'em. Better come along, quick!"

Courtney and I, of course, hurried over to investigate.

Sure enough, there they were. In number they could not have exceeded a dozen. It was close to midnight. The moon was beyond its first quarter; it hung low against the western horizon, casting a pallid, yellow light across the enshrouded valley.

Through this light we saw them dimly—more as if they were shadows, and not realities. They were in full battle regalia. Above their heads in the saffron glow loomed their huge war bonnets. The many-colored blankets, swathed tightly about their forms, flapped in the night wind. Their faces, as they turned them now and then toward the moon, appeared streaked and blotched with the horrid masks of war paint.

We drew up close beside the string of flats, and stood there watching them silently. Their actions seemed more than curious; they went stooping along the ground, fumbling about, moving here and there across the desecrated area, to eastward of Number Two Cut.

"They're putting back the stones!" Courtney gasped, with a sudden intake of breath—"rearranging the stones to mark the desecrated graves God!" he burst forth abruptly, clutching me by the arm. "See those things they've got! Look, man, they're bows and arrows!—They're not guns, they're bows and arrows! Indians don't use bows and arrows, nowadays!"

"Let go my arm," I growled, shaking him off

The things they carried were bows and arrows. They wore them looped across their shoulders, in a manner to stand up straight, as they went stooping about, smoothing out the corrugated carth, picking up stones and rearranging them in little round heaps. They did it all silently, making no sound of any sort, simply stooping about, there in the night, arranging little heaps of stones. There was something terribly pathetic about it.

And then, a sudden puff of night wind crossed the prairie, wailing dismally through the tall grass as it went, and I stood rubbing my eyes, staring foolishly. For they had vanished—vanished as they came, without a word or sound, leaving the night suddenly empty!

"Where did they go?" I heard myself asking, idiotically.

And then my blood seemed suddenly changed to water, at the pressure of a hand upon my shoulder. I turned to confront Weatherford; he had come up behind us as we stood watching.

"Did you see them?" I whispered.

He nodded his head.

"I saw them disappear," he said, in a matter-of-fact voice.

"They were fixing up the graves," I explained weakly, and kept hold of Weatherford's arm.

"Yes," he said, with an odd quirk in his speech. "It's a shame, isn't it? We've got to build our railroad, though," he went on in a grimmer voice, "even if we do have to" He tossed his hands and did not finish the sentence. "In the interest of commerce!" he added presently, with a droll look. "Poor fellows! They never had a single chance, against the white man."

"Did you see their bows and arrows?" urged Courtney, with a hysterical giggle. "A little out of date—eh?" and he laughed again—a hollow laugh that echoed there in the night. "Only an Indian knows how to disappear, like that!" he added, as if to reassure himself.

It must have been about five o'clock in the morning—the same morning—that the camp cook came knocking at my door, awakening me out of a not too refreshing sleep. The camp cook arises before daybreak, of course; he came, now, to report: everyone appeared to be reporting, nowadays; it semedseemed [sic] to be the fashion.