step is as the step of the fawn when the dew is on the
grass. Let the white man Jack beware. Colorow will come to tell the
white man to go to the land which was taken from Colorow's people; that
this is the Utes' land and that the Utes will no more let the white man
hunt the deer and trap the wolf, which run by the tepee of the red man.
So let the white man Jack be cunning and let not Colorow find the white
man asleep under the big tree."
She was all excitement. The cords stood out upon her graceful throat,
while her rounded cheeks crimsoned as the frosted leaf in the autumn
time. Jack was spellbound as the words of that eloquent warning fell
upon his ears, but at the last subdued, almost beseeching plea, he
started as if the knife was already at his throat, for it was but
yesterday, in the warm sunshine far beyond the snowy range, at noon
time, he had taken a short nap under a big pine tree, where a bed of
pine needles made an inviting spot, little dreaming that a living being,
much less an Indian, was within five miles of him. Chiquita guessed his
thoughts, and in that musical tone found only among the old blanket
Indian tribes, told Jack how she followed him and Colorow from the camp
on Rock Creek, fearing all the while that that cunning war chief would
slay the young man from the east and upset all plans of Chiquita
becoming a medicine tepee queen.
Chiquita knew that Colorow, of all the discontented Utes on Rock Creek,
desired especially to be rid of Jack's presence. That the old warrior
had a grudge against the trapper was evident, and the trapper's
departure, leaving Jack alone to attend to the traps, was to her mind
clear proof that Colorow had been instrumental in causing the departure.
She had heard the leaders of the renegade band denounce all trappers who
sought the region contiguous to the White River reservation, and in
particular the trapper who had built the cabin on Rock Creek. She knew
that this trapper had the winter before wantonly killed seventy-six elk,
which he had stumbled upon in a little willow grown park where the deep
snow had stalled them, and that he did not kill any more because his
ammunition had given out. She knew that the Utes, as well as the white
settlers, had in unmeasured terms condemned this wanton slaying of so
much game, but she did not think this episode was the cause of Colorow's
animosity. There was but one reason that sufficed in her opinion. She
believed Colorow had tol
|