John Ermine of the Yellowstone Read Free Page B

woman came, bearing a child in her arms, which was bawling and tear-stained—she vociferating wildly the time. Taking the unmusical youngster by
the arm, the old chief stood him before Chick-chick. The boy was near nine years of age, the men judged, white beyond question, with long, golden hair braided, Indian fashion, down the sides of his
head. He was neatly clothed in dressed buckskins, fringed and beaded, and not naked or half naked, as most Indian boys are in warm weather. It was not possible to tell what his face looked like in
repose, for it was kneaded into grotesque lumps by his cries and wailing.
    “He is a Crow; his skin is white, but his heart is Absaroke. It makes us bleed to see him go; our women will mourn all this snow for him, but to save my band I give him to you. Take him.
He is yours.”
    Chick-chick lifted the child in his arms, where the small cause of all the turmoil struggled and pulled hair until he was forced to hold him out at arm’s length. Mounting, they withdrew
toward their friends. The council tepee fell in the dirt—a dozen squaws tugging at its voluminous folds. The small hostage was not many yards on his way toward his own kind before the Indian
camp moved off toward the mountains, urging their horses with whip and lance. This movement was accelerated by a great discharging of white men’s guns, who were supposed to be sacrificing the
little white Crow to some unknown passions; whereas, they were merely celebrating the advent of the white child unharmed. He was indeed unharmed as to body, but his feelings had been torn to
shreds. He added his small, shrill protesting yells to the general rejoicing.
    Chick-chick, or Chickens, as the miners often called him, had not entered the expedition because of his love for children, or the color of this one in particular; so, at the suggestion of the
chairman, it was turned over to a benevolent saloon-keeper, who had nine notches in his gun, and a woman with whom he abided. “Gold Nugget,” as he was promptly named by the diggers and
freighters, was supposed to need a woman, as it was adjudged that only such a one could induce him to turn off the hot water and cease his yells.
    The cavalcade reached town, to find multitudes of dirt-begrimed men thronging the streets waiting for what sensation there was left in the affair. The infant had been overcome by his exertions
and was silent. They sat him on the bar of his godfather’s saloon, while the men shouldered their brawny way through the crowd to have a look at him—the lost white child in the Indian
dress. Many drinks and pistol shots were offered up in his honor, and he having recovered somewhat, resumed his vocal protests. These plaints having silenced the crowd, it was suggested by one man
who was able to restrain his enthusiasm, that the kid ought to be turned over to some woman before he roared his head off.
    Acting on this suggestion, the saloon-keeper’s female friend was given charge. Taking him to her little house back of the saloon, the child found milk and bread and feminine caresses to
calm him until he slept. It was publicly proclaimed by the nine-notch saloon-keeper that the first man who passed the door of the kid’s domicile would be number ten to his gun. This
pronunciamiento insured much needed repose to Gold Nugget during the night.
    In the morning he was partially recovered from fears and tears. The women patted his face, fed him to bursting, fingered the beautiful plaits of his yellow hair, and otherwise showed that they
had not surrendered all their feminine sensibilities to their tumultuous lives. They spoke to him in pleading voices, and he gurgled up his words of reply in the unknown tongue. The
saloon-keeper’s theory that it would be a good thing to set him up on the bar some more in order to keep trade, was voted both inhuman and impracticable by the women. Later in the day a young
man managed to get on the youngster’s blind side, when by