The Hope pioneer. [volume] (Hope, N.D.) 1882-1964, 1906-12-27

Calvin Sorrow.
These two boys had watched him
closely as he mounted his horse, and
the older n had called to him,
When I get to be a man, I'm coming
back with a gun and kill you till you
are dead yourself" and the other, lit
tie John Calvin Sorrow, had clenched
his fists and echoed the threat, We'll
come back here and kill you! Nor
mons is worse'r Indians!"
He had ridden quickly away, not
noting that some of the men standing
by had looked sharply at the boys and
then significantly at one another. One
Of those who had been present, whom
he now met, told him of these two
boys.
You see, Elder, the orders from
headquarters vas to save only them
that was too young to give evidence
in a court. But these two was very
forward and knowing. They shouldn't
have been kept in the first place. So
took both of them out one night.
They got along all right with the lit
tie m they called John Calvin Sor-
row-only the little cuss kicked and
scrambled so that we both had to see
to him for a minute, and when we
was ready for the other, there he was
at least ten rods away, alleging it
into the scrub oak. Well, they looked
and looked and hunted around till day.
break, but he'd got away all right, the
moon going under a cloud. They
tracked him quite a ways when it
come light, till his tracks run into the
trail Of a big band of Navajos that
had been up north trading ponies and
was going back south. He was the
one that talked so much about you,
but you needn't ever have Any fear Of
his talking any more. He'd be done
for one way or another"
For the first time in his life that
night, he was afraid to pray,-afraid
even to give thanks that others were
sleeping in the room with him so that
he could hear their breathing and
know that he was not alone.
He was up betimes to press on to
the south, again afraid to pray, and
dreading what was still in store for
him. For sooner or later he would
have to be alone in the night. thus
far since that day in the Meadows he
had slept lea others, whether in
cabins or in camp, in some freighter's
wagon or b~ivouacking in the SHOWS of
Echo canyon. Each night he had been
conscious, at certain terrible moments
him. He heard their breathing, or in
the silence a fires light had shown
him a sleeping face, the lines Of a
form, or an arm tossed out. What
would happen On the night he found
himself alone, he knew not-death, or
the loss of reason.
His way lay through the Meadows,
yet he hardly realized this until he
was fairly on the ground in the midst
of a thousand evil signs of the day.
Here, a year after, were skulls and
whitening bones, some in heaps, some
scattered through the sage-brush
where the wolves had left them. Many
of the skulls were pierced with bullet
holes, shattered as by heavy blows,
or cleft as with a sharp-edged weapon.
Even more terrifying than these were
certain traces caught here and there
on the low scrub oaks along the way,
-children's sunbonnets; shreds Of
coarse lace, muslin, and calico; a
child's shoe, the tattered sleeve Of a
woman's dress-all faded, dead, whip
ped by the wind.
He pressed through it all with set
Jaws, trying to keep his eyes fixed
upon the ground beyond his horses
head; but his ears were at the mercy
Of the cries that rang from every
thicket.
Once out of it, he rode hard, for 1t
must not come yet-his first night
alone. BY dusk he had reached the
new settlement of AMAZON, a little off
the main road in a valley of the Pine
mountains. Here he sought the house
where he had left the child. When
he had picketed his horse he went in
and had her brought to him,-a fresh
little fower-like ~woman-child, with
hair and eyes that told of her mother,
with reminders of her mothers ways
as she stood before him, a waiting
poise of the head, a lift of the chin.
They looked at each other in the can
delight, the child standing by the
woman who had brought her, looking
up at him %curiously, and he not dar-
ing to touch her or go nearer She
became uneasy and frightened at last,
under his scrutiny, and when the
woman would have held her from run
ming away, began to cry, so that he
gave the word to let her go. She ran
quickly into the other room Of the
cabin, from which she called back
with tears of indignation in her voice,
You're not my papa-not my real
papa!"
When the people were asleep, he
sat before the blaze in the big fire
place, on the hearth clearly swept
with it's turkey-wing and buffalo-tail.
There was to be n more night of his
reprieve from solitude. The three
women of the house and the man