The Prairie Chief
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Of course the two Tims and all the others were quite willing to follow the lead of the prairie chief, so it was finally arranged that a party should be sent to the camp of the Indians, with whom Brighteyes and Live-for-ever were sojourning at the time—about a long day’s march from the little fortress—and bring those women to the hut, that they might once again see and gladden the heart of the man whom they had formerly known as the Preacher.
Now, it is a well-ascertained and undoubtable fact that the passion of love animates the bosoms of red men as well as white. It is also a curious coincidence that this passion frequently leads to modifications of action and unexpected, sometimes complicated, results and situations among the red as well as among the white men.
Bearing this in mind, the reader will be better able to understand why Rushing River, in making a raid upon his enemies, and while creeping serpent-like through the grass in order to reconnoitre previous to a night attack, came to a sudden stop on beholding a young girl playing with a much younger girl—indeed, a little child—on the outskirts of the camp.
It was the old story over again. Love at first sight! And no wonder, for the young girl, though only an Indian, was unusually graceful and pretty, being a daughter of Little Tim and Brighteyes. From the former, Moonlight (as she was named) inherited the free-and-easy yet modest carriage of the pale-face, from the latter a pretty little straight nose and a pair of gorgeous black eyes that seemed to sparkle with a private sunshine of their own.
Rushing River, although a good-looking, stalwart man in the prime of life, had never been smitten in this way before. He therefore resolved at once to make the girl his wife. Red men have a peculiar way of settling such matters sometimes, without much regard to the wishes of the lady—especially if she be, as in this case, the daughter of a foe. In pursuance of his purpose, he planned, while lying there like a snake in the grass, to seize and carry off the fair Moonlight by force, instead of killing and scalping the whole of the Indians in Bounding Bull’s camp with whom she sojourned.
It was not any tender consideration for his foes, we are sorry to say, that induced this change of purpose, but the knowledge that in a night attack bullets and arrows are apt to fly indiscriminately on men, women, and children. He would have carried poor Moonlight off then and there if she had not been too near the camp to permit of his doing so without great risk of discovery. The presence of the little child also increased the risk. He might, indeed, have easily “got rid” of her, but there was a soft spot in that red man’s heart which forbade the savage deed—a spot which had been created at that time, long, long ago, when the white preacher had discoursed to him of “righteousness and temperance and judgment to come.”
Little Skipping Rabbit, as she was called, was the youngest child of Bounding Bull. If Rushing River had known this, he would probably have hardened his heart, and struck at his enemy through the child, but fortunately he did not know it.
Retiring cautiously from the scene, the Blackfoot chief determined to bide his time until he should find a good opportunity to pounce upon Moonlight and carry her off quietly. The opportunity came even sooner than he had anticipated.
That night, while he was still prowling round the camp, Whitewing accompanied by Little Tim and a band of Indians arrived.
Bounding Bull received them with an air of dignified satisfaction. He was a grave, tall Indian, whose manner was not at all suggestive of his name, but warriors in times of peace do not resemble the same men in times of war. Whitewing had been the means of inducing him to accept Christianity, and although he was by no means as “queer” a Christian as Little Tim had described him, he was, at all events, queer enough in the eyes of his enemies and his unbelieving friends to prefer peace or arbitration to war, on the ground that it is written, “If possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men.”
Of course he saw that the “if possible” justified self-defence, and might in some circumstances even warrant aggressive action. Such, at all events, was the opinion he expressed at the solemn palaver which was held after the arrival of his friends.
“Whitewing,” said he, drawing himself up with flashing eyes and extended hand in the course of the debate, “surely you do not tell me that the Book teaches us to allow our enemies to raid in our lands, to carry off our women and little ones, and to burn our wigwams, while we sit still and wait till they are pleased to take our scalps?”
Having put this rather startling question, he subsided as promptly as he had burst forth.
“That’s a poser!” thought the irreverent Little Tim, who sympathised with Bounding Bull, but he said nothing.
“My brother has been well named,” replied the uncompromising Whitewing; “he not only bounds upon his foes, but lets his mind bound to foolish conclusions. The Book teaches peace—if possible. If it be not possible, then we cannot avoid war. But how can we know what is possible unless we try? My brother advises that we should go on the war-path at once, and drive the Blackfeet away. Has Bounding Bull tried his best to bring them to reason? has he failed? Does he know that peace is impossible?”
“Now look here, Whitewing,” broke in Little Tim at this point. “It’s all very well for you to talk about peace an’ what’s possible. I’m a Christian man myself, an’ there’s nobody as would be better pleased than me to see all the redskins in the mountains an’ on the prairies at peace wi’ one another. But you won’t get me to believe that a few soft words are goin’ to make Rushin’ River all straight. He’s the sworn enemy o’ Boundin’ Bull. Hates him like pison. He hates me like brimstone, an’ it’s my opinion that if we don’t make away wi’ him he’ll make away wi’ us.”
Whitewing—who was fond of silencing his opponents by quoting Scripture, many passages of which he had learned by heart long ago from his friend the preacher—did not reply for a few seconds. Then, looking earnestly at his brother chief, he said—
“With Manitou all things are possible. A soft answer turns away wrath.”
Bounding Bull pondered the words. Little Tim gave vent to a doubtful “humph”—not that he doubted the truth of the Word, but that he doubted its applicability on the present occasion.
It was finally agreed that the question should not be decided until the whole council had returned to Tim’s Folly, and laid the matter before the wounded missionary.
Then Little Tim, being freed from the cares of state, went to solace himself with domesticity.
Moonlight was Indian enough to know that females might not dare to interrupt the solemn council. She was also white woman enough to scorn the humble gait and ways of her red kindred, and to run eagerly to meet her sire as if she had been an out-and-out white girl. The hunter, as we have said, rather prided himself in keeping up some of the ways of his own race. Among other things, he treated his wife and daughter after the manner of white men—that is, well-behaved white men. When Moonlight saw him coming towards his wigwam, she bounded towards him. Little Tim extended his arms, caught her round the slender waist with his big strong hands, and lifted her as if she had been a child until her face was opposite his own.
“Hallo, little beam of light!” he exclaimed, kissing her on each cheek, and then on the point of her tiny nose.
“Eyes of mother—heart of sire,Fit to set the world on fire.”Tim had become poetical as he grew older, and sometimes tried to throw his flashing thoughts into couplets. He spoke to his daughter in English, and, like Big Tim with his wife, required her to converse with him in that language.
“Is mother at home?”
“Yes, dear fasser, mosser’s at home.”
“An’ how’s your little doll Skippin’ Rabbit?”
“Oh! she well as could be, an’ a’most as wild too as rabbits. Runs away from me, so I kin hardly kitch her sometime.”
Moonlight accompanied this remark with a merry laugh, as she thought of some of the eccentricities of her little companion.
Entering the wigwam, Little Tim found Brighteyes engaged with an iron pot, from which arose savoury odours. She had been as lithe and active as Moonlight once, and was still handsome and matronly. The eyes, however, from which she derived her name, still shone with undiminished lustre and benignity.
“Bless you, old woman,” said the hunter, giving his wife a hearty kiss, “you’re as fond o’ victuals as ever, I see.”
“At least my husband is, so I keep the pot boiling,” retorted Brighteyes, with a smile, that proved her teeth to be as white as in days of yore.
“Right, old girl, right. Your husband is about as good at emptying the pot as he is at filling it. Come, let’s have some, while I tell you of a journey that’s in store for you.”
“A long one?” asked the wife.
“No, only a day’s journey on horseback. You’re goin’ to meet an old friend.”
From this point her husband went on to tell about the arrival and wounding of the preacher, and how he had expressed an earnest desire to see her.
While they were thus engaged, the prairie chief was similarly employed enlightening his own mother.
That kind-hearted bundle of shrivelled-up antiquity was seated on the floor on the one side of a small fire. Her son sat on the opposite side, gazing at her through the smoke, with, for an Indian, an unwonted look of deep affection.
“The snows of too many winters are on my head to go on journeys now,” she said, in a feeble, quavering voice. “Is it far that my son wants me to go?”
“Only one day’s ride towards the setting sun, thou dear old one.”
Thus tenderly had Christianity, coupled with a naturally affectionate disposition, taught the prairie chief to address his mother.
“Well, my son, I will go. Wherever Whitewing leads I will follow, for he is led by Manitou. I would go a long way to meet that good man the pale-face preacher.”
“Then to-morrow at sunrise the old one will be ready, and her son will come for her.”
So saying, the chief rose, and stalked solemnly out of the wigwam.
Chapter Eleven.
The Snakes make a Dart and Secure their Victims
While the things described in the last chapter were going on in the Indian camp, Rushing River was prowling around it, alternately engaged in observation and meditation, for he was involved in complicated difficulties.
He had come to that region with a large band of followers for the express purpose of scalping his great enemy Bounding Bull and all his kindred, including any visitors who might chance to be with him at the time. After attacking Tim’s Folly, and being driven therefrom by its owner’s ingenious fireworks, as already related, the chief had sent away his followers to a distance to hunt, having run short of fresh meat. He retained with himself a dozen of his best warriors, men who could glide with noiseless facility like snakes, or fight with the noisy ferocity of fiends. With these he meant to reconnoitre his enemy’s camp, and make arrangements for the final assault when his braves should return with meat—for savages, not less than other men, are dependent very much on full stomachs for fighting capacity.
But now a change had come over the spirit of his dream. He had suddenly fallen in love, and that, too, with one of his enemy’s women. His love did not, however, extend to the rest of her kindred. Firm as was his resolve to carry off the girl, not less firm was his determination to scalp her family root and branch.
As we have said, he hesitated to attack the camp for fear that mischief might befall the girl on whom he had set his heart. Besides, he would require all his men to enable him to make the attack successfully, and these would not, he knew, return to him until the following day. The arrival of Whitewing and Little Tim with their party still further perplexed him.
He knew by the council that was immediately called, and the preparations that followed, that news of some importance had been brought by the prairie chief, and that action of some sort was immediately to follow; but of course what it all portended he could not divine, and in his uncertainty he feared that Moonlight—whose name of course he did not at that time know—might be spirited away, and he should never see her again. Really, for a Red Indian, he became quite sentimental on the point and half resolved to collect his dozen warriors, make a neck-or-nothing rush at Bounding Bull, and carry off his scalp and the girl at the same fell swoop.
Cooler reflection, however, told him that the feat was beyond even his powers, for he knew well the courage and strength of his foe, and was besides well acquainted with the person and reputation of the prairie chief and Little Tim, both of whom had foiled his plans on former occasions.
Greatly perplexed, therefore, and undetermined as to his course of procedure, Rushing River bade his followers remain in their retreat in a dark part of a tangled thicket, while he should advance with one man still further in the direction of the camp to reconnoitre.
Having reached an elevated spot as near to the enemy as he dared venture without running the risk of being seen by the sentinels, he flung himself down, and crawled towards a tree, whence he could partially observe what went on below. His companion, a youth named Eaglenose, silently followed his example. This youth was a fine-looking young savage, out on his first war-path, and burning to distinguish himself. Active as a kitten and modest as a girl, he was also quick-witted, and knew when to follow the example of his chief and when to remain inactive—the latter piece of knowledge a comparatively rare gift to the ambitious!
After a prolonged gaze, with the result of nothing gained, Rushing River was about to retire from the spot as wise as he went, when his companion uttered the slightest possible hiss. He had heard a sound. Next instant the chief heard it, and smiled grimly. We may remark here in passing that the Blackfoot chief was eccentric in many ways. He prided himself on his contempt for the red man’s love for paint and feathers, and invariably went on the war-path unpainted and unadorned. In civilised life he would certainly have been a Radical. How far his objection to paint was influenced by the possession of a manly, handsome countenance, of course we cannot tell.
To clear up the mystery of the sound which had thrilled on the sharp ear of Eaglenose, we will return to the Indian camp, where, after the council, a sumptuous feast of venison steaks and marrow-bones was spread in Bounding Bull’s wigwam.
Moonlight not being one of the party, and having already supped, said to her mother that she was going to find Skipping Rabbit and have a run with her. You see, Moonlight, although full seventeen years of age, was still so much of a child as to delight in a scamper with her little friend, the youngest child of Bounding Bull.
“Be careful, my child,” said Brighteyes. “Keep within the sentinels; you know that the great Blackfoot is on the war-path.”
“Mother,” said Moonlight, with the spirit of her little father stirring in her breast, “I don’t fear Rushing River more than I do the sighing of the wind among the pine-tops. Is not my father here, and Whitewing? And does not Bounding Bull guard our wigwams?”
Brighteyes said no more. She was pleased with the thorough confidence her daughter had in her natural protectors, and quietly went on with the moccasin which she was embroidering with the dyed quills of the porcupine for Little Tim.
We have said that Moonlight was rather self-willed. She would not indeed absolutely disobey the express commands of her father or mother, but when she had made no promise, she was apt to take her own way, not perceiving that to neglect or to run counter to a parent’s known wishes is disobedience.
As the night was fine and the moon bright, our self-willed heroine, with her skipping playmate, rambled about the camp until they got so far in the outskirts as to come upon one of the sentinels. The dark-skinned warrior gravely told her to go back. Had she been any other Indian girl, she would have meekly obeyed at once; but being Little Tim’s daughter, she was prone to assert the independence of her white blood, and, to say truth, the young braves stood somewhat in awe of her.
“The Blackfoot does not make war against women,” said Moonlight, with a touch of lofty scorn in her tone. “Is the young warrior afraid that Rushing River will kill and eat us?”
“The young warrior fears nothing,” answered the sentinel, with a dark frown; “but his chief’s orders are that no one is to leave or enter the camp, so Moonlight must go home.”
“Moonlight will do as she pleases,” returned the girl loftily. At the same time, knowing that the man would certainly do his duty, and prevent her from passing the lines, she turned sharply round, and walked away as if about to return to the camp. On getting out of the sentinel’s sight, however, she stopped.
“Now, Skipping Rabbit,” she said, “you and I will teach that fellow something of the art of war. Will you follow me?”
“Will the little buffalo follow its mother?” returned the child.
“Come, then,” said Moonlight, with a slight laugh; “we will go beyond the lines. Do as I do. You are well able to copy the snake.”
The girl spoke truly. Both she and Skipping Rabbit had amused themselves so often in imitating the actions of the Indian braves that they could equal if not beat them, at least in those accomplishments which required activity and litheness of motion. Throwing herself on her hands and knees, Moonlight crept forward until she came again in sight of the sentinel. Skipping Rabbit followed her trail like a little shadow. Keeping as far from the man as possible without coming under the observation of the next sentinel, they sank into the long grass, and slowly wormed their way forward so noiselessly that they were soon past the lines, and able to rise and look about with caution.
The girl had no thought of doing more than getting well out of the camp, and then turning about and walking boldly past the young sentinel, just to show that she had defeated him, but at Skipping Rabbit’s suggestion she led the way to a neighbouring knoll just to have one look round before going home.
It was on this very knoll that Rushing River and Eaglenose lay, like snakes in the grass.
As the girls drew near, chatting in low, soft, musical tones, the two men lay as motionless as fallen trees. When they were within several yards of them the young Indian glanced at his chief, and pointed with his conveniently prominent feature to Skipping Rabbit. A slight nod was the reply.
On came the unconscious pair, until they almost trod on the prostrate men. Then, before they could imagine what had occurred, each found herself on the ground with a strong hand over her mouth.
It was done so suddenly and effectually that there was no time to utter even the shortest cry.
Without removing their hands for an instant from their mouths, the Indians gathered the girls in their left arms as if they had been a couple of sacks or bundles, and carried them swiftly into the forest, the chief leading, and Eaglenose stepping carefully in his footsteps. It was not a romantic or lover-like way of carrying off a bride, but Red Indian notions of chivalry may be supposed to differ from those of the pale-faces.
After traversing the woods for several miles they came to the spot where Rushing River had left his men. They were unusually excited by the unexpected capture, and, from their animated gestures and glances during the council of war which was immediately held, it was evident to poor Moonlight that her fate would soon be decided.
She and Skipping Rabbit sat cowering together at the foot of the tree where they had been set down. For one moment Moonlight thought of her own lithe and active frame, her powers of running and endurance, and meditated a sudden dash into the woods, but one glance at the agile young brave who had been set to watch her would have induced her to abandon the idea even if the thought of leaving Skipping Rabbit behind had not weighed with her.
In a few minutes Rushing River left his men and approached the tree at the foot of which the captives were seated.
The moon shone full upon his tall figure, and revealed distinctly every feature of his grave, handsome countenance as he approached.
The white spirit of her father stirred within the maiden. Discarding her fears, she rose to meet him with a proud glance, such as was not often seen among Indian girls. Instead of being addressed, however, in the stern voice of command with which a red warrior is apt to speak to an obstreperous squaw, he spoke in a low, soft respectful tone, which seemed to harmonise well with the gravity of his countenance, and thrilled to the heart of Moonlight. She was what is familiarly expressed in the words “done for.” Once more we have to record a case of love at first sight.
True, the inexperienced girl was not aware of her condition. Indeed, if taxed with it, she would probably have scorned to admit the possibility of her entertaining even mild affection—much less love—for any man of the Blackfoot race. Still, she had an uneasy suspicion that something was wrong, and allowed an undercurrent of feeling to run within her, which, if reduced to language, would have perhaps assumed the form, “Well, but he is so gentle, so respectful, so very unlike all the braves I have ever seen; but I hate him, for all that! Is he not the enemy of my tribe?”
Moonlight would not have been a daughter of Little Tim had she given in at once. Indeed, if she had known that the man who spoke to her so pleasantly was the renowned Rushing River—the bitter foe of her father and of Bounding Bull—it is almost certain that the indignant tone and manner which she now assumed would have become genuine. But she did not know this; she only knew from his dress and appearance that the man before her was a Blackfoot, and the knowledge raised the whole Blackfoot race very much in her estimation.
“Is the fair-faced maiden,” said Rushing River, referring to the girl’s comparatively light complexion, “willing to share the wigwam of a Blackfoot chief?”
Moonlight received this very decided and unusually civil proposal of marriage with becoming hauteur, for she was still ruffled by the undignified manner in which she had been carried off.
“Does the fawn mate with the wolf?” she demanded. “Does the chief suppose that the daughter of Little Tim can willingly enter the lodge of a Blackfoot?”
A gleam of surprise and satisfaction for a moment lighted up the grave countenance of the chief.
“I knew not,” he replied, “that the maiden who has fallen into my hands is a child of the brave little pale-face whose deeds of courage are known all over the mountains and prairies.”
This complimentary reference to her father went far to soften the maiden’s heart, but her sense of outraged dignity required that she should be loyal to herself as well as to her tribe, therefore she sniffed haughtily, but did not reply.
“Who is the little one?” asked the chief, pointing to Skipping Rabbit, who, in a state of considerable alarm, had taken refuge behind her friend, and only peeped at her captor.
Moonlight paused for a few seconds before answering, uncertain whether it would be wiser to say who she was, or merely to describe her as a child of the tribe. Deciding on the former course, in the hope of impressing the Blackfoot with a sense of his danger, she said—
“Skipping Rabbit is the daughter of Bounding Bull.” Then, observing another gleam of surprise and triumph on the chief’s face, she added quickly, “and the Blackfoot knows that Bounding Bull and his tribe are very strong, very courageous, and very revengeful. If Moonlight and Skipping Rabbit are not sent home at once, there will be war on the mountains and the plains, for Whitewing, the great chief of the prairies, is just now in the camp of Bounding Bull with his men. Little Tim, as you know, is terrible when his wrath is roused. If war is carried into the hunting-grounds of the Blackfeet, many scalps will be drying in our lodges before the snows of winter begin to descend. If evil befalls Skipping Rabbit or Moonlight, before another moon is passed Rushing River himself, the chicken-hearted chief of the Blackfeet, will be in the dust with his fathers, and his scalp will fringe the leggings of Little Tim.”