The Prairie Chief, R. M. Ballantyne [read book .TXT] 📗

unusually strong and brave. I met him when travelling alone in the woods, and it so happened that I had the good fortune to save his life by shooting a brown bear which he had wounded, and which was on the point of killing him. I dwelt with him and his people for a time, and pressed him to accept salvation through Jesus, but he refused. The Holy Spirit had not opened his eyes, yet I felt and still feel assured that that time will come. But it has not come yet, if all that I have heard of him be true. You may depend upon it, however, that he did not shoot me knowingly.”

Both Little and Big Tim by their looks showed that their belief in Rushing River’s future reformation was very weak, though they said nothing, and the Indians maintained such imperturbable gravity that their looks gave no indication as to the state of their minds.

“My white father’s hopes and desires are good,” said Whitewing, after another long pause, during which the missionary closed his eyes, and appeared to be resting, and Tim and his son looked gravely at each other, for that rest seemed to them strongly to resemble death. “And now what does my father propose to do?”

“My course is clear,” answered the wounded man, opening his eyes with a bright, cheerful look. “I cannot move. Here God has placed me, and here I must remain till—till I get well. All the action must be on your part, Whitewing, and that of your friends. But I shall not be idle or useless as long as life and breath are left to enable me to pray.”

There was another decided note of approval from the Indians, for they had already learned the value of prayer.

“The first step I would wish you to take, however,” continued the missionary, “is to go and bring to this hut my sweet friend Brighteyes and your own mother, Whitewing, who, you tell me, is still alive.”

“The loved old one still lives,” returned the Indian.

“Lives!” interposed Little Tim, with emphasis, “I should think she does, an’ flourishes too, though she has shrivelled up a bit since you saw her last. Why, she’s so old now that we’ve changed her name to Live-for-ever. She sleeps like a top, an’ feeds like a grampus, an’ does little else but laugh at what’s goin’ on around her. I never did see such a jolly old girl in all my life. Twenty years ago—that time, you remember, when Whitewing carried her off on horseback, when the village was attacked—we all thought she was on her last legs, but, bless you sir, she can still stump about the camp in a tremblin’ sort o’ way, an’ her peepers are every bit as black as those of my own Brighteyes, an’ they twinkle a deal more.”

“Your account of her,” returned the preacher, with a little smile, “makes me long to see her again. Indeed, the sight of these two would comfort me greatly whether I live or die. They are not far distant from here, you say?”

“Not far. My father’s wish shall be gratified,” said Whitewing. “After they come we will consult again, and my father will be able to decide what course to pursue in winning over the Blackfeet.”

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.