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

track; “your mother’s life is precious, and Softswan’s. If you can quit safely, follow up.”

Leaping into the saddle, he was next instant on the track of the Indian chief, who had already disappeared.

Hurrying back to the hut, Big Tim proceeded to make hasty preparation for the defence of the place, so that he might be able to join his father. He found the prairie chief standing with closed eyes beside the couch of the preacher, who with folded hands and feeble voice was praying to God for help.

“Is Whitewing indifferent to the misfortunes of his friends,” he said somewhat sharply, “that he stands idly by while the Blackfoot robbers carry off our little ones?”

“My son, be not hasty,” returned the chief. “Prayer is quite as needful as action. Besides, I know all the land round here—the direction which this youth tells me the enemy have taken, and a short cut over the hills, which will enable you and me to cross the path your father must take, and join him, so that we have plenty of time to make arrangements and talk before we go on the war-path.”

The cool, calm way in which the chief spoke, and especially the decided manner in which he referred to a short cut and going on the war-path, tended to quiet Big Tim.

“But what am I to do?” he said, with a look of perplexity. “There are men enough here, no doubt, to hold the place agin a legion o’ Blackfeet, but they have no dependable leader.”

“Here is a leader on whom you can depend; I know him well,” said Whitewing, pointing to the warrior who had brought the news from the camp. “He is a stranger to you, but has been long in my band, and was left by me in the camp to help to guard it in our absence. With him there, I should have thought the stealing of two girls impossible, but he has explained that mystery by telling me that Moonlight crept out of the camp like a serpent, unknown to all, for they found her trail. With Wolf in command and the preacher to give counsel and pray, the women have no cause for fear.”

Somewhat reassured, though he still felt uneasy at the thought of leaving Softswan behind him, Big Tim went about his preparations for the defence of the fortress and the rescue of his sister. Such preparations never take much time in the backwoods. In half an hour Wolf and his braves were ready for any amount of odds, and Big Tim was following the prairie chief through the intricacies of the mountains.

These two made such good use of their time that they were successful in intercepting and joining the war-party, which Bounding Bull, with his friend and ally Little Tim, were leading by forced marches on the trail of the Blackfeet.

Rushing River was well aware, however, that such a party would soon be following him. He therefore had advanced likewise by forced marches, because his object was not so much to meet his enemy as to secure his bride. Only let him place her in the safe keeping of his mother with the main body of his tribe, and he would then return on his steps with pleasure, and give battle to his foe.

In this object he was successful. After several days’ march he handed over Moonlight and Skipping Rabbit to the care of an old woman, whose countenance was suggestive of wrinkled leather, and whose expression was not compatible with sweetness. It was evident to the captives that Rushing River owed his manly bearing and his comparatively gentle manners not to his mother but to the father, whose scalp, alas! hung drying in the smoke of a foeman’s wigwam.

During the forced march the Blackfoot chief had not once opened his lips to the girl he loved. He simply rode by her side, partly perhaps to prevent any sudden attempt at flight, and certainly to offer assistance when difficulties presented themselves on their pathless journey through the great wilderness. And on all such occasions he offered his aid with such grave and dignified gentleness that poor Moonlight became more and more impressed, though, to do her justice, she fought bravely against her tendency to fall in love with her tribal foe.

On reaching home Rushing River, instead of leading his captive to his own wigwam, conducted her, as we have said, to that of his mother. Then, for the first time since the day of the capture, he addressed her with a look of tenderness, which she had never before received except from Little Tim, and, in a minor degree, from her brother.

“Moonlight,” he said, “till my return you will be well cared for here by my mother—the mother of Rushing River.”

Having said this, he lifted the leathern door of the lodge and went out instantly.

Moonlight had received a terrible shock. Turning quickly to the old woman, she said—

“Was that Rushing River?”

“That,” replied the old woman, with a look of magnificent pride, “is my son, Rushing River—the brave whose name is known far and wide in the mountains and on the plains; whose enemies tremble and grow pale when they hear of him, and who when they see him become dead—or run away!”

Here, then, was a discovery that was almost too much for the unfortunate captive, for this man was the deadly foe of her father and of her brother’s father-in-law, Bounding Bull. He was also the sworn enemy of her tribe, and it now became her stern duty, as a true child of the western wilderness, to hate with all her soul the man whom she loved!

Under the impulse of her powerful feelings she sat down, covered her face with her little hands, and—no, she did not burst into tears! Had she been a civilised beauty perhaps she might have done so, but she struggled for a considerable time with Spartan-like resolution to crush down the true feelings of her heart. Old Umqua was quite pleased with the effect of her information, ascribing it as she did to a wrong cause, and felt disposed to be friendly with the captive in consequence.

“My son has carried you off from the camp of some enemy, I doubt not?” she said, in kindly tones.

Moonlight, who had by that time recovered her composure, replied that he had—from the camp of Bounding Bull, whose little daughter he had captured at the same time, and added that she herself was a daughter of Little Tim.

It was now Umqua’s turn to be surprised.

“What is that you tell me?” she exclaimed. “Are you the child of the little pale-face whose name extends from the regions of snow to the lands of the hot sun?”

“I am,” replied Moonlight, with a look of pride quite equal to and rather more lovely than that of the old woman.

“Ha!” exclaimed Umqua, “you are a lucky girl. I see by my son’s look and manner that he intends to take you for his wife. I suppose he has gone away just now, for I saw he was in haste, to scalp your father, and your brother, and Bounding Bull, and all his tribe. After that he will come home and take you to his wigwam. Rushing River is very brave and very kind to women. The men laugh at him behind his back—they dare not laugh before his face—and say he is too kind to them; but we women don’t agree with that. We know better, and we are fondest of the kind men, for we see that they are not less brave than the others. Yes, you are a lucky girl.”

Moonlight was not as deeply impressed with her “luck” as the old lady expected, and was on the point of bursting out, after the manner of savages, into a torrent of abuse of the Blackfoot race in general, and of Rushing River in particular, when the thought that she was a captive and at the mercy of the Blackfeet fortunately restrained her. Instead of answering, she cast her eyes on the ground and remained stolidly silent, by which conduct she got credit for undeserved modesty.

“Where is the little one of that serpent Bounding Bull?” asked Umqua, after a brief silence.

“I know not” replied Moonlight, with a look of anxiety. “When we arrived here Skipping Rabbit was separated from me. She journeyed under the care of a youth. They called him, I think, Eaglenose.”

“Is Skipping Rabbit the child’s name?”

“Then Skipping Rabbit will skip more than ever, for Eaglenose is a funny man when not on the war-path, and his mother is a good woman. She does not talk behind your back like other women. You have nothing to fear for Skipping Rabbit. Come with me, we will visit the mother of Eaglenose.”

As the two moved through the Indian camp, Moonlight noticed that the men were collecting and bridling their horses, cleaning and sharpening their weapons, and making preparations generally for an expedition on a large scale. For a moment a feeling of fear filled her heart as she recalled Umqua’s remarks about scalping her kindred; but when she reflected how well able her sturdy little father and big brother and Bounding Bull were to take care of themselves, she smiled internally, and dismissed her fears.

Long before they reached Eaglenose’s mother’s wigwam, Moonlight was surprised to hear the well known voice of Skipping Rabbit shouting in unrestrained peals of merry laughter. On entering, the cause thereof was at once apparent, for there sat Eaglenose beside his mother (whose nose, by the way, was similar to his own) amusing the child with a home-made jumping-jack. Having seen a toy of this kind during one of his visits to the settlements of the pale-faces, the Blackfoot youth had made mental notes of it, and on his return home had constructed a jumping-jack, which rendered him more popular in his tribe—especially with the youngsters—than if he had been a powerful medicine-man or a noted warrior.

When Moonlight entered, Skipping Rabbit was standing in front of Eaglenose with clasped hands and glittering eyes, shrieking with delight as the absurd creature of wood threw up its legs and arms, kicked its own head, and all but dislocated its own limbs. Catching sight of her friend, however, she gave vent to another shriek with deeper delight in it, and, bounding towards her, sprang into her arms.

Regarding this open display of affection with some surprise, and rightly ascribing it to the influence of white blood in Bounding Bull’s camp, Umqua asked Eaglenose’s mother if the men were getting ready to go on the war-path.

“I know not. Perhaps my son knows.”

Thus directly referred to, Eaglenose, who was but a young warrior just emancipated from boyhood, and who had yet to win his spurs, rose, and, becoming so grave and owlish that his naturally prominent feature seemed to increase in size, said sententiously—

“It is not for squaws to inquire into the plans of men, but as there is no secret in what we are going to do, I may tell you, mother, that women and children have not yet learned to live on grass or air. We go just now to procure fresh meat.”

So saying, the stripling pitched the jumping-jack into the lap of Skipping Rabbit, and strode out of the lodge with the pomposity of seven chiefs!

That night, when the captives were lying side by side in Umqua’s wigwam, gazing at the stars through the hole which was left in the top for the egress of the smoke, Moonlight said to her little friend—

“Does the skipping one know that it is Rushing River who has caught us and carried us away?”

The skipping one said that she had not known, but, now that she did know, she hated him with all her heart.

“So do I,” said Moonlight firmly. But Moonlight was wrong, for she hated the man with only a very small portion of her heart, and loved him with all the rest. It was probably some faint recognition