The Prairie Chief, R. M. Ballantyne [read book .TXT] 📗
- Author: R. M. Ballantyne
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Creeping swiftly out of the sentinel’s way before he returned, she gained the centre of the camp, and in a few minutes was close to her father’s wigwam. Finding a little hole in the buffalo-skins of which it was chiefly composed, she peeped in.
To her great disappointment, Little Tim was not there, but Brighteyes was, and a youth whom she knew well as one who was about to join the ranks of the men, and go out on his first war-path on the first occasion that offered.
Although trained to observe the gravity and reticence of the Indian, this youth was gifted by nature with powers of loquacity which he found it difficult to suppress. Knowing this, Moonlight felt that she dared not trust him with her secret, and was much perplexed how to attract her mother’s attention without disturbing him. At last she crept round to the side of the tent where her mother was seated, opposite to the youth. Putting her lips to another small hole which she found there, she whispered “Mother,” so softly that Brighteyes did not hear, but went calmly on with her needlework, while the aspirant for Indian honours sent clouds of tobacco from his mouth and nose, and dreamed of awful deeds of daring, which were probably destined to end also in smoke.
“Mother!” whispered Moonlight again.
The whisper, though very slightly increased, was evidently heard, for the woman became suddenly motionless, and turned slightly pale, while her lustrous eyes gazed at the spot whence the sound had come.
“What does Brighteyes see?” asked the Indian youth, expelling a cloud from his lips and also gazing.
“I thought I heard—my Moonlight—whisper.”
A look of grave contempt settled on the youth’s visage as he replied—
“When love is strong, the eyes are blind and the ears too open. Brighteyes hears voices in the night air.”
Having given utterance to this sage opinion with the sententious solemnity of an oracle, or the portentous gravity of “an ass”—as modern slang might put it—the youth resumed his pipe and continued the stupefaction of his brain.
The woman was not sorry that her visitor took the matter thus, for she had felt the imprudence of having betrayed any symptom of surprise, whatever the sound might be. When, therefore, another whisper of “Mother!” was heard, instead of looking intelligent, she bestowed some increased attention on her work, yawned sleepily once or twice, and then said—
“Is there not a council being held to-night?”
“There is. The warriors are speaking now.”
“Does not the young brave aspire to raising his voice in council?”
“He does,” replied the youth, puffing with a look of almost superhuman dignity, “but he may not raise his voice in council till he has been on the war-path.”
“I should have thought,” returned Brighteyes, with the slightest possible raising of her eyebrows, “that a brave who aims so high would find it more pleasant to be near the council tent talking with the other young braves than to sit smoking beside a squaw.”
The youth took the hint rather indignantly, rose, and strode out of the tent in majestic silence.
No sooner was he gone than Moonlight darted in and fell into her mothers arms. There was certainly more of the pale-face than of the red man’s spirit in the embrace that followed, but the spirit of the red man soon reasserted itself.
“Mother,” she said eagerly and impressively, “Rushing River is going to be my husband!”
“Child,” exclaimed the matron, while her countenance fell, “can the dove mate with the raven? the rabbit with the wolf?”
“They can, for all I care or know to the contrary,” said Moonlight—impelled, no doubt, by the spirit of Little Tim. “But” she continued quickly, “I bear a message to Bounding Bull. Where is he?”
“Not in the camp, my daughter. He has gone to the block-house to see the preacher.”
“And father. Is he here?”
“No, he has gone with Bounding Bull. There is no chief in the camp just now—only the young braves to guard it.”
“How well they guard it—when I am here!” said the girl, with a laugh; then, becoming intensely earnest, she told her mother in as few words as possible the object of her visit, concluding with the very pertinent question, “Now, what is to be done?”
“You dare not allow Rushing River to enter the camp just now,” said Brighteyes. “The young men would certainly kill him.”
“But I must not send him away,” returned the perplexed Moonlight. “If I do, I—I shall never—he will never more return.”
“Could you not creep out of camp as you crept in and warn him?”
“I could, as far as the sentinels are concerned, for they are little better than owls; but it is growing lighter now, and the moon will be up soon—I dare not risk it. If I were caught, would not the braves suspect something, and scour the country round? I know not what to do, yet something must be done at once.”
For some minutes the mother and daughter were silent, each striving to devise some method of escaping from their difficulty. At last Brighteyes spoke.
“I see a way, my child,” she said, with more than her wonted solemnity, even when discussing grave matters. “It is full of danger, yet you must take it, for I see that love has taken possession of my Moonlight’s heart, and—there is no withstanding love!”
She paused thoughtfully for a few moments, and then resumed—
“One of your father’s horses is hobbled down in the willow swamp. He put it there because the feeding is good, and has left no one to guard it because the place is not easily found, as you know, and thieves are not likely to think of it as a likely place. What you must do is to go as near our lines as you dare, and give the signal of the owl. Rushing River will understand it, and go away at once. He will not travel fast, for his heart will be heavy, and revenge to him is no longer sweet. That will give you time to cross the camp, creep past the sentinels, run down to the swamp, mount the horse, and go by the short cuts that you know of until you get in front of the party or overtake them. After that you must lead them to the block-house,” (Brighteyes never would consent to call it Tim’s Folly after she understood the meaning of the name), “and let the chief manage the rest. Go. You have not a moment to lose.”
She gave her daughter a final embrace, pushed her out of the tent and then sat down with the stoicism of a Red Indian to continue her work and listen intently either for the savage yells which would soon indicate the failure of the enterprise, or the continued silence which would gradually prove its success.
Moonlight sauntered through the camp carelessly at first with a blanket over her head after the manner of Indian women; but on approaching the outskirts, nearest to the spot where Rushing River was concealed, she discarded the blanket, sank into the grass like a genuine apparition, and disappeared. After creeping a short way, she ventured to give the three hoots of the owl.
An Indian brave, whose eyes were directed sentimentally to the stars, as though he were thinking of his lady-love—or buffalo steaks and marrow-bones—cocked his ears and lowered his gaze to earth, but as nothing more was to be seen or heard, he raised his eyes and thoughts again to love—or marrow-bones.
Very different, as may be supposed, was the effect of those three hoots upon Rushing River, as he lay on the grass in perfect silence, listening intently. On hearing the sounds, he sprang up as though an arrow had pierced him, and for a few moments the furious glare of a baffled savage gleamed in his dark eyes, as he laid a hand on his tomahawk; but the action was momentary, and in a short time the look passed away. It was succeeded by a calm aspect and demeanour, which seemed to indicate a man devoid of all feeling—good or bad.
“Skipping Rabbit,” he said, taking the hand of the child in his, and patting her head, “you are soon to be with your father—and with Moonlight. Rushing River goes back to his people. But the skipping one must not move from this tree till some of her people come to fetch her. There is danger in moving—perfect safety in sitting still.”
He moved as if about to go, but suddenly turned back and kissed the child. Then he muttered something in a low tone to his companions, and strode into the dark forest.
Umqua then advanced and gave the little one a tremendous hug. She was evidently struggling to suppress her feelings, for she could hardly speak as she said—
“I—I must go, dear child. Rushing River commands. Umqua has no choice but to obey.” She could say no more, but, after another prolonged hug, ran rapidly away.
Hitherto Eaglenose had stood motionless, looking on, with his arms folded. Poor boy! he was engaged in the hardest fight that he had yet experienced in his young life, for had he not for the first time found a congenial playmate—if we may venture to put it so—and was she not being torn from him just as he was beginning to understand her value? He had been trained, however, in a school where contempt of pain and suffering was inculcated more sternly even than among the Spartans of old.
“Skipping one,” he said, in a low, stern voice, “Eaglenose must leave you, for his chief commands, but he will laugh and sing no more.”
Even through her tears the skipping one could scarce forbear smiling at the tone in which this was uttered. Fortunately, her face could not be seen.
“O yes, you will laugh and sing again,” she said, “when your nose is better.”
“No, that cannot be,” returned the youth, who saw—indeed the child intended—nothing humorous in the remark. “No, I will never more laugh, or pull the string of the jumping-jack; but,” he added, with sudden animation, as a thought struck him, “Eaglenose will bring the jumping-jack to the camp of Bounding Bull, and put it in the hands of the skipping one, though his scalp should swing for it in the smoke of her father’s wigwam.”
He stooped, took the little face between his hands, and kissed it on both cheeks.
“Don’t—don’t leave me,” said the child, beginning to whimper.
“The chief commands, and Eaglenose must obey,” said the youth.
He gently unclasped the little hands, and silently glided into the forest.
Meanwhile Moonlight, utterly forgetting amid her anxieties the arrangement about Skipping Rabbit, sauntered back again through the camp till she reached the opposite extremity, which lay nearest to the willow swamp. The lines here were not guarded so carefully, because the nature of the ground rendered that precaution less needful. She therefore managed to pass the sentinels without much difficulty, and found, as she had been told, that one of her father’s horses was feeding near the willow swamp. Its two fore-legs were fastened together to prevent it straying, so that she caught it easily. Having provided herself with a strong supple twig, she cut the hobbles, vaulted lightly on the horse’s back, and went off at a smart gallop.
Moonlight did not quite agree with her mother as to the effect of disappointment on her lover. Although heaviness of heart might possibly induce him to ride slowly, she thought it much more likely that exasperation of spirit would urge him to ride with reckless fury. Therefore she plied her switch vigorously, and, the light increasing as she came to more open ground, she was able to speed swiftly over a
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