The Prairie Chief, R. M. Ballantyne [read book .TXT] 📗
- Author: R. M. Ballantyne
Book online «The Prairie Chief, R. M. Ballantyne [read book .TXT] 📗». Author R. M. Ballantyne
Another moment, and he was kneeling at the breastwork, examining the firearms and ready for action.
“Fetch the sabre, my soft one,” said Big Tim, addressing his bride by the title which he had bestowed on her on his wedding-day.
The tone in which he said this struck the girl as being unusually light and joyous, not quite in keeping with the circumstance of being attacked by overwhelming odds; but she was becoming accustomed to the eccentricities of her bold and stalwart husband, and had perfect confidence in him. Without, therefore, expressing surprise by word or look, she obeyed the order.
Unsheathing the weapon, the hunter felt its edge with his thumb, and a slight smile played on his features as he said—
“I have good news for the soft one to-day.”
The soft one looked, but did not say, “Indeed, what is it?”
“Yes,” continued the youth, sheathing the sabre; “the man with the kind heart and the snowy pinion has come back to the mountains. He will be here before the shadows of the trees grow much longer.”
“Whitewing?” exclaimed Softswan, with a gleam of pleasure in her bright black eyes.
“Just so. The prairie chief has come back to us, and is now a preacher.”
“Has the pale-face preacher com’ vis him?” asked the bride, with a slightly troubled look, for she did not yet feel quite at home in her broken English, and feared that her husband might laugh at her mistakes, though nothing was further from the mind of the stout hunter than to laugh at his pretty bride. He did indeed sometimes indulge the propensity in that strange conventional region “his sleeve,” but no owl of the desert was more solemn in countenance than Big Tim when Softswan perpetrated her lingual blunders.
“I know not,” he replied, as he renewed the priming of one of the guns. “Hist! did you see something move under the willow bush yonder?”
The girl shook her head.
“A rabbit, no doubt,” said the hunter, lowering the rifle which he had raised, and resuming his easy unconcerned attitude, yet keeping his keen eye on the spot with a steadiness that showed his indifference was assumed.
“I know not whether the pale-face preacher is with him,” he continued. “Those who told me about him could only say that a white man dressed like the crows was travelling a short distance in advance of Whitewing, but whether he was one of his party or not, they could not tell. Indeed it is said that Whitewing has no party with him, that he travels alone. If he does, he is more reckless than ever, seeing that his enemies the Blackfeet are on the war-path just now; but you never know what a half-mad redskin will do, and Whitewing is a queer customer.”
Big Tim’s style of speech was in accordance with his half-caste nature—sometimes flowing in channels of slightly poetic imagery, like that of his Indian mother; at other times dropping into the very matter-of-fact style of his white sire.
“Leetil Tim vill be glad,” said Softswan.
“Ay, daddy will be pleased. By the way, I wonder what keeps him out so long? I half expected to find him here when I arrived. Indeed, I made sure it was him that tumbled yon Blackfoot off the cliff so smartly. You see, I didn’t know you were such a plucky little woman, my soft one, though I might have guessed it, seeing that you possess all the good qualities under the sun; but a man hardly expects his squaw to be great on the war-path, d’ye see?”
Softswan neither smiled nor looked pleased at the compliment intended in these words.
“Me loves not to draw bloods,” she said gravely, with a pensive look on the ground.
“Don’t let that disturb you, soft one,” said her husband, with a quiet laugh. “By the way he jumped after it I guess he has got no more harm than if you’d gin him an overdose o’ physic. But them reptiles bein’ in these parts makes me raither anxious about daddy. Did he say where he meant to hunt when he went off this morning?”
“Yes; Leetil Tim says hims go for hunt near Lipstock Hill.”
“Just so; Lopstick Hill,” returned Tim, correcting her with offhand gravity.
“But me hears a shote an’ a cry,” said the girl, with a suddenly anxious look.
“That was from one o’ the redskins, whose thigh I barked for sendin’ an arrow raither close to my head,” said the young man.
“But,” continued his bride, with increasing anxiety, “the shote an’ the cry was long before you comes home. Pr’aps it bees Leetil Tim.”
“Impossible,” said Big Tim quickly; “father must have bin miles away at that time, for Lopsuck Hill is good three hours’ walk from here as the crow flies, an’ the Blackfeet came from the opposite airt o’ the compass.”
The young hunter’s prolonged silence after this, as well as the expression of his face, showed that he was not quite as easy in his mind as his words implied.
“Did the cry seem to be far off?” he asked at last quickly.
“Not far,” returned his wife.
Without speaking, Big Tim began to buckle on the cavalry sabre, not in the loosely-swinging cavalry fashion, but closely and firmly to his side, with his broad waistbelt, so that it might not impede his movements. He then selected from the arms a short double-barrelled gun, and, slinging a powder-horn and shot-pouch over his shoulders, prepared to depart.
“Now listen, my soft one,” he said, on completing his arrangements. “I feel a’most sartin sure that the cry ye heard was not daddy’s; nevertheless, the bare possibility o’ such a thing makes it my dooty to go an’ see if it was the old man. I think the Blackfeet have drawed off to have a palaver, an’ won’t be back for a bit, so I’ll jist slip down the precipice by our secret path; an’ if they do come back when I’m away, pepper them well wi’ slugs. I’ll hear the shots, an’ be back to you afore they can git up the hill. But if they should make a determined rush, don’t you make too bold a stand agin ’em. Just let fly with the big-bore when they’re half-way up the track, an’ then slip into the cave. I’ll soon meet ye there, an we’ll give the reptiles a surprise. Now, you’ll be careful, soft one?”
Soft one promised to be careful, and Big Tim, entering the hut, passed out at a back door, and descended the cliff to the torrent below by a concealed path which even a climbing monkey might have shuddered to attempt.
Meanwhile Softswan, re-arranging and re-examining her firearm, sat down behind the breastwork to guard the fort.
The sun was still high in the heavens, illuming a magnificent prospect of hill and dale and virgin forest, and glittering in the lakelets, pools, and rivers, which brightened the scene as far as the distant horizon, where the snow-clad peaks of the Rocky Mountains rose grandly into the azure sky.
The girl sat there almost motionless for a long time, exhibiting in her face and figure at once the keen watchfulness of the savage and the endurance of the pale-face.
Unlike many girls of her class, she had at one period been brought for a short time under the influence of men who loved the Lord Jesus Christ and esteemed it equally a duty and a privilege to urge others to flee from the wrath to come and accept the Gospel offer of salvation—men who themselves had long before been influenced by the pale-face preacher to whom Softswan had already referred. The seed had, in her case, fallen into good ground, and had brought forth the fruit of an earnest desire to show good-will to all with whom she had to do. It had also aroused in her a hungering and thirsting for more knowledge of God and His ways.
It was natural, therefore, as she gazed on the splendid scene spread out before her, that the thoughts of this child of the backwoods should rise to contemplation of the Creator, and become less attentive to inferior matters than circumstances required.
She was recalled suddenly to the danger of her position by the appearance of a dark object, which seemed to crawl out of the bushes below, just where the zigzag track entered them. At the first glance it seemed to resemble a bear; a second and more attentive look suggested that it might be a man. Whether bear or man, however, it was equally a foe, at least so thought Softswan, and she raised one of the guns to her shoulder with a promptitude that would have done credit to Big Tim himself.
But she did not fire. The natural disinclination to shed blood restrained her—fortunately, as it turned out,—for the crawling object, on reaching the open ground, rose with apparent difficulty and staggered forward a few paces in what seemed to be the form of a drunken man. After one or two ineffectual efforts to ascend the track, the unfortunate being fell and remained a motionless heap upon the ground.
Curious mingling of eagerness, hope, and fear rendered Softswan for some minutes undecided how to act as she gazed at the fallen man. His garb was of a dark uniform grey colour, which she had often heard described, but had not seen until now. That he was wounded she felt quite sure, but she knew that there would be great danger in descending to aid him. Besides, if he were helpless, as he seemed to be, she had not physical strength to lift him, and would expose herself to easy capture if the Blackfeet should be in ambush.
Still, the eager and indefinable hope that was in her heart induced the girl to rise with the intention of descending the path, when she observed that the fallen man again moved. Rising on his hands and knees, he crept forward a few paces, and then stopped. Suddenly by a great effort, he raised himself to a kneeling position, clasped his hands, and looked up.
The act sufficed to decide the wavering girl. Leaping lightly over the breastwork, she ran swiftly down until she reached the man, who gazed at her in open-mouthed astonishment. He was a white man, and the ghastly pallor of his face, with a few spots of blood on it and on his hands, told that he had been severely wounded.
“Manitou seems to have sent an angel of light to me in my extremity,” he gasped in the Indian tongue.
“Come; me vill help you,” answered Softswan, in her broken English, as she stooped and assisted him to rise.
No other word was uttered, for even with the girl’s assistance it was with the utmost difficulty that the man reached the breastwork of the hut, and when he had succeeded in clambering over it, he lay down and fainted.
After Softswan had glanced anxiously in the direction of the forest, and placed one of the guns in a handy position, she proceeded to examine the wounded stranger. Being expert in such matters, she opened his vest, and quickly found a wound near the region of the heart. It was bleeding steadily though not profusely. To stanch this and bind it up was the work of a few minutes. Then she reclosed the vest. In doing so she found something hard in a pocket near the wound. It was a little book, which she gently removed as it might interfere with the bandage. In doing so she observed that the book had been struck by the bullet which it deflected, so as to cause a more deadly wound than might otherwise have been inflicted.
She was thus engaged when the patient recovered consciousness, and, seizing her wrist, exclaimed, “Take not
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