CHAPTER XXIII
Bushy was very much surprised when, in the middle of the night, she woke up. Generally when once she was asleep it required a good deal of shaking to wake her before the usual time of getting up.
“I am feeling awful queer! I wish I knew what’s the matter with me. There is something, but I cannot remember,” she thought drowsily.
Then by and by the dreadful truth came home to her. She was a prisoner among the Indians!
The night was very clear, the bright moonshine made it almost like twilight. She could distinguish the dark forms of the people in the wigwam; they were all fast asleep, their regular breathing proved that. Bushy’s heart gave a great bound. Oh, if she could only get out of there! Suddenly in the silence her ear caught the sound of a rustle outside the wigwam, as if some one were cautiously coming through the long grass. She grew frightened, but soon all her fears changed into great joy. A well-known sniffing and snorting betrayed to her that Jip had been nosing about for his little mistress and had found her.
“Jip,” whispered Bushy, ever so softly.
To her unutterable alarm Jip neighed loudly and repeatedly; the Indians in the wigwams moved uneasily.
Bushy kept motionless, almost breathless, for some minutes. Would the Indians wake up? If she could only get outside. But creeping past the sleeping savages was by no means an easy task, and Bushy almost despaired of getting to the pony. But out she must go; it was her only chance of escape.
She rolled over, her face downward on the floor, and lay perfectly motionless for some time to make sure that the rustling of the dry leaves had not been heard. Then she began to crawl cautiously along the uneven ground. The entrance to the wigwam seemed miles off. She had almost reached it, and could see the moonlit camp through the opening, when the young Indian squaw who had been so kind to her the evening before stirred in her sleep.
“She is going to wake up, and she will murder me sure for trying to run off,” Bushy thought, pressing herself closely to the ground. Her heart beat like that of a frightened bird, and cold perspiration stood in great drops on her forehead. But good luck attended her, and a few minutes afterward she crawled out into the long grass, free, and outside of the wigwam. Jip trotted up to her.
“Sh! Keep still,” whispered Bushy.
He thrust his cold nose in her hand and welcomed her with his best tokens of affection. A piece of halter, showing that he had broken loose from some tree, was still hanging about his neck. Bushy was as yet in danger. She had to pass all the redskins sleeping around the camp-fire; and without a decent revolver, too, what could she do to defend herself!
“I’ll go round by the edge of the camp,” she reasoned, “and hang on to Jip and ride out sideways, so they won’t see me. They may let Jip roam about, even if they should wake and see him.”
In her joy at the slight prospect of deliverance she had been a little off her guard, and had not noticed an Indian boy stealing up behind her. The boy was frightened. The mother squaw had told him the little girl was dead when she fainted and fell over so still on the bed of leaves early in the evening. This explains, in a measure, why the Indians did not watch her more closely. They thought she was dying, hence they curled up carelessly in the different corners of the camp and went sound asleep.
Jip, moving uneasily, made Bushy turn her head and face the boy, who with wild and frightened eyes gazed upon her. Her heart sank, but freedom was worth another effort, she thought. With a rapid movement she drew the revolver out of her blouse and threw it at his head. He staggered and fell back without a cry, disappearing in the long grass that surrounded the tent. Bushy then jumped on Jip’s back and whispered: “Home, home! Jip; let us hunt the Padre. Quick!”
Bushy hung on one side, the side away from the Indians, and clung desperately to Jip’s mane and to an old rope lariat that she had dexterously and quickly thrown about his body. She had tied it with a slip knot, thus making a surcingle to which she clung with her feet. In the white moonlight, as Jip’s hoofs sank deep in the moss, they looked like spectres moving noiselessly about at midnight.
Whether the Indian boy was dead or only stunned, and whether the other Indians waked up, Bushy never knew, but when at last she was miles from the camp, she felt that there was some hope of again embracing her father. She resolved to stay in the bushes till daybreak, knowing that neither Jip nor herself could find their way back in the pitchy darkness. The moon had by this time disappeared, and she could scarcely see her hand before her.
“SH! KEEP STILL,” WHISPERED BUSHY.
“I think I had better not lie down and sleep; wild beasts might come, and I could not get away if I were not on the watch. I’ll just slip off you, Jip, ’cause I am so tired, and sit down against the tree a little while and keep my eyes open. I wish I had my revolver, I would not be afraid then.
“There is no use crying over spilt milk,” Bushy murmured as she found a good seat and firmly resolved not to go to sleep.
“Don’t leave me, Jip; keep right here.”
When Mr. Sukolt came home the day before, he had thought it rather strange not to find Bushy waiting for him at the door of the fort as she usually did.
“Playing hide-and-seek with the old Padre, little girl?” he exclaimed, giving a merry whistle to let her know he was there. “Wait, I’ll find you, you rascal!”
He went all over the rooms and through the passages, looking in every corner and behind every barrel and bag, but no Bushy was to be found. None of the soldiers knew where she had gone and no one remembered seeing her all day.
No answer came to his repeated call. “Perhaps she is in the stable with Jip,” and off he started for the stable. Just imagine his alarm when he not only failed to find Bushy, but missed Jip, too!
“She has gone off, though I expressly forbade it! I am afraid the child is running wild. All those Indians are abroad, too!”
Night began to close in and no Bushy came. Half mad with alarm, he called the captain and told him about his little daughter’s absence.
“You had better let me send out some soldiers in search of her,” said the captain.
“Thank you,” said Mr. Sukolt, his voice full of gratitude, and they were soon on their way. The shifting lights of the lanterns and the cries of “Bushy! Bushy!” disturbed the quiet of the sleeping birds. At eleven o’clock the searchers returned, and all had the same sad message to tell—the little girl was nowhere to be found—and the hunt was given up until daylight.
For more than an hour Mr. Sukolt sat in dumb despair, too dispirited to think of anything but his lost darling.
It was three o’clock when he walked out into the darkness and wandered aimlessly about. As he approached the bushes on the east side, perhaps a quarter of a mile from the fort, he was suddenly startled from his gloomy reveries by the neighing of a horse, a neigh that sounded like heavenly music in his ear.
“Father in heaven!” he exclaimed, making great strides forward. “If that is Jip, Bushy must be near, too.”
At the same moment Jip made his way through the bushes and trotted toward Mr. Sukolt. The pony circled about and galloped back to the spot where Bushy sat against the tree, sleeping as soundly and quietly as if she had been in her little bed in the fort. Mr. Sukolt gathered her in his arms and covered the face of his naughty little girl with kisses.
“My darling! my darling!” was all that he could say.
Bushy woke up with a start, and could not at first make out what had happened.
“Oh, I say, I went off to sleep, after all. Jip, you stupid fellow, could you not keep me awake?” Then the memory of what had brought about this adventure came back to her, and she clasped her arms around her father’s neck, sobbing in shame and penitence.
“Oh, Padre, I have been so naughty! I got lost. I do not deserve to be found by you or anybody else. I guess you will never trust me again as long as you live!”
“Softly, softly, my little girl,” said her father, soothingly. “Let us first go home. You were very near the fort, without knowing it. I cannot understand what Jip could have been thinking about.”
“Oh! Padre, it was not Jip’s fault, because I climbed off his back and told him to keep close, and he did, I guess, until he heard you coming. But, Padre, he took me straight into the Indian camp and they made me a prisoner and”——
“My God! Bushy, dear, what is it you say?” exclaimed her father, drawing her closer to him. His emotion frightened Bushy more than all the peril she had that day gone through. Between sobs and fitful laughs, half hysterical, she spent the remainder of the night telling her adventures to her father and the boys as they gathered about.