The Sun Maid: A Story of Fort Dearborn

“I am a white man! No Indian shall ever teach me a thing that I can learn for myself!”

For suddenly Gaspar remembered the wrongs he had suffered at the red men’s hands, and leaped to Tempest’s back unaided. Another instant, and the trio of riders dashed away from Muck-otey-pokee in a mad rush that left their disgruntled instructor in doubt which was the better pupil of them all.

“Who begins slow finishes fast; but who begins fast may never live to finish slow,” he remarked, sententiously; then observing that Osceolo had, for the first time, raised his eyes, he promptly laid a heavy hand upon the youth’s shoulder and wheeled him about.

“To my wigwam—march!”

And Osceolo marched—exactly as if all his limbs were sticks and his joints mechanical.

“Ugh! So? Like the jointed dolls of the papooses, eh? Very good. Keep at it. From now till those three return, dead or alive, my fine young warrior, you shall be my pupil. You have set me the pace you like. You may keep at it. From the locust tree east of my lodge to the pawpaw on the west, as the branch swings in the wind, so shall you swing. Ugh! May they ride far and long. One—two—commence!”

It was noonday when he began that weary, weary automatic “step, step”; but when the last rays of the sun had disappeared beyond the prairie, Osceolo was still enduring his discipline, and making his pendulum-like journey from locust-tree to pawpaw, from pawpaw to locust. His head swam, his sight dimmed, but still sat stolid Snake-Who-Leaps in the entrance of his tepee, “instructing” the only pupil fate had left him.

CHAPTER VIII.

When she heard Gaspar’s daring declaration, she thrilled with delight. All the savage in her nature roused to enjoy this wild escapade, and, catching firm hold of the Sun Maid’s bridle rein, she nodded over her shoulder to the lad, and led the way northward.

“It’s like that strange fairy story, in the book given Peter Wilson, that came from way over in England, and was the only one in the world, I guess. Was the only one at our Fort, anyway,” thought Gaspar, as he followed in equal speed, and at imminent risk of his life. For a night’s rest had restored the black gelding to all his spirit, and had the boy attempted to guide or control him there would have been serious trouble.

As it was, Gaspar confined his efforts to just sticking on, and had all he could do at that; but after a short distance, the three horses broke into an even lope, keeping well together, and all under the command of the Indian woman.

“Oh, I love it!” she cried, the rich blood flaming under her dusky skin, her eyes sparkling, and her long black hair streaming on the wind which their own motion created.

“Kitty loves it—too—Kitty guesses!” echoed the child, entering into the other’s mood with quick sympathy. Indeed, she was the safer of the three. There is a hidden understanding between horses and children, and numberless instances prove how carefully even an untamed beast will treat a little child—if nobody interferes. But let an adult attempt to avert a seeming danger, and the animal will promptly throw the responsibility on human shoulders, and act out its own mood at its own will.

Wahneenah understood this, and, simply leaving her hand upon the Snowbird’s rein, but quite without any pressure, rode where that frolicsome creature chose to lead. A strap, which the Snake-Who-Leaps had fastened around the waist of the Sun Maid, held her securely to her saddle, though her small hands clutched the flying mane of her mount so tightly that she could not well have been shaken off.

It was a rough school in which to learn so dangerous an art, but it sufficed; and that one day’s ride did more to help Gaspar and Kitty to good horsemanship than all the instruction they afterward received.

“How far—nice Other Mother?” asked the little girl, when the three horses of their own accord began to slacken speed.

“Not far now, papoose. See yonder, where the trees fringe the river? Among those trees is a wonderful spot I know. I’ve not seen it for years, but in its shelter my warrior and I spent many happy hours. There we used to take our son, and tell him the story of his people. It was a hiding-place, in the ancient years, when enemies of the Pottawatomies were on the war-path, and the chief would save his women and children. But nobody remembers that trail, at this late day, except those of my father’s house. Besides me, not one soul lives who could find his way thither, save Black Partridge. It is even many moons since he has talked with me about it, and he may not recall it still. Though he is a man who never forgets, and the knowledge is doubtless merely sleeping in his brain.”

Kitty Briscoe understood but little of this speech, but Gaspar’s interest was roused. Amid the discipline and routine of his old life at the Fort, his lighter, gayer qualities had lain dormant, but they were now rapidly awakening under the influence of his recent adventures. It was impossible, too, for anybody to be long with Wahneenah, in her present mood, without catching her spirit and gayety; and though the Sun Maid comprehended little save the liveliness of her companions, she could enter into that with all her heart.

Therefore, it was a merry party which came at last to the river bank, where the horses were glad to pause for rest, and where they would eagerly have slaked their thirst, had they been permitted.

“But that won’t do, Wahneenah, will it? At our Fort we never watered a horse when it was warm. The Captain said they would be ruined, so.”

“You do well to remember all the wisdom you have been taught, Dark-Eye. Here, let me show you something even a white man may not know. How to tether a horse with a rope of prairie grass, made in a moment, but strong enough to last for long.”

“Lift me off, Other Mother,” cried Kitty, from the Snowbird’s back, and Wahneenah swung her down.

“Now, Dark-Eye, pull as much of this rush grass as your arms can hold. It will take a heap for three ropes.”

“Have the pretty ponies been naughty? Must they be tied up, too?”

“Not because they are bad, but because they are good, papoose! That is the way of life. It is full of contradictions. But, don’t wrinkle your pretty brows puzzling what you cannot understand. Run and help the Dark-Eye pull the long grasses.”

It was so wonderful to see Wahneenah’s skilful fingers twist and turn and thread the slender blades in and out that both children were fascinated by her deftness; and though Gaspar could not at all catch the trick of this curious weaving, he resolved to practise it in private till he could equal, or excel, this example. Again his ambition arose to prove that a pale-face was always superior to an Indian, and his dark eyes gazed so fixedly upon Wahneenah’s flying fingers that she laughed, and demanded:

“Are you jealous, my son? But there’s no need. Nothing that I know will be hidden from you, if you choose to be taught. But, come. Take this rope that is finished. Twist it about the gelding’s neck—so; now pass it downward between his front legs and hobble him by the right hind one. No, he’ll not resist. Try it. Then you’ll see that he’ll neither nibble at his tether nor run away from us.”

Gaspar was too proud to show that he somewhat dreaded interfering with the restless legs of the spirited Tempest, and to his astonishment he found that the animal submitted very quietly to the tying. This may have been because Wahneenah stood by its beautiful head and murmured some soft sounds into its dainty ears. Though what the murmuring meant nobody save herself and Tempest understood. In like manner, and very quickly, all three horses were fastened in the shade of the trees, and as soon as they had cooled sufficiently, Gaspar was bidden to water them.

Then the Sun Maid was called from her play among the wild flowers that fringed the bank, and made to walk behind Wahneenah’s skirts.

“Cling close, my Girl-Child! We’re going into fairyland. Bow your pretty head till it is low—low—low down, like this”; and herself bending till her own head was very near the earth, the guide pushed forward into what appeared to be a solid tangle of bushes.

“Why, Wahneenah! You can’t go through there. It’s a regular hedge. But if you want to try, I have a little knife in my pocket, that my Captain gave me. Let me go first—I am the man—and cut the way; though I don’t see why. Isn’t there a better place?”

“There are many things a lad of ten cannot understand, Dark-Eye, even though he be as manly as you. Trust Wahneenah. An Indian never forgets, and never makes the haste that destroys. Watch me. Learn a lesson in woodcraft that will be useful to you more than once. Cut or broken twigs have tongues which betray. But thus—even a bird could find no trace.”

With infinite patience and accuracy of touch, the woman parted the slender, interwoven branches so delicately that scarcely a leaf was bruised, and little by little opened a clear passage into a downward sloping tunnel. This tunnel ran directly under the river bed, and was so steep in places that one might easily have coasted over it.

“Why, how queer! It’s like the underground passage from the Fort to the river, where we children used to peep, but were never allowed to enter. What is it? Why is it?”

“Let your eyes ask and answer their own questions. They are safer than a tongue, my son. But fear nothing. Where Wahneenah leads the way for the children whom the Great Spirit has sent her they may safely follow.”

Then, without further speech, she went forward for what seemed a long distance, through the half light of the tunnel, until it opened into a wide chamber, across which trickled a clear stream and which was fanned by a strong current of air.

The children were silent from curiosity, not unmixed with dread; and their guide had also become very grave and silent. Memories were crowding upon her soul, and banishing the present; but she was roused at length by the wild clutch of the Sun Maid’s arms, as something winged swept by them in the twilight.

“Other Mother! Other Mother! I—I don’t like it! Take Kitty, quick!”

“Ah! I was dreaming. My dead walked here beside me, and I forgot. But is the Sun Maid ever afraid? I did not think that. Well, it’s over now. The gloomy passage, the big, dark room—See?”

Suddenly, at a turn westward out of the chamber and beyond it, they entered upon what might, indeed, have been fairyland. The exit was another passage, rising gently to a rock- and tree-sheltered nook in the heart of a tiny island. From any outward point this retreat was invisible, and when they had emerged upon it the Indian woman’s spirits rose again. She caught up the Sun Maid and tossed her lightly upon a bending branch, that seemed to have grown expressly for a child’s swing.

“My warrior trained that bough for our son’s pleasure, and from it he rocked and danced as a tiny papoose. Now—in you, he lives again. Hold, Dark-Eye! What are you seeking?”

“Oh, just nothing! I was poking around to see——”

“If you could find anything to eat? The wild blackberries should grow just yonder, and, wait—I’ll look.”

“For what will you look, Other Mother? Aren’t these the prettiest posies yet?” and Kitty held upward a cluster of cardinal flowers which she had pulled from a mass by the water’s edge.

“Ah, they are alive! They have the heart of fire. But, take care. It is always wet where they grow and small feet slip easily. If you were to soil your pretty clothes, old Katasha might be angry.”

“I’ll take care. May I have all I can gather?”

“All. Every one.”

Then Wahneenah returned into the cave and to a niche in its wall where, years before, she had put a store of dried corn, some salt, and a bit of tinder. The articles had been stored in earthen jugs, and it was just possible they might be found in good condition. If they were, she would show the man-child how to catch a fish out of the little stream in the cavern, where the delicate trout were apt to hide. Then they would make a fire as they had used in the old days, and she would cook for these white children such a supper as her own dear ones had enjoyed.

“See, Gaspar, Dark-Eye. I will fetch you a line and hook. Sit quiet and draw out our supper—when it bites!”

“But I have a far better hook than that in my pocket; and a line the Sauganash gave me, one day. I am a good fisher, Wahneenah. How many fish do you want for your supper?”

“You are a good boaster, any way, pale-face, like all your race; and I want just as many fish as will satisfy our hunger. If you had your bow here, you might wing us a bird. Though that would not be wise, maybe. Keep an eye to the Sun Maid, lest she slip in the brook.”

“This is a funny place. It is an island, isn’t it? Like the pictures in my geography; and there is a little creek through it, and another in a cave, and—I think it is beautiful. But you’re funny, too, Wahneenah. You say my Kitty is a ‘spirit,’ and ‘nothing can harm her,’ yet you watch out for her getting hurt closer than the other mothers did.”

“You see too much, Dark-Eye. But—well, she is a spirit in a girl’s body. If you let evil happen her it will be the worse for you. Hear me?”

“I wouldn’t let her get into trouble any sooner than you would, Wahneenah. I love her, too. She hasn’t any folks, and I haven’t any, except you, of course. She belongs to me.”

“Oh! she does? Well. Enough. We all belong to each other. We have made the bond.”

When the woman returned from her search in the cavern her face was very grave. Yet it should have been delighted, for she had found not only the corn and the other things she remembered, but a goodly store of articles, quite too fresh and modern to have remained there since she last visited the spot. There were dried beans, salted beef, cakes of sugar from her old maple trees—she knew her own mark upon them; and, besides these, were flour and tea in packages, such as had been distributed from Fort Dearborn among as many Indians as were entitled to receive them. It was both puzzling and disappointing to find her retreat discovered and appropriated by somebody else.

“It must be that Shut-Hand has, in some way, found this cavern out. All the other people would have eaten and enjoyed their good things, and not stored them up, like this. But he is crafty and secretive, and his name is his character.”

Had Wahneenah hunted further she would have found, in addition to the provisions, a considerable quantity of broadcloth, calico, and paint; which articles, also, had been among those recently secured from the garrison. But she neither examined very closely nor touched anything except that for which she had come to the recess; and she even forced herself to put the matter out of mind, for the time being.

“I have brought my children here to make a holiday for them. I will not, therefore, darken it by my forebodings. The young live only in the present or the future. I, too, will again become young. I will forget all that is past.”

From that wonderful pocket of his, Gaspar took a decent hook and line, and easily proved his skill among fish that were too seldom disturbed to have learned any fear; while Wahneenah made a tiny fire of dried twigs, in the mouth of the cavern, and boiled her prepared corn, that she had broken and ground between two stones, into a sort of mush. With Gaspar’s fish, broiled upon the live coals, the pudding sweetened by a bit of honey from a close sealed crock, and a draught of water from the underground stream, the trio made a fine supper; and afterward, when she had carefully cleared away the débris, Wahneenah rekindled the fire, and, sitting beside it, took the Sun Maid on her knee and drew the motherless Dark-Eye within the shelter of her arm.

Then she told them tales and legends of the wide prairies and distant mountains; and her own manner gave them thrilling interest, because she believed in them quite as sincerely as did her small, wide-eyed listeners.

“Tell it once more, Other Mother. That beau’ful one ’bout the little papoose that hadn’t any shoes, and the flowers growed her some. Just like mine”; holding up her own tiny moccasined feet, and rubbing them together in the comfortable heat.

“Once upon a time a little girl papoose was lost. The enemies of her people had come to her father’s village, and had scattered all her tribe. There was not one of them left alive except the little maid.”

“I guess that’s just like Kitty, isn’t it?”

“No. No, it is not,” replied the story-teller, quickly. For she had felt a shiver run through Gaspar’s body, and pressed it close in warm protection. “No. It is not like either of you. For to you is Wahneenah, the Mother; the sister of a chief who lives and is powerful. But this was away in the long past, before even I was born. So the girl papoose found herself wandering on the prairie, and it was the time of frost. The ground was frozen beneath the grasses, which were stiff and rough and cut the tender feet that a mother’s hand had hitherto carried in her own palm.”

“Show me how, Mother Wahneenah.”

“Just this way Sweetheart,” clasping the tiny moccasins in a loving caress.

“Tell some more. I guess the fire is going to make Kitty sleepy, by and by.”

“Sleep, then, if you will, Girl-Child.”

“And then?”

“Then, when the little one was very cold and tired and lonely she remembered something: it was that she had seen her own mother lift her two hands to the sky and ask the Great Spirit for all she might need.”

“He always hears, doesn’t He?”

“He hears and answers. But sometimes the answers are what He sees is best, not what we want.”

“Don’t sigh that way, Other Mother! S’posin’ your little boy did go away. Haven’t you got Gaspar and Kitty?”

“Yes, little one.”

“Go on, then. About the little maid—just like me.”

“So she put her own two tiny hands up toward the sky and asked the Great Spirit to put soft shoes on her tired little feet.”

“And He did, didn’t He?”

“Surely. First the pain eased and that made her look down. And there she saw a pair of the softest moccasins that ever were made. They were of pale pink and yellow, and all dotted with dark little bead-spots; and they fitted as easily as her own dainty skin. Then the girl papoose was grateful, and she begged the Great Spirit that He would make many and many another pair of just such comfortable shoes for every other little barefoot maid in all the world. That not one single child should ever suffer what the girl papoose had suffered.”

“Did He?” asked Gaspar, as interested as Kitty.

“Yes. Surely. The prayer of the unselfish and innocent is always granted. He sent a voice out of the sky and bade the child look all about her. So she did, and the whole wide prairie was a-bloom with more pink and yellow ‘shoes’ than all the children in all the earth could ever wear. They were growing right out of the hard ground, reaching up to be plucked and worn. So she cried out aloud in her gratitude: ‘Oh, the moccasin flower! the moccasin flower!’ and ever since then this shoe-like blossom has been beloved of all the children in the world. But, because the heat burns as well as the cold pinches, it blooms nowadays at all times and seasons of the year. A few flowers here, a few there; but quite enough for any child to find—who has the right spirit.”

“Kitty must have had the spirit, mustn’t she, Other Mother? That day when her feets were so tired and the good Feather-man found her. ’Cause she had lots and lots of them; only she went to sleep and they all solemned down. And——”

Gaspar started suddenly and held up a warning hand. His quick ear had caught the sound of approaching feet, crushing boldly through the cavern, like the tread of one who knows his way well and is coming to his own.

Wahneenah had also heard, though she had continued her story, making no sign that she was inwardly disturbed. But she now paused and listened whether this footfall were one she knew, either of friend or foe. Then a bush cracked behind them, and Gaspar’s heart stood still, as the tall form of an Indian warrior pushed past them into the firelight.

CHAPTER IX.

“You are welcome, my brother. Though, at first, I feared it was some alien who had discovered our cave.”

“It is not the habit of the Happy to fear. She who forebodes danger where no danger is but paves the way to her own destruction.”

Wahneenah glanced at her brother sharply.

“It is the Truth-Teller himself who has put foreboding into my soul. He—and the new-born love which the Sun Maid has brought.”

The face of Black Partridge fell again into that dignified gravity which was its habitual expression and he sat for a long time with the “dream-look” in his eyes, gazing straightforward into the embers of their little fire.

“Is you hungry, Feather-man? We did have such a beau’ful supper. Nice Other Mother can cook fishes and cakes and—things. Shall she cook you some fish, Black Partridge?”

“Will my chief eat the food I prepare for him?” asked Wahneenah, seconding the child’s invitation.

“With pleasure. For one hour he will let the cares of his life slip from him. He will have this night of peace, and while the meal is getting he will sleep.”

With a sigh of relief the tall Indian moved a few steps back into the cave and stretched himself at length upon the ground. His eyes closed, and before Gaspar had made ready his line to catch the fresh trout he had sunk into a profound slumber.

Wahneenah put her finger to her lip to signify silence, but she need not have done so. Gaspar had long ago learned the red man’s noiseless ways, and the Sun Maid immediately placed herself beside the prostrate chief, and clasping his hand that lay on his breast snuggled her cheek against it, and followed his example.

The Black Partridge, like most of his race, could sleep anywhere, at any time, and for as long as he chose. He had elected to wake at the end of a half-hour, and he did so on the moment. Sitting up, he gently placed the still slumbering Sun Maid upon the ground and moved forward to the fire. While he ate the food she had provided for him, Wahneenah continued standing near, but a little behind him; ready to anticipate his needs, and with a humility of demeanor which she showed toward no other person.

Gaspar watched the pair, wondering if they could really be of the same race which had destroyed his childhood’s home, and now again that second home of his adoption—the Fort. He liked, and was impelled to trust them both, and was already learning to love his foster-mother. But when they began to converse in their own dialect, and with occasional glances toward himself and the sleeping Kitty, the native caution of his mind arose, and made him miserable. He remembered a byword of the Fort:

“The only safe Indian is a dead one”; and with a sudden sense of danger leaped to his feet and ran to bend above the unconscious maid.

“If you harm her, I’ll—I’ll—kill you!” he shouted fiercely.

Wahneenah looked amazed, but the Black Partridge instantly comprehended the working of the boy’s thoughts, and a smile of satisfaction faintly illumined his sombre features.

“It is well. Let every brave defend his own. The Dark-Eye is no coward. His years are few, but he has the heart of a warrior and a chief. He must begin, at once, to learn the speech of his new tribe. He that knows has doubled the strength of his arm. Draw near. There is good and not evil in the souls of the chief and his sister. We are Truth-Tellers. We cannot lie. We have pledged our faith to the Dark-Eye and the Sun Maid—though she needs it not.”

The sincerity and admiration in the Indian’s eyes compelled the lad’s obedience; and when, as he stepped into the firelight, the chief indicated that he should sit beside himself, and also nodded to Wahneenah to take her own place opposite, his heart swelled with pride and ambition. So had the white Captain trusted and counselled with him. He had been faithful through all that dreadful day of massacre, and he had felt the man’s spirit within his child-body. Now again, a commander of others, the wise leader of a different people, was honoring him with a share in his council. There must be good in him, and some sort of wisdom—even though so young—else they had paid him no heed. His cheek flushed, his breast heaved, and his beautiful eyes shone with the exultation that thrilled him.

“Let the chief pardon the child—which I was, but a moment ago. I am become a man. I will do a man’s task, now and forever. If I suspected evil where there was none, is it a wonder? I have told Wahneenah, the Happy, the story of my life. The Black Partridge knew it already.”

Quite unconsciously, Gaspar dropped into the Indian manner of speech, and he could not have done a better thing for himself had he pondered the matter for long. Black Partridge nodded approvingly, and remarked:

“Another Sauganash is here! Well, while the Sun Maid sleeps, let us consider the future. The evil days are near.”

“What is the evil that my brother, the chief, beholds with his inner vision?” questioned the woman.

“War and bloodshed. Still more of war, still more of death. In the end will our wigwams lie flat on the earth as fallen leaves, while the remnant of my people moves onward, forever onward toward the setting sun.”

Wahneenah kept a respectful silence, but in her heart she resented the dire forebodings of her chief. At last, when her brooding thought forced utterance, she inquired:

“Can not the wisdom of the Black Partridge hinder these days of calamity? If the great Gomo, and Winnemeg, and those white braves who have lived among us, as the Sauganash, take counsel together, and compel their tribes to keep the peace, and to copy of the pale-faces the arts which have made them so powerful—will not this avert the evil? Why may there not in some time and place, a mighty grave be digged in which may be buried all the guns that kill and the knives that scalp, with the arrows which fly more swiftly than a bird? Over all may there not be emptied the casks and bottles of the fearful fire-water, that, passing through the lips of a warrior, changes him to a beast? Then the red man and his pale brother may clasp hands together and abide, each upon the earth, where the Great Spirit placed him.”

“It is a dream. Dreams vanish. Even as now the night speeds, and we are far from home. It avails us not to think of what might—but never will—be. Occasional friendships bridge the feud between our alien races, but the feud remains. It is eternal. Endless as the years which will witness the gradual extinction of the weaker, because smaller, race. Let us dream no more. Has Wahneenah, my sister, observed how the store she left in the old cave has grown? How the few sealed jars have become many, and how there are heaps of the good gifts which the Great Father sent to his white children at the Fort for the red children’s use?”

“Yes. I thought it was the miser, Shut-Hand, who had placed them here in our cave.”

“It was I, the Black Partridge.”

“For what purpose, my brother?”

“Against the needs of the time I have foretold. It is a sanctuary. Here may Wahneenah, and the young son and daughter which have been given her, find shelter and sustenance.”

Something of her old tribal exultation seized the woman, who was a great chief’s daughter. Rising to her fullest height, her fine head thrown slightly back, she demanded, indignantly:

“Is the heart of my brother become like that of the papoose upon its mother’s shoulders? Was it not to the red men that the victory came, but so brief time past? What were all the pale-faces, in their gaudy costumes, with their music and their guns and their childish way of battle? The arrows of our people mowed them like the grass upon the prairie when a herd of wild horses feeds upon it. But yesterday they marched in pride and insolence, scorning us. To-day, they are carrion for the crows overhead, or they flee for safety like the cowards they were born. The Black Partridge has tarried too long among such as these. He has become their blood brother.”

The taunt was the fiercest she could give, and she gave it from a full heart. In ordinary so gentle and peace-loving she had been roused, for a moment, to a pitch of emotion which astonished even herself. Yet when, as if she had been a fractious child, the chief motioned her to again become seated, she obeyed him at once. She had set her thoughts free, indeed; but she would never presume to fight against the conditions which surrounded her; and obedience to tribal authority was inborn.

“The Snake-Who-Leaps will be at the tepee of my sister each day when the sun climbs to the point overhead. The three horses will be always ready. The children who do not know, and Wahneenah who has, maybe, forgotten how to ride, will practise as he instructs, until there will be no horse they cannot master, or no spot to which a horse may be guided that they do not know. But here first. That is why the store of food and cloths. At the first assault upon our Muck-otey-pokee, mount and ride. Ride as no squaw nor papoose ever rode before. Here the Black Partridge will seek them, and here, if the Great Spirit wills, they may be safe. Enough. Let the Dark-Eye go forward and make the horses ready.”

The Black Partridge rose as he spoke, and striding toward the sleeping Sun Maid, took her in his arms and left the spot. Gaspar, already darting onward toward the beloved Tempest, paused, for an instant, and regarded his chief anxiously. But when he saw that the little girl had not awakened, he sped forward again, and by the time Wahneenah had disposed of the remnants of the chief’s supper and followed, he had loosed the animals and led them to the nearest point for mounting.

Still holding the Sun Maid motionless upon his breast, the Black Partridge leaped to the back of his own magnificent stallion, which whinnied in affectionate welcome of his approach. Then he ordered Gaspar:

“Ride behind me on Tempest, and lead the Snowbird. Wahneenah will follow all on Chestnut.”

By the time they were out upon the prairie the wind had risen and the sky was heavily clouded. It was so dark that the boy could not see beyond the head of his own horse, but he could hear the steady, grass-softened footfall of the stallion as, with unerring directness, the Indian chieftain led the way homeward to the village.

When they rode into it, all Muck-otey-pokee seemed asleep; but the perennially young, though still venerable, Snake-Who-Leaps, had been prone before Wahneenah’s wigwam, and silently rose from the ground as they drew rein beside him.

“Ah, the Sleepless! The Wise Man. Did he think his pupils had ridden away to their own destruction?” asked the squaw, as she stepped down from her saddle.

“No harm can happen the household of my chief save what the Great Spirit wills.”

“And you think He will not waste time with three wild runaways?”

“Wahneenah, the Happy, is in good spirit herself. I remembered her not, save as the message may concern. That is for the ear of my friend and the father of his tribe, the Black Partridge.”

Handing the Sun Maid into his sister’s embrace, he for whom the message waited slipped the bridles of two horses over his arm while the Snake-Who-Leaps led the others. Whatever they had to say was not begun then nor there, and if Wahneenah had any curiosity in the matter it was not to be gratified. Yet she stood, for a moment, listening to the receding sounds as the darkness enveloped the departing group; and in her heart was born a fresh anxiety because of the little one she carried, and for the orphan lad who followed so closely at her skirts as she lifted her tent curtain and entered their home.

But nothing occurred to suggest that the message of the Snake-Who-Leaps had been one of warning. He was at his post of teacher exactly on the hour appointed on the following day, and this time all his pupils conducted themselves with a grave propriety that greatly pleased him; and thereafter, for many days, and even weeks, while the dry season lasted, did he instruct and they perform the marvellous feats of horsemanship which have made the red man famous the world over.

“But,” said Osceolo one day, tauntingly: “you were the pale-face who would learn nothing from an Indian!”

“Because a person is a fool once, need he remain so always?” answered Gaspar, hotly.

“You were a fool then? I thought so. Once a fool always one.”

“Only an Indian believes that.”

“How? You taunt me? Fight, then!”

Gaspar Keith was a curious mixture of courage and timidity. His courage came by nature, and his timidity was the result of the terrible scenes through which he had passed now twice, young though he was. The impress of this terror would remain with him forever; and if ever he became a hero in fact, it would be because of his will and not his inclination. At present neither the one nor the other inspired him; and though he eyed the larger boy scornfully, and felt that he could easily whip the bully, if he chose, he now turned his back upon him and walked away haughtily.

But Osceolo’s sneer followed him:

“The One-Who-Is-Afraid-Of-His-Shadow! Gaspar—Coward!”

No boy could patiently endure this insult, even though it came from one much larger and stronger than himself. Gaspar’s jacket was off and his arms bared on the instant; but before he could fling himself against his enemy a strong hand was laid upon his own shoulder, and he was tossed aside as lightly as a leaf.

“Hold! Let there be none of this. It is a time for peace in our village. Wait in patience. The hour is coming, is almost here, when both the pale-face and the son of my tribe will have need of all their prowess. Go. Polish your arrows and point their heads, but let there be none of this.”

It was the great chief himself, who had separated the combatants, and as he stalked majestically onward he left behind him two greatly astonished and ashamed young warriors. In common, no grown brave bothered himself over the petty squabbles of striplings; unless, indeed, it might be to incite them to further conflicts. For the Black Partridge to interfere now was significant of something far deeper than a boyish fight.

Gaspar put on his coat and walked thoughtfully home to Wahneenah and Kitty, while Osceolo slunk away to his own haunts, to lie at length upon the grass and plot with a cunning worthy of better ends the various devices by which he could torment the young white lad of whom he was so jealous.

Wahneenah heard the tale with a gravity that impressed the chief’s action more strongly than before upon the lad’s mind; while Kitty took it upon herself to lecture him with all severity about the dreadful “naughtiness of striking that poor, dear Ossy boy.”

“Hmm, Sunny Maid! you needn’t waste pity on him. He doesn’t deserve it.”

“Maybe not, Dark-Eye. Maybe not. But heed you the warning. The dwellers in one village should keep that village quiet,” interrupted Wahneenah.

“Yes, but they don’t. There are almost as many sorts of Indians here as there are people. Some of them are horrible. I see them often watching Kitty and me as if they would like to scalp us. It’s been worse within a little while. It grows worse all the time.”

“All the more reason why you should be wise and careful. But it is dark in the tepee, and that’s a sign the Dust Chief is almost ready to shut up your eyes. Run, Gaspar, son, and Girl-Child. See which will sleep the first. And to the one who does, the bigger lump of my best sugar in the morning.”

They ran, as she suggested, but there was to be no further haste till Kitty had made Gaspar kneel beside her and repeat with her the “Now I lay me” little prayer, which her Fort mothers had taught her. The short, simple prayer, beloved of childhood the world over, that has carried many a white soul upward to its Father. Even to Wahneenah, though her mission training had been of another creed, the childish petition was full of sacredness and beauty; and as she stood near them, she bowed her head humbly and echoed it with all her heart.

Each was in bed soon after, and each with a lump of the toothsome dainty they loved.

“For Gaspar must have it because he was first; and my Girl-Child because she was the last. That equals everything.”

They thought it did, delightfully: if they stayed awake long enough to think at all. But when they were both asleep, and the sound of their soft breathing echoed through the dusky tepee, Wahneenah took her seat at its entrance, and began to sing low and softly, with a sweetness of voice which rendered even their rudeness musical, the love songs of her girlhood.

As she sang and gazed upward through the trees into the starlit sky, an infinite peace stole over her. Indeed, the joy that possessed her seemed almost startling to herself. All that was sad in her memories dropped from them, and left but their happiness; while the present closed about her as a delight that nothing could disturb. Her love for the Sun Maid had become almost a passion with her, and for her Dark-Eye there was ever an increasing and comprehending affection.

She remained so long, dreaming, remembering, and planning, that the first grayness of the dawn came before she could go within and take her own bit of sleep. But Muck-otey-pokee was always early astir; and if for no other reason, because the dogs which thronged the settlement would allow no quiet after daybreak. That morning they were unusually restless.

Cried Wahneenah, rising suddenly, and now feeling somewhat the effects of her late sitting:

“Can it be sun-up already? The beasts are wild this morning. I have never heard them so deafening.”

Nor had anybody else. There was no cessation in their barking.

“It’s a regular ‘bedlam,’ isn’t it? That’s what the Fort mothers used to say when there was target practice, and the children cheered the shooters. What makes them bark so?” answered Gaspar.

Wahneenah shivered, and suggested:

“Run out and play. Eh? What’s that? The Snake-Who-Leaps? So early, and with the horses, too? But mind him not. Take the Sun Maid out-of-doors, but keep close to the green before the lodge. Where I can see you now and then, while I get breakfast ready.”

Everybody was up; and more than one commented upon the strangeness of the three horses being brought to the tepee so early.

The warning message which had come from the south, and had been delivered to his chief by the Snake-Who-Leaps, on that dark night some weeks before, was now to be verified. “What the red men have done to the pale-faces, the pale-faces will now do to them. Retaliation and revenge!”

Yet not one was quite prepared for the events which followed. Followed even so swiftly that the women left their porridge cooking in their kettles and their cows half-milked; while the men of the village promptly seized the nearest weapon, and rushed to the hopeless defence.

The rude sound that had startled every dweller in that pretty settlement was the report of a gun. Then came a galloping troop of cavalry—more firing—incessant, indiscriminate!

There was a babel of shrieks as the women and little ones fell where they stood, in the midst of their work or play. There were the blood-curdling war-whoops of the savages, answering the random shots. Above and through all, one cry rang clear to Wahneenah’s consciousness.

“The horses! The horses! Ride—ride—ride—as I have taught you! For your lives—Ride!”

It was but an instant. Wahneenah and her children were amount and afield. But as, in an anguish of fear for his friends, and no thought of himself, once more the Snake-Who-Leaps shouted his warning, the whistle of a death-dealing bullet came to him where he watched, and struck him down across the threshold of Wahneenah’s happy home.

CHAPTER X.

These sprang, apparently, out of the midst of the plain, but she knew that they really concealed the entrance to the underground pathway to the cave; and once within their shelter, she paused to breathe and gaze upon the startled faces of her children.

That of the Sun Maid was pale, indeed, with the excitement of this mad ride, but showed no fear; while Gaspar’s, alas! wore an expression of abject terror. His eyes stared wildly, his teeth were set, his nostrils drawn and pinched. He was, his foster-mother saw, already on the verge of a collapse.

She leaped from her horse, and caught the fainting boy in her arms while she directed the Sun Maid:

“Jump down and tie the horses, as the Snake-Who-Leaps showed you, by their long bridles. In any case, there is little fear but they will stand. Then follow me.”

“But what ails my Gaspar, Other Mother?” asked the child, as she sprang from her saddle. “Did somebody hurt him when the guns fired?”

“No. Tie the horses. He will be right soon. It is the fright. Make haste, make haste!”

“Yes, yes, I will. My dear old Feather-man taught Kitty everything. Every single thing about my Snowbird. I can fasten her all tight so she will never, never get away, unless I let her. I will tie Gaspar’s, too; and shall your Chestnut stay here with them two?”

But for once Wahneenah did not stop to hear her darling out. She had seen the deftness with which the little girl’s small fingers had copied the instructions of her riding-master, and had wondered at it many times. She trusted it now, knowing that the lad needed her first care, and meaning to carry him through the passage into the cave, then return for the other. She knew, also, that if the soldiers she had seen following them should come upon the tethered horses, the fact of their presence would betray her own. But from this possibility there was no escape; and, had she known it, no need for such.

She had scarcely laid the unconscious boy down upon the floor of her retreat when Kitty came flying down the tunnel, her task completed.

“So quick, papoose?”

“Yes. Every one is fastened to a pretty tree, and every one is glad. Why did we ride so fast, Wahneenah? It ’most took Kitty’s breath out of her mouth. But I did like it till my Gaspar looked so queer. Is he sick, Other Mother? Why doesn’t he speak to me?”

“He is ill, in very fact, Girl-Child. Ill of terror. Young as he is, he has seen fearful sights, and they have hurt his tender heart. But he will soon be better; and when he is you must not talk to him of our old home, or of our ride, or of anything except that we are making another little festival here in our cave. One more cup of water, papoose, but take care you do not slip when you dip it from the spring. We will bathe his face and rub his hands, and by and by he will awake and talk.”

Then, leaving the lad to the ministrations of the child, and under pretence of making “all cosy for the picnic,” Wahneenah sped cautiously back through the passage to the edge of the little grove, casting a searching glance in each direction. To her infinite relief, the glistening speck had vanished from the landscape, and she concluded that the white soldiers had ridden but a short distance north of the village, and then returned to it. She noticed with pride how the little maid had fastened each of the brave animals that had served them so well in a spot where the grass was still green and plentiful, and that there was no need of her refastening the straps which held them.

“Surely, her wisdom is more than mortal!” she exclaimed in delight; such as more cultured mothers feel when they discover that their little ones are really gifted with the common intelligence that to them seems extraordinary.

Gaspar was awake, and looking about him curiously, when she got back into the cavern; and, in response to his silent inquiry, she drew a tree-branch before the opening and nodded smilingly:

“That is to keep the sunshine out of the Dark-Eyes.”

“But—where are we? Why—oh! I remember! I remember! Must I always, always see such awful things? Is there no place in this world where I can hide?”

“Why, yes, Dark-Eye. There is just such a place; and we have found it. Don’t you remember our sanctuary? Where the Black Partridge came to eat the fish you caught? Where we have such a store of good things put aside. Rest now, after your ride, and the White Papoose shall make a pillow for you of the rushes I will pull. Then we’ll shut the branch in close, like the curtain of our wigwam, and be as safe and happy as a bird in its nest.”

Wahneenah’s assumed cheerfulness did not deceive, though it greatly comforted, the terrified boy; and the quietude of the sheltered spot, added to its dimness and his own exhaustion, soon overcame him again, and his eyelids closed. But the sleep into which he drifted now was a natural and restful one, and he roused from it, at Kitty’s summons, with something of his old courage—the courage which had made him a hero that day when he first rode the black gelding, and had used his boyish strength to do a man’s work.

“When Other Mother did make a fire and cook us such a nice breakfast, we must eat it quick. Kitty’s ready. Kitty’s dreadful hungry, Kitty is. Is you hungry, too, Dark-Eye?”

He had not thought that he was. But now that she mentioned it, he realized the fact. Fortunately, he was so young and healthy that the scenes through which he seemed destined to pass at such frequently-recurring intervals could not really affect his physical condition for any length of time. To see Wahneenah moving about the little cavern as calmly as if it were her daily habit to be there, and to catch the sound of the Sun Maid’s joyous laughter, was to make the present seem the only reality.

“Why, it’s another picnic, isn’t it? Did the things actually happen back there as I thought? Were we here all night? I used to have such terrible dreams, when I lived at the Fort, that, when daylight came, I could not forget them. I get confused between the dreams and the true things.”

“An empty stomach makes a foolish head. Many a squaw is afraid of her warrior before he breaks his morning fast, and finds him a lamb after it is eaten,” said Wahneenah, sententiously.

“Gaspar is my warrior, Other Mother; but I am never afraid of him.”

“You are afraid of nothing, Kitty!” reproved the boy.

“But I am! I am afraid I shall get nothing to eat at all, if you don’t come!”

So the children ate, and Wahneenah served them. She was herself too anxious to partake of any food, and under her placid exterior she was straining every nerve to listen for any outward sounds which might prove that their refuge had been discovered.

But no sounds came to disturb them, and as the hours passed hope returned to her; and when the Sun Maid had fallen asleep, weary of frolic, and Gaspar again questioned her concerning the morning, she answered, in good faith:

“Probably, it was not half so bad as it seemed. There were many bad Indians in the village, and it is likely for them that the white soldiers were searching. They must have gone away long since. By and by, if nothing happens, we will return to our own tepee, and forget this morning’s fright. The Snake-Who-Leaps will be proud of his pupils for the way they rode at his bidding.”

A shiver ran through the lad’s frame, and he crept within the shelter of Wahneenah’s arm.

“But did you not see what happened to him? He lies beneath the curtains of your lodge, and he will teach us no more. A white soldier shot him. I saw him fall.”

The woman herself had not seen this, and she now sprang to her feet in a fury of indignation.

“A white man killed him! That grand old brave, who should have lived to be a hundred years! It cannot be.”

“But it was.”

She was the daughter of a mighty chief. Her blood was royal, and she gloried in it. All the race-hatred in her nature roused, and, for the moment only, she glowered upon the pale-faced youth before her, as if he represented, in his small person, all the sins of his own people.

Then the paroxysm passed, and her nobler self triumphed. Sitting down again, she sought to draw the boy back into her embrace, but he held himself aloof, and would not. So she began to talk with him there, with a simple wisdom and dignity that she had learned from nature itself.

“Why should we be angry, one with another, my son? The Great Spirit is our Father. No man comes into life nor leaves it by a chance. What the Mighty One decrees, that it is befalls. Between His red-skinned children and His pale-faced ones He has put an undying enmity. I have not always so believed. I have hoped and pleaded for the peace which should glorify the world, even as the sun is glorifying the wide land outside of this dim cavern. But it is not so to be. Even as the chief, the Black Partridge, said: there is a feud which can never be overcome, for it is of the Great Spirit’s own planting. He that made us all permits it. Let us, then, in our small place, cease to fight against the inevitable. We have made the compact. We will abide by it. In a tiny corner of the beautiful world we three will live in harmony. Let the rest go. Put away your anger against my people, as I now put aside mine against yours. The Sun Maid is of both races, it seems to me. She is our Bond, our Peace-maker, our Delight. Behold! She wakes. Before her eyes, let no shadow of our mutual trouble fall. I go outside to watch. If all seems well, we may ride home at nightfall.”

Save for the danger to her young charges, she would have done so even then. Far superior though she had always been to them, her heart yearned over the helpless women of her tribe whom she had left behind.

“But that cannot be. They were tied fast by their motherhood to the homes wherein they may have perished, even as I am tied here by my adopted ones. The beasts, too, are tied; but they, at least, may have a moment’s freedom.”

So she loosed them, and guided them to the pool where they could drink, and watched them curiously, to see if they would avail themselves of the liberty she had thus offered. But they did not. They quaffed the clear water, then tossed their velvet nostrils about its depths till it was soiled and worthless; yet they turned of their own accord away from the wind-swept prairie into the shelter of the trees, and grouped themselves beneath one, as if uniting against some common, unseen enemy.

“They are wiser than their masters,” said Wahneenah, patting her Chestnut’s beautiful neck; and seeing a deeper glade, where they might spend the night even more safely, she led them thither and fastened them again. Under ordinary circumstances she would have left them untethered; but she knew not then at what moment she might again need them, as they had been needed earlier in the day.

When the darkness fell, Wahneenah put aside the brushwood door which she had placed before the entrance to the cave, and sat down upon the withering branch to watch and wait. The children were both asleep, and she knew that if the Black Partridge were still alive and able he would seek her there, as he had promised on that day in the past when they had discussed the possibility of what had really now occurred.

She was not to be disappointed. While she sat, contrasting the happiness that had been hers on just the night before with the uncertainty of this, there sounded in the sloping tunnel the tread of a moccasined foot. Also, she could hear the crowding of a stalwart figure against its sides, and there was something in both sounds which told her who was coming.

“My brother is late.”

“It is better thus, it may be, than not at all.”

“The voice of the Black Partridge is sorrowful.”

“The heart of the chief is broken within him.”

For a space after that neither spoke. Then Wahneenah rose and set a candle in a niche of the wall and lighted it. By its flame she could see to move about and she presently had brought some food in a dish and placed a gourd of water by the chief’s side.

The water he drank eagerly and held the cup for more; but the food he pushed aside, relapsing into another silence.

Finally, Wahneenah spoke.

“Has the father of his tribe no message for his sister?”

“Over what the ear does not hear, the heart cannot grieve.”

“That is a truth which contradicts itself.”

“The warrior of Wahneenah judged well when he chose this cavern for a possible home.”

“It is needed, then? As the Black Partridge foretold.”

“It is needed. There is no other.”

The words were quietly spoken; but there was heart-break in each one.

“Our village? The home of all our people? Is it not still safe and a refuge for all unfortunates among the nations?”

“Where Muck-otey-pokee laughed by the waterside, there is now a heap of ruins. The river that danced in the sunlight is red with the blood of the slain and of all the lodges wherein we dwelt, not one remains!”

“My brother! Surely, much brooding has made you distraught. Such cannot be. There were warriors, hundreds of them in the settlement and before their arrows the pale-faces fall like trees before the woodman’s axe.”

“If the arrows are not in the quiver, can the warrior shoot? Against the man who steals up in the rear, can one be prepared? It was a short, sharp battle. The innocent fell with the guilty, and the earth receives them all. Where Muck-otey-pokee stood is a blackened waste. Those who survived have fled, to seek new homes wherever they may find them. In her pathways the dead faces stare into the sky as even yet, among the sandhills, lie and stare the unburied dead of the Fort Dearborn massacre. It is fate. It is nature. It is the game of life. To-day one wins, to-morrow another. In the end, for all—is death.”

For a while after that, Wahneenah neither moved nor spoke, and the Black Partridge lapsed into another profound silence. Finally, the woman rose, and going to the fireplace, took handsful of its ashes and strewed them upon her head and face. Then she drew her blanket over her features, and thus, hiding her sorrow even from the witness of the night, she sat down again in her place and became at once as rigid and impassive as her brother.

Thus the morning found them. Despite their habit of wandering from point to point, the village of Muck-otey-pokee was the rallying-place of the Pottawatomies, their home, the ancient burial-ground of their dead. Its destruction meant, to the far-seeing Black Partridge, also the destruction of his tribe. Therefore, as he had said, his spirit was broken within him.

But at the last he rose to depart, and still fasting. With the solemnity of one who parted from her forever, he addressed the veiled Wahneenah and bade her:

“Put aside the grief that palsies, and find joy in the children whom the Great Spirit has sent you. They also are homeless and orphaned. There are left now no white soldiers to harry and distress. This cavern is warmer than a wigwam, and there is store of food for many more than three. Remain here until the springtime and by then I may return. I go now to my brother Gomo, at St. Joseph’s, to counsel at his fireside on what may yet be done to save the remnant of our people. You are safer here than in any village that I know. Farewell.”

But, absorbed in his own gloomy reflections, the Black Partridge for once forgot his native caution; and without waiting to reconnoitre, he mounted his horse and rode boldly away from the shelter of the brush into the broad light of the prairie and so due north toward the distant encampment of his tribesmen.

Yet the glittering eyes of a jealous Indian were watching him as he rode. An Indian who had been sheltered by the hospitality of the great chief, and for many months, in Muck-otey-pokee; but who had neither gratitude nor mercy in his heart, wherein was only room for treachery and greed.

As Black Partridge rode away from the cave by the river, the other mounted his horse and rode swiftly toward it.