CHAPTER VIIA NIGHT OF HORROR"And so," Joe concluded his long story, during which the afternoon had waned and the long shadows over the prairies told of the coming night, "we left little Abby behind us and started on again. Father and Mother were terribly sad. Sometimes I was afraid that Mother could not live through it. They seemed awfully nervous and afraid all the time, too. Father never went to bed at night, but sat or lay beside the wagons with Spotty beside him and his gun in his hand, and Mother would not let any of us get away from the wagons."It was fearful hot all that time—hotter even than it is to-day—and we had to travel slow on account of the cow. We just plugged along, and then toward night we hauled up beside the road and camped. Nobody had any heart to eat, so it didn't matter. Once in a while we came to a little town, or some houses, but we seldom stopped. Father seemed in a hurry to get where we were going, and Mother didn't seem to care about anything. Two or three times we had a scare about Indians, but they never came very near to us. Then one day when it had been so hot and dusty that we were all almost suffocated we saw a kind of a draw ahead and made for it, thinking we would camp there that night. It wasn't much of a place to camp, but we didn't see any sign of water anywhere, and Mother was just about beat out."Golly, I bet I'll never forget that evening! We were all feeling mighty miserable. I happened to look off toward the wagon road, and I saw a big cloud of dust. First I thought it was just a whirlwind, and then we were afraid it was Indians. But after a while we made out that it was an emigrant wagon, being driven by a woman. That surprised us a lot. She was driving like the old Harry, and Father ran out toward the road to meet her when we heard her yelling for help. When the wagon came nearer we saw——""Stop, stop, ohdon't!" cried the little Princess, covering her eyes with her hands while shudders shook her frame. "Don't," she cried again, "I can't bear it—I can'tbearit! I know—I know the rest!""Yes," Joe took her hand very gently, "you know the rest. It was your wagon—and—and—it brought us—you."For a little while all the children were silent. Ruth crept up and put her arm about the little stranger's waist."I guess God sent you to us to be a little sister to us in baby's place," she said chokily.Nina turned and put her arm about her neck."Perhaps He did. I never had any sisters or brothers. I'd like to be your sister. I like you.""I'm glad," said honest Ruth, and kissed her."So'm I," cried Lige; but Joe said nothing.That night when camp was struck the three wagons were drawn into a circle with the horses and cow inside.Joshua Peniman did not remove his clothing, but having seen his family comfortably disposed, with the strange child in the wagon with his wife and the younger children, he stretched himself out beside the wagons, with Spotty near him and his musket by his side. Joe refused to go to his place in his own wagon, but lay down beside his father.The prairies looked vast and still under the glimmering starlight with no sound but the sough of the wind through the grass and the occasional howling of a coyote. For a long time he lay awake, some vague, haunting uneasiness upon him. Twice he sprang up, his musket leveled, every nerve and muscle strained to attention.They had agreed that Mr. Peniman was to take the first watch of the night and Joe the second. At two o'clock Joe woke, and seeing his father patrolling up and down beside the wagons insisted that he should go to bed. This the weary man refused to do, but wrapping himself in his blankets lay down upon the ground.Joe sat beside him, his gun leaning against his knees, and looked up at the silent stars, feeling them companions in his loneliness.It was between two and three o'clock, and he was beginning to doze, when a low, ominous growl from Spotty caused him to start wide awake, his gun clenched in his hand.Spotty was standing, stiff-legged, the hair on his neck raised, his lips drawn back showing his teeth, growling deeply and staring into the shadows back of the wagons.Joe did not move, but remained motionless listening.Presently he heard a soft rustling in the grass.A moment later by the light of the stars he made out a dim silhouette creeping toward the wagons."Stop," he cried, "or I'll shoot!"Instantly Joshua Peniman was on his feet."What is it?" he whispered huskily."Man—Indian—over there by the wagons!"The whispered words had scarcely left his lips when an arrow whizzed by his ear.Instantly Joshua Peniman's gun, leveled at the point from which the arrow came, barked through the darkness. The shot was answered by a wild, shrill whoop, and suddenly the night seemed to be filled with flitting figures.Joe's gun was at his shoulder, and as one huge naked savage leaped at his father he fired. The Indian fell with a groan, but almost before he had touched the ground another had taken his place, rushing toward the white man with uplifted tomahawk and blood-curdling yell. He was almost upon him when a sharp "crack" spoke from the back of one of the wagons, and the Indian dropped and lay motionless, while Lige, half-dressed, leaped out and ran to his father's side.Sam on the seat of Joe's wagon held the rifle firmly at his shoulder. His freckled face was very pale, but the blue eyes were shining in a way that boded ill to the Indian who should come within range of the old rifle.In the opening of the big wagon, between its curtains stood Hannah Peniman, her revolver in her hand. Her face was white and set, but the hand that held the weapon did not tremble.The night was now hideous with yells. With the blood-curdling war-whoop that had carried terror to the hearts of so many early settlers on the plains the Indians were now circling about the camp, watching their opportunity to break through.Suddenly from somewhere in the distance rose another cry. The heart of Joshua Peniman almost died in his breast."Another band!" he muttered, as he crowded down the charge in the old musket. Their case had seemed hopeless before, but they had firearms while the savages seemed to be armed only with bows and arrows, and might have had a chance. But if another band of savages joined those already upon them——"Ki-ki-ee-ee-ee!" rang the cry through the night.The Indians who were creeping up toward the wagons suddenly paused and stood still. Some sudden instinct made Joe raise his musket and fire into the air. Then at the top of his lungs shout, "Ki-ki-ee-ee-ee!"He had no idea from whom the cry had come, whether from white man or Indian, friend or foe; but some sure instinct told him that whoever they might be their presence was unwelcome to the marauders.While the sound of his shot and cry were still reverberating in the air there came a swift rush from the darkness outside the circle of wagons, and in the starlight they could make out the naked outlines of a band of Indians who made a rush for the wagons.In the terror and excitement of the moment they did not notice that one of the band separated himself from the rest, and slipping into the shadows made his way noiselessly as a serpent to the rear of the Carroll wagon, where he climbed under the curtain and was lost to view.Joshua Peniman uttering a warning shout sprang to the front of the wagon in which were his wife and younger children, with the child of the deceased Carrolls. Hannah Peniman was guarding the rear of the wagon, her revolver cocked and ready in her hand, while Joe and Lige at the front and back of the other wagon were making good use of their firearms, and Sam, standing up in the front was banging away with the rifle as fast as he could load and fire.As the Indians rushed toward them it looked for a moment to the travelers as if all hope was lost. At the moment when the savages burst through their guard the shrill "Ki-ki-ee-ee-ee!" again smote upon their ears, and an instant later the sound of wild yelps and thundering hoofs was all about them, and another band of Indians, mounted and in full war panoply, burst into the encampment.The travelers thought their last hour had come."To the wagons, to the wagons!" shouted Joshua Peniman. "Inside, Sam! Lige, help thy mother guard the rear! To me, to me, Joe! We must try to keep them away from this wagon at least! Now, is thee ready?Fire!"As his words rang out above the tumult a tawny chief with eagle feathers in his hair, who was riding by, checked his horse so abruptly that he threw it back upon its haunches. He cast a swift, searching look at the man and boys who stood so resolutely before their wagons, and suddenly threw up his hand. Riding toward them he waved a piece of white cloth above his head, then halted his horse before them."Is thee a Quaker?" he surprised them by asking in fairly good English."Yes, I am," replied Joshua Peniman, looking not at all like a Quaker with his wild, disordered hair, his set white face and his gun at his shoulder. In the excitement of the moment he had no time to think of the strangeness, the incongruity of the question. All he could think of was that for some unknown reason the other Indians seemed to have drawn off, and for a moment at least there appeared to be a pause in the savage onslaught.The Indian who had spoken to him whirled his pony about and shouted a few words in a language they could not understand. Instantly there came a wild yelp in answer, and a moment later there was the clamor of a battle cry, the wild thundering of hoofs, the crash of blows, the uproar of battle. Before the horrified pioneers knew what was happening the sound of battle began to recede from them, had grown faint and fainter, had died away across the plain, and the night was still about them.Even then they could not realize that they had been saved; that death—horrible death—and worse than death—had in some miraculous way been averted from them.They expected momentarily that the savages would return. Joshua Peniman and the boys reloaded their muskets. Mr. Peniman snatching the axe from the wagon laid it beside him. Joe slipped a long sharp knife inside his belt.Strangely enough none of them spoke. The moment was too tense, the struggle for life too imminent for words.Moments passed. The shrill yelps and cries grew fainter and fainter and finally died away.An intense, silent half hour went by. Then Joshua Peniman lowered his gun to the ground and looked about him."I believe they have gone!" he whispered."I believe so too!" replied Joe in the same tone."Keep on guard. I'll look around."Cautiously and with musket ready he made a tour around the wagons.Two Indians, both dead, lay in the grass not far away, but there was no sign of any living creature about the place but themselves.He returned to the wagons relieved but perplexed.What did it mean? He could not account for it."They appear to be gone," he said. "For the life of me I cannot understand what happened, but somehow, by God's merciful providence, we have been spared.""But how—why—why did they go away like that?" Joe demanded. "Does thee think they will return, Father?""It is a most mysterious proceeding. I do not know what to think of it. But I scarcely think they will return—at least not immediately."The children, who had been hidden under the wagon seats covered with blankets, now crept out, still too terrified to speak."I don't believe they'll come back," said Joe, who had been thinking hard. "Do you know, Father, I believe that there must have been two tribes. I believe they are at war with one another, and that the last ones that came—those that came on horseback—drove the others away. They didn't come together. There weren't many of those Indians that attacked us first, and they came on foot. We would have heard horses, but they crept up on us like shadows. If Spotty hadn't warned us we might all have been murdered in our sleep. I didn't hear a sound until he began to growl.""Nor I either," answered his father. "Thee may be right." Then suddenly for the first time the peculiarity of the question that the big chief had asked him flashed into his mind. "Why, I guess thee is right, Joe," he cried. "That big fellow with the eagle feathers in his hair held up a flag of truce. He asked me if I was a Quaker! I never thought about it until this moment. How strange—how passing strange! How did he guess—how could he know—it must have been he who saved us!" Then suddenly catching sight of his wife's deathly face he turned to her. "Go lie down, Hannah, thee is all used up. The danger is past for the time. What ever miraculous interposition of God's mercy saved us it seems clear that we are saved. Our enemies have gone and we can sleep in peace. Go to thy rest, too, Joe. Thee has done well. I feel that I have a real man to depend on in these trying times."The look in his eyes, the pressure of the hand on his shoulder, sent Joe away to bed with a warm glow in his heart.Presently the camp was still again, and Joshua Peniman patrolled up and down and all about it, with his musket over his shoulder and Spotty at his heels until the rosy glow of morning was tinting the eastern sky.Just before sunrise he received a severe shock, when looking across the pathless prairies toward the north he saw an Indian riding toward him.For many moments he watched the advancing figure. When it came within musket range he raised his gun to his shoulder and shouted:"Stop, or I'll fire!"The Indian did not check his pony, but held up a bit of white rag. As he came nearer, riding his pony as erect and motionless as a bronze statue, the pioneer saw with a start that it was the Indian who had spoken to him the night before."How!" he said, bringing his pony to a halt before the white man and sliding down from its back."How!" answered Joshua Peniman, answering the western salutation.The Indian came closer."You Quaker, eh?"Wondering, the white man answered as he had answered the night before, "Yes, I am.""Me Quaker too.""You? You a Quaker?"A grave smile broke over the impassive, copper-colored face."Me Neowage, Chief Winnebagoes. Live Omaha Reservation. Friends' Mission.""Oh-h!" A great light began to dawn on Joshua Peniman. "Oh, you are one of the tribe who were put in charge of the Friends' Mission?[#] Then it wasyouwho saved us last night?"[#] During the year 1856-1857 the Winnebago tribe, being much depleted by continual wars with the Sioux and Arapahoes, sought protection at the Reservation in Omaha. There the remnants of the tribe were put under the protection of the Friends' Mission, and many of them became converts to the faith.—SHELDON'SHistory of Nebraska.The big chief nodded."Me hear you say 'thee' to you boy. Me know you Friend.""And because I was a Friend you saved me—me and my family! Oh, Friend, I thank thee!"He stepped forward and grasped the Indian's hand.With a dignity equal to his own the chief shook it warmly."Friends good people. Good heart. Good friend to Winnebagoes.""Then you are a Winnebago? Who were the others—those Indians that attacked us?""Dirty Sioux." He turned and spurned the dead body in the grass with his foot."Ah, they were Sioux, eh? Are the Sioux hostile to white men?""Sioux bad Indian. Heap bad heart. Winnebago good Indian. Heap white man's friend.""I am glad, glad indeed to hear it. You don't know how you relieve my anxious heart. But how did it happen that you came to our aid so opportunely last night?"The Indian folded his arms across his brawny chest."My tribe war with Sioux," he said. "Heap much trouble now. Inkpaducah on war-path. Kill heap white men. Me hear gun, know trouble. My young men on war-path. Fight Sioux all time. Me come, drive Sioux away.""God be thanked you did come. You saved our lives. How can I thank you?"The Indian waved his hand with a royal gesture. As his keen eyes roved about the encampment they fell upon a scrap of paper which lay under the Carroll wagon. He strode over to it and picked it up, then remained gazing at the ground for some minutes.The wagons stood backed up to the edge of the ravine, and back of them the ground was soft, in some places muddy.Neowage pointed silently. Joshua Peniman hurried to his side."White man print," he grunted, indicating a well-defined footmark in the muddy earth at the back of the Carroll wagon.Joshua Peniman stooped and examined it carefully.The sharp edges of a hard leather sole and the imprint of a boot heel were plainly discernible.A white man!With perplexed face he stood staring at the imprint.That Indians might attack them was perfectly understandable, but that a white man should be among them—thata white manwas one of those howling demons who had set upon his camp the night before—was a thing that he could not understand.Neowage glanced sharply at his feet."Not you mark?""No, I was not near the back of that wagon. It was unoccupied. And you see that is a much larger foot than mine.""You boy?""No, my boys are all going barefooted.""Who?""I wish I knew."The Indian was turning the scrap of paper he had picked up under the wagon over and over in his hands."Tore," he said, pointing to the ragged edges.Mr. Peniman took the paper and scrutinized it carefully. It was but a small scrap, and its edges showed that it had been torn recently and hastily. As he turned it over the words: "and the said Lee C. Carroll——" caught his eye.With a strange leap of his pulses he turned and ran to the Carroll wagon.As he threw aside the rear curtain and looked in he uttered a loud exclamation.The inside of the neatly-arranged wagon was in chaos, trunks torn open, boxes and bundles rifled of their contents, clothes, books, papers scattered about; and the dispatch-box, placed in the hands of Nina Carroll by her dying mother, which contained all her money, deeds, papers, and all the information that had been left her regarding herself and her parents and the relatives to whom she was to be sent—was gone!CHAPTER VIIIJOE MEETS A FRIEND AND MAKES AN ENEMYThe sound of the voices outside had wakened the boys, who, worn out from the excitement of the night, had fallen into a fitful slumber.As the fact of the looting of the Carroll wagon, with its disastrous consequences to the young survivor of the tragedy, forced itself upon him Joshua Peniman uttered a loud exclamation.Instantly Joe and Lige leaped from the wagon, their guns in their hands, and Mrs. Peniman, still grasping her revolver, parted the rear curtains of the wagon and looked out.When their eyes fell upon the Indian both boys started violently, and Joe raised his gun."No, no, son, put down thy gun," cried his father. "This is a friend. It was he who so mysteriously saved us last night. He is a Friend, and has learned to speak a little English at a Friends' Mission.""Oh," cried Hannah Peniman, and in the little exclamation was wonder, relief and surprise."But see, Hannah," went on Mr. Peniman, "see what those miscreants have done! They have rifled the Carroll wagon and carried off everything of value in it, including the dispatch-box.""Thedispatch-box?" Hannah Peniman's face whitened and her eyes grew dark with horror. "They have taken the dispatch-box? Oh, Joshua, that box had in it everything relating to the property and identity of that little girl!"Her husband nodded."I know," he said. "It is a terrible catastrophe. I should have put that box in my own wagon.""But who would have thought—who would have supposed that Indians——"Neowage who had been looking and listening impassively, interrupted her."Indian no want papers."Mr. and Mrs. Peniman started and looked at one another."True," said Joshua Peniman, pulling at his beard, "that is true, Neowage."Presently he looked up at his wife with a troubled face. "There is more in this than we see now," he said in a low tone, and told her of the scrap of paper, the print of a white man's boot at the rear of the wagon, of the broken locks and opened trunks and scattered books and papers in the wagon."There is something very strange about it," he concluded. "Our own wagons were not disturbed, our horses were not taken; it almost looks to me as if the assault was made upon us to cover the rifling of the Carroll wagon."He stopped abruptly and stood for some moments with head bent thinking intently. Then going to his own wagon he returned with the arrow he had taken from the body of Lee Carroll.Silently he handed it to Neowage. Silently the Indian inspected it."Santee Sioux," he said after a moment, handing it back."Are you sure?""Sure. See plenty. My young men fight Santee Sioux. Kill my people, two, t'ree, five hunnerd. Drive my people way from hunting grounds. My people starve. Go Omaha Reservation. They put us in Friends' care.""And this is a Sioux arrow?"The Indian nodded."I took that arrow out of the dead body of a white man. When he was dying he told me that it was not an Indian that had killed him."Then by a sudden impulse he told the chief the whole story.When it was finished the Indian remained standing with his arms folded across his bare brown chest, his head bent, his face impassive. After an interval he spoke."You got papoose now?""Yes.""She sleep in wagon?""No, she has never slept there since her father and mother died. She sleeps with my little girls in that wagon," pointing to the canvas-covered prairie schooner where his own children lay asleep."Indian no want papoose. Indian no want paper. White man want papoose and paper."Joshua Peniman nodded. "Yes, I see your point. But I don't know. It's beyond me. I don't know what to think."The children, awakened by the talking, had now crowded to the back of the wagon, and Ruth, Nina, Sam, and Paul were staring out with bulging eyes.For the first time they were gazing upon a real Red Man of the Plains, and strange to say their father was not shooting at him nor scalping him, nor even being scalped by him, but was standing quietly talking to him, evidently asking his advice.The younger children were also awake now, and Mrs. Peniman got down from the wagon and began preparing the breakfast."Thee must stay and break bread with us, friend Neowage," said Joshua Peniman; and presently the whole family were gathered about the oilcloth on the grass, with Neowage cross-legged and silent among them.It seemed very strange to be thus eating breakfast with one of the savages of whom they had stood in such deadly terror the night before; the little girls shrank closer to their mother and peered at him with fearful eyes, but the boys watched his every movement with fascinated gaze, and Lige began mentally composing a letter to Simeon Fisher, in which he meant to tell him all about his friend Neowage, the great and mighty chief of the Winnebago tribe.The chief, however, after one keen glance from his black eyes seemed to pay little attention to them. His eyes were fastened upon Nina, and whether it was her tragic story or her winning beauty that held his attention they could not tell.When he had finished eating he rose abruptly and said, "Me go now." Then turning to Mr. Peniman he extended his hand."No be 'fraid," he said in his deep guttural voice. "Neowage you friend. He watch over you. No let Quaker family get harm." Then as he turned to where his pony was standing, its bridle trailing on the ground, he included them all in one quick glance and muttered a guttural "goo-bye."Mrs. Peniman rose and gave him her hand, thanking him for his protection. The boys also hastened to shake hands with him. But Nina sprang up from her place and ran to him, taking from her neck a pretty little blue chain, and laid it in his hand."Keep it," she said, smiling up at him; "you were good and saved us. Keep that to remember us by."[image]"KEEP IT; YOU WERE GOOD AND SAVED US."The Indian looked down from his great height upon the golden-haired little girl, then to the chain in his hand."Umph!" he grunted, but they knew from the smile on his face that he was pleased."What you name?" he asked."Nina—Nina Carroll." Then with a shy little smile, "The boys call me 'Princess.'""Umph!" again grunted the Indian, and mounting his pony rode swiftly away.As the pioneers traveled on through the heat and dust of that day the hearts of Joshua Peniman and his wife were deeply troubled. It was not alone that their worst fears of the perils of the plains had been realized in the attack of the night before, but the menace and mystery of the theft of the dispatch-box left a deep sense of fear and depression upon them."I cannot but fear for the child," Joshua Peniman said, after long study. "We know nothing about her, who she is, what her life may represent, or what enemies her family may have had. The thought is forcing itself upon me that we should not keep her with us, that we must leave her at the first Mission we come to, as her mother requested. They may be able to get her back to her own people.""But who are her people? How can we ever tell that now? Every bit of information, every letter, address, paper, everything relating to her or her relatives, was in that box.""But surely the girl herself knows——""Very little. I have talked with her. It appears that she and her parents have been traveling abroad a great deal of the time since she was born. She knows that they lived in New York, also for a time in St. Louis, but she does not remember the address in either place. Her mother's parents are dead, I believe, and I judge from things she has told me that there must have been some trouble with her father's family, and that the young couple lived rather an independent existence." Then after a long pause, "Somehow I cannot bear to leave the child at a Mission. Think of leaving our Ruth——""I know, Hannah, but her safety——""Yes, I realize that. We have the right, perhaps, to jeopardize the lives of our own family in this trip across the plains, but have we the right to expose the life and safety of this child, that has been left in our care?"They sat in deep thought for some minutes. From the other wagon they could hear the chatter of the children's voices, as Ruth, Lige, Sam, Joe, and Nina excitedly discussed the events of the night before. She still grieved for her parents, but little by little the society of the wholesome, healthy-minded young Penimans was winning the little Princess back to cheerfulness."She seems very happy with us," sighed Mrs. Peniman."Yes, I believe she is. I wish we might keep her with us," answered her husband gravely.The next day they reached the Des Moines River, and after making their night camp by the beautiful stream made their way the next morning to Fort Dodge, which had been built on the east side of the Des Moines two years before. Here they found other travelers and heard the horrible details of the Spring Lake massacre, and also of the depredations of the Sioux on the South Fork of the Platte. Sam and Lige, who were standing near, overheard a mover relating to their father the circumstances of a hideous murder of a party of emigrants which had occurred near Fontanelle but a few days before. These accounts, while they thrilled the boys with a sense of adventure, made their parents more anxious than ever, and many times the temptation assailed them to give up the hazardous journey and return to safety and civilization.But there was something in the make-up of the early pioneers that forbade them to turn back, and after a few hours of rest they replenished their supplies and went on their way.While at Fort Dodge Joshua Peniman made inquiries in regard to Missions, and learned that a Presbyterian Mission had been founded at Bellevue, the first permanent white settlement in Nebraska, on the west side of the Missouri River. To this he determined to make his way, and leave in safety the child of the strangers who had been entrusted to his care.The travelers had now left civilization far behind them. The boys, who had so eagerly anticipated the adventures of the journey, now had more than sufficient of it to satisfy them. What white settlers there were in the country at that time were settled along the streams and rivers, leaving the space between unorganized and wild. As they traveled on trees and water grew farther and farther apart. There were some trees, mostly willows and cottonwoods, along the borders of the streams, all the rest was grass and sky.They often saw large bands of Indians sweeping across the plains, hunting the wild game that was everywhere in great abundance. They saw great herds of elk and antelope, and wild turkeys were plentiful, with great flocks of prairie-chickens and quail.They had no difficulty in providing their table with fresh meat now, for the boys and their father had but to go out with their guns for an hour or two in the evening and come back with their game-bags full.But while they had meat in plenty they could no longer get fruit or vegetables. They could not supply their daily needs at towns or villages, for there were no towns, and the settlements were so far apart that many times they traveled for days without ever seeing a house or human. When they did find a "settler" or squatter, his home was on the bank of some river or stream, and his food consisted mostly of "sow-belly" and coffee, with little enough of either for himself, and none whatever for guest or traveler.The lack of green food troubled Mrs. Peniman greatly, for with the voracious appetites of her young brood she realized that they should have vegetables to offset their constant consumption of the heavier diet.One morning while they were traveling through western Iowa she suddenly leaned out of the wagon peering down into the grass."Stop a minute, Joshua," she cried, "I see something over there I want to investigate. It looks to me as if the Lord might be sending us the vegetables we have been wanting."Mr. Peniman stopped the team and she scrambled nimbly down. Seeing her leave the wagon, Ruth, Nina, Sam and Paul eagerly followed her."What is it, Mother? What do you see?" cried Ruth.Just then Sam stooped down and held up a small green object between his fingers. "Look, Mother," he cried, "look at the funny little green balls!""Ah," cried Mrs. Peniman, seizing it eagerly, "that's what I thought! That's what I was looking for! Look here, see?"She stooped down, pointing to a delicate green vine with small leaves and delicate tendrils that grew in the grass at her feet."Pea-vines!" exclaimed Ruth."Yes, pea-vines! and these are some kind of a wild pea. I am almost sure they would be good to eat."By this time Mr. Peniman, Lige and Joe had joined them."Oh," said Mr. Peniman, "buffalo peas! I have often read of them growing on the plains.""Are they good to eat, Father?" asked Sam, who was in a chronic state of being hungry."I think so; we might try them. Run about and gather all you can, children; we'll cook them when we camp to-night."With pails and baskets the young people ran about gathering the peas from the low trailing vines."They're the queerest peas I ever saw," said Joe; "they haven't any pods, and they're sobig, look!" and he held up a round green ball about as large as a marble, pale green on one side and on the other a dull, purplish red.When camp was struck that evening there was great interest shown in the preparation of the buffalo peas. After soaking them in water Mrs. Peniman put them on to boil with a pinch of soda, then drained off that water, put fresh water upon them, let them boil again, and when they were tender served them with a dressing of milk.The family ate them, but it was the general opinion that the peas had grown too old to be prepared in that way, and on the next evening Mrs. Peniman made them into a pea soup, which was pronounced delicious by the entire family, and became a distinct addition to their diet as long as the buffalo-pea season lasted.The boys had often remarked as they traveled farther and farther westward into the uninhabited wilderness that the road over which their prairie schooners rumbled was a broad, hard highway, with scarcely a blade of grass upon its surface. Joe wondered at this, and asked his father why it should be so."We are traveling over the old Oregon Trail, my boy," Mr. Peniman told him. "It is an old, old trail, the first highway made into the wilderness of the west by the feet of white men.""Who made it?" demanded Lige, who resented any one having been ahead of them in pioneer life."The trail was first made in 1813 by what was known as the Astorian Expedition, which set out from St. Louis with about a hundred men, intending to cross the mountains and build a fort for the American Fur Trading Company in Oregon. You boys should read the history of that expedition; you would find it most interesting.""Did they get there?" asked Sam, who was always interested in the result of any adventure.His father smiled. "Yes, Sam, they got there. When I knew that a part of our journey would lead us along the old Oregon Trail I read up its history. They had a terrible journey, but after great losses and hardships seven men reached the Columbia River, where they built a fort which they called Astoria, after John Jacob Astor of New York, the president of the fur company. The Indians set upon them and stole their goods and their stock, and they returned to St. Louis with only one old horse, which they had succeeded in trading for with a friendly Indian.""But that was so long ago, Father," put in Joe, "I should think the trail would have been lost since.""It probably would have been," answered his father, "but that it was kept open by the Oregon emigration of 1832. But it was beaten into its present good condition and has been kept so by the gold-seekers and emigrant trains that began the rush to California in 1849. This is also sometimes called the 'Mormon Trail,' because it was over this very road that we are traveling now that the Mormons passed on their pilgrimage to Salt Lake in 1847. They, too, had great hardships and losses, and had to winter at Florence, a little trading-station on the Missouri River, which we should reach very soon now.""Jiminy, that's interesting," cried Joe, who had been listening intently; "it makes it so much more interesting when you think of who's been over this old road before. How much easier and pleasanter it is to learn history and geography when you're right on the spot than when you are sitting on a hard bench at school!"Toward evening the country became more rolling, and shortly before sunset they saw in the distance a blue haze and high steep bluffs.Joe, whose eyes were always on the alert, cried, "River ahead!"Mr. Peniman, who was studying a map spread out on his knees, looked up."Yes," he said, "that is the Missouri River.""The Missouri—at last!" whooped Lige, "hurray, now the fun will begin!"Mr. and Mrs. Peniman looked at one another. To them the experiences that lay beyond the Missouri did not appeal in the light offun.The day had been hot and clear, and as the sun sank in the west it left a sky of intense brilliancy, shot with crimson and gold, fading away toward the horizon in tender pink and mauve and lavender. They drove into the straggling little trading-post of Florence, where the unhappy Mormons had passed such a tragic winter many years before, and as they left it and drove over a small hill their eyes fell upon a sight grander and more beautiful than Moses saw from the top of Nebo's Mountain. The valley of the Missouri lay before them, and with the great river sweeping by long lines of bluffs covered with waving trees it presented to them a panorama both magnificent and inspiring."See that great bluff over there, Joe?" called his father. "That's where the Lewis and Clark Expedition held their first great council with the Indians. It was calledCouncil Bluffsin memory of that event, which was the beginning of the opening up of this great western country. I am told it has come to be a great Indian trading-station."Twilight was beginning to fall as they drove into the trading-post, which is now the city of Council Bluffs.It was a great sight to the young easterners. On every hand were Indians, Indians and more Indians. Some wearing the cotton shirt and trousers of civilization, others blankets, others rejoicing in the garb of nature, augmented by a breech-clout and a few feathers in their hair. The squaws with their papooses strapped on their backs stood stolidly about, some in blankets, some in ugly calico "Mother Hubbard" wrappers. These Indians were mostly Omahas, with some Pawnees, Arapahoes and Potawatamis, all friendly to the white man. The Omaha Reservation was but a short distance away, and the Indians were bringing in skins, furs, and buffalo hides and exchanging them for blankets, flour, coffee, and the white man's "fire-water."There were many emigrant wagons gathered in the wide straggling street, between two rows of one-story shanties, and white men were trading with red men, home-seekers anxiously seeking information, dogs were barking, children crying, men arguing and swearing, while the patient oxen hitched to the wagons breathed gusty sighs of rest, and the few women who were on their way to a home in the new country west of the Missouri looked on with troubled eyes or hurried in and out of the few straggling shops making their purchases.The Peniman family had all alighted from their wagons before the general store, and while Mr. and Mrs. Peniman went in to make some purchases, followed by David and the little girls, Joe and Lige stood outside, looking with interested attention at the strange, novel spectacle of an Indian trading-station.They were watching some white men who were talking with a group of Indians. Suddenly Joe pricked up his ears and walked nearer.A tall, slenderly-built man, with a red, dissipated face, watery red-lidded eyes, and longish red hair was holding out a string of beads and jabbering in his own language to a tall, handsome young Indian who had an otter pelt over his arm."Aw, don't youdoit," Joe burst out suddenly. "He's stringin' you! That string of beads ain't worth twenty-five cents."The young Indian turned and looked at him, and the man, turning several shades redder than before, wheeled upon him with an oath."Mind your own business, you little pup," he roared, "who's askin' your advice!"Whether he understood what had been said or not, Joe did not know, but the Indian turned and walked away, carrying the pelt with him. The man strode up to Joe with a menacing attitude."I'll teach you to interfere in my business again, you meddlesome young fool," he shouted, and raised his clenched fist. At this moment Mr. and Mrs. Peniman came out of the store, followed by Ruth, Sara, and Nina Carroll. Joshua Peniman, seeing his son threatened, hurried to his side, and the man, with another great oath, turned and faced him.As he did so the oath died on his lips, his eyes flew wide and his mouth fell open, and the fiery color receded from his face, leaving it grey and ashen.Joe, staring at him, saw that his eyes were fixed upon Nina, with the look of a man who sees an apparition from another world."What's the matter here?" cried Joshua Peniman. "Joe, what has this man been doing to you?""Nothing," answered Joe with a laugh, "he's just mad because I busted up his trade with an Indian. Say, what do you think, the old cheat was tryin' to trade that young buck out of a splendid otter skin for a string of nasty little cheap yellow beads!"Joshua Peniman turned to the man, but he was paying no attention to them. With eyes fixed on the face of the little Princess he stood motionless, his thin, dissipated face almost white through its coat of tan.Mrs. Peniman, who saw the look, seized Nina by the hand and hurried her away.The man whirled upon Joshua Peniman."Who is that?" he demanded. "What's her name?""Who?" asked Mr. Peniman coolly. He too had seen the expression, and was on his guard immediately."That—that girl! Where did she come from? What's her name?"Ruth and Nina had come out of the store together. Joshua Peniman, whose conscience would not let him lie, purposely misunderstood which little girl he meant."That little girl is my daughter. Her name is Ruth Peniman. She comes from the Muskingum Valley in Ohio," he answered.The man stared at him with fiery eyes."Are you lying to me? If you are you'd better make your will right now.""I am not lying to you. I never lie. My name is Joshua Peniman. I and my family are crossing the plains to Nebraska. The little girl you just saw come out of that store with my wife is my daughter Ruth. This is my son Joe."The stranger turned and cast a snarling glance at the boy."He'd better not interfere in my business again, or his name'll be on a coffin-plate," he growled, and moved away.Joshua Peniman motioned to the wagons. "In with you, boys," he said in a low voice, "we'll have to get away from here."When they were in the wagons again and on the road he turned to his wife."What does it mean?" he said in a voice so low that the little girls who were in the back of the wagon dressing the china dolls they had bought at the trading-station could not hear him. "What is this mystery that is following us? It is evident that Nina is in danger from some one—for some reason that we know nothing about. I shall be thankful when we can put her into the hands of those who are in a better position to protect her than we are.""That man back there," breathed Mrs. Peniman, scarcely above a whisper, "that horrible creature—thought—acted—as if he knew her!""He did know her—or he thought he did! He had some sort of a shock when his eyes fell upon her. He was not sure, and I think I threw him off the trail.""It is strange—strange—in this vast new country—what can it mean?" cried Mrs. Peniman, and gazed out over the prairies with brooding eyes.
CHAPTER VII
A NIGHT OF HORROR
"And so," Joe concluded his long story, during which the afternoon had waned and the long shadows over the prairies told of the coming night, "we left little Abby behind us and started on again. Father and Mother were terribly sad. Sometimes I was afraid that Mother could not live through it. They seemed awfully nervous and afraid all the time, too. Father never went to bed at night, but sat or lay beside the wagons with Spotty beside him and his gun in his hand, and Mother would not let any of us get away from the wagons.
"It was fearful hot all that time—hotter even than it is to-day—and we had to travel slow on account of the cow. We just plugged along, and then toward night we hauled up beside the road and camped. Nobody had any heart to eat, so it didn't matter. Once in a while we came to a little town, or some houses, but we seldom stopped. Father seemed in a hurry to get where we were going, and Mother didn't seem to care about anything. Two or three times we had a scare about Indians, but they never came very near to us. Then one day when it had been so hot and dusty that we were all almost suffocated we saw a kind of a draw ahead and made for it, thinking we would camp there that night. It wasn't much of a place to camp, but we didn't see any sign of water anywhere, and Mother was just about beat out.
"Golly, I bet I'll never forget that evening! We were all feeling mighty miserable. I happened to look off toward the wagon road, and I saw a big cloud of dust. First I thought it was just a whirlwind, and then we were afraid it was Indians. But after a while we made out that it was an emigrant wagon, being driven by a woman. That surprised us a lot. She was driving like the old Harry, and Father ran out toward the road to meet her when we heard her yelling for help. When the wagon came nearer we saw——"
"Stop, stop, ohdon't!" cried the little Princess, covering her eyes with her hands while shudders shook her frame. "Don't," she cried again, "I can't bear it—I can'tbearit! I know—I know the rest!"
"Yes," Joe took her hand very gently, "you know the rest. It was your wagon—and—and—it brought us—you."
For a little while all the children were silent. Ruth crept up and put her arm about the little stranger's waist.
"I guess God sent you to us to be a little sister to us in baby's place," she said chokily.
Nina turned and put her arm about her neck.
"Perhaps He did. I never had any sisters or brothers. I'd like to be your sister. I like you."
"I'm glad," said honest Ruth, and kissed her.
"So'm I," cried Lige; but Joe said nothing.
That night when camp was struck the three wagons were drawn into a circle with the horses and cow inside.
Joshua Peniman did not remove his clothing, but having seen his family comfortably disposed, with the strange child in the wagon with his wife and the younger children, he stretched himself out beside the wagons, with Spotty near him and his musket by his side. Joe refused to go to his place in his own wagon, but lay down beside his father.
The prairies looked vast and still under the glimmering starlight with no sound but the sough of the wind through the grass and the occasional howling of a coyote. For a long time he lay awake, some vague, haunting uneasiness upon him. Twice he sprang up, his musket leveled, every nerve and muscle strained to attention.
They had agreed that Mr. Peniman was to take the first watch of the night and Joe the second. At two o'clock Joe woke, and seeing his father patrolling up and down beside the wagons insisted that he should go to bed. This the weary man refused to do, but wrapping himself in his blankets lay down upon the ground.
Joe sat beside him, his gun leaning against his knees, and looked up at the silent stars, feeling them companions in his loneliness.
It was between two and three o'clock, and he was beginning to doze, when a low, ominous growl from Spotty caused him to start wide awake, his gun clenched in his hand.
Spotty was standing, stiff-legged, the hair on his neck raised, his lips drawn back showing his teeth, growling deeply and staring into the shadows back of the wagons.
Joe did not move, but remained motionless listening.
Presently he heard a soft rustling in the grass.
A moment later by the light of the stars he made out a dim silhouette creeping toward the wagons.
"Stop," he cried, "or I'll shoot!"
Instantly Joshua Peniman was on his feet.
"What is it?" he whispered huskily.
"Man—Indian—over there by the wagons!"
The whispered words had scarcely left his lips when an arrow whizzed by his ear.
Instantly Joshua Peniman's gun, leveled at the point from which the arrow came, barked through the darkness. The shot was answered by a wild, shrill whoop, and suddenly the night seemed to be filled with flitting figures.
Joe's gun was at his shoulder, and as one huge naked savage leaped at his father he fired. The Indian fell with a groan, but almost before he had touched the ground another had taken his place, rushing toward the white man with uplifted tomahawk and blood-curdling yell. He was almost upon him when a sharp "crack" spoke from the back of one of the wagons, and the Indian dropped and lay motionless, while Lige, half-dressed, leaped out and ran to his father's side.
Sam on the seat of Joe's wagon held the rifle firmly at his shoulder. His freckled face was very pale, but the blue eyes were shining in a way that boded ill to the Indian who should come within range of the old rifle.
In the opening of the big wagon, between its curtains stood Hannah Peniman, her revolver in her hand. Her face was white and set, but the hand that held the weapon did not tremble.
The night was now hideous with yells. With the blood-curdling war-whoop that had carried terror to the hearts of so many early settlers on the plains the Indians were now circling about the camp, watching their opportunity to break through.
Suddenly from somewhere in the distance rose another cry. The heart of Joshua Peniman almost died in his breast.
"Another band!" he muttered, as he crowded down the charge in the old musket. Their case had seemed hopeless before, but they had firearms while the savages seemed to be armed only with bows and arrows, and might have had a chance. But if another band of savages joined those already upon them——
"Ki-ki-ee-ee-ee!" rang the cry through the night.
The Indians who were creeping up toward the wagons suddenly paused and stood still. Some sudden instinct made Joe raise his musket and fire into the air. Then at the top of his lungs shout, "Ki-ki-ee-ee-ee!"
He had no idea from whom the cry had come, whether from white man or Indian, friend or foe; but some sure instinct told him that whoever they might be their presence was unwelcome to the marauders.
While the sound of his shot and cry were still reverberating in the air there came a swift rush from the darkness outside the circle of wagons, and in the starlight they could make out the naked outlines of a band of Indians who made a rush for the wagons.
In the terror and excitement of the moment they did not notice that one of the band separated himself from the rest, and slipping into the shadows made his way noiselessly as a serpent to the rear of the Carroll wagon, where he climbed under the curtain and was lost to view.
Joshua Peniman uttering a warning shout sprang to the front of the wagon in which were his wife and younger children, with the child of the deceased Carrolls. Hannah Peniman was guarding the rear of the wagon, her revolver cocked and ready in her hand, while Joe and Lige at the front and back of the other wagon were making good use of their firearms, and Sam, standing up in the front was banging away with the rifle as fast as he could load and fire.
As the Indians rushed toward them it looked for a moment to the travelers as if all hope was lost. At the moment when the savages burst through their guard the shrill "Ki-ki-ee-ee-ee!" again smote upon their ears, and an instant later the sound of wild yelps and thundering hoofs was all about them, and another band of Indians, mounted and in full war panoply, burst into the encampment.
The travelers thought their last hour had come.
"To the wagons, to the wagons!" shouted Joshua Peniman. "Inside, Sam! Lige, help thy mother guard the rear! To me, to me, Joe! We must try to keep them away from this wagon at least! Now, is thee ready?Fire!"
As his words rang out above the tumult a tawny chief with eagle feathers in his hair, who was riding by, checked his horse so abruptly that he threw it back upon its haunches. He cast a swift, searching look at the man and boys who stood so resolutely before their wagons, and suddenly threw up his hand. Riding toward them he waved a piece of white cloth above his head, then halted his horse before them.
"Is thee a Quaker?" he surprised them by asking in fairly good English.
"Yes, I am," replied Joshua Peniman, looking not at all like a Quaker with his wild, disordered hair, his set white face and his gun at his shoulder. In the excitement of the moment he had no time to think of the strangeness, the incongruity of the question. All he could think of was that for some unknown reason the other Indians seemed to have drawn off, and for a moment at least there appeared to be a pause in the savage onslaught.
The Indian who had spoken to him whirled his pony about and shouted a few words in a language they could not understand. Instantly there came a wild yelp in answer, and a moment later there was the clamor of a battle cry, the wild thundering of hoofs, the crash of blows, the uproar of battle. Before the horrified pioneers knew what was happening the sound of battle began to recede from them, had grown faint and fainter, had died away across the plain, and the night was still about them.
Even then they could not realize that they had been saved; that death—horrible death—and worse than death—had in some miraculous way been averted from them.
They expected momentarily that the savages would return. Joshua Peniman and the boys reloaded their muskets. Mr. Peniman snatching the axe from the wagon laid it beside him. Joe slipped a long sharp knife inside his belt.
Strangely enough none of them spoke. The moment was too tense, the struggle for life too imminent for words.
Moments passed. The shrill yelps and cries grew fainter and fainter and finally died away.
An intense, silent half hour went by. Then Joshua Peniman lowered his gun to the ground and looked about him.
"I believe they have gone!" he whispered.
"I believe so too!" replied Joe in the same tone.
"Keep on guard. I'll look around."
Cautiously and with musket ready he made a tour around the wagons.
Two Indians, both dead, lay in the grass not far away, but there was no sign of any living creature about the place but themselves.
He returned to the wagons relieved but perplexed.
What did it mean? He could not account for it.
"They appear to be gone," he said. "For the life of me I cannot understand what happened, but somehow, by God's merciful providence, we have been spared."
"But how—why—why did they go away like that?" Joe demanded. "Does thee think they will return, Father?"
"It is a most mysterious proceeding. I do not know what to think of it. But I scarcely think they will return—at least not immediately."
The children, who had been hidden under the wagon seats covered with blankets, now crept out, still too terrified to speak.
"I don't believe they'll come back," said Joe, who had been thinking hard. "Do you know, Father, I believe that there must have been two tribes. I believe they are at war with one another, and that the last ones that came—those that came on horseback—drove the others away. They didn't come together. There weren't many of those Indians that attacked us first, and they came on foot. We would have heard horses, but they crept up on us like shadows. If Spotty hadn't warned us we might all have been murdered in our sleep. I didn't hear a sound until he began to growl."
"Nor I either," answered his father. "Thee may be right." Then suddenly for the first time the peculiarity of the question that the big chief had asked him flashed into his mind. "Why, I guess thee is right, Joe," he cried. "That big fellow with the eagle feathers in his hair held up a flag of truce. He asked me if I was a Quaker! I never thought about it until this moment. How strange—how passing strange! How did he guess—how could he know—it must have been he who saved us!" Then suddenly catching sight of his wife's deathly face he turned to her. "Go lie down, Hannah, thee is all used up. The danger is past for the time. What ever miraculous interposition of God's mercy saved us it seems clear that we are saved. Our enemies have gone and we can sleep in peace. Go to thy rest, too, Joe. Thee has done well. I feel that I have a real man to depend on in these trying times."
The look in his eyes, the pressure of the hand on his shoulder, sent Joe away to bed with a warm glow in his heart.
Presently the camp was still again, and Joshua Peniman patrolled up and down and all about it, with his musket over his shoulder and Spotty at his heels until the rosy glow of morning was tinting the eastern sky.
Just before sunrise he received a severe shock, when looking across the pathless prairies toward the north he saw an Indian riding toward him.
For many moments he watched the advancing figure. When it came within musket range he raised his gun to his shoulder and shouted:
"Stop, or I'll fire!"
The Indian did not check his pony, but held up a bit of white rag. As he came nearer, riding his pony as erect and motionless as a bronze statue, the pioneer saw with a start that it was the Indian who had spoken to him the night before.
"How!" he said, bringing his pony to a halt before the white man and sliding down from its back.
"How!" answered Joshua Peniman, answering the western salutation.
The Indian came closer.
"You Quaker, eh?"
Wondering, the white man answered as he had answered the night before, "Yes, I am."
"Me Quaker too."
"You? You a Quaker?"
A grave smile broke over the impassive, copper-colored face.
"Me Neowage, Chief Winnebagoes. Live Omaha Reservation. Friends' Mission."
"Oh-h!" A great light began to dawn on Joshua Peniman. "Oh, you are one of the tribe who were put in charge of the Friends' Mission?[#] Then it wasyouwho saved us last night?"
[#] During the year 1856-1857 the Winnebago tribe, being much depleted by continual wars with the Sioux and Arapahoes, sought protection at the Reservation in Omaha. There the remnants of the tribe were put under the protection of the Friends' Mission, and many of them became converts to the faith.—SHELDON'SHistory of Nebraska.
The big chief nodded.
"Me hear you say 'thee' to you boy. Me know you Friend."
"And because I was a Friend you saved me—me and my family! Oh, Friend, I thank thee!"
He stepped forward and grasped the Indian's hand.
With a dignity equal to his own the chief shook it warmly.
"Friends good people. Good heart. Good friend to Winnebagoes."
"Then you are a Winnebago? Who were the others—those Indians that attacked us?"
"Dirty Sioux." He turned and spurned the dead body in the grass with his foot.
"Ah, they were Sioux, eh? Are the Sioux hostile to white men?"
"Sioux bad Indian. Heap bad heart. Winnebago good Indian. Heap white man's friend."
"I am glad, glad indeed to hear it. You don't know how you relieve my anxious heart. But how did it happen that you came to our aid so opportunely last night?"
The Indian folded his arms across his brawny chest.
"My tribe war with Sioux," he said. "Heap much trouble now. Inkpaducah on war-path. Kill heap white men. Me hear gun, know trouble. My young men on war-path. Fight Sioux all time. Me come, drive Sioux away."
"God be thanked you did come. You saved our lives. How can I thank you?"
The Indian waved his hand with a royal gesture. As his keen eyes roved about the encampment they fell upon a scrap of paper which lay under the Carroll wagon. He strode over to it and picked it up, then remained gazing at the ground for some minutes.
The wagons stood backed up to the edge of the ravine, and back of them the ground was soft, in some places muddy.
Neowage pointed silently. Joshua Peniman hurried to his side.
"White man print," he grunted, indicating a well-defined footmark in the muddy earth at the back of the Carroll wagon.
Joshua Peniman stooped and examined it carefully.
The sharp edges of a hard leather sole and the imprint of a boot heel were plainly discernible.
A white man!
With perplexed face he stood staring at the imprint.
That Indians might attack them was perfectly understandable, but that a white man should be among them—thata white manwas one of those howling demons who had set upon his camp the night before—was a thing that he could not understand.
Neowage glanced sharply at his feet.
"Not you mark?"
"No, I was not near the back of that wagon. It was unoccupied. And you see that is a much larger foot than mine."
"You boy?"
"No, my boys are all going barefooted."
"Who?"
"I wish I knew."
The Indian was turning the scrap of paper he had picked up under the wagon over and over in his hands.
"Tore," he said, pointing to the ragged edges.
Mr. Peniman took the paper and scrutinized it carefully. It was but a small scrap, and its edges showed that it had been torn recently and hastily. As he turned it over the words: "and the said Lee C. Carroll——" caught his eye.
With a strange leap of his pulses he turned and ran to the Carroll wagon.
As he threw aside the rear curtain and looked in he uttered a loud exclamation.
The inside of the neatly-arranged wagon was in chaos, trunks torn open, boxes and bundles rifled of their contents, clothes, books, papers scattered about; and the dispatch-box, placed in the hands of Nina Carroll by her dying mother, which contained all her money, deeds, papers, and all the information that had been left her regarding herself and her parents and the relatives to whom she was to be sent—was gone!
CHAPTER VIII
JOE MEETS A FRIEND AND MAKES AN ENEMY
The sound of the voices outside had wakened the boys, who, worn out from the excitement of the night, had fallen into a fitful slumber.
As the fact of the looting of the Carroll wagon, with its disastrous consequences to the young survivor of the tragedy, forced itself upon him Joshua Peniman uttered a loud exclamation.
Instantly Joe and Lige leaped from the wagon, their guns in their hands, and Mrs. Peniman, still grasping her revolver, parted the rear curtains of the wagon and looked out.
When their eyes fell upon the Indian both boys started violently, and Joe raised his gun.
"No, no, son, put down thy gun," cried his father. "This is a friend. It was he who so mysteriously saved us last night. He is a Friend, and has learned to speak a little English at a Friends' Mission."
"Oh," cried Hannah Peniman, and in the little exclamation was wonder, relief and surprise.
"But see, Hannah," went on Mr. Peniman, "see what those miscreants have done! They have rifled the Carroll wagon and carried off everything of value in it, including the dispatch-box."
"Thedispatch-box?" Hannah Peniman's face whitened and her eyes grew dark with horror. "They have taken the dispatch-box? Oh, Joshua, that box had in it everything relating to the property and identity of that little girl!"
Her husband nodded.
"I know," he said. "It is a terrible catastrophe. I should have put that box in my own wagon."
"But who would have thought—who would have supposed that Indians——"
Neowage who had been looking and listening impassively, interrupted her.
"Indian no want papers."
Mr. and Mrs. Peniman started and looked at one another.
"True," said Joshua Peniman, pulling at his beard, "that is true, Neowage."
Presently he looked up at his wife with a troubled face. "There is more in this than we see now," he said in a low tone, and told her of the scrap of paper, the print of a white man's boot at the rear of the wagon, of the broken locks and opened trunks and scattered books and papers in the wagon.
"There is something very strange about it," he concluded. "Our own wagons were not disturbed, our horses were not taken; it almost looks to me as if the assault was made upon us to cover the rifling of the Carroll wagon."
He stopped abruptly and stood for some moments with head bent thinking intently. Then going to his own wagon he returned with the arrow he had taken from the body of Lee Carroll.
Silently he handed it to Neowage. Silently the Indian inspected it.
"Santee Sioux," he said after a moment, handing it back.
"Are you sure?"
"Sure. See plenty. My young men fight Santee Sioux. Kill my people, two, t'ree, five hunnerd. Drive my people way from hunting grounds. My people starve. Go Omaha Reservation. They put us in Friends' care."
"And this is a Sioux arrow?"
The Indian nodded.
"I took that arrow out of the dead body of a white man. When he was dying he told me that it was not an Indian that had killed him."
Then by a sudden impulse he told the chief the whole story.
When it was finished the Indian remained standing with his arms folded across his bare brown chest, his head bent, his face impassive. After an interval he spoke.
"You got papoose now?"
"Yes."
"She sleep in wagon?"
"No, she has never slept there since her father and mother died. She sleeps with my little girls in that wagon," pointing to the canvas-covered prairie schooner where his own children lay asleep.
"Indian no want papoose. Indian no want paper. White man want papoose and paper."
Joshua Peniman nodded. "Yes, I see your point. But I don't know. It's beyond me. I don't know what to think."
The children, awakened by the talking, had now crowded to the back of the wagon, and Ruth, Nina, Sam, and Paul were staring out with bulging eyes.
For the first time they were gazing upon a real Red Man of the Plains, and strange to say their father was not shooting at him nor scalping him, nor even being scalped by him, but was standing quietly talking to him, evidently asking his advice.
The younger children were also awake now, and Mrs. Peniman got down from the wagon and began preparing the breakfast.
"Thee must stay and break bread with us, friend Neowage," said Joshua Peniman; and presently the whole family were gathered about the oilcloth on the grass, with Neowage cross-legged and silent among them.
It seemed very strange to be thus eating breakfast with one of the savages of whom they had stood in such deadly terror the night before; the little girls shrank closer to their mother and peered at him with fearful eyes, but the boys watched his every movement with fascinated gaze, and Lige began mentally composing a letter to Simeon Fisher, in which he meant to tell him all about his friend Neowage, the great and mighty chief of the Winnebago tribe.
The chief, however, after one keen glance from his black eyes seemed to pay little attention to them. His eyes were fastened upon Nina, and whether it was her tragic story or her winning beauty that held his attention they could not tell.
When he had finished eating he rose abruptly and said, "Me go now." Then turning to Mr. Peniman he extended his hand.
"No be 'fraid," he said in his deep guttural voice. "Neowage you friend. He watch over you. No let Quaker family get harm." Then as he turned to where his pony was standing, its bridle trailing on the ground, he included them all in one quick glance and muttered a guttural "goo-bye."
Mrs. Peniman rose and gave him her hand, thanking him for his protection. The boys also hastened to shake hands with him. But Nina sprang up from her place and ran to him, taking from her neck a pretty little blue chain, and laid it in his hand.
"Keep it," she said, smiling up at him; "you were good and saved us. Keep that to remember us by."
[image]"KEEP IT; YOU WERE GOOD AND SAVED US."
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"KEEP IT; YOU WERE GOOD AND SAVED US."
The Indian looked down from his great height upon the golden-haired little girl, then to the chain in his hand.
"Umph!" he grunted, but they knew from the smile on his face that he was pleased.
"What you name?" he asked.
"Nina—Nina Carroll." Then with a shy little smile, "The boys call me 'Princess.'"
"Umph!" again grunted the Indian, and mounting his pony rode swiftly away.
As the pioneers traveled on through the heat and dust of that day the hearts of Joshua Peniman and his wife were deeply troubled. It was not alone that their worst fears of the perils of the plains had been realized in the attack of the night before, but the menace and mystery of the theft of the dispatch-box left a deep sense of fear and depression upon them.
"I cannot but fear for the child," Joshua Peniman said, after long study. "We know nothing about her, who she is, what her life may represent, or what enemies her family may have had. The thought is forcing itself upon me that we should not keep her with us, that we must leave her at the first Mission we come to, as her mother requested. They may be able to get her back to her own people."
"But who are her people? How can we ever tell that now? Every bit of information, every letter, address, paper, everything relating to her or her relatives, was in that box."
"But surely the girl herself knows——"
"Very little. I have talked with her. It appears that she and her parents have been traveling abroad a great deal of the time since she was born. She knows that they lived in New York, also for a time in St. Louis, but she does not remember the address in either place. Her mother's parents are dead, I believe, and I judge from things she has told me that there must have been some trouble with her father's family, and that the young couple lived rather an independent existence." Then after a long pause, "Somehow I cannot bear to leave the child at a Mission. Think of leaving our Ruth——"
"I know, Hannah, but her safety——"
"Yes, I realize that. We have the right, perhaps, to jeopardize the lives of our own family in this trip across the plains, but have we the right to expose the life and safety of this child, that has been left in our care?"
They sat in deep thought for some minutes. From the other wagon they could hear the chatter of the children's voices, as Ruth, Lige, Sam, Joe, and Nina excitedly discussed the events of the night before. She still grieved for her parents, but little by little the society of the wholesome, healthy-minded young Penimans was winning the little Princess back to cheerfulness.
"She seems very happy with us," sighed Mrs. Peniman.
"Yes, I believe she is. I wish we might keep her with us," answered her husband gravely.
The next day they reached the Des Moines River, and after making their night camp by the beautiful stream made their way the next morning to Fort Dodge, which had been built on the east side of the Des Moines two years before. Here they found other travelers and heard the horrible details of the Spring Lake massacre, and also of the depredations of the Sioux on the South Fork of the Platte. Sam and Lige, who were standing near, overheard a mover relating to their father the circumstances of a hideous murder of a party of emigrants which had occurred near Fontanelle but a few days before. These accounts, while they thrilled the boys with a sense of adventure, made their parents more anxious than ever, and many times the temptation assailed them to give up the hazardous journey and return to safety and civilization.
But there was something in the make-up of the early pioneers that forbade them to turn back, and after a few hours of rest they replenished their supplies and went on their way.
While at Fort Dodge Joshua Peniman made inquiries in regard to Missions, and learned that a Presbyterian Mission had been founded at Bellevue, the first permanent white settlement in Nebraska, on the west side of the Missouri River. To this he determined to make his way, and leave in safety the child of the strangers who had been entrusted to his care.
The travelers had now left civilization far behind them. The boys, who had so eagerly anticipated the adventures of the journey, now had more than sufficient of it to satisfy them. What white settlers there were in the country at that time were settled along the streams and rivers, leaving the space between unorganized and wild. As they traveled on trees and water grew farther and farther apart. There were some trees, mostly willows and cottonwoods, along the borders of the streams, all the rest was grass and sky.
They often saw large bands of Indians sweeping across the plains, hunting the wild game that was everywhere in great abundance. They saw great herds of elk and antelope, and wild turkeys were plentiful, with great flocks of prairie-chickens and quail.
They had no difficulty in providing their table with fresh meat now, for the boys and their father had but to go out with their guns for an hour or two in the evening and come back with their game-bags full.
But while they had meat in plenty they could no longer get fruit or vegetables. They could not supply their daily needs at towns or villages, for there were no towns, and the settlements were so far apart that many times they traveled for days without ever seeing a house or human. When they did find a "settler" or squatter, his home was on the bank of some river or stream, and his food consisted mostly of "sow-belly" and coffee, with little enough of either for himself, and none whatever for guest or traveler.
The lack of green food troubled Mrs. Peniman greatly, for with the voracious appetites of her young brood she realized that they should have vegetables to offset their constant consumption of the heavier diet.
One morning while they were traveling through western Iowa she suddenly leaned out of the wagon peering down into the grass.
"Stop a minute, Joshua," she cried, "I see something over there I want to investigate. It looks to me as if the Lord might be sending us the vegetables we have been wanting."
Mr. Peniman stopped the team and she scrambled nimbly down. Seeing her leave the wagon, Ruth, Nina, Sam and Paul eagerly followed her.
"What is it, Mother? What do you see?" cried Ruth.
Just then Sam stooped down and held up a small green object between his fingers. "Look, Mother," he cried, "look at the funny little green balls!"
"Ah," cried Mrs. Peniman, seizing it eagerly, "that's what I thought! That's what I was looking for! Look here, see?"
She stooped down, pointing to a delicate green vine with small leaves and delicate tendrils that grew in the grass at her feet.
"Pea-vines!" exclaimed Ruth.
"Yes, pea-vines! and these are some kind of a wild pea. I am almost sure they would be good to eat."
By this time Mr. Peniman, Lige and Joe had joined them.
"Oh," said Mr. Peniman, "buffalo peas! I have often read of them growing on the plains."
"Are they good to eat, Father?" asked Sam, who was in a chronic state of being hungry.
"I think so; we might try them. Run about and gather all you can, children; we'll cook them when we camp to-night."
With pails and baskets the young people ran about gathering the peas from the low trailing vines.
"They're the queerest peas I ever saw," said Joe; "they haven't any pods, and they're sobig, look!" and he held up a round green ball about as large as a marble, pale green on one side and on the other a dull, purplish red.
When camp was struck that evening there was great interest shown in the preparation of the buffalo peas. After soaking them in water Mrs. Peniman put them on to boil with a pinch of soda, then drained off that water, put fresh water upon them, let them boil again, and when they were tender served them with a dressing of milk.
The family ate them, but it was the general opinion that the peas had grown too old to be prepared in that way, and on the next evening Mrs. Peniman made them into a pea soup, which was pronounced delicious by the entire family, and became a distinct addition to their diet as long as the buffalo-pea season lasted.
The boys had often remarked as they traveled farther and farther westward into the uninhabited wilderness that the road over which their prairie schooners rumbled was a broad, hard highway, with scarcely a blade of grass upon its surface. Joe wondered at this, and asked his father why it should be so.
"We are traveling over the old Oregon Trail, my boy," Mr. Peniman told him. "It is an old, old trail, the first highway made into the wilderness of the west by the feet of white men."
"Who made it?" demanded Lige, who resented any one having been ahead of them in pioneer life.
"The trail was first made in 1813 by what was known as the Astorian Expedition, which set out from St. Louis with about a hundred men, intending to cross the mountains and build a fort for the American Fur Trading Company in Oregon. You boys should read the history of that expedition; you would find it most interesting."
"Did they get there?" asked Sam, who was always interested in the result of any adventure.
His father smiled. "Yes, Sam, they got there. When I knew that a part of our journey would lead us along the old Oregon Trail I read up its history. They had a terrible journey, but after great losses and hardships seven men reached the Columbia River, where they built a fort which they called Astoria, after John Jacob Astor of New York, the president of the fur company. The Indians set upon them and stole their goods and their stock, and they returned to St. Louis with only one old horse, which they had succeeded in trading for with a friendly Indian."
"But that was so long ago, Father," put in Joe, "I should think the trail would have been lost since."
"It probably would have been," answered his father, "but that it was kept open by the Oregon emigration of 1832. But it was beaten into its present good condition and has been kept so by the gold-seekers and emigrant trains that began the rush to California in 1849. This is also sometimes called the 'Mormon Trail,' because it was over this very road that we are traveling now that the Mormons passed on their pilgrimage to Salt Lake in 1847. They, too, had great hardships and losses, and had to winter at Florence, a little trading-station on the Missouri River, which we should reach very soon now."
"Jiminy, that's interesting," cried Joe, who had been listening intently; "it makes it so much more interesting when you think of who's been over this old road before. How much easier and pleasanter it is to learn history and geography when you're right on the spot than when you are sitting on a hard bench at school!"
Toward evening the country became more rolling, and shortly before sunset they saw in the distance a blue haze and high steep bluffs.
Joe, whose eyes were always on the alert, cried, "River ahead!"
Mr. Peniman, who was studying a map spread out on his knees, looked up.
"Yes," he said, "that is the Missouri River."
"The Missouri—at last!" whooped Lige, "hurray, now the fun will begin!"
Mr. and Mrs. Peniman looked at one another. To them the experiences that lay beyond the Missouri did not appeal in the light offun.
The day had been hot and clear, and as the sun sank in the west it left a sky of intense brilliancy, shot with crimson and gold, fading away toward the horizon in tender pink and mauve and lavender. They drove into the straggling little trading-post of Florence, where the unhappy Mormons had passed such a tragic winter many years before, and as they left it and drove over a small hill their eyes fell upon a sight grander and more beautiful than Moses saw from the top of Nebo's Mountain. The valley of the Missouri lay before them, and with the great river sweeping by long lines of bluffs covered with waving trees it presented to them a panorama both magnificent and inspiring.
"See that great bluff over there, Joe?" called his father. "That's where the Lewis and Clark Expedition held their first great council with the Indians. It was calledCouncil Bluffsin memory of that event, which was the beginning of the opening up of this great western country. I am told it has come to be a great Indian trading-station."
Twilight was beginning to fall as they drove into the trading-post, which is now the city of Council Bluffs.
It was a great sight to the young easterners. On every hand were Indians, Indians and more Indians. Some wearing the cotton shirt and trousers of civilization, others blankets, others rejoicing in the garb of nature, augmented by a breech-clout and a few feathers in their hair. The squaws with their papooses strapped on their backs stood stolidly about, some in blankets, some in ugly calico "Mother Hubbard" wrappers. These Indians were mostly Omahas, with some Pawnees, Arapahoes and Potawatamis, all friendly to the white man. The Omaha Reservation was but a short distance away, and the Indians were bringing in skins, furs, and buffalo hides and exchanging them for blankets, flour, coffee, and the white man's "fire-water."
There were many emigrant wagons gathered in the wide straggling street, between two rows of one-story shanties, and white men were trading with red men, home-seekers anxiously seeking information, dogs were barking, children crying, men arguing and swearing, while the patient oxen hitched to the wagons breathed gusty sighs of rest, and the few women who were on their way to a home in the new country west of the Missouri looked on with troubled eyes or hurried in and out of the few straggling shops making their purchases.
The Peniman family had all alighted from their wagons before the general store, and while Mr. and Mrs. Peniman went in to make some purchases, followed by David and the little girls, Joe and Lige stood outside, looking with interested attention at the strange, novel spectacle of an Indian trading-station.
They were watching some white men who were talking with a group of Indians. Suddenly Joe pricked up his ears and walked nearer.
A tall, slenderly-built man, with a red, dissipated face, watery red-lidded eyes, and longish red hair was holding out a string of beads and jabbering in his own language to a tall, handsome young Indian who had an otter pelt over his arm.
"Aw, don't youdoit," Joe burst out suddenly. "He's stringin' you! That string of beads ain't worth twenty-five cents."
The young Indian turned and looked at him, and the man, turning several shades redder than before, wheeled upon him with an oath.
"Mind your own business, you little pup," he roared, "who's askin' your advice!"
Whether he understood what had been said or not, Joe did not know, but the Indian turned and walked away, carrying the pelt with him. The man strode up to Joe with a menacing attitude.
"I'll teach you to interfere in my business again, you meddlesome young fool," he shouted, and raised his clenched fist. At this moment Mr. and Mrs. Peniman came out of the store, followed by Ruth, Sara, and Nina Carroll. Joshua Peniman, seeing his son threatened, hurried to his side, and the man, with another great oath, turned and faced him.
As he did so the oath died on his lips, his eyes flew wide and his mouth fell open, and the fiery color receded from his face, leaving it grey and ashen.
Joe, staring at him, saw that his eyes were fixed upon Nina, with the look of a man who sees an apparition from another world.
"What's the matter here?" cried Joshua Peniman. "Joe, what has this man been doing to you?"
"Nothing," answered Joe with a laugh, "he's just mad because I busted up his trade with an Indian. Say, what do you think, the old cheat was tryin' to trade that young buck out of a splendid otter skin for a string of nasty little cheap yellow beads!"
Joshua Peniman turned to the man, but he was paying no attention to them. With eyes fixed on the face of the little Princess he stood motionless, his thin, dissipated face almost white through its coat of tan.
Mrs. Peniman, who saw the look, seized Nina by the hand and hurried her away.
The man whirled upon Joshua Peniman.
"Who is that?" he demanded. "What's her name?"
"Who?" asked Mr. Peniman coolly. He too had seen the expression, and was on his guard immediately.
"That—that girl! Where did she come from? What's her name?"
Ruth and Nina had come out of the store together. Joshua Peniman, whose conscience would not let him lie, purposely misunderstood which little girl he meant.
"That little girl is my daughter. Her name is Ruth Peniman. She comes from the Muskingum Valley in Ohio," he answered.
The man stared at him with fiery eyes.
"Are you lying to me? If you are you'd better make your will right now."
"I am not lying to you. I never lie. My name is Joshua Peniman. I and my family are crossing the plains to Nebraska. The little girl you just saw come out of that store with my wife is my daughter Ruth. This is my son Joe."
The stranger turned and cast a snarling glance at the boy.
"He'd better not interfere in my business again, or his name'll be on a coffin-plate," he growled, and moved away.
Joshua Peniman motioned to the wagons. "In with you, boys," he said in a low voice, "we'll have to get away from here."
When they were in the wagons again and on the road he turned to his wife.
"What does it mean?" he said in a voice so low that the little girls who were in the back of the wagon dressing the china dolls they had bought at the trading-station could not hear him. "What is this mystery that is following us? It is evident that Nina is in danger from some one—for some reason that we know nothing about. I shall be thankful when we can put her into the hands of those who are in a better position to protect her than we are."
"That man back there," breathed Mrs. Peniman, scarcely above a whisper, "that horrible creature—thought—acted—as if he knew her!"
"He did know her—or he thought he did! He had some sort of a shock when his eyes fell upon her. He was not sure, and I think I threw him off the trail."
"It is strange—strange—in this vast new country—what can it mean?" cried Mrs. Peniman, and gazed out over the prairies with brooding eyes.