Illustration: THE TEPEE ON THE GRAND RIVER.THE TEPEE ON THE GRAND RIVER.
THE TEPEE ON THE GRAND RIVER.
In a grove of tall fir trees, close to the placid waters of the Grand River, Yamanatz erected his tepee, where in the soft, balmy air, fragrant with balsam and cedar, Chiquita could rest and watch the clouds as they made great shadow pictures on the mountain and stream. Like a sentinel, a lone peak stood beyond the cleft in the great divide, whose precipitous sides rose in towering splendor all clad in verdure green. The river reflected on its mirror of millions of tiny drops of sparkling water, the blue sky, the trees tinted red by the setting sun, the tepee on the bank of the stream and the mountain tipped with its cap of eternal snow. The camp fire sent a spiral of thin blue smoke toward the azure dome, and by the lurid coals two Utes smoked in silence. Within the sign-bedecked tepee, upon a couch of lion skins, lay Chiquita, clad in hunting garb, her rifle and fishing rod beside her. Yamanatz, Antelope, Jack, and the mother of Chiquita stood by, while the fairest of the White River maidens told them of the great happiness which awaited her in the Happy Hunting Ground of the Utes which lay just beyond the sky.
"If my father and my mother were only there," said Chiquita, as she pointed beyond the cleft above the river. "And, Jack," she continued, "you must beg leave of absence from the heaven of the white man and visit Chiquita in her happy home. You will find birds that sing and the bounding deer and flowers that bloom. The warriors of many, many snows are gathered there and you will see the Utes in all their grandeur, as they were before the white man took their land."
"But what of your friends, Chiquita, those who taught you of the religion of our people, of the only Christ who died to save mankind?" asked Jack, as he recalled the years and years of Chiquita's life in school, in college, in the hospital, the church and in the society of the ablest women of the nineteenth century.
"Ah, Jack!" Chiquita waited a moment, then with her bright eyes reflecting the love of the forest queen for her native haunts, customs and the freedom of the woods, she continued, "The God who gave you the Christ gave you also wisdom, and with that wisdom cruel weapons to drive the weaker to destruction. The paleface has driven the red man to his death. My people share not the needs nor desires which civilization brings to the white brethren, nor the society demands which make our paleface sister a slave to her calling. Jack, I have lived among my white sisters, I have been one of them, been sought for, banqueted, heralded and had tributes of honor thrust upon me. No school, no church, no institution of science, no club, no society, no matter how select, has been other than glad to have Chiquita honor them with her presence. With wealth untold and accomplishments unattained before by any woman in the world, Chiquita returns to her forest home for peace and contentment. 'In my Father's house are many mansions.' Yes, Jack, and the tepees of the great Indian nation stretch beyond the sky to welcome Chiquita. See, Jack, father, mother, the braves in all their glorious array are waiting for Chiquita! 'Our Father,' the Great Spirit of both the red and white man, welcomes. It is in the peace of the Happy Hunting Ground that we find rest. Adios, Jack. The great Yamanatz will soon follow and it will not be long ere all my people are as the buffalo, and the white man alone in the land that once was a paradise, but the mockery of civilization turned it into a stench hole of iniquity and market place of educated vampires, against which the child of the forest of the same God had no"—The voice failed to respond to the effort. Chiquita was dead. And with her was buried that undying, unquenchable, unsung love which consumed her heart.
A camp bird, in subdued autumn plumage of black and pearl gray, mewed plaintively as the old warrior came forth from the tepee. The wrinkled visaged chief beat his breast and muttered in Ute dialect the prayers of a bereaved father for a dead daughter. The old "medicine" chief ceased to bang the tom-tom and the jargon of the squaws was silenced. Jack looked on with keen disappointment. For years he had watched and sympathized with Chiquita in her ambition; and now at the last turn in the great course of life, after tasting nearly every phase of civilized honor, she had returned to the religion of her fathers and died with utter contempt in her heart for the foibles and allurements of civilization, civilized society and civilized government.
Transcriber's Notes:Obvious punctuation errors corrected.The remaining corrections made are indicated by dotted lines under the corrections. Scroll the mouse over the word and the original text willappear.
Obvious punctuation errors corrected.
The remaining corrections made are indicated by dotted lines under the corrections. Scroll the mouse over the word and the original text willappear.