CHAPTER VI.ORIANNA.
Weeks passed on, and within and without Deacon Wilder’s doors were signs of life and civilization. Trees were cut down, gardens were made, corn and vegetables were planted, and still no trace of an Indian had been seen, although Jake had frequently expressed a wish to get a shot at the “varmin,” as he called them. Still, he felt that it would be unwise to be caught out alone at any very great distance from his master’s dwelling.
This feeling was shared by all of Deacon Wilder’s household except Charlie, who frequently went forth alone into the forest shade, and rambled over the hills where grew the rich wild strawberry and the fair summer flowers, and where, too, roamed the red man; for the Indian was there, jealously watching each movement of his white brother, and waiting for some provocation to strike a deadly blow. But Charlie knew it not, and fearlessly each day he plunged deeper and deeper into the depths of the woods, taking some stately tree or blighted stump as a way-mark by which to trace his homeward road, when the shadows began to grow long and dark.
Although he knew it not, Charlie had a protector, who each day, in the shady woods and wild gullies of Glen’s Creek, awaited his coming. Stealthily would she follow his footsteps, and when on the velvety turf he laid him down to rest, she would watch near him, lest harm should befall the young sleeper. It was Orianna, the only and darling child of Owanno, the chieftain, whose wigwam was three miles west of Glen’s Creek, near a spot called Grassy Spring.
Orianna had first been attracted toward Charlie by seeing him weep one day, and from a few words which he involuntarily let fall, she learned that his heart was not with the scenes wherein he dwelt, but was faraway toward the “rising sun.” Orianna’s heart was full of kindly sympathy, and from the time when she first saw Charlie weeping in the forest, she made a vow to the Great Spirit that she would love and protect the child of the “pale-face.” The vow thus made by the simple Indian maiden was never broken, but through weal and woe it was faithfully kept.
It was a long time ere Orianna ventured to introduce herself to her new friend; but when she did so, she was delighted to find that he neither expressed fear of her, nor surprise at her personal appearance. From that time they were inseparable, although Orianna exacted from Charlie a promise not to mention her at home, and also resisted his entreaties that she would accompany him thither. In reply to all his arguments, she would say, mournfully, “No, Charlie, no; the pale-face is the enemy of my people, although Orianna never can think they are enemies to her; and sometimes I have wished—it was wicked, I know, and the Great Spirit was angry—but I have wished that I, too, was of the fair-haired and white-browed ones.”
In Charlie’s home there was much wonder as to what took him so regularly to the woods but he withstood their questioning and kept his secret safely. In the wigwam, too, where Orianna dwelt, there was some grumbling at her frequent absences, but the old chieftain Owanno and his wife Narretta loved their child too well to prohibit her rambling when and where she pleased. This old couple were far on the journey of life, when Orianna came as a sunbeam of gladness to their lone cabin, and thenceforth they doted upon her as the miser doats upon his shining gold.
She was a tall, graceful creature of nineteen or twenty summers, and her life would have been one of unbounded happiness had it not been for one circumstance. Near her father’s wigwam lived the young chief Wahlaga, who to a most ferocious nature added a face horridly disfigured by the many fights in which he had been foremost. A part of his nose was gone, and one eye entirely so; yet to this man had Owanno determined to wed his beautiful daughter, who looked upon Wahlaga with perfect disgust, and resolved that, sooner than marry him, she would perish in the deep waters of the Kentucky, which lay not many miles away.