Now list to the song of the buffalo hunt,Which I, Pierre, the rhymester, chant of the brave!We areBois-Brulés, Freemen of the plains,We choose our chief! We are no man's slave!Up, riders, up, ere the early mistAscends to salute the rising sun!Up, rangers, up, ere the buffalo herdsSniff morning air for the hunter's gun!They lie in their lairs of dank spear-grass,Down in the gorge, where the prairie dips.We've followed their tracks through the sucking ooze,Where our bronchos sank to their steaming hips.We've followed their tracks from the rolling plainThrough slime-green sloughs to a sedgy ravine,Where the cat-tail spikes of the marsh-grown flagsStand half as high as the billowy green.The spear-grass touched our saddle-bows,The blade-points pricked to the broncho's neck;But we followed the tracks like hounds on scentTill our horses reared with a sudden check.The scouts dart back with a shout, "They are found!"Great fur-maned heads are thrust through reeds,A forest of horns, a crunching of stems,Reined sheer on their haunches are terrified steeds!Get you gone to the squaws at the tents, old men,The cart-lines safely encircle the camp!Now, braves of the plain, brace your saddle-girths!Quick! Load guns, for our horses champ!A tossing of horns, a pawing of hoofs,But the hunters utter never a word,As the stealthy panther creeps on his prey,So move we in silence against the herd.With arrows ready and triggers cocked,We round them nearer the valley bank;They pause in defiance, then start with alarmAt the ominous sound of a gun-barrel's clank.A wave from our captain, out bursts a wild shout,A crash of shots from our breaking ranks,And the herd stampedes with a thunderous boomWhile we drive our spurs into quivering flanks.The arrows hiss like a shower of snakes,The bullets puff in a smoky gust,Out fly loose reins from the bronchos' bitsAnd hunters ride on in a whirl of dust.The bellowing bulls rush blind with fearThrough river and marsh, while the trampled deadSoon bridge safe ford for the plunging herd;Earth rocks like a sea 'neath the mighty tread.A rip of the sharp-curved sickle-horns,A hunter falls to the blood-soaked ground!He is gored and tossed and trampled down,On dashes the furious beast with a bound,When over sky-line hulks the last great formAnd the rumbling thunder of their hoofs' beat, beat,Dies like an echo in distant hills,Back ride the hunters chanting their feat.Now, old men and squaws, come you out with the carts!There's meat against hunger and fur against cold!Gather full store for the pemmican bags,Garner the booty of warriors bold.So list ye the song of theBois-Brulés,Of their glorious deeds in the days of old,And this is the tale of the buffalo huntWhich I, Pierre, the rhymester, have proudly told.
Now list to the song of the buffalo hunt,Which I, Pierre, the rhymester, chant of the brave!We areBois-Brulés, Freemen of the plains,We choose our chief! We are no man's slave!
Up, riders, up, ere the early mistAscends to salute the rising sun!Up, rangers, up, ere the buffalo herdsSniff morning air for the hunter's gun!
They lie in their lairs of dank spear-grass,Down in the gorge, where the prairie dips.We've followed their tracks through the sucking ooze,Where our bronchos sank to their steaming hips.
We've followed their tracks from the rolling plainThrough slime-green sloughs to a sedgy ravine,Where the cat-tail spikes of the marsh-grown flagsStand half as high as the billowy green.
The spear-grass touched our saddle-bows,The blade-points pricked to the broncho's neck;But we followed the tracks like hounds on scentTill our horses reared with a sudden check.
The scouts dart back with a shout, "They are found!"Great fur-maned heads are thrust through reeds,A forest of horns, a crunching of stems,Reined sheer on their haunches are terrified steeds!
Get you gone to the squaws at the tents, old men,The cart-lines safely encircle the camp!Now, braves of the plain, brace your saddle-girths!Quick! Load guns, for our horses champ!
A tossing of horns, a pawing of hoofs,But the hunters utter never a word,As the stealthy panther creeps on his prey,So move we in silence against the herd.
With arrows ready and triggers cocked,We round them nearer the valley bank;They pause in defiance, then start with alarmAt the ominous sound of a gun-barrel's clank.
A wave from our captain, out bursts a wild shout,A crash of shots from our breaking ranks,And the herd stampedes with a thunderous boomWhile we drive our spurs into quivering flanks.
The arrows hiss like a shower of snakes,The bullets puff in a smoky gust,Out fly loose reins from the bronchos' bitsAnd hunters ride on in a whirl of dust.
The bellowing bulls rush blind with fearThrough river and marsh, while the trampled deadSoon bridge safe ford for the plunging herd;Earth rocks like a sea 'neath the mighty tread.
A rip of the sharp-curved sickle-horns,A hunter falls to the blood-soaked ground!He is gored and tossed and trampled down,On dashes the furious beast with a bound,
When over sky-line hulks the last great formAnd the rumbling thunder of their hoofs' beat, beat,Dies like an echo in distant hills,Back ride the hunters chanting their feat.
Now, old men and squaws, come you out with the carts!There's meat against hunger and fur against cold!Gather full store for the pemmican bags,Garner the booty of warriors bold.
So list ye the song of theBois-Brulés,Of their glorious deeds in the days of old,And this is the tale of the buffalo huntWhich I, Pierre, the rhymester, have proudly told.
A more desolate existence than the life of a fur-trading winterer in the far north can scarcely be imagined. Penned in some miserable lodge a thousand miles from human companionship, only the wild orgies of the savages varied the monotony of dull days and long nights. The winter I spent with the Mandanes was my first in the north. I had not yet learned to take events as the rock takes wave-blows, and was still at that mawkish age when a man is easily filled with profound pity for himself. A month after our arrival, Father Holland left the Mandane village. Eric Hamilton had not yet come; so I felt much like the man whom a gloomy poet describes as earth's last habitant. I had accompanied the priest half-way to the river forks. Here, he was to get passage in an Indian canoe to the tribes of the upper Missouri. After an affectionate farewell, I stood on a knoll of treeless land and watched the broad-brimmed hat and black robe receding from me.
"Good-by, boy! God bless you!" he had said in broken voice. "Don't fall to brooding when you're alone, or you'll lose your wits. Now mind yourself! Don't mope!"
For my part, I could not answer a word, but keeping hold of his hand walked on with him a pace.
"Get away with you! Go home, youngster!" he ordered, roughly shaking me off and flourishing his staff.
Then he strode swiftly forward without once looking back, while I would have given all I possessed for one last wave. As he plunged into the sombre forest, where the early autumn frost of that north land had already tinged the maple woods with the hectic flush of coming death, so poignant was this last wresting from human fellowship, I could scarcely resist the impulse to desert my station and follow him. Poorer than the poorest of the tribes to whom he ministered, alone and armed only with his faith, this man was ready to conquer the world for his Master. "Would that I had half the courage for my quest," I mused, and walked slowly back to the solitary lodge.
Black Cat, Chief of the Mandane village, in a noisy harangue, adopted me as his son and his brother and his father and his mother and I know not what; but apart from trade with his people, I responded coldly to these warm overtures. From Father Holland's leave-taking to Hamilton's coming, was a desolately lonesome interval. Daily I went to the north hill and strained my eyes for figures against the horizon. Sometimes horsemen would gradually loom into view, head first, then arms and horse, like the peak of a ship preceding appearance of full canvasand hull over sea. Thereupon I would hurriedly saddle my own horse and ride furiously forward, feeling confident that Hamilton had at last come, only to find the horsemen some company of Indian riders. What could be keeping him? I conjectured a thousand possibilities; but in truth there was no need for any conjectures. 'Twas I, who felt the days drag like years. Hamilton was not behind his appointed time. He came at last, walking in on me one night when I least expected him and was sitting moodily before my untouched supper. He had nothing to tell except that he had wasted many weeks following false clues, till our buffalo hunters returned with news of the Sioux attack, Diable's escape and our bootless pursuit. At once he had left Fort Douglas for the Missouri, pausing often to send scouts scouring the country for news of Diable's band; but not a trace of the rascals had been found; and his search seemed on the whole more barren of results than mine. Laplante, he reported, had never been seen the night after he left the council hall to find the young Nor'-Wester. In my own mind, I had no doubt the villain had been in that company we pursued through the prairie fire. Altogether, I think Hamilton's coming made matters worse rather than better. That I had failed after so nearly effecting a rescue seemed to embitter him unspeakably.
Out of deference to the rival companies employing us, we occupied different lodges. Indeed,I fear poor Eric did but a sorry business for the Hudson's Bay that winter. I verily believe he would have forgotten to eat, let alone barter for furs, had I not been there to lug him forcibly across to my lodge, where meals were prepared for us both. Often when I saw the Indian trappers gathering before his door with piles of peltries, I would go across and help him to value the furs. At first the Indian rogues were inclined to take advantage of his abstraction and palm off one miserable beaver skin, where they should have given five for a new hatchet; and I began to understand why they crowded to his lodge, though he did nothing to attract them, while they avoided mine. Then I took a hand in Hudson's Bay trade and equalized values. First, I would pick over the whole pile, which the Indians had thrown on the floor, putting spoiled skins to one side, and peltries of the same kind in classified heaps.
"Lynx, buffalo, musk-ox, marten, beaver, silver fox, black bear, raccoon! Want them all, Eric?" I would ask, while the Indians eyed me with suspicious resentment.
"Certainly, certainly, take everything," Eric would answer, without knowing a word of what I had said, and at once throwing away his opportunity to drive a good bargain.
Picking over the goods of Hamilton's packet, the Mandanes would choose what they wanted. Then began a strange, silent haggling over prices. Unlike Oriental races, the Indian maintains stolidsilence, compelling the white man to do the talking.
"Eric, Running Deer wants a gun," I would begin.
"For goodness' sake, give it to him, and don't bother me," Eric would urge, and the faintest gleam of amused triumph would shoot from the beady eyes of Running Deer. Running Deer's peltries would be spread out, and after a half hour of silent consideration on his part and trader's talk on mine, furs to the value of so many beaver skins would be passed across for the coveted gun. I remember it was a wretched old squaw with a toothless, leathery, much-bewrinkled face and a reputation for knowledge of Indian medicines, who first opened my eyes to the sort of trade the Indians had been driving with Hamilton. The old creature was bent almost double over her stout oak staff and came hobbling in with a bag of roots, which she flung on the floor. After thawing out her frozen moccasins before the lodge fire and taking off bandages of skins about her ankles, she turned to us for trade. We were ready to make concessions that might induce the old body to hurry away; but she demanded red flannel, tea and tobacco enough to supply a whole family of grandchildren, and sat down on the bag of roots prepared to out-siege us.
"What's this, Eric?" I asked, knowing no more of roots than the old woman did of values.
"Seneca for drugs. For goodness' sake, buy it quick and don't haggle."
"But she wants your whole kit, man," I objected.
"She'll have the whole kit and the shanty, too, if you don't get her out," said Hamilton, opening the lodge door; and the old squaw presently limped off with an armful of flannel, one tea packet and a parcel of tobacco, already torn open. Such was the character of Hamilton's bartering up to the time I elected myself his first lieutenant; but as his abstractions became almost trance-like, I think the superstition of the Indians was touched. To them, a maniac is a messenger of the Great Spirit; and Hamilton's strange ways must have impressed them, for they no longer put exorbitant values on their peltries.
After the day's trading Eric would come to my hut. Pacing the cramped place for hours, wild-eyed and silent, he would abruptly dash into the darkness of the night like one on the verge of madness. Thereupon, the taciturn, grave-faced La Robe Noire, tapping his forehead significantly, would look with meaning towards Little Fellow; and I would slip out some distance behind to see that Hamilton did himself no harm while the paroxysm lasted. So absorbed was he in his own gloom, for days he would not utter a syllable. The storm that had gathered would then discharge its strength in an outburst of incoherent ravings, which usually ended in Hamilton's illness and my watching over him night and day, keeping firearms out of reach. I have never seen—and hope I never may—any other being age so swiftly andperceptibly. I had attributed his worn appearance in Fort Douglas to the cannon accident and trusted the natural robustness of his constitution would throw off the apparent languor; but as autumn wore into winter, there were more gray hairs on his temple, deeper lines furrowed his face and the erect shoulders began to bow.
When days slipped into weeks and weeks into months without the slightest inkling of Miriam's whereabouts to set at rest the fear that my rash pursuit had caused her death, I myself grew utterly despondent. Like all who embark on daring ventures, I had not counted on continuous frustration. The idea that I might waste a lifetime in the wilderness without accomplishing anything had never entered my mind. Week after week, the scouts dispatched in every direction came back without one word of the fugitives, and I began to imagine my association with Hamilton had been unfortunate for us both. This added to despair the bitterness of regret.
The winter was unusually mild, and less game came to the Missouri from the mountains and bad lands than in severe seasons. By February, we were on short rations. Two meals a day, with cat-fish for meat and dried skins in soup by way of variety, made up our regular fare for mid-winter. The frequent absence of my two Indians, scouring the region for the Sioux, left me to do my own fishing; and fishing with bare hands in frosty weather is not pleasant employment for a youth of soft up-bringing. Protracted bachelordomwas also losing its charms; but that may have resulted from a new influence, which came into my life and seemed ever present.
At Christmas, Hamilton was threatened with violent insanity. As the Mandanes' provisions dwindled, the Indians grew surlier toward us; and I was as deep in despondency as a man could sink. Frequently, I wondered whether Father Holland would find us alive in the spring, and I sometimes feared ours would be the fate of Athabasca traders whose bodies satisfied the hunger of famishing Crees.
How often in those darkest hours did a presence, which defied time and space, come silently to me, breathing inspiration that may not be spoken, healing the madness of despair and leaving to me in the midst of anxiety a peace which was wholly unaccountable! In the lambent flame of the rough stone fireplace, in the darkness between Hamilton's hut and mine, through which I often stole, dreading what I might find—everywhere, I felt and saw, or seemed to see, those gray eyes with the look of a startled soul opening its virgin beauty and revealing its inmost secrets.
A bleak, howling wind, with great piles of storm-scud overhead, raved all the day before Christmas. It was one of those afternoons when the sombre atmosphere seems weighted with gloom and weariness. On Christmas eve Hamilton's brooding brought on acute delirium. He had been more depressed than usual, and at night when we sat down to a cheerless supper of hare-skinsoup and pemmican, he began to talk very fast and quite irrationally.
"See here, old boy," said I, "you'd better bunk here to-night. You're not well."
"Bunk!" said he icily, in the grand manner he sometimes assumed at the Quebec Club for the benefit of a too familiar member. "And pray, Sir, what might 'bunk' mean?"
"Go to bed, Eric," I coaxed, getting tight hold of his hands. "You're not well, old man; come to bed!"
"Bed!" he exclaimed with indignation. "Bed! You're a madman, Sir! I'm to meet Miriam on the St. Foye road." (It was here that Miriam lived in Quebec, before they were married.) "On the St. Foye road! See the lights glitter, dearest, in Lower Town," and he laughed aloud. Then followed such an outpouring of wild ravings I wept from very pity and helplessness.
"Rufus! Rufus, lad!" he cried, staring at me and clutching at his forehead as lucid intervals broke the current of his madness. "Gillespie, man, what's wrong? I don't seem able to think. Who—are—you? Who—in the world—are you? Gillespie! O Gillespie! I'm going mad! Am I going mad? Help me, Rufus! Why can't you help me? It's coming after me! See it! The hideous thing!" Tears started from his burning eyes and his brow was knotted hard as whipcord.
"Look! It's there!" he screamed, pointing to the fire, and he darted to the door, where I caught him. He fought off my grasp with maniacalstrength, and succeeded in flinging open the door. Then I forgot this man was more than brother to me, and threw myself upon him as against an enemy, determined to have the mastery. The bleak wind roared through the open blackness of the doorway, and on the ground outside were shadows of two struggling, furious men. I saw the terrified faces of Little Fellow and La Robe Noire peering through the dark, and felt wet beads start from every pore in my body. Both of us were panting like fagged racers. One of us was fighting blindly, raining down aimless blows, I know not which, but I think it must have been Hamilton, for he presently sank in my arms, limp and helpless as a sick child.
Somehow I got him between the robes of my floor mattress. Drawing a box to the bedside I again took his hands between mine and prepared for a night's watch.
He raved in a low, indistinct tone, muttering Miriam's name again and again, and tossing his head restlessly from side to side. Then he fell into a troubled sleep. The supper lay untouched. Torches had burned black out. One tallow candle, that I had extravagantly put among some evergreens—our poor decorations for Christmas Eve—sputtered low and threw ghostly, branching shadows across the lodge. I slipped from the sick man's side, heaped more logs on the fire and stretched out between robes before the hearth. In the play of the flame Hamilton's face seemed suddenly and strangely calm. Was it the dimlight, I wonder. The furrowed lines of sorrow seemed to fade, leaving the peaceful, transparent purity of the dead. I could not but associate the branched shadows on the wall with legends of death keeping guard over the dying. The shadow by his pillow gradually assumed vague, awesome shape. I sat up and rubbed my eyes. Was this an illusion, or was I, too, going mad? The filmy thing distinctly wavered and receded a little into the dark.
An unspeakable fear chilled my veins. Then I could have laughed defiance and challenged death. Death! Curse death! What had we to fear from dying? Had we not more to fear from living? At that came thought of my love and the tumult against life was quieted. I, too, like other mortals, had reason, the best of reason, to fear death. What matter if a lonely one like myself went out alone to the great dark? But when thought of my love came, a desolating sense of separation—separation not to be bridged by love or reason—overwhelmed me, and I, too, shrank back.
Again I peered forward. The shadow fluttered, moved, and came out of the gloom, a tender presence with massy, golden hair, white-veined brow, and gray eyes, speaking unutterable things.
"My beloved!" I cried. "Oh, my beloved!" and I sprang towards her; but she had glided back among the spectral branches.
The candle tumbled to the floor, extinguishing all light, and I was alone with the sick manbreathing heavily in the darkness. A log broke over the fire. The flames burst up again; but I was still alone. Had I, too, lost grip of reality; or was she in distress calling for me? Neither suggestion satisfied; for the mean lodge was suddenly filled with a great calm, and my whole being was flooded and thrilled with the trancing ecstasy of an ethereal presence.
If I remember rightly—and to be perfectly frank, I do—though I was in as desperate straits as a man could be, I lay before the hearth that Christmas Eve filled with gratitude to heaven—God knows such a gift must have come from heaven!—for the love with which I had been dowered.
How it might have been with other men I know not. For myself, I could not have come through that dreary winter unscathed without the influence of her, who would have been the first to disclaim such power. Among the velvet cushions of the east one may criticise the lapse of white man to barbarity; but in the wilderness human voice is as grateful to the ear as rain patter in a drouth. There, men deal with facts, not arguments. Natives break the loneliness of an isolated life by not unwelcomed visits. Comes a time when they tarry over long in the white man's lodge. Other men, who have scouted the possibility of sinking to savagery, have forsaken the ways of their youth. Who can say that I might not have departed from the path called rectitude?
Religion may keep a holy man upright in slippery places; but for common mortals, devotion to a being, whom, in one period of their worship men rank with angels, does much to steady wavering feet. Hers was the influence that aroused loathing for the drunken debauches, the cheating, the depraved living of the Indian lodges: hers, the influence that kept the loathing from slipping into indifference, the indifference from becoming participation. Indeed, I could wish a young man no better talisman against the world, the flesh and the devil, than love for a pure woman.
How we dragged through the hours of that night, of Christmas and the days that followed, I do not attempt to set down here. Hamilton's illness lasted a month. What with trading and keeping our scouts on the search for Miriam and waiting on the sick man, I had enough to busy me without brooding over my own woes. Hard as my life was, it was fortunate I had no time for thoughts of self and so escaped the melancholy apathy that so often benumbs the lonely man's activities. And when Eric became convalescent, I had enough to do finding diversion for his mind. Keeping record of our doings on birch-bark sheets, playing quoits with the Mandanes and polo with a few fearless riders, helped to pass the long weary days.
So the dismal winter wore away and spring was drizzling into summer. Within a few weeks we should be turning our faces northward for theforks of the Red and Assiniboine. The prospect of movement after long stagnation cheered Hamilton and fanned what neither of us would acknowledge—a faint hope that Miriam might yet be alive in the north. I verily believe Eric would have started northward with restored courage had not our plans been thwarted by the sinister handiwork of Le Grand Diable.
For a week Hamilton and I had been busy in our respective lodges getting peltries and personal belongings into shape for return to Red River. On Saturday night, at least I counted it Saturday from the notches on my doorpost, though Eric, grown morose and contradictory, maintained that it was Sunday—we sat talking before the fire of my lodge. A dreary raindrip pattered through the leaky roof and the soaked parchment tacked across the window opening flapped monotonously against the pine logs.
Unfastening the moon-shaped medallion, which my uncle had given me, I slowly spelled out the Nor'-Westers' motto—"Fortitude in Distress."
"For-ti-tude in Dis-tress," I repeated idly. "By Jove, Hamilton, we need it, don't we?"
Eric's lips curled in scorn. Without answering, he impatiently kicked a fallen brand back to the live coals. I know old saws are poor comfort to people in distress, being chiefly applicable when they are not needed.
"What in the world can be keeping Father Holland?" I asked, leading off on another tack."Here we are almost into the summer, and never a sight of him."
"Did you really expect him back alive from the Bloods?" sneered Hamilton. He had unconsciously acquired a habit of expecting the worst.
"Certainly," I returned. "He's been among them before."
"Then all I have to say is, you're a fool!"
Poor Eric! He had informed me I was a fool so often in his ravings I had grown quite used to the insult. He glared savagely at the fire, and if I had not understood this bitterness towards the missionary, the next remark was of a nature to enlighten me.
"I don't see why any man in his senses wants to save the soul of an Indian," he broke out. "Let them go where they belong! Souls! They haven't any souls, or if they have, it's the soul of a fiend——"
"By the bye, Eric," I interrupted, for this petulant ill-humor, that saw naught but evil in everything, was becoming too frequent and always ended in the same way—a night of semi-delirium, "by the bye, did you see those fellows turning up soil for corn with a buffalo shoulder-blade as a hoe?"
"I wish every damn Red a thousand feet under the soil, deeper than that, if the temperature increases."
It was impossible to talk to Hamilton without provoking a quarrel. Leaning back with hands clasped behind my head, I watched throughhalf-closed eyes his sad face darkling under stormy moods.
At last the rain succeeded in soaking through the parchment across the window and the wind drove through a great split in chilling gusts that added to the cabin's discomfort. I got up and jammed an old hat into the hole. At the window I heard the shouting of Indians having a hilarious night among the lodges and was amazed at the sound of discharging firearms above the huzzas, for ammunition was scarce among the Mandanes. The hubbub seemed to be coming towards our hut. I could see nothing through the window slit, and lighting a pine fagot, shot back the latch-bolt and threw open the door. A multitude of tawny, joyous, upturned faces thronged to the steps. The crowd was surging about some newcomer, and Chief Black Cat was prancing around in an ecstasy of delight, firing away all his gunpowder in joyous demonstration. I lifted my torch. The Indians fell back and forth strode Father Holland, his face shining wet and abeam with pleasure. The Indians had been welcoming "their good white father." As he dismissed his Mandane children we drew him in and placed his soaked over-garments before the fire. Then we proffered him all the delicacies of bachelors' quarters, and filled and refilled his bowl with soup, and did not stop pouring out our lye-black tea till he had drained the dregs of it.
Having satisfied his inner-man, we gave him the best stump-tree seat in the cabin and sat back tolisten. There was the awkward pause of reunion, when friends have not had time to gather up the loose threads of a parted past and weave them anew into stronger bands of comradeship. Hamilton and the priest were strangers; but if the latter were as overcome by the meeting after half a year's isolation as I was, the silence was not surprising. To me it seemed the genial face was unusually grave, and I noticed a long, horizontal scar across his forehead.
"What's that, Father?" I asked, indicating the mark on his brow.
"Tush, youngster! Nothing! Nothing at all! Sampled scalping-knife on me; thought better of it, kept me out of the martyr's crown."
"And left you your own!" cried Hamilton astonished at the priest's careless stoicism.
"Left me my own," responded Father Holland.
"Do you mean to say the murderous——" I began.
"Tush, youngster! Be quiet!" said he. "Haven't many brethren come from the same tribe more like warped branches than men? What am I, that I should escape? Never speak of it again," and he continued his silent study of the flames' play.
"Where are your Indians?" he asked abruptly.
"In the lodges. Shall I whistle for them?"
He did not answer, but leaned forward with elbows on his knees, rubbing his chin vigorously first with one hand, then the other, still studying the fire.
"How strong are the Mandanes?" he asked.
"Weak, weak," I answered. "Few hundred. It hasn't been worth while for traders to come here for years."
"Was it worth while this year?"
"Not for trade."
"For anything else?" and he looked at Eric's dejected face.
"Nothing else," I put in hastily, fearing one of Hamilton's outbreaks. "We've been completely off the track, might better have stayed in the north——"
"No, you mightn't, not by any means," was his sharp retort. "I've been in the Sioux lodges for three weeks."
With an inarticulate cry, Hamilton sprang to his feet. He was trembling from head to foot and caught Father Holland roughly by the shoulder.
"Speak out, Sir! What of Miriam?" he demanded in dry, hard, rasping tones.
"Well, well, safe and inviolate. So's the boy, a big boy now! May ye have them both in y'r arms soon—soon—soon!" and again he fell to studying the fire with an unhurried deliberation, that was torture to Hamilton.
"Are they with you? Are they with you?" shouted Hamilton, hope bounding up elastically to the wildest heights after his long depression. "Don't keep me in suspense! I cannot bear it. Tell me where they are," he pleaded. "Are they with you?" and his eyes burned into the priest's like live coals. "Are—they—with—you?"
"No—Lord—no!" roared Father Holland, alarmed at Hamilton's violent condition. "But," he added, seeing Eric reel dizzily, "but they're all right! Now you keep quiet and don't scare the wits out of a body! They're all right, I tell you, and I've come straight from them for the ransom price."
"Get it, Rufus, get it!" shouted Hamilton to me, throwing his hands distractedly to his head, a habit too common with him of late. "Get it! Get it!" he kept calling, utterly beside himself.
"Sit down, will you?" thundered the priest, as if Eric's sitting down would calm all agitation. "Sit down! Behave! Keep quiet, both of you, or my tongue'll forget holy orders and give ye some good Irish eloquence! What d' y' mane, scarin' the breath out of a body and blowing his ideas to limbo? Keep quiet, now, and listen!"
"And did they," I cried, in spite of the injunction, "did they do that to you?" pointing to the scar on his brow.
"Yes, they did."
"Because they saw you with me?"
"No, that's a brand for the faith, you conceited whelp, you—they stopped their tortures because they saw you with me. Now, swell out, Rufus, and gloat over your importance! I tell you it was the devil, himself, snatched my martyr's crown."
"Le Grand Diable?"
"Le Grand Diable's own minion. I saw his devilish eyes leering from the back o' the crowd, whenI was tied to a stake. 'Bring that Indian to me,' sez I, transfixing him with my gaze; for—you understand—I couldn't point, my hands being tied. Troth! But ye should 'a' seen their looks of amazement at me boldness! There was I, roped to that tree, like a pig for the boiling pot, and sez I, 'Bring—that Indian—to me!' just as though I was managing the execution," and the priest paused to enjoy the recollection of the effects of his boldness.
"A squaw up with an old clout," he continued, "and slashed it across my face, saying, 'Take that, pale face! Take that, man with a woman's skirts on!' and 'Take that!' howled a young buck, fetching the flat of his dagger across me forehead, close-cropped hair giving no grip for scalping, not to mention a pate as bald as mine," and the priest roared at his own joke, patting his bare crown affectionately.
"Though the blood was boilin' in me enraged veins and dribblin' down my face like the rain to-night, by the help o' the Lord, I felt no pain. Never flinchin' nor takin' heed o' that bold baste of a squaw, I bawled like a bull of Bashan, 'Bring—that Indian—to me, coward-hearted Sioux—d' y' fear an Iroquois? Bring him to me and I'll make him enrich your tribe!'
"Faith! Their eyes grew big as a harvest moon and they brought Le Grand Diable to me. Knowing his covetous heart, I told him if he still had the woman and the child, I'd get him a big ransom. At that they all jangled a bit, the old squawclouting me with her filthy rag as if she wanted to slap me to a peak. At length they let Le Grand Diable unfasten the bands. With my hands tied behind my back, I was taken to his lodge. Miriam and the boy were kept in a place behind the Sioux squaw's hut. Once when the skin tied between blew up, I caught a glimpse of her poor white face. The boy was playing round her feet. I was in a corner of the lodge but was so grimed with grease and dirt, if she saw me she thought I was some Indian captive and turned away her head. I told Le Grand Diable inhabitantFrench—which the rascal understands—that I could obtain a good ransom for his prisoners. He left me alone in the lodge for some hours, I think to spy upon me and learn if I tried to speak to Miriam; but I lay still as a log and pretended to sleep. When he came back, he began bartering for the price; but I could make him no promises as to the amount or time of payment, for I was not sure you were here, and would not have him know where you are.
"He kept me hanging on for his answer during the whole week, and many a time Miriam brushed past so close her skirts touched me; but that she-male devil of his—may the Lord give them both a warm, front seat!—was always watching and I could not speak. Miriam's face was hidden under her shawl and she looked neither to the right, nor to the left. I don't think she ever saw me. On condition you stay in your camp and don't go to meet her, but send your two Indians alone for herwith your offer, he let me go. Here I am! Now, Rufus, where are your men? Off with them bearing more gifts than the Queen of Sheba carried to Solomon!"
From the hour that La Robe Noire and Little Fellow, laden with gaudy trinkets and hunting outfits, departed for the Sioux lodges, Hamilton was positively a madman. In the first place, he had been determined to disguise himself as an Indian and go instead of La Robe Noire, whose figure he resembled. To this, we would not listen. Le Grand Diable was not the man to be tricked and there was no sense in ransoming Miriam for a captive husband. Then, he persisted in riding part of the way with our messengers, which necessitated my doing likewise. I had to snatch his horse's bridle, wheel both our horses round and head homeward at a gallop, before he would listen to reason and come back.
Round the lodges he was a ramping tiger. Twenty times a day he went from our hut to the height of land commanding the north country, keeping me on the run at his heels; and all night he beat around the cramped shack as if it had been a cage. On the fourth day from the messengers' departure, chains could not bind him. If all went well, they should be with us at night. In defiance of Le Grand Diable's conditions, which an arrow from an unseen marksman might enforce, Eric saddled his mare and rode out to meet the men.
Of course Father Holland and I peltered after him; but it was only because gathering darkness prevented travel that we prevailed on him to dismount and await the Indians' coming at the edge of the village.
At last came the clank, clank of shod hoofs in the valley. The natives used only unshod animals, so we recognized our men. Hamilton darted away like a hare racing for cover.
"The Lord have mercy upon us!" groaned Father Holland. "Listen, lad! There's only one horse!"
I threw myself to the earth and laying my ear to the turf strained for every sound. The thud, thud of a single horse, fore and hind feet striking the beaten trail in quick gallop, came distinctly up from the valley.
"It may not be our men," said I, with sickening forebodings tugging at throat and heart.
"I mistrusted them! I mistrusted the villains!" repeated the priest. "If only you had enough Mandanes to ride down on them, but you're too weak. There are at least two thousand Sioux."
Hamilton and Little Fellow, talking loudly and gesticulating, rode crashing through the furze.
"I knew it! I knew it!" shouted Hamilton fiercely, "One of us should have gone."
"What's wrong?" came from Father Holland in a voice so low and unnaturally calm, I knew he feared the worst.
"Wrong!" yelled Hamilton, "They hold LaRobe Noire as hostage and demand five hundred pounds of ammunition, twenty guns and ten horses. Of course, I should have gone——"
"And would it have mended matters if you'd been held hostage too?" I demanded, utterly out of patience and at that stage when a little strain makes a man strike his best friends. "You know very well, the men were only sent to make an offer. You'd no right to expect everything on one trip without any bargaining——"
"Shut up, boy!" exclaimed Father Holland. "Just when ye both need all y'r wits, y'r scattering them to the four winds. Now, mind yourselves! I don't like these terms! 'Tis the devil's own doing! Let's talk this over!"
With a vast deal of the wordy eloquence that characterizes Indian diplomacy, the tenor of Le Grand Diable's message was "His shot pouch was light and his pipe cold; he hung down his head and the pipe of peace had not been in the council; the Sioux were strangers and the whites were their enemies; the pale-faces had been in their power and they had always conveyed them on their journey with glad hearts and something to eat." Finally, the Master of Life, likewise Earth, Air, Water, and Fire were called on to witness that if the white men delivered five hundred rounds of ammunition, twenty guns and ten horses, the white woman and her child, likewise the two messengers, would be sent safely back to the Mandane lodge; none but these two messengers would be permitted in the Sioux camp; also,the Sioux would not answer for the lives of the white men if they left the Mandane lodges. Let the white men, therefore, send back the full ransom by the hands of the same messenger.
Father Holland advised caution and consideration before acting. A policy of bargaining was his counsel.
"I don't like those terms, at all," he said, "too much like giving your weapons to the enemy. I don't like all this."
He would temporize and rely on Le Grand Diable's covetous disposition bringing him to our terms; but Hamilton would hear of neither caution nor delay.
The ransom price was at once collected. Next morning, Little Fellow, on a fresh mount with a string of laden horses on each side, went post haste back to the Sioux.
In all conscience, Hamilton had been wild enough during the first parley. His excitement now exceeded all bounds. The first two days, when there was no possibility of Miriam's coming and Little Fellow could not yet have reached the Sioux, I tore after Eric so often I lost count of the races between our lodge and the north hill. The performance began again on the third day, and I broke out with a piece of my mind, which surprised him mightily.
"Look you here, Hamilton!" I exclaimed, rounding him back from the hill, "Can't you stop this nonsense and sit still for only two days more, or must I tie you up? You've tried to put me crazy all winter and, by Jove, if you don't stop this, you'll finish the job——"
He gazed at me with the dumb look of a wounded animal and was too amazed for words. Leaving me in mid-road, feeling myself a brute, he went straight to his own hut. After that incident, he gave us no further anxiety and kept an iron grip on his impatience. With me, anger had given place to contrition. He remained much by himself until the night, when our messengers were expected. Then he came across to my quarters, where Father Holland and I were keyed up to the highest pitch. Putting out his hand he said—
"Is it all right with us again, Rufus, old man?"
That speech nigh snapped the strained cords.
"Of course," said I, gripping the extended hand, and I immediately coughed hard, to explain away the undue moisture welling into my eyes.
We all three sat as still and silent as a death-watch, Father Holland fumbling and pretending to pore over some holy volume, Eric with fingers tightly interlaced and upper teeth biting through lower lip, and I with clenched fists dug into jacket pockets and a thousand imaginary sounds singing wild tunes in my ears.
How the seconds crawled, and the minutes barely moved, and the hours seemed to heap up in a blockade and crush us with their leadenweight! Twice I sought relief for pent emotion by piling wood on the fire, though the night was mild, and by breaking the glowing embers into a shower of sparks. The soft, moccasined tread of Mandanes past our door startled Father Holland so that his book fell to the floor, while I shook like a leaf. Strange to say, Hamilton would not allow himself the luxury of a single movement, though the lowered brows tightened and teeth cut deeper into the under lip.
Dogs set up a barking at the other end of the village—a common enough occurrence where half-starved curs roved in packs—but I could not refrain from lounging with a show of indifference to the doorway, where I peered through the moon-silvered dusk. As usual, the Indians with shrill cry flew at the dogs to silence them. The noise seemed to be annoying my companions and was certainly unnerving me, so I shut the door and walked back to the fire.
The howl of dogs and squaws increased. I heard the angry undertone of men's voices. A hoarse roar broke from the Mandane lodges and rolled through the village like the sweep of coming hurricane. There was a fleet rush, a swift pattering of something pursued running round the rear of our lodge, with a shrieking mob of men and squaws after it. The dogs were barking furiously and snapping at the heels of the thing, whatever it was.
"A hostile!" exclaimed Hamilton, leaping up.
Hardly knowing what I did, I bounded towardsthe door and shot forward the bolt, with a vague fear that blood might be spilled on our threshold.
"For shame, man!" cried Father Holland, making to undo the latch.
But the words had not passed his lips when the parchment flap of the window lifted. A voice screamed through the opening and in hurtled a round, nameless, blood-soaked horror, rolling over and over in a red trail, till it stopped with upturned, dead, glaring eyes and hideous, gaping mouth, at the very feet of Hamilton.
It was the scalpless head of La Robe Noire. Our Indian had paid the price of his own blood-lust and Diable's enmity.
Before the full enormity of the treachery—messengers murdered and mutilated, ransom stolen and captives kept—had dawned on me, Father Holland had broken open the door. He was rushing through the night screaming for the Mandanes to catch the miscreant Sioux. When I turned back, not daring to look at that awful object, Hamilton had fallen to the hut floor in a dead faint.
And now may I be spared recalling what occurred on that terrible night!
Women luxuriate and men traffic in the wealth of the great west, but how many give one languid thought to the years of bloody deeds by which the west was won?
Before restoring Hamilton, it was necessary toremove that which was unseemly; also to wash out certain stains on the hearth-stones; and those things would have tried the courage of more iron-nerved men than myself.
I should not have been surprised if Eric had come out of that faint, a gibbering maniac; but I toiled over him with the courage of blank hopelessness, pumping his arms up and down, forcing liquor between the clenched teeth, splashing the cold, clammy face with water, and laving his forehead. At last he opened his eyes wearily. Like a man ill at ease with life, moaning, he turned his face to the wall.
Outside, it was as if the unleashed furies of hell fought to quench their thirst in human blood. The clamor of those red demons was in my ears and I was still working over Hamilton, loosening his jacket collar, under-pillowing his chest, fanning him, and doing everything else I could think of, to ease his labored breathing, when Father Holland burst into the lodge, utterly unmanned and sobbing like a child.
"For the Lord's sake, Rufus," he cried, "for the Lord's sake, come and help! They're murdering him! They're murdering him! 'Twas I who set them on him, and I can't stop them! I can't stop them!"
"Let them murder him!" I returned, unconsciously demonstrating that the civilized heart differs only in degree from the barbarian.
"Come, Rufus," he pleaded, "come, for the love of Frances, or your hands will not be clean.There'll be blood on your hands when you go back to her. Come, come!"
Out we rushed through the thronging Mandanes, now riotous with the lust of blood. A ring of young bucks had been formed round the Sioux to keep the crowd off. Naked, with arms pinioned, the victim stood motionless and without fear.
"Good white father, he no understand," said the Mandanes, jostling the weeping priest back from the circle of the young men. "Good white father, he go home!" In spite of protest by word and act they roughly shoved us to our lodge, the doomed man's death chant ringing in our ears as they pushed us inside and clashed our door. In vain we had argued they would incur the vengeance of the Sioux nation. Our voices were drowned in the shout for blood—for blood!
The sigh of the wind brought mournful strains of the victim's dirge to our lodge. I fastened the door, with robes against it to keep the sound out. Then a smell of burning drifted through the window, and I stop-gapped that, too, with more robes.
That the Sioux would wreak swift vengeance could not be doubted. As soon as the murderous work was over, guides were with difficulty engaged. Having fitted up a sort of prop in which I could tie Hamilton to the saddle, I saw both Father Holland and Eric set out for Red River before daybreak.
It was best they should go and I remain. IfMiriam were still in the country, stay I would, till she were safe; but I had no mind to see Eric go mad or die before the rescue could be accomplished.
As they were leaving I took a piece of birch bark. On it I wrote with a charred stick:—