"When the Manitou race is run,Which shall be ere set of sun,All is ended, all well done,And Wahcondah smiling!"
"When the Manitou race is run,Which shall be ere set of sun,All is ended, all well done,And Wahcondah smiling!"
"When the Manitou race is run,
Which shall be ere set of sun,
All is ended, all well done,
And Wahcondah smiling!"
Then, after a momentary pause, the two voices joined and sang, or chanted in cadences weirdly, musically, the following song:
"Manitou Lords of birds and beast,Hark, to the voice that comes from the East!Great Wahcondah calling you forth,Some to South and some to North,Some to meet the rising sun,Some to the setting moon to run,Each to creature he hath in charge;Govern their way, their lives enlarge;Make them less than beastly rude,Teach them more than instinct rude,Lead them on to Manitou-Land,Where Wahcondah's powerful handWaits to give them Manitou-being,Manitou-hearing, Manitou-seeing.Him to know, and knowing, adore,Manitou all forever more.Up and forth to meet the day,Over the hills and far away;Many a race must be begun,Some be finished ere set of sun,All in Manitou fashion run,All in Manitou mercy done,Great Wahcondah wills it!"
"Manitou Lords of birds and beast,Hark, to the voice that comes from the East!Great Wahcondah calling you forth,Some to South and some to North,Some to meet the rising sun,Some to the setting moon to run,Each to creature he hath in charge;Govern their way, their lives enlarge;Make them less than beastly rude,Teach them more than instinct rude,Lead them on to Manitou-Land,Where Wahcondah's powerful handWaits to give them Manitou-being,Manitou-hearing, Manitou-seeing.Him to know, and knowing, adore,Manitou all forever more.Up and forth to meet the day,Over the hills and far away;Many a race must be begun,Some be finished ere set of sun,All in Manitou fashion run,All in Manitou mercy done,Great Wahcondah wills it!"
"Manitou Lords of birds and beast,
Hark, to the voice that comes from the East!
Great Wahcondah calling you forth,
Some to South and some to North,
Some to meet the rising sun,
Some to the setting moon to run,
Each to creature he hath in charge;
Govern their way, their lives enlarge;
Make them less than beastly rude,
Teach them more than instinct rude,
Lead them on to Manitou-Land,
Where Wahcondah's powerful hand
Waits to give them Manitou-being,
Manitou-hearing, Manitou-seeing.
Him to know, and knowing, adore,
Manitou all forever more.
Up and forth to meet the day,
Over the hills and far away;
Many a race must be begun,
Some be finished ere set of sun,
All in Manitou fashion run,
All in Manitou mercy done,
Great Wahcondah wills it!"
The song had hardly begun when Sprigg could hear a huge stir in the cave, as if the call had awakened a multitude of living things from the slumber of the night. The hubbub was neither boisterous nor loud, yet it seemed to come, not only from near at hand, but from far and wide. It was an infinite mingling of confused, indistinct sounds, like the inarticulate murmurs rising from innumerable voices—talking, singing and shouting, intermixed with laughter and with the cries of beasts and birds.
On hearing the commotion around him, the boy had risen to his feet, and now, with strained eyes, was vainly striving to pierce the red mist in which he was enveloped. Before the song was ended, the multitude, from whom the hubbub rose, were evidently in rapid motion, and all in the same direction, sweeping past him so that he felt as if he were standing upon a rock, in the midst of a wide and swiftly flowing river, on whose waters rested an impenetrable fog. Closely intermingled with the voice-like sounds were now to be distinguished a variety of other noises, resembling the sharp, light clattering of cloven hoofs, the muffled pattering of hairy paws, or the wind-like whirring of fluttering wings.
As the song closed, Sprigg felt something placed in his hand, which, becoming visible the moment it came in contact with him, proved to be a coronal of bright green plumes, such as we have seen described in the interview between Jervis Whitney and Nick of the Woods. It was then remarked that his headpiece possessed the magic property of rendering the person who wore it—fairy or human—invisible to mortal eyes. Nor was this all; It had also the power of making the sights and sounds of Fairyland as clearly perceptible to the senses of the mortal who should chance to get it as to the fairies themselves, whether the wee folks were willing or not, he should pry into their mysteries.
This fantastic ornament, the only object visible to him in the red mist—his own hand that held it up to his admiring gaze not excepted—Sprigg thought even more beautiful and desirable than ever were the red moccasins. He was wishing it was his, and debating within himself whether he should venture to put it upon his head, when a voice, which he recognized to be the same he had heard at home and in the woods and on the hill, and now knew to be that of Manitou-Echo, said:
"Am I not a beautiful thing for the head, Sprigg? Yes, beautiful! You can't deny it; nobody can! Put me on your head! What's to hinder? Put me on, and you shall see what we do with wild dreams and wild dreamers, here in Manitou-land."
In a twinkling the vain boy had doffed the coonskin cap and donned the feathers. The magic coronal was hardly adjusted to his head, when suddenly the luminous red mist condensed itself high aloft into a globe of living light, leaving all surrounding objects clearly revealed to sight, as were the crystalline sheen of a June day resting upon them. What Sprigg saw there was, indeed, a cave; but far more the appearance had it of a magnificent temple, so vast and lofty it was; so mazy with multitudinous columns and arches, and so resplendent with the light of that living lamp, which found reflection in a million star-like points, as if wall, floor, ceiling, column and arch were studded with gems of every rich and brilliant hue. The hubbub which he had heard around him, the individual sounds whereof were now more distinct to his ear, Sprigg found to proceed from an innumerable multitude of diminutive people, sweeping by him in a continuous stream, and in the same direction, as if a common impulse or purpose swayed them all.
The manikins, in complexion, cast of features and fashion of dress, resembled Indians, and, though so red and outlandish, were beautiful to behold. For a robe, each wore the skin of some wild animal, which, on the hair side, showed as fresh and sleek as if the quondam owner had just walked out of it; while, on the flesh side, it was as smooth as satin and red as blood. The robe was secured at the throatby a clasp, which seemed to be made of the claws or hoofs of the beast to whom the skin had once, and, perhaps, still belonged. Many wore red moccasins and coronals of green feathers, and here and there in the throng might be seen one who wore the wings of some bird, between which and the skin, forming the robe, there seemed to be some sort of affinity, very suggestive, yet difficult to explain. Though but the miniature of men, these elfin folks were of superhuman activity and strength; and in the aspect of each was something that strangely reminded one of the beast or bird to whom he owed his robe or wings. This latter peculiarity was especially noticeable in the gait, in the play of the limbs and in the shape and glance of the eyes; yet, in the resemblance, nothing was there of deformity or unsightliness, but rather a weird beauty—fantastic, or wild, or savage, or terrible—according to the beast or bird suggested thereby—stalking elk or rolling bison, gloomy bear or rounding panther, jog-trot wolf or gliding wild-cat, nodding jay or fluttering pigeon, swooping hawk or sweeping eagle.
Sprigg had hardly time to note all this, when the weird procession had swept past him, and the last lingerers were now vanishing to the distant shadows of the subterranean temple. Though myriads had departed, many still remained—several of every order—as if, while their fellows were abroad, each fulfilling his special mission, these had somecorresponding office to perform here at home. Somewhat apart from the rest stood a group arrayed in the skins of bears, and among these two who, by their lofty port and commanding gestures, were evidently the king and queen of this strange realm. The aspect of the king was dark and stern; that of the queen fair and mild. The latter, as, indeed, all the other elfin women, wore upon her head, instead of the feathered coronal, a wreath of intense crimson flowers, marvelously beautiful; whence came stealing forth the delectable perfume, which the boy had perceived in the air from the moment Meg of the Hills had made her appearance the night before. As he stood there, surveying them, Sprigg felt in his heart that these were the two whose voices he had heard in such earnest conference relative to his particular case.
The young guest now looked about him for the young bears with whom he had slept, but not only his bedfellows, but the bed itself had vanished. Then he knew that they must be among those who wore the skins of bears, and that, instead of having been littered with cubs, he had shared the couch of princes.
In saying that the magic coronal enabled the mortal who wore it to see the sights and hear the sounds of Fairyland as distinctly as the fairies themselves, a slight mistake was made. Although he could not perceive them, Sprigg had his reasons for suspecting that other boys, beside himself, werethere in that underground world; yes, and men, too. Girls and women—all waiting, like himself, to be "put through," though what that might mean the poor boy could, of course, have little or no conception. Invisible though these fellow mortals were, he could see their shadows cast with marvelous distinctness upon the floor of the temple; and, strange to say, spotted were all these shadows! Some in a sitting posture, some standing, some walking, some gliding swiftly to and fro. Many, after remaining motionless for a time, would, all at once, begin dodging, skipping, flitting about among the columns in the most fantastic manner imaginable; then would they come to a pause, and, after again remaining motionless for a brief space, suddenly vanish.
The large majority of these airy figures were not sufficiently marked for safe conjecture as to the manner of persons to whom they were referrable, but many were too apparent to be mistaken. Some stood, with magisterial dignity, staff in hand. Some, with military stalk, moved slowly to and fro—swords, epaulets, plumes—all distinctly traceable. Here sat one, with the likeness of a kingly crown upon his head; while not far off, incongruous, as it may seem, appeared the picturesque silhouette of an Indian warrior, moving onward with a majestic pace, scalp lock, plumed, bow in hand, quiver on shoulder.
But it was a spectacle stranger still to observe how the elves, or, more properly speaking,"Manitous," were busying themselves about these shadows—now approaching them, now receding from them; sometimes standing beside them, earnestly gesticulating, as if engaged in conversation with the unseen, unheard personages who cast them. While watching these mysterious movements Sprigg became cognizant of another curious circumstance—the very counterpart of the shadow mystery. He perceived that, while those invisible mortals were shadowed forth with such distinctness, the Manitous themselves, with the light thrown full and strong upon them, were as shadowless in that light as air itself. Noting this, he glanced upward to see what manner of light it must be that could shadow forth the unseen, and shadowless leave the seen. How the boy started! Then backward shrank, till abruptly checked by a column, against whose base, as were he an effigy carved upon it, he stood, gazing coweringly upward. That globe of living light was a livingeye! An eye immensely large, of calm and terrible look, which Sprigg felt to be bent directly upon himself, piercing his very soul and laying it open, stripped of all disguise. Though so bright that it illumined the vast temple to its uttermost bounds, that wondrous eye did not blind, nor even dazzle, the sight; for it imparted to the mortal eye, that need must meet it, strength to bear its light and behold the things it would reveal. To have been dazzled into blindness had been far more tolerable thanto endure that terrible scrutiny. So felt the guilty young human thing as, with increasing awe and dread, he perceived that, while the eye was never turned from him, it seemed to be watchfully observant of all that was passing beneath it, however distant the objects, diverse, multitudinous. No secret, then; no guilty deed or thought, could be hidden in that light. The boy started! That lie he had sent back to his mother as he was slinking away from home! Did the eye see that? Aye, and the hundred others he had told, and was showing upon his soul a smutch, a smear, a spot for every one! Back, again, he shrank and hid himself behind the column. The column was far loftier and more massive than those which uphold the dome of mighty St. Peter's, and was hewn out from the eternal granite; yet the light of that terrible eye came gleaming through it, as if it had been of the clearest crystal. He ran to another, then to a third, fourth, fifth—tenth. In vain! Interpose what he might, still was it all as airy transparency between himself and that piercing glance. There are X-rays for the soul, as well as for the body. He turned his back upon it; there it was still! Look where he would—in the depths above—and the eye was ever before him, its calm and terrible look unchanged. Yet it did not seem to follow him. It was simplythere! Everywhere!
The self-convicted young offender was still dodging and flitting about among the columns, when thevoice of the Manitou king—the first sound he had heard since the procession had vanished—came to his ears, with the somewhat startling words:
"Manitou-Echo and Will-o'-the-Wisp, come, conjure up, now, the red moccasins' dream! By this time our light has purged the young dreamer's eyes sufficiently clear of the red mist for him to see what stuff his dream is made of, and to what it is tending."
Whereupon a bareheaded elf, extremely fantastic in appearance, yet beautiful, too, and recognized at once by his voice, Manitou-Echo came flitting up to Sprigg, and, with a bland smile and light wave of the hand, thus addressed him:
"Sprigg, how are you this morning? Fresh and spry? Glad to hear it. Our brave Sprigg ran a fine race yesterday—splendid! Everybody said so! You shall run another to-day, if you much desire it. You have just been playing at hide and seek, I see. A nice little game all to yourself. That's merry; that's brave! Everybody plays at hide and seek who comes to our house, and we like to see it; it looks as if our guests were making themselves at home. One would think the old house had been designed expressly for that game, so many nooks and crannies and other out-of-the-way corners has it, where everybody thinks of hiding himself, and nobody thinks of seeking for himself. And, Sprigg, you would be astonished, were we to tell you, who have been here before you! Still, still moreastonished, were I to tell you who are here at this very moment; all, like yourself, playing at hide and seek with—strange as you may think it—their own shadows! But no one ever hides from his shadow here, nor finds it. And why? Because the light in which his shadow is cast keeps continually before his eyes, so that, let him spin himself about as he will, still is his shadow ever behind him.
"Doubtless, we Manitous would play at the same game, and as merrily, too; but, unfortunately, as you see, we have no shadows to play with—never had. This deficiency, however, is to some extent atoned for by our being allowed to conjure with the dreams and fancies of you mortals, in which we find our chief entertainment, and the wilder your dreams, the more extravagant your fancies, the finer our entertainment.
"Now, to exemplify the point in question on a more diminished scale, allow me to present to your consideration a dream, in which I happen to have personal interest. When you have considered it attentively, will you please favor me with your opinion as to the stuff it is made of and what it is worth. Here it comes on six legs! Witness."
Sprigg looked. Incredible! The Indian boy and the Shetland pony displayed before his eyes, not as a motionless picture, but as living, moving things—careering 'round and 'round, within what seemed a magnificent amphitheater, crowded with humanspectators—all conjured up out of Manitou mist. Yes, there they were—the pony with a small, red flag stuck in the browband of his bridle. The boy decked out in all his Indian bravery—tomahawk, feather hat, red moccasins—executing a bewildering variety of tip-toe, neck-or-nothing, superhuman antics, along the back and neck, over the head and tail of his fairy little charger. Anon, the wild young equestrian was the Indian boy no longer, but the very semblance of Sprigg himself, throwing his red predecessor completely in the shade, as one might well infer from the plaudits of the thousands and thousands of admiring, astonished spectators, all clapping their hands, waving their hats and shouting: "Hurrah! hurrah! Splendid! splendid!"
Sprigg rubbed his eyes and looked again. Just the same. He closed his eyes; it made no difference, he could see it as plainly through his eyelids. He opened them again. His semblance was fading into a shadow, so was that of the pony—fading like a cloud picture at sunset. Nothing distinctly visible, save the red moccasins, which, from the last fading outline of the pony's back, threw a prodigious summerset, and when they alighted upon the ground, there! in them again, Sprigg saw his semblance. Manitous, temple, amphitheater—all had vanished—a forest of lofty trees appearing instead, through whose glimmer of lights and shadows the boy now saw himself, or rather his wraith running withincredible swiftness, and glancing furtively over his shoulder at every bound, as if death were a present fear behind him; life a distant hope before.
But his pursuers, who and where are they? Ah! Yonder they come, and here they are, and there they go. Sweeping swiftly onward—a bear, a wolf, a panther and a bison bull—and his pursuers are gaining upon him at every bound, now treading upon his very shadow.
Meanwhile, the real Sprigg is conscious of a peculiar sensation, as if he were moving glidingly onward, borne along by invisible hands to keep pace with, and see the wild chase to the end. The end has come. He sees his wraith stop suddenly, poised on the very brink of a frightful precipice, those terrible shapes behind; a yawning, mist-hid gulf before. A moment, that semblance of himself stands reeling on the dizzy verge, then flings away, or is flung away into the misty void! His brain spins 'round and 'round; sight and sensation forsake him. The boy has swooned away! Will he be warned? Let us see!
Sprigg awoke. Bolt upright, all unharmed he found himself standing in front of the old hunting shanty; in the self-same sun-spot where he had stood when his father and Pow-wow, all unconscious of his presence, had passed him by. Yes, and the self-same hour, too, of the day, as he could judge by the length of his shadow in the sunshine, which he remembered as having been traced on the landscape at that conjuncture. Was that yesterday, or the moment gone but now? He could not tell, so like a dream appeared it all. He ran his eyes along the buffalo-trace, that led in the direction of home, half expecting to catch another glimpse of his father's retreating figure. Thus he stood, for many moments, in a state of dreamy bewilderment, gazing about him far and wide, until his wondering thoughts and wandering eyes reverted directly to his personal self. He looked down; his feet were bare. Where were the red moccasins? Red moccasins! They were but a part of the dream; or, rather, the very master-fancy of it—the incubus! Never had he seen such things in bodily form. Assuredly, he must be at home, aflat of his back on the floor, asleep and dreaming.
He was still looking about him, trying to make something of his strange experiences, when his eye was caught by a glitter and a gleam in the grass, which caused him to spring affrightedly backward, as from the glittering eye and gleaming crest of a rattlesnake. But no serpent was there. The more the pity! Only the red moccasins, adjusted side by side, with their old air of easy self-assurance, and now in open view before him. Yet, but the moment previous his look had chanced to be resting on that very spot, and naught but the tufted grass had he seen there! With their familiar sheen in his eyes, all came flashing back to his memory—the terrors of Manitou hill, the wonders of Manitou cave. Yet what assurance had he that these things also were not dreams? Let all the rest be as unreal as it might, the red moccasins were there in bodily form, and his own identical pair, too, as he could easily distinguish by a certain peculiar token, which was wanting in those he had seen on the feet of the elves. Upon all of theirs, between toe and instep, was the figure of an arrow traced in blood-red beads. Upon his own was the same figure, thrust through that of a human heart, but the whole device wrought in colorless beads. As he stood there gazing upon them, a twinkling light came glancing out of their beads, which met his look amazingly like a smile of familiar recognition. Then came it again, stealing upon his ear, that sound, or fancy, so like a voice;but whence, whether from the moccasins, or from some airy tongue, or from his own heart, perplexed him as much as ever to decide.
"Our brave Sprigg, in a pet of wrath, flung us from him up there on Manitou hill. He thought that we had deceived him. He had only deceived himself. So bemisted were his eyes from gazing, and gazing, and gazing at us, that he could see nothing as it really was. Therefore, without being aware of it, he passed on directly by his grandpap's house; directly by young Ben Logan's house; directly by pretty little Bertha Bryant's house—the very places whither he was so bent upon going when he set out from home. Now, at any of these houses we should have been perfectly willing to stop, at pretty little Bertha's in particular, only he did not seem inclined to turn our toes that way, but went on, and went on, and never stopped going, until the first thing he knew he found himself lost. Whose fault? Sprigg's; nobody's but Sprigg's. Yet he blamed us for it; blamed us for keeping along with his feet! What else could we do? We can't walk backward; we can't walk sideways—never could. We can only follow our toes, and their course is determined by the feet that are in us. Right their course, right ours. Then to fling us from him, like a pair of slip-shod shoes, when we had done our very best to speed him on his way! Thus spiting his toes by biting his nose, as the bull and the cat and the wolf soonshowed him. Had he kept us under him, we could have kept him at easy distance from the monsters and made ourselves merry at their expense. But, as it was, we could only stand by and kick them out of the way, whenever they came uncomfortably near; and precious little thanks we got for it, too! But here we are, ready and willing as ever to serve our young master, his whole-souled friends to the last!
"Sprigg, this old hunting shanty, as you know, stands exactly midway between your pap's house and your grandpap's house. There's the road home; you know every crook and turn of it as well as we. You are free, perfectly free, to go that way if you prefer it; we shall say nothing, do nothing to hinder you; only, if you choose that road, you shall have to travel it without our good help, without our pleasant company, barefooted—ugly hills, cutting stones, scratching briars, piercing thorns! There's the road to grandpap's house—level and smooth, shady and pleasant! You may not know every crook and turn of it as well as you do of the other, that is true; but we do, so what's the difference? We can take you thither, be assured; and that, too, by set of sun, just at the time when Ben Logan, the bold young hunter, shall be coming home from the forest with the spoils of the chase; just as Bertha Bryant, the pretty little milkmaid, shall be coming home from the bluegrass glades with the cows. Then shall they see us and admire us—you and your beautiful shoes—admire us, fit to die—the boy of envy, the girl of love! Only, you must have a care, Sprigg, to keep your eyes clear of the red mist, else you will go agawking by them, as you did yesterday evening, when, off we are kicked again, like a pair of slip-shod shoes.
"Yes, Sprigg prefers that road, and so do we; suits him better, suits us better, for we never turn back, nor does a brave boy! And Sprigg is a brave boy! Who said our Sprigg was not a brave boy? On with us, then, and away!"
The boy was again bewitched. His old love had returned upon him with exaggerated force. He seated himself upon a stone, and placed the moccasins down on the grass before him, their eye-like beads all atwinkle, as with conscious light. Hark! What is that? Those mysterious sounds again, so like the murmuring, whispering voices, which had been haunting the air around him ever since his leaving home.
Sternly. "Home, false boy! Home to your father-er-er-er-er!'"
Softly. "Home, poor child; home to your mother-er-er-er!"
'Twas but the whispering wind, with leaves for lips. Only the murmuring brook, with echoes for words. Wind can whisper and wail; water can murmur and laugh.
The boy took one of the moccasins in his hands,a thumb and two fingers on each side; yet still he hesitated—that terrible Manitou eye!! Might it not be as present in the depths of the sky above as he had seen it in the depths of the earth beneath, and at that very moment looking as piercingly through his secret soul? He was on the point of dropping the moccasins, when a jay-bird in the nearest tree before him, and a red-bird in the nearest tree behind him began chattering in a noisy, commonplace, wide-awake way, which made him laugh and say to himself:
"Foolish boy! Thus to sit listening to water and wind, and the lengthening shadows telling how swiftly the day is waning! On with the moccasins! Up and away!" And on they were in a twinkling. But now they were on, why was the boy not up and away? There he still sat, his eyes fastened upon the red temptations, bigger with wonder than ever before! The colorless beads, describing the arrow and heart, had grown, in an instant, red as blood.
"Bleed, poor heart! bleed!" cried a soft voice close beside him. "Bleed! or be to your mother forever a sorrow!"
"Bleed, false heart! bleed!" cried a stern voice close behind him. "Bleed! or be to your father forever a curse! You have chosen! Abide by your choice! Up and away!"
With a high spring, the moccasins lifted their wearer bodily up from the ground, and beganexecuting a variety of fantastic antics, as completely foreign to any design or will on the part of the boy as if he had been but a wire-worked puppet. Whereat peals of elfish laughter came ringing out, with explosive abruptness, from every side—from the leafy heart of the forest, from the rocky breast of the hill, from the empty depths of the sky, from the solid depths of the earth—wild and mocking laughter, mingled with cries of "Put him through! Put him through!" Then, as suddenly, the laughter ceased, when, with a hop, step and prodigious jump, by way of a start, the red moccasins bounded off through the forest, no more to be guided or curbed than the feet of a wild and unbridled horse. Through darksome wood and glimmering glade, over rugged hill and tangled vale, with incredible swiftness sped they on; nor turned aside for bramble covert or reedy brake, but right through the thick of them dashed, till the boy was covered with scratches from head to foot, and his garments all torn into rags.
"Stop! stop! I pray you, stop!" cried poor Sprigg, in piteous accent, at every new peril which seemed to threaten his destruction. At length, as if in spite, the moccasins stopped, so abruptly that he was thrown forward upon the ground, with a violence that left him stunned for several moments. Then, with hands that shook, did he assay to free himself from the accursed things. Too late; they clung to his feet, as if they had grown to the flesh,and the harder he tugged at them the closer they clung. In fear and rage he stamped with them upon the ground, and they, in revenge, squeezed and pinched his toes, till he screamed outright with the pain inflicted. Then, again, they were off at the same wild speed, and with no more regard for any purpose or wish of his than had he been but a dead load in them, and they had taken into themselves all part of his life and all his will.
By and by, of their own accord, the moccasins came to a halt; and weary and faint, and sick unto death, our unfortunate little hero threw himself down at the foot of a tree to die. But scarcely had he stretched himself along the ground, when his ear was caught, first, by a rude roar, a far way off in the forest; then by a hoarse howl; then by a shrill scream; then by a gruff growl; and now, nearer at hand the roar, the howl, the scream, the growl—all heard at once in a savage chorus. He knew them but too well, and their sound struck a terror into his heart, which even the thought of approaching death had not awakened. Up again he sprang, exhausted as he was, to fly for the life which, but the moment before, he would fain have resigned. As he turned to flee he threw a fearful glance behind him, and through the chinks of the forest caught sight of a bear, a panther, a wolf and a bison bull, coming swiftly on and making directly toward him. For more than this he waited not, but, with a despairingcry to his father for help; to his mother for—it were hard to say what—away he sped, as if his moccasins had taken the wings of the wind.
Through darksome wood and glimmering glade, over rugged hill and tangled vale, the Manitou race went on—the sky all blue and serene above them; the setting sun all bright and smiling before them. At every fearful glance cast behind him the young fugitive could perceive that his pursuers were gaining upon him. Anon, they were so close upon him that he could see their eyes, glaring like balls of fire. And now were they treading upon his very shadow, their smoking breath blown hot upon his ears and neck. Again went up the despairing cry to father; to mother. And they did hear it; would have heard it had they been in their graves!
The cry was still in the air, when a young bear shot forward, wheeled about, and rearing himself up square before him, snatched his cap from his head. His cap was still in the air, when it was replaced by a green coronal, at whose magic touch the whole scene assumed at once a totally different aspect. The grisly shape before him was not a rampant bear, but Manitou-Echo himself, bareheaded, somewhat excited, but not in the least degree short of breath. His other pursuers, appearing now in their true shapes to the fugitive, proved also to be but elves, each wearing the skin of the beast, whose whole likeness he wore but now, and showing an aspect, wildand savage enough, yet which would not have been unbeautiful to innocent eyes. With a bland smile and light wave of the hand, thus speaks Manitou-Echo:
"Bravely done, Sprigg! Bravely done! You have run a magnificent race! We never saw a young human thing acquit himself in handsomer style! Why, sir, we were beginning to think your shadow was all we were likely to catch! But here we are, one and all, coming out at the goal at the same instant! That's brave! We promised to speed you on, and show you in style to grandpap's house by set of sun! And like true Manitous, too, have we kept our word! You can't deny it! Nobody can! Look!"
Sprigg looked. The Manitou race, after stretching its length for many a zig-zag mile, had brought them to the hour of sunset, and to the top of the lofty hill, where stood the small stockade fort, under the shelter of whose wooden walls his grandfather and the other pioneers had established their cabin homes. But these, with the loving human hearts he had trusted to find there, were now behind him, utterly beyond his reach. Out before him was a depth of airy emptiness! Down beneath him—horrible! A tremendous precipice, and his feet on the very brink! Back he shrank, aghast! But the elves were behind him! His brain spun 'round! The mystic coronal was snatched from his head. The nextinstant the Manitou moccasins, with a wild leap, sheer over the dizzy verge, had flung him away, like a waif! Down the frightful declivity, whirling, he went, dropping from ledge to ledge like a lifeless lump, whirling and dropping, till into the dusky depths of the forest that shagged the foot of the hill he rolled and vanished. And peals of elfin laughter; weird and mocking laughter, beginning at the brink of the steep, far up there, and keeping pace with the whirling body, now in the edge of the wood, far down there, subsiding into an elfin wail, a weird and pitying wail, then suddenly ceased. A dell, it was, where echoes were wont to linger and answer each other; but never an echo lingered now to lead in the deathlike silence that settled at once on the glimmering evening scene.
With Pow-wow, now before him, now behind him, trotting out many a short, irrelevant digression from their general course, Jervis Whitney, rifle on shoulder, came trudging cheerfully homeward, all unwitting of the young-feet that had met him, the young eyes that had seen him, the young ears that had heard him—heard the very rustling of his garments—far back yonder in the heart of the lonely forest! He was still a half mile or more from home—the bright June afternoon by this time wearing an evening cast—when from among the trees a little way off to one side, the voice of Elster reached his ear, calling Sprigg in a tone of anxiety and alarm. Surprised to find his wife so far from the house, and evidently in quest of their boy, Jervis, somewhat alarmed himself, hastened forward to meet her and inquire into the occasion of so unwonted a circumstance.
"Ah! dear Jervis!" cried she, with tearful eyes and tremulous voice, while yet her husband was coming, "You are returning, and our boy not with you! I was hoping he might have heard the report of your rifle or Pow-wow's bark and had gone forthto meet you, as he often delights in doing!" Then she went on to tell how Sprigg, about 1 o'clock, had left the house to fetch a pail of water from their favorite but more distant spring, down there in the edge of the woods. Her mind becoming wholly occupied with her work at the loom, she had quite lost sight of the little circumstance, when, all at once, it had struck her that it had now been several hours since Sprigg had left the house, nor had yet returned. Whereat she had left off her weaving and gone forth to see what had become of him. She had searched the clearing all around the house, and the woods all around the clearing; yet not a trace of him had she discovered, saving the empty bucket at the spring.
By the time the story was ended, which she told with many an anxious detail, they had passed on by the house and reached the spring. In the course of the day's chase the hunter had come upon a fresh Indian trail, which made him at first apprehensive that the boy, while thus out of sight and hearing of home, might have been crept upon and captured by some lurking band of savages. But there were no traces at the spring, nor near it, to justify his apprehension; nor yet that of his having fallen a prey to wild beasts—the two sources of danger being, in those days, always coupled in the minds of our pioneer progenitors. The prints of the boy's bare feet were plainly enough to be seen in the path that leddown the hill; but here, at the spring, without any sign of their having retraced themselves, they suddenly vanished. For once the hunter's clear-seeing eye and his dog's keen-scenting nose were utterly baffled. Those Manitou moccasins being, as you must remember, charmed, could be worn and leave no trace of their wearer behind them that sight of man or scent of dog could discern, be it footprint on the ground or odor in the air. What manner of disappearance might this be?
All in a state of wonderment now, as well as distress, they hastened back to the house, if, happily, some nook or corner had been overlooked, where the boy had lain down and fallen asleep. They were pursuing this forlorn hope, when Elster found herself standing, without any will or volition of her own, directly in front of the old show bill, with her eyes fixed upon it, as if it had been an object she had never seen there before. Then it all came back to her mind, how that picture of the Indian boy and his Shetland pony had charmed Sprigg's fancy and set him to dreaming about red moccasins, and how strangely the whim had possessed him to go to the settlement, where he might make a display of his fantastic finery. This she told Jervis, and together they ran to the chest to see if the moccasins were really playing a part in the mysterious matter.
Pale as death turned Jervis Whitney when he discovered they were gone. Backward the strong manstaggered some paces, as had he been struck on the breast by a heavy fist, and, sinking down upon an oaken settee, exclaimed in a voice of horrified astonishment:
"Oh, Nick of the Woods! Nick of the Woods!" That elfin scene in the forest had come flashing back to his memory, like a prophetic dream, the interpretation whereof was now to be looked for. "My son Manitou-Echo is burning to run a race with your son Sprigg." Thus had spoken the Manitou king; and fantastic as the words had seemed at the time, evident enough was it now that, couched in them, was a meaning or purpose deeper by far than the hunter had divined. Perhaps the trial of bodily strength, or moral virtue, or whatever it was, at which they hinted, had already begun; and their boy now the subject of some elfish freak for his follies, or the victim of some elfish retributions for his transgressions.
Elster stood gazing down on her husband, where, with his face buried in his hands, he sat, repeating the singular exclamation which had escaped him on finding the moccasins missing. As yet, for some whimsical, elf-prompted reason or other, Jervis had told her nothing of his interview with Nick of the Woods, and whenever she had questioned him touching the moccasins he had answered that they had been sent to their boy from Fairyland, thus dodging the truth by telling the literal fact, knowing thatshe would treat it as a pleasantry. She was beginning to fear that the stroke had proved too much for the poor man's strength of mind, when, after remaining quite silent for some moments, he raised his head, and looking at her sorrowfully but calmly enough, addressed her:
"Dear Elster, I have not broken my fast since morning. Let me have something to eat and I will set out for the fort at once. It is but four or five miles to the nearest house on the way, and you can easily walk with me that far, there to remain until my return. At present I see not what better course is left us to follow."
A cold supper was set before him at once. While he was eating it Elster went and busied herself about the house, preparatory to their departure. The meal was soon dispatched, and when he had looked carefully to his rifle and hunting accoutrements, to reassure himself that all was in good order for service, Jervis went to assist his wife in making such disposition of their little household concerns as their absence should render necessary. To his surprise, he found her preparing to accompany him all the way.
"Hardly, dear Elster!" said he. "The horses have leaped the fence and strayed out into the woods, so that I shall be obliged to go afoot, and for you to walk with me is quite out of the question. Twenty long miles—many of them rough and steep, all of them dark and dangerous! You could hardly endure it to the end."
"If the child has walked it," rejoined Elster, "so may the mother; and if he has not, and is lost to us forever, then this lonely house is our home no longer! I return to it no more."
Though of a gentle and yielding nature under ordinary circumstances, Elster could meet a great trial, like the present one, with a spirit firm and courageous enough; and knowing this, her husband forbore any further remonstrance to her determination. The sun had set and the moon was rising, when, having made their solitary dwelling as secure as possible, they set out on their melancholy journey. In those days the buffalo traces, as they were called, formed the only highways of the wilderness, and the one our poor friends were now following led, for the greater part of the way, through a dense and tangled forest, where the moonlight showed itself only in straggling beams and shed but a ghostly glimmer. At intervals the sombre wildness of the scene would be relieved by a bluegrass glade, all agleam with moonbeams and glistering dew drops, saving where flecked with the shadows of clumped or scattered trees. Pleasing, however, as was the contrast they presented to the savage solitudes around them, these bright spots left upon the spirit an impression of sadness quite peculiar. Each had so much the appearance of a well kept park or woodland pasture that the lonely wayfarers would sometimes find themselves all but expecting that the next turn of theroad would bring them in sight of the stately mansion or comfortable farmhouse to which these beautiful grounds pertained. Nothing of the kind appearing there, the spot, from the very suggestiveness of the homelike, would seem to them more desolate than the most unhomelike parts of the forest.
Often would they pause and call out loudly the name of their boy; the bare possibility that he might be near and hear them seemed too precious to be slighted. Saving this, and, from time to time, an inquiry of affectionate solicitude on the part of the husband, with the wife's answer of patient reassurance that she was not weary, the two poor hearts pursued their way in silence. In the course of every four or five miles they would come to a solitary cabin home like their own, where they would stop and rouse the sleeping inmates, to inquire if aught had been seen there of their boy. Twice or thrice they heard, a far way off in the darkness, sounds that came to their troubled ears like the cries of a child in distress or terror. But when they had paused to listen, and had sent the name of their loved one ringing far and wide, naught had heard they, but the screaming of a night bird wheeling high aloft, or, peradventure, the distant howling of a wolf abroad on his nightly foray. At such times, with a look of dumb, distressed perplexity, first up into their faces, then all around him, old Pow-wow would give a plaintive whine, as if fully conscious that all wasnot going well with his human friends, and that this unwonted journey had a sad reference, in some way, to his little master. Sometimes dropping down upon his haunches in the path, some distance in advance, and turning his muzzle pitifully up to the moon, the affectionate old fellow would howl outright, long and loud, nor leaving off until his master and mistress were well up with him again. Thus, in his poor, dumb way, would Pow-wow testify that he was their fellow-sufferer, grieving and sympathizing with them and longing so earnestly to do something to help and comfort them—only but show poor dog how he might set about it.
The gray dawn was beginning to take the sun-red glow of morning, when, quite worn out with so long a walk, the anxious parents arrived at the stockade station—the center and rallying point of the settlements in that quarter of Kentucky. They had been indulging themselves in the forlorn hope that their boy, by some strange chance, might possibly have found his way to that place; but this vanished with the first look of wondering-inquiry that greeted their coming. Though no tongue could give them any tidings of the lost one, kind and sympathetic hearts were there for comfort, with willing hands and swift feet for help. Among the latter were several hunters, cunning in woodcraft, who could follow a trail, whether of man or beast, the livelong day; and over ground where nothing might be distinguished by the inexperienced eye but grass or leaves, sand, pebbles or solid rock.
Forth on the humane errand they sped them, one and all, some to the northward, some to the southward; many to the eastward, but none to the westward. The little runaway's starting point had been in the East; he might have strayed away toward theNorth or toward the South, but it seemed hardly possible that he could have passed on by toward the West. They little imagined how far the wayward young feet had followed the setting sun!
All day long they beat the tangled wilds. Of savage beasts, traces, more than enough, could they find, turn whither they might; and of savage men, two or three recent trails, one of them leading directly across the buffalo highway that traversed the forest between the settlements and Whitney's distant cabin. Late in the afternoon the questers began returning to the fort, dropping in, weary and disheartened, one after one. Some had pushed the search to the very threshold of the deserted home, and had observed how the boy's footprints, after tracing themselves along the path down the hillside, suddenly vanished, there at the spring, and never a sign anear the spot of living things besides, which could suggest an explanation of the mystery. What manner of disappearance might this be?
That morning, after having snatched a brief repose from the fatigues of a day's chase and a night's journey, Jervis Whitney had started forth for a few hours after the rest to renew the search, taking leave of Elster at the fort gate. At sunset he returned, purposing that, if no tidings had been gathered, to beat the forest toward the West until dark. He found his wife where he had left her—where, indeed, she had remained through all the weary, drearyintervening hours—waiting and watching for his return. As the questers had come dropping in, she had read in each dejected face the answer to the question which her own had ceased to ask. She hastened forth to meet her husband, and as he sadly, tenderly folded her in his arms, she laid her head upon his rugged breast, and gave her pent-up sorrow relief in tears. But scarcely had her tears begun to flow, when suddenly she checked them, and with singular decision in manner and voice, exclaimed:
"Come, Jervis! Come!"
"Whither, dear Elster?"
"I know not," replied she. "I have heard no voice, yet I feel that we are called! Come!"
They went at once, as in obedience to a summons, which must be answered then or never. They went as led by a hand, which, to resist, were to tempt their own destruction. They saw themselves drawing—felt themselves drawn toward that side of the hill where, not a stone's throw in the rear of the fort, it abruptly ended in the lofty precipice, before mentioned. A few steps more and their feet had been on the very verge, when, between it and themselves, rang out a cry of thrilling horror, followed by peals of wild, unearthly laughter, which, beginning at the brow of the steep, swiftly descended along its sides, till in the edge of the forest, afar down there, they subsided into a wild, unearthly wail. Then in a moment all was still—not a tell-tale echo awaking tohelp the listening ear to determine what manner of sounds had broken the silence.
Harrowed with horror and anguish, Jervis and Elster stood, and with no more power to move from the spot than the senseless stones that lay around them. Not a sign of life had they seen, where sounds of life they had heard. It was as if the vacant air had cried; then laughed, to mock itself for crying; then wailed, to chide itself for laughing.
Old Pow-wow had followed cowering behind them. Now he bounded forward, and straight came bounding back again, with something in his mouth, which he laid at their feet. Pitiful heavens! The little coonskin cap! The next instant the dog had flung him sheer over the brink of the steep, and now, in a succession of huge leaps from ledge to ledge, was making his zig-zag way adown its sides, till, in the forest shadows far below, he disappeared. One moment more and his bark came ringing joyfully up to his friends—the sweetest, welcomest sound that had ever greeted their ears.
"Pow-wow has found him! Wait here, Elster!"
So saying, and moved by a will, not all his own, and sustained by a power, no more his own than had he been a child in his father's arms, the father followed the dog, making his way in the same zig-zag manner adown the perilous hill, till, in the dusky shadows at its base, he, too, had plunged. A few long, rapid strides, and he was at the spot whencePow-wow's joyful barks had continued to resound. What found he there? The body, indeed, of his child; but whether as a waif unto life, or as a prize unto death—it were hard to tell. Stretched out on the ground, all ghastly it lay; the head toward him, and just beyond the naked feet—adjusted side by side, with their old air of easy self-assurance, the Manitou moccasins. As the father approached, the elfish little horrors, fetching a summerset aloft, as he had seen them do the time before, plumped themselves directly between him and his child, though vanishing the moment they touched the ground. But, with the vanishing, came a voice of more than mortal tenderness, and with the voice a perfume of more than earthly sweetness.
"Jervis Whitney—