A light night wind had arisen from the lower prairie, and occasionally puffed a stray wisp of smoke or heat across the westernmost curve of the circle. Hot sparks shot up in the air swiftly, paused, and floated dying down the wind. Above, occasionally, the clear stars peeped in through the canopy of blackness which the firelight so jealously guarded. There was a perceptible chill in the air. As the long speech continued and drew to a close, the half-breed, seated on the prairie side of the fire, shivered convulsively from time to time, for he was now almost exhausted by excitement and lack of sleep and food. At first he had submitted to the trial, if so it might be called, unwillingly enough, to tell the truth, but without a suspicion that it could result in anything more serious than a fine for desertion. It might almost be looked upon as a ransom, and this he was willing to pay. His principal emotion had been that of frantic chafing because, for the present, Jim Buckley and Billy Knapp were free to make trouble for him. He had no doubt they would do so, although he did not know exactly how they would go at it.
As Lone Wolf so dramatically outlined the grounds of his accusation, however, Lafond really began to see the face of fear. He gathered that the very night he had chosen to quit the tribe, some one had killed the tribe's medicine man and defiled the totem in a way not to be mentioned here. This is with Indians the Unforgiveable Sin. Suspicion had naturally coupled the sacrilege with his own coincidental disappearance. Probably even at the time no one had doubted his guilt or had suspected any other cause for his desertion. The real criminal had been able easily to cover his trail; and now, so many years would have hardened even a slight suspicion, let alone a positive certainty, into conviction absolute. Lafond saw that his chances were desperate, and yet so suddenly was the knowledge forced upon him that he could hardly realize it. But a few hours before, he had held in the hollow of his hand more power than any other one man in the territory. Now he was in danger of his life.
He knew well enough that his only chance lay in keeping cool. He must not interrupt the orator with denials. He must try to make his eloquence tell.
Lone Wolf ceased abruptly, drew his blanket about his shoulders and sat down. Two squaws noiselessly entered the circle, bearing wood for the fire. After they had withdrawn, Lafond rose to his feet.
He was at once uncomfortably conscious of the circle of snake eyes. It was for him the predominant note in the scene.
He began haltingly, partly because he did not know what to say, partly because long disuse had impaired his fluency in the Indian tongue. But in a moment, as he began to realize that he was now in the act of making the only plea for his life which his captors would permit him, his speech quickened until it was as rapid as that of Lone Wolf himself.
It was a masterly effort, for Lafond had not lost the old eloquence which had earned him the name of "Man-who-speaks-Medicine." He reviewed, as had Lone Wolf, his services to the tribe. He did it modestly, stating plainly the facts and leaving the savages to draw their own conclusions. He showed further that in so bending his efforts to the tribe's betterment, he had been actuated by no selfish motives, in proof of which proposition he enumerated one by one the various opportunities he had let pass of decamping enriched beyond any one warrior's dreams of wealth; to which proposition he further pointed out as a corollary that he had in reality departed with but his own weapons and the clothes on his back. This made an impression. Having thus established his disinterestedness as regards his services to the tribe, he went on further to show that these argued, furthermore, an intense personal interest in its welfare. He loved his people. He challenged them to cite one of his deeds which would bear the contrary construction.
And then, with a boldness that almost amounted to genius, he drew before them vividly that night on the battlefield when he had so long contemplated the fallen white chief, and he detailed to them the reasons he had then for believing the Indians' warlike power was from that moment doomed to wane.
"I saw these things," he said, "as one to whom Gitche Manitou had spoken, and I knew they were true. But my brothers were victorious; they saw the blue coats scattered as the dust is scattered by the wind. My words would have been as the water that slips away or the cloud that vanishes in the heavens. If I had told my brothers these things, they would not have believed. You, Spotted Dog; you, Firebrand; even you, Lone Wolf, would not have believed. Look well within your hearts and acknowledge that I speak words of truth. Then you would have cast me out as one with forked tongue."
Such being the case, Lafond argued that, inasmuch as he could do nothing for his people by sharing their disgrace, he had left them. "But only for a season," he explained. "You are warriors: I am a man of craft. When your bows are broken and your arrows lost, then must I take my weapons and strive as I can. I went forth to fight for my brothers. Behold me; I have fought and I have won. I am rich. My brothers are to share my riches. Now I can return to the lodges of my brothers as one coming from a far war trail, bringing the ponies and scalps of the enemies my hand has struck."
Then suddenly the speaker took up the question of the crime itself. He dilated on it with horror. He acknowledged no excuse for it. But, he asked them, why should he have committed it? He showed them that he could have had no motive for such a wanton insult. And, most ingenious of all, he pointed out that if, as Lone Wolf had supposed, the tribe's misfortunes had arisen because of Gitche Manitou's wrath over this terrible crime, then that wrath and those misfortunes would indubitably have been visited on him, the accused, with the rest; for he was a member of the tribe, and according to the accusation the guiltiest of them all. Such was not the case. On the contrary he had prospered.
In conclusion he believed he could direct suspicion to the right channel. From his wonderful past knowledge of inter-tribal and individual jealousies, he rapidly constructed a plausible theory.
His defence, as he could observe, made a profound impression. The savages sat silent and thoughtful while the minutes slipped by, and the wavering light from the central fire alternately illuminated and threw into shadow the strong bronze of their faces. The argument was sophistical enough, but for two reasons it carried conviction. In the first place, the half-breed was pleading for his very life; in the second place, he was in reality absolutely innocent as to the main facts. Therefore he had faith and earnestness—two great qualities. His only misfortune was, that the exigencies of the situation demanded that in the web of truth one falsehood should be woven.
Beyond the circle of light the dim forms of the women and children showed faintly against the dimmer background of the sea-like prairie. They had followed with great attention the deliberations before them, but in silence and with decorum, as is proper in such cases. Now suddenly one of them slipped forward through the circle before her companions or the warriors between whom she passed could detain her. Before the fire she turned and faced Lone Wolf. It was the old hag who had first recognized Lafond.
The warriors looked on her in cold surprise. Such a thing as a woman intruding on a council was unheard of, unthinkable, punishable by almost any penalty.
"My daughter has been deceived," said Lone Wolf gravely. "This is not a gathering of the women. She must go."
She did not seem to hear him, but broke out panting as soon as she could get her breath.
"My brothers listen to forked words!" she cried, "and the spirit of lies has blinded them, so that they cannot see the truth. They are deceived by much lying because it is mingled with the truth, like tobacco and willow bark. He says he has been on the long war trail and now returns to his brothers with the ponies of his enemies. The trail has indeed been long, for it is many moons since he took the ponies. How long has he been rich?" she cried. "Many moons! Are the trails closed that he could not find his brothers before, while they were starving? Does he find them now because he calls to them from afar on the war trail? It is lies!
"And my brothers forget," she went on contemptuously, "the Yellow Hair of the Hills and the little child. What was it this one demanded of my brothers? To defile Pah-sap-pa by the slaying of his enemies. It was for that he made us rich, for that he used his craft to bring us power. It washispower. And when he, led my brothers up into Pah-sap-pa, the voice of Gitche Manitou spoke to them and they went away leaving this one's enemies unharmed, and so he was angry with my brothers and swore to do them an injury. So he killed Buffalo Voice and defiled the totem in order that Gitche Manitou might turn his hand against us! He speaks forked words. Why has he not brought his gifts long before, if what I say is not true? There has been need."
She turned as suddenly as she had come and left the circle, again empty except for the leaping fire. In her spoke the spirit of relentlessness, a deserted woman. She touched with unerring instinct on the one weak spot in Lafond's defence, and thereby discredited the rest. Her reminder of the soreness of their need, when this renegade brother had held out no hand to help them, hardened their hearts and brushed from their minds like cobwebs the structure of confidence which Lafond had so laboriously spun. Without one dissenting voice they condemned him to death. Then the sitting arose.
The hags of the camp advanced and stripped the half-breed naked, in spite of his frantic struggles. They were as strong as men, and they were glad he struggled because that indicated cowardice. Lafond was badly unnerved; his blood was partly Latin and his consciousness of innocence was keen. When he went into a thing with his eyes open, he was ready to take all the consequences with stoicism, should luck turn against him; but a feeling of guiltlessness was unusual enough to render him desperate when unjustly condemned. So he made a pitiful spectacle of himself.
The old hags jeered him. They told him he had a chicken's heart, and promised themselves the pleasure of tasting it after it was torn from his living body. They spat in his face and pinched his arms to see him wince. When he was stripped quite naked, they staked him out to picket pins with rawhide bands, one to each of his four limbs.
While this was going on, the warriors, having thrown aside their blankets, appeared in the full lithe glory of their naked bodies. To the accompaniment of a strange minor chant, they circled slowly around the fire and their victim, hopping rhythmically first on one foot then on the other, stepping high, stooping low. As they passed the prostrate man, they struck their knives deep into the ground near his head, for the purpose of seeing him shrink. After a little, they became sufficiently excited, and so the tortures began.
Toward morning the squaws wrapped in a blanket the mutilated burnt carcass, and laid it on a litter which had been preparing while the torture was in progress. The litter was raised in the air to the height of ten feet, bound securely to upright poles. Man-who-speaks-Medicine had been a member of the tribe. Whatever his sins, he must have a tribal burial.
Then in the grayness of the dawn the little cavalcade filed away, like muffled phantoms, toward the east. In the sky the last stars were flickering out. On the hill top the last embers of the fire died. A bird high in the heavens piped up clearly for a moment, and was still. The breeze of morning rippled over the faintly distinguished, grasses, and stirred the drying leaves of the litter that stood like a scaffold against the sombre shadows of the Hills.
THE END.
STORIES OF RARE CHARM BY
GENE STRATTON-PORTER
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MICHAEL O'HALLORAN. Illustrated by Frances Rogers.
Michael is a quick-witted little Irish newsboy, living in Northern Indiana. He adopts a deserted little girl, a cripple. He also assumes the responsibility of leading the entire rural community upward and onward.
LADDIE. Illustrated by Herman Pfeifer.
This is a bright, cheery tale with the scenes laid in Indiana. The story is told by Little Sister, the youngest member of a large family, but it is concerned not so much with childish doings as with the love affairs of older members of the family. Chief among them is that of Laddie and the Princess, an English girl who has come to live in the neighborhood and about whose family there hangs a mystery.
THE HARVESTER. Illustrated by W. L. Jacobs.
"The Harvester," is a man of the woods and fields, and if the book had nothing in it but the splendid figure of this man it would be notable. But when the Girl comes to his "Medicine Woods," there begins a romance of the rarest idyllic quality.
FRECKLES. Illustrated.
Freckles is a nameless waif when the tale opens, but the way in which he takes hold of life; the nature friendships he forms in the great Limberlost Swamp; the manner in which everyone who meets him succumbs to the charm of his engaging personality; and his love-story with "The Angel" are full of real sentiment.
A GIRL OF THE LIMBERLOST. Illustrated.
The story of a girl of the Michigan woods; a buoyant, loveable type of the self-reliant American. Her philosophy is one of love and kindness towards all things; her hope is never dimmed. And by the sheer beauty of her soul, and the purity of her vision, she wins from barren and unpromising surroundings those rewards of high courage.
AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW. Illustrations in colors.
The scene of this charming love story is laid in Central Indiana. The story is one of devoted friendship, and tender self-sacrificing love. The novel is brimful of the most beautiful word painting of nature, and its pathos and tender sentiment will endear it to all.
THE SONG OF THE CARDINAL. Profusely illustrated.
A love ideal of the Cardinal bird and his mate, told with delicacy and humor.
KATHLEEN NORRIS' STORIES
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MOTHER. Illustrated by F. C. Yohn.
This book has a fairy-story touch, counterbalanced by the sturdy reality of struggle, sacrifice, and resulting peace and power of a mother's experiences.
SATURDAY'S CHILD.
Frontispiece by F. Graham Cootes.
Out on the Pacific coast a normal girl, obscure and lovely, makes a quest for happiness. She passes through three stages—poverty, wealth and service—and works out a creditable salvation.
THE RICH MRS. BURGOYNE.
Illustrated by Lucius H. Hitchcock.
The story of a sensible woman who keeps within her means, refuses to be swamped by social engagements, lives a normal human life of varied interests, and has her own romance.
THE STORY OF JULIA PAGE.
Frontispiece by Allan Gilbert.
How Julia Page, reared in rather unpromising surroundings, lifted herself through sheer determination to a higher plane of life.
THE HEART OF RACHAEL.
Frontispiece by Charles E. Chambers.
Rachael is called upon to solve many problems, and in working out these, there is shown the beauty and strength of soul of one of fiction's most appealing characters.
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THE NOVELS OF
STEWARD EDWARD WHITE
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THE BLAZED TRAIL. Illustrated by Thomas Fogarty.
A wholesome story with gleams of humor, telling of a young man who blazed his way to fortune through the heart of the Michigan pines.
THE CALL OF THE NORTH. Ills. with Scenes from the Play.
The story centers about a Hudson Bay trading post, known as "The Conjuror's House" (the original title of the book.)
THE RIVERMAN. Ills. by N. C. Wyeth and C. F. Underwood.
The story of a man's fight against a river and of a struggle between honesty and grit on the one side, and dishonesty and shrewdness on the other.
RULES OF THE GAME. Illustrated by Lejaren A. Killer.
The romance of the son of "The Riverman." The young college hero goes into the lumber camp, is antagonized by "graft," and comes into the romance of his life.
GOLD. Illustrated by Thomas Fogarty.
The gold fever of '49 is pictured with vividness. A part of the story is laid in Panama, the route taken by the gold-seekers.
THE FOREST. Illustrated by Thomas Fogarty.
The book tells of the canoe trip of the author and his companion into the great woods. Much information about camping and outdoor life. A splendid treatise on woodcraft.
THE MOUNTAINS. Illustrated by Fernand Lungren.
An account of the adventures of a five months' camping trip in the Sierras of California. The author has followed a true sequence of events.
THE CABIN. Illustrated with photographs by the author.
A chronicle of the building of a cabin home in a forest-girdled meadow of the Sierras Full of nature and woodcraft, and the shrewd philosophy of "California John."
THE GRAY DAWN. Illustrated by Thomas Fogarty.
This book tells of the period shortly after the first mad rush for gold in California. A young lawyer and his wife, initiated into the gay life of San Francisco, find their ways parted through his downward course, but succeeding events bring the "gray dawn of better things" for both of them.
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