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“For it is the last. This day I make one more journey to the Fort, and there I will remain until you join me. We have promised safe escort for our white neighbors through the lands of the hostile tribes who dare not wage war against us. The white man trusts us. He counts us his friends. Shall we keep our promise and our honor, or shall we become traitors to the truth?”
It was Shut-Hand who answered for his tribesmen:
“It is the pale-face who is a traitor to honesty. The goods which our Great Father gave him in trust for his red children have been destroyed. The white soldiers have forgotten their duty and have taught us to forget ours. When the sun rises on the morrow we will join the Black Partridge at the Fort by the great water, and we will do what seems right in our eyes. The Black Partridge is our father and our chief. He must not then place the good of our enemies before the good of his own people. We have spoken.”
So the great Indian, who was more noble than his clansmen, went out from among them upon a hopeless errand. This time he did not make his journey on foot, but upon the back of his fleetest horse; and the medal he meant to relinquish was wrapped in a bit of deerskin and fastened to his belt.
“Well, at least the Sun Maid will be safe. When the braves, with the squaws and children, join their brothers at the camp, Wahneenah will remain at Muck-otey-pokee; as should every other woman of the Pottawatomie nation, were I as powerful in reality as I appear. It is the squaws who urge the men to the darkest deeds. Ugh! What will be must be. Tchtk! Go on!”
But the bay horse was already travelling at its best, slow as its pace seemed to the Black Partridge.
CHAPTER III.
IN INDIAN ATTIRE
Not many hours after Black Partridge turned his back upon Muck-otey-pokee, all its fighting men, with their squaws and children, also left it, as their chief had foreseen they would. They followed the direction he had taken, though they did not proceed to the garrison itself.
The camp to which they repaired was a little distance from the Fort, and had been pitched beside the river, where was then a fringe of cottonwoods and locusts affording a grateful shade. Here the squaws cooked and gossiped, while their sons played the ancient games of throwing the spear through the ring, casting the hatchet, and shooting birds on the wing.
The braves tested their weapons and boasted of many valorous deeds; or were else entirely silent, brooding upon mischief yet to come. Over all was the thrill of excitement and anticipation, which the great heat of the season seemed to deepen rather than dispel.
At the Fort, Black Partridge pleaded finally and in vain.
“We have been ordered to evacuate, and we will obey. All things are in readiness. The stores are already in the wagons, and other wagons wait for the sick, the women, and the children. Your people have promised us a safe conveyance through their country, and as far as we shall need it. They will be well paid. Part they have received, and the rest of their reward will be promptly delivered at the end of the journey. There is no more to be said”; and with this conclusion the weary commandant sat down in his denuded home to take a bit of food and a few moments’ rest. He nodded hospitably toward an empty chair on the farther side of the deal table, by way of invitation that the Indian should join him, but this the honest chief declined to do.
“No, good father, that can no longer be. I have come to return you this medal. I have worn it long and in peace. It was the gift of your people, a pledge between us of friendship. My friendship remains unbroken, but there also remains a tie which is stronger. I am the chief of my tribe. My young men are brave, and they have been deceived. They will punish the deceivers, and I have no power to prevent this. Nor do I blame them, though I would hold them to their compact if I could.”
“Cannot the Truth-Teller compel his sons to his own habit?”
“Not when his white father sets them a bad example.”
“Black Partridge, your words are bold.”
“Your deed was bolder, father. It was the deed of a fool.”
“Take care!”
As if he had not heard, the chief spoke steadily on:
“My tribesman, Winnemeg – the white man’s friend – brought the order that all goods stored here should be justly distributed among my people, to every man his portion. Was it thus done?”
“Come, Black Partridge, you are not wanting in good sense nor in honesty. You must admit that such a course would have been hazardous in the extreme. The idea of putting liquor and ammunition into the hands of the red men was one of utter madness. It was worse than foolhardy. The broken firearms are safe in the well, and the more dangerous whiskey has mingled itself harmlessly with the waters of the river and the lake.”
“There is something more foolish than folly,” said the Indian, gravely, “and that is a lie! The powder drowned in the well will kill more pale-faces than it could have done in the hands of your red children. The river-diluted whiskey will inflame more hot heads than if it had been dispensed honorably and in its full strength. But now the end. Though I will do what I can do, even the Truth-Teller cannot fight treachery. Prepare for the worst. And so – farewell!”
Then the tall chief bowed his head in sadness and went away; but the terrible truth of what he then uttered all the world now knows.
Meanwhile, in the almost empty village among the cottonwoods, the Sun Maid played and laughed and chattered as she had always done in her old home at the Fort. And all day, those wiser women like Wahneenah, who had refrained from following their tribe to the distant camp, watched and attended the child in admiring awe.
By nightfall the Sun Maid had been loaded with gifts. Lahnowenah, wife of the avaricious Shut-Hand but herself surnamed the Giver, came earliest of all, with a necklace of bears’ claws and curious shells which had come from the Pacific slope, none knew how many years before.
The Sun Maid received the gift with delight and her usual exclamation of “Nice!” but when the donor attempted to clasp the trinket about the fair little throat she was met by a decided: “No, no, no!”
“Girl-Child! All gifts are worthy, but this woman has given her best,” corrected Wahneenah, with some sternness. This baby might be a spirit, in truth, but it was the spirit of her own child and she must still hold it under authority.
At sound of the altered tones, Kitty looked up swiftly and her lip quivered. Then she replied with equal decision:
“Other Mother must not speak to me like that. Kitty is not bad. It is a pretty, pretty thing, but it is dirty. It must have its faces washed. Then I will wear it and love it all my life.”
An Indian girl would have been punished for such frankness, but Lahnowenah showed no resentment. Beneath her outward manner lay a deeper meaning. To her the necklace was a talisman. From generations long dead it had come down to her, and always as a life-saver. Whoever wore it could never be harmed “by hatchet or arrow, nor by fire or flood.” Yet that very morning had her own brother, the Man-Who-Kills, assured her that the child’s life was a doomed one, and she had more faith in his threats than had his neighbors in their village. She knew that the one thing he respected was this heirloom, and that he would not dare injure anybody who wore it. The Sun Maid was, undoubtedly, under the guardianship of higher powers than a poor squaw’s, yet it could harm nobody to take all precautions.
So, with a grim smile, the donor carried her gift to the near-by brook and held it for a few moments beneath the sluggish water; then she returned to the wigwam and again proffered it to the foundling.
“Yes. That is nice now. Kitty will wear it all the time. Won’t the childrens be pleased when they see it! Maybe they may wear it, too, if the dear blanket lady says they may. Can they, Other Mother?”
The squaws exchanged significant glances. They knew it was not probable that the Fort orphan and her old playmates would ever meet again; but Wahneenah answered evasively:
“They can wear it when they come to the Sun Maid’s home.”
Again Lahnowenah would have put the necklace in its place, and a second time she was prevented; for at that moment the One-Who-Knows came slowly down the path between the trees, and held up her crutch warningly, as she called, in her feeble voice:
“Wait! This is a ceremony. Let all the women come.”
Lahnowenah ran to summon them, and they gathered about the tepee in expectant silence. When old Katasha exerted herself it behooved all the daughters of her tribe to be in attendance.
Wahneenah hastened to spread her best mat for the visitor’s use, and helped to seat her upon it.
“Ugh! Old feet grow clumsy and old arms weak. Take this bundle, sister of my chief, and do with its contents as seems right to thee.”
The other squaws squatted around, eagerly curious, while Wahneenah untied the threads of sinew which fastened the blanket-wrapped parcel. This outer covering itself was different from anything she had ever handled, being exquisitely soft in texture and gaudily bright in hue. It was also of a small size, such as might fit a child’s shoulders.
Within the blanket was a little tunic of creamy buckskin, gayly bedecked with a fringe of beads around the neck and arms’ eyes, while the short skirt ended in a border of fur, also bead-trimmed in an odd pattern. With it were tiny leggings that matched the tunic; and a dainty pair of moccasins completed the costume.
As garment after garment was spread out before the astonished gaze of the squaws their exclamations of surprise came loud and fast. A group of white mothers over a fashionable outfit for a modern child could not have been more enthusiastic or excited.
Yet through all this she who had brought it remained stolid and silent; till at length her manner impressed the others, and they remembered that she had said: “It is a ceremony.” Then Wahneenah motioned the squaws to be silent, and demanded quietly:
“What is this that the One-Who-Knows sees good to be done at the lodge of her chief’s daughter?”
“Take the papoose. Set her before me. Watch and see.”
Wide-eyed and smiling, and quite unafraid, the little orphan from the Fort stood, as she was directed, close beside the aged squaw while she was silently disrobed. Her baby eyes had caught the glitter of beads on the new garments, and there was never a girl-child born who did not like new clothes. When she was quite undressed, and her white body shone like a marble statue in contrast to their dusky forms, the hushed voices of the Indians burst forth again in a torrent of admiration.
But Kitty was too young to understand this, and deemed it some new game in which she played the principal part.
The prophetess held up her hand and the women ceased chattering. Then she pointed toward the brook and, herself comprehending what was meant by this gesture, the Sun Maid ran lightly to the bank and leaped in. With a scream of fear, that was very human and mother-like, Wahneenah followed swiftly. For the instant she had forgotten that the merry little one was a “spirit,” and could not drown.
Fortunately, the stream was not deep, and was delightfully sun-warmed. Besides, the Fort children had all been as much at home in the water as on the land and a daily plunge had been a matter of course. So Kitty laughed and clapped her hands as she ducked again and again into the deepest of the shallow pools, splashing and gurgling in glee, till another signal from the aged crone bade the foster-mother bring the bather back.
“No, no! Kitty likes the water. Kitty did make the Feather-lady wash the necklace. Now the old Feather-lady makes Kitty wash Kitty. No, I do not want to go. I want to stay right here in the brook.”
“But – the beautiful tunic! What about that, papoose?”
It was not at all a “spiritual” argument, yet it sufficed; and with a spring the little one was out of the water and clinging to Wahneenah’s breast.
As she was set down, dewy and glistening, she pranced and tossed her dripping hair about till the drops it scattered touched some faces that had not known the feel of water in many a day. With an “Ugh!” of disgust the squaws withdrew to a safe distance from this unsolicited bath, though remaining keenly watchful of what the One-Who-Knows might do. This was, first, the anointing of the child’s body with some unctuous substance that the old woman had brought, wrapped in a pawpaw leaf.
Since towels were a luxury unknown in the wilderness, as soon as this anointing was finished Katasha clothed the child in her new costume and laid her hand upon the sunny head, while she muttered a charm to “preserve it from all evil and all enemies.” Then, apparently exhausted by her own efforts, the prophetess directed Lahnowenah, the Giver, to put on the antique White Necklace.
This was so long that it went twice about the Sun Maid’s throat and would have been promptly pulled off by her own fingers, as an adornment quite too warm for the season had not the fastening been one she could not undo and the string, which held the ornaments, of strong sinew.
Then Wahneenah took the prophetess into her wigwam, and prepared a meal of dried venison meat, hulled corn, and the juice of wild berries pressed out and sweetened. Katasha’s visits were of rare occurrence, and it had been long since the Woman-Who-Mourns had played the hostess, save in this late matter of her foster-child; so for a time she forgot all save the necessity of doing honor to her guest. When she did remember the Sun Maid and went in anxious haste to the doorway, the child had vanished.
“She is gone! The Great Spirit has recalled her!” cried Wahneenah, in distress.
“Fear not, the White Papoose is safe. She will live long and her hands will be full. As they fill they will overflow. She is a river that enriches yet suffers no loss. Patience. Patience. You have taken joy into your home, but you have also taken sorrow. Accept both, and wait what will come.”
Even Wahneenah, to whom many deferred, felt that she herself must pay deference to this venerable prophetess, and so remained quiet in her wigwam as long as her guest chose to rest there. This was until the sun was near its setting and till the foster-mother’s heart had grown sick with anxiety. So, no sooner had Katasha’s figure disappeared among the trees than Wahneenah set out at frantic speed to find the little one.
“Have you seen the Sun Maid?” she demanded of the few she met; and at last one set her on the right track.
“Yes. She chased a gray squirrel that had been wounded. It was still so swift it could just outstrip her, and she followed beyond the village, away along the bank. Osceolo passed near, and saw the squirrel seek refuge in the lodge of Spotted Adder. The Sun Maid also entered.”
“The lodge of Spotted Adder!” repeated Wahneenah, slowly. “Then only the Great Spirit can preserve her!”
CHAPTER IV.
THE WHITE BOW
Wahneenah had lived so entirely within the seclusion of her own lodge that she had become almost a stranger in the village. It was long since she had travelled so far as the isolated hut into which the youth, Osceolo, had seen the Sun Maid disappear, and as she approached it her womanly heart smote her with pain and self-reproach, while she reflected thus:
“Has it come to this? Spotted Adder, the Mighty, whose wigwam was once the richest of all my father’s tribe. I remember that its curtains of fine skins were painted by the Man-Of-Visions himself, and told the history of the Pottawatomies since the beginning of the world. Many a heap of furs and peltries went in payment for their adornment, but – where are they now! While I have sat in darkness with my sorrow new things have become old. Yet he is accursed. Else the trouble would not have befallen him. I have heard the women talking, through my dreams. He has lain down and cannot again arise. And the White Papoose is with him! Will she be accursed, too? Fool! Why do I fear? Is she not a child of the sky, and forever safe, as Katasha said? But the touch of her arms was warm, like the clasp of the son I bore, and – ”
The mother’s reverie ended in a very human distress. There was a rumor among her people that whoever came near the Spotted Adder would instantly be infected by whatever was the dread disease from which he suffered. That the Sun Maid’s wonderful loveliness should receive a blemish seemed a thing intolerable and, in another instant, regardless of her own danger, Wahneenah had crept beneath the broken flap of bark, into a scene of squalor indescribable. Even this squaw, who knew quite well how wretched the tepees of her poorer tribesmen often were, was appalled now; and though the torn skins and strips of bark which covered the hut admitted plenty of light and air, she gasped for breath before she could speak.
“My Girl-Child! My Sun Maid! Come away. Wrong, wrong to have entered here, to have made me so anxious. Come.”
“No, no, Other Mother! Kitty cannot come. Kitty must stay. See the poor gray squirrel? It has broked its leg. It went so – hoppety-pat, hoppety-pat, as fast as fast. I thought it was playing and just running away. So Kitty runned too. Kitty always runs away when Kitty can.”
“Ugh! I believe you. Come.”
“No, Kitty must stay. Poor sick man needs Kitty. I did give him a nice drink. Berries, too. Kitty putted them in his mouth all the time. Poor man!”
Wahneenah’s anger rose. Was she, a chief’s daughter, to be thus flouted by a baby, a pale-face at that? Surely, there was nothing whatever spiritual now about this self-willed, spoiled creature, whom an unkind fate had imposed upon her. She stooped to lift the little one and compel obedience, but was met by a smile so fearless and happy that her arms fell to her sides.
“That’s a good Other Mother. Poor sick man has wanted to turn him over, and he couldn’t. Kitty tried and tried, and Kitty couldn’t. Now my Other Mother’s come. She can. She is so beau’ful strong and kind!”
There was a grunt, which might have been a groan, from the corner of the hut where the Spotted Adder lay; and a convulsive movement of the contorted limbs as he vainly strove to change his uncomfortable position. Wahneenah watched him, with the contempt which the women of her race feel for any masculine weakness, and did not offer to assist. His poverty she pitied, and would have relieved, though his physical infirmity was repugnant to her. She would not touch him.
But the Sun Maid was on her feet at once, tenderly laying upon the ground the wounded squirrel which she had held upon her lap. The wild thing had, apparently, lost all its timidity and now fully trusted the child who had caressed its fur and murmured soft, pitying sounds, in that low voice of hers, which the Fort people had sometimes felt was an unknown language. Certainly, she had had a strange power, always, over any animal that came near her and this case was no exception. Her white friends would not have been surprised by the incident, but Wahneenah was, and it brought back her belief that this was a child of supernatural gifts. She even began to feel ashamed of her treatment of Spotted Adder, though she waited to see what his small nurse would do.
“Poor sick Feather-man! Is you hurted now? Does your face ache you to make it screw itself all this way?” and she made a comical grimace, imitative of the sufferer’s expression.
“Ugh! Ugh!”
“Yes; Kitty hears. Other Mother, that is all the word he says. All the time it is just ‘Ugh! Ugh!’ I wish he would talk Kitty’s talk. Make him do it, Other Mother. Please!”
“That I cannot do. He knows it not. But he has a speech I understand. What need you, Spotted Adder?” she concluded, in his own dialect.
“Ugh! It is the voice of Wahneenah, the Happy. What does she here, in the lodge of the outcast? It is many a moon since the footfall of a woman sounded on my floor. Why does one come now?”
“In pursuit of this child, the adopted daughter of our tribe, whom the Black Partridge himself has given me. It was ill of you, accursed, to wile her hither with your unholy spells.”
“I wiled her not. It was the gray squirrel. Broken in his life, as am I, the once Mighty. Many wounded creatures seek shelter here. It is a sanctuary. They alone fear not the miserable one.”
“Does not the tribe see to it that you have food and drink set within your wigwam, once during each journey of the sun? I have so heard.”
“Ugh! Food and drink. Sometimes I cannot reach them. They are not even pushed beyond the door flap, or what is left of it. They are all afraid. All. Yet they are fools. That which has befallen me may happen to each when his time comes. It is the sickness of the bones. There is no contagion in it. But it twists the straight limbs into torturing curves and it rends the body with agony. One would be glad to die, but death – like friendship – holds itself aloof. Ugh! The drink! The drink!”
The Sun Maid could understand the language of the eyes, if not the lips, and she followed their wistful gaze toward the clay bowl from which she had before given him the water. But it was empty now, and seizing it with all her strength, for it was heavy and awkward in shape, she sped out of the wigwam toward a spring she had discovered.
“Four, ten, lots of times Kitty has broughted the nice water, and every time the poor, sick Feather-man has drinked it up. He must be terrible thirsty, and so is Kitty. I guess I will drink first, this time.”
Filling the utensil, she struggled to lift it to her own lips, but it was rudely pushed away.
“Papoose! Would you drink to your own death? The thing is accursed, I tell you!”
“Why, Other Mother! It is just as clean as clean. Kitty did wash and wash it long ago. It was all dirty, worse than my new necklace, but it is clean now. Do you want a drink, Other Mother? Is you thirsty, too, like the sick one and Kitty?”
“If I were, it would be long before I touched my lips to that cup.”
“Would it? Now I will fill it again. Then you must take it, Other Mother, and quick, quick, back to that raggedy house. Kitty is tired, she has come here and there so many, many times.”
“Is it here you have spent this long day, papoose?”
“I did come here when the gray squirrel runned away. I did stay ever since.”
Wahneenah’s heart sank. But to her credit it was that, for the time being, she forgot the stories she had heard, and remembered only that there was suffering which she must relieve. It might be that already the soul of Spotted Adder was winged for its long flight, and could carry for her to that wide Unknown, where her own dead tarried, some message from her, the bereft. As this thought flashed through her brain she seized the bowl and hastened with it to the lodge.
This time, also, she forgot everything but the possibility that had come to her, and kneeling beside the old Indian she held the dish to his mouth.
“It is the fever, the fever! A little while and the awful chill will come again. The racking pain, the thirst! Ugh! Wahneenah, the Happy, is braver than her sisters. Her courage shall prove her blessing. The lips of the dying speak truth.”
“And the ears of the dying? Can they still hear and remember? Will the Spotted Adder take my message to the men I have lost? Sire and son, there was no Pottawatomie ever born so brave as they. Tell them I have been faithful. I have been the Woman-Who-Mourns. I have kept to my darkened wigwam and remembered only them, till she came, this child you have seen. She is a gift from the sky. She has come to comfort and sustain. She was born a pale-face, but she has a red man’s heart. She is all brave and true and dauntless. None fear her, and she fears none. I believe that they have sent her to me. I believe that in her they both live. Ask them if this is so.”
“There is no need to ask, Wahneenah, the Happy. Happy, indeed, who has been blessed with a gift so gracious. She is the Merciful. The Unafraid. She will pass in safety through many perils. All day she has sat beside me whom all others shun. She has moistened my lips, she has kept the gnats from stinging, she has sung in her unknown tongue of that land whither I go, and soon, – the land of the sky from whence she came. The light of the morning is on her hair and the dusk of evening in her eyes. As she has ministered to me, the deserted, the solitary, so she will minister unto multitudes. I can see them crowding, crowding; the generations yet unborn. The vision of the dying is true.”
On the floor beside them the Sun Maid sat, caressing the wounded squirrel. Through the torn curtains the waning sunlight slanted and lighted the bleak interior. It seemed to rest most brilliantly upon the child, and in the eyes of the Spotted Adder she was like a lamp set to illumine his path through the dark valley, an unexpected messenger from the Great Father, showing him beforehand a glimpse of the beauty and tenderness of the Land Beyond. Yet even if a spirit, she wore a human shape, and she would have human needs. She would be often in danger against which she must be guarded.
“Wahneenah, fetch me the bow and quiver.”
“Which?” she asked, in surprise, though in reality she knew.
“Is there one that should be named with mine? The White Bow from the land of eternal snow; the arrows winged with feathers from the white eagle’s wing, – light as thistle down, strong as love, invincible as death.”
The Spotted Adder had been the orator of his tribe. Men had listened to his words in admiration, wondering whence he obtained the eloquence which moved them; and at that moment it was as if all the power of his earlier manhood had returned.
The White Bow was well known among all the Pottawatomie tribes. Even the Sacs and Foxes had heard of it and feared it. It was older than the Giver’s historic necklace, and tradition said that it had been hurled to earth on the breath of a mighty snowstorm. It had fallen before the wigwam of the Spotted Adder’s ancestor and had been handed down from father to son, as fair and sound as on the day of its first bestowal. None knew the wood of which it was fashioned, which many could bend and twist but none could break. The string which first bound it had never worn nor wasted, and not a feather had ever fallen from the arrows in the quiver, nor had their number ever diminished, no matter how often sped. It was the one possession left to the neglected warrior and had been protected by its own reputed origin. There were daring thieves in many a tribe, but never a thief so bold he would risk his soul in the seizure of the White Bow.
Wahneenah felt no choice but to comply with the Indian’s command. She took the bow and its accoutrements from the sheltered niche in the tepee where it hung; the only spot, it seemed, that had not been subjected to the destruction of the elements. She had never held it in her hand before, and she wondered at its lightness as she carried it to its owner, and placed it in the gnarled fingers which would never string it again.
“Good! Call the child to stand here.”
With awe, Wahneenah motioned the little one within the red man’s reach. The last vestige of fear or repulsion had vanished from her own mind before the majesty of this hour.
“Does the poor, sick Feather-man want another drink? Shall Kitty fetch it now?”
“Hush, papoose!”
He would have opened the small white hand and clasped it about the bow, which reached full three times the height of the child, and along whose beautiful length she gazed in wonder, but he could not.
“Take it, Girl-Child. It is a gift. It is more magical than the necklace. Take it, hold it tight – that will please him – and say what is in your heart.”
“Oh, the beau’ful bow! Is it for Kitty? To keep, forever and ever? Why, it is bigger than that one of the Sauganash, and far prettier than Winnemeg’s. It cannot be for Kitty, just little Kitty girl.”
“Yes; it is.”
Then the Sun Maid laid it reverently down, and catching hold her scant tunic made the old-fashioned curtsey which her Fort friends had taught her.
“Thank you, poor Feather-man. I will take care of it very nice. I won’t break it, not once.”
“Ugh!” grunted the Indian, with satisfaction. Then he closed his eyes as if he would sleep.
“Good-night, Spotted Adder, the Mighty. I thank you, also, on the child’s behalf. It is the second gift this day of talismans that must protect. Surely, she will be clothed in safety. Hearken to me. I must go home. The Sun Maid must be fed and put to sleep. But I will return. I am no longer afraid. You were my father’s friend. All that a woman’s hand can now do for your comfort shall be done.”
But the Spotted Adder made no sign, and whether he did or did not hear her, Wahneenah never knew. She walked swiftly homeward, bearing the White Papoose upon one strong arm and the White Bow upon the other. Yet she noticed, with a smile, that the child still clung tenderly to her own burden of the injured squirrel, and that she was infinitely more careful of it and its suffering than of the wonderful gift she had received.
Long before her own tepee was reached the Sun Maid was fast asleep; and as the small head rested more and more heavily upon Wahneenah’s shoulder, and the soft breath of childhood fanned her throat, the woman again doubted the spiritual origin of the foundling, and felt fresh gratitude for its simple humanity.
“Well, whoever and whatever she is, she is already thrice protected. By her Indian dress, by her White Bow, and by Lahnowenah’s White Necklace. She is quite safe from every enemy now.”
“Not quite,” said a voice at Wahneenah’s elbow.
But it was only Osceolo, the Simple. Nobody minded him or his words.
