HOW REGINALD BRANDON RETURNED TO MOOSHANNE WITH HIS SISTER, ACCOMPANIED
BY WINGENUND; AND WHAT BEFELL THEM ON THE ROAD.
Lucy Brandon was not a little surprised at the chief’s sudden
departure; and, with the frankness natural to her character, inquired
of her brother whether he could explain its cause. Reginald appeared
either unable or unwilling to do so; and an appeal to the guide
produced only the following unsatisfactory reply:
“War–Eagle is like the bird after which he’s called—it ain’t easy to
explain or to follow his flight.”
Wingenund remained silent, but every now and then he fixed his bright
and speaking eyes upon Lucy, as if he would divine her thoughts.
That young lady, though at a loss to account for her embarrassment,
entertained a fear that all was not right, and proposed to her brother
to return to Mooshanne.
Snowdrop was soon caught, and the little party moved leisurely
homeward, Reginald and the guide leading the way, and Wingenund
walking by the side of Lucy’s pony; after riding a few minutes, she
recovered her spirits, and remembering that there was no foundation
for any surmises of evil, she resumed the conversation with her young
companion, which the chief’s departure had interrupted. “Tell me,
Wingenund, who is the ‘Black Father,’ of whom you speak?”
“He is very good,” said the boy, seriously; “He talks with the Great
Spirit; and he tells us all that the Great Spirit has done; how He made
the earth, and the water; and how He punishes bad men, and makes good
men happy.”
“He is a white man, then?” said Lucy.
“He is,” replied the lad; “but though he is a white man, he always
speaks truth, and does good, and drinks no fire–water, and is never
angry.”
What a humiliating reflection is it, thought Lucy to herself, that
in the mind of this young savage the idea of white men is naturally
associated with drunkenness and strife! “Tell me, Wingenund,” she
continued, “is the ‘Black Father’ old?”
“Many winters have passed over his head, and their snow rests upon his
hair.”
“Does he live with you always?”
“He comes and he goes, like the sunshine and the rain; he is always
welcome; and the Lenapé love him.”
“Can he speak your tongue well?”
“He speaks many tongues, and tries to make peace between the tribes;
but he loves the Lenapé, and he teaches ‘the Prairie–bird’ to talk with
the Great Spirit.”
“Does your sister speak to the Black Father in her own tongue?”
“Sometimes, and sometimes in the English; but often in a strange
tongue, written on a great book. The Black Father reads it, and the
Prairie–bird opens her ears, and looks on his face, and loves his
words; and then she tells them all to me. But Wingenund is a child of
the Lenapé—he cannot understand these things!”
“You will understand them,” said Lucy, kindly, “if you only have
patience: you know,” she added, smiling, “your sister understands them,
and she is a Lenapé too!”
“Yes,” said the boy; “but nobody is like Prairie–bird.”
“She must, indeed, be a remarkable person,” said Lucy, humouring her
young companion’s fancy; “still, as you have the same father and
mother, and the same blood, whatever she learns, you can learn too.”
“I have no father or mother,” said Wingenund, sadly, and he added, in
a mysterious whisper, drawing near to Lucy, “Prairie–bird never had a
father or mother.”
“Never had a father or mother!” repeated Lucy, as the painful thought
occurred to her, that poor Wingenund was deranged.
“Never,” said the boy, in the same tone; “she came from _there_,”
pointing, as he spoke, towards the north–west quarter of the heaven.
“How melancholy is it,” said Lucy to herself, “to think that this
brave, amiable boy should be so afflicted! that so intelligent and
quick a mind should be like a lyre with a broken string! Still,”
thought she, “I will endeavour to understand his meaning, and to
undeceive him.”
“Dear Wingenund, you are mistaken—your sister had the same father and
mother as yourself; she may have learnt much, and may understand things
strange to you, but you might learn them too.”
“Wingenund’s father and mother are dead,” said the boy, in a voice of
deep and suppressed emotion; “he will not tell you _how_ they died, for
it makes his heart throb and his eyes burn; but you are good to him,
and shall not see his anger. Prairie–bird never had a father; the Great
Spirit gave her to the Lenapé.”
While Lucy was musing how she should endeavour to dispel this strange
delusion, which seemed to have taken such firm hold of her young
companion’s mind, Reginald and Baptiste halted, and the latter said,
“You see that party approaching; they may put some troublesome
questions, leave me to answer them. Wingenund, you know what I mean?”
“Wingenund does not understand English,” said the boy, a slight smile
of irony lurking in the corner of his mouth.
The approaching party consisted of eight or ten men, all armed with
rifles, excepting two, who were mounted, and who carried cutlasses
and large horse–pistols; among the pedestrians towered the gigantic
form of young Mike Smith, who has already been presented to the reader
before the store of David Muir in Marietta; and among the horsemen was
the younger Hervey, leading his friends to scour the whole country in
search of the slayer of his brother: they were all in a high state of
excitement; and despite the cool and unmoved demeanour of the guide,
he was not without apprehension that they might desire to wreak their
vengeance on Wingenund.
“Ha! Baptiste,” said Hervey, grasping the guide’s hand; “you are the
very man we are in search of; we have already been to the Colonel’s,
and he told us we should find you with his son, and with Miss Brandon,
in this quarter. We want your assistance, man, and that speedily too.”
“How can I serve you?” said the guide; “what is the matter? you seem
bent on a hunt.”
“A hunt?” exclaimed Hervey, “yes, a hunt of a red–skin devil! Harkee,
Baptiste!” and stooping from his horse, he repeated to the guide,
in a low voice, but clear enough to be heard by all present, the
circumstances attending his brother’s death.
“A daring act, indeed,” said the guide musing: “but could not you
follow the trail while it was fresh, yesterday?”
“We followed it to a creek leading to the Muskingum, and there we lost
it.”
“Can you describe the appearance of the Indian?” inquired the guide.
“A tall, handsome fellow, as straight as a poplar, and with a leap like
a painter, so he seemed; but d—n him, he gave me such a knock on the
head, that my eyes swam for five minutes.”
A cold shudder ran through Lucy’s limbs as, comparing this slight
sketch of War–Eagle with his sudden departure and the guide’s caution
to Wingenund, she recognised in the chief the object of their
search: glancing her eye timidly at Wingenund, she could read on his
countenance no traces of uneasiness; he was playing with Snowdrop’s
mane; his gun resting on the ground, and he himself apparently
unconscious of what was passing.
After a minute’s reflection, the guide continued: “You say that the
Indian’s rifle was broken in half; did you notice anything about it?”
“Nothing: it was a strong coarse piece; we have brought the stock with
us; here it is,” he added, calling up one of his party to whom it had
been entrusted.
The guide took it in his hand, and at the first glance detected the
imitation of a feather, roughly but distinctly cut with a knife:
his own suspicions were at once confirmed, although his countenance
betrayed no change of expression; but Mike Smith, who had been looking
over his shoulder, had also observed the marks of the feather, and
noticed it immediately aloud, adding, “Come, Baptiste, you know all the
Ingian marks between Alleghany and the Missouri; what red–skin has
this belonged to?”
“Mike,” said the guide coolly, “a man’s tongue must shoot far and true
to hit such a mark as that.”
“And yet, Baptiste, if I’d been as long at the guiding and trapping as
you, I think I’d a’ know’d something about it.”
“Ay, that’s the way of it,” replied Baptiste; “you young ‘uns always
think you can shave a hog with a horn spoon! I’spose, Master Mike,
you can tell a buzzard from a mockingbird; but if I was to show you a
feather, and ask you _what_ buzzard it belonged to, the answer might
not be easy to find.”
“You’re an old fool,” growled Mike, angrily; and he added, as his eye
rested suddenly upon Wingenund, “What cub is that standing by Miss’s
white pony? we’ll see if he knows this mark. Come here, you devil’s
brat.”
Not a muscle in the boy’s face betrayed his consciousness that he was
addressed.
“Come here, you young red–skin!” shouted Mike yet more angrily, “or
I’ll sharpen your movements with the point of my knife.”
Reginald’s fiery temper was ill calculated to brook the young
backwoods–man’s coarse and violent language: placing himself directly
between him and Wingenund, he said to the former in a stern and
determined tone, “Master Smith, you forget yourself; that boy is one of
my company, and is not to be exposed either to insult or injury.”
“Here’s a pretty coil about a young red–skin,” said Mike, trying to
conceal his anger under a forced laugh; “how do we know that he ain’t
a brother or a son of the Ingian we’re in search of? s’ blood, if we
could find out that he was, we’d tar him, and burn him over a slow
fire!”
“I tell you again,” said Reginald, “that he is guilty of no crime; that
he saved my life, yesterday, at the risk of his own; and that, while I
live, neither you nor any of your party shall touch a hair of his head.”
Baptiste fearing the result of more angry words, and moved by an
appealing look from Miss Brandon, now interposed, and laying his
hand on Smith’s shoulder, said, “Come, Master Mike, there is no use
in threatening the young red–skin, when you see that he does not
understand a word that you say: tell me what you wish to inquire of
him, and I will ask him in his own tongue.”
“His tongue be d——d,” said Mike; “I’ll wager a hat against a gallon
of David Muir’s best, that the brat knows English as well as you or I,
although he seems to have nothing to do but to count the tassels on the
edge of his shirt. I’ll show you, without hurting him,” he added in a
lower tone, “that I’m not far wrong.”
“You swear not to injure him?” said Reginald, who overheard what passed.
“I do,” said Mike; “I only want to show you that he can’t make a fool
of Mike Smith.” Here he called up one of the men from the rear; and
having whispered something in his ear, he said, in a loud and distinct
tone of voice, “Jack, we have found out that this Indian cub belongs to
the party, one of whom murdered poor Hervey. Life for life is the law
of the backwoods: do you step a little on one side; I will count four,
and when I come to the four, split me the young rascal’s head, either
with a bullet or with your axe.”
“For Heaven’s sake, as you are men,” exclaimed Lucy, in an agony,
“spare him!”
“Peace, Miss Brandon,” said Mike; “your brother will explain to you
that it must be so.”
The guide would fain have whispered a word to the boy, but he was too
closely watched by Smith, and he was obliged to trust to Wingenund’s
nerves and intelligence.
“Are you ready, Jack?” said Mike, audibly.
“Yes!” and he counted slowly, pausing between each number,
“one—two—_three_!” At the pronunciation of this last word, Wingenund,
whose countenance had not betrayed, by the movement of a muscle, or
by the expression of a single feature, the slightest interest in what
was passing, amused himself by patting the great rough head which Wolf
rubbed against his hand as if totally unconscious that the deadly
weapon was raised, and that the next word from the hunter’s lips was to
be his death warrant.
“D—n it, you are right, after all, Baptiste,” said Mike Smith; “the
brat certainly does not understand us, or he’d have pricked his ears
when I came to number three; so, do you ask him, in his own lingo, if
he knows that mark on the rifle–butt, and can tell us to what red–skin
tribe it belongs?”
The guide now addressed a few words to Wingenund in the Delaware
tongue, while Reginald and Lucy interchanged a glance of wonder and
admiration at the boy’s sagacity and courage.
“He tells me that he has seen this mark before,” said the guide.
“Has he?” replied Mike; “ask him whether it is that of a Shawnee or a
Wyandot, of an Iroquois or of a Delaware?”
After again conferring with Wingenund, the guide muttered to himself,
“This youngster won’t tell a lie to keep a bullet from his brain or
a halter from his neck; I must act for him.” He added, in a louder
tone, “Mike, a word with you: it is not unlikely that the Ingian
you’re in search of, is the same who gave the boy that wound, and who
tried to kill Master Reginald yesterday: if it is so, he wants no more
punishing; he has his allowance already.”
“How so?” said Mike.
“He is dead, man,—killed on the spot. Do you and Hervey meet me here
to–morrow, an hour before noon; I will take you to the place where the
body is buried, and you shall judge for yourselves whether it is that
of the man you seek.”
“It’s a bargain,” said Mike; “we’ll come to the time. Now, lads,
forward to Hervey’s clearing. Let’s have a merry supper to–night; and
to–morrow, if the guide shows us the carcase of this rascal, why we
can’t hurt that much; but we’ll pay off a long score, one day or other,
with some of the red–skins. Sorry to have kept you waitin’, Miss; and
hope we haven’t scared you,” said the rough fellow, making, as he drew
off his party, an awkward attempt at a parting bow to Lucy.
“That was a clever turn of Baptiste’s,” said Reginald in a low voice to
his sister; “he has made them believe that the cowardly knave who tried
to stab me was the perpetrator of the daring outrage which they seek to
avenge!”
“And was it really War–Eagle?” said Lucy, with a slight shudder,—“he
who looks so noble and so gentle,—was it he who did it?”
“I believe so,” said Reginald.
“But is it not wrong in us to be friends with him, and to aid his
escape?”
“Indeed,” replied her brother, “it admits of doubt; let us ask the
guide, he will speak now without reserve;” and accordingly Reginald
repeated to Baptiste the question and his sister’s scruples.
“Why you see, Miss,” said the wary hunter, “there is no proof that
War–Eagle did it; though I confess it was too bold a deed to have been
done by that dog of a Wyandot: but I will tell you, Miss,” he added,
with increasing energy and vehemence, “IF the War–Eagle did it, you
will yourself, when you know all, confess that he did it nobly, and
that he deserves no punishment from man. That elder Hervey was one of
the bloodthirsty band by whom the harmless Christian Indians[21] were
murdered; and it is believed that it was by Hervey’s own hand that
Wingenund’s father fell; _if_ War–Eagle revenged this cruel murder, and
yet spared the life of the younger brother, when lying helpless at his
feet, who shall dare to blame him, or move a foot in his pursuit?”
“He speaks the truth, Lucy,” said her brother; “according to the rules
by which retaliation is practised by mankind, War–Eagle would have been
justified in punishing with death such an act of unprovoked atrocity:
but it is a dangerous subject to discuss; you had better forget _all_
you have heard about it; and in case of further inquiries being made in
your presence, imitate the happy unconsciousness lately displayed by
Wingenund.”
“Come here, my dear young brother,” he added in a kindly tone, “and
tell us,—did you really think that hot–headed chap was going to shoot
you when he counted number three?”
“No,” said the boy with a scornful smile.
“And why not? for he’s a violent and angry man.”
“He dared not,” was the reply.
“How so?”
“He is a fool!” said the boy, in the same scornful tone; “a fool
scarcely fit to frighten the fawn of an antelope! If he had touched me
or attempted to shoot me, Netis and Grande–Hâche would have killed him
immediately.”
“You are right, my young brave,” said Reginald, “he dared not hurt you.
See, dear Lucy,” he added apart to his sister, “what a ripe judgment,
what an heroic spirit, what nerves of iron, are found in the slender
frame of this wounded boy, exhausted by fatigue and suffering!”
“We will at least give him a hearty supper,” said Lucy, “and an
affectionate welcome to our home.”
Wingenund thanked her with his dark eyes, and the little party
proceeded leisurely, without incident or interruption, to Mooshanne.