THE RED RIGHT HAND.
A singular-looking man, dressed as a Western hunter, stood alone in a
gorge in the depths of the Black Hills. On the hat that covered his
handsome, well-shaped head was a large pin of red coral, shaped like a
human hand.
The right hand of the hunter, which rested now on his rifle, was
blood-red in color, thus resembling the coral hand pinned to the
side of his hat. These two things gave him the name by which he was
known--Red Hand, the scout.
As he stood thus, a deer leaped into view, and behind it came a man.
The man’s rifle cracked, and the deer fell. Then the hunter’s rifle
sounded, almost as if it were an echo, and the man who had shot the
deer fell dead on the grass.
With rapid strides the man of the red right hand advanced and stood
over the prostrate form of the man he had slain. Into his face crept a
look that was hard to fathom, for it held hatred, sorrow, triumph, and
remorse, all commingled.
Though limp and stiffening with death, the form of the man who had been
shot was of splendid proportions, and clad in a full suit of buckskin.
The head was sheltered by a soft felt hat, beneath which were clusters
of dark curls clinging around the neck, while the face, pale and
lifeless, was most striking in appearance, and had doubtless once been
exceedingly handsome, before the stamp of reckless dissipation had been
set upon it.
By the side of the slain lay a Spencer rifle, and in his belt were
revolvers and knife, none of which had served him when face to face
with the man who had taken his life.
At length the lips of Red Hand quivered slightly, parted, and he said,
half aloud:
“At last we have met, Ben Talbot, you and I! Yes, met here, in the very
heart of the wilderness--how different from our last meeting, seven
years ago. Yes, met! you to fall dead at my feet, and your soul hurled
into the bottomless pit by my hand. Dead, Ben Talbot, aye, dead you
are, for my aim could not fail when the muzzle of my rifle covered your
heart.
“A strange fate brought your footsteps to this spot! A strange destiny
led me alone into these wilds where I believed a white man never came.
Your fate led you to death; my destiny led me to avenge. But for the
sake of the olden time I will not leave you here to be torn limb from
limb by wild beasts. No; I will bury you beneath that tree, and a grave
in the wilderness will be your tomb.”
A moment longer the scout stood, silently and painfully musing, and
then the night shadows creeping on, warned him to begin his work.
Unslinging, from a loop behind his belt, a small but serviceable
hatchet, he began to dig a grave in the soft earth beneath a sheltering
tree.
An hour’s work, and he had descended to a sufficient depth, and seeking
the thicket, he cut a number of poles just the length of the grave.
Then the stiffened form was tenderly raised and laid in its earthly
bed, the feet toward the rising sun. Above it the poles were placed and
securely fastened, for Red Hand knew that wild beasts would attempt to
rob the grave of its human occupant.
Carefully and compactly the grave was filled, and then, in the smooth
bark of the tree at its head, Red Hand cut with his knife the name of
the man he had slain and the date of his death. It read: “Ben Talbot,
born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, January 1, 1838. Slain in the Black
Hills, July 10, 1866.”
As Red Hand cut the last figure in the inscription, the darkness of
night came upon the valley. Far above, on the eastward slope of the
hills, was visible the rosy tinge of the departed sunshine, and upon
the summit of the western mountains was the mellow light of the rising
moon, tingeing with silvery radiance the forest-clad scenery, grand in
its gloom, desolation and deathlike silence.