"Yes," continued the youth, sheathing the sabre; "the man with the kind
heart and the snowy pinion has come back to the mountains. He will be
here before the shadows of the trees grow much longer."
"Whitewing?" exclaimed Softswan, with a gleam of pleasure in her bright
black eyes.
"Just so. The prairie chief has come back to us, and is now a
preacher."
"Has the pale-face preacher com' vis him?" asked the bride, with a
slightly troubled look, for she did not yet feel quite at home in her
broken English, and feared that her husband might laugh at her mistakes,
though nothing was further from the mind of the stout hunter than to
laugh at his pretty bride. He did indeed sometimes indulge the
propensity in that strange conventional region "his sleeve," but no owl
of the desert was more solemn in countenance than Big Tim when Softswan
perpetrated her lingual blunders.
"I know not," he replied, as he renewed the priming of one of the guns.
"Hist! did you see something move under the willow bush yonder?"
The girl shook her head.
"A rabbit, no doubt," said the hunter, lowering the rifle which he had
raised, and resuming his easy unconcerned attitude, yet keeping his keen
eye on the spot with a steadiness that showed his indifference was
assumed.
"I know not whether the pale-face preacher is with him," he continued.
"Those who told me about him could only say that a white man dressed
like the crows was travelling a short distance in advance of Whitewing,
but whether he was one of his party or not, they could not tell. Indeed
it is said that Whitewing has no party with him, that he travels alone.
If he does, he is more reckless than ever, seeing that his enemies the
Blackfeet are on the war-path just now; but you never know what a
half-mad redskin will do, and Whitewing is a queer customer."
Big Tim's style of speech was in accordance with his half-caste nature--
sometimes flowing in channels of slightly poetic imagery, like that of
his Indian mother; at other times dropping into the very matter-of-fact
style of his white sire.
"Leetil Tim vill be glad," said Softswan.
"Ay, daddy will be pleased. By the way, I wonder what keeps him out so
long? I half expected to find him here when I arrived. Indeed, I made
sure it was him that tumbled yon Blackfoot off the cliff so smartly.
You see, I didn't know you were such a plucky little woman, my soft one,
though I might have guessed it, seeing that you possess all the good
qualities under the sun; but a man hardly expects his squaw to be great
on the war-path, d'ye see?"
Softswan neither smiled nor looked pleased at the compliment intended in
these words.
"Me loves not to draw bloods," she said gravely, with a pensive look on
the ground.
"Don't let that disturb you, soft one," said her husband, with a quiet
laugh. "By the way he jumped after it I guess he has got no more harm
than if you'd gin him an overdose o' physic. But them reptiles bein' in
these parts makes me raither anxious about daddy. Did he say where he
meant to hunt when he went off this morning?"
"Yes; Leetil Tim says hims go for hunt near Lipstock Hill."
"Just so; Lopstick Hill," returned Tim, correcting her with offhand
gravity.
"But me hears a shote an' a cry," said the girl, with a suddenly anxious
look.
"That was from one o' the redskins, whose thigh I barked for sendin' an
arrow raither close to my head," said the young man.
"But," continued his bride, with increasing anxiety, "the shote an' the
cry was long before you comes home. Pr'aps it bees Leetil Tim."
"Impossible," said Big Tim quickly; "father must have bin miles away at
that time, for Lopsuck Hill is good three hours' walk from here as the
crow flies, an' the Blackfeet came from the opposite airt o' the
compass."
The young hunter's prolonged silence after this, as well as the
expression of his face, showed that he was not quite as easy in his mind
as his words implied.
"Did the cry seem to be far off?" he asked at last quickly.
"Not far," returned his wife.
Without speaking, Big Tim began to buckle on the cavalry sabre, not in
the loosely-swinging cavalry fashion, but closely and firmly to his
side, with his broad waistbelt, so that it might not impede his
movements. He then selected from the arms a short double-barrelled gun,
and, slinging a powder-horn and shot-pouch over his shoulders, prepared
to depart.
"Now listen, my soft one," he said, on completing his arrangements. "I
feel a'most sartin sure that the cry ye heard was _not_ daddy's;
nevertheless, the bare possibility o' such a thing makes it my dooty to
go an' see if it was the old man. I think the Blackfeet have drawed off
to have a palaver, an' won't be back for a bit, so I'll jist slip down
the precipice by our secret path; an' if they do come back when I'm
away, pepper them well wi' slugs. I'll hear the shots, an' be back to
you afore they can git up the hill. But if they should make a
determined rush, don't you make too bold a stand agin 'em. Just let fly
with the big-bore when they're half-way up the track, an' then slip into
the cave. I'll soon meet ye there, an we'll give the reptiles a
surprise. Now, you'll be careful, soft one?"
Soft one promised to be careful, and Big Tim, entering the hut, passed
out at a back door, and descended the cliff to the torrent below by a
concealed path which even a climbing monkey might have shuddered to
attempt.
Meanwhile Softswan, re-arranging and re-examining her firearm, sat down
behind the breastwork to guard the fort.
The sun was still high in the heavens, illuming a magnificent prospect
of hill and dale and virgin forest, and glittering in the lakelets,
pools, and rivers, which brightened the scene as far as the distant
horizon, where the snow-clad peaks of the Rocky Mountains rose grandly
into the azure sky.
The girl sat there almost motionless for a long time, exhibiting in her
face and figure at once the keen watchfulness of the savage and the
endurance of the pale-face.
Unlike many girls of her class, she had at one period been brought for a
short time under the influence of men who loved the Lord Jesus Christ
and esteemed it equally a duty and a privilege to urge others to flee
from the wrath to come and accept the Gospel offer of salvation--men who
themselves had long before been influenced by the pale-face preacher to
whom Softswan had already referred. The seed had, in her case, fallen
into good ground, and had brought forth the fruit of an earnest desire
to show good-will to all with whom she had to do. It had also aroused
in her a hungering and thirsting for more knowledge of God and His ways.
It was natural, therefore, as she gazed on the splendid scene spread out
before her, that the thoughts of this child of the backwoods should rise
to contemplation of the Creator, and become less attentive to inferior
matters than circumstances required.
She was recalled suddenly to the danger of her position by the
appearance of a dark object, which seemed to crawl out of the bushes
below, just where the zigzag track entered them. At the first glance it
seemed to resemble a bear; a second and more attentive look suggested
that it might be a man. Whether bear or man, however, it was equally a
foe, at least so thought Softswan, and she raised one of the guns to her
shoulder with a promptitude that would have done credit to Big Tim
himself.
But she did not fire. The natural disinclination to shed blood
restrained her--fortunately, as it turned out,--for the crawling object,
on reaching the open ground, rose with apparent difficulty and staggered
forward a few paces in what seemed to be the form of a drunken man.
After one or two ineffectual efforts to ascend the track, the
unfortunate being fell and remained a motionless heap upon the ground.