"A swelled heart may cost ye money, but a swelled head'll
cost ye ten times more."--Old Cy Walker.
An unexpected canoe entering a lake so secluded and so seldom visited as
this lake must needs awaken the keenest surprise, and especially in the
case of a party situated as this one was. Ray, who had just returned
from a berry-picking trip over at the "blow down," and Old Cy, carrying
his suggestive rifle, were at the landing some time before this canoe
reached it, while Angie and Chip waited almost breathlessly on the cabin
piazza. A stout, bare-headed Indian, clad in white man's raiment, was
paddling. He glanced at the two awaiting him at the landing, with big
black, emotionless eyes, and then up to the cabin.
As his canoe now grated on the sandy beach close by, he laid aside his
paddle, stepped forward and out, drew his craft well up, and folding
his arms glanced at Old Cy again, as if waiting for a welcome. None was
needed, however, for on the instant, almost, came an exclamation of joy
from Chip, and with a "Hullo, Poppy Tomah," she was down the bank,
with both her hands in his.
A faint smile of welcome spread over his austere face as he looked down
at the girl, but not a word, as yet, came.
Old Cy, quick to see that he was a friend, now advanced.
"We're glad to see ye," he said, "an' as ye seem to be a friend o'
the gal's, we'll make ye welcome."
The Indian bowed low, and a "How do," like a grunt, was his answer. A
calm, slow, motionless type of a now almost extinct race, as he seemed
to be, he would utter no word or move a step farther until invited. But
now, led by Chip, he advanced up the path.
"It's Tomah, old Poppy Tomah," she said with pride, as Angie rose to
meet them, "and he's the only body who was ever good to me."
"I am glad to see you, sir," Angie said, with a gracious bow and smile,
"and you are welcome here."
"I thank the white lady--I not forget," came the Indian's dignified
answer with a stately bow.
Not a word of greeting for Chip or of surprise at finding her here--only
the eagle glance, accustomed to bright sunlight or to following the
flight of a bird far out of white man's vision.
"We shall have supper soon," Angie added, uncertain what to say to this
impassive man, "and some for you."
It was a deft speech, for Angie, accustomed to take in every detail of a
man from the condition of his nails to the cut of his clothing, as all
women will, had ere now absorbed the appearance of this swarthy redskin,
and was not quite sure whether to invite him to share their table or say
nothing.
But the Indian solved his own problem, for spying the outdoor fire to
which Old Cy now retreated, he bowed again and strode away toward it.
"Me cook here?" he said to Old Cy. With an "Of course, an' you're
welcome to," the question was settled.
Chip soon drew near, and now for the first time the Indian's speech
seemed to return, and while Old Cy busied himself about the cooking,
these two began to visit.
Chip, as might be expected, did most of the talking, asked questions as
to Tim's Place, when he was there, and what they said about her running
away, in rapid succession. Her own adventures and how she came here soon
followed, and it was not long before he knew all that was to be known
about her.
His replies were blunt and brief, after the manner of such. Now and then
an expressive nod or grunt filled in the place of an ordinary answer.
He knew but little about the recent happenings at Tim's Place, as he
had stayed there only one night since Chip departed with her father--as
he was told. He had been away in the woods, looking for places to set
traps later, and had no idea Chip was here.
As to Pete's movements, he was equally in the dark, and when Chip told
him what her friends here suspected, he merely grunted. As he seemed to
wish to do his own cooking, Old Cy, having completed his task, offered
him a partridge and a couple of trout fresh from the ice-house, also pork
and potatoes, and left him to care for himself.
He became more sociable later, and when supper was over and the rest had,
as usual, gathered on the piazza of the new cabin, he joined them.
And now came a recital from Ray of far more interest to these people than
they suspected.
"I saw a bear over back of the ridge this afternoon," he said, "or I
don't know but it was a wildcat. I'd just filled my pail with berries,
when way up, close to the rocks, I saw something moving. I crouched down
back of a bush, thinking it might be a bear, and if it was, I'd get
a chance to see it nearer. I could only see the top of its back above
the bushes, and once I saw its head, as if it was standing up. Then I
didn't see it for quite a spell, and then I caught sight of its back
again, a good deal nearer, and then it went into one of the gullies in
the hog-back. I didn't wait to see if it came out, but cut for home."
"Did this critter sorter wobble like a woodchuck runnin'?" put in Old
Cy.
"No, it just crept along evenly," answered Ray, "I'd see it when it
would come out between the bushes."
"'Twa'n't a b'ar," muttered Old Cy, and then, as if the unwisdom of
waking suspicion in Angie's mind occurred, he added hastily, "but mebbe
'twas a doe, walkin' head down 'n' feedin'."
No further notice was taken of Ray's adventure. The sight of deer
everywhere about was a ten-times-daily occurrence, and Old Cy's
dismissal of the matter ended it.
His thoughts, however, were a different matter. Full well he knew it was
no bear thus moving. A deer would never enter a crevasse, nor a wildcat
or lynx ever leave the shelter of woods to wander in open sunlight.
"I'll go over thar in the mornin'," he said to himself; "I may git a
chance to wing that varmint 'n' end our worryin'."
And now Angie, more interested in spites and the weird belief which she
heard that this Indian held than in the sight of a doe, began to ply Old
Tomah with questions, and bit by bit she led him on toward that subject.
It was not an easy task. His speech came slowly. Deeds, not words, are an
Indian's form of expression, and this fair white lady, serene as the
moon and as suave and smiling as culture could make her, was one to awe
him.
With Chip he had been fluent enough. She had been almost a protegee of
his, a big pappoose whom he had taught to manage a canoe, for whom he had
made moccasins, a fur cap and cape, who had listened to all his strange
theories with wide-open, believing eyes, and, best of all, a helpless
waif whom he had learned to love.
But this white lady, awe-inspiring as she was, now failed to induce him
to talk.
Chip, however, keen to catch the drift of Angie's wishes and anxious
to have her own faith defended, soon came to the rescue and induced Old
Tomah to speak--not fluently at first, the "me" in place of "I"
always occurring, adjectives following nouns, prepositions left out in
many cases; and yet, as he warmed up to his subject, his coal-black eyes
were fierce or tender, and the inborn eloquence of his race glowed in
face and speech.
And what a wild tale he told! Some of it was the history of his own
race, beginning long before white men came. He related the contests of
his people with wild animals, their deeds of valor, their torturing
of prisoners, their own scorn of death and stoical endurance of pain.
His own ancestors had been mighty chieftains. They had led the tribe
through many battles, swept down upon their white enemies, an avenging
horde, and were now roaming the happy hunting-grounds where he would soon
join them. Mingled with this tale of warfare and conquest, and always
an unseen force for good or evil, were the spites--the souls of all
brute creation. How they followed or led the hunter! How they warned
their own kind of his coming! How they lured him into unseen danger,
and how they continually sought to avenge their own deaths! There were
also two kinds of them,--some evil and the others good. The evil ones
predominated, the good ones feared them, yet sought to interfere in all
evil effort. These two hosts also had their own warfares. They fought
oftenest when storms raged in the forest. Then they swept the tree-tops
and scurried over the hills in vast numbers, shrieking and screaming
defiance.
Another apparition was oft referred to in this weird talk. A great
white spectre and chieftain of all spites, who sprang from his abode
in the north, whose breath was a blast of snow, howling as it swept
over the wilderness--this ghost, so vast that it covered miles and
miles of wilderness, was altogether evil. It spared neither man nor
beast. The hunter trailing his game met death on the instant and was
left rigid and upright in his tracks. Squaws and children huddled in
wigwams shared the same speedy fate. Lynxes and panthers, deer and
moose by the score, were touched by the same mystic and awful wand of
death.
It was all an uncanny, eerie, ghostly recital; yet all real and true
to Chip, whose eyes never once left the Indian's face while he was
speaking. Angie, too, was spellbound. Never had she heard anything
like it; and while believing it was all a mere myth and legend, a
superstitious fancy, maybe, of this strange Indian, its telling was
none the less interesting.
Ray was also enthralled, and he was half convinced that the forest might,
after all, contain spooks and goblins.
But Old Cy was only a curious listener. He, too, had woven many a
fantastic tale of the sea, its storms and monsters leaping from the
crests of waves, and all such figments of the imagination, and this
fable was but the same. The only feature of passing interest to him was
the fact that any Indian had such a vivid imagination and could relate
such a mingled ghost story so coherently.
Old Tomah ceased speaking even more abruptly than he began, then looked
from one to another of the group, perhaps to see if they all believed
him, and then without a word or even "good night," he rose and stalked
out of the cabin.
For a few moments Chip watched Angie and the rest, anxious to see how
this explanation of her own belief affected them, and then Old Cy spoke.
"I'd hate to be campin' with that Injun," he said, "or sharin' a
wigwam with him night-times. It 'ud be worse'n a man I sot up with
once that had the jim-jams, 'n' I'd see spites and spooks for a week
arter."
Angie's sleep was troubled that night, and in her dreams she saw white
spectres and a man with a hideously scarred face and one eye watching her.
Ray also felt the uncanny influence of such a tale and "saw things"
in his sleep. But Old Cy, who had securely barred the doors and then had
rolled himself in a blanket with rifle handy, thought only of what Ray
had seen that day and who it might be.