THE
WOLF QUEEN,
OR,
THE GIANT HERMIT OF THE SCIOTO.
BY CAPT. CHARLES HOWARD,
AUTHOR OF “THE ELK KING,” (POCKET NOVEL NO. 45.)
NEW YORK:
BEADLE AND ADAMS, PUBLISHERS,
98 WILLIAM STREET.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, by
FRANK STARR & CO.,
In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
CONTENTS
PAGE
I. THE RIVER COMBAT. 9
II. THE HERMIT AND HIS CAVE. 12
III. JIM GIRTY AND HIS PRISONER. 18
IV. THE EVENTS OF THAT NIGHT. 22
V. THE MYSTERIOUS DEATH-SHOTS. 27
VI. OUT OF THE CAVE TO DOOM. 31
VII. ALASKA IN HER FRENZY. 36
VIII. JIM GIRTY TRIUMPHS. 40
IX. ONE OF ALASKA’S WHIMS. 45
X. THE FATE OF WELL-LAID PLANS. 50
XI. THE MOLES ON THE SHOULDER. 56
XII. NOT YET! NOT YET! 60
XIII. THE BAFFLED RENEGADE. 66
XIV. SQUAW VENGEANCE, AND SQUAW RAGE. 71
XV. A LEAF FROM THE HERMIT’S LIFE. 75
XVI. THE KING OF THE WOLVES. 78
XVII. THE CONFERENCE ON THE KNOLL. 80
XVIII. SIMON GIRTY IN HIS WAR-PAINT. 82
XIX. A CHANGE IN AFFAIRS. 85
XX. THE BLOODY MEETING. 89
XXI. THE LIGHT OF OTHER DAYS. 94
THE WOLF-QUEEN;
OR,
THE GIANT HERMIT OF THE SCIOTO.
CHAPTER I.
THE RIVER COMBAT.
The sun was sinking, a great fiery ball, in the leaden west, at the
close of an autumn day, in the year 1804, when a solitary canoe
descended the Scioto, then vastly swollen by recent rains.
The single occupant of the tiny bark was a youth of two and twenty
summers, clad in buck-skin. His beardless face gave him an extremely
womanish expression. Its smooth surface was yet untanned by the
rays of the sun, which fairness of skin proclaimed him a novice in
backwoods life.
He plied the oars deftly and noiselessly, and kept in the middle of
the stream. Ever and anon he glanced upward at the ragged cliffs that
hung over the murky and turbulent waters like the hand of doom. But,
at last, he passed beyond the precipitous banks, and gained the mouth
of the Scioto’s nosiest tributary.
Here he rested upon his oars a moment, as if to decide a mental
debate, then ran his canoe up the new stream, toward the left bank of
which he presently steered.
“So far without accident,” he murmured in an audible tone, not before
glancing furtively around. “Simon Kenton may be a great hunter; but
he is a sorry prophet. What! did he think I would wait until he
returned from the hazardous expedition he is about to undertake,
and leave Eudora the while in Jim Girty’s hands? And when, in the
ebullition of anger, as I will admit--I called him a lunatic, and
told him that I would rescue the girl without the aid of his potent
arm, he said, with a sneer I shall never forget: ‘Go, rash boy, and
meet the reward for spurning the counsels of your elders. Go to the
death prepared for you by the Wolf-Queen.’”
“The Wolf-Queen!” the young man continued, after a sneer for the
prophecy of the king of backwoodsmen. “If such a creature exists, I
want to meet her; and I have no reason for doubting her existence,
for Simon Kenton says he once trembled in her presence. And Simon
Kenton never lies. I will pit my strength against the Amazon, and her
wolfish guard. Though rash and young in the ways of the woods, Mayne
Fairfax is not a coward, else why came he from cultivated Virginia to
the dark death-paths of Ohio? No; I--My God!”
The exclamation was called into being by the terrible sight that
suddenly burst upon the young hunter’s vision.
Scarce the distance of a hundred yards up-stream, a canoe shot from
the bush-fringed bank, and bore down upon the young Virginian.
In the center of the bark stood the very person he had lately
expressed a desire to meet--the dreaded Wolf-Queen--dreaded alike by
Indians and whites.
She towered six feet above her moccasins, and her frame seemed built
of iron. She wore a frock of tanned doe-skin, the fringes of which
touched her knees. The leggins which fitted her nether limbs to a
fault, were composed of panther skins, secured to the moccasins by
painted strips of deer-hide. Over all these garments she wore a
long, dark robe whose ample folds disappeared in the canoe, and lent
a royal aspect to its strange wearer. Her head was surrounded by a
dress, composed of white heron-feathers, and among her raven locks,
which streamed over her shoulders, and covered her beaded bosom, were
curiously, but not distastily, woven the gaudy feathers of the North
American oriole.
The features, more than the dress of the singular being so suddenly
encountered on the swollen stream, commanded the hunter’s attention.
They belonged to a woman in the noon, or summer of life. Here and
there a wrinkle was to be seen, and a sadly strange beauty pervaded
her countenance. But the eyes--those faithful indexes of the human
heart--proclaimed their possessor--a white woman--_mad_!
Yes, the unmistakable fire of insanity blazed fiercely in those
baleful orbs, and told the single beholder that she was a perfect
demon, when the paroxysm of lunacy swayed her.
But she was not alone.
On either side of her stood a huge black wolf, while at her feet
sat a monster gray one. A collar of deer-skin, elaborately beaded,
encircled the necks of the fierce brutes, and from their shaggy backs
the muddy water dripped.
The sight was enough to blanch the boldest cheek, and Mayne Fairfax
could not repress a shriek of terror. It bubbled to his lips
unsummoned.
He now had ocular proof that the dreadful Wolf-Queen was not a myth.
The canoe and its terrible freight approached with an impetus
received from the swift waters. No oars were needed to keep it in
the center of the stream--a swift current did this service for the
Wolf-Queen, who stood erect in the bark, clutching a drawn bow.
Mayne Fairfax’s presence of mind soon returned. He griped his rifle,
but ere it struck his shoulder the twang of a bow-string smote
his ears, and a barbed shaft buried itself in his right breast.
Instantaneously a faintness stole over him, but the courageous hunter
repressed it, as the canoe of the Amazon grated against his.
He would not die without a struggle, and therefore seized his rifle
for the second time, for the purpose of braining his antagonist.
At that moment the gray wolf left his post.
The clubbed rifle dropped into the canoe, as the wolf buried his
fangs in the hunter’s throat, and the brave fellow staggered back,
trying to tear the mad animal from his breast.
In that terrible moment Simon Kenton’s last words burst doomfully and
prophetically upon his mind!
But his end was not yet.
For in the fateful moment that followed the lupine attack, the sharp
report of a rifle rent the air; the wolf relinquished his hold with a
groan, and fell at Mayne Fairfax’s feet--dead!
The Wolf-Queen turned toward the shore, and saw a great coonskin
cap surmounting a clump of prickly pears. Instantly a cry, but half
earthly, escaped her lips, and a minute later she was flying down the
stream, vainly trying to stanch the crimson tide that flowed from the
gray wolf’s heart; while at her feet crouched the black monsters,
drinking the warm blood of their lifeless companion.
The young hunter’s canoe began to drift toward the Scioto, and upon
its gory bottom, as motionless as a corpse, lay Mayne Fairfax.
Suddenly the pear bushes parted, and a backwoods giant, bearing a
long but deadly-looking rifle sprung into the stream, and intercepted
the drifting canoe.
He looked over the side, and shook his head doubtingly.
“Poor lad! poor lad!” he murmured, with rough but genuine indications
of sorrow. “I’m afraid he’s going to cross the river.”
Then, standing in the water in the middle of the tributary, he
stanched the blood that poured from the lacerated throat, which he
bound with the soft linings of his grotesque cap.
“There!” he cried, surveying his work. “That doctoring will do until
I reach home. This young chap must not die. He’s too brave to perish
in the springtime of his life. I wonder what brought him alone to
these parts!”
Then with the interrogative still quivering his lips, he towed the
boat ashore, moored it to a clump of alder bushes, and raising the
unconscious youth in his arms, darted away into the great forest,
where strange fortunes and adventures awaited him and the human
burden he bore.