A CHANGE IN AFFAIRS.
Jim Girty neither felt nor expressed contrition for his fratricidal
deed. With folded arms he gazed calmly, almost triumphantly, upon his
fallen brother, whom he believed dead--pierced through the head by
his ball.
“I’ll teach you, Simon Girty, how to disobey me!” he at length
hissed, in the silence that reigned after the commission of the dark
crime. “You are my brother, but I care not for that, though I know
that for this act I must fly the Shawnee nation before Tecumseh comes
back. Ha! by heavens! did he move?”
He thought he detected a movement indicative of returning life in
his brother Simon, and, throwing his rifle above his head, he strode
forward with the intention of completing the deed of blood.
But the movement--the convulsive action of Simon’s arm--had been
noticed by the savages, and several sprung to his side far in advance
of his impetuous brother.
The foremost Shawnee, a chief of no mean distinction, jerked the
renegade to his feet, and the eyelids parted, to display eyes
wandering, like lost comets, in their gory sockets.
With clubbed rifle, Jim Girty reached the spot to be hurled to the
earth by an Indian, and a moment later he found himself being swiftly
borne to the prison lodge, his limbs bound with deer-sinews.
He knew that Simon’s heart, like his own, possessed no brotherly
feeling, and that when the painted renegade came to his senses, he
would wreak his vengeance upon his own lovely captive and himself.
On the damp floor of the prison-house Jim Girty found bitter food
for reflection, and, with fate against him, he plotted not only his
own escape, but the freedom of Eudora Morriston. He possessed many
friends in the Shawnee nation; but not so numerous an array as his
brother boasted of. For a long time the brothers had vacillated
between friendship and strife, and James possessed secret friends who
seemed to be active partisans of Simon. His brother was never beyond
the vision of his red spies; and what James lacked in strength he
gained in cunning.
When he heard his guard leave the prison house, he rolled himself to
the door, and applied his lips to the crevice between the portal and
sill.
“Who guards the White Wolf?” he asked in a low tone.
“Giangomah, the Black Whirlwind.”
Girty’s heart gave an exultant throb.
Giangomah had long been his secret friend.
“Who guards with Giangomah?”
“The Black Whirlwind is alone,” was the reply.
“Where is the White Shawnee?”
“He is in his lodge with a crazed head. He will know nothing till
to-morrow.”
Jim Girty could not repress an ejaculation of joy.
“Then to-night Giangomah will help the White Wolf to escape,” he said.
“Yes.”
“Good! The White Wolf and Giangomah will take the Pale Flower, and
fly to the neutral Mingoes.”
“Giangomah is ready,” responded the chief. “When the stars come out,
he will glide to the Pale Flower’s lodge, and kill her guards. Then
he will bear her to the White Wolf, and we will fly to the neutral
tribe. There the White Shawnee and Tecumseh dare not enter to harm
us.”
“No!” cried Girty. “Among the Mingoes the Pale Flower shall become
the White Wolf’s squaw, and woe unto the White Shawnee[2] when he
crosses his path!”
In his lodge Simon Girty raved like a maniac. The ball fired from
his brother’s rifle, had plowed a furrow along his temple, and
deprived him of reason. Yet his return to a rational state was but a
question of time, two days at the furthest; and then he would rise to
vengeance against his brother, and his white prisoner.
But let us return to Mayne Fairfax and the old Medicine.
Simon Girty’s blow broke the old man’s arm, and rendered him
unconscious. Mayne Fairfax dragged him into the interior of the
medicine lodge, and soon restored him to reason.
“The White Shawnee broke Okalona’s arm,” said the aged Indian,
examining the injured member; “but the old Medicine is far from the
lodge of the Manitou. He will help the King of the Wolves baffle
the White Wolf and his brother. Let Co Hago speak, while he binds
Okalona’s arm.”
The old man threw himself upon his couch, while Mayne proceeded to
dress the arm according to the instructions of its owner.
In time, the young man told the old Medicine that he desired the
liberation of Eudora, and Okalona said that the coming night should
witness her freedom.
“When darkness comes Co Hago can go and bring Oonalooska and the Lone
Man to Okalona’s lodge,” said the Medicine, in conclusion, having
been reticent regarding the course of liberation he intended to
adopt.
No more opportune time than the coming night suggested itself to
the young hunter, and the sudden change of affairs caused the fates
to appear propitious. With Jim Girty a doomed man in the strong
prison-house, and Simon a temporary maniac, Tecumseh absent, and
Alaska, the mad queen, calm and unsuspecting, what better time could
he have wished?
From Okalona’s lodge he returned to the double wigwam, from the door
of which, Alaska had witnessed the startling scenes just narrated.
“Co Hago is worthy to be king of the wolves,” she cried, throwing her
arms around Mayne’s neck. “Alaska saw him face the White Shawnee; but
she did not go to his side with her children, for she saw that he
would fight nobly, and conquer the bad white brothers.”
Mayne smiled at her words, and entered the lodge.
She followed, and threw herself upon the couch.
“Does Alaska know the Lone Man?” asked the young hunter, recollecting
the emotion and singular words of the hermit when he parted with him
on the knoll, the preceding night.
“The Lone Man is as a star to Alaska,” was the strange reply; “she
can see him, but her arms are too short.”
The reply furnished food for the young man’s reflection.
It was evident to him, at least, that Alaska had known Hewitt in
times when insanity was a stranger to her poor brain; but now,
memory served her not--memory had deserted her with reason; but at
intervals, as the reader has seen in the course of our romance,
memory revisited her; but these visits were as fleeting as a sunbeam.
Again and again Mayne questioned her regarding the hermit, and her
replies served to strengthen his belief, as given above. Perhaps she
was the hermit’s wife, at least he thought that Hewitt half believed
and feared thus, and an inward monitor told him that the coming night
would behold the lifting of mystery’s curtain.
But he never dreamed the true and terrible revealment of that mystery.
He remained in the double wigwam until the dawn of twilight, when he
left it unquestioned by Alaska.
Instead of making his way toward the knoll, where Oonalooska and the
hermit awaited, with mingled anxiety and impatience, his appearance,
he sauntered toward Eudora’s prison. Before the door sat the two
guards, indulging one of their passions by gambling with little
pebbles, after the sportive manner of American children, in the
game called “Hull-gull handful.” The Indians were oblivious to all
surrounding objects, and therefore the young man glided to the rear
of the lodge unnoticed.
In a few words he acquainted Eudora with the plans, so far as he knew
them, of rescue, and the maiden clasped her hands and prayed for the
success of the attempt.
It made Mayne Fairfax happy to fill her heart with hope, and, elate
with anticipated triumph, he left her, and hurried toward the knoll.
A few minutes later he stood before the twain, and without accident
the trio gained the old Medicine’s lodge.