VIRTUE IN A LOCKET
Long-Hair stood not upon ceremony in conveying to Beverley the
information that he was to run the gauntlet, which, otherwise stated,
meant that the Indians would form themselves in two parallel lines
facing each other about six feet apart, and that the prisoner would be
expected to run down the length of the space between, thus affording
the warriors an opportunity, greatly coveted and relished by their
fiendish natures, to beat him cruelly during his flight. This sort of
thing was to the Indians, indeed, an exquisite amusement, as
fascinating to them as the theater is to more enlightened people. No
sooner was it agreed upon that the entertainment should again be
undertaken than all the younger men began to scurry around getting
everything ready for it. Their faces glowed with a droll cruelty
strange to see, and they further expressed their lively expectations by
playful yet curiously solemn antics.
The preparations were simple and quickly made. Each man armed himself
with a stick three feet long and about three-quarters of an inch in
diameter. Rough weapons they were, cut from boughs of scrub-oak, knotty
and tough as horn. Long-Hair unbound Beverley and stripped his clothes
from his body down to the waist. Then the lines formed, the Indians in
each row standing about as far apart as the width of the space in which
the prisoner was to run. This arrangement gave them free use of their
sticks and plenty of room for full swing of their lithe bodies.
In removing Beverley's clothes Long-Hair found Alice's locket hanging
over the young man's heart. He tore it rudely off and grunted, glaring
viciously, first at it, then at Beverley. He seemed to be mightily
wrought upon.
"White man damn thief," he growled deep in his throat; "stole from
little girl!"
He put the locket in his pouch and resumed his stupidly indifferent
expression.
When everything was ready for the delightful entertainment to begin,
Long-Hair waved his tomahawk three times over Beverley's head, and
pointing down between the waiting lines said:
"Ugh, run!"
But Beverley did not budge. He was standing erect, with his arms,
deeply creased where the thongs had sunk, folded across his breast. A
rush of thoughts and feelings had taken tumultuous possession of him
and he could not move or decide what to do. A mad desire to escape
arose in his heart the moment that he saw Long-Hair take the locket. It
was as if Alice had cried to him and bidden him make a dash for liberty.
"Ugh, run!"
The order was accompanied with a push of such violence from Long-Hair's
left elbow that Beverley plunged and fell, for his limbs, after their
long and painful confinement in the raw-hide bonds, were stiff and
almost useless. Long-Hair in no gentle voice bade him get up. The shock
of falling seemed to awaken his dormant forces; a sudden resolve leaped
into his brain. He saw that the Indians had put aside their bows and
guns, most of which were leaning against the boles of trees here and
yonder. What if he could knock Long-Hair down and run away? This might
possibly be easy, considering the Indian's broken arm. His heart jumped
at the possibility. But the shrewd savage was alert and saw the thought
come into his face.
"You try git 'way, kill dead!" he snarled, lifting his tomahawk ready
for a stroke. "Brains out, damn!"
Beverley glanced down the waiting and eager lines. Swiftly he
speculated, wondering what would be his chance for escape were he to
break through. But he did not take his own condition into account.
"Ugh, run!"
Again the elbow of Long-Hair's hurt arm pushed him toward the expectant
rows of Indians, who flourished their clubs and uttered impatient
grunts.
This time he did not fall; but in trying to run he limped stiffly at
first, his legs but slowly and imperfectly regaining their strength and
suppleness from the action. Just before reaching the lines, however, he
stopped short. Long-Hair, who was close behind him, took hold of his
shoulder and led him back to the starting place. The big Indian's arm
must have given him pain when he thus used it, but he did not wince.
"Fool--kill dead!" he repeated two or three times, holding his tomahawk
on high with threatening motions and frequent repetitions of his one
echo from the profanity of civilization. He was beginning to draw his
mouth down at the corners, and his eyes were narrowed to mere slits.
Beverley understood now that he could not longer put off the trial. He
must choose between certain death and the torture of the gauntlet, as
frontiersmen named this savage ordeal. An old man might have preferred
the stroke of the hatchet to such an infliction as the clubs must
afford, considering that, even after all the agony, his captivity and
suffering would be only a little nearer its end. Youth, however, has
faith in the turn of fortune's wheel, and faith in itself, no matter
how dark the prospect. Hope blows her horn just over the horizon, and
the strain bids the young heart take courage and beat strong. Moreover,
men were men, who led the van in those days on the outmost lines of our
march to the summit of the world. Beverley was not more a hero than any
other young, brave, unconquerable patriot of the frontier army. His
situation simply tried him a trifle harder than was common. But it must
be remembered that he had Love with him, and where Love is there can be
no cowardice, no surrender.
Long-Hair once again pushed him and said
"Ugh, run!"
Beverley made a direct dash for the narrow lane between the braced and
watchful lines. Every warrior lifted his club; every copper face
gleamed stolidly, a mask behind which burned a strangely atrocious
spirit. The two savages standing at the end nearest Beverley struck at
him the instant he reached than, but they taken quite by surprise when
he checked himself between them and, leaping this way and that, swung
out two powerful blows, left and right, stretching one of them flat and
sending the other reeling and staggering half a dozen paces backward
with the blood streaming from his nose.
This done, Beverley turned to run away, but his breath was already
short and his strength rapidly going.
Long-Hair, who was at his heels, leaped before him when he had gone but
a few steps and once more flourished the tomahawk. To struggle was
useless, save to insist upon being brained outright, which just then
had no part in Beverley's considerations. Long-Hair kicked his victim
heavily, uttering laconic curses meanwhile, and led him back again to
the starting-point.
A genuine sense of humor seems almost entirely lacking in the mind of
the American Indian. He smiles at things not in the least amusing to us
and when he laughs, which is very seldom, the cause of his merriment
usually lies in something repellantly cruel and inhuman. When Beverley
struck his two assailants, hurting them so that one lay half stunned,
while the other spun away from his fist with a smashed nose, all the
rest of the Indians grunted and laughed raucously in high delight. They
shook their clubs, danced, pointed at their discomfited fellows and
twisted their painted faces into knotted wrinkles, their eyes twinkling
with devilish expression of glee quite indescribable.
"Ugh, damn, run!" said Long-Half, this time adding a hard kick to the
elbow-shove he gave Beverley.
The young man, who had borne all he could, now turned upon him
furiously and struck straight from the shoulder, setting the whole
weight of his body into the blow. Long-Hair stepped out of the way and
quick as a flash brought the flat side of his tomahawk with great force
against Beverley's head. This gave the amusement a sudden and
disappointing end, for the prisoner fell limp and senseless to the
ground. No more running the gauntlet for him that day. Indeed it
required protracted application of the best Indian skill to revive him
so that he could fairly be called a living man. There had been no
dangerous concussion, however, and on the following morning camp was
broken.
Beverley, sore, haggard, forlornly disheveled, had his arms bound again
and was made to march apace with his nimble enemies, who set out
swiftly eastward, their disappointment at having their sport cut short,
although bitter enough, not in the least indicated by any facial
expression or spiteful act.
Was it really a strange thing, or was it not, that Beverley's mind now
busied itself unceasingly with the thought that Long-Hair had Alice's
picture in his pouch? One might find room for discussion of a cerebral
problem like this; but our history cannot be delayed with analyses and
speculations; it must run its direct course unhindered to the end.
Suffice it to record that, while tramping at Long-Hair's side and
growing more and more desirous of seeing the picture again, Beverley
began trying to converse with his taciturn captor. He had a
considerable smattering of several Indian dialects, which he turned
upon Long-Hair to the best of his ability, but apparently without
effect. Nevertheless he babbled at intervals, always upon the same
subject and always endeavoring to influence that huge, stolid,
heartless savage in the direction of letting him see again the child
face of the miniature.
A stone, one of our travel-scarred and mysterious western granite
bowlders brought from the far north by the ancient ice, would show as
much sympathy as did the face of Long-Hair. Once in a while he gave
Beverley a soulless glance and said "damn" with utter indifference.
Nothing, however, could quench or even in the slightest sense allay the
lover's desire. He talked of Alice and the locket with constantly
increasing volubility, saying over and over phrases of endearment in a
half-delirious way, not aware that fever was fermenting his blood and
heating his brain. Probably he would have been very ill but for the
tremendous physical exercise forced upon him. The exertion kept him in
a profuse perspiration and his robust constitution cast off the
malarial poison. Meantime he used every word and phrase, every grunt
and gesture of Indian dialect that he could recall, in the iterated and
reiterated attempt to make Long-Hair understand what he wanted.
When night came on again the band camped under some trees beside a
swollen stream. There was no rain falling, but almost the entire
country lay under a flood of water. Fires of logs were soon burning
brightly on the comparatively dry bluff chosen by the Indians. The
weather was chill, but not cold. Long-Hair took great pains, however,
to dry Beverley's clothes and see that he had warm wraps and plenty to
eat. Hamilton's large reward would not be forthcoming should the
prisoner die, Beverley was good property, well worth careful attention.
To be sure his scalp, in the worst event, would command a sufficient
honorarium, but not the greatest. Beverley thought of all this while
the big Indian was wrapping him snugly in skins and blankets for the
night, and there was no comfort in it, save that possibly if he were
returned to Hamilton he might see Alice again before he died.
A fitful wind cried dolefully in the leafless treetops, the stream hard
by gave forth a rushing sound, and far away some wolves howled like
lost souls. Worn out, sore from head to foot, Beverley, deep buried in
the blankets and skins, soon fell into a profound sleep. The fires
slowly crumbled and faded; no sentinel was posted, for the Indians did
not fear an attack, there being no enemies that they knew of nearer
than Kaskaskia. The camp slumbered as one man.
At about the mid-hour of the night Long-Hair gently awoke his prisoner
by drawing a hand across his face, then whispered in his ear:
"Damn, still!"
Beverley tried to rise, uttering a sleepy ejaculation under his breath.
"No talk," hissed Long-Hair. "Still!"
There was something in his voice that not only swept the last film of
sleep out of Beverley's brain, but made it perfectly clear to him that
a very important bit of craftiness was being performed; just what its
nature was, however, he could not surmise. One thing was obvious,
Long-Hair did not wish the other Indians to know of the move he was
making. Deftly he slipped the blankets from around Beverley, and cut
the thongs at his ankles.
"Still!" he whispered. "Come 'long."
Under such circumstances a competent mind acts with lightning celerity.
Beverley now understood that Long-Hair was stealing him away from the
other savages and that the big villain meant to cheat them out of their
part of the reward. Along with this discovery came a fresh gleam of
hope. It would be far easier to escape from one Indian than from nearly
a score. Ah, he would follow Long-Hair, indeed he would! The needed
courage came with the thought, and so with immense labor he crept at
the heels of that crawling monster. It was a painful process, for his
arms were still fast bound at the wrists with the raw-hide strings; but
what was pain to him? He shivered with joy, thinking of what might
happen. The voice of the wind overhead and the noisy bubbling of the
stream near by were cheerful and cheering sounds to him now. So much
can a mere shadow of hope do for a human soul on the verge of despair!
Already he was planning or trying to plan some way by which he could
kill Long-Hair when they should reach a safe distance from the sleeping
camp.
But how could the thing be done? A man with his hands tied, though they
are in front of him, is in no excellent condition to cope with a free
and stalwart savage armed to the teeth. Still Beverley's spirits rose
with every rod of distance that was added to their slow progress.
Their course was nearly parallel with that of the stream, but slightly
converging toward it, and after they had gone about a furlong they
reached the bank. Here Long-Hair stopped and, without a word, cut the
thongs from Beverley's wrists. This was astounding; the young man could
scarcely realize it, nor was he ready to act.
"Swim water," Long-Hair said in a guttural murmur barely audible.
"Swim, damn!"
Again it was necessary for Beverley's mind to act swiftly and with
prudence. The camp was yet within hailing distance. A false move now
would bring the whole pack howling to the rescue. Something told him to
do as Long-Hair ordered, so with scarcely a perceptible hesitation he
scrambled down the bushy bank and slipped into the water, followed by
Long-Hair, who seized him by one arm when he began to swim, and struck
out with him into the boiling and tumbling current.
Beverley had always thought himself a master swimmer, but Long-Hair
showed him his mistake. The giant Indian, with but one hand free to
use, fairly rushed through that deadly cold and turbulent water,
bearing his prisoner with him despite the wounded arm, as easily as if
towing him at the stern of a pirogue. True, his course was down stream
for a considerable distance, but even when presently he struck out
boldly for the other bank, breasting a current in which few swimmers
could have lived, much less made headway, he still swung forward
rapidly, splitting the waves and scarcely giving Beverley freedom
enough so that he could help in the progress. It was a long, cold
struggle, and when at last they touched the sloping low bank on the
other side, Long-Hair had fairly to lift his chilled and exhausted
prisoner to the top.
"Ugh, cold," he grunted, beginning to pound and rub Beverley's arms,
legs and body. "Make warm, damn heap!"
All this he did with his right hand, holding the tomahawk in his left.
It was a strange, bewildering experience out of which the young man
could not see in any direction far enough to give him a hint upon which
to act. In a few minutes Long-Hair jerked him to his feet and said:
"Go."
It was just light enough to see that the order had a tomahawk to
enforce it withal. Long-Hair indicated the direction and drove Beverley
onward as fast as he could.
"Try run 'way, kill, damn!" he kept repeating, while with his left hand
on the young man's shoulder he guided him from behind dexterously
through the wood for some distance. Then he stopped and grunted, adding
his favorite expletive, which he used with not the least knowledge of
its meaning. To him the syllable "damn" was but a mouthful of forcible
wind.
They had just emerged from a thicket into an open space, where the
ground was comparatively dry. Overhead the stars were shining in great
clusters of silver and gold against a dark, cavernous looking sky, here
and there overrun with careering black clouds. Beverley shivered, not
so much with cold as on account of the stress of excitement which
amounted to nervous rigor. Long-Hair faced him and leaned toward him,
until his breathing was audible and his massive features were dimly
outlined. A dragon of the darkest age could not have been more
repulsive.
"Ugh, friend, damn!"
Beverley started when these words were followed by a sentence in an
Indian dialect somewhat familiar to him, a dialect in which he had
tried to talk with Long-Hair during the day's march. The sentence,
literally translated, was:
"Long-Hair is friendly now."
A blow in the face could not have been so surprising. Beverley not only
started, but recoiled as if from a sudden and deadly apparition. The
step between supreme exhilaration and utter collapse is now and then
infinitesimal. There are times, moreover, when an expression on the
face of Hope makes her look like the twin sister of Despair. The moment
falling just after Long-Hair spoke was a century condensed in a breath.
"Long-Hair is friendly now; will white man be friendly?"
Beverley heard, but the speech seemed to come out of vastness and
hollow distance; he could not realize it fairly. He felt as if in a
dream, far off somewhere in loneliness, with a big, shadowy form
looming before him. He heard the chill wind in the thickets round
about, and beyond Long-Hair rose a wall of giant trees.
"Ugh, not understand?" the savage presently demanded in his broken
English.
"Yes, yes," said Beverley, "I understand."
"Is the white man friendly now?" Long-Hair then repeated in his own
tongue, with a certain insistence of manner and voice.
"Yes, friendly."
Beverley said this absently in a tone of perfunctory dryness. His
throat was parched, his head seemed to waver. But he was beginning to
comprehend that Long-Hair, for some inscrutable reason of his own, was
desirous of making a friendship between them. The thought was
bewildering.
Long-Hair fumbled in his pouch and took out Alice's locket, which he
handed to Beverley. "White man love little girl?" he inquired in a tone
that bordered upon tenderness, again speaking in Indian.
Beverley clutched the disk as soon as he saw it gleam in the star-light.
"White man going to have little girl for his squaw--eh?"
"Yes, yes," cried Beverley without hearing his own voice. He was trying
to open the locket but his hands were numb and trembling. When at last
he did open it he could not see the child face within, for now even the
star-light was shut off by a scudding black cloud.
"Little girl saved Long-Hair's life. Long-Hair save white warrior for
little girl."
A dignity which was almost noble accompanied these simple sentences.
Long-Hair stood proudly erect, like a colossal dark statue in the
dimness.
The great truth dawned upon Beverley that here was a characteristic
act. He knew that an Indian rarely failed to repay a kindness or an
injury, stroke for stroke, when opportunity offered. Long-Hair was a
typical Indian. That is to say, a type of inhumanity raised to the last
power; but under his hideous atrocity of nature lay the indestructible
sense of gratitude so fixed and perfect that it did its work almost
automatically.
It must be said, and it may or may not be to the white man's shame,
that Beverley did not respond with absolute promptness and sincerity to
Long-Hair's generosity. He had suffered terribly at the hands of this
savage. His arms and legs were raw from the biting of the thongs; his
body ached from the effect of blows and kicks laid upon him while bound
and helpless. Perhaps he was not a very emotional man. At all events
there was no sudden recognition of the favor he was receiving. And this
pleased Long-Hair, for the taste of the American Indian delights in
immobility of countenance and reserve of feeling under great strain.
"Wait here a little while," Long-Hair presently said, and without
lingering for reply, turned away and disappeared in the wood. Beverley
was free to run if he wished to, and the thought did surge across his
mind; but a restraining something, like a hand laid upon him, would not
let his limbs move. Down deep in his heart a calm voice seemed to be
repeating Long-Hair's Indian sentence--"Wait here a little while."
A few minutes later Long-Hair returned bearing two guns, Beverley's and
his own, the latter, a superb weapon given him by Hamilton. He
afterward explained that he had brought these, with their
bullet-pouches and powder-horns, to a place of concealment near by
before he awoke Beverley. This meant that he had swum the cold river
three times since night-fall; once over with the guns and
accouterments; once back to camp, then over again with Beverley! All
this with a broken arm, and to repay Alice for her kindness to him.
Beverley may have been slow, but at last his appreciation was, perhaps,
all the more profound. As best he could he expressed it to Long-Hair,
who showed no interest whatever in the statement. Instead of responding
in Indian, he said "damn" without emphasis. It was rather as if he had
yawned absently, being bored.
Delay could not be thought of. Long-Hair explained briefly that he
thought. Beverley must go to Kaskaskia. He had come across the stream
in the direction of Vincennes in order to set his warriors at fault.
The stream must be recrossed, he said, farther down, and he would help
Beverley a certain distance on his way, then leave him to shift for
himself. He had a meager amount of parched corn and buffalo meat in his
pouch, which would stay hunger until they could kill some game. Now
they must go.
The resilience of a youthful and powerful physique offers many a
problem to the biologist. Vital force seems to find some mysterious
reservoir of nourishment hidden away in the nerve-centers. Beverley set
out upon that seemingly impossible undertaking with renewed energy. It
could not have been the ounce of parched corn and bit of jerked venison
from which he drew so much strength; but on the other hand, could it
have been the miniature of Alice, which he felt pressing over his heart
once more, that afforded a subtle stimulus to both mind and body? They
flung miles behind them before day-dawn, Long-Hair leading, Beverley
pressing close at his heels. Most of the way led over flat prairies
covered with water, and they therefore left no track by which they
could be followed.
Late in the forenoon Long-Hair killed a deer at the edge of a wood.
Here they made a fire and cooked a supply which would last them for a
day or two, and then on they went again. But we cannot follow them step
by step. When Long-Hair at last took leave of Beverley, the occasion
had no ceremony. It was an abrupt, unemotional parting. The stalwart
Indian simply said in his own dialect, pointing westward:
"Go that way two days. You will find your friends."
Then, without another look or word, he turned about and stalked
eastward at a marvelously rapid gait. In his mind he had a good tale to
tell his warrior companions when he should find them again: how
Beverley escaped that night and how he followed him a long, long chase,
only to lose him at last under the very guns of the fort at Kaskaskia.
But before he reached his band an incident of some importance changed
his story to a considerable degree. It chanced that he came upon
Lieutenant Barlow, who, in pursuit of game, had lost his bearings and,
far from his companions, was beating around quite bewildered in a
watery solitude. Long-Hair promptly murdered the poor fellow and
scalped him with as little compunction as he would have skinned a
rabbit; for he had a clever scheme in his head, a very audacious and
outrageous scheme, by which he purposed to recoup, to some extent, the
damages sustained by letting Beverley go.
Therefore, when he rejoined his somewhat disheartened and demoralized
band he showed them the scalp and gave them an eloquent account of how
he tore it from Beverley's head after a long chase and a bloody hand to
hand fight. They listened, believed, and were satisfied.