SOME TRANSACTIONS IN SCALPS
History would be a very orderly affair, could the dry-as-dust
historians have their way, and doubtless it would be thrillingly
romantic at every turn if the novelists were able to control its
current. Fortunately neither one nor the other has much influence, and
the result, in the long run, is that most novels are shockingly tame,
while the large body of history is loaded down with picturesque
incidents, which if used in fiction, would be thought absurdly romantic
and improbable.
Were our simple story of old Vincennes a mere fiction, we should
hesitate to bring in the explosion of a magazine at the fort with a
view to sudden confusion and, by that means, distracting attention from
our heroine while she betakes herself out of a situation which,
although delightful enough for a blessed minute, has quickly become an
embarrassment quite unendurable. But we simply adhere to the
established facts in history. Owing to some carelessness there was,
indeed, an explosion of twenty-six six-pound cartridges, which made a
mighty roar and struck the newly installed garrison into a heap, so to
say, scattering things terribly and wounding six men, among them
Captains Bowman and Worthington.
After the thunderous crash came a momentary silence, which embraced
both the people within the fort and the wild crowd outside. Then the
rush and noise were indescribable. Even Clark gave way to excitement,
losing command of himself and, of course, of his men. There was a
stampede toward the main gate by one wing of the troops in the hollow
square. They literally ran over Beverley and Alice, flinging them apart
and jostling them hither and yonder without mercy. Of course the
turmoil quickly subsided. Clark and Beverley got hold of themselves and
sang out their peremptory orders with excellent effect. It was like oil
on raging water; the men obeyed in a straggling way, getting back into
ranks as best they could.
"Ventrebleu!" squeaked Oncle Jazon, "ef I didn't think the ole world
had busted into a million pieces!"
He was jumping up and down not three feet from Beverley's toes, waving
his cap excitedly.
"But wasn't I skeert! Ya, ya, ya! Vive la banniere d'Alice Roussillon!
Vive Zhorzh Vasinton!"
Hearing Alice's name caused Beverley to look around. Where was she? In
the distance he saw Father Beret hurrying to the spot where some of the
men burnt and wounded by the explosion were being stripped and cared
for. Hamilton still stood like a statue. He appeared to be the only
cool person in the fort.
"Where is Alice?--Miss Roussillon--where did Miss Roussillon go?"
Beverley exclaimed, staring around like a lost man. "Where is she?"
"D'know," said Oncle Jazon, resuming his habitual expression of droll
dignity, "she shot apast me jes' as thet thing busted loose, an' she
went like er hummin' bird, skitch!--jes' thet way--an' I didn't see 'r
no more. 'Cause I was skeert mighty nigh inter seven fits; 'spect that
'splosion blowed her clean away! Ventrebleu! never was so plum outen
breath an' dead crazy weak o' bein' afeard!"
"Lieutenant Beverley," roared Clark in his most commanding tone, "go to
the gate and settle things there. That mob outside is trying to break
in!"
The order was instantly obeyed, but Beverley had relapsed. Once more
his soul groped in darkness, while the whole of his life seemed unreal,
a wavering, misty, hollow dream. And yet his military duty was all real
enough. He knew just what to do when he reached the gate.
"Back there at once!" he commanded, not loudly, but with intense force,
"back there!" This to the inward surging wedge of excited outsiders.
Then to the guard.
"Shoot the first man who crosses the line!"
"Ziff! me voici! moi! Gaspard Roussillon. Laissez-moi passer,
messieurs."
A great body hurled itself frantically past Beverley and the guard,
going out through the gateway against the wall of the crowd, bearing
everything before it and shouting:
"Back, fools! you'll all be killed--the powder is on fire! Ziff! run!"
Wild as a March hare, he bristled with terror and foamed at the mouth.
He stampeded the entire mass. There was a wild howl; a rush in the
other direction followed, and soon enough the esplanade and all the
space back to the barricades and beyond were quite deserted.
Alice was not aware that a serious accident had happened. Naturally she
thought the great, rattling, crashing noise of the explosion a mere
part of the spectacular show. When the rush followed, separating her
and Beverley, it was a great relief to her in some way; for a sudden
recognition of the boldness of her action in the little scene just
ended, came over her and bewildered her. An impulse sent her running
away from the spot where, it seemed to her, she had invited public
derision. The terrible noises all around her were, she now fancied, but
the jeering and hooting of rude men who had seen her unmaidenly
forwardness.
With a burning face she flew to the postern and slipped out, once more
taking the course which had become so familiar to her feet. She did not
slacken her speed until she reached the Bourcier cabin, where she had
made her home since the night when Hamilton's pistol ball struck her.
The little domicile was quite empty of its household, but Alice entered
and flung herself into a chair, where she sat quivering and breathless
when Adrienne, also much excited, came in, preceded by a stream of
patois that sparkled continuously.
"The fort is blown up!" she cried, gesticulating in every direction at
once, her petite figure comically dilated with the importance of her
statement. "A hundred men are killed, and the powder is on fire!"
She pounced into Alice's arms, still talking as fast as her tongue
could vibrate, changing from subject to subject without rhyme or
reason, her prattle making its way by skips and shies until what was
really upper-most in her sweet little heart disclosed itself.
"And, O Alice! Rene has not come yet!"
She plunged her dusky face between Alice's cheek and shoulder; Alice
hugged her sympathetically and said:
"But Rene will come, I know he will, dear."
"Oh, but do you know it? is it true? who told you? when will he come?
where is he? tell me about him!"
Her head popped up from her friend's neck and she smiled brilliantly
through the tears that were still sparkling on her long black lashes.
"I didn't mean that I had heard from him, and I don't know where he is;
but--but they always come back."
"You say that because your man--because Lieutenant Beverley has
returned. It is always so. You have everything to make you happy, while
I--I--"
Again her eyes spilled their shower, and she hid her face in her hands
which Alice tried in vain to remove.
"Don't cry, Adrienne. You didn't see me crying--"
"No, of course not; you didn't have a thing to cry about. Lieutenant
Beverley told you just where he was going and just what--"
"But think, Adrienne, only think of the awful story they told--that he
was killed, that Governor Hamilton had paid Long-Hair for killing him
and bringing back his scalp--oh dear, just think! And I thought it was
true."
"Well, I'd be willing to think and believe anything in the world, if
Rene would come back," said Adrienne, her face, now uncovered, showing
pitiful lines of suffering. "O Alice, Alice, and he never, never will
come!"
Alice exhausted every device to cheer, encourage and comfort her.
Adrienne had been so good to her when she lay recovering from the shock
of Hamilton's pistol bullet, which, although it came near killing her,
made no serious wound--only a bruise, in fact. It was one of those
fortunate accidents, or providentially ordered interferences, which
once in a while save a life. The stone disc worn by Alice chanced to
lie exactly in the missile's way, and while it was not broken, the
ball, already somewhat checked by passing through several folds of
Father Beret's garments, flattened itself upon it with a shock which
somehow struck Alice senseless.
Here again, history in the form of an ancient family document (a letter
written in 1821 by Alice herself), gives us the curious brace of
incidents, to wit, the breaking of the miniature on Beverley's breast
by a British musket-ball, and the stopping of Hamilton's bullet over
Alice's heart by the Indian charm-stone.
"Which shows the goodness of God," the letter goes on, "and also seems
to sustain the Indian legend concerning the stone, that whoever might
wear it could not be killed. Unquestionable (sic) Mr. Hamilton's shot,
which was aimed at poor, dear old Father Beret, would have pierced my
heart, but for that charm-stone. As for my locket, it did not, as some
have reported, save Fitzhugh's life when the musket-ball was stopped.
The ball was so spent that the blow was only hard enough to spoil
temporary (sic) the face of the miniature, which was afterwards
restored fairly well by an artist in Paris. When it did actually save
Fitzhugh's life was out on the Illinois plain. The savage, Long-Hair,
peace to his memory, worked the miracle of restoring to me--" Here a
fold in the paper has destroyed a line of the writing.
The letter is a sacred family paper, and there is not justification for
going farther into its faded and, in some parts, almost obliterated
writing. But so much may pass into these pages as a pleasant
authentication of what otherwise might be altogether too sweet a double
nut for the critic's teeth to crack.
While Adrienne and Alice were still discussing the probability of Rene
de Ronville's return, M. Roussillon came to the door. He was in search
of Madame, his wife, whom he had not yet seen.
He gathered the two girls in his mighty arms, tousling them with rough
tenderness. Alice returned his affectionate embrace and told him where
to find Madame Roussillon, who was with Dame Godere, probably at her
house.
"Nobody killed," he said, in answer to Alice's inquiry about the
catastrophe at the fort. "Some of 'em hurt and burnt a little. Great
big scare about nearly nothing. Ziff! my children, you should have seen
me quiet things. I put out my hands, this way--omme ca--pouf! It was
all over. The people went home."
His gestures indicated that he had borne back an army with open hands.
Then he chucked Adrienne under the chin with his finger and added in
his softest voice:
"I saw somebody's lover the other day, over yonder in the Indian
village. He spoke to me about somebody--eh, ma petite, que voulez-vous
dire?"
"Oh, Papa Roussillon! we were just talking about Rene!" cried Alice.
"Have you seen him?"
"I saw you, you little minx, jumping into a man's arms right under the
eyes of a whole garrison! Bah! I could not believe it was my little
Alice!"
He let go a grand guffaw, which seemed to shake the cabin's walls.
Alice blushed cherry red. Adrienne, too bashful to inquire about Rene,
was trembling with anxiety. The truth was not in Gaspard Roussillon,
just then; or if it was it stayed in him, for he had not seen Rene de
Ronville. It was his generous desire to please and to appear opulent of
knowledge and sympathy that made him speak. He knew what would please
Adrienne, so why not give her at least a delicious foretaste? Surely,
when a thing was so cheap, one need not be so parsimonious as to
withhold a mere anticipation. He was off before the girls could press
him into details, for indeed he had none.
"There now, what did I tell you?" cried Alice, when the big man was
gone. "I told you Rene would come. They always come back!"
Father Beret came in a little later. As soon as he saw Alice he frowned
and began to shake his head; but she only laughed, and imitating his
hypocritical scowl, yet fringing it with a twinkle of merry lines and
dimples, pointed a taper finger at him and exclaimed:
"You bad, bad, man! why did you pretend to me that Lieutenant Beverley
was dead? What sinister ecclesiastical motive prompted you to describe
how Long-Hair scalped him? Ah, Father--"
The priest laid a broad hand over her saucy mouth. "Something or other
seems to have excited you mightily, ma fille, you are a trifle
impulsively inclined to-day."
"Yes, Father Beret; yes I know, and I am ashamed. My heart shrinks when
I think of what I did; but I was so glad, such a grand joy came all
over me when I saw him, so strong and brave and beautiful, coming
toward me, smiling that warm, glad smile and holding out his arms--ah,
when I saw all that--when I knew for sure that he was not dead--I, why,
Father--I just had to, I couldn't help it!"
Father Beret laughed in spite of himself, but quickly managed to resume
his severe countenance.
"Ta! ta!" he exclaimed, "it was a bold thing for a little girl to do."
"So it was, so it was. But it was also a bold thing for him to do--to
come back after he was dead and scalped and look so handsome and grand!
I'm ashamed and sorry, Father; but--but, I'm afraid I might do it again
if--well, I don't care if I did--so there, now!"
"But what in the world are you talking about?" interposed Adrienne.
Evidently they were discussing a most interesting matter of which she
knew nothing, and that did not suit her feminine curiosity. "Tell me."
She pulled Father Beret's sleeve. "Tell me, I say!"
It is probable that Father Beret would have pretended to betray Alice's
source of mingled delight and embarrassment, had not the rest of the
Bourcier household returned in time to break up the conversation. A
little later Alice gave Adrienne a vividly dramatic account of the
whole scene.
"Ah, mon Dieu!" exclaimed the petite brunette, after she had heard the
exciting story. "That was just like you, Alice. You always do superb
things. You were born to do them. You shoot Captain Farnsworth, you
wound Lieutenant Barlow, you climb onto the fort and set up your
flag--you take it down again and run away with it--you get shot and you
do not die--you kiss your lover right before a whole garrison! Bon
Dieu! if I could but do all those things!"
She clasped her tiny hands before her and added rather dejectedly: "But
I couldn't, I couldn't. I couldn't kiss a man in that way!"
Late in the evening news came to Roussillon place, where Gaspard
Roussillon was once more happy in the midst of his little family, that
the Indian Long-Hair had just been brought to the fort, and would be
shot on the following day. A scouting party captured him as he
approached the town, bearing at his belt the fresh scalp of a white
man. He would have been killed forthwith, but Clark, who wished to
avoid a repetition of the savage vengeance meted out to the Indians on
the previous day, had given strict orders that all prisoners should be
brought into the fort, where they were to have a fair trial by court
martial.
Both Helm and Beverley were at Roussillon place, the former sipping
wine and chatting with Gaspard, the latter, of course, hovering around
Alice, after the manner of a hungry bee around a particularly sweet and
deliciously refractory flower. It was raining slowly, the fine drops
coming straight down through the cold, still February air; but the two
young people found it pleasant enough for them on the veranda, where
they walked back and forth, making fair exchange of the exciting
experiences which had befallen them during their long separation.
Between the lines of these mutual recitals sweet, fresh echoes of the
old, old story went from heart to heart, an amoebaean love-bout like
that of spring birds calling tenderly back and forth in the blooming
Maytime woods.
Both Captain Helm and M. Roussillon were delighted to hear of
Long-Hair's capture and certain fate, but neither of them regarded the
news as of sufficient importance to need much comment. They did not
think of telling Beverley and Alice. Jean, however, lying awake in his
little bed, overheard the conversation, which he repeated to Alice next
morning with great circumstantiality.
Having the quick insight bred of frontier experience, Alice instantly
caught the terrible significance of the dilemma in which she and
Beverley would be placed by Long-Hair's situation. Moreover, something
in her heart arose with irresistible power demanding the final, the
absolute human sympathy and gratitude. No matter what deeds Long-Hair
had committed that were evil beyond forgiveness, he had done for her
the all-atoning thing. He had saved Beverley and sent him back to her.
With a start and a chill of dread, she thought: "What if it is already
too late!"
But her nature could not hesitate. To feel the demand of an exigency
was to act. She snatched a wrap from its peg on the wall and ran as
fast as she could to the fort. People who met her flying along
wondered, staring after her, what could be urging her so that she saw
nobody, checked herself for nothing, ran splashing through the puddles
in the street, gazing ahead of her, as if pursuing some flying object
from which she dared not turn her eyes.
And there was, indeed, a call for her utmost power of flight, if she
would be of any assistance to Long-Hair, who even then stood bound to a
stake in the fort's area, while a platoon of riflemen, those unerring
shots from Kentucky and Virginia, were ready to make a target of him at
a range of but twenty yards.
Beverley, greatly handicapped by the fact that the fresh scalp of a
white man hung at Long-Hair's belt, had exhausted every possible
argument to avert or mitigate the sentence promptly spoken by the court
martial of which Colonel Clark was the ruling spirit. He had succeeded
barely to the extent of turning the mode of execution from tomahawking
to shooting. All the officers in the fort approved killing the
prisoner, and it was difficult for Colonel Clark to prevent the men
from making outrageous assaults upon him, so exasperated were they at
sight of the scalp.
Oncle Jazon proved to be one of the most refractory among those who
demanded tomahawking and scalping as the only treatment due Long-Hair.
The repulsive savage stood up before them stolid, resolute, defiant,
proudly flaunting the badge which testified to his horrible efficiency
as an emissary of Hamilton's. It had been left in his belt by Clark's
order, as the best justification of his doom.
"L' me hack 'is damned head," Oncle Jazon pleaded. "I jes' hankers to
chop a hole inter it. An' besides I want 'is scelp to hang up wi' mine
an' that'n o' the Injun what scelped me. He kicked me in the ribs, the
stinkin' varmint."
Beverley pleaded eloquently and well, but even the genial Major Helm
laughed at his sentiment of gratitude to a savage who at best but
relented at the last moment, for Alice's sake, and concluded not to
sell him to Hamilton. It is due to the British commander to record here
that he most positively and with what appeared to be high sincerity,
denied the charge of having offered rewards for the taking of human
scalps. He declared that his purposes and practices were humane, and
that while he did use the Indians as military allies, his orders to
them were that they must forego cruel modes of warfare and refrain from
savage outrage upon prisoners. Certainly the weight of contemporary
testimony seems overwhelmingly against him, but we enter his denial.
Long-Hair himself, however, taunted him with accusations of
unfaithfulness in carrying out some very inhuman contracts, and to add
a terrible sting, volunteered the statement that poor Barlow's scalp
had served his turn in the place of Beverley's.
With conditions so hideous to contend against, Beverley, of course, had
no possible means of succoring the condemned savage.
"Him a kickin' yer ribs clean inter ye, an' a makin' ye run the
ga'ntlet, an' here ye air a tryin' to save 'is life!" whined Oncle
Jazon, "W'y man, I thought ye hed some senterments! Dast 'is Injin
liver, I kin feel them kicks what he guv me till yit. Ventrebleu! que
diable voulez-vous?"
Clark simply pushed Beverley's pleadings aside as not worth a moment's
consideration. He easily felt the fine bit of gratitude at the bottom
of it all; but there was too much in the other side of the balance;
justice, the discipline and confidence of his little army, and the
claim of the women and children on the frontier demanded firmness in
dealing with a case like Long-Hair's.
"No, no," he said to Beverley, "I would do anything in the world for
you, Fitz, except to swerve an inch from duty to my country and the
defenceless people down yonder in Kentucky, I can't do it. There's no
use to press the matter further. The die is cast. That brute's got to
be killed, and killed dead. Look at him--look at that scalp! I'd have
him killed if I dropped dead for it the next instant."
Beverley shuddered. The argument was horribly convincing, and yet,
somehow, the desire to save Long-Hair overbore everything else in his
mind. He could not cease his efforts; it seemed to him as if he were
pleading for Alice herself. Captain Farnsworth, strange to say, was the
only man in the fort who leaned to Beverley's side; but he was
reticent, doubtless feeling that his position as a British prisoner
gave him no right to speak, especially when every lip around him was
muttering something about "infamous scalp-buyers and Indian partisans,"
with whom he was prominently counted by the speakers.
As Clark had said, the die was cast. Long-Hair, bound to a stake, the
scalp still dangling at his side, grimly faced his executioners, who
were eager to fire. He appeared to be proud of the fact that he was
going to be killed.
"One thing I can say of him," Helm remarked to Beverley; "he's the
grandest specimen of the animal--I might say the brute--man that I ever
saw, red, white or black. Just look at his body and limbs! Those
muscles are perfectly marvelous."
"He saved my life, and I must stand here and see him murdered," the
young man replied with intense bitterness. It was all that he could
think, all that he could say. He felt inefficient and dejected, almost
desperate.
Clark himself, not willing to cast responsibility upon a subordinate,
made ready to give the fatal order. Turning to Long-Hair first, he
demanded of him as well as he could in the Indian dialect of which he
had a smattering, what he had to say at his last moment.
The Indian straightened his already upright form, and, by a strong
bulging of his muscles, snapped the thongs that bound him. Evidently he
had not tried thus to free himself; it was rather a spasmodic
expression of savage dignity and pride. One arm and both his legs still
were partially confined by the bonds, but his right hand he lifted,
with a gesture of immense self-satisfaction, and pointed at Hamilton.
"Indian brave; white man coward," he said, scowling scornfully.
"Long-Hair tell truth; white man lie, damn!"
Hamilton's countenance did not change its calm, cold expression.
Long-Hair gazed at him fixedly for a long moment, his eyes flashing
most concentrated hate and contempt. Then he tore the scalp from his
belt and flung it with great force straight toward the captive
Governor's face. It fell short, but the look that went with it did not,
and Hamilton recoiled.
At that moment Alice arrived. Her coming was just in time to interrupt
Clark, who had turned to the waiting platoon with the order of death on
his lips. She made no noise, save the fluttering of her skirts, and her
loud and rapid panting on account of her long, hard run. She sprang
before Long-Hair and faced the platoon.
"You cannot, you shall not kill this man!" she cried in a voice loaded
with excitement. "Put away those guns!"
Woman never looked more thrillingly beautiful to man than she did just
then to all those rough, stern backwoodsmen. During her flight her hair
had fallen down, and it glimmered like soft sunlight around her face.
Something compelling flashed out of her eyes, an expression between a
triumphant smile and a ray of irresistible beseechment. It took Colonel
Clark's breath when he turned and saw her standing there, and heard her
words.
"This man saved Lieutenant Beverley's life," she presently added,
getting better control of her voice, and sending into it a thrilling
timbre; "you shall not harm him--you must not do it!"
Beverley was astounded when he saw her, the thing was so unexpected, so
daring, and done with such high, imperious force; still it was but a
realization of what he had imagined she would be upon occasion. He
stood gazing at her, as did all the rest, while she faced Clark and the
platoon of riflemen. To hear his own name pass her quivering lips, in
that tone and in that connection, seemed to him a consecration.
"Would you be more savage than your Indian prisoner?" she went on,
"less grateful than he for a life saved? I did him a small, a very
small, service once, and in memory of that he saved Lieutenant
Beverley's life, because--because--" she faltered for a single breath,
then added clearly and with magnetic sweetness--"because Lieutenant
Beverley loved me, and because I loved him. This Indian Long-Hair
showed a gratitude that could overcome his strongest passion. You white
men should be ashamed to fall below his standard."
Her words went home. It was as if the beauty of her face, the magnetism
of her lissome and symmetrical form, the sweet fire of her eyes and the
passionate appeal of her voice gave what she said a new and
irresistible force of truth. When she spoke of Beverley's love for her,
and declared her love for him, there was not a manly heart in all the
garrison that did not suddenly beat quicker and feel a strange, sweet
waft of tenderness. A mother, somewhere, a wife, a daughter, a sister,
a sweetheart, called through that voice of absolute womanhood.
"Beverley, what can I do?" muttered Clark, his bronze face as pale as
it could possibly become.
"Do!" thundered Beverley, "do! you cannot murder that man. Hamilton is
the man you should shoot! He offered large rewards, he inflamed the
passions and fed the love of rum and the cupidity of poor wild men like
the one standing yonder. Yet you take him prisoner and treat him with
distinguished consideration. Hamilton offered a large sum for me taken
alive, a smaller one for my scalp. Long-Hair saved me. You let Hamilton
stand yonder in perfect safety while you shoot the Indian. Shame on
you, Colonel Clark! shame on you, if you do it."
Alice stood looking at the stalwart commander while Beverley was
pouring forth his torrent of scathing reference to Hamilton, and she
quickly saw that Clark was moved. The moment was ripe for the finishing
stroke. They say it is genius that avails itself of opportunity.
Beverley knew the fight was won when he saw what followed. Alice
suddenly left Long-Hair and ran to Colonel Clark, who felt her warm,
strong arms loop round him for a single point of time never to be
effaced from his memory; then he saw her kneeling at his feet, her
hands upstretched, her face a glorious prayer, while she pleaded the
Indian's cause and won it.
Doubtless, while we all rather feel that Clark was weak to be thus
swayed by a girl, we cannot quite blame him. Alice's flag was over him;
he had heard her history from Beverley's cunning lips; he actually
believed that Hamilton was the real culprit, and besides he felt not a
little nauseated with executing Indians. A good excuse to have an end
of it all did not go begging.
But Long-Hair was barely gone over the horizon from the fort, as free
and as villainous a savage as ever trod the earth, when a discovery
made by Oncle Jazon caused Clark to hate himself for what he had done.
The old scout picked up the scalp, which Long-Hair had flung at
Hamilton, and examined it with odious curiosity. He had lingered on the
spot with no other purpose than to get possession of that ghastly
relic. Since losing his own scalp the subject of crownlocks had grown
upon his mind until its fascination was irresistible. He studied the
hair of every person he saw, as a physiognomist studies faces. He held
the gruesome thing up before him, scrutinizing it with the expression
of a connoisseur who has discovered, on a grimy canvas, the signature
of an old master.
"Sac' bleu!" he presently broke forth. "Well I'll be--Look'ee yer,
George Clark! Come yer an' look. Ye've been sold ag'in. Take a squint,
ef ye please!"
Colonel Clark, with his hands crossed behind him, his face thoughtfully
contracted, was walking slowly to and fro a little way off. He turned
about when Oncle Jazon spoke.
"What now, Jazon?"
"A mighty heap right now, that's what; come yer an' let me show ye. Yer
a fine sort o' eejit, now ain't ye!"
The two men walked toward each other and met. Oncle Jazon held up the
scalp with one hand, pointing at it with the index finger of the other.
"This here scalp come off'n Rene de Ronville's head."
"And who is he?"
"Who's he? Ye may well ax thet. He wuz a Frenchman. He wuz a fine young
feller o' this town. He killed a Corp'ral o' Hamilton's an' tuck ter
the woods a month or two ago. Hamilton offered a lot o' money for 'im
or 'is scalp, an' Long-Hair went in fer gittin' it. Now ye knows the
whole racket. An' ye lets that Injun go. An' thet same Injun he mighty
nigh kicked my ribs inter my stomach!"
Oncle Jazon's feelings were visible and audible; but Clark could not
resent the contempt of the old man's looks and words. He felt that he
deserved far more than he was receiving. Nor was Oncle Jazon wrong.
Rene de Ronville never came back to little Adrienne Bourcier, although,
being kept entirely ignorant of her lover's fate, she waited and
dreamed and hoped throughout more than two years, after which there is
no further record of her life.
Clark, Beverley and Oncle Jazon consulted together and agreed among
themselves that they would hold profoundly secret the story of the
scalp. To have made it public would have exasperated the creoles and
set them violently against Clark, a thing heavy with disaster for all
his future plans. As it was, the release of Long-Hair caused a great
deal of dissatisfaction and mutinous talk. Even Beverley now felt that
the execution ordered by the commander ought to have been sternly
carried out.
A day or two later, however, the whole dark affair was closed forever
by a bit of confidence on the part of Oncle Jazon when Beverley dropped
into his hut one evening to have a smoke with him.
The rain was over, the sky shone like one vast luminary, with a nearly
full moon and a thousand stars reinforcing it. Up from the south poured
one of those balmy, accidental wind floods, sometimes due in February
on the Wabash, full of tropical dream-hints, yet edged with a winter
chill that smacks of treachery. Oncle Jazon was unusually talkative; he
may have had a deep draught of liquor; at all events Beverley had
little room for a word.
"Well, bein' as it's twixt us, as is bosom frien's," the old fellow
presently said, "I'll jes' show ye somepin poorty."
He pricked the wick of a lamp and took down his bunch of scalps.
"I hev been a addin' one more to keep company o' mine an' the tothers."
He separated the latest acquisition from the rest of the wisp and
added, with a heinous chuckle:
"This'n's Long-Hair's!"
And so it was. Beverley knocked the ashes from his pipe and rose to go.
"Wen they kicks yer Oncle Jazon's ribs," the old man added, "they'd
jes' as well lay down an' give up, for he's goin' to salervate 'em."
Then, after Beverley had passed out of the cabin, Oncle Jazon chirruped
after him:
"Mebbe ye'd better not tell leetle Alice. The pore leetle gal hev hed
worry 'nough."