THE VICTIMS.
"Hurry back to the captain, Walt," urged his chum as soon as the Indian
boy was laid on another conch. "He may need you any minute. Those
demons will be here as soon as they finish off the Seminoles. Thank
the Lord, the firing is still going on. I will do what I can for these
poor chaps and be with you as soon as possible." His eye flashed and
his face darkened as he added, "Tell the captain everyone must shoot at
anything that shows itself--and shoot to kill."
As soon as his chum had gone, Charley turned his attention to the
Seminole chief. From the clotted mass of blood, he guessed the
location of the main wound, and with his hunting-knife he rapidly cut
away the shirt, exposing the warrior's chest and back. As he drew back
the blood-soaked cloth, he gave a sigh of relief. The bullet had
passed clear through the body close to the lungs,--a serious wound, but
one which perhaps with proper care need not prove fatal. The amateur
surgeon had no antiseptic except common salt, but with that and water
he quickly cleansed and sterilized the wounds and tearing up one of his
own clean shirts, he first scraped a strip with an old case knife until
he had a quantity of soft lint with which he stopped both the ugly
holes made by the bullet, and then with other strips of the same, he
neatly bandaged the wounds. Next he drew on one of the captain's
shirts in the place of the one he had cut away. Lastly, he broke open
a pack and took out a quart bottle of brandy. Pouring out a large
drink he let it trickle slowly down between the Indian's set teeth.
The effect was noticeable at once. Slowly the warm blood flowed back
into the dusky cheeks, the limbs began to twitch, the breathing grew
audible, and the wounded man began to show signs of returning
consciousness.
Before turning to his other patient, whom he reckoned as good as dead,
Charley stepped outside the wigwam and cast a quick look around. A
smile of satisfaction parted his lips as he noted the distant figures
of his companions behind the tree barricade, each at his post, gun in
hand, nervously alert. From them, his glance went on to the point,
where the battle was still going on. To even an unobserving person, it
was clear that the firing from the canoes was slackening rapidly, and
with a sigh of regret and anxiety, the lad turned back into the lean-to.
When he bent over the Indian lad, he uttered an exclamation of joy;
from the matted hair and abundance of blood he had believed him shot
through the head. A closer examination showed, however, that the
bullet had only ploughed a neat little furrow down to the skull.
Charley washed the wound clean, forced some of the brandy down the
boy's throat, and dashed a cup of cold water in his face. The effect
was startling. In a few minutes the little Indian was sitting up,
swaying drunkenly and in a half dazed way staring about the little
shelter.
"You arc coming around all right, old chap," said Charley, cheerily.
His voice and face brought back to the Indian lad with a rush the
memory of the recent ordeal he had been through. He gave one glance at
the unconscious form on the other couch and his hand darted to the
hunting-knife at his hip as he staggered, dizzily, to his feet.
"Stop, you are among friends," cried Charley, holding up both empty
hands palm upward as a token of peace. "You were grazed on the head by
a rifle bullet and it knocked you out for a few minutes, so I went out
in my canoe and towed you in. Your father is hurt pretty bad, but I
have fixed him up good as I can and I think he will pull through with
care."
The little Indian lad's keen, beady eyes searched the white lad's open,
smiling face, his hand dropped from his knife, and he sunk back weakly
on the couch.
"My father over there, heap big chief," he declared proudly, in
guttural English. "Name Big Tiger. Me, they call Little Tiger." A
shade of suspicion crept over his face. "You white you say you friend.
More whites hid behind trees and shoot and kill many of Big Tiger's
braves," he said with an ironical smile.
Charley saw that now, if ever, was the time to clear his little party
from the natural suspicion of the Seminole. He sat down on the couch
opposite and his honest blue eyes met the other's keen, black ones
unwaveringly. "The Seminoles, once a mighty people, have grown as few
in number as the deer in the forest," he began, falling naturally into
the speech of the Indians. "Yet, few though they became, there walked
among them, at least, one of their race whose heart and mind was like
the night when the moon shines not and clouds have hid the stars. One
day this evil one rose up and slew a harmless white settler. The wise
men of the tribe took counsel together, saying, 'times are changing, we
will turn him over to the law of the white men.' The ears of the
Little Tiger may have heard whispered the name of the white settler's
slayer."
The Indian's eyes were gleaming with scorn and hatred. "Injun
Charley," he hissed.
"The white men judged the slayer of the settler according to their
laws. They sent him to ha shackled with chain and iron ball and do
heavy, squaw-work in misery the balance of his years. They did not say
because this Indian was bad that all Seminoles were slayers of white
men."
The young Indian started up and began to speak, but Charley silenced
him with a gesture and gravely continued.
"No, these judges were not fools to believe that a whole people should
be judged by the crimes of one, or a few of its race. Among the
paleface race were brother, squaw, and father murderers, in great
numbers, not because the white race is worse than the red, but because
they exceed the red men in number as the leaves exceed the trunks of
the tree."
"With the bad Indian, serving out a lifetime of work and exile, were
eleven white men just as bad. When those that watched them had their
eyes turned away, the twelve plotted. One night they rose up and
murdered the guards, took their guns and ponies, and, under the lead of
the bad Indian, came as the crow flies for here, where were camped
myself and three companions, seeking only the bird that bears plumes
upon its back. The balance you know," he concluded, gravely. "As
brother to brother, should the Seminoles be judged by the slayer of
whites, or the white hunters by lawless murderers whose color is the
same as theirs?"
During Charley's short argument, the suspicion had fled from the young
chieftain's face. At the conclusion, he drew himself up proudly erect
and extending his hand spoke the one English word he knew that stood
with him for friendship and confidence,--"How."
"How," said Charley cheerfully, giving the offered hand a hearty shake.
"Now let's get outside and take a look. As soon as they have finished
with your followers, I expect the bad men to come down upon us."
Short as had been the time they had spent in the lean-to, a great
change had taken place at the scene of the battle. The firing had
ceased from all the canoes but one, and even as they looked, a rifle
cracked, the canoe's occupant half rose, then crashed down over its
side, and the last Seminole rifle was silenced.
The pall of smoke had drifted away from the point, revealing a terrible
sight, twenty-nine canoes or dugouts drifted on the quiet water at the
mercy of wind or current, some floated bottom upward, others' sides
were punctured and splintered with innumerable bullets. Here and there
was one splotched and spotted with the crimson life-blood of its heroic
defender. Not a sign of life was visible amongst the little squadron.
As Charley looked, one of the convicts ventured out from his place of
concealment and with a long branch, drew the nearest canoe in to shore.
With a coil of rope in one hand, he jumped in and shoved out amongst
the drifting craft. His errand was easy to be guessed, to make fast to
the drifting canoes and tow them all in to shore.
At the sight of the wiping out of the last of his comrades, the young
Indian had sunk to a seat on a log and buried his face in his hands.
Now, Charley tapped him gently on the shoulder. "It is not a time for
the son of a chief to be grieving like a squaw," he said, "his
followers are gone, but they died like brave men. Paleface history
tells of no braver stand than they made to-day. It's not meet for the
son of a chief to sit repining. His thought should be of punishment
for the doers of the evil."
The young Indian sprang to his feet, his eyes gleaming fiercely.
"How?" he demanded. "They have slain the pack. Will they not soon
come for the leaders? Has the young white chieftain magic to work
against their many guns and canoes?"
"When the blood runs hot is not the time to reason coolly," said
Charley, calmly. "I go now to help my comrades. Go you into the
wigwam and watch by your father; when he awakens tell him all. As soon
as we may, we will all meet here in council, and the counsel of a chief
will shed a light in the dark around us."
Without a word the young Seminole whirled on his heels and disappeared
in the lean-to, while Charley hurried in to the barricade, where his
presence was now sorely needed.