THE INDIAN RUNNER.
The young May moon was hanging over the Mississippi on the evening when
Jasper came to the village of the Sacs and Foxes. This royal town, the
head residence of the two tribes, and the ancient burying-ground of the
Indian race, was very beautifully situated at the junction of the Rock
River with the Mississippi. The Father of Waters, which is in many
places turbid and uninteresting, here becomes a clear and impetuous
stream, flowing over beds of rock and gravel, amid high and wooded
shores. The rapids--the water-ponies of the Indians--here come leaping
down, surging and foaming, and are checked by monumental islands. The
land rises from the river in slopes, like terraces, crowned with hills
and patriarchal trees. From these hills the sight is glorious. On one
hand rolls the mighty river, and on the other stretch vast prairies,
flower-carpeted, sun-flooded, a sea of vegetation, the home of the
prairie plover and countless nesters of the bright, warm air. It is a
park, whose extent is bounded by hundreds of miles.
Water-swept and beautiful lies Rock Island, where on a parapet of rock
was built Fort Armstrong in the days of the later Indian troubles.
The royal town and burying-ground was a place of remarkable fertility.
The grape-vine tangled the near woods, the wild honeysuckle perfumed the
air, and wild plums blossomed white in May and purpled with fruit in
summer. If ever an Indian race loved a town, it was this. The Indian
mind is poetic. Nature is the book of poetry to his instinct, and here
Nature was poetic in all her moods.
The Indians venerated the graves of their ancestors. Here they kept the
graves beautiful, and often carried food to them and left it for the
dead.
The chant at these graves was tender, and shows that the human heart
everywhere is the same. It was like this:
"Where are you, my father?
Oh, where are you now?
I'm longing to see thee;
I'm wailing for thee.
(Wail.)
"Are you happy, my father?
Are you happy now?
I'm longing to see thee;
I'm wailing for thee.
(Wail.)
"Spring comes to the river,
But where, then, art thou?
I'm longing to see thee;
I'm wailing for thee.
(Wail.)
"The flowers come forever;
I'll meet thee again;
I'm longing to see thee--
Time bears me to thee!"
(Wail.)
As Jasper ascended the high bluffs of the lodge where Black Hawk dwelt,
he was followed by a number of Indians who came out of their houses of
poles and bark, and greeted him in a kindly way. The dark chief met him
at the door of the lodge.
"You are welcome, my father. The new moon has bent her bow over the
waters, and you have come back. You have kept your promise. I have kept
mine. There is the boy."
An Indian boy of lithe and graceful form came out of the lodge, followed
by an old man, who was his uncle. The boy's name was Waubeno, and his
uncle's was Main-Pogue. The latter had been an Indian runner in Canada,
and an interpreter to the English there. He spoke English well. The boy
Waubeno had been his companion in his long journeys, and, now that the
interpreter was growing old, remained true to him. The three stood
there, looking down on the long mirror of the Mississippi--Black Hawk,
Main-Pogue, and Waubeno--and waiting for Jasper to speak.
"I have come to bring you peace," said Jasper--"not the silence of the
hawk or the bow-string, but peace here."
He laid his hand on his breast, and all the Indians did the same.
"I am a man of peace," continued Jasper. "If any one should seek to slay
me, I would not do him any harm. I would forgive him, and pray that his
blindness might go from his soul, and that he might see a better life.
You welcome me, you are true to me, and, whatever may happen, I will be
true to your race."
The black chief bowed, Main-Pogue, and the boy Waubeno.
"I believe you," said Black Hawk. "Your face says 'yes' to your words.
The Indian's heart is always true to a friend. Sit down; eat, smoke the
peace-pipe, and let us talk. Sit down. The sky is clear, and the
night-bird cries for joy on her wing. Let us all sit down and talk. The
river rolls on forever by the graves of the braves of old. Let us sit
down."
The squaws brought Jasper some cakes and fish, and Black Hawk lighted
some long pipes and gave them to Main-Pogue and Waubeno.
"I have brought the boy here for you," said Black Hawk. "He comes of the
blood of the brave. Let me tell you his story. It will shame the
pale-face, but let me tell you the story. You will say that the Indian
can be great, like the pale-face, when I tell you his story. It will
smite your heart. Listen."
A silence followed, during which a few puffs of smoke curled into the
air from the black chief's pipe. He broke his narrative by such
silences, designed to be impressive, and to offer an opportunity for
thought on what had been said.
Strange as it may seem to the reader, the story that follows is
substantially true, and yet nothing in classic history or modern heroism
can surpass in moral grandeur the tale that Black Hawk was always proud
to tell:
"Father, that is the boy. He knows all the ways from the Great Lakes to
the long river, from the great hills to Kaskaskia. You can trust him; he
knows the ways. Main-Pogue knows all the ways. Main-Pogue was a runner
for the pale-face. He has taught him the ways. Their hearts are like one
heart, Main-Pogue's and Waubeno's.
[Illustration: BLACK HAWK TELLS THE STORY OF WAUBENO.]
"His father is dead, Waubeno's. Main-Pogue has been a father to him.
They would die for each other. Main-Pogue says that Waubeno may run with
you, if I say that he may run. I say so. Main-Pogue and Waubeno are true
to me.
"The boy's father is dead, I said. Who was the father of that
boy?--Waubeno, stand up."
The boy arose, like a tall shadow. There was a silence, and Black Hawk
puffed his pipe, then laid it beside his blanket.
"Who was the father of Waubeno? He was a brave, a warrior. He wore the
gray plume, and honor to him was more than life. He would not lie, and
they put him to death. He was true as the stars, and they killed him."
There followed another silence.
"Father, you teach. You teach the head; you teach the heart: to live a
true life, is the thing to teach--the thing you call conscience, soul,
those are the right things to teach. What are books to the head, if the
soul is not taught to be true?
"Father, the father of Waubeno could teach the pale-face. In the head?
No, in the heart? No, in the soul, which is the true book of the Great
Spirit that you call God. You came to us to teach us God. It is good.
You are a brother, but God came to us before. He has written the law of
right in the soul of every man. The right will find the light. You teach
the way--you bring the Word of him who died for mankind. It is good.
I've got you a runner to run with you. It is good. You help the right to
find the light.
"Father, listen. I am about to speak. Before the great war with the
British brother (1812) that boy's father struck down to the earth a
pale-face who had done him wrong. The white man died. He who wrongs
another does not deserve the sun. He died, and his soul went to the
shadows. The British took the red warrior prisoner for killing this man
who had wronged him. Waubeno was a little one then, when they took his
father prisoner.
"The British told the old warrior that they had condemned him to die.
"'I am not afraid to die,' said the warrior. 'Let me go to the
Ouisconsin (Wisconsin) and see my family once more, and whisper my last
wish in the ear of my boy, and I will return to you and die. I will
return at the sunrise.'
"'You would never return,' said the commander of the stockade.
"The warrior strode before him.
"'Can a true man lie?'
"The commander looked into his face, and saw his soul.
"'Well, go,' said he. 'I would like to see an Indian who would come back
to die.'
"The warrior went home, under the stars. He told his squaw all. He had
six little children, and he hugged them all. Waubeno was the oldest boy.
He told him all, and pressed him to his heart. He whispered in his
ear.--What was it he said, Waubeno?"
The shadowy form of the boy swayed in the dim light, as he answered. He
said:
"'Avenge my death! Honor my memory. The Great Spirit will teach you
how.' That is what my father said to me, and I felt the beating of his
heart."
There was a deep silence. Then Black Hawk said:
"The warrior looked down on the Ouisconsin under the stars. He looked up
to heaven, and cried, 'Lead thou my boy!' Then he set his face toward
the stockades of Prairie du Chien.
"He strode across the prairie as the sun was rising; he arrived in time,
and--Father, listen!"
There was another silence, so deep that one might almost hear the
puffing smoke as it rose on the air.
"_They shot him!_ That is his boy, Waubeno."
Jasper stood silent; he thought of Johnnie Kongapod's story, and the
night-scene at Pigeon Creek.
"I shall teach him a better way," said Jasper, at last. "I will lead him
to honor the memory of his great father in a way that he does not now
know. The Great Spirit will guide us both. His father was a great man. I
will lead him to become a greater."
"Father," said the boy, coming forward, "I will always be true to you,
but I have sworn by the stars."
Jasper stood like one in a dream. Could such a tale as this be true
among savages? Honor like this only needed the gospel teaching to do
great deeds. Jasper saw his opportunity, and his love of mankind never
glowed before as it did then. He folded his hands, closed his eyes, and
his silent thoughts winged upward to the skies.