FOR LINCOLN'S SAKE.
"The prairie is on fire!" So cried a horseman, as he rode by the school.
It was a calm, glimmering September day. Prairie Island rose with red
and yellow and crisping leaves, like a royal tent amid a dead sea of
flowers. The prairie grass was dry, though still mingled with a green
undergrowth. Prairie chickens were everywhere, quails, and plover.
At midday a billowy cloud of smoke began to wall the eastern horizon,
and it slowly rolled forward, driven by the current of the air.
"O-o-oh!" said one of the scholars! "Look! look! What the man said is
true--the prairie _is_ on fire!"
Jasper went to the door. The blue sky had turned to an ashy hue, and the
sun was a dull red. An unnatural wind had arisen like a draft of air.
"Teacher, can we go out and look?" asked several voices.
"Yes," said Jasper, "the school may take a recess."
The pupils went to the verge of the trees, and watched the billowy
columns of smoke in the distance.
The world seemed to change. The air filled with flocks of frightened
birds. The sky became veiled, and the sun was as red as blood.
Since the great snow of 1830 but few buffaloes had been seen on the
prairie. But a dark cloud of flesh came bounding over the prairie grass,
bellowing, with low heads and erect tails. The children thought that
they were cattle at first, but they were buffaloes. They rushed toward
the trees of Prairie Island, turned, and looked behind. Then the leader
pawed the earth, and the herd rushed on toward the north.
The fire spread in a semicircle, and seemed to create a wind which
impelled it on with resistless fury.
"O-o-oh, look! look!" exclaimed another scholar. "See the horses and the
cattle--droves of them! Look at the sky--see the birds!"
There were droves of cattle hurrying in every direction. The men in the
fields near Prairie Island came hurrying home.
"The prairie is on fire!" said each one, not knowing what else to say.
"Will it reach us?" asked Jasper of the harvesters.
"What is to hinder it? The wind is driving it this way. It has formed a
wall of fire that almost surrounds us."
"What can we do?" asked Jasper. The harvesters considered.
"We are safer here than elsewhere, let what will come," said one. "If
the fire sweeps the prairie, it would overtake us before we could get to
any great river, and the small creeks are dry."
The afternoon grew darker and darker. The sun went out; under the black
smoke rolled a red sea whose waves grew nearer and nearer. The children
began to cry and the women to pray. An old man came hobbling out to the
arch of the trees.
"I foretold it," said he. "The world is on fire. The Day of Judgment has
come! A time and times time, and a half."
He had been a Millerite.
"It will be here in an hour," said a harvester.
But there arose a counter-wind. The wall of fire seemed to be stayed.
The smoke columns rose to the heavens like Babel towers.
Afar, families were seen fleeing on horseback toward the bed of a creek
which they hoped to find flowing, but which had run dry.
"This is awful!" said Jasper. "It looks as though the heavens were in
flames."
He shaded his hands and looked into the open space.
"What is that?" he asked.
A black horse came running toward the island, bounding through the grass
as though impelled by spurs. As he leered, Jasper saw the form of a
human being stretched at his side. Was the form an Indian?
On came the horse. He leered again, exposing to view a yellow body and a
plumed head.
"It's an Indian," said Jasper.
The fire flattened and darkened for a time, and then rolled on again.
Animals were fleeing everywhere, plunging and bellowing, and the air was
wild and tempestuous with the cries of birds. The little animals could
be seen leaping out of the prairie grass. The earth, air, and sky
seemed alive with terror.
The black horse came plunging toward the island.
"How can a horse run that way and live?" asked Jasper. "He is bearing a
messenger. It is friendly or hostile Indian that is clinging to his
side."
Jasper bent his eyes on the plunging animal to see him leer, for
whenever the sidling motion was made it brought to view the tawny
horizontal form that seemed to be clinging to the bridle, as if riding
for life. Suddenly there arose a cry from the islanders:
"Look! look! Who has done it? There is a counter-fire ahead. _They_ will
all perish!"
A mile or more in front of the island, and in the opposite direction
from the other fire, another great billow of smoke arose spirally into
the air. The people and animals who had been fleeing toward the creek,
which they thought contained water, but which was dry, all turned and
came running toward the island grove. Even the birds came beating back.
"_That_ fire was set by the Indians," said the harvesters. "It is
started across the track of the other fire to destroy us all. An Indian
set the fires."
"That is an Indian skirting around us on the back of a horse," said
another. "He is holding on to the horse by the mane with his hands, and
by the flanks with his feet. The Indians have done this!"
"The other fire will run back, though against the wind. The prairie is
so dry that the fire will run everywhere. We must set a counter-fire."
"Set a counter-fire!" exclaimed many voices.
The purpose of the counter-fire was to destroy the dry grass, so that
when the other fires should reach the place it would find nothing to
burn.
"But the people!" said Jasper. "See them! They are hurrying here; a
counter-fire would drive them away!"
An awful scene followed. Horses, cattle, animals of many kinds came
panting to the island. Many of them had been fleeing for miles, and sank
down under the trees as if ready to perish. There was one enormous bison
among them. The tops of the trees were filled with birds, cawing and
uttering a chaos of cries. The air seemed to rain birds, and the earth
to pour forth animals. The sky above turned to inky blackness. Men,
women, and children came rushing into the trees from every direction,
some crying on Heaven for mercy, some begging for water, all of them
exhausted and seemingly ready to die. The island grove was like a great
funeral pyre.
Jasper lifted his hands and called the school and the people around him,
knelt down, and prayed for help amid the cries of distress that rose on
every hand. He then looked for the black horse and the plumed rider
again.
They were drawing near in the darkening air. The figure of the rider was
more distinct. The people saw it, and cried, "An Indian!" Some said, "It
is a scout!" and others, "It is he who set the fire!"
The wind rose and changed, caused by the heated air in the distance. The
currents ran hither and thither like drafts in a room of open doors. One
of these unnatural drafts caused a new terror to spread among the people
and animals and birds. It drew up into the air a great column of sparks
and, scattered them through the open space, and a rain of fire filled
the sky and descended upon the grove.
[Illustration: THE APPROACH OF THE MYSTERIOUS INDIAN.]
It was a splendid but terrible sight.
"The end of all things is at hand," said the old Millerite. "The stars
are beginning to fall."
But the rain of fire lost its force as it neared the earth, and it fell
in cinders and ashes.
"An Indian! an Indian!" cried many voices.
The black horse came plunging into near view, and rushed for the trees
and sank down with foaming sides and mouth. The people shouted. There
rolled from his side the lithe and supple form of a young Indian,
plumed, and dressed in yellow buckskin. What did it mean? The Indian lay
on the ground like one dead. The people gathered around him, and Jasper
came to him and bent over him, and parted the black hair from his face.
Suddenly Jasper started back and uttered a cry.
"What is it?" asked the people.
"It is my old Indian guide--it is Waubeno. Bring him water, and we will
revive him, and he will tell us what to do.--Waubeno! Waubeno!"
The Indian seemed to know that voice. He revived, and looked around him,
and stared at the people.
"Give him water," said Jasper.
A boy brought a cup of water and offered it to the Indian. The latter
started up, and cried:
"Away! I am here to die among you. My tongue burns, but I did not come
here to drink. I came here to die. The white man killed my father, and I
have come back with the avengers, and we have brought with us the
Judgment Day." He stood and listened to the cries of distress.
"Hear the trees cry for help--all the birds of the prairie--but they cry
for naught. My father hears them cry. The cry is sweet to his ears. He
is waiting for me. We are all about to die. When the wheat-fields blaze
and the stacks take fire, and the houses crackle, then we shall all die.
So says Waubeno." He listened again.
"Hear the earth cry--all the animals. My father hears--his soul hears.
This is the day that I have carried in my soul. My spirit is in the
fire."
He listened again. The prairie roared with the hot air, the flames, and
the clouds of smoke. There fell another rain of fire, and women shrieked
for mercy, and children cried on their mothers' breasts.
"Hear the people cry! I have waited for that cry for a hundred moons. I
have paid my vow. We have kindled the fire of the anger of the
heavens--it is coming. I will die with you like the son of a warrior.
The souls of the warriors are gathering to see me die. I am Waubeno."
The people pressed upon him, and glared at him.
"He set the fire!" they cried. "The Indian fiend!"
"I set the fire," he said; "I and Black Hawk's men. _They_ have escaped.
I have done my work, and I want to die."
Jasper lifted his hat, and with bared head stood forth in the view of
the Indian.
"Waubeno, do you want to see _me_ die?"
He started with a cry of pain. His eyes burned.
"My father--I did not know that you were here. Heaven pity Waubeno now!"
"Waubeno, this is cruel!"
"Cruel? This country was once called the Red Man's Paradise. Cruel? The
white man made the red man drunk with fire-water, and made him sign a
false treaty, and then drove him away. Cruel? Think of the women the
whites shot in the river for coming back to their own corn-fields
starving to gather their own corn. Cruel? Why is the Red Man's Paradise
no longer ours? Cruel? The Rock River flows for us no more; the spring
brings the flowers to these prairies for us no more; the bluff rises in
the summer sky, but the red man may no longer sit upon it. Cruel? Think
how your people murdered my father. Is it more cruel for the Indian to
do these things than for the white man to do them? You have emptied the
Red Man's Paradise, and Waubeno has fulfilled the vow that he made to
his father. The clouds are on fire. I would have saved you had I known,
but you must perish with your people. I shall die with you. I am
Waubeno. I am proud to be Waubeno. I am the avenger of my race.
"But, white brother, listen. I tried to prevent it. I remembered your
teaching, and I tried to prevent it by our council-fires over the
Mississippi. Main-Pogue tried to prevent it. I thought of the man who
saved him in the war, and I wondered who he was, and tried to prevent it
for _his_ sake.
"Then said they to me: 'We go to avenge the loss of our country, the Red
Man's Paradise. The grass is feathers. We go to burn. Waubeno, remember
your father's death. You are the son of Alknomook!'
"White brother, I have come. I tried to prevent it, but this hand has
obeyed the voice of my people. I have kindled the fires of the woe. The
world is on fire. I tried to prevent it, but it has come."
"Waubeno, do you remember _Lincoln_?"
"Lincoln? The Indians killed his father's father. I have often thought
of that. He said that he would do right by an Indian. I have thought of
that. I love that man. I would die for such a man."
"Waubeno, who saved the life of Main-Pogue?"
"I don't know, father. I would die for _that man_."
"Did Main-Pogue not tell you?"
"He told me 'twas a white captain saved him. Is the white captain here?"
"No. Waubeno, listen. That white captain was Lincoln."
"Lincoln? Whose father's father the red man killed? Was it he who saved
Main-Pogue? Lincoln? He forced his men to do right. He did himself
harm."
"Yes, he did himself harm to do right. Waubeno, do you remember your
promise that you made to me? You said that you would never avenge the
death of your father, if you could find one white man who would do
himself harm for the sake of an Indian."
Waubeno leaped upon his feet, and his black eye swept the clouds, and
the circle of fire, and the distressed people on every hand.
"Father, I can save you now. I know how. I will do it _for Lincoln's
sake_.
"Ho! ho!" he cried. "Kill me an ox, and Waubeno will save you. Kill me
six oxen, and Waubeno will save you. Give me raw hides, and do as I do,
and Waubeno will save you. Ho! ho! The gods have spoken to Waubeno. A
voice comes from the sky to Waubeno. It has spoken here. Ho! ho!"
He put his hand upon his heart, then rushed in among the oxen. A company
of men followed him.
He slew an ox with his knife, and quickly removed the hide. The people
looked upon him with horror; they thought him demented. What was he
doing? What was he going to do?
He tied the great hide to his horse's neck, so that the raw side of it
would drag flat upon the ground, and, turning to Jasper, he said:
"That will smother fire. Ho! ho! How?"
The fire was fast approaching some stacks of wheat on the edge of the
settlement. Waubeno saw the peril, and leaped upon his horse.
"Kill more cattle. Get more hides for Waubeno," he said.
He rode away toward the stacks, guiding the horse in such a way that the
raw hide swept the ground. The people watched him. He seemed to ride
into the fire.
"He is riding to death!" said the people. "He is mad!"
But as he rode the fire was stayed, and a rim of black smoke rose in its
stead. Near the stacks the fire stopped.
"He is the Evil One himself," said the old Millerite. "That Indian boy
is no human form."
Out of the black came the horse plunging, bearing the boy, who waved his
hands to the people. Then the horse plunged away, as though wild, toward
the outer edge of the great sea of fire.
The horse and rider rushed into the flames, and the same strange effects
followed. The running flame and white cloud changed into black smoke,
and the destruction was arrested.
The people watched the boy as he rode half hidden in rolling smoke, his
red plumes waving above the verge of the flaming sea. What a scene it
was as he rode there, round and round, like the enchanted form of a more
than human deliverer! But the effect of his movements at last ceased.
"He is coming back," said the people.
Out of the fire rushed the horse and rider toward the island grove
again.
"Give me new hides!" he cried, as, singed and blackened, he swept into
the trees. "The hide is dead and shriveled. Give me new hides. Ho! ho!"
New hides were provided by killing oxen. He tied two together like a
carpet, with the raw side upon the earth. He attached them by a long
rope to the horse's neck, and dashed forth again, crying:
"Do the same, and follow me."
The horse seemed maddened again. It flew toward the fire as if drawn by
a spell, and plunged into it like a bather into the sea. Waubeno tried
to deaden the fire in the whole circle. Round and round the island he
rode, in the tide of the advancing flames. The people understood his
method now, and the men secured new hides and attached them to horses,
and followed him. He led them, crying and waving his hands. Round and
round he led them, round and round, and where they rode the white smoke
changed into black smoke and the fire died.
The people secured raw hides by killing the poor cattle, and came out to
the verge of the fiery sea and checked the progress of the flames in
places. In the midst of the excitement a roll of thunder was heard in
the sky.
"'Tis the trumpet of doom," said the old Millerite.
The people heard it with terror, and yet with hope. It might be an
approaching shower. If it were, they were saved.
The fire in front of them was checked. Not the great sea, but the
current that was rolling toward the island grove. The fire at the north
was rushing forward, but it moved backward toward the place slowly. The
women began to soak blankets and clothing in water, and so prepared to
help the men fight the flames. An hour passed. In the midst of the
crisis the riding men, the hurrying women, the encircling fire, the
billows of smoke, a flame came zigzagging down from the sky. The people
stood still. Had the last day indeed come?
Then followed a crash of thunder that shook the earth. The people fell
upon their knees. The sky darkened, and great drops of rain began to
fall.
Waubeno had checked the current of the flame that would have destroyed
the settlement in an hour, and had taught the men how to arrest an
advancing tide of flame. The people began to have hope. All was now
activity on the part of the people. Smoke filled the sky.
"There is a cloud above the smoke," said many. "God will save us all."
Waubeno came flying back again to the grove.
"It thunders," he cried. "The Rain-god is coming. If I can keep back
the fire an hour, the Rain-god will come. Hides! hides! Quick, more
hides! Ho! ho!"
New hides were provided, and he swept forth again.
The island grove was now like a vast oven. The air was stifling. The
animals laid down and rolled their tongues from their mouths. But the
fire in front did not advance. It seemed deadened. The river of flame
forked and ran in other directions, but it was stayed in front of the
grove, houses, corn-fields, and stacks, and it was the hand that had set
flames that had broken its force in the road to the settlements.
There were sudden dashes of rain, and the smoke turned into blackness
everywhere. Another flash of lightning smote the gloom, followed by a
rattling of thunder that seemed as if the spirit of the storm was
driving his chariot through the air. Then it poured as though a lake was
coming down. In an hour the fire was dead. The cloud parted, the
slanting sun came out, revealing a prairie as black as ink.
The people fled to the shelter of the houses and sheds at the approach
of the rain. The animals crowded under the trees, and the birds hid in
the boughs. After the rain-burst the people gathered together again, and
each one asked:
"Where is the Indian boy?"
He was not among them.
Had he perished?
A red sunset flamed over the prairies and the birds filled the tree-tops
with the gladness of song. It seemed to all as if the earth and sky had
come back again.
In the glare of the sunset-fire a horse and rider were seen slowly
approaching the island grove.
"It is Waubeno," said one to the other. "The horse is disabled."
The people went out to meet the Indian boy. The horse was burned and
blind, and staggered as he came on. And the rider! He had drawn the
flames into his vitals; he had been internally burned, and was dying.
He reeled from his blind horse, and fell before the people. Jasper laid
his hand upon him.
"Father, I have drunk the cup of fire. I have kept my promise. I am
about to die. The birds are happy. They are singing the death-song of
Waubeno."
His flesh quivered as he lay there, and Jasper bent over him in pity.
"Waubeno, do you suffer?"
"The stars do not complain, white brother. The clouded sun does not
complain. The winds complain, and the waters, and women and children.
Waubeno does not complain."
A spasm shook his frame. It passed.
"White brother, go beyond the Mississippi and teach my people. You do
pity them. This was once their paradise. They loved it. They struggled.
Go to them with the Book of God."
"Waubeno, I will go."
"The sun sets over the Mississippi. 'Tis sunset there. You will go to
the land of the sunset?"
"Yes, Waubeno. I feel in my heart the call to go. I love and pity your
people."
"Pour water upon me; I am burning. I shall go when the moon comes up,
when the moon comes up into the shady sky. My father suffered, but he
did not complain. Waubeno does not complain. Don't pity me. Pity my poor
people. I love my people. Teach my people, and cover me forever with a
blanket of the earth."
He lay on the cool grass under the trees for several hours in terrible
agony, and the people watched by his side.
"When the moon rises," he said, "I shall go. I shall never see the Red
Man's Paradise again. Tell me when the moon rises. I am going to sleep
now."
The great moon rose at last, its disk hanging like a wheel of dead gold
on the verge of the horizon in the smoky air.
"Waubeno," said Jasper, "the moon is rising."
He opened his eyes, and said:
"We kindled the fire for our fathers' sake, and I smote it for him who
protected Main-Pogue. What was his name, father? Say it to me."
"Lincoln."
"Yes, Lincoln. He had come for revenge, but he did what was right. He
forgave. I forgive everybody. I drank the fire for Lincoln's sake."
The moon burned along the sky; the stars came out; and at midnight all
was still. Waubeno lay dead under the trees, and the people with timid
steps vanished hither and thither into the cabins and sheds.
They killed the poor blind horse in the morning, and laid Waubeno to
rest in a blanket, in a grave under the trees.
[Illustration: LINCOLN FAMILY RECORD,
Written by Abraham Lincoln in his Father's Bible.
_From original in possession of C. F. Gunther, Esq., Chicago._]