WHITE LASSO’S CAPTURE.
“Heaven help me!” broke from Charley Shafer’s lips, when he found
himself in the perilous situation described in chapter _fourth_.
As Frontier Shack sprung to the ground to attend to the black
stallion, Charley immediately assumed the saddle. He feared that
Tecumseh’s restlessness might result in some wild freak, and he hoped
to reach the bridle and curb his ire while his master secured his
new prize. But the boy’s hand had not disengaged the bridle from the
thick mane, when the iron-gray bounded forward.
Young Shafer felt his comrade hurled from his perch, and found
himself jerked forward by the bridle which his fingers tightly
clutched.
Still, however, he retained his presence of mind, and discovering at
once that he could not stop Tecumseh with the bridle, he grappled the
long gray hairs of the mane with his hands, and held on for dear life.
Tecumseh was conscious that he had a rider, for he tried to shake the
youth off as he bounded over the prairie like a rocket; but he found
himself unable to do so.
On, on, still on; the horse actually seemed to gain strength as he
proceeded, and, by fearful glances ahead, the young Ohioan saw that
he was nearing the lost herd.
“I can’t hold out much longer!” he gasped between the clenched teeth,
“but I dare not release my hold. In a moment I would be trampled to
death by his hoofs, and father would never see his runaway boy again.”
Strangely Tecumseh would turn his head whenever a word fell from
rider’s lips; the horse seemed to think the voice that of his master;
but the desire to see his free comrades overruled the obedience he
had loved in days gone by, and kept the demon in his eyes.
All at once the boy saw the wild herd execute a sudden halt, but
the next moment they wheeled to the right, and dashed northward as
swiftly as before.
The halt enabled Tecumseh to approach very near the lost horses, and,
as he “cut corners” at break-neck speed, his rider saw the cause of
the horses’ sudden change of route.
A long line of dark forms appeared between him and the gray horizon.
They were Indians, scarce a mile away.
How Charley Shafer’s heart sprung into his throat at the sight.
If they could but see him!
He released one hand from Tecumseh’s mane, waved his handkerchief
above his head, wildly and with frantic gestures. But he found that
he occupied an insecure seat, and was soon forced to clasp the mane
again.
He groaned, as well he might, when he saw that his exertion for
salvation had accomplished nothing, for the Indians turned toward the
river and he soon lost sight of them.
At last Tecumseh reached his lost brethren. With wild neighs they
welcomed him back, and he returned the salute with sundry plunges
which almost unhorsed his despairing rider. The horse’s strength did
not seem weakened in the least degree, and this told Charley Shafer
that, in bygone days, he had been the monarch of some great equine
family.
For he skirted the edge of the wandering herd like a meteor, and
boldly threw himself in the van.
Now the boy clung closer than ever to the iron-gray, for eight
hundred hoofs were thundering behind him, and the sound fell
doomfully upon his ears.
He was riding, helpless, at the head of death.
The sun descended toward the grayish clouds that crowned the horizon,
and still over the rolling land the lost herd, and its new leader,
thundered on.
The boy at length became so weak and discouraged that it seemed as if
he must tumble off the horse’s back, and Tecumseh himself seemed to
know that his rider would soon drop from his perch.
Suddenly he thought of the Pawnee village, which Frontier Shack said
was north of the Platte; and he knew that the horses were running in
a northerly direction. Might they not encounter the Pawnee Loups,
and then might a lasso not fall near Tecumseh’s head, and he be saved?
He scarcely dared hope for such a finale to his wild ride, and yet he
prayed devoutly for it.
The prayers for such a deliverance still rose from his lips, when
Tecumseh snorted with rage and sprung to the right.
Almost unhorsed by the unexpected movement, the young white
buffalo-hunter raised himself, and uttered an ejaculation of joy
commingled with anxious fear.
The lost band, in scaling a prairie hillock, had suddenly come upon a
Pawnee village, and a band of Indians!
The latter were near, while far away he saw the former, resting idly
by a shining stream, which he felt must be the Loup fork of the
Platte.
The Pawnee horsemen, perhaps thirty in number, at once drove their
spurs into the rowels of the fresh animals, with a yell which the
lost steeds greeted with neighs of astonishment.
Charley saw lassoes made ready as the Pawnees rushed forward, and he
saw, too, with infinite joy, that they were gaining on him, at no
insignificant rate.
“God help them catch me!” he cried, for captivity was preferable to
the doom which had stared him in the face so long.
The singular turn which affairs had taken threw new strength into
his limbs; he reached forward, and griped the bridle which lay
on Tecumseh’s neck. Then, sitting bolt upright in his saddle, he
“see-sawed” on the Mexican bit with all his might.
His action bothered the horses that pressed in his rear, for Tecumseh
could not push forward with the alacrity he had known, and the others
crowded against him, much to his disquietude.
They tried to pull the brave boy from the saddle; they caught his
garments with their teeth, and lacerated his limbs with their frantic
exertions.
But, finding that Tecumseh’s rider was delaying his progress, they
suddenly divided ranks, and, without mercy, left the iron-gray in the
rear.
Charley Shafer could have shouted at his victory, but he was still
in the midst of great perils, and he realized his situation.
Still with the strength born of desperation he “see-sawed” on the
bit, each moment making the iron-gray more frantic than ever.
He did not look backward for the Pawnees; he feared that a backward
glance, like that of Lot’s wife, might prove his destruction, and he
was bent on conquering the trapper’s runaway.
Tecumseh tried to regain his position at the head of the band, but
failed, and at last he found himself quite a distance in the rear.
Foam now completely covered his fiery body, and he seemed more a
white horse than a gray one.
On, on, he pushed with splendid resolution, and so intent was his
rider in the work of conquering, that he did not hear the hoofs that
crushed the new-born grass in his rear.
But Tecumseh heard the sounds, and put forth every effort of strength.
“What ails the bridle?” suddenly cried the young Ohioan, discovering
that the reins had suddenly lengthened. “By my heart! the bit is out
of his mouth!”
He spoke truly; his eye had not deceived him.
Now the steed was ungovernable again, and the boy dropping the reins
fell forward on Tecumseh’s neck, too weak to sit upright.
Where were the Indians now? He turned, but could not see clearly. A
dazzling mist floated before his eyes, and the air to him suddenly
became dense.
He saw not, felt not, what Tecumseh did--the whirling rope, the
sudden tightening of the strong cord, and the throttling that quickly
followed.
He felt his hands unclasp, then came the sensation of being hurled
through the air--then insensibility!
He opened his eyes amid thirty anxious Pawnee Indians, and his
recovery was greeted with yells of delight and triumph.
“White boy ride hunter’s horse like young brave,” said the giant, who
had lassoed Tecumseh, kneeling beside the youth he had rescued. “How
he get off with the big steed?”
In a few words our hero acquainted the Pawnees with the circumstances
attending his perilous ride, and they admired his pluck in sticking
to the animal.
“Pale boy brave enough to be Pawnee,” the Indian, who was evidently a
chief, continued. “He made White Lasso catch him, by making hunter’s
horse tired. If gray horse stay at head of band, White Lasso no catch
’im and save boy.”
The youth smiled, and thanked the Pawnee for the life he had saved.
He felt that his pluck had gained him a friend among the Indians, and
the thought was further strengthened by the Pawnee’s words.
“White boy sleep in White Lasso’s tent,” he said, lifting our
weakened hero from the ground.
“Red Eagle got Gold Girl, Pale Pawnee keep the darker rose, and White
Lasso make the young rider great chief.”
The youth instantly comprehended the Pawnee’s words. A division of
the captives had already been made, and Mabel Denison had fallen into
the hands of the renegade. He allowed a flush of mingled fear and
shame to overspread his face, and he clenched his white hands till
the nails blued the palms.
Perhaps he already loved the fair girl who had been his companion
across the plains, and well might he fear for her safety, if such was
the case.
“I will be near her,” he murmured, “and perhaps I may yet thank God
for my fearful ride through the jaws of death.”
The Indians watched the youth and the disappearing horses
alternately, until White Lasso strode toward his own steed, panting
near by. He bore our hero in his arms, and seated him on the
foam-flecked mustang, before vaulting into the Spanish saddle himself.
“White Lasso love white boy,” the Indian whispered to his charge. “He
had a boy once; but the Apaches scalp ’im ’fore he won his feathers.
Pale-face take that boy’s place now.”
The next moment a middle-aged Indian rode up to the chief.
“Upper Pawnees will want white boy. Kenoagla give him them other day.”
White Lasso’s face darkened, and fire flashed from his midnight orbs.
His hand flew to his knife.
“White boy is White Lasso’s son now. Upper Pawnees no git ’im again.
The Pale Pawnees can not give ’im back. Kenoagla not Pawnee’s true
king!”
He shot a glance burdened with passion around upon the band, and the
eyes which he met told that Tom Kyle’s days of mastery were drawing
to a close.
Charley Shafer shot a look of admiration into White Lasso’s face; but
the next words that fell from the Indian’s lips blanched his cheek.
“White Lasso cut boy’s heart ’fore he give ’im back to upper Pawnees.”
The night closed about the party before they entered the Indian
village, and without exciting many of its inhabitants. Charley Shafer
reached his captor’s tent.
“White boy tired; he sleep now,” said the chief, pointing to a couch
of buffalo skins, in one corner of the lodge. “Nobody hurt ’im. White
Lasso stand ’tween ’im and Upper Pawnees, Red Eagle and Kenoagla.”
The boy started.
If those three evils should combine against him, what could White
Lasso do? The answer to this interrogative came to him in the echo of
the Pawnee’s words.
“White Lasso cut boy’s heart ’fore he give ’im back to Upper Pawnee.”
With a sigh that indicated the prostration of a human frame,
the peril-environed Ohio youth threw himself upon the skins and
immediately went to sleep.
He dreamed of home in that peaceful slumber--not of his own danger,
nor of his young comrade, who, during his sleep, was being ingulfed
by the treacherous quicksand with a Pawnee lariat around his body.
After watching his captive awhile, White Lasso stole from the lodge,
on tip-toe, and walked away.
Scarcely had he disappeared when the skinny curtain slowly parted,
and a face was revealed by the fire which lighted up the small
apartment.
“How come pale boy here when Kenoagla still far off?” murmured the
secret visitant. “Where White Lasso find him? Ha! he pretty as river
lily; his skin fairer than Red Eagle’s.” Then, after a long pause,
“Red Eagle not so pretty as pale boy. But Winnesaw go tell Gold Girl
that her fair-skinned brother sleeps in White Lasso’s lodge.”
Then the face disappeared, and the curtains met again.
A new love was born in the Pawnee village that night.