AN UNEXPECTED ACCUSATION.
We left George Long among the devouring quicksands of the Platte, and
now, after a brief absence, we return to him.
His weight, though not great, seemed to take him down, and the
Indians, seeing this, set up wild yells for assistance. Meanwhile,
they tugged with all their strength at the lasso, and the boy thought
that they would rend him in twain. Tighter and tighter grew the
lariat about his body; his arms seemed to be forced into his sides,
and his breath became mere gasps, and brief ones at that.
“Let go! let go!” he shouted to the savages in the agony of mingled
pain and despair. “You can’t get me out! my knees are below the sand
now; my feet are lumps of ice. Drop the rope, and let me sink!”
But the savages did not obey. On the other hand, they braced
themselves anew, and pulled in quick, torturing jerks. The
unfortunate boy’s body lay on the water now, and the jerks would
submerge his face in the cold fluid, which seemed destined to be his
grave.
All at once several Pawnees joined the red twain, and presently five
pair of hands griped the sinewy rope.
“Steady!” shouted a new voice, and the next moment Tom Kyle, the
renegade, appeared on the scene, at the head of a score of warriors.
George looked up and saw the Pale Pawnee doff his serape and plumed
hat. Then he handed his pistol-belt to an Indian, and urged his horse
into the fatal river.
“Pull steady!” he cried, glancing over his shoulder at his red-men.
“We’ll get the boy out yet--the boy who shot Red Eagle!”
If George Long could have uttered an intelligible word, he would have
flung the lie into his would-be-rescuer’s teeth. He saw the motive
that prompted the renegade’s action; he would rescue him for the
purpose of covering up a dastardly crime of his own, for, as yet, the
youth had not shed a drop of Indian blood.
Nearer and nearer came the renegade. His steed sunk at each step, and
Tom Kyle spurred him out of the devouring sand before it could clutch
its victim, and at last he drew rein beside the youth. George had
sunk but a few inches since the tightning of the lasso; the Indians’
strength had counteracted the work of the sand; but they could not
extricate him. It wanted a strong upward pull, and that was coming in
the arm of the renegade.
“You’re in a bad fix, boy,” cried Tom Kyle, reaching down for the
motionless form lying on the water. “The Indians were about giving
you up when I came, and you couldn’t hire one to ride out here and
try and pull you out with all the scalps in Christendom.”
He caught the young Ohioan’s shoulder, and shouted to the Indians on
shore to loosen the tension of the lasso. Instantly it was done, and
steadily Tom Kyle rose in the heavy Spanish stirrups, pulling the boy
upward with all the strength he could command.
While he exerted his strength, his noble horse was sinking, and
thus loosening the sand about the boy’s legs. It sprung to its new
victim--the horse--and as the spur-scarred flanks touched the water,
George Long felt himself being pulled through the waves, while a
thousand hellish cries filled his ears.
The renegade saw that he could not save his horse, and stripping the
accouterments from him, he sprung into the water and swam ashore.
A few frantic struggles settled the brave steed’s fate, and at last
the water rushed over the sandy grave.
George Long fainted in the water; but four Indians rubbed him back
into life, and he was jerked upon his feet.
“Where’s white trapper?”
George pointed to the river, and the Indians who had fired the volley
which resulted so fatally to the voyagers, declared that Frontier
Shack had disappeared in one of the quicksand whirlpools which abound
in the Platte.
“I guess you’re able to sit on a horse,” said Tom Kyle, turning to
our hero. “We’re going home now.”
The boy declared that he felt stronger, and presently the party were
riding in a full gallop toward the north. While they were mounting,
a bright light illumined the cove, and several Pawnees, loaded
with pelts, rode up and joined the band. The island home of Otis
Shackelford was in flames, and it looked as if the entire island
would be devoured by the scarlet demon, fire.
“Where is the trapper’s horse?” questioned Tom Kyle, of the youth, as
they rode along.
George replied by relating the story of Charley Shafer’s sudden
departure.
“I wanted that horse,” replied the renegade, “and you must know that
I am terribly disappointed. There is no such steed as the trapper’s
in my nation; I would have given a thousand dollars for him, any day.”
Tom Kyle never dreamed that that coveted horse was to prove his death!
They rode into the Indian village an hour after midnight. Confusion
filled the square, which was illuminated by torches elevated on
poles, and a strange sight greeted George Long’s eyes as he took in
the wild scene.
He first saw Charley Shafer standing beside an Indian girl, while
Lina Aiken clung to his arm, looking with pallid features upon the
dark mob, which surrounded them with knives and tomahawks.
Near the chief who was haranguing the boisterous multitude, when
Kenoagla’s party rode into the village, lay two dead bodies. The
whitish lasso lying on the throbless breast proclaimed the identity
of one, while the absence of plumes from the other head, proclaimed
its owner a common warrior.
Tom Kyle’s eyes swept the entire scene in an instant, and he drove
the spurs into his animal’s flanks with an oath, which was a frequent
visitor to his lips.
The speaker ceased, and a shout of triumph pealed from his lips. He
had attained the object of his harangue--time; and at sight of the
returning band the red-skins divided, and the renegade halted in the
“square.”
“The other boy, by heavens!” exclaimed the renegade, his eyes
recognizing Tecumseh’s young rider. “Where’s the horse?”
“Safe in the Pawnee village,” answered an Indian.
“Good! he’s mine.”
The savages crowded about the band to learn the particulars of their
expedition, and terrible shouts rent the air when the bursting of the
cottonwood was made known. Fierce looks were shot at George Long, who
sat on the white mustang at the renegade’s side; but the red-man’s
anger reached its loftiest pinnacle when a certain corpse was brought
into the circle.
Tom Kyle had tried to prepare the savages for bad news; but his words
shot bitter arrows at the youthful captive, and when the warriors
laid the corpse of Red Eagle beside that of White Lasso, his secret
enemy, there was a perceptible movement toward the boy. Winnesaw bent
over the body.
“Back!” cried the renegade, rising in his stirrups. “Do not slay the
boy in the heat of your anger. The upper Pawnees are here; they claim
the two pale boys; we gave them to our river brethren when the white
man’s trail fell into our hands. We must listen to the upper Pawnees.”
At this harangue the Indians paused, and looked toward the group of
Indians whose peculiar garments told that they did not dwell on the
Loup fork. Fifty stalwart fellows composed the group, and all at once
the plumed heads of the chiefs came together in low conversation. The
Loup and Platte Pawnees were not ancient enemies, though, at times,
they had met as foemen on the battle-field; and a few words were
sufficient to rupture any peace that might exist between them.
The young white buffalo-hunters, as captives, belonged to the Platte
Pawnees, and when the survivors of Frontier Shack’s victory besought
their Loup brethren for aid, they thought that the boys would be
delivered over to them without a word.
But things had turned out strangely, to say the least. Frontier Shack
had not fallen into the Indians’ hands, and a ball had entered Red
Eagle’s brain. The chief’s death had, in the event of the trapper’s
disappearance, been charged to the young adventurer, and the Loup
Pawnees now clamored for his hot young blood, and for the gore of his
white comrade.
The Indians whom Charley Shafer tried to signal while flying over
the prairies on Tecumseh’s back, had proved to be the band of Platte
Pawnees, on a buffalo-hunt, and they had joined Tom Kyle’s avengers
a few minutes before the terrible explosion of the cottonwood. After
the siege, they had been persuaded to accompany Kenoagla’s band to
the Pawnee village, where a final disposition of George Long should
be made.
The whispered consultation of the Platte chiefs did not last long;
their lips closed firmly over certain words, and, at length, the
Samsonian leader of the party advanced from the group.
“The chiefs say, ‘Give us our property!’” he said, in a firm tone;
“give us the white boys and we will seek our lodges in peace.”
Tom Kyle saw that he stood on the crust of a crater, and his eye
calmly swept the sea of red faces beneath his perch.
The fifty mounted Plattes regarded him with anxious faces and their
hands clutched the rifles with terrible determination.
“Braves of the Loup, shall two pale boys dye Pawnee ground with
Pawnee blood?” asked the renegade, hurling his voice above the
clicking of a hundred rifle-locks, and the testing of twice as many
arrows. “This pale spawn will die in our brothers’ hands, and Red
Eagle will thus be avenged.”
“No! no!” shouted White Lasso’s brother, springing to his horse’s
back. “The slayer of Red Eagle shall die by his children’s hands. If
Kenoagla is a Loup no longer, let him go to the Apaches, in whose
lodges he may be safer than here.”
It was the first outbreak of treason, and the yells of approval that
followed it, blanched the renegade’s cheeks.
One glance at the Gold Girl, and he hastened to remedy his mistake.
“I spoke for peace,” he said; “not for the life of Red Eagle’s
slayer. The Plattes and Loups are brothers now; shall all brotherly
ties be severed?”
“If they do not say to the Loups, ‘Take the white boy and avenge Red
Eagle’--yes!” cried the Little Buffalo.
The fifty daring fellows in the midst of their three hundred mad
brethren bit their lips, and shook their heads resolutely.
“Then, Pawnee Loups, we keep the pale-faces or die!” cried the
renegade, as the fifty threw the deadly weapons to their shoulders.
The women and children, with wild shrieks, fled from the dangerous
ground and cowered in their lodges, pitiable objects of abject terror.
But still the red fingers refused to press the triggers.
Neither party seemed willing to inaugurate a conflict which might
grow into a war of extermination, and the silence which reigned could
almost have been _felt_.
The feelings of the captives at this dread moment can not be
described. Their lives hung on delicate threads; death, like the
sword of Damocles, quivered over their heads, and they waited with
throbless hearts for the volley of fire and lead.
All at once, after three minutes’ silence, the Platte chief spoke:
“Shall we have the pale boys?”
“_No!_”
The little monosyllable pealed from three hundred throats as from the
throat of one man.
Then the eyes that covered broad, bare breasts, dropped nearer the
rifle-barrels and bow-strings; but a voice, and the springing of a
girlish form from the body of Red Eagle, stayed the hand of massacre.
“Stay your hands, Plattes and Loups!” she cried, pausing between the
divided tribes. “The pale boy did not slay Red Eagle. The ball that
reached his brain came from Kenoagla’s rifle!”
The effect was electrical.
Every rifle was lowered, and every eye fell upon Tom Kyle.
His face became as pale as death, and, trembling visibly, he rose in
his stirrups.
“The red snake who basely shot White Lasso hates the Pawnee King.
She would save the pale boys, and see him die. The warriors will not
listen to her false tongue when they can read her heart.”
The red-girl’s voice quickly followed the renegade’s:
“The Pale Pawnee’s rifle shoots a big bullet,” she said, calmly,
firmly. “It will not enter the muzzle of the white boy’s gun. Take
Kenoagla’s lead and try it. It will not fit the white boy’s gun; but
it will fit the hole between Red Eagle’s eyes. And then, Kenoagla
hated Red Eagle because he got the Gold Girl.”
Three Pawnees sprung from their steeds and griped the rifle which
George Long had retained with a deathly grip while sinking in the
quicksand.
Tom Kyle tossed them a bullet.
“Take it!” he hissed. “That girl can make the Pawnee believe any
thing.”
The savages who were prominent actors in the cabal which existed
against the renegade, carried on the examination.
Tom Kyle’s bullet would not fit the boy’s gun; but it could be placed
in the hole in Red Eagle’s brain. It fitted that death-wound to a
nicety.
The examination concluded with a yell.
The renegade handed his rifle to a chief.
“If I slew Red Eagle I would fight; but, knowing that I never aimed
at his head, I surrender to my people.”
The next moment he sprung from his horse, and, guarded by a score of
warriors, he was hurried away.
“Curse that sharp-eyed girl!” he muttered. “I’ll have her blood
for this yet! And the Gold Girl shall be mine in spite of all the
red demons of the prairie! Though dethroned, the Pawnee king is not
friendless!”
In the jaws of death, villains plot anew.