A DUEL IN THE WILDERNESS—A STARTLING REVELATION.
Thus the savage and the Elder met, man to man, on equal terms, the
Indian only having an advantage in the possession of his horse.
Waltermyer and Osse ’o had succeeded in securing their horses, and
retreating behind an abutment of the rocks, waited for the stormy
interview which was sure to follow the contact of these fiery spirits.
Black Eagle rode close to the Elder with a reckless dash, that
threatened to trample him under the hoofs of the half-wild steed.
“Where is the young pale-face?” he questioned, stooping his plumed head,
and hissing forth the words in a half-whisper.
“That is the very question I wish to ask you,” replied the Elder.
“When your white-faced warriors crept like serpents among our braves and
fired on them, she escaped,” answered the chief, sullenly.
“Well, that is, so far, your loss—no, not yours, for I have paid you
well, and you know where the girl is. Take me to her hiding-place, or
give back my gold.”
“Does the pale-face think the Black Eagle a fool?” answered the chief,
with a cold sneer.
“I know that I was one, to trust an Indian with money,” was the reply.
“There was no trust. You gave the Dacotah gold, and he carried off the
daughter of the pale-face from her father’s tent. He brought her, under
a guard of warriors, to the mountain. Black Eagle had snared the bird;
why did you not take her while she was fluttering in the net?”
“A pretty question, on my soul! Take her, when your men fought like so
many devils.”
“Will the pale-face pay the Dacotah his gold?”
“What gold, you cormorant?”
“Did not he promise him plenty of yellow-dirt, when the white squaw
should be given up?”
“Yes; but you lied. You concealed her.”
“Whose tongue is it that speaks of treachery? The pale-face was false
alike to his own tribe and that of Black Eagle. Go up on the mountain
and look. The warriors speak angrily, their wounds are fresh. Had the
tongue but traveled the trail of truth, there would have been no
mourning and blackened faces in the wigwams of the Dacotahs.”
“That is nothing to the purpose. Will you either give me back my gold,
or produce the girl?”
“The gold that the white man asks for is hidden where no eye but that of
the Black Eagle can ever find it. If the false medicine of the tribe at
Salt Lake wants the maiden of the snowy skin, let him find her.”
The passions of these bad men were rapidly getting the better of their
judgment. Each knew, by this time, that the other was playing a
desperate game, and watching for some advantage. The Indian was resolved
upon revenge, and securing the gold he knew the other had about him, and
the Mormon felt that he was in a position of terrible peril.
While these two treacherous men stood glaring at each other, Esther
Morse cowered in the undergrowth, panic-stricken by the sight of her
mortal enemies. Waupee stood by her, pale, stern, and with glittering
eyes, like a statue of bronze.
Waltermyer and Osse ’o stood behind a sheltering cliff that jutted,
tower-like, on the plateau lapping over the face of the rocky wall,
watching the scene with great indifference; both these men were too
brave for any thought of peril to the woman they protected.
Esther Morse grew frightened as the two angry men moved nearer the place
of her concealment, and starting up suddenly, placed her foot on a
fragment of rock, in order to flee back into a more secure concealment.
Her foot slipped, and she fell forward with a low cry.
Black Eagle know the voice, for he had heard its shrieks of pain before.
“Traitor! Out of my way.”
“Let the pale-face beware! The blood of the warriors of the Dacotahs
cries aloud for vengeance. The thirsty earth is drunk with it.”
It required all the strength and influence of Waltermyer, to keep Osse
’o from interfering.
“It’s a fair fight,” said the frontiersman; “they are nothing but
infernal reptyles anyhow. No, no; let them fight it out, for brutes as
they are. It’s b’ar and wolf-hound; who cares which whips?”
The Mormon still advanced, intent only on seizing his prey; but the
Indian spurred his horse between him and the thicket where Esther was
concealed.
Black Eagle strung his bow, and placing the feathered shaft upon the
well-strained string, drew it deliberately.
“Die, fool!” was the sneering response, and the report of the revolver
awoke the echoes of the rocks.
“By heaven!” exclaimed the excited Waltermyer, forgetting his usual
caution, as the horse of the Indian fell backward in his death
struggles, for the bullet had missed the human form, and buried itself
in the heart of the beast. “By heavens—forgive me, poor little Est, I
couldn’t help it; but, the noblest brute of the party has fallen before
the coward shot.”
It was the work of a moment for the active red-man to free himself from
his steed, for even while he was falling, he had swung himself clear,
and sent an arrow in return for the shot. For a moment the revolver
pealed and the bow-string snapped, but without fatal effects, though
both combatants were wounded. At length the pistol charges were
exhausted, and the frayed, overstrained string of the bow broken, and
the combatants mutually paused, glaring at each other.
The lull in the storm of battle was only for a moment, for the Indian
hurled his keen hatchet full at the head of the Mormon. Fortunately, the
aim had been hurried and uncertain, for it missed its intended mark, and
shivered to pieces on the rocky floor of their battle-ground. The
discharged pistol was still in the hands of the white man, and the
Indian had his knife. In physical strength they were about evenly
matched, but the Black Eagle had much the advantage in the training of
his wild life.
“Now the fun is comin’,” whispered Waltermyer. “Thar they go like
Kilkenny cats.”
“But think of their lives,” replied Esther, for the first time speaking.
“Think what would become of you, if either of them got thar hands on
you.”
“But it’s horrible!”
“Pshaw! Thar lives ain’t of any more ’count than a sneakin’ cayote.”
The Indian woman sat with bowed head. She knew well that the man she had
loved so passionately was engaged in a desperate encounter, but though
there might have been something of that former love yet lingering around
her heart, the education of a lifetime rendered it a duty to restrain
her feelings. It was not for a woman to take part in the strife of
warriors.
Hand to hand the fight was renewed. It was a series of rapidly executed
movements. To strike and guard—to advance and retreat. But few were the
injuries inflicted, and when, at length, the blade of the knife was
broken upon the barrel of the pistol, and that weapon fell from the hand
of which it was the sole defense, they stood with only the arms that
nature had given them, bloody and fatigued.
From a long-protracted struggle the Indian rose, reeling with the loss
of blood, and, staggering forward, he snatched his bow from the rocky
floor, restrung it with his trembling fingers, and then groped, half
blindly, around until he had secured the broken knife. Enough apparently
remained for his purpose, for, kneeling, he attempted to sharpen it, and
a smile of terrible meaning fitted athwart his dark face, as he felt of
the edge. He regained his feet, and staggered up to the fallen white
man. He twined his fingers in the long hair, wet already with the damps
of death, and raised his arm on high. Esther Morse turned her head away
with horror. Osse ’o involuntarily raised his shield, but Waltermyer
burst through all restraint, and dashed forward, exclaiming:
“By the light of heaven, you shall not scalp him! A cussed, treacherous
reptyle as he was, he was yet a white man, and shall not be butchered.”
Yet, quick as Waltermyer’s movements had been, Osse ’o glided in before
him, and Waupee, breaking through all bonds, followed, leaving the white
girl alone.
Black Eagle heard them coming. He turned upon them, and met the man,
whose intended murder lay on his soul, face to face. With a fierce cry
he loosened his hold upon the Mormon, and tottered toward the verge of
the cliff. Then, a true woman still, the discarded wife dashed forward
to save him with an outcry of passionate despair. She was too late.
For a moment, long enough to fix his arrow on the string, he retained
his footing, sent the shaft, even in his death agonies, flying through
the air, and, with the death-song of the Dacotahs ringing from his lips,
fell backward into the dark valley.
Waltermyer, busy in examining the body of the Mormon, to see if any
thing of life remained, had not seen the action. He was intent only on
the dead man before him, for the spirit had passed to its final
accountability.
“Waal, waal,” he said, almost pitifully, for, with death, all his
feelings changed, “I never knew any good of you, and, for a white man,
you were most onacountably undesarvin’. But I reckon you must have had a
soft spot in your heart, somewhar, and I’m sorry now that I didn’t
kinder take care of you. It was onnatural, that’s a fact. But I saved
your scalp, anyhow, and that’s some comfort. More ’an that, it shan’t be
said that I left you without a grave. No, no, I’ll take good care that
you don’t lie here, for the wolves to snarl over. Osse ’o, Osse ’o, I
say; whar are you, man?”
Waltermyer started to his feet, in sudden terror, for the usually
musical voice was changed into a hoarse whisper.
“What’s the matter with you, man?” he questioned, as he saw that the
lithe steps of the red-man had grown slow and unsteady. That the
flashing eye was dim, and that both hands were pressed upon his side, as
if to still some great pain.
“Nothing, nothing. Don’t tell the daughter of the pale-face,” was the
whispered reply, and Osse ’o fell into the outstretched arms of
Waltermyer.
“By heaven! if there is not an arrow stickin’ in his side.”
A shriek rung from the bushes, and Esther Morse sprung to his side and
knelt down by the wounded man, while Waupee, with the nimble and soft
fingers of an Indian, used to such occurrences, was busy unfastening the
garments.
“Don’t! don’t!” came struggling from the ashy lips of the sufferer. “Let
me die.”
“If I do, may I be shot,” exclaimed the frontiersman, and his strong
hands quickly tore away the fastenings.
“By heaven! It’s a white man!” he shouted. “No red-skin, but just as
white as your’s, gal. Look and see!”
Waupee carefully drew out the arrow-head and stanched the blood.
“It is a hunting-arrow, not a poisoned one for war,” he continued, as
she held it up to Waltermyer.
Esther saw the white shoulder glowing from under the torn hunting-shirt,
and knew, with a thrill of joy, that the man whom she had so long taken
for a Dacotah was of the same complexion as herself. Even then she
remembered the situation in which she had been placed with him, and her
cheek, neck and brow burned again. Ah! how well she remembered many an
act and word, thought but lightly of at the time, that now identified
his claim to birth and education; but she had no time for these
thronging fancies. Would he live? A fervent prayer went forth from her
heart, then nerving herself for the task, she strove to assist in
dressing the wound. Gently, but firmly, she was repulsed.
“The children of the Dacotahs,” murmured Waupee, “are learned in the
ways of the medicine. The hand of the pale-face is like the aspen-leaf
in the breath of the storm, and her heart is faint as the dove.”
“But, will he live?”
“Life is the gift of the great Manitou.”
“Yes, yes; don’t trouble your pretty heart about it, beauty, he’ll soon
be around again,” exclaimed Waltermyer, holding the wounded man in his
powerful arms, and bearing him to the shade of the bushes, tenderly as a
mother would have carried her first-born.
Waupee succeeded in stanching the blood, and then, from the neighboring
woods, gathered healing herbs, and carefully bound them on the wound,
while the white girl lifted Osse ’o’s head from the hard rocks, and
pillowed it in her lap. Waltermyer departed for the woods, and after a
long absence, returned, bringing with him pine-branches and curving
strips of bark, sufficient to make a shelter, and these, in the hands of
Waupee, soon were framed into an almost fairy-like bower. When Osse ’o
fell asleep, in his fragrant shelter, Waltermyer sat smoking his pipe at
the door of the lodge, silently at first, but, ere long, his restless
spirit broke forth in words:
“Waal; I did the best I could for the Mormon.”
“You buried him, then?” asked Esther, solemnly.
“Yes, deep and well. I piled the stones up, so as to know the place
again ef I ever should see any of his relations, and they wanted to find
it.”
The Indian woman—the poor, brutally-abused und suddenly widowed
wife—looked steadily at him with her large, black eyes, but said
nothing. Waltermyer fully understood the look, and replied:
“Yes, yes, Waupee, I did the same for the Black Eagle. Perhaps neither
of them would have done it for me; but I can’t help that. I made him a
grave for your sake, and fixed it up, Dacotah fashion, down by the
spring. I knew their customs, and thought every one of the tribe would
like to add a stone to the pile when they passed; so I fixed it in just
as handy a place as I could.”
A look of fervent gratitude passed over the face of the widow; then
arising, solemnly, she covered her face in her hands, and slowly walked
away. Esther would have accompanied her, but Waltermyer laid his hand on
her arm, and whispered:
“Let her go alone. To-night she will watch by the grave. It’s a part of
their religion, I allow. And now you go to sleep, while I watch.”
“No, I! He watched me when I slept last night; why should I not do the
same for him when he so much needs my care?”
“Waal, it’s woman’s business to take care of the sick, I s’pose; but you
don’t look over strong. Thar hain’t many roses a-blossomin’ on your
cheeks, but they will come again in time; and you couldn’t take care of
a braver or a better one, if you war to search the world over.”
“You know him, then?—tell me his history.”
Waltermyer obeyed her, and revealed all that he knew of the wounded man.
The night passed, and with it all apparent danger; for now Osse ’o was
able to sit up and converse.
“Why does Waupee stay so long?” asked Esther, whose true womanly heart
had sorrowed deeply as she thought of the Indian widow sitting by that
lonely grave in the dark hours.
“I will go and see,” replied Waltermyer.
“And I, if our patient can spare us for a moment,” said Esther, with a
smile that would have amply repaid the semi-Indian for a far more
dangerous wound.
“Yes,” was the whispered response. “I have known her well; she was a
very queen for goodness, virtue, and truth among the Dacotahs.”
They found the Indian widow stretched upon the grave of her late lord
and master. They thought that, worn out with suffering and watchfulness,
she had cast herself down to sleep; and so she had. The poor woman had
fallen into that sleep which knows no waking. She had passed from earth
calmly and apparently without a struggle, for no traces of pain lingered
on the pale-face—upturned, as if looking to the blue heaven above. With
a broken heart she had followed her husband to the happy
hunting-grounds, faithful even in death. By his side she was buried; and
as the kind, tender-hearted frontiersman piled the last stone upon the
rude monument that was to mark her grave, his eyes filled with tears,
and he hoarsely whispered:
“Poor woman! May she be happier in heaven than she ever was on earth. I
didn’t think I should ever have cried over a red-skin; but thar’s no use
in denyin’ it now, and if she had lived. Waal, waal, she’s at rest.”
In sorrow and sadness of heart they returned to the plateau. In the
freshness of that dewy morning, with Osse ’o again mounted on the snowy
steed, for Esther would have it so, herself mounted on “Black Star,” and
Waltermyer walking silently forward, they left the mountain and the
lonely graves, never to tread again those rocky and dangerous
fastnesses.