PERPLEXITIES--OUR HUNTERS PLAN THEIR ESCAPE--UNEXPECTED INTERRUPTION--
THE TABLES TURNED--CRUSOE MOUNTS GUARD--THE ESCAPE.
Dick Varley sat before the fire ruminating. We do not mean to assert
that Dick had been previously eating grass. By no means. For several
days past he had been mentally subsisting on the remarkable things that
he heard and saw in the Pawnee village, and wondering how he was to get
away without being scalped; he was now chewing the cud of this
intellectual fare. We therefore repeat emphatically--in case any reader
should have presumed to contradict us--that Dick Varley sat before the
fire _ruminating_!
Joe Blunt likewise sat by the fire along with him, ruminating too, and
smoking besides. Henri also sat there smoking, and looking a little the
worse of his late supper.
"I don't like the look o' things," said Joe, blowing a whiff of smoke
slowly from his lips, and watching it as it ascended into the still air.
"That blackguard Mahtawa is determined not to let us off till he gits
all our goods, an' if he gits them, he may as well take our scalps too,
for we would come poor speed in the prairies without guns, horses, or
goods."
Dick looked at his friend with an expression of concern. "What's to be
done?" said he.
"Ve must escape," answered Henri; but his tone was not a hopeful one,
for he knew the danger of their position better than Dick.
"Ay, we must escape; at least we must try," said Joe; "but I'll make one
more effort to smooth over San-it-sa-rish, an' git him to snub that
villain Mahtawa."
Just as he spoke the villain in question entered the tent with a bold,
haughty air, and sat down before the fire in sullen silence. For some
minutes no one spoke, and Henri, who happened at the time to be
examining the locks of Dick's rifle, continued to inspect them with an
appearance of careless indifference that he was far from feeling.
Now, this rifle of Dick's had become a source of unceasing wonder to the
Indians,--wonder which was greatly increased by the fact that no one
could discharge it but himself. Dick had, during his short stay at the
Pawnee village, amused himself and the savages by exhibiting his
marvellous powers with the "silver rifle." Since it had been won by him
at the memorable match in the Mustang Valley, it had scarce ever been
out of his hand, so that he had become decidedly the best shot in the
settlement, could "bark" squirrels (that is, hit the bark of the branch
on which a squirrel happened to be standing, and so kill it by the
concussion alone), and could "drive the nail" every shot. The silver
rifle, as we have said, became "great medicine" to the Red-men, when
they saw it kill at a distance which the few wretched guns they had
obtained from the fur-traders could not even send a spent ball to. The
double shot, too, filled them with wonder and admiration; but that which
they regarded with an almost supernatural feeling of curiosity was the
percussion cap, which in Dick's hands always exploded, but in theirs was
utterly useless!
This result was simply owing to the fact, that Dick after firing handed
the rifle to the Indians without renewing the cap. So that when they
loaded and attempted to fire, of course it merely snapped. When he
wished again to fire, he adroitly exchanged the old cap for a new one.
He was immensely tickled by the solemn looks of the Indians at this most
incomprehensible of all "medicines," and kept them for some days in
ignorance of the true cause, intending to reveal it before he left. But
circumstances now arose which banished all trifling thoughts from his
mind.
Mahtawa raised his head suddenly, and said, pointing to the silver
rifle, "Mahtawa wishes to have the two-shotted medicine gun. He will
give his best horse in exchange."
"Mahtawa is liberal," answered Joe, "but the pale-faced youth cannot
part with it. He has far to travel, and must shoot buffaloes by the
way."
"The pale-faced youth shall have a bow and arrows to shoot the buffalo,"
rejoined the Indian.
"He cannot use the bow and arrow," answered Joe; "he has not been
trained like the Red-man."
Mahtawa was silent for a few seconds, and his dark brows frowned more
heavily than ever over his eyes.
"The Pale-faces are too bold," he exclaimed, working himself into a
passion; "they are in the power of Mahtawa. If they will not give the
gun he will take it."
He sprang suddenly to his feet as he spoke, and snatched the rifle from
Henri's hand.
Henri, being ignorant of the language, had not been able to understand
the foregoing conversation, although he saw well enough that it was not
an agreeable one but no sooner did he find himself thus rudely and
unexpectedly deprived of the rifle, than he jumped up, wrenched it in a
twinkling from the Indian's grasp, and hurled him violently out of the
tent.
In a moment Mahtawa drew his knife, uttered a savage yell, and sprang on
the reckless hunter, who, however, caught his wrist, and held it as if
in a vice. The yell brought a dozen warriors instantly to the spot, and
before Dick had time to recover from his astonishment, Henri was
surrounded and pinioned despite his herculean struggles.
Before Dick could move, Joe Blunt grasped his arm, and whispered
quickly, "Don't rise! You can't help him! They daren't kill him till
San-it-sa-rish agrees."
Though much surprised, Dick obeyed, but it required all his efforts,
both of voice and hand, to control Crusoe, whose mind was much too
honest and straightforward to understand such subtle pieces of
diplomacy, and who strove to rush to the rescue of his ill-used friend.
When the tumult had partly subsided, Joe Blunt rose and said--"Have the
Pawnee braves turned traitors that they draw the knife against those who
have smoked with them the pipe of peace and eaten their maize? The
Pale-faces are three; the Pawnees are thousands. If evil has been done,
let it be laid before the chief. Mahtawa wishes to have the medicine
gun. Although we said No, we could not part with it, he tried to take
it by force. Are we to go back to the great chief of the Pale-faces,
and say that the Pawnees are thieves? Are the Pale-faces henceforth to
tell their children when they steal, `That is bad; that is like the
Pawnee?' No! this must not be. The rifle shall be restored, and we
will forget this disagreement. Is it not so?"
There was an evident disposition on the part of many of the Indians,
with whom Mahtawa was no favourite, to applaud this speech; but the wily
chief sprang forward, and, with flashing eye, sought to turn the tables.
"The Pale-face speaks with soft words, but his heart is false. Is he
not going to make peace with the enemies of the Pawnee? Is he not going
to take goods to them, and make them gifts and promises? The Pale-faces
are spies. They come to see the weakness of the Pawnee camp, but they
have found that it is strong. Shall we suffer the false-hearts to
escape? Shall they live? No! we will hang their scalps in our wigwams,
for they have _struck a chief_ and we will keep all their goods for our
squaws--wah!"
This allusion to keeping all the goods had more effect on the minds of
the vacillating savages than the chiefs eloquence. But a new turn was
given to their thoughts by Joe Blunt remarking in a quiet, almost
contemptuous tone--
"Mahtawa is not the _great_ chief."
"True, true," they cried, and immediately hurried to the tent of
San-it-sa-rish.
Once again this chief stood between the hunters and the savages, who
wanted but a signal to fall on them. There was a long palaver, which
ended in Henri being set at liberty, and the rifle being restored.
That evening, as the three friends sat beside their fire eating their
supper of boiled maize and buffalo meat, they laughed and talked as
carelessly as ever; but the gaiety was assumed, for they were at the
time planning their escape from a tribe which, they foresaw, would not
long refrain from carrying out their wishes, and robbing, perhaps
murdering them.
"Ye see," said Joe with a perplexed air, while he drew a piece of live
charcoal from the fire with his fingers and lighted his pipe,--"ye see,
there's more difficulties in the way o' gettin' off than ye think--"
"Oh! nivare mind de difficulties," interrupted Henri, whose wrath at the
treatment he had received had not yet cooled down. "Ve must jump on de
best horses ve can git hold, shake our fist at de red reptiles, and go
away fast as ve can. De best hoss _must_ vin de race."
Joe shook his head. "A hundred arrows would be in our backs before we
got twenty yards from the camp. Besides, we can't tell which are the
best horses. Our own are the best in my 'pinion, but how are we to git
'em?"
"I know who has charge o' them," said Dick; "I saw them grazing near the
tent o' that poor squaw whose baby was saved by Crusoe. Either her
husband looks after them or some neighbours."
"That's well," said Joe. "That's one o' my difficulties gone."
"What are the others?"
"Well, d'ye see, they're troublesome. We can't git the horses out o'
camp without bein' seen, for the red rascals would see what we were at
in a jiffy. Then, if we do git 'em out, we can't go off without our
bales, an' we needn't think to take 'em from under the nose o' the chief
and his squaws without bein' axed questions. To go off without them
would niver do at all."
"Joe," said Dick, earnestly, "I've hit on a plan."
"Have ye, Dick? what is't?"
"Come and I'll let ye see," answered Dick, rising hastily and quitting
the tent, followed by his comrades and his faithful dog.
It may be as well to remark here, that no restraint whatever had yet
been put on the movements of our hunters as long as they kept to their
legs, for it was well-known that any attempt by men on foot to escape
from mounted Indians on the plains would be hopeless. Moreover, the
savages thought that as long as there was a prospect of their being
allowed to depart peaceably with their goods, they would not be so mad
as to fly from the camp, and, by so doing, risk their lives and declare
war with their entertainers. They had, therefore, been permitted to
wander unchecked, as yet, far beyond the outskirts of the camp, and
amuse themselves in paddling about the lake in the small Indian canoes
and shooting wild-fowl.
Dick now led the way through the labyrinths of tents in the direction of
the lake, and they talked and laughed loudly, and whistled to Crusoe as
they went, in order to prevent their purpose being suspected. For the
purpose of further disarming suspicion they went without their rifles.
Dick explained his plan by the way, and it was at once warmly approved
of by his comrades.
On reaching the lake they launched a small canoe, into which Crusoe was
ordered to jump; then, embarking, they paddled swiftly to the opposite
shore, singing a canoe song as they dipped their paddles in the moonlit
waters of the lake. Arrived at the other side, they hauled the canoe up
and hurried through the thin belt of wood and willows that intervened
between the lake and the prairie. Here they paused.
"Is that the bluff, Joe?"
"No, Dick, that's too near. T'other one'll be best. Far away to the
right. It's a little one, and there's others near it. The sharp eyes
o' the Red-skins won't be so likely to be prowlin' there."
"Come on, then; but we'll have to take down by the lake first."
In a few minutes the hunters were threading their way through the
outskirts of the wood at a rapid trot, in the opposite direction from
the bluff, or wooded knoll, which they wished to reach. This they did
lest prying eyes should have followed them. In a quarter of an hour
they turned at right angles to their track, and struck straight out into
the prairie, and after a long run they edged round and came in upon the
bluff from behind. It was merely a collection of stunted but
thick-growing willows.
Forcing their way into the centre of this they began to examine it.
"It'll do," said Joe.
"De very ting," remarked Henri.
"Come here, Crusoe."
Crusoe bounded to his master's side, and looked up in his face.
"Look at this place, pup; smell it well."
Crusoe instantly set off all round among the willows, in and out,
snuffing everywhere, and whining with excitement.
"Come here, good pup; that will do. Now, lads, we'll go back." So
saying, Dick and his friends left the bluff and retraced their steps to
the camp. Before they had gone far, however, Joe halted, and said--
"D'ye know, Dick, I doubt if the pup's so cliver as ye think. What if
he don't quite onderstand ye?"
Dick replied by taking off his cap and throwing it down, at the same
time exclaiming, "Take it yonder, pup," and pointing with his hand
towards the bluff. The dog seized the cap, and went off with it at full
speed towards the willows, where it left it, and came galloping back for
the expected reward--not now, as in days of old, a bit of meat, but a
gentle stroke of its head and a hearty clap on its shaggy side.
"Good pup, go now an' _fetch it_."
Away he went with a bound, and, in a few seconds, came back and
deposited the cap at his master's feet.
"Will that do?" asked Dick, triumphantly.
"Ay, lad, it will. The pup's worth its weight in goold."
"Oui, I have said, and I say it agen, de dog is _human_, so him is. If
not--fat am he?"
Without pausing to reply to this perplexing question, Dick stepped
forward again, and in half an hour or so they were back in the camp.
"Now for _your_ part of the work, Joe; yonder's the squaw that owns the
half-drowned baby. Everything depends on her."
Dick pointed to the Indian woman as he spoke. She was sitting beside
her tent, and playing at her knee was the identical youngster that had
been saved by Crusoe.
"I'll manage it," said Joe, and walked towards her, while Dick and Henri
returned to the chiefs tent.
"Does the Pawnee woman thank the Great Spirit that her child is saved?"
began Joe as he came up.
"She does," answered the woman, looking up at the hunter. "And her
heart is warm to the Pale-faces."