I am at some disadvantage in giving an account of the remarkable
interview between the little Delaware girl, Linna, and the three hostile
warriors who had trailed the Ripleys to the stream in the wilderness
across which they had just leaped in the effort to continue their flight
from Wyoming to the Upper Delaware.
There were no witnesses to the interview except the parties named,
but when Linna in after years had become a woman, with her very strong
memory she gave a description of what passed, and it has come down
through the descendants of the pioneers to the present day.
You will permit me to found my narrative upon her testimony, and to be
quite liberal in the interpretation of what took place.
The fears of the fugitives were well founded. The three red men were
near them for a long while before they showed themselves. It was very
much as Mrs. Ripley had said. They were so sure of the prize that they
trifled with them.
Linna reached the spot where the warriors were standing directly after
one of the number had sent a bullet through the bear. Young as she was,
she understood the peril of her friends, and set out to do all she could
for them.
She knew that Omas, her father, was a great warrior. He belonged to
the Delaware tribe, which years before had been soundly beaten by the
Iroquois and reduced almost to slavery; but among the conquered people
were many without superiors in bravery, skill, and prowess. Omas was one
of the most noted examples.
The first thrill of hope came to the young child when she recognised
the one that had killed the bear. He was Red Wolf, a member of her own
tribe, who often had been in her father's wigwam, and was therefore well
known to his child. The others were of the Seneca tribe, one of those
composing the Iroquois, or Six Nations, the most powerful confederation
of Indians that ever existed on the American continent.
The three looked at the little girl in amazement, as she came running
between the trees. She dropped to a rapid walk, and did not stop until
she was among them.
"Where do you come from?" asked Red Wolf, in the Delaware tongue.
"My father, the great Omas, brought me to see my friend Alice. He left
me with her people, and you must not harm them."
"Why did Omas leave you with them?"
"They are my friends."
It should be said the Senecas, who calmly listened to the conversation,
understood all that was said.
"Where are you going?"
"A long way through the wood."
"Why does Omas leave you with the palefaces? You should be in your own
wigwam many miles away."
"He knows I am safe with them. He led us through the woods until
he could leave us; then he went back to the great river between the
mountains to help the other warriors fight."
None of the three could doubt that the child was speaking the truth.
They held the prowess of Omas in high respect; but they were not the
ones to surrender such a prize as was already theirs.
"We will take them back to Wyoming with us," said Red Wolf; "then Omas
may do as he thinks best with them."
With a shrewdness far beyond her years, Linna said--"He wants them to go
to the other big river, off yonder"--pointing eastward. "Why do you wish
to take them back to Wyoming?"
"If he wants them to go to the other big river, he can send them after
he sees them again."
"You will make Omas angry; he will strike you down with his tomahawk,"
said Linna.
Although these words were the words of a child, they produced their
effect. Red Wolf knew how deeply the grim warrior loved his only
daughter, and he knew, too, how terrible was the wrath of the warrior.
Omas had chosen to spare this family from the cruelty visited upon so
many others. If Red Wolf dared to run the risk of rousing the vengeance
of Omas, he must take the consequences. He shrank from doing so.
The Delaware beckoned to one of the Senecas, and they stepped aside and
talked a few minutes, in tones too low for the listening Linna to hear
what was said. Subsequent events, however, made clear the meaning of
their conversation.
Red Wolf proposed to spare the fugitives. He wished to go away with his
companions and leave them to pursue their flight without molestation, so
far as they were concerned.
But the Senecas held Omas in less dread than did Red Wolf. They were
unwilling to let the whites escape. The third warrior, who joined them,
was as strenuous as the first. While one might have shrunk from stirring
the anger of the famous Delaware, the two together did not hesitate to
run counter to his wishes. They refused to be dissuaded by Red Wolf.
They remained apart from the girl for ten minutes, earnestly conversing,
while she could not overhear a word.
Finally one of the three--a Seneca--turned about and walked away, as if
impatient with the dispute. He took a course leading from the stream,
and deeper into the woods.
Linna noticed the curious act, but, great as was her acumen for one of
her years, she did not suspect its meaning. It would have been passing
strange had she done so, for the movement was meant to deceive her and
bring the disputation to an end.
The couple remaining walked to where Linna awaited them. The Seneca
turned aside and sauntered to the carcass of the bear as if that had
more interest just then for him.
"What will Omas do if my brother warriors take your friends back to the
other river, but Red Wolf does not help?"
"He will strike them down with his tomahawk; my father, Omas, is a great
warrior."
The black eyes flashed as the girl proudly uttered these words, and she
looked defiantly in the painted face towering above her.
"But what will he do with Red Wolf?"
"He will strike down Red Wolf, because he is a coward, and did not keep
all harm from his white friends."
This intimation that the Delaware could not shelter himself behind the
plea of neutrality, but must be either an active friend or foe, was a
little more than he could accept. While he held Omas in wholesome dread,
he dared not array himself against the two Senecas, who were determined
not to spare the hapless fugitives.
Red Wolf was a fair specimen of his tribe, who, as I have stated, were
beaten by the Iroquois. These conquerors, indeed, carried matters with
so high a hand that they once forbade the Delawares to use firearms, but
made them keep to the old fashioned bow and arrow.
Red Wolf, therefore, having squared accounts, so to speak, with his
present companions, was anxious to win the good will of Linna, and
thereby that of her fierce parent, who was a hurricane in his wrath, and
likely to brain Red Wolf before he could explain matters.
"Omas is the greatest warrior of the Delawares," he said to Linna; "Red
Wolf and he are brothers. But the Senecas will not listen to the words
of Red Wolf: they love not Omas as does Red Wolf."
The Delaware child now found herself in a quandary. She had made her
plea, but, so far as she could see, it was in vain, since the friendship
of Red Wolf alone was not enough. One of the Senecas was studying the
body of the dead bear and paying no heed to her words; the other had
gone off, she knew not where.
What remained for her to do?
While the little one asked herself the question, and was trying, to
think what course she should follow, the absent Seneca was working out
the mischievous plot he had formed, and which was fully known to his
companions.
An uprooted tree lay extended on the ground, near where Mrs. Ripley and
her children saw Linna run off to plead with the Indians. Since they
could do nothing but wait, helpless and almost despairing, for the
return of the child, they sat down on the prostrate trunk.
Ben was near the base, close to the mass of upturned roots, which spread
out like an enormous fan, with its dirt and prong-like roots projecting
in all directions. He was tired, depressed, and worn out. It will be
remembered he had not slept a wink during the preceding night, or eaten
a mouthful of food since then. Strong, sturdy, and lusty as he was, he
could not help feeling the effects of all this.
He leaned his rifle against a huge, gnarled root, within arm's length of
where he half reclined, with his feet extended along the trunk. He had
but to reach out his hand, without moving his body, to grasp the weapon
whatever moment it might be needed.
Exhausted as he was, his condition was too nervous to permit slumber.
His mother had said she thought the end was at hand, and he believed the
same.
She was but a few feet away, sitting more erect on the tree, with Alice
leaning against her.
The eyes of all were turned toward the point where Linna had vanished,
and whence she was expected every minute to come into view again.
She was not far off. Once or twice the mother and son caught the sounds
of their voices, though the exuberant vegetation shut them from sight.
"It was idle for her to go," said Ben; "and I cannot see any chance of
her helping us."
"They will not harm her, nor will they be denied the pleasure of doing
what they choose with us."
"Some persons might believe the delay was favorable, but I cannot think
that way."
Neither felt like conversation. It was an effort to say anything; but
mother and son, in their unselfishness, pitied each other, and strove
vainly to lift the gloomy thoughts that were oppressing both.
Had Ben Ripley seen the departure of the Seneca, he might have suspected
its meaning; but, unaware of it, he never dreamed of the new form which
the ever present danger thus assumed.
The Seneca, after leaving Red Wolf and the other warrior, walked
directly over the path leading away from the stream until well beyond
the sight of those thus left behind. He looked back, and, seeing nothing
of them, turned aside and moved off, until he arrived at a point beyond
the group of three resting on the fallen tree.
Thus, as will be seen, the Ripleys were between the two and Linna on
the one hand, and the single Seneca on the other. He knew the precise
location of the fugitives as well as if they had been in his field of
vision from the first.
He now began approaching them from the rear. Their faces turned away
from him, and everything favored his stealthy advance.
The huge spread of dirt and roots made by the overturning of the big
tree served as a screen, though even without this help he would probably
have succeeded in his effort to steal upon them unawares.
He stepped so carefully upon the dried leaves that no sound was made,
and the most highly trained ear, therefore, would not have detected him.
If Ben had once risen from his reclining posture and looked around,
if Mrs. Ripley had stood up and done the same, or if little Alice had
indulged in her natural sportiveness, assuredly one of them would have
observed that crouching warrior, gradually drawing closer, like the
moving of a hand over the face of a clock; but none saw him. Nearer and
nearer he came, step by step, until at last he stood just on the other
side of the mass of roots, and not ten feet from the boy.
With the same noiselessness, the crouching form bent over sideways and
peered around the screen. Then the dusky arm glided forward until the
iron fingers clasped the barrel of the rifle leaning against the root,
and the weapon was withdrawn.
He now had two guns, and Ben Ripley none.
Then the Seneca advanced, a weapon in either hand, and, presenting
himself in front of the amazed group, exclaimed--"Huh! how do,
bruder?--how do sister?"
Ben Ripley sprang up as if shot, and his startled mother, with a gasp of
affright, turned her head.
For one moment the boy meditated leaping upon the warrior, in the
desperate attempt to wrench his gun from his grasp; but the mother,
reading his intention, interposed.
"Do nothing, my son: we are in the hands of Heaven."