the Valley of Peace, in which he could not regard himself as other than
a prisoner, was only a refuge from the perils of its encircling desert;
while the great, outer world from which he was cut off contained all of
life that he deemed worth the having. Therefore during the next few
weeks, while he found much pleasure in the company of Nanahe, under
whose guidance he explored every foot of the valley and became an expert
climber of its frowning cliffs, he brooded constantly over plans of
escape. He even went so far as to propose to the Indian lad that they
two should set forth on a search for the Moqui towns in spite of the
Professor's protest, but was met with an unqualified refusal.
[TO BE CONTINUED.]
ONE TOUCH OF NATURE.
A LEGEND OF WESTERN NEW YORK.
BY G. T. FERRIS.
"What d'ye think it all means?" said Mark Lytte, peering through the
tangled thicket of hazel and sumach, where the earliest autumn dyes had
begun to lay their crimson.
Buckskin, before answering his young comrade, pondered on the scene
before him. In the hollow nestling at the foot of the hill and clasped
in the bend of the river lay the large Indian village, all astir with
motion and excitement. But it seemed not to be the fever of war and
slaughter which so often convulses the aboriginal man, but a jubilee of
mirth and innocent delight. They were looking down on one of the most
considerable towns of the Seneca tribe in western New York, near what is
now Olean. Hurrying through the village streets, laughing groups of
dark-skinned youths and maids carried wreaths of wild-flowers, branches
of trees, and great sheaves of maize-stalks toward a lofty pole which
towered in the centre.
"To think I shouldn't 'a' known quick as powder flashin'" finally said
Buckskin John, whose iron face and tanned skin showed his occupation no
less than his garb. "It's the Feast of the Green Corn[2] among these
Iroquois devils, an' then they're allus as frisky as so many lambs. They
put off the wolf-skin for a while, but they keep it mighty handy, I kin
tell ye."
[2] The Feast of the Green Corn among the powerful Iroquois Confederacy,
or Six Nations, occurred in the latter part of August or early
September. Its rites so resembled the Hebrew Feast of the Tabernacles
that it furnished an additional argument for the notion that the
American Indians were remotely descended from the ten lost tribes of
Israel.
"Perhaps it'll give us a better chance to try our luck," answered Mark,
whose face was that of a lad of sixteen, though his height and the
sturdy square of his chest looked older. He wrung his hands excitedly,
and continued, with a quiver in his voice, shaking his long rifle in the
direction of the village: "What can we do? I shall go crazy if we fail.
Mother's grievin' to death, fadin' each month into a mere shadder. 'Twas
all right till last year, Buckskin, and she showed no sign but what
she'd a'most forgot about our lost Nellie. Then we heard of the little
white gal in Cornplanter's village, and that he was the very chief who
made the raid when we lived at Fort Pitt. Then Cunnel Johnson over to
Fort Niagara, though he did fight agin us in the late war, came to see
Cornplanter six months ago. An' the chief would say nuthin' but that the
little gal, whoever her parents were, was no longer white, but Indian,
his adopted sister, whom he loved dearer than life. That broke mother's
heart, for she began to pine soon as she found as Cornplanter ud never
let the captive free."
Mark's brief rehearsal did scant justice to a typical drama of the
border. Six years before, during the early days of the Revolutionary
war, a war party of the Senecas had made an irruption into western
Pennsylvania, and among their captives was a girl of four years old
belonging to the Lytte family. The great chief, who shares with Red
Jacket the highest mark in Seneca tradition, took the trembling captive
to his mother with the words:
"My mother, I bring to you a daughter to supply the place of my brother,
killed by the Lenapé six moons ago. She shall dwell in my lodge and be
my sister." So little Eleanor Lytte became Ma-za-ri-ta, "the Ship under
Full Sail," so named from her joyous and energetic disposition.
"Waal, we'll have to go slow," Buckskin had answered his companion.
"I'll resk my topknot to help ye, lad, but we'll see how the lan' lays."
The old hunter knew that at this festival-time hospitality would be
flung with both hands to all comers. So they moved down the hill into
the main village street, where a tall Indian, with all the insignia of a
great sagamore in his tattooing, head-dress, and port, received them
with a grave welcome.
"My white brothers have come to the green-corn feast of the Senecas.
They are welcome. Our hearts are glad, and all we have is theirs." Then
he ordered his guests conducted to a well-built log house, where a
generous provision for all their wants was found. They had scarcely
satisfied their simple needs when the music of Indian flutes and drums
drew them to the door, and there they found the messenger ready to
conduct them to the "long house," where the procession was forming which
would begin the festivities.
[Illustration: MA-ZA-RI-TA LED THE CHANT AS THEY DANCED ABOUT THE
PILLAR.]
Foremost, hand in hand with the chief, was a brilliant little figure, a
girl about ten years old. With a skin naturally snow-white, but now
kissed to a ruddy hue by the sunshine, and long brown plaits glittering
with the most brilliant beads; petticoat and bodice of the finest
broadcloth, and around her neck and shoulders rows of silver brooches
and strings of white and purple wampum; on her feet deer-skin moccasins
embroidered with porcupine quills, contrasting with the scarlet leggings
above--Ma-za-ri-ta looked indeed the fit princess of the revels. The
pride which shone in Cornplanter's eyes, the admiration with which all
the Indians gazed on the dancing girl--for her feet had already begun to
move to a nimble measure--struck a chill to the heart of Mark, for it
seemed a portent of sure defeat. Her blue eyes sparkled with joy as she
danced in the van, followed by the Seneca girls in pairs, all attired in
gala dress, and with wreaths of flowers on their heads. Then came
Cornplanter and his lesser chiefs, the warriors, the squaws, and the
children, and the march advanced to the pole in the centre of the
village, shaped in a square enclosure, that painted pole horribly etched
with the scars of innumerable tomahawks when the frenzy of war-dancing
made it the symbol of the enemy's body. Now the great mast was belted
thick with greenery to its very top, corn-stalks with pendent ears,
bunches of golden-rod, and all the richest spoil of the thickets and
meadows. Ma-za-ri-ta's sweet voice, as the dance of the maidens gyrated
more and more swiftly about the gorgeous pillar, led the chant among the
more shrill and unmusical notes of her companions.
Mark edged his way through the throng, for a fancy had suddenly come to
him, and he stood in the inner ring next the circle of dancers.
"Nellie! little Nellie! don't you remember Mark?" he said, in a piercing
whisper, as she approached several paces in the van of her choir.
Ma-za-ri-ta slowed her pace, looking at him wonderingly with a flush of
offended pride, for the little princess felt she was the queen of the
Senecas, child as she was. Again as she neared his place she heard the
words, "Nellie, _can't_ you remember?" The beautiful child face was
troubled, as though some dumb vague memory were stirring under the
surface, but again she moved on, shaking her head. Bitterly did Mark
bewail his failure to Buckskin, for, "I'm sure," he said, "she is our
lost Nellie, and I can see our mother's look in her pretty eyes."
Something worked like yeast in the old hunter's thoughts as he listened
in silence to Mark's passionate rambling words that night, when all the
camp was hushed to silence, and they lay tossing on their bear-skins.
"Why don't you answer?" the boy burst out, with petulance.
"Mark, I'm glad," the other said, deliberately, "that there seems to be
no chance of takin' the little gal away by force or cheatin'. I rayther
guess there's a doggone poor show of doin' anything that-a-way, and we
might 'a' known it afore. But I'll swar she's her mother's darter, as ye
said a minnit since, and when ye talk about the mother, thar's the key
of the hull sityvashun, as the lawyer chaps ud say. Ye don't quite
unnerstan' what I mean, hey? Waal, it's jes this, my young master. Your
mammy must come down here to Cornplanter's village, and she'll do mor'n
all the guns and bagnets of Gen'ral St. Clair's army to get the little
gal back, ef so be she is the right one, and I genooinely believe it.
The chief loves his adopted sister with every drop of his blood, and his
people adore her as their little princess. They'd lay their lives down
afore givin' her up, onless ye tech 'em jess right. But I know 'em well,
blood-thirsty varmints and wild beasts as they are when you cross 'em,
and a redskin's got a heart as beats big and strong as any white man's,
ef ye can find it oncet. Then I've heerd uv Cornplanter fur the last
fifteen year, and they all say he's one of the best as well as bravest
critturs as ever wore a scalp-lock. Cheer up, laddie; we'll git her, but
we can't do it yet. Trust ole Buckskin's idee."
Buckskin's solace scarcely calmed Mark's restlessness, and after the
hunter's snores proved him in the realm of dreams, he arose with the
idea of strolling through the moonlit village, and walking off the
fancies that would not let him sleep. The lonely streets were wrapped in
the pallid shine which silhouetted the log houses and the trees in
ghostly shadows, and had it not been for the occasional howl of a
distant wolf or the snarl of an Indian dog, he might have fancied
himself the only waking creature. He wandered aimlessly, in a maze of
fear and doubt what would be the outcome of it all. His careless
footsteps finally carried him to the edge of the village, where, at the
very shadow of the forest, stood a large double house apart from all the
others. Then he saw he was not the only sleepless soul, for from its
doorway glided a figure whose height and garb--for the moonlight
glittered on the costly bead-work--showed it to be the one who filled
his heart full to bursting. He forgot all prudence and doubt, and sprang
forward swiftly.
"Nellie! Nellie!" he cried, in tones that cut the silent air like a
knife. "I am your brother Mark--your playmate that loved you so dearly.
Come home with me to mammy, who is dying for you, away from this
dreadful place. A long time ago they carried you away from us, and now
I've found you again, and will not let you go, my darling little
sister." He forgot all the surroundings--all but need of giving voice to
the feeling that shook him as the wind shakes the leaves in the trees.
Ma-za-ri-ta's face quivered in the starlight as she shrank from the hand
that eagerly clutched her arm, as if he would have led her away at once;
then something like half-awakened intelligence was quenched in a wave of
blind terror, and she shrieked aloud.
A tall figure leaped like a tiger from the dark of the doorway, and Mark
felt the grip of iron fingers on his throat which threatened to strangle
him. As he lay helpless in that clutch, he saw an upraised tomahawk
sparkling in the moonshine; but Cornplanter did not strike, though his
words were edged with cutting disdain.
"Such is the honor of palefaces," said he; "from the cub to the
full-grown wolf the same. The Senecas welcomed their guests and did them
honor. Their hearts were warm and friendly, for it is now their festival
of peace and goodwill. But what should they do to one who would steal in
the dark, and rob them of their dearest?"
"Do?" said another voice, for Mark was speechless with rage, shame, and
impotence, and Buckskin darted forward, grasping Cornplanter's uplifted
arm, though the chief showed no immediate purpose to use his gleaming
weapon. "Do? They should respect the voice of natur' and blood cryin'
aloud!" Honest Buckskin had wakened suddenly, and alarmed at Mark's
absence, sought him through the Indian village. "Look ye here, chief,
this is a foolish boy, and he couldn't 'a' done what ye think, had he
been in ever so much airnest. But he suspecks he's found his little
sister that you and yourn took from his mammy's arms six year ago durin'
the time o' fightin'. The great Seneca is just; and let him say, then,
who's the thief, ef it comes to a matter o' stealin'."
The ferocity which had hardened Cornplanter's lineaments still
threatened the offender in spite of the hunter's plea. But Ma-za-ri-ta,
who had listened with shifting emotions chasing over her face, vainly
striving to pierce the meaning of the words, now threw her arms about
the neck of the chief, and spoke rapidly in the Seneca tongue. The
Indian's stern aspect melted and took on its more wonted expression, in
which there was something almost benignant.
"Go without harm even while it is night," he said, "lest the Senecas
discover all, and sore mischief befall." He brought them their arms,
loaded their wallets with food, and dismissed them. And as Mark turned
before entering the forest, he caught a last look of Ma-za-ri-ta,
watching their retreating footsteps with clasped hands and head bent
forward.
It was about a week afterwards that Colonel Johnson received a visit at
Fort Niagara in Canada, just across the river, which whetted his
interest keenly. This whilom British agent of the Iroquois tribes still
exercised a powerful influence over them, though their territory now
belonged to the conceded limits of the new republic. To him they looked
even yet for advice and authority. He recognized the Lyttes, mother and
son (for the father was dead), and his feelings guessed shrewdly at the
occasion as they walked up the esplanade from the jetty where they had
landed.
"Well, Mrs. Lytte," he said, after the first look at her pale and
working features, which were full of news, "I see you've learned
something more."
"Cunnel, in the name of God, and for the sake of your own dear wife and
children, you must help me now," the woman gasped, for her throat was
too full. "Mark has jess come from Cornplanter's village, and he says
for sure and sure it's little Nellie. An' she didn't know him! But,
Cunnel, she will know the mammy that bore her and gave her suck, for
I'll die of a broken heart ef she don't."
"We must trust for the best, my dear lady," said he, cheerily. "The
first thing will be the child's knowing you. That clearly proven, the
question will be as to Cornplanter. It will be a knock-down blow, but
the Seneca has great qualities. He may set his face against it like
flint, yet I shall be surprised if he thinks of self alone in the
matter. And what idea did you get of Cornplanter?" he concluded, turning
to Mark.
"Pretty good for an Indian," said Mark, moodily; "but ef he don't give
up Nellie to mother, I'll brain him with his own hatchet, ef I die for
it next minute."
"Well crowed, young cockeril," laughed the Colonel, "but we'll find
better weapons than tomahawks. It's the heart and not the skull we've
got to reach." There was no need to waste time, and quick outfit was
made for the journey to the Seneca village, about eighty miles away.
Cornplanter received the message from the Indian runner, giving warning
of Colonel Johnson's proposed visit, but with no further hint of
purpose. Yet he felt a keen pang of foreboding. Stoic as he was, there
was something in the air that mocked him with the notion of fate lying
in ambush close at hand. As Ma-za-ri-ta afterwards recalled, the chief
treated her with a clinging, pathetic tenderness during these days she
had never known before. And finally, when he saw with Colonel Johnson
the youth who had been his recent guest, and a pale-faced woman with
questioning gaze that wandered and hunted like that of a mad-woman, it
was no longer guesswork. It was as if a bullet had pierced his chest.
The Englishman knew his man, and made a plain appeal with all the fling
of that bullet.
Cornplanter heard with a stern, impassive face. "My father's words are
good and just," he said. "Let Ma-za-ri-ta decide," and hope knocked
again faintly at the gate that his little sister would not know the
white woman who had come to rob him of his heart's blood. The girl was
led from her lodge, unknowing the test, and ran gayly to her Indian
brother's side, and looked curiously at the little white group in the
centre of the watchful throng of red men. Her eyes glanced smilingly at
her Indian friends, till they were fastened as if by a magnet on the
white woman's face, and there they hung, fascinated, open-mouthed,
spellbound, as though they could never drink their fill. The woman
stood, arms half extended, burning eyes unquenched by their own tears,
lips dumbly moving. Fear, wonder, longing, doubt, swept over the girl's
face, till all thought was swallowed up in a light unspeakable, and her
tongue babbled "ma-ma." She tottered, but Mrs. Lytte leaped at her and
locked her fast with convulsive cries and sobs.
The chief's rigid face was that of a bronze man. All listened for his
lips to speak. But it seemed as if the jaws were locked. And when the
voice came his followers scarcely knew its hollow accents:
"The Great Spirit has spoken, and who are his red children that they
should refuse to listen." Then he covered his face with a corner of his
deer-skin robe and passed swiftly from their midst, this Indian
Agamemnon, who would not reveal his own agony of spirit.
Eleanor Lytte never saw her Indian brother again, but costly presents
each year proved his indelible memory till his death.
THE REMARKABLE ADVENTURES OF SANDBOYS.
A BIG HAUL.
BY JOHN KENDRICK BANGS.
There was great excitement at the hotel. The oldest guest--that is to
say, the one who had passed the greatest number of summers at the
Mountain House--had just come in from his morning's fishing, and had
brought with him the largest trout that, so far as any one knew, had
ever been caught in the lake. It was a perfect beauty. Its body was long
and graceful in its lines and curves, and its "speckles" were of such a
lovely hue and quality that a little girl who was looking at them
remarked that she "wouldn't mind gettin' her nose all over freckles if
they was only pretty and pink like that instead of rusty-lookin' little
yeller spots." And everybody in the hotel, even the fishers who had
fished for days and days without catching anything, or getting even any
bites save those of the black-flies, were glad that the luck had come to
the oldest guest, for he was a great favorite with everybody;
grandfathers as well as boys had a great affection for him, he was such
a fine fellow, and so pleasant and courteous to every one. Probably no
one else in the hotel could have caught the "record" trout without
making somebody jealous of him, but in this case it was different, the
oldest guest had such a habit of seeming to share his good-fortune with
all with whom he came in contact. So it happened that there was great
rejoicing over the morning's catch, and everybody said it was a
wonderful one--even Sandboys acknowledged that it was a catch to be
proud of.
"Never been beat as an individual catch," he said. "Never. Biggest trout
I ever see; but not the biggest haul--not quite. No, not by a long shot,
by hookey!"
This remark made in the hearing of Bob and Jack naturally aroused the
curiosity of the two boys. They had been, on the whole, the chiefest of
the admirers of the oldest guest for a long time, and when he came in
just before dinner with his three-and-three-quarter-pounder, Jack ranked
him on the score of achievement with Napoleon Bonaparte, and Bob
admitted that he stood second to none but George Washington. Sandboys's
observation, however, changed this somewhat. If somebody had once made a
bigger haul, even if he had not caught a bigger fish, there might have
to be some slight rearrangement in the order of their lists of heroes.
"What do you mean by that, Sandboys?" they asked.
"Just what I say," replied Sandboys. "As a fish, that's the biggest fish
that's ever been took out of any of these lakes about here; but as a
haul on a single cast, it ain't in it with one I know about."
"Who made it?" asked Bob. "Jimmie Hicks?"
"Jimmie nothin'," retorted Sandboys, scornfully. "Jimmie was a mighty
smart lad at fishin'; but I'm talkin' of something alongside of which
smartness ain't no more'n a peanut side of an elephant."
"Then who did do it?" queried Jack. "You?"
Sandboys gave a significant little nod, and answered modestly, "Well, I
had something to do with it; but old Spavinshanks is entitled to some of
the credit--most of it, in fact."
The boys settled down on the settee, which, when he was on duty, was
Sandboys's throne.
"Tell us about it," they said.
Sandboys glanced anxiously around, and then he shook his head.
"Some other time," he said in a whisper. "When _he_ ain't in ear-shot.
He don't know nothin' about it, and if he did he'd be awful mad."
"He" to whom Sandboys so mysteriously alluded was Mr. Bingle, the owner
of the Mountain House stables.
"If he ever suspected," continued Sandboys, "he could ruin me. _It was
his tackle I used!_"
And with that he was off out of ear-shot, and away from the sharp
eyesight of Mr. Bingle, whose glance seemed to penetrate to the core of
his conscience, as it is apt always to be when consciences with
something weighing upon them are involved.
Later on when he was off duty, and Mr. Bingle was far away, Sandboys
made confession to Bob and Jack, and it ran somewhat in this wise:
"The reason I didn't want old Bingle to hear," he explained, "was
exactly as I told you. It was his tackle I used with my big haul, and
he'd be fightin' mad if he knew who it was as done it. He knew it had
been done, of course, but he never knew it was me."
"But I don't see," said Bob. "Using somebody else's tackle isn't any
crime. Everybody does it, don't they?"
"It all depends on the tackle," said Sandboys. "Some tackle's more
expensive than others, and more easily damaged. Old Bingle holds his at
about eighteen dollars a day--and I must say when he got it back it was
pretty wet and muddy--'specially old Spavinshanks."
Bob looked at Jack and Jack looked at Bob. Sandboys when he spoke
plainly was hard enough to find otherwise than queer, but when he chose
to veil his words in mystery, he was even harder to see through than a
stone wall. The idea of any man's holding his fishing-tackle at a
valuation of eighteen dollars a day was preposterous enough; that he
should object to its being brought back wet and muddy was surprising;
but the phrase "'specially old Spavinshanks" was absolutely past
comprehension.
Jack laughed, however, in spite of his mystification, and said, "Who was
old Spavinshanks? The worm?"
"Not a bit of it," returned Sandboys. "Old Spavinshanks was that old
gray horse Mr. Bingle paid ten dollars for thirty years ago, and has
been earning fifteen dollars a day out of every summer every year since.
I borrered him, though Bingle didn't know it, and that's how I came to
get the big haul, and my, what a wet and muddy beast he was when he got
back into the stable that night! He was so muddy they thought he was the
black mare for a minute.
[Illustration]