THE SPY.
The pistol shot fired by the White Buffalo had not quite produced the
result the latter expected from it. The man was wounded; but the haste
with which the chief had been obliged to fire, injured the precision
of his aim, and the listener escaped with a slight wound; the bullet
grazed his skull, and only produced a copious hemorrhage. Still this
hurt had been enough for the spy, who saw that he was unmasked, and
that a longer stay at the spot would inevitably produce a catastrophe;
hence he ran off at full speed. After running for several minutes,
feeling certain that he had thrown off any persons inclined to follow
him, he stopped to draw breath, and attend to his wound, which still
bled profusely. In consequence, he looked anxiously around him; but
all was silent and solitary. A dense snowstorm, which had been falling
for many an hour, had compelled the Indians to seek shelter in their
lodges The firing of the pistol had caused no panic, for the Redskins,
accustomed to nocturnal disputes in their villages, had not stirred.
No other noise could be heard but the barking of a few straying dogs,
and the hoarse cries of the wild beasts that wandered over the prairie
in search of prey. The spy, reassured by the calm prevailing in the
village, set about bandaging the wound, in his heart thanking the snow
for falling, as it effaced the traces of blood left in his flight.
"Come," he muttered, in a low voice, "I shall know nothing this night;
the genius of evil protects those men; I will go into the cabin."
He turned a parting glance around, and prepared to start; but, at the
same moment, a white shadow, gliding over the snow like a phantom,
passed a short distance from him.
"What is that?" the Indian muttered, suddenly assailed by a
superstitious terror. "Is the 'Virgin of the dark hours' wandering
about the village? What terrible misfortune is menacing us then?"
The Indian bent forward, and, as if attracted by a superior power,
followed with his eyes the strange apparition, whose white outline was
already blending with the distant gloom.
"That creature is not walking," he said to himself, with terror;
"she leaves no footfall on the snow. Is she a Genius hostile to the
Blackfeet? There is a mystery about this which I must fathom."
The instinct of the spy heightening the curiosity of the Indian, the
latter soon forgot his terror for a moment, and rushed boldly in
pursuit of the phantom. After an interval of a few minutes, the shadow
or spectre stopped, and looked around with evident indecision. The
Indian, lest he might be discovered, had just time to hide himself
behind the wall of a cabin; but a pale gleam of moonlight, emerging
between two clouds, had, for a second, lighted up the face of the
person he was pursuing.
"Prairie-Flower!" he muttered, suppressing with difficulty a cry of
surprise.
In fact, that was the person thus wandering about in the darkness.
After some hesitation, the maiden raised her head, and walked
resolutely toward a cabin, the buffalo skin of which she lifted with
a firm hand. She entered, and let the curtain fall behind her. The
Indian bounded up to the cabin, walked round it, thrust his knife up
to the hilt in the wall, turned it round twice or thrice, to enlarge
the hole, and, placing his ear to it, listened. The most complete quiet
continued to prevail in the village.
At the first step the young girl took in the lodge, a shadow suddenly
rose before her, and a hand fell upon her shoulder; instinctively she
recoiled.
"What do you want?" a menacing voice asked. This question was asked in
French, which rendered it doubly unintelligible by the Indian girl.
"Answer! or I'll blow out your brains," the voice continued.
And the sharp sound produced by cocking a pistol could be heard.
"Wah!" the girl replied in her gentle, melodious voice, "I am a friend."
"It is evidently a woman," the first speaker growled, "but no matter,
we must be prudent. What on earth does she want here?"
"Halloh!" Bright-eye suddenly shouted, aroused by this short
altercation, "what's the matter there, what have you caught, Ivon?"
"My faith, I don't know; I believe it is a woman."
"Eh, eh," the hunter said, with a laugh, "let us have a look at that:
don't let her escape."
"Don't be alarmed," the Breton replied, "I have hold of her."
Prairie-Flower remained motionless, not making the slightest effort to
escape from the clutch of the man who held her. Bright-eye rose, felt
his way to the fire, and began blowing it up. In a few minutes a bright
flame burst forth, and illumined the interior of the lodge.
"Stay, stay," the hunter said, with surprise, "you are welcome, girl;
what do you want here?"
The Indian maid blushed, and replied:--
"Prairie-Flower has come to visit her friends, the Palefaces."
"The hour is a strange one for a visit, my child," the Canadian
continued, with an ironical smile; "but no matter," he added, turning
to the Breton, "let her loose, Ivon; this enemy, if she is one, is not
very dangerous."
The other obeyed with ill grace.
"Come to the fire, girl," the hunter said, "your limbs are frozen; when
you have warmed yourself, you can tell us the cause of your presence
here at this late hour."
Prairie-Flower smiled sadly, and sat down by the fire, Bright-eye
taking a place by her side. The girl had with one glance surveyed the
interior of the lodge, and perceived the Count sleeping tranquilly on a
pile of furs. Bright-eye's whole life had been spent in the desert; he
was thoroughly acquainted with the character of the Redskins, and knew
that circumspection and prudence are their two guiding principles. That
an Indian never attempts anything without having first calculated all
the consequences, and that he never decides on doing a thing contrary
to Indian habits, except from some pressing motive. The hunter,
therefore, suspected that the object of the young girl's visit was
important, though unable to read, beneath the mask of impassibility
that covered her face, the motive that caused her to act.
The Redskins are not, like other men, easy to question; cunning and
finesse obtain no advantage over these doubtful natives. The most
skilful Old Bailey practitioner would get nothing out of them, but
confess himself vanquished, after making an Indian undergo the closest
cross-examination. If one of these shades of character were unknown to
the hunter; hence he was careful not to let the girl suppose that he
took any interest in her explanation.
With a nod of the head, Bright-eye soon gave Ivon the order to go to
sleep again, which he did immediately. The girl was sitting by the
fire, warming herself mechanically, while every now and then taking a
side glance at the hunter. But the latter had lit his pipe, and, nearly
concealed by the dense cloud of smoke that surrounded him, appeared
completely absorbed in his agreeable occupation. The two remained
thus face to face nearly half an hour, and did not exchange a word;
at length Bright-eye shook out the ash on his left thumbnail, put his
pipe in his belt, and rose. Prairie-Flower followed his every movement,
without appearing to attach any importance to it; she saw him collect
furs, carry them to a dark corner of the lodge, where he spread them so
as to form a species of bed; then, when he fancied it was soft enough,
he threw a coverlid over it, and returned to the fire.
"My Pale brother has prepared a bed," Prairie-Flower said, laying her
hand on his arm, just as he was about to draw out his pipe again.
"Yes," he replied.
"Why four beds for three persons?"
Bright-eye looked at her with a perfectly natural amazement.
"Are we not four?" he said.
"I only see the two Pale hunters and my brother--for whom is the last
bed?"
"For my sister, Prairie-Flower, I suppose; has she not come to ask
hospitality of her Pale brothers?"
The girl shook her head.
"The women of my tribe," she said, with an accent of wounded pride,
"have their cabins for sleeping, and do not pass the night in the
lodges of the warriors."
Bright-eye bowed respectfully.
"I am mistaken," he said; "I did not wish to vex my sister; but
on seeing her enter my lodge so late, I supposed she came to ask
hospitality."
The girl smiled with finesse.
"My brother is a great warrior of the Palefaces," she said; "his head
is grey; he is very cunning; why does he pretend not to know the reason
that brings Prairie-Flower to his lodge?"
"Because I am really ignorant of it," he replied; "how should I know
it?"
The Indian girl turned towards the place where the young man was
sleeping, and said, with a charming pout--
"Glass-eye knows all: he would have told my brother the hunter."
"I cannot deny," the hunter said, boldly, "that Glass-eye knows many
things, but in this matter he has been dumb."
"Is that true?" she asked, quickly.
"Why should I deny it? Prairie-Flower is not an enemy to us."
"No, I am a friend: let my brother open his ears."
"Speak."
"Glass-eye is powerful."
"So it is said," the hunter replied, evasively, too honest to stoop to
a lie.
"The elders of the tribe regard him as a genius superior to other men,
arranging events as he pleases, and able, if he will, to change the
course of the future."
"Who says so?"
"Everybody."
The hunter shook his head, and pressing the girl's dainty hands in his
own, he said, simply--
"You are deceived, child; Glass-eye is only a man like the others; the
power you have been told of does not exist: I know not for what reason
the chiefs of your nation have spread this absurd report; but it is a
falsehood, which I must not allow to go further."
"No, White Buffalo is the wisest sachem of the Blackfeet; he possesses
all the knowledge of his fathers on the other side of the Great
Saltlake, he cannot err. Did he not announce, long ago, Glass-eye's
arrival among us?"
"That is possible; although I cannot guess how he knew it, as only
three days ago we were quite ignorant that we were coming to this
village."
The maiden smiled triumphantly.
"White Buffalo knows all," she said; "besides, for many thousand moons
the sorcerers of the nation have announced the coming of a man exactly
like Glass-eye: his apparition was so truly predicted, that his arrival
surprised nobody, as all expected him."
The hunter recognized the inutility of contending any longer against a
conviction so deeply rooted in the young girl's heart.
"Good," he replied; "White Buffalo is a very wise sachem. What is there
he does not know?"
"Nothing! Did he not predict that Glass-eye would place himself at the
head of the Redskin warriors, and deliver them from the Palefaces of
the East?"
"It is true," the hunter said, though he did not know a word of what
the girl was revealing to him; but he now began to suspect a vast
plot formed by the Indians, and he naturally desired to know more.
Prairie-Flower looked at him with an expression of simple joy.
"My brother sees that I know all," she said.
"That is true," he answered; "my sister is better informed than I
supposed; now she can explain to me, without fear, the service she
desires from Glass-eye."
The girl took a long glance at the young man, who was still sleeping.
"Prairie-Flower is suffering," she said, in a low and trembling voice;
"a cloud has passed over her mind and obscured it."
"Prairie-Flower is sixteen," the old hunter answered, with a smile; "a
new feeling is awakened in her; a little bird is singing in her heart;
she listens unconsciously to the harmonious notes of those strains
which she does not yet understand."
"It is true," the maiden murmured, suddenly growing pensive; "my heart
is sad. Is, then, love a suffering?"
"Child," the hunter answered, with a melancholy accent, "creatures
are thus made by the Master of Life. All sensation is suffering. Joy,
carried to an excess, becomes pain; you love without knowing it; loving
is suffering."
"No," she said, with a gesture of terror, "no, I do not love, at least
not; in the way you say. I have come, on the contrary, to seek your
protection from a man who loves me, whose love frightens me, and for
whom I shall never feel aught but gratitude."
"You are quite certain, poor child, that such is the feeling you
experience for that man?"
She bowed assent. Without saying anything further, Bright-eye rose.
"Where are you going?" she asked, quickly.
The hunter turned to her.
"In all that you have told me, child," he answered, "there are things
so important, that I must without delay arouse my friend, that he may
listen to you in his turn, and, if it be possible, come to your aid."
"Do so," she said, mournfully, and let her head sink on her breast.
The hunter went up to the young man, and bending over him, touched him
gently on the shoulder. The Count awoke at once.
"What is it? What do you want?" he said, rising and seizing his
weapons, with the promptness that a man constantly exposed to danger so
soon acquires.
"Nothing that need frighten you, Mr. Edward. That young girl wishes to
speak to you."
The Count followed the direction in which the hunter pointed, and his
glance met that of the maiden. It was like an electric shock; she
tottered, laid her hand on her heart, and blushed. The Frenchman rushed
toward her.
"What is the matter? What can I do to help you?" he asked.
Just as she was about to reply, the curtain was lifted; a man bounded
suddenly over Ivon, and reached the centre of the hut. It was the spy;
the Breton suddenly aroused, flung himself on him, but the Indian held
him back with a firm hand.
"Look out!" he said.
"Red Wolf!" the girl exclaimed, joyfully, as she stepped before him;
"lower your weapons, it is a friend."
"Speak!" the Count said, as he returned the pistol to his belt.
The Indian had made no attempt to defend himself; he awaited stoically
the moment to explain himself.
"Natah Otann is coming," he said to the maiden.
"Oh! I am lost if he find me here."
"What do I care for the fellow?" the Count said, haughtily.
"Prudence," Bright-eye interposed; "are you a friend, Redskin?"
"Ask Prairie-Flower," he answered, disdainfully.
"Good; then you have come to save her?"
"Yes."
"You have a way?"
"I have."
"I don't understand anything about it," Ivon said to himself, aside,
quite confounded by all he saw; "what a night!"
"Make haste!" said the Count.
"Neither Prairie-Flower nor myself must be seen here," the Red Wolf
continued; "Natah Otann is my enemy; there is deadly war between us.
Throw all those furs on the girl."
Prairie-Flower, crouching in a corner, soon disappeared beneath the
skins piled over her.
"Hum! it is a good idea," Bright-eye muttered: "and what are you going
to do?"
"Look!"
Red Wolf leaned against the buffalo hides that acted as door, and
concealed himself amid their folds. Hardly had all this been done, ere
Natah Otann appeared on the threshold.
"What! up already?" he said, in surprise, turning a suspicious glance
around him.
Red Wolf profited by this movement to go out unseen by the Chief.
"I am come to receive your orders for the hunt," Natah Otann resumed.