ORIANNA.
Weeks passed on, and within and without Deacon Wilder’s doors were signs
of life and civilization. Trees were cut down, gardens were made, corn
and vegetables were planted, and still no trace of an Indian had been
seen, although Jake had frequently expressed a wish to get a shot at the
“varmin,” as he called them. Still, he felt that it would be unwise to
be caught out alone at any very great distance from his master’s
dwelling.
This feeling was shared by all of Deacon Wilder’s household except
Charlie, who frequently went forth alone into the forest shade, and
rambled over the hills where grew the rich wild strawberry and the fair
summer flowers, and where, too, roamed the red man; for the Indian was
there, jealously watching each movement of his white brother, and
waiting for some provocation to strike a deadly blow. But Charlie knew
it not, and fearlessly each day he plunged deeper and deeper into the
depths of the woods, taking some stately tree or blighted stump as a
way-mark by which to trace his homeward road, when the shadows began to
grow long and dark.
Although he knew it not, Charlie had a protector, who each day, in the
shady woods and wild gullies of Glen’s Creek, awaited his coming.
Stealthily would she follow his footsteps, and when on the velvety turf
he laid him down to rest, she would watch near him, lest harm should
befall the young sleeper. It was Orianna, the only and darling child of
Owanno, the chieftain, whose wigwam was three miles west of Glen’s
Creek, near a spot called Grassy Spring.
Orianna had first been attracted toward Charlie by seeing him weep one
day, and from a few words which he involuntarily let fall, she learned
that his heart was not with the scenes wherein he dwelt, but was far
away toward the “rising sun.” Orianna’s heart was full of kindly
sympathy, and from the time when she first saw Charlie weeping in the
forest, she made a vow to the Great Spirit that she would love and
protect the child of the “pale-face.” The vow thus made by the simple
Indian maiden was never broken, but through weal and woe it was
faithfully kept.
It was a long time ere Orianna ventured to introduce herself to her new
friend; but when she did so, she was delighted to find that he neither
expressed fear of her, nor surprise at her personal appearance. From
that time they were inseparable, although Orianna exacted from Charlie a
promise not to mention her at home, and also resisted his entreaties
that she would accompany him thither. In reply to all his arguments, she
would say, mournfully, “No, Charlie, no; the pale-face is the enemy of
my people, although Orianna never can think they are enemies to her; and
sometimes I have wished—it was wicked, I know, and the Great Spirit was
angry—but I have wished that I, too, was of the fair-haired and
white-browed ones.”
In Charlie’s home there was much wonder as to what took him so regularly
to the woods but he withstood their questioning and kept his secret
safely. In the wigwam, too, where Orianna dwelt, there was some
grumbling at her frequent absences, but the old chieftain Owanno and his
wife Narretta loved their child too well to prohibit her rambling when
and where she pleased. This old couple were far on the journey of life,
when Orianna came as a sunbeam of gladness to their lone cabin, and
thenceforth they doted upon her as the miser doats upon his shining
gold.
She was a tall, graceful creature of nineteen or twenty summers, and her
life would have been one of unbounded happiness had it not been for one
circumstance. Near her father’s wigwam lived the young chief Wahlaga,
who to a most ferocious nature added a face horridly disfigured by the
many fights in which he had been foremost. A part of his nose was gone,
and one eye entirely so; yet to this man had Owanno determined to wed
his beautiful daughter, who looked upon Wahlaga with perfect disgust,
and resolved that, sooner than marry him, she would perish in the deep
waters of the Kentucky, which lay not many miles away.