THE FOREST ROSE.
Ku-nan-gu-no-nah walked swiftly away with the deadly rifle of Leander
Maybob, the giant hunter, still leveled at his head, fairly demoniac
with wild and impotent rage. The workings of his dark face were
fearfully suggestive of the denizens of the bottomless pit.
Had he been armed he would not have left the vicinity without first
attempting the life of the man who had him in his power and who held his
very life at his disposal; but he was powerless, having no weapons
except a short, sharp-pointed knife which he always carried in addition
to his hunting-knife, and this would be useless, except in a
hand-to-hand conflict, which even in his wild passion he had not the
hardihood to dare.
In an hour’s time he came to the boundary of the wilderness and the
broad prairie stretched its level surface before him as far as he could
see. Not a tree or a bush was there visible in all this vast plain; only
the tall grasses, beat down and tangled by the fearful tempest that had
raged through the afternoon.
Turning from the nearly direct course he had been pursuing, the chief
made his way, with long, rapid strides, to the place where, in the midst
of a dense growth of bushes in the center of which there was a little
plat of smooth, grassy ground, destitute of undergrowth, he had tethered
his horse early in the afternoon. In less time than it takes to tell it,
he was mounted and galloping away over the plain.
In a little while he struck an indistinct, scarcely worn road, or rather
broad track—one of the emigrant routes of the North-west. He followed
the track for an hour or more and then making a gradual _detour_ to the
left, kept on at a swift rolling gallop which he never slackened till he
reached the Indian encampment, situated at the foot of a steep, rocky
hill that loomed up through the storm and darkness, in dull relief
against the leaden sky. Throwing himself hastily from his horse, he
stalked rapidly along and entered a wigwam at the further end of the
encampment. An aged Indian sat on a roll of skins at one side of the
place, in an attitude of deep grief or despondency. He simply glanced up
as the chief entered, then dropping his face again into his hands,
sitting silent and apparently in great agony of mind.
“How is the Forest Rose to-night?” the chief asked, glancing toward a
couch of skins and blankets on the opposite side of the lodge, on which
he could see the form of a female reclining by the dim fire-light that
illuminated the wigwam. She lay silent and motionless as though life had
fled.
“The Forest Rose is very ill,” replied the old Indian, mournfully, “and
she will die! Yon-da-do, the great medicine man, has said so. He has
made use of all his ceremonies and mystic arts, but he can not save her.
The lovely Forest Rose must die!”
As he ceased speaking he arose, and lighting a small pitch-pine torch in
the fire, went over to the side of the couch. Throwing aside the
covering from her face, he allowed the light to fall upon it for a
moment. It was a beautiful face, darkly lovely—the face of an Indian
maiden in the first flush of womanhood. She was rather light for one of
her dusky race, with heavy masses of raven-black hair falling in lovely
confusion about her statuesque face, in whose contour the hard
angularity of the Indian type was not discernible, and down upon her
perfectly-shaped neck, and softly-rounded shoulders. Her long, heavy
lashes lay upon her cheeks, which were very pale, hiding her dark
lustrous eyes, which, when lighted up with health, added not a little to
her almost bewildering beauty. But now the lovely Forest Rose lay like
one dead.
“Let my father look up and be happy!” said the chief. “Ku-nan-gu-no-nah
has seen a medicine-woman to-day, that can surely bring back life to the
Forest Rose. The medicine-woman that I saw was a mighty conjuror. The
Great Spirit has given her greater power than that of Yon-da-do!”
“Who is this mighty magician?”
“She is a pale-face maiden, as beautiful as the Forest Rose,” replied
the chief.
“Would she come?” asked the old Indian, while a hopeful light flashed
out of his aged eyes, undimmed by the flight of time. “Would a white
medicine-woman come to give life back to an Indian girl!”
“She would not come willingly,” said the crafty chief, “but she must be
brought! If she is not, the Forest Rose will die!”
“Then she must be brought!” said the old Indian, decisively. “I will
call a council of braves in the morning, and a party shall be sent to
bring the white magician. The Forest Rose must be saved!”
The aged Indian was the real chief of the tribe—that is, although he was
too old to go on the war-path, leaving the active fighting to the
younger and more warlike Ku-nan-gu-no-nah, he was the real moving
spirit, always planning and ordering all important movements of the
band. The languishing Forest Rose was his daughter.
“It is well,” said Ku-nan-gu-no-nah, as he went away.
“The great medicine-woman will save the Forest Rose, and again she will
sing like the birds in the trees to gladden the heart of her father, the
great chief.”
Wild Buffalo, the aged sachem, called a council of braves early in the
morning, and at midday, the subtle Ku-nan-gu-no-nah, at the head of a
dozen picked warriors, was riding over the prairie in quest of
“Sun-Hair,” the beautiful magician.