WHAT THE SCOUTS FOUND.
When the sun rose the next morning—for the day broke clear and cloudless
with a keen, frosty atmosphere—its rays fell on a heap of smoldering
ruins, encircled by a dozen charred trees burnt and blackened to their
very tops. This was all that remained of Emmett Darke’s cabin home.
The four men, Darke, Clancy Vere, Leander Maybob, the giant hunter, and
Pete Wimple, a tried and trusty scout and Indian-fighter, were at the
appointed place of rendezvous at a very early hour, and, well mounted on
four fleet, strong horses that Clancy and the scout had obtained at the
settlement, they were at daybreak dashing over the smooth, level prairie
in pursuit of Ku-nan-gu-no-nah and his party.
For hours they kept on at a rapid, even gallop, which they neither
quickened nor slackened. Clancy and the scout, riding side by side and
keeping a sharp look-out ahead for any signs of the enemy, while Darke
and the giant hunter were ever on the alert to guard against the
approach of any hostile party from the rear.
None of the four had spoken more than a few words since they left the
big pine, hours before, even Leander Maybob, usually so loquacious,
maintaining a thoughtful and unbroken silence.
The day continued as it had dawned, clear and sun-shiny, the pure,
bracing air inspiring the little band to more than common vigilance and
alertness, while it added fresh vigor to their steeds, and they kept on
at the same quick, regular rate of speed until mid-day without meeting
with adventure of any kind.
Then Pete Wimple drew his horse up suddenly, and in obedience to his
low-spoken command, the three others reined in their horses.
“What is it, Pete?” asked Clancy.
“I don’t know for sartin,” and the scout, shading his eyes with his
hand, looked long and earnestly across the wide, grassy plain before
them. Following the direction of his gaze, the others saw dimly in the
distance a thin blue cloud of smoke rising from the surface of the
prairie.
“It’s a fire!” said Darke.
“That it are!” confirmed the big hunter.
“Can it be a camp-fire?” asked Clancy.
“Very likely,” said the scout. “I think as how it’s some-’eres ’long the
line of the emigrant trail. We’ll strike it purty quick—it’s jist ahead
thar—and we’ve got to foller it for severil hours. We’ve got to pass
that fire, and afore we get too cluss, I want to know what it means!”
“It mought be whites, an’ ag’in it mought be reds!” said Leander Maybob,
riding to the front and examining the thin, vapory cloud for a moment or
two. “It mought be emigrants takin’ thar grub and it moughtn’t, ye see.
Prob’ly ’tis and prob’ly ’tain’t, as my uncle Peter said when Elder
Tugwoller axed him if his youngest-born son war a boy or a gal!”
The others could not restrain a laugh at this; and when their merriment
had subsided Darke asked:
“What do you think is best to be done, Wimple? You and Leander are
learned in every department of prairie life and warfare, while Clancy
and I are the merest novices. We shall trust ourselves and our
enterprise in your hands.”
“I think, as it’s about grub time, you and me had better ride ahead and
diskiver, if we can, whether there’s white men or Injuns or suthin’ else
around that are smudge, or whether its jest a muskeeter smoke, while
Low-lander, as you calls him, and the boy busies ’emselves about gittin’
suthin’ for our appetites ag’in’ our return.”
“I agree with ye thar!” said the giant, “as Elder Tugwoller remarked to
my daddy when he expressed his opinion as how donations was a good
institution; but my name ain’t Low-lander.”
“What’s in a name?” laughed Darke as he and the scout rode away.
“Thar’s a good deal in names, I notice,” said the big hunter, half
musingly, as he swung his long left leg over his horse’s head and
slipped to the ground. “I reckon thar’s a sight o’ valler in names. If
’twasn’t for folks bein’ named so’s to tell ’em apart, they’d git all
mixed and twisted up so a feller couldn’t tell w’ich from t’uther or
t’uther from w’ich! Now I don’t go very strong for seein’ things git all
mixed and twisted up so’s ye can’t discrimernate w’ich from w’ich. If it
hadn’t been fer jest sich a durn’d mixin’ and twistin’ of two different
things together in my head, I’d likely now be a married man, livin’ as
happy as a hornet in yer breecherloons, down to old Maybob Center in
Massachusetts, the Bay State and capital of Bosting, the hub of the
univarsal _terry firmy_. It’s an awful world we’re livin’ in,” he went
on, as he tied his horse, as Clancy had already done, by means of
lariats they had brought with them. “It’s an awful world! I never know’d
a man to go cl’ar through it ’ithout gittin’ the wind knocked outen him
somehow! It’s this mixin’ an’ twistin’ as does it all! It’s that as
caused all my misery and pains and heart-longin’s, and sighin’s and so
forth and so on. I know folks in gin’ral wouldn’t go for to take me for
a lovyer—you, now, youngster, look more like a lovyer than I do; sorter
like a despondin’ lovyer, more’n any thing. But don’t ye git
down-hearted now. We’re a-goin’ to git yer sweetheart back to-day! I’ll
tell you how I found out about it,” he explained, noting Clancy’s look
of surprise, “I heerd ye talkin’ about her afore ye come to, fairly,
yisterday. I didn’t mean ter hear yer, and didn’t go fer to pry into any
of yer secrets; but I couldn’t help hearin’ ye say ev’ry few minits,
‘Vinnie!’ ‘Vinnie!’ I heerd Darke say his gal’s name was that to-day;
and so I put this and that together and know’d you was her lovyer. I’ll
tell you ’bout my gal an’ my love affair, and then we’ll be even. All
our trouble come of this mixin’ an’ twistin’, as I told you afore. Elder
Tugwoller’s niece, Sally Niver, as purty a gal as ever wore caliker—she
used to live along o’ the Elder and his wife—and me got acquainted with
each other to singin’ school, and afore we know’d it we was both on us
purty nigh as deep into love as Lord Lovel and the Lady Nancy. The Elder
didn’t ’prove of the match, and Sally an’ me uster spark on the sly. The
Elder found it out and licked Sally and forbid her ever to speak to me
ag’in. She cum right straight and told me, and said as how the Elder and
Miss Tugwoller would be away Saturday night over to the widder Mork’s
and wanted me to come down an’ see her while they was gone. I rigged up
and went down; and jest as I got inside the yard I see Sally cummin,
down the path to meet me, and the tears was a-streamin’ down her face.
‘They ain’t gone, deary!’ sez she, ‘and if they see you we’ll be in an
awful pickle!’ I couldn’t go away without inquirin’ what was the matter.
‘Oh!’ sez she, ‘I’ve had to take—uncle’s bin a-givin’ me—’ ‘Another
lickin’ I’ll be bound!’ sez I. ‘Sally, yer mine, afore Heaven, and I’m
a-goin’ to trounce that old cuss within an inch of his life for abusin’
ye so, if he is the preacher!’ ‘Oh dear!’ sez she. ‘You don’t understand
he—oh, what’ll you do? Thar he comes now!’ And sure enough, I looked up
and thar come the Elder down the path a-makin’ motions and a-swingin’ a
big hosswhip. I thought he was a-goin’ to lick Sally ag’in, and she
screamed and I jumped afore her. Jest then the hosswhip cracked round my
legs. ‘Young man,’ sez the Elder, ‘you’ve got things kinder mixed and
twisted up, like, in your mind. Your mind’s considerably mixed and
twisted. You don’t understand as how I don’t want ye here at all, and
you’ve got mixed and twisted up about the lickin’, like. I hain’t bin
a-givin’ my niece a cowhidin’; I jest give her a dose of peppersass for
a cold, and that’s what brings the water outen her eyes. I’m goin’ to
give the cowhidin’ to you!’ And he axed the blessin’ and commenced. The
gad played kinder lively for a minit, then I jerked it outen his hand
and throw’d it over into the garden, and sez I, ‘Elder, if you think I’m
goin’ to stand sich you must be kinder mixed and twisted up, like, in
your idees!’ Then I knocked him down and kissed Sally good-by and walked
away. I hain’t never seen her since. The Elder sent her away to school
and I come West—and that’s the end on’t all. I s’pose she’s married long
ago!” he finished, sadly. “She was jest the sort of gal as ketches men!
It was all owin’ to my mixed and twisted state of mind concernin’ the
lickin’ and the peppersass!”
By the time they had prepared the noon-day meal, Clancy saw Darke and
Wimple coming back; and in less than ten minutes they threw themselves
from their horses a few rods away, and after tethering them, came up
with rapid strides.
“What did you find?” asked Clancy eagerly; “any signs of Vinnie or her
captors?”
“We found some of the devil’s own handiwork!” answered the scout, a
dark, fierce look on his usually pleasant face that the young hunter
never saw there before.
“The smoke we saw arises from two burning emigrant wagons that the
Indians have plundered and then set fire to!” said Darke. “One man,
evidently the guide, lay dead and scalped, his body, with those of three
savages who had been shot in the affray, half burned up in the fire! The
remainder of the party, which I should judge was not very large, have
either escaped or been made prisoners.”
“It is Ku-nan-gu-no-nah’s work!” said Clancy.
“I’ve made up my mind to settle with him purty soon!” said Leander
Maybob, sternly. “His time’s most up!”