WIND FLOWER.
Crazy Snake had told the young chief that pursuit might be expected,
and that was why he was so anxious to hurry on. He felt sure that
soon the dreaded Long Hair, as Buffalo Bill was called, would be on
his trail. Buffalo Bill’s reputation as a long-distance shot, as a
trailer, and as an enemy whose cunning and skill were marvelous, was
great among the Blackfeet.
Because of his fear of pursuit Lightfoot stopped now and then to
listen. Occasionally, where a small hill invited, he ascended it,
dragging the girl with him, and scanned the surrounding country.
Crazy Snake had disappeared, and even the river was not now visible,
though the black cliff walls of the cañon could be seen.
Finally the young chief gained the point where he had left his horse
hidden.
Lena Forest was almost exhausted by that time, through fear and
the exertions she had been forced to put forth. Lightfoot had been
merciless in dragging her on, over obstructions, across chasms and
rocky tracts, and through bushy districts where thorny shrubs tore
her clothing and lacerated her body.
Several times she had dropped down in sheer weakness and desperation;
but at such times he had assumed the ferocity of the old chief
himself, and, drawing his hatchet, he had threatened her until she
had risen and stumbled on again.
When the little grove was gained where his horse had been left,
Lightfoot was given a shock of surprise. The horse was gone.
He looked about in fear and anger, his black eyes searching for
footprints of a thief and the hoofmarks of the horse.
A rippling laugh, strange and wild, came to him from a little
distance.
Lena Forest looked toward the point whence it emanated, and was
astounded to see an Indian girl rise there from behind a rock and
come forward. The girl seemed amused when first she appeared; but a
frown was on her brown face as she approached the girl prisoner and
the young chief.
“The Wind Flower!” gasped the young chief, speaking below his breath.
“What does she here?”
“Oh, mighty chief,” she said in mockery, “where is thy horse? I see
it not. The eagles must have carried it away!”
He regarded her uneasily. “Wind Flower has taken it,” he said. “Where
has she placed it? And what does she here?”
The Indian girl laughed again, a rippling laugh that had in it
something of the music of running water, for it seemed to bubble and
gurgle in her brown throat. Yet that suspicious and questioning light
remained in her eyes.
“I found the horse of the great chief, Lightfoot! I am but a
squaw--not a mighty warrior and hunter. But I could have taken his
horse and ridden it far from here, if I had willed. The mighty young
chief is like the bear that sleeps when the winter winds blow; he
does not see, and he does not hear. An enemy might have taken his
scalp, as well as his horse.”
He shifted nervously on his feet under this rebuke, and looked at her
furtively as she turned to Lena Forest, throwing out one brown hand
in a significant gesture.
“Where is the young chief taking the white woman?” she asked, and at
the question jealousy flashed in her dark eyes.
Lena Forest understood this language of the eyes, even though she
could not understand the words. Jealousy is the same, and expresses
itself much the same way; whether it burns in the heart of a white
woman or of an Indian maid. She saw that this Indian girl loved
Lightfoot, and guessed that she was probably his promised wife. The
discovery, if it was a discovery, gave her hope.
She stretched out her hands to the Indian girl.
“Oh, tell him to let me go!” she begged, in pitiful tones. “You are a
woman and can sympathize with me. Ask him to let me go!”
Wind Flower looked at her curiously, while a red flush crept into her
brown cheeks, giving them an added beauty.
“Why white girl here?” she said, speaking English with difficulty,
and giving the words a queer pronunciation. “Why white girl with
Lightfoot?”
Lightfoot himself answered her.
“It is at the order of the great chief, Crazy Snake,” he explained.
“The white girl is the prisoner of Crazy Snake. He took her from her
cabin, after the Blackfeet had killed her father, and he has ordered
me to take her on to the Blackfoot village. She is to become the
white squaw of the great chief, Crazy Snake.”
Wind Flower looked at him so sharply that it seemed the fire of her
black eyes burned into his very soul.
“Does the young chief speak with the forked tongue of the serpent?”
she demanded. “Does he not love the white girl, and does he not take
her for himself?”
Lightfoot protested that this was not true, and repeated his
assertion that he was but obeying the orders of Crazy Snake.
“Wind Flower has concealed my horse in the glen beyond?” he asked,
finding that his protestations were not without effect.
“Perhaps it was stolen and is now far away!”
“I know it is in the glen beyond.”
He walked on into the glen, and there found not only his own horse,
but the one which the Indian girl had ridden. When he returned he
brought both with him.
Wind Flower sat on a stone, regarding the white girl distrustfully,
while the latter was appealing to her with a multiplicity of words
and gestures.
“We will go on together,” said Lightfoot, speaking to the Indian
girl. “Why is Wind Flower here, so far from the village?”
“The chief sees the bow and the arrows on my horse,” she answered. “I
hunted the deer, and he came in this direction, so that I followed.
Then I found the horse of the young chief, and from the top of the
hill I saw the young chief and his prisoner.”
“We will go on together,” he repeated.
He turned his horse about and commanded Lena Forest to mount to its
back. Then he walked beside the horse, leading it, while the Indian
girl, assisting herself to the back of her own animal, rode at his
side.
Lena Forest was buoyed somewhat with hope, since meeting this Indian
girl; she believed that one of her own sex, even though an Indian,
would be less heartless than a Blackfoot warrior.
The horses did not go fast enough to suit Lightfoot, and he dropped
behind, and lashed them on with switches, running at their heels.
He still was not traveling as rapidly as he desired. Fear of Long
Hair lay heavily on him.
“Will Wind Flower stay here with the white girl prisoner of Crazy
Snake, while Lightfoot goes to the top of the hill?” he asked at
length. He gave it as an order, though wording it as a question; and
then began to climb the hill, leaving the two girls there on the
horses. In a few moments he had disappeared from sight.
Again, with pleading words, the white girl began to beg for the
assistance of the Indian.
A strange look was in the face of the Indian maid, and Lena Forest
believed it denoted a yielding, and so her hopes rose swiftly.
Wind Flower drew nearer, forcing her horse close up against that
ridden by the prisoner. She stared with her black eyes into the
brown orbs of the prisoner.
“The paleface loves the young chief?” she said, her voice tremulous.
The words were articulated queerly, but their meaning was plain.
“No, no, no!” stammered Lena Forest. “That is a mistake. I do not
love him--I am afraid of him. I want to go to the white people--my
people. We can go now. We have the horses, and he is afoot. Let us go
now. You are a woman. Help another woman who is in trouble.”
The black eyes looking into hers burned with a dangerous fire.
“The white girl lies!” said Wind Flower.
“No, no! My father was killed, and I am a prisoner. Let me go; help
me to get away.”
“Would the white girl go to the white people?”
“I swear it! Oh, I swear it! Help me to get away. Perhaps I can pay
you in some way! Perhaps I can----”
“The white girl’s tongue is crooked as the tongue of the mother of
all serpents! She loves the young chief. She would take him from Wind
Flower. And for that she dies!”
She drew a knife and struck with sudden fury at the breast of the
swaying girl before her. But her horse chanced to shift its position,
and her blow fell short.
Lena Forest screamed in fear, and began to belabor her horse, urging
it on.
As her horse jumped into motion, the wild thought that perhaps she
could now escape came to her; and she beat the horse with her hands
and kicked his side with her heels. He started into a quick jogtrot.
The Indian girl rode after her, and again tried to get near enough to
strike with the knife. As she did so the bushes parted, and Lightfoot
came bounding upon the scene.
He shouted at the furiously jealous Indian girl in anger, and, with
quick bounds, caught the horse ridden by Lena Forest, throwing it
back, with a heavy jerk on the bridle.
“Does Wind Flower love death?” he demanded of the Indian girl,
facing her now, while holding the bridle of the horse ridden by the
prisoner. “The vengeance of Crazy Snake is keen as his scalping
knife. He will strike Wind Flower to the earth, if he knows of this.
What does my little sister mean by it?”
The anger seemed to die out of the face of the Indian girl, to be
replaced by a look of fear.
“The rough wind of the mountain blew on the head of Wind Flower, and
it made her wild,” she said. “But the wind has passed, and she is
well again.”
He shot her a keen glance.
“Be careful that the mountain wind does not strike the head of Wind
Flower again,” he warned; “it might take it off, and roll it down the
hillside!”
He glanced back along the trail, and then at the half-fainting white
girl. He drew his hatchet and waved it in her face.
“We go on!” he said. “But the mountain wind still blows!”
Then he again got behind the horses and drove them on with switches,
getting increased speed out of them.
The brown face of Wind Flower had assumed a dark, leaden hue, as wild
emotions raged and burned in her heart.