THE SECRET.
The lights and shades of the young girl's face, as thoughts flashed
through her brain and words fell from her lips, Kit Carey had
particularly observed.
He made no reply to the last assertion, that he should know her secret,
but waited with the calm patience of an Indian.
"It was two years ago," she at last said, "that I was ambushed on a
trail near home, and we will pass the spot to-day. My horse was brought
down by a shot, I fell, though unhurt, and as three Indians rushed upon
me I managed to fire upon them with my revolver. One fell dead, and----"
"Ah! you were plucky."
"I was acting in self-defence; but the other two seized me, and what
my fate would have been, Heaven only knows, had not a Sioux chief come
to my rescue. He was wounded, but killed my two foes, and then told
me that the three ambushers were bad young men of his tribe. He told
me that his people would avenge their deaths upon the whites, and the
secret must be kept."
"He was wise."
"Yes, and he buried those bodies, wounded as he was, where no one has
ever found them, and his people regard them as renegades from the tribe
to-day. He brought my saddle and bridle that night to my home, and
then went his way, and for weeks was laid up with his wounds. That
chief was Red Hatchet, Lieutenant Carey."
"He had some strong motive for keeping the secret from his people?"
"Yes, he said that it was his love for me, and that there were men of
his tribe who would seek revenge upon me."
"Very true, and upon himself, for killing them to protect you."
"I had not thought of that, yet it is so. But I told my father, and he
told my brother; but otherwise the secret has been kept."
"And the Red Hatchet?"
"Has haunted my life ever since, and though I have told him I could
hold no love for an Indian other than friendly regard, it has had no
effect. To-day he bade me meet him, where you saw us, if I had any
regard for my people. I obeyed, not daring to refuse, and then he told
me that unless I became his wife he would turn the young warriors of
his tribe loose upon the settlements. He it was who told me that you
had killed Sitting Bull----"
"I had killed him?"
"Yes, so he said, and that he had attempted his rescue, but failed.
I put him off with a promise to give him an answer within one week,
and intended to ride to the quarters of General Carr and tell him the
situation exactly. I dared not refuse."
"It was wise in you, Miss Bernard, to do so, and yet when I had him in
my power you were the cause of his going free."
"Let me see if I can make clear to you my feelings about that. The
Indian loves me, and that I could not hold against him. Then he it
was who saved me from those bad warriors, at the risk of his own life,
and for which he suffered greatly. That debt I could cancel in but one
way, and to clear it utterly from my conscience I rode back to tell his
captor that he was the friend, not the foe of the whites, for so he had
ever appeared to be until his terrible threat to-day. Had I not said
that he was not the leader of the redskin rescuers of Sitting Bull, you
would still have held him prisoner, and if harm befell him it would
have been through me. Thus it was that I told the falsehood, the double
falsehood, in fact, about him, for I wished not his life upon my hands.
Now that I have done my duty toward him, cancelled the debt of deep
gratitude I owed him for his service to me, I tell you the secret, and
of his dire threat of vengeance. Have I made myself fully understood,
Lieutenant Kit Carey?"
"Fully, Miss Bernard."
"Then I shift all responsibility I hold to your broad shoulders," she
said, with a smile.
"I accept the load, and wish now to beg your pardon for having
misunderstood you as I did, for I will candidly confess that I believed
that you were in love with your Indian lover."
She started, her eyes flashed fire, but when Kit Carey expected an
angry response, she said, calmly:
"I cannot blame you, sir, under the circumstances, for my words implied
as much. But here is the spot where I was ambushed two years ago, and
those whitened bones you see are those of my poor horse, Dandy, whom I
loved more dearly than I ever yet have learned to love a man," and she
cast a quick, searching glance into the face of the handsome officer,
whose deeds of daring and strange history were the talk around many a
border hearth-stone and camp-fire.
What Jennie Bernard had told Kit was a cause of great uneasiness to
him, for he knew that the Red Hatchet wielded immense influence with
the young braves of his tribe, and was fermenting trouble, hoping to
win fame for himself, for there is a wondrous amount of ambition,
conceit, and pride in an Indian's nature, equal to that among some of
our own pale-face warriors.
A week he might wait, to keep his faith with the young girl, whose
gratitude to him he had mistaken for love; but then if aught occurred
to precipitate trouble between the Indians and the settlers or
soldiers, Red Hatchet would at once act without regard to the time
given the girl.
"Miss Bernard, your father must at once leave his home, going to the
nearest point with his family and belongings where protection is
assured," said Kit.
"It should be so, Lieutenant Carey; but my father will never leave his
home," she answered, in a decided way.
"He must."
"But he never will, for he says that the Sioux will never harm him or
those belonging to him," was the surprising answer of Jennie Bernard.