THE CAVE OF REFUGE.
Three abreast, the chestnut in the middle, the fugitives from the
doomed village of Muck-otey-pokee rode like the wind in a straight,
unswerving line across the prairie. After they had left a considerable
distance behind them, Wahneenah turned her stern face backward, and
scanned the route over which they had passed; and when her keen vision
detected something like a group of glistening bayonets--to ordinary
sight no larger than a point against the horizon--she abruptly doubled
on her course, then made a sharp detour westward. She had early
dropped her own bridle, and had since guided her horse by her low
spoken commands, while in either hand she clutched a bit-ring of the
Snowbird and Tempest. Her change of direction must have brought her
all the more plainly into view of the pursuing soldiers, but in a few
moments she had gained the shelter of a group of trees.
These sprang, apparently, out of the midst of the plain, but she knew
that they really concealed the entrance to the underground pathway to
the cave; and once within their shelter, she paused to breathe and
gaze upon the startled faces of her children.
That of the Sun Maid was pale, indeed, with the excitement of this mad
ride, but showed no fear; while Gaspar's, alas! wore an expression of
abject terror. His eyes stared wildly, his teeth were set, his
nostrils drawn and pinched. He was, his foster-mother saw, already on
the verge of a collapse.
She leaped from her horse, and caught the fainting boy in her arms
while she directed the Sun Maid:
"Jump down and tie the horses, as the Snake-Who-Leaps showed you, by
their long bridles. In any case, there is little fear but they will
stand. Then follow me."
"But what ails my Gaspar, Other Mother?" asked the child, as she
sprang from her saddle. "Did somebody hurt him when the guns fired?"
"No. Tie the horses. He will be right soon. It is the fright. Make
haste, make haste!"
"Yes, yes, I will. My dear old Feather-man taught Kitty everything.
Every single thing about my Snowbird. I can fasten her all tight so
she will never, never get away, unless I let her. I will tie Gaspar's,
too; and shall your Chestnut stay here with them two?"
But for once Wahneenah did not stop to hear her darling out. She had
seen the deftness with which the little girl's small fingers had
copied the instructions of her riding-master, and had wondered at it
many times. She trusted it now, knowing that the lad needed her first
care, and meaning to carry him through the passage into the cave, then
return for the other. She knew, also, that if the soldiers she had
seen following them should come upon the tethered horses, the fact of
their presence would betray her own. But from this possibility there
was no escape; and, had she known it, no need for such.
She had scarcely laid the unconscious boy down upon the floor of her
retreat when Kitty came flying down the tunnel, her task completed.
"So quick, papoose?"
"Yes. Every one is fastened to a pretty tree, and every one is glad.
Why did we ride so fast, Wahneenah? It 'most took Kitty's breath out
of her mouth. But I did like it till my Gaspar looked so queer. Is he
sick, Other Mother? Why doesn't he speak to me?"
"He is ill, in very fact, Girl-Child. Ill of terror. Young as he is,
he has seen fearful sights, and they have hurt his tender heart. But
he will soon be better; and when he is you must not talk to him of our
old home, or of our ride, or of anything except that we are making
another little festival here in our cave. One more cup of water,
papoose, but take care you do not slip when you dip it from the
spring. We will bathe his face and rub his hands, and by and by he
will awake and talk."
Then, leaving the lad to the ministrations of the child, and under
pretence of making "all cosy for the picnic," Wahneenah sped
cautiously back through the passage to the edge of the little grove,
casting a searching glance in each direction. To her infinite relief,
the glistening speck had vanished from the landscape, and she
concluded that the white soldiers had ridden but a short distance
north of the village, and then returned to it. She noticed with pride
how the little maid had fastened each of the brave animals that had
served them so well in a spot where the grass was still green and
plentiful, and that there was no need of her refastening the straps
which held them.
"Surely, her wisdom is more than mortal!" she exclaimed in delight;
such as more cultured mothers feel when they discover that their
little ones are really gifted with the common intelligence that to
them seems extraordinary.
Gaspar was awake, and looking about him curiously, when she got back
into the cavern; and, in response to his silent inquiry, she drew a
tree-branch before the opening and nodded smilingly:
"That is to keep the sunshine out of the Dark-Eyes."
"But--where are we? Why--oh! I remember! I remember! Must I always,
always see such awful things? Is there no place in this world where I
can hide?"
"Why, yes, Dark-Eye. There is just such a place; and we have found it.
Don't you remember our sanctuary? Where the Black Partridge came to
eat the fish you caught? Where we have such a store of good things put
aside. Rest now, after your ride, and the White Papoose shall make a
pillow for you of the rushes I will pull. Then we'll shut the branch
in close, like the curtain of our wigwam, and be as safe and happy as
a bird in its nest."
Wahneenah's assumed cheerfulness did not deceive, though it greatly
comforted, the terrified boy; and the quietude of the sheltered spot,
added to its dimness and his own exhaustion, soon overcame him again,
and his eyelids closed. But the sleep into which he drifted now was a
natural and restful one, and he roused from it, at Kitty's summons,
with something of his old courage--the courage which had made him a
hero that day when he first rode the black gelding, and had used his
boyish strength to do a man's work.
"When Other Mother did make a fire and cook us such a nice breakfast,
we must eat it quick. Kitty's ready. Kitty's dreadful hungry, Kitty
is. Is you hungry, too, Dark-Eye?"
He had not thought that he was. But now that she mentioned it,
he realized the fact. Fortunately, he was so young and healthy
that the scenes through which he seemed destined to pass at such
frequently-recurring intervals could not really affect his physical
condition for any length of time. To see Wahneenah moving about the
little cavern as calmly as if it were her daily habit to be there, and
to catch the sound of the Sun Maid's joyous laughter, was to make the
present seem the only reality.
"Why, it's another picnic, isn't it? Did the things actually happen
back there as I thought? Were we here all night? I used to have such
terrible dreams, when I lived at the Fort, that, when daylight came, I
could not forget them. I get confused between the dreams and the true
things."
"An empty stomach makes a foolish head. Many a squaw is afraid of her
warrior before he breaks his morning fast, and finds him a lamb after
it is eaten," said Wahneenah, sententiously.
"Gaspar is my warrior, Other Mother; but I am never afraid of him."
"You are afraid of nothing, Kitty!" reproved the boy.
"But I am! I am afraid I shall get nothing to eat at all, if you don't
come!"
So the children ate, and Wahneenah served them. She was herself too
anxious to partake of any food, and under her placid exterior she was
straining every nerve to listen for any outward sounds which might
prove that their refuge had been discovered.
But no sounds came to disturb them, and as the hours passed hope
returned to her; and when the Sun Maid had fallen asleep, weary of
frolic, and Gaspar again questioned her concerning the morning, she
answered, in good faith:
"Probably, it was not half so bad as it seemed. There were many bad
Indians in the village, and it is likely for them that the white
soldiers were searching. They must have gone away long since. By and
by, if nothing happens, we will return to our own tepee, and forget
this morning's fright. The Snake-Who-Leaps will be proud of his pupils
for the way they rode at his bidding."
A shiver ran through the lad's frame, and he crept within the shelter
of Wahneenah's arm.
"But did you not see what happened to him? He lies beneath the
curtains of your lodge, and he will teach us no more. A white soldier
shot him. I saw him fall."
The woman herself had not seen this, and she now sprang to her feet in
a fury of indignation.
"A white man killed him! That grand old brave, who should have lived
to be a hundred years! It cannot be."
"But it was."
She was the daughter of a mighty chief. Her blood was royal, and she
gloried in it. All the race-hatred in her nature roused, and, for the
moment only, she glowered upon the pale-faced youth before her, as if
he represented, in his small person, all the sins of his own people.
Then the paroxysm passed, and her nobler self triumphed. Sitting down
again, she sought to draw the boy back into her embrace, but he held
himself aloof, and would not. So she began to talk with him there,
with a simple wisdom and dignity that she had learned from nature
itself.
"Why should we be angry, one with another, my son? The Great Spirit is
our Father. No man comes into life nor leaves it by a chance. What the
Mighty One decrees, that it is befalls. Between His red-skinned
children and His pale-faced ones He has put an undying enmity. I have
not always so believed. I have hoped and pleaded for the peace which
should glorify the world, even as the sun is glorifying the wide land
outside of this dim cavern. But it is not so to be. Even as the chief,
the Black Partridge, said: there is a feud which can never be
overcome, for it is of the Great Spirit's own planting. He that made
us all permits it. Let us, then, in our small place, cease to fight
against the inevitable. We have made the compact. We will abide by it.
In a tiny corner of the beautiful world we three will live in
harmony. Let the rest go. Put away your anger against my people, as I
now put aside mine against yours. The Sun Maid is of both races, it
seems to me. She is our Bond, our Peace-maker, our Delight. Behold!
She wakes. Before her eyes, let no shadow of our mutual trouble fall.
I go outside to watch. If all seems well, we may ride home at
nightfall."
Save for the danger to her young charges, she would have done so even
then. Far superior though she had always been to them, her heart
yearned over the helpless women of her tribe whom she had left behind.
"But that cannot be. They were tied fast by their motherhood to the
homes wherein they may have perished, even as I am tied here by my
adopted ones. The beasts, too, are tied; but they, at least, may have
a moment's freedom."
So she loosed them, and guided them to the pool where they could
drink, and watched them curiously, to see if they would avail
themselves of the liberty she had thus offered. But they did not. They
quaffed the clear water, then tossed their velvet nostrils about its
depths till it was soiled and worthless; yet they turned of their own
accord away from the wind-swept prairie into the shelter of the trees,
and grouped themselves beneath one, as if uniting against some common,
unseen enemy.
"They are wiser than their masters," said Wahneenah, patting her
Chestnut's beautiful neck; and seeing a deeper glade, where they might
spend the night even more safely, she led them thither and fastened
them again. Under ordinary circumstances she would have left them
untethered; but she knew not then at what moment she might again need
them, as they had been needed earlier in the day.
When the darkness fell, Wahneenah put aside the brushwood door which
she had placed before the entrance to the cave, and sat down upon the
withering branch to watch and wait. The children were both asleep, and
she knew that if the Black Partridge were still alive and able he
would seek her there, as he had promised on that day in the past when
they had discussed the possibility of what had really now occurred.
She was not to be disappointed. While she sat, contrasting the
happiness that had been hers on just the night before with the
uncertainty of this, there sounded in the sloping tunnel the tread of
a moccasined foot. Also, she could hear the crowding of a stalwart
figure against its sides, and there was something in both sounds which
told her who was coming.
"My brother is late."
"It is better thus, it may be, than not at all."
"The voice of the Black Partridge is sorrowful."
"The heart of the chief is broken within him."
For a space after that neither spoke. Then Wahneenah rose and set a
candle in a niche of the wall and lighted it. By its flame she could
see to move about and she presently had brought some food in a dish
and placed a gourd of water by the chief's side.
The water he drank eagerly and held the cup for more; but the food he
pushed aside, relapsing into another silence.
Finally, Wahneenah spoke.
"Has the father of his tribe no message for his sister?"
"Over what the ear does not hear, the heart cannot grieve."
"That is a truth which contradicts itself."
"The warrior of Wahneenah judged well when he chose this cavern for a
possible home."
"It is needed, then? As the Black Partridge foretold."
"It is needed. There is no other."
The words were quietly spoken; but there was heart-break in each one.
"Our village? The home of all our people? Is it not still safe and a
refuge for all unfortunates among the nations?"
"Where Muck-otey-pokee laughed by the waterside, there is now a heap
of ruins. The river that danced in the sunlight is red with the blood
of the slain and of all the lodges wherein we dwelt, not one remains!"
"My brother! Surely, much brooding has made you distraught. Such
cannot be. There were warriors, hundreds of them in the settlement and
before their arrows the pale-faces fall like trees before the
woodman's axe."
"If the arrows are not in the quiver, can the warrior shoot? Against
the man who steals up in the rear, can one be prepared? It was a
short, sharp battle. The innocent fell with the guilty, and the earth
receives them all. Where Muck-otey-pokee stood is a blackened waste.
Those who survived have fled, to seek new homes wherever they may find
them. In her pathways the dead faces stare into the sky as even yet,
among the sandhills, lie and stare the unburied dead of the Fort
Dearborn massacre. It is fate. It is nature. It is the game of life.
To-day one wins, to-morrow another. In the end, for all--is death."
For a while after that, Wahneenah neither moved nor spoke, and the
Black Partridge lapsed into another profound silence. Finally, the
woman rose, and going to the fireplace, took handsful of its ashes and
strewed them upon her head and face. Then she drew her blanket over
her features, and thus, hiding her sorrow even from the witness of the
night, she sat down again in her place and became at once as rigid
and impassive as her brother.
Thus the morning found them. Despite their habit of wandering from
point to point, the village of Muck-otey-pokee was the rallying-place
of the Pottawatomies, their home, the ancient burial-ground of their
dead. Its destruction meant, to the far-seeing Black Partridge, also
the destruction of his tribe. Therefore, as he had said, his spirit
was broken within him.
But at the last he rose to depart, and still fasting. With the
solemnity of one who parted from her forever, he addressed the veiled
Wahneenah and bade her:
"Put aside the grief that palsies, and find joy in the children whom
the Great Spirit has sent you. They also are homeless and orphaned.
There are left now no white soldiers to harry and distress. This
cavern is warmer than a wigwam, and there is store of food for many
more than three. Remain here until the springtime and by then I may
return. I go now to my brother Gomo, at St. Joseph's, to counsel at
his fireside on what may yet be done to save the remnant of our
people. You are safer here than in any village that I know. Farewell."
But, absorbed in his own gloomy reflections, the Black Partridge for
once forgot his native caution; and without waiting to reconnoitre, he
mounted his horse and rode boldly away from the shelter of the brush
into the broad light of the prairie and so due north toward the
distant encampment of his tribesmen.
Yet the glittering eyes of a jealous Indian were watching him as he
rode. An Indian who had been sheltered by the hospitality of the great
chief, and for many months, in Muck-otey-pokee; but who had neither
gratitude nor mercy in his heart, wherein was only room for treachery
and greed.
As Black Partridge rode away from the cave by the river, the other
mounted his horse and rode swiftly toward it.