Chapter IX Red Snake
It had been Joshua Peniman’s intention to pass the night at Council Bluffs and cross the Missouri in the morning. But the events that had transpired at the general store so alarmed him that he decided to leave the trading-station at once, anxious to get the child who appeared to be so surrounded by mystery away from the proximity of the stranger with the degenerate, fox-like face.
They drove until dark along the banks of the river, then made their camp in the woods in a place that looked sheltered and secure. They had finished their supper and were preparing for bed when the young Indian, whom Joe had advised not to trade his otter skin for the stranger’s worthless string of beads, came striding into their camp.
He walked straight up to Joe and held out his hand.
“Good boy,” he said, greatly to the lad’s astonishment. Then without another word laid the otter skin in his hands.
“Hello,” cried Joe, “where’d you come from?”
“Me Pashepaho. Son Pawnee chief. Spik li’le.” Then looking down at the otter skin—“Heap bad man.”
“Who? Oh, the feller that was tryin’ to do you out of this skin for a string of beads? I should sa-ay so. He’s a crook, he is. But say, P—p——”
“Pashepaho. Son chief.”
“Uh-huh,” nodded Joe, to whom the son of a chief was no different from any other Indian, “but look here, Pashepaho, you fellers ought to learn the value of your goods and not let those thieving white men skin you like that. I happen to know that this is a good otter skin, because my uncle used to deal in furs and I’ve seen lots of ’em. Those beads he was tryin’ to trade you weren’t worth a quarter.”
“No?” the young Indian looked at him and a slow fire smouldered in his eyes.
“White brother liar. Take ’way red man’s land, take ’way red man’s furs, take ’way red man’s wife, give red man fire-water.”
Mr. Peniman had come up to hear what the Indian was saying. “That’s true,” he said gravely, “the white men are setting a bad example to their red brothers, I fear.” Then after a moment’s pause, “Do you know who that man was, Pashepaho?”
“Red Snake. Heap bad man. Got bad heart. Trade with Indian. Live Santee Sioux.”
Joshua Peniman started. “He lives with the Santee Sioux?”
The Indian nodded.
“But he is not an Indian, he’s a white man, isn’t he?”
“Squaw-man.”
For a moment Joshua Peniman stood staring at him, his brain whirling.
A white man—lived with the Santee Sioux! Had evidently recognized—or partly recognized—Nina Carroll! Who could he be? What the relation between him and the departed Carrolls? What could be the meaning of this tangle in which he had involved himself by taking into his custody the friendless child of the white man who had been slain by a Sioux arrow!
The young Indian pointed to the pelt, which still hung carelessly over Joe’s arm.
“Me give,” he said. “Pawnee heap white man’s friend.”
“You mean you want to give me this skin?” cried Joe.
The young Indian grinned and nodded.
“Oh, no, Pashepaho! That pelt’s worth good money. I have no use for it, and you ought to get a good price for it. I’m awfully much obliged all the same; it was fine of you to want to make me a present. I like you. You’re square. Shake. You and I will be friends, shan’t we?”
Pashepaho shook the hand that Joe extended to him. Joe dashed into the wagon and scrambled out again a moment later carrying a bright red necktie in his hand.
“Here, you take this. I’d like to make you a present. I know you like red. It’ll look good on you.”
Pashepaho took it eagerly, scrutinizing the brilliant bit of silk with the pleased smile of a child. Then he proceeded to wind it about his head, tying it in a knot in the back and letting the ends hang down over his shoulders.
“There! That looks fine! I knew it would be becoming to you,” cried Joe, without an intimation that that was not the accustomed manner of wearing neckties.
The Indian looked from the boy to his father with a pleased grin. “You sleep?” he asked.
“Yes, we’re going to camp here to-night,” answered Joe.
“Me sleep, too.”
Joe brought him out a substantial supper, which he ate squatted on the grass beside the wagons, and when the family settled down to their night’s rest he lay down beside them with his blanket over his head.
It was long past midnight when Joe was awakened by a slight movement at his feet. He had heard no sound. Spotty was standing, his ears cocked forward, and the young Indian, motionless as a statue, stood with bow bent, an arrow in rest.
“What’s the matter? What do you see?” cried Joe, springing up.
“Sh-sh!” whispered the Indian.
For a moment longer he stood, then discharged the arrow and at the same moment let loose a blood-curdling yell that roused the family and set the children to screaming.
Mr. Peniman leaped wildly to his feet.
“What is it? Where are they?” he shouted, but the young Indian laughed and snapped his fingers.
“Gone!” he said with a gesture of wide flight, “Red Snake coward. Think Big Chief come.”
“Red Snake! Was Red Snake here? How do you know? What was he doing? Were there other Indians with him?”
Pashepaho shrugged his shoulders.
“Me know he come. Me come. He scare. He run ’way. He no come more. Think heap much Pawnee here.”
He chuckled to himself, but Joshua Peniman did not join in his merriment. He knew now that a deadly enemy was following them, and that while Nina Carroll was in their hands there could be neither rest nor security for the family.
They rose early, and taking a grateful farewell of Pashepaho started on their way.
In the fresh light of early morning, they caught their first glimpse of Nebraska.
The land all about them lay smiling, with tall prairie grass waving to and fro and flickering with constantly changing shades and colors, the river glinted like a sheet of silver, and over all arched the sky, blue as an amethyst, with the delicate shades of early sunrise coloring the east.
They crossed the Missouri on the ferry-boat General Marion, which had been running only since the spring of the year before, and found themselves in Omaha, taking their first view of the bare, straggling settlement which is now the chief city of the great agricultural State of Nebraska.
At that time Omaha was the centre of the reservation of the Maha, or Omaha, tribe, and a trading post for the trappers and traders who had come to profit by the credulity and ignorance of the Indians. Missionaries were here who had come to carry Christianity into the wilderness, and a few white settlers who at that date had found their way across the river into the newly organized territory. The great motionless prairies lay spread out in striking contrast to the uplands and valleys along the river, with the sombre brown of the vegetation lighted up by the sunrise through a soft haze that cast a glamour over the picture.
The Omahas were camped in their teepees on the lowlands, bucks, squaws, papooses, dogs, wigwams and ponies huddled together, just as they had come from their great annual hunt in the Elkhorn valley, where elk, bison, antelope and other game abounded. There were a few shanties and log huts scattered about, but at this date, August of 1856, there were not more than fifty white families in the whole of Douglas County.
Joshua Peniman inquired the way to Bellevue, and after a brief stop in Omaha set forth for the Mission at that point.
Before leaving Omaha, Hannah Peniman had sent the children into the other wagon, and drew the little Princess to her, reminding her of her dead mother’s wishes, and telling her that they were now near Bellevue, where they would leave her at the Mission, from which she hoped that she might be sent home to her own people.
Somewhat to her surprise, the little girl received the announcement with grief and terror.
“Oh, no, no, no,” she cried, “I don’t want to be left there! I’d die of homesickness there! Oh, Mother Peniman, don’t leave me, don’t leave me, please don’t go away and leave me!”
“But you would only be there a short time, Nina,” said Mrs. Peniman gently; “they would soon send you home.”
“I have no home,” she cried, bursting into a wild storm of weeping; “I don’t know any of my people. My papa and mama are dead, and there is no one who wants me or cares for me! Oh, don’t leave me, Mother Peniman, please, please take me with you!”
“Can you tell me the names of any of your relatives, Nina? Don’t you remember your grandfather or grandmother? Haven’t you any aunts or uncles or cousins? Who is there back there where you used to live that you could go to?”
“I don’t know, I don’t know!” sobbed the child. “I never knew any of them. My grandma and grandpa on Mama’s side are both dead, and I think Papa must have quarreled with his parents, for he never talked about them. We lived abroad ’most all the time, and when we were in this country we lived all by ourselves in New York.”
“But can’t you tell us the names of any people who would know who your relatives are? Your mother said——”
“No, no, I can’t, I can’t!” sobbed the child. “Everything was in the box Mama gave me. She told me that full particulars were in there. I don’t know who they can send me to—I have no friends—no one who loves me——”
Hannah Peniman looked at her husband over the head that was buried on her breast. The past few months had drawn lines in the comely face, had silvered the shining brown hair with threads of grey, and left deep shadows in the sweet blue eyes.
“She doesn’t know—she doesn’t understand, the poor lamb,” she said tremulously.
“Oh, yes, I do know, yes I do understand,” sobbed the child. “I know that my papa and mama are dead and that I am left all alone in the world—I have no one who loves or cares for me—and now you are going to send me away—leave me all alone at a Mission—and I’ll die—I’ll just die——”
Her voice had risen into a loud sobbing wail, and the children in the other wagon heard it. In a twinkling Joe, Lige and Ruth were running back to them.
“Mother—what’s the matter with Princess—I heard her crying,” panted Ruth, scrambling into the wagon.
“They’re going to leave me—leave me—at the M-M-Mission,” sobbed Princess. “They’re tired of me—they don’t love me—and they’re going to send me back h-h-home!”
Joe sprang into the wagon, his face looking strangely pale and set.
“Leave her at a Mission? Father—what does she mean?”
His father explained, as gently as he could, omitting, for the sake of the little girl, the danger that threatened them on her account, and which seemed to be so relentlessly following her.
The child had thrown herself into Joe’s arms, and he listened with his arms clasped about her.
“It was the dying wish of her mother, Joe,” Mr. Peniman concluded.
“But she is dead—and Nina is alive. If she doesn’t know her own people—if she doesn’t want to go to them—isn’t it better that she should be allowed to do what she wants to with her own life?”
“But the danger, Joe——”
Joe clasped his arms more tightly about her. “I’ll take care of her, Father,” he said, with an expression that made the words like a vow.
A few hours later they reached Bellevue, the oldest town in Nebraska, and once designed to be its capital, and Mr. Peniman drove directly to the Mission.
They left Nina in the wagon with the other children while they went inside. What was said or done, what discoveries they made, or what caused them to so quickly reach a decision the children never knew; but only a few minutes had passed before they saw them returning, and Hannah Peniman’s head was held high and an angry spot was burning on either cheek as she climbed into the wagon.
Nina, with tear-stained face and eyes swollen and red with weeping, was clasped in Ruth’s arms, and both of them were crying together. When they heard the approach of Mr. and Mrs. Peniman Nina raised her head with a gasping sob, but Mrs. Peniman bent over her, took her in her arms and pressed her to her breast.
“Don’t cry, poor lamb,” she comforted, “thee shall not be taken from us. I believe your chances are better with us than they would ever have been there. God took our baby daughter from us, and I believe that He has given us thee to comfort us. Cry no more, dear child, thee shall stay with us, and our fortunes shall be thy fortunes, to the end of the chapter.”
There was great joy in the wagons when the news went forth that Princess was not to be taken from them. The children had all become devotedly attached to their little comrade, and her happiness was no greater than theirs when they learned that they were not to be parted. Mr. and Mrs. Peniman, too, felt a great weight lifted from their hearts.
“He who never faileth us will guard her, Joshua,” said Hannah Peniman, a mist in her brave blue eyes. “I could never have found it in my conscience to abandon the poor lamb. She will be to us as one of our own children, and I know that her mother will rest more tranquilly there in her grave on the lonely prairies knowing that her little one is with us. Her spirit will watch over her, her love will guide her safely through all dangers and alarms.”
“God grant that it may be so,” answered Joshua Peniman solemnly.