Chapter XVIII A Life for a Life
Meanwhile Joe was having a thrilling experience.
While his father and mother stood gazing after him with prayers on their lips the boy was leaning forward over Kit’s neck, urging her forward with voice and knees.
A great fear filled him. A terrible and undefined horror chilled his blood and knocked heavily at his heart.
“They’ve got Nina! They’ve got Nina!” he said over and over to himself until the words formed themselves into a kind of a chant that beat itself out in time to the thudding hoofs.
He had no consciousness of time or place or distance. His one frantic impulse was for speed, speed! It was not until he felt the mare heave and stumble under him that he came to himself and realized that she was nearly done.
“Poor Kit!” he murmured, checking her up and stroking the heaving sides and panting neck. “I mustn’t kill you whatever happens.”
He slipped down from her back, rubbed her down with grass, then cooled her mouth and sponged her nose with water from the precious flask he carried.
When she had ceased to heave and began to breathe more naturally he mounted again and tried to curb his urging spirit to her strength.
Kit had been born on the Ohio farm, and Joe had loved and tended and petted her from a colt. She knew every tone of his voice, and would come to him at his call. She was not, as his father had reminded him, a riding-horse. Her gait was not suited to the saddle, and as she had always been used for farm work, riding her was a painful and difficult matter. But Joe was not thinking of his own comfort now. He was thinking of Nina—Nina in the hands of the Indians! Nina in the clutches of the renegade with red hair!
As the sun began to droop low in the west he reined up and looked about him. Over the whole vast expanse of the prairies no living thing was in sight. Nowhere was there any sign of the Indians, and he recalled with a sore heart what his father had said, that with their swift ponies it would be impossible for him to catch up with them.
He felt weak and faint, and dismounting slipped the bridle over Kit’s head and let her graze while he threw himself down on the grass and drank from the flask of water and ate some of the lunch that his father had put up for him.
Darkness fell swiftly these days. Before the son and purple in the western sky had faded the shadows of night were darkling over the plains. He urged Kit forward, determined that he would not sleep, that neither he nor she should know rest until he had reached Bellevue and set the Government agencies at work to rescue Nina.
Darkness was closing in about him when turning to scan the empty circle of the horizon he saw outlined against the fading sky a curl of smoke.
His heart gave a great leap.
Could it be the camp of the Indians?
His breath came quick and fast, and whirling Kit sharply about he dashed madly across the prairies toward it.
Boy-like, he did not stop to consider what he would do when he got there. Whether the encampment was that of friend or foe, or how, in case it should be the band who had abducted the little Princess, he should set about to rescue her.
All he thought about was to get there. The rest would come when he was on the ground.
Kit had got her second wind now, and traveled steadily, jolting and shaking the boy on her back cruelly, but covering the ground at a good gait.
He knew that he could not reach the point from whence he saw the smoke rising for nearly an hour, and realized that he must not approach it before darkness had completely enshrouded the plains and the camp had settled down for the night.
As he came nearer, his heart was gladdened, and at the same time shaken, by the sound of the tom-toms and the rhythmic chant of voices. Checking up his horse he rode more slowly, biding his time until the camp should be shrouded in darkness and sleep.
When darkness came he could make out the red glare of the camp-fire against the sky, and could see the silhouette of dusky figures dancing about it He got down, and muffling Kit’s nose in his handkerchief, lest she should whinny, he walked beside her, ready at an instant’s notice to check her slightest noise.
He could hear the singing plainly now, but did not know enough of Indian lore to realize that the song they were chanting was not a war-song, but the hymn of the buffalo hunt, appealing to the Great Spirit to bless the chase and give to them meat for their lodges and covers for their teepees before the coming of the big snows.
As the boy crept nearer his very heart was in his throat.
He saw presently that the camp was on a creek, that there were scrubby trees behind it, and a tangled thicket ahead.
Afraid to lead Kit any nearer he took her to the outmost fringe of the thicket and tied her securely, with the handkerchief still over her nose. Then he crept forward through the brush.
He could see the camp plainly now. The teepees were set up along the banks of the creek, the great fire in the centre of the half-circle, and on the ground was the newly removed hide of a buffalo, while the savory smell of its roasting flesh still hung in the air.
Creeping up as close to the teepees as he could and still remain in shelter he looked and listened intently.
Was Nina in one of those tents?
Which one?
Would she be alone? Would it be possible for him to reach her?
Doubts, questions, and anxieties struggled in his mind as he lay hidden in the thicket.
At last the feast was over, the music ceased, the fire died down, and squaws, bucks, and papooses slowly dispersed. The lean, cadaverous dogs, that are always a part of an Indian encampment, prowled about the fire eating the offal, but at last they too were surfeited and lay down to sleep.
Joe waited; his heart thumping so hard against his ribs that he feared the sleeping Indians must hear it.
It seemed to him that hours passed. Now and then a baby cried, a pony whinnied, a dog growled or barked. Gradually snores came to his ears. Long, sonorous snores, short, barking snores, but all of them snores that he was more than glad to hear.
After a time he moved his cramped limbs and slowly got to his knees, then to his feet. With cautious movements he parted the undergrowth about him and began to crawl through.
Whenever a bit of brush crackled he threw himself flat on the ground and tried to burrow himself out of sight. But at last, after much toilful and noiseless wriggling he got clear of the thicket and stood just within its shadow in the open.
Before him were the teepees.
He knew that if Nina were with this band she must be in one of them,—but which?
Cautiously, noiselessly, he worked his way around the edge of the thicket nearer to the teepees. Then on his hands and knees, crawling so close to the ground that he scarcely made a shadow, he wormed his way across the open space.
He knew that his life was not worth an instant’s purchase if he was discovered. He felt positive that detection meant death. But Nina was there—in the hands of her enemies—he must get her!
At last he reached the teepees. Crawled nearer to their openings. Was listening before their doors.
From the nearest one came loud, deep snores. It was a man’s snore—she could not be there. He crept on. From the next came the whimpering sound of a baby’s cry. Something told him that she would not be there. With redoubled caution he wormed his way along to the next. Listening intently he thought he heard a stifled sob. His pulses leaped. Waiting and listening with bated breath he crept nearer. It came again. Some one inside the teepee was crying.
Some one was crying!
It was not a child—it could not be a squaw—-squaws did not cry—it must be Nina!
How should he call her? How let her know that he was there?
Cautiously he raised himself, cautiously with slow, noiseless movement he raised the flap of hide that covered the opening of the teepee.
It was so dark inside that at first he could see nothing; then gradually as his eyes became accustomed to the blackness he made out a heap of leaves and branches at one side of the teepee, on which lay a grey-haired squaw, and his heart gave a great leap that almost made him cry aloud as he saw on the blanket beside her the white face and golden hair of the little Princess.
It was all he could do to stifle the cry that rose to his lips, but he knew that the least sound would be fatal now, so locking his teeth hard he slid forward like a great serpent and bent his face close to the sobbing little girl. Slipping his hand over her mouth he whispered rapidly, “Nina, it is I, Joe; be quiet, I’ve come to save you!”
Quietly as he had entered, soft, almost noiseless as was his whisper, it woke the squaw, who set up a great outcry and darted past him out of the tent. Before the boy could move or the startled girl rise from her couch of branches, a man in a long grey shirt rushed through the opening. As he came Joe thrust his foot between the long legs and tripped him, and as he fell headlong caught up the Princess in his arms and leaped over the prostrate body.
The teepees were placed on the bank above the creek, and back of them ran the line of scrubby timber and the tangle of thick undergrowth through which Joe had worked his way. The instant he found himself outside the teepee with Nina in his arms he darted back of it and into the brush.
Instantly the man in the long flapping grey shirt was on his feet and following them. Joe stopped long enough to catch his silhouette against the sky-line, and fire. He saw him fall, rise, press his hand to his knee with a groan of pain, then sink down into the brush.
Dragging Nina behind him he ducked between the legs of an Indian who was rushing toward him, bowled him over, and dodged behind a tree. He knew that he had not an instant to lose. Seizing Nina by the hand he dragged her behind the tree, then whispered rapidly:
“They’re after us! They may get me, but Kit is just outside the edge of the thicket over that way,” he pointed; “try to get to her and go on to Bellevue. It can’t be very far now. We’ll stick together if we can, but if you see me fall don’t wait, make a dash for Kit——” a great whoop from the teepees above interrupted his broken whisper, and pushing Nina before him he rushed on through the thicket. “Through there—through there,” he panted, “wiggle your way through the brush!” He leaned forward to push the undergrowth aside for her when a bullet whizzed through the air and his arm dropped to his side, while a stinging, burning pain shot through his chest.
“I’m hit!” he gasped. “Go on, hurry—whistle to Kit—you know my whistle—she’ll hear and answer you!”
Nina cast a horrified look upon him, but he waved his arm impatiently, then staggered back and fell, slipping and sliding down the bank and into the water.
With a cry of horror she scrambled after him, but he was nowhere to be seen. The water at the foot of the embankment was ruffled, and she knew that he must have sunk to the bottom.
For a moment she stood with hands locked in agony gazing down into the muddy depths, then as a wild yelp sounded above her gave vent to a great sobbing cry and darted through the undergrowth, taking the direction Joe had pointed out to her.
Joe, badly wounded, probably owed his life to his plunge into the muddy waters of the creek. It brought him sharply back to his failing senses, and instinct made him crawl close to the bank, where, under a heavy growth of coarse reed-like grass and rushes he was entirely concealed from the bank above. He heard the rush of feet above him, the yelp and howl of voices, the loud, angry cursing of a man in the English tongue, then knew no more.
When he came to himself it was morning. There was no sound to be heard, and he was bitterly cold, shivering as if with an ague. He drew himself slowly and painfully out of the water and sat down on the bank. His left arm hung limp and useless at his side, and his shirt was stained and draggled with blood.
How long he sat there he could not tell. He was weak and dizzy, and his head was going around so fast that he could make no note of time. He stooped presently and drank a little from the stream, bathed his aching head, and shook the water from his clothes. Then he got to his feet, and weakly, warily, began making his way through the brush.
He wondered, with a sinking heart, what had become of Nina. Whether she had got away or whether she had been captured again by Red Snake. He could not go far at a time but, stopping every little way to rest and ease the agony in his chest, crept on. The sun was up and shining hot in the heavens when he reached the edge of the thicket. He called and whistled, but there was no answer. Kit was not there.
Suddenly he shrank back into the shelter of the undergrowth with a sickening heart. Across the flat surface of the plain he saw a troop of horsemen riding, and from the way they rode he knew they were Indians.
A groan burst from his lips. He supposed they were hunting him, and cowering back in the shelter of the scrubby undergrowth he gave himself up for lost. He thought that of course they had captured Nina, and the horror and agony of the thought, combined with the pain in his arm and chest, rendered him almost unconscious. Dropping down upon the ground he gradually drifted away into a blank, then into a wild, fevered dream, where all was confusion.
There was a great noise in the dream, a rushing and thundering of hoofs, a shaking of the ground, as if with an earthquake, whoops, yells, the crashing and smashing of timber, and a great crowd about him.
He cried out, and started up in terror. Outside on the plains a party of horsemen were thundering by, and not far away a great red animal lay struggling in its death-agonies, with a group of Indians about it.
Joe raised himself painfully, and creeping to an opening in the thicket looked out. Then suddenly he cried aloud.
These were not Sioux!
With all the blood in his body roaring in his ears he listened to the guttural tones of the Indians bent over the buffalo on the grass, quickly ending its struggles.
He had picked up a few words of the Indian language, and by the dress of these men, by the words that he could catch here and there he knew that they were Omahas and Pawnees.
With no further hesitation he crawled from his hiding-place and raising his hand above his head gave a weak call. The Indians whirled about swiftly and looked at him. One of them detached himself from the rest and came toward him.
He had but strength enough to point to his wound, to say “Heap sick,” then stumbled forward and fell at the Indian’s feet.
When he came to himself he was in an Indian wig-wam.
At first terror took possession of him, thinking that he had again fallen into the hands of the Sioux. But his first stir brought an Indian woman to his side, who, seeing his eyes open, uttered a guttural exclamation and ran from the wigwam. Immediately the opening was thrown back and a young buck entered.
Joe, half-expecting to see Red Snake, cowered down on the bed of boughs and skins. But the Indian who hurried to his side came with outstretched hand and a smile on his face. There was something strangely familiar about him, and as the boy gazed up at him he was struggling in his sick mind to place the face.
The Indian bent over him, smiled, then thrust his hand inside his shirt and brought out a bright red necktie. Joe’s heart gave a great jump of joy.
“Pashepaho!” he cried, and grabbed the slim brown hand. Then gazing about him, “Where am I—how did I happen to get here?”
Pashepaho grinned at him and patted his hand.
“You with my people. Pawnee village on Platte River. Heap sick boy. Been here many sleeps.”
“I have?” Joe rubbed his head confusedly. “How did I get here? I don’t remember—oh!”—as memory began to come back to him—“oh, I was shot—and some Indian came——”
“My young men hunt buffalo. Fin’ you heap sick. Bring you back Big Chief. Big Chief my favver.”
“Oh, and I am in your wigwam? This is your camp?”
Pashepaho nodded.
“And you have been taking care of me, Pashepaho? I was hurt pretty bad, I guess. I believe I would have died there if your young men had not found me.”
“Sure. Heap sick. Medicine man make you well.”
Joe grinned weakly. He had not much faith in medicine men, but he cared little who saved him as long as he was getting well.
“I’m all right now, ain’t I?” he asked anxiously, beginning to realize his great weakness and languor.
“Yep. Get li’l stronger. Eat heap meat.”
Joe suddenly remembered his arm and lifted it gingerly.
Pashepaho saw the movement and grinned. “All ri’ now.” Then laying his hand on the boy’s chest, “Here worse. Heap much hole. Bleed. Cough. Heap sick.”
Joe put his hand to his chest. A rough poultice of leaves and herbs covered it. He could feel that it was still sore, but the burning, stabbing pain that he remembered the last thing before he became unconscious was gone.
He turned and grasped the hand of the young Indian tightly, and his gratitude shone in his sunken grey eyes.
“You’re a true friend, Pashepaho, I guess you saved my life,” he said fervently. Then, stopping now and then to rest when his breath gave out or a coughing spell came on, he told the story of the assault of the Sioux, Nina’s capture, his own pursuit, his discovery of Nina in the teepee, and his shooting and escape.
“I don’t know whether they got Nina again or not,” he concluded sorrowfully. “I did the best I could, but when I got plugged in the chest I didn’t know much afterward. I told her to get through the thicket if she could and find Kit, but I don’t know whether she made it, and even if she did they might have got her afterward. To think of that poor little girl in the hands of that brute——”
His voice shook, and he stopped abruptly.
Pashepaho patted his shoulder. “No worry,” he said. “She get home all ri’.” Then, “Who get? Indian carry off girl?”
Joe’s face flushed and his eyes blazed. “No, I don’t believe there’s any Indian mean enough. It was a white man. He lives with the Sioux——”
“Squaw-man?”
“I guess that’s what they call him. He’s got some kind of a grudge against Nina or her folks. This is the third time he has attacked her. He killed her father. Sometimes I have wondered if——”
“What kind man?”
“Oh, he’s a big brute, tall and terribly strong, but thin, and he’s got red hair and a”—then as a sudden flash of memory came over him—“why, say, you know him! That’s the man that was trying to trade you out of that otter skin the first time I saw you!”
“Ai-ee, ai-ee! Big white man, red hair, live with Santee Sioux! Drink heap fire-water! Name Red Snake.”
“Yes—yes—that’s the man—Red Snake. Who is he, Pashepaho? What is he doing living with red men? What is his real name?”
Pashepaho shook his head. “Red Snake all name I know. Heap bad man. Make heap trouble.”
Joe lay back on his blanket depressed and troubled. While he knew that he was now safe his heart was rent with anxiety for Nina and his parents. He had been gone “many sleeps”! He knew that by this time they must think him dead. And Nina—poor little Princess—what of her? Where was she, and what had she suffered while he lay unconscious in Pashepaho’s wigwam!
He would have risen and tried to start forth at once, but Pashepaho and Petale-sharu, his father, the Great Chief, would not allow it.
“Me take you when you can ride,” assured Pashepaho, and with that assurance Joe was forced to be content.
He found that he was in an Indian settlement on Buffalo Creek, where he was left alone day after day with the old men and squaws and papooses while the men of the tribe were away on the big fall hunt.
It was tedious business waiting for his wound to heal with so anxious a heart in his breast, and it took all the patience and fortitude he possessed. He played with the dogs and children, and talked with the squaws, whom he found to be kind and gentle, and who seemed glad to teach him their own language, learning, meanwhile, amid great laughter, a little of the English tongue. They had funny times making themselves understood by one another, and while his wound healed and his strength came back day by day Joe acquired a knowledge of the language and customs of the Pawnees which stood him in good stead at a later day.
The Pawnees lived in large circular houses called “earth lodges,” with walls of dirt and a roof supported by trunks of trees set upright inside of the walls, the whole covered with poles, grass and sod. On the east side was a covered entrance, and on the west were the sacred bundle and buffalo skull. There was a hole in the centre of the roof to let the smoke out, and the people slept around the edge of the circle made by the walls, and gathered about the lodge-fire in the centre of the enclosure to eat and talk.
The women raised crops of corn, beans, pumpkins, squashes, and melons, and gathered the wild fruits and roots from the prairie and dried them for winter. As they were now busy with the drying process Joe often helped them, telling them in his boyish way how they could better their farming, and even taking a hand, when he grew strong enough, in showing them how to harvest their crops in an easier and more scientific manner.
He found them to be a very religious people, and as they came to know him better and to grow fond of him, he was sometimes allowed to attend their sacred rites. They believed in a Great Spirit, whom they called “Tirawa,” the Father, who made the people, and who sent the corn, the rain, the buffalo, the sunshine, and all good things, and he was permitted to witness some of the dances and ceremonials held by the tribe for the purpose of gaining the favor of Tirawa.
In spite of his terrible anxiety about Nina and the burning desire he had to get back to his parents and relieve their worry about him the days went by not unhappily. He found the Pawnees to be a quiet, gentle people, friendly to the whites, and with high ideas of honor and honesty which surprised as well as delighted him. The women were very kind to him, gave him the best the lodges afforded to eat, and nursed and tended him until he was able to wait upon himself.
He had no means of knowing how time had gone by. To the best of his knowledge he must have been gone nearly a month, when Pashepaho, seeing his continual anxiety, told him one morning that they would set out upon his journey homeward the next day.
Joe could not sleep that night, and was awake and ready before even the first prowling dog of the encampment was astir.
After a good breakfast he bade them all good-bye, thanked the kind people over and over again for their care and hospitality, and mounting the shaggy Indian pony that Pashepaho had provided for him, and well equipped with food and water, they set forth toward home.
Joe could never have found his way alone. They wound along creek bottoms and by devious paths and trails which a white man would never have discovered, and as they rode they talked. Joe found that his friend Pashepaho was not only an exceedingly intelligent young Indian, but a man of courage and principle as well.
He told the boy that his people had lived in what was then called the Territory of Nebraska for more than two hundred years. That they had always been friendly to the white man, but that the white brothers who had come among them had robbed and deceived them and were taking from them all that they had possessed as their own for so many centuries. He talked sorrowfully of the condition of his people, and said in a tragic voice that he knew that their day was past. Standing upon a little rise and sweeping his arm in a slow circle all about him he said, “All once belong to my people. But white man come, and now my people are as the leaves on the trees in the winter, yours as the grass in the fields. If we rebel we get kill. If twenty your people fall, hundreds of mine must pay. No hope. The Indian must go. His day is ended.”
The second day out they saw a great herd of buffalo feeding on the plains. Joe could see that it was hard for Pashepaho to pass them by unmolested.
“Can’t we try to get a shot at them?” cried Joe, willing, boy-like, to risk anything for the sake of a stirring chase.
Pashepaho shook his head.
“No shoot,” he grunted. “Bring trouble. We no want Sioux come now.” Then glancing at the boy, who was still pale from his recent illness, “You no hunt now. Bime-by when you strong me take you big hunt some day.”
“Oh, will you, Pashepaho?” cried Joe eagerly. “Hurray! And may Lige come, too? Jeminy, that’d be great. Don’t forget, will you?”
“Me no forget,” remarked Pashepaho, with a smile that showed how fond he had grown of his young white friend.
On the third day, or as Pashepaho expressed it, “three sleeps from the Pawnee settlement,” Joe began to recognize the landscape.
“Oh, I know this road,” he cried out excitedly, “we traveled over it when we were coming out! We made our noon camp right over there! Yes, sir, there’s the signs of our fire yet! We go straight west from here, don’t we?”
Pashepaho looked into the flushed, excited face of his young friend. “We no far from Blue Water now,” he said with a smile.
Joe’s heart beat hard and high as they came nearer and nearer to the homestead. What should he find when he got there? What might have happened while he had been away?