Читать книгу Adventures of Big-Foot Wallace (Illustrated Edition) - John Crittenden Duval - Страница 17
ОглавлениеBLACK WOLF’S INDIAN LEGEND—DETERMINATION TO ESCAPE—BACK IN THE SETTLEMENTS.
A great many years ago,” said Black Wolf, “a young chief, belonging to one of the most powerful tribes of Arkansas, concluded that he would visit one of the nearest white settlements, and see some of the people of whom he had heard so much. So he took his gun and dog, crossed the ‘father of waters’ in his canoe, and travelled for many days toward the rising of the sun, through a dense forest that had never echoed to the sound of the white man’s axe. One day, just as the sun was setting, he came to the top of a high hill, and four or five miles away, in the valley below, he saw the smoke curling up from the chimneys of the most western settlement, at that time, east of the Mississippi river.
“As it was too late to reach the settlement before dark, the chief sought out the thickest part of the woods, where he spread his blanket upon the ground, and laid himself down upon it, with the intention of passing the night there. He had scarcely settled himself to rest, when he heard a ‘halloo’ a long way off among the hills. Supposing that some one had got lost in the woods, he raised himself up and shouted as loud as he could. Again he heard the ‘halloo’ apparently a little nearer, but it sounded so mournful and wild, and so unlike the voice of any living being, that he became alarmed, and did not shout in return. After awhile, however, the long mournful ‘halloo-o-o’ was repeated, and this time much nearer than before. The chief’s heart beat loudly in his bosom, and a cold sweat broke out upon his forehead; for he knew that the unearthly sounds that met his ears never came from mortal lips. His very dog, too, seemed to understand this, for he whined and cowered down at his feet, seemingly in the greatest dread. Again the prolonged and mournful ‘halloo-o-o’ was heard, and this time close at hand, and in a few moments an Indian warrior stalked up and took a seat near the chief, and gazed mournfully at him out of his hollow eyes, without uttering a word.
“He was dressed in a different garb from anything the chief had ever seen worn by the Indians, and he held a bow in his withered hand, and a quiver, filled with arrows, was slung across his shoulders. As the chief looked more closely at him, he saw that his unearthly visitor was, in fact, a grinning skeleton; for his white ribs showed plainly through the rents in his robe, and though seemingly he looked at the chief, there were no eyes in the empty sockets he turned toward him. Presently the figure rose up, and, in a hollow voice, spoke to the chief, and told him to return from whence he came, for their race was doomed—that they would disappear before the white people like dew before the morning sun—that he was the spirit of one of his forefathers, and that he came to warn him of the fate that awaited him and his people—that he could remember when the Indians were as numerous as the leaves on the trees, and the white people were few and weak, and shut up in their towns upon the sea-shore—now they are strong, and their number cannot be counted, and before many years they will drive the last remnant of the red race into the waters of the great western ocean. ‘Go back,’ said the figure, advancing toward the chief, and waving his withered hand, ‘and tell your people to prepare themselves for their doom, and to meet me in the “happy hunting grounds,” where the white man shall trouble them no more.’
“As he said this he came up close to the chief, and placed his skeleton fingers on his head, and glared at him out of the empty sockets in his fleshless skull! ‘Son of a fading race, the last hour of your unfortunate people is fast approaching, and soon not a vestige of them will be left on all this wide continent. They and their forests, their hunting grounds, their villages and wigwams, will disappear forever, and the white man’s cities and towns will rise up in the places where once they chased the buffalo, the elk, and the deer.’
“The chief was as fearless a warrior as ever went to battle; but when he felt the cold touch of that skeleton hand, a horrible dread took possession of him, and he remembered nothing of what happened afterward. In the morning, when he woke up, the sun was shining brightly over head, and the birds were whistling and chirping in the trees above him. He looked around for his gun, and was surprised beyond reason when he picked it up and found that the barrel was all eaten up with rust, and the stock so decayed and rotten that it fell to pieces in his hand. His dog was nowhere to be seen, and he whistled and called to him in vain; but at his feet he saw a heap of white bones, among which there was a skeleton of a neck, with the collar his dog had worn still around it! He then noticed that his buckskin hunting-shirt was decayed and mildewed, and hung in tatters upon him, and that his hair had grown so long that it reached down nearly to his waist. Bewildered by all these sudden and curious changes, he took his way toward the top of the hill, from which, the evening before, he had seen the smoke rising up from the cabins of the frontier settlement, and what was his astonishment when he saw, spread out in the valley below him, a great city, with its spires and steeples rising up as far as his eye could extend; and in place of the dense, unbroken forests that covered the earth when he came, a wide, open country presented itself to his view, fenced up into fields and pastures, and dotted over with the white man’s stately houses and buildings.
“As he gazed at all this in surprise and wonder, he could distinctly hear, from where he stood, the distant hum of the vast multitude who were laboring and trafficking and moving about in the great city below him. Sad and dispirited, he turned his course homeward, and after travelling many days through farms and villages and towns, he at length reached once more the banks of the mighty Mississippi. But the white people had got there before him, and in place of a silent and lonely forest, he found a large town built up where it had once stood, and saw a huge steamboat puffing and paddling along right where he had crossed the ‘father of waters’ in his little canoe. When he had crossed the river, he found that the white settlements had gone on a long ways beyond it, but at length he came to the wilderness again, and after wandering about for many moons, he at last came up with the remnant of his people, but now no longer a powerful tribe, such as he had left them, for they had dwindled down to a mere handful. His father and mother were dead, his brothers and sisters were all dead, and no one knew the poor old warrior that had appeared so suddenly among them. For a while he staid with them, and talked, in the strangest way, about things that had happened long before the oldest people in the tribe were born; but one day, after telling the story I have told you, he took his way toward the setting sun, and was never seen more.”
When I had been about three months with the tribe, I began to long exceedingly to be once more with my own people. I lost all relish for “forays” and “hunting expeditions,” and thought only of effecting my escape, and making my way back to the “settlements.” I became moody and discontented to such a degree that Black Wolf and his mother at length took notice of it. One day, when Black Wolf and myself were alone together in the lodge, he said to me, “My brother, what is it that makes you so unhappy and discontented; for I have seen for some time that you have had something on your mind? Has any one mistreated my brother?”
“No,” said I, “every one has treated me well; but I tell you frankly, my brother,” (for I knew he would not betray me,) “I am pining to see my own people again, and I am determined to attempt to make my escape into the settlements, if it should cost me my life.”
“My brother,” said Black Wolf, “I shall be very sorry if you leave us, and so will my old mother; but it is not strange you should wish to see your own people again, and you must go. I will help you all that I can to reach the settlements in safety. But be careful,” said he, “not to say a word about this to anybody, for if you should attempt to escape and be recaptured, nothing could save your life, and I should be put to death for having aided you.”
As Black Wolf advised me, I said nothing to any one of my intention of leaving, except to his old mother. She tried very hard to dissuade me from going, but finding I was resolute in my purpose, she gave up the point, and sang two or three more of her “bumble-bee” ditties over me at parting, which seemed to lighten her grief considerably. She also made me a present of a dried terrapin’s tail, which she said would protect me from all danger from bullets in battle. I have kept the terrapin’s tail, out of respect for the old squaw, but I must say, in the many “scrimmages” I have been in since then with the Mexicans and Indians, I have had more faith in the efficacy of a tree or a stump to protect me from bullets, than in the charm she gave me. She also gave me a necklace made of the claws of the grisly bear and porcupine quills, and a large copper ring to wear in my nose.
Black Wolf and I made our preparations quietly for the journey, but without exciting any suspicions on the part of the other Indians that I had any intention of quitting the tribe, as we told them we were going into the “hills” to take a bear hunt, and would be absent possibly several days. Black Wolf led the way, and Comanche and I followed, and the first day we travelled at least thirty miles from the village, and camped together that night for the last time. In the morning, before we separated, Black Wolf traced out upon the ground a map of the route I had to go, marking down upon it accurately all the ranges of hills and watercourses I would pass on the way. He then bade me good-by, and shouldering his gun, sorrowfully took his course back toward the village, and was soon lost to sight among the hills.
During my stay with the Indians I had acquired considerable knowledge of the woods, and how to steer my course through them even when the sun was not visible, and, in eight days after parting from Black Wolf, I arrived safely at the “settlements,” and thus ended my first expedition into the “wilderness.” Comanche lived with me till he died of old age, and left a progeny behind him, that, for trailing and fighting “varmints” and “sucking eggs,” can’t be beat by any dogs in the State of Texas.
