Читать книгу The Best Ballantyne Westerns - R. M. Ballantyne - Страница 46

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Perplexities—Our hunters plan their escape—Unexpected interruption—The tables turned—Crusoe mounts guard—The escape.

Dick Varley sat before the fire ruminating. We do not mean to assert that Dick had been previously eating grass. By no means. For several days past he had been mentally subsisting on the remarkable things that he heard and saw in the Pawnee village, and wondering how he was to get away without being scalped; he was now chewing the cud of this intellectual fare. We therefore repeat emphatically—in case any reader should have presumed to contradict us—that Dick Varley sat before the fire ruminating!

Joe Blunt likewise sat by the fire along with him, ruminating too, and smoking besides. Henri also sat there smoking, and looking a little the worse of his late supper.

“I don’t like the look o’ things,” said Joe, blowing a whiff of smoke slowly from his lips, and watching it as it ascended into the still air. “That blackguard Mahtawa is determined not to let us off till he gits all our goods, an’ if he gits them, he may as well take our scalps too, for we would come poor speed in the prairies without guns, horses, or goods.”

Dick looked at his friend with an expression of concern. “What’s to be done?” said he.

“Ve must escape,” answered Henri; but his tone was not a hopeful one, for he knew the danger of their position better than Dick.

“Ay, we must escape; at least we must try,” said Joe; “but I’ll make one more effort to smooth over San-it-sa-rish, an’ git him to snub that villain Mahtawa.”

Just as he spoke the villain in question entered the tent with a bold, haughty air, and sat down before the fire in sullen silence. For some minutes no one spoke, and Henri, who happened at the time to be examining the locks of Dick’s rifle, continued to inspect them with an appearance of careless indifference that he was far from feeling.

Now, this rifle of Dick’s had become a source of unceasing wonder to the Indians,—wonder which was greatly increased by the fact that no one could discharge it but himself. Dick had, during his short stay at the Pawnee village, amused himself and the savages by exhibiting his marvellous powers with the “silver rifle.” Since it had been won by him at the memorable match in the Mustang Valley, it had scarce ever been out of his hand, so that he had become decidedly the best shot in the settlement, could “bark” squirrels (that is, hit the bark of the branch on which a squirrel happened to be standing, and so kill it by the concussion alone), and could “drive the nail” every shot. The silver rifle, as we have said, became “great medicine” to the Red-men, when they saw it kill at a distance which the few wretched guns they had obtained from the fur-traders could not even send a spent ball to. The double shot, too, filled them with wonder and admiration; but that which they regarded with an almost supernatural feeling of curiosity was the percussion cap, which in Dick’s hands always exploded, but in theirs was utterly useless!

This result was simply owing to the fact, that Dick after firing handed the rifle to the Indians without renewing the cap. So that when they loaded and attempted to fire, of course it merely snapped. When he wished again to fire, he adroitly exchanged the old cap for a new one. He was immensely tickled by the solemn looks of the Indians at this most incomprehensible of all “medicines,” and kept them for some days in ignorance of the true cause, intending to reveal it before he left. But circumstances now arose which banished all trifling thoughts from his mind.

Mahtawa raised his head suddenly, and said, pointing to the silver rifle, “Mahtawa wishes to have the two-shotted medicine gun. He will give his best horse in exchange.”

“Mahtawa is liberal,” answered Joe, “but the pale-faced youth cannot part with it. He has far to travel, and must shoot buffaloes by the way.”

“The pale-faced youth shall have a bow and arrows to shoot the buffalo,” rejoined the Indian.

“He cannot use the bow and arrow,” answered Joe; “he has not been trained like the Red-man.”

Mahtawa was silent for a few seconds, and his dark brows frowned more heavily than ever over his eyes.

“The Pale-faces are too bold,” he exclaimed, working himself into a passion; “they are in the power of Mahtawa. If they will not give the gun he will take it.”

He sprang suddenly to his feet as he spoke, and snatched the rifle from Henri’s hand.

Henri, being ignorant of the language, had not been able to understand the foregoing conversation, although he saw well enough that it was not an agreeable one but no sooner did he find himself thus rudely and unexpectedly deprived of the rifle, than he jumped up, wrenched it in a twinkling from the Indian’s grasp, and hurled him violently out of the tent.

In a moment Mahtawa drew his knife, uttered a savage yell, and sprang on the reckless hunter, who, however, caught his wrist, and held it as if in a vice. The yell brought a dozen warriors instantly to the spot, and before Dick had time to recover from his astonishment, Henri was surrounded and pinioned despite his herculean struggles.

Before Dick could move, Joe Blunt grasped his arm, and whispered quickly, “Don’t rise! You can’t help him! They daren’t kill him till San-it-sa-rish agrees.”

Though much surprised, Dick obeyed, but it required all his efforts, both of voice and hand, to control Crusoe, whose mind was much too honest and straightforward to understand such subtle pieces of diplomacy, and who strove to rush to the rescue of his ill-used friend.

When the tumult had partly subsided, Joe Blunt rose and said— “Have the Pawnee braves turned traitors that they draw the knife against those who have smoked with them the pipe of peace and eaten their maize? The Pale-faces are three; the Pawnees are thousands. If evil has been done, let it be laid before the chief. Mahtawa wishes to have the medicine gun. Although we said No, we could not part with it, he tried to take it by force. Are we to go back to the great chief of the Pale-faces, and say that the Pawnees are thieves? Are the Pale-faces henceforth to tell their children when they steal, ‘That is bad; that is like the Pawnee?’ No! this must not be. The rifle shall be restored, and we will forget this disagreement. Is it not so?”

There was an evident disposition on the part of many of the Indians, with whom Mahtawa was no favourite, to applaud this speech; but the wily chief sprang forward, and, with flashing eye, sought to turn the tables.

“The Pale-face speaks with soft words, but his heart is false. Is he not going to make peace with the enemies of the Pawnee? Is he not going to take goods to them, and make them gifts and promises? The Pale-faces are spies. They come to see the weakness of the Pawnee camp, but they have found that it is strong. Shall we suffer the false-hearts to escape? Shall they live? No! we will hang their scalps in our wigwams, for they have struck a chief and we will keep all their goods for our squaws—wah!”

This allusion to keeping all the goods had more effect on the minds of the vacillating savages than the chiefs eloquence. But a new turn was given to their thoughts by Joe Blunt remarking in a quiet, almost contemptuous tone—

“Mahtawa is not the great chief.”

“True, true,” they cried, and immediately hurried to the tent of San-it-sa-rish.

Once again this chief stood between the hunters and the savages, who wanted but a signal to fall on them. There was a long palaver, which ended in Henri being set at liberty, and the rifle being restored.

That evening, as the three friends sat beside their fire eating their supper of boiled maize and buffalo meat, they laughed and talked as carelessly as ever; but the gaiety was assumed, for they were at the time planning their escape from a tribe which, they foresaw, would not long refrain from carrying out their wishes, and robbing, perhaps murdering them.

“Ye see,” said Joe with a perplexed air, while he drew a piece of live charcoal from the fire with his fingers and lighted his pipe,—“ye see, there’s more difficulties in the way o’ gettin’ off than ye think—”

“Oh! nivare mind de difficulties,” interrupted Henri, whose wrath at the treatment he had received had not yet cooled down. “Ve must jump on de best horses ve can git hold, shake our fist at de red reptiles, and go away fast as ve can. De best hoss must vin de race.”

Joe shook his head. “A hundred arrows would be in our backs before we got twenty yards from the camp. Besides, we can’t tell which are the best horses. Our own are the best in my ’pinion, but how are we to git ’em?”

“I know who has charge o’ them,” said Dick; “I saw them grazing near the tent o’ that poor squaw whose baby was saved by Crusoe. Either her husband looks after them or some neighbours.”

“That’s well,” said Joe. “That’s one o’ my difficulties gone.”

“What are the others?”

“Well, d’ye see, they’re troublesome. We can’t git the horses out o’ camp without bein’ seen, for the red rascals would see what we were at in a jiffy. Then, if we do git ’em out, we can’t go off without our bales, an’ we needn’t think to take ’em from under the nose o’ the chief and his squaws without bein’ axed questions. To go off without them would niver do at all.”

“Joe,” said Dick, earnestly, “I’ve hit on a plan.”

“Have ye, Dick? what is’t?”

“Come and I’ll let ye see,” answered Dick, rising hastily and quitting the tent, followed by his comrades and his faithful dog.

It may be as well to remark here, that no restraint whatever had yet been put on the movements of our hunters as long as they kept to their legs, for it was well-known that any attempt by men on foot to escape from mounted Indians on the plains would be hopeless. Moreover, the savages thought that as long as there was a prospect of their being allowed to depart peaceably with their goods, they would not be so mad as to fly from the camp, and, by so doing, risk their lives and declare war with their entertainers. They had, therefore, been permitted to wander unchecked, as yet, far beyond the outskirts of the camp, and amuse themselves in paddling about the lake in the small Indian canoes and shooting wild-fowl.

Dick now led the way through the labyrinths of tents in the direction of the lake, and they talked and laughed loudly, and whistled to Crusoe as they went, in order to prevent their purpose being suspected. For the purpose of further disarming suspicion they went without their rifles. Dick explained his plan by the way, and it was at once warmly approved of by his comrades.

On reaching the lake they launched a small canoe, into which Crusoe was ordered to jump; then, embarking, they paddled swiftly to the opposite shore, singing a canoe song as they dipped their paddles in the moonlit waters of the lake. Arrived at the other side, they hauled the canoe up and hurried through the thin belt of wood and willows that intervened between the lake and the prairie. Here they paused.

“Is that the bluff, Joe?”

“No, Dick, that’s too near. T’other one’ll be best. Far away to the right. It’s a little one, and there’s others near it. The sharp eyes o’ the Red-skins won’t be so likely to be prowlin’ there.”

“Come on, then; but we’ll have to take down by the lake first.”

In a few minutes the hunters were threading their way through the outskirts of the wood at a rapid trot, in the opposite direction from the bluff, or wooded knoll, which they wished to reach. This they did lest prying eyes should have followed them. In a quarter of an hour they turned at right angles to their track, and struck straight out into the prairie, and after a long run they edged round and came in upon the bluff from behind. It was merely a collection of stunted but thick-growing willows.

Forcing their way into the centre of this they began to examine it.

“It’ll do,” said Joe.

“De very ting,” remarked Henri.

“Come here, Crusoe.”

Crusoe bounded to his master’s side, and looked up in his face.

“Look at this place, pup; smell it well.”

Crusoe instantly set off all round among the willows, in and out, snuffing everywhere, and whining with excitement.

“Come here, good pup; that will do. Now, lads, we’ll go back.” So saying, Dick and his friends left the bluff and retraced their steps to the camp. Before they had gone far, however, Joe halted, and said—

“D’ye know, Dick, I doubt if the pup’s so cliver as ye think. What if he don’t quite onderstand ye?”

Dick replied by taking off his cap and throwing it down, at the same time exclaiming, “Take it yonder, pup,” and pointing with his hand towards the bluff. The dog seized the cap, and went off with it at full speed towards the willows, where it left it, and came galloping back for the expected reward—not now, as in days of old, a bit of meat, but a gentle stroke of its head and a hearty clap on its shaggy side.

“Good pup, go now an’ fetch it.”

Away he went with a bound, and, in a few seconds, came back and deposited the cap at his master’s feet.

“Will that do?” asked Dick, triumphantly.

“Ay, lad, it will. The pup’s worth its weight in goold.”

“Oui, I have said, and I say it agen, de dog is human, so him is. If not—fat am he?”

Without pausing to reply to this perplexing question, Dick stepped forward again, and in half an hour or so they were back in the camp.

“Now for your part of the work, Joe; yonder’s the squaw that owns the half-drowned baby. Everything depends on her.”

Dick pointed to the Indian woman as he spoke. She was sitting beside her tent, and playing at her knee was the identical youngster that had been saved by Crusoe.

“I’ll manage it,” said Joe, and walked towards her, while Dick and Henri returned to the chiefs tent.

“Does the Pawnee woman thank the Great Spirit that her child is saved?” began Joe as he came up.

“She does,” answered the woman, looking up at the hunter. “And her heart is warm to the Pale-faces.”

After a short silence Joe continued—

“The Pawnee chiefs do not love the Pale-faces. Some of them hate them.”

“The Dark Flower knows it,” answered the woman; “she is sorry. She would help the Pale-faces if she could.”

This was uttered in a low tone, and with a meaning glance of the eye.

Joe hesitated again—could he trust her? Yes; the feelings that filled her breast and prompted her words were not those of the Indian just now—they were those of a mother, whose gratitude was too full for utterance.

“Will the Dark Flower,” said Joe, catching the name she had given herself, “help the Pale-face if he opens his heart to her? Will she risk the anger of her nation?”

“She will,” replied the woman; “she will do what she can.”

Joe and his dark friend now dropped their high-sounding style of speech, and spoke for some minutes rapidly in an undertone. It was finally arranged that on a given day, at a certain hour, the woman should take the four horses down the shores of the lake to its lower end, as if she were going for firewood, there cross the creek at the ford, and drive them to the willow-bluff, and guard them till the hunters should arrive.

Having settled this, Joe returned to the tent and informed his comrades of his success.

During the next three days Joe kept the Indians in good-humour by giving them one or two trinkets, and speaking in glowing terms of the riches of the white men, and the readiness with which they would part with them to the savages if they would only make peace.

Meanwhile, during the dark hours of each night, Dick managed to abstract small quantities of goods from their pack, in room of which he stuffed in pieces of leather to keep up the size and appearance. The goods thus taken out he concealed about his person, and went off with a careless swagger to the outskirts of the village, with Crusoe at his heels. Arrived there, he tied the goods in a small piece of deerskin, and gave the bundle to the dog, with the injunction, “Take it yonder, pup.”

Crusoe took it up at once, darted off at full speed with the bundle in his mouth, down the shore of the lake towards the ford of the river, and was soon lost to view. In this way, little by little, the goods were conveyed by the faithful dog to the willow-bluff and left there, while the stuffed pack still remained in safekeeping in the chief’s tent.

Joe did not at first like the idea of thus sneaking off from the camp; and more than once made strong efforts to induce San-it-sa-rish to let him go, but even that chief’s countenance was not so favourable as it had been. It was clear that he could not make up his mind to let slip so good a chance of obtaining guns, powder, and shot, horses and goods, without any trouble; so Joe made up his mind to give them the slip at once.

A dark night was chosen for the attempt, and the Indian woman went off with the horses to the place where firewood for the camp was usually cut. Unfortunately the suspicion of that wily savage Mahtawa had been awakened, and he stuck close to the hunters all day—not knowing what was going on, but feeling convinced that something was brewing which he resolved to watch, without mentioning his suspicions to any one.

“I think that villain’s away at last,” whispered Joe to his comrades; “it’s time to go, lads, the moon won’t be up for an hour. Come along.”

“Have ye got the big powder-horn, Joe?”

“Ay, ay, all right.”

“Stop! stop! my knife, my couteau. Ah! here it be. Now, boy.”

The three set off as usual, strolling carelessly to the outskirts of the camp; then they quickened their pace, and, gaining the lake, pushed off in a small canoe.

At the same moment Mahtawa stepped from the bushes, leaped into another canoe and followed them.

“Hah! he must die,” muttered Henri.

“Not at all,” said Joe, “we’ll manage him without that.”

The chief landed and strode boldly up to them, for he knew well that whatever their purpose might be, they would not venture to use their rifles within sound of the camp at that hour of the night; as for their knives, he could trust to his own active limbs and the woods to escape and give the alarm if need be.

“The Pale-faces hunt very late,” he said with a malicious grin. “Do they love the dark better than the sunshine?”

“Not so,” replied Joe, coolly, “but we love to walk by the light of the moon. It will be up in less than an hour, and we mean to take a long ramble to-night.”

“The Pawnee chief loves to walk by the moon too, he will go with the Pale-faces.”

“Good,” ejaculated Joe. “Come along, then.”

The party immediately set forward, although the savage was a little taken by surprise at the indifferent way in which Joe received his proposal to accompany them. He walked on to the edge of the prairie, however, and then stopped.

“The Pale-faces must go alone,” said he; “Mahtawa will return to his tent.”

Joe replied to this intimation by seizing him suddenly by the throat and choking back the yell that would otherwise have brought the Pawnee warriors rushing to the scene of action in hundreds. Mahtawa’s hand was on the handle of his scalping-knife in a moment, but before he could draw it, his arms were glued to his sides by the bear-like embrace of Henri, while Dick tied a handkerchief quickly yet firmly round his mouth. The whole thing was accomplished in two minutes. After taking his knife and tomahawk away, they loosened their gripe and escorted him swiftly over the prairie.

Mahtawa was perfectly submissive after the first convulsive struggle was over. He knew that the men who walked on each side of him grasping his arms were more than his match singly, so he wisely made no resistance.

Hurrying him to a clump of small trees on the plain which was so far distant from the village that a yell could not be heard, they removed the bandage from Mahtawa’s mouth.

“Must he be kill?” inquired Henri, in a tone of commiseration.

“Not at all” answered Joe, “we’ll tie him to a tree and leave him there.”

“Then he vill be starve to deat’. Oh! dat is more horrobell!”

“He must take his chance o’ that. I’ve no doubt his friends’ll find him in a day or two, an’ he’s game to last for a week or more. But you’ll have to run to the willow-bluff, Dick, and bring a bit of line to tie him. We can’t spare it well; but there’s no help.”

“But there is help,” retorted Dick. “Just order the villain to climb into that tree.”

“Why so, lad?”

“Don’t ask questions, but do what I bid ye.”

The hunter smiled for a moment as he turned to the Indian, and ordered him to climb up a small tree near to which he stood. Mahtawa looked surprised, but there was no alternative. Joe’s authoritative tone brooked no delay, so he sprang into the tree like a monkey.

“Crusoe,” said Dick, “watch him!”

The dog sat quietly down at the foot of the tree, and fixed his eyes on the savage with a glare that spoke unutterable things. At the same time he displayed his full compliment of teeth, and uttered a sound like distant thunder.

Joe almost laughed, and Henri did laugh outright.

“Come along, he’s safe now,” cried Dick, hurrying away in the direction of the willow-bluff, which they soon reached, and found that the faithful squaw had tied their steeds to the bushes, and, moreover, had bundled up their goods into a pack, and strapped it on the back of the pack-horse; but she had not remained with them.

“Bless yer dark face,” ejaculated Joe as he sprang into the saddle and rode out of the clump of bushes. He was followed immediately by the others, and in three minutes they were flying over the plain at full speed.

On gaining the last far-off ridge, that afforded a distant view of the woods skirting the Pawnee camp, they drew up, and Dick, putting his fingers to his mouth, drew a long, shrill whistle.

It reached the willow-bluff like a faint echo. At the same moment the moon arose and more clearly revealed Crusoe’s catalyptic glare at the Indian chief, who, being utterly unarmed, was at the dog’s mercy. The instant the whistle fell on his ear, however, he dropped his eyes, covered his teeth, and, leaping through the bushes, flew over the plains like an arrow. At the same instant Mahtawa, descending from his tree, ran as fast as he could towards the village, uttering the terrible war-whoop when near enough to be heard. No sound sends such a thrill through an Indian camp. Every warrior flew to arms, and vaulted on his steed. So quickly was the alarm given that in less than ten minutes a thousand hoofs were thundering on the plain, and faintly reached the ears of the fugitives.

Joe smiled. “It’ll puzzle them to come up wi’ nags like ours. They’re in prime condition too, lots o’ wind in ’em. If we only keep out o’ badger holes we may laugh at the red varmints.”

Joe’s opinion of Indian horses was correct. In a very few minutes the sound of hoofs died away, but the fugitives did not draw bridle during the remainder of that night, for they knew not how long the pursuit might be continued. By pond, and brook, and bluff they passed, down in the grassy bottoms and over the prairie waves,—nor checked their headlong course till the sun blazed over the level sweep of the eastern plain as if it arose out of the mighty ocean.

Then they sprang from the saddle and hastily set about the preparation of their morning meal.