The Yellow Chief

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Reid Mayne. The Yellow Chief

Chapter One. The Punishment of the Pump

Chapter Two. The Blackadders

Chapter Three. A Changed Plantation

Chapter Four. A Painted Party

Chapter Five. A Traitorous Guide

Chapter Six. Two Trappers

Chapter Seven. Breakfast Interrupted

Chapter Eight. Planning a Rescue

Chapter Nine. Saint Vrain’s

Chapter Ten. Changed Hostilities

Chapter Eleven. Captors and Captives

Chapter Twelve. A Novel Mode of Punishment

Chapter Thirteen. Making a Bolt

Chapter Fourteen. The Rescuers

Chapter Fifteen. Retaliation in Kind

Chapter Sixteen. The White Women

Chapter Seventeen. A Flight Urged by Despair

Chapter Eighteen. The Stalkers Astonished

Chapter Nineteen. Setting a Strange Scene

Chapter Twenty. A Ride for more than Life

Chapter Twenty One. A Pleasanter Captivity

Chapter Twenty Two. The Scene Re-arranged

Chapter Twenty Three. The Stampeders Captured

Chapter Twenty Four. Finale

Отрывок из книги

In the time preceding the extinction of slavery, there was no part of the United States where its chain was so galling as in that region lying along the lower Mississippi, known as the “Coast.” More especially was this true of the State of Mississippi itself. In the old territories, east of the Alleghany range, the “institution” was tempered with a certain touch of the patriarchal; and the same might be said of Kentucky and Tennessee. Even in parts of Louisiana the mild indolent habits of the Creole had a softening influence on the condition of the slave. But it was different on the great cotton and tobacco plantations of Mississippi, as also portions of the Louisiana coast; many of whose owners were only half the year residents, and where the management of the negro was intrusted to the overseer – an irresponsible, and, in many cases, severe taskmaster. And among the owners themselves was a large number – the majority, in fact – not born upon the soil; but colonists, from all countries, who had gone thither, often with broken fortunes, and not unfrequently characters as well.

By these men the slave was only looked upon as so much live-stock; and it was not a question either of his happiness or welfare, but the work to be got out of him.

.....

He raised himself upon his knees and looked out over the plain. A low ridge ran obliquely up to the mouth of the gorge in which the Indians were reposing. There was a clump of bushes upon its crest; and over the tops of these he could perceive a small disk, darker than the foliage. He knew it had not been there before.

While he was scanning it, there came, as if out of the bushes, three short barks, followed by a prolonged lugubrious howl. It seemed the cry of the prairie-wolf. But he knew it was not this; for soon after it was repeated with a different intoning.

.....