Adventures Among the Red Indians Part 9

Captain Throckmorton soon produced a soundings-chart and showed that, at about a mile higher up, the waggons could easily cross, now that the tide was running down.

"Put me ash.o.r.e, then."

In a very few minutes the old fighting-man was in the saddle again; and, while the baggage was moved on to the ford, he and a hundred light-armed cowboys were swimming their horses across the river. The shelter from which the Indians had fired proved to be a narrow, copse-like strip which separated the river from an undulating prairie.

"There they go, General!" cried a young fellow, Captain Dixon, who rode behind the leader.

"Ay; making for the hills. _I_ know; the same old plant. We must pretend to be taken in.--Go on, Dixon; after 'em with twenty men."

The General knew well enough, from bygone experience, that the spot from which the score or so of redskins were fleeing was probably that at which the bulk of their army lay _perdu_, and that they were merely trying their old trick of getting a pursuing force between the two halves of their own. He rode steadily on, and, before he reached the hills, saw that he had not been mistaken. The fleeing Indians had suddenly wheeled and were bearing down furiously on Captain Dixon's few men.

"Forward!" shouted Atkinson. "He can take good care of himself. We want Black Hawk.... And here he is, by the living Jingo!"

As he spoke, sixty or seventy Indians appeared at the top of the hill, four of them beautifully mounted; the rest on wrecks of animals that could scarcely be matched in a Belfast job-yard.

"Fire! A hundred dollars to the man who gets Black Hawk--alive or dead," shouted Atkinson as he drew his horse to one side.

Without drawing bridle, the troop fired and reloaded, as only men born, reared, and nourished in the saddle as these were could have done. Three of the well-mounted Indians, ignoring the volley, rode straight at the white men, and were followed more hesitatingly by the rest, with the exception of those killed, and of the fourth man, evidently--from his fantastic garb--the aged Shawnee prophet.

"Black Hawk! Black Hawk! Over with him!" roared the excited Yankees, as a splendid-looking old man, six feet four inches in height, rode fearlessly at them. Pistol-bullets whizzed round his head, but he appeared to ignore them and, swinging his war-hatchet, began to cut a way through the cowboys. His two well-horsed companions--his sons--followed closely, and in a couple of minutes six of Atkinson's men were dead. But one glance behind him showed the chief that he was playing a losing game. General Atkinson seemed to have surrounded all the rest of the Indians with his troop, who were hewing them down right and left. Captain Dixon's men, too, had put to flight or killed those who had turned on them, and were now coming to reinforce their comrades.

With a pa.s.sionate yell of disappointment and hatred, the chief turned his horse's head in the direction whither the prophet was already fleeing; and, with his sons, rode for some distant bluffs. It was all very well for Atkinson to spur in pursuit, shouting, "After him!" The white men's horses had been almost dead-beat before the flight began, and now could scarcely move at all; and the General was obliged to await his baggage-vans for the pitching of his camp, for at least a few hours.

But, before those few hours were ended, another party of Indians came riding into view, and, as the men sprang to their arms, one of Atkinson's Sioux guides cried jubilantly: "They are our brothers! They are the white chief's brothers also."

The strangers galloped up and showed a goodly supply of fresh scalps.

They had pursued and slaughtered those of Black Hawk's warriors who could not escape with him.

"Why didn't you catch Black Hawk?" asked Atkinson disgustedly.

"We know where he has gone to hide. What will the white chief give us for Black Hawk and his sons?"

The old man named a price, and the troop rode off again. Soon after sunrise they returned, and in their midst were Black Hawk and his sons. The old chief was sullenly silent--a broken man, in fact--and one is glad to know that these rough cowboys had it in them to treat the poor old fellow with the courtesy becoming his standing among the natives.

With his two sons and seven other braves he was taken to Fort Monroe and there imprisoned for a short time; but when the country was once more quieted, the Government appointed a fresh chief in his place and he was set at liberty. He died among his own people six years later.

CHAPTER IX

PERUVIAN INDIANS

The history of South America teems with accounts of arduous marches made by European explorers through its forests or deserts, across its mountains or along the banks of its rivers. Some of these are more widely celebrated than others because the results were greater; but many minor expeditions--some unsuccessful, others serving no practical end--are as worthy of remembrance because those who undertook them went coolly, and with their eyes open, into all manner of privations or dangers, for the sole purpose of advancing their country's interests.

Among such secondary enterprises is the journey made by Lieutenant Smyth and Midshipman Lowe from Callao to the Amazon, in 1834, an enterprise which recalls some of the splendidly reckless achievements of the Spaniards in the first half of the sixteenth century, or of our own even bolder adventurers in the second half.

While Captain Fitzroy was still surveying the southerly parts of the American continent, H.M.S. _Samarang_, under Captain Paget, was making a similar though more rapid cruise right round the peninsula from La Guayra to the Bay of Panama. As the ship lay at anchor for observations off the Peruvian coast, the question was raised as to the possibility of the Amazon being converted into a water-way between the Atlantic and the Pacific; and Captain Paget, more in jest than seriously, asked who would volunteer to go ash.o.r.e, cross the Andes, and find the nearest approach to the main stream of the river. To his amazement, John Smyth, a junior lieutenant, at once offered, and so earnestly did he beg to be allowed to go that the Captain was forced to give way at last. Young Smyth had a good knowledge of Spanish, and was known to be courageous and level-headed; but the difficulty was that not a boat's crew, not a single seaman, in fact, could be spared to accompany him; but Smyth insisted that he required no protection, and only asked leave to take, as companion, his young cousin, a midshipman named Lowe.

Their knapsacks were soon packed, a cutter took them ash.o.r.e, and the crew gave them a parting cheer as they turned back to the ship. In Callao Smyth hired five mules, and two Jevero Indians to attend him as muleteers and guides. As becomes direct descendants of the Incas, these were fearless, fine-looking men, industrious and kind-hearted, though by no means the sort of folk one would like to offend. They belonged by birth to Ecuador, which is the chief home of their tribe; but they seemed to know every yard of the country from Colombia to Chile, and from the coast to the Brazilian frontier, and, contrary to the usual custom of their tribe, both spoke Spanish quite well. One part of their costume which very much interested the two sailors was a short length of dried reed which each wore in place of an earring, and fixed to the end of which was the tooth of a slain enemy. But this was the only essentially barbarous decoration they possessed. They were bare-foot and bare-headed, but wore shirts and trousers like ordinary mortals; both, too, were Christians.

At first they a.s.suredly did not flatter whatever vanity the English lads may have possessed, for they would scarcely believe that such youthful-looking persons (Smyth was twenty, and Lowe sixteen) could command the obedience of tried warriors. The question arose through Luis, the younger guide, contrasting the weapons of the two. The middy, after the fashion of the time, wore a dirk, while his cousin, of course, carried a sword. Was it then the custom, asked Luis, for the length of an English warrior's weapon to depend on his years and fighting experience? With what sort of blade, in that case, did the _commandante_ of a ship fight?

Their opinion improved very much, however, as time went on and as they found these two lads enduring, without a murmur, heat and cold and thirst and fatigue which few white men that they had ever seen could have borne. Perhaps it should be added that their experience of white men was limited to the incorrigible lurchers and beach-combers--most of them of Spanish origin--to be seen anywhere along the South American coast. By the end of the second day they had come to feel quite a fatherly affection for them, so much so that they divulged a secret which, just at that time, might be worth more than its weight in gold to the explorers.

The lieutenant had noticed that, though neither guide showed any disposition to eat or drink "between meals," they never seemed wearied, nor did they, when supper-time came round, eat with great appet.i.te; this was the more surprising since they walked the greater part of the way, while Smyth and Lowe rode mule-back. On his making a remark about this, Filipe, the elder Indian, opened the satchel in which he carried his various belongings, and displayed a good stock of leaves and a small tin of quick-lime, saying:

"You have just eaten your supper, Senor Lieutenante, and cannot judge; to-morrow I will give you some of these to try for yourself."

During the next morning, after a wearisome climb, Filipe fulfilled his promise; he rolled a few particles of lime in two or three of the leaves, and, pressing the whole into globular form, handed it to Smyth.

"Chew that," he said. "It is _coca_, and will sustain you for nearly an hour."

Smyth had previously noticed both men stuffing something into their mouths periodically, but, being so used to seeing the sailors chew tobacco, he had never given it a second thought. He chewed l.u.s.tily at the little ball for five minutes, but succeeded in extracting neither taste nor nourishment from it.

"I think I should prefer salt pork," he said. "What little taste your coca has is beastly; and I am as hungry as I was before."

"Patience; you have not chewed it long enough."

He tried again, and presently the Indian said with a smile:

"Well, Senor?"

"I don't know how it is, but I'm losing my hunger. _You_ try it, Frank.--Give my friend one."

The Jevero shook his head doubtfully.

"It must be a little one, then. It is not good for him. You smoke cigars, and you give some to us; but you do not give him one. With _coca_ it is the same."

Smyth continued to chew, and was no longer conscious either of hunger or fatigue--for half an hour or more, when both these mortal ills began to return; and of course with double acuteness. He remarked on this to the Indians.

"Ah!" said Luis; "now you know how we can tell the time without a watch, how we know the number of miles we have walked without counting our steps. When you feel to want new coca-leaves, thirty-five minutes have gone by; add the ten minutes during which you found no effect from them, and you observe that three-quarters of an hour has expired.

In that time we walk, at the present rate, five miles." He might have added that, if abused, the coca habit is as pernicious and as degrading as opium-taking.

"It will be five miles no longer now," said Filipe, interrupting.

"Quick; blind the mules, Luis!"

They immediately began to bustle about like seamen in a gale of wind, and, in a few minutes, each of the five mules had a cloth tied over his eyes. There was soon no need to ask why. The slope they had been ascending had become a level strip--literally a strip. To the left of them the sailors saw a sheer wall of rock, rising perhaps a hundred feet, while to the right, not more than eight feet from it, was the edge of a precipice. Used as they both were to overcoming inclinations to giddiness or fear, they shuddered involuntarily as they cast their eyes over the brink and found that they could see no bottom to the abyss. Yet the Jeveros put themselves on the mules'

outer side, one leading a string of three, the other two, and walking heedlessly within a couple of feet of the precipice.

To add to the gruesomeness of the neighbourhood, a weird, wailing cry began to rise from the high ledge above their heads, at the sound of which the Jeveros crossed themselves and mumbled a prayer.

"What is it?" asked the midshipman, not without a little touch of awe.

"_Alma perdida!_" said Luis, reverently lowering his voice. The words meant "a lost soul," but the boy was unaware of that, and Smyth did not think a mountain-ledge, such as this, quite the right place to choose for enlightening him. Used to Spanish and now to Indian superst.i.tion, he guessed--and rightly--that the cry was that of some bird, probably peculiar to the Andes; and he questioned Filipe, who was walking at his mule's head.

"Yes; it is a bird. It pa.s.ses its time in bewailing the dead, and the sins which they have committed."