Lords of the North Part 27

How many shapeless terrors can spring from the mind of man I never knew till Eric and the priest left me alone in the Mandane village. Ever, on closing my eyes, there rolled and rolled past, endlessly, without going one pace beyond my sight, something too horrible to be contemplated.

When I looked about to a.s.sure myself the thing was not there--could not possibly be there--memory flashed back the whole dreadful scene. Up started glazed eyes from the hearth, the floor, and every dim nook in the lodge. Thereupon I would rush into the village road, where the shamefaced greetings of guilty Indians recalled another horror.

If I ventured into Le Grand Diable's power a fate worse than La Robe Noire's awaited me. That there would be a hostile demonstration over the Sioux messenger's death I was certain. Nothing that I offered could induce any of the Indians to act as scouts or to reconnoiter the enemy's encampment. I had, of my own will, chosen to remain, and now I found myself with tied hands, fuming and gnashing against fate, conjuring up all sorts of projects for the rescue of Miriam, and b.u.t.ting my head against the impossible at every turn. Thus three weary days dragged past.

Having reflected on the consequences of their outrage, the Mandanes exhibited repentance of a characteristically human form--resentment against the cause of their trouble. Unfortunately, I was the cause. From the black looks of the young men I half suspected, if the Sioux chief would accept me in lieu of material gifts, I might be presented as a peace-offering. This would certainly not forward my quest, and prudence, or cowardice--two things easily confused when one is in peril--counseled discretion, and discretion seemed to counsel flight.

"Discretion! Discretion to perdition!" I cried, springing up from a midnight reverie in my hut. Every selfish argument for my own safety had pa.s.sed in review before my mind, and something so akin to judicious caution, which we trappers in plain language called "cowardice," was insidiously a.s.sailing my better self, I cast logic's sophistries to the winds, and dared death or torture to drive me from my post. Whence comes this sublime, reasonless _abandon_ of imperiled human beings, which casts off fear and caution and prudence and forethought and all that goes to make success in the common walks of life, and at one blind leap mounts the Sinai of duty? To me, the impulse upwards is as mysterious as the impulse downwards, and I do not wonder that pagans ascribe one to Ormuzd, the other to Ahriman. 'Tis ours to yield or resist, and I yielded with the vehemence of a pa.s.sionate nature, vowing in the darkness of the hut--"Here, before G.o.d, I stay!"

Swift came test of my oath. While the words were yet on my lips, stealthy steps suddenly glided round the lodge. A shuffling stopped at the door, while a chilling fear took possession of me lest the mutilated form of my other Indian should next be hurled through the window. I had not time to shoot the door-bolt to its catch before a sharp click told of lifted latch. The hinge creaked, and there, distinct in the starlight, that smote through the open, stood Little Fellow, himself, haggard and almost naked.

"Little Fellow! Good boy!" I shouted, pulling him in. "Where did you come from? How did you get away? Is it you or your ghost?"

Down he squatted with a grunt on one of the robes, answering never a word. The gaunt look of the man declared his needs, so I prepared to feed him back to speech. This task kept me busy till daybreak, for the filling capacity of a famishing Indian may not be likened to any other hungry thing on earth without doing the red man grave injustice.

"Hoohoo! Hoohoo! But I be sick man to-morrow!" and he rubbed himself down with a satisfied air of distension, declining to have his plate reloaded for the tenth time. I noticed the poor wretch's skin was cut to the bone round wrists and ankles. Chafed bandage marks encircled the flesh of his neck.

"What did this, Little Fellow?" and I pointed to the scars.

A grim look of Indian grat.i.tude for my interest came into the stolid face.

"Bad Indians," was the terse response.

"Did they torture you?"

He grunted a ferocious negative.

"You got away too quick for them?"

An affirmative grunt.

"Le Grand Diable--did you see him?"

At that name, his white teeth snapped shut, and from the depths of the Indian's throat came the vicious snarl of an enraged wolf.

"Come," I coaxed, "tell me. How long since you left the Sioux?"

"Walkee--walkee--walkee--one sleep," and rising, he enacted a hobbling gait across the cabin in unison with the rhythmic utterance of his words.

"Walkee--walkee--walkee--one."

"Traveled at night!" I interrupted. "Two nights! You couldn't do it in two nights!"

"Walkee--walkee--walkee--one sleep," he repeated.

"Three nights!"

Four times he hobbled across the floor, which meant he had come afoot the whole distance, traveling only at night.

Sitting down, he began in a low monotone relating how he had returned to La Robe Noire with the additional ransom demanded by Le Grand Diable.

The "pig Sioux, more gluttonous than the wolverine, more treacherous than the mountain cat," had come out to receive them with hootings. The plunder was taken, "as a dead enemy is picked by carrion buzzards." He, himself, was dragged from his horse and bound like a slave squaw. La Robe Noire had been stripped naked, and young men began piercing his chest with lances, shouting, "Take that, man who would scalp the Iroquois! Take that, enemy to the Sioux! Take that, dog that's friend to the white man!" Then had La Robe Noire, whose hands were bound, sprung upon his torturers and as the trapped badger snaps the hand of the hunter so had he buried his teeth in the face of a boasting Sioux.

Here, Little Fellow's teeth clenched shut in savage imitation. Then was Le Grand Diable's knife unsheathed. More, my messenger could not see; for a Sioux bandaged his eyes. Another tied a rope round his neck. Thus, like a dead stag, was he pulled over the ground to a wigwam. Here he lay for many "sleeps," knowing not when the great sun rose and when he sank.

Once, the lodges became very still, like many waters, when the wind slumbers and only the little waves lap. Then came one with the soft, small fingers of a white woman and gently, scarcely touching him, as the spirits rustle through the forest of a dark night, had these hands cut the rope around his neck, and unbound him. A whisper in the English tongue, "Go--run--for your life! Hide by day! Run at night!"

The skin of the tent wall was lifted by the same hands. He rolled out.

He tore the blind from his eyes. It was dark. The spirits had quenched their star torches. No souls of dead warriors danced on the fire plain of the northern sky! The father of winds let loose a blast to drown all sound and help good Indian against the pig Sioux! He ran like a hare. He leaped like a deer. He came as the arrows from the bow of the great hunter. Thus had he escaped from the Sioux!

Little Fellow ceased speaking, wrapped himself in robes and fell asleep.

I could not doubt whose were the liberator's hands, and I marveled that she had not come with him. Had she known of our efforts at all? It seemed unlikely. Else, with the liberty she had, to come to Little Fellow, surely she would have tried to escape. On the other hand, her immunity from torture might depend on never attempting to regain freedom.

Now I knew what to expect if I were captured by the Sioux. Yet, given another stormy night, if Little Fellow and I were near the Sioux with fleet horses, could not Miriam be rescued in the same way he had escaped? Until Little Fellow had eaten and slept back to his normal condition of courage, it would be useless to propose such a hazardous plan. Indeed, I decided to send him to some point on the northern trail, where I could join him and go alone to the Sioux camp. This would be better than sitting still to be given as a hostage to the Sioux. If the worst happened and I were captured, had I the courage to endure Indian tortures? A man endures what he must endure, whether he will, or not; and I certainly had not courage to leave the country without one blow for Miriam's freedom.

With these thoughts, I gathered my belongings in preparation for secret departure from the Mandanes that night. Then I prepared breakfast, saw Little Fellow lie back in a dead sleep, and strolled out among the lodges.

Four days had pa.s.sed without the coming of the avengers. The villagers were disposed to forget their guilt and treat me less sulkily. As I sauntered towards the north hill, pleasant words greeted me from the lodges.

"Be not afraid, my son," exhorted Chief Black Cat. "Lend a deaf ear to bad talk! No harm shall befall the white man! Be not afraid!"

"Afraid!" I flouted back. "Who's afraid, Black Cat? Only white-livered cowards fear the Sioux! Surely no Mandane brave fears the Sioux--ugh!

The cowardly Sioux!"

My vaunting pleased the old chief mightily; for the Indian is nothing if not a boaster. At once Black Cat would have broken out in loud tirade on his friendship for me and contempt for the Sioux, but I cut him short and moved towards the hill, that overlooked the enemy's territory. A great cloud of dust whirled up from the northern horizon.

"A tornado the next thing!" I exclaimed with disgust. "The fates are against me! A fig for my plans!"

I stooped. With ear to the ground I could hear a rumbling clatter as of a buffalo stampede.

"What is it, my son?" asked the voice of the chief, and I saw that Black Cat had followed me to the hill.

"Are those buffalo, Black Cat?" and I pointed to the north.

As he peered forward, distinguishing clearly what my civilized eyes could not see, his face darkened.

"The Sioux!" he muttered with a black look at me. Turning, he would have hurried away without further protests of friendship, but I kept pace with him.

"Pooh!" said I, with a lofty contempt, which I was far from feeling.

"Pooh! Black Cat! Who's afraid of the Sioux? Let the women run from the Sioux!"

He gave me a sidelong glance to penetrate my sincerity and slackened his flight to the proud gait of a fearless Indian. All the same, alarm was spread among the lodges, and every woman and child of the Mandanes were hidden behind barricaded doors. The men mounted quickly and rode out to gain the vantage ground of the north hill before the enemy's arrival.

Another cross current to my purposes! Fool that I was, to have dilly-dallied three whole days away like a helpless old squaw wringing her hands, when I should have dared everything and ridden to Miriam's rescue! Now, if I had been near the Sioux encampment, when all the warriors were away, how easily could I have liberated Miriam and her child!

Always, it is the course we have not followed, which would have led on to the success we have failed to grasp in our chosen path. So we salve wounded mistrust of self and still, in spite of manifest proof to the contrary, retain a magnificent conceit.

I cursed my blunders with a vehemence usually reserved for other men's errors, and at once decided to make the best of the present, letting past and future each take care of itself, a course which will save a man gray hairs over to-morrow and give him a well-provisioned to-day.