The Big Otter Part 35

Big Otter did not reply, but I saw by his grave look that he was not satisfied. After a brief pause he resumed,--"Was the Great Master of Life good to the wicked pale-faces, when He allowed the red-men to slay them in their sins?"

"Yes," I returned, "He was good, because the Great Master of Life cannot be otherwise than good. He has made our brains capable of understanding that, and our hearts capable of resting on it. But He is our Father.

Children do not understand all that a father does. Big Otter has touched on a great mystery. But what we know not now we shall know hereafter. Only let the red-man be sure of this, that whatever we come to know in the hereafter will tend more and more to prove that the Great Master of Life is good."

For a long time the Indian remained silent, and I could not tell by the expression of his grave face whether my reasoning weighed with him or not; I therefore offered up a brief prayer that the Spirit of G.o.d might open his eyes--as well as my own--to see, and our hearts to receive, the _truth_, whatever that might be. Then I said,--"The thoughts of Big Otter are deep, what do they lead to?"

"No," he replied, "his thoughts are not deep, but they are confused, for he has heard his pale-face brother call Waboose, Eve. How did he come to know that name? It was only used by Weeum, and seldom by him--never by any one else."

It struck me that now was as suitable a time as might present itself to let the Indian know about the contents of the packet, so I said,--"Listen, Big Otter, I have something important to tell."

From this point I went on, and, in as few words as possible, related all that the reader knows about the packet, and the wishes of poor William Liston. I also showed him the miniature, at which he gazed with visible but suppressed emotion.

"Now," said I, in conclusion, "what do you think we should do?"

"What Weeum wished must be done," he replied simply but firmly.

"You were fond of Weeum?" I said.

"Yes, Big Otter loved him like a brother."

"Don't you think," said I, after some minutes' thought, "that it is our duty first to return to the camp of your tribe, and also that I should send Salamander back to Fort Wichikagan to tell where I have gone, and for what purpose? For Salamander is not free like myself. He is still a servant of the fur-traders."

"No, that is not your duty," said the Indian decidedly. "Your duty is to obey the commands of Weeum! My tribe will not die of grief because Waboose does not return. As for Salamander--send him where you please.

He is n.o.body--nothing!"

Although not quite agreeing with Big Otter in his contemptuous estimate of the value of Salamander, I believed that I could get along quite well without him; and therefore resolved to send him back--first to the Indian camp to tell of our safety and intentions, and then to the fort with an explanatory letter to Lumley, who, I knew full well, would be filled with great anxiety on my account, as well as with uncertainty as to how he should act, dest.i.tute as he was of the slightest clue to my fate or my whereabouts.

"And you, my friend," I said, "what will your movements be?"

"Big Otter will go and help you to obey the commands of Weeum," he replied. "There is no wife, no child, waiting for him to return. He must be a father to Waboose. Muxbee will _be_ her brother. The trail to Colorado is long. Big Otter has been there. He has been a solitary wanderer all his life, and knows the wilderness well. He has crossed the great mountains where the snow lies deep even in summer. He can be a guide, and knows many of the mountain tribes as well as the tribes of the prairie--Waugh!"

"Well, my friend," said I, grasping the Indian's strong hand, "I need not tell you that your decision gives me joy, and I shall be only too glad to travel with you in the capacity of a son; for, you know, if you are to be a father to Waboose, and I am to be her brother, that makes you my father--don't you see?"

The grave Indian smiled faintly at this touch of pleasantry, and then rose.

"We have nothing to eat," he said, as we returned to the place where we had slept, "and we cannot hunt in the night. Is your bag empty?"

"No," said I, glancing at the contents of my wallet, "there is enough of biscuit and pemmican to give us a light meal."

"That will do," he returned; "we need rest more than food just now."

This was indeed true; for, notwithstanding that I had slept so soundly during that day, I still felt a strong disinclination to rouse myself to action, and an intense desire to lie down again. These feelings being shared by my companions, it was resolved to spend the night where we were, but we took good care to kindle no fire to betray us a second time. We roused Eve and Salamander to take some food, after which we all lay down, and, ere long, were again sound asleep.

This double allowance of rest had the most beneficial effect upon our frames. We did not awake till an early hour the following morning, and felt so much refreshed as to be ready and anxious to set off on our journey, without the delay of breakfasting. This was fortunate, for the sc.r.a.ps that remained in my wallet would only have sufficed for one meal to a man of ordinary appet.i.te; and, as it was important to expedite Salamander on his return journey, these had to be given to him. Poor fellow! he was much cast down on hearing of my decision in regard to him.

"But, sar," he said, with a sorrowful countenance, "w'at for I no go vith you?"

"Because you are still a servant of the Fur Company, and not ent.i.tled to break your engagement. Besides, it is desirable that Big Otter's people should know why he and Waboose have left them, and where they have gone; and if you explain matters correctly they will be quite satisfied, for they all respect the memory of Weeum the Good. Moreover, it is important that Mr Lumley should know what has prevented my return, both to relieve his mind, and prevent his sending out to search for me."

"But sar," objected Salamander, "w'at if me meets vid de vite scoundrils?"

"You must fight them, or run away from them."

"Vell, me kin fight but me kin more joyfulerly run avay. But," he continued, still objecting, "me got no grub."

"Here is enough for one day," I said, giving him all I possessed, "if you spin it out. To-morrow you can roast and eat your moccasins, and the third day you can starve. Surely that's not hard on a strong young fellow like you; and if you push on fast enough you'll reach the camp of the redskins early on the third day."

Salamander sighed, but made no further objection, and half an hour later he left us.

As we now possessed only two horses, it naturally fell to my lot, being a light weight compared with Big Otter, to take Eve up behind me.

"We must get a horse for Waboose," said the Indian, as we galloped over the prairie that day. "There is a tribe of Blackfoot Indians not far from here who have good horses, and understand the value of gold, for some of them have been to the settlements of the pale-faces. You tell me that you have gold?"

"Yes, I found a bag of five hundred gold pieces with the diamonds in Weeum's packet."

Big Otter looked at me inquiringly, but did not speak, yet I guessed his thoughts; for, though I had shown him Liston's letter and the miniature, I had not shown him the gold or the jewels, and he must have wondered where I carried them; for he knew, of course, that they were necessarily somewhat bulky and were not in my wallet, which I had emptied more than once in his presence. I therefore explained to him:--

"You know, perhaps, that gold is heavy, and five hundred pieces are bulky and troublesome to carry; so I have had a piece of cloth made with a hole in the middle of it for my head to go through; one end of it hangs over my breast under my shirt, like a breastplate, and one end hangs over my back, and on each of these plates there are rows of little pockets, each pocket the size of a gold piece. Thus, you see, the gold does not feel heavy, being equally distributed, and it does not show, as it would if carried in a heap--besides, it forms a sort of armour-- though I fear it would not resist a rifle-bullet!"

"Waugh!" exclaimed Big Otter, with an intelligent look.

"As to the diamonds, they are not bulky. I have concealed them in an under-belt round my waist."

As Big Otter had predicted, we came to a large village of Blackfoot Indians two days afterwards, and were received with cordial friendship by the inhabitants, who knew my Indian well. He had visited them during his wanderings many a time, and once, at a very critical period in their history, had rendered important service to the tribe, besides saving the life of their chief.

A new tent was set aside for our use, and a small one pitched close to it for Waboose, whose dignified yet modest bearing made a profound impression on those children of the wilderness. They recognised, no doubt that Indian blood flowed in her veins, but that rather increased their respect for her, as it gave them, so to speak, a right to claim kinship with a girl who was obviously one of Nature's aristocracy, besides possessing much of that refinement which the red-men had come to recognise as a characteristic of some of the best of the pale-faces.

Indeed, I myself found, now that I had frequent opportunities of conversing with Eve Liston, that the man who had been affectionately styled Weeum the Good by the Indians, had stored his child's mind with much varied secular knowledge, such as Indians never possess, besides instilling into her the elevating and refining precepts of Christianity.

Being of a poetical turn of mind, he had also repeated to Eve many long and beautiful pieces from our best poets, so that on more than one occasion the girl had aptly quoted several well-known pa.s.sages--to my inexpressible amazement.

"I wonder," said I, when we three were seated in our tent that night, refreshing ourselves with a choice morsel of baked buffalo-hump, with which the hospitable Blackfeet had supplied us, "how it comes to pa.s.s that Indians, who are usually rather fond of gifts, absolutely refuse to accept anything for the fine horse they have given to Waboose?"

"Perhaps," said Eve, with a little smile, in which the extreme corners of her pretty mouth had the peculiar tendency to turn down instead of up--"perhaps it is because they are grateful. Indians are not altogether dest.i.tute of that feeling."

"True, Eve, true; it must be that. Will you tell us, Big Otter, how you managed to make these fellows so grateful?"

"I saved the chief's life," returned the Indian, curtly.

"Yes; but how, and when?"

"Four summers have pa.s.sed since then. I was returning from a trip to the Rocky Mountains when it happened. Many bad pale-faces were in the mountains at that time. They were idle bad men from many lands, who hated work and loved to fight. One of them had been killed by a Sioux Indian. They all banded together and swore that they would shoot every Indian they came across. They killed many--some even who were friendly to the white men. They did not ask to what tribe they belonged. They were `redskin varmints,' that was enough!

"The Strong Elk, whose hospitality we enjoy to-night, was chief of the Blackfeet. I was on my way to visit him, when, one evening, I came upon the camp of the pale-faces. I knew that sometimes they were not friendly to the red-man, so I waited till dark, and then crept forward and listened. Their chief was loud-voiced and boastful. He boasted of how many Indians he had killed. I could have shot him where I lay and then escaped easily, but I spared him, for I wished to listen. They talked much of the Strong Elk. I understood very little. The language of the pale-face is difficult to understand, but I came to know that in two hours, when the moon should sink, they would attack him.

"I waited to hear no more. I ran like the hunted buffalo. I came to Strong Elk and told him. It was too late to move the camp, but we put it in a state of defence. When the pale-faces came, we were ready.

Arrows, thick as the snowflakes in winter, met them when they came on, and many of them bit the dust. Some ran away. Some, who were brave, still came on and leaped our barricades. They fought like fiends.

Their boastful chief saw Strong Elk and rushed at him. They grappled and fell. The pale-face had a keen knife. It was raised to strike.

One moment more, and the Blackfoot chief had been in the happy hunting-grounds with his fathers, when the gun of Big Otter came down on the skull of the boastful one. It was enough. Strong Elk was saved-- and he is grateful; waugh!"