The Frontiersmen Part 26

"Don't do so, Miss Ruth--it's no use. Their blood is up; and there is no power in this world strong enough to control them, but force, and that we haven't got."

"But there is a Power above us and them, which may touch their hearts. I will go."

Seeing that she was determined to venture among the savages, on this--as Ichabod, as well as the others also, thought--bootless errand, the whole party accompanied her, and they proceeded hastily towards the grove. As they reached the place where the Indians were gathered, they found them busy in their preparations. A large number of pine knots had been collected, and a pile of pointed splinters, the object of which was apparent to them all. The Seneca, fastened to the tree, was surveying the preparations with a look of indifference or contempt; but as Barton and his party came in sight, his eyes rolled over them with glances of uncontrollable hatred. Eagle's-Wing was quietly directing the preparations.

Barton approached the Tuscarora. "For Heaven's sake, Eagle's-Wing, what do all these arrangements mean? It cannot be that you will torture this Seneca. Let him go, Eagle's-Wing. You have done me many a friendly deed, lately--add this to the number."

"The hearts of the pale-faces are soft," said Eagle's-Wing. "Let my father and his friends go back to their dwelling. The Seneca must die."

Ralph, in turn, besought the Tuscarora to desist from his purpose. He used all the arguments which he could summon to his aid, growing out of the present condition of the Colonies, and their desire to keep on peaceful terms with the hostile Indians of the Six Nations; but to no purpose. Eagle's-Wing listened with courtesy, but declared that the Seneca must die.

"Old friend," said Ichabod, "you'll give me credit for understanding Injin natur' pretty well, and that I never make it a point to interfere in their lawful customs and amus.e.m.e.nts; but I can't help saying, now, that this _is_ a risky speculation. I never meant to call on you for payment of any balance of account between us; but there's no disguising that you do owe a little to me on the score of having saved your scalp-lock, ere now; but give me that Seneca, and I will balance the books."

"I owe my brother my life, and it is his," said Eagle's-Wing. "Let my brother take it, if he will; it is just. But the Seneca shall go with me into the happy hunting-grounds of my nation. He shall go before me as my prisoner."

"Let us go back, Miss Ruth," said Ichabod. "These Injins are perfectly set in their way. I knowed it was of no use. They won't imitate white people in their conduct, any more than they will in their clothes."

At these repeated failures, it must be confessed that Ruth almost despaired of success. Yet she could not suffer the Seneca thus to be murdered, without making one appeal in his behalf. Tears filled her eyes as she approached the Tuscarora.

"Eagle's-Wing," said she, smiling through her tears, "you have refused Panther to my friends, that you might give him to me. Is it not so?"

This pertinacity on the part of the pale-faces seemed partially to irritate the Tuscarora; but he subdued the momentary flash of anger, and answered quietly:

"The hearts of the pale-face women are soft; they cannot look on the death of a warrior in the midst of his enemies. Let the pale-face girl go back with her friends."

"You cannot mean to do this, Eagle's-Wing--you, who have been so gentle and kind to us--_cannot_ do this murder."

"The Seneca must die," was the answer.

"Is it right, Eagle's-Wing, to kill Panther thus, in cold blood? It is a great crime, both by the laws of men and of G.o.d."

"Our traditions have not told us so," answered the Tuscarora. "They tell us that we must do so, if we wish to please the Great Spirit."

"But have you never heard of any other tradition? Have you not heard the story of the life and death of the Redeemer of the world, and of the truths that he taught?"

The Indian seemed struck with a sort of consternation, for a moment. He evidently recollected the teaching of the pious missionary of the Oneidas and Tuscaroras, who had done so much to give the minds of the Indians of those nations a proper direction, just previous to the Revolutionary struggle. After a short pause, he answered:

"The good missionary from the pale-faces has told us the story; but it was a long while ago; it was before the war between the Colony men and the Yengeese. I have almost forgotten it. If I was a pale-face, I should love it very much. But an Indian must follow the traditions of his fathers."

"I know who you mean, Eagle's-Wing. It was Kirtland who taught you that story. I am sorry that you should so soon have forgotten it. He was a good man and told you the truth. He told you that you must not persecute your enemies; but that you must forgive them, and that the Great Spirit will like you better for it."

"How know that?" asked Eagle's-Wing abruptly, and with a kind of superst.i.tious feeling, that Ruth should be able to repeat the instructions which, in his ignorance, he supposed she could not have understood, without having listened to the missionary, herself. "How know that! That was great many years ago, when the pale-face girl was a child."

"I know that he told you so," replied Ruth, "because he must have told you what the new tradition was. He told you that the Redeemer came down from Heaven, and how he died because he loved all the nations and people of the world; and how he told them that they must all love one another like brothers. Would it not be better, Eagle's-Wing, if all the pale-faces and all the Indians thought so?"

The Tuscarora cast down his eyes, while he answered: "It _would_ be better, if they would think so; but they do not. If the pale-faces do not, how can the Indians think so?"

"It is only the bad men among the pale-faces who think otherwise. There are a great many good men who always act upon this truth. If it would be better for everybody to follow this teaching, it is a good thing for those who do, even if a great many do not. Is it not so, Eagle's-Wing?"

Eagle's-Wing turned away--his savage heart evidently touched by this re-awakening of old recollections; but in the act of doing so, his eyes fell upon the Seneca, who was surveying him and Ruth, with a look of curious interest. The bitter taunt of Panther occurred to him, and those cruel instincts which had been nearly overcome, were kindled again with renewed force. Turning towards Ruth, he coldly answered:

"It is a good tradition. I will not deny it; but it is a pale-face tradition. The Great-Teacher was not a red man; he was a pale-face. The pale-face girl must go back with her friends. The Seneca shall die."

The color fled from the face of Ruth, and for a moment she looked as if she would have fallen to the ground. Ralph was springing forward to a.s.sist her, when a new and more heroic strength seemed to sustain and inspire her. Advancing towards Eagle's-Wing, she laid her hand upon his arm and exclaimed--

"You shall not do this murder, Eagle's-Wing. Your own heart tells you that it is wrong. The Seneca is a b.l.o.o.d.y, guilty man; but G.o.d--the same G.o.d who looks down on the pale-face and the Indian--shall punish you.

You shall not do it. I will keep this great crime from your soul, and you will thank me for it, some day. See here, you shall see what I will do;" and she ran to the tree where Panther was confined. The Indians hastened forward, yet seemingly without the intent to resist her purpose. The daring energy which inspired her, and the lofty look of innocent boldness, awed them into silence. With a rapidity she could not have equalled at another time, she unfastened the withes with which the Seneca was bound, and as rapidly returned to the side of Eagle's-Wing. "See," she said, "he is free!" Again she laid her hand upon the arm of the Tuscarora, while all eyes were watching the motions of Panther, who seemed stupefied with the curious scene. As the withes fell at his feet, he straightened his form, and glared slowly around on the a.s.sembled warriors. For a moment his eyes fell upon Ruth, with a look of awe, such as a debased human creature might be supposed to cast upon a more exalted being: then slowly, and as if he expected his attempt to be resisted, he moved from the tree, yet with his eyes firmly fastened upon the face of Eagle's-Wing. The latter stood erect, his nostrils dilated, and his eyes flashing, as if about to spring upon the escaping prisoner, yet restrained by the gentle hand upon his arm, which, without the exertion of physical strength, seemed to bind him to the ground. Creeping as stealthily as the animal from which he derived his name, the Seneca still moved away, but with his face partially turned towards the group which he was leaving. A few moments, and he had disappeared in the forest.

A spasmodic shudder pa.s.sed over the frame of the Tuscarora chief; then he turned towards Ruth, with a smile upon his face and a tear in his eye, as he said. "It is well--let the Seneca go."

CONCLUSION.

We have brought this narrative, relating to the early history of an interesting portion of New York, nearly to a close; and all that remains, is to give the reader a brief account of the fortunes of some of the personages in whom he is supposed to have taken some interest.

After the defeat of the Senecas, Barton and his daughter, together with Ralph, Ichabod and the negro, returned to the settlements, where Barton finally concluded to remain. His advanced age prevented him from again undertaking to build himself a house in the wilderness, while another reason, perhaps still more powerful, forced him to the same conclusion.

He discovered that Ruth, provided he would give his consent to the arrangement, which, under the circ.u.mstances, he could not refuse, had decided upon becoming Mrs. Ralph Weston. That event happened not long after their return to the settlements; and the old gentleman found, after the lapse of a very few years, that he could not again seek the wilderness without abandoning two little grand-children of whom he had become very fond. Sambo remained with the family; but in the course of a short time, he was offered his freedom, which he refused.

Ichabod, also, returned to the settlements; and through the a.s.sistance of his friend, the Captain, he was enabled to satisfy the rapacious Mr.

Parsons for his demand of _25 7s. 6d._. He finally embarked in some speculation in what were then deemed western lands, in which it is believed that he came very near making his fortune. But he never mentioned his adventures of the year 1783, without a sigh over the heavy losses which he sustained in his factory and city-lot projects.

As for the Tuscarora and his squaw, they returned to their village, and there remained, until the removal of the Tuscaroras to the west, a few years afterwards.

Of Guthrie--whose fate has been left in some little doubt--nothing certain was ever known. But a few years after, some adventurer, who supposed himself a pioneer in this new country, discovered a human skeleton by the stump of a tree, to which it had been apparently bound, judging from the remnant of a strong cord, which was found by its side.

As some portions of the skeleton were found at some distance from the tree, it was supposed that the unfortunate man, whoever he was, after having been confined to the tree, had been devoured by wolves.

Our tale is told; and seventy years have pa.s.sed over its scenes and actors. The forests have fallen; broad, green meadows, enriched with labor and enriching the husbandman, are in their place; an active, bustling village has effaced all signs of early hardship and suffering; and, as if changed like the pictures in a magic gla.s.s, the old scenes about which we have lingered are no more. Occasionally, the children in the village gaze, with a mixture of fear and wonder, upon a wandering Oneida, as he loiters in the streets, idle and drunken--a vagabond where his fathers were lords and rulers.

But, with all the changes which seventy years have produced and notwithstanding Ichabod's city lots have been laid out and sold, and succeeding speculators are still busy in the same short-handed means of getting money, the woollen factory has never been built. In that respect, his dreams have never been realized. Occasionally some speculative Ichabod has broached the old scheme anew; but obstacle upon obstacle has conspired to prevent its realization; and although the sheep dot our hills, their wool seeks a foreign market.

The pond, too, remains; but that which was once a sylvan lake, surrounded with forests and crystalline in the purity of its waters, has yielded all of its romantic a.s.sociations to the practical spirit of the age. It has become a portion of a ca.n.a.l, and a touring-path has been constructed along its eastern and southern sh.o.r.es.

So pa.s.s our dreams; the infancy of Nature has reached its age; old fashioned modes of life, with their simplicity of manners, are pa.s.sing away with our forests.

The valley is still, as of old, shut out from the world. Great thoroughfares of travel are at its either extremity; but neither across it nor through it is heard the rushing of the "iron horse;" still, as of old, come trotting and jogging along, at morning and at night, the lumbering coaches, rocking like cradles, while the weary traveler curses the fortune which compels him to take this antiquated mode of travel.

Four miles an hour--_five_, perchance, in great emergencies--_rush_ these ancient vehicles; and therein only, perhaps, we have not degenerated from the sober steadiness of our ancestors.

But a newly-directed energy is now exulting over the prospect of levelling our hills and elevating our valleys, and building a path upon which shall be heard the scream of the locomotive, and the sweep of travel. City lots are up; New York is small potatoes--half-acre landholders, issuing like the youth in Cole's "Voyage of Life," from the wilderness of long sleepy years, and guided by an angel with money-bags under his wings, and with a voice like the ring of dollars, see castles in the air, in the shape of depots and engine-houses, settling down upon their premises! Ichabod is alive again!