The Last of the Chiefs Part 25

Three Indians were walking slowly along a woodland path toward the village, and the presence of the path indicated the village had been here for many months, perhaps was permanent. The Indians were talking very earnestly and they made gestures. One raised his voice a little and turned toward one of his companions, as if he would emphasize his words. Then d.i.c.k saw his face clearly, and drew a long breath of surprise.

It was Bright Sun, but a Bright Sun greatly changed. He was wholly in native attire--moccasins, leggings, and a beautiful blue blanket draped about his shoulders. A row of eagle feathers adorned his long black hair, but it was the look and manner of the man that had so much significance. He towered above the other Indians, who were men of no mean height; but it was not his height either, it was his face, the fire of his eyes, the proud eagle beak which the Sioux had not less than the Roman, and the swift glance of command that could not be denied. Here was a great chief, a leader of men, and d.i.c.k was ready to admit it.

He could easily have shot Bright Sun dead as he pa.s.sed, but he did not dream of doing such a thing. Yet Bright Sun, while seeming to play the part of a friend, had deliberately led the wagon train into a fatal ambush--of that d.i.c.k had no doubt. He felt, moreover, that Bright Sun was destined to cause great woe to the white people, his own people, but he could not fire; nor would he have fired even if the deed had been without danger to himself.

d.i.c.k, instead, gave Bright Sun a reluctant admiration. He looked well enough as the guide in white men's clothes, but in his own native dress he looked like one to be served, not to serve. The three paused for a full two minutes exactly opposite d.i.c.k, and he could have reached out and touched them with the barrel of his rifle; but they were thinking little of the presence of an enemy.

d.i.c.k judged by the emphasis of their talk that it was on a matter of some great moment, and he saw all three of them point at times toward the east.

"It's surely war," he thought, "and our army if somewhere off there in the east."

d.i.c.k saw that Bright Sun remained the dominating figure throughout the discussion. Its whole effect was that of Bright Sun talking and the others listening. He seemed to communicate his fire and enthusiasm to his comrades, and soon they nodded a vigorous a.s.sent. Then the three walked silently away toward the village.

d.i.c.k rose from his covert, cast a single glance at the direction in which the three chiefs had disappeared, and then began to retrace his own steps. It was his purpose to arouse Albert and flee at once to a less dangerous region. But the fate of d.i.c.k and his brother rested at that moment with a mean, mangy, mongrel cur, such as have always been a part of Indian villages, a cur that had wandered farther from the village than usual that night upon some unknown errand.

d.i.c.k had gone about thirty yards when he became conscious of a light, almost faint, pattering sound behind him. He stepped swiftly into the heaviest shadow of trees and sought to see what pursued. He thought at first it was some base-born wolf of the humblest tribe, but, when he looked longer, he knew that it was one of the meanest of mean curs, a hideous, little yellowish animal, sneaking in his movements, a dog that one would gladly kick out of his way.

d.i.c.k felt considerable contempt for himself because he had been alarmed over such a miserable little beast, and resumed his swift walk. Thirty yards farther he threw a glance over his shoulder, and there was the wretched cur still following. d.i.c.k did not like it, considering it an insult to himself to be trailed by anything so ugly and insignificant. He picked up a stone, but hesitated a moment, and then put it down again. If he threw the stone the dog might bark or howl, and that was the last thing that he wanted. Already the cur, mean and miserable as he looked, had won a victory over him.

d.i.c.k turned into a course that he would not have taken otherwise, thinking to shake off his pursuer, but at the next open s.p.a.ce he saw him still following, his malignant red eyes fixed upon the boy. The cur would not have weighed twenty cowardly pounds, but he became a horrible obsession to d.i.c.k. He picked up a stone again, put it down again, and for a mad instant seriously considered the question of shooting him.

The cur seemed to become alarmed at the second threat, and broke suddenly into a sharp, snarling, yapping bark, much like that of a coyote. It was terribly loud in the still night, and cold dread a.s.sailed d.i.c.k in every nerve. He picked up the stone that he had dropped, and this time he threw it.

"You brute!" he exclaimed, as the stone whizzed by the cur's ear.

The cur returned the compliment of names with compounded many times over. His snarling bark became almost continuous, and although he did not come any nearer, he showed sharp white teeth.

d.i.c.k paused in doubt, but when, from a point nearer the village, he heard a bark in reply, then another, and then a dozen, he ran with all speed up the slope. He knew without looking back that the cur was following, and it made him feel cold again.

Certainly d.i.c.k had good cause to run. All the world was up and listening now, and most of it was making a noise, too. He heard a tumult of barking, growling, and snapping toward the village, and then above it a long, mournful cry that ended in an ominous note. d.i.c.k knew that it was a Sioux war whoop, and that the mean, miserable little cur had done his work. The village would be at his heels. Seized with an unreasoning pa.s.sion, he whirled about and shot the cur dead. It was a mad act, and he instantly repented it. Never had there been another rifle shot so loud.

It crashed like the report of a cannon. Mountain and valley gave it back in a mult.i.tude of echoes, and on the last dying echo came, not a single war whoop, but the shout of many, the fierce, insistent, falsetto yell that has sounded the doom of many a borderer.

d.i.c.k shuddered. He had been pursued once before by a single man, but he was not afraid of a lone warrior. Now a score would be at his heels. He might shake them off in the dark, but the dogs would keep the scent, and his chief object was to go fast.

He ran up the slope at his utmost speed for a hundred yards or more, and then remembering in time to nurse his strength, he slackened his footsteps.

He had thought of turning the pursuit away from the hollow in which Albert lay, but now that the alarm was out they would find him, anyway, and it was best for the two to stand or fall together. Hence, he went straight for the hollow.

It was bitter work running up a slope, but his two years of life in the open were a great help to him now. The strong heart and the powerful lungs responded n.o.bly to the call. He ran lightly, holding his rifle in the hollow of his arm, ready for use if need be, and he watch warily lest he make an incautious footstep and fall. The moonlight was still full and clear, but when he took an occasional hurried glance backward he could not yet see his pursuers. He heard, now and then, however, the barking of a dog or the cry of a warrior.

d.i.c.k reached the crest of the hill, and there for an instant or two his figure stood, under the pines, a black silhouette against the moonlight. Four or five shots were fired at the living target. One bullet whizzed so near that it seemed to d.i.c.k to scorch his face.

He had gathered fresh strength, and that hot bullet gave a new impetus also. He ran down the slope at a great speed now, and he had calculated craftily. He could descend nearly twice as fast as they could ascend, and while they were reaching the crest he would put a wide gap between them.

He kept well in the shadow now as he made with long leaps straight toward the hollow, and he hoped with every heart beat that Albert, aroused by the shots, would be awake and ready.

"Albert!" he cried, when he was within twenty feet of their camp, and his hope was rewarded. Albert was up, rifle in hand, crying:

"What is it, d.i.c.k?"

"The Sioux!" exclaimed d.i.c.k. "They're not far away! You heard the shots! Come!"

He turned off at an angle and ran in a parallel line along the slope, Albert by his side. He wished to keep to the forests and thickets, knowing they would have little chance of escape on the plain. As they ran he told Albert, in short, choppy sentences, what had happened.

"I don't hear anything," said Albert, after ten minutes. "Maybe they've lost us."

"No such good luck! Those curs of theirs would lead them. No, Al, we've got to keep straight on as long as we can!"

Albert stumbled on a rock, but, quickly recovering himself, put greater speed in every jump, when he heard the Indian shout behind him.

"We've got to shoot their dogs," said d.i.c.k. "We'll have no other chance to shake them off."

"If we get a chance," replied Albert.

But they did not see any chance just yet. They heard the occasional howl of a cur, but both curs and Indians remained invisible. Yet d.i.c.k felt that the pursuers were gaining. They were numerous, and they could spread. Every time he and Albert diverged from a straight line--and they could not help doing so now and then--some portion of the pursuing body came nearer. It was the advantage that the many had over the few.

d.i.c.k prayed for darkness, a shading of the moon, but it did not come, and five minutes later he saw the yellow form of a cur emerge into an open s.p.a.ce. He took a shot at it and heard a howl. He did not know whether he had killed the dog or not, but he hoped he had succeeded. The shot brought forth a cry to their right, and then another to the left. It was obvious that the Sioux, besides being behind them, were also on either side of them. They were gasping, too, from their long run, and knew that they could not continue much farther.

"We can't shake them off, Al," said d.i.c.k, "and we'll have to fight. This is as good a place as any other."

They dropped down into a rocky hollow, a depression not more than a foot deep, and lay on their faces, gasping for breath.

Despite the deadly danger d.i.c.k felt a certain relief that he did not have to run any more--there comes a time when a moment's physical rest will overweigh any amount of mortal peril.

"If they've surrounded us, they're very quiet about it," said Albert, when the fresh air had flowed back into his lungs. "I don't see or hear anything at all."

"At least we don't hear those confounded dogs any more," said d.i.c.k. "Maybe there was only one pursuing us, and that shot of mine got him. The howls of the cur upset my nerves more than the shouts of the Sioux."

"Maybe so," said Albert.

Then they were both quite still. The moonlight was silvery clear, and they could see pines, oaks, and cedars waving in a gentle wind, but they saw nothing else. Yet d.i.c.k was well aware that the Sioux had not abandoned the chase; they knew well where the boys lay, and were all about them in the woods.

"Keep close, Albert," he said. "Indians are sly, and the Sioux are the slyest of them all. They're only waiting until one of us pops up his head, thinking they're gone."

Albert took d.i.c.k's advice, but so long a time pa.s.sed without sign from the Sioux that he began to believe that, in some mysterious manner, they had evaded the savages. The belief had grown almost into a certainty, when there was a flash and a report from a point higher up the slope. Albert felt something hot and stinging in his face. But it was only a tiny fragment of rock chipped off by the bullet as it pa.s.sed.

Both d.i.c.k and Albert lay closer, as if they would press themselves into the earth, and soon two or three more shots were fired. All came from points higher up the slope, and none hit a living target, though they struck unpleasantly close.

"I wish I could see something," exclaimed Albert impatiently.

"It's not pleasant to be shot at and to get no shot in return."

d.i.c.k did not answer. He was watching a point among some scrub pines higher up the slope, where the boughs seemed to him to be waving too much for the slight wind. Looking intently, he thought he saw a patch of brown through the evergreen, and he fired at it. A faint cry followed the shot, and d.i.c.k felt a strange satisfaction; they were hunting him--well, he had given a blow in return.

Silence settled down again after d.i.c.k's shot. The boys lay perfectly still, although they could hear each other's breathing. The silvery moonlight seemed to grow fuller and clearer all the time. It flooded the whole slope. Boughs and twigs were sheathed in it. Apparently, the moon looked down upon a scene that was all peace and without the presence of a human being.

"Do you think they'll rush us?" whispered Albert.

"No," replied d.i.c.k. "I've always heard that the Indian takes as little risk as he possibly can."

They waited a little longer, and then came a flare of rifle shots from a point farther up the slope. Brown forms appeared faintly, and d.i.c.k and Albert, intent and eager, began to fire in reply.

Bullets sang by their ears and clipped the stones around them, but their blood rose the higher and they fired faster and faster.

"We'll drive 'em back!" exclaimed d.i.c.k.