The Sun Maid Part 7

"For once, the Truth-Teller is mistaken. We will wrest our lands back from the grasp of the pale-faces. We will learn their arts and conquer them with their own weapons. We will destroy their villages--few they are and widely scattered. Pouf! This morning's work is but a show of what is yet to come. As we did then, so we will do in the future. I, too, would go with my tribe to that other fort far beyond the Great Lake. I would help again to wipe away these usurpers from our homes, as I wipe--this, from my horse's flank. Only my promise to remain with my chief and my kinsman prevents."

The youth had stooped and brushed a bit of gra.s.s bloom from the animal's shining skin; and as he raised his head again he looked inquiringly into the stern face of the other. Thus, indirectly, was he begging permission to join the contemplated raid upon another distant garrison.

Black Partridge understood but ignored the silent pet.i.tion. He had other, higher plans for the White Pelican. He would himself train the courageous youth to be as wise and diplomatic as he was brave. When the training was over, he should be sent to that distant land where the Great Father of the white men dwelt, and should there make a plea for the whole Indian race.

"Would not a man who saved all this"--sweeping his arm around toward every point of the prairie--"to his people be better than one who killed a half-dozen pale-faces yet lost his home?"

"Why--yes," said the other, regretfully. "But----"

"But it is the last chance. The time draws near when not an Indian wigwam will dot this grand plain. Already, in the talk of the white men, there is the plan forming to send us westward. Many a day's journey will lie between us and this beloved spot. Our canoes will soon vanish from the Great Lake, and we shall cease to glide over our beautiful river. Hear me. It is fate. These people who have come to oust us from our birthright have been sent by the Great Spirit. It is His will. We have had our one day of life and of possession. They are to have theirs. Who will come after them and destroy them? They----"

But the White Pelican could endure no more. The Black Partridge was not often in such a mood as this, stern and sombre though he might sometimes be, nor had his prophecies so far an outlook. That the Indians should ever be driven entirely away by their white enemies seemed a thing impossible to the stout-hearted young brave, and he spoke his mind freely.

"My father has had sorrow this day, and his eyes are too dim to see clearly. Or he has eaten of the white man's food and it has turned his brain. Were it not for his dim eyesight, I would ask him to tell the White Pelican what that creature might be that darts and wheels and prances yonder"; and he pointed toward the western horizon.

Now there was a hidden taunt in the warrior's words. No man in the whole Pottawatomie nation was reputed to have such clearness of eyesight as the Black Partridge. The readiness with which he could distinguish objects so distant as to be invisible to other men had pa.s.sed into a proverb among his neighbors, who believed that his inward "visions" in some manner furthered this extraordinary outward eyesight.

The chief flashed a scornful glance upon his attendant and, quite naturally, toward the designated object. White Pelican saw his gaze become intent and his indifference give way to amazement. Then, with a cry of alarm, that was half incredulity, the Black Partridge wheeled and struck out swiftly toward the west.

"Ugh! It looked unusual, even to me, but my father has recognized something beyond my guessing. He rides like the wind, yet his horse was well spent an hour ago."

Regardless of his own recent eagerness to be at Muck-otey-pokee, and relating the day's doings to an admiring circle of stay-at-homes, the young brave followed his leader. In a brief time they came up with a wild, high-spirited white horse, which rushed frantically from point to point in the vain hope of shaking from its back a burden to which it was not used.

"Souls of my ancestors! It is--the s...o...b..rd!"

"It is the Sun Maid!" returned Black Partridge.

But for all his straining vision, White Pelican could not make out that it was indeed that wonderful child who was wrapped and bundled in the long blanket and lashed to the s...o...b..rd's back by many thongs of leather. Not until, by one dexterous swoop of his horsehair rope, the chief collared the terrified mare and brought her to her knees.

"Cut the straps. Set the child free."

The brave promptly obeyed; while the chief, holding the struggling mare with one hand, carefully drew the Sun Maid from her swathing blanket and laid her across his shoulder. Her little figure hung limp and relaxed where it was placed, and he saw that she had fainted.

[Ill.u.s.tration: s...o...b..RD AND THE SUN MAID. _Page 68._]

"Take her to that row of alder bushes yonder. There should be water there. I'll finish what has been begun, and prove whether this is a beast bewitched, or only a vicious mare that needs a master."

The White Pelican would have preferred the horse-breaking to acting as child's nurse to this uncanny small maiden who had ridden a creature none other in his tribe would have attempted. But he did as he was bidden and laid the little one down in the cooling shade of the alders. Then he put the water on her face and forced a few drops between her parted lips. After that he fixed all his attention on the efforts of Black Partridge to bring into subjection the unbroken mare.

However, the efforts were neither very severe nor long continued. Like many another, the s...o...b..rd had received a worse name than she deserved, and she had already been well wearied by her wild gallop on the prairie. She had done her best to throw and kill the child which Osceolo had bound upon her back, but she had only succeeded in tightening the bands and exhausting both herself and her unconscious rider. More than that, Black Partridge had a will stronger than hers and it conquered.

"Well, I did ride a long, long way, didn't I? Feather-man, did you put Kitty on the nice cool gra.s.s? Will you give Kitty another drink of water? I guess I'm pretty tired, ain't I?"

These words recalled the White Pelican's attention to his charge.

"Ugh! It's a wonder you're alive."

"Is it? I rode till I got so sleepy I couldn't see. The sky kept whirling and whirling, and the sun did come right down into my face.

And I got so twisted up I couldn't breathe. I guess--I guess I don't much love that Osceolo. He said it would be fun, and it was--a while.

But he didn't come, too, and--I'm glad I'm here now. Who's that walking? Oh! my own Black Partridge, the nicest Feather-man there is!"

The Sun Maid sat up and lifted her arms to be taken, while she bestowed upon the chief one of her sweetest smiles. But he received it gravely, and regarded the child in her new Indian dress with critical scrutiny. Who had thus clothed her he could not surmise, for too short a time had elapsed since he had taken her to his village for his sister to prepare these well-fitting garments. Finally, superst.i.tion began to influence him also, as it had influenced the weaker-minded people at Muck-otey-pokee, as he spoke to the White Pelican, rather than to the child.

"Place her upon the s...o...b..rd. They belong to each other, though I know not how they found one another."

"Osceolo," answered the younger brave, tersely.

"Humph! Then there's more of black spirits than white in this affair.

However, I have spoken. Place the Sun Maid on the s...o...b..rd's back."

Kitty would have objected and strongly; but there was something so unusually stern in the elder warrior's face and so full of hatred in that of the younger that she was bewildered and wisely kept silence.

Having made a comfortable saddle out of the long blanket, they seated her again upon the white mare's back, and each on either side, they led her slowly toward Muck-otey-pokee. But the little one had again fallen asleep long before they reached it, and now there could have been no gentler mount for so helpless a rider than this suddenly tamed White s...o...b..rd.

At the entrance to the village Wahneenah met them. She had again put on her mourning garb, and her hair was unplaited, while the lines of her face had deepened perceptibly. She had lamented to Katasha:

"The Great Spirit sent me back my lost ones in the form of the Sun Maid, and because of my own carelessness and sternness He has recalled her. Now is our separation complete, and not even in the Unknown Land shall I find them again."

But the One-Who-Knows had answered, impatiently:

"Leave be. Whatever is must happen. The child is safe. Nothing can harm her. Has she not the three gifts? The White Necklace from the sh.o.r.e of the Sea-without-end?[1] The White Bow from the eternal north?

and the White s...o...b..rd, into which entered the white soul of a blameless virgin? Have I not clothed her with the garb of our people?

You are a fool, Wahneenah. Go hide in your wigwam, and keep silence."

[Footnote 1: Pacific Ocean.]

This was good advice, but Wahneenah couldn't take it. She was too human, too motherly, and under all her superst.i.tion, too sure of the Sun Maid's real flesh-and-blood existence to be easily comforted. So she went, instead, to the outskirts of the settlement to watch for what might be coming of good or ill. And so she came all the sooner to find her lost darling, and she vowed within herself that never again, so long as her own life should last, would she lose sight of that precious golden head.

"My Girl-Child! My White Papoose, Beloved! Found again! But how could you?"

"I did get runned away with myself this time, nice Other Mother. Don't look at Kitty that way. Kitty is very hungry. Nice Black Partridge Feather-man did find me, riding and riding and riding. The pretty s...o...b..rd had lots of wings, I guess, for she flew and flew and flew.

But I didn't see Osceolo. He couldn't have come, could he? I thought he was coming, too, when he clapped his hands and shooed me off so fast. Where is he?"

That was what several were desirous to learn. The affair had turned out much better than might have been expected, but there would be a day of reckoning for the village torment when he and its chief should chance to meet.

Knowing this, Osceolo remained in hiding for some time. Until, indeed, his curiosity got the better of his discretion. This happened when the Man-Who-Kills came stealing to his retreat and begged his a.s.sistance.

"I want you to take my white boy-captive and lead him to the tepee of the Woman-Who-Mourns. My wife Sorah will not have him in her wigwam.

She says that from the moment that other white child, the Sun Maid, came to the lodge of Wahneenah, there has been trouble without end, even though all the three charms against evil have been bestowed upon her. There are no charms for this dark boy, but there's always trouble enough (where Sorah is). He's so worn and unhappy, he'll make no objection, but will follow like a dog. He neither speaks nor sleeps nor eats. I have no use for a fool, I. You do it, Osceolo, and you'll see what I will give you in reward! Also, if the Woman-Who-Mourns has lost the Sun Maid, maybe this Dark-Eye will be a better stayer."

"But what will you give me, Man-Who-Kills? I--I think I'd rather not meddle any more with the family of my chief."

"Ugh! Are a coward, eh? Never mind. There are other lads at Muck-otey-pokee, and plenty of plunder in my wigwam."

"All right. Come along, Dark-Eye. Might as well be Dark-Brow, too, for he looks like a night without stars. What will you do with his horse, Man-Who-Kills?"

"Let you ride it for me, sometimes."