Title: The Sun Maid - A Story of Fort Dearborn
Author: Raymond, Evelyn, 1843-1910
Language: English
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THE SUN MAID

A Story of Fort Dearborn

by

EVELYN RAYMOND

Author of "The Little Lady of the Horse," Etc.



New York
E. P. Dutton & Company
31 West Twenty-Third St.

Copyright, 1900
By
E. P. Dutton & Co.

The Knickerbocker Press, New York



[Illustration: _Page 22._ KITTY AND THE SNAKE. _Frontispiece._]



TO ALL YOUNG HEARTS IN THAT FAIR CITY BY THE INLAND SEA CHICAGO



PREFACE.


In some measure, the story of the Sun Maid is an allegory.

Both the heroine and the city of her love grew from insignificant
beginnings; the one into a type of broadest womanhood, the other into
a grandeur which has made it unique among the cities of the world.

Discouragements, sorrows, and seeming ruin but developed in each
the same high attributes of courage, indomitable will power, and
far-reaching sympathy. The story of the youth of either would be a
tale unfinished; and those who have followed, with any degree of
interest, the fortunes of either during any period will keep that
interest to the end.

There are things which never age. Such was the heart of the Maid who
remained glad as a girl to the end of her century, and such the
marvellous Chicago with a century rounded glory which is still the
glory of a youth whose future magnificence no man can estimate.

E. R., BALTIMORE, January, 1900.



CONTENTS.


 CHAPTER                                          PAGE

     I. AS THE SUN WENT DOWN                        1

    II. TWO FOR BREAKFAST                          13

   III. IN INDIAN ATTIRE                           27

    IV. THE WHITE BOW                              38

     V. HORSES: WHITE AND BLACK                    50

    VI. THE THREE GIFTS                            64

   VII. A THREEFOLD CORD IS STRONGEST              77

  VIII. AN ISLAND RETREAT                          91

    IX. AT MUCK-OTEY-POKEE                        107

     X. THE CAVE OF REFUGE                        124

    XI. UNDER A WHITE MAN'S ROOF                  138

   XII. AFTER FOUR YEARS                          156

  XIII. THE HARVESTING                            169

   XIV. ONCE MORE IN THE OLD HOME                 180

    XV. PARTINGS AND MEETINGS                     194

   XVI. THE SHUT AND THE OPEN DOOR                209

  XVII. A DAY OF HAPPENINGS                       231

 XVIII. WESTWARD AND EASTWARD OVER THE PRAIRIE    247

   XIX. THE CROOKED LOG                           260

    XX. ENEMIES, SEEN AND UNSEEN                  272

   XXI. FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH                       284

  XXII. GROWING UP                                296

 XXIII. HEROES                                    306

  XXIV. CONCLUSION                                315



ILLUSTRATIONS.


                                                  PAGE

 FORT DEARBORN                           _Title-page_

 BLACK PARTRIDGE AND THE SUN MAID                   6

 KITTY AND THE SNAKE                _Frontispiece_ 22

 THE GIFT OF THE WHITE BOW                         48

 SNOWBIRD AND THE SUN MAID                         68

 GASPAR AND KITTY REACH THE FORT                  188

 "KITTY! MY KITTY!"                               258

 OSCEOLO AND GASPAR                               276



THE SUN MAID.



CHAPTER I.

AS THE SUN WENT DOWN.


With gloom in his heart, Black Partridge strode homeward along the
beach path.

The glory of a brilliant August sunset crimsoned the tops of the
sandhills on the west and the waters of the broad lake on the east;
but if the preoccupied Indian observed this at all, it was to see in
it an omen of impending tragedy. Red was the color of blood, and he
foresaw that blood must flow, and freely.

"They are all fools. All. They know that Black Partridge cannot lie,
yet they believe not his words. The white man lies, and works his own
destruction. His doom be on his head!"

As his thought took this line the chief's brow grew still more
stern, and an expression of contempt curled the corners of his wide,
thin lips. A savage though he was, at that moment he felt himself
immeasurably superior to the pale-faces whom he had known; and in the
consciousness of his integrity he held his tall form even more erect,
while he turned his face toward the sky in gratitude to that Great
Spirit who had made him what he was.

Then again he remembered the past, and again his feather-adorned head
drooped beneath its burden of regret, while his brown fingers clasped
and unclasped themselves about a glittering medal which decorated his
necklace, and was the most cherished of his few possessions.

"I have worn it for long, and it has rested lightly upon my heart; but
now it becomes a knife that pierces. Therefore I must return it whence
it came."

Yet something like a sigh escaped him, and his hands fell down
straight at his sides. Also, his narrow eyes gazed forward upon
the horizon, absently, as if their inward visions were much clearer
than anything external. In this manner he went onward for a little
distance, till his moccasined foot struck sharply against something
lying in his path, and so roused him from his reverie.

"Ugh! Ugh! So. When the squaw dies the papoose must suffer."

The soft obstruction was a little child, curled into a rounded heap,
and fast asleep upon this primitive public highway. The touch of the
red man's foot had partially wakened the sleeper, and when he bent and
laid his hand upon her shoulder, she sprang up lightly, at once
beginning to laugh and chatter with a gayety that infected even the
stolid Indian.

"Ugh! The Little-One-Who-Laughs. Why are you here alone, so far from
the Fort, Kitty Briscoe?"

"I runned away. Bunny rabbit runned away. I did catch him two times. I
did find some posies, all yellow and round and--posies runned away,
too. Ain't that funny? Kitty go seek them."

Her laughter trilled out, bird clear, and a mischievous twinkle
lighted her big blue eyes.

"I runned away. Bunny rabbit runned to catch me. I runned to catch
bunny. I caught the posies. Yellow posies gone--I go find them, too."

As if it were the best joke in the world, the little creature still
laughed over her own conceit of so many runnings till, in whirling
about, she discovered the remnants of the flowers she had lost upon
the heat-hardened path behind her. Indeed, when she had dropped down
to sleep, overcome by sudden weariness, it had been with the cool
leaves and blossoms for a couch. Now the love of all green and growing
things was an inborn passion with this child, and her face sobered to
a keen distress as she gazed upon her ruined treasures. But almost at
once the cloud passed, and she laughed again.

"Poor posies, tired posies, sleepy, too. Kitty sorry. Put them in the
water trough and wake them up. Then they hold their eyes open, just
like Kitty's."

"Ugh! Where the papoose sleeps the blossoms wither," remarked Black
Partridge, regarding the bruised and faded plants with more attention.
They were wild orchids, and he knew that the child must have wandered
far afield to obtain them. At that time of year such blooms were
extremely rare, and only to be found in the moist shadows of some
tree-bordered stream quite remote from this sandy beach.

"Oh, dear! Something aches my feet. I will go home to my little bed.
Pick up the posies, Feather-man, and take poor Kitty."

With entire confidence that the Indian would do as she wished, the
small maid clasped his buckskin-covered knee and leaned her dimpled
cheek against it. It proved a comfortable support, and with a babyish
yawn she promptly fell asleep again.

Had she been a child of his own village, even of his own wigwam, Black
Partridge would have shaken her roughly aside, feeling his dignity
affronted by her familiarity; but in her case he could not do this and
on this night least of all.

The little estray was the orphan of Fort Dearborn; whose soldier
father had met a soldier's common fate, and whose mother had quickly
followed him with her broken heart. Then the babe of a few weeks
became the charge of the kind women at the Fort, and the pet of the
garrison in general.

But now far graver matters than the pranks of a mischievous child
filled the minds of all her friends. The peaceful, monotonous life of
the past few years was over, and the order had gone forth that the
post should be evacuated. Preparations had already begun for the long
and hazardous journey which confronted that isolated band of white
people, and the mothers of a score of other restless young folk had
been too busy and anxious to notice when this child slipped away to
wander on the prairie.

For a brief time the weary baby slumbered against the red man's knee,
while he considered the course he would best pursue; whether to return
her at once to the family of the commandant, or to carry her southward
to the Pottawatomie lodge whither he was bound. Then, his decision
made, he lifted the child to his breast and resumed his homeward way.

But the bright head pillowed so near his eyes seemed to dazzle him,
and its floating golden locks to catch and hold, in a peculiar
fashion, the rays of the sunset. From this, with his race instinct of
poetic imagery, which finds in nature a type for everything, he caught
a quaint suggestion.

"She is like the sun himself. She is all warmth and brightness. She
is his child, now that her pale-faced parents sleep the long sleep,
and none other claims her. None? Yes, one. I, Black Partridge, the
Man-Who-Lies-Not. In my village, Muck-otey-pokee, lives my sister, the
daughter of a chief, her whose one son died of the fever on that same
dark night when the arrow of a Sioux warrior killed a brave, his sire.
In her closed tepee there will again be light. The Sun Maid shall make
it. So shall she escape the fate of the doomed pale-faces, and so
shall the daughter of my house again be glad."

Thus, bearing her new name, and all unconsciously, the little Sun Maid
was carried southward and still southward till the twilight fell and
her new guardian reached the Pottawatomie village, on the Illinois
prairie, where he dwelt.

Sultry as the night was, there was yet a great council fire blazing in
the midst of the settlement, and around this were grouped many young
braves of the tribe. Before the arrival of their chief there had been
a babel of tongues in the council, but all discussion ceased as he
joined the circle in the firelight.

The sudden silence was ominous, and the wise leader understood it;
but it was not his purpose then to quarrel with any man. Ignoring
the scowling glances bestowed upon him, he gave the customary
evening salutation and, advancing directly to the fire, plucked a
blazing fagot from it. This he lifted high and purposely held so
that its brightness illuminated the face and figure of the child
upon his breast.

[Illustration: BLACK PARTRIDGE AND THE SUN MAID. _Page 6._]

A guttural exclamation of astonishment ran from brave to brave. The
action of their chief was significant, but its meaning not clearly
comprehended. Had he brought the white baby as a hostage from the
distant garrison, in pledge that the compact of its commandant would
surely be kept? Or had some other tribe anticipated their own in
obtaining the gifts to be distributed?

Shut-Hand, one of the older warriors, whose name suggested his
character, rose swiftly to his feet, and demanded menacingly:

"What means our father, thus bringing hither the white papoose?"

"That which the Black Partridge does--he does."

Rebuked, but unsatisfied, the miserly inquirer sat down. Then, with a
gesture of protection, the chief raised the sleeping little one, that
all within the circle might better see her wonderful, glowing beauty,
intensified as it was by the flare of the flames as well as by
contrast to the dusky faces round about.

"Who suffers harm to her shall himself suffer. She is the Sun Maid,
the new daughter of our tribe."

Having said this, and still carrying the burning fagot, he walked to
the closed tepee of his widowed sister and lifted its door flap.
Stooping his tall head till its feathered crest swept the floor he
entered the spacious lodge. But he sniffed with contempt at the
stifling atmosphere within, and laying down his torch raised the other
half of the entrance curtain.

At the back of the wigwam, crouching in the attitude she had sustained
almost constantly since her bereavement, sat the Woman-Who-Mourns. She
did not lift her head, or give any sign of welcome till the chief had
crossed to her side, and in a tone of command bade her:

"Arise and listen, my sister, for I bring you joy."

"There is no joy," answered the woman, obediently lifting her tall
figure to a rigidly erect posture; by long habit compelled to outward
respect, though her heart remained indifferent.

"Put back the hair from your eyes. Behold. For the dead son I give you
the living daughter. In that land to which both have gone will her
lost mother care for your lost child as you now care for her."

Slowly, a pair of lean, brown hands came out from the swathing blanket
and parted the long locks that served as a veil to hide a haggard,
sorrowful face. After the deep gloom the sudden firelight dazzled the
woman's sight, and she blinked curiously toward the burden upon her
brother's breast. Then the small eyes began to see more clearly and to
evince the amazement that filled her.

"Dreams have been with me. They were many and strange. Is this
another?"

"This a glad reality. It is the Sun Maid. She has no parents. You have
no child. She is yours. Take her and learn to laugh once more as in
the days that are gone."

Then he held the little creature toward her; and still amazed, but
still obedient, the heart-broken squaw extended her arms and received
the unconscious foundling. As the warm, soft flesh touched her own a
thrill passed through her desolate heart, and all the tenderness of
motherhood returned.

"Who is she? Whence did she come? Where will she go?"

"She is the Sun Maid. From the Fort by the great lake, where are still
white men enough to die--as die they must. For there is treachery
afoot, and they who were first treacherous must bear their own
punishment. Only she shall be saved; and where she will go is in the
power of the Woman-Who-Mourns, and of her alone."

Without another word, and leaving the still blazing fagot lying on the
earthen floor, the chief went swiftly away.

But he had brought fresh air and light and comfort with him, as he had
prophesied. The small Sun Maid was already brightening the dusky lodge
as might an actual ray from her glorious namesake.

It was proof of her utter exhaustion that she still slept soundly
while her new foster-mother prepared a bed of softest furs spread over
fresh green branches and went hurriedly out to beg from a neighbor
squaw a draught of evening's milk. This action in itself was
sufficiently surprising to set all tongues a-chatter.

The lodge of Muck-otey-pokee had many of the comforts common to the
white men's settlements. Its herd of cattle even surpassed that at
Fort Dearborn itself, and was a matter of no small pride to the
Pottawatomie villagers. From the old mission fathers they had learned,
also, some useful arts, and wherever their prairie lands were tilled a
rich result was always obtainable.

So it was to a home of plenty, as well as safety, that Black Partridge
had brought the little Sun Maid; and when she at length awoke to see a
dusky face, full of wonderment and love, bending above her, she put
out her arms and gurgled in a glee which brought an answering smile to
lips that had not smiled for long.

With an instinct of yearning tenderness, the Woman-Who-Mourns had
lightened her sombre attire by all the devices possible, so that
while the child slept she had transformed herself. She had neatly
plaited her heavy hair, and wound about her head some strings of gay
beads. She had fastened a scarlet tanager's wing to her breast, now
covered by a bright-hued cotton gown once sent her from the Fort, and
for which she had discarded her dingy blanket. But the greatest
alteration of all was in the face itself, where a dawning happiness
brought out afresh all the good points of a former comeliness.

"Oh! Pretty! I have so many, many nice mammas. Are you another?"

"Yes. All your mother now. My Sun Maid. My Girl-Child. My papoose!"

"That is nice. But I'm hungry. Give me my breakfast, Other Mother.
Then I will go seek my bunny rabbit, that runned away, and my yellow
posies that went to sleep when I did. Did you put them to bed, too,
Other Mother?"

"There are many which shall wake for you, papoose," answered the
woman, promptly; for though she did not understand about the missing
blossoms, it was fortunate that she did both understand and speak the
language of her adopted daughter. Her dead husband had been the
tribe's interpreter, and both from him and from the Fort's chaplain
she had acquired considerable knowledge.

Until her widowhood and voluntary seclusion the Woman-Who-Mourns had
been a person of note at Muck-otey-pokee; and now by her guardianship
of this stranger white child she bade fair to again become such.



CHAPTER II.

TWO FOR BREAKFAST.


The dead son of the Woman-Who-Mourns had never been disobedient, and
small Kitty Briscoe had never obeyed anybody. She had laughed and
frolicked her way through all rules and over all obstacles with a
merry indifference that would have been insolent had it been less
innocent and charming. During her short life the orphan had heard no
voice but was full of tenderness, toward her at least; and every
babyish misdemeanor had been pardoned almost before it was committed,
by reason of her exceeding loveliness and overflowing affection. She
had so loved all that she feared none, and not one of the kind mothers
at the Fort had felt it her especial duty to discipline so sweet and
fearless a nature. By and by, when she grew older, why, of course, the
child must come under the yoke, like other children of that stern
generation; but for the present, what was she but an ignorant baby, a
motherless babe at that?

So that, on that first morning of their life together, it gave the
latest foster-mother a very decided shock when she directed:

"Take your bowl of suppawn and milk, and eat it here by the fire,
Girl-Child," to have the other reply, with equal decision:

"Kitty will take it to the out-doors."

"How? The papoose must eat her breakfast here, as I command."

"But Kitty must take it out the doors. What will the pigeons say? Come
with me, Other Mother."

Quite to her own astonishment, the proud daughter of a chief complied.
Superstition had suggested to her that this white-robed little
creature, with her trustful eyes and her wonderful hair, who seemed
rather to float over the space to the threshold than to tread upon the
earthen floor, was the re-embodied spirit of her own lost child come
back to comfort her sorrow and to be a power for good in her tribe.

But if the Sun Maid were a spirit, she had many earthly qualities; and
with a truly human carelessness she had no sooner stepped beyond the
tent flap than she let fall her heavy bowl and spilled her breakfast.
For there stood her last night's rescuer, his arms full of flowers.

"Oh, the posies! the posies! Nice Feather-man did bring them."

"Ugh! Black Partridge, the Truth-Teller. I have come to take my
leave. Also to ask you, my sister, shall I carry away the Sun Maid to
her own people? Or shall she abide with you?"

"Take her away, my brother? Do you not guess, then, who she is?"

"Why should I guess when I know. I saw her father die, and I stood
beside her mother's grave. The white papoose has neither tribe nor
kinsman."

"There for once the Truth-Teller speaks unwisely. The Sun Maid, whom
you found asleep on the path, is my own flesh and blood."

In surprise Black Partridge stared at the woman, whose face glowed
with delight. Then he reflected that it would be as well to leave her
undisturbed in her strange notion. The helpless little one would be
the better cared for, under such circumstances, and the time might
speedily come when she would need all the protection possible for
anybody to give.

"It is well--as you believe; yet then you are no longer the
Woman-Who-Mourns, but again Wahneenah, the Happy."

For a moment they silently regarded the child who had thrown herself
face downward upon the great heap of orchids that Black Partridge had
brought, and which he had risen very early to gather. They were of the
same sort that the little one had grieved over on the night before,
only much larger and fairer, and of far greater number. Talking to
the blossoms and caressing them as if they were human playmates, the
Sun Maid forgot that she was hungry, until Wahneenah had brought a
second bowl of porridge and, gently lifting her charge to a place upon
the mat, had bidden her eat.

"Oh, yes! My breakfast. I did forget it, didn't I? Oh, the darling
posies! Oh! the pretty Feather-man, that couldn't tell a naughty
story. I know 'bout him. We all know 'bout him to our Fort. My Captain
says he is the bestest Feather-man in all the--everywhere."

"Ugh! Ugh!"

The low grunt of assent seemed to come from every side the big wigwam.
At all times there were many idle Indians at Muck-otey-pokee, but of
late their number had been largely increased by bands of visiting
Pottawatomies. These had come to tarry with their tribesmen in the
village till the distribution of goods should be made from Fort
Dearborn, as had been ordered by General Hull; or until the hour was
ripe for their treacherous assault upon the little garrison.

The Man-Who-Kills was in the very centre of the group which had
squatted in a semi-circle as near as it dared before the tepee of
their chief's sister, and the low grunts came from this band of
spectators.

"We will sit and watch. So will we learn what the Black Partridge
means," and when Spotted Rabbit so advised his brothers, they had
come in the darkness and arranged themselves as has been described.

The chief had found them there when, before dawn, he came with his
offering of flowers, and Wahneenah had seen them when she raised the
curtain of her tent and looked out to learn what manner of day was
coming. But neither had noticed them any more than they did the birds
rustling in the cottonwood beside the wigwam, or the wild creatures
skurrying across the path for their early drink at the stream below.

Neither had the Sun Maid paid them any attention, for she had always
been accustomed to meeting the savages both at the Fort and on her
rides abroad with any of her garrison friends; so she deliberately
sipped her breakfast, pausing now and then to arrange the pouch-like
petals of some favored blossoms and to converse with them in her
fantastic fashion, quite believing that they heard and understood.

"Did the nice Feather-man bring you all softly, little posies? Aren't
you glad you've come to live with Kitty? Other Mother will give you
all some breakfast, too, of coldest water in the brook. Then you will
sit up straight and hold your heads high. That's the way the children
do when my Captain takes the book with the green cover and makes them
spell things out of it. Oscar doesn't like the green book. It makes
him wriggle his nose--so; but Margaret is as fond of it as I am of
you. Oh, dear! Some day, all my mothers say, I, too, will have to sit
and look on the printing and spell words. I can, though, even now.
Listen, posies. D-o-g--that's--that's--I guess it's 'cat.' Isn't it,
posies? But you don't have to spell things, do you? I needn't either.
Not to-day, and maybe not to-morrow day. Because, you see, I runned
away. Oh, how I did run! So fast, so far, before I found your little
sisters, posies, dear. Then I guess I went to sleep, without ever
saying my 'Now I lay me,' and the black Feather-man came, and--that's
all."

Wahneenah had gone back to her household duties, for she had many
things on hand that day. Not the least, to make her neglected tepee a
brighter, fitter home for this stray sunbeam which the Great Spirit
had sent to her out of the sky, and into which He had breathed the
soul of her lost one. Indistinctly, she heard the murmuring of the
babyish voice at the threshold and occasionally caught some of the
words it uttered. These served but to establish her in her belief that
the child had more than mortal senses; else how should she fancy that
the blossoms would hear and understand her prattle?

"Listen. She talks to the weeds as the white men talk to us. She is a
witch," said the Man-Who-Kills to his neighbor in the circle, the
White Pelican.

"She is only a child of the pale-faces. The Black Partridge has set
her among us to move our hearts to pity."

"The White Pelican was ever a coward," snorted the Man-Who-Kills.

But the younger warrior merely turned his head and smiled
contemptuously. Then he critically scrutinized the ill-proportioned
figure of the ugly-tempered brave. The fellow's crooked back,
abnormally long arms and short legs were an anomaly in that race of
stalwart Indians, and the soul of the savage corresponded to his
outward development. For his very name had been given him in derision;
because, though he always threatened and always sneaked after his
prey, he had never been known to slay an enemy in open combat.

"That is as the tomahawks prove. The scalps hang close on the pole of
my wigwam," finally remarked the Pelican.

"Ugh! But there was never such a scalp as that of the papoose yonder.
It shall hang above all others in _my_ tepee. I have said it."

"Having said it, you may unsay it. That is no human fleece upon that
small head. She is sacred."

"How? Is the White Pelican a man of dreams?"

The elder brave also used a tone of contempt, though not with marked
success. His thought reverted to the night before, when the chief had
stood beside the council fire holding the sleeping child in his arms.
Her wonderful yellow hair, fine as spun cobwebs and almost as light,
had blown over the breast of Black Partridge like a cloud, and it had
glistened and shimmered in the firelight as if possessed of restless
life. The little figure was clothed in white, as the Fort mothers had
fancied best suited their charge's fairness, even though the fabric
must of necessity be coarse; and this garment likewise caught the glow
of the dancing flames till it seemed luminous in itself.

As an idle rumor spreads and grows among better cultured people so
superstition held in power these watchful Indians. Said one:

"The father of his tribe has met a spirit on the prairie and brought
it to our village. Is the deed for good or evil?"

This was what the men in the semi-circle had come to find out. So
they relapsed again into silence, but kept a fixed gaze upon the
indifferent child before them. She continued her playing and feeding
as unconsciously as if she, the flowers, and the sunshine, were
quite alone. Some even fancied that they could hear the orchids
whispering in return; and it was due to that morning's incident that,
thereafter, few among the Pottawatomies would lightly bruise or break
a blossom which they then learned to believe was gifted with a sensate
life.

But presently a sibilant "Hst!" ran the length of the squatting line,
and warriors who feared not death for themselves felt their muscles
stiffen under a tension of dread as they saw the slow, sinuous
approach of a poisonous reptile to the child on the mat; and the
thought of each watcher was the same:

"Now, indeed, the test--spirit or mortal?"

The snake glided onward, its graceful body showing through the grass,
its head slightly upraised, and its intention unmistakable.

An Indian can be the most silent thing on earth, if he so wills, and
at once it was as if all that row of red men had become stone. Even
Wahneenah, in the wigwam behind, was startled by the stillness, and
cautiously tiptoed forward to learn its cause. Then her heart, like
theirs, hushed its beating and she rigidly awaited the outcome.

Only the child herself was undisturbed. She did not cease the slow
lifting of the clay spoon to her lips, and between sips she still
prattled and gurgled in sheer content.

"Kitty is most fulled up, 'cause she did have so big a breakfast, she
did. Nice Other Mother did give it me. I wish my bunny rabbit had not
runned away. Then he could have some. Never mind. Here comes a
beau'ful cunning snake. I did see one two times to my Fort. Bad Jacky
soldier did kill him dead, and that made Kitty cry. Come, pretty
thing, do you want Kitty's breakfast? Then you may have it every bit."

So she tossed her hair from her eyes and sat with uplifted spoon while
the moccasin glided up to the mat and over it, till its mouth could
reach the shallow bowl in the child's lap.

"Oh! the funny way it eats. Poor thing! It hasn't any spoon. It might
have Kitty's, only----"

The bright eyes regarded the rudely shaped implement and the mouth it
was to feed; then the little one's ready laughter bubbled forth.

"Funny Kitty! How could it hold a spoon was bigger 'n itself--when its
hands have never grown? Other pretty one, that Jacky killed, that
didn't have its hands, either. Hush, snaky. Did I make you afraid, I
laugh so much? Now I will keep very, very still till you are through.
Then you may go back home to your childrens, and tell them all about
your nice breakfast. Where do you live? Is it in a Fort, as Kitty
does? Oh, I forgot! I did promise to keep still. Quite, quite still,
till you go way away."

So she did; while not only the red-skins, but all nature seemed to
pause and watch the strange spectacle; for the light breeze that had
come with the sunrise now died away, and every leaf stood still in the
great heat which descended upon the earth.

It seemed to Wahneenah, watching in a very motherly fear, and to the
squatting braves, in their increasing awe, as if hours passed while
the child and the reptile remained messmates. But at length the
dangerous serpent was satisfied and, turning slowly about, retreated
whence it came.

Then Mistress Kitty lifted her voice and called merrily:

"Come, Other Mother! Come and see. I did have a lovely, lovely creepy
one to eat with me. He did eat so funny Kitty had to laugh. Then I
remembered that my other peoples to my Fort tell all the children to
be good and I was good, wasn't I? Say, Other Mother, my posies want
some water."

"They shall have it, White Papoose, my Girl-Child-Who-Is-Safe. She
whom the Great Spirit has restored nothing can harm."

Then she led the Sun Maid away, after she had gathered up every
flower, not daring that anything beloved of her strange foster-child
should be neglected.

The watching Indians also rose and returned into the village from
that point on its outskirts where Wahneenah's wigwam stood. They spoke
little, for in each mind the conviction had become firm that the Sun
Maid was, in deed and truth, a being from the Great Beyond, safe from
every mortal hurt.

Yet still, the Man-Who-Kills fingered the edge of his tomahawk with
regret and remarked in a manner intended to show his great prowess:

"Even a mighty warrior cannot fight against the powers of the sky."

After a little, one, less credulous than his fellows, replied
boastfully:

"Before the sun shall rise and set a second time the white scalp will
hang at my belt."

Nobody answered the boast till at length a voice seemed to come out of
the ground before them, and at its first sound every brave stood still
to listen for that which was to follow. All recognized the voice, even
the strangers from the most distant settlements. It was heard in
prophecy only, and it belonged to old Katasha, the One-Who-Knows.

"No. It is not so. Long after every one of this great Pottawatomie
nation shall have passed out of sight, toward the place where the day
dies, the hair of the Sun Maid's head shall be still shining. Its gold
will have turned to snow, but generation after generation shall bow
down to it in honor. Go. The road is plain. There is blood upon it,
and some of this is yours. But the scalp of the Sun Maid is in the
keeping of the Great Spirit. It is sacred. It cannot be harmed. Go."

Then the venerable woman, who had risen from her bed upon the ground
to utter her message, returned to her repose, and the warriors filed
past her with bowed heads and great dejection of spirit. In this mood
they joined another company about the dead council fire, and in angry
resentment listened to the speech of the Black Partridge as he pleaded
with them for the last time.

"For it is the last. This day I make one more journey to the Fort, and
there I will remain until you join me. We have promised safe escort
for our white neighbors through the lands of the hostile tribes who
dare not wage war against us. The white man trusts us. He counts us
his friends. Shall we keep our promise and our honor, or shall we
become traitors to the truth?"

It was Shut-Hand who answered for his tribesmen:

"It is the pale-face who is a traitor to honesty. The goods which our
Great Father gave him in trust for his red children have been
destroyed. The white soldiers have forgotten their duty and have
taught us to forget ours. When the sun rises on the morrow we will
join the Black Partridge at the Fort by the great water, and we will
do what seems right in our eyes. The Black Partridge is our father
and our chief. He must not then place the good of our enemies before
the good of his own people. We have spoken."

So the great Indian, who was more noble than his clansmen, went out
from among them upon a hopeless errand. This time he did not make his
journey on foot, but upon the back of his fleetest horse; and the
medal he meant to relinquish was wrapped in a bit of deerskin and
fastened to his belt.

"Well, at least the Sun Maid will be safe. When the braves, with the
squaws and children, join their brothers at the camp, Wahneenah will
remain at Muck-otey-pokee; as should every other woman of the
Pottawatomie nation, were I as powerful in reality as I appear. It is
the squaws who urge the men to the darkest deeds. Ugh! What will be
must be. Tchtk! Go on!"

But the bay horse was already travelling at its best, slow as its pace
seemed to the Black Partridge.



CHAPTER III.

IN INDIAN ATTIRE.


Not many hours after Black Partridge turned his back upon
Muck-otey-pokee, all its fighting men, with their squaws and children,
also left it, as their chief had foreseen they would. They followed
the direction he had taken, though they did not proceed to the
garrison itself.

The camp to which they repaired was a little distance from the Fort,
and had been pitched beside the river, where was then a fringe of
cottonwoods and locusts affording a grateful shade. Here the squaws
cooked and gossiped, while their sons played the ancient games of
throwing the spear through the ring, casting the hatchet, and shooting
birds on the wing.

The braves tested their weapons and boasted of many valorous deeds; or
were else entirely silent, brooding upon mischief yet to come. Over
all was the thrill of excitement and anticipation, which the great
heat of the season seemed to deepen rather than dispel.

At the Fort, Black Partridge pleaded finally and in vain.

"We have been ordered to evacuate, and we will obey. All things are in
readiness. The stores are already in the wagons, and other wagons wait
for the sick, the women, and the children. Your people have promised
us a safe conveyance through their country, and as far as we shall
need it. They will be well paid. Part they have received, and the rest
of their reward will be promptly delivered at the end of the journey.
There is no more to be said"; and with this conclusion the weary
commandant sat down in his denuded home to take a bit of food and a
few moments' rest. He nodded hospitably toward an empty chair on the
farther side of the deal table, by way of invitation that the Indian
should join him, but this the honest chief declined to do.

"No, good father, that can no longer be. I have come to return you
this medal. I have worn it long and in peace. It was the gift of your
people, a pledge between us of friendship. My friendship remains
unbroken, but there also remains a tie which is stronger. I am the
chief of my tribe. My young men are brave, and they have been
deceived. They will punish the deceivers, and I have no power to
prevent this. Nor do I blame them, though I would hold them to their
compact if I could."

"Cannot the Truth-Teller compel his sons to his own habit?"

"Not when his white father sets them a bad example."

"Black Partridge, your words are bold."

"Your deed was bolder, father. It was the deed of a fool."

"Take care!"

As if he had not heard, the chief spoke steadily on:

"My tribesman, Winnemeg--the white man's friend--brought the order
that all goods stored here should be justly distributed among my
people, to every man his portion. Was it thus done?"

"Come, Black Partridge, you are not wanting in good sense nor in
honesty. You must admit that such a course would have been hazardous
in the extreme. The idea of putting liquor and ammunition into the
hands of the red men was one of utter madness. It was worse than
foolhardy. The broken firearms are safe in the well, and the more
dangerous whiskey has mingled itself harmlessly with the waters of the
river and the lake."

"There is something more foolish than folly," said the Indian,
gravely, "and that is a lie! The powder drowned in the well will kill
more pale-faces than it could have done in the hands of your red
children. The river-diluted whiskey will inflame more hot heads than
if it had been dispensed honorably and in its full strength. But now
the end. Though I will do what I can do, even the Truth-Teller cannot
fight treachery. Prepare for the worst. And so--farewell!"

Then the tall chief bowed his head in sadness and went away; but the
terrible truth of what he then uttered all the world now knows.

Meanwhile, in the almost empty village among the cottonwoods, the Sun
Maid played and laughed and chattered as she had always done in her
old home at the Fort. And all day, those wiser women like Wahneenah,
who had refrained from following their tribe to the distant camp,
watched and attended the child in admiring awe.

By nightfall the Sun Maid had been loaded with gifts. Lahnowenah, wife
of the avaricious Shut-Hand but herself surnamed the Giver, came
earliest of all, with a necklace of bears' claws and curious shells
which had come from the Pacific slope, none knew how many years
before.

The Sun Maid received the gift with delight and her usual exclamation
of "Nice!" but when the donor attempted to clasp the trinket about the
fair little throat she was met by a decided: "No, no, no!"

"Girl-Child! All gifts are worthy, but this woman has given her best,"
corrected Wahneenah, with some sternness. This baby might be a spirit,
in truth, but it was the spirit of her own child and she must still
hold it under authority.

At sound of the altered tones, Kitty looked up swiftly and her lip
quivered. Then she replied with equal decision:

"Other Mother must not speak to me like that. Kitty is not bad. It is
a pretty, pretty thing, but it is dirty. It must have its faces
washed. Then I will wear it and love it all my life."

An Indian girl would have been punished for such frankness, but
Lahnowenah showed no resentment. Beneath her outward manner lay a
deeper meaning. To her the necklace was a talisman. From generations
long dead it had come down to her, and always as a life-saver. Whoever
wore it could never be harmed "by hatchet or arrow, nor by fire or
flood." Yet that very morning had her own brother, the Man-Who-Kills,
assured her that the child's life was a doomed one, and she had more
faith in his threats than had his neighbors in their village. She knew
that the one thing he respected was this heirloom, and that he would
not dare injure anybody who wore it. The Sun Maid was, undoubtedly,
under the guardianship of higher powers than a poor squaw's, yet it
could harm nobody to take all precautions.

So, with a grim smile, the donor carried her gift to the near-by brook
and held it for a few moments beneath the sluggish water; then she
returned to the wigwam and again proffered it to the foundling.

"Yes. That is nice now. Kitty will wear it all the time. Won't the
childrens be pleased when they see it! Maybe they may wear it, too, if
the dear blanket lady says they may. Can they, Other Mother?"

The squaws exchanged significant glances. They knew it was not
probable that the Fort orphan and her old playmates would ever meet
again; but Wahneenah answered evasively:

"They can wear it when they come to the Sun Maid's home."

Again Lahnowenah would have put the necklace in its place, and a
second time she was prevented; for at that moment the One-Who-Knows
came slowly down the path between the trees, and held up her crutch
warningly, as she called, in her feeble voice:

"Wait! This is a ceremony. Let all the women come."

Lahnowenah ran to summon them, and they gathered about the tepee in
expectant silence. When old Katasha exerted herself it behooved all
the daughters of her tribe to be in attendance.

Wahneenah hastened to spread her best mat for the visitor's use, and
helped to seat her upon it.

"Ugh! Old feet grow clumsy and old arms weak. Take this bundle, sister
of my chief, and do with its contents as seems right to thee."

The other squaws squatted around, eagerly curious, while Wahneenah
untied the threads of sinew which fastened the blanket-wrapped parcel.
This outer covering itself was different from anything she had ever
handled, being exquisitely soft in texture and gaudily bright in hue.
It was also of a small size, such as might fit a child's shoulders.

Within the blanket was a little tunic of creamy buckskin, gayly
bedecked with a fringe of beads around the neck and arms' eyes, while
the short skirt ended in a border of fur, also bead-trimmed in an odd
pattern. With it were tiny leggings that matched the tunic; and a
dainty pair of moccasins completed the costume.

As garment after garment was spread out before the astonished gaze of
the squaws their exclamations of surprise came loud and fast. A group
of white mothers over a fashionable outfit for a modern child could
not have been more enthusiastic or excited.

Yet through all this she who had brought it remained stolid and
silent; till at length her manner impressed the others, and they
remembered that she had said: "It is a ceremony." Then Wahneenah
motioned the squaws to be silent, and demanded quietly:

"What is this that the One-Who-Knows sees good to be done at the lodge
of her chief's daughter?"

"Take the papoose. Set her before me. Watch and see."

Wide-eyed and smiling, and quite unafraid, the little orphan from the
Fort stood, as she was directed, close beside the aged squaw while she
was silently disrobed. Her baby eyes had caught the glitter of beads
on the new garments, and there was never a girl-child born who did not
like new clothes. When she was quite undressed, and her white body
shone like a marble statue in contrast to their dusky forms, the
hushed voices of the Indians burst forth again in a torrent of
admiration.

But Kitty was too young to understand this, and deemed it some new
game in which she played the principal part.

The prophetess held up her hand and the women ceased chattering. Then
she pointed toward the brook and, herself comprehending what was meant
by this gesture, the Sun Maid ran lightly to the bank and leaped in.
With a scream of fear, that was very human and mother-like, Wahneenah
followed swiftly. For the instant she had forgotten that the merry
little one was a "spirit," and could not drown.

Fortunately, the stream was not deep, and was delightfully sun-warmed.
Besides, the Fort children had all been as much at home in the water
as on the land and a daily plunge had been a matter of course. So
Kitty laughed and clapped her hands as she ducked again and again into
the deepest of the shallow pools, splashing and gurgling in glee, till
another signal from the aged crone bade the foster-mother bring the
bather back.

"No, no! Kitty likes the water. Kitty did make the Feather-lady wash
the necklace. Now the old Feather-lady makes Kitty wash Kitty. No, I
do not want to go. I want to stay right here in the brook."

"But--the beautiful tunic! What about that, papoose?"

It was not at all a "spiritual" argument, yet it sufficed; and with a
spring the little one was out of the water and clinging to Wahneenah's
breast.

As she was set down, dewy and glistening, she pranced and tossed her
dripping hair about till the drops it scattered touched some faces
that had not known the feel of water in many a day. With an "Ugh!" of
disgust the squaws withdrew to a safe distance from this unsolicited
bath, though remaining keenly watchful of what the One-Who-Knows might
do. This was, first, the anointing of the child's body with some
unctuous substance that the old woman had brought, wrapped in a pawpaw
leaf.

Since towels were a luxury unknown in the wilderness, as soon as this
anointing was finished Katasha clothed the child in her new costume
and laid her hand upon the sunny head, while she muttered a charm to
"preserve it from all evil and all enemies." Then, apparently
exhausted by her own efforts, the prophetess directed Lahnowenah, the
Giver, to put on the antique White Necklace.

This was so long that it went twice about the Sun Maid's throat and
would have been promptly pulled off by her own fingers, as an
adornment quite too warm for the season had not the fastening been one
she could not undo and the string, which held the ornaments, of strong
sinew.

Then Wahneenah took the prophetess into her wigwam, and prepared a
meal of dried venison meat, hulled corn, and the juice of wild berries
pressed out and sweetened. Katasha's visits were of rare occurrence,
and it had been long since the Woman-Who-Mourns had played the
hostess, save in this late matter of her foster-child; so for a time
she forgot all save the necessity of doing honor to her guest. When
she did remember the Sun Maid and went in anxious haste to the
doorway, the child had vanished.

"She is gone! The Great Spirit has recalled her!" cried Wahneenah, in
distress.

"Fear not, the White Papoose is safe. She will live long and her hands
will be full. As they fill they will overflow. She is a river that
enriches yet suffers no loss. Patience. Patience. You have taken joy
into your home, but you have also taken sorrow. Accept both, and wait
what will come."

Even Wahneenah, to whom many deferred, felt that she herself must pay
deference to this venerable prophetess, and so remained quiet in her
wigwam as long as her guest chose to rest there. This was until the
sun was near its setting and till the foster-mother's heart had grown
sick with anxiety. So, no sooner had Katasha's figure disappeared
among the trees than Wahneenah set out at frantic speed to find the
little one.

"Have you seen the Sun Maid?" she demanded of the few she met; and at
last one set her on the right track.

"Yes. She chased a gray squirrel that had been wounded. It was still
so swift it could just outstrip her, and she followed beyond the
village, away along the bank. Osceolo passed near, and saw the
squirrel seek refuge in the lodge of Spotted Adder. The Sun Maid also
entered."

"The lodge of Spotted Adder!" repeated Wahneenah, slowly. "Then only
the Great Spirit can preserve her!"



CHAPTER IV.

THE WHITE BOW.


Wahneenah had lived so entirely within the seclusion of her own lodge
that she had become almost a stranger in the village. It was long
since she had travelled so far as the isolated hut into which the
youth, Osceolo, had seen the Sun Maid disappear, and as she approached
it her womanly heart smote her with pain and self-reproach, while she
reflected thus:

"Has it come to this? Spotted Adder, the Mighty, whose wigwam was once
the richest of all my father's tribe. I remember that its curtains of
fine skins were painted by the Man-Of-Visions himself, and told the
history of the Pottawatomies since the beginning of the world. Many a
heap of furs and peltries went in payment for their adornment,
but--where are they now! While I have sat in darkness with my sorrow
new things have become old. Yet he is accursed. Else the trouble would
not have befallen him. I have heard the women talking, through my
dreams. He has lain down and cannot again arise. And the White Papoose
is with him! Will she be accursed, too? Fool! Why do I fear? Is she
not a child of the sky, and forever safe, as Katasha said? But the
touch of her arms was warm, like the clasp of the son I bore, and----"

The mother's reverie ended in a very human distress. There was a rumor
among her people that whoever came near the Spotted Adder would
instantly be infected by whatever was the dread disease from which he
suffered. That the Sun Maid's wonderful loveliness should receive a
blemish seemed a thing intolerable and, in another instant, regardless
of her own danger, Wahneenah had crept beneath the broken flap of
bark, into a scene of squalor indescribable. Even this squaw, who knew
quite well how wretched the tepees of her poorer tribesmen often were,
was appalled now; and though the torn skins and strips of bark which
covered the hut admitted plenty of light and air, she gasped for
breath before she could speak.

"My Girl-Child! My Sun Maid! Come away. Wrong, wrong to have entered
here, to have made me so anxious. Come."

"No, no, Other Mother! Kitty cannot come. Kitty must stay. See the
poor gray squirrel? It has broked its leg. It went so--hoppety-pat,
hoppety-pat, as fast as fast. I thought it was playing and just
running away. So Kitty runned too. Kitty always runs away when Kitty
can."

"Ugh! I believe you. Come."

"No, Kitty must stay. Poor sick man needs Kitty. I did give him a nice
drink. Berries, too. Kitty putted them in his mouth all the time. Poor
man!"

Wahneenah's anger rose. Was she, a chief's daughter, to be thus
flouted by a baby, a pale-face at that? Surely, there was nothing
whatever spiritual now about this self-willed, spoiled creature, whom
an unkind fate had imposed upon her. She stooped to lift the little
one and compel obedience, but was met by a smile so fearless and happy
that her arms fell to her sides.

"That's a good Other Mother. Poor sick man has wanted to turn him
over, and he couldn't. Kitty tried and tried, and Kitty couldn't. Now
my Other Mother's come. She can. She is so beau'ful strong and kind!"

There was a grunt, which might have been a groan, from the corner of
the hut where the Spotted Adder lay; and a convulsive movement of the
contorted limbs as he vainly strove to change his uncomfortable
position. Wahneenah watched him, with the contempt which the women of
her race feel for any masculine weakness, and did not offer to assist.
His poverty she pitied, and would have relieved, though his physical
infirmity was repugnant to her. She would not touch him.

But the Sun Maid was on her feet at once, tenderly laying upon the
ground the wounded squirrel which she had held upon her lap. The wild
thing had, apparently, lost all its timidity and now fully trusted the
child who had caressed its fur and murmured soft, pitying sounds, in
that low voice of hers, which the Fort people had sometimes felt was
an unknown language. Certainly, she had had a strange power, always,
over any animal that came near her and this case was no exception. Her
white friends would not have been surprised by the incident, but
Wahneenah was, and it brought back her belief that this was a child of
supernatural gifts. She even began to feel ashamed of her treatment of
Spotted Adder, though she waited to see what his small nurse would do.

"Poor sick Feather-man! Is you hurted now? Does your face ache you to
make it screw itself all this way?" and she made a comical grimace,
imitative of the sufferer's expression.

"Ugh! Ugh!"

"Yes; Kitty hears. Other Mother, that is all the word he says. All the
time it is just 'Ugh! Ugh!' I wish he would talk Kitty's talk. Make
him do it, Other Mother. Please!"

"That I cannot do. He knows it not. But he has a speech I understand.
What need you, Spotted Adder?" she concluded, in his own dialect.

"Ugh! It is the voice of Wahneenah, the Happy. What does she here, in
the lodge of the outcast? It is many a moon since the footfall of a
woman sounded on my floor. Why does one come now?"

"In pursuit of this child, the adopted daughter of our tribe, whom the
Black Partridge himself has given me. It was ill of you, accursed, to
wile her hither with your unholy spells."

"I wiled her not. It was the gray squirrel. Broken in his life, as am
I, the once Mighty. Many wounded creatures seek shelter here. It is a
sanctuary. They alone fear not the miserable one."

"Does not the tribe see to it that you have food and drink set within
your wigwam, once during each journey of the sun? I have so heard."

"Ugh! Food and drink. Sometimes I cannot reach them. They are not even
pushed beyond the door flap, or what is left of it. They are all
afraid. All. Yet they are fools. That which has befallen me may happen
to each when his time comes. It is the sickness of the bones. There is
no contagion in it. But it twists the straight limbs into torturing
curves and it rends the body with agony. One would be glad to die, but
death--like friendship--holds itself aloof. Ugh! The drink! The
drink!"

The Sun Maid could understand the language of the eyes, if not the
lips, and she followed their wistful gaze toward the clay bowl from
which she had before given him the water. But it was empty now, and
seizing it with all her strength, for it was heavy and awkward in
shape, she sped out of the wigwam toward a spring she had discovered.

"Four, ten, lots of times Kitty has broughted the nice water, and
every time the poor, sick Feather-man has drinked it up. He must be
terrible thirsty, and so is Kitty. I guess I will drink first, this
time."

Filling the utensil, she struggled to lift it to her own lips, but it
was rudely pushed away.

"Papoose! Would you drink to your own death? The thing is accursed, I
tell you!"

"Why, Other Mother! It is just as clean as clean. Kitty did wash and
wash it long ago. It was all dirty, worse than my new necklace, but it
is clean now. Do you want a drink, Other Mother? Is you thirsty, too,
like the sick one and Kitty?"

"If I were, it would be long before I touched my lips to that cup."

"Would it? Now I will fill it again. Then you must take it, Other
Mother, and quick, quick, back to that raggedy house. Kitty is tired,
she has come here and there so many, many times."

"Is it here you have spent this long day, papoose?"

"I did come here when the gray squirrel runned away. I did stay ever
since."

Wahneenah's heart sank. But to her credit it was that, for the time
being, she forgot the stories she had heard, and remembered only that
there was suffering which she must relieve. It might be that already
the soul of Spotted Adder was winged for its long flight, and could
carry for her to that wide Unknown, where her own dead tarried, some
message from her, the bereft. As this thought flashed through her
brain she seized the bowl and hastened with it to the lodge.

This time, also, she forgot everything but the possibility that had
come to her, and kneeling beside the old Indian she held the dish to
his mouth.

"It is the fever, the fever! A little while and the awful chill will
come again. The racking pain, the thirst! Ugh! Wahneenah, the Happy,
is braver than her sisters. Her courage shall prove her blessing. The
lips of the dying speak truth."

"And the ears of the dying? Can they still hear and remember? Will the
Spotted Adder take my message to the men I have lost? Sire and son,
there was no Pottawatomie ever born so brave as they. Tell them I have
been faithful. I have been the Woman-Who-Mourns. I have kept to my
darkened wigwam and remembered only them, till she came, this child
you have seen. She is a gift from the sky. She has come to comfort
and sustain. She was born a pale-face, but she has a red man's heart.
She is all brave and true and dauntless. None fear her, and she fears
none. I believe that they have sent her to me. I believe that in her
they both live. Ask them if this is so."

"There is no need to ask, Wahneenah, the Happy. Happy, indeed, who has
been blessed with a gift so gracious. She is the Merciful. The
Unafraid. She will pass in safety through many perils. All day she has
sat beside me whom all others shun. She has moistened my lips, she has
kept the gnats from stinging, she has sung in her unknown tongue of
that land whither I go, and soon,--the land of the sky from whence she
came. The light of the morning is on her hair and the dusk of evening
in her eyes. As she has ministered to me, the deserted, the solitary,
so she will minister unto multitudes. I can see them crowding,
crowding; the generations yet unborn. The vision of the dying is
true."

On the floor beside them the Sun Maid sat, caressing the wounded
squirrel. Through the torn curtains the waning sunlight slanted and
lighted the bleak interior. It seemed to rest most brilliantly upon
the child, and in the eyes of the Spotted Adder she was like a lamp
set to illumine his path through the dark valley, an unexpected
messenger from the Great Father, showing him beforehand a glimpse of
the beauty and tenderness of the Land Beyond. Yet even if a spirit,
she wore a human shape, and she would have human needs. She would be
often in danger against which she must be guarded.

"Wahneenah, fetch me the bow and quiver."

"Which?" she asked, in surprise, though in reality she knew.

"Is there one that should be named with mine? The White Bow from the
land of eternal snow; the arrows winged with feathers from the white
eagle's wing,--light as thistle down, strong as love, invincible as
death."

The Spotted Adder had been the orator of his tribe. Men had listened
to his words in admiration, wondering whence he obtained the eloquence
which moved them; and at that moment it was as if all the power of his
earlier manhood had returned.

The White Bow was well known among all the Pottawatomie tribes. Even
the Sacs and Foxes had heard of it and feared it. It was older than
the Giver's historic necklace, and tradition said that it had been
hurled to earth on the breath of a mighty snowstorm. It had fallen
before the wigwam of the Spotted Adder's ancestor and had been handed
down from father to son, as fair and sound as on the day of its first
bestowal. None knew the wood of which it was fashioned, which many
could bend and twist but none could break. The string which first
bound it had never worn nor wasted, and not a feather had ever fallen
from the arrows in the quiver, nor had their number ever diminished,
no matter how often sped. It was the one possession left to the
neglected warrior and had been protected by its own reputed origin.
There were daring thieves in many a tribe, but never a thief so bold
he would risk his soul in the seizure of the White Bow.

Wahneenah felt no choice but to comply with the Indian's command. She
took the bow and its accoutrements from the sheltered niche in the
tepee where it hung; the only spot, it seemed, that had not been
subjected to the destruction of the elements. She had never held it in
her hand before, and she wondered at its lightness as she carried it
to its owner, and placed it in the gnarled fingers which would never
string it again.

"Good! Call the child to stand here."

With awe, Wahneenah motioned the little one within the red man's
reach. The last vestige of fear or repulsion had vanished from her own
mind before the majesty of this hour.

"Does the poor, sick Feather-man want another drink? Shall Kitty fetch
it now?"

"Hush, papoose!"

He would have opened the small white hand and clasped it about the
bow, which reached full three times the height of the child, and along
whose beautiful length she gazed in wonder, but he could not.

"Take it, Girl-Child. It is a gift. It is more magical than the
necklace. Take it, hold it tight--that will please him--and say what
is in your heart."

"Oh, the beau'ful bow! Is it for Kitty? To keep, forever and ever?
Why, it is bigger than that one of the Sauganash, and far prettier
than Winnemeg's. It cannot be for Kitty, just little Kitty girl."

"Yes; it is."

Then the Sun Maid laid it reverently down, and catching hold her scant
tunic made the old-fashioned curtsey which her Fort friends had taught
her.

"Thank you, poor Feather-man. I will take care of it very nice. I
won't break it, not once."

"Ugh!" grunted the Indian, with satisfaction. Then he closed his eyes
as if he would sleep.

"Good-night, Spotted Adder, the Mighty. I thank you, also, on the
child's behalf. It is the second gift this day of talismans that must
protect. Surely, she will be clothed in safety. Hearken to me. I must
go home. The Sun Maid must be fed and put to sleep. But I will return.
I am no longer afraid. You were my father's friend. All that a woman's
hand can now do for your comfort shall be done."

[Illustration: THE GIFT OF THE WHITE BOW. _Page 48._]

But the Spotted Adder made no sign, and whether he did or did not hear
her, Wahneenah never knew. She walked swiftly homeward, bearing the
White Papoose upon one strong arm and the White Bow upon the other.
Yet she noticed, with a smile, that the child still clung tenderly to
her own burden of the injured squirrel, and that she was infinitely
more careful of it and its suffering than of the wonderful gift she
had received.

Long before her own tepee was reached the Sun Maid was fast asleep;
and as the small head rested more and more heavily upon Wahneenah's
shoulder, and the soft breath of childhood fanned her throat, the
woman again doubted the spiritual origin of the foundling, and felt
fresh gratitude for its simple humanity.

"Well, whoever and whatever she is, she is already thrice protected.
By her Indian dress, by her White Bow, and by Lahnowenah's White
Necklace. She is quite safe from every enemy now."

"Not quite," said a voice at Wahneenah's elbow.

But it was only Osceolo, the Simple. Nobody minded him or his words.



CHAPTER V.

HORSES: WHITE AND BLACK.


On the morning of the 15th of August, 1812, the sun rose in unclouded
splendor, and transformed the great Lake Michigan into a sheet of
gold.

"It is a good omen," said one of the women at Fort Dearborn, as she
looked out over the shining water.

But only the merry children responded to her attempted cheerfulness.

"We shall have a grand ride. I wish nobody need make the journey on
foot; and I'm glad, for once, I'm just a boy, and not a grown-up man."

"Even a boy may have to do a man's work, this day, Gaspar Keith. I
wish that you were strong enough to hold a gun; but you have been
taught how to use an arrow. Is your quiver well supplied?"

That his captain should speak to him, a child, so seriously, impressed
the lad profoundly. His ruddy cheek paled, and a fit of trembling
seized him. A sombre memory rose to frighten him, and he caught his
breath as he asked:

"Do you think there will be any trouble, Captain Heald? I thought I
heard the soldiers saying that the Pottawatomies would take care of
us."

"Who trusts to an Indian's care leans on a broken reed. You know that
from your own experience. Surely, you must remember your earlier
childhood, even though you have been forbidden to talk of it here."

"Oh! I do, I do! Not often in the daytime, but in the long, long
nights. The other children sleep. They have never seen what I did, or
heard the dreadful yells that come in my dreams and wake me up. Then I
seem to see the flames, the blood, the dead white faces. Oh, sir,
don't tell me that must come again: don't, don't! I cannot bear it. I
would rather die right now and here--safe in our Fort."

Instantly the soldier regretted his own words. But the lad was one of
the larger children at the garrison and should be incited, he thought,
to take some share in the matter of defence, should defence be
necessary. He had not known that under Gaspar's quiet, almost sullen
demeanor, had lain such hidden experiences. Else he would have talked
them over with the boy, and have tried to make him forget instead of
remember his early wrongs.

For Gaspar Keith was the son of an Indian trader, and had been born in
an isolated cabin far to the northwest of his present home. The little
cabin had been overflowing with young life and gayety, even in that
wilderness. His mother was a Frenchwoman of the happiest possible
temperament and, because no other society was available, had made
comrades of her children. "What we did in Montreal" was the type of
what she attempted to do under her more restricted conditions. So, for
a long season of peace, the Keiths sang and made merry over every
trifling incident. Did the father bring home an extra load of game, at
once there was a feast prepared and all the friendly Indians, the only
neighbors, were invited to come and partake.

On one such occasion, when a red-skinned guest had brought with him a
bottle of the forbidden "fire-water," a quarrel ensued. The trader was
of sterner sort than his light-hearted wife, and of violent temper. In
his own house his word was law, and he remonstrated with the Indian
for his action. To little Gaspar, in his memories, it seemed but a
moment's transition from a laughing group about a well-spread table to
a scene of horror. He saw--but he could never afterward speak in any
definite way of what he saw. Only he knew that almost before he had
pushed back from his place he had been caught up on the shoulder of
the chief Winnemeg, also a guest; and in another moment was riding
behind that warrior at breakneck speed toward the little garrison, in
pursuit of shelter for himself and aid for his defenceless family.

The shelter was speedily found, but the aid came too late; and for a
time the women of the Fort had a difficult task in comforting the
fright-crazed boy. However, they were used to such incidents. Their
courage and generosity were unlimited, and they persevered in their
care till he recovered and repaid them by his faithful devotion and
service.

The manner of his arrival among them was never discussed in his
presence, and as he gradually came to act like other, happier
children, they hoped he had outgrown his troubles. He had now been at
the Fort for two years, during all which time he had gone but short
distances from it. Yet even in his restricted outings he had picked up
much knowledge of useful things from the settlers near, and of things
apparently not so useful from his red-faced friends. So it happened
that there was not, probably, even any Indian boy who could string a
bow or aim an arrow better than Gaspar.

The Sauganash himself had presented the little fellow with a bow of
finest workmanship, and had taught him the rare trick of shooting at
fixed paces. It had been the delight of the garrison to watch him, in
their hours of recreation, accomplish this feat. Sighting some bird
flying high overhead, the lad would take swift aim and discharge each
arrow from his quiver at a certain count. There never seemed any
variation in the distances between the discharged arrows as they made
the arc--upward with unerring aim, and downward in the body of the
bird; hitting it, one by one, at proportionate intervals of time and
space.

The women thought it a cruel sport, and would have prevented it if
they could; but the men knew that it was a wonderful achievement, and
that many fine archers among the surrounding tribes would fail in
accomplishing it. Therefore, it was natural that the Fort's commandant
should be anxious to know if his ward's equipment were in order, on a
morning so full of possible dangers as this.

"There is no talk of dying, Gaspar. You are a man, child, if not full
grown. You are brave and skilful. You have a clear head, too; so
listen closely to what I say. In our garrison are not more than forty
men able to fight. There are a dozen women and twenty children, of
which none have been trained to use a bow as you can. Besides these
helpless ones, there are many sick soldiers to occupy the wagons. I
know you expected to be with your mates, but I have another plan for
you. I want you to ride Tempest, and to sling your bow on your saddle
horn."

"Ride--Tempest! Why, Captain Heald! Nobody--that is, nobody but
you--can ride him. I was never on his back----"

"It's time you were. Lad, do you know how many Indians are in camp
near us, or have broken camp this morning to join us?"

"Oh! quite a lot, I guess."

"Just so. A whole 'lot.' About five hundred, or a few less."

The two were busily at work, packing the last of the few possessions
that the commandant must convey to Fort Wayne, and which he could
entrust to no other hands than his own and those of this deft-fingered
lad, and they made no pause while they talked. Indeed, Gaspar's
movements were even swifter now, as if he were eager to be through and
off.

"Five hundred, sir? They are friendly Indians, though. Black Partridge
and Winnemeg----"

"Are but as straws against the current. Gaspar, I shall need a boy who
can be trusted. These red neighbors of ours are not so 'friendly' as
they seem. They are dissatisfied. They mean mischief, I fear, though
God forbid! Well, we are soldiers, and we cannot shrink. You must ride
Tempest. You must tell nobody why. You can keep at a short distance
from our main band, and act as scout. Captain Wells will march in
front with his Miamis, upon whose assistance--the Miamis', I mean--I
do not greatly count. They are cowards. They fear the 'canoe men.'
Well, what do you say, my son?"

Gaspar caught his breath. His own fear of an Indian had been nearly
overcome by the friendship of those chiefs who were so constantly at
the Fort; but the night before had brought him a recurrence of the
terrifying visions which were as much memories as dreams. After such a
night he was scarcely himself in courage, greatly as he desired to
please the captain. Then he reflected how high was the honor designed
him. He, a little boy, just past ten and going on eleven for a whole
fortnight now, and--of course he'd do it!

"Well, I'll ride him. That is, I'll try. Like as not, he'll shake me
off first try."

"Make the second try, then. You know the copy in your writing-book?"

"Yes, sir. I wrote the whole page of it, yesterday, and the chaplain
said it was well done. Shall I get him now? Are you almost ready?"

The commandant looked at the waiting wagons, the assembled company,
the women and little ones who were so dear and in such a perilous
case. For a moment his heart sank, stout soldier though he was, and it
was no detriment to his manhood that a fervent if silent prayer
escaped him.

"Yes, fetch him if you can. If not, I'll come."

Tempest was a gelding of fine Kentucky breed. There were others of his
line at the garrison, and upon them some of the women even were to
ride. But Tempest was the king of the stables. He was the master's
half-broken pet and recreation. For sterner uses, as for that
morning's work, there was a better trained animal, and on this the
commandant would make his own journey.

A smile curled the officer's lips despite his anxiety as, presently,
out from the stables galloped a bareheaded lad, clinging desperately
to Tempest's back, who tried as desperately to shake off his unusual
burden. But the saddle girth was well secured, and the rider clung
like a burr. His bow was slung crosswise before him and his full
quiver hung at his back.

A cheer went up. The sight was as helpful to the soldiers as it was
amusing, and they fell into line with a ready step as the band struck
up--what was that tune? _The Dead March?_ By whose ill-judgment this?

Well, there was no time to question. Any music helps to keep a line of
men in step, and there was the determined Gaspar cavorting and
wheeling before and around the soldiers in a way to provoke a mirth
that no dismal strain could dispel. So the gates were flung open, and
in orderly procession, each man in his place, each heart set upon its
duty, the little garrison marched through them for the last time.

Of what took place within the next dread hours, of the Indians'
treachery and the white men's courage, there is no need to give the
details. It is history. But of brave Gaspar Keith on the wild gelding,
Tempest, history makes no mention. There is many a hero whose name
is unknown, and the lad was a hero that day. He did what he could,
and his empty quiver, his broken bow, told their own story to a
Pottawatomie warrior who came upon the boy just as the sun crossed
the meridian on that memorable day.

Gaspar was lying unconscious beneath a clump of forest trees, and
Tempest grazing quietly beside him. There was no wound upon the lad,
and whether he had been thrown to the ground by the animal, or had
slipped from his saddle out of sheer weariness, even he could never
tell.

The Indian who found him was none other than the Man-Who-Kills; and,
from a perfectly safe distance for himself, he had watched the young
pale-face with admiration and covetousness.

"By and by, when the fight is over, I will get him. He shall be my
prisoner. The black gelding is finer than any horse ever galloped into
Muck-otey-pokee. They shall both be mine. I will tell a big tale at
the council fires of my brothers, and they shall account me brave.
Talking is easier than fighting, any time, and why should I peril my
life, following this mad war-path of theirs to that far-away Fort
Wayne? Enough is a plenty. I have hidden lots of plunder while the men
of my tribe did their killing, and the Man-Who-Kills will always be
wise, as he is always brave. I could shoot as fast and as far as
anybody if--if I wished. But I do not wish. It is too much trouble. So
I will tie the boy on the gelding's back and lead them home in
triumph. Will my squaw, Sorah, flout me now? No. No, indeed! And there
is no need to say that I dared not mount the beast myself. But I can
lead him all right, and when the Woman-Who-Mourns, that haughty sister
of my chief, sees me coming she will say: 'Behold! how merciful is
this mighty warrior!'"

These reflections of the astute Indian, as he rested upon the shaded
sward, afforded him such satisfaction that he did, indeed, handle poor
Gaspar with more gentleness than might have been expected; because
such a person commonly mistakes brutality for bravery.

Oddly enough, Tempest offered no resistance to the red man's plan, and
allowed himself to be burdened by the helpless Gaspar and led slowly
to the Indian village. There the party aroused less interest than the
Man-Who-Kills had anticipated, for other prisoners had already been
brought in and, besides this, something had occurred that seemed to
the women far more important.

This was the fresh grief of Wahneenah as she roamed from wigwam to
wigwam, searching for her adopted daughter and imploring help to find
her. For again the Sun Maid had disappeared, as suddenly and more
completely than on the previous day though after much the same manner.

The child had been attending her injured squirrel and giving her bowls
of orchids fresh drinks, upon the threshold mat of her new home, and
her indulgent foster-mother had gone to fetch from the stream the
water needed for the latter purpose. At the brook's edge she had
stopped, "just for a moment," to discuss with the other squaws the
news of the massacre that was fast coming to them by the straggling
bands of returning braves.

But the brief absence was long enough to have worked the mischief. The
small runaway had left her posies and her squirrel and departed,
nobody could guess whither.

Till at last again came Osceolo, the mischievous, and remarked,
indifferently:

"The Woman-Who-Mourns may save her steps. The White Papoose and the
Snowbird are far over the prairie while the women search."

"Osceolo! You are the son of the evil spirit! You bring distress in
your hand as a gift! But take care what you say now. You know, as I
know, that nobody can mount the White Snowbird and live. Or if one
could succeed and pass beyond the village borders, it would be a ride
to some far land whence there is no return. What is the mare,
Snowbird, but a creature bewitched? or the home of the soul of a dead
maiden, who would rather live thus with her people than without them
as a spirit in the Great Beyond? You know all this, and yet you tell
me----"

"That the Sun Maid is flying now on the Snowbird's back toward the
setting sun, who is her father."

"How do you know this?"

"I saw it."

"Who took her to the Snowbird's corral? Who? Osceolo, torment of our
tribe, it was you! It was you! Boy, do you know what you have done? Do
you know that out there, on the prairie where you have sent her, the
spirit of murder is abroad? Not a pale-face shall escape. She was safe
here, where your own chief, the Black Partridge, placed her. Hear me.
If harm befalls her, if by moonrise she is not restored to me, you
shall bear the punishment. You----"

By a gesture he stopped her. Now thoroughly frightened, the
mischievous boy put up his arms as if to ward off the coming threat.
Half credulous, and half doubtful that the Sun Maid was more than
mortal, he had made a test for himself. He had remembered the
Snowbird, fretting its high spirit out within the closed paddock, and
a daring notion had seized him. It was this:

"While the Woman-Who-Mourns gossips with her neighbors, I'll catch up
the papoose and carry her there. She'll come fast enough. She ran away
yesterday, and she played with me before the Spotted Adder's hut. She
trusts everybody. I'll have some fun, even if my father didn't let me
go with him to the camp yonder."

Among all nations boyhood is the same--plays the same wild pranks,
with equal disregard of consequences; and Osceolo would far rather
have had a good time than a good supper. He thought he was having a
perfectly fascinating good time when he bound a long blanket over the
Snowbird's back and then fastened Kitty Briscoe in the folds of the
blanket. He had laughed gayly as he clapped his hands and set the mare
free, and the little one riding her had laughed and clapped also. He
had watched them out of sight over the prairie, and had felt quite
proud of himself.

"If she is a spirit she'll come back safe; and if she's nothing but a
white man's baby--why, that's all she is. Only a squaw child at that,
though the silly women have made such ado. I wonder--will I ever see
her again? Well, I'll go around by Wahneenah's tepee, after a while,
and enjoy the worry. It's the smartest thing I've done yet; and she
did look cunning, too. She wasn't a bit afraid--she isn't afraid of
anything--which makes her better than most girl papooses, and she was
laughing as hard as I was when she went away."

With these thoughts, Osceolo had come back to the spot where Wahneenah
met him and demanded if he knew aught of her charge; and there was no
hilarity in his face now as he watched her enter her wigwam and drop
its curtains behind her. He suddenly remembered--many things; and at
thought of the Black Partridge's wrath he turned faint and sick.

But the test had been made and no regret could recall it.

Meanwhile, there came into his mind the fact: a black horse had just
entered the village and a white one had gone out of it. The narrow
superstition in which he had been reared taught him that the one
brought misfortune and the other carried away happiness; and, in a
redoubled terror at his own act and its consequences, Osceolo turned
and fled.



CHAPTER VI.

THE THREE GIFTS.


"The Black Partridge has served his white friends faithfully. He
should now remember his own people, and rest his heart among them,"
said the White Pelican as he rode homeward beside his chief, not many
hours after the massacre of the sandhills.

The elder warrior lifted his bowed head, and regarded his nephew in
sadness. His eyes had that far-away, dreamy look which was unusual
among his race and had given him, at times, a strange power over his
fellows. Because, unfortunately, the dreams were, after all, very
practical, and the silent visions were of things that might have been
averted.

"The White Pelican, also, did well. He protected those whom he wished
to kill. He did it for my sake. It shall not be forgotten, though the
effort was useless. The end has begun."

The younger brave touched his fine horse impatiently, and the animal
sprang forward a few paces. As he did so, the rider caught a gleam of
something white skimming along the horizon line, and wondered what it
might be. But he had set out to attend his chief and, curbing his
mount by a strong pull, whirled about and rode back to the side of
Black Partridge.

"What is the end that has begun, Man-Who-Cannot-Lie?"

"The downfall of our nations. They have been as the trees of the
forest and the grasses of the prairie. The trees shall be felled and
the grasses shall be cut. The white man's hand shall accomplish both."

"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 grass 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 petition. 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
passed 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 Snowbird!"

"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 Snowbird'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.

[Illustration: SNOWBIRD 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 Snowbird 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 grass? 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, superstition
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 Snowbird. 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 Snowbird'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 Snowbird.

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
shore of the Sea-without-end?[1] The White Bow from the eternal north?
and the White Snowbird, 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 superstition, 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
Snowbird 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 assistance.

"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."

"I can do it"; and without further delay, leading the utterly passive
and disheartened Gaspar, the Indian lad set off for Wahneenah's home.
The captive had no expectation of anything but the most dreadful fate,
and his tired brain reeled at the remembrance of what he might yet
undergo. Yet, what use to resist?

Meanwhile, Osceolo, confident that all the braves whom he need fear
were still absent from the village, started his charge along the trail
at a rapid pace, and reached the wigwam of the Woman-Who-Mourns at
the very moment when Black Partridge, White Pelican, and the Sun Maid
came riding to it from the prairie.

She was alive, then! She was, in truth, a "spirit"! His
mischievousness had had no power to harm her, she was exempt from any
ill that might befall another, she had come back to--How could such an
innocent-appearing creature punish one who had so misled her?

He had no time to guess. For the child had caught sight of the stupid
lad he was leading, and with a cry of ecstacy had sprung from the
Snowbird and landed plump upon the prisoner's shoulders.

"Gaspar! My Gaspar, my Gaspar! Mine, mine, mine!"

It was a transformation scene. The white boy had staggered under
the unexpected assault of his old playmate, but he had instantly
recognized her. With a cry as full of joy as her own, he clasped
her close, and showered his kisses on her upturned face.

"Kitty! why, Kitty! You aren't dead, then? You are not hurt? And we
thought--oh, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty!"

Clinging to each other, they slipped to the ground, too absorbed in
themselves to notice anything else; while Osceolo watched them in
almost equal absorption.

But he was roused sooner than they. A hand fell on his shoulder. A
hand whose touch could be as gentle as a woman's, but was now like a
steel band crushing the very bones.

"Osceolo!"

"Yes, Black Partridge," quavered the terrified lad.

"You will come to my tepee. Alone!"



CHAPTER VII.

A THREEFOLD CORD IS STRONGEST.


"She is a spirit. I know that nothing can harm her. Yet many
things can harm me. I have no desire to suffer any further anxiety.
Therefore--this. My Girl-Child, my White Papoose, come here."

The Sun Maid reluctantly obeyed. It was the morning after her perilous
ride on the back of an untamed horse and her joyful reunion with
Gaspar, her old playmate of the Fort. The two were now just without
the wigwam of Wahneenah, sitting clasped in each other's arms, as if
fearful that a fresh separation awaited them should they once
relinquish this tight hold of one another; and it was in much the same
feeling that the foster-mother regarded them.

"But why, Other Mother? I do love my Gaspar boy. I did know him
always."

"You've known me two years, Kitty," corrected the truthful lad. "But I
suppose that is as long as you can remember. You're such a baby."

"How old is the Sun Maid--as you white people reckon ages?" asked
Wahneenah.

"She is five years old. Her birthday was on the Fourth of July. We had
a celebration. Our Captain fired as many rounds of ammunition as she
was years old. The mothers made her a cake, with sugar on the top, and
with five little candles they made themselves on purpose, and colored
with strawberry juice. Oh, surely, there never was such a cake in all
the world as they made for our 'baby!'" cried the lad, forgetting for
the moment present troubles in this delightful memory.

"Well, there are other women who can make other cakes," said
Wahneenah, with ready jealousy.

"Oh, but an Indian cake--" began Gaspar, then stopped abruptly,
frightened at his own boldness.

Wahneenah smiled. For small Kitty was swift to see the change in her
playmate's face, and her own caught, for an instant, a reflection of
its fear. The foster-mother wished to banish this fear.

"Wahneenah likes those who say their thoughts out straight and clear.
She is the sister of the Man-Who-Cannot-Lie. It is the crime of the
pale-faces that they will lie, and always. Wherefore, they are always
in danger. Take warning. Learn to be truth-tellers, like the
Pottawatomies, and you will have no trouble."

A quick retort rose to Gaspar's lips, but he subdued it. Then he
watched what was being done to Kitty, and a faint smile brightened his
face, that had been so far too gloomy for his years. Wahneenah had
made a long rope of horsehair, gaily adorned with beads and trinkets,
and was fastening it about the Sun Maid's waist. The little one
submitted merrily, at first; but when it flashed through her mind that
she was thus being made a prisoner, being "tied up," she burst into a
paroxysm of tears and temper that astonished the others, and even
herself.

"I will not be 'tied up!' I was not a naughty girl. When I am bad, I
will be punished, and I will not cry nor stamp my feet. But when I am
good, I will be free--free! There shall nobody, nobody do this to me!
Not any single body. Gaspar, will you let her do it?"

The boy's timidity flew to the winds. His dark eyes flashed with
indignation, and his heavy brows contracted in a fierce scowl. At that
instant, he appeared much older than he really was, and he advanced
upon Wahneenah with upraised hand and threatening gesture.

She might easily have picked him up and tossed him out of the way; but
there is nothing an Indian woman admires more greatly than courage. In
this she does not differ from her pale-faced sisters, and, instead of
resenting Gaspar's rudeness, she smiled upon him.

"That is right, Dark-Eye. It is a warrior's duty to protect his
women. You are not yet a warrior, nor is the Sun Maid yet a woman, but
as you begin so you will continue. Hear me. Let us make compact. I was
fastening the child for her own good, not in punishment. Is that a
white mother's custom? Well, this is better. Let us three pledge our
word: each to watch over and protect the other so long as our lives
last. The Great Spirit sent the Sun Maid into my arms, by the hands of
Black Partridge, my brother and my chief. The meanest Indian in
Muck-otey-pokee brought you to the village, and the meanest boy to my
wigwam. But when the chief saw you, he took you by the hand, and gave
you, also, to me. A triple bond is the strongest. Shall we clasp hand
upon it?"

It was a curious proceeding for one so much older than these children,
but it was in profoundest earnest. Wahneenah recognized in Gaspar a
representative of a race whose wisdom exceeded that of her own, even
if, as she believed, its morality was of a lower standard. But her
brother and the other braves had already told her of his great courage
on the day before, and of his wonderful skill with the bow and arrow.
He had done a man's work, even though a stripling, and she would
accord him a man's honor. As for the Sun Maid, despite her very
human-like temper, she was, of course, a being above mortal, and
therefore fit to "compact" with anybody, even had it been the case
with one as venerable as old Katasha. So she felt that there was
nothing derogatory to her own dignity in her request.

Gaspar fixed his piercing eyes upon Wahneenah's face, and studied it
carefully.

The penetration of a child is keen, and not easily deceived. What he
read in the Indian woman's unflinching gaze satisfied him, for after
this brief delay, he lay his thin boyish hand within the extended palm
in entire trust. Of course, what Gaspar did Kitty was bound to do. To
her it was a game, and her own plump little fingers closed about the
backs of the lad's with a mischievous pinch. Already her anger had
disappeared, and her sunny face was dimpling with laughter.

"Kitty was dreadful bad, wasn't she? She wouldn't be tied up first,
because she wasn't naughty. Now she has been bad as bad, she did stamp
and scream so; and she may be tied, if Other Mother wishes. Do you,
nice Other Mother? It is a very pretty string. It wouldn't hurt, I
guess."

But Wahneenah's desire to fasten her ward to the lodge-pole had
vanished. She would far rather trust the true, loving eyes of the boy
Gaspar than the stoutest horsehair rope ever woven.

"We will tie nobody. But hear me, my children, for you are both mine
now. In this village are many friends and more enemies. Braves and
their families, from other villages and other branches of our tribe,
have raised their tepees here. It is easier for them to do this than
to build villages of their own, and we are hospitable people. When a
guest comes to us, he must stay until he chooses to go away again, and
there are none who would bid them depart. Some of other tribes than
our own are also here. It is they who are stirring up much mischief.
They are giving the Black Partridge anxiety; they will not be wise.
They will not learn that their only safety lies in friendship with
the white faces. Therefore the heart of our chief is heavy with
foreboding. He has the inner vision. To him all things are clear that
to us are quite invisible. This is his command to me, ere he departed
in the dawn of this day, to seek our friends who were of the Fort, and
help them in their need, if need again arises. Listen to the words of
Black Partridge:

"'Have these white children trained to ride as an Indian rides. The
boy Gaspar is to be given the black gelding, Tempest, for his very
own. I shall see the man who owns it, and I will pay his cost. The
White Snowbird belongs to the Sun Maid. Let nobody else dare touch the
mare, except to handle it in care. The day is coming when they will
need to ride fast and far, and with more skill than on yesterday. The
Snake-Who-Leaps is the best horseman in our tribe. I have bidden him
come to this tepee when the sun crosses the meridian. He is friendly
to these prisoners, because they are mine, and he will guide them
well.'"

Gaspar's eyes had opened to their widest extent. The words he had
heard seemed incredible; yet he was shrewd and practical by nature,
and he promptly inquired:

"Why? Why will the Indian chief bestow so rich a gift upon his white
boy-prisoner? For if he buys Tempest from the Captain he will have to
pay big money. There isn't another like the black gelding this side
that far-away Kentucky where he was bred."

"Hear me, Gaspar Keith; prisoner, if you will. But I would rather call
you an adopted son of the Black Partridge, and by your new name of
Dark-Eye. This is the reason: In these troubles which are coming, you
may not only serve yourself, the Sun Maid, and me, by having as your
own the gelding Tempest, but you may help the helpless, also. In this
one village of Muck-otey-pokee are many old and many very young. The
Spotted Adder was the oldest man I ever knew, and though he has died
just now, there are others almost of his age. They ought to die, too,
and not burden better people. But nobody dies who should while those
who should not are snatched away like a feather on the breeze."

Here Wahneenah became absorbed in her own reflections, and was so long
silent that Kitty stole her arms about the woman's neck and kissed the
dark face to remind her that they were still listening.

"Yes, beloved, Child of the Sunshine and Love! You do well to call me
back. Let the dead rest. You are the living. I will remember only
you," and she laid the little one against her heart.

"Gaspar, too, Other Mother," suggested the loyal little maid.

But Gaspar was quite able to speak for himself.

"No decent white person would wish the old to die!" he exclaimed,
hotly. "There was a grandmother at our Fort, and she was the best
loved, the best cared for, of all the women. That is what a white boy
thinks, even if he is an Indian's prisoner!"

"Ugh! So? You are an odd youth, Dark-Eye. As timid as a wild pigeon
one minute, and the next--flouting your chief's sister."

"I don't mean that, Wahneenah. I--I only--I don't just know what I do
mean, except that it seems cowardly to wish the old should die. If you
should grow very, very old some day, and Kitty and I should not be--be
nice to you, then you would understand what I feel, if I cannot say it
rightly."

Wahneenah laughed.

"Your halting speech makes me happy, Dark-Eye. Kitty and you and I;
still all together, even when age shall have dimmed my sight and
dulled my hearing. It is well. I am satisfied. But hear me. Herein
lies the trouble: when folks are young they forget that they will ever
be old. That is a mistake. One should remember that youth flies away,
fast, fast. They should teach themselves wisdom. They should learn to
be skilled in the things which will make them lovely when they are
old. For, despite your judgment, there are some among us whom we would
keep till all generations are past. Katasha, the One-Who-Knows; and
the Snake-Who-Leaps--why, he is older even than Katasha. Yet there is
nobody can ride a horse, or shoot a flying bird, or bring in the game
that he can. He is the friend of his chief. He is the most honored one
in our whole village. Why? Because he makes few promises, and breaks
none. He has never lowered his manhood by drinking the fire-water that
addles one's brains and sets the limbs a-tremble. He has talked little
and done much. He is One-To-Be-Trusted. That was his name in his
youth, when he began to practise all his virtues. The other name came
afterward, because of the swift punishment he can also inflict upon
his enemies. You would do well to pattern after your teacher,
Dark-Eye."

Gaspar listened respectfully; but this sounded so very much like the
"lectures" he had received at the Fort that it had less originality
than most of Wahneenah's conversations; and, besides that, he had just
espied, approaching over the village street, a tall Indian leading the
black gelding and Snowbird. Behind this man walked Osceolo; but
greatly changed from the bullying youth whom Gaspar had met on the
previous day.

Whatever had occurred in the closed tepee of Black Partridge, when its
door flaps fell behind himself and the lad he had ordered to accompany
him, nobody knew; but, whatever it was, Osceolo was certainly--at
least for the time being--a changed young person.

He walked along behind the Snake-Who-Leaps in a meek, subdued manner
quite new to him, but which immediately impressed Dark-Eye as being a
vast improvement on his former bearing. He paused, when ordered to
"Halt!" by the old man, as if he had been stricken into a wooden
image, and only when requested to take the Snowbird's bridle did he
make any other motion.

"Why, Osceolo! What's the matter?" asked the Sun Maid, running toward
him in surprise.

But he did not answer, and she was hastily snatched back by the strong
hand of the foster-mother.

"The Girl-Child speaks to none who is in disgrace."

"But I will speak to anybody who is unhappy, Other Mother! I cannot
help that, can I? One day, Osceolo was all laughing and clapping; and
now--now he looks like Peter Wilson did after his father had whipped
him with a musket. Did anybody whip you with a musket, poor, poor
Osceolo?"

Not a sign from the disgraced youth.

"Has you lost your tongue, too? Well as your eyes, that you can't look
up? Never mind, Osceolo. Kitty is sorry for you. Some day Kitty will
let you ride her beau'ful White Snowbird; some day."

"The Sun Maid will first learn to ride the Snowbird, herself,"
corrected the Snake-Who-Leaps. "She will begin now."

With unquestioning confidence, a confidence that Gaspar did not share,
she ran back to the old warrior's side, and stood on tiptoe to be
lifted into place.

"Ugh!" he grunted in satisfaction. "That is well. The one who has no
fear has already conquered the wildest animal. But the White Snowbird
is not wild. She has been given an evil name, and it has clung to her
as evil always clings," and the One-To-Be-Trusted turned to give his
silent attendant a meaning glance. But Osceolo had not yet raised his
gaze from the ground, and the reproof fell pointless.

Nobody had observed that, from another direction, another youth had
quietly led up a beautiful chestnut horse, whose cream-colored mane
and tail would have made it a conspicuous object anywhere; but
Wahneenah had expected this addition to their equestrian party and, as
she turned to look for it, exclaimed in pleasure at its prompt
appearance.

The Snake-Who-Leaps heard her ejaculation, and evinced his disgust.

"Ugh! Is it to teach a lot of women and a worthless pale-faced lad
that I have left the comfort of my own lodge this hot summer day?"

"The old forget. It was long ago, when I was no bigger than the Sun
Maid here, that the One-To-Be-Trusted took me behind him on a wild
ride over the prairie. It was the only lesson he ever gave--or needed
to give--_me_. I will show him that I am still young enough to
remember!" cried Wahneenah, with all the gayety of girlhood, and with
so complete a change in her appearance that it was easy to see how she
had come to be named The Happy.

Even before the teacher had settled the Sun Maid in her tiny blanket
saddle, Wahneenah had sprung upon the chestnut's back. As she touched
it, a clear, determined, if very youthful voice, shouted behind her:

"I am a white man! No Indian shall ever teach me a thing that I can
learn for myself!"

For suddenly Gaspar remembered the wrongs he had suffered at the
red men's hands, and leaped to Tempest's back unaided. Another
instant, and the trio of riders dashed away from Muck-otey-pokee in a
mad rush that left their disgruntled instructor in doubt which was the
better pupil of them all.

"Who begins slow finishes fast; but who begins fast may never live to
finish slow," he remarked, sententiously; then observing that Osceolo
had, for the first time, raised his eyes, he promptly laid a heavy
hand upon the youth's shoulder and wheeled him about.

"To my wigwam--march!"

And Osceolo marched--exactly as if all his limbs were sticks and his
joints mechanical.

"Ugh! So? Like the jointed dolls of the papooses, eh? Very good. Keep
at it. From now till those three return, dead or alive, my fine young
warrior, you shall be my pupil. You have set me the pace you like. You
may keep at it. From the locust tree east of my lodge to the pawpaw on
the west, as the branch swings in the wind, so shall you swing. Ugh!
May they ride far and long. One--two--commence!"

It was noonday when he began that weary, weary automatic "step,
step"; but when the last rays of the sun had disappeared beyond the
prairie, Osceolo was still enduring his discipline, and making his
pendulum-like journey from locust-tree to pawpaw, from pawpaw to
locust. His head swam, his sight dimmed, but still sat stolid
Snake-Who-Leaps in the entrance of his tepee, "instructing" the
only pupil fate had left him.



CHAPTER VIII.

AN ISLAND RETREAT.


Under the incentive of love and excitement--heightened by a tinge of
jealousy--all Wahneenah's former skill in horsemanship returned to
her. When the Snake-Who-Leaps lifted the Sun Maid to the back of the
Snowbird the woman felt an unreasoning anger against him. She could
not patiently endure to have any other hand than her own touch the
small body of her adopted child, upon whom had now centred all the
pent-up affection of her starved heart.

"If my darling must be taught, I will teach her myself!" she suddenly
resolved, and promptly acted upon the resolution. Previously, and when
she ordered the chestnut to be brought to her tepee, she had merely
intended to ride in company with the others and in a limited circle
about the village. Now a mad impulse seized her to be off over the
prairie, farther than sight could reach, and on half-forgotten trails
once familiar to her. It was the first time she had mounted any animal
since her widowhood.

When she heard Gaspar's daring declaration, she thrilled with delight.
All the savage in her nature roused to enjoy this wild escapade, and,
catching firm hold of the Sun Maid's bridle rein, she nodded over her
shoulder to the lad, and led the way northward.

"It's like that strange fairy story, in the book given Peter Wilson,
that came from way over in England, and was the only one in the world,
I guess. Was the only one at our Fort, anyway," thought Gaspar, as he
followed in equal speed, and at imminent risk of his life. For a
night's rest had restored the black gelding to all his spirit, and had
the boy attempted to guide or control him there would have been
serious trouble.

As it was, Gaspar confined his efforts to just sticking on, and had
all he could do at that; but after a short distance, the three horses
broke into an even lope, keeping well together, and all under the
command of the Indian woman.

"Oh, I love it!" she cried, the rich blood flaming under her dusky
skin, her eyes sparkling, and her long black hair streaming on the
wind which their own motion created.

"Kitty loves it--too--Kitty guesses!" echoed the child, entering into
the other's mood with quick sympathy. Indeed, she was the safer of the
three. There is a hidden understanding between horses and children,
and numberless instances prove how carefully even an untamed beast
will treat a little child--if nobody interferes. But let an adult
attempt to avert a seeming danger, and the animal will promptly throw
the responsibility on human shoulders, and act out its own mood at its
own will.

Wahneenah understood this, and, simply leaving her hand upon the
Snowbird's rein, but quite without any pressure, rode where that
frolicsome creature chose to lead. A strap, which the Snake-Who-Leaps
had fastened around the waist of the Sun Maid, held her securely to
her saddle, though her small hands clutched the flying mane of her
mount so tightly that she could not well have been shaken off.

It was a rough school in which to learn so dangerous an art, but it
sufficed; and that one day's ride did more to help Gaspar and Kitty to
good horsemanship than all the instruction they afterward received.

"How far--nice Other Mother?" asked the little girl, when the three
horses of their own accord began to slacken speed.

"Not far now, papoose. See yonder, where the trees fringe the river?
Among those trees is a wonderful spot I know. I've not seen it for
years, but in its shelter my warrior and I spent many happy hours.
There we used to take our son, and tell him the story of his people.
It was a hiding-place, in the ancient years, when enemies of the
Pottawatomies were on the war-path, and the chief would save his women
and children. But nobody remembers that trail, at this late day,
except those of my father's house. Besides me, not one soul lives who
could find his way thither, save Black Partridge. It is even many
moons since he has talked with me about it, and he may not recall it
still. Though he is a man who never forgets, and the knowledge is
doubtless merely sleeping in his brain."

Kitty Briscoe understood but little of this speech, but Gaspar's
interest was roused. Amid the discipline and routine of his old
life at the Fort, his lighter, gayer qualities had lain dormant,
but they were now rapidly awakening under the influence of his
recent adventures. It was impossible, too, for anybody to be long
with Wahneenah, in her present mood, without catching her spirit
and gayety; and though the Sun Maid comprehended little save the
liveliness of her companions, she could enter into that with all her
heart.

Therefore, it was a merry party which came at last to the river bank,
where the horses were glad to pause for rest, and where they would
eagerly have slaked their thirst, had they been permitted.

"But that won't do, Wahneenah, will it? At our Fort we never watered
a horse when it was warm. The Captain said they would be ruined, so."

"You do well to remember all the wisdom you have been taught,
Dark-Eye. Here, let me show you something even a white man may not
know. How to tether a horse with a rope of prairie grass, made in a
moment, but strong enough to last for long."

"Lift me off, Other Mother," cried Kitty, from the Snowbird's back,
and Wahneenah swung her down.

"Now, Dark-Eye, pull as much of this rush grass as your arms can hold.
It will take a heap for three ropes."

"Have the pretty ponies been naughty? Must they be tied up, too?"

"Not because they are bad, but because they are good, papoose! That is
the way of life. It is full of contradictions. But, don't wrinkle your
pretty brows puzzling what you cannot understand. Run and help the
Dark-Eye pull the long grasses."

It was so wonderful to see Wahneenah's skilful fingers twist and turn
and thread the slender blades in and out that both children were
fascinated by her deftness; and though Gaspar could not at all catch
the trick of this curious weaving, he resolved to practise it in
private till he could equal, or excel, this example. Again his
ambition arose to prove that a pale-face was always superior to an
Indian, and his dark eyes gazed so fixedly upon Wahneenah's flying
fingers that she laughed, and demanded:

"Are you jealous, my son? But there's no need. Nothing that I know
will be hidden from you, if you choose to be taught. But, come. Take
this rope that is finished. Twist it about the gelding's neck--so; now
pass it downward between his front legs and hobble him by the right
hind one. No, he'll not resist. Try it. Then you'll see that he'll
neither nibble at his tether nor run away from us."

Gaspar was too proud to show that he somewhat dreaded interfering with
the restless legs of the spirited Tempest, and to his astonishment he
found that the animal submitted very quietly to the tying. This may
have been because Wahneenah stood by its beautiful head and murmured
some soft sounds into its dainty ears. Though what the murmuring meant
nobody save herself and Tempest understood. In like manner, and very
quickly, all three horses were fastened in the shade of the trees, and
as soon as they had cooled sufficiently, Gaspar was bidden to water
them.

Then the Sun Maid was called from her play among the wild flowers that
fringed the bank, and made to walk behind Wahneenah's skirts.

"Cling close, my Girl-Child! We're going into fairyland. Bow your
pretty head till it is low--low--low down, like this"; and herself
bending till her own head was very near the earth, the guide pushed
forward into what appeared to be a solid tangle of bushes.

"Why, Wahneenah! You can't go through there. It's a regular hedge. But
if you want to try, I have a little knife in my pocket, that my
Captain gave me. Let me go first--I am the man--and cut the way;
though I don't see why. Isn't there a better place?"

"There are many things a lad of ten cannot understand, Dark-Eye, even
though he be as manly as you. Trust Wahneenah. An Indian never
forgets, and never makes the haste that destroys. Watch me. Learn a
lesson in woodcraft that will be useful to you more than once. Cut or
broken twigs have tongues which betray. But thus--even a bird could
find no trace."

With infinite patience and accuracy of touch, the woman parted the
slender, interwoven branches so delicately that scarcely a leaf was
bruised, and little by little opened a clear passage into a downward
sloping tunnel. This tunnel ran directly under the river bed, and was
so steep in places that one might easily have coasted over it.

"Why, how queer! It's like the underground passage from the Fort to
the river, where we children used to peep, but were never allowed to
enter. What is it? Why is it?"

"Let your eyes ask and answer their own questions. They are safer than
a tongue, my son. But fear nothing. Where Wahneenah leads the way for
the children whom the Great Spirit has sent her they may safely
follow."

Then, without further speech, she went forward for what seemed a long
distance, through the half light of the tunnel, until it opened into a
wide chamber, across which trickled a clear stream and which was
fanned by a strong current of air.

The children were silent from curiosity, not unmixed with dread; and
their guide had also become very grave and silent. Memories were
crowding upon her soul, and banishing the present; but she was roused
at length by the wild clutch of the Sun Maid's arms, as something
winged swept by them in the twilight.

"Other Mother! Other Mother! I--I don't like it! Take Kitty, quick!"

"Ah! I was dreaming. My dead walked here beside me, and I forgot. But
is the Sun Maid ever afraid? I did not think that. Well, it's over
now. The gloomy passage, the big, dark room--See?"

Suddenly, at a turn westward out of the chamber and beyond it, they
entered upon what might, indeed, have been fairyland. The exit was
another passage, rising gently to a rock- and tree-sheltered nook in
the heart of a tiny island. From any outward point this retreat was
invisible, and when they had emerged upon it the Indian woman's
spirits rose again. She caught up the Sun Maid and tossed her lightly
upon a bending branch, that seemed to have grown expressly for a
child's swing.

"My warrior trained that bough for our son's pleasure, and from it he
rocked and danced as a tiny papoose. Now--in you, he lives again.
Hold, Dark-Eye! What are you seeking?"

"Oh, just nothing! I was poking around to see----"

"If you could find anything to eat? The wild blackberries should grow
just yonder, and, wait--I'll look."

"For what will you look, Other Mother? Aren't these the prettiest
posies yet?" and Kitty held upward a cluster of cardinal flowers which
she had pulled from a mass by the water's edge.

"Ah, they are alive! They have the heart of fire. But, take care. It
is always wet where they grow and small feet slip easily. If you were
to soil your pretty clothes, old Katasha might be angry."

"I'll take care. May I have all I can gather?"

"All. Every one."

Then Wahneenah returned into the cave and to a niche in its wall
where, years before, she had put a store of dried corn, some salt, and
a bit of tinder. The articles had been stored in earthen jugs, and it
was just possible they might be found in good condition. If they were,
she would show the man-child how to catch a fish out of the little
stream in the cavern, where the delicate trout were apt to hide. Then
they would make a fire as they had used in the old days, and she would
cook for these white children such a supper as her own dear ones had
enjoyed.

"See, Gaspar, Dark-Eye. I will fetch you a line and hook. Sit quiet
and draw out our supper--when it bites!"

"But I have a far better hook than that in my pocket; and a line the
Sauganash gave me, one day. I am a good fisher, Wahneenah. How many
fish do you want for your supper?"

"You are a good boaster, any way, pale-face, like all your race; and I
want just as many fish as will satisfy our hunger. If you had your bow
here, you might wing us a bird. Though that would not be wise, maybe.
Keep an eye to the Sun Maid, lest she slip in the brook."

"This is a funny place. It is an island, isn't it? Like the pictures
in my geography; and there is a little creek through it, and another
in a cave, and--I think it is beautiful. But you're funny, too,
Wahneenah. You say my Kitty is a 'spirit,' and 'nothing can harm
her,' yet you watch out for her getting hurt closer than the other
mothers did."

"You see too much, Dark-Eye. But--well, she is a spirit in a girl's
body. If you let evil happen her it will be the worse for you. Hear
me?"

"I wouldn't let her get into trouble any sooner than you would,
Wahneenah. I love her, too. She hasn't any folks, and I haven't any,
except you, of course. She belongs to me."

"Oh! she does? Well. Enough. We all belong to each other. We have made
the bond."

When the woman returned from her search in the cavern her face was
very grave. Yet it should have been delighted, for she had found not
only the corn and the other things she remembered, but a goodly store
of articles, quite too fresh and modern to have remained there since
she last visited the spot. There were dried beans, salted beef, cakes
of sugar from her old maple trees--she knew her own mark upon them;
and, besides these, were flour and tea in packages, such as had been
distributed from Fort Dearborn among as many Indians as were entitled
to receive them. It was both puzzling and disappointing to find her
retreat discovered and appropriated by somebody else.

"It must be that Shut-Hand has, in some way, found this cavern out.
All the other people would have eaten and enjoyed their good things,
and not stored them up, like this. But he is crafty and secretive, and
his name is his character."

Had Wahneenah hunted further she would have found, in addition to the
provisions, a considerable quantity of broadcloth, calico, and paint;
which articles, also, had been among those recently secured from the
garrison. But she neither examined very closely nor touched anything
except that for which she had come to the recess; and she even forced
herself to put the matter out of mind, for the time being.

"I have brought my children here to make a holiday for them. I will
not, therefore, darken it by my forebodings. The young live only in
the present or the future. I, too, will again become young. I will
forget all that is past."

From that wonderful pocket of his, Gaspar took a decent hook and
line, and easily proved his skill among fish that were too seldom
disturbed to have learned any fear; while Wahneenah made a tiny fire
of dried twigs, in the mouth of the cavern, and boiled her prepared
corn, that she had broken and ground between two stones, into a sort
of mush. With Gaspar's fish, broiled upon the live coals, the pudding
sweetened by a bit of honey from a close sealed crock, and a draught
of water from the underground stream, the trio made a fine supper;
and afterward, when she had carefully cleared away the _débris_,
Wahneenah rekindled the fire, and, sitting beside it, took the Sun
Maid on her knee and drew the motherless Dark-Eye within the shelter
of her arm.

Then she told them tales and legends of the wide prairies and distant
mountains; and her own manner gave them thrilling interest, because
she believed in them quite as sincerely as did her small, wide-eyed
listeners.

"Tell it once more, Other Mother. That beau'ful one 'bout the little
papoose that hadn't any shoes, and the flowers growed her some. Just
like mine"; holding up her own tiny moccasined feet, and rubbing them
together in the comfortable heat.

"Once upon a time a little girl papoose was lost. The enemies of her
people had come to her father's village, and had scattered all her
tribe. There was not one of them left alive except the little maid."

"I guess that's just like Kitty, isn't it?"

"No. No, it is not," replied the story-teller, quickly. For she had
felt a shiver run through Gaspar's body, and pressed it close in
warm protection. "No. It is not like either of you. For to you
is Wahneenah, the Mother; the sister of a chief who lives and is
powerful. But this was away in the long past, before even I was born.
So the girl papoose found herself wandering on the prairie, and it
was the time of frost. The ground was frozen beneath the grasses,
which were stiff and rough and cut the tender feet that a mother's
hand had hitherto carried in her own palm."

"Show me how, Mother Wahneenah."

"Just this way Sweetheart," clasping the tiny moccasins in a loving
caress.

"Tell some more. I guess the fire is going to make Kitty sleepy, by
and by."

"Sleep, then, if you will, Girl-Child."

"And then?"

"Then, when the little one was very cold and tired and lonely she
remembered something: it was that she had seen her own mother lift her
two hands to the sky and ask the Great Spirit for all she might need."

"He always hears, doesn't He?"

"He hears and answers. But sometimes the answers are what He sees is
best, not what we want."

"Don't sigh that way, Other Mother! S'posin' your little boy did go
away. Haven't you got Gaspar and Kitty?"

"Yes, little one."

"Go on, then. About the little maid--just like me."

"So she put her own two tiny hands up toward the sky and asked the
Great Spirit to put soft shoes on her tired little feet."

"And He did, didn't He?"

"Surely. First the pain eased and that made her look down. And there
she saw a pair of the softest moccasins that ever were made. They were
of pale pink and yellow, and all dotted with dark little bead-spots;
and they fitted as easily as her own dainty skin. Then the girl
papoose was grateful, and she begged the Great Spirit that He would
make many and many another pair of just such comfortable shoes for
every other little barefoot maid in all the world. That not one single
child should ever suffer what the girl papoose had suffered."

"Did He?" asked Gaspar, as interested as Kitty.

"Yes. Surely. The prayer of the unselfish and innocent is always
granted. He sent a voice out of the sky and bade the child look all
about her. So she did, and the whole wide prairie was a-bloom with
more pink and yellow 'shoes' than all the children in all the earth
could ever wear. They were growing right out of the hard ground,
reaching up to be plucked and worn. So she cried out aloud in her
gratitude: 'Oh, the moccasin flower! the moccasin flower!' and ever
since then this shoe-like blossom has been beloved of all the children
in the world. But, because the heat burns as well as the cold pinches,
it blooms nowadays at all times and seasons of the year. A few flowers
here, a few there; but quite enough for any child to find--who has
the right spirit."

"Kitty must have had the spirit, mustn't she, Other Mother? That day
when her feets were so tired and the good Feather-man found her.
'Cause she had lots and lots of them; only she went to sleep and they
all solemned down. And----"

Gaspar started suddenly and held up a warning hand. His quick ear had
caught the sound of approaching feet, crushing boldly through the
cavern, like the tread of one who knows his way well and is coming to
his own.

Wahneenah had also heard, though she had continued her story, making
no sign that she was inwardly disturbed. But she now paused and
listened whether this footfall were one she knew, either of friend or
foe. Then a bush cracked behind them, and Gaspar's heart stood still,
as the tall form of an Indian warrior pushed past them into the
firelight.



CHAPTER IX.

AT MUCK-OTEY-POKEE.


Wahneenah did not lift her eyes. For the moment an unaccustomed fear
held her spellbound, and it was the Sun Maid's happy cry which roused
her at length, and restored them all to composure.

"Black Partridge! My own dear Feather-man!"

With a spring, the child threw herself upon the Indian's breast and
clasped his neck with her trustful arms. It was, perhaps, this
confidence of hers in the good-will of all her friends that made them
in return hold her so dear. Certain it was that the chief's face now
assumed that expression of gentleness which was the attribute small
Kitty ascribed to him, but which among his older acquaintances was not
considered a leading trait of his character. Just he always was, but
rather severe than gentle; and Wahneenah marked, with some surprise,
the caressing touch he laid upon the Sun Maid's floating hair as he
quietly set her down and himself dropped upon a ledge to rest.

"You are welcome, my brother. Though, at first, I feared it was some
alien who had discovered our cave."

"It is not the habit of the Happy to fear. She who forebodes danger
where no danger is but paves the way to her own destruction."

Wahneenah glanced at her brother sharply.

"It is the Truth-Teller himself who has put foreboding into my soul.
He--and the new-born love which the Sun Maid has brought."

The face of Black Partridge fell again into that dignified gravity
which was its habitual expression and he sat for a long time with the
"dream-look" in his eyes, gazing straightforward into the embers of
their little fire.

"Is you hungry, Feather-man? We did have such a beau'ful supper. Nice
Other Mother can cook fishes and cakes and--things. Shall she cook you
some fish, Black Partridge?"

"Will my chief eat the food I prepare for him?" asked Wahneenah,
seconding the child's invitation.

"With pleasure. For one hour he will let the cares of his life slip
from him. He will have this night of peace, and while the meal is
getting he will sleep."

With a sigh of relief the tall Indian moved a few steps back into the
cave and stretched himself at length upon the ground. His eyes closed,
and before Gaspar had made ready his line to catch the fresh trout he
had sunk into a profound slumber.

Wahneenah put her finger to her lip to signify silence, but she need
not have done so. Gaspar had long ago learned the red man's noiseless
ways, and the Sun Maid immediately placed herself beside the prostrate
chief, and clasping his hand that lay on his breast snuggled her cheek
against it, and followed his example.

The Black Partridge, like most of his race, could sleep anywhere, at
any time, and for as long as he chose. He had elected to wake at the
end of a half-hour, and he did so on the moment. Sitting up, he gently
placed the still slumbering Sun Maid upon the ground and moved forward
to the fire. While he ate the food she had provided for him, Wahneenah
continued standing near, but a little behind him; ready to anticipate
his needs, and with a humility of demeanor which she showed toward no
other person.

Gaspar watched the pair, wondering if they could really be of the same
race which had destroyed his childhood's home, and now again that
second home of his adoption--the Fort. He liked, and was impelled to
trust them both, and was already learning to love his foster-mother.
But when they began to converse in their own dialect, and with
occasional glances toward himself and the sleeping Kitty, the native
caution of his mind arose, and made him miserable. He remembered a
byword of the Fort:

"The only safe Indian is a dead one"; and with a sudden sense of
danger leaped to his feet and ran to bend above the unconscious maid.

"If you harm her, I'll--I'll--kill you!" he shouted fiercely.

Wahneenah looked amazed, but the Black Partridge instantly
comprehended the working of the boy's thoughts, and a smile of
satisfaction faintly illumined his sombre features.

"It is well. Let every brave defend his own. The Dark-Eye is no
coward. His years are few, but he has the heart of a warrior and a
chief. He must begin, at once, to learn the speech of his new tribe.
He that knows has doubled the strength of his arm. Draw near. There is
good and not evil in the souls of the chief and his sister. We are
Truth-Tellers. We cannot lie. We have pledged our faith to the
Dark-Eye and the Sun Maid--though she needs it not."

The sincerity and admiration in the Indian's eyes compelled the lad's
obedience; and when, as he stepped into the firelight, the chief
indicated that he should sit beside himself, and also nodded to
Wahneenah to take her own place opposite, his heart swelled with pride
and ambition. So had the white Captain trusted and counselled with
him. He had been faithful through all that dreadful day of massacre,
and he had felt the man's spirit within his child-body. Now again, a
commander of others, the wise leader of a different people, was
honoring him with a share in his council. There must be good in him,
and some sort of wisdom--even though so young--else they had paid him
no heed. His cheek flushed, his breast heaved, and his beautiful eyes
shone with the exultation that thrilled him.

"Let the chief pardon the child--which I was, but a moment ago. I am
become a man. I will do a man's task, now and forever. If I suspected
evil where there was none, is it a wonder? I have told Wahneenah, the
Happy, the story of my life. The Black Partridge knew it already."

Quite unconsciously, Gaspar dropped into the Indian manner of speech,
and he could not have done a better thing for himself had he pondered
the matter for long. Black Partridge nodded approvingly, and remarked:

"Another Sauganash is here! Well, while the Sun Maid sleeps, let us
consider the future. The evil days are near."

"What is the evil that my brother, the chief, beholds with his inner
vision?" questioned the woman.

"War and bloodshed. Still more of war, still more of death. In the end
will our wigwams lie flat on the earth as fallen leaves, while the
remnant of my people moves onward, forever onward toward the setting
sun."

Wahneenah kept a respectful silence, but in her heart she resented the
dire forebodings of her chief. At last, when her brooding thought
forced utterance, she inquired:

"Can not the wisdom of the Black Partridge hinder these days of
calamity? If the great Gomo, and Winnemeg, and those white braves who
have lived among us, as the Sauganash, take counsel together, and
compel their tribes to keep the peace, and to copy of the pale-faces
the arts which have made them so powerful--will not this avert the
evil? Why may there not in some time and place, a mighty grave be
digged in which may be buried all the guns that kill and the knives
that scalp, with the arrows which fly more swiftly than a bird? Over
all may there not be emptied the casks and bottles of the fearful
fire-water, that, passing through the lips of a warrior, changes him
to a beast? Then the red man and his pale brother may clasp hands
together and abide, each upon the earth, where the Great Spirit placed
him."

"It is a dream. Dreams vanish. Even as now the night speeds, and we
are far from home. It avails us not to think of what might--but never
will--be. Occasional friendships bridge the feud between our alien
races, but the feud remains. It is eternal. Endless as the years which
will witness the gradual extinction of the weaker, because smaller,
race. Let us dream no more. Has Wahneenah, my sister, observed how the
store she left in the old cave has grown? How the few sealed jars have
become many, and how there are heaps of the good gifts which the Great
Father sent to his white children at the Fort for the red children's
use?"

"Yes. I thought it was the miser, Shut-Hand, who had placed them here
in our cave."

"It was I, the Black Partridge."

"For what purpose, my brother?"

"Against the needs of the time I have foretold. It is a sanctuary.
Here may Wahneenah, and the young son and daughter which have been
given her, find shelter and sustenance."

Something of her old tribal exultation seized the woman, who was a
great chief's daughter. Rising to her fullest height, her fine head
thrown slightly back, she demanded, indignantly:

"Is the heart of my brother become like that of the papoose upon its
mother's shoulders? Was it not to the red men that the victory came,
but so brief time past? What were all the pale-faces, in their gaudy
costumes, with their music and their guns and their childish way of
battle? The arrows of our people mowed them like the grass upon the
prairie when a herd of wild horses feeds upon it. But yesterday they
marched in pride and insolence, scorning us. To-day, they are carrion
for the crows overhead, or they flee for safety like the cowards they
were born. The Black Partridge has tarried too long among such as
these. He has become their blood brother."

The taunt was the fiercest she could give, and she gave it from a full
heart. In ordinary so gentle and peace-loving she had been roused, for
a moment, to a pitch of emotion which astonished even herself. Yet
when, as if she had been a fractious child, the chief motioned her to
again become seated, she obeyed him at once. She had set her thoughts
free, indeed; but she would never presume to fight against the
conditions which surrounded her; and obedience to tribal authority was
inborn.

"The Snake-Who-Leaps will be at the tepee of my sister each day when
the sun climbs to the point overhead. The three horses will be always
ready. The children who do not know, and Wahneenah who has, maybe,
forgotten how to ride, will practise as he instructs, until there will
be no horse they cannot master, or no spot to which a horse may be
guided that they do not know. But here first. That is why the store of
food and cloths. At the first assault upon our Muck-otey-pokee, mount
and ride. Ride as no squaw nor papoose ever rode before. Here the
Black Partridge will seek them, and here, if the Great Spirit wills,
they may be safe. Enough. Let the Dark-Eye go forward and make the
horses ready."

The Black Partridge rose as he spoke, and striding toward the sleeping
Sun Maid, took her in his arms and left the spot. Gaspar, already
darting onward toward the beloved Tempest, paused, for an instant, and
regarded his chief anxiously. But when he saw that the little girl had
not awakened, he sped forward again, and by the time Wahneenah had
disposed of the remnants of the chief's supper and followed, he had
loosed the animals and led them to the nearest point for mounting.

Still holding the Sun Maid motionless upon his breast, the Black
Partridge leaped to the back of his own magnificent stallion, which
whinnied in affectionate welcome of his approach. Then he ordered
Gaspar:

"Ride behind me on Tempest, and lead the Snowbird. Wahneenah will
follow all on Chestnut."

By the time they were out upon the prairie the wind had risen and the
sky was heavily clouded. It was so dark that the boy could not see
beyond the head of his own horse, but he could hear the steady,
grass-softened footfall of the stallion as, with unerring directness,
the Indian chieftain led the way homeward to the village.

When they rode into it, all Muck-otey-pokee seemed asleep; but the
perennially young, though still venerable, Snake-Who-Leaps, had been
prone before Wahneenah's wigwam, and silently rose from the ground as
they drew rein beside him.

"Ah, the Sleepless! The Wise Man. Did he think his pupils had ridden
away to their own destruction?" asked the squaw, as she stepped down
from her saddle.

"No harm can happen the household of my chief save what the Great
Spirit wills."

"And you think He will not waste time with three wild runaways?"

"Wahneenah, the Happy, is in good spirit herself. I remembered her
not, save as the message may concern. That is for the ear of my friend
and the father of his tribe, the Black Partridge."

Handing the Sun Maid into his sister's embrace, he for whom the
message waited slipped the bridles of two horses over his arm while
the Snake-Who-Leaps led the others. Whatever they had to say was not
begun then nor there, and if Wahneenah had any curiosity in the matter
it was not to be gratified. Yet she stood, for a moment, listening to
the receding sounds as the darkness enveloped the departing group; and
in her heart was born a fresh anxiety because of the little one she
carried, and for the orphan lad who followed so closely at her skirts
as she lifted her tent curtain and entered their home.

But nothing occurred to suggest that the message of the
Snake-Who-Leaps had been one of warning. He was at his post of teacher
exactly on the hour appointed on the following day, and this time all
his pupils conducted themselves with a grave propriety that greatly
pleased him; and thereafter, for many days, and even weeks, while the
dry season lasted, did he instruct and they perform the marvellous
feats of horsemanship which have made the red man famous the world
over.

"But," said Osceolo one day, tauntingly: "you were the pale-face who
would learn nothing from an Indian!"

"Because a person is a fool once, need he remain so always?" answered
Gaspar, hotly.

"You were a fool then? I thought so. Once a fool always one."

"Only an Indian believes that."

"How? You taunt me? Fight, then!"

Gaspar Keith was a curious mixture of courage and timidity. His
courage came by nature, and his timidity was the result of the
terrible scenes through which he had passed now twice, young though he
was. The impress of this terror would remain with him forever; and if
ever he became a hero in fact, it would be because of his will and not
his inclination. At present neither the one nor the other inspired
him; and though he eyed the larger boy scornfully, and felt that he
could easily whip the bully, if he chose, he now turned his back upon
him and walked away haughtily.

But Osceolo's sneer followed him:

"The One-Who-Is-Afraid-Of-His-Shadow! Gaspar--Coward!"

No boy could patiently endure this insult, even though it came from
one much larger and stronger than himself. Gaspar's jacket was off and
his arms bared on the instant; but before he could fling himself
against his enemy a strong hand was laid upon his own shoulder, and he
was tossed aside as lightly as a leaf.

"Hold! Let there be none of this. It is a time for peace in our
village. Wait in patience. The hour is coming, is almost here, when
both the pale-face and the son of my tribe will have need of all their
prowess. Go. Polish your arrows and point their heads, but let there
be none of this."

It was the great chief himself, who had separated the combatants, and
as he stalked majestically onward he left behind him two greatly
astonished and ashamed young warriors. In common, no grown brave
bothered himself over the petty squabbles of striplings; unless,
indeed, it might be to incite them to further conflicts. For the Black
Partridge to interfere now was significant of something far deeper
than a boyish fight.

Gaspar put on his coat and walked thoughtfully home to Wahneenah and
Kitty, while Osceolo slunk away to his own haunts, to lie at length
upon the grass and plot with a cunning worthy of better ends the
various devices by which he could torment the young white lad of whom
he was so jealous.

Wahneenah heard the tale with a gravity that impressed the chief's
action more strongly than before upon the lad's mind; while Kitty took
it upon herself to lecture him with all severity about the dreadful
"naughtiness of striking that poor, dear Ossy boy."

"Hmm, Sunny Maid! you needn't waste pity on him. He doesn't deserve
it."

"Maybe not, Dark-Eye. Maybe not. But heed you the warning. The
dwellers in one village should keep that village quiet," interrupted
Wahneenah.

"Yes, but they don't. There are almost as many sorts of Indians here
as there are people. Some of them are horrible. I see them often
watching Kitty and me as if they would like to scalp us. It's been
worse within a little while. It grows worse all the time."

"All the more reason why you should be wise and careful. But it is
dark in the tepee, and that's a sign the Dust Chief is almost ready to
shut up your eyes. Run, Gaspar, son, and Girl-Child. See which will
sleep the first. And to the one who does, the bigger lump of my best
sugar in the morning."

They ran, as she suggested, but there was to be no further haste till
Kitty had made Gaspar kneel beside her and repeat with her the "Now I
lay me" little prayer, which her Fort mothers had taught her. The
short, simple prayer, beloved of childhood the world over, that has
carried many a white soul upward to its Father. Even to Wahneenah,
though her mission training had been of another creed, the childish
petition was full of sacredness and beauty; and as she stood near
them, she bowed her head humbly and echoed it with all her heart.

Each was in bed soon after, and each with a lump of the toothsome
dainty they loved.

"For Gaspar must have it because he was first; and my Girl-Child
because she was the last. That equals everything."

They thought it did, delightfully: if they stayed awake long enough to
think at all. But when they were both asleep, and the sound of their
soft breathing echoed through the dusky tepee, Wahneenah took her seat
at its entrance, and began to sing low and softly, with a sweetness of
voice which rendered even their rudeness musical, the love songs of
her girlhood.

As she sang and gazed upward through the trees into the starlit sky,
an infinite peace stole over her. Indeed, the joy that possessed her
seemed almost startling to herself. All that was sad in her memories
dropped from them, and left but their happiness; while the present
closed about her as a delight that nothing could disturb. Her love for
the Sun Maid had become almost a passion with her, and for her
Dark-Eye there was ever an increasing and comprehending affection.

She remained so long, dreaming, remembering, and planning, that the
first grayness of the dawn came before she could go within and take
her own bit of sleep. But Muck-otey-pokee was always early astir; and
if for no other reason, because the dogs which thronged the settlement
would allow no quiet after daybreak. That morning they were unusually
restless.

Cried Wahneenah, rising suddenly, and now feeling somewhat the effects
of her late sitting:

"Can it be sun-up already? The beasts are wild this morning. I have
never heard them so deafening."

Nor had anybody else. There was no cessation in their barking.

"It's a regular 'bedlam,' isn't it? That's what the Fort mothers used
to say when there was target practice, and the children cheered the
shooters. What makes them bark so?" answered Gaspar.

Wahneenah shivered, and suggested:

"Run out and play. Eh? What's that? The Snake-Who-Leaps? So early,
and with the horses, too? But mind him not. Take the Sun Maid
out-of-doors, but keep close to the green before the lodge. Where
I can see you now and then, while I get breakfast ready."

Everybody was up; and more than one commented upon the strangeness of
the three horses being brought to the tepee so early.

The warning message which had come from the south, and had been
delivered to his chief by the Snake-Who-Leaps, on that dark night some
weeks before, was now to be verified. "What the red men have done to
the pale-faces, the pale-faces will now do to them. Retaliation and
revenge!"

Yet not one was quite prepared for the events which followed. Followed
even so swiftly that the women left their porridge cooking in their
kettles and their cows half-milked; while the men of the village
promptly seized the nearest weapon, and rushed to the hopeless
defence.

The rude sound that had startled every dweller in that pretty
settlement was the report of a gun. Then came a galloping troop of
cavalry--more firing--incessant, indiscriminate!

There was a babel of shrieks as the women and little ones fell where
they stood, in the midst of their work or play. There were the
blood-curdling war-whoops of the savages, answering the random shots.
Above and through all, one cry rang clear to Wahneenah's
consciousness.

"The horses! The horses! Ride--ride--ride--as I have taught you! For
your lives--Ride!"

It was but an instant. Wahneenah and her children were amount and
afield. But as, in an anguish of fear for his friends, and no thought
of himself, once more the Snake-Who-Leaps shouted his warning, the
whistle of a death-dealing bullet came to him where he watched, and
struck him down across the threshold of Wahneenah's happy home.



CHAPTER X.

THE CAVE OF REFUGE.


Three abreast, the chestnut in the middle, the fugitives from the
doomed village of Muck-otey-pokee rode like the wind in a straight,
unswerving line across the prairie. After they had left a considerable
distance behind them, Wahneenah turned her stern face backward, and
scanned the route over which they had passed; and when her keen vision
detected something like a group of glistening bayonets--to ordinary
sight no larger than a point against the horizon--she abruptly doubled
on her course, then made a sharp detour westward. She had early
dropped her own bridle, and had since guided her horse by her low
spoken commands, while in either hand she clutched a bit-ring of the
Snowbird and Tempest. Her change of direction must have brought her
all the more plainly into view of the pursuing soldiers, but in a few
moments she had gained the shelter of a group of trees.

These sprang, apparently, out of the midst of the plain, but she knew
that they really concealed the entrance to the underground pathway to
the cave; and once within their shelter, she paused to breathe and
gaze upon the startled faces of her children.

That of the Sun Maid was pale, indeed, with the excitement of this mad
ride, but showed no fear; while Gaspar's, alas! wore an expression of
abject terror. His eyes stared wildly, his teeth were set, his
nostrils drawn and pinched. He was, his foster-mother saw, already on
the verge of a collapse.

She leaped from her horse, and caught the fainting boy in her arms
while she directed the Sun Maid:

"Jump down and tie the horses, as the Snake-Who-Leaps showed you, by
their long bridles. In any case, there is little fear but they will
stand. Then follow me."

"But what ails my Gaspar, Other Mother?" asked the child, as she
sprang from her saddle. "Did somebody hurt him when the guns fired?"

"No. Tie the horses. He will be right soon. It is the fright. Make
haste, make haste!"

"Yes, yes, I will. My dear old Feather-man taught Kitty everything.
Every single thing about my Snowbird. I can fasten her all tight so
she will never, never get away, unless I let her. I will tie Gaspar's,
too; and shall your Chestnut stay here with them two?"

But for once Wahneenah did not stop to hear her darling out. She had
seen the deftness with which the little girl's small fingers had
copied the instructions of her riding-master, and had wondered at it
many times. She trusted it now, knowing that the lad needed her first
care, and meaning to carry him through the passage into the cave, then
return for the other. She knew, also, that if the soldiers she had
seen following them should come upon the tethered horses, the fact of
their presence would betray her own. But from this possibility there
was no escape; and, had she known it, no need for such.

She had scarcely laid the unconscious boy down upon the floor of her
retreat when Kitty came flying down the tunnel, her task completed.

"So quick, papoose?"

"Yes. Every one is fastened to a pretty tree, and every one is glad.
Why did we ride so fast, Wahneenah? It 'most took Kitty's breath out
of her mouth. But I did like it till my Gaspar looked so queer. Is he
sick, Other Mother? Why doesn't he speak to me?"

"He is ill, in very fact, Girl-Child. Ill of terror. Young as he is,
he has seen fearful sights, and they have hurt his tender heart. But
he will soon be better; and when he is you must not talk to him of our
old home, or of our ride, or of anything except that we are making
another little festival here in our cave. One more cup of water,
papoose, but take care you do not slip when you dip it from the
spring. We will bathe his face and rub his hands, and by and by he
will awake and talk."

Then, leaving the lad to the ministrations of the child, and under
pretence of making "all cosy for the picnic," Wahneenah sped
cautiously back through the passage to the edge of the little grove,
casting a searching glance in each direction. To her infinite relief,
the glistening speck had vanished from the landscape, and she
concluded that the white soldiers had ridden but a short distance
north of the village, and then returned to it. She noticed with pride
how the little maid had fastened each of the brave animals that had
served them so well in a spot where the grass was still green and
plentiful, and that there was no need of her refastening the straps
which held them.

"Surely, her wisdom is more than mortal!" she exclaimed in delight;
such as more cultured mothers feel when they discover that their
little ones are really gifted with the common intelligence that to
them seems extraordinary.

Gaspar was awake, and looking about him curiously, when she got back
into the cavern; and, in response to his silent inquiry, she drew a
tree-branch before the opening and nodded smilingly:

"That is to keep the sunshine out of the Dark-Eyes."

"But--where are we? Why--oh! I remember! I remember! Must I always,
always see such awful things? Is there no place in this world where I
can hide?"

"Why, yes, Dark-Eye. There is just such a place; and we have found it.
Don't you remember our sanctuary? Where the Black Partridge came to
eat the fish you caught? Where we have such a store of good things put
aside. Rest now, after your ride, and the White Papoose shall make a
pillow for you of the rushes I will pull. Then we'll shut the branch
in close, like the curtain of our wigwam, and be as safe and happy as
a bird in its nest."

Wahneenah's assumed cheerfulness did not deceive, though it greatly
comforted, the terrified boy; and the quietude of the sheltered spot,
added to its dimness and his own exhaustion, soon overcame him again,
and his eyelids closed. But the sleep into which he drifted now was a
natural and restful one, and he roused from it, at Kitty's summons,
with something of his old courage--the courage which had made him a
hero that day when he first rode the black gelding, and had used his
boyish strength to do a man's work.

"When Other Mother did make a fire and cook us such a nice breakfast,
we must eat it quick. Kitty's ready. Kitty's dreadful hungry, Kitty
is. Is you hungry, too, Dark-Eye?"

He had not thought that he was. But now that she mentioned it,
he realized the fact. Fortunately, he was so young and healthy
that the scenes through which he seemed destined to pass at such
frequently-recurring intervals could not really affect his physical
condition for any length of time. To see Wahneenah moving about the
little cavern as calmly as if it were her daily habit to be there, and
to catch the sound of the Sun Maid's joyous laughter, was to make the
present seem the only reality.

"Why, it's another picnic, isn't it? Did the things actually happen
back there as I thought? Were we here all night? I used to have such
terrible dreams, when I lived at the Fort, that, when daylight came, I
could not forget them. I get confused between the dreams and the true
things."

"An empty stomach makes a foolish head. Many a squaw is afraid of her
warrior before he breaks his morning fast, and finds him a lamb after
it is eaten," said Wahneenah, sententiously.

"Gaspar is my warrior, Other Mother; but I am never afraid of him."

"You are afraid of nothing, Kitty!" reproved the boy.

"But I am! I am afraid I shall get nothing to eat at all, if you don't
come!"

So the children ate, and Wahneenah served them. She was herself too
anxious to partake of any food, and under her placid exterior she was
straining every nerve to listen for any outward sounds which might
prove that their refuge had been discovered.

But no sounds came to disturb them, and as the hours passed hope
returned to her; and when the Sun Maid had fallen asleep, weary of
frolic, and Gaspar again questioned her concerning the morning, she
answered, in good faith:

"Probably, it was not half so bad as it seemed. There were many bad
Indians in the village, and it is likely for them that the white
soldiers were searching. They must have gone away long since. By and
by, if nothing happens, we will return to our own tepee, and forget
this morning's fright. The Snake-Who-Leaps will be proud of his pupils
for the way they rode at his bidding."

A shiver ran through the lad's frame, and he crept within the shelter
of Wahneenah's arm.

"But did you not see what happened to him? He lies beneath the
curtains of your lodge, and he will teach us no more. A white soldier
shot him. I saw him fall."

The woman herself had not seen this, and she now sprang to her feet in
a fury of indignation.

"A white man killed him! That grand old brave, who should have lived
to be a hundred years! It cannot be."

"But it was."

She was the daughter of a mighty chief. Her blood was royal, and she
gloried in it. All the race-hatred in her nature roused, and, for the
moment only, she glowered upon the pale-faced youth before her, as if
he represented, in his small person, all the sins of his own people.

Then the paroxysm passed, and her nobler self triumphed. Sitting down
again, she sought to draw the boy back into her embrace, but he held
himself aloof, and would not. So she began to talk with him there,
with a simple wisdom and dignity that she had learned from nature
itself.

"Why should we be angry, one with another, my son? The Great Spirit is
our Father. No man comes into life nor leaves it by a chance. What the
Mighty One decrees, that it is befalls. Between His red-skinned
children and His pale-faced ones He has put an undying enmity. I have
not always so believed. I have hoped and pleaded for the peace which
should glorify the world, even as the sun is glorifying the wide land
outside of this dim cavern. But it is not so to be. Even as the chief,
the Black Partridge, said: there is a feud which can never be
overcome, for it is of the Great Spirit's own planting. He that made
us all permits it. Let us, then, in our small place, cease to fight
against the inevitable. We have made the compact. We will abide by it.
In a tiny corner of the beautiful world we three will live in
harmony. Let the rest go. Put away your anger against my people, as I
now put aside mine against yours. The Sun Maid is of both races, it
seems to me. She is our Bond, our Peace-maker, our Delight. Behold!
She wakes. Before her eyes, let no shadow of our mutual trouble fall.
I go outside to watch. If all seems well, we may ride home at
nightfall."

Save for the danger to her young charges, she would have done so even
then. Far superior though she had always been to them, her heart
yearned over the helpless women of her tribe whom she had left behind.

"But that cannot be. They were tied fast by their motherhood to the
homes wherein they may have perished, even as I am tied here by my
adopted ones. The beasts, too, are tied; but they, at least, may have
a moment's freedom."

So she loosed them, and guided them to the pool where they could
drink, and watched them curiously, to see if they would avail
themselves of the liberty she had thus offered. But they did not. They
quaffed the clear water, then tossed their velvet nostrils about its
depths till it was soiled and worthless; yet they turned of their own
accord away from the wind-swept prairie into the shelter of the trees,
and grouped themselves beneath one, as if uniting against some common,
unseen enemy.

"They are wiser than their masters," said Wahneenah, patting her
Chestnut's beautiful neck; and seeing a deeper glade, where they might
spend the night even more safely, she led them thither and fastened
them again. Under ordinary circumstances she would have left them
untethered; but she knew not then at what moment she might again need
them, as they had been needed earlier in the day.

When the darkness fell, Wahneenah put aside the brushwood door which
she had placed before the entrance to the cave, and sat down upon the
withering branch to watch and wait. The children were both asleep, and
she knew that if the Black Partridge were still alive and able he
would seek her there, as he had promised on that day in the past when
they had discussed the possibility of what had really now occurred.

She was not to be disappointed. While she sat, contrasting the
happiness that had been hers on just the night before with the
uncertainty of this, there sounded in the sloping tunnel the tread of
a moccasined foot. Also, she could hear the crowding of a stalwart
figure against its sides, and there was something in both sounds which
told her who was coming.

"My brother is late."

"It is better thus, it may be, than not at all."

"The voice of the Black Partridge is sorrowful."

"The heart of the chief is broken within him."

For a space after that neither spoke. Then Wahneenah rose and set a
candle in a niche of the wall and lighted it. By its flame she could
see to move about and she presently had brought some food in a dish
and placed a gourd of water by the chief's side.

The water he drank eagerly and held the cup for more; but the food he
pushed aside, relapsing into another silence.

Finally, Wahneenah spoke.

"Has the father of his tribe no message for his sister?"

"Over what the ear does not hear, the heart cannot grieve."

"That is a truth which contradicts itself."

"The warrior of Wahneenah judged well when he chose this cavern for a
possible home."

"It is needed, then? As the Black Partridge foretold."

"It is needed. There is no other."

The words were quietly spoken; but there was heart-break in each one.

"Our village? The home of all our people? Is it not still safe and a
refuge for all unfortunates among the nations?"

"Where Muck-otey-pokee laughed by the waterside, there is now a heap
of ruins. The river that danced in the sunlight is red with the blood
of the slain and of all the lodges wherein we dwelt, not one remains!"

"My brother! Surely, much brooding has made you distraught. Such
cannot be. There were warriors, hundreds of them in the settlement and
before their arrows the pale-faces fall like trees before the
woodman's axe."

"If the arrows are not in the quiver, can the warrior shoot? Against
the man who steals up in the rear, can one be prepared? It was a
short, sharp battle. The innocent fell with the guilty, and the earth
receives them all. Where Muck-otey-pokee stood is a blackened waste.
Those who survived have fled, to seek new homes wherever they may find
them. In her pathways the dead faces stare into the sky as even yet,
among the sandhills, lie and stare the unburied dead of the Fort
Dearborn massacre. It is fate. It is nature. It is the game of life.
To-day one wins, to-morrow another. In the end, for all--is death."

For a while after that, Wahneenah neither moved nor spoke, and the
Black Partridge lapsed into another profound silence. Finally, the
woman rose, and going to the fireplace, took handsful of its ashes and
strewed them upon her head and face. Then she drew her blanket over
her features, and thus, hiding her sorrow even from the witness of the
night, she sat down again in her place and became at once as rigid
and impassive as her brother.

Thus the morning found them. Despite their habit of wandering from
point to point, the village of Muck-otey-pokee was the rallying-place
of the Pottawatomies, their home, the ancient burial-ground of their
dead. Its destruction meant, to the far-seeing Black Partridge, also
the destruction of his tribe. Therefore, as he had said, his spirit
was broken within him.

But at the last he rose to depart, and still fasting. With the
solemnity of one who parted from her forever, he addressed the veiled
Wahneenah and bade her:

"Put aside the grief that palsies, and find joy in the children whom
the Great Spirit has sent you. They also are homeless and orphaned.
There are left now no white soldiers to harry and distress. This
cavern is warmer than a wigwam, and there is store of food for many
more than three. Remain here until the springtime and by then I may
return. I go now to my brother Gomo, at St. Joseph's, to counsel at
his fireside on what may yet be done to save the remnant of our
people. You are safer here than in any village that I know. Farewell."

But, absorbed in his own gloomy reflections, the Black Partridge for
once forgot his native caution; and without waiting to reconnoitre, he
mounted his horse and rode boldly away from the shelter of the brush
into the broad light of the prairie and so due north toward the
distant encampment of his tribesmen.

Yet the glittering eyes of a jealous Indian were watching him as he
rode. An Indian who had been sheltered by the hospitality of the great
chief, and for many months, in Muck-otey-pokee; but who had neither
gratitude nor mercy in his heart, wherein was only room for treachery
and greed.

As Black Partridge rode away from the cave by the river, the other
mounted his horse and rode swiftly toward it.



CHAPTER XI.

UNDER A WHITE MAN'S ROOF.


The log cabin of Abel and Mercy Smith stood within a bit of forest
that bordered the rich prairie.

As homes went in those early days, when Illinois was only a territory,
and in that sparsely settled locality, it was a most roomy and
comfortable abode. The childless couple which dwelt in it were
comfortable also, although to hear their daily converse with one
another a stranger would not so have fancied. They had early come into
the wilderness, and had, therefore, lived much alone. Yet each was of
a most social nature, and the result, as their few neighbors said, of
their isolated situation was merely "a case of out-talk."

When Mercy's tongue was not wagging, Abel's was, and often both were
engaged at the same moment. Her speech was sharp and decisive; his
indolent, and, to one of her temperament, exceedingly aggravating.
But, between them, they managed to keep up almost a continuous
discourse. For, if Abel went afield, Mercy was sure to follow him
upon various excuses; unless the weather were too stormy, when, of
course, he was within doors.

However, there were times when even their speech lagged a little, and
then homesickness seized the mistress of the cabin; and after several
days of preparation she would set out on foot or on horseback,
according to the distance to be traversed, for some other settler's
cabin and a wider exchange of ideas.

On a late November day, when the homesickness had become overpowering,
Mercy tied on her quilted hood and pinned her heavy shawl about her.
She had filled a carpet bag with corn to pop and nuts to crack, for
the children of her expected hostess and had "set up" a fresh pair of
long stockings to knit for Abel. She now called him from the stable
into the living room to hear her last remarks.

"If I should be kep' over night, Abel, you'll find a plenty to eat.
There's a big pot of baked beans in the lean-to, and some apple pies,
and a pumpkin one. The ham's all sliced ready to fry, and I do hope to
goodness you won't spill grease 'bout on this rag carpet. I'm the only
woman anywhere 's round has a rag carpet all over her floor, any way,
and the idee of your sp'ilin' it just makes me sick. I----"

"But I hain't sp'iled it yet, ma. You hain't give me no chance. If you
do--"

"If I do! Ain't I leavin' you to get your own breakfast, in case I
don't come back? It might rain or snow, ary one, an' then where'd I
be?"

"Right where you happened to be at, I s'pose," returned Abel,
facetiously.

But it was wasted wit. The idea of being storm-stayed now filled the
housewife's mind. She was capable, and full of New England gumption;
but her husband "was a born botch." True, he could split a log, or
clear a woodland with the best; and as for a ploughman, his richly
fertile corn bottom and regular eastern-sort-of-garden testified to
his ability. But she was leaving him with the possibility of woman's
work to do; and as she reflected upon the condition of her cupboard
when she should return and the amount of cream he would probably
spill, should he attempt to skim it for the churning, her mind misgave
her and she began slowly to untie the great hood.

"I believe I won't go after all."

"Won't go, ma? Why not?"

"I'm afraid you'll get everything upset."

"I won't touch a thing more 'n I have to. I'll set right here in the
chimney-corner an' doze an' take it easy. The fall work's all done,
an' I'd ought to rest a mite."

"Rest! Rest? Yes. That's what a man always thinks of. It's a woman who
has to keep at it, early an' late, winter an' summer, sick or well.
If I should go an' happen to take cold, I don't know what to the land
would become of you, Abel Smith."

"I don't either, ma."

There was a long silence, during which Mercy tied and untied her
bonnet-strings a number of times; and each time with a greater
hesitancy. Finally, she pulled from her head the uneasy covering and
laid it on the table. Then she unpinned her shawl, and Abel regarded
these signs ruefully. But he knew the nature with which he had to
deal; and the occasional absences that were so necessary to Mercy's
happiness were also seasons of great refreshment to himself. During
them he felt almost, and sometimes quite, his own master. He loafed,
and smoked, and whittled, and even brought out his old fiddle and just
"played himself crazy"--so his wife declared. Even then he was already
recalling a tune he had heard a passing teamster whistle and was
longing to try it for himself. He abruptly changed his tactics.

Looking into Mercy's face with an appearance of great gladness, he
exclaimed:

"Now ain't that grand! Here was I, thinkin' of myself all alone, and
you off havin' such a good time, talkin' over old ways out East an'
hearin' all the news that's going. There. Take right off your things
an' I'll help put 'em away for you. You've got such a lot cooked up
you can afford to get out your patchwork, and I'll fiddle a bit
and----"

"Abel Smith! I didn't think you'd go and begrudge me a little
pleasure. Me, that has slaved an' dug an' worked myself sick a
help-meetin' an' savin' for you. I really didn't."

"Well, I'm not begrudging anybody. An' I don't s'pose there is much
news we hain't heard. Though there was a new family of settlers moved
out on the mill-road last week, I don't reckon they'd be anybody that
we'd care about. Folks have to be a mite particular, even out here in
Illinois."

Mercy paused, with her half-folded shawl in her hands. Then, with
considerable emphasis, she unfolded it again, and deliberately
fastened it about her plump person.

"Well, I'm goin'. It's rainin' a little, but none to hurt. I've fixed
a dose of cough syrup for Mis' Waldron's baby, an' I'd ought to go an'
give it to her. Them new folks has come right near her farm, I hear.
If you ain't man enough to look out for yourself for a few hours, you
cert'nly ain't enough account for me to worry over. But take good care
of yourself, Abel. I'm goin'. I feel it my duty. There's a roast
spare-rib an' some potatoes ready to fry; an' the meal for the
stirabout is all in the measure an'--good-by. I'll likely be back
to-night. If not, by milkin' time to-morrow morning."

Abel had taken down the almanac from its nail in the wall and had
pretended to be absorbed in its contents. He did not even lift his
eyes as his wife went out and shut the door. He still continued to
search the "prognostics" long after the cabin had become utterly
silent, not daring to glance through the small window, lest she should
discover him and be reminded of some imaginary duty toward him that
would make her return.

But, at the end of fifteen minutes, since nothing happened and the
stillness remained profound, he hung the almanac back in its place,
clapped his hands and executed a sort of joy-dance which was quite
original with himself. Then he drew his splint-bottomed chair before
the open fire, tucked his fiddle under his chin, and proceeded to
enjoy himself.

For more than an hour, he played and whistled and felt as royal and
happy as a king. By the end of that time he had grown a little tired
of music, and noticed that the drizzle of the early morning had
settled into a steady, freezing downpour. The trees were already
becoming coated with ice and their branches to creak dismally in the
rising wind.

"Never see such a country for wind as this is. Blows all the time,
the year round. Hope Mercy'll be able to keep ahead of the storm.
She's a powerful free traveller, Mercy is, an' don't stan' for
trifles. But--my soul! Ain't she a talker? I realize _that_ when her
back's turned. It's so still in this cabin I could hear a pin drop, if
there was anybody round hadn't nothin' better to do than to drop one.
Hmm, I s'pose I could find some sort of job out there to the barn. But
I ain't goin' to. I'm just goin' to play hookey by myself this whole
endurin' day, an' see what comes of it. I believe I'll just tackle one
of them pumpkin pies. 'Tain't so long since breakfast, but eatin' kind
of passes the time along. I wish I had a newspaper. I wish somethin'
would turn up. I--I wouldn't let Mercy know it, not for a farm; but
_'tis_ lonesome here all by myself. I hain't never noticed it so much
as I do this mornin'. Whew! Hear that wind! It's a good mile an' a
half to Waldron's. I hope Mercy's got there 'fore this."

Abel closed the outer door, and crossed to the well-stocked cupboard.
As he stood contemplating its contents, and undecided as to which
would really best suit his present mood, there came a sound of
somebody approaching the house along the slippery footpath. This was
so unexpected that it startled the pioneer. Then he reflected: "Mercy.
She's come back!" and remained guiltily standing with his hand upon
the edge of a pie plate, like a school-boy pilfering his mother's
larder.

"Rat-a-tat-a-tat!"

"Somebody knockin'! That ain't Mercy! Who the land, I wonder!"

He made haste to see and opened the heavy door to the demand of a
young boy, who stood shivering before it. At a little distance further
from the house was, also, a woman wrapped in a blanket that glistened
with sleet, and which seemed to enfold besides herself the form of a
little child.

"My land! my land! Why, bubby! where in the world did you drop from?
Is that your ma? No. I see she's an Indian, an' you're as white as the
frost itself. Come in. Come right in."

But the lad lingered on the threshold and asked with chattering teeth,
which showed how chilled he was:

"Can Wahneenah come too?"

"I don't know who in Christendom Wahneeny is, but you folks all come
straight in out of the storm. 'Twon't do to keep the door open so
long, for the sleet's beating right in on Mercy's carpet. There'd be
the dickens to pay if she saw that."

Gaspar, for it was he, ran quickly back toward the motionless
Wahneenah, and, clutching the corner of her blanket, dragged her
forward. She seemed reluctant to follow, notwithstanding her
half-frozen condition and she glanced into Abel's honest face with
keen inquiry. Yet seeing nothing but good-natured pity in it, she
entered the cabin, and herself shut the door. Yet she kept her place
close to the exit, even after Gaspar had pulled the blanket apart and
revealed the white face of the Sun Maid lying on her breast.

"Why, why, why! poor child! Poor little creatur'. Where in the world
did you hail from to be out in such weather? Didn't you have ary home
to stay in? But, there. I needn't ask that, because there's Mercy off
trapesing just the same, an' her with the best cabin on the frontier.
I s'pose this Wahneeny was took with a gossipin' fit, too, an' set out
to find her own cronies. But I don't recollect as I've heard of any
Indians livin' out this way."

By this time the water that had been frozen upon the wanderers'
clothing had begun to melt, and was drip-dripping in little puddles
upon Mercy's beloved carpet. Abel eyed these with dismay, and finally
hit upon the happy expedient of turning back the loose breadth of the
heavy fabric which bordered the hearth. Upon the bare boards thus
revealed he placed three chairs, and invited his guests to take them.

Gaspar dropped into one very promptly, but the squaw did not advance
until the boy cried:

"Do come, Other Mother. Poor Kitty will wake up then, and feel all
right."

The atmosphere of any house was always uncomfortable to Wahneenah.
Even then, she felt as if she had stepped from freedom into prison,
cold though she was and half-famished with hunger. Personally, she
would rather have taken her bit of food out under the trees; but the
thought of her Sun Maid was always powerful to move her. She laid
aside the wet blanket, and carried the drowsy little one to the
fireside, where the warmth soon revived the child so that she sat up
on her foster-mother's lap, and gazed about her with awakening
curiosity. Then she began to smile on Abel, who stood regarding her
wonderful loveliness with undisguised amazement, and to prattle to him
in her accustomed way.

"Why, you nice, nice man! Isn't this a pretty place. Isn't it beau'ful
warm? I'm so glad we came. It was cold out of doors, wasn't it, Other
Mother? Did you know all the time what a good warm fire was here? Was
that why we came?"

"I knew nothing," answered Wahneenah, stolidly.

"But I did!" cried Gaspar. "As soon as I saw the smoke of your chimney
I said: 'That is a white man's house. We will go and stay in it.' It's
a nice house, sir, and, like Kitty, I am glad we came. Do you live
here all alone?"

"No. My wife, Mercy, has gone a visitin'. That's why I happen to be
here doin' nothin'. I mean--I might have been to the barn an' not
heard you. You're lookin' into that cupboard pretty sharp. Be you
hungry? But I needn't ask that. A boy always is."

"I am hungry. We all are. We haven't had anything to eat in--days, I
guess. Are those pies--regular pies, on the shelves?"

"Yes. Do you like pies?"

"I used to. I haven't had any since I left the Fort."

"Left what?"

"The Fort. Fort Dearborn. Did you know it?"

"Course. That is, about it. But there ain't no Fort now. Don't tell
stories."

"I'm not. I'm telling the truth."

If this was a refugee from that unhappy garrison, Abel felt that he
could not do enough for the boy's comfort. He could not refrain his
suspicious glances from Wahneenah's dark face, but as she kept her own
gaze fixed upon the ground, he concluded she did not see them. In any
case, she was only an Indian, and therefore to be treated with scant
courtesy.

Mercy would have been surprised to see with what handiness her husband
played the host in her absence and now he whipped off the red woollen
cover from the table and rolled it toward the fireplace. But she would
not have approved at all of the lavishness with which he set before
his guests the best things from her cupboard. There was a cold rabbit
patty, the pot of beans, light loaves of sweet rye bread, and a pat of
golden butter. To these he added a generous pitcher of milk, and
beside Gaspar's own plate he placed both a pumpkin and a dried-apple
pie.

"I'd begin with these, if I was you, sonny. Baked beans come by
nature, seems to me, but pies are a gift of grace. Though I must say
my wife don't stint 'em when she takes it into her head to go
gallivantin' an' leaves me to housekeep. 'Pears to think then I must
have somethin' sort of comfortin'. I'd start in on pie, if I was a
little shaver, an' take the beans last."

This might not have been the best of advice to give a lad whose fast
had been so long continued as Gaspar's, but it suited that young
person exactly. Indeed, in all his life he had never seen so well
spread a table, and he lost no time in obeying his entertainer's
suggestion. But he noticed with regret that his foster-mother did not
touch the proffered food, and that she ministered even gingerly to
Kitty's wants.

Yet there was nobody, however austere or unhappy, who could long
resist the happy influence of the little girl, and least of all the
woman who so loved her. As the Sun Maid's color returned to her face,
and her stiffened limbs began to resume their suppleness, something of
the anxiety left Wahneenah's eyes, and she condescended to receive a
bowl of milk and a slice of bread from Abel's hand.

The fact that she would at last break her own fast made all
comfortable; and as soon as Gaspar's appetite was so far appeased that
he could begin upon the beans, the settler demanded:

"Now, sonny, talk. Tell me the whole endurin' story from A to Izzard.
Where'd you come from now? Where was you bound? What's your name? an'
her's? an' the little tacker's? My! but ain't she a beauty! I never
see ary such hair on anybody's head, black or white. It's gettin' dry,
ain't it; an' how it does fly round, just like foam."

"I'm not 'sonny,' nor 'bubby.' I'm Gaspar Keith. I was brought up at
Fort Dearborn. After the massacre, I was taken to Muck-otey-pokee.
I--"

But the lad's thoughts already began to grow sombre, and he became so
abruptly silent that Abel prompted him.

"Hmm, I've heard of that--that--Mucky place. Indian settlement, wasn't
it? Took prisoner, was you?"

"No. I wasn't a prisoner, exactly. I was just a--just a friend of the
family, I guess."

"Oh? So. A friend of an Indian family, sonny?"

"If you'd rather not call me Gaspar, you can please say 'Dark-Eye.'
That's my new Indian name; but I hate those other ones. They make me
think I am a baby. And I'm not. I am a man, almost."

"So you be. So you be," agreed Abel, admiring the little fellow's
spirit. "I 'low you've seen sights, now, hain't you?"

"Yes, dreadful ones; so dreadful that I can't talk about them to
anybody. Not even to you, who have given us this nice food and let us
warm ourselves. I would if I could, you see; only when I let myself
think, I just get queer in the head and afraid. So I won't even think.
It doesn't do for a boy to be afraid. Not when he has his mother and
sister to take care of."

There was the faintest lightening of the gloom upon the Indian woman's
face as Dark-Eye said this. But he was, apart from his terror of
bloodshed and fighting, a courageous lad, and had, during their past
days of wandering, proved the good stuff of which he was made. Many a
day he had gone without eating that the remnant of their food might be
saved for the Sun Maid; and though it was, of course, Wahneenah who
had taken all the care of the children, if it pleased him to consider
their cases reversed he should be left to his own opinion.

"You're right, boy. I'll call you Gaspar, easy enough. Only, you see,
I hain't got no sons of my own an' it kind of makes things seem cosier
if I call other folkes's youngsters that way. Every little shaver this
side of Illinois calls me 'Uncle Abe,' I reckon. But go on with your
yarn. My, my, my! Won't Mercy be beat when she comes home an' hears
all that's happened whilst she was gone. Go on."

So Gaspar told all that had occurred since the Black Partridge parted
from his sister in the cavern and rode away toward St. Joseph's. How
that very day came one of the visiting Indians who had been staying at
Muck-otey-pokee and whose behavior toward the neighboring white
settlers had been a prominent cause of bringing the soldiers' raid
upon the innocent and friendly hosts who had entertained him.

The wicked like not solitude, and in the train of this traitor had
followed many others. These had turned the cave into a pandemonium and
had appropriated to their own uses the stores which Black Partridge
had provided for Wahneenah. When to this robbery they had added
threats against the lives of the white children, whose presence at the
Indian village they in their turn declared had brought destruction
upon it, the chief's sister had taken such small portion of her own
property as she could secure and had set out to find a new home or
shelter for her little ones.

Since then they had been always wandering. Wahneenah now had a fixed
dread of the pale-faces and had avoided their habitations as far as
might be. They had lived in the woods, upon the roots and dried
berries they could find and whose power to sustain life the squaw had
understood. But now had come the cold of approaching winter and the
Sun Maid had shown the effects of her long exposure. Then, at Gaspar's
pleading, Wahneenah had put her own distrust of strangers aside and
had come with him to the first cabin of white people which they could
find.

"And now we're here, what will you do with us?" concluded the lad,
fixing his dark eyes earnestly upon his host's face.

Abel fidgetted a little; then, with his happy faculty of putting off
till to-morrow the evil that belonged to to-day, he replied:

"Well, son--bub--I mean, Gaspar; we hain't come to that bridge yet.
Time enough to cross it when we do. But, say, that little creatur'
looks as if she hadn't known what 'twas to lie on a decent bed in a
month of Sundays. She's 'bout dried off now; an' my! ain't she a
pretty sight in them little Indian's togs! S'pose your squaw-ma puts
her to sleep on the bed yonder. Notice that bedstead? There ain't
another like it this side the East. I'll just spread a sheet over the
quilt, to keep it clean, an' she can snooze there all day, if she
likes. I'll play you an' Wahneeny a tune on my fiddle if you want me
to."

Gaspar was, of course, delighted with this offer but the chief's
sister was already tired of the hot house and had cast longing glances
through the small window toward the barn in the rear. That, at least,
would be cool, and from its doorway she calculated she could keep a
close watch upon the door of the cabin, and be ready at a second's
notice to rush to her children's aid should harm be offered them.
Meanwhile, for this dark day, they would have the comfort to which
their birthright entitled them. So she went out and left them with
Abel.

The hours flew by and the storm continued. Abel had never been happier
nor jollier; and as the twilight came down, and he finally gave up all
expectation of Mercy's immediate return, he waxed fairly hilarious,
cutting up absurd antics for the mere delight of seeing the Sun Maid
laugh and dance in response, and because, under these cheerful
conditions, Gaspar's face was losing its premature thoughtfulness and
rounding to a look more suited to his years.

"Now, I'll dance you a sailor's hornpipe, and then I must go out and
milk. If ma'd been home, it would have been finished long ago. But
when the cat's away the mice will play, you know; so here goes."

Unfortunately, at that very moment the "cat" to whom he referred,
Mercy, in fact, approached the cabin from a direction which even
Wahneenah did not observe, and opened a rear door plump upon this
unprecedented scene.

Abel stopped short in his jig, one foot still uplifted and his fiddle
bow half drawn, while the Sun Maid was yet sweeping her most graceful
curtsey; and even the serious Gaspar had left his seat to prance about
the room to the notes of Abel's music.

Mercy also remained transfixed, utterly dumfounded, and doubting the
evidence of her own senses; but after a moment becoming able to
exclaim:

"So! This is how lonesome you be when I leave you, is it?"



CHAPTER XII.

AFTER FOUR YEARS.


Despite a really warm and hospitable heart, it was not pleasant for
Mercy Smith to find that her submissive husband had taken upon himself
to keep open house in this fashion for all who chose to call; and, as
she often expressed it, the settler's wife "hated an Indian on sight."

Upon her unexpected entrance, there had ensued a brief silence; then
the two tongues which were accustomed to wag so nimbly took up their
familiar task and a battle of words followed. Its climax came rather
suddenly, and was not anticipated by the housewife who declared with
great decision:

"I say the children may stay for a spell, till we can find a way to
dispose of 'em. The boy's big enough to earn his keep, if he ain't too
lazy. Male creatur's mostly are. An' the girl's no great harm as I
see, 'nless she's too pretty to be wholesome. But that red-face goes,
or I do. There ain't no room in this cabin for me an' a squaw to one
time. You can take your druther. She goes or I do"; and she glanced
with animosity toward Wahneenah, who, when hearing the fresh voice
added to the other three, had come promptly upon Mercy's return to
take her stand just within the entrance. There she had remained ever
since, silent, watchful, and quite as full of distrust concerning
Mercy as Mercy could possibly have been toward herself.

"Well," said Abel, slowly, and there was a new note in his voice which
aroused and riveted his wife's attention. "Well--you hear me. I don't
often claim to be boss, but when I do I mean it. Them children can
stay here just as long as they will. For all their lives, an' I'll be
glad of it. The Lord has denied us any little shavers of our own, an'
maybe just because in His providence He was plannin' to send them two
orphans here for us to tend. As for the squaw, she's proved her soul's
white, if her skin is red, an' she stays or goes, just as she
elects--ary one. That's all. Now, you'd better see about fixing 'em a
place to sleep."

Because she was too astonished to do otherwise, Mercy complied. And
Wahneenah wisely relieved her unwilling hostess of any trouble
concerning herself. She followed Abel to the barn, to attend him upon
his belated "chores," and to beg the use of some coarse blankets which
she had found stored there. Until she could secure properly dressed
skins or bark, these would serve her purpose well enough for the
little tepee she meant to pitch close to the house which sheltered her
children.

"For I must leave them under her roof while the winter lasts. They are
not of my race, and cannot endure the cold. But I will work just so
much as will pay for their keep and my own. They shall be beholden to
the white woman for naught but their shelter. For that, too, I will
make restitution in the days to come."

"Pshaw, Wahneeny! I wouldn't mind a bit of a sharp tongue, if I was
you. Ma don't mean no hurt. She's used to bein' boss, that's all; an'
she will be the first to be glad she's got another female to consort
with. I wouldn't lay up no grudge. I wouldn't."

But the matter settled itself as the Indian suggested. It was pain and
torment to her to hear Mercy alternately petting and correcting her
darlings, yet for their sakes she endured that much and more. She even
failed to resent the fact that, after a short residence at the farm,
the Smiths both began to refer to her as "our hired girl, that's
workin' for her keep an' the childern's."

It did not matter to her now. Nothing mattered so long as she was
still within sight and sound of her Sun Maid's beauty and laughter;
and by the time spring came she had procured the needful skins to
construct the wigwam she desired. Her skill in nursing, that had been
well known among her own people, she now made a means of sustaining
her independence. Such aid as she could render was indeed difficult to
be obtained by the isolated dwellers in that wilderness; and having
nursed Abel through a siege of inflammatory rheumatism, as he had
never been cared for before, he sounded her praises far and near, and
to all of the chance passers-by.

For her service among those who could pay she charged a very moderate
wage, but it sufficed; and, for the sake of pleasing her children, she
adopted a dress very like that worn by all the women of the frontier.
Kitty, also, had soon been clothed "like a Christian" by Mercy's
decision; but Wahneenah still carefully preserved the dainty Indian
costume Katasha had given the child; along with the sacred White Bow
and the priceless Necklace.

As for the three horses on which she and the two children had stolen
away from their enemies in the cave of refuge, Abel had long ago
decided that they were but kittle cattle, unfitted for the sober work
of life which his own oxen and old nag Dobbin performed so well. So
they were left in idleness, to graze where they pleased, and were
little used except by their owners for a rare ride afield. The
Chestnut, however, carried Wahneenah to and fro upon her nursing
trips; for, unless the case were too urgent to be left, she always
returned at nightfall to her own lodge and the nearness of her Sun
Maid.

Thus four uneventful years passed away, and it had come to the time of
the wheat harvest.

"And it's to be the biggest, grandest frolic ever was in this part of
the country," declared the settler, proudly.

Whereupon, days before, Mercy began to brew and bake, and even
Wahneenah condescended to assist in the household labor. But she did
this that she might if possible lighten that of her Sun Maid, who had
now grown to a "real good-sized girl an' just as smart as chain
lightning."

This was Abel's description. Mercy's would have been:

"Kitty's well enough. But she hates to sew her seam like she hates
poison. She'd ruther be makin' posies an' animals out my nice clean
fresh-churned butter than learn cookin'. But she's good-tempered.
Never flies out at all, like Gaspar, 'cept I lose patience with
Wahneeny. Then, look sharp!"

"Well, I tell you that out in this country a harvestin' is a big
institution!" cried Abel to Gaspar as, early on the morning of the
eventful day, they were making all things ready for the accommodation
of the people who would flock to the Smith farm to assist in the labor
and participate in the fun. "If there's some things we miss here, we
have some that can't be matched out East. Every white settler's every
other settler's neighbor, even though there's miles betwixt their
clearin's. All hands helpin' so makes light work of raisin' cabins or
barns, sowin', reapin', or clearin'. I--I declare I feel as excited as
a boy. But you don't seem to. You're gettin' a great lad now, Gaspar,
an' one these days I'll be thinkin' of payin' you some wages. If so be
I can afford it, an'----"

"And Mercy will let you!"

"Hi, diddle diddle! What's struck you crosswise, sonny?"

"I'm tired of working so hard for other people. I want a chance to do
something for myself. I'm not ungrateful; don't think it. But see. I
am already taller than you and I can do as much work in a day. Where
is the justice, then, of my labor going for naught?"

"Why, Gaspar. Why, why, why!" exclaimed the pioneer, too astonished to
say more.

Gaspar went on with his task of clearing the barn floor and arranging
tying places for the visitors' teams; but his dark face was clouded
and anxious, showing little of the anticipation which Abel's did.

"I'm going to ask you, Father Abel, to let me try for a job somewhere
else; that is, if you can't really pay me anything, as your wife
declares. Then, by and by, when I can earn enough to get ahead a
little, I'd pay you back for all you've spent on us three."

Abel's face had fallen, and he now looked as if he might be expecting
some dire disaster rather than a frolic. But it brightened presently.

"Yes, Gaspar; I know you're big, and well-growed. But you're young
yet--dreadful young----"

"I'm near fifteen."

"Well, you won't be out your time till you're twenty-one."

"What 'time'?" asked the lad, angrily, though he knew the answer.

"Hmm. Of course, there wasn't no regular papers drawed, but it was
understood; it was always understood between ma and me that if we took
you all in, and did for you while you was growin' up, your service
belonged to us. Same's if you'd been bound by the authorities."

"Get over there, Dobbin!"

"Pshaw! You must be real tried in your mind to hit a four-footed
creatur' like that. I hain't never noticed that you was short-spoke
with the stock--not before this morning. I wish you wouldn't get out
of sorts to-day, boy! I--well, there's things afoot 'at I think you'd
like to take a share in. There. That'll do. Now, just turn another
edge on them reapin' knives, an' see that there's plenty o' water in
the troughs, an' feed them fattin' pigs in the pen, an'--Shucks! He's
off already. I wonder what's took him so short! I wonder if he's got
wind of anything out the common!"

The latter part of Abel's words were spoken to himself, for Gaspar had
taken his knives to the grindstone in the yard and was now calling for
Kitty to turn the stone for him, while he should hold the blades
against its surface.

But it was Mercy who answered his summons, appearing in the doorway
with her sleeves rolled up, her apron floured, and her round face
aglow with haste and excitement.

"Well? well, Gaspar Keith? What you want of Kit?"

"To help me."

"Help yourself. I can't spare her."

"Then I can't grind the knives. That's all." He tossed them down to
wait her pleasure, and Mercy groaned.

"If I ain't the worst bestead woman in the world! Here's all creation
coming to be fed, an' no help but a little girl like Kit an' a grumpy
old squaw 't don't know enough to 'preciate her privileges. Hey!
Gaspar! Call Abel in to breakfast. An' after that maybe sissy can turn
the stun. Here 'tis goin' on six o'clock, if it's a minute, an' some
the folks'll be pokin' over here by seven, sure!"

Then Mercy retreated within doors and directed the Sun Maid to:

"Fly 'round right smart now an' set the house to one side. Whisk them
flapjacks over quicker 'an that, then they'll not splish-splash all
over the griddle. When I was a little girl nine years old I could fry
cakes as round as an apple. No reason why you shouldn't, too, if you
put your mind to it."

The Sun Maid laughed. No amount of fret or labor had ever yet had
power to dim the brightness of her nature. Was it the Sun Maid,
though? One had to look twice to see. For this tall, slender girl now
wore her glorious hair in a braid, and her frock was of coarse blue
homespun.

Her feet were bare, and her plump shoulders bowed a little because of
the heavy burdens which her "mother Mercy" saw fit to put upon them.

"But I guess I don't want to put my mind to it. I can't see anything
pretty in 'jacks which are to be eaten right up. Only I like to have
them taste right for the folks. That's all."

Abel and Gaspar came in, and Kitty placed a plate of steaming cakes
before them. Mercy hurried to the big churn outside the door and began
to work the dasher up and down as if she hadn't an ounce of butter in
her dairy and must needs prepare this lot for the festival. As she
churned she kept up a running fire of directions to the household
within, finally suggesting, in a burst of liberality due to the
occasion:

"You can fry what flapjacks you want for yourself, Wahneeny. An' I
don't know as I care if you have a little syrup on 'em to-day--just
for once, so to speak."

However, Wahneenah disdained even the cakes, and the syrup-jug was
deposited in its place with undiminished contents.

"Be you all through, then? Well, Kit, fly 'round. Clear the table like
lightning, an' fetch that butter bowl out the spring, an' see if the
salt's all poun' an' sifted; an' open the draw's an' lay out my
clothes, an'--Dear me! Does seem 's if I should lose my senses with so
much to do an' no decent help, only----"

"Hold on, Mercy! What's the use of rushin' through life 's if you was
tryin' to break your neck?"

"Rushin'! With all that's comin' here to-day!"

"Well, let 'em come. We'll be glad to see 'em. Nobody gladder 'n you
yourself. But you fair take my breath away with your everlastin'
hurry-skurry, clitter-clatter. Don't give a man a chance to even kiss
his little girl good-mornin'. Do you know that, Sunny Maid? Hain't
said a word to your old Daddy yet!"

The child ran to him and fondly flung her arms as far as they would
go around the settler's broad shoulders. It was evident that there was
love and sympathy between these two, though they were to be allowed
short space "for foolin'" that day, and Mercy's call again interrupted
them:

"Come and take this butter down to the brook, Kit, an' wash it all
clean, an' salt it just right--here 'tis measured off--an' make haste.
I do believe you'd ruther stand there lovin' your old Abel--homely
creatur'!--than helpin' me. Yet, when I was a little girl your age, I
could work the butter over fit to beat the queen. Upon my word, I do
declare I see a wagon movin' 'crost the prairie this very minute! Oh!
what shall I do if I ain't ready when they get here!"

Catching at last something of the pleasurable excitement about her,
Kitty lifted the heavy butter-tray and started for the stream. The
butter was just fine and firm enough to tempt her fingers into a bit
of modelling, such as she had picked up for herself; and very speedily
she had arranged a row of miniature fruits and acorns, and was just
attempting to copy a flower which grew by the bank when Wahneenah's
voice, close at hand, warned her:

"Come, Girl-Child. The white mistress is in haste this morning. It is
better to carry back the butter in a lump than to make even such
pretty things and risk a scolding."

"But father Abel would like them for his company. He is very fond of
my fancy 'pats'."

"But not to-day. Besides, if there is time for idleness, I want you to
pass it here with me, in my own wigwam."

The Sun Maid looked up. "Shall you not be at the feasting, dear Other
Mother? You have many friends among those who are coming."

"Friendship is proved by too sharp a test sometimes. The way of the
world is to follow the crowd. If a person falls into disfavor with
one, all the rest begin to pick flaws. More than that: the temptation
of money ruins even noble natures."

"Why, Wahneenah! You sound as if you were talking riddles. Who is
tempted by money? and which way does the 'crowd' you mean go? I don't
understand you at all."

"May the Great Spirit be praised that it is so. May He long preserve
to you your innocent and loyal heart."

With these words, the Indian woman stooped and laid her hand upon the
child's head; then slowly entered her lodge and let its curtains fall
behind her. There was an unusual sternness about her demeanor which
impressed Kitty greatly; so that it was with a very sober face that
she herself gathered up her burdens and returned to the cabin.

Yet on the short way thither she met Gaspar, who beckoned to her from
behind the shelter of a haystack, motioning silence.

"But you mustn't keep me, Gaspar boy. Mother Mercy is terribly hurried
this morning, and now, for some reason, Other Mother has stopped
helping and has gone home to the tepee. If I don't work, it will about
crush her down, Mercy says."

"Hang Mercy! There. I don't mean that. I wish you wouldn't always look
so scared when I get mad. I am mad to-day, Kit. Mad clear through.
I've got to be around amongst folks, too, for a while; but the first
minute you get, you come to that pile of logs near Wahneenah's place,
and I'll have something to tell you."

"No you won't! No you won't! I know it already. I heard father Abel
talking. There is to be a horse race, after the harvesting and the
supper are over. There is a new man, or family, moved into the
neighborhood and he is a horse trader. I heard all about it, sir!"

"You heard that? Did you hear anything else? About Wahneenah and
money?"

"Only what she told me herself"; repeating the Indian woman's words.

"Then she knows, poor thing!" cried Gaspar, indignantly.



CHAPTER XIII.

THE HARVESTING.


Kitty had no time to ask further explanation. Already there was an ox
team driving up to the cabin and, scanning the prairies, she saw
others on the way, so merely stopped to cry, eagerly:

"They've come! The folks have come!" before she hastened in with the
butter and to see if she could in any way help Mercy dress for the
great occasion.

She was just in time, for the plump housewife was vainly struggling to
fasten the buttons of a new lilac calico gown which she had made:

"A teeny tiny mite too tight. I didn't know I was gettin' so fat, I
really didn't."

"Oh! it's all right, dear Mother Mercy. It looked just lovely that day
you tried it on. I'll help you. You're all trembling and warm. That's
the reason it bothers."

She was so deft and earnest in her efforts that Mercy submitted
without protest, and in this manner succeeded in "making herself fit
to be seen by folks" about the moment that they arrived to observe.
Then everything else was forgotten, amid the greetings and gayety
that followed. For out of what purported to be a task the whole
community was making a frolic.

While the men repaired to the golden fields to reap the grain the
women hurried to the smooth grassy place where the harvest-dinner was
to be enjoyed out-of-doors.

Most of the vehicles--which brought whole families, down to the babe
in long clothes--were drawn by oxen, though some of the pioneers owned
fine horses and had driven these, groomed with extraordinary care and
destined, later on, to be entered in the races which should conclude
the business and fun of the day.

Both horses and oxen were, for the present, led out to graze upon a
fine pasture and were supposed to be under the care, while there, of
the young people. These were, however, more deeply engaged in playing
games than in watching, and for once their stern parents ignored the
carelessness.

"Oh, such bright faces!" cried the Sun Maid to Mercy. "And yours is
the happiest of all, even though you did have such a terrible time to
get ready. See, they are fixing the tables out of the wagon boards,
and every woman has brought her own dishes. They're making fires, too,
some of the bigger boys. What for, Mother Mercy?"

"Oh! don't bother me now. It's to boil the coffee on, and to bake the
jonny-cakes. 'Journey-cakes,' they used to call them. Mis' Waldron,
she's mixin' some this minute. Step acrost to her table an' watch. A
girl a'most ten years old ought to learn all kinds of housekeepin'."

Kitty was nothing loath. It was, indeed, a treat to see with what
skill the comely settler of the wilderness mixed and tossed and patted
her jonny-cake, famous all through that countryside for lightness and
delicacy; and as she finished each batch of dough, and slapped it down
upon the board where it was to cook, she would hand it over to Kitty's
charge, with the injunction:

"Carry that to one of the fires, an' stand it up slantin', so 's to
give it a good chance to bake even. Watch 'em all, too; an' as soon as
they are a nice brown on one side, either call me to turn 'em to the
other, or else do it yourself. As Mercy Smith says, a girl can't begin
too early to housekeep."

"But this is out-door keep, isn't it?" laughed the Sun Maid, as, with
a board upon each arm, she bounded away to place the cakes as she had
been directed.

In ordinary, Mercy Smith was not a lavish woman; but on such a day as
this she threw thrift to the wind and, brought out the best she could
procure for the refreshment of her guests; and everybody knows how
much better food tastes when eaten out-of-doors than in regular
fashion beside a table. The dinner was a huge success; and even
Gaspar, whom Kitty's loving watchful eyes had noticed was more than
usually serious that day, so far relaxed his indignation as to partake
of the feast with the other visiting lads.

But, when it was over and the women were gathering up the dishes,
preparatory to cleansing them for their homeward journey, the child
came to where Mercy stood among a group of women, and asked:

"Shall I wash the dishes, Mother Mercy?"

"No, sissy, you needn't. We grown folks'll fix that. If you want
something to do, an' are tired of out-doors, you can set right down
yonder an' rock Mis' Waldron's baby to sleep. By and by, Abel's got a
job for you will suit you to a T!"

Kitty was by no means tired of out-doors, but a baby to attend was
even a greater rarity than a holiday; so she sat down beside the
cradle, which its mother had brought in her great wagon, and gently
swayed the little occupant into a quiet slumber. Then she began to
listen to the voices about her, and presently caught a sentence which
puzzled her.

"Fifty dollars is a pile of money. It's more 'n ary Indian ever was
worth. Let alone a sulky squaw."

"Yes it is. An' I need it. I need it dreadful," assented Mercy,
forgetful of the Sun Maid's presence in the room.

"Well, I, for one, should be afraid of her," observed another visitor,
clattering the knives she was wiping. "I wouldn't have a squaw livin'
so near my door, an' that's a fact."

Kitty now understood that these people were speaking of Wahneenah, and
listened intently.

"Oh! I ain't afraid of her. Not that. But I never did like her, nor
she me. She's sullen an' top-lofty. Why, you'd think I wasn't no
better than the dirt under her feet, to see her sometimes. She was
good to the childern, I'll 'low, afore me an' Abel took 'em in. But
that's four years ago, an' I've cared for 'em ever since. Sometimes I
think she's regular bewitched 'em, they dote on her so. If you believe
me, they'll listen to her leastest word sooner 'n a whole hour of my
talk!"

"I shouldn't be surprised," quietly commented one young matron, who
was jogging her own baby to sleep by tipping her chair violently back
and forth upon its four legs.

Continued Mercy:

"She wouldn't eat a meal of victuals with me if she was starvin'. Yet
I've treated her Christian. Only this mornin' I give her leave to fry
cakes for herself, an' even have some syrup, but she wouldn't touch to
do it. Yes; fifty dollars of good government money would be more to
me 'n she is, an' she'd be took care of, I hear, along with all the
rest is caught. It's time the country was rid of the Indians an' white
folks had a chance. There's all the while some massacrein' an'
fightin' goin' on somewhere."

"Oh! I guess the government just puts 'em under lock an' key, in a
guard-house, or some such place, till it gets enough to send away off
West somewheres. I'd get the fifty dollars, if I was you, and march
her off. She'll be puttin' notions into the youngsters' heads first
you see an' makin' trouble."

"I don't know just how to manage it. Abel, he's queer an' sot. He's
gettin' tired, though, of some things, himself."

"Manage it easy enough. Like fallin' off a log. My man could do you
that good turn. She could be took along in our wagon as far as the
Agency. Then, next time he comes by with his grist on his road to
mill, he could fetch you the money. I'd do it, sure. I only wish I had
an Indian to catch as handy as she is." Having given this advice,
Mercy's guest sat down.

There was a rush of small feet and the Sun Maid confronted them. Her
blue eyes blazed with indignation, her face was white, and her hair,
which the day's activity had loosed from its braid, streamed backward
as if every fibre quivered with life. With heaving breast and clenched
hands, she faced them all.

"Oh, how dare you! How dare you! You are talking of my Wahneenah; of
selling her, of selling her like a pig or a horse. Even you, Mrs.
Jordan, though she nursed your little one till it got well, and only
told you the truth: that if you'd look after it more and visit less it
wouldn't have the croup so often. You didn't like to hear her say it,
and you do not love her. But she is good, good, good! There is nobody
so good as she is. And no harm shall come to her. I tell you. I say
it. I, the Sun Maid, whom the Great Spirit sent to her out of the sky.
I will go and tell her at once. She shall run away. She shall not be
sold--never, never, never!"

The women remained dumfounded where she left them, watching her skim
the distance between cabin and wigwam, scarcely touching the earth
with her bare feet in her haste to warn her friend of this new danger
which threatened her and her race. For it was quite true, this matter
that had been discussed. The Indians had given so much trouble in the
sparsely settled country that the authorities had offered a price for
their capture; and it was this price which money-loving Mercy coveted.

Like a flash of a bird's wing, Kitty had darted into the lodge and
out again, with an agony of fear upon her features; and then she saw
Gaspar beckoning.

As she reached him he motioned silence and drew her away into the
shadow of the forest, that just there fringed the clearing behind the
tepee.

"But--Wahneenah's gone!" she whispered.

"Don't worry. She's safe enough for the present. Listen to me. Do you
remember the horse-racing last year?"

"Course. I remember I got so excited over the horses, and so sorry for
the boys that rode and didn't win. But what of that? Other Mother has
gone!"

"I tell you she's safe. Safer than you or me. Listen. Abel says _we_,
too, will have to ride a race to-day! On Tempest and Snowbird. Even if
we win, the money will belong to him; and if we lose--he's going to
sell one of our horses to pay his loss. I heard him say it."

"But they are ours!"

"He's kept them all these years, he says. He claims the right to do
with them as he chooses. Bad as that is, it isn't the worst. Though
Wahneenah is safe, still she will not be always. You and I will have
to ride this race--to save her life, or liberty!"

"What do--you--mean?"

"I haven't time to explain. Only--will you do as I say? Exactly?"

"Of course." Kitty looked inquiringly into her foster-brother's face.
Didn't he know she loved him better than anybody and would mind him
always?

"When we are on the horses if I say to you: 'Follow me!' will you?"

"Of course. Away to the sky, over yonder, if you want me."

"Even if any grown folks should try to stop you? Even if Abel or
Mercy?"

"Even"--declared the little girl, sincerely.

"Now go back to the house, or anywhere you please till Abel calls you,
or I do. Then come and mount. And then--then--do exactly as I tell
you. Remember."

He went away, back to the group of men about the barn, and Kitty sat
down in the shady place to wait. But it was not for long. Presently
she heard Mercy calling her, and saw Abel, with Gaspar, leading the
black gelding and pretty Snowbird out of the stable toward a ring of
other horses. She got up and passed toward the cabin very slowly.
Oddly enough, she began to feel timid about riding before all those
watching, strange faces; yet did not understand why. Then she thought
of Wahneenah, and her returning anger made her indifferent to them.

"Abel wants you, Kit!" cried Mrs. Smith, quite ignoring the child's
recent outbreak, and the girl walked quietly toward him. But it was
Gaspar who helped to swing her into her saddle, where she settled
herself with an ease learned long ago of the Snake-Who-Leaps. The lad,
also, found time to whisper:

"Remember your promise! We are to ride this race for Wahneenah's
life--though nobody knows that save you and me. So ride your best.
Ride as you never rode before--and on the road I lead you!"

The sons of the new settler and horse dealer were to ride against
these two. There were three of these youths, all well mounted, and the
course was to be a certain number of times around the great wheat
field so freshly reaped. It was a rough route, indeed, but as just for
one as another, and in plain sight of all the visitors. The five
horses ranged in a row with their noses touching a line, held by two
men, that fell as the word was given:

"One--two--three--GO!"

They went. They made the circuit of the field in fair style, with the
three strangers a trifle ahead. On the completion of the second heat,
the easterners passed the starting-point alone.

"Why, Gaspar! Why, Kitty!" shouted Abel reprovingly. "How's this?"

"Maybe they don't understand what's meant," suggested somebody.

Seemingly, they did not. For neither at the third round did they
appear in leading. On the contrary, they had started off at a right
angle, straight across the prairie; but now so fast they rode, and so
unerringly, that long before their deserted friends had ceased to
stare and wonder they had passed out of sight.



CHAPTER XIV.

ONCE MORE IN THE OLD HOME.


"We can rest a little now, Kit. We are so far away that nobody could
catch us if they tried. They won't try, any way, I guess. They'll
think we'll go back."

"Didn't the horses do finely, Gaspar! I never rode like that, I guess.
Where are we going? What did you mean about saving Wahneenah's life?
Where is she?"

"Don't ask so many questions. I've got to think. I've got to think
very hard. I'm the man of our family, you know, Sun Maid. Wahneenah
and you are my women."

"Oh! indeed!" said the girl, moving a little nearer her foster-brother
on the grassy hillock where they had slipped from their saddles, to
rest both themselves and the beasts.

"You see: we've all run away."

"Pooh! That's nothing. I've always been running away. Black Partridge
said I began life that way."

"You're about ten years old, Kit. You're big enough to be getting
womanly."

"Father Abel said I was. I can sew quite well. If I'm very, very good,
I'm to be let stitch a dickey all alone, two threads at a time, for
him. Mercy said so."

"Do you like stitching shirts for that old man?"

"No. I hate it."

"Poor little Sun Maid. You were made to be happy, and do nothing but
what you like all day long. Well, I'll be a man some day, and build a
cabin of my own for you and Wahneenah."

"That will be nice. Though I'll be of some use some way, even if I
don't like sewing. Where shall we go when we get rested, boy?"

"To the Fort."

"The--Fort! I thought it was all burned up."

"There is a new one on the same old ground. It is our real home, you
know. We will be refugees. When we meet Wahneenah, we'll go and claim
protection."

"Oh! Gaspar, where is she? I want her terribly. I am afraid something
will happen to her."

In his heart the lad was, also, greatly alarmed; but he felt it unwise
to show this. So he answered, airily:

"Oh! she's on, a piece. I pointed her the road, and told her where to
meet us. At the top of the sandhills, this side the Fort."

"The sandhills! That dreadful place. You must be getting a real
'brave,' Gaspar boy, if you don't mind going there again. I've heard
you talk--"

"I don't want to talk even now, Kit. But I had to have some spot we
both knew, where we could meet, and we chose that. I expect she'll be
there waiting, and as soon as the horses get cooled a little, and we
do, we'll go on."

"I'm hungry. I wish we had brought something to eat."

"I did. It's here in my blouse. I noticed at the dinner that you did
more serving than eating. There's water yonder, too; in that clump of
bushes must be a spring," and the prairie-wise lad was right.

The supper he produced was an indiscriminate mixture of meats and
sweets and, had Kitty not been so really in need of food she would
have disdained what she promptly pronounced "a mess." But she ate it
and felt rested by it; so that she began to remember things she had
scarcely noticed earlier in the day.

"Gaspar, Wahneenah must have known about this--this money being
offered for her and other Indians. She had taken everything out of her
wigwam. I thought she was terribly grave this morning, and she kept
looking at me all the time. Do you think she knew she was going to run
away as she was?"

"Course. She's known it some days."

"And didn't tell me!"

"She couldn't, because she loves you so. She wouldn't do a thing to
put you in danger. So I thought the matter over, and I tell you I've
just taken the business right out their hands. I was tired, any way.
I'm glad we came. I'm almost a man, Kit; and I won't be scolded by any
woman as Mercy has scolded me. And when I found Abel was getting
stingy, too, and claiming our horses for their keep, when they've
really just kept themselves out on the prairie, or anywhere it
happened, I--"

"Boy, you talk too fast. I--I don't feel as if I was glad. Except when
I remember Other Mother. They were horrid, horrid about her. I hate
them for that, though I love them for other things. I wonder what
Mother Mercy will say when we don't come home!"

"She'll have a chance to say a lot of things before we do, I guess.
Well, we'll be going. I wouldn't like to miss Wahneenah, and I don't
know but they close the Fort gates at night."

"Did she ride Chestnut?"

"Course. What a lot of questions you ask!"

The Sun Maid looked into the boy's face. It was too troubled for her
comfort, and she exclaimed:

"Gaspar Keith! There's more to be told than you've told me. What is it
you are keeping back?"

"I--I wonder if you can understand, if I do tell you?"

"I think I can understand a good many things. One is: you are making
me feel very unhappy."

"Well, then, I'm going to take Wahneenah to the Fort, and give her up
myself!"

They had remounted their horses, and were pacing leisurely along
toward the rendezvous, keeping a sharp lookout for the Indian woman;
but at this startling statement the Sun Maid reined up short, and
demanded:

"What--do--you--mean?"

"Just exactly what I say. I'm going to give her up and get the money."

Kitty could not speak; and with a perplexity that was not at all
comfortable to himself, the lad returned her astonished gaze.

"Then--you--are--just--as--mean--as--Mercy--Smith!"

"I am not mean at all! Don't you say it. Don't you understand? I
do--or I thought I did. It's this way. She can't be given up but once,
can she? Well, I'll do it, instead of an enemy."

"You--wicked--boy! I can't believe it! I won't! You shall not do it;
never!"

"Oh, don't be silly! Of course, I'll not keep the money. I'll give it
right back to her. Then she can do what she likes with it--make a nice
new wigwam near the Fort, and she can get lots of skins, or even
canvas, there. Come, let's ride on."

But there was a silence between them for some time, and the scheme
that had seemed so brilliant, when it had originated in Gaspar's mind,
began to lose something of its glitter under the clear questioning
gaze of the Sun Maid.

It was fast falling twilight when they came to the sandhills; and
though, by all reckoning, Wahneenah should have been long awaiting
them there was no sign of the familiar Chestnut or its beloved rider.

"Gaspar, will Wahneenah understand it? Will she believe it is right
for you to do what is wrong for another to do? Will the soldier men
pay you--just a boy, so--the money, real money, for her, anyway?"

Gaspar lost his patience, with which he was not greatly blessed.

"Kit, I wish you wouldn't keep thinking of things. I didn't tell Other
Mother, of course. She might--she might not have been pleased. I acted
for the best. That's the way men always have to do."

The argument was not as convincing to the Sun Maid as she herself
would have liked; but she trusted Gaspar, and tried to put the money
question aside, while she strained her eyes to search the darkening
landscape for the missing one.

But there was no trace of her anywhere; even though Gaspar dismounted
and scanned the sward for fresh tracks, as his Indian friends had
taught him; and when, at length, he felt compelled to hasten to the
Fort and seek its shelter for the Sun Maid, his young heart was heavy
with foreboding. However, he put the cheerful side of the subject
before the little girl, observing:

"It's the very easiest thing in the world for people to make mistakes
in meeting this way. What seems a certain point to one person may look
very different to another. I've noticed that."

"Oh! you have!" commented Kitty. "I think you've noticed almost too
much, Gaspar. I--I think it's awful lonely out here, and I don't
believe Abel would have let anybody hurt Wahneenah, even if Mercy
would. And--I want her, I want her!"

"Sun Maid! Are you afraid?"

"No, I am not. Not for myself. But if some of those dreadful white
people whom Wahneenah thought were her friends should overtake her on
their way home, and--and--take her prisoner! I can't have it,--I must
go back, and search again and again."

"Sing, Kit! If she's anywhere within hearing, she'll come at the sound
of your voice. Sing your loudest!"

Obediently, the Sun Maid lifted her clear voice and sang, at the
beginning with vigor and hope in the notes, but at the end with a
sorrowful trembling and pathos that made Gaspar's heart ache. So, to
still his own misgivings, he commanded her, also, to be silent.

"It's no use, girlie. She's out of hearing somewhere. Maybe she has
gone to the Fort already. Any way, it's getting very dark, and the
clouds are awful heavy. I believe there's a thunder-shower coming, and
if it does, it will be a bad one. They always are worse, Mercy says,
when they come this time of year. We would better hurry on to shelter
ourselves. If she isn't there, we can look for her in the morning."

"I like a thunder-storm. I believe it would be fine to go under that
clump of trees yonder and watch it. I have to go to bed so early,
always, that I think it is just grand to be up late and out-of-doors,
too."

"You are not afraid of anything, Kitty Briscoe! I never saw a girl
like you!" cried the lad, reproachfully.

"But you don't know other girls, boy. Maybe they are not afraid,
either. I can't help it if I'm not, can I?"

Gaspar laughed. "I guess I'm cross, child, that's all. Of course I
wouldn't want you to be a scared thing. But, let's hurry. The later we
get there the more trouble we may have to get in."

"Why--will there be trouble? If there is, let's go home."

"We can't go home. We've run away, you know. Besides, there would be
the same anxiety about Wahneenah. All 's left for us is to go on."

So the Sun Maid settled herself firmly in her saddle and followed
Tempest's rather reckless pace forward into the darkness. Memory made
the dim road familiar to Gaspar, and soon the garrison lights came
into sight.

But martial law is strict and the gates had been closed for the night,
as the lad had feared. The sentinel on duty did not respond to his
first summons with the promptness which the boy desired, so, springing
to his feet upon the gelding's back, he shouted, over the stockade:

"Entrance for two citizens of the United States! In the name of its
President!"

"Ugh. There is no need for such a noise, pale-face."

These words fell so suddenly upon Gaspar's ears that he nearly tumbled
backward from his perch. He was further amazed to see the Sun Maid
leap from her horse, straight through the gloom into the arms of a
tall Indian who seemed to have risen out of the ground beside them.

In fact, he had merely stepped from a canoe at the foot of the path
and his moccasined feet had made no sound upon the sward as he
approached. He received the girl's eager spring with grave dignity,
and immediately replaced her upon the Snowbird's back.

[Illustration: GASPAR AND KITTY REACH THE FORT. _Page 188._]

"Why, Black Partridge! Don't you know me? Aren't you glad to see me?
Four years since we said good-by, that day at poor Muck-otey-pokee."

"I remember all things. Why is the Sun Maid here, at this hour?"

Gaspar had recovered himself and now broke into a torrent of
explanation, which the chief quietly interrupted as soon as he had
gathered the facts of the case.

"But don't you think, dear Feather-man, that our Wahneenah will soon
come?" demanded Kitty, anxiously.

"The gates are open. Let us enter," he answered evasively; and the
novelty of her surroundings so promptly engrossed the girl's mind that
she forgot to question him further then. Somewhere on the dimly
lighted campus a bugle was sounding; and it awakened sleeping memories
of her earliest childhood. So did the regular "step-step" of soldiers
relieving guard. A new and delightful sense of safety and familiarity
thrilled her heart, and she exclaimed, joyfully:

"Oh, Gaspar! it is home! it is home! More than the cabin, more than
Other Mother's tepee, this is home!"

"I hope it will prove so."

"Do you suppose I will find any of the dear white 'mothers' who were
so good to me? Or Bugler Jim, who used to play me to sleep under the
trees in the corner? I wish it wasn't so dark. I wish----"

"It's all new, Kit. They are all strangers. The rest, you know--well,
none of them are here. But these will be kind, no doubt. Yet to me,
even in this dark, it seems--it seems horrible! It all comes back:
that morning when I first rode Tempest. The massacre----"

The tone of his voice startled her, and she begged at once:

"Let us go right away again. I am not afraid of the storm, nor the
darkness, and nothing can harm us if we pray to be taken care of. The
Great Spirit always hears. Let us go."

"It is too late. It's beginning to rain and that man is ordering us to
dismount, that he may put the horses in the stables. Jump down."

There were always some refugees at the Fort. Just then there were more
than ordinary; or, if all were not such, there were many passing
travellers, journeying in emigrant trains toward the unsettled west,
to make their new homes there, and these used "Uncle Sam's tavern" as
an inn of rest and refreshment.

Amid so many, therefore, small attention was paid to the arrival of
these two young people. They were furnished with a plain supper, in
the main living room of the building which seemed a big and dreary
place, and immediately afterward were dismissed to bed. Kitty was
assigned a cot among the women guests and Gaspar slept in the men's
quarters.

But neither had very comfortable thoughts, and the talk of her
dormitory neighbors kept the Sun Maid long awake. Here, as in Mercy's
cabin, the dominant subject was the reward offered for the capture of
the Indians, and a fresh fear set her trembling as one indignant
matron exclaimed:

"There's one of those pesky red-skins in this very Fort this night. He
came with that girl yonder, but I hope he won't be let to get away as
easy. The country is overrun with the Indians, and is no place for
decent white folks. They outnumber us ten to one. That's why I've got
my husband to sell out. We're on our way back East, to civilization."

"Well, if one's come here to-night, I reckon he'll be taken care of!
Massacres are more plenty than money, and some man or other'll make
out to claim the prize. What sort of Indian was he?"

"Oh, like them all. All paint and feather and wickedness. I wish
somebody'd take and hang him to the sally-port, just for an example."

This was too much for loyal Kitty Briscoe. She could no more help
springing up in defence of her friends than she could help breathing.

"You women must not talk like that! There are good Indians, and they
are the best people in the world. They won't hurt anybody who lets
them alone. That Indian you're talking against is the Black Partridge.
He is splendid. He is my very oldest friend, except Gaspar. He
wouldn't hurt a fly, and he'd help everybody needed help. It's this
horrible offer of money for every Indian caught that has set my
precious Other Mother wandering over the country this dark night, and
made Gaspar and me homeless runaways."

There was instant hubbub in the room, and no more desire for sleep on
anybody's part until Kitty had been made to tell her story, the story
of her life as she remembered it, over and over again; and when
finally slumber overtook her, even in the midst of her narrative, her
dreams were filled with visions of Wahneenah fleeing and forever
pursued by uniformed soldiers with glistening bayonets, who fired
after her to the merry sound of a bugle and drum.

In the morning she found Gaspar and related her night's experience.
He received it gravely, without the sympathy she expected.

"Kit, I don't understand. What you said was true, and right enough for
me to say. But it's not like you to be so bold. Yesterday, you were
saucy to the harvest-women and now again to these. Is it because you
are growing up so fast, I wonder? All women are not like Other Mother.
They might get angry with you, and punish you. If I should go----"

"If what, Gaspar Keith?"

"Kitty, _I can't stay here_. It would kill me. I must get out into the
open. I am going away. Right away. Now. This very hour even. You must
be brave, and understand."

"Go away? I, too? All right. Only don't look so sober. I don't care. I
promised to go anywhere you wished and I will. I'm ready."

"But--but--It's only I, my Kit. Not you."

"You would go away, and--leave me here? Just because you don't like
it?"

All the color went out of her fair, round face, and she caught his
head between her hands, and turned it so that she could look into his
dark eyes, which could not bear to look into her own startled and
reproachful ones.



CHAPTER XV.

PARTINGS AND MEETINGS.


Gaspar's courage returned, and he led her to a sheltered place under
the stockade, where he made her sit beside him for the brief time that
was his.

"Not all because I do not like it; but because I am almost a man and I
have found the chance of my life. There is one here, a _voyageur_,
with his boat. The finest vessel I ever saw, though they've not been
so many. He is going north into the great woods; will sail this
morning. He is a great trader and hunter and he has asked me to
apprentice myself to him. He promises he will make my fortune. He has
taken as great a liking to me, I reckon, as I have to him. We shall
get on famously together. In that broad, free life I shall grow a full
man, and soon. I can earn money, and make a home for you and
Wahneenah, and many another lonely, helpless soul. Yes, I must go. I
can't let the chance pass. And you must be brave, and the Sun Maid
still, and forever. I shall want to think of you as always bright and
full of laughter. Like yourself. But you are not like yourself now,
Girl-Child. Why don't you speak? Why don't you say something?"

"I guess there isn't any 'say' left in me, Gaspar," answered the girl,
in a tone so hopelessly sad that it almost made the lad waver in his
determination. Only that wavering had no portion in the character of
the ambitious youth, and he looked far forward toward a great good
beyond the present pain.

When the day was well advanced, the schooner sailed away, from the
dock at the foot of the path from fort to lake, with Gaspar upon her
deck, trying to look more brave and manly than he really felt. But a
forlorn little maid watched with eyes that shed no tears, and a
pitiful attempt at a smile upon her quivering lips till the vessel
became a mere speck, then disappeared.

After a long while, she was aroused by something again moving over the
water.

"He's coming back! My Gaspar's coming back!" she cried, and tossed
back the hair which the wind blew about her face that she might see
the clearer. A moment later her disappointment found words: "It's
nothing but a common Indian canoe!"

However, she remembered her foster-brother had set her a task to do.
She must begin it right away. She was to be as helpful to everybody
she ever should meet as it was possible. Here might be one coming who
hadn't heard about that dreadful fifty-dollar prize money. She must
call out and warn him. So she did, and never had human voice sounded
pleasanter to any wayfarer. But her own intentness discovered
something familiar in the appearance of the young brave, paddling so
cautiously toward her and keeping so well to the shore. She began to
question herself where she had seen him, and in a flash she
remembered. Then, indeed, did she shout, and joyfully:

"Osceolo! Osceolo! Don't you know me? Kitty? The Sun Maid? The
daughter of your own tribe? Osceolo!"

"By the moccasins of my grandfather! You here? How? When? No matter.
The brother of the Sun Maid rejoices. Never a friend so convenient.
Run around to the edge of the wharf. There must be talk between us,
and at once."

He pushed his little boat close under the shadow of the pier that had
long since been deserted of those who had come down to watch, as Kitty
had done, the sailing of the northern-bound schooner. There was none
to hear them, yet Osceolo chose to muffle his tones and to make
himself mysterious. In truth, he was fleeing from justice, having been
mixed up in a raid upon a settler's homestead a few miles back; in
which, fortunately, there had been no bloodshed, though a deal of
thieving and other dirty work which would make it uncomfortable for
the young warrior should he be caught just then. The story he was
prepared to tell was true as far as it went; and the Sun Maid was too
innocent to suspect guile in others. She thought he was referring to
the prize money when he spoke of quite other matters; and after the
briefest inquiry and answer as to what had befallen either since their
parting at doomed Muck-otey-pokee, he concluded:

"Now, Sister-Of-My-Heart, Blood-Daughter-Of-My-Chief, you must help
me. You must give me, or lend me, a horse; and you must bring me food.
Then I will ride to fetch you back Wahneenah."

"Oh! You know where she is? Can you do it and not be taken?"

"Is not the Brother of the Sun Maid now become a mighty warrior?"

"You--you don't look so very mighty," returned the girl, truthfully.

Osceolo frowned. "That is as one sees. Fetch me the horse and the
meat, if you would have your Other Mother restored."

"I will. I will!" she cried, and ran back to the Fort. She went first
to the kitchen, and begged a meal "for a stranger that's just come,"
and the food was given her without question. Strangers were always
coming to be fed; herself, also, no longer ago than the last evening.

From the kitchen to the stables, where a bright thought came to her.
She would lead the Tempest to Osceolo, and herself ride the Snowbird.
Together they would go to find Wahneenah.

"The black gelding?" asked the soldier of whom she sought assistance.
"The hostler can maybe tell you. But I think the Black Partridge rode
away on him before daybreak."

"The Black Partridge! Oh! I had forgotten him in my trouble about
Gaspar. Did any harm come to him, sir?"

"No. What harm should? If every red-skin in Illinois was like him
there'd be little need of us fellows out here in this mud-hole. But
you look disappointed. If you want to take a ride, there's the white
mare you came on. But you'd better not go far away. It isn't safe for
a child like you."

"I'm not afraid, but--Well, if Tempest's gone, I can't. That's all."

So the Snowbird was brought out, and she led the pretty creature away
behind the shelter of the few trees which hid the spot where Osceolo
had bade her meet him.

"I tried to get Tempest for you, but the Chief has ridden him away. I
meant to go with you. But you'll have to go alone. Tell my darling
Other Mother that I am here, and waiting. Tell her about Gaspar, and
that he said he had found out she would be quite safe here. Why, so, I
suppose, would you. I didn't think."

"No, I shouldn't," returned the young Indian hastily. Then, noting her
surprise, explained:

"I'm a warrior, you see. That makes a difference."

"It will be all right, though, I think. And if you cannot come back
with Wahneenah, do hurry and send her by herself. Will you?"

"Oh, I'll hurry!" answered the youth, evasively, and leaped to the
Snowbird's back. The food he had stuffed within his shirt till a more
convenient season, and with a cry that even to Kitty's trusting ears
sounded in some way derisive, he was off out of sight along the
lakeside.

As the Snowbird disappeared, Kitty felt that the last link between
herself and her friends had been severed, and for a moment the tears
had sway. Then, ashamed of her own weakness and remembering her
promise to Gaspar that she would be "just the sunniest kind of a girl,
and true to her name," she brushed them away and entered the busy
Fort, to proffer her services to the women in charge.

These had already learned her story and had reprimanded her for
running away from her protectors, the Smiths; but it was nobody's
business to return her and, meanwhile, she was safe at the Fort until
they should choose to call for her.

"Well, there is always plenty of work in the world for the hands that
will do it," said an officer's wife, with a kindly smile. "You seem
too small to be of much practical use; but, however, if you want a
task, there are some little fellows yonder who need amusing and
comforting. Their mother has died of a fever, and their father is more
of a student and preacher than a nurse. I guess his wife was the
ruling spirit in the household, and now that she has left him, he is
sadly unsettled. He doesn't know whether to go on and take up the
claim he expected or not. He and you, and the oddly-named little sons,
may all yet have to become wards of the Government."

"I'm very sorry for him."

"You well may be. Yet he's a gentle, blessed old man. No more fit to
marry and bring that flock of youngsters out here into the wilderness
than I am to command an army. She was much younger than he, and felt
the necessity of doing something toward providing for their children
and educating them. But the more I talk, the more I puzzle you. Run
along and lend them a hand. The very smallest Littlejohn of the lot
has filled his mouth with dirt, and is trying to squall it out. See if
a drink of water won't mend matters."

Kitty hastened to the child, and begged;

"My dear, don't cry like that. You are disturbing the people."

"Don't care. I ain't my dear; I'm Four."

"You're what?"

"Just Four. Four Littlejohns. What pretty hair you've got. May I pull
it?"

"I'd rather not. Unless it will make you forget the dirt you ate."

But the permission given, the child became indifferent to it. He
pointed to three other lads crouching against the door-step, and
explained:

"They're One, Two, and Three. My father, he says it saves trouble.
Some folks laugh at us. They say it's funny to be named that way. I
was eating the dirt because I was--I was mad."

"Indeed! At whom?"

"At everybody. I'm just mis'able. I don't care to live no longer."

The round, dimpled face was so exceedingly wholesome and happy,
despite its transient dolefulness, that Kitty laughed and her
merriment brought an answering smile to the four dusty countenances
before her.

"Wull--wull--I is. My father, he's mis'able, too. So, course, we have
to be. He's a minister man. He can't tell stories. He just tells true
ones out the Bible. Can you tell Bible stories?"

"No. I--I'm afraid I don't know much about that book. Mercy had one,
but she kept it in the drawer. She took it out on Sundays, though. She
didn't let Gaspar nor me touch it. She said we might spoil the cover.
That was red. It was a reward of merit when she was a girl. It had
clasps, and was very beautiful. It had pictures in it, too, about
saints and dead folks; but I never read it. I couldn't read it if I
tried, you know, because I've never been taught."

This was amazing to the four book-crammed small Littlejohns. One
exclaimed, with superior disgust:

"Such a great big girl, and can't read your Bible! You must be a
heathen, and bow down to wood and stone."

"Maybe I am. I don't remember bowing down to anything, except when I
say my prayers."

"Your prayers! Then you can't be a real heathen. Heathens don't say
prayers, not our kind. Hmm. What lovely eyes you've got and how pretty
you are! All the women never saw such wonderful hair as yours, nor the
men either. I heard them say so. If I had a sister, I'd like her to
look just like you. But it's wicked to be vain."

"What do you mean, you funny boy?"

"I'm not funny. I'm serious. My mother--my mother said--my mother--Oh!
I want her! I want her!"

Religion, superiority, priggishness, all flew to the winds as his real
and fresh grief overcame him; and it was a heart-broken lad that
hurled himself against the shoulder of this sympathetic-looking girl
who, though so much taller, was not so very much older than he.

The Sun Maid's own heart echoed the cry with a keen pain, and she
received the orphan's outburst with exceeding tenderness. Now,
whatever One, the eldest, did the other young numerals all imitated,
so that each was soon weeping copiously. Yet, from very excess of
energy, their grief soon exhausted itself and they regarded each other
with some curiosity. Then Three began to smile, in a shamefaced sort
of way, not knowing how far his recovery of composure would be
approved by sterner One.

After a habit familiar to him the latter opened his lips to reprove
but, fortunately, refrained, as he discovered a tall, stoop-shouldered
man crossing the parade-ground.

This gentleman seemed oddly out of place amid that company of
immigrants and soldiers. Student and bookworm was written all over his
fine, intellectual countenance, and his eyes had that absent
expression that had made the commandant's wife call him a "dreamer."

His bearing impressed the Sun Maid with reverent awe; a feeling
apparently not shared by his sons. For Three ran to him and shook him
violently, to secure attention, as he eagerly exclaimed:

"Oh, father! We've found one of 'em already! A heathen. Or, any way, a
heatheny sort of a girl, but not Indian. She doesn't know how to read,
and she hasn't any Bible. Come and give her one and teach her quick!"

"Eh? What? A heathen? My child, where?"

"Right there with my brothers. That yellow-headed girl. She's nice.
Are all the heathen as pretty as she is?"

"My son, that young person? Surely, you are mistaken. She must be the
daughter of some resident at the Fort, or of some traveller like
ourselves."

"I don't believe she is. She's been taking care of herself all day. I
haven't heard anybody tell her 'Don't' once. If she belonged to folk
they'd do it wouldn't they?"

"Very likely. Parents have to discipline their young. Don't drag me
so. I'm walking fast enough."

"That's what I say, father. 'Don't' shows I belong to you. But I do
wish you'd come. She might get away before you could catch her."

"Catch her, Three? I don't understand."

"I know it. My mother used to say you never did understand plain
every-day things. That's why she had to take care of you the same as
us. Oh! I wish we'd never come to this horrid place."

The reference to his wife and the child's grief roused the clergyman
more completely than even an appeal for the heathen. Laying his thin
hand tenderly upon the small rumpled head, he stroked it as he
answered:

"In my flesh I echo that wish, laddie; but in my spirit I am resigned
to whatever the Lord sends. If there is a heathen here, there is His
work to do, and in that I can forget my own distress. I will walk
faster if you wish."

The other small Littlejohns, with Kitty, now joined their father and
Three, the girl regarding him with some curiosity, for he was of a
stamp quite different from any person she had ever seen. But he won
her instant love as, holding out his hands in welcome, he exclaimed:

"Why, my daughter! Surely the lads were jesting. You look neither
ignorant nor heathen, and in personal gifts the Lord has been most
kind to you."

"Has He? But I am rather lonely now."

"And so am I. Therefore, we will be the better friends. Why, sons,
this is just what we need to make our group complete. Maybe, lassie,
your parents will spare you to us, now and then."

"I have no parents. I am a ward of Government, though I don't
understand it. I wish--are you too busy to hear my story, and will you
advise me? Gaspar told me some things, but he's not old and wise like
you, dear sir."

"Old I am, indeed, but far from wise. Though, so well as I know I will
most gladly counsel you. Let us go yonder, to that shady place beside
the great wall, where there are benches to rest on and quiet to listen
in."

Now small Four Littlejohns had heard a deal about heathen. They had
been the dearest theme of all the stories told him, and he caught his
father's hand with a detaining grasp:

"She might eat you all up, father!"

"Boy, what are you saying?"

"She isn't like the picture in my story-book of the heathen that lived
in India, and all the people worshipped, that was named a god, One
told me when I asked him; but I guess heathens can change like
fairies; and, please don't go, father, don't!"

"Nonsense, Four. What trash are you talking? It is you who are the
heathen now."

"I, father? _I!_"

In horror of a possible change in his person, the child began to feel
of his plump face and pinch his fat body. He even imagined he was
stiffening all over. Suddenly, he drew his wide mouth into a grotesque
imitation of the engraving as he remembered it, planting his feet
firmly and setting up a tragic wail.

"I'm not like him. I won't be. I won't, I won't, I won't!"

Kitty understood nothing but the evident distress, which she attempted
to soothe and merely aggravated.

"Get away! Don't you touch me! You go away home and sit on a table
with your legs all crooked up--so; and stop playing you're a regular
girl. Leave go my father's hand, I say!"

Then One came to the rescue. As soon as he could stop laughing, he
explained the situation to the others, and though the incident seemed
a trivial one to the younger people to the good Doctor it was weighty
with reproach for the ignorance he had permitted in his own household.
It also had its far-reaching results; for it led him to observe the
Sun Maid critically, and, when he had heard her simple story, to ask
out of the fulness of his own big heart:

"Will you come and share our home with us, my daughter? Surely, you
have much good sense and many wonderful gifts. The Lord has thrown us
into one another's company, and I believe you can, in large measure,
take their mother's place to these sons of mine. Will you come and
live in our home, dear Sun Maid?"

"Indeed, I will! And love you for letting me!" cried the grateful
girl, catching the Doctor's hand and kissing it reverently.

But it did not occur to either of these innocents that there was, at
that time, no home existing for them.



CHAPTER XVI.

THE SHUT AND THE OPEN DOOR.


"They are all unfitted to take care of themselves, though the girl has
the best sense of the lot. The Fort is always overfull. They would be
happier by themselves, and it will be a blessing to have such a good
man among us. Let us build them a log cabin and instal them in it."

Such was the Fort commandant's decision and, as he suggested, it was
quickly done. The old maxim of many hands and light work was verified,
for in a magically short time the little parsonage was reared and the
few belongings of the household moved into it.

"That's what it seems to me,"--cried the Sun Maid, as the last stroke
was given, and a soldier climbed to the roof-peak to thrust a fresh
green branch into the crevice,--"as if yesterday we dreamed we wanted
a home, and now it's ours. If only Wahneenah and Gaspar were here, I
should be almost too happy to live. Yes, and poor Mercy Smith, who
says she never did have a good time in her life; and Abel, and Black
Partridge; and----"

"Everybody! I guess you're wanting," reproved the elder son of the
minister. For, during the time of building, short though it was, the
orphan girl had become wholly identified with the Littlejohns'
household and felt as full a right to the cabin as if it had been her
own especial property.

Now, suddenly, as she stood in the doorway there came into her mind
the prophecy of old Katasha; and she looked afar, as if she saw
visions and heard voices denied to the others. So rapt did her gaze
become that little Four stole his pudgy hand into hers and inquired,
beneath his breath:

"What is it, Kitty? What do you see?"

"I see crowds and crowds of people. Of all sorts, all forms, all
colors, all races. Crowding, crowding, and yet not crushing. Only
coming, more--and more--and more. I see strange buildings. Bigger than
any pictures in that book you showed me yesterday. They keep rising
and spreading out on every side. I see ships on the lake; curious
ones, with tall masts, a hundred times taller than that in which my
Gaspar sailed away. They are so laden with people and stuff that
I--I--it seems to choke me!"

She did not notice that the Doctor had drawn near and was listening
intently; and even when his hand touched her shoulder she found it
difficult to comprehend what he was saying.

"Wake up, lassie! Why, what is this? My practical new daughter growing
a star-gazer, like the foolish old man? That won't do for our little
housekeeper."

"Won't it, sir? I guess I've been dreaming. But I know I shall see all
that some day, right here in this spot. This is the lake where the big
ships sail, and this the ground where the houses stand."

One was at hand with his ever-ready reproof.

"That's all nonsense, Kitty Briscoe. A person can't see more than a
person can. There are neither houses nor ships, such as you talk
about, and you are sillier than any fairy story I ever read."

Yet long afterward he was to remember that first hour in the new home,
and the rapt face of the girl gazing skyward.

Then they all went in to supper, which had been provided by the
thoughtful friends at the Fort across the river; but which, the Sun
Maid assured the busy women there, must be the only meal supplied that
was ready prepared.

"For, if I'm to be housekeeper I mean to learn all about that, even
before I do the books, which the Doctor will teach me and that I am so
eager to study. But I'll be his home-maker first, and I'll give them
jonny-cake for breakfast. Mercy said it was cheap and wholesome, and
we have to be very careful of the Doctor's little money."

How wholesome, rather how most unwholesome, that first jonny-cake
proved, Kitty never after liked to recall; but she was not the only
young house mistress who has made mistakes; and, fortunately, the
master of the house was not critical. And how far the study-craving
girl would have carried out her own plan of housewifery before reading
is not known; for, having done the best she could, and having, at
least, swept and dusted the rooms carefully she took little Four by
the hand and set out to ask instruction of her Fort friends against
the dinner-getting.

Now the fascinating dread and interest of this little fellow was an
Indian; and, trudging along through the dirt, he scanned the horizon
critically, then suddenly gripped her hand hard and tight.

"Kitty! I do believe--there are--some coming! Run! Run!"

"Why should I run? The Indians are my best and oldest friends. It
might even be----"

She paused so long, shading her eyes from the sunlight and gazing
fixedly across the landscape with a gathering surprise and delight
upon her face, that the child clutched her frock, demanding:

"What is it, Kitty? What do you see? What do you see?"

"The horses! White, black, and--Chestnut! It's Wahneenah! Wahneenah!"

Four watched her disappear behind a clump of bushes that hid the
sandhills from his lower sight, then hurried back to the new cabin,
crying out:

"Father, father! She's run away again! We've lost her!"

Before the minister could be made to comprehend his son's excited
story, voices without drew him to the entrance. Even to him the name
of Indian had, in those days, a sinister significance. Yet, as he
reached the threshold, there were the Sun Maid's arms about his neck
and her ecstatic declaration:

"It's my darling Other Mother! She's come! She'll live with us! And
the Black Partridge; and Osceolo, and Tempest, and Snowbird, and the
Chestnut! Oh, all together again; how happy we shall be!"

"Eh? What? Yes, yes, of course," assented the Doctor, though he cast a
rather perplexed glance about his limited apartments. "Well, if it's
to be part of my work, I am ready," he added resignedly, and not
without thought of the quiet study which would be out of the question
in a tenement so crowded.

The chief and the clergyman had met before, during the former's last
visit to the Fort, and they greeted each other suavely, as would two
white gentlemen of culture and unquestioned standing. Then, while the
Sun Maid drew Wahneenah aside and exhibited the cabin, the two men
talked together and rapidly became friends.

"The Lord never shuts one door but He opens another. I came here to
instruct, hoping to pass far onward into the wilderness. Behold! the
heathen are at my very threshold. He took away my wife and sent me a
daughter. Now, at her heels, follows a woman of the race I came to
help, who looks more noble than most of her white sisters. As the Sun
Maid said, shall we not do? Only--where to house them?"

"That is soon settled. Neither the chief's daughter nor the youth,
Osceolo, could sleep beneath the tight roof of the pale-face. Their
wigwams shall be pitched behind this cabin, and there will they abide.
So will I arrange with the people at the Fort, who are my friends.
Yet, let the great medicine-man keep a sharp eye to the young brave,
Osceolo. He is my kinsman. There is good in the youth, and there is,
also, evil--much evil. He lies upon the ground to dream wild schemes,
then rises up to practise them. He is like the pale-faces--by birth a
liar. He is not to be trusted. Only by fear does he become as clay in
the hands of the potter. If my brother, the great medicine-man, will
accept this charge I ask of him there shall be always venison in
plenty, and bear's meat, and the flesh of cattle, at his door. He
shall have corn from the fields of the scattered Pottawatomies, and
the fuel for his hearth-fire shall never waste. How says my brother,
the wise medicine-man?"

"What can I say but that the Black Partridge is as generous as he is
brave, and that his readiness to support a minister of the gospel
amazes me? In that more settled East, from which I came, the rich men
gave grudgingly to their pastor of such things as themselves did not
need, and I was always in poverty. Therefore, for the sake of my sons,
I came hither. Truly, in this wilderness, I have received evil at the
hand of the Lord; but I have, also, received much good. If He wills,
from this humble tenement shall go forth a blessing that cannot be
measured. Leave the woman and the undisciplined youth with me. I will
deal with them as I am given wisdom."

This was the beginning of a new, rich life for the Sun Maid. It opened
to Wahneenah, also, a period of unbroken happiness. The minister, over
whose household affairs she promptly assumed a wise control, honored
her with his confidence and abided by her clear-sighted counsel. She
was constantly associated with her beloved Girl-Child, and could watch
the rapid development of her intellect and all-loving heart.

Indeed, Love was the keynote to Kitty Briscoe's character; and out of
love for everybody about her, and especially in hope to be of use to
her Indian friends, sprang the greatest incentive to study.

"The more I know, the better I can help them to understand," she said
to Wahneenah, who agreed and approved.

The years sped quietly and rapidly by, as busy years always do. Some
changes came to the little settlement of Chicago, but they were only
few; until, one sunny day in spring, there reached the ears of the Sun
Maid a sudden cry that seemed to turn all the months backward, as a
scroll is rolled.

Bending above her table, strewn with the Doctor's notes which she was
copying, in the pleasant room of a big frame house that was one of the
few new things of the town, she heard the call; dimly at first, as an
out-of-door incident which did not concern herself. When it was
repeated, she started visibly, and cried out:

"I know that voice! That's Mercy Smith! There was never another just
like it!"

She sprang up and ran to answer, shouting in return:

"Halloo! What is it?"

"Help!"

A few rods' run beyond the clump of trees that bordered the garden
revealed the difficulty. A heavy wagon, loaded with bags of grain, was
mired in the mud of the prairie road. A woman stood upright in the
vehicle, lashing and scolding the oxen, which tried, but failed, to
extricate the wheels from the clay that held them fast.

"I'm coming! I'm Kitty! And, Mercy--is it really you?"

"Well, if I ain't beat! You're Kitty, sure enough! But what a size!"

"Yes. I'm a woman now, almost. How glad I am to see you! How's Abel?
Where is he?"

"Must be glad, if you'd let so many years go by without once comin' to
visit me."

"I didn't know that you'd be pleased to have me. I didn't treat you
well, to leave you as I did. But where's Abel?"

"Home. Trying to sell out. My land! How pretty you've growed! Only
that white dress and hair a-streamin'; be you dressed for a party,
child?"

"Oh, no, indeed! I'll run and get something to help you out with, if
you'll be patient."

"Have to be, I reckon, since I'm stuck tight. No hurry. The oxen'll
rest. I've heard about you, out home--how 't you'd found a rich
minister to take you in an' eddicate you, an' your keepin' half-Indian
still. Might have taught you to brush your hair, I 'low; an' from
appearances you'd have done better to have stayed with me. You hain't
growed up very sensible, have you?"

The Sun Maid laughed, just as merrily and infectiously as when she had
first crept for shelter into Mercy Smith's cabin.

"Maybe not. I'm not the judge. I'll test my wisdom, though, by trying
to help you out of that mud. I'll be back in a moment."

She turned to run toward the house, but Mercy remonstrated:

"You can't help in them fine clothes. Ain't there no men around?"

"A few. Most of them are out of the village on a big hunting frolic.
We'll manage without."

"Humph! They'd better be huntin' Indians."

The girl looked up anxiously. "Is there any trouble?"

"Always trouble where the red-skins are."

Kitty departed, and the settler's wife watched her with feelings of
mingled admiration, anger, and astonishment.

"She's grown, powerful. Tall an' straight as an Indian, an' fair as a
snowflake. Such hair! I don't wonder she wears it that way, though I
wouldn't humor her by lettin' on. I've heard she did it to please her
'tribe' an' the old minister. Well, there's always plenty of fools.
They're a crop 'at never fails."

The Sun Maid reappeared. She had not stopped to change her white gown,
but she brought a pair of snow-shoes, and carried three or four short
planks across her strong, firm shoulder.

"My sake! Ain't you tough! I couldn't lift one them planks, rugged as
I call myself, let alone four. But--snow-shoes in the springtime?"

"Yes. I've learned a way for myself of helping the many who get mired
out here. See how quickly I can set you free."

Putting on the shoes, the girl walked straight over the mud, and
throwing down the planks before the animals, encouraged them to help
themselves.

"What are their names? Jim and Pete? Come on, my poor beasts; and,
once clear, you shall have a fine rest and feed."

"Shucks! There! Go on! Giddap! Gee! Haw!"

There followed a time of suspense, but at last the oxen gained a
little advance, when Kitty promptly moved the planks forward, and in
due time the wagon rolled out upon a firmer spot.

"Well, Kitty girl, you may not have sense, but you've got what's
better--that's gumption. And that's Chicago, is it?"

"Yes. I hope you like it."

"I've got to, whether or no. I'm in awful trouble, Kitty Briscoe, an'
it's all your fault."

"What can you mean?"

"Abel--Abel----"

"Yes--yes! What is it?"

"Ever sence you run away he's been pinin' to run after you. Said the
house wasn't home no more. 'Twasn't; though I wouldn't let on to him.
We've kept gettin' comfortabler off, an' I jawed him from mornin' to
night to make him contented. But he wouldn't listen. Got so he
wouldn't work home if he could help it, but lounged round the
neighbors'. Got hankerin' to go somewheres, an' keep tavern, like his
father afore him. Now, we've got burnt out----"

"Burned out! Oh, Mercy, that _is_ trouble, indeed! Tell me--No, wait.
Let us go and get something to eat first; and what were you intending
to do with that load of stuff?"

"Ship it East, if I can. I've heard there was consid'able that
business bein' done. Or sell it to the Fort folks."

"I think they'll be glad of it; they are always needing everything.
I'll go with you there, and your team can be left there, too, till
Abel comes."

"Abel! You don't think I'd leave him to manage _business_, do you?"

"I thought you said he was now staying behind to sell out--to
'manage.'"

"He's stayin' to try. There's a big difference 'twixt tryin' an'
doin'. He can't sell, not easy. And some day, when this whim of his
is over, we'll go back an' settle again, or move farther on. It's
gettin' ruther crowded where we be for comfort, these days."

"Crowded? Are there many new neighbors?"

"Lots. Some of 'em ain't more 'n a mile away, an' I call that too
close for convenience. Don't like to have folks pokin' their noses
into my very door-yard, so to speak."

"How will you endure it here, where, according to your ideas, the
houses are so very close?"

"I don't expect to like it. But, pshaw! They be thick, ain't they? I
declare it makes me think of out East, an' our village; only that
wasn't built on the bottomless pit, like this."

"This is the Fort. After you've finished your business with the
officer in charge, we'll go home and get our dinner."

The stranger observed with surprise and some pride the great respect
with which this girl, who had once been under her own care, was
treated by all she met. The few soldiers on duty that morning saluted
her with a smile and military precision, while the women hailed her
coming with exclamations of:

"Oh, Kitty! You here? I'm so glad; for I wanted to ask you about my
work"; or: "Say, Kit! There are a lot of new newspapers, only a week
old, that I've hidden for you to read first before the others get hold
of them."

One called after her, as they started homeward:

"How are the sick ones to-day?"

"What did she mean?" demanded Mercy.

"Oh, that house on the edge of the village is a sort of hospital and
school combined. I am there most of the time, though my real home is
with the Littlejohns, just as it has always been; though the Doctor is
not rich, as you fancied, in anything save wisdom and goodness."

"You're a great scholar now, Kitty, I s'pose--could even do figurin'
an' writin' letters."

"I can do that much without being a 'scholar.' I've learned all sorts
of things that came my way, from civil engineering--enough to survey
lots for people--to a little Greek. The surveying was taught me by a
man who was in our sick-room, and in gratitude for the care we gave
him. It's very useful here."

"Can you sing, or play music?"

"I always sang, you know; and I can play the violin to guide the hymns
'in meeting.'"

"What's that? A fiddle--to hymns!"

"Yes. Why not, since it's the only instrument we have?"

"My land! You'll be dancin' at worship next!"

"Maybe. There _are_ religious people who dance at their services. But
here we are. This is the Doctor's house, and you'll meet Wahneenah."

"Wahneeny! You don't tell me that good, pious parson is consortin'
with that bad-tempered Indian squaw!"

"Wait, Mercy. You must not speak like that of her, nor think so.
She is as my very own mother. She is nobility itself. Everybody
acknowledges that. I want there should be peace, even if there can't
be love, between you two. It's better, isn't it, to understand thing
in the beginning?"

"Hmm! You can speak your mind out yet, I see. But that's all right. I
don't care, child. I don't care. It does my old eyes good just to look
at you; an', for once, I'll 'low Abel was right in wantin' to move out
here. I'm lookin' for him 'fore night, by the way. But hold on! Who's
that out in the back yard, with feathers in his hair, an' a blue check
shirt, grinnin' like a hyena, an' a knife stickin' out his pocket?
Wait till I get hold of him, my sake!"

Mercy's words poured out without breathing-space or stop, and the Sun
Maid laughed as she replied:

"Why, that's only Osceolo. Do you know him?"

"Kitty Briscoe! All the wild horses in Illinois can't make me believe
no different but 'twas him set our barn afire!"

"When? He's not been away--for some days."

"Wait till he catches sight of me!"

But when the young Indian did turn around, and saw the pair watching
him, he coolly walked toward them, regarding Mercy as if she were an
utter stranger, and one whom he was rather pleased to meet.

"Friend of yours, Sun Maid? Glad to see her."

"Glad to see me, be you? Wait till Abel Smith comes an' identifies
you. Then see which side the laugh's on, you--you----"

"Osceolo is my name, ma'am."

Foreseeing difficulties, the girl guided her guest into the kitchen,
where Wahneenah was preparing dinner, and where the Indian woman
greeted her old acquaintance with no surprise and, certainly, without
any of the effusiveness that, for once, rather marked Mercy's manner
toward her former "hired girl."

"Well, it's a real likely house, now, ain't it? I'd admire to see the
minister. It's years since I saw one. Is he about?"

Kitty answered:

"Yes. He is studying. I rather hate to disturb him; but at dinner you
will meet him."

"Studying! Studying what? Why, I thought he was an old man."

"He is. So old, I sometimes fear we will not have him with us long."

"What's the use learnin' anything more, then?"

"One can never know too much, I fancy. Just at present he is writing a
dictionary of the Indian dialects, so far as he has been able to
obtain them."

"The--Indian--language! He wouldn't be so silly, now come!"

"He is just so wise. It is a splendid work. I am proud to be his
helper, even by just merely copying his papers."

"Well! You could knock me down with a feather! One thing--I sha'n't
never set under his preachin'. I wouldn't demean myself. The idee!"

"Mercy, do you remember the red-covered Bible? Have you it still?"

"Course. I wouldn't let anything happen to that. It was a reward of
merit. It's wrote in the front: 'To Mercy Balch, for being a Good
Girl.' That was me afore I was married. It's in my carpet-bag. I mean
to have it buried with me. I wouldn't never spile it by handlin'."

"I hope you'll use it now, for it's so easy to get another. The Doctor
will give you one at any time. The Bible Society in the East
furnishes all he needs."

Dinner was promptly ready, and, after it was over, the Sun Maid
carried her old friend away with her to the government building, which
was not only hospital, but schoolhouse and land-office all in one.
Everything here was so new and interesting to Mercy that surprise kept
her silent; until, happening to glance through the window, she beheld
a rough-looking man approaching on horseback.

"Pshaw! there's Abel! Wait an' see him stick where I stuck!" she
chuckled. "Well, he sold out sudden, didn't he? He'd better come in
the wagon, but he 'lowed he'd enjoy a ride all by himself. I reckon
he's had it. See him stare and splash! There he goes! See that old nag
flounder!"

Kitty sprang up and ran to welcome him, the heartiest of love in her
clear tones.

"Why, bless my soul! If I thought it could be, I should say it was my
own lost little Kit!"

As he gazed his rugged face grew beautiful in its wondering joy.

"Oh, Abel! That's the way Chicago receives her new citizens! She
plants them so deep in the mud that they can't get away! But wait.
I'll help you out the same way I did Mercy, and then I'll get my arms
about your neck, you dear old Abel!"

"Help me out? Not much! Not when there's such a pretty girl a few feet
away waitin' to kiss my homely face!" and, with a spring that was
marvellous to see, the woodsman leaped from his horse and landed on
the higher sod beside his "Kit."

"Well, well! To think it! Just to think it once! Well, well, well! How
big you are, Kit! My, my, my; and as sweet to look at as a locust tree
in bloom, with your white frock, an' all. I've got here at last! I
can't scarce believe it. And, lassie, are you as close-mouthed as you
used to be when you made a promise? Then--don't tell Mercy; but--_I
done it a-purpose_!"

"Did what? Let us get the poor horse out of the mud before we talk."

"Shucks! He ain't worth pullin' out. If he ain't horse enough to help
himself, let him stay there a spell, an' think it over. He'll flounder
round----"

"You don't know our mud, Abel."

"He's all right. He's helpin' himself. He's makin' a genu_ine_ effort.
A man--or horse--that does that is sure to win. That's how I put it to
myself. After I'd wrastled with the subject up hill an' down dale,
till I couldn't see nothin' else in the face of natur', I done it. Out
in the East, where I come from, they'd 'a' had me up for it; an' I
don't know but they will here. But I had to, Kit, I had to. I was
dead sick an' starvin' for a sight of you an' the boy, an' mis'able
with blamin' myself that I hadn't treated you different when I had
you, so you wouldn't have run away. You was a master hand at that
business, wasn't you, girl? I hope you've quit now, though."

"I think so. Here I was born, and here I hope to stay. All my runnings
have begun and ended here. But what did you do, Father Abel?"

"Oh, Sis! that name does me good. Promise you'll never tell,--not till
your dyin' day."

"I can't promise that; but I'll not tell if I can help it."

"Well, you always had a tender conscience. Yet I can trust your love
better 'n ary promise. Well--_I--burnt--it!_"

"Burned it? Your house? Your home? Yours and Mercy's? Why--Abel!"

The pioneer squared his mighty shoulders, and faced her as a defiant
child might an offended mother.

"Yes, I did. The house, the bed-quilts, the antiquated bedstead, the
whole endurin' business. It was the only way. Year after year she'd
keep naggin' for me to move on further into the wilderness. _Me_,
that was starvin' for folks, an' knew she was! It was just plumb
lonesomeness made her what she is: a nagger. So, at last--you've heard
about worms turnin', hain't you? I watched, an' when she'd gone
trudgin' off on a four-mile tramp, pretendin' somebody's baby was
sick, but really meanin' she was that druv to hear the sound of
another woman's voice, I took pity on her--an' myself--an' set
fire to that hateful old heirloom of a bedstead; an' whilst it was
burnin' I just whipped out the old fiddle, an' I played--my! how
I played! Every time a post fell into the middle, I just danced.
'So much nearer folks!' I thought. And the rag-carpet an' the
nineteen-hunderd-million-patch-bedspread--Kit, I've set there, day
after day, an' seen Mercy cuttin' up whole an' decent rags, an' sewin'
'em together again, till I've near gone stark mad. Fact. I used to
wonder if it wasn't a sort of craziness possessed her to do that
foolishness. Now, it's all over. She lays the fire to an Indian feller
that I've spoke fair to, now an' again, an' that had been round our
way huntin' not long before. I don't know where he come from, an' I
never asked him. He never told. Pretended he couldn't talk Yankee.
Don't know as he could, but he could talk chicken or little pig fast
enough. Leastways, I missed such after he'd been there. Well, it
wasn't him. _It was--me!_ I burnt the bedstead, an' now we're
free folks!"

"But, Abel, why not have brought the bedstead with you, if she loved
it so? Why destroy----"

"Sissy, you don't know Mercy--not as I do. It was that furniture kept
her. So long as she had it, so long as she could kind of boast it over
her neighbors, there she'd set. We couldn't have moved it. She near
worried herself into her grave gettin' it into the wilderness, first
off, an' she ain't so young now as she was then. She'd ruther lost a
leg than had it scratched. I saved that load of feed, an' the ox team,
an' the old horse. Yes, an' my fiddle. Mercy's got money. She had it
hid. I'm goin' to settle here an' keep tavern, if I can. If not here,
then somewheres else. Anywhere where there's folks. Trees are nice;
prairies are nice; a clearin' of your own is nice; but human natur' is
nicer. Don't tell Mercy, though, or there'll be trouble! Now, Kit,
where's Gaspar?"

"_Oh, Abel! Only the dear Lord knows!_"



CHAPTER XVII.

A DAY OF HAPPENINGS.


"Abel! Abel Smith! Here I am. Right here, in our little Kitty's own
house. How'd you get along? Did the man buy?"

"Shucks!" groaned the pioneer, as these words reached him where he
stood beside the Sun Maid, eager to hear what she could tell him of
the lad Gaspar. "Shucks! I've had a right peaceful sort of day, me and
old Dobbin, and I'd most forgot it couldn't last. Say, Kit, you look
like a girl could do a'most ary thing she tried to. Just put your
shoulder to the wheel, won't you, and shut the power off Mercy's
tongue. Tell her 'tain't the fashion for women to talk much or loud,
not in big settlements like this. She's death on the fashion, Mercy
is. Why, that last gown of hers, cut out a piece of calico a neighbor
brought from the East--you'd ought to see it. She got hold a
picture-book, land knows when or where, and copied one the pictures.
Waist clean up to her neck, it's so short, and sleeves big enough to
make me a suit of clothes. Fact! Wait till you see it. She's a sight,
I tell you. But so long 's she thinks it's a touch beyond, why she's
happy. But don't let her talk so much. 'Tain't proper; not in
settlements."

The Sun Maid set her head on one side and regarded her old friend
critically; then frankly, if laughingly, remarked:

"Abel, you dear, you can beat Mercy talking, by a great length. It's
funny to hear you blaming her for the very thing you do. But I like
it. You can't guess how I like it, and how it brings back my childish
days in the forest. Now come in and get something to eat. Then we can
have another talk."

"I ain't hungry. I had some doughnuts in my saddle-bags, and I munched
them along the road. Say, Kit. Don't tell Mercy; but I didn't try to
sell. Just put the question once, so to satisfy her when she asked. We
hain't no need. She's got a lot of money in a buckskin bag tied round
her waist. The land's all right. It's a good investment. I'll let it
stand. This country is bound to grow. Some day it will be worth a
power, and then I'll sell out, if I'm livin'; and if I ain't, you can.
One of the reasons I came was to fix things up for you. I always meant
to make you my legatee. We've no kith nor kin nigh enough to worry
about, Mercy an' me; an' I 'low she'd be agreeable. So we'll let the
land lie. Oh, bosh! There she is, calling again. May as well go in for
she won't stop till we do."

After all, there was real pleasure in the faces of both husband and
wife at their reunion, short though their separation had been, and
bitter though their words sounded to a stranger; and, already, there
was a personal pride in Mercy's tones as she exhibited the house over
which the Sun Maid presided, and explained the details--supplied by
her own imagination--of its purposes.

"But about Gaspar, Mercy. Has she told you anything about him yet? I'm
'lowing to have him help me keep tavern if he's grown up as capable as
he promised when he was a little shaver."

"No. She hain't said a word. Fact is, I hain't asked. We've been too
busy with other things. Likely he's round somewheres. Maybe off
hunting with them lazy soldiers. Shame, I think. The Government
keepin' 'em just to loaf away their time."

"Hmm! What on earth else could they do with it? I met a man, coming
along, said there'd been a right sharp lot of wolves prowlin' this
winter an' spring. They're gettin' most too neighborly for comfort for
the settlers across the prairies, so the military are trying to clear
them out. That's not a bad idee. But don't it beat all! That little
sissy, that used to have to stand on a three-legged stool to turn the
stirabout, grown like she has? I never saw a finer woman, never; and
her hair's the same dazzlin' kind it always was. I 'low I'm proud of
her, and no mistake. Hello! What's yonder? An Indian, on horseback,
a-stoppin' to this place! What's he after? His face is painted black,
too. There's Sunny Maid going out to talk with him, and Wahneeny, too.
Must be somethin' up."

"There's always somethin' up, where there's an Indian. I hate 'em, an'
they know it."

"I guess they do, ma. Wahneeny, for instance, and--Shucks! That long,
lanky, copper-face out back there, settin' flat on the ground, trying
to pitch jack-knives with a lot of other boys, white ones; he's the
chap that hung around our place so much--the chicken-stealer. I'm
going to speak to him."

"And I'm going to get him took up, just as soon as the Captain gets
back, for setting our house afire. It wouldn't have happened if I'd
been home; but you never could be trusted to look after things."

Abel thought it time to change the subject, and retreated, while
Mercy's attention became riveted upon the group before the house. The
faces of all three were very grave, and Wahneenah, who had come across
to nurse a sick child, paid no heed to its fretful calls for her. The
Indian horseman tarried but a brief time, then wheeled about and rode
westward over the prairie, avoiding the regular road and the mud
where the Smiths had suffered such annoyance.

Wahneenah returned to her charge, and the Sun Maid disappeared in the
direction of the Fort. Before Mercy could decide whether to follow or
not, the girl reappeared, and her old friend viewed her with
amazement. She had mounted the Snowbird, which looked no older than
when Mercy had watched her gallop away across the prairie, and had
slung the famous White Bow upon her saddle horn. About her floating
hair she had wound a fillet of white beads and feathers, and fastened
the White Necklace of Lahnowenah, the Giver, around her fair throat.
She sat her horse as only one trained to the saddle from infancy could
have done, and her commanding figure seemed perfect in every outline.

"To the land's sake! Ain't she splendid! I never saw such a sight.
Never. Never. Abel! Abel! A-b-e-l!!"

"Yes, yes; what? Mercy, Mercy Smith, hold your tongue! Don't you know
folks can't bawl in a settlement as they do in the backwoods? What
ails you? I'm coming as fast as a man in reason can. Hey? Kitty? Well,
why didn't you say so? Where? Out front? My--land! Well, well, well!
It ain't--it can't be--it is! Well, Kitty girl, you beat the Dutch!"

The young horsewoman rode up to the front door of her house, and
paused to let her old friends admire her to their satisfaction. But
their admiration aroused neither surprise nor vanity in her simple,
straightforward mind. Years before, the old clergyman had said to her,
upon their first meeting, that the Lord had been very good to her in
giving her a beauty so remarkable and impressive; and under his wise
instruction she had accepted the fact as she did all the others of her
life. Only she had striven to keep her soul always worthy of the
glorious form in which it was housed and to use all her gifts and
graces for good. So she stood a while, letting the honest couple
inspect and comment, and finally answering Abel's curiosity, in honest
modesty.

"Why am I so dressed up? Because I have a mission to perform, and I
need to make myself as beautiful as possible."

"Kit--ty Bris--coe! I've read in my red Bible that 'favor is deceitful
and beauty is vain.' I'm amazed at you. Livin' with a minister, too.
Well, _he_ can't preach to _me_. I'd despise to set under him."

Abel's eyes twinkled, but the gravity of the Sun Maid's face did not
lessen. She explained gently, yet with unshaken decision, that her
self-adornment was right, and gave her reasons.

"You will remember, dears, that I am a 'Daughter of the
Pottawatomies.' They believe that I have supernatural gifts, and that
I am a spirit living in a human form."

"And you let 'em, Kit, you let 'em?"

"I couldn't prevent it if I tried. And I do not try. That idea of
theirs is far too powerful a factor for good. Even Wahneenah, who
knows better and is to me as a real mother, even she treats me a
little more deferentially when I attire myself like this."

"Put on your war paint, eh?"

"No, indeed: my peace paint," laughed the girl. "The messenger you saw
talking with Wahneenah and me is from an encampment a dozen miles or
so to the westward. There are about five hundred Indians in the camp,
and they are getting restless. They are always restless, it seems to
me," and she sighed profoundly. "It is such a problem, isn't it? They
think they have right on their side, and the whites think _they_ have;
and there is so much that is good, so much that is evil, on both.
Well, the red people are planning treachery. The brave you saw is a
real friend to the pale-faces, and one of my closest confidants. He
came to warn me. His tribe, or the mixed tribes in the camp, are
getting ready for an attack upon us, or some other near-by settlement.
I must go out and stop it,--find out their grievance and right it if I
can. If not--Well, I must make peace. I may be gone for several days,
and I may be back before morning. You must make yourselves comfortable
somewhere. Ask Doctor Littlejohn. If he is too absorbed in his
studies, then talk with One, his eldest son. He is a fine fellow, and
knows everything about this village. Good-by."

"But, child alive! You ain't going alone, single-handed, to face five
hundred bloody Indians! You must be crazy!"

"Oh, no, I'm not. It is all right. I am not afraid. There isn't an
Indian living who would harm a hair of my head, if he knew me; and
almost all in Illinois do know me, either by sight or reputation. I am
very happy with them and shall have a pleasant visit; that is, after I
have dissuaded them from this proposed attack."

"Kit, you couldn't do it. 'Tain't in nature. A young girl, alone,
pretty as you are--You _sha'n't_ do it,--not with my consent; not
while I'm alive and can set a horse or handle a gun. No, sirree. If
you go, I go, and that's the long and short of it."

"No, dear Father Abel; you must not go; indeed you must not. It would
ruin everything. It makes me very sad to have these constant broils
and ill-feelings coming up between my white-faced and red-faced
friends; yet the Lord permits it, and I try to be patient. But I tell
you again, and you must believe it, that I am as safe out yonder in
that camp of savages as I am here, this minute, with you. I am the Sun
Maid, the Unafraid, the Daughter of Peace, the Snowflake. They have as
many names for me as I am years old, I fancy. Each name means some
noble thing they think they see in my character, and so I try to
live up to it. It's hard work, though, because I'm--well, I'm so
quick-tempered and full of faults. But I suppose if God didn't mean me
to do this work, be a sort of peacemaker, He wouldn't have made me
just as I am or put me in just this place. That's what the Doctor
says, and so I do the best I can. After all, it's a great honor, I
think, to be let to serve people in this way, and so--Good-by,
good-by!"

The Snowbird sprang forward at a word and, by experience trained to
shun the sloughs and mud-holes, skimmed lightly across the prairie and
out of sight. The Smiths stood and watched its disappearance, and the
erect white figure upon its back, till both became a speck in the
distance. Then, completely dumfounded by the incident, Abel sat down
near the door-step to reflect upon it, while the more energetic Mercy
departed for the Fort, declaring:

"I'll see what that all means, or I'll never say another word's long
as I live! The idee! _Men_--folks calling themselves _men_--and
wearing government breeches, as I suppose they do, letting a girl
like that go to destruction without a soul to stop her! But, my land!
she was a sight to see, and no mistake!"

Meanwhile that was happening down at the little wharf which set all
tongues a-chatter and fascinated all eyes.

"A fleet is coming in! A regular fleet of schooners, from the north
and the upper lakes!"

Those who had not gone hunting crowded to the shore, and even the
women caught their babies up and followed the men, Abel among the
others, roused from his anxious brooding over the Sun Maid's daring
and catching the excitement.

"Shucks! Something must be up down that direction. Beats all. Here
I've been only part of a day, and more things have gone on than would
at our clearing in a month of Sundays. I--I'm all of a fluster to kind
of keep my head level an' my judgment cool. 'Twouldn't never do to let
on to ma how stirred up I be. Dear me! Seems as if I wouldn't never
get there. I do hope they'll wait till I do."

After all, it was the quietest and drowsiest of little hamlets,
dropped down in the mud beside a great waterway; and the "fleet,"
which had roused so much interest, was but a modest one of a
half-dozen small schooners, laden with furs and peltries and manned by
the smallest of crews.

However, to Abel, and to many another, it was a memorable event; and
he made a pause at the Fort, which in itself was an object of great
interest to him, to inform Mercy of the spectacle she was losing.

"Come on, ma! It's a regular show down there. Real sailors and
ships--we hain't seen the like since we left the East and the coast of
old Massachusetts."

"Ships? My heart! I never expected to look upon another. Just to think
it!"

The foremost vessel came to shore and was made fast; and there upon
its deck stood a tall, dark-bearded man, who appeared what he
was--the commander of the fleet; and he gave his orders in a clear,
ringing voice that was instantly obeyed. His manner was grave, even
melancholy; and his interest in the safe landing seemed greater than
in any person among the expectant groups. He had tossed his hat aside
and waited bareheaded in the sunshine till all was ready, when he
stepped quietly ashore.

Then, indeed, he cast an inquiring glance around, in the possibility,
though not probability, of meeting a familiar face. All at once, his
dark eyes brightened and his bearing lost its indifference. Pushing
his way rapidly through the crowd, he approached Abel and Mercy and
extended his hands in greeting.

"Hail, old friends! Well met!"

"Hey? What? Ruther think you've got the better of me, stranger," said
the pioneer, awkwardly extending his own hardened palm.

"Probably the years since we met have made a greater change in me than
in you. You both look exactly as you did that last day I saw you at
the harvesting."

"Hey? Which? When? I can't place you, no how. I ain't acquainted with
ary sailor, so far forth as I remember."

"But Gaspar, Father Abel? Surely, you and Mercy remember Gaspar Keith,
whom you sheltered for so many years, and who treated you so badly at
the end?"

"Glory! It ain't! My soul, my soul! Why, Gaspar--_Gaspar!_ If it's
you, I'm an old man. Why, you was only a stripling, and now----"

"Now, I'm a man, too. That's all. We all have to grow up and mature. I
feel older than you look. And Mercy, the years have certainly used you
well. It is good, indeed, to see your faces here, where I looked for
strangers only."

"Them's us, lad. Them's us. _We're_ the strangers in these parts. Just
struck Chicago this very day. Got stuck in the mud, and had to be
fished out like a couple of clams. And who do you think done the
fishing? Though, if you hadn't spoke that odd way just now, I'd have
thought you would have known first off. Who do you suppose?"

"Oh, he'll never guess. A man is always so slow," interrupted Mercy,
eagerly. "Well, 'twas nobody but our own little Kit! The Sun Maid, and
looking more like a child of the sunshine even than when you run off
with her so long ago."

"The--Sun--Maid! _Kit-ty, my Kitty?_"

Gaspar's face had paled at the mention of the Sun Maid to such a
grayness beneath its brown that Mercy reached her hand to stay him
from falling; but at his second question her womanly intuition told
her something of the truth.

"Yes, Gaspar, boy. Your Kitty, and ours. We hadn't seen her till
to-day, neither; not since that harvestin'. But the longing got too
strong and, when we was burnt out, we came straight for her. Didn't
you know she was here yet? Or didn't you know she was still alive?"

"No. No, I didn't. That very next winter after I went away--and that
was the next day after we came here together--an Indian passed where I
was hunting with my master and told me she had died. He was one we had
known at Muck-otey-pokee--the White Pelican. He said a scourge of
smallpox had swept the Fort and this settlement and that my little
maid had passed out of the world forever. But you tell me--_she is
alive_? After all these years of sorrow for her, she is still alive?
I--it is hard to believe it."

Mercy laid her hand upon the strong shoulder that now trembled in
excitement.

"There, there, son; take it quiet. Yes, she's alive, and the most
beautiful woman the good Lord ever made. Never, even in the East,
where girls had time to grow good-looking, was there ever anybody like
her. I ain't used to it myself, yet. I can't realize it. She's that
well growed, and eddicated, and masterful. Why, child, the whole
community looks up to her as if she were a sort of queen. I've found
that out in just the few hours I've been here, and from just the few
I've met. Even Wahneeny--she's here, too; has been most all the time.
The Black Partridge, Indian chief, he that was her brother, that took
care of you two children when the massacre was, he didn't expect she'd
ever come again; but still, it appears, just on the chance of it, he
rode off up country somewhere, and he happened to strike her trail,
and that Osceolo's--the scamp--that had run off with Kitty's white
horse, and fetched 'em all back. The women in the Fort was tellin' me
the whole story just now. I hain't got a word out of Wahneeny, yet.
She's as close-mouthed as she ever was; but there's more to hear than
you could hark to in a day's ride, and--Where you going, Gaspar?"

"To find my Kitty."

"Well, you needn't. And I don't know as she's any more yours than she
is ours, seein' we really had the credit of raisin' her. For she's
took her life in her hand, and has gone alone, without ary man to
protect her, out across the prairie to face five hunderd Indians on
the war-path, and--Hold on! What you up to?"

The sailor, or hunter, whichever he might be, had started along the
footpath to the Fort, and halted, half angrily, at this interruption.

"Well? What? I'll see you by and by. I must find Kitty!"

"Right you are, lad. Find her, and fetch her back. And, say! Mercy
says your own old Tempest horse is in the stable at the Fort; that it
now belongs to the Sun Maid, and she's the only one who ever rides it.
The Captain gave it to her because she grieved so about you. I
wouldn't wonder if he'd travel nigh as fast as he used--when he run
away before. I never saw the beat of you two young ones! As fast as a
body catches up to you, off you run!"

Even amid the anxiety now renewed in Abel's mind regarding Kitty, the
humorous side of the situation appealed to him; but there was no
answering smile on Gaspar's face; only an anxiety and yearning beyond
the comprehension of either of these honest, simple souls.

"Well, go on, then. Run your beatingest, in a bee line, due west.
That's the way she took, and that's the trail you'll find her on, if
so be you find her at all."

Those at the Fort looked, wondered, but did not object, as this dark
_voyageur_ strode straight into the stables and to a box stall where
Tempest enjoyed a life of pampered indolence. They realized that this
was no stranger, but one to whom all things were familiar--even the
animal which answered so promptly to the cry:

"Tempest, old fellow!"

It was a voice he had never forgotten. The black gelding's handsome
head tossed in a thrill of delight, and the answering neigh to that
love call was good to hear. In a moment Gaspar had found a saddle,
slipped it into place, and, scarcely waiting to tighten its girth, had
leaped upon the animal's back.

"Forward, Tempest! Be true to your name!"

Those who saw the rush of the gallant creature through the open gates
of the stockade acknowledged that he would be.



CHAPTER XVIII.

WESTWARD AND EASTWARD OVER THE PRAIRIE.


"Fast, Tempest, fast!"

The sunshine was in his eyes, and a warmer sunshine in his heart, as
Gaspar urged the gelding forward.

Fast it was. The faithful creature recognized the burden he carried,
and his clean, small feet reeled off the distance like magic, till the
village by the lake was left far behind, and only the limitless
prairie stretched beyond. Yet still there was no sign of the Snowbird
along the horizon, nor any point discernible where an Indian
encampment might be.

At length the rider paused to consider the matter.

"It's strange I don't see her. If she were crossing the level,
anywhere, I should, for my eyes are trained to long distances. It must
be that Abel gave me the wrong direction. I'll turn north, and try."

But, keen-sighted though he was, for once the woodsman blundered.
Between him and the lowering sun the prairie dipped and rose again,
the two borders of the hidden valley seeming to meet in one unbroken
plain. It was in this little depression that the wigwams were pitched,
and among them the Sun Maid was already moving and pleading with her
friends for patience and peace.

Meanwhile, Gaspar continued on his chosen route, at a direct right
angle from that he should have followed, till the twilight came down
and the whole landscape was swathed in mist. For there had been heavy
rains of late, and the vapor rose from the soaked and sun-warmed earth
like a great white pall, filling the hunter's nostrils and blinding
his sight.

"Well, this is hopeless. I might ride over her and not find her in
this fog. But I can't stay here. It's choking. Heaven grant my Kitty's
safe under shelter somewhere. My own safety is to keep moving. Good
boy, Tempest! Take it easy, but don't stop."

After that, there was nothing to do but trust the horse's instinct to
find a path through the mist and to be grateful that the ground was so
level.

"It's a long lane that has no turning. It must be that we'll strike
something different after a while; if not a settler's house, at least
a clump of trees. Any shelter would be better than none, in this
creeping moisture. It would be easy to get lost; and what a situation!
Oh! if I knew that she was out of it. A messenger to the Indians, eh?
My little Kit, my dainty foster-sister!"

The gelding's nose was to the ground and, as a dog would have done, he
picked his way, cautiously, yet surely, straight north where lay,
though Gaspar did not know it, a settler's clearing and comfortable
cabin. The rider's thoughts passed from his present surroundings back
to the past and forward to the future; and when there sounded, almost
at his feet, a cry of distress he did not hear it in his absorption.

But Tempest did. At the second wail he stopped short, and it was this
that roused Gaspar from his reverie.

"Tired, old Tempest, boy? It won't do to rest here. Take a breath, if
you like, and get on again. Keeping at it is salvation."

"Mamma! I want--my--mamma!"

"Whew! What's that? Hello!"

The sound was not repeated, and yet Tempest would not advance.

"Hello!" shouted Gaspar; and after a moment of strained listening,
again he caught the echo of a child's sob.

"My God! A baby--here! Lost in this fog!"

He was off his horse and down upon his knees, reaching, feeling,
creeping--calling gently, and finally touching the cold, drenched
garment of the child he could not see.

In its terror at this fresh danger the little one shrieked and rolled
away; but the man lifted it tenderly, and soothed it with kind words
till its shrieks ceased and it clung close to its rescuer.

"There, there, poor baby! How came you here? Don't be afraid. I'll
take you home. Tempest will find the way. Feel--the good horse knows.
It was he that found you; we'll get on his back and ride straight to
mamma, for whom you called."

Climbing slowly back into his saddle, because of the little one he
held so carefully, Gaspar laid its cold hand upon the gelding's neck,
but it slid listlessly aside and he realized that he had come not a
moment too soon.

All night they wandered, the child lying on Gaspar's breast wrapped in
his coat, while the mist penetrated his own clothing and seemed to
creep into his very thoughts, numbing them to a sort of despair that
no effort could cast off. The wail of the child lost in that
dreariness had brought back, like a lightning's flash, the earliest
memories of his life and revived his never-dying hatred of his
parent's slayers.

"An Indian's hand was in this work!" he mused. "Doubtless, the mother
for whom it grieved has met the fate which befell my own. And Abel
said that it was among such as these my Sun Maid had gone!"

Then justice called to mind his knowledge of Wahneenah, of the Black
Partridge, old Winnemeg, and others, and his mood softened somewhat;
but still memory tormented him and the white fog seemed a background
for ghastly scenes too awful for words. Above all and through all, one
consciousness was keener and fiercer than the others:

"My Kitty is among them at this moment! O, God, keep her!"

It was the strongest cry of his yearning heart; yet underneath lay an
impotent rage at his own powerlessness to help in this preservation.

"For what is my manhood or my courage worth to her now? And even the
Deity seems veiled by this deadening, suffocating mist!"

But Tempest moved steadily on once more, and the little child warmed
to life on his breast; and by degrees the man's self-torment ceased.
Then he lifted his eyes afresh and struggled to pierce the gloom.

What was that? A light! A little yellow spot in the gray whiteness,
which the horse was first to see and toward which he now hastened with
a firmer speed.

"It's a fire. No, a lamp in a house window. There, it's gone. A
will-o'-the-wisp by some hidden pool. It shines again. Well, Tempest
sees it and believes in it."

The man lacked the animal's faith, and even when they had come to
within a short distance of the glow, the clouds of vapor swept
between it and them and Gaspar checked Tempest's advance. But at last
a slight wind rose, and the mist which rolled toward them was tinged
with the odor of smoke, so the rider knew that his first surmise had
been correct.

"It is a fire. A settler's cabin, probably once this lost child's
home. The red man's work!"

When he reached the very spot there were, indeed, the remnants of a
great burning, yet in the circle of the light Gaspar saw a house still
standing. He was at its threshold promptly, and entered through its
open door upon a scene of desolation. A woman crouched by the hearth
that was strewn with ashes, and her moans echoed through the gloom
with so much of agony in them that the stranger's worst fears were
confirmed. Then he caught her murmured words, and they were all of one
tenor:

"My baby! my baby! my baby! My one lost little child! The wolves--my
little one--my all!"

Gaspar strode into the room, lighted only by the fitful glare from the
ruins without, and gently spoke:

"Don't grieve like that! The child is safe. It is here in my arms."

"What? Safe! safe!"

The mother was up, and had caught the little one from him before the
words had left her lips, and the passion of her rejoicing brought the
tears to the man's eyes as her sorrow had not done.

After a moment, she was able to speak clearly and to demand his story.
Then she gave hers.

"I was here alone. My husband had gone hunting, and I went into the
barn to seek for eggs. The loft was dark----"

"Spare yourself. I can guess. The Indians."

"The Indians? No, indeed. Myself. My own carelessness. I carried a
candle, and dropped it. The hay caught. I barely escaped from having
my clothing burned on me; but I did. Then I forgot everything except
my terrible loss and my husband's anger when he returns. I began to
fight the fire. I remember my little one crying with fright, but I
paid no attention, and when at length I realized that it was too late
for me to save our stock I stopped to look for him. Fortunately, the
cabin was too far from the barn to catch easily, and there was a wind
blowing the other way. That's all that saved the home; yet, when I
missed my baby, I wished that it would burn, too, and me with it. Life
without him would be a living death. And he would have died, any way.
The wolves are awful troublesome this spring. We've lost more than
twenty of our hogs and the only pair of sheep we had. So husband
joined a party and went out to hunt them. What will he say, what will
he say, when he comes back!"

In Gaspar's heart there sprang up a great happiness. The ill which
had happened here was so much less than he had anticipated that he
took courage for himself. After all, the Sun Maid might be safe, as
Abel had declared she said she should be. He remembered, at last, that
not all men are evil, even red ones; and in the reaction of his own
feelings, he exclaimed:

"What can he say, but give thanks that no worse befell him!"

However, now that her child was safe within her arms, the woman began
to suffer in advance the torment she would have to undergo when she
faced her indignant husband; and she retorted sharply:

"Worse! Well, I suppose so. But I don't see why in the name of common
sense I was let to be such a fool in the first place. He won't,
neither. It's all very well when you've lost half your property to
give thanks for not losing your life, too; but I don't see any cause
for losing ary one."

This sounded so like Mercy and her philosophy that Gaspar threw back
his head and laughed; which angered his new friend first, and then
affected her, also, with something of his mirth.

"I can't see a thing to laugh at, I, for one," she remarked, trying to
be stern.

"Oh! but I can. And I'm not a laughing man, in ordinary. But there's
one thing I know--I'm powerful hungry. Can't we make another fire, one
that we can control, and get a bit of supper? If there's anything in
the house to cook, I can cook it while you tend baby. Then we'll talk
over your affairs."

"There's plenty to cook, but you'll not cook it, sir. I owe you my
child's life, and now things are getting straighter in my muddled
mind. I lost the barn for Jacob, and I must help replace it. I've been
a hard worker always, but I can stretch another point, I guess. Pshaw!
I believe it's getting daylight. It'll be breakfast instead of supper,
this time."

It was daylight, indeed; and in a half-hour the simple meal was
smoking on the table, and Gaspar sitting to eat it with the hearty
appetite of a man who has lived always out-of-doors. But he could talk
as fast as eat, when he was anxious as on that morning; and before he
had drained his last cup of the "rye coffee" he had learned from his
hostess that the Indian encampment he sought lay well to the
southwestward of her cabin, and that by a way she could direct him he
could reach it easily in a two-hours' ride. This to Tempest, who had
rested and fed, would be nothing, if he was anything the horse he used
to be, and Gaspar believed, from the past night's experience, that
sometimes even a horse can improve with age.

"Well, I'll be off, then. I'm anxious to get there. If all goes well
I'll get around this way again before long. Thank you for my
entertainment, and here's a trifle for the baby."

He tossed a gold piece on the table and was leaving the cabin. But she
restrained him.

"No, sir, I can't take that, nor let the little one. And as for
thanking me, I shall never cease to thank you, and the Lord for you,
that you lost your way last night. But let me beg you, sir, to take a
second thought. Jacob says the Indians are getting ready for an
outbreak. It is like running your neck into a halter to go among them
just now. I--I wish you wouldn't. I couldn't bear to have harm come to
you after what you've done for me."

"Thank you, but I must go. I am not much afraid for myself at any
time, for I've known the red-skins always and--trusted them never! But
a girl--did you ever hear of the Sun Maid?"

"Hear of her? Her? Well, I guess so! Who hasn't, in these parts? Why?"

"It was to find her and protect her that I started last night from the
Fort."

"To _protect_ her? Well, you could have saved your trouble. I wish
that I was as safe in this wild country as she is. There is an old
saying that her life is charmed; that nothing evil can ever happen to
her; and so far it has proved true. As for the Indians, even the
wickedest in the whole race would die to save her life. I hope you'll
find her, sir, all right; but if there's any protecting to be done,
she'll protect you, not you her. Well, good-by, and good luck!"

Gaspar bared his head and rode away, on a straight trail this time,
and with the exhilaration of the morning tingling through his
healthful veins. On every side the great clouds of white mist rose and
rolled apart. Blue violets and white windflowers began to peep upward
at him from his path, and he remembered Kitty's love for them. Then
the sun broke through, and only those who have thus ridden across a
dew-drenched prairie, at such an hour in such a season, can picture
what that ride was like.

The spirit of life and love and that glorious morning thrilled both
horse and master as they leaped forward and still forward till, on the
top of a grassy rise, a sudden halt was made.

For what was this coming out of the west?--this fair white creature on
her snowy mount, with the golden sunlight on her yellow hair, her
glowing face, her modest maiden breast. Flowers wreathed her all about
and a White Bow gleamed at her saddle horn. Behind her, and one on
either side, rode dusky warriors, brave in their finest trappings and
turning a reverent, attentive ear to the Maid's words. Their horses'
footfalls deadened by the sodden grass, slowly they came into fuller
view, as a picture grows under the painter's brush.

Still the man on the black horse facing them sat still, spellbound.
Could this be Kitty, his Kitty; to whom his thoughts had turned as to
a half-grown, playful child, and over whom he had domineered with the
masterful pride of boyhood? He was a man now, boyhood was past; but he
had quite forgotten that girlhood also passes and the child becomes a
woman.

He had grown rich and strong. After her supposed death he had devoted
himself wholly to money-getting with the singleness of purpose that
never fails of its object. He had come back to his old home to spend
the fortune he had gained, feeling himself a master among men and his
strength that of wisdom as well as wealth.

Now all his pride and arrogance passed from him before the nobility of
this woman approaching. For on her youthful face sat the dignity which
is higher than pride and from her beautiful eyes gleamed the
beneficent love more far-reaching than wealth.

After a moment Gaspar rode slowly forward again, and soon espying, but
not recognizing, him, the Sun Maid advanced. Then all at once the
black horse and the white galloped to a meet.

"Kitty! My Kitty!"

[Illustration: "KITTY! MY KITTY!" _Page 258_.]

"Gaspar!"

Their hands closed in a clasp that banished years of separation, and
the black eyes searched the blue, questioning for the one sweet answer
that rules all the world. There was a swift self-revelation in both
hearts; a consciousness that this was what the God who made them had
meant from the beginning. With a grave exaltation too deep and too
high for words, the pure man and the pure woman came to their destiny
and accepted it. Then their hands fell apart, the black Tempest
wheeled into place beside the white Snowbird, and, as on a day long in
the past, the pair passed swiftly and lightly eastward toward the
lakeside village and their home.

"Ugh! The Sun Maid has found her mate!" muttered the foremost warrior
grimly, and followed with his company at a soberer pace.



CHAPTER XIX.

THE CROOKED LOG.


"I tell you what, Chicago's a-growing. First _we_ come; then Gaspar;
then Kitty and him get married; and I go to keeping tavern in the
parson's house; and his son, One, goes up north to take a place in
Gaspar's business; and Gaspar sends Two and Three east to study law
and medicine; and Four and his pa come to board in our tavern; and
Osceolo----"

"For the land's sake, Abel Smith, do hold your tongue. Here you've got
to be as big a talker as old Deacon Slim, that I used to hear about,
who begun the minute he woke up and never stopped till his wife tied
his mouth shut at night. Even then----"

"Mercy, Mercy! Take care. Set me a good example, if you can; but don't
go to denying that this is a growin' village."

"I've no call to deny it. Why should I? But, say, Abel, just step
round to the store, won't you, an' buy me some of that turkey red
calico was brought in on the last team from the East. I'd admire to
make Kitty a rising sun quilt for her bedroom. 'Twould be so
'propriate, too."

"Fiddlesticks! Not a yard of stuff will I ever buy for you to set an'
snip, snip, like you used to in the woods. We've got something else to
do now. As for Kit, between the Fort folks and the Indians, she's had
so many things give her a'ready, she won't have room to put 'em. The
idee! Them two children gettin' married. Seems just like play make
believe."

"Well, there ain't no make believe. It's the best thing 't ever
happened to Chicago. Wonderful how they both 'pear to love the old
hole in the mud," answered Mercy.

"Yes, ain't it? To hear Gaspar talk, you'd think he'd been to
Congress, let alone bein' President. All about the 'possibilities of
the location,' the 'fertility of the soil,' the 'big canawl,' and the
whole endurin' business; why, I tell you, it badgers my wits to foller
him."

"Wouldn't try, then, if I was you. Poor old wits 'most wore out, any
how, and better save what's left for this tavern business. Between you
and your fiddle, thinkin' you've got to amuse your guests, I'm about
beat out. All the drudgery comes on _me_, same's it always did."

"Drudgery, Mercy? Now, come. Take it easy. Hain't Kitty fetched you a
couple of squaws to do your steps and dish washin'? All you have to
do is to cook and----"

"Oh! go along, Abel, and get me that calico. Don't set there till you
take root. I ain't a-complainin', an' I 'low I'm as much looked up to
here in Chicago without my bedstead as I was in the woods with it."

"Looked up to? I should say so. There ain't a woman in the settlement
holds her head as top-lofty as you do. And with good reason, I 'low. I
don't praise you often, ma, but when I do, I mean it. If you hadn't
been smarter 'n the average, and had more gumption to boot, you'd
never been asked in to help them army women cook Kitty's weddin'
supper. By the way, where are the youngsters now? I hain't seen 'em
to-day."

"Off over the prairie on their horses, just as they used to be when
they were little tackers. I never saw bridal folks like them; from the
very first not hangin' round by themselves, but mixing with everybody,
same's usual, and beginning right away to do all the good they can
with Gaspar's money. Off now to see some folks burned their own barn
up----"

"W-H-A-T?" demanded Abel, with paling face.

"What ails you? A fool of a woman took a lighted candle into her hay
loft and ruined herself. That happened the night Gaspar found Kitty;
and they call it part of their weddin' tower to go there and lend the
farmer the money to replace it. Gaspar was for giving it outright,
though he's a shrewd feller too, but Kit wouldn't. 'They aren't
paupers, and it would hurt their pride,' she said. 'Lend it to them on
very easy terms, and they'll respect themselves and you.'"

"Well, of course he done it."

"Sure. When a man gets a wife as wise as Kitty he'd ought to hark to
her."

"I'll go and get the calico now, Mercy," said Abel, and left rather
suddenly.

At nightfall the young couple rode homeward once more, facing the
moonlight that whitened the great lake and touched the homely hamlet
beside it with an idealizing beauty; and looking upon it, the Sun Maid
recalled her vision concerning it and repeated it to her husband.

"Ever since then, my Gaspar, the dream comes back to me in some form
or shape. But it is always here, right here, that the crowds gather
and the great roar of life sounds in my ears. In some strange way we
are to be part of it; part of it all. In the dream I see the tall
spires of churches, thick and shouldering one another like the trees
in the forest behind us."

"But, my darling, you have never seen a church of any sort. How,
then, can you dream of them?"

"That I don't know, unless it is from the pictures in the good
Doctor's books. I have learned so much from the pictures always. But,
oh! I wish I could make you know some of the delight I felt when first
I could read!"

"I do know it, sweetheart. I, too, craved knowledge and dug it out for
myself, up there in the northern forests, from the few books that came
my way and the rare visit of a man who could teach. The first dollar I
had that was all my own I put aside for you. That was the beginning of
our fortune. The second I invested in a spelling-book. The study,
dear, was all that helped me bear the pain of your death. But you are
not dead! Rather the most alive of any human being whom I ever saw."

"That is true, Gaspar. I _am_ alive. I just quiver with the force that
drives me on from one task to another, from one point reached to one
beyond. And now, with you beside me, there is no limit, it seems, to
the help we can be to every single person who will come within our
reach. Wasn't the woman glad and grateful; and don't you see, laddie,
that it is better as I planned? You say you have been penurious,
saving every cent not expended for your books and necessaries: and
yet, now that you are happy again, you are ready to rush to the other
extreme and throw your money away in thoughtless charity."

She looked so young, so childlike, in the glimmering moonlight that
the tall woodsman laughed.

"To hear my little Kit teaching her elders!"

"The elders must listen. It is for our home. You must spend every
dollar you have, but you must do it in such a way that somebody will
be helped. We don't want money, just money, for itself. To hold it
that way would make us ignoble. It's the wealth we spend that will
make us rich."

"Kit, there's some dark scheme afloat in that fair head of yours. Out
with it!"

"Just for a beginning of things--this: There was a family came to the
Fort to-day. The father is a skilled wood-carver. He is not over
strong and his wife is frailer than he. They have a lot of little
children and he must earn money. It has cost them more than they
expected to get as far as this, even, and they should not go farther.
Yet he is a man, a master workman. It would be an insult to offer him
money. But give him work and you feed his soul as well as his body."

"How, my love? Who that dwells in a log cabin needs fine carvings or
would appreciate them if they had them?"

"Educate them to want and appreciate them. Open a school for just that
branch. I myself will be his pupil. I remember with what delight I
used to mould Mercy's butter. Well, I've been moulding something ever
since."

"Your husband, for instance."

"He's a little difficult material; but time will improve him! Then
there are the Doctor's botanical treatises and specimens. Open a
school. If you have to begin with a few only, still _begin_. Lay the
seed. From our little workroom and classroom may grow one of those
mighty colleges that have made Englishmen great and are making
Americans their equals."

"Hello there, child! Hold on a bit. Their equals? And you a soldier's
daughter!"

"Since I am a soldier's daughter, I can afford to be just, and even
generous. It is all nonsense, because we have gained our independence,
to say we are better than our fathers were. For they were our fathers,
surely; and they had had time in their rich country, with their ages
of instruction, to grow learned and great. But we Americans are their
children, and, just as is already proving, each generation is wiser
than the one which went before. So presently we shall be able to do
even better than they----"

"Give them another dose of Yankee Doodle?"

"If they require it, yes. But come back to just right here in this
little town. Besides the schools for white children, can't we have
those for the Indians?"

"No, dear; not here. Not anywhere, I fear, that will ever result in
permanent good. At least, the time is not yet ripe for that part of
your dreaming to come true."

"But think of Wahneenah. She is teachable and there is none more
noble. Yet she is an Indian."

"She is one, herself. In all her race I have seen none other like her.
There is Black Partridge, too, and Gomo, and old Winnemeg. They are
exceptions. But, my love, there are, also, the Black Hawk and the
Prophet."

He did not add his opinion, which agreed with that of the wisest men
he knew, that Illinois would know no real prosperity till the savages,
which disturbed its peace, were removed from its borders. For she
loved them, hoped for them, believed in them; even though her own
common sense forced her to agree with him that the time was not ripe
then, if it ever would be, for their civilization. So he held his
peace and soon they were at home.

"Heigho! There are lights in our cabin. Hear me prophesy: Mother Mercy
has come over with a roast for our supper and Mother Wahneenah has
quietly set it aside to wait until her own is eaten. Ho there within!"
he called merrily. "Who breaches our castle when its lord is absent?"

Mercy promptly appeared in the doorway. She was greatly excited and
hastily led them to the rear of the house, pointing with both hands to
an animal fastened behind it.

"There's your fine Indian for you! See that?"

"Indeed I do!" laughed Kitty. "An ox, Jim, isn't it? with the Doctor's
saddle on his back and his botanizing box, and--What does it mean? I
knew he was absent-minded, but not like this."

"Absent-minded. Absent shucks! That's Osceolo--_that_ is!" in a tone
of fiercest indignation. "He's such a crooked log he can't lie still."

"Is that his work? He dared not play his tricks on the dear Doctor!"

"Yes, it's his'n. The idee! There was Abel went and gave old Dobbin to
the parson, to save his long legs some of their trampin' after weeds
and stuff and 'cause he was afraid to ride ary other horse in the
settlement. And there was Osceolo, that for a feller's hired out to a
regular tavern-keeper like us, to be a hostler and such, he don't earn
his salt. All the time prankin' round on some tomfoolery. And Abel's
just as bad. A man with only two or three little weeny tufts o' hair
left on his head and mighty little sense on the inside, at his time of
life, a-fiddlin' and cuttin' up jokes, I declare--I declare, I'm beat,
and I wish----"

"But what is it?" demanded Kitty, bringing her old friend back to
facts.

"Why, nothing. Only when the dominie came home and stopped here, as he
always does after he's been a-prairieing, to show you his truck and
dicker, Osceolo happens along and is took smart! The simpleton! Just
set old Dobbin scamperin' off back into the grass again and clapped
the saddle and tin box and what not on to the ox's back. Spected he'd
see the parson come out and mount and never notice. 'Stead of that,
along comes Abel--strange how constant he has to visit to your
house!--and sees the whole business. Well, he'd caught some sort of a
wild animal, and--say, Kitty Briscoe, I mean Keith!--_that Indian'd
drink whiskey, if he got a chance_, just as quick as one raised in the
woods, instead of one privileged to set under such a saint as the
Doctor all his days. I tell you--Well, what you laughing at, Gaspar
Keith? Ain't I tellin' the truth?"

"Yes, Mother Mercy, doubtless you are. But it isn't so long back, as
Abel says, that you objected to 'setting under' the Doctor yourself."

"Suppose it wasn't? I didn't know him then, not as I do now. He's
orthodox, I found out, and that's all I wanted. But I know what I'm
talkin' about. Osceolo, he's always beggin' for Abel to keep liquor:
an' we teetotallers! An' he's teased so much that the other day Abel
thought he'd satisfy him. So he got an old bottle, looked as if some
tipsy Indian had thrown it away, and filled it with a dose of boneset
tea. He made a terrible mystery of the whole matter, pretendin' to be
sly of me, and took it out from under his coat and gave it to Ossy out
behind in the stable, like it was a wonderful secret. Do you know,
that Indian hain't never let on a single word about that business yet?
Oh! he's a master hand for bein' close-mouthed. They all be. They just
_do_--but don't talk."

"Mercy, if _you_ were only a little more talkative, you'd be better
company!" teased Gaspar, who was eager for the finish of the story and
his supper.

"Now--you! Well, laugh away. I don't mind. All is, when Abel saw the
trick Ossy had played on the Doctor, he plays one on Ossy. He'd caught
a queer sort of animal, as I said, and he was fetchin' it to Kit.
Everybody brings her everything, from rattlesnakes up. But when he saw
that ox, he just opens the tin box and claps the creature inside and
then hunts up Ossy. He says: 'There's something in that box pretty
suspicious, boy. You might look an' see what 'tis but don't let on.'
He's that curiosity, Osceolo has, that he forgot everything else and
stuck his hand in sly. I expect he thought it was something to eat, or
likely to drink, and he got bit. Hand's all tore and sore, and now
Abel's scared and gone off with him to the surgeon at the Fort, and
there'll be trouble. Ossy was muttering something about the 'Black
Hawk coming and that he'd had enough of the white folks. He was born
an Indian, and an Indian he'd die'; and to the land! I hope he will!
He makes more mischief in this settlement than you can shake a stick
at!"

"'It's hard for a bird to get away from its tail,'" quoted Gaspar,
lightly. "Osceolo began life wrong and his reputation clings to him.
I'll take the saddle off Jim, and let's go in to supper. None of my
Sun Maid's tribe is to be feared, I think, no matter how direly they
may threaten."

Yet the young husband glanced toward his wife with an anxiety that he
would not have liked her to see. During the weeks since his return to
the village he had learned much more than he had told her of a
movement far beyond the Indian encampments she was accustomed to
visit, which would bring serious trouble, if not complete disaster,
upon their beloved home. Osceolo was the Sun Maid's devoted follower;
yet the prank he had played upon the old Doctor, whom she so
reverenced, showed that he was already throwing aside the restraints
of his enforced civilization; and the sign was ominous.



CHAPTER XX.

ENEMIES, SEEN AND UNSEEN.


But the time passed on and the rumors died away, or ended in nothing
more serious than had always disturbed the dwellers in that lonely
land. Now and again a friendly, peace-loving chief would ride up to
the door of the Sun Maid's home, and, after a brief consultation she
would put on her Indian attire and ride back with him across the
prairies. As of old, she went with a heart full of love for her Indian
friends, but it was not the undivided love that she had once been able
to give them.

Over her beautiful features had settled the brooding look which
wifehood and motherhood gives; and though she listened as attentively
as of old and counselled as wisely, she could not for one moment
forget the little children waiting for her by her own hearthside or
the brave husband who was so often away on his long journeys to the
north; and the keen intelligence of the red men perceived this.

"She is ours no longer," said a venerable warrior, after one such
visit. "She has taken to herself a pale-face, he who met her on the
prairie in the morning light, and her heart has gone from her. It is
the way of life. The old passes, the new comes to reign. We are her
past. Her Dark-Eye is her present. Her papooses are her future. The
parting draws near. She is still the Sun Maid, the White Spirit, the
Unafraid. As far as the Great Spirit wills, she will be faithful to
us; but now when she rides homeward from a visit to our lodge it is no
longer at the easy pace of one whose life is all her own, but wildly,
swiftly, following her heart which has leaped before."

Each morning, nearly, as the Sun Maid ministered to her little ones or
busied herself among the domestic duties of her simple home she would
joyfully exclaim to Wahneenah:

"I don't believe there was ever a woman in the world so happy as I
am!" And the Indian foster-mother would gravely reply:

"Ask the Great Spirit that the peace may long continue."

Till, on one especial day, the younger woman demanded:

"Well, why should it not, my Mother? It is now many weeks since I have
been called to settle any little quarrel among our people. Surely they
are learning wisdom fast. Do you know something? I intend that some of
the squaws who are idle shall make my baby, Gaspar the Second, a
little costume of our own tribe. It shall be all complete; as if he
were a tiny chief himself, with his leggings and head-dress, and--yes,
even a little bow and quiver. I'll have it finished, maybe, before his
father comes down from this last trip into the far-away woods. Oh! I
shall be glad when my 'brave' can trust all his business of mining and
fur-buying and lumbering to somebody else. I miss him so. But won't he
be pleased with our little lad in feathers and buckskin?"

Wahneenah's dark eyes looked keenly at her daughter's face.

"No, beloved; he will not be pleased. In his heart of hearts, the
white chief was ever the red man's enemy. Me he loves and a few more.
But let the White Papoose" (Wahneenah still called her foster-child by
the old love names of her childhood) "let the White Papoose hear and
remember: the day is near when the Dark-Eye will choose between his
friends and the friends of his wife. It is time to prepare. There is a
distress coming which shall make of this Chicago a burying-ground. Our
Dark-Eye has bought much land. He is always, always buying. Some day
he will sell and the gold in his purse will be too heavy for one man's
carrying. But first the darkness, the blood, the death. Let him choose
now a house of refuge for you and the little children; choose it
where there are trees to shelter and water to refresh. Let him build
there a tepee large enough for all your needs,--a wigwam, remember,
not a house. Let him stock it well with food and clothing and the guns
which protect."

"Why, Other Mother! What has come over you? Such a dismal prophecy as
that is worse than any which old Katasha ever breathed. Are you ill,
Wahneenah, dearest?"

"There is no sickness in my flesh; yet in my heart is a misery that
bows it to the earth. But I warn you. If you would find favor in the
eyes of your brave, clothe not his son in the costume of the red man."

Kitty was unaccountably depressed. Hitherto she had been able to laugh
aside the sometimes sombre auguries of the chief's sister; but now
something in the woman's manner made her believe that she knew more
than she disclosed of some impending disaster. However, it was not in
her nature, nor did she believe it right, that she should worry over
vague suggestions. So she answered once more before quite dismissing
the subject:

"Well, we were already discussing the comfort of having another home
out in the forest, and Abel has suggested that we build it on the land
which was his farm and which Gaspar has bought. We both liked that; to
have our own children play where we played as children. I want my
little ones to learn about the wild things of the woods, and the dear
old Doctor is still alive to teach them. You will like it, too, Other
Mother. When the days grow hot and long we will ride to the 'Refuge';
and I think the wigwam idea is better, after all, than the house;
though I do not know what my husband will decide."

"Before the days grow long, the 'Refuge' must be finished, and the
earlier the better. It is rightly named, my daughter, and the time is
ripe."

Ere many hours had passed, and most unexpectedly to his wife, Gaspar
returned. In the first happiness of welcoming him she did not observe
that his face was stern and troubled; but she did notice, when bedtime
came, that he did what had never before been done in their home: he
locked or bolted the doors and stoutly barred the heavy wooden
shutters. He had also brought Osceolo with him, from Abel's tavern,
and had peremptorily bidden the Indian to "Lie there!" pointing to a
heap of skins on the floor beside the fire.

Toward morning Kitty woke. To her utter amazement, she saw in her
living room her Gaspar and Osceolo engaged in what seemed a battle to
the death. Then she sprang up and ran toward them, but her husband
motioned her back.

[Illustration: OSCEOLO AND GASPAR. _Page 276_.]

"Leave him to me. I'll fix him so that he'll do no more mischief for
the present."

"But, Gaspar! What is it?"

"Treachery, as usual. Get into your clothes, my girl, and call
Wahneenah. Let the children be dressed,--warmly, for the air is cool
and we may have to leave suddenly."

"_What_ is it?"

"An outbreak! The settlers are flocking into the Fort in droves. Black
Hawk and his followers have come too close for comfort. This miserable
fellow has been tampering with the stores. He couldn't get at the
ammunition, but he's done all the evil he could. I caught him
hobnobbing with a low Sac; a spy, I think. There. He's bound, and now
I'll fasten him in the wood-shed. He knows too much about this town to
be left in freedom."

Yet, after all, they did not have to flee from home, as Gaspar had
feared, though the Sun Maid put on her peace dress and unbound her
glorious hair, ready at any moment to ride forth and meet the Indians
and to try her powers of promoting good-feeling. The Snowbird stood
saddled for many days: yet it was only upon errands of hospitality and
charity that he was needed.

Gaspar, however, was always in the saddle. When he was not riding far
afield, scouting the movements of the Black Hawk forces, he was
searching the countryside for provisions and himself guiding the
wagons that brought in the scant supplies. One evening he returned
more cheerful than he had seemed for many days and exclaimed as he
tossed aside his cap:

"This has been a good trip, for two reasons."

"What are they, dear?"

"Starvation is staved off for a while and the Indians are evidently in
grave doubts of their own success in this horrid war."

"Starvation, Gaspar? Has it been as bad as that?"

"Pretty close to it. But I've found a couple of men who had about a
hundred and fifty head of cattle, and they've driven them here into
the stockade. As long as they last, we shall manage. The other good
thing is--that the Black Hawks are sacrificing to the Evil Spirit."

"They are! That shows they are hopeless of their own success."

"Certainly very doubtful of it. It is the dog immolation. I saw one
instance myself and met a man who had come from the southwest. He has
passed them at intervals of a day's journey; always the same sort. The
wretched little dog, fastened just above the ground, the nose pointing
straight this way and the fire beneath."

"Oh, Gaspar, it's dreadful!"

"That they are discouraged? Kit, you don't mean that?"

"No. No, no! You know better. But that they are such--such heathen!"

Another voice broke in upon them:

"Heathen! Heathen, you say? Well, if ever you was right in your life,
you're right now. I never saw such folks. Here I've been cookin' and
cooking till I'm done clean through myself; and in there's come
another lot, just as hungry as t'others. Dear me, dear me! Why in the
name of common sense couldn't I have stayed back there in the woods,
and not come trapesing to Chicago to turn head slave for a lot of
folks that act as if I'd ought to be grateful for the chance to kill
myself a-waitin' on them. And say, Gaspar Keith, have you heard the
news? When did you get home?"

It was Mercy, of course, who had rushed excitedly into the house, yet
had been able to rattle off a string of sentences that fairly took her
hearers' breath away, if not her own.

But Kitty was at her side at once, tenderly removing the great
sun-bonnet from the hot gray head and offering a fan of turkey wings,
gayly decorated with Indian embroideries of beads and weavings.

"No, Kit. No, you needn't. Not while I know myself; there ain't never
no more red man's tomfoolery going to be around me! Take that there
Indian contraption away. I'd rather have a decent, honest cabbage-leaf
any day. I'm beat out. My, ain't it hot!"

"Yes, dear, it is awfully hot. Sit here in the doorway, in this big
chair, and get what little breeze there is. Here's another fan, which
I made myself; plain, good Yankee manufacture. Try that. Then, when
you get cooled off, tell us your 'news.'"

"Cooled off? That I sha'n't never be no more; not while I've got to
cook for all creation."

"Mother Mercy, Mother Mercy! You are a puzzler. You won't let the
people go anywhere else than to your house as long as there's room to
squeeze another body in; and----"

"Ain't it the tavern?"

"Of course. But people who keep taverns usually take pay for
entertaining their guests."

"Gaspar Keith! You say that to me, after the raisin' I gave you? The
idee! When not a blessed soul of the lot has got a cent to bless
himself with."

"But I have cents, plenty of them; and I want you to let me bear this
expense for you. I insist upon it."

"Well, lad, I always did think you was a little too sharp after the
money. But I didn't 'low you'd begrudge folks their _blessings_, too."

"Blessings? Aren't you complaining about so much hard work, and
haven't you the right? I know that no private family has cared for so
many as you have, and----"

"Oh, do drop that! I tell you _I_ ain't a private family; I'm a
tavern. Oh! I don't know what I am nor what I'm sayin'. I--I reckon
I'm clean beat and tuckered out."

"So you are, dear. But rest and I'll make you a cup of tea. If you
leave those people to themselves and they get hungry again they'll
cook _for_ themselves. They'll have to. But to a good many of these
refugees this is a sort of picnic business. They have left their
homes, it's true; but they haven't seen so many human faces in years
and----"

"They haven't had such a good time! I noticed that. They seemed as
bright as children at a frolic. Well, we ought to help them get what
fun they can out of so serious a matter," commented Gaspar.

"Serious! I should say so. That's what sent me here. Abel, he was on
the wharf, and he says the ships are coming down the lake full of
soldiers; and what with them and the folks already here and only a
hundred and fifty head to feed 'em with, and some of these refugees
eat as much as ary parson I ever saw, and the old Doctor trying to
preach to 'em, sayin' it's the best opportunity--my land! The way
some folks can get sweet out of bitter is a disgrace, I declare. And
as for that Ossy, the dirty scamp, he's broke more dishes, washing
them, than I've got left. And I run over to see if you'd let me have
ary dish you've got, or shall I give 'em their stuff right in their
hands? And how long have I got to go on watchin' that wild Osceolo? I
wish you'd take him back and shut him up in your wood-shed again."

"But, Mother Mercy, it was you who begged his release. And I'm sure
it's better for him in your kitchen, working, than lying idle in an
empty building, plotting mischief. Hello, here's Abel. And he seems as
excited as--as you were," said Gaspar.

"Glory to government, youngsters! The military is coming! The
General's in sight! Now hooray! We'll show them pesky red-skins a
thing or two. If they ain't wiped clean out of existence this time my
name's Jack Robinson. Say, Kit, don't look so solemn. Likely they'll
know enough to give up licked without getting shot; and they're
nothin' but Indians, any how."

The Sun Maid came softly across and held up her little son to be
admired. Her face was grave and her lips silent. All this talk of war
and bloodshed was awful to her gentle heart, that was torn and
distracted with grief for both her white and her red-faced friends.

But there was only grim satisfaction on the countenance of her young
husband; and he turned to Abel, demanding:

"Are you sure that this good news is true? Are the soldiers coming?
Who saw them?"

"I myself, through the commandant's spy-glass. They're aboard the
ships, and I could almost hear the tune of _Yankee Doodle_. They're
bound to rout the enemy like chain lightning. Hooray!"

The soldiers were coming indeed; but alas! an enemy was coming with
them far more deadly than the Indians they meant to conquer.



CHAPTER XXI.

FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH.


"Oh, Kit; I can't bear to leave you behind! It breaks my old heart all
to flinders!" lamented Abel, laboriously climbing into the great wagon
which Jim and Pete were now to draw back to their old home and wherein
were already seated Mercy, with Kitty's children. "If it wasn't for
these babies of yourn, I'd never stir stick nor stump out this
afflicted town."

"Well, dear Abel, the babies _are_, and must be cared for. I know that
you and Mother Mercy will spoil them with kindness; but I hope we'll
soon be all together again. Good-by, good-by."

The Sun Maid's voice did not tremble nor the light in her brave face
grow dim, though her heart was nearer breaking than Abel's; in that
she realized far more keenly than he the peril in which she was
voluntarily placing herself.

"Well, Kitty, lamb, do take care. Take the herb tea constant and keep
your feet dry."

"That will be easy to do, if this heat remains," answered the other
quietly, looking about her as she spoke upon the sun-parched ground
and the hot, brazen sky. "And you must not worry, any of you. Gaspar
says the tepees are as comfortable as the best log cabins, though so
hastily put up. You will have plenty of air and the delicious shade of
the trees; the blessed spring water, too; and if you don't keep well
and be as happy as kittens, I--I'll be ashamed of you. I declare,
Mercy dear, your face is all a-beam with the thought of the old
clearing, and the bleaching ground, and all. So you needn't try to
look grave, for, as soon as we can, Wahneenah and I will follow."

Then she turned to speak to Gaspar, who sat on Tempest close at hand,
his handsome face pale with anxiety and divided interests, but stern
and resolute to do his duty as his young wife had shown it to him. And
what these two had to say to one another is not for others to hear;
for it was a parting unto death, it might be, and the hearts of the
twain were as one flesh.

Also, if Mercy's face was alight with the glow of her home returning,
it was moved by the sight of the two women--Wahneenah and her
daughter--who were taking their lives in their hands for the service
of their fellow-men.

Never had the Indian woman's comeliness shown to such advantage; and
her bearing was of one who neither belittled nor overrated the dignity
of the self-sacrifice she was making. She wore a white cotton gown,
which draped rather than fitted her tall figure, and about her dark
head was bound a white kerchief that seemed a crown. With an impulse
foreign to her, Mercy held out her hand; because in ordinary she
"hated an Indian on sight."

"Well, Wahneeny, I'd like to shake hands for good-by. There hain't
never been no love lost 'twixt you an' me, but I 'low I might have
been more juster than I was. I think you're--you're as good as ary
white women I ever see, savin' our Kit, of course; an'--an'--I--I wish
you well."

There was a moment's hesitation on Wahneenah's part; then her slim
brown hand was extended and closed upon Mercy's fat palm with a
friendly pressure.

"In the light of the Unknown Beyond, the little hates and loves of
earth must disappear. You have judged according to the wisdom that was
in you, and if I bore you a grudge, it is forgotten. Farewell."

Then the foster-mother slipped her arm about the waist of her beloved
Sun Maid and supported her firmly as the oxen moved slowly forward,
the heavy wheels creaking and the three children shouting and clapping
their hands in innocent glee, quite unconscious of the tragedy of the
parting they had witnessed.

Abel gee-ed and haw-ed indiscriminately and confusingly, then
belabored his patient beasts because they did not understand
conflicting orders. Mercy sat twisted around upon the buffalo-covered
seat, her arms holding each a child as in a vise and her neck in
danger of dislocation, as long as her swimming eyes could catch one
glimpse of the two white-robed women left on the dusty road.

"They look as pure as some them Sisters of Charity I've seen in Boston
city. And they won't spare themselves no more, neither. Poor Gaspar
boy! How'll he ever stand it without his Kit, and if--ah, if--she
should catch--Oh, my soul! oh--my--soul! I wonder if he's takin' it
terrible hard!"

But though she brought her body back to a normal poise, her morbid
curiosity was doomed to disappointment, for Tempest had already borne
his master out of sight at a mad pace across the prairie.

The enemy which had come with the infantry over the great water was
the most terrible known,--a disease so dread and devastating that men
turned pale at the mere mention of its name--the Asiatic cholera.

When it appeared, the garrison was crowded with the settlers who had
fled before the anticipated attacks of the Indians and, as has been
said, every roof in the community sheltered all it could cover. But
when the soldiers began to die by dozens and scores the refugees were
terrified. Death by the hand of the red man was possible, even
probable; but death of the pestilence was certain.

The town was now emptied far more rapidly than it had filled; and
early in this new disaster Gaspar had hastened to the old clearing of
the Smiths and had made Osceolo, aided by a few more frightened,
willing men, toil with himself to erect wigwams enough to accommodate
many persons. He had then returned for his household and had been met
by his wife's first resistance to his will.

"No, Gaspar, I cannot go. I have no fear. I am perfectly 'sound.'
Probably no healthier woman ever lived than I am. I have learned much
of nursing from Wahneenah, and my place, my duty, is here. I cannot
go."

"Kit! my Kitty! Are you beside yourself? Where is your duty, if not to
me and to our children?"

"Here, my husband, right here; in our beloved town, among the lonely
strangers who have come to save it from destruction and have laid
their lives at our feet."

"That is sheer nonsense. Your life is at stake."

"Is my life more precious than theirs?"

"Yes. Infinitely so. It is mine."

"It is God's--and humanity's--first, Gaspar."

"Your children, then; if you scorn my wishes."

"Don't make it hard for me, beloved; harder than God Himself has made
it. Do you take Mother Mercy and Abel and go to the place you have
prepared. The children will be as safe with her as with me; safer, for
she will watch them constantly, while I believe in leaving them to
grow by themselves. Between them and us you may come and go--up to a
certain point; but not to the peril of your taking the disease. The
Indians are no less on the war-path because the cholera has come.
_Your_ duty is afield, guarding, watching, preventing all the evil
that a wise man can. Mine is here, using the skill I have learned from
Wahneenah and faithfully at her side."

"Wahneenah? Does she wish to stay too; to nurse the pale-faces, the
men who have come here to fight her own race?"

"Yes, Gaspar, she is just so noble. Can I do less? I, with my
education, which the dear Doctor has given me, and my youth, my
perfect health, my entire fearlessness. You forget, sweetheart; I am
the Unafraid. Never more unafraid than now, never more sure that we
will come out of this trouble as we have come out of every other. Why,
dear, don't you remember old Katasha and her prophecy? I am to be
great and rich and beneficent. I am to be the helper of many people.
Well, then, since I am not great, and rich only through you, let me
begin at the last end of the prophecy, and be beneficent. Wait; even
now there is somebody coming toward us asking me for help."

"Kit, I can't have it. I won't. You are my wife. You shall obey me.
You shall stop talking nonsense. You may as well understand. Pick
together what duds you need and let's get off as soon as possible.
Every hour here is fresh danger. Come. Please hurry."

But she did not hurry, not in the least. Indeed, had she followed her
heart wholly, she would never have hastened one degree toward the end
she had elected. But she followed it only in part; so she stole
quietly up to where the man fumed and flustered and clasped her arms
about his neck and laid her beautiful face against his own.

"Love: this is not our first separation, nor our longest. Many a month
have you been away from me, up there in the north, getting money and
more money, till I hated its very name,--only that I knew we could use
it for others. In that, and in most things, I will obey you as I have.
In this I must obey the voice of God. Life is better than money, and
to save life or to comfort death is the price of this, our last
separation."

After that he said no more; but recognizing the nobility of her
effort, even though he still felt it mistaken, and with a credulous
remembrance of Katasha's saying, he made her preparations and his own
without delay and parted from her as has been told.

"Well, my dear Other Mother, there is one thing to comfort! Hard as it
was to see them all go, we shall have no time to brood. And we shall
be together. Let us get on now to our work. There were five new cases
this morning; and time flies! Oh, if I were wiser and knew better what
to do for such a sickness! The best we can--that's all."

"What the Great Spirit puts into our hands, that we can always lift,"
replied Wahneenah, and, with her arm still about her darling's waist,
they walked together Fortward. It may be that in the Indian's jealous,
if devoted, heart there was just a tinge of thankfulness for even an
evil so dire, since it gave her back her "White Papoose" quite to
herself again.

"Well, I can watch her all I choose, and no burden shall fall to her
share that I can spare her. The easy part--the watching and the
soothing and the Bible reading--that shall be hers. Mine will be the
coarsest tasks," she thought, and--as Gaspar had done--reckoned
without her host.

"It is turn and turn about, Other Mother, or I will drive you out of
the place," Kitty declared; and after a few useless struggles, which
merely wasted the time that should have been given their patients, it
was so settled; and so continued during the dreadful weeks that
followed.

Until just before midsummer the nurses were almost wholly at the
Fort, where it seemed to Kitty that a "fresh case" and a "burial"
alternated with the regularity of a pendulum; and then a little relief
was gained by taking their sick across to Agency House and its ampler
accommodations. But even these were meagre compared to the needs; and
more and more as the days went by did the Sun Maid long for greater
wisdom.

"That is one of the things Gaspar and I must do. We must have a
regular hospital, such as are in Eastern cities; and there must be men
and women taught to understand all sorts of diseases and how to care
for them. I know so little--so little."

But experience taught more than schools could have done; and many a
poor fellow who had come from a far-away home sank to his last rest
with greater confidence because of the ministrations of these two
devoted women. And at last, very suddenly, there appeared one among
them whom both Wahneenah and her daughter recognized with a sinking
heart.

"Doctor! Oh, Doctor Littlejohn! I thought you were safe at the
'Refuge' with Mercy and Abel. How came you here? and why? You must go
away at once. You must, indeed. Where is the horse you rode?"

"I rode no horse, my dear. If I had asked for one, I should have been
prevented,--even forcibly, I fear. So I walked."

"Walked? In this heat, all that distance? Will you tell me why?"

But already, before it was spoken, the Sun Maid guessed the answer.

"Because, at length, through all the shifting talk about me, it
penetrated to my study-dulled brain that there was a need more urgent
than that the Indian dialects should be preserved; that I, a minister
of the gospel, was letting a woman take the duty, the privilege, that
was mine. I have come, daughter of my old age, to encourage the
sufferers you relieve and bury the dead you cannot save."

"But--for _you_, in your feebleness----"

He held up his thin white hand that trembled as an aspen leaf.

"It is enough, my dear. Consider all is said. I heard a fresh groan
just then. Somebody needs you--or me."

Wahneenah now had two to watch, and she did it jealously, at the cost
of the slight rest she had heretofore allowed herself. The result of
overstrain, in the midst of such infection, was inevitable. One
evening she crept languidly toward the empty house which had been her
darling's home and behind which still stood her own deserted lodge.
She was a little wearier than usual, she thought, but that was all. To
lie down on her bed of boughs and draw her own old blanket over her
would make her sleep. She longed to sleep--just for a minute; to shut
out from her eyes and her thoughts the scenes through which she had
gone. How long ago was it since the wagon and the fair-haired babies
went away?

She was a little confused. She was falling asleep, though, despite the
agony that tortured her. _Her?_ She had always hated pain and despised
it. It couldn't be Wahneenah, the Happy, crouching thus, in a cramped
and becrippled attitude. It was some other woman,--some woman she had
used to know.

Why, there was her warrior: her own! And the son she had lost! And
now--what was this in the parting of the tent curtains? The moonlight
made mortal?

No. Not a moon-born but a sun-born maiden she, who stooped till her
white garments swept the earth and her beautiful, loving face was
close, close. Even the glazing eyes could see how wondrously fair it
was in the sight of men and spirits. Even the dulled ears could catch
that agonized cry:

"Wahneenah! Wahneenah! My Mother! Bravest and noblest! and yet--a
savage!"

"Who called her so knew not of what he spake. From one God we all came
and unto Him we must return. Blessed be His Name!" answered the
clergyman who had followed.

Then the frail man, who had so little strength for himself, was given
power to lift the broken-hearted Maid and carry her away into a place
of safety.



CHAPTER XXII.

GROWING UP.


"Well, I'm beat! I don't know what to do with myself. Out there to the
clearing I was just crazy wild to get back to town; and now I'm here
I'm nigh dead with plumb lonesomeness. My, my, my! Indians licked out
of their skins, about, and cleared out the whole endurin' State. Old
Black Hawk marched off to the East to be shown what kind of a nation
he'd bucked up against, the simpleton! And Osceolo takin' himself and
his pranks, with his tribe, clear beyond the Mississippi; an' me an'
ma lived through watchin' them little tackers of Kit's--oh, hum! I'd
ought to take some rest; but somehow I 'low I can't seem to."

Mercy looked up from the unbleached sheet she was hemming and smiled
grimly.

"Give it up, pa. Give it up. I've been a-studyin' this question, top
and bottom crust and through the inside stuffin', and I sum it this
way: _It's in the soil!_"

"What's in the soil? The shakes? or the homesickness when a feller's
right to home? or what in the land do you mean?"

"The restlessness. The something that gets inside your mind and keeps
you movin'. I've noticed it in everybody ever come here. Must be
doin'; can't keep still; up an' at it, till a body's clean wore an'
beat out. Me, for one. Here I've no more need to hem sheets than I
have to make myself a pink satin gown, which I never had nor hope to
have even----"

"The idee! I should hope not, indeed. You in a pink satin gown, ma;
'twould be scandalous!"

"Didn't I say I wasn't thinkin' of gettin' one, even so be I could, in
this hole in the mud? I was talkin' about Chicago. It ain't a town to
brag of, seein' there ain't two hundred left in it after the ravagin'
of the cholera; an' yet I don't know ary creature, man, woman, or
child, ain't goin' to plannin' right away for something to be done.
I've heard more talk of improvements and hospitals and schools an'
colleges and land knows what more truck an' dicker--Pshaw! It takes my
breath away."

"It does mine, ma."

"Well,--_that's_ Chicago! You can always tell by a child when it's a
baby what it's goin' to be when it's a man. Chicago's a baby now, an'
a mighty puny one, too; but it's kickin' like a good feller, an' it's
gettin' strong; an', first you know, folks will be pourin' in here
faster 'n the Indians or cholera carried 'em off, ary one."

"Them ain't your own idees; they're Gaspar's and Kit's. He's gone
right to work, an' so has she; layin' out buildin' sites an' sendin'
East for any poor man that's had hard luck and wants to begin all over
again. Say--do you know--I--believe--that our Gaspar writes for the
newspapers. _Our Gaspar, ma! Newspapers! Out East!_"

"Well, I don't know why he shouldn't. Didn't I raise him?"

"Where do I come in, Mercy?"

"Wherever you can catch on, Abel. The best place I can see for you to
take hold is to start in an' build a new tavern,--a tavern big enough
to swing a cat in. Then I'll have a place to keep my sheets an' it'll
pay me to go and make 'em."

"How'd you know what was in my mind, Mercy?"

"Easy enough. Ain't I been makin' stirabout for you these forty years?
Don't I know the size of your appetite? Can't I cal'late the size of
your mind the same way? Why, Abel, I can tell by the way you brush
your wisps----"

"Ma, I'll send East an' buy me a wig. I 'low when a man's few hairs
can tattle his inside thoughts to the neighbors, it's time I took a
stand."

"Well, I think you might 's well. I think you'd look real becomin' in
a wig. I'd get it red and curly if I was you; and you'd ought to wear
a bosomed shirt every day. You really had."

"Mercy Smith! Are you out your head?"

"No. But when a man's the first tavern-keeper in this risin' town he
ought to dress to fit his station. I always did like you best in your
dickeys."

"Shucks! I'll wear one every day."

"I'm goin' to give up homespun. Calico's a sight prettier an' we can
afford it. We're real forehanded now, Abel."

"Hello! Here comes Kit. Let's ask her about the tavern. She's got more
sense in her little finger than most folks have in their whole bodies.
She's a different woman than she was before Wahneeny died. I shall
always be glad you an' her was reconciled when you parted. Hum, hum.
Poor Wahneeny! Poor old Doctor! Well, it can't be very hard to die
when folks are as good as they was. Right in the line of duty, too."

"Yes, Abel; but all the same I'm satisfied to think _our_ duty laid
out in the woods, takin' care Kit's children, 'stead of here amongst
the sickness. Wonderful, ain't it, how our girl came through?"

"She'll come through anything, Sunny Maid will; right straight through
this open door into her old Father Abel's arms, eh? Well, my dear,
what's the good word? How's Gaspar and the youngsters?"

"Well, of course. We are never ill; but, Mother Mercy, I heard you
were feeling as if you hadn't enough to do. I came in to see about
that. It's a state of things will never answer for our Chicago, where
there is more to be done than people to do it. Didn't you say you had
a brother out East who was a miller?"

"Yes, of course. Made money hand over fist. He's smarter 'n chain
lightning, Ebenezer is, if I do say it as hadn't ought to, bein' I'm
his sister."

"Well, I'd like his address. Gaspar wants him here. We must have
mills. The idea of our using hand-mills and such expedients to get our
flour and meal is absurd for these days."

"Pshaw, Kit! 'Tain't long since I had to ride as far as fifty miles to
get my grist ground, and when I got there there'd be so many before
me, I'd have to wait all night sometimes. 'First come first served' is
a miller's saying, and they did feel proud of the row of wagons would
be hitched alongside their places. I----"

"Come, Abel, don't reminisce. If there's one thing more tryin' to a
body's patience than another, it's hearin' about these everlastin'
has-beens."

Abel threw back his head and laughed till the room rang.

"Hear her, my girl! Just hear her! That's ma! That's Mercy! She's
caught the fever, or whatever 'tis, that ails this town. She's got no
more time to hark back. It's always get up and go ahead. What you
think? She's advising me to build a new tavern. _Me! Mercy_ advising
it! What do you think of that?"

"That it's a capital idea. We shall need it. We shall need more than
one tavern if all goes well. And it will. Now that the Indians are
gone forever,"--here Kitty breathed a gentle sigh,--"the white people
are no longer afraid. They have heard of our wonderful country and our
wonderful location,--right in the heart of the continent, with room on
every side to spread and grow eternally, indefinitely."

"Kitty, I sometimes think you an' Gaspar are a little _off_ on the
subject of your native town; for 'twasn't his'n; seein' what a
collection of disreputable old houses an' mud holes an' sloughs
of despond there's right in plain sight. But you seem to think
something's bound to happen and you two'll be in the midst of it."

The Sun Maid laughed, as merrily as in the old days, and answered
promptly:

"_I've_ never found any sloughs of despond and something _is_ bound
to happen. Katasha's dreams, or prophecies, whichever they were, are
to come true. There is something in the very air of our lake-bordered,
wind-swept prairie that attracts and exhilarates, and binds. That's
it,--_binds_. Once a dweller here by this great water, a man is bound
to return to it if he lives. Those soldiers who have gone away from
us, a mere handful, so to speak, will spread the story of our
beautiful land and will come again--a legion. It is our dream that
this little pestilence-visited hamlet will one day be one of the
marvels of the world; that to it will assemble people from all the
nations, to whom it will be an asylum, a home, and a treasure-house
for every sort of wealth and wisdom. In my fancies I can see them
coming, crowding, hastening; as in reality I shall some day see them,
and not far off. And in the name of all that is young and strong and
glorious--I bid them welcome!"

She stood in the open doorway and the sunlight streamed through it,
irradiating her wonderful beauty. The two old people, types of the
past, regarded her transfigured countenance with feelings not unmixed
with awe, and after a moment Abel spoke:

"Well, well, well! Kitty, my girl. Hum, hum! You yourself seem all
them things you say. Trouble you've had, an' sorrow; the sickness an'
Wahneeny; an' growin' up, an' love affairs; an' motherhood, an' all;
yet there you be, the youngest, the prettiest, the hopefullest, the
courageousest creature the Lord ever made. What is it, child; what is
it makes you so different from other folks?"

"Am I different, dear? Well, Mother Mercy, yonder, is looking
mystified and troubled. She doesn't half like my prophetic moods, I
know. I merely came, for Gaspar, to inquire about the miller. But I
like your own idea of the new tavern, and you should begin it right
away. Gaspar will lend you the money if you need it; and if you have
time for more sheets than these, Mercy dear, I'll send you over some
pieces of finer muslin and you might begin on a lot for our hospital."

"Your hospital? 'Tain't even begun nor planned."

"Oh, yes, it is planned. From my own experience and from books I can
guess what we will need. But there are doctors and nurses coming after
a time--There, there, dear. I will stop. I won't look ahead another
step while I'm here. But--it's coming--all of it!" she finished gayly,
as she turned from the doorway and passed down the forlorn little
street.

Was it "in the air," as the Sun Maid protested, that indomitable
courage and faith to do and dare, to plan, to begin, and to achieve?
Certain it is that in five years from that morning when Kitty Keith
had lingered in Mercy's doorway foretelling the future some, at least,
of her prophecies had materialized. Where then had been but two
hundred citizens were now more than twenty times that number. The
"crowding" had begun; and there followed years upon years of wonderful
growth; wherein Gaspar's cool head and shrewd business tact and
ever-deepening purse were always to the fore, at the demand of all who
needed either. In an unswerving singleness of purpose, he devoted his
energy and his ambition toward making his beloved home, as far as in
him lay, the leading home and mart of all the civilized world.

And the Sun Maid walked steadfastly by his side, adding to his efforts
and ambitions the sympathy of her great heart and cultured,
ever-broadening womanhood.

Thus passed almost a quarter-century of years so full and peaceful
that nothing can be written of them save the one word--happy. Yet at
the end of this long time, wherein Abel and Mercy had quietly fallen
on sleep and "Kit's little tackers" had grown up to be themselves
fathers and mothers, the Sun Maid's joy was rudely broken.

Not only hers, but many another's; for a drumbeat echoed through the
land, and the sound was as a death-knell.

Kitty looked into her husband's face and shivered. For the first time
in all his memory of her the Unafraid grew timid.

"Oh, Gaspar! War? Civil War! A family quarrel, of all quarrels the
most bitter and deadly. God help us!"



CHAPTER XXIII.

HEROES.


The Sun Maid's gaze into her husband's face was a prolonged and
questioning one. Before it was withdrawn she had found her answer.

There was still a silence between them, which she broke at last, and
it touched him to see how pale she had become and yet how calm.

"You are going, Gaspar?"

"Yes, my love; I am going. Already I have pledged my word, as my arm
and my purse."

"But, my dear, do you consider? We are growing old, even we, who have
never yet had time to realize it--till now. There are younger men,
plenty of them. Your counsels at home----"

"Would be empty words as compared to my example in the field. The
young of heart are never old. Besides, do you remember that once,
against my stubborn will, you resisted for duty's sake? We have never
regretted it, not for a day. More than that, when our first-born came
to us, do you remember how we clasped his tiny hand and resolved
always to lead it onward to the right? _Lead_ it, sweetheart. We
vowed never to say to him: 'Go!' to this or that high duty; but
rather, still holding fast to him, say: 'Come.' There is such a wide,
wide difference between the two."

Then, indeed, again she trembled. The mother love shook her visibly
and a secret rejoicing died a sudden death.

"'Come,' you say. But they are not here, in our own unhappy land.
Gaspar in Europe, Winthrop in South America, and Hugh in Japan. They
are better so."

"Are they better there? You will be the first to say 'no' when this
shock passes. A telegram will summon each as easily as we could call
them from that other room--supposing that they, your sons, wait for
the call. But they'll not. I know them and trust them. They are
already on the railways and steamships that will bring them fastest;
and it will truly be the 'Come with me!' that we elected, for we shall
all march together."

So they did; and it was the Sun Maid herself, standing proudly among
her daughters and daughters-in-law, yet more beautiful than any, who
fastened the last glittering button over each manly breast and flicked
away an imaginary mote from the spotless uniforms. Then she stood
aside and let them go; two by two, "step," "step"--as if in echo to
the first sound which had greeted her own baby ear.

But as they passed out of sight, transgressing military discipline
Gaspar turned; and once more the black eyes and the blue read in each
other's depths the unfathomable love that filled them. Then he was
gone and the younger Gaspar's wife lifted to her own aching bosom the
form that had sunk unconscious at her feet. For the too prescient
heart of the Sun Maid had pierced the future and she knew what would
befall her.

Yet before the gray shadow had quite left her face she rallied and
again smiled into the anxious countenances bending over her.

"Now, my dears, how foolish I was and how wasteful of precious time!
There is so much to be done for them and for ourselves. Gaspar's
business must not suffer, nor Son's (as she always called her eldest),
nor his brothers'. There are new hospitals to equip and nurses to
secure. Alas! there should be a Home made ready, even so soon, for the
widows and orphans of our soldiers. Let us organize into a regular
band of workers; just ourselves, as systematically as your father has
trained us to believe is best. There are six of us, a little army of
supplies and reinforcements. Though, Honoria, my daughter, shall I
count upon you?"

"Surely, Mother darling, though not here. Thanks to the hospital
course you let me enjoy, I can follow my father and brothers to the
front. I am a trained nurse, you know, and some will need me there."

The Sun Maid caught her breath with a little gasp. Then again she
smiled.

"Of course, Honoria; if you wish it. It is only one more to give; yet
you will be in little danger and your father in so much the less
because of your presence. Now let us apportion the other duties and
set about them."

This was quickly done; and to the mother herself remained the
assumption of all monetary affairs in her husband's private office in
their last new home; where, when they had removed to it, she had
inquired:

"Why such a palace, Gaspar, for two plain, simple folk like you and
me? It is big enough for a barrack, and those great empty 'blocks' on
every side remind me of our old days in Mercy's log cabin among the
woods."

"I like it, dear. There will be room in this big house to entertain
guests of every rank and station as they should be entertained in
our dear city. These empty squares about us shall keep their old
trees intact, but the grounds shall be beautified by the highest
landscape art, to which the full view of our grand lake will give
crowning charm. When we have done with it all we will give it to the
little children for a perpetual playground. Even the proposed new
enlargement of the city limits will hardly encroach upon us here."

"But it will, Gaspar, it surely will! When I hark back, as Abel used
to say, I find Katasha's prophecies and my old dreams more than
fulfilled. But the end is not yet, nor soon."

Now that her daughters were scattered to their various points of
usefulness and the Sun Maid was left alone with Hugh's one motherless
child--another Kitty--the great house seemed more empty than ever; and
its brave mistress resolved to people it with something more
substantial and needy than memories. So she gathered about her a host
to whom the cruel war had brought distress of one form or another;
while out among the trees of the park she erected a great barrack,
fitted with every aid to comfort and convalescence. This, like the
mansion, was speedily filled, and the "Keith Rest" became a household
word throughout the land.

The war which wise folk augured at its beginning, would be over in a
few days dragged its weary length into the months, and though for a
time there were many and cheerful letters, these ceased suddenly at
the last, giving place to one brief telegram from Honoria: "Mother, my
work here is ended. I am bringing home your heroes--four."

Upon the hearth-rug, Kitty the younger, lay stretched at her ease,
toying with the sharp nose of her favorite collie. She had the Sun
Maid's own fairness of tint and the same wonderful hair; but her eyes
were dark as her grandsire Gaspar's and saw many things which they
appeared not to see; for instance, that one of the numerous telegrams
her busy grandmother was always receiving had been read and dropped
upon the floor. Yet this was a common circumstance, and though she
felt it her duty to rise and return the yellow paper to the hand which
had held it, she delayed a moment, enjoying the warmth and ease. Then
Bruce, the collie, sat up and whined,--dolefully, and so humanly, it
seemed, that the girl also sprang up, demanding:

"Why, Bruce, old doggie, what do you hear? What makes you look so
queer?"

Then her own gaze followed the collie's to her grandmother's face and
her scream echoed through all the house.

"Grandmother! My darling Grandmother! Are you--are you
dead--dying--what----"

She picked up the telegram and read it, and her own happy young heart
faltered in its rhythm.

"Oh! awful! 'Bringing'--those precious ones who cannot come of
themselves. This will kill her. I believe it will kill even me."

But it did neither. After a space the rigidity left the Sun Maid's
figure and her staring eyes that had been gazing upon vacancy resumed
intelligence. Rising stiffly from her seat, she put the younger Kit
aside, yet very gently and tenderly, because of all her race this was
the dearest. Had not the child Gaspar's eyes?

"My girl, you will know what to do. I am going to my chamber, and must
be undisturbed."

Then she passed out of the cheerful library into that "mother's room,"
where her husband and her sons had gathered about her so often and so
fondly and in which she had bestowed upon each her farewell and
especial blessing. As the portiere fell behind her it seemed to her
that already they came hurrying to greet her, and softly closing the
door she shut herself in from all the world with them and her own
grief.

For the first time in all her life the Sun Maid considered her own
self before another; and for hours she remained deaf to young Kitty's
pleading:

"Let me come in, Grandmother. Let me come in. I am as alone as you--it
was my father, too, as well as your son!"

It was the dawn of another day before the door did open and the
mourner came out. Mourner? One could hardly call her that; for, though
the beautiful face was colorless and the eyes heavy with unshed
tears, there was a rapt, exalted look upon it which awed the
grandchild into silence. Yet for the first time she was startled by
the thought:

"We have lived together as if we were only elder and younger sister,
for she has had the heart of a child. But now I see--she is, indeed,
my grandmother--and she is growing old."

"Let all things be done decently and in order when Gaspar and the boys
come home," was all the direction the Sun Maid gave, and it was well
fulfilled. Yet, because she could not bear to be far apart from them,
she sat out the hours of watching in the little ante-room adjoining
the great parlor where her heroes lay in state, while all Chicago
gathered to do them reverence.

There was none could touch her grief, not one. It was too deep. It
benumbed even herself. Perhaps in all the land, during all that
dreadful time, there was no person so afflicted as she, who had lost
four at a blow. But she rose from her sorrow with that buoyant faith
and hopefulness which nothing could for long depress.

"There is unfinished work to do. Gaspar left it when he went away,
knowing I would take it up for him if he could never do it for
himself. There is no time in life for unavailing sorrow. Come, Kitty,
child. Others have their dead to bury, let us go forth and comfort
them."

Obedient Kitty went, her thoughts full of wonder and admiration:

"By massacre, famine, pestilence, and the sword! How has my dear 'Sun
Maid' been chastened, and how beautifully she has come through it all!
She could not have been half so lovely as a girl, when Grandfather met
and wooed her that morning on the prairie. I wonder have her trials
ended? or are there more in store before she is made perfect? I cannot
think of anything still which could befall her, unless I die or her
beloved city come to ruin. Well, I'll walk with her, hand in hand, and
if I live, I'll be as like her as I can."



CHAPTER XXIV.

CONCLUSION.


"What shall we do to celebrate your birthday, my child?" asked
Grandmother Kitty, early in that first week of October on whose
Saturday the young girl would reach to the dignity of sixteen years.
"All the conditions of your life are so different from mine at your
age: seeming to make you both older and younger--if you understand
what I mean--that I would like to hear your own wishes."

"They shall be yours, Grandma dearest. You always have such happy
ideas. I'd like yours best."

"No, indeed! Not this time. I want everything to be exactly as you
like this year; especially since you are now to assume the main charge
of some of our charities."

"I feel so unfitted for the responsibility you are giving me, Sun
Maid. I'm afraid I shall make many blunders."

"Doesn't everybody? And isn't it by seeing wherein we blunder and
avoiding the pitfall a second time that we learn to walk surely and
swiftly? You have been well trained to know the value of the money
which God has given you so plentifully and of that loving sympathy
which is better and richer than the wealth. I am not afraid for you,
though it is an excellent sign that you are afraid for yourself. Now a
truce to sermons. Let's hear the birthday wish. I am getting an old
lady and don't like to be kept waiting."

"Sunny Maid! you are not old, nor ever will be!"

"Not in my heart, darling. How can I feel so when there is so much
in life to do and enjoy? I have to bring myself up short quite
often and remind myself how many birthdays of my own have gone by;
though it seems but yesterday that Gaspar and I were standing by the
Snake-Who-Leaps and learning how to hold our bows that we might shoot
skilfully, even though riding bareback and at full speed, yet----"

"I believe that you could do the very same still; and that there isn't
another old lady----"

"Let me interrupt this time. Aren't you contradicting yourself? Were
you speaking of 'old' ladies?"

"You funny Grandma! Well, then, I don't believe there's another
young-old person in this great city can sit a horse as you do. If you
would only ride somewhere besides in our own park and just for once
let people see you! How many Snowbirds have you owned in your
lifetime, Grandmother?"

"One real Snowbird, with several imitations. Still, they have been
pretty fair, for Gaspar selected them and he was a fine judge of
horseflesh. You must remember that as long as he was with me we rode
together anywhere and everywhere he wished. He was a splendid
horseman."

"He was 'splendid' in all things, wasn't he, Sun Maid?" asked the
girl, with a lingering tenderness upon the other's Indian name and
knowing that it still was very pleasant in the ears of her who owned
it.

"He was a man. He had grown to the full stature of a man. That covers
all. But let's get back to birthday wishes. What are they?"

"They're pretty big; all about the new 'Girls' Home' where I am to
work for you. I think if the girls knew me, not as just somebody who
is richer than they and wants to do them good, but as an equal,
another giddy-head like themselves, it would make things ever so much
easier for all of us. I would like to go through all the big stores
and factories and places and find out every single girl who is sixteen
and have them out to Keith House for a real delightful holiday. And
because I like boys, and presume other girls do, too--Don't stiffen
your neck, please, Grandmother; remember there were you and
Gaspar----"

"But we were different."

"Maybe; yet these girls have brothers, and I wish I had. Never mind,
though. I'd like to invite them all out here for Saturday and Sunday.
On Saturday evening we'd have an old-fashioned young folks' party,
with games and frolics such as were common years and years ago. Then,
for Sunday, there'd be the ministers who are to stop here during that
convention that's coming, and they'd be glad, I know, to speak to us
young folks. It's perfect weather, and all day these young things who
are shut up all the week could roam about the park, or read, or rest
in the picture-gallery or library, and--eat."

The Sun Maid laughed.

"Do you really stop to think about the eating? How many do you imagine
would have to be fed? And I assure you, my young dreamer, that, though
it doesn't sound especially well, the feeding of her guests is one of
the most important duties of every hostess. But I'll take that part
off your hands. You attend to the spiritual and moral entertainment
and I'll order the table part. Yet your plan calls for many sleeping
accommodations. How about that?"

"I thought, Grandmother, maybe you'd let me open the 'Barrack' again.
That would do for the boys, and there's surely room enough in this
great house for all the girls who'd care to stay."

A shadow passed over the Sun Maid's face, but it--_passed_. In a
moment she looked up brightly and answered as, a few hours later, she
was to be most thankful she had done:

"Very well. After the war was over and I closed it I felt as if I
could never reopen the place. Though Gaspar and my boys never saw it,
somehow it seemed always theirs. I suppose because it had been built
for the benefit of those who had fought and suffered with them. Now I
see that this was morbid; and I am glad I have never torn the building
down, as I have sometimes thought I would. You may have it for your
friends and should set about airing and preparing it at once. Also, if
you are to give so many invitations, you would better start upon
them."

"Couldn't I just put an advertisement in the papers? That's so easy
and short."

"And--rude!"

"Rude?"

"Yes. There would be no compliment in a newspaper invitation. Would
you fancy one for yourself?"

"No, indeed, I should not. That rule of yours, to 'put yourself in his
place,' is a pretty good one, after all, isn't it?"

"Yes. Now order the carriage and I'll go with you on your rounds and
make a list as we do so of how many will need to be provided for. We
shall have a busy week before us."

"But a happy one, Grandmother. Your face is shining already, even more
than usual. I believe in your heart of hearts you love girls better
than anything else in this world."

"Maybe. Except--boys."

"And flowers, and animals. How they will enjoy the conservatories! And
it wouldn't be wrong, would it, to have out the horses between times
on Sunday and let these young things, who'd never had a chance, see
how glorious a feeling it is to ride a fine horse? Just around the
park, you know."

"Which would be quite as far as most of them would care to ride, I
fancy, for there are very few people who call their first experience
on horseback a 'glorious' one."

It was a busy week indeed, but a joyful one, full of anticipation
concerning the coming festivities. Never had the Sun Maid appeared
younger or gayer or entered more heartily into the preparations for
entertainment. A dozen times, maybe, during those mornings of shopping
and ordering and superintending, did she exclaim with fervor:

"Thank God for Gaspar's money, that makes us able to give others
pleasure!"

"Grandmother, even for a foreign nobleman you wouldn't do half so
much!"

"Foreign? No, indeed. To all their due; and to our own young
Americans, these toilers who are the glory of our nation, let every
deference be paid. Did you write about the orchestra? That was to play
during Saturday's supper?"

"Yes, indeed. I believe nothing is forgotten."

To the guests, who came at the appointed time, it certainly did not
seem so; and almost every one was there who had been asked.

"I did not believe that there could be found so many working girls in
Chicago who are just sixteen," cried the gay young hostess, standing
upon the great stair and looking down across the wide parlor, crowded
with bright, graceful figures.

"I did. My Chicago is a wonderful city, child. But I do not believe
that in any other city in the world could be gathered another such
assemblage. Typical American girls, every one. May God bless them!
Their beauty, their bearing, even their attire, would compare most
favorably with any company of young women who are far more richly
dowered by dollars. And the boys; even with their greater shyness, how
did they ever learn to be so courteous, so----"

"Oh, my Sun Maid! Answer yourself, in your own words. 'It's in the
air. It's just--Chicago!'"

When the fun was at the highest, there came a belated guest who
brought news that greatly disquieted the elder hostess, though none of
the merrymakers about her seemed to think it a matter half as
important as the next game on the list.

"A fire, broken out in the city? That is serious. The season is so dry
and there are many buildings in Chicago that would burn like
kindlings. However, let us hope it will soon be subdued; and there is
somebody calling you, I think."

Although anything which menaced the prosperity of the town she loved
so well always disturbed the Sun Maid, she put this present matter
from her almost as easily as she dismissed the youth who had brought
the bad tidings. The housing and entertaining of Kitty's guests was an
engrossing affair; and all Sunday was occupied in these duties; but on
Sunday night came a time of leisure.

It was then, while resting among her girls and discussing their early
departure in the morning--which their lives of labor rendered
necessary--that a second messenger arrived with a second message of
disaster.

"There's another fire downtown, and it's burning like a whirlwind!"

"We have an excellent fire department," answered the hostess, with
confident pride.

"It can't make much show against this blaze. I think those of us who
can should get home at once."

The Sun Maid's heart sank. The coming event had cast its shadow upon
her and, foreseeing evil, she replied instantly:

"Those who must go shall be conveyed at once; but I urge all who will
to remain. Keith House is as safe as any place can be if this fire
continues to spread. It is not probable, even at the best, that any of
you will be wanted at your employers' in the morning. The excitement
will not be over, even if the conflagration is."

The company divided. There were many who were anxious about home
friends and hastened away in the vehicles so hastily summoned; but
there were also many whose only home was a boarding-house and who were
thankful for the shelter and hospitality offered. Among these last
were some of the young men, and the Sun Maid summoned them to her own
office and discussed with them some plans of usefulness to others.

"We shall none of us be able to sleep to-night. I have a feeling that
we ought not. I wish, therefore, you would go out and engage all the
teams you possibly can from this neighborhood; and go with them and
their drivers to the threatened districts, as well as those already
destroyed. Our great house and grounds are open to all. Bring any who
wish, and assure them that they will be cared for."

"But there may be thieves among them," objected one lad, who had a
keener judgment of what might occur.

"There is always evil amid the good; but not for that reason should
any poor creature suffer. Remember I am able to help liberally in
money, and never so thankful as now that this is so. Go and do your
best."

They scattered, proud to serve her, and thrilled with the excitement
of that awful hour; but many were amazed to find that after a brief
time she had followed them herself.

The younger Kitty pleaded, though vainly, to prevent her grandmother's
departure, for the Sun Maid answered firmly:

"You are to take my place as mistress here. I will have the old
coachman drive me in the phaeton to the nearest point advisable. I
must be on the spot, but I will not recklessly risk myself. Only, my
dear, it is _our city_, Gaspar's and mine; almost a personal
belonging, since we two watched its growth from a tiny village to the
great town it has become. Gaspar would be there with his aid and
counsel. I must take his place."

There were many who saw her, and will forever remember the noble
woman, standing upright in the low vehicle at a point where two ways
met; with the light of the burning city falling over her wonderful
hair, that had long since turned snowy white, and bringing out the
beauty of a face whose loveliness neither age nor sorrow could dim.

The sadness in her tender eyes deepened as she could see the cruel
blaze sweeping on and on, wiping out home after home and hurling to
destruction the mighty structures of which she had been so personally
proud.

"Oh, I have loved it, I have loved it! Its very paving-stones have
been dear to me, and it is as if all these fleeing, homeless ones were
my own children. Well, it is--Chicago,--a city with a mission. It
cannot die. Let the fire do its worst; not all shall perish. There are
things which cannot burn. Again and again and again I have thanked God
for the wealth he led my Gaspar, the penniless and homeless, to
gain--for His own glory. Let the flames destroy unto the limit He has
set. Out of their ruins shall rise another city, fairer and lovelier
than this has been; richer because of this purification and far more
tender in its broad welcome to humanity."

Hour after hour she waited there, directing, comforting, assisting;
giving shelter and sustenance, and, best of all, the influence of her
high faith and indomitable courage. As it had done before, her clear
sight gazed into the future and beheld the glory that should be; and,
like every prophecy her tongue had ever uttered, this, spoken there in
the very light of her desolation, as it were, has already been more
than verified.

This all who knew the Beautiful City as it was and now know it as it
is will cheerfully attest; and some there are among these who deem it
their highest privilege to go sometimes to a stately mansion, set
among old trees, where in a sunshiny chamber sits an old, old lady,
who yet seems perennially young. Her noble head still keeps its heavy
crown of silver, her eye is yet bright, her intellect keen, and her
interest in her fellow-men but deepens with the years.

Very like her is the younger Kitty, who is never far away; who has
grown to be a person of influence in all her city's beneficence; and
who believes that there was never another woman in all the world like
her grandmother.

"Yes," she assures you earnestly, "she is the Sun Maid indeed,--a
fountain of delight to all who know her. She has still the heart of a
child and a child's perfect health. I confidently expect to see her
round her century."



      *      *      *      *      *



Transcriber's note:

Minor changes have been made to correct typesetters' errors; otherwise
every effort has been made to remain true to the author's words and
intent.





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