The Wild Man of the West by Robert Michael Ballantyne (epub e ink reader TXT) 📕

but he did not come to a final halt until the rising sun found him close to the camp of the dying woman.

The Indian now for the first time began partly to guess the object of his having been brought there, and steeled his heart to bear whatever might await him.

Dick dismounted, and grasping the Indian with a force that showed him how helpless he would be in a personal struggle should he venture to attempt it, led him forward, and placed him a few paces in front of his dying mother.

She was sitting just as she had been left, but the fire had gone out, and she trembled violently beneath the blanket which she had sought to pull closer around her wasted form. Dick blamed himself mentally for having put so little wood on the fire, and proceeded to rekindle it; but, before doing so, he took a chain from his saddle-bow, with which he fastened the Indian to a tree that stood exactly opposite the spot on which the old woman sat, and not ten paces distant. He bound him in such a way that he could sit on the ground and lean his back against the tree, but he could neither stand up nor lie down.

For the first time the countenance of the savage betrayed uneasiness. He believed, no doubt, that he was to be left to witness the dying agonies of his mother, and the thought filled him with horror. To leave her, as he did, to perish, had not been difficult, because he knew that he should not see the act of perishing; but to be brought there and compelled to witness this terrible doom acted out in all its minute and horrible details on the mother whom he had once loved so tenderly, was maddening to think of. All the dread tortures that had yet been invented and practised on warriors must have seemed to him as nothing compared with this awful device of the pale-face, on whom he now glared with the eyes of implacable hate and ferocity.

"Will the pale-face," he said fiercely, "cast me loose, and meet me hand to hand in a fair fight? Surely," he added, changing his tone to one of ineffable scorn, "the pale-face is not weak, he is not a small man, that he should fear a chief like Bighorn."

"Hark'ee! Bighorn," said Dick, striding up to him, and laying the cold edge of his hatchet on the Indian's forehead; "if you speak another word above yer breath, the pale-face will cleave ye to the chin."

There was something so thoroughly resolute in Dick's voice that the Indian was cowed effectually.

The fire was soon lighted, and Dick chafed and warmed the limbs of the old woman until he brought back the vital spark. Then he set on the kettle to boil. While a new mess was preparing, he went into the wood, and, with lusty blows, brought down the trees and cut them into huge billets, which he piled upon the fire until it roared again, and the heart of the feeble creature began to beat once more with somewhat of its wonted vigour. This done, he arranged a couch in such a way that she might get the full benefit of the heat without being scorched; after which he rubbed down his good steed and cast it loose to feed. Then he cooked and ate some food, but offered never a bit to the Indian, who gazed at him as he performed these various actions with ever-increasing amazement and anxiety.

Then Dick sat down beside the old woman, to feed and tend her till she should die; and he knew the signs of death too well to suppose that his care would long be required. All that day, and all that night, and all the next day, did the trapper, the old woman, and the Indian, remain in much the same position. Dick moved about a little, to give the old woman food and drink as she required it, and to wrap the blanket more comfortably round her, for which kind deeds the poor creature often tried to gaze fondly in his face with her sightless eyes.

During all this time her son sat opposite, observing every look and motion, yet unable himself to move. The pangs of hunger now began to gnaw within him, and from his cramped position, he became so cold that he trembled violently in every limb, despite his efforts to command himself. But Dick paid no attention whatever to him; he knew that he was strong, and could stand it. Once the Indian implored his jailer to give him some food, but Dick said sternly, "I'll give ye food before ye die, _if ye keep quiet_."

At last, about nightfall of the second day, the sands of life began to run slowly. Dick saw that the old woman's end was approaching, so he rose, and, going towards her son, he placed food before him. He devoured it ravenously. Then he gave him drink, and, loosing him, led him to the fire, where he speedily recovered his wonted heat and energy. After that, Dick led him to his mother's side and made him kneel.

"Mother," said Dick, "can you see and hear me?"

"Ay; but you are not my son," said the dying woman faintly. "You are a pale-face--you are very good--but you are not my son."

"True, mother; but see, I have brought your son back to you!--Lay your hand on her forehead," he added in that low, stern undertone which he had used throughout to Bighorn, who could not but obey. "Stroke her head, look in her eyes, and speak to her."

The redman did not require to be told now. A natural impulse led him to do as he was bid. The instant the tones of his voice struck her ear, the old woman seemed to awaken with a start; she looked up eagerly, caught the hand that touched her forehead, and, passing her own thin hand up to the Indian's face, felt the scar over his eye, as if to render herself doubly sure. Then she grasped the hand again in both of hers, and, taking it under the blanket, pressed it to her withered breast and held it tightly there.

But that burst of unexpected joy hastened the falling of the last few grains of sand. For ten minutes longer they watched her as the breath went and came more and more feebly. Then it ceased altogether, and death sealed her eyes. But she did not release the hand of her son. He had some difficulty in loosening that clasp of maternal love which was stronger even than death.

After all was over, Dick seized the Indian and led him to the tree, to which he chained him again. Then he dug a grave in the soft soil, in which he placed the body of the old woman with gentle care. Having covered it over he went into the woods, caught and saddled his horse, and led him towards the wondering savage, whom he once more unbound and set free.

"Bighorn," said Dick impressively, "you've been made to comfort and gladden the heart o' yer old mother in her last moments. If ye was a pale-face, ye'd thank the Great Spirit for that to the last day o' yer life. If ye ever do come to think like the pale-faces, you'll remember that you've to thank me for bringing ye here. Go, tell the redskins who it is that caught ye, and what he did and said to ye."

Saying this, Dick mounted his horse and rode very slowly into the forest, leaving the redman standing by the side of his mother's grave.

After Mary had concluded this story, which, we may remark, she related with much fewer comments than we have seen fit to pass upon it, she and March looked at each other for a long time in silence. Then March suddenly exclaimed--

"He's a splendid fellow--Dick!"

Mary, both by looks and words, highly approved of this opinion. "And yet," said she somewhat abstractedly, "this bees the man who peepils call--"

Mary pursed her lips suddenly.

"Call _what_?" inquired March quickly.

"Wicked, wild, bad man," replied Mary, who, fortunately, could say all this with perfect truth without betraying her secret. In fact, poor Mary had never had a secret confided to her before, and having been told by the Wild Man of the West that she was on no account to reveal his real title to their guest, she was in the utmost perplexity lest it should slip out unawares.

"Mary," said March, who was always stumbling upon the verge of the truth in a most unaccountable way, without actually getting hold of it, "have you ever seen the Wild Man of the West?"

"Yes," replied the girl with a gay smile.

"Have you? Well now, that's odd! How much I should like to see him. To tell you the truth, one of my chief reasons for coming here was to see him. What like is he?"

"Like Dick," replied the girl quietly.

"Like Dick!" echoed March in surprise; "why, that's what Dick said himself, and yet, by all accounts, his character must be very different from that of Dick, who seems to be the kindest, tenderest-hearted man that ever came to trap in the Rocky Mountains."

"What does peepil say 'bout this Wild Mans of the West?" inquired Mary.

"That he's awful fierce an' terrible cruel, an' ten or fifteen feet high, I forget which, for everybody gives him a different height."

Mary laughed. "Bees that all?"

"Oh no! They say he eats men."

Mary laughed again.

"An' women and bars--raw."

Mary laughed louder and longer than ever, and when she laughed she looked so ineffably sweet that March resolved to go on with the catalogue of the Wild Man's virtues piecemeal, waiting for the laugh between each statement, until there was not another idea left in his brain for his tongue to utter. But this amiable intention was frustrated by the report of a gun outside, which echoed and re-echoed among these savage cliffs like muttering thunder. It was followed by a yell that caused Mary to start up with a look of horror and rush out of the cave, leaving the invalid in a most distressing state of uncertainty as to what he should do, and in no little anxiety as to what would happen next.


CHAPTER NINETEEN.


THE MYSTERIES OF THE CAVE EXPLAINED--INGENIOUS DEVICES OF THE WILD MAN-- MARCH AND MARY BESIEGED--THE REDSKINS PROCEED TO MAKE THEMSELVES AT HOME IN THE CAVERN.

There are few things in this world which are not somewhat mysterious, or that cannot be, by a peculiar combination of circumstances, more or less invested with mystery; and we hold it to be an unfair and a very paltry device on the part of an author to seek to mystify his readers by keeping them in unnecessary ignorance of that which is in itself simple and commonplace.

Therefore, we beg leave to state that the apparent mystery with which we concluded the last chapter was not a mystery at all! The loud report there referred to was caused by a savage discharging his gun, and the cry that followed was the result of that same savage opening his ugly mouth and giving vent to a