The Prairie Chief by Robert Michael Ballantyne (reading cloud ebooks .txt) 📕

for a few moments, and then resumed--

"One of your father's horses is hobbled down in the willow swamp. He put it there because the feeding is good, and has left no one to guard it because the place is not easily found, as you know, and thieves are not likely to think of it as a likely place. What you must do is to go as near our lines as you dare, and give the signal of the owl. Rushing River will understand it, and go away at once. He will not travel fast, for his heart will be heavy, and revenge to him is no longer sweet. That will give you time to cross the camp, creep past the sentinels, run down to the swamp, mount the horse, and go by the short cuts that you know of until you get in front of the party or overtake them. After that you must lead them to the block-house," (Brighteyes never would consent to call it Tim's Folly after she understood the meaning of the name), "and let the chief manage the rest. Go. You have not a moment to lose."

She gave her daughter a final embrace, pushed her out of the tent and then sat down with the stoicism of a Red Indian to continue her work and listen intently either for the savage yells which would soon indicate the failure of the enterprise, or the continued silence which would gradually prove its success.


CHAPTER FIFTEEN.


PLOT AND COUNTERPLOT.

Moonlight sauntered through the camp carelessly at first with a blanket over her head after the manner of Indian women; but on approaching the outskirts, nearest to the spot where Rushing River was concealed, she discarded the blanket, sank into the grass like a genuine apparition, and disappeared. After creeping a short way, she ventured to give the three hoots of the owl.

An Indian brave, whose eyes were directed sentimentally to the stars, as though he were thinking of his lady-love--or buffalo steaks and marrow-bones--cocked his ears and lowered his gaze to earth, but as nothing more was to be seen or heard, he raised his eyes and thoughts again to love--or marrow-bones.

Very different, as may be supposed, was the effect of those three hoots upon Rushing River, as he lay on the grass in perfect silence, listening intently. On hearing the sounds, he sprang up as though an arrow had pierced him, and for a few moments the furious glare of a baffled savage gleamed in his dark eyes, as he laid a hand on his tomahawk; but the action was momentary, and in a short time the look passed away. It was succeeded by a calm aspect and demeanour, which seemed to indicate a man devoid of all feeling--good or bad.

"Skipping Rabbit," he said, taking the hand of the child in his, and patting her head, "you are soon to be with your father--and with Moonlight. Rushing River goes back to his people. But the skipping one must not move from this tree till some of her people come to fetch her. There is danger in moving--perfect safety in sitting still."

He moved as if about to go, but suddenly turned back and kissed the child. Then he muttered something in a low tone to his companions, and strode into the dark forest.

Umqua then advanced and gave the little one a tremendous hug. She was evidently struggling to suppress her feelings, for she could hardly speak as she said--

"I--I _must_ go, dear child. Rushing River commands. Umqua has no choice but to obey." She could say no more, but, after another prolonged hug, ran rapidly away.

Hitherto Eaglenose had stood motionless, looking on, with his arms folded. Poor boy! he was engaged in the hardest fight that he had yet experienced in his young life, for had he not for the first time found a congenial playmate--if we may venture to put it so--and was she not being torn from him just as he was beginning to understand her value? He had been trained, however, in a school where contempt of pain and suffering was inculcated more sternly even than among the Spartans of old.

"Skipping one," he said, in a low, stern voice, "Eaglenose must leave you, for his chief commands, but he will laugh and sing no more."

Even through her tears the skipping one could scarce forbear smiling at the tone in which this was uttered. Fortunately, her face could not be seen.

"O yes, you will laugh and sing again," she said, "when your nose is better."

"No, that cannot be," returned the youth, who saw--indeed the child intended--nothing humorous in the remark. "No, I will never more laugh, or pull the string of the jumping-jack; but," he added, with sudden animation, as a thought struck him, "Eaglenose will bring the jumping-jack to the camp of Bounding Bull, and put it in the hands of the skipping one, though his scalp should swing for it in the smoke of her father's wigwam."

He stooped, took the little face between his hands, and kissed it on both cheeks.

"Don't--don't leave me," said the child, beginning to whimper.

"The chief commands, and Eaglenose must obey," said the youth.

He gently unclasped the little hands, and silently glided into the forest.

Meanwhile Moonlight, utterly forgetting amid her anxieties the arrangement about Skipping Rabbit, sauntered back again through the camp till she reached the opposite extremity, which lay nearest to the willow swamp. The lines here were not guarded so carefully, because the nature of the ground rendered that precaution less needful. She therefore managed to pass the sentinels without much difficulty, and found, as she had been told, that one of her father's horses was feeding near the willow swamp. Its two fore-legs were fastened together to prevent it straying, so that she caught it easily. Having provided herself with a strong supple twig, she cut the hobbles, vaulted lightly on the horse's back, and went off at a smart gallop.

Moonlight did not quite agree with her mother as to the effect of disappointment on her lover. Although heaviness of heart might possibly induce him to ride slowly, she thought it much more likely that exasperation of spirit would urge him to ride with reckless fury. Therefore she plied her switch vigorously, and, the light increasing as she came to more open ground, she was able to speed swiftly over a wide stretch of country, with which she had been familiar from childhood, in the hope of intercepting the Blackfoot chief.

After a couple of hours' hard riding, she came to a narrow pass through which she knew her lover must needs go if he wished to return home by the same path that had led him to the camp of his enemy. Jumping quickly from her steed, she went down on her knees and examined the track. A sigh of relief escaped her, for it was evident that no one had passed there that day towards the west. There was just a bare possibility, however, that the chief had taken another route homeward, but Moonlight tried hard to shut her eyes to that fact, and, being sanguine of temperament she succeeded.

Retiring into a thicket, she tied her horse to a tree, and then returned to watch the track.

While seated there on a fallen tree, thinking with much satisfaction of some of her recent adventures, she suddenly conceived a little plot, which was more consistent with the character of Skipping Rabbit than herself, and rose at once to put it into execution. With a knife which she carried in her girdle she cut and broke down the underwood at the side of the track, and tramped about so as to make a great many footmarks. Then, between that point and the thicket where her steed was concealed, she walked to and fro several times, cutting and breaking the branches as she went, so as to make a wide trail, and suggest the idea of a hand-to-hand conflict having taken place there. She was enabled to make these arrangements all the more easily that the moon was by that time shining brightly, and revealing objects almost as clearly as if it had been noonday.

Returning to the pass, she took off the kerchief with which she usually bound up her luxuriant brown hair, and placed it in the middle of the track, with her knife lying beside it. Having laid this wicked little trap to her satisfaction, she retired to a knoll close at hand, from which she could see her kerchief and knife on the one hand and her horse on the other. Then she concealed herself behind the trunk of a tree.

Now it chanced at that very time that four of the young braves of Bounding Bull's camp, who had been sent out to hunt were returning home laden with venison, and they happened to cross the trail of Moonlight at a considerable distance from the pass just mentioned. Few things escape the notice of the red men of the west. On seeing the trail, they flung down their loads, examined the prints of the hoofs, rose up, glared at each other, and then ejaculated "Hough!" "Ho!" "Hi!" "Hee!" respectively. After giving vent to these humorous observations, they fixed the fresh meat in the forks of a tree, and, bending forward, followed up the trail like bloodhounds.

Thus it happened that at the very time when Moonlight was preparing her practical joke, or surprise, for Rushing River, these four young braves were looking on with inexpressible astonishment, and preparing something which would indeed be a surprise, but certainly no joke, to herself and to all who might chance to appear upon the scene. With mouths open and eyes stretched to the utmost, these Bounding Bullers--if we may so call them--lay concealed behind a neighbouring mound, and watched the watcher.

Their patience was not put to a severe test. Ere long a distant sound was heard. As it drew near it became distinctly like the pattering sound of galloping steeds. The heart of Moonlight beat high, as she drew closer into the shelter of the tree and clasped her hands. So did the hearts of the Bounding Bullers, as they drew closer under the brow of the mound, and fitted arrows to their bows.

Moonlight was right in her estimate of the effect of disappointment on her lover. He was evidently letting off superfluous steam through the safety-valve of a furious pace. Presently the cavalcade came sweeping into the pass, and went crashing through it--Rushing River, of course, in advance.

No cannon ball was ever stopped more effectually by mountain or precipice than was our Indian chief's career by Moonlight's kerchief and knife. He reined in with such force as to throw his steed on its haunches, like the equestrian statue of Peter the Great; but, unlike the statuesque animal, Rushing River's horse came back to the position of all-fours, and stood transfixed and trembling. Vaulting off, the chief ran to the kerchief, and picked it up. Then he and Eaglenose examined it and the knife carefully, after which they turned to the track through the bushes. But here caution became necessary. There might be an ambuscade. With tomahawk in one hand, and scalping-knife in the other, the chief advanced slowly, step by step, gazing with quick intensity right and