How Big Black Burl Figured in His Triumph.

"What a pity! what a pity! what a pity!" the little log mill still went on saying to the little log fort, and making the little log fort yet sadder and lonesomer than had it held its peace, and not tried so hard to play the comforter.

From noon to noon, with a dreary night between, hour after hour passed heavily, wearily by. And there, at the door of her desolate home, still sat the widowed mother, waiting and watching, her eyes turned ever toward the perilous north—waiting and watching as only those can wait and watch whose hearts are telling them that any hour may bring them the tidings that all they hold most dear on earth is lost to them forever. In homely kindness and sympathy her neighbors strove to comfort her, and rouse her from the lethargy of grief into which she seemed to be sinking. They forgot how little mere words of condolence, however tender and pitying, can avail, until the stricken heart, having taken in its full measure of sorrow, can begin to accommodate itself to the new presence, and be brought once more to feel that although much is lost still more remains for gratitude and peace.

Toward noon the next day the hunters, who had gone out in pursuit of the savages, weary and sad returned to the fort. After parting with Burl, they had not ascended more than a mile into the hills, when the larger trail made its reÄppearance on the banks of the more easterly of the two forks, whose united waters formed the little river which turned the mill of the settlement. Rejoining their parties, they had renewed the chase with spirit, the trail now leading in a direct line toward the Ohio, whose banks they had reached at sunset, and just in time to send a volley of bullets after the fugitives, who, however, before the pursuers were up with them, had regained their canoes and put a broad stretch of the river between themselves and the perilous shore. The hunters had had a clear view of the Indians as they landed on the opposite side, and having made sure that there were no white prisoners among them, they had given over the chase, convinced that the unfortunate Bushie must have been borne away in some other direction by the three Indians whose traces had been discovered at the corn-field fence, and lost sight of in the larger trail. One chance more, however, remained to them: Big Black Burl was still abroad, and so long as that faithful and courageous fellow kept the war-path, good reason had they for hoping that all yet might end well.

The sun was nigh his setting; a few more far-reaching winks of his great bright eye and he would be sinking behind the evening hills of green Kentucky, and rising above the morning hills of China. Already had the horses and cattle—as was the custom of the times when Indians were known to be across the border—been brought for the night within the shelter of the fort. Already the ponderous wooden gate was swinging creakingly to on its ponderous wooden hinges; but just as its ponderous wooden bolt was sliding into the ponderous wooden staple, out from the neighboring forest ringing, with echo on echo, it came—the old familiar cry, the trumpet-call to battle abroad, the note of brotherly cheer at home: "I yi, you dogs!"—too jocund and triumphant for any one whose ears had caught the glad sound to doubt that glad tidings were coming. Straightway reÖpening the gate and looking forth, the hunters spied, moving toward them through the bushes in the edge of the woods, first the plumed crest of an Indian warrior, then a more spreading display of bright feathers, so high aloft that one could fancy they topped the head of a giant full eight feet high, who came treading close behind. For a few moments this was all that could be seen; till now, full over the ragged skirts of the forest, there in open view, they came—the young Indian in front, with his load of rifles laid across his arm; then Big Black Burl, bristling all over with hatchets and knives; and lastly, with a consequential twist of the tail and with the plumed scalp-lock of an Indian waving over his neck, the invincible Grumbo bringing up the rear.

And there, triumphantly borne aloft on the shoulders of our big black hero, his sturdy young legs astride his deliverer's neck and dangling down in front, bare and brier-scratched, his arms clasped tightly around the bear-skin war-cap, his own little coon-skin cap all brave with the pride of the war-bird—there sat our little white hero, that self-same runaway Bushie, whose froward legs had so well-nigh carried him to death's door, and on whose account a whole settlement had been unsettled from dinner-time yesterday till supper-time to-day. But what a shout that was which at this sight went pealing up from the fort to the sky, went pealing down from the fort to the mill, which, just at this moment received the reserved water upon its wheel, and all on a sudden, clearing its wooden throat with a squeak, ceased droning, "What a pity! what a pity!" and fell to singing, in double-quick time, "What a naughty! what a naughty! what a naughty!" Some of the hunters ran in to bear the poor mother the joyful tidings, some ran out to meet and welcome the returning conqueror, while others opened the gate to its utmost width to let the conqueror in. On they came, vanquished and victor; Bushie grinning at them from over the head of the Fighting Nigger; the Fighting Nigger grinning at them from over the head of the Indian; and the Indian, with dignified composure, looking the whole white settlement full in the face. Without a halt, right through the gate-way they drove, "like a wagon and team with a dog behind," to use the conqueror's own expressive words; nor could words have expressed more, had they told of the rumble of chariot-wheels. Hardly were they over the sill when, to bring the triumph to a climax, here, followed by all the women, and children, and dogs, screaming, shouting, barking, laughing, crying—those gladder who cried than those who laughed, those gladder who barked than those who shouted—came running Miss Jemimy, to meet them.

Turning his back square on his mistress, the conqueror let the rescued treasure tumble bodily from his shoulders into the eager arms, upon the yearning bosom. With incoherent expressions of endearment to her darling boy, of thanks to their brave and faithful servant, and of praise to the merciful Father of all, the widowed mother clasped the lost and found to her heart, being in turn all but choked and smothered by the hugs and kisses of the delighted Bushie. Then, hand in hand, they hastened to their cabin and shut the door behind them with a timbersome bang, which said as plainly as a puncheon-door, with oaken hinges and hickory latch, could say any thing, "Let us have the first hour of recovered happiness to ourselves." It was a sight for which full many a stern, hard eye that saw it grew for the moment the brighter, if not the clearer; and Burl, though he made a manful effort to keep it back, was forced to yield the point and let it come—the one big sob of tender and grateful feeling, which, sending a quiver through his huge frame, made his martial rigging shake and jingle like the harness of a whinnying war-horse.

The hunters now gathered round the hero of the day and called upon him for an account of his adventures since parting with them at the forks of the river the day before. He told his story modestly and briefly enough, being well aware that there were those among his listeners far more learned in wood-craft than himself, and more skilled in the arts and stratagems of Indian warfare. Too magnanimous was he, though, to pass so briefly over the part his prisoner had played in the matter, dwelling at some length on the gentleness and humanity with which the young Indian had treated his little master. When he had ended, the white hunters, one and all, came up to him and shook him heartily by the hand, pronouncing him an Indian-fighter of the true grit—a compliment, in the Fighting Nigger's estimation, the highest that could be paid to mortal man, black, yellow, or white. Then, going up to the young Indian, who, leaning on his rifles, had stood the while with his bright eyes fixed serenely on some invisible quarter of the evening, they, one and all, shook him, likewise, as heartily by the hand—a dumb but eloquent expression of their grateful sense of the humanity he had shown their little friend in his hour of helpless peril and piteous need. The young brave received the demonstration with dignified composure; not, though, as if he had expected it, for, at the first greeting, he did lose his self-possessed reserve so far as to betray a little sign of great surprise.

While our big black hero was narrating their adventures to the hunters without, our little white hero was giving his version of the same to his mother within—a medley of facts and fancies, where it was about nip and tuck between his old black chum and his young red friend as to which might claim the greater share of the juvenile gratitude and admiration. Being gently reproved by his mother for his naughty behavior, which had been the cause of so much trouble and distress to them all, the young transgressor, for the first time in his life without the help of a switch to make him feel and know the error of his ways, besought his mother's forgiveness; only just let him off for that one time and he never, never would run away with the Indians again as long as he lived—winding up the comforting assurance with a cub-like hug, to make the surer of clearing his legs of the switching he felt he richly deserved.

Having heard the rigmarole from beginning to end, and from end to beginning, and then from middle to middle again, and gathered therefrom that he to whom she owed her dear boy's life was wounded, Mrs. Reynolds sent Bushie with word to Burl to bring the young Indian to her door. When they were come, she made a few inquiries of Burl himself with regard to their adventures, and when answered, she bid him go and bring a keeler of water, that they might wash and dress the prisoner's wound. When the water was brought, she took off the bloody bandages from the crippled arm and gently laved and washed the wound, which by this time was much inflamed and swollen; then anointing it with some healing-salve, she bound it up again with clean bandages. This humane office duly done, the good woman bid Burl take the young Indian to his own cabin, there to be lodged and entertained with all hospitality till, healed of his wound, he should be able to shift for himself, when he should be allowed to return in peace to his own people.

And as his mistress bid him did Burl right willingly do playing the host in magnificent style, and setting before his captive guest the best his house afforded, not suffering a morsel to pass his own or Grumbo's lips till the claims of hospitality were fully met. This last, however, was a piece of etiquette not at all to the war-dog's taste, since two hungry Christian mouths were thereby made to water, and that too only out of respect to a red heathen, who, as such, in his dogship's opinion, deserved no better treatment at their hands than a common cur. Therefore did Grumbo harden his heart all the more against the red barbarian, holding him in worse odor than before.

Victor and vanquished were still at their friendly repast when all the ebony of the settlement—to the number of about thirty, men, women, and children—came flocking to the Fighting Nigger's cabin, and stood gathered in a close, black knot at the door, waiting with eager ears to hear the great event of the day from the hero's own lips; nor with eyes less eager to get a peep at the prisoner of war, a "live Injun"—a sight that some of them had never seen before. Their wonderment was much excited to see how a red varmint could drink its water from a tin instead of needing to suck it up from a trough, like a horse; how it could eat its meat with a knife and fork, bite by bite, instead of gulping it up whole, like a dog; and how it could do many other things in the civilized, human way, which they had supposed peculiar to "black people and white folks." Supper ended, mine host filled and lighted his own pipe, and blandly showing the whites of his eyes, offered it to his captive guest. The captive guest, with a graceful acknowledgment, accepted the pipe, and with grave decorum began smoking, sending out the puffs at slow and regular intervals, and looking straight before him; sometimes at the curling smoke, then, through the smoke, at the opposite wall; then, through the wall—for so it seemed—at some object on the other side of the Ohio River, miles away in the gathering shades of evening. Once he turned his bright eyes full on the clump of shining black faces at the door, and scanned them attentively, though seemingly with as little consciousness of their living, personal presence as were they but so many stuffed specimens of their kind piled up there for exhibition. But glancing downward and spying three or four little woolies peeping fearfully at him from between the legs of the larger ones—the stride of the legs perceptibly widened "to give the little fellows a chance"—then did the young brave discharge a puff one second before its time, sending it with a force that carried it in a straight line to the bowl of the pipe before it began to rise. But for this, you would hardly have thought that the Indian had seen any thing that seemed to him alive or human or funny.

"Cap'n Rennuls, stop yo' monkey-shines ober de red varmint in dar, an' come out an' git up an' make us a speech," at length said one of the ebony brotherhood at the door, promoting our hero on the spot, and adding a still higher title to the illustrious list already coupled with his name.