IN THE INDIAN CAMP

I IT cut me deeply to think that this girl would willingly sacrifice me to save the French gallant from injury, and an anxiety to escape her presence before I should speak words I might always regret caused me to leave with scant ceremony. Yet I was none too soon; for scarce had I stepped without the door when I met Lieutenant Helm ascending the steps. "Ah, Wayland!" he said, catching sight of me, "do you happen to know where I am most likely to find Captain de Croix?"

"He is scarcely to be disturbed at present, unless the matter be truly urgent," I replied, my plan hastily sketched in mind. "Have you arranged a banquet in honor of the Frenchman?"

"No such good fortune," was the grave response. "Captain Heald desires his company upon an immediate mission to the Pottawattomie camp."

"Oh, is that all? Well, Captain de Croix will hardly be found sufficiently recovered from his late adventure to enter upon another one so early. 'Tis in my thought he either sleeps or is prinking himself for more pleasant conquests. But why worry him? In my judgment, no poorer choice could be made for so serious a task as you propose. He is a mere French courtier,—brave enough, and rash, I grant, yet without knowledge of Indian ways and treachery. Might not I answer better as his substitute?"

"You?"

"Ay! and why not? I am frontier-bred, long trained in woodcraft and savage ways, and surely far better fitted for such a task than is this petted darling of the courts. Were it a flirtation, now, the post might be truly his."

"'Tis true, you would be my choice; but do you realize the peril involved?"

"Fully, my friend, yet scarce think it so desperate as you imagine. It is my judgment the savages yonder are seeking bigger game than so small a party would afford, and will therefore allow us to go free. However, if it should prove otherwise," and I spoke the words with a sore heart as I recalled what had just occurred, "I am a lone man in the world, and to such an one death is not so terrible, even at Indian hands. Come, I will go with you to confer with Captain Heald, and offer him my services. He can do no more than refuse."

Helm offered no further objection, doubtless feeling it useless in my venturesome mood; and we crossed the parade together without speaking.

Captain Wells was the first to see me as we entered, and some instinct told him instantly of my purpose.

"Ah, Wayland, my boy! I have been troubled lest you might chance to hear of our plight, and jump in. Come now, lad! 'twas not you we sent after, nor can we use you in so grave a matter."

"And pray, why not?" I questioned, a little touched by this evidence of kindness, yet firmly determined to keep my pledge to Mademoiselle. "I am a better man for such deeds than the Frenchman, and am eager to go."

"So this is not your Captain de Croix?" said Captain Heald, eying me curiously. "Saint George! but he is a big fellow,—the same who made the race last night, or I mistake greatly. And what is this man's name?"

"It is John Wayland," I answered, anxious to impress him favorably; "a frontiersman of the Maumee country, and fairly skilled in Indian ways. I have come to volunteer my services to go with you."

"You are anxious to die? have the spirit of a Jesuit, perchance, and are ambitious of martyrdom?"

"Not unusually so, sir, but I think the danger overrated by these gentlemen. At least, I am ready and willing to go."

"And so you shall, lad!" cried the old soldier, striking a hand upon his knee. "You are of the race of the long rifles; I know your kind well. Not another word, William! here is a man worth any twenty of your French beaux strutting with a sword. Now we start at once, and shall have this matter settled speedily."

The earliest haze of the fast-descending twilight was hovering over the level plain as we two went forth. In the west, the red tinge of the sun, which had just disappeared below the horizon, lingered well up in the sky. Against it we could see, clearly outlined in inky blackness, the distant Indian wigwams; while to the eastward the crimson light was reflected in fantastic glow upon the heaving surface of the lake. For a moment we paused, standing upon the slope of the mound on which the Fort was built, and gazed about us. There was little movement to arrest the eye. The dull, dreary level of shore and prairie was deserted; what the more distant mounds of sand or the overhanging river banks might hide of savage watchers, we could only conjecture. Seemingly the mass of Indian life, which only the day before had overflowed that vacant space, had vanished as if by some sorcerer's magic. To me, this unexpected silence and dreary barrenness were astounding; I gazed about me fairly bewildered, almost dreaming for the moment that our foes had lifted the long siege and departed while I slept. Heald no doubt read the thought in my eyes, for he laid a kindly hand upon my sleeve and pointed westward.

"They are all yonder, lad, at the camp,—in council, like enough. Mark you, Wayland, how much farther to the south the limit of their camp extends than when the sun sank last night? Saint George! they must have added all of fifty wigwams to their village! They gather like crows about a dead body. It has an ugly look."

"Yet 'tis strange they leave the Fort unguarded, so that the garrison may come and go unhindered. 'Tis not the usual practice of Indian warfare."

"Unguarded? Faith! the hundreds of miles of wilderness between us and our nearest neighbor are sufficient guard. But dream not, my lad, that we are unobserved; doubtless fifty pair of skulking eyes are even now upon us, marking every move. I venture we travel no more than a hundred yards from the gate before our way is barred. Note how peaceful the stockade appears! But for the closed gates, one would never dream it the centre of hostile attack. Upon my word, even love-making has not deserted its log-walls!"

I lifted my eyes where he pointed, and even at that distance, and through the gathering gloom, I knew it was De Croix and Mademoiselle who overhung those eastern palisades in proximity so close. The sight was as fire to my blood, and with teeth clinched to keep back the mad utterance of a curse, I strode beside Captain Heald silently down the declivity to the deserted plain below.

It is my nature to be somewhat chary of speech, and to feel deeply and long; but if I doubted it before, I knew now, in this moment of keen and bitter disappointment, that my heart was with that careless girl up yonder, who had sent me forth into grave peril apparently without thought, and who cared so little even now that she never lifted her eyes from the sparkling water to trace our onward progress. Anger, disappointment, disgust at her duplicity, her cruel abuse of power, swept over and mastered me at the moment when I realized more deeply than ever my own love for her, and my utter helplessness to oppose her slightest whim. No Indian thongs could bind me half so tightly as the false smiles of Toinette.

Plunged into this whirlpool of thought, I moved steadily forward at Captain Heald's shoulder, unconscious of what might be taking place about us, and for the moment indifferent to the result of our venture. But this feeling was not for long. Scarcely had our progress taken us across the front of the deserted agency building, and beyond the ken of the sentinels in the Fort, when a single warrior rose before us as from the ground, and blocked the path. He was a short, sturdy savage, bare to the waist save for a chain of teeth which dangled with sinister gleam about his brawny throat, and, from the wide sweep of his shoulders, evidently possessed of prodigious strength. He held a gun extended in front of him, and made a gesture of warning impossible to misapprehend.

"What seeks the White Chief?" he questioned bluntly. "Does he come for peace or war?"

The query came with such grave abruptness that Heald hesitated in reply.

"Never since I have been at Dearborn have I sought war," he replied at last. "Little Sauk knows this well. We travel now that we may have council of peace with the chiefs of the Pottawattomies. See!" and he held up both empty hands before the Indian's eyes, "we are both unarmed, because of our trust in the good faith of your people."

Little Sauk uttered a low grunt of disapproval, and made no motion to lower his threatening rifle.

"Ugh! You talk strong! Did any Pottawattomie send to White Chief to come to council?"

"No," admitted Heald. "We come because it is the wish of the Great Father of the white men down by the sea that we talk together of the wrongs of the red men, and make proposals of peace between us. There is no cause for these rumors of war, and the Great Father has heard that the Pottawattomies are dissatisfied, and it has made him sad."

The Indian looked from one to the other of us in the growing darkness, and made a gesture of contempt.

"The real Great White Father wears a red coat, and is friend to the Pottawattomie," he said with dignity. "He no lie, no shut Indian out of Fort, no steal furs, no throw rum in river. Who this man, White Chief? He no soldier,—he long-knife."

"Yes, he is a frontiersman, and came to the Fort yesterday with Wau-me-nuk, bringing word of greeting from the Great Father to the Pottawattomies. He goes now with me to council. May we pass on to your camp?"

For a moment Little Sauk did not answer, stepping closer in order that he might better scan my features. Apparently satisfied by the keen scrutiny, he turned his broad back upon us and strode off with contemptuous dignity.

"Come," he said shortly; and without further word we followed across that dim plain and through the thickening darkness.

The Indian's step was noiseless, and his figure cast the merest shadow; but as we moved onward others constantly joined us, stalking out of the black night like so many phantoms, gliding silently in their noiseless moccasins across the soft grass, until fully a dozen spectral forms hedged our pathway and kept step to every movement. It was a weird procession, through the shifting night-shadows; and although I could catch but fleeting glimpses of those savage faces and half-naked forms, the knowledge of their presence, and our own helplessness if they proved treacherous, caused my heart to throb till I could hear it in the painful silence like the beat of a drum. Now and then a guttural voice challenged from the darkness, to be instantly answered by those in advance, and another savage glided within our narrowed vision, scanned us with cruel and curious eyes, and fell in with the same silent, tiger-like tread of his fellows.

It was not long that we were compelled to march thus, the gathering warriors pressing us closer at each step; and it was well it proved so soon ended, for the grim mockery set my nerves on edge. Yet the change was hardly for the better. Just before reaching the spot where the river forked sharply to the southward, we came to the upper edge of the wigwams, and into a bit of light from their scattered fires. There rushed out upon us a wild horde of excited savages, warriors and squaws, who pushed us about in sheer delirium, and even struck viciously at us across the shoulders of our indifferent guard, so that it was only by setting my teeth that I held back from grappling with the demons. But Heald, older in years and of cooler blood, laid restraining hands upon my arm.

"'Tis but the riff-raff," he muttered warningly. "The chiefs will hold them back from doing us serious harm."

As he spoke, Little Sauk uttered a gruff order, and the grim warriors on our flank drove back the jeering, scowling crowd, with fierce Indian cursing and blows of their guns, until the way had been cleared for our advance. We moved on for two hundred yards or more, the maddened and vengeful mob menacing us just beyond reach of the strong arms, and howling in their anger until I doubted not their voices reached the distant Fort.

We came to a great wigwam of deer-skin, much larger than any I had ever seen, with many grotesque figures of animals sketched in red and yellow paint upon the outside, and clearly revealed by the blazing fire without. A medicine-man of the tribe, hideous with pigment and high upstanding hair, sat beating a wooden drum before the entrance, and chanting wildly to a ferocious-looking horde of naked savages, many bleeding from self-inflicted wounds, who danced around the blaze, the leaping figures in the red glare making the scene truly demoniacal. Little Sauk strode through the midst of them, unheeding the uproar, and flung aside the flap of the tent.

"White Chief and Long Knife wait here," he said sternly. "Come back pretty soon."

There was nothing to be seen within, excepting some skins flung carelessly upon the short trodden grass. We sat down silently upon these, gazing out through the narrow opening at the blazing fire and the numerous moving figures constantly crowding closer about the entrance, both of us too deeply immersed in thought to care for speech.

The black shadows upon the tepee cover told me that guards had been posted to keep back the rabble from intrusion, and once I saw signs of a brief struggle in front when the swarm had grown too inquisitive and were forced back with scant ceremony. The weird dance and incantation continued; and although I knew but little of the customs of the Pottawattomies, there was a cruel savagery and ferocity about it which I felt held but little promise of peace.

"'Tis the war-dance," whispered Heald in my ear, "and bodes ill for our purpose. See! the red wampum is in the fellow's hand."

As I bent forward to catch the gleam of it in the flames, a new figure suddenly flitted past our narrow vista, between us and the wild circle of dancers. It was a woman, attired in fanciful Indian dress; but surely no Pottawattomie squaw ever possessed so graceful a carriage, or bore so clear a face.

"Captain!" I ejaculated eagerly. "Did you see that white woman there, with the long skirt and red hair?"

"Ay!" he answered as though he scarce had faith in his own eyes. "I marked not the color of her hair, but I saw the lass, and, by Saint George! she looked to me like old Roger Matherson's daughter."