THE LIBRARY
OF
THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
LOS ANGELES
GIFT OF
"Ma" Crandtll
A Knight of the Wilderness
As he smiled he raised his eyes and met Sylvia's glance. (See page 21.)
A Knight of the Wilderness
By
OLIVER MARBLE GALE
and
HARRIET WHEELER
ILLUSTRATED BY IVIN NEY
CHICAGO
THE REILLY & BRITTON CO.
1909
Copyright, 1909
by THE REILLY & BRITTON CO.
All Rights Reserved
Published October, 1909
List of Chapters
CHAPTER NO. PAGE
I THE MAN IN THE FLATBOAT 9
II THE BRAVE WHO SHOULD HAVE DIED 25
III LOVELIGHT 35
IV THE MAN WITH HAIR OF BRONZE 48
V THE FRONTIER CLERK 66
VI THE MILLHAND 79
VII SHADOWS 96
VIII LOVE AND FEAR 112
IX CANT-HOOKS AND CAPTAINS 125
X THE FLAG OF TRUCE 138
XI MASSACRE 152
XII A MESSAGE FOR THE HAWK 167
XIII SANCTUARY 181
XIV IN THE THICKET 189
XV THE CAPTURE 206
XVI THE WHITE MAN'S CHILD 215
XVII THE SHADOWS DEEPEN 226
XVIII THE RISK 236
XIX THE WHITE MAN'S FRIEND 242
XX THE CAVE IN THE EOCK 252
XXI THE BEGINNING OF THE TRAIL 265
XXII THE END OF THE TRAIL 277
XXIII RESIGNATION 290
XXIV THE MAN FROM THE DEAD 299
XXV DARKNESS 312
XXVI LIGHT . 324
Illustrations
AS HE SMILED HE EAISED HIS EYES AND MET
SYLVIA'S GLANCE. (See page 21) Frontispiece
LINCOLN SHOOK HIM TILL THE BREATH RATTLED OUT OF HIM PAGE 76
"IT REMINDS ME OF TWO MEN DOWN IN KEN TUCKY WHO CAUGHT A 'POSSUM IN A BOX TRAP." PAGE 172
"FlRE FLY WILL NOT DIE. HE WILL BE A GREAT
CHIEF AND A MIGHTY HUNTER." PAGE 220
"SYLVIA!" His HAND REACHED FORTH AND
TOUCHED HERS, GENTLY PAGE 336
A Knight of the Wilderness
CHAPTER I THE MAN IN THE FLATBOAT
ALL New Salem, tingling with excitement, was down by Cameron's dam. It was not often that excitement came to that little cluster of log cabins perched on the banks of the Sangamon River in the year of our Lord 1831. They had their births and their burials, the people of New Salem, and their wooings and their weddings ; but a village of a dozen or more log houses cannot well keep itself fully awake with stimulation so meager.
Now and then the outer world permitted them a wanderer with gossip from Vandalia; or from Louisville, if their fortune ran strong. Occasionally an itinerant preacher passed that way and aroused them to a state of pleasurable panic. At intervals the boys from Clary's Grove paid them a rough, rol licking call in facetious mood, making the present exhilarating and leaving the future uncertain; but the agreeable sensations which might have been de rived from that form of diversion were marred by danger to life, limb, and law which usually attended these visits.
9
10 A Knight of the Wilderness
But all these things, in their uttermost possi bilities, were as nothing compared to that which stirred the inhabitants to the highest pitch of agita tion and brought them hurrying down to Cameron's dam on this morning in April. They were all there, from the elegant and important James Kutledge, descendant of the Eutledges of South Carolina, founder of the settlement and keeper of the tavern, down to the least toddler of the tow-headed, bare legged Kelso brood, arrived the preceding autumn from Indiana.
There was old John Cameron, who with Kutledge owned the mill and the milldam. There were the men of New Salem — the merchants, the smith, the carpenter, the cooper — ejaculating and gesticulating on the bank of the stream. There was Dame Rut- ledge, with uncovered head, hot from her kitchen, her bare arms wrapped in her apron against the coolness of the spring air. There were all the matrons of the settlement gathered about her in voluble concourse.
There was Ann Butledge — demure, beautiful, tender — standing by the side of her accepted lover, John McNeill, the young and prosperous merchant. There was Rachel Hall, the girl from Indian Creek, black-haired, black-eyed, levying tribute upon her blundering yokels in the midst of the envious daugh ters of the town. There was her sister, Sylvia, fair- skinned, with hair of twisted gold and eyes gath ered from the skies of June; sedate, contained,
The Man in the Flatboat 11
smiling indulgently upon the capricious one at her side.
The children of the settlement were there, awed in the presence of the unusual, clinging to the skirts of their mothers, staring dumbly out upon the river. Even Mentor Graham, the schoolmaster, was among them, book under arm, horn-bowed spectacles down his nose, gazing with academic absorption upon the scene that had turned the whole town out of doors.
A flat-boat, floating down the river in charge of two men, had run aground on the middle part of the dam, where the current flowed most swiftly. Her nose hung in midair in front of the dam. Her stern was buried deep beneath a tumbling rush of yellow, muddy water. Every moment the waves piled higher. Every moment they bore her down, clamp ing her more firmly against the obstruction that held her. She could not move. So much water had already poured into her that she would not have floated if she could have been freed. For all that the people of New Salem could foresee, she was a doomed wreck.
One of the two occupants sat on a barrel, which the curling waters folded and lapped, and gazed with stupid fascination at the slanting lines that the waves were tracing higher and higher along the gun wales. The other was exhibiting to the spectators at the moment nothing more definite than a pair of amazingly long and angular elbows and a couple of interminable legs. He wan stooping over in the
12 A Knight of the Wilderness
after part of the boat, where the water was deepest, for a purpose not then apparent.
Near the water, at the end of the dam, a small, nervous, excitable man divided his time between pacing the ground with frantic gesticulation and profane admonition, addressed to the one stooping in the after part of the boat — which that one did not heed in the least — and sitting on a stump by the river's edge in a state of the most profound and absorbed melancholy. It was obvious that he was the owner of the boat and the cargo.
The men of New Salem shouted advice. The women clucked sympathy. The young men hooted. The young women tittered. The children continued to stare dumbly, stupefied by the spectacle of ship wreck come to their very door. Mentor Graham, adjusting his horn-bowed spectacles, stepped nearer the scene to illuminate it with the light of science. James Eutledge, being a man of tactful address, endeavored to engage the owner in sympathetic conversation, but to no purpose.
The man stooping in the stern of the boat, oblivious to the confusion of tongues, arose slowly, unfolding himself to a prodigious height. In his hand he held a huge sack. Struggling slightly under the weight of it, he carried it forward, dripping, and placed it in the bow. Having done so, he straightened himself to a still greater height, and looked calmly with quizzical interest at the crowd gathered on the bank. His eyes passed leisurely
The Man in the Flatboat 13
from one to another. As his glance turned, a hush followed.
The hush was broken by a titter among the girls. The titter grew into a nervous laugh, which ran among the spectators and died abruptly. There was something about the boatman that stirred them to mirth. There was something about him which made them doubt whether they should laugh. He was ludicrously tall. He was grotesquely thin. He was a succession of inelegant angles. High on his almost interminable legs dangled a pair of frayed and faded jeans. His raw wrists straggled below his sleeves. His head inclined slightly, in a posture half droll, half pathetic.
His face was as gaunt and bony as his frame. High cheek-bones he had, and prominent jaws; between them a great length of sallow cheek. His nose was large, and somewhat awry. His mouth was big and repressed. His features completed the paradox of his figure. Those who looked could not tell whether to laugh at him, or weep for him.
They could not tell until they saw the eyes — and then they could not tell ! These were more baf fling still. Pale blue they were, with lids that drooped across them; unutterably sad, wistful, and appealing. But in the moment that they were wist ful, without so much as the slightest change coming into them, they were commanding, compelling; and while they were compelling, in their depths there twinkled a sly mirth.
14 A Knight of the Wilderness
It was this spectacle of a man that the people of New Salem gazed upon this April morning.
"Howdy," said the long boatman, presently, in an even voice. Another titter, beginning with Rachel Hall, grew into a laugh, which died away as the first had done.
"You make me think of a little boy I used to know down in Indiana," continued the man, sol emnly. The mirth in the depths of his eyes flashed and played fitfully as he began to speak. "His father had a cow he called Betsy. Betsy was a great cow to kick, and the little boy used to like to watch his father milk her. One day the cow kicked the old man in the head and killed him. Pretty soon the boy's mother married again. Somebody asked the boy how he liked his new father. 'Oh, well, I don't think much of him,' said the boy, 'but I 'm glad he 's come, 'cause now there 's somebody I can watch Betsy kick again.' Maybe you don't think much of us, but you seem powerful glad to see us this morning, just the same."
Without further word he turned and strode back where the water piled over the stern of the boat. On shore there was a moment of silence. The peo ple of New Salem were not immediately alive to the significance and application of the story. Presently a soft and silvery laugh tinkled above the sound of the cascade rushing over the mill dam.
The man in the boat, taken by the music of the laugh, cocked his head where he stood stooping in
The Man in the Flatboat 15
the water. His eyes searched among the specta tors. They fell upon the demure, tender, beautiful young woman standing beside the young man of assertive and prosperous bearing; Ann Butledge and her accepted lover. As he looked, she laughed again. Her blue eyes, full of merriment, returned his glance. Without the stirring of a muscle, with only a changing light in the depths of his own, the man in the boat answered her laugh and her look with complete understanding. There are meetings that are electrical. There are companionships that begin with ages of comprehension already behind them.
In the moment of their communion the gaze of the boatman fell, and he returned to his labors, whelmed with self-consciousness. In the same moment the story reached home, and a gust of laughter arose from the spectators; even Mentor Graham wisely smiled.
The shouts of advice, the banter of the young men, presuming upon the boatman's facetiousness, redoubled. The long boatman, stooping in the stern of the craft with his wrists buried beneath the swirling water, paid no heed. Neither did the other boatman, still sitting on his barrel island. Neither did the melancholy man against the stump.
Again the tall and angular boatman unfolded. Again he had in his great hands a sack, heavy and cumbrous, which he carried to the bow of the boat. Depositing it there, he grinned amiably at the peo-
16 A Knight of the Wilderness
pie on shore, setting them off into another gust of laughter, and turned once more toward the stern.
Hope awakened in the breast of the disconsolate man leaning against the stump at sight of the activi ties aboard. His eyes lighted. His lips moved.
" What — what you tryin' to do, Abe?" he faltered.
" Trying to get your boat over this dam, Mr. Offutt," replied the one addressed. "Perhaps you may have noticed that it isn't moving very fast right now."
It was clear now that this man was to be laughed at, and the people of New Salem laughed joyously, uproariously, even down to the children, who laughed because the others did, and because they thought the man in the boat was making faces at them. And to please them, he did make faces at them as he con tinued to move sacks and barrels and sides of pork from the stern of the boat to the bow, overhanging the river below the dam.
Under a constant fire of suggestion, serious and facetious, the tall boatman continued to labor with the cargo, bringing it bit by bit into the projecting bow. In course of time the big, cumbrous craft began to teeter, to seesaw on the dam which held it, as he passed back and forth. Each time the bow dipped beneath his weight, a shout of warning went up from the banks, topped off with a shrill scream from the unhappy Mr. Offutt. Each time that it dipped, the tall boatman watched it, with careful
The Man in the Flatboat 17
and calculating observation, and immediately brought forward another piece of cargo.
At last he brought forward no more. Standing in the bow, he surveyed the grinning crowd with sad visage.
''You remind me of a man I used to know in Kentucky," he said to them, after a pause. "One night he got lost in a storm. It was thundering pretty bad. All of a sudden there was a tremen dous crash that lasted for a minute. The man dropped on his knees. 'Oh, Lord,' he said, when it was over. ' Oh, Lord ! If it 's all the same to you, give us a little more light and a little less noise.' If some one of you people will fetch me an auger I can get along without his conversation while he goes to get it. ' '
The people of New Salem roared again with delight at the tale. William Munson, chief hand in the mill and chief swain among those who hovered about Rachel Hall, disappeared into the building, followed by the hoots and jeers of the delighted audience. He emerged with an auger in his hand.
"How we goin' to git it to yer?" queried Mun son, standing at the edge of the stream.
"Throw it," returned the tall boatman, sitting on the suspended bow, his heels dangling nearly to the water beneath.
Old John Cameron came into action. He was canny Scotch, was old John Cameron. If the boat must be lost, that would be unfortunate for the
18 A Knight of the Wilderness
owner of the boat. There was no need, however, of risking his auger. Whatever was going to happen to the boat, there was no immediate danger that it was going to injure the dam in its wreck, and there fore no ground for sacrifice on his part.
"Na! Na!" he cried, in deep agitation, laying hand on the arm of William Munson. * * Dinna heave it ! Dinna heave it ! Ye might droon it, lad ! ' '
Mr. Offutt, ignorant of any purpose that might be behind the auger, but confident that his boatman and his boat stood in need of it, pressed upon Cam eron with fantastic and alluring offers of reward and insurance. Munson, uncertain, stood with arm uplifted, ready to hurl the tool. The spectators were in a flurry of excitement. The tall boatman himself was in the first words of an anecdote suit able to the occasion, when the entire course of events was abruptly arrested by the appearance on the scene of another actor.
He was a young man with a face of clean and manly beauty. Hair, the color of bronze, escaped in waves from beneath his soft hat and fell across his temples. His skin was smooth and fair, with a translucent blending in it of brown and white. His eyes were a warm, rich brown, behind gentle lids. His mouth was full-lipped, tender, sympathetic. It gave a suggestion of softness of character, which was brought into balance by the firmness of his chin and the strength in his jaws.
He was mounted on a roan horse of surpassing
The Man in the Flatboat 19
beauty and spirit. He had come among them like an apparition. They had not seen him as he rode toward them, following the road from Springfield, splashing through the mud of the rough way. They had not seen him until this moment, when he drew horse beside William Munson. The stranger leaned over and took the auger from his hand, made limp and unresisting by the suddenness of the other's appearance and the assurance of his action.
"Let me have the auger," he said, quietly, as he took it.
Before those who looked on could bring their thoughts together, before the bewildered John Cam eron could interpose objection, the young man on the roan had taken his horse to the head of the dam and driven it out upon it, with soft words and gentle strokes of encouragement.
Snorting nervously, quivering, with crouching knees, the animal bore its rider out along the nar row way. The yellow waters of the Sangamon spurted against hoof and fetlock. They leapt up the slender, trembling limbs. They piled against shoul der and flank. With soft words, with gentle strokes, the rider urged on, calm, cool, deliberate.
They were ten feet, five feet, from the stranded boat. The rushing waves grappled with them, striving to throw horse and rider over the dam into the swirling, sucking backwater at its foot. Against the force of it horse and rider leaned. The man, speaking softly, stroked the neck of the beast coax-
20 A Knight of the Wilderness
ingly. On shore there was no word. Old John Cam eron held his breath. Denton Offutt stood with hands in his hair, his eyes staring. The boatman sitting on the barrel revived his interest in life and took his eyes from the shifting lines which the waves were drawing along the gunwales of the boat. The tall one arose from his seat in the bow and reached out his hand.
1 'Beckon I can reach it now, stranger. Much obliged," he said, a ring of admiration in his voice.
The stranger handed on the auger. With quiet touch, he reined his horse's head up stream and spoke a word of command. The animal brought its feet carefully together on the narrow top of the dam. There was no trembling of the limbs now. There was no snorting. With every muscle steeled, with every nerve tense and drawn, it stood balancing on the brink.
A muffled sound, half gasp, half scream, broke from the midst of a group on shore. Sylvia Hall, her heart pulseless, clenched hands upraised as though they could hold the horse and rider safe where they balanced, stood pale and wavering, not knowing that it was she who made the sound. The tall boatman, auger in hand, gathered himself, ready to do what might be needed in the rapids below. Denton Offutt groaned and sank against his stump. John Cameron shut out the sight with his hands. Dame Kutledge clutched her apron
The Man in the Flatboat 21
between her fingers till it tore. Ann Rutledge pressed against her lover's side.
The rider, hearing the sound of alarm, turned his head toward the group whence it had come, to reassure with a look those who feared. His eyes were calm and unperturbed as they fell upon them; but as they fell upon the drawn, tense face of Sylvia they glowed warm, as the eyes of one who sees a vision of beauty for the first time.
The danger of the adventure was largely in the minds of those who saw it. They were accustomed for the most part to such mounts as they could bring from plow or treadmill. The roan was of finer quality and spirit than the horses of which they had had experience. It crept back step by step to the end of the dam with sure and cautious foot. It scrambled upon the shore with a little volley of pent-up snorts. Nickering, it turned its head towards its master, to ask if it had done well. He smiled upon the animal and spoke tenderly to it.
As he smiled he raised his glance toward the group where Sylvia was, and met hers full upon him. Swiftly as she turned aside, she was not so quick that she did not see the warmth which came swiftly into his eyes beneath her look. With the warmth still in them, he drew his horse behind the crowd to avoid the marveling applause bestowed upon him by those who had watched, and modestly retired from their sight.
It was not hard to escape them. Their attention
22 A Knight of the Wilderness
was not long diverted from the wreck, where the sad-faced boatman was now down on his knees, bor ing a hole with his auger through the planks in the bow. In a moment it was done. In another moment the other of the crew was swept from his seat on the barrel by the long arm of his fellow, and the barrel itself was rolled far forward. Another barrel, and another, was added to it. The vessel careened beneath their weight. The stern lifted clear of the tumbling current behind it. Splashing and churn ing, the water in the craft surged forward, and spouted through the hole in the planking. Denton Offutt, comprehending at last, arose from the stump with a mighty shout.
" Hurrah for Abe! Hurrah for Abe Lincoln!" he cried at the top of his shrill voice. "I told you he was smart ! I told you he was smart ! ' '
As it was the first time he had opened his mouth in direct address to the crowd during the morning, there were grounds for disputing the statement of the excited boat owner, but no one was in a mood to do so. Instead, they added their voices to his, acclaiming the knowledge and daring of Abe Lin coln, the tall boatman, with a noise that could have been heard in the last log-house in the settlement, if anyone had been left there to hear it.
The boat was drained. The hole was plugged up by the long boatman. A rope was passed. The craft was dragged from her dangerous perch by the men ashore and floated in the stream below.
The Man in the Flatboat 23
Denton Offutt, as exuberant as he had been miser able, demanded the instant attendance of all New Salem at the tavern, and forthwith started thither, his arm linked through the angular elbow of his boatman; on the other side of whom with an arm linked through the other angular elbow, marched James Rutledge, descendant of the Eutledges of South Carolina, keeper of the inn of New Salem and part owner in the dam that had brought it all about.
As they went, a young man on a roan horse, climbing the road that led from the river to the village, turned to look back on the shouting crowd he left behind. One there was who took no part in the demonstration. One there was whose blue eyes followed him in his climbing, whose glance fell abashed before his own as he turned. With a warmth in his beautiful brown eyes, he wheeled into the village street at the brow of the hill, and was lost to sight.
That was a big day in the history of New Salem — bigger than they knew, though they held it in vast importance. That night, in the mingling of many potations, Denton Offutt, happy beyond description, made open declaration, among other things, that he was coming to New Salem to open a store, and that he was going to make Abe Lincoln his clerk, soon as ever Abe Lincoln should return from New Orleans, whither he was taking the boat. He furthermore asseverated that Abe Lincoln was
24 A Knight of the Wilderness .
the smartest man in the United States, and could wrastle any man in Illinois; in which statements none felt presently inclined to dispute him.
In the next room was to be heard the even voice of Abraham Lincoln in narrative mood, punctuated at intervals by the hearty, uproarious laughter of the young men of Salem. He was the man of the hour.
CHAPTER H THE BKAVE WHO SHOULD HAVE DIED
AT the right angle formed where the clear waters of the Black River flow into the tawny floods of the Mississippi, in the years that have been, was the village of Saukenuk, a town of the Sacs and the Foxes, the town of Black Hawk's people. It was a village of some five hundred lodges, large, comfort able, substantial. The houses were placed symmet rically, with equal spaces between them and at an even distance from the open space through the cen ter of the town, which served at once for street and common. At the point of land, the apex of the angle, was the lodge of Black Hawk, more preten tious than the others and somewhat separated from them by a greater space surrounding it. About the whole was a palisade of brush, through which a gateway opened to each cardinal point of the compass.
Not far to the east of the village a hill arose abruptly from the plain to a height of about two hundred feet, overlooking town and rivers and much of the country 'round about. Its steeper sides were covered with woods and thickets. Upon its lesser slopes were patches of the fields of corn and potatoes and beans, which spread over the rich soil
25
26 A Knight of the Wilderness
in picturesque variety about its base. At the foot of the hill, along the banks of Bock River, crept a beautiful grove of oaks and elms and maples, fringed with willows that grew at the water's edge. Beneath the trees were the graves of generations of Sacs and Foxes. It was the Silent City, the City of the Dead, sacred and holy to the Indian.
It was mid-June in the year 1831. Black Hawk stood upon the summit of the hill, called by his lov ing people Black Hawk's Watchtower. Full of years was Black Hawk; but his slight, spare frame was straight and vigorous. His red lips were full and mobile ; his nose was sharp and hooked, like the beak of the hawk for which he was named; his eyes flared and gleamed with emotion, or grew dull and heavy with sorrow. This day the shadow of sad ness had fallen across them as they gazed upon the panorama of river, field and woodland, his domain for many years, which it had been given him by his people to keep for his people.
He was not alone as he stood there. Beside him, close pressing, her tiny hand clasping his own, her cheek upon bis shoulder, stood an Indian maiden, beautiful beyond the wont of her kind. Slender, straight, graceful, rounded into the exquisite con tour of perfect maidenhood; dusky cheeks like the autumn skies when the last sunlight flushes across them ; lips delicately curved, hinting of song and of love, of scorn and of hate ; eyes as dark and as deep as the sea where the depth of water makes it black ;
The Brave Who Should Have Died 27
eyes as potent as the sea sleeping beneath summer zephyrs ere the storm awakes; teeth of snow; radi ant, tender, loving, reliant, fiery, high-souled, she was one to dream of through the evenings of June — one to cling to through the storms of January. She was Feather Heart, daughter of Black Hawk, beloved of the tribe.
' * Nay, ' ' she was saying, in a voice like the night winds through the pine trees, like the shaded waters plashing among the white stones in the brook; "nay, my father should not be downcast. Many years has the Black Hawk led his people to the planting since Quash-Quame, senseless from their fire-water, sold our lands to the whites, and they have not come to take it away from us. Surely they will let us go in peace till you, and even I, my father, have passed on to the happy hunting grounds, where my mother sings for us through the long night."
"The Hawk knows! The Hawk knows!" responded the chief, with heavy heart. "What should my little Feather Heart know of the whites? Even now they are upon us. Look! See, their lodges are at our gates!"
He pointed across the vista to the eastward, where a little cabin stood in the midst of a culti vated field. About the door played a white child. Within, a white woman busied herself about her household duties, singing as she worked; singing a song of the whites, a hymn of the church militant. Beyond, scattered through the distance, other cab-
28 A Knight of the Wilderness
ins, of logs roughly thrown together, told of the forefoot of advancing civilization.
"What should Feather Heart know of them?" continued Black Hawk, restraining his glance from roving among the scattered houses. "Why do the whites tear our fences? WTiy do they plow our fields? Why do they slay our horses when they rove? Why do they take our women, to beat them and send them back, broken, to us? Why do they taunt and revile us? What should Feather Heart know of their ways? It is that they may tempt the Hawk to strike; that they may drive our young men to revenge, so that they may call their warriors from their white lodges in the land of smoke and drive us across the Father of Waters. Many years has Black Hawk led his people forth to the plant ing, and much wisdom has he got of the ways of the whites!"
The bitterness of his knowledge was in his tones. For a moment there was silence. Feather Heart spoke :
' ' But is it not that Quash-Quame made it so with the whites that we should live and plant here till they need our fields for their lodges ? Surely, there is room here for them, and for us. Surely they will not drive us away!"
"Feather Heart knows nought of the blackness in the heart of the white man," the chief returned, and was silent.
The Brave Who Should Have Died 29
The slumbering seas within her eyes awoke before the storm that sprang into her soul.
"Then shall the Black Hawk fight!" Her voice was sharp as the wind that whips the wavetops into spindrift; harsh as the spray that dashes against the rocks of islands in the sea. "The Hawk has many young men. . The Hawk has braves that are as the trees in the forest. The paleface shall not drive us from our planting. The spirits of our dead cry out to us from the Silent City. Shall the Sauk not hear their cry ? ' '
"The braves of the Great Father are as the leaves on the trees," returned the chief, sadly. "Feather Heart must speak no more of fighting."
His voice grew stern. His firm eye met hers. There was command in word and look. She obeyed, though the storm still surged in her eyes. For a space it swept across them, and was gone; the obedience of the Indian daughters was without question.
The storm was gone when she raised her eyes to gaze upon the bluffs lying black against the reclining sun on the distant side of the mighty river that rolled to the west of them. It was gone, and in its place there was a trace of sadness which she would have hidden from her father by turning her head from his shoulder, where it had nestled again with the going down of the storm.
"The party of our young men which went lately among the Ihoways ; was it not the party that came
30 A Knight of the Wilderness
back to our village this morning?" she said, at length.
Black Hawk aroused himself from revery to answer that it was.
There was a pause.
"Did not the White Eagle go forth with them?" continued the girl.
"The White Eagle went with them."
"He came not back!" murmured the maiden.
There was a pause.
"Did our young men say why it was that he came not back?" Her voice was as though she spoke of that which was nothing; for this maiden was an Indian maiden. For a space there was no sound between them ; only the call of the thrush, the song of the robin saluting the setting sun, the plain tive cry of the cat-bird from the thicket behind them rose to the top of the hill where they stood.
The voice of Black Hawk floated out upon the dying afternoon, low, intoned, sepulchral. "The White Eagle went forth into the west with his death song in his throat," he said. "The White Eagle will come no more among his people. He has gone to the land of his fathers ; he walks to-night in the happy hunting ground. Such is the law of blood between the Ihoways and the Sacs."
Sad as the lonely sea were the eyes of the Indian maiden as the words of her father sank into her heart. Cold as the vacant depths of the sea was her voice when she made response. "It is well," she
The Brave Who Should Have Died 31
said. "If the hand of the White Eagle hath been raised against the friend of the Sacs, the hand of death must be raised against the White Eagle. But I did not know that he had slain among the Iho- ways!" she added, with a tone of misery in her voice which she could not restrain, Indian maiden though she was.
"It was not he. It was his brother Half Ear who slew," Black Hawk made answer, after a pause.
A tremor passed across the beautiful shoulders of Feather Heart as she heard. Now of all times she dared not turn her face to look upon the face of her father. If she had turned, she would have seen it all tenderness, all compassion, full of under standing; she would have thrown herself into his firm arms and cried out against life. But Feather Heart did not turn. Feather Heart, daughter of a chief, erect, with head thrown high, looked across the great river into that West whither White Eagle had gone with the song of death in his throat, and spoke again with a voice as gentle in her soft throat as the plashing of the surf upon the margin 01 southern seas.
"Tell me," she said.
Black Hawk complied. "Half Ear loves the strong waters. He knew not what he did when he struck down one who was as a brother. It was in the hunting across the river, before the snows. The man was of the Ihoways. They cried out for blood,
32 A Knight of the Wilderness
as the law runs. The time came when our young men were to go to them with the one who had slain. Half Ear, lying sick with a fever in his mother's lodge, could not go. It was needful that some one of the blood give blood back to the Ihoways, lest much blood should run. It was the word of the Sauk that it should be so." The voice of the chief lowered. "The White Eagle went forth into the land beyond the rivers, which is the land of the Ihoways, with the song of death in his throat. ' '
There was no sound from the Indian maiden as she stood with her face fixed upon the west. There was no motion of her body. It was as though she were already one of those who dwelt in the Silent City. The sun, sinking into the sky where she gazed, struck red upon the surface of the Father of Waters. Across the sky spread the color of blood, softened into beauty by the brush of nature. Through the hush that was about them came the laughter of children in the village beneath, the song of the robin, the trilling of the thrush, the plaintive call of the cat-bird.
"It is — it is well," murmured the Indian maiden.
Deep over the face of the Father of Waters flushed the glow of the setting sun. Deep across the fields and forest settled the hush of eventide. Deep into the heart of the Indian maiden, the daughter of the chief, sank the sorrow of the Law of Blood. Motionless, silent, she stood there, her face ruddy
The Brave Who Should Have Died 33
in the glow that came from sky and water. Motion less, silent, the chief, her father, stood behind her, gazing beyond her slight form, gazing beyond the red, flowing river ; gazing beyond all that was within the ken of eyes.
As he gazed, a low, sharp cry came from the lips of the girl. He was at her side. He looked swiftly into her face. Her lips were parted. Her cheeks were flushed with a higher flush than that of the dying day. Her eyes were fixed upon the broad bosom of the Mississippi. His own glance followed them ; he saw what she saw.
Black against the rushing red of the current, leaving a wake that closed red behind, something came toward the shore with slow and even motion. Beside it, like wings of the eagle, feathering splashes of water came and went rhythmically, fall ing back into the smooth surface in ruddy drops and films through which shone the glow that was on the water. The plashing sound of them came faintly to those who watched from the Tower.
For an enduring silence they stood there. Nearer and nearer came that which was black against the glow on the water. The red turned to pink, to grey; that which was dark against the waves came closer still. It was the head of one who swam. It came near the shore. It stopped. It arose from the water. A young Indian, magnificent in grace and strength, stood in the shallows. He breathed deeply. He plashed to the shore. He
34 A Knight of the Wilderness
walked toward the village and into the gate that was by the lodge of Black Hawk.
Black Hawk bent his glance upon the Indian maiden. Her face was set against the West. Her eyes were wide. Her lips moved. She spoke. She spoke to the sun that was gone, to the hush that was about them, to the star that fluttered in the grey sky of twilight.
"The White Eagle should not have come," she said. Her tone was dead as the sea when the wind has long laid dead. "It was the Law of the Blood. It was the word of the Sauk. My father would not have come back. It were better for him that he had not come."
"It were better for him that he had not come," echoed the Black Hawk.
He turned into the trail that led to the village, and left her with her face fixed upon the West, whence the last red of evening had died into ashes.
CHAPTER III LOVELJGHT
GREAT was the grief that night in the lodge of Light Foot, the mother of Half Ear; the mother of the White Eagle, his brother. The Eagle had gone into the land of the Ihoways for a sacri fice; he had come back living into the land of the Sacs. The eye of the chief had looked aslant upon him. The braves of the Sacs had made a scoff at him. His shame was upon the lodge of his mother !
Bitter were the reproaches heaped upon him by Half Ear, his brother, now well of the fever which had detained him from the sacrifice. Long and elab orate were the repinings of Light Foot. All through the night, while her son, the White Eagle, lay at her feet, Light Foot mumbled her woe, from time to time casting over her locks dust from the floor of her lodge.
"He of the hollow heart has come back," she moaned. "The White Eagle went that his brother Half Ear might live. The White Eagle has come back ; now must we all die, for the law of blood has been broken. Like the eagle went he forth; like the duck he came back, swimming in the water. His mother is the mother of a coward. Old squaws will laugh at her ; the children of young squaws will mock
35
36 A Knight of the Wilderness
his brother with their fingers; his brother is the brother of a coward. Half Ear is brave; but the White Eagle is a coward; Half Ear is a friend of the whites with much honor; the White Eagle is the enemy of his own people, and will be made to work in the corn with the squaws. He will hoe corn when his brother goes to the hunt!"
Thus through the night she moaned. If the White Eagle heard her, he made no sign or answer, but lay peacefully at her feet, until the day broke, and the Sauk song to the sun reverberated through the village. He made no answer when Half Ear, lowering over the parched corn which Light Foot gave them to eat, upbraided him anew for cowardice and perfidy. With eyes cast down, with even breath, he ate his corn in silence.
Surly and ill-natured, Half Ear left the lodge of his mother as soon as he had eaten his corn. With hanging head and muttering lips he slunk past the corner of the bark house and slipped stealthily behind the rows to the gate in the palisade of brush that ran along the eastern side of the village.
"He goes to his friends, the palefaces," mumbled Light Foot to herself.
Sinister and forbidding was Half Ear. In his youth he was the Blue Wolf ; now he was Half Ear, for that one half of his right ear had been lopped off in a drunken fight with his friends, the whites. He had a lean and hungry look, had Half Ear. His nose was thin and twisted. His eyes, close together,
Lovelight 37
seemed to look at divergent things though their gaze was straight. His mouth was sharp and drawn. His ears, so much as were left him, were small, and stood abruptly from his head. The sun shone yellow and sick through them. Of all the Sacs in Saukenuk, he alone did not stand upright on his heels, as a Sauk should. His voice was thick, and shook when he spoke. About him was the air of the fallen, the degenerate. He was victim to the firewater of the whites. That, in the beginning and the end, was the wickedness of Half Ear.
"See! Half Ear steals away from before the faces of the people," wailed Light Foot, when that one had left. "Such is the shame that the Eagle brings to the wigwam of his mother ! ' ' She fell again to moaning and casting dust upon her head.
White Eagle, looking sorrowfully upon her, passed from the lodge and walked along the village street. As he went, silence fell upon those who were gathered there, like the hush that comes upon sing ing birds when the shadow of the eagle hovers over the copse. With half glances, they whispered to each other behind their hands. The warriors and the young hunters grunted their contempt for a Sauk who had betrayed the word of a Sauk, given unto the friends of the Sacs.
' ' Like an eagle he went away ; he comes back like a duck, squattering in the water," mumbled White Cloud, the prophet, taking up the words of another, after the manner of prophets.
38 A Knight of the Wilderness
"His liver is the liver of a chicken!" replied the Black Hawk, walking by the side of his prophet. His look was more sad than angry when he said it.
The White Eagle, hearing their contumely, see ing their scornful nods and gestures as he passed, walked to the end of the village street with slow step and head held proudly in the air; walked past the lodge of Black Hawk with eye unbending; deigned not a glance toward the door of the lodge where Feather Heart stood watching him; walked to the southern gate, turned, and made his way back among the scoffers to his mother's lodge. There, with eyes fixed in sadness upon the fire where Light Foot parched corn, setting aside his proud demeanor, he sat grieving through the hours of morning.
The sound of a drum rattled through the village ; the drum of the crier. White Eagle, sitting on the ground of his mother's lodge, raised his head, alert and listening. He questioned Light Foot with a look.
"This is the day of the dance, when the braves of the Sacs tell of the deeds they have done since the last planting," said the woman, in a doleful voice, making lament. "There is none from the lodge of Light Foot to go among the warriors with a tale of bravery; for the White Eagle has turned into a duck, and Half Ear is brought low by the disgrace of his brother!"
The grief of the woman awakened again. She went on dismally, rocking and groaning on the floor of her lodge.
Lovelight 39
The drum rolled once more. Cries arose 'from the warriors, gathering in a square in the center of the village. One leaped into their midst to chant in loud voice of the deeds of valor he had done since the last dance; of his mighty hunting; of slaying braves of the Sioux tribe, their deadly enemies; of stirring ventures and close escapes. He was done. The warriors raised a mighty cry. The drum rattled. Another advanced to the center of the square, and chanted his tale. Another, and another, through hours, they came and told of their deeds.
White Eagle, sitting in the lodge of his mother, listened long to the sounds of the dance. The last brave chanted his story ; the drum beat for the last time. The dance was finished. Loud shouts went up from the warriors and hunters; the final ceremony. In a moment they would disperse.
Above the shouting floated the sound of a young, strong voice, raised in lamentations ; in the farewell song of the Sacs. White Eagle, stripped of feathers, with his face raised to the sky, chanting the song of farewell, entered the square. He was met by out cries. Some of the young men would have laid hand on him. To the cries and the violence he paid no heed, walking to the center of the square with face raised to the sky and the song on his lips.
11 Listen!" he said, from the center, sweeping his eye about him as he turned to face them all in suc cession. "Hear the White Eagle before he goes. When the night comes the White Eagle will be gone.
40 A Knight of the Wilderness
He will chant his morning song to the sun in the forests, far from the lodges of his people. His mother's lodge shall know him no more; no more will his voice be heard in the council or the dance; no more will he ride to the hunt with his brothers. He sings the song of farewell. But before he goes, let the brothers of the Eagle listen to what he will tell them.
"The White Eagle has been brave in the hunt and on the war path. The young men of the Sacs have said so; the old braves have looked with kind eyes upon him. His spear is long; his arrows are true ; his feet are swift in the war path ; many scalps dangle at his belt, though he is small in years. Never has the liver of the Eagle turned soft in danger; never has foe seen his back; the bear and the panther have fled from his knife — this his people knew. But now his people, the people of his father and his father 's father, have turned their faces from him. Now, in the setting of a sun, their fingers have been crooked against him. He goes from the land of his people, from before the faces of his brother, to make his bed with the wolves and to lie in the caves of the hills. But before he goes, let his brothers listen to what he tells them.
"For the Law of the Blood went he forth to the land of the Ihoways, singing his death song. His brother had slain ; his brother could not go to fulfil the law between our people and the people of the Ihoways that says 'blood of the blood for blood.*
Lovelight 41
The White Eagle went that the Law of the Blood should be fulfilled ; that the word of the Sauk should not stand as naught in the ears of the Ihoways.
"He came to their village with the young men who went forth with him. Singing his death song he went among the Ihoways. Singing his death song he held out his hands, making the sign of the Law of the Blood. The young men who were with him, singing no song, turned their backs and went again to their people. White Eagle, singing his song, was among the Ihoways.
' ' They bound him to a stake. They built a fire at his feet. They shouted about him with spears and hatchets when the fire burned. The White Eagle made no cry. On his lips were the words of his death song, raised to the Great Spirit; in his heart was gladness, for he was fulfilling the law. The fire burned his feet; — look, you may see" — the lower part of his limbs were seared and sore. * ' They struck him with their spears ; — look, you may see" — he laid open his shirt of doeskin; there were red wounds upon his breast and shoulders. "They danced the dance of death about him. He made no cry ; for was he not a Sauk, fulfilling the word of the Sacs?
"The fire burned. The spears struck him. His strength went away. He hung limp in the cords that bound him. His voice was raised in the song of death. His eyes gazed into their eyes ; for the White Eagle is a Sauk, and knows how a Sauk should die. At the last, when death was upon him, the braves of
42 A Knight of the Wilderness
the Ihoways raised a mighty shout. 'He is too brave to die!' they cried. 'It was his brother who slew. The law is fulfilled!'
' 'They stamped out the fires that burned him. They threw down the spears that made him bleed. They unbound the thongs of deer skin. With much shouting they led him to the wigwam of the chief of the village. For a day they made honor to him, hail ing him, dancing and singing before the door of the wigwam ; the squaw of the chief healed his wounds. When they were healed, they led him forth and bade him go to the village of his people with honor upon him ; a score of their young men went with him even to the Father of Waters.
"He came again among his people with a glad heart, for life is sweet to him. The eyes of the chief fell aslant upon him; the eyes of old warriors shut upon him ; the young men made a mock of him ; chil dren of squaws howled at his heels ; young maidens turned their faces; his brother reviled him; his mother moaned that he had come back. He who had been brave among them was treated as a coward. He who was the son of a chief was made a mock of by children of young squaws. His people turned against him ; they believed his liver was soft in the face of death ; that he had fled from the Ihoways and the Law of Blood.
"Now the White Eagle goes forth from the home of his fathers ; from the village of the Sacs and the Foxes, his brothers. His lodge shall be the oak tree
Lovelight 43
in the forest; the elm and the maple shall be his wigwam. The squirrel and the thrush will be his companions ; with the squirrel shall he eat nuts from the tall trees; his voice shall be raised to the sun with the voice of the thrush. The home of his people shall know him no more ; for his people have turned away their eyes in the hour of his honor. They did not know. Now they have heard. The White Eagle will go."
Passionately he sang his song to them. The war riors stood in silence, listening. The women pressed behind them to hear, hushing their babes. His voice intoning his story was the only sound, save the rustling of the distant waters of the Father of Waters and the call of the cat-bird upon the Tower.
As he proceeded, the eyes of the braves kindled with interest; they lighted with the excitement of listening to a tale of bravery. The women whispered softly and drew closer to one another, dreaming dreams for the babes that were on their arms. Apart from them, in the solitude she had sought, half hidden behind the drooping branches of a maple, a beautiful Indian maiden looked on and listened, with a heart that beat like the wings of a bird flying to its mate. Her eyes were like stars reflected in the bosom of a deep and tranquil sea.
As his voice died into stillness a mighty acclaim went up from the assembled braves. With shouts that shook the Tower they closed about him ; for the White Eagle had ever been dear to the hearts of his
44 A Knight of the Wilderness
people ; their joy was great in his tale. Among them pressed the Black Hawk. His eyes snapped with happiness. He laid hand upon the shoulder of the White Eagle, who still chanted his farewell song, returning the acclamations of his brothers with haughty eye.
"The White Eagle will stay with his people," said Black Hawk. "He will have much honor; he will be made a chief among them ; for the bravery of the White Eagle is the bravery of the Sauk; his honor will be high among his people; love will be his in the hearts of the Sacs and their brothers the Foxes."
A great shout burst forth at the words of the chief. The Eagle looked upon faces that glowed with love for him ; into eyes that gleamed their pride in a Sauk brave. He looked upon the countenances of women, turned to him in wide-eyed admiration. He looked upon the face of an Indian maiden of sur passing loveliness, all alight with adoration, in among the leaves of a drooping maple.
"The White Eagle will stay," he said, his eyes floating as they gazed among the leaves of the drooping maple.
He hastened to the lodge of Light Foot, his mother, to tell her. He found her sitting on the floor of her lodge, casting dust upon her locks. In a corner, glaring spitefully, with eyes that burned with firewater, lay Half Ear in a huddled heap.
"Ah, who hath taught my son, the White Eagle,
Lovelight 45
to lie!" moaned the woman. "Who hath taught the White Eagle his lies!"
He saluted her. She made no response, save to repeat in louder voice, ' ' Who hath taught the White Eagle his lies!"
The young brave turned a pitying look from her to the one who lay groveling in drink in the corner of the lodge, and left to join the young men in their games. But his heart was not in them; his heart was in among the leaves of the drooping maple, dwelling on the vision of the face he had seen there, aglow with a light which set him afire. Weary were the games; heavy were the hours until the night; eager was his soul for the twilight.
For this was the eve of the Crane Dance; the night of wooing among the Sacs ; the night when the young braves sought out their well beloved and made the test of fire. On this night he might enter her lodge without hindrance from her father's spear. He might kneel where she slept and place the light at her side. If the light burned on, she loved him not ; if that she breathed upon the light and it flut tered out, it was that she loved him; and on the morrow he might come to the door of her father's lodge with his love song, and she would come forth to him, to be his bride in the Crane Dance. Thence forth they would be wed. Such was the custom among them from the time when they dwelt by the frozen river of the North, before the Iroquois drove them forth.
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It was dusk. Many lights gleamed and flickered through the village. A hush was upon the lodges and in the streets. One could almost hear the faint rush of the flames as they climbed from the tiny torches into the still night air.
A rustling at the door of the lodge of Light Foot ! A light breaking into the dusk that was about the lodge ! A tall, graceful figure poised for an instant before the door, till the light should burn steadily and surely ! It was the White Eagle.
With eager step he pressed along the open way. Other lights he passed, but paid no heed. It was the solemn pretense among them all — lovers, loved ones, and those who dwelt in the lodges with the beloved — to pay no heed.
Swiftly he stole toward the lodge of Black Hawk at the end of the village, toward the lodge of Feather Heart. Soft footsteps were about him; tiny blurs of light melted the dusk. He paid no heed.
His shadow danced off into the darkness, pro jected by the flickering light he carried. So his heart danced as he hastened toward the lodge of Feather Heart.
He was before the door. He stopped. He hesi tated. The courage of the Sauk was within him; but he paused.
His hand was upon the mat of rushes that hung in the doorway. He raised it. He entered. His light glowed within the lodge of the Black Hawk; the lodge of Feather Heart.
Lovelight 47
He passed among the sleepers. No eyelid was raised. That had been their pretense, from the time their fathers had dwelt by the frozen banks of the Northern river.
Past the sleeping form of the chief he went. Past the members of his household, stopping and stooping to search among them as he went. Past them all to where Feather Heart lay.
Her head was pillowed upon her arm; her soft and slender arm. Her black hair fell across it, and across her throat ; her throat like the leaf of a wild rose, new blown. Her long lashes lay along her cheeks; her cheeks with a glow of warmth beneath the dusk. She breathed rapidly for one who slept! Perchance she dreamed!
He reached toward her. He set the light close to her face. Never before had the hand of the Eagle trembled in deed that he did.
" Lovelight hath lighted me to thy side," he whispered. "I bring you the flame of love on the end of a torch, daughter of a chief. Open thy lips and breath it into thy heart!"
She opened her eyes. The Light of Love was dim beside the light within them. She rested them upon the countenance of the White Eagle. Slowly, with glances clinging to him, she closed her lids. Her lips parted. She breathed upon the light. It flickered for a space, leaped, and went out.
With a heart that bounded within him, the White Eagle made his way from the lodge of Feather Heart.
CHAPTER IV THE MAN WITH HAIR OF BRONZE
THE chant to dawn floated weird and mystic across the flood of the Father of Waters from the village of Saukenuk. It was the morning of the Crane Dance; the morning of the day when the young men and the maidens wed among the Sacs. With the first pink of sunlight the lovers were already astir. They gathered on the green between the lodges, chanting their love songs soft and low to their beloved, still asleep in the lodges of their fathers.
Smoke came from the houses of the village, curl ing faintly blue against the still fainter blue of the early June sky. The birds awoke in the trees; the thrush made melody upon the hill; the cat-bird, ceasing her mournful plaint, rejoiced in the thicket. The river in its rocky bed made them accompani ment. The sun rose singing over the northern spur of the Watchtower. The day of the Dance of the Crane was at hand.
Swiftly, with flute in hand, the young braves sped whither their hearts leaped before them. Each at the door of his beloved made soft music on his flute; the music of the love song of the Sacs. The
48
The Man With Hair of Bronze 49
mingled strain from a hundred lodges lifted through the soft morning air into the blue sky.
Pretty was it to see how the father of the be loved, a grizzled warrior, came forth from his lodge with a show of seeing who it was that made music at the door, and why; pretty to see how the mother came behind him, pressing close to learn. Pleasant was it to hear the notes of the love song turn into discord when they came to the door; pleasant to hear the love song spring again from the flute when the mat in the doorway had fallen behind their retreating figures.
Beautiful was it to behold the maiden, coming at last to the door, blushing like the morning, with eyes that dared not meet her lover's-; with hand that reached trembling into his to be led forth from her father's lodge. Beautiful to watch them hastening to the green that ran between the houses, hand in hand, close, silent, glowing.
From a hundred lodges they came to join in the dance. In the whole village not a face was to be seen save the faces of the lovers. In the whole village the doors of the lodges were closed. Those neither lovers nor beloved might not fare forth this morn. So had it been since the time when their fathers' fathers had dwelt along the frozen river of the North, before the Iroquois drove them forth.
The White Eagle, in a dress of deerskin, em broidered with quill and bead, the feathers of the eagle in his hair, stood at the door of the lodge of
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the chieftain; at the door of the lodge of Feather Heart, daughter of a chief. On his flute he played the love song, or sang with his lips to his beloved.
"Daughter of morning, thy lover awaits thee; Child of a chieftain, come forth from the lodge ! Cheeks like the wild rose that blows in the summer,
Teeth like the snowflake and throat like the swan, Eyes like the stars in the stark nights of winter,
Hair like the midnight and smile like the dawn ! Come ! For thy beauty shall conquer the morning ! Come ! 'Tis the day of the Dance of the Crane !
"Daughter of morning, thy lover awaits thee ! Son of a chieftain, come forth to his lodge! Mighty in hunting and swift in the war-path,
Keen is his hatchet and stalwart his bow; Flesh of the deer and the quail will he bring thee,
Skin of the young of the beaver and doe. Come ! For his lodge and his right arm will shelter ! Come! 'Tis the day of the Dance of the Crane!"
A stirring of the mat that hung in the door of her father's lodge, and it was lifted aside! With downcast eyes, all alight with love; with lips that trembled into a smile, like the new leaves of the rose when the breezes of June kiss them, she stood before him. Without a word, they passed hand in hand to the green in the center of the village ; to the Dance of the Crane, with no eye upon them ; for that was the sacred custom of the Sacs from the first time whence their legends sprung.
The Man With Hair of Bronze 51
One eye there was that saw them; the glinting, bloodshot eye of Half Ear. He was returning to the village from his friends the whites, drunken and shattered. He stood in the eastern gate as they passed through the village. He looked upon them with evil in his face as they went hand in hand. Without entering the gate, he turned and went back the way he had corne, as swiftly as he could, for the liquor gripped his legs.
It was night before he returned again to the lodge of his mother, where Light Foot sat alone in the darkness, repining for the honor that had passed over the head of her beloved son to rest upon him of the hollow heart, the teller of lies. The White Eagle had gone to another lodge with his bride, the daughter of a chieftain.
From that day forth Half Ear slunk among his people, more and more like a cur that was whipped. He went no more among the whites, but clung to the door of his mother's lodge, save when he wandered through the village behind the houses to the gate that led to the river, and so out to the last point of land, to sit between the two rivers with gaze fixed upon the sweeping expanse of waters swinging between their banks below.
It was mid-June. The women had gone to the planting, hoeing their corn in the fields about the village. The young men were hunting in the forests ; the old men sat about on the grass beneath the trees, smoking their pipes, telling of deeds that had been
52 A Knight of the Wilderness
done in the days that were past. The Eagle had gone forth with the young men to the hunt. Feather Heart awaited his return on the top of the Watch- tower; for the daughter of the chief went not into the fields to hoe.
Half Ear, sitting on the last point of land with eyes fixed down the river, arose hastily and stole toward the village with averted look, like one who had done murder. At the gate he paused to look behind him. A thin trace of yellow smoke, ascend ing from beyond the last point of land where it could be seen, arose across the fair blue of the sky. Peering cautiously into the village to make sure he had not been seen, he turned from the gate and crept close behind the palisade of brush to the point near est the trail to the Tower. From thence he made haste until he vanished within the arch of foliage that marked the foot of the trail.
Scarcely had he disappeared from sight before a sound came over the swinging current of the Father of Waters that was a sound of terror to the ears of those in the village. It was the sound of something coughing and sputtering through the water beyond the bend, like a great monster that swam, choking as it swam. The breath of the monster lay yellow and thick across the sky.
Warriors flocked to the lodge of Black Hawk, their chief. With gun and spear in hand, with hatchet and knife in belt, with horn and pouch slung on their shoulders they came, awaiting his command.
The Man With Hair of Bronze 53
The women, working in the fields, arose and hurried into the village, hearing the sound and seeing the yellow breath across the sky ; children in their play hushed and drew near the lodges of their mothers. A call went forth to the young men who had gone to the hunting. Dread was in the heart of all; of all save the Black Hawk.
With his warriors pressing about, he went to the gate that led to the water, with eyes fixed upon the whirling expanse of river below. Something huge and black; something that breathed yellow flames with a horrid hissing noise, something that groaned and moaned, came into view about the bend in the river. A low cry of terror went up from the lodges where the women- cowered. The men drew nearer their chief, wide-eyed, waiting.
1 ' 'Tis the smoke canoe of the whites, ' ' quoth the Hawk. * ' See ! It bears the warriors of the Great Father ! The sun flashes from their guns. They go to the White Beaver in his fort above. ' '
As it drew nearer, slowly urging through the pressing waters, those who watched could see the soldiers crowding about the rail of the steamer. Their eyes were fixed on the shore, where the braves of the Sacs and the Foxes stood grouped. The sun sparkled among their guns.
Slowly the smoke canoe came closer. The braves gathered about their chief looked into his face for sign of command, with their hands stiffening about their guns and their spears. The steamer drew
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abreast the point, laying its course in shore. The hissing and the groaning ceased. The vessel stopped. Black Hawk answered the nmrnmrings of his braves with a look of stern command.
A flag of truce fluttered from the gaff of the steamboat. Black Hawk made answer with a sign of peace. The water about the craft swarmed with small boats, hastily put over. They were filled with soldiers. They came to the point of land. The sol diers debarked, and marched toward the gate where the chief stood among his warriors. "With firm eye he bade his braves withhold.
At the head marched one splendid in blue coat with yellow buttons, and with crusted yellow upon his shoulders. At the side of him marched Keokuk, a chief of the Sacs, who, for the sake of peace to his people, had led them across the Father of Waters at the word of the Great Father.
"General Gaines, a chief of the Great Father, has come to the Black Hawk, to tell him that the Great Father bids him depart to the land beyond the Father of Waters," said the Indian, in the Sauk tongue, acting as interpreter; for the Hawk was ignorant of English. "It were wise for the Hawk to obey the wish of the Great Father."
Black Hawk listened, a look of scorn on his sharp features. When the other was done, he made a sign that they should follow, and entered his lodge. Keo kuk, General Gaines, officers who were with him; braves high in the councils of the Sacs, made solemn
The Man With Hair of Bronze 55
and silent procession behind him. Their voices sounded through the length and breadth of the village.
The soldiers, left without the building, loitered about the village whither their curiosity and courage led them, staring at the Indians and poking and pry ing into the lodges. They were regulars and militia, hastily gathered on a sudden alarm. They were ill- equipped, the militia were undisciplined and inex perienced ; but they were in sufficient force to enable their commander to do the will of the Great Father with the Indians.
Among them was a young man of fair skin which the winds and sun could not darken. His eyes were brown, soft and warm ; his hair, straying across his pale brow, was the color of bronze ; his lips were full, his chin firm, his jaws well set. Silent, watchful, he looked with a pity in his eye upon the women and children huddled in dumb terror; upon the groups of warriors, sullen and stolid.
Near him was a short, round man with a short, round head fitting close to his body ; with prominent blue eyes set at a distance apart in a face of fiery red; short, round, red hands on short, round arms. He passed about among the Indians restlessly; his glances searched their faces with impatient eager ness. He peered into the distant parts of the village, cursing with disappointment when he failed to see what he sought.
As he looked, there came a low cry from among
56 A Knight of the Wilderness
the women crouching close by. One of them, a comely young squaw with a frank face and gentle eye, came to him. In her arms was a babe of less than a year. The skin of the infant was dark, but not so dark as the skin of the woman, its mother. She held it forth to the white man. Her gentle eyes appealed wistfully to him. She spoke to him, softly, in the Sauk tongue. The man, startled to see her, answered her harshly in her own language. It was not she whom he sought !
She spoke again. There was hungry pleading in her tone. The man replied savagely, in a burst of anger. He raised his arm to strike her.
In the instant that he did, with the swift grace of a panther, he of the bronze hair laid hand on the upraised arm.
"Frake, what are you doing!" he said. His voice was calm and contained.
The other turned upon him.
"I don't know that it is any of your business!" he growled.
"We can discuss that afterward, if you like," returned the one of the brown eyes and well set jaws. "For the present, I'll make it my affair. Don't strike that woman!"
The softness went out of the brown eyes as he said it; his voice, still calm and contained, was raised a shade. The one whom he had called Frake glared at him, his blue eyes standing farther from his head.
The Man With Hair of Bronze 57
"Yes! You're the feller that's been preachin' all the way about givin' the Indian his rights!" he sneered. "You're the feller that tried to block the expedition in the first place, ain't you? You seem to care a pile for these dirty redskins, you do ! How long have you been protector of the Indians ? Hey?' '
A knot of militia had gathered about the center of disturbance; for the querulous voice of Frake sounded through the village.
"Yes; you're right," returned the other, answer ing the asseverations of Frake. "I am sorry for the Indians. I am sorry we came here. But that has nothing to do with her." He inclined his head to where the squaw stood, shrinking and apprehensive. She seemed to fear lest harm should come to the white man who would have struck her — which is the way of woman the world over. "She was a woman before she was an Indian!"
Frake 's face curled into a low leer. He looked about at the soldiers who had gathered, winking at them.
"Oh, that's it, is it?" he sneered, with obvious significance, and walked away, leaving the soldiers chuckling and grinning at his repartee.
The other paid no heed to the implied insult, beyond a contemptuous glance at the snickering yokels surrounding him. His attention was fixed on the man who had sought to quarrel with him. He watched him closely, with shrewd eye. Watching him, he saw him stop abruptly in the search he was
58 A Knight of the Wilderness
surreptitiously making among the Indians, and fasten his gaze upon the eastern gate of the village. Standing in the gate he saw an Indian; a sinister, forbidding Indian, with thin, sharp, crooked face; with eyes close together, which seemed to look at divergent objects ; with little ears, of which one was half cut away.
He saw Frake hasten toward this Indian stand ing in the gate, stealing behind intervening houses to make his progress as inconspicuous as possible. He saw him come to the side of the Indian and speak with him; their heads close together, their eyes avoiding each other's face. Watching still, he saw them pass from the gate across an intervening open space toward a high hill to the eastward. In the foliage at the base of the hill was an archway of limbs and leaves. Beneath it was the trail. The man, watching, saw them disappear in the trail through the archway.
As he was about to withdraw his gaze, wonder ing whether it might not be best to follow, he saw another figure creep swiftly across the open space toward the hill, and disappear within the archway; the figure of the woman with the babe. Perplexed, he was consulting with himself to determine what he ought to do, when a man at his elbow spoke to him.
"Who's your friend?" asked the man. He turned. It was William Hall, one of the militia men. His face was twisted into a facetious grin.
The Man With Hair of Bronze 59
"That is Isaac Frake, Hall," returned the one addressed, still revolving in his mind the problem that had presented itself. "I thought you knew him. I have seen you talking with him. He is a settler hereabouts. It was he who brought in the alarm and prevailed upon General Gaines to come here. ' '
"Oh, I don't mean him!" chortled the militia man. * * I mean your friend, the squaw ! ' '
The man with the bronze hair ignored him. "Wil liam Hall, not used to finesse in his communica tions with his fellows, mistook the dignified rebuke for an indication of embarrassment and a confused conscience.
* * You seem to be mighty fond of the Indians I ' ' he ventured, slyly grinning behind his hand.
* * I am sorry for them, ' ' returned the other, pre occupied.
"Yes ; especially for the women!"
The man of the bronze hair, thinking of what he had seen, made no response. Hall, chuckling com placently over his supposed success, essayed again.
"Seen a good deal of 'em, hain't yer!" he asked.
"Enough to have charity for them." He paid little heed to the bumpkin ; he was not aware of the point of the other's badgering.
" 'Specially for the women?" Hall was making the most of it.
There was no response.
"Been here long?" went on Hall, with an elabo-
60 A Knight of the Wilderness
rate project of bringing the other to ultimate con fusion.
"I have been connected with the Indian agency headquarters at Jefferson Barracks for some months, Hall, ' ' returned his unconscious victim.
What barbed point William Hall sought to im pale the man upon, and what his success would have been, can never be determined, for before he could frame the next question in the projected series the object of his pungent designs departed from his side with startling abruptness, and was speeding toward the arched trail, where he presently disappeared.
The man of the bronze hair had made up his mind. Whatever lay behind the journey of Frake to the hill, no harm could come from his following, and he might do much in the way of good. He grew anxious at the thought of what might befall the Indian if she encountered the brute along in the hill ; with the army behind him he would hesitate at little. He was convinced that the woman had gone to seek out the man.
Thinking these things, he hurried up the trail. Hastening, he heard someone coming swiftly toward him with soft step. He turned a corner of the hill. In the trail before him was the Indian woman. Her face was eager and apprehensive. At sight of the man, she gave a little cry of relief.
"Raven Hair came to seek you," she said, in broken English. "The pale face is the friend of Eaven Hair. Will he come? There is need for him.
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The heart of the woman who loves is wise; she knows there is need for him!"
Impressed by the earnestness of the woman's manner and already wrought upon by his own thoughts, the man bade her proceed. She made no delay. Turning in the trail, she hastened upward. He followed, impatient of its windings, striving to peer through the foliage to penetrate the future.
In their ascent they approached a level place on a shoulder of the hill where the thicket receded from the trail, leaving an opening between the oaks. As they came close to it the woman, making a sign for silence, went forward and peered through the edge of the thicket along the trail. Making another sign, she glided into the open space.
In the center of it, sitting on the ground, leaning against a tree, was an Indian ; a pitiful, craven sav age. In his lap was a bottle. The Indian was croon ing to the bottle drunkenly. Half of his right ear was gone. It was the Indian whom the white man had seen go with Frake. Eaven Hair, the squaw with the papoose, came behind him like a shadow and placed a hand upon his drooping shoulder.
"Half Ear will stay with Eaven Hair," she said, as he struggled to rise to his feet, surprised and confounded. "The pale face would walk upon the hill."
She directed the white man with a nod to the point where the trail left the opening. Making sure that the woman would be able to detain the wretched
62 A Knight of the Wilderness
savage by sheer moral strength, he hastened up the trail.
He was not long in coming to where the crest of the hill broke rough against the sky. As he came near the top, he heard voices; a man's voice, harsh and angry, and another, that of a woman, clear as a bugle, defiant, thrilling. The one he recognized as that of Frake. The other he had never heard.
The sound of them sent him running up the trail, which was now more gradual. The thicket opened again, at the very summit. In the center of the space, his back toward him, was Frake. Confront ing him, with flashing eye and quivering nostril; slight, beautiful, sinuous, bristling; a panther at bay; an incensed goddess of the woods, was an Indian maiden of a loveliness which he had never before seen in maiden — save only once.
They spoke in the Sauk tongue. He could not understand. From their tone and their manner he knew that the man threatened; that the maiden defied him. He kept closer, looking the while to the knife in his belt. The Indian saw him. She under stood, and made no sign. The voice of the man rose louder. The eyes of the maiden were pits of fire.
"Curse your pretty hide, Feather Heart!" cried the man, in English, which she could not understand. "If you won't come one way you will another!"
He had lost all restraint. His voice was a hoarse roar. He grasped the girl by the waist. He placed
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one thick hand over her mouth to prevent an outcry. She struggled to no purpose.
The man with hair of bronze leaped upon the broad back of the other. With one motion he tore the hand of Frake from the waist of the maiden; with another he flung him to the ground; with another was upon him, pinioning him, face in the dust.
" Frake,'* he said, deliberately, "in Virginia, where I came from, they would hang a man for this. Things seem to be different out this way. ' '
The man on the ground, wriggling and cursing, tried to release himself.
"Now, don't squirm, Frake; I don't want to be severe with you," counseled the one who held him. At the words he pressed the point of his knife per suasively against the red neck of the man. Cursing still and muttering threats, Frake subsided, and was permitted to arise.
Gaming his feet, he looked toward the Indian girl, abashed and discomfited. Glancing at her, the prominent eyes swelled in his head, his face blanched, his jaw dropped into its creases of fat, his knees shook. He groaned as though he saw a ghost. The other, whose eyes had not left him for fear of treachery, glanced to see what was the cause of his terror.
Standing at the side of the girl, his arm about her, was a young Indian brave, tall, lithe, alert, enraged, physically beautiful. His eyes were
64 A Knight of the Wilderness
alternately upon one pale face and the other. The Indian girl, clinging to him, whispered in his ear. In an instant the Indian leaped upon Frake with a yell of rage. One hand gripped the great red throat. The other brandished a knife.
Before he could strike, he of the bronze hair was between them. One hand he raised high in the air, fingers extended, palm forward, making a sign of peace. With the other he grasped the brawny wrist of the savage with a grip that partially loosened his hold upon the knife. Fixing the Indian with earnest eyes, he shook his head. Frake, abandoning himself to fate and fear, made no sound or sign.
The Indian, with flashing eye and dilating nostril, gazed savagely at the one who interfered. The brown eyes of the white man, calm, intense, com manding, returned the look. The slight hand of Feather Heart, stealing along the naked arm of the warrior to the hand that held the knife, restrained him. Without relinquishing his hold upon the neck of Frake, he lowered his hand and sheathed his knife.
The white, by signs, led him to the hill over looking the town of Saukenuk, still holding Frake by the throat, and showed him the soldiers there. Look ing at Frake and shaking his head once more with the gesture and expression of one who gives advice, he left the three at the top of the hill. It was no longer his affair. The hand of the Indian was still upon the throat of the pale face.
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William Hall, idling among the Indians in the village of Saukenuk while the chiefs of the whites and the Sacs held council, in the course of time saw two figures emerge from the arch of foliage that marked the trail to the high hill on the eastern side of the village. One of them was the Indian woman with the baby whose skin was paler than the skin of its mother. The other was the man from Virginia. Seeing them, and being a man of circumscribed dis cernment, William Hall turned on his heel with a sagacious chuckle and continued to idle among the Indians while the council went forward.
On the morning of the next day Black Hawk took his people with him and departed in many canoes across the waters of the Father of Waters. On the evening of the next day the sun, sinking red into the west, looked aslant upon red, smouldering heaps of ruins where had stood the city of the Sacs ; the grey moon, arising, looked down upon grey ashes over which smoke ghosts flitted mournfully through the deserted night.
The Great Father had had his will with the Indian !
CHAPTER V THE FRONTIER CLERK
DENTON OFFUTT was as good as his word. He set up a store in New Salem, as he said he would on the morning when his tall and angular boatman worked his flat-boat over Cameron's dam, and placed the same tall and angular boatman in the store as clerk.
It was not long until Abraham Lincoln was one of the community. It was not long until he was much more than the least one of the little 'settlement whither he had drifted. Genial, mild, even tem pered, huge of hand and great of heart, with a brain that had as many droll angles as his frame and fea tures, he grew apace into the affections and esteem of the good people of New Salem.
They were glad when he was with them. They liked to go to Offutt's store to hear him discuss the events of the day with the wiseacres of the town. They enjoyed his pungent comments. They appre ciated his hard sense. They delighted in his whim sical humor. They rehearsed and repeated the stories he told from behind the counter or over the supper table at Eutledge's Inn, where he boarded, until his fame had gone abroad through the country.
If Abe Lincoln knew the popularity that was
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come upon him, he gave no indication of it. Modest, pleasant to all, he held his head straight and his heart clear through the little attentions frankly and ingenuously thrust upon him by his new friends. All who came shared in his sentiment toward his fel lows, which was large and comprehensive. Always was he kind and generous, without favor or preju dice. And always there was about him the intangi ble, elusive sadness which had baffled them when they had seen him that first morning in the boat on Cameron's dam.
It was a day in July. The little village on the top of the hill by the river lay asleep in the noon sun. Not a stir of life was abroad in the heat. All was hushed, save the plashing of the stream where it trickled over Cameron's dam, having shrunk from the torrent of April. Offutt's store was deserted of all excepting Abe Lincoln, who sat on the counter, legs dangling like strings, reading a book. Presently he closed it with a bang and put it upon the shelf. Exclaiming against the heat and mopping his brow, he went to the door of the tavern in search of a breath of air.
A man on horseback was in front of the store. The horse was drinking at the trough. The long clerk glanced at the man and the horse casually. The animal was a beautiful roan creature, fine of limb, deep of chest, with classic head and neck ; such a horse as he had seen but once. He looked at the rider more attentively. The man raised his head
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from watching his animal drink, and looked full upon the clerk. It was he who had brought the auger to the stranded boat on Cameron's dam.
"Why, howdy, stranger," said Lincoln, cor dially. "Traveling!"
"Hello, mariner," returned the other, recogniz ing the angular clerk at once. "Ashore at last, are you?"
There was a good-natured raillery in the tone, which Lincoln caught at once.
"Now, see here, stranger," he returned, with mock severity, "I can't allow any allusions to my seamanship. It wasn't my fault in the least that we got aground on that dam. The trouble was with the dam. It stuck too far up into the water."
The man on the horse, laughing, inquired if he could bait his animal there; "Powhatan," he called him. He was told that he could. He dismounted, led the horse into the shade of a tree, removed the saddle, rubbed the wet back, felt of its withers to make sure it was not too warm to be fed, gave it grain, and passed into the store. Lincoln, watch ing his care of the animal with an approving eye, passed in behind him.
"I am going to eat some bread and cheese myself, if you can furnish me with it," said the young man.
The clerk could, and did, and the man sat down to eat by the door, where any breath of air that was stirring might be expected to reach him.
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"What news, stranger?" inquired the elongated clerk, at length, contemplating him as he ate the cheese and bread.
"My name is Mortimer Randolph, " suggested the stranger, with unaffected courtesy. Lincoln made himself known, and they nodded on the new basis.
"I suppose you have heard accounts of the expulsion of Black Hawk from his village on the Rock River?" ventured the traveler.
"Some," assented the clerk, laconically.
"I have recently come from Jefferson Bar racks," continued Randolph. "I was informed there that the squatters, for whose benefit the Indi ans were expelled, were able to buy only one sec tion of land between them when it was put on sale."
Lincoln, in sudden agitation, came close to the stranger.
"I don't know how you feel about it," he said, with some emotion, "but I think they used the old man badly. The time will come when Illinois will be ashamed of her dealings with Black Hawk!"
"The time cannot come too soon for the fair name of your State," observed the other, in reply.
Lincoln, still wrought up, paced the puncheon floor of the store, among the barrels and boxes. As he walked his feet struck flat and firm, heel and toe at the same time.
"The oppression of a weak people by a strong is a thing abhorrent to my soul," he went on, half
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forgetting the presence of the stranger in an obses sion of feeling. "I was in New Orleans this spring. I saw negroes in chains there, beaten and scourged. I saw a girl sold on the block. The bidders pinched her flesh between their fingers ; the auctioneer made her run up and down the room before the men who were buying her! By God!" — he raised his face upward ; he lifted his clenched fist above him ; it was more a prayer than a curse — "by God! If ever I get a chance to hit that thing, I '11 hit it hard ! ' '
The man who was eating looked fixedly upon him. Over Lincoln's homely, grotesque features, into the eyes of sadness had come a radiance that was sublime, that made him beautiful. For a space he continued to pace the floor. Presently he con fronted the traveler. He smiled consciously down at him.
" Perhaps you don't agree with me?" he sub mitted.
The other arose from his seat. He looked fully into the face of the towering pioneer for a moment in silence.
"I am from Virginia," he said at last. "My father owned slaves." He paused. "That is why I came here," he added. With that he passed from the room, to attend to his horse.
As he left, some one stood aside in the doorway to let him by. Absorbed, he only saw that it was a woman. Without heeding who it was, he raised his hat and made way, craving her pardon with a
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display of manners rare in those parts. The woman murmured acknowledgment as he was mov ing away. The sound of the voice — soft, rich, melo dious — arrested him. He turned in some surprise to hear such a one there. Turning, his eyes looked into the eyes of blue that he had seen on the morn ing in April when he had come that way; the eyes that had followed him over the hill as he rode away; the eyes that had looked at him out of his dreams since that morning in spring, that had peeped at him through the clouds in the sky. As he gazed she passed into the store.
A group of young men stood about his horse as he approached it, his mind awhirl with what he had seen. They were teasing the animal; poking it in the ribs, tweaking its tail, pulling its ears; seeking in a variety of ways to arouse it to a demonstra tion of temper. As Eandolph came among them, Powhatan, whinnying softly, rubbed his nose against his master's sleeve. It brought him to his first realization of the presence of the others.
11 Howdy, stranger!"
One of the men, apparently the leader of them, a big, rough, burly man, saluted him. "Fine ani mal you 've got there; is his tail on good and tight ? " he added, giving the horse 's tail a vigorous pull.
The crowd of young fellows roared at the wit of their leader. The man with hair of bronze made no sign of anger.
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"I '11 have to ask you not to abuse the horse," he said to the bully, in even tone.
"You '11 have to do more than ask me, I reckon, stranger," retorted the man, in a tone of rough insult, and an accompanying epithet.
"Very well," rejoined the other, peacefully.
A white fist flashed across the astonished vision of the spectators. A dull sound of flesh on flesh came to their ears. Their leader, with a grunt, sank to the ground. He gained his feet before he was entirely prostrate, with a mighty oath. Another fist whipped through the air. The man fell heavily between the feet of the horse. The animal, nicker ing nervously, laid its velvet nose on his master's shoulders.
The man, extricating himself, arose once more. His comrades, cursing and shouting, rushed upon the Virginian, where he stood with his back toward his steed. One, two, three, they fell before his fists. But they were too many. By force of numbers, they came inside the range of his blows. They grappled him. Their hands clung to his arms ; their fists beat him upon his face and body. Without a sound he fought back as best he could against the hopeless odds.
A low, anxious cry from the door of the store, the cry of a woman, reached his ears. Making shift to look through a shower of blows, where he was the center of a swirling mass of men, Randolph saw her in the doorway; saw the look of distress,
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of anxiety, in the eyes, heard the cry again from the parted lips. With a burst of strength and agility he wrenched from their grasps, obstructed as they were in their fighting by the very numbers that gave them advantage. Before they had time to renew the onslaught Abe Lincoln was among them, his sweeping arms flinging them back, his voice raised bidding them hold off.
"Never mind these boys," he said, between times, to their victim. "They are only the Clary Grove boys. They are not bad fellows, stranger. It's just their notion of fun. Now, boys," he con tinued, addressing the others, "what 's up? What has this stranger done, that you all had to pitch into him like this ! ' '
"He punched me in the face!" bellowed the leader, using the vile epithet again.
"What did he do that for!" asked Lincoln, in the interests of peace.
The other did not offer any explanation.
"Did you call him what you called him just now?" pursued Lincoln.
The member of the gang acknowledged that he had.
* ' Now, see here, Jack Armstrong, ' ' Lincoln went on, taking him by the lapels of his coat good- naturedly, "if you were a stranger in a place and somebody called you that, what would you do?"
"Lick him, by God!" thundered Jack Arm strong.
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"Of course you would," rejoined Lincoln; "and you ought to. That 's just what he was going to do when you all pitched onto him. Now let up. You Ve had your fun, and the stranger has had his. It 's time to quit ! ' '
Jack Armstrong, crestfallen, muttered some thing under his breath, but did not see how he could escape from the logic of the tall and angular clerk. The rest of the gang, growling and cursing, exhib ited a lively desire to renew the battle.
"If these gentlemen can restrain their impa tience and present themselves one at a time, your interposition may not be necessary," observed Mortimer, seeing the frame of mind in which the rowdies were.
"I am sorry to say, Mr. Kandolph, that these boys are not in the habit of fighting that way," said Lincoln, frankly and without hesitation. ' ' Now, see here, boys," he went on, turning to them, "you Ve no call to make any more disturbance with this stranger."
He proceeded to coax and wheedle them into a disposition toward peace, with many flashes of humor and fragments of quaint logic. He had suc ceeded in restoring a fair degree of stability to their equilibrium, and the outlook was pacific, when Denton Offutt bustled up busily, with mincing steps.
"What 's the matter? What 's the matter? What's the matter? What's the matter?" he
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piped, firing off a question with each step as he came.
It did not take long to make it clear to Denton Offutt what was the matter.
"Abe! Abe! Abe! Abe! Lick 'em. Lick 'em!" cried Offutt, in explosive excitement. "It 's time this tomfoolery was stopped! Boys!" He shook his thin, little fists beneath the nose of the biggest one of them all. "Boys! There isn7't a man of you can wrastle Abe Lincoln, my clerk. He 's the best wrastler in all Illinois, and he knows more than any man in the United States ! ' '
"I notice nobody never does nothin' but talk about it," grunted the one who had started the trouble.
Denton Offutt turned upon him like a hen with a brood.
"You! You! You! You! Jack Armstrong!" he cried, in shrill tremolo. "Why, he could wring your neck for you!"
It had gone past the peacemaker. There was no retreat left to honor. Armstrong was already preparing for the encounter, stripping his coat, rolling his sleeves, drawing in his leather belt, vociferating taunts and threats the while.
"I don't like these woolings and pullings," observed Abe Lincoln, making ready, "but I sup pose I must make the most of it."
The gang from Clary's Grove withdrew a step, leaving a space for the wrestlers. The man from
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Virginia, leading his horse to another tree, joined Offutt at the door of the store. The young woman stood within. Eandolph saw her there, pale and intense.
"You will pardon me, madam," he said. "Shall I ask these men to wait until you can withdraw?"
"No," replied the girl, with forced composure; "if men must fight, the least women can do is to stand by them."
Before there was time for other words a roar went up from the circle of Clary's Grove boys, and the two were at each other. It was soon apparent that Lincoln tried to do no more than prevent the other from throwing him. He broke hold after hold, now eluding Armstrong, now standing stiff and immovable before him, without making any effort to throw him.
For a long space they struggled. The man from Clary's Grove could do nothing. His comrades, seeing him fail, began to mutter. Armstrong, incensed, lost all restraint, and fell upon his antago nist with blows and kicks, wholly unfair in the sport.
In the instant that he did so, a wild light came into the blue eyes of Lincoln. His huge hands reached forth. They closed about the thick neck of the other. The long arms stiffened. They lifted Armstrong from the ground till his feet swung struggling through the air. They shook him till the breath rattled out of him. They flung him down
Lincoln shook him till the breath rattled out of him.
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upon the ground, purple and gasping. In the soul of Lincoln there was no charity for what was unfair.
The boys from Clary's Grove, cursing and threatening, crowded about Lincoln, ready to leap upon him. Randolph hurried to his side. Denton Offutt, sputtering, scurried into his store and laid hold of the arm of Sylvia Hall in impotent alarm. She, with heaving chest and kindled eye, suffered his hands to remain there. Her eyes hung upon the two who confronted the many.
Armstrong, struggling to his feet, elbowed his comrades aside. He made his way until he stood before Lincoln. He held out his hand to him, open, palm upward.
" Shake!" he said. " You 're right! And, God, but you 're strong!"
' ' Are you badly hurt 1 There is blood upon your face!"
Sylvia Hall, standing in the doorway of the store, found some embarrassment in expressing her solicitude when the handsome young man with hair like bronze entered a moment later.
"I thank you, ma'am," he replied; "it is kind of you. It is nothing that will not wash off."
"It — perhaps a woman should not see these things," she said, in some confusion, impelled to make apology to this man. "I abhor such sights;
78 A Knight of the Wilderness
they distress me. But it must be glorious to be brave ! ' '
"If it were not for such as you, men would not be brave," made answer Eandolph, with a look at her before which her blue eyes fell.
Without further word, she went from the store through the street of the settlement to the house where she was staying. Not once in all the way did she dare look back; for she knew, in the man ner in which women know many things, that a pair of warm brown eyes followed her as she went. And she knew that to look into them again, now, was to have a heart utterly and forever lost.
CHAPTEB VI THE MILLHAND
4fTT rHY, I tell you, he 's a wonder! He 's a VV wonder ! He 's a big man, Abe Lincoln is ! I 'm with him most of the time. I can see it. I know it. You can't fool me. You can't fool Denton Offutt when it comes to men ! Why, I tell you what I '11 do! I '11 give him thirty years — he's twenty- two now — I '11 give him thirty years to be President of the United States; that 's what I '11 do!"
Denton Offutt, giving his saucer of tea a final cooling puff — it was characteristic of Denton Offutt not to be able to await the psychological moment in anything he did — gulped it down with a strangling noise, and looked about upon his audience to observe the effect of his prophetic assertion. His audience consisted of the boarders gathered about the supper table in Kutledge's tavern on the even ing after the bout between Lincoln and Armstrong. The effect of his impulsive and unreasoned claims for Lincoln's future was not all that the vanity of the speaker might have desired. It was not because those who heard were inclined to dis pute anything praiseful which might be said of Lincoln. He had been a hero among them from the beginning, and the adventure of that afternoon had
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rendered his position in the community unassail able. It was rather because the remarks came from Denton Offutt that they did not receive the expressed endorsement of the other boarders. For Denton Offutt had been discovered to possess the trait of talking too much, and his vociferations were frankly accepted by the people of New Salem on that basis. On this occasion, however, Denton Offutt was convinced that he had not talked enough, and immediately set about making up the deficit.
"Honest? Honest?" he cried, as though some one had disputed the integrity of his clerk! "Why, he 's the honestest man that ever lived anywhere. Why, I call him Honest Abe ! Why, last week, Mrs. Wiley paid sixpence too much for something she bought, and when Abe found it out he shut up shop and walked 'way out to her farm, seven miles in the country, with the balance. And week before that he found a little weight on the wrong side of the scales after he had weighed out some tea for Mrs. Poindexter, and he hunted around town for three hours until he found her and gave her the tea that was coming to her. Don't you call that honest!"
A mumbled acquiescence went about the supper table, coming to audible articulation when it reached Mortimer Eandolph, who had decided to remain in New Salem for the night, after many elaborate argu ments with himself on the point, none of which in any way involved a pair of blue eyes of lingering memory. The volcanic Mr. Offutt was exhibiting
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alarming symptoms of another eruption, when Lin coln himself appeared, averting the phenomenon.
' ' Where yon been, Abe ? You 're late ! ' ' cried Offutt, in the midst of the clamorous welcome which greeted Lincoln.
"Down the road a piece," replied Lincoln, wip ing his forehead on a large red handkerchief, drawn from the front of his shirt. In his free hand he held a small, dingy, dilapidated book, which he carefully deposited on the table at his elbow when he sat down.
"My, but you look blowed!" piped Offutt, with an air of proprietorship. "What you got?" he added, without a pause, catching sight of the book.
"Kirkman's Grammar," replied Lincoln. "Just been out to Vaner's to get it. Mentor Graham told me he had one. It 's the only one in the county. Beckon I '11 know a heap one of these days, eh, Mr. Randolph ?" addressing himself to Mortimer, who sat at the farther end of the table from him.
"Well, you know, you 're the smartest man in the United States now, Lincoln, ' ' returned that one, winking at Lincoln and glancing slyly at Offutt.
Lincoln laughed, and the tableful laughed, not entirely knowing why. Offutt himself laughed, feebly, as he applied himself to an apple turnover that Ann Eutledge brought him, with a vague sus picion that he was being made a butt. His oblitera tion for the moment was complete, for Lincoln fell to discussing matters of import with Eandolph, and
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the others at table followed the conversation with an attention that approached reverent awe. Without knowing why, without consciousness that it was so, these rude, rough men already felt subordinated in the presence of the tall grocer's clerk when he chose to be in earnest.
Mortimer Randolph was glad of the attention paid him by the hero of the settlement for other reasons than the pleasure he got from talking with such a man. He had sufficient discernment to real ize that his position in the community was delicate. He knew there was a prejudice among these shaggy people against him in spite of the account he had given of himself that afternoon; that they resented his deportment and manners; that they held his correct speech against him ; that the softness of his hands, the smoothness of his skin, the texture of his clothes, affronted them. He fully appreciated what the open friendship of Lincoln would do for him in establishing him in favor with these men of the frontier, and gratefully made the most of it. Not that he particularly cared what they thought of him; but — a vision of the blue eyes of one who dwelt among them floated through his mind bewilderingly.
Denton Offutt was not to be suppressed for long, however, by any discussion, of whatsoever weight and consequence. Having reduced his turnover to a series of shining spirals on his plate; having cooled in his saucer and drunk another cup of tea;
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having picked his teeth of the last shred of supper, he seized upon a brief lull in the conversation, and broke forth into piping voice.
"Where 's McNeill? Where 's John McNeill to-night?" he cried. "He has n't been here to-night. Where is he? Where is he? Does anybody know where he is ? Ann, do you know where he is ? "
The hand of Ann Kutledge, reaching to give Mortimer Eandolph a dish of food, trembled. The voice of Ann Butledge shook as she made answer. The trembling of the hand, the shaking of the voice, were scarcely perceptible. Probably no one at the table discerned the trembling and the shaking as she made answer, save Mortimer, and one other. Observing them himself, and glancing about the table to see if others did, the eyes of Mortimer rested upon the face of Lincoln. Lincoln was look ing at the girl. In his face was a compassion, a pro tecting tenderness, that made it beautiful, sublime. Other than that one look cast upon Ann Eutledge, there was no sign among them all.
"He is gone East," said the girl, simply.
"What?" said Denton Offutt, in a voice that was half a scream. "Left his store and gone East?"
Lincoln's glance went from the face of the girl to the face of Offutt. In his countenance was the look of one who watched, waiting to rescue when the moment of need should come. The mind of Mortimer flew swiftly with events.
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"He had word from his family in the East," went on the girl. There was no shake in the voice now. There was level composure. She was at the back of Offutt 's chair, taking his empty dishes. The entire board was listening closely, the matter being one of common interest. * ' He had to leave hastily, ' ' she went on, indifferently.
Denton Offutt gazed wide-eyed upon the others, groping for something to which to tie thought. He would have done better had he noted the face of Lincoln, his clerk, or Mortimer; but his eyes were too wide.
"Well — is n't he coming back? Is n't he going to marry you ? ' ' blurted Denton Offutt.
"Why, what a question, Mr. Offutt," laughed the girl, passing into the kitchen with a tray of dishes.
Mortimer Eandolph, having divined the situa tion, thought of a score of things to say to Denton Offutt; none which he might give voice to, out of consideration for the young woman. He was forced to content himself for the present with a look of indignant contempt, which lighted his brown eyes with a red, flaring glow. A laugh went around the table ; it was intended to be at the expense of Offutt. The sound of it aroused Mortimer again. He was on the point of rebuking them all, when Ann entered the room. Every eye, save his own, was upon her. There was no sign on her face. She smiled briefly,
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in apparent amusement at Offutt, and went about her work in her customary circumspect manner.
"That makes me think of a little dog that a friend of mine had down in Kentucky when I was a boy," drawled Lincoln, as Ann busied herself about the table. "He was a cute little dog; he always had his ears pricked up and his eyes wide open, and gave other indications of a budding intel ligence. He never bit anybody; he never killed the chickens or chased the pigs. He was a very good little dog, as dogs go. But he had two faults. He barked a whole lot more than was necessary, and he chewed things up. Anything from a plow handle to a toothpick, from a bed quilt to a handkerchief, that he could get a hold of, he gnawed and towsled as long as there was anything left of it.
"Now, down at the bottom of the forty acres that my friend's people had, was an old rail fence. The yellow jackets had made a nest on one of the bottom rails. One day, when my friend and I and his dog were out tramping, we came across the nest. Before we could say anything, the puppy made a leap and grabbed it with his mouth. Now, the yellow jackets didn't know the dog, and by the time he could let go, his head was twice the size it should have been. He came howling and whining up to us with his eyes shut and his lips puffed out, the worst looking dog I ever saw. My friend looked at him, and looked at me. 'Abe,' he said; 'Abe! That con-
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sarned purp never did know just what his mouth was for I'
If the application of the anecdote was obscure to the mind of Denton Offutt, he was alone in his fail ure to appreciate it. The others, listening through out with their breath held and their faces poised ready for a laugh, burst forth into a bellow when the tale was done that could have been heard as far as Offutt 's store. Offutt joined in in a lost manner, half wondering why they all looked at him. Morti mer alone did not laugh. He saw far below the humor of the story. His eyes were fixed upon the narrator in admiration and affection. As for Ann, she cast one grateful glance at Lincoln, which he saw, and went about her work unnoticed.
Considering many things — none of which was a pair of blue eyes — Mortimer Randolph decided on the morning of the next day that it was not entirely necessary for him to continue his journey until the following day. After breakfast he wandered across to Offutt 's store to explain why to Abraham Lin coln. He felt a moral responsibility in making his excuses for loitering to certain of the citizens of New Salem. He had already imparted them to Ann when she brought him his breakfast, with a formal smile and a bright countenance, that bore no trace of her emotions of the previous evening.
He found Lincoln stretched at full length on the counter of the store, deep in the pages of the gram mar. Lincoln did not observe his approach, for he
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was at the moment conjugating a verb of many irregularities, in an annoyed and audible voice. Randolph, undiscovered still, stood beside him for a moment, running his eye from head to foot and back again, marveling at the tremendous stature of the man. He had never before been so impressed with it.
1 'About how long are you, anyway, Lincoln?" he asked, presently, with a sociable laugh. There was no immediate hurry to tell him why he was n't going on that day.
Lincoln, finishing his conjugation without so much as a glance at his visitor, placed his long finger between the leaves of the book and swung into a sitting posture, his drooping toes straggling to the floor.
"I 'm six feet four, Randolph," he replied. "Pretty good for twenty-two years, ehl" There was pride in his look and his tone.
"I should say so," returned Randolph. "Think you 've got your growth I ' '
"Well, I think so. I think I Ve got mine, and half of somebody else's."
In the course of time Mortimer found it oppor tune to mention his change of plan. Hearing that he intended staying through another day, Lincoln passed over to where he stood. They were alone in the store. The tall clerk laid his arm across the shoulders of his new friend.
"I 'm glad of it," he said. There was a sadness
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in his eyes as he spoke. "I 'd like to see more of you. Somehow, you seem to bring a touch to life that is missing here. You are different from these people. I like these people. They are good; they are honest; you can count on them. Whether they are friends or enemies, you can tell what they are going to do. I like them all; even Clary's Grove boys, rough as they are. But something seems to be lacking in 'em, and you have got just that some thing. I do n't know what it is. I do n't know any body else that 's got it, excepting Sylvia Hall, the girl you saw here yesterday, and — Ann Butledge." He spoke the name hesitatingly, in lower voice. "But they 're girls," he went on, "and I ain't great shakes with the girls. Besides, the Hall girl will be going back to Indian Creek pretty soon, and Ann Eutledge — " He paused. Sadness and sorrow deepened in his eyes. "Well, Ann is promised to McNeill, you know. ' '
Mortimer forebore to speak of that in any way. He made no reply of any kind, save to thank Lin coln briefly for what he had said. There was a feel ing in his thanks beyond the simple words he made use of, there was a feeling in the tone and the look which accompanied them which could not readily have found expression in any words ; for the young Virginian was drawn to this great, gaunt man by a quick, living, understanding sympathy. The other sensed the feeling, and returned it through a pres sure of the hand that clasped Mortimer's shoulder.
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There was silence between them, until a customer entered the store. Mortimer departed without further word.
Leaving the store, he wandered down the road to the river. He loitered along its banks, among the trees of a little grove that grew there, turning away from the direction which the road took toward Springfield. There were matters which he wished to revolve in his mind. He wished to contemplate the new friendship he had found, he told himself, as he loitered, and he wished
Some one sat at the foot of a tree, in among soft mosses, by the side of the little path he fol lowed ; some one in a dress of dainty blue ; some one with small, dainty hands that clasped a book in her lap ; some one with a figure of exquisite contour and harmonious grace; some one with hair of twisted gold and eyes of blue that he had first seen looking at him from the banks of that river, that he had last seen looking at him on the afternoon before; some one who glanced at him in confusion, half smiling, uncertain whether she would speak to him.
With a naturalness which freed his action of impudence, he sat beside her on the moss. They fell to talking of many things as they sat there looking out upon the river, listening to the river, listening to the birds and the bees and the mill- wheel.
The next day, and the next, and the fourth day, Mortimer Randolph loitered in New Salem. "It
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does not matter if I do not reach Vandalia for a week," he told Lincoln, having a guilty conscience.
When on the fifth day he did start, some one walked at his side as he led Powhatan down the road past the mill ; soft hands put a sprig of golden rod in his coat lapel before he mounted ; white hands stroked the velvet nose of the roan ere he rode away ; blue eyes followed him through the dust until he disappeared down the road.
In a week he was back again. He rode up to Offutt's store on that afternoon with a song on his lips and a light in his eye, to tell Lincoln that he meant to remain in New Salem. That his being there might embarrass no one, he sought work to do. He found it in Cameron's mill, now owned by Denton OfFutt, frenzied financier. His immediate superior, and the man from whom he took his orders, was Abraham Lincoln, boatman, clerk, and mill superintendent.
What times the eyes of the millhand wandered through the window and down among the trees beside the river, leaving the stones of the mill to grind nothing; what times the millhand himself fol lowed his wandering eyes when they found what they sought among the trees was of no consequence or effect upon his tenure of office. For Lincoln was his immediate superior, and the heart of Lincoln could not suffer the hand of Lincoln to be laid heavily upon a lover.
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At last the summer drew to a close. The time of parting came. Their father, passing through the settlement on a journey to Jefferson Barracks, had told Eachel and Sylvia to be ready to return home with him on a certain day. The eve of the day was at hand.
Mortimer Randolph, millhand, walked with Sylvia Hall through the moonlight down by the dam and to the grove where he had first sat by her side on a morning in July. It was late in September. It was cool. They did not sit on the bank of moss which had been their retreat during the hot months of summer, but walked to and fro near the spot in the little path, in among the elms and oaks.
Their talk was of many things, as it had always been. Not once had there been word of love between them. As they strolled this night, he came to tell her of his home in Virginia ; of his mother and sis ters; of his father and brother; of his nephew and niece, children of his brother. He spoke of his love for them, of his longing at times to go back among them. In the telling, he paused. A silence fell upon his lips. A trembling came over Sylvia as she stood beside him. In all he had said there had been no hint of her, yet she felt that he had paused to speak of love.
"Sylvia" — his voice was low and earnest — "Sylvia, we have not known each other long. It is scarcely two months. But in that time we have seen
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much of each other. And in that time — " He paused once more. She feared that he would hear the beating of her heart in the hush of the evening. He began again.
' ' My mother taught me that a woman is sacred, ' ' he said. ''She taught me that no man should con sider her lightly ; that no man might trifle with even so slight a thing as her time ; that he might not seek her companionship above all others unless there were honest love in the seeking." Another pause. "I would not have you think that I have forgotten the teachings of my mother," he resumed; "and yet, to-night, on the eve of your departure, I cannot tell you that I love you!" His words were slow, full of emotion, full of regret. For a moment her heart ceased to beat. In another it sent the pulses surging through her until she would have reeled, if she had not put out a hand against a tree.
"I do not mean that I think you would have me tell you," he went on, in perfect sincerity. "I do not mean that I think you would be glad if I should. I cannot but think it would grieve you, in the kind ness of your heart ; I cannot doubt that you would tell me in all gentleness that you would rather there were no word of love between us."
If he had looked at her pale face, where the moon shone upon it through the leaves of the trees beneath which they stood ; if he had seen her parted, quivering lips, the tears half formed in her eyes,
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the frightened, wistful look, he would have known how far from the truth he had gone. But he did not look.
"I have wronged you, Sylvia," he resumed. "Not because I may have led you to expect that I would tell you of my love before you left; not because I have sought you out diligently above all others in the earth without an honest love in the seeking, but because I have sought you out at all." He paused; a fervor was creeping into his words which he seemed to struggle against. When he went on it had gone; there was feeling in his tones, but they were calm.
"I am not permitted to make you understand; there is much that I shall have to leave to your inference, and your charity," he said. "Sylvia, I am a stranger to you. I am a stranger to all who know you and protect you. You do not know what I am. You cannot be sure that I am what I may seem to you to be. I am a millhand only that I may be near you. Cannot you see how it is possible that I may have wronged you ? ' '
Her voice was faint and afar off when she sought to answer, but grew stronger as she proceeded.
"You are not a stranger to me," she said. "I have learned what you are. There is that in a woman which tells her. I do not need to be told what you are. ' '
For a space there was silence between them. It was his voice, slow and solemn, which broke it.
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"If I should tell you that when I left that home of which I have spoken to-night, I left it under a shadow ; that I left it reviled, despised, condemned ; that a darkness lingers over my name among my own people even as I speak to you, would you under stand how I have wronged you, and how bitterly I accuse myself?"
"If your own lips should tell me evil things about yourself, I should not believe them ; but in all else I should believe you utterly, ' ' she made answer. She turned her face toward him, reverently, long ingly. He gazed across the flowing river that muttered through the shadows of the trees.
"But it is true, Sylvia," he said. His voice had sunk almost to a whisper. "It is even as I said. I may tell you more than that. I may not even tell you so much as to say that it should not be as it is. Some day, perhaps, the way may be made clear for me. Some day, perhaps, I may come seeking you in perfect honor. If the day never comes, I should like to feel in my last hours that I had lingered in your memory as the man I may have seemed to be ; as the millhand with whom you once walked and talked beside the river and beneath the trees. ' '
He had finished. She laid her hand upon his arm.
"May I tell you that I should believe in you though the whole world cried evil against you?" she said. "May I tell you that I shall have faith in you to the last day?"
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For an instant he pressed her hand, cold and trembling, on his arm.
"You make me brave," he said. "Come; you are cold. Your hand trembles. We must return."
CHAPTER VII SHADOWS
IN the morning they left. All New Salem turned out to see them off, and to banter Eachel and William Munson; for William Munson had pro gressed so far in the affections of Eachel that it was necessary to banter them. William repaid them for their trouble by kissing Kachel full on the mouth in the presence of all, and having his ears soundly boxed for his pains ; all of which, and much else, delighted the people of New Salem beyond measure, so that the cavalcade moved off at last before a gale of laughter.
Between Mortimer and Sylvia there were only the most casual words of parting, to the disappoint ment and confusion of the people of the settlement, who had not been ignorant of the principal occupa tion of the millhand through the summer. None ventured upon any witticisms at their expense. There was that about each of them, quite uninten tional on his or her part, which debarred the rough settlers from any close approach to such familiarity.
With a last wave of farewell, as the party disap peared down the road, Mortimer returned to his work at the mill, whence his eyes wandered through a grove of trees by the river side, over a scene of
96
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utter and blighting desolation. From that hour he found his only comfort in the company of Abraham Lincoln — in that, and in the hope that he would not relinquish.
The company of Lincoln was not so easily obtained as it had been. From the night when Den- ton Offutt had blundered in remarking the absence of McNeill, Lincoln was found, or was missed, more and more frequently in the company of Ann But- ledge. In the beginning of her trouble he had been her champion. The story he had told that night had saved her much. As time passed, and evil things came to be whispered about McNeill and his sudden departure, it was Lincoln who laughed them to scorn in her own ears, and silenced them upon the lips of those who spoke them. As time passed, and the faith of her friends in the man who had gone began to wane, it was Lincoln alone who made her brave to believe in him. As time passed, and her own confidence grew faint, it was this gaunt and homely man whose charity brought a shame to her cheeks. And as time passed, she sought his comfort and courage more and more, until there was rarely a day when he did not spend his spare time with her.
Together they read books that he borrowed. He taught her the contents of the grammar he had had of Vaner, going again the six miles to get it for her. They read such volumes as they could find, and dis cussed them together. He went with her to the little
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social gatherings of the community, shielding her from glances and whispers. If need had been, he would have fought with his fists for her. That he did not have to do. His estate had risen among his people. He had arrived, according to the lights of New Salem. He was deferred to.
Winter came. The mill was closed. Mortimer found such other employment as he was able. He had no lack of money, but for the sake of his con tentment and his reputation among the neighbors, he kept himself at odd tasks whenever he could. Thus he worked through the cold months, living in the tavern, rejoicing in the moments when he could have his friend alone, delighting in the hours when Lincoln told stories to the men in the tavern 's public room, or among the boxes in Offutt's store. The sadness seemed less frequent in the other's eyes as time wore on. Only, when it came, it was more sad than it had been.
One day a letter came to Mortimer from Vir ginia. The postmaster made a special trip to the farm where Mortimer was employed that day to deliver it. He felt that it must be important, as it came from a law firm in Bichmond. He made many overtures of his services when Mortimer was read ing it, and lingered long and hopefully about the spot. However, he had nothing to report when he returned to Offutt's store, where a volunteer com mittee of townspeople awaited him.
That night Mortimer sought out Abraham Lin-
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coin, under the human necessity of telling his happi ness to some one. He had already confided to him his love for Sylvia. For a long time they conversed in low tones in Mortimer's room. When Lincoln came out, he was full of thought, and glad.
On the next morning, Mortimer, mounting "Powhatan," set out from the village of New Salem, turning his face to the northeast. One hun dred and fifty miles ahead of him, by the road he traveled, was the town of Ottawa. Twelve miles north of Ottawa was the little settlement of Indian Creek, the home of Sylvia Hall.
It was a weary way. The roads were little bet ter than trails for the most part; in places they were worse. The mud was interminable and bot tomless. During the daytime the rain was almost incessant. In the mornings and the evenings the mud was partly frozen, making travel painful. Yet ever as he rode a song was on his lips ; and ever as he rode he took from his pocket, from time to time, the letter he had received the day before he left, and read it with a radiant face.
It was four days before he reached Ottawa. He arrived in a heavy rain, and so late at night that he could go no farther until morning.
On the night he stopped at Ottawa, another trav eler, sputtering through the rain and the mud, sought refuge in the cabin of William Hall at Indian Creek. He was a short, round man with a short, round head, fitting close to his body; with a round,
100 A Knight of the Wilderness
red face in which were set a pair of widely sep arated blue eyes that stuck out like lobsters' eyes. Their moisture when the door was opened to his knock further increased the similarity.
"WJiy, Ike Frake! For the land's sake!" cried Eachel Hall. It was she who had opened the door. "Why, you're wet as sop! Come right in; My, how it blows ! ' '
Isaac Frake, by virtue of having traveled from Ohio in migration with the Hall family, and of hav ing been a frequent visitor at their home in subse quent journeys back and forth, was heartily wel comed by the other members of the family. Young William Hall, slapping him on the back three or four times on the strength of having been a com rade in arms with him, ran to fetch a dry coat. The elder Hall produced a flask of whisky and poured out half a glassful from it, which Frake swallowed with unction. Mother Hall hastened about in search of food for the traveler. Eachel tittered and giggled at him, keeping up a continuous chatter the while. Only Sylvia took no part in the various activities of greeting. It appeared from the sour look of dis appointment on his face that her welcome was the one of them all about which he had the greatest concern.
If there were any trace of the fingers of the Indian on the neck or the soul of Isaac Frake, they were not discernible as he presently sat by the fire in a coat belonging to the elder Hall — much too
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small for him — with a glass of toddy in his hand; which also seemed somewhat too small as he tossed it into his round face without a flicker of his round eyes. He was abundantly healthful, with a rough vigor of body and a blunt good humor. There was something in his good humor, however, which sug gested that it was ephemeral, and sat lightly upon the round surface of the man.
"For the land's sake, where you been? We ain't seen you for nigh on two years!" cried Rachel for the twentieth time, pausing for the first time to let him answer.
"Why, I 've been staying home tending my own affairs," returned Frake, with an attempt at levity in his tone and a look at Sylvia meant to be gently satirical, but which passed into an expression of dogged resentment. "I was afraid you wouldn't know who I was when you got back. Some of you don't seem to." His look became almost surly, in spite of himself, as he concluded.
Eachel snickered, with immoderate relish. There was a tradition in the Hall family involving the futures of Sylvia and Frake. It had no more sub stantial foundation than the propitiatory attitude toward the young woman which the man had always displayed, and a matter of fact acceptance of such an eventuality on the part of the family in general as being a satisfactory solution of the vexing and vital problem, always serious to the early settlers, of marrying off their daughter. Sylvia had always
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given her parents keen anxiety because of her fail ure to appreciate the importance of acquiring a hus band and of a certain lofty indifference to the swains who had had the temerity to court her. Wherefore the attentions of Frake had been the more welcome ; especially as it was generally under stood that he was a leading man in the new Bock River country and a patriot who had done much to open the district for settlement.
Sylvia herself was so far out of harmony with the plan that on all occasions she treated the man with an indifference more crushing than scorn. To-night she arose from her seat on the bench oppo site to him in the midst of the look which he fastened upon her after his ill-natured remark, and left the room, completely ignoring the very existence of such a man as Isaac Frake as her swishing skirts swept his knees.
"You won't find it so easy with Sylvia now, Mr. Frake," simpered Rachel, as the man watched her sister passing into the little room partitioned off from the large apartment for the use of the sisters. "You've got a rival, you know!"
"Is that so?" returned Frake, with an appear ance of unconcern and amiability which obtained credit with Rachel. There were strains of wisdom in Frake.
"She don't never say anything to me about it, but the way she went on at New Salem with Morti-
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mer Randolph was something to take your breath ! ' ' went on the girl.
"With who?" demanded Frake, abruptly.
"With Mortimer Randolph, " pursued the girl, oblivious of his emphatic interest in the name. ' * Oh, he 's an awful dandy ! One of them eastern fellers, I reckon. Land sakes, Mr. Frake, afore I 'd take up with one of them eastern dandies ! ' '
"Uhuh!" grunted Mr. Frake, with profound meaning in the sound, and a distortion of his round features that fairly squeezed significance from their creases.
"Why, Mr. Frake, what makes you look so?" queried the girl, perceiving.
"Oh, nothing," returned Frake, with an owlish rolling of his protuberant blue eyes.
"Oh, get along, Mr. Frake!" cried the girl, giggling. * ' What do you mean ? ' '
Frake turned to young William Hall, who sat by the chimney cleaning his musket, but half heeding their conversation.
"Bill," he said, addressing the young man, "you remember the morning last year when we got to Saukenuk? Remember the man that made the fine speech about the Indian woman with the papoose that came to me begging money for whisky!"
Frake was perfectly aware that young Hall could not know what the woman had begged of him, she having spoken in the Sauk tongue.
"Which one was that?" returned William Hall,
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Jr., intent for the moment on his gun, in which his ramrod had become jammed.
4 'Oh, the one with the red hair that was so damned anxious — excuse me, Miss Hall — so very anxious about what was going to happen to the Indians all the way up the river ! ' ' continued Frake.
Eachel, laying down the shirt which she was making for her brother, stared from one to the other.
"Sure, I remember!" ejaculated young Hall, setting his gun down and scratching his head reflec tively. "He was a smart aleck! Say, do you know what?" he added, with a flood of recollection, "I saw him go sneaking off into the hill after that woman with the papoose, and after a while I saw them come sneaking back together, mighty friendly- like!"
William Hall, the son, impressed with the start ling character of this information, looked at his sister and the guest to observe its effect, with many nods of the head. Kachel's mouth grew wider and wider as she stared at the two. Frake, not feeling called upon to enter into a detailed account of the sequence of the events of the morning under discus sion, half closed his eyes and glanced casually into the fire.
1 ' Of course, you didn 't happen to notice whether the papoose was a full-blooded Indian, or a half- breed, did you?" he observed unconcernedly.
Young Hall, scratching his head again to stir his
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memory, allowed that it was powerful pale for a full-blooded Indian. Frake grunted significantly, and said nothing.
1 'But what's all that got to do with Mr. Ran dolph?" cried Rachel, bursting with suspense and curiosity.
"Oh, I don't like to say," returned Frake, gaz ing into the fire still, in evident embarrassment.
"Isaac Frake, tell us! What do you mean!" insisted Rachel.
"Oh, well," said Frake, reluctantly, "all I know is that the name of this fellow I've been telling you about was Randolph."
* ' The dirty skunk ! ' ' cried William Hall, glower ing. "If he comes around my sister, I'll make a sieve of him."
"Well, now, of course, maybe his first name wasn't Mortimer," interceded Frake. "I don't know what his first name was. ' '
"Oh, it was, I know it was," gasped Rachel, re covering her breath. "I knew he was no good when I first set eyes on him. Nobody with such airs ever was any good. And nobody in New Salem never knew anything about him ; he jest wandered in there. Oh ! Oh ! Oh ! I knew it ! I knew it ! I knew it I"
In vain did Frake essay to stem the flood of angry suspicion which he had loosed. To no avail did he endeavor to explain and extenuate on hypotheses that would leave the reputation and character of Mortimer Randolph not utterly black.
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His attempted suggestions were futile. All he could say only strengthened suspicion into conviction.
1 'But for heaven's sake don't say a word about it to Sylvia," he pleaded with Rachel, relinquishing his efforts to save the man. ''What's the good of her knowing?" he argued. "He may never show up again, and she '11 get over it. If he does show up, there '11 be time enough to let her know. Now, you won't tell her, will you, Rachel?"
Rachel, posting off to her room immediately without replying to his anxious petition, Frake sat down to the supper which Mother Hall had mean while been preparing for him, sufficiently satisfied in his mind that Sylvia would know everything, and much more, before he should have finished the victuals.
What passed between Sylvia and her sister over night was in no wise to be inferred from the appear ance of the elder when the family gathered at their breakfast of pork and hominy in the morning; but the sullen face of Rachel made it obvious to Frake that she had not carried conviction with her tale.
The remotest reference to Randolph was avoided. Throughout the meal Frake was the embodiment of innocence and frankness. He dilated upon the state of the country. He described the melancholy con ditions in Chicago, whence he had come, character izing the settlement as a hopeless mud hole. He dis cussed politics and other matters of passing interest for the benefit of the elder Hall. He ingenuously
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pointed out from time to time the great promises held in the new Rock River country, where he held some sections, now that Black Hawk had been driven out, and pictured a rosy future for that part of the State. On the whole, he conducted himself like a perfectly guileless man of healthful interests and wholesome enthusiasm, to the eminent satisfac tion of father and mother, son and the dark-eyed sister. This, in the circumstances, was wisely diplo matic on the part of Isaac Frake.
They were at the end of the meal. Eachel and Sylvia were clearing away the dishes; the men, pushing back their chairs, were filling their pipes; the talk had guttered down into the dim vapidities of well-fed complacency; when a tremendous com motion among the fowl in the yard, the furious bark ing of the settlement dogs, and the clatter of hurry ing hoofs, arrested all that they did and brought William Hall, the son, to the door of the house in sudden excitement.
Opening the door and glancing out, he turned a black look upon those in the room.
"Here comes the dirty skunk now!" he growled.
If it had been physiologically possible for the face of Isaac Frake to exhibit pallor, he would have been pale when he learned that Mortimer Randolph had come there ; for he was as certain that it was he as though his name had been used instead of the epithet. By a struggle he repressed all signs, merely looking from one to another of those present
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with an open and questioning countenance, as though inquiring the meaning of the unaccountable behavior of the young man.
In a moment Mortimer Eandolph was in the doorway. At sight of him Rachel, with a little scream, grasped Sylvia by the arm. "William Hall stared dumbly at him, understanding nothing. His wife wiped her arms nervously on her apron. Young William Hall stood aside, glowering. Frake grinned and nodded with an expression of pleased surprise. As for Sylvia, she looked at him as she had always looked at him when in the presence of others ; save that her face was pale.
His clothing was draggled and spattered with mud. Flecks of it were on his face ; it plastered his hands ; it encased and hid his boots. Clearly he had ridden fast ; how fast they might have known if they had seen Powhatan gasping for breath in the yard without.
The expression on Mortimer's face was intense. He was alert, vivid with life and action. His smouldering eyes, his bronze hair straggling across his pale forehead as he stood with hat in hand, his disheveled condition enhanced his handsome and impressive appearance.
His eyes passed swiftly from one to another of those who were in the room. A glance of passing recognition for the younger Hall, slight as the unim portance of that young man merited ; a look at Frake in which was a momentary trace of surprise at see-
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ing him there, and at seeing him with the breath of life still in his body ; a nod at the elder Hall ; a bow to his wife; a glimpse at Eachel; a clinging of his eyes for an instant upon Sylvia.
"I have news for you," he said, full voiced, but calm. ' ' I do not wish to alarm you ; I only desire to put you on guard against the possibilities which you may be called upon to confront. There are many rumors flying about the Indians. Shaubena was at Ottawa last night with many tales. Black Hawk has crossed the Mississippi with a thousand braves, he says, and marches inland. Shaubena is our friend. He tells what he believes."
Eachel, with a shriek of terror, threw herself into her sister's arms. The son forgot his look of dislike. The father came closer, eager to hear more. The mother wound and unwound her apron about her hands. Frake sat dumb and transfixed, his eyes starting from his head. As for Sylvia, she stroked the dark hair of her sister, whispering to her. Her eyes rested upon the face of Mortimer Randolph, as they always rested when others were about.
He told them many of the wild stories that had come to Ottawa, discounting them as he told them. He answered such questions as he could. For a space it was forgotten, in the excitement of the threatened danger, that he was more than any other man. Between them all was the spell of common danger. It was he who broke it by intruding the personal element.
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"Frake," he said, "the men who care to go to protect the frontier are gathering at Nixon's. Mr. Hall, I should not wish to presume to make sugges tions, but I hope you will consider well before either yourself or your son leaves your family here with out all the protection that is available. I myself must go immediately to the mouth of the Eock Eiver to see if anything can be done with the Indians. It may be that Black Hawk can be diverted. I came this way to let you know. I must hurry on. Do not alarm yourselves. At the worst, you will only need to exercise precaution. Good day!"
With a swift, wistful look at Sylvia he turned from the door and passed to Powhatan. Sylvia, gently laying aside her sister's arms, glided after him. Her brother would have detained her. She passed him and went to the side of Mortimer.
"You are going — at once?" she murmured, with downcast eyes.
"Sylvia, I must!" he answered, with emotion. ' * I have much to tell you. I left New Salem to come to tell you. But this news — I must go at once, Sylvia. I have had dealings with the Indians. For a time I was with the Indian agency headquarters at Jefferson Barracks. Perhaps I have some influence. Perhaps I can avert the danger. Perhaps I can at least reduce it." He paused. "It was good of you to give me these few words with you. ' ' He took her hand for an instant. "I have much to tell you; I
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shall come when I can to tell it to you. Good-bye, Sylvia!"
Their eyes met. She bade him no farewell with her voice. She could not. He rode away, dragging her heart after him over the rough road through the cold grey April morning. Would to Heaven he might have said what he had come to say to her before he had ridden away to the Indians !
1 'It's him all right," said William Hall the son, exchanging glances with Frake when Sylvia left the room.
"It sure is, I am sorry to say," returned Frake.
"Sunning right off to the Indians, the first thing ! ' ' cried Rachel. ' ' Now I wonder if Miss Obsti nacy will believe what I tell her ! ' ' There was a ring of malicious exultation in her voice, distinctly feminine.
"The dirty skunk!" growled the junior Hall; "it's goldarned funny how much he seems to think of them Indians. Tears like he didn't want some of 'em to git killed ! ' '
"Shame on you, Bill Hall!" expostulated Frake. "Hush," he added with solicitude; "here's your sister. She mustn't know."
Sylvia Hall, her face like the grey morning into which her lover had ridden away, passed across the room to where the dishes stood ready to be cleaned.
CHAPTER VIII
LOVE AND FEAR
village of New Salem was all astir again ; to JL the last citizen it had turned out and was down by Cameron's dam once more on another April morning, tingling with excitement. New Salem had had many blessings to be thankful for since it had gathered by the dam on that April morning the year before to watch a long and angular boatman get a flat-boat over the dam ; many of which were directly or indirectly traceable to this same long and angu lar boatman, their present fellow-citizen, Abraham Lincoln.
There had been the vanquishing of Clary 's Grove boys and their subsequent allegiance to New Salem ; there had been the sojourn of the somewhat inscrut able stranger with bronze hair, an anomalous com posite of dandy and millhand; there had been the love affair of the stranger and Sylvia Hall, with its baffling issue. More interesting than these things was the disappearance of John McNeill, lover of Ann Rutledge, affording opportunity for intermina ble speculations about the cause of his departure — his reasons had long since been rejected — the proba bilities of his return and the exact present and prospective status of Abraham Lincoln if he should
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or should not return; problems that were pecu liarly compensating and satisfying to the soul as being utterly beyond the possibility of conjectural solution.
Within the week the community had been enter tained by the vanishing of Denton Offutt, hopelessly bankrupt and a fugitive from his creditors ; an exit beautifully in harmony with the career of that ver satile and voluble financier. This had led to further excitement. Abraham Lincoln, the clerk, having demonstrated to himself and his employer that his greatest opportunities in life did not lie in merchan dising, and being stirred to ambition by the popu larity which was forced upon him by the neighbor hood, had come out, in a neat circular, for the legislature.
The startling feature of his candidacy was that he stoutly proclaimed himself a Clay man and a Whig, in a district that was violently Jackson and Democratic. His stand for the principles of the "American System" doomed him, declared the wise ones of the settlement. Perhaps he thought so him self, for he wrote in the conclusion of his circular: "If the good people, in their wisdom, shall see fit to keep me in the background, I have been too familiar with disappointments to be very much chagrined."
One source of strength there was, however, in the "American System." The American System, standing for internal improvements among other things, implied making the Sangamon River naviga-
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ble. This principle Lincoln promulgated and empha sized ; and in this he was f atefully opportune, for it was this very thing that was the cause of the agita tion that brought all New Salem tingling to the banks of the river by Cameron's dam on this morning in April.
For there, chugging and chooting back and forth in the back-water pond above the dam, was a steam boat, constructed of wood and iron, as a steamboat should be, with clanking, clanging, groaning, wheez ing inward parts that propelled it through the virgin waters of the Sangamon Eiver in a manner fitting and appropriate to such a craft.
It was the steamer Talisman, brought all the way from the Ohio Kiver by a zealous advocate of internal improvements to demonstrate that the river could afford passage to steam vessels as high as Springfield. It had gone up to that place on the flood waters in triumph. Keturning, it had been brought low in its pride by the little dam at New Salem, and was scolding and fuming about it as befitted the occasion, having no more honor left than a flat-boat. All the town was down to see it.
There were the merchants and farmers, the smith and the carpenters — New Salem had two joiners now — the tinner and the hatter, other increments to the community; the housewives and the swarms of children, many of them also increments; the young men and the maids, just as there had been the year before; excepting, specifically, that the sisters Hall
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were not there; that no stranger with brown eyes came riding on a roan charger to raise their hair with his cool daring, and that the lover who stood by the side of Ann Eutledge was not John McNeill, but an exceedingly tall and angular young man with deep set, sad blue eyes and a face that would have been ugly had it not been for a benign light that shone through it.
But New Salem was disappointed on this morn ing. The novelty of the sight of the steamer had worn off early in its sojourn in the mill pond. There was nothing picturesque or exhilarating in the peril in which she was placed. There was no tall and angular boatman in her crew to entertain them with stories and repartee. And the manner of her even tual escape did not fire the imagination and stir the soul.
For those who had the Talisman in charge re sorted to the purely physical and prosaic device of tearing a hole in the dam to permit her passage down stream, first settling roundly with old John Cameron for the prospective damage. A principle was at stake ; and a principle must not be deterred or impeded in its progress by facts or the laws of man, nature, or God.
Long before the demolition was completed and the boat safe below the dam, interest in the proceed ings began to wTane, and the people of New Salem set back toward their village in a slowly drifting cur rent, disappointed and unsatisfied, to gather in
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knots in the street, hungry for something with which to appease the appetites whetted by the promise of adventure held out when the Talisman was first heard chooting and chugging in the mill pond.
Abraham Lincoln, shambling flat-footed up the hill with Ann Rutledge, left her at the tavern and wandered to the groups standing about the streets. Joining them, he read the signs of the hour. He knew the psychological moment was at hand for a bit of politics. He passed a group of his closest friends. He began to talk. He talked about the navigability of the river; about the American Sys tem in general; about Clay, about Jackson; he re verted to local matters and diverged upon State politics; he* gather about him a larger group; he talked in a voice louder and louder as the group grew.
"Speech!" shouted William Munson.
' ' Speech ! Speech ! ' ' shouted ' ' Slicky Bill ' ' Green.
"Speech! Speech! Speech!" shouted everybody.
Somebody brought a keg for him to stand upon. Haft a dozen shoved him toward it, and upon it. "Speech! Speech!" they shouted. "Abe Lincoln! Abe Lincoln ! Speech ! Speech ! Speech ! ' '
"Gentlemen and fellow citizens," he began; "I presume you know who I am. I am humble Abra ham Lincoln" — "Humble hell!" shouted a Jackson man. The sad grey eyes wandered toward him. "My politics are short and sweet, like the old woman's dance," proceeded the candidate. "I am
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in favor of the internal improvement system and a high protective tariff — " " High way robbery," bel lowed the Jackson man. The quiet grey eyes were fixed for a moment on him. The quiet grey eyes saw William Munson edging toward the interloper in belligerent attitude.
"My fellow citizens," he proceeded; "I may not live to see it, but give us a protective tariff and we will have the greatest country on the face of the earth!"
' * Give you a rope to hang yourself ! ' ' roared the Jackson man.
There was terrific commotion in the vicinity of the Democratic partisan. William Munson had ar rived at his side, and laid hands upon him at the latest interruption. The air was filled with swinging fists, grunts, curses, the sound of blows. Munson went down. The other, astride of him, pounded his head with clenched fists.
The grey eyes saw. Lincoln left the keg. He churned his way through the delighted spectators. He laid one hand upon the neck of the Jackson man and the other upon the back of his clothing where he knelt over his fallen foe. Swinging him like a sack in his pendulous arms, he flung him spraddling over the heads of the crowd, a dozen feet away, where he fell in a heap and was swiftly possessed, still in a heap, by Munson and Slicky Bill.
"Fellow citizens," said Lincoln, resuming his keg and his speech, "I have spoken as I thought. I
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may be wrong in regard to any or all of the matters I advocate; but I hold it a sound maxim that it is better only sometimes to be right than at all times wrong. My case is thrown exclusively on the inde pendent voters of the country. If elected, I shall be thankful ; if not, it will be all the same ! ' '
Mighty cheers arose from the throats of his audience. He was a despised Whig ; but first of all he was Abe Lincoln, and they cheered wildly and long.
"Cheer, you condemned Democrat!" shouted Slicky Bill Green to the Jackson man, still in a heap on the edge of the crowd, grinding his face into the soil of New Salem with his elbow. Munson, sitting on the man's legs, jounced up and down vigorously by way of persuading him.
* ' Hurrah ! ' ' growled the man.
* ' Cheer for Honest Abe Lincoln ! And be happy about it ! " persisted Slicky Bill.
"Hurrah for Honest Abe Lincoln," repeated the man, with a lack of spontaneity and enthusiasm highly unsatisfactory to Slicky Bill.
To what further devices Green would have re sorted for the purpose of restoring the man's spirits and obtaining the proper ring of acclaiming joy in his cheering voice will forever remain unknown, for before he had set about putting them into execution he was diverted by an excited uproar in the skirts of the howling gathering, followed by a tense hush. He
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arose to his feet, William Munson with him, and per mitted the Democrat to assume a natural position.
A man on a horse that puffed and foamed from hard riding was waving a large sheet of paper in his hand. The man was ferociously accoutred with a sword and a brace of pistols sticking through his belt, and was struggling with an oppressive sense of importance.
"Hear ye! Hear ye! Hear ye!" he shouted, waving the paper frantically. "Citizens of New Salem, I bring you a message from your Governor, John C. Eeynolds; listen to his warning!"
There was not a sound among them. Surely, New Salem had much to be grateful for !
"To the militia of the southwest section of the State, ' ' read the man, rolling his eyes from his docu ment to his audience and back again at every pause. ' ' Fellow citizens : Your country requires your serv ices. The Indians have assumed a hostile attitude and have invaded the state in violation of the treaty of last summer. The British band of Sacs and other hostile Indians, headed by Black Hawk, are in possession of the Rock Eiver country, to the great terror of the frontier inhabitants. I consider the settlers on the frontier to be in imminent danger. In possession of the above facts and information, I have not hesitated as to the course I should pursue. No citizen ought to remain inactive when his country is invaded and the helpless part of the community in danger. I have called out a strong detachment of
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militia to rendezvous at Beardstown on the 22d instant. Provisions for the men and food for the horses will be furnished in abundance. I hope my countrymen will realize my expectations and offer their services as heretofore, with promptitude and cheerfulness, in defense of their country. (Signed) John C. Eeynolds, Governor of the State of Illinois."
Wheeling his horse, the courier disappeared at dramatic speed before his fellow citizens could col lect themselves for one word. The men of New Salem stared at each other blankly, with wide eyes. One by one, with a common instinct, they looked at Abraham Lincoln.
Slicky Bill made his way to Lincoln's side. "What shall we do about it, Abe?" he asked, helplessly.
"Well, I can't answer for the rest of you," returned Lincoln, looking down into the faces turned toward him, "but I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to leave for Beardstown to-morrow morn ing, if I can get a nag. If I can 't, I '11 go anyway. ' '
"By cracky, Abe, I'll go with you!" exclaimed Green, suddenly inspired.
So would they all go with him ! They proclaimed as much in a babel of voices ! The excitement broke forth in a buzzing confusion! They talked, they laughed, they shouted, they swore. Presently they dispersed and ran frantically to their several homes to break the news and prepare for the expedition.
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The utmost that New Salem had been through in its short history was as an old woman's tale to the excitement and turmoil that agitated the settlement that night. The wildest rumors of the Indian upris ing flew from house to house. The women ran bare headed to tell that Black Hawk was at the head of a conspiracy belittling Pontiac's; that he came with thousands of Indians from the Western plains ; that an English army was marching from Green Bay to cooperate with him, and many other stories of like import. "Wives wept on the shoulders of husbands going forth to danger ; young men made it the occa sion for intimate and personal confessions long con templated, and the entire community conducted itself as a community should that believes itself to be on the threshold of a long and bloody war.
Abraham Lincoln was not oppressed by a sense of the momentous solemnity of the hour. He looked upon it as serious ; he was sober in his discussion of it ; but he had heard much of Black Hawk from his friend Randolph, and believed that he was not the bloodthirsty and abandoned savage that rumor made him out to be. He even felt that actual con flict might have been averted, and might still be. Ann Butledge shared his view of the situation; she shared most of his views now. As they sat together in the deserted dining room of the tavern after the supper had been cleared away, which was the only place where they could be alone, they talked of other things.
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They talked of the time when he should return from the war. They planned for the years to come, without one thought that he might not come back. He had his way to make before they could carry out their plans together. Together they planned the making of the way. If he should be elected in the summer, their plans would be hastened. They did not delude themselves with the high hope of that, however. If he should not be elected, he would go to Springfield and study law. In the course of three or four or five years, they could be married — if McNeill should not return meanwhile.
Always there was that between the two. Deserted as she had apparently been by him, and loving her brave and generous sweetheart as she did, she never theless could not rid her mind of a sense of obliga tion toward her former lover. She had given her word to him. If he came to claim the forfeit, she would fulfill it, for the good of her soul. Such was her supersensitive conscientiousness. In her heart she prayed he would not; in her heart she dreaded lest he should.
Understanding this with an insight keener than a woman's ; knowing her fear and the torture of it to her; patient, magnanimous, considerate, Abraham Lincoln gave her what courage he could. He did not speak of love as they sat there alone. He did not try to dispel her doubts. It was a struggle within her own soul; her own soul must prosecute it to a
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conclusion. Like a tender friend, shielding her from every shock he could forfend, thoughtful only of her peace of mind, utterly devoted to her happiness, sac rificing his own pride, laying bare his own sensitive nature, he was willing to await the time and abide by the outcome. He loved her, and would con tinue to love her. More than that he could not do for her.
And so that night they talked of their plans, always predicated upon the "if," the dread possi bility that gnawed into her soul. When their future was before them and the other was hidden, she was joyous, and the face of Lincoln glowed with a serene happiness that made it a thing of beauty, rough and homely as it was. When her thoughts turned back to the dread present again, as they always did, joy went from her, and a look of ineffable sadness came into the patient blue eyes of her lover.
Thus it was between them when he arose from the table at last to bid her farewell; there could be no farewell between them on the morrow. Thus it was between them when he bent over her and kissed her full on the lips. Thus it was between them when she looked up into his eyes through her tears, and smiled upon him a smile over which was the shadow of dread, the ghost of fear.
On the morrow he road away to the war, with those others who went from New Salem. At the end of the village he turned for the last time to wave
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farewell to her, where she stood before her father's door, ere he passed from sight. As he turned his face again to the West the look of sadness was deep within his eyes.
CHAPTER IX
CANT-HOOKS AND CAPTAINS
IN THE beginning, it was a lark for the boys of New Salem to set out on a chase after Black Hawk. There was a vivifying sense of freedom and irresponsibility in getting on a horse and riding across a new country with a company of boon com panions. There was novelty. There was adventure. There was a flavor of danger about it. The recruits from New Salem made merry as they rode toward Richland, their first camp, on that morning in April.
As reckless and roistering as any, Abraham Lin coln rode among them, joining in their rough play, bandying jokes with them, telling them stories, tuss ling with them from the back of his horse and other wise deporting himself like an exuberant youth with great animal strength in his arms, though with some thing in his mind which he would forget. With laughter and shouts he rode among them; but through all his laughter and his shouting there was a deep sadness at the bottoms of his grey eyes. The dread of her dread was upon him.
''Abe, how would you like to be captain of this shebang?" cried Slicky Bill, riding alongside of him early in the march.
"Well, Slicky, I should like, of course I should
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like it, if the boys want to make me captain," re turned Lincoln. "Nobody could be insensible of the honor. ' '
"Good!" cried Slicky. "Old Bill Kirkpatrick wants it. The boys don't like him, but they are afraid of him, 'cause he's so rich. What if he is the richest man in Sangamon county!" went on Green, with fire. "I guess this is a free country, and we don't have to knuckle down to no goldarned rich fellers!"
"Now, see here, Bill," rejoined Lincoln, with sudden animation. "I hadn't cared overmuch about being captain until you told me that old Kirkpatrick wanted it ; but now I wish you would elect me, if you could. I'll tell you why. Did I ever tell you about Kirkpatrick and the cant-hook?"
No, he never had.
"Well, when I first came to this country," went on Lincoln, "I got work with Kirkpatrick to roll some logs. He didn't have a cant-hook, so he said he'd get one. Now, a cant-hook costs two dollars, Bill, and I made a proposal to Kirkpatrick. I told him that if he would give me the two dollars, I would move the logs without a hook. He agreed, and I did move them, with a bar and a piece of rope. Bill, when he came to pay me off he did not give me that two dollars, and he never has. If you boys could elect me captain I'd be willing to call it square, and to tell him so. ' '
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"By hen, I'll fix him!" ejaculated Green, highly indignant ; and immediately went about doing it.
This is how he did it: The election was on the following morning. The two candidates stood apart. The men were told to fall in line behind their favor ite. A howling, tumbling mob broke in Lincoln's direction. When the ballots had subsided sufficiently for inspection, the line behind Honest Abe was thrice the length of the one behind Kirkpatrick.
"Cant-hook! Cant-hook!" shouted the Lincoln supporters, while the towering militia captain looked blandly upon Kirkpatrick, sputtering in his wrath.
"I swear, Bill," said Lincoln, confidentially to Slicky, when they were on the march. "It's a fine thing to be captain, but how under Heaven do you do it?"
Bill didn't know, but suggested for the comfort of his friend that probably nobody else did, and that therefore he could not make any palpable blun ders in the manual. Lincoln took courage there from, and marched at the head of his command with a serene confidence in fate.
Fate presently presented itself in the form of a narrow gate in a fence, through which the files of the company could not possibly pass abreast. Lin coln, seeing it at a distance, pulled Slicky Bill by the sleeve and pointed to it.
"What '11 I tell 'em? What '11 I tell 'em, Bill?" he asked, under his breath. "What's the proper command to get 'em to go endwise?"
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' * Hanged if I know ! ' ' replied Bill, perplexed.
"Men!" shouted Lincoln, for they were at the fence; "this company is dismissed for two minutes, when it will fall in on the other side of the gate ! ' '
Narrow gates in fences were not the only em barrassments of his new office. He found it difficult to obtain from the men the necessary respect for his military authority without forfeiting their personal regard for himself. They were a wild, irreverent lot of fellows at best, on whom all restraint sat lightly. To be under the absolute direction of one of their own number; to receive orders from an old chum and to obey them with a straight face ; to look upon his office as anything more than an amusing for mality and a joke on Kirkpatrick, was incompatible with their principles of liberty and their sense of the fitness of things.
It became necessary for Lincoln to make them realize that he was commander and to preserve his dignity without arousing their dislike. In this task the strength of his arms, which he was always able to exert with a smile on his face and mildness in his eye, did much. His patience, tact, good humor and presence of mind did more. Only once was he openly defied. Early in his command a private suggested that he go to the devil when he issued a command. It brought up a point of military etiquette and disci pline which was settled immediately and perma nently.
Another time indirect disobedience brought trou-
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ble upon him. Some of his men found where the whisky of the expedition was kept, and stole some of it. In the morning part of his command could not march. He was blamed, and suffered punish ment vicariously for his men. All day he was obliged to carry a wooden sword in his hand. The time was to come when he was to carry a much more griev ous burden through the faults of his countrymen, and with the same forbearance and good-tempered patience that he exhibited on that day.
He himself was not entirely schooled in the strict requirements of military discipline. He himself transgressed on one occasion, and suffered for it. An order was issued that there should be no firing of arms within a hundred yards of the camp, for obvi ous reasons involving the public safety. One night he discharged his pistol in camp, that being the only method of unloading it. For this he was rebuked and deprived of his sword for a day. It was his last offense.
The militia marched from the rendezvous at Beardstown toward the Yellow Banks, on the Mis sissippi, where they were to receive supplies to be forwarded from Jefferson Barracks by water. The holiday spirit of the expedition continued on the march. Even the crossing of the swollen and turbu lent Henderson River, effected by means of a raft and an old leaky boat, was a lark, accompanied by much unnecessary splashing and wetting of clothes.
The enthusiasm lasted until they reached Yellow
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Banks. It was so high that when the New Salem company and another company both desired the same spot for a camp, a contest was arranged to determine which should have it. The New Salem boys, having Lincoln's prowess in mind, suggested that a champion from each company wrestle for choice. The other company, having in mind a giant among them, by name Dow Thompson, accepted the challenge.
The entire army came to see the fun. All the money and detachable property of the soldiers was wagered on the result. The champions were pro duced. They grappled. In a moment Lincoln looked over his antagonist's shoulder at his friends.
"This is the most powerful man I ever had hold of," he said. "He will throw me and you will lose your all unless I act on the defensive. ' '
In another moment Lincoln went down, bringing the other with him.
"Dog-fall! Dog-fall!" screamed Slicky Bill Green, jumping into the air and waving his hat. "That don't count. Try it again, Abe! You can throw him ! ' '
"Fair fall! Fair fall!" shouted Thompson's supporters.
Instantly the two factions charged each other.
* * Hold on, boys ! ' ' cried Lincoln, running between them. * ' Give up your bets ! ' ' — to his friends — * ' if he has not thrown me fairly, he could ! ' '
Peace was restored. It was the first and the last
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time that Lincoln was ever vanquished in wrestling. It was not the first or the last time that he sacrificed his personal pride by surrendering non-essentials for the sake of peace. It was not the first or the last time that his sense of proportion, his gift of perspec tive, his grasp of the relative importance of things, made compromise with his own interests for the general welfare.
The spirit of the militia underwent rapid trans formation at Yellow Banks. The provisions did not arrive from Jefferson Barracks. The men grew hungry. There was nothing for them to do but drill. They became restless, refused to obey their officers, grumbled, fell to talking about going home, and they grew mutinous.
It was Lincoln who saved them. Lincoln, with his droll stories ; Lincoln, with his farcical pranks ; Lin coln, with his sympathetic good nature, his humor ous point of view, his optimism. He submerged the officer in the man. He relinquished the man for the buffoon. He turned clown. He made them laugh. Those who laugh cannot mutiny. They forgot their grievances. They plucked up their spirits. The pro visions arrived, and they set off for Fort Armstrong at the mouth of the Eock River in picnic mood again.
There they joined the forces under General Atkinson, the "White Beaver. " With General Atkinson was a colonel of the regular army, com manding four hundred men from Forts Leaven- worth and Crawford; a bluff, rugged colonel. His
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name was Zachary Taylor. Under Colonel Taylor was a certain second lieutenant. He was not then present. He had been away on furlough; he was hastening to rejoin his command, voluntarily. His name was Jefferson Davis.
The army set out on Black Hawk's trail, which led up the right bank of the Eock River. The mounted volunteers, under General Whiteside and Governor Reynolds, marched along the banks of the river, through the mud, over prairies, among dark, damp woods. General Atkinson was with them. Colonel Taylor with his regulars and three hundred unmounted militia followed in boats.
They came to Prophetstown. The Indians had burned it, and gone on. They reached Dixon's ferry, kept by John Dixon, an old resident, who had always maintained friendly relations with the Indians. Isaiah Stillman and David Bailey were there with militia from the northern part of the State, im patient to strike the Hawk.
Lincoln, sauntering to Dixon's tavern, where his company was mustering, encountered a handsome young man with hair of bronze and brown eyes.
1 ' Well, howdy, Randolph ! " he said. * ' You here ? ' '
1 'Hello, Abraham! I'm glad to see you!" re turned Randolph.
''How about this, Randolph?" Lincoln asked, when they had exchanged further words of greeting. "Is there going to be a fight? Where is Black Hawk?"
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" There need not have been a fight,'' returned Randolph. "The Hawk did not come to make trou ble. I have talked with him. He only wants to make corn among the Winnebagos. He came to plant on his old territory. He brought all the women and children with him. The poor old fellow believes that he is right. He thinks he has been badly treated. He does not want war. ' '
"You say you have seen him?"
' * Yes ; I went to Prophetstown. He received me well. He was friendly. He may have erred; he is stubborn; but he is honest, and does not want to fight. He has passed on into Wisconsin, I expect, to join the Winnebagos."
"Will they help him if it comes to war?"
"I presume they do not know that themselves," Randolph made answer.
Lincoln was silent. The sadness came into his eyes.
"Randolph," he said at length, "we may be tech nically right in this matter, but we are morally wrong. Our government has the treaty duly signed, but Black Hawk knows that it has not been fulfilled by the whites. Furthermore, the old chief cannot forget the indignities heaped upon his band by the lawless squatters, who were thieves, cut-throats, outlaws from the civilized communities of our land. They fringed their cabins around the Indian's reser vation and appropriated the Indian's gardens. They
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burned their lodges. They beat their women and children. ' '
1 'They did worse that that," remarked Kan- dolph.
"A darky may stand such treatment without turning tail," Lincoln went on, "but an Indian, never ! He'll fight until he dies when his blood is up. The Hawk has a right to insist on the fulfillment by the government of the treaty. He cannot forget the violations of his sacred dead, the destruction of his ancient home, and the cruelty to his women and chil dren. The fact is, the whites are so bitter that they cannot regard an Indian as human — as possessing any more rights than so many stones. I see a bloody fight ahead of us, and we shall have enough to answer for if we survive this war. ' '
"I am as unwilling to pursue the war to its obvi ous conclusion as anyone," said Eandolph, "but it would seem that there is no alternative now. The Black Hawk is stubborn; the white are fanatic!"
"Affairs need never have reached this point," responded Lincoln. "I think this is a case where discretion would have been the better part of valor. Better to have let the old chief die in his ancestral home. The case reminds me of one of our pioneer farmers who had a big log lying in the middle of his field. It was too big to haul away; too knotty to split; too wet and soggy to burn. One Sunday he told his neighbors that he had got rid of the log. 'How did you do it?' they asked. '"Well, now, boys>
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if you won't tell the secret, I'll tell you,' answered the farmer. 'I just plowed around it!' "
Another silence was between them. Presently Lincoln turned toward his friend. The shadow of sadness had gone from his eyes. They were filled with gentle sympathy. He laid his hand on Ran- dolph's arm.
"And Sylvia? How about Sylvia?" he said with a smile.
Randolph told him briefly of his hasty visit at Indian Creek. "I had barely a word with her," he concluded.
"You did not show her the letter?" pursued Lincoln.
Randolph shook his head.
"My haste was too great," he said. "I felt called upon to reach Rock River without delay. I felt the time was not fitting. Perhaps it would have been better if I had; I accomplished nothing by coming here. And Ann Rutledge I " he went on, finding Lin coln made no response. "Is she well, and happy?"
A shadow came over the face of the other, a heavy shadow of grief and sadness.
"Mortimer, Mortimer, she is not happy!" cried Lincoln. In his emotion his voice was almost a moan. "I love her; I love her with a love that con sumes ! I think she loves me. She thinks she does. She is certain she does. But there is a horrible ghost in her soul; the ghost of her promise to that other man. In the honesty and sincerity of her
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nature, she cannot think that she is absolved from that by his leaving. It is as though she were mar ried to him. She fears he will return. It haunts her love for me. It haunts the happiness which that love would bring her. It lies cold and contaminating within her heart.
' * I do not know ! I do not know ! ' * Tears were in his eyes as he went on. His voice was low and mournful. ' 'I think she is wrong. The man deceived her. His name is not McNeill. It is McNamar. He told her he had to hide from his people while he made his beginning, lest they follow him and drag him from the ladder he sought to climb before his feet were firm upon it. Perhaps he did. He told her he would come back. Perhaps he will. I do not know ! He writes to her, but his letters are formal and distant. I believe she would be justified in for saking him, but the ghost is in her soul, and she cannot cast it out!"
There was silence for a moment. The unhappy man raised his two huge clenched fists high above his head. His eyes closed. His great gaunt frame quivered with emotion.
" My God! My God!" he moaned. " It is killing her ! It is killing her ! And it is I who have done it ! She could bear it if I had not brought my love to her."
His upstretched hands unclasped. He lowered them, burying his face in them. "I would far rather he returned; I would far rather see them wedded,
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than that this ghost should so devour her soul," he said.
A silence fell upon them. The hand of Kandolph crept to the shoulder of his friend and rested there. For a moment they stood so. With a shudder through his whole body, Lincoln struggled into self-control.
* ' I must muster in, ' ' he said, and the two walked silently toward the tavern, where Major Eobert An derson was swearing in the militia for service in the United States Army.
CHAPTER X THE FLAG OF TKUCE
ISAAC FRAKE, having by virtue of swaggering self-assurance become captain of soldiery in Major Isaiah Stillman's command, rode in the midst of his men with many brave oaths, vociferously ex pounding the purpose and art of warfare as it was at that time conducted by himself and Stillman. Isaac Frake, captain of militia, was in high spirits. His counsel had prevailed. Major Stillman, with his own and Major Bailey's militia, was on the way from Dixon's up the Rock River to chastise Black Hawk and disperse his band.
It mattered little to Captain Isaac Frake that his counsel had prevailed, because the soldiers, on the point of open mutiny, had demanded to set out on a punitive expedition without more delay after the arrival of Whiteside at Dixon's. It mattered still less that the mutiny was fostered and fomented by himself for the specific purpose which it had attained. If it mattered at all to him, it was a matter of pride.
Isaac Frake, discussing the objects of war as he rode, had nothing to say about personal revenge as a worthy motive, or hatred for those whom one has injured and fears, or the expediency in removing
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from the scene of one's future home Indians to whom one has been a neighbor, and who might remember incidents and circumstances of his neigh- borliness that would be embarrassing in a new order of things. Neither did he have anything to say con cerning the use of whiskey in strategy and tactics, and the opportunities it offered for subverting the natural instincts of the red men. Nor had he any thing to say concerning treachery and guile in any form.
* * We '11 show the old fraud what it is to defy the United States Government!" quoth Frake, vehe mently, speaking for the Government, as an officer in the army. "We '11 show him that' when an Indian makes a treaty, an Indian has got to keep the treaty!" Speaking for the Government, Frake was silent about the keeping of treaties with the Indians by the United States. "I know the old' cuss," Frake went on. "I didn't live next him for two years for nothing. Coming to make corn, is he? Why don't he make corn in Iowa, where he belongs ? What does he come over here for? Isn't the soil good enough for him there? If he wants to plant, why does he make tracks for the Winnebago country with a band of warriors I Oh, I know him ! ' '
Thus said Frake, captain of militia, as he rode forth to slay. This, and much more of like purport, he reiterated, bouncing along with his men. They echoed him approvingly. As an officer and a man of sense, they believed him. Also, they were in
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complacent temper. They were gay. They were out upon a picnic. They laughed and joked roughly such times as they were not called upon to listen to the dissertations of their captain.
One among them was silent, one who was not made jubilant at the prospect of killing the red skins. Concerning him Frake whispered to his men as they rode: "You fellows watch that man Ran- dolph! He 's a friend of the Indians. He '11 play us into their hands if he gets a chance, or I miss my guess ! I happen to know something about him. And I happen to know of a squaw of the Sacs who has got a papoose with a skin altogether too white to look good on an Indian ! ' '
Mortimer Randolph, riding apart, saw the angry looks his comrades cast upon him. Riding alone, he gave them no heed.
All day they went on through the unbroken woods, three hundred and fifty white men, laugh ing, singing, joking, cursing, awakening the silence of the waste places to a myriad startled echoes, seal ing the throats of birds with terror, making the squirrels cling quivering and afraid to the limbs of the high oaks, peeping wide-eyed upon a sight they had never seen — all day, until the rays of the after noon sun slanted among the boles of the trees that clustered along the fringe of Old Man's Creek.
There they stopped in jubilant mood ; built their camp fires, laughing and frolicking with one another; fried their bacon and boiled their coffee
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with many rude jests; they smoked their pipes, lying on the ground beneath the trees in the first twilight of the May evening; and there, insolently defying such of their officers as tried to restrain them, they drank deeply out of many black bottles, roistering and carousing.
Mortimer Randolph sat apart from the men of Frake's company, of which chance had made him one. He was disturbed and anxious concerning the spirit of the troops. He was made fearful by the black bottles. He knew they would soon be in a temper beyond restraining, and that Indians were close at hand. He was certain in his own mind that Black Hawk would not fight unless forced to defend himself. There was nothing reassuring in the atti tude of the militia, as they sang and cursed and joked, reviling the Indians and filling the end of the day with threats. Deep in a mood of abstrac tion, he arose from the log on which he sat and wandered through the little grove, casting over in his mind what might be done to avert the clash between the militia and the Sacs.
Frake, whose eyes had not been long absent from Randolph at any time of the carousal, in which he indulged with his men, saw him go.
"D'you see that?" he muttered to his compan ions. "See him sneaking off like that? Some- tliin's up! He'll bear watching, that man Randolph!"
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Half a dozen of his followers staggered to their feet.
' * By God ! we '11 watch him, ' ' they growled, tak ing their guns in hand and stumbling over the uneven ground with uncertain steps.
Frake arose among them, expostulating. He pleaded with them to do nothing rash in much the same manner that he had lately pleaded with Eachel Hall to spare the man's reputation whose life he had now brought in jeopardy.
"Don't be in a hurry, men!" he cried, clinging to a pair of them with his fat hands. "I am not sure about him; I only say to watch him. If he tries anything, there will be time enough ! ' '
The men were not in a temper to weigh evidence. They pushed Frake aside, protesting loudly that they would have no traitors in camp. Their indig nation grew to anger, their anger swelled into rage. A score of others leaped to their feet. The excite ment of the chase and the liquor was working on the hatred of the redmen that was in each. They became frenzied. Frake no longer held control.
Major Stillman, hastening thither at the sound of the turmoil, was helpless. Major Bailey pleaded with them in vain. They were a mob. They cried out for the blood of this man Randolph, traitor and spy. With a hoarse roar they turned whither he had disappeared — fivescore men, maddened by liquor and brute passion. Frake, appalled by the violence of the storm he had brewed, stood speech-
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less, watching them with staring eyes, his jaws hanging in the folds of fat beneath his chin. His device had worked too well. The explosion was taking place too soon for the one who had lighted the fuse.
Those who followed Randolph, seeking his blood as that of a traitor, had gone scarcely a rod, when the one who led them gave a mighty yell, and stood in his tracks. Twenty feet ahead of them, approach ing through the grove, were three Indians. One of them carried a flag of truce. With them was the man Randolph, whom they sought.
"Indians!" shouted the leader.
"Shoot 'em! Hang 'em. Kill the dirty red skins ! ' '
Some one in the mob shouted it. Some one fired a shot. The bullet struck the stick to which the flag of truce was fastened. It was shattered in the hand of the one who held it. The flag fell into the dirt. The Indians, astonished at their reception, stared blankly at the soldiers, appreciating their danger, but undaunted. A hoarse roar arose from many throats.
"What is this for?" cried Mortimer, leaping before the Indians and confronting the men, his eyes flaring, his nostrils dilated with wrath. "Why do you fire on a flag of truce?"
Drunken and raging though they were, there was something about the appearance and behavior of the man that withheld the hands of the soldiers
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from their guns. They could not shoot him down in cold blood without a word. His single soul was stronger than their many.
"Where M you find them Indians?" demanded one of the men, less drunk than his fellows. "Who are they? What do they want!"
"I met them coming through the woods with a flag of truce," Mortimer replied, "and conducted them into camp. "They have come from the Hawk to parley. They are asking for peace, I infer."
"What were you doing in the woods?" asked the one who had spoken first, the suspicions which Frake had aroused strong within him.
"I was endeavoring to get away from the drunken and shameless behavior of the men who should be soldiers!" Mortimer answered back.
Frake, impelled by a curiosity that overcame the fear endangered by his responsibility for the outburst, came to the front of the mob. At sight of the Indian in whose hand was the broken stick that had carried the flag, he swelled with rage ; the rage of a bully who sees his enemy; when he feels himself at an advantage in the presence of his enemy. The Indian was White Eagle!
"I know this Indian and I know this white man," he bellowed, starting forward with a courage inspired by the temper of the men behind him. "Come on!" He grasped a gun from the hand of a soldier. He could not shoot, for men from other parts of the camp, drawn by the noise, had sur-
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rounded the group of Indians and were in the line of fire.
The half -crazed men, who had hesitated for lack of a leader, pressed forward with a roar of anger. They were a mob once more. The Indians could not understand what was said. They only knew their danger was great. They stood behind the one who championed them, erect and defiant.
The mob surged forward, paying no heed to the frantic shouts of Stillman and Bailey, who would have held them back. With a rush, they closed about the Indians, who stood motionless and unre sisting, true to the flag of truce, which lay in the dirt at their feet.
As they came, Mortimer Eandolph fought them back. Without a weapon of any kind, he struggled against the mass with body and limb. His white fist, flashing through the air, fell upon the soft flesh of Frake's face, bowling him over heavily. Twice, twenty times, he struck about him. One of the Indians was felled with the butt of a gun, and lay motionless on the ground. Bailey, tears in his eyes, tore at the fringe of the mob in vain efforts to stop the work that went on. Stillman, struggling where the turmoil was highest, gave what protection he could to the savages, who were now beginning to fight back, seeing no hope of help left in the whites.
Frake, clambering to his feet, his face suffused with blood from Kandolph's blow, fought his way toward the Southerner, his knife in hand and a
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horrid snarl upon his lips. Great was the bravery of Frake, one of an hundred against one who resisted alone! He came to the side of Mortimer, whose face was turned away in the exigencies of the struggle. Frake 's knife was raised. His wrist stiffened for the blow. He set his teeth. In the instant, while the impulse was traveling from his brain to the nerves of his arm, Mortimer turned. And in the instant his hand grasped the wrist of Frake, twisted it, and sent the man to the ground, crumpled with pain.
* * Indians ! Indians ! ' '
Someone came crying the alarm through the woods. At the cry, the fury subsided from the tempestuous mob as boiling ceases when a kettle is removed from the stove. There were no grada tions in the going down of the ebullition. It stopped at once. Those who had been frantic with rage paused to listen to the one who came through the woods, crying as he ran.
"Indians! Indians!" he said, coming up to the panting group. "A swarm of them, over there!"
He pointed across the prairie. There, in the gathering dusk, they saw five savages, mounted on horses, riding slowly across the skyline beyond the camp. At the sight their cries arose again, and fury broke upon them once more, directed this time against the five men they saw. With one accord, oblivious of the authority of their officers, each for himself, they rushed to their horses, saddled them
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as swiftly as they could, and started in complete disorder for the five whom they had seen. In the diversion, the two of the peace party who had sur vived the fanaticism of these American militiamen vanished into the grove.
Major Bailey, seeing the stampede of his sol diers, mounted and followed. Major Stillman endeavored to form such men as had not already taken the field on their own initiative. Frake, purple with wrath, dashed after a knot of his own command. Eandolph, leisurely saddling, kept wary eye on all that went forward. His heart was heavy writhin him, for he knew that now the struggle had been precipitated. One comfort he found. The one of the three truce bearers who now lay dead in the camp was not the tall young brave whom he had seen on the hill at Saukenuk the year before, and whom he had recognized in the one who carried the flag of truce.
The five Indians, seeing the rush of men toward them, put spurs to their horses, and were soon out of sight. Shouting and cursing, the militiamen dashed across the prairie on their trail. In vain did Stillman, riding hard behind them, shout his commands in an effort to bring them in hand. They laughed at him.
A cry went up from those who led the van of the straggling pursuers. Ahead of them, riding forth from a fringe of thicket, was a small band of Indi-
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ans. At their front, vengeful and magnificent, rode the one who had borne the flag of truce.
The Americans pressed on, exultant, to brush away this handful. The Indians, pretending fright, withdrew to the thicket. Their pursuers, believing themselves already victors, spurred their horses more keenly, that not one of the savages might escape. A long, ragged line of horsemen drew near the thicket where the Indians had vanished. Like conquerors they rode, shouting ribaldry to each other through the pale shadows of the evening.
A shot from the thicket ! Another ; and another ! A dozen! A score! A cry that was half a scream tore along the thin, ragged line. One man, shriek ing, tottered and fell from his saddle to the ground. His horse, in panic, wheeled and stampeded back across the prairie. Eeins were drawn. Steeds plowed through the soft ground on their haunches, suddenly held up by their riders.
A wild yell arose from the thicket; a cluster of mounted Indians broke cover, and ran fiercely toward the line of whites, brandishing spears and hatchets, guns and knives.
"Bun, men. Eun for your lives!"
It was Major Bailey gave the order; the only order which his command had ever obeyed with the alacrity which marks good soldiery. As fast as they could bring their horses to a stop and turn them, the men wheeled and fled back toward their camp. Major Stillman, arriving with the handful
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that he had gathered into formation, faced them about and bade them fly for their lives, as his junior had done, giving