The Big Otter - Robert Michael Ballantyne (most difficult books to read TXT) 📗

well. He had visited them during his wanderings many a time, and once, at a very critical period in their history, had rendered important service to the tribe, besides saving the life of their chief.

A new tent was set aside for our use, and a small one pitched close to it for Waboose, whose dignified yet modest bearing made a profound impression on those children of the wilderness. They recognised, no doubt that Indian blood flowed in her veins, but that rather increased their respect for her, as it gave them, so to speak, a right to claim kinship with a girl who was obviously one of Nature's aristocracy, besides possessing much of that refinement which the red-men had come to recognise as a characteristic of some of the best of the pale-faces.

Indeed, I myself found, now that I had frequent opportunities of conversing with Eve Liston, that the man who had been affectionately styled Weeum the Good by the Indians, had stored his child's mind with much varied secular knowledge, such as Indians never possess, besides instilling into her the elevating and refining precepts of Christianity. Being of a poetical turn of mind, he had also repeated to Eve many long and beautiful pieces from our best poets, so that on more than one occasion the girl had aptly quoted several well-known passages--to my inexpressible amazement.

"I wonder," said I, when we three were seated in our tent that night, refreshing ourselves with a choice morsel of baked buffalo-hump, with which the hospitable Blackfeet had supplied us, "how it comes to pass that Indians, who are usually rather fond of gifts, absolutely refuse to accept anything for the fine horse they have given to Waboose?"

"Perhaps," said Eve, with a little smile, in which the extreme corners of her pretty mouth had the peculiar tendency to turn down instead of up--"perhaps it is because they are grateful. Indians are not altogether destitute of that feeling."

"True, Eve, true; it must be that. Will you tell us, Big Otter, how you managed to make these fellows so grateful?"

"I saved the chief's life," returned the Indian, curtly.

"Yes; but how, and when?"

"Four summers have passed since then. I was returning from a trip to the Rocky Mountains when it happened. Many bad pale-faces were in the mountains at that time. They were idle bad men from many lands, who hated work and loved to fight. One of them had been killed by a Sioux Indian. They all banded together and swore that they would shoot every Indian they came across. They killed many--some even who were friendly to the white men. They did not ask to what tribe they belonged. They were `redskin varmints,' that was enough!

"The Strong Elk, whose hospitality we enjoy to-night, was chief of the Blackfeet. I was on my way to visit him, when, one evening, I came upon the camp of the pale-faces. I knew that sometimes they were not friendly to the red-man, so I waited till dark, and then crept forward and listened. Their chief was loud-voiced and boastful. He boasted of how many Indians he had killed. I could have shot him where I lay and then escaped easily, but I spared him, for I wished to listen. They talked much of the Strong Elk. I understood very little. The language of the pale-face is difficult to understand, but I came to know that in two hours, when the moon should sink, they would attack him.

"I waited to hear no more. I ran like the hunted buffalo. I came to Strong Elk and told him. It was too late to move the camp, but we put it in a state of defence. When the pale-faces came, we were ready. Arrows, thick as the snowflakes in winter, met them when they came on, and many of them bit the dust. Some ran away. Some, who were brave, still came on and leaped our barricades. They fought like fiends. Their boastful chief saw Strong Elk and rushed at him. They grappled and fell. The pale-face had a keen knife. It was raised to strike. One moment more, and the Blackfoot chief had been in the happy hunting-grounds with his fathers, when the gun of Big Otter came down on the skull of the boastful one. It was enough. Strong Elk was saved-- and he is grateful; waugh!"

"Well, he has reason to be!" said I, much impressed by the modest way in which the story was told. "And now," I added, "since we have got a capital horse, and the journey before us is long, don't you think we should start to-morrow!"

"Yes, to-morrow--and it is time for Waboose to rest. She is strong, but she has had much to weary her, and her grief is deep."

With a kindly acknowledgment of the Indian's thoughtful care of her, Eve rose and went to her tent. Big Otter lighted his pipe, and I lay down to meditate; but almost before I had time to think, my head drooped and I was in the land of forgetfulness.

It is not my purpose, good reader, to carry you step by step over the long, varied, and somewhat painful journey that intervened between us and Colorado at that time. It was interesting--deeply so--for we passed through some of the most beautiful as well as wildest scenery of the North American wilderness. We kept far to the westward, near the base of the Rocky Mountains, so as to avoid the haunts of civilised men. But space will not permit of more than a brief reference to this long journey.

I can only say that on arriving at a village belonging to a remote tribe of Indians, who were well-known to my guide, it was arranged that Big Otter and Waboose should stay with them, while I should go to the cities of the pale-faces and endeavour to convert my diamonds into cash. Happening to have a friend in Chicago I went there, and through his agency effected the sale of the diamonds, which produced a little over the sum mentioned by William Liston in his paper. This I took with me in the convenient form of bills on well-known mercantile firms, in the region to which I was bound, and, having wrapped them in a piece of oiled silk and sewed them inside of the breastplate that contained my gold, I set off with a light heart, though somewhat weighted shoulders, to return to my friends in the Far West.


CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.


TELLS OF A WONDERFUL MEETING AND A FRUSTRATED FOE.

I must change the scene now, and advance the courteous reader considerably in regard to time as well as place on the journey which we have pursued so long together.

It is one of those scenes of romantic beauty on the extreme frontiers of civilisation, where the rifle has not even yet given place to the plough; where the pioneer husbandman and the painted warrior often meet--the one to look with patronising superiority on the savage, whom he means to benefit; the other to gaze curiously at the pale-face, and to wonder, somewhat indignantly, when and where his encroachments are to cease.

Woodlands and prairies, breezy uplands and grassy bottoms, alternate in such picturesque confusion, and such lovely colours co-mingle, that a painter--had one been there--must have deemed the place at all events the vestibule of paradise.

There is a small hamlet on the slope of a hill, with a broad river winding in front, a few hundred yards from the hamlet, which opens out into a lake. On the margin of this lake lie a few boats. On the surface of it float a few more boats, with one or two birch-bark canoes. Some of these are moving to and fro; the occupants of others, which appear to be stationary, are engaged in fishing. There is the sound of an anvil somewhere, and the lowing of cattle, and the voices of children, and the barking of dogs at play, and the occasional crack of a gun. It is an eminently peaceful as well as beautiful backwood scene.

To a particular spot in this landscape we would direct attention. It is a frame-house, or cottage, which, if not built according to the most approved rules of architecture, is at least neat, clean, comfortable-looking, and what one might style pretty. It is a "clap-boarded" house, painted white, with an edging of brown which harmonises well with the green shrubbery around. There is a verandah in front, a door in the middle, two windows on either side, and no upper storey; but there are attics with dormer windows, which are suggestive of snug sleeping-rooms of irregular shape, with low ceilings and hat-crushing doorways.

This cottage stands on the apex of a little hill which overlooks the hamlet, commands the river and the lake, as well as an extensive view of a sparsely settled district beyond, where the frontier farmer and the primeval forest are evidently having a lively time of it together. In short the cottage on the hill has a decidedly comfortable come-up-quick-and-enjoy-yourself air which is quite charming.

On a certain fine afternoon in autumn Eve Liston, _alias_ Waboose, Big Otter and I, rode slowly up the winding path which led to this cottage. We had been directed to it by the postmaster of the hamlet,--a man who, if he had been condemned to subsist solely on the proceeds of the village post-office, would have been compelled to give up the ghost, or the post, in a week.

"We must be careful, Eve, how we break it to her," said I, as we neared the top.

Arrived at the summit of the hill we found a rustic table, also a rustic seat on which was seated a comely matron engaged in the very commonplace work of darning socks. She cast on us a sharp and remarkably penetrating glance as we approached. Doubtless our appearance was peculiar, for a pretty maiden in savage costume, a somewhat ragged white man, and a gigantic savage, all mounted on magnificent steeds and looking travel-stained and worn after a journey of many weeks, was not probably an everyday sight, even in those regions.

Dismounting and advancing to act as spokesman, while my companions sat motionless and silent in their saddles, I pulled off my cap.

"I have been directed to this house as the abode of Mrs Liston," said I with a tremor of anxiety, for I knew that the comely matron before me could not be she whom I sought, and feared there might be some mistake.

"You have been directed aright, sir. May I ask who it is that desires to see her?"

"My name is Maxby," said I, quickly, for I was becoming nervously impatient. "I am quite a stranger to Mrs Liston, but I would see her, because I bring her news--news of importance--in fact a message from her long-lost son."

"From Willie Liston?" exclaimed the lady, starting up, and seizing my arm, while she gazed into my face with a look of wild surprise. "Is he--but it cannot be--impossible--he must be--"

"He is dead," said I, in a low, sad voice, as she hesitated.

"Yes," she returned, clasping her hands but without any of the wild look in her eyes now. "We have mourned him as dead for many, many years. Stay, I will