The Rival Campers Ashore Part 12

"Nor I," said Tom and Bob, respectively.

Thus they argued. A half hour went by, and the band inside the tent was making loud music as a youth darted up to them, out of breath with running.

"Come on," cried Young Joe, softly. "I've got the wagon over back in the grove, and some ropes, and some cloth. Come and take a look."

To look was to yield. The sleeping, snoring figure of the great chief, Red Bull, gave no signs of suspicious dreams when, some moments later, a band of boys approached noiselessly the place where he lay. The moment could not have been timed more opportunely for success. The circus was about breaking up for the night, and the great tent was buzzing and resounding with noise.

A half dozen figures suddenly sprang forward upon the slumbering chieftain. The arms of the dread Red Bull, seized respectively by Jack Harvey and Tom Harris, were quickly bound behind him. A light rope, wound securely about his ankles by George Warren, and made fast in sailor fas.h.i.+on, rendered him further helpless; while, at the same time, a long strip of cloth, procured by Young Joe for the purpose, and swathed about his head, stifled his roars of rage and fright. Red Bull, the great Indian chief, the terror of the plains, was most a.s.suredly a captive--an astounded and helpless Indian, if ever there was one.

Borne on the st.u.r.dy shoulders of his pale-face captors, Red Bull, bound and swathed, uttering smothered e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns through the cloth, was conveyed to the waiting wagon and driven away.

A little less than an hour from this time there arrived at the sh.o.r.e of Mill Stream a strange party, the strangest beyond all doubt that had come down to these sh.o.r.es since the days when the forefathers of circus chiefs had skimmed its waters in their birch canoes, carrying their captives not to pretended but to real torture.

Two canoes, brought down from an old shed, were launched now and floated close to sh.o.r.e. Into one of these was carried the helpless and enraged Red Bull, where he was propped up against a thwart. In front of him, on guard, squatted Little Tim. Jack Harvey and Henry Burns took their places, respectively, at stern and bow, equipped with paddles. The second canoe was hastily filled with the four others. They made a heavy load for each canoe, and brought them down low in the water.

"Easy now," cautioned Tom Harris, as the party started forth. "We're well down to the gunwales. No monkeying, or we'll upset."

They proceeded carefully and silently up stream, with the moon coming up over the still water to light them on their way.

A mile and a half up the stream, they paused where a shabby structure of rough boards, eked out with odds and ends of s.h.i.+ngle stuff, with a rusty funnel protruding from the roof, showed a little back from sh.o.r.e, on a cleared spot amid some trees.

"Here's the camp," cried Harvey; and they grounded the canoes within its shadow.

The chief, Red Bull, clearly not resigned to his fate, but squirming helplessly, was conveyed up the bank and set down against a convenient stump. The canoes were drawn on sh.o.r.e, and the party gathered about him.

"What are we going to do with him, anyway, now we've got him?" inquired George Warren.

"Oh, he's got to be tried by a war council," said Henry Burns; "and all of us are scouts, and we've got to tell how many pale-faces he's scalped, and then he's got to be sentenced to be put to torture and scalped and--and all that sort of thing. And then we'll dance around him and--and then by and by--well, I suppose we'll have to let him go. I don't know just how, but we'll arrange that. But we've got to have a fire first, to make it a real war council."

They had one going shortly, down near the sh.o.r.e, and casting a weird glare upon the scene.

After a preliminary dance about their captive, in which they lent colour to the picture by brandis.h.i.+ng war-clubs and improvised tomahawks, they sat in solemn council on the chief.

"Fellow scouts," said Henry Burns, addressing his a.s.sembled followers, "this is the great Indian chief, Magua, the dog of the Wyandots--"

"Whoopee!" yelled Little Tim, "that's him. He killed Un-cuss, didn't he, Henry?"

"The brave scout has spoken well," replied Henry Burns. "This is the cruel dog of the Wyandots; slayer of the brave Uncas; shot at by Hawkeye, the friend of the Delawares--"

"I thought you said he killed him--in the book," cried Little Tim.

"Shut up, Tim," said Joe Warren.

"He's alive again," declared Henry Burns, solemnly. "He was only wounded.

"Here is the cruel Huron," continued Henry Burns, "delivered into our hands by that daring scout who knows no fear."

Little Tim grinned joyously at this praise from his leader.

"What shall we do with our captive?" solemnly inquired Henry Burns.

"Shall we show mercy to the slayer of the brave Uncas? Shall we be women and let him go, to roam the forests and ravage the homes of our settlers, or shall he be put to death?"

"He must die," growled Scout Harvey. "The daring leader has spoken well.

Is it not so, men?"

The doom of Red Bull, otherwise Magua, the dog of the Wyandots, was declared.

The death of the captive followed swiftly--in pantomime--the brave scouts, under the leaders.h.i.+p of Henry Burns, performing a series of dances about the helpless one, accomplis.h.i.+ng his end with imaginary tomahawk blows.

"Now he must be scalped," said Henry Burns. "What say you, men, shall we cast the lot to see who takes the scalp of Magua, the great chief of the Hurons?"

It was done. The short stick was drawn by Little Tim--to his inexpressible joy.

"Take the scalping-knife, brave scout," said Henry Burns, handing him a huge wooden affair, whittled out for the purpose. "The scalp of Magua the chief shall hang at the cabin of Swift Foot, the scout who captured him."

Swift Foot advanced to perform the last act in the drama. It was a weird and dreadful moment. The fire-light cast its flickering glow upon the doomed chief, his captors and the executioner. The form of Magua was seen to quiver, as though life was indeed not all extinct.

Swift Foot performed his grim office with a flourish. The wooden scalping-knife descended upon the gorgeous head-piece of the victim, which the scout grasped with his other hand and pulled as he drew the knife.

But at this moment the form beneath the knife wriggled in the hands of the executioner; lurched to one side, and the head-piece fell away, so true to life that an involuntary shudder went through the group, as though the act had really been accomplished. The flaunting head-piece of eagle feathers fell indeed away, clutched in the hand of Little Tim.

And, at the same instant, by some loosening of the cloth, that, too, dropped down, freeing the jaws of the Indian chief.

To their amazement, the fire-light shone now not on the straight black hair of an Indian, but upon a towsled top-knot of unmistakable red.

While from the parted lips of the figure there issued a sound that was not of the child of the forest.

"Tim Reardon, yer little divvle," cried the victim, glaring at the astounded youth with unfeigned rage, "it's yerself I'll be takin the hair off--yer little scallerwag--an the hide of yer, too. Sure an ye'll be doin some lively dancin' around when I git me two hands on yer.

Scoutin' is it ye'll be doin? I'll scout ye and the likes of all er ye.

Lemme go, I tell yer,--"

The scalping knife dropped from the palsied hand of Swift Foot, the scout. He stood, glaring wildly at the outraged captive.

"Danny O'Reilly!" he exclaimed, gasping for breath. "Oh, gimminy crickets!"

"Yes, an it's Danny O'Reilly that'll be scalpin' ye all over from head to foot to-morrow," cried the captive, wriggling in his bonds. "Lemme out er this, I tell yez. Sure an I've got a hand out now, and in a minnit I'll be showin' the likes of ye what it is to take an honest man away from his job with the circus."

True enough, in some way, by his wriggling, Danny O'Reilly was rapidly emerging, not only from his disguise as an Indian chief, but from his bonds as well. Panic seized upon the brave scouts--a panic born of dread of what might be in store in days to come. There was a rush to the canoes; a hasty scrambling aboard; a frenzied launching of the craft, and an ignominious flight from the place of execution.

Five minutes later, one walking the highway leading up from Benton might have beheld a strange figure, striding in to the city, breathing words of wrath upon the night air; a figure clad in Indian finery, but bearing the likeness beneath his war-paint of Daniel O'Reilly, a stalwart labourer of Benton, for the time being a valuable accession to the Bagley & Blondin great moral and scientific show.

CHAPTER VII

A LONG RACE BEGUN

The circus remained two days longer in Benton, but there were certain youths who kept away from it. A solemn oath of secrecy bound them as to the reason why. Only Tim Reardon and Joe Warren couldn't resist the temptation of stealing in among the wagons and watching for the appearance of Danny O'Reilly in all the glory of his paint and feathers; and, when they beheld a crowd of farmers gaze upon him admiringly as he pa.s.sed in for the Wild West performance, they nearly choked to death with laughter, and couldn't have run if he had espied them.