Erskine Dale-Pioneer Part 10

"Black Wolf, son of Crooked Lightning."

"Ah!" thought Erskine.

Within the old chief called faintly and the Indian woman motioned the lad to go within. The old man's dim eyes had a new fire.

"Talk!" he commanded and motioned to the ground, but the lad did not squat Indian fas.h.i.+on, but stood straight with arms folded, and the chief knew that a conflict was coming. Narrowly he watched White Arrow's face and bearing-uneasily felt the strange new power of him.

"I have been with my own people," said the lad simply, "the palefaces who have come over the big mountains and have built forts and planted corn, and they were kind to me. I went over those mountains, on and on almost to the big waters. I found my kin. They are many and strong and rich. They have big houses of stone such as I had never seen nor heard of and they plant more corn than all the Shawnees and Iroquois. They, too, were kind to me. I came because you had been kind and because you were sick and because you had sent for me, and to keep my word.

"I have seen Crooked Lightning. His heart is bad. I have seen the new prophet. I do not like him. And I have seen the white woman that you are to burn to-morrow." The lad stopped. His every word had been of defense or indictment and more than once the old chief's eyes s.h.i.+fted uneasily.

"Why did you leave us?"

"To see my people and because of Crooked Lightning and his brother."

"You fought us."

"Only the brother, and I killed him." The dauntless mien of the boy, his steady eyes, and his bold truthfulness, pleased the old man. The lad must take his place as chief. Now White Arrow turned questioner:

"I told you I would come when the leaves fell and I am here. Why is Crooked Lightning here? Why is the new prophet? Who is the woman? What has she done that she must die? What is the peace talk you wish me to carry north?"

The old man hesitated long with closed eyes. When he opened them the fire was gone and they were dim again.

"The story of the prophet and Crooked Lightning is too long," he said wearily. "I will tell to-morrow. The woman must die because her people have slain mine. Besides, she is growing blind and is a trouble. You carry the white wampum to a council. The Shawnees may join the British against our enemies-the palefaces."

"I will wait," said the lad. "I will carry the white wampum. If you war against the paleface on this side of the mountain-I am your enemy. If you war with the British against them all-I am your enemy. And the woman must not die."

"I have spoken," said the old man.

"_I_ have spoken," said the boy. He turned to lie down and went to sleep. The old man sat on, staring out at the stars.

Just outside the tent a figure slipped away as noiselessly as a snake.

When it rose and emerged from the shadows the firelight showed the malignant, triumphant face of Crooked Lightning.

XI

The Indian boys were plunging into the river when Erskine appeared at the opening of the old chief's tent next morning, and when they came out icicles were clinging to their hair. He had forgotten the custom and he shrugged his shoulders at his mother's inquiring look. But the next morning when Crooked Lightning's son Black Wolf pa.s.sed him with a taunting smile he changed his mind.

"Wait!" he said. He turned, stripped quickly to a breech-clout, pointed to a beech down and across the river, challenging Black Wolf to a race.

Together they plunged in and the boy's white body clove through the water like the arrow that he was. At the beech he whipped about to meet the angry face of his compet.i.tor ten yards behind. Half-way back he was more than twenty yards ahead when he heard a strangled cry. Perhaps it was a ruse to cover the humiliation of defeat, but when he saw bucks rus.h.i.+ng for the river-bank he knew that the icy water had brought a cramp to Black Wolf, so he turned, caught the lad by his topknot, towed him sh.o.r.eward, dropped him contemptuously, and stalked back to his tent.

The girl Early Morn stood smiling at her lodge and her eyes followed his white figure until it disappeared. His mother had built a fire for him, and the old chief looked pleased and proud.

"My spirit shall not pa.s.s," he said, and straightway he rose and dressed, and to the astonishment of the tribe emerged from his tent and walked firmly about the village until he found Crooked Lightning.

"You would have Black Wolf chief," he said. "Very well. We shall see who can show the better right-your son or White Arrow"-a challenge that sent Crooked Lightning to brood awhile in his tent, and then secretly to consult the prophet.

Later the old chief talked long to White Arrow. The prophet, he said, had been with them but a little while. He claimed that the Great Spirit had made revelations to him alone. What manner of man was he, questioned the boy-did he have ponies and pelts and jerked meat?

"He is poor," said the chief. "He has only a wife and children and the tribe feeds him."

White Arrow himself grunted-it was the first sign of his old life stirring within him.

"Why should the Great Spirit pick out such a man to favor?" he asked.

The chief shook his head.

"He makes muzzi-neen for the young men, shows them where to find game and they find it."

"But game is plentiful," persisted the lad.

"You will hear him drumming in the woods at night."

"I heard him last night and I thought he was a fool to frighten the game away."

"Crooked Lightning has found much favor with him, and in turn with the others, so that I have not thought it wise to tell Crooked Lightning that he must go. He has stirred up the young men against me-and against you. They were waiting for me to die." The boy looked thoughtful and the chief waited. He had not reached the aim of his speech and there was no need to put it in words, for White Arrow understood.

"I will show them," he said quietly.

When the two appeared outside, many braves had gathered, for the whole village knew what was in the wind. Should it be a horse-race first?

Crooked Lightning looked at the boy's thoroughbred and shook his head-Indian ponies would as well try to outrun an arrow, a bullet, a hurricane.

A foot-race? The old chief smiled when Crooked Lightning shook his head again-no brave in the tribe even could match the speed that gave the lad his name. The bow and arrow, the rifle, the tomahawk? Perhaps the pole-dance of the Sioux? The last suggestion seemed to make Crooked Lightning angry, for a rumor was that Crooked Lightning was a renegade Sioux and had been shamed from the tribe because of his evasion of that same pole-dance. Old Kahtoo had humor as well as sarcasm. Tomahawks and bows and arrows were brought out. Black Wolf was half a head shorter, but stocky and powerfully built. White Arrow's sinews had strengthened, but he had scarcely used bow and tomahawk since he had left the tribe.

His tomahawk whistled more swiftly through the air and buried itself deeper into the tree, and his arrows flashed faster and were harder to pull out. He had the power but not the practice, and Black Wolf won with great ease. When they came to the rifle, Black Wolf was out of the game, for never a bull's-eye did White Arrow miss.

"To-morrow," said the old chief, "they shall hunt. Each shall take his bow and the same number of arrows at sunrise and return at sundown....

The next day they shall do the same with the rifle. It is enough for to-day."

The first snow fell that night, and at dawn the two lads started out-each with a bow and a dozen arrows. Erskine's woodcraft had not suffered and the night's story of the wilderness was as plain to his keen eyes as a printed page. Nothing escaped them, no matter how minute the signs. Across the patch where corn had been planted, field-mice had left tracks like st.i.tched seams. Crows had been after crawfish along the edge of the stream and a mink after minnows. A muskrat had crossed the swamp beyond. In the woods, wind-blown leaves had dotted and dashed the snow like a stenographer's notebook. Here a squirrel had leaped along, his tail showing occasionally in the snow, and there was the four-pointed, triangle-track of a cottontail. The wide-spreading toes of a c.o.o.n had made this tracery; moles had made these snowy ridges over their galleries, and this long line of st.i.tched tracks was the trail of the fearless skunk which came to a sudden end in fur, feathers, and bones where the great horned owl had swooped down on him, the only creature that seems not to mind his smell. Here was the print of a pheasant's wing, and buds and bits of twigs on the snow were the scattered remnants of his breakfast. Here was the spring hole that never freezes-the drinking-cup for the little folks of the woods. Here a hawk had been after a rabbit, and the lengthening distance between his triangles showed how he had speeded up in flight. He had scudded under thick briers and probably had gotten away. But where was the big game?

For two hours he tramped swiftly, but never sign of deer, elk, bear, or buffalo.

And then an hour later he heard a snort from a thick copse and the crash of an unseen body in flight through the brush, and he loped after its tracks.

Black Wolf came in at sunset with a bear cub which he had found feeding apart from its mother. He was triumphant, and Crooked Lightning was scornful when White Arrow appeared empty-handed. His left wrist was bruised and swollen, and there was a gash the length of his forearm.

"Follow my tracks back," he said, "until you come to the kill." With a whoop two Indians bounded away and in an hour returned with a buck.

"I ran him down," said White Arrow, "and killed him with the knife. He horned me," and went into his tent.

The bruised wrist and wounded forearm made no matter, for the rifle was the weapon next day-but White Arrow went another way to look for game.

Each had twelve bullets. Black Wolf came in with a deer and one bullet.

White Arrow told them where they could find a deer, a bear, a buffalo, and an elk, and he showed eight bullets in the palm of his hand. And he noted now that the Indian girl was always an intent observer of each contest, and that she always went swiftly back to her tent to tell his deeds to the white woman within.

There was a feast and a dance that night, and Kahtoo could have gone to his fathers and left the lad, young as he was, as chief, but not yet was he ready, and Crooked Lightning, too, bided his time.