Wyoming Part 24

She peered into the gloom as sharply as she could and was not kept in suspense.

She offered no resistance, and quickly joined those who were overtaken by disaster.

It was much the same with Eva, although she struggled with great energy and narrowly escaped violence, as did Aunt Peggy, when she chastised the audacious Seneca.

Habakkuk McEwen, as we have stated, was in a quandary, but he ascended, his feet going over the ledge first. Such an approach to a foe is not disquieting, and he was caught at greater disadvantage than any of the others.

He tried hard to throw himself over the rocks, but was prevented; and thus it was that the capture of the entire party was completed.

"Great Caesar!" exclaimed Habakkuk, as he joined his friends. "The height, and length, and breadth, and depth of this failure is the most stupend'us I ever heerd tell of."

And no one said him nay.

CHAPTER x.x.x.

It is necessary at this point that some attention should be given to the predecessor of our friends in captivity--Gravity Gimp.

The particulars of his capture will be recalled, it being somewhat similar to that of his followers, inasmuch as he was pounced upon and overwhelmed before he could make any effectual resistance, though, for a time, he kept things "moving."

But he was forced to succ.u.mb at last, and was led away by those whom he had fought so bravely, and into whose hands he dreaded falling aware as he was what fate awaited him.

"Be keerful," he called out, limping heavily, "I've got a game leg, and I want yer to play light on it."

Whether they understood his words or not is a small matter; but the American Indian is accustomed to the language of gesture, and when the African limped forward, as though unable to bear half the weight on one limb, they could not mistake what it meant.

The gun of the captive was taken from him, and, as he was such a miserable pedestrian just then, his hands were not bound behind him, as was the case with the prisoners afterwards taken.

Ordinarily, the rough usage given his captors during the struggle would have resulted in serious injury to some of them; but the Iroquois were too sinewy, lithe, and graceful on their feet to fare ill, and they gathered about him, with something akin to admiration, when he was conducted farther into the mountain, where they had a large camp-fire burning.

"I s'pose eberybody makes mistakes," muttered Gravity, moving slowly along; "leastways I'm purty sartin I made a wery big one, when I got too cur'us to know what dese willains was up to."

No indignity was offered him on the walk to the fire, which was burning a couple of hundred yards away, but he felt that nothing like mercy was to be expected from his captors.

The negro had proven his coolness and courage in more than one instance that day, and Maggie Brainerd asked herself whether the loyal fellow really knew what fear is.

But when Gimp reached the camp-fire, and saw Jake Golcher with other Indians grouped around him, his heart gave a throb of terror.

He knew that wretch too well to make any mistake concerning him. It was Gimp who, but a few hours before, had visited the worst kind of physical indignity on the Tory, who now possessed the chance to repay him.

Jake was sitting on a fallen tree, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, and his chin in his hands, looking into the glowing embers, and apparently only half listening to the guttural conversation going on among the Indians about him.

He had spent so much time with the Seneca branch of the Iroquois, that he understood their tongue quite well. But, as he slowly puffed at his short clay pipe, his thoughts were far away.

Most likely he was recalling the incidents of the day, that were a source of mixed pleasure and pain to him.

"The overthrow of the rebels was complete," he muttered, his face lighting up with pa.s.sion. "It'll be a good many years before Wyoming will get over this, and I've got even with a lot of them that hain't used me well. There's Parker, who called me a lazy loafer two years ago, because I wouldn't pay him a little money I had borrowed. Well, I settled up with him to-day, and he'll never call anybody else such a disrespectful name agin.

"Then there's Sam Williams, that I used to go out hunting with, and who was considered a pretty good chap by some folks. He used to lend me money, and never cared whether I paid him back or not; but he undertook to lecture me once on my dooty, and said, if I didn't go to work, I never would be anybody, I've got too much spirit to stand any such insults as that, and, when I come on him to-day, I settled with him."

Dreadful thoughts were these to find such expression, and the renegade was silent a minute, until it seemed as if Satan got still a stronger hold upon him.

"But there's _one_ man close by that I would give a thousand prisoners for," he added, puffing spitefully at his pipe, "and it looks as if I'm going to have him. Providence does favor the truly good," added the miscreant. "I've got the whole party penned up in a hole, and if they get away from us it will be the biggest thing of the kind ever done in these parts.

"I want to get hold of that Gimp, that stole my gun and gave me such a kicking that I feel six inches taller than ever before, and have to be mighty careful about settin' down. He's a sort of giant, but if we lay hands on him there'll be mighty little of him left when we get through.

"There's Maggie Brainerd, the prettiest gal that ever left Connecticut and settled in the Wyoming Valley. I knowed her when she was a little one, and then she was so purty that people used to stop her in the road, to kiss and admire her.

"She always acted kind toward me, and I used to think she was kinder tender and loving, and I b'leve now I might have got her, if that half-brother of hers, Fred G.o.dfrey, hadn't come along and set her agin me."

The brows of the Tory contracted at the recollection of something that burned in his memory.

"A year ago, he was down here in the valley, and I feared there wasn't much chance for me with Maggie, so I thought I would shame him before the town to that extent he would never show his face in it again. He was talkin' in the store to a lot of our neighbors, and had enlisted, and he thought every young chap oughter. I said I didn't b'leve he had enough courage to fire a gun at a red coat, when he said he had enough to fire me out, if I didn't keep a civil tongue in my head.

"That's just what I wanted, for I had been building up my muscle for two weeks, with the very idee of whalin' him, and I sailed in.

"Wal," added the Tory, with a sigh, "the fight was over afore I'd fairly got into it. I come out of the winder with a sash round my neck, and if I hadn't struck agin Aunt Peggy, who was walkin' by, my neck would have been broken off short. I didn't get over that lambastin' for a month, but Fred G.o.dfrey little thought when he jined the crowd in laughin' at me, that he had sealed his doom."

The face of the Tory flushed, for he was sure that he had the best reason to believe that he spoke the truth.

CHAPTER x.x.xI.

"Yes," added Jake, with a sigh of something like pleasure; "it looks very much as though I've got a chance to even up my accounts with 'em all. The folks are having a good time on t'other side the river, and to-morrer, when Forty Fort surrenders, Wyoming will be wiped out so clean that the only way of telling where it has been will be by the ashes.

"I've got a lot of the best Senecas that ever took the war-path, and I've promised them the biggest kind of a reward if they succeed in scooping in the whole party. Queen Esther told 'em to go with me and do just as I directed, so they're bound to show the stuff they're made of.

Gray Panther is their chief, and he's directing 'em, and he beats any Injin I ever heard tell of for downright cunning, and is as good as a bloodhound on the trail."

Thus it was that, although Jake Golcher was the nominal head of the war party, the renowned chief, Gray Panther, was guiding operations, and it is to that remarkable Seneca Indian that the success of the redskins in out-generaling the fugitives was due.

"I know that Maggie came near pegging out with a broken heart when her mother died, three years ago," continued Golcher, "and she is so attached to her father, brother, and sister, that she will do anything in her power to save harm coming to them."

This fact could not fail to suggest the course that had taken shape in his mind long before.

"We will capture them all; then I'll make known my terms: Maggie must agree to marry me; she will do it, too, if she makes the promise, and I'll agree to let all the rest go. I'll keep my word so far as the old man and Eva, and I guess the Aunt Peggy, is concerned; but there's two that I'll wipe out--Fred G.o.dfrey and that Gravity Gimp.

"I may have to promise to let up on 'em, but I can fix it with Gray Panther, so they'll be _accidentally_ killed; but I'll never feel easy till they're both underground. As for that n.i.g.g.e.r--" And taking out his pipe, he ground his teeth together, and clenched the fingers of the free hand, and then, looking up, saw Gravity Gimp, the African, standing before him.

"Good-evenin'," said the servant, bowing low, and making a salaam with his broad hand, inasmuch as he was without his hat; "I hopes I finds yer werry well dis ebenin."

Jake Golcher sprang to his feet, and his pipe dropped from his hand. It often happens that the very person of whom we are thinking turns up before us, but, although there was nothing supernatural in the appearance of the African, the renegade was startled for the moment into believing that such was the fact.

Quickly recovering, he muttered something, and sitting down again on the log, picked up his pipe, took a puff or two, and looking at the lame African, asked: