AN ISLAND RETREAT.
Under the incentive of love and excitement—heightened by a tinge of jealousy—all Wahneenah’s former skill in horsemanship returned to her. When the Snake-Who-Leaps lifted the Sun Maid to the back of the Snowbird the woman felt an unreasoning anger against him. She could not patiently endure to have any other hand than her own touch the small body of her adopted child, upon whom had now centred all the pent-up affection of her starved heart.
“If my darling must be taught, I will teach her myself!” she suddenly resolved, and promptly acted upon the resolution. Previously, and when she ordered the chestnut to be brought to her tepee, she had merely intended to ride in company with the others and in a limited circle about the village. Now a mad impulse seized her to be off over the prairie, farther than sight could reach, and on half-forgotten trails once familiar to her. It was the first time she had mounted any animal since her widowhood.
When she heard Gaspar’s daring declaration, she thrilled with delight. All the savage in her nature roused to enjoy this wild escapade, and, catching firm hold of the Sun Maid’s bridle rein, she nodded over her shoulder to the lad, and led the way northward.
“It’s like that strange fairy story, in the book given Peter Wilson, that came from way over in England, and was the only one in the world, I guess. Was the only one at our Fort, anyway,” thought Gaspar, as he followed in equal speed, and at imminent risk of his life. For a night’s rest had restored the black gelding to all his spirit, and had the boy attempted to guide or control him there would have been serious trouble.
As it was, Gaspar confined his efforts to just sticking on, and had all he could do at that; but after a short distance, the three horses broke into an even lope, keeping well together, and all under the command of the Indian woman.
“Oh, I love it!” she cried, the rich blood flaming under her dusky skin, her eyes sparkling, and her long black hair streaming on the wind which their own motion created.
“Kitty loves it—too—Kitty guesses!” echoed the child, entering into the other’s mood with quick sympathy. Indeed, she was the safer of the three. There is a hidden understanding between horses and children, and numberless instances prove how carefully even an untamed beast will treat a little child—if nobody interferes. But let an adult attempt to avert a seeming danger, and the animal will promptly throw the responsibility on human shoulders, and act out its own mood at its own will.
Wahneenah understood this, and, simply leaving her hand upon the Snowbird’s rein, but quite without any pressure, rode where that frolicsome creature chose to lead. A strap, which the Snake-Who-Leaps had fastened around the waist of the Sun Maid, held her securely to her saddle, though her small hands clutched the flying mane of her mount so tightly that she could not well have been shaken off.
It was a rough school in which to learn so dangerous an art, but it sufficed; and that one day’s ride did more to help Gaspar and Kitty to good horsemanship than all the instruction they afterward received.
“How far—nice Other Mother?” asked the little girl, when the three horses of their own accord began to slacken speed.
“Not far now, papoose. See yonder, where the trees fringe the river? Among those trees is a wonderful spot I know. I’ve not seen it for years, but in its shelter my warrior and I spent many happy hours. There we used to take our son, and tell him the story of his people. It was a hiding-place, in the ancient years, when enemies of the Pottawatomies were on the war-path, and the chief would save his women and children. But nobody remembers that trail, at this late day, except those of my father’s house. Besides me, not one soul lives who could find his way thither, save Black Partridge. It is even many moons since he has talked with me about it, and he may not recall it still. Though he is a man who never forgets, and the knowledge is doubtless merely sleeping in his brain.”
Kitty Briscoe understood but little of this speech, but Gaspar’s interest was roused. Amid the discipline and routine of his old life at the Fort, his lighter, gayer qualities had lain dormant, but they were now rapidly awakening under the influence of his recent adventures. It was impossible, too, for anybody to be long with Wahneenah, in her present mood, without catching her spirit and gayety; and though the Sun Maid comprehended little save the liveliness of her companions, she could enter into that with all her heart.
Therefore, it was a merry party which came at last to the river bank, where the horses were glad to pause for rest, and where they would eagerly have slaked their thirst, had they been permitted.
“But that won’t do, Wahneenah, will it? At our Fort we never watered a horse when it was warm. The Captain said they would be ruined, so.”
“You do well to remember all the wisdom you have been taught, Dark-Eye. Here, let me show you something even a white man may not know. How to tether a horse with a rope of prairie grass, made in a moment, but strong enough to last for long.”
“Lift me off, Other Mother,” cried Kitty, from the Snowbird’s back, and Wahneenah swung her down.
“Now, Dark-Eye, pull as much of this rush grass as your arms can hold. It will take a heap for three ropes.”
“Have the pretty ponies been naughty? Must they be tied up, too?”
“Not because they are bad, but because they are good, papoose! That is the way of life. It is full of contradictions. But, don’t wrinkle your pretty brows puzzling what you cannot understand. Run and help the Dark-Eye pull the long grasses.”
It was so wonderful to see Wahneenah’s skilful fingers twist and turn and thread the slender blades in and out that both children were fascinated by her deftness; and though Gaspar could not at all catch the trick of this curious weaving, he resolved to practise it in private till he could equal, or excel, this example. Again his ambition arose to prove that a pale-face was always superior to an Indian, and his dark eyes gazed so fixedly upon Wahneenah’s flying fingers that she laughed, and demanded:
“Are you jealous, my son? But there’s no need. Nothing that I know will be hidden from you, if you choose to be taught. But, come. Take this rope that is finished. Twist it about the gelding’s neck—so; now pass it downward between his front legs and hobble him by the right hind one. No, he’ll not resist. Try it. Then you’ll see that he’ll neither nibble at his tether nor run away from us.”
Gaspar was too proud to show that he somewhat dreaded interfering with the restless legs of the spirited Tempest, and to his astonishment he found that the animal submitted very quietly to the tying. This may have been because Wahneenah stood by its beautiful head and murmured some soft sounds into its dainty ears. Though what the murmuring meant nobody save herself and Tempest understood. In like manner, and very quickly, all three horses were fastened in the shade of the trees, and as soon as they had cooled sufficiently, Gaspar was bidden to water them.
Then the Sun Maid was called from her play among the wild flowers that fringed the bank, and made to walk behind Wahneenah’s skirts.
“Cling close, my Girl-Child! We’re going into fairyland. Bow your pretty head till it is low—low—low down, like this”; and herself bending till her own head was very near the earth, the guide pushed forward into what appeared to be a solid tangle of bushes.
“Why, Wahneenah! You can’t go through there. It’s a regular hedge. But if you want to try, I have a little knife in my pocket, that my Captain gave me. Let me go first—I am the man—and cut the way; though I don’t see why. Isn’t there a better place?”
“There are many things a lad of ten cannot understand, Dark-Eye, even though he be as manly as you. Trust Wahneenah. An Indian never forgets, and never makes the haste that destroys. Watch me. Learn a lesson in woodcraft that will be useful to you more than once. Cut or broken twigs have tongues which betray. But thus—even a bird could find no trace.”
With infinite patience and accuracy of touch, the woman parted the slender, interwoven branches so delicately that scarcely a leaf was bruised, and little by little opened a clear passage into a downward sloping tunnel. This tunnel ran directly under the river bed, and was so steep in places that one might easily have coasted over it.
“Why, how queer! It’s like the underground passage from the Fort to the river, where we children used to peep, but were never allowed to enter. What is it? Why is it?”
“Let your eyes ask and answer their own questions. They are safer than a tongue, my son. But fear nothing. Where Wahneenah leads the way for the children whom the Great Spirit has sent her they may safely follow.”
Then, without further speech, she went forward for what seemed a long distance, through the half light of the tunnel, until it opened into a wide chamber, across which trickled a clear stream and which was fanned by a strong current of air.
The children were silent from curiosity, not unmixed with dread; and their guide had also become very grave and silent. Memories were crowding upon her soul, and banishing the present; but she was roused at length by the wild clutch of the Sun Maid’s arms, as something winged swept by them in the twilight.
“Other Mother! Other Mother! I—I don’t like it! Take Kitty, quick!”
“Ah! I was dreaming. My dead walked here beside me, and I forgot. But is the Sun Maid ever afraid? I did not think that. Well, it’s over now. The gloomy passage, the big, dark room—See?”
Suddenly, at a turn westward out of the chamber and beyond it, they entered upon what might, indeed, have been fairyland. The exit was another passage, rising gently to a rock- and tree-sheltered nook in the heart of a tiny island. From any outward point this retreat was invisible, and when they had emerged upon it the Indian woman’s spirits rose again. She caught up the Sun Maid and tossed her lightly upon a bending branch, that seemed to have grown expressly for a child’s swing.
“My warrior trained that bough for our son’s pleasure, and from it he rocked and danced as a tiny papoose. Now—in you, he lives again. Hold, Dark-Eye! What are you seeking?”
“Oh, just nothing! I was poking around to see——”
“If you could find anything to eat? The wild blackberries should grow just yonder, and, wait—I’ll look.”
“For what will you look, Other Mother? Aren’t these the prettiest posies yet?” and Kitty held upward a cluster of cardinal flowers which she had pulled from a mass by the water’s edge.
“Ah, they are alive! They have the heart of fire. But, take care. It is always wet where they grow and small feet slip easily. If you were to soil your pretty clothes, old Katasha might be angry.”
“I’ll take care. May I have all I can gather?”
“All. Every one.”
Then Wahneenah returned into the cave and to a niche in its wall where, years before, she had put a store of dried corn, some salt, and a bit of tinder. The articles had been stored in earthen jugs, and it was just possible they might be found in good condition. If they were, she would show the man-child how to catch a fish out of the little stream in the cavern, where the delicate trout were apt to hide. Then they would make a fire as they had used in the old days, and she would cook for these white children such a supper as her own dear ones had enjoyed.
“See, Gaspar, Dark-Eye. I will fetch you a line and hook. Sit quiet and draw out our supper—when it bites!”
“But I have a far better hook than that in my pocket; and a line the Sauganash gave me, one day. I am a good fisher, Wahneenah. How many fish do you want for your supper?”
“You are a good boaster, any way, pale-face, like all your race; and I want just as many fish as will satisfy our hunger. If you had your bow here, you might wing us a bird. Though that would not be wise, maybe. Keep an eye to the Sun Maid, lest she slip in the brook.”
“This is a funny place. It is an island, isn’t it? Like the pictures in my geography; and there is a little creek through it, and another in a cave, and—I think it is beautiful. But you’re funny, too, Wahneenah. You say my Kitty is a ‘spirit,’ and ‘nothing can harm her,’ yet you watch out for her getting hurt closer than the other mothers did.”
“You see too much, Dark-Eye. But—well, she is a spirit in a girl’s body. If you let evil happen her it will be the worse for you. Hear me?”
“I wouldn’t let her get into trouble any sooner than you would, Wahneenah. I love her, too. She hasn’t any folks, and I haven’t any, except you, of course. She belongs to me.”
“Oh! she does? Well. Enough. We all belong to each other. We have made the bond.”
When the woman returned from her search in the cavern her face was very grave. Yet it should have been delighted, for she had found not only the corn and the other things she remembered, but a goodly store of articles, quite too fresh and modern to have remained there since she last visited the spot. There were dried beans, salted beef, cakes of sugar from her old maple trees—she knew her own mark upon them; and, besides these, were flour and tea in packages, such as had been distributed from Fort Dearborn among as many Indians as were entitled to receive them. It was both puzzling and disappointing to find her retreat discovered and appropriated by somebody else.
“It must be that Shut-Hand has, in some way, found this cavern out. All the other people would have eaten and enjoyed their good things, and not stored them up, like this. But he is crafty and secretive, and his name is his character.”
Had Wahneenah hunted further she would have found, in addition to the provisions, a considerable quantity of broadcloth, calico, and paint; which articles, also, had been among those recently secured from the garrison. But she neither examined very closely nor touched anything except that for which she had come to the recess; and she even forced herself to put the matter out of mind, for the time being.
“I have brought my children here to make a holiday for them. I will not, therefore, darken it by my forebodings. The young live only in the present or the future. I, too, will again become young. I will forget all that is past.”
From that wonderful pocket of his, Gaspar took a decent hook and line, and easily proved his skill among fish that were too seldom disturbed to have learned any fear; while Wahneenah made a tiny fire of dried twigs, in the mouth of the cavern, and boiled her prepared corn, that she had broken and ground between two stones, into a sort of mush. With Gaspar’s fish, broiled upon the live coals, the pudding sweetened by a bit of honey from a close sealed crock, and a draught of water from the underground stream, the trio made a fine supper; and afterward, when she had carefully cleared away the débris, Wahneenah rekindled the fire, and, sitting beside it, took the Sun Maid on her knee and drew the motherless Dark-Eye within the shelter of her arm.
Then she told them tales and legends of the wide prairies and distant mountains; and her own manner gave them thrilling interest, because she believed in them quite as sincerely as did her small, wide-eyed listeners.
“Tell it once more, Other Mother. That beau’ful one ’bout the little papoose that hadn’t any shoes, and the flowers growed her some. Just like mine”; holding up her own tiny moccasined feet, and rubbing them together in the comfortable heat.
“Once upon a time a little girl papoose was lost. The enemies of her people had come to her father’s village, and had scattered all her tribe. There was not one of them left alive except the little maid.”
“I guess that’s just like Kitty, isn’t it?”
“No. No, it is not,” replied the story-teller, quickly. For she had felt a shiver run through Gaspar’s body, and pressed it close in warm protection. “No. It is not like either of you. For to you is Wahneenah, the Mother; the sister of a chief who lives and is powerful. But this was away in the long past, before even I was born. So the girl papoose found herself wandering on the prairie, and it was the time of frost. The ground was frozen beneath the grasses, which were stiff and rough and cut the tender feet that a mother’s hand had hitherto carried in her own palm.”
“Show me how, Mother Wahneenah.”
“Just this way Sweetheart,” clasping the tiny moccasins in a loving caress.
“Tell some more. I guess the fire is going to make Kitty sleepy, by and by.”
“Sleep, then, if you will, Girl-Child.”
“And then?”
“Then, when the little one was very cold and tired and lonely she remembered something: it was that she had seen her own mother lift her two hands to the sky and ask the Great Spirit for all she might need.”
“He always hears, doesn’t He?”
“He hears and answers. But sometimes the answers are what He sees is best, not what we want.”
“Don’t sigh that way, Other Mother! S’posin’ your little boy did go away. Haven’t you got Gaspar and Kitty?”
“Yes, little one.”
“Go on, then. About the little maid—just like me.”
“So she put her own two tiny hands up toward the sky and asked the Great Spirit to put soft shoes on her tired little feet.”
“And He did, didn’t He?”
“Surely. First the pain eased and that made her look down. And there she saw a pair of the softest moccasins that ever were made. They were of pale pink and yellow, and all dotted with dark little bead-spots; and they fitted as easily as her own dainty skin. Then the girl papoose was grateful, and she begged the Great Spirit that He would make many and many another pair of just such comfortable shoes for every other little barefoot maid in all the world. That not one single child should ever suffer what the girl papoose had suffered.”
“Did He?” asked Gaspar, as interested as Kitty.
“Yes. Surely. The prayer of the unselfish and innocent is always granted. He sent a voice out of the sky and bade the child look all about her. So she did, and the whole wide prairie was a-bloom with more pink and yellow ‘shoes’ than all the children in all the earth could ever wear. They were growing right out of the hard ground, reaching up to be plucked and worn. So she cried out aloud in her gratitude: ‘Oh, the moccasin flower! the moccasin flower!’ and ever since then this shoe-like blossom has been beloved of all the children in the world. But, because the heat burns as well as the cold pinches, it blooms nowadays at all times and seasons of the year. A few flowers here, a few there; but quite enough for any child to find—who has the right spirit.”
“Kitty must have had the spirit, mustn’t she, Other Mother? That day when her feets were so tired and the good Feather-man found her. ’Cause she had lots and lots of them; only she went to sleep and they all solemned down. And——”
Gaspar started suddenly and held up a warning hand. His quick ear had caught the sound of approaching feet, crushing boldly through the cavern, like the tread of one who knows his way well and is coming to his own.
Wahneenah had also heard, though she had continued her story, making no sign that she was inwardly disturbed. But she now paused and listened whether this footfall were one she knew, either of friend or foe. Then a bush cracked behind them, and Gaspar’s heart stood still, as the tall form of an Indian warrior pushed past them into the firelight.