“Yes,” she replied, “I am afraid; and yet I feel strengthened to go. Your father will be useful there. He is fitted to take the lead in case of trouble with the savages; the settlers look up to him, and depend upon him, and I cannot find it in my heart to hold him back; and if he goes, it is best for me to be with him. If you remain 193 behind, we shall have in you a friend to assist us if any trouble should arise. You might be able to do more for us here than if shut up with us by a common danger.”
And so, with many a last farewell by the fond mother, Tom saw them start for their new home.
CHAPTER XV.
THE MASSACRE AT SPIRIT LAKE.
Between the settlement in which the missionary lived and the one next north-east was a wide prairie, succeeded by a stretch of primitive forests, through which, down its abysmal, rocky bed, ran a foaming river. The limestone bluffs that formed its banks abounded in holes and caves–fitting homes for wild beasts. Here the cry of the panther might be heard, and bears and wolves sought their food.
Through these gloomy solitudes Tom was making his way in the buggy, which the missionary had provided; for Tom had been intrusted with the errand of going to the village beyond for a trunk which had arrived from the east for Mr. Payson. He was jogging along, listening to the strange sounds of the forest; for it was near here, the last winter, that a sight met his gaze that he could never forget. There had been a succession of those still snow-storms which so often come in the night in Minnesota, and go off at day-dawn, leaving a perfectly even coating of 195 snow over everything. The sleighing was quite passable, and the weather, that day, mild. Coming suddenly to an open space, within a few feet of him, were two large gray wolves, eating a horse not yet dead. The poor beast was still attached to his team, and hopelessly struggled against his twofold fate; for he had fallen into a ‘sink-hole’ that the treacherous snow had concealed, and his driver, unable to extricate him, had abandoned him to his fate, or gone for help. Brandishing his whip, Tom shouted at the wolves in hope of frightening them off. They only raised their heads to glare threateningly at him, their jaws dripping blood, then voraciously resumed their gory repast, tearing great quivering masses of flesh from the struggling beast, which they seemed to swallow without chewing, with such a ravenous appetite did they eat.
Tom was a brave lad. But as he descended the side of the hill towards the river, and the dense shadows made his way dim, although it was high noon and a brilliant sun was flooding the prairies, he could not shake off a feeling of dread that had grown upon him. Every now and then he caught himself starting with nervous apprehension, and, to break the spell, he began to whistle a merry tune, to keep up his courage, as boys are wont to do. But he was thinking how dismally it sounded, when, suddenly, in the 196 distance rang out the clear notes of a robin. Tom involuntarily reined in his horse at that; for the call of that bird his Indian friend Long Hair used to imitate for a signal, and had taught Tom how to do it.
“For the sake of Long Hair,” said Tom, more cheerily, “I’ll answer you, old bird.”