Chapter XX.
How Kumshakah Figured in the Light of the Setting Sun.
The red man foremost, the black man hindmost, and the white man between, silently, swiftly they wended their way through the mazes, green and brown, of the autumn-painted forest. "What manner of man is this," the young Kentuckian could not but say to himself, "at whose voice the fierce, unruly warriors of the wilderness stay their barbarous hands, from before the glance of whose eye their doughtiest champions quail, and under whose hand the captive goes forth again into life and freedom?"
Having with his war-cry eased his heart in a measure of the surplus joy and triumph he felt at their deliverance, Big Black Burl could now content himself to go for a mile or more without speaking a word. He failed not, however, to steal from time to time a prying glance at their deliverer from over his master's shoulder. At the first glance nothing in particular struck his mind, excepting that he thought the red stranger was a wondrously handsome and gallant-looking man for an Indian. At the second glance a fancy began to steal into his thoughts that at some time of his life he had had a dream in which he had seen such a form and face as that he now had before his eyes. At the third glance it began to dawn upon him that he had not only dreamed of seeing but really had seen that man before. At last, having fairly succeeded in cornering a dodging, skipping sprite of a recollection which he had been chasing about in his memory for the last ten minutes, Mish-mugwa, in open-eyed amazement, brought himself along-side Shekee-thepatee, to whose ear bending down he exclaimed in a big whisper, "Kumshy!"
Reynolds started. A vague something of the sort had been flitting before his mind ever since the stranger's sudden appearance at the dismal scene in the dingle. During the many years that had come and gone since that eventful first of June, he and Burl had often talked of the good and brave young Indian warrior who had shown himself so gentle and true a friend to the forlorn little captive in his hour of peril and need. In brightest remembrance had they held him ever since, coupling every mention of his name with some expression of gratitude or admiration, or with the mutual remembrance of some pleasant incident of his sojourn among them. Yes, though changed from the bright-eyed, graceful youth they had known him, they felt in their hearts that their deliverer could be none other than their old friend Kumshakah. But who was Kumshakah?
Without opening his lips to speak a word, or turning his head to glance behind him, silently, swiftly glided the Indian on before them, straight against the setting sun. At length, late in the day, after traversing the forest for some miles, they came to the head of a quiet little dell which, scooped out smoothly from among the hills, descended without a curve to the valley of the Thames. Here the chieftain halted, and pointing before him, his bright eyes turned now full and clear upon them, said in English, "Your friends."
Looking in the direction pointed out, and running their eyes down a long vista made through the trees of the dell by a brook on its way to the main stream, our hunters spied the American army where, at the distance of a mile, it had halted to encamp for the night. The tents, already pitched and all agleam in the low light of the sun, were scattered picturesquely about among the trees at the bottom of the dell, which then expanding like the flaring mouth of a bugle opened into the wider valley of the Thames. Setting the butt of his rifle on the ground and resting his hand upon the muzzle, the young Kentuckian now addressed the chieftain, not only speaking to him in his own language, but adopting the poetical and figurative style of expression peculiar to his people:
"This day many hands strong and cruel opened the doors of death to push us burning through; but one hand stronger than them all shut the doors and drew us back into the paths of the living. He has led us forth in safety from the midst of our deadly foes, and now bids us return in peace to our own people. We are glad; we are thankful. Who our deliverer is we know; our eyes, our ears, our hearts have told us already. Who should it be but Kumshakah, the savior of the boy Shekee-thepatee, the friend of the Big Black Brave, Mish-mugwa?"
"Your eyes and your ears and your hearts have told you untruly," replied the chief. "Nor yet have they wholly deceived you. I am not Kumshakah, but Kumshakah's twin brother. More than twenty times has spring made green the forest since Kumshakah started out on his first war-path. But they who went with him returned without him, saying, 'Kumshakah has fallen in the land of the Dark and Bloody Ground under the hand of the Big Black Brave with a Bushy Head.' Then went I out into the forest, wandering in lonely places, and mourning my much-loved brother. But before another moon had turned her face full and broad upon the earth, Kumshakah returned, and there was a light in his eye brighter than that of the warrior's triumph. The story he told us you know; what we felt in our hearts you can guess. Who Mish-mugwa was I knew full well. I had seen him in battle; had heard his war-cry. Afterward I saw him from where I lay in ambush, his life at my mercy, but I lifted not my hand against him, for he was the friend of my brother, and they had smoked the peace-pipe together."