With the last word the horseman settled back into the saddle, and the steed bounded off like a frightened stag.
Down the right bank of the Pawnee Loup the twain flew, through the soft gloaming of that delightful May day, 1815.
The horse and his rider were well mated. Both possessed courage, strength and true nobleness of character, the brute none less than his master.
The occupant of the blanketed saddle was a medium-sized man, about forty years of age. His hair, and he had an ocean of it, was an iron-gray, and shone like silver. The face was smooth, somewhat cadaverous, but healthy; and the brownish eyes, nestling between long, dark lashes, were indicative alike of gentleness and determination. He wore the often-described habiliments of the Western hunter, and in addition to the long-barreled rifle that lay across the pommel of his saddle, supported in its position by a great hand, the only ill-proportioned member of the body, a brace of Colt’s large revolvers protruded from his buck-skin belt.
“Tecumseh, if ye see danger afore Shack does, stop,” he said, as they neared the mouth of the Nebraska’s tributary. “We’re gettin’ close to the place now. I hevn’t heard the red devils for some time; but the music keeps up mighty well. He’s got out a new tune now—a tune which the lame old Italian used to grind out before the ‘Arcade’—a tune which nobody in creation could tell the name of. Wonder if that old chap hesn’t come out here to amuse the Pawnee Loups? If he hes—”
The sentence was broken by Tecumseh’s abrupt halt, and the frontiersman spoke a few words which effectually quieted the steed’s nervousness.
“It’s jest over the rise, thar, on the Oregon trail,” muttered Frontier Shack, glancing at his revolvers and lifting the deadly rifle from the saddle. “The Injuns hev played smash with another lot of poor emigrants. ’Twas but yesterday that they butchered everybody in Davidson’s train, and now they’ve made new rivers of blood! Dash me if these things don’t rile me; they run through my marrow like fiery arrows, and if the Gov’ment would appoint Ote Shackelford Injun agent, the Oregon trail would soon be as safe as Broadway. But for’ard, Tecumseh, slowly, slowly, horse.”
The faithful steed now walked cautiously toward a knoll well defined against the darkening horizon, and when the summit had almost been gained, a word from his master caused him to pause.
“I’ll be back presently, horse,” he said, in low tones, as he dismounted and crept forward.
His ears were saluted by coarse but not unpleasant music, as he executed the movement, and he knew that it emanated from a hand-organ not far from the opposite foot of the knoll, and between him and the Nebraska or Platte. The night was still, and the stars were beginning to appear in the boundless firmament above the treeless river. A light breeze blew from the water, and wafted the strains toward the northern lodges of the Pawnees, between which and the river they had encountered the frontiersman.