Chapter VIII

TOM'S RIDE CONTINUED.—THE CHIEF'S DAUGHTER.—SINGULAR ADVENTURE.

FORTY miles north-east of the landing, where Tom parted from the Willards, was a wide belt of woods, through which, down in its dim depths, ran a foaming river. The irregular limestone bluffs forming its banks were wild and picturesque in the extreme. Few, save the Indian, and the hunter, and trapper, ever entered these labyrinths.

On the stream, farther down, where the woods ended in rolling prairie, a young town had started, and using the water power, furnished lumber to villages less favored; for the settlers deemed themselves fortunate, if by going a score of miles, they could procure a load of boards to be used in building their cabins.

At this place, the stage deposited Tom—the route continuing no farther. The young Scotch-American also stopped there, who, on learning Tom's destination, stated that his father's cabin was twelve miles distant on Tom's path, and, as he would return next day with horse and wagon, offered to take Tom and his trunk along for company.

"I shall get here by two in the afternoon, to-morrow," he said.

Next morning, to "stretch his limbs," Tom started alone, on a short exploring walk up the river, amusing himself on the way gathering botanical and entomological specimens, and noting the varieties of birds that flitted on the wing, or floated on the water.

Absorbed in thoughts of the dear ones he was going to visit, and in what he saw, he had gone some distance into the woods, when, coming to a widening of the trail, he saw, quietly preceding him, an Indian girl, of from sixteen to eighteen years of age. She was walking slowly, apparently unaware that any one was near. Rumors of Indian hostilities were afloat, and this evidence that he was in the vicinity of an Indian encampment was anything but welcome.

His first impulse was to turn about, and noiselessly retrace his steps. A second thought showed the folly of this, for he had been shouting to awaken the echoes, and singing, to express his enjoyment, and crashing the dry twigs, up to the very instant of the appearance of the tawny maiden. So, despite her seeming ignorance of his presence, he felt assured she was aware of it.

Making, therefore, the best of his uncomfortable situation, he hurried to overtake the stranger. Approaching, he was struck with her exceeding beauty, while the ornaments upon her person proclaimed her a chief's daughter.

Her form was symmetry itself; her jet black hair, elaborately dressed and braided, was long, silken, and glossy; her carriage was graceful and dignified; while row after row of many-hued beads encircled her neck and shoulders, and embroidered her moccasons. And such face and eyes! The former, delicately tinged, perfectly regular, interesting; the latter, soft, lustrous, shaded by long, dark lashes.

In his boyhood, Tom had read, in some high-wrought romance he chanced to meet, an ideal sketch of an Indian maid; this prodigy of nature fully realized that glowing portraiture.

Scarcely, however, had he reached her side, when a short, dry cough, the insidious "coffin cough," so often heard in civilized dwellings, fell on his ear.

"Indian girl sick?" he inquired, awkwardly striving to make himself understood.

No answer was returned, nor did the movement of a muscle of the features, or a turn of the head, give token that she saw or heard him. Again she involuntarily coughed.

Taking out a well-stocked medicine case, he drew forth a vial, and, displaying it to view, said,—

"Indian girl sick; medicine, perhaps, make well!"

Without a responsive glance or word, a little yellow hand was stretched out, the slender fingers glistening with rings. Pouring some medicated globules into the open palm, she gravely swallowed them, and continued her silent walk. Soon the cough softened a little, the irritation of the respiratory organs was soothed, and feeling that, possibly, on her favor his very life might depend, he sought, fruitlessly, to engage her in conversation.

Suddenly, however, she disappeared down the side of the bluff. A profound silence, broken only by the rush of the stream and twitter of birds succeeded, yet that ambushed eyes watching every motion he could not doubt.

Retracing his way with assumed carelessness, he had not gone far, when from the thickets leaped a band of yelling savages, naked to the waist, their hair flowing in wild disorder over their brawny shoulders. It was a startling onset; but understanding Indian character too well to manifest fear, he scrutinized his captors with a coolness that astonished himself.

"Money! Money!" they shouted in rude English, thrusting their grimy paws from every side into his face.

"No money!" he replied, shaking his head.

Dancing, grinning, jeering, for a few exciting moments, they at length vanished in the woods.

Feeling uneasy, and uncertain as to what the discovery he had made might forebode, he thought he would see if he could find their encampment. So, pushing his way through the bushes, and down the declivity, he discovered, hidden under the overhanging ledge, several Indian tents.

Before one, tightly stretched from two stakes driven into the ground, was a deer's hide, the pelt of which an old hag was rubbing soft and smooth with a sharp-edged stone—a slow and laborious process.

Just shooting into view from the other side of the river, and propelled by a squaw, was a canoe, laden with the limbs of trees for the fire; while in a lodge squatted the lazy "lords of the soil," playing games of chance, the paint on their faces showing that, if not on the war-path, they perhaps intended mischief to somebody.

Feeling that in view of the Indians having recently left him unmolested, he might enter the camp without special danger, and as he wished, if possible, to ascertain their designs, he at once descended the ledge, and entered the tent. Seating himself, he watched their play. No notice was taken of him. One of the players, whose cruel leer, and the contortions of whose supple body, made him think of a human snake, struck into a savage song, swaying back and forth to keep time.

Tom found it difficult to conceal his apprehensions, and the better to do so, in a frank, "at home" manner, he had just taken his turn in drinking from the dubious-looking pail of water that stood near, when the chief appeared, accompanied by his daughter.

"Medicine for pappoose!" he said.

"Yes," Tom gladly replied, and, carefully taking out the powder, showed him what was a dose, making him comprehend that the remedy was to be taken three times daily, saying,—

"Make pappoose better!"

"Good, good," answered the Indian, adding, "Good, white man, go home bimeby, quick! Indian no hurtee him."

Taking the hint, Tom departed, reaching the little settlement, thankful at his easy escape. Did the gratitude of the Indian maid, operating through the love of the old chief for his strangely beautiful child, give him a safe return? Long did he ponder his strange adventure.

It is an old adage, "All knowledge will come into use at some time."

Tom's splendid constitution, thanks to the tug and toil of his varied experiences as a squatter's son, permitted him to study more and faster in a day than if he had been tenderly reared. Long deprivation of school privileges had also made him brain-hungry. As an inmate of an eminent physician's family, he had a taste awakened for anatomy, physiology, and the knowledge of diseases and their treatment.

"Christ was physician of both soul and body; why should not I be?" he argued.

Little did he think, however, as he waded through Diagnosis and the Materia Medica, and rode and talked with the knowledge-imparting doctor, that the first use he would have for the medicine case the physician had presented him at parting, would be to relieve an Indian girl, and thereby, perhaps, save his own life.

He was aware that a frontier missionary must needs prescribe for the sick, or stand idly by and see them suffer; and from benevolent considerations, he had informed himself in medicine. He had begun to receive the reward, sure to accrue, sooner or later, to those who seek the good of others.