The Yellow Chief. Reid Mayne
moving along behind them; and presently appeared by the side of the clump, in the shape of a man on horseback.
It was a horseman in the garb of a white hunter; but the moon falling full upon his face, showed the copper-coloured skin of an Indian.
He rode forward to the edge of the camp; exchanged some words with the horse-guard, that had answered his signal; and then came on toward the chief, who had risen to receive him. The salutation told him to be the Choctaw so impatiently expected.
“Waboga has delayed long,” said the chief, half-reproachfully. “It is now after midnight. He knows we must make our attack before morning.”
“The Yellow chief need not be troubled about the time. The sleeping-place of the white travellers is near at hand. It will take but an hour to reach it. Waboga was detained against his will.”
“Ha! how?”
“The pale faces had grown suspicious, and watched him. Some trappers, on their way to Saint Vrain’s Fort, came up with the emigrant train after sunrise, and stayed with it till the noon halt. They must have said something against the guide. All day after, Waboga could see that the white men were watching him.”
“Then they are not encamped where I wished them?”
“They are. The Yellow chief may rest sure of it. They were not so suspicious as that; but allowed the guide to conduct them to their sleeping-place. It is in the creek bend where Waboga was instructed to take them.”
“Good! And their numbers?”
“Nine white men in all – with their women and children. Of the blacks, about five times as many – men, squaws, and papooses.”
“No matter for them: they won’t resist. Describe the whites.”
“The chief of the caravan, a man of middle age – a planter. Waboga well knows his kind. He remembers them when a boy dwelling beyond the Big river – in the land of which his people have been despoiled.”
“A planter. Any family with him?”
“A son who has seen some twenty-four summers – like the father in everything but age; a daughter, grown to a woman – not like either. She is fair as a flower of the prairie.”
“It is she – it is they!” muttered the chief to himself, his eyes glistening in the moonlight with an expression at once triumphant and diabolical. “Oh! ’twill be a sweet revenge!”
“Of the other whites,” continued the Choctaw, “one is a tall man, who has much to do with the management. He acts under the orders of the planter. He carries a great whip, and often uses it on the shoulders of the black slaves.”
“He shall have his punishment, too. But not for that. They deserve it.”
“The other six white men are – ”
“No matter; only tell me how they are armed. Will they make resistance?”
Waboga did not think they would – not much. He believed they would let themselves be taken alive.
“Enough!” exclaimed the Cheyenne chief – for it was to this tribe the Indian belonged. “The time has come. Go wake our warriors, and hold yourself ready to guide us.”
Then, turning upon his heel, he commenced gathering up his arms, that lay scattered around the robe on which he had been reposing.
His body-servant, already aroused, was soon in attendance upon him; while the slumbering warriors, one after another, startled from savage dreams, sprang to their feet, and hurried toward their horses.
The best-drilled squadron of light cavalry could not have got half so quickly into their saddles, as did this painted troop of Cheyennes.
In less than ten minutes after receiving the command to march, they were riding beyond the bounds of their bivouac – equipped for any kind of encounter!
Chapter Five.
A Traitorous Guide
As already known, the emigrants had corralled their wagons on the banks of Bijou Creek.
The spot selected, or rather to which their Indian guide had conducted them, was in a bend of the stream, that looped around the encampment in the shape of a horse’s shoe. It enclosed an area of some four or five acres of grassy ground – resembling a new-mown meadow.
With an eye to security, it could not, to all appearance, have been better chosen. The creek, running sluggishly around the loop, was deep enough to foil any attempt at fording; while the narrow, isthmus-like neck could be defended with advantage. It had not been the choice of the travellers themselves, but of their Indian guide, who, as already stated, had presented himself to them at Bent’s Fort, and been engaged to conduct them through Bridger’s Pass. Speaking the white man’s tongue, though but indifferently, and being a Choctaw, as he declared himself, they had no suspicion of his honesty, until that very day, when a band of free trappers, who chanced to pass them on the route, and who knew something of the Indian’s character, had warned them to beware of him. They had obeyed the warning, so far as lay in the power of men so little acquainted with the prairies. And how could they suspect a guide who had chosen for their night’s camping-place a spot that seemed the very place for their security? How could they suppose that the deep, slow stream, running silently around them, could have been designed for any other purposes than that of defence? It never entered their minds to suppose it could be intended as a trap. Why should it?
If anything could have given them this thought it would have been what they had heard from the trappers. Some of them had reflected upon the character given of their guide. But more discredited it, believing it to be only ill-will on the part of the whites towards the Indian – like themselves, a hunter. Others said it was a trapper joke – a story told to scare them.
There was something odd in the eagerness the Indian had shown in directing them to their present camping-ground. It was some distance from the travelled track, where they had seen other places that appeared sufficiently suitable. Why should he have taken the trouble to bring them to the bend of the creek?
The man who made this reflection was Snively, the overseer. Snively didn’t like the look of the “redskin,” though he was a Choctaw, and spoke a little English. That he had come originally from the other side of the Mississippi was not proof of his being honest; for Mr Snively had no great faith in the integrity of men tailing from the “Choctaw Purchase” – whatever the colour of their skin – red, white, or black.
His suspicions about the guide, communicated to his fellow-travellers, were adopted by several of them, though not by their leader. Squire Blackadder scouted the idea of treason, as also did his son.
Why should the Choctaw betray them? It was not as if he had been one of the prairie Indians, and belonging to some predatory band. He was merely a wanderer from his own tribe, who, in the Reserve allotted to them west of Arkansas State, were now living as an inoffensive and half-civilised people. He could have no motive in leading them astray, but the contrary. He was not to receive his recompense for acting as their guide until after their arrival on the other side of the mountains. A good sum had been promised him. Was it likely he should do anything to forfeit it? So reasoned Squire Blackadder and several of the emigrants who accompanied him.
Snively and the others were not satisfied, and resolved to keep a sharp eye upon the Indian.
But, watchful as they were from that time forward, they failed to see him, as he slipped out of their camp, near the mid-hour of night, taking along with him one of the best horses belonging to the caravan!
He must have got away by leading the animal for some distance along the edge of the stream, concealed under the shadow of the banks. Otherwise, on the open prairie, with the moon shining down upon its treeless sward, he could not have eluded the vigilance of the camp-guards, one of whom was Snively himself.
It was only by an accident that his departure was discovered, just before daybreak. The horse he had taken chanced to be a mare, that some weeks before had dropped a foal. It was too fine a creature to be left behind upon the prairies, and had been therefore brought