The Yellow Chief

All this while were the Cheyennes looking on; not gravely, as becomes the Indian character, but laughing like the spectators of a Christmas pantomime, capering over the ground like its actors, and yelling until the rocks gave back the mimicry of their wild mirth in weird unearthly echoes.

Never till now had they held in such high esteem the mulatto adopted into their tribe, who, by brave deeds, had won chieftainship over them. Never before had he treated them to such a spectacle, consonant to their savage natures, and still more in consonance with their hate for the pale face.

For, even at this period of their history, when the elders of the Cheyenne tribe were in a sort of accord with the white man, and professing a false amity, the young filibustering “bloods” were with difficulty restrained from acts of hostility.

The Yellow Chief, who had strayed among them coming from afar, who had married the belle of their tribe – the beautiful daughter of their “medicine man” – who surpassed all of them in his hatred of the white race, and more than once had led them in a like murderous maraud against their hereditary enemies was the man after their heart, the type of a patriotic savage.

Now, more than ever, had he secured their esteem; now, as they saw him, with cruel, unsparing hand, deal out castigation to their pale-faced captives; a punishment so quaintly original, and so terribly painful, that they would not have believed in it, but for the cries of keen agony uttered by those who had to endure it.

To Cheyenne ears they were sounds so sweet and welcome, as to awake the intoxicated from their alcoholic slumbers, and call them up to become sharers in the spectacle. Drunk and sober alike danced over the ground, as if they had been so many demons exhibiting their saltatory skill upon the skull-paved, floors of Acheron.

Nor was their laughter restrained when they saw that the punishment, hitherto confined to their male captives, was about to be extended to the women. On the contrary, it but increased their fiendish glee. It would be a variety in the performance – a new sensation – to see how the latter should stand it.

And they did see; for several of the female slaves – some of them still young, others almost octogenarian “aunties” – were ruthlessly led up to the stake, to that martyrdom of water painful as fire itself!

Chapter Sixteen.

The White Women

For more than two hours was the fiendish spectacle kept up – a tragedy of many acts; though, as yet, none of them ending in death.

But neither actors nor spectators knew how soon this might be the termination of it.

So horrified were the captives, they could not calmly reflect; though, from the heartless revelry around them, instinct itself guided them to expect very little mercy.

The discrimination shown in their punishment led some to entertain a hope. All, both blacks and whites, now knew with whom they had to deal; for, in a whispered conversation among themselves, the story of Blue Dick was told to those of the emigrant party who had never heard of him before.

And the slaves who were not of the Blackadder plantation, as also the white men to whom these belonged, began to indulge in the belief that they were not to be made victims to the vengeance of the mulatto.

They were allowed time enough to reflect; for after some ten or a dozen of the female slaves had been douched, to the delight of the young Cheyennes, and the apparent satisfaction of their chief, there was an interlude in the atrocious performance. The renegade, as if contented with revenge – at least, for the time – had turned away from the waterfall, and gone inside his tent.

Among the three captive groups, there was none in which apprehension could be more keen than that composed of the white women. They had to fear for something dearer to them to life – their honour.

Several of them were young, and more than one good-looking. Not to know it they could not have been women.

Up to that hour the savages had not insulted them. But this gave them no assurance. They knew that these loved wine more than women; and the whisky taken from the despoiled wagons had hitherto diverted the savages from intruding upon them.

It could not long continue, for they had been told of something besides this. The character of cold incontinence given to the forest-Indian – he who figured in the early history of their country’s colonisation – has no application to the fiery Centaurs of the prairie. All they had ever heard of these savages led to this conclusion; and the white women, most of them wives, while thinking of danger to their husbands, were also apprehensive about their own.

She who had no husband, Clara Blackadder, suffered more than any of them. She had seen her father’s corpse lying upon the prairie sward, bathed in its own blood. She had just ceased to behold her brother subjected to a punishment she now knew to be fearfully painful; and she was reflecting what might be in store for herself.

She remembered Blue Dick well. As his master’s daughter – his young mistress – she had never been unkind to him. But she had never been specially kind; for some influence, exerted by the slave Sylvia, had rather turned her against him. Not to actual hostility; only to the showing of a slight disfavour. The truth was, that the heart of the planter’s daughter had been so occupied with its own affairs – its love for the young stranger, O’Neil – it had little room for any other thought.

The same thought was still there; not dead, but surrounded by a woe-begone despair; that, even now, hindered her from feeling, keenly as she otherwise might have done, the danger of the situation.

Still was she not insensible to it. The Cheyenne Chief, in passing, had glared angrily upon her, with an expression she remembered more than once to have seen in the eyes of Blue Dick. As Sylvia’s mistress, as the friend and confidant of the quadroon slave, more than all, as the sister of Blount Blackadder, she could not expect either grace or mercy from the mulatto. She knew not what she might expect. It was painful to think, still more to converse, upon it with the women around her.

These did not talk or think of her fate. It was sorrow enough for them to reflect upon their own. But she had more to dread than any of them, and she knew it. With that quick instinct peculiar to women, she knew she was the conspicuous figure in the group.

As the horror of the situation came palpably before her mind, she trembled. Strong as she was, and self-willed as through life she had been, she could not help having the keenest apprehensions.

But along with her trembling came a determination to escape, even with Snively’s example and failure before her face!

She might be overtaken. No matter. It could not increase the misery of her situation. It could not add to its danger. At the worst, it could only end in death; and death she would accept sooner than degradation.

She was but slightly tied. In this the Indians do not take much pains with their women captives. It is not often these make any effort to get free; and when they do, it costs but little trouble to track and recapture them.

Still have there been incidents in the history of the prairies where brave, heroic women – even delicate ladies – have contrived to escape from such captivity, and in a manner almost miraculous. The early history of the West teems with such episodes; and she, a child of the West, had heard them as part of her nursery lore. It was their remembrance that was partly inspiring her to make the attempt.

She did not communicate the design to her fellow-captives. They could not aid, but only obstruct her. Under the circumstances, it would be no selfishness to forsake them.

One might deem it a wild, hopeless chance. And so, too, would she, but for a thought that had stolen into her mind. It had been suggested by the sight of an animal standing near. It was her own horse, that had been appropriated by one of the Indians. He was standing with the saddle still on, and the bridle resting over the crutch. A riding-gear so new to them had caught the fancy of the Indians, and they had left it on for exhibition.

Clara Blackadder knew her horse to be a fleet one.

“Once on his back,” thought she, “I might gallop out of their reach.”

She had a thought beyond. She might get upon the trace which the wagons had followed from Bent’s Fort. She believed she could remember, and return along it.

And still another thought. At the Fort she had seen many white men. They might be induced to come back with her, and rescue her captive companions – her brother.

All this passed through her mind in a few short moments; and while it was so passing, she slipped off the thongs, that were but carelessly lapped around her delicate limbs, and prepared for a start.

Now was the time, while the chief was inside his tent.

Chapter Seventeen.

A Flight Urged by Despair

“Now or never!” was the reflection that passed through Clara Blackadder’s mind; and she was in the act of springing up from her recumbent position, when a circumstance occurred seeming to say, “never!”

The mulatto had stepped out from the canvas screen, and stood in front of it; no longer robed in the costume of an Indian chief, but wearing the same dress he had worn as a slave on the Mississippi plantation. It was the same as on that morning when she had been a spectator of his punishment. He was the Blue Dick of bygone days, only taller and stouter. But the coarse jeans coat and cotton trousers, of copperas-stripe, had been ample enough not to be outgrown.

“You’ll know me better now, my old masters and fellow-slaves,” he shouted out, adding a derisive laugh. “And you, too, my young mistress,” he continued, turning toward the group of white women, and approaching it in a triumphant stride. “Ha, Miss Clara Blackadder! You little thought, when one fine day you stood in the porch of your father’s fine house, looking calmly on while I was in torture, that, some other fine day, your turn would come for being tortured too. It has come! The rest, including your beautiful brother, have had a taste – only a taste of what’s in store for them. I’ve kept you to the last, because you are the daintiest. That’s always the way in a feast of revenge. Ha, ha, ha!”

The young lady made no reply. In the fiendish glance cast upon her, she saw there was no hope for mercy, and that words would be thrown away. She only crouched cowering before him.

But even at that moment she did not lose presence of mind. She still contemplated springing up, and making toward her horse.

Alas! it seemed impossible. He stood right in the way, and could have caught her before she had taken three steps.

And he did catch her before she had made one – even before she had attempted to stand erect.

“Come!” cried he, roughly clasping her waist, and jerking her to her feet. “Come with me. You’ve been a looker-on long enough. It’s your turn now to afford sport for others.”

And, without waiting for a reply, he commenced dragging her in the direction of the waterfall.

She made no resistance. She did not scream, nor cry out. She knew it would be idle.

But there was a cry sent from the other side of the glen – a shriek so loud, wild, and unearthly, that it caused the mulatto to stop suddenly, and look in the direction whence it came.

Rushing out from among the crowd of negro captives, was one who might have been the oldest of them – a woman of near seventy years of age, and that weird aspect common among the old crones of a plantation. With hollow cheeks, and white wool thinly set over her temples, with long shrivelled arms outstretched beyond the scant rag of garment which the plunderers had permitted to remain upon her shoulders, she looked like some African Hecate, suddenly exorcised for the occasion.

Despite the forbidding aspect, hers was not an errand of destruction, but mercy.

“Let go hole of de young missa!” she cried, pressing forward to the spot. “You let go hole ob her, Bew Dick. You touch a hair ob her head! Ef you do, you a tief – a murderer. Yach! wuss dan dat. You be a murderin’ ob you own fresh an’ brud!”

“What do you mean, you old fool!” cried the mulatto, at the same time showing, by his looks, that her words had surprised him.

“Wha de ole fool mean? She mean wha she hab jess say. Dat ef you do harm to Missy Crara, you harm you own sissa!”

The mulatto started as if he had received a stab.

“My sister!” he exclaimed. “You’re gabbling, Nan. You’re old, and have lost your senses.”

“No, Bew Dick; Nan habent loss none o’ her senses, nor her ’membrance neider. She ’memba dan’lin you on her knee, when you wa’ bit piccaninny, not bigger dan a ’possum. She nuss Miss Crara ’bout de same time. She know who boaf come from. You boaf childen ob de same fadder – ob Mass Brackadder; an’ she you sissa. Ole Nan tell you so. She willin’ swar it.”

For a time Blue Dick seemed stunned by the startling revelation. And equally so she, whose wrist he still held in angry clasp. It was a tale strange and new to both of them.

But the asseverations of the old negress had in them the earnestness of truth; more so at such a moment. And along with this were some gleams of light, derived from an indefinite source – instincts or dreams – perhaps some whisperings over the cradle – that served to confirm her statement.

Revolting as was the thought of such a relationship to the delicate sensibilities of the young lady, she did not attempt to deny it. Perhaps it might be the means of saving her brother and herself; and, for the first time, she turned her eyes toward the face of Blue Dick in a glance of appeal.

It fell in sudden disappointment. There was no mercy there – no look of a brother! On the contrary, the countenance of the mulatto – always marked by a harsh, sinister expression – seemed now more merciless than ever. His eyes were absolutely dancing with a demoniac triumph.

“Sister!” he cried, at length, sarcastically hissing the word through his teeth. “A sweet sister! she who all my early life has been but my tyrant mistress! What if we are from the same father? Our mothers were different, and I am the son of my mother. A dear father, indeed, who taught me but to toil for him! And that an affectionate brother!” – here he pointed to Blount, who, restored to his fastenings, lay stretched on the grass – “who only delighted in torturing me; who ruined my love – my life! Sweet sister, indeed! you, who treated me as a menial and slave! Now shall you be mine! You shall sweep out my tent, wait upon my Indian wife, work for her, slave for her, as I have done for you. Come on, Miss Clara Blackadder!”

Freshly grasping the young lady’s wrist, he recommenced dragging her across the camp-ground.

An involuntary murmur of disapprobation rose from the different groups of captives. During their long, toilsome journey across the plains, Clara Blackadder had won the good wishes of all – not only by her grace and beauty, but for many kindnesses shown to her travelling companions, black as well as white. And when they now saw her in the clutch of the unnatural monster, being led, as they supposed, to the terrible torture some of them had already experienced, one and all uttered exclamations against it. They were not certain that such was the torture intended by the spiteful renegade; they only guessed it, by the direction in which he was conducting her.

Whatever might have been his purpose, it was prevented.

With a spring as if all the energies of youth had been restored to her shrivelled frame, the old nurse rushed upon him; and clutching his throat in her long bony fingers, caused him to let go his hold.

He turned upon her like an enraged tiger, and, after a short struggle, ending with a blow from his strong arm, old Nan fell flat upon the earth.

But on facing toward the girl to renew his grasp, he saw she was no longer within his reach! While he was struggling with the negress, she had darted away from his side; and, springing upon the back of her own horse, was urging the animal in full gallop out of the gorge!

Chapter Eighteen.

The Stalkers Astonished

Making their way up the steep mountain-path, climbing over fallen tree-trunks, obstructed by thicket and scaur, the trappers at length got close to the cliff which, as ’Lije Orton had told them, looked down on the camping-place of the Cheyennes.

They had ceased talking aloud, and communicated with one another only in whispers. There was a deathlike stillness in the pure mountain air, and they knew that the slightest sound might make known their approach to the enemy.

They had thrown themselves into a deployed line, after the manner of skirmishers, crouching silently among the stunted pines, and gliding rapidly forward where the ground was without cover. Orton was directing them by signs; O’Neil stepping close by his side, and near enough for the slightest whisper to be heard between them.

The young Irishman still kept impatiently urging the advance. Every moment of delay seemed a month to the heart of the lover. Over and over again came before his mind that hideous picture his fancy had painted – Clara Blackadder struggling in the embrace of a savage! And that savage the Yellow Chief of the Cheyennes!

These fancies were like the waves of a tempestuous sea, following one another at intervals. As each rose grimly before him, he came near groaning aloud. He was only restrained by knowing the necessity for silence. As a relief he kept constantly whispering to his old comrade, and urging him to a more rapid advance.

“Dod rot it, Ned!” replied the latter; “don’t be so hurrified ’bout it. We’ll git theer in good time, take this chile’s word for it. Theer’s been plenty o’ licker in the emigrant wagons, I guess. Them Massissippy planters don’t offen go travellin’ ’thout a good stock o’ corn. An’ as for the Injuns, they ain’t a-goin’ to trouble theerselves ’bout weemen as long ’s the licker lasts. Don’t you be uneezy; we’ll git up time enuf to purtect the gurl, an’ chestise the skunks has ev captered her; you see if we don’t.”

“But why go creeping this way? Once upon the cliff, we must declare ourselves. We can’t get down among them, as you say; and since it must all be done with our rifles, the first shot will discover us.”

“So it will; diskiver us to a sartinty. But theer’s jest the pint. That fust shot must be deelivered by all o’ us at the same instinck o’ time. Unless we make a latter o’ them, as the French trappers call it, they’d be off in the shakin’ o’ a goat’s tail, prehaps takin’ thar prisners along wi’ ’em. An’ whar ’ud we be to foller ’em? Thurfor, we must fix things so’st’ every one may take sight on a different Injun at the same time; an’ then, afore they kin git clar out o’ the gully, we’ll be loaded for a second shot. I guess that’ll make ’em think o’ somethin’ else than toatin’ off thar captives. Keep yur patience, young fellur! Trust to ole ’Lije Orton, when he sez yur gurl air still safe an’ soun’.”

The anxious lover, despite his anxiety, could not help feeling confidence in the words thus whispered. More than once had he seen ’Lije Orton acting under circumstances of a like trying nature, and as often coming out triumphant. With an effort he restrained his impatience, and imitated the cautious approach of his comrade.

They were soon sufficiently near the edge of the cliff to hear a murmur of voices rising up out of the valley. As the ears of all were well attuned to such sounds, they knew them to be the voices of Indians. And these could be no other than Yellow Chief, and his band of marauders.

A halt was made; and a hurried council held, about the best mode of making attack.

“There must be ne’er a noise among ye,” whispered ’Lije, “not the speakin’ o’ a word, till we’ve got one fire at ’em. Then churge yur rifles agen, quick’s ever you kin. Two sets o’ shots oughter thin ’em, so as they won’t mind ’beout thar captives, nor any thin’ else, ’ceptin’ to streak it – that air, sech as be left o’ ’em.”

This counsel was delivered in a whisper, and in the same way passed along the line.

“Only one half o’ ye fire at a time,” continued ’Lije. “You fellurs on the left shoot first. Let the tothers resarve for the second volley. ’Twon’t do to waste two bullets on the same redskin. Leave Yellow Chief to me. I hev got a ole score to settle wi’ that Injun.”

With these precautions, communicated from left to right, the trappers once more advanced – no longer as skirmishers, but in line, and as near to one another as the inequality of the ground would permit.

They could now hear the voice of a man, who talked loudly and in a tone of authority. They could even make out some of the words, for they were in English!

This gave them a surprise; but they had scarce time to think of it, when there arose a chorus of cries, uttered in quick sharp intonation, that told of some unusual occurrence. Among these were the screams of women.

At the same instant the trampling of hoofs resounded along the rocks, as if a horse was going off at a gallop over the hard turf of the prairie. Then succeeded another chorus of yells – a confused din – and soon after the pattering of many hoofs, as of a whole troop of horses following the first.

The sound, reaching the ears of the trappers, carried their eyes out toward the plain; where they beheld a sight that caused one and all of them wild throbbings of the heart. Upon the prairie, just clearing the scarped edge of the cliff, was a woman on horseback. At a glance they could tell it was a young girl; but as her back was toward them, they could see neither face nor features. She was in a lady’s saddle; and urging her horse onward as if riding for life – her skirt and hair streaming loosely behind her.

There was one among them that knew who she was. The quick instinct of love told Edward O’Neil well the fugitive upon horseback was Clara Blackadder. His instincts were aided by remembrance. That magnificent head of hair, black as the plumage of a raven, was well remembered by him. It had often been before his fancy in a lone bivouac – at night entwining itself with his dreams.

“O Heavens!” he exclaimed, “it is Clara herself!”

“Yur right, Ned,” responded ’Lije, gazing intently after her. “Darned ef it ain’t her, that very gurl! She’s a-tryin’ to git away from ’em. See! thar goes the hul o’ the Injuns arter her, gallopin’ like h – !”

As Orton spoke, the pursuers began to appear, one after another passing outside the cliff-line – urging their horses onward with blows and loud vociferations.

Several of the trappers raised their rifles to the level, and seemed calculating the distance.

“For yur lives, don’t shoot!” cautioned ’Lije, speaking in a constrained voice, and making himself better understood by a wave of the hand. “It kin do ne’er a good now, but only spile all. Let ’em go off. Ef the gurl gits clur, we’ll soon track her up. Ef she don’t, they’re boun’ to bring her back, an’ then we kin settle wi’ ’em. I reck’n they’re not all arter her. Theer’s some o’ the skunks still below. Let’s jest see to them; an’ then we kin lay out our plans for them’s have rid out in the purshoot.”

’Lije’s counsel was unanimously accepted, and the gun-barrels brought down again.

“Lie clost hyur,” he again counselled, “while some o’ us steal forard an’ reconnoitre. Harry, s’pose you kum ’longs wi’ me?”

His purpose was understood by Black Harris, who instantly volunteered to accompany the old trapper – his senior in years, and his equal in rank among the “mountain men.”

“Now, boys!” muttered ’Lije on leaving them, “lie close as I’ve tolt you, and ne’er a word out o’ one o’ ye till we git back.”

So saying, he crept forward, Black Harris by his side – the two going on hands and knees, and with as much caution as if they had been approaching a herd of antelopes.

The glance of the others did not follow them. All eyes were turned downward to the prairie; watching the pursuit, now far off and still going farther across the open plain.

But no one watched with such anxiety as O’Neil. It absorbed his whole soul, like some pent-up agony. His very breathing seemed suspended, as he crouched behind the dwarf cedar-tree, calculating the distance between pursuers and pursued. How he regretted having left his horse behind him! What would he not have given at that moment to be on the back of his brave steed, and galloping to the rescue of his beloved!