The White Scalper: A Story of the Texan War

And he offered his hand to help him in rising. The Apache made no movement to pick up his weapons, but frankly accepted the offered hand and rose.

"The Comanche dogs will see a warrior die," he said, with an ironical smile; "Blue-fox laughs at their tortures; they are not capable of making one of his muscles quiver."

"Good! My brother will see," and turning to the Sachems, who stood motionless and silent a few paces off, the Chief added; "when will this warrior die?"

"Tomorrow at sunset," the most aged of the Indians laconically answered.

"My brother has heard," Black-deer continued; "has he any remark to make?"

"Only one."

"My brother can speak, our ears are open."

"Blue-fox does not fear death, but ere he goes to hunt on the happy hunting grounds, beneath the powerful eye of the Wacondah, he has several important matters to settle on this earth."

The Comanches bowed in assent.

"Blue-fox," the Apache Chief continued, "has a necessity to return among the warriors of his nation."

"How long will the Chief remain absent?"

"One whole moon."

"Good! What will the Chief do to insure his word, and that the Comanche Sachems may put faith in what he says?"

"Blue-fox will leave a hostage."

"The Sachem of the Buffalo Apaches is a great brave; what warrior of his nation can die in his stead, if he forget to liberate his pledge?"

"I will give the flesh of my flesh, the blood of my blood, the bone of my bone. My son will take my place."

The Comanches exchanged a very meaning glance. There was a rather lengthened silence, during which the Apache, haughtily folded in his buffalo robe, stoically waited, and it was impossible to read in his motionless features one of the emotions that agitated him. At length Black-deer spoke again.

"My brother has recalled to my memory," he said, "the years of our youth, when we were both children of the Snake Pawnees, and hunted in company the elk and the asshata in the prairies of the Upper Missouri. The early years are the sweetest; the words of my brother made my heart tremble with joy. I will be kind to him; his son snail be my substitute, though he is still very young; but he knows how to crawl like the serpent and fly like the eagle, and his arm is strong in fight. But Blue-fox will reflect before pledging his word. If on the evening of the twenty-eighth sun my brother has not returned to take his place at the foot of the stake of torture, his son will die."

"I thank my brother," the Apache replied in a firm voice, "on the twenty-eighth sun I shall return: here is my open hand."

"And here is mine."

The two enemies clasped in cordial pressure the two hands which, a few minutes before, had been seeking so eagerly to take each other's life; then Blue-fox unfastened the cascabel skin that attached his long hair in the form of a cap on the top of his head, and removed the white eagle plume fixed above his right ear.

"My brother will lend me his knife," he said.

"My brother's knife is at his feet," the Comanche answered cautiously; "so great a warrior must not remain unarmed. He can pick it up."

The Chief stooped, picked up his knife, and thrust it in his girdle.

"Here is the plume of a Chief," he said as he gave it to Black-deer, cutting off a tress of the long hair, which, being no longer fastened, fell in disorder on his shoulders; he added, "My brother will keep this lock, it forms part of the scalp that belongs to him: the Chief will come to ask it back on the appointed day and hour."

"Good!" the Comanche answered, taking the hair and the plume, "My brother will follow me."

The Comanches, unmoved spectators of this scene, shook their torches to revive the flame, and all the Indians leaving the calli, proceeded in the direction of the Medicine Lodge, which stood, as we have seen, in the centre of the square between the ark of the first man and the stake of torture. It was toward the latter that the Chiefs proceeded with that slow and solemn step they employ in serious matters. As they passed in front of the callis, the curtains were raised, the inhabitants came out, holding torches, and followed the procession. When the Chiefs reached the stake, an immense crowd filled the square, but it was silent and reflecting.

There was something strange and striking in the scenes offered at this moment by the square, under the light of the torches, whose flame the wind blew in all directions. The Chiefs halted at the foot of the stake and formed a semicircle, in the centre of which Blue-fox stationed himself.

"Now that my brother has given his pledge, he can summon his son," said Black-deer; "the lad is not far off, I dare say."

The Apache smiled cunningly.

"The young of the eagle always follows the powerful flight of its parent," he replied; "the warriors will part to the right and left to grant him a passage."

At a silent sign from Black-deer there was a movement in the crowd, which fell back and left a passage through the centre; Blue-fox then thrust his fingers in his mouth, and imitated thrice the call of the hawk. In a few minutes a similar but very faint cry answered him. The Chief renewed his summons, and this time the answer was shriller and more distinct. For the third time the Apache repeated his signal, which was answered close at hand; the rapid gallop of a horse became audible, and almost immediately an Indian warrior dashed up at full speed. This warrior crossed the entire square without evidencing the slightest surprise. He stopped short at the foot of the stake, dismounted, and placed himself by the side of Blue-fox, to whom he merely said —

"Here I am."

This warrior was the son of the Apache Chief, a tall and nobly-built lad of sixteen to seventeen. His features were handsome, his glance was haughty, his demeanour simple, and noble without boasting.

"This boy is my son," Blue-fox said to the Comanche Chiefs.

"Good!" they replied, bowing courteously.

"Does my son consent to remain as a hostage in the place of his father?" Black-deer asked him.

The young man bowed his head in assent.

"My son knows that if his father does not come to liberate his pledge, he will die in his place?"

A smile of contempt played round the boy's lips.

"I know it," he said,

"And my son accepts?"

"I do."

"Good!" the Chief continued, "Let my son look."

He then went up to the stake and fastened to it the feather and lock of hair Blue-fox had given him.

"This feather and this hair will remain here until the man to whom they belong returns to claim them," he said.

The Apache Chief answered in his turn —

"I swear on my totem to come and redeem them at the appointed time."

"Wah! My brother is free," Black-deer continued; "here is the feather of a Chief; it will serve him as a recognition if the warriors of my nation were to meet him. Still, my brother will remember that he is forbidden communicating in any way with the braves of his nation ambushed round the village."

"Blue-fox will remember it."

After uttering these few words without even exchanging a look with his son, who stood motionless by his side, the Chief took the feather Black-deer offered him, leaped on the horse which had brought the young man, and started at a gallop, not looking back once. When he had disappeared in the darkness, the Chiefs went up to the boy, bound him securely, and confined him in the Medicine Lodge under the guardianship of several warriors.

"Now," said Black-deer, "for the others."

And mounting his horse in his turn, he left the village.

CHAPTER XV

THE AMBUSCADE

The European traveller, accustomed to the paltry landscapes which man has carved out corresponding with his own stature and the conventional nature he has, as it were, contrived to create, can in no way figure to himself the grand and sublime aspect presented by the great American forests, where all seems to sleep, and the ever open eye of God alone broods over the world. The unknown rumours, without any apparent cause, which incessantly rise from earth to sky like the powerful breathing of sleeping nature, and mingle with the monotonous murmur of the streams, as they rustle over the pebbles of their bed; and at intervals, the mysterious breeze which passes over the tufted tops of the trees, slowly bending them with a gentle rustling of leaves and branches – all this leads the mind to reverie, and fills it with a religious respect for the sublime works of the Creator.

We fancy we have given a sufficiently detailed account of the village of the Antelope Comanches, to be able to dispense with further reference to it; we will merely add that it was built in an amphitheatrical shape, and descended with a gentle incline to the river. This position prevented the enemy surrounding the village, whose approaches were guarded from surprise by the trees having been felled for some distance.

Loyal Heart and his comrades advanced slowly, with their rifles on their thigh, attentively watching the neighbourhood, and ready, at the slightest suspicious movement in the tall grass, to execute a vigorous charge. All, however, remained quiet round them; at times they heard a coyote baying at the moon, or the noise of an owl concealed by the foliage; but that was all, and a leaden silence fell again on the savannah. At times they saw in the bluish rays of the moon indistinct forms appear on the banks of the river; but these wandering shadows were evidently wild beasts which had left their lurking places to come down and drink.

The march continued thus without encumbrance or alarm of any description, until the adventurers had reached the covert, when a dense gloom suddenly enveloped them, and did not allow them to distinguish objects ten yards ahead. Loyal Heart did not consider it prudent to advance further in a neighbourhood he did not know, and where he saw the risk at each step of falling into an ambuscade; consequently the little band halted. The horses were made to lie down on their side, their legs were fastened, and their nostrils drawn in with a rope, so that they could neither stir nor make a sound, and the adventurers, concealing themselves, waited while watching with the most profound attention.

From time to time they saw horsemen crossing a clearing, and all going in different directions; some passed close enough to touch them without perceiving the hunters, owing to the precautions the latter had taken, and then disappeared in the forest. Several hours passed thus, the hunters being quite unable to comprehend the delay, the reason for which the reader, however, knows; the moon had disappeared, and the darkness become denser. Loyal Heart, not knowing to what he should attribute Black-deer's lengthened absence, and fearing some unforeseen misfortune had burst on the village, was about to give the order for returning, when Tranquil, who, by crawling on his hands and knees, had reached the open plain where he remained for some time as scout, suddenly returned to his comrades.

"What is the matter?" Loyal Heart whispered in his ear.

"I cannot say," the hunter answered, "I do not understand it myself. About an hour back, an Indian suddenly sprung up by my side as if emerging from the ground, and leaping on a horse of whose presence I was equally ignorant, started at full speed in the direction of the village."

"That is strange," Loyal Heart muttered; "and you do not know who the Indian is?"

"Apache."

"Apache, impossible!"

"That is just the point that staggers me; how could an Apache venture to the village alone?"

"There is something up we do not know; and then the signals we heard?"

"This man answered them."

"What is to be done?"

"Find out."

"But in what way?"

"Why, hang it, by rejoining our friends."

Loyal Heart shook his head.

"No," he said, "we must employ some other method, for I promised Black-deer to help him in this expedition, and I will not break my word."

"It is evident that important events have occurred among the tribe."

"That is my opinion too, but you know the prudence of the Indians, so we will not despair yet; stay," he added, as he tapped his forehead, "I have an idea, we shall soon know what is taking place; leave me to act."

"Do you require our help?"

"Not positively; I shall not go out of sight, but if you see me in danger, come up."

"All right,"

Loyal heart took a long rope of plaited leather, which served him as a picquet cord, and laying down his rifle, which might have impeded him in the execution of the daring plan he had formed, lay down on the ground and crawled away like a serpent. The plain was covered with dead trees and enormous stones, while there were wide trenches at certain spots. This open ground, so singularly broken up, offered, therefore, all the facilities desirable for forming an ambuscade or a post of observation.

Loyal Heart stopped behind an enormous block of red granite, whose height enabled him to stand up, in shelter on all sides save in the direction of the forest. But he had no great risk to run from any enemies concealed in the chaparral, for the night was so dark that it would have been necessary to have followed the hunter's every movement, to discover the spot where he now was.

Loyal Heart was a Mexican; like all his countrymen, whose skill is proverbial in the management of certain weapons, from his youth he had been familiarized with the lasso, that terrible arm which renders the Mexican horsemen so formidable. The lasso or reata, for this weapon has two names, is a strip of plaited leather, rendered supple by means of grease. It is ordinarily forty-five to fifty feet in length, one of the ends terminating in a running knot, the other being fastened to an iron ring riveted in the saddle; the rider whirls it round his head, sets his horse at a gallop, and on arriving within thirty or five-and-thirty yards of the man or animal he is pursuing, he lets the lasso fly, so that the running knot may fall on the shoulders of his victim. At the same time that he lets the lasso go, the rider makes his horse suddenly turn in the opposite direction, and the enemy he has lassoed is, in spite of the most strenuous resistance, hurled down and dragged after him. Such is the lasso and the way in which it is employed on horseback.

Afoot, matters are effected much in the same fashion, save that, as the lassoer has no longer his horse to aid him, he is obliged to display great muscular strength, and is often dragged along for a considerable distance. In Mexico, where this weapon is in general use, people naturally study the means to neutralize its effects, the most efficacious being to cut the lasso. This is why all horsemen carry in their boot, within arm's length, a long and sharp knife; still, as the horseman is nearly always unexpectedly lassoed, he is strangled ere he has had time to draw his knife. Of one hundred riders lassoed thus in a combat or chase, seventy-five are inevitably killed, and the others only escape by a miracle, so much skill, strength, and coolness are needed to cut the fatal knot.

Loyal Heart had the simple idea of forming a running knot at the end of his picquet rope, and lassoing the first rider who passed within reach. On getting behind the rock he unrolled the long cord he had fastened round his body; then, after making the slip knot with all the care it demands, he coiled the lasso in his hand and waited. Chance seemed to favour the project of the bold hunter, for, within ten minutes at the most, he heard the gallop of a horse going at full speed. Loyal Heart listened attentively; the sound approached with great rapidity, and soon the black outline of a horseman stood out in the night. The direction followed by the rider compelled him to pass within a short distance of the block of granite behind which Loyal Heart was concealed. The latter spread out his legs to have a firmer holdfast, bent his body slightly forward, and whirled the lasso round his head. At the moment when the horseman came opposite to him, Loyal Heart let the lasso fly, and it fell with a whiz on the shoulders of the rider, who was roughly hurled to the ground ere he knew what was happening to him. His horse, which was at full speed, went on some distance further, but then perceiving that its rider had left it, it slackened its pace, and presently halted.

In the meanwhile Loyal Heart bounded like a tiger on the man he had so suddenly unsaddled. The latter had not uttered a cry, but remained motionless at the spot where he had been hurled. Loyal Heart at first fancied him dead, but it was not so; his first care was to free the wounded man from the running knot, drawn so tightly round his neck, in order to enable him to breathe; then, without taking the trouble to look at his victim, he pinioned him securely, threw him over his shoulders, and returned to the spot where his comrades were awaiting him.

The latter had seen, or at least heard, what had happened; and far from dreaming of the means employed by the young man, although they were well acquainted with it, they knew not to what they should attribute the rough way in which the rider had been hurled from his horse.

"Oh, oh," Tranquil said, "I fancy you have made a fine capture."

"I think so too," Loyal Heart answered, as he deposited his burden on the ground.

"How on earth did you manage to unsaddle him so cleverly?"

"Oh! In the simplest way possible. I lassoed him."

"By Jove!" the hunter exclaimed, "I suspected it. But let us see the nature of the game. These confounded Indians are difficult to tame when they take it into their heads not to unlock their teeth. This fellow will not speak, in all probability."

"Who knows? At any rate we can question him."

"Yes – but let us first make sure of his identity, for it would not be pleasant to have captured one of our friends."

"May the Lord forbid!" Loyal Heart said.

The hunters bent over the prisoner, who was apparently motionless, and indifferent to what was said around.

"Oh," the Canadian suddenly said, "whom have we here? On my soul, compadre, I believe it is an old acquaintance."

"You are right," Loyal Heart answered, "it is Blue-fox."

"Blue-fox?" the hunters exclaimed, in surprise.

The adventurers were not mistaken; the Indian horseman, so skilfully lassoed by Loyal Heart, was really the Apache Chief. The shock he had received though very rude, had not been sufficiently so to make him entirely lose his senses; with open eyes and disdainful countenance, but with not a word of complaint at the treatment he had suffered, he waited calmly till it should please his captors to decide his fate, not considering it consistent with his dignity to be the first to speak. After examining him attentively for a moment, Loyal Heart unfastened the bonds that held him, and fell back a step.

"My brother can rise," he said: "only old women remain thus stretched on the ground for an insignificant fall."

Blue-fox reached his feet at a bound.

"The Chief is no old woman," he said, "his heart is large; he laughs at the anger of his enemies, and despises the fury which is impotent to affect him."

"We are not your enemies, Chief, we feel no hatred or anger towards you; it is you, on the contrary, who are our enemy. Are you disposed to answer our questions?"

"I could refrain from doing so, were it my good pleasure."

"I do not think so," John Davis remarked, with a grin, "for we have wonderful secrets to untie the tongue of those we cross-question."

"Try them on me," the Indian observed, haughtily.

"We shall see," said the American.

"Stop!" said Loyal Heart. "There is in all this something extraordinary, which I wish to discover, so leave it to me."

"As you please," said John Davis.

The adventurers collected round the Indian, and waited anxiously.

"How is it," Loyal Heart presently went on, "that you, who were sent by the Apaches to treat for peace with the Comanches, were thus leaving the village in the middle of the night, not as a friend, but as a robber flying after the commission of a theft?"

The Chief smiled contemptuously, and shrugged his shoulders.

"Why should I tell you what has passed? It would be uselessly losing precious time; suffice it for you to know that I left the village with the general consent of the Chiefs, and if I was galloping, it was probably because I was in a hurry to reach the spot I am bound for."

"Hum!" said the hunter; "You will permit me to remark, Chief, that your answer is very vague, and anything but satisfactory."

"It is the only one, however, I am enabled to give you."

"And do you fancy we shall be satisfied with it?"

"You must."

"Perhaps so, but listen; we are awaiting Black-deer at every moment, and he shall decide your fate."

"As it pleases the Pale hunter. When the Comanche Chief arrives, my brother will see that the Apache Sachem has spoken truly, that his tongue is not forked, and that the words that from his lips are sincere."

"I hope so."

At this moment the signal agreed on between Black-deer and the hunters was heard: the hunter said at once to his prisoner.

"Here is the Chief."

"Good," the latter simply answered.

Five minutes later, the Sachem indeed reached the spot where the adventurers were assembled. His first glance fell on the Apache, standing upright with folded arms in the circle formed by the hunters.

"What is Blue-fox doing here?" he asked in surprise.

"The Chief can ask the Pale warriors, they will answer," said the Apache.

Black-deer turned to Loyal Heart; the latter, not waiting till he was addressed, related in the fullest detail what had occurred; how he had captured the Chief, and the conversation he had had with him: Black-deer seemed to reflect for a moment —

"Why did not my brother show the sign of recognition I gave him?" he asked.

"For what good, as my brother was coming?"

The Comanche frowned.

"My brother will be careful to remember that he has passed his word, and the mere appearance of treachery will cost his son's life."

A shudder passed over the Indian's body, although his features lost none of their marble-like rigidity.

"Blue-fox has sworn on his totem," he replied; "that oath is sacred, and he will keep it."

"Ocht! My brother is free, he can start without farther delay."

"I must find my horse again which has escaped."

"Does my brother take us for children, that he says such things to us?" Black-deer replied angrily. "The horse of an Indian Chief never abandons its master; let him whistle, and it will come up."

Blue-fox made no reply; his black eye shot forth a flash of fury, but that was all; he bent forward, seemed to be listening for a few moments, and then gave a shrill whistle, almost immediately after which there was a rustling in the branches, and the Chief's horse laid its fine and intelligent head on its master's shoulder. The latter patted the noble animal, leaped on its back, and digging in his spurs, started at full speed without taking further leave of the hunters, who were quite startled by this hurried departure. John Davis, by an instinctive movement swift as thought, raised his rifle, with the evident intention of saluting the fugitive with a bullet, but Black-deer suddenly clutched his arm.

"My brother must not fire," he said; "the sound would betray our presence."

"That is true," the American said, as he took down his gun. "It is unlucky, for I should have been very glad to get rid of that ill-favoured scoundrel."

"My brother will find him again," said the Indian with an accent impossible to describe.

"I hope so, and if it should happen, I assure you that no one will be able to prevent me killing that reptile."

"No one will try to do so, my brother may rest assured."

"Nothing less than that certainly was needed to console me for the magnificent opportunity you make me lose today, Chief."

The Indian laughed, and continued —

"I will explain to yon at another moment how it happens that this man is free to retire in peace, when we are threatened by an ambuscade formed by him. For the present, let us not lose precious time in idle talk, for all is ready. My warriors are at their post, only awaiting the signal to begin the contest; do my Pale brothers still intend to accompany us?"

"Certainly, Chief, we are here for that purpose, you can count upon us."