The "old Indian" asserted itself in Deerfoot the Shawanoe. While every act, and in deed every thought, of the wonderful young warrior was prompted by conscience, yet his views of duty under certain circumstances, were fitted to bring a smile to the face of an impartial judge.
While standing behind the tree on the crest of the elevation, he was sure of two things: he had little time to lose in going to the help of Jack Carleton and Otto Relstaub, and the Shawanoes who were trailing him were close at hand. He settled the dispute by deciding to stay where he was a few minutes longer. If his enemies did not appear within that brief period, he would hasten from the spot.
This conclusion on the part of the young Shawanoe presaged a desperate encounter between him and his foes, and he made preparation for it. He set his rifle on the ground, with the muzzle leaning against the tree which served to screen his body, and brought his long bow to the front. Drawing an arrow from its quiver, he glanced at it as if looking for some defect, but he knew none was there, nor was a single shaft of the score and a half in the quiver imperfect in any respect. The youth always made his own weapons. He glued on the feather which guided and steadied the missile in its flight, and he fastened the heads with metal obtained from the whites. Every one of his possessions had been tested and proven.
Deerfoot grasped the bow loosely in the centre, one finger of the same band also holding the arrow in place, with the notch against the deer sinew, not yet drawn backward. The amateur archer will understand that he was in form to bring the shaft to a head on the instant it should become necessary.
It was some five minutes after he had assumed this position, and while looking back over his own trail, that two Shawanoe warriors silently emerged from the bushes fifty yards off, and stealthily approached him. They moved absolutely without noise, for their woodcraft told them they were close upon the most dangerous being they had ever undertaken to hunt.
The foremost lifted his foot just clear of the ground and placed it squarely down again. His head and shoulders were thrown forward, so that most of his long, coarse, black hair dangled on both sides of his neck and over his chest. It hung in front of his face also, and, as his forehead was very low, he had the appearance, while continually glancing from side to side and in front, of a wild beast glaring from behind a hedge. He trailed his rifle in his right hand, the left resting on the handle of a knife, which, with that of a tomahawk, protruded from his girdle. He wore the usual hunting-shirt, leggings and moccasins, his body and limbs being well protected. His blanket would have been only an encumbrance, and while he was engaged in such delicate business, it was left with the canoe on the bank of the Mississippi. The ears when visible through the dangling hair, were seen to hold enormous rings of bone, while the nose hooked over and dipped in a fashion that showed that the organ had at some time held a pendant in the way of an ornament.
The countenance was blackened and disfigured with paint, in the style already made familiar to the reader, and the protuberant nose was rendered more striking by the retreating chin. The Shawanoe was crafty, cunning, treacherous and revengeful, which characteristics it may be said belong to the entire American race.
The second warrior, with the exception of his features, was the counterpart of the leader. Dress, paint, and ornaments, even to the strings of wampum around the neck, were similar. He carried his rifle in the same style, and his left hand rested on the weapons in his girdle. Both were strong and sinewy, and their sight lost not the slightest object in their field of vision.
It was this precaution which apprised them, at the same instant, that they were confronted by the most terrifying picture on which their eyes had ever rested. They halted as if transfixed by a lightning stroke.
Deerfoot the Shawanoe stood behind the trunk of an oak, a foot in diameter, with his arrow drawn to a head and pointed at the heart of the foremost warrior. The matchless youth was at bay, and in the exact posture for launching his deadly weapon—right foot forward, bow grasped in the centre, arrow held by the fingers of the left hand, which were drawn backward of the shoulder, while the bow itself, on account of its great length, was held diagonally in front.
The two Shawanoes who suddenly became aware of their danger, did not see all that has been described, for Deerfoot utilized the shelter so far as he could. Most of his body was carefully protected, and, though the bow was slanted, the lowermost point scarcely showed on the opposite side of the tree from the top of the weapon.
The warriors saw the head, left shoulder and hands of Deerfoot and the upper part of the bow, whose arrow was on the very point of speeding toward them. Directly over the shaft, with head slightly inclined, like that of a hunter sighting over his gun, were the gleaming eyes and face of the young Shawanoe. It looked as if he had turned his head to one side that he might catch the music made by the twang of the string when it should dart forward with the speed of the rattlesnake striking from its coil.
No more startling sight can be imagined than that of a gun aimed straight at us, with the finger of the marksman pressing the trigger. The first proof the pursuers received that they were within sight of the youth they were seeking was of that nature. Both stood for a second or more unable to stir. But their training prevented the spell lasting more than the briefest while.
The second warrior made a tremendous bound directly backward, dropping to a squatting posture as he landed, and then scrambling to cover with a quickness the eye could hardly follow. While employed in doing so, his companion emitted an ear-splitting screech which made the woods echo. He caught a shadowy glimpse of him as he leaped high in the air and fell backward, carrying with him the arrow of the marvelous archer, which had gone clear and clean through his body, and remained projecting both from the breast and back. A defiant shout rang from the elevation, and, peeping timidly forth, the crouching red man saw Deerfoot holding his bow aloft with one hand, while he swung the gun with the other and strode off, his face toward his pursuers.
"Where are the Shawanoes? Do they love to follow Deerfoot across the great river? His heart was sad for them because so many bowed to his bow and arrow—so he left them that his eyes might not look on their warriors who fell by his hand; the Shawanoes are fools, because they follow Deerfoot. They cannot harm him, for he is the friend of the white man, and the Great Spirit gives him his care; let the Shawanoes send Tecumseh and the Hurons send Waughtauk; Deerfoot stayed his hand when the time had come for Waughtauk to sing his death-song, but if the chief trails him across the great river, Deerfoot will not spare him."
The young warrior doubtless would have indulged in further annoying remarks, had he not kept moving all the time, so that his last words were uttered while he was beyond sight of the terrified Shawanoe crouching on the ground; but the voice of Deerfoot was raised to a key which prevented any observation being lost.
The declaration, following the act of the youth, showed that in his mind his relations toward his enemies changed when they followed him beyond the Mississippi. In Kentucky all stood on the same footing, and he often showed mercy, but if they pursued him into Louisiana they became his persecutors, and whoever crossed his path or sought to molest him, did so at his peril. He had voluntarily withdrawn from their chosen hunting-grounds, and they would be wise if they left him alone. He would not flee from them like a hunted deer, but would teach them severer lessons than they had ever yet learned.
The death-yell of the stricken Shawanoe was certain to bring others to the spot, but Deerfoot cared nothing for that. It mattered not if there were a score, for, if he chose to flee, he could out-speed the swiftest runner on either side the Mississippi. With the thousands upon thousands of miles of mountain, prairie, river, and wilderness at his back, he could laugh to scorn the rage of his enemies.
Though he had lived several months in this section, it was the first time his deadly foes had attempted to molest him. Self-defense demanded that they should be shown it would not pay to repeat the attempt.
Still retaining gun and bow, he passed rapidly down the slope, and, having previously fixed in his mind the course to pursue, pushed forward at an easy pace, which was much swifter than would be supposed.
Fast as he journeyed, he had not gone far when five Shawanoes (including him who had so narrowly escaped his bow), hurried to the spot where the smitten warrior lay. They had heard agonized cry in battle and knew what it meant. The second survivor was given but a minute to flee, when he encountered the others rushing thither, and he turned about and joined them. They would have been less arduous had they not known that the terrible Deerfoot was gone, as was shown by his defiant shout, which came from distant point in the woods.
Precisely eight Shawanoes (not a Miami among them) paddled over the Mississippi to hunt the youth: the only two absent from this party were pursuing Jack Carleton and Otto Relstaub, while they journeyed toward the northwest, after the stray horse. The occasion, therefore, was a fitting one in which to consult as to the line of policy to be followed.
It may seem incredible, but it is an unquestioned fact, that five of the best warriors of the most formidable tribe in the West decided to give up the attempt to capture or kill a single one of their race whose years were considerably less than those of the youngest member of the party, and that, too, on the ground that the undertaking was too dangerous. One of those five Shawanoes, became converted to Christianity after the war of 1812, and settled in Kentucky, near the home of Ned Preston, to whom he gave the particulars of the council held by him and his comrades more than twenty years before.
Of course no one of the five admitted that personally he was afraid of Deerfoot. All expressed the greatest eagerness to meet him, where a chance to engage in fatal combat could be gained. Apparently no greater boon could befall them than such extreme good fortune.
But they could not shut their eyes to one or two discouraging facts: they had entered a country entirely strange to them, but which was familiar in a great measure to the fleet-footed traitor, who could never find himself lacking for some hole in which to hide himself. It was very much like hunting in an endless forest for the fawn that leaves no scent for the dog to follow.
But worse than all, the Shawanoes could not doubt that the execrated Deerfoot had formed alliance with the Osages, who would give him help whenever wanted. Such being their theory followed that they were not fleeing from a despised foe, but from a whole tribe of Indians. For five warriors to withdraw in the face of such overwhelming odds, could not be construed as cowardice, but only as wise discretion.
Such were the grounds on which the party based their decision, which was accompanied fierce lamentations that the fates had interposed to save Deerfoot from their vengeance.
"We talk that way," said the old Indian, long years afterward, while telling the story in broken English, "and," he added with a laugh twinkle in his dark eyes, "we much brave—we want to meet Deerfoot but we looked to see he did not come; if he came, then we wouldn't be so much brave; we turn, and run like buffalo, we much afraid of Deerfoot; we no want to see him."
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