第71章 THE SACRIFICE(1)

So far as the world knew, the Chief of the Long Knives slept peacefully in his house.And such was his sense of power that not even a sentry paced the street without.

For by these things is the Indian mind impressed.In the tiny kitchen a dozen men and a boy tried to hush their breathing, and sweltered.For it was very hot, and the pent-up odor of past cookings was stifling to men used to the open.In a corner, hooded under a box, was a lighted lantern, and Tom McChesney stood ready to seize it at the first alarm.On such occasions the current of time runs sluggish.Thrice our muscles were startled into tenseness by the baying of a hound, and once a cock crew out of all season.For the night was cloudy and pitchy black, and the dawn as far away as eternity.

Suddenly I knew that every man in the room was on the alert, for the skilled frontiersman, when watchful, has a sixth sense.None of them might have told you what he had heard.The next sound was the faint creaking of Colonel Clark's door as it opened.Wrapping a blanket around the lantern, Tom led the way, and we massed ourselves behind the front door.Another breathing space, and then the war-cry of the Puans broke hideously on the night, and children woke, crying, from their sleep.In two bounds our little detachment was in the street, the fire spouting red from the Deckards, faint, shadowy forms fading along the line of trees.After that an uproar of awakening, cries here and there, a drum beating madly for the militia.The dozen flung themselves across the stream, I hot in their wake, through Mr.Brady's gate, which was open; and there was a scene of sweet tranquillity under the lantern's rays,--the North Wind and his friends wrapped in their blankets and sleeping the sleep of the just.

``Damn the sly varmints,'' cried Tom, and he turned over the North Wind with his foot, as a log.

With a grunt of fury the Indian shed his blanket and scrambled to his feet, and stood glaring at us through his paint.But suddenly he met the fixed sternness of Clark's gaze, and his own shifted.By this time his followers were up.The North Wind raised his hands to heaven in token of his innocence, and then spread his palms outward.Where was the proof?

``Look!'' I cried, quivering with excitement; ``look, their leggings and moccasins are wet!''

``There's no devil if they beant!'' said Tom, and there was a murmur of approval from the other men.

``The boy is right,'' said the Colonel, and turned to Tom.``Sergeant, have the chiefs put in irons.'' He swung on his heel, and without more ado went back to his house to bed.The North Wind and two others were easily singled out as the leaders, and were straightway escorted to the garrison house, their air of injured innocence availing them not a whit.The militia was dismissed, and the village was hushed once more.

But all night long the chiefs went to and fro, taking counsel among themselves.What would the Chief of the Pale Faces do?

The morning came with a cloudy, damp dawning.

Within a decent time (for the Indian is decorous) blanketed deputations filled the archways under the trees and waited there as the minutes ran into hours.The Chief of the Long Knives surveyed the morning from his door-step, and his eyes rested on a solemn figure at the gate.It was the Hungry Wolf.Sorrow was in his voice, and he bore messages from the twenty great chiefs who stood beyond.

They were come to express their abhorrence of the night's doings, of which they were as innocent as the deer of the forest.

``Let the Hungry Wolf tell the chiefs,'' said Colonel Clark, briefly, ``that the council is the place for talk.''

And he went back into the house again.

Then he bade me run to Captain Bowman with an order to bring the North Wind and his confederates to the council field in irons.

The day followed the promise of the dawn.The clouds hung low, and now and again great drops struck the faces of the people in the field.And like the heavens, the assembly itself was charged with we knew not what.

Was it peace or war? As before, a white man sat with supreme indifference at a table, and in front of him three most unhappy chiefs squatted in the grass, the shame of their irons hidden under the blanket folds.Audacity is truly a part of the equipment of genius.To have rescued the North Wind and his friends would have been child's play; to have retired from the council with threats of war, as easy.

And yet they craved pardon.

One chief after another rose with dignity in the ring and came to the table to plead.An argument deserving mention was that the North Wind had desired to test the friendship of the French for the Big Knives,--set forth without a smile.To all pleaders Colonel Clark shook his head.He, being a warrior, cared little whether such people were friends or foes.He held them in the hollow of his hand.And at length they came no more.

The very clouds seemed to hang motionless when he rose to speak, and you who will may read in his memoir what he said.The Hungry Wolf caught the spirit of it, and was eloquent in his own tongue, and no word of it was lost.First he told them of the causes of war, of the thirteen council fires with the English, and in terms that the Indian mind might grasp, and how their old father, the French King, had joined the Big Knives in this righteous fight.

``Warriors,'' said he, ``here is a bloody belt and a white one; take which you choose.But behave like men.

Should it be the bloody path, you may leave this town in safety to join the English, and we shall then see which of us can stain our shirts with the most blood.But, should it be the path of peace as brothers of the Big Knives and of their friends the French, and then you go to your homes and listen to the bad birds, you will then no longer deserve to be called men and warriors,--but creatures of two tongues, which ought to be destroyed.Let us then part this evening in the hope that the Great Spirit will bring us together again with the sun as brothers.''