Tales of Trail and Town eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 247 pages of information about Tales of Trail and Town.

Tales of Trail and Town eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 247 pages of information about Tales of Trail and Town.

But here a feminine chorus of excuses and expostulations rose from the carryall.  “It’s only Mrs. Lascelles going to show Friddy where the squaws and children bathe,” said Lady Runnybroke, “it’s near the fort, and they’ll be there as quick as we shall.”

“One moment, colonel,” said Peter, with mortified concern.  “It’s another folly of my sister’s! pray let me take it upon myself to bring them back.”

“Very well, but see you don’t linger, and,” turning to Cassidy, as Peter galloped away, he added, “you follow him.”

Peter kept the figures of the two women in view, but presently saw them disappear in the wood.  He had no fear for their safety, but he was indignant at this last untimely caprice of his sister.  He knew the idea had originated with her, and that the officers knew it, and yet she had made Lady Elfrida bear an equal share of the blame.  He reached the edge of the copse, entered the first opening, but he had scarcely plunged into its shadow and shut out the plain behind him before he felt his arms and knees quickly seized from behind.  So sudden and unexpected was the attack that he first thought his horse had stumbled against a coil of wild grapevine and was entangled, but the next moment he smelled the rank characteristic odor and saw the brown limbs of the Indian who had leaped on his crupper, while another rose at his horse’s head.  Then a warning voice in his ear said in the native tongue:—­

“If the great white medicine man calls to his fighting men, the pale-faced girl and the squaw he calls his sister die!  They are here, he understands.”

But Peter had neither struggled nor uttered a cry.  At that touch, and with the accents of that tongue in his ears, all his own Indian blood seemed to leap and tingle through his veins.  His eyes flashed; pinioned as he was he drew himself erect and answered haughtily in his captor’s own speech:—­

“Good!  The great white medicine man obeys, for he and his sister have no fear.  But if the pale-face girl is not sent back to her people before the sun sets, then the yellow jackets will swarm the woods, and they will follow her trail to the death.  My brother is wise; let the girl go.  I have spoken.”

“My brother is very cunning too.  He would call to his fighting men through the lips of the pale-face girl.”

“He will not.  The great white medicine man does not lie to his red brother.  He will tell the pale-face girl to say to the chief of the yellow jackets that he and his sister are with his brothers, and all is peace.  But the pale-face girl must not see the great white medicine man in these bonds, nor as a captive!  I have spoken.”

The two Indians fell back.  There was so much of force and dignity in the man, so much of their own stoic calmness, that they at once mechanically loosened the thongs of plaited deer hide with which they had bound him, and side by side led him into the recesses of the wood.

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Tales of Trail and Town from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.