CHAPTER XV
VIRTUE IN A LOCKET
Long-Hair stood not upon ceremony in conveying to Beverley the information
that he was to run the gauntlet, which, otherwise stated, meant
that the Indians would form themselves in two parallel lines facing
each other about six feet apart, and that the prisoner would be
expected to run down the length of the space between, thus affording
the warriors an opportunity, greatly coveted and relished by their
fiendish natures, to beat him cruelly during his flight. This sort
of thing was to the Indians, indeed, an exquisite amusement, as
fascinating to them as the theater is to more enlightened people.
No sooner was it agreed upon that the entertainment should again
be undertaken than all the younger men began to scurry around getting
everything ready for it. Their faces glowed with a droll cruelty
strange to see, and they further expressed their lively expectations
by playful yet curiously solemn antics.
The preparations were simple and quickly made. Each man armed himself
with a stick three feet long and about three-quarters of an inch
in diameter. Rough weapons they were, cut from boughs of scrub-oak,
knotty and tough as horn. Long-Hair unbound Beverley and stripped
his clothes from his body down to the waist. Then the lines formed,
the Indians in each row standing about as far apart as the width
of the space in which the prisoner was to run. This arrangement
gave them free use of their sticks and plenty of room for full swing
of their lithe bodies.
In removing Beverley's clothes Long-Hair found Alice's locket hanging
over the young man's heart. He tore it rudely off and grunted, glaring
viciously, first at it, then at Beverley. He seemed to be mightily
wrought upon.
"White man damn thief," he growled deep in his throat;
"stole from little girl!"
He put the locket in his pouch and resumed his stupidly indifferent
expression.
When everything was ready for the delightful entertainment to begin,
Long-Hair waved his tomahawk three times over Beverley's head, and
pointing down between the waiting lines said:
"Ugh, run!"
But Beverley did not budge. He was standing erect, with his arms,
deeply creased where the thongs had sunk, folded across his breast.
A rush of thoughts and feelings had taken tumultuous possession
of him and he could not move or decide what to do. A mad desire
to escape arose in his heart the moment that he saw Long-Hair take
the locket. It was as if Alice had cried to him and bidden him make
a dash for liberty.
"Ugh, run!"
The order was accompanied with a push of such violence from Long-
Hair's left elbow that Beverley plunged and fell, for his limbs,
after their long and painful confinement in the raw-hide bonds,
were stiff and almost useless. Long-Hair in no gentle voice bade
him get up. The shock of falling seemed to awaken his dormant forces;
a sudden resolve leaped into his brain. He saw that the Indians
had put aside their bows and guns, most of which were leaning against
the boles of trees here and yonder. What if he could knock Long-Hair
down and run away? This might possibly be easy, considering the
Indian's broken arm. His heart jumped at the possibility. But the
shrewd savage was alert and saw the thought come into his face.
"You try git 'way, kill dead!" he snarled, lifting his
tomahawk ready for a stroke. "Brains out, damn!"
Beverley glanced down the waiting and eager lines. Swiftly he speculated,
wondering what would be his chance for escape were he to break through.
But he did not take his own condition into account.
"Ugh, run!"
Again the elbow of Long-Hair's hurt arm pushed him toward the expectant
rows of Indians, who flourished their clubs and uttered impatient
grunts.
This time he did not fall; but in trying to run he limped stiffly
at first, his legs but slowly and imperfectly regaining their strength
and suppleness from the action. Just before reaching the lines,
however, he stopped short. Long-Hair, who was close behind him,
took hold of his shoulder and led him back to the starting place.
The big Indian's arm must have given him pain when he thus used
it, but he did not wince. "Fool--kill dead!" he repeated
two or three times, holding his tomahawk on high with threatening
motions and frequent repetitions of his one echo from the profanity
of civilization. He was beginning to draw his mouth down at the
corners, and his eyes were narrowed to mere slits.
Beverley understood now that he could not longer put off the trial.
He must choose between certain death and the torture of the gauntlet,
as frontiersmen named this savage ordeal. An old man might have
preferred the stroke of the hatchet to such an infliction as the
clubs must afford, considering that, even after all the agony, his
captivity and suffering would be only a little nearer its end. Youth,
however, has faith in the turn of fortune's wheel, and faith in
itself, no matter how dark the prospect. Hope blows her horn just
over the horizon, and the strain bids the young heart take courage
and beat strong. Moreover, men were men, who led the van in those
days on the outmost lines of our march to the summit of the world.
Beverley was not more a hero than any other young, brave, unconquerable
patriot of the frontier army. His situation simply tried him a trifle
harder than was common. But it must be remembered that he had Love
with him, and where Love is there can be no cowardice, no surrender.
Long-Hair once again pushed him and said
"Ugh, run!"
Beverley made a direct dash for the narrow lane between the braced
and watchful lines. Every warrior lifted his club; every copper
face gleamed stolidly, a mask behind which burned a strangely atrocious
spirit. The two savages standing at the end nearest Beverley struck
at him the instant he reached than, but they taken quite by surprise
when he checked himself between them and, leaping this way and that,
swung out two powerful blows, left and right, stretching one of
them flat and sending the other reeling and staggering half a dozen
paces backward with the blood streaming from his nose.
This done, Beverley turned to run away, but his breath was already
short and his strength rapidly going.
Long-Hair, who was at his heels, leaped before him when he had gone
but a few steps and once more flourished the tomahawk. To struggle
was useless, save to insist upon being brained outright, which just
then had no part in Beverley's considerations. Long- Hair kicked
his victim heavily, uttering laconic curses meanwhile, and led him
back again to the starting-point.
A genuine sense of humor seems almost entirely lacking in the mind
of the American Indian. He smiles at things not in the least amusing
to us and when he laughs, which is very seldom, the cause of his
merriment usually lies in something repellantly cruel and inhuman.
When Beverley struck his two assailants, hurting them so that one
lay half stunned, while the other spun away from his fist with a
smashed nose, all the rest of the Indians grunted and laughed raucously
in high delight. They shook their clubs, danced, pointed at their
discomfited fellows and twisted their painted faces into knotted
wrinkles, their eyes twinkling with devilish expression of glee
quite indescribable.
"Ugh, damn, run!" said Long-Half, this time adding a hard
kick to the elbow-shove he gave Beverley.
The young man, who had borne all he could, now turned upon him furiously
and struck straight from the shoulder, setting the whole weight
of his body into the blow. Long-Hair stepped out of the way and
quick as a flash brought the flat side of his tomahawk with great
force against Beverley's head. This gave the amusement a sudden
and disappointing end, for the prisoner fell limp and senseless
to the ground. No more running the gauntlet for him that day. Indeed
it required protracted application of the best Indian skill to revive
him so that he could fairly be called a living man. There had been
no dangerous concussion, however, and on the following morning camp
was broken.
Beverley, sore, haggard, forlornly disheveled, had his arms bound
again and was made to march apace with his nimble enemies, who set
out swiftly eastward, their disappointment at having their sport
cut short, although bitter enough, not in the least indicated by
any facial expression or spiteful act.
Was it really a strange thing, or was it not, that Beverley's mind
now busied itself unceasingly with the thought that Long-Hair had
Alice's picture in his pouch? One might find room for discussion
of a cerebral problem like this; but our history cannot be delayed
with analyses and speculations; it must run its direct course unhindered
to the end. Suffice it to record that, while tramping at Long-Hair's
side and growing more and more desirous of seeing the picture again,
Beverley began trying to converse with his taciturn captor. He had
a considerable smattering of several Indian dialects, which he turned
upon Long-Hair to the best of his ability, but apparently without
effect. Nevertheless he babbled at intervals, always upon the same
subject and always endeavoring to influence that huge, stolid, heartless
savage in the direction of letting him see again the child face
of the miniature.
A stone, one of our travel-scarred and mysterious western granite
bowlders brought from the far north by the ancient ice, would show
as much sympathy as did the face of Long-Hair. Once in a while he
gave Beverley a soulless glance and said "damn" with utter
indifference. Nothing, however, could quench or even in the slightest
sense allay the lover's desire. He talked of Alice and the locket
with constantly increasing volubility, saying over and over phrases
of endearment in a half-delirious way, not aware that fever was
fermenting his blood and heating his brain. Probably he would have
been very ill but for the tremendous physical exercise forced upon
him. The exertion kept him in a profuse perspiration and his robust
constitution cast off the malarial poison. Meantime he used every
word and phrase, every grunt and gesture of Indian dialect that
he could recall, in the iterated and reiterated attempt to make
Long-Hair understand what he wanted.
When night came on again the band camped under some trees beside
a swollen stream. There was no rain falling, but almost the entire
country lay under a flood of water. Fires of logs were soon burning
brightly on the comparatively dry bluff chosen by the Indians. The
weather was chill, but not cold. Long-Hair took great pains, however,
to dry Beverley's clothes and see that he had warm wraps and plenty
to eat. Hamilton's large reward would not be forthcoming should
the prisoner die, Beverley was good property, well worth careful
attention. To be sure his scalp, in the worst event, would command
a sufficient honorarium, but not the greatest. Beverley thought
of all this while the big Indian was wrapping him snugly in skins
and blankets for the night, and there was no comfort in it, save
that possibly if he were returned to Hamilton he might see Alice
again before he died.
A fitful wind cried dolefully in the leafless treetops, the stream
hard by gave forth a rushing sound, and far away some wolves howled
like lost souls. Worn out, sore from head to foot, Beverley, deep
buried in the blankets and skins, soon fell into a profound sleep.
The fires slowly crumbled and faded; no sentinel was posted, for
the Indians did not fear an attack, there being no enemies that
they knew of nearer than Kaskaskia. The camp slumbered as one man.
At about the mid-hour of the night Long-Hair gently awoke his prisoner
by drawing a hand across his face, then whispered in his ear:
"Damn, still!"
Beverley tried to rise, uttering a sleepy ejaculation under his
breath. "No talk," hissed Long-Hair. "Still!"
There was something in his voice that not only swept the last film
of sleep out of Beverley's brain, but made it perfectly clear to
him that a very important bit of craftiness was being performed;
just what its nature was, however, he could not surmise. One thing
was obvious, Long-Hair did not wish the other Indians to know of
the move he was making. Deftly he slipped the blankets from around
Beverley, and cut the thongs at his ankles.
"Still!" he whispered. "Come 'long."
Under such circumstances a competent mind acts with lightning celerity.
Beverley now understood that Long-Hair was stealing him away from
the other savages and that the big villain meant to cheat them out
of their part of the reward. Along with this discovery came a fresh
gleam of hope. It would be far easier to escape from one Indian
than from nearly a score. Ah, he would follow Long-Hair, indeed
he would! The needed courage came with the thought, and so with
immense labor he crept at the heels of that crawling monster. It
was a painful process, for his arms were still fast bound at the
wrists with the raw-hide strings; but what was pain to him? He shivered
with joy, thinking of what might happen. The voice of the wind overhead
and the noisy bubbling of the stream near by were cheerful and cheering
sounds to him now. So much can a mere shadow of hope do for a human
soul on the verge of despair! Already he was planning or trying
to plan some way by which he could kill Long-Hair when they should
reach a safe distance from the sleeping camp.
But how could the thing be done? A man with his hands tied, though
they are in front of him, is in no excellent condition to cope with
a free and stalwart savage armed to the teeth. Still Beverley's
spirits rose with every rod of distance that was added to their
slow progress.
Their course was nearly parallel with that of the stream, but slightly
converging toward it, and after they had gone about a furlong they
reached the bank. Here Long-Hair stopped and, without a word, cut
the thongs from Beverley's wrists. This was astounding; the young
man could scarcely realize it, nor was he ready to act.
"Swim water," Long-Hair said in a guttural murmur barely
audible. "Swim, damn!"
Again it was necessary for Beverley's mind to act swiftly and with
prudence. The camp was yet within hailing distance. A false move
now would bring the whole pack howling to the rescue. Something
told him to do as Long-Hair ordered, so with scarcely a perceptible
hesitation he scrambled down the bushy bank and slipped into the
water, followed by Long-Hair, who seized him by one arm when he
began to swim, and struck out with him into the boiling and tumbling
current.
Beverley had always thought himself a master swimmer, but Long-
Hair showed him his mistake. The giant Indian, with but one hand
free to use, fairly rushed through that deadly cold and turbulent
water, bearing his prisoner with him despite the wounded arm, as
easily as if towing him at the stern of a pirogue. True, his course
was down stream for a considerable distance, but even when presently
he struck out boldly for the other bank, breasting a current in
which few swimmers could have lived, much less made headway, he
still swung forward rapidly, splitting the waves and scarcely giving
Beverley freedom enough so that he could help in the progress. It
was a long, cold struggle, and when at last they touched the sloping
low bank on the other side, Long-Hair had fairly to lift his chilled
and exhausted prisoner to the top.
"Ugh, cold," he grunted, beginning to pound and rub Beverley's
arms, legs and body. "Make warm, damn heap!"
All this he did with his right hand, holding the tomahawk in his
left.
It was a strange, bewildering experience out of which the young
man could not see in any direction far enough to give him a hint
upon which to act. In a few minutes Long-Hair jerked him to his
feet and said:
"Go."
It was just light enough to see that the order had a tomahawk to
enforce it withal. Long-Hair indicated the direction and drove Beverley
onward as fast as he could.
"Try run 'way, kill, damn!" he kept repeating, while with
his left hand on the young man's shoulder he guided him from behind
dexterously through the wood for some distance. Then he stopped
and grunted, adding his favorite expletive, which he used with not
the least knowledge of its meaning. To him the syllable "damn"
was but a mouthful of forcible wind.
They had just emerged from a thicket into an open space, where the
ground was comparatively dry. Overhead the stars were shining in
great clusters of silver and gold against a dark, cavernous looking
sky, here and there overrun with careering black clouds. Beverley
shivered, not so much with cold as on account of the stress of excitement
which amounted to nervous rigor. Long-Hair faced him and leaned
toward him, until his breathing was audible and his massive features
were dimly outlined. A dragon of the darkest age could not have
been more repulsive.
"Ugh, friend, damn!"
Beverley started when these words were followed by a sentence in
an Indian dialect somewhat familiar to him, a dialect in which he
had tried to talk with Long-Hair during the day's march. The sentence,
literally translated, was:
"Long-Hair is friendly now."
A blow in the face could not have been so surprising. Beverley not
only started, but recoiled as if from a sudden and deadly apparition.
The step between supreme exhilaration and utter collapse is now
and then infinitesimal. There are times, moreover, when an expression
on the face of Hope makes her look like the twin sister of Despair.
The moment falling just after Long-Hair spoke was a century condensed
in a breath.
"Long-Hair is friendly now; will white man be friendly?"
Beverley heard, but the speech seemed to come out of vastness and
hollow distance; he could not realize it fairly. He felt as if in
a dream, far off somewhere in loneliness, with a big, shadowy form
looming before him. He heard the chill wind in the thickets round
about, and beyond Long-Hair rose a wall of giant trees.
"Ugh, not understand?" the savage presently demanded in
his broken English.
"Yes, yes," said Beverley, "I understand."
"Is the white man friendly now?" Long-Hair then repeated
in his own tongue, with a certain insistence of manner and voice.
"Yes, friendly."
Beverley said this absently in a tone of perfunctory dryness. His
throat was parched, his head seemed to waver. But he was beginning
to comprehend that Long-Hair, for some inscrutable reason of his
own, was desirous of making a friendship between them. The thought
was bewildering.
Long-Hair fumbled in his pouch and took out Alice's locket, which
he handed to Beverley. "White man love little girl?" he
inquired in a tone that bordered upon tenderness, again speaking
in Indian.
Beverley clutched the disk as soon as he saw it gleam in the star-
light.
"White man going to have little girl for his squaw--eh?"
"Yes, yes," cried Beverley without hearing his own voice.
He was trying to open the locket but his hands were numb and trembling.
When at last he did open it he could not see the child face within,
for now even the star-light was shut off by a scudding black cloud.
"Little girl saved Long-Hair's life. Long-Hair save white warrior
for little girl."
A dignity which was almost noble accompanied these simple sentences.
Long-Hair stood proudly erect, like a colossal dark statue in the
dimness.
The great truth dawned upon Beverley that here was a characteristic
act. He knew that an Indian rarely failed to repay a kindness or
an injury, stroke for stroke, when opportunity offered. Long-Hair
was a typical Indian. That is to say, a type of inhumanity raised
to the last power; but under his hideous atrocity of nature lay
the indestructible sense of gratitude so fixed and perfect that
it did its work almost automatically.
It must be said, and it may or may not be to the white man's shame,
that Beverley did not respond with absolute promptness and sincerity
to Long-Hair's generosity. He had suffered terribly at the hands
of this savage. His arms and legs were raw from the biting of the
thongs; his body ached from the effect of blows and kicks laid upon
him while bound and helpless. Perhaps he was not a very emotional
man. At all events there was no sudden recognition of the favor
he was receiving. And this pleased Long-Hair, for the taste of the
American Indian delights in immobility of countenance and reserve
of feeling under great strain.
"Wait here a little while," Long-Hair presently said,
and without lingering for reply, turned away and disappeared in
the wood. Beverley was free to run if he wished to, and the thought
did surge across his mind; but a restraining something, like a hand
laid upon him, would not let his limbs move. Down deep in his heart
a calm voice seemed to be repeating Long-Hair's Indian sentence--"Wait
here a little while."
A few minutes later Long-Hair returned bearing two guns, Beverley's
and his own, the latter, a superb weapon given him by Hamilton.
He afterward explained that he had brought these, with their bullet-pouches
and powder-horns, to a place of concealment near by before he awoke
Beverley. This meant that he had swum the cold river three times
since night-fall; once over with the guns and accouterments; once
back to camp, then over again with Beverley! All this with a broken
arm, and to repay Alice for her kindness to him.
Beverley may have been slow, but at last his appreciation was, perhaps,
all the more profound. As best he could he expressed it to Long-Hair,
who showed no interest whatever in the statement. Instead of responding
in Indian, he said "damn" without emphasis. It was rather
as if he had yawned absently, being bored.
Delay could not be thought of. Long-Hair explained briefly that
he thought. Beverley must go to Kaskaskia. He had come across the
stream in the direction of Vincennes in order to set his warriors
at fault. The stream must be recrossed, he said, farther down, and
he would help Beverley a certain distance on his way, then leave
him to shift for himself. He had a meager amount of parched corn
and buffalo meat in his pouch, which would stay hunger until they
could kill some game. Now they must go.
The resilience of a youthful and powerful physique offers many a
problem to the biologist. Vital force seems to find some mysterious
reservoir of nourishment hidden away in the nerve- centers. Beverley
set out upon that seemingly impossible undertaking with renewed
energy. It could not have been the ounce of parched corn and bit
of jerked venison from which he drew so much strength; but on the
other hand, could it have been the miniature of Alice, which he
felt pressing over his heart once more, that afforded a subtle stimulus
to both mind and body? They flung miles behind them before day-dawn,
Long-Hair leading, Beverley pressing close at his heels. Most of
the way led over flat prairies covered with water, and they therefore
left no track by which they could be followed.
Late in the forenoon Long-Hair killed a deer at the edge of a wood.
Here they made a fire and cooked a supply which would last them
for a day or two, and then on they went again. But we cannot follow
them step by step. When Long-Hair at last took leave of Beverley,
the occasion had no ceremony. It was an abrupt, unemotional parting.
The stalwart Indian simply said in his own dialect, pointing westward:
"Go that way two days. You will find your friends."
Then, without another look or word, he turned about and stalked
eastward at a marvelously rapid gait. In his mind he had a good
tale to tell his warrior companions when he should find them again:
how Beverley escaped that night and how he followed him a long,
long chase, only to lose him at last under the very guns of the
fort at Kaskaskia. But before he reached his band an incident of
some importance changed his story to a considerable degree. It chanced
that he came upon Lieutenant Barlow, who, in pursuit of game, had
lost his bearings and, far from his companions, was beating around
quite bewildered in a watery solitude. Long-Hair promptly murdered
the poor fellow and scalped him with as little compunction as he
would have skinned a rabbit; for he had a clever scheme in his head,
a very audacious and outrageous scheme, by which he purposed to
recoup, to some extent, the damages sustained by letting Beverley
go.
Therefore, when he rejoined his somewhat disheartened and demoralized
band he showed them the scalp and gave them an eloquent account
of how he tore it from Beverley's head after a long chase and a
bloody hand to hand fight. They listened, believed, and were satisfied.