CHAPTER XXI
TIT FOR TAT
YES, it was Blue Jacket, but apparently a wreck of the young Indianwhom Sandy had last seen under the friendly roof of the new Armstrongcabin.
He was blackened with smoke, his buckskin garments showing holes thatthe forest fire had burned; the proud feather that had once adorned hisscalp-lock hung low over his ear, and broken; he seemed hardly able todrag himself past the wondering squaws, and reach the centre of thetriple ring of warriors.
But it was Blue Jacket, alive and in the flesh, for all that.
"Glory! he has come home just in time to save me!" Sandy kept saying tohimself, as he stared. "And that terrible old medicine man was going toseal my fate! Glory! could there be any greater luck? And didn't dearold Bob say the bread we cast upon the waters might return ere manydays? Yes, it has come back, principal and interest!"
Every eye was fastened upon the figure of the young brave. Not onepresent at the council fire but knew he had a story to tell that wouldthrill their souls. Even the squaws, seldom allowed to listen to theserious councils around the sacred fire, bent forward, the better notto lose a single word.
Blue Jacket began to speak. At first his manner was sedate. He wastelling of how he had fought in that night battle, of the wound thathad left him on the field and how he crept away, hoping to return tohis lodge among his people.
Then Sandy, who could fairly interpret from his manner, knew that hespoke of finding himself alone, weakened from loss of blood, and unableto even call for assistance.
Expecting to become the prey of wild beasts during the night, he had,with the stoicism of the red man, awaited the end calmly. Then came thepaleface boys. His bronzed face lighted up as he told how they tenderlycarried him to the brow of the hill overlooking the river, and caredfor his wounds.
Now he became dramatic in his recital, and held his hearers spellbound.Surely he was speaking of that white mother now, telling how sheadvised that he be cared for and made well. It was such a revelation,so entirely different from all that the savage Indian natureunderstood, that the old men wagged their heads from time to time, andlooked at one another helplessly.
Blue Jacket went on. Now he was telling of one paleface warrior whohad sought his life, and how those boys stood between. Sandy guessedthis. He was hanging on the excited words of the young Shawanee just asthough he could fully grasp the full sense of the harangue.
Suddenly Blue Jacket ceased. Striding forward as well as his lame legwould permit, he threw a protecting arm across the shoulders of Sandy,as he faced once more the throng of red men.
"My brother!"
That was all he said, but his manner told the story. He stood readyto sacrifice his life, if need be, to save this paleface lad from thestake. Simple, yet eloquent beyond description, was his attitude as hethus stood there.
Would his will prevail? Had his rough eloquence reached the hearts ofthose sons of the wilderness?
In years to come the name of Blue Jacket was fated to pass into thepages of history as a famous Indian orator, who could sway the mindsof his people as few others were able. And in this fierce harangue,delivered in his youth, he made a reputation as a leader which was tofollow him in all after years.
The old men exchanged looks. They nodded their heads gravely.
"I surely believe he has turned the scale!" breathed the anxious Sandy,noting these significant signs.
The shrewd old medicine man could not always foretell the weather; buthe was able to discern a sudden change in the wind of popular approval.Before this dramatic coming of the young and wounded brave he knew theconsensus of opinion ran strongly toward putting the prisoner to thestake. It was different now!
And so the wily old fellow once more started his incantations andwhirlings, just as though he were taking them up at the point where hehad been interrupted; but with a decided difference that even Sandycould notice.
His manner now was not fierce and ugly; he no longer made swiftdownward strokes with his extended arms, but extended them upward in abeseeching manner, as though imploring Manitou to have mercy.
Then, after a supreme exhibition of his powers, with a great rattlingof wampum belt, and jangling metal discs that were strung about hisperson, he moved over to where Sandy stood, with the dusky protectingarm of Blue Jacket still flung about his shoulders.
Holding his hands above the white prisoner, the medicine man uttereda string of words, amid much bobbings of the head. Although he couldinterpret not a single expression, Sandy knew full well that in thisway the wizard was declaring he had been taken under the especialcharge of the Great Spirit, and that henceforth no Shawanee hand shouldbe raised against a member of the Armstrong family.
The French trader had listened to all this with a sneer on his lips,while his face grew dark as though it pleased him not a bit.
Sandy had little discretion, as we have seen more than once. With hisusual impetuosity he could not restrain himself from flashing a look oftriumph toward Jacques Larue. The trader saw it, and gritted his teeth.After that, he would doubtless feel more than ever a vicious spiteagainst anything that bore the brand of an Armstrong.
"Come!" said Blue Jacket, leading Sandy away.
"With the greatest of pleasure," replied that worthy, feeling as thougha tremendous weight had been taken from his shoulders, as indeed wasthe case.
The young Shawanee led his white brother to his lodge, where an oldsquaw, his mother undoubtedly, proudly awaited them. Nothing was toogood for the paleface who had saved the life of her boy. But first ofall, Sandy insisted upon the wounds of the young warrior being dressed.
"You must have been caught in the fire, too, Blue Jacket!" he declared,as he noted the condition of the warrior's scanty garments, which atleast had been whole at the time he was in the new settlement.
"Much time, Sandy. Near gone when reach creek and dive in!" replied theother, simply.
And that was all he could be persuaded to say about his adventure,yet Sandy felt positive that the young brave must have gone through athrilling experience, with the fire surrounding him, and wounded in thebargain. He could picture what Blue Jacket declined to relate.
"They have spared my life, Blue Jacket," observed the white boy, aftera time, when he had assisted the squaw to bind up the reopened woundof the brave once more; "but do they mean to keep me here a prisoner?Am I to never see my people again--dear old Bob, Kate, father, and mymother?"
The budding warrior looked at him, and actually a faint smile came uponhis face. Sandy could not remember having ever seen him show so muchfeeling before.
"You wait, Sandy," he said in a low voice; "leave that to Blue Jacket.Give word Bob you be free. Me no fail! Never forget him mother, notmuch!"
But Sandy had caught one word that riveted his attention.
"When did you promise Bob to save me? Where did you see him, BlueJacket?" he demanded, eagerly.
"Me leave since sunset. Bob fix best can," and saying this the youngIndian pointed down at his injured limb.
"Do you mean that you have been with my brother since the fire?" criedSandy, his face lighting up with a great joy, for that would tell himBob could not have been injured in the forest conflagration, as he hadgreatly feared.
Blue Jacket nodded gravely in the affirmative. English words did notcome readily to his lips, and, when he could make a gesture take theirplace, he seldom failed to do so.
"Bob find in creek. Him help 'long. Leg bad; much limp. Blue Jacketmake like papoose. Get here just in time. Not much good. Ugh!" hegrunted.
"Then Bob came along with you?" persisted Sandy, determined to drag thewhole truth out by degrees.
"Come 'long, yes. No think safe enter village. Hide in woods. Wait tillfox him bark three times. Bob know. Bob safe!"
"Hurrah! that's good news you're telling me, Blue Jacket!" exclaimedSandy, exultantly. "So Bob is safe, and near at hand right now! Why,he never even went back to the settlement to tell the story, and getassistance. Surely he is a
brother to be proud of. Tell me, BlueJacket, did he send any message by you? Have you got any of the whiteman's writing to give me?"
Whereupon the other gravely drew something from the bosom of his tornhunting shirt, and extended it to Sandy.
"Me forget. Bob say all right. No can understand spider crawl on bark.Sandy know. Bob tell," he said quaintly.
There were not many words, and these had been scratched by somesharp-pointed flint, so that it was only with an effort that the boycould make them out by the light of the fire in front of the lodge.
"SANDY:--Keep up a brave heart. We are going to get you out of there to-night. Trust Blue Jacket. He is true as steel. Bring gun.
"BOB."
Sandy smiled as he saw that reference to the old musket; and yet, afterall, it was not so strange that cautious, wise Bob should remember howmuch of their anticipated pleasure in hunting during the months thatwere ahead would be taken away if Sandy were without a weapon.
He read the message aloud to his friend. Blue Jacket evidently sawnothing singular about that mention of a gun. He knew what it meant tobe without the means of obtaining food in that great wilderness. Whatbow and arrows, a tomahawk, or a crude knife, meant to an Indian, a gunstood for in the eyes of a white man. And so Blue Jacket only noddedhis head gravely as he listened, saying finally:
"Get gun all right. No fear. Much skins here. Swap with brave for gun.Go now."
He evidently believed in striking while the iron was hot, for, stoopingdown, he gathered in his arms several valuable skins, among them somebeautiful otter pelts, and started out.
The squaw never raised a finger to interfere, yet she knew that BlueJacket was very weak and sore from his tremendous exertions in tryingto escape from the pursuing fire. And she was his mother, too. But thenSandy realized that Indian mothers differed in many respects from thoseof white boys. Blue Jacket, was he not a warrior now, and as such fullycompetent to decide for himself? The old squaw no doubt would have heldher tongue had he declared it to be his intention to start back to thewhite settlement with Sandy, even though she knew it must be the meansof bringing about his death.
Sure enough, Blue Jacket must have gauged well the temper of thebrave who had obtained the old flintlock musket, and knew just howto wheedle him out of his recent prize, for, when the young Indianreturned, he placed in Sandy's eager hands not only the gun, but allother things taken from the prisoner at the time he fell into thehands of the four Shawanee warriors--his powder horn, carved withconsiderable rude skill by Bob, the bullet pouch decorated with coloredporcupine quills, his hatchet, knife, and even the little bag, in whichSandy was accustomed to keeping his flint and steel, some dry tinderfor starting fires, and a few trifling odds and ends.
"Why, my brother!" cried the delighted white boy, "you are a biggermedicine man than the old fellow who danced, and shook those hollowgourds with the dried beans inside. Here are all my belongings, withnot one thing missing. Oh! I tell you, it was a fine day I discoveredyou there in the grass, Blue Jacket. For you have returned what littlewe did a dozen fold!"
But evidently the young Indian had his own ideas about that, for heshook his head, and made a grimace. He would never forget how thoseboys had stood between when the irate settler, Anthony Brady, demandedhis blood!
"No can repay. Armstrong name never can forget. You see. To-night we goaway. Bob wait to show way home. Blue Jacket him not able go far. Muchsorry!" he said, as he limped about the lodge to try his poor limb.
But Sandy gripped the Shawanee's hand, while his boyish face fairlybeamed with the affection he felt toward the gallant young savage.