Part 29 (1/2)
The night was well along when Missionary Finley determined to appeal to his last recourse for saving the life of little Mabel Ashbridge.
In unnumbered ways the Shawanoes showed that stoicism and indifference which they take pains to display when in the presence of strangers, though not always among themselves. A number lolled on the ground, some were standing, and two had sat down on the fallen tree. Another took upon himself the duty of keeping the fire vigorously burning. From time to time he walked off among the trees, and came back with sticks and brush in his arms, which were flung on the flames. Although the air was colder than on the preceding night, the additional warmth was not needed; it was simply the light that was required.
The action of all these Shawanoes was as if their chieftain and his white visitor were one hundred miles distant. None approached, addressed or seemed to hear a word that pa.s.sed, though in the stillness many of their words, especially those uttered by the chieftain, were audible to the farthest point of the camp.
The observant eye of Finley told him a significant fact. Allowing for those that had fallen in the attack upon the flatboat, fully half a dozen of the warriors were absent. They were watching the movements of the whites who had crossed the river, and would soon report to The Panther.
The absence of these warriors, we say, was suggestive, but caused the missionary no concern. With the pioneers were Daniel Boone and his rangers, while Simon Kenton was somewhere between the hostile forces.
After the late escape of the party from The Panther and his men, no great fear was to be entertained of them.
Mabel Ashbridge, wondering, distressed and sorrowful, sat on the fallen tree, now and then looking around the camp and following the movements of the painted men as they pa.s.sed to and fro, some of them occasionally glancing toward her with a scowl and gleam of the black eyes, which terrified her, but most of the time her gaze rested upon the chieftain and white man talking near her.
How odd their words sounded! She could hear everything said, and yet it was in another language, and seemed as if they were mumbling over gibberish, like a couple of children for their own amus.e.m.e.nt, except that the chief most of the time acted as though he was angry at the white man, who looked so pleasant and kind that she was sure he must have a little girl at home.
But strange, novel and exciting as all this seemed, it soon became monotonous to her. Unable to learn of its meaning, she became drowsy, and, leaning over and laying her head on the log beside her, she closed her eyes in slumber.
Thus matters stood when the missionary said:
”The white and red children of the Great Spirit, I fear, will always fight each other. The missionary has tried to make them live in peace, but he can do nothing. The Shawanoes have made captive a little girl over whose head only the moons of a pappoose have pa.s.sed. A few hours ago the pale-faces made captive the great chieftain Wa-on-mon, but the white hunter let him go free.”
The Panther was about to interrupt angrily, when the missionary continued, with the same calm evenness of voice:
”The white hunter did not set Wa-on-mon free because he loved him, but rather because he hated him. He wished to meet him in combat; but when he went to the place where Wa-on-mon promised to meet him, the chieftain was not there. The great Wa-on-mon was not afraid of the white man; therefore, he must have made a mistake and gone elsewhere.”
”Wa-on-mon made haste to meet his warriors, that he might lead them against the pale-faces and slay them all.”
”He lost more braves than did the pale-faces, but the white hunter must not think the mighty Wa-on-mon is afraid of him.”
The remark was as near an untruth as the conscience of the good man would permit him to go. No one, not even Simon Kenton, suspected The Panther was afraid to meet any white man that lived in a personal encounter. But the statement hit the chieftain in the most sensitive spot.
”Does the white hunter think Wa-on-mon is afraid to meet him in the depths of the wood, where no eye but that of the Great Spirit shall see them?”
”How can he help thinking so when Wa-on-mon agrees to meet him, and the white hunter goes to the spot, and waits for Wa-on-mon, who does not come?”
”But Wa-on-mon has told the missionary the reason,” said The Panther, with a threatening movement and flash of his eyes.
”Wa-on-mon has not told the white hunter,” returned the unruffled Finley.
”The missionary can tell him.”
”And he will do so, but what shall he tell the white hunter when he asks whether Wa-on-mon will meet him again and prove he is not afraid?”
”Tell the white hunter that Wa-on-mon will meet him!” exclaimed The Panther, with a concentrated fury of voice and manner surpa.s.sing that which he had yet shown. He placed his hand threateningly upon his knife, as though in his wrath he would bury it in the body of the good man as a means of relief for the cyclone of hate that was aroused by his words.
It was the precise point for which Missionary Finley had been playing.
The preliminary conversation had been aimed to bring The Panther to see that the only way he could save himself from the charge of cowardice was by meeting Kenton in mortal combat. Such an issue, in which one of the contestants must fall, was extremely distasteful to the man of peace.
There could be only one combination of circ.u.mstances that would justify, in his judgment, that supreme test; that combination now existed.