Part 33 (1/2)
”What are the wishes of my brother, the mighty Wa-on-mon?”
”She opens her eyes; she has awakened!”
He pointed to the little captive, who just then looked around, with a bewildered air, sat up and rubbed her eyes.
”Where is papa? where is mamma?” she asked, looking from one to the other, and at a loss to comprehend her situation and her surroundings.
”Take the captive,” said The Panther. ”No harm shall come to her and my brother until after they meet their friends.”
It was fair notice that the remarkable truce ended at the moment of the arrival of the missionary and the child among their people.
Again Finley displayed his tact by asking no questions of Wa-on-mon. Nor did he essay to thank him for his unexpected clemency. He did not so much as speak to or look at him.
”Come, my child,” he said tenderly, extending his hand to Mabel, ”I am going to take you to papa and mamma.”
”Oh, I am so glad!” exclaimed the happy one, slipping her hand into the palm of the missionary.
The warriors standing around and seeing all this must have had their share, too, of strange emotions, for the experience was without a parallel with them.
Had the chieftain been any one except The Panther, something in the nature of a revolt would have been probable; but no one dared gainsay that fearful leader, who, like Philip, chief of the Wampanoags, had mortally smitten the warrior that dared to suggest an opposite policy to that already determined by the sachem.
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE MISSIONARY'S TRIUMPH.]
There were looks, but nothing more, as the man, holding the hand of the child, walked out of the camp, without any appearance of haste or fright, and disappeared among the trees.
With a heart swelling with grat.i.tude to G.o.d for the wonderful outcome of the strange complication, the good man picked his way through the forest, still holding the trusting hand within his own, and comforting her by promises that she should soon see her father and mother and brother, who were awaiting her coming on the other side of the river.
Like every other member of the company, she was a-hungered, but there could be no guarantee that she, like them, would not have to remain so for hours to come.
When the missionary reached the river side, to recross in his canoe, he found Kenton awaiting him, paddle in hand. The two men smiled significantly as their eyes met. They silently grasped hands, and then adjusting themselves in the boat, with Mabel between them, pushed for the other sh.o.r.e.
And as the graceful craft skimmed the smooth surface of the Ohio on that beautiful summer morning, a hundred years ago, the ranger told his story of his encounter with Wa-on-mon, chief of the Shawanoes.
”It took the varmint some time to know what I meant, when I said he could go; he wouldn't take the life I offered him at first, but said it belonged to me, and not to him. That bein' so,” added Kenton, with a grin, ”I told him as how I could do as I chose with it, as I throwed it from me.”
”It was a surprise to him, indeed,” remarked Finley.
”Wal, I should say powerful somewhat. When he made up his mind at last that bein' as I wasn't going to send him under, he might as well take what I give him, he done it.”
”Did he say anything?”
”Not a word; I thought maybe he'd pick up his knife ag'in, but he done nothin' of the kind; he didn't even look to where it had fallen when I knocked it out of his hand, but walked off in the woods, and that was the last of him. Parson,” said the scout, with a grave expression, looking him calmly in the face, ”I want to ask you a question.”
”Why, Simon, my good man, you may ask me anything you choose.”
”Where was you when The Panther and me was having our little argyment?”
”I went directly back to the Shawanoe camp and stayed there till he returned with word that I might depart with Mabel.”
”Sure you wasn't nowhere near us?”
”No nearer than what I have just told you.”