Robert Michael Ballantyne - The Prairie Chief

“All this comes o’ your desire not to shed human blood, Whitewing,” he muttered. “Well, p’raps you’re right—what would ha’ bin the use o’ killin’ the poor critturs. But it was a tough job!”—saying which, he lifted the Indian on his broad shoulders, and carried him away.

While this fight was thus silently going on, hidden from view of the camp by the hillock, Whitewing crept forward to meet Brighteyes and the two girls, and these, with Lightheart, were eagerly awaiting the trapper. “My brother is strong,” said Whitewing, allowing the faintest possible smile to play for a moment on his usually grave face.

“Your brother is tough,” returned Little Tim, rubbing the back of his head with a rueful look; “an’ he’s bin bumped about an’ tumbled on to that extent that it’s a miracle a whole bone is left in his carcass. But lend a hand, lad; we’ve got no time to waste.”

Taking the young Blackfoot between them, and followed by the silent girls, they soon reached the thicket where the horses had been left. Here they bound their captive securely to a tree, and gave him a drink of water with a knife pointed at his heart to keep him quiet, after which they re-gagged him. Then Whitewing led Lightheart through the thicket towards his horse, and took her up behind him. Little Tim took charge of Brighteyes. The young sister and the bosom friend mounted the third horse, and thus paired, they all galloped away.

But the work that our young chief had cut out for himself that night was only half accomplished. On reaching the rendezvous which he had appointed, he found the braves of his tribe impatiently awaiting him.

“My father sees that we have been successful,” he said to Bald Eagle, who had been unable to resist the desire to ride out to the rendezvous with the fighting men. “The great Manitou has given us the victory thus far, as the white preacher said he would.”

“My son is right. Whitewing will be a great warrior when Bald Eagle is in the grave. Go and conquer; I will return to camp with the women.”

Thus relieved of his charge, Whitewing, who, however, had little desire to achieve the fame prophesied for him, proceeded to fulfil the prophecy to some extent. He divided his force into four bands, with which he galloped off towards the Blackfoot camp. On nearing it, he so arranged that they should attack the camp simultaneously at four opposite points. Little Tim commanded one of the bands, and he resolved in his own mind that his band should be the last to fall on the foe.

“Bloodshed may be avoided,” he muttered to himself; “an’ I hope it will, as Whitewing is so anxious about it. Anyhow, I’ll do my best to please him.”

Accordingly, on reaching his allotted position, Tim halted his men, and bided his time.

The moon still shone over prairie and hill, and not a breath of air stirred blade or leaf. All in nature was peace, save in the hearts of savage man. The Blackfoot camp was buried in slumber. Only the sentinels were on the alert. Suddenly one of these—like the war-horse, who is said to scent the battle from afar—pricked his ears, distended his nostrils, and listened. A low, muffled, thunderous sort of pattering on the plain in front. It might be a herd of buffaloes. The sentinel stood transfixed. The humps of buffaloes are large, but they do not usually attain to the size of men! The sentinel clapped his hand to his mouth, and gave vent to a yell which sent the blood spirting through the veins of all, and froze the very marrow in the bones of some! Prompt was the reply and turn-out of the Blackfoot warriors. Well used to war’s alarms, there was no quaking in their bosoms. They were well named “braves.”

But the noise in the camp prevented them from hearing or observing the approach of the enemy on the other side till almost too late. A whoop apprised the chief of the danger. He divided his forces, and lost some of his self-confidence.

“Here comes number three,” muttered Little Tim, as he observed the third band emerge from a hollow on the left.

The Blackfoot chief observed it too, divided his forces again, and lost more of his self-confidence.

None of the three bands had as yet reached the camp, but they all came thundering down on it at the same time, and at the same whirlwind pace.

“Now for number four,” muttered Little Tim. “Come boys, an’ at ’em!” he cried, unconsciously paraphrasing the Duke of Wellington’s Waterloo speech.

At the some time he gave utterance to what he styled a Rocky Mountain trapper’s roar, and dashed forward in advance of his men, who, in trying to imitate the roar, intensified and rather complicated their own yell.

It was the last touch to the Blackfoot chief, who, losing the small remnant of his self-confidence, literally “sloped” into the long grass, and vanished, leaving his men to still further divide themselves, which they did effectually by scattering right and left like small-shot from a blunderbuss.

Great was the terror of the poor captives while this brief but decisive action lasted, for although they knew that the assailants were their friends, they could not be certain of the issue of the combat. Naturally, they crowded round their only male friend, the missionary.

“Do not fear,” he said, in attempting to calm them; “the good Manitou has sent deliverance. We will trust in Him.”

The dispersion of their foes and the arrival of friends almost immediately followed these words. But the friends who arrived were few in number at first, for Whitewing had given strict orders as to the treatment of the enemy. In compliance therewith, his men chased them about the prairie in a state of gasping terror; but no weapon was used, and not a man was killed, though they were scattered beyond the possibility of reunion for at least some days to come.

Before that eventful night was over the victors were far from the scene of victory on their way home.

“It’s not a bad style o’ fightin’,” remarked Little Tim to his friend as they rode away; “lots o’ fun and fuss without much damage. Pity we can’t do all our fightin’ in that fashion.”

“Waugh!” exclaimed Whitewing; but as he never explained what he meant by “waugh,” we must leave it to conjecture. It is probable, however, that he meant assent, for he turned aside in passing to set free the Blackfoot who had been bound to a tree. That red man, having expected death, went off with a lively feeling of surprise, and at top speed, his pace being slightly accelerated by a shot—wide of the mark and at long range—from Little Tim.

Three weeks after these events a number of Indians were baptised by our missionary. Among them were the young chief Whitewing and Lightheart, and these two were immediately afterwards united in marriage. Next day the trapper, with much awkwardness and hesitation, requested the missionary to unite him and Brighteyes. The request was complied with, and thenceforward the white man and the red became more inseparable than ever. They hunted and dwelt together—to the ineffable joy of Whitewing’s wrinkled old mother, whose youth seemed absolutely to revive under the influence of the high-pressure affection brought to bear on a colony of brown and whitey-brown grand-children by whom she was at last surrounded.

The doubts and difficulties of Whitewing were finally cleared away. He not only accepted fully the Gospel for himself, but became anxious to commend it to others as the only real and perfect guide in life and comfort in death. In the prosecution of his plans, he imitated the example of his “white father,” roaming the prairie and the mountains far and wide with his friend the trapper, and even venturing to visit some of the lodges of his old foes the Blackfoot Indians, in his desire to run earnestly, yet with patience, the race that had been set before him—“looking unto Jesus.”