12 A Bargain Made

The firelight flickered and fell upon the face of the chief. He sat unmoved, his bronze features expressing a gravity that became one of his port and place, and naught else. I thought him a splendid type of savage man, massive and strong, the complete master of himself.

The coals smouldered and died down a little, making but a tiny point of fire in the forest, which stretched away in endless miles. The lodges of the Indian village were still dusky behind us, in the shadows of the trees, but the east was rosy with the rising sun.

Winchester and I, knowing the customs of this race, were silent too, gazing into the coals rather than at the face of the chief, and affecting indifference. Hoyoquim presently took his tomahawk from his belt and held it thoughtfully by the handle between his thumb and fore finger. It was a curious and beautiful weapon, the blade small and highly polished, and the head scooped out like a pipe. The handle was of white horn, hollow, and carved in fantastic designs. Winchester’s eyes met mine for a moment, and then passed on. But I understood his look. He believed that the chief would consent to our request.

Black Eagle, as Hoyoquim was called by most of our people, took a small piece of tobacco from the deerskin pouch at his belt, put it in the hollow head of the tomahawk, and placed on top of it one of the red coals. He drew two or three whiffs of smoke through the slender horn handle, then passed the pipe of peace to me, and it seemed especially fit that on this occasion the same pipe should have been the moment before the weapon of war. I, too, took the stem in my mouth, and having drawn the smoke, handed it in turn to Winchester, who, his duty performed, returned it to the chief.

Black Eagle let the fire and tobacco drop out of his tomahawk, and thrust the weapon back into his belt. Then he said to me:

“You are a man.”

“It is my belief,” I replied with a little pride. I trusted that I had borne myself well in my ten years’ life in the wilderness, and the thought was not unpleasant.

“You are a man,” he continued with the utmost gravity, “and so am I. Who should know this better than Hoyoquim and Lee?”

We sat face to face, old enemies who had sought each other’s life more than once. I was completely in his power, but I had put myself there by my own choice, and I never doubted that he would keep faith. The group of warriors ten yards away were silent and solemn, apparently gazing with the deepest interest at vacancy, but I knew that no movement of ours escaped them. Around us curved the mighty forest, a wilderness that I liked and of which I had yet a certain fear at times, despite ten years of use and habit. Its depths and its immensity now and then oppressed me.

I was anxious to be at the business in hand, but I knew better than to hurry. I glanced again at Winchester. He was as grave as the chief, the early sunshine falling across his ruddy cheeks, his blue eyes calm and untroubled. I thanked him once more in my heart for his service to me in the affair, and swore silently that some day he should have repayment.

“Is the captive, the girl whom he took in Kentucky, unharmed in the lodge of Black Eagle?” I asked at last, and unconsciously I bent forward to hear his answer. I saw the pink in Winchester’s cheeks deepen, and his gaze rested directly upon the chief. But there was no expression upon the carven bronze of Black Eagle’s face.

“The captive is as she was when she was taken in the far land of Kain-tuck-ee,” he replied.

I breathed silent thanks. I remembered even then the pale face and agony of that mother in Kentucky, to whose entreaties I had said that I would bring back her daughter, should it be within my power.

“I would buy her from you for her own people,” I said.

“What does Lee offer?” asked the chief, after another long silence.

“One hundred coins like this, to be paid into the hands of the friend of us both, the English trader,” I replied.

I held up a golden guinea fresh from the mint of King George III. The sun glittered across it, and I saw a faint reflection of the gleam in the chiefs eyes—the savages had begun to learn the value of gold; where does it not go?—but he shook his head.

I was surprised, and, let me confess it, a trifle bewildered, too. One hundred guineas on the frontier, where money was so scarce, was a great ransom, and I had not expected a refusal. But I kept my countenance.

“Does Black Eagle choose well,” I asked, after another long silence. “One hundred golden coins like this I hold between my fingers will buy many muskets and much powder and ball at the British post.”

“The muskets of the English are good,” he replied, “but the rifles of the Long Knives are better.”

My glance turned to my own favourite rifle lying in the hollow of my arm, a piece with a long, slender barrel of blue steel and a carved stock, a rifle at once light, beautiful, and unerring. I knew that there was pride in my eye as I looked upon the weapon which had served its master so often and so well. Then I held it up that the gaze of the chief might fall directly upon it.

“If you will give me the girl,” I said, “you shall have thirty rifles of a pattern like mine. How good this is you and your warriors should know.”

It was a desperate throw to make such an offer, being held as treason among us to furnish rifles to the savages on any pretext; but I knew not what else to do, and at the moment I saw once more the face of that mother in far Kentucky. I felt that the deed would find forgiveness.

The eyes of the chief glistened for the first time as he looked at the rifle and heard my words, but it was a brief emotion. I beheld the next instant only the bronze of his face and the inscrutable black of his eyes.

“Hoyoquim would like the rifles,” he replied, “but he will like the white girl better.”

I glanced at Winchester and I saw his face fall. It was clear to me that he now regarded the case as hopeless. But I would not give up.

“Why does the chief wish to keep the white captive,” I asked, though well I knew.

“She shall be a light in the lodge of Hoyoquim,” he replied.

“Hoyoquim has wives of his own nation; why does he seek one of another race?”

“The white prisoner is fairer than the red maidens,” he replied.

I saw Winchester shudder. He had told me more than once of a girl waiting for him in England, and I fancied that his imagination now put her in the place of the Kentucky captive. Well might he shudder, and well may you, who learn at what a price this land of ours was won.

I paused again and for a longer time than ever. I knew naught to say nor which way to turn. And yet that pale face in Kentucky forbade me to go with empty hands. It was Black Eagle himself who ended the silence.

“Lee is a hunter and a warrior,” he said, “a man worthy to be the enemy of a great chief. Were he Hoyoquim he would do as Hoyoquim will do. The white captive would shine like the sun in the lodge of the mightiest chief. She is beyond price. He shall see for himself.”

He rose and waved his hand to the group of warriors, two of whom approached. The chief spoke to them in the Wyandot tongue, and they walked toward a lodge of large size that I had noticed near the centre of the village. When they returned they brought Rose Carew with them.

I see now the light that leaped into her eyes when, raising them from the ground, she beheld Winchester and me. A great wave of delight and surprise flowed over her face, and I too felt joy because I was there to behold it. Perhaps she had never expected to look upon a white face again.

“You have come to save me?” she exclaimed, and her tone was imploring.

“We shall save you, Miss Carew, do not fear,” I replied, deeply moved by the appeal in her voice. (I asked God to forgive me for the lie. Even as I spoke there was faint hope—in truth, none at all—in my heart that we might rescue her, but how else could I answer the question in that young face?) But I saw her raise her head and look proud defiance at the savages.

She stood there, the beams of the brilliant morning sun falling full upon her figure, her hair flowing in loose waves down her back, her dress torn by the bushes and brambles of her long journey. I felt, gazing upon her, that Black Eagle had told the truth when he said she was beyond price, and as I caught the look then in his eyes I could have killed him, his guest though I was. But I said to him in even tones, speaking his own language:

“The words of Hoyoquim are the words of wisdom; the maid is in truth beyond price—beyond any price that was ever before paid for a captive. But I will give for her one hundred rifles, such a reward as no chief, however great, has yet received.”

“You behold her,” replied the chief, “and you know if you were Hoyoquim you would, like Hoyoquim, refuse all ransom.”

I shook my head, but at the bottom of my heart I was sure that he spoke the truth. Man is wild and evil where the law runs not, and the mercy of Black Eagle was but the mercy of his kind.

“What does he say?” asked Miss Carew, looking at me with the infinite trust that I deserved so ill.

“It is about the ransom,” I replied, again saying the thing that was not, without scruple. “He asks a high price.”

“Tell him,” she said, “that my family is rich. They will pay him what he asks, however great it may be.”

I met Winchester’s gaze once more, and my eyes fell before his. He, too, was awaiting the answer to the girl’s question.

“I shall neglect nothing, Miss Carew,” I said, bowing to her with deep respect.

“And you will take me to my home?”

“I will take you to your home,” I continued, repeating the words mechanically. ’

I would have avoided her look then, but I could not, and again my soul grew sick. And yet her gaze held me, it was so full of faith, of an absolute faith in me, of an unspoken belief that I would do what I was promising to do, when I had no power to keep even the smallest of my pledges. Black Eagle understood all that we said. English was not a strange tongue to him, but his face was still unspeaking bronze. The girl turned with simple dignity to Winchester.

“And I have you, too, to thank for my rescue,” she said.

“Yes,” I interrupted. “Mr. Winchester opened the way that I might come here for you.”

She told him her gratitude in fit words, but he did not reply, bending down his face, which suddenly had gone pale. The chief spoke again to the attendant warriors, motioning at the same time to the girl to go with them. She made no resistance, but she addressed me once more before returning to the lodge.

“In good truth I might have guessed that it was such a man who would come for me,” she said.

I had some pride in my wilderness skill and the reputation that I, in the beginning a man of another kind, had won among the wild borderers, but now it was like the turning of a knife in a fresh wound.

“You will not fail me,” she said, the smile of faith overspreading her face.

“I will not fail you,” I forced myself to reply, cursing John Lee for the weak liar that I knew he was. Then she was gone, and I was glad that my eyes no more beheld her.

“She does not doubt your promise,” said Winchester. I knew that he did not mean to taunt me, the words being involuntary, but they added to the bitterness of my mood. There was even a moment when I felt regret ever to have come upon such a mission.

Black Eagle did not stir, and the silence among us was very long. It was again the chief who at last broke it.

“Lee is troubled or his face does not tell truly the words of his heart,” he said, although, with a delicate politeness which perhaps I did not appreciate, he never looked toward me.

“It is true, Black Eagle,” I replied. “I have promised the maid that I will take her back to her people, and I can not do it. If a great chief were to make a pledge and find himself unable to keep it, would not his heart be heavy?”

He nodded assent, and then for the first time let his eyes fall upon me. I thought I saw pity there, and I flushed with a slight feeling of shame that a savage should so regard me.

“You have seen the maid,” he said presently, “and you know that neither gold nor rifles are fit to buy her. But there is yet another way, with a price so high that few have ever paid it. I have known none who did so, but it is said that in the ancient and greater days of our race men have been found who were willing.”

Curiosity flamed up in my mind, and I tried to divine his meaning, but the bronze repose of his face was unbroken and I could read nothing there. Winchester, too, leaned forward with a sudden increase of interest.

“Speak on, Hoyoquim,” I said, adopting his sententious manner. “We listen.”

“The chief would refuse all the offers that the hunter could make, except one,” said he.

“And that?”

“Yourself.”

“Myself!” I cried in amazement.

The cold eyes of the chief glittered.

“Will you become my prisoner in place of the girl?” he said. “Will you give yourself, my great enemy, for her? You have told her that you will send her back to Kain-tuck-ee. A true warrior never lies. How can you keep your promise? Think what it is for Hoyoquim to give up the one who would become the light of his lodge, the captive taken in honourable battle. There is none save Lee for whom he would give her.”

Now, I am like other men. I appreciate a decent bit of flattery, but I make the small demand that it be spoken at the right time; moreover, Hoyoquim’s proposition was so sudden that I scarce knew how to take it.

“And after the exchange is made?” I asked, speaking upon the spur of the moment.

“Lee shall have a death worthy of a brave man and a great warrior,” replied the chief impressively. “There is no torture which he shall not show himself able to endure. When the fire is rising around him and the women of our tribe thrust blazing splinters into his flesh, he shall laugh at them, and calmly sing his death song. When the men taunt him and tell him that he will never see his home again, he shall smile upon them, and over his ashes the Black Eagle and his warriors will say, ‘He was a great white chief in death as well as in life, the bravest foe that we have ever known.’”

The look upon my face must have been most rueful. Had Hoyoquim been a white man I should have called his speech irony, but I understood the Indian character, and I knew that he meant to pay me the highest compliment that could enter his mind. I glanced again at Winchester, and I caught a strange expression in his eye. He seemed to say, “Would you—would you dare?” and then the thought came to me—Would I, could I?

I believe it was the questioning look of Winchester that troubled me: it seemed a sort of challenge; without it I should never have permitted such an idea. I reread in an instant the tale of my life as I had lived it so far. I was alone; no father, no mother, no sister, no brother to mourn me—none at all, in truth, save some good comrades of the hunt or the forest battle, and they would quickly find another to take my place. And then, too, that old story would be buried forever. Yet this life was pleasant in spite of-all. I was not thirty, and I felt the blood flushing in a full tide through my veins. I knew the secrets of the wilderness which curved around us, and I could find zest there for thirty, forty, or more years yet.

“It is impossible that you should do this thing,” said Winchester. “But what a fate for the girl!”

He was thinking, I knew, of that other girl in England.

“And why impossible?” I demanded sharply, rising to my feet. I saw then Rose Carew’s face, and another like hers, but older, in distant Kentucky.

He did not answer, but there came back into his eyes the questioning look which was to me a challenge, though far from his intent that it should be such. I hesitated no longer, but turned to the chief.

“Does this forbid escape?” I asked.

“It does not,” he replied. “The same chance that was open to the girl is open to you. If it be the will of Manito that you escape, you shall escape.”

“I am your prisoner, Black Eagle,” I said.

He looked at me gravely for full two minutes, and there was in his eye a momentary gleam that I did not understand. Was it admiration, or pity, or regret? Then he said:

“Lee is a man.”

I turned to Winchester.

“Will you do this thing for me?” I asked. “Will you take the girl to Kentucky, holding her as you would the one you have left in England?”

“As God is my witness!” he replied, and he gave my hand the strong English grasp.

“Don’t tell her anything about it,” I continued. “Say to her that I have gone on a long expedition into the land of the Shawnees, and that you have taken my place. Tell her the ransom was money.”

“I will say to her all that you ask,” he answered, repeating the grasp, and I knew that he would keep his word, if man could.

“I am at your service, chief,” I said to the impassive Black Eagle.

He bowed and led the way to a small hut built of logs. Thus was the bargain made.

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