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CHAPTER XXV
BEFORE THE ATTACK

After leaving the tent, the two Chiefs walked for some moments side by side, and did not exchange a word; both seemed plunged in deep thought, doubtlessly caused by the serious events that were preparing – events whose success would decide the fate of the Indian tribes of this part of the continent. While walking along, they reached a point on the hillock, whence a most extensive view could be enjoyed in every direction.

The night was calm and balmy, there was not a breath in the air, not a cloud on the sky, whose deep azure was enamelled with a profusion of twinkling stars; an imposing silence reigned over this desert, where, however, several thousand men were ambushed, only waiting a word or a signal to out each other's throats. Mechanically the two men stopped, and gazed at the grand landscape extended at their feet, in the immediate foreground of which frowned Fort Mackenzie, throwing its gloomy shadow far across the prairie.

"By sunrise," Natah Otann muttered, answering his own thoughts, rather than addressing his companion, "that haughty fortress will be mine. The Redskins will command at the spot where their oppressors are still reigning."

"Yes," White Buffalo repeated, mechanically, "tomorrow you will be master of the fort, but will you manage to keep it? Conquering is nothing; the white men have been several times defeated by the Redskins, and yet they have enslaved, decimated, and dispersed them like the leaves the autumn breeze bears away."

"That is only too true," the Chief said, with a sigh; "it has ever been so, since the first day the white men set foot in this unhappy land. What is the mysterious influence that has constantly predicted them against us?"

"Yourselves, my child," White Buffalo said, mournfully shaking his head; "you are your own greatest enemies. You can only impute to yourselves your continued defeats, for you are so obstinate for internecine warfare; the whites have taken care to foster strongly your headstrong passions, by which they have skilfully profited to conquer you in detail."

"Yes, you have told me that often, my father, so you see I have profited by your advice; all the Missouri Indians are now united, they obey the same chief, and march under one totem; thus, believe me, this union will be fertile in good results, we shall drive these plundering wolves from our frontiers, we shall send them back to the villages of stone; and henceforth only the moccasin of the Redskins will tread our native prairies, and the echoes will only be aroused by the joyous laughter of the Redskins, or repeat the war cry of the Blackfeet."

"No one will be happier than I at such a result; my most ardent desire is to see men free, from whom I have received such paternal hospitality; but, alas, who can foresee the future? These Sachems, whom you have succeeded in combining by attention and patience, are agitating darkly; they fear to obey you; they are jealous of the power themselves gave you, so there is a chance they will abandon you."

"I will not; give them the time, my father; for the last few days I have known all their designs, and followed their plans; up to the present, prudence has closed my mouth. I did not wish to risk the success of my enterprise; but so soon as I am master of this fortress below us, believe me, I shall speak loudly, for my voice will have exercised an authority, my power a strength, which the most turbulent will be compelled to recognize. Victory will render me great and terrible: will trample under foot those who now conspire in the darkness, and who would not hesitate to turn against me, if I experienced a defeat. Go, my father, let all be ready for the attack so soon as I give the signal, visit the outposts, watch the movements of the enemy, for in two hours I shall utter my war cry."

White Buffalo regarded him for a moment with a singular expression, in which friendship, fear, and admiration struggled in turn; then laying his hand on his shoulder he said, with much emotion, —

"Child, you are mad; but it is a sublime madness: the work of reformation you meditate is impossible – but, whether you triumph or succumb, your attempt will not be useless. Your passage on earth will leave a long, luminous trace, which may one day serve as a beacon to those who succeed in accomplishing the liberation of your race."

After a few seconds of silence, more eloquent than vain words, the two men fell into each other's arms, and held each other in a firm embrace; they then separated, and Natah Otann remained alone.

The young Chief did not conceal from himself in any way the difficulties of his position. He recognized the justice of his adopted father's observations; but now it was too late to recoil, he must push onward at all risks. Now that the moment had arrived to descend into the arena, all hesitation had ceased, all fear had died out in the young Chief's bosom, to give way to a cold and invincible resolution, that imparted to him the lucidity of mind required to play skilfully the great part on which the fate of his race would depend.

When White Buffalo left him alone, Natah Otann sat down on a rock, and, resting his head on his hand, fixed his eyes on the place, and fell into a serious contemplation. For a long time he had been dreaming, with a vague consciousness of external objects, when a hand was gently laid on his shoulder. The Chief quivered, as if he had received an electric shock, and quickly raised his head.

"Ochtl?" he said, with an emotion he could not master. "Prairie-Flower here at this hour?"

The young girl smiled sweetly.

"Why is my brother astonished?" she replied, in her gentle and melodious voice; "does not the Chief know that Prairie-Flower loves to wander about at night, when nature is slumbering, and the voice of the Great Spirit can be more easily heard? We girls love to dream at night, by the melancholy light that comes from the stars, and seems to give reality to our thoughts, at times, in the mist."

The Chief sighed in reply.

"You are suffering?" Prairie-Flower asked him, gently; "You, the first Sachem of our nation, the most renowned warrior of our tribes – what reason can be powerful enough to draw a sigh from you?"

The Chief seised the dainty hand the girl yielded to him, and pressed it gently between his own.

"Prairie-Flower," he said at length, "you are ignorant why I suffer when I am by your side?"

"How should I know it? Although my brothers call me the Virgin of Sweet Love, and suppose me to be in relation with the spirits of air and water, alas! I am only an ignorant young girl. I should like to know the cause of your grief; perhaps I could succeed in curing you."

"No," the Chief answered, shaking his head, "it is not in your power, child; to do that the beating of your heart ought to respond to mine, and the little bird, which sings so melodiously in the hearts of maidens, and murmurs such gentle words in their ears, should have flown near you."

The girl blushed and smiled; she let her eyes fall, and, making an effort to disengage her hand, which Natah Otann still held in his, —

"The little bird, of which my brother speaks, I have seen: its song has already been chanted near me."

The Chief sprung up, and fixed a flashing glance on the maiden.

"What!" he exclaimed, with agitation, "you love? Has one of the young warriors of our tribe known how to touch your heart, and fill it with love?"

Prairie-Flower shook her charming head petulantly, while a sweet smile parted her coral lips.

"I know not if what I experience is what you call love," she said.

Natah Otann had, by a painful effort, checked the emotion which made his limbs tremble.

"Why should it not be so?" he continued, thoughtfully. "The laws of nature are immutable, no one can prevent it; the child's hour was destined to arrive. By what right can I quarrel with what has happened? Have I not in my heart a sacred feeling, which fills it, and before which every other must be extinguished? A man in my position is too far above vulgar passions; the object he proposes to himself is too great for him to allow himself to be ruled by love of a woman. The man who lays claim to become the saviour and regenerator of a people, no longer belongs to humanity. Let me be worthy of the task I have taken on myself, and forget, if possible, the mad and hopeless passion that devours me. That girl can never be mine; everything separates us. I will be to her what I ought never to have ceased to be – a father."

He let his head hang despairingly on his chest, and remained for a few moments absorbed in gloomy meditation. Prairie-Flower regarded him with an expression of tender pity; she had only imperfectly caught the words the Chief muttered, and understood but little of them. Still she felt a deep friendship for him; she suffered in seeing him, and sought vainly some consolation to afford. She waited anxiously till he should remember her presence, and speak to her again. At length he raised his head.

"My sister has not told me which of our young warriors she prefers to all the rest."

"Has not the Sachem guessed it?" she asked, timidly.

"Natah Otann is a chief. If he is the father of his warriors, he is no spy on their deeds or thoughts."

"The man of whom I speak to my brother is not a Kenha warrior," she continued.

"Ah!" he said in surprise, and looking scrutinizingly at her, "Can it be one of the Palefaces who are Natah Otann's guests?"

"My brother would say his prisoners," she murmured.

"What mean these words, girl? Have you, born but yesterday, any right to try and explain my actions? Ah!" he added, with a frown, "now I understand how the Palefaced Chiefs had weapons when I visited them an hour ago. It is useless for my daughter to tell me now the name of him she loves, for I know it."

The girl hung her head, with a blush.

"Achtsett– it is good," he continued, in a rough voice, "my sister is free to place her affections where she pleases; but her love must not lead her to betray her friends for the Palefaces. She is a daughter of the Kenhas. Was it to give me this news that Prairie-Flower came to me?"

"No," she answered timidly; "another person ordered me to come here, where she will also come herself, as she has an important secret to reveal to me in the presence of the Sachem."

"An important secret?" Natah Otann repeated. "What do you mean? Of what woman is my sister speaking?"

"I am speaking of her who is called the She-wolf of the prairies; she has ever been gentle, good, and affectionate to me, in spite of the hatred she bears to the Indians."

"That is strange," the Chief muttered. "So you are waiting for her?"

"I am."

"But that woman is mad," the Chief exclaimed. "Do you not know it, my poor child?"

"Those whom the Great Spirit wishes to protect he deprives of reason, that they may not feel grief," she replied, softly.

For some minutes an almost imperceptible rustling had been going on in the bushes; this sound, though so slight, the Chiefs practised ear would have detected, had he not been entirely absorbed by his conversation with the girl. All at once the branches were violently torn asunder; several men, led by the She-wolf of the prairies, rushed toward the Chief, and, before he had recovered from the surprise caused by this sudden attack, he was thrown down, and securely pinioned.

"The mad woman!" he exclaimed.

"Yes, yes, the mad woman," she repeated, in a hoarse voice. "At length I hold my vengeance! Thanks," she added, addressing the three men who accompanied her; "I will now take his guard on myself, he shall not escape."

The men withdrew without replying. Although they wore the Indian dress, a panther skin drawn over their faces rendered them perfectly secure from detection. Only three persons remained on the top of the hill – Prairie-Flower, Margaret, and Natah Otann, who tried to break his bonds, while uttering hoarse and inarticulate sounds. The She-wolf surveyed her enemy, prostrated at her feet, with a joy impossible to describe, while Prairie-Flower, standing motionless by the Chief, gazed on him sorrowfully and thoughtfully.

"Yes," the She-wolf said, with a glance of satiated vengeance, "howl, panther; bend the bonds you cannot break. I hold you at last; it is my turn to torture you, to repay you all the suffering you lavished on me. Oh! I can never be sufficiently avenged on you, the assassin of my whole family. God is just: tooth for tooth, eye for eye, wretch!"

She picked up a dagger that had fallen on the ground near her, and began to prick him all over.

"Answer me – do you not feel the cold steel piercing your flesh?" she asked him. "Oh! I should like to make you suffer death a thousand times, were it possible."

A smile of contempt played over the Chief's lips. The She-wolf, exasperated, raised the dagger to strike him; but Prairie-Flower held her arm. Margaret turned like a tiger; but, recognizing the girl, she let the weapon fall from her trembling hand, and her face assumed an expression of infinite gentleness and tenderness.

"You here?" she exclaimed. "Then you did not forget the meeting I arranged with you? It is Heaven that sends you!"

"Yes," the young girl replied, "the Great Spirit sees all. My mother is good; Prairie-Flower loves her. Why thus torture the man who acted as father to the abandoned child? The Chief has ever been kind to Prairie-Flower; my mother will pardon him."

Margaret gazed at the girl with an expression of mad stupor; then her features were suddenly distorted, and she burst into a strident laugh.

"What!" she exclaimed, in a piercing voice, "you, Prairie-Flower, intercede for this man?"

"He was a father to Prairie-Flower," the girl answered, simply.

"But you do not know him then?"

"He has been kind to me."

"Silence, child! do not implore the She-wolf," the Chief said, in a gloomy voice. "Natah Otann is a warrior; he knows how to die."

"No, the Chief must not die," the Indian girl said, resolutely.

Natah Otann laughed.

"It is I who am avenged," he said.

"Dog!" the She-wolf yelled, stamping her heel on his face, "silence! or I will tear out your viper's tongue."

The Indian smiled with contempt.

"My mother will follow me," the girl said: "I will unfasten the Chief, in order that he may rejoin his warriors, who are about to fight."

She picked up the dagger, and knelt down near the prisoner; but the She-wolf checked her.

"Before cutting his bonds, listen to me, child," she said.

"Afterwards," the girl objected. "A Chief must be with his warriors in battle."

"Listen to me for a few minutes," She-wolf continued, earnestly; "I implore it of you, Prairie-Flower, by all I may have done for you; then, when I have ceased speaking, if you still wish it, you shall deliver that man. I swear to you that I will not prevent it."

The girl looked at her fixedly.

"Speak," she said, in her gentle and sympathizing voice. "Prairie-Flower is listening."

A sigh of relief escaped from the She-wolf's oppressed chest. There was a moment's silence: nothing could be heard, save the panting of the prisoner.

"You are right, girl," the She-wolf at length said, in a mournful voice, "that man took care of your infancy, was kind to you, and brought you up tenderly; you see that I do him justice! But he never told you how you fell into his hands."

"Never," the maiden said, in a melancholy voice.

"Well," the She-wolf continued, "that secret, which he has not dared to reveal to you, I will tell you. On just such a night as this, at the head of his ferocious warriors, the man you call your father attacked your real father, and while your two brothers, by that monster's orders, were burned alive, your father fastened to a tree, and there was flayed alive."

"Horror!" the young girl shrieked, as she sprang up.

"And if you do not believe me," she continued, in a shrill voice, "tear from your neck that bag made of your unhappy father's skin, and you will find in it all that remains of him."

With a feverish movement the young girl drew out the bag, which she squeezed convulsively.

"Oh!" she exclaimed, "no! no! it is impossible; such atrocities could not be committed."

Suddenly her tears ceased, she looked fixedly at the She-wolf, and said, in a harsh voice —

"How do you know all this? The man who told it you lied."

"I was present," the She-wolf said, coldly,

"You were present? You witnessed this horrible scene?"

"Yes, I did."

"Why?" she asked, madly. "Answer, why?

"Why?" she said, with an accent of supreme majesty; "because I am your mother, child."

At this unexpected revelation the girl's features were convulsed, her voice failed her, her eyes seemed ready to start from their sockets, her body was agitated by a convulsive tremor; for an instant she tried to utter a shriek, but then suddenly broke into sobs, and fell into Margaret's arms, exclaiming, with a piercing accent, —

"My mother! My mother!"

"At last," the She-wolf said, deliriously, "I have found you again, and you are really mine."

For some moments mother and daughter, yielding to their tenderness, forgot the whole world. Natah Otann tried to profit by the opportunity, and seize the chance of safety which accident offered him. He noiselessly began rolling over to gain the top of the enclosure; but the young girl suddenly noticed him, and sprang up as if a serpent had stung her.

"Stop, Natah Otann!" she said to him.

The chief remained motionless: he imagined, from the girl's accent, that he was lost, and he resigned himself to his fate with that fatalism which forms the base of the Indian character.

Still he was mistaken.

Prairie-Flower, with burning eyes and pallid brow, turned a haggard glance from her mother on the man extended at her feet, asking her heart if she had a right, after all the kindness he had shown her, to avenge her father's death upon him. She felt that her arm was too weak, her heart too tender for such a deed. For several seconds the three actors of this terrible scene remained plunged in a gloomy silence, which was only interrupted by the dull and mysterious noises of the night.

Natah Otann did not fear death; but he trembled at leaving uncompleted the glorious task he had taken on himself; he was ashamed at having fallen into so clumsy a snare, set by a half insane woman. With his head stretched out, and frowning brow, he anxiously read on the girl's face the feelings in turn reflected on it as in a mirror, in order to calculate the chances of saving a life so precious to those he wished to render free. Though resigned to his fate, like all great men, he did not despair, but struggled to the last moment. Prairie-Flower at length raised her head; her lovely face had assumed a strange expression her brow glistened, her gentle blue eyes seemed to flash forth flames.

"Mother," she said, in her melodious voice, "give me those pistols you have in your hand."

"What will you do with them?" the She-wolf asked.

"Avenge my father! Was it not for that you summoned me here?"

Without replying, the She-wolf gave her the weapons. The girl, at first, threatened Natah Otann, and then, with a gesture as rapid as thought, threw them down the hill.

"Unhappy girl," Margaret yelled, "what have you done?"

"I avenge my father," she answered, with an accent of supreme dignity.

"Unhappy child, he is the assassin of your father."

"I know it; you have told me so. This man, in spite of his crimes, has been kind to me – he watched over my childhood. Although he obeyed the feeling of hatred his race entertains for the Palefaces by murdering my father, he took his place with me as far as was possible, and almost changed his Indian nature to protect and support me. The Great Spirit will judge us, He whose eye is eternally fixed on earth."

"Woe is me! Woe is me!" the She-wolf yelled, wringing her hands in despair.

The girl bent over the Chief, and cut the bonds that fettered him. Natah Otann sprang to his feet with the bound of a jaguar. The She-wolf made a movement, as if to rush upon him, but she checked herself.

"All is not over yet," she shrieked, "yes! yes! I will have my revenge, no matter at what cost."

And she rushed into the thicket, where she disappeared.

"Natah Otann," the maiden continued, turning to the Chief, who stood by her side, calmly and stoically, as if nothing extraordinary had happened; "I leave vengeance to the Great Spirit – a woman can only weep. Farewell! I loved you as that father you deprived me of. I do not feel the strength to hate you, I will try to forget you."

"Poor child," the Sachem replied, with much emotion; "I must appear to you very culpable. Alas! it is only today that I understand the atrocity of the deed of which I allowed myself to be guilty: perhaps, I may succeed one day in obtaining your pardon."

Prairie-Flower smiled sorrowfully.

"Your pardon does not depend from me," she said, "Wacondah alone can absolve you."

And, after giving him a parting glance of sadness, she withdrew slowly, and thoughtfully entered the wood.

Natah Otann looked after her for a long while.

"Can the Christians be right?" he muttered, when done; "do angels really exist?"

He shook his head several times, and, after attentively looking at the sky, in which the stars were beginning to shine, —

"The hour has arrived," he said, hoarsely; "shall I be the victor?"