Beadle's Dime Library, No. 13 — page 44: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

| : | ' F ; ' eraser eS Se ae a sO ew eee ee — — + ee ears ow . = > a not go with you to the banks of the Saskatch- ewan, My heart would pine and be desolate, if I were there. Chief, 1 cannot dwell in your lodge.” “The country is pleasant,” said Seven- Plumes, persuasively. “Game is abundant, and the prairies bear many kinds of flowers. In the summer, the sun is very bright; and in the winter, the air is pure and clear, and the furs of the lakes and streams keep cold at a distance.”’ “Birds of a kind only mate together. Seven-Plumes can woo the fairest daughters of his nation, and they will be proud of the at- tentions of so wise a chief.” Seven-Plumes was silent a moment. His voice was melancholy when he spoke again. “Your words fill the heart of the red-man with sorrow,” he said; “but you gave him liberty. and he gives you the same. But this ale girl”—he pointed to Carlota, and his nes were less friendly—*“ shall march to the pEnipe gro noe of the Blackfoot.” “Chief, use your power gently,” remon- strated Madge. “Her skin is not the color of ours, and she will never be happy in your odge.” Carlots glanced earnestly at her fair inter- cessor. “ Flower of the Mountains, talk not to the Blackfoot! Your voice is soft, but it cannot revail: the girl of the Valley goes with me. he way is long, and the bright sun tells Seven-Plumes to depart. There will be many feet on his trail before night; but he cares not, for he has the cunning of the beaver.” “Chief, I assisted you to escape—hear me when I speak for the girl of the Valley,” urged Madge. “This pale woman no friend to you,” an- swered Seven-Plumes. “Her heart very bit- ter, and her eyes dart fire at you. Your way is there”—he pointed as he spoke—* go in ace!” “The dog! the dog!” exclaimed Carlota, stretching Ee hand earnestly toward Ca- lamity. The chief drew his knife from his belt, and tightening his grasp upon her arm, held it to ve breast. “Let the dog come, and the girl of the Val- ley dies |” A stern, fierce light gleamed from the eyes of Seven-Plumes. For a moment, the ta- bleau was striking in the extreme. The grim, threatening figure of the Indian, the firm yet sullen face of Carlota, and the earnest, appre- hensive, and imploring expression of Madge— all conspired to render the scene an uncom- mon one. The dog gazed inquiringly at his mistress. “Be quiet, sir—be quiet!” commanded Madge; and Calamity maintained his neutral position. The young woman glided forward and took the hand of Seven-Plames. “Do not harm her, chief!’ she eried; “ for she acts but in accordance with the nature the Great Spirit has given her. when she refuses to accompany you. Be brave, be generous! and for the good service I have rendered you, give me her freedom. I ask it as a reward!” “The woman of the Valley hates you,” re- lied Seven-Plumes, scanning the features of Mad e with curiosity. “T care not—I care not! I would save her from a fate she so much dreads. Our ways will be different, and she will have no power to do me wrong.” The Indian looked at Carlota, then at Madge; and it was evident that his purpose wavered. “You yield — you yield! I thank you, chief. Carldéta, he gives you freedom |” Carlota did not speak ; her bosom was heav- ing with agitation, and her eyes were down. cust. “The Flower of the Mountains has asked much ; but the chief of the Blackfeet gives it. The girl of the Valley is free; the soft voice ‘ has prevailed.” There was a conflict in the breast of the Indian: his better nature struggling with his baser. “Seven-Plumes will go to his young men with heaviness,” he added; “but he will smooth his face and deceive their eyes, so that they shall not know the Blackfoot has been sad. Go! Seven-Plumes is a warrior.” “ Thanks, brave chief! Your name shall be mentioned with honor among the pale-faces,” answered Madye, with fervor. Seven-Plumes turned on his heel and walked away. Carléta stood a moment irresolute, trem- bling and agitated—then cast herself into the arms of Madge, sobbing. Hot tears coursed down her cheeks. Madge put her arms around her, and held her in a gentle embrace. She was silent’ at first, and allowed the pent-up feelings of the girl to exhaust their violence in weeping. She gradually dried her tears, and disen- gaged herself from the arms of Madge. “ Let us go,” she said, in a low voice. “ Whither ?” Madge asked. “To the Valley. Let us hasten,” Carlota answered, hurriedly. “ No—not there—not there!” eried Madge. “Calm your fears. The Valley shall be to you as all other places; you shall pass theobah it harmless. We must hurry to Nick Whiffles ; he is starving. I am full of remorse!” Madge hesitated no longer; she held out her hand to Carlota, “Heaven be praised! You ne longer hate me!” she said. “ You have nothing to fear from me. But speak not of him. Let the name of Pathaway remain unmentioned between us. Steel, when it is heated, yields to the blows of the ham- mer; but when it hardens, it is unyielding, end returns to its former unimpressibility,” Carlota replied. Eyen as she spoke, shame, disappointment, flushed her ahedk: “T forego vindictiveness and revenge,” she wenton; “but I cannot forget my disappoint- ment. Prudence,” she added, with trembling voice, “admonishes us that there is a point we must not approach.” “ You refer to the gray hunter as if he were much to me and nothing to you. Who knows what emotions the fair and fearless girl of Trapper Valley may have awakened in his breast ?” Madge uttered these words in 4 faltering voice, as if her heart reproached her tongue for words the hollowness of which none real- ized more than she. “No more, girl!” she said, plaintively. “You but deepen the wound you would heal. Disguise it not—attempt it not—you and the hunter in gray have met before, at Red River settlement, or some of the settlements on the Columbia. You will not—you cannot deny it |” Madge was confused—neither denying nor assenting to this. “T see it in your conscious cheeks. Tell me where.” ‘At the mission, near Astoria,” returned Madge, reluctantly. Carléta breathed hard, and pressed her hand eonvulsively to her heart. “T saw him almost daily,” Madge continued, “until the mission was destroyed by wicked and abandoned men. At the time of that ter- rible visitation, he was away. We had parted, as we believed, forever.” “JT comprehend,” said Carlota, quickly. “You differed, doubtless, on religious mat- ters. You believed, perhaps, that you could be the means of converting savages; and, while young and beautiful, had sufficient cour- age and virtue to sever yourself from the great world, to lead a life of privation and useful- ness. He told his love ; and you, exulting in your self-denial, and rapt with visionary dreams, cast the chalice of happiness to the ground. The world had no more to offer him, and he fled to the northern trapping-grounds, hoping in peril and excitement to forget the cause of his unhappiness. Bitterly has your folly been punished. Little did op imagine that the boon he asked so humbly was to be foreed from you by the rough hand of the mountaineer.’ - The two girls moved onward, side by side, both much affected. “ You knew, then, that I was dragged hither —that I was a captive—that those wild men ‘elamored for me, as the famislied wolf for its victim !” exclaimed Madge. “You do me injustice! Carléta never sank so low as to cater to the appetites of rude and lawless men. I shuddered when I heard the tale. Iwould have saved you and spared you the horror of Black Rook. But even that was better than what might have happened. The authority of Hendricks was never in such peril as then. He loved you—at least, a8 much as his hard, stern nature would allow. He was angry that his followers should presume to one that he had set apart for himself; that he had encountered much danger for; that he had The New York Library. brought with great peril from the distant mis- s10n.’ “T remember it with horror ; the midnight attack ; the clashing of steel; the short and sanguinary atrugele 5 the burning of the mis- sion-house; the first moments of captivity ; the long and hurried march ; the arrival at the Valley ; the proposals of the fearful man, Hendricks ; the eyes of the men fixed upon me with such dreadtal meaning ; the weary days of imprisonment ; the importunities of the outlaw-leader; his dark hints, and finaly, the secret night-march, and the scene at Black Rock. Then came resuscitation following m rescue by Nick, with a haunting terror of hal consciousness, and the slow, dubious recog- nition of my situation. But anon the honest face of the trapper assured me. The sound of his voiee gave me confidence. What a reval. sioncame! How the consciousness of security thrilled my frame. You cannot eomprehend the emotions of that moment. It appeared to me that the hand of Providence had interposed. My tears fell on the hands of my benefactor. He has proved himself worthy the full mea- sure of my gratitude. To prevent discovery and its consequences, I threw aside the gar- ments of my sex, and become the bo Sebas- tian. I was most gently cared for by Nicholas. He took pride and pleasure ig me, and great indeed is the debt I owe him. He sent a mes- senger to the mission, but it was deserted, and my friends were scattered, he knew not where. It was the trapping season, and Nick was busy with his traps. I became his constant com- panion. He taught me the use of the rifle and the bow, and never was so happy as when I ex- hibited aptness and skill. Months passed on, and but for the remembrance of friends, and a continual fear of detection by Hendricks, should have been tolerably reconciled to m wandering life. The very thought of the dar mountaineer made me tremble. Imagine, if you can, the feelings that agitated me when I saw the robber-captain enter the camp of Nick Whiffles, disguised as a lost, forlorn, and starving trapper. I could with the greatest difficulty command my emotions. Memory, too, it would seem, was busy in his own brain, for the ruffian—” “Call him not a ruffian!” cried Carlota grasping Madge by the wrist. “He is my father! my father!” ey Carléta made this announcement as if it cost her indeseribable pain. “Tt cannot be! I will not believe it!” ex- claimed Madge, with an involuntary shiver. “T was educated at Red River settlement,’ added Carlota; “ that is, I learned to read and write. The Captain of the Mountaineers had charge of me. He came oceasionally to see me—to watch my growth and development. I was taught to call him father. He took me from the settlement when quite young, and brought me to the Valley, where gradually I forgot my homesickness, and became accus- tomed to the lawless manners of the mountain- eers, and gained an ascendency over them, Young natures are impressible and ready to take on the colors and shapes around them. Is it singular, then, that I should have learned to tolerate crime and to regard the communit of which I was a member as existing outside the laws and usages of civilized society? I loved authority ; I was imperious, and the power to sway and command the lawless trap- pers pleased my vanity and overcame my “sae I became what you see me, but I am not the depraved being that you have believed. My influence has always been exerted against acts of cruelty. If dark deeds have been com- mitted, they were perpetrated without my knowledge and sanction.” “The Frenchman's daughter ?” said Madge, inquiringly. “ Owes her safety, thus far, to the outlaw’s daughter,” replied Carlota. “On one pretext and another, I have kept her from outrage—in- tending, when I could ilo so with safety, to give her her liberty. My will is not absolute at the Valley. There are certain points with which it is dangerous to meddle.” “You relieve my mind of a terrible bur- den,” answered Madge. “For one like you there is still hope. You are not, you cannot be, entirely lost to goodness and truth. The world must yet have a path that your feet can tread.” “Too late! too late!” sobbed Carléta. “Do you not doubt the claims of this man Hendricks ?” interrogated Madge, “OF late,” replied the girl, “hia language hae been euch as @ parent does not address | te oe wre Oe 300 com KS. (E = SS