Show the plains of awakim 4 CHAPTER VIII continued 17 11 he e was heavy with doubt when the var ch was resumed for li he saw th alie e bitter souls hidden in the breasts of it the warriors hepsibah adams had rand made e him see the truth andee and lie knew these thes e men owed nothing to the people of his I 1 race except loss and shame many t times imes he had thought that if i fate had placed his for fortunes tunes among them he would have hated with the p dimness of their hatred the freedom end and pride which were once tb the e i heritage of their wide alda domains were no longer the control controlling ing factors in their existence ince their wars had ceased to be wa wars Is w which aich gave birth to forest gods and nd epics of unforgettable heroism their star was setting and aid with its decline the white man had transformed them into common killers and in this new calling it made small difference to them whether they slew enemies or those who posed as friends as long as the skins were white so the nobility which tobnette Tol nette saw in their captors was ft as poisoned for jeems by what was concealed within hin their hearts the greatest of all hates iv ws w is s not the hate of a aman man for a mau man b but at the hate of a race for a race race and he knew that at a word from the nen imen about h him I 1 ni would be turned into fiends most of all he feared for had told him that Ti father had been killed by a white man and his son by an english Af BIohn wk whatever their fate was to be this day would bring it ile he was sure tobnette Tol nette could not keep up the pace much longer and lie he strengthened himself for the moment when the seneca chief would find himself compelled to give a decision that tiaona had caal claimed m ed her for his daughter daug liter gave him hope bop e but if in her frailty tobnette Tol nette was condemned to die he was vas determined that she should not die alone it was not long afterward that the warriors observed limping slightly this sign of physical difficulty difficult cult increased in his walk until furious because of his weakness he drove his hatchet hend head deep into a tree and paused to bind a piece e of bucks buckskin klIT tightly about the ankle he had wrenched progress was slower after this it continued to slacken as the afternoon waned until the hand of a spiritual guidance seemed to be working for tobnette Tol nette it was useless to attempt a concealment of her condition ner her strength was gone iler her body was racked as it if it had been beaten another mile and she would have sunk to the ground glad to have an end to her torture but fate and Tia ogas hurt intervened to save her they came at last to a hardwood hai adwood plain in which was a pigeon roost spoke to Sh Indas we have bave been a long time without meat broken feather in a few hours houra there will be plenty here we will feast and then sleep and will not i travel aga again lin until morning then knew the truth but his bis countenance did not change lie ile soon had a chance to speak to jeems tor for the first time I 1 have discovered my uncle to be a great liar t he be sald said ills his ankle Is as sound as mine it Is tor for the little fawn lie he has pretended a hurt and stops here for meat she Is safe bate ile he will not kill her when jeems translated this tobnette Tol nette bowed her head and cried softly saw her crumpled on the ground with jekins arm around her the she looked like silver heels with her long black binck braid falling failing over her shoulder no one was conscious of the strain at his hl heart as he came toward her warriors wide vilde eyed saw that he did not limp and in his attitude was a de defiance flance of what they might think ile he paused before tile the girl and dropped his blanket at her feet tobnette Tol nette looked up tin through tears biars and smiled again as a strange softness stole over oer the savage face lie ile gazed at lier her steadily dily as it if he were seeing a spirit and said tile soul of sol yan tan makwam has tome come to abide in you youl I 1 sol bol yan was silver neels turned away and his warriors knew that his decision had been made there would be no haste after this in the direction of hidden town on a couch made of the beaver sIdn and of balsam boughs which jeems had bad carried from the creek bottom tobnette Tol nette rested while the indians prepared tor for the evening feast she bhe smoothed and her hair as she watched them find and although every bone in her body seemed to have an ache of its own on she felt a sensation of complete relaxation stealing over her har for the first time since the tragedy at manor the mental ease which came to soften her en viron ment embraced her in n sue tuch a stealthy tte althy way that she bhe was unconscious of the moment when her eyes closed in complete surrender to the exhaustion which was claiming her jeems returned from one of the fires ares bearing a stick on which a dozen of the cooked pigeons were spitted ile he didiot did not awaken tobnette Tol nette but after he had finished his meal he broiled another dozen of the pigeons until they were as brown as chestnuts and stored them away with a roasted illy root and a few artichokes F for or two hours the cooking continued and when it was finished with tho the nights kill ccady for future use warriors wrapped themselves in their bla niceas and lay down to sleep tile the campeas camp was soon in silence and for a long time jeems sat meditating tating appoo the changes which had come into life within the space apace of two days and nights that overy every by james oliver curwood 0 by doubleday doran co inn ina W service thing was gone and that he and tol nette dette were the only ones left of those thosa who had so recently made up their world seemed a monstrous t alon I 1 on of fact tobnette Tol nette sleeping Ble quietly forced the truth upon him and from the racking visions of his thoughts he turned to her with yearning to hold her closely in his arms her face was of childlike loveliness in the glow of the stars so complete was her fatigue that dark dreams did not mar the solace of her unconsciousness when thil the night was halt half gone he made a pillow of balsams balsam sand and before he fell asleep he drew hand to him gently and pressed his lips against it dawn another day then night a gain again the journey was no longer impossible tor for tollette Tol Toi nette when she neared exhaustion camp was made and when she awoke the march was wag resumed called her sol yan van and the warriors regarded her with kindlier eyes As the days continued and they witnessed her courage their hearts grew warm toward it ow ard her and at times their glances revealed an admiration and friendliness frien d 11 which were never in Tta ogas these days served also as the bridge across which jeems and tobnette Tol nette were passing into a future that was all their own and the poignancy of the loss they had suffered was mellowed by these newer aspects so vital to themselves Then The orld world they had known was a fabric which had crashed in ruin bout about 11 them a desolation out of which another existence was building itself As the deeper solitudes of the wilderness claimed them this feeling became a bond which nothing could break wherever they went and whatever happened they would belong to each other for death might separate but it could ou id not destroy on the fourteenth day sent a messenger ahead that evening he sat on the ground near tobnette Tol nette and jeems translated what he said tomorrow they would reach Ill hidden illileen ilden town and his people would be expecting them there would be great rejoicing because they had taken many scalps and had not lost a man they would honor her and jeems accepting them as flesh of their flesh and bone of their bone would live as his daughter sliver silver heels heart would live in her song she would be of the forests forever that was the word he had sent ahead to was coming with his daughter lie he stalked into darkness and for a time jeems and tobnette Tol nette were afraid to speak the thought which was choking at their hearts your children and your childrens children 11 that night tobnette Tol nette lay starl nj at the sky with sleepless eyes CHAPTER IX guarded like a precious jewel ou ob all sides a hidden bidden town literally as well as in name was one of the greatest of the strange social centers of the indians to which prisoners with white skins were brought to be adopted by their captors that such places existed was a fact which had but recently gained credence in both the english and french colonies not until 1 was colonel boquet bobu e t to t 0 free the white population in the first of these mystery mastery villages hinges and then the deliverance which he brought about resulted in less les of happiness than of tragedy tor for the III life e and associations ciati clat lons ons which he disrupted in the name and claim of the colonies had their roots ns far back as the third and fourth generations hearts and homes were broken as well as prisoners shackles was the rome of a wide domain in that period of its history when jeems and tobnette Tol nette came with and his warriors in it were three hundred people and at full strength it numbered sixty fighting men it nestled at the edge of a large mea meadow dow which the river embraced in a horseshoe curve cune and its center was a stronghold with long houses storage buildings cabins and tepees sufficient for the entire population in times of stress the had vineyards and fine orchards of apples cherries and plu plums ins and they also grew tob tobacco acco and potatoes on a considerable scale I 1 in the corn cornfields fields and growing from the same hills were pumpkins and beans and everywhere were sunflowers sun flowers of a 0 dwarfish kind grown for or the oil which was extracted from their seeds when the season season was good lived in comfort during thelong the long loag winter months the gra granaries narles were full large quantities of dried fruits were in the storehouses and underground collars cellars were stocked with applet apples pumpkins potatoes and squashes when the season was bad drew a belt tightly about its stomach for five months of the year for three of these months it starved this was a bad season spring frosts had killed the early vegetation and had blackened the buds of apples and plums the corn was so poor that after roasting time only enough was left for the next nest years planting and beans and potatoes had suffered until there was less than a third of a crop but the people of wore swore no appearance of gloom on the day when and his triumphant warriors were to arrive from the east messenger had brought the news that not nota a man had been lost in their invasion of the territory of their enemies this was unusual and it put fresh courage into the hearts of those who had bad seen the year sear go against them homecoming with the spoils of war was an augury which more than discounted empty cellars and granaries gra narles As a part of these spoils they knew alao a was bringing a daughter to take the place of sliver heels this convinced them that fortune was bound to smile on them again they had loved loed sol yan Bla kwun with her death had come bad times now the spirits would give ghe them an easy winter and next nest year would see the earth flowering with good things made ready for the feast there were still plenty of ear earthy thy things and a supply of late green corn packed away in husks and kept for this occasion the last day was long for tobnette Tol nette it had begun at dawn and though halted baited his men at intervals to let her rest it had not ended with dusk darkness came before they reached a plain on the far side of which was a hill beyond this hill was ft as they could see the glow of a great fire lighting the sky tobnette Tol nette forgot her exhaustion at this sign of the end of their journey she observed that some ono one took from jeems the scalp of the man he had killed which he had tried to conceal from her eyes under a flap of buckskin then she saw all of the scalps taken by the fastened like dangling fish to a slender pole which was waa carried on the shoulders 0 two men the hair of one of these scalps reaching almost to the ground with the scalp carriers in the lead they came to the hill at the edge of the plain and looked down on the valley of at command the men bearing the scalp laden pole had gone ahead and now followed with his men in single file tobnette Tol nette and jeems ft were ere midway in the line wide slave collars of buckskin had been placed about their necks and jeems was stripped of ills his weapons the warriors did not hurry their step was slow and steady and not a man broke the silence with a whisper or a word A sea of torches advanced it rolled in and out of hollows like a flood then came to a level leel place and formed two streaming lines of fire the scalp bearers reached these theae a hundred aundre d yards ahead of alao a and his men tobnette Tol nette could see them enter the light of the torches and in these moments the voices alces of the savages rose to the heavens paused and not until the scalp bearers had paraded their grisly burden the entire length of the gauntlet of flame did he be proceed again tobnette Tol nette felt fell stealing over oer her a strange faintness of body and limb stories which she had forgotten stories she had heard of the indians from childhood stories that had sent shivers through the hearts of a thousand homes along the frontiers all crowded upon her at once wild tales of appalling torture and vengeance of stake and fire and human suffering she had bad listened to them from her fathers lips from passing voyageurs oya voya geurs had heard them in the gossip of the and she remembered by name this ordeal which awaited them it was le chemin de feu the road of fire through which they must pass others had died in it roasted by pitch filled torches blinded killed by inches so she had been told TO BE BB CONTINUED |