Read Ebook: The Wolf Queen; or The Giant Hermit of the Scioto by Harbaugh T C Thomas Chalmers

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Ebook has 982 lines and 34285 words, and 20 pages

The young hunter never winced under the pain occasioned by the dressing of his throat.

"It's best for you to stay down for a few days," said Hewitt, after completing the operation. "Exertion of body may irritate your breast wound, and end in something disagreeable. I'll stay with you all the time, for I don't go visiting much in these parts, nor these times. Now just lay still, but talk to me while I get supper for two; tell me all about yourself, and what brought you alone away down here. Boy, you look like a Virginian."

"I am a Virginian," answered Fairfax, watching the giant's backwoods culinary operations. "My name is Fairfax."

"Fairfax!" cried the backwoodsman, quickly turning upon the speaker. "What Fairfax?"

"The son of Ronald Fairfax, of Roanoke."

"I knew him," said the giant.

"That is singular. When did you leave Virginia?"

"Three months since I stood in my father's house," resumed young Fairfax, whose countenance told that he would have questioned his preserver further; "and were it not for the existence of that accursed renegade, Jim Girty, I would be there this night."

"Yes, curse Jim Girty, boy," muttered Hewitt. "Oh that curses could kill."

"The red hawks, you mean," interrupted Hewitt.

"No, no. The destroying band was led by Jim Girty, whose evil passions had been inflamed by the beauty, the innocence and grace of Eudora Morriston."

"I anticipate the remainder of your narrative, boy," suddenly interrupted the giant hermit. "Eudora Morriston is now Jim Girty's prisoner, and it is she whom you seek in the land of the dread Wolf-Queen and her tribe."

"You're a brave boy, a brave boy!" cried the giant, admiringly. "I had a little boy once--a tiny fellow with golden hair, and the prettiest eyes you ever saw. But where he is now, God knows. You love Eudora Morriston?"

A flush suffused Mayne Fairfax's temples.

"Yes, but she knows it not. I never breathed aught to her of my passion."

For a long time the hunter was silent, and the outward workings of his countenance, told of mental struggles in the mysterious unseen.

"I loved once--a long while ago," he said, at length, fixing his gaze upon the reclining hunter. "But I don't think I love anybody now, save my boy--wherever he is--and Wolf, here," and he stroked the mastiff's shaggy hide. "These hands," he quickly continued, stretching forth his broad palms, "are red with the gore of a fellow-creature, whose skin was as fair as yours, my boy. With the brand of Cain upon my brow, I fled Virginia--fled between two days, and here I am, a cave-hermit, on the verge of fifty years, with a giant's frame, unracked by disease; but with hair and beard almost as white as driven snow.

"Yes, yes," he continued, as though the young hunter had put a question, "it is a terrible thing to kill a fellow-creature in the first heat of passion; but I will not tell you aught further of that dark night, now. Boy, from that day to this I have not taken a human life--nor ever will I, not even the life of an Indian. I will assist you to recover the sweet creature you seek--together we will snatch her, unharmed, from the fangs of the white wolf--Jim Girty; but into whatever precarious situations we may fall, remember, boy, that these hands shed no human blood. These fists are enough for a score of red-skins. They have proved themselves thus in times gone by. But here, our supper is ready. I'll prop you up with these skins, and you can make out to eat, I hope."

The repast proved quite nutritious to Mayne Fairfax, and not a word passed between the twain until it had ended, and the still smoking remains thrown to Wolf.

"Boy, did you ever hear your father speak of William Hewitt?" suddenly questioned the giant.

"Never to my knowledge," answered the young man.

"Strange, when we knew each other so well," soliloquized the hermit, in a semi-audible tone. "But, perhaps, he would have his heirs remain ignorant of that dark night, as well he might. But, my boy, I'd give my right arm, nay, my very life, to know what became of him--my boy."

"I will make every inquiry when I return," said Fairfax.

"But how shall I know the result of your inquiries?"

"I will return and make them known to you."

"How can I reward you?" cried Hewitt, grasping the young man's hands.

"Say nothing about that. I am already rewarded. But--what was that?"

"My door-bell," said the giant, with a smile, as he rose to his feet and hastened to the mouth of the cave.

A minute later Fairfax heard the massive oaken door open and close, and a confused murmur of voices approaching him.

"Boy," suddenly said the giant, leading a tall and athletic young Indian into the mellow light of the fire, "here is the only visitor I have. The Bible says that it is not good for man to be alone always, so I picked up a companion. This is Oonalooska, the bravest young warrior of his tribe."

Mayne Fairfax stretched forth his hand, and the young brave pressed it with no small degree of feeling.

"So the madwoman struck the white hunter?" said Oonalooska, half interrogatively, still retaining Fairfax's hand.

"Yes; her shaft pierced my breast, and her wolf tore my throat."

"She will be like a great storm now," returned the Shawnee, "because one of her wolves is dead. Oonalooska fears for the Pale Flower in the Shawnee village."

"Then she is there!" cried the young hunter, with eagerness.

"Yes," answered Oonalooska, "she is under the fiery eyes of the White Wolf, and unless he guards her well, Alaska will tear her from him, and put her to the torture."

"No, no!" cried Mayne Fairfax. "Hewitt, I feel strong enough to go and rescue her."

"You're as weak as a kitten," said the giant, with a smile for the young hunter's futile effort to rise. "We will send Oonalooska back to the village, and he shall report affairs for us. It will be a terrible conflict if affairs reach such a climax between Girty and Alaska, the Wolf-Queen; but Girty may still possess the strange influence he has held over her in days gone by. I am certain that a crisis will not be reached in the Shawnee village for some time."

"But send Oonalooska thither at once," cried Fairfax, "and tell him to tell Eudora that a friend seeks her rescue. And, Shawnee," here he addressed Oonalooska, "if you can save the Pale Flower at once, do so, and convey her hither."

"Oonalooska will not sleep," was the reply; "but to overcome the White Wolf and Alaska he must have the cunning of his white friends."

"I cannot leave this young man until his sores are healed," said Hewitt. "But that will not be long. Then we will baffle Jim Girty, and you, who hate him, can send him to Watchemenetoc."

The Indian's eyes flashed at the hermit's last sentence, and a minute later Oonalooska was gone.

JIM GIRTY AND HIS PRISONER.

James Girty was one of a quartette of brothers to which the notorious Simon belonged. He became the prisoner of the Indians early in Braddock's ill-fated campaign, when he was in his fourteenth year, and was adopted by the Shawnees. Growing to manhood, he loved the life and customs of the red rovers of the trackless forests, and hated all whom they hated. His passions were as fiery as Simon's, but for some unaccountable reasons, he has not figured as conspicuously on the page of history.

Simon Girty, notwithstanding his multitudinous crimes, possessed a few good qualities; but James possessed not one. Simon often pleaded for the life of a prisoner, James never; and his countenance was the incarnation of all that is repulsive.

At the opening of our romance he had attained his sixty-ninth year, notwithstanding which he still possessed a giant's frame and a giant's strength.

So well did he bear the burden of his years, that he looked beneath fifty, and scarce a gray hair was visible upon his head. His eyes still flashed the fire of manhood's prime, from beneath long, midnight lashes, and not a crow's foot furrowed his forehead. His face was covered by splotches of red hair, through which cutaneous eruptions, caused by his dissolute habits, were constantly making their appearance. When not influenced by wine, he was not quarrelsome; but for many years he had drawn scarce a single sober breath. He was an unerring marksman, and his influence over the Indians was unbounded.

While hunting in Virginia he encountered Eudora Morriston, whose beauty fanned the fires of his evil nature; and, as Mayne Fairfax has already related, he swooped down upon the happy home, at the head of a band of Shawnees, massacred every one of its inmates, save the beautiful girl, whom he bore to the Indian village, and placed under the guardianship of two of the most pliant of his red tools.

Bright and translucently beautiful upon the Shawnee village broke the morn that followed the transaction of the events related in the foregoing chapters.

James, or as he was commonly called, Jim Girty, would have slumbered late, had he not been startled from his sleep by the grip of a human hand upon his arm. He opened his baleful eyes, and beheld a middle-aged savage bending over him. The first streaks of morning but illy dispersed the gloom of his lodge, and the renegade sprung to his feet, with the oath, never absent from his lips.

"Alaska is a storm!" cried the Indian, springing from Girty's side, and throwing aside the curtain of skins that served for a door. "See! she goes to the lodge of the Pale Flower. Her wolves will kill the guards, and tear to pieces the White Wolf's prisoner. Last night the Lone Man shot Alaska's gray wolf, and she will now have the blood of the white captive for it."

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