Read Ebook: Black Hawk's Warpath by Risteen Herbert L Schaare C R Christian Richard Illustrator

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Ebook has 1494 lines and 60125 words, and 30 pages

BLACK HAWK'S WARPATH

A Frontier Duel

"Hey, Tom! there's a big hubbub amongst the Injuns!" exclaimed Ben Gordon to his twin brother, as he rushed into an unpainted, frame shanty in the frontier hamlet of Chicago. The two schoolboys had arrived from the east only the day before, keenly eager for a summer of western adventure.

"You don't say, Ben! What goes on?"

"Two young braves, both sons of chiefs, are dead set on fighting a duel!"

Tom looked up soberly from the breakfast table.

"Whew!" he said, "somebody may get hurt."

"Righto, but they're mighty bitter, I hear. Have sworn vengeance."

"What's the argument about?"

"An Injun girl, I guess. Prettiest young squaw in the whole Chippeway tribe."

Tom Gordon hastily finished his dish of stewed prunes, bolted a fat doughnut, drained his cup of black tea, and then joined his brother on the long porch which extended across the entire front of the low, rambling building. The two sixteen-year old lads were identical twins, both long of limb, freckle-faced and red-haired. Each wore cowhide boots, into which were tucked baggy trousers of gray wool. In their leather belts were sheath knives. Flannel shirts of a bright blue shade completed their simple attire.

Across the narrow Chicago River, directly facing them and clearly outlined in the morning sun, was the frontier outpost of Fort Dearborn. The stockaded fort stood on a promontory, around which the river swept to the southeast, joining Lake Michigan about a half-mile below. Above the fort, built some sixteen years before, in the year 1816, the rude cabins, shanties and other buildings of the village were strung haphazardly along both banks of the stream.

Around the village and bordering on the lake, almost the entire neighborhood was a low, boggy prairie. A man could scarcely walk across parts of it, even in the driest summer weather. And at this spring season--late April was the month--the place was well nigh impassable, except by a few devious footpaths.

During the past few days, a great throng of Indians had come pouring into the vicinity of the fort. There were, altogether, some two or three thousand savages of different tribes, but mainly of the Pottawattomee nation.

"The Injuns have summoned a grand council," explained a soldier, "to talk over the matter of a certain treaty that the Great White Father at Washington wants 'em to sign."

All of the leading sachems of the region had come in, with the notable exception of Black Hawk, foremost chieftain of the Sacs, and there was much speculation as to the reason for his absence. The Pottawattomees were represented by such chiefs as Alexander Robinson, the son of a Scotch father and Indian mother, Sauguanauneebee , Shaubena, Chepoi , and various others of lesser note.

Then, too, all of the principal traders of the region were on hand to deal with the Indians. Their tents and trading booths dotted the landscape, and helped to give the scene almost the festive appearance of a fair.

Tom and Ben Gordon now left their lodging shanty and hurried upriver past the village.

"There's a big crowd of savages over that way," pointed out Ben presently.

"Must be the place," was Tom's reply.

The big council, composed of all the leading chiefs of the principal tribes was already in session. Whirling Thunder, a Sac chief, and Shaubena, whose sons were involved, had turned the matter over to the solemn assemblage. The young Indian maiden, cause of the quarrel, was standing at one side with her father, the giant "Wampum," a famous chief of the Chippeways, who had his village some three hundred miles to the north in the vast, somber "pineries."

Tom and Ben had hardly arrived, when a coppery warrior got to his feet and launched an oration that seemed to the attentive boys to be both stirring and forceful. He was a tall, strong savage, of handsome mien; he knew all the tricks of good oratory; his voice was deep and full-toned; and he accompanied his words with graceful and telling gestures. To the boys' surprise, however, his eloquence seemed to carry little weight. His fellow savages appeared to have small regard for his utterances. Hardly a murmur arose from the stolid circle about him.

But now there arose a stubby, thickset Indian with a stern, rugged countenance, who had sat smoking in stony silence. His speech was quite short, and it was delivered in a blunt, almost awkward manner. As an orator, he could not compare with the other; for he had neither the style nor the smooth flow of words. Yet his crude utterances bore heavily on his hearers. Nods of approval ran around the red circle; muttered expressions of agreement could be heard on every hand.

"How do you figure it out, Ben?" puzzled Tom.

"It's got me in a fog, Tom. Why, that tall chief talked rings around him!"

"Sure did. He had a real gift of gab."

A big frontiersman, evidently a veteran woodcrafter, who stood nearby, volunteered an explanation. He pointed out that the superb orator of the high-sounding words had in his hair only a single eagle feather, while the other, the thickest savage, had eagle feathers all around his head and trailing down his back to touch the very ground at his heels.

"You mean," inquired Ben incredulously, "that the chief who can sport the longest string of pretty feathers has the most say-so?"

"Jest that," smiled the affable stranger.

"But why?" questioned the doubting lad.

"Listen, younker! them purty feathers ain't worn fer decoration mainly. Each one means a scalp that the chief has took in battle."

"Oh, I think I see," put in Tom thoughtfully. "A few words from this chief, who has taken many scalps, carries more weight than all the flowery oratory of a man who has no such fighting record to back up his talk."

"You hit the bull's-eye, boy. That's jest it."

The Indian council dragged along, and soon the listening twins began to tire of the seemingly endless round of speeches, not a word of which could they understand.

"They're getting nowhere fast," complained Ben.

"Oh, the big chiefs 'll chew this thing over fer hours," remarked the friendly frontiersman. "That's Injun naitcher. Ther ain't bigger wind-bags in the world than some o' these here Injun chiefs. They run off at the mouth by the hour."

"Well, Ben, if that's the case," declared Tom, "let's drop back to the village for a bite to eat, and then return later."

Accordingly, the boys left the savage chieftains to their long-winded harangues, and went down river to the fort. About mid-afternoon, they heard that the youths had finally been brought before the wise men and informed that they would be permitted to fight as proposed, the winner to take the maiden as his intended wife.

"The duel is set for an hour before sundown," a soldier told Ben and Tom.

As the fatal hour approached, the two brothers headed inland toward the designated scene of encounter. They found a turbulent concourse of several hundred Indians and whites banked around the place, a sandy flat dotted with a few clumps of hazel brush, about a mile beyond the swamps that rimmed the lake.

There wasn't long to wait.

"Here they come!" sang out Tom excitedly, some five minutes after their own arrival.

The two young gladiators cantered out, astride nimble Indian ponies, one black and the other a spotted little beast. Their leather saddles were gayly decked in beads, silver brooches, colored quills, and gaudy trinkets such as the traders bartered with the savages. Bright ribbons streamed from the ponies' manes.

"Say! that one on the spotted pony is a mighty trim-looking young brave," spoke up Ben, in open admiration.

"That's Bright Star, son of Shaubena," a bystander advised them.

Young Bright Star was, indeed, a lad of handsome face and lithe, graceful figure. He had a gay kerchief on his head; and further sported a shirt of lemon-colored calico, decked with many glistening ornaments. The deerskin leggings, which came up to his thighs, were very fancy, one legging being of blue and the other of deep scarlet.

"But zowie! look at the other Injun, on the black pony!" cried Tom.

"Sure is a tough-looking cookie!" Ben replied, with a low whistle of consternation.

"That must be the Prairie Wolf, Ben."

"Wouldn't doubt it, Tom. He really has the face to go with his name."

The young savage was a big, raw-boned, ugly-looking Indian, with a sinister, bloated face. He had a striped kerchief of silk wrapped around his long black hair. Otherwise, he was naked to the waist. A pair of soiled skin leggings completed his dress.

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