CHAPTER IX.
THE MASSACRE.
Days, months, years, passed away: the White Buffalo seemed to havecompletely renounced that country which he was forbidden ever to seeagain. He had completely adopted Indian customs, and, through hiswisdom, had so thoroughly acquired the esteem and respect of the Kenhanation, that he was counted among the most revered sachems.
Sparrowhawk, after giving on many occasions undeniable proofs of hiscourage and military talents, had gained also a firm and honourableplace in the nation. If an experienced chief were required for adangerous expedition, he was ever selected by the council of thesachems, for they knew that success constantly crowned his enterprises.Sparrowhawk was a man of clear mind, who at once understood theintellectual value of his European friend; obedient to the old man'slessons, he never acted under any circumstances without having takenhis advice, and always followed his counsels: hence he speedily beganreaping the advantage of his skilful conduct. Thus, when he two yearslater married a Kenha girl, and when his wife made him father of a boy,he took him in his arms, and presented him to the old man, saying, withgreat emotion:
"The White Buffalo sees this warrior, he is his son, my father willmake a man of him."
"I swear it," the old man replied, firmly.
When the child was weaned, the father kept the promise he had made hisfriend, and gave him his son, leaving him at liberty to educate theboy as he thought fit. The old man, rejuvenated by the hope of thiseducation, which gave him the chance of making a man after his ownheart of this frail creature, joyfully accepted the difficult task. Thechild received from its parents the name of Natah Otann, a significantname, for it is that borne by the most dangerous animal of NorthernAmerica, the grizzly bear.
Natah Otann made rapid progress under the guidance of the WhiteBuffalo. The latter had a few books by him, which enabled him to givehis pupil a very extensive education, and make him very learned. Thenceresulted the strange circumstance of an Indian, who, while followingexactly the customs of his fathers, hunting and fighting like them, andwho was now leading his tribe, being at the same time a distinguishedman, who would not have been out of place in any European drawing room,and whose great intellect had understood and appreciated everything.
Singularly enough, Natah Otann, on attaining manhood, far fromdespising his countrymen, brutalized and ignorant as they were, feltan ardent love for them, and a violent desire to regenerate them.From that moment his life had an object, which was the constantpreoccupation of his existence--to restore the Indians to the rank fromwhich they had fallen, by combining them into a great and powerfulnation. The White Buffalo, the confidant of all the young chief'sthoughts, at first accepted these projects with the sceptical smileof old men, who, having grown weary of everything, have retained nohope in the depths of their heart: he fancied that Natah Otann, underthe impression of youthful ardour, let himself be carried away by anunreflecting movement, whose folly he would soon recognize. But whenable to appreciate how deeply these ideas were rooted in the youngman's heart, when he saw him set resolutely to work, the old mantrembled, and was afraid of his handiwork. He asked himself if he haddone well in acting as he had done, in developing so fully this chosenintellect, which alone, and with no other support than its will, wasabout to undertake a struggle in which it must inevitably succumb.
He then sought to destroy with his own hands the edifice he had builtwith so much labour: he wished to turn in another direction the ardourthat devoured his pupil, and give another object to his life, bychanging his plan. It was too late. The evil was irremediable. NatahOtann, on seeing his master thus contradict himself, defeated him withhis own weapons, and obliged him to bow his head before the mercilessblows of that logic he had himself taught his pupil.
Natah Otann was a strange composite of good and evil; in him all wasin extreme. At times, the most noble feelings seemed to reside in him;he was good and generous; then, suddenly, his ferocity and crueltyattained gigantic proportions, which terrified the Indians themselves.Still, he was generally good and gentle toward his countrymen, who,unaware of the cause, but subject to his influences, feared him, andtrembled at a word that fell from his lips, or a simple frown.
The white men, and especially the Spaniards and Americans, were NatahOtann's implacable enemies; he waged a merciless war on them, attackingthem wherever he could surprise them, and killing, under the mosthorrible tortures, those who were so unhappy as to fall into his hands.Hence his reputation on the prairies was great; the terror he inspiredwas extreme; several times already the United States had tried to getrid of this terrible and implacable foe; but all their plans failed,and the Indian chief, bolder and more cruel than ever, drew nearer tothe American frontier, reigned uncontrolled in the desert, of which hewas absolute lord, and at times went, fire and sword in hand, to thevery cities of the Union to demand that tribute which he claimed evenfrom white men.
We must not be taxed with exaggeration. All we here narrate isscrupulously exact; and if we now and then alter facts, it is only toweaken them. If we uncovered the incognito that veils our characters,many of our readers would recognize them at the first glance, andcertify to the truth of our statements.
A terrible scene of massacre, of which Natah Otann was the originator,had aroused general indignation against him. The facts are as follow:--
An American family, consisting of father, mother, two sons of abouttwelve, a little girl between three and four years of age, and fiveservants, left the Western States with the intention of working a claimthey had bought on the Upper Mississippi. At the period we are writingof, white men rarely traversed these districts, which were entirelyleft to the Indians, who wandered over them in every direction, and,with a few half-bred and Canadian hunters and trappers, were the solemasters of these vast solitudes. On leaving the clearings, theirfriends warned the emigrants to be on their guard. They had beenadvised not to enter into the desert in so small a body, but awaitother emigrants, who would soon proceed to the same spot; for a caravanof fifty to sixty determined men might pass safe and sound through theIndians.
The head of the American family was an old soldier of the war ofindependence, gifted with heroic courage, and thorough Britishobstinacy. He answered coldly, to those who gave him this advice,that his servants and himself could hold their own against all thePrairie Indians; for they had good rifles and firm hearts, and wouldreach their claim in the face of all opposition. Then he made hispreparations like a man whose mind, being made up, admits of no delay,and he started against the judgment of his friends, who predictednumberless misfortunes. The first few days, however, passed quietlyenough, and nothing happened to confirm these predictions. TheAmericans advanced peacefully through a delicious country, and nosign revealed the approach of the Indians, who seemed to have becomeinvisible.
The Americans are men who pass most easily from extreme prudence tothe most foolish and rash confidence, and on this occasion were trueto their character. When they saw that all was quiet around them, andno obstacle checked their progress, they began to laugh and deridethe apprehensions of their friends; they gradually relaxed in theirvigilance; neglected the precautions usual on the prairie; and atlast almost wished to be attacked by Indians, to make them feel theweight of their arms. Things went on thus for nearly two months; theemigrants were not more than ten days' march from their claim; theyno longer thought of the Indians: if at times they alluded to them inthe evening, before going to sleep, it was only to laugh at the absurdfears of their friends, who fancied it impossible to take a step in thedesert without falling into an ambuscade of the Redskins.
One night, after a fatiguing day, the emigrants went to bed, afterplacing sentries round the camp, rather to keep wild beasts off thanthrough any other motive; the sentinels, accustomed not to be troubled,and fatigued by their day's labours, watched for a few moments, thentheir eyelids gradually sank, and they fell asleep. Their awakening wasdestined to be terrible.
About midnight, fifty Blackfeet, led by Natah O
tann, glided like demonsin the darkness, clambered into the encampment, and ere the Americanscould seize their weapons, or even dream of defence, they were bound.Then a horrible scene took place, the frightful interludes of whichthe pen is impotent to describe. Natah Otann organised the massacre,if we may be allowed to employ the term, with unexampled coolness andcruelty. The chief of the party and his five servants were strippedand attached to trees, flogged, and martyrized, while the two ladswere literally roasted alive in their presence. The mother, half madwith terror, escaped, carrying off her little girl in her arms: but,after running a long distance, her strength failed her, and she fellsenseless. The Indians caught her up; imagining her to be dead, theydisdained to scalp her; but they carried off the child, which shepressed to her bosom with almost herculean strength. The child wastaken back to Natah Otann.
"What shall we do with it?" the warrior asked, who presented it to him.
"Into the fire!" he replied, laconically.
The Blackfoot calmly prepared to execute the pitiless order he hadreceived.
"Stop!" the father cried with a piercing shriek. "Do not kill aninnocent creature in that horrible manner. Are not the atrocioustortures you inflict on us enough?"
The Blackfoot hesitated, and looked at his chief; the latter reflected.
"Stay," he said, raising his hand, and addressing the emigrant; "youwish your child to live?"
"Yes!" the father answered.
"Good!" he answered, "I will sell you her life."
The American shuddered at this proposition. "On what terms?" he asked.
"Listen!" he said, laying a stress on every word, and darting at him aglance which made him tremble to the marrow. "My conditions are these.I am master of all your lives; they belong to me; I can prolong or cutthem short without the slightest opposition from you; but, I hardlyknow why," he added, with a sardonic smile, "I feel merciful today;your child shall live. Still, remember this; whatever the nature of thetorture I inflict on you, at the first cry you utter, your child shallbe strangled. You have it in your power to save her if you will."
"I accept," the other answered. "What do I care for the most atrocioustorture, so long as my child lives?"
A sinister smile played round the chief's lips. "It is well," he said.
"One word more."
"Speak."
"Grant me a single favour; let me give a last kiss to this poorcreature."
"Give him his child," the chief commanded.
An Indian presented the little girl to the wretched man. The innocent,as if comprehending what was taking place, put her arms round herfather's neck, and burst into tears. The latter, frightfully boundas he was, could only bestow kisses on her, into which his wholesoul passed. The scene had something hideous about it; it resembled awitches' Sabbath. The five men fastened naked to trees, the childrentwisting on the burning charcoal, and uttering piercing cries, andthese stoical Indians, illumined by the ruddy glow of the fire,completed the most fearful picture that the wildest imagination couldhave invented.
"Enough," Natah Otann said.
"A last gift, a last remembrance."
The chief shrugged his shoulders. "For what good?" he said.
"To render the death you intend for me less cruel."
"What is it you want?"
"Hang round my daughter's neck this earring, suspended by a lock of myhair."
"Is that really all?"
"It is."
"Very good."
The chief came up, took from the emigrant's ear a ring he wore in it,and cut off with a scalping knife a lock of his hair; then, turning tohim with a sardonic laugh, he said--
"Listen carefully. Your companions and yourself are going to be flayedalive; of a strip of your skin I will make a bag to hold the lock ofhair and ring. You see that I am generous, for I grant you more thanyou ask; but remember the conditions."
The emigrant looked at him disdainfully.
"Keep your promises as well as I shall mine: and now begin thetorture--you will see a man die."
Things were done as had been arranged; the emigrant and his servantswere flayed alive. The emigrant endured the torture with a couragewhich even the chief admired. Not a cry, not a groan, issued from hisbleeding chest; he was made of granite. When his skin was entirelystripped off, Natah Otann went up to him; the unhappy wretch was notyet dead.
"Thou art a man," he said to him. "Die satisfied. I will keep thepromise I made thee."
And moved doubtlessly by a feeling of pity for so much firmness, heblew out his brains.
This horrible punishment lasted four hours. The Indians plundered allthe Americans possessed, and what they could not carry off they burned.Natah Otann rigidly kept the oath he had made to his victim: as hesaid, from a strip of his skin, imperfectly tanned, he made a bag, inwhich he placed the lock of hair, and hung it round the child's neckby a cord also made of his skin. On the homeward road to his village,Natah Otann paid the most assiduous attention to the poor littlecreature; and, on rejoining the tribe, the chief declared before allthat he adopted the girl, and gave her the name of Prairie Flower.
At the period our story begins, Prairie Flower was fourteen yearsof age; she was a charming creature, gentle and simple, lovely asthe princess of a fairy tale. Her large blue eyes, veiled by longbrown lashes, reflected the azure of the heaven, and she ran about,careless and wild, through the forests and over the prairie, dreamingat times beneath the shady recesses of the giant trees, living asthe birds live, forgetting the past, which was to her as yesterday,caring nothing for the future, which to her had no existence, and onlythinking of the present to be happy.
The charming girl had unconsciously become the idol of the tribe. Theold White Buffalo more especially felt an unbounded affection for her;but the experiment he had made with Natah Otann disgusted him with asecond trial at education. He only watched over her with truly paternalcare, correcting any fault he might notice in her with a patience andkindness nothing could weary. This old tribune, like all energetic andimplacable men, had the heart of a lamb; having entirely renounced theworld which mistook him, he had refreshed his soul in the desert, andrecovered the illusions and generous impulses of his youth.
Prairie Flower had retained no remembrance of her early years; asno one ever alluded in her presence to the terrible scenes whichintroduced her to the tribe, fresher impressions had completely effacedthem. Loved and petted by all, Prairie Flower fancied herself a childof the tribe. Her long tresses of light hair, gilded like ripe corn,and the dazzling whiteness of her skin, could not enlighten her, forin many Indian nations these anomalies are found; the Mandans, amongothers, have many women and warriors who, if they put on Europeanclothes, might easily pass for whites.
The Blackfeet, seduced by the charms of this gentle young creature,attached the destinies of the tribe to her. They considered hertheir tutelary genius, their palladium: their faith in her wasdeep, serene, and simple. Prairie Flower was truly the Queen of theBlackfeet; a sign from her rosy fingers, a word from her dainty lips,was obeyed with unbounded promptitude and devotion. She could doanything, say everything, demand everything, without fearing even asecond's hesitation to her will. She exercised this despotic authorityunsuspectingly; she alone was unaware of the immense power shepossessed over these brutal natives, who in her presence became gentleand devoted.
Natah Otann was attached to his adopted daughter, so far asorganizations like his are capable of yielding to any feeling. Atfirst he sported with the girl as with an unimportant plaything; butgradually, as the child was transformed and became a woman, thesesports became more serious, and his heart was attracted. For the firsttime in his life, this man, with his indomitable soul, felt a feelingstir in him which he could not analyze, but which, through its forceand violence, astonished and terrified him.
Then, a dumb struggle began between the chiefs head and heart. Herevolted against this influence which subjugated him: he, hithertoaccustomed to break through every obstacle, was now powerless beforea
child, who disarmed him with a smile, when he tried to overpowerher. This struggle lasted a long time; at length, the terrible Indianconfessed himself vanquished, that is to say, he allowed the current tocarry him away, and without attempting a resistance, which he felt tobe useless, he began to love the young maiden madly. But this love attimes caused him sufferings so terrible, when he thought of the mannerin which Prairie Flower had become his adopted daughter, that he askedhimself with terror, whether this deep love which had seized on hisbrain, and mastered him, was not a chastisement imposed by Heaven.
Then, he fell back in his usual state of fury, redoubled his ferocitywith those unhappy beings whose plantations he surprised, and, allreeking with blood, his girdle hung with scalps, he returned to thevillage, and displayed the hideous trophies before the girl. PrairieFlower, astonished at the state in which she saw a man whom shebelieved to be--not her father, for he was too young--but a relative,lavished on him all the consolations and simple caresses which herattachment to him suggested to her: unfortunately, these caressesheightened his suffering, and he would rush away half mad with grief,leaving her sad and almost terrified by this conduct, which was soincomprehensible to her.
Matters reached such a pitch, that the White Buffalo, whose vigilanteye was constantly fixed on his pupil, considered that he must, atall risks, cut away the evil at the root, and withdraw the son of hisfriend from the deadly fascination exercised over him by this innocentenchantress. When he felt convinced of the chiefs love for PrairieFlower, the old sachem asked for a private interview with his pupil:the latter granted it, quite unsuspecting the reason which urged theWhite Buffalo to take this step.
One morning the chief presented himself at the entrance of his friend'slodge. The White Buffalo was reading by the side of a fire kindled inthe middle of the hut.
"You are welcome, my son," he said to the young man. "I have only a fewwords to say to you, but I consider them sufficiently serious for youto hear them without delay; sit down by my side."
The young man obeyed. The White Buffalo then carefully changed histactics: he, who had so long combated the chief's views as to theregeneration of the Indian race, entered completely into his views,with an ardour and conviction carried so far, that the young man wasastonished, and could not refrain from asking what produced this suddenchange in his opinion?
"The cause is very simple," the old man answered. "So long as Iconsidered that these views were only suggested by the impetuosity ofyouth, I merely regarded them as the dreams of a generous heart, whichwas deceiving itself, and not taking the trouble to weigh the chancesof success."
"What now?" the young man asked, quickly.
"Now, I recognize all the earnestness, nobility, and grandeur,contained in your plans; and not only admit their possibility, but Iwish to aid you, so as to ensure success."
"Is what you say quite true, my father?" the young man asked, withexultation.
"I swear it: still we must set to work immediately." The chief examinedhim for a moment carefully, but the old man remained impassive.
"I understand you," he at length said, slowly, and in a deep voice;"you offer me your hand on the verge of an abyss. Thanks, my father, Iwill not be unworthy of you; I swear to you by the Wacondah."
"Good; believe me, my son, I recognize you," the old man said, shakinghis head mournfully. "One's country is often an ungrateful mistress;but it is the only one which gives us true enjoyment of mind, if weserve her disinterestedly for herself alone."
The two men shook hands affectionately; the compact was sealed. Weshall soon see whether Natah Otann had really conquered his love as heimagined.
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