CHAPTER XVII.
Great was the mortification in the city upon learning the mistake theyhad made.
Where they had expected to receive praise and a handsome reward forhaving performed a meritorious action, they obtained only censure andreproaches for meddling in matters that did not concern them.
It was only a mistake however, and there was no help for it. AndBillings, although greatly vexed and disappointed, saw no course leftfor him but to set off again, although he feared that the chances ofsuccess were greatly against him this time, on account of the timethat had been lost.
The Indians, whose unfortunate blunder had been the cause of thisdelay, in order to make some amends for the wrong they had done him,now came forward, and offered to aid him in his search for the missingmaiden.
They proffered him the use of their canoes to enable him to ascend thestreams, and to furnish guides, and an escort to protect him whiletraveling through the country.
This offer, so much better than he had any reason to expect, wasgladly accepted by Billings, and with two friends who had volunteeredto accompany him, he once more started up the river, under theprotection of his new friends.
War had broken out among the various tribes on the route which he musttravel, making it unsafe for him and his two companions, even undersuch a guide and escort as his Indian friends could furnish them.
Thus he with his two associates were detained so long in the Indiancountry, that by their friends at home they were given up as lost.
At last peace was restored, and they set out on their return.
The journey home was a long and tedious one, but nothing occurredworth narrating.
Upon reaching the Hudson, they employed an Indian to take them theremainder of the way in a canoe.
Upon reaching Manhattan Island, the first place they stopped at wasthe residence of Carl Rosenthrall, Billings intending that the fatherof Hellena should be the first to hear the sad story of his failureand disappointment.
It was evening when he arrived at the house and the lamps were lightedin the parlor.
With heavy heart and trembling hands he rapped at the door.
As the door opened he uttered a faint cry of surprise, which wasanswered by a similar one by the person who admitted him. It wasHellena herself!
The scene that followed we shall not attempt to describe.
CHAPTER XVIII.
At about the same time that Henry Billings, under the protection ofhis Indian friends, set out on his last expedition up the river, asingle canoe with four persons in it, put out from under the shadow ofOld Crow Nest, on its way down the stream.
The individual by whom the canoe was directed was an Indian, a mansomewhat advanced in years. The others were a white girl, an Indianwoman, and a negro boy.
In short, the party consisted of Fire Cloud, Hellena Rosenthrall,Lightfoot, and Black Bill, on their way to the city.
They had passed the fleet of canoes in which Billings had embarked,but not knowing whether it belonged to a party of friendly Indians orotherwise.
Fire Cloud had avoided coming in contact with it for fear of beingdelayed, or of the party being made prisoners and carried back again.
Could they have but met, what a world of trouble would it not havesaved to all parties interested!
As it was, Hellena arrived in safety, greatly to the delight of herfather and friends, who had long mourned for her as for one they neverexpected to see again in this world.
The sum of Hellena's happiness would now have been complete, had itnot been for the dark shadow cast over it by the absence of her lover.
And this shadow grew darker, and darker, as weeks, and months, rolledby without bringing any tidings of the missing one.
What might have been the effects of the melancholy into which she wasfast sinking, it is hard to tell, had not the unexpected return of theone for whose loss she was grieving, restored her once more to herwonted health and spirits.
And here we might lay down our pen, and call our story finished, didwe not think that justice to the reader, required that we shouldexplain some things connected with the mysterious, cavern not yetaccounted for.
How the Indian entered the cave on the night when Hellena fancied shehad seen a ghost, and how she made her escape, has been explained, butwe have not yet explained how the noises were produced which soalarmed the pirates.
It will be remembered that the sleeping place of Black Bill was arecess in the wall of the cavern.
Now in the wall, near the head of the negro's bed, there was a deepfissure or crevice. It happened that Bill while lying awake one night,to amuse himself, put his month to the crevice and spoke some words,when to his astonishment, what he had said, was repeated over andover, again.
Black Bill in his ignorance and simplicity, supposed that the echo,which came back, was an answer from some one on the other side of thewall.
Having made this discovery, he repeated the experiment a number oftimes, and always with the same result.
After awhile, he began to ask questions of the spirit, as he supposedit to be, that had spoken to him.
Among other things he asked if the devil was coming after master.
The echo replied, "The debil comin' after master," and repeated it agreat many times.
Bill now became convinced that it was the devil himself that he hadbeen talking to.
On the night when the pirates were so frightened by the fearful groan,Bill was lying awake, listening to the captain's story. When he cameto the part where he describes the throwing the boy's fatheroverboard, and speaks of the horrible groan, Bill put his mouth to thecrevice, and imitated the groan, which had been too deeply fixed inhis memory ever to be forgotten, giving full scope to his voice.
The effect astonished and frightened him as well as the pirates.
With the same success he imitated the Indian war-whoop, which he hadlearned while among the savages.
The next time that the pirates were so terribly frightened, the alarmwas caused by Fire Cloud after his visit to the cave on the occasionthat he had been taken for the devil by Bill, and an Indian ghost byHellena.
Fire Cloud had remained in another chamber of the cavern connectedwith the secret passage already described, and where the echo was evenmore wonderful than the one pronounced from the opening through whichthe negro had spoken.
Here he could hear all that was passing in the great chamber occupiedby the pirates, and from this chamber the echoes were to those who didnot understand their cause, perfectly frightful.
All these peculiarities of the cavern had been known to the ancientIndian priests or medicine men, and by them made use of to impose ontheir ignorant followers.
BEADLE'S FRONTIER SERIES
1. The Shawnee's Foe. 2. The Young Mountaineer. 3. Wild Jim. 4. Hawk-Eye, the Hunter. 5. The Boy Guide. 6. War Tiger of the Modocs. 7. The Red Modocs. 8. Iron Hand. 9. Shadow Bill, the Scout. 10. Wapawkaneta, or the Rangers of the Oneida. 11. Davy Crockett's Boy Hunter. 12. The Forest Avenger. 13. Old Jack's Frontier Cabin. 14. On the Deep. 15. Sharp Snout. 16. The Mountain Demon. 17. Wild Tom of Wyoming. 18. The Brave Boy Hunters of Kentucky. 19. The Fearless Ranger. 20. The Haunted Trapper. 21. Madman of the Colorado. 22. The Panther Demon. 23. Slashaway, the Fearless. 24. Pine Tree Jack. 25. Indian Jim. 26. Navajo Nick. 27. The Tuscarora's Vow. 28. Deadwood Dick, Jr. 29. A New York Boy Among the Indians. 30. Deadwood Dick's Big Deal. 31. Hank, the Guide. 32. Deadwood Dick's Dozen. 33. Squatty Dick. 34. The Hunter's Secret. 35. The Woman Trapper. 36. The Chief of the Miami. 37. Gunpowder Jim. 38. Mad Anthony's Captain. 39. The Ranger Boy's Career. 40. Old Nick of the Swamp. 41. The Shadow Scout. 42. Lantern-Jawed Bob. 43. The Masked Hunter. 44. Brimstone Jake. 45. The Irish Hunter. 46. Dave Bunker. 47. The Shawnee Witch. 48. Big Brave. 49. Spider-Legs. 50. Harry Hardskull. 51. Madman of the Ocont. 52. Slim Jim. 53. Tiger-Eye. 54. The Red Star of the Seminoles. 5
5. Trapper Joe. 56. The Indian Queen's Revenge. 57. Eagle-Eyed Zeke. 58. Scar-Cheek, the Wild Half-Breed. 59. Red Men of the Woods. 60. Tuscaloosa Sam. 61. The Bully of the Woods. 62. The Trapper's Bride. 63. Red Rattlesnake, The Pawnee. 64. The Scout of Tippecanoe. 65. Old Kit, The Scout. 66. The Boy Scouts. 67. Hiding Tom. 68. Roving Dick, Hunter. 69. Hickory Jack. 70. Mad Mike. 71. Snake-Eye. 72. Big-Hearted Joe. 73. The Blazing Arrow. 74. The Hunter Scouts. 75. The Scout of Long Island. 76. Turkey-Foot. 77. The Death Rangers. 78. Bullet Head. 79. The Indian Spirit. 80. The Twin Trappers. 81. Lightfoot the Scout. 82. Grim Dick. 83. The Wooden-Legged Spy. 84. The Silent Trapper. 85. Ugly Ike. 86. Fire Cloud. 87. Hank Jasper. 88. The Scout of the Sciota. 89. Black Samson. 90. Billy Bowlegs. 91. The Bloody Footprint. 92. Marksman the Hunter. 93. The Demon Cruiser. 94. Hunters and Redskins. 95. Panther Jack. 96. Old Zeke. 97. The Panther Paleface. 98. The Scout of the St. Lawrence. 99. Bloody Brook. 100. Long Bob of Kentucky.
THE ARTHUR WESTBROOK CO. Cleveland, U.S.A.
Fire Cloud; Or, The Mysterious Cave. A Story of Indians and Pirates. Page 17
