THE ANTELOPE BOY; OR, SMOHOLLER, THE MEDICINE-MAN

A TALE OF INDIAN ADVENTURE AND MYSTERY.

BY GEORGE L. AIKEN.

NEW YORK. BEADLE AND ADAMS, PUBLISHERS, 98 WILLIAM STREET.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873, by FRANK STARR & CO., In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

CHAPTER I. THE SURVEYORS’ CAMP.

The surveying party were camped upon the banks of the Columbia River, a short distance from the mouth of its confluent, the Yakima.

This party consisted of the two surveyors—Owen Blaikie, a bluff, middle-aged Scotchman, long since “naturalized” to this country, and Cyrus Robbins, a shrewd young Yankee, twelve United States soldiers under command of Lieutenant Charles Gardiner, detailed expressly from the nearest fort to protect the surveying party from predatory bands of Indians, an old hunter, generally known under the name of “Gummery Glyndon,”—his prefix of Montgomery having suffered this abbreviation at the hands of his associates—whose duty it was to act as guide, and keep the surveyors supplied with fresh meat; and two boys, the chain-bearers of the expedition.

These boys merit more than a passing notice here, as they are destined to play conspicuous parts in the events which were to follow the advance of the surveying party into the country of the Yakimas.

There was this peculiarity about them, that they were first cousins, and were both called Percy—Percy Vere and Percy Cute.

But despite their relationship and the similarity of their surnames, there was very little resemblance between the two.

Percy Vere was a slender youth, graceful and active, with a frank, honest face, and regular features, his hair being a 10 dark chestnut, thick and curly, and his eyes a clear hazel, giving evidence of courage and decision of character in their glances. He looked quite picturesque in his coarse suit, with the trowsers tucked into high-topped boots, and his crispy curls straggling from beneath his broad-leafed felt hat.

Percy Cute was full a head shorter, and his figure was decidedly dumpish. He had a fat, good-natured face, light flaxen hair, and a laughing blue eye. Indeed, a grin appeared to be the prevailing expression of his features. He was sluggish-looking, and appeared like one who would not put forth exertion unless compelled to do so. He was dressed after the fashion of his cousin and comrade, with heavy boots, coarse trowsers, a striped shirt, with a broad collar, and a kind of roundabout, which was short for a coat, and too long for a jacket; and like him, he wore a revolver in a belt buckled around his waist, the pistol resting convenient to hand, upon his right hip, while on the left side the handle of a bowie knife made itself conspicuous.

All in this party carried arms, for the service was one of danger, and at any moment the emergency for their use might arise.

The boys were quite favorites in the party, the first by his frank, manly bearing, and accommodating spirit, and the other by his unvarying good nature, and the drollery in which he was so fond of indulging. His humor appeared to be inexhaustible, and his quaint manner of giving vent to it was irresistible.

In fact, Percy Cute had, at a very early age, been forcibly impressed by the antics of a clown in a circus, and his great delight had been to play clown from that eventful moment.

The culinary department of the expedition was attended to by a colored individual who combined the two functions of cook and barber for the party. He was a jolly little darky, but terribly afraid of the Indians. The fear of his life was that he might have his “wool lifted”—as the old hunter phrased it—before he got out of the wilderness. But he had one consolation even in this apprehension: he had, like a great many other barbers, invented a HAIR RESTORATIVE, which he considered infallible.

“Never you mind, boys,” he would tell the soldiers, “if 11 de Injines does gobble us, an’ lift our ha’r, as Gummery says, I can make it grow ag’in—hi yah-yah! I jist kin!”

Whereupon he would exhibit a small bottle in a mysterious manner, adding, “Dar’s de stuff dat can do it—you bet!” And then he would consign it to his pocket again.

This assurance afforded much amusement to the “high privates” of the party, who made a standing joke of the Professor’s Hair Restorative—for Isaac Yardell had prefixed the word “Professor” to his name when he was a tonsorial artist in Chicago, before the spirit of adventure had seized upon him and led him after gold among the mountains of Montana.

Gummery Glyndon had brought in an antelope. Some of the soldiers had captured a few fish from the river, a fire had been built in the center of the camp, and preparations were going on briskly for the evening meal.

In this Isaac had four assistants, he having contrived to transfer the drudgery of his office, with true Ethiopian cunning, to others. A colored servitor will always shirk all the work he can. Thus two of the soldiers, a German named Jacob Spatz—Dutch Jake, was his camp name—and one Irishman, Cornelius Donohoe—Corney for short—were always available for services at meal-time, and the two boys—the Percys—collected the wood for the firing. By this arrangement Isaac had little to do but the cooking, which he performed to the entire satisfaction of the party.

Even the rough old hunter—Glyndon—a gaunt, grizzly man of fifty years of age, bestowed his meed of praise upon him.

“It don’t matter what I bring in,” he told Lieutenant Gardiner, “game, fish or fowl—antelope, mountain sheep, or b’ar meat, that Ike can just make it toothsome. These darkies take to cooking, ’pears to me, just as naturally as ducks do to water.”

Ike had only one grievance in the camp, Percy Cute was continually playing jokes upon him. Such little pranks as putting powder in his pipe, nipping at the calves of his legs and imitating a dog’s growl, and grasping his wool at night, and shouting a war-whoop in his ear, had a damaging effect upon Ike’s temper, and he vowed deadly vengeance. But his 12 vengeance never extended beyond a chase after Percy Cute with a ladle, with the laudable intention of administering a severe spanking; but in these onslaughts the redoubtable Isaac always came to grief; for, just as he would overtake the flying youth, Cute, with a nimbleness that his sluggish look and dumpy figure never led any one to expect, would suddenly fall upon his hands and knees, and pitch his pursuer over him. But as Isaac invariably alighted upon his head, he received no injury from these involuntary dives. A shout of laughter would herald his defeat, and he would pick himself up, and return to his camp-kettle, in a crest-fallen manner, swearing to himself until every thing got blue

around him, and vowing that he would “fix him de next time, suah!”

These little episodes enlivened the camp, and nobody enjoyed them better than Gummery Glyndon. The old hunter had, generally, a morose look upon his seamed and weather-beaten countenance, and his hatred of every thing in shape of an Indian was well known.

Nor was the cause of that hatred a secret. He had been the victim of one of those forest tragedies so frequently enacted upon the frontier. It was the old story which has been told so often, and will be repeated until the extermination of the red-man—which has been going on slowly but surely for years—is completed.

While absent upon a hunting and trapping expedition, his cabin had been surprised, his wife and only child, a little girl some three years of age, cruelly murdered, and their mutilated remains consumed in the fire that destroyed his home.

A blackened ruin was all that was left of the spot that was so dear to him, and he found himself alone in the world, with only one thought in the future—vengeance upon the murderers.

In the drear solitude of that heart-sickening scene, and beside the ashes of all that he had treasured in the world, he breathed that vow of vengeance, which the lips of so many bereaved settlers in the Far West have sent up to heaven—death to the destroyers.

That was fifteen years before the time in which I introduce him here. In all those years he had pursued the Indians 13 with a deadly malignity. He had taken part in every Indian war that had broken out, and the number of his victims had been many.

As the years passed away this feeling of vengeance grew fainter, and though he never spared an Indian who came against him with hostile intent, yet he did not go out of his way to seek for them, as he had done. The Yakimas were supposed to be the destroyers of his home and family, and against that nation he cherished an undying enmity. Yet circumstances had led him away from their country, to the hunting-grounds of the Apaches, with whom he had many encounters.

He had gladly accepted the service that would take him back to the land of the Yakimas. In all these years he had gained experience as a guide, in wood-craft, and as an Indian-fighter. No hunter of the plains bore a better reputation for skill, prudence, and knowledge of the Indians than Gummery Glyndon.

His face bore a somewhat morose expression, as I have said, but he was far from being a morose man. Indeed, there was quite a fund of dry humor in his disposition, which was an agreeable surprise to those who judged the man by his saturnine countenance.

Percy Cute was a particular favorite of his, and none in the party enjoyed the boy’s drolleries more than he did. Indeed, both the boys were prime favorites with him, and often accompanied him upon his hunts. He looked upon them in the light of proteges, as he had got them their places in the expedition.

He had met them at Fort Benton, where they had come from Omaha up the Missouri river, on one of the steamboats that ply on that stream, and was rather surprised to hear what had brought them there.

Though partly led by a spirit of adventure, they had a mission, and one of some importance.

CHAPTER II. THE ARROW MESSAGE.

Percy Vere explained this mission to the old hunter. His father had been missing for years. He was an eccentric character, and professed spiritualism, astrology, ventriloquism, and kindred sciences, dabbling a little in magic and chemistry. In fact, he was a universal genius—a jack-of-all-trades, and not doing well with any.

Percy’s mother was a woman of ability and good sense, a first rate milliner, and her industry kept the wolf, which the father’s eccentricities brought to the door, away. In other words, she was obliged to support herself and son, and often furnish money to the genius, who could not make it for himself with all his diverse talents.

He did not appear to be able to concentrate his forces so as to produce any good from them. He was full of wild theories and startling speculations, but he failed signally whenever he attempted to put them to an application.

His wife expressed her opinion of him freely one day, and told him she could no longer expend her savings in his wild schemes. He replied that it was the fate of genius to be misunderstood, that he was destined to be a great man, and she would live to see it; and having uttered this ambiguous prophecy, left her.

He did not return the next day, or the next—a year passed away without bringing Guy Vere home. His wife became alarmed at his prolonged absence. She reproached herself with being too harsh with him and having driven him away from her. He was a handsome man, and she had cherished a warm affection for him, which his eccentricities had not destroyed. She feared that she had driven him to commit suicide. But no tidings came of his death.

She was obliged to keep her little millinery shop going for the support of herself and son, and her sister’s child, who being left an orphan, fell to her care. This was Percy Cute—who 15 was just one year younger than his cousin, his mother having been so pleased with the name of her sister’s child, that she had bestowed it upon her own.

The little shop prospered, and the boys grew in years. Mrs. Vere could not drive the image of her husband from her mind. If she could have satisfied herself that he was dead, she would have been more content, but she could not do that.

The impression among Guy’s neighbors when he was at home, was that he was not in his right mind—“Luny,” they called him.

But many years passed away before she got any tidings of the missing man, and then it came in a very vague shape.

Percy Vere got an Omaha Herald one day, which had been sent as an exchange to a St. Louis paper, and in it was the advertisement of an astrologer who called himself “Professor Guy.”

He took it home to his mother, and said to her, “That’s father!”

These words put her all in a flutter. She took the paper and scanned the advertisement eagerly.

“What makes you think so?” she asked.

“Father’s name was Guy, and he was a ‘professor’ of astrology!”

She smiled. “He was a professor of almost everything.”

“Suppose I go and see if it is my father,” he suggested.

She pondered over this.

“Would you know him, do you think?”

“Oh, yes, if the picture you have in your locket is any thing like him.”

“It was when it was taken.”

She took out the locket, which she wore constantly around her neck, sprung it open, and regarded the two portraits it contained earnestly, for it held her miniature likeness as well as his.

“I have not changed much,” she said, “and perhaps he has not, either. I should really like to know if he is alive. Suppose I was to write to this Professor Guy?”

Percy, who was a bright youth, shook his head dissentingly.

“If he is staying away of his own accord, it is no use to write to him to come back,” he replied.

She breathed a sigh. “I suppose not,” she said.

“But if I was to go after him and have a talk with him, I might prevail upon him to come back.”

Mrs. Vere was impressed by these words, but she answered: “How could I trust you so far away from home?”

He smiled, and drew himself proudly up.

“Don’t you think I am big enough to take care of myself?”

She surveyed his tall, graceful figure, with a mother’s pride, saying:

“Perhaps; but you are so young.”

“I’m seventeen, and I feel quite a man.”

“But I don’t like to trust you so far from home alone.”

“Oh! I needn’t go alone; Percy can go with me.”

Mrs. Vere laughed.

“A great protection he would be—another boy like yourself!” she cried. “There, there—let us not talk any more about it.”

But they did talk about it upon several occasions afterward, and Mrs. Vere’s desire to hear from her missing husband overcame all other considerations, and she consented to Percy’s request to go in search of him. She thought that the sight of his boy would induce him to return home.

Her business had proved prosperous, as I have said, and she was able to fit out the boys in good style. She hung the locket that contained her own and husband’s likeness around her son’s neck, and bade him a tearful “good speed.”

The boys took passage upon a steamboat bound for Omaha, and steamed up the Big Muddy, as the Missouri is called by the dwellers on its banks, and reached that ambitious city in due season.

Upon making inquiries, Percy Vere learned that Professor Guy had found Omaha dull for the exercise of his profession, and had joined a party of adventurers—a mixture of hunters and gold-seekers—and gone with them to Fort Benton.

The very eccentricity of this proceeding was a convincing proof to Percy that this Professor Guy was indeed his father 17 So he wrote to his mother, and then he and Percy Cute sailed up the river in one of the light-draught steamboats.

They reached Fort Benton without misadventure, but here, instead of being at the end of their journey, they found it was just the starting-point. The party to which the Professor had attached himself had taken the trail that led into the wilderness, and it was necessary to follow it, or abandon the search.

Percy Vere chose the former alternative, for he could never think of the latter, and Percy Cute was always of his way of thinking—in fact, thinking was irksome to his sluggish nature.

“I just tumble to any thing you say,” he told his cousin. “Follow your leader—that’s my maxim. You lead and I’ll follow. Say! we might have some high old fun among the Injuns, and bears, and things. Let’s invest in a revolver and bowie-knife, and travel on our muscle!”

So Percy Vere, filled with a true spirit of boyish adventure, wrote his intentions to his mother, and he and Cute made their preparations for a journey into the wilderness.

At this juncture of affairs they made the acquaintance of the old hunter, Gummery Glyndon. They told him their story, (or rather young Vere did, for he was the spokesman on all occasions) and he promised to aid them, and fulfilled his promise by attaching them to the surveying party, though in the capacity of chain bearers; but the boys did not mind that.

Such an opportunity to penetrate into the Indian country was not to be neglected, and the first Percy, who was treasurer, wished to husband their means, for there was no telling how long their search might last, or whither it would lead them.

They made rapid journeys at first, as a portion of the “Northern Pacific Railroad” had already been surveyed, and they were to take it up at, or near, that point, where it was to connect in a south-easterly direction with the “Union Pacific.”

As they passed the different Government forts their escort was changed, until they were joined by Lieutenant Gardiner and his squad, from Fort Walla Walla. He was to remain with them until they were through the Yakima country.

Hitherto their journey had led through the land of the Nez Perces, who were a friendly tribe, and they had been undisturbed; but when they made this new camp Gummery Glyndon told them they might now expect trouble from the Indians.

“There’s three tribes through here,” he said, “and there ain’t much choice between ’em. There’s the Cayuses, the Yakimas, and the Umatillas—a pesky set of murdering thieves the lot of ’em. They all belong to the great Snake Nation, I believe—red sarpints, every mother’s son of ’em.”

When he returned from his hunt he told them that he had seen “Indian sign.”

“There’s Injuns watching us, and we shall hear from them,” he said. “We’ll have to keep a sharp watch to-night, or they’ll stampede our animals.”

The lieutenant and the surveyors did not neglect this warning. They had great confidence in the old hunter’s judgment.

When the supper was disposed of the camp was placed in as good a condition of defense as the locality would permit. The ground had been well selected; it was a little grove on the river’s bank, a kind of oasis among the cliffs, which rose beetling upon either side, precipitously, and, apparently, inaccessible. These cliffs were some distance—a long rifle-shot—from the little grove, and a kind of rocky valley lay between them, devoid of vegetation in many places, where the hard rocks cropped up. Through this valley must the foe come, or else risk their necks, or a plunge into the river, by attempting to skirt the cliffs.

The horses belonging to the party were secured in the grove. In the center of the grove, in a kind of natural fireplace formed by the rocks, the fire had been built, and its red embers were still glowing. Two sentinels were posted at either extremity of the camp. Around the fire the hunter, the surveyors, and the lieutenant were stretched in easy attitudes, enjoying their pipes of tobacco—the great luxury of the wilderness.

A short distance from them the two boys reclined upon a mossy bowlder, listening to their conversation.

The sun had sunk, and the glorious twilight of that 19 western land was upon them. The scene was of calm tranquillity. But that tranquillity was broken in a singular manner.