THE Phantom Rider; OR, THE GIANT CHIEF’S FATE.

A Tale of the Old Dahcotah Country.

BY MARO O. ROLFE, Author of Pocket Novel No. 47, “The Man Hunter.”

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

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, by FRANK STARR & CO., In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

CHAPTER I. VINNIE’S PERIL.

The scene of our story is laid in the great North-west.

It was a bleak, windy day in November. The shrill blasts wailed through the forest trees like the last despairing cry of a lost spirit, and gust after gust beat and roared around the little log cabin standing so silent and lonely, half buried in the midst of the Titanic oaks that spread their long branches protectingly over its low roof, and whose sturdy trunks environed it, seeming to keep silent and untiring guard over its four rough walls.

The scene within the cabin was in striking contrast with the wild aspect without.

It was a rude but homelike place, and despite the chinked walls and rough furniture, there was such an air of plain comfort as one might expect to see in the abode of the sturdy western pioneer.

A young girl sat by a table engaged in embroidering a broad strip of dressed deer-skin with fancifully colored beads and quills—a blue-eyed, slender-looking little woman with shining masses of golden-brown hair falling unconfined about her small, shapely head, and down over her shoulders until it reached the waist of her dress, which fitted her willowy form to perfection, and whose ample folds half concealed, half disclosed a small, neatly-clad foot and well-turned ankle.

Her sunny blue eyes held a soft, loving light, and a bright smile played continually upon her dainty face and around her rosy little mouth, with its ripe lips half parted from the rows of small white teeth.

But the azure eyes could flash with courage and determination, and the pretty mouth could be hard and stern with its strawberry lips tightly drawn and its tiny, gleaming teeth hard-set.

The settler’s daughter was very lovely, and she possessed a nerve and courage far beyond her sex.

A tall, powerfully-made man of fifty stood near the great wide-mouthed fire-place, in which a ruddy blaze leapt and glowed fantastically, shedding a pleasant radiance over the homely place that could not but be grateful to one who, like Emmett Darke, was preparing to leave it and go out into the wind and cold of the chill November day. But the settler, long used to the perils of border life, thought little of this.

His sharp gray eye and firm through pleasant mouth bespoke indomitable courage and strength of will; and as he stood there in the red glow of the dancing firelight, buckling on his deer-skin belt in which he thrust the borderman’s trusty companion, a long, keen-edged hunting-knife, with a brace of heavy pistols, he looked the personification of the ideal hunter of the far western wilds.

A huge blood-hound lay on the floor at his feet—a large, red-eyed creature with white, gleaming teeth—a brute that might be a true and faithful friend, but could not but be a terribly dangerous enemy.

The object in the room most likely to attract the attention of a casual observer was a small square box of polished wood, standing on the table.

Besides the tall clock ticking in a corner, this casket was the only visible thing that bore evidence of having been made by hands more skilled than those of the settler, or with tools other than those common implements ever ready at the pioneer’s grasp, the ax and the auger.

What this curious little box contained, will appear hereafter.

Soon the hunter’s preparations were completed, and slinging a long rifle, which he had taken down from its place on three pegs in the wall, across his shoulders, he turned to his daughter who had wound the soft deer-skin belt, upon which she had wrought innumerable fancy devices, gracefully about 11 her waist and shoulders, and stood regarding him with a merry light sparkling in her blue eyes.

“How do I look, papa?” she asked. “Like some dusky forest princess?”

And she finished by placing a jaunty turban in which were fastened several bright-colored plumes, which drooped down until they touched her beautiful golden hair, coquettishly on her head.

“More like a regular angel, wings and all!” he exclaimed, admiringly: for Emmett Darke loved his beautiful motherless child more than his life. “That hair and those eyes of yours don’t look very Injiny. Wouldn’t that red lover of yours go wild if he saw you now? I don’t wonder he’s half-crazy and calls you ‘Sun-Hair!’ How about that youngster, Clancy Vere, eh, Vinnie? Has he an eye to beauty?”

The maiden blushed rosy red; but the laughing eyes became thoughtful in a moment.

“Do you know, papa, that I often think of him—the Indian? Oh, if he should come some day when you are gone! He is wild and bloodthirsty and his passions are ungovernable. He has taken a solemn vow to make me his wife!”

“He shall never fulfill that vow!” cried the old man, with a dangerous light in his cold gray eyes. “I’ll have his life, first! If he comes here again I’ll give him a free pass to the happy hunting-grounds!”

Emmett Darke’s face was almost white with rage, and he brought the heavy stock of his long rifle down on the floor with a sharp bang.

“Just so sure as that red devil has the misfortune to be caught anywhere near my cabin, I will shoot him down like the coward he is! My daughter is never to become a squaw, eh, Vinnie?”

“Never, father! Never will I become the Indian’s wife! I would sooner shed my own heart’s blood!”

She spoke so calmly and yet determinedly that her father half-shuddered. He knew that she meant every word, and he breathed an inward prayer that God would watch over his lonely child and guard her from all peril during his absence.

The hunter stood silent and motionless for a few moments, 12 thinking intently. Arousing himself at length, he said, turning to the blood-hound, who was on his feet in an instant, running around him and licking his hands:

“Come, Death! We must go.”

In a few minutes they had passed out, and were walking rapidly and silently through the forest.

As Darke went away, a face appeared among the thick bushes close by the cabin—a red face, hideously daubed with black and yellow paint, with long, coarse black hair, hanging down the sunken jaws, and fierce black eyes flashing triumph and exultation as the hunter disappeared from view. Darke did not see this face, and the bushes closed over it in a moment, concealing it as suddenly as it had appeared.

After her father was gone, Vinnie went and stood before the fireplace, looking down into the red mass of leaping flames.

She was deeply buried in thought, and she heard no sound save the hissing of the fire and the wailing of the wind around the corners of the cabin, and through the bare branches of the great oaks outside.

She little thought what a lovely picture she made as she stood thus, silent and motionless—one might almost imagine breathless—with a dreamy, far-off look in her soft eyes, and the glancing blaze lighting up her fair face till she looked, in fantastic guise, like some beautified Fairy queen, some incomparable silvan goddess.

Rarely, radiantly lovely she appeared, strangely out of place in that homely room.

She was unconscious of this—unconscious, also, of another presence in the cabin until the back-log fell suddenly with a dull thud, throwing out a shower of red sparks and arousing her on the instant from the fit of abstraction into which she had fallen.

With a quick start, she turned her head and saw a tall form close behind her—so near that it might easily have touched her.

It was the form of an Indian, powerful and massive. The face was the same that had peered through the shrubbery at Emmett Darke a few minutes before.

There was a strange light glowing in the fierce eyes fixed 13 so steadily on the lovely face before him—a look of wild passion as dangerous as it was intense.

The savage did not speak nor even stir; but the hard, cruel lines on his forehead and about his mouth relaxed a little as he tried to twist his ugly visage into the semblance of a smile—a semblance that was even more loathsome than its habitual scowl—that was nearer the leer of an exultant fiend than the smile of a human being.

Vinnie’s face was deathly pale, and her heart seemed for a moment to lay still in her bosom; but she tried to meet the gaze of those devilish eyes calmly. She stood quite still, looking into the cruel face, but she dared not trust her voice.

The Indian spoke at length, in a tone harsh and rasping, like the snarl of some wild animal:

“Ku-nan-gu-no-nah has come for his squaw. Sun-Hair is very beautiful. Ku-nan-gu-no-nah is a mighty warrior. He has always loved the white maiden since he met her in the forest many moons ago. The great chief’s heart has been burning for Sun-Hair. He has prepared his wigwam. It is hung around with the scalps of his slain foes. Sun-Hair will be a queen. The Indian women will bow down their heads in shame before the beautiful Sun-Hair! Is she ready? Will she go with the great chief? His warriors are waiting to see their queen!”

For a moment Vinnie did not speak, then the words came clear and sharp from her white lips:

“No! I will never go!”

The chief’s face was fairly demoniac in an instant—the sickish leer was gone, and the savage teeth shone through the drawn lips in two white, gleaming rows. He advanced with a quick motion, and laid his hand roughly on her arm.

“Come!” said the harsh voice, “Sun-Hair must go!”

CHAPTER II. CLANCY VERE AND HIS TROUBLE.

“Here I am!”

It was a young man who spoke, standing on the bank of a small stream that had its course through the forest at a point about two miles distant, as a bird flies, from Emmett Darke’s cabin.

He was tall and well-formed, with hazel eyes and dark-brown hair. His face was clear-cut and handsome, open and frank in its expression, while it indicated a goodly stock of firmness and courage.

This is Clancy Vere, the young hunter, an allusion to whom had brought the rich blood to Vinnie’s face that very afternoon.

He was clad in a complete suit of dressed deer-skin, elaborately ornamented about the shoulders with bright-colored beads and quills, his hunting-shirt being gathered about his waist with a wide belt from which protruded the stock of a heavy revolver and the silver-mounted hilt of a long bowie-knife, while a powder-horn and bullet-pouch were slung by a leathern cord under his left arm.

As he spoke, he dropped the butt of his rifle, a trim, beautifully-mounted weapon, until it rested on the turf at his feet; then he stood leaning on it for a long time, looking intently down into the depths of the eddying stream before him.

He was thinking—of a girl with blue eyes and golden brown hair—of Emmett Darke’s beautiful daughter, Vinnie.

Clancy Vere loved Vinnie devotedly, and not hopelessly, she had led him to think; though, as yet, he had never made any formal declaration of his passion.

Still, as a look is oftentimes fraught with more meaning than the most high-sounding speech, and the pioneer’s daughter had not, upon certain occasions which he could recall, 15 been chary of these looks, Vere was very far from being despondent.

He lived at a small settlement a half-dozen miles away, and had set out that morning to visit the cabin of the hunter. His errand there may be easily surmised.

He had proceeded thus far on his way without adventure worthy of note, and intended to cross the stream in a canoe that he knew Darke kept concealed in the undergrowth at a place a hundred yards below the spot where he now stood.

So intent was he upon his musings, that he heard no sound save the rippling of the water and the roar of the wind through the trees.

He did not see the bushes part close behind him and a dusky form emerge from its concealment, to be followed by another, then another, until six Indians had entered the little grassy space in which he was standing, and began stealthily to take different positions around him until his chances of escape were cut off on all sides.

He was brought to realize his situation in a moment.

A chorus of shrill, exultant yells rung out on every hand.

He turned on the instant, and his quick eye measured the strength of his savage foes. They were too near at hand for him to bring his rifle to bear; but gripping it firmly around the barrel, he brought the ponderous stock down on his nearest assailant, crushing in his skull like an egg-shell.

There was a muffled thud as the deadly weight fell a second time, and another savage sunk over on the ground without a groan.

An Indian was creeping up stealthily behind him. As Vere raised his clubbed rifle a third time, throwing it high above his head, in order that the blow might be more effective, the savage, who had been crouching down on the ground a moment close beside him, sprung high in the air, and clutching the gun-barrel near the lock, wrenched it from the young hunter’s hands just as it began to descend.

This quick, hard pull upon the weapon, which he gripped with all his strength, caused him to stagger a trifle, and before he could regain his footing and draw his bowie-knife, the three remaining Indians sprung upon him and bore him to the ground.

In a moment his elbows were pinioned behind his back, and his weapons were transferred from his belt to those of his captors.

They pulled him roughly to his feet, and an Indian took his place on either side, leading him along by the arms. The brave who had disarmed him walked behind, while the remaining savage, who was evidently a warrior of some importance, to judge from the number of eagle’s feathers which ornamented his head and the many trophies of the war-path and the chase which were hung about his neck and secured to his belt, led the way up the stream, pausing ever and anon to give some guttural command in his native dialect to his followers, who clutched their captive’s arms firmly, as if they feared that, bound and almost helpless as he was, he would attempt to escape.

They had seen evidence of his prowess, and wisely concluded that he was a safer prisoner well guarded than when allowed to walk alone.

For an hour they kept on, over fallen trees and heaps of rock, through tangled masses of undergrowth, now bearing a little to the right, then to the left; but always keeping within hearing of the stream, whose monotonous murmurings seemed to grow louder and hoarser as they proceeded, until they changed to a wild, sullen roar, like the impetuous rushing and dashing of a cataract.

At length, after a long silence, the leader of the party turned toward Vere and said, impressively:

“Does the pale-face hear the song of the waterfall? It is chanting his death-song! The black waters laugh because they will swallow up the pale-face!”

Soon the sun appeared through an opening in the leaden gray clouds that had drifted lazily through the sky until they were gathered together in a dark, lowering mass overhead, and its bright rays trembled for a moment upon the surface of the water.

“See!” continued the Indian, pointing to the falls just visible through the trees. “See the waters smile! They laugh because the red men will give them a pale-face victim! Let the white man hear them sing! ‘Ha! ha!’ they say, ‘the pale-face must die!’ It is his death chant! The great 17 Manitou is speaking through the laughing waters. He is happy with his red children when a pale-face dies. The white hunter is brave. He is not afraid to fight. But his heart will grow small within his bosom when he must go down into the black waters—the river of death! Will he be brave when he meets the unknown dangers of the dark valley? He will find it hard to die now. He is young and the world looks bright to his eyes. Perhaps a white woman will weep when he is dead. The Indian women have mourned for their husbands and brothers when they have gone out to fight the Long-knives and never returned. The laughing waters are crying aloud for their victim. The white man must die!”

“We all must die,” said Vere, calmly, not caring to show the concern he really felt. “Men have died before, why should I fear death?”

An expression of surprise flitted over the Indian’s painted face.

Few men could meet death so calmly.

The young hunter had resolved not to die without a desperate struggle; but he preferred that his captors should think him resigned to his fate—the horrible fate which seemed inevitable.

A few rods above the falls a tree grew far out over the water, rushing madly to the cataract below.

The bank at this point was rough and jagged, its steep and rocky sides jutting out full twenty feet above the black, roaring mass underneath.

The party halted here.

“The pale-face hunter’s feet must be tied,” said the Indian who had spoken before. “He must not fight with the laughing waters.”

Producing a stout leathern thong, about twelve feet in length, one of the savages advanced to coil it around the captive’s ankles.

As he stooped, Vere drew his foot back suddenly and planted it with tremendous force squarely in his face, flattening his long nose and knocking out several of his sharp white teeth.

The Indian rolled over on the ground with a wild screech.

The pain was terrible, and he lay for a moment, pressing his disfigured face and giving utterance to a series of hoarse, agonized groans.

Then he sprung up suddenly with a wild yell of rage and vengeance.

He was upon Vere in an instant, his long fingers entwined in his hair and his scalping-knife circling with lightning rapidity around his head.

The young hunter’s arms were securely pinioned.

He was utterly powerless in the red fiend’s hands.

Death—sudden and terrible—seemed certain; but he did not flinch.

His fearless eye was fixed on the Indian’s face, and his own did not change when he felt the keen knife-point pricking the skin upon the crown of his head.

He was not afraid to die.

He thought of the terrible, because unknown life beyond the grave—and of Vinnie!

Would she weep when he was gone?

He trusted so, and stood calmly awaiting the great change.

CHAPTER III. VINNIE’S STRATAGEM.

Vinnie’s face was very pale, but she did not cry out. A wild fear, an awful terror, was tugging at her heart, but she would not give way to it. She knew she would need all her native courage and coolness in the ordeal which she foresaw she must endure.

Ku-nan-gu-no-nah’s hand retained its rough grip on her arm, and his harsh voice repeated:

“Come. Sun-Hair must go!”

Resistance would, she knew, be of no avail. It would only serve to arouse the Indian’s passions to a still higher pitch of intensity—to make him, if possible, still more demoniac, and still more determined than ever to fulfill his vow, and carry out his intention to abduct and bear her away to his wigwam.

She must have recourse to stratagem.

So, to gain time, she said as calmly as possible, but with a wild throbbing at her heart which she tried in vain to still:

“So the great chief loves the pale-face maiden? He would make her a queen? He would spend his whole life to make her happy? Is it not so?”

“Yes,” he said, eagerly. “Ku-nan-gu-no-nah loves Sun-Hair as the bird loves its mate. He will always make her happy. She shall never know what it is to weep. Her life shall always be pleasant. It shall be like a day when the green grass is new on the ground, and the dancing waters, freed from their cold bonds of ice, are laughing in the bright sunlight.”

“And my life shall be like one long day in the bright spring-time?” she said, as bravely as she could, smiling through all her fear.

“Yes,” again said the chief, with a searching look in her white face.