The Sun Maid: A Story of Fort Dearborn

“Oh! I ain’t afraid of her. Not that. But I never did like her, nor she me. She’s sullen an’ top-lofty. Why, you’d think I wasn’t no better than the dirt under her feet, to see her sometimes. She was good to the childern, I’ll ’low, afore me an’ Abel took ’em in. But that’s four years ago, an’ I’ve cared for ’em ever since. Sometimes I think she’s regular bewitched ’em, they dote on her so. If you believe me, they’ll listen to her leastest word sooner ’n a whole hour of my talk!”

“I shouldn’t be surprised,” quietly commented one young matron, who was jogging her own baby to sleep by tipping her chair violently back and forth upon its four legs.

Continued Mercy:

“She wouldn’t eat a meal of victuals with me if she was starvin’. Yet I’ve treated her Christian. Only this mornin’ I give her leave to fry cakes for herself, an’ even have some syrup, but she wouldn’t touch to do it. Yes; fifty dollars of good government money would be more to me ’n she is, an’ she’d be took care of, I hear, along with all the rest is caught. It’s time the country was rid of the Indians an’ white folks had a chance. There’s all the while some massacrein’ an’ fightin’ goin’ on somewhere.”

“Oh! I guess the government just puts ’em under lock an’ key, in a guard-house, or some such place, till it gets enough to send away off West somewheres. I’d get the fifty dollars, if I was you, and march her off. She’ll be puttin’ notions into the youngsters’ heads first you see an’ makin’ trouble.”

“I don’t know just how to manage it. Abel, he’s queer an’ sot. He’s gettin’ tired, though, of some things, himself.”

“Manage it easy enough. Like fallin’ off a log. My man could do you that good turn. She could be took along in our wagon as far as the Agency. Then, next time he comes by with his grist on his road to mill, he could fetch you the money. I’d do it, sure. I only wish I had an Indian to catch as handy as she is.” Having given this advice, Mercy’s guest sat down.

There was a rush of small feet and the Sun Maid confronted them. Her blue eyes blazed with indignation, her face was white, and her hair, which the day’s activity had loosed from its braid, streamed backward as if every fibre quivered with life. With heaving breast and clenched hands, she faced them all.

“Oh, how dare you! How dare you! You are talking of my Wahneenah; of selling her, of selling her like a pig or a horse. Even you, Mrs. Jordan, though she nursed your little one till it got well, and only told you the truth: that if you’d look after it more and visit less it wouldn’t have the croup so often. You didn’t like to hear her say it, and you do not love her. But she is good, good, good! There is nobody so good as she is. And no harm shall come to her. I tell you. I say it. I, the Sun Maid, whom the Great Spirit sent to her out of the sky. I will go and tell her at once. She shall run away. She shall not be sold – never, never, never!”

The women remained dumfounded where she left them, watching her skim the distance between cabin and wigwam, scarcely touching the earth with her bare feet in her haste to warn her friend of this new danger which threatened her and her race. For it was quite true, this matter that had been discussed. The Indians had given so much trouble in the sparsely settled country that the authorities had offered a price for their capture; and it was this price which money-loving Mercy coveted.

Like a flash of a bird’s wing, Kitty had darted into the lodge and out again, with an agony of fear upon her features; and then she saw Gaspar beckoning.

As she reached him he motioned silence and drew her away into the shadow of the forest, that just there fringed the clearing behind the tepee.

“But – Wahneenah’s gone!” she whispered.

“Don’t worry. She’s safe enough for the present. Listen to me. Do you remember the horse-racing last year?”

“Course. I remember I got so excited over the horses, and so sorry for the boys that rode and didn’t win. But what of that? Other Mother has gone!”

“I tell you she’s safe. Safer than you or me. Listen. Abel says we, too, will have to ride a race to-day! On Tempest and Snowbird. Even if we win, the money will belong to him; and if we lose – he’s going to sell one of our horses to pay his loss. I heard him say it.”

“But they are ours!”

“He’s kept them all these years, he says. He claims the right to do with them as he chooses. Bad as that is, it isn’t the worst. Though Wahneenah is safe, still she will not be always. You and I will have to ride this race – to save her life, or liberty!”

“What do – you – mean?”

“I haven’t time to explain. Only – will you do as I say? Exactly?”

“Of course.” Kitty looked inquiringly into her foster-brother’s face. Didn’t he know she loved him better than anybody and would mind him always?

“When we are on the horses if I say to you: ‘Follow me!’ will you?”

“Of course. Away to the sky, over yonder, if you want me.”

“Even if any grown folks should try to stop you? Even if Abel or Mercy?”

“Even” – declared the little girl, sincerely.

“Now go back to the house, or anywhere you please till Abel calls you, or I do. Then come and mount. And then – then – do exactly as I tell you. Remember.”

He went away, back to the group of men about the barn, and Kitty sat down in the shady place to wait. But it was not for long. Presently she heard Mercy calling her, and saw Abel, with Gaspar, leading the black gelding and pretty Snowbird out of the stable toward a ring of other horses. She got up and passed toward the cabin very slowly. Oddly enough, she began to feel timid about riding before all those watching, strange faces; yet did not understand why. Then she thought of Wahneenah, and her returning anger made her indifferent to them.

“Abel wants you, Kit!” cried Mrs. Smith, quite ignoring the child’s recent outbreak, and the girl walked quietly toward him. But it was Gaspar who helped to swing her into her saddle, where she settled herself with an ease learned long ago of the Snake-Who-Leaps. The lad, also, found time to whisper:

“Remember your promise! We are to ride this race for Wahneenah’s life – though nobody knows that save you and me. So ride your best. Ride as you never rode before – and on the road I lead you!”

The sons of the new settler and horse dealer were to ride against these two. There were three of these youths, all well mounted, and the course was to be a certain number of times around the great wheat field so freshly reaped. It was a rough route, indeed, but as just for one as another, and in plain sight of all the visitors. The five horses ranged in a row with their noses touching a line, held by two men, that fell as the word was given:

“One – two – three – GO!”

They went. They made the circuit of the field in fair style, with the three strangers a trifle ahead. On the completion of the second heat, the easterners passed the starting-point alone.

“Why, Gaspar! Why, Kitty!” shouted Abel reprovingly. “How’s this?”

“Maybe they don’t understand what’s meant,” suggested somebody.

Seemingly, they did not. For neither at the third round did they appear in leading. On the contrary, they had started off at a right angle, straight across the prairie; but now so fast they rode, and so unerringly, that long before their deserted friends had ceased to stare and wonder they had passed out of sight.

CHAPTER XIV.

ONCE MORE IN THE OLD HOME

“We can rest a little now, Kit. We are so far away that nobody could catch us if they tried. They won’t try, any way, I guess. They’ll think we’ll go back.”

“Didn’t the horses do finely, Gaspar! I never rode like that, I guess. Where are we going? What did you mean about saving Wahneenah’s life? Where is she?”

“Don’t ask so many questions. I’ve got to think. I’ve got to think very hard. I’m the man of our family, you know, Sun Maid. Wahneenah and you are my women.”

“Oh! indeed!” said the girl, moving a little nearer her foster-brother on the grassy hillock where they had slipped from their saddles, to rest both themselves and the beasts.

“You see: we’ve all run away.”

“Pooh! That’s nothing. I’ve always been running away. Black Partridge said I began life that way.”

“You’re about ten years old, Kit. You’re big enough to be getting womanly.”

“Father Abel said I was. I can sew quite well. If I’m very, very good, I’m to be let stitch a dickey all alone, two threads at a time, for him. Mercy said so.”

“Do you like stitching shirts for that old man?”

“No. I hate it.”

“Poor little Sun Maid. You were made to be happy, and do nothing but what you like all day long. Well, I’ll be a man some day, and build a cabin of my own for you and Wahneenah.”

“That will be nice. Though I’ll be of some use some way, even if I don’t like sewing. Where shall we go when we get rested, boy?”

“To the Fort.”