The White Squaw

Warren said, “All right; no matter.”

Then, with a word of explanation, parted from Cris, and proceeded to find Nelatu.

As soon as he was out of sight, Carrol’s behaviour would have furnished a comic artist a capital subject for a sketch. He chuckled, winked his eyes, wagged his head, rubbed his hands, and seemed to shake all over with suppressed merriment.

“A pair of the artfullest cusses I ever comed across. Darn my pictur if the young ’un ain’t most too good. War I goin’ by the swamp, ’cos then I might do him a service? No, no, Mister Warren, this coon ain’t to be made a cat’s paw of by you nor your father neyther. I ain’t a goin’ to mix myself up in either of your scrapes, leastways, not if I knows it; nor Nelatu shan’t if I can help it. I don’t let him stir till his fellow Injuns come, and, may-be, that’ll keep him out o’ trouble. No, Master Warren, you must do yur own dirty work, and so must your father. Cris Carrol shan’t help either o’ you in that. If the young ’un don’t mind what he’s heard, altho’ he made b’lieve he didn’t, and his father don’t mind what I told him, there’ll be worse come of it.”

Chapter Six.

Crookleg

When young Rody took his departure from Carrol’s hut, he went off in no very enviable mood.

His interview with Nelatu, although of the briefest, had been as unproductive of results as that with the blunt old backwoodsman.

The plain speaking indulged in by Carrol, and which he had overheard before entering the cabin, had annoyed him, while the oracular manner adopted by Cris in no way assuaged the feeling.

The fact of the matter is that the old hunter had made a clear guess at the truth.

Warren had a passion for Sansuta, the daughter of Oluski.

Not a manly, loving passion, though.

Her beauty had cast a spell upon him. Had his soul been pure, the spell would have worked its own cure. Out of the magic of her very simplicity would have arisen chaste love.

But his heart was wicked, and its growth weeds.

Hitherto the difference of race had shielded from harm the object of his admiration. He would have been ashamed to avow it in an honest way.

Secretly, therefore, he had forged a false friendship for her brother, as a mask to conceal his base treachery.

In the incident with which our tale opens, he had found a ready means of advancing his own interests by more closely cementing Nelatu’s simple friendship, and moulding it to his will.

We have said that Red Wolf, the would-be assassin, fell by the bullet of his rifle.

With his hand upon the trigger, and in the very act of sending this wretch to his account, a thought had flashed across young Rody’s mind, which made his aim more certain.

Let us explain.

Nelatu said that Red Wolf had spoken wicked words of Sansuta and of Warren.

The very conjunction of their names supplied the calumny.

Nelatu spoke truly; but what he did not know was, that the wretch who paid the forfeit of his life for his foul speech was only the dupe of Nelatu’s own friend, Warren Rody.

Red Wolf, an idle, drunken scamp, had been a fit instrument in Rody’s hands to be employed as a messenger between him and the Indian girl.

For these services Red Wolf received repeated compensation in gold.

But the old story of the bad master becoming discontented with a bad servant was true in this case.

Warren was afraid that Red Wolf would, in one of his drunken orgies, talk too much, and betray the secret with which he had entrusted him.

So far, he was right; for it was whilst endeavouring to warn Nelatu of his sister’s danger that Red Wolf made use of language about the girl.

He had reviled Nelatu’s sister while traducing his friend.

The issue is already known.

Wicked were Warren’s thoughts as he stood, rifle in hand, watching the two.

If Red Wolf – and he recognised him at once – were removed in the very act of killing Nelatu, a dangerous tongue would be for ever silenced, while Nelatu’s friendship would be further secured, and Sansuta eventually become his.

The decision was taken, the bullet sent through Red Wolf’s brain, and Warren Rody accomplished a part of his design.

Having succeeded so far, it was terribly mortifying to find that one clear-sighted individual had penetrated his schemes, and, without appearing to do so, had placed a restraint upon the otherwise warm sense of gratitude with which Nelatu regarded him.

All this Cris Carrol had done, and therefore Warren Rody was angry with him.

He left the cabin vowing vengeance upon Carrol, and casting about for the means to accomplish it.

He had not long to wait, or far to seek.

At the end of the bye-road upon which the backwoodsman’s dwelling stood, he encountered the very tool suitable for his purpose.

It was in the person of a negro, with a skin black as Erebus, who was seen perched upon the top of a tall fence.

He was odd enough looking to attract the attention of the most careless traveller.

His head, denuded of the old ragged piece of felt he called hat, was unusually large, and covered with an enormous shock of tightly-curling wool.

This did not, however, conceal the apeish form of the skull, that bore a strong resemblance to that of a chimpanzee.

Rolling and sparkling in a field of white, were eyes preternaturally large, and wickedly expressive, above a nose and mouth of the strongest African type.

His arms were ludicrously long, and seemed by their unusual proportions to make up for the shortness, and impish form of the body.

He was whistling in a discordant strain some wild melody, and kicking his heels about like one possessed.

As Warren Rody approached, he paused in his ear-splitting music, and leaped nimbly from his perch, whilst flourishing his tattered felt in a sort of salutation.

It might have been observed that he was lame, and the few halting steps he took imparted a droll, hobbling motion to his diminutive body.

His dress was a curious warp of rags – woven, as it were – upon a still more ragged woof.

They were held together more by sympathy than cohesion.

In his right hand was a stout gnarled stick, with which he assisted himself in his frog-like progress.