The Sun Maid: A Story of Fort Dearborn

“We can’t go home. We’ve run away, you know. Besides, there would be the same anxiety about Wahneenah. All ’s left for us is to go on.”

So the Sun Maid settled herself firmly in her saddle and followed Tempest’s rather reckless pace forward into the darkness. Memory made the dim road familiar to Gaspar, and soon the garrison lights came into sight.

But martial law is strict and the gates had been closed for the night, as the lad had feared. The sentinel on duty did not respond to his first summons with the promptness which the boy desired, so, springing to his feet upon the gelding’s back, he shouted, over the stockade:

“Entrance for two citizens of the United States! In the name of its President!”

“Ugh. There is no need for such a noise, pale-face.”

These words fell so suddenly upon Gaspar’s ears that he nearly tumbled backward from his perch. He was further amazed to see the Sun Maid leap from her horse, straight through the gloom into the arms of a tall Indian who seemed to have risen out of the ground beside them.

In fact, he had merely stepped from a canoe at the foot of the path and his moccasined feet had made no sound upon the sward as he approached. He received the girl’s eager spring with grave dignity, and immediately replaced her upon the Snowbird’s back.

“Why, Black Partridge! Don’t you know me? Aren’t you glad to see me? Four years since we said good-by, that day at poor Muck-otey-pokee.”

“I remember all things. Why is the Sun Maid here, at this hour?”

Gaspar had recovered himself and now broke into a torrent of explanation, which the chief quietly interrupted as soon as he had gathered the facts of the case.

“But don’t you think, dear Feather-man, that our Wahneenah will soon come?” demanded Kitty, anxiously.

“The gates are open. Let us enter,” he answered evasively; and the novelty of her surroundings so promptly engrossed the girl’s mind that she forgot to question him further then. Somewhere on the dimly lighted campus a bugle was sounding; and it awakened sleeping memories of her earliest childhood. So did the regular “step-step” of soldiers relieving guard. A new and delightful sense of safety and familiarity thrilled her heart, and she exclaimed, joyfully:

“Oh, Gaspar! it is home! it is home! More than the cabin, more than Other Mother’s tepee, this is home!”

“I hope it will prove so.”

“Do you suppose I will find any of the dear white ‘mothers’ who were so good to me? Or Bugler Jim, who used to play me to sleep under the trees in the corner? I wish it wasn’t so dark. I wish – ”

“It’s all new, Kit. They are all strangers. The rest, you know – well, none of them are here. But these will be kind, no doubt. Yet to me, even in this dark, it seems – it seems horrible! It all comes back: that morning when I first rode Tempest. The massacre – ”

The tone of his voice startled her, and she begged at once:

“Let us go right away again. I am not afraid of the storm, nor the darkness, and nothing can harm us if we pray to be taken care of. The Great Spirit always hears. Let us go.”

“It is too late. It’s beginning to rain and that man is ordering us to dismount, that he may put the horses in the stables. Jump down.”

There were always some refugees at the Fort. Just then there were more than ordinary; or, if all were not such, there were many passing travellers, journeying in emigrant trains toward the unsettled west, to make their new homes there, and these used “Uncle Sam’s tavern” as an inn of rest and refreshment.

Amid so many, therefore, small attention was paid to the arrival of these two young people. They were furnished with a plain supper, in the main living room of the building which seemed a big and dreary place, and immediately afterward were dismissed to bed. Kitty was assigned a cot among the women guests and Gaspar slept in the men’s quarters.

But neither had very comfortable thoughts, and the talk of her dormitory neighbors kept the Sun Maid long awake. Here, as in Mercy’s cabin, the dominant subject was the reward offered for the capture of the Indians, and a fresh fear set her trembling as one indignant matron exclaimed:

“There’s one of those pesky red-skins in this very Fort this night. He came with that girl yonder, but I hope he won’t be let to get away as easy. The country is overrun with the Indians, and is no place for decent white folks. They outnumber us ten to one. That’s why I’ve got my husband to sell out. We’re on our way back East, to civilization.”

“Well, if one’s come here to-night, I reckon he’ll be taken care of! Massacres are more plenty than money, and some man or other’ll make out to claim the prize. What sort of Indian was he?”

“Oh, like them all. All paint and feather and wickedness. I wish somebody’d take and hang him to the sally-port, just for an example.”

This was too much for loyal Kitty Briscoe. She could no more help springing up in defence of her friends than she could help breathing.

“You women must not talk like that! There are good Indians, and they are the best people in the world. They won’t hurt anybody who lets them alone. That Indian you’re talking against is the Black Partridge. He is splendid. He is my very oldest friend, except Gaspar. He wouldn’t hurt a fly, and he’d help everybody needed help. It’s this horrible offer of money for every Indian caught that has set my precious Other Mother wandering over the country this dark night, and made Gaspar and me homeless runaways.”

There was instant hubbub in the room, and no more desire for sleep on anybody’s part until Kitty had been made to tell her story, the story of her life as she remembered it, over and over again; and when finally slumber overtook her, even in the midst of her narrative, her dreams were filled with visions of Wahneenah fleeing and forever pursued by uniformed soldiers with glistening bayonets, who fired after her to the merry sound of a bugle and drum.

In the morning she found Gaspar and related her night’s experience. He received it gravely, without the sympathy she expected.

“Kit, I don’t understand. What you said was true, and right enough for me to say. But it’s not like you to be so bold. Yesterday, you were saucy to the harvest-women and now again to these. Is it because you are growing up so fast, I wonder? All women are not like Other Mother. They might get angry with you, and punish you. If I should go – ”

“If what, Gaspar Keith?”

“Kitty, I can’t stay here. It would kill me. I must get out into the open. I am going away. Right away. Now. This very hour even. You must be brave, and understand.”

“Go away? I, too? All right. Only don’t look so sober. I don’t care. I promised to go anywhere you wished and I will. I’m ready.”

“But – but – It’s only I, my Kit. Not you.”

“You would go away, and – leave me here? Just because you don’t like it?”

All the color went out of her fair, round face, and she caught his head between her hands, and turned it so that she could look into his dark eyes, which could not bear to look into her own startled and reproachful ones.

CHAPTER XV.

PARTINGS AND MEETINGS

Gaspar’s courage returned, and he led her to a sheltered place under the stockade, where he made her sit beside him for the brief time that was his.

“Not all because I do not like it; but because I am almost a man and I have found the chance of my life. There is one here, a voyageur, with his boat. The finest vessel I ever saw, though they’ve not been so many. He is going north into the great woods; will sail this morning. He is a great trader and hunter and he has asked me to apprentice myself to him. He promises he will make my fortune. He has taken as great a liking to me, I reckon, as I have to him. We shall get on famously together. In that broad, free life I shall grow a full man, and soon. I can earn money, and make a home for you and Wahneenah, and many another lonely, helpless soul. Yes, I must go. I can’t let the chance pass. And you must be brave, and the Sun Maid still, and forever. I shall want to think of you as always bright and full of laughter. Like yourself. But you are not like yourself now, Girl-Child. Why don’t you speak? Why don’t you say something?”

“I guess there isn’t any ‘say’ left in me, Gaspar,” answered the girl, in a tone so hopelessly sad that it almost made the lad waver in his determination. Only that wavering had no portion in the character of the ambitious youth, and he looked far forward toward a great good beyond the present pain.

When the day was well advanced, the schooner sailed away, from the dock at the foot of the path from fort to lake, with Gaspar upon her deck, trying to look more brave and manly than he really felt. But a forlorn little maid watched with eyes that shed no tears, and a pitiful attempt at a smile upon her quivering lips till the vessel became a mere speck, then disappeared.

After a long while, she was aroused by something again moving over the water.

“He’s coming back! My Gaspar’s coming back!” she cried, and tossed back the hair which the wind blew about her face that she might see the clearer. A moment later her disappointment found words: “It’s nothing but a common Indian canoe!”

However, she remembered her foster-brother had set her a task to do. She must begin it right away. She was to be as helpful to everybody she ever should meet as it was possible. Here might be one coming who hadn’t heard about that dreadful fifty-dollar prize money. She must call out and warn him. So she did, and never had human voice sounded pleasanter to any wayfarer. But her own intentness discovered something familiar in the appearance of the young brave, paddling so cautiously toward her and keeping so well to the shore. She began to question herself where she had seen him, and in a flash she remembered. Then, indeed, did she shout, and joyfully:

“Osceolo! Osceolo! Don’t you know me? Kitty? The Sun Maid? The daughter of your own tribe? Osceolo!”

“By the moccasins of my grandfather! You here? How? When? No matter. The brother of the Sun Maid rejoices. Never a friend so convenient. Run around to the edge of the wharf. There must be talk between us, and at once.”

He pushed his little boat close under the shadow of the pier that had long since been deserted of those who had come down to watch, as Kitty had done, the sailing of the northern-bound schooner. There was none to hear them, yet Osceolo chose to muffle his tones and to make himself mysterious. In truth, he was fleeing from justice, having been mixed up in a raid upon a settler’s homestead a few miles back; in which, fortunately, there had been no bloodshed, though a deal of thieving and other dirty work which would make it uncomfortable for the young warrior should he be caught just then. The story he was prepared to tell was true as far as it went; and the Sun Maid was too innocent to suspect guile in others. She thought he was referring to the prize money when he spoke of quite other matters; and after the briefest inquiry and answer as to what had befallen either since their parting at doomed Muck-otey-pokee, he concluded:

“Now, Sister-Of-My-Heart, Blood-Daughter-Of-My-Chief, you must help me. You must give me, or lend me, a horse; and you must bring me food. Then I will ride to fetch you back Wahneenah.”

“Oh! You know where she is? Can you do it and not be taken?”