University of Virginia Library

6. CHAPTER VI.
ORIANNA.

Weeks passed on, and within and without Deacon
Wilder's door were signs of life and civilization. Trees
were cut down, gardens were made, corn and vegetables
were planted, and still no trace of an Indian had been
seen, although Jake had frequently expressed a wish to
get a shot at the “varmin,” as he called them. Still, he
felt that it would be unwise to be caught out alone at any
very great distance from his master's dwelling.

This feeling was shared by all of Deacon Wilder's household,
except Charlie, who frequently went forth alone into
the forest shade, and rambled over the hills where grew
the rich wild strawberry and the fair summer flowers, and
where, too, roamed the red man; for the Indian was there,
jealously watching each movement of his white brother,
and waiting for some provocation to strike a deadly blow.
But Charlie knew it not, and fearlessly each day he plunged
deeper and deeper into the depths of the woods, taking
some stately tree or blighted stump as a way-mark by
which to trace his homeward road, when the shadows began
to grow long and dark.

Although he knew it not, Charlie had a protector, who
each day, in the shady woods and wild gullies of Glen's
Creek, awaited his coming. Stealthily would she follow
his footsteps, and when on the velvety turf he laid him
down to rest, she would watch near him, lest harm should
befall the young sleeper. It was Orianna, the only and
darling child of Owanno, the chieftain whose wigwam was
three miles west of Glen's Creek, near a spot called Grassy
Spring.

Orianna had first been attracted toward Charlie by seeing
him weep, one day, and from a few words which he
involuntarily let fall, she learned that his heart was not
with the scenes wherein he dwelt, but was far away toward
the “rising sun.” Orianna's heart was full of kindly
sympathy, and from the time when she first saw Charlie
weeping in the forest, she made a vow to the Great Spirit
that she would love and protect the child of the “pale-face.”
The vow thus made by the simple Indian maiden
was never broken, but through weal and woe it was faithfully
kept.

It was a long time ere Orianna ventured to introduce
herself to her new friend; but when she did so, she was
delighted to find that he neither expressed fear of her,
nor surprise at her personal appearance. From that time
they were inseparable, although Orianna exacted from
Charlie a promise not to mention her at home, and also
resisted his entreaties that she would accompany him
thither. In reply to all his arguments, she would say,
mournfully, “No, Charlie, no, the pale-face is the enemy
of my people, although Orianna never can think they are
enemies to her; and sometimes I have wished,—it was
wicked I know, and the Great Spirit was angry,—but I
have wished that I, too, was of the fair-haired and white-browed
ones.”

In Charlie's home there was much wonder as to what
took him so regularly to the woods, but he withstood their
questioning and kept his secret safely. In the wigwam,
too, where Orianna dwelt, there was some grumbling at
her frequent absences, but the old chieftain Owanno and
his wife Narretta loved their child too well to prohibit
her rambling when and where she pleased. This old
couple were far on the journey of life, when Orianna came
as a sunbeam of gladness to their lone cabin, and thenceforth

they doted upon her as the miser doats upon his
shining gold.

She was a tall, graceful creature of nineteen or twenty
summers, and her life would have been one of unbounded
happiness, had it not been for one circumstance. Near
her father's wigwam lived the young chief Wahlaga, who,
to a most ferocious nature, added a face horridly disfigured
by the many fights in which he had been foremost.
A part of his nose was gone, and one eye entirely so; yet
to this man had Owanno determined to wed his beautiful
daughter, who looked upon Wahlaga with perfect disgust,
and resolved, that sooner than marry him, she would perish
in the deep waters of the Kentucky, which lay not
many miles away.