University of Virginia Library

8. CHAPTER VIII.

The amazement of Stackpole at finding to whom
he owed his deliverance, was not less than that of
the travellers; but it was mingled in his case, with
feelings of the most unbounded and clamorous delight.
Nathan he grasped by the hands, being the
first upon whom he set his eyes; but no sooner had
they wandered to the soldier, than throwing his
arms around him, he gave him a hug, neither tender
nor respectful, but indicative of the intensest
affection and rapture.

“You cut the rope, strannger, and you cut the
tug,” he cried, “on madam's beseeching! but
h'yar's the time you holped me out of a fix without
axing! Now, strannger, I ar'n't your dog, 'cause
how, I 'm anngelliferous madam's: but if I ar'n't
your dog, I'm your man, Ralph Stackpole, to be
your true-blue through time and etarnity, any way
you'll ax me; and if you wants a sodger, I'll 'list
with you, I will, 'tarnal death to me!”

“But how, in heaven's name, came you here a
prisoner? I saw you escape with my own eyes,”
said Roland, better pleased perhaps at the accession
of such a stout auxiliary than with his mode
of professing love and devotion.

“Strannger,” said Ralph, “if you war to ax me
from now till doomsday about the why and the
wharfo', I could n't make you more nor one answer:
I come to holp anngelliferous madam out
of the hands of the abbregynes, according to my

sworn duty as her natteral-born slave and redemptioner!
I war hard on the track, when the villians
here caught me.”

“What!” cried Roland, his heart for the first
time warming towards the despised horse-thief,
while even Nathan surveyed him with something
like complacency, “you are following my poor
cousin then? You were not brought here a prisoner?”

“If I war, I wish I may be shot,” said Ralph:
“it warn't a mile back on the ridge, whar the Injuns
snapped me; 'cause how, I jist bang'd away at
a deer, and jist then up jumps the rascals on me,
afo' I had loaded old speechifier; and so they
nabb'd me! And so, sodger, h'yar's the way of it all:
You see, d'you see, as soon as Tom Bruce comes
to, so as to be able to hold the hoss himself—”

“What,” said Roland, “was he not mortally
wounded?”

“He ar'n't hurt much to speak on, for all of his
looking so much like coffin-meat at the first jump:
it war a kind of narvousness come over him that
men feels when they gets the thwack of a bullet
among the narves. And so, you see, d'you see,
says I, `Tom Bruce, do you stick to the crittur,
and he'll holp you out of the skrimmage;' and,
says I, `I'll take the back-track, and foller atter
madam.' And says he, says he—But, 'tarnal death
to me, let's scalp these h'yar dead villians, and do
the talking atter! Did you see the licking I gin
this here feller? It war a reggelar fair knock-down-and-drag-out,
and I lick'd him! Thar's all
sorts of ways of killing Injuns; but, I reckon, I'm
the only gentleman in all Kentuck as ever took a
scalp in the way of natur'! Hurrah for Kentuck!
and hurrah for Ralph Stackpole, for he ar' a
screamer!”

The violation of the dead bodies was a mode of
crowning their victory which Roland would have
gladly dispensed with; but such forbearance, opposed
to all border ideas of manly spirit and propriety,
found no advocate in the captain of horse-thieves,
and none, we are sorry to say, even in the
conscientious Nathan; who, having bathed his
peaceful sword too deep in blood to boggle longer
at trifles, seemed mightily inclined to try his own
hand at the exercise. But this addition to the catalogue
of his backslidings was spared him, Roaring
Ralph falling to work with an energy of spirit and
rapidity of execution, which showed he needed no
assistance, and left no room for competition.—
Such is the practice of the border, and such it has
been, ever since the moral feud, never destined to
be really ended but with the annihilation of the
American race, first began between the savage
and the white intruder. It was, and is, essentially
a measure of retaliation, compelled, if not justified,
by the ferocious example of the red-man. Brutality
ever begets brutality; and magnanimity of arms
can be only exercised in the case of a magnanimous
foe. With such, the wildest and fiercest
rover of the frontier becomes a generous, and even
humane enemy.

The Virginian was yet young in the war of the
wilderness: and turning in disgust from a scene he
could not prevent, he made his way to the fire,
where the haunch of venison, sending forth a savoury
steam through the whole valley, was yet
roasting on the rude Indian spit,—a spectacle,
which, (we record it with shame,) quite banished
from his mind not only all thoughts of Ralph's
barbarism, but even the sublime military ardour
awakened by the din and perils of the late conflict.
Nor were its effects less potential upon Nathan and

Ralph, who, having first washed from their hands
and faces the stains of battle, now drew nigh,
snuffing the perfume of a dinner with as much
ardour as they could have bestowed on the scent
of battle. The haunch, cooked to their hands, was
straightway removed to a convenient place;
where all, drawing their knives, fell foul with an
energy of appetite and satisfaction that left them
oblivious of most sublunary affairs. The soldier
forgot his sorrows, and Nathan forgot little Peter,
—though little Peter, by suddenly creeping out of
the bushes on the hill, and crawling humbly to the
table, and his master's side, made it apparent he
had not forgot himself. As for the captain of
horse-thieves, he forgot every thing save the dinner
itself, which he attacked with an appetite well
nigh ravenous, having, as he swore, by way of
grace over the first mouthful, eaten nothing save
roots and leaves for more than three days. It was
only when, by despatching at least twice his share
of the joint, he began to feel, as he said, `summat
like a hoss and a gentleman,' that the others succeeded
in drawing from him a full account of the
circumstances which had attended his solitary inroad
into the Indian country and his fall into the
clutches of the Shawnee party.

But little had the faithful fellow to impart, beyond
what he had already told. Galloping from
the fatal hill, the scene of defeat to the young
Kentuckians, he sustained Tom Bruce in his arms,
until the latter, reviving, had recovered strength
enough to provide for his own safety; upon which
Ralph, with a degree of Quixotism, that formed a
part of his character, and which was, in this instance,
strengthened by his grateful devotion to
Edith, the saver of his life, declared he would pursue
the trail of her captors, even if it led him to

their village, nor cease his efforts until he had rescued
her out of their hands, or laid down his life
in her service. In this resolution he was encouraged
by Bruce, who swore on his part, that
he would instantly follow with his father, and all
the men he could raise, recover the prisoners, and
burn the towns of the whole Shawnee nation about
their ears; a determination he was perhaps the
more readily driven to by the reflection, that the
unlucky captives were his father's individual
guests, and had been snatched away while still, in
a manner, under, or relying on, his father's protection.
So much he promised, and so much there
was no doubt he would, if able, perform; nevertheless,
he exhorted Ralph to do his best in the
mean while to help the strangers, vowing, if he
succeeded in rendering them any assistance, or in
taking a single scalp of the villains that had borne
them off, he would not only never Lynch him,
himself, but would not even allow others to do it,
though he were to steal all the horses in Kentucky,
his father's best bay mare included.

Thus encouraged, the valiant horse-theif, bidding
farewell to Tom Bruce and Brown Briareus
together, commenced making good his words by
creeping back to the battle-field; when, arriving
before Nathan, he struck the trail of the main
party, and immediately pursued it with zeal and
courage, but still with the necessary caution and
circumspection; his hopes of being able to do
something to the advantage of his benefactress,
resting principally on his knowledge of several of
the outer Indian towns, in every one of which, he
boasted, he had stolen horses. Being but poorly
provided with food, and afraid to hunt while following
so closely on the heels of the marauders,
he was soon reduced to want and suffering, which

he bore for three days with heroic fortitude; until
at last, on the morning of the present day, being
in a state of utter starvation, and a buck springing
up in his path, he could resist the temptation
no longer, and so fired upon it. The animal being
wounded, and apparently severely, he set off
in pursuit, too eager to lose time by re-charging
his piece; and it was while he was in that defenceless
condition, that the five Indians, a detachment
and rear-guard, as it proved, of the
very party he was dogging, attracted by the sound
of his gun, stole upon him unawares and made
him a prisoner. This, it seems, had happened
but a short distance behind; and there was every
reason to suppose that the buck from whose loins
the travellers had filched the haunch that destiny
had superseded by a better, was the identical animal
whose seducing appearance had brought
Stackpole into captivity. He was immediately
recognised by his captors, whose exultation was
boundless, as indeed was their cruelty; and he
could only account for their halting with him in
that retired hollow, instead of pushing on to display
their prize to the main body, by supposing
they could not resist their desire to enjoy a snug
little foretaste of the joys of torturing him at the
stake, all by themselves,—a right they had earned
by their good fortune in taking him. In the valley,
then, they had paused, and tying him up, proceeded
straightway to flog him to their hearts'
content; and they had just resolved to intermit
the amusement awhile, in favour of their dinner;
when the appearance of his bold deliverers
rushing into their camp, converted the scene of
brutal merriment into one of retributive vengeance
and blood.

The discovery that the five human beings he
had contributed so much to destroy, were part
and parcel of the very band, the authors of all
his sufferings, the captors of his kinswoman, abated
some little feelings of compunction with which
Roland had begun occasionally to look upon the
gory corses around him.

The main body of marauders, with their prisoner,
there seemed good reason to suppose, were
yet upon their march to the village, though too far
advanced to leave any hope of overtaking them,
were that even desirable. It is true, that Roland,
fired by the thought of being so near his kinswoman,
and having before his eyes a proof of
what might be done by craft and courage, even
against overwhelming numbers, urged Nathan
immediately to re-commence the pursuit: the Indians
would doubtless halt to rest and refresh, as
the luckless five had done, and might be approached
and destroyed, now that they themselves had
increased their forces by the rescue of Ralph, in
the same way: “we can carry with us,” he said,
“these Indians' guns, with which we shall be more
than a match for the villains;” and he added other
arguments, such, however, as appeared much
more weighty to himself than to honest Nathan.
That the main party should have halted, as he
supposed, did not appear at all probable to Nathan:
they had no cause to arrest them in their
journey, and they were but a few miles removed
from the village, whither they would doubtless
proceed without delay, to enjoy the rewards of
their villany, and end the day in revelry and debauch.
“And truly, friend,” he added, “it will
be better for thee, and me, and the maid Edith,
that we steal her by night from out of a village

defended only by drowsy squaws and drunken
warriors, than if we were to aim at taking her
out of the camp of a war-party. Do thee keep
thee patience; and, truly, there is no telling what
good may come of it.”—In short, Nathan had
here, as in previous instances, made up his mind
to conduct affairs his own way; and Roland,
though torn by impatience, could do nothing better
than submit.

And now, the dinner being at last despatched,
Nathan directed that the bodies of the slain Indians
should be tumbled into a gully, and hidden
from sight; a measure of such evident precaution
as to need no explanation. This was immediately
done; but not before Ralph and the man of peace
had well rummaged the pouches of the dead, helping
themselves to such valuables and stores of
provender and ammunition as they could lay
hands on; in addition to which, Nathan stripped
from one a light Indian hunting-shirt, from another
a blanket, a woman's shawl, and a medicine
bag, from a third divers jingling bundles of
broaches and hawk-bells, together with a pouch
containing vermilion and other paints, the principal
articles of savage toilet; which he made up
into a bundle to be used for a purpose he did not
conceal from his comrades. He then seized upon
the rifles of the dead, (from among which Stackpole
had already singled out his own,) and removing
the locks, hid them away in crannies of
the cliffs, concealing the locks in other places;—
a disposition which he also made of the knives
and tomahawks; remarking, with great justice,
that “if honest Christian men were to have no
good of the weapons, it was just as well murdering
Injuns should be no better off.”

These things concluded, the dead covered over
with boughs and brambles, and nothing left in the
vale to attract a passing and unobservant eye, he
gave the signal to resume the march, and with Roland
and Captain Ralph, stole from the field of
battle.