Chumley's Post. A story of the Pawnee trail, etc

Front matter

I ■ ■ ■ I CHUMLEY'S POST WILLIAM 0. STODDARD CHUMLEY'S POST A STORY OF THE PAWNEE TRAIL BY WILLIAM O. STODDARD WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY CHARLES H. STEPHENS LONDON JOHN C. NIMMO 14 KING WILLIAM STREET, STRAND MDCCCXCV1I Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson & Co. At the Ballantyne Press LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS " He uttered but one yell as he pitched forward TO THE EARTH" .... Frontispiece PAGE "The springing of the trap" 43 "Throw up your hands!" 1S1 "What is it? Who?" 259 "You shall not escape me" ... . . 330 A CONTENTS CHAPTEB P<_GE I. — In a .New Country ...... 5 4 II. — Out of Prison 16 III. — Veey Different People 24 IV.— A Double Trap 30 V. — Wiped Out Entirely 43 VI. — A Hickory Tombstone 62 VII. — A Calm after a Storm 60 VIII. — A Plunge into Wild Life .... 73 IX. — The Pawnee Outlaws ..... 84 X. — A Very Sudden Lover ..... 94 XI. — The Munro Outfit ...... 104 XII. — Chumley's Post 116 XIII.— The Red Beauty 122 XIV.— On their Own Land . . . . .132 XV.— A Busy Evening 146 XVI. — Wolves in their Den 157 XVII. —"Hold up your Hands" 167 XVIII.— A Dog Motder 184 XIX. — Changes of Base 195 XX. — Stirring an Old Story 204 XXI. — Supper at Chumley's . . . . .217 XXII.— One Secret Told 225 XXIII. — A Much Suspected Leader .... 235 XXIV. — A Mysterious Disappearance . . 243 XXV. — Among the Bushes ...... 251 XXVI. — A Scout in the Dark . . . 262 CONTENTS.

CHAPTER PAGE XXVII. — A Disturbed Household . . . 278 XXVIII. — A Pawnee Picnic ended .... 290 XXIX. — More Blood on the Pawnee Trail . . 297 XXX. — Bringing in the Wounded .... 310 XXXL— Deadly Peril 319 XXXII. —A Dark Hour at Chumley's . . . 335 XXXIII. — A Scene in a Kitchen .... 348 XXXIV. — How the Story- .ended CHUMLEY'S POST A STORY OF THE PAWNEE TRAIL

Chapter I. In

A NEW COUNTRY. " That, then, is the northeast corner of my land ?" " I'll swear to it. I never made a more careful survey in all my life. You'd best set a mark there." " My land lies due west and south ?" " By the compass." " Exactly. I own a mile square on the surface, but what a fine point it must taper down to at the centre of the earth!" " Just as well it's thin at that end. I reckon land isn't worth much down where that p'int is." " They say it's a bad climate, too. "Well, Mr. Surveyor, I'll take your advice. I'll only drive a peg now, but I'm going to set up a landmark." " Good idee. My job's done, Mister. Jim and I've got a long drive before us. Hope you'll bave good luck. Set up your landmark ; you'll run all your fencee right, then." A light wagon stood near them, with a epan of mules in front of it, and the man spoken of as " Jim" was already putting into it the tools of that finished survey.

The surveyor himself followed as soon as he had signed a receipt for the money he and Jim had earned, the mules were started upon a sharp trot, and the land-owner was left alone. He was very much alone, for his " section" of prairie land and forest was in western Nebraska, and tbere was not a ploughed field or a fence for miles and miles in any direction. He was a well-made, healthy-looking fellow, with very crisp auburn hair and brown eyes, and some what more of beard and moustache than belonged to one-and-twenty. He could not bave been older than that, but he had, nevertheless, the peculiar air which surely settles upon a human being who has seen much of the earth and its inhabitants. The intense expression of resolute courage that marked his face added to its " old" look, and he was evi dently the right kind of man for a eettler in a new country.

He would be more eo as soon as hard work should improve away the softneee of the pair of hande he now thrust into the side-pockets of his cut-away, as he slowly turned upon his heels as if studying the horizon. There was nothing eastward but rolling prairie, with here and there a clump of trees, but westward, a half-mile or so, the land rose into a range of forest-covered hills. It was as fine a prospect as a reasonable man could ask for, but it did not call any enthusiasm into the sombre face of the new settler. When he had swung himself completely around and was once more looking northward, he fixed his eyes upon a deep-worn rut not many feet from the peg he had driven and remarked, — " That's the Pawnee Trail, is it ? I wonder what makes it more Pawnee than any other kind of Indian, when it's an old buffalo-path, after all ?

It goes pretty straight, from here to the woods, and it comes pretty near marking the line of my land." Wheelmarks on either side of the Trail showed that it had been followed by other travellers than red men or wild cattle, but the fresh spring grass was growing in and over these. None would ever grow in the narrow path of the bisons, for their countless feet had beaten it hard as iron. It would some day put unyielding clode before the ploughs that were to come ; but at the preeent time it could be trusted as indicating the very best line of march for any one going through that region. " No Pawnees for me, if you please," remarked the young settler ; " but I suppose they're like other human beings, and you can keep peace with them if you try. Now for my landmark and some din uer." He strode rapidly away westward along the trail for some distance, and then turned to the left.

He was now upon bis own land, and a few minutes of sharp walking brought him in sight of some of his other property. There was no telling what might be contained in the large, tilted wagon that had been hauled near a fine spring of water, but ploughs and other farming implements were lying around on the grass. Several very good-looking horses were feeding at no great distance, all carefully tethered, but there seemed to be no good reason why a pair of noble looking mastiffs and a brace of tall stag-hounds should also have been tethered. They were now loudly declaring their pleasure at the coming of their master. " I'll take them with me this time," he remarked, " and they may do all the hunting they please while I'm chopping." There was likely to be game enough in that vicinity, but when the young settler took up an axe and walked on towards the forest he made no prepa ration for sport.

He seemed to be deeply, gloomily, absorbingly wrapped up in thoughts which must have been of an unpleasant nature. On the very edge of the woods he stopped and looked at a young hickory, less than a foot in diameter. " That'll do. I couldn't manage anything heavier very well." As he said that he drove his axe into the slender trunk with more skill than the color of his hands had seemed to promise, but at that moment the voices of all four of his canine friends rang out together. They had been careering in all direc tions from the moment in which they were set at liberty, but now they suddenly concentrated their forces. It was as if they had bayed and barked at a mark and ceased as soon as they had hit it. They aud their master alike stood still and looked at a curious figure which drew nearer rapidly.

A dingy yellow blanket covered the new arrival, with the exception of his head, legs, and the right arm. That arm came out through a hole in the blanket and carried a rifle. Tbe legs wore deer skin leggings, on which bits of tattered fringes lingered here and there, but the crown of that wardrobe was a remarkably old and shining silk hat, from under which escaped tangled locks of long gray hair. " About the ugliest mug I ever saw," remarked the chopper to his nearest dog, as the old Indian came closer. In another moment the rifle was transferred to the blanketcovered arm, and the dusky right hand was extended with the customary salutation of " How." " How," said the white man, and then he added, " Do you speak English ?" Perhaps the stranger was asking him if he spoke Choctaw or some similar tongue, for his answer was a string of gutturals such as can be heard only among the red men.

" Not one word except ' how,' eh ? I'm afraid I shall learn very little from you, then." Again the stream of ragged and jagged sounds poured forth liberally, and it was a pity they could not have been understood. There is an idea afloat that American Indians have little or no fun in them, but it is a great mistake. Tbere stood the gray-haired aborigine, with grim solemnity, applying to the young settler all the bad words he knew, and he evidently knew a large number. Not only the youth himself but all his kindred, of both sexes, were described as animals and reptiles of the most unpleasant varieties and accused of all sorts of misdemeanors. " Sorry I can't understand you," said the white man. " I did say, when you came up, that you had the ugliest mug I'd ever seen in all my life, but I didn't guess how ghastly a phiz you had till you opened your mouth.

I haven't a doubt that you'd murder me for fifty cents." At least that money's worth of unmitigated blackguardism replied to him from the solemn countenance before him, in the tongue he had never until that hour listened to, and then the red man sat down upon a fallen tree, as if he meant to watch the chopping of the hickory. " I'm glad to see that," said the chopper. " Now I needn't go back and watch my horses and things till you're out of sight. If ever a man had a thief's face, you have." A cheerful smile and a string of hard words replied to him, and he worked away with his axe, not knowing that he had been assured that a squaw could beat him all to pieces in handling that tool. Down came the hickory speedily, however, and a length of about twenty feet of its trunk was trimmed clean of branches.

" I suppose," said the chopper to the Indian, " that it would take a larger tree to do you justice. No doubt whatever but what you ought to be made an acorn of." Serene was the smile of his hearer, although wonderfully wide, and then the same voice which had managed the gutturals declared in pretty plain English, — " White boy heap fool." He may have been, but he was also a man of uncommonly steady nerve, for without a quiver of face or voice he promptly responded, — " Just so, but I don't often get caught out quite so easily." " Come chop log. No gun. Pawnee lift hair for him some day. Hang 'calp in lodge and tell squaw ' fool 'calp.' " " Are you a Pawnee ?" " Pawnee heap wolf. Good Indian me. Heap good." " Do you steal much ?" " Good Indian no 'teal. Borrow pony some time. Take good care of pony when borrow."

"Don't you borrow any of mine, then. Do you see them ?" The dogs had taken no part in the conversation, but they were plainly interested in the old redskin. One mastiff was sitting near enough to be patted on the head, and submitted quietly ; but the canine opinion of the stranger was not high, and no tail among them expressed gratification as he stepped from one to another, cultivating their acquaintance. " Heap good dog," said he, with strong em phasis. " They'll know you the next time. What name do you go by ? What's your tribe ?" "Boy know enough now. Somebody ask him who meet in woods. Boy tell all about him." " Keep your secret, then. I'm going for a horee to haul this stick." " Got horse ? Good Indian come borrow him some day, when dog all gone. Maybe Pawnee come first. No horse there then.

No bov." " I believe I'll take that warning about going unarmed," said the new settler. " It may not be so safe as the surveyor represented. I shan't be alone while they're putting up the house and stables. Things '11 be safer after that's done." The Indian walked along at his side in silence until he came to the horses. One was selected, the harness was put upon him with a drag-chain in tended for the log, and the young man turned to lead him away, when his queer acquaintance opened his wide mouth again, with, — " White boy heap fool. Go leave good Indian by horses." " Never you mind, my friend. You'll have com pany," said the new settler, quietly ; but the red man had not seen or heard his instructions to those dogs. Their master went for the hickory, but they did not. They all lay down within a few paces of the " good Indian," and looked at him.

" TJgb ! Heap trap !" was his only comment, but he deemed it best to sit in a very unoccupied still ness until the owner of those horses should come back. Once, when he partly arose, a mastiff rose also, and something like the beginning of a growl rumbled in the deep chest of one of the hounds. It was best to sit down again, lest they should show further signs of dissatisfaction. " TJgh ! Much dog. Suppose kill one, then get eat up by three. No good. Boy say horse not borrow this time." It looked so, and the young settler now returned along the Trail with his hickory stick. When he came within hailing distance he shouted to his dogs and they bounded away, releasing the old Indian from his "heap watch." He at ouce arose and shouldered his rifle, and when the former came for a spade be was ready to remark, — " Ugh !

Heap dig ? Rifle good. No tell when want him." There was something ominous but not unfriendly in the positive manner of his repeated warning, but when he was asked, — " Are there any Indians on the war-path nowa days ?" he replied, — " Boy all alone. Got horse. S'pose Pawnee want horse, nobody ever say what boy did. Ran away, maybe. Take what friend say." It was not a very cheerful saying, but it was taken, and the sombre young face grew yet more cloudy and at the same time more resolute. The hickory pole was rapidly dragged to its destination, and the spade was plied with vigor until a hole was made of sufficient depth to promise firm holding. The butt end of the stick was rolled over the hole and then the old Indian once more said, " Ugh !" This time it was in admiration of the iron strength dis played in the raising of that landmark.

It went up without one pause in the steady lifting ; the earth was packed in around it, and the man who had put it there stepped back to look at it. " Now," he exclaimed, " I know where the cor ner of my land is. If anybody else comes to in quire they'll have a starting-point. They'll be able to say, ' That's Chumley's Post.' " " Ugh !" said his companion, but the white man went on : " Odd thought ! What if a fellow could know the history of all the lives that will stop here and look at that post before it rots down ? If I am not mistaken, some of them would beat the novelists all hollow." Very likely. If, for instance, he could have read the memory of the gray-headed red man who was even now repeating, " Chumley, — Post."

Chapter II. Out Of Prison

At the very hour of the forenoon when Chum ley's dogs lay down to watch the old Indian, a white man more than a thousand miles away was under even closer confinement. No connection could be imagined between this man and the young pioneer or his landmark. He was one of hundreds who were at that hour variously employed in a vast stone structure on the eastern bank ofthe Hudson River. He was a convict in Sing Sing prison, but he was not now at any work. He stood erect in hie narrow cell, looking at the door. " At noon to-day," he said. " They will come 6oon, and my three yeare of this gehenna are ended." He was a tall, fine-looking fellow, of twenty-three or four years, and it seemed an awful pity to see him there. His thick, black, glossy hair had been recently permitted to grow a little beyond the " prison crop," and bis keen, brilliant eyes were full of intelbgence.

His forehead was broad, his aquiline nose well shaped, and it was not till his mouth could be studied that an observer could find much fault with his features. That was not too large, but it was thin-lipped and sharp at the cor ners. Lines went out from these which partly ex plained the faint crow's-feet on his temples. It was a face too selfish to servo " self" well, and its present expression changed with flickering rapidity. In all the changes, however, there lingered one black shadow. The one thought burning within him found expression in words as well as in fierce and wrathful darkenings of face. His voice was hoarse and low, and there was gall and wormwood in every syllable. " Free ? That's it. Out into the world again. To be pointed at. Convict ! Served his term in Sing Sing ! No. The frontier is the place for me.

I'll get even with this world before I die. Won't I?" The words had almost a hissing sound, so full were they of hate and bitterness. When a man has so lived and acted that a just judge and jury put him into Sing Sing, his chances for improve ment by years of association with felons, iron bars, and stone walls are not very good. "Name?" he said, again. "I'll take any name but the one I was born with. I'll pick me out one when I disappear. Nobody that knows me will ever see me again." Just then there came a sound of feet towards the door at which he was staring, and the cold sweat stood upon his forehead. i; " They have come !" he said. Half an hour later he stood in what looked more like a lawyer's office than a room in any prison, but he was not free quite yet. He had put off tho striped garb of a convict for a neat, plain suit of black, but he had not yet put off the prison man ner, and his bearing was of the sullen respect paid by crime to force while he listened to the customary formalities of liberation.

These included excellent words of counsel and exhortation from the prison officiale, but even the kindly-faced chaplain failed to elicit from him anything more than disciplined attention. " Mortimer Herries," said tbe good man, earnestly, " I pray God you may never again find yourself in such a place as this." " That is a name, Mr. Smith, by which I shall never again be known, but I suppose you mean me. You may be eure of one thing : I Bhall never trouble this prison again. If I ever write another man's name for mine, on a check, by any mistake, it will be far enough from this." " Change your name. Make a new name and keep it clean. Be a new man." " Made over new in Sing Sing ? We will see about tbat. I thank you all, gentlemen, but I am looking at the clock and cannot talk very well." Evidently he was a man of education and capacity, and even the hard-headed prison officials remarked to one another that it must be a terrible thing for him to go out among other men.

" You see," said one, " he doesn't leave behind him anything but the striped jacket. He's as good as branded." " Well," replied another, " that can't be helped. He should have thought of that when he forged the check. I'm afraid there's all sorts of mischief in him. Look at his eye." There was nothing pleasant there to look at. He seemed to be making an effort to suppress every indication of feeling, and he succeeded fairly well, so far as all other emotions were concerned, but tbe sense of his degradation was evidently upon him strongly. " He needs a little more brass," said the same official to the chaplain, " and it always comes to 'em after they've been out a day or two. He was a man of good family." "Poor fellow!" said the chaplain; and he was poor enough, but when he was informed that transportation would be given him to the city in which he had been convicted, and by a railway train leaving a few minutes after twelve o'clock, he responded, — " New York ?

Yes. I'll go there, but I shall not stay there. I shall have funds provided. This is the last of Mortimer Herries." There was little more to be said or done. The turnina. loose of some convict whose time is out is an every-day affair at Sing Sing. It is only too often accompanied by a shrewd calculation as to how Ions it will be before the man released will be back again, but all were inclined to take Herries at his word. " It's a big country," they said. " He has brains enough to go somewhere and do well yet." " I don't know," was added. " He's likely to be an expensive neighbor. The community he settles in is not to be congratulated." That was the opinion of a good judge, especially of criminal human nature, and yet the gentleman in black who entered the railway train at Sing Sing was in no respect the inferior, so far as personal appearance went, of any other passenger in the car that carried him.

Neither cbd any man or woman there mistake him for a convict. He looked into every face that from time to time was turned upon him, and not one of all accused him of having put off the prison stripes that day. It was a day of marked importance to quite a number of people. Towards the close of its business hours a carefully dressed, middle-aged gentle man sat by a table in a down-town mercantile office, with the inquiring look upon his face of a man who is waiting for somebody to come. Tbat and every other meaning conveyed by the clear-cut aud somewhat swarthy features testified also to the fact that he was a polished, finished, utterly self possessed man of the world. A keen observer might have gathered the idea that he had prepared himself for something, but if so, he had done it wonderfully well.

He had taken care to be alone, if care had been needed, and he did not rise from his chair when the door opened, although he bowed to the man who came in. It was Mr. Mortimer Herries, that hour arrived from Sing Sing. " Walk in, sir. Take a seat." " Thank you, no. My business is brief enough." " Certainly. I received your letter. You have mine. I have no questions to ask, Mr. Herries " " Payne, if you please. You are mistaken about the name." " Beg pardon, Mr. Payne. It is better so. There is the money spoken of in my letter. I do not think Mrs. Herries or the young ladies are at home to-day." " They need not trouble themselves. I had no intention of calling. Am I expected to thank you for the money ?" " Certainly not, if you keep your contract " " I shall keep it. Three years in State-prison have taught me some things.

You will never see me again or hear of me. And yet I had a father once, — a mother, — sisters, — a brother, — a home." There were years of shame and agony in the quivering voice with which the words were uttered, but the hard lips of the man of the world before him parted only to reply, — " Exactly, and you traded them for a cell in Sing Sing. As a man soweth so shall he reap. Do you uow wish to say anything more, Mr. Payne?" "Not one word, to you or them." His hands had closed upon a packet of bank notes which looked like a liberal provision for bis proposed journeying. He stuffed it quickly into an inner pocket of his coat, put on his hat, turned away without offering or receiving a grasp of the hand in farewell, and walked slowly out of the office. The door closed, and then the gray head of the man of the world and of business was bowed for a moment upon the table before him.

Father and son had been parted forever by something many degrees more terrible than mere death, and human nature claimed its own with a great pang. The man who went out seemed to bave recovered his equilibrium suddenly. Before he had turned the first corner he remarked to himself, — " I can get my baggage together, now I've got the money, in time to take the evening train for the West. Mr. Payne, Mr. Edward Payne, if you please, is going to Chicago." How much farther and for what purpose in life he did not eay, but he at once set about making purchases of clothing and other matters, sufficient to pack a travelling-satchel, purchased first. He was yet busy with his preparations at the hour of one scene more in which he might have taken an interest if he had been present. The elder Mr. Herries, man of the world and of business, had reached his elegant home and had gone at once to his own room.

He was waited for. A tall, aristocratic-looking lady came forward to meet him. Her face was very pale, and her eyes were red as if with weeping. " Husband," she said, " did you see Mortimer ? Did he come ?" " No, my dear. There is no such person any more. A Mr. Payne, from Sing Sing, called at the office. I understand that he leaves town at once, but I did not ask in what direction." "Did he say anything? Did he send any mes sage ?" " Not a word, except that we should never see him again or hear of him. He is gone I" " Husband, it is awful! I know you have seen him, but it seems to me that he died three years ago. Oh, how I wish I could have seen him once more !" " It is better as it is, every way, Mary. Let us say no more, just now." She was a woman of the world, but for all that she was a mother, and she, too, covered ber face and bowed her head, for she had lost a son.

Chapter III. Very Different People

Sing Sing prison is a long distance from Chum ley's Post, and so are many other spots upon the earth's broad surface. One of those other spots, even more distant, was elegantly furnished. It had a well-set table in the middle of it, not for dinner but for " luncheon," and near one end of this a lady and a gentleman were standing at the very time when the old Indian said " Ugh !" at seeing the pole lifted so easily. The gentleman was a broad-shouldered youth of perhaps five-and-twenty, with very blond hair and side-whiskers, while the lady was a very pretty brunette, evidently at least three years younger, whom he had twice already spoken to as " darling." " Your mother will be down in a minute," she said. " She has a letter from Dick this morning." " Glad of it. Where is he now ?" " North America, somewhere.

I can't quite make it out. He does not speak of you or me." " He'll recover his senses one of these days. Meantime, travel will be good for him." VERY DIFFERENT PEOPLE. 25 " Chelmsford, love, it was no fault of mine " We are all agreed on that point. Even his mother says he has only himself to blame. Don't speak of it, darling." " Seems to me I was not even giddy. But be talks of land and settling and remaining." " Good sign. Mind recovering its tone. Been awfully seasick several times. Nothing like it. I must see the letter, though. Come, darling. That's mother's voice. I'm wolfishly hungry." He looked lovingly at his " darling" while eat ing, and he ate well, and the portly lady at the head of the table talked freely about Dick and his doings, but she was the only member of the trio who went so far as to say, — "How I would like to see him!