Chumley's post : a story of the Pawnee trail

Front matter

Collection of Native North American Indian Boottb' Historical Books, Atlases, plus other important thors and family heirloom books.

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Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I. — In a New Country 5

II. — Out of Prison 16

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 had climate, too. Well, Mr. Surveyor, I’ll take your advice. I’ll only drive a peg now, hut I’m going to set up a landmark.”

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“ Good idee. My job’s done, Mister. Jim and I’ve got a long drive before us. Hope you’ll have good luck. Set up your landmark ; you’ll run all your fences right, then.”

A light wagon stood near them, with a span 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 there 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 somewhat more of beard and moustache than belonged to one-and-twenty. He could not have 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 evidently the right kind of man for a settler in a new country. He would be more so as soon as hard work should improve away the softness of the pair of hands he now thrust into the side-pockets of his cut-away, as he slowly turned upon his heels as

IN A NEW COUNTRY.

if studying the horizon. There was nothing eastward hut 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, hut 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, hut 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 clods before the ploughs that were to come ; hut at the present 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 ; “ hut I suppose they’re like other human beings, and you can keep peace with them

RED BEAUTY.

if you try. Now for my landmark and some dinner.”

He strode rapidly away westward along the trail for some distance, and then turned to the left. He was now upon his 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, hut 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.

“ Til take them with me this time,” he remarked, “ and they may do all the hunting they please while Fm chopping.”

There was likely to he game enough in that vicinity, hut when the young settler took up an axe and walked on towards the forest he made no preparation for sport. He seemed to he 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.

IN A NEW COUNTRY.

“ 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 directions from the moment in which they were set at liberty, hut now they suddenly concentrated their forces. It was as if they had hayed and barked at a mark and ceased as soon as they had hit it. They and 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. The legs wore deerskin 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 blanket-covered arm, and the dusky right hand was extended with the customary salutation of “ How.”

RED BEAUTY.

“ 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.

“ Hot one word except ‘ how,’ eh ? Pm 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, hut it is a great mistake.

There stood the gray-haired aborigine, with grim solemnity, applying to the young settler all the had words he knew, and he evidently knew a large number. Hot 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

IN A NEW COUNTRY.

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 hack 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. Ho 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 sometime. 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 emphasis.

“ 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 horse to haul this stick.”

“ Got horse ? Good Indian come borrow him some day, when dog all gone. Maybe Pawnee come first. Ho horse there then. Ho boy.”

IN A NEW COUNTRY.

“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 ’ll 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 intended 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 company,” 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.

“ Ugh ! Heap trap !” was his only comment, but he deemed it best to sit in a very unoccupied stillness 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.

“ Ugh ! Much dog. Suppose kill one, then get 2

RED BEAUTY.

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 once arose and shouldered his rifle, and when the former came for a spade he 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 nowadays ?” he replied, —

“Boy all alone. G-ot 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 displayed in the raising of that landmark. It went

IN A NEW COUNTRY.

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 corner of my land is. If anybody else comes to inquire they’ll have a starting-point. They’ll be able to say, 4 That’s Chumley’s Post.’ ”

44 Ugh !” said his companion, but the white man went on :

44 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 ? KI 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, 44 Chumley, — Post.”

RED BEAUTY.

CHAPTER IL

OUT OF PRISON.

At the very hour of the forenoon when Chumley’s dogs lay down to watch the old Indian, a white man more than a thousand miles away was under even closer confinement. Ho 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 of the Hudson River. He was a convict in Sing Sing prison, but he was not now at any work. He stood erect in his narrow cell, looking at the door.

“ At noon to-day,” he said. “ They will come soon, and my three years 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 his keen, brilliant eyes were full of intelligence. His forehead was broad, his aquiline nose well shaped, and it was not till his mouth could he studied that an observer could find

OUT OF PRISON.

much fault with his features. That was not too large, hut it was thin-lipped and sharp at the corners. Lines went out from these which partly explained the faint crow’s-feet on his temples. It was a face too selfish to serve “ 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 ! Ho. The frontier is the place for me. I’ll get even with this world before I die. W on’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 improvement by years of association with felons, iron bars, and stone walls are not very good.

“ Hame ?” he said, again. “ I’ll take any name but the one I was born with. I’ll pick me out one when I disappear. Hobody 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. b

2*

RED BEAUTY .

“ 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, hut he was not free quite yet. He had put off the striped garb of a convict for a neat, plain suit of black, but he had not yet put off the prison manner, and his hearing 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 officials, hut even the kindly-faced chaplain failed to elicit from him anything more than disciplined attention.

“ Mortimer Herries,” said the 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 he known, hut I suppose you mean me. You may be sure of one thing : I shall 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 that. 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

OUT OF PRISON.

remarked to one another that it must he 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 he 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 he making an effort to suppress every indication of feeling, and he succeeded fairly well, so far as all other emotions were concerned, hut the 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, hut when he was informed that transportation would he 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, —

“ Hew York ? Yes. I’ll go there, hut I shall not stay there. I shall have funds provided. This is the last of Mortimer Herries.”

There was little more to he said or done. The

RED BEAUTY.

turning 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 long it will he before the man released will he 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 he 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 did 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 gentleman 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. That and every other meaning conveyed by the clear-cut and somewhat swarthy features testified also to the

OUT OF PRISON.

fact that he was a polished, finished, utterly selfpossessed 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 he 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,

RED BEAUTY.

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 now wish to say anything more, Mr. Payne ?”

“ Not one word, to you or them.”

His hands had closed upon a packet of banknotes which looked like a liberal provision for his 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 have 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 say, but he at once set about making purchases of clothing and other matters, sufficient to pack a travelling-satchel, purchased first. He

OUT OF PRISON.

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 ?”

“Ho, 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 message ?”

“ Hot a word, except that we should never see him again or hear of him. He is gone !”

“ 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 her face and bowed her head, for she had lost a son.

RED BEAUTY.

Chapter III. Very Different People

Sing Sing prison is a long distance from Chumley’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 “ IJgh !” at seeing the pole lifted so easily.

The gentleman was a broad-shouldered youth ot 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 he down in a minute,” she said. “ She has a letter from Dick this morning.”

“ Glad of it. Where is he now ?”

“Horth 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 he good for him.”

VERY DIFFERENT PEOPLE.

“ 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 he 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 eating, 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 ! Think of it ! he has been around the world since ”

“Now, mother,” interrupted the blond young gentleman, “ you’ve made Laura blush again. Let’s try another subject.”

So they did, successfully, and Dick, whoever he might be, was permitted to drop out.

It was a good time for lunch, even if one chose to call it dinner. Elegance and refinement in one place, rude simplicity in another, but high noon all the same, and the queer old Indian at Chumley’s Post again said “ Ugh !” with strong emphasis, when his white acquaintance asked him to come along and have something to eat. He still avoided b 3

RED BEAUTY.

giving any information about himself. His name and tribe were to be for the present a kind of secret, and he was allowed to keep it without any prying on the part of Chumley.

“ I wish I had a good photograph of him, hat and all,” he said, “and he would smile just as handsomely without any name. Ho, I won’t quote Shakespeare. He isn’t like any rose I ever saw.”

nevertheless, while the fire was kindling and other preparations were making, there were many quiet questionings on the part of Chumley as to the state of mind prevailing among the red men of the Nebraska border, and this their elderly brother appeared to have a very poor opinion of them, taken as a whole. They were but black sheep, with an especially deep coloring for the iniquities of the Pawnees, and it would be well for any lonely white man to keep his dogs awake, his horses well tethered, and his fire-arms in good condition.