Star Part 15

Her father smiled approval, then he said: "That is the flag of the Great Father, and we are his children now. It is as my mother, Preloch, would wish; and it is best for me, for you, and for all the Quahadas.

The white men are our brothers. Together we shall dwell in peace."

So they rode to the place where their new camp was to be built, not far away from the garrison. Quannah explained, as they rode, that the buffalo hunters could not come there to fight the Quahadas, and that there would be food enough for the Indians, and that now the white soldiers would be their friends. He told her how he planned to make his people understand the white men's ways, their children to learn the things that white children were taught, and then, some day, maybe, he could bring back Preloch and Prairie Flower. For the officers had told him, through the interpreter, that his mother and sister were both dead.

Little Prairie Flower had lived only a short time after reaching the home of the white people, and Preloch, grieving constantly for her son, had died a year later, so the mother and the baby had been buried among the white people.

The officers who had told him this had shown their sympathy in their faces, and when Quannah asked if they thought that some day he might bring his mother and sister back to sleep among their own people, the officers had all been sure that the Great Father would think it was just and right.

Then Quannah and Songbird reached a little knoll where they had a view of a wide sweep of prairie land, broken by the outline of trees along the banks of a stream. Sitting silently on their horses, father and child gazed at the place where a new era was to dawn for their people.

Star's nose rubbed the neck of the Big Gray Horse, but his friend paid no attention to him. He was too busy watching a distant object which Star had not seen. Then, he, too, saw a slowly moving black pony. Its head hung dejectedly and it stumbled wearily as it approached them.

Star's loud, shrill call caused the black pony to stop suddenly and fling its head high, while it gave answer. Neither Quannah nor Songbird tried to check the swift pace of the Big Gray Horse and Star, as, side by side, they raced joyously to meet Running Deer.

When they met, Star pawed the ground in his delight, and his mother kept nipping his shoulder with her teeth to tell how glad she was to find him. Later, as she trotted beside him, when Quannah and Songbird again rode forward, Running Deer told her colt how she, returning to camp with Quannah, had found that Star and Songbird both were missing.

After the white soldiers had captured and taken Quannah and all the braves and women and children to the garrison, Running Deer, a.s.sured now that her master would not need her for some time, stole quietly from the garrison one night to search for Star and Songbird; for Star was very dear to her, and she had noticed, too, how Quannah, when alone, grieved for his beloved daughter who was lost. She had come back to the Quahada camp and waited there several days, feeling sure that Star and Songbird would return. When they did not, she continued on her way to find them, and finally came to the Great Desert of the Staked Plains. With sorrowing heart she had reluctantly turned her steps back to the garrison, for now she knew not where to search for them on the vast, trackless sand plains; and she herself was weak and lean from thirst and hunger. Imagine, then, her joy upon finding Star and his little mistress safe and happy. But neither Star nor Running Deer knew that they alone were left of the once great Quahada pony herd. All the others were dead.

As the sun went down that evening, Quannah and Songbird, with the Big Gray Horse, Running Deer, and Star, reached the place where the new village was to be built. Back of them, on the road, the Quahadas toiled, but the eyes that watched the setting sun were hopeful. They knew that it would rise again to-morrow.

Chapter XXI

Quannah kept his pledge. Never again did the Quahada Comanches war with the white people, for when their chief had given his word of honour, it became their honour to uphold him and keep his promise.

Near the garrison of Fort Sill he taught his tribe the best ways of the white men, and he did his utmost to preserve a sense of fairness and justice in all his transactions with his own people as well as with the white men. The children of the Quahadas were educated, and so Quannah's little daughter was taught the things that white children learn.

Songbird saw her father honoured by the most prominent men of the United States; saw him living in a large house that was built and furnished and given to him as a token of regard from white people who had learned to understand and admire the "White Comanche Chief." She saw him a guest in homes of the most noted men in the great city of Was.h.i.+ngton, and she watched him ride in the big parade in Was.h.i.+ngton when Theodore Roosevelt was elected for the second term as President of the United States.

All that Moko had predicted the day Songbird had sat watching the old Picture Maker work on the big buffalo robe had come true. Even Quannah's desire to have his mother, Preloch, and his baby sister, Prairie Flower, come back to sleep among the Quahada people had been fulfilled.

The Congress of the United States, twenty-four years after Quannah had given his pledge of peace pa.s.sed a law which gave an appropriation of a thousand dollars for a monument to be erected to the memory of Cynthia Ann Parker, whom the Quahadas called Preloch. It not only honoured the mother of Quannah, but was also an acknowledgment of the valued services of her son, in cooperating with the United States to keep peace between the Indians and the white people.

And so Preloch and Prairie Flower came back at last to the Quahadas, and when Quannah died, he slept beside them, while the Indians mourned the pa.s.sing of the greatest chief they had ever known. Untutored and unlettered, he had taught his people the lesson of forgiveness and of honour, and in so doing he had won the respect of all men.

Moko's words were again proved true when a town, Nocona, was named after Quannah's father, Peta Nocona; and to-day, still another town bears the name of the son, Quannah.

Star and Running Deer, after living happily many years, at last went to join the other Quahada ponies in the Happy Hunting Grounds.

Sometimes when the Thunder Bird wings its way across the sky, and white people think they hear distant thunder, Songbird stands with uplifted face. It is not thunder, but the sound of galloping hoofs that she hears.

Beyond the dark shadows of the Thunder Bird's wings, she knows that Quannah is riding on Running Deer. Near him is Peta Nocona, and with them rides Preloch, holding little Prairie Flower closely against her breast.

On the other side of Running Deer gallops a black pony without a rider, his thick mane and long black tail streaming like the edges of a dark cloud. Songbird knows that the pony is Star, and that some day she will ride him again beside her father.

As the thunder dies away, she smiles and turns back to the work that Quannah left for her to do, until she, too, shall answer the cry of the Great Eagle.