The Perils of Pauline Part 33

"The Great Spirit is sending us a leader," said Rig Smoke. "The Great Spirit has spoken to me and said: 'Lo, I will send a White Queen with golden hair. She shall come from the heart of the Earth, and she shall lead your warriors against the oppressor."

This was the third time Big Smoke had said this. That was what made it most impressive to the listeners. Big Smoke had staked not only his reputation as a medicine man, but, also his life, upon this wonderful prediction, which had aroused his people as they had not been aroused in fifty years. For it was the law of the ancient code that fulfillment must follow immediately the third announcement of the miracle. If fulfillment failed there remained only the Great Death Stone in the valley. No prophet of the tribe had ever won in the race with the Death Stone.

And so the chiefs sat in respectful silence and the young braves arose eager for the war dance when Big Smoke finished speaking.

The dance, beginning slowly, waxed wilder; the tom-toms beat more vibrantly, until the whole village was encircled by the painted and bonneted tribesmen. The red glare of daylight fires illuminated the wild faces. The women cowered with their children beside the teepees.

In the midst of the tumult, the medicine man stood with hands stretched upward calling on the Great Spirit to send the White Queen.

When the dance had subsided, the Council resumed its deliberations.

It was arranged that there should be a hunt that afternoon and the foxes or coyotes should be driven as near as possible to the settlements. This would be a means of reconnoitering and it would make the whites think the Indians were engaged in peaceful pursuits.

Pauline, after her first startled cry, stood spellbound by the two glowing eyes that shone from the far end of the cave.

There was no light now--save for the eyes. The rift in the roof from which the mysterious glow had come seemed to have been closed suddenly. The pitch darkness made the eyes doubly terrible, and just perceptibly they moved and flashed which showed they were living eyes.

Pauline longed to scream, but could not. Behind those fiery points imagination could picture all manner of horrible shapes. Was the creature about to spring upon her?

The eyes vanished as suddenly as they had appeared.

The low rustling sound came again; then the utter silence.

Pauline, freed of the uncanny gaze, was able to think and act. If that animal could find its way into her prison house, there must be another entrance to the cave.

It was plain that the animal had been crouching on the slant rock above the ledge. Pauline began again to grope around the wall. She could touch the top of the ledge and now in several places she found small crevices in the wall by which she tried to climb.

Time and again she fell back. Her soft hands were torn by the jagged rock; her dress was in shreds; her golden hair fell down upon her shoulders. She might have been some preternatural dweller of the place.

At last her foot held firm in a crevice three feet above the floor.

Clutching the ledge-top, she groped for another step--and found it.

In a moment she was on the ledge.

She sank there, covering her face with her hands. The eyes had blazed again scarcely three feet away. She felt the breath of hot nostrils, the rough hair of a beast, as the thing sprang. She felt that the end had come, but she still clung to the ledge.

As she uncovered her eyes, slowly, she was astonished to see that the faint light had returned. It came, as she had thought, over a concealed shelf of stone above the rocky incline.

The eyes had vanished. The cave was still.

She began to scale the incline. Her hands and feet caught nubs and slits of the surface and a little higher she felt the cool dampness of earth and grasped the root of a tree. As she drew herself up, she looked over the shelf and saw, at one end of it, the open day.

She crawled a little way upon the shelf then stopped. She hardly dared to go on. What if the opening, large enough to admit the light, were too small for her to pa.s.s through? What if the light had been only a lure to torture her? What if she must return into the darkness with that thing unknown, the thing with the blazing eyes!

She crept on with her eyes shut. A stronger glow of light upon the closed lids told her she had reached the end of the shelving. The next moment would tell her if she had reached freedom or renewed captivity.

She looked up.

Three of Red Snake's young warriors had gained most of the plaudits of the village during the afternoon of the hunt. They rode together and not only did they bring in many foxes and coyotes but much news of the white people. They had met armed men throughout all the mountain country, riding up and down the river. The armed men had greeted them fairly and had asked them for information of other white men who had stolen a girl and carried her away. The white men were thus fighting among themselves. It was a propitious time for the coining of the new Queen.

These three young men, about five o'clock in the afternoon, had just started the drive of a coyote towards the level country when the quarry doubled suddenly and turned into the hills.

With shouts and shots, the Indians pursued it, but their horses were no match for it on the devious wooded paths, and grunting their disgust they saw it dive into a burrow in a rocky hollow of the cliff.

They dismounted and stood about the mouth of the burrow grumbling and "cursing their luck" in an ancient tongue. At last two of them mounted and started to ride away, and their companion followed, slowly, leading his horse.

A sound made him turn his head. With a cry of mingled fear and joy, of awe and triumph, he threw himself prostrate before the mouth of the burrow.

The other Indians dashed back. They literally fell from their horses to the feet of the wonderful being who had risen from the heart of the earth--the promised G.o.ddess who would lead them against the oppressors. In the poor, disheveled person of Pauline, coming from her prison cave, they saw their great White Queen.

CHAPTER XV

THE DEATH STONE

As the thrilled and frightened Indian lay prostrate at her feet, he might well have believed her to be some creature from another world.

Her face was very pale and round it fell in tumultuous glory the cascades of her golden hair. Her dress was torn to shreds by the jagged rocks and there was blood upon the delicate hands that she held out in pleading to the only living thing she saw-the red man.

He did not move. She stepped nearer and, stooping, gently touched his shoulder. At the touch he trembled like a leaf, but raised his head and looked at her with terror and awe and adoration in his eyes.

"Won't you help me? I have ben a prisoner in the cave. I must find Mr. Haines--Haines, do you hear? Or go to Rockvale--Rockvale," she repeated, hoping that the names at least he might understand.

He motioned questioningly toward his horse, and, at her nod, he sprang up and brought the animal to her side. Helping her to mount, he took the bridle and began to lead the way into the thickly wooded hills.

The journey was slow and arduous, but it was not long. Darkness had not yet fallen when the hill trail dipped into a valley, and Pauline's weary, hopeful eyes looked down upon a village on the plain.

The hope vanished quickly as she realized that the houses of the village were teepees and that the people that moved among them were braves and squaws.

An Indian boy of perhaps twelve years sprang suddenly from a thicket beside the trail, gave one glance at her, and, with a shriek, set off at full speed toward the teepees.

Cries sounded and resounded from the hills. Tom-toms were beating.

She became aware that the Indians were swarming about her and acclaiming her a guest of unusual honor. They stopped her horse at the entrance to Red Snake's teepee. The great chief stepped forth himself, with Big Smoke, the medicine man, close behind him.

The prophet, who had foretold the coming of the Great White Queen, wore a mien of pride and triumph, even as he bowed low before Pauline. But of all the red folk in s.h.i.+-wah-ki village, Big Smoke was undoubtedly the most amazed at the fulfillment of his prophecy.

The braves who were a.s.signed to lift Pauline from her horse and bear her into the Chief's teepee were surprised that one immortal should be so weak as almost to fall into their arms, so weary as to be scarcely able to walk. But Pauline, seated upon a high pile of furs within the teepee, where the weird light of a fire fell upon her pallid features and her flowing hair, presented a picture strange and marvelous.

They gathered around her, Red Snake and the medicine man in the center of the adobe, the lesser chiefs behind them, and in another circle the ranks of the braves.

Even in her utter exhaustion, the savage solemnity of the gathering fascinated Pauline. Had she been left alone she would have fallen asleep upon the piled furs; but this low muttering, grim-visaged a.s.semblage of the red men forced her to respectful attention. That they honored her, she understood; but she saw, too, that the Indians were all armed and some of them were painted. As Red Snake arose to address the tribe a menacing murmur filled the teepee and the young chiefs whetted their knives upon the ground.

Red Snake's harangue, unintelligible to Pauline, had an electrical effect upon the Indians. Frequently as he spoke he turned toward her and always when he did so he bent his head upon his breast and raised his mighty arms in token of submission to a power mightier than his own.

As he finished, Pauline arose, swaying a little from her great weakness. She shook her head in token that she did not understand.

Her outstretched, pleading hands bewildered, but subdued the warlike a.s.sembly.

Red Snake called a ringing summons, and from the rear circle of the audience shuffled forward the strangest man Pauline had ever seen. His undersized, stooping form was garbed in a miner's cast-off red s.h.i.+rt, a ranchman's ex-trousers, a pair of tattered moccasins and a much-dented derby hat, with a lone feather in the band of it. It was White Man's Hat, a half-breed interpreter.