Edward Sylvester Ellis

“ For all the darkness around she could see the scaly folds of the numberless savage reptiles, that, disturbed by their footsteps, wormed in a living mass like boiling waves breaking upon some rocky beach. Horrible—the like of which earth holds not, and what could she do to avert such a fate?
Renounce the scout—perjure her very soul and become the wife of the one she not only detested but who would even thus dastardly seek to make her his own? The bare thought nerved her to even greater strength, and the battle became fierce indeed. ”

“ All through the night Tim O'Rooney and Howard Lawrence sat in close consultation. Hunger and sleep were alike unthought of. Elwood Brandon was lost, and that was all of which they could think or speak. How they longed for the morning, and how impatient they were to be on the hunt! It seemed to Howard as if he could go leaping and flying down the chasms and gorges among the hills, and never tire until he had hunted out and brought back his cousin. Where could he be? If nestling in the branches of a tree, or hid away among the rocks, was he asleep? ”

“ The dismal day wore slowly away, and with a feeling of unutterable loneliness they saw the second night of their enforced stay in the cavern close around them. The cold seemed to intensify with the approach of darkness, and the supply of wood had grown so slight that the warmth was barely perceptible.
The blizzard raged with unabated fury. The gale shrieked around the rocks, the blinding snow whirled and eddied until it seemed that it must bury them out of sight, and the outlook was woeful enough to chill the bravest heart. ”

“ His sufferings had only commenced—death, in its worst form, would have been preferred to the ordeal through which he had yet to pass. To feel certain of death—to count the lingering hours as they pass—to know that each is but a step toward a certain doom—to feel that doom impending day by day, and yet to see it postponed through miserable stretches of suffering—to endure continually all the anguish of which the human frame is capable, and all this time to know that hope has fled beyond recall—that all this protracted agony must end in inevitable death, is too terrible to contemplate. ”

“ Gold, the most precious of all metals, for which men delve and starve and toil and die, still lies hidden in immeasurable masses, in unsuspected places, screened perhaps by a thin sheeting of earth, over which thousands have tramped, never dreaming of the boundless riches just beneath their feet. And rubies and diamonds strew the bottom of the ocean or scintillate within caverns and caves, as they have shone and gleamed through ages, still waiting for the fortunate miner or explorer to bring them to light and the gaze of an admiring world. ”

“ When shut out from all prospect of human help, and conscious that there is but one arm which is not shortened, we do not draw back from calling upon that arm to sustain us in the dark hour of trial.
With the dull glow of the slumbering camp-fire, the grotesque groups of almost unconscious sleepers, the solemn sighing of the night-wind, and the twinkle of the stars through the branches overhead—with such mournful surroundings as these, George Leland sent up his prayer of agony to God. ”

“ When half way around, the plodders came in sight of a huge rent in the distant mountain wall, through which the sky showed nearly from the zenith to the horizon. In this immense V-shaped space shone the moon nearly at its full, and without a rift or fleck of cloud in front of its face.
A flood of light streamed through and between the encompassing peaks, tinging the men and animals with its fleecy veil, as if some of the snow from the crests had been sprinkled over them. ”

“ Sometimes our great men talk loud and long at our council fires, but if you shed one drop of white men's blood, our young warriors, as thick as stars of the night, will leap on board our great boats, which fly on the waves, and over the lakes, swift as the eagle of the air, then penetrate the woods, make the big guns thunder, and the whole heavens red with the flames of the dwellings of their enemies. ”

“ Beyond the mountains opens the great sea, wider than that which the pale faces came across from the Old World; beyond that great sea lies the land where He died for you and me; all the way to the shore, of the great water you will find the red men; they are like the leaves in the woods, and Deerfoot and his friends will die without ever hearing their names. ”

“ The Huron hesitated no longer, but the next moment stood beside the Miami on the broad mass of stone. Heigon gave a short peculiar whoop, which was instantly followed by the appearance of the other canoe with its four inmates, who impelled it forward with great rapidity, and in almost a twinkling were also upon the rock. Each held a glittering knife in hand, and they gazed upon their victim with exulting eyes, who stood firm, unmoved, and returned their glances with as proud and defiant an air as a king would have looked upon the vassals beneath him. ”

“ Jack noticed the swing of the muscular arms, the play of the legs and the occasional slight turning or ducking of the head. The straggling black hair, with the painted eagle feathers drooping like the plume of a lady's hat, the blanket slung loosely over the shoulders, the fringed hunting shirt and leggings, the faded moccasins, so soft that they spread out of all manner of shape when the weight of the body rested on them:—all these and much more were impressed upon the mind of the boy with a distinctness that he was certain would last him all through life. ”

“ It started away with a bound, instantly reaching a speed of forty miles an hour.
The next moment it struck the bowlders with a terrific crash, shot on over its face, leaving the splintered wagon behind, and at the instant of touching ground upon the opposite side directly among the thunderstruck Indians, it exploded its boiler!
The shock of the explosion was terrible. It was like the bursting of an immense bomb-shell, the steam man being blown into thousands of fragments, that scattered death and destruction in every direction. ”

“ An affectionate embrace and kiss were given to the wife and little one, and then, swinging himself into the saddle, Maurice Freeman pointed the nose of his mustang up the valley, and spurred him to a dead run, with outstretched neck, flying mane and tail and snorting nostrils. As if he understood that he had set out to save human life, he paid no more heed to the blistering heat than did his rider, who closed his mouth hard, as he refilled the empty chambers of his Winchester without drawing rein. ”

“ The sun, high in the sky, penetrated the woods with its warmth, and in the broad open plain the heat must have been oppressive. Here and there a tiny bird fluttered among the trees, and suddenly a noble buck came striding along as if he meant to follow the trail to the falls for a drink, but, catching sight of the two young men standing beside the trees weapon in hand, he wheeled and was off in a twinkling, though not before either one of the lads could have gained the best kind of a shot had he dared to fire. ”

“ He was thus engaged, conscious of a number of severe bruises, when an object whisked past his shoulder, taking a direction up the gorge. He felt it graze his face, and detected something that can only be described as a deepening of the dense gloom as it shot over his head. It came and vanished like the flitting of a bird's wing.
The youth for the moment was amazed beyond expression, and was at a loss to explain what it could be. Then the truth flashed upon him. Some one else was also going up the canyon, and had leaped from the rock to which Jack was clinging, on his way to the next one. ”

“ Looking off to the east and south, the eye caught a glimpse of distant mountain peaks, standing out white and clear against the blue horizon, like a snowy conical cloud, and the intervening stretch of country was broken by hills, ravines, gorges, wood, stream, rocks and prairie, in an interminable jungle, making a country that was the chosen roaming-ground of the fiercest wild animals, the most valuable game, and the wild Indian, and the equally wild hunter and trapper. ”

“ Of the illustrious signers of the declaration of independence there now remains only Charles Carroll. He seems an aged oak, standing alone on the plain, which time has spared a little longer after all its cotemporaries have been leveled with the dust. Venerable object! we delight to gather round its trunk, while yet it stands, and to dwell beneath its shadow. Sole survivor of an assembly of as great men as the world has witnessed, in a transaction one of the most important that history records, what thoughts, what interesting reflections, must fill his elevated and devout soul! ”

“ It was hard to believe that this old gentleman with his gentle blue eyes, his soft musical voice, and his humble Christian bearing, was the hurricane-like fighter, who had torn the reeking scalp from the head of the fierce savage, who had run the gauntlet more than once, who had trailed the red Indian through the gloomy depths of the forest and who had lived in the wilderness in storm and sunshine, week after week and month after month, when he never closed his eyes with certainty he would not be awakened for an instant by the crash of the tomahawk as it clove his skull in twain. ”

“ The darkness of night rested on Shark Pond and the surrounding woods. The murky volumes of smoke seemed to shut out all light, excepting when the tongues of fire shot through them. The wind blew a gale, stirring the water into tiny waves, and the roaring of the fire through the woods, the sound of trees crashing to the earth, and the millions of sparks, with blazing bits of wood, were carried a great distance through the air. Some of these flaming brands fell on the raft on which Nick Ribsam stood, and they continually dropped hissing into the water around him. ”

“ Nellie Dawson became the pet of the mining town. There was not a man in the place, no matter how rough his ways, nor how dark had been his past, who was not made the better by her presence. She touched a responsive chord in every heart. She awoke tones that had been silent for years, and stirred into life resolves that had lain dormant for a generation. When the weather grew milder with the approach of spring, she flitted like a bird from cabin to cabin, equally at home and dearly prized in all. ”

“ The night was closing in, and the vast peaks of the Black Hills, that had loomed up white and grand in the distance, were gradually fading from view until they merged into the thickly gathering gloom, while the blasts that whirled the snow in blinding drifts about their tops, came moaning and sweeping over the bleak prairie, as if searching for some one to inclose in its icy grasp, and to strangle out of life. ”

“ Irene Stuart stood at the open door of her cabin, as she had every evening since the battle, gazing vacantly out upon the Ohio. The last rays of the sun were shooting 45 brilliantly over the tree-tops and illuminating them with a golden glow; the hum and noise of work around her had ceased, and the mournful stillness harmonized well with her sad and mournful thoughts. It was easy to tell where they were. It was easy to tell where they had been every night when she had stood thus, lost in communion with them. It is sometimes hard beneath the most convincing proof to believe that one is dead. ”

“ There are shadowy glens, gaping fissures, whose corresponding faces show that at some remote age they were split apart by a terrific upheaval, a gray barn with its threshing machine and air of quiet country life, rows of neat cottages, a little white wooden church, perched like a rooster gathering himself and about to crow and flap his wings, the Casino, smooth, grassy slopes, and at the northern end of the island, the roomy Squirrel Inn, crowded with visitors attracted by the cool and bracing air, from the opening to the close of summer. ”

“ Now and then the great ship rose from some mighty swell, and then, settling down, drove ahead, cleaving the calm water and leaving a wide wake of foam behind. The black smoke poured out of the broad funnels, and sifted upward through the scant rigging, and was dissipated in the clear air above. The throbbing of the engine made its pulsations felt through the ponderous craft from stem to stern, as a giant breathes more powerfully when gathering his energy for the final effort of the race. ”

“ He could hear the soft impact of Whirlwind's hoof now and then as he shifted his position and continued nibbling the grass. The night wind sighed around the massive rock, fanning the blaze, and sometimes rising to a moan as it careered upward and swirled about the stupendous peaks towering near at hand. Far aloft he caught the faint honk of the wild geese hurrying southward from the Arctic winter that would soon lock the world in its rigid fetters. ”

“ It seemed as if the people would never recover from the effects of their amazement. Russell Trafford stood before them, as natural as life, his fine form drawn up to its full hight, and a smile playing over his handsome features as he calmly noted the result of his disclosure. And yet, how could it be he? They thought—nay, they knew he was dead. They had seen him hung, and had followed him to his grave. Surely no man could live after hanging as he had hung; much less leave his grave. ”

“ It was a ghastly and almost unearthly sight—the small cabin, crackling and roaring in one mass of living flame, throwing strange shadows across the clearing, and lighting up the edges of the forest with a brightness almost as great as the sun at noonday—the score of dusky beings, leaping and shouting in wild exultation, and the vast wilderness, shutting down like an ocean of darkness around.
Gradually the flames lessened, and the woods seemed to retreat into the gloom; the shouts of the savages ceased, and they too, disappeared ”

“ Then, folding his arms, he looked into the smoldering embers before him. Every one knows how such a scene feeds the fancy and how imagination will run riot, while sitting alone late at night, with the wind moaning outside, while he watches the curious, grotesque, and endless procession of figures which take shape and action before him. No one but Deerfoot himself could tell what thoughts took shape in his brain, but they must have been of a melancholy, serious nature, for he drew a deep sigh, muttered a few words in prayer, and then deliberately lay down in the middle of the floor. ”

“ Hidden by the thick underbrush which grew up by the side of the road, five tawny warriors, painted and bedecked with their war feathers, lay crouching like wild beasts, ready to spring upon their prey. Just as they started to resume their way, and descend the hill toward the settlement, the crack of two rifles, the whizzing of two leaden messengers, and the fall of their husbands, alarmed the women and widowed them at the same instant. The aim had been sure, and both the men fell without a groan, pierced through the heart with a bullet from an unerring rifle. ”

“ Hour after hour wore away; still Rosalind remained at the window. As there was no inclination to sleep, she determined to remain in her position until morning. She knew that it must be far beyond midnight, and at the thought there sprung up a faint hope within her breast. But she was startled by the dismal hoot of an owl. She sprang up, with a beating heart, listening intently and painfully; but no other sound was heard. Trying to smile at her trepidation, she again seated herself and listened; in a moment that cry was repeated, now in an opposite direction from which the first note was heard. ”

“ The river on the left flowing calmly northward, the solemn autumn woods on the right, the stretch of the Long Clearing, with its irregular contour,—the single solitary youth poised as if he were a Grecian athlete,—the seven swarthy Indians, like so many fierce hounds, impatient for the moment when they might spring at the lamb and bury their fangs in its throat:—these made a picture striking beyond imagination in its details. ”

“ The thunder booming in the distance, then sharply exploding like a piece of ordnance directly overhead, the crack of the solid oak as the thunderbolt tore it to splinters, the incessant streaming of the lightning across the sky, the soughing of the wind—all these made a scene terrifically grand, and would have induced almost any one to have sought the shelter offered him, convinced that the only danger at such a time was from the elements themselves. ”

“ Knowing what had occurred, Jack and Fred ran to the edge and looked down. They were in time to see the mountainous bulk tumbling into the vast chasm. The body maintained a horizontal posture, as in life, until it struck a projecting point which sent it bounding against the other side, where the impact added to the tendency of the first blow, and the body turned over and over, like an immense log rolling down hill. Despite the gloom of the abyss the sun was shining so brightly, and was in such a favorable position, that everything was seen with distinctness. ”

“ Be ever near him and yet never in sight. Hear every word that issues from his lips but let yours be dumb as death. Be secret as the mole and crafty as the spider. Let your footsteps be as light as the falling snowflake, and your ear as sharp as the stag. Let nothing escape you. More than you dream of hangs upon what you may learn—perhaps even the fate of the whole tribe. ”

“ There were moments when the effulgence spread over the earth, like the rays of the midnight sun, and the lads, standing in front of the primitive dwelling of the Esquimau, resembled a couple of figures stamped in ink in the radiant field.
For nearly an hour the rapt spectators stood near the entrance to the native dwelling, insensible to the extreme cold, and too profoundly impressed to speak or stir; but the heavens had given too great a wealth of splendor, brilliancy, color, and celestial scene-shifting to continue it long. ”

“ He was not a child, but he was Shasta, the Pah Utah Indian.
The inexperience of Elwood Brandon and Howard Lawrence with these strange people made this savage an enigma to them. As he stood with his arms folded, his blanket wrapped around him, his long black hair streaming over his shoulders, and the mingling of the paint on his crown and over his face, and his midnight eyes fixed upon them, it was hard indeed to conjecture the thoughts filtrating through his brain.
But there is a language in which the human heart can speak—that of emotion. ”

“ The horrified Fred Ashman saw that the poisoned arrow, aimed at his own heart had buried itself in the fair arm of Ariel, as she clasped him about the neck anxious to shield him from harm at the expense of her own life.
She had saved him, but at what a fearful cost! The agonized lover realized it all, as he tenderly placed her on the rock beside which they were standing. Then, like the man who, knowing he has been fatally struck by the rattlesnake or cobra, turns to stamp the life out of the reptile, before looking after his own wound, he faced about and brought his rifle to his shoulder. ”

“ There was many a league in whose solemn depths a human foot had never yet penetrated, and whose echoes had never been awakened by the shot of the rifle. There they lay as silent as at "creation's morn," and the denizens of the woods waxed strong and wandered at will, without fear of the deadly bullet whistling from behind the tree or mossy rock. ”

“ Nevertheless, the matchless youth sped along the path in the gathering gloom, with that swiftness which earned him his expressive name while he was yet a mere boy. No man, American or Caucasian, could hold his own against him in his phenomenal fleetness. He swept through the forest, never pausing, but darting forward like a bird on the wing, that eludes by the marvelous quickness of eye the labyrinth of limbs and obstructions which interpose almost every second across his line of flight. ”

“ The question of supremacy was settled forever.
Slowly recoiling a couple of steps, he folded his arms, and, with a dignity that was touching, said, in a slow, deliberate voice, with his softened gaze fixed on the countenance of his conqueror:
"Hay-uta is a dog whose teeth have fallen out; he can fight no more; he is ashamed to go back to his people; the son of a pale face who is there, when he learns the truth, will point his finger at him and laugh; Hay-uta cannot go to his lodge; let Deerfoot bury his knife in his heart!" ”

“ The four years of stupendous war came to an end. The sun of the Southern Confederacy went down in gloom and defeat behind the hills of Appomattox, never to rise again, and blessed peace brooded over a reunited nation, which shall endure through the coming ages to the end of time.
It was only the faint echoes of the mighty struggle that, faintly reverberating across prairie and mountain, reached the little mining settlement nestling among the solitudes of the Sierras. ”

“ The hunter now took the lead; and leaving them hopefully pursuing their way, let us glance at Leslie until they arrive.
Chafing, fretting, hoping, fearing and doubting sat Leslie, impatiently awaiting the appearance of Kent. The falling of a leaf, or rustling of the branches under some light breeze startled him; and when a night-bird, that had been resting above him gave utterance to its unearthly hoot, and swooped past, its voice he mistook for the yell of his savage foes, and the flap of its wings for their approaching tread. ”

“ I felt that nothing short of a miracle could prevent our being destroyed in a contest where we fought at such an immense disadvantage. With such feelings I stepped aside, and kneeling down in the snow, alongside an old gun, with the storm beating into my face, I poured out my soul in an humble petition to God, beseeching him to be my shield and protection in the coming struggle—for nothing but an Almighty arm could save us—and I really and sincerely feel that I owed my safety to the interposition of Providence, and I thought so at the time. ”

“ The genius of man can never approach in the smallest degree the beauties of the picture without some noise, but here nature performs her most wonderful feat in utter stillness. The panorama may unfold, roll together, spread apart again with dazzling brilliancy and suddenness, but the strained ear catches no sound, unless dissociated altogether from the phenomenon itself, such as the soft sighing of the Arctic wind over the wastes of snow, or through the grove of solemn pines. ”