Morrison Heady

“ This day many hands strong and cruel opened the doors of death to push us burning through; but one hand stronger than them all shut the doors and drew us back into the paths of the living. He has led us forth in safety from the midst of our deadly foes, and now bids us return in peace to our own people. We are glad; we are thankful. Who our deliverer is we know; our eyes, our ears, our hearts have told us already. Who should it be but Kumshakah, the savior of the boy Shekee-thepatee, the friend of the Big Black Brave, Mish-mugwa? ”

“ With incoherent expressions of endearment to her darling boy, of thanks to their brave and faithful servant, and of praise to the merciful Father of all, the widowed mother clasped the lost and found to her heart, being in turn all but choked and smothered by the hugs and kisses of the delighted Bushie. Then, hand in hand, they hastened to their cabin and shut the door behind them with a timbersome bang, which said as plainly as a puncheon-door, with oaken hinges and hickory latch, could say any thing, "Let us have the first hour of recovered happiness to ourselves." ”

“ Time and again did each whirl his antagonist round, point-blank to the threatened danger; yet as often did the other regain the lost advantage. Burning to revenge himself before his feeble spark of life went out, the dying savage, with his fiery eyes glaring along the barrel, continued to shift his rifle from side to side as the struggle shifted from place to place. The red giant was on the point of covering the black giant between a tree and a log, there for the telling instant to hold him fast, when a fierce growl was heard in the thicket behind him. ”

“ Still hopping about on one foot and kicking with the other, he had unsheathed his hunting-knife to do what he might with that in the unmotherly hug which he felt must come at last, when here, in the nick of time, having heard his master's call from afar, the heroic Grumbo came dashing up to the rescue. Without yelp, or bark, or growl, or any other needless ado, this jewel of a dog laid hold of the she-bear's stump of a tail, which his instinct told him was the enemy's vulnerable point, and with a sudden, forcible, backward pull, brought her ladyship growling to her all-fours. ”

“ More than twenty times has spring made green the forest since Kumshakah started out on his first war-path. But they who went with him returned without him, saying, 'Kumshakah has fallen in the land of the Dark and Bloody Ground under the hand of the Big Black Brave with a Bushy Head.' Then went I out into the forest, wandering in lonely places, and mourning my much-loved brother. But before another moon had turned her face full and broad upon the earth, Kumshakah returned, and there was a light in his eye brighter than that of the warrior's triumph. ”

“ With a terrible cry, half as a yell of astonishment, half as a whoop of defiance, Black Thunder—the red giant being, in fact, none other than that redoubtable Wyandot brave—leaped to his feet, and wrenching his tomahawk from the tree beside him, hurled it, with a horrible hiss, full at the shaggy front of this most unexpected, formidable foe. But, quick of eye and strong of hand, the Fighting Nigger caught the murderous missile on the head of his ax, and sent it ringing, like an anvil, high up in the air. ”

“ With that consistency of mind and fixedness of purpose for which he was remarkable, our canine hero stubbornly persisted in making it manifest that he was not a dog to be whistled, rubbed, and patted into winking at a measure so lax as that of allowing a red "varmint" to run at large in their midst, without even so much as a block and chain to hamper the freedom of his movements, or some sign to bespeak his inferiority to men and dogs. Perhaps, like some perverse people we have known, Grumbo took particular delight in being unsatisfactory to every one but himself. ”

“ Whereat the black giant picked up heart enough to pick up a club and fling it at the ghastly apparition, half expecting to see the missile pass through without impediment, as missiles are wont to do under circumstances of the kind. But the club was cheeked by substance as solid as itself, the result being a sounding thump. Thereupon, eyes and ears comparing notes, it was discovered that the thing of dread was nothing more than the twisted and splintered stump of a storm-felled hickory-tree, the white sap-wood whereof had been stripped of its bark by lightning. ”

“ When he first set out on his great mission, this wandering patriot of the wilderness found the minds of his countrymen we cowed with fear, or so benumbed with indifference as to their fate, that there was scarcely a man among them all, outside his own near kindred, to lend him an ear, or join him in his self-imposed, herculean labor. But toward the end, when every hill and valley, plain and forest, river and lake of the great North-west had been made to resound full many a year with the echoes of that awakening voice, behold the result. ”

“ On reaching the spot where he had seen the hero fall, Reynolds found a number of his brother soldiers already gathered there, and still others coming up, all eager either for the first time to behold or to get a nearer view of the renowned Indian chieftain. With the dead of both friend and foe strewn thick around him, there he lay, his handsome face still lighted up with a glorious and triumphant smile, as if the magnanimous soul that so long had animated those noble features had, in rising, stamped it there to tell his enemies that, though fallen, he had fallen and conquered. ”

“ Thus satisfied in his own mind that, let the matter be viewed on either side—the black side or the white side—there existed a kindred tie between himself and the young Indian, not to mention the debt of gratitude each owed the other, the Fighting Nigger felt that for once in his life he might, without soiling the skirts of his honor, or lowering the plumes of his dignity, play the familiar and brotherly with the red varmint. ”

“ Suddenly had risen and vanished, and now suddenly rose and vanished again, what appeared to be the plumed crests of three Indians, who were watching the black hunter's approach, by fitful glimpses, from behind their place of ambush. Dodging to one side behind a tree, the black giant cocked his gun and planted himself firm and square on his moccasins, this time as strong and sturdy from head to foot as a black-jack oak. ”

“ From the great lakes of the North to the flowery forests of the far South, from the great hills of the East to the grassy plains of the far West, month after month, year after year, from hopeful youth to sober prime, he roamed the wilderness. Everywhere he called upon his countrymen to cease from warring among themselves and unite their tribes, that as one people they might stand up in the defense of their native land, given them by the Master of Life to be the one home and common possession of them all. ”

“ Foiled again, and seeing the ax uplifted, himself this time the mark for the impending blow, Black Thunder, pushed to desperation, darted sheer under the descending arm, thus bringing his shoulder under the handle of the weapon, instead of his head under its cleaving edge, and causing the force of the blow to be spent harmless on the ground behind him.
Then did those doughty giants close and grapple together in the wrestle for life and death. The red giant had the advantage in height, if not in weight; the black giant in strength of muscle, if not in suppleness of limbs. ”

“ On hearing the voice of entreaty at his side, the young Indian had turned his eyes from the face of our big black hero, and perceiving by the boy's looks, tones, and gestures that an appeal was making in his behalf, had fixed them earnestly on the face of our little white hero, as if willing to look there for mercy, though disdaining to ask it of the giant victor under whose grasp he lay. Now that he had taken a good long look at him, Burl could not help being in some sort struck with the wild and singular beauty of the young brave's whole appearance. ”

“ Chapter XX. How Kumshakah Figured in the Light of the Setting Sun.
The red man foremost, the black man hindmost, and the white man between, silently, swiftly they wended their way through the mazes, green and brown, of the autumn-painted forest. "What manner of man is this," the young Kentuckian could not but say to himself, "at whose voice the fierce, unruly warriors of the wilderness stay their barbarous hands, from before the glance of whose eye their doughtiest champions quail, and under whose hand the captive goes forth again into life and freedom?" ”

“ The sagacious animal, as if perfectly understanding what was said to him, and what his part of the work in hand was to be, crouched down like a lion in the dark shadows of the dingle, there to wait until he should hear his master's call. Then tightening his belt to make his knife and hatchet more secure, and reassuring himself that Betsy Grumbo was in tip-top "bitin' order," our hero addressed himself to the scaling of the enemy's height. ”

“ And with this his battle-cry shaking the lonely wilds, and finding echo in a deep-mouthed howl from the brindled dog in the dingle below, the Fighting Nigger burst from his ambush, all the lion of his nature now roused and rampant within him. Throwing himself with a prodigious bound into the arena, on with huge strides he came, his ponderous battle-ax in broad, bright circles gleaming high over his head. ”

“ Though he could confine himself to facts with modest brevity when speaking of his achievements to white people—as we have already noticed—the Fighting Nigger, it must be owned, was something of a long-winded boaster, with a proneness to slide off into the fabulous, when blowing his own trumpet for the entertainment of his colored admirers, who bolted whatever monstrosity he might choose to toss into their greedy chops. ”

“ He appealed to every sentiment in human nature that can rouse to high and noble purpose—the love of country, of kindred, of freedom, of glory. He flattered their pride with glowing allusions to the antiquity and renown of their race, and by repeating to them their traditions which described them as having once been the favorite children of the Great Spirit, and again to be taken under his peculiar care whenever they should return to the bosom of their ancient brotherhood, and to the sober, simple habits and the pure faith of their fathers. ”

“ Now that his great adventure had been brought to a happy end, the Fighting Nigger must once more doff his bear-skin cap—the cap of war—and don, instead, his coon-skin cap—the cap of peace; hang his battle-ax up on the wall, and lay his hand to the plow; muzzle his war-dog, and bridle his plow-horse; and leave the war-path in the forest to tread the peace-path in the field. ”

“ The background to our portrait is a forest, lofty, shaggy, and dense, and the home of a thousand wild things, which, being invisible at this moment, could not, with due regard to fidelity, be introduced into our picture. The foreground is a cultivated clearing of about one hundred acres, with woody walls, unbroken in their leafy density, hemming it in on every side. Directly in front is a field of corn, the dark and thrifty green of which may well bespeak the deep, rich soil of the Paradise. ”

“ Time and the world had evidently dealt kindly by our hero, the ebony smoothness of his wide-snouted mug unfurrowed as yet by those lines of care and thought we so often find disfiguring the faces of Shem and Japheth, nor grizzled yet his fleecy locks, although he had left his fiftieth year behind him—an age when the heads of most men begin to whiten under the snows of life's winter. ”

“ Scattered about the clearing, singly or in clumps, or even in small groves, are to be seen the giant survivors of the primeval forest, which, rearing high aloft their green heads and flinging afar their mighty arms, yield pleasant shade to the horses, sheep, and cattle grazing about them. But more numerous are to be seen those that are not survivors, though still standing, drained of their sap of life by the woodman's ax, which hacked those jagged girdles around their huge trunks. ”

“ To Big Black Burl, as a game-hunter, this valley-glade, with its verdant slopes, affording the richest pasturage to the wild herds of the forest, would have been a right delectable prospect; but to him as an Indian-hunter, it was a sight disheartening enough, running, as it did, square across his war-path, and seeming to offer scarce the shadow of a shade for an ambush, without which it would be desperation itself to push the adventure to the perilous edge. ”

“ Then the shrill cry of the dingle-ambushed panther would ring out through the black stillness, like the shriek of a terrified woman.
At one time, hardly had these sounds of evil omen died away, when, on a sudden, there started up before them a tall shape, with long arms outstretched, and all of a ghastly whiteness. The black giant stopped short, fixedly staring before him—all in an instant weak as a limber-jack, the whites of his eyes showing through the dark like half-moons. ”

“ The black giant was nearer the goal, but the red giant had longer and nimbler legs, which made it again about nip and tuck between the black and the red. Leaving their tracks to be traced by great handfuls of iron-weeds, caught at and uprooted in the scramble, up they struggled, with might and main, and with feet that could not quicken their speed, however fear might urge or hope incite. ”

“ If he ever caught any one railing at Grumbo—any colored individual, that is, in bad odor with his dogship—and cursing him for a misbegotten wolf, Big Black Burl would be all afire in the flash of a gun-flint, and ready to pulverize the false muzzle that dared dab the fair name of his four-footed chum with a slur so foul. Sometimes, though, the white hunters, also, would curse Grumbo—denouncing him as a dog too wanting in the milk of human kindness to be allowed a place in human society, unmuzzled, excepting when on duty. ”

“ This time—glad to do any thing in the world to please his little preserver—the young Indian accepted the proffered hospitality, and taking the venison, ate it with much appearance of relish.
Now, you must know that after a battle fought and victory won, it was Grumbo's wont to indulge himself in a little brief repose, which he would take stretched out on the ground, with his shaggy head laid, lion-like, on his extended paws—betraying, in both attitude and look, a sober self-satisfaction so entire as made it seem that for him the world had nothing more to offer. ”

“ Persuaded that their hour of deliverance and vengeance was come at last, thousands of the tawny warriors of the wilderness, drawn from the numerous tribes which he had succeeded in uniting, came flocking around him, ready to do his bidding, as one commissioned by the Great Spirit to be their leader and deliverer. Never, since their first landing on the Continent, had the whites beheld arrayed against them, by the energy and power of one mind, a league of the Indian tribes so formidable and wide-spread. ”

“ As side by side they pursued their tramp through the green entanglements of the forest, the black hunter was far less talkative than usual, and the red hunter scarcely spoke at all, though, Indian-like, listening with respectful attention whenever his companion seemed to be addressing him in particular. But, as if reserving all his regrets for the parting moment, Bushie—now mounted on Burl's shoulder, now walking hand in hand with Kumshakah—kept up a lively prattle which never ceased, and to which the others listened with pleased ears. ”

“ The dim light of another hazy October day was creeping chillily over those forest wilds, when a heavy hand shaking him roughly by the shoulder roused Big Black Burl from his slumbers. Scrambling to his feet, and drowsily looking around him through that foggy confusion of thought and perception through which sons of ebony after a sound sleep needs must pass in getting back to their waking senses, the black hunter caught a broad, vague view of something which made him fancy that he was still flat of his back on the ground and dreaming of the giant warrior who had led in the night-march. ”