Pawnee Brown

“ Yellow Elk had led the horses into the water, but the trail did not extend across the stream.
"He's an artful dodger!" mused Pawnee Brown, when of a sudden he became silent.
A faint scratching, as of tree bark, had come to his ears. The noise was but a short distance away.
"Some animal," he thought. "No human being would make such a sound as that." ”

“ Still, on the whole, it was no laughing matter, and Pawnee Brown lost no time in trying to dig himself free.
The stones and dirt were wedged tightly about his legs, and not wishing to run the risk of a broken or twisted ankle, the scout worked with care, all the time wondering if Dick Arbuckle was back, and never once dreaming of the peril the poor lad was encountering. The rain was soaking through the ceiling of the cavern, and the situation was far from a comfortable one.
At last he was free again, and striking a match, he hunted up the lantern and lit it once more. ”

“ She looked around in vain for the horse spoken of by Pawnee Brown. Not an animal was in sight. Then she remembered what the scout had said about riding down the ravine, and she set off on foot.
Not far from the mouth of the cave the ravine forked into two branches, the smaller fork ending at the distance of quarter of a mile in a cul de sac, or blind pocket. Not knowing she was making any mistake, she entered this fork and kept on running, expecting each instant to find Pawnee Brown coming up behind her. ”

“ Pawnee Brown knew that hiss only too well, and leaping back he snatched a pistol from his belt.
The hiss was followed by a rattle, and now, flashing the light around, the scout saw upon a flat rock the curled-up form of a huge rattlesnake.
The eyes of the reptile shone like twin stars, and when Pawnee Brown discovered him he was getting ready to strike.
The rattler was less than six feet away, and the scout knew that he could cover that space with ease. Therefore, whatever was to be done must be done quickly. ”

“ She knew as well as though she had been a human being that something was wrong.
Suddenly an inspiration came to Pawnee Brown.
"How foolish! Why didn't I think of that before?" he muttered.
At his belt had hung a lariat, placed there when the wagon train started, in case any of the animals should attempt to run off in the darkness.
The boomer could use a lariat as well as Clemmer or any of the cowboys. More than once, riding at full speed upon his mare, he had thrown the noose around any foot of a steer that was selected by those looking on. ”

“ It was more than half an hour after before Pawnee Brown heard of their departure.
The great scout was much disturbed.
"It's foolishness for them to start off on the upper trail," he declared. "I went over it but a few days ago, and at Brown's Crossing the road is all torn up by a freshet. Besides that, we must keep together." ”

“ The boomers, who numbered thousands, had among them several daring and well-known leaders, but not one was better known or more daring than the leader who is known in these pages as Pawnee Brown. This man was not alone a great Indian scout and hunter, but also one who had lived much among the Indians, could speak their language, and who had on several occasions acted as interpreter for the Government. ”

“ He stopped short and bit his lip.
"I know wot's in yer mind, Dick. I've heard yer father go on in his sleep, and war talkin' ter Pawnee Brown about it. An' Pawnee knows this air Vorlange. The two air enemies from school days. Pawnee said Vorlange wasn't squar nohow!"
"He is evidently in the employ of the government."
"Yes; a land-office spy, now workin' ag'in the boomers fer the cavalry as intends ter keep us out of Oklahoma."
"It will be hard to bring such a man to justice, without some direct evidence against him, Rasco." ”

“ No heroism surpasses that of the poor slave-boy Sam, on board the gunboat “Pawnee,” who, while passing shell from the magazine, had both legs shot away by a ball from the rebel guns; but, still holding the shell, cried out at the top of his voice, “Pass up de shell, boys. Nebber mine me: my time is up.” The greatest fidelity of the white man to the Union finds its parallel in the nameless negro, who, when his master sent him out to saddle his horse, mounted the animal, rode in haste to the Federal lines, and pointed out the road of safety to the harassed, retreating Army of the Potomac ”

“ In stature, the doctor is not tall, but thick, and somewhat inclined to corpulency. He has a fine and well-developed head, broad and lofty brow, round, full face, firm mouth, and an eye that dazzles. In blood, he appears to be rather more Anglo-Saxon than African.
BISHOP PAYNE.
Teacher of a small school at Charleston, South Carolina, in the year 1834, Daniel A. Payne felt the oppressive hand of slavery too severely upon him, and he quitted the southern Sodom and came north. ”

“ They were populous at one time, and were the most inveterate enemies of the whites, killing them wherever they met.
The Pawnees in reality comprised five bands, which constituted the entire nation: The Grand Pawnee Band; the Republican Pawnee Band; Pawnee Loups, or Wolf Pawnees; Pawnee Picts, or Tattooed Pawnees; and Black Pawnees. Each land was independent and under its own chief, but for mutual defence, or in other cases of urgent necessity, they united in one body, and in the early days on the plains could raise from thirty to forty thousand warriors. ”

“ Few and rapidly diminishing in numbers as are the Pawnee people, I have yet confidence that by the innate strength of their character their decline may be checked, and their race may rise again. It can never do so in its old purity. ”

“ Yet there should be room among these stories for the account of an educated Pawnee—a brave—who by his wise counsel to an Indian of a hostile tribe saved many lives, both of Indians and of white men. Little Warrior was educated at a Western college, but has shown his bravery on the field of battle, and has sacrificed a scalp to Ti-ra ́-wa. ”

“ It was dressed in the same sort of dark clothes; but if you see what you believe to be one man standing in the way that another man stands, you will think he's in a strange and strained attitude."
"Do you really mean," cried Payne with something like a shudder, "that it was some unknown man?"
"It was the murderer," said Father Brown. "He had already killed Darnaway at daybreak and hid the corpse and himself in the dark room—an excellent hiding-place, because nobody normally goes into it or can see much if he does. ”

“ Brian realized he could never learn how Brown had actually died. Even if he had the strength and courage to go back north—no, at seventy-six (eighty-six?) , one can hardly make a fresh start in the study of history. Not without the patience of Abraham Brown himself, who had probably been doing just that when the wheel—
An awed question from the girl pulled Brian from a black pit of abstraction: "What is that?" She was pointing to the clay image in its dusty sunlight.
Brian spoke vaguely, almost deaf to his own words until they were past recovering: "That? It is very old. ”

“ But there was a very wicked and a very clever man who was willing to cause another man's death in order to rob him of his promised wife."
The priest suddenly gave Payne a sad smile, as if in reassurance. "For the moment I believe you thought I meant you," he said, "but you were not the only person who haunted that house for sentimental reasons. You know the man, or rather you think you do. But there were depths in the man called Martin Wood, artist and antiquary, which none of his mere artistic acquaintances were likely to guess. ”

“ She looked sixty, and had on a mutch, white as snow, with its black ribbon; her silvery, smooth hair setting off her dark-gray eyes—eyes such as one sees only twice or thrice in a lifetime, full of suffering, full also of the overcoming of it: her eyebrows black and delicate, and her mouth firm, patient, and contented, which few mouths ever are.
As I have said, I never saw a more beautiful countenance, or one more subdued to settled quiet. “Ailie,” said James, “this is Maister John, the young doctor; Rab’s freend, ye ken. We often speak aboot you, doctor.” ”

“ And he stepped into the library just beyond.
"I think," said Father Brown quietly, "Mr. Payne must have some particular reason for asking that."
"I may as well blurt it out once and for all," said Payne, but in a yet lower voice. "After all, there is a rational explanation. A man from anywhere might have made up to look like the portrait. What do we know about Darnaway? He is behaving rather oddly———"
The others were staring at him in a rather startled fashion; but the priest seemed to take it very calmly. ”

“ I saw Dad in the distance, talking to Brown, who looked less like a hired chauffeur than ever, and then—then came the thunderbolt.
It was almost as difficult to believe at first that he had tricked me by pretending to be Brown, when he was really Mr. Winston, as it would have been to believe Jimmy Payne's penny-dreadful stories. But you can't go on doubting when a virtuous old lady claims a man as her own son. ”

“ Although so ferocious to people of their own color, the Pawnees have ever been at peace with the whites. Bad men among them have, no doubt, sometimes stolen horses, but the tribe has never carried on an organized war against the Government. ”

“ Be killed on a hill; high up. Your grandfather said it is not manly to be killed in a hollow. It is not a man who is talking to you, advising you. Heed my words, even if I am a woman.”
The boy listened to these words, and he did not forget them.
II.
In the year 1867 he enlisted in the Pawnee Scouts under Major Frank North, and served in L. H. North’s company. He was always a good soldier, ready, willing and brave. At a fight near the Cheyenne Pass in 1867, he counted coup on a woman and a man, Arapahoes who had stolen some horses at Fort Laramie. ”

“ Scarcely ten feet away, a woman, rather brightly attired and apparently very much at her ease, sat upon a rather diminutive pony, her red lips curved in lines of laughter, evidently no little amused at thus startling him. Brown realized that she was young and pretty, with jet black, curling hair, and eyes of the same color, her skin peculiarly white and clear, while she rode man fashion, her lower limbs daintily encased within leggings of buckskin. She had carelessly dropped her reins upon the high pommel of the saddle, and as their glances fairly met, she laughed outright. ”

“ These Pawnees staid two months with the Wichitas, and all their troubles seemed at an end. At length Running Chief called a council of the chiefs, and told them that now he wished to make ready to go home to his village. He thanked them for all that they had done for him, and said that now he would go. The chiefs said, “It is well. We are glad that [Pg 64] you have been with us and visited us. Take the good news back to your tribe. Tell them that we are one people, though long separated. Let the road between our villages be made white. ”

“ But the next instant all such trifling sentiments were swallowed up by the most appalling shock of surprise the old soldier had ever felt in all his bold and wandering existence. His eyes fell upon the garden, and there across a large bed in the centre of the lawn was a vast pattern of pansies; they were splendid flowers, but for once it was not their horticultural aspects that Major Brown beheld, for the pansies were arranged in gigantic capital letters so as to form the sentence:
DEATH TO MAJOR BROWN
A kindly looking old man, with white whiskers, was watering them. ”

“ When Father Brown first stepped off an Atlantic liner on to American soil he discovered, as many another Englishman has done, that he was a much more important person than he had ever supposed. His short figure, his short-sighted and undistinguished countenance, his rather rusty black clerical clothes, could pass through any crowd in his own country without being noticed as anything unusual, except perhaps unusually insignificant. But America has a genius for the encouragement of fame ”

“ I’ve read his life, and have it now in my trunk in Charleston; sent to New York by the steward of ‘The James Adger,’ and got it. I’ve read it to heaps of the colored folks. Lord, they think John Brown was almost a god. Just say you was a friend of his, and any slave will almost kiss your feet, if you let him. They sav, if he was only alive now, he would be king. How it did frighten the white folks when he raised the insurrection! It was Sunday when we heard of it. They wouldn’t let a negro go into the streets. I was waiter at the Mills House in Charleston. ”

“ I cannot last long upon a cotton plantation. I feel that my heavenly master will soon call me home, and then I shall be out of the hands of the slave-holders!"
I could bear no more—my heart struggled to free itself from the human form. In a moment she saw Mr. Mansfield coming toward that part of the boat, and she whispered into my ear, "My child, we must soon part to meet no more this side of the grave. You have ever said that you would not die a slave; that you would be a freeman. Now try to get your liberty! You will soon have no one to look after but yourself!" ”

“ Brown, of course, forbade him the pilothouse after that, and he spent the rest of the trip “an emancipated slave” listening to George Ealer’s flute and his readings from Goldsmith and Shakespeare; playing chess with him sometimes, and learning a trick which he would use himself in the long after-years—that of taking back the last move and running out the game differently when he saw defeat.
Brown swore that he would leave the boat at New Orleans if Sam Clemens remained on it, and Captain Klinefelter told Brown to go. ”