Part 5

Just before sunrise he received a severe shock, when looking across the pathless prairies toward the north he saw an Indian riding toward him.

For many moments he watched the advancing figure. When it came within musket range he raised his gun to his shoulder and shouted:

"Stop, or I'll fire!"

The Indian did not check his pony, but held up a bit of white rag. As he came nearer, riding his pony as erect and motionless as a bronze statue, the pioneer saw with a start that it was the Indian who had spoken to him the night before.

"How!" he said, bringing his pony to a halt before the white man and sliding down from its back.

"How!" answered Joshua Peniman, answering the western salutation.

The Indian came closer.

"You Quaker, eh?"

Wondering, the white man answered as he had answered the night before, "Yes, I am."

"Me Quaker too."

"_You? You a Quaker?_"

A grave smile broke over the impassive, copper-colored face.

"Me Neowage, Chief Winnebagoes. Live Omaha Reservation. Friends' Mission."

"Oh-h!" A great light began to dawn on Joshua Peniman. "Oh, you are one of the tribe who were put in charge of the Friends' Mission?[#] Then it was _you_ who saved us last night?"

[#] During the year 1856-1857 the Winnebago tribe, being much depleted by continual wars with the Sioux and Arapahoes, sought protection at the Reservation in Omaha. There the remnants of the tribe were put under the protection of the Friends' Mission, and many of them became converts to the faith.--SHELDON'S _History of Nebraska_.

The big chief nodded.

"Me hear you say 'thee' to you boy. Me know you Friend."

"And because I was a Friend you saved me--me and my family! Oh, Friend, I thank thee!"

He stepped forward and grasped the Indian's hand.

With a dignity equal to his own the chief shook it warmly.

"Friends good people. Good heart. Good friend to Winnebagoes."

"Then you are a Winnebago? Who were the others--those Indians that attacked us?"

"Dirty Sioux." He turned and spurned the dead body in the grass with his foot.

"Ah, they were Sioux, eh? Are the Sioux hostile to white men?"

"Sioux bad Indian. Heap bad heart. Winnebago good Indian. Heap white man's friend."

"I am glad, glad indeed to hear it. You don't know how you relieve my anxious heart. But how did it happen that you came to our aid so opportunely last night?"

The Indian folded his arms across his brawny chest.

"My tribe war with Sioux," he said. "Heap much trouble now. Inkpaducah on war-path. Kill heap white men. Me hear gun, know trouble. My young men on war-path. Fight Sioux all time. Me come, drive Sioux away."

"God be thanked you did come. You saved our lives. How can I thank you?"

The Indian waved his hand with a royal gesture. As his keen eyes roved about the encampment they fell upon a scrap of paper which lay under the Carroll wagon. He strode over to it and picked it up, then remained gazing at the ground for some minutes.

The wagons stood backed up to the edge of the ravine, and back of them the ground was soft, in some places muddy.

Neowage pointed silently. Joshua Peniman hurried to his side.

"White man print," he grunted, indicating a well-defined footmark in the muddy earth at the back of the Carroll wagon.

Joshua Peniman stooped and examined it carefully.

The sharp edges of a hard leather sole and the imprint of a boot heel were plainly discernible.

_A white man!_

With perplexed face he stood staring at the imprint.

That Indians might attack them was perfectly understandable, but that a white man should be among them--that _a white man_ was one of those howling demons who had set upon his camp the night before--was a thing that he could not understand.

Neowage glanced sharply at his feet.

"Not you mark?"

"No, I was not near the back of that wagon. It was unoccupied. And you see that is a much larger foot than mine."

"You boy?"

"No, my boys are all going barefooted."

"Who?"

"I wish I knew."

The Indian was turning the scrap of paper he had picked up under the wagon over and over in his hands.

"Tore," he said, pointing to the ragged edges.

Mr. Peniman took the paper and scrutinized it carefully. It was but a small scrap, and its edges showed that it had been torn recently and hastily. As he turned it over the words: "and the said Lee C. Carroll----" caught his eye.

With a strange leap of his pulses he turned and ran to the Carroll wagon.

As he threw aside the rear curtain and looked in he uttered a loud exclamation.

The inside of the neatly-arranged wagon was in chaos, trunks torn open, boxes and bundles rifled of their contents, clothes, books, papers scattered about; and the dispatch-box, placed in the hands of Nina Carroll by her dying mother, which contained all her money, deeds, papers, and all the information that had been left her regarding herself and her parents and the relatives to whom she was to be sent--_was gone_!

*CHAPTER VIII*

*JOE MEETS A FRIEND AND MAKES AN ENEMY*

The sound of the voices outside had wakened the boys, who, worn out from the excitement of the night, had fallen into a fitful slumber.

As the fact of the looting of the Carroll wagon, with its disastrous consequences to the young survivor of the tragedy, forced itself upon him Joshua Peniman uttered a loud exclamation.

Instantly Joe and Lige leaped from the wagon, their guns in their hands, and Mrs. Peniman, still grasping her revolver, parted the rear curtains of the wagon and looked out.

When their eyes fell upon the Indian both boys started violently, and Joe raised his gun.

"No, no, son, put down thy gun," cried his father. "This is a friend. It was he who so mysteriously saved us last night. He is a Friend, and has learned to speak a little English at a Friends' Mission."

"Oh," cried Hannah Peniman, and in the little exclamation was wonder, relief and surprise.

"But see, Hannah," went on Mr. Peniman, "see what those miscreants have done! They have rifled the Carroll wagon and carried off everything of value in it, including the dispatch-box."

"The _dispatch-box_?" Hannah Peniman's face whitened and her eyes grew dark with horror. "They have taken the dispatch-box? Oh, Joshua, that box had in it everything relating to the property and identity of that little girl!"

Her husband nodded.

"I know," he said. "It is a terrible catastrophe. I should have put that box in my own wagon."

"But who would have thought--who would have supposed that Indians----"

Neowage who had been looking and listening impassively, interrupted her.

"Indian no want papers."

Mr. and Mrs. Peniman started and looked at one another.

"True," said Joshua Peniman, pulling at his beard, "that is true, Neowage."

Presently he looked up at his wife with a troubled face. "There is more in this than we see now," he said in a low tone, and told her of the scrap of paper, the print of a white man's boot at the rear of the wagon, of the broken locks and opened trunks and scattered books and papers in the wagon.

"There is something very strange about it," he concluded. "Our own wagons were not disturbed, our horses were not taken; it almost looks to me as if the assault was made upon us to cover the rifling of the Carroll wagon."

He stopped abruptly and stood for some moments with head bent thinking intently. Then going to his own wagon he returned with the arrow he had taken from the body of Lee Carroll.

Silently he handed it to Neowage. Silently the Indian inspected it.

"Santee Sioux," he said after a moment, handing it back.

"Are you sure?"

"Sure. See plenty. My young men fight Santee Sioux. Kill my people, two, t'ree, five hunnerd. Drive my people way from hunting grounds. My people starve. Go Omaha Reservation. They put us in Friends' care."

"And this is a Sioux arrow?"

The Indian nodded.

"I took that arrow out of the dead body of a white man. When he was dying he told me that it was not an Indian that had killed him."

Then by a sudden impulse he told the chief the whole story.

When it was finished the Indian remained standing with his arms folded across his bare brown chest, his head bent, his face impassive. After an interval he spoke.

"You got papoose now?"

"Yes."

"She sleep in wagon?"

"No, she has never slept there since her father and mother died. She sleeps with my little girls in that wagon," pointing to the canvas-covered prairie schooner where his own children lay asleep.

"Indian no want papoose. Indian no want paper. White man want papoose and paper."

Joshua Peniman nodded. "Yes, I see your point. But I don't know. It's beyond me. I don't know what to think."

The children, awakened by the talking, had now crowded to the back of the wagon, and Ruth, Nina, Sam, and Paul were staring out with bulging eyes.

For the first time they were gazing upon a real Red Man of the Plains, and strange to say their father was not shooting at him nor scalping him, nor even being scalped by him, but was standing quietly talking to him, evidently asking his advice.

The younger children were also awake now, and Mrs. Peniman got down from the wagon and began preparing the breakfast.

"Thee must stay and break bread with us, friend Neowage," said Joshua Peniman; and presently the whole family were gathered about the oilcloth on the grass, with Neowage cross-legged and silent among them.

It seemed very strange to be thus eating breakfast with one of the savages of whom they had stood in such deadly terror the night before; the little girls shrank closer to their mother and peered at him with fearful eyes, but the boys watched his every movement with fascinated gaze, and Lige began mentally composing a letter to Simeon Fisher, in which he meant to tell him all about his friend Neowage, the great and mighty chief of the Winnebago tribe.

The chief, however, after one keen glance from his black eyes seemed to pay little attention to them. His eyes were fastened upon Nina, and whether it was her tragic story or her winning beauty that held his attention they could not tell.

When he had finished eating he rose abruptly and said, "Me go now." Then turning to Mr. Peniman he extended his hand.

"No be 'fraid," he said in his deep guttural voice. "Neowage you friend. He watch over you. No let Quaker family get harm." Then as he turned to where his pony was standing, its bridle trailing on the ground, he included them all in one quick glance and muttered a guttural "goo-bye."

Mrs. Peniman rose and gave him her hand, thanking him for his protection. The boys also hastened to shake hands with him. But Nina sprang up from her place and ran to him, taking from her neck a pretty little blue chain, and laid it in his hand.

"Keep it," she said, smiling up at him; "you were good and saved us. Keep that to remember us by."

The Indian looked down from his great height upon the golden-haired little girl, then to the chain in his hand.

"Umph!" he grunted, but they knew from the smile on his face that he was pleased.

"What you name?" he asked.

"Nina--Nina Carroll." Then with a shy little smile, "The boys call me 'Princess.'"

"Umph!" again grunted the Indian, and mounting his pony rode swiftly away.

As the pioneers traveled on through the heat and dust of that day the hearts of Joshua Peniman and his wife were deeply troubled. It was not alone that their worst fears of the perils of the plains had been realized in the attack of the night before, but the menace and mystery of the theft of the dispatch-box left a deep sense of fear and depression upon them.

"I cannot but fear for the child," Joshua Peniman said, after long study. "We know nothing about her, who she is, what her life may represent, or what enemies her family may have had. The thought is forcing itself upon me that we should not keep her with us, that we must leave her at the first Mission we come to, as her mother requested. They may be able to get her back to her own people."

"But who are her people? How can we ever tell that now? Every bit of information, every letter, address, paper, everything relating to her or her relatives, was in that box."

"But surely the girl herself knows----"

"Very little. I have talked with her. It appears that she and her parents have been traveling abroad a great deal of the time since she was born. She knows that they lived in New York, also for a time in St. Louis, but she does not remember the address in either place. Her mother's parents are dead, I believe, and I judge from things she has told me that there must have been some trouble with her father's family, and that the young couple lived rather an independent existence." Then after a long pause, "Somehow I cannot bear to leave the child at a Mission. Think of leaving our Ruth----"

"I know, Hannah, but her safety----"

"Yes, I realize that. We have the right, perhaps, to jeopardize the lives of our own family in this trip across the plains, but have we the right to expose the life and safety of this child, that has been left in our care?"

They sat in deep thought for some minutes. From the other wagon they could hear the chatter of the children's voices, as Ruth, Lige, Sam, Joe, and Nina excitedly discussed the events of the night before. She still grieved for her parents, but little by little the society of the wholesome, healthy-minded young Penimans was winning the little Princess back to cheerfulness.

"She seems very happy with us," sighed Mrs. Peniman.

"Yes, I believe she is. I wish we might keep her with us," answered her husband gravely.

The next day they reached the Des Moines River, and after making their night camp by the beautiful stream made their way the next morning to Fort Dodge, which had been built on the east side of the Des Moines two years before. Here they found other travelers and heard the horrible details of the Spring Lake massacre, and also of the depredations of the Sioux on the South Fork of the Platte. Sam and Lige, who were standing near, overheard a mover relating to their father the circumstances of a hideous murder of a party of emigrants which had occurred near Fontanelle but a few days before. These accounts, while they thrilled the boys with a sense of adventure, made their parents more anxious than ever, and many times the temptation assailed them to give up the hazardous journey and return to safety and civilization.

But there was something in the make-up of the early pioneers that forbade them to turn back, and after a few hours of rest they replenished their supplies and went on their way.

While at Fort Dodge Joshua Peniman made inquiries in regard to Missions, and learned that a Presbyterian Mission had been founded at Bellevue, the first permanent white settlement in Nebraska, on the west side of the Missouri River. To this he determined to make his way, and leave in safety the child of the strangers who had been entrusted to his care.

The travelers had now left civilization far behind them. The boys, who had so eagerly anticipated the adventures of the journey, now had more than sufficient of it to satisfy them. What white settlers there were in the country at that time were settled along the streams and rivers, leaving the space between unorganized and wild. As they traveled on trees and water grew farther and farther apart. There were some trees, mostly willows and cottonwoods, along the borders of the streams, all the rest was grass and sky.

They often saw large bands of Indians sweeping across the plains, hunting the wild game that was everywhere in great abundance. They saw great herds of elk and antelope, and wild turkeys were plentiful, with great flocks of prairie-chickens and quail.

They had no difficulty in providing their table with fresh meat now, for the boys and their father had but to go out with their guns for an hour or two in the evening and come back with their game-bags full.

But while they had meat in plenty they could no longer get fruit or vegetables. They could not supply their daily needs at towns or villages, for there were no towns, and the settlements were so far apart that many times they traveled for days without ever seeing a house or human. When they did find a "settler" or squatter, his home was on the bank of some river or stream, and his food consisted mostly of "sow-belly" and coffee, with little enough of either for himself, and none whatever for guest or traveler.

The lack of green food troubled Mrs. Peniman greatly, for with the voracious appetites of her young brood she realized that they should have vegetables to offset their constant consumption of the heavier diet.

One morning while they were traveling through western Iowa she suddenly leaned out of the wagon peering down into the grass.

"Stop a minute, Joshua," she cried, "I see something over there I want to investigate. It looks to me as if the Lord might be sending us the vegetables we have been wanting."

Mr. Peniman stopped the team and she scrambled nimbly down. Seeing her leave the wagon, Ruth, Nina, Sam and Paul eagerly followed her.

"What is it, Mother? What do you see?" cried Ruth.

Just then Sam stooped down and held up a small green object between his fingers. "Look, Mother," he cried, "look at the funny little green balls!"

"Ah," cried Mrs. Peniman, seizing it eagerly, "that's what I thought! That's what I was looking for! Look here, see?"

She stooped down, pointing to a delicate green vine with small leaves and delicate tendrils that grew in the grass at her feet.

"Pea-vines!" exclaimed Ruth.

"Yes, pea-vines! and these are some kind of a wild pea. I am almost sure they would be good to eat."

By this time Mr. Peniman, Lige and Joe had joined them.

"Oh," said Mr. Peniman, "_buffalo peas_! I have often read of them growing on the plains."

"Are they good to eat, Father?" asked Sam, who was in a chronic state of being hungry.

"I think so; we might try them. Run about and gather all you can, children; we'll cook them when we camp to-night."

With pails and baskets the young people ran about gathering the peas from the low trailing vines.

"They're the queerest peas I ever saw," said Joe; "they haven't any pods, and they're so _big_, look!" and he held up a round green ball about as large as a marble, pale green on one side and on the other a dull, purplish red.

When camp was struck that evening there was great interest shown in the preparation of the buffalo peas. After soaking them in water Mrs. Peniman put them on to boil with a pinch of soda, then drained off that water, put fresh water upon them, let them boil again, and when they were tender served them with a dressing of milk.

The family ate them, but it was the general opinion that the peas had grown too old to be prepared in that way, and on the next evening Mrs. Peniman made them into a pea soup, which was pronounced delicious by the entire family, and became a distinct addition to their diet as long as the buffalo-pea season lasted.

The boys had often remarked as they traveled farther and farther westward into the uninhabited wilderness that the road over which their prairie schooners rumbled was a broad, hard highway, with scarcely a blade of grass upon its surface. Joe wondered at this, and asked his father why it should be so.

"We are traveling over the old Oregon Trail, my boy," Mr. Peniman told him. "It is an old, old trail, the first highway made into the wilderness of the west by the feet of white men."

"Who made it?" demanded Lige, who resented any one having been ahead of them in pioneer life.

"The trail was first made in 1813 by what was known as the Astorian Expedition, which set out from St. Louis with about a hundred men, intending to cross the mountains and build a fort for the American Fur Trading Company in Oregon. You boys should read the history of that expedition; you would find it most interesting."

"Did they get there?" asked Sam, who was always interested in the result of any adventure.

His father smiled. "Yes, Sam, they got there. When I knew that a part of our journey would lead us along the old Oregon Trail I read up its history. They had a terrible journey, but after great losses and hardships seven men reached the Columbia River, where they built a fort which they called Astoria, after John Jacob Astor of New York, the president of the fur company. The Indians set upon them and stole their goods and their stock, and they returned to St. Louis with only one old horse, which they had succeeded in trading for with a friendly Indian."

"But that was so long ago, Father," put in Joe, "I should think the trail would have been lost since."

"It probably would have been," answered his father, "but that it was kept open by the Oregon emigration of 1832. But it was beaten into its present good condition and has been kept so by the gold-seekers and emigrant trains that began the rush to California in 1849. This is also sometimes called the 'Mormon Trail,' because it was over this very road that we are traveling now that the Mormons passed on their pilgrimage to Salt Lake in 1847. They, too, had great hardships and losses, and had to winter at Florence, a little trading-station on the Missouri River, which we should reach very soon now."

"Jiminy, that's interesting," cried Joe, who had been listening intently; "it makes it so much more interesting when you think of who's been over this old road before. How much easier and pleasanter it is to learn history and geography when you're right on the spot than when you are sitting on a hard bench at school!"

Toward evening the country became more rolling, and shortly before sunset they saw in the distance a blue haze and high steep bluffs.

Joe, whose eyes were always on the alert, cried, "River ahead!"

Mr. Peniman, who was studying a map spread out on his knees, looked up.

"Yes," he said, "that is the Missouri River."

"_The Missouri_--at last!" whooped Lige, "hurray, now the fun will begin!"

Mr. and Mrs. Peniman looked at one another. To them the experiences that lay beyond the Missouri did not appeal in the light of _fun_.

The day had been hot and clear, and as the sun sank in the west it left a sky of intense brilliancy, shot with crimson and gold, fading away toward the horizon in tender pink and mauve and lavender. They drove into the straggling little trading-post of Florence, where the unhappy Mormons had passed such a tragic winter many years before, and as they left it and drove over a small hill their eyes fell upon a sight grander and more beautiful than Moses saw from the top of Nebo's Mountain. The valley of the Missouri lay before them, and with the great river sweeping by long lines of bluffs covered with waving trees it presented to them a panorama both magnificent and inspiring.

"See that great bluff over there, Joe?" called his father. "That's where the Lewis and Clark Expedition held their first great council with the Indians. It was called _Council Bluffs_ in memory of that event, which was the beginning of the opening up of this great western country. I am told it has come to be a great Indian trading-station."

Twilight was beginning to fall as they drove into the trading-post, which is now the city of Council Bluffs.