CHAPTER XIX.

THE TRAGEDY OF THE CABIN.

The home of John Forest was a simple and unpretentious one, but it was lighted by the beauty of a girl whom he loved as his own life, his daughter Lena.

Forest was lured by that witch of the world--gold. He believed he had found gold at the foot of Big Tom Mountain, gold in quantities to pay not only for working the mine he soon opened there, but enough to make him rich. He had a brother who had found good ore in a region not many miles away, and his brother’s success encouraged him to “stick it out” even to the bitter end.

The country was forbidding, and the Blackfeet were not far away; yet Forest established his home under the shadow of the mountain, installed in it his daughter as his housekeeper, and set to work.

Like many mines, there was far more promise in the Lady Bird, as he called it, than there was performance. He took out barely enough gold to give him a living and supply him with tools and blasting powder. Daily he kept hoping to strike the “mother lode,” or a seam of gold, or, perhaps, a pocket of nuggets.

He paid little heed to the Blackfeet.

As for callers or visitors, he had a few; one of them being young Bruce Clayton, who had fallen in love with the beautiful face of the miner’s daughter, and who came there as frequently as his new “job” permitted.

Down in the town of Crystal Spring, some miles away, on one of her infrequent visits, Lena Forest learned of the trouble brewing with the Blackfeet, and its cause.

It was a singular story, as she regarded it.

Some white miners had established themselves near Crazy Snake’s village; which, to the Indian mind, was bad of itself; and then one of the miners, falling ill of measles, and not knowing what it was, the disease had been communicated to the Blackfeet.

Treated by Indian medicine men, whose sole idea of medication was to rattle tomtoms and howl themselves hoarse in efforts to drive away malignant spirits, the Blackfeet died like flies. One of the victims of this scourge of the measles was Crazy Snake’s only son.

Believing that the white men had sent this curse on the Blackfeet for the purpose of destroying them, that they might secure the Indian lands for mining purposes, Crazy Snake and some of his warriors attacked the miners’ camp, and slew all in it, including the man who was ill of measles, but who was at the time convalescing. Not content with this summary vengeance, Crazy Snake was now threatening the white people everywhere.

The mark of his visitation was an arrow of blood scored with a knife on the breast of each victim.

This was the startling story Lena Forest brought home to her father.

“The Blackfeet will not trouble us here,” said Forest. “I don’t think they know we’re here, anyway; for not one has come near us all the time we’ve been here. But if trouble seems threatening, we’ll cut out in time to escape it.”

The truth is, that though Forest feared more than he would say, he believed he was at the moment on the verge of opening up that wonderful seam of gold, and the golden lure chained him there. Every day, even every hour, he was sure that the next stroke or two of the pick, or the next few scrapes of his shovel, would reveal the gleam of the shining metal for which he had worked so hard!

No, he could not go just yet, even though Blackfeet threatened. Besides, none had been seen near the house, nor in the hills near it. Really, he tried to persuade himself, there was no danger.

Lena Forest, uneasy, went to the town again, to gain further news of the threatened Blackfoot trouble.

She learned that the danger was really alarming, and that two noted scouts had been sent for, and had arrived--Buffalo Bill and Pawnee Bill. Her father knew these scouts, and Buffalo Bill was his personal friend. She tried to see them, but found only Pawnee Bill, Cody having departed for the hills.

Pawnee Bill advised her that it was foolish for her and her father to remain in their exposed home at that time, and assured her he would call on her father and tell him so.

The girl returned home, determined more than ever to induce her father to go at once to the town, or to some point of greater security.

When she rode along the path, approaching her home in the gathering twilight, she saw before the door a form lying in a limp heap, a sight that stilled her heartbeats and caused her to reel in her saddle with faintness. Nevertheless, she rode up to it, and, leaping down by it, discovered her father, dead. He had been killed and scalped; and on his breast, where the blue flannel shirt had been torn open, was that dreadful sight, the arrow of blood drawn with a scalping knife.

The girl swooned at sight of it, and fell as if dead beside the dead body.

How long she remained there unconscious she did not know. The stars were in the sky and the wind from the mountain was cold when she aroused and came back to a realization of the terrible thing that had befallen her father and herself.

She threw herself on the inanimate form, and wept as if her eyes were oceans. By and by she struggled to her feet.

Her first thought was of flight, for personal safety, and for help for her father, whose body needed to be protected from wolves and other wild beasts. But she discovered that she had not strength to go anywhere; and this, with thoughts of what might happen during her absence, held her to the dreadful spot.

She crept at length to the cabin, where she procured a candle. With it she returned to her father’s body. Lighting the candle, she put it upright on the ground beside him, knowing that wolves and other wild animals fear such a light. Having done that, she returned to the cabin, this time thinking of finding her horse, which had strayed away, and of riding to the town with the news.

But she swooned again as she crossed the threshold, and fell to the floor, where she lay a long while. This time when she recovered she crawled to the bed, and laid herself down on it. She slept, then; though how or why she did was afterward a puzzle to her.

The sun was shining in through the open door when a voice, the voice of a man, aroused her.

She got up, wild-eyed, her dress disheveled, her face tear-stained.

The man was Pawnee Bill, whom she had seen and talked with in the town. He had ridden out, as he had promised, leaving the town long before dawn, and he had seen in the trail the dead body of John Forest, mute witness of the vengeance of Crazy Snake, the Blackfoot. The famous scout soon saw that the girl was on the verge of a collapse from hysteria and overwrought nerves. She screamed when she beheld him, ran toward him with outstretched hands, and in wild phrases began to tell him of what had occurred.

“My dear girl,” he said, “you do not need to tell me, for I have seen. But let me urge you to try to control yourself. I shall escort you back to the town, and then----”

“But my father!” she wailed hysterically.

“All that can be done for him now will be done, let me assure you.”

The kind-hearted scout was really at a loss what to say and do in this dire emergency, but he induced her to lie down again on the bed; and then he went outside, thinking to get a spade and bury the body of John Forest.

As he did so, he beheld two men coming along the trail. He stared, then recognized them, and ran toward them, calling their names.

They were Buffalo Bill and old Nick Nomad.

It was the family of John Forest that Buffalo Bill had been anxious to warn against the dangers of the Blackfeet.