CHAPTER XI.

A SILVAN REPAST.

The Prophet laughed in that rasping manner so peculiar to him. It was not a pleasant kind of mirth to listen to. It set Percy Cute’s teeth on edge every time he heard it.

“You had set foot upon my territory after my warning,” he cried. “You know the penalty of trespassing.”

“Ah! then you had some hand in the apparitions that appeared upon the cliff last night?”

“They came at my bidding.”

At this moment the Indian boy, Oneotah, brought them a venison steak upon a birch platter, some parched corn, and three drinking-horns. He placed the venison and corn before them, and then filled the drinking-horns from the streamlet.

Smoholler did the honors of this silvan table with a courtesy that won strangely upon the boys, and Oneotah stood beside him, ready to do his bidding at the slightest sign.

“What did the surveyors and the soldiers think of the apparitions?” asked Smoholler, after the boys had eaten for a while.

“They were surprised by them,” answered Percy.

“Knocked ’em higher’n a kite!” added Cute. “It was a neat piece of hocus-pocus, however you did it. Say, couldn’t you give us another squint at that angelic female of yours?”

“The White Spirit will come at my bidding,” replied the Prophet. “Would you like to see her?” he demanded of Percy Vere.

“Wherefore?” rejoined the youth.

“She might give you intelligence of your father?”

Percy started at this, but shook his head incredulously after a moment’s reflection. The Prophet appeared to divine his thoughts.

“You do not believe her to be a spirit?” he asked.

“Candidly, I do not.”

“How, then, could she appear upon the face of that inaccessible cliff?”

Percy Vere smiled.

“That is a secret best known to yourself,” he rejoined. “At the risk of offending you I must tell you that I believe you to be a skillful Professor of Legerdemain, and by the exercise of it you have gained your ascendancy over the rude minds of the Indians.”

“Far from feeling offense, I like your candor,” responded the Prophet, graciously. “My power impresses the white mind as well as the red—as you shall have proof anon. You heard the voice of my Monedo, or Spirit, in the air—you heard his voice, but his body remained invisible to your eye. How can you account for that?”

“You may have the gift of ventriloquism. My father had such a gift, for I have often heard my mother describe it. He could throw his voice into inanimate or animate objects to the great perplexity of the hearer.”

“Yes,” chimed in Cute, “and I have heard lots of funny stories about him. One day an old woman came to the house to make some inquiries, and trod, by accident, upon the cat’s tail; and he made the cat say: ‘You old fool! don’t you know any better than that?’ It nearly frightened the old woman into a fit, and she left the house in a big hurry, I tell you; and she believed to her dying day that the cat really spoke to her.”

Oneotah indulged in a musical laugh at this recital.

The boys regarded him curiously.

“Holloa! does he understand what I say?” asked Cute.

“Perfectly,” replied the Prophet. “English is as familiar to him as his own tongue.”

“And to yourself,” rejoined Percy Vere, pointedly.

“Yes.”

“Do you know I have a suspicion concerning you?”

“Indeed! What is it?”

“I think that you are a white man.”

The Prophet laughed.

“Do I look like one?” he returned.

“It is impossible to say what you look like with those hideous daubs of paint upon your face; but you talk like one—and, besides, you are too smart for an Indian.”

“Them’s my sentiments!” cried Cute. “Smoholler, you beat all the chiefs I ever heard of all hollow.”

“Smoholler is the great Prophet of the Snakes,” exclaimed Oneotah, fervidly. “Wherever his name is known it is feared and dreaded. His followers are many—his enemies perish, like the withered grass beneath the fire, when his wrath pursues them.”

“The boy is one of your converts, I perceive,” said Percy, with a smile. “He believes in you.”

“He has good cause,” answered the Prophet, sententiously. “I saved his life.”

“Oh! more than life!” exclaimed Oneotah. “If it was only death that threatened me—”

The Prophet held up his finger warningly, and Oneotah paused and bowed his head submissively.

“Oneotah is Smoholler’s slave,” he continued. “Until death, or his lips release me, I have sworn to do his bidding.”

“Enough! your bondage will not last until death,” returned Smoholler, with a significancy which the boys could feel but could not understand. “Be faithful but a short time longer, and you shall be restored to your true condition—and the spirits shall no longer torment you.”

The Indian boy appeared to be much gratified by this assurance.

“It is good,” he answered. “The heart of Smoholler is noble, he will not deceive me.”

Percy Vere was much interested in Oneotah.

“Of what tribe is he?” he asked.

“He was reared by the Nez Perces, but is not of their blood, although he thinks he is,” replied Smoholler. “There is a secret concerning his birth, which my skill has divined, and which no other appears to have suspected. He was made captive by a band of Yakimas under a chief named Howlish Wampo, who had surprised and defeated the party to which he was attached. I came up with Howlish Wampo at a critical moment in the boy’s fate, and took him away from the chief. Wampo bears me a grudge for it to this day. He would like to gain possession of the boy again, but dare not do so while I protect him. If Oneotah were to rejoin the Nez Perces he would no longer be safe from the pursuit of Howlish Wampo.”

Oneotah shuddered, and Percy Vere felt, without exactly understanding why, that there was a covert threat in these words of the Prophet.

“_Multuomah_ could protect me,” answered Oneotah, plaintively.

“No; not against Howlish Wampo,” answered the Prophet, impressively. “Have patience; all I have promised shall come true.”

Oneotah bowed his head again in his submissive manner.

“I am content,” he answered.

“Why does he wear that antelope’s head?” asked Percy Vere.

“To carry out his name.”

“You call him the Antelope?”

“Among my followers he is known by that name.”

“But the other name—Oneotah?”

“Is one known only to ourselves.”

“But it is his true name?”

“Yes.”

“But that head is like a mask, it hides his face.”

“For that purpose it is worn.”

Percy was somewhat surprised by this.

“You do not wish his face to be seen?” he asked.

“No; he has dangerous enemies. None here know him but myself. The shield of my power falls over him, and his influence in my camp is second only to my own. Now, our meal being ended, you shall return to your friends. You have seen a portion of my force, and know my determination. Tell the surveyors and the lieutenant that I will not permit them to advance through the ravine. They must recross the river, or be annihilated. For yourself, if you choose to return, there is a mystic cavern in yonder cliff, and together we will summon the spirits that await my bidding, and seek to learn your father’s fate. Will you do so?”

“I will,” answered Percy, resolutely.