CHAPTER IX.

CONJURATION.

“Speak!” repeated the Prophet, and the shrill tones of his voice arose in a menacing manner.

“Why don’t you go to our camp, and find out?” suggested Cute, in a sarcastical manner.

“Hush!” cautioned Percy Vere, fearing that the Prophet might become enraged.

“I intend to go,” responded the Prophet, coolly. “You see my force here, and you can tell if the surveyors will be able to withstand me.” He waved his hand complacently toward his assembled braves. “These are picked warriors. There is enough to drive away the surveyors. But, if more should be wanted, I can summon two hundred more from my village at the Rapids.”

Percy Vere glanced at the braves. There was at least forty of them, and each one carried a rifle. Among the friendly tribes through which he had passed he had never seen so fine a body of men. It appeared to him utterly impossible that the surveyors and soldiers could beat back this force.

The Prophet’s keen eyes were fixed upon his face, and he read what was passing in his mind by the expression of his features.

“You see how vain it is for your party to struggle against me?” he said.

“Why do you object to the survey being made?” asked Percy. “Why harm people that have no wish to harm you?”

The Prophet drew his tall form proudly up.

“This is my land,” he replied, “and I don’t want any railroad through it.”

“It will not run within a hundred miles of your village.”

“I don’t want it within a thousand. I am forming a great nation here; already our numbers count by thousands—my followers come from every tribe. I would regenerate the red-man, make him what the Great Spirit intended him to be. These woods teem with game—the water of yonder river is alive with fish. This is the red-man’s Paradise, and the white-man is the serpent who would destroy all. Settlement follows the railroad, villages and cities spring up in the wilderness, and then there is no longer any hunting-grounds left for the Indian. The game vanishes from the forest, the fish desert the running streams, and the red-man is left to starve, or become the drudge and servant of the pale-faces.”

These words were spoken with a strange eloquence, and thrilled Percy Vere as he listened to them. There was a ring of truth in them that carried conviction to his mind.

“It does appear a hard case for the red-man, I must admit,” he rejoined; “but I don’t see how you are going to help it. Government lays out these railroads, and they must be built. You can’t stop them.”

“You will see,” replied the Prophet, darkly. “Your party dare not advance after the warning I have given them.”

“Perhaps not; but they will remain where they are.”

“I will drive them into the river!”

“I do not think you can do so, even with your force. You are not more than four to one against them, and they have fortified their position by this time, and the officer, in command of the soldiers, and the surveyors are brave and determined men. A victory will cost you dear.”

These words seemed to impress the chief. He walked moodily backward and forward, for a few moments, in deep thought.

“I must not risk my warriors’ lives,” he muttered. “I promised them an easy victory, and a defeat would shake their faith in me. Already I have lost six braves, and only those boy captives to show against their loss. I must be cautious in my future movements.”

He paused in his walk before Percy Vere, and began to interrogate him again:

“Do you think, if I was to send you back to your party with the assurance that they will not be permitted to advance another foot into this land, that they would abandon their undertaking and depart?” he demanded.

“I do not,” replied Percy, promptly.

“Ha! Then you shall go to Priest’s Rapids with me. You shall see the wonders of my subterranean temple there; you shall see the chiefs of the Cayuses, Umatillas and Yakimas subservient to my will, and ready at my bidding to make this valley swarm with a red host of painted braves. You shall behold the power of Smoholler, and return to these pale-faced leaders to tell them that at my will I can raise a red war-cloud such as this land has never witnessed, and which will annihilate them when it bursts.”

“I say, Percy, old Smo’ is a little on the blow,” whispered Percy Cute.

The quick ear of the Prophet appeared to catch these words, and he shook his head disdainfully.

“The Tow-head is incredulous,” he cried, in the sententious Indian manner; at one moment speaking like a white man and the next with the imagery of the Indian.

Percy Cute opened his mouth in wonder.

“How did he know that I was ever called ‘Tow-head?’” he cried.

“Its color is enough to lead him to that conclusion,” answered Percy Vere, laughingly.

“If I get out of this scrape, I’ll have Ike dye my hair. If I escape a die here, I’ll dye in camp,” cried Cute.

It was impossible to detect through the paint upon Smoholler’s face any indication of what was passing in his mind, for it was like a hideous mask, but Percy Vere thought he was amused by his cousin’s drollery.

“Do you also doubt my power?” the Prophet demanded of Percy Vere. “Would it surprise you if I could tell you your name, and the purpose that brings you into this wilderness?”

“It would indeed,” answered the boy.

“My spirits can tell me,” rejoined the Prophet. “In my dreams the past and future are revealed to me.”

He made a few cabalistic motions with his hand, and then assumed a rigid attitude, like one in a trance, his head projected as if awaiting a message from some unseen spirit in the air.

“Whisky is said to be the most potent spirit among the Indians,” whispered the irrepressible Cute; “but I don’t see any demijohns around here.”

“Hush! you will anger him,” returned Percy Vere. “It is all a mummery, but we may as well humor it, for our lives depend upon the pleasure of this strange chief.”

Smoholler remained rigid, his eyes assuming a vacant look. His braves stood at a respectful distance, leaning upon their rifles, and watching their leader with an intent interest. These dreams of the Prophet were always fraught with singular consequences. They knew he was holding communion with his spirit, who had appeared to them, in the hideous form that was shown upon the cliff, though he generally kept himself invisible.

“_Monedo! Monedo!_” murmured Smoholler, in a resonant whisper.

A dead silence ensued, and the boys, despite their incredulity, were thrilled by a feeling new to them—a sort of supernatural awe.

“_Master, I am here!_”

These words floated above the boys’ heads in clear, distinct tones. They clutched at each other’s arms, and stared blankly around them. They stood apart with the Prophet; there was not a warrior within a hundred paces of them—not a soul from whom the voice could possibly have proceeded.

“Did you hear that?” gasped Percy Vere.

“I just did,” replied Cute, sepulchrally.

“What do you think of it?”

“It knocks me endwise. Hush! he’s going to hocus-pocus a little more.”

The boys were greatly interested now. Though they felt it was all mummery, they could not help being impressed by it.

The Prophet waved his hand in the direction of the boys.

“Reveal all you know concerning them,” he said, as if addressing an invisible spirit above his head—invisible to all other eyes but his.

Then he appeared to listen for a moment; and in this moment the boys could almost hear their hearts beat, in the intensity of their interest in the proceedings. Smoholler nodded his head.

“It is enough, good _Monedo_,” he said. “Depart to the Land of Shadows, from whence I summoned you.”

Then the Prophet came out of his trance, and addressed himself to the first Percy.

“Your name is Percy Vere,” he said. “The locket you wear contains the portraits of your father and your mother. Your companion is your cousin, Percy Cute; and you are here in the wilderness seeking your father.”