CHAPTER XII.

THE FOREST ROSE.

Ku-nan-gu-no-nah walked swiftly away with the deadly rifle of Leander Maybob, the giant hunter, still leveled at his head, fairly demoniac with wild and impotent rage. The workings of his dark face were fearfully suggestive of the denizens of the bottomless pit.

Had he been armed he would not have left the vicinity without first attempting the life of the man who had him in his power and who held his very life at his disposal; but he was powerless, having no weapons except a short, sharp-pointed knife which he always carried in addition to his hunting-knife, and this would be useless, except in a hand-to-hand conflict, which even in his wild passion he had not the hardihood to dare.

In an hour’s time he came to the boundary of the wilderness and the broad prairie stretched its level surface before him as far as he could see. Not a tree or a bush was there visible in all this vast plain; only the tall grasses, beat down and tangled by the fearful tempest that had raged through the afternoon.

Turning from the nearly direct course he had been pursuing, the chief made his way, with long, rapid strides, to the place where, in the midst of a dense growth of bushes in the center of which there was a little plat of smooth, grassy ground, destitute of undergrowth, he had tethered his horse early in the afternoon. In less time than it takes to tell it, he was mounted and galloping away over the plain.

In a little while he struck an indistinct, scarcely worn road, or rather broad track—one of the emigrant routes of the North-west. He followed the track for an hour or more and then making a gradual _detour_ to the left, kept on at a swift rolling gallop which he never slackened till he reached the Indian encampment, situated at the foot of a steep, rocky hill that loomed up through the storm and darkness, in dull relief against the leaden sky. Throwing himself hastily from his horse, he stalked rapidly along and entered a wigwam at the further end of the encampment. An aged Indian sat on a roll of skins at one side of the place, in an attitude of deep grief or despondency. He simply glanced up as the chief entered, then dropping his face again into his hands, sitting silent and apparently in great agony of mind.

“How is the Forest Rose to-night?” the chief asked, glancing toward a couch of skins and blankets on the opposite side of the lodge, on which he could see the form of a female reclining by the dim fire-light that illuminated the wigwam. She lay silent and motionless as though life had fled.

“The Forest Rose is very ill,” replied the old Indian, mournfully, “and she will die! Yon-da-do, the great medicine man, has said so. He has made use of all his ceremonies and mystic arts, but he can not save her. The lovely Forest Rose must die!”

As he ceased speaking he arose, and lighting a small pitch-pine torch in the fire, went over to the side of the couch. Throwing aside the covering from her face, he allowed the light to fall upon it for a moment. It was a beautiful face, darkly lovely—the face of an Indian maiden in the first flush of womanhood. She was rather light for one of her dusky race, with heavy masses of raven-black hair falling in lovely confusion about her statuesque face, in whose contour the hard angularity of the Indian type was not discernible, and down upon her perfectly-shaped neck, and softly-rounded shoulders. Her long, heavy lashes lay upon her cheeks, which were very pale, hiding her dark lustrous eyes, which, when lighted up with health, added not a little to her almost bewildering beauty. But now the lovely Forest Rose lay like one dead.

“Let my father look up and be happy!” said the chief. “Ku-nan-gu-no-nah has seen a medicine-woman to-day, that can surely bring back life to the Forest Rose. The medicine-woman that I saw was a mighty conjuror. The Great Spirit has given her greater power than that of Yon-da-do!”

“Who is this mighty magician?”

“She is a pale-face maiden, as beautiful as the Forest Rose,” replied the chief.

“Would she come?” asked the old Indian, while a hopeful light flashed out of his aged eyes, undimmed by the flight of time. “Would a white medicine-woman come to give life back to an Indian girl!”

“She would not come willingly,” said the crafty chief, “but she must be brought! If she is not, the Forest Rose will die!”

“Then she must be brought!” said the old Indian, decisively. “I will call a council of braves in the morning, and a party shall be sent to bring the white magician. The Forest Rose must be saved!”

The aged Indian was the real chief of the tribe—that is, although he was too old to go on the war-path, leaving the active fighting to the younger and more warlike Ku-nan-gu-no-nah, he was the real moving spirit, always planning and ordering all important movements of the band. The languishing Forest Rose was his daughter.

“It is well,” said Ku-nan-gu-no-nah, as he went away.

“The great medicine-woman will save the Forest Rose, and again she will sing like the birds in the trees to gladden the heart of her father, the great chief.”

Wild Buffalo, the aged sachem, called a council of braves early in the morning, and at midday, the subtle Ku-nan-gu-no-nah, at the head of a dozen picked warriors, was riding over the prairie in quest of “Sun-Hair,” the beautiful magician.