A Drift from Redwood Camp, Page 3

face wasstill muffled in his blanket, he stood erect and seemed to have gainedin stature.

  The braves had remained standing irresolute, and yet watchful, a fewpaces from their captives. Suddenly, Elijah, still keeping his backto the prisoners, turned upon the braves, with blazing eyes, violentlythrowing out his hands with the gesture of breaking bonds. Like allsudden demonstrations of undemonstrative men, it was extravagant, weird,and theatrical. But it was more potent than speech--the speech that,even if effective, would still have betrayed him to his countrymen.The braves hurriedly cut the thongs of the prisoners; another impulsivegesture from Elijah, and they, too, fled. When he lifted his eyescautiously from his blanket, captors and captives had dispersed inopposite directions, and he was alone--and triumphant!

  From that moment Elijah Martin was another man. He went to bed thatnight in an intoxicating dream of power; he arose a man of will, ofstrength. He read it in the eyes of the braves, albeit at times avertedin wonder. He understood, now, that although peace had been theirhabit and custom, they had nevertheless sought to test his theories ofadministration with the offering of the scalps and the captives, and inthis detection of their common weakness he forgot his own. Most heroesrequire the contrast of the unheroic to set them off; and Elijahactually found himself devising means for strengthening the defensiveand offensive character of the tribe, and was himself strengthenedby it. Meanwhile the escaped packers did not fail to heightenthe importance of their adventure by elevating the character andachievements of their deliverer; and it was presently announcedthroughout the frontier settlements that the hitherto insignificant andpeaceful tribe of Minyos, who inhabited a large territory bordering onthe Pacific Ocean, had developed into a powerful nation, only kept fromthe war-path by a more powerful but mysterious chief. The Governmentsent an Indian agent to treat with them, in its usual half-paternal,half-aggressive, and wholly inconsistent policy. Elijah, who stillretained the imitative sense and adaptability to surroundings whichbelong to most lazy, impressible natures, and in striped yellow andvermilion features looked the chief he personated, met the agent withsilent and becoming gravity. The council was carried on by signs.Never before had an Indian treaty been entered into with such perfectknowledge of the intentions and designs of the whites by the Indians,and such profound ignorance of the qualities of the Indians by thewhites. It need scarcely be said that the treaty was an unquestionableIndian success. They did not give up their arable lands; what they didsell to the agent they refused to exchange for extravagant-priced shoddyblankets, worthless guns, damp powder, and mouldy meal. They took pay indollars, and were thus enabled to open more profitable commerce with thetraders at the settlements for better goods and better bargains; theysimply declined beads, whiskey, and Bibles at any price. The resultwas that the traders found it profitable to protect them from theircountrymen, and the chances of wantonly shooting down a possiblevaluable customer stopped the old indiscriminate rifle-practice.The Indians were allowed to cultivate their fields in peace. Elijahpurchased for them a few agricultural implements. The catching, curing,and smoking of salmon became an important branch of trade. They waxedprosperous and rich; they lost their nomadic habits--a centralizedsettlement bearing the external signs of an Indian village took theplace of their old temporary encampments, but the huts were internallyan improvement on the old wigwams. The dried fish were banished from thetent-poles to long sheds especially constructed for that purpose. Thesweat-house was no longer utilized for worldly purposes. The wise andmighty Elijah did not attempt to reform their religion, but to preserveit in its integrity.

  That these improvements and changes were due to the influence of one manwas undoubtedly true, but that he was necessarily a superior man didnot follow. Elijah's success was due partly to the fact that he had beenenabled to impress certain negative virtues, which were part of his ownnature, upon a community equally constituted to receive them. Each wasstrengthened by the recognition in each other of the unexpected value ofthose qualities; each acquired a confidence begotten of their success."He-hides-his-face," as Elijah Martin was known to the tribe after theepisode of the released captives, was really not so much of an autocratas many constitutional rulers.

  *****

  Two years of tranquil prosperity passed. Elijah Martin, foundling,outcast, without civilized ties or relationship of any kind, forgottenby his countrymen, and lifted into alien power, wealth, security, andrespect, became--homesick!

  It was near the close of a summer afternoon. He was sitting at the doorof his lodge, which overlooked, on one side, the far-shining levelsof the Pacific and, on the other, the slow descent to the cultivatedmeadows and banks of the Minyo River, that debouched through a waste ofsalt-marsh, beach-grass, sand-dunes, and foamy estuary into theocean. The headland, or promontory--the only eminence of the Minyoterritory--had been reserved by him for his lodge, partly on account ofits isolation from the village at its base, and partly for the view itcommanded of his territory. Yet his wearying and discontented eyes weremore often found on the ocean, as a possible highway of escape from hisirksome position, than on the plain and the distant range of mountains,so closely connected with the nearer past and his former detractors. Inhis vague longing he had no desire to return to them, even in triumph inhis present security there still lingered a doubt of his ability tocope with the old conditions. It was more like his easy, indolentnature--which revived in his prosperity--to trust to this leastpractical and remote solution of his trouble. His homesickness was asvague as his plan for escape from it; he did not know exactly whathe regretted, but it was probably some life he had not enjoyed, somepleasure that had escaped his former incompetency and poverty.

  He had sat thus a hundred times, as aimlessly blinking at the vastpossibilities of the shining sea beyond, turning his back upon thenearer and more practicable mountains, lulled by the far-off beating ofmonotonous rollers, the lonely cry of the curlew and plover, the drowsychanges of alternate breaths of cool, fragrant reeds and warm, spicysands that blew across his eyelids, and succumbed to sleep, as hehad done a hundred times before. The narrow strips of colored cloth,insignia of his dignity, flapped lazily from his tent-poles, and at lastseemed to slumber with him; the shadows of the leaf-tracery thrown bythe bay-tree, on the ground at his feet, scarcely changed its pattern.Nothing moved but the round, restless, berry-like eyes of Wachita, hischild-wife, the former heroine of the incident with the captive packers,who sat near her lord, armed with a willow wand, watchful of intrudingwasps, sand-flies, and even the more ostentatious advances of a rotundand clerical-looking humble-bee, with his monotonous homily. Content,dumb, submissive, vacant, at such times, Wachita, debarred herhusband's confidences through the native customs and his own indifferenttaciturnity, satisfied herself by gazing at him with the wondering butineffectual sympathy of a faithful dog. Unfortunately for Elijah herpurely mechanical ministration could not prevent a more dangerousintrusion upon his security.

  He awoke with a light start, and eyes that gradually fixed upon thewoman a look of returning consciousness. Wachita pointed timidly to thevillage below.

  "The Messenger of the Great White Father has come to-day, with hiswagons and horses; he would see the chief of the Minyos, but I would notdisturb my lord."

  Elijah's brow contracted. Relieved of its characteristic metaphor,he knew that this meant that the new Indian agent had made his usualofficial visit, and had exhibited the usual anxiety to see the famouschieftain.

  "Good!" he said. "White Rabbit [his lieutenant] will see the Messengerand exchange gifts. It is enough."

  "The white messenger has brought his wangee [white] woman with him.They would look upon the face of him who hides it," continued Wachita,dubiously. "They would that Wachita should bring them nearer to where mylord is, that they might see him when he knew it not."

  Elijah glanced moodily at his wife, with the half suspicion with whichhe still regarded her alien character. "Then let Wachita go back tothe squaws and old women, and let her hide herself with them until thewan
gee strangers are gone," he said curtly. "I have spoken. Go!"

  Accustomed to these abrupt dismissals, which did not necessarilyindicate displeasure, Wachita disappeared without a word. Elijah, whohad risen, remained for a few moments leaning against the tent-poles,gazing abstractedly toward the sea. The bees droned uninterruptedly inhis ears, the far-off roll of the breakers came to him distinctly; butsuddenly, with greater distinctness, came the murmur of a woman's voice.

  "He don't look savage a bit! Why, he's real handsome."

  "Hush! you--" said a second voice, in a frightened whisper.

  "But if he DID hear he couldn't understand," returned the first voice. Asuppressed giggle followed.

  Luckily, Elijah's natural and acquired habits of repression suited theemergency. He did not move, although he felt the quick blood fly to hisface, and the voice of the