The Yellow Hunter; or, The Winding Trail of Death

“Father should have been here ere this. He said he would return at sunset. I wonder what keeps him. Surely no danger has befallen him. No, I know he can not be far away, and I will run toward the creek and meet him.”

The speaker was a beautiful girl about eighteen years of age, and, as she uttered the last word, she bounded across the threshold of a low-browed cottage, and hurried toward the south.

She trailed a light rifle at her side, which, with her long, dark hair, and demi-Indian habiliments, gave her a decidedly romantic appearance. A few moments served to bring her to the stream, the Cahokia creek, which debouches into the lordly Mississippi a few miles above the ancient hamlet of like name. Pausing at the water’s edge, she gazed far beyond the ford with anxious eyes.

The evening was a balmy one, in the early part of May, 1769, and the country of the Illinois wore robes of surpassing beauty. While not insensible to the delights of the landscape spread about her, Kate Blount continued to look for her father, who had taken a large bundle of furs to Cahokia, and had promised to return that evening.

Kate was not really fearful for her father’s personal safety, but she knew his failing, and feared that an indulgence might detain him at the frontier station, and compel her to remain in their solitary cabin through a long night alone.

Of late, rumors of an approaching Indian war had reached the settlers in the Illinois, and many had already sought shelter in Cahokia and Fort Chartres. But, Oliver Blount had derided the stories of conflict, and declared that the avenging Indians would strike no one save the Illinois, and their fellow clansmen.

“They’re going to extirpate the Illinois, root and branch,” he would say, “but what have they to do with us? We didn’t kill Pontiac!”

“But, father, English rum drove the tomahawk to the chief’s brain,” Kate had often replied, “and I tell you that more than one British scalp will hang at an Indian’s belt when the carnage begins.”

“Pooh! girl, that’s all talk. You ain’t as old as your father, who has no wish to show the white feather and hide behind Fort Chartres. No! we’ll meet the war here!”

Poor, deluded Oliver Blount! He soon paid dearly for his stubbornness.

Kate felt that the war of extermination was near at hand, and, like a brave woman, prepared for it. During her father’s journey to St. Louis and Cahokia, she molded a store of bullets, and cleaned the little rifle which, a few weeks before the opening of our story, she had accepted from the hands of a young fur-trader, of whom, dear reader, more anon.

“I’m going to stay with father,” she often murmured with determination, “and when he is in danger there will be one hand to save. Oh, I fear he will repent of his rashness when it is too late!”

For many minutes she watched the path leading from the ford; but the well-known form of the loved parent did not greet her eye, and at last, the young girl turned toward her home again.

“Father is tarrying before Kildare’s bottles, I fear,” she muttered, “and I-- Hark! he is coming through the wood! He has missed the path.”

Again she turned toward the stream, and a moment later, not her father, but an Indian, burst upon her sight!

Despite the shades now vailing the forest in gloom, she recognized him, when his feet touched the water at the ford.

“Swamp Oak!” she ejaculated, “and he has been chased, too, for I distinctly hear his pantings. Swamp Oak!”

She spoke the Indian’s name in a louder tone, when, with a light cry of recognition he plunged into the water.

A minute brought him to the girl’s side, and he cast his eyes over his shoulder before he allowed her to address him. Then he turned to her with a significant look which told her that the danger was passed, and that he awaited her pleasure.

“Where did the Swamp Oak come from?” questioned Kate Blount, eagerly.

“From the stone-walled fort,” was the quick reply.

The young Peoria could speak good English.

“Did you see my father?”

“No; the white trader’s shadow fell not across Swamp Oak’s trail. He made many a leaf bleed, Lone Dove.”

A faint smile wreathed the boy’s lips as he spoke the last sentence.

“You’ve been tracked, then?” said Kate Blount.

“The Ojibwa wolves were on the Peoria’s trail,” answered the youth; “but he proved too swift for them, and in the great forest they lost him.”

“Then the hatchet has been unearthed?”

“Yes, yes,” cried the Indian. “Between Cahokia and the stone-walled fort the enemies of the Illinois outnumber the leaves of the trees. The Ojibwa has sunk his boat, and now seeks red and white scalps: the--”

“Not white scalps, Swamp Oak?”

“White scalps, Lone Dove! Swamp Oak run by a pale-face’s cabin, and he saw a white maiden dead by the well.”

Kate Blount shuddered and thought of her father.

“Swamp Oak’s people must die!” continued the young chief, sadly; “but they will die like their fathers died. But, Lone Dove, we must not stand here, and for three days Swamp Oak has lived on roots.”