The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1891-12-15

| of that humble hut fell like wall OF DARK
ness when the faithful girl briefly left him.
| in his convaIescence to seek for game or
some luxury to tempt his palate to restor-
ing strength. He had read the secret IL
her beautiful ewes. nd his own heart nS2i
| gone out to her in return.
Then came the weeks of feeble effort 20
! walk with the crude crutches she obtained
| for him. The solicitous aid of her plant,
| graceful form guided his wavering steps.
| Seated upon the shore of that ripping
! river he at last told her all she had longed
| to know He was unmarried; he had
! Dever before known woman's love. Be
| meath the glorious light Of the harvest
! moon he told her tales of far off lands,
where the people of his race lived in power,
| refinement and luxury. He was d man of
! education and social rank, and he found
| pleasure in picturing to this bright, eager
intellect the wildly contrasting scenes OF
highest civilization.
The fear came to her that he, who knew
so much, who must be so loved in that
other and brighter world, could never De
content with life in that wild country,
with only the poor recompense of her love.
All, how did be answer her-how has man
ever answered the confiding love of wom-
an? She was only too willing to believe he
uttered the truth in the protestations OF
undying love he made. He would take her
far away from the hateful, debasing asso-
Citations that surrounded her. Her bright
mind would quickly master the situation,
while Der rare beauty would make her the
cynosure of all society.
The maturing of their affection was not
unobserved by the Indians of the rancheria.
With all her proud reserve. there were
chiefs among them who would have dared
dozen deaths 10 gain her for a wife.
They had nothing but hatred for the hand
some paleface who had won the love Of
their beautiful queen.
Weeks flew into months-a year had
gone by-and still the white man fingered
by the side of the lovely Indian girl They
rode, hunted, read and swan together.
They lived outdoors through the mild win
ter into the fresh, bursting spring, and then,
when the plains and hills were clad in a
fragrant garb of endless flowers, their
young dreams of earthly love and life were
ended.
Among the bucks of the tribe who per-
sstently showed his admiration of Pancha,
was a thriving half breed Indian, called
Concho. Like Pancha, he had some Rus
sian blood in his veins, but the Indian
greatly prsdominated, and his dark, pit
marked, brutal face was the only one that
aroused fear within her. He had once
openly threatened to kill Henderson, and
ever after, as often as it was possible to do
SO, she kept close by his side when the saw
age was at home.
But there came a time when her step
was made heavier by loves lingerings, and
the duty of supply from field and stream
fell entirely and alone upon Henderson.
His departures were accompanied always
by her last look of love, her last caution
against an ambushed foe.
At length the twilight of weary day
that marked his absence died into fu-
nereal biackness in the western SKI, and
still her love, the husband of her heart and
soul, returned not. Then she dispatched,
with no stinted promises of reward, ell OF
the Indians she could command. Their
pine burr torches. bla2sd on every trail and
cleaned upon the stream. Then the In
dian death cry rang QUE il deadly echoes
against the mountain side. "He was
found-but deadp'
Slowly they bore his body to her hut,
and without word retired, Indianlike, in
grim silence. When the bearskin had
fallen at the entrance of the hut and she
was alone with her beloved dead. she threw
herself upon her body in uncortrollable
grief. Deeply buried in his heart was the
keen flint arrowhead of the foe who had
sworn his death. The shaft was feathered
with the plume of a crow-the sign OF
Concho, the hated half breed.
That night the pledge of her love fo4
Henderson, his son, was born unto her
anticipating life through her agony at the
death of that murdered and yet unburied
father.
Pancha permitted none but her now old |
and nearly helpless mother and an Indian |
girl to enter the hut for two days after the |
death of Henderson and the birth of his |
son. Her viii was law among her people, |
and all was mute around the incurred |
dead, beside whom she sat in darkness and |
in silence.
Once only was her deep grief broken in |
upon-when the confessed assassin was |
brought to her for sentence. She refused |
to look upon him or name the measure of |
his punishment, SO the Indians hanged /
him to the tree from which he slew his I'M
offending victim
Upon the rounding bank of the river, at |
its curve opposite the great cliff, she babe
them dig grave TO bury her love. There
were No wild lamentations, no tears !
from her. With rigid features, eyes that /
had far off look, a voice mistaken by her
bursting heart, she saw them pile the great
rocks upon his lonely grave.
That night sac disappeared, but they !
who at break of day had sought her saw
the first rays of the rising sun fall upon
the figure of a woman seated upon the
pinnacle overhan ging the great precipitous
rock and grave. She was grooming over the
child, swsying to and fro upon the very
edge of that wild chasm. As the sun rose
above the edge of the horizon in all its
gilded glory the woman greeted it with the
wild death chant of her people. Then
above the murmuring stir of awakening
nature, the soothing, happy sound of life
rang out the Indian death yell
once again as the woman leaped from that
dizzy height with her child il her arms
DR.. J. G. Tucker In Argonaut.