HAWK OF THE WILDERNESS

Franklin Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 22, 26 February 1940, Page 2

HAWK OF THE WILDERNESS

(By WILLIAM L. CHESTER)

In one other particular also. Kioga violated the Indian customs. Once having cut his lustrous black hair in token of mourning, he had never let it grow long again, for fear Ihe trailing braid might one day catch in some high limb, leaving him dangling in torture. But like the savage Shoni warriors, at the first appearance of the soft young heard of manhood, he began to shave dry-faced, with a bit of sharp obsidian : for among the tribes of Nato-wa, as among the tribes of America long ago, the heard is an abomination. . . . Hawk’s band of bears had by now grown to a considerable size by the addition of three more cubs by an old female, several rusty-black climbing bears, and others.’ Of these the greatest was Club-foot, a huge cinnamon whose morose and vicious nature grew more intolerable daily, and threatened to destroy the armed neutrality of Kioga’s wilderness society. Inevit-

ably the two clashed. Hanging, as was his occasional custom, from the end of bis rope, halfv ay between branch and ground, Hawk was being amused by the antics of bis wild fellows several yards below. With pride be watched the big cinnamon loss aside a log thicker than his chest, as if it weighed no more than a twig, all unaware that in but a few moments lie must pit his own bone, sinew and cunning against that terrific brawn. Now a mother-bear, playing aim roughing it with her newest set of cubs, rolled one of them over with a flip of her paw. As luck woul have i! the cub came to rest in the path of file great brown bully as be emerged surlily from a thicket, clanking bis paws ominously. The ill-tempered beast chopped savagely at the tiny cub, and in an instant the mother was (lying at his throat —bul nof: before be bad countered. with a swiftness that belied bis giant, size, and locked bis jaws upon her bead and neck. From beginning lo end Kioga bad seen it all. Instinctively he increased the speed of bis swing. sensing a crisis. He had always sought lo avoid

such encounters with the bears in their evil hours: bul if was a question of life and death tin's lime, and bis decision was instantaneous. As lie hurtled back and forth across the clearing, like a human pendulum gathering velocity with every swing, there had occurred to him in an insianf Hie only method by which lie might hope to overcome the giant cinnamon.

I Now the great: animal reared to his full height in striving lo increase his advantage over Ihe smaller female. He weighed probably fifteen hundred pounds. Claws six inches long armed all four vast paws, and his curved yeti' tow incisors had protruded an inch below his black lips before he sank 1 iiein into the old she’s flesh. Hawk did not weigh a seventh as much. hut. his mighty thews and rapidity of movement were the endowment of a competitive existence like dial of prehistoric days, when Ihe price of man's life was measured in terms of his ability lo evade or overpower his enemies. He knew to an ounce the limit of his strength, and had, besides, a | great equaliser in his long knife, i AI the height of a swing he saw i Ihc cinnamon roar again. Lei ting slip a length of rope between his fingers, he gauged his swing so dial it would bring him just above Hie snarling combatanls. Then, as lie began flic downward swoop, hanging by one band, wifli Ihe oilier lie whipped his knife from the scabbard. A fraction of a second he hung poised, tlien launched himself downward like some sharp-taloned peregrine, full and fair upon the barrel-like back of Ihe

cinnamon, (lie while lie plunged ilie knife to its liilfc in (lie shaggy side. The enormous force of his long swinging fall deal! both Kioga and Club-foot a stunning blow. The old she-hear rolled free.

| Surprise gave a momentary advantage to Snow Hawk. Shaking his head to clear it, he hurled himself upon his hulking antagonist. But for his Hashing speed, his.skull would have been crushed like paper under the vicous blow of the hooked paw which the hear dealt on recovering. The youth, however, was too quickly under and inside that massive arm, fighting tooth and nail to overpower his opponent by force of attack before the bear could gather its scattered senses.

Like a wolverine. Hawk wrapped an •arm and both legs about I tie enormous barrel, while with one free hand he recovered his knife and fleshed it again and again, ever seeking to pierce the heart which beat like a great drum against his own. Grazed by the bite of the plunging red steel, the bear raked him with its ’forepaw. But proximity was his greatest advantage, and buried as he was in the long fur of the animal, flattened against its breast, he was part-

ly protected. A moment more, and Kioga’s ribs and spine would have been torn to splinters. But at that instant the knife found the great pulmonary artery, flooding Ihe beast’s lungs with I,he strangling blood. As suddenly as it, bad begun, the batle was at an end. The great bulk rolled over on its side, the mighty muscles slackened. The cinnamon was heyond-n.il further bullying. Now the old mother-bear had only to lick her wounds, while Hie cubs

ripped a I the dead hear with fang and claw . . . From that day forward none challenged the authority of the lad who led litem. Peace and harmony reigned, at least temporarily; and the addition of several more black hears swelled the number of Hie tittle band to about thirty all told.

Following the bears' wise example. Kioga repaired to the sulphur springs to steep himself in Ihe curative, sleaming-hot fluids and relieve the discomfort of that quadruple furrow which lmd exposed every sinew in his back. The fine scars were to be the lasting reminder of a rake which, prolonged but an instant more, must have pulled out tils spine. He emerged from the springs refreshed and invigorated, to continue the eventful tenor of a life to which he had maintained his right once again by the strength of arm and nerve. Suddenly Kioga quivered as his remotest ancestor had done beside the tar-pools of antiquity. For on a ridge across the swamp, not ten arrows away, he saw a monstrous form. Above its sombre hulk rose a pillar of steam. The enormous peaked head was almost as great in hulk as

Aid’s body. It was weighted down by a pair of tremendously thick tusks, extending far ' out in front like the blades of curved sabres, and gleaming reddish-white through Ihe swamp mud which encrusted them. A huge tapering muscular trunk, covered with wiry hair curled and relazed, stuffing masses of foliage into Ihe long-lipped maw. Hawk could hear the grind of mighty molars above the internal rumblings of its digestive organs.

•Kioga had but one word by which to name Ihe animal he had seen: It could he- —it must lie—Gu-ne-ba, the Giant Death —that monster of whom the oldest: medicine-men spoke, when relating legends of ancient limes. But the amazingly detailed likeness of I lie beast, which the Snow Hawk drew upon facing pages of Hand’s battered log-book, is beyond doubt that of Elepbas Irnperialis —the gigantic elephant which roamed Hie American western plain in the Cenozoic period. I'nlil now its existence bad been deduced purely from fossil dala dug from Hie age-old earth. When.not with the bears, or on one of 1 1 is occasional forays with the puma, Kioga returned to the privacy of 1 1 is cave to read from the fascinating volumes which I rented of the outer world.

Three years had seen few changes in Hie village of Hopeka; but the membership of the secrel Long Knife Society had become greater, and arrogant almost lo* the point of open insurrection. In duly bound, Kioga fell, to begin at once Hie long-neglecled fulfilment of an oalli taken years before, be lay i:t wail above-a well-travelled stream, devising ways and means by which Ik: was unwillingly to upset the general conclusions as lo his fate. II was no guileless hoy I hey now pursued, hut an outlaw of unsurpassed resource, to whom the intricacies of the neighbouring timber were as familiar as Ihe crossed lines in 1 1 is own palm. A weil-lhoughl out plan dolermined every seemingly erratic (wist he gave at his frail, which alternately dulled and sharpened anew the eagerness of the pursuit. INSTALMENT 12

J Nightfall compelled a camp in Hie | wilderness, and throwing up a barrij cade of logs as protection against wild I beasts, the Shorn - posted a guard for the night and sought a few hours of much-needed sleep. Bed Moon, I lie sentry at Hie hooded fire, gazed out into I tie clusters of shining discs which were the eyes of the nightwuldiers. Over-warmed by the lire lie shrugged the robe from his brawn shoulders and relaxed. Behind him in various attitudes lay the weary Gong-Knives, many sleeping with their | hacks against the cliff-wall. With eyes only for the outer forest, Bed Moon sensed nothing of Hie peril lowering down upon him from above. But thrown by the firelight into gigantic outline upon the rock wall, an ominous black shadow had taken form. Inch by inch, in a descent scarce perceptible, it moved downward. As the sentry stirred, it was motionless. Then again, slower than before, the shadow fell.

From the moment he had begun the descent, the Snow Hawk had exercised every caution to avoid alarming sleepers or sentry. llis 0 rope was adjusted securely above, hanging free from a high ledge in such manner that nowhere would he rush against the cliff’s face and thus loosen betraying particles of stone. Without sound he had come down almost to within ten feet of the sentry’s head, and now hung motionless as an eagle on spread pinions.

But with all his caution, he had overlooked, one thing—the fad that n solid casts a shadow. It was Ibis, his shadow on the cliff

’wall, which first apprised the savage j that danger impended. His suddenly siitied eyes went from fire to wall I in momentary puzzlement. In ro--1 spouse to a sudden sense of appro- ] Pension lie made an involuntary move- ! men I, of alarm. ; That twitch of the muscles, instantly checked though it was by the subtle Indian, did not escape the watchful 1 eye of the Snow Hawk. Knowing insiantly that lie was all but discovered, lie dropped straight down, landing lightly on his feet behind leii sentry.

Before (lie surprised brave could voice liis quick alarm, Hawk smothered his outcry in the discarded blanket, and dispatched him swiftly with a dexterous thrust of the long knife deep into the chest cavity. Working swiftly, he appropriated the sentry’s blanket, throwing it over his shoulders. Examining the dead face a moment, he rolled the corpse on its side, back to the lire, adjusting it in an attitude of sleep. With paint from his bell-pouch he smeared upon his own face an approximation of the design adorning the sentry’s. He also transferred the dead man’s feather to his own hair.

Though but seventeen, Tlawk had fully llie height and breadth of the dead warrior. What with the paint, feather and the blanket drawn close about, his eyes, his disguise was not easily to be penetrated in the dim light of the hooded lire. He completed it not a moment too soon. A warrior rose on one elbow, stretched, yawned and moved nearer the lire, not three feet behind the new sentry. To a. word of greeting Kioga answered in a voice muffled by the blanket. But the warrior was disposed to be talkative, addressing the sentry thus:

“Dreams of Bull Horn predict the scalping of Snow Hawk tomorrow. What thinks Red Moon of this dream?” “JIo-o!” was the grunted response. “Red Moon is already dead| For him there will be no tomorrow!” Bull Horn started, then relaxed again, laughing shortly and grimly at the gloomy frame of mind in which he found his fellow-conspirator. Then he rose, approached the dead body of Red Moon, touching it with the toe of his moccasin. Kioga also got up as if to stretch. “Weariness is the enemy of courage,” said Bull Horn. Addressing the prone figure by the fire: “Wake, warrior—thy turn to watch,” he said. Then, “Ah-ko! He slumbers deep,” he added, bending - over Red Moon.

“Even as a dead man,” came llie voice from the blanket. At Bull Horn’s touch. Red Moon's arm fell limp. The body rolled slowly over, facing life sky. A moment I In' Indian crouched rigid, staring at that red wound, before Snow Hawk’s words had any meaning for him. Then, hissing on his indrawn breath. he wheeled and was about to utter the yell of warning, when a ring of si eel shrank about his throat. A single word “Awena” was uttered in his ear, almost it’semed, with a sob. Firelight gleamed on a falling axe, and Bull Horn fell twitching, to dream no more.

Leaving the body where if sank. Nemesis moved among the snoring Indians, tomahawk bare under the blanket. By every canon of Indian warfare, wherein stealth and secrecy rank equal with Haunting valour, it

was now Kioga’s right to destroy them, one by one, as they lay there unconscious. With this intent, he paused above a sleeping brave. Up rose the waraxe, then lowered slowly. The brave was muttering something in his sleep. In that moment the Snow Hawk knew that he could not bring himself to kill in cold blood —a concession to that breeding of his which dominated him more than he knew.

(To be Continued)

20 YEARS TERROR AND TORTURE.