The Red Man's Revenge: A Tale of The Red River Flood. Robert Michael Ballantyne
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that they should overtake the band on the following day.
Chapter Five.
Tony becomes a Redskin, and the Pursuers change their Game
When Petawanaquat joined the band of Indians, of whom we left Victor Ravenshaw and his comrades in eager pursuit, he deemed it advisable for various reasons to alter the costume and general appearance of his captive, and for that purpose took him to a sequestered spot in the bushes outside the camp.
Poor Tony had at first shrunk from his captor with inexpressible horror, but when he found that the Indian did not eat him his mind was calmed. As time advanced, and he perceived that Petawanaquat, although stern and very silent, took much pains to assist him on his long marches, and, above all, fed him with a liberal hand, his feelings changed considerably, and at last he began to regard the taciturn red man with something like fondness. Petawanaquat made no positive effort to gain the child’s affections; he never fondled him, and seldom spoke, save for the purpose of giving a brief command, which Tony always obeyed with miraculous promptitude. The utmost that can be said is that the savage was gentle and supplied his wants. Could a civilised man have done much more?
It may be well to remark in passing that Tony, having associated a good deal with Indian boys in Red River, could speak their language pretty well. The Indian, of course, spoke his own tongue correctly, while Tony spoke it much as he spoke his own—childishly. As the reader probably does not understand the Indian language, we will give its equivalent as spoken by both in English.
On reaching the sequestered spot above referred to, Petawanaquat sat down on a fallen tree and made the wondering child stand up before him.
“The white man’s boy must become an Indian,” he said solemnly.
“How zat poss’ble?” demanded the child with equal solemnity.
“By wearing the red man’s clothes and painting his face,” returned his captor.
“Zat’ll be jolly,” said Tony, with a smile of hearty approval.
How he expressed the word “jolly” in the Indian tongue we cannot tell, but he conveyed it somehow, for the Indian’s lips expanded in a grim smile, the first he had indulged in since the day of the abduction.
The process by which Tony was transformed was peculiar. Opening a little bundle, the Indian took therefrom a small coat, or capote, of deer-skin; soft, and of a beautiful yellow, like the skin of the chamois. It was richly ornamented with porcupine-quill-work done in various colours, and had fringes of leather and little locks of hair hanging from it in various places. Causing Tony to strip, he put this coat on him, and fastened it round his waist with a worsted belt of bright scarlet. Next he drew on his little legs a pair of blue cloth leggings, which were ornamented with beads, and clothed his feet in new moccasins, embroidered, like the coat, with quill-work. Tony regarded all this with unconcealed pleasure, but it did not seem to please him so much when the Indian combed his rich curly hair straight down all round, so that his face was quite concealed by it. Taking a pair of large scissors from his bundle, the Indian passed one blade under the hair across the forehead, gave a sharp snip, and the whole mass fell like a curtain to the ground. It was a sublimely simple mode of clearing the way for the countenance—much in vogue among North American savages, from whom it has recently been introduced among civilised nations. The Indian then lifted the clustering curls at the back, and again opened the scissors. For a few moments his fingers played with the locks as he gazed thoughtfully at them; then, apparently changing his mind, he let them drop, and put the scissors away.
But the toilet was not yet complete. The versatile operator drew from his bundle some bright-red, yellow ochre, and blue paint, with a piece of charcoal, and set to work on Tony’s countenance with all the force of a Van Dyck and the rich colouring of a Rubens. He began with a streak of scarlet from the eyebrows to the end of the nose. Skipping the mouth, he continued the streak from the lower lip down the chin, under which it melted into a tender half-tint made by a smudge of yellow ochre and charcoal. This vigorous touch seemed to rouse the painter’s spirit in Petawanaquat, for he pushed the boy out at arm’s length, drew himself back, frowned, glared, and breathed hard. Three bars of blue from the bridge of the nose over each cheek, with two red circles below, and a black triangle on the forehead, were touched in with consummate skill and breadth. One of the touches was so broad that it covered the whole jaw, and had to be modified. On each closed upper eyelid an intensely black spot was painted, by which simple device Tony, with his azure orbs, was made, as it were, to wink black and gaze blue. The general effect having thus been blocked in, the artist devoted himself to the finishing touches, and at last turned out a piece of work which old Samuel Ravenshaw himself would have failed to recognise as his son.
It should have been remarked that previous to this, Petawanaquat had modified his own costume. His leggings were fringed with scalp-locks; he had painted his face, and stuck a bunch of feathers in his hair, and a gay firebag and a tomahawk were thrust under his belt behind.
“Ho!” he exclaimed, with a look of satisfaction, “now Tony is Tonyquat, and Petawanaquat is his father!”
“When will zoo take me back to my own fadder?” asked Tony, emboldened by the Indian’s growing familiarity.
No reply was given to this, but the question seemed to throw the red man into a savage reverie, and a dark frown settled on his painted face, as he muttered, “The Little Wolf meant to take the white man’s life, but he was wise: he spared his life and took his heart. His revenge is sweeter. Wah!”
Tony failed to catch the meaning of this, but fearing to rouse the anger of his new father, he held his tongue. Meanwhile the Indian put the child on a stump a few yards off in front of him, filled his pipe, lighted it, placed an elbow on each knee, rested his chin on his doubled fists, and glared at his handiwork. Tony was used to glaring by that time, though he did not like it. He sat still for a long time like one fascinated, and returned the stare with interest.
At last the Indian spoke.
“Is Tonyquat a Christian?”
Somewhat surprised but not perplexed by the question Tony answered, “Ho, yis,” promptly.
The Indian again looked long and earnestly at the child, as if he were considering how far such a juvenile mind might be capable of going into a theological discussion.
“What is a Christian?” asked the Indian abruptly.
“A Kist’n’s a dood boy,” replied Tony; then, dropping his eyes for a moment in an effort to recall past lessons, he suddenly looked up with an intelligent smile, and said, “Oh, yis, I ’memers now. Elsie teach me a Kist’n boy’s one what tries to be like de Lord—dood, kind, gentle, fo’givin’, patient, an’ heaps more; zat’s what a Kist’n is.”
The Indian nodded approvingly. This accorded, as far as it went, with what he had learned from the missionaries of Red River, but his mind was evidently perplexed. He smoked, meditated a considerable time, and glared at Tony in silence; then said suddenly—
“Tonyquat, your father is not a Christian.”
“My fadder would knock zoo down if zoo say dat to hims face,” replied the child confidently.
This seemed so palpable a truth that the Indian nodded several times, and grinned fiendishly.
“Do Christians swear, an’ drink, and fight, and get angry till the blood makes the face blue, and strike with the fist?” asked Petawanaquat.
“Oh, no—never,” replied Tony, adopting that shocked tone and look which Elsie was in the habit of using when anything wicked was propounded to her; “dey’s always dood, like Josuf an’ Abel an’ Sam’l, an’ Cain, an’ David, an’ Saul—”
Tony stopped short, with an indistinct idea that he was mixing pattern characters.
“Ho!” muttered the savage, with a gleam of triumph in his eyes, “Petawanaquat has got his heart.”
“Eh, zoo got ’im by heart a’ready? Took me long, long time to git ’em by heart,” said Tony, with a look of admiration, which was sadly marred by the paint.