Silver Rifle: The Girl Trailer
Thomas Chalmers Harbaugh
9781465663719
213 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
In the center of a thickly-wooded dell, situated about three miles from the southern shore of Lake Superior, a half-breed youth, clad in the habiliments of a Chippewa Indian, discussed a frugal meal. The sun was sinking behind the wonderful Chapel Rocks, and his last beams, stretching through the festooned forests, fell upon and clothed the half-breed in golden light. His features were clear-cut and regular, his body lithe but well-knit, and a tender expression beamed from the blackest of eyes. A long-barreled rifle rested on his foot, his mink-skin cap surmounted the stock, and on the index finger of his left hand there was a gold ring of singular workmanship, surmounted with a single brilliant. He was so absorbed in the discussion of his repast, that he grew oblivious to his surroundings, until he put his hands into his pemmican bag, and discovered that his stock of that edible was exhausted. “Pemmican all gone!” he ejaculated, with a smile. “Ahdeek go, too, now, he and Nahma not meet for three moons. Nahma promised to be in big cave when Ahdeek come back, and Ahdeek much to tell him.” The youth slowly rose to his feet, picking up his rifle as he executed the movement. “Sun nearly gone to sleep,” he murmured, glancing toward the west. “Soon he sink to the fishes of Gitche Gumee.” A moment longer the half-breed lingered. Then he started toward the lake, but with a single stride he came to a halt, and the click, click of a well oiled rifle-lock followed the lifting of his rifle from a “trail.” A suspicious sound had arrested his steps, and, as he leaned forward, and with shaded eyes tried to penetrate the forest directly before him, the sharp report of a rifle changed the scene. The half-breed recoiled with a quick ejaculation of surprise, and his own weapon dropped to the ground—the lock knocked out of time by the unseen enemy’s bullet. “Who shoot?” cried the youth, as he sprung to his trusty gun, and snatched it from the ground. His exclamation was answered by terrific yells, and as he sprung erect with the crippled rifle clubbed, he found a dozen savages rushing upon him. He did not speak, but faced the dusky demons with tomahawk in one hand, the rifle in the other. He saw at once that his enemies desired to take him alive, for they could have cleft his heart with a dozen balls while he walked leisurely beneath the tree vines. “The Chippewas have caged the Tiger!” cried the leader of the Indians, a prepossessing young brave, who had won distinction and his eagle-feathers quite early in life. “They have trailed him long; they have watched for him in the caves of Gitche Gumee; they have followed him through the great wood. Now let him be a man, and surrender when he sees that he can not escape.” The chief spoke in the language of his nation, and a smile wreathed the lips of the noble quarry, who, a moment after the chief had finished, threw rifle, knife and tomahawk on the ground in token of surrender.
