"My brother Black Cat has spoken well; my heart quivered with joy on hearing him. Why should we not be friends? Is not the prairie large enough and wide enough for us? Are not the buffaloes sufficiently numerous? Let my brothers listen: I seek around me in vain the war hatchet; it is buried so deeply, that the sons and the grandsons of our children will never succeed in digging it up."

Other speeches were made by several chiefs, and the best intelligence did not cease to reign between the allies. At daybreak, they separated in the most cordial manner, each returning to his village. Valentine and his party remained alone. White Gazelle was leaning pensively against the trunk of a tree a few paces from them.

CHAPTER XI
IN THE FOREST

Red Cedar, carried a long distance from the battlefield by the furious galloping of his steed, which he had no longer the strength to control, went on straight ahead, not knowing what direction he was following. In this man, hitherto so firm, and who possessed so energetic a will, the thoughts were overclouded as if by enchantment: the loss of blood, the repeated jolts his horse gave him, had plunged him into a state of insensibility. Had he not been so securely fastened to his saddle, he would have fallen from it twenty times.

He went on with hanging arms, body bent over his horse's neck, and eyes half closed, hardly conscious of what happened to him, or trying to discover. Shaken to the right, shaken to the left, he watched with unmeaning eye the trees and rocks fly past on either side: no longer thinking, but living in a horrible dream, a prey to the strangest and wildest hallucinations. Night succeeded to day: his horse continued its journey, bounding like a frightened jaguar over the obstacles that opposed it, followed by a pack of howling coyotes, and seeking in vain to get rid of the inert weight that oppressed it.

At length the horse stumbled in the darkness, and fell to the ground, uttering a plaintive neigh. Up to this moment Red Cedar had preserved – we will not say a complete and clear knowledge of the position in which he was – but at any rate a certain consciousness of the life that still dwelt in him. When his exhausted horse fell, the bandit felt a sharp pain in his head, and that was all; he fainted away while stammering an imprecation, the last protest of the villain, who, to the last moment, denied the existence of that God who smote him.

When he re-opened his eyes, under the impression of an indefinable feeling of comfort, the sun was shining through the tufted branches of the forest trees, and the birds, concealed beneath the green foliage, were singing their joyous concerts. Red Cedar gave vent to a sigh of relief, and looked languidly around him; his horse was lying dead a few paces from him. He was seated against the trunk of a tree, while Ellen, kneeling by his side, was anxiously following the progress of his return to life.

"Oh, oh," the bandit muttered hoarsely, "I am still alive then."

"Yes, thanks to God, father," Ellen answered softly.

The bandit looked at her.

"God!" he said, as if speaking to himself; "God!" he added with an ironical smile.

"He it was who saved you, father," the girl said.

"Child!" Red Cedar muttered, as he passed his left hand over his forehead; "God is only a word, never utter it again."

Ellen drooped her head; but with the feeling of life pain returned.

"Oh! How I suffer," he said.

"You are dangerously wounded, father. Alas! I have done what I can to relieve you; but I am only a poor ignorant girl, and perhaps what I have attempted was not the right treatment."

Red Cedar turned to her, and an expression of tenderness flashed in his eyes.

"You love me, then?" he said.

"Is it not my duty to do so, father?"

The bandit made no reply; the smile we know played round his Violet lips.

"Alas! I have been seeking you a long time, father; this night chance enabled me to find you again."

"Yes, you are a good girl, Ellen. I have only you left now. I know not what has become of my sons. Oh," he said with a start of fury, "that wretch Ambrosio is the cause of all; had it not been for him, I should still be at the Paso del Norte, in the forests of which I had made myself master."

"Think no more of that, father; your condition demands the greatest calmness; try and sleep for some hours – that will do you good."

"Sleep," the bandit said, "can I sleep? No," he added with a movement of repulsion, "I would sooner keep awake; when my eyes are closed, I see… No, no, I must not sleep."

He did not finish his sentence. Ellen gazed on him with pity, mingled with terror. The bandit, weakened by the loss of blood and the fever produced by his wounds, felt something to which he had hitherto been a stranger – it was fear. Perhaps his conscience evoked the gnawing remorse of his crimes.

There was a lengthened silence. Ellen attentively followed the bandit's movements, whom the fever plunged into a species of somnolency, and who at times started with inarticulate cries, and looking around him in terror. Toward evening, he opened his eyes, and seemed to grow stronger: his eyes were less haggard, his words more connected.

"Thanks, child," he said, "you are a good creature; where are we?"

"I do not know, father; this forest is immense. I tell you, again, it was God who guided me to you."

"No, you are mistaken, Ellen," he replied with that sarcastic smile peculiar to him; "it was not God who brought you here, but the demon, who feared the loss of so good a friend as I am."

"Speak not so, father," the girl said sadly; "the night is rapidly setting in darkness will soon surround us; let me on the contrary, pray to Heaven to keep far from us the perils that threaten us during the night."

"Child! Does a night in the woods frighten you so, when your whole life has been spent in the desert? Light a fire of dry wood to keep the wild beasts at bay, and place my pistols near me, these precautions will be better, believe me, than your useless prayers."

"Do not blaspheme," the girl said hurriedly; "you are wounded, almost dying; I am weak, and incapable of helping you effectually. Our life is in the hands of Him whose power you deny in vain. He alone, if He will, can save us."

The bandit burst into a dry and snapping laugh.

"Let Him do so then, in the demon's name, and I will believe in Him."

"Father, in Heaven's name, speak not so," the maiden murmured in sorrow.

"Do what I tell you, you little fool," the squatter interrupted her brutally, "and leave me in peace."

Ellen turned to wipe away the tears this harsh language forced from her, and rose sorrowfully to obey Red Cedar, who looked after her.

"Come, you goose," he said to her again, "I did not intend to hurt your feelings."

The girl then collected all the dry branches she could find, which she made into a pile and kindled. The wood soon began cracking, and a long and bright flame rose to the sky. She then took from his holsters the squatter's still loaded pistols, placed them within reach of his arm, and then seated herself again by his side. Red Cedar smiled his satisfaction.

"There," he said, "now we have nothing more to fear; if the wild beasts pay us a visit, we will receive them; we will pass the night quietly. As for the morrow, well, we shall see."

Ellen, without replying, wrapped him up as well as she could in the blankets and hides that were on the horse, in order to protect him from the cold. So much attention and self-denial affected the bandit.

"And you, Ellen," he asked her; "will you not keep a few of these skins for yourself?"

"Why should I, father? The fire will be enough for me," she said gently.

"But, at any rate, eat something, you must be hungry; for, if I am not mistaken, you have had nothing the whole day."

"That is true, father, but I am not hungry."

"No matter," he said, pressing her, "too long a fast may be injurious to you; I insist on your eating."

"It is useless, father," she said with some hesitation.

"Eat, I say," he went on, "if not for your sake, for mine; eat a mouthful to restore your strength, for we know what awaits us in the next few hours."

"Alas! I would readily obey you," she said, letting her eyes sink; "but it is impossible."

"And why so, pray? When I tell you that I insist."

"Because I have nothing to eat."

These words crushed the bandit like the blow of a club.

"Oh, it is frightful," he muttered; "poor girl, pardon me Ellen, I am a villain, unworthy of such devotion as yours."

"Calm yourself, father, I implore you; I am not hungry, a night is soon passed, and tomorrow, as you said, we shall see; but before then, I am convinced God will come to our aid."

"God!" the squatter exclaimed, gnashing his teeth.

"God, ever God, father," the girl answered, with sparkling eye and trembling lip; "God, ever; for, however unworthy we may be of His pity; He is merciful, and perhaps will not abandon us."

"Build then on him, fool as you are, and you will be dead in two days."

"No," she exclaimed, joyfully, "for He has heard me, and sends us help."

The bandit looked and fell back on the ground, closing his eyes, and muttering in a hollow voice the words which for some time past had constantly risen from his heart to his lips, and involuntarily mastered him.

"God! Can He exist?"

A terrible question which he incessantly asked himself, and to which his obstinate conscience was beginning to respond, for the granite coating of his heart was beginning to crumble away beneath the repeated blows of remorse. But Ellen did not notice Red Cedar's state of prostration, she had risen and rushed forward, with outstretched arms, crying as loudly as her voice permitted her – "Help, help!"

The young girl had fancied she heard, for some minutes past, a peculiar rustling in the foliage. This noise, at first remote and almost unnoticeable, had rapidly approached; soon lights had glistened through the trees, and the footsteps of a numerous party had distinctly smitten her ear. In fact, she had scarce gone a dozen yards, ere she found herself in the presence of a dozen mounted Indians, holding torches, and escorting two persons wrapped in long cloaks.

"Help! Help!" Ellen repeated, as she fell on her knees, with outstretched arms.

The horsemen stopped; one of them dismounted, and ran to the girl, whom he took by the hands, and forced to rise.

"Help for whom, my poor girl?" he asked her in a soft voice.

On hearing the stranger's accent so full of tenderness, she felt hope returning to her heart.

"Oh!" she murmured with joy; "my father is saved."

"Our life is in the hands of God," the stranger said, with emotion; "but lead me to your father, and all a man can do to help him, I will."

"It is God who sends you, bless you, my father!" the maiden said, as she kissed his hand.

In the movement he had made to raise her, the stranger's cloak flew open, and the girl had recognised a priest.

"Let us go," he said.

"Come!"

The girl ran joyously forward, and the little party followed her.

"Father, father," she exclaimed, as she came near the wounded man, "I was certain that Heaven would not abandon us; I bring you succour."

At this moment the strangers entered the clearing where the bandit lay. The Indians and the other travellers remained some paces in the rear, while the priest, quickly approached Red Cedar, over whom he bent. At his daughter's words the bandit opened his eyes, and turned his head with an effort in the direction whence this unexpected help arrived. Suddenly his face, before so pale, was covered with a cadaverous tinge; his eyes were enlarged and became haggard, a convulsive quiver agitated his limbs, and he fell heavily back, muttering with terror —

"Oh! Father Seraphin!"

It was really the missionary; without appearing to remark the squatter's emotion, he seized his arm in order to feel his pulse. Red Cedar had fainted, but Ellen had heard the words he uttered, and though she could not understand their meaning, she guessed that a terrible drama was concealed beneath this revelation.

"My father!" she exclaimed mournfully, as she fell at the priest's knees, "My father, have pity on him, do not desert him!"

The missionary smiled with an expression of ineffable goodness.

"Daughter," he answered gently, "I am a minister of God, and the dress I wear commands me to forget insults. Priests have no enemies, all men are their brothers; reassure yourself, your father has not only his body to be saved, but also, his soul. I will undertake this cure, and God, who permitted me to take this road, will give me the necessary strength to succeed."

"Oh, thanks, thanks, holy father," the girl murmured, as she burst into tears.

"Do not thank me, poor girl; address your thanks to God, for He alone has done all. Now leave me to attend to this unhappy man, who is suffering, and whose miserable state claims all my care."

And gently removing the maiden, Father Seraphin opened his medicine box, which he took from the pommel of his saddle, and prepared to dress his patient's wounds. In the meanwhile the Indians had gradually approached, and seeing the state of affairs, they dismounted to prepare the encampment, for they foresaw that, with Red Cedar in his present condition, the missionary would pass the night at this spot.

The person who accompanied Father Seraphin was a female of very advanced age, but whose features, ennobled by years, had a far from common expression of kindness and grandeur. When she saw that the missionary was preparing to dress the wounds, she went up to him and said in a soft voice —

"Can I not help you in any way, holy father? You know that I am anxious to begin my apprenticeship in nursing."

These words were uttered with an accent of indescribable goodness. The priest looked at her with a sublime expression, and, taking her hand, he made her stoop over the wounded man.

"Heaven has decreed that what now happens should take place," he said to her; "you have hardly landed in this country, and entered the desert to seek your son, when the Omnipotent imposes on you a task which must rejoice your heart by bringing you face to face with this man."

"What do you mean, father?" she said with amazement.

"Mother of Valentine Guillois," he continued, with an accent full of supreme majesty, "look at this man well, so as to be able to recognise him hereafter; it is Red Cedar, the wretch of whom I have so often spoken to you, the implacable foe of your son."

At this terrible revelation the poor woman gave a start of fear; but surmounting with a superhuman effort the feeling of revulsion she had at first experienced, she answered in a calm voice —

"No matter, father, the man suffers, and I will nurse him."

"Good, Madam," the priest said, with emotion; "Heaven will give you credit for this evangelic abnegation."

CHAPTER XII
THE MISSIONARY

We will now briefly explain by what strange concourse of events Father Seraphin, whom we have for so long a period lost out of sight, and Valentine's mother, had arrived so providentially to help Red Cedar.

When the missionary left the Trail-hunter, he proceeded, as he expressed a wish, among the Comanches, with the intention of preaching the gospel to them, a holy duty which he had begun to put in execution long before. Father Seraphin, through his character and piety of manner, had made friends of all these children of nature, and converted numerous proselytes in various tribes, especially in Unicorn's.

The journey was long and fatiguing to the Comanche village, and the means of transport were, in a desert country, only traversed by nomadic hordes, which wander without any settled purpose in these vast solitudes. The missionary, however, did not recoil; too weak to ride on account of the scarce cicatrised wound he had received a short time previously, he had, like the first Fathers of the Church, bravely undertaken this journey on foot, which it is almost impossible to accomplish on horseback.

But human strength has its limits, which it cannot go beyond. Father Seraphin, in spite of his courage, was obliged tacitly to allow that he had undertaken a task which he was too weak to carry out. One night he fell, exhausted by fever and fatigue, on the floor of some Indians, who nursed and brought him round. These Indians, who were half civilised, and had been Christians for a long time, would not allow the priest, in his present state of health, to continue his journey; on the contrary, taking advantage of the fever which kept him down and rendered it impossible for him to see what was done with him, they conveyed him back, by slow stages, to Texas.

When Father Seraphin, thanks to his youth and powerful constitution, had at length conquered the malady which kept him confined to his bed for more than a month between life and death, his surprise was great to find himself at Galveston, in the house of the episcopal head of the Mission. The worthy prelate, employing the spiritual powers given him by his character and his title, had insisted on the missionary going on board of a vessel just starting for Havre, and which was only waiting for a favourable wind.

Father Seraphin obeyed with sorrow the commands of his superior; the Bishop was obliged to prove to him that his health was almost ruined, and that his native air could alone restore it, ere he would resign humbly to obedience, and, as he said bitterly, fly and abandon his post. The missionary started then, but with the firm resolution of returning so soon as it was possible.

The voyage from Galveston to Havre was a pleasant one; two months after leaving Texas, Father Seraphin set foot on his native soil, with an emotion which only those who have wandered for a long time in foreign parts can comprehend. Since accident brought him back to France, the missionary profited by it to visit his family, whom he never expected to see again, and by whom he was received with transports of joy, the greater because his return was so unexpected.

The life of a missionary is very hard; those who have seen them at work in the great American desert can alone appreciate all the holy abnegation and true courage there is in the hearts of these simple and truly good men, who sacrifice their life, without the hope of possible reward; in preaching to the Indians. They nearly all fall in some obscure corner of the prairie, victims to their devotion, or if they resist for five or six years, they return to their country prematurely aged, almost blind, overwhelmed with infirmities, and forced to live a miserable life among men who misunderstand and too often calumniate them.

Father Seraphin's time was counted, every hour he passed away from his beloved Indians he reproached himself with as a robbery he committed on them. He tore himself from his parent's arms, and hastened to Havre, to profit by the first chance that presented itself for returning to Texas.

One evening, while Father Seraphin was seated on the beach, contemplating the sea that separated him from the object of his life, and thinking of the proselytes he had left in America, and whom, deprived of his presence, he trembled to find again, plunged in their old errors – he heard sobs near him. He raised his head, and saw at some paces from him a woman kneeling on the sand and weeping; from time to time broken words escaped from her lips. Father Seraphin was affected by this sorrow; he approached, and heard the words: "My son, my poor son! Oh, Heaven restore me my son!"

This woman's face was bathed in tears, her eyes were raised to Heaven, and an expression of profound despair was imprinted on her countenance. Father Seraphin understood with the instinct of his heart that there was a great misfortune here that required unsolving, and addressed the stranger.

"Poor woman, what do you want here? Why do you weep?

"Alas! Father," she answered, "I have lost all hope of being happy in this world."

"Who knows, madam? Tell me your misfortunes. God is great; perhaps He will give me the power to console you."

"You are right, father; God never deserts the afflicted, and it is above all when hope fails them that He comes to their assistance."

"Speak then with confidence."

The strange woman began in a voice broken by the internal emotion which she suffered.

"For more than ten years," she said, "I have been separated from my son. Alas! Since he went to America, in spite of all the steps I have taken, I have never received news of him, or learned what has become of him, whether he be dead or alive."

"Since the period of which you speak, then, no sign, no information however slight, has reassured you as to the fate of him you mourn?"

"No, my father, since my son, the brave lad, determined to accompany his foster-brother to Chili."

"Well," the priest interrupted, "you might enquire in Chili."

"I did so, father."

"And learned nothing?"

"Pardon me, my son's foster-brother is married, and possesses a large fortune in Chili. I applied to him. My son left him about a year after his departure from France, without telling him the motive that urged him to act thus, and he never heard of him again, in spite of all his efforts to find him; all that he discovered was that he had buried himself in the virgin forests of the Great Chaco, accompanied by two Indian chiefs."

"It is, indeed, strange," the priest muttered thoughtfully.

"My son's foster-brother frequently writes to me; thanks to him, I am rich for a woman of my condition, who is accustomed to live on a little. In each of his letters he begs me to come and end my days with him; but it is my son, my poor child, I wish to see again; in his arms I should like to close my eyes. Alas! That consolation will not be granted me. Oh! Father, you cannot imagine what grief it is for a mother to live alone, far from the only being who gave joy to her latter days. Though I have not seen him for ten years, I picture him to myself as on the day he left me, young and strong, and little suspecting that he was leaving me forever."

While uttering these words, the poor woman could not repress her tears and sobs.

"Courage! life is but one long trial; is you have suffered so greatly, perchance God, whose mercy is infinite, reserves a supreme joy for your last days of life."

"Alas, father, as you know, nothing can console a mother for the absence of her son, for he is her flesh, her heart. Every ship that arrives, I run, I inquire, and ever, ever the same silence! And yet, shall I confess it to you? I have something in me which tells me he is not dead, and I shall see him again; it is a secret presentiment for which I cannot account: I fancy that if my son were dead, something would have snapped in my heart, and I should have ceased to exist long ago. That hope sustains me, in spite of myself; it gives me the strength to live."

"You are a mother in accordance with the gospel; I admire you."

"You are mistaken, father; I am only a poor creature, very simple and very unhappy; I have only one feeling in my heart, but it fills me entirely: love of my son. Oh, could I see him, were it only for a moment, I fancy I should die happy. At long intervals, a banker writes me to come to him, and he pays me money, sometimes small sums, at others large. When I ask him whence the money comes, he says that he does not know himself, and that a strange correspondent has requested him to pay it to me. Well, father, every time I receive money in this way, I fancy that it comes from my son, that he is thinking of me, and I am happy."

"Do not doubt that it is your son who sends you this money."

"Is it not?" she said, with a start of joy. "Well, I feel so persuaded of that, that I keep it; all the sums are at my house, intact, in the order as I received them. Often, when grief crushes me more than usual, when the weight that oppresses my heart seems to me too crushing, I look at them, I let them slip through my fingers, as I talk to them, and I fancy my son answers me; he bids me hope I shall see him again, and I feel hope return. Oh! You must think me very foolish to tell you all this, father: but of what can a mother speak, save of her son? Of what can she think but her son?"

Father Seraphin gazed on her with a tenderness mingled with respect. Such grandeur and simplicity in a woman of so ordinary a rank overcame him, and he felt tears running down his cheeks which he did not attempt to check.

"Oh, holy and noble creature!" he said to her; "Hope, hope; God watches over you."

"You believe so too, father? Oh, thanks for that. You have told me nothing, and yet I feel comforted through having seen you and let my heart overflow in your presence. It is because you are good, you have understood my sorrow, for you, too, have doubtless suffered."

"Alas; madam, each of us has a cross to bear in this world; happy is he whom his burden does not crush."

"Pardon my having troubled you with my sorrows," she said, as she prepared to leave; "I thank you for your kind words."

"I have nothing to pardon you; but permit me to ask you one more question."

"Do so, father."

"I am a missionary. For several years I have been in America, whose immense solitudes I have traversed in every direction. I have seen many things, met many persons during my travels. Who knows? Perhaps, without knowing it, I may have met your son, and may give the information you have been awaiting so long in vain."

The poor mother gave him a glance of indefinable meaning, and placed her hand on her heart to still its hurried beating.

"Madam, God directs all our actions. He decreed our meeting on this beach; the hope you have lost I may perhaps be destined to restore you. What is your son's name?"

At this moment Father Seraphin had a truly inspired air; his voice was commanding, and his eyes shone with a bright and fascinating fire.

"Valentine Guillois!" the poor woman said, as she fell in almost a fainting state on a log of wood left on the beach.

"Oh!" the priest exclaimed; "On your knees and thank Heaven! Console yourself, poor mother! Your son lives!"

She drew herself up as if moved by a spring, and fell on her knees sobbing, and held out her hands to the man who restored her son to her.

But it was too much for her: so strong against grief, could not resist joy: she fainted. Father Seraphin ran up to her and recalled her to life. We will not describe the ensuing scene, but a week later the missionary and the hunter's mother started for America. During the voyage Father Seraphin fully described to his companion what had happened to her son during his long absence, the reasons of his silence, and the sacred remembrance in which he had ever held her. The poor mother listened, radiant with happiness, to those stories, which she begged to hear over and over again, for she was never tired of hearing her son spoken of.

On reaching Galveston, the missionary, justly fearing for her the fatigues of a journey through the desert, wished to induce her to remain in that city till her son came to her, but at that proposition the mother shook her head.

"No," she said, resolutely, "I have not come here to stop in a town: I wish to spend the few days left me to live by his side; I have suffered enough to be avaricious of my happiness, and desire not to lose an atom. Let us go, father. Lead me to my child."

Before a will so firmly expressed, the priest found himself powerless; he did not recognise the right of insisting longer; he merely tried to spare his companion the fatigue of his journey as far as possible.

They, therefore, started for Galveston, proceeding by short stages to the Far West. On reaching the border of civilised countries, Father Seraphin took an escort of devoted Indians to protect his companion. They had been in the desert for six days, when suddenly heaven brought them face to face with Red Cedar, dying without help in the heart of the primeval forest.