F. Scott Fitzgerald - "The Beautiful and Damned"

Thorstein Veblen - "An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation"

Jessie Graham Flower - "Grace Harlowe's Plebe Year at High School"

Richard F. Burton - "The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3"

Annual Bibliography of Commonwealth Literature 2007
This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

Lords of the North

A >> A. C. Laut >> Lords of the North




"I can take you to her!" he whispered, his voice thrilling with
suppressed emotion. "Le Grand Diable and the squaw have gone to the
valley to set snares! And when I whistle, come out quickly! Mon Dieu! If
you're caught, both our scalps go! Dammie! Louis is a fool. I take you
to her; but I pay you back all the same!"

"To whom?" The question throbbed with a rush to my lips.

"Stupid dolt!" snarled Louis. "Follow me! Keep your ears open for my
whistle--one--they return--two--come you out of the tent--three, we are
caught, save yourself!"

I followed the Frenchman in silence. It was a hazy summer night with
just enough light from the sickle moon for us to pick our way past the
lodges to a large newly-erected wigwam with a small white tent behind.

"This way," whispered Louis, leading through the first to an opening
hidden by a hanging robe. Raising the skin, he shoved me forward and
hastened out to keep guard.

The figure of a woman with a child in her arms was silhouetted against
the white tent wall. She was sitting on some robes, crooning in a low
voice to the child, and was unaware of my presence.

"And was my little Eric at the hunt, and did he shoot an arrow all by
himself?" she asked, fondling the face that snuggled against her
shoulder.

The boy gurgled back a low, happy laugh and lisped some childish reply,
which only a mother could translate.

"And he will grow big, big and be a great warrior and fight--fight for
his poor mother," she whispered, lowering her voice and caressing the
child's curls.

The little fellow sat up of a sudden facing his mother and struck out
squarely with both fists, not uttering a word.

"My brave, brave little Eric! My only one, all that God has left to me!"
she sobbed hiding her weeping face on the child's neck. "O my God, let
me but keep my little one! Thou hast given him to me and I have
treasured him as a jewel from Thine own crown! O my God, let me but keep
my darling, keep him as Thy gift--and--and--O my God!--Thy--Thy--Thy
will be done!"

The words broke in a moan and the child began to cry.

"Hush, dearie! The birds never cry, nor the beavers, nor the great, bold
eagle! My own little warrior must never cry! All the birds and the
beasts and the warriors are asleep! What does Eric say before he goes to
sleep?"

A pair of chubby arms were flung about her neck and passionate, childish
kisses pressed her forehead and her cheeks and her lips. Then he slipped
to his knees and put his face in her lap.

"God bless my papa--and keep my mamma--and make little Eric brave and
good--for Jesus' sake----" the child hesitated.

"Amen," prompted the gentle voice of the mother.

"And keep little Eric for my mamma so she won't cry," added the child,
"for Jesus' sake--Amen," and he scrambled to his feet.

A low, piercing whistle cut the night air like the flight of an
arrow-shaft. It was Louis Laplante's signal that Diable and the squaw
were coming back. At the sound, mother and child started up in alarm.
Then they saw me standing in the open way. A gasp of fright came from
the white woman's lips. I could tell from her voice that she was all
a-tremble, and the little one began to whimper in a smothered,
suppressed way.

I whispered one word--"Miriam!"

With a faint cry of anguish, she leaped forward. "Is it you, Eric? O
Eric! is it you?" she asked.

"No--no, Miriam, not Eric, but Eric's friend, Rufus Gillespie."

She tottered as if I had struck her. I caught her in my arms and helped
her to the couch of robes.

Then I took up my station facing the tent entrance; for I realized the
significance of Laplante's warning.

"We have hunted for more than a year for you," I whispered, bending over
her, "but the Sioux murdered our messenger and the other you yourself
let out of the tent!"

"That--your messenger for me?" she asked in sheer amazement, proving
what I had suspected, that she was kept in ignorance of our efforts.

"I have been here for a week, searching the lodges. My horses are in the
valley, and we must dare all in one attempt."

"I have given my word I will not try," she hastily interrupted,
beginning to pluck at her red shawl in the frenzied way of delirious
fever patients. "If we are caught, they will torture us, torture the
child before my eyes. They treat him well now and leave me alone as long
as I do not try to break away. What can you, one man, do against two
thousand Sioux?" and she began to weep, choking back the anguished sobs,
that shook her slender frame, and picking feverishly at the red shawl
fringe.

To look at that agonized face would have been sacrilege, and in a
helpless, nonplussed way, I kept gazing at the painful workings of the
thin, frail fingers. That plucking of the wasted, trembling hands haunts
me to this day; and never do I see the fingers of a nervous, sensitive
woman working in that delirious, aimless fashion but it sets me
wondering to what painful treatment from a brutalized nature she has
been subjected, that her hands take on the tricks of one in the last
stages of disease. It may be only the fancy of an old trader; but I dare
avow, if any sympathetic observer takes note of this simple trick of
nervous fingers, it will raise the veil on more domestic tragedies and
heart-burnings than any father-confessor hears in a year.

"Miriam," said I, in answer to her timid protest, "Eric has risked his
life seeking you. Won't you try all for Eric's sake? There'll be little
risk! We'll wait for a dark, boisterous, stormy night, and you will roll
out of your tent the way you thrust my Indian out. I'll have my horses
ready. I'll creep up behind and whisper through the tent."

"Where _is_ Eric?" she asked, beginning to waver.

Two shrill, sharp whistles came from Louis Laplante, commanding me to
come out of the tent.

"That's my signal! I must go. Quick, Miriam, will you try?"

"I will do what you wish," she answered, so low, I had to kneel to catch
the words.

"A stormy night our signal, then," I cried.

Three, sharp, terrified whistles, signifying, "We are caught, save
yourself," came from Laplante, and I flung myself on the ground behind
Miriam.

"Spread out your arms, Miriam! Quick!" I urged. "Talk to the boy, or
we're trapped."

With her shawl spread out full and her elbows sticking akimbo, she
caught the lad in her arms and began dandling him to right, and left,
humming some nursery ditty. At the same moment there loomed in the tent
entrance the great, statuesque figure of the Sioux squaw, whom I had
seen in the gorge. I kicked my feet under the canvas wall, while
Miriam's swaying shawl completely concealed me from the Sioux woman and
thus I crawled out backwards. Then I lay outside the tent and listened,
listened with my hand on my pistol, for what might not that monster of
fury attempt with the tender, white woman?

"There were words in the tepee," declared the angry tones of the Indian
woman. "The pale face was talking! Where is the messenger from the
Mandanes?"

At that, the little child set up a bitter crying.

"Cry not, my little warrior! Hush, dearie! 'Twas only a hunter
whistling, or the night hawk, or the raccoon! Hush, little Eric!
Warriors never cry! Hush! Hush! Or the great bear will laugh at you and
tell his cubs he's found a coward!" crooned Miriam, making as though she
neither heard, nor saw the squaw; but Eric opened his mouth and roared
lustily. And the little lad unconsciously foiled the squaw; for she
presently took herself off, evidently thinking the voices had been those
of mother and son.

I skirted cautiously around the rear of the lodges to avoid encountering
Diable, or his squaw. The form of a man hulked against me in the dark.
'Twas Louis.

"Mon Dieu, Gillespie, I thought one scalp was gone," he gasped.

"What are you here for? You don't want to be seen with me," I protested,
grateful and alarmed for his foolhardiness in coming to meet me.

"Sacredie! The dogs! They make pretty music at your shins without me,"
and Louis struck boldly across the open for his tent. "Fool to stay so
long!" he muttered. "I no more ever help you once again! Mon Dieu! No! I
no promise my scalp too! They found your horses in the valley! They--how
you say it?--think for some Mandane is here and fear. They rode back
fast on your horses. 'Twas why I whistle for, twice so quick! They ride
north in the morning. I go too, with the devil and his wife! I be gone
to the devil this many a while! But I must go, or they suspect and knife
me. That vampire! Ha! she would drink my gore! I no more have nothing to
do with you. Before morning, you must do your own do alone! Sacredie! Do
not forget, I pay you back yet!"

So he rattled on, ever keeping between me and the lodges. By his
confused words, I knew he was in great trepidation.

"Why, there are my horses!" I exclaimed, seeing all six standing before
Diable's lodge.

"You do your do before morning! Take one of my saddles!" said Louis.

Sure enough, all my saddles were piled before the Iroquois' wigwam; and
there stood my enemy and the Sioux squaw, talking loudly, pointing to
the horses and gesticulating with violence.

"Mon Dieu! Prenez garde! Get you in!" muttered Louis. We were at his
tent door, and I was looking back at my horses. "If they see you, all is
lost," he warned.

And the warning came just in time. With that animal instinct of
nearness, which is neither sight, nor smell, my favorite broncho put
forward his ears and whinnied sharply. Both Diable and the squaw noted
the act and turned; but Louis had knocked me forward face down into the
tent.

With an oath, he threw himself on his couch. "Take my saddle," he said.
"I steal another. Do your do before morning. I no more have nothing to
do with you, till I pay you back all the same!"

And he was presently fast asleep, or pretending to be.




CHAPTER XIX

WHEREIN LOUIS INTRIGUES


Next morning Le Grand Diable would set out for the north. This night,
then, was my last chance to rescue Miriam. "Do your do before morning!"
How Laplante's words echoed in my ears! I had told Miriam a stormy night
was to be the signal for our attempt; and now the rising moon was
dispelling any vague haziness that might have helped to conceal us. In
an hour, the whole camp would be bright as day in clear, silver light.
Presently, the clatter of the lodges ceased. Only an occasional snarl
from the dogs, or the angry squeals of my bronchos kicking the Indian
ponies, broke the utter stillness. There was not even a wind to drown
foot-treads, and every lodge of the camp was reflected across the ground
in elongated shadows as distinct as a crayon figure on white paper. What
if some watchful Indian should discover our moving shadows? La Robe
Noire's fate flashed back and I shuddered.

Flinging up impatiently from the robes, I looked from the tent way. Some
dog of the pack gave the short, sharp bark of a fox. Then, but for the
crunching of my horses over the turf some yards away, there was
silence. I could hear the heavy breathing of people in near-by lodges.
Up from the wooded valley came the far-off purr of a stream over stony
bottom and the low washing sound only accentuated the stillness. The
shrill cry of some lonely night-bird stabbed the atmosphere with a throb
of pain. Again the dog snapped out a bark and again there was utter
quiet.

"One chance in a thousand," said I to myself, "only one in a thousand;
but I'll take it!" And I stepped from the tent. This time the wakeful
dog let out a mouthful of quick barkings. Jerking off my boots--I had
not yet taken to the native custom of moccasins--I dodged across the
roadway into the exaggerated shadow of some Indian camp truckery. Here I
fell flat to the ground so that no reflection should betray my
movements. Then I remembered I had forgotten Louis Laplante's saddle.
Rising, I dived back to the tepee for it and waited for the dogs to
quiet before coming out again. That alert canine had set up a duet with
a neighboring brute of like restless instincts and the two seemed to
promise an endless chorus. As I live, I could have sworn that Louis
Laplante laughed in his sleep at my dilemma; but Louis was of the sort
to laugh in the face of death itself. A man flew from a lodge and
dealing out stout blows quickly silenced the vicious curs; but I had to
let time lapse for the man to go to sleep before I could venture out.

Once more, chirp of cricket, croak of frog and the rush of waters
through the valley were the only sounds, and I darted across to the camp
shadow. Lying flat, I began to crawl cautiously and laboriously towards
my horses. One gave a startled snort as I approached and this set the
dogs going again. I lay motionless in the grass till all was quiet and
then crept gently round to the far side of my favorite horse and caught
his halter strap lest he should whinny, or start away. I drew erect
directly opposite his shoulders, so that I could not be seen from the
lodges and unhobbling his feet, led him into the concealment of a group
of ponies and had the saddle on in a trice. To get the horse to the rear
of Miriam's tent was no easy matter. I paced my steps so deftly with the
broncho's and let him munch grass so often, the most watchful Indian
could not have detected a man on the far side of the horse, directing
every move. Behind the Sioux lodge, the earth sloped abruptly away, bare
and precipitous; and I left the horse below and clambered up the steep
to the white wall of Miriam's tent. Once the dogs threatened to create a
disturbance, but a man quieted them, and with gratitude I recognized the
voice of Laplante.

Three times I tapped on the canvas but there was no response. I put my
arm under the tent and rapped on the ground. Why did she not signal? Was
the Sioux squaw from the other lodge listening? I could hear nothing but
the tossings of the child.

"Miriam," I called, shoving my arm forward and feeling out blindly.

Thereupon, a woman's hand grasped mine and thrust it out, while a voice
so low it might have been the night breeze, came to my ear--"We are
watched."

Watched? What did it matter if we were? Had I not dared all? Must not
she do the same? This was the last chance. We must not be foiled. My
horse, I knew, could outrace any cayuse of the Sioux band.

"Miriam," I whispered back, lifting the canvas, "they will take you away
to-morrow--my horse is here! Come! We must risk all!"

And I shoved myself bodily in under the tent wall. She was not a hand's
length away, sitting with her face to the entrance of Diable's lodge,
her figure rigid and tense with fear. In the half light I could discern
the great, powerful, angular form of a giantess in the opening. 'Twas
the Sioux squaw. Miriam leaned forward to cover the child with a motion
intended to conceal me, and I drew quickly out.

I thought I had not been detected; but the situation was perilous
enough, in all conscience, to inspire caution, and I was backing away,
when suddenly the shadows of two men coming from opposite sides appeared
on the white tent, and something sprang upon me with tigerish fury.
There was the swish of an unsheathing blade, and I felt rather than saw
Le Grand Diable and Louis Laplante contesting over me.

"Never! He's mine, my captive! He stole my saddle! He's mine, I tell
you," ground out the Frenchman, throwing off my assailant. "Keep him for
the warriors and let him be tortured," urged Louis, snatching at the
Indian's arm.

I sprang up. It was Louis, who tripped my feet from under me, and we two
tumbled to the bottom of the cliff, while the Indian stood above
snarling out something in the Sioux tongue.

"Idiot! Anglo-Saxon ox!" muttered Louis, grappling with me as we fell.
"Do but act it out, or two scalps go! I no promise mine when I say I
help you, bah----"

That was the last I recall; for I went down head backwards, and the blow
knocked me senseless.

When I came to, with an aching neck and a humming in my ears, there was
the gray light of a waning moon, and I found myself lying bound in
Miriam's tent. Her child was whimpering timidly and she was hurriedly
gathering her belongings into a small bundle.

"Miriam, what has happened?" I asked. Then the whole struggle and
failure came back to me with an overwhelming realization that torture
and death would be our portion.

"Try no more," she whispered, brushing past me and making as though she
were gathering things where I lay. "Never try, for my sake, never try!
They will torture you. I shall die soon. Only save the child! For
myself, I am past caring. Good-by forever!" and she dashed to the other
side of the tent.

At that, with a deal of noisy mirth, in burst Laplante and the Sioux
squaw.

"Ho-ho! My knight-errant has opened his eyes! Great sport for the
braves, say I! Fine mouse-play for the cat, ho-ho!" and Louis looked
down at me with laughing insolence, that sent a chill through my veins.
'Twas to save his own scalp the rascal was acting and would have me act
too; but I had no wish to betray him. Striking at her captives and
rudely ordering them out, the Sioux led the way and left Louis to bring
up the rear.

"Leave this, lady," said Louis with an air that might have been
impudence or gallantry; and he grabbed the bundle from Miriam's hand and
threw it over his shoulder at me. This was greeted with a roar of
laughter from the Sioux woman and one look of unspeakable reproach from
Miriam. Whistling gaily and turning back to wink at me, the Frenchman
disappeared in Diable's lodge. For my part, I was puzzled. Did Louis act
from the love of acting and trickery and intrigue? Was he befooling the
daughter of L'Aigle, or me?

They tore down Diable's tepee, stringing the poles on the bronchos
stolen from me and leaving Miriam's white tent with the Sioux. I saw
them mount with my horses to the fore, and they set out at a sharp trot.
From the hoof-beats, I should judge they had not gone many paces, when
one rider seemed to turn back, and Louis ran into the tent where I lay.
I did not utter one word of pleading; but as he stooped for Miriam's
bundle, he whisked out a jack-knife and my heart bounded with a great
hope. I suppose, involuntarily, I must have lifted my arms to have the
bonds severed; for Laplante shook his head.

"No--mine frien'--not now--I not scalp Louis Laplante for your
sake,--no, never. Use your teeth--so!" said he, laying the blade of the
knife in his own teeth to show me how; and he slipped the thing into
hiding under my armpits. "The warriors--they come back to-day," he
warned. "You wait till we are far, then cut quick, or they do worse to
you than to La Robe Noire! I leave one horse for you in the valley
beyond the beaver-dam. Tra-la, comrade, but not forget you. I pay you
back yet all the same," and with a whistle, he had vanished.

I hung upon the Frenchman's words as a drowning sailor to a life-line,
and heard the hoof-beats grow fainter and fainter in the distance,
hardly daring to realize the fearful peril in which I lay. By the light
at the tent opening, I knew it was daybreak. Already the Sioux were
stirring in their lodges and naked urchins came to the entrance to hoot
and pelt mud. Somehow, I got into sitting posture, with my head bowed
forward on my arms, so I could use the knife without being seen. At
that, the impertinent brats became bolder and swarming into the tent
began poking sticks. I held my arm closer to my side, and felt the hard
steel's pressure with a pleasure not to be marred by that tantalizing
horde. There seemed to be a gathering hubbub outside. Indians, squaws
and children were rushing in the direction of the trail to the Mandanes.
The children in my tent forgot me and dashed out with the rest. I could
not doubt the cause of the clamor. This was the morning of the warriors'
return; and getting the knife in my teeth, I began filing furiously at
the ropes about my wrists. Man is not a rodent; but under stress of
necessity and with instruments of his own designing, he can do something
to remedy his human helplessness. To the din of clamoring voices outside
were added the shouts of approaching warriors, the galloping of a
multitude of horses and the whining yells of countless dogs.

While all the Sioux were on the outskirts of the encampment, I might yet
escape unobserved, but the returning braves were very near. Putting all
my strength in my wrists, I burst the half-cut bonds; and the rest was
easy. A slash of the knife and my feet were free and I had rolled down
the cliff and was running with breathless haste over fallen logs, under
leafy coverts, across noisy creeks, through the wooded valley to the
beaver dam. How long, or how far, I ran in this desperate, heedless
fashion, I do not know. The branches, that reached out like the bands of
pursuers, caught and ripped my clothing to shreds. I had been bootless,
when I started; but my feet were now bare and bleeding. A gleam of
water flashed through the green foliage. This must be the river, with
the beaver-dam, and to my eager eyes, the stream already appeared muddy
and sluggish as if obstructed. My heart was beating with a sensation of
painful, bursting blows. There was a roaring in my ears, and at every
step I took, the landscape swam black before me and the trees racing
into the back ground staggered on each side like drunken men. Then I
knew that I had reached the limit of my strength and with the domed
mud-tops of the beaver-dam in sight half a mile to the fore, I sank down
to rest. The river was marshy, weed-grown and brown; but I gulped down a
drink and felt breath returning and the labored pulse easing. Not daring
to pause long, I went forward at a slackened rate, knowing I must
husband my strength to swim or wade across the river. Was it the
apprehension of fear, or the buzzing in my ears, that suggested the
faint, far-away echo of a clamoring multitude? I stopped and listened.
There was no sound but the lapping of water, or rush of wind through the
leaves. I went on again at hastened pace, and distinctly down the valley
came echo of the Sioux war-whoop.

I was pursued. There was no mistaking that fact, and with a thrill,
which I have no hesitancy in confessing was the most intense fear I have
ever experienced in my life, I broke into a terrified, panic-stricken
run. The river grew dark, sluggish and treacherous-looking. By the
blood flowing from my feet, Indian scouts could track me for leagues. I
looked to the river with the vague hope of running along the water bed
to throw my pursuers off the trail; but the water was deep and I had not
strength to swim. The beaver-dam was huddled close to the clay bank of
the far side and on the side, where I ran, the current spread out in a
flaggy marsh. Hoping to elude the Sioux, I plunged in and floundered
blindly forward. But blood trails marked the pond behind and the soft
ooze snared my feet.

I was now opposite the beaver-dam and saw with horror there were
branches enough floating in mid-stream to entangle the strongest
swimmer. The shouts of my pursuers sounded nearer. They could not have
known how close they were upon me, else had they ambushed me in silence
after Indian custom, shouting only when they sighted their quarry. The
river was not tempting for a fagged, breathless swimmer, whose dive must
be short and sorry. I had nigh counted my earthly course run, when I
caught sight of a hollow, punky tree-trunk standing high above the bank.
I could hear the swiftest runners behind splashing through the marsh
bed. Now the thick willow-bush screened me, but in a few moments they
would be on my very heels. With the supernatural strength of a last
desperate effort, I bounded to the empty trunk and like some hounded,
treed creature, clambered up inside, digging my wounded feet into the
soft, wet wood-rot and burrowing naked fingers through the punk of the
rounded sides till I was twice the height of a man above the blackened
opening at the base. Then a piece of wood crumbled in my right hand.
Daylight broke through the trunk and I found that I had grasped the edge
of a rotted knot-hole.

Bracing my feet across beneath me like tie beams of raftered
scaffolding, I craned up till my eye was on a level with the knot-hole
and peered down through my lofty lookout. Either the shouting of the
Sioux warriors had ceased, which indicated they had found my tracks and
knew they were close upon me, or my shelter shut out the sound of
approaching foes. I broke more bark from the hole and gained full view
of the scene below.

A crested savage ran out from the tangled foliage of the river bank, saw
the turgid settlings of the rippling marsh, where I had been
floundering, and darted past my hiding-place with a shrill yell of
triumph. Instantaneously the woods were ringing, echoing and re-echoing
with the hoarse, wild war-cries of the Sioux. Band after band burst from
the leafy covert of forest and marsh willows, and dashed in full pursuit
after the leading Indian. Some of the braves still wore the buckskin
toggery of their visit to the Mandanes; but the swiftest runners had
cast off all clothing and tore forward unimpeded. The last coppery form
disappeared among the trees of the river bank and the shoutings were
growing fainter, when, suddenly, there was such an ominous calm, I knew
they were foiled.

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