Pushing rapidly ahead I encountered no insuperable obstacles and after a couple of hours I came out upon a wide trail at the summit of the hills and saw spread before me a beautiful valley extending far to the east and to the west. At my feet was the trail leading down past the tent of the imaginary Raban and toward this I reined Red Lightning.
I had not yet crossed the old trail of the ancients when I heard the sound of the flying feet of horses approaching from the west. Here the trail winds upward and passes around the shoulder of a hill and as I looked I saw a running horse come into view and at its heel another in hot pursuit. The rider of the second horse was evidently a Kalkar warrior, as a red robe whipped in the wind behind him, and the figure upon the leading animal I could not identify at first, but as they drew rapidly nearer the streaming hair of its head suggested that it must be a woman.
A Kalkar up to their old tricks, I thought, as I sat watching them. So intent was the man upon his prey that he did not notice me until after he had seized the bridle rein of his quarry and brought both animals to a halt not a score of feet from me, then he looked up in surprise. His captive was looking at me, too.
She was a girl with wide, frightened eyes-appealing eyes that even while they appealed were dulled by hopelessness, for what aid might she expect from one Kalkar against another, and of course she must have believed me a Kalkar.
She was a Kalkar woman, but still she was a woman, and so I was bound to aid her. Even had I not felt thus obligated by her sex I should have killed her companion in any event, for was he not a stranger in addition to being a Kalkar?
I let my Kalkar cloak slip to the ground and I tossed my Kalkar bonnet after it.
“I am The Red Hawk!” I cried as I drew the sword from my belt and touched Red Lightning with my spurs. “Fight, Kalkar!”
The Kalkar tried to bring his spear into play, but it was slung across his back, and he couldn’t unsling it in time; so he, too, drew a sword, and, to gain time, he reined his horse behind that of the girl. But she was master of her own mount now, and with a shake of her reins she had urged her horse forward, uncovering the Kalkar, and now he and I were face to face.
He towered above me and he had the protection of his iron vest and iron bonnet, while I was without even the protection of a shield; but whatever advantage these things might have given him, they were outweighed by the lightness and agility of Red Lightning and the freedom of my own muscles, unencumbered by heavy metal protections.
His big, clumsy horse was ill-mannered, and, on top of all else, the Kalkar’s swordsmanship was so poor that it seemed ill-befitting a brave warrior to take his almost defenseless life; but he was a Kalkar, and there was no alternative. Had I found him naked and unarmed in bed and unconscious with fever, it would still have been my duty to dispatch him, although there had been no glory in it.
I could not, however, bring myself to the point of butchering him without appearing at least to give him a chance and so I played with him, parrying his cuts and thrusts and tapping him now and then upon his metal bonnet and vest. This must have given him hope, for suddenly he drew off and then rushed me, his sword swinging high above his head. What a chance he offered, blundering down upon me with chest and belly and groin exposed, for his iron shirt could never stop a Julian’s point.
So wondrously awkward was his method of attack that I waited to see the nature of his weird technique before dispatching him. I was upon his left front, and when he was almost upon me he struck downward at me and to his left, but he could not think of two things at once-his horse and his opponent-and as he did not strike quite far enough to the left his blade clove his mount’s skull between the ears, and the poor brute, which was rushing forward at the time, fell squarely upon its face, and, turning completely over, pinioned its rider beneath its corpse.
I dismounted to put the man out of his misery, for I was sure he must be badly injured, but I found that he was stone dead. His knife and spear I appropriated, as well as his heavy bow and arrows, although I was distrustful as to my skill with the last weapon, so much lighter and shorter are the bows to which I am accustomed.
I had not concerned myself with the girl, thinking, of course, that during the duel she would take advantage of the opportunity to escape; but when I looked up from the corpse of the Kalkar she was still there, sitting her horse a few yards away and eying me intently.
7
Bethelda
“Well!” I exclaimed. “Why have you not flown?”
“And where?” she demanded.
“Back to your Kalkar friends,” I replied.
“It is because you are not a Kalkar that I did not fly,” she said.
“How do you know that I am no Kalkar,” I demanded, “and why, if I am not, should you not fly from me, who must be an enemy of your people?”
“You called him ‘Kalkar’ as you charged him,” she explained, “and one Kalkar does not call another Kalkar that. Neither am I a Kalkar.”
I thought then of what the Or-tis had told me of the thousand Americans who had wished to desert the Kalkars and join themselves with us. This girl must be of them, then.
“Who are you?” I asked.
“My name is Bethelda,” she replied. “And who are you?”
She looked me squarely in the eyes with a fearless frankness that was anything but Kalkarian. It was the first time that I had had a good look at her, and, by the Flag, she was not displeasing to look at! She had large, gray-green eyes and heavy lashes and a cheerful countenance that seemed even now to be upon the verge of laughter. There was something almost boyish about her, and yet she was all girl. I stood looking at her for so long a time without speaking that a frown of impatience clouded her brow.
“I asked you who you are,” she reminded me.
“I am Julian 20th, the Red Hawk,” I replied, and I thought for an instant that her eyes went a little wider and that she looked frightened; but I must have been mistaken, for I was to learn later that it took more than a name to frighten Bethelda.
“Tell me where you are going,” I said, “and I will ride with you, lest you be again attacked.”
“I do not know where to go,” she replied, “for wherever I go I meet enemies.”
“Where are your people?” I demanded.
“I fear that they are all slain,” she told me, a quiver in her voice.
“But where were you going? You must have been going somewhere.”
“I was looking for a place to hide,” she said. “The Nipons would let me stay with them, if I could find them. My people were always kind to them. They would be kind to me.”
“Your people were of the Kalkars, even though you say you are no Kalkar, and the Nipons hate them. They would not take you in.”
“My people were Americans. They lived among the Kalkars, but they were not Kalkars. We lived at the foot of these hills for nearly a hundred years, and we often met the Nipons. They did not hate us, though they hated the Kalkars about us.”
“Do you know Saku?” I asked.
“Since I was a little child I have known Saku the Chief,” she replied.
“Come, then,” I said; “I will take you to Saku.”
“You know him? He is near?”
“Yes. Come!”
She followed me down the trail up which I had so recently come, and although I begrudged the time that it delayed me, I was glad that I might have her off my hands so easily and so quickly; for of a certainty I could not leave her alone and unprotected, nor could I take her upon my long journey with me even could I have prevailed upon my people to accept her.
In less than an hour we came upon Saku’s new camp, and the little people were surprised indeed to see me, and overjoyed when they discovered Bethelda, more than assuring me by their actions that the girl had been far from stating the real measure of the esteem in which the Nipons held her. When I would have turned to ride away they insisted that I remain until morning, pointing out to me that the day was already far gone, and that being unfamiliar with the trails I might easily become lost and thus lose more time than I would gain.