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Encyclopedia of
Beat Literature
Edited by Kurt Hemmer
Foreword by Ann charters
Afterword by Tim Hunt
Photographs by Larry Keenan
 Encyclopedia of Beat Literature

Copyright © 2007 by Kurt Hemmer

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in

any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,
recording, or by any information storage or retrieval systems, without permis-
sion in writing from the publisher. For information contact:

Facts On File, Inc.

An imprint of Infobase Publishing
132 West 31st Street
New York, NY 10001

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Encyclopedia of beat literature / edited by Kurt Hemmer; foreword by Ann

Charters; afterword by Tim Hunt.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8160-4297-7 (alk. paper)
1. American literature—20th century—Encyclopedias. 2. Authors,
American—20th century—Biography—Encyclopedias. 3. Beat Generation—
Encyclopedias. I. Hemmer, Kurt.
PS228.B6E53 2006
810.9′11—dc22 2005032926

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Text design by Joan M. Toro

Cover design by Semadar Megged/Salvatore Luongo

Printed in the United States of America

VB Hermitage 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Dedicated to Linda, Dick, Erik, and Jason.
page iv blank
 Contents

Foreword vii

Introduction ix

Entries 1

Afterword 357

Selected Bibliography of Major Works by Beat Writers 359

Selected Bibliography of Secondary Sources 372

Beat Generation Movement Chronology 376

Contributors 380

Index 385
page vi blank
 Foreword

F or more than a half-century, writers and critics

have been exploring the controversial nature
of the concept of a Beat Generation and of Beat
experimental aesthetics from Lawrence Ferlinghetti,
Philip Whalen, Gary Snyder, Michael McClure,
LeRoi Jones, John Wieners, as well as Kerouac and
literature. The first article on the Beats, “This Is Ginsberg.
the Beat Generation,” written by novelist John The third anthology appeared in 1961 when
Clellon Holmes for the New York Times in 1952, Thomas Parkinson, a professor of English at the
provoked so many letters to the newspaper’s edi- University of California at Berkeley who had
tor that Holmes spent nearly six months trying to encouraged Ginsberg to enroll as a graduate stu-
answer them. Since his time, scores of journalists dent, compiled A Casebook on the Beat. This
and scholars have offered their different interpreta- collection highlighted “the pros and cons of the
tions of Beat literature, and this encyclopedia is a beat movement—with 39 pieces of beat writ-
worthy continuation of their spirited conversations ing—Kerouac, Ginsberg, and others,” along with
on the subject. attacks on and defenses of the Beats by writers
Which dozen or so volumes do I consider to be such as Norman Podhoretz, Kenneth Rexroth, and
essential among the previous books about Beat lit- Henry Miller.
erature? Still noteworthy in my estimation are the In the 1970s four books stand out in my
three earliest critical anthologies, including Beat estimation. The California poet David Meltzer
authors that followed soon after the publication of did extensive interviews with Rexroth, William
Allen Ginsberg’s Howl and Other Poems (1956) and Everson, Ferlinghetti, Lew Welch, McClure, and
Jack Kerouac’s On the Road (1957). These three Richard Brautigan that were published as a mass-
anthologies expanded the reading audience for the market paperback, The San Francisco Poets (1971).
Beat writers, providing them a contemporary con- After working with Kerouac to compile his bibli-
text and some literary respectability. ography in 1966, Charters published the first full-
The first, Gene Feldmen and Max Gartenberg’s length biography, Kerouac, in 1973, four years after
edition of The Beat Generation and the Angry Young his death.
Men, appeared in 1958 and compared the new The first insightful academic study of the writ-
radical American writers with the group of young ing of Kerouac, Ginsberg, and William Burroughs
contemporary English novelists and playwrights was John Tytell’s Naked Angels in 1976. Two years
considered their British counterparts. later, Barry Gifford and Lawrence Lee published
Two years later Donald M. Allen edited The Jack’s Book, a fascinating series of interviews with
New American Poetry, placing the Beat poets amid “the men and women who populate the Kerouac
their avant-garde contemporaries in the United novels.”
States. To conclude his anthology, Allen included In the 1980s and 1990s commentary on the
“Statements on Poetics,” a discussion about their Beat writers increased from a trickle to a flood, as

vii
viii Encyclopedia of Beat Literature

their work was scrutinized by a growing number In the last half of the 20th century these 12
of academic scholars who understood that their books about the Beats established the canon of
poems and novels were authentic works of litera- important authors and works; in the first years of
ture. Number eight on my Top Titles’ Chart is Tim the 21st century, new books began to investigate
Hunt’s critical study Kerouac’s Crooked Road: The the subject of the Beat literary movement’s place in
Development of a Fiction (1981). Hunt’s laudable the wider context of American culture.
aim was “to reconstruct Kerouac’s development In 2001 Beat Down To Your Soul collected
from a promising imitator (the Wolfean The Town essays, reviews, memoirs, and other material that
and the City of 1948) into intuitive experimentalist explored the different aspects of “Beat.” In 2002
(Visions of Cody, 1952) by way of the relatively con- John Suiter wrote Poets on the Peaks, a brilliant book
ventional novel that still mostly shapes our sense examining how Snyder, Whalen, and Kerouac’s
of his work (On the Road as eventually published work as fire lookouts in the North Cascades con-
by Viking).” tributed to their development as nature writers.
In 1983 appeared The Beats: Literary Bohemians That same year Ronna C. Johnson and Nancy
in Postwar America, issued as volume 16 in the M. Grace edited Girls Who Wore Black, interviews
Dictionary of Literary Biography, 700 pages of bio- with members of three generations of Beat women
graphical essays analyzing the work of the major along with literary analysis from the perspective
and minor Beat authors. of gender criticism. Finally in 2004, Jennie Skerl
In 1991 John Arthur Maynard wrote Venice collected essays that challenged the media stereo-
West: The Beat Generation in Southern California, types and legends about the Beats, emphasizing the
an in-depth investigation of the geography that contribution of African-American and female Beat
supported a community of dissident writers at writers.
midcentury. If the pattern of this unceasing production of
That same year appeared The Portable Beat books on the subject of Beat literature holds—the
Reader, a wide-ranging anthology that celebrated attempt to understand their literary achievement
the development and extent of Beat writing. Last in an expanding cultural context by viewing their
on my list of a dozen essential titles, in 1996 Brenda work from multiple points of view—then this
Knight’s compilation Women on the Beat Generation Encyclopedia of Beat Literature for Facts On File
focused on the work of 40 women writers who are promises to be the most useful of all. Enjoy!
too frequently overlooked in discussions of Beat
literature. Ann Charters
 Introduction

R ob Johnson, the William S. Burroughs scholar

from the University of Texas Pan-American,
began to work on this encyclopedia in 1999. When
logical stories of the Beats’ lives. The two—art and
life—cannot be separated. But neither should the
study of the art be dominated by the study of the
I took over as the editor, the decision was made to lives. After years of studying these countercultural
create a work that focused on the literature rather heroes, I thought the time had come to create a
than the lives and culture of the Beat Generation. work that rigorously examined the work of these
Too often the legends of the Beat Generation have artists as a collective movement that continues to
usurped the primary focus in Beat studies from thrive. My hope is that this text will help perpetu-
the texts themselves. What ultimately makes the ate and invigorate the ongoing intellectual conver-
writers of the Beat Generation important is their sation over what writers and texts are “Beat” and
art. The Encyclopedia of Beat Literature is designed which of them are worthy of continued analysis.
to introduce and guide fans, students, and instruc- The creation of this encyclopedia truly started
tors to some of the most ambitious and stimulating for me in the summer of 1992 when I walked into
works produced by the Beat writers and their allied the Brown University Bookstore on Thayer Street
contemporaries. This volume should complement in Providence, Rhode Island, and discovered Ann
the excellent dictionaries, encyclopedias, historical Charters’s The Portable Beat Reader. I was already
surveys, and biographies already in existence about determined to pursue a career as a literature
the Beat movement as well as those to come. Here instructor, and I wanted to find a genre of writing
is a sampling of novels, memoirs, books of poetry, that would sustain my enthusiasm for the half-
individual poems, essays, and short story collec- dozen or so years required of graduate study. After
tions of some of the best literature that the Beat working intensely on an undergraduate senior the-
movement produced. I wanted to call attention to sis on the novels of Milan Kundera and their rela-
these works as they appeared in their own histori- tion to the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche, I had
cal moments, not as dead things collecting dust on developed a new appreciation for the artistic use of
shelves but as motivating and living stimulators language. I wanted to find something, as William
of the imagination. Both aficionados and novices Carlos Williams would say, written in “American.”
of Beat literature should find material in these What I found was a genre that I anticipate will
pages that will enhance their appreciation of Beat not satiate my enthusiasm during my lifetime.
literature. Reading Charters’s introduction, “Variations on a
The aura surrounding the fantastic and often Generation,” and the selection from Jack Kerouac’s
cinematic lives of the Beat writers at times over- On the Road, which included the mind-blowing
shadows the brilliance of their writing. I myself was line “But then they danced down the streets like
first lured to the exceptional artistry of Beat writing dingledodies, and I shambled after as I’ve been
by the wonderful incandescence of the mytho- doing all my life after people who interest me,

ix
 Encyclopedia of Beat Literature

because the only people for me are the mad ones, on August 13, 1944, for unwanted sexual advances
the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to in Riverside Park (an event that can be said to be
be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the first of the many infamous [and sometimes hor-
the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace rifying] events surrounding the Beats), a bond was
thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow formed among their friends, Ginsberg, Kerouac, and
roman candles exploding like spiders across the Burroughs, that would last the rest of their lives.
stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight What could be called the first truly Beat text, an
pop and everybody goes ‘Awww!,’ ” I decided on the unpublished collaboration between Kerouac and
spot that there was only one place for me to start Burroughs called “And the Hippos Were Boiled
my graduate studies: the University of Connecticut, in Their Tanks,” was inspired by this disturbing
Storrs, where Ann Charters taught a course on the incident. When this group of friends became close
Beat Generation. The Beat lives had fascinated me, with the Times Square hustler Herbert Huncke
but it was Kerouac’s language, a way of writing that in 1946, they were introduced to the term beat,
seemed unlike anything I had heard before, that which Huncke used to express exhaustion and
enraptured me. dejection. Kerouac later combined this mean-
I have been shambling after the Beats ever ing with “beatitude,” making the term beat mean
since. While at the University of Connecticut, exalted spirituality experienced from the travails
I was able to bring the Beat legend and story- of existence. In a discussion with John Clellon
teller Herbert Huncke, with the help of Professor Holmes in November 1948 about what made their
Charters, to campus for a reading. When I picked generation distinct, Kerouac said that they were
up Huncke on December 7, 1997, at the Chelsea part of a “Beat Generation.” The Six Gallery read-
Hotel in New York and drove him to campus while ing, connecting the East Coast Beats and the West
he entertained me, one of my students, and his Coast Beats, in San Francisco on October 7, 1955,
friend Jack Walls with stories of the past and words by Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder, Michael McClure,
of wisdom, I felt that I had walked into the magi- Philip Whalen, and Philip Lamantia, with Kenneth
cal world that I had dedicated myself to studying. Rexroth as master of ceremonies and Kerouac and
Since then I have had the pleasure of organizing Neal Cassady in the audience marked the begin-
readings for Gregory Corso, Michael McClure, ning of a nationwide literary movement of loosely
Janine Pommy Vega, Ted Joans, and Ed Sanders. affiliated artists that we today call Beats.
I eventually went to Washington State University One could do worse than choose January
in Pullman, Washington (where Timothy Leary 14, 1967, as the end of the Beat Generation. On
received his M.S. in psychology in 1946), to work this day more than 20,000 people, including Jim
with Tim Hunt, the author of Kerouac’s Crooked Morrison and the other Doors, assembled at the
Road: The Development of a Fiction, which I still Polo Field in Golden Gate Park, with only two
believe is the finest work of Beat scholarship. Ann mounted police officers in sight, where the Diggers
Charters’s foreword and Tim Hunt’s afterword distributed turkey sandwiches laced with acid pro-
book end this volume and help explain where Beat vided by Owsley, the Hell’s Angels guarded the stage
Studies has been and where it might go. I owe a where Ginsberg, Snyder, Lawrence Ferlinghetti,
great deal to these two tremendous scholars. Lenore Kandel, Jerry Rubin, Timothy Leary, the
From them I learned that a starting point for the Jefferson Airplane, Big Brother and the Holding
birth of the Beat Generation could be 1944 when Company (featuring Janis Joplin), and the Grateful
Burroughs, Kerouac, and Ginsberg were all intro- Dead performed. It was called the Human Be-In,
duced to each other through mutual friends David also known as the “Pow Wow” and the “Gathering
Kammerer and Lucien Carr in New York. Kerouac, of Tribes,” and it morphed the Beat Generation into
Ginsberg, and Carr were studying at Columbia the burgeoning Hippie Generation. Leary called
University. Burroughs had followed his friends from out, “Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out!” After Snyder
St. Louis; Kammerer and Carr, from Chicago to blasted his conch shell to signal the conclusion to
New York. When Carr stabbed Kammerer to death the event, Ginsberg helped convince participants
 Introduction xi

to clean the area, and people went to watch the Beat scholars at a conference in Albuquerque, New
sunset over the Pacific Ocean. But there was no Mexico, several years ago, the inevitable question
clear break between the Beats and the Hippies. It “What makes a writer ‘Beat’?” came up. I gave a
was the case of an underground movement spread- tongue-in-cheek response that a Beat writer is any
ing to the colleges and the suburbs. As Jennie Skerl contemporary of Allen Ginsberg’s who was either
astutely asserts, it was the first time an avant-garde championed by Ginsberg or influenced by his poet-
movement became a popular movement. ics. I think there is some truth in this definition, but
In selecting these entries, the contributors and ultimately there will never be a final definition of
I attempted to choose the best, most famous, and Beat. Each scholar and each generation will come
most innovative works associated with the various up with their own definition of Beat. In the present
Beat aesthetics. Beat historian purists might look time Beat has been used quite often as a marketing
askance at the inclusion in this encyclopedia of tool to sell books. This does not necessarily have
works by writers whose major body of work either to be a bad thing. In an age where fewer and fewer
comes before or after what has generally been young people read for entertainment, anything that
accepted as the period of Beat writing, like Kathy can spark more reading should be embraced. If
Acker, Oscar Zeta Acosta, Paul Bowles, Charles anyone is influenced to read a so-called Beat work
Bukowski, Jim Carroll, Robert Creeley, Ed Dorn, because they found the entry on it in this encyclo-
William Everson, Richard Fariña, Abbie Hoffman, pedia interesting, then I think of that as a success. If
Ken Kesey, Timothy Leary, Charles Olson, Kenneth calling a work Beat helps more people pay attention
Rexroth, Hunter S. Thompson, and ruth weiss. It is to it, then I am all for it.
part of the ambition of this encyclopedia to broaden That is partially why I did not shy away from
our understanding of what can be called “Beat.” including Bob Dylan’s Tarantula, John Lennon’s
In that effort I have tried to cast a broad net to In His Own Write, and Jim Morrison’s The New
include popular works by contemporaneous artists Creatures in this encyclopedia. I feel that all of
that influenced or were influenced by the various these works can be considered “Beat,” though I
Beat aesthetics. Though the Beat Generation came know that there will be some who will frown on the
to an end, the Beat movement can be seen as a liv- inclusion of these artists, known primarily for being
ing thing continuing to this day. As of the publica- rock stars, in this volume. I feel that work by Lou
tion of this encyclopedia, Beat poets like Michael Reed and Patti Smith could also be considered Beat.
McClure and Janine Pommy Vega continue to Some of the heirs of the Beat Generation are rock
produce some of their best work. lyricists who, like Dylan and Morrison, took the
A few scholars and fans will undoubtedly be writing of lyrics to a new level after being inspired
upset by those works not included in this ency- by Beat literature. Each generation of rock stars
clopedia. This encyclopedia is a sampling of the seems to include those inspired by the Beats. In
best works written by the Beat writers and those the 1960s it was Dylan hanging out with Ginsberg,
profoundly influenced by the Beat movement. and Morrison hanging out with McClure; in the
Other writers who were influenced by the move- 1970s it was Lou Reed, Patti Smith, and the New
ment are not covered here. Some of the most nota- York punk scene taking Burroughs as their honor-
ble include Helen Adam, Paul Blackburn, Robin ary grandfather; in the 1980s it was The Clash
Blaser, Chandler Brossard, William S. Burroughs, performing with Ginsberg; in the 1990s it was Kurt
Jr., Robert Duncan, Jan Kerouac, Kenneth Koch, Cobain collaborating with Burroughs; and today it
Tuli Kupferberg, Sheri Martinelli, Joanna McClure, is Black Rebel Motorcycle Club naming their album
Frank O’Hara, Peter Orlovsky, Kenneth Patchen, Howl in honor of Ginsberg’s famous poem. In the
Stuart Z. Perkoff, Hubert Selby, Jr., Carl Solomon, “Rock and Roll” class that I team–teach with Greg
Jack Spicer, and Alexander Trocchi. If this ency- Herriges at Harper College, which analyzes certain
clopedia inspires conversations about the writers rock lyrics as poetry, I have the personal dictum:
and works I have neglected, I can only think that it Lure them in with rock ’n’ roll; send them out with
is a constructive endeavor. In a conversation with Blake, Rimbaud.
xii Encyclopedia of Beat Literature

Though not included in this encyclopedia, they were published, and (3) in the order that they
some works by non-Beat writers are so power- chronologically follow Kerouac’s life.
fully connected to Beat literature that they could One of the major mistakes fans, students, and
almost be called Beat themselves. Such works scholars of Beat literature make is viewing the fic-
include Norman Mailer’s “The White Negro,” tion of the Beat writers as autobiography rather than
his controversial and influential essay about autobiographical. This is an understandable mistake
the source of the white hipster coming from considering that the Beat writers themselves, in post-
African-American culture; Tom Wolfe’s brilliant modern fashion, encouraged the blurring of the lines
Kerouacian telling of the famous ramblings of Ken between fiction and autobiography. Unfortunately
Kesey, Neal Cassady, and The Merry Pranksters, the mistake of blindly accepting Beat fiction as auto-
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test; Tom Robbins’s biography has caused many errors in the biographical
Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, with the presence of accounts of the Beats. This encyclopedia tries not to
Kerouac hovering over it; and Tripmaster Monkey: repeat those errors; thus it stresses the distinction
His Fake Book, Maxine Hong Kingston’s portrait between autobiography and autobiographical.
of a Chinese-American Beat, Wittman Ah Sing. I would also like to add that one of the things
The point I am trying to make by bringing up I appreciate about the Beat movement the most
these texts is that our understanding of “Beat” will is its inclusivity. If one looks hard enough one
become increasingly complicated as time goes by. will find “Beats” of nearly every walk of life: men
And that is a good thing. and women; gay, straight, bisexual, and asexual;
Though I included such popular classics as Jim Democrats, Republicans, anarchists, socialists, and
Carroll’s The Basketball Diaries, Richard Fariña’s communists; whites, African Americans, Latinos,
Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me, and Asian Americans, and representatives from a dozen
Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las countries other than the United States. I do not
Vegas in this encyclopedia, I also included neglected think any other artistic movement has the degree
classics like Ed Dorn’s Gunslinger, Brenda Frazer’s of inclusivity that the Beat movement has.
Troia: Mexican Memoirs, and Jack Micheline’s River The contributors for this encyclopedia worked
of Red Wine and Other Poems, among others. Just very hard; I would like to thank each and every
because a work is popular does not denigrate it as a one of them for their efforts. In particular I would
work of art, and just because a book is out of print like to thank Jeff Soloway at Facts On File for his
does not mean that it is not potentially worthy help and insight. I would also like to acknowledge
of study. These lessons I learned specifically from certain people who discussed this project with me
being a Beat scholar. in person, on the phone, or via e-mail and pointed
Fans and scholars will note that Jack Kerouac me in directions about which I would not have
is heavily represented in this encyclopedia. As known and encouraged me: James Grauerholz,
a scholar of “The King of the Beats,” I would Oliver Harris, Tim Hunt, Ronna C. Johnson,
argue that Kerouac is the seminal literary figure Eliot Katz, Larry Keenan, William Lawlor, Kevin
of the movement. The main reason there are so Ring, Bob Rosenthal, and Robert Yarra. Without
many entries on works by Kerouac is that I feel their help this encyclopedia would not exist. The
the Dulouz Legend, his collection of novels that wonderful conversations I had and the people with
fictionalize his life, which includes On the Road, whom I became acquainted while working on this
The Subterraneans, The Dharma Bums, Doctor Sax, project made it all worthwhile. Though I am sure
Maggie Cassidy, Tristessa, Lonesome Traveler, Big Sur, that errors still remain, the contributors and I spent
Visions of Gerard, Desolation Angels, Satori in Paris, a great deal of time trying to create an accurate,
Vanity of Duluoz, and Visions of Cody, can be con- informative, and entertaining text. Those mistakes
sidered one masterwork. It is one of the crowning that remain are my responsibility alone. This has
achievements of the Beat movement. There are been a labor of love. I hope you enjoy it.
three major ways of approaching this work: (1) in
the order that they were written, (2) in the order Kurt Hemmer
 A
“Abomunist Manifesto” Bob Kaufman (1959) in language, in the scene, and even in the project
When it appeared—first as a sequence in Beati- of writing a manifesto. The title alone references
tude, the San Francisco mimeo-zine bob kaufman not only, most famously, Karl Marx’s Communist
coedited with Bill Margolis, subsequently as a City Manifesto and André Breton’s surrealist one but
Lights broadside in 1959, and finally included also the popular cultural figure of the abominable
in Kaufman’s first book, Solitudes Crowded with snowman (also known as the yeti, the sasquatch,
Loneliness (1965)—“Abomunist Manifesto” was bigfoot, etc.), which, as a mythical humanoid or
as significant to the Beat Generation’s self-for- rarely sighted, undiscovered primate, haunted the
mation as allen ginsberg’s “HOWL.” The mid–20th-century North American imagination
(in)famous November 30, 1959, article “The much as the “specter of communism” haunted mid–
Only Rebellion Around” by Paul O’Neil in Life 19th-century Europe. This humanoid was such a
magazine on the Beat phenomenon, which novel concept that none of the terms listed above
brought stereotyped images of the Beat Genera- appears in Webster’s 1966 New World Dictionary.
tion into the mainstream, featured a now-iconic In a sense “Abomunist Manifesto” resonates with
photograph of a white Beat couple and baby in Kaufman’s own multiraciality and elusiveness; he
their “pad”; the young man is lying on the floor plays skillfully on the image of the black person in
reading “Abomunist Manifesto.” the eyes of 1950’s white bohemia as a mystery, a se-
Characterized by Kaufman’s signature puns, ductive but scary, sort-of human, sort-of not. To be
wild wit, and blend of politically trenchant street sure, this element of abomunism was lost on most
humor and popular culture with high cultural ref- of its white readership, who saw the abomunist as
erences, “Abomunist Manifesto” is clearly both a lovably nonconformist Beat like themselves—
a manifesto and a send-up of manifestos, both an Camus’s stranger crossed with Holden Caulfield,
homage to and a parody of communism’s and surre- an existentialist Huck Finn. “Abomunist” also, im-
alism’s attempts to encode the “mission statement” portantly, references the atom (“A-”)bomb; one of
of a disaffected movement in the deathless lan- Kaufman’s heteronyms in the piece is “bomkauf”
guage of the literary or historical classic. Analogous (bomb-kopf, or bomb-head; also bomb-cough),
to his years-later statement to Raymond Foye, “I another clear reference to the tragedy that, along
want to be anonymous[;] . . . my ambition is to be with the death camps, initiated the era we now call
completely forgotten,” Kaufman captures the Beat postmodern—that is, the end of the modernist il-
investment in disinvestment using pithy, memora- lusion of progress and perfectability, combined with
ble language to describe the ephemeral and elusive. an intensification of modernism’s disaffection and
It is not surprising, given these piquant paradoxes, hopelessness. An “abomunist” is not only abomi-
that the piece itself plays with many contradictions nable (from the Latin abominare, “to regard as an


   “Abomunist Manifesto”

ill omen”), a “frinky” (Kaufman’s Afro-American ABOMUNISTS DO NOT WRITE FOR

inflected neologism that combines funky, freaky, MONEY; THEY WRITE THE MONEY IT-
and kinky) outsider, but also a denizen of that gen- SELF. . . .
eration living under the shadow of potential global
annihilation. Beats were, in a sense, symptoms of ABOMUNIST POETS [ARE] CONFI-
U.S. political and social dysfunction: they were re- DENT THAT THE NEW LITERARY
garded as ill omens by the mainstream, and indeed FORM “FOOTPRINTISM” HAS FREED
they were symptoms of that mainstream’s illness. THE ARTIST OF OUTMODED RE-
“Abomunist Manifesto” itself is divided into STRICTIONS, SUCH AS: THE ABILITY
10 sections, each tellingly titled for maximum co- TO READ AND WRITE, OR THE DE-
medic effect and political edge: “Abomunist Mani- SIRE TO COMMUNICATE. . . .
festo,” “Notes Dis- and Re- Garding Abomunism,”
“Further Notes (taken from ‘Abomunismus und In the compellingly and defiantly nonsensi-
Religion,’ by Tom Man),” “$$ Abomunus Craxi- cal “Abomunist Rational Anthem,” republished
oms $$,” “Excerpts from the Lexicon Abomunon,” in Kaufman’s second book, Golden Sardine, as
“Abomunist Election Manifesto,” “Still Further “Crootey Songo,” language itself disintegrates into
Notes Dis- and Re- Garding Abomunism,” “Boms,” presymbolic scraps of sound expressed through out-
“Abomunist Rational Anthem (to be sung before bursts of protest and play:
and after frinking . . . music composed by Schroeder),”
“Abomunist Documents (discovered during ceremo- Derrat slegelations, flo goof babereo
nies at the Tomb of the Unknown Draftdodger),” and Sorash sho dubies, wago, wailo, wailo.
“Abomnewscast . . . On the Hour. . . .” Each section
varies in format, from a list of dictionary definitions Though it is possible to decode this poem to
or axiomatic definitions of abomunism to newscasts some degree (derrat is tarred backward; slegelations
to a hipster Christ’s diary to sound poetry, provid- elides sludge, flagellation, and legislations, indicat-
ing an antic romp through the Beat/jazz ethos and ing Kaufman’s assessment of United States justice;
more subtly, one might argue, through that of a flow, goof, dubies, and wailo evoke jazz/Beat/drug
black nonconformist. One can see influences such culture, etc.), the point is not to do so, but to ex-
as Lenny Bruce, Lord Buckley, and Mort Sahl in perience the disorientation of babble which at the
the sardonic commentary on current events and same time, like jazz argot, encodes protest. Many
retellings of the Gospels in hipster lingo; revolu- years later, Ishmael Reed chose “Crootey Songo”
tionary patriots and/or traitors Thomas Paine and as the epigraph for the first volume of the Yardbird
Benedict Arnold put in appearances; events like Reader, indicating the ongoing importance of “un-
the then-recent discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls meaning jargon” (Frederick Douglass’s description
as well as the long-past kidnapping and murder of of the vocables and proto-scat of slave songs) for
the Lindbergh baby become matter for absurdist African American poets.
wisecracks. The whole of “Abomunist Manifesto,” in fact,
Barbara Christian, in an early (1972) appraisal performs an aggressive if playful “unmeaning,” as a
of Kaufman’s career, has suggested that the “Mani- verb rather than an adjective. “Abomunist Mani-
festo” is a deconstruction of all known “isms,” that festo” unmeans cold war language and ideology, re-
is, contrived attempts to regiment thought into sys- casting it in a countercultural, minoritarian collage
tems, “last words” that claim authority as the only of American cultural detritus.
words and that thus become implicated in such
final solutions as the atomic bomb. “Manifesto” is- Bibliography
sues behavioral imperatives in descriptive form: Christian, Barbara. “Whatever Happened to Bob
Kaufman?” Black World 21, no. 12: 20–29.
ABOMUNISTS DO NOT FEEL PAIN, NO Damon, Maria. “Unmeaning Jargon/Uncanonized Beati-
MATTER HOW MUCH IT HURTS. . . . tude: Bob Kaufman, Poet.” In The Dark End of the
 Acker, Kathy   

Street: Margins in American Vanguard Poetry. Minne- and Peter Orlovsky. She recalled that they per-
apolis: Minn. University Press, 1993, 32–76. formed dressed in towels and that during the eve-
Edwards, Brent, et al., eds. Callaloo 25, no. 1 (Special ning she “learned more about poetry than [she]
Section on Bob Kaufman): 103–231. had in years of top-level academic training.” At
Kaufman, Bob. Solitudes Crowded with Loneliness. New Brandeis she met her first husband, Robert Acker,
York: New Directions, 1965. who was a student of Herbert Marcuse. (She would
later marry and divorce the composer Peter Gor-
Maria Damon don.) The Ackers followed Marcuse to the Uni-
versity of California, San Diego, where Kathy was
a graduate student in literature and also tutored
Acker, Kathy (1947–1997) students in Greek and Latin. It was there that she
Postmodern writer Kathy Acker once referred to also met two of her most important mentors, David
the Beats as “the first breath of fresh air in [her] and Eleanor Antin.
life,” and she stated repeatedly that william s. Kathy divorced Robert and returned to New
burroughs was her strongest influence. One of York, supporting herself by working in a live (simu-
her most famous novels is Blood and Guts in lated) sex show, as her family had withdrawn finan-
High School. She was a product of the poetry cial support. She returned to San Diego briefly and
and art worlds but wanted to write fiction. Bur- at some point worked as a stripper and had a role
roughs became her model of a conceptualist fiction in at least one porn film. She also wrote under the
writer. A self-described literary terrorist, Acker pseudonym The Black Tarantula, going so far as to
used plagiarism (or piracy, as she liked to say) as a be listed under that name in the Manhattan tele-
formal strategy and attempted to use literary forms, phone directory.
especially the novel, as stages for textual perfor- She lived in New York City during the 1970s
mance art. and was part of the downtown art and literary
She was born Kathy Alexander and grew up scenes, as well as the burgeoning punk movement.
surrounded by privilege in New York City. Her fa- One of her memories from about 1976 was her ap-
ther deserted her mother before she was born, so propriately punkish tribute-by-heckling of Ginsberg
the “father” to whom she refers in her work was when he made an appearance at CBGB. Years later,
her stepfather. She attended exclusive schools she explained:
in uptown Manhattan and as a young teenager
began to sneak away downtown to the bohemian [We] had spontaneously attacked and
East Village. At age 13 she met gregory corso, praised Allen Ginsberg. Attacked him for
who was a neighbor of her then-boyfriend, film- being established, established in a society
maker P. Adams Sitney. Some 20 years later, she which we despised, and for bringing some-
would invite Corso to visit a writing course that thing as boring as real poetry into our terri-
she was teaching at The San Francisco Art Insti- tory of nihilism, formlessness, and anarchic
tute, a course in which the students had refused joy. We revered him because he, and the rest
to read books that she assigned because they of the Beats, were our grandparents. . . .
said all books were passé. None of the students The Beats had understood what it is to
knew who Corso was, nor did they know about feel, therefore, to be a deformity in a normal
the Beats. As Acker told it, “Gregory, in typical (right-wing) world. . . . Ginsberg’s joy, like
Gregory fashion, unzipped his pants while recit- our joy, had the sharpness, the nausea, of all
ing his ‘poesia’ and played with a toy gun. From that comes from pain, from suffering.
then on, all the students read poetry. Gregory
lived for two months with the most beautiful girl During this post-San Diego period, Acker
in the class.” discovered Burroughs; his cut-up technique be-
In 1964 Acker was a student at Brandeis Uni- came crucial to her development as a writer.
versity and attended a reading by allen ginsberg In 1989 she told Sylvére Lotringer that she had
   Acosta, Oscar Zeta

“used The Third Mind [by Burroughs] as experi- Bibliography

ments to teach [herself] how to write.” Acker was Acker, Kathy. “Allen Ginsberg: A Personal Portrait.”
anachronising Burroughs’s and Brion Gysin’s book “Magazine Articles” folder. Box 4. Kathy Acker Pa-
because the time frame in which she claimed to pers. Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collec-
have been using it was the late 1960s and early tions Library. Duke University.
1970s. The Third Mind was not published until ———. “Politics.” In Hannibal Lecter, My Father, edited
1978; however, segments of what eventually com- by Sylvère Lotringer. Semiotext(e) Native Agents
posed it were published through small presses Series, 25–35. New York: Semiotext(e). 1991.
between 1960 and 1973, so she likely read early ———. The Burning Bombing of America. In Rip-Off Red,
pieces. She also possibly had access to the manu- Girl Detective and The Burning Bombing of America.
script. Some of Acker’s very early works bear the New York: Grove Press, 2002.
unmistakable mark of The Third Mind (for exam- Burroughs, William S., and Brion Gysin. The Third Mind.
ple, see Acker’s “Politics” and diary pieces even- New York: Viking Press, 1978.
tually published in 2002 as The Burning Bombing Friedman, Ellen G. “A Conversation with Kathy Acker.”
of America). Acker sliced texts with abandon, dis- The Review of Contemporary Fiction. 9:3 (Fall 1989).
rupting logic and merging images and ideas at the 12–22.
sentence and word levels. Lotringer, Sylvère. “Devoured by Myths.” In Hanni-
Most comparisons of Burroughs and Acker bal Lecter, My Father, edited by Sylvère Lotringer.
tend to focus on their experimentation becoming Semiotext(e) Native Agents Series, 1–24. New
their technique and vice versa; the usefulness of York: Semiotext(e), 1991.
the cut-up to demonstrate literary deviance; and
their critiques of established systems that brain- Bebe Barefoot
wash people so that they become instruments of
the control machine that language represents.
Burroughs’s influence is not as obvious in Acosta, Oscar Zeta (1935–1974[?])
Acker’s later writing but is arguably there on po- Can a 1960s legendary West Coast Chicano
litically and socially important levels because she ­lawyer–activist truly be thought a member of the
seems to have gendered Burroughs’s theories about Beat roster, not least given his various disparaging
the relationship among power, language, and poli- remarks about the movement? If, indeed, he can,
tics. The various personae she projected through it might be as a kind of Beat anti-Beat figure on
her writing, her performances, and her very body his own ironic self-reckoning the “faded beatnik”
reveal increasingly sophisticated and subtle ap- or on that of hunter s. thompson, “the wild
plications of the cut-up technique. The concept boy . . . crazier than neal cassady.” (Thompson
became instrumental not only in her attempts to based Dr. Gonzo in fear and loathing in las
find a language of the body but also in her over- vegas on Acosta.) Certainly in life, as in his writ-
all automythographical project as she disassembled ing, Acosta, like the Beats, plays out a key coun-
layers of patriarchal “myth” which are the result of tercultural role, the maverick, roistering voice
and, in turn, continue to dictate and underlie the from California’s supposed ethnic margin.
controlling Logos that both she and Burroughs Whether the sheer theater of his sex-and-
wished to disassemble. Burroughs’s “reality studio” drugs personal life; his Oakland, San Francisco,
was her patriarchal language. and East Los Angeles law work in domestic and
Acker lived in England throughout most of tenants rights and defense of Brown Power mili-
the 1980s and returned to New York City and San tants; his community politics; or his two landmark
Francisco in the early 1990s, continuing to write, autobiographical fictions—The autobiography
teach, and publish until November 1997 when she of a brown buffalo (1972) and The revolt of
died in an alternative treatment center in Mexico the cockroach people (1973)—Acosta embod-
from complications of metastasized cancer. She was ies a heady, often flamboyant, brew. Life and art
buried at sea—a fitting tribute to a pirate. overlap, the acting-out both in real time and place
 Angel   

and on the page of the persona he at various times and The Revolt of The Cockroach People, the voice
designated “Buffalo Zeta Brown, Chicano Lawyer,” who can both speak of City Lights Bookstore as “a
“The Samoan,” and “Dr. Gonzo.” On the one hand hang-out for sniveling intellectuals,” yet of himself
this interface of self and chicanismo and the aware- as a “flower vato,” or disrespect Ginsberg and Ker-
ness of his own considerable brown flesh within a ouac even as he reminisces about his own “beat-
white America makes him an unlikely Beat candi- nik days.” Beat Chicano or Chicano Beat, Acosta
date. On the other hand, the Beat argot, “on the supplies the grounds, however paradoxical, for an
road” adventures, search for a transcendent spiri- affiliation of spirit and art to the movement.
tuality, and gift for a jack kerouac–style speed of
narrative, gives him genuine Beat plausibility. Bibliography
Acosta, thus, can be construed several ways. Lee, A. Robert. “Chicanismo’s Beat Outrider?: The Texts
There is the Acosta raised in California’s River- and Contexts of Oscar Zeta Acosta.” In The Beat
bank–Modesto who becomes the legal-aid lawyer Generation: Critical Essays, edited by Kostas Myrsia-
after studies at the University of Southern Califor- des, 259–280. New York: Peter Lang, 2002.
nia and qualification for the bar in San Francisco
in 1966. There is the air-force enlistee who, on being A. Robert Lee
sent to Panama, becomes a Baptist-Pentecostal con-
vert and missionary there (1949–52) before opting
for apostasy and a return to altogether more secu- Angel Ray Bremser (1967)
lar ways and times in California. There is the in- Originally published by Tompkins Square Press and
mate of Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, in 1968 who was later by Water Row Press in Poems of Madness &
forced to argue in local court for his own interests Angel (1986), this epic prose poem is printed all in
in uncertain street Spanish (or caló) after a spat capitals. Stanzas are in paragraph form with ubiq-
with a hotelkeeper. There is the tequila drinker and uitous ellipses, ampersands, parentheses, neolo-
druggie who spent 10 years in therapy, the hugely gisms, and scat-talk. This monumental exposition
overweight ulcer sufferer who spat blood, and the of love and lack-love was composed in one night
twice-over divorcee. while Bremser was in solitary confinement at New
Not least there is the Acosta of the barricades, Jersey State Prison in Trenton, New Jersey, on a
the battling lawyer of the “High School 13” and ­Stromberg–Carlson typewriter.
“St Basil’s Cathedral 21” protests in 1968, each trial Angel analyzes and incarnates vast amounts of
of the vato loco militants, and the police-cell death human experience. It is dedicated to bonnie brem-
of the youth Robert Fernandez and the shooting of ser (brenda frazer.) It is about how they met,
award-winning correspondent Reuben Salazar of about youth, and how allen ginsberg’s “howl”
station KMEX. There is the “buffalo” who runs as inspired him. The poem reminds us that Brem-
La Raza Unida independent candidate for sheriff of ser was part of the inner circle of the best minds of
Los Angeles in 1970 and becomes the friend and his generation. References are made about Gins-
political co-spirit of César Chávez and Denver’s berg, Peter Orlovsky, gregory corso, LeRoi Jones
“Corky” Gonzalez. Finally there is the Acosta who (amiri baraka), philip lamantia, william s. bur-
leaves for Mexico in despair at the marring inter- roughs, and jack kerouac. The influence of jazz
nal divisions of Chicano politics, and there is the is also apparent in the poem, and Bremser evokes
eventual desaparecido in 1974, aged 39, who was George Shearing, John Coltrane, and Dizzy Gillespie.
last heard from in Mazatlán, Mexico. His end has It is an overwhelming foray into a nontrivial mind,
long been shrouded in mystery. Was he drugs or conscious of the political realities that separate him
gun running, a victim of accident or foul play, or a from his “angel,” their music, their Beat artist-and-
kind of Chicano Ambrose Bierce who had created poet community. It is rampant with folk and street
his own exit from history? aphorisms and barrels forward with a monster vocab-
From a literary perspective there remains the ulary juxtaposing rare adjective–noun combinations
Acosta of The Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo as poignant and sensible as they are unfamiliar.
   Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo, The

Positioning himself in what would now be marijuana and first LSD use, and offers himself as
called a chauvinistic position as Bonnie’s creator, “another wild Indian gone amok.” Acosta so moni-
Bremser as poet suggests his muse (Bonnie) relies tors “Acosta.” Despite his avowals otherwise, The
on him as much if not more so than he relies on Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo gives grounds, as
her: “I SHAPED HER, LIMNED HER, LIMBED it were, for thinking it a fusion of either Chicano
HER, TRIMMED HER, BLUED HER, GREW Beat or Beat Chicano authorship.
& SYLPHED & HOPED TO GOD & PROPH- As his “brownskin” odyssey, in his own phras-
ECIED HER NIGHTLY & BY DARKNESS EV- ing, unfolds, this same play of styles becomes even
ERYWHERE.” Yet the reader understands that it more emphatic. The Beatles’s “Help” spills its
is this angel/muse who is actually getting the poet harmonies and plaintiveness on to Polk Street.
through the night. Bremser explains his agony: His friend Ted Casey tempts him with mescaline.
“ANGEL THINKS SHE KNOWS HOW HOR- Heroin, or powdered mayonnaise, as he calls it, ap-
RIBLE IT ALL IS! I KNOW SHE HAS A FAN- pears at a Mafia restaurant where he stops for food.
TASTIC CAPACITY TO GET INTO THE Women, his exlover June MacAdoo, Alice, and her
PAIN & TORTURE OF THAT WHICH IS ALL friend Mary all weave into his sexual fantasies even
AROUND HER . . . BUT SHE DON’T KNOW as he frets, with reason, at his own male prowess.
THIS TO ITS SHARP CORE, HER DREAMS The diorama is motleyed, as comic-cuts weave be-
ARE AS FLYING WONDERS COMPARED TO tween illusion and fact.
MY WAKING WALKS THROUGH THE STY- So it is, too, on July 1, 1967, that “Acosta”
GIAN STINKING VOMITED HALLS OF DO- announces himself “the Samoan,” a brown hulk,
LOROUS SPANG & CRONG MUCK.” Bremser’s the author as harlequin. “I’ve been mistaken
positioning himself as a poet, with the help of his for American Indian, Spanish, Filipino, Hawai-
muse Bonnie, is what saves his sanity: “NOBODY ian, Samoan, and Arabian,” he witnesses, adding
KNOWS ANYTHING . . . ONLY THE POETS.” un-politically correct and ruefully, “No one has
As Bremser reminds us, “IT WAS POETRY SAW ever asked me if I’m a spic or greaser.” Is this not
ME THROUGH.” “Acosta” as human multitext, Latino lawyer yet
Latino outrider, Chicano yet also Beat? Certainly,
Andy Clausen and Kurt Hemmer Chicano and Beat influences collude and compete
throughout. On the one hand the narrator looks
back to his Riverbank boyhood with its gang al-
Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo, legiance and fights against the Okies: “I grew up
The Oscar Zeta Acosta (1972) a fat, dark Mexican—a Brown Buffalo—and my
In this first of his two first-person Chicano mem- enemies called me a nigger.” He heads into a “fu-
oirs, the persona assumed by oscar zeta acosta ture” of the Pacific Northwest with the hitchhiker
bows in with a suitably Beat gesture of self- Karin Wilmington, a journey busy in allusion to
­exposure: “I stand naked before the mirror,” a body timothy leary, Jerry Garcia, and The Grate-
of “brown belly” and “extra flesh.” Evacuation be- ful Dead, which takes him into the Hemingway
comes a bathroom opera of heave, color, the moil- country of Ketchum, Idaho. Both come together
ings of fast-food leftovers. Hallucinatory colloquies as he circles in memory back into his Panama
open with “Old Bogey,” James Cagney, and Edward years, his onetime Baptist–Pentecostal phase
G. Robinson. His “Jewish shrink,” Dr. Serbin, be- seeking to become a “Mexican Billy Graham.”
comes the therapist as accuser, a Freudian gargoyle. As he then weaves his way back to Los An-
Glut rules—“booze and Mexican food.” Abandon- geles the itinerary gives off all the eventfulness of
ing his San Francisco legal aid work he plunges into a jack kerouac trajectory: characters like Scott
traffic as though his own on-the-road luminary. He (“a full time dope smuggler and a salesman for Sci-
mocks City Lights bookshop as “a hangout for sniv- entology”) or the waitress Bobbi to whom he de-
eling intellectuals,” throws in a reference to Herb scribes his family as “the last of the Aztecs”; the
Caen as the coiner of “beatnik,” thinks back on his odd jobs, car crashes and blackouts in Colorado;
 Autobiography of LeRoi Jones, The   

the remembrance of detention in a Juarez Jail and 1997 version not only restores most of the original
of a border official telling him, “You don’t look like but, in the light of his transitions from Greenwich
an American you know”; and, almost inevitably, Village–Beat literary bohemian to black nationalist
the pathway back into California along the iconic to Marxist–Leninist, inserts passing Marxist com-
Route 66. Chicano adventurer–author, it might mentaries on the life history to date. In this respect
be said, elides into Beat adventurer–author, Oscar he regards this version as “the first complete edi-
Zeta Acosta as both chicanismo’s own vato loco and tion of The Autobiography of LeRoi Jones.”
Beat’s own Chicano warrior. “White nationalism is the dominant social
ideology” runs an early observation in the in-
Bibliography troduction, a foretaste of the tone to follow. He
Lee, A. Robert. “Chicanismo’s Beat Outrider?: The Texts speaks of his own early temptation toward becom-
and Contexts of Oscar Zeta Acosta.” The Beat Gen- ing a “white-minded Negro,” his rancor at the first
eration: Critical Essays, edited by Kostas Myrsiades. marriage with the white, Jewish hettie jones,
259–280. New York: Peter Lang, 2002. whom he accuses of telling “self-legitimizing mar-
tyr stories,” and his early move into and then out
A. Robert Lee of “White Village socialization (the Beat thing).”
Once launched into The Autobiography of LeRoi
Jones proper, for the most part he follows the his-
Autobiography of LeRoi Jones, The torical trajectory of his life. Newark supplies the
Amiri Baraka (1984) originating site: his postal-supervisor father and
With rarely other than liveliest eloquence, The the family links to the funeral business; his school-
Autobiography of LeRoi Jones offers a full, busy, ing—the fights, gangs, race lines, and black street;
life-and-times of leroi jones/amiri baraka, one radio and comic-book heroes; athletics; and the
of Afro-America’s literary and cultural lead play- early and presiding fascination with blues (“our
ers. It has come to rank with other key works of poem of New World consciousness”) and jazz (“the
modern black U.S. life-writing, such as Richard music took me to places I’d never been”). In these
Wright’s Dixie-to-Chicago Black Boy (1945) and accounts, as in the rest of The Autobiography of
posthumous American Hunger (1977), Chester LeRoi Jones, he writes as a mix of memorial prose–
Himes’s itinerant self-history The Quality of Hurt poem, black vernacular slang, and frequent riffs of
(1972) and My Life of Absurdity (1976), James image and rap.
Baldwin’s Bible-cadenced Notes of a Native Son In remembering his move to the Newark cam-
(1955), the epochal Autobiography of Malcolm X pus of Rutgers University, then two years at How-
(1965), the five-volume portrait begun in Maya ard (“We were not taught to think but readied for
Angelou’s Gather Together In My Name (1974), and super domestic service”), with his follow-on stint
Audre Lorde’s Zami: A New Spelling of My Name as a gun–weatherman in the air force (“discon-
(1982). As for Jones/Baraka and a career spanning nection and isolation”) and from which he was
his Newark, New Jersey, origins, Harlem, Cuba, “undesirably discharged” on grounds of suspected
and Africa, leaving him not only at the forefront communism, he conjures up his passionate jags of
of postwar U.S. writing but the era’s race-and- reading, Dostoyevsky to Joyce, Dylan Thomas to
class politics, he can be said to have had abundant Henry James. His return to Newark leads directly
grounds for speaking of his life as the negotiation into the “hip bohemianism” of Greenwich Village.
of “a maze of light and darkness.” There, his recollections alight on the flurry of new
In his introduction to the 1997 edition, Jones/ self-­awakenings and affairs (“I was like blotting
Baraka confirms that his text met with a tangled paper for any sensation”). He thinks back with
compositional and then publishing history. The some affection to hanging-out at Pandora’s Box
“last writing” ended in 1974. The manuscript lan- and his own writing and art energies amid such
guished and when eventually published in 1984 names as charles olson, frank o’hara, ted
was made subject to unwanted editorial cuts. The joans, Merce Cunningham, John Cage, allen
Another random document with
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showed itself again.

It was so dark here that they could hardly see their hand before
their face; but the scout did not allow them to pause for an instant,
though they almost had to feel their way along. Yet though they
made the best time they could, their pace was slow, for they had as
it were to feel their way along. Haste would only expose them to
more danger, for they would be liable to make some sound which
would betray them. The snapping of a twig might convey to the
savages the knowledge of their whereabouts, and expose them to
capture or instant death.

For some twenty minutes after they had gained the shelter of the
forest, they kept on in this way, and then, in a low tone, the scout
bade them pause.

Each stood motionless in their tracks, their ears strained to the

utmost to catch the faintest sound of their pursuers.

A silence as profound as that of the grave was around them. The

forest seemed to be holding its breath in expectancy.

The savages, if they were following them close, were doing so with
noiseless feet, for not the slightest sound could they catch on either
side.

After a silence the scout spoke again:

“We’re all right now for an hour or two,” he said. “Unless they
stumble over us, they can’t find us more than they can a weasel in a
wall. Should the moon come out bright they may strike our trail and
follow it, but I hardly think they can. But they will do their best 49
as soon as the sun comes up. But by that time we must be a
long way from here toward the settlement. Rushing Water thought
he was sure of the gal when he see us, but he’ll find out afore he’s
through that a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.”
“That’s what old Sal Fisher used to say up in New Hampshire,” said
Peleg. “She—”

What it was she said the company did not learn, for the scout broke
in with:

“Keep that tongue of your’n still, will ye? It’s wuss than a clapper to
a bell; and I shouldn’t wonder if it brought the hull tribe of savages
down upon ye. Follow me ag’in, and don’t one of ye speak above a
whisper.”

The Yankee muttered something in so low a tone that none of the

rest of them understood what it was; and they all moved forward in
the wake of the scout, who notwithstanding the darkness seemed
familiar with every step of the way, far more so than did the settlers
who for years had lived so close to where they were.

The hand of Ruth was yet in that of her lover, and though it still
trembled with fear, the words which he ever and anon whispered in
her ear, went far to reassure her and to give her courage.

Sam Wilson walked by the side of his wife, and behind them bringing
up the rear came Peleg Parker with his pack upon his back.

And so for an hour they went on, plunging deeper and deeper into
the forest, and leaving as they fondly hoped their enemies behind
them.

Were they unable to find their trail before daylight, they were in
hopes to be so far on their way toward the nearest settlement, that
they would have no trouble in making their escape.

Now and then the moon would break through the clouds, deluging
the forest with a flood of silver light, and then it would hide its face
again leaving the night blacker than it was before.
The scout knew well that a savage, even, could not follow a trail
under these circumstances, and with every minute they 50
remained unmolested his spirits rose and he felt more
sanguine of their escape.

Nearly an hour had passed, and they had kept steadily on their way;
when suddenly the scout who had glanced behind them, as the
moon broke forth brilliantly, bade them pause in their tracks.

“What is it? Did you see any thing?” demanded Ned Tapley, in a low
tone.

“Hist! the red-skins are close behind us!” he answered, in a low

voice.

A thrill of alarm and fear struck to the heart of each at these words.

After all their hopes of escape, were they doomed to destruction?

“Are you sure it was savages you saw?” asked Sam Wilson, in a
whisper, as he cast a glance backward over the way they had come.

“Yes. There is one if not more upon our track. I saw him dart behind
a tree as plainly as I can see you now. Most like there are others
along with him though I did not see them.”

“What are we to do?”

“Circumvent the varmints if we can. I know some of their tricks, and

I’m going to play ’em off on them. The moon will be under a cloud
ag’in in a minute and then I’ll see what can be done. Till then let’s
keep on as we’ve been going.”

They went on for perhaps a dozen rods, and then the forest was
buried in darkness again.
“Now is our time,” exclaimed the scout. “I’ll let these red-skins know
that Dick, the Death-Dealer, is on their track yet. He’s sent a great
many of ’em under, and he ain’t got through with the business yet.
You, Sam, go slowly on with the wimmen, and Ned you come with
me. You are a good shot and it may be that I shall have need of
you.”

“You don’t want me, I expect,” said Peleg. “I never was very good at
fighting, and besides I’ve got this ere pack to see to. If the red-skins
get hold on it, I’m ruined etarnelly.”

“No, I don’t want you,” answered Dick. “Stay where you are, 51
and try to keep that tongue of yours still. Mind your rifle, Ned,
and come with me.”

The young man gave the hand of Ruth a warm pressure, and
whispered a word of assurance in her ear. Then he allowed her to
pass on, while he came and stood by the side of the scout, who did
not stir out of his tracks until the others had moved on some dozen
yards or more.

“What are you going to do?” he asked, in a low tone.

“Find out how many red-skins there is behind us, and shoot ’em all if
we can. You see that big tree yonder. Well, get behind it, and shoot
the first red-skin that shows himself. I’ll ’tend to the next one, that
comes to hand. We’ve got to fight ’em here, or the gal is Rushing
Water’s, and we lose our scalps in the bargain.”

“I am ready,” answered Ned. “I had rather die a dozen deaths and

see her a corpse, than she should fall into the hands of the red-
skins.”

“I don’t doubt it a bit, youngster. But between you and I, I’m afeard
our chances are mighty slim. This is a ticklish scrape we’re in, and if
we all get out of it and save our ha’r, we shall do well. But let’s take
our places and see who comes along. If the red-skins have kept on
track of us, they’ll show themselves in a minute or two. Mind that
you don’t waste a bullet, for ev’ry shot is going to tell in this scrape.”

Ned moved to the spot the scout had assigned him, and took up his
position behind the trunk of the tree. Dick at once took a similar
position, and motionless they waited for the coming of their
enemies.

One, two, five minutes passed, and there was no sign of their
coming.

Could it be that the scout had been mistaken? Though it was dark it
was impossible that they should pass them without making their
presence known.

Two minutes more passed and then a flood of moonlight poured

down upon the spot.

So sudden did it come, that for a moment it almost blinded the eyes
of Ned, with its brilliancy. But they became used to it in a moment,
and glancing back along the way they had come, he saw a savage
within two rods of him.

He was moving slowly forward, half-bent to the earth, seeking 52

for their trail.

A better chance for a shot a man never had; and remembering the
injunction of the scout, he raised his rifle and took deliberate aim
upon the savage.

The next instant he pulled the trigger, and the sharp report of his
rifle startled the echoes of the forest while the bullet sped on its
deadly work.

It did it well, for the savage gave a leap into the air, and then fell
forward to the earth, where he lay as motionless as a log.
Another instant, and a second report mingled its echoes with that of
the first.

The eyes of the scout had singled out another enemy, and another
bullet had sped forth on its deadly mission.

But an exclamation of chagrin fell from his lips a moment after.

“I believe I’ve missed him. What’s the matter with you, Susannah?
But like’s not the fault’s in me. He was some ways off and the
moonbeams danced so that I wa’n’t over sure of my aim. But I’ll
have him yet. It won’t do to let him bring the rest of ’em here. Keep
on arter the rest of ’em, youngster. I’ll be back in a minute.”

Hastily reloading his rifle he sprung in the direction of the spot

where he had seen the savage, leaving Ned standing in his tracks
putting another charge into his rifle.

When he neared the spot where the savage had stood, he found
that it was untenanted.

But a glance upon the earth told him that his shot had not been so
poor a one as he had thought.

The leaves were covered with blood, telling that he had wounded
him.

As he saw this he felt better in his mind.

It was seldom he missed an object he took aim upon, and he was

fearful he was losing his art.

“He bleeds like a stuck bison,” he muttered, to himself. “He can’t

have gone a great ways. I’ll make sure of him anyway.”

A bloody trail led away from the spot, and along this he hurried.
For some twenty rods he had no difficulty in keeping it, and 53
then the moon went under a cloud and he was at fault.

Impatiently he stood still, waiting for it to show its face again.

Five, ten minutes passed, and it gave no symptoms of doing so.

He began to grow impatient, and to think if he had not better turn

back and rejoin his friends, and hurry them onward as fast as
possible.

“Let him go,” he muttered, to himself. “I guess he’s done for, so he

won’t trouble us again. But I would like to have made sure of him.”

He gave one more glance up to the clouded sky, and then along the
way the wounded savage had gone. Then he turned upon his heel
and set his face once more in the direction of the spot where he had
left the fugitives.

But he had not taken ten steps in that direction before he gave a
sudden start and then stood as though rooted to the spot.

As well he might, in the alarm and surprise he felt.

A fierce war-whoop, breaking as from a score of throats, resounded

through the arches of the forest.

It came from the direction of the very spot where he supposed his
friends must now be.

The next moment he had sufficient proof that in this he was not
mistaken.

A wild cry of terror and alarm, followed the shout of the savages,
and then the report of a rifle, and soon after, that of a pistol.

The cry came from the lips of Mrs. Wilson and Ruth, and the shots
must be fired by the settler and the Yankee.
The main body of the red-skins must have passed on before so
noiselessly that they had not been observed, and these had lain in
wait for the fugitives, who, all unsuspicious of danger in that
direction, had walked directly into the ambush thus prepared for
them.

For only a moment did the scout stand riveted to the earth, as
though turned to stone by the knowledge of the fearful danger his
friends were in.

The next, he had shot forward as straight as an arrow from a 54

bow, directly for the spot from whence the tumult arose.

He heard the report of another rifle, which he doubted not was that
of Ned, and then two or three in quick succession, which he thought
must doubtless be in the hands of some of the savages.

The tumult continued until he was almost to the spot from whence it
came, and then it suddenly ceased.

“What could this mean?” he asked of himself, as he came to a

sudden halt.

Could it be that the red-skins had slain them all thus quickly?

A fear took hold upon his heart that this was so.

A moment more and his fear was confirmed. Another war-whoop

rung out, and went echoing away through the forest-aisles.

It was a shout of triumph.

There was no mistaking that.

It told the scout so, plainer than words could have done.

His worst fears were realized.

All the trouble and fatigue they had undergone that night had been
for naught. Their bright hopes of escape were at an end.

Rushing Water had secured the prize he coveted, and a worse fate
than that of death was in store for Ruth.

Still, it might be death after all, for had not the Indian girl made a
league with the Wizard to accomplish that end?

All these thoughts ran quickly through his mind as he stood there
uncertain what to do.

In times gone by he had accomplished much with fearful odds

against him; but what could his unaided arm do now against so
many?

Perhaps all his friends but Ruth had fallen; but if they had, he would
not abandon her. So long as she lived he would work for her
deliverance.

But he would not take that shout of triumph as evidence that all was
lost.

Something might be done yet, and he would see with his own eyes
how matters stood.

So he passed slowly onward, keeping a sharp look-out for the 55

enemy.

The moon and clouds favored him, for no ray of light shot down into
the forest.

Noiselessly and with the utmost caution he crept onward, until at

last he was close to the spot from whence the various sounds had
come.
At that moment the moon broke forth from behind the clouds with a
splendor almost like that of the sun.

Hardly a dozen yards before him, he beheld a number of figures

clustered together.

By sight he could not tell whether they were all savages or not; but
he heard the voice of a woman weeping as though in the depths of
despair. But he was not destined to gaze long upon the scene!
Hardly had he taken it in, when an arrow, whizzing close to his head,
told him that he was discovered.

He gave one of the savages the contents of his rifle, and then turned
and fled, muttering, as he did so:

“I’ll leave ye now; but the Death-Dealer ain’t done with ye yet. He’ll
ye pay dearly for this night’s work.”
 CHAPTER VII.
THE MAIDEN’S DOOM.

We will now go back for a few minutes, and note how it was that
Ruth and her friends fell into the clutches of the savages.

It will be remembered that the scout told them to move slowly

onward in the direction they were going; while he and Ned Tapley
attended to the savages whom he had seen hanging in their rear.

These orders they had obeyed, keeping a sharp look-out about them
for danger, until the moment when they had been startled by the
shots fired by their friends behind them.

Ruth, in spite of herself, uttered a cry of terror at the sound, 56

fearful that one of the reports might announce the death of
her lover.

“Hush!” exclaimed her father, warningly. “Be calm, Ruth. You know
that Dick warned us not to speak above our breath.”

They were passing now through a little thicket of evergreens, whose

branches were so thick above their heads that the rays of moonlight
could not penetrate to the earth.

It was as good a place as the savages could have selected for an

ambush; but that there was really danger there, not one of them
suspected.

That, they were looking for in their rear, where the rifle-shots told
them that their friends had already encountered it.

Suddenly the settler, who was leading the way, recoiled as though he
had received a blow.
As if by magic, a savage sprung up before him, directly in his path.

The next instant a cry of fear broke from the lips of his wife and
daughter.

On either side the forms of a half-dozen savages sprung up so close

to them that they could almost have touched them by reaching out
their hands.

Unmindful of the hopelessness of their situation, the settler raised

his rifle and discharged it at the breast of the savage before him.

But the bullet went wide of its mark, for as he pulled the trigger, a
savage upon his right caught hold upon it, and attempted to wrest it
from his grasp.

But this he did not succeed in doing, and pulling it from the clutches
of the savage, the settler brought it down with such force upon his
head as to stretch him senseless upon the earth.

Another savage had sprung upon Peleg Parker, and with one hand
had grasped his pack on his back, while the other he entwined in his
long hair, and attempted to pull him to the earth.

But the Yankee had no notion of parting with the former, even if he
lost his hair, and drawing a pistol he endeavored to shoot down his
opponent. But by some mischance it exploded, before he had 57
taken aim, and throwing it to the earth he had recourse to his
fist.

“Take that, you thieving varmint!” he cried, as he dealt him a blow

between the eyes, that would have felled an ox; “I’ll l’arn ye how to
hanker arter other people’s property.”

The savage went down like a log, but he had so good a hold in the
hair of the Yankee that he took him along with him, and they both
rolled upon the earth together.
Peleg struggled hard to rise; but before he could do so another
savage was firmly planted upon his breast.

Meanwhile Sam Wilson had been assaulted by three or four of the

enemy and was at last borne to the earth; and one of them,
catching him by the hair, circled his scalping-knife above his head as
though he would rob his victim of his scalp, even before he took his
life.

But, with a cry for mercy, Ruth threw herself beside the savage, and
implored him not to do the fatal deed.

“Take my life, if you will,” she cried, “but spare my father. He has
never harmed a red-man, and do not have his blood upon your
hands.”

It was Rushing Water himself to whom she appealed, though she did
not recognize him in the darkness.

“And what will the white maiden give if no harm shall be done to her
friends?” he said, in a low tone.

Ruth felt a ray of hope steal into her heart at these words.

“Any thing she has,” she replied. “If Rushing Water has not a heart
of stone, let no harm be done to any.”

“The will of the white maiden is law to Rushing Water. The lives of
her kindred shall be spared as she asks. But let her remember the
promise she has made. The chief will claim it soon.”

He spoke a word of command, and coming at that moment it saved

the life of at least one of them. An instant later, and the Yankee
would have had no further use for his pack in this world. An arm was
even at that moment raised to take his life.
“Do not save me by any such promise as you have made,” cried her
father. “Think what it is that the chief will require of you. 58
There is but one thing he desires, and that is to take you to
his lodge. Let us rather die where we are, than this fate should be
yours.”

Ruth felt her heart sink like lead in her bosom. But her promise had
been given and she would not revoke it. Of what use would it be for
her to do so. She was completely in his power, and he would do with
her as he chose, even though she stood out against him. Now she
had his promise that the lives of her friends should be spared, and
that was more than she had hoped for.

At this moment there was the report of another rifle, and a bullet
whistled above their heads.

Our friends knew well it came from Ned’s rifle, and that he was
rushing upon his own destruction.

But there was no help for it. Even before they had a chance to think,
he had dashed wildly in among them, dealing blows right and left
with the breech of his rifle.

But his career was of short duration. Valiant as he was, he could not
successfully contend against such fearful odds, and in less time than
it takes to tell it, he was thrown to the earth, where his limbs were
secured in such a manner that he was entirely powerless.

His life would have been taken in an instant, had it not been for the
promise the chief had given to Ruth, and who eagerly reminded him
of it when she saw the fearful danger her lover was in.

“Thank God, Ruth, you are alive,” cried the young man, as he
hopelessly wrestled with his captors. “I was fearful that you all had
perished.”
“But we are unharmed, Ned. The chief has promised that for the
present, at least, our lives shall be spared. Therefore, make no more
resistance as it will only be worse for us all.”

Sam Wilson heaved a groan.

“But she throws herself away, Ned, to save us. Better by far that we
never move from this spot. Oh! that I should have ever lived to see
this hour when my child sells herself to save the lives of her friends.”

Ned Tapley started up, and strained at the bonds that fettered his
limbs with all his strength.

“What do you mean?” he cried. “Ruth, what is it that you have 59

promised?”

“Let the white maiden be still. Rushing Water will answer the pale-
face’s words. She is to be the bride of the chief. When the Indian
village is gained, she will go to his lodge. Let her pale-face friends
keep as silent as the dead if they would live. If they do not, the chief
may forget his promise and slay them now. The white maiden will be
his all the same.”

Our friends knew by the tone in which these words were uttered,
that the chief meant what he said, and that he would not hesitate a
moment to carry out his threats. Therefore, they thought silence on
their part was the best thing for them now. It was hard for the
settler, or Ned, to contain themselves, yet they saw that they must if
they would save their own lives. Something might turn up before the
Indian village was reached which would help them to make their
escape. As yet the scout was free, and they hoped he would remain
so; for it might be that he could achieve their deliverance. If man
could do it, they knew he would.

Each silently prayed that he might make good his escape, instead of
coming to their assistance now. He could do no good at present, and
should he fall into their hands his doom was sealed at once. No
power on earth could prevent their taking summary vengeance upon
him. The Death-Dealer had sent too many of their braves to the
spirit-land, for them to spare him, should they once get him into
their clutches.

The work of securing their captives had hardly been completed,

when one of them caught a glimpse of the scout surveying the
scene before him.

His form was too well known to them; too strange and uncouth to
be mistaken, and a flight of arrows was at once sent in his direction,
while they bounded forward toward the spot where he stood. A
parting shot from him, which made one of them bite the dust, was
what they received in return, and then he fled away, while they
followed on for awhile, in what they knew, from past experiences,
would be hopeless pursuit.

Meanwhile those that remained behind carefully secured those of

their prisoners that as yet had remained unbound.

Peleg Parker submitted to his bonds with very ill grace. With 60
his hands bound tightly behind him he felt that he had not so
good a hold upon his pack as he could have desired.

In fact now it was at the mercy of the savages whenever they saw
fit to explore its mysteries.

That they would find an opportunity to do so sooner than he liked he

had no doubt.

He had first tried to coax and then to hire the savages not to bind
him.

He was magnanimous enough to offer them two dollars “and the

darndest best chance to trade they ever had in their lives” to let him
go, but it had no effect upon their hardened natures.
They kept at their work as unconcernedly as though he had not
been talking to them as fast as his tongue could run.

At first it had been in a low tone, but as he found he made no

impression upon them, he kept raising his voice, until at last it
became a whining sort of a howl.

At last Rushing Water thought it was about time for him to stop, and
striding up to where he lay he shook his knife threateningly at him.

“Let not the pale-face whine like a licked cur,” he said. “If the chief
hears more, the coward shall have a knife in his heart.”

Peleg thought it best to keep quiet, though he was half tempted to

ask him how he would trade the knife he held in his hand for one
that he carried in his pack. But the moonlight was shining upon the
face of the savage and he saw a look in his eye which told him that
it would require but little to make him put his threat into execution.

None of them had been spared the bonds. Even Mrs. Wilson and
Ruth were secured the same as their male friends, though perhaps
their bonds were a little softer and not drawn quite so tightly.
Evidently Rushing Water did not mean that any of his captives
should escape him through any fault of his.

In less than half an hour, those who had gone in pursuit of the
scout, returned. As their chief expected they came empty-handed.
None of them were fleet enough to overtake the Death-Dealer. 61
They had tried that game with him before and had always
failed. There was not a savage on the river who could keep pace
with him when he done his best.

It was now near daylight. A little longer and the short summer night
would be gone and the East would grow gray with the coming morn.

The night had been one of toil and excitement to both parties and
they felt the need of rest. But Rushing Water decided that they could
not have it here. No time should be lost in getting away from the
neighborhood of the settlements, where danger might be
apprehended should the whites get a clue to what had been going
on that night. Once at the Indian village in the stronghold of his tribe
he would defy any force that might be sent against him.

Therefore he gave orders for them to start at once, and closely

surrounding their prisoners so that there might be no loophole of
escape, they set forth upon the long, wearisome way that lay before
them.

Rushing Water walked by the side of Ruth and her mother. He did
not mean to leave sight of her who had cost him so much trouble.

To the great delight of Peleg, he was made to carry his own pack.
One of the savages tried it but found it too heavy for his comfort.
But the Yankee would have borne double its weight rather than to
have been separated from it.
 CHAPTER VIII.
THE TRAIL DIVIDED.

Leaving the savages to conduct their captives along the toilsome

way that led to the Indian village, let us return, and for a time follow
the movements of the scout.

Turning his back upon the spot where misfortune had overtaken his
friends, he struck off at a round pace through the forest, with the
red-skins following at his heels.

He had little doubt but that he would be able to distance them 62

in the race, though he was by no means so fresh as he might
have been.

Since morn of the previous day, no food had passed his lips, and as
the reader is aware he had undergone a great deal of fatigue.

Still he did not doubt but what he could easily leave the savages
behind him.

And this he did. Before twenty minutes had passed he had left them
so far in the rear, that he could hear nothing of them, though he
paused and listened several times for the sound of their footsteps.

“You ain’t got the Death-Dealer into yer clutches yet,” he muttered
to himself. “He’s going to live to stop a good deal more of yer
deviltry. You’ve done pretty well to-night, but you ain’t out of the
woods yet. You’ve got a good deal of trouble still, afore you settle
down to housekeeping, Mister Red-skin. I don’t know but what I am
mistaken, but I think I shall have a hand in settling your hash
myself. I’ve only turned my back on ye for a little while. I shall be in
yer company ag’in full as soon as you’ll want me I guess.”
Thus communing with himself he went on slowly, stopping every
now and then to hearken for his pursuers. But there was no sign of
them now.

Evidently they had given over the race, and returned to the spot
from whence they started.

Though assured of this the scout went on still further. He went on

aimlessly. He was bound for no particular place. He only wanted to
get so far from the savages that there would be no danger of their
coming up with him, while he stopped and refreshed himself.
Though he had been up thus much of the night he did not feel the
want of sleep, for he had got enough of that the day before. But he
did begin to feel a little hungry, and this demand of his appetite he
determined to gratify as soon as he should be at what he considered
a safe distance from his enemies.

With this object in view, he went on for more than a mile from the
spot where he had seen the last savage. By this time daylight was
breaking, and he felt safe in setting about the work he had in hand.
Keeping his eyes about him, he soon caught sight of a noble deer,
attempting to flee away before him. Raising his rifle he 63
brought it down before it had taken a dozen leaps; and then
reloading his piece, he approached the spot where it had fallen.

To set a fire brightly burning, and to flay the deer, were but the work
of a few minutes with him; and in a little while he had a huge slice
of it roasting over the coals, the smell of which would have been
grateful to any man even if he had not broken his fast for the last
twenty-four hours.

All the while he kept a sharp look-out about him for danger. He did
not know but the report of his rifle might attract the savages toward
the spot, though he felt very sure that those in pursuit of him had
long since turned back. But there might be others prowling around
in that section, who might seek to find out who it was that had fired
the shot.

But no one came to disturb him while he ate his fill of the venison;
and when his hunger was satisfied he cut other large slices from the
deer, which he proceeded to roast in the same manner he had the
other. When he had quite a quantity prepared in this way he made it
into a compact parcel, and bestowed it about him, so that he would
have something by him to appease his hunger, should he be placed
in such a way that it would be next to impossible for him to procure
it as he had now done.

It seemed too bad to leave the remainder of the deer there for the
wild beasts to feast upon, but there was no help for it. So he
consoled himself with the thought, that there were plenty more of its
like in the forest, so that none need suffer for the needless waste he
had made, and then bethought himself of what was next to be done.

For a little time he hesitated which of two courses to pursue, in the

work he had laid out for himself.

It was no slight task as he knew to wrest the captives out of the

clutches of Rushing Water, with none but his own arm to aid him.

Yet this he was firmly determined to do.

Many were the conflicts he had had with the red-skins, and as yet he
had always come out victorious in the end.

He knew very well that Rushing Water would set out at once for the
dwelling-place of his tribe, and he hardly thought that he 64
would pause until he got there, so anxious would he be to
place Ruth where there could be no possibility of her escaping him.

He knew, also, that he must rescue her between now and the time
she should reach there, if he did so at all.
Once there and a new danger would threaten her.

The Indian girl, in her jealous rage, would soon find some way to
administer to her the deadly potion the Wizard had promised to
prepare for her.

He knew well the way to the Indian village, and the point he was
now trying to decide in his mind was this:

Should he hurry on before them for a considerable distance, and lay

in wait for their coming? or, had he better now take the trail and
follow on behind them, watching for the opportunity he sought?

The latter they might mistrust he would do, and so some of the red-
skins lay in ambush for him.

For some time he revolved this question in his mind, and then
decided upon the latter course.

He thought this the best way to accomplish his purpose, and he

would keep his eyes open for danger.

He knew that they stood in fear of the Death-Dealer, and that they
would give him a wide berth, unless by their numbers they hoped to
match his cunning and the strength of his arm.

His course decided upon, he leisurely took his way back in the
direction he had come.

He was in no hurry to reach the spot of the recent conflict, for he

knew that even though they had three or four hours the start of
him, he could easily come up with them before nightfall, until which
hour he knew that nothing could be done.

So he went on at a slow pace, and the sun was nearly three hours
high in the heavens, when he arrived at last at the spot where he
had last seen his friends in the hands of the red-skins.
He did not expect to find a living soul there, and in this he was not
mistaken.

The spot was as silent as the grave.

But he had had his fears that he might find the mangled 65
remains of some of his friends lying there, but to his joy he
found that this was not the case.

All of them had been spared for a short time at least.

A trail as plainly perceivable as the sun in the heavens, led away

from the spot, and he lost but little time in setting off upon it.

From the appearance of the ground he had made up his mind that
they had not tarried long on the spot after they had secured their
captives, and therefore they had several hours the start of him.

But this did not disturb him any. He knew they could not hurry the
women along very fast, so it would be an easy task for him to
overtake them by the time he desired to do so.

So he struck out upon the trail at his usual gait, feeling sure that by
the time the sun went down he would have come up with them.

He had no difficulty in keeping the trail. It lay broad and plain before
him. The red-skins had made no effort to conceal it. Perhaps they
thought they could not hide it from him if they tried to do so; and
then they may have thought that there would be little likelihood of
his attempting to follow them. He had fled away before them, and
they could hardly think that he would have the hardihood to return
and contend with the odds against him.

Only once during the day did he pause for a little rest. On the bank
of a small stream he sat down when the sun was at its meridian and
partook of a portion of the food he had prepared that morning. As
yet he had found no sign where the savages had paused for rest or
refreshment, and he knew that the captives must be well-nigh worn
out for want of both.

The sun was hardly more than two hours high when suddenly the
scout paused, and looked about him with a puzzled look. The trail
parted here.

This was something that he had not counted on. What reasons could
the savages have had for parting? Could it be that fearing pursuit
from him, they had done so for the purpose of misleading him?

Or did Rushing Water wish to separate Ruth from her friends?

The scout was puzzled to decide which, but so long as it was 66

done it did not matter so much why.

Carefully he examined the ground for a short distance along either

of the branches of the trail, and at last he was able to determine
how the prisoners had been divided between them.

The largest body had taken along with them all save one.

This the footprints showed to be a woman; and was either Ruth or

her mother.

He at once decided that it was the former.

A sudden suspicion occurred to his mind.

Had not Rushing Water separated them for some fell purpose of his
own?

Though he did not know it, yet he felt sure that Ruth had purchased
their lives, by some promise she had made the savage.

Had she not done so, they would most assuredly have slain them all,
as soon as they had them in their power.
That this was the intention of the chief, he knew from what he had
heard the Indian girl confess to the Wizard.

Now, instead of taking them to the village, he had separated them

from Ruth, but for what purpose?

He had a strong presentiment that they were led away for sacrifice.

The more he thought on the subject the more convinced he was that
he was right, and the stronger were the fears he felt for their safety.

For a few minutes he hesitated, unable in his mind to decide what

course to pursue.

He wished to follow on, and try and rescue Ruth before she should
reach the Indian village; but if he did this he must abandon the
others to their fate.

He knew that she was not in immediate danger, while the others
might even now be falling beneath the blows of the savages.

He hesitated no longer.

It was his duty to try and succor those in the most imminent danger,
first.

After all it might prove that he was mistaken, but it was impressed
upon him that he had decided right.

With one more glance at the trail plainly marked by the 67

footprints of Ruth, he took the other, and hurried on at the top
of his speed.

He felt now that the lives of at least three depended upon his
movements, and that it was no time to let the grass grow under his
feet.
The sun sunk lower and lower as he bounded onward, and at last it
was hidden by the treetops.

Night was now fast coming on, and the trail would be hidden from
his gaze.

Little more than a half-hour of daylight remained to him, and every

instant of the time must be improved, if he hoped to accomplish the
work he had laid out for himself.

As soon as the darkness was down it would be impossible for him to

follow the trail.

He would have to wait until the moon rose, and even then it would
be uncertain if he could keep it.

And then when he should come up with them it might be too late for
him to strike a blow in their behalf.

The sun went down, and the last rays of its light died out of the
forest.

The dusky shadows of evening took their place, stealing upon him
almost before he was aware of their presence.

It was all that he could do to mark their footsteps now, among the
withered leaves.

For once in his life the scout felt nervous, and fearful that he should
not accomplish the work he had laid out for himself.

“I’d give a good deal for one more hour of daylight,” he muttered, to
himself, as he made sure that he was going right by bending down
close to the earth.

“Consarn it all, I bothered too long this morning. If I had thought

that the red-skins had been up to this game, I would have been
upon their heels before now.”

He went on, but slowly, until at last the darkness was so great that it
was impossible longer to make out the trail.

“I’ve got to wait till the moon rises,” he said to himself. “’Tain’t no
use to try and get on in this way. But what is that? A light ahead, as
sure as I’m alive. Fortin ain’t deserted ye yet, Dick. But ye’ve 68
got to keep yer eyes and ears open. You’ve got a work afore
ye that it won’t do to blunder in. The red-skins will give more for yer
scalp than they will for any other on the Scioto. You’ve got to mind,
Dick, and keep it under yer cap and then it will be safe.”

Communing thus with himself, the scout moved cautiously forward

toward the spot from whence the light proceeded.

It was on the line of the trail he had followed, and there was no
doubt in his mind that it marked the spot where the savages were.

With footsteps so light that they gave out not the slightest sound, he
approached to within a half-dozen rods of the spot from whence the
light proceeded.

Here he paused and took in the scene which lay before him.

In a little hollow a camp-fire was kindled, and about it he counted

seven savages.

The body of a deer lay beside it, and they were engaged in cutting
huge slices therefrom and roasting them over the fire.

The light of the fire flashed out upon either side, but to the dismay
of the scout, he could see nothing of the captives on either hand.

A sudden fear took possession of his mind.

Could it be that he was too late?

Had the red-skins already accomplished their terrible work?

Had they slain the captives before they had reached this spot, and
had he passed them in the darkness?

He shuddered at the thought and glanced behind him as though he

was almost fearful that they might be lying close beside him.

But he saw nothing.

They had disappeared, but where?

With the utmost caution he crept nearer to the fire, keeping well in
the shadows of the trunks of the trees which stretched out like
giants on either hand.

Hardly a dozen yards now lay between him and the nearest savage.

Suddenly a well-remembered voice broke upon his ear, dispelling all

his fears at once.
“Jerusalem and the Prophets, but this is a hard one! I wish to 69
mercy I was to hum in New Hampshire. I’m as hungry as a
ba’r, and that ’ere meat smells as good as aunt Nancy’s baked beans
used to, when I was a boy. Don’t you think they mean to give us a
mouthful?”

The scout glanced toward a spot where the shadows fell the thickest
about the fire, and there he saw the outlines of his friends’ forms,
bound to the trunks of the saplings standing there.
 CHAPTER IX.
THE DEATH-DEALER AT WORK.

The scout had never fancied the voice of the Yankee or what he had
to offer; but now it was real music to his ears, for it told him that his
fears were groundless, and that his friends were yet alive.

He stood motionless trying to catch what might be said in answer to

this complaint on his part, but the rest of the captives were silent.

“Have all of ye lost yer tongues?” he exclaimed, a minute later, “and

ain’t ye got any appetite? I declare I’m as hungry as a mill-saw. Say,
Mister Red-skin, ain’t you going to share that ’ere meat with us? Do
the fair thing by us, and I’ll give ye a good trade arterwards. I’ve got
some ’tarnel nice things in my pack, jest what you want for yer
wives and sweethearts. It’ll make their eyes stick out to see the
ribbons and beads I’ve got. Be kinder naberly now and give us a
hunk of that. I swan it makes my mouth water to look at it.”

“How can you think of eating, when you know not but what this may
be the last hour we’ve got to live?” said the voice of Sam Wilson.
“From what the chief said when he parted us from Ruth, I do not
think that they mean for us to see the light of morning. I wish that
we had died fighting for our lives when they first came upon us,
instead of trusting to the promise of a savage. Ruth, then, would at
least have died with us, and so been saved from a fate far 70
worse than death.”

A sob of anguish from the lip of a woman, told the scout how the
heart of Mrs. Wilson was torn with fears for her child.

“Now you don’t really believe they mean to kill us, do ye?” cried the
Yankee. “I guess if wuss comes to wuss, I kin hire ’em not to. I
believe if I had a chance to show ’em what there is in my pack, I