Olathe High School - Eagle Yearbook (Olathe, KS)

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Steamboats took the place of canoes. Many cabins were built around the trad- er's post. Soon the white man began to mingle with the Indians and civilization began to belch forth its masses. The trader feared that the Great Spirit looked with disap- proval upon the actions of the pioneers. The trader often talked with O-la-thee of the growing wickedness which the palefaces were gradually spreading among the Indians and longed earnestly for assistance in carrying out his reforms. At length, vhis pray- ers were answered in the unexpected arrival of the Reverend Thomas Johnson, a former friend, who had come to reclaim tlhe savage Indians from his barbarous ways and give him the true understanding of the living God. In the 1830 the mission was built and the sclhool was begun. Many troubles arose because the Indians at first looked suspiciously at the church and the work shops as if they might be other of the White man's evils. O-Ia-thee and the old trader strove to make the Indians understand the good the mission would do for them and their chil- dren. As the mission grew so did the trading post and finally became a village. named Westport. Many more steamboats came after the first one, the Western Engineer, in 1819. A trading route was established between Independence and Santa Fe and many of the Indians took the trail and went further West, out where the white man had not yet penetrated. Mills were built and farms were cultivated near the mission. In 1832 Alexander Jolmson the first white baby the Indians had ever seen, was born at Shaw- nee mission. A year afterwards a tribe of Shawnee Indians journeyed from the Nebraska ter- ritory to the mission and among them was an Indian brave whose name was 'IVa-zi' meaning Bluebird. Often he went to the little mission chapel and there a Shawnee maiden's eyes sought his. Many times the two walked together under the big moon on the lonesome prairie. At last they knew and loved each other and one night in the little chapel the minister at the mission married them. Afterwards they we1'e married again in the Shawnee Camp by t-he medicine man according to the Indian custom. But as the prairie grass turned to corn fields, and cabins replaced the wigwams. while mills made the laughing waters work, the deer and the buffalo had either gone farther West or their bones lay bleaching on the prairie, the wlhite man slowly but sure- ly made his way farther and farther into the region of the Shawnees. Wa-zi grew im- patient and O-la-thee looked with sorrowing eyes, as her favorite hunting ground became the beaten trail of civilization. And so as time took its course, O-la-thee and Wa-zi de- termined that in the spring they would leave and go with their Shawnee kinsmen to the land of the setting sun where they could live in their former freedom. One cold, bleak February night as O-la-thee and VVa-zi were with Rev. Johnson and his wife in the mission, the minister said, recalling his first meeting with the shy Indian maiden and her faithful work among her people, O-la-thee, after all your educa- tion in the white 1nan's ways do you think you can go back to your people and live as they do and be satisfied? O-la-thee was quiet a moment and then said in her soft accented voice, But you don't understand, you can't. Once you have been an Indian, alW'ays that blood will call you and call you back again to the forest and prairies where your fathers once roamed. But, O, don't think I am ungrateful to you and your people for what you have d-one for me Don't you see. can't you understand that my home here is changed. The water, once clear, now muddy: so many people cross the river. Once many wigwams, now houses and cabins. Once many buffaloes and deer, now nothing but rabbits. Once

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bustling about in its village, the squaws building the fire for the evening meal, some pounding tfhe maize between the rocks, others with large earthen pots of clay going and returning to the springg some gatlhering fagots and sticks for th fire, others tighten- ing the fiaps of the wigwams for the approaching night. The village dogs began their twilight yelping and their last good-by to the sun. The trader lifted his gaze from the camp in the distance and looked far to the west. The-re was the camp of the Kaw In- dians. He turned his gaze to the south and there in the distance were the camps of the Delaware and Miami. As fhe looked a gleam shot out of the West and the sun which was a great red ball slowly lost itself and then finally disappeared and the dying day gave away to twilight. The blue faded into purple and the purple into nig'ht. The man turn- ed to gog then stopped. On his left was the coming of man's civilization: on his right was the primitive man as God first made him. He looked at both and wonderedg then slowly shook his head, smiled, and went down off the bluff in the twilight, slowly be- taking himelf to his cabin. Then night came and reigned in accompaniment with the night bird's song and the howling of the dogs in the distant Shawnee village. A storm raged on the plains that night. Storms come quickly on a prairie. It beat the waters of tlhe rivers into waves and swished them about in giddy pools. It was a summer thunder storm, sharp and fierce. The lightning lit the country up- far and wide and the thunder rolled like giant trees falling in the forest. A sparrow blew against the door of the trader's cabin, flutered, and fell to the ground. The storm continued and was raging in its wildest fury when a knock was heard on the door of the cabin, Again a knock came and again. 'Dhe trader roused by the storm, hearing the kn-ock knew not whether it was the blowing of limbs against the door or of some person in distress. A length he heard a Shawnee shout, A-wa-wa- wa, He listened a momentg then hastened to the door, and beheld a Shawnee warrior, half carrying and holding a little Indian maiden. The brave fell into the room and the trader seeing the suffering of the little Indian, placed fher in his bunk. He caught sight of two fiery, bright eyes and two hot cheeks. She mumbled somebhing in Shawnee: then fell asleep. The trader looked at the Indian warrior who lay on the fioor with a ghastly wound in his side. He looked at the trader, then said in a gasping breathless voice, She very hot, very sick. Medicine man say slhe die and go to Great Spirit. She talk about things she know nothing about. Medicine man say slhe dixe. You white man, you know many things. You help. Me bring her to you. It dark. Me fall on the rocks. Me die soon, you help her. She no die. You keep her. His eyes were star- ing and bloodshot. As he leaned over the maiden he moaned O-la-thee, O-la-thee, Olaf he caught his side with a death-like clutch and slipped back to the floor. He was dead. The trader looked at the little Indian maiden. She was not more than ten years of age. Her cheeks were fiery red and her eyes were two bright spots. She was was a victim of the fever. The trader gave her medicine from his scanty supply which soon ouieted her. For days he watched her, cooling her head with fresh water from the spring. At last the fever broke. The crisis was past. Then 0-la-thee began to mend. She was shy at first and often looked longingly toward her early home. But the trader comforted her. Often they would go together to the bluff and there kneel at the little mound. Often she asked why they put a cross at the grave of her father and then the trader would tell her about the Great Spirit and the meaning of the cross. But youth soon forgets and O-la-thee was soon romping the hills with her Indian play- mates again. Years passed.

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many canoes, now puff-pusff boats. Once Wa-zi shoot many deer and buffalo but now Wa-zi homesick, die in this country. Wa-zi want big country, and she stopped. She had lapsed into her Indian language. Going over to Wa-zi svhe placed her arm through his and said, Now that the trader has gone, there is no one left but you. You have many friends, ours are gone. Wa-zi want to go far away: I go, too. And on the following morning the caravan started down the Santa Fe Trail. Eight years has changed the faint path across the prairie that Major Sibley had first sur- veyed into a much-traveled wagon road. This morning two figures on horseback trot- ted slowly after the caravan which was a mile in advance, As they reached the hill that would shut off their view of the old mission, they stopped their horses and looked back. 0-la-thee's eyes rested on the trader's cabin on the bluff. She remembered the kind face of him who had been as as father to her. That cabin, her home! Slhe choked and look- at Wa-zi who was gazing steadfastly at the open clear Kaw valley beneath them. Gla- thee then looked at the two little crosses far away on the river bank. 'Phe morning sun glistened on them and then hid itself behind a cloud. One cross was for a father she could not remember but who had given his life for her, the other for one wiho had taken his place. IVith one last fond look over the Kaw valley and at the old mission the two lone Indians turned their ponies' heads toward the west and silently and slowly rode away from the valley. .-i. .1 'Ilhe afternoon was almost spent when the Caravan stopped to camp on Cedar Creek. 0-la-thee and Wa-zi were about three miles behind the train. Once O-la- tue had suggested to Wla-zi that thy catch up with the train but he replied that While they were on the familiar trail they should travel alone, little realizing that this would be the last time. So they trotted peacefully along by themselves, the caravan always in the distance. Toward evening Wa-zi stopped and said, U0-la-thee I hear shots, and then dis- tinctly across the 'plains could be heard the whistle of bullets. Both W'a-zi and O-la-thee began to move faster and went north of the trail so as to escape the band of Indians. But before they could reach the camp a small band of Indians began to hear down on them from the southwest where they had left the Shawnee camp after a hasty retreat. Instantly Wa-zi recognized them as bad Indians and began to go faster but they were still within rifle shot when a bullet went whizzing over the head of Oela-thee's horse. Turning in his saddle Wa-zi began to shoot, at the same time telling O-la-thee to save her amunition and to hasten to camp. Wa-zi's rifle cracked repeatedly and twice his bullets found a mark. The chase continued. The Indians were fast coming up on Wa-zi whose pony was tired from the long day's travel. He glanced ahead. O-la-thee was fast making toward a clump of trees, tvren of a sudden she stopped, whirled, and started west. Wa-zi was being heavily pressed by the Indians when he heard a shout, from one of his pursuers, and, looking at the clump of trees, from which O-la-the had fled saw several other Indians galloping after her. He kept firing at the Indians until one of their horses jumped in the air and fell. He rode faster and faster and had almost reached O-la-thee wlhen he saw a com- pany of horseman riding madly over the prairie from the west toward him. He tri- umphantly let out a Shawnee warwhoop, for there was safety at last: the caravan had sent out a scouting party. But in the midst of his joy Wa-zi 'heard a Delaware war cry and saw O-la-thee drop from her saddle. The Indians fled when they saw the oncoming scouts. Wa-zi had found O-la- the lying on the prairie grass, the blood oozing forth from a wound in her side.