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Title: The Prairie

Author: James Fenimore Cooper

Release Date: June 5, 2009 [EBook #6450]
[Most recently updated: February 1, 2020]

Language: English

Character set encoding: UTF-8

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PRAIRIE ***




Produced by Grant Macandrew, Jennifer Lee, and David Widger




The Prairie

by James Fenimore Cooper

Contents

INTRODUCTION
AUTHOR’S INTRODUCTION
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
Chapter IX
Chapter X
Chapter XI
Chapter XII
Chapter XIII
Chapter XIV
Chapter XV
Chapter XVI
Chapter XVII
Chapter XVIII
Chapter XIX
Chapter XX
Chapter XXI
Chapter XXII
Chapter XXIII
Chapter XXIV
Chapter XXV
Chapter XXVI
Chapter XXVII
Chapter XXVIII
Chapter XXIX
Chapter XXX
Chapter XXXI
Chapter XXXII
Chapter XXXIII
Chapter XXXIV




INTRODUCTION


“The Prairie” was the third in order of Fenimore Cooper’s
Leatherstocking Tales. Its first appearance was in the year 1827. The
idea of the story had suggested itself to him, we are told, before he
had finished its immediate forerunner, “The Last of the Mohicans.” He
chose entirely new scenes for it, “resolved to cross the Mississippi
and wander over the desolate wastes of the remote Western prairies.” He
had been taking every chance that came of making a personal
acquaintance with the Indian chiefs of the western tribes who were to
be encountered about this period on their way in the frequent Indian
embassies to Washington. “He saw much to command his admiration,” says
Mrs. Cooper, “in these wild braves... It was a matter of course that in
drawing Indian character he should dwell on the better traits of the
picture, rather than on the coarser and more revolting though more
common points. Like West, he could see the Apollo in the young Mohawk.”

When in July, 1826, Cooper landed in England with his wife and family,
he carried his Indian memories and associations with him. They crossed
to France, and ascended the Seine by steamboat, and then settled for a
time in Paris. Of their quarters there in the Rue St. Maur, Sarah
Fenimore Cooper writes:

“It was thoroughly French in character. There was a short, narrow,
gloomy lane or street, shut in between lofty dwelling houses, the lane
often dark, always filthy, without sidewalks, a gutter running through
the centre, over which, suspended from a rope, hung a dim oil lamp or
two—such was the Rue St. Maur, in the Faubourg St. Germain. It was a
gloomy approach certainly. But a tall _porte cochère_ opened, and
suddenly the whole scene changed. Within those high walls, so
forbidding in aspect, there lay charming gardens, gay with parterres of
flowers, and shaded by noble trees, not only those belonging to the
house itself, but those of other adjoining dwellings of the same
character—one looked over park-like grounds covering some acres. The
hotel itself, standing on the street, was old, and built on a grand
scale; it had been the home of a French ducal family in the time of
Louis XIV. The rooms on the two lower floors were imposing and
spacious; with ceilings of great height, gilded wainscoting and various
quaint little medallion pictures of shepherds and shepherdesses, and
other fancies of the time of Madame de Sevigne. Those little shepherds
were supposed to have looked down upon _la mère beauté_, and upon _la
plus jolie fille de France_ as she danced her incomparable minuets.
Those grand saloons were now devoted to the humble service of a school
for young ladies. But on the third floor, to which one ascended by a
fine stone stairway, broad and easy, with elaborate iron railings,
there was a more simple set of rooms, comfortably furnished, where the
American family were pleasantly provided for, in a home of their own.
Unwilling to separate from his children, who were placed at the school,
the traveller adopted this plan that he might be near them. One of the
rooms, overlooking the garden, and opening on a small terrace, became
his study. He was soon at work. In his writing-desk lay some chapters
of a new novel. The MS. had crossed the ocean with him, though but
little had been added to its pages during the wanderings of the English
and French journeys.”

When, some months later, the story appeared, its effect was immediate
on both sides the Atlantic. It is worth note that during his French
visit Cooper met Sir Walter Scott. Cooper was born at Burlington, New
Jersey, 15th Sept., 1789, and died at Cooperstown, New York (which took
its name from his father), 14th Sept., 1851.

The following is his literary record:

Precaution, 1820; The Spy, 1821; The Pioneers, 1823; The Pilot, 1823;
Lionel Lincoln, or the Leaguer of Boston, 1825; The Last of the
Mohicans, 1826; The Prairie, 1827; The Red Rover, 1828; Notions of the
Americans, 1828; The Wept of Wish-ton-Wish, 1829; The Water-witch,
1830; The Bravo, 1831; The Heidenmauer, or the Benedictines, 1832; The
Headsman, 1833; A Letter to his Countrymen, 1834; The Monikins, 1835;
Sketches of Switzerland, 1836; Gleanings in Europe: 1837; (England)
1837; (Italy) 1838; The American Democrat, 1838; Homeward Bound, 1838;
The Chronicles of Cooperstown, 1838; Home as Found (Eve Effingham),
1839; History of the U. S. Navy, 1839; The Pathfinder, or the Inland
Sea, 1840; Mercedes of Castile, 1841; The Deerslayer, or the First
Warpath, 1841; The Two Admirals, 1842; The Wing-and-Wing (Jack o
Lantern), 1842; The Battle of Lake Erie, or Answers to Messrs. Burges,
Duer and Mackenzie, 1843; The French Governess; or, The Embroidered
Handkerchief, 1843; Richard Dale, 1843; Wyandotte, 1843; Ned Myers, or
Life before the Mast, 1843; Afloat and Ashore (Miles Wallingford, Lucy
Hardinge), two series, 1844; Proceedings of the Naval Court-Martial in
the Case of Alexander Slidell Mackenzie, etc., 1844; Santanstoe, 1845;
The Chainbearer, 1846; Lives of Distinguished American Naval Officers,
1846; The Red Skins, 1846; The Crater (Marks Reef), 1847; Captain
Spike, or the Islets of the Gulf, 1848; Jack Tier, or the Florida
Reefs, 1848; The Oak Openings, or the Bee-Hunter, 1848; The Sea Lions,
1849; The Ways of the Hour, 1850.

Ernest Rhys, 1907




AUTHOR’S INTRODUCTION


The geological formation of that portion of the American Union, which
lies between the Alleghanies and the Rocky Mountains, has given rise to
many ingenious theories. Virtually, the whole of this immense region is
a plain. For a distance extending nearly 1500 miles east and west, and
600 north and south, there is scarcely an elevation worthy to be called
a mountain. Even hills are not common; though a good deal of the face
of the country has more or less of that “rolling” character, which is
described in the opening pages of this work.

There is much reason to believe, that the territory which now composes
Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and a large portion of the country
west of the Mississippi, lay formerly under water. The soil of all the
former states has the appearance of an alluvial deposit; and isolated
rocks have been found, of a nature and in situations which render it
difficult to refute the opinion that they have been transferred to
their present beds by floating ice. This theory assumes that the Great
Lakes were the deep pools of one immense body of fresh water, which lay
too low to be drained by the irruption that laid bare the land.

It will be remembered that the French, when masters of the Canadas and
Louisiana, claimed the whole of the territory in question. Their
hunters and advanced troops held the first communications with the
savage occupants, and the earliest written accounts we possess of these
vast regions, are from the pens of their missionaries. Many French
words have, consequently, become of local use in this quarter of
America, and not a few names given in that language have been
perpetuated. When the adventurers, who first penetrated these wilds,
met, in the centre of the forests, immense plains, covered with rich
verdure or rank grasses, they naturally gave them the appellation of
meadows. As the English succeeded the French, and found a peculiarity
of nature, differing from all they had yet seen on the continent,
already distinguished by a word that did not express any thing in their
own language, they left these natural meadows in possession of their
title of convention. In this manner has the word “Prairie” been adopted
into the English tongue.

The American prairies are of two kinds. Those which lie east of the
Mississippi are comparatively small, are exceedingly fertile, and are
always surrounded by forests. They are susceptible of high cultivation,
and are fast becoming settled. They abound in Ohio, Michigan, Illinois,
and Indiana. They labour under the disadvantages of a scarcity of wood
and water,—evils of a serious character, until art has had time to
supply the deficiencies of nature. As coal is said to abound in all
that region, and wells are generally successful, the enterprise of the
emigrants is gradually prevailing against these difficulties.

The second description of these natural meadows lies west of the
Mississippi, at a distance of a few hundred miles from that river, and
is called the Great Prairies. They resemble the steppes of Tartary more
than any other known portion of Christendom; being, in fact, a vast
country, incapable of sustaining a dense population, in the absence of
the two great necessaries already named. Rivers abound, it is true; but
this region is nearly destitute of brooks and the smaller water
courses, which tend so much to comfort and fertility.

The origin and date of the Great American Prairies form one of natures
most majestic mysteries. The general character of the United States, of
the Canadas, and of Mexico, is that of luxuriant fertility. It would be
difficult to find another portion of the world, of the same extent,
which has so little useless land as the inhabited parts of the American
Union. Most of the mountains are arable, and even the prairies, in this
section of the republic, are of deep alluvion. The same is true between
the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific. Between the two lies the broad
belt, of comparative desert, which is the scene of this tale, appearing
to interpose a barrier to the progress of the American people westward.

The Great Prairies appear to be the final gathering place of the red
men. The remnants of the Mohicans, and the Delawares, of the Creeks,
Choctaws, and Cherokees, are destined to fulfil their time on these
vast plains. The entire number of the Indians, within the Union, is
differently computed, at between one and three hundred thousand souls.
Most of them inhabit the country west of the Mississippi. At the period
of the tale, they dwelt in open hostility; national feuds passing from
generation to generation. The power of the republic has done much to
restore peace to these wild scenes, and it is now possible to travel in
security, where civilised man did not dare to pass unprotected
five-and-twenty years ago.

The reader, who has perused the two former works, of which this is the
natural successor, will recognise an old acquaintance in the principal
character of the story. We have here brought him to his end, and we
trust he will be permitted to slumber in the peace of the just.

J. F. Cooper Paris,
_June_ 1832




THE PRAIRIE




CHAPTER I


I pray thee, shepherd, if that love or gold,
Can in this desert place buy entertainment,
Bring us where we may rest ourselves and feed.
                   —As you like it.


Much was said and written, at the time, concerning the policy of adding
the vast regions of Louisiana, to the already immense and but
half-tenanted territories of the United States. As the warmth of
controversy however subsided, and party considerations gave place to
more liberal views, the wisdom of the measure began to be generally
conceded. It soon became apparent to the meanest capacity, that, while
nature had placed a barrier of desert to the extension of our
population in the west, the measure had made us the masters of a belt
of fertile country, which, in the revolutions of the day, might have
become the property of a rival nation. It gave us the sole command of
the great thoroughfare of the interior, and placed the countless tribes
of savages, who lay along our borders, entirely within our control; it
reconciled conflicting rights, and quieted national distrusts; it
opened a thousand avenues to the inland trade, and to the waters of the
Pacific; and, if ever time or necessity shall require a peaceful
division of this vast empire, it assures us of a neighbour that will
possess our language, our religion, our institutions, and it is also to
be hoped, our sense of political justice.

Although the purchase was made in 1803, the spring of the succeeding
year was permitted to open, before the official prudence of the
Spaniard, who held the province for his European master, admitted the
authority, or even of the entrance of its new proprietors. But the
forms of the transfer were no sooner completed, and the new government
acknowledged, than swarms of that restless people, which is ever found
hovering on the skirts of American society, plunged into the thickets
that fringed the right bank of the Mississippi, with the same careless
hardihood, as had already sustained so many of them in their toilsome
progress from the Atlantic states, to the eastern shores of the “father
of rivers.”[1]

Time was necessary to blend the numerous and affluent colonists of the
lower province with their new compatriots; but the thinner and more
humble population above, was almost immediately swallowed in the vortex
which attended the tide of instant emigration. The inroad from the east
was a new and sudden out-breaking of a people, who had endured a
momentary restraint, after having been rendered nearly resistless by
success. The toils and hazards of former undertakings were forgotten,
as these endless and unexplored regions, with all their fancied as well
as real advantages, were laid open to their enterprise. The
consequences were such as might easily have been anticipated, from so
tempting an offering, placed, as it was, before the eyes of a race long
trained in adventure and nurtured in difficulties.

Thousands of the elders, of what were then called the New States[2],
broke up from the enjoyment of their hard-earned indulgences, and were
to be seen leading long files of descendants, born and reared in the
forests of Ohio and Kentucky, deeper into the land, in quest of that
which might be termed, without the aid of poetry, their natural and
more congenial atmosphere. The distinguished and resolute forester who
first penetrated the wilds of the latter state, was of the number. This
adventurous and venerable patriarch was now seen making his last
remove; placing the “endless river” between him and the multitude his
own success had drawn around him, and seeking for the renewal of
enjoyments which were rendered worthless in his eyes, when trammelled
by the forms of human institutions.[3]

In the pursuit of adventures such as these, men are ordinarily governed
by their habits or deluded by their wishes. A few, led by the phantoms
of hope, and ambitious of sudden affluence, sought the mines of the
virgin territory; but by far the greater portion of the emigrants were
satisfied to establish themselves along the margins of the larger
water-courses, content with the rich returns that the generous,
alluvial, bottoms of the rivers never fail to bestow on the most
desultory industry. In this manner were communities formed with magical
rapidity; and most of those who witnessed the purchase of the empty
empire, have lived to see already a populous and sovereign state,
parcelled from its inhabitants, and received into the bosom of the
national Union, on terms of political equality.

The incidents and scenes which are connected with this legend, occurred
in the earliest periods of the enterprises which have led to so great
and so speedy a result.

The harvest of the first year of our possession had long been passed,
and the fading foliage of a few scattered trees was already beginning
to exhibit the hues and tints of autumn, when a train of wagons issued
from the bed of a dry rivulet, to pursue its course across the
undulating surface, of what, in the language of the country of which we
write, is called a “rolling prairie.” The vehicles, loaded with
household goods and implements of husbandry, the few straggling sheep
and cattle that were herded in the rear, and the rugged appearance and
careless mien of the sturdy men who loitered at the sides of the
lingering teams, united to announce a band of emigrants seeking for the
Elderado of the West. Contrary to the usual practice of the men of
their caste, this party had left the fertile bottoms of the low
country, and had found its way, by means only known to such
adventurers, across glen and torrent, over deep morasses and arid
wastes, to a point far beyond the usual limits of civilised
habitations. In their front were stretched those broad plains, which
extend, with so little diversity of character, to the bases of the
Rocky Mountains; and many long and dreary miles in their rear, foamed
the swift and turbid waters of La Platte.

The appearance of such a train, in that bleak and solitary place, was
rendered the more remarkable by the fact, that the surrounding country
offered so little, that was tempting to the cupidity of speculation,
and, if possible, still less that was flattering to the hopes of an
ordinary settler of new lands.

The meagre herbage of the prairie, promised nothing, in favour of a
hard and unyielding soil, over which the wheels of the vehicles rattled
as lightly as if they travelled on a beaten road; neither wagons nor
beasts making any deeper impression, than to mark that bruised and
withered grass, which the cattle plucked, from time to time, and as
often rejected, as food too sour, for even hunger to render palatable.

Whatever might be the final destination of these adventurers, or the
secret causes of their apparent security in so remote and unprotected a
situation, there was no visible sign of uneasiness, uncertainty, or
alarm, among them. Including both sexes, and every age, the number of
the party exceeded twenty.

At some little distance in front of the whole, marched the individual,
who, by his position and air, appeared to be the leader of the band. He
was a tall, sun-burnt, man, past the middle age, of a dull countenance
and listless manner. His frame appeared loose and flexible; but it was
vast, and in reality of prodigious power. It was, only at moments,
however, as some slight impediment opposed itself to his loitering
progress, that his person, which, in its ordinary gait seemed so
lounging and nerveless, displayed any of those energies, which lay
latent in his system, like the slumbering and unwieldy, but terrible,
strength of the elephant. The inferior lineaments of his countenance
were coarse, extended and vacant; while the superior, or those nobler
parts which are thought to affect the intellectual being, were low,
receding and mean.

The dress of this individual was a mixture of the coarsest vestments of
a husbandman with the leathern garments, that fashion as well as use,
had in some degree rendered necessary to one engaged in his present
pursuits. There was, however, a singular and wild display of prodigal
and ill judged ornaments, blended with his motley attire. In place of
the usual deer-skin belt, he wore around his body a tarnished silken
sash of the most gaudy colours; the buck-horn haft of his knife was
profusely decorated with plates of silver; the marten’s fur of his cap
was of a fineness and shadowing that a queen might covet; the buttons
of his rude and soiled blanket-coat were of the glittering coinage of
Mexico; the stock of his rifle was of beautiful mahogany, riveted and
banded with the same precious metal, and the trinkets of no less than
three worthless watches dangled from different parts of his person. In
addition to the pack and the rifle which were slung at his back,
together with the well filled, and carefully guarded pouch and horn, he
had carelessly cast a keen and bright wood-axe across his shoulder,
sustaining the weight of the whole with as much apparent ease, as if he
moved, unfettered in limb, and free from incumbrance.

A short distance in the rear of this man, came a group of youths very
similarly attired, and bearing sufficient resemblance to each other,
and to their leader, to distinguish them as the children of one family.
Though the youngest of their number could not much have passed the
period, that, in the nicer judgment of the law, is called the age of
discretion, he had proved himself so far worthy of his progenitors as
to have reared already his aspiring person to the standard height of
his race. There were one or two others, of different mould, whose
descriptions must however be referred to the regular course of the
narrative.

Of the females, there were but two who had arrived at womanhood; though
several white-headed, olive-skinned faces were peering out of the
foremost wagon of the train, with eyes of lively curiosity and
characteristic animation. The elder of the two adults, was the sallow
and wrinkled mother of most of the party, and the younger was a
sprightly, active, girl, of eighteen, who in figure, dress, and mien,
seemed to belong to a station in society several gradations above that
of any one of her visible associates. The second vehicle was covered
with a top of cloth so tightly drawn, as to conceal its contents, with
the nicest care. The remaining wagons were loaded with such rude
furniture and other personal effects, as might be supposed to belong to
one, ready at any moment to change his abode, without reference to
season or distance.

Perhaps there was little in this train, or in the appearance of its
proprietors, that is not daily to be encountered on the highways of
this changeable and moving country. But the solitary and peculiar
scenery, in which it was so unexpectedly exhibited, gave to the party a
marked character of wildness and adventure.

In the little valleys, which, in the regular formation of the land,
occurred at every mile of their progress, the view was bounded, on two
of the sides, by the gradual and low elevations, which gave name to the
description of prairie we have mentioned; while on the others, the
meagre prospect ran off in long, narrow, barren perspectives, but
slightly relieved by a pitiful show of coarse, though somewhat
luxuriant vegetation. From the summits of the swells, the eye became
fatigued with the sameness and chilling dreariness of the landscape.
The earth was not unlike the Ocean, when its restless waters are
heaving heavily, after the agitation and fury of the tempest have begun
to lessen. There was the same waving and regular surface, the same
absence of foreign objects, and the same boundless extent to the view.
Indeed so very striking was the resemblance between the water and the
land, that, however much the geologist might sneer at so simple a
theory, it would have been difficult for a poet not to have felt, that
the formation of the one had been produced by the subsiding dominion of
the other. Here and there a tall tree rose out of the bottoms,
stretching its naked branches abroad, like some solitary vessel; and,
to strengthen the delusion, far in the distance, appeared two or three
rounded thickets, looming in the misty horizon like islands resting on
the waters. It is unnecessary to warn the practised reader, that the
sameness of the surface, and the low stands of the spectators,
exaggerated the distances; but, as swell appeared after swell, and
island succeeded island, there was a disheartening assurance that long,
and seemingly interminable, tracts of territory must be passed, before
the wishes of the humblest agriculturist could be realised.

Still, the leader of the emigrants steadily pursued his way, with no
other guide than the sun, turning his back resolutely on the abodes of
civilisation, and plunging, at each step, more deeply if not
irretrievably, into the haunts of the barbarous and savage occupants of
the country. As the day drew nigher to a close, however, his mind,
which was, perhaps, incapable of maturing any connected system of
forethought, beyond that which related to the interests of the present
moment, became, in some slight degree, troubled with the care of
providing for the wants of the hours of darkness.

On reaching the crest of a swell that was a little higher than the
usual elevations, he lingered a minute, and cast a half curious eye, on
either hand, in quest of those well known signs, which might indicate a
place, where the three grand requisites of water, fuel and fodder were
to be obtained in conjunction.

It would seem that his search was fruitless; for after a few moments of
indolent and listless examination, he suffered his huge frame to
descend the gentle declivity, in the same sluggish manner that an over
fatted beast would have yielded to the downward pressure.

His example was silently followed by those who succeeded him, though
not until the young men had manifested much more of interest, if not of
concern in the brief enquiry, which each, in his turn, made on gaining
the same look-out. It was now evident, by the tardy movements both of
beasts and men, that the time of necessary rest was not far distant.
The matted grass of the lower land, presented obstacles which fatigue
began to render formidable, and the whip was becoming necessary to urge
the lingering teams to their labour. At this moment, when, with the
exception of the principal individual, a general lassitude was getting
the mastery of the travellers, and every eye was cast, by a sort of
common impulse, wistfully forward, the whole party was brought to a
halt, by a spectacle, as sudden as it was unexpected.

The sun had fallen below the crest of the nearest wave of the prairie,
leaving the usual rich and glowing train on its track. In the centre of
this flood of fiery light, a human form appeared, drawn against the
gilded background, as distinctly, and seemingly as palpable, as though
it would come within the grasp of any extended hand. The figure was
colossal; the attitude musing and melancholy, and the situation
directly in the route of the travellers. But imbedded, as it was, in
its setting of garish light, it was impossible to distinguish its just
proportions or true character.

The effect of such a spectacle was instantaneous and powerful. The man
in front of the emigrants came to a stand, and remained gazing at the
mysterious object, with a dull interest, that soon quickened into
superstitious awe. His sons, so soon as the first emotions of surprise
had a little abated, drew slowly around him, and, as they who governed
the teams gradually followed their example, the whole party was soon
condensed in one, silent, and wondering group. Notwithstanding the
impression of a supernatural agency was very general among the
travellers, the ticking of gun-locks was heard, and one or two of the
bolder youths cast their rifles forward, in readiness for service.

“Send the boys off to the right,” exclaimed the resolute wife and
mother, in a sharp, dissonant voice; “I warrant me, Asa, or Abner will
give some account of the creature!”

“It may be well enough, to try the rifle,” muttered a dull looking man,
whose features, both in outline and expression, bore no small
resemblance to the first speaker, and who loosened the stock of his
piece and brought it dexterously to the front, while delivering this
opinion; “the Pawnee Loups are said to be hunting by hundreds in the
plains; if so, they’ll never miss a single man from their tribe.”

“Stay!” exclaimed a soft toned, but alarmed female voice, which was
easily to be traced to the trembling lips of the younger of the two
women; “we are not altogether; it may be a friend!”

“Who is scouting, now?” demanded the father, scanning, at the same
time, the cluster of his stout sons, with a displeased and sullen eye.
“Put by the piece, put by the piece;” he continued, diverting the
other’s aim, with the finger of a giant, and with the air of one it
might be dangerous to deny. “My job is not yet ended; let us finish the
little that remains, in peace.”

The man, who had manifested so hostile an intention, appeared to
understand the other’s allusion, and suffered himself to be diverted
from his object. The sons turned their inquiring looks on the girl, who
had so eagerly spoken, to require an explanation; but, as if content
with the respite she had obtained for the stranger, she sunk back, in
her seat, and chose to affect a maidenly silence.

In the mean time, the hues of the heavens had often changed. In place
of the brightness, which had dazzled the eye, a gray and more sober
light had succeeded, and as the setting lost its brilliancy, the
proportions of the fanciful form became less exaggerated, and finally
distinct. Ashamed to hesitate, now that the truth was no longer
doubtful, the leader of the party resumed his journey, using the
precaution, as he ascended the slight acclivity, to release his own
rifle from the strap, and to cast it into a situation more convenient
for sudden use.

There was little apparent necessity, however, for such watchfulness.
From the moment when it had thus unaccountably appeared, as it were,
between the heavens and the earth, the stranger’s figure had neither
moved nor given the smallest evidence of hostility. Had he harboured
any such evil intention, the individual who now came plainly into view,
seemed but little qualified to execute them.

A frame that had endured the hardships of more than eighty seasons, was
not qualified to awaken apprehension, in the breast of one as powerful
as the emigrant. Notwithstanding his years, and his look of emaciation,
if not of suffering, there was that about this solitary being, however,
which said that time, and not disease, had laid his hand heavily on
him. His form had withered, but it was not wasted. The sinews and
muscles, which had once denoted great strength, though shrunken, were
still visible; and his whole figure had attained an appearance of
induration, which, if it were not for the well known frailty of
humanity, would have seemed to bid defiance to the further approaches
of decay. His dress was chiefly of skins, worn with the hair to the
weather; a pouch and horn were suspended from his shoulders; and he
leaned on a rifle of uncommon length, but which, like its owner,
exhibited the wear of long and hard service.

As the party drew nigher to this solitary being, and came within a
distance to be heard, a low growl issued from the grass at his feet,
and then, a tall, gaunt, toothless, hound, arose lazily from his lair,
and shaking himself, made some show of resisting the nearer approach of
the travellers.

“Down, Hector, down,” said his master, in a voice, that was a little
tremulous and hollow with age. “What have ye to do, pup, with men who
journey on their lawful callings?”

“Stranger, if you ar’ much acquainted in this country,” said the leader
of the emigrants, “can you tell a traveller where he may find
necessaries for the night?”

“Is the land filled on the other side of the Big River?” demanded the
old man, solemnly, and without appearing to hearken to the other’s
question; “or why do I see a sight, I had never thought to behold
again?”

“Why, there is country left, it is true, for such as have money, and
ar’ not particular in the choice,” returned the emigrant; “but to my
taste, it is getting crowdy. What may a man call the distance, from
this place to the nighest point on the main river?”

“A hunted deer could not cool his sides, in the Mississippi, without
travelling a weary five hundred miles.”

“And what may you name the district, hereaway?”

“By what name,” returned the old man, pointing significantly upward,
“would you call the spot, where you see yonder cloud?”

The emigrant looked at the other, like one who did not comprehend his
meaning, and who half suspected he was trifled with, but he contented
himself by saying—

“You ar’ but a new inhabitant, like myself, I reckon, stranger,
otherwise you would not be backward in helping a traveller to some
advice; words cost but little, and sometimes lead to friendships.”

“Advice is not a gift, but a debt that the old owe to the young. What
would you wish to know?”

“Where I may camp for the night. I’m no great difficulty maker, as to
bed and board; but, all old journeyers, like myself, know the virtue of
sweet water, and a good browse for the cattle.”

“Come then with me, and you shall be master of both; and little more is
it that I can offer on this hungry prairie.”

As the old man was speaking, he raised his heavy rifle to his shoulder,
with a facility a little remarkable for his years and appearance, and
without further words led the way over the acclivity to the adjacent
bottom.

[1] The Mississippi is thus termed in several of the Indian languages.
The reader will gain a more just idea of the importance of this
stream, if he recalls to mind the fact, that the Missouri and the
Mississippi are properly the same river. Their united lengths cannot
be greatly short of four thousand miles.


[2] All the states admitted to the American Union, since the
revolution, are called New States, with the exception of Vermont: that
had claims before the war; which were not, however, admitted until a
later day.


[3] Colonel Boon, the patriarch of Kentucky. This venerable and hardy
pioneer of civilisation emigrated to an estate three hundred miles
west of the Mississippi, in his ninety-second year, because he found a
population of ten to the square mile, inconveniently crowded!




CHAPTER II


Up with my tent: here will I lie to-night,
But where, to-morrow?—Well, all’s one for that
                   —Richard the Third.


The travellers soon discovered the usual and unerring evidences that
the several articles necessary to their situation were not far distant.
A clear and gurgling spring burst out of the side of the declivity, and
joining its waters to those of other similar little fountains in its
vicinity, their united contributions formed a run, which was easily to
be traced, for miles along the prairie, by the scattering foliage and
verdure which occasionally grew within the influence of its moisture.
Hither, then, the stranger held his way, eagerly followed by the
willing teams, whose instinct gave them a prescience of refreshment and
rest.

On reaching what he deemed a suitable spot, the old man halted, and
with an enquiring look, he seemed to demand if it possessed the needed
conveniences. The leader of the emigrants cast his eyes,
understandingly, about him, and examined the place with the keenness of
one competent to judge of so nice a question, though in that dilatory
and heavy manner, which rarely permitted him to betray precipitation.

“Ay, this may do,” he said, satisfied with his scrutiny; “boys, you
have seen the last of the sun; be stirring.”

The young men manifested a characteristic obedience. The order, for
such in tone and manner it was, in truth, was received with respect;
but the utmost movement was the falling of an axe or two from the
shoulder to the ground, while their owners continued to regard the
place with listless and incurious eyes. In the mean time, the elder
traveller, as if familiar with the nature of the impulses by which his
children were governed, disencumbered himself of his pack and rifle,
and, assisted by the man already mentioned as disposed to appeal so
promptly to the rifle, he quietly proceeded to release the cattle from
the gears.

At length the eldest of the sons stepped heavily forward, and, without
any apparent effort, he buried his axe to the eye, in the soft body of
a cotton-wood tree. He stood, a moment, regarding the effect of the
blow, with that sort of contempt with which a giant might be supposed
to contemplate the puny resistance of a dwarf, and then flourishing the
implement above his head, with the grace and dexterity with which a
master of the art of offence would wield his nobler though less useful
weapon, he quickly severed the trunk of the tree, bringing its tall top
crashing to the earth in submission to his prowess. His companions
regarded the operation with indolent curiosity, until they saw the
prostrate trunk stretched on the ground, when, as if a signal for a
general attack had been given, they advanced in a body to the work, and
in a space of time, and with a neatness of execution that would have
astonished an ignorant spectator, they stripped a small but suitable
spot of its burden of forest, as effectually, and almost as promptly,
as if a whirlwind had passed along the place.

The stranger had been a silent but attentive observer of their
progress. As tree after tree came whistling down, he cast his eyes
upward at the vacancies they left in the heavens, with a melancholy
gaze, and finally turned away, muttering to himself with a bitter
smile, like one who disdained giving a more audible utterance to his
discontent. Pressing through the group of active and busy children, who
had already lighted a cheerful fire, the attention of the old man
became next fixed on the movements of the leader of the emigrants and
of his savage looking assistant.

These two had, already, liberated the cattle, which were eagerly
browsing the grateful and nutritious extremities of the fallen trees,
and were now employed about the wagon, which has been described as
having its contents concealed with so much apparent care.
Notwithstanding this particular conveyance appeared to be as silent,
and as tenantless as the rest of the vehicles, the men applied their
strength to its wheels, and rolled it apart from the others, to a dry
and elevated spot, near the edge of the thicket. Here they brought
certain poles, which had, seemingly, been long employed in such a
service, and fastening their larger ends firmly in the ground, the
smaller were attached to the hoops that supported the covering of the
wagon. Large folds of cloth were next drawn out of the vehicle, and
after being spread around the whole, were pegged to the earth in such a
manner as to form a tolerably capacious and an exceedingly convenient
tent. After surveying their work with inquisitive, and perhaps jealous
eyes, arranging a fold here, and driving a peg more firmly there, the
men once more applied their strength to the wagon, pulling it, by its
projecting tongue, from the centre of the canopy, until it appeared in
the open air, deprived of its covering, and destitute of any other
freight, than a few light articles of furniture. The latter were
immediately removed, by the traveller, into the tent with his own
hands, as though to enter it, were a privilege, to which even his bosom
companion was not entitled.

Curiosity is a passion that is rather quickened than destroyed by
seclusion, and the old inhabitant of the prairies did not view these
precautionary and mysterious movements, without experiencing some of
its impulses. He approached the tent, and was about to sever two of its
folds, with the very obvious intention of examining, more closely, into
the nature of its contents, when the man who had once already placed
his life in jeopardy, seized him by the arm, and with a rude exercise
of his strength threw him from the spot he had selected as the one most
convenient for his object.

“It’s an honest regulation, friend,” the fellow, drily observed, though
with an eye that threatened volumes, “and sometimes it is a safe one,
which says, mind your own business.”

“Men seldom bring any thing to be concealed into these deserts,”
returned the old man, as if willing, and yet a little ignorant how to
apologize for the liberty he had been about to take, “and I had hoped
no offence, in examining your comforts.”

“They seldom bring themselves, I reckon; though this has the look of an
old country, to my eye it seems not to be overly peopled.”

“The land is as aged as the rest of the works of the Lord, I believe;
but you say true, concerning its inhabitants. Many months have passed
since I have laid eyes on a face of my own colour, before your own. I
say again, friend, I meant no harm; I did not know, but there was
something behind the cloth, that might bring former days to my mind.”

As the stranger ended his simple explanation, he walked meekly away,
like one who felt the deepest sense of the right which every man has to
the quiet enjoyment of his own, without any troublesome interference on
the part of his neighbour; a wholesome and just principle that he had,
also, most probably imbibed from the habits of his secluded life. As he
passed towards the little encampment of the emigrants, for such the
place had now become, he heard the voice of the leader calling aloud,
in its hoarse tones, the name of—

“Ellen Wade.”

The girl who has been already introduced to the reader, and who was
occupied with the others of her sex around the fires, sprang willingly
forward at this summons; and, passing the stranger with the activity of
a young antelope, she was instantly lost behind the forbidden folds of
the tent. Neither her sudden disappearance, nor any of the arrangements
we have mentioned, seemed, however, to excite the smallest surprise
among the remainder of the party. The young men, who had already
completed their tasks with the axe, were all engaged after their
lounging and listless manner; some in bestowing equitable portions of
the fodder among the different animals; others in plying the heavy
pestle of a moveable homminy-mortar[4]; and one or two in wheeling the
remainder of the wagons aside, and arranging them in such a manner as
to form a sort of outwork for their otherwise defenceless bivouac.

These several duties were soon performed, and, as darkness now began to
conceal the objects on the surrounding prairie, the shrill-toned
termagant, whose voice since the halt had been diligently exercised
among her idle and drowsy offspring, announced, in tones that might
have been heard at a dangerous distance, that the evening meal waited
only for the approach of those who were to consume it. Whatever may be
the other qualities of a border man, he is seldom deficient in the
virtue of hospitality. The emigrant no sooner heard the sharp call of
his wife, than he cast his eyes about him in quest of the stranger, in
order to offer him the place of distinction, in the rude entertainment
to which they were so unceremoniously summoned.

“I thank you, friend,” the old man replied to the rough invitation to
take a seat nigh the smoking kettle; “you have my hearty thanks; but I
have eaten for the day, and am not one of them, who dig their graves
with their teeth. Well; as you wish it, I will take a place, for it is
long sin’ I have seen people of my colour, eating their daily bread.”

“You ar’ an old settler, in these districts, then?” the emigrant rather
remarked than enquired, with a mouth filled nearly to overflowing with
the delicious homminy, prepared by his skilful, though repulsive
spouse. “They told us below, we should find settlers something
thinnish, hereaway, and I must say, the report was mainly true; for,
unless, we count the Canada traders on the big river, you ar’ the first
white face I have met, in a good five hundred miles; that is
calculating according to your own reckoning.”

“Though I have spent some years, in this quarter, I can hardly be
called a settler, seeing that I have no regular abode, and seldom pass
more than a month, at a time, on the same range.”

“A hunter, I reckon?” the other continued, glancing his eyes aside, as
if to examine the equipments of his new acquaintance; “your fixen seem
none of the best, for such a calling.”

“They are old, and nearly ready to be laid aside, like their master,”
said the old man, regarding his rifle, with a look in which affection
and regret were singularly blended; “and I may say they are but little
needed, too. You are mistaken, friend, in calling me a hunter; I am
nothing better than a trapper.”[5]

“If you ar’ much of the one, I’m bold to say you ar’ something of the
other; for the two callings, go mainly together, in these districts.”

“To the shame of the man who is able to follow the first be it so
said!” returned the trapper, whom in future we shall choose to
designate by his pursuit; “for more than fifty years did I carry my
rifle in the wilderness, without so much as setting a snare for even a
bird that flies the heavens;—much less, a beast that has nothing but
legs, for its gifts.”

“I see but little difference whether a man gets his peltry by the rifle
or by the trap,” said the ill-looking companion of the emigrant, in his
rough manner. “The ’arth was made for our comfort; and, for that
matter, so ar’ its creatur’s.”

“You seem to have but little plunder,[6] stranger, for one who is far
abroad,” bluntly interrupted the emigrant, as if he had a reason for
wishing to change the conversation. “I hope you ar’ better off for
skins.”

“I make but little use of either,” the trapper quietly replied. “At my
time of life, food and clothing be all that is needed; and I have
little occasion for what you call plunder, unless it may be, now and
then, to barter for a horn of powder, or a bar of lead.”

“You ar’ not, then, of these parts by natur’, friend,” the emigrant
continued, having in his mind the exception which the other had taken
to the very equivocal word, which he himself, according to the custom
of the country, had used for “baggage,” or “effects.”

“I was born on the sea-shore, though most of my life has been passed in
the woods.”

The whole party now looked up at him, as men are apt to turn their eyes
on some unexpected object of general interest. One or two of the young
men repeated the words “sea-shore” and the woman tendered him one of
those civilities with which, uncouth as they were, she was little
accustomed to grace her hospitality, as if in deference to the
travelled dignity of her guest. After a long, and, seemingly, a
meditating silence, the emigrant, who had, however, seen no apparent
necessity to suspend the functions of his masticating powers, resumed
the discourse.

“It is a long road, as I have heard, from the waters of the west to the
shores of the main sea?”

“It is a weary path, indeed, friend; and much have I seen, and
something have I suffered, in journeying over it.”

“A man would see a good deal of hard travel in going its length!”

“Seventy and five years have I been upon the road; and there are not
half that number of leagues in the whole distance, after you leave the
Hudson, on which I have not tasted venison of my own killing. But this
is vain boasting. Of what use are former deeds, when time draws to an
end?”

“I once met a man that had boated on the river he names,” observed the
eldest son, speaking in a low tone of voice, like one who distrusted
his knowledge, and deemed it prudent to assume a becoming diffidence in
the presence of a man who had seen so much: “from his tell, it must be
a considerable stream, and deep enough for a keel-boat, from top to
bottom.”

“It is a wide and deep water-course, and many sightly towns are there
growing on its banks,” returned the trapper; “and yet it is but a brook
to the waters of the endless river.”

“I call nothing a stream that a man can travel round,” exclaimed the
ill-looking associate of the emigrant: “a real river must be crossed;
not headed, like a bear in a county hunt.”[7]

“Have you been far towards the sun-down, friend?” interrupted the
emigrant, as if he desired to keep his rough companion as much as
possible out of the discourse. “I find it is a wide tract of clearing,
this, into which I have fallen.”

“You may travel weeks, and you will see it the same. I often think the
Lord has placed this barren belt of prairie behind the States, to warn
men to what their folly may yet bring the land! Ay, weeks, if not
months, may you journey in these open fields, in which there is neither
dwelling nor habitation for man or beast. Even the savage animals
travel miles on miles to seek their dens; and yet the wind seldom blows
from the east, but I conceit the sound of axes, and the crash of
falling trees, are in my ears.”

As the old man spoke with the seriousness and dignity that age seldom
fails to communicate even to less striking sentiments, his auditors
were deeply attentive, and as silent as the grave. Indeed, the trapper
was left to renew the dialogue himself, which he soon did by asking a
question, in the indirect manner so much in use by the border
inhabitants.

“You found it no easy matter to ford the water-courses, and to make
your way so deep into the prairies, friend, with teams of horses and
herds of horned beasts?”

“I kept the left bank of the main river,” the emigrant replied, “until
I found the stream leading too much to the north, when we rafted
ourselves across without any great suffering. The women lost a fleece
or two from the next year’s shearing, and the girls have one cow less
to their dairy. Since then, we have done bravely, by bridging a creek
every day or two.”

“It is likely you will continue west, until you come to land more
suitable for a settlement?”

“Until I see reason to stop, or to turn ag’in,” the emigrant bluntly
answered, rising at the same time, and cutting short the dialogue by
the suddenness of the movement. His example was followed by the
trapper, as well as the rest of the party; and then, without much
deference to the presence of their guest, the travellers proceeded to
make their dispositions to pass the night. Several little bowers, or
rather huts, had already been formed of the tops of trees, blankets of
coarse country manufacture, and the skins of buffaloes, united without
much reference to any other object than temporary comfort. Into these
covers the children, with their mother, soon drew themselves, and
where, it is more than possible, they were all speedily lost in the
oblivion of sleep. Before the men, however, could seek their rest, they
had sundry little duties to perform; such as completing their works of
defence, carefully concealing the fires, replenishing the fodder of
their cattle, and setting the watch that was to protect the party, in
the approaching hours of night.

The former was effected by dragging the trunks of a few trees into the
intervals left by the wagons, and along the open space between the
vehicles and the thicket, on which, in military language, the
encampment would be said to have rested; thus forming a sort of
chevaux-de-frise on three sides of the position. Within these narrow
limits (with the exception of what the tent contained), both man and
beast were now collected; the latter being far too happy in resting
their weary limbs, to give any undue annoyance to their scarcely more
intelligent associates. Two of the young men took their rifles; and,
first renewing the priming, and examining the flints with the utmost
care, they proceeded, the one to the extreme right, and the other to
the left, of the encampment, where they posted themselves within the
shadows of the thicket; but in such positions as enabled each to
overlook a portion of the prairie.

The trapper loitered about the place, declining to share the straw of
the emigrant, until the whole arrangement was completed; and then,
without the ceremony of an adieu, he slowly retired from the spot.

It was now in the first watch of the night; and the pale, quivering,
and deceptive light, from a new moon, was playing over the endless
waves of the prairie, tipping the swells with gleams of brightness, and
leaving the interval land in deep shadow. Accustomed to scenes of
solitude like the present, the old man, as he left the encampment,
proceeded alone into the waste, like a bold vessel leaving its haven to
enter on the trackless field of the ocean. He appeared to move for some
time without object, or, indeed, without any apparent consciousness,
whither his limbs were carrying him. At length, on reaching the rise of
one of the undulations, he came to a stand; and, for the first time
since leaving the band, who had caused such a flood of reflections and
recollections to crowd upon his mind, the old man became aware of his
present situation. Throwing one end of his rifle to the earth, he stood
leaning on the other, again lost in deep contemplation for several
minutes, during which time his hound came and crouched at his feet. A
deep, menacing growl, from the faithful animal, first aroused him from
his musing.

“What now, dog?” he said, looking down at his companion, as if he
addressed a being of an intelligence equal to his own, and speaking in
a voice of great affection. “What is it, pup? ha! Hector; what is it
nosing, now? It won’t do, dog; it won’t do; the very fa’ns play in open
view of us, without minding so worn out curs, as you and I. Instinct is
their gift, Hector and, they have found out how little we are to be
feared, they have!”

The dog stretched his head upward, and responded to the words of his
master by a long and plaintive whine, which he even continued after he
had again buried his head in the grass, as if he held an intelligent
communication with one who so well knew how to interpret dumb
discourse.

“This is a manifest warning, Hector!” the trapper continued, dropping
his voice, to the tones of caution and looking warily about him. “What
is it, pup; speak plainer, dog; what is it?”

The hound had, however, already laid his nose to the earth, and was
silent; appearing to slumber. But the keen quick glances of his master,
soon caught a glimpse of a distant figure, which seemed, through the
deceptive light, floating along the very elevation on which he had
placed himself. Presently its proportions became more distinct, and
then an airy, female form appeared to hesitate, as if considering
whether it would be prudent to advance. Though the eyes of the dog were
now to be seen glancing in the rays of the moon, opening and shutting
lazily, he gave no further signs of displeasure.

“Come nigher; we are friends,” said the trapper, associating himself
with his companion by long use, and, probably, through the strength of
the secret tie that connected them together; “we are your friends; none
will harm you.”

Encouraged by the mild tones of his voice, and perhaps led on by the
earnestness of her purpose, the female approached, until she stood at
his side; when the old man perceived his visitor to be the young woman,
with whom the reader, has already become acquainted by the name of
“Ellen Wade.”

“I had thought you were gone,” she said, looking timidly and anxiously
around. “They said you were gone; and that we should never see you
again. I did not think it was you!”

“Men are no common objects in these empty fields,” returned the
trapper, “and I humbly hope, though I have so long consorted with the
beasts of the wilderness, that I have not yet lost the look of my
kind.”

“Oh! I knew you to be a man, and I thought I knew the whine of the
hound, too,” she answered hastily, as if willing to explain she knew
not what, and then checking herself, like one fearful of having already
said too much.

“I saw no dogs, among the teams of your father,” the trapper remarked.

“Father!” exclaimed the girl, feelingly, “I have no father! I had
nearly said no friend.”

The old man turned towards her, with a look of kindness and interest,
that was even more conciliating than the ordinary, upright, and
benevolent expression of his weather-beaten countenance.

“Why then do you venture in a place where none but the strong should
come?” he demanded. “Did you not know that, when you crossed the big
river, you left a friend behind you that is always bound to look to the
young and feeble, like yourself.”

“Of whom do you speak?”

“The law—’tis bad to have it, but, I sometimes think, it is worse to be
entirely without it. Age and weakness have brought me to feel such
weakness, at times. Yes—yes, the law is needed, when such as have not
the gifts of strength and wisdom are to be taken care of. I hope, young
woman, if you have no father, you have at least a brother.”

The maiden felt the tacit reproach conveyed in this covert question,
and for a moment she remained in an embarrassed silence. But catching a
glimpse of the mild and serious features of her companion, as he
continued to gaze on her with a look of interest, she replied, firmly,
and in a manner that left no doubt she comprehended his meaning:

“Heaven forbid that any such as you have seen, should be a brother of
mine, or any thing else near or dear to me! But, tell me, do you then
actually live alone, in this desert district, old man; is there really
none here besides yourself?”

“There are hundreds, nay, thousands of the rightful owners of the
country, roving about the plains; but few of our own colour.”

“And have you then met none who are white, but us?” interrupted the
girl, like one too impatient to await the tardy explanations of age and
deliberation.

“Not in many days—Hush, Hector, hush,” he added in reply to a low, and
nearly inaudible, growl from his hound. “The dog scents mischief in the
wind! The black bears from the mountains sometimes make their way, even
lower than this. The pup is not apt to complain of the harmless game. I
am not so ready and true with the piece as I used-to-could-be, yet I
have struck even the fiercest animals of the prairie in my time; so,
you have little reason for fear, young woman.”

The girl raised her eyes, in that peculiar manner which is so often
practised by her sex, when they commence their glances, by examining
the earth at their feet, and terminate them by noting every thing
within the power of human vision; but she rather manifested the quality
of impatience, than any feeling of alarm.

A short bark from the dog, however, soon gave a new direction to the
looks of both, and then the real object of his second warning became
dimly visible.

[4] Homminy, is a dish composed chiefly of cracked corn, or maize.


[5] It is scarcely necessary to say, that this American word means one
who takes his game in a trap. It is of general use on the frontiers.
The beaver, an animal too sagacious to be easily killed, is oftener
taken in this way than in any other.


[6] The cant word for luggage in the western states of America is
“plunder.” The term might easily mislead one as to the character of
the people, who, notwithstanding their pleasant use of so expressive a
word, are, like the inhabitants of all new settlements, hospitable and
honest. Knavery of the description conveyed by “plunder,” is chiefly
found in regions more civilised.


[7] There is a practice, in the new countries, to assemble the men of
a large district, sometimes of an entire county, to exterminate the
beasts of prey. They form themselves into a circle of several miles in
extent, and gradually draw nearer, killing all before them. The
allusion is to this custom, in which the hunted beast is turned from
one to another.




CHAPTER III


Come, come, thou art as hot a Jack in thy mood, as any in Italy; and as
soon mov’d to be moody, and as soon moody to be moved.
                   —Romeo and Juliet.


Though the trapper manifested some surprise when he perceived that
another human figure was approaching him, and that, too, from a
direction opposite to the place where the emigrant had made his
encampment, it was with the steadiness of one long accustomed to scenes
of danger.

“This is a man,” he said; “and one who has white blood in his veins, or
his step would be lighter. It will be well to be ready for the worst,
as the half-and-halfs,[8] that one meets, in these distant districts,
are altogether more barbarous than the real savage.”

He raised his rifle while he spoke, and assured himself of the state of
its flint, as well as of the priming by manual examination. But his arm
was arrested, while in the act of throwing forward the muzzle of the
piece, by the eager and trembling hands of his companion.

“For God’s sake, be not too hasty,” she said; “it may be a friend—an
acquaintance—a neighbour!”

“A friend!” the old man repeated, deliberately releasing himself, at
the same time, from her grasp. “Friends are rare in any land, and less
in this, perhaps, than in another; and the neighbourhood is too thinly
settled to make it likely that he who comes towards us is even an
acquaintance.”

“But though a stranger, you would not seek his blood!”

The trapper earnestly regarded her anxious and frightened features, and
then he dropped the butt of his rifle on the ground, like one whose
purpose had undergone a sudden change.

“No,” he said, speaking rather to himself, than to his companion, “she
is right; blood is not to be spilt, to save the life of one so useless,
and so near his time. Let him come on; my skins, my traps, and even my
rifle shall be his, if he sees fit to demand them.”

“He will ask for neither:—he wants neither,” returned the girl; “if he
be an honest man, he will surely be content with his own, and ask for
nothing that is the property of another.”

The trapper had not time to express the surprise he felt at this
incoherent and contradictory language, for the man who was advancing,
was, already, within fifty feet of the place where they stood.—In the
mean time, Hector had not been an indifferent witness of what was
passing. At the sound of the distant footsteps, he had arisen, from his
warm bed at the feet of his master; and now, as the stranger appeared
in open view, he stalked slowly towards him, crouching to the earth
like a panther about to take his leap.

“Call in your dog,” said a firm, deep, manly voice, in tones of
friendship, rather than of menace; “I love a hound, and should be sorry
to do an injury to the animal.”

“You hear what is said about you, pup?” the trapper answered; “come
hither, fool. His growl and his bark are all that is left him now; you
may come on, friend; the hound is toothless.”

The stranger profited by the intelligence. He sprang eagerly forward,
and at the next instant stood at the side of Ellen Wade. After assuring
himself of the identity of the latter, by a hasty but keen glance, he
turned his attention, with a quickness and impatience, that proved the
interest he took in the result, to a similar examination of her
companion.

“From what cloud have you fallen, my good old man?” he said in a
careless, off-hand, heedless manner that seemed too natural to be
assumed: “or do you actually live, hereaway, in the prairies?”

“I have been long on earth, and never I hope nigher to heaven, than I
am at this moment,” returned the trapper; “my dwelling, if dwelling I
may be said to have, is not far distant. Now may I take the liberty
with you, that you are so willing to take with others? Whence do you
come, and where is your home?”

“Softly, softly; when I have done with my catechism, it will be time to
begin with yours. What sport is this, you follow by moonlight? You are
not dodging the buffaloes at such an hour!”

“I am, as you see, going from an encampment of travellers, which lies
over yonder swell in the land, to my own wigwam; in doing so, I wrong
no man.”

“All fair and true. And you got this young woman to show you the way,
because she knows it so well and you know so little about it yourself!”

“I met her, as I have met you, by accident. For ten tiresome years have
I dwelt on these open fields, and never, before to-night, have I found
human beings with white skins on them, at this hour. If my presence
here gives offence, I am sorry; and will go my way. It is more than
likely that when your young friend has told her story, you will be
better given to believe mine.

“Friend!” said the youth, lifting a cap of skins from his head, and
running his fingers leisurely through a dense mass of black and shaggy
locks, “if I have ever laid eyes on the girl before to-night, may I—”

“You’ve said enough, Paul,” interrupted the female, laying her hand on
his mouth, with a familiarity that gave something very like the lie
direct, to his intended asseveration. “Our secret will be safe, with
this honest old man. I know it by his looks, and kind words.”

“Our secret! Ellen, have you forgot—”

“Nothing. I have not forgotten any thing I should remember. But still I
say we are safe with this honest trapper.”

“Trapper! is he then a trapper? Give me your hand, father; our trades
should bring us acquainted.”

“There is little call for handicrafts in this region,” returned the
other, examining the athletic and active form of the youth, as he
leaned carelessly and not ungracefully, on his rifle; “the art of
taking the creatur’s of God, in traps and nets, is one that needs more
cunning than manhood; and yet am I brought to practise it, in my age!
But it would be quite as seemly, in one like you, to follow a pursuit
better becoming your years and courage.”

“I! I never took even a slinking mink or a paddling musk-rat in a cage;
though I admit having peppered a few of the dark-skin’d devils, when I
had much better have kept my powder in the horn and the lead in its
pouch. Not I, old man; nothing that crawls the earth is for my sport.”

“What then may you do for a living, friend? for little profit is to be
made in these districts, if a man denies himself his lawful right in
the beasts of the fields.”

“I deny myself nothing. If a bear crosses my path, he is soon the mere
ghost of Bruin. The deer begin to nose me; and as for the buffaloe, I
have kill’d more beef, old stranger, than the largest butcher in all
Kentuck.”

“You can shoot, then!” demanded the trapper, with a glow of latent
fire, glimmering about his eyes; “is your hand true, and your look
quick?”

“The first is like a steel trap, and the last nimbler than a buck-shot.
I wish it was hot noon, now, grand’ther; and that there was an acre or
two of your white swans or of black feathered ducks going south, over
our heads; you or Ellen, here, might set your heart on the finest in
the flock, and my character against a horn of powder, that the bird
would be hanging head downwards, in five minutes, and that too, with a
single ball. I scorn a shot-gun! No man can say, he ever knew me carry
one, a rod.”

“The lad has good in him! I see it plainly by his manner;” said the
trapper, turning to Ellen with an encouraging air; “I will take it on
myself to say, that you are not unwise in meeting him, as you do. Tell
me, lad; did you ever strike a leaping buck atwixt the antlers? Hector;
quiet, pup; quiet. The very name of venison quickens the blood of the
cur;—did you ever take an animal in that fashion, on the long leap?”

“You might just as well ask me, did you ever eat? There is no fashion,
old stranger, that a deer has not been touched by my hand, unless it
was when asleep.”

“Ay, ay; you have a long and a happy-ay, and an honest life afore you!
I am old, and I suppose I might also say, worn out and useless; but, if
it was given me to choose my time, and place, again,—as such things are
not and ought not ever to be given to the will of man—though if such a
gift was to be given me, I would say, twenty and the wilderness! But,
tell me; how do you part with the peltry?”

“With my pelts! I never took a skin from a buck, nor a quill from a
goose, in my life! I knock them over, now and then, for a meal, and
sometimes to keep my finger true to the touch; but when hunger is
satisfied, the prairie wolves get the remainder. No—no—I keep to my
calling; which pays me better, than all the fur I could sell on the
other side of the big river.”

The old man appeared to ponder a little; but shaking his head he soon
continued—

“I know of but one business that can be followed here with profit—”

He was interrupted by the youth, who raised a small cup of tin, which
dangled at his neck before the other’s eyes, and springing its lid, the
delicious odour of the finest flavoured honey, diffused itself over the
organs of the trapper.

“A bee hunter!” observed the latter, with a readiness that proved he
understood the nature of the occupation, though not without some little
surprise at discovering one of the other’s spirited mien engaged in so
humble a pursuit. “It pays well in the skirts of the settlements, but I
should call it a doubtful trade, in the more open districts.”

“You think a tree is wanting for a swarm to settle in! But I know
differently; and so I have stretched out a few hundred miles farther
west than common, to taste your honey. And, now, I have bated your
curiosity, stranger, you will just move aside, while I tell the
remainder of my story to this young woman.”

“It is not necessary, I’m sure it is not necessary, that he should
leave us,” said Ellen, with a haste that implied some little
consciousness of the singularity if not of the impropriety of the
request. “You can have nothing to say that the whole world might not
hear.”

“No! well, may I be stung to death by drones, if I understand the
buzzings of a woman’s mind! For my part, Ellen, I care for nothing nor
any body; and am just as ready to go down to the place where your
uncle, if uncle you can call one, who I’ll swear is no relation, has
hoppled his teams, and tell the old man my mind now, as I shall be a
year hence. You have only to say a single word, and the thing is done;
let him like it or not.”

“You are ever so hasty and so rash, Paul Hover, that I seldom know when
I am safe with you. How can you, who know the danger of our being seen
together, speak of going before my uncle and his sons?”

“Has he done that of which he has reason to be ashamed?” demanded the
trapper, who had not moved an inch from the place he first occupied.

“Heaven forbid! But there are reasons, why he should not be seen, just
now, that could do him no harm if known; but which may not yet be told.
And, so, if you will wait, father, near yonder willow bush, until I
have heard what Paul can possibly have to say, I shall be sure to come
and wish you a good night, before I return to the camp.”

The trapper drew slowly aside, as if satisfied with the somewhat
incoherent reason Ellen had given why he should retire. When completely
out of ear shot of the earnest and hurried dialogue, that instantly
commenced between the two he had left, the old man again paused, and
patiently awaited the moment when he might renew his conversation with
beings in whom he felt a growing interest, no less from the mysterious
character of their intercourse, than from a natural sympathy in the
welfare of a pair so young, and who, as in the simplicity of his heart
he was also fain to believe, were also so deserving. He was accompanied
by his indolent, but attached dog, who once more made his bed at the
feet of his master, and soon lay slumbering as usual, with his head
nearly buried in the dense fog of the prairie grass.

It was a spectacle so unusual to see the human form amid the solitude
in which he dwelt, that the trapper bent his eyes on the dim figures of
his new acquaintances, with sensations to which he had long been a
stranger. Their presence awakened recollections and emotions, to which
his sturdy but honest nature had latterly paid but little homage, and
his thoughts began to wander over the varied scenes of a life of
hardships, that had been strangely blended with scenes of wild and
peculiar enjoyment. The train taken by his thoughts had, already,
conducted him, in imagination, far into an ideal world, when he was,
once more suddenly, recalled to the reality of his situation, by the
movements of the faithful hound.

The dog, who, in submission to his years and infirmities, had
manifested such a decided propensity to sleep, now arose, and stalked
from out the shadow cast by the tall person of his master, and looked
abroad into the prairie, as if his instinct apprised him of the
presence of still another visitor. Then, seemingly content with his
examination, he returned to his comfortable post and disposed of his
weary limbs, with the deliberation and care of one who was no novice in
the art of self-preservation.

“What; again, Hector!” said the trapper in a soothing voice, which he
had the caution, however, to utter in an under tone; “what is it, dog?
tell it all to his master, pup; what is it?”

Hector answered with another growl, but was content to continue in his
lair. These were evidences of intelligence and distrust, to which one
as practised as the trapper could not turn an inattentive ear. He again
spoke to the dog, encouraging him to watchfulness, by a low guarded
whistle. The animal however, as if conscious of having, already,
discharged his duty, obstinately refused to raise his head from the
grass.

“A hint from such a friend is far better than man’s advice!” muttered
the trapper, as he slowly moved towards the couple who were yet, too
earnestly and abstractedly, engaged in their own discourse, to notice
his approach; “and none but a conceited settler would hear it and not
respect it, as he ought. Children,” he added, when nigh enough to
address his companions, “we are not alone in these dreary fields; there
are others stirring, and, therefore, to the shame of our kind, be it
said, danger is nigh.”

“If one of the lazy sons of Skirting Ishmael is prowling out of his
camp to-night,” said the young bee-hunter, with great vivacity, and in
tones that might easily have been excited to a menace, “he may have an
end put to his journey sooner than either he or his father is
dreaming!”

“My life on it, they are all with the teams,” hurriedly answered the
girl. “I saw the whole of them asleep, myself, except the two on watch;
and their natures have greatly changed, if they, too, are not both
dreaming of a turkey hunt, or a court-house fight, at this very
moment.”

“Some beast, with a strong scent, has passed between the wind and the
hound, father, and it makes him uneasy; or, perhaps, he too is
dreaming. I had a pup of my own, in Kentuck, that would start upon a
long chase from a deep sleep; and all upon the fancy of some dream. Go
to him, and pinch his ear, that the beast may feel the life within
him.”

“Not so—not so,” returned the trapper, shaking his head as one who
better understood the qualities of his dog.—“Youth sleeps, ay, and
dreams too; but age is awake and watchful. The pup is never false with
his nose, and long experience tells me to heed his warnings.”

“Did you ever run him upon the trail of carrion?”

“Why, I must say, that the ravenous beasts have sometimes tempted me to
let him loose, for they are as greedy as men, after the venison, in its
season; but then I knew the reason of the dog, would tell him the
object!—No—no, Hector is an animal known in the ways of man, and will
never strike a false trail when a true one is to be followed!”

“Ay, ay, the secret is out! you have run the hound on the track of a
wolf, and his nose has a better memory than his master!” said the
bee-hunter, laughing.

“I have seen the creatur’ sleep for hours, with pack after pack, in
open view. A wolf might eat out of his tray without a snarl, unless
there was a scarcity; then, indeed, Hector would be apt to claim his
own.”

“There are panthers down from the mountains; I saw one make a leap at a
sick deer, as the sun was setting. Go; go you back to the dog, and tell
him the truth, father; in a minute, I—”

He was interrupted by a long, loud, and piteous howl from the hound,
which rose on the air of the evening, like the wailing of some spirit
of the place, and passed off into the prairie, in cadences that rose
and fell, like its own undulating surface. The trapper was impressively
silent, listening intently. Even the reckless bee-hunter, was struck
with the wailing wildness of the sounds. After a short pause the former
whistled the dog to his side, and turning to his companions he said
with the seriousness, which, in his opinion, the occasion demanded—

“They who think man enjoys all the knowledge of the creatur’s of God,
will live to be disappointed, if they reach, as I have done, the age of
fourscore years. I will not take upon myself to say what mischief is
brewing, nor will I vouch that, even, the hound himself knows so much;
but that evil is nigh, and that wisdom invites us to avoid it, I have
heard from the mouth of one who never lies. I did think, the pup had
become unused to the footsteps of man, and that your presence made him
uneasy; but his nose has been on a long scent the whole evening, and
what I mistook as a notice of your coming, has been intended for
something more serious. If the advice of an old man is, then, worth
hearkening to, children, you will quickly go different ways to your
places of shelter and safety.”

“If I quit Ellen, at such a moment,” exclaimed the youth, “may I—”

“You’ve said enough!” the girl interrupted, by again interposing a band
that might, both by its delicacy and colour, have graced a far more
elevated station in life; “my time is out; and we must part, at all
events—so good night, Paul—father—good night.”

“Hist!” said the youth, seizing her arm, as she was in the very act of
tripping from his side—“Hist! do you hear nothing? There are buffaloes
playing their pranks, at no great distance—That sound beats the earth
like a herd of the mad scampering devils!”

His two companions listened, as people in their situation would be apt
to lend their faculties to discover the meaning of any doubtful noises,
especially, when heard after so many and such startling warnings. The
unusual sounds were unequivocally though still faintly audible. The
youth and his female companion had made several hurried, and
vacillating conjectures concerning their nature, when a current of the
night air brought the rush of trampling footsteps, too sensibly, to
their ears, to render mistake any longer possible.

“I am right!” said the bee-hunter; “a panther is driving a herd before
him; or may be, there is a battle among the beasts.”

“Your ears are cheats,” returned the old man, who, from the moment his
own organs had been able to catch the distant sounds, stood like a
statue made to represent deep attention:—“the leaps are too long for
the buffaloe, and too regular for terror. Hist! now they are in a
bottom where the grass is high, and the sound is deadened! Ay, there
they go on the hard earth! And now they come up the swell, dead upon
us; they will be here afore you can find a cover!”

“Come, Ellen,” cried the youth, seizing his companion by the hand, “let
us make a trial for the encampment.”

“Too late! too late!” exclaimed the trapper, “for the creatur’s are in
open view; and a bloody band of accursed Siouxes they are, by their
thieving look, and the random fashion in which they ride!”

“Siouxes or devils, they shall find us men!” said the bee-hunter, with
a mien as fierce as if he led a party of superior strength, and of a
courage equal to his own.—“You have a piece, old man, and will pull a
trigger in behalf of a helpless, Christian girl!”

“Down, down into the grass—down with ye both,” whispered the trapper,
intimating to them to turn aside to the tall weeds, which grew, in a
denser body than common, near the place where they stood. “You’ve not
the time to fly, nor the numbers to fight, foolish boy. Down into the
grass, if you prize the young woman, or value the gift of life!”

His remonstrance, seconded, as it was, by a prompt and energetic
action, did not fail to produce the submission to his order, which the
occasion seemed, indeed, imperiously to require. The moon had fallen
behind a sheet of thin, fleecy, clouds, which skirted the horizon,
leaving just enough of its faint and fluctuating light, to render
objects visible, dimly revealing their forms and proportions. The
trapper, by exercising that species of influence, over his companions,
which experience and decision usually assert, in cases of emergency,
had effectually succeeded in concealing them in the grass, and by the
aid of the feeble rays of the luminary, he was enabled to scan the
disorderly party which was riding, like so many madmen, directly upon
them.

A band of beings, who resembled demons rather than men, sporting in
their nightly revels across the bleak plain, was in truth approaching,
at a fearful rate, and in a direction to leave little hope that some
one among them, at least, would not pass over the spot where the
trapper and his companions lay. At intervals, the clattering of hoofs
was borne along by the night wind, quite audibly in their front, and
then, again, their progress through the fog of the autumnal grass, was
swift and silent; adding to the unearthly appearance of the spectacle.
The trapper, who had called in his hound, and bidden him crouch at his
side, now kneeled in the cover also, and kept a keen and watchful eye
on the route of the band, soothing the fears of the girl, and
restraining the impatience of the youth, in the same breath.

“If there’s one, there’s thirty of the miscreants!” he said, in a sort
of episode to his whispered comments. “Ay, ay; they are edging towards
the river—Peace, pup—peace—no, here they come this way again—the
thieves don’t seem to know their own errand! If there were just six of
us, lad, what a beautiful ambushment we might make upon them, from this
very spot—it won’t do, it won’t do, boy; keep yourself closer, or your
head will be seen—besides, I’m not altogether strong in the opinion it
would be lawful, as they have done us no harm.—There they bend again to
the river—no; here they come up the swell—now is the moment to be as
still, as if the breath had done its duty and departed the body.”

The old man sunk into the grass while he was speaking, as if the final
separation to which he alluded, had, in his own case, actually
occurred, and, at the next instant, a band of wild horsemen whirled by
them, with the noiseless rapidity in which it might be imagined a troop
of spectres would pass. The dark and fleeting forms were already
vanished, when the trapper ventured again to raise his head to a level
with the tops of the bending herbage, motioning at the same time, to
his companions to maintain their positions and their silence.

“They are going down the swell, towards the encampment,” he continued,
in his former guarded tones; “no, they halt in the bottom, and are
clustering together like deer, in council. By the Lord, they are
turning again, and we are not yet done with the reptiles!”

Once more he sought his friendly cover, and at the next instant the
dark troop were to be seen riding, in a disorderly manner, on the very
summit of the little elevation on which the trapper and his companions
lay. It was now soon apparent that they had returned to avail
themselves of the height of the ground, in order to examine the dim
horizon.

Some dismounted, while others rode to and fro, like men engaged in a
local enquiry of much interest. Happily, for the hidden party, the
grass in which they were concealed, not only served to skreen them from
the eyes of the savages, but opposed an obstacle to prevent their
horses, which were no less rude and untrained than their riders, from
trampling on them, in their irregular and wild paces.

At length an athletic and dark looking Indian, who, by his air of
authority, would seem to be the leader, summoned his chiefs about him,
to a consultation, which was held mounted. This body was collected on
the very margin of that mass of herbage in which the trapper and his
companions were hid. As the young man looked up and saw the fierce
aspect of the group, which was increasing at each instant by the
accession of some countenance and figure, apparently more forbidding
than any which had preceded it, he drew his rifle, by a very natural
impulse, from beneath him, and commenced putting it in a state for
service. The female, at his side, buried her face in the grass, by a
feeling that was, possibly, quite as natural to her sex and habits,
leaving him to follow the impulses of his hot blood; but his aged and
more prudent adviser, whispered, sternly, in his ear—

“The tick of the lock is as well known to the knaves, as the blast of a
trumpet to a soldier! lay down the piece—lay down the piece—should the
moon touch the barrel, it could not fail to be seen by the devils,
whose eyes are keener than the blackest snake’s! The smallest motion,
now, would be sure to bring an arrow among us.”

The bee-hunter so far obeyed as to continue immovable and silent. But
there was still sufficient light to convince his companion, by the
contracted brow and threatening eye of the young man, that a discovery
would not bestow a bloodless victory on the savages. Finding his advice
disregarded, the trapper took his measures accordingly, and awaited the
result with a resignation and calmness that were characteristic of the
individual.

In the mean time, the Siouxes (for the sagacity of the old man was not
deceived in the character of his dangerous neighbours) had terminated
their council, and were again dispersed along the ridge of land as if
they sought some hidden object.

“The imps have heard the hound!” whispered the trapper, “and their ears
are too true to be cheated in the distance. Keep close, lad, keep
close; down with your head to the very earth, like a dog that sleeps.”

“Let us rather take to our feet, and trust to manhood,” returned his
impatient companion.

He would have proceeded; but feeling a hand laid rudely on his
shoulder, he turned his eyes upward, and beheld the dark and savage
countenance of an Indian gleaming full upon him. Notwithstanding the
surprise and the disadvantage of his attitude, the youth was not
disposed to become a captive so easily. Quicker than the flash of his
own gun he sprang upon his feet, and was throttling his opponent with a
power that would soon have terminated the contest, when he felt the
arms of the trapper thrown round his body, confining his exertions by a
strength very little inferior to his own. Before he had time to
reproach his comrade for this apparent treachery, a dozen Siouxes were
around them, and the whole party were compelled to yield themselves as
prisoners.

[8] Half-breeds; men born of Indian women by white fathers. This race
has much of the depravity of civilisation without the virtues of the
savage.




CHAPTER IV


—With much more dismay,
I view the fight, than those that make the fray.
                   —Merchant of Venice.


The unfortunate bee-hunter and his companions had become the captives
of a people, who might, without exaggeration, be called the Ishmaelites
of the American deserts. From time immemorial, the hands of the Siouxes
had been turned against their neighbours of the prairies, and even at
this day, when the influence and authority of a civilised government
are beginning to be felt around them, they are considered a treacherous
and dangerous race. At the period of our tale, the case was far worse;
few white men trusting themselves in the remote and unprotected regions
where so false a tribe was known to dwell.

Notwithstanding the peaceable submission of the trapper, he was quite
aware of the character of the band into whose hands he had fallen. It
would have been difficult, however, for the nicest judge to have
determined whether fear, policy, or resignation formed the secret
motive of the old man, in permitting himself to be plundered as he did,
without a murmur. So far from opposing any remonstrance to the rude and
violent manner in which his conquerors performed the customary office,
he even anticipated their cupidity, by tendering to the chiefs such
articles as he thought might prove the most acceptable. On the other
hand Paul Hover, who had been literally a conquered man, manifested the
strongest repugnance to submit to the violent liberties that were taken
with his person and property. He even gave several exceedingly
unequivocal demonstrations of his displeasure during the summary
process, and would, more than once, have broken out in open and
desperate resistance, but for the admonitions and entreaties of the
trembling girl, who clung to his side, in a manner so dependent, as to
show the youth, that her hopes were now placed, no less on his
discretion, than on his disposition to serve her.

The Indians had, however, no sooner deprived the captives of their arms
and ammunition, and stripped them of a few articles of dress of little
use, and perhaps of less value, than they appeared disposed to grant
them a respite. Business of greater moment pressed on their hands, and
required their attention. Another consultation of the chiefs was
convened, and it was apparent, by the earnest and vehement manner of
the few who spoke, that the warriors conceived their success as yet to
be far from complete.

“It will be well,” whispered the trapper, who knew enough of the
language he heard to comprehend perfectly the subject of the
discussion, “if the travellers who lie near the willow brake are not
awoke out of their sleep by a visit from these miscreants. They are too
cunning to believe that a woman of the ‘pale-faces’ is to be found so
far from the settlements, without having a white man’s inventions and
comforts at hand.”

“If they will carry the tribe of wandering Ishmael to the Rocky
Mountains,” said the young bee-hunter, laughing in his vexation with a
sort of bitter merriment, “I may forgive the rascals.”

“Paul! Paul!” exclaimed his companion in a tone of reproach, “you
forget all! Think of the dreadful consequences!”

“Ay, it was thinking of what you call consequences, Ellen, that
prevented me from putting the matter, at once, to yonder red-devil, and
making it a real knock-down and drag-out! Old trapper, the sin of this
cowardly business lies on your shoulders! But it is no more than your
daily calling, I reckon, to take men, as well as beasts, in snares.”

“I implore you, Paul, to be calm—to be patient.”

“Well, since it is your wish, Ellen,” returned the youth, endeavouring
to swallow his spleen, “I will make the trial; though, as you ought to
know, it is part of the religion of a Kentuckian to fret himself a
little at a mischance.”

“I fear your friends in the other bottom will not escape the eyes of
the imps!” continued the trapper, as coolly as though he had not heard
a syllable of the intervening discourse. “They scent plunder; and it
would be as hard to drive a hound from his game, as to throw the
varmints from its trail.”

“Is there nothing to be done?” asked Ellen, in an imploring manner,
which proved the sincerity of her concern.

“It would be an easy matter to call out, in so loud a voice as to make
old Ishmael dream that the wolves were among his flock,” Paul replied;
“I can make myself heard a mile in these open fields, and his camp is
but a short quarter from us.”

“And get knocked on the head for your pains,” returned the trapper.
“No, no; cunning must match cunning, or the hounds will murder the
whole family.”

“Murder! no—no murder. Ishmael loves travel so well, there would be no
harm in his having a look at the other sea, but the old fellow is in a
bad condition to take the long journey! I would try a lock myself
before he should be quite murdered.”

“His party is strong in number, and well armed; do you think it will
fight?”

“Look here, old trapper: few men love Ishmael Bush and his seven
sledge-hammer sons less than one Paul Hover; but I scorn to slander
even a Tennessee shotgun. There is as much of the true stand-up courage
among them, as there is in any family that was ever raised in Kentuck,
itself. They are a long-sided and a double-jointed breed; and let me
tell you, that he who takes the measure of one of them on the ground,
must be a workman at a hug.”

“Hist! The savages have done their talk, and are about to set their
accursed devices in motion. Let us be patient; something may yet offer
in favour of your friends.”

“Friends! call none of the race a friend of mine, trapper, if you have
the smallest regard for my affection! What I say in their favour is
less from love than honesty.”

“I did not know but the young woman was of the kin,” returned the
other, a little drily—“but no offence should be taken, where none was
intended.”

The mouth of Paul was again stopped by the hand of Ellen, who took on
herself to reply, in her conciliating tones: “we should be all of a
family, when it is in our power to serve each other. We depend entirely
on your experience, honest old man, to discover the means to apprise
our friends of their danger.”

“There will be a real time of it,” muttered the bee-hunter, laughing,
“if the boys get at work, in good earnest, with these red skins!”

He was interrupted by a general movement which took place among the
band. The Indians dismounted to a man, giving their horses in charge to
three or four of the party, who were also intrusted with the safe
keeping of the prisoners. They then formed themselves in a circle
around a warrior, who appeared to possess the chief authority; and at a
given signal the whole array moved slowly and cautiously from the
centre in straight and consequently in diverging lines. Most of their
dark forms were soon blended with the brown covering of the prairie;
though the captives, who watched the slightest movement of their
enemies with vigilant eyes, were now and then enabled to discern a
human figure, drawn against the horizon, as some one, more eager than
the rest, rose to his greatest height in order to extend the limits of
his view. But it was not long before even these fugitive glimpses of
the moving, and constantly increasing circle, were lost, and
uncertainty and conjecture were added to apprehension. In this manner
passed many anxious and weary minutes, during the close of which the
listeners expected at each moment to hear the whoop of the assailants
and the shrieks of the assailed, rising together on the stillness of
the night. But it would seem, that the search which was so evidently
making, was without a sufficient object; for at the expiration of half
an hour the different individuals of the band began to return singly,
gloomy and sullen, like men who were disappointed.

“Our time is at hand,” observed the trapper, who noted the smallest
incident, or the slightest indication of hostility among the savages:
“we are now to be questioned; and if I know any thing of the policy of
our case, I should say it would be wise to choose one among us to hold
the discourse, in order that our testimony may agree. And furthermore,
if an opinion from one as old and as worthless as a hunter of
fourscore, is to be regarded, I would just venture to say, that man
should be the one most skilled in the natur’ of an Indian, and that he
should also know something of their language.—Are you acquainted with
the tongue of the Siouxes, friend?”

“Swarm your own hive,” returned the discontented bee-hunter. “You are
good at buzzing, old trapper, if you are good at nothing else.”

“’Tis the gift of youth to be rash and heady,” the trapper calmly
retorted. “The day has been, boy, when my blood was like your own, too
swift and too hot to run quietly in my veins. But what will it profit
to talk of silly risks and foolish acts at this time of life! A grey
head should cover a brain of reason, and not the tongue of a boaster.”

“True, true,” whispered Ellen; “and we have other things to attend to
now! Here comes the Indian to put his questions.”

The girl, whose apprehensions had quickened her senses, was not
deceived. She was yet speaking when a tall, half naked savage,
approached the spot where they stood, and after examining the whole
party as closely as the dim light permitted, for more than a minute in
perfect stillness, he gave the usual salutation in the harsh and
guttural tones of his own language. The trapper replied as well as he
could, which it seems was sufficiently well to be understood. In order
to escape the imputation of pedantry we shall render the substance,
and, so far as it is possible, the form of the dialogue that succeeded,
into the English tongue.

“Have the pale-faces eaten their own buffaloes, and taken the skins
from all their own beavers,” continued the savage, allowing the usual
moment of decorum to elapse, after the words of greeting, before he
again spoke, “that they come to count how many are left among the
Pawnees?”

“Some of us are here to buy, and some to sell,” returned the trapper;
“but none will follow, if they hear it is not safe to come nigh the
lodge of a Sioux.”

“The Siouxes are thieves, and they live among the snow; why do we talk
of a people who are so far, when we are in the country of the Pawnees?”

“If the Pawnees are the owners of this land, then white and red are
here by equal right.”

“Have not the pale-faces stolen enough from the red men, that you come
so far to carry a lie? I have said that this is a hunting-ground of my
tribe.”

“My right to be here is equal to your own,” the trapper rejoined, with
undisturbed coolness; “I do not speak as I might—it is better to be
silent. The Pawnees and the white men are brothers, but a Sioux dare
not show his face in the village of the Loups.”

“The Dahcotahs are men!” exclaimed the savage, fiercely; forgetting in
his anger to maintain the character he had assumed, and using the
appellation of which his nation was most proud; “the Dahcotahs have no
fear! Speak; what brings you so far from the villages of the
pale-faces?”

“I have seen the sun rise and set on many councils, and have heard the
words of wise men. Let your chiefs come, and my mouth shall not be
shut.”

“I am a great chief!” said the savage, affecting an air of offended
dignity. “Do you take me for an Assiniboine? Weucha is a warrior often
named, and much believed!”

“Am I a fool not to know a burnt-wood Teton?” demanded the trapper,
with a steadiness that did great credit to his nerves. “Go; it is dark,
and you do not see that my head is grey!”

The Indian now appeared convinced that he had adopted too shallow an
artifice to deceive one so practised as the man he addressed, and he
was deliberating what fiction he should next invent, in order to obtain
his real object, when a slight commotion among the band put an end at
once to all his schemes. Casting his eyes behind him, as if fearful of
a speedy interruption, he said, in tones much less pretending than
those he had first resorted to—

“Give Weucha the milk of the Long-knives, and he will sing your name in
the ears of the great men of his tribe.”

“Go,” repeated the trapper, motioning him away, with strong disgust.
“Your young men are speaking of Mahtoree. My words are for the ears of
a chief.”

The savage cast a look at the other, which, notwithstanding the dim
light, was sufficiently indicative of implacable hostility. He then
stole away among his fellows, anxious to conceal the counterfeit he had
attempted to practise, no less than the treachery he had contemplated
against a fair division of the spoils, from the man named by the
trapper, whom he now also knew to be approaching, by the manner in
which his name passed from one to another, in the band. He had hardly
disappeared before a warrior of powerful frame advanced out of the dark
circle, and placed himself before the captives, with that high and
proud bearing for which a distinguished Indian chief is ever so
remarkable. He was followed by all the party, who arranged themselves
around his person, in a deep and respectful silence.

“The earth is very large,” the chief commenced, after a pause of that
true dignity which his counterfeit had so miserably affected; “why can
the children of my great white father never find room on it?”

“Some among them have heard that their friends in the prairies are in
want of many things,” returned the trapper; “and they have come to see
if it be true. Some want, in their turns, what the red men are willing
to sell, and they come to make their friends rich, with powder and
blankets.”

“Do traders cross the big river with empty hands?”

“Our hands are empty because your young men thought we were tired, and
they have lightened us of our load. They were mistaken; I am old, but I
am still strong.”

“It cannot be. Your load has fallen in the prairies. Show my young men
the place, that they may pick it up before the Pawnees find it.”

“The path to the spot is crooked, and it is night. The hour is come for
sleep,” said the trapper, with perfect composure. “Bid your warriors go
over yonder hill; there is water and there is wood; let them light
their fires and sleep with warm feet. When the sun comes again I will
speak to you.”

A low murmur, but one that was clearly indicative of dissatisfaction,
passed among the attentive listeners, and served to inform the old man
that he had not been sufficiently wary in proposing a measure that he
intended should notify the travellers in the brake of the presence of
their dangerous neighbours. Mahtoree, however, without betraying, in
the slightest degree, the excitement which was so strongly exhibited by
his companions, continued the discourse in the same lofty manner as
before.

“I know that my friend is rich,” he said; “that he has many warriors
not far off, and that horses are plentier with him, than dogs among the
red-skins.”

“You see my warriors, and my horses.”

“What! has the woman the feet of a Dahcotah, that she can walk for
thirty nights in the prairies, and not fall! I know the red men of the
woods make long marches on foot, but we, who live where the eye cannot
see from one lodge to another, love our horses.”

The trapper now hesitated, in his turn. He was perfectly aware that
deception, if detected, might prove dangerous; and, for one of his
pursuits and character, he was strongly troubled with an
unaccommodating regard for the truth. But, recollecting that he
controlled the fate of others as well as of himself, he determined to
let things take their course, and to permit the Dahcotah chief to
deceive himself if he would.

“The women of the Siouxes and of the white men are not of the same
wigwam,” he answered evasively. “Would a Teton warrior make his wife
greater than himself? I know he would not; and yet my ears have heard
that there are lands where the councils are held by squaws.”

Another slight movement in the dark circle apprised the trapper that
his declaration was not received without surprise, if entirely without
distrust. The chief alone seemed unmoved; nor was he disposed to relax
from the loftiness and high dignity of his air.

“My white fathers who live on the great lakes have declared,” he said,
“that their brothers towards the rising sun are not men; and now I know
they did not lie! Go—what is a nation whose chief is a squaw! Are you
the dog and not the husband of this woman?”

“I am neither. Never did I see her face before this day. She came into
the prairies because they had told her a great and generous nation
called the Dahcotahs lived there, and she wished to look on men. The
women of the pale-faces, like the women of the Siouxes, open their eyes
to see things that are new; but she is poor, like myself, and she will
want corn and buffaloes, if you take away the little that she and her
friend still have.”

“My ears listen to many wicked lies!” exclaimed the Teton warrior, in a
voice so stern that it startled even his red auditors. “Am I a woman?
Has not a Dahcotah eyes? Tell me, white hunter; who are the men of your
colour, that sleep near the fallen trees?”

As he spoke, the indignant chief pointed in the direction of Ishmael’s
encampment, leaving the trapper no reason to doubt, that the superior
industry and sagacity of this man had effected a discovery, which had
eluded the search of the rest of his party. Notwithstanding his regret
at an event that might prove fatal to the sleepers, and some little
vexation at having been so completely outwitted, in the dialogue just
related, the old man continued to maintain his air of inflexible
composure.

“It may be true,” he answered, “that white men are sleeping in the
prairie. If my brother says it, it is true; but what men thus trust to
the generosity of the Tetons, I cannot tell. If there be strangers
asleep, send your young men to wake them up, and let them say why they
are here; every pale-face has a tongue.” The chief shook his head with
a wild and fierce smile, answering abruptly, as he turned away to put
an end to the conference—

“The Dahcotahs are a wise race, and Mahtoree is their chief! He will
not call to the strangers, that they may rise and speak to him with
their carabines. He will whisper softly in their ears. When this is
done, let the men of their own colour come and awake them!”

As he uttered these words, and turned on his heel, a low and approving
laugh passed around the dark circle, which instantly broke its order
and followed him to a little distance from the stand of the captives,
where those who might presume to mingle opinions with so great a
warrior again gathered about him in consultation. Weucha profited by
the occasion to renew his importunities; but the trapper, who had
discovered how great a counterfeit he was, shook him off in
displeasure. An end was, however, more effectually put to the annoyance
of this malignant savage, by a mandate for the whole party, including
men and beasts, to change their positions. The movement was made in
dead silence, and with an order that would have done credit to more
enlightened beings. A halt, however, was soon made; and when the
captives had time to look about them, they found they were in view of
the low, dark outline of the copse, near which lay the slumbering party
of Ishmael.

Here another short but grave and deliberative consultation was held.

The beasts, which seemed trained to such covert and silent attacks,
were once more placed under the care of keepers, who, as before, were
charged with the duty of watching the prisoners. The mind of the
trapper was in no degree relieved from the uneasiness which was, at
each instant, getting a stronger possession of him, when he found
Weucha was placed nearest to his own person, and, as it appeared by the
air of triumph and authority he assumed, at the head of the guard also.
The savage, however, who doubtless had his secret instructions, was
content, for the present, with making a significant gesture with his
tomahawk, which menaced death to Ellen. After admonishing in this
expressive manner his male captives of the fate that would instantly
attend their female companion, on the slightest alarm proceeding from
any of the party, he was content to maintain a rigid silence. This
unexpected forbearance, on the part of Weucha, enabled the trapper and
his two associates to give their undivided attention to the little that
might be seen of the interesting movements which were passing in their
front.

Mahtoree took the entire disposition of the arrangements on himself. He
pointed out the precise situation he wished each individual to occupy,
like one intimately acquainted with the qualifications of his
respective followers, and he was obeyed with the deference and
promptitude with which an Indian warrior is wont to submit to the
instructions of his chief, in moments of trial. Some he despatched to
the right, and others to the left. Each man departed with the noiseless
and quick step peculiar to the race, until all had assumed their
allotted stations, with the exception of two chosen warriors, who
remained nigh the person of their leader. When the rest had
disappeared, Mahtoree turned to these select companions, and intimated
by a sign that the critical moment had arrived, when the enterprise he
contemplated was to be put in execution.

Each man laid aside the light fowling-piece, which, under the name of a
carabine, he carried in virtue of his rank; and divesting himself of
every article of exterior or heavy clothing, he stood resembling a dark
and fierce looking statue, in the attitude, and nearly in the garb, of
nature. Mahtoree assured himself of the right position of his tomahawk,
felt that his knife was secure in its sheath of skin, tightened his
girdle of wampum and saw that the lacing of his fringed and ornamental
leggings was secure, and likely to offer no impediment to his
exertions. Thus prepared at all points, and ready for his desperate
undertaking, the Teton gave the signal to proceed.

The three advanced in a line with the encampment of the travellers,
until, in the dim light by which they were seen, their dusky forms were
nearly lost to the eyes of the prisoners. Here they paused, looking
around them like men who deliberate and ponder long on the consequences
before they take a desperate leap. Then sinking together, they became
lost in the grass of the prairie.

It is not difficult to imagine the distress and anxiety of the
different spectators of these threatening movements. Whatever might be
the reasons of Ellen for entertaining no strong attachment to the
family in which she has first been seen by the reader, the feelings of
her sex, and, perhaps, some lingering seeds of kindness, predominated.
More than once she felt tempted to brave the awful and instant danger
that awaited such an offence, and to raise her feeble, and, in truth,
impotent voice in warning. So strong, indeed, and so very natural was
the inclination, that she would most probably have put it in execution,
but for the often repeated though whispered remonstrances of Paul
Hover. In the breast of the young bee-hunter himself, there was a
singular union of emotions. His first and chiefest solicitude was
certainly in behalf of his gentle and dependent companion; but the
sense of her danger was mingled, in the breast of the reckless
woodsman, with a consciousness of a high and wild, and by no means an
unpleasant, excitement. Though united to the emigrants by ties still
less binding than those of Ellen, he longed to hear the crack of their
rifles, and, had occasion offered, he would gladly have been among the
first to rush to their rescue. There were, in truth, moments when he
felt in his turn an impulse, that was nearly resistless, to spring
forward and awake the unconscious sleepers; but a glance at Ellen would
serve to recall his tottering prudence, and to admonish him of the
consequences. The trapper alone remained calm and observant, as if
nothing that involved his personal comfort or safety had occurred. His
ever-moving, vigilant eyes, watched the smallest change, with the
composure of one too long inured to scenes of danger to be easily
moved, and with an expression of cool determination which denoted the
intention he actually harboured, of profiting by the smallest oversight
on the part of the captors.

In the mean time the Teton warriors had not been idle. Profiting by the
high fog which grew in the bottoms, they had wormed their way through
the matted grass, like so many treacherous serpents stealing on their
prey, until the point was gained, where an extraordinary caution became
necessary to their further advance. Mahtoree, alone, had occasionally
elevated his dark, grim countenance above the herbage, straining his
eye-balls to penetrate the gloom which skirted the border of the brake.
In these momentary glances he gained sufficient knowledge, added to
that he had obtained in his former search, to be the perfect master of
the position of his intended victims, though he was still profoundly
ignorant of their numbers, and of their means of defence.

His efforts to possess himself of the requisite knowledge concerning
these two latter and essential points were, however, completely baffled
by the stillness of the camp, which lay in a quiet as deep as if it
were literally a place of the dead. Too wary and distrustful to rely,
in circumstances of so much doubt, on the discretion of any less firm
and crafty than himself, the Dahcotah bade his companions remain where
they lay, and pursued the adventure alone.

The progress of Mahtoree was now slow, and to one less accustomed to
such a species of exercise, it would have proved painfully laborious.
But the advance of the wily snake itself is not more certain or
noiseless than was his approach. He drew his form, foot by foot,
through the bending grass, pausing at each movement to catch the
smallest sound that might betray any knowledge, on the part of the
travellers, of his proximity. He succeeded, at length, in dragging
himself out of the sickly light of the moon, into the shadows of the
brake, where not only his own dark person was much less liable to be
seen, but where the surrounding objects became more distinctly visible
to his keen and active glances.

Here the Teton paused long and warily to make his observations, before
he ventured further. His position enabled him to bring the whole
encampment, with its tent, wagons, and lodges, into a dark but clearly
marked profile; furnishing a clue by which the practised warrior was
led to a tolerably accurate estimate of the force he was about to
encounter. Still an unnatural silence pervaded the spot, as if men
suppressed even the quiet breathings of sleep, in order to render the
appearance of their confidence more evident. The chief bent his head to
the earth, and listened intently. He was about to raise it again, in
disappointment, when the long drawn and trembling respiration of one
who slumbered imperfectly met his ear. The Indian was too well skilled
in all the means of deception to become himself the victim of any
common artifice. He knew the sound to be natural, by its peculiar
quivering, and he hesitated no longer.

A man of nerves less tried than those of the fierce and conquering
Mahtoree would have been keenly sensible of all the hazard he incurred.
The reputation of those hardy and powerful white adventurers, who so
often penetrated the wilds inhabited by his people, was well known to
him; but while he drew nigher, with the respect and caution that a
brave enemy never fails to inspire, it was with the vindictive
animosity of a red man, jealous and resentful of the inroads of the
stranger.

Turning from the line of his former route, the Teton dragged himself
directly towards the margin of the thicket. When this material object
was effected in safety, he arose to his seat, and took a better survey
of his situation. A single moment served to apprise him of the place
where the unsuspecting traveller lay. The reader will readily
anticipate that the savage had succeeded in gaining a dangerous
proximity to one of those slothful sons of Ishmael, who were deputed to
watch over the isolated encampment of the travellers.

When certain that he was undiscovered, the Dahcotah raised his person
again, and bending forward, he moved his dark visage above the face of
the sleeper, in that sort of wanton and subtle manner with which the
reptile is seen to play about its victim before it strikes. Satisfied
at length, not only of the condition but of the character of the
stranger, Mahtoree was in the act of withdrawing his head, when a
slight movement of the sleeper announced the symptoms of reviving
consciousness. The savage seized the knife which hung at his girdle,
and in an instant it was poised above the breast of the young emigrant.
Then changing his purpose, with an action as rapid as his own flashing
thoughts, he sunk back behind the trunk of the fallen tree against
which the other reclined, and lay in its shadow, as dark, as
motionless, and apparently as insensible as the wood itself.

The slothful sentinel opened his heavy eyes, and gazing upward for a
moment at the hazy heavens, he made an extraordinary exertion, and
raised his powerful frame from the support of the log. Then he looked
about him, with an air of something like watchfulness, suffering his
dull glances to run over the misty objects of the encampment until they
finally settled on the distant and dim field of the open prairie.
Meeting with nothing more attractive than the same faint outlines of
swell and interval, which every where rose before his drowsy eyes, he
changed his position so as completely to turn his back on his dangerous
neighbour, and suffered his person to sink sluggishly down into its
former recumbent attitude. A long, and, on the part of the Teton, an
anxious and painful silence succeeded, before the deep breathing of the
traveller again announced that he was indulging in his slumbers. The
savage was, however, far too jealous of a counterfeit to trust to the
first appearance of sleep. But the fatigues of a day of unusual toil
lay too heavy on the sentinel to leave the other long in doubt. Still
the motion with which Mahtoree again raised himself to his knees was so
noiseless and guarded, that even a vigilant observer might have
hesitated to believe he stirred. The change was, however, at length
effected, and the Dahcotah chief then bent again over his enemy,
without having produced a noise louder than that of the cotton-wood
leaf which fluttered at his side in the currents of the passing air.

Mahtoree now felt himself master of the sleeper’s fate. At the same
time that he scanned the vast proportions and athletic limbs of the
youth, in that sort of admiration which physical excellence seldom
fails to excite in the breast of a savage, he coolly prepared to
extinguish the principle of vitality which could alone render them
formidable. After making himself sure of the seat of life, by gently
removing the folds of the intervening cloth, he raised his keen weapon,
and was about to unite his strength and skill in the impending blow,
when the young man threw his brawny arm carelessly backward, exhibiting
in the action the vast volume of its muscles.

The sagacious and wary Teton paused. It struck his acute faculties that
sleep was less dangerous to him, at that moment, than even death itself
might prove. The smallest noise, the agony of struggling, with which
such a frame would probably relinquish its hold of life, suggested
themselves to his rapid thoughts, and were all present to his
experienced senses. He looked back into the encampment, turned his head
into the thicket, and glanced his glowing eyes abroad into the wild and
silent prairies. Bending once more over the respited victim, he assured
himself that he was sleeping heavily, and then abandoned his immediate
purpose in obedience alone to the suggestions of a more crafty policy.

The retreat of Mahtoree was as still and guarded as had been his
approach. He now took the direction of the encampment, stealing along
the margin of the brake, as a cover into which he might easily plunge
at the smallest alarm. The drapery of the solitary hut attracted his
notice in passing. After examining the whole of its exterior, and
listening with painful intensity, in order to gather counsel from his
ears, the savage ventured to raise the cloth at the bottom, and to
thrust his dark visage beneath. It might have been a minute before the
Teton chief drew back, and seated himself with the whole of his form
without the linen tenement. Here he sat, seemingly brooding over his
discovery, for many moments, in rigid inaction. Then he resumed his
crouching attitude, and once more projected his visage beyond the
covering of the tent. His second visit to the interior was longer, and,
if possible, more ominous than the first. But it had, like every thing
else, its termination, and the savage again withdrew his glaring eyes
from the secrets of the place.

Mahtoree had drawn his person many yards from the spot, in his slow
progress towards the cluster of objects which pointed out the centre of
the position, before he again stopped. He made another pause, and
looked back at the solitary little dwelling he had left, as if doubtful
whether he should not return. But the chevaux-de-frise of branches now
lay within reach of his arm, and the very appearance of precaution it
presented, as it announced the value of the effects it encircled,
tempted his cupidity, and induced him to proceed.

The passage of the savage, through the tender and brittle limbs of the
cotton-wood, could be likened only to the sinuous and noiseless winding
of the reptiles which he imitated. When he had effected his object, and
had taken an instant to become acquainted with the nature of the
localities within the enclosure, the Teton used the precaution to open
a way through which he might make a swift retreat. Then raising himself
on his feet, he stalked through the encampment, like the master of
evil, seeking whom and what he should first devote to his fell
purposes. He had already ascertained the contents of the lodge in which
were collected the woman and her young children, and had passed several
gigantic frames, stretched on different piles of brush, which happily
for him lay in unconscious helplessness, when he reached the spot
occupied by Ishmael in person. It could not escape the sagacity of one
like Mahtoree, that he had now within his power the principal man among
the travellers. He stood long hovering above the recumbent and
Herculean form of the emigrant, keenly debating in his own mind the
chances of his enterprise, and the most effectual means of reaping its
richest harvest.

He sheathed the knife, which, under the hasty and burning impulse of
his thoughts, he had been tempted to draw, and was passing on, when
Ishmael turned in his lair, and demanded roughly who was moving before
his half-opened eyes. Nothing short of the readiness and cunning of a
savage could have evaded the crisis. Imitating the gruff tones and
nearly unintelligible sounds he heard, Mahtoree threw his body heavily
on the earth, and appeared to dispose himself to sleep. Though the
whole movement was seen by Ishmael, in a sort of stupid observation,
the artifice was too bold and too admirably executed to fail. The
drowsy father closed his eyes, and slept heavily, with this treacherous
inmate in the very bosom of his family.

It was necessary for the Teton to maintain the position he had taken,
for many long and weary minutes, in order to make sure that he was no
longer watched. Though his body lay so motionless, his active mind was
not idle. He profited by the delay to mature a plan which he intended
should put the whole encampment, including both its effects and their
proprietors, entirely at his mercy. The instant he could do so with
safety, the indefatigable savage was again in motion. He took his way
towards the slight pen which contained the domestic animals, worming
himself along the ground in his former subtle and guarded manner.

The first animal he encountered among the beasts occasioned a long and
hazardous delay. The weary creature, perhaps conscious, through its
secret instinct, that in the endless wastes of the prairies its surest
protector was to be found in man, was so exceedingly docile as quietly
to submit to the close examination it was doomed to undergo. The hand
of the wandering Teton passed over the downy coat, the meek
countenance, and the slender limbs of the gentle creature, with
untiring curiosity; but he finally abandoned the prize, as useless in
his predatory expeditions, and offering too little temptation to the
appetite. As soon, however, as he found himself among the beasts of
burden, his gratification was extreme, and it was with difficulty that
he restrained the customary ejaculations of pleasure that were more
than once on the point of bursting from his lips. Here he lost sight of
the hazards by which he had gained access to his dangerous position;
and the watchfulness of the wary and long practised warrior was
momentarily forgotten in the exultation of the savage.




CHAPTER V


Why, worthy father, what have we to lose?
—The law
Protects us not. Then why should we be tender
To let an arrogant piece of flesh threat us!
Play judge and executioner.
                   —Cymbeline.


While the Teton thus enacted his subtle and characteristic part, not a
sound broke the stillness of the surrounding prairie. The whole band
lay at their several posts, waiting, with the well-known patience of
the natives, for the signal which was to summon them to action. To the
eyes of the anxious spectators who occupied the little eminence,
already described as the position of the captives, the scene presented
the broad, solemn view of a waste, dimly lighted by the glimmering rays
of a clouded moon. The place of the encampment was marked by a gloom
deeper than that which faintly shadowed out the courses of the bottoms,
and here and there a brighter streak tinged the rolling summits of the
ridges. As for the rest, it was the deep, imposing quiet of a desert.

But to those who so well knew how much was brooding beneath this mantle
of stillness and night, it was a scene of high and wild excitement.
Their anxiety gradually increased, as minute after minute passed away,
and not the smallest sound of life arose out of the calm and darkness
which enveloped the brake. The breathing of Paul grew louder and
deeper, and more than once Ellen trembled at she knew not what, as she
felt the quivering of his active frame, while she leaned dependently on
his arm for support.

The shallow honesty, as well as the besetting infirmity of Weucha, have
already been exhibited. The reader, therefore, will not be surprised to
learn that he was the first to forget the regulations he had himself
imposed. It was at the precise moment when we left Mahtoree yielding to
his nearly ungovernable delight, as he surveyed the number and quality
of Ishmael’s beasts of burden, that the man he had selected to watch
his captives chose to indulge in the malignant pleasure of tormenting
those it was his duty to protect. Bending his head nigh the ear of the
trapper, the savage rather muttered than whispered—

“If the Tetons lose their great chief by the hands of the
Long-knives[9], old shall die as well as young!”

“Life is the gift of the Wahcondah,” was the unmoved reply. “The
burnt-wood warrior must submit to his laws, as well as his other
children. Men only die when he chooses; and no Dahcotah can change the
hour.”

“Look!” returned the savage, thrusting the blade of his knife before
the face of his captive. “Weucha is the Wahcondah of a dog.”

The old man raised his eyes to the fierce visage of his keeper, and,
for a moment, a gleam of honest and powerful disgust shot from their
deep cells; but it instantly passed away, leaving in its place an
expression of commiseration, if not of sorrow.

“Why should one made in the real image of God suffer his natur’ to be
provoked by a mere effigy of reason?” he said in English, and in tones
much louder than those in which Weucha had chosen to pitch the
conversation. The latter profited by the unintentional offence of his
captive, and, seizing him by the thin, grey locks, that fell from
beneath his cap, was on the point of passing the blade of his knife in
malignant triumph around their roots, when a long, shrill yell rent the
air, and was instantly echoed from the surrounding waste, as if a
thousand demons opened their throats in common at the summons. Weucha
relinquished his grasp, and uttered a cry of exultation.

“Now!” shouted Paul, unable to control his impatience any longer, “now,
old Ishmael, is the time to show the native blood of Kentucky! Fire
low, boys—level into the swales, for the red skins are settling to the
very earth!”

His voice was, however, lost, or rather unheeded, in the midst of the
shrieks, shouts, and yells that were, by this time, bursting from fifty
mouths on every side of him. The guards still maintained their posts at
the side of the captives, but it was with that sort of difficulty with
which steeds are restrained at the starting-post, when expecting the
signal to commence the trial of speed. They tossed their arms wildly in
the air, leaping up and down more like exulting children than sober
men, and continued to utter the most frantic cries.

In the midst of this tumultuous disorder a rushing sound was heard,
similar to that which might be expected to precede the passage of a
flight of buffaloes, and then came the flocks and cattle of Ishmael in
one confused and frightened drove.

“They have robbed the squatter of his beasts!” said the attentive
trapper. “The reptiles have left him as hoofless as a beaver!” He was
yet speaking, when the whole body of the terrified animals rose the
little acclivity, and swept by the place where he stood, followed by a
band of dusky and demon-like looking figures, who pressed madly on
their rear.

The impulse was communicated to the Teton horses, long accustomed to
sympathise in the untutored passions of their owners, and it was with
difficulty that the keepers were enabled to restrain their impatience.
At this moment, when all eyes were directed to the passing whirlwind of
men and beasts, the trapper caught the knife from the hands of his
inattentive keeper, with a power that his age would have seemed to
contradict, and, at a single blow, severed the thong of hide which
connected the whole of the drove. The wild animals snorted with joy and
terror, and tearing the earth with their heels, they dashed away into
the broad prairies, in a dozen different directions.

Weucha turned upon his assailant with the ferocity and agility of a
tiger. He felt for the weapon of which he had been so suddenly
deprived, fumbled with impotent haste for the handle of his tomahawk,
and at the same moment glanced his eyes after the flying cattle, with
the longings of a Western Indian. The struggle between thirst for
vengeance and cupidity was severe but short. The latter quickly
predominated in the bosom of one whose passions were proverbially
grovelling; and scarcely a moment intervened between the flight of the
animals and the swift pursuit of the guards. The trapper had continued
calmly facing his foe, during the instant of suspense that succeeded
his hardy act; and now that Weucha was seen following his companions,
he pointed after the dark train, saying, with his deep and nearly
inaudible laugh—

“Red-natur’ is red-natur’, let it show itself on a prairie, or in a
forest! A knock on the head would be the smallest reward to him who
should take such a liberty with a Christian sentinel; but there goes
the Teton after his horses as if he thought two legs as good as four in
such a race! And yet the imps will have every hoof of them afore the
day sets in, because it’s reason ag’in instinct. Poor reason, I allow;
but still there is a great deal of the man in an Indian. Ah’s me! your
Delawares were the redskins of which America might boast; but few and
scattered is that mighty people, now! Well! the traveller may just make
his pitch where he is; he has plenty of water, though natur’ has
cheated him of the pleasure of stripping the ’arth of its lawful trees.
He has seen the last of his four-footed creatures, or I am but little
skilled in Sioux cunning.”

“Had we not better join the party of Ishmael?” said the bee-hunter.
“There will be a regular fight about this matter, or the old fellow has
suddenly grown chicken-hearted.”

“No—no—no,” hastily exclaimed Ellen.

She was stopped by the trapper, who laid his hand gently on her mouth,
as he answered—

“Hist—hist!—the sound of voices might bring us into danger. Is your
friend,” he added, turning to Paul, “a man of spirit enough?”

“Don’t call the squatter a friend of mine!” interrupted the youth. “I
never yet harboured with one who could not show hand and zeal for the
land which fed him.”

“Well—well. Let it then be acquaintance. Is he a man to maintain his
own, stoutly by dint of powder and lead?”

“His own! ay, and that which is not his own, too! Can you tell me, old
trapper, who held the rifle that did the deed for the sheriff’s deputy,
that thought to rout the unlawful settlers who had gathered nigh the
Buffaloe lick in old Kentucky? I had lined a beautiful swarm that very
day into the hollow of a dead beech, and there lay the people’s officer
at its roots, with a hole directly through the ‘grace of God;’ which he
carried in his jacket pocket covering his heart, as if he thought a bit
of sheepskin was a breastplate against a squatter’s bullet! Now, Ellen,
you needn’t be troubled for it never strictly was brought home to him;
and there were fifty others who had pitched in that neighbourhood with
just the same authority from the law.”

The poor girl shuddered, struggling powerfully to suppress the sigh
which arose in spite of her efforts, as if from the very bottom of her
heart.

Thoroughly satisfied that he understood the character of the emigrants,
by the short but comprehensive description conveyed in Paul’s reply,
the old man raised no further question concerning the readiness of
Ishmael to revenge his wrongs, but rather followed the train of thought
which was suggested to his experience, by the occasion.

“Each one knows the ties which bind him to his fellow-creatures best,”
he answered. “Though it is greatly to be mourned that colour, and
property, and tongue, and l’arning should make so wide a difference in
those who, after all, are but the children of one father! Howsomever,”
he continued, by a transition not a little characteristic of the
pursuits and feelings of the man, “as this is a business in which there
is much more likelihood of a fight than need for a sermon, it is best
to be prepared for what may follow.—Hush! there is a movement below; it
is an equal chance that we are seen.”

“The family is stirring,” cried Ellen, with a tremor that announced
nearly as much terror at the approach of her friends, as she had before
manifested at the presence of her enemies. “Go, Paul, leave me. You, at
least, must not be seen!”

“If I leave you, Ellen, in this desert before I see you safe in the
care of old Ishmael, at least, may I never hear the hum of another bee,
or, what is worse, fail in sight to line him to his hive!”

“You forget this good old man. He will not leave me. Though I am sure,
Paul, we have parted before, where there has been more of a desert than
this.”

“Never! These Indians may come whooping back, and then where are you!
Half way to the Rocky Mountains before a man can fairly strike the line
of your flight. What think you, old trapper? How long may it be before
these Tetons, as you call them, will be coming for the rest of old
Ishmael’s goods and chattels?”

“No fear of them,” returned the old man, laughing in his own peculiar
and silent manner; “I warrant me the devils will be scampering after
their beasts these six hours yet! Listen! you may hear them in the
willow bottoms at this very moment; ay, your real Sioux cattle will run
like so many long-legged elks. Hist! crouch again into the grass, down
with ye both; as I’m a miserable piece of clay, I heard the ticking of
a gunlock!”

The trapper did not allow his companions time to hesitate, but dragging
them both after him, he nearly buried his own person in the fog of the
prairie, while he was speaking. It was fortunate that the senses of the
aged hunter remained so acute, and that he had lost none of his
readiness of action. The three were scarcely bowed to the ground, when
their ears were saluted with the well-known, sharp, short, reports of
the western rifle, and instantly, the whizzing of the ragged lead was
heard, buzzing within dangerous proximity of their heads.

“Well done, young chips! well done, old block!” whispered Paul, whose
spirits no danger nor situation could entirely depress. “As pretty a
volley, as one would wish to bear on the wrong end of a rifle! What
d’ye say, trapper! here is likely to be a three-cornered war. Shall I
give ’em as good as they send?”

“Give them nothing but fair words,” returned the other, hastily, “or
you are both lost.”

“I’m not certain it would much mend the matter, if I were to speak with
my tongue instead of the piece,” said Paul, in a tone half jocular half
bitter.

“For the sake of heaven, do not let them hear you!” cried Ellen. “Go,
Paul, go; you can easily quit us now!”

Several shots in quick succession, each sending its dangerous
messenger, still nearer than the preceding discharge, cut short her
speech, no less in prudence than in terror.

“This must end,” said the trapper, rising with the dignity of one bent
only on the importance of his object. “I know not what need ye may
have, children, to fear those you should both love and honour, but
something must be done to save your lives. A few hours more or less can
never be missed from the time of one who has already numbered so many
days; therefore I will advance. Here is a clear space around you.
Profit by it as you need, and may God bless and prosper each of you, as
ye deserve!”

Without waiting for any reply, the trapper walked boldly down the
declivity in his front, taking the direction of the encampment, neither
quickening his pace in trepidation, nor suffering it to be retarded by
fear. The light of the moon fell brighter for a moment on his tall,
gaunt, form, and served to warn the emigrants of his approach.
Indifferent, however to this unfavourable circumstance, he held his
way, silently and steadily towards the copse, until a threatening voice
met him with a challenge of—

“Who comes; friend or foe?”

“Friend,” was the reply; “one who has lived too long to disturb the
close of life with quarrels.”

“But not so long as to forget the tricks of his youth,” said Ishmael,
rearing his huge frame from beneath the slight covering of a low bush,
and meeting the trapper, face to face; “old man, you have brought this
tribe of red devils upon us, and to-morrow you will be sharing the
booty.”

“What have you lost?” calmly demanded the trapper.

“Eight as good mares as ever travelled in gears, besides a foal that is
worth thirty of the brightest Mexicans that bear the face of the King
of Spain. Then the woman has not a cloven hoof for her dairy, or her
loom, and I believe even the grunters, foot sore as they be, are
ploughing the prairie. And now, stranger,” he added, dropping the butt
of his rifle on the hard earth, with a violence and clatter that would
have intimidated one less firm than the man he addressed, “how many of
these creatures may fall to your lot?”

“Horses have I never craved, nor even used; though few have journeyed
over more of the wide lands of America than myself, old and feeble as I
seem. But little use is there for a horse among the hills and woods of
York—that is, as York was, but as I greatly fear York is no longer—as
for woollen covering and cow’s milk, I covet no such womanly fashions!
The beasts of the field give me food and raiment. No, I crave no cloth
better than the skin of a deer, nor any meat richer than his flesh.”

The sincere manner of the trapper, as he uttered this simple
vindication, was not entirely thrown away on the emigrant, whose dull
nature was gradually quickening into a flame, that might speedily have
burst forth with dangerous violence. He listened like one who doubted,
not entirely convinced: and he muttered between his teeth the
denunciation, with which a moment before he intended to precede the
summary vengeance he had certainly meditated.

“This is brave talking,” he at length grumbled; “but to my judgment,
too lawyer-like, for a straight forward, fair-weather, and foul-weather
hunter.”

“I claim to be no better than a trapper,” the other meekly answered.

“Hunter or trapper—there is little difference. I have come, old man,
into these districts because I found the law sitting too tight upon me,
and am not over fond of neighbours who can’t settle a dispute without
troubling a justice and twelve men; but I didn’t come to be robb’d of
my plunder, and then to say thank’ee to the man who did it!”

“He, who ventures far into the prairies, must abide by the ways of its
owners.”

“Owners!” echoed the squatter, “I am as rightful an owner of the land I
stand on, as any governor in the States! Can you tell me, stranger,
where the law or the reason, is to be found, which says that one man
shall have a section, or a town, or perhaps a county to his use, and
another have to beg for earth to make his grave in? This is not nature,
and I deny that it is law. That is, your legal law.”

“I cannot say that you are wrong,” returned the trapper, whose opinions
on this important topic, though drawn from very different premises,
were in singular accordance with those of his companion, “and I have
often thought and said as much, when and where I have believed my voice
could be heard. But your beasts are stolen by them who claim to be
masters of all they find in the deserts.”

“They had better not dispute that matter with a man who knows better,”
said the other in a portentous voice, though it seemed deep and
sluggish as he who spoke.

“I call myself a fair trader, and one who gives to his chaps as good as
he receives. You saw the Indians?”

“I did—they held me a prisoner, while they stole into your camp.”

“It would have been more like a white man and a Christian, to have let
me known as much in better season,” retorted Ishmael, casting another
ominous sidelong glance at the trapper, as if still meditating evil. “I
am not much given to call every man, I fall in with, cousin, but colour
should be something, when Christians meet in such a place as this. But
what is done, is done, and cannot be mended, by words. Come out of your
ambush, boys; here is no one but the old man: he has eaten of my bread,
and should be our friend; though there is such good reason to suspect
him of harbouring with our enemies.”

The trapper made no reply to the harsh suspicion which the other did
not scruple to utter without the smallest delicacy, notwithstanding the
explanations and denials to which he had just listened. The summons of
the unnurtured squatter brought an immediate accession to their party.
Four or five of his sons made their appearance from beneath as many
covers, where they had been posted under the impression that the
figures they had seen, on the swell of the prairie, were a part of the
Sioux band. As each man approached, and dropped his rifle into the
hollow of his arm, he cast an indolent but enquiring glance at the
stranger, though neither of them expressed the least curiosity to know
whence he had come or why he was there. This forbearance, however,
proceeded only in part, from the sluggishness of their common temper;
for long and frequent experience in scenes of a similar character, had
taught them the virtue of discretion. The trapper endured their sullen
scrutiny with the steadiness of one as practised as themselves, and
with the entire composure of innocence. Content with the momentary
examination he had made, the eldest of the group, who was in truth the
delinquent sentinel by whose remissness the wily Mahtoree had so well
profited, turned towards his father and said bluntly—

“If this man is all that is left of the party I saw on the upland,
yonder, we haven’t altogether thrown away our ammunition.”

“Asa, you are right,” said the father, turning suddenly on the trapper,
a lost idea being recalled by the hint of his son. “How is it,
stranger; there were three of you, just now, or there is no virtue in
moonlight?”

“If you had seen the Tetons racing across the prairies, like so many
black-looking evil ones, on the heels of your cattle, my friend, it
would have been an easy matter to have fancied them a thousand.”

“Ay, for a town bred boy, or a skeary woman; though for that matter,
there is old Esther; she has no more fear of a red-skin than of a
suckling cub, or of a wolf pup. I’ll warrant ye, had your thievish
devils made their push by the light of the sun, the good woman would
have been smartly at work among them, and the Siouxes would have found
she was not given to part with her cheese and her butter without a
price. But there’ll come a time, stranger, right soon, when justice
will have its dues, and that too, without the help of what is called
the law. We ar’ of a slow breed, it may be said, and it is often said,
of us; but slow is sure; and there ar’ few men living, who can say they
ever struck a blow, that they did not get one as hard in return, from
Ishmael Bush.”

“Then has Ishmael Bush followed the instinct of the beasts rather than
the principle which ought to belong to his kind,” returned the stubborn
trapper. “I have struck many a blow myself, but never have I felt the
same ease of mind that of right belongs to a man who follows his
reason, after slaying even a fawn when there was no call for his meat
or hide, as I have felt at leaving a Mingo unburied in the woods, when
following the trade of open and honest warfare.”

“What, you have been a soldier, have you, trapper! I made a forage or
two among the Cherokees, when I was a lad myself; and I followed Mad
Anthony,[10] one season, through the beeches; but there was altogether
too much tatooing and regulating among his troops for me; so I left him
without calling on the paymaster to settle my arrearages. Though, as
Esther afterwards boasted, she had made such use of the pay-ticket,
that the States gained no great sum, by the oversight. You have heard
of such a man as mad Anthony, if you tarried long among the soldiers.”

“I fou’t my last battle, as I hope, under his orders,” returned the
trapper, a gleam of sunshine shooting from his dim eyes, as if the
event was recollected with pleasure, and then a sudden shade of sorrow
succeeding, as though he felt a secret admonition against dwelling on
the violent scenes in which he had so often been an actor. “I was
passing from the States on the sea-shore into these far regions, when I
cross’d the trail of his army, and I fell in, on his rear, just as a
looker-on; but when they got to blows, the crack of my rifle was heard
among the rest, though to my shame it may be said, I never knew the
right of the quarrel as well as a man of threescore and ten should know
the reason of his acts afore he takes mortal life, which is a gift he
never can return!”

“Come, stranger,” said the emigrant, his rugged nature a good deal
softened when he found that they had fought on the same side in the
wild warfare of the west, “it is of small account, what may be the
ground-work of the disturbance, when it’s a Christian ag’in a savage.
We shall hear more of this horse-stealing to-morrow; to-night we can do
no wiser or safer thing than to sleep.”

So saying, Ishmael deliberately led the way back towards his rifled
encampment, and ushered the man, whose life a few minutes before had
been in real jeopardy from his resentment, into the presence of his
family. Here, with a very few words of explanation, mingled with scarce
but ominous denunciations against the plunderers, he made his wife
acquainted with the state of things on the prairie, and announced his
own determination to compensate himself for his broken rest, by
devoting the remainder of the night to sleep.

The trapper gave his ready assent to the measure, and adjusted his
gaunt form on the pile of brush that was offered him, with as much
composure as a sovereign could resign himself to sleep, in the security
of his capital and surrounded by his armed protectors. The old man did
not close his eyes, however, until he had assured himself that Ellen
Wade was among the females of the family, and that her relation, or
lover, whichever he might be, had observed the caution of keeping
himself out of view: after which he slept, though with the peculiar
watchfulness of one long accustomed to vigilance, even in the hours of
deepest night.

[9] The whites are so called by the Indians, from their swords.


[10] Anthony Wayne, a Pennsylvanian distinguished in the war of the
revolution, and subsequently against the Indians of the west, for his
daring as a general, by which he gained from his followers the title
of Mad Anthony. General Wayne was the son of the person mentioned in
the life of West as commanding the regiment which excited his military
ardour.




CHAPTER VI


He is too picked, too spruce, too affected, too odd,
As it were too peregrinate, as I may call it.
                   —Shakespeare.


The Anglo-American is apt to boast, and not without reason, that his
nation may claim a descent more truly honourable than that of any other
people whose history is to be credited. Whatever might have been the
weaknesses of the original colonists, their virtues have rarely been
disputed. If they were superstitious, they were sincerely pious, and,
consequently, honest. The descendants of these simple and single-minded
provincials have been content to reject the ordinary and artificial
means by which honours have been perpetuated in families, and have
substituted a standard which brings the individual himself to the
ordeal of the public estimation, paying as little deference as may be
to those who have gone before him. This forbearance, self-denial, or
common sense, or by whatever term it may be thought proper to
distinguish the measure, has subjected the nation to the imputation of
having an ignoble origin. Were it worth the enquiry, it would be found
that more than a just proportion of the renowned names of the
mother-country are, at this hour, to be found in her ci-devant
colonies; and it is a fact well known to the few who have wasted
sufficient time to become the masters of so unimportant a subject, that
the direct descendants of many a failing line, which the policy of
England has seen fit to sustain by collateral supporters, are now
discharging the simple duties of citizens in the bosom of this
republic. The hive has remained stationary, and they who flutter around
the venerable straw are wont to claim the empty distinction of
antiquity, regardless alike of the frailty of their tenement and of the
enjoyments of the numerous and vigorous swarms that are culling the
fresher sweets of a virgin world. But as this is a subject which
belongs rather to the politician and historian than to the humble
narrator of the homebred incidents we are about to reveal, we must
confine our reflections to such matters as have an immediate relation
to the subject of the tale.

Although the citizen of the United States may claim so just an
ancestry, he is far from being exempt from the penalties of his fallen
race. Like causes are well known to produce like effects. That tribute,
which it would seem nations must ever pay, by way of a weary probation,
around the shrine of Ceres, before they can be indulged in her fullest
favours, is in some measure exacted in America, from the descendant
instead of the ancestor. The march of civilisation with us, has a
strong analogy to that of all coming events, which are known “to cast
their shadows before.” The gradations of society, from that state which
is called refined to that which approaches as near barbarity as
connection with an intelligent people will readily allow, are to be
traced from the bosom of the States, where wealth, luxury and the arts
are beginning to seat themselves, to those distant, and ever-receding
borders which mark the skirts, and announce the approach, of the
nation, as moving mists precede the signs of day.

Here, and here only, is to be found that widely spread, though far from
numerous class, which may be at all likened to those who have paved the
way for the intellectual progress of nations, in the old world. The
resemblance between the American borderer and his European prototype is
singular, though not always uniform. Both might be called without
restraint; the one being above, the other beyond the reach of the
law—brave, because they were inured to dangers—proud, because they were
independent, and vindictive, because each was the avenger of his own
wrongs. It would be unjust to the borderer to pursue the parallel much
farther. He is irreligious, because he has inherited the knowledge that
religion does not exist in forms, and his reason rejects mockery. He is
not a knight, because he has not the power to bestow distinctions; and
he has not the power, because he is the offspring and not the parent of
a system. In what manner these several qualities are exhibited, in some
of the most strongly marked of the latter class, will be seen in the
course of the ensuing narrative.

Ishmael Bush had passed the whole of a life of more than fifty years on
the skirts of society. He boasted that he had never dwelt where he
might not safely fell every tree he could view from his own threshold;
that the law had rarely been known to enter his clearing, and that his
ears had never willingly admitted the sound of a church bell. His
exertions seldom exceeded his wants, which were peculiar to his class,
and rarely failed of being supplied. He had no respect for any learning
except that of the leech; because he was ignorant of the application of
any other intelligence than such as met the senses. His deference to
this particular branch of science had induced him to listen to the
application of a medical man, whose thirst for natural history had led
him to the desire of profiting by the migratory propensities of the
squatter. This gentleman he had cordially received into his family, or
rather under his protection, and they had journeyed together, thus far
through the prairies, in perfect harmony: Ishmael often felicitating
his wife on the possession of a companion, who would be so serviceable
in their new abode, wherever it might chance to be, until the family
were thoroughly “acclimated.” The pursuits of the naturalist frequently
led him, however, for days at a time, from the direct line of the route
of the squatter, who rarely seemed to have any other guide than the
sun. Most men would have deemed themselves fortunate to have been
absent on the perilous occasion of the Sioux inroad, as was Obed Bat,
(or as he was fond of hearing himself called, Battius,) M.D. and fellow
of several cis-Atlantic learned societies—the adventurous gentleman in
question.

Although the sluggish nature of Ishmael was not actually awakened, it
was sorely pricked by the liberties which had just been taken with his
property. He slept, however, for it was the hour he had allotted to
that refreshment, and because he knew how impotent any exertions to
recover his effects must prove in the darkness of midnight. He also
knew the danger of his present situation too well to hazard what was
left in pursuit of that which was lost. Much as the inhabitants of the
prairies were known to love horses, their attachment to many other
articles, still in the possession of the travellers, was equally well
understood. It was a common artifice to scatter the herds, and to
profit by the confusion. But Mahtoree had, as it would seem in this
particular undervalued the acuteness of the man he had assailed. The
phlegm with which the squatter learned his loss, has already been seen,
and it now remains to exhibit the results of his more matured
determinations.

Though the encampment contained many an eye that was long unclosed, and
many an ear that listened greedily to catch the faintest evidence of
any new alarm, it lay in deep quiet during the remainder of the night.
Silence and fatigue finally performed their accustomed offices, and
before the morning all but the sentinels were again buried in sleep.
How well these indolent watchers discharged their duties, after the
assault, has never been known, inasmuch as nothing occurred to confirm
or to disprove their subsequent vigilance.

Just as day, however, began to dawn, and a grey light was falling from
the heavens, on the dusky objects of the plain, the half startled,
anxious, and yet blooming countenance of Ellen Wade was reared above
the confused mass of children, among whom she had clustered on her
stolen return to the camp. Arising warily she stepped lightly across
the recumbent bodies, and proceeded with the same caution to the utmost
limits of the defences of Ishmael. Here she listened, as if she doubted
the propriety of venturing further. The pause was only momentary,
however; and long before the drowsy eyes of the sentinel, who
overlooked the spot where she stood, had time to catch a glimpse of her
active form, it had glided along the bottom, and stood on the summit of
the nearest eminence.

Ellen now listened intently anxious to catch some other sound, than the
breathing of the morning air, which faintly rustled the herbage at her
feet. She was about to turn in disappointment from the enquiry, when
the tread of human feet making their way through the matted grass met
her ear. Springing eagerly forward, she soon beheld the outlines of a
figure advancing up the eminence, on the side opposite to the camp. She
had already uttered the name of Paul, and was beginning to speak in the
hurried and eager voice with which female affection is apt to greet a
friend, when, drawing back, the disappointed girl closed her salutation
by coldly adding—“I did not expect, Doctor, to meet you at this unusual
hour.”

“All hours and all seasons are alike, my good Ellen, to the genuine
lover of nature,”—returned a small, slightly made, but exceedingly
active man, dressed in an odd mixture of cloth and skins, a little past
the middle age, and who advanced directly to her side, with the
familiarity of an old acquaintance; “and he who does not know how to
find things to admire by this grey light, is ignorant of a large
portion of the blessings he enjoys.”

“Very true,” said Ellen, suddenly recollecting the necessity of
accounting for her own appearance abroad at that unseasonable hour; “I
know many who think the earth has a pleasanter look in the night, than
when seen by the brightest sunshine.”

“Ah! Their organs of sight must be too convex! But the man who wishes
to study the active habits of the feline race, or the variety, albinos,
must, indeed, be stirring at this hour. I dare say, there are men who
prefer even looking at objects by twilight, for the simple reason, that
they see better at that time of the day.”

“And is this the cause why you are so much abroad in the night?”

“I am abroad at night, my good girl, because the earth in its diurnal
revolutions leaves the light of the sun but half the time on any given
meridian, and because what I have to do cannot be performed in twelve
or fifteen consecutive hours. Now have I been off two days from the
family, in search of a plant, that is known to exist on the tributaries
of La Platte, without seeing even a blade of grass that is not already
enumerated and classed.”

“You have been unfortunate, Doctor, but—”

“Unfortunate!” echoed the little man, sideling nigher to his companion,
and producing his tablets with an air in which exultation struggled,
strangely, with an affectation of self-abasement. “No, no, Ellen, I am
any thing but unfortunate. Unless, indeed, a man may be so called,
whose fortune is made, whose fame may be said to be established for
ever, whose name will go down to posterity with that of Buffon—Buffon!
a mere compiler: one who flourishes on the foundation of other men’s
labours. No; pari passu with Solander, who bought his knowledge with
pain and privations!”

“Have you discovered a mine, Doctor Bat?”

“More than a mine; a treasure coined, and fit for instant use,
girl.—Listen! I was making the angle necessary to intersect the line of
your uncle’s march, after my fruitless search, when I heard sounds like
the explosion produced by fire arms—”

“Yes,” exclaimed Ellen, eagerly, “we had an alarm—”

“And thought I was lost,” continued the man of science too much bent on
his own ideas, to understand her interruption. “Little danger of that!
I made my own base, knew the length of the perpendicular by
calculation, and to draw the hypothenuse had nothing to do but to work
my angle. I supposed the guns were fired for my benefit, and changed my
course for the sounds—not that I think the sense more accurate, or even
as accurate as a mathematical calculation, but I feared that some of
the children might need my services.”

“They are all happily—”

“Listen,” interrupted the other, already forgetting his affected
anxiety for his patients, in the greater importance of the present
subject. “I had crossed a large tract of prairie—for sound is conveyed
far where there is little obstruction—when I heard the trampling of
feet, as if bisons were beating the earth. Then I caught a distant view
of a herd of quadrupeds, rushing up and down the swells—animals, which
would have still remained unknown and undescribed, had it not been for
a most felicitous accident! One, and he a noble specimen of the whole!
was running a little apart from the rest. The herd made an inclination
in my direction, in which the solitary animal coincided, and this
brought him within fifty yards of the spot where I stood. I profited by
the opportunity, and by the aid of steel and taper, I wrote his
description on the spot. I would have given a thousand dollars, Ellen,
for a single shot from the rifle of one of the boys!”

“You carry a pistol, Doctor, why didn’t you use it?” said the half
inattentive girl, anxiously examining the prairie, but still lingering
where she stood, quite willing to be detained.

“Ay, but it carries nothing but the most minute particles of lead,
adapted to the destruction of the larger insects and reptiles. No, I
did better than to attempt waging a war, in which I could not be the
victor. I recorded the event; noting each particular with the precision
necessary to science. You shall hear, Ellen; for you are a good and
improving girl, and by retaining what you learn in this way, may yet be
of great service to learning, should any accident occur to me. Indeed,
my worthy Ellen, mine is a pursuit, which has its dangers as well as
that of the warrior. This very night,” he continued, glancing his eye
behind him, “this awful night, has the principle of life, itself, been
in great danger of extinction!”

“By what?”

“By the monster I have discovered. It approached me often, and ever as
I receded, it continued to advance. I believe nothing but the little
lamp, I carried, was my protector. I kept it between us, whilst I
wrote, making it serve the double purpose of luminary and shield. But
you shall hear the character of the beast, and you may then judge of
the risks we promoters of science run in behalf of mankind.”

The naturalist raised his tablets to the heavens, and disposed himself
to read as well as he could, by the dim light they yet shed upon the
plain; premising with saying—

“Listen, girl, and you shall hear, with what a treasure it has been my
happy lot to enrich the pages of natural history!”

“Is it then a creature of your forming?” said Ellen, turning away from
her fruitless examination, with a sudden lighting of her sprightly blue
eyes, that showed she knew how to play with the foible of her learned
companion.

“Is the power to give life to inanimate matter the gift of man? I would
it were! You should speedily see a Historia Naturalis Americana, that
would put the sneering imitators of the Frenchman, De Buffon, to shame!
A great improvement might be made in the formation of all quadrupeds;
especially those in which velocity is a virtue. Two of the inferior
limbs should be on the principle of the lever; wheels, perhaps, as they
are now formed; though I have not yet determined whether the
improvement might be better applied to the anterior or posterior
members, inasmuch as I am yet to learn whether dragging or shoving
requires the greatest muscular exertion. A natural exudation of the
animal might assist in overcoming the friction, and a powerful momentum
be obtained. But all this is hopeless—at least for the present!”—he
added, raising his tablets again to the light, and reading aloud; “Oct.
6, 1805. that’s merely the date, which I dare say you know better than
I—Mem. _Quadruped;_ seen by star-light, and by the aid of a
pocket-lamp, in the prairies of North America—see Journal for Latitude
and Meridian. Genus—unknown; therefore named after the discoverer, and
from the happy coincidence of being seen in the evening—_Vespertilio
Horribilis, Americanus. Dimensions_ (by estimation)—_greatest length_,
eleven feet; _height_, six feet; _head_, erect; _nostrils_, expansive;
_eyes_, expressive and fierce; _teeth_, serrated and abundant; _tail_,
horizontal, waving, and slightly feline; _feet_, large and hairy;
_talons_, long, curvated, dangerous; _ears_, inconspicuous; _horns_,
elongated, diverging, and formidable; _colour_, plumbeous-ashy, with
fiery spots; _voice_, sonorous, martial, and appalling; _habits_,
gregarious, carnivorous, fierce, and fearless. There,” exclaimed Obed,
when he had ended this sententious but comprehensive description,
“there is an animal, which will be likely to dispute with the lion his
title to be called the king of the beasts!”

“I know not the meaning of all you have said, Doctor Battius,” returned
the quick-witted girl, who understood the weakness of the philosopher,
and often indulged him with a title he loved so well to hear; “but I
shall think it dangerous to venture far from the camp, if such monsters
are prowling over the prairies.”

“You may well call it prowling,” returned the naturalist, nestling
still closer to her side, and dropping his voice to such low and
undignified tones of confidence, as conveyed a meaning still more
pointed than he had intended. “I have never before experienced such a
trial of the nervous system; there was a moment, I acknowledge, when
the _fortiter in re_ faltered before so terrible an enemy; but the love
of natural science bore me up, and brought me off in triumph!”

“You speak a language so different from that we use in Tennessee,” said
Ellen, struggling to conceal her laughter, “that I hardly know whether
I understand your meaning. If I am right, you wish to say you were
chicken-hearted.”

“An absurd simile drawn from an ignorance of the formation of the
biped. The heart of a chicken has a just proportion to its other
organs, and the domestic fowl is, in a state of nature, a gallant bird.
Ellen,” he added, with a countenance so solemn as to produce an
impression on the attentive girl, “I was pursued, hunted, and in a
danger that I scorn to dwell on—what’s that?”

Ellen started; for the earnestness and simple sincerity of her
companion’s manner had produced a certain degree of credulity, even on
her buoyant mind. Looking in the direction indicated by the Doctor, she
beheld, in fact, a beast coursing over the prairie, and making a
straight and rapid approach to the very spot they occupied. The day was
not yet sufficiently advanced to enable her to distinguish its form and
character, though enough was discernible to induce her to imagine it a
fierce and savage animal.

“It comes! it comes!” exclaimed the Doctor, fumbling, by a sort of
instinct, for his tablets, while he fairly tottered on his feet under
the powerful efforts he made to maintain his ground. “Now, Ellen, has
fortune given me an opportunity to correct the errors made by
star-light,—hold,—ashy-plumbeous,—no ears,—horns, excessive.” His voice
and hand were both arrested by a roar, or rather a shriek from the
beast, that was sufficiently terrific to appal even a stouter heart
than that of the naturalist. The cries of the animal passed over the
prairie in strange cadences, and then succeeded a deep and solemn
silence, that was only broken by an uncontrolled fit of merriment from
the more musical voice of Ellen Wade. In the mean time the naturalist
stood like a statue of amazement, permitting a well-grown ass, against
whose approach he no longer offered his boasted shield of light, to
smell about his person, without comment or hinderance.

“It is your own ass,” cried Ellen, the instant she found breath for
words; “your own patient, hard working, hack!”

The Doctor rolled his eyes from the beast to the speaker, and from the
speaker to the beast; but gave no audible expression of his wonder.

“Do you refuse to know an animal that has laboured so long in your
service?” continued the laughing girl. “A beast, that I have heard you
say a thousand times, has served you well, and whom you loved like a
brother!”

“Asinus Domesticus!” ejaculated the Doctor, drawing his breath like one
who had been near suffocation. “There is no doubt of the genus; and I
will always maintain that the animal is not of the species, equus. This
is undeniably Asinus himself, Ellen Wade; but this is not the
Vespertilio Horribilis of the prairies! Very different animals, I can
assure you, young woman, and differently characterized in every
important particular. That, carnivorous,” he continued, glancing his
eye at the open page of his tablets; “this, granivorous; habits,
fierce, dangerous; habits, patient, abstemious; ears, inconspicuous;
ears, elongated; horns, diverging, &c., horns, none!”

He was interrupted by another burst of merriment from Ellen, which
served, in some measure, to recall him to his recollection.

“The image of the Vespertilio was on the retina,” the astounded
enquirer into the secrets of nature observed, in a manner that seemed a
little apologetic, “and I was silly enough to mistake my own faithful
beast for the monster. Though even now I greatly marvel to see this
animal running at large!”

Ellen then proceeded to explain the history of the attack and its
results. She described, with an accuracy that might have raised
suspicions of her own movements in the mind of one less simple than her
auditor, the manner in which the beasts burst out of the encampment,
and the headlong speed with which they had dispersed themselves over
the open plain. Although she forebore to say as much in terms, she so
managed as to present before the eyes of her listener the strong
probability of his having mistaken the frightened drove for savage
beasts, and then terminated her account by a lamentation for their
loss, and some very natural remarks on the helpless condition in which
it had left the family. The naturalist listened in silent wonder,
neither interrupting her narrative nor suffering a single exclamation
of surprise to escape him. The keen-eyed girl, however, saw that as she
proceeded, the important leaf was torn from the tablets, in a manner
which showed that their owner had got rid of his delusion at the same
instant. From that moment the world has heard no more of the
Vespertilio Horribilis Americanus, and the natural sciences have
irretrievably lost an important link in that great animated chain which
is said to connect earth and heaven, and in which man is thought to be
so familiarly complicated with the monkey.

When Dr. Bat was put in full possession of all the circumstances of the
inroad, his concern immediately took a different direction. He had left
sundry folios, and certain boxes well stored with botanical specimens
and defunct animals, under the good keeping of Ishmael, and it
immediately struck his acute mind, that marauders as subtle as the
Siouxes would never neglect the opportunity to despoil him of these
treasures. Nothing that Ellen could say to the contrary served to
appease his apprehensions, and, consequently, they separated; he to
relieve his doubts and fears together, and she to glide, as swiftly and
silently as she had just before passed it, into the still and solitary
tent.




CHAPTER VII


What! fifty of my followers, at a clap!
                   —Lear.


The day had now fairly opened on the seemingly interminable waste of
the prairie. The entrance of Obed at such a moment into the camp,
accompanied as it was by vociferous lamentations over his anticipated
loss, did not fail to rouse the drowsy family of the squatter. Ishmael
and his sons, together with the forbidding looking brother of his wife,
were all speedily afoot; and then, as the sun began to shed his light
on the place, they became gradually apprised of the extent of their
loss.

Ishmael looked round upon the motionless and heavily loaded vehicles
with his teeth firmly compressed, cast a glance at the amazed and
helpless group of children, which clustered around their sullen but
desponding mother, and walked out upon the open land, as if he found
the air of the encampment too confined. He was followed by several of
the men, who were attentive observers, watching the dark expression of
his eye as the index of their own future movements. The whole proceeded
in profound and moody silence to the summit of the nearest swell,
whence they could command an almost boundless view of the naked plains.
Here nothing was visible but a solitary buffaloe, that gleaned a meagre
subsistence from the decaying herbage, at no great distance, and the
ass of the physician, who profited by his freedom to enjoy a meal
richer than common.

“Yonder is one of the creatures left by the villains to mock us,” said
Ishmael, glancing his eye towards the latter, “and that the meanest of
the stock. This is a hard country to make a crop in, boys; and yet food
must be found to fill many hungry mouths!”

“The rifle is better than the hoe, in such a place as this,” returned
the eldest of his sons, kicking the hard and thirsty soil on which he
stood, with an air of contempt. “It is good for such as they who make
their dinner better on beggars’ beans than on homminy. A crow would
shed tears if obliged by its errand to fly across the district.”

“What say you, trapper?” returned the father, showing the slight
impression his powerful heel had made on the compact earth, and
laughing with frightful ferocity. “Is this the quality of land a man
would choose who never troubles the county clerk with title deeds?”

“There is richer soil in the bottoms,” returned the old man calmly,
“and you have passed millions of acres to get to this dreary spot,
where he who loves to till the ’arth might have received bushels in
return for pints, and that too at the cost of no very grievous labour.
If you have come in search of land, you have journeyed hundreds of
miles too far, or as many leagues too little.”

“There is then a better choice towards the other Ocean?” demanded the
squatter, pointing in the direction of the Pacific.

“There is, and I have seen it all,” was the answer of the other, who
dropped his rifle to the earth, and stood leaning on its barrel, like
one who recalled the scenes he had witnessed with melancholy pleasure.
“I have seen the waters of the two seas! On one of them was I born, and
raised to be a lad like yonder tumbling boy. America has grown, my men,
since the days of my youth, to be a country larger than I once had
thought the world itself to be. Near seventy years I dwelt in York,
province and state together:—you’ve been in York, ’tis like?”

“Not I—not I; I never visited the towns; but often have heard the place
you speak of named. ’Tis a wide clearing there, I reckon.”

“Too wide! too wide! They scourge the very ’arth with their axes. Such
hills and hunting-grounds as I have seen stripped of the gifts of the
Lord, without remorse or shame! I tarried till the mouths of my hounds
were deafened by the blows of the chopper, and then I came west in
search of quiet. It was a grievous journey that I made; a grievous toil
to pass through falling timber and to breathe the thick air of smoky
clearings, week after week, as I did! ’Tis a far country too, that
state of York from this!”

“It lies ag’in the outer edge of old Kentuck, I reckon; though what the
distance may be I never knew.”

“A gull would have to fan a thousand miles of air to find the eastern
sea. And yet it is no mighty reach to hunt across, when shade and game
are plenty! The time has been when I followed the deer in the mountains
of the Delaware and Hudson, and took the beaver on the streams of the
upper lakes in the same season, but my eye was quick and certain at
that day, and my limbs were like the legs of a moose! The dam of
Hector,” dropping his look kindly to the aged hound that crouched at
his feet, “was then a pup, and apt to open on the game the moment she
struck the scent. She gave me a deal of trouble, that slut, she did!”

“Your hound is old, stranger, and a rap on the head would prove a mercy
to the beast.”

“The dog is like his master,” returned the trapper, without appearing
to heed the brutal advice the other gave, “and will number his days,
when his work amongst the game is over, and not before. To my eye
things seem ordered to meet each other in this creation. ’Tis not the
swiftest running deer that always throws off the hounds, nor the
biggest arm that holds the truest rifle. Look around you, men; what
will the Yankee Choppers say, when they have cut their path from the
eastern to the western waters, and find that a hand, which can lay the
’arth bare at a blow, has been here and swept the country, in very
mockery of their wickedness. They will turn on their tracks like a fox
that doubles, and then the rank smell of their own footsteps will show
them the madness of their waste. Howsomever, these are thoughts that
are more likely to rise in him who has seen the folly of eighty
seasons, than to teach wisdom to men still bent on the pleasures of
their kind! You have need, yet, of a stirring time, if you think to
escape the craft and hatred of the burnt-wood Indians. They claim to be
the lawful owners of this country, and seldom leave a white more than
the skin he boasts of, when once they get the power, as they always
have the will, to do him harm.”

“Old man,” said Ishmael sternly, “to which people do you belong? You
have the colour and speech of a Christian, while it seems that your
heart is with the redskins.”

“To me there is little difference in nations. The people I loved most
are scattered as the sands of the dry river-beds fly before the fall
hurricanes, and life is too short to make use and custom with
strangers, as one can do with such as he has dwelt amongst for years.
Still am I a man without the cross of Indian blood; and what is due
from a warrior to his nation, is owing by me to the people of the
States; though little need have they, with their militia and their
armed boats, of help from a single arm of fourscore.”

“Since you own your kin, I may ask a simple question. Where are the
Siouxes who have stolen my cattle?”

“Where is the herd of buffaloes, which was chased by the panther across
this plain, no later than the morning of yesterday? It is as hard—”

“Friend,” said Dr. Battius, who had hitherto been an attentive
listener, but who now felt a sudden impulse to mingle in the discourse,
“I am grieved when I find a venator or hunter, of your experience and
observation, following the current of vulgar error. The animal you
describe is in truth a species of the bos ferus, (or bos sylvestris, as
he has been happily called by the poets,) but, though of close
affinity, it is altogether distinct from the common bubulus. Bison is
the better word; and I would suggest the necessity of adopting it in
future, when you shall have occasion to allude to the species.”

“Bison or buffaloe, it makes but little matter. The creatur’ is the
same, call it by what name you will, and—”

“Pardon me, venerable venator; as classification is the very soul of
the natural sciences, the animal or vegetable must, of necessity, be
characterised by the peculiarities of its species, which is always
indicated by the name—”

“Friend,” said the trapper, a little positively, “would the tail of a
beaver make the worse dinner for calling it a mink; or could you eat of
the wolf, with relish, because some bookish man had given it the name
of venison?”

As these questions were put with no little earnestness and some spirit,
there was every probability that a hot discussion would have succeeded
between two men, of whom one was so purely practical and the other so
much given to theory, had not Ishmael seen fit to terminate the
dispute, by bringing into view a subject that was much more important
to his own immediate interests.

“Beavers’ tails and minks’ flesh may do to talk about before a maple
fire and a quiet hearth,” interrupted the squatter, without the
smallest deference to the interested feelings of the disputants; “but
something more than foreign words, or words of any sort, is now needed.
Tell me, trapper, where are your Siouxes skulking?”

“It would be as easy to tell you the colours of the hawk that is
floating beneath yonder white cloud! When a red-skin strikes his blow,
he is not apt to wait until he is paid for the evil deed in lead.”

“Will the beggarly savages believe they have enough, when they find
themselves master of all the stock?”

“Natur’ is much the same, let it be covered by what skin it may. Do you
ever find your longings after riches less when you have made a good
crop, than before you were master of a kernel of corn? If you do, you
differ from what the experience of a long life tells me is the common
cravings of man.”

“Speak plainly, old stranger,” said the squatter, striking the butt of
his rifle heavily on the earth, his dull capacity finding no pleasure
in a discourse that was conducted in so obscure allusions; “I have
asked a simple question, and one I know well that you can answer.”

“You are right, you are right. I can answer, for I have too often seen
the disposition of my kind to mistake it, when evil is stirring. When
the Siouxes have gathered in the beasts, and have made sure that you
are not upon their heels, they will be back nibbling like hungry wolves
to take the bait they have left or it may be, they’ll show the temper
of the great bears, that are found at the falls of the Long River, and
strike at once with the paw, without stopping to nose their prey.”

“You have then seen the animals you mention!” exclaimed Dr. Battius,
who had now been thrown out of the conversation quite as long as his
impatience could well brook, and who approached the subject with his
tablets ready opened, as a book of reference. “Can you tell me if what
you encountered was of the species, ursus horribilis—with the ears,
rounded—front, arquated—eyes—destitute of the remarkable supplemental
lid—with six incisores, one false, and four perfect molares—”

“Trapper, go on, for we are engaged in reasonable discourse,”
interrupted Ishmael; “you believe we shall see more of the robbers.”

“Nay—nay—I do not call them robbers, for it is the usage of their
people, and what may be called the prairie law.”

“I have come five hundred miles to find a place where no man can ding
the words of the law in my ears,” said Ishmael, fiercely, “and I am not
in a humour to stand quietly at a bar, while a red-skin sits in
judgment. I tell you, trapper, if another Sioux is seen prowling around
my camp, wherever it may be, he shall feel the contents of old
Kentuck,” slapping his rifle, in a manner that could not be easily
misconstrued, “though he wore the medal of Washington,[11] himself. I
call the man a robber who takes that which is not his own.”

“The Teton, and the Pawnee, and the Konza, and men of a dozen other
tribes, claim to own these naked fields.”

“Natur’ gives them the lie in their teeth. The air, the water, and the
ground, are free gifts to man, and no one has the power to portion them
out in parcels. Man must drink, and breathe, and walk,—and therefore
each has a right to his share of ’arth. Why do not the surveyors of the
States set their compasses and run their lines over our heads as well
as beneath our feet? Why do they not cover their shining sheep-skins
with big words, giving to the landholder, or perhaps he should be
called air holder, so many rods of heaven, with the use of such a star
for a boundary-mark, and such a cloud to turn a mill?”

As the squatter uttered his wild conceit, he laughed from the very
bottom of his chest, in scorn. The deriding but frightful merriment
passed from the mouth of one of his ponderous sons to that of the
other, until it had made the circuit of the whole family.

“Come, trapper,” continued Ishmael, in a tone of better humour, like a
man who feels that he has triumphed, “neither of us, I reckon, has ever
had much to do with title-deeds, or county clerks, or blazed trees;
therefore we will not waste words on fooleries. You ar’ a man that has
tarried long in this clearing, and now I ask your opinion, face to
face, without fear or favour, if you had the lead in my business, what
would you do?”

The old man hesitated, and seemed to give the required advice with deep
reluctance. As every eye, however, was fastened on him, and whichever
way he turned his face, he encountered a look riveted on the lineaments
of his own working countenance, he answered in a low, melancholy, tone—

“I have seen too much mortal blood poured out in empty quarrels, to
wish ever to hear an angry rifle again. Ten weary years have I
sojourned alone on these naked plains, waiting for my hour, and not a
blow have I struck ag’in an enemy more humanised than the grizzly
bear.”

“Ursus horribilis,” muttered the Doctor.

The speaker paused at the sound of the other’s voice, but perceiving it
was no more than a sort of mental ejaculation, he continued in the same
strain—

“More humanised than the grizzly hear, or the panther of the Rocky
Mountains; unless the beaver, which is a wise and knowing animal, may
be so reckoned. What would I advise? Even the female buffaloe will
fight for her young!”

“It never then shall be said, that Ishmael Bush has less kindness for
his children than the bear for her cubs!”

“And yet this is but a naked spot for a dozen men to make head in,
ag’in five hundred.”

“Ay, it is so,” returned the squatter, glancing his eye towards his
humble camp; “but something might be done, with the wagons and the
cotton-wood.”

The trapper shook his head incredulously, and pointed across the
rolling plain in the direction of the west, as he answered—

“A rifle would send a bullet from these hills into your very
sleeping-cabins; nay, arrows from the thicket in your rear would keep
you all burrowed, like so many prairie dogs: it wouldn’t do, it
wouldn’t do. Three long miles from this spot is a place, where as I
have often thought in passing across the desert, a stand might be made
for days and weeks together, if there were hearts and hands ready to
engage in the bloody work.”

Another low, deriding laugh passed among the young men, announcing, in
a manner sufficiently intelligible, their readiness to undertake a task
even more arduous. The squatter himself eagerly seized the hint which
had been so reluctantly extorted from the trapper, who by some singular
process of reasoning had evidently persuaded himself that it was his
duty to be strictly neutral. A few direct and pertinent enquiries
served to obtain the little additional information that was necessary,
in order to make the contemplated movement, and then Ishmael, who was,
on emergencies, as terrifically energetic, as he was sluggish in
common, set about effecting his object without delay.

Notwithstanding the industry and zeal of all engaged, the task was one
of great labour and difficulty. The loaded vehicles were to be drawn by
hand across a wide distance of plain without track or guide of any
sort, except that which the trapper furnished by communicating his
knowledge of the cardinal points of the compass. In accomplishing this
object, the gigantic strength of the men was taxed to the utmost, nor
were the females or the children spared a heavy proportion of the toil.
While the sons distributed themselves about the heavily loaded wagons,
and drew them by main strength up the neighbouring swell, their mother
and Ellen, surrounded by the amazed group of little ones, followed
slowly in the rear, bending under the weight of such different articles
as were suited to their several strengths.

Ishmael himself superintended and directed the whole, occasionally
applying his colossal shoulder to some lagging vehicle, until he saw
that the chief difficulty, that of gaining the level of their intended
route, was accomplished. Then he pointed out the required course,
cautioning his sons to proceed in such a manner that they should not
lose the advantage they had with so much labour obtained, and beckoning
to the brother of his wife, they returned together to the empty camp.

Throughout the whole of this movement, which occupied an hour of time,
the trapper had stood apart, leaning on his rifle, with the aged hound
slumbering at his feet, a silent but attentive observer of all that
passed. Occasionally, a smile lighted his hard, muscular, but wasted
features, like a gleam of sunshine flitting across a ragged ruin, and
betrayed the momentary pleasure he found in witnessing from time to
time the vast power the youths discovered. Then, as the train drew
slowly up the ascent, a cloud of thought and sorrow threw all into the
shade again, leaving the expression of his countenance in its usual
state of quiet melancholy. As vehicle after vehicle left the place of
the encampment, he noted the change, with increasing attention; seldom
failing to cast an enquiring look at the little neglected tent, which,
with its proper wagon, still remained as before, solitary and
apparently forgotten. The summons of Ishmael to his gloomy associate
had, however, as it would now seem, this hitherto neglected portion of
his effects for its object.

First casting a cautious and suspicious glance on every side of him,
the squatter and his companion advanced to the little wagon, and caused
it to enter within the folds of the cloth, much in the manner that it
had been extricated the preceding evening. They both then disappeared
behind the drapery, and many moments of suspense succeeded, during
which the old man, secretly urged by a burning desire to know the
meaning of so much mystery, insensibly drew nigh to the place, until he
stood within a few yards of the proscribed spot. The agitation of the
cloth betrayed the nature of the occupation of those whom it concealed,
though their work was conducted in rigid silence. It would appear that
long practice had made each of the two acquainted with his particular
duty; for neither sign nor direction of any sort was necessary from
Ishmael, in order to apprise his surly associate of the manner in which
he was to proceed. In less time than has been consummated in relating
it, the interior portion of the arrangement was completed, when the men
re-appeared without the tent. Too busy with his occupation to heed the
presence of the trapper, Ishmael began to release the folds of the
cloth from the ground, and to dispose of them in such a manner around
the vehicle, as to form a sweeping train to the new form the little
pavilion had now assumed. The arched roof trembled with the occasional
movement of the light vehicle which, it was now apparent, once more
supported its secret burden. Just as the work was ended the scowling
eye of Ishmael’s assistant caught a glimpse of the figure of the
attentive observer of their movements. Dropping the shaft, which he had
already lifted from the ground preparatory to occupying the place that
was usually filled by an animal less reasoning and perhaps less
dangerous than himself, he bluntly exclaimed—

“I am a fool, as you often say! But look for yourself: if that man is
not an enemy, I will disgrace father and mother, call myself an Indian,
and go hunt with the Siouxes!”

The cloud, as it is about to discharge the subtle lightning, is not
more dark nor threatening, than the look with which Ishmael greeted the
intruder. He turned his head on every side of him, as if seeking some
engine sufficiently terrible to annihilate the offending trapper at a
blow; and then, possibly recollecting the further occasion he might
have for his counsel, he forced himself to say, with an appearance of
moderation that nearly choked him—

“Stranger, I did believe this prying into the concerns of others was
the business of women in the towns and settlements, and not the manner
in which men, who are used to live where each has room for himself,
deal with the secrets of their neighbours. To what lawyer or sheriff do
you calculate to sell your news?”

“I hold but little discourse except with one and then chiefly of my own
affairs,” returned the old man, without the least observable
apprehension, and pointing imposingly upward; “a Judge; and Judge of
all. Little does he need knowledge from my hands, and but little will
your wish to keep any thing secret from him profit you, even in this
desert.”

The mounting tempers of his unnurtured listeners were rebuked by the
simple, solemn manner of the trapper. Ishmael stood sullen and
thoughtful; while his companion stole a furtive and involuntary glance
at the placid sky, which spread so wide and blue above his head, as if
he expected to see the Almighty eye itself beaming from the heavenly
vault. But impressions of a serious character are seldom lasting on
minds long indulged in forgetfulness. The hesitation of the squatter
was consequently of short duration. The language, however, as well as
the firm and collected air of the speaker, were the means of preventing
much subsequent abuse, if not violence.

“It would be showing more of the kindness of a friend and comrade,”
Ishmael returned, in a tone sufficiently sullen to betray his humour,
though it was no longer threatening, “had your shoulder been put to the
wheel of one of yonder wagons, instead of edging itself in here, where
none are wanted but such as are invited.”

“I can put the little strength that is left me,” returned the trapper,
“to this, as well as to another of your loads.”

“Do you take us for boys!” exclaimed Ishmael, laughing, half in
ferocity and half in derision, applying his powerful strength at the
same time to the little vehicle, which rolled over the grass with as
much seeming facility as if it were drawn by its usual team.

The trapper paused, and followed the departing wagon with his eye,
marvelling greatly as to the nature of its concealed contents, until it
had also gained the summit of the eminence, and in its turn disappeared
behind the swell of the land. Then he turned to gaze at the desolation
of the scene around him. The absence of human forms would have scarce
created a sensation in the bosom of one so long accustomed to solitude,
had not the site of the deserted camp furnished such strong memorials
of its recent visitors, and as the old man was quick to detect, of
their waste also. He cast his eye upwards, with a shake of the head, at
the vacant spot in the heavens which had so lately been filled by the
branches of those trees that now lay stripped of their verdure,
worthless and deserted logs, at his feet.

“Ay,” he muttered to himself, “I might have know’d it—I might have
know’d it! Often have I seen the same before; and yet I brought them to
the spot myself, and have now sent them to the only neighbourhood of
their kind within many long leagues of the spot where I stand. This is
man’s wish, and pride, and waste, and sinfulness! He tames the beasts
of the field to feed his idle wants; and, having robbed the brutes of
their natural food, he teaches them to strip the ’arth of its trees to
quiet their hunger.”

A rustling in the low bushes which still grew, for some distance, along
the swale that formed the thicket on which the camp of Ishmael had
rested, caught his ear, at the moment, and cut short the soliloquy. The
habits of so many years, spent in the wilderness, caused the old man to
bring his rifle to a poise, with something like the activity and
promptitude of his youth; but, suddenly recovering his recollection, he
dropped it into the hollow of his arm again, and resumed his air of
melancholy resignation.

“Come forth, come forth!” he said aloud: “be ye bird, or be ye beast,
ye are safe from these old hands. I have eaten and I have drunk: why
should I take life, when my wants call for no sacrifice? It will not be
long afore the birds will peck at eyes that shall not see them, and
perhaps light on my very bones; for if things like these are only made
to perish, why am I to expect to live for ever? Come forth, come forth;
you are safe from harm at these weak hands.”

“Thank you for the good word, old trapper!” cried Paul Hover, springing
actively forward from his place of concealment. “There was an air about
you, when you threw forward the muzzle of the piece, that I did not
like; for it seemed to say that you were master of all the rest of the
motions.”

“You are right, you are right!” cried the trapper, laughing with inward
self-complacency at the recollection of his former skill. “The day has
been when few men knew the virtues of a long rifle, like this I carry,
better than myself, old and useless as I now seem. You are right, young
man; and the time was, when it was dangerous to move a leaf within
ear-shot of my stand; or,” he added, dropping his voice, and looking
serious, “for a Red Mingo to show an eyeball from his ambushment. You
have heard of the Red Mingos?”

“I have heard of minks,” said Paul, taking the old man by the arm, and
gently urging him towards the thicket as he spoke; while, at the same
time, he cast quick and uneasy glances behind him, in order to make
sure he was not observed. “Of your common black minks; but none of any
other colour.”

“Lord! Lord!” continued the trapper, shaking his head, and still
laughing, in his deep but quiet manner; “the boy mistakes a brute for a
man! Though, a Mingo is little better than a beast; or, for that
matter, he is worse, when rum and opportunity are placed before his
eyes. There was that accursed Huron, from the upper lakes, that I
knocked from his perch among the rocks in the hills, back of the Hori—”

His voice was lost in the thicket, into which he had suffered himself
to be led by Paul while speaking, too much occupied by thoughts which
dwelt on scenes and acts that had taken place half a century earlier in
the history of the country, to offer the smallest resistance.

[11] The American government creates chiefs among the western tribes,
and decorates them with silver medals bearing the impression of the
different presidents. That of Washington is the most prized.




CHAPTER VIII


Now they are clapper-clawing one another; I’ll go look on. That
dissembling abominable varlet, Diomed, has got that same scurvy,
doting, foolish young knave in his helm.
                   —Troilus and Cressida.


It is necessary, in order that the thread of the narrative should not
be spun to a length which might fatigue the reader, that he should
imagine a week to have intervened between the scene with which the
preceding chapter closed and the events with which it is our intention
to resume its relation in this. The season was on the point of changing
its character; the verdure of summer giving place more rapidly to the
brown and party-coloured livery of the fall.[12] The heavens were
clothed in driving clouds, piled in vast masses one above the other,
which whirled violently in the gusts; opening, occasionally, to admit
transient glimpses of the bright and glorious sight of the heavens,
dwelling in a magnificence by far too grand and durable to be disturbed
by the fitful efforts of the lower world. Beneath, the wind swept
across the wild and naked prairies, with a violence that is seldom
witnessed in any section of the continent less open. It would have been
easy to have imagined, in the ages of fable, that the god of the winds
had permitted his subordinate agents to escape from their den, and that
they now rioted, in wantonness, across wastes, where neither tree, nor
work of man, nor mountain, nor obstacle of any sort, opposed itself to
their gambols.

Though nakedness might, as usual, be given as the pervading character
of the spot, whither it is now necessary to transfer the scene of the
tale, it was not entirely without the signs of human life. Amid the
monotonous rolling of the prairie, a single naked and ragged rock arose
on the margin of a little watercourse, which found its way, after
winding a vast distance through the plains, into one of the numerous
tributaries of the Father of Rivers. A swale of low land lay near the
base of the eminence; and as it was still fringed with a thicket of
alders and sumack, it bore the signs of having once nurtured a feeble
growth of wood. The trees themselves had been transferred, however, to
the summit and crags of the neighbouring rocks. On this elevation the
signs of man, to which the allusion just made applies, were to be
found.

Seen from beneath, there were visible a breast-work of logs and stones,
intermingled in such a manner as to save all unnecessary labour, a few
low roofs made of bark and boughs of trees, an occasional barrier,
constructed like the defences on the summit, and placed on such points
of the acclivity as were easier of approach than the general face of
the eminence; and a little dwelling of cloth, perched on the apex of a
small pyramid, that shot up on one angle of the rock, the white
covering of which glimmered from a distance like a spot of snow, or, to
make the simile more suitable to the rest of the subject, like a
spotless and carefully guarded standard, which was to be protected by
the dearest blood of those who defended the citadel beneath. It is
hardly necessary to add, that this rude and characteristic fortress was
the place where Ishmael Bush had taken refuge, after the robbery of his
flocks and herds.

On the day to which the narrative is advanced, the squatter was
standing near the base of the rocks, leaning on his rifle, and
regarding the sterile soil that supported him with a look in which
contempt and disappointment were strongly blended.

“’Tis time to change our natur’s,” he observed to the brother of his
wife, who was rarely far from his elbow; “and to become ruminators,
instead of people used to the fare of Christians and free men. I
reckon, Abiram, you could glean a living among the grasshoppers: you
ar’ an active man, and might outrun the nimblest skipper of them all.”

“The country will never do,” returned the other, who relished but
little the forced humour of his kinsman; “and it is well to remember
that a lazy traveller makes a long journey.”

“Would you have me draw a cart at my heels, across this desert for
weeks,—ay, months?” retorted Ishmael, who, like all of his class, could
labour with incredible efforts on emergencies, but who too seldom
exerted continued industry, on any occasion, to brook a proposal that
offered so little repose. “It may do for your people, who live in
settlements, to hasten on to their houses; but, thank Heaven! my farm
is too big for its owner ever to want a resting-place.”

“Since you like the plantation, then, you have only to make your crop.”

“That is easier said than done, on this corner of the estate. I tell
you, Abiram, there is need of moving, for more reasons than one. You
know I’m a man that very seldom enters into a bargain, but who always
fulfils his agreements better than your dealers in wordy contracts
written on rags of paper. If there’s one mile, there ar’ a hundred
still needed to make up the distance for which you have my honour.”

As he spoke, the squatter glanced his eye upward at the little tenement
of cloth which crowned the summit of his ragged fortress. The look was
understood and answered by the other; and by some secret influence,
which operated either through their interests or feelings, it served to
re-establish that harmony between them, which had just been threatened
with something like a momentary breach.

“I know it, and feel it in every bone of my body. But I remember the
reason, why I have set myself on this accursed journey too well to
forget the distance between me and the end. Neither you nor I will ever
be the better for what we have done, unless we thoroughly finish what
is so well begun. Ay, that is the doctrine of the whole world, I judge:
I heard a travelling preacher, who was skirting it down the Ohio, a
time since, say, if a man should live up to the faith for a hundred
years, and then fall from his work a single day, he would find the
settlement was to be made for the finishing blow that he had put to his
job, and that all the bad, and none of the good, would come into the
final account.”

“And you believed the hungry hypocrite!”

“Who said that I believed it?” retorted Abiram with a bullying look,
that betrayed how much his fears had dwelt on the subject he affected
to despise. “Is it believing to tell what a roguish—And yet, Ishmael,
the man might have been honest after all! He told us that the world
was, in truth, no better than a desert, and that there was but one hand
that could lead the most learned man through all its crooked windings.
Now, if this be true of the whole, it may be true of a part.”

“Abiram, out with your grievances like a man,” interrupted the
squatter, with a hoarse laugh. “You want to pray! But of what use will
it be, according to your own doctrine, to serve God five minutes and
the devil an hour? Harkee, friend; I’m not much of a husband-man, but
this I know to my cost; that to make a right good crop, even on the
richest bottom, there must be hard labour; and your snufflers liken the
’arth to a field of corn, and the men, who live on it, to its yield.
Now I tell you, Abiram, that you are no better than a thistle or a
mullin; yea, ye ar’ wood of too open a pore to be good even to burn!”

The malign glance, which shot from the scowling eye of Abiram,
announced the angry character of his feelings, but as the furtive look
quailed, immediately, before the unmoved, steady, countenance of the
squatter, it also betrayed how much the bolder spirit of the latter had
obtained the mastery over his craven nature.

Content with his ascendency, which was too apparent, and had been too
often exerted on similar occasions, to leave him in any doubt of its
extent, Ishmael coolly continued the discourse, by adverting more
directly to his future plans.

“You will own the justice of paying every one in kind,” he said; “I
have been robbed of my stock, and I have a scheme to make myself as
good as before, by taking hoof for hoof; or for that matter, when a man
is put to the trouble of bargaining for both sides, he is a fool if he
don’t pay himself something in the way of commission.”

As the squatter made this declaration in a tone which was a little
excited by the humour of the moment, four or five of his lounging sons,
who had been leaning against the foot of the rock, came forward with
the indolent step so common to the family.

“I have been calling Ellen Wade, who is on the rock keeping the
look-out, to know if there is any thing to be seen,” observed the
eldest of the young men; “and she shakes her head, for an answer. Ellen
is sparing of her words for a woman; and might be taught manners at
least, without spoiling her good looks.”

Ishmael cast his eye upward to the place, where the offending, but
unconscious girl was holding her anxious watch. She was seated at the
edge of the uppermost crag, by the side of the little tent, and at
least two hundred feet above the level of the plain. Little else was to
be distinguished, at that distance, but the outline of her form, her
fair hair streaming in the gusts beyond her shoulders, and the steady
and seemingly unchangeable look that she had riveted on some remote
point of the prairie.

“What is it, Nell?” cried Ishmael, lifting his powerful voice a little
above the rushing of the element. “Have you got a glimpse of any thing
bigger than a burrowing barker?”

The lips of the attentive Ellen parted; she rose to the utmost height
her small stature admitted, seeming still to regard the unknown object;
but her voice, if she spoke at all, was not sufficiently loud to be
heard amid the wind.

“It ar’ a fact that the child sees something more uncommon than a
buffaloe or a prairie dog!” continued Ishmael. “Why, Nell, girl, ar’ ye
deaf? Nell, I say;—I hope it is an army of red-skins she has in her
eye; for I should relish the chance to pay them for their kindness,
under the favour of these logs and rocks!”

As the squatter accompanied his vaunt with corresponding gestures, and
directed his eyes to the circle of his equally confident sons while
speaking, he drew their gaze from Ellen to himself; but now, when they
turned together to note the succeeding movements of their female
sentinel, the place which had so lately been occupied by her form was
vacant.

“As I am a sinner,” exclaimed Asa, usually one of the most phlegmatic
of the youths, “the girl is blown away by the wind!”

Something like a sensation was exhibited among them, which might have
denoted that the influence of the laughing blue eyes, flaxen hair, and
glowing cheeks of Ellen, had not been lost on the dull natures of the
young men; and looks of amazement, mingled slightly with concern,
passed from one to the other as they gazed, in dull wonder, at the
point of the naked rock.

“It might well be!” added another; “she sat on a slivered stone, and I
have been thinking of telling her she was in danger for more than an
hour.”

“Is that a riband of the child, dangling from the corner of the hill
below?” cried Ishmael; “ha! who is moving about the tent? have I not
told you all—”

“Ellen! ’tis Ellen!” interrupted the whole body of his sons in a
breath; and at that instant she re-appeared to put an end to their
different surmises, and to relieve more than one sluggish nature from
its unwonted excitement. As Ellen issued from beneath the folds of the
tent, she advanced with a light and fearless step to her former giddy
stand, and pointed toward the prairie, appearing to speak in an eager
and rapid voice to some invisible auditor.

“Nell is mad!” said Asa, half in contempt and yet not a little in
concern. “The girl is dreaming with her eyes open; and thinks she sees
some of them fierce creatur’s, with hard names, with which the Doctor
fills her ears.”

“Can it be, the child has found a scout of the Siouxes?” said Ishmael,
bending his look toward the plain; but a low, significant whisper from
Abiram drew his eyes quickly upward again, where they were turned just
in time to perceive that the cloth of the tent was agitated by a motion
very evidently different from the quivering occasioned by the wind.
“Let her, if she dare!” the squatter muttered in his teeth. “Abiram;
they know my temper too well to play the prank with me!”

“Look for yourself! if the curtain is not lifted, I can see no better
than the owl by daylight.”

Ishmael struck the breach of his rifle violently on the earth, and
shouted in a voice that might easily have been heard by Ellen, had not
her attention still continued rapt on the object which so unaccountably
attracted her eyes in the distance.

“Nell!” continued the squatter, “away with you, fool! will you bring
down punishment on your own head? Why, Nell!—she has forgotten her
native speech; let us see if she can understand another language.”

Ishmael threw his rifle to his shoulder, and at the next moment it was
pointed upward at the summit of the rock. Before time was given for a
word of remonstrance, it had sent forth its contents, in its usual
streak of bright flame. Ellen started like the frightened chamois, and
uttering a piercing scream, she darted into the tent, with a swiftness
that left it uncertain whether terror or actual injury had been the
penalty of her offence.

The action of the squatter was too sudden and unexpected to admit of
prevention, but the instant it was done, his sons manifested, in an
unequivocal manner, the temper with which they witnessed the desperate
measure. Angry and fierce glances were interchanged, and a murmur of
disapprobation was uttered by the whole, in common.

“What has Ellen done, father,” said Asa, with a degree of spirit, which
was the more striking from being unusual, “that she should be shot at
like a straggling deer, or a hungry wolf?”

“Mischief,” deliberately returned the squatter; but with a cool
expression of defiance in his eye that showed how little he was moved
by the ill-concealed humour of his children. “Mischief, boy; mischief!
take you heed that the disorder don’t spread.”

“It would need a different treatment in a man, than in yon screaming
girl!”

“Asa, you ar’ a man, as you have often boasted; but remember I am your
father, and your better.”

“I know it well; and what sort of a father?”

“Harkee, boy: I more than half believe that your drowsy head let in the
Siouxes. Be modest in speech, my watchful son, or you may have to
answer yet for the mischief your own bad conduct has brought upon us.”

“I’ll stay no longer to be hectored like a child in petticoats. You
talk of law, as if you knew of none, and yet you keep me down, as
though I had not life and wants of my own. I’ll stay no longer to be
treated like one of your meanest cattle!”

“The world is wide, my gallant boy, and there’s many a noble plantation
on it, without a tenant. Go; you have title deeds signed and sealed to
your hand. Few fathers portion their children better than Ishmael Bush;
you will say that for me, at least, when you get to be a wealthy
landholder.”

“Look! father, look!” exclaimed several voices at once, seizing with
avidity, an opportunity to interrupt a dialogue which threatened to
become more violent.

“Look!” repeated Abiram, in a voice which sounded hollow and warning;
“if you have time for any thing but quarrels, Ishmael, look!”

The squatter turned slowly from his offending son, and cast an eye,
that still lowered with deep resentment upward; but which, the instant
it caught a view of the object that now attracted the attention of all
around him, changed its expression to one of astonishment and dismay.

A female stood on the spot, from which Ellen had been so fearfully
expelled. Her person was of the smallest size that is believed to
comport with beauty, and which poets and artists have chosen as the
beau ideal of feminine loveliness. Her dress was of a dark and glossy
silk, and fluttered like gossamer around her form. Long, flowing, and
curling tresses of hair, still blacker and more shining than her robe,
fell at times about her shoulders, completely enveloping the whole of
her delicate bust in their ringlets; or at others streaming in the
wind. The elevation at which she stood prevented a close examination of
the lineaments of a countenance which, however, it might be seen was
youthful, and, at the moment of her unlooked-for appearance, eloquent
with feeling. So young, indeed, did this fair and fragile being appear,
that it might be doubted whether the age of childhood was entirely
passed. One small and exquisitely moulded hand was pressed on her
heart, while with the other she made an impressive gesture, which
seemed to invite Ishmael, if further violence was meditated, to direct
it against her bosom.

The silent wonder, with which the group of borderers gazed upward at so
extraordinary a spectacle, was only interrupted as the person of Ellen
was seen emerging with timidity from the tent, as if equally urged, by
apprehensions in behalf of herself and the fears which she felt on
account of her companion, to remain concealed and to advance. She
spoke, but her words were unheard by those below, and unheeded by her
to whom they were addressed. The latter, however, as if content with
the offer she had made of herself as a victim to the resentment of
Ishmael, now calmly retired, and the spot she had so lately occupied
became vacant, leaving a sort of stupid impression on the spectators
beneath, not unlike that which it might be supposed would have been
created had they just been gazing at some supernatural vision.

More than a minute of profound silence succeeded, during which the sons
of Ishmael still continued gazing at the naked rock in stupid wonder.
Then, as eye met eye, an expression of novel intelligence passed from
one to the other, indicating that to them, at least, the appearance of
this extraordinary tenant of the pavilion was as unexpected as it was
incomprehensible. At length Asa, in right of his years, and moved by
the rankling impulse of the recent quarrel, took on himself the office
of interrogator. Instead, however, of braving the resentment of his
father, of whose fierce nature, when aroused, he had had too frequent
evidence to excite it wantonly, he turned upon the cowering person of
Abiram, observing with a sneer—

“This then is the beast you were bringing into the prairies for a
decoy! I know you to be a man who seldom troubles truth, when any thing
worse may answer, but I never knew you to outdo yourself so thoroughly
before. The newspapers of Kentuck have called you a dealer in black
flesh a hundred times, but little did they reckon that you drove the
trade into white families.”

“Who is a kidnapper?” demanded Abiram, with a blustering show of
resentment. “Am I to be called to account for every lie they put in
print throughout the States? Look to your own family, boy; look to
yourselves. The very stumps of Kentucky and Tennessee cry out ag’in ye!
Ay, my tonguey gentleman, I have seen father and mother and three
children, yourself for one, published on the logs and stubs of the
settlements, with dollars enough for reward to have made an honest man
rich, for—”

He was interrupted by a back-handed but violent blow on the mouth, that
caused him to totter, and which left the impression of its weight in
the starting blood and swelling lips.

“Asa,” said the father, advancing with a portion of that dignity with
which the hand of Nature seems to have invested the parental character,
“you have struck the brother of your mother!”

“I have struck the abuser of the whole family,” returned the angry
youth; “and, unless he teaches his tongue a wiser language, he had
better part with it altogether, as the unruly member. I’m no great
performer with the knife, but, on an occasion, could make out, myself,
to cut off a slande—”

“Boy, twice have you forgotten yourself to-day. Be careful that it does
not happen the third time. When the law of the land is weak, it is
right the law of nature should be strong. You understand me, Asa; and
you know me. As for you, Abiram, the child has done you wrong, and it
is my place to see you righted. Remember; I tell you justice shall be
done; it is enough. But you have said hard things ag’in me and my
family. If the hounds of the law have put their bills on the trees and
stumps of the clearings, it was for no act of dishonesty as you know,
but because we maintain the rule that ’arth is common property. No,
Abiram; could I wash my hands of things done by your advice, as easily
as I can of the things done by the whisperings of the devil, my sleep
would be quieter at night, and none who bear my name need blush to hear
it mentioned. Peace, Asa, and you too, man; enough has been said. Let
us all think well before any thing is added, that may make what is
already so bad still more bitter.”

Ishmael waved his hand with authority, as he ended, and turned away
with the air of one who felt assured, that those he had addressed would
not have the temerity to dispute his commands. Asa evidently struggled
with himself to compel the required obedience, but his heavy nature
quietly sunk into its ordinary repose, and he soon appeared again the
being he really was; dangerous, only, at moments, and one whose
passions were too sluggish to be long maintained at the point of
ferocity. Not so with Abiram. While there was an appearance of a
personal conflict, between him and his colossal nephew, his mien had
expressed the infallible evidences of engrossing apprehension, but now,
that the authority as well as gigantic strength of the father were
interposed between him and his assailant, his countenance changed from
paleness to a livid hue, that bespoke how deeply the injury he had
received rankled in his breast. Like Asa, however, he acquiesced in the
decision of the squatter; and the appearance, at least, of harmony was
restored again among a set of beings, who were restrained by no
obligations more powerful than the frail web of authority with which
Ishmael had been able to envelope his children.

One effect of the quarrel had been to divert the thoughts of the young
men from their recent visitor. With the dispute, that succeeded the
disappearance of the fair stranger, all recollection of her existence
appeared to have vanished. A few ominous and secret conferences, it is
true, were held apart, during which the direction of the eyes of the
different speakers betrayed their subject; but these threatening
symptoms soon disappeared, and the whole party was again seen broken
into its usual, listless, silent, and lounging groups.

“I will go upon the rock, boys, and look abroad for the savages,” said
Ishmael shortly after, advancing towards them with a mien which he
intended should be conciliating, at the same time that it was
authoritative.

“If there is nothing to fear, we will go out on the plain; the day is
too good to be lost in words, like women in the towns wrangling over
their tea and sugared cakes.”

Without waiting for approbation or dissent, the squatter advanced to
the base of the rock, which formed a sort of perpendicular wall, nearly
twenty feet high around the whole acclivity. Ishmael, however, directed
his footsteps to a point where an ascent might be made through a narrow
cleft, which he had taken the precaution to fortify with a breast-work
of cottonwood logs, and which, in its turn, was defended by a
chevaux-de-frise of the branches of the same tree. Here an armed man
was usually kept, as at the key of the whole position, and here one of
the young men now stood, indolently leaning against the rock, ready to
protect the pass, if it should prove necessary, until the whole party
could be mustered at the several points of defence.

From this place the squatter found the ascent still difficult, partly
by nature and partly by artificial impediments, until he reached a sort
of terrace, or, to speak more properly, the plain of the elevation,
where he had established the huts in which the whole family dwelt.
These tenements were, as already mentioned, of that class which are so
often seen on the borders, and such as belonged to the infancy of
architecture; being simply formed of logs, bark, and poles. The area on
which they stood contained several hundred square feet, and was
sufficiently elevated above the plain greatly to lessen if not to
remove all danger from Indian missiles. Here Ishmael believed he might
leave his infants in comparative security, under the protection of
their spirited mother, and here he now found Esther engaged at her
ordinary domestic employments, surrounded by her daughters, and lifting
her voice, in declamatory censure, as one or another of the idle fry
incurred her displeasure, and far too much engrossed with the tempest
of her own conversation to know any thing of the violent scene which
had been passing below.

“A fine windy place you have chosen for the camp, Ishmael!” she
commenced, or rather continued, by merely diverting the attack from a
sobbing girl of ten, at her elbow, to her husband. “My word! if I
haven’t to count the young ones every ten minutes, to see they are not
flying away among the buzzards, or the ducks. Why do ye all keep
hovering round the rock, like lolloping reptiles in the spring, when
the heavens are beginning to be alive with birds, man. D’ye think
mouths can be filled, and hunger satisfied, by laziness and sleep!”

“You’ll have your say, Eester,” said the husband, using the provincial
pronunciation of America for the name, and regarding his noisy
companions, with a look of habitual tolerance rather than of affection.
“But the birds you shall have, if your own tongue don’t frighten them
to take too high a flight. Ay, woman,” he continued, standing on the
very spot whence he had so rudely banished Ellen, which he had by this
time gained, “and buffaloe too, if my eye can tell the animal at the
distance of a Spanish league.”

“Come down; come down, and be doing, instead of talking. A talking man
is no better than a barking dog. I shall hang out the cloth, if any of
the red-skins show themselves, in time to give you notice. But,
Ishmael, what have you been killing, my man; for it was your rifle I
heard a few minutes agone, unless I have lost my skill in sounds.”

“Poh! ’twas to frighten the hawk you see sailing above the rock.”

“Hawk, indeed! at your time of day to be shooting at hawks and
buzzards, with eighteen open mouths to feed. Look at the bee, and at
the beaver, my good man, and learn to be a provider. Why, Ishmael! I
believe my soul,” she continued, dropping the tow she was twisting on a
distaff, “the man is in that tent ag’in! More than half his time is
spent about the worthless, good-for-nothing—”

The sudden re-appearance of her husband closed the mouth of the wife;
and, as the former descended to the place where Esther had resumed her
employment, she was content to grumble forth her dissatisfaction,
instead of expressing it in more audible terms.

The dialogue that now took place between the affectionate pair was
sufficiently succinct and expressive. The woman was at first a little
brief and sullen in her answers, but care for her family soon rendered
her more complaisant. As the purport of the conversation was merely an
engagement to hunt during the remainder of the day, in order to provide
the chief necessary of life, we shall not stop to record it.

With this resolution, then, the squatter descended to the plain and
divided his forces into two parts, one of which was to remain as a
guard with the fortress, and the other to accompany him to the field.
He warily included Asa and Abiram in his own party, well knowing that
no authority short of his own was competent to repress the fierce
disposition of his headlong son, if fairly awakened. When these
arrangements were completed, the hunters sallied forth, separating at
no great distance from the rock, in order to form a circle about the
distant herd of buffaloes.

[12] The Americans call the autumn the “fall,” from the fall of the
leaf.




CHAPTER IX


Priscian a little scratch’d;
’Twill serve.
                   —Love’s Labour Lost.


Having made the reader acquainted with the manner in which Ishmael Bush
had disposed of his family, under circumstances that might have proved
so embarrassing to most other men, we shall again shift the scene a few
short miles from the place last described, preserving, however, the due
and natural succession of time. At the very moment that the squatter
and his sons departed in the manner mentioned in the preceding chapter,
two men were intently occupied in a swale that lay along the borders of
a little run, just out of cannon-shot from the encampment, discussing
the merits of a savoury bison’s hump, that had been prepared for their
palates with the utmost attention to the particular merits of that
description of food. The choice morsel had been judiciously separated
from the adjoining and less worthy parts of the beast, and, enveloped
in the hairy coating provided by nature, it had duly undergone the heat
of the customary subterraneous oven, and was now laid before its
proprietors in all the culinary glory of the prairies. So far as
richness, delicacy, and wildness of flavour, and substantial
nourishment were concerned, the viand might well have claimed a decided
superiority over the meretricious cookery and laboured compounds of the
most renowned artist; though the service of the dainty was certainly
achieved in a manner far from artificial. It would appear that the two
fortunate mortals, to whose happy lot it fell to enjoy a meal in which
health and appetite lent so keen a relish to the exquisite food of the
American deserts, were far from being insensible of the advantage they
possessed.

The one, to whose knowledge in the culinary art the other was indebted
for his banquet, seemed the least disposed of the two to profit by his
own skill. He ate, it is true, and with a relish; but it was always
with the moderation with which age is apt to temper the appetite. No
such restraint, however, was imposed on the inclination of his
companion. In the very flower of his days and in the vigour of manhood,
the homage that he paid to the work of his more aged friend’s hands was
of the most profound and engrossing character. As one delicious morsel
succeeded another he rolled his eyes towards his companion, and seemed
to express that gratitude which he had not speech to utter, in looks of
the most benignant nature.

“Cut more into the heart of it, lad,” said the trapper, for it was the
venerable inhabitant of those vast wastes, who had served the
bee-hunter with the banquet in question; “cut more into the centre of
the piece; there you will find the genuine riches of natur’; and that
without need from spices, or any of your biting mustard to give it a
foreign relish.”

“If I had but a cup of metheglin,” said Paul, stopping to perform the
necessary operation of breathing, “I should swear this was the
strongest meal that was ever placed before the mouth of man!”

“Ay, ay, well you may call it strong!” returned the other, laughing
after his peculiar manner, in pure satisfaction at witnessing the
infinite contentment of his companion; “strong it is, and strong it
makes him who eats it! Here, Hector,” tossing the patient hound, who
was watching his eye with a wistful look, a portion of the meat, “you
have need of strength, my friend, in your old days as well as your
master. Now, lad, there is a dog that has eaten and slept wiser and
better, ay, and that of richer food, than any king of them all! and
why? because he has used and not abused the gifts of his Maker. He was
made a hound, and like a hound has he feasted. Then did He create men;
but they have eaten like famished wolves! A good and prudent dog has
Hector proved, and never have I found one of his breed false in nose or
friendship. Do you know the difference between the cookery of the
wilderness and that which is found in the settlements? No; I see
plainly you don’t, by your appetite; then I will tell you. The one
follows man, the other natur’. One thinks he can add to the gifts of
the Creator, while the other is humble enough to enjoy them; therein
lies the secret.”

“I tell you, trapper,” said Paul, who was very little edified by the
morality with which his associate saw fit to season their repast,
“that, every day while we are in this place, and they are likely to be
many, I will shoot a buffaloe and you shall cook his hump!”

“I cannot say that, I cannot say that. The beast is good, take him in
what part you will, and it was to be food for man that he was
fashioned; but I cannot say that I will be a witness and a helper to
the waste of killing one daily.”

“The devil a bit of waste shall there be, old man. If they all turn out
as good as this, I will engage to eat them clean myself, even to the
hoofs;—how now, who comes here! some one with a long nose, I will
answer; and one that has led him on a true scent, if he is following
the trail of a dinner.”

The individual who interrupted the conversation, and who had elicited
the foregoing remark of Paul, was seen advancing along the margin of
the run with a deliberate pace, in a direct line for the two revellers.
As there was nothing formidable nor hostile in his appearance, the
bee-hunter, instead of suspending his operations, rather increased his
efforts, in a manner which would seem to imply that he doubted whether
the hump would suffice for the proper entertainment of all who were now
likely to partake of the delicious morsel. With the trapper, however,
the case was different. His more tempered appetite was already
satisfied, and he faced the new comer with a look of cordiality, that
plainly evinced how very opportune he considered his arrival.

“Come on, friend,” he said, waving his hand, as he observed the
stranger to pause a moment, apparently in doubt. “Come on, I say, if
hunger be your guide, it has led you to a fitting place. Here is meat,
and this youth can give you corn, parch’d till it be whiter than the
upland snow; come on, without fear. We are not ravenous beasts, eating
of each other, but Christian men, receiving thankfully that which the
Lord hath seen fit to give.”

“Venerable hunter,” returned the Doctor, for it was no other than the
naturalist on one of his daily exploring expeditions, “I rejoice
greatly at this happy meeting; we are lovers of the same pursuits, and
should be friends.”

“Lord, Lord!” said the old man, laughing, without much deference to the
rules of decorum, in the philosopher’s very face, “it is the man who
wanted to make me believe that a name could change the natur’ of a
beast! Come, friend; you are welcome, though your notions are a little
blinded with reading too many books. Sit ye down, and, after eating of
this morsel, tell me, if you can, the name of the creatur’ that has
bestowed on you its flesh for a meal?”

The eyes of Doctor Battius (for we deem it decorous to give the good
man the appellation he most preferred) sufficiently denoted the
satisfaction with which he listened to this proposal. The exercise he
had taken, and the sharpness of the wind, proved excellent stimulants;
and Paul himself had hardly been in better plight to do credit to the
trapper’s cookery, than was the lover of nature, when the grateful
invitation met his ears. Indulging in a small laugh, which his
exertions to repress reduced nearly to a simper, he took the indicated
seat by the old man’s side, and made the customary dispositions to
commence his meal without further ceremony.

“I should be ashamed of my profession,” he said, swallowing a morsel of
the hump with evident delight, slily endeavouring at the same time to
distinguish the peculiarities of the singed and defaced skin, “I ought
to be ashamed of my profession, were there beast, or bird, on the
continent of America, that I could not tell by some one of the many
evidences which science has enlisted in her cause. This—then—the food
is nutritious and savoury—a mouthful of your corn, friend, if you
please?”

Paul, who continued eating with increasing industry, looking askaunt
not unlike a dog when engaged in the same agreeable pursuit, threw him
his pouch, without deeming it at all necessary to suspend his own
labours.

“You were saying, friend, that you have many ways of telling the
creatur’?”—observed the attentive trapper.

“Many; many and infallible. Now, the animals that are carnivorous are
known by their incisores.”

“Their what?” demanded the trapper.

“The teeth with which nature has furnished them for defence, and in
order to tear their food. Again—”

“Look you then for the teeth of this creatur’,” interrupted the
trapper, who was bent on convincing a man who had presumed to enter
into competition with himself, in matters pertaining to the wilds, of
gross ignorance; “turn the piece round and find your inside-overs.”

The Doctor complied, and of course without success; though he profited
by the occasion to take another fruitless glance at the wrinkled hide.

“Well, friend, do you find the things you need, before you can
pronounce the creatur’ a duck or a salmon?”

“I apprehend the entire animal is not here?”

“You may well say as much,” cried Paul, who was now compelled to pause
from pure repletion; “I will answer for some pounds of the fellow,
weighed by the truest steel-yards west of the Alleghanies. Still you
may make out to keep soul and body together, with what is left,”
reluctantly eyeing a piece large enough to feed twenty men, but which
he felt compelled to abandon from satiety; “cut in nigher to the heart,
as the old man says, and you will find the riches of the piece.”

“The heart!” exclaimed the Doctor, inwardly delighted to learn there
was a distinct organ to be submitted to his inspection. “Ay, let me see
the heart—it will at once determine the character of the animal—certes
this is not the cor—ay, sure enough it is—the animal must be of the
order belluae, from its obese habits!”

He was interrupted by a long and hearty, but still a noiseless fit of
merriment, from the trapper, which was considered so ill-timed by the
offended naturalist, as to produce an instant cessation of speech, if
not a stagnation of ideas.

“Listen to his beasts’ habits and belly orders,” said the old man,
delighted with the evident embarrassment of his rival; “and then he
says it is not the core! Why, man, you are farther from the truth than
you are from the settlements, with all your bookish larning and hard
words; which I have, once for all, said cannot be understood by any
tribe or nation east of the Rocky Mountains. Beastly habits or no
beastly habits, the creatur’s are to be seen cropping the prairies by
tens of thousands, and the piece in your hand is the core of as juicy a
buffaloe-hump as stomach need crave!”

“My aged companion,” said Obed, struggling to keep down a rising
irascibility, that he conceived would ill comport with the dignity of
his character, “your system is erroneous, from the premises to the
conclusion; and your classification so faulty, as utterly to confound
the distinctions of science. The buffaloe is not gifted with a hump at
all; nor is his flesh savoury and wholesome, as I must acknowledge it
would seem the subject before us may well be characterised—”

“There I’m dead against you, and clearly with the trapper,” interrupted
Paul Hover. “The man who denies that buffaloe beef is good, should
scorn to eat it!”[13]

The Doctor, whose observation of the bee-hunter had hitherto been
exceedingly cursory, stared at the new speaker with a look which
denoted something like recognition.

“The principal characteristics of your countenance, friend,” he said,
“are familiar; either you, or some other specimen of your class, is
known to me.”

“I am the man you met in the woods east of the big river, and whom you
tried to persuade to line a yellow hornet to his nest: as if my eye was
not too true to mistake any other animal for a honey-bee, in a clear
day! We tarried together a week, as you may remember; you at your toads
and lizards, and I at my high-holes and hollow trees: and a good job we
made of it between us! I filled my tubs with the sweetest honey I ever
sent to the settlements, besides housing a dozen hives; and your bag
was near bursting with a crawling museum. I never was bold enough to
put the question to your face, stranger, but I reckon you are a keeper
of curiosities?”[14]

“Ay! that is another of their wanton wickednesses!” exclaimed the
trapper. “They slay the buck, and the moose, and the wild cat, and all
the beasts that range the woods, and stuffing them with worthless rags,
and placing eyes of glass into their heads, they set them up to be
stared at, and call them the creatur’s of the Lord; as if any mortal
effigy could equal the works of his hand!”

“I know you well,” returned the Doctor, on whom the plaint of the old
man produced no visible impression. “I know you,” offering his hand
cordially to Paul; “it was a prolific week, as my herbal and catalogues
shall one day prove. Ay, I remember you well, young man. You are of the
class, mammalia; order, primates; genus, homo; species, Kentucky.”
Pausing to smile at his own humour, the naturalist proceeded. “Since
our separation, I have journeyed far, having entered into a compactum
or agreement with a certain man named Ishmael—”

“Bush!” interrupted the impatient and reckless Paul. “By the Lord,
trapper, this is the very blood-letter that Ellen told me of!”

“Then Nelly has not done me credit for what I trust I deserve,”
returned the single-minded Doctor, “for I am not of the phlebotomising
school at all; greatly preferring the practice which purifies the blood
instead of abstracting it.”

“It was a blunder of mine, good stranger; the girl called you a skilful
man.”

“Therein she may have exceeded my merits,” Dr. Battius continued,
bowing with sufficient meekness. “But Ellen is a good, and a kind, and
a spirited girl, too. A kind and a sweet girl I have ever found Nell
Wade to be!”

“The devil you have!” cried Paul, dropping the morsel he was sucking,
from sheer reluctance to abandon the hump, and casting a fierce and
direct look into the very teeth of the unconscious physician. “I
reckon, stranger, you have a mind to bag Ellen, too!”

“The riches of the whole vegetable and animal world united, would not
tempt me to harm a hair of her head! I love the child, with what may he
called amor naturalis—or rather paternus—the affection of a father.”

“Ay—that, indeed, is more befitting the difference in your years,” Paul
coolly rejoined, stretching forth his hand to regain the rejected
morsel. “You would be no better than a drone at your time of day, with
a young hive to feed and swarm.”

“Yes, there is reason, because there is natur’, in what he says,”
observed the trapper: “but, friend, you have said you were a dweller in
the camp of one Ishmael Bush?”

“True; it is in virtue of a compactum—”

“I know but little of the virtue of packing, though I follow trapping,
in my old age, for a livelihood. They tell me that skins are well kept
in the new fashion; but it is long since I have left off killing more
than I need for food and garments. I was an eye-witness, myself, of the
manner in which the Siouxes broke into your encampment, and drove off
the cattle; stripping the poor man you call Ishmael of his smallest
hoofs, counting even the cloven feet.”

“Asinus excepted,” muttered the Doctor, who by this time was discussing
his portion of the hump, in utter forgetfulness of all its scientific
attributes. “Asinus domesticus Americanus excepted.”

“I am glad to hear that so many of them are saved, though I know not
the value of the animals you name; which is nothing uncommon, seeing
how long it is that I have been out of the settlements. But can you
tell me, friend, what the traveller carries under the white cloth, he
guards with teeth as sharp as a wolf that quarrels for the carcass the
hunter has left?”

“You’ve heard of it!” exclaimed the other, dropping the morsel he was
conveying to his mouth in manifest surprise.

“Nay, I have heard nothing; but I have seen the cloth, and had like to
have been bitten for no greater crime than wishing to know what it
covered.”

“Bitten! then, after all, the animal must be carnivorous! It is too
tranquil for the ursus horridus; if it were the canis latrans, the
voice would betray it. Nor would Nelly Wade be so familiar with any of
the genus ferae. Venerable hunter! the solitary animal confined in that
wagon by day, and in the tent at night, has occasioned me more
perplexity of mind than the whole catalogue of quadrupeds besides: and
for this plain reason; I did not know how to class it.”

“You think it a ravenous beast?”

“I know it to be a quadruped: your own danger proves it to be
carnivorous.”

During this broken explanation, Paul Hover had sat silent and
thoughtful, regarding each speaker with deep attention. But, suddenly
moved by the manner of the Doctor, the latter had scarcely time to
utter his positive assertion, before the young man bluntly demanded—

“And pray, friend, what may you call a quadruped?”

“A vagary of nature, wherein she has displayed less of her infinite
wisdom than is usual. Could rotary levers be substituted for two of the
limbs, agreeably to the improvement in my new order of phalangacrura,
which might be rendered into the vernacular as lever-legged, there
would be a delightful perfection and harmony in the construction. But,
as the quadruped is now formed, I call it a mere vagary of nature; no
other than a vagary.”

“Harkee, stranger! in Kentucky we are but small dealers in
dictionaries. Vagary is as hard a word to turn into English as
quadruped.”

“A quadruped is an animal with four legs—a beast.”

“A beast! Do you then reckon that Ishmael Bush travels with a beast
caged in that wagon?”

“I know it, and lend me your ear—not literally, friend,” observing Paul
to start and look surprised, “but figuratively, through its functions,
and you shall hear. I have already made known that, in virtue of a
compactum, I journey with the aforesaid Ishmael Bush; but though I am
bound to perform certain duties while the journey lasts, there is no
condition which says that the said journey shall be sempiternum, or
eternal. Now, though this region may scarcely be said to be wedded to
science, being to all intents a virgin territory as respects the
enquirer into natural history, still it is greatly destitute of the
treasures of the vegetable kingdom. I should, therefore, have tarried
some hundreds of miles more to the eastward, were it not for the inward
propensity that I feel to have the beast in question inspected and
suitably described and classed. For that matter,” he continued,
dropping his voice, like one who imparts an important secret, “I am not
without hopes of persuading Ishmael to let me dissect it.”

“You have seen the creature?”

“Not with the organs of sight; but with much more infallible
instruments of vision: the conclusions of reason, and the deductions of
scientific premises. I have watched the habits of the animal, young
man; and can fearlessly pronounce, by evidence that would be thrown
away on ordinary observers, that it is of vast dimensions, inactive,
possibly torpid, of voracious appetite, and, as it now appears by the
direct testimony of this venerable hunter, ferocious and carnivorous!”

“I should be better pleased, stranger,” said Paul, on whom the Doctor’s
description was making a very sensible impression, “to be sure the
creature was a beast at all.”

“As to that, if I wanted evidence of a fact, which is abundantly
apparent by the habits of the animal, I have the word of Ishmael
himself. A reason can be given for my smallest deductions. I am not
troubled, young man, with a vulgar and idle curiosity, but all my
aspirations after knowledge, as I humbly believe, are, first, for the
advancement of learning, and, secondly, for the benefit of my
fellow-creatures. I pined greatly in secret to know the contents of the
tent, which Ishmael guarded so carefully, and which he had covenanted
that I should swear, (jurare per deos) not to approach nigher than a
defined number of cubits, for a definite period of time. Your
jusjurandum, or oath, is a serious matter, and not to be dealt in
lightly; but, as my expedition depended on complying, I consented to
the act, reserving to myself at all times the power of distant
observation. It is now some ten days since Ishmael, pitying the state
in which he saw me, a humble lover of science, imparted the fact that
the vehicle contained a beast, which he was carrying into the prairies
as a decoy, by which he intends to entrap others of the same genus, or
perhaps species. Since then, my task has been reduced simply to watch
the habits of the animal, and to record the results. When we reach a
certain distance where these beasts are said to abound, I am to have
the liberal examination of the specimen.”

Paul continued to listen, in the most profound silence, until the
Doctor concluded his singular but characteristic explanation; then the
incredulous bee-hunter shook his head, and saw fit to reply, by saying—

“Stranger, old Ishmael has burrowed you in the very bottom of a hollow
tree, where your eyes will be of no more use than the sting of a drone.
I, too, know something of that very wagon, and I may say that I have
lined the squatter down into a flat lie. Harkee, friend; do you think a
girl, like Ellen Wade, would become the companion of a wild beast?”

“Why not? why not?” repeated the naturalist; “Nelly has a taste, and
often listens with pleasure to the treasures that I am sometimes
compelled to scatter in this desert. Why should she not study the
habits of any animal, even though it were a rhinoceros?”

“Softly, softly,” returned the equally positive, and, though less
scientific, certainly, on this subject, better instructed bee-hunter;
“Ellen is a girl of spirit, and one too that knows her own mind, or I’m
much mistaken; but with all her courage and brave looks, she is no
better than a woman after all. Haven’t I often had the girl crying—”

“You are an acquaintance, then, of Nelly’s?”

“The devil a bit. But I know woman is woman; and all the books in
Kentucky couldn’t make Ellen Wade go into a tent alone with a ravenous
beast!”

“It seems to me,” the trapper calmly observed, “that there is something
dark and hidden in this matter. I am a witness that the traveller likes
none to look into the tent, and I have a proof more sure than what
either of you can lay claim to, that the wagon does not carry the cage
of a beast. Here is Hector, come of a breed with noses as true and
faithful as a hand that is all-powerful has made any of their kind, and
had there been a beast in the place, the hound would long since have
told it to his master.”

“Do you pretend to oppose a dog to a man! brutality to learning!
instinct to reason!” exclaimed the Doctor in some heat. “In what
manner, pray, can a hound distinguish the habits, species, or even the
genus of an animal, like reasoning, learned, scientific, triumphant
man!”

“In what manner!” coolly repeated the veteran woodsman. “Listen; and if
you believe that a schoolmaster can make a quicker wit than the Lord,
you shall be made to see how much you’re mistaken. Do you not hear
something move in the brake? it has been cracking the twigs these five
minutes. Now tell me what the creatur’ is?”

“I hope nothing ferocious!” exclaimed the Doctor, who still retained a
lively impression of his rencounter with the vespertilio horribilis.
“You have rifles, friends; would it not be prudent to prime them? for
this fowling piece of mine is little to be depended on.”

“There may be reason in what he says,” returned the trapper, so far
complying as to take his piece from the place where it had lain during
the repast, and raising its muzzle in the air. “Now tell me the name of
the creatur’?”

“It exceeds the limits of earthly knowledge! Buffon himself could not
tell whether the animal was a quadruped, or of the order, serpens! a
sheep, or a tiger!”

“Then was your buffoon a fool to my Hector! Here: pup!—What is it,
dog?—Shall we run it down, pup—or shall we let it pass?”

The hound, which had already manifested to the experienced trapper, by
the tremulous motion of his ears, his consciousness of the proximity of
a strange animal, lifted his head from his fore paws and slightly
parted his lips, as if about to show the remnants of his teeth. But,
suddenly abandoning his hostile purpose, he snuffed the air a moment,
gaped heavily, shook himself, and peaceably resumed his recumbent
attitude.

“Now, Doctor,” cried the trapper, triumphantly, “I am well convinced
there is neither game nor ravenous beast in the thicket; and that I
call substantial knowledge to a man who is too old to be a spendthrift
of his strength, and yet who would not wish to be a meal for a
panther!”

The dog interrupted his master by a growl, but still kept his head
crouched to the earth.

“It is a man!” exclaimed the trapper, rising. “It is a man, if I am a
judge of the creatur’s ways. There is but little said atwixt the hound
and me, but we seldom mistake each other’s meaning!”

Paul Hover sprang to his feet like lightning; and, throwing forward his
rifle, he cried in a voice of menace—

“Come forward, if a friend; if an enemy, stand ready for the worst!”

“A friend, a white man, and, I hope, a Christian,” returned a voice
from the thicket; which opened at the same instant, and at the next the
speaker made his appearance.

[13] It is scarcely necessary to tell the reader, that the animal so
often alluded to in this book, and which is vulgarly called the
buffaloe, is in truth the bison; hence so many contretemps between the
men of the prairies and the men of science.


[14] The pursuit of a bee-hunter is not uncommon, on the skirts of
American society, though it is a little embellished here. When the
bees are seen sucking the flowers, their pursuer contrives to capture
one or two. He then chooses a proper spot, and suffering one to
escape, the insect invariably takes its flight towards the hive.
Changing his ground to a greater or less distance according to
circumstances, the bee-hunter then permits another to escape. Having
watched the courses of the bees, which is technically called lining,
he is enabled to calculate the intersecting angle of the two lines,
which is the hive.




CHAPTER X


Go apart, Adam, and thou shalt hear
How he will shake me up.
                   —As you like it.


It is well known, that even long before the immense regions of
Louisiana changed their masters for the second, and, as it is to be
hoped, for the last time, its unguarded territory was by no means safe
from the inroads of white adventurers. The semi-barbarous hunters from
the Canadas, the same description of population, a little more
enlightened, from the States, and the metiffs or half-breeds, who
claimed to be ranked in the class of white men, were scattered among
the different Indian tribes, or gleaned a scanty livelihood in
solitude, amid the haunts of the beaver and the bison; or, to adopt the
popular nomenclature of the country of the buffaloe.[15]

It was, therefore, no unusual thing for strangers to encounter each
other in the endless wastes of the west. By signs, which an unpractised
eye would pass unobserved, these borderers knew when one of his fellows
was in his vicinity, and he avoided or approached the intruder as best
comported with his feelings or his interests. Generally, these
interviews were pacific; for the whites had a common enemy to dread, in
the ancient and perhaps more lawful occupants of the country; but
instances were not rare, in which jealousy and cupidity had caused them
to terminate in scenes of the most violent and ruthless treachery. The
meeting of two hunters on the American desert, as we find it convenient
sometimes to call this region, was consequently somewhat in the
suspicious and wary manner in which two vessels draw together in a sea
that is known to be infested with pirates. While neither party is
willing to betray its weakness, by exhibiting distrust, neither is
disposed to commit itself by any acts of confidence, from which it may
be difficult to recede.

Such was, in some degree, the character of the present interview. The
stranger drew nigh deliberately; keeping his eyes steadily fastened on
the movements of the other party, while he purposely created little
difficulties to impede an approach which might prove too hasty. On the
other hand, Paul stood playing with the lock of his rifle, too proud to
let it appear that three men could manifest any apprehension of a
solitary individual, and yet too prudent to omit, entirely, the
customary precautions. The principal reason of the marked difference
which the two legitimate proprietors of the banquet made in the
receptions of their guests, was to be explained by the entire
difference which existed in their respective appearances.

While the exterior of the naturalist was decidedly pacific, not to say
abstracted, that of the new comer was distinguished by an air of
vigour, and a front and step which it would not have been difficult to
have at once pronounced to be military.

He wore a forage-cap of fine blue cloth, from which depended a soiled
tassel in gold, and which was nearly buried in a mass of exuberant,
curling, jet-black hair. Around his throat he had negligently fastened
a stock of black silk. His body was enveloped in a hunting-shirt of
dark green, trimmed with the yellow fringes and ornaments that were
sometimes seen among the border-troops of the Confederacy. Beneath
this, however, were visible the collar and lapels of a jacket, similar
in colour and cloth to the cap. His lower limbs were protected by
buckskin leggings, and his feet by the ordinary Indian moccasins. A
richly ornamented, and exceedingly dangerous straight dirk was stuck in
a sash of red silk net-work; another girdle, or rather belt, of
uncoloured leather contained a pair of the smallest sized pistols, in
holsters nicely made to fit, and across his shoulder was thrown a
short, heavy, military rifle; its horn and pouch occupying the usual
places beneath his arms. At his back he bore a knapsack, marked by the
well known initials that have since gained for the government of the
United States the good-humoured and quaint appellation of Uncle Sam.

“I come in amity,” the stranger said, like one too much accustomed to
the sight of arms to be startled at the ludicrously belligerent
attitude which Dr. Battius had seen fit to assume. “I come as a friend;
and am one whose pursuits and wishes will not at all interfere with
your own.”

“Harkee, stranger,” said Paul Hover, bluntly; “do you understand lining
a bee from this open place into a wood, distant, perhaps, a dozen
miles?”

“The bee is a bird I have never been compelled to seek,” returned the
other, laughing; “though I have, too, been something of a fowler in my
time.”

“I thought as much,” exclaimed Paul, thrusting forth his hand frankly,
and with the true freedom of manner that marks an American borderer.
“Let us cross fingers. You and I will never quarrel about the comb,
since you set so little store by the honey. And now, if your stomach
has an empty corner, and you know how to relish a genuine dew-drop when
it falls into your very mouth, there lies the exact morsel to put into
it. Try it, stranger; and having tried it, if you don’t call it as snug
a fit as you have made since—How long ar’ you from the settlements,
pray?”

“’Tis many weeks, and I fear it may be as many more before I can
return. I will, however, gladly profit by your invitation, for I have
fasted since the rising of yesterday’s sun, and I know too well the
merits of a bison’s bump to reject the food.”

“Ah! you ar’ acquainted with the dish! Well, therein you have the
advantage of me, in setting out, though I think I may say we could now
start on equal ground. I should be the happiest fellow between Kentucky
and the Rocky Mountains, if I had a snug cabin, near some old wood that
was filled with hollow trees, just such a hump every day as that for
dinner, a load of fresh straw for hives, and little El—”

“Little what?” demanded the stranger, evidently amused with the
communicative and frank disposition of the bee-hunter.

“Something that I shall have one day, and which concerns nobody so much
as myself,” returned Paul, picking the flint of his rifle, and
beginning very cavalierly to whistle an air well known on the waters of
the Mississippi.

During this preliminary discourse the stranger had taken his seat by
the side of the hump, and was already making a serious inroad on its
relics. Dr. Battius, however, watched his movements with a jealousy,
still more striking than the cordial reception which the open-hearted
Paul had just exhibited.

But the doubts, or rather apprehensions, of the naturalist were of a
character altogether different from the confidence of the bee-hunter.
He had been struck with the stranger’s using the legitimate, instead of
the perverted name of the animal off which he was making his repast;
and as he had been among the foremost himself to profit by the removal
of the impediments which the policy of Spain had placed in the way of
all explorers of her trans-Atlantic dominions, whether bent on the
purposes of commerce, or, like himself, on the more laudable pursuits
of science, he had a sufficiency of every-day philosophy to feel that
the same motives, which had so powerfully urged himself to his present
undertaking, might produce a like result on the mind of some other
student of nature. Here, then, was the prospect of an alarming rivalry,
which bade fair to strip him of at least a moiety of the just rewards
of all his labours, privations, and dangers. Under these views of his
character, therefore, it is not at all surprising that the native
meekness of the naturalist’s disposition was a little disturbed, and
that he watched the proceedings of the other with such a degree of
vigilance as he believed best suited to detect his sinister designs.

“This is truly a delicious repast,” observed the unconscious young
stranger, for both young and handsome he was fairly entitled to be
considered; “either hunger has given a peculiar relish to the viand, or
the bison may lay claim to be the finest of the ox family!”

“Naturalists, sir, are apt, when they speak familiarly, to give the cow
the credit of the genus,” said Dr. Battius, swelling with secret
distrust, and clearing his throat, before speaking, much in the manner
that a duellist examines the point of the weapon he is about to plunge
into the body of his foe. “The figure is more perfect; as the bos,
meaning the ox, is unable to perpetuate his kind; and the bos, in its
most extended meaning, or vacca, is altogether the nobler animal of the
two.”

The Doctor uttered this opinion with a certain air, that he intended
should express his readiness to come at once, to any of the numerous
points of difference which he doubted not existed between them; and he
now awaited the blow of his antagonist, intending that his next thrust
should be still more vigorous. But the young stranger appeared much
better disposed to partake of the good cheer, with which he had been so
providentially provided, than to take up the cudgels of argument on
this, or on any other of the knotty points which are so apt to furnish
the lovers of science with the materials of a mental joust.

“I dare say you are very right, sir,” he replied, with a most provoking
indifference to the importance of the points he conceded. “I dare say
you are quite right; and that vacca would have been the better word.”

“Pardon me, sir; you are giving a very wrong construction to my
language, if you suppose I include, without many and particular
qualifications, the bibulus Americanus, in the family of the vacca.
For, as you well know, sir—or, as I presume I should say, Doctor; you
have the medical diploma, no doubt?”

“You give me credit for an honour I cannot claim,” interrupted the
other.

“An under-graduate!—or perhaps your degrees have been taken in some
other of the liberal sciences?”

“Still wrong, I do assure you.”

“Surely, young man, you have not entered on this important—I may say,
this awful service, without some evidence of your fitness for the task!
Some commission by which you can assert an authority to proceed, or by
which you may claim an affinity and a communion with your
fellow-workers in the same beneficent pursuits!”

“I know not by what means, or for what purposes, you have made yourself
master of my objects!” exclaimed the youth, reddening and rising with a
quickness which manifested how little he regarded the grosser
appetites, when a subject nearer his heart was approached. “Still, sir,
your language is incomprehensible. That pursuit, which in another might
perhaps be justly called beneficent, is, in me, a dear and cherished
duty; though why a commission should be demanded or needed is, I
confess, no less a subject of surprise.”

“It is customary to be provided with such a document,” returned the
Doctor, gravely; “and, on all suitable occasions to produce it, in
order that congenial and friendly minds may, at once, reject unworthy
suspicions, and stepping over, what may be called the elements of
discourse, come at once to those points which are desiderata to both.”

“It is a strange request!” the youth muttered, turning his frowning eye
from one to the other, as if examining the characters of his
companions, with a view to weigh their physical powers. Then, putting
his hand into his bosom, he drew forth a small box, and extending it
with an air of dignity towards the Doctor, he continued—“You will find
by this, sir, that I have some right to travel in a country which is
now the property of the American States.”

“What have we here!” exclaimed the naturalist, opening the folds of a
large parchment. “Why, this is the sign-manual of the philosopher,
Jefferson! The seal of state! Countersigned by the minister of war! Why
this is a commission creating Duncan Uncas Middleton a captain of
artillery!”

“Of whom? of whom?” repeated the trapper, who had sat regarding the
stranger, during the whole discourse, with eyes that seemed greedily to
devour each lineament. “How is the name? did you call him Uncas?—Uncas!
Was it Uncas?”

“Such is my name,” returned the youth, a little haughtily. “It is the
appellation of a native chief, that both my uncle and myself bear with
pride; for it is the memorial of an important service done my family by
a warrior in the old wars of the provinces.”

“Uncas! did ye call him Uncas?” repeated the trapper, approaching the
youth and parting the dark curls which clustered over his brow, without
the slightest resistance on the part of their wondering owner. “Ah my
eyes are old, and not so keen as when I was a warrior myself; but I can
see the look of the father in the son! I saw it when he first came
nigh, but so many things have since passed before my failing sight,
that I could not name the place where I had met his likeness! Tell me,
lad, by what name is your father known?”

“He was an officer of the States in the war of the revolution, of my
own name of course; my mother’s brother was called Duncan Uncas
Heyward.”

“Still Uncas! still Uncas!” echoed the other, trembling with eagerness.
“And his father?”

“Was called the same, without the appellation of the native chief. It
was to him, and to my grandmother, that the service of which I have
just spoken was rendered.”

“I know’d it! I know’d it!” shouted the old man, in his tremulous
voice, his rigid features working powerfully, as if the names the other
mentioned awakened some long dormant emotions, connected with the
events of an anterior age. “I know’d it! son or grandson, it is all the
same; it is the blood, and ’tis the look! Tell me, is he they call’d
Duncan, without the Uncas—is he living?”

The young man shook his head sorrowfully, as he replied in the
negative.

“He died full of days and of honours. Beloved, happy, and bestowing
happiness!”

“Full of days!” repeated the trapper, looking down at his own meagre,
but still muscular hands. “Ah! he liv’d in the settlements, and was
wise only after their fashions. But you have often seen him; and you
have heard him discourse of Uncas, and of the wilderness?”

“Often! he was then an officer of the king; but when the war took place
between the crown and her colonies, my grandfather did not forget his
birthplace, but threw off the empty allegiance of names, and was true
to his proper country; he fought on the side of liberty.”

“There was reason in it; and what is better, there was natur’! Come,
sit ye down beside me, lad; sit ye down, and tell me of what your
grand’ther used to speak, when his mind dwelt on the wonders of the
wilderness.”

The youth smiled, no less at the importunity than at the interest
manifested by the old man; but as he found there was no longer the
least appearance of any violence being contemplated, he unhesitatingly
complied.

“Give it all to the trapper by rule, and by figures of speech,” said
Paul, very coolly taking his seat on the other side of the young
soldier. “It is the fashion of old age to relish these ancient
traditions, and, for that matter, I can say that I don’t dislike to
listen to them myself.”

Middleton smiled again, and perhaps with a slight air of derision; but,
good-naturedly turning to the trapper, he continued—

“It is a long, and might prove a painful story. Bloodshed and all the
horrors of Indian cruelty and of Indian warfare are fearfully mingled
in the narrative.”

“Ay, give it all to us, stranger,” continued Paul; “we are used to
these matters in Kentuck, and, I must say, I think a story none the
worse for having a few scalps in it!”

“But he told you of Uncas, did he?” resumed the trapper, without
regarding the slight interruptions of the bee-hunter, which amounted to
no more than a sort of by-play. “And what thought he and said he of the
lad, in his parlour, with the comforts and ease of the settlements at
his elbow?”

“I doubt not he used a language similar to that he would have adopted
in the woods, and had he stood face to face, with his friend—”

“Did he call the savage his friend; the poor, naked, painted warrior?
he was not too proud then to call the Indian his friend?”

“He even boasted of the connection; and as you have already heard,
bestowed a name on his first-born, which is likely to be handed down as
an heir-loom among the rest of his descendants.”

“It was well done! like a man: ay! and like a Christian, too! He used
to say the Delaware was swift of foot—did he remember that?”

“As the antelope! Indeed, he often spoke of him by the appellation of
Le Cerf Agile, a name he had obtained by his activity.”

“And bold, and fearless, lad!” continued the trapper, looking up into
the eyes of his companion, with a wistfulness that bespoke the delight
he received in listening to the praises of one, whom it was so very
evident, he had once tenderly loved.

“Brave as a blooded hound! Without fear! He always quoted Uncas and his
father, who from his wisdom was called the Great Serpent, as models of
heroism and constancy.”

“He did them justice! he did them justice! Truer men were not to be
found in tribe or nation, be their skins of what colour they might. I
see your grand’ther was just, and did his duty, too, by his offspring!
’Twas a perilous time he had of it, among them hills, and nobly did he
play his own part! Tell me, lad, or officer, I should say,—since
officer you be,—was this all?”

“Certainly not; it was, as I have said, a fearful tale, full of moving
incidents, and the memories both of my grandfather and of my
grandmother—”

“Ah!” exclaimed the trapper, tossing a hand into the air as his whole
countenance lighted with the recollections the name revived. “They
called her Alice! Elsie or Alice; ’tis all the same. A laughing,
playful child she was, when happy; and tender and weeping in her
misery! Her hair was shining and yellow, as the coat of the young fawn,
and her skin clearer than the purest water that drips from the rock.
Well do I remember her! I remember her right well!”

The lip of the youth slightly curled, and he regarded the old man with
an expression, which might easily have been construed into a
declaration that such were not his own recollections of his venerable
and revered ancestor, though it would seem he did not think it
necessary to say as much in words. He was content to answer—

“They both retained impressions of the dangers they had passed, by far
too vivid easily to lose the recollection of any of their
fellow-actors.”

The trapper looked aside, and seemed to struggle with some deeply
innate feeling; then, turning again towards his companion, though his
honest eyes no longer dwelt with the same open interest, as before, on
the countenance of the other, he continued—

“Did he tell you of them all? Were they all red-skins, but himself and
the daughters of Munro?”

“No. There was a white man associated with the Delawares. A scout of
the English army, but a native of the provinces.”

“A drunken worthless vagabond, like most of his colour who harbour with
the savages, I warrant you!”

“Old man, your grey hairs should caution you against slander. The man I
speak of was of great simplicity of mind, but of sterling worth. Unlike
most of those who live a border life, he united the better, instead of
the worst, qualities of the two people. He was a man endowed with the
choicest and perhaps rarest gift of nature; that of distinguishing good
from evil. His virtues were those of simplicity, because such were the
fruits of his habits, as were indeed his very prejudices. In courage he
was the equal of his red associates; in warlike skill, being better
instructed, their superior. ‘In short, he was a noble shoot from the
stock of human nature, which never could attain its proper elevation
and importance, for no other reason, than because it grew in the
forest:’ such, old hunter, were the very words of my grandfather, when
speaking of the man you imagine so worthless!”

The eyes of the trapper had sunk to the earth, as the stranger
delivered this character in the ardent tones of generous youth. He
played with the ears of his hound; fingered his own rustic garment, and
opened and shut the pan of his rifle, with hands that trembled in a
manner that would have implied their total unfitness to wield the
weapon. When the other had concluded, he hoarsely added—

“Your grand’ther didn’t then entirely forget the white man!”

“So far from that, there are already three among us, who have also
names derived from that scout.”

“A name, did you say?” exclaimed the old man, starting; “what, the name
of the solitary, unl’arned hunter? Do the great, and the rich, and the
honoured, and, what is better still, the just, do they bear his very,
actual name?”

“It is borne by my brother, and by two of my cousins, whatever may be
their titles to be described by the terms you have mentioned.”

“Do you mean the actual name itself; spelt with the very same letters,
beginning with an N and ending with an L?”

“Exactly the same,” the youth smilingly replied. “No, no, we have
forgotten nothing that was his. I have at this moment a dog brushing a
deer, not far from this, who is come of a hound that very scout sent as
a present after his friends, and which was of the stock he always used
himself: a truer breed, in nose and foot, is not to be found in the
wide Union.”

“Hector!” said the old man, struggling to conquer an emotion that
nearly suffocated him, and speaking to his hound in the sort of tones
he would have used to a child, “do ye hear that, pup! your kin and
blood are in the prairies! A name—it is wonderful—very wonderful!”

Nature could endure no more. Overcome by a flood of unusual and
extraordinary sensations, and stimulated by tender and long dormant
recollections, strangely and unexpectedly revived, the old man had just
self-command enough to add, in a voice that was hollow and unnatural,
through the efforts he made to command it—

“Boy, I am that scout; a warrior once, a miserable trapper now!” when
the tears broke over his wasted cheeks, out of fountains that had long
been dried, and, sinking his face between his knees, he covered it
decently with his buckskin garment, and sobbed aloud.

The spectacle produced correspondent emotions in his companions. Paul
Hover had actually swallowed each syllable of the discourse as they
fell alternately from the different speakers, his feelings keeping
equal pace with the increasing interest of the scene. Unused to such
strange sensations, he was turning his face on every side of him, to
avoid he knew not what, until he saw the tears and heard the sobs of
the old man, when he sprang to his feet, and grappling his guest
fiercely by the throat, he demanded by what authority he had made his
aged companion weep. A flash of recollection crossing his brain at the
same instant, he released his hold, and stretching forth an arm in the
very wantonness of gratification, he seized the Doctor by the hair,
which instantly revealed its artificial formation, by cleaving to his
hand, leaving the white and shining poll of the naturalist with a
covering no warmer than the skin.

“What think you of that, Mr. Bug-gatherer?” he rather shouted than
cried: “is not this a strange bee to line into his hole?”

“’Tis remarkable! wonderful! edifying!” returned the lover of nature,
good-humouredly recovering his wig, with twinkling eyes and a husky
voice. “’Tis rare and commendable. Though I doubt not in the exact
order of causes and effects.”

With this sudden outbreaking, however, the commotion instantly
subsided; the three spectators clustering around the trapper with a
species of awe, at beholding the tears of one so aged.

“It must be so, or how could he be so familiar with a history that is
little known beyond my own family,” at length the youth observed, not
ashamed to acknowledge how much he had been affected, by unequivocally
drying his own eyes.

“True!” echoed Paul; “if you want any more evidence I will swear to it!
I know every word of it myself to be true as the gospel!”

“And yet we had long supposed him dead!” continued the soldier. “My
grandfather had filled his days with honour, and he had believed
himself the junior of the two.”

“It is not often that youth has an opportunity of thus looking down on
the weakness of age!” the trapper observed, raising his head, and
looking around him with composure and dignity. “That I am still here,
young man, is the pleasure of the Lord, who has spared me until I have
seen fourscore long and laborious years, for his own secret ends. That
I am the man I say, you need not doubt; for why should I go to my grave
with so cheap a lie in my mouth?”

“I do not hesitate to believe; I only marvel that it should be so! But
why do I find you, venerable and excellent friend of my parents, in
these wastes, so far from the comforts and safety of the lower
country?”

“I have come into these plains to escape the sound of the axe; for here
surely the chopper can never follow! But I may put the like question to
yourself. Are you of the party which the States have sent into their
new purchase, to look after the natur’ of the bargain they have made?”

“I am not. Lewis is making his way up the river, some hundreds of miles
from this. I come on a private adventure.”

“Though it is no cause of wonder, that a man whose strength and eyes
have failed him as a hunter, should be seen nigh the haunts of the
beaver, using a trap instead of a rifle, it is strange that one so
young and prosperous, and bearing the commission of the Great Father,
should be moving among the prairies, without even a camp-colourman to
do his biddings!”

“You would think my reasons sufficient did you know them, as know them
you shall if you are disposed to listen to my story. I think you all
honest, and men who would rather aid than betray one bent on a worthy
object.”

“Come, then, and tell us at your leisure,” said the trapper, seating
himself, and beckoning to the youth to follow his example. The latter
willingly complied; and after Paul and the Doctor had disposed of
themselves to their several likings, the new comer entered into a
narrative of the singular reasons which had led him so far into the
deserts.

[15] In addition to the scientific distinctions which mark the two
species, it may be added, with due deference to Dr. Battius, that a
much more important particular is the fact, that while the former of
these animals is delicious and nourishing food, the latter is scarcely
edible.




CHAPTER XI


So foul a sky clears not without a storm.
                   —King John.


In the mean time the industrious and irreclaimable hours continued
their labours. The sun, which had been struggling through such masses
of vapour throughout the day, fell slowly in a streak of clear sky, and
thence sunk gloriously into the gloomy wastes, as he is wont to settle
into the waters of the ocean. The vast herds which had been grazing
among the wild pastures of the prairies, gradually disappeared, and the
endless flocks of aquatic birds, that were pursuing their customary
annual journey from the virgin lakes of the north towards the gulf of
Mexico, ceased to fan that air, which had now become loaded with dew
and vapour. In short, the shadows of night fell upon the rock, adding
the mantle of darkness to the other dreary accompaniments of the place.

As the light began to fail, Esther collected her younger children at
her side, and placing herself on a projecting point of her insulated
fortress, she sat patiently awaiting the return of the hunters. Ellen
Wade was at no great distance, seeming to keep a little aloof from the
anxious circle, as if willing to mark the distinction which existed in
their characters.

“Your uncle is, and always will be, a dull calculator, Nell,” observed
the mother, after a long pause in a conversation that had turned on the
labours of the day; “a lazy hand at figures and foreknowledge is that
said Ishmael Bush! Here he sat lolloping about the rock from light till
noon, doing nothing but scheme—scheme—scheme—with seven as noble boys
at his elbows as woman ever gave to man; and what’s the upshot? why,
night is setting in, and his needful work not yet ended.”

“It is not prudent, certainly, aunt,” Ellen replied, with a vacancy in
her air, that proved how little she knew what she was saying; “and it
is setting a very bad example to his sons.”

“Hoity, toity, girl! who has reared you up as a judge over your elders,
ay, and your betters, too! I should like to see the man on the whole
frontier, who sets a more honest example to his children than this same
Ishmael Bush! Show me, if you can, Miss Fault-finder, but not
fault-mender, a set of boys who will, on occasion, sooner chop a piece
of logging and dress it for the crop, than my own children; though I
say it myself, who, perhaps, should be silent; or a cradler that knows
better how to lead a gang of hands through a field of wheat, leaving a
cleaner stubble in his track, than my own good man! Then, as a father,
he is as generous as a lord; for his sons have only to name the spot
where they would like to pitch, and he gives ’em a deed of the
plantation, and no charge for papers is ever made!”

As the wife of the squatter concluded, she raised a hollow, taunting
laugh, that was echoed from the mouths of several juvenile imitators,
whom she was training to a life as shiftless and lawless as her own;
but which, notwithstanding its uncertainty, was not without its secret
charms.

“Holloa! old Eester;” shouted the well-known voice of her husband, from
the plain beneath; “ar’ you keeping your junkets, while we are finding
you in venison and buffaloe beef? Come down—come down, old girl, with
all your young; and lend us a hand to carry up the meat;—why, what a
frolic you ar’ in, woman! Come down, come down, for the boys are at
hand, and we have work here for double your number.”

Ishmael might have spared his lungs more than a moiety of the effort
they were compelled to make in order that he should be heard. He had
hardly uttered the name of his wife, before the whole of the crouching
circle rose in a body, and tumbling over each other, they precipitated
themselves down the dangerous passes of the rock with ungovernable
impatience. Esther followed the young fry with a more measured gait;
nor did Ellen deem it wise, or rather discreet, to remain behind.
Consequently, the whole were soon assembled at the base of the citadel,
on the open plain.

Here the squatter was found, staggering under the weight of a fine fat
buck, attended by one or two of his younger sons. Abiram quickly
appeared, and before many minutes had elapsed, most of the hunters
dropped in, singly and in pairs, each man bringing with him some fruits
of his prowess in the field.

“The plain is free from red-skins, to-night at least,” said Ishmael,
after the bustle of reception had a little subsided; “for I have
scoured the prairie for many long miles, on my own feet, and I call
myself a judge of the print of an Indian moccasin. So, old woman, you
can give us a few steaks of the venison, and then we will sleep on the
day’s work.”

“I’ll not swear there are no savages near us,” said Abiram. “I, too,
know something of the trail of a red-skin; and, unless my eyes have
lost some of their sight, I would swear, boldly, that there ar’ Indians
at hand. But wait till Asa comes in. He pass’d the spot where I found
the marks, and the boy knows something of such matters too.”

“Ay, the boy knows too much of many things,” returned Ishmael,
gloomily. “It will be better for him when he thinks he knows less. But
what matters it, Hetty, if all the Sioux tribes, west of the big river,
are within a mile of us; they will find it no easy matter to scale this
rock, in the teeth of ten bold men.”

“Call ’em twelve at once, Ishmael; call ’em twelve!” cried his
termagant assistant. “For if your moth-gathering, bug-hunting friend,
can be counted a man, I beg you will set me down as two. I will not
turn my back to him, with the rifle or the shot-gun; and for
courage!—the yearling heifer, that them skulking devils the Tetons
stole, was the biggest coward among us all, and after her came your
drivelling Doctor. Ah! Ishmael, you rarely attempt a regular trade but
you come out the loser; and this man, I reckon, is the hardest bargain
among them all! Would you think it, the fellow ordered me a blister
around my mouth, because I complained of a pain in the foot?”

“It is a pity, Eester,” the husband coolly answered, “that you did not
take it; I reckon it would have done considerable good. But, boys, if
it should turn out as Abiram thinks, that there are Indians near us, we
may have to scamper up the rock, and lose our suppers after all;
therefore we will make sure of the game, and talk over the performances
of the Doctor when we have nothing better to do.”

The hint was taken; and in a few minutes, the exposed situation in
which the family was collected, was exchanged for the more secure
elevation of the rock. Here Esther busied herself, working and scolding
with equal industry, until the repast was prepared; when she summoned
her husband to his meal in a voice as sonorous as that with which the
Imam reminds the Faithful of a more important duty.

When each had assumed his proper and customary place around the smoking
viands, the squatter set the example by beginning to partake of a
delicious venison steak, prepared like the hump of the bison, with a
skill that rather increased than concealed its natural properties. A
painter would gladly have seized the moment, to transfer the wild and
characteristic scene to the canvass.

The reader will remember that the citadel of Ishmael stood insulated,
lofty, ragged, and nearly inaccessible. A bright flashing fire that was
burning on the centre of its summit, and around which the busy group
was clustered, lent it the appearance of some tall Pharos placed in the
centre of the deserts, to light such adventurers as wandered through
their broad wastes. The flashing flame gleamed from one sun-burnt
countenance to another, exhibiting every variety of expression, from
the juvenile simplicity of the children, mingled as it was with a shade
of the wildness peculiar to their semi-barbarous lives, to the dull and
immovable apathy that dwelt on the features of the squatter, when
unexcited. Occasionally a gust of wind would fan the embers; and, as a
brighter light shot upwards, the little solitary tent was seen as it
were suspended in the gloom of the upper air. All beyond was enveloped,
as usual at that hour, in an impenetrable body of darkness.

“It is unaccountable that Asa should choose to be out of the way at
such a time as this,” Esther pettishly observed. “When all is finished
and to rights, we shall have the boy coming up, grumbling for his meal,
and hungry as a bear after his winter’s nap. His stomach is as true as
the best clock in Kentucky, and seldom wants winding up to tell the
time, whether of day or night. A desperate eater is Asa, when
a-hungered by a little work!”

Ishmael looked sternly around the circle of his silent sons, as if to
see whether any among them would presume to say aught in favour of the
absent delinquent. But now, when no exciting causes existed to arouse
their slumbering tempers, it seemed to be too great an effort to enter
on the defence of their rebellious brother. Abiram, however, who, since
the pacification, either felt, or affected to feel, a more generous
interest in his late adversary, saw fit to express an anxiety, to which
the others were strangers—

“It will be well if the boy has escaped the Tetons!” he muttered. “I
should be sorry to have Asa, who is one of the stoutest of our party,
both in heart and hand, fall into the power of the red devils.”

“Look to yourself, Abiram; and spare your breath, if you can use it
only to frighten the woman and her huddling girls. You have whitened
the face of Ellen Wade, already; who looks as pale as if she was
staring to-day at the very Indians you name, when I was forced to speak
to her through the rifle, because I couldn’t reach her ears with my
tongue. How was it, Nell! you have never given the reason of your
deafness?”

The colour of Ellen’s cheek changed as suddenly as the squatter’s piece
had flashed on the occasion to which he alluded, the burning glow
suffusing her features, until it even mantled her throat with its fine
healthful tinge. She hung her head abashed, but did not seem to think
it necessary to reply.

Ishmael, too sluggish to pursue the subject, or content with the
pointed allusion he had just made, rose from his seat on the rock, and
stretching his heavy frame, like a well-fed and fattened ox, he
announced his intention to sleep. Among a race who lived chiefly for
the indulgence of the natural wants, such a declaration could not fail
of meeting with sympathetic dispositions. One after another
disappeared, each seeking his or her rude dormitory; and, before many
minutes, Esther, who by this time had scolded the younger fry to sleep,
found herself, if we except the usual watchman below, in solitary
possession of the naked rock.

Whatever less valuable fruits had been produced in this uneducated
woman by her migratory habits, the great principle of female nature was
too deeply rooted ever to be entirely eradicated. Of a powerful, not to
say fierce temperament, her passions were violent and difficult to be
smothered. But, however she might and did abuse the accidental
prerogatives of her situation, love for her offspring, while it often
slumbered, could never be said to become extinct. She liked not the
protracted absence of Asa. Too fearless herself to have hesitated an
instant on her own account about crossing the dark abyss, into which
she now sat looking with longing eyes, her busy imagination, in
obedience to this inextinguishable sentiment, began to conjure nameless
evils on account of her son. It might be true, as Abiram had hinted,
that he had become a captive to some of the tribes who were hunting the
buffaloe in that vicinity, or even a still more dreadful calamity might
have befallen. So thought the mother, while silence and darkness lent
their aid to the secret impulses of nature.

Agitated by these reflections, which put sleep at defiance, Esther
continued at her post, listening with that sort of acuteness which is
termed instinct in the animals a few degrees below her in the scale of
intelligence, for any of those noises which might indicate the approach
of footsteps. At length, her wishes had an appearance of being
realised, for the long desired sounds were distinctly audible, and
presently she distinguished the dim form of a man at the base of the
rock.

“Now, Asa, richly do you deserve to be left with an earthen bed this
blessed night!” the woman began to mutter, with a revolution in her
feelings, that will not be surprising to those who have made the
contradictions that give variety to the human character a study. “And a
hard one I’ve a mind it shall be! Why Abner; Abner; you Abner, do you
sleep? Let me not see you dare to open the hole, till I get down. I
will know who it is that wishes to disturb a peaceable, ay, and an
honest family too, at such a time in the night as this!”

“Woman!” exclaimed a voice, that intended to bluster, while the speaker
was manifestly a little apprehensive of the consequences; “Woman, I
forbid you on pain of the law to project any of your infernal missiles.
I am a citizen, and a freeholder, and a graduate of two universities;
and I stand upon my rights! Beware of malice prepense, of
chance-medley, and of manslaughter. It is I—your amicus; a friend and
inmate. I—Dr. Obed Battius.”

“Who?” demanded Esther, in a voice that nearly refused to convey her
words to the ears of the anxious listener beneath. “Did you say it was
not Asa?”

“Nay, I am neither Asa, nor Absalom, nor any of the Hebrew princes, but
Obed, the root and stock of them all. Have I not said, woman, that you
keep one in attendance who is entitled to a peaceable as well as an
honourable admission? Do you take me for an animal of the class
amphibia, and that I can play with my lungs as a blacksmith does with
his bellows?”

The naturalist might have expended his breath much longer, without
producing any desirable result, had Esther been his only auditor.
Disappointed and alarmed, the woman had already sought her pallet, and
was preparing, with a sort of desperate indifference, to compose
herself to sleep. Abner, the sentinel below, however, had been aroused
from an exceedingly equivocal situation by the outcry; and as he had
now regained sufficient consciousness to recognise the voice of the
physician, the latter was admitted with the least possible delay. Dr.
Battius bustled through the narrow entrance, with an air of singular
impatience, and was already beginning to mount the difficult ascent,
when catching a view of the porter, he paused, to observe with an air
that he intended should be impressively admonitory—

“Abner, there are dangerous symptoms of somnolency about thee! It is
sufficiently exhibited in the tendency to hiation, and may prove
dangerous not only to yourself, but to all thy father’s family.”

“You never made a greater mistake, Doctor,” returned the youth, gaping
like an indolent lion; “I haven’t a symptom, as you call it, about any
part of me; and as to father and the children, I reckon the small-pox
and the measles have been thoroughly through the breed these many
months ago.”

Content with his brief admonition, the naturalist had surmounted half
the difficulties of the ascent before the deliberate Abner ended his
justification. On the summit, Obed fully expected to encounter Esther,
of whose linguacious powers he had too often been furnished with the
most sinister reproofs, and of which he stood in an awe too salutary to
covet a repetition of the attacks. The reader can foresee that he was
to be agreeably disappointed. Treading lightly, and looking timidly
over his shoulder, as if he apprehended a shower of something, even
more formidable than words, the Doctor proceeded to the place which had
been allotted to himself in the general disposition of the dormitories.

Instead of sleeping, the worthy naturalist sat ruminating over what he
had both seen and heard that day, until the tossing and mutterings
which proceeded from the cabin of Esther, who was his nearest
neighbour, advertised him of the wakeful situation of its inmate.
Perceiving the necessity of doing something to disarm this female
Cerberus, before his own purpose could be accomplished, the Doctor,
reluctant as he was to encounter her tongue, found himself compelled to
invite a colloquial communication.

“You appear not to sleep, my very kind and worthy Mrs. Bush,” he said,
determined to commence his applications with a plaster that was usually
found to adhere; “you appear to rest badly, my excellent hostess; can I
administer to your ailings?”

“What would you give me, man?” grumbled Esther; “a blister to make me
sleep?”

“Say rather a cataplasm. But if you are in pain, here are some cordial
drops, which, taken in a glass of my own cogniac, will give you rest,
if I know aught of the materia medica.”

The Doctor, as he very well knew, had assailed Esther on her weak side;
and, as he doubted not of the acceptable quality of his prescription,
he sat himself at work, without unnecessary delay, to prepare it. When
he made his offering, it was received in a snappish and threatening
manner, but swallowed with a facility that sufficiently proclaimed how
much it was relished. The woman muttered her thanks, and her leech
reseated himself in silence, to await the operation of the dose. In
less than half an hour the breathing of Esther became so profound, and,
as the Doctor himself might have termed it, so very abstracted, that
had he not known how easy it was to ascribe this new instance of
somnolency to the powerful dose of opium with which he had garnished
the brandy, he might have seen reason to distrust his own prescription.
With the sleep of the restless woman, the stillness became profound and
general.

Then Dr. Battius saw fit to arise, with the silence and caution of the
midnight robber, and to steal out of his own cabin, or rather kennel,
for it deserved no better name, towards the adjoining dormitories. Here
he took time to assure himself that all his neighbours were buried in
deep sleep. Once advised of this important fact, he hesitated no
longer, but commenced the difficult ascent which led to the upper
pinnacle of the rock. His advance, though abundantly guarded, was not
entirely noiseless; but while he was felicitating himself on having
successfully effected his object, and he was in the very act of placing
his foot on the highest ledge a hand was laid upon the skirts of his
coat, which as effectually put an end to his advance, as if the
gigantic strength of Ishmael himself had pinned him to the earth.

“Is there sickness in the tent,” whispered a soft voice in his very
ear, “that Dr. Battius is called to visit it at such an hour?”

So soon as the heart of the naturalist had returned from its hasty
expedition into his throat, as one less skilled than Dr. Battius in the
formation of the animal would have been apt to have accounted for the
extraordinary sensation with which he received this unlooked-for
interruption, he found resolution to reply; using, as much in terror as
in prudence, the same precaution in the indulgence of his voice.

“My worthy Nelly! I am greatly rejoiced to find it is no other than
thee. Hist! child, hist! Should Ishmael gain a knowledge of our plans,
he would not hesitate to cast us both from this rock, upon the plain
beneath. Hist! Nelly, hist!”

As the Doctor delivered his injunctions between the intervals of his
ascent, by the time they were concluded, both he and his auditor had
gained the upper level.

“And now, Dr. Battius,” the girl gravely demanded, “may I know the
reason why you have run so great a risk of flying from this place,
without wings, and at the certain expense of your neck?”

“Nothing shall be concealed from thee, worthy and trusty Nelly—but are
you certain that Ishmael will not awake?”

“No fear of him; he will sleep until the sun scorches his eyelids. The
danger is from my aunt.”

“Esther sleepeth!” the Doctor sententiously replied. “Ellen, you have
been watching on this rock, to-day?”

“I was ordered to do so.”

“And you have seen the bison, and the antelope, and the wolf, and the
deer, as usual; animals of the orders, pecora, belluae, and ferae.”

“I have seen the creatures you named in English, but I know nothing of
the Indian languages.”

“There is still an order that I have not named, which you have also
seen. The primates—is it not true?”

“I cannot say. I know no animal by that name.”

“Nay, Ellen, you confer with a friend. Of the genus, homo, child?”

“Whatever else I may have had in view, I have not seen the vespertilio
horribi—”

“Hush, Nelly, thy vivacity will betray us! Tell me, girl, have you not
seen certain bipeds, called men, wandering about the prairies?”

“Surely. My uncle and his sons have been hunting the buffaloe, since
the sun began to fall.”

“I must speak in the vernacular, to be comprehended. Ellen, I would say
of the species, Kentucky.”

Though Ellen reddened like the rose, her blushes were concealed by the
darkness. She hesitated an instant, and then summoned sufficient spirit
to say, decidedly—

“If you wish to speak in parables, Doctor Battius, you must find
another listener. Put your questions plainly in English, and I will
answer them honestly in the same tongue.”

“I have been journeying in this desert, as thou knowest, Nelly, in
quest of animals that have been hidden from the eyes of science, until
now. Among others, I have discovered a primates, of the genus, homo;
species, Kentucky; which I term, Paul—”

“Hist, for the sake of mercy!” said Ellen; “speak lower, Doctor, or we
shall be ruined.”

“Hover; by profession a collector of the apes, or bee,” continued the
other. “Do I use the vernacular now,—am I understood?”

“Perfectly, perfectly,” returned the girl, breathing with difficulty,
in her surprise. “But what of him? did he tell you to mount this
rock?—he knows nothing, himself; for the oath I gave my uncle has shut
my mouth.”

“Ay, but there is one that has taken no oath, who has revealed all. I
would that the mantle which is wrapped around the mysteries of nature,
were as effectually withdrawn from its hidden treasures! Ellen! Ellen!
the man with whom I have unwittingly formed a compactum, or agreement,
is sadly forgetful of the obligations of honesty! Thy uncle, child.”

“You mean Ishmael Bush, my father’s brother’s widow’s husband,”
returned the offended girl, a little proudly.—“Indeed, indeed, it is
cruel to reproach me with a tie that chance has formed, and which I
would rejoice so much to break for ever!”

The humbled Ellen could utter no more, but sinking on a projection of
the rock, she began to sob in a manner that rendered their situation
doubly critical. The Doctor muttered a few words, which he intended as
an apologetic explanation, but before he had time to complete his
laboured vindication, she arose and said with decision—

“I did not come here to pass my time in foolish tears, nor you to try
to stop them. What then has brought you hither?”

“I must see the inmate of that tent.”

“You know what it contains?”

“I am taught to believe I do; and I bear a letter, which I must deliver
with my own hands. If the animal prove a quadruped, Ishmael is a true
man—if a biped, fledged or unfledged, I care not, he is false, and our
compactum at an end!”

Ellen made a sign for the Doctor to remain where he was, and to be
silent. She then glided into the tent, where she continued many
minutes, that proved exceedingly weary and anxious to the expectant
without, but the instant she returned, she took him by the arm, and
together they entered beneath the folds of the mysterious cloth.




CHAPTER XII


Pray God the Duke of York excuse himself!
                   —King Henry VI.


The mustering of the borderers on the following morning was silent,
sullen, and gloomy. The repast of that hour was wanting in the
inharmonious accompaniment with which Esther ordinarily enlivened their
meals; for the effects of the powerful opiate the Doctor had
administered still muddled her intellects. The young men brooded over
the absence of their elder brother, and the brows of Ishmael himself
were knit, as he cast his scowling eyes from one to the other, like a
man preparing to meet and to repel an expected assault on his
authority. In the midst of this family distrust, Ellen and her midnight
confederate, the naturalist, took their usual places among the
children, without awakening suspicion or exciting comment. The only
apparent fruits of the adventure in which they had been engaged, were
occasional upliftings of the eyes, on the part of the Doctor, which
were mistaken by the observers for some of his scientific
contemplations of the heavens, but which, in reality, were no other
than furtive glances at the fluttering walls of the proscribed tent.

At length the squatter, who had waited in vain for some more decided
manifestation of the expected rising among his sons, resolved to make a
demonstration of his own intentions.

“Asa shall account to me for this undutiful conduct!” he observed.
“Here has the livelong night gone by, and he out-lying on the prairie,
when his hand and his rifle might both have been wanted in a brush with
the Siouxes, for any right he had to know the contrary.”

“Spare your breath, good man,” retorted his wife; “be saving of your
breath; for you may have to call long enough for the boy before he will
answer!”

“It ar’ a fact, that some men be so womanish, as to let the young
master the old! But, you, old Esther, should know better than to think
such will ever be the nature of things in the family of Ishmael Bush.”

“Ah! you are a hectorer with the boys, when need calls! I know it well,
Ishmael; and one of your sons have you driven from you, by your temper;
and that, too, at a time when he is most wanted.”

“Father,” said Abner, whose sluggish nature had gradually been
stimulating itself to the exertion of taking so bold a stand, “the boys
and I have pretty generally concluded to go out on the search of Asa.
We are disagreeable about his camping on the prairie, instead of coming
in to his own bed, as we all know he would like to do.”

“Pshaw!” muttered Abiram; “the boy has killed a buck; or perhaps a
buffaloe; and he is sleeping by the carcass to keep off the wolves,
till day; we shall soon see him, or hear him bawling for help to bring
in his load.”

“’Tis little help that a son of mine will call for, to shoulder a buck
or to quarter your wild-beef,” returned the mother. “And you, Abiram,
to say so uncertain a thing! you, who said yourself that the red-skins
had been prowling around this place, no later than the yesterday—”

“I!” exclaimed her brother, hastily, as if anxious to retract an error;
“I said it then, and I say it now and so you will find it to be. The
Tetons are in our neighbourhood, and happy will it prove for the boy if
he is well shut of them.”

“It seems to me,” said Dr. Battius, speaking with the sort of
deliberation and dignity one is apt to use after having thoroughly
ripened his opinions by sufficient reflection,—“it seems to me, a man
but little skilled in the signs and tokens of Indian warfare,
especially as practised in these remote plains, but one, who I may say
without vanity has some insight into the mysteries of nature,—it seems,
then, to me, thus humbly qualified, that when doubts exist in a matter
of moment, it would always be the wisest course to appease them.”

“No more of your doctoring for me!” cried the grum Esther; “no more of
your quiddities in a healthy family, say I! Here was I doing well, only
a little out of sorts with over instructing the young, and you dos’d me
with a drug that hangs about my tongue, like a pound weight on a
humming-bird’s wing!”

“Is the medicine out?” drily demanded Ishmael: “it must be a rare dose
that gives a heavy feel to the tongue of old Eester!”

“Friend,” continued the Doctor, waving his hand for the angry wife to
maintain the peace, “that it cannot perform all that is said of it, the
very charge of good Mrs. Bush is a sufficient proof. But to speak of
the absent Asa. There is doubt as to his fate, and there is a
proposition to solve it. Now, in the natural sciences truth is always a
desideratum; and I confess it would seem to be equally so in the
present case of domestic uncertainty, which may be called a vacuum
where according to the laws of physic, there should exist some pretty
palpable proofs of materiality.”

“Don’t mind him, don’t mind him,” cried Esther, observing that the rest
of his auditors listened with an attention which might proceed,
equally, from acquiescence in his proposal or ignorance of its meaning.
“There is a drug in every word he utters.”

“Dr. Battius wishes to say,” Ellen modestly interposed, “that as some
of us think Asa is in danger, and some think otherwise, the whole
family might pass an hour or two in looking for him.”

“Does he?” interrupted the woman; “then Dr. Battius has more sense in
him than I believed! She is right, Ishmael; and what she says, shall be
done. I will shoulder a rifle myself; and woe betide the red-skin that
crosses my path! I have pulled a trigger before to-day; ay, and heard
an Indian yell, too, to my sorrow.”

The spirit of Esther diffused itself, like the stimulus which attends a
war-cry, among her sons. They arose in a body, and declared their
determination to second so bold a resolution. Ishmael prudently yielded
to an impulse he could not resist, and in a few minutes the woman
appeared, shouldering her arms, prepared to lead forth, in person, such
of her descendants as chose to follow.

“Let them stay with the children that please,” she said, “and them
follow me, who ar’ not chicken-hearted!”

“Abiram, it will not do to leave the huts without some guard,” Ishmael
whispered, glancing his eye upward.

The man whom he addressed started, and betrayed extraordinary eagerness
in his reply.

“I will tarry and watch the camp.”

A dozen voices were instantly raised in objections to this proposal. He
was wanted to point out the places where the hostile tracks had been
seen, and his termagant sister openly scouted at the idea, as unworthy
of his manhood. The reluctant Abiram was compelled to yield, and
Ishmael made a new disposition for the defence of the place; which was
admitted, by every one, to be all-important to their security and
comfort.

He offered the post of commandant to Dr. Battius, who, however,
peremptorily and somewhat haughtily declined the doubtful honour;
exchanging looks of intelligence with Ellen, as he did so. In this
dilemma the squatter was obliged to constitute the girl herself
castellan; taking care, however, in deputing this important trust, to
omit no words of caution and instruction. When this preliminary point
was settled, the young men proceeded to arrange certain means of
defence, and signals of alarm, that were adapted to the weakness and
character of the garrison. Several masses of rock were drawn to the
edge of the upper level, and so placed as to leave it at the discretion
of the feeble Ellen and her associates, to cast them or not, as they
might choose, on the heads of any invaders, who would, of necessity, be
obliged to mount the eminence by the difficult and narrow passage
already so often mentioned. In addition to this formidable obstruction,
the barriers were strengthened and rendered nearly impassable. Smaller
missiles, that might be hurled even by the hands of the younger
children, but which would prove, from the elevation of the place,
exceedingly dangerous, were provided in profusion. A pile of dried
leaves and splinters were placed, as a beacon, on the upper rock, and
then, even in the jealous judgment of the squatter, the post was deemed
competent to maintain a creditable siege.

The moment the rock was thought to be in a state of sufficient
security, the party who composed what might be called the sortie,
sallied forth on their anxious expedition. The advance was led by
Esther in person, who, attired in a dress half masculine, and bearing a
weapon like the rest, seemed no unfit leader for the group of wildly
clad frontiermen, that followed in her rear.

“Now, Abiram;” cried the Amazon, in a voice that was cracked and harsh,
for the simple reason of being used too often on a strained and
unnatural key, “now, Abiram, run with your nose low; show yourself a
hound of the true breed, and do some credit to your training. You it
was that saw the prints of the Indian moccasin, and it behoves you, to
let others be as wise as yourself. Come; come to the front, man; and
give us a bold lead.”

The brother, who appeared at all times to stand in awe of his sister’s
authority, complied; though it was with a reluctance so evident, as to
excite sneers, even among the unobservant and indolent sons of the
squatter. Ishmael, himself, moved among his tall children, like one who
expected nothing from the search, and who was indifferent alike to its
success or failure. In this manner the party proceeded until their
distant fortress had sunk so low, as to present an object no larger nor
more distinct than a hazy point, on the margin of the prairie. Hitherto
their progress had been silent and somewhat rapid, for as swell after
swell was mounted and passed, without varying, or discovering a living
object to enliven the monotony of the view, even the tongue of Esther
was hushed in increasing anxiety. Here, however, Ishmael chose to
pause, and casting the butt of his rifle from his shoulder to the
ground, he observed—

“This is enough. Buffaloe signs, and deer signs, ar’ plenty; but where
ar’ thy Indian footsteps, Abiram?”

“Still farther west,” returned the other, pointing in the direction he
named. “This was the spot where I struck the tracks of the buck; it was
after I took the deer, that I fell upon the Teton trail.”

“And a bloody piece of work you made of it, man,” cried the squatter,
pointing tauntily to the soiled garments of his kinsman, and then
directing the attention of the spectators to his own, by the way of a
triumphant contrast. “Here have I cut the throats of two lively does,
and a scampering fawn, without spot or stain; while you, blundering dog
as you ar’, have made as much work for Eester and her girls, as though
butchering was your regular calling. Come, boys; it is enough. I am too
old not to know the signs of the frontiers; no Indian has been here
since the last fall of water. Follow me; and I will make a turn that
shall give us at least the beef of a fallow cow for our trouble.”

“Follow me!” echoed Esther, stepping undauntedly forward. “I am leader
to-day, and I will be followed. Who so proper, let me know, as a
mother, to head a search for her own lost child?”

Ishmael regarded his intractable mate with a smile of indulgent pity.
Observing that she had already struck out a path for herself, different
both from that of Abiram and the one he had seen fit to choose, and
being unwilling to draw the cord of authority too tight, just at that
moment, he submitted to her will. But Dr. Battius, who had hitherto
been a silent and thoughtful attendant on the woman, now saw fit to
raise his feeble voice in the way of remonstrance.

“I agree with thy partner in life, worthy and gentle Mrs. Bush,” he
said, “in believing that some ignis fatuus of the imagination has
deceived Abiram, in the signs or symptoms of which he has spoken.”

“Symptoms, yourself!” interrupted the termagant. “This is no time for
bookish words, nor is this a place to stop and swallow medicines. If
you are a-leg-weary, say so, as a plain-speaking man should; then seat
yourself on the prairie, like a hound that is foot-sore, and take your
natural rest.”

“I accord in the opinion,” the naturalist calmly replied, complying
literally with the opinion of the deriding Esther, by taking his seat,
very coolly, by the side of an indigenous shrub; the examination of
which he commenced, on the instant, in order that science might not
loose any of its just and important dues. “I honour your excellent
advice, Mistress Esther, as you may perceive. Go thou in quest of thy
offspring; while I tarry here, in pursuit of that which is better; viz.
an insight into the arcana of Nature’s volume.”

The woman answered with a hollow, unnatural, and scornful laugh, and
even her heavy sons, as they slowly passed the seat of the already
abstracted naturalist, did not disdain to manifest their contempt in
smiles. In a few minutes the train mounted the nearest eminence, and,
as it turned the rounded acclivity, the Doctor was left to pursue his
profitable investigations in entire solitude.

Another half-hour passed, during which Esther continued to advance, on
her seemingly fruitless search. Her pauses, however, were becoming
frequent, and her looks wandering and uncertain, when footsteps were
heard clattering through the bottom, and at the next instant a buck was
seen to bound up the ascent, and to dart from before their eyes, in the
direction of the naturalist. So sudden and unlooked for had been the
passage of the animal, and so much had he been favoured by the shape of
the ground, that before any one of the foresters had time to bring his
rifle to his shoulder, it was already beyond the range of a bullet.

“Look out for the wolf!” shouted Abner, shaking his head in vexation,
at being a single moment too late. “A wolf’s skin will be no bad gift
in a winter’s night; ay, yonder the hungry devil comes!”

“Hold!” cried Ishmael, knocking up the levelled weapon of his too eager
son. “’Tis not a wolf; but a hound of thorough blood and bottom. Ha! we
have hunters nigh: there ar’ two of them!”

He was still speaking, when the animals in question came leaping on the
track of the deer, striving with noble ardour to outdo each other. One
was an aged dog, whose strength seemed to be sustained purely by
generous emulation, and the other a pup, that gambolled even while he
pressed most warmly on the chase. They both ran, however, with clean
and powerful leaps, carrying their noses high, like animals of the most
keen and subtle scent. They had passed; and in another minute they
would have been running open-mouthed with the deer in view, had not the
younger dog suddenly bounded from the course, and uttered a cry of
surprise. His aged companion stopped also, and returned panting and
exhausted to the place, where the other was whirling around in swift,
and apparently in mad evolutions, circling the spot in his own
footsteps, and continuing his outcry, in a short, snappish barking.
But, when the elder hound had reached the spot, he seated himself, and
lifting his nose high into the air, he raised a long, loud, and wailing
howl.

“It must be a strong scent,” said Abner, who had been, with the rest of
the family, an admiring observer of the movements of the dogs, “that
can break off two such creatur’s so suddenly from their trail.”

“Murder them!” cried Abiram; “I’ll swear to the old hound; ’tis the dog
of the trapper, whom we now know to be our mortal enemy.”

Though the brother of Esther gave so hostile advice, he appeared in no
way ready to put it in execution himself. The surprise, which had taken
possession of the whole party, exhibited itself in his own vacant
wondering stare, as strongly as in any of the admiring visages by whom
he was surrounded. His denunciation, therefore, notwithstanding its
dire import, was disregarded; and the dogs were left to obey the
impulses of their mysterious instinct, without let or hinderance.

It was long before any of the spectators broke the silence; but the
squatter, at length, so far recollected his authority, as to take on
himself the right to control the movements of his children.

“Come away, boys; come away, and leave the hounds to sing their tunes
for their own amusement,” Ishmael said, in his coldest manner. “I scorn
to take the life of a beast, because its master has pitched himself too
nigh my clearing; come away, boys, come away; we have enough of our own
work before us, without turning aside to do that of the whole
neighbourhood.”

“Come not away!” cried Esther, in tones that sounded like the
admonitions of some sibyl. “I say, come not away, my children. There is
a meaning and a warning in this; and as I am a woman and a mother, will
I know the truth of it all!”

So saying, the awakened wife brandished her weapon, with an air that
was not without its wild and secret influence, and led the way towards
the spot where the dogs still remained, filling the air with their
long-drawn and piteous complaints. The whole party followed in her
steps, some too indolent to oppose, others obedient to her will, and
all more or less excited by the uncommon character of the scene.

“Tell me, you Abner—Abiram—Ishmael!” the woman cried, standing over a
spot where the earth was trampled and beaten, and plainly sprinkled
with blood; “tell me, you who ar’ hunters! what sort of animal has here
met his death?—Speak!—Ye ar’ men, and used to the signs of the plains;
is it the blood of wolf or panther?”

“A buffaloe—and a noble and powerful creatur’ has it been!” returned
the squatter, who looked down calmly on the fatal signs which so
strangely affected his wife. “Here are the marks of the spot where he
has struck his hoofs into the earth, in the death-struggle; and yonder
he has plunged and torn the ground with his horns. Ay, a buffaloe bull
of wonderful strength and courage has he been!”

“And who has slain him?” continued Esther; “man where are the
offals?—Wolves!—They devour not the hide! Tell me, ye men and hunters,
is this the blood of a beast?”

“The creatur’ has plunged over the hillock,” said Abner, who had
proceeded a short distance beyond the rest of the party. “Ah! there you
will find it, in yon swale of alders. Look! a thousand carrion birds,
ar’ hovering above the carcass.”

“The animal has still life in him,” returned the squatter, “or the
buzzards would settle upon their prey! By the action of the dogs it
must be something ravenous; I reckon it is the white bear from the
upper falls. They are said to cling desperately to life!”

“Let us go back,” said Abiram; “there may be danger, and there can be
no good in attacking a ravenous beast. Remember, Ishmael, ’twill be a
risky job, and one of small profit!”

The young men smiled at this new proof of the well known pusillanimity
of their uncle. The oldest even proceeded so far as to express his
contempt, by bluntly saying—

“It will do to cage with the other animal we carry; then we may go back
double-handed into the settlements, and set up for showmen, around the
court-houses and gaols of Kentucky.”

The threatening frown, which gathered on the brow of his father,
admonished the young man to forbear. Exchanging looks that were half
rebellious with his brethren, he saw fit to be silent. But instead of
observing the caution recommended by Abiram, they proceeded in a body,
until they again came to a halt within a few yards of the matted cover
of the thicket.

The scene had now, indeed, become wild and striking enough to have
produced a powerful effect on minds better prepared, than those of the
unnurtured family of the squatter, to resist the impressions of so
exciting a spectacle. The heavens were, as usual at the season, covered
with dark, driving clouds, beneath which interminable flocks of aquatic
birds were again on the wing, holding their toilsome and heavy way
towards the distant waters of the south. The wind had risen, and was
once more sweeping over the prairie in gusts, which it was often vain
to oppose; and then again the blasts would seem to mount into the upper
air, as if to sport with the drifting vapour, whirling and rolling vast
masses of the dusky and ragged volumes over each other, in a terrific
and yet grand disorder. Above the little brake, the flocks of birds
still held their flight, circling with heavy wings about the spot,
struggling at times against the torrent of wind, and then favoured by
their position and height, making bold swoops upon the thicket, away
from which, however, they never failed to sail, screaming in terror, as
if apprised, either by sight or instinct, that the hour of their
voracious dominion had not yet fully arrived.

Ishmael stood for many minutes, with his wife and children clustered
together, in an amazement, with which awe was singularly mingled,
gazing in death-like stillness on the sight. The voice of Esther at
length broke the charm, and reminded the spectators of the necessity of
resolving their doubts in some manner more worthy of their manhood,
than by dull and inactive observation.

“Call in the dogs!” she said; “call in the hounds, and put them into
the thicket; there ar’ men enough of ye, if ye have not lost the spirit
with which I know ye were born, to tame the tempers of all the bears
west of the big river. Call in the dogs, I say, you Enoch! Abner!
Gabriel! has wonder made ye deaf?”

One of the young men complied; and having succeeded in detaching the
hounds from the place, around which, until then, they had not ceased to
hover, he led them down to the margin of the thicket.

“Put them in, boy; put them in,” continued the woman; “and you, Ishmael
and Abiram, if any thing wicked or hurtful comes forth, show them the
use of your rifles, like frontier-men. If ye ar’ wanting in spirit,
before the eyes of my children will I put ye both to shame!”

The youths who, until now, had detained the hounds, let slip the thongs
of skin, by which they had been held, and urged them to the attack by
their voices. But, it would seem, that the elder dog was restrained by
some extraordinary sensation, or that he was much too experienced to
attempt the rash adventure. After proceeding a few yards to the very
verge of the brake, he made a sudden pause, and stood trembling in all
his aged limbs, apparently as unable to recede as to advance. The
encouraging calls of the young men were disregarded, or only answered
by a low and plaintive whining. For a minute the pup also was similarly
affected; but less sage, or more easily excited, he was induced at
length to leap forward, and finally to dash into the cover. An alarmed
and startling howl was heard, and, at the next minute, he broke out of
the thicket, and commenced circling the spot, in the same wild and
unsteady manner as before.

“Have I a man among my children?” demanded Esther. “Give me a truer
piece than a childish shotgun, and I will show ye what the courage of a
frontier-woman can do!”

“Stay, mother,” exclaimed Abner and Enoch; “if you will see the
creatur’, let us drive it into view.”

This was quite as much as the youths were accustomed to utter, even on
more important occasions, but having given a pledge of their
intentions, they were far from being backward in redeeming it.
Preparing their arms with the utmost care, they advanced with
steadiness to the brake. Nerves less often tried than those of the
young borderers might have shrunk before the dangers of so uncertain an
undertaking. As they proceeded, the howls of the dogs became more
shrill and plaintive. The vultures and buzzards settled so low as to
flap the bushes with their heavy wings, and the wind came hoarsely
sweeping along the naked prairie, as if the spirits of the air had also
descended to witness the approaching development.

There was a breathless moment, when the blood of the undaunted Esther
flowed backward to her heart, as she saw her sons push aside the matted
branches of the thicket and bury themselves in its labyrinth. A deep
and solemn pause succeeded. Then arose two loud and piercing cries, in
quick succession, which were followed by a quiet, still more awful and
appalling.

“Come back, come back, my children!” cried the woman, the feelings of a
mother getting the ascendency.

But her voice was hushed, and every faculty seemed frozen with horror,
as at that instant the bushes once more parted, and the two adventurers
re-appeared, pale, and nearly insensible themselves, and laid at her
feet the stiff and motionless body of the lost Asa, with the marks of a
violent death but too plainly stamped on every pallid lineament.

The dogs uttered a long and closing howl, and then breaking off
together, they disappeared on the forsaken trail of the deer. The
flight of birds wheeled upward into the heavens, filling the air with
their complaints at having been robbed of a victim which, frightful and
disgusting as it was, still bore too much of the impression of humanity
to become the prey of their obscene appetites.




CHAPTER XIII


A pickaxe, and a spade, a spade,
   For,—and a shrouding sheet:
O, a pit of clay for to be made
   For such a guest is meet.
                   —Song in Hamlet.


“Stand back! stand off, the whole of ye!” said Esther hoarsely to the
crowd, which pressed too closely on the corpse; “I am his mother, and
my right is better than that of ye all! Who has done this? Tell me,
Ishmael, Abiram, Abner! open your mouths and your hearts, and let God’s
truth and no other issue from them. Who has done this bloody deed?”

Her husband made no reply, but stood, leaning on his rifle, looking
sadly, but with an unaltered eye, at the mangled remains of his son.
Not so the mother, she threw herself on the earth, and receiving the
cold and ghastly head into her lap, she sat contemplating those
muscular features, on which the death-agony was still horridly
impressed, in a silence far more expressive than any language of
lamentation could have proved.

The voice of the woman was frozen in grief. In vain Ishmael attempted a
few words of rude consolation; she neither listened nor answered. Her
sons gathered about her in a circle, and expressed, after their uncouth
manner, their sympathy in her sorrow, as well as their sense of their
own loss, but she motioned them away, impatiently with her hand. At
times her fingers played in the matted hair of the dead, and at others
they lightly attempted to smooth the painfully expressive muscles of
its ghastly visage, as the hand of the mother is seen lingering fondly
about the features of her sleeping child. Then starting from their
revolting office, her hands would flutter around her, and seem to seek
some fruitless remedy against the violent blow, which had thus suddenly
destroyed the child in whom she had not only placed her greatest hopes,
but so much of her maternal pride. While engaged in the latter
incomprehensible manner, the lethargic Abner turned aside, and
swallowing the unwonted emotions which were rising in his own throat,
he observed—

“Mother means that we should look for the signs, that we may know in
what manner Asa has come by his end.”

“We owe it to the accursed Siouxes!” answered Ishmael: “twice have they
put me deeply in their debt! The third time, the score shall be
cleared!”

But, not content with this plausible explanation, and, perhaps,
secretly glad to avert their eyes from a spectacle which awakened so
extraordinary and unusual sensations in their sluggish bosoms, the sons
of the squatter turned away in a body from their mother and the corpse,
and proceeded to make the enquiries which they fancied the former had
so repeatedly demanded. Ishmael made no objections; but, though he
accompanied his children while they proceeded in the investigation, it
was more with the appearance of complying with their wishes, at a time
when resistance might not be seemly, than with any visible interest in
the result. As the borderers, notwithstanding their usual dulness, were
well instructed in most things connected with their habits of life, an
enquiry, the success of which depended so much on signs and evidences
that bore so strong a resemblance to a forest trail, was likely to be
conducted with skill and acuteness. Accordingly, they proceeded to the
melancholy task with great readiness and intelligence.

Abner and Enoch agreed in their accounts as to the position in which
they had found the body. It was seated nearly upright, the back
supported by a mass of matted brush, and one hand still grasping a
broken twig of the alders. It was most probably owing to the former
circumstance that the body had escaped the rapacity of the carrion
birds, which had been seen hovering above the thicket, and the latter
proved that life had not yet entirely abandoned the hapless victim when
he entered the brake. The opinion now became general, that the youth
had received his death-wound in the open prairie, and had dragged his
enfeebled form into the cover of the thicket for the purpose of
concealment. A trail through the bushes confirmed this opinion. It also
appeared, on examination, that a desperate struggle had taken place on
the very margin of the thicket. This was sufficiently apparent by the
trodden branches, the deep impressions on the moist ground, and the
lavish flow of blood.

“He has been shot in the open ground and come here for a cover,” said
Abiram; “these marks would clearly prove it. The boy has been set upon
by the savages in a body, and has fou’t like a hero as he was, until
they have mastered his strength, and then drawn him to the bushes.”

To this probable opinion there was now but one dissenting voice, that
of the slow-minded Ishmael, who demanded that the corpse itself should
be examined in order to obtain a more accurate knowledge of its
injuries. On examination, it appeared that a rifle bullet had passed
directly through the body of the deceased, entering beneath one of his
brawny shoulders, and making its exit by the breast. It required some
knowledge in gun-shot wounds to decide this delicate point, but the
experience of the borderers was quite equal to the scrutiny; and a
smile of wild, and certainly of singular satisfaction, passed among the
sons of Ishmael, when Abner confidently announced that the enemies of
Asa had assailed him in the rear.

“It must be so,” said the gloomy but attentive squatter. “He was of too
good a stock and too well trained, knowingly to turn the weak side to
man or beast! Remember, boys, that while the front of manhood is to
your enemy, let him be who or what he may, you ar’ safe from cowardly
surprise. Why, Eester, woman! you ar’ getting beside yourself; with
picking at the hair and the garments of the child! Little good can you
do him now, old girl.”

“See!” interrupted Enoch, extricating from the fragments of cloth the
morsel of lead which had prostrated the strength of one so powerful;
“here is the very bullet!”

Ishmael took it in his hand and eyed it long and closely.

“There’s no mistake,” at length he muttered through his compressed
teeth. “It is from the pouch of that accursed trapper. Like many of the
hunters he has a mark in his mould, in order to know the work his rifle
performs; and here you see it plainly—six little holes, laid
crossways.”

“I’ll swear to it!” cried Abiram, triumphantly. “He show’d me his
private mark, himself, and boasted of the number of deer he had laid
upon the prairies with these very bullets! Now, Ishmael, will you
believe me when I tell you the old knave is a spy of the red-skins?”

The lead passed from the hand of one to that of another, and
unfortunately for the reputation of the old man, several among them
remembered also to have seen the aforesaid private bullet-marks, during
the curious examination which all had made of his accoutrements. In
addition to this wound, however, were many others of a less dangerous
nature, all of which were supposed to confirm the supposed guilt of the
trapper.

The traces of many different struggles were to be seen, between the
spot where the first blood was spilt and the thicket to which it was
now generally believed Asa had retreated, as a place of refuge. These
were interpreted into so many proofs of the weakness of the murderer,
who would have sooner despatched his victim, had not even the dying
strength of the youth rendered him formidable to the infirmities of one
so old. The danger of drawing some others of the hunters to the spot,
by repeated firing, was deemed a sufficient reason for not again
resorting to the rifle, after it had performed the important duty of
disabling the victim. The weapon of the dead man was not to be found,
and had doubtless, together with many other less valuable and lighter
articles, that he was accustomed to carry about his person, become a
prize to his destroyer.

But what, in addition to the tell-tale bullet, appeared to fix the
ruthless deed with peculiar certainty on the trapper, was the
accumulated evidence furnished by the trail; which proved,
notwithstanding his deadly hurt, that the wounded man had still been
able to make a long and desperate resistance to the subsequent efforts
of his murderer. Ishmael seemed to press this proof with a singular
mixture of sorrow and pride: sorrow, at the loss of a son, whom in
their moments of amity he highly valued; and pride, at the courage and
power he had manifested to his last and weakest breath.

“He died as a son of mine should die,” said the squatter, gleaning a
hollow consolation from so unnatural an exultation: “a dread to his
enemy to the last, and without help from the law! Come, children; we
have the grave to make, and then to hunt his murderer.”

The sons of the squatter set about their melancholy office, in silence
and in sadness. An excavation was made in the hard earth, at a great
expense of toil and time, and the body was wrapped in such spare
vestments as could be collected among the labourers. When these
arrangements were completed, Ishmael approached the seemingly
unconscious Esther, and announced his intention to inter the dead. She
heard him, and quietly relinquished her grasp of the corpse, rising in
silence to follow it to its narrow resting place. Here she seated
herself again at the head of the grave, watching each movement of the
youths with eager and jealous eyes. When a sufficiency of earth was
laid upon the senseless clay of Asa, to protect it from injury, Enoch
and Abner entered the cavity, and trode it into a solid mass, by the
weight of their huge frames, with an appearance of a strange, not to
say savage, mixture of care and indifference. This well-known
precaution was adopted to prevent the speedy exhumation of the body by
some of the carnivorous beasts of the prairie, whose instinct was sure
to guide them to the spot. Even the rapacious birds appeared to
comprehend the nature of the ceremony, for, mysteriously apprised that
the miserable victim was now about to be abandoned by the human race,
they once more began to make their airy circuits above the place,
screaming, as if to frighten the kinsmen from their labour of caution
and love.

Ishmael stood, with folded arms, steadily watching the manner in which
this necessary duty was performed, and when the whole was completed, he
lifted his cap to his sons, to thank them for their services, with a
dignity that would have become one much better nurtured. Throughout the
whole of a ceremony, which is ever solemn and admonitory, the squatter
had maintained a grave and serious deportment. His vast features were
visibly stamped with an expression of deep concern; but at no time did
they falter, until he turned his back, as he believed for ever, on the
grave of his first-born. Nature was then stirring powerfully within
him, and the muscles of his stern visage began to work perceptibly. His
children fastened their eyes on his, as if to seek a direction to the
strange emotions which were moving their own heavy natures, when the
struggle in the bosom of the squatter suddenly ceased, and, taking his
wife by the arm, he raised her to her feet as if she had been an
infant, saying, in a voice that was perfectly steady, though a nice
observer would have discovered that it was kinder than usual—

“Eester, we have now done all that man and woman can do. We raised the
boy, and made him such as few others were like, on the frontiers of
America; and we have given him a grave. Let us go our way.”

The woman turned her eyes slowly from the fresh earth, and laying her
hands on the shoulders of her husband, stood, looking him anxiously in
the eyes.

“Ishmael! Ishmael!” she said, “you parted from the boy in your wrath!”

“May the Lord pardon his sins freely as I have forgiven his worst
misdeeds!” calmly returned the squatter: “woman, go you back to the
rock and read your Bible; a chapter in that book always does you good.
You can read, Eester; which is a privilege I never did enjoy.”

“Yes, yes,” muttered the woman, yielding to his strength, and suffering
herself to be led, though with strong reluctance from the spot. “I can
read; and how have I used the knowledge! But he, Ishmael, he has not
the sin of wasted l’arning to answer for. We have spared him that, at
least! whether it be in mercy, or in cruelty, I know not.”

Her husband made no reply, but continued steadily to lead her in the
direction of their temporary abode. When they reached the summit of the
swell of land, which they knew was the last spot from which the
situation of the grave of Asa could be seen, they all turned, as by
common concurrence, to take a farewell view of the place. The little
mound itself was not visible; but it was frightfully indicated by the
flock of screaming birds which hovered above. In the opposite direction
a low, blue hillock, in the skirts of the horizon, pointed out the
place where Esther had left the rest of her young, and served as an
attraction to draw her reluctant steps from the last abode of her
eldest born. Nature quickened in the bosom of the mother at the sight;
and she finally yielded the rights of the dead, to the more urgent
claims of the living.

The foregoing occurrences had struck a spark from the stern tempers of
a set of beings so singularly moulded in the habits of their
uncultivated lives, which served to keep alive among them the dying
embers of family affection. United to their parents by ties no stronger
than those which use had created, there had been great danger, as
Ishmael had foreseen, that the overloaded hive would swarm, and leave
him saddled with the difficulties of a young and helpless brood,
unsupported by the exertions of those, whom he had already brought to a
state of maturity. The spirit of insubordination, which emanated from
the unfortunate Asa, had spread among his juniors; and the squatter had
been made painfully to remember the time when, in the wantonness of his
youth and vigour, he had, reversing the order of the brutes, cast off
his own aged and failing parents, to enter into the world unshackled
and free. But the danger had now abated, for a time at least; and if
his authority was not restored with all its former influence, it was
admitted to exist, and to maintain its ascendency a little longer.

It is true that his slow-minded sons, even while they submitted to the
impressions of the recent event, had glimmerings of terrible distrusts,
as to the manner in which their elder brother had met with his death.
There were faint and indistinct images in the minds of two or three of
the oldest, which portrayed the father himself, as ready to imitate the
example of Abraham, without the justification of the sacred authority
which commanded the holy man to attempt the revolting office. But then,
these images were so transient, and so much obscured in intellectual
mists, as to leave no very strong impressions, and the tendency of the
whole transaction, as we have already said, was rather to strengthen
than to weaken the authority of Ishmael.

In this disposition of mind, the party continued their route towards
the place whence they had that morning issued on a search which had
been crowned with so melancholy a success. The long and fruitless march
which they had made under the direction of Abiram, the discovery of the
body, and its subsequent interment, had so far consumed the day, that
by the time their steps were retraced across the broad track of waste
which lay between the grave of Asa and the rock, the sun had fallen far
below his meridian altitude. The hill had gradually risen as they
approached, like some tower emerging from the bosom of the sea, and
when within a mile, the minuter objects that crowned its height came
dimly into view.

“It will be a sad meeting for the girls!” said Ishmael, who, from time
to time, did not cease to utter something which he intended should be
consolatory to the bruised spirit of his partner. “Asa was much
regarded by all the young; and seldom failed to bring in from his hunts
something that they loved.”

“He did, he did,” murmured Esther; “the boy was the pride of the
family. My other children are as nothing to him!”

“Say not so, good woman,” returned the father, glancing his eye a
little proudly at the athletic train which followed, at no great
distance, in the rear”. Say not so, old Eester, for few fathers and
mothers have greater reason to be boastful than ourselves.”

“Thankful, thankful,” muttered the humbled woman; “ye mean thankful,
Ishmael!”

“Then thankful let it be, if you like the word better, my good
girl,—but what has become of Nelly and the young? The child has
forgotten the charge I gave her, and has not only suffered the children
to sleep, but, I warrant you, is dreaming of the fields of Tennessee at
this very moment. The mind of your niece is mainly fixed on the
settlements, I reckon.”

“Ay, she is not for us; I said it, and thought it, when I took her,
because death had stripped her of all other friends. Death is a sad
worker in the bosom of families, Ishmael! Asa had a kind feeling to the
child, and they might have come one day into our places, had things
been so ordered.”

“Nay, she is not gifted for a frontier wife, if this is the manner she
is to keep house while the husband is on the hunt. Abner, let off your
rifle, that they may know we ar’ coming. I fear Nelly and the young ar’
asleep.” The young man complied with an alacrity that manifested how
gladly he would see the rounded, active figure of Ellen, enlivening the
ragged summit of the rock. But the report was succeeded by neither
signal nor answer of any sort. For a moment, the whole party stood in
suspense, awaiting the result, and then a simultaneous impulse caused
the whole to let off their pieces at the same instant, producing a
noise which might not fail to reach the ears of all within so short a
distance.

“Ah! there they come at last!” cried Abiram, who was usually among the
first to seize on any circumstance which promised relief from
disagreeable apprehensions.

“It is a petticoat fluttering on the line,” said Esther; “I put it
there myself.”

“You ar’ right; but now she comes; the jade has been taking her comfort
in the tent!”

“It is not so,” said Ishmael, whose usually inflexible features were
beginning to manifest the uneasiness he felt. “It is the tent itself
blowing about loosely in the wind. They have loosened the bottom, like
silly children as they ar’, and unless care is had, the whole will come
down!”

The words were scarcely uttered before a rushing blast of wind swept by
the spot where they stood, raising the dust in little eddies, in its
progress; and then, as if guided by a master hand, it quitted the
earth, and mounted to the precise spot on which all eyes were just then
riveted. The loosened linen felt its influence and tottered; but
regained its poise, and, for a moment, it became tranquil. The cloud of
leaves next played in circling revolutions around the place, and then
descended with the velocity of a swooping hawk, and sailed away into
the prairie in long straight lines, like a flight of swallows resting
on their expanded wings. They were followed for some distance by the
snow-white tent, which, however, soon fell behind the rock, leaving its
highest peak as naked as when it lay in the entire solitude of the
desert.

“The murderers have been here!” moaned Esther. “My babes! my babes!”

For a moment even Ishmael faltered before the weight of so unexpected a
blow. But shaking himself, like an awakened lion, he sprang forward,
and pushing aside the impediments of the barrier, as if they had been
feathers, he rushed up the ascent with an impetuosity which proved how
formidable a sluggish nature may become, when thoroughly aroused.




CHAPTER XIV


Whose party do the townsmen yet admit?
                   —King John.


In order to preserve an even pace between the incidents of the tale, it
becomes necessary to revert to such events as occurred during the ward
of Ellen Wade.

For the few first hours, the cares of the honest and warm-hearted girl
were confined to the simple offices of satisfying the often-repeated
demands which her younger associates made on her time and patience,
under the pretences of hunger, thirst, and all the other ceaseless
wants of captious and inconsiderate childhood. She had seized a moment
from their importunities to steal into the tent, where she was
administering to the comforts of one far more deserving of her
tenderness, when an outcry among the children recalled her to the
duties she had momentarily forgotten.

“See, Nelly, see!” exclaimed half a dozen eager voices; “yonder ar’
men; and Phoebe says that they ar’ Sioux-Indians!”

Ellen turned her eyes in the direction in which so many arms were
already extended, and, to her consternation, beheld several men,
advancing manifestly and swiftly in a straight line towards the rock.
She counted four, but was unable to make out any thing concerning their
characters, except that they were not any of those who of right were
entitled to admission into the fortress. It was a fearful moment for
Ellen. Looking around, at the juvenile and frightened flock that
pressed upon the skirts of her garments, she endeavoured to recall to
her confused faculties some one of the many tales of female heroism,
with which the history of the western frontier abounded. In one, a
stockade had been successfully defended by a single man, supported by
three or four women, for days, against the assaults of a hundred
enemies. In another, the women alone had been able to protect the
children, and the less valuable effects of their absent husbands; and a
third was not wanting, in which a solitary female had destroyed her
sleeping captors and given liberty not only to herself, but to a brood
of helpless young. This was the case most nearly assimilated to the
situation in which Ellen now found herself; and, with flushing cheeks
and kindling eyes, the girl began to consider, and to prepare her
slender means of defence.

She posted the larger girls at the little levers that were to cast the
rocks on the assailants, the smaller were to be used more for show than
any positive service they could perform, while, like any other leader,
she reserved her own person, as a superintendent and encourager of the
whole. When these dispositions were made, she endeavoured to await the
issue, with an air of composure, that she intended should inspire her
assistants with the confidence necessary to ensure success.

Although Ellen was vastly their superior in that spirit which emanates
from moral qualities, she was by no means the equal of the two eldest
daughters of Esther, in the important military property of
insensibility to danger. Reared in the hardihood of a migrating life,
on the skirts of society, where they had become familiarised to the
sights and dangers of the wilderness, these girls promised fairly to
become, at some future day, no less distinguished than their mother for
daring, and for that singular mixture of good and evil, which, in a
wider sphere of action, would probably have enabled the wife of the
squatter to enrol her name among the remarkable females of her time.
Esther had already, on one occasion, made good the log tenement of
Ishmael against an inroad of savages; and on another, she had been left
for dead by her enemies, after a defence that, with a more civilised
foe, would have entitled her to the honours of a liberal capitulation.
These facts, and sundry others of a similar nature, had often been
recapitulated with suitable exultation in the presence of her
daughters, and the bosoms of the young Amazons were now strangely
fluctuating between natural terror and the ambitious wish to do
something that might render them worthy of being the children of such a
mother. It appeared that the opportunity for distinction, of this wild
character, was no longer to be denied them.

The party of strangers was already within a hundred rods of the rock.
Either consulting their usual wary method of advancing, or admonished
by the threatening attitudes of two figures, who had thrust forth the
barrels of as many old muskets from behind the stone entrenchment, the
new comers halted, under favour of an inequality in the ground, where a
growth of grass thicker than common offered the advantage of
concealment. From this spot they reconnoitred the fortress for several
anxious, and to Ellen, interminable minutes. Then one advanced singly,
and apparently more in the character of a herald than of an assailant.

“Phoebe, do you fire,” and “no, Hetty, you,” were beginning to be heard
between the half-frightened and yet eager daughters of the squatter,
when Ellen probably saved the advancing stranger from some imminent
alarm, if from no greater danger, by exclaiming—

“Lay down the muskets; it is Dr. Battius!”

Her subordinates so far complied, as to withdraw their hands from the
locks, though the threatening barrels still maintained the portentous
levels. The naturalist, who had advanced with sufficient deliberation
to note the smallest hostile demonstration of the garrison, now raised
a white handkerchief on the end of his fusee, and came within speaking
distance of the fortress. Then, assuming what he intended should be an
imposing and dignified semblance of authority, he blustered forth, in a
voice that might have been heard at a much greater distance—

“What, ho! I summon ye all, in the name of the Confederacy of the
United Sovereign States of North America, to submit yourselves to the
laws.”

“Doctor or no Doctor; he is an enemy, Nelly; hear him! hear him! he
talks of the law.”

“Stop! stay till I hear his answer!” said the nearly breathless Ellen,
pushing aside the dangerous weapons which were again pointed in the
direction of the shrinking person of the herald.

“I admonish and forewarn ye all,” continued the startled Doctor, “that
I am a peaceful citizen of the before named Confederacy, or to speak
with greater accuracy, Union, a supporter of the Social Compact, and a
lover of good order and amity;” then, perceiving that the danger was,
at least, temporarily removed, he once more raised his voice to the
hostile pitch,—“I charge ye all, therefore, to submit to the laws.”

“I thought you were a friend,” Ellen replied; “and that you travelled
with my uncle, in virtue of an agreement—”

“It is void! I have been deceived in the very premises, and, I hereby
pronounce, a certain compactum, entered into and concluded between
Ishmael Bush, squatter, and Obed Battius, M.D., to be incontinently
null and of non-effect. Nay, children, to be null is merely a negative
property, and is fraught with no evil to your worthy parent; so lay
aside the fire-arms, and listen to the admonitions of reason. I declare
it vicious—null—abrogated. As for thee, Nelly, my feelings towards thee
are not at all given to hostility; therefore listen to that which I
have to utter, nor turn away thine ears in the wantonness of security.
Thou knowest the character of the man with whom thou dwellest, young
woman, and thou also knowest the danger of being found in evil company.
Abandon, then, the trifling advantages of thy situation, and yield the
rock peaceably to the will of those who accompany me—a legion, young
woman—I do assure you an invincible and powerful legion! Render,
therefore, the effects of this lawless and wicked squatter,—nay,
children, such disregard of human life, is frightful in those who have
so recently received the gift, in their own persons! Point those
dangerous weapons aside, I entreat of you; more for your own sakes,
than for mine. Hetty, hast thou forgotten who appeased thine anguish
when thy auricular nerves were tortured by the colds and damps of the
naked earth! and thou, Phoebe, ungrateful and forgetful Phoebe! but for
this very arm, which you would prostrate with an endless paralysis, thy
incisores would still be giving thee pain and sorrow! Lay, then, aside
thy weapons, and hearken to the advice of one who has always been thy
friend. And now, young woman,” still keeping a jealous eye on the
muskets which the girl had suffered to be diverted a little from their
aim,—“and now, young woman, for the last, and therefore the most solemn
asking: I demand of thee the surrender of this rock, without delay or
resistance, in the joint names of power, of justice, and of the—” law
he would have added; but recollecting that this ominous word would
again provoke the hostility of the squatter’s children, he succeeded in
swallowing it in good season, and concluded with the less dangerous and
more convertible term of “reason.”

This extraordinary summons failed, however, of producing the desired
effect. It proved utterly unintelligible to his younger listeners, with
the exception of the few offensive terms, already sufficiently
distinguished, and though Ellen better comprehended the meaning of the
herald, she appeared as little moved by his rhetoric as her companions.
At those passages which he intended should be tender and affecting, the
intelligent girl, though tortured by painful feelings, had even
manifested a disposition to laugh, while to the threats she turned an
utterly insensible ear.

“I know not the meaning of all you wish to say, Dr. Battius,” she
quietly replied, when he had ended; “but I am sure if it would teach me
to betray my trust, it is what I ought not to hear. I caution you to
attempt no violence, for let my wishes be what they may, you see I am
surrounded by a force that can easily put me down, and you know, or
ought to know, too well the temper of this family, to trifle in such a
matter with any of its members, let them be of what sex or age they
may.”

“I am not entirely ignorant of human character,” returned the
naturalist, prudently receding a little from the position, which he
had, until now, stoutly maintained at the very base of the hill. “But
here comes one who may know its secret windings still better than I.”

“Ellen! Ellen Wade,” cried Paul Hover, who had advanced to his elbow,
without betraying any of that sensitiveness which had so manifestly
discomposed the Doctor; “I didn’t expect to find an enemy in you!”

“Nor shall you, when you ask that, which I can grant without treachery.
You know that my uncle has trusted his family to my care, and shall I
so far betray the trust as to let in his bitterest enemies to murder
his children, perhaps, and to rob him of the little which the Indians
have left?”

“Am I a murderer—is this old man—this officer of the States,” pointing
to the trapper and his newly discovered friend, both of whom by this
time stood at his side, “is either of these likely to do the things you
name?”

“What is it then you ask of me?” said Ellen, wringing her hands, in
excessive doubt.

“The beast! nothing more nor less than the squatter’s hidden, ravenous,
dangerous beast!”

“Excellent young woman,” commenced the young stranger, who had so
lately joined himself to the party on the prairie—but his mouth was
immediately stopped by a significant sign from the trapper, who
whispered in his ear—

“Let the lad be our spokesman. Natur’ will work in the bosom of the
child, and we shall gain our object, in good time.”

“The whole truth is out, Ellen,” Paul continued, “and we have lined the
squatter into his most secret misdoings. We have come to right the
wronged and to free the imprisoned; now, if you are the girl of a true
heart, as I have always believed, so far from throwing straws in our
way, you will join in the general swarming, and leave old Ishmael and
his hive to the bees of his own breed.”

“I have sworn a solemn oath—”

“A compactum which is entered into through ignorance, or in duresse, is
null in the sight of all good moralists,” cried the Doctor.

“Hush, hush,” again the trapper whispered; “leave it all to natur’ and
the lad!”

“I have sworn in the sight and by the name of Him who is the founder
and ruler of all that is good, whether it be in morals or in religion,”
Ellen continued, “neither to reveal the contents of that tent, nor to
help its prisoner to escape. We are both solemnly, terribly, sworn; our
lives perhaps have been the gift we received for the promises. It is
true you are masters of the secret, but not through any means of ours;
nor do I know that I can justify myself, for even being neutral, while
you attempt to invade the dwelling of my uncle in this hostile manner.”

“I can prove beyond the power of refutation,” the naturalist eagerly
exclaimed, “by Paley, Berkeley, ay, even by the immortal Binkerschoek,
that a compactum, concluded while one of the parties, be it a state or
be it an individual, is in durance—”

“You will ruffle the temper of the child, with your abusive language,”
said the cautious trapper, “while the lad, if left to human feelings,
will bring her down to the meekness of a fawn. Ah! you are like myself,
little knowing in the natur’ of hidden kindnesses!”

“Is this the only vow you have taken, Ellen?” Paul continued in a tone
which, for the gay, light-hearted bee-hunter, sounded dolorous and
reproachful. “Have you sworn only to this? are the words which the
squatter says, to be as honey in your mouth, and all other promises
like so much useless comb?”

The paleness, which had taken possession of the usually cheerful
countenance of Ellen, was hid in a bright glow, that was plainly
visible even at the distance at which she stood. She hesitated a
moment, as if struggling to repress something very like resentment,
before she answered with all her native spirit—

“I know not what right any one has to question me about oaths and
promises, which can only concern her who has made them, if, indeed, any
of the sort you mention have ever been made at all. I shall hold no
further discourse with one who thinks so much of himself, and takes
advice merely of his own feelings.”

“Now, old trapper, do you hear that!” said the unsophisticated
bee-hunter, turning abruptly to his aged friend. “The meanest insect
that skims the heavens, when it has got its load, flies straight and
honestly to its nest or hive, according to its kind; but the ways of a
woman’s mind are as knotty as a gnarled oak, and more crooked than the
windings of the Mississippi!”

“Nay, nay, child,” said the trapper, good-naturedly interfering in
behalf of the offending Paul, “you are to consider that youth is hasty,
and not overgiven to thought. But then a promise is a promise, and not
to be thrown aside and forgotten, like the hoofs and horns of a
buffaloe.”

“I thank you for reminding me of my oath,” said the still resentful
Ellen, biting her pretty nether lip with vexation; “I might else have
proved forgetful!”

“Ah! female natur’ is awakened in her,” said the old man, shaking his
head in a manner to show how much he was disappointed in the result;
“but it manifests itself against the true spirit!”

“Ellen!” cried the young stranger, who until now had been an attentive
listener to the parley, “since Ellen is the name by which you are
known—”

“They often add to it another. I am sometimes called by the name of my
father.”

“Call her Nelly Wade at once,” muttered Paul; “it is her rightful name,
and I care not if she keeps it for ever!”

“Wade, I should have added,” continued the youth. “You will acknowledge
that, though bound by no oath myself, I at least have known how to
respect those of others. You are a witness yourself that I have
forborne to utter a single call, while I am certain it could reach
those ears it would gladden so much. Permit me then to ascend the rock,
singly; I promise a perfect indemnity to your kinsman, against any
injury his effects may sustain.”

Ellen seemed to hesitate, but catching a glimpse of Paul, who stood
leaning proudly on his rifle, whistling, with an appearance of the
utmost indifference, the air of a boating song, she recovered her
recollection in time to answer,—

“I have been left the captain of the rock, while my uncle and his sons
hunt, and captain will I remain till he returns to receive back the
charge.”

“This is wasting moments that will not soon return, and neglecting an
opportunity that may never occur again,” the young soldier gravely
remarked. “The sun is beginning to fall already, and many minutes
cannot elapse before the squatter and his savage brood will be
returning to their huts.”

Doctor Battius cast a glance behind him, and took up the discourse, by
saying—

“Perfection is always found in maturity, whether it be in the animal or
in the intellectual world. Reflection is the mother of wisdom, and
wisdom the parent of success. I propose that we retire to a discreet
distance from this impregnable position, and there hold a convocation,
or council, to deliberate on what manner we may sit down regularly
before the place; or, perhaps, by postponing the siege to another
season, gain the aid of auxiliaries from the inhabited countries, and
thus secure the dignity of the laws from any danger of a repulse.”

“A storm would be better,” the soldier smilingly answered, measuring
the height and scanning all its difficulties with a deliberate eye;
“’twould be but a broken arm or a bruised head at the worst.”

“Then have at it!” shouted the impetuous bee-hunter, making a spring
that at once put him out of danger from shot, by carrying him beneath
the projecting ledge on which the garrison was posted; “now do your
worst, young devils of a wicked breed; you have but a moment to work
your mischief!”

“Paul! rash Paul!” shrieked Ellen; “another step and the rocks will
crush you! they hang by but a thread, and these girls are ready and
willing to let them fall!”

“Then drive the accursed swarm from the hive; for scale the rock I
will, though I find it covered with hornets.”

“Let her if she dare!” tauntingly cried the eldest of the girls,
brandishing a musket with a mien and resolution that would have done
credit to her Amazonian dam. “I know you, Nelly Wade; you are with the
lawyers in your heart, and if you come a foot nigher, you shall have
frontier punishment. Put in another pry, girls; in with it! I should
like to see the man, of them all, that dare come up into the camp of
Ishmael Bush, without asking leave of his children!”

“Stir not, Paul; for your life keep beneath the rock!”

Ellen was interrupted by the same bright vision, which on the preceding
day had stayed another scarcely less portentous tumult, by exhibiting
itself on the same giddy height, where it was now seen.

“In the name of Him, who commandeth all, I implore you to pause—both
you, who so madly incur the risk, and you, who so rashly offer to take
that which you never can return!” said a voice, in a slightly foreign
accent, that instantly drew all eyes upward.

“Inez!” cried the officer, “do I again see you! mine shall you now be,
though a million devils were posted on this rock. Push up, brave
woodsman, and give room for another!”

The sudden appearance of the figure from the tent had created a
momentary stupor among the defendants of the rock, which might, with
suitable forbearance, have been happily improved; but startled by the
voice of Middleton, the surprised Phoebe discharged her musket at the
female, scarcely knowing whether she aimed at the life of a mortal or
at some being which belonged to another world. Ellen uttered a cry of
horror, and then sprang after her alarmed or wounded friend, she knew
not which, into the tent.

During this moment of dangerous by-play, the sounds of a serious attack
were very distinctly audible beneath. Paul had profited by the
commotion over his head to change his place so far, as to make room for
Middleton. The latter was followed by the naturalist, who, in a state
of mental aberration, produced by the report of the musket, had
instinctively rushed towards the rocks for cover. The trapper remained
where he was last seen, an unmoved but close observer of the several
proceedings. Though averse to enter into actual hostilities, the old
man was, however, far from being useless. Favoured by his position, he
was enabled to apprise his friends of the movements of those who
plotted their destruction above, and to advise and control their
advance accordingly.

In the mean time, the children of Esther were true to the spirit they
had inherited from their redoubtable mother. The instant they found
themselves delivered from the presence of Ellen and her unknown
companion, they bestowed an undivided attention on their more masculine
and certainly more dangerous assailants, who by this time had made a
complete lodgment among the crags of the citadel. The repeated summons
to surrender, which Paul uttered in a voice that he intended should
strike terror in their young bosoms, were as little heeded as were the
calls of the trapper to abandon a resistance, which might prove fatal
to some among them, without offering the smallest probability of
eventual success. Encouraging each other to persevere, they poised the
fragments of rocks, prepared the lighter missiles for immediate
service, and thrust forward the barrels of the muskets with a
business-like air, and a coolness, that would have done credit to men
practised in warfare.

“Keep under the ledge,” said the trapper, pointing out to Paul the
manner in which he should proceed; “keep in your foot more, lad—ah! you
see the warning was not amiss! had the stone struck it, the bees would
have had the prairies to themselves. Now, namesake of my friend; Uncas,
in name and spirit! now, if you have the activity of Le Cerf Agile, you
may make a far leap to the right, and gain twenty feet, without danger.
Beware the bush—beware the bush! ’twill prove a treacherous hold! Ah!
he has done it; safely and bravely has he done it! Your turn comes
next, friend; that follows the fruits of natur’. Push you to the left,
and divide the attention of the children. Nay, girls, fire,—my old ears
are used to the whistling of lead; and little reason have I to prove a
doe-heart, with fourscore years on my back.” He shook his head with a
melancholy smile, but without flinching in a muscle, as the bullet,
which the exasperated Hetty fired, passed innocently at no great
distance from the spot where he stood. “It is safer keeping in your
track than dodging when a weak finger pulls the trigger,” he continued
“but it is a solemn sight to witness how much human natur’ is inclined
to evil, in one so young! Well done, my man of beasts and plants!
Another such leap, and you may laugh at all the squatter’s bars and
walls. The Doctor has got his temper up! I see it in his eye, and
something good will come of him! Keep closer, man—keep closer.”

The trapper, though he was not deceived as to the state of Dr. Battius’
mind, was, however, greatly in error as to the exciting cause. While
imitating the movements of his companions, and toiling his way upward
with the utmost caution, and not without great inward tribulation, the
eye of the naturalist had caught a glimpse of an unknown plant, a few
yards above his head, and in a situation more than commonly exposed to
the missiles which the girls were unceasingly hurling in the direction
of the assailants. Forgetting, in an instant, every thing but the glory
of being the first to give this jewel to the catalogues of science, he
sprang upward at the prize with the avidity with which the sparrow
darts upon the butterfly. The rocks, which instantly came thundering
down, announced that he was seen; and for a moment, while his form was
concealed in the cloud of dust and fragments which followed the furious
descent, the trapper gave him up for lost; but the next instant he was
seen safely seated in a cavity formed by some of the projecting stones
which had yielded to the shock, holding triumphantly in his hand the
captured stem, which he was already devouring with delighted, and
certainly not unskilful, eyes. Paul profited by the opportunity.
Turning his course, with the quickness of thought, he sprang to the
post which Obed thus securely occupied, and unceremoniously making a
footstool of his shoulder, as the latter stooped over his treasure, he
bounded through the breach left by the fallen rock, and gained the
level. He was followed by Middleton, who joined him in seizing and
disarming the girls. In this manner a bloodless and complete victory
was obtained over that citadel which Ishmael had vainly flattered
himself might prove impregnable.




CHAPTER XV


So smile the heavens upon this holy act,
That after-hours with sorrow chide us not!
                   —Shakespeare.


It is proper that the course of the narrative should be stayed, while
we revert to those causes, which have brought in their train of
consequences, the singular contest just related. The interruption must
necessarily be as brief as we hope it may prove satisfactory to that
class of readers, who require that no gap should be left by those who
assume the office of historians, for their own fertile imaginations to
fill.

Among the troops sent by the government of the United States, to take
possession of its newly acquired territory in the west, was a
detachment led by a young soldier who has become so busy an actor in
the scenes of our legend. The mild and indolent descendants of the
ancient colonists received their new compatriots without distrust, well
knowing that the transfer raised them from the condition of subjects,
to the more enviable distinction of citizens in a government of laws.
The new rulers exercised their functions with discretion, and wielded
their delegated authority without offence. In such a novel
intermixture, however, of men born and nurtured in freedom, and the
compliant minions of absolute power, the catholic and the protestant,
the active and the indolent, some little time was necessary to blend
the discrepant elements of society. In attaining so desirable an end,
woman was made to perform her accustomed and grateful office. The
barriers of prejudice and religion were broken through by the
irresistible power of the master-passion, and family unions, ere long,
began to cement the political tie which had made a forced conjunction,
between people so opposite in their habits, their educations, and their
opinions.

Middleton was among the first, of the new possessors of the soil, who
became captive to the charms of a Louisianian lady. In the immediate
vicinity of the post he had been directed to occupy, dwelt the chief of
one of those ancient colonial families, which had been content to
slumber for ages amid the ease, indolence, and wealth of the Spanish
provinces. He was an officer of the crown, and had been induced to
remove from the Floridas, among the French of the adjoining province,
by a rich succession of which he had become the inheritor. The name of
Don Augustin de Certavallos was scarcely known beyond the limits of the
little town in which he resided, though he found a secret pleasure
himself in pointing it out, in large scrolls of musty documents, to an
only child, as enrolled among the former heroes and grandees of Old and
of New Spain. This fact, so important to himself and of so little
moment to any body else, was the principal reason, that while his more
vivacious Gallic neighbours were not slow to open a frank communion
with their visiters, he chose to keep aloof, seemingly content with the
society of his daughter, who was a girl just emerging from the
condition of childhood into that of a woman.

The curiosity of the youthful Inez, however, was not so inactive. She
had not heard the martial music of the garrison, melting on the evening
air, nor seen the strange banner, which fluttered over the heights that
rose at no great distance from her father’s extensive grounds, without
experiencing some of those secret impulses which are thought to
distinguish the sex. Natural timidity, and that retiring and perhaps
peculiar lassitude, which forms the very groundwork of female
fascination, in the tropical provinces of Spain, held her in their
seemingly indissoluble bonds; and it is more than probable, that had
not an accident occurred, in which Middleton was of some personal
service to her father, so long a time would have elapsed before they
met, that another direction might have been given to the wishes of one,
who was just of an age to be alive to all the power of youth and
beauty.

Providence—or if that imposing word is too just to be classical,
fate—had otherwise decreed. The haughty and reserved Don Augustin was
by far too observant of the forms of that station, on which he so much
valued himself, to forget the duties of a gentleman. Gratitude, for the
kindness of Middleton, induced him to open his doors to the officers of
the garrison, and to admit of a guarded but polite intercourse. Reserve
gradually gave way before the propriety and candour of their spirited
young leader, and it was not long ere the affluent planter rejoiced as
much as his daughter, whenever the well known signal, at the gate,
announced one of these agreeable visits from the commander of the post.

It is unnecessary to dwell on the impression which the charms of Inez
produced on the soldier, or to delay the tale in order to write a
wire-drawn account of the progressive influence that elegance of
deportment, manly beauty, and undivided assiduity and intelligence were
likely to produce on the sensitive mind of a romantic, warm-hearted,
and secluded girl of sixteen. It is sufficient for our purpose to say
that they loved, that the youth was not backward to declare his
feelings, that he prevailed with some facility over the scruples of the
maiden, and with no little difficulty over the objections of her
father, and that before the province of Louisiana had been six months
in the possession of the States, the officer of the latter was the
affianced husband of the richest heiress on the banks of the
Mississippi.

Although we have presumed the reader to be acquainted with the manner
in which such results are commonly attained, it is not to be supposed
that the triumph of Middleton, either over the prejudices of the father
or over those of the daughter, was achieved without difficulty.
Religion formed a stubborn and nearly irremovable obstacle with both.
The devoted man patiently submitted to a formidable essay, father
Ignatius was deputed to make in order to convert him to the true faith.
The effort on the part of the worthy priest was systematic, vigorous,
and long sustained. A dozen times (it was at those moments when
glimpses of the light, sylphlike form of Inez flitted like some fairy
being past the scene of their conferences) the good father fancied he
was on the eve of a glorious triumph over infidelity; but all his hopes
were frustrated by some unlooked-for opposition, on the part of the
subject of his pious labours. So long as the assault on his faith was
distant and feeble, Middleton, who was no great proficient in polemics,
submitted to its effects with the patience and humility of a martyr;
but the moment the good father, who felt such concern in his future
happiness, was tempted to improve his vantage ground by calling in the
aid of some of the peculiar subtilties of his own creed, the young man
was too good a soldier not to make head against the hot attack. He came
to the contest, it is true, with no weapons more formidable than common
sense, and some little knowledge of the habits of his country as
contrasted with that of his adversary; but with these homebred
implements he never failed to repulse the father with something of the
power with which a nervous cudgel player would deal with a skilful
master of the rapier, setting at nought his passados by the direct and
unanswerable arguments of a broken head and a shivered weapon.

Before the controversy was terminated, an inroad of Protestants had
come to aid the soldier. The reckless freedom of such among them, as
thought only of this life, and the consistent and tempered piety of
others, caused the honest priest to look about him in concern. The
influence of example on one hand, and the contamination of too free an
intercourse on the other, began to manifest themselves, even in that
portion of his own flock, which he had supposed to be too thoroughly
folded in spiritual government ever to stray. It was time to turn his
thoughts from the offensive, and to prepare his followers to resist the
lawless deluge of opinion, which threatened to break down the barriers
of their faith. Like a wise commander, who finds he has occupied too
much ground for the amount of his force, he began to curtail his
outworks. The relics were concealed from profane eyes; his people were
admonished not to speak of miracles before a race that not only denied
their existence, but who had even the desperate hardihood to challenge
their proofs; and even the Bible itself was prohibited, with terrible
denunciations, for the triumphant reason that it was liable to be
misinterpreted.

In the mean time, it became necessary to report to Don Augustin, the
effects his arguments and prayers had produced on the heretical
disposition of the young soldier. No man is prone to confess his
weakness, at the very moment when circumstances demand the utmost
efforts of his strength. By a species of pious fraud, for which no
doubt the worthy priest found his absolution in the purity of his
motives, he declared that, while no positive change was actually
wrought in the mind of Middleton, there was every reason to hope the
entering wedge of argument had been driven to its head, and that in
consequence an opening was left, through which, it might rationally be
hoped, the blessed seeds of a religious fructification would find their
way, especially if the subject was left uninterruptedly to enjoy the
advantage of catholic communion.

Don Augustin himself was now seized with the desire of proselyting.
Even the soft and amiable Inez thought it would be a glorious
consummation of her wishes, to be a humble instrument of bringing her
lover into the bosom of the true church. The offers of Middleton were
promptly accepted, and, while the father looked forward impatiently to
the day assigned for the nuptials, as to the pledge of his own success,
the daughter thought of it with feelings in which the holy emotions of
her faith were blended with the softer sensations of her years and
situation.

The sun rose, the morning of her nuptials, on a day so bright and
cloudless, that Inez hailed it as a harbinger of future happiness.
Father Ignatius performed the offices of the church, in a little chapel
attached to the estate of Don Augustin; and long ere the sun had begun
to fall, Middleton pressed the blushing and timid young Creole to his
bosom, his acknowledged and unalienable wife. It had pleased the
parties to pass the day of the wedding in retirement, dedicating it
solely to the best and purest affections, aloof from the noisy and
heartless rejoicings of a compelled festivity.

Middleton was returning through the grounds of Don Augustin, from a
visit of duty to his encampment, at that hour in which the light of the
sun begins to melt into the shadows of evening, when a glimpse of a
robe, similar to that in which Inez had accompanied him to the altar,
caught his eye through the foliage of a retired arbour. He approached
the spot, with a delicacy that was rather increased than diminished by
the claim she had perhaps given him to intrude on her private moments;
but the sounds of her soft voice, which was offering up prayers, in
which he heard himself named by the dearest of all appellations,
overcame his scruples, and induced him to take a position where he
might listen without the fear of detection. It was certainly grateful
to the feelings of a husband to be able in this manner to lay bare the
spotless soul of his wife, and to find that his own image lay enshrined
amid its purest and holiest aspirations. His self-esteem was too much
flattered not to induce him to overlook the immediate object of the
petitioner. While she prayed that she might become the humble
instrument of bringing him into the flock of the faithful, she
petitioned for forgiveness, on her own behalf, if presumption or
indifference to the counsel of the church had caused her to set too
high a value on her influence, and led her into the dangerous error of
hazarding her own soul by espousing a heretic. There was so much of
fervent piety, mingled with so strong a burst of natural feeling, so
much of the woman blended with the angel, in her prayers, that
Middleton could have forgiven her, had she termed him a Pagan, for the
sweetness and interest with which she petitioned in his favour.

The young man waited until his bride arose from her knees, and then he
joined her, as if entirely ignorant of what had occurred.

“It is getting late, my Inez,” he said, “and Don Augustin would be apt
to reproach you with inattention to your health, in being abroad at
such an hour. What then am I to do, who am charged with all his
authority, and twice his love?”

“Be like him in _everything_,” she answered, looking up in his face,
with tears in her eyes, and speaking with emphasis; “in every thing.
Imitate my father, Middleton, and I can ask no more of you.”

“Nor _for_ me, Inez? I doubt not that I should be all you can wish,
were I to become as good as the worthy and respectable Don Augustin.
But you are to make some allowances for the infirmities and habits of a
soldier. Now let us go and join this excellent father.”

“Not yet,” said his bride, gently extricating herself from the arm,
that he had thrown around her slight form, while he urged her from the
place. “I have still another duty to perform, before I can submit so
implicitly to your orders, soldier though you are. I promised the
worthy Inesella, my faithful nurse, she who, as you heard, has so long
been a mother to me, Middleton—I promised her a visit at this hour. It
is the last, as she thinks, that she can receive from her own child,
and I cannot disappoint her. Go you then to Don Augustin; in one short
hour I will rejoin you.”

“Remember it is but an hour!”

“One hour,” repeated Inez, as she kissed her hand to him; and then
blushing, ashamed at her own boldness, she darted from the arbour, and
was seen for an instant gliding towards the cottage of her nurse, in
which, at the next moment, she disappeared.

Middleton returned slowly and thoughtfully to the house, often bending
his eyes in the direction in which he had last seen his wife, as if he
would fain trace her lovely form, in the gloom of the evening, still
floating through the vacant space. Don Augustin received him with
warmth, and for many minutes his mind was amused by relating to his new
kinsman plans for the future. The exclusive old Spaniard listened to
his glowing but true account of the prosperity and happiness of those
States, of which he had been an ignorant neighbour half his life,
partly in wonder, and partly with that sort of incredulity with which
one attends to what he fancies are the exaggerated descriptions of a
too partial friendship.

In this manner the hour for which Inez had conditioned passed away,
much sooner than her husband could have thought possible, in her
absence. At length his looks began to wander to the clock, and then the
minutes were counted, as one rolled by after another and Inez did not
appear. The hand had already made half of another circuit, around the
face of the dial, when Middleton arose and announced his determination
to go and offer himself, as an escort to the absentee. He found the
night dark, and the heavens charged with threatening vapour, which in
that climate was the infallible forerunner of a gust. Stimulated no
less by the unpropitious aspect of the skies, than by his secret
uneasiness, he quickened his pace, making long and rapid strides in the
direction of the cottage of Inesella. Twenty times he stopped, fancying
that he caught glimpses of the fairy form of Inez, tripping across the
grounds, on her return to the mansion-house, and as often he was
obliged to resume his course, in disappointment. He reached the gate of
the cottage, knocked, opened the door, entered, and even stood in the
presence of the aged nurse, without meeting the person of her he
sought. She had already left the place, on her return to her father’s
house! Believing that he must have passed her in the darkness,
Middleton retraced his steps to meet with another disappointment. Inez
had not been seen. Without communicating his intention to any one, the
bridegroom proceeded with a palpitating heart to the little sequestered
arbour, where he had overheard his bride offering up those petitions
for his happiness and conversion. Here, too, he was disappointed; and
then all was afloat, in the painful incertitude of doubt and
conjecture.

For many hours, a secret distrust of the motives of his wife caused
Middleton to proceed in the search with delicacy and caution. But as
day dawned, without restoring her to the arms of her father or her
husband, reserve was thrown aside, and her unaccountable absence was
loudly proclaimed. The enquiries after the lost Inez were now direct
and open; but they proved equally fruitless. No one had seen her, or
heard of her, from the moment that she left the cottage of her nurse.

Day succeeded day, and still no tidings rewarded the search that was
immediately instituted, until she was finally given over, by most of
her relations and friends, as irretrievably lost.

An event of so extraordinary a character was not likely to be soon
forgotten. It excited speculation, gave rise to an infinity of rumours,
and not a few inventions. The prevalent opinion, among such of those
emigrants who were over-running the country, as had time, in the
multitude of their employments, to think of any foreign concerns, was
the simple and direct conclusion that the absent bride was no more nor
less than a _felo de se_. Father Ignatius had many doubts, and much
secret compunction of conscience; but, like a wise chief, he
endeavoured to turn the sad event to some account, in the impending
warfare of faith. Changing his battery, he whispered in the ears of a
few of his oldest parishioners, that he had been deceived in the state
of Middleton’s mind, which he was now compelled to believe was
completely stranded on the quicksands of heresy. He began to show his
relics again, and was even heard to allude once more to the delicate
and nearly forgotten subject of modern miracles. In consequence of
these demonstrations, on the part of the venerable priest, it came to
be whispered among the faithful, and finally it was adopted, as part of
the parish creed, that Inez had been translated to heaven.

Don Augustin had all the feelings of a father, but they were smothered
in the lassitude of a Creole. Like his spiritual governor, he began to
think that they had been wrong in consigning one so pure, so young, so
lovely, and above all so pious, to the arms of a heretic: and he was
fain to believe that the calamity, which had befallen his age, was a
judgment on his presumption and want of adherence to established forms.
It is true that, as the whispers of the congregation came to his ears,
he found present consolation in their belief; but then nature was too
powerful, and had too strong a hold of the old man’s heart, not to give
rise to the rebellious thought, that the succession of his daughter to
the heavenly inheritance was a little premature.

But Middleton, the lover, the husband, the bridegroom—Middleton was
nearly crushed by the weight of the unexpected and terrible blow.
Educated himself under the dominion of a simple and rational faith, in
which nothing is attempted to be concealed from the believers, he could
have no other apprehensions for the fate of Inez than such as grew out
of his knowledge of the superstitious opinions she entertained of his
own church. It is needless to dwell on the mental tortures that he
endured, or all the various surmises, hopes, and disappointments, that
he was fated to experience in the first few weeks of his misery. A
jealous distrust of the motives of Inez, and a secret, lingering, hope
that he should yet find her, had tempered his enquiries, without
however causing him to abandon them entirely. But time was beginning to
deprive him, even of the mortifying reflection that he was
intentionally, though perhaps temporarily, deserted, and he was
gradually yielding to the more painful conviction that she was dead,
when his hopes were suddenly revived, in a new and singular manner.

The young commander was slowly and sorrowfully returning from an
evening parade of his troops, to his own quarters, which stood at some
little distance from the place of the encampment, and on the same high
bluff of land, when his vacant eyes fell on the figure of a man, who by
the regulations of the place, was not entitled to be there, at that
forbidden hour. The stranger was meanly dressed, with every appearance
about his person and countenance, of squalid poverty and of the most
dissolute habits. Sorrow had softened the military pride of Middleton,
and, as he passed the crouching form of the intruder, he said, in tones
of great mildness, or rather of kindness—

“You will be given a night in the guard-house, friend, should the
patrol find you here;—there is a dollar,—go, and get a better place to
sleep in, and something to eat!”

“I swallow all my food, captain, without chewing,” returned the
vagabond, with the low exultation of an accomplished villain, as he
eagerly seized the silver. “Make this Mexican twenty, and I will sell
you a secret.”

“Go, go,” said the other with a little of a soldier’s severity,
returning to his manner. “Go, before I order the guard to seize you.”

“Well, go I will;—but if I do go, captain, I shall take my knowledge
with me; and then you may live a widower bewitched till the tattoo of
life is beat off.”

“What mean you, fellow?” exclaimed Middleton, turning quickly towards
the wretch, who was already dragging his diseased limbs from the place.

“I mean to have the value of this dollar in Spanish brandy, and then
come back and sell you my secret for enough to buy a barrel.”

“If you have any thing to say, speak now,” continued Middleton,
restraining with difficulty the impatience that urged him to betray his
feelings.

“I am a-dry, and I can never talk with elegance when my throat is
husky, captain. How much will you give to know what I can tell you; let
it be something handsome; such as one gentleman can offer to another.”

“I believe it would be better justice to order the drummer to pay you a
visit, fellow. To what does your boasted secret relate?”

“Matrimony; a wife and no wife; a pretty face and a rich bride: do I
speak plain, now, captain?”

“If you know any thing relating to my wife, say it at once; you need
not fear for your reward.”

“Ay, captain, I have drove many a bargain in my time, and sometimes I
have been paid in money, and sometimes I have been paid in promises;
now the last are what I call pinching food.”

“Name your price.”

“Twenty—no, damn it, it’s worth thirty dollars, if it’s worth a cent!”

“Here, then, is your money: but remember, if you tell me nothing worth
knowing, I have a force that can easily deprive you of it again, and
punish your insolence in the bargain.”

The fellow examined the bank-bills he received, with a jealous eye, and
then pocketed them, apparently well satisfied of their being genuine.

“I like a northern note,” he said very coolly; “they have a character
to lose like myself. No fear of me, captain; I am a man of honour, and
I shall not tell you a word more, nor a word less than I know of my own
knowledge to be true.”

“Proceed then without further delay, or I may repent, and order you to
be deprived of all your gains; the silver as well as the notes.”

“Honour, if you die for it!” returned the miscreant, holding up a hand
in affected horror at so treacherous a threat. “Well, captain, you must
know that gentlemen don’t all live by the same calling; some keep what
they’ve got, and some get what they can.”

“You have been a thief.”

“I scorn the word. I have been a humanity hunter. Do you know what that
means? Ay, it has many interpretations. Some people think the
woolly-heads are miserable, working on hot plantations under a broiling
sun—and all such sorts of inconveniences. Well, captain, I have been,
in my time, a man who has been willing to give them the pleasures of
variety, at least, by changing the scene for them. You understand me?”

“You are, in plain language, a kidnapper.”

“Have been, my worthy captain—have been; but just now a little reduced,
like a merchant who leaves off selling tobacco by the hogshead, to deal
in it by the yard. I have been a soldier, too, in my day. What is said
to be the great secret of our trade, can you tell me that?”

“I know not,” said Middleton, beginning to tire of the fellow’s
trifling: “courage?”

“No, legs—legs to fight with, and legs to run away with—and therein you
see my two callings agreed. My legs are none of the best just now, and
without legs a kidnapper would carry on a losing trade; but then there
are men enough left, better provided than I am.”

“Stolen!” groaned the horror-struck husband.

“On her travels, as sure as you are standing still!”

“Villain, what reason have you for believing a thing so shocking?”

“Hands off—hands off—do you think my tongue can do its work the better,
for a little squeezing of the throat! Have patience, and you shall know
it all; but if you treat me so ungenteelly again, I shall be obliged to
call in the assistance of the lawyers.”

“Say on; but if you utter a single word more or less than the truth,
expect instant vengeance!”

“Are you fool enough to believe what such a scoundrel as I am tells
you, captain, unless it has probability to back it? I know you are not:
therefore I will give my facts and my opinions, and then leave you to
chew on them, while I go and drink of your generosity. I know a man who
is called Abiram White.—I believe the knave took that name to show his
enmity to the race of blacks! But this gentleman is now, and has been
for years, to my certain knowledge, a regular translator of the human
body from one State to another. I have dealt with him in my time, and a
cheating dog he is! No more honour in him than meat in my stomach. I
saw him here in this very town, the day of your wedding. He was in
company with his wife’s brother, and pretended to be a settler on the
hunt for new land. A noble set they were, to carry on business—seven
sons, each of them as tall as your sergeant with his cap on. Well, the
moment I heard that your wife was lost, I saw at once that Abiram had
laid his hands on her.”

“Do you know this—can this be true? What reason have you to fancy a
thing so wild?”

“Reason enough; I know Abiram White. Now, will you add a trifle just to
keep my throat from parching?”

“Go, go; you are stupified with drink already, miserable man, and know
not what you say. Go; go, and beware the drummer.”

“Experience is a good guide”—the fellow called after the retiring
Middleton; and then turning with a chuckling laugh, like one well
satisfied with himself, he made the best of his way towards the shop of
the suttler.

A hundred times in the course of that night did Middleton fancy that
the communication of the miscreant was entitled to some attention, and
as often did he reject the idea as too wild and visionary for another
thought. He was awakened early on the following morning, after passing
a restless and nearly sleepless night, by his orderly, who came to
report that a man was found dead on the parade, at no great distance
from his quarters. Throwing on his clothes he proceeded to the spot,
and beheld the individual, with whom he had held the preceding
conference, in the precise situation in which he had first been found.

The miserable wretch had fallen a victim to his intemperance. This
revolting fact was sufficiently proclaimed by his obtruding eye-balls,
his bloated countenance, and the nearly insufferable odours that were
even then exhaling from his carcass. Disgusted with the odious
spectacle, the youth was turning from the sight, after ordering the
corpse to be removed, when the position of one of the dead man’s hands
struck him. On examination, he found the fore-finger extended, as if in
the act of writing in the sand, with the following incomplete sentence,
nearly illegible, but yet in a state to be deciphered: “Captain, it is
true, as I am a gentle—” He had either died, or fallen into a sleep,
the forerunner of his death, before the latter word was finished.

Concealing this fact from the others, Middleton repeated his orders and
departed. The pertinacity of the deceased, and all the circumstances
united, induced him to set on foot some secret enquiries. He found that
a family answering the description which had been given him, had in
fact passed the place the day of his nuptials. They were traced along
the margin of the Mississippi, for some distance, until they took boat
and ascended the river to its confluence with the Missouri. Here they
had disappeared like hundreds of others, in pursuit of the hidden
wealth of the interior.

Furnished with these facts, Middleton detailed a small guard of his
most trusty men, took leave of Don Augustin, without declaring his
hopes or his fears, and having arrived at the indicated point, he
pushed into the wilderness in pursuit. It was not difficult to trace a
train like that of Ishmael, until he was well assured its object lay
far beyond the usual limits of the settlements. This circumstance, in
itself, quickened his suspicions, and gave additional force to his
hopes of final success.

After getting beyond the assistance of verbal directions, the anxious
husband had recourse to the usual signs of a trail, in order to follow
the fugitives. This he also found a task of no difficulty, until he
reached the hard and unyielding soil of the rolling prairies. Here,
indeed, he was completely at fault. He found himself, at length,
compelled to divide his followers, appointing a place of rendezvous at
a distant day, and to endeavour to find the lost trail by multiplying,
as much as possible, the number of his eyes. He had been alone a week,
when accident brought him in contact with the trapper and the
bee-hunter. Part of their interview has been related, and the reader
can readily imagine the explanations that succeeded the tale he
recounted, and which led, as has already been seen, to the recovery of
his bride.




CHAPTER XVI


These likelihoods confirm her flight from hence,
Therefore, I pray you, stay not to discourse,
But mount you presently.
                   —Shakespeare.


An hour had slid by, in hasty and nearly incoherent questions and
answers, before Middleton, hanging over his recovered treasure with
that sort of jealous watchfulness with which a miser would regard his
hoards, closed the disjointed narrative of his own proceedings by
demanding—

“And you, my Inez; in what manner were you treated?”

“In every thing, but the great injustice they did in separating me so
forcibly from my friends, as well perhaps as the circumstances of my
captors would allow. I think the man, who is certainly the master here,
is but a new beginner in wickedness. He quarrelled frightfully in my
presence, with the wretch who seized me, and then they made an impious
bargain, to which I was compelled to acquiesce, and to which they bound
me as well as themselves by oaths. Ah! Middleton, I fear the heretics
are not so heedful of their vows as we who are nurtured in the bosom of
the true church!”

“Believe it not; these villains are of no religion: did they forswear
themselves?”

“No, not perjured: but was it not awful to call upon the good God to
witness so sinful a compact?”

“And so we think, Inez, as truly as the most virtuous cardinal of Rome.
But how did they observe their oath, and what was its purport?”

“They conditioned to leave me unmolested, and free from their odious
presence, provided I would give a pledge to make no effort to escape;
and that I would not even show myself, until a time that my masters saw
fit to name.”

“And that time?” demanded the impatient Middleton, who so well knew the
religious scruples of his wife—“that time?”

“It is already passed. I was sworn by my patron saint, and faithfully
did I keep the vow, until the man they call Ishmael forgot the terms by
offering violence. I then made my appearance on the rock, for the time
too was passed; though I even think father Ignatius would have absolved
me from the vow, on account of the treachery of my keepers.”

“If he had not,” muttered the youth between his compressed teeth, “I
would have absolved him for ever from his spiritual care of your
conscience!”

“You, Middleton!” returned his wife looking up into his flushed face,
while a bright blush suffused her own sweet countenance; “you may
receive my vows, but surely you can have no power to absolve me from
their observance!”

“No, no, no. Inez, you are right. I know but little of these
conscientious subtilties, and I am any thing but a priest: yet tell me,
what has induced these monsters to play this desperate game—to trifle
thus with my happiness?”

“You know my ignorance of the world, and how ill I am qualified to
furnish reasons for the conduct of beings so different from any I have
ever seen before. But does not love of money drive men to acts even
worse than this? I believe they thought that an aged and wealthy father
could be tempted to pay them a rich ransom for his child; and,
perhaps,” she added, stealing an enquiring glance through her tears, at
the attentive Middleton, “they counted something on the fresh
affections of a bridegroom.”

“They might have extracted the blood from my heart, drop by drop!”

“Yes,” resumed his young and timid wife, instantly withdrawing the
stolen look she had hazarded, and hurriedly pursuing the train of the
discourse, as if glad to make him forget the liberty she had just
taken, “I have been told, there are men so base as to perjure
themselves at the altar, in order to command the gold of ignorant and
confiding girls; and if love of money will lead to such baseness, we
may surely expect it will hurry those, who devote themselves to gain,
into acts of lesser fraud.”

“It must be so; and now, Inez, though I am here to guard you with my
life, and we are in possession of this rock, our difficulties, perhaps
our dangers, are not ended. You will summon all your courage to meet
the trial and prove yourself a soldier’s wife, my Inez?”

“I am ready to depart this instant. The letter you sent by the
physician, had prepared me to hope for the best, and I have every thing
arranged for flight, at the shortest warning.”

“Let us then leave this place and join our friends.”

“Friends!” interrupted Inez, glancing her eyes around the little tent
in quest of the form of Ellen. “I, too, have a friend who must not be
forgotten, but who is pledged to pass the remainder of her life with
us. She is gone!”

Middleton gently led her from the spot, as he smilingly answered—

“She may have had, like myself, her own private communications for some
favoured ear.”

The young man had not however done justice to the motives of Ellen
Wade. The sensitive and intelligent girl had readily perceived how
little her presence was necessary in the interview that has just been
related, and had retired with that intuitive delicacy of feeling which
seems to belong more properly to her sex. She was now to be seen seated
on a point of the rock, with her person so entirely enveloped in her
dress as to conceal her features. Here she had remained for near an
hour, no one approaching to address her, and as it appeared to her own
quick and jealous eyes, totally unobserved. In the latter particular,
however, even the vigilance of the quick-sighted Ellen was deceived.

The first act of Paul Hover, on finding himself the master of Ishmael’s
citadel, had been to sound the note of victory, after the quaint and
ludicrous manner that is so often practised among the borderers of the
West. Flapping his sides with his hands, as the conquering game-cock is
wont to do with his wings, he raised a loud and laughable imitation of
the exultation of this bird; a cry which might have proved a dangerous
challenge had any one of the athletic sons of the squatter been within
hearing.

“This has been a regular knock-down and drag-out,” he cried, “and no
bones broke! How now, old trapper, you have been one of your training,
platoon, rank and file soldiers in your day, and have seen forts taken
and batteries stormed before this—am I right?”

“Ay, ay, that have I,” answered the old man, who still maintained his
post at the foot of the rock, so little disturbed by what he had just
witnessed, as to return the grin of Paul, with a hearty indulgence in
his own silent and peculiar laughter; “you have gone through the
exploit like men!”

“Now tell me, is it not in rule, to call over the names of the living,
and to bury the dead, after every bloody battle?”

“Some did and other some didn’t. When Sir William push’d the German,
Dieskau, thro’ the defiles at the foot of the Hori—”

“Your Sir William was a drone to Sir Paul, and knew nothing of
regularity. So here begins the roll-call—by the by, old man, what
between bee-hunting and buffaloe humps, and certain other matters, I
have been too busy to ask your name; for I intend to begin with my
rear-guard, well knowing that my man in front is too busy to answer.”

“Lord, lad, I’ve been called in my time by as many names as there are
people among whom I’ve dwelt. Now the Delawares nam’d me for my eyes,
and I was called after the far-sighted hawk. Then, ag’in, the settlers
in the Otsego hills christened me anew, from the fashion of my
leggings; and various have been the names by which I have gone through
life; but little will it matter when the time shall come, that all are
to be muster’d, face to face, by what titles a mortal has played his
part! I humbly trust I shall be able to answer to any of mine, in a
loud and manly voice.”

Paul paid little or no attention to this reply, more than half of which
was lost in the distance, but pursuing the humour of the moment, he
called out in a stentorian voice to the naturalist to answer to his
name. Dr. Battius had not thought it necessary to push his success
beyond the comfortable niche, which accident had so opportunely formed
for his protection, and in which he now reposed from his labours, with
a pleasing consciousness of security, added to great exultation at the
possession of the botanical treasure already mentioned.

“Mount, mount, my worthy mole-catcher! come and behold the prospect of
skirting Ishmael; come and look nature boldly in the face, and not go
sneaking any longer, among the prairie grass and mullein tops, like a
gobbler nibbling for grasshoppers.”

The mouth of the light-hearted and reckless bee-hunter was instantly
closed, and he was rendered as mute, as he had just been boisterous and
talkative, by the appearance of Ellen Wade. When the melancholy maiden
took her seat on the point of the rock as mentioned, Paul affected to
employ himself in conducting a close inspection of the household
effects of the squatter. He rummaged the drawers of Esther with no
delicate hands, scattered the rustic finery of her girls on the ground,
without the least deference to its quality or elegance, and tossed her
pots and kettles here and there, as though they had been vessels of
wood instead of iron. All this industry was, however, manifestly
without an object. He reserved nothing for himself, not even appearing
conscious of the nature of the articles which suffered by his
familiarity. When he had examined the inside of every cabin, taken a
fresh survey of the spot where he had confined the children, and where
he had thoroughly secured them with cords, and kicked one of the pails
of the woman, like a foot-ball, fifty feet into the air, in sheer
wantonness, he returned to the edge of the rock, and thrusting both his
hands through his wampum belt, he began to whistle the “Kentucky
Hunters” as diligently as if he had been hired to supply his auditors
with music by the hour. In this manner passed the remainder of the
time, until Middleton, as has been related, led Inez forth from the
tent, and gave a new direction to the thoughts of the whole party. He
summoned Paul from his flourish of music, tore the Doctor from the
study of his plant, and, as acknowledged leader, gave the necessary
orders for immediate departure.

In the bustle and confusion that were likely to succeed such a mandate,
there was little opportunity to indulge in complaints or reflections.
As the adventurers had not come unprepared for victory, each individual
employed himself in such offices as were best adapted to his strength
and situation. The trapper had already made himself master of the
patient Asinus, who was quietly feeding at no great distance from the
rock, and he was now busy in fitting his back with the complicated
machinery that Dr. Battius saw fit to term a saddle of his own
invention. The naturalist himself seized upon his portfolios, herbals,
and collection of insects, which he quickly transferred from the
encampment of the squatter, to certain pockets in the aforesaid
ingenious invention, and which the trapper as uniformly cast away the
moment his back was turned. Paul showed his dexterity in removing such
light articles as Inez and Ellen had prepared for their flight to the
foot of the citadel, while Middleton, after mingling threats and
promises, in order to induce the children to remain quietly in their
bondage, assisted the females to descend. As time began to press upon
them, and there was great danger of Ishmael’s returning, these several
movements were made with singular industry and despatch.

The trapper bestowed such articles as he conceived were necessary to
the comfort of the weaker and more delicate members of the party, in
those pockets from which he had so unceremoniously expelled the
treasures of the unconscious naturalist, and then gave way for
Middleton to place Inez in one of those seats which he had prepared on
the back of the animal for her and her companion.

“Go, child,” the old man said, motioning to Ellen to follow the example
of the lady, and turning his head a little anxiously to examine the
waste behind him. “It cannot be long afore the owner of this place will
be coming to look after his household; and he is not a man to give up
his property, however obtained, without complaint!”

“It is true,” cried Middleton; “we have wasted moments that are
precious, and have the utmost need of industry.”

“Ay, ay, I thought it; and would have said it, captain; but I
remembered how your grand’ther used to love to look upon the face of
her he led away for a wife, in the days of his youth and his happiness.
’Tis natur’, ’tis natur’, and ’tis wiser to give way a little before
its feelings, than to try to stop a current that will have its course.”

Ellen advanced to the side of the beast, and seizing Inez by the hand,
she said, with heartfelt warmth, after struggling to suppress an
emotion that nearly choked her—

“God bless you, sweet lady! I hope you will forget and forgive the
wrongs you have received from my uncle—”

The humbled and sorrowful girl could say no more, her voice becoming
entirely inaudible in an ungovernable burst of grief.

“How is this?” cried Middleton; “did you not say, Inez, that this
excellent young woman was to accompany us, and to live with us for the
remainder of her life; or, at least, until she found some more
agreeable residence for herself?”

“I did; and I still hope it. She has always given me reason to believe,
that after having shown so much commiseration and friendship in my
misery, she would not desert me, should happier times return.”

“I cannot—I ought not,” continued Ellen, getting the better of her
momentary weakness. “It has pleased God to cast my lot among these
people, and I ought not to quit them. It would be adding the appearance
of treachery to what will already seem bad enough, with one of his
opinions. He has been kind to me, an orphan, after his rough customs,
and I cannot steal from him at such a moment.”

“She is just as much a relation of skirting Ishmael as I am a bishop!”
said Paul, with a loud hem, as if his throat wanted clearing. “If the
old fellow has done the honest thing by her, in giving her a morsel of
venison now and then, or a spoon around his homminy dish, hasn’t she
pay’d him in teaching the young devils to read their Bible, or in
helping old Esther to put her finery in shape and fashion. Tell me that
a drone has a sting, and I’ll believe you as easily as I will that this
young woman is a debtor to any of the tribe of Bush!”

“It is but little matter who owes me, or where I am in debt. There are
none to care for a girl who is fatherless and motherless, and whose
nearest kin are the offcasts of all honest people. No, no; go, lady,
and Heaven for ever bless you! I am better here, in this desert, where
there are none to know my shame.”

“Now, old trapper,” retorted Paul, “this is what I call knowing which
way the wind blows! You ar’ a man that has seen life, and you know
something of fashions; I put it to your judgment, plainly, isn’t it in
the nature of things for the hive to swarm when the young get their
growth, and if children will quit their parents, ought one who is of no
kith or kin—”

“Hist!” interrupted the man he addressed, “Hector is discontented. Say
it out, plainly, pup; what is it dog—what is it?”

The venerable hound had risen, and was scenting the fresh breeze which
continued to sweep heavily over the prairie. At the words of his master
he growled and contracted the muscles of his lips, as if half disposed
to threaten with the remnants of his teeth. The younger dog, who was
resting after the chase of the morning, also made some signs that his
nose detected a taint in the air, and then the two resumed their
slumbers, as if they had done enough.

The trapper seized the bridle of the ass, and cried, urging the beast
onward—

“There is no time for words. The squatter and his brood are within a
mile or two of this blessed spot!”

Middleton lost all recollection of Ellen, in the danger which now so
eminently beset his recovered bride; nor is it necessary to add, that
Dr. Battius did not wait for a second admonition to commence his
retreat.

Following the route indicated by the old man, they turned the rock in a
body, and pursued their way as fast as possible across the prairie,
under the favour of the cover it afforded.

Paul Hover, however, remained in his tracks, sullenly leaning on his
rifle. Near a minute had elapsed before he was observed by Ellen, who
had buried her face in her hands, to conceal her fancied desolation
from herself.

“Why do you not fly?” the weeping girl exclaimed, the instant she
perceived she was not alone.

“I’m not used to it.”

“My uncle will soon be here! you have nothing to hope from his pity.”

“Nor from that of his niece, I reckon. Let him come; he can only knock
me on the head!”

“Paul, Paul, if you love me, fly.”

“Alone!—if I do, may I be—”

“If you value your life, fly!”

“I value it not, compared to you.”

“Paul!”

“Ellen!”

She extended both her hands and burst into another and a still more
violent flood of tears. The bee-hunter put one of his sturdy arms
around her waist, and in another moment he was urging her over the
plain, in rapid pursuit of their flying friends.




CHAPTER XVII


Approach the chamber, and destroy your sight
With a new Gorgon—Do not bid me speak;
See, and then speak yourselves.
                   —Shakespeare.


The little run, which supplied the family of the squatter with water,
and nourished the trees and bushes that grew near the base of the rocky
eminence, took its rise at no great distance from the latter, in a
small thicket of cotton-wood and vines. Hither, then, the trapper
directed the flight, as to the place affording the only available cover
in so pressing an emergency. It will be remembered, that the sagacity
of the old man, which, from long practice in similar scenes, amounted
nearly to an instinct in all cases of sudden danger, had first induced
him to take this course, as it placed the hill between them and the
approaching party. Favoured by this circumstance, he succeeded in
reaching the bushes in sufficient time and Paul Hover had just hurried
the breathless Ellen into the tangled bush, as Ishmael gained the
summit of the rock, in the manner already described, where he stood
like a man momentarily bereft of sense, gazing at the confusion which
had been created among his chattels, or at his gagged and bound
children, who had been safely bestowed, by the forethought of the
bee-hunter, under the cover of a bark roof, in a sort of irregular
pile. A long rifle would have thrown a bullet from the height, on which
the squatter now stood, into the very cover where the fugitives, who
had wrought all this mischief, were clustered.

The trapper was the first to speak, as the man on whose intelligence
and experience they all depended for counsel, after running his eye
over the different individuals who gathered about him, in order to see
that none were missing.

“Ah! natur’ is natur’, and has done its work!” he said, nodding to the
exulting Paul, with a smile of approbation. “I thought it would be hard
for those, who had so often met in fair and foul, by starlight and
under the clouded moon, to part at last in anger. Now is there little
time to lose in talk, and every thing to gain by industry! It cannot be
long afore some of yonder brood will be nosing along the ’arth for our
trail, and should they find it, as find it they surely will, and should
they push us to a stand on our courage, the dispute must be settled
with the rifle; which may He in heaven forbid! Captain, can you lead us
to the place where any of your warriors lie?—For the stout sons of the
squatter will make a manly brush of it, or I am but little of a judge
in warlike dispositions!”

“The place of rendezvous is many leagues from this, on the banks of La
Platte.”

“It is bad—it is bad. If fighting is to be done, it is always wise to
enter on it on equal terms. But what has one so near his time to do
with ill-blood and hot-blood at his heart! Listen to what a grey head
and some experience have to offer, and then if any among you can point
out a wiser fashion for a retreat, we can just follow his design, and
forget that I have spoken. This thicket stretches for near a mile as it
may be slanting from the rock, and leads towards the sunset instead of
the settlements.”

“Enough, enough,” cried Middleton, too impatient to wait until the
deliberative and perhaps loquacious old man could end his minute
explanation. “Time is too precious for words. Let us fly.”

The trapper made a gesture of compliance, and turning in his tracks, he
led Asinus across the trembling earth of the swale, and quickly emerged
on the hard ground, on the side opposite to the encampment of the
squatter.

“If old Ishmael gets a squint at that highway through the brush,” cried
Paul, casting, as he left the place, a hasty glance at the broad trail
the party had made through the thicket, “he’ll need no finger-board to
tell him which way his road lies. But let him follow! I know the
vagabond would gladly cross his breed with a little honest blood, but
if any son of his ever gets to be the husband of—”

“Hush, Paul, hush,” said the terrified young woman, who leaned on his
arm for support; “your voice might be heard.”

The bee-hunter was silent, though he did not cease to cast ominous
looks behind him, as they flew along the edge of the run, which
sufficiently betrayed the belligerent condition of his mind. As each
one was busy for himself, but a few minutes elapsed before the party
rose a swell of the prairie, and descending without a moment’s delay on
the opposite side, they were at once removed from every danger of being
seen by the sons of Ishmael, unless the pursuers should happen to fall
upon their trail. The old man now profited by the formation of the land
to take another direction, with a view to elude pursuit, as a vessel
changes her course in fogs and darkness, to escape from the vigilance
of her enemies.

Two hours, passed in the utmost diligence, enabled them to make a half
circuit around the rock, and to reach a point that was exactly opposite
to the original direction of their flight. To most of the fugitives
their situation was as entirely unknown as is that of a ship in the
middle of the ocean to the uninstructed voyager: but the old man
proceeded at every turn, and through every bottom, with a decision that
inspired his followers with confidence, as it spoke favourably of his
own knowledge of the localities. His hound, stopping now and then to
catch the expression of his eye, had preceded the trapper throughout
the whole distance, with as much certainty as though a previous and
intelligible communion between them had established the route by which
they were to proceed. But, at the expiration of the time just named,
the dog suddenly came to a stand, and then seating himself on the
prairie, he snuffed the air a moment, and began a low and piteous
whining.

“Ay—pup—ay. I know the spot—I know the spot, and reason there is to
remember it well!” said the old man, stopping by the side of his uneasy
associate, until those who followed had time to come up. “Now, yonder,
is a thicket before us,” he continued, pointing forward, “where we may
lie till tall trees grow on these naked fields, afore any of the
squatter’s kin will venture to molest us.”

“This is the spot, where the body of the dead man lay!” cried
Middleton, examining the place with an eye that revolted at the
recollection.

“The very same. But whether his friends have put him in the bosom of
the ground or not, remains to be seen. The hound knows the scent, but
seems to be a little at a loss, too. It is therefore necessary that you
advance, friend bee-hunter, to examine, while I tarry to keep the dogs
from complaining in too loud a voice.”

“I!” exclaimed Paul, thrusting his hand into his shaggy locks, like one
who thought it prudent to hesitate before he undertook so formidable an
adventure; “now, heark’ee, old trapper; I’ve stood in my thinnest
cottons in the midst of many a swarm that has lost its queen-bee,
without winking, and let me tell you, the man who can do that, is not
likely to fear any living son of skirting Ishmael; but as to meddling
with dead men’s bones, why it is neither my calling nor my inclination;
so, after thanking you for the favour of your choice, as they say, when
they make a man a corporal in Kentucky, I decline serving.”

The old man turned a disappointed look towards Middleton, who was too
much occupied in solacing Inez to observe his embarrassment, which was,
however, suddenly relieved from a quarter, whence, from previous
circumstances, there was little reason to expect such a demonstration
of fortitude.

Doctor Battius had rendered himself a little remarkable throughout the
whole of the preceding retreat, for the exceeding diligence with which
he had laboured to effect that desirable object. So very conspicuous
was his zeal, indeed, as to have entirely gotten the better of all his
ordinary predilections. The worthy naturalist belonged to that species
of discoverers, who make the worst possible travelling companions to a
man who has reason to be in a hurry. No stone, no bush, no plant is
ever suffered to escape the examination of their vigilant eyes, and
thunder may mutter, and rain fall, without disturbing the abstraction
of their reveries. Not so, however, with the disciple of Linnaeus,
during the momentous period that it remained a mooted point at the
tribunal of his better judgment, whether the stout descendants of the
squatter were not likely to dispute his right to traverse the prairie
in freedom. The highest blooded and best trained hound, with his game
in view, could not have run with an eye more riveted than that with
which the Doctor had pursued his curvilinear course. It was perhaps
lucky for his fortitude that he was ignorant of the artifice of the
trapper in leading them around the citadel of Ishmael, and that he had
imbibed the soothing impression that every inch of prairie he traversed
was just so much added to the distance between his own person and the
detested rock. Notwithstanding the momentary shock he certainly
experienced, when he discovered this error, he now boldly volunteered
to enter the thicket in which there was some reason to believe the body
of the murdered Asa still lay. Perhaps the naturalist was urged to show
his spirit, on this occasion, by some secret consciousness that his
excessive industry in the retreat might be liable to misconstruction;
and it is certain that, whatever might be his peculiar notions of
danger from the quick, his habits and his knowledge had placed him far
above the apprehension of suffering harm from any communication with
the dead.

“If there is any service to be performed, which requires the perfect
command of the nervous system,” said the man of science, with a look
that was slightly blustering, “you have only to give a direction to his
intellectual faculties, and here stands one on whose physical powers
you may depend.”

“The man is given to speak in parables,” muttered the single-minded
trapper; “but I conclude there is always some meaning hidden in his
words, though it is as hard to find sense in his speeches, as to
discover three eagles on the same tree. It will be wise, friend, to
make a cover, lest the sons of the squatter should be out skirting on
our trail, and, as you well know, there is some reason to fear yonder
thicket contains a sight that may horrify a woman’s mind. Are you man
enough to look death in the face; or shall I run the risk of the hounds
raising an outcry, and go in myself? You see the pup is willing to run
with an open mouth, already.”

“Am I man enough! Venerable trapper, our communications have a recent
origin, or thy interrogatory might have a tendency to embroil us in
angry disputation. Am I man enough! I claim to be of the class,
mammalia; order, primates; genus, homo! Such are my physical
attributes; of my moral properties, let posterity speak; it becomes me
to be mute.”

“Physic may do for such as relish it; to my taste and judgment it is
neither palatable nor healthy; but morals never did harm to any living
mortal, be it that he was a sojourner in the forest, or a dweller in
the midst of glazed windows and smoking chimneys. It is only a few hard
words that divide us, friend; for I am of an opinion that, with use and
freedom, we should come to understand one another, and mainly settle
down into the same judgments of mankind, and of the ways of world.
Quiet, Hector, quiet; what ruffles your temper, pup; is it not used to
the scent of human blood?”

The Doctor bestowed a gracious but commiserating smile on the
philosopher of nature, as he retrograded a step or two from the place
whither he had been impelled by his excess of spirit, in order to reply
with less expenditure of breath, and with a greater freedom of air and
attitude.

“A homo is certainly a homo,” he said, stretching forth an arm in an
argumentative manner; “so far as the animal functions extend, there are
the connecting links of harmony, order, conformity, and design, between
the whole genus; but there the resemblance ends. Man may be degraded to
the very margin of the line which separates him from the brute, by
ignorance; or he may be elevated to a communion with the great
Master-spirit of all, by knowledge; nay, I know not, if time and
opportunity were given him, but he might become the master of all
learning, and consequently equal to the great moving principle.”

The old man, who stood leaning on his rifle in a thoughtful attitude,
shook his head, as he answered with a native steadiness, that entirely
eclipsed the imposing air which his antagonist had seen fit to assume—

“This is neither more nor less than mortal wickedness! Here have I been
a dweller on the earth for four-score and six changes of the seasons,
and all that time have I look’d at the growing and the dying trees, and
yet do I not know the reasons why the bud starts under the summer sun,
or the leaf falls when it is pinch’d by the frosts. Your l’arning,
though it is man’s boast, is folly in the eyes of Him, who sits in the
clouds, and looks down, in sorrow, at the pride and vanity of his
creatur’s. Many is the hour that I’ve passed, lying in the shades of
the woods, or stretch’d upon the hills of these open fields, looking up
into the blue skies, where I could fancy the Great One had taken his
stand, and was solemnising on the waywardness of man and brute, below,
as I myself had often look’d at the ants tumbling over each other in
their eagerness, though in a way and a fashion more suited to His
mightiness and power. Knowledge! It is his plaything. Say, you who
think it so easy to climb into the judgment-seat above, can you tell me
any thing of the beginning and the end? Nay, you’re a dealer in ailings
and cures: what is life, and what is death? Why does the eagle live so
long, and why is the time of the butterfly so short? Tell me a simpler
thing: why is this hound so uneasy, while you, who have passed your
days in looking into books, can see no reason to be disturbed?”

The Doctor, who had been a little astounded by the dignity and energy
of the old man, drew a long breath, like a sullen wrestler who is just
released from the throttling grasp of his antagonist, and seized on the
opportunity of the pause to reply—

“It is his instinct.”

“And what is the gift of instinct?”

“An inferior gradation of reason. A sort of mysterious combination of
thought and matter.”

“And what is that which you call thought?”

“Venerable venator, this is a method of reasoning which sets at nought
the uses of definitions, and such as I do assure you is not at all
tolerated in the schools.”

“Then is there more cunning in your schools than I had thought, for it
is a certain method of showing them their vanity,” returned the
trapper, suddenly abandoning a discussion, from which the naturalist
was just beginning to anticipate great delight, by turning to his dog,
whose restlessness he attempted to appease by playing with his ears.
“This is foolish, Hector; more like an untrained pup than a sensible
hound; one who has got his education by hard experience, and not by
nosing over the trails of other dogs, as a boy in the settlements
follows on the track of his masters, be it right or be it wrong. Well,
friend; you who can do so much, are you equal to looking into the
thicket? or must I go in myself?”

The Doctor again assumed his air of resolution, and, without further
parlance, proceeded to do as desired. The dogs were so far restrained,
by the remonstrances of the old man, as to confine their noise to low
but often-repeated whinings. When they saw the naturalist advance, the
pup, however, broke through all restraint, and made a swift circuit
around his person, scenting the earth as he proceeded, and then,
returning to his companion, he howled aloud.

“The squatter and his brood have left a strong scent on the earth,”
said the old man, watching as he spoke for some signal from his learned
pioneer to follow; “I hope yonder school-bred man knows enough to
remember the errand on which I have sent him.”

Doctor Battius had already disappeared in the bushes and the trapper
was beginning to betray additional evidences of impatience, when the
person of the former was seen retiring from the thicket backwards, with
his face fastened on the place he had just left, as if his look was
bound in the thraldom of some charm.

“Here is something skeery, by the wildness of the creatur’s
countenance!” exclaimed the old man relinquishing his hold of Hector,
and moving stoutly to the side of the totally unconscious naturalist.
“How is it, friend; have you found a new leaf in your book of wisdom?”

“It is a basilisk!” muttered the Doctor, whose altered visage betrayed
the utter confusion which beset his faculties. “An animal of the order,
serpens. I had thought its attributes were fabulous, but mighty nature
is equal to all that man can imagine!”

“What is’t? what is’t? The snakes of the prairies are harmless, unless
it be now and then an angered rattler and he always gives you notice
with his tail, afore he works his mischief with his fangs. Lord, Lord,
what a humbling thing is fear! Here is one who in common delivers words
too big for a humble mouth to hold, so much beside himself, that his
voice is as shrill as the whistle of the whip-poor-will! Courage!—what
is it, man?—what is it?”

“A prodigy! a lusus naturae! a monster, that nature has delighted to
form, in order to exhibit her power! Never before have I witnessed such
an utter confusion in her laws, or a specimen that so completely bids
defiance to the distinctions of class and genera. Let me record its
appearance,” fumbling for his tablets with hands that trembled too much
to perform their office, “while time and opportunity are allowed—eyes,
enthralling; colour, various, complex, and profound—”

“One would think the man was craz’d, with his enthralling looks and
pieball’d colours!” interrupted the discontented trapper, who began to
grow a little uneasy that his party was all this time neglecting to
seek the protection of some cover. “If there is a reptile in the brush,
show me the creatur’, and should it refuse to depart peaceably, why
there must be a quarrel for the possession of the place.”

“There!” said the Doctor, pointing into a dense mass of the thicket, to
a spot within fifty feet of that where they both stood. The trapper
turned his look, with perfect composure, in the required direction, but
the instant his practised glance met the object which had so utterly
upset the philosophy of the naturalist, he gave a start himself, threw
his rifle rapidly forward, and as instantly recovered it, as if a
second flash of thought convinced him he was wrong. Neither the
instinctive movement, nor the sudden recollection, was without a
sufficient object. At the very margin of the thicket, and in absolute
contact with the earth, lay an animate ball, that might easily, by the
singularity and fierceness of its aspect, have justified the disturbed
condition of the naturalist’s mind. It were difficult to describe the
shape or colours of this extraordinary substance, except to say, in
general terms, that it was nearly spherical, and exhibited all the hues
of the rainbow, intermingled without reference to harmony, and without
any very ostensible design. The predominant hues were a black and a
bright vermilion. With these, however, the several tints of white,
yellow, and crimson, were strangely and wildly blended. Had this been
all, it would have been difficult to have pronounced that the object
was possessed of life, for it lay motionless as any stone; but a pair
of dark, glaring, and moving eyeballs which watched with jealousy the
smallest movement of the trapper and his companion, sufficiently
established the important fact of its possessing vitality.

“Your reptile is a scouter, or I’m no judge of Indian paints and Indian
deviltries!” muttered the old man, dropping the butt of his weapon to
the ground, and gazing with a steady eye at the frightful object, as he
leaned on its barrel, in an attitude of great composure. “He wants to
face us out of sight and reason, and make us think the head of a
red-skin is a stone covered with the autumn leaf; or he has some other
devilish artifice in his mind!”

“Is the animal human?” demanded the Doctor, “of the genus homo? I had
fancied it a non-descript.”

“It’s as human, and as mortal too, as a warrior of these prairies is
ever known to be. I have seen the time when a red-skin would have shown
a foolish daring to peep out of his ambushment in that fashion on a
hunter I could name, but who is too old now, and too near his time, to
be any thing better than a miserable trapper. It will be well to speak
to the imp, and to let him know he deals with men whose beards are
grown. Come forth from your cover, friend,” he continued, in the
language of the extensive tribes of the Dahcotahs; “there is room on
the prairie for another warrior.”

The eyes appeared to glare more fiercely than ever, but the mass which,
according to the trapper’s opinion, was neither more nor less than a
human head, shorn, as usual among the warriors of the west, of its
hair, still continued without motion, or any other sign of life.

“It is a mistake!” exclaimed the doctor. “The animal is not even of the
class, mammalia, much less a man.”

“So much for your knowledge!” returned the trapper, laughing with great
exultation. “So much for the l’arning of one who has look’d into so
many books, that his eyes are not able to tell a moose from a wild-cat!
Now my Hector, here, is a dog of education after his fashion, and,
though the meanest primmer in the settlements would puzzle his
information, you could not cheat the hound in a matter like this. As
you think the object no man, you shall see his whole formation, and
then let an ignorant old trapper, who never willingly pass’d a day
within reach of a spelling-book in his life, know by what name to call
it. Mind, I mean no violence; but just to start the devil from his
ambushment.”

The trapper very deliberately examined the priming of his rifle, taking
care to make as great a parade as possible of his hostile intentions,
in going through the necessary evolutions with the weapon. When he
thought the stranger began to apprehend some danger, he very
deliberately presented the piece, and called aloud—

“Now, friend, I am all for peace, or all for war, as you may say. No!
well it is no man, as the wiser one, here, says, and there can be no
harm in just firing into a bunch of leaves.”

The muzzle of the rifle fell as he concluded, and the weapon was
gradually settling into a steady, and what would easily have proved a
fatal aim, when a tall Indian sprang from beneath that bed of leaves
and brush, which he had collected about his person at the approach of
the party, and stood upright, uttering the exclamation—

“Wagh!”




CHAPTER XVIII


My visor is Philemon’s roof; within the house is Jove.
                   —Shakespeare.


The trapper, who had meditated no violence, dropped his rifle again,
and laughing at the success of his experiment, with great seeming
self-complacency, he drew the astounded gaze of the naturalist from the
person of the savage to himself, by saying—

“The imps will lie for hours, like sleeping alligators, brooding their
deviltries in dreams and other craftiness, until such time as they see
some real danger is at hand, and then they look to themselves the same
as other mortals. But this is a scouter in his war-paint! There should
be more of his tribe at no great distance. Let us draw the truth out of
him; for an unlucky war-party may prove more dangerous to us than a
visit from the whole family of the squatter.”

“It is truly a desperate and a dangerous species!” said the Doctor,
relieving his amazement by a breath that seemed to exhaust his lungs of
air; “a violent race, and one that it is difficult to define or class,
within the usual boundaries of definitions. Speak to him, therefore;
but let thy words be strong in amity.”

The old man cast a keen eye on every side of him, to ascertain the
important particular whether the stranger was supported by any
associates, and then making the usual signs of peace, by exhibiting the
palm of his naked hand, he boldly advanced. In the mean time, the
Indian betrayed no evidence of uneasiness. He suffered the trapper to
draw nigh, maintaining by his own mien and attitude a striking air of
dignity and fearlessness. Perhaps the wary warrior also knew that,
owing to the difference in their weapons, he should be placed more on
an equality, by being brought nearer to the strangers.

As a description of this individual may furnish some idea of the
personal appearance of a whole race, it may be well to detain the
narrative, in order to present it to the reader, in our hasty and
imperfect manner. Would the truant eyes of Alston or Greenough turn,
but for a time, from their gaze at the models of antiquity, to
contemplate this wronged and humbled people, little would be left for
such inferior artists as ourselves to delineate.

The Indian in question was in every particular a warrior of fine
stature and admirable proportions. As he cast aside his mask, composed
of such party-coloured leaves, as he had hurriedly collected, his
countenance appeared in all the gravity, the dignity, and, it may be
added, in the terror of his profession. The outlines of his lineaments
were strikingly noble, and nearly approaching to Roman, though the
secondary features of his face were slightly marked with the well-known
traces of his Asiatic origin. The peculiar tint of the skin, which in
itself is so well designed to aid the effect of a martial expression,
had received an additional aspect of wild ferocity from the colours of
the war-paint. But, as if he disdained the usual artifices of his
people, he bore none of those strange and horrid devices, with which
the children of the forest are accustomed, like the more civilised
heroes of the moustache, to back their reputation for courage,
contenting himself with a broad and deep shadowing of black, that
served as a sufficient and an admirable foil to the brighter gleamings
of his native swarthiness. His head was as usual shaved to the crown,
where a large and gallant scalp-lock seemed to challenge the grasp of
his enemies. The ornaments that were ordinarily pendant from the
cartilages of his ears had been removed, on account of his present
pursuit. His body, notwithstanding the lateness of the season, was
nearly naked, and the portion which was clad bore a vestment no warmer
than a light robe of the finest dressed deer-skin, beautifully stained
with the rude design of some daring exploit, and which was carelessly
worn, as if more in pride than from any unmanly regard to comfort. His
leggings were of bright scarlet cloth, the only evidence about his
person that he had held communion with the traders of the Pale-faces.
But as if to furnish some offset to this solitary submission to a
womanish vanity, they were fearfully fringed, from the gartered knee to
the bottom of the moccasin, with the hair of human scalps. He leaned
lightly with one hand on a short hickory bow, while the other rather
touched than sought support, from the long, delicate handle of an ashen
lance. A quiver made of the cougar skin, from which the tail of the
animal depended, as a characteristic ornament, was slung at his back,
and a shield of hides, quaintly emblazoned with another of his warlike
deeds, was suspended from his neck by a thong of sinews.

As the trapper approached, this warrior maintained his calm upright
attitude, discovering neither an eagerness to ascertain the character
of those who advanced upon him, nor the smallest wish to avoid a
scrutiny in his own person. An eye, that was darker and more shining
than that of the stag, was incessantly glancing, however, from one to
another of the stranger party, seemingly never knowing rest for an
instant.

“Is my brother far from his village?” demanded the old man, in the
Pawnee language, after examining the paint, and those other little
signs by which a practised eye knows the tribe of the warrior he
encounters in the American deserts, with the same readiness, and by the
same sort of mysterious observation, as that by which the seaman knows
the distant sail.

“It is farther to the towns of the Big-knives,” was the laconic reply.

“Why is a Pawnee-Loup so far from the fork of his own river, without a
horse to journey on, and in a spot empty as this?”

“Can the women and children of a Pale-face live without the meat of the
bison? There was hunger in my lodge.”

“My brother is very young to be already the master of a lodge,”
returned the trapper, looking steadily into the unmoved countenance of
the youthful warrior; “but I dare say he is brave, and that many a
chief has offered him his daughters for wives. But he has been
mistaken,” pointing to the arrow, which was dangling from the hand that
held the bow, “in bringing a loose and barbed arrow-head to kill the
buffaloe. Do the Pawnees wish the wounds they give their game to
rankle?”

“It is good to be ready for the Sioux. Though not in sight, a bush may
hide him.”

“The man is a living proof of the truth of his words,” muttered the
trapper in English, “and a close-jointed and gallant looking lad he is;
but far too young for a chief of any importance. It is wise, however,
to speak him fair, for a single arm thrown into either party, if we
come to blows with the squatter and his brood, may turn the day. You
see my children are weary,” he continued in the dialect of the
prairies, pointing, as he spoke, to the rest of the party, who, by this
time, were also approaching. “We wish to camp and eat. Does my brother
claim this spot?”

“The runners from the people on the Big-river, tell us that your nation
have traded with the Tawney-faces who live beyond the salt-lake, and
that the prairies are now the hunting grounds of the Big-knives!”

“It is true, as I hear, also, from the hunters and trappers on La
Platte. Though it is with the Frenchers, and not with the men who claim
to own the Mexicos, that my people have bargained.”

“And warriors are going up the Long-river, to see that they have not
been cheated, in what they have bought?”

“Ay, that is partly true, too, I fear; and it will not be long before
an accursed band of choppers and loggers will be following on their
heels, to humble the wilderness which lies so broad and rich on the
western banks of the Mississippi, and then the land will be a peopled
desert, from the shores of the main sea to the foot of the Rocky
Mountains; fill’d with all the abominations and craft of man, and
stript of the comforts and loveliness it received from the hands of the
Lord!”

“And where were the chiefs of the Pawnee-Loups, when this bargain was
made?” suddenly demanded the youthful warrior, a look of startling
fierceness gleaming, at the same instant, athwart his dark visage. “Is
a nation to be sold like the skin of a beaver?”

“Right enough—right enough, and where were truth and honesty, also? But
might is right, according to the fashions of the ’arth; and what the
strong choose to do, the weak must call justice. If the law of the
Wahcondah was as much hearkened to, Pawnee, as the laws of the
Long-knives, your right to the prairies would be as good as that of the
greatest chief in the settlements to the house which covers his head.”

“The skin of the traveller is white,” said the young native, laying a
finger impressively on the hard and wrinkled hand of the trapper. “Does
his heart say one thing and his tongue another?”

“The Wahcondah of a white man has ears, and he shuts them to a lie.
Look at my head; it is like a frosted pine, and must soon be laid in
the ground. Why then should I wish to meet the Great Spirit, face to
face, while his countenance is dark upon me.”

The Pawnee gracefully threw his shield over one shoulder, and placing a
hand on his chest, he bent his head, in deference to the grey locks
exhibited by the trapper; after which his eye became more steady, and
his countenance less fierce. Still he maintained every appearance of a
distrust and watchfulness that were rather tempered and subdued, than
forgotten. When this equivocal species of amity was established between
the warrior of the prairies and the experienced old trapper, the latter
proceeded to give his directions to Paul, concerning the arrangements
of the contemplated halt. While Inez and Ellen were dismounting, and
Middleton and the bee-hunter were attending to their comforts, the
discourse was continued, sometimes in the language of the natives, but
often, as Paul and the Doctor mingled their opinions with the two
principal speakers, in the English tongue. There was a keen and subtle
trial of skill between the Pawnee and the trapper, in which each
endeavoured to discover the objects of the other, without betraying his
own interest in the investigation. As might be expected, when the
struggle was between adversaries so equal, the result of the encounter
answered the expectations of neither. The latter had put all the
interrogatories his ingenuity and practice could suggest, concerning
the state of the tribe of the Loups, their crops, their store of
provisions for the ensuing winter, and their relations with their
different warlike neighbours without extorting any answer, which, in
the slightest degree, elucidated the cause of his finding a solitary
warrior so far from his people. On the other hand, while the questions
of the Indian were far more dignified and delicate, they were equally
ingenious. He commented on the state of the trade in peltries, spoke of
the good or ill success of many white hunters, whom he had either
encountered, or heard named, and even alluded to the steady march,
which the nation of his great father, as he cautiously termed the
government of the States, was making towards the hunting-grounds of his
tribe. It was apparent, however, by the singular mixture of interest,
contempt, and indignation, that were occasionally gleaming through the
reserved manner of this warrior, that he knew the strange people, who
were thus trespassing on his native rights, much more by report than by
any actual intercourse. This personal ignorance of the whites was as
much betrayed by the manner in which he regarded the females, as by the
brief, but energetic, expressions which occasionally escaped him.

While speaking to the trapper he suffered his wandering glances to
stray towards the intellectual and nearly infantile beauty of Inez, as
one might be supposed to gaze upon the loveliness of an ethereal being.
It was very evident that he now saw, for the first time, one of those
females, of whom the fathers of his tribe so often spoke, and who were
considered of such rare excellence as to equal all that savage
ingenuity could imagine in the way of loveliness. His observation of
Ellen was less marked, but notwithstanding the warlike and chastened
expression of his eye, there was much of the homage, which man is made
to pay to woman, even in the more cursory look he sometimes turned on
her maturer and perhaps more animated beauty. This admiration, however,
was so tempered by his habits, and so smothered in the pride of a
warrior, as completely to elude every eye but that of the trapper, who
was too well skilled in Indian customs, and was too well instructed in
the importance of rightly conceiving, the character of the stranger, to
let the smallest trait, or the most trifling of his movements, escape
him. In the mean time, the unconscious Ellen herself moved about the
feeble and less resolute Inez, with her accustomed assiduity and
tenderness, exhibiting in her frank features those changing emotions of
joy and regret which occasionally beset her, as her active mind dwelt
on the decided step she had just taken, with the contending doubts and
hopes, and possibly with some of the mental vacillation, that was
natural to her situation and sex.

Not so Paul; conceiving himself to have obtained the two things dearest
to his heart, the possession of Ellen and a triumph over the sons of
Ishmael, he now enacted his part, in the business of the moment, with
as much coolness as though he was already leading his willing bride,
from solemnising their nuptials before a border magistrate, to the
security of his own dwelling. He had hovered around the moving family,
during the tedious period of their weary march, concealing himself by
day, and seeking interviews with his betrothed as opportunities
offered, in the manner already described, until fortune and his own
intrepidity had united to render him successful, at the very moment
when he was beginning to despair, and he now cared neither for
distance, nor violence, nor hardships. To his sanguine fancy and
determined resolution all the rest was easily to be achieved. Such were
his feelings, and such in truth they seemed to be. With his cap cast on
one side, and whistling a low air, he thrashed among the bushes, in
order to make a place suitable for the females to repose on, while,
from time to time, he cast an approving glance at the agile form of
Ellen, as she tripped past him, engaged in her own share of the duty.

“And so the Wolf-tribe of the Pawnees have buried the hatchet with
their neighbours, the Konzas?” said the trapper, pursuing a discourse
which he had scarcely permitted to flag, though it had been
occasionally interrupted by the different directions with which he
occasionally saw fit to interrupt it. (The reader will remember that,
while he spoke to the native warrior in his own tongue, he necessarily
addressed his white companions in English.) “The Loups and the
light-fac’d Red-skins are again friends. Doctor, that is a tribe of
which I’ll engage you’ve often read, and of which many a round lie has
been whispered in the ears of the ignorant people, who live in the
settlements. There was a story of a nation of Welshers, that liv’d
hereaway in the prairies, and how they came into the land afore the
uneasy minded man, who first let in the Christians to rob the heathens
of their inheritance, had ever dreamt that the sun set on a country as
big as that it rose from. And how they knew the white ways, and spoke
with white tongues, and a thousand other follies and idle conceits.”

“Have I not heard of them?” exclaimed the naturalist, dropping a piece
of jerked bison’s meat, which he was rather roughly discussing, at the
moment. “I should be greatly ignorant not to have often dwelt with
delight on so beautiful a theory, and one which so triumphantly
establishes two positions, which I have often maintained are
unanswerable, even without such living testimony in their favour—viz.
that this continent can claim a more remote affinity with civilisation
than the time of Columbus, and that colour is the fruit of climate and
condition, and not a regulation of nature. Propound the latter question
to this Indian gentleman, venerable hunter; he is of a reddish tint
himself, and his opinion may be said to make us masters of the two
sides of the disputed point.”

“Do you think a Pawnee is a reader of books, and a believer of printed
lies, like the idlers in the towns?” retorted the old man, laughing.
“But it may be as well to humour the likings of the man, which, after
all, it is quite possible are neither more nor less than his natural
gift, and therefore to be followed, although they may be pitied. What
does my brother think? all whom he sees here have pale skins, but the
Pawnee warriors are red; does he believe that man changes with the
season, and that the son is not like his father?”

The young warrior regarded his interrogator for a moment with a steady
and deliberating eye; then raising his finger upward, he answered with
dignity—

“The Wahcondah pours the rain from his clouds; when he speaks, he
shakes the lulls; and the fire, which scorches the trees, is the anger
of his eye; but he fashioned his children with care and thought. What
he has thus made, never alters!”

“Ay, ’tis in the reason of natur’ that it should be so, Doctor,”
continued the trapper, when he had interpreted this answer to the
disappointed naturalist. “The Pawnees are a wise and a great people,
and I’ll engage they abound in many a wholesome and honest tradition.
The hunters and trappers, that I sometimes see, speak of a great
warrior of your race.”

“My tribe are not women. A brave is no stranger in my village.”

“Ay; but he, they speak of most, is a chief far beyond the renown of
common warriors, and one that might have done credit to that once
mighty but now fallen people, the Delawares of the hills.”

“Such a warrior should have a name?”

“They call him Hard-Heart, from the stoutness of his resolution; and
well is he named, if all I have heard of his deeds be true.”

The stranger cast a glance, which seemed to read the guileless soul of
the old man, as he demanded—

“Has the Pale-face seen the partisan of my people?”

“Never. It is not with me now, as it used to be some forty years ago,
when warfare and bloodshed were my calling and my gifts!”

A loud shout from the reckless Paul interrupted his speech, and at the
next moment the bee-hunter appeared, leading an Indian war-horse from
the side of the thicket opposite to the one occupied by the party.

“Here is a beast for a Red-skin to straddle!” he cried, as he made the
animal go through some of its wild paces. “There’s not a brigadier in
all Kentucky that can call himself master of so sleek and well-jointed
a nag! A Spanish saddle too, like a grandee of the Mexicos! and look at
the mane and tail, braided and platted down with little silver balls,
as if it were Ellen herself getting her shining hair ready for a dance,
or a husking frolic! Isn’t this a real trotter, old trapper, to eat out
of the manger of a savage?”

“Softly, lad, softly. The Loups are famous for their horses, and it is
often that you see a warrior on the prairies far better mounted, than a
congress-man in the settlements. But this, indeed, is a beast that none
but a powerful chief should ride! The saddle, as you rightly think, has
been sit upon in its day by a great Spanish captain, who has lost it
and his life together, in some of the battles which this people often
fight against the southern provinces. I warrant me, I warrant me, the
youngster is the son of a great chief; may be of the mighty Hard-Heart
himself!”

During this rude interruption to the discourse, the young Pawnee
manifested neither impatience nor displeasure; but when he thought his
beast had been the subject of sufficient comment, he very coolly, and
with the air of one accustomed to have his will respected, relieved
Paul of the bridle, and throwing the reins on the neck of the animal,
he sprang upon his back, with the activity of a professor of the
equestrian art. Nothing could be finer or firmer than the seat of the
savage. The highly wrought and cumbrous saddle was evidently more for
show than use. Indeed it impeded rather than aided the action of limbs,
which disdained to seek assistance, or admit of restraint from so
womanish inventions as stirrups. The horse, which immediately began to
prance, was, like its rider, wild and untutored in all his motions, but
while there was so little of art, there was all the freedom and grace
of nature in the movements of both. The animal was probably indebted to
the blood of Araby for its excellence, through a long pedigree, that
embraced the steed of Mexico, the Spanish barb, and the Moorish
charger. The rider, in obtaining his steed from the provinces of
Central-America, had also obtained that spirit and grace in controlling
him, which unite to form the most intrepid and perhaps the most skilful
horseman in the world.

Notwithstanding this sudden occupation of his animal, the Pawnee
discovered no hasty wish to depart. More at his ease, and possibly more
independent, now he found himself secure of the means of retreat, he
rode back and forth, eyeing the different individuals of the party with
far greater freedom than before. But, at each extremity of his ride,
just as the sagacious trapper expected to see him profit by his
advantage and fly, he would turn his horse, and pass over the same
ground, sometimes with the rapidity of the flying deer, and at others
more slowly, and with greater dignity of mien and attitude. Anxious to
ascertain such facts as might have an influence on his future
movements, the old man determined to invite him to a renewal of their
conference. He therefore made a gesture expressive at the same time of
his wish to resume the interrupted discourse, and of his own pacific
intentions. The quick eye of the stranger was not slow to note the
action, but it was not until a sufficient time had passed to allow him
to debate the prudence of the measure in his own mind, that he seemed
willing to trust himself again, so near a party that was so much
superior to himself in physical power, and consequently one that was
able, at any instant, to command his life, or control his personal
liberty. When he did approach nigh enough to converse with facility, it
was with a singular mixture of haughtiness and of distrust.

“It is far to the village of the Loups,” he said, stretching his arm in
a direction contrary to that in which, the trapper well knew, the tribe
dwelt, “and the road is crooked. What has the Big-knife to say?”

“Ay, crooked enough!” muttered the old man in English, “if you are to
set out on your journey by that path, but not half so winding as the
cunning of an Indian’s mind. Say, my brother; do the chiefs of the
Pawnees love to see strange faces in their lodges?”

The young warrior bent his body gracefully, though but slightly, over
the saddle-bow, as he replied—

“When have my people forgotten to give food to the stranger?”

“If I lead my daughters to the doors of the Loups, will the women take
them by the hand; and will the warriors smoke with my young men?”

“The country of the Pale-faces is behind them. Why do they journey so
far towards the setting sun? Have they lost the path, or are these the
women of the white warriors, that I hear are wading up the river of
‘the troubled waters?’”

“Neither. They, who wade the Missouri, are the warriors of my great
father, who has sent them on his message; but we are peace-runners. The
white men and the red are neighbours, and they wish to be friends.—Do
not the Omahaws visit the Loups, when the tomahawk is buried in the
path between the two nations?”

“The Omahaws are welcome.”

“And the Yanktons, and the burnt-wood Tetons, who live in the elbow of
the river, ‘with muddy water,’ do they not come into the lodges of the
Loups and smoke?”

“The Tetons are liars!” exclaimed the other. “They dare not shut their
eyes in the night. No; they sleep in the sun. See,” he added, pointing
with fierce triumph to the frightful ornaments of his leggings, “their
scalps are so plenty, that the Pawnees tread on them! Go; let a Sioux
live in banks of snow; the plains and buffaloes are for men!”

“Ah! the secret is out,” said the trapper to Middleton, who was an
attentive, because a deeply interested, observer of what was passing.
“This good-looking young Indian is scouting on the track of the
Siouxes—you may see it by his arrow-heads, and his paint; ay, and by
his eye, too; for a Red-skin lets his natur’ follow the business he is
on, be it for peace, or be it for war,—quiet, Hector, quiet. Have you
never scented a Pawnee afore, pup?—keep down, dog—keep down—my brother
is right. The Siouxes are thieves. Men of all colours and nations say
it of them, and say it truly. But the people from the rising sun are
not Siouxes, and they wish to visit the lodges of the Loups.”

“The head of my brother is white,” returned the Pawnee, throwing one of
those glances at the trapper, which were so remarkably expressive of
distrust, intelligence, and pride, and then pointing, as he continued,
towards the eastern horizon, “and his eyes have looked on many
things—can he tell me the name of what he sees yonder—is it a
buffaloe?”

“It looks more like a cloud, peeping above the skirt of the plain with
the sunshine lighting its edges. It is the smoke of the heavens.”

“It is a hill of the earth, and on its top are the lodges of
Pale-faces! Let the women of my brother wash their feet among the
people of their own colour.”

“The eyes of a Pawnee are good, if he can see a white-skin so far.”

The Indian turned slowly towards the speaker, and after a pause of a
moment he sternly demanded—

“Can my brother hunt?”

“Alas! I claim to be no better than a miserable trapper!”

“When the plain is covered with the buffaloes, can he see them?”

“No doubt, no doubt—it is far easier to see than to take a scampering
bull.”

“And when the birds are flying from the cold, and the clouds are black
with their feathers, can he see them too?”

“Ay, ay, it is not hard to find a duck, or a goose, when millions are
darkening the heavens.”

“When the snow falls, and covers the lodges of the Long-knives, can the
stranger see flakes in the air?”

“My eyes are none of the best now,” returned the old man a little
resentfully, “but the time has been when I had a name for my sight!”

“The Red-skins find the Big-knives as easily as the strangers see the
buffaloe, or the travelling birds, or the falling snow. Your warriors
think the Master of Life has made the whole earth white. They are
mistaken. They are pale, and it is their own faces that they see. Go! a
Pawnee is not blind, that he need look long for your people!”

The warrior suddenly paused, and bent his face aside, like one who
listened with all his faculties absorbed in the act. Then turning the
head of his horse, he rode to the nearest angle of the thicket, and
looked intently across the bleak prairie, in a direction opposite to
the side on which the party stood. Returning slowly from this
unaccountable, and to his observers, startling procedure, he riveted
his eyes on Inez, and paced back and forth several times, with the air
of one who maintained a warm struggle on some difficult point, in the
recesses of his own thoughts. He had drawn the reins of his impatient
steed, and was seemingly about to speak, when his head again sunk on
his chest, and he resumed his former attitude of attention. Galloping
like a deer, to the place of his former observations, he rode for a
moment swiftly, in short and rapid circles, as if still uncertain of
his course, and then darted away, like a bird that had been fluttering
around its nest before it takes a distant flight. After scouring the
plain for a minute, he was lost to the eye behind a swell of the land.

The hounds, who had also manifested great uneasiness for some time,
followed him for a little distance, and then terminated their chase by
seating themselves on the ground, and raising their usual low, whining,
and warning howls.




CHAPTER XIX


How if he will not stand?
                   —Shakespeare.


The several movements, related in the close of the preceding chapter,
had passed in so short a space of time, that the old man, while he
neglected not to note the smallest incident, had no opportunity of
expressing his opinion concerning the stranger’s motives. After the
Pawnee had disappeared, however, he shook his head and muttered, while
he walked slowly to the angle of the thicket that the Indian had just
quitted—

“There are both scents and sounds in the air, though my miserable
senses are not good enough to hear the one, or to catch the taint of
the other.”

“There is nothing to be seen,” cried Middleton, who kept close at his
side. “My eyes and my ears are good, and yet I can assure you that I
neither hear nor see any thing.”

“Your eyes are good! and you are not deaf!” returned the other with a
slight air of contempt; “no, lad, no; they may be good to see across a
church, or to hear a town-bell, but afore you had passed a year in
these prairies you would find yourself taking a turkey for a buffaloe,
or conceiting, fifty times, that the roar of a buffaloe bull was the
thunder of the Lord! There is a deception of natur’ in these naked
plains, in which the air throws up the images like water, and then it
is hard to tell the prairies from a sea. But yonder is a sign that a
hunter never fails to know!”

The trapper pointed to a flight of vultures, that were sailing over the
plain at no great distance, and apparently in the direction in which
the Pawnee had riveted his eye. At first Middleton could not
distinguish the small dark objects, that were dotting the dusky clouds,
but as they came swiftly onward, first their forms, and then their
heavy waving wings, became distinctly visible.

“Listen,” said the trapper, when he had succeeded in making Middleton
see the moving column of birds. “Now you hear the buffaloes, or bisons,
as your knowing Doctor sees fit to call them, though buffaloes is their
name among all the hunters of these regions. And, I conclude, that a
hunter is a better judge of a beast and of its name,” he added, winking
to the young soldier, “than any man who has turned over the leaves of a
book, instead of travelling over the face of the ’arth, in order to
find out the natur’s of its inhabitants.”

“Of their habits, I will grant you,” cried the naturalist, who rarely
missed an opportunity to agitate any disputed point in his favourite
studies. “That is, provided always, deference is had to the proper use
of definitions, and that they are contemplated with scientific eyes.”

“Eyes of a mole! as if man’s eyes were not as good for names as the
eyes of any other creatur’! Who named the works of His hand? can you
tell me that, with your books and college wisdom? Was it not the first
man in the Garden, and is it not a plain consequence that his children
inherit his gifts?”

“That is certainly the Mosaic account of the event,” said the Doctor;
“though your reading is by far too literal!”

“My reading! nay, if you suppose, that I have wasted my time in
schools, you do such a wrong to my knowledge, as one mortal should
never lay to the door of another without sufficient reason. If I have
ever craved the art of reading, it has been that I might better know
the sayings of the book you name, for it is a book which speaks, in
every line, according to human feelings, and therein according to
reason.”

“And do you then believe,” said the Doctor a little provoked by the
dogmatism of his stubborn adversary, and perhaps, secretly, too
confident in his own more liberal, though scarcely as profitable,
attainments,—“do you then believe that all these beasts were literally
collected in a garden, to be enrolled in the nomenclature of the first
man?”

“Why not? I understand your meaning; for it is not needful to live in
towns to hear all the devilish devices, that the conceit of man can
invent to upset his own happiness. What does it prove, except indeed it
may be said to prove that the garden He made was not after the
miserable fashions of our times, thereby directly giving the lie to
what the world calls its civilising? No, no, the garden of the Lord was
the forest then, and is the forest now, where the fruits do grow, and
the birds do sing, according to his own wise ordering. Now, lady, you
may see the mystery of the vultures! There come the buffaloes
themselves, and a noble herd it is! I warrant me, that Pawnee has a
troop of his people in some of the hollows, nigh by; and as he has gone
scampering after them, you are about to see a glorious chase. It will
serve to keep the squatter and his brood under cover, and for ourselves
there is little reason to fear. A Pawnee is not apt to be a malicious
savage.”

Every eye was now drawn to the striking spectacle that succeeded. Even
the timid Inez hastened to the side of Middleton to gaze at the sight,
and Paul summoned Ellen from her culinary labours, to become a witness
of the lively scene.

Throughout the whole of those moving events, which it has been our duty
to record, the prairies had lain in the majesty of perfect solitude.
The heavens had been blackened with the passage of the migratory birds,
it is true, but the dogs of the party, and the ass of the doctor, were
the only quadrupeds that had enlivened the broad surface of the waste
beneath. There was now a sudden exhibition of animal life, which
changed the scene, as it were, by magic, to the very opposite extreme.

A few enormous bison bulls were first observed, scouring along the most
distant roll of the prairie, and then succeeded long files of single
beasts, which, in their turns, were followed by a dark mass of bodies,
until the dun-coloured herbage of the plain was entirely lost, in the
deeper hue of their shaggy coats. The herd, as the column spread and
thickened, was like the endless flocks of the smaller birds, whose
extended flanks are so often seen to heave up out of the abyss of the
heavens, until they appear as countless as the leaves in those forests,
over which they wing their endless flight. Clouds of dust shot up in
little columns from the centre of the mass, as some animal, more
furious than the rest, ploughed the plain with his horns, and, from
time to time, a deep hollow bellowing was borne along on the wind, as
if a thousand throats vented their plaints in a discordant murmuring.

A long and musing silence reigned in the party, as they gazed on this
spectacle of wild and peculiar grandeur. It was at length broken by the
trapper, who, having been long accustomed to similar sights, felt less
of its influence, or, rather, felt it in a less thrilling and absorbing
manner, than those to whom the scene was more novel.

“There go ten thousand oxen in one drove, without keeper or master,
except Him who made them, and gave them these open plains for their
pasture! Ay, it is here that man may see the proofs of his wantonness
and folly! Can the proudest governor in all the States go into his
fields, and slaughter a nobler bullock than is here offered to the
meanest hand; and when he has gotten his sirloin, or his steak, can he
eat it with as good a relish as he who has sweetened his food with
wholesome toil, and earned it according to the law of natur’, by
honestly mastering that which the Lord hath put before him?”

“If the prairie platter is smoking with a buffaloe’s hump, I answer,
No,” interrupted the luxurious bee-hunter.

“Ay, boy, you have tasted, and you feel the genuine reasoning of the
thing! But the herd is heading a little this-a-way, and it behoves us
to make ready for their visit. If we hide ourselves, altogether, the
horned brutes will break through the place and trample us beneath their
feet, like so many creeping worms; so we will just put the weak ones
apart, and take post, as becomes men and hunters, in the van.”

As there was but little time to make the necessary arrangements, the
whole party set about them in good earnest. Inez and Ellen were placed
in the edge of the thicket on the side farthest from the approaching
herd. Asinus was posted in the centre, in consideration of his nerves,
and then the old man, with his three male companions, divided
themselves in such a manner as they thought would enable them to turn
the head of the rushing column, should it chance to approach too nigh
their position. By the vacillating movements of some fifty or a hundred
bulls, that led the advance, it remained questionable, for many
moments, what course they intended to pursue. But a tremendous and
painful roar, which came from behind the cloud of dust that rose in the
centre of the herd, and which was horridly answered by the screams of
the carrion birds, that were greedily sailing directly above the flying
drove, appeared to give a new impulse to their flight, and at once to
remove every symptom of indecision. As if glad to seek the smallest
signs of the forest, the whole of the affrighted herd became steady in
its direction, rushing in a straight line toward the little cover of
bushes, which has already been so often named.

The appearance of danger was now, in reality, of a character to try the
stoutest nerves. The flanks of the dark, moving mass, were advanced in
such a manner as to make a concave line of the front, and every fierce
eye, that was glaring from the shaggy wilderness of hair in which the
entire heads of the males were enveloped, was riveted with mad anxiety
on the thicket. It seemed as if each beast strove to outstrip his
neighbour, in gaining this desired cover; and as thousands in the rear
pressed blindly on those in front, there was the appearance of an
imminent risk that the leaders of the herd would be precipitated on the
concealed party, in which case the destruction of every one of them was
certain. Each of our adventurers felt the danger of his situation in a
manner peculiar to his individual character and circumstances.

Middleton wavered. At times he felt inclined to rush through the
bushes, and, seizing Inez, attempt to fly. Then recollecting the
impossibility of outstripping the furious speed of an alarmed bison, he
felt for his arms, determined to make head against the countless drove.
The faculties of Dr. Battius were quickly wrought up to the very summit
of mental delusion. The dark forms of the herd lost their distinctness,
and then the naturalist began to fancy he beheld a wild collection of
all the creatures of the world, rushing upon him in a body, as if to
revenge the various injuries, which in the course of a life of
indefatigable labour in behalf of the natural sciences, he had
inflicted on their several genera. The paralysis it occasioned in his
system, was like the effect of the incubus. Equally unable to fly or to
advance, he stood riveted to the spot, until the infatuation became so
complete, that the worthy naturalist was beginning, by a desperate
effort of scientific resolution, even to class the different specimens.
On the other hand, Paul shouted, and called on Ellen to come and assist
him in shouting, but his voice was lost in the bellowings and trampling
of the herd. Furious, and yet strangely excited by the obstinacy of the
brutes and the wildness of the sight, and nearly maddened by sympathy
and a species of unconscious apprehension, in which the claims of
nature were singularly mingled with concern for his mistress, he nearly
split his throat in exhorting his aged friend to interfere.

“Come forth, old trapper,” he shouted, “with your prairie inventions!
or we shall be all smothered under a mountain of buffaloe humps!”

The old man, who had stood all this while leaning on his rifle, and
regarding the movements of the herd with a steady eye, now deemed it
time to strike his blow. Levelling his piece at the foremost bull, with
an agility that would have done credit to his youth, he fired. The
animal received the bullet on the matted hair between his horns, and
fell to his knees: but shaking his head he instantly arose, the very
shock seeming to increase his exertions. There was now no longer time
to hesitate. Throwing down his rifle, the trapper stretched forth his
arms, and advanced from the cover with naked hands, directly towards
the rushing column of the beasts.

The figure of a man, when sustained by the firmness and steadiness that
intellect can only impart, rarely fails of commanding respect from all
the inferior animals of the creation. The leading bulls recoiled, and
for a single instant there was a sudden stop to their speed, a dense
mass of bodies rolling up in front, until hundreds were seen
floundering and tumbling on the plain. Then came another of those
hollow bellowings from the rear, and set the herd again in motion. The
head of the column, however, divided. The immovable form of the
trapper, cutting it, as it were, into two gliding streams of life.
Middleton and Paul instantly profited by his example, and extended the
feeble barrier by a similar exhibition of their own persons.

For a few moments, the new impulse given to the animals in front,
served to protect the thicket. But, as the body of the herd pressed
more and more upon the open line of its defenders, and the dust
thickened, so as to obscure their persons, there was, at each instant,
a renewed danger of the beasts breaking through. It became necessary
for the trapper and his companions to become still more and more alert;
and they were gradually yielding before the headlong multitude, when a
furious bull darted by Middleton, so near as to brush his person, and,
at the next instant, swept through the thicket with the velocity of the
wind.

“Close, and die for the ground,” shouted the old man, “or a thousand of
the devils will be at his heels!”

All their efforts would have proved fruitless, however, against the
living torrent, had not Asinus, whose domains had just been so rudely
entered, lifted his voice, in the midst of the uproar. The most sturdy
and furious of the bulls trembled at the alarming and unknown cry, and
then each individual brute was seen madly pressing from that very
thicket, which, the moment before, he had endeavoured to reach, with
the eagerness with which the murderer seeks the sanctuary.

As the stream divided, the place became clear; the two dark columns
moving obliquely from the copse, to unite again at the distance of a
mile, on its opposite side. The instant the old man saw the sudden
effect which the voice of Asinus had produced, he coolly commenced
reloading his rifle, indulging at the same time in a heartfelt fit of
his silent and peculiar merriment.

“There they go, like dogs with so many half-filled shot-pouches
dangling at their tails, and no fear of their breaking their order; for
what the brutes in the rear didn’t hear with their own ears, they’ll
conceit they did: besides, if they change their minds, it may be no
hard matter to get the Jack to sing the rest of his tune!”

“The ass has spoken, but Balaam is silent!” cried the bee-hunter,
catching his breath after a repeated burst of noisy mirth, that might
possibly have added to the panic of the buffaloes by its vociferation.
“The man is as completely dumb-founded, as if a swarm of young bees had
settled on the end of his tongue, and he not willing to speak, for fear
of their answer.”

“How now, friend,” continued the trapper, addressing the still
motionless and entranced naturalist; “how now, friend; are you, who
make your livelihood by booking the names and natur’s of the beasts of
the fields and the fowls of the air, frightened at a herd of scampering
buffaloes? Though, perhaps, you are ready to dispute my right to call
them by a word, that is in the mouth of every hunter and trader on the
frontier!”

The old man was however mistaken, in supposing he could excite the
benumbed faculties of the Doctor, by provoking a discussion. From that
time, henceforth, he was never known, except on one occasion, to utter
a word that indicated either the species, or the genus, of the animal.
He obstinately refused the nutritious food of the whole ox family, and
even to the present hour, now that he is established in all the
scientific dignity and security of a savant in one of the maritime
towns, he turns his back with a shudder on those delicious and
unrivalled viands, that are so often seen at the suppers of the craft,
and which are unequalled by any thing, that is served under the same
name, at the boasted chop-houses of London, or at the most renowned of
the Parisian restaurants. In short, the distaste of the worthy
naturalist for beef was not unlike that which the shepherd sometimes
produces, by first muzzling and fettering his delinquent dog, and then
leaving him as a stepping stone for the whole flock to use in its
transit over a wall, or through the opening of a sheep-fold; a process
which is said to produce in the culprit a species of surfeit, on the
subject of mutton, for ever after. By the time Paul and the trapper saw
fit to terminate the fresh bursts of merriment, which the continued
abstraction of their learned companion did not fail to excite, he
commenced breathing again, as if the suspended action of his lungs had
been renewed by the application of a pair of artificial bellows, and
was heard to make use of the ever afterwards proscribed term, on that
solitary occasion, to which we have just alluded.

“Boves Americani horridi!” exclaimed the Doctor, laying great stress on
the latter word; after which he continued mute, like one who pondered
on strange and unaccountable events.

“Ay, horrid eyes enough, I will willingly allow,” returned the trapper;
“and altogether the creatur’ has a frightful look, to one unused to the
sights and bustle of a natural life; but then the courage of the beast
is in no way equal to its countenance. Lord, man, if you should once
get fairly beset by a brood of grizzly bears, as happened to Hector and
I, at the great falls of the Miss—Ah, here comes the tail of the herd,
and yonder goes a pack of hungry wolves, ready to pick up the sick, or
such as get a disjointed neck by a tumble. Ha! there are mounted men on
their trail, or I’m no sinner! here, lad; you may see them here-away,
just where the dust is scattering afore the wind. They are hovering
around a wounded buffaloe, making an end of the surly devil with their
arrows!”

Middleton and Paul soon caught a glimpse of the dark group, that the
quick eye of the old man had so readily detected. Some fifteen or
twenty horsemen were, in truth, to be seen riding, in quick circuits,
about a noble bull, which stood at bay, too grievously hurt to fly, and
yet seeming to disdain to fall, notwithstanding his hardy body had
already been the target for a hundred arrows. A thrust from the lance
of a powerful Indian, however, completed his conquest, and the brute
gave up his obstinate hold of life with a roar, that passed bellowing
over the place where our adventurers stood, and, reaching the ears of
the affrighted herd, added a new impulse to their flight.

“How well the Pawnee knew the philosophy of a buffaloe hunt!” said the
old man, after he had stood regarding the animated scene for a few
moments, with evident satisfaction. “You saw how he went off like the
wind before the drove. It was in order that he might not taint the air,
and that he might turn the flank, and join—Ha! how is this! yonder
Red-skins are no Pawnees! The feathers in their heads are from the
wings and tails of owls.—Ah! as I am but a miserable, half-sighted,
trapper, it is a band of the accursed Siouxes! To cover, lads, to
cover. A single cast of an eye this-a-way, would strip us of every rag
of clothes, as surely as the lightning scorches the bush, and it might
be that our very lives would be far from safe.”

Middleton had already turned from the spectacle, to seek that which
pleased him better; the sight of his young and beautiful bride. Paul
seized the Doctor by the arm; and, as the trapper followed with the
smallest possible delay, the whole party was quickly collected within
the cover of the thicket. After a few short explanations concerning the
character of this new danger, the old man, on whom the whole duty of
directing their movements was devolved, in deference to his great
experience, continued his discourse as follows—

“This is a region, as you must all know, where a strong arm is far
better than the right, and where the white law is as little known as
needed. Therefore does every thing, now, depend on judgment and power.
If,” he continued, laying his finger on his cheek, like one who
considered deeply all sides of the embarrassing situation in which he
found himself,—“if an invention could be framed, which would set these
Siouxes and the brood of the squatter by the ears, then might we come
in, like the buzzards after a fight atween the beasts, and pick up the
gleanings of the ground—there are Pawnees nigh us, too! It is a certain
matter, for yonder lad is not so far from his village without an
errand. Here are therefore four parties within sound of a cannon, not
one of whom can trust the other. All which makes movement a little
difficult, in a district where covers are far from plenty. But we are
three well-armed, and I think I may see three stout-hearted men—”

“Four,” interrupted Paul.

“Anan,” said the old man, looking up simply at his companion.

“Four,” repeated the bee-hunter, pointing to the naturalist.

“Every army has its hangers-on and idlers,” rejoined the blunt
border-man. “Friend, it will be necessary to slaughter this ass.”

“To slay Asinus! such a deed would be an act of supererogatory
cruelty.”

“I know nothing of your words, which hide their meaning in sound; but
that is cruel which sacrifices a Christian to a brute. This is what I
call the reason of mercy. It would be just as safe to blow a trumpet,
as to let the animal raise his voice again, inasmuch as it would prove
a manifest challenge to the Siouxes.”

“I will answer for the discretion of Asinus, who seldom speaks without
a reason.”

“They say a man can be known by the company he keeps,” retorted the old
man, “and why not a brute? I once made a forced march, and went through
a great deal of jeopardy, with a companion who never opened his mouth
but to sing; and trouble enough and great concern of mind did the
fellow give me. It was in that very business with your grand’ther,
captain. But then he had a human throat, and well did he know how to
use it, on occasion, though he didn’t always stop to regard the time
and seasons fit for such outcries. Ah’s me! if I was now, as I was
then, it wouldn’t be a band of thieving Siouxes that should easily
drive me from such a lodgment as this! But what signifies boasting,
when sight and strength are both failing. The warrior, that the
Delawares once saw fit to call after the Hawk, for the goodness of his
eyes, would now be better termed the Mole! In my judgment, therefore,
it will be well to slay the brute.”

“There’s argument and good logic in it,” said Paul; “music is music,
and it’s always noisy, whether it comes from a fiddle or a jackass.
Therefore I agree with the old man, and say, Kill the beast.”

“Friends,” said the naturalist, looking with a sorrowful eye from one
to another of his bloodily disposed companions, “slay not Asinus; he is
a specimen of his kind, of whom much good and little evil can be said.
Hardy and docile for his genus; abstemious and patient, even for his
humble species. We have journeyed much together, and his death would
grieve me. How would it trouble thy spirit, venerable venator, to
separate, in such an untimely manner, from your faithful hound?”

“The animal shall not die,” said the old man, suddenly clearing his
throat, in a manner that proved he felt the force of the appeal; “but
his voice must be smothered. Bind his jaws with the halter, and then I
think we may trust the rest to Providence.”

With this double security for the discretion of Asinus, for Paul
instantly bound the muzzle of the ass in the manner required, the
trapper seemed content. After which he proceeded to the margin of the
thicket to reconnoitre.

The uproar, which attended the passage of the herd, was now gone, or
rather it was heard rolling along the prairie, at the distance of a
mile. The clouds of dust were already blown away by the wind, and a
clear range was left to the eye, in that place where ten minutes before
there existed a scene of so much wildness and confusion.

The Siouxes had completed their conquest, and, apparently satisfied
with this addition to the numerous previous captures they had made,
they now seemed content to let the remainder of the herd escape. A
dozen remained around the carcass, over which a few buzzards were
balancing themselves with steady wings and greedy eyes, while the rest
were riding about, in quest of such further booty as might come in
their way, on the trail of so vast a drove. The trapper measured the
proportions, and scanned the equipments of such individuals as drew
nearer to the side of the thicket, with careful eyes. At length he
pointed out one among them, to Middleton, as Weucha.

“Now, know we not only who they are, but their errand,” the old man
continued, deliberately shaking his head. “They have lost the trail of
the squatter, and are on its hunt. These buffaloes have crossed their
path, and in chasing the animals, bad luck has led them in open sight
of the hill on which the brood of Ishmael have harboured. Do you see
yon birds watching for the offals of the beast they have killed?
Therein is a moral, which teaches the manner of a prairie life. A band
of Pawnees are outlying for these very Siouxes, as you see the buzzards
looking down for their food, and it behoves us, as Christian men who
have so much at stake, to look down upon them both. Ha! what brings
yonder two skirting reptiles to a stand? As you live, they have found
the place where the miserable son of the squatter met his death!”

The old man was not mistaken. Weucha, and a savage who accompanied him,
had reached that spot, which has already been mentioned as furnishing
the frightful evidences of violence and bloodshed. There they sat on
their horses, examining the well-known signs, with the intelligence
that distinguishes the habits of Indians. Their scrutiny was long, and
apparently not without distrust. At length they raised a cry, that was
scarcely less piteous and startling than that which the hounds had
before made over the same fatal signs, and which did not fail to draw
the whole band immediately around them, as the fell bark of the jackal
is said to gather his comrades to the chase.




CHAPTER XX


Welcome, ancient Pistol.
                   —Shakespeare.


It was not long before the trapper pointed out the commanding person of
Mahtoree, as the leader of the Siouxes. This chief, who had been among
the last to obey the vociferous summons of Weucha, no sooner reached
the spot where his whole party was now gathered, than he threw himself
from his horse, and proceeded to examine the marks of the extraordinary
trail, with that degree of dignity and attention which became his high
and responsible station. The warriors, for it was but too evident that
they were to a man of that fearless and ruthless class, awaited the
result of his investigation with patient reserve; none but a few of the
principal braves, presuming even to speak, while their leader was thus
gravely occupied. It was several minutes before Mahtoree seemed
satisfied. He then directed his eyes along the ground to those several
places where Ishmael had found the same revolting evidences of the
passage of some bloody struggle, and motioned to his people to follow.

The whole band advanced in a body towards the thicket, until they came
to a halt, within a few yards of the precise spot, where Esther had
stimulated her sluggish sons to break into the cover. The reader will
readily imagine that the trapper and his companions were not
indifferent observers of so threatening a movement. The old man
summoned all who were capable of bearing arms to his side, and
demanded, in very unequivocal terms, though in a voice that was
suitably lowered, in order to escape the ears of their dangerous
neighbours, whether they were disposed to make battle for their
liberty, or whether they should try the milder expedient of
conciliation. As it was a subject in which all had an equal interest,
he put the question as to a council of war, and not without some slight
exhibition of the lingering vestiges of a nearly extinct military
pride. Paul and the Doctor were diametrically opposed to each other in
opinion; the former declaring for an immediate appeal to arms, and the
latter was warmly espousing the policy of pacific measures. Middleton,
who saw that there was great danger of a hot verbal dispute between two
men, who were governed by feelings so diametrically opposed, saw fit to
assume the office of arbiter; or rather to decide the question, his
situation making him a sort of umpire. He also leaned to the side of
peace, for he evidently saw that, in consequence of the vast
superiority of their enemies, violence would irretrievably lead to
their destruction.

The trapper listened to the reasons of the young soldier with great
attention; and, as they were given with the steadiness of one who did
not suffer apprehension to blind his judgment, they did not fail to
produce a suitable impression.

“It is rational,” rejoined the trapper, when the other had delivered
his reasons; “it is very rational, for what man cannot move with his
strength he must circumvent with his wits. It is reason that makes him
stronger than the buffaloe, and swifter than the moose. Now stay you
here, and keep yourselves close. My life and my traps are but of little
value, when the welfare of so many human souls are concerned; and,
moreover, I may say that I know the windings of Indian cunning.
Therefore will I go alone upon the prairie. It may so happen, that I
can yet draw the eyes of a Sioux from this spot and give you time and
room to fly.”

As if resolved to listen to no remonstrance, the old man quietly
shouldered his rifle, and moving leisurely through the thicket, he
issued on the plain, at a point whence he might first appear before the
eyes of the Siouxes, without exciting their suspicions that he came
from its cover.

The instant that the figure of a man dressed in the garb of a hunter,
and bearing the well known and much dreaded rifle, appeared before the
eyes of the Siouxes, there was a sensible, though a suppressed
sensation in the band. The artifice of the trapper had so far
succeeded, as to render it extremely doubtful whether he came from some
point on the open prairie, or from the thicket; though the Indians
still continued to cast frequent and suspicious glances at the cover.
They had made their halt at the distance of an arrow-flight from the
bushes; but when the stranger came sufficiently nigh to show that the
deep coating of red and brown, which time and exposure had given to his
features, was laid upon the original colour of a Pale-face, they slowly
receded from the spot, until they reached a distance that might defeat
the aim of fire-arms.

In the mean time the old man continued to advance, until he had got
nigh enough to make himself heard without difficulty. Here he stopped,
and dropping his rifle to the earth, he raised his hand with the palm
outward, in token of peace. After uttering a few words of reproach to
his hound, who watched the savage group with eyes that seemed to
recognise them, he spoke in the Sioux tongue—

“My brothers are welcome,” he said, cunningly constituting himself the
master of the region in which they had met, and assuming the offices of
hospitality. “They are far from their villages, and are hungry. Will
they follow to my lodge, to eat and sleep?”

No sooner was his voice heard, than the yell of pleasure, which burst
from a dozen mouths, convinced the sagacious trapper, that he also was
recognised. Feeling that it was too late to retreat, he profited by the
confusion which prevailed among them, while Weucha was explaining his
character, to advance, until he was again face to face with the
redoubtable Mahtoree. The second interview between these two men, each
of whom was extraordinary in his way, was marked by the usual caution
of the frontiers. They stood, for nearly a minute, examining each other
without speaking.

“Where are your young men?” sternly demanded the Teton chieftain, after
he found that the immovable features of the trapper refused to betray
any of their master’s secrets, under his intimidating look.

“The Long-knives do not come in bands to trap the beaver? I am alone.”

“Your head is white, but you have a forked tongue. Mahtoree has been in
your camp. He knows that you are not alone. Where is your young wife,
and the warrior that I found upon the prairie?”

“I have no wife. I have told my brother that the woman and her friend
were strangers. The words of a grey head should be heard, and not
forgotten. The Dahcotahs found travellers asleep, and they thought they
had no need of horses. The women and children of a Pale-face are not
used to go far on foot. Let them be sought where you left them.”

The eyes of the Teton flashed fire as he answered—

“They are gone: but Mahtoree is a wise chief, and his eyes can see a
great distance!”

“Does the partisan of the Tetons see men on these naked fields?”
retorted the trapper, with great steadiness of mien. “I am very old,
and my eyes grow dim. Where do they stand?” The chief remained silent a
moment, as if he disdained to contest any further the truth of a fact,
concerning which he was already satisfied. Then pointing to the traces
on the earth, he said, with a sudden transition to mildness, in his eye
and manner—

“My father has learnt wisdom, in many winters; can he tell me whose
moccasin has left this trail?”

“There have been wolves and buffaloes on the prairies; and there may
have been cougars too.”

Mahtoree glanced his eye at the thicket, as if he thought the latter
suggestion not impossible. Pointing to the place, he ordered his young
men to reconnoitre it more closely, cautioning them, at the same time,
with a stern look at the trapper, to beware of treachery from the
Big-knives. Three or four half-naked, eager-looking youths lashed their
horses at the word, and darted away to obey the mandate. The old man
trembled a little for the discretion of Paul, when he saw this
demonstration. The Tetons encircled the place two or three times,
approaching nigher and nigher at each circuit, and then galloped back
to their leader to report that the copse seemed empty. Notwithstanding
the trapper watched the eye of Mahtoree, to detect the inward movements
of his mind, and if possible to anticipate, in order to direct his
suspicions, the utmost sagacity of one so long accustomed to study the
cold habits of the Indian race, could however detect no symptom, or
expression, that denoted how far he credited or distrusted this
intelligence. Instead of replying to the information of his scouts, he
spoke kindly to his horse, and motioning to a youth to receive the
bridle, or rather halter, by which he governed the animal, he took the
trapper by the arm, and led him a little apart from the rest of the
band.

“Has my brother been a warrior?” said the wily Teton, in a tone that he
intended should be conciliating.

“Do the leaves cover the trees in the season of fruits? Go. The
Dahcotahs have not seen as many warriors living as I have looked on in
their blood! But what signifies idle remembrancing,” he added in
English, “when limbs grow stiff, and sight is failing!”

The chief regarded him a moment with a severe look, as if he would lay
bare the falsehood he had heard; but meeting in the calm eye and steady
mien of the trapper a confirmation of the truth of what he said, he
took the hand of the old man and laid it gently on his head, in token
of the respect that was due to the other’s years and experience.

“Why then do the Big-knives tell their red brethren to bury the
tomahawk,” he said, “when their own young men never forget that they
are braves, and meet each other so often with bloody hands?”

“My nation is more numerous than the buffaloes on the prairies, or the
pigeons in the air. Their quarrels are frequent; yet their warriors are
few. None go out on the war-path but they who are gifted with the
qualities of a brave, and therefore such see many battles.”

“It is not so—my father is mistaken,” returned Mahtoree, indulging in a
smile of exulting penetration, at the very instant he corrected the
force of his denial, in deference to the years and services of one so
aged. “The Big-knives are very wise, and they are men; all of them
would be warriors. They would leave the Red-skins to dig roots and hoe
the corn. But a Dahcotah is not born to live like a woman; he must
strike the Pawnee and the Omahaw, or he will lose the name of his
fathers.”

“The Master of Life looks with an open eye on his children, who die in
a battle that is fought for the right; but he is blind, and his ears
are shut to the cries of an Indian, who is killed when plundering, or
doing evil to his neighbour.”

“My father is old,” said Mahtoree, looking at his aged companion, with
an expression of irony, that sufficiently denoted he was one of those
who overstep the trammels of education, and who are perhaps a little
given to abuse the mental liberty they thus obtain. “He is very old:
has he made a journey to the far country; and has he been at the
trouble to come back, to tell the young men what he has seen?”

“Teton,” returned the trapper, throwing the breach of his rifle to the
earth with startling vehemence, and regarding his companion with steady
serenity, “I have heard that there are men, among my people, who study
their great medicines until they believe themselves to be gods, and who
laugh at all faith except in their own vanities. It may be true. It is
true; for I have seen them. When man is shut up in towns and schools,
with his own follies, it may be easy to believe himself greater than
the Master of Life; but a warrior, who lives in a house with the clouds
for its roof, where he can at any moment look both at the heavens and
at the earth, and who daily sees the power of the Great Spirit, should
be more humble. A Dahcotah chieftain ought to be too wise to laugh at
justice.”

The crafty Mahtoree, who saw that his free-thinking was not likely to
produce a favourable impression on the old man, instantly changed his
ground, by alluding to the more immediate subject of their interview.
Laying his hand gently on the shoulder of the trapper, he led him
forward, until they both stood within fifty feet of the margin of the
thicket. Here he fastened his penetrating eyes on the other’s honest
countenance, and continued the discourse—

“If my father has hid his young men in the bush, let him tell them to
come forth. You see that a Dahcotah is not afraid. Mahtoree is a great
chief! A warrior, whose head is white, and who is about to go to the
Land of Spirits, cannot have a tongue with two ends, like a serpent.”

“Dahcotah, I have told no lie. Since the Great Spirit made me a man, I
have lived in the wilderness, or on these naked plains, without lodge
or family. I am a hunter and go on my path alone.”

“My father has a good carabine. Let him point it in the bush and fire.”

The old man hesitated a moment, and then slowly prepared himself to
give this delicate assurance of the truth of what he said, without
which he plainly perceived the suspicions of his crafty companion could
not be lulled. As he lowered his rifle, his eye, although greatly
dimmed and weakened by age, ran over the confused collection of
objects, that lay embedded amid the party-coloured foliage of the
thicket, until it succeeded in catching a glimpse of the brown covering
of the stem of a small tree. With this object in view, he raised the
piece to a level and fired. The bullet had no sooner glided from the
barrel than a tremor seized the hands of the trapper, which, had it
occurred a moment sooner, would have utterly disqualified him for so
hazardous an experiment. A frightful silence succeeded the report,
during which he expected to hear the shrieks of the females, and then,
as the smoke whirled away in the wind, he caught a view of the
fluttering bark, and felt assured that all his former skill was not
entirely departed from him. Dropping the piece to the earth, he turned
again to his companion with an air of the utmost composure, and
demanded—

“Is my brother satisfied?”

“Mahtoree is a chief of the Dahcotahs,” returned the cunning Teton,
laying his hand on his chest, in acknowledgment of the other’s
sincerity. “He knows that a warrior, who has smoked at so many
council-fires, until his head has grown white, would not be found in
wicked company. But did not my father once ride on a horse, like a rich
chief of the Pale-faces, instead of travelling on foot like a hungry
Konza?”

“Never! The Wahcondah has given me legs, and he has given me resolution
to use them. For sixty summers and winters did I journey in the woods
of America, and ten tiresome years have I dwelt on these open fields,
without finding need to call often upon the gifts of the other
creatur’s of the Lord to carry me from place to place.”

“If my father has so long lived in the shade, why has he come upon the
prairies? The sun will scorch him.”

The old man looked sorrowfully about for a moment, and then turning
with a confidential air to the other, he replied—

“I passed the spring, summer, and autumn of life among the trees. The
winter of my days had come, and found me where I loved to be, in the
quiet—ay, and in the honesty of the woods! Teton, then I slept happily,
where my eyes could look up through the branches of the pines and the
beeches, to the very dwelling of the Good Spirit of my people. If I had
need to open my heart to him, while his fires were burning above my
head, the door was open and before my eyes. But the axes of the
choppers awoke me. For a long time my ears heard nothing but the uproar
of clearings. I bore it like a warrior and a man; there was a reason
that I should bear it: but when that reason was ended, I bethought me
to get beyond the accursed sounds. It was trying to the courage and to
the habits, but I had heard of these vast and naked fields, and I came
hither to escape the wasteful temper of my people. Tell me, Dahcotah,
have I not done well?”

The trapper laid his long lean finger on the naked shoulder of the
Indian as he ended, and seemed to demand his felicitations on his
ingenuity and success, with a ghastly smile, in which triumph was
singularly blended with regret. His companion listened intently, and
replied to the question by saying, in the sententious manner of his
race—

“The head of my father is very grey; he has always lived with men, and
he has seen everything. What he does is good; what he speaks is wise.
Now let him say, is he sure that he is a stranger to the Big-knives,
who are looking for their beasts on every side of the prairies and
cannot find them?”

“Dahcotah, what I have said is true. I live alone, and never do I
mingle with men whose skins are white, if—”

His mouth was suddenly closed by an interruption that was as mortifying
as it was unexpected. The words were still on his tongue, when the
bushes on the side of the thicket where they stood, opened, and the
whole of the party whom he had just left, and in whose behalf he was
endeavouring to reconcile his love of truth to the necessity of
prevaricating, came openly into view. A pause of mute astonishment
succeeded this unlooked-for spectacle. Then Mahtoree, who did not
suffer a muscle or a joint to betray the wonder and surprise he
actually experienced, motioned towards the advancing friends of the
trapper with an air of assumed civility, and a smile, that lighted his
fierce, dark, visage, as the glare of the setting sun reveals the
volume and load of the cloud, that is charged to bursting with the
electric fluid. He however disdained to speak, or to give any other
evidence of his intentions than by calling to his side the distant
band, who sprang forward at his beck, with the alacrity of willing
subordinates.

In the mean time the friends of the old man continued to advance.
Middleton himself was foremost, supporting the light and aerial looking
figure of Inez, on whose anxious countenance he cast such occasional
glances of tender interest as, in similar circumstances, a father would
have given to his child. Paul led Ellen, close in their rear. But while
the eye of the bee-hunter did not neglect his blooming companion, it
scowled angrily, resembling more the aspect of the sullen and
retreating bear than the soft intelligence of a favoured suitor. Obed
and Asinus came last, the former leading his companion with a degree of
fondness that could hardly be said to be exceeded by any other of the
party. The approach of the naturalist was far less rapid than that of
those who preceded him. His feet seemed equally reluctant to advance,
or to remain stationary; his position bearing a great analogy to that
of Mahomet’s coffin, with the exception that the quality of repulsion
rather than that of attraction held him in a state of rest. The
repulsive power in his rear however appeared to predominate, and by a
singular exception, as he would have said himself, to all philosophical
principles, it rather increased than diminished by distance. As the
eyes of the naturalist steadily maintained a position that was the
opposite of his route, they served to give a direction to those of the
observers of all these movements, and at once furnished a sufficient
clue by which to unravel the mystery of so sudden a debouchement from
the cover.

Another cluster of stout and armed men was seen at no great distance,
just rounding a point of the thicket, and moving directly though
cautiously towards the place where the band of the Siouxes was posted,
as a squadron of cruisers is often seen to steer across the waste of
waters, towards the rich but well-protected convoy. In short, the
family of the squatter, or at least such among them as were capable of
bearing arms, appeared in view, on the broad prairie, evidently bent on
revenging their wrongs.

Mahtoree and his party slowly retired from the thicket, the moment they
caught a view of the strangers, until they halted on a swell that
commanded a wide and unobstructed view of the naked fields on which
they stood. Here the Dahcotah appeared disposed to make his stand, and
to bring matters to an issue. Notwithstanding this retreat, in which he
compelled the trapper to accompany him, Middleton still advanced, until
he too halted on the same elevation, and within speaking distance of
the warlike Siouxes. The borderers in their turn took a favourable
position, though at a much greater distance. The three groups now
resembled so many fleets at sea, lying with their topsails to the
masts, with the commendable precaution of reconnoitring, before each
could ascertain who among the strangers might be considered as friends,
and who as foes.

During this moment of suspense, the dark, threatening, eye of Mahtoree
rolled from one of the strange parties to the other, in keen and hasty
examination, and then it turned its withering look on the old man, as
the chief said, in a tone of high and bitter scorn—

“The Big-knives are fools! It is easier to catch the cougar asleep,
than to find a blind Dahcotah. Did the white head think to ride on the
horse of a Sioux?”

The trapper, who had found time to collect his perplexed faculties, saw
at once that Middleton, having perceived Ishmael on the trail by which
they had fled, preferred trusting to the hospitality of the savages,
than to the treatment he would be likely to receive from the hands of
the squatter. He therefore disposed himself to clear the way for the
favourable reception of his friends, since he found that the unnatural
coalition became necessary to secure the liberty, if not the lives, of
the party.

“Did my brother ever go on a war-path to strike my people?” he calmly
demanded of the indignant chief, who still awaited his reply.

The lowering aspect of the Teton warrior so far lost its severity, as
to suffer a gleam of pleasure and triumph to lighten its ferocity, as
sweeping his arm in an entire circle around his person he answered—

“What tribe or nation has not felt the blows of the Dahcotahs? Mahtoree
is their partisan.”

“And has he found the Big-knives women, or has he found them men?”

A multitude of fierce passions were struggling in the tawny countenance
of the Indian. For a moment inextinguishable hatred seemed to hold the
mastery, and then a nobler expression, and one that better became the
character of a brave, got possession of his features, and maintained
itself until, first throwing aside his light robe of pictured
deer-skin, and pointing to the scar of a bayonet in his breast, he
replied—

“It was given, as it was taken, face to face.”

“It is enough. My brother is a brave chief, and he should be wise. Let
him look: is that a warrior of the Pale-faces? Was it one such as that
who gave the great Dahcotah his hurt?”

The eyes of Mahtoree followed the direction of the old man’s extended
arm, until they rested on the drooping form of Inez. The look of the
Teton was long, riveted, and admiring. Like that of the young Pawnee,
it resembled more the gaze of a mortal on some heavenly image, than the
admiration with which man is wont to contemplate even the loveliness of
woman. Starting, as if suddenly self-convicted of forgetfulness, the
chief next turned his eyes on Ellen, where they lingered an instant
with a much more intelligible expression of admiration, and then
pursued their course until they had taken another glance at each
individual of the party.

“My brother sees that my tongue is not forked,” continued the trapper,
watching the emotions the other betrayed, with a readiness of
comprehension little inferior to that of the Teton himself. “The
Big-knives do not send their women to war. I know that the Dahcotahs
will smoke with the strangers.”

“Mahtoree is a great chief! The Big-knives are welcome,” said the
Teton, laying his hand on his breast, with an air of lofty politeness
that would have done credit to any state of society. “The arrows of my
young men are in their quivers.”

The trapper motioned to Middleton to approach, and in a few moments the
two parties were blended in one, each of the males having exchanged
friendly greetings, after the fashions of the prairie warriors. But,
even while engaged in this hospitable manner, the Dahcotah did not fail
to keep a strict watch on the more distant party of white men, as if he
still distrusted an artifice, or sought further explanation. The old
man, in his turn, perceived the necessity of being more explicit, and
of securing the slight and equivocal advantage he had already obtained.
While affecting to examine the group, which still lingered at the spot
where it had first halted, as if to discover the characters of those
who composed it, he plainly saw that Ishmael contemplated immediate
hostilities. The result of a conflict on the open prairie, between a
dozen resolute border men, and the half-armed natives, even though
seconded by their white allies, was in his experienced judgment a point
of great uncertainty, and though far from reluctant to engage in the
struggle on account of himself, the aged trapper thought it far more
worthy of his years, and his character, to avoid than to court the
contest. His feelings were, for obvious reasons, in accordance with
those of Paul and Middleton, who had lives still more precious than
their own to watch over and protect. In this dilemma the three
consulted on the means of escaping the frightful consequences which
might immediately follow a single act of hostility on the part of the
borderers; the old man taking care that their communication should, in
the eyes of those who noted the expression of their countenances with
jealous watchfulness, bear the appearance of explanations as to the
reason why such a party of travellers was met so far in the deserts.

“I know that the Dahcotahs are a wise and great people,” at length the
trapper commenced, again addressing himself to the chief; “but does not
their partisan know a single brother who is base?”

The eye of Mahtoree wandered proudly around his band, but rested a
moment reluctantly on Weucha, as he answered—

“The Master of Life has made chiefs, and warriors, and women;”
conceiving that he thus embraced all the gradations of human excellence
from the highest to the lowest.

“And he has also made Pale-faces, who are wicked. Such are they whom my
brother sees yonder.”

“Do they go on foot to do wrong?” demanded the Teton, with a wild gleam
from his eyes, that sufficiently betrayed how well he knew the reason
why they were reduced to so humble an expedient.

“Their beasts are gone. But their powder, and their lead, and their
blankets remain.”

“Do they carry their riches in their hands, like miserable Konzas? or
are they brave, and leave them with the women, as men should do, who
know where to find what they lose?”

“My brother sees the spot of blue across the prairie; look, the sun has
touched it for the last time to-day.”

“Mahtoree is not a mole.”

“It is a rock; on it are the goods of the Big-knives.”

An expression of savage joy shot into the dark countenance of the Teton
as he listened; turning to the old man he seemed to read his soul, as
if to assure himself he was not deceived. Then he bent his look on the
party of Ishmael, and counted its number.

“One warrior is wanting,” he said.

“Does my brother see the buzzards? there is his grave. Did he find
blood on the prairie? It was his.”

“Enough! Mahtoree is a wise chief. Put your women on the horses of the
Dahcotahs: we shall see, for our eyes are open very wide.”

The trapper wasted no unnecessary words in explanation. Familiar with
the brevity and promptitude of the natives, he immediately communicated
the result to his companions. Paul was mounted in an instant, with
Ellen at his back. A few more moments were necessary to assure
Middleton of the security and ease of Inez. While he was thus engaged,
Mahtoree advanced to the side of the beast he had allotted to this
service, which was his own, and manifested an intention to occupy his
customary place on its back. The young soldier seized the reins of the
animal, and glances of sudden anger and lofty pride were exchanged
between them.

“No man takes this seat but myself,” said Middleton, sternly, in
English.

“Mahtoree is a great chief!” retorted the savage; neither comprehending
the meaning of the other’s words.

“The Dahcotah will be too late,” whispered the old man at his elbow;
“see; the Big-knives are afraid, and they will soon run.”

The Teton chief instantly abandoned his claim, and threw himself on
another horse, directing one of his young men to furnish a similar
accommodation for the trapper. The warriors who were dismounted, got up
behind as many of their companions. Doctor Battius bestrode Asinus;
and, notwithstanding the brief interruption, in half the time we have
taken to relate it, the whole party was prepared to move.

When he saw that all were ready, Mahtoree gave the signal to advance. A
few of the best mounted of the warriors, the chief himself included,
moved a little in front, and made a threatening demonstration, as if
they intended to attack the strangers. The squatter, who was in truth
slowly retiring, instantly halted his party, and showed a willing
front. Instead, however, of coming within reach of the dangerous aim of
the western rifle, the subtle savages kept wheeling about the
strangers, until they had made a half circuit, keeping the latter in
constant expectation of an assault. Then, perfectly secure of their
object, the Tetons raised a loud shout, and darted across the prairie
in a line for the distant rock, with the directness and nearly with the
velocity of the arrow, that has just been shot from its bow.




CHAPTER XXI


Dally not with the gods, but get thee gone.
                   —Shakespeare.


Mahtoree had scarcely given the first intimation of his real design,
before a general discharge from the borderers proved how well they
understood it. The distance, and the rapidity of the flight, however,
rendered the fire harmless. As a proof how little he regarded the
hostility of their party, the Dahcotah chieftain answered the report
with a yell; and, flourishing his carabine above his head, he made a
circuit on the plain, followed by his chosen warriors, in scorn of the
impotent attempt of his enemies. As the main body continued the direct
course, this little band of the _élite_, in returning from its wild
exhibition of savage contempt, took its place in the rear, with a
dexterity and a concert of action that showed the manoeuvre had been
contemplated.

Volley swiftly succeeded volley, until the enraged squatter was
reluctantly compelled to abandon the idea of injuring his enemies by
means so feeble. Relinquishing his fruitless attempt, he commenced a
rapid pursuit, occasionally discharging a rifle in order to give the
alarm to the garrison, which he had prudently left under the command of
the redoubtable Esther herself. In this manner the chase was continued
for many minutes, the horsemen gradually gaining on their pursuers, who
maintained the race, however, with an incredible power of foot.

As the little speck of blue rose against the heavens, like an island
issuing from the deep, the savages occasionally raised a yell of
triumph. But the mists of evening were already gathering along the
whole of the eastern margin of the prairie, and before the band had
made half of the necessary distance, the dim outline of the rock had
melted into the haze of the back ground. Indifferent to this
circumstance, which rather favoured than disconcerted his plans,
Mahtoree, who had again ridden in front, held on his course with the
accuracy of a hound of the truest scent, merely slackening his speed a
little, as the horses of his party were by this time thoroughly blown.
It was at this stage of the enterprise, that the old man rode up to the
side of Middleton, and addressed him as follows in English—

“Here is likely to be a thieving business, and one in which I must say
I have but little wish to be a partner.”

“What would you do? It would be fatal to trust ourselves in the hands
of the miscreants in our rear.”

“Tut, for miscreants, be they red or be they white. Look ahead, lad, as
if ye were talking of our medicines, or perhaps praising the Teton
beasts. For the knaves love to hear their horses commended, the same as
a foolish mother in the settlements is fond of hearing the praises of
her wilful child. So; pat the animal and lay your hand on the gewgaws,
with which the Red-skins have ornamented his mane, giving your eye as
it were to one thing, and your mind to another. Listen; if matters are
managed with judgment, we may leave these Tetons as the night sets in.”

“A blessed thought!” exclaimed Middleton, who retained a painful
remembrance of the look of admiration, with which Mahtoree had
contemplated the loveliness of Inez, as well as of his subsequent
presumption in daring to wish to take the office of her protector on
himself.

“Lord, Lord! what a weak creatur’ is man, when the gifts of natur’ are
smothered in bookish knowledge, and womanly manners! Such another start
would tell these imps at our elbows that we were plotting against them,
just as plainly as if it were whispered in their ears by a Sioux
tongue. Ay, ay, I know the devils; they look as innocent as so many
frisky fawns, but there is not one among them all that has not an eye
on our smallest motions. Therefore, what is to be done is to be done in
wisdom, in order to circumvent their cunning. That is right; pat his
neck and smile, as if you praised the horse, and keep the ear on my
side open to my words. Be careful not to worry your beast, for though
but little skilled in horses, reason teaches that breath is needful in
a hard push, and that a weary leg makes a dull race. Be ready to mind
the signal, when you hear a whine from old Hector. The first will be to
make ready; the second, to edge out of the crowd; and the third, to
go—am I understood?”

“Perfectly, perfectly,” said Middleton, trembling in his excessive
eagerness to put the plan in instant execution, and pressing the little
arm, which encircled his body, to his heart. “Perfectly. Hasten,
hasten.”

“Ay, the beast is no sloth,” continued the trapper in the Teton
language, as if he continued the discourse, edging cautiously through
the dusky throng at the same time, until he found himself riding at the
side of Paul. He communicated his intentions in the same guarded manner
as before. The high-spirited and fearless bee-hunter received the
intelligence with delight, declaring his readiness to engage the whole
of the savage band, should it become necessary to effect their object.
When the old man drew off from the side of this pair also, he cast his
eyes about him to discover the situation occupied by the naturalist.

The Doctor, with infinite labour to himself and Asinus, had maintained
a position in the very centre of the Siouxes, so long as there existed
the smallest reason for believing that any of the missiles of Ishmael
might arrive in contact with his person. After this danger had
diminished, or rather disappeared entirely, his own courage revived,
while that of his steed began to droop. To this mutual but very
material change was owing the fact, that the rider and the ass were now
to be sought among that portion of the band who formed a sort of
rear-guard. Hither, then, the trapper contrived to turn his steed,
without exciting the suspicions of any of his subtle companions.

“Friend,” commenced the old man, when he found himself in a situation
favourable to discourse, “should you like to pass a dozen years among
the savages with a shaved head, and a painted countenance, with,
perhaps, a couple of wives and five or six children of the half breed,
to call you father?”

“Impossible!” exclaimed the startled naturalist. “I am indisposed to
matrimony in general, and more especially to all admixture of the
varieties of species, which only tend to tarnish the beauty and to
interrupt the harmony of nature. Moreover, it is a painful innovation
on the order of all nomenclatures.”

“Ay, ay, you have reason enough for your distaste to such a life; but
should these Siouxes get you fairly into their village, such would be
your luck, as certain as that the sun rises and sets at the pleasure of
the Lord.”

“Marry me to a woman who is not adorned with the comeliness of the
species!” responded the Doctor. “Of what crime have I been guilty, that
so grievous a punishment should await the offence? To marry a man
against the movements of his will, is to do a violence to human
nature!”

“Now, that you speak of natur’, I have hopes that the gift of reason
has not altogether deserted your brain,” returned the old man, with a
covert expression playing about the angles of his deep set eyes, which
betrayed he was not entirely destitute of humour. “Nay, they may
conceive you a remarkable subject for their kindness, and for that
matter marry you to five or six. I have known, in my days, favoured
chiefs who had numberless wives.”

“But why should they meditate this vengeance?” demanded the Doctor,
whose hair began to rise, as if each fibre was possessed of
sensibility; “what evil have I done?”

“It is the fashion of their kindness. When they come to learn that you
are a great medicine, they will adopt you in the tribe, and some mighty
chief will give you his name, and perhaps his daughter, or it may be a
wife or two of his own, who have dwelt long in his lodge, and of whose
value he is a judge by experience.”

“The Governor and Founder of natural harmony protect me!” ejaculated
the Doctor. “I have no affinity to a single consort, much less to
duplicates and triplicates of the class! I shall certainly essay a
flight from their abodes before I mingle in so violent a conjunction.”

“There is reason in your words; but why not attempt the race you speak
of now?”

The naturalist looked fearfully around, as if he had an inclination to
make an instant exhibition of his desperate intention; but the dusky
figures, who were riding on every side of him, seemed suddenly tripled
in number, and the darkness, that was already thickening on the
prairie, appeared in his eyes to possess the glare of high noon.

“It would be premature, and reason forbids it,” he answered. “Leave me,
venerable venator, to the council of my own thoughts, and when my plans
are properly classed, I will advise you of my resolutions.”

“Resolutions!” repeated the old man, shaking his head a little
contemptuously as he gave the rein to his horse, and allowed him to
mingle with the steeds of the savages. “Resolution is a word that is
talked of in the settlements, and felt on the borders. Does my brother
know the beast on which the Pale-face rides?” he continued, addressing
a gloomy looking warrior in his own tongue, and making a motion with
his arm that at the same time directed his attention to the naturalist
and the meek Asinus.

The Teton turned his eyes for a minute on the animal, but disdained to
manifest the smallest portion of that wonder he had felt, in common
with all his companions, on first viewing so rare a quadruped. The
trapper was not ignorant, that while asses and mules were beginning to
be known to those tribes who dwelt nearest the Mexicos, they were not
usually encountered so far north as the waters of La Platte. He
therefore managed to read the mute astonishment, that lay so deeply
concealed in the tawny visage of the savage, and took his measures
accordingly.

“Does my brother think that the rider is a warrior of the Pale-faces?”
he demanded, when he believed that sufficient time had elapsed, for a
full examination of the pacific mien of the naturalist.

The flash of scorn, which shot across the features of the Teton, was
visible, even by the dim light of the stars.

“Is a Dahcotah a fool?” was the answer.

“They are a wise nation, whose eyes are never shut; much do I wonder,
that they have not seen the great medicine of the Big-knives!”

“Wagh!” exclaimed his companion, suffering the whole of his amazement
to burst out of his dark rigid countenance at the surprise, like a
flash of lightning illuminating the gloom of midnight.

“The Dahcotah knows that my tongue is not forked. Let him open his eyes
wider. Does he not see a very great medicine?”

The light was not necessary to recall to the savage each feature in the
really remarkable costume and equipage of Dr. Battius. In common with
the rest of the band, and in conformity with the universal practice of
the Indians, this warrior, while he had suffered no gaze of idle
curiosity to disgrace his manhood, had not permitted a single
distinctive mark, which might characterise any one of the strangers, to
escape his vigilance. He knew the air, the stature, the dress, and the
features, even to the colour of the eyes and of the hair, of every one
of the Big-knives, whom he had thus strangely encountered, and deeply
had he ruminated on the causes, which could have led a party, so
singularly constituted, into the haunts of the rude inhabitants of his
native wastes. He had already considered the several physical powers of
the whole party, and had duly compared their abilities with what he
supposed might have been their intentions. Warriors they were not, for
the Big-knives, like the Siouxes, left their women in their villages
when they went out on the bloody path. The same objections applied to
them as hunters, and even as traders, the two characters under which
the white men commonly appeared in their villages. He had heard of a
great council, at which the Menahashah, or Long-knives, and the
Washsheomantiqua, or Spaniards, had smoked together, when the latter
had sold to the former their incomprehensible rights over those vast
regions, through which his nation had roamed, in freedom, for so many
ages. His simple mind had not been able to embrace the reasons why one
people should thus assume a superiority over the possessions of
another, and it will readily be perceived, that at the hint just
received from the trapper, he was not indisposed to fancy that some of
the hidden subtilty of that magical influence, of which he was so firm
a believer, was about to be practised by the unsuspecting subject of
their conversation, in furtherance of these mysterious claims.
Abandoning, therefore, all the reserve and dignity of his manner, under
the conscious helplessness of ignorance, he turned to the old man, and
stretching forth his arms, as if to denote how much he lay at his
mercy, he said—

“Let my father look at me. I am a wild man of the prairies; my body is
naked; my hands empty; my skin red. I have struck the Pawnees, the
Konzas, the Omahaws, the Osages, and even the Long-knives. I am a man
amid warriors, but a woman among the conjurors. Let my father speak:
the ears of the Teton are open. He listens like a deer to the step of
the cougar.”

“Such are the wise and uns’archable ways of One who alone knows good
from evil!” exclaimed the trapper, in English. “To some He grants
cunning, and on others He bestows the gift of manhood! It is humbling,
and it is afflicting to see so noble a creatur’ as this, who has fou’t
in many a bloody fray, truckling before his superstition like a beggar
asking for the bones you would throw to the dogs. The Lord will forgive
me for playing with the ignorance of the savage, for He knows I do it
in no mockery of his state, or in idle vaunting of my own; but in order
to save mortal life, and to give justice to the wronged, while I defeat
the deviltries of the wicked! Teton,” speaking again in the language of
the listener, “I ask you, is not that a wonderful medicine? If the
Dahcotahs are wise, they will not breathe the air he breathes, nor
touch his robes. They know, that the Wahconshecheh (bad spirit) loves
his own children, and will not turn his back on him that does them
harm.”

The old man delivered this opinion in an ominous and sententious
manner, and then rode apart as if he had said enough. The result
justified his expectations. The warrior, to whom he had addressed
himself, was not slow to communicate his important knowledge to the
rest of the rear-guard, and, in a very few moments, the naturalist was
the object of general observation and reverence. The trapper, who
understood that the natives often worshipped, with a view to
propitiate, the evil spirit, awaited the workings of his artifice, with
the coolness of one who had not the smallest interest in its effects.
It was not long before he saw one dark figure after another, lashing
his horse and galloping ahead into the centre of the band, until Weucha
alone remained nigh the persons of himself and Obed. The very dulness
of this grovelling-minded savage, who continued gazing at the supposed
conjuror with a sort of stupid admiration, opposed now the only
obstacle to the complete success of his artifice.

Thoroughly understanding the character of this Indian, the old man lost
no time in getting rid of him also. Riding to his side he said, in an
affected whisper—

“Has Weucha drunk of the milk of the Big-knives, to-day?”

“Hugh!” exclaimed the savage, every dull thought instantly recalled
from heaven to earth by the question.

“Because the great captain of my people, who rides in front, has a cow
that is never empty. I know it will not be long before he will say, Are
any of my red brethren dry?”

The words were scarcely uttered, before Weucha, in his turn, quickened
the gait of his beast, and was soon blended with the rest of the dark
group, who were riding, at a more moderate pace, a few rods in advance.
The trapper, who knew how fickle and sudden were the changes of a
savage mind, did not lose a moment in profiting by this advantage. He
loosened the reins of his own impatient steed, and in an instant he was
again at the side of Obed.

“Do you see the twinkling star, that is, may be, the length of four
rifles above the prairie; hereaway, to the North I mean?”

“Ay, it is of the constellation—-”

“A tut for your constellations, man; do you see the star I mean? Tell
me, in the English of the land, yes or no.”

“Yes.”

“The moment my back is turned, pull upon the rein of your ass, until
you lose sight of the savages. Then take the Lord for your dependence,
and yonder star for your guide. Turn neither to the right hand, nor to
the left, but make diligent use of your time, for your beast is not
quick of foot, and every inch of prairie you gain, is a day added to
your liberty, or to your life.”

Without waiting to listen to the queries, which the naturalist was
about to put, the old man again loosened the reins of his horse, and
presently he too was blended with the group in front.

Obed was now alone. Asinus willingly obeyed the hint which his master
soon gave, rather in desperation than with any very collected
understanding of the orders he had received, and checked his pace
accordingly. As the Tetons however rode at a hand-gallop, but a moment
of time was necessary, after the ass began to walk, to remove them
effectually from before the vision of his rider. Without plan,
expectation, or hope of any sort, except that of escaping from his
dangerous neighbours, the Doctor first feeling, to assure himself that
the package, which contained the miserable remnants of his specimens
and notes was safe at his crupper, turned the head of the beast in the
required direction, and kicking him with a species of fury, he soon
succeeded in exciting the speed of the patient animal into a smart run.
He had barely time to descend into a hollow and ascend the adjoining
swell of the prairie, before he heard, or fancied he heard, his name
shouted, in good English, from the throats of twenty Tetons. The
delusion gave a new impulse to his ardour; and no professor of the
saltant art ever applied himself with greater industry, than the
naturalist now used his heels on the ribs of Asinus. The conflict
endured for several minutes without interruption, and to all
appearances it might have continued to the present moment, had not the
meek temper of the beast become unduly excited. Borrowing an idea from
the manner in which his master exhibited his agitation, Asinus so far
changed the application of his own heels, as to raise them
simultaneously with a certain indignant flourish into the air, a
measure that instantly decided the controversy in his favour. Obed took
leave of his seat, as of a position no longer tenable, continuing,
however, the direction of his flight, while the ass, like a conqueror,
took possession of the field of battle, beginning to crop the dry
herbage, as the fruits of victory.

When Doctor Battius had recovered his feet, and rallied his faculties,
which were in a good deal of disorder from the hurried manner in which
he had abandoned his former situation, he returned in quest of his
specimens and of his ass. Asinus displayed enough of magnanimity to
render the interview amicable, and thenceforth the naturalist continued
the required route with very commendable industry, but with a much more
tempered discretion.

In the mean time, the old trapper had not lost sight of the important
movements that he had undertaken to control. Obed had not been mistaken
in supposing that he was already missed and sought, though his
imagination had corrupted certain savage cries into the well-known
sounds that composed his own latinized name. The truth was simply this.
The warriors of the rearguard had not failed to apprise those in front
of the mysterious character, with which it had pleased the trapper to
invest the unsuspecting naturalist. The same untutored admiration,
which on the receipt of this intelligence had driven those in the rear
to the front, now drove many of the front to the rear. The Doctor was
of course absent, and the outcry was no more than the wild yells, which
were raised in the first burst of savage disappointment.

But the authority of Mahtoree was prompt to aid the ingenuity of the
trapper, in suppressing these dangerous sounds. When order was
restored, and the former was made acquainted with the reason why his
young men had betrayed so strong a mark of indiscretion, the old man,
who had taken a post at his elbow, saw, with alarm, the gleam of keen
distrust that flashed in his swarthy visage.

“Where is your conjuror?” demanded the chief, turning suddenly to the
trapper, as if he meant to make him responsible for the re-appearance
of Obed.

“Can I tell my brother the number of the stars? The ways of a great
medicine are not like the ways of other men.”

“Listen to me, grey-head, and count my words,” continued the other,
bending on his rude saddle-bow, like some chevalier of a more civilised
race, and speaking in the haughty tones of absolute power; “the
Dahcotahs have not chosen a woman for their chief; when Mahtoree feels
the power of a great medicine, he will tremble; until then he will look
with his own eyes, without borrowing sight from a Pale-face. If your
conjuror is not with his friends in the morning, my young men shall
look for him. Your ears are open. Enough.”

The trapper was not sorry to find that so long a respite was granted.
He had before found reason to believe, that the Teton partisan was one
of those bold spirits, who overstep the limits which use and education
fix to the opinions of man, in every state of society, and he now saw
plainly that he must adopt some artifice to deceive him, different from
that which had succeeded so well with his followers. The sudden
appearance of the rock, however, which hove up, a bleak and ragged
mass, out of the darkness ahead, put an end for the present to the
discourse, Mahtoree giving all his thoughts to the execution of his
designs on the rest of the squatter’s movables. A murmur ran through
the band, as each dark warrior caught a glimpse of the desired haven,
after which the nicest ear might have listened in vain, to catch a
sound louder than the rustling of feet among the tall grass of the
prairie.

But the vigilance of Esther was not easily deceived. She had long
listened anxiously to the suspicious sounds, which approached the rock
across the naked waste, nor had the sudden outcry been unheard by the
unwearied sentinels of the rock. The savages, who had dismounted at
some little distance, had not time to draw around the base of the hill
in their customary silent and insidious manner, before the voice of the
Amazon was raised, demanding—

“Who is beneath? Answer, for your lives! Siouxes or devils, I fear ye
not!”

No answer was given to this challenge, every warrior halting where he
stood, confident that his dusky form was blended with the shadows of
the plain. It was at this moment that the trapper determined to escape.
He had been left with the rest of his friends, under the surveillance
of those who were assigned to the duty of watching the horses, and as
they all continued mounted, the moment appeared favourable to his
project. The attention of the guards was drawn to the rock, and a heavy
cloud driving above them at that instant, obscured even the feeble
light which fell from the stars. Leaning on the neck of his horse, the
old man muttered—

“Where is my pup? Where is it—Hector—where is it, dog?”

The hound caught the well-known sounds, and answered by a whine of
friendship, which threatened to break out into one of his piercing
howls. The trapper was in the act of raising himself from this
successful exploit, when he felt the hand of Weucha grasping his
throat, as if determined to suppress his voice by the very unequivocal
process of strangulation. Profiting by the circumstance, he raised
another low sound, as in the natural effort of breathing, which drew a
second responsive cry from the faithful hound. Weucha instantly
abandoned his hold of the master in order to wreak his vengeance on the
dog. But the voice of Esther was again heard, and every other design
was abandoned in order to listen.

“Ay, whine and deform your throats as you may, ye imps of darkness,”
she said, with a cracked but scornful laugh; “I know ye; tarry, and ye
shall have light for your misdeeds. Put in the coal, Phoebe; put in the
coal; your father and the boys shall see that they are wanted at home,
to welcome their guests.”

As she spoke, a strong light, like that of a brilliant star, was seen
on the very pinnacle of the rock; then followed a forked flame, which
curled for a moment amid the windings of an enormous pile of brush, and
flashing upward in an united sheet, it wavered to and fro, in the
passing air, shedding a bright glare on every object within its
influence. A taunting laugh was heard from the height, in which the
voices of all ages mingled, as though they triumphed at having so
successfully exposed the treacherous intentions of the Tetons.

The trapper looked about him to ascertain in what situations he might
find his friends. True to the signals, Middleton and Paul had drawn a
little apart, and now stood ready, by every appearance, to commence
their flight at the third repetition of the cry. Hector had escaped his
savage pursuer, and was again crouching at the heels of his master’s
horse. But the broad circle of light was gradually increasing in extent
and power, and the old man, whose eye and judgment so rarely failed
him, patiently awaited a more propitious moment for his enterprise.

“Now, Ishmael, my man, if sight and hand ar’ true as ever, now is the
time to work upon these Redskins, who claim to own all your property,
even to wife and children! Now, my good man, prove both breed and
character!”

A distant shout was heard in the direction of the approaching party of
the squatter, assuring the female garrison that succour was not far
distant. Esther answered to the grateful sounds by a cracked cry of her
own, lifting her form, in the first burst of exultation, above the rock
in a manner to be visible to all below. Not content with this dangerous
exposure of her person, she was in the act of tossing her arms in
triumph, when the dark figure of Mahtoree shot into the light and
pinioned them to her side. The forms of three other warriors glided
across the top of the rock, looking like naked demons flitting among
the clouds. The air was filled with the brands of the beacon, and a
heavy darkness succeeded, not unlike that of the appalling instant,
when the last rays of the sun are excluded by the intervening mass of
the moon. A yell of triumph burst from the savages in their turn, and
was rather accompanied than followed by a long, loud whine from Hector.

In an instant the old man was between the horses of Middleton and Paul,
extending a hand to the bridle of each, in order to check the
impatience of their riders.

“Softly, softly,” he whispered, “their eyes are as marvellously shut
for the minute, as if the Lord had stricken them blind; but their ears
are open. Softly, softly; for fifty rods, at least, we must move no
faster than a walk.”

The five minutes of doubt that succeeded appeared like an age to all
but the trapper. As their sight was gradually restored, it seemed to
each that the momentary gloom, which followed the extinction of the
beacon, was to be replaced by as broad a light as that of noon-day.
Gradually the old man, however, suffered the animals to quicken their
steps, until they had gained the centre of one of the prairie bottoms.
Then laughing in his quiet manner he released the reins and said—

“Now, let them give play to their legs; but keep on the old fog to
deaden the sounds.”

It is needless to say how cheerfully he was obeyed. In a few more
minutes they ascended and crossed a swell of the land, after which the
flight was continued at the top of their horses’ speed, keeping the
indicated star in view, as the labouring bark steers for the light
which points the way to a haven and security.




CHAPTER XXII


The clouds and sunbeams o’er his eye,
   That once their shades and glories threw,
Have left, in yonder silent sky,
   No vestige where they flew.
                   —Montgomery.


A stillness, as deep as that which marked the gloomy wastes in their
front, was observed by the fugitives to distinguish the spot they had
just abandoned. Even the trapper lent his practised faculties, in vain,
to detect any of the well-known signs, which might establish the
important fact that hostilities had actually commenced between the
parties of Mahtoree and Ishmael; but their horses carried them out of
the reach of sounds, without the occurrence of the smallest evidence of
the sort. The old man, from time to time, muttered his discontent, but
manifested the uneasiness he actually entertained in no other manner,
unless it might be in exhibiting a growing anxiety to urge the animals
to increase their speed. He pointed out in passing, the deserted swale,
where the family of the squatter had encamped, the night they were
introduced to the reader, and afterwards he maintained an ominous
silence; ominous, because his companions had already seen enough of his
character, to be convinced that the circumstances must be critical
indeed, which possessed the power to disturb the well regulated
tranquillity of the old man’s mind.

“Have we not done enough,” Middleton demanded, in tenderness to the
inability of Inez and Ellen to endure so much fatigue, at the end of
some hours; “we have ridden hard, and have crossed a wide tract of
plain. It is time to seek a place of rest.”

“You must seek it then in Heaven, if you find yourselves unequal to a
longer march,” murmured the old trapper. “Had the Tetons and the
squatter come to blows, as any one might see in the natur’ of things
they were bound to do, there would be time to look about us, and to
calculate not only the chances but the comforts of the journey; but as
the case actually is, I should consider it certain death, or endless
captivity, to trust our eyes with sleep, until our heads are fairly hid
in some uncommon cover.”

“I know not,” returned the youth, who reflected more on the sufferings
of the fragile being he supported, than on the experience of his
companion; “I know not; we have ridden leagues, and I can see no
extraordinary signs of danger:—if you fear for yourself, my good
friend, believe me you are wrong, for—”

“Your grand’ther, were he living and here,” interrupted the old man,
stretching forth a hand, and laying a finger impressively on the arm of
Middleton, “would have spared those words. He had some reason to think
that, in the prime of my days, when my eye was quicker than the hawk’s,
and my limbs were as active as the legs of the fallow-deer, I never
clung too eagerly and fondly to life: then why should I now feel such a
childish affection for a thing that I know to be vain, and the
companion of pain and sorrow. Let the Tetons do their worst; they will
not find a miserable and worn out trapper the loudest in his
complaints, or his prayers.”

“Pardon me, my worthy, my inestimable friend,” exclaimed the repentant
young man, warmly grasping the hand, which the other was in the act of
withdrawing; “I knew not what I said—or rather I thought only of those
whose tenderness we are most bound to consider.”

“Enough. It is natur’, and it is right. Therein your grand’ther would
have done the very same. Ah’s me! what a number of seasons, hot and
cold, wet and dry, have rolled over my poor head, since the time we
worried it out together, among the Red Hurons of the Lakes, back in
those rugged mountains of Old York! and many a noble buck has since
that day fallen by my hand; ay, and many a thieving Mingo, too! Tell
me, lad, did the general, for general I know he got to be, did he ever
tell you of the deer we took, that night the outlyers of the accursed
tribe drove us to the caves, on the island, and how we feasted and
drunk in security?”

“I have often heard him mention the smallest circumstance of the night
you mean; but—”

“And the singer; and his open throat; and his shoutings in the fights!”
continued the old man, laughing joyously at the strength of his own
recollections.

“All—all—he forgot nothing, even to the most trifling incident. Do you
not—”

“What! did he tell you of the imp behind the log and of the miserable
devil who went over the fall—or of the wretch in the tree?”

“Of each and all, with every thing that concerned them.[16] I should
think—”

“Ay,” continued the old man, in a voice, which betrayed how powerfully
his own faculties retained the impression of the spectacle, “I have
been a dweller in forests, and in the wilderness for three-score and
ten years, and if any can pretend to know the world, or to have seen
scary sights, it is myself! But never, before nor since, have I seen
human man in such a state of mortal despair as that very savage; and
yet he scorned to speak, or to cry out, or to own his forlorn
condition! It is their gift, and nobly did he maintain it!”

“Harkee, old trapper,” interrupted Paul, who, content with the
knowledge that his waist was grasped by one of the arms of Ellen, had
hitherto ridden in unusual silence; “my eyes are as true and as
delicate as a humming-bird’s in the day; but they are nothing worth
boasting of by starlight. Is that a sick buffaloe, crawling along in
the bottom, there, or is it one of the stray cattle of the savages?”

The whole party drew up, in order to examine the object, which Paul had
pointed out. During most of the time, they had ridden in the little
vales in order to seek the protection of the shadows, but just at that
moment, they had ascended a roll of the prairie in order to cross into
the very bottom where this unknown animal was now seen.

“Let us descend,” said Middleton; “be it beast or man, we are too
strong to have any cause of fear.”

“Now, if the thing was not morally impossible,” cried the trapper, who
the reader must have already discovered was not always exact in the use
of qualifying words, “if the thing was not morally impossible, I should
say, that was the man, who journeys in search of reptiles and insects:
our fellow-traveller the Doctor.”

“Why impossible? did you not direct him to pursue this course, in order
to rejoin us?”

“Ay, but I did not tell him to make an ass outdo the speed of a
horse:—you are right—you are right,” said the trapper, interrupting
himself, as by gradually lessening the distance between them, his eyes
assured him it was Obed and Asinus, whom he saw; “you are right, as
certainly as the thing is a miracle. Lord, what a thing is fear! How
now, friend; you have been industrious to have got so far ahead in so
short a time. I marvel at the speed of the ass!”

“Asinus is overcome,” returned the naturalist, mournfully. “The animal
has certainly not been idle since we separated, but he declines all my
admonitions and invitations to proceed. I hope there is no instant fear
from the savages?”

“I cannot say that; I cannot say that; matters are not as they should
be, atween the squatter and the Tetons, nor will I answer as yet for
the safety of any scalp among us. The beast is broken down! you have
urged him beyond his natural gifts, and he is like a worried hound.
There is pity and discretion in all things, even though a man be riding
for his life.”

“You indicated the star,” returned the Doctor, “and I deemed it
expedient to use great diligence in pursuing the direction.”

“Did you expect to reach it, by such haste? Go, go; you talk boldly of
the creatur’s of the Lord, though I plainly see you are but a child in
matters that concern their gifts and instincts. What a plight would you
now be in, if there was need for a long and a quick push with our
heels?”

“The fault exists in the formation of the quadruped,” said Obed, whose
placid temper began to revolt under so many scandalous imputations.
“Had there been rotary levers for two of the members, a moiety of the
fatigue would have been saved, for one item—”

“That, for your moiety’s and rotaries, and items, man; a jaded ass is a
jaded ass, and he who denies it is but a brother of the beast itself.
Now, captain, are we driven to choose one of two evils. We must either
abandon this man, who has been too much with us through good and bad to
be easily cast away, or we must seek a cover to let the animal rest.”

“Venerable venator!” exclaimed the alarmed Obed; “I conjure you by all
the secret sympathies of our common nature, by all the hidden—”

“Ah, fear has brought him to talk a little rational sense! It is not
natur’, truly, to abandon a brother in distress; and the Lord He knows
that I have never yet done the shameful deed. You are right, friend,
you are right; we must all be hidden, and that speedily. But what to do
with the ass! Friend Doctor, do you truly value the life of the
creatur’?”

“He is an ancient and faithful servant,” returned the disconsolate
Obed, “and with pain should I see him come to any harm. Fetter his
lower limbs, and leave him to repose in this bed of herbage. I will
engage he shall be found where he is left, in the morning.”

“And the Siouxes? What would become of the beast should any of the red
imps catch a peep at his ears, growing up out of the grass like to
mullein-tops?” cried the bee-hunter. “They would stick him as full of
arrows, as a woman’s cushion is full of pins, and then believe they had
done the job for the father of all rabbits! My word for it out they
would find out their blunder at the first mouthful!”

Middleton, who began to grow impatient under the protracted discussion,
interposed, and, as a good deal of deference was paid to his rank, he
quickly prevailed in his efforts to effect a sort of compromise. The
humble Asinus, too meek and too weary to make any resistance, was soon
tethered and deposited in his bed of dying grass, where he was left
with a perfect confidence on the part of his master of finding him,
again, at the expiration of a few hours. The old man strongly
remonstrated against this arrangement, and more than once hinted that
the knife was much more certain than the tether, but the petitions of
Obed, aided perhaps by the secret reluctance of the trapper to destroy
the beast, were the means of saving its life. When Asinus was thus
secured, and as his master believed secreted, the whole party proceeded
to find some place where they might rest themselves, during the time
required for the repose of the animal.

According to the calculations of the trapper, they had ridden twenty
miles since the commencement of their flight. The delicate frame of
Inez began to droop under the excessive fatigue, nor was the more
robust, but still feminine person of Ellen, insensible to the
extraordinary effort she had made. Middleton himself was not sorry to
repose, nor did the vigorous and high-spirited Paul hesitate to confess
that he should be all the better for a little rest. The old man alone
seemed indifferent to the usual claims of nature. Although but little
accustomed to the unusual description of exercise he had just been
taking, he appeared to bid defiance to all the usual attacks of human
infirmities. Though evidently so near its dissolution, his attenuated
frame still stood like the shaft of seasoned oak, dry, naked, and
tempest-driven, but unbending and apparently indurated to the
consistency of stone. On the present occasion he conducted the search
for a resting-place, which was immediately commenced, with all the
energy of youth, tempered by the discretion and experience of his great
age.

The bed of grass, in which the Doctor had been met, and in which his
ass had just been left, was followed a little distance until it was
found that the rolling swells of the prairie were melting away into one
vast level plain, that was covered, for miles on miles, with the same
species of herbage.

“Ah, this may do, this may do,” said the old man, when they arrived on
the borders of this sea of withered grass. “I know the spot, and often
have I lain in its secret holes, for days at a time, while the savages
have been hunting the buffaloes on the open ground. We must enter it
with great care, for a broad trail might be seen, and Indian curiosity
is a dangerous neighbour.”

Leading the way himself, he selected a spot where the tall coarse
herbage stood most erect, growing not unlike a bed of reeds, both in
height and density. Here he entered, singly, directing the others to
follow as nearly as possible in his own footsteps. When they had paused
for some hundred or two feet into the wilderness of weeds, he gave his
directions to Paul and Middleton, who continued a direct route deeper
into the place, while he dismounted and returned on his tracks to the
margin of the meadow. Here he passed many minutes in replacing the
trodden grass, and in effacing, as far as possible, every evidence of
their passage.

In the mean time the rest of the party continued their progress, not
without toil, and consequently at a very moderate gait, until they had
penetrated a mile into the place. Here they found a spot suited to
their circumstances, and, dismounting, they began to make their
dispositions to pass the remainder of the night. By this time the
trapper had rejoined the party, and again resumed the direction of
their proceedings.

The weeds and grass were soon plucked and cut from an area of
sufficient extent, and a bed for Inez and Ellen was speedily made, a
little apart, which for sweetness and ease might have rivalled one of
down. The exhausted females, after receiving some light refreshments
from the provident stores of Paul and the old man, now sought their
repose, leaving their more stout companions at liberty to provide for
their own necessities. Middleton and Paul were not long in following
the example of their betrothed, leaving the trapper and the naturalist
still seated around a savoury dish of bison’s meat, which had been
cooked at a previous halt, and which was, as usual, eaten cold.

A certain lingering sensation, which had so long been uppermost in the
mind of Obed, temporarily banished sleep; and as for the old man, his
wants were rendered, by habit and necessity, as seemingly subject to
his will as if they altogether depended on the pleasure of the moment.
Like his companion he chose therefore to watch, instead of sleeping.

“If the children of ease and security knew the hardships and dangers
the students of nature encounter in their behalf,” said Obed, after a
moment of silence, when Middleton took his leave for the night,
“pillars of silver, and statues of brass would be reared as the
everlasting monuments of their glory!”

“I know not, I know not,” returned his companion; “silver is far from
plenty, at least in the wilderness, and your brazen idols are forbidden
in the commandments of the Lord.”

“Such indeed was the opinion of the great lawgiver of the Jews, but the
Egyptians, and the Chaldeans, the Greeks, and the Romans, were wont to
manifest their gratitude, in these types of the human form. Indeed many
of the illustrious masters of antiquity, have by the aid of science and
skill, even outdone the works of nature, and exhibited a beauty and
perfection in the human form that are difficult to be found in the
rarest living specimens of any of the species; genus, homo.”

“Can your idols walk or speak, or have they the glorious gift of
reason?” demanded the trapper, with some indignation in his voice;
“though but little given to run into the noise and chatter of the
settlements, yet have I been into the towns in my day, to barter the
peltry for lead and powder, and often have I seen your waxen dolls,
with their tawdry clothes and glass eyes—”

“Waxen dolls!” interrupted Obed; “it is profanation, in the view of the
arts, to liken the miserable handy-work of the dealers in wax to the
pure models of antiquity!”

“It is profanation in the eyes of the Lord,” retorted the old man, “to
liken the works of his creatur’s, to the power of his own hand.”

“Venerable venator,” resumed the naturalist, clearing his throat, like
one who was much in earnest, “let us discuss understandingly and in
amity. You speak of the dross of ignorance, whereas my memory dwells on
those precious jewels, which it was my happy fortune, formerly, to
witness, among the treasured glories of the Old World.”

“Old World!” retorted the trapper, “that is the miserable cry of all
the half-starved miscreants that have come into this blessed land,
since the days of my boyhood! They tell you of the Old World; as if the
Lord had not the power and the will to create the universe in a day, or
as if he had not bestowed his gifts with an equal hand, though not with
an equal mind, or equal wisdom, have they been received and used. Were
they to say a worn out, and an abused, and a sacrilegious world, they
might not be so far from the truth!”

Doctor Battius, who found it quite as arduous a task to maintain any of
his favourite positions with so irregular an antagonist, as he would
have found it difficult to keep his feet within the hug of a western
wrestler, hemmed aloud, and profited by the new opening the trapper had
made, to shift the grounds of the discussion—

“By Old and New World, my excellent associate,” he said, “it is not to
be understood that the hills, and the valleys, the rocks and the rivers
of our own moiety of the earth do not, physically speaking, bear a date
as ancient as the spot on which the bricks of Babylon are found; it
merely signifies that its moral existence is not co-equal with its
physical, or geological formation.”

“Anan!” said the old man, looking up enquiringly into the face of the
philosopher.

“Merely that it has not been so long known in morals, as the other
countries of Christendom.”

“So much the better, so much the better. I am no great admirator of
your old morals, as you call them, for I have ever found, and I have
liv’d long as it were in the very heart of natur’, that your old morals
are none of the best. Mankind twist and turn the rules of the Lord, to
suit their own wickedness, when their devilish cunning has had too much
time to trifle with His commands.”

“Nay, venerable hunter, still am I not comprehended. By morals I do not
mean the limited and literal signification of the term, such as is
conveyed in its synonyme, morality, but the practices of men, as
connected with their daily intercourse, their institutions, and their
laws.”

“And such I call barefaced and downright wantonness and waste,”
interrupted his sturdy disputant.

“Well, be it so,” returned the Doctor, abandoning the explanation in
despair. “Perhaps I have conceded too much,” he then instantly added,
fancying that he still saw the glimmerings of an argument through
another chink in the discourse. “Perhaps I have conceded too much, in
saying that this hemisphere is literally as old in its formation, as
that which embraces the venerable quarters of Europe, Asia, and
Africa.”

“It is easy to say a pine is not so tall as an alder, but it would be
hard to prove. Can you give a reason for such a belief?”

“The reasons are numerous and powerful,” returned the Doctor, delighted
by this encouraging opening. “Look into the plains of Egypt and Arabia;
their sandy deserts teem with the monuments of their antiquity; and
then we have also recorded documents of their glory; doubling the
proofs of their former greatness, now that they lie stripped of their
fertility; while we look in vain for similar evidences that man has
ever reached the summit of civilisation on this continent, or search,
without our reward, for the path by which he has made the downward
journey to his present condition of second childhood.”

“And what see you in all this?” demanded the trapper, who, though a
little confused by the terms of his companion, seized the thread of his
ideas.

“A demonstration of my problem, that nature did not make so vast a
region to lie an uninhabited waste so many ages. This is merely the
moral view of the subject; as to the more exact and geological—”

“Your morals are exact enough for me,” returned the old man, “for I
think I see in them the very pride of folly. I am but little gifted in
the fables of what you call the Old World, seeing that my time has been
mainly passed looking natur’ steadily in the face, and in reasoning on
what I’ve seen, rather than on what I’ve heard in traditions. But I
have never shut my ears to the words of the good book, and many is the
long winter evening that I have passed in the wigwams of the Delawares,
listening to the good Moravians, as they dealt forth the history and
doctrines of the elder times, to the people of the Lenape! It was
pleasant to hearken to such wisdom after a weary hunt! Right pleasant
did I find it, and often have I talked the matter over with the Great
Serpent of the Delawares, in the more peaceful hours of our out-lyings,
whether it might be on the trail of a war-party of the Mingoes, or on
the watch for a York deer. I remember to have heard it, then and there,
said, that the Blessed Land was once fertile as the bottoms of the
Mississippi, and groaning with its stores of grain and fruits; but that
the judgment has since fallen upon it, and that it is now more
remarkable for its barrenness than any qualities to boast of.”

“It is true; but Egypt—nay much of Africa furnishes still more striking
proofs of this exhaustion of nature.”

“Tell me,” interrupted the old man, “is it a certain truth that
buildings are still standing in that land of Pharaoh, which may be
likened, in their stature, to the hills of the ’arth?”

“It is as true as that nature never refuses to bestow her incisores on
the animals, mammalia; genus, homo—”

“It is very marvellous! and it proves how great He must be, when His
miserable creatur’s can accomplish such wonders! Many men must have
been needed to finish such an edifice; ay, and men gifted with strength
and skill too! Does the land abound with such a race to this hour?”

“Far from it. Most of the country is a desert, and but for a mighty
river all would be so.”

“Yes; rivers are rare gifts to such as till the ground, as any one may
see who journeys far atween the Rocky Mountains and the Mississippi.
But how do you account for these changes on the face of the ’arth
itself, and for this downfall of nations, you men of the schools?”

“It is to be ascribed to moral cau—”

“You’re right—it is their morals; their wickedness and their pride, and
chiefly their waste that has done it all! Now listen to what the
experience of an old man teaches him. I have lived long, as these grey
hairs and wrinkled hands will show, even though my tongue should fail
in the wisdom of my years. And I have seen much of the folly of man;
for his natur’ is the same, be he born in the wilderness, or be he born
in the towns. To my weak judgment it hath ever seemed that his gifts
are not equal to his wishes. That he would mount into the heavens, with
all his deformities about him, if he only knew the road, no one will
gainsay, that witnesses his bitter strivings upon ’arth. If his power
is not equal to his will, it is because the wisdom of the Lord hath set
bounds to his evil workings.”

“It is much too certain that certain facts will warrant a theory, which
teaches the natural depravity of the genus; but if science could be
fairly brought to bear on a whole species at once, for instance,
education might eradicate the evil principle.”

“That, for your education! The time has been when I have thought it
possible to make a companion of a beast. Many are the cubs, and many
are the speckled fawns that I have reared with these old hands, until I
have even fancied them rational and altered beings—but what did it
amount to? the bear would bite, and the deer would run, notwithstanding
my wicked conceit in fancying I could change a temper that the Lord
himself had seen fit to bestow. Now if man is so blinded in his folly
as to go on, ages on ages, doing harm chiefly to himself, there is the
same reason to think that he has wrought his evil here as in the
countries you call so old. Look about you, man; where are the
multitudes that once peopled these prairies; the kings and the palaces;
the riches and the mightinesses of this desert?”

“Where are the monuments that would prove the truth of so vague a
theory?”

“I know not what you call a monument.”

“The works of man! The glories of Thebes and Balbec—columns, catacombs,
and pyramids! standing amid the sands of the East, like wrecks on a
rocky shore, to testify to the storms of ages!”

“They are gone. Time has lasted too long for them. For why? Time was
made by the Lord, and they were made by man. This very spot of reeds
and grass, on which you now sit, may once have been the garden of some
mighty king. It is the fate of all things to ripen, and then to decay.
The tree blossoms, and bears its fruit, which falls, rots, withers, and
even the seed is lost! Go, count the rings of the oak and of the
sycamore; they lie in circles, one about another, until the eye is
blinded in striving to make out their numbers; and yet a full change of
the seasons comes round while the stem is winding one of these little
lines about itself, like the buffaloe changing his coat, or the buck
his horns; and what does it all amount to? There does the noble tree
fill its place in the forest, loftier, and grander, and richer, and
more difficult to imitate, than any of your pitiful pillars, for a
thousand years, until the time which the Lord hath given it is full.
Then come the winds, that you cannot see, to rive its bark; and the
waters from the heavens, to soften its pores; and the rot, which all
can feel and none can understand, to humble its pride and bring it to
the ground. From that moment its beauty begins to perish. It lies
another hundred years, a mouldering log, and then a mound of moss and
’arth; a sad effigy of a human grave. This is one of your genuine
monuments, though made by a very different power than such as belongs
to your chiseling masonry! and after all, the cunningest scout of the
whole Dahcotah nation might pass his life in searching for the spot
where it fell, and be no wiser when his eyes grew dim, than when they
were first opened. As if that was not enough to convince man of his
ignorance; and as though it were put there in mockery of his conceit, a
pine shoots up from the roots of the oak, just as barrenness comes
after fertility, or as these wastes have been spread, where a garden
may have been created. Tell me not of your worlds that are old! it is
blasphemous to set bounds and seasons, in this manner, to the works of
the Almighty, like a woman counting the ages of her young.”

“Friend hunter, or trapper,” returned the naturalist, clearing his
throat in some intellectual confusion at the vigorous attack of his
companion, “your deductions, if admitted by the world, would sadly
circumscribe the efforts of reason, and much abridge the boundaries of
knowledge.”

“So much the better—so much the better; for I have always found that a
conceited man never knows content. All things prove it. Why have we not
the wings of the pigeon, the eyes of the eagle, and the legs of the
moose, if it had been intended that man should be equal to all his
wishes?”

“There are certain physical defects, venerable trapper, in which I am
always ready to admit great and happy alterations might be suggested.
For example, in my own order of Phalangacru—”

“Cruel enough would be the order, that should come from miserable hands
like thine! A touch from such a finger would destroy the mocking
deformity of a monkey! Go, go; human folly is not needed to fill up the
great design of God. There is no stature, no beauty, no proportions,
nor any colours in which man himself can well be fashioned, that is not
already done to his hands.”

“That is touching another great and much disputed question,” exclaimed
the Doctor, who seized upon every distinct idea that the ardent and
somewhat dogmatic old man left exposed to his mental grasp, with the
vain hope of inducing a logical discussion, in which he might bring his
battery of syllogisms to annihilate the unscientific defences of his
antagonist.

It is, however, unnecessary to our narrative to relate the erratic
discourse that ensued. The old man eluded the annihilating blows of his
adversary, as the light armed soldier is wont to escape the efforts of
the more regular warrior, even while he annoys him most, and an hour
passed away without bringing any of the numerous subjects, on which
they touched, to a satisfactory conclusion. The arguments acted,
however, on the nervous system of the Doctor, like so many soothing
soporifics, and by the time his aged companion was disposed to lay his
head on his pack, Obed, refreshed by his recent mental joust, was in a
condition to seek his natural rest, without enduring the torments of
the incubus, in the shapes of Teton warriors and bloody tomahawks.

[16] They who have read the preceding books, in which, the trapper
appears as a hunter and a scout, will readily understand the
allusions.




CHAPTER XXIII


—Save you, sir.
                   —Shakespeare.


The sleep of the fugitives lasted for several hours. The trapper was
the first to shake off its influence, as he had been the last to court
its refreshment. Rising, just as the grey light of day began to
brighten that portion of the studded vault which rested on the eastern
margin of the plain, he summoned his companions from their warm lairs,
and pointed out the necessity of their being once more on the alert.
While Middleton attended to the arrangements necessary to the comforts
of Inez and Ellen, in the long and painful journey which lay before
them, the old man and Paul prepared the meal, which the former had
advised them to take before they proceeded to horse. These several
dispositions were not long in making, and the little group was soon
seated about a repast which, though it might want the elegancies to
which the bride of Middleton had been accustomed, was not deficient in
the more important requisites of savour and nutriment.

“When we get lower into the hunting-grounds of the Pawnees,” said the
trapper, laying a morsel of delicate venison before Inez, on a little
trencher neatly made of horn, and expressly for his own use, “we shall
find the buffaloes fatter and sweeter, the deer in more abundance, and
all the gifts of the Lord abounding to satisfy our wants. Perhaps we
may even strike a beaver, and get a morsel from his tail[17] by way of
a rare mouthful.”

“What course do you mean to pursue, when you have once thrown these
bloodhounds from the chase?” demanded Middleton.

“If I might advise,” said Paul, “it would be to strike a water-course,
and get upon its downward current, as soon as may be. Give me a
cotton-wood, and I will turn you out a canoe that shall carry us all,
the jackass excepted, in perhaps the work of a day and a night. Ellen,
here, is a lively girl enough, but then she is no great race-rider; and
it would be far more comfortable to boat six or eight hundred miles,
than to go loping along like so many elks measuring the prairies;
besides, water leaves no trail.”

“I will not swear to that,” returned the trapper; “I have often thought
the eyes of a Red-skin would find a trail in air.”

“See, Middleton,” exclaimed Inez, in a sudden burst of youthful
pleasure, that caused her for a moment to forget her situation, “how
lovely is that sky; surely it contains a promise of happier times!”

“It is glorious!” returned her husband. “Glorious and heavenly is that
streak of vivid red, and here is a still brighter crimson; rarely have
I seen a richer rising of the sun.

“Rising of the sun!” slowly repeated the old man, lifting his tall
person from its seat with a deliberate and abstracted air, while he
kept his eye riveted on the changing, and certainly beautiful tints,
that were garnishing the vault of Heaven. “Rising of the sun! I like
not such risings of the sun. Ah’s me! the imps have circumvented us
with a vengeance. The prairie is on fire!”

“God in Heaven protect us!” cried Middleton, catching Inez to his
bosom, under the instant impression of the imminence of their danger.
“There is no time to lose, old man; each instant is a day; let us fly.”

“Whither?” demanded the trapper, motioning him, with calmness and
dignity, to arrest his steps. “In this wilderness of grass and reeds,
you are like a vessel in the broad lakes without a compass. A single
step on the wrong course might prove the destruction of us all. It is
seldom danger is so pressing, that there is not time enough for reason
to do its work, young officer; therefore let us await its biddings.”

“For my own part,” said Paul Hover, looking about him with no equivocal
expression of concern, “I acknowledge, that should this dry bed of
weeds get fairly in a flame, a bee would have to make a flight higher
than common to prevent his wings from scorching. Therefore, old
trapper, I agree with the captain, and say mount and run.”

“Ye are wrong—ye are wrong; man is not a beast to follow the gift of
instinct, and to snuff up his knowledge by a taint in the air, or a
rumbling in the sound; but he must see and reason, and then conclude.
So follow me a little to the left, where there is a rise in the ground,
whence we may make our reconnoitrings.”

The old man waved his hand with authority, and led the way without
further parlance to the spot he had indicated, followed by the whole of
his alarmed companions. An eye less practised than that of the trapper
might have failed in discovering the gentle elevation to which he
alluded, and which looked on the surface of the meadow like a growth a
little taller than common. When they reached the place, however, the
stinted grass itself announced the absence of that moisture, which had
fed the rank weeds of most of the plain, and furnished a clue to the
evidence by which he had judged of the formation of the ground hidden
beneath. Here a few minutes were lost in breaking down the tops of the
surrounding herbage, which, notwithstanding the advantage of their
position, rose even above the heads of Middleton and Paul, and in
obtaining a look-out that might command a view of the surrounding sea
of fire.

The frightful prospect added nothing to the hopes of those who had so
fearful a stake in the result. Although the day was beginning to dawn,
the vivid colours of the sky continued to deepen, as if the fierce
element were bent on an impious rivalry of the light of the sun. Bright
flashes of flame shot up here and there, along the margin of the waste,
like the nimble coruscations of the North, but far more angry and
threatening in their colour and changes. The anxiety on the rigid
features of the trapper sensibly deepened, as he leisurely traced these
evidences of a conflagration, which spread in a broad belt about their
place of refuge, until he had encircled the whole horizon.

Shaking his head, as he again turned his face to the point where the
danger seemed nighest and most rapidly approaching, the old man said—

“Now have we been cheating ourselves with the belief, that we had
thrown these Tetons from our trail, while here is proof enough that
they not only know where we lie, but that they intend to smoke us out,
like so many skulking beasts of prey. See; they have lighted the fire
around the whole bottom at the same moment, and we are as completely
hemmed in by the devils as an island by its waters.”

“Let us mount and ride,” cried Middleton; “is life not worth a
struggle?”

“Whither would ye go? Is a Teton horse a salamander that he can walk
amid fiery flames unhurt, or do you think the Lord will show his might
in your behalf, as in the days of old, and carry you harmless through
such a furnace as you may see glowing beneath yonder red sky? There are
Siouxes, too, hemming the fire with their arrows and knives on every
side of us, or I am no judge of their murderous deviltries.”

“We will ride into the centre of the whole tribe,” returned the youth
fiercely, “and put their manhood to the test.”

“Ay, it’s well in words, but what would it prove in deeds? Here is a
dealer in bees, who can teach you wisdom in a matter like this.”

“Now for that matter, old trapper,” said Paul, stretching his athletic
form like a mastiff conscious of his strength, “I am on the side of the
captain, and am clearly for a race against the fire, though it line me
into a Teton wigwam. Here is Ellen, who will—”

“Of what use, of what use are your stout hearts, when the element of
the Lord is to be conquered as well as human men. Look about you,
friends; the wreath of smoke, that is rising from the bottoms, plainly
says that there is no outlet from this spot, without crossing a belt of
fire. Look for yourselves, my men; look for yourselves; if you can find
a single opening, I will engage to follow.”

The examination, which his companions so instantly and so intently
made, rather served to assure them of their desperate situation, than
to appease their fears. Huge columns of smoke were rolling up from the
plain, and thickening in gloomy masses around the horizon. The red
glow, which gleamed upon their enormous folds, now lighting their
volumes with the glare of the conflagration, and now flashing to
another point, as the flame beneath glided ahead, leaving all behind
enveloped in awful darkness, and proclaiming louder than words the
character of the imminent and approaching danger.

“This is terrible!” exclaimed Middleton, folding the trembling Inez to
his heart. “At such a time as this, and in such a manner!”

“The gates of Heaven are open to all who truly believe,” murmured the
pious devotee in his bosom.

“This resignation is maddening! But we are men, and will make a
struggle for our lives! how now, my brave and spirited friend, shall we
yet mount and push across the flames, or shall we stand here, and see
those we most love perish in this frightful manner, without an effort?”

“I am for a swarming time, and a flight before the hive is too hot to
hold us,” said the bee-hunter, to whom it will be at once seen that
Middleton addressed himself. “Come, old trapper, you must acknowledge
this is but a slow way of getting out of danger. If we tarry here much
longer, it will be in the fashion that the bees lie around the straw
after the hive has been smoked for its honey. You may hear the fire
begin to roar already, and I know by experience, that when the flame
once gets fairly into the prairie grass, it is no sloth that can outrun
it.”

“Think you,” returned the old man, pointing scornfully at the mazes of
the dry and matted grass which environed them, “that mortal feet can
outstrip the speed of fire, on such a path! If I only knew now on which
side these miscreants lay!”

“What say you, friend Doctor,” cried the bewildered Paul, turning to
the naturalist with that sort of helplessness with which the strong are
often apt to seek aid of the weak, when human power is baffled by the
hand of a mightier being, “what say you; have you no advice to give
away, in a case of life and death?”

The naturalist stood, tablets in hand, looking at the awful spectacle
with as much composure as if the conflagration had been lighted in
order to solve the difficulties of some scientific problem. Aroused by
the question of his companion, he turned to his equally calm though
differently occupied associate, the trapper, demanding, with the most
provoking insensibility to the urgent nature of their situation—

“Venerable hunter, you have often witnessed similar prismatic
experiments—”

He was rudely interrupted by Paul, who struck the tablets from his
hands, with a violence that betrayed the utter intellectual confusion
which had overset the equanimity of his mind. Before time was allowed
for remonstrance, the old man, who had continued during the whole scene
like one much at a loss how to proceed, though also like one who was
rather perplexed than alarmed, suddenly assumed a decided air, as if he
no longer doubted on the course it was most advisable to pursue.

“It is time to be doing,” he said, interrupting the controversy that
was about to ensue between the naturalist and the bee-hunter; “it is
time to leave off books and moanings, and to be doing.”

“You have come to your recollections too late, miserable old man,”
cried Middleton; “the flames are within a quarter of a mile of us, and
the wind is bringing them down in this quarter with dreadful rapidity.”

“Anan! the flames! I care but little for the flames. If I only knew how
to circumvent the cunning of the Tetons, as I know how to cheat the
fire of its prey, there would be nothing needed but thanks to the Lord
for our deliverance. Do you call this a fire? If you had seen what I
have witnessed in the Eastern hills, when mighty mountains were like
the furnace of smith, you would have known what it was to fear the
flames, and to be thankful that you were spared! Come, lads, come; ’tis
time to be doing now, and to cease talking; for yonder curling flame is
truly coming on like a trotting moose. Put hands upon this short and
withered grass where we stand, and lay bare the ’arth.

“Would you think to deprive the fire of its victims in this childish
manner?” exclaimed Middleton.

A faint but solemn smile passed over the features of the old man, as he
answered—

“Your grand’ther would have said, that when the enemy was nigh, a
soldier could do no better than to obey.”

The captain felt the reproof, and instantly began to imitate the
industry of Paul, who was tearing the decayed herbage from the ground
in a sort of desperate compliance with the trapper’s direction. Even
Ellen lent her hands to the labour, nor was it long before Inez was
seen similarly employed, though none amongst them knew why or
wherefore. When life is thought to be the reward of labour, men are
wont to be industrious. A very few moments sufficed to lay bare a spot
of some twenty feet in diameter. Into one edge of this little area the
trapper brought the females, directing Middleton and Paul to cover
their light and inflammable dresses with the blankets of the party. So
soon as this precaution was observed, the old man approached the
opposite margin of the grass, which still environed them in a tall and
dangerous circle, and selecting a handful of the driest of the herbage
he placed it over the pan of his rifle. The light combustible kindled
at the flash. Then he placed the little flame in a bed of the standing
fog, and withdrawing from the spot to the centre of the ring, he
patiently awaited the result.

The subtle element seized with avidity upon its new fuel, and in a
moment forked flames were gliding among the grass, as the tongues of
ruminating animals are seen rolling among their food, apparently in
quest of its sweetest portions.

“Now,” said the old man, holding up a finger, and laughing in his
peculiarly silent manner, “you shall see fire fight fire! Ah’s me! many
is the time I have burnt a smooty path, from wanton laziness to pick my
way across a tangled bottom.”

“But is this not fatal?” cried the amazed Middleton; “are you not
bringing the enemy nigher to us instead of avoiding it?”

“Do you scorch so easily? your grand’ther had a tougher skin. But we
shall live to see; we shall all live to see.”

The experience of the trapper was in the right. As the fire gained
strength and heat, it began to spread on three sides, dying of itself
on the fourth, for want of aliment. As it increased, and the sullen
roaring announced its power, it cleared every thing before it, leaving
the black and smoking soil far more naked than if the scythe had swept
the place. The situation of the fugitives would have still been
hazardous had not the area enlarged as the flame encircled them. But by
advancing to the spot where the trapper had kindled the grass, they
avoided the heat, and in a very few moments the flames began to recede
in every quarter, leaving them enveloped in a cloud of smoke, but
perfectly safe from the torrent of fire that was still furiously
rolling onward.

The spectators regarded the simple expedient of the trapper with that
species of wonder, with which the courtiers of Ferdinand are said to
have viewed the manner in which Columbus made his egg stand on its end,
though with feelings that were filled with gratitude instead of envy.

“Most wonderful!” said Middleton, when he saw the complete success of
the means by which they had been rescued from a danger that he had
conceived to be unavoidable. “The thought was a gift from Heaven, and
the hand that executed it should be immortal!”

“Old trapper,” cried Paul, thrusting his fingers through his shaggy
locks, “I have lined many a loaded bee into his hole, and know
something of the nature of the woods, but this is robbing a hornet of
his sting without touching the insect!”

“It will do—it will do,” returned the old man, who after the first
moment of his success seemed to think no more of the exploit; “now get
the horses in readiness. Let the flames do their work for a short half
hour, and then we will mount. That time is needed to cool the meadow,
for these unshod Teton beasts are as tender on the hoof as a barefooted
girl.”

Middleton and Paul, who considered this unlooked-for escape as a
species of resurrection, patiently awaited the time the trapper
mentioned with renewed confidence in the infallibility of his judgment.
The Doctor regained his tablets, a little the worse from having fallen
among the grass which had been subject to the action of the flames, and
was consoling himself for this slight misfortune by recording
uninterruptedly such different vacillations in light and shadow as he
chose to consider phenomena.

In the mean time the veteran, on whose experience they all so
implicitly relied for protection, employed himself in reconnoitring
objects in the distance, through the openings which the air
occasionally made in the immense bodies of smoke, that by this time lay
in enormous piles on every part of the plain.

“Look you here, lads,” the trapper said, after a long and anxious
examination, “your eyes are young and may prove better than my
worthless sight—though the time has been, when a wise and brave people
saw reason to think me quick on a look-out; but those times are gone,
and many a true and tried friend has passed away with them. Ah’s me! if
I could choose a change in the orderings of Providence—which I cannot,
and which it would be blasphemy to attempt, seeing that all things are
governed by a wiser mind than belongs to mortal weakness—but if I were
to choose a change, it would be to say, that such as they who have
lived long together in friendship and kindness, and who have proved
their fitness to go in company, by many acts of suffering and daring in
each other’s behalf, should be permitted to give up life at such times,
as when the death of one leaves the other but little reason to wish to
live.”

“Is it an Indian, that you see?” demanded the impatient Middleton.

“Red-skin or White-skin it is much the same. Friendship and use can tie
men as strongly together in the woods as in the towns—ay, and for that
matter, stronger. Here are the young warriors of the prairies.—Often do
they sort themselves in pairs, and set apart their lives for deeds of
friendship; and well and truly do they act up to their promises. The
death-blow to one is commonly mortal to the other! I have been a
solitary man much of my time, if he can be called solitary, who has
lived for seventy years in the very bosom of natur’, and where he could
at any instant open his heart to God, without having to strip it of the
cares and wickednesses of the settlements—but making that allowance,
have I been a solitary man; and yet have I always found that
intercourse with my kind was pleasant, and painful to break off,
provided that the companion was brave and honest. Brave, because a
skeary comrade in the woods,” suffering his eyes inadvertently to rest
a moment on the person of the abstracted naturalist, “is apt to make a
short path long; and honest, inasmuch as craftiness is rather an
instinct of the brutes, than a gift becoming the reason of a human
man.”

“But the object, that you saw—was it a Sioux?”

“What the world of America is coming to, and where the machinations and
inventions of its people are to have an end, the Lord, he only knows. I
have seen, in my day, the chief who, in his time, had beheld the first
Christian that placed his wicked foot in the regions of York! How much
has the beauty of the wilderness been deformed in two short lives! My
own eyes were first opened on the shores of the Eastern sea, and well
do I remember, that I tried the virtues of the first rifle I ever bore,
after such a march, from the door of my father to the forest, as a
stripling could make between sun and sun; and that without offence to
the rights, or prejudices, of any man who set himself up to be the
owner of the beasts of the fields. Natur’ then lay in its glory along
the whole coast, giving a narrow stripe, between the woods and the
ocean, to the greediness of the settlers. And where am I now? Had I the
wings of an eagle, they would tire before a tenth of the distance,
which separates me from that sea, could be passed; and towns, and
villages, farms, and highways, churches, and schools, in short, all the
inventions and deviltries of man, are spread across the region. I have
known the time when a few Red-skins, shouting along the borders, could
set the provinces in a fever; and men were to be armed; and troops were
to be called to aid from a distant land; and prayers were said, and the
women frighted, and few slept in quiet, because the Iroquois were on
the war-path, or the accursed Mingo had the tomahawk in hand. How is it
now? The country sends out her ships to foreign lands, to wage their
battles; cannon are plentier than the rifle used to be, and trained
soldiers are never wanting, in tens of thousands, when need calls for
their services. Such is the difference atween a province and a state,
my men; and I, miserable and worn out as I seem, have lived to see it
all!”

“That you must have seen many a chopper skimming the cream from the
face of the earth, and many a settler getting the very honey of nature,
old trapper,” said Paul, “no reasonable man can, or, for that matter,
shall doubt. But here is Ellen getting uneasy about the Siouxes, and
now you have opened your mind, so freely, concerning these matters, if
you will just put us on the line of our flight, the swarm will make
another move.”

“Anan!”

“I say that Ellen is getting uneasy, and as the smoke is lifting from
the plain, it may be prudent to take another flight.”

“The boy is reasonable. I had forgotten we were in the midst of a
raging fire, and that Siouxes were round about us, like hungry wolves
watching a drove of buffaloes. But when memory is at work in my old
brain, on times long past, it is apt to overlook the matters of the
day. You say right, my children; it is time to be moving, and now comes
the real nicety of our case. It is easy to outwit a furnace, for it is
nothing but a raging element; and it is not always difficult to throw a
grizzly bear from his scent, for the creatur’ is both enlightened and
blinded by his instinct; but to shut the eyes of a waking Teton is a
matter of greater judgment, inasmuch as his deviltry is backed by
reason.”

Notwithstanding the old man appeared so conscious of the difficulty of
the undertaking, he set about its achievement with great steadiness and
alacrity. After completing the examination, which had been interrupted
by the melancholy wanderings of his mind, he gave the signal to his
companions to mount. The horses, which had continued passive and
trembling amid the raging of the fire, received their burdens with a
satisfaction so very evident, as to furnish a favourable augury of
their future industry. The trapper invited the Doctor to take his own
steed, declaring his intention to proceed on foot.

“I am but little used to journeying with the feet of others,” he added,
as a reason for the measure, “and my legs are a weary of doing nothing.
Besides, should we light suddenly on an ambushment, which is a thing
far from impossible, the horse will be in a better condition for a hard
run with one man on his back than with two. As for me, what matters it
whether my time is to be a day shorter or a day longer! Let the Tetons
take my scalp, if it be God’s pleasure: they will find it covered with
grey hairs; and it is beyond the craft of man to cheat me of the
knowledge and experience by which they have been whitened.”

As no one among the impatient listeners seemed disposed to dispute the
arrangement, it was acceded to in silence. The Doctor, though he
muttered a few mourning exclamations on behalf of the lost Asinus, was
by far too well pleased in finding that his speed was likely to be
sustained by four legs instead of two, to be long in complying: and,
consequently, in a very few moments the bee-hunter, who was never last
to speak on such occasions, vociferously announced that they were ready
to proceed.

“Now look off yonder to the East,” said the old man, as he began to
lead the way across the murky and still smoking plain; “little fear of
cold feet in journeying such a path as this: but look you off to the
East, and if you see a sheet of shining white, glistening like a plate
of beaten silver through the openings of the smoke, why that is water.
A noble stream is running thereaway, and I thought I got a glimpse of
it a while since; but other thoughts came, and I lost it. It is a broad
and swift river, such as the Lord has made many of its fellows in this
desert. For here may natur’ be seen in all its richness, trees alone
excepted. Trees, which are to the ’arth, as fruits are to a garden;
without them nothing can be pleasant, or thoroughly useful. Now watch
all of you, with open eyes, for that stripe of glittering water: we
shall not be safe until it is flowing between our trail and these sharp
sighted Tetons.”

The latter declaration was enough to ensure a vigilant look out for the
desired stream, on the part of all the trapper’s followers. With this
object in view, the party proceeded in profound silence, the old man
having admonished them of the necessity of caution, as they entered the
clouds of smoke, which were rolling like masses of fog along the plain,
more particularly over those spots where the fire had encountered
occasional pools of stagnant water.

They travelled near a league in this manner, without obtaining the
desired glimpse of the river. The fire was still raging in the
distance, and as the air swept away the first vapour of the
conflagration, fresh volumes rolled along the place, limiting the view.
At length the old man, who had begun to betray some little uneasiness,
which caused his followers to apprehend that even his acute faculties
were beginning to be confused, in the mazes of the smoke, made a sudden
pause, and dropping his rifle to the ground, he stood, apparently
musing over some object at his feet. Middleton and the rest rode up to
his side, and demanded the reason of the halt.

“Look ye, here,” returned the trapper, pointing to the mutilated
carcass of a horse, that lay more than half consumed in a little hollow
of the ground; “here may you see the power of a prairie conflagration.
The ’arth is moist, hereaway, and the grass has been taller than usual.
This miserable beast has been caught in his bed. You see the bones; the
crackling and scorched hide, and the grinning teeth. A thousand winters
could not wither an animal so thoroughly, as the element has done it in
a minute.”

“And this might have been our fate,” said Middleton, “had the flames
come upon us, in our sleep!”

“Nay, I do not say that, I do not say that. Not but that man will burn
as well as tinder; but, that being more reasoning than a horse, he
would better know how to avoid the danger.”

“Perhaps this then has been but the carcass of an animal, or he too
would have fled?”

“See you these marks in the damp soil? Here have been his hoofs,—and
there is a moccasin print, as I’m a sinner! The owner of the beast has
tried hard to move him from the place, but it is in the instinct of the
creatur’ to be faint-hearted and obstinate in a fire.”

“It is a well-known fact. But if the animal has had a rider, where is
he?”

“Ay, therein lies the mystery,” returned the trapper, stooping to
examine the signs in the ground with a closer eye. “Yes, yes, it is
plain there has been a long struggle atween the two. The master has
tried hard to save his beast, and the flames must have been very
greedy, or he would have had better success.”

“Harkee, old trapper,” interrupted Paul, pointing to a little distance,
where the ground was drier, and the herbage had, in consequence, been
less luxuriant; “just call them two horses. Yonder lies another.”

“The boy is right! can it be, that the Tetons have been caught in their
own snares? Such things do happen; and here is an example to all
evil-doers. Ay, look you here, this is iron; there have been some white
inventions about the trappings of the beast—it must be so—it must be
so—a party of the knaves have been skirting in the grass after us,
while their friends have fired the prairie, and look you at the
consequences; they have lost their beasts, and happy have they been if
their own souls are not now skirting along the path, which leads to the
Indian heaven.”

“They had the same expedient at command as yourself,” rejoined
Middleton, as the party slowly proceeded, approaching the other
carcass, which lay directly on their route.

“I know not that. It is not every savage that carries his steel and
flint, or as good a rifle-pan as this old friend of mine. It is slow
making a fire with two sticks, and little time was given to consider,
or invent, just at this spot, as you may see by yon streak of flame,
which is flashing along afore the wind, as if it were on a trail of
powder. It is not many minutes since the fire has passed here away, and
it may be well to look at our primings, not that I would willingly
combat the Tetons, God forbid! but if a fight needs be, it is always
wise to get the first shot.”

“This has been a strange beast, old man,” said Paul, who had pulled the
bridle, or rather halter of his steed, over the second carcass, while
the rest of the party were already passing, in their eagerness to
proceed; “a strange horse do I call it; it had neither head nor hoofs!”

“The fire has not been idle,” returned the trapper, keeping his eye
vigilantly employed in profiting by those glimpses of the horizon,
which the whirling smoke offered to his examination. “It would soon
bake you a buffaloe whole, or for that matter powder his hoofs and
horns into white ashes. Shame, shame, old Hector: as for the captain’s
pup, it is to be expected that he would show his want of years, and I
may say, I hope without offence, his want of education too; but for a
hound, like you, who have lived so long in the forest afore you came
into these plains, it is very disgraceful, Hector, to be showing your
teeth, and growling at the carcass of a roasted horse, the same as if
you were telling your master that you had found the trail of a grizzly
bear.”

“I tell you, old trapper, this is no horse; neither in hoofs, head, nor
hide.”

“Anan! Not a horse? Your eyes are good for the bees and for the hollow
trees, my lad, but—bless me, the boy is right! That I should mistake
the hide of a buffaloe, scorched and crimpled as it is, for the carcass
of a horse! Ah’s me! The time has been, my men, when I would tell you
the name of a beast, as far as eye could reach, and that too with most
of the particulars of colour, age, and sex.”

“An inestimable advantage have you then enjoyed, venerable venator!”
observed the attentive naturalist. “The man who can make these
distinctions in a desert, is saved the pain of many a weary walk, and
often of an enquiry that in its result proves useless. Pray tell me,
did your exceeding excellence of vision extend so far as to enable you
to decide on their order, or genus?”

“I know not what you mean by your orders of genius.”

“No!” interrupted the bee-hunter, a little disdainfully for him, when
speaking to his aged friend; “now, old trapper, that is admitting your
ignorance of the English language, in a way I should not expect from a
man of your experience and understanding. By order, our comrade means
whether they go in promiscuous droves, like a swarm that is following
its queen-bee, or in single file, as you often see the buffaloes
trailing each other through a prairie. And as for genius, I’m sure that
is a word well understood, and in every body’s mouth. There is the
congress-man in our district, and that tonguey little fellow, who puts
out the paper in our county, they are both so called, for their
smartness; which is what the Doctor means, as I take it, seeing that he
seldom speaks without some considerable meaning.”

When Paul finished this very clever explanation he looked behind him
with an expression, which, rightly interpreted, would have said—“You
see, though I don’t often trouble myself in these matters, I am no
fool.”

Ellen admired Paul for anything but his learning. There was enough in
his frank, fearless, and manly character, backed as it was by great
personal attraction, to awaken her sympathies, without the necessity of
prying into his mental attainments. The poor girl reddened like a rose,
her pretty fingers played with the belt, by which she sustained herself
on the horse, and she hurriedly observed, as if anxious to direct the
attentions of the other listeners from a weakness, on which her own
thoughts could not bear to dwell—

“And this is not a horse, after all?”

“It is nothing more, nor less, than the hide of a buffaloe,” continued
the trapper, who had been no less puzzled by the explanation of Paul,
than by the language of the Doctor; “the hair is beneath; the fire has
run over it as you see; for being fresh, the flames could take no hold.
The beast has not been long killed, and it may be that some of the beef
is still hereaway.”

“Lift the corner of the skin, old trapper,” said Paul, with the tone of
one, who felt, as if he had now proved his right to mingle his voice in
any council; “if there is a morsel of the hump left, it must be well
cooked, and it shall be welcome.”

The old man laughed, heartily, at the conceit of his companion.
Thrusting his foot beneath the skin, it moved. Then it was suddenly
cast aside, and an Indian warrior sprang from its cover, to his feet,
with an agility, that bespoke how urgent he deemed the occasion.

[17] The American hunters consider the tail of the beaver the most
nourishing of all food.




CHAPTER XXIV


I would it were bed-time, Hal, and all well.
                   —Shakespeare.


A second glance sufficed to convince the whole of the startled party,
that the young Pawnee, whom they had already encountered, again stood
before them. Surprise kept both sides mute, and more than a minute was
passed in surveying each other, with eyes of astonishment, if not of
distrust. The wonder of the young warrior was, however, much more
tempered and dignified than that of his Christian acquaintances. While
Middleton and Paul felt the tremor, which shook the persons of their
dependant companions, thrilling through their own quickened blood, the
glowing eye of the Indian rolled from one to another, as if it could
never quail before the rudest assaults. His gaze, after making the
circuit of every wondering countenance, finally settled in a steady
look on the equally immovable features of the trapper. The silence was
first broken by Dr. Battius, in the ejaculation of—“Order, primates;
genus, homo; species, prairie!”

“Ay—ay—the secret is out,” said the old trapper, shaking his head, like
one who congratulated himself on having mastered the mystery of some
knotty difficulty. “The lad has been in the grass for a cover; the fire
has come upon him in his sleep, and having lost his horse, he has been
driven to save himself under that fresh hide of a buffaloe. No bad
invention, when powder and flint were wanting to kindle a ring. I
warrant me, now, this is a clever youth, and one that it would be safe
to journey with! I will speak to him kindly, for anger can at least
serve no turn of ours. My brother is welcome again,” using the
language, which the other understood; “the Tetons have been smoking
him, as they would a racoon.”

The young Pawnee rolled his eye over the place, as if he were examining
the terrific danger from which he had just escaped, but he disdained to
betray the smallest emotion, at its imminency. His brow contracted, as
he answered to the remark of the trapper by saying—

“A Teton is a dog. When the Pawnee war-whoop is in their ears, the
whole nation howls.”

“It is true. The imps are on our trail, and I am glad to meet a
warrior, with the tomahawk in his hand, who does not love them. Will my
brother lead my children to his village? If the Siouxes follow on our
path, my young men shall help him to strike them.”

The young Pawnee turned his eyes from one to another of the strangers,
in a keen scrutiny, before he saw fit to answer so important an
interrogatory. His examination of the males was short, and apparently
satisfactory. But his gaze was fastened long and admiringly, as in
their former interview, on the surpassing and unwonted beauty of a
being so fair and so unknown as Inez. Though his glance wandered, for
moments, from her countenance to the more intelligible and yet
extraordinary charms of Ellen, it did not fail to return promptly to
the study of a creature who, in the view of his unpractised eye and
untutored imagination, was formed with all that perfection, with which
the youthful poet is apt to endow the glowing images of his brain.
Nothing so fair, so ideal, so every way worthy to reward the courage
and self-devotion of a warrior, had ever before been encountered on the
prairies, and the young brave appeared to be deeply and intuitively
sensible to the influence of so rare a model of the loveliness of the
sex. Perceiving, however, that his gaze gave uneasiness to the subject
of his admiration, he withdrew his eyes, and laying his hand
impressively on his chest, he, modestly, answered—

“My father shall be welcome. The young men of my nation shall hunt with
his sons; the chiefs shall smoke with the grey-head. The Pawnee girls
will sing in the ears of his daughters.”

“And if we meet the Tetons?” demanded the trapper, who wished to
understand, thoroughly, the more important conditions of this new
alliance.

“The enemy of the Big-knives shall feel the blow of the Pawnee.”

“It is well. Now let my brother and I meet in council, that we may not
go on a crooked path, but that our road to his village may be like the
flight of the pigeons.”

The young Pawnee made a significant gesture of assent and followed the
other a little apart, in order to be removed from all danger of
interruption from the reckless Paul, or the abstracted naturalist.
Their conference was short, but, as it was conducted in the sententious
manner of the natives, it served to make each of the parties acquainted
with all the necessary information of the other. When they rejoined
their associates, the old man saw fit to explain a portion of what had
passed between them, as follows—

“Ay, I was not mistaken,” he said; “this good-looking young warrior—for
good-looking and noble-looking he is, though a little horrified perhaps
with paint—this good-looking youth, then, tells me he is out on the
scout for these very Tetons. His party was not strong enough to strike
the devils, who are down from their towns in great numbers to hunt the
buffaloe, and runners have gone to the Pawnee villages for aid. It
would seem that this lad is a fearless boy, for he has been hanging on
their skirts alone, until, like ourselves, he was driven to the grass
for a cover. But he tells me more, my men, and what I am mainly sorry
to hear, which is, that the cunning Mahtoree instead of going to blows
with the squatter, has become his friend, and that both broods, red and
white, are on our heels, and outlying around this very burning plain to
circumvent us to our destruction.”

“How knows he all this to be true?” demanded Middleton.

“Anan?”

“In what manner does he know, that these things are so?”

“In what manner! Do you think newspapers and town criers are needed to
tell a scout what is doing on the prairies, as they are in the bosom of
the States? No gossiping woman, who hurries from house to house to
spread evil of her neighbour, can carry tidings with her tongue, so
fast as these people will spread their meaning, by signs and warnings,
that they alone understand. ’Tis their l’arning, and what is better, it
is got in the open air, and not within the walls of a school. I tell
you, captain, that what he says is true.”

“For that matter,” said Paul, “I’m ready to swear to it. It is
reasonable, and therefore it must be true.”

“And well you might, lad; well you might. He furthermore declares, that
my old eyes for once were true to me, and that the river lies,
hereaway, at about the distance of half a league. You see the fire has
done most of its work in that quarter, and our path is clouded in
smoke. He also agrees that it is needful to wash our trail in water.
Yes, we must put that river atween us and the Sioux eyes, and then, by
the favour of the Lord, not forgetting our own industry, we may gain
the village of the Loups.”

“Words will not forward us a foot,” said Middleton; “let us move.”

The old man assented, and the party once more prepared to renew its
route. The Pawnee threw the skin of the buffaloe over his shoulder and
led the advance, casting many a stolen glance behind him as he
proceeded, in order to fix his gaze on the extraordinary and, to him,
unaccountable loveliness of the unconscious Inez.

An hour sufficed to bring the fugitives to the bank of the stream,
which was one of the hundred rivers that serve to conduct, through the
mighty arteries of the Missouri and Mississippi, the waters of that
vast and still uninhabited region to the Ocean. The river was not deep,
but its current was troubled and rapid. The flames had scorched the
earth to its very margin, and as the warm streams of the fluid mingled,
in the cooler air of the morning, with the smoke of the raging
conflagration, most of its surface was wrapped in a mantle of moving
vapour. The trapper pointed out the circumstance with pleasure, saying,
as he assisted Inez to dismount on the margin of the watercourse—

“The knaves have outwitted themselves! I am far from certain that I
should not have fired the prairie, to have got the benefit of this very
smoke to hide our movements, had not the heartless imps saved us the
trouble. I’ve known such things done in my day, and done with success.
Come, lady, put your tender foot upon the ground—for a fearful time has
it been to one of your breeding and skeary qualities. Ah’s me! what
have I not known the young, and the delicate, and the virtuous, and the
modest, to undergo, in my time, among the horrifications and
circumventions of Indian warfare! Come, it is a short quarter of a mile
to the other bank, and then our trail, at least, will be broken.”

Paul had by this time assisted Ellen to dismount, and he now stood
looking, with rueful eyes, at the naked banks of the river. Neither
tree nor shrub grew along its borders, with the exception of here and
there a solitary thicket of low bushes, from among which it would not
have been an easy matter to have found a dozen stems of a size
sufficient to make an ordinary walking-stick.

“Harkee, old trapper,” the moody-looking bee-hunter exclaimed; “it is
very well to talk of the other side of this ripple of a river, or
brook, or whatever you may call it, but in my judgment it would be a
smart rifle that would throw its lead across it—that is, to any
detriment to Indian, or deer.”

“That it would—that it would; though I carry a piece, here, that has
done its work in time of need, at as great a distance.”

“And do you mean to shoot Ellen and the captain’s lady across; or do
you intend them to go, trout fashion, with their mouths under water?”

“Is this river too deep to be forded?” asked Middleton, who, like Paul,
began to consider the impossibility of transporting her, whose safety
he valued more than his own, to the opposite shore.

“When the mountains above feed it with their torrents, it is, as you
see, a swift and powerful stream. Yet have I crossed its sandy bed, in
my time, without wetting a knee. But we have the Sioux horses; I
warrant me, that the kicking imps will swim like so many deer.”

“Old trapper,” said Paul, thrusting his fingers into his mop of a head,
as was usual with him, when any difficulty confounded his philosophy,
“I have swam like a fish in my day, and I can do it again, when there
is need; nor do I much regard the weather; but I question if you get
Nelly to sit a horse, with this water whirling like a mill-race before
her eyes; besides, it is manifest the thing is not to be done dry
shod.”

“Ah, the lad is right. We must to our inventions, therefore, or the
river cannot be crossed.” Then, cutting the discourse short, he turned
to the Pawnee, and explained to him the difficulty which existed in
relation to the women. The young warrior listened gravely, and throwing
the buffaloe-skin from his shoulder he immediately commenced, assisted
by the occasional aid of the understanding old man, the preparations
necessary to effect this desirable object.

The hide was soon drawn into the shape of an umbrella top, or an
inverted parachute, by thongs of deer-skin, with which both the
labourers were well provided. A few light sticks served to keep the
parts from collapsing, or falling in. When this simple and natural
expedient was arranged, it was placed on the water, the Indian making a
sign that it was ready to receive its freight. Both Inez and Ellen
hesitated to trust themselves in a bark of so frail a construction, nor
would Middleton or Paul consent that they should do so, until each had
assured himself, by actual experiment, that the vessel was capable of
sustaining a load much heavier than it was destined to receive. Then,
indeed, their scruples were reluctantly overcome, and the skin was made
to receive its precious burden.

“Now leave the Pawnee to be the pilot,” said the trapper; “my hand is
not so steady as it used to be; but he has limbs like toughened
hickory. Leave all to the wisdom of the Pawnee.”

The husband and lover could not well do otherwise, and they were fain
to become deeply interested, it is true, but passive spectators of this
primitive species of ferrying. The Pawnee selected the beast of
Mahtoree, from among the three horses, with a readiness that proved he
was far from being ignorant of the properties of that noble animal, and
throwing himself upon its back, he rode into the margin of the river.
Thrusting an end of his lance into the hide, he bore the light vessel
up against the stream, and giving his steed the rein, they pushed
boldly into the current. Middleton and Paul followed, pressing as nigh
the bark as prudence would at all warrant. In this manner the young
warrior bore his precious cargo to the opposite bank in perfect safety,
without the slightest inconvenience to the passengers, and with a
steadiness and celerity which proved that both horse and rider were not
unused to the operation. When the shore was gained, the young Indian
undid his work, threw the skin over his shoulder, placed the sticks
under his arm, and returned, without speaking, to transfer the
remainder of the party, in a similar manner, to what was very justly
considered the safer side of the river.

“Now, friend Doctor,” said the old man, when he saw the Indian plunging
into the river a second time, “do I know there is faith in yonder
Red-skin. He is a good-looking, ay, and an honest-looking youth, but
the winds of Heaven are not more deceitful than these savages, when the
devil has fairly beset them. Had the Pawnee been a Teton, or one of
them heartless Mingoes, that used to be prowling through the woods of
York, a time back, that is, some sixty years agone, we should have seen
his back and not his face turned towards us. My heart had its
misgivings when I saw the lad choose the better horse, for it would be
as easy to leave us with that beast, as it would for a nimble pigeon to
part company from a flock of noisy and heavy winged crows. But you see
that truth is in the boy, and make a Red-skin once your friend, he is
yours so long as you deal honestly by him.”

“What may be the distance to the sources of this stream?” demanded
Doctor Battius, whose eyes were rolling over the whirling eddies of the
current, with a very portentous expression of doubt. “At what distance
may its secret springs be found?”

“That may be as the weather proves. I warrant me your legs would be
a-weary before you had followed its bed into the Rocky Mountains; but
then there are seasons when it might be done without wetting a foot.”

“And in what particular divisions of the year do these periodical
seasons occur?”

“He that passes this spot a few months from this time, will find that
foaming water-course a desert of drifting sand.”

The naturalist pondered deeply. Like most others, who are not endowed
with a superfluity of physical fortitude, the worthy man had found the
danger of passing the river, in so simple a manner, magnifying itself
in his eyes so rapidly, as the moment of adventure approached, that he
actually contemplated the desperate effort of going round the river, in
order to escape the hazard of crossing it. It may not be necessary to
dwell on the incredible ingenuity, with which terror will at any time
prop a tottering argument. The worthy Obed had gone over the whole
subject, with commendable diligence, and had just arrived at the
consoling conclusion, that there was nearly as much glory in discerning
the hidden sources of so considerable a stream, as in adding a plant,
or an insect, to the lists of the learned, when the Pawnee reached the
shore for the second time. The old man took his seat, with the utmost
deliberation, in the vessel of skin (so soon as it had been duly
arranged for his reception), and having carefully disposed of Hector
between his legs, he beckoned to his companion to occupy the third
place.

The naturalist placed a foot in the frail vessel, as an elephant will
try a bridge, or a horse is often seen to make a similar experiment,
before he will trust the whole of his corporeal treasure on the dreaded
flat, and then withdrew, just as the old man believed he was about to
seat himself.

“Venerable venator,” he said, mournfully, “this is a most unscientific
bark. There is an inward monitor which bids me distrust its security!”

“Anan?” said the old man, who was pinching the ears of the hound, as a
father would play with the same member in a favourite child.

“I incline not to this irregular mode of experimenting on fluids. The
vessel has neither form, nor proportions.”

“It is not as handsomely turned as I have seen a canoe in birchen bark,
but comfort may be taken in a wigwam as well as in a palace.”

“It is impossible that any vessel constructed on principles so
repugnant to science can be safe. This tub, venerable hunter, will
never reach the opposite shore in safety.”

“You are a witness of what it has done.”

“Ay; but it was an anomaly in prosperity. If exceptions were to be
taken as rules, in the government of things, the human race would
speedily be plunged in the abysses of ignorance. Venerable trapper,
this expedient, in which you would repose your safety, is, in the
annals of regular inventions, what a lusus naturae may be termed in the
lists of natural history—a monster!”

How much longer Doctor Battius might have felt disposed to prolong the
discourse, it is difficult to say, for in addition to the powerful
personal considerations, which induced him to procrastinate an
experiment which was certainly not without its dangers, the pride of
reason was beginning to sustain him in the discussion. But, fortunately
for the credit of the old man’s forbearance, when the naturalist
reached the word, with which he terminated his last speech, a sound
arose in the air that seemed a sort of supernatural echo to the idea
itself. The young Pawnee, who had awaited the termination of the
incomprehensible discussion, with grave and characteristic patience,
raised his head, and listened to the unknown cry, like a stag, whose
mysterious faculties had detected the footsteps of the distant hounds
in the gale. The trapper and the Doctor were not, however, entirely so
uninstructed as to the nature of the extraordinary sounds. The latter
recognised in them the well-known voice of his own beast, and he was
about to rush up the little bank, which confined the current, with all
the longings of strong affection, when Asinus himself galloped into
view, at no great distance, urged to the unnatural gait by the
impatient and brutal Weucha, who bestrode him.

The eyes of the Teton, and those of the fugitives met. The former
raised a long, loud, and piercing yell, in which the notes of
exultation were fearfully blended with those of warning. The signal
served for a finishing blow to the discussion on the merits of the
bark, the Doctor stepping as promptly to the side of the old man, as if
a mental mist had been miraculously removed from his eyes. In another
instant the steed of the young Pawnee was struggling with the torrent.

The utmost strength of the horse was needed to urge the fugitives,
beyond the flight of arrows that came sailing through the air, at the
next moment. The cry of Weucha had brought fifty of his comrades to the
shore, but fortunately among them all, there was not one of a rank
sufficient to entitle him to the privilege of bearing a fusee. One half
the stream, however, was not passed, before the form of Mahtoree
himself was seen on its bank, and an ineffectual discharge of firearms
announced the rage and disappointment of the chief. More than once the
trapper had raised his rifle, as if about to try its power on his
enemies, but he as often lowered it, without firing. The eyes of the
Pawnee warrior glared like those of the cougar, at the sight of so many
of the hostile tribe, and he answered the impotent effort of their
chief, by tossing a hand into the air in contempt, and raising the
war-cry of his nation. The challenge was too taunting to be endured.
The Tetons dashed into the stream in a body, and the river became
dotted with the dark forms of beasts and riders.

There was now a fearful struggle for the friendly bank. As the
Dahcotahs advanced with beasts, which had not, like that of the Pawnee,
expended their strength in former efforts, and as they moved
unincumbered by any thing but their riders, the speed of the pursuers
greatly outstripped that of the fugitives. The trapper, who clearly
comprehended the whole danger of their situation, calmly turned his
eyes from the Tetons to his young Indian associate, in order to examine
whether the resolution of the latter began to falter, as the former
lessened the distance between them. Instead of betraying fear, however,
or any of that concern which might so readily have been excited by the
peculiarity of his risk, the brow of the young warrior contracted to a
look which indicated high and deadly hostility.

“Do you greatly value life, friend Doctor?” demanded the old man, with
a sort of philosophical calmness, which made the question doubly
appalling to his companion.

“Not for itself,” returned the naturalist, sipping some of the water of
the river from the hollow of his hand, in order to clear his husky
throat. “Not for itself, but exceedingly, inasmuch as natural history
has so deep a stake in my existence. Therefore—”

“Ay!” resumed the other, who mused too deeply to dissect the ideas of
the Doctor with his usual sagacity, “’tis in truth the history of
natur’, and a base and craven feeling it is! Now is life as precious to
this young Pawnee, as to any governor in the States, and he might save
it, or at least stand some chance of saving it, by letting us go down
the stream; and yet you see he keeps his faith manfully, and like an
Indian warrior. For myself, I am old, and willing to take the fortune
that the Lord may see fit to give, nor do I conceit that you are of
much benefit to mankind; and it is a crying shame, if not a sin, that
so fine a youth as this should lose his scalp for two beings so
worthless as ourselves. I am therefore disposed, provided that it shall
prove agreeable to you, to tell the lad to make the best of his way,
and to leave us to the mercy of the Tetons.”

“I repel the proposition, as repugnant to nature, and as treason to
science!” exclaimed the alarmed naturalist. “Our progress is
miraculous; and as this admirable invention moves with so wonderful a
facility, a few more minutes will serve to bring us to land.”

The old man regarded him intently for an instant, and shaking his head
he said—

“Lord, what a thing is fear! it transforms the creatur’s of the world
and the craft of man, making that which is ugly, seemly in our eyes,
and that which is beautiful, unsightly! Lord, Lord, what a thing is
fear!”

A termination was, however, put to the discussion, by the increasing
interest of the chase. The horses of the Dahcotahs had, by this time,
gained the middle of the current, and their riders were already filling
the air with yells of triumph. At this moment Middleton and Paul who
had led the females to a little thicket, appeared again on the margin
of the stream, menacing their enemies with the rifle.

“Mount, mount,” shouted the trapper, the instant he beheld them; “mount
and fly, if you value those who lean on you for help. Mount, and leave
us in the hands of the Lord.”

“Stoop your head, old trapper,” returned the voice of Paul, “down with
ye both into your nest. The Teton devil is in your line; down with your
heads and make way for a Kentucky bullet.”

The old man turned his head, and saw that the eager Mahtoree, who
preceded his party some distance, had brought himself nearly in a line
with the bark and the bee-hunter, who stood perfectly ready to execute
his hostile threat. Bending his body low, the rifle was discharged, and
the swift lead whizzed harmlessly past him, on its more distant errand.
But the eye of the Teton chief was not less quick and certain than that
of his enemy. He threw himself from his horse the moment preceding the
report, and sunk into the water. The beast snorted with terror and
anguish, throwing half his form out of the river in a desperate plunge.
Then he was seen drifting away in the torrent, and dyeing the turbid
waters with his blood.

The Teton chief soon re-appeared on the surface, and understanding the
nature of his loss, he swam with vigorous strokes to the nearest of the
young men, who relinquished his steed, as a matter of course, to so
renowned a warrior. The incident, however, created a confusion in the
whole of the Dahcotah band, who appeared to await the intention of
their leader, before they renewed their efforts to reach the shore. In
the mean time the vessel of skin had reached the land, and the
fugitives were once more united on the margin of the river.

The savages were now swimming about in indecision, as a flock of
pigeons is often seen to hover in confusion after receiving a heavy
discharge into its leading column, apparently hesitating on the risk of
storming a bank so formidably defended. The well-known precaution of
Indian warfare prevailed, and Mahtoree, admonished by his recent
adventure, led his warriors back to the shore from which they had come,
in order to relieve their beasts, which were already becoming unruly.

“Now mount you, with the tender ones, and ride for yonder hillock,”
said the trapper; “beyond it, you will find another stream, into which
you must enter, and turning to the sun, follow its bed for a mile,
until you reach a high and sandy plain; there will I meet you. Go;
mount; this Pawnee youth and I, and my stout friend the physician, who
is a desperate warrior, are men enough to keep the bank, seeing that
show and not use is all that is needed.”

Middleton and Paul saw no use in wasting their breath in remonstrances
against this proposal. Glad to know that their rear was to be covered,
even in this imperfect manner, they hastily got their horses in motion,
and soon disappeared on the required route. Some twenty or thirty
minutes succeeded this movement before the Tetons on the opposite shore
seemed inclined to enter on any new enterprise. Mahtoree was distinctly
visible, in the midst of his warriors, issuing his mandates and
betraying his desire for vengeance, by occasionally shaking an arm in
the direction of the fugitives; but no step was taken, which appeared
to threaten any further act of immediate hostility. At length a yell
arose among the savages, which announced the occurrence of some fresh
event. Then Ishmael and his sluggish sons were seen in the distance,
and soon the whole of the united force moved down to the very limits of
the stream. The squatter proceeded to examine the position of his
enemies, with his usual coolness, and, as if to try the power of his
rifle, he sent a bullet among them, with a force sufficient to do
execution, even at the distance at which he stood.

“Now let us depart!” exclaimed Obed, endeavouring to catch a furtive
glimpse of the lead, which he fancied was whizzing at his very ear; “we
have maintained the bank in a gallant manner, for a sufficient length
of time; quite as much military skill is to be displayed in a retreat,
as in an advance.”

The old man cast a look behind him, and seeing that the equestrians had
reached the cover of the hill, he made no objections to the proposal.
The remaining horse was given to the Doctor, with instructions to
pursue the course just taken by Middleton and Paul. When the naturalist
was mounted and in full retreat, the trapper and the young Pawnee stole
from the spot in such a manner as to leave their enemies some time in
doubt as to their movements. Instead, however, of proceeding across the
plain towards the hill, a route on which they must have been in open
view, they took a shorter path, covered by the formation of the ground,
and intersected the little water-course at the point where Middleton
had been directed to leave it, and just in season to join his party.
The Doctor had used so much diligence in the retreat, as to have
already overtaken his friends, and of course all the fugitives were
again assembled.

The trapper now looked about him for some convenient spot, where the
whole party might halt, as he expressed it, for some five or six hours.

“Halt!” exclaimed the Doctor, when the alarming proposal reached his
ears; “venerable hunter, it would seem, that on the contrary, many days
should be passed in industrious flight.”

Middleton and Paul were both of this opinion, and each in his
particular manner expressed as much.

The old man heard them with patience, but shook his head like one who
was unconvinced, and then answered all their arguments, in one general
and positive reply.

“Why should we fly?” he asked. “Can the legs of mortal men outstrip the
speed of horses? Do you think the Tetons will lie down and sleep; or
will they cross the water and nose for our trail? Thanks be to the
Lord, we have washed it well in this stream, and if we leave the place
with discretion and wisdom, we may yet throw them off its track. But a
prairie is not a wood. There a man may journey long, caring for nothing
but the prints his moccasin leaves, whereas in these open plains a
runner, placed on yonder hill, for instance, could see far on every
side of him, like a hovering hawk looking down on his prey. No, no;
night must come, and darkness be upon us, afore we leave this spot. But
listen to the words of the Pawnee; he is a lad of spirit, and I warrant
me many is the hard race that he has run with the Sioux bands. Does my
brother think our trail is long enough?” he demanded in the Indian
tongue.

“Is a Teton a fish, that he can see it in the river?”

“But my young men think we should stretch it, until it reaches across
the prairie.”

“Mahtoree has eyes; he will see it.”

“What does my brother counsel?”

The young warrior studied the heavens a moment, and appeared to
hesitate. He mused some time with himself, and then he replied, like
one whose opinion was fixed—

“The Dahcotahs are not asleep,” he said; “we must lie in the grass.”

“Ah! the lad is of my mind,” said the old man, briefly explaining the
opinion of his companion to his white friends. Middleton was obliged to
acquiesce, and, as it was confessedly dangerous to remain upon their
feet, each one set about assisting in the means to be adopted for their
security. Inez and Ellen were quickly bestowed beneath the warm and not
uncomfortable shelter of the buffaloe skins, which formed a thick
covering, and tall grass was drawn over the place, in such a manner as
to evade any examination from a common eye. Paul and the Pawnee
fettered the beasts and cast them to the earth, where, after supplying
them with food, they were also left concealed in the fog of the
prairie. No time was lost when these several arrangements were
completed, before each of the others sought a place of rest and
concealment, and then the plain appeared again deserted to its
solitude.

The old man had advised his companions of the absolute necessity of
their continuing for hours in this concealment. All their hopes of
escape depended on the success of the artifice. If they might elude the
cunning of their pursuers, by this simple and therefore less suspected
expedient, they could renew their flight as the evening approached,
and, by changing their course, the chance of final success would be
greatly increased. Influenced by these momentous considerations the
whole party lay, musing on their situation, until thoughts grew weary,
and sleep finally settled on them all, one after another.

The deepest silence had prevailed for hours, when the quick ears of the
trapper and the Pawnee were startled by a faint cry of surprise from
Inez. Springing to their feet, like men, who were about to struggle for
their lives, they found the vast plain, the rolling swells, the little
hillock, and the scattered thickets, covered alike in one, white,
dazzling sheet of snow.

“The Lord have mercy on ye all!” exclaimed the old man, regarding the
prospect with a rueful eye; “now, Pawnee, do I know the reason why you
studied the clouds so closely; but it is too late; it is too late! A
squirrel would leave his trail on this light coating of the ’arth. Ha!
there come the imps to a certainty. Down with ye all, down with ye;
your chance is but small, and yet it must not be wilfully cast away.”

The whole party was instantly concealed again, though many an anxious
and stolen glance was directed through the tops of the grass, on the
movements of their enemies. At the distance of half a mile, the Teton
band was seen riding in a circuit, which was gradually contracting
itself, and evidently closing upon the very spot where the fugitives
lay. There was but little difficulty in solving the mystery of this
movement. The snow had fallen in time to assure them that those they
sought were in their rear, and they were now employed, with the
unwearied perseverance and patience of Indian warriors, in circling the
certain boundaries of their place of concealment.

Each minute added to the jeopardy of the fugitives. Paul and Middleton
deliberately prepared their rifles, and as the occupied Mahtoree came,
at length, within fifty feet of them, keeping his eyes riveted on the
grass through which he rode, they levelled them together and pulled the
triggers. The effort was answered by the mere snapping of the locks.

“Enough,” said the old man, rising with dignity; “I have cast away the
priming; for certain death would follow your rashness. Now let us meet
our fates like men. Cringing and complaining find no favour in Indian
eyes.”

His appearance was greeted by a yell, that spread far and wide over the
plain, and in a moment a hundred savages were seen riding madly to the
spot. Mahtoree received his prisoners with great self-restraint, though
a single gleam of fierce joy broke through his clouded brow, and the
heart of Middleton grew cold as he caught the expression of that eye,
which the chief turned on the nearly insensible but still lovely Inez.

The exultation of receiving the white captives was so great, as for a
time to throw the dark and immovable form of their young Indian
companion entirely out of view. He stood apart, disdaining to turn an
eye on his enemies, as motionless as if he were frozen in that attitude
of dignity and composure. But when a little time had passed, even this
secondary object attracted the attention of the Tetons. Then it was
that the trapper first learned, by the shout of triumph and the long
drawn yell of delight, which burst at once from a hundred throats, as
well as by the terrible name, which filled the air, that his youthful
friend was no other than that redoubtable and hitherto invincible
warrior, Hard-Heart.




CHAPTER XXV


What, are ancient Pistol and you friends, yet?
                   —Shakespeare.


The curtain of our imperfect drama must fall, to rise upon another
scene. The time is advanced several days, during which very material
changes had occurred in the situation of the actors. The hour is noon,
and the place an elevated plain, that rose, at no great distance from
the water, somewhat abruptly from a fertile bottom, which stretched
along the margin of one of the numberless water-courses of that region.
The river took its rise near the base of the Rocky Mountains, and,
after washing a vast extent of plain, it mingled its waters with a
still larger stream, to become finally lost in the turbid current of
the Missouri.

The landscape was changed materially for the better; though the hand,
which had impressed so much of the desert on the surrounding region,
had laid a portion of its power on this spot. The appearance of
vegetation was, however, less discouraging than in the more sterile
wastes of the rolling prairies. Clusters of trees were scattered in
greater profusion, and a long outline of ragged forest marked the
northern boundary of the view. Here and there, on the bottom, were to
be seen the evidences of a hasty and imperfect culture of such
indigenous vegetables as were of a quick growth, and which were known
to flourish, without the aid of art, in deep and alluvial soils. On the
very edge of what might be called the table-land, were pitched the
hundred lodges of a horde of wandering Siouxes. Their light tenements
were arranged without the least attention to order. Proximity to the
water seemed to be the only consideration which had been consulted in
their disposition, nor had even this important convenience been always
regarded. While most of the lodges stood along the brow of the plain,
many were to be seen at greater distances, occupying such places as had
first pleased the capricious eyes of their untutored owners. The
encampment was not military, nor in the slightest degree protected from
surprise by its position or defences. It was open on every side, and on
every side as accessible as any other point in those wastes, if the
imperfect and natural obstruction offered by the river be excepted. In
short, the place bore the appearance of having been tenanted longer
than its occupants had originally intended, while it was not wanting in
the signs of readiness for a hasty, or even a compelled departure.

This was the temporary encampment of that portion of his people, who
had long been hunting under the direction of Mahtoree, on those grounds
which separated the stationary abodes of his nation, from those of the
warlike tribes of the Pawnees. The lodges were tents of skin, high,
conical, and of the most simple and primitive construction. The shield,
the quiver, the lance and the bow of its master, were to be seen
suspended from a light post before the opening, or door, of each
habitation. The different domestic implements of his one, two, or three
wives, as the brave was of greater or lesser renown, were carelessly
thrown at its side, and here and there the round, full, patient
countenance of an infant might be found peeping from its comfortless
wrappers of bark, as, suspended by a deer-skin thong from the same
post, it rocked in the passing air. Children of a larger growth were
tumbling over each other in piles, the males, even at that early age,
making themselves distinguished for that species of domination which,
in after life, was to mark the vast distinction between the sexes.
Youths were in the bottom, essaying their juvenile powers in curbing
the wild steeds of their fathers, while here and there a truant girl
was to be seen, stealing from her labours to admire their fierce and
impatient daring.

Thus far the picture was the daily exhibition of an encampment
confident in its security. But immediately in front of the lodges was a
gathering, that seemed to forbode some movements of more than usual
interest. A few of the withered and remorseless crones of the band were
clustering together, in readiness to lend their fell voices, if needed,
to aid in exciting their descendants to an exhibition, which their
depraved tastes coveted, as the luxurious Roman dame witnessed the
struggles and the agony of the gladiator. The men were subdivided into
groups, assorted according to the deeds and reputations of the several
individuals of whom they were composed.

They, who were of that equivocal age which admitted them to the hunts,
while their discretion was still too doubtful to permit them to be
trusted on the war-path, hung around the skirts of the whole, catching,
from the fierce models before them, that gravity of demeanour and
restraint of manner, which in time was to become so deeply ingrafted in
their own characters. A few of the still older class, and who had heard
the whoop in anger, were a little more presuming, pressing nigher to
the chiefs, though far from presuming to mingle in their councils,
sufficiently distinguished by being permitted to catch the wisdom which
fell from lips so venerated. The ordinary warriors of the band were
still less diffident, not hesitating to mingle among the chiefs of
lesser note, though far from assuming the right to dispute the
sentiments of any established brave, or to call in question the
prudence of measures, that were recommended by the more gifted
counsellors of the nation.

Among the chiefs themselves there was a singular compound of exterior.
They were divided into two classes; those who were mainly indebted for
their influence to physical causes, and to deeds in arms, and those who
had become distinguished rather for their wisdom than for their
services in the field. The former was by far the most numerous and the
most important class. They were men of stature and mien, whose stern
countenances were often rendered doubly imposing by those evidences of
their valour, which had been roughly traced on their lineaments by the
hands of their enemies. That class, which had gained its influence by a
moral ascendency was extremely limited. They were uniformly to be
distinguished by the quick and lively expression of their eyes, by the
air of distrust that marked their movements, and occasionally by the
vehemence of their utterance in those sudden outbreakings of the mind,
by which their present consultations were, from time to time,
distinguished.

In the very centre of a ring, formed by these chosen counsellors, was
to be seen the person of the disquieted, but seemingly calm, Mahtoree.
There was a conjunction of all the several qualities of the others in
his person and character. Mind as well as matter had contributed to
establish his authority. His scars were as numerous and deep as those
of the whitest head in his nation; his limbs were in their greatest
vigour; his courage at its fullest height. Endowed with this rare
combination of moral and physical influence, the keenest eye in all
that assembly was wont to lower before his threatening glance. Courage
and cunning had established his ascendency, and it had been rendered,
in some degree, sacred by time. He knew so well how to unite the powers
of reason and force, that in a state of society, which admitted of a
greater display of his energies, the Teton would in all probability
have been both a conqueror and a despot.

A little apart from the gathering of the band, was to be seen a set of
beings of an entirely different origin. Taller and far more muscular in
their persons, the lingering vestiges of their Saxon and Norman
ancestry were yet to be found beneath the swarthy complexions, which
had been bestowed by an American sun. It would have been a curious
investigation, for one skilled in such an enquiry, to have traced those
points of difference, by which the offspring of the most western
European was still to be distinguished from the descendant of the most
remote Asiatic, now that the two, in the revolutions of the world, were
approximating in their habits, their residence, and not a little in
their characters. The group, of whom we write, was composed of the
family of the squatter. They stood indolent, lounging, and inert, as
usual when no immediate demand was made on their dormant energies,
clustered in front of some four or five habitations of skin, for which
they were indebted to the hospitality of their Teton allies. The terms
of their unexpected confederation were sufficiently explained, by the
presence of the horses and domestic cattle that were quietly grazing on
the bottom beneath, under the jealous eyes of the spirited Hetty. Their
wagons were drawn about the lodges, in a sort of irregular barrier,
which at once manifested that their confidence was not entirely
restored, while, on the other hand, their policy or indolence prevented
any very positive exhibition of distrust. There was a singular union of
passive enjoyment and of dull curiosity slumbering in every dull
countenance, as each of the party stood leaning on his rifle, regarding
the movements of the Sioux conference. Still no sign of expectation or
interest escaped from the youngest among them, the whole appearing to
emulate the most phlegmatic of their savage allies, in an exhibition of
patience. They rarely spoke; and when they did it was in some short and
contemptuous remark, which served to put the physical superiority of a
white man, and that of an Indian, in a sufficiently striking point of
view. In short, the family of Ishmael appeared now to be in the
plenitude of an enjoyment, which depended on inactivity, but which was
not entirely free from certain confused glimmerings of a perspective,
in which their security stood in some little danger of a rude
interruption from Teton treachery. Abiram, alone, formed a solitary
exception to this state of equivocal repose.

After a life passed in the commission of a thousand mean and
insignificant villanies, the mind of the kidnapper had become hardy
enough to attempt the desperate adventure, which has been laid before
the reader, in the course of the narrative. His influence over the
bolder, but less active, spirit of Ishmael was far from great, and had
not the latter been suddenly expelled from a fertile bottom, of which
he had taken possession, with intent to keep it, without much deference
to the forms of law, he would never have succeeded in enlisting the
husband of his sister in an enterprise that required so much decision
and forethought. Their original success and subsequent disappointment
have been seen; and Abiram now sat apart, plotting the means, by which
he might secure to himself the advantages of his undertaking, which he
perceived were each moment becoming more uncertain, through the open
admiration of Mahtoree for the innocent subject of his villany. We
shall leave him to his vacillating and confused expedients, in order to
pass to the description of certain other personages in the drama.

There was still another corner of the picture that was occupied. On a
little bank, at the extreme right of the encampment, lay the forms of
Middleton and Paul. Their limbs were painfully bound with thongs, cut
from the skin of a bison, while, by a sort of refinement in cruelty,
they were so placed, that each could see a reflection of his own misery
in the case of his neighbour. Within a dozen yards of them a post was
set firmly in the ground, and against it was bound the light and
Apollo-like person of Hard-Heart. Between the two stood the trapper,
deprived of his rifle, his pouch and his horn, but otherwise left in a
sort of contemptuous liberty. Some five or six young warriors, however,
with quivers at their backs, and long tough bows dangling from their
shoulders, who stood with grave watchfulness at no great distance from
the spot, sufficiently proclaimed how fruitless any attempt to escape,
on the part of one so aged and so feeble, might prove. Unlike the other
spectators of the important conference, these individuals were engaged
in a discourse that for them contained an interest of its own.

“Captain,” said the bee-hunter with an expression of comical concern,
that no misfortune could depress in one of his buoyant feelings, “do
you really find that accursed strap of untanned leather cutting into
your shoulder, or is it only the tickling in my own arm that I feel?”

“When the spirit suffers so deeply, the body is insensible to pain,”
returned the more refined, though scarcely so spirited Middleton;
“would to Heaven that some of my trusty artillerists might fall upon
this accursed encampment!”

“You might as well wish that these Teton lodges were so many hives of
hornets, and that the insects would come forth and battle with yonder
tribe of half naked savages.” Then, chuckling with his own conceit, the
bee-hunter turned away from his companion, and sought a momentary
relief from his misery, by imagining that so wild an idea might be
realised, and fancying the manner, in which the attack would upset even
the well established patience of an Indian.

Middleton was glad to be silent; but the old man, who had listened to
their words, drew a little nigher, and continued the discourse.

“Here is likely to be a merciless and a hellish business!” he said,
shaking his head in a manner to prove that even his experience was at a
loss for a remedy in so trying a dilemma. “Our Pawnee friend is already
staked for the torture, and I well know, by the eye and the countenance
of the great Sioux, that he is leading on the temper of his people to
further enormities.”

“Harkee, old trapper,” said Paul, writhing in his bonds to catch a
glimpse of the other’s melancholy face; “you ar’ skilled in Indian
tongues, and know somewhat of Indian deviltries. Go you to the council,
and tell their chiefs in my name, that is to say, in the name of Paul
Hover, of the state of Kentucky, that provided they will guarantee the
safe return of one Ellen Wade into the States, they are welcome to take
his scalp when and in such manner as best suits their amusements; or,
if-so-be they will not trade on these conditions, you may throw in an
hour or two of torture before hand, in order to sweeten the bargain to
their damnable appetites.”

“Ah! lad, it is little they would hearken to such an offer, knowing, as
they do, that you are already like a bear in a trap, as little able to
fight as to fly. But be not down-hearted, for the colour of a white man
is sometimes his death-warrant among these far tribes of savages, and
sometimes his shield. Though they love us not, cunning often ties their
hands. Could the red nations work their will, trees would shortly be
growing again on the ploughed fields of America, and woods would be
whitened with Christian bones. No one can doubt that, who knows the
quality of the love which a Red-skin bears a Pale-face; but they have
counted our numbers until their memories fail them, and they are not
without their policy. Therefore is our fate unsettled; but I fear me
there is small hope left for the Pawnee!”

As the old man concluded, he walked slowly towards the subject of his
latter observation, taking his post at no great distance from his side.
Here he stood, observing such a silence and mien as became him to
manifest, to a chief so renowned and so situated as his captive
associate. But the eye of Hard-Heart was fastened on the distance, and
his whole air was that of one whose thoughts were entirely removed from
the present scene.

“The Siouxes are in council on my brother,” the trapper at length
observed, when he found he could only attract the other’s attention by
speaking.

The young partisan turned his head with a calm smile as he answered
“They are counting the scalps over the lodge of Hard-Heart!”

“No doubt, no doubt; their tempers begin to mount, as they remember the
number of Tetons you have struck, and better would it be for you now,
had more of your days been spent in chasing the deer, and fewer on the
war-path. Then some childless mother of this tribe might take you in
the place of her lost son, and your time would be filled in peace.”

“Does my father think that a warrior can ever die? The Master of Life
does not open his hand to take away his gifts again. When He wants His
young men He calls them, and they go. But the Red-skin He has once
breathed on lives for ever.”

“Ay, this is a more comfortable and a more humble faith than that which
yonder heartless Teton harbours. There is something in these Loups
which opens my inmost heart to them; they seem to have the courage, ay,
and the honesty, too, of the Delawares of the hills. And this lad—it is
wonderful, it is very wonderful; but the age, and the eye, and the
limbs are as if they might have been brothers! Tell me, Pawnee, have
you ever in your traditions heard of a mighty people who once lived on
the shores of the Salt-lake, hard by the rising sun?”

“The earth is white, by people of the colour of my father.”

“Nay, nay, I speak not now of any strollers, who have crept into the
land to rob the lawful owners of their birth-right, but of a people who
are, or rather were, what with nature and what with paint, red as the
berry on the bush.”

“I have heard the old men say, that there were bands, who hid
themselves in the woods under the rising sun, because they dared not
come upon the open prairies to fight with men.”

“Do not your traditions tell you of the greatest, the bravest, and the
wisest nation of Red-skins that the Wahcondah has ever breathed upon?”

Hard-Heart raised his head, with a loftiness and dignity that even his
bonds could not repress, as he answered—

“Has age blinded my father; or does he see so many Siouxes, that he
believes there are no longer any Pawnees?”

“Ah! such is mortal vanity and pride!” exclaimed the disappointed old
man, in English. “Natur’ is as strong in a Red-skin, as in the bosom of
a man of white gifts. Now would a Delaware conceit himself far mightier
than a Pawnee, just as a Pawnee boasts himself to be of the princes of
the ’arth. And so it was atween the Frenchers of the Canadas and the
red-coated English, that the king did use to send into the States, when
States they were not, but outcrying and petitioning provinces, they
fou’t and they fou’t, and what marvellous boastings did they give forth
to the world of their own valour and victories, while both parties
forgot to name the humble soldier of the land, who did the real
service, but who, as he was not privileged then to smoke at the great
council fire of his nation, seldom heard of his deeds, after they were
once bravely done.”

When the old man had thus given vent to the nearly dormant, but far
from extinct, military pride, that had so unconsciously led him into
the very error he deprecated, his eye, which had begun to quicken and
glimmer with some of the ardour of his youth, softened and turned its
anxious look on the devoted captive, whose countenance was also
restored to its former cold look of abstraction and thought.

“Young warrior,” he continued in a voice that was growing tremulous, “I
have never been father, or brother. The Wahcondah made me to live
alone. He never tied my heart to house or field, by the cords with
which the men of my race are bound to their lodges; if he had, I should
not have journeyed so far, and seen so much. But I have tarried long
among a people, who lived in those woods you mention, and much reason
did I find to imitate their courage and love their honesty. The Master
of Life has made us all, Pawnee, with a feeling for our kind. I never
was a father, but well do I know what is the love of one. You are like
a lad I valued, and I had even begun to fancy that some of his blood
might be in your veins. But what matters that? You are a true man, as I
know by the way in which you keep your faith; and honesty is a gift too
rare to be forgotten. My heart yearns to you, boy, and gladly would I
do you good.”

The youthful warrior listened to the words, which came from the lips of
the other with a force and simplicity that established their truth, and
he bowed his head on his naked bosom, in testimony of the respect with
which he met the proffer. Then lifting his dark eye to the level of the
view, he seemed to be again considering of things removed from every
personal consideration. The trapper, who well knew how high the pride
of a warrior would sustain him, in those moments he believed to be his
last, awaited the pleasure of his young friend, with a meekness and
patience that he had acquired by his association with that remarkable
race. At length the gaze of the Pawnee began to waver; and then quick,
flashing glances were turned from the countenance of the old man to the
air, and from the air to his deeply marked lineaments again, as if the
spirit, which governed their movements, was beginning to be troubled.

“Father,” the young brave finally answered in a voice of confidence and
kindness, “I have heard your words. They have gone in at my ears, and
are now within me. The white-headed Long-knife has no son; the
Hard-Heart of the Pawnees is young, but he is already the oldest of his
family. He found the bones of his father on the hunting ground of the
Osages, and he has sent them to the prairies of the Good Spirits. No
doubt the great chief, his father, has seen them, and knows what is
part of himself. But the Wahcondah will soon call to us both; you,
because you have seen all that is to be seen in this country; and
Hard-Heart, because he has need of a warrior, who is young. There is no
time for the Pawnee to show the Pale-face the duty, that a son owes to
his father.”

“Old as I am, and miserable and helpless as I now stand, to what I once
was, I may live to see the sun go down in the prairie. Does my son
expect to do as much?”

“The Tetons are counting the scalps on my lodge!” returned the young
chief, with a smile whose melancholy was singularly illuminated by a
gleam of triumph.

“And they find them many. Too many for the safety of its owner, while
he is in their revengeful hands. My son is not a woman, and he looks on
the path he is about to travel with a steady eye. Has he nothing to
whisper in the ears of his people, before he starts? These legs are
old, but they may yet carry me to the forks of the Loup river.”

“Tell them that Hard-Heart has tied a knot in his wampum for every
Teton,” burst from the lips of the captive, with that vehemence with
which sudden passion is known to break through the barriers of
artificial restraint “if he meets one of them all, in the prairies of
the Master of Life, his heart will become Sioux!”

“Ah that feeling would be a dangerous companion for a man with white
gifts to start with on so solemn a journey,” muttered the old man in
English. “This is not what the good Moravians said to the councils of
the Delawares, nor what is so often preached, to the White-skins in the
settlements, though, to the shame of the colour be it said, it is so
little heeded. Pawnee, I love you; but being a Christian man, I cannot
be the runner to bear such a message.”

“If my father is afraid the Tetons will hear him, let him whisper it
softly to our old men.”

“As for fear, young warrior, it is no more the shame of a Pale-face
than of a Red-skin. The Wahcondah teaches us to love the life he gives;
but it is as men love their hunts, and their dogs, and their carabines,
and not with the doting that a mother looks upon her infant. The Master
of Life will not have to speak aloud twice when he calls my name. I am
as ready to answer to it now, as I shall be to-morrow, or at any time
it may please his mighty will. But what is a warrior without his
traditions? Mine forbid me to carry your words.”

The chief made a dignified motion of assent, and here there was great
danger that those feelings of confidence, which had been so singularly
awakened, would as suddenly subside. But the heart of the old man had
been too sensibly touched, through long dormant but still living
recollections, to break off the communication so rudely. He pondered
for a minute, and then bending his look wistfully on his young
associate, again continued—

“Each warrior must be judged by his gifts. I have told my son what I
cannot, but let him open his ears to what I can do. An elk shall not
measure the prairie much swifter than these old legs, if the Pawnee
will give me a message that a white man may bear.”

“Let the Pale-face listen,” returned the other, after hesitating a
single instant longer, under a lingering sensation of his former
disappointment. “He will stay here till the Siouxes have done counting
the scalps of their dead warriors. He will wait until they have tried
to cover the heads of eighteen Tetons with the skin of one Pawnee; he
will open his eyes wide, that he may see the place where they bury the
bones of a warrior.”

“All this will I, and may I, do, noble boy.”

“He will mark the spot, that he may know it.”

“No fear, no fear that I shall forget the place,” interrupted the
other, whose fortitude began to give way under so trying an exhibition
of calmness and resignation.

“Then I know that my father will go to my people. His head is grey, and
his words will not be blown away with the smoke. Let him get on my
lodge, and call the name of Hard-Heart aloud. No Pawnee will be deaf.
Then let my father ask for the colt, that has never been ridden, but
which is sleeker than the buck, and swifter than the elk.”

“I understand you, boy, I understand you,” interrupted the attentive
old man; “and what you say shall be done, ay, and well done too, or I’m
but little skilled in the wishes of a dying Indian.”

“And when my young men have given my father the halter of that colt, he
will lead him by a crooked path to the grave of Hard-Heart?”

“Will I! ay, that I will, brave youth, though the winter covers these
plains in banks of snow, and the sun is hidden as much by day as by
night. To the head of the holy spot will I lead the beast, and place
him with his eyes looking towards the setting sun.”

“And my father will speak to him, and tell him, that the master, who
has fed him since he was foaled, has now need of him.”

“That, too, will I do; though the Lord he knows that I shall hold
discourse with a horse, not with any vain conceit that my words will be
understood, but only to satisfy the cravings of Indian superstition.
Hector, my pup, what think you, dog, of talking to a horse?”

“Let the grey-beard speak to him with the tongue of a Pawnee,”
interrupted the young victim, perceiving that his companion had used an
unknown language for the preceding speech.

“My son’s will shall be done. And with these old hands, which I had
hoped had nearly done with bloodshed, whether it be of man or beast,
will I slay the animal on your grave!”

“It is good,” returned the other, a gleam of satisfaction flitting
across his features. “Hard-Heart will ride his horse to the blessed
prairies, and he will come before the Master of Life like a chief!”

The sudden and striking change, which instantly occurred in the
countenance of the Indian, caused the trapper to look aside, when he
perceived that the conference of the Siouxes had ended, and that
Mahtoree, attended by one or two of the principal warriors, was
deliberately approaching his intended victim.




CHAPTER XXVI


I am not prone to weeping, as our sex
Commonly are.
       But I have that honourable
Grief lodged here, which burns worse than
Tears drown
                   —Shakespeare.


When within twenty feet of the prisoners, the Tetons stopped, and their
leader made a sign to the old man to draw nigh. The trapper obeyed,
quitting the young Pawnee with a significant look, which was received,
as it was meant, for an additional pledge that he would never forget
his promise. So soon as Mahtoree found that the other had stopped
within reach of him, he stretched forth his arm, and laying a hand upon
the shoulder of the attentive old man, he stood regarding him, a
minute, with eyes that seemed willing to penetrate the recesses of his
most secret thoughts.

“Is a Pale-face always made with two tongues?” he demanded, when he
found that, as usual, with the subject of this examination, he was as
little intimidated by his present frown, as moved by any apprehensions
of the future.

“Honesty lies deeper than the skin.”

“It is so. Now let my father hear me. Mahtoree has but one tongue, the
grey-head has many. They may be all straight, and none of them forked.
A Sioux is no more than a Sioux, but a Pale-face is every thing! He can
talk to the Pawnee, and the Konza, and the Omawhaw, and he can talk to
his own people.”

“Ay, there are linguists in the settlements that can do still more. But
what profits it all? The Master of Life has an ear for every language!”

“The grey-head has done wrong. He has said one thing when he meant
another. He has looked before him with his eyes, and behind him with
his mind. He has ridden the horse of a Sioux too hard; he has been the
friend of a Pawnee, and the enemy of my people.”

“Teton, I am your prisoner. Though my words are white, they will not
complain. Act your will.”

“No. Mahtoree will not make a white hair red. My father is free. The
prairie is open on every side of him. But before the grey-head turns
his back on the Siouxes, let him look well at them, that he may tell
his own chief, how great is a Dahcotah!”

“I am not in a hurry to go on my path. You see a man with a white head,
and no woman, Teton; therefore shall I not run myself out of breath, to
tell the nations of the prairies what the Siouxes are doing.”

“It is good. My father has smoked with the chiefs at many councils,”
returned Mahtoree, who now thought himself sufficiently sure of the
other’s favour to go more directly to his object. “Mahtoree will speak
with the tongue of his very dear friend and father. A young Pale-face
will listen when an old man of that nation opens his mouth. Go; my
father will make what a poor Indian says fit for a white ear.”

“Speak aloud!” said the trapper, who readily understood the
metaphorical manner, in which the Teton expressed a desire that he
should become an interpreter of his words into the English language;
“speak, my young men listen. Now, captain, and you too, friend
bee-hunter, prepare yourselves to meet the deviltries of this savage,
with the stout hearts of white warriors. If you find yourselves giving
way under his threats, just turn your eyes on that noble-looking
Pawnee, whose time is measured with a hand as niggardly, as that with
which a trader in the towns gives forth the fruits of the Lord, inch by
inch, in order to satisfy his covetousness. A single look at the boy
will set you both up in resolution.”

“My brother has turned his eyes on the wrong path,” interrupted
Mahtoree, with a complacency that betrayed how unwilling he was to
offend his intended interpreter.

“The Dahcotah will speak to my young men?”

“After he has sung in the ear of the flower of the Pale-faces.”

“The Lord forgive the desperate villain!” exclaimed the old man in
English. “There are none so tender, or so young, or so innocent, as to
escape his ravenous wishes. But hard words and cold looks will profit
nothing; therefore it will be wise to speak him fair. Let Mahtoree open
his mouth.”

“Would my father cry out, that the women and children should hear the
wisdom of chiefs! We will go into the lodge and whisper.”

As the Teton ended, he pointed significantly towards a tent, vividly
emblazoned with the history of one of his own boldest and most
commended exploits, and which stood a little apart from the rest, as if
to denote it was the residence of some privileged individual of the
band. The shield and quiver at its entrance were richer than common,
and the high distinction of a fusee, attested the importance of its
proprietor. In every other particular it was rather distinguished by
signs of poverty than of wealth. The domestic utensils were fewer in
number and simpler in their forms, than those to be seen about the
openings of the meanest lodges, nor was there a single one of those
high-prized articles of civilised life, which were occasionally bought
of the traders, in bargains that bore so hard on the ignorant natives.
All these had been bestowed, as they had been acquired, by the generous
chief, on his subordinates, to purchase an influence that might render
him the master of their lives and persons; a species of wealth that was
certainly more noble in itself, and far dearer to his ambition.

The old man well knew this to be the lodge of Mahtoree, and, in
obedience to the sign of the chief, he held his way towards it with
slow and reluctant steps. But there were others present, who were
equally interested in the approaching conference, whose apprehensions
were not to be so easily suppressed. The watchful eye and jealous ears
of Middleton had taught him enough to fill his soul with horrible
forebodings. With an incredible effort he succeeded in gaining his
feet, and called aloud to the retiring trapper—

“I conjure you, old man, if the love you bore my parents was more than
words, or if the love you bear your God is that of a Christian man,
utter not a syllable that may wound the ear of that innocent—”

Exhausted in spirit and fettered in limbs, he then fell, like an
inanimate log, to the earth, where he lay like one dead.

Paul had however caught the clue and completed the exhortation, in his
peculiar manner.

“Harkee, old trapper,” he shouted, vainly endeavouring at the same time
to make a gesture of defiance with his hand; “if you ar’ about to play
the interpreter, speak such words to the ears of that damnable savage,
as becomes a white man to use, and a heathen to hear. Tell him, from
me, that if he does or says the thing that is uncivil to the girl,
called Nelly Wade, that I’ll curse him with my dying breath; that I’ll
pray for all good Christians in Kentucky to curse him; sitting and
standing; eating and drinking, fighting, praying, or at horse-races;
in-doors and outdoors; in summer or winter, or in the month of March in
short I’ll—ay, it ar’ a fact, morally true—I’ll haunt him, if the ghost
of a Pale-face can contrive to lift itself from a grave made by the
hands of a Red-skin!”

Having thus ventured the most terrible denunciation he could devise,
and the one which, in the eyes of the honest bee-hunter, there seemed
the greatest likelihood of his being able to put in execution, he was
obliged to await the fruits of his threat, with that resignation which
would be apt to govern a western border-man who, in addition to the
prospects just named, had the advantage of contemplating them in
fetters and bondage. We shall not detain the narrative, to relate the
quaint morals with which he next endeavoured to cheer the drooping
spirits of his more sensitive companion, or the occasional pithy and
peculiar benedictions that he pronounced, on all the bands of the
Dahcotahs, commencing with those whom he accused of stealing or
murdering, on the banks of the distant Mississippi, and concluding, in
terms of suitable energy, with the Teton tribe. The latter more than
once received from his lips curses as sententious and as complicated as
that celebrated anathema of the church, for a knowledge of which most
unlettered Protestants are indebted to the pious researches of the
worthy Tristram Shandy. But as Middleton recovered from his exhaustion
he was fain to appease the boisterous temper of his associate, by
admonishing him of the uselessness of such denunciations, and of the
possibility of their hastening the very evil he deprecated, by
irritating the resentments of a race, who were sufficiently fierce and
lawless, even in their most pacific moods.

In the mean time the trapper and the Sioux chief pursued their way to
the lodge. The former had watched with painful interest the expression
of Mahtoree’s eye, while the words of Middleton and Paul were pursuing
their footsteps, but the mien of the Indian was far too much restrained
and self-guarded, to permit the smallest of his emotions to escape
through any of those ordinary outlets, by which the condition of the
human volcano is commonly betrayed. His look was fastened on the little
habitation they approached; and, for the moment, his thoughts appeared
to brood alone on the purposes of this extraordinary visit.

The appearance of the interior of the lodge corresponded with its
exterior. It was larger than most of the others, more finished in its
form, and finer in its materials; but there its superiority ceased.
Nothing could be more simple and republican than the form of living
that the ambitious and powerful Teton chose to exhibit to the eyes of
his people. A choice collection of weapons for the chase, some three or
four medals, bestowed by the traders and political agents of the
Canadas as a homage to, or rather as an acknowledgment of, his rank,
with a few of the most indispensable articles of personal
accommodation, composed its furniture. It abounded in neither venison,
nor the wild-beef of the prairies; its crafty owner having well
understood that the liberality of a single individual would be
abundantly rewarded by the daily contributions of a band. Although as
pre-eminent in the chase as in war, a deer or a buffaloe was never seen
to enter whole into his lodge. In return, an animal was rarely brought
into the encampment, that did not contribute to support the family of
Mahtoree. But the policy of the chief seldom permitted more to remain
than sufficed for the wants of the day, perfectly assured that all must
suffer before hunger, the bane of savage life, could lay its fell fangs
on so important a victim.

Immediately beneath the favourite bow of the chief, and encircled in a
sort of magical ring of spears, shields, lances and arrows, all of
which had in their time done good service, was suspended the mysterious
and sacred medicine-bag. It was highly-wrought in wampum, and profusely
ornamented with beads and porcupine’s quills, after the most cunning
devices of Indian ingenuity. The peculiar freedom of Mahtoree’s
religious creed has been more than once intimated, and by a singular
species of contradiction, he appeared to have lavished his attentions
on this emblem of a supernatural agency, in a degree that was precisely
inverse to his faith. It was merely the manner in which the Sioux
imitated the well-known expedient of the Pharisees, “in order that they
might be seen of men.”

The tent had not, however, been entered by its owner since his return
from the recent expedition. As the reader has already anticipated, it
had been made the prison of Inez and Ellen. The bride of Middleton was
seated on a simple couch of sweet-scented herbs covered with skins. She
had already suffered so much, and witnessed so many wild and
unlooked-for events, within the short space of her captivity, that
every additional misfortune fell with a diminished force on her
seemingly devoted head. Her cheeks were bloodless, her dark and usually
animated eye was contracted in an expression of settled concern, and
her form appeared shrinking and sensitive, nearly to extinction. But in
the midst of these evidences of natural weakness, there were at times
such an air of pious resignation, such gleams of meek but holy hope
lighting her countenance, as might well have rendered it a question
whether the hapless captive was most a subject of pity, or of
admiration. All the precepts of father Ignatius were riveted in her
faithful memory, and not a few of his pious visions were floating
before her imagination. Sustained by so sacred resolutions, the mild,
the patient and the confiding girl was bowing her head to this new
stroke of Providence, with the same sort of meekness as she would have
submitted to any other prescribed penitence for her sins, though
nature, at moments, warred powerfully, with so compelled a humility.

On the other hand, Ellen had exhibited far more of the woman, and
consequently of the passions of the world. She had wept until her eyes
were swollen and red. Her cheeks were flushed and angry, and her whole
mien was distinguished by an air of spirit and resentment, that was not
a little, however, qualified by apprehensions for the future. In short,
there was that about the eye and step of the betrothed of Paul, which
gave a warranty that should happier times arrive, and the constancy of
the bee-hunter finally meet with its reward, he would possess a partner
every way worthy to cope with his own thoughtless and buoyant
temperament.

There was still another and a third figure in that little knot of
females. It was the youngest, the most highly gifted, and, until now,
the most favoured of the wives of the Teton. Her charms had not been
without the most powerful attraction in the eyes of her husband, until
they had so unexpectedly opened on the surpassing loveliness of a woman
of the Pale-faces. From that hapless moment the graces, the attachment,
the fidelity of the young Indian, had lost their power to please. Still
the complexion of Tachechana, though less dazzling than that of her
rival, was, for her race, clear and healthy. Her hazel eye had the
sweetness and playfulness of the antelope’s; her voice was soft and
joyous as the song of the wren, and her happy laugh was the very melody
of the forest. Of all the Sioux girls, Tachechana (or the Fawn) was the
lightest-hearted and the most envied. Her father had been a
distinguished brave, and her brothers had already left their bones on a
distant and dreary war-path. Numberless were the warriors, who had sent
presents to the lodge of her parents, but none of them were listened to
until a messenger from the great Mahtoree had come. She was his third
wife, it is true, but she was confessedly the most favoured of them
all. Their union had existed but two short seasons, and its fruits now
lay sleeping at her feet, wrapped in the customary ligatures of skin
and bark, which form the swaddlings of an Indian infant.

At the moment, when Mahtoree and the trapper arrived at the opening of
the lodge, the young Sioux wife was seated on a simple stool, turning
her soft eyes, with looks that varied, like her emotions, with love and
wonder, from the unconscious child to those rare beings, who had filled
her youthful and uninstructed mind with so much admiration and
astonishment. Though Inez and Ellen had passed an entire day in her
sight, it seemed as if the longings of her curiosity were increasing
with each new gaze. She regarded them as beings of an entirely
different nature and condition from the females of the prairie. Even
the mystery of their complicated attire had its secret influence on her
simple mind, though it was the grace and charms of sex, to which nature
has made every people so sensible, that most attracted her admiration.
But while her ingenuous disposition freely admitted the superiority of
the strangers over the less brilliant attractions of the Dahcotah
maidens, she had seen no reason to deprecate their advantages. The
visit that she was now about to receive, was the first which her
husband had made to the tent since his return from the recent inroad,
and he was ever present to her thoughts, as a successful warrior, who
was not ashamed, in the moments of inaction, to admit the softer
feelings of a father and a husband.

We have every where endeavoured to show that while Mahtoree was in all
essentials a warrior of the prairies, he was much in advance of his
people in those acquirements which announce the dawnings of
civilisation. He had held frequent communion with the traders and
troops of the Canadas, and the intercourse had unsettled many of those
wild opinions which were his birthright, without perhaps substituting
any others of a nature sufficiently definite to be profitable. His
reasoning was rather subtle than true, and his philosophy far more
audacious than profound. Like thousands of more enlightened beings, who
fancy they are able to go through the trials of human existence without
any other support than their own resolutions, his morals were
accommodating and his motive selfish. These several characteristics
will be understood always with reference to the situation of the
Indian, though little apology is needed for finding resemblances
between men, who essentially possess the same nature, however it may be
modified by circumstances.

Notwithstanding the presence of Inez and Ellen, the entrance of the
Teton warrior into the lodge of his favourite wife, was made with the
tread and mien of a master. The step of his moccasin was noiseless, but
the rattling of his bracelets, and of the silver ornaments of his
leggings, sufficed to announce his approach, as he pushed aside the
skin covering of the opening of the tent, and stood in the presence of
its inmates. A faint cry of pleasure burst from the lips of Tachechana
in the suddenness of her surprise, but the emotion was instantly
suppressed in that subdued demeanour which should characterise a matron
of her tribe. Instead of returning the stolen glance of his youthful
and secretly rejoicing wife, Mahtoree moved to the couch, occupied by
his prisoners, and placed himself in the haughty, upright attitude of
an Indian chief, before their eyes. The old man had glided past him,
and already taken a position suited to the office he had been commanded
to fill.

Surprise kept the females silent and nearly breathless. Though
accustomed to the sight of savage warriors, in the horrid panoply of
their terrible profession, there was something so startling in the
entrance, and so audacious in the inexplicable look of their conqueror,
that the eyes of both sunk to the earth, under a feeling of terror and
embarrassment. Then Inez recovered herself, and addressing the trapper,
she demanded, with the dignity of an offended gentlewoman, though with
her accustomed grace, to what circumstance they owed this extraordinary
and unexpected visit. The old man hesitated; but clearing his throat,
like one who was about to make an effort to which he was little used,
he ventured on the following reply—

“Lady,” he said, “a savage is a savage, and you are not to look for the
uses and formalities of the settlements on a bleak and windy prairie.
As these Indians would say, fashions and courtesies are things so
light, that they would blow away. As for myself, though a man of the
forest, I have seen the ways of the great, in my time, and I am not to
learn that they differ from the ways of the lowly. I was long a
serving-man in my youth, not one of your beck-and-nod runners about a
household, but a man that went through the servitude of the forest with
his officer, and well do I know in what manner to approach the wife of
a captain. Now, had I the ordering of this visit, I would first have
hemmed aloud at the door, in order that you might hear that strangers
were coming, and then I—”

“The manner is indifferent,” interrupted Inez, too anxious to await the
prolix explanations of the old man; “why is the visit made?”

“Therein shall the savage speak for himself. The daughters of the
Pale-faces wish to know why the Great Teton has come into his lodge?”

Mahtoree regarded his interrogator with a surprise, which showed how
extraordinary he deemed the question. Then placing himself in a posture
of condescension, after a moment’s delay, he answered—

“Sing in the ears of the dark-eye. Tell her the lodge of Mahtoree is
very large, and that it is not full. She shall find room in it, and
none shall be greater than she. Tell the light-hair, that she too may
stay in the lodge of a brave, and eat of his venison. Mahtoree is a
great chief. His hand is never shut.”

“Teton,” returned the trapper, shaking his head in evidence of the
strong disapprobation with which he heard this language, “the tongue of
a Red-skin must be coloured white, before it can make music in the ears
of a Pale-face. Should your words be spoken, my daughters would shut
their ears, and Mahtoree would seem a trader to their eyes. Now listen
to what comes from a grey-head, and then speak accordingly. My people
is a mighty people. The sun rises on their eastern and sets on their
western border. The land is filled with bright-eyed and laughing girls,
like these you see—ay, Teton, I tell no lie,” observing his auditor to
start with an air of distrust—“bright-eyed and pleasant to behold, as
these before you.”

“Has my father a hundred wives!” interrupted the savage, laying his
finger on the shoulder of the trapper, with a look of curious interest
in the reply.

“No, Dahcotah. The Master of Life has said to me, Live alone; your
lodge shall be the forest; the roof of your wigwam, the clouds. But,
though never bound in the secret faith which, in my nation, ties one
man to one woman, often have I seen the workings of that kindness which
brings the two together. Go into the regions of my people; you will see
the daughters of the land, fluttering through the towns like
many-coloured and joyful birds in the season of blossoms. You will meet
them, singing and rejoicing, along the great paths of the country, and
you will hear the woods ringing with their laughter. They are very
excellent to behold, and the young men find pleasure in looking at
them.”

“Hugh,” ejaculated the attentive Mahtoree.

“Ay, well may you put faith in what you hear, for it is no lie. But
when a youth has found a maiden to please him, he speaks to her in a
voice so soft, that none else can hear. He does not say, My lodge is
empty and there is room for another; but shall I build, and will the
virgin show me near what spring she would dwell? His voice is sweeter
than honey from the locust, and goes into the ear thrilling like the
song of a wren. Therefore, if my brother wishes his words to be heard,
he must speak with a white tongue.”

Mahtoree pondered deeply, and in a wonder that he did not attempt to
conceal. It was reversing all the order of society, and, according to
his established opinions, endangering the dignity of a chief, for a
warrior thus to humble himself before a woman. But as Inez sat before
him, reserved and imposing in air, utterly unconscious of his object,
and least of all suspecting the true purport of so extraordinary a
visit, the savage felt the influence of a manner to which he was
unaccustomed. Bowing his head, in acknowledgment of his error, he
stepped a little back, and placing himself in an attitude of easy
dignity, he began to speak with the confidence of one who had been no
less distinguished for eloquence, than for deeds in arms. Keeping his
eyes riveted on the unconscious bride of Middleton, he proceeded in the
following words—

“I am a man with a red skin, but my eyes are dark. They have been open
since many snows. They have seen many things—they know a brave from a
coward. When a boy, I saw nothing but the bison and the deer. I went to
the hunts, and I saw the cougar and the bear. This made Mahtoree a man.
He talked with his mother no more. His ears were open to the wisdom of
the old men. They told him every thing—they told him of the Big-knives.
He went on the war-path. He was then the last; now, he is the first.
What Dahcotah dare say he will go before Mahtoree into the hunting
grounds of the Pawnees? The chiefs met him at their doors, and they
said, My son is without a home. They gave him their lodges, they gave
him their riches, and they gave him their daughters. Then Mahtoree
became a chief, as his fathers had been. He struck the warriors of all
the nations, and he could have chosen wives from the Pawnees, the
Omawhaws, and the Konzas; but he looked at the hunting grounds, and not
at his village. He thought a horse was pleasanter than a Dahcotah girl.
But he found a flower on the prairies, and he plucked it, and brought
it into his lodge. He forgets that he is the master of a single horse.
He gives them all to the stranger, for Mahtoree is not a thief; he will
only keep the flower he found on the prairie. Her feet are very tender.
She cannot walk to the door of her father; she will stay, in the lodge
of a valiant warrior for ever.”

When he had finished this extraordinary address, the Teton awaited to
have it translated, with the air of a suitor who entertained no very
disheartening doubts of his success. The trapper had not lost a
syllable of the speech, and he now prepared himself to render it into
English in such a manner as should leave its principal idea even more
obscure than in the original. But as his reluctant lips were in the act
of parting, Ellen lifted a finger, and with a keen glance from her
quick eye, at the still attentive Inez, she interrupted him.

“Spare your breath,” she said, “all that a savage says is not to be
repeated before a Christian lady.”

Inez started, blushed, and bowed with an air of reserve, as she coldly
thanked the old man for his intentions, and observed that she could now
wish to be alone.

“My daughters have no need of ears to understand what a great Dahcotah
says,” returned the trapper, addressing himself to the expecting
Mahtoree. “The look he has given, and the signs he has made, are
enough. They understand him; they wish to think of his words; for the
children of great braves, such as their fathers are, do nothing with
out much thought.”

With this explanation, so flattering to the energy of his eloquence,
and so promising to his future hopes, the Teton was every way content.
He made the customary ejaculation of assent, and prepared to retire.
Saluting the females, in the cold but dignified manner of his people,
he drew his robe about him, and moved from the spot where he had stood,
with an air of ill-concealed triumph.

But there had been a stricken, though a motionless and unobserved
auditor of the foregoing scene. Not a syllable had fallen from the lips
of the long and anxiously expected husband, that had not gone directly
to the heart of his unoffending wife. In this manner had he wooed her
from the lodge of her father, and it was to listen to similar pictures
of the renown and deeds of the greatest brave in her tribe, that she
had shut her ears to the tender tales of so many of the Sioux youths.

As the Teton turned to leave his lodge, in the manner just mentioned,
he found this unexpected and half-forgotten object before him. She
stood, in the humble guise and with the shrinking air of an Indian
girl, holding the pledge of their former love in her arms, directly in
his path. Starting, the chief regained the marble-like indifference of
countenance, which distinguished in so remarkable a degree the
restrained or more artificial expression of his features, and signed to
her, with an air of authority to give place.

“Is not Tachechana the daughter of a chief?” demanded a subdued voice,
in which pride struggled with anguish: “were not her brothers braves?”

“Go; the men are calling their partisan. He has no ears for a woman.”

“No,” replied the supplicant; “it is not the voice of Tachechana that
you hear, but this boy, speaking with the tongue of his mother. He is
the son of a chief, and his words will go up to his father’s ears.
Listen to what he says. When was Mahtoree hungry and Tachechana had not
food for him? When did he go on the path of the Pawnees and find it
empty, that my mother did not weep? When did he come back with the
marks of their blows, that she did not sing? What Sioux girl has given
a brave a son like me? Look at me well, that you may know me. My eyes
are the eagle’s. I look at the sun and laugh. In a little time the
Dahcotahs will follow me to the hunts and on the war-path. Why does my
father turn his eyes from the woman that gives me milk? Why has he so
soon forgotten the daughter of a mighty Sioux?”

There was a single instant, as the exulting father suffered his cold
eye to wander to the face of the laughing boy, that the stern nature of
the Teton seemed touched. But shaking off the grateful sentiment, like
one who would gladly be rid of any painful, because reproachful,
emotion, he laid his hand calmly on the arm of his wife, and led her
directly in front of Inez. Pointing to the sweet countenance that was
beaming on her own, with a look of tenderness and commiseration, he
paused, to allow his wife to contemplate a loveliness, which was quite
as excellent to her ingenuous mind as it had proved dangerous to the
character of her faithless husband. When he thought abundant time had
passed to make the contrast sufficiently striking, he suddenly raised a
small mirror, that dangled at her breast, an ornament he had himself
bestowed, in an hour of fondness, as a compliment to her beauty, and
placed her own dark image in its place. Wrapping his robe again about
him, the Teton motioned to the trapper to follow, and stalked haughtily
from the lodge, muttering, as he went—

“Mahtoree is very wise! What nation has so great a chief as the
Dahcotahs?”

Tachechana stood frozen into a statue of humility. Her mild and usually
joyous countenance worked, as if the struggle within was about to
dissolve the connection between her soul and that more material part,
whose deformity was becoming so loathsome. Inez and Ellen were utterly
ignorant of the nature of her interview with her husband, though the
quick and sharpened wits of the latter led her to suspect a truth, to
which the entire innocence of the former furnished no clue. They were
both, however, about to tender those sympathies, which are so natural
to, and so graceful in the sex, when their necessity seemed suddenly to
cease. The convulsions in the features of the young Sioux disappeared,
and her countenance became cold and rigid, like chiselled stone. A
single expression of subdued anguish, which had made its impression on
a brow that had rarely before contracted with sorrow, alone remained.
It was never removed, in all the changes of seasons, fortunes, and
years, which, in the vicissitudes of a suffering, female, savage life,
she was subsequently doomed to endure. As in the case of a premature
blight, let the plant quicken and revive as it may, the effects of that
withering touch were always present.

Tachechana first stripped her person of every vestige of those rude but
highly prized ornaments, which the liberality of her husband had been
wont to lavish on her, and she tendered them meekly, and without a
murmur, as an offering to the superiority of Inez. The bracelets were
forced from her wrists, the complicated mazes of beads from her
leggings, and the broad silver band from her brow. Then she paused,
long and painfully. But it would seem, that the resolution, she had
once adopted, was not to be conquered by the lingering emotions of any
affection, however natural. The boy himself was next laid at the feet
of her supposed rival, and well might the self-abased wife of the Teton
believe that the burden of her sacrifice was now full.

While Inez and Ellen stood regarding these several strange movements
with eyes of wonder, a low soft musical voice was heard saying in a
language, that to them was unintelligible—

“A strange tongue will tell my boy the manner to become a man. He will
hear sounds that are new, but he will learn them, and forget the voice
of his mother. It is the will of the Wahcondah, and a Sioux girl should
not complain. Speak to him softly, for his ears are very little; when
he is big, your words may be louder. Let him not be a girl, for very
sad is the life of a woman. Teach him to keep his eyes on the men. Show
him how to strike them that do him wrong, and let him never forget to
return blow for blow. When he goes to hunt, the flower of the
Pale-faces,” she concluded, using in bitterness the metaphor which had
been supplied by the imagination of her truant husband, “will whisper
softly in his ears that the skin of his mother was red, and that she
was once the Fawn of the Dahcotahs.”

Tachechana pressed a kiss on the lips of her son, and withdrew to the
farther side of the lodge. Here she drew her light calico robe over her
head, and took her seat, in token of humility, on the naked earth. All
efforts, to attract her attention, were fruitless. She neither heard
remonstrances, nor felt the touch. Once or twice her voice rose, in a
sort of wailing song, from beneath her quivering mantle, but it never
mounted into the wildness of savage music. In this manner she remained
unseen for hours, while events were occurring without the lodge, which
not only materially changed the complexion of her own fortunes, but
left a lasting and deep impression on the future movements of the
wandering Sioux.




CHAPTER XXVII


I’ll no swaggerers: I am in good name and fame with the very best:—shut
the door;—there come no swaggerers here: I have not lived all this
while, to have swaggering now: shut the door, I pray you.
                   —King Henry IV.


Mahtoree encountered, at the door of his lodge, Ishmael, Abiram, and
Esther. The first glance of his eye, at the countenance of the
heavy-moulded squatter, served to tell the cunning Teton, that the
treacherous truce he had made, with these dupes of his superior
sagacity, was in some danger of a violent termination.

“Look you here, old grey-beard,” said Ishmael, seizing the trapper, and
whirling him round as if he had been a top; “that I am tired of
carrying on a discourse with fingers and thumbs, instead of a tongue,
ar’ a natural fact; so you’ll play linguister and put my words into
Indian, without much caring whether they suit the stomach of a Red-skin
or not.”

“Say on, friend,” calmly returned the trapper; “they shall be given as
plainly as you send them.”

“Friend!” repeated the squatter, eyeing the other for an instant, with
an expression of indefinable meaning. “But it is no more than a word,
and sounds break no bones, and survey no farms. Tell this thieving
Sioux, then, that I come to claim the conditions of our solemn bargain,
made at the foot of the rock.”

When the trapper had rendered his meaning into the Sioux language,
Mahtoree demanded, with an air of surprise—

“Is my brother cold? buffaloe skins are plenty. Is he hungry? Let my
young men carry venison into his lodges.”

The squatter elevated his clenched fist in a menacing manner, and
struck it with violence on the palm of his open hand, by way of
confirming his determination, as he answered—

“Tell the deceitful liar, I have not come like a beggar to pick his
bones, but like a freeman asking for his own; and have it I will. And,
moreover, tell him I claim that you, too, miserable sinner as you ar’,
should be given up to justice. There’s no mistake. My prisoner, my
niece, and you. I demand the three at his hands, according to a sworn
agreement.”

The immovable old man smiled, with an expression of singular
intelligence, as he answered—

“Friend squatter, you ask what few men would be willing to grant. You
would first cut the tongue from the mouth of the Teton, and then the
heart from his bosom.”

“It is little that Ishmael Bush regards, who or what is damaged in
claiming his own. But put you the questions in straight-going Indian,
and when you speak of yourself, make such a sign as a white man will
understand, in order that I may know there is no foul play.”

The trapper laughed in his silent fashion, and muttered a few words to
himself before he addressed the chief—

“Let the Dahcotah open his ears very wide,” he said “that big words may
have room to enter. His friend the Big-knife comes with an empty hand,
and he says that the Teton must fill it.”

“Wagh! Mahtoree is a rich chief. He is master of the prairies.”

“He must give the dark-hair.”

The brow of the chief contracted in an ominous frown, that threatened
instant destruction to the audacious squatter; but as suddenly
recollecting his policy, he craftily replied—

“A girl is too light for the hand of such a brave. I will fill it with
buffaloes.”

“He says he has need of the light-hair, too; who has his blood in her
veins.”

“She shall be the wife of Mahtoree; then the Long-knife will be the
father of a chief.”

“And me,” continued the trapper, making one of those expressive signs,
by which the natives communicate, with nearly the same facility as with
their tongues, and turning to the squatter at the same time, in order
that the latter might see he dealt fairly by him; “he asks for a
miserable and worn-out trapper.”

The Dahcotah threw his arm over the shoulder of the old man, with an
air of great affection, before he replied to this third and last
demand.

“My friend is old,” he said, “and cannot travel far. He will stay with
the Tetons, that they may learn wisdom from his words. What Sioux has a
tongue like my father? No; let his words be very soft, but let them be
very clear. Mahtoree will give skins and buffaloes. He will give the
young men of the Pale-faces wives, but he cannot give away any who live
in his own lodge.”

Perfectly satisfied, himself, with this laconic reply, the chief was
moving towards his expecting counsellors, when suddenly returning, he
interrupted the translation of the trapper by adding—

“Tell the Great Buffaloe” (a name by which the Tetons had already
christened Ishmael), “that Mahtoree has a hand which is always open.
See,” he added, pointing to the hard and wrinkled visage of the
attentive Esther, “his wife is too old, for so great a chief. Let him
put her out of his lodge. Mahtoree loves him as a brother. He is his
brother. He shall have the youngest wife of the Teton. Tachechana, the
pride of the Sioux girls, shall cook his venison, and many braves will
look at him with longing minds. Go, a Dahcotah is generous.”

The singular coolness, with which the Teton concluded this audacious
proposal, confounded even the practised trapper. He stared after the
retiring form of the Indian, with an astonishment he did not care to
conceal, nor did he renew his attempt at interpretation until the
person of Mahtoree was blended with the cluster of warriors, who had so
long, and with so characteristic patience, awaited his return.

“The Teton chief has spoken very plainly,” the old man continued; “he
will not give you the lady, to whom the Lord in heaven knows you have
no claim, unless it be such as the wolf has to the lamb. He will not
give you the child, you call your niece; and therein I acknowledge that
I am far from certain he has the same justice on his side. Moreover,
neighbour squatter, he flatly denies your demand for me, miserable and
worthless as I am; nor do I think he has been unwise in so doing,
seeing that I should have many reasons against journeying far in your
company. But he makes you an offer, which it is right and convenient
you should know. The Teton says through me, who am no more than a
mouthpiece, and therein not answerable for the sin of his words, but he
says, as this good woman is getting past the comely age, it is
reasonable for you to tire of such a wife. He therefore tells you to
turn her out of your lodge, and when it is empty, he will send his own
favourite, or rather she that was his favourite, the ‘Skipping Fawn,’
as the Siouxes call her, to fill her place. You see, neighbour, though
the Red-skin is minded to keep your property, he is willing to give you
wherewithal to make yourself some return!”

Ishmael listened to these replies, to his several demands, with that
species of gathering indignation, with which the dullest tempers mount
into the most violent paroxysms of rage. He even affected to laugh at
the conceit of exchanging his long-tried partner for the more flexible
support of the youthful Tachechana, though his voice was hollow and
unnatural in the effort. But Esther was far from giving the proposal so
facetious a reception. Lifting her voice to its most audible key, she
broke forth, after catching her breath like one who had been in some
imminent danger of strangulation, as follows—

“Hoity-toity; who set an Indian up for a maker and breaker of the
rights of wedded wives! Does he think a woman is a beast of the
prairie, that she is to be chased from a village, by dog and gun. Let
the bravest squaw of them all come forth and boast of her doings; can
she show such a brood as mine? A wicked tyrant is that thieving
Red-skin, and a bold rogue I warrant me. He would be captain in-doors,
as well as out! An honest woman is no better in his eyes than one of
your broomstick jumpers. And you, Ishmael Bush, the father of seven
sons and so many comely daughters, to open your sinful mouth, except to
curse him! Would ye disgrace colour, and family, and nation, by mixing
white blood with red, and would ye be the parent of a race of mules!
The devil has often tempted you, my man, but never before has he set so
cunning a snare as this. Go back among your children, friend; go, and
remember that you are not a prowling bear, but a Christian man, and
thank God that you ar’ a lawful husband!”

The clamour of Esther was anticipated by the judicious trapper. He had
easily foreseen that her meek temper would overflow at so scandalous a
proposal as repudiation, and he now profited by the tempest, to retire
to a place where he was at least safe from any immediate violence on
the part of her less excited, but certainly more dangerous husband.
Ishmael, who had made his demands with a stout determination to enforce
them, was diverted by the windy torrent, like many a more obstinate
husband, from his purpose, and in order to appease a jealousy that
resembled the fury with which the bear defends her cubs, was fain to
retire to a distance from the lodge, that was known to contain the
unoffending object of the sudden uproar.

“Let your copper-coloured minx come forth, and show her tawney beauty
before the face of a woman who has heard more than one church bell, and
seen a power of real quality,” cried Esther, flourishing her hand in
triumph, as she drove Ishmael and Abiram before her, like two truant
boys, towards their own encampment. “I warrant me, I warrant me, here
is one who would shortly talk her down! Never think to tarry here, my
men; never think to shut an eye in a camp, through which the devil
walks as openly as if he were a gentleman, and sure of his welcome.
Here, you Abner, Enoch, Jesse, where ar’ ye gotten to? Put to, put to;
if that weak-minded, soft-feeling man, your father, eats or drinks
again in this neighbourhood, we shall see him poisoned with the craft
of the Red-skins. Not that I care, I, who comes into my place, when it
is once lawfully empty; but, Ishmael, I never thought that you, who
have had one woman with a white skin, would find pleasure in looking on
a brazen—ay, that she is copper ar’ a fact; you can’t deny it, and I
warrant me, brazen enough is she too!”

Against this ebullition of wounded female pride, the experienced
husband made no other head, than by an occasional exclamation, which he
intended to be precursor of a simple asseveration of his own innocence.
The fury of the woman would not be appeased. She listened to nothing
but her own voice, and consequently nothing was heard but her mandates
to depart.

The squatter had collected his beasts and loaded his wagons, as a
measure of precaution, before proceeding to the extremity he
contemplated. Esther consequently found every thing favourable to her
wishes. The young men stared at each other, as they witnessed the
extraordinary excitement of their mother, but took little interest in
an event which, in the course of their experience, had found so many
parallels. By command of their father, the tents were thrown into the
vehicles, as a sort of reprisal for the want of faith in their late
ally, and then the train left the spot, in its usual listless and
sluggish order.

As a formidable division of well-armed borderers protected the rear of
the retiring party, the Siouxes saw it depart without manifesting the
smallest evidence of surprise or resentment. The savage, like the
tiger, rarely makes his attack on an enemy who expects him; and if the
warriors of the Tetons meditated any hostility, it was in the still and
patient manner with which the feline beasts watch for the incautious
moment, in order to ensure the blow. The counsels of Mahtoree, however,
on whom so much of the policy of his people depended, lay deep in the
depository of his own thoughts. Perhaps he rejoiced at so easy a manner
of getting rid of claims so troublesome; perhaps he awaited a fitting
time to exhibit his power; or it even might be, that matters of so much
greater importance were pressing on his mind, that it had not leisure
to devote any of its faculties to an event of so much indifference.

But it would seem that while Ishmael made such a concession to the
awakened feelings of Esther, he was far from abandoning his original
intentions. His train followed the course of the river for a mile, and
then it came to a halt on the brow of the elevated land, and in a place
which afforded the necessary facilities. Here he again pitched his
tents, unharnessed his teams, sent his cattle on the bottom, and, in
short, made all the customary preparations to pass the night, with the
same coolness and deliberation as if he had not hurled an irritating
defiance into the teeth of his dangerous neighbours.

In the mean time the Tetons proceeded to the more regular business of
the hour. A fierce and savage joy had existed in the camp, from the
instant when it had been announced that their own chief was returning
with the long-dreaded and hated partisan of their enemies. For many
hours the crones of the tribe had been going from lodge to lodge, in
order to stimulate the tempers of the warriors to such a pass, as might
leave but little room for mercy. To one they spoke of a son, whose
scalp was drying in the smoke of a Pawnee lodge. To another, they
enumerated his own scars, his disgraces, and defeats; with a third,
they dwelt on his losses of skins and horses; and a fourth was reminded
of vengeance by a significant question, concerning some flagrant
adventure, in which he was known to have been a sufferer.

By these means the men had been so far excited as to have assembled, in
the manner already related, though it still remained a matter of doubt
how far they intended to carry their revenge. A variety of opinions
prevailed on the policy of executing their prisoners; and Mahtoree had
suspended the discussions, in order to ascertain how far the measure
might propitiate, or retard, his own particular views. Hitherto the
consultations had merely been preliminary, with a design that each
chief might discover the number of supporters his particular views
would be likely to obtain, when the important subject should come
before a more solemn council of the tribe. The moment for the latter
had now arrived, and the preparations were made with a dignity and
solemnity suited to the momentous interests of the occasion.

With a refinement in cruelty, that none but an Indian would have
imagined, the place, selected for this grave deliberation, was
immediately about the post to which the most important of its subjects
was attached. Middleton and Paul were brought in their bonds, and laid
at the feet of the Pawnee; then the men began to take their places,
according to their several claims to distinction. As warrior after
warrior approached, he seated himself in the wide circle, with a mien
as composed and thoughtful, as if his mind were actually in a condition
to deal out justice, tempered, as it should be, with the heavenly
quality of mercy. A place was reserved for three or four of the
principal chiefs, and a few of the oldest of the women, as withered, as
age, exposure, hardships, and lives of savage passions could make them,
thrust themselves into the foremost circle, with a temerity, to which
they were impelled by their insatiable desire for cruelty, and which
nothing, but their years and their long tried fidelity to the nation,
would have excused.

All, but the chiefs already named, were now in their places. These had
delayed their appearance, in the vain hope that their own unanimity
might smooth the way to that of their respective factions; for,
notwithstanding the superior influence of Mahtoree, his power was to be
maintained only by constant appeals to the opinions of his inferiors.
As these important personages at length entered the circle in a body,
their sullen looks and clouded brows, notwithstanding the time given to
consultation, sufficiently proclaimed the discontent which reigned
among them. The eye of Mahtoree was varying in its expression, from
sudden gleams, that seemed to kindle with the burning impulses of his
soul, to that cold and guarded steadiness, which was thought more
peculiarly to become a chief in council. He took his seat, with the
studied simplicity of a demagogue; though the keen and flashing glance,
that he immediately threw around the silent assembly, betrayed the more
predominant temper of a tyrant.

When all were present, an aged warrior lighted the great pipe of his
people, and blew the smoke towards the four quarters of the heavens. So
soon as this propitiatory offering was made, he tendered it to
Mahtoree, who, in affected humility, passed it to a grey-headed chief
by his side. After the influence of the soothing weed had been courted
by all, a grave silence succeeded, as if each was not only qualified
to, but actually did, think more deeply on the matters before them.
Then an old Indian arose, and spoke as follows:—

“The eagle, at the falls of the endless river, was in its egg, many
snows after my hand had struck a Pawnee. What my tongue says, my eyes
have seen. Bohrecheena is very old. The hills have stood longer in
their places, than he has been in his tribe, and the rivers were full
and empty, before he was born; but where is the Sioux that knows it
besides himself? What he says, they will hear. If any of his words fall
to the ground, they will pick them up and hold them to their ears. If
any blow away in the wind, my young men, who are very nimble, will
catch them. Now listen. Since water ran and trees grew, the Sioux has
found the Pawnee on his war-path. As the cougar loves the antelope, the
Dahcotah loves his enemy. When the wolf finds the fawn, does he lie
down and sleep? When the panther sees the doe at the spring, does he
shut his eyes? You know that he does not. He drinks too; but it is of
blood! A Sioux is a leaping panther, a Pawnee a trembling deer. Let my
children hear me. They will find my words good. I have spoken.”

A deep guttural exclamation of assent broke from the lips of all the
partisans of Mahtoree, as they listened to this sanguinary advice from
one, who was certainly among the most aged men of the nation. That
deeply seated love of vengeance, which formed so prominent a feature in
their characters, was gratified by his metaphorical allusions, and the
chief himself augured favourably of the success of his own schemes, by
the number of supporters, who manifested themselves to be in favour of
the counsels of his friend. But still unanimity was far from
prevailing. A long and decorous pause was suffered to succeed the words
of the first speaker, in order that all might duly deliberate on their
wisdom, before another chief took on himself the office of refutation.
The second orator, though past the prime of his days, was far less aged
than the one who had preceded him. He felt the disadvantage of this
circumstance, and endeavoured to counteract it, as far as possible, by
the excess of his humility.

“I am but an infant,” he commenced, looking furtively around him, in
order to detect how far his well-established character for prudence and
courage contradicted his assertion. “I have lived with the women, since
my father has been a man. If my head is getting grey, it is not because
I am old. Some of the snow, which fell on it while I have been sleeping
on the war-paths, has frozen there, and the hot sun, near the Osage
villages, has not been strong enough to melt it.” A low murmur was
heard, expressive of admiration of the services to which he thus
artfully alluded. The orator modestly awaited for the feeling to
subside a little, and then he continued, with increasing energy,
encouraged by their commendations. “But the eyes of a young brave are
good. He can see very far. He is a lynx. Look at me well. I will turn
my back, that you may see both sides of me. Now do you know I am your
friend, for you look on a part that a Pawnee never yet saw. Now look at
my face; not in this seam, for there your eyes can never see into my
spirit. It is a hole cut by a Konza. But here is an opening made by the
Wahcondah, through which you may look into the soul. What am I? A
Dahcotah, within and without. You know it. Therefore hear me. The blood
of every creature on the prairie is red. Who can tell the spot where a
Pawnee was struck, from the place where my young men took a bison? It
is of the same colour. The Master of Life made them for each other. He
made them alike. But will the grass grow green where a Pale-face is
killed? My young men must not think that nation so numerous, that it
will not miss a warrior. They call them over often, and say, Where are
my sons? If they miss one, they will send into the prairies to look for
him. If they cannot find him, they will tell their runners to ask for
him, among the Siouxes. My brethren, the Big-knives are not fools.
There is a mighty medicine of their nation now among us; who can tell
how loud is his voice, or how long is his arm?—”

The speech of the orator, who was beginning to enter into his subject
with warmth, was cut short by the impatient Mahtoree, who suddenly
arose and exclaimed, in a voice in which authority was mingled with
contempt, and at the close with a keen tone of irony, also—

“Let my young men lead the evil spirit of the Palefaces to the council.
My brother shall see his medicine, face to face!”

A death-like and solemn stillness succeeded this extraordinary
interruption. It not only involved a deep offence against the sacred
courtesy of debate, but the mandate was likely to brave the unknown
power of one of those incomprehensible beings, whom few Indians were
enlightened enough, at that day, to regard without reverence, or few
hardy enough to oppose. The subordinates, however, obeyed, and Obed was
led forth from the lodge, mounted on Asinus, with a ceremony and state
which was certainly intended for derision, but which nevertheless was
greatly enhanced by fear. As they entered the ring, Mahtoree, who had
foreseen and had endeavoured to anticipate the influence of the Doctor,
by bringing him into contempt, cast an eye around the assembly, in
order to gather his success in the various dark visages by which he was
encircled.

Truly, nature and art had combined to produce such an effect from the
air and appointments of the naturalist, as might have made him the
subject of wonder in any place. His head had been industriously shaved,
after the most approved fashion of Sioux taste. A gallant scalp-lock,
which would probably not have been spared had the Doctor himself been
consulted in the matter, was all that remained of an exuberant, and at
that particular season of the year, far from uncomfortable head of
hair. Thick coats of paint had been laid on the naked poll, and certain
fanciful designs, in the same material, had even been extended into the
neighbourhood of the eyes and mouth, lending to the keen expression of
the former a look of twinkling cunning, and to the dogmatism of the
latter, not a little of the grimness of necromancy. He had been
despoiled of his upper garments, and, in their stead, his body was
sufficiently protected from the cold, by a fantastically painted robe
of dressed deer-skin. As if in mockery of his pursuit, sundry toads,
frogs, lizards, butterflies, &c., all duly prepared to take their
places at some future day, in his own private cabinet, were attached to
the solitary lock on his head, to his ears, and to various other
conspicuous parts of his person. If, in addition to the effect produced
by these quaint auxiliaries to his costume, we add the portentous and
troubled gleamings of doubt, which rendered his visage doubly austere,
and proclaimed the misgivings of the worthy Obed’s mind, as he beheld
his personal dignity thus prostrated, and what was of far greater
moment in his eyes, himself led forth, as he firmly believed, to be the
victim of some heathenish sacrifice, the reader will find no difficulty
in giving credit to the sensation of awe, that was excited by his
appearance in a band already more than half-prepared to worship him, as
a powerful agent of the evil spirit.

Weucha led Asinus directly into the centre of the circle, and leaving
them together, (for the legs of the naturalist were attached to the
beast in such a manner, that the two animals might be said to be
incorporated, and to form a new order,) he withdrew to his proper
place, gazing at the conjuror, as he retired, with a wonder and
admiration, that were natural to the groveling dulness of his mind.

The astonishment seemed mutual, between the spectators and the subject
of this strange exhibition. If the Tetons contemplated the mysterious
attributes of the medicine, with awe and fear, the Doctor gazed on
every side of him, with a mixture of quite as many extraordinary
emotions, in which the latter sensation, however, formed no
inconsiderable ingredient. Every where his eyes, which just at that
moment possessed a secret magnifying quality, seemed to rest on several
dark, savage, and obdurate countenances at once, from none of which
could he extract a solitary gleam of sympathy or commiseration. At
length his wandering gaze fell on the grave and decent features of the
trapper, who, with Hector at his feet, stood in the edge of the circle,
leaning on that rifle which he had been permitted, as an acknowledged
friend, to resume, and apparently musing on the events that were likely
to succeed a council, marked by so many and such striking ceremonies.

“Venerable venator, or hunter, or trapper,” said the disconsolate Obed,
“I rejoice greatly in meeting thee again. I fear that the precious
time, which had been allotted me, in order to complete a mighty labour,
is drawing to a premature close, and I would gladly unburden my mind to
one who, if not a pupil of science, has at least some of the knowledge
which civilisation imparts to its meanest subjects. Doubtless many and
earnest enquiries will be made after my fate, by the learned societies
of the world, and perhaps expeditions will be sent into these regions
to remove any doubts, which may arise on so important a subject. I
esteem myself happy that a man, who speaks the vernacular, is present,
to preserve the record of my end. You will say that after a well-spent
and glorious life, I died a martyr to science, and a victim to mental
darkness. As I expect to be particularly calm and abstracted in my last
moments, if you add a few details, concerning the fortitude and
scholastic dignity with which I met my death, it may serve to encourage
future aspirants for similar honours, and assuredly give offence to no
one. And now, friend trapper, as a duty I owe to human nature, I will
conclude by demanding if all hope has deserted me, or if any means
still exist by which so much valuable information may be rescued from
the grasp of ignorance, and preserved to the pages of natural history.”

The old man lent an attentive ear to this melancholy appeal, and
apparently he reflected on every side of the important question, before
he would presume to answer.

“I take it, friend physicianer,” he at length gravely replied, “that
the chances of life and death, in your particular case, depend
altogether on the will of Providence, as it may be pleased to manifest
it, through the accursed windings of Indian cunning. For my own part, I
see no great difference in the main end to be gained, inasmuch as it
can matter no one greatly, yourself excepted, whether you live or die.”

“Would you account the fall of a corner-stone, from the foundations of
the edifice of learning, a matter of indifference to contemporaries or
to posterity?” interrupted Obed. “Besides, my aged associate,” he
reproachfully added, “the interest, that a man has in his own
existence, is by no means trifling, however it may be eclipsed by his
devotion to more general and philanthropic feelings.”

“What I would say is this,” resumed the trapper, who was far from
understanding all the subtle distinctions with which his more learned
companion so often saw fit to embellish his discourse; “there is but
one birth and one death to all things, be it hound, or be it deer; be
it red skin, or be it white. Both are in the hands of the Lord, it
being as unlawful for man to strive to hasten the one, as impossible to
prevent the other. But I will not say that something may not be done to
put the last moment aside, for a while at least, and therefore it is a
question, that any one has a right to put to his own wisdom, how far he
will go, and how much pain he will suffer, to lengthen out a time that
may have been too long already. Many a dreary winter and scorching
summer has gone by since I have turned, to the right hand or to the
left, to add an hour to a life that has already stretched beyond
fourscore years. I keep myself as ready to answer to my name as a
soldier at evening roll-call. In my judgment, if your cases are left to
Indian tempers, the policy of the Great Sioux will lead his people to
sacrifice you all; nor do I put much dependence on his seeming love for
me; therefore it becomes a question whether you are ready for such a
journey; and if, being ready, whether this is not as good a time to
start as another. Should my opinion be asked, thus far will I give it
in your favour; that is to say, it is my belief your life has been
innocent enough, touching any great offences that you may have
committed, though honesty compels me to add, that I think all you can
lay claim to, on the score of activity in deeds, will not amount to any
thing worth naming in the great account.”

Obed turned a rueful eye on the calm, philosophic countenance of the
other, as he answered with so discouraging a statement of his case,
clearing his throat, as he did so, in order to conceal the desperate
concern which began to beset his faculties, with a vestige of that
pride, which rarely deserts poor human nature, even in the greatest
emergencies.

“I believe, venerable hunter,” he replied, “considering the question in
all its bearings, and assuming that your theory is just, it will be the
safest to conclude that I am not prepared to make so hasty a departure,
and that measures of precaution should be, forthwith, resorted to.”

“Being in that mind,” returned the deliberate trapper, “I will act for
you as I would for myself; though as time has begun to roll down the
hill with you, I will just advise that you look to your case speedily,
for it may so happen that your name will be heard, when quite as little
prepared to answer to it as now.”

With this amicable understanding, the old man drew back again into the
ring, where he stood musing on the course he should now adopt, with the
singular mixture of decision and resignation that proceeded from his
habits and his humility, and which united to form a character, in which
excessive energy, and the most meek submission to the will of
Providence, were oddly enough combined.




CHAPTER XXVIII


The witch, in Smithfield, shall be burned to ashes,
And you three shall be strangled on the gallows.
                   —Shakespeare.


The Siouxes had awaited the issue of the foregoing dialogue with
commendable patience. Most of the band were restrained, by the secret
awe with which they regarded the mysterious character of Obed; while a
few of the more intelligent chiefs gladly profited by the opportunity,
to arrange their thoughts for the struggle that was plainly foreseen.
Mahtoree, influenced by neither of these feelings, was content to show
the trapper how much he conceded to his pleasure; and when the old man
discontinued the discourse, he received from the chief a glance, that
was intended to remind him of the patience, with which he had awaited
his movements. A profound and motionless silence succeeded the short
interruption. Then Mahtoree arose, evidently prepared to speak. First
placing himself in an attitude of dignity, he turned a steady and
severe look on the whole assembly. The expression of his eye, however,
changed as it glanced across the different countenances of his
supporters and of his opponents. To the former the look, though stern,
was not threatening, while it seemed to tell the latter all the hazards
they incurred, in daring to brave the resentment of one so powerful.

Still, in the midst of so much hauteur and confidence, the sagacity and
cunning of the Teton did not desert him. When he had thrown the
gauntlet, as it were, to the whole tribe, and sufficiently asserted his
claim to superiority, his mien became more affable and his eye less
angry. Then it was that he raised his voice, in the midst of a
death-like stillness, varying its tones to suit the changing character
of his images, and of his eloquence.

“What is a Sioux?” the chief sagaciously began; “he is ruler of the
prairies, and master of its beasts. The fishes in the ‘river of
troubled waters’ know him, and come at his call. He is a fox in
counsel; an eagle in sight; a grizzly bear in combat. A Dahcotah is a
man!” After waiting for the low murmur of approbation, which followed
this flattering portrait of his people, to subside, the Teton
continued—“What is a Pawnee? A thief, who only steals from women; a
Red-skin, who is not brave; a hunter, that begs for his venison. In
counsel he is a squirrel, hopping from place to place; he is an owl,
that goes on the prairies at night; in battle he is an elk, whose legs
are long. A Pawnee is a woman.” Another pause succeeded, during which a
yell of delight broke from several mouths, and a demand was made, that
the taunting words should be translated to the unconscious subject of
their biting contempt. The old man took his cue from the eyes of
Mahtoree, and complied. Hard-Heart listened gravely, and then, as if
apprized that his time to speak had not arrived, he once more bent his
look on the vacant air. The orator watched his countenance, with an
expression that manifested how inextinguishable was the hatred he felt
for the only chief, far and near, whose fame might advantageously be
compared with his own. Though disappointed in not having touched the
pride of one whom he regarded as a boy, he proceeded, what he
considered as far more important, to quicken the tempers of the men of
his own tribe, in order that they might be prepared to work his savage
purposes. “If the earth was covered with rats, which are good for
nothing,” he said, “there would be no room for buffaloes, which give
food and clothes to an Indian. If the prairies were covered with
Pawnees, there would be no room for the foot of a Dahcotah. A Loup is a
rat, a Sioux a heavy buffaloe; let the buffaloes tread upon the rats
and make room for themselves.

“My brothers, a little child has spoken to you. He tells you, his hair
is not grey, but frozen—that the grass will not grow where a Pale-face
has died. Does he know the colour of the blood of a Big-knife? No! I
know he does not; he has never seen it. What Dahcotah, besides
Mahtoree, has ever struck a Pale-face? Not one. But Mahtoree must be
silent. Every Teton will shut his ears when he speaks. The scalps over
his lodge were taken by the women. They were taken by Mahtoree, and he
is a woman. His mouth is shut; he waits for the feasts to sing among
the girls!”

Notwithstanding the exclamations of regret and resentment, which
followed so abasing a declaration, the chief took his seat, as if
determined to speak no more. But the murmurs grew louder and more
general, and there were threatening symptoms that the council would
dissolve itself in confusion; and he arose and resumed his speech, by
changing his manner to the fierce and hurried enunciation of a warrior
bent on revenge.

“Let my young men go look for Tetao!” he cried; “they will find his
scalp drying in Pawnee smoke. Where is the son of Bohrecheena? His
bones are whiter than the faces of his murderers. Is Mahhah asleep in
his lodge? You know it is many moons since he started for the blessed
prairies; would he were here, that he might say of what colour was the
hand that took his scalp!”

In this strain the artful chief continued for many minutes, calling
those warriors by name, who were known to have met their deaths in
battle with the Pawnees, or in some of those lawless frays which so
often occurred between the Sioux bands and a class of white men, who
were but little removed from them in the qualities of civilisation.
Time was not given to reflect on the merits, or rather the demerits, of
most of the different individuals to whom he alluded, in consequence of
the rapid manner in which he ran over their names; but so cunningly did
he time his events, and so thrillingly did he make his appeals, aided
as they were by the power of his deep-toned and stirring voice, that
each of them struck an answering chord in the breast of some one of his
auditors.

It was in the midst of one of his highest flights of eloquence, that a
man, so aged as to walk with the greatest difficulty, entered the very
centre of the circle, and took his stand directly in front of the
speaker. An ear of great acuteness might possibly have detected that
the tones of the orator faltered a little, as his flashing look first
fell on this unexpected object, though the change was so trifling, that
none, but such as thoroughly knew the parties, would have suspected it.
The stranger had once been as distinguished for his beauty and
proportions, as had been his eagle eye for its irresistible and
terrible glance. But his skin was now wrinkled, and his features
furrowed with so many scars, as to have obtained for him, half a
century before, from the French of the Canadas, a title which has been
borne by so many of the heroes of France, and which had now been
adopted into the language of the wild horde of whom we are writing, as
the one most expressive of the deeds of their own brave. The murmur of
Le Balafré, that ran through the assembly when he appeared, announced
not only his name and the high estimation of his character, but how
extraordinary his visit was considered. As he neither spoke nor moved,
however, the sensation created by his appearance soon subsided, and
then every eye was again turned upon the speaker, and every ear once
more drunk in the intoxication of his maddening appeals.

It would have been easy to have traced the triumph of Mahtoree, in the
reflecting countenances of his auditors. It was not long before a look
of ferocity and of revenge was to be seen seated on the grim visages of
most of the warriors, and each new and crafty allusion to the policy of
extinguishing their enemies, was followed by fresh and less restrained
bursts of approbation. In the height of this success the Teton closed
his speech, by a rapid appeal to the pride and hardihood of his native
band, and suddenly took his seat.

In the midst of the murmurs of applause, which succeeded so remarkable
an effort of eloquence, a low, feeble and hollow voice was heard rising
on the ear, as if it rolled from the inmost cavities of the human
chest, and gathered strength and energy as it issued into the air. A
solemn stillness followed the sounds, and then the lips of the aged man
were first seen to move.

“The day of Le Balafré is near its end,” were the first words that were
distinctly audible. “He is like a buffaloe, on whom the hair will grow
no longer. He will soon be ready to leave his lodge, to go in search of
another, that is far from the villages of the Siouxes; therefore, what
he has to say concerns not him, but those he leaves behind him. His
words are like the fruit on the tree, ripe and fit to be given to
chiefs.

“Many snows have fallen since Le Balafré has been found on the
war-path. His blood has been very hot, but it has had time to cool. The
Wahcondah gives him dreams of war no longer; he sees that it is better
to live in peace.

“My brothers, one foot is turned to the happy hunting-grounds, the
other will soon follow, and then an old chief will be seen looking for
the prints of his father’s moccasins, that he may make no mistake, but
be sure to come before the Master of Life, by the same path, as so many
good Indians have already travelled. But who will follow? Le Balafré
has no son. His oldest has ridden too many Pawnee horses; the bones of
the youngest have been gnawed by Konza dogs! Le Balafré has come to
look for a young arm, on which he may lean, and to find a son, that
when he is gone his lodge may not be empty. Tachechana, the skipping
fawn of the Tetons, is too weak, to prop a warrior, who is old. She
looks before her and not backwards. Her mind is in the lodge of her
husband.”

The enunciation of the veteran warrior had been calm, but distinct, and
decided. His declaration was received in silence; and though several of
the chiefs, who were in the counsels of Mahtoree, turned their eyes on
their leader, none presumed to oppose so aged and so venerated a brave,
in a resolution that was strictly in conformity to the usages of the
nation. The Teton himself was content to await the result with seeming
composure, though the gleams of ferocity, that played about his eye,
occasionally betrayed the nature of those feelings, with which he
witnessed a procedure, that was likely to rob him of that one of all
his intended victims whom he most hated.

In the mean time Le Balafré moved with a slow and painful step towards
the captives. He stopped before the person of Hard-Heart, whose
faultless form, unchanging eye, and lofty mien, he contemplated long,
with high and evident satisfaction. Then making a gesture of authority,
he awaited, until his order had been obeyed, and the youth was released
from the post and his bonds, by the same blow of the knife. When the
young warrior was led nearer to his dimmed and failing sight, the
examination was renewed, with strictness of scrutiny, and that
admiration, which physical excellence is so apt to excite in the breast
of a savage.

“It is good,” the wary veteran murmured, when he found that all his
skill in the requisites of a brave could detect no blemish; “this is a
leaping panther! Does my son speak with the tongue of a Teton?”

The intelligence, which lighted the eyes of the captive, betrayed how
well he understood the question, but still he was far too haughty to
communicate his ideas through the medium of a language that belonged to
a hostile people. Some of the surrounding warriors explained to the old
chief, that the captive was a Pawnee-Loup.

“My son opened his eyes on the ‘waters of the wolves,’” said Le
Balafré, in the language of that nation, “but he will shut them in the
bend of the ‘river with a troubled stream.’ He was born a Pawnee, but
he will die a Dahcotah. Look at me. I am a sycamore, that once covered
many with my shadow. The leaves are fallen, and the branches begin to
drop. But a single sucker is springing from my roots; it is a little
vine, and it winds itself about a tree that is green. I have long
looked for one fit to grow by my side. Now have I found him. Le Balafré
is no longer without a son; his name will not be forgotten when he is
gone! Men of the Tetons, I take this youth into my lodge.”

No one was bold enough to dispute a right, that had so often been
exercised by warriors far inferior to the present speaker, and the
adoption was listened to, in grave and respectful silence. Le Balafré
took his intended son by the arm, and leading him into the very centre
of the circle, he stepped aside with an air of triumph, in order that
the spectators might approve of his choice. Mahtoree betrayed no
evidence of his intentions, but rather seemed to await a moment better
suited to the crafty policy of his character. The more experienced and
sagacious chiefs distinctly foresaw the utter impossibility of two
partisans so renowned, so hostile, and who had so long been rivals in
fame, as their prisoner and their native leader, existing amicably in
the same tribe. Still the character of Le Balafré was so imposing, and
the custom to which he had resorted so sacred, that none dared to lift
a voice in opposition to the measure. They watched the result with
increasing interest, but with a coldness of demeanour that concealed
the nature of their inquietude. From this state of embarrassment, and
as it might readily have proved of disorganisation, the tribe was
unexpectedly relieved by the decision of the one most interested in the
success of the aged chief’s designs.

During the whole of the foregoing scene, it would have been difficult
to have traced a single distinct emotion in the lineaments of the
captive. He had heard his release proclaimed, with the same
indifference as the order to bind him to the stake. But now, that the
moment had arrived when it became necessary to make his election, he
spoke in a way to prove that the fortitude, which had bought him so
distinguished a name, had in no degree deserted him.

“My father is very old, but he has not yet looked upon every thing,”
said Hard-Heart, in a voice so clear as to be heard by all in presence.
“He has never seen a buffaloe change to a bat. He will never see a
Pawnee become a Sioux!”

There was a suddenness, and yet a calmness in the manner of delivering
this decision, which assured most of the auditors that it was
unalterable. The heart of Le Balafré, however, was yearning towards the
youth, and the fondness of age was not so readily repulsed. Reproving
the burst of admiration and triumph, to which the boldness of the
declaration, and the freshened hopes of revenge had given rise, by
turning his gleaming eye around the band, the veteran again addressed
his adopted child, as if his purpose was not to be denied.

“It is well,” he said; “such are the words a brave should use, that the
warriors may see his heart. The day has been when the voice of Le
Balafré was loudest among the lodges of the Konzas. But the root of a
white hair is wisdom. My child will show the Tetons that he is brave,
by striking their enemies. Men of the Dahcotahs, this is my son!”

The Pawnee hesitated a moment, and then stepping in front of the chief,
he took his hard and wrinkled hand, and laid it with reverence on his
head, as if to acknowledge the extent of his obligation. Then recoiling
a step, he raised his person to its greatest elevation, and looked upon
the hostile band, by whom he was environed, with an air of loftiness
and disdain, as he spoke aloud, in the language of the Siouxes—

“Hard-Heart has looked at himself, within and without. He has thought
of all he has done in the hunts and in the wars. Every where he is the
same. There is no change. He is in all things a Pawnee. He has struck
so many Tetons that he could never eat in their lodges. His arrows
would fly backwards; the point of his lance would be on the wrong end;
their friends would weep at every whoop he gave; their enemies would
laugh. Do the Tetons know a Loup? Let them look at him again. His head
is painted; his arm is flesh; his heart is rock. When the Tetons see
the sun come from the Rocky Mountains, and move towards the land of the
Pale-faces, the mind of Hard-Heart will soften, and his spirit will
become Sioux. Until that day, he will live and die a Pawnee.”

A yell of delight, in which admiration and ferocity were strangely
mingled, interrupted the speaker, and but too clearly announced the
character of his fate. The captive awaited a moment, for the commotion
to subside, and then turning again to Le Balafré, he continued, in
tones conciliating and kind, as if he felt the propriety of softening
his refusal, in a manner not to wound the pride of one who would so
gladly be his benefactor—

“Let my father lean heavier on the fawn of the Dahcotahs,” he said:
“she is weak now, but as her lodge fills with young, she will be
stronger. See,” he added, directing the eyes of the other to the
earnest countenance of the attentive trapper; “Hard-Heart is not
without a grey-head to show him the path to the blessed prairies. If he
ever has another father, it shall be that just warrior.”

Le Balafré turned away in disappointment from the youth, and approached
the stranger, who had thus anticipated his design. The examination
between these two aged men was long, mutual, and curious. It was not
easy to detect the real character of the trapper, through the mask
which the hardships of so many years had laid upon his features,
especially when aided by his wild and peculiar attire. Some moments
elapsed before the Teton spoke, and then it was in doubt whether he
addressed one like himself, or some wanderer of that race who, he had
heard, were spreading themselves, like hungry locusts, throughout the
land.

“The head of my brother is very white,” he said; “but the eye of Le
Balafré is no longer like the eagle’s. Of what colour is his skin?”

“The Wahcondah made me like these you see waiting for a Dahcotah
judgment; but fair and foul has coloured me darker than the skin of a
fox. What of that! Though the bark is ragged and riven, the heart of
the tree is sound.”

“My brother is a Big-knife! Let him turn his face towards the setting
sun, and open his eyes. Does he see the salt lake beyond the
mountains?”

“The time has been, Teton, when few could see the white on the eagle’s
head farther than I; but the glare of fourscore and seven winters has
dimmed my eyes, and but little can I boast of sight in my latter days.
Does the Sioux think a Pale-face is a god, that he can look through
hills?”

“Then let my brother look at me. I am nigh him, and he can see that I
am a foolish Red-man. Why cannot his people see every thing, since they
crave all?”

“I understand you, chief; nor will I gainsay the justice of your words,
seeing that they are too much founded in truth. But though born of the
race you love so little, my worst enemy, not even a lying Mingo, would
dare to say that I ever laid hands on the goods of another, except such
as were taken in manful warfare; or that I ever coveted more ground
than the Lord has intended each man to fill.”

“And yet my brother has come among the Red-skins to find a son?”

The trapper laid a finger on the naked shoulder of Le Balafré, and
looked into his scarred countenance with a wistful and confidential
expression, as he answered—

“Ay; but it was only that I might do good to the boy. If you think,
Dahcotah, that I adopted the youth in order to prop my age, you do as
much injustice to my goodwill, as you seem to know little of the
merciless intentions of your own people. I have made him my son, that
he may know that one is left behind him. Peace, Hector, peace! Is this
decent, pup, when greyheads are counselling together, to break in upon
their discourse with the whinings of a hound! The dog is old, Teton;
and though well taught in respect of behaviour, he is getting, like
ourselves, I fancy, something forgetful of the fashions of his youth.”

Further discourse, between these veterans, was interrupted by a
discordant yell, which burst at that moment from the lips of the dozen
withered crones, who have already been mentioned as having forced
themselves into a conspicuous part of the circle. The outcry was
excited by a sudden change in the air of Hard-Heart. When the old men
turned towards the youth, they saw him standing in the very centre of
the ring, with his head erect, his eye fixed on vacancy, one leg
advanced and an arm a little raised, as if all his faculties were
absorbed in the act of listening. A smile lighted his countenance, for
a single moment, and then the whole man sunk again into his former look
of dignity and coldness, suddenly recalled to self-possession. The
movement had been construed into contempt, and even the tempers of the
chiefs began to be excited. Unable to restrain their fury, the women
broke into the circle in a body, and commenced their attack by loading
the captive with the most bitter revilings. They boasted of the various
exploits, which their sons had achieved at the expense of the different
tribes of the Pawnees. They undervalued his own reputation, and told
him to look at Mahtoree, if he had never yet seen a warrior. They
accused him of having been suckled by a doe, and of having drunk in
cowardice with his mother’s milk. In short, they lavished upon their
unmoved captive a torrent of that vindictive abuse, in which the women
of the savages are so well known to excel, but which has been too often
described to need a repetition here.

The effect of this outbreaking was inevitable. Le Balafré turned away
disappointed, and hid himself in the crowd, while the trapper, whose
honest features were working with inward emotion, pressed nigher to his
young friend, as those who are linked to the criminal, by ties so
strong as to brave the opinions of men, are often seen to stand about
the place of execution to support his dying moments. The excitement
soon spread among the inferior warriors, though the chiefs still
forbore to make the signal, which committed the victim to their mercy.
Mahtoree, who had awaited such a movement among his fellows, with the
wary design of concealing his own jealous hatred, soon grew weary of
delay, and, by a glance of his eye, encouraged the tormentors to
proceed.

Weucha, who, eager for this sanction, had long stood watching the
countenance of the chief, bounded forward at the signal like a
blood-hound loosened from the leash. Forcing his way into the centre of
the hags, who were already proceeding from abuse to violence, he
reproved their impatience, and bade them wait, until a warrior had
begun to torment, and then they should see their victim shed tears like
a woman.

The heartless savage commenced his efforts, by flourishing his tomahawk
about the head of the captive, in such a manner as to give reason to
suppose, that each blow would bury the weapon in the flesh, while it
was so governed as not to touch the skin. To this customary expedient
Hard-Heart was perfectly insensible. His eye kept the same steady,
riveted look on the air, though the glittering axe described, in its
evolutions, a bright circle of light before his countenance. Frustrated
in this attempt, the callous Sioux laid the cold edge on the naked head
of his victim, and began to describe the different manners, in which a
prisoner might be flayed. The women kept time to his cruelties with
their taunts, and endeavoured to force some expression of the
lingerings of nature from the insensible features of the Pawnee. But he
evidently reserved himself for the chiefs, and for those moments of
extreme anguish, when the loftiness of his spirit might evince itself
in a manner better becoming his high and untarnished reputation.

The eyes of the trapper, followed every movement of the tomahawk, with
the interest of a real father, until at length, unable to command his
indignation, he exclaimed—

“My son has forgotten his cunning. This is a low-minded Indian, and one
easily hurried into folly. I cannot do the thing myself, for my
traditions forbid a dying warrior to revile his persecutors, but the
gifts of a Red-skin are different. Let the Pawnee say the bitter words
and purchase an easy death. I will answer for his success, provided he
speaks before the grave men set their wisdom to back the folly of this
fool.”

The savage Sioux, who heard his words without comprehending their
meaning, turned to the speaker and menaced him with death, for his
temerity.

“Ay, work your will,” said the unflinching old man; “I am as ready now
as I shall be to-morrow. Though it would be a death that an honest man
might not wish to die. Look at that noble Pawnee, Teton, and see what a
Red-skin may become, who fears the Master of Life, and follows his
laws. How many of your people has he sent to the distant prairies?” he
continued in a sort of pious fraud, thinking, that while the danger
menaced himself, there could surely be no sin in extolling the merits
of another; “how many howling Siouxes has he struck, like a warrior in
open combat, while arrows were sailing in the air plentier than flakes
of falling snow! Go! will Weucha speak the name of one enemy he has
ever struck?”

“Hard-Heart!” shouted the Sioux, turning in his fury, and aiming a
deadly blow at the head of his victim. His arm fell into the hollow of
the captive’s hand. For a single moment the two stood, as if entranced
in that attitude, the one paralysed by so unexpected a resistance, and
the other bending his head, not to meet his death, but in the act of
the most intense attention. The women screamed with triumph, for they
thought the nerves of the captive had at length failed him. The trapper
trembled for the honour of his friend; and Hector, as if conscious of
what was passing, raised his nose into the air, and uttered a piteous
howl.

But the Pawnee hesitated, only for that moment. Raising the other hand,
like lightning, the tomahawk flashed in the air, and Weucha sunk to his
feet, brained to the eye. Then cutting a way with the bloody weapon, he
darted through the opening, left by the frightened women, and seemed to
descend the declivity at a single bound.

Had a bolt from Heaven fallen in the midst of the Teton band it would
not have occasioned greater consternation, than this act of desperate
hardihood. A shrill plaintive cry burst from the lips of all the women,
and there was a moment, that even the oldest warriors appeared to have
lost their faculties. This stupor endured only for the instant. It was
succeeded by a yell of revenge, that burst from a hundred throats,
while as many warriors started forward at the cry, bent on the most
bloody retribution. But a powerful and authoritative call from Mahtoree
arrested every foot. The chief, in whose countenance disappointment and
rage were struggling with the affected composure of his station,
extended an arm towards the river, and the whole mystery was explained.

Hard-Heart had already crossed half the bottom, which lay between the
acclivity and the water. At this precise moment a band of armed and
mounted Pawnees turned a swell, and galloped to the margin of the
stream, into which the plunge of the fugitive was distinctly heard. A
few minutes sufficed for his vigorous arm to conquer the passage, and
then the shout from the opposite shore told the humbled Tetons the
whole extent of the triumph of their adversaries.




CHAPTER XXIX


If that shepherd be not in hand-fast, let him fly; the curses he shall
have, the tortures he shall feel, will break the back of man, the heart
of monster.
                   —Shakespeare.


It will readily be seen that the event just related was attended by an
extraordinary sensation among the Siouxes. In leading the hunters of
the band back to the encampment, their chief had neglected none of the
customary precautions of Indian prudence, in order that his trail might
escape the eyes of his enemies. It would seem, however, that the
Pawnees had not only made the dangerous discovery, but had managed with
great art to draw nigh the place, by the only side on which it was
thought unnecessary to guard the approaches with the usual line of
sentinels. The latter, who were scattered along the different little
eminences, which lay in the rear of the lodges, were among the last to
be apprized of the danger.

In such a crisis there was little time for deliberation. It was by
exhibiting the force of his character in scenes of similar difficulty,
that Mahtoree had obtained and strengthened his ascendency among his
people, nor did he seem likely to lose it by the manifestation of any
indecision on the present occasion. In the midst of the screams of the
young, the shrieks of the women, and the wild howlings of the crones,
which were sufficient of themselves to have created a chaos in the
thoughts of one less accustomed to act in emergencies, he promptly
asserted his authority, issuing his orders with the coolness of a
veteran.

While the warriors were arming, the boys were despatched to the bottom
for the horses. The tents were hastily struck by the women, and
disposed of on such of the beasts as were not deemed fit to be trusted
in combat. The infants were cast upon the backs of their mothers, and
those children, who were of a size to march, were driven to the rear,
like a herd of less reasoning animals. Though these several movements
were made amid outcries, and a clamour, that likened the place to
another Babel, they were executed with incredible alacrity and
intelligence.

In the mean time, Mahtoree neglected no duty that belonged to his
responsible station. From the elevation, on which he stood, he could
command a perfect view of the force and evolutions of the hostile
party. A grim smile lighted his visage, when he found that, in point of
numbers, his own band was greatly the superior. Notwithstanding this
advantage, however, there were other points of inequality, which would
probably have a tendency to render his success, in the approaching
conflict, exceedingly doubtful. His people were the inhabitants of a
more northern and less hospitable region than their enemies, and were
far from being rich in that species of property, horses and arms, which
constitutes the most highly prized wealth of a western Indian. The band
in view was mounted to a man; and as it had come so far to rescue, or
to revenge, their greatest partisan, he had no reason to doubt its
being composed entirely of braves. On the other hand, many of his
followers were far better in a hunt than in a combat; men who might
serve to divert the attention of his foes, but from whom he could
expect little desperate service. Still, his flashing eye glanced over a
body of warriors on whom he had often relied, and who had never
deceived him; and though, in the precise position in which he found
himself, he felt no disposition to precipitate the conflict, he
certainly would have had no intention to avoid it, had not the presence
of his women and children placed the option altogether in the power of
his adversaries.

On the other hand, the Pawnees, so unexpectedly successful in their
first and greatest object, manifested no intention to drive matters to
an issue. The river was a dangerous barrier to pass, in the face of a
determined foe, and it would now have been in perfect accordance with
their cautious policy, to have retired for a season, in order that
their onset might be made in the hours of darkness, and of seeming
security. But there was a spirit in their chief that elevated him, for
the moment, above the ordinary expedients of savage warfare. His bosom
burned with the desire to wipe out that disgrace of which he had been
the subject; and it is possible, that he believed the retiring camp of
the Siouxes contained a prize, that began to have a value in his eyes,
far exceeding any that could be found in fifty Teton scalps. Let that
be as it might, Hard-Heart had no sooner received the brief
congratulations of his band, and communicated to the chiefs such facts
as were important to be known, than he prepared himself to act such a
part in the coming conflict, as would at once maintain his well-earned
reputation, and gratify his secret wishes. A led horse, one that had
been long trained in the hunts, had been brought to receive his master,
with but little hope that his services would ever be needed again in
this life. With a delicacy and consideration, that proved how much the
generous qualities of the youth had touched the feelings of his people,
a bow, a lance, and a quiver, were thrown across the animal, which it
had been intended to immolate on the grave of the young brave; a
species of care that would have superseded the necessity for the pious
duty that the trapper had pledged himself to perform.

Though Hard-Heart was sensible of the kindness of his warriors, and
believed that a chief, furnished with such appointments, might depart
with credit for the distant hunting-grounds of the Master of Life, he
seemed equally disposed to think that they might be rendered quite as
useful, in the actual state of things. His countenance lighted with
stern pleasure, as he tried the elasticity of the bow, and poised the
well-balanced spear. The glance he bestowed on the shield was more
cursory and indifferent; but the exultation with which he threw himself
on the back of his favoured war-horse was so great, as to break through
the forms of Indian reserve. He rode to and fro among his scarcely less
delighted warriors, managing the animal with a grace and address that
no artificial rules can ever supply; at times flourishing his lance, as
if to assure himself of his seat, and at others examining critically
into the condition of the fusee, with which he had also been furnished,
with the fondness of one, who was miraculously restored to the
possession of treasures, that constituted his pride and his happiness.

At this particular moment Mahtoree, having completed the necessary
arrangements, prepared to make a more decisive movement. The Teton had
found no little embarrassment in disposing of his captives. The tents
of the squatter were still in sight, and his wary cunning did not fail
to apprise him, that it was quite as necessary to guard against an
attack from that quarter as to watch the motions of his more open and
more active foes. His first impulse had been to make the tomahawk
suffice for the men, and to trust the females under the same protection
as the women of his band; but the manner, in which many of his braves
continued to regard the imaginary medicine of the Long-knives,
forewarned him of the danger of so hazardous an experiment on the eve
of a battle. It might be deemed the omen of defeat. In this dilemma he
motioned to a superannuated warrior, to whom he had confided the charge
of the non-combatants, and leading him apart, he placed a finger
significantly on his shoulder, as he said, in a tone, in which
authority was tempered by confidence—

“When my young men are striking the Pawnees, give the women knives.
Enough; my father is very old; he does not want to hear wisdom from a
boy.”

The grim old savage returned a look of ferocious assent, and then the
mind of the chief appeared to be at rest on this important subject.
From that moment he bestowed all his care on the achievement of his
revenge, and the maintenance of his martial character. Throwing himself
on his horse, he made a sign, with the air of a prince to his
followers, to imitate his example, interrupting, without ceremony, the
war songs and solemn rites by which many among them were stimulating
their spirits to deeds of daring. When all were in order, the whole
moved with great steadiness and silence towards the margin of the
river.

The hostile bands were now separated by the water. The width of the
stream was too great to admit of the use of the ordinary Indian
missiles, but a few useless shots were exchanged from the fusees of the
chiefs, more in bravado than with any expectation of doing execution.
As some time was suffered to elapse, in demonstrations and abortive
efforts, we shall leave them, for that period, to return to such of our
characters as remained in the hands of the savages.

We have shed much ink in vain, and wasted quires, that might possibly
have been better employed, if it be necessary now to tell the reader
that few of the foregoing movements escaped the observation of the
experienced trapper. He had been, in common with the rest, astonished
at the sudden act of Hard-Heart; and there was a single moment when a
feeling of regret and mortification got the better of his longings to
save the life of the youth. The simple and well-intentioned old man
would have felt, at witnessing any failure of firmness on the part of a
warrior, who had so strongly excited his sympathies, the same species
of sorrow that a Christian parent would suffer in hanging over the
dying moments of an impious child. But when, instead of an impotent and
unmanly struggle for existence, he found that his friend had forborne,
with the customary and dignified submission of an Indian warrior, until
an opportunity had offered to escape, and that he had then manifested
the spirit and decision of the most gifted brave, his gratification
became nearly too powerful to be concealed. In the midst of the wailing
and commotion, which succeeded the death of Weucha and the escape of
the captive, he placed himself nigh the persons of his white
associates, with a determination of interfering, at every hazard,
should the fury of the savages take that direction. The appearance of
the hostile band spared him, however, so desperate and probably so
fruitless an effort, and left him to pursue his observations, and to
mature his plans more at leisure.

He particularly remarked that, while by far the greater part of the
women, and all the children, together with the effects of the party,
were hurried to the rear, probably with an order to secrete themselves
in some of the adjacent woods, the tent of Mahtoree himself was left
standing, and its contents undisturbed. Two chosen horses, however,
stood near by, held by a couple of youths, who were too young to go
into the conflict, and yet of an age to understand the management of
the beasts. The trapper perceived in this arrangement the reluctance of
Mahtoree to trust his newly-found flowers beyond the reach of his eye;
and, at the same time, his forethought in providing against a reverse
of fortune. Neither had the manner of the Teton, in giving his
commission to the old savage, nor the fierce pleasure with which the
latter had received the bloody charge, escaped his observation. From
all these mysterious movements, the old man was aware that a crisis was
at hand, and he summoned the utmost knowledge he had acquired, in so
long a life, to aid him in the desperate conjuncture. While musing on
the means to be employed, the Doctor again attracted his attention to
himself, by a piteous appeal for assistance.

“Venerable trapper, or, as I may now say, liberator,” commenced the
dolorous Obed, “it would seem, that a fitting time has at length
arrived to dissever the unnatural and altogether irregular connection,
which exists between my inferior members and the body of Asinus.
Perhaps if such a portion of my limbs were released as might leave me
master of the remainder, and this favourable opportunity were suitably
improved, by making a forced march towards the settlements, all hopes
of preserving the treasures of knowledge, of which I am the unworthy
receptacle, would not be lost. The importance of the results is surely
worth the hazard of the experiment.”

“I know not, I know not,” returned the deliberate old man; “the vermin
and reptiles, which you bear about you, were intended by the Lord for
the prairies, and I see no good in sending them into regions that may
not suit their natur’s. And, moreover, you may be of great and
particular use as you now sit on the ass, though it creates no wonder
in my mind to perceive that you are ignorant of it, seeing that
usefulness is altogether a new calling to so bookish a man.”

“Of what service can I be in this painful thraldom, in which the animal
functions are in a manner suspended, and the spiritual, or
intellectual, blinded by the secret sympathy that unites mind to
matter? There is likely to be blood spilt between yonder adverse hosts
of heathens; and, though but little desiring the office, it would be
better that I should employ myself in surgical experiments, than in
thus wasting the precious moments, mortifying both soul and body.”

“It is little that a Red-skin would care to have a physician at his
hurts, while the whoop is ringing in his ears. Patience is a virtue in
an Indian, and can be no shame to a Christian white man. Look at these
hags of squaws, friend Doctor; I have no judgment in savage tempers, if
they are not bloody minded, and ready to work their accursed pleasures
on us all. Now, so long as you keep upon the ass, and maintain the
fierce look which is far from being your natural gift, fear of so great
a medicine may serve to keep down their courage. I am placed here, like
a general at the opening of the battle, and it has become my duty to
make such use of all my force as, in my judgment, each is best fitted
to perform. If I know these niceties, you will be more serviceable for
your countenance just now than in any more stirring exploits.”

“Harkee, old trapper,” shouted Paul, whose patience could no longer
maintain itself under the calculating and prolix explanations of the
other, “suppose you cut two things I can name, short off. That is to
say, your conversation, which is agreeable enough over a well baked
buffaloe’s hump, and these damnable thongs of hide, which, according to
my experience, can be pleasant nowhere. A single stroke of your knife
would be of more service, just now, than the longest speech that was
ever made in a Kentucky court-house.”

“Ay, court-houses are the ‘happy hunting-grounds,’ as a Red-skin would
say, for them that are born with gifts no better than such as lie in
the tongue. I was carried into one of the lawless holes myself once,
and it was all about a thing of no more value than the skin of a deer.
The Lord forgive them!—the Lord forgive them!—they knew no better, and
they did according to their weak judgments, and therefore the more are
they to be pitied; and yet it was a solemn sight to see an aged man,
who had always lived in the air, laid neck and heels by the law, and
held up as a spectacle for the women and boys of a wasteful settlement
to point their fingers at!”

“If such be your opinions of confinement, honest friend, you had better
manifest the same, by putting us at liberty with as little delay as
possible,” said Middleton, who, like his companion, began to find the
tardiness of his often-tried companion quite as extraordinary as it was
disagreeable.

“I should greatly like to do the same; especially in your behalf,
Captain, who, being a soldier, might find not only pleasure but profit
in examining, more at your ease, into the circumventions and cunning of
an Indian fight. As to our friend, here, it is of but little matter,
how much of this affair he examines, or how little, seeing that a bee
is not to be overcome in the same manner as an Indian.”

“Old man, this trifling with our misery is inconsiderate, to give it a
name no harsher—”

“Ay, your grand’ther was of a hot and hurrying mind, and one must not
expect, that the young of a panther will crawl the ’arth like the
litter of a porcupine. Now keep you both silent, and what I say shall
have the appearance of being spoken concerning the movements that are
going on in the bottom; all of which will serve to put jealousy to
sleep, and to shut the eyes of such as rarely close them on wickedness
and cruelty. In the first place, then, you must know that I have reason
to think yonder treacherous Teton has left an order to put us all to
death, so soon as he thinks the deed may be done secretly, and without
tumult.”

“Great Heaven! will you suffer us to be butchered like unresisting
sheep?”

“Hist, Captain, hist; a hot temper is none of the best, when cunning is
more needed than blows. Ah, the Pawnee is a noble boy! it would do your
heart good to see how he draws off from the river, in order to invite
his enemies to cross; and yet, according to my failing sight, they
count two warriors to his one! But as I was saying, little good comes
of haste and thoughtlessness. The facts are so plain that any child may
see into their wisdom. The savages are of many minds as to the manner
of our treatment. Some fear us for colour, and would gladly let us go,
and other some would show us the mercy that the doe receives from the
hungry wolf. When opposition gets fairly into the councils of a tribe,
it is rarely that humanity is the gainer. Now see you these wrinkled
and cruel-minded squaws—No, you cannot see them as you lie, but
nevertheless they are here, ready and willing, like so many raging
she-bears, to work their will upon us so soon as the proper time shall
come.”

“Harkee, old gentleman trapper,” interrupted Paul, with a little
bitterness in his manner; “do you tell us these matters for our
amusement, or for your own? If for ours, you may keep your breath for
the next race you run, as I am tickled nearly to suffocation, already,
with my part of the fun.”

“Hist”—said the trapper, cutting with great dexterity and rapidity the
thong, which bound one of the arms of Paul to his body, and dropping
his knife at the same time within reach of the liberated hand. “Hist,
boy, hist; that was a lucky moment! The yell from the bottom drew the
eyes of these blood-suckers in another quarter, and so far we are safe.
Now make a proper use of your advantages; but be careful, that what you
do, is done without being seen.”

“Thank you for this small favour, old deliberation,” muttered the
bee-hunter, “though it comes like a snow in May, somewhat out of
season.”

“Foolish boy!” reproachfully exclaimed the other, who had moved to a
little distance from his friends, and appeared to be attentively
regarding the movements of the hostile parties, “will you never learn
to know the wisdom of patience? And you, too, Captain; though a man
myself, that seldom ruffles his temper by vain feelings, I see that you
are silent, because you scorn to ask favours any longer from one you
think too slow to grant them. No doubt, ye are both young, and filled
with the pride of your strength and manhood, and I dare say you thought
it only needful to cut the thongs, to leave you masters of the ground.
But he, that has seen much, is apt to think much. Had I run like a
bustling woman to have given you freedom, these hags of the Siouxes
would have seen the same, and then where would you both have found
yourselves? Under the tomahawk and the knife, like helpless and
outcrying children, though gifted with the size and beards of men. Ask
our friend, the bee-hunter, in what condition he finds himself to
struggle with a Teton boy, after so many hours of bondage; much less
with a dozen merciless and bloodthirsty squaws!”

“Truly, old trapper,” returned Paul, stretching his limbs, which were
by this time entirely released, and endeavouring to restore the
suspended circulation, “you have some judgmatical notions in these
matters. Now here am I, Paul Hover, a man who will give in to few at
wrestle or race, nearly as helpless as the day I paid my first visit to
the house of old Paul, who is dead and gone,—the Lord forgive him any
little blunders he may have made while he tarried in Kentucky! Now
there is my foot on the ground, so far as eye-sight has any virtue, and
yet it would take no great temptation to make me swear it didn’t touch
the earth by six inches. I say, honest friend, since you have done so
much, have the goodness to keep these damnable squaws, of whom you say
so many interesting things, at a little distance, till I have got the
blood of this arm in motion, and am ready to receive them.”

The trapper made a sign that he perfectly understood the case; and he
walked towards the superannuated savage, who began to manifest an
intention of commencing his assigned task, leaving the bee-hunter to
recover the use of his limbs as well as he could, and to put Middleton
in a similar situation to defend himself.

Mahtoree had not mistaken his man, in selecting the one he did to
execute his bloody purpose. He had chosen one of those ruthless
savages, more or less of whom are to be found in every tribe, who had
purchased a certain share of military reputation, by the exhibition of
a hardihood that found its impulses in an innate love of cruelty.
Contrary to the high and chivalrous sentiment, which among the Indians
of the prairies renders it a deed of even greater merit to bear off the
trophy of victory from a fallen foe, than to slay him, he had been
remarkable for preferring the pleasure of destroying life, to the glory
of striking the dead. While the more self-devoted and ambitious braves
were intent on personal honour, he had always been seen, established
behind some favourable cover, depriving the wounded of hope, by
finishing that which a more gallant warrior had begun. In all the
cruelties of the tribe he had ever been foremost; and no Sioux was so
uniformly found on the side of merciless councils.

He had awaited, with an impatience which his long practised restraint
could with difficulty subdue, for the moment to arrive when he might
proceed to execute the wishes of the great chief, without whose
approbation and powerful protection he would not have dared to
undertake a step, that had so many opposers in the nation. But events
had been hastening to an issue, between the hostile parties; and the
time had now arrived, greatly to his secret and malignant joy, when he
was free to act his will.

The trapper found him distributing knives to the ferocious hags, who
received the presents chanting a low monotonous song, that recalled the
losses of their people, in various conflicts with the whites, and which
extolled the pleasures and glory of revenge. The appearance of such a
group was enough of itself to have deterred one, less accustomed to
such sights than the old man, from trusting himself within the circle
of their wild and repulsive rites.

Each of the crones, as she received the weapon, commenced a slow and
measured, but ungainly, step, around the savage, until the whole were
circling him in a sort of magic dance. The movements were timed, in
some degree, by the words of their songs, as were their gestures by the
ideas. When they spoke of their own losses, they tossed their long
straight locks of grey into the air, or suffered them to fall in
confusion upon their withered necks; but as the sweetness of returning
blow for blow was touched upon, by any among them, it was answered by a
common howl, as well as by gestures, that were sufficiently expressive
of the manner in which they were exciting themselves to the necessary
state of fury.

Into the very centre of this ring of seeming demons, the trapper now
stalked, with the same calmness and observation as he would have walked
into a village church. No other change was made by his appearance, than
a renewal of the threatening gestures, with, if possible, a still less
equivocal display of their remorseless intentions. Making a sign for
them to cease, the old man demanded—

“Why do the mothers of the Tetons sing with bitter tongues? The Pawnee
prisoners are not yet in their village; their young men have not come
back loaded with scalps!”

He was answered by a general howl, and a few of the boldest of the
furies even ventured to approach him, flourishing their knives within a
dangerous proximity of his own steady eye-balls.

“It is a warrior you see, and no runner of the Long-knives, whose face
grows paler at the sight of a tomahawk,” returned the trapper, without
moving a muscle. “Let the Sioux women think; if one White-skin dies, a
hundred spring up where he falls.”

Still the hags made no other answer, than by increasing their speed in
the circle, and occasionally raising the threatening expressions of
their chant, into louder and more intelligible strains. Suddenly, one
of the oldest, and the most ferocious of them all, broke out of the
ring, and skirred away in the direction of her victims, like a
rapacious bird, that having wheeled on poised wings, for the time
necessary to ensure its object, makes the final dart upon its prey. The
others followed, a disorderly and screaming flock, fearful of being too
late to reap their portion of the sanguinary pleasure.

“Mighty medicine of my people!” shouted the old man, in the Teton
tongue; “lift your voice and speak, that the Sioux nation may hear.”

Whether Asinus had acquired so much knowledge, by his recent
experience, as to know the value of his sonorous properties, or the
strange spectacle of a dozen hags flitting past him, filling the air
with such sounds as were even grating to the ears of an ass, most moved
his temper, it is certain that the animal did that which Obed was
requested to do, and probably with far greater effect than if the
naturalist had strove with his mightiest effort to be heard. It was the
first time the strange beast had spoken, since his arrival in the
encampment. Admonished by so terrible a warning, the hags scattered
themselves, like vultures frightened from their prey, still screaming,
and but half diverted from their purpose.

In the mean time the sudden appearance, and the imminency of the
danger, quickened the blood in the veins of Paul and Middleton, more
than all their laborious frictions, and physical expedients. The former
had actually risen to his feet, and assumed an attitude which perhaps
threatened more than the worthy bee-hunter was able to perform, and
even the latter had mounted to his knees, and shown a disposition to do
good service for his life. The unaccountable release of the captives
from their bonds was attributed, by the hags, to the incantations of
the medicine; and the mistake was probably of as much service, as the
miraculous and timely interposition of Asinus in their favour.

“Now is the time to come out of our ambushment,” exclaimed the old man,
hastening to join his friends, “and to make open and manful war. It
would have been policy to have kept back the struggle, until the
Captain was in better condition to join, but as we have unmasked our
battery, why, we must maintain the ground—”

He was interrupted by feeling a gigantic hand on his shoulder. Turning,
under a sort of confused impression that necromancy was actually abroad
in the place, he found that he was in the hands of a sorcerer no less
dangerous and powerful than Ishmael Bush. The file of the squatter’s
well-armed sons, that was seen issuing from behind the still standing
tent of Mahtoree, explained at once, not only the manner in which their
rear had been turned, while their attention had been so earnestly
bestowed on matters in front, but the utter impossibility of
resistance.

Neither Ishmael, nor his sons deemed it necessary to enter into prolix
explanations. Middleton and Paul were bound again, with extraordinary
silence and despatch, and this time not even the aged trapper was
exempt from a similar fortune. The tent was struck, the females placed
upon the horses, and the whole were on the way towards the squatter’s
encampment, with a celerity that might well have served to keep alive
the idea of magic.

During this summary and brief disposition of things, the disappointed
agent of Mahtoree and his callous associates were seen flying across
the plain, in the direction of the retiring families; and when Ishmael
left the spot with his prisoners and his booty, the ground, which had
so lately been alive with the bustle and life of an extensive Indian
encampment, was as still and empty as any other spot in those extensive
wastes.




CHAPTER XXX


Is this proceeding just and honourable?
                   —Shakespeare.


During the occurrence of these events on the upland plain, the warriors
on the bottom had not been idle. We left the adverse bands watching one
another on the opposite banks of the stream, each endeavouring to
excite its enemy to some act of indiscretion, by the most reproachful
taunts and revilings. But the Pawnee chief was not slow to discover
that his crafty antagonist had no objection to waste the time so idly,
and, as they mutually proved, in expedients that were so entirely
useless. He changed his plans, accordingly, and withdrew from the bank,
as has been already explained through the mouth of the trapper, in
order to invite the more numerous host of the Siouxes to cross. The
challenge was not accepted, and the Loups were compelled to frame some
other method to attain their end.

Instead of any longer throwing away the precious moments, in fruitless
endeavours to induce his foe to cross the stream, the young partisan of
the Pawnees led his troops, at a swift gallop, along its margin, in
quest of some favourable spot, where by a sudden push he might throw
his own band without loss to the opposite shore. The instant his object
was discovered, each mounted Teton received a footman behind him, and
Mahtoree was still enabled to concentrate his whole force against the
effort. Perceiving that his design was anticipated, and unwilling to
blow his horses by a race that would disqualify them for service, even
after they had succeeded in outstripping the more heavily-burdened
cattle of the Siouxes, Hard-Heart drew up, and came to a dead halt on
the very margin of the water-course.

As the country was too open for any of the usual devices of savage
warfare, and time was so pressing, the chivalrous Pawnee resolved to
bring on the result by one of those acts of personal daring, for which
the Indian braves are so remarkable, and by which they often purchase
their highest and dearest renown. The spot he had selected was
favourable to such a project. The river, which throughout most of its
course was deep and rapid, had expanded there to more than twice its
customary width, and the rippling of its waters proved that it flowed
over a shallow bottom. In the centre of the current there was an
extensive and naked bed of sand, but a little raised above the level of
the stream and of a colour and consistency which warranted, to a
practised eye, that it afforded a firm and safe foundation for the
foot. To this spot the partisan now turned his wistful gaze, nor was he
long in making his decision. First speaking to his warriors, and
apprising them of his intentions, he dashed into the current, and
partly by swimming, and more by the use of his horse’s feet, he reached
the island in safety.

The experience of Hard-Heart had not deceived him. When his snorting
steed issued from the water, he found himself on a tremendous but damp
and compact bed of sand, that was admirably adapted to the exhibition
of the finest powers of the animal. The horse seemed conscious of the
advantage, and bore his warlike rider, with an elasticity of step and a
loftiness of air, that would have done no discredit to the highest
trained and most generous charger. The blood of the chief himself
quickened with the excitement of his situation. He sat the beast as if
conscious that the eyes of two tribes were on his movements; and as
nothing could be more acceptable and grateful to his own band, than
this display of native grace and courage, so nothing could be more
taunting and humiliating to their enemies.

The sudden appearance of the Pawnee on the sands was announced among
the Tetons, by a general yell of savage anger. A rush was made to the
shore, followed by a discharge of fifty arrows and a few fusees, and,
on the part of several braves, there was a plain manifestation of a
desire to plunge into the water, in order to punish the temerity of
their insolent foe. But a call and a mandate, from Mahtoree, checked
the rising, and nearly ungovernable, temper of his band. So far from
allowing a single foot to be wet, or a repetition of the fruitless
efforts of his people to drive away their foe with missiles, the whole
of the party was commanded to retire from the shore, while he himself
communicated his intentions to one or two of his most favoured
followers.

When the Pawnees observed the rush of their enemies, twenty warriors
rode into the stream; but so soon as they perceived that the Tetons had
withdrawn, they fell back to a man, leaving the young chief to the
support of his own often-tried skill and well-established courage. The
instructions of Hard-Heart, on quitting his band, had been worthy of
the self-devotion and daring of his character. So long as single
warriors came against him, he was to be left to the keeping of the
Wahcondah and his own arm; but should the Siouxes attack him in
numbers, he was to be sustained, man for man, even to the extent of his
whole force. These generous orders were strictly obeyed; and though so
many hearts in the troop panted to share in the glory and danger of
their partisan, not a warrior was found, among them all, who did not
know how to conceal his impatience under the usual mask of Indian
self-restraint. They watched the issue with quick and jealous eyes, nor
did a single exclamation of surprise escape them, when they saw, as
will soon be apparent, that the experiment of their chief was as likely
to conduce to peace as to war.

Mahtoree was not long in communicating his plans to his confidants,
whom he as quickly dismissed to join their fellows in the rear. The
Teton entered a short distance into the stream and halted. Here he
raised his hand several times, with the palm outwards, and made several
of those other signs, which are construed into a pledge of amicable
intentions among the inhabitants of those regions. Then, as if to
confirm the sincerity of his faith, he cast his fusee to the shore, and
entered deeper into the water, where he again came to a stand, in order
to see in what manner the Pawnee would receive his pledges of peace.

The crafty Sioux had not made his calculations on the noble and honest
nature of his more youthful rival in vain. Hard-Heart had continued
galloping across the sands, during the discharge of missiles and the
appearance of a general onset, with the same proud and confident mien,
as that with which he had first braved the danger. When he saw the
well-known person of the Teton partisan enter the river, he waved his
hand in triumph, and flourishing his lance, he raised the thrilling
war-cry of his people, as a challenge for him to come on. But when he
saw the signs of a truce, though deeply practised in the treachery of
savage combats, he disdained to show a less manly reliance on himself,
than that which his enemy had seen fit to exhibit. Riding to the
farthest extremity of the sands, he cast his own fusee from him, and
returned to the point whence he had started.

The two chiefs were now armed alike. Each had his spear, his bow, his
quiver, his little battle-axe, and his knife; and each had, also, a
shield of hides, which might serve as a means of defence against a
surprise from any of these weapons. The Sioux no longer hesitated, but
advanced deeper into the stream, and soon landed on a point of the
island which his courteous adversary had left free for that purpose.
Had one been there to watch the countenance of Mahtoree, as he crossed
the water that separated him from the most formidable and the most
hated of all his rivals, he might have fancied that he could trace the
gleamings of a secret joy, breaking through the cloud which deep
cunning and heartless treachery had drawn before his swarthy visage;
and yet there would have been moments, when he might have believed that
the flashings of the Teton’s eye and the expansion of his nostrils, had
their origin in a nobler sentiment, and one more worthy of an Indian
chief.

The Pawnee awaited the time of his enemy with calmness and dignity. The
Teton made a short run or two, to curb the impatience of his steed, and
to recover his seat after the effort of crossing, and then he rode into
the centre of the place, and invited the other, by a courteous gesture,
to approach. Hard-Heart drew nigh, until he found himself at a distance
equally suited to advance or to retreat, and, in his turn, he came to a
stand, keeping his glowing eye riveted on that of his enemy. A long and
grave pause succeeded this movement, during which these two
distinguished braves, who were now, for the first time, confronted,
with arms in their hands, sat regarding each other, like warriors who
knew how to value the merits of a gallant foe, however hated. But the
mien of Mahtoree was far less stern and warlike than that of the
partisan of the Loups. Throwing his shield over his shoulder, as if to
invite the confidence of the other, he made a gesture of salutation and
was the first to speak.

“Let the Pawnees go upon the hills,” he said, “and look from the
morning to the evening sun, from the country of snows to the land of
many flowers, and they will see that the earth is very large. Why
cannot the Red-men find room on it for all their villages?”

“Has the Teton ever known a warrior of the Loups come to his towns to
beg a place for his lodge?” returned the young brave, with a look in
which pride and contempt were not attempted to be concealed, “when the
Pawnees hunt, do they send runners to ask Mahtoree if there are no
Siouxes on the prairies?”

“When there is hunger in the lodge of a warrior, he looks for the
buffaloe, which is given him for food,” the Teton continued, struggling
to keep down the ire excited by the other’s scorn. “The Wahcondah has
made more of them than he has made Indians. He has not said, This
buffaloe shall be for a Pawnee, and that for a Dahcotah; this beaver
for Konza, and that for an Omawhaw. No; he said, There are enough. I
love my red children, and I have given them great riches. The swiftest
horse shall not go from the village of the Tetons to the village of the
Loups in many suns. It is far from the towns of the Pawnees to the
river of the Osages. There is room for all that I love. Why then should
a Red-man strike his brother?”

Hard-Heart dropped one end of his lance to the earth, and having also
cast his shield across his shoulder, he sat leaning lightly on the
weapon, as he answered with a smile of no doubtful expression—

“Are the Tetons weary of the hunts, and of the warpath? Do they wish to
cook the venison, and not to kill it? Do they intend to let the hair
cover their heads, that their enemies shall not know where to find
their scalps? Go; a Pawnee warrior will never come among such Sioux
squaws for a wife!”

A frightful gleam of ferocity broke out of the restraint of the
Dahcotah’s countenance, as he listened to this biting insult; but he
was quick in subduing the tell-tale feeling, in an expression much
better suited to his present purpose.

“This is the way a young chief should talk of war,” he answered with
singular composure; “but Mahtoree has seen the misery of more winters
than his brother. When the nights have been long, and darkness has been
in his lodge, while the young men slept, he has thought of the
hardships of his people. He has said to himself, Teton, count the
scalps in your smoke. They are all red but two! Does the wolf destroy
the wolf, or the rattler strike his brother? You know they do not;
therefore, Teton, are you wrong to go on a path that leads to the
village of a Red-skin, with a tomahawk in your hand.”

“The Sioux would rob the warrior of his fame? He would say to his young
men, Go, dig roots in the prairies, and find holes to bury your
tomahawks in; you are no longer braves!”

“If the tongue of Mahtoree ever says thus,” returned the crafty chief,
with an appearance of strong indignation, “let his women cut it out,
and burn it with the offals of the buffaloe. No,” he added, advancing a
few feet nigher to the immovable Hard-Heart, as if in the sincerity of
confidence; “the Red-man can never want an enemy: they are plentier
than the leaves on the trees, the birds in the heavens, or the
buffaloes on the prairies. Let my brother open his eyes wide: does he
no where see an enemy he would strike?”

“How long is it since the Teton counted the scalps of his warriors,
that were drying in the smoke of a Pawnee lodge? The hand that took
them is here, and ready to make eighteen, twenty.”

“Now, let not the mind of my brother go on a crooked path. If a
Red-skin strikes a Red-skin for ever, who will be masters of the
prairies, when no warriors are left to say, ‘They are mine?’ Hear the
voices of the old men. They tell us that in their days many Indians
have come out of the woods under the rising sun, and that they have
filled the prairies with their complaints of the robberies of the
Long-knives. Where a Pale-face comes, a Red-man cannot stay. The land
is too small. They are always hungry. See, they are here already!”

As the Teton spoke, he pointed towards the tents of Ishmael, which were
in plain sight, and then he paused, to await the effect of his words on
the mind of his ingenuous foe. Hard-Heart listened like one in whom a
train of novel ideas had been excited by the reasoning of the other. He
mused for a minute before he demanded—

“What do the wise chiefs of the Sioux say must be done?”

“They think that the moccasin of every Pale-face should be followed,
like the track of the bear. That the Long-knife, who comes upon the
prairie, should never go back. That the path shall be open to those who
come, and shut to those who go. Yonder are many. They have horses and
guns. They are rich, but we are poor. Will the Pawnees meet the Tetons
in council? and when the sun is gone behind the Rocky Mountains, they
will say, This is for a Loup and this for a Sioux.”

“Teton—no! Hard-Heart has never struck the stranger. They come into his
lodge and eat, and they go out in safety. A mighty chief is their
friend! When my people call the young men to go on the war-path, the
moccasin of Hard-Heart is the last. But his village is no sooner hid by
the trees, than it is the first. No, Teton; his arm will never be
lifted against the stranger.”

“Fool; die, with empty hands!” Mahtoree exclaimed, setting an arrow to
his bow, and sending it, with a sudden and deadly aim, full at the
naked bosom of his generous and confiding enemy.

The action of the treacherous Teton was too quick, and too well
matured, to admit of any of the ordinary means of defence on the part
of the Pawnee. His shield was hanging at his shoulder, and even the
arrow had been suffered to fall from its place, and lay in the hollow
of the hand which grasped his bow. But the quick eye of the brave had
time to see the movement, and his ready thoughts did not desert him.
Pulling hard and with a jerk upon the rein, his steed reared his
forward legs into the air, and, as the rider bent his body low, the
horse served for a shield against the danger. So true, however, was the
aim, and so powerful the force by which it was sent, that the arrow
entered the neck of the animal, and broke the skin on the opposite
side.

Quicker than thought Hard-Heart sent back an answering arrow. The
shield of the Teton was transfixed, but his person was untouched. For a
few moments the twang of the bow and the glancing of arrows were
incessant, notwithstanding the combatants were compelled to give so
large a portion of their care to the means of defence. The quivers were
soon exhausted; and though blood had been drawn, it was not in
sufficient quantities to impair the energy of the combat.

A series of masterly and rapid evolutions with the horses now
commenced. The wheelings, the charges, the advances, and the circuitous
retreats, were like the flights of circling swallows. Blows were struck
with the lance, the sand was scattered in the air, and the shocks often
seemed to be unavoidably fatal; but still each party kept his seat, and
still each rein was managed with a steady hand. At length the Teton was
driven to the necessity of throwing himself from his horse, to escape a
thrust that would otherwise have proved fatal. The Pawnee passed his
lance through the beast, uttering a shout of triumph as he galloped by.
Turning in his tracks, he was about to push the advantage, when his own
mettled steed staggered and fell, under a burden that he could no
longer sustain. Mahtoree answered his premature cry of victory, and
rushed upon the entangled youth, with knife and tomahawk. The utmost
agility of Hard-Heart had not sufficed to extricate himself in season
from the fallen beast. He saw that his case was desperate. Feeling for
his knife, he took the blade between a finger and thumb, and cast it
with admirable coolness at his advancing foe. The keen weapon whirled a
few times in the air, and its point meeting the naked breast of the
impetuous Sioux, the blade was buried to the buck-horn haft.

Mahtoree laid his hand on the weapon, and seemed to hesitate whether to
withdraw it or not. For a moment his countenance darkened with the most
inextinguishable hatred and ferocity, and then, as if inwardly
admonished how little time he had to lose, he staggered to the edge of
the sands, and halted with his feet in the water. The cunning and
duplicity, which had so long obscured the brighter and nobler traits of
his character, were lost in the never dying sentiment of pride, which
he had imbibed in youth.

“Boy of the Loups!” he said with a smile of grim satisfaction, “the
scalp of a mighty Dahcotah shall never dry in Pawnee smoke!”

Drawing the knife from the wound, he hurled it towards the enemy in
disdain. Then shaking his arm at his successful foe, his swarthy
countenance appearing to struggle with volumes of scorn and hatred,
that he could not utter with the tongue, he cast himself headlong into
one of the most rapid veins of the current, his hand still waving in
triumph above the fluid, even after his body had sunk into the tide for
ever. Hard-Heart was by this time free. The silence, which had hitherto
reigned in the bands, was suddenly broken by general and tumultuous
shouts. Fifty of the adverse warriors were already in the river,
hastening to destroy or to defend the conqueror, and the combat was
rather on the eve of its commencement than near its termination. But to
all these signs of danger and need, the young victor was insensible. He
sprang for the knife, and bounded with the foot of an antelope along
the sands, looking for the receding fluid which concealed his prize. A
dark, bloody spot indicated the place, and, armed with the knife, he
plunged into the stream, resolute to die in the flood, or to return
with his trophy.

In the mean time, the sands became a scene of bloodshed and violence.
Better mounted and perhaps more ardent, the Pawnees had, however,
reached the spot in sufficient numbers to force their enemies to
retire. The victors pushed their success to the opposite shore, and
gained the solid ground in the melee of the fight. Here they were met
by all the unmounted Tetons, and, in their turn, they were forced to
give way.

The combat now became more characteristic and circumspect. As the hot
impulses, which had driven both parties to mingle in so deadly a
struggle, began to cool, the chiefs were enabled to exercise their
influence, and to temper the assaults with prudence. In consequence of
the admonitions of their leaders, the Siouxes sought such covers as the
grass afforded, or here and there some bush or slight inequality of the
ground, and the charges of the Pawnee warriors necessarily became more
wary, and of course less fatal.

In this manner the contest continued with a varied success, and without
much loss. The Siouxes had succeeded in forcing themselves into a thick
growth of rank grass, where the horses of their enemies could not
enter, or where, when entered, they were worse than useless. It became
necessary to dislodge the Tetons from this cover, or the object of the
combat must be abandoned. Several desperate efforts had been repulsed,
and the disheartened Pawnees were beginning to think of a retreat, when
the well-known war-cry of Hard-Heart was heard at hand, and at the next
instant the chief appeared in their centre, flourishing the scalp of
the Great Sioux, as a banner that would lead to victory.

He was greeted by a shout of delight, and followed into the cover, with
an impetuosity that, for the moment, drove all before it. But the
bloody trophy in the hand of the partisan served as an incentive to the
attacked, as well as to the assailants. Mahtoree had left many a daring
brave behind him in his band, and the orator, who in the debates of
that day had manifested such pacific thoughts, now exhibited the most
generous self-devotion, in order to wrest the memorial of a man he had
never loved, from the hands of the avowed enemies of his people.

The result was in favour of numbers. After a severe struggle, in which
the finest displays of personal intrepidity were exhibited by all the
chiefs, the Pawnees were compelled to retire upon the open bottom,
closely pressed by the Siouxes, who failed not to seize each foot of
ground ceded by their enemies. Had the Tetons stayed their efforts on
the margin of the grass, it is probable that the honour of the day
would have been theirs, notwithstanding the irretrievable loss they had
sustained in the death of Mahtoree. But the more reckless braves of the
band were guilty of an indiscretion, that entirely changed the fortunes
of the fight, and suddenly stripped them of their hard-earned
advantages.

A Pawnee chief had sunk under the numerous wounds he had received, and
he fell, a target for a dozen arrows, in the very last group of his
retiring party. Regardless alike of inflicting further injury on their
foes, and of the temerity of the act, the Sioux braves bounded forward
with a whoop, each man burning with the wish to reap the high renown of
striking the body of the dead. They were met by Hard-Heart and a chosen
knot of warriors, all of whom were just as stoutly bent on saving the
honour of their nation, from so foul a stain. The struggle was hand to
hand, and blood began to flow more freely. As the Pawnees retired with
the body, the Siouxes pressed upon their footsteps, and at length the
whole of the latter broke out of the cover with a common yell, and
threatened to bear down all opposition by sheer physical superiority.

The fate of Hard-Heart and his companions, all of whom would have died
rather than relinquish their object, would have been quickly sealed,
but for a powerful and unlooked-for interposition in their favour. A
shout was heard from a little brake on the left, and a volley from the
fatal western rifle immediately succeeded. Some five or six Siouxes
leaped forward in the death agony, and every arm among them was as
suddenly suspended, as if the lightning had flashed from the clouds to
aid the cause of the Loups. Then came Ishmael and his stout sons in
open view, bearing down upon their late treacherous allies, with looks
and voices that proclaimed the character of the succour.

The shock was too much for the fortitude of the Tetons. Several of
their bravest chiefs had already fallen, and those that remained were
instantly abandoned by the whole of the inferior herd. A few of the
most desperate braves still lingered nigh the fatal symbol of their
honour, and there nobly met their deaths, under the blows of the
re-encouraged Pawnees. A second discharge from the rifles of the
squatter and his party completed the victory.

The Siouxes were now to be seen flying to more distant covers, with the
same eagerness and desperation as, a few moments before, they had been
plunging into the fight. The triumphant Pawnees bounded forward in
chase, like so many high-blooded and well-trained hounds. On every side
were heard the cries of victory, or the yell of revenge. A few of the
fugitives endeavoured to bear away the bodies of their fallen warriors,
but the hot pursuit quickly compelled them to abandon the slain, in
order to preserve the living. Among all the struggles, which were made
on that occasion, to guard the honour of the Siouxes from the stain
which their peculiar opinions attached to the possession of the scalp
of a fallen brave, but one solitary instance of success occurred.

The opposition of a particular chief to the hostile proceedings in the
councils of that morning has been already seen. But, after having
raised his voice in vain, in support of peace, his arm was not backward
in doing its duty in the war. His prowess has been mentioned; and it
was chiefly by his courage and example, that the Tetons sustained
themselves in the heroic manner they did, when the death of Mahtoree
was known. This warrior, who, in the figurative language of his people,
was called “the Swooping Eagle,” had been the last to abandon the hopes
of victory. When he found that the support of the dreaded rifle had
robbed his band of the hard-earned advantages, he sullenly retired amid
a shower of missiles, to the secret spot where he had hid his horse, in
the mazes of the highest grass. Here he found a new and an entirely
unexpected competitor, ready to dispute with him for the possession of
the beast. It was Bohrecheena, the aged friend of Mahtoree; he whose
voice had been given in opposition to his own wiser opinions,
transfixed with an arrow, and evidently suffering under the pangs of
approaching death.

“I have been on my last war-path,” said the grim old warrior, when he
found that the real owner of the animal had come to claim his property;
“shall a Pawnee carry the white hairs of a Sioux into his village, to
be a scorn to his women and children?”

The other grasped his hand, answering to the appeal with the stern look
of inflexible resolution. With this silent pledge, he assisted the
wounded man to mount. So soon as he had led the horse to the margin of
the cover, he threw himself also on its back, and securing his
companion to his belt, he issued on the open plain, trusting entirely
to the well-known speed of the beast for their mutual safety. The
Pawnees were not long in catching a view of these new objects, and
several turned their steeds to pursue. The race continued for a mile
without a murmur from the sufferer, though in addition to the agony of
his body, he had the pain of seeing his enemies approach at every leap
of their horses.

“Stop,” he said, raising a feeble arm to check the speed of his
companion; “the Eagle of my tribe must spread his wings wider. Let him
carry the white hairs of an old warrior into the burnt-wood village!”

Few words were necessary, between men who were governed by the same
feelings of glory, and who were so well trained in the principles of
their romantic honour. The Swooping Eagle threw himself from the back
of the horse, and assisted the other to alight. The old man raised his
tottering frame to its knees, and first casting a glance upward at the
countenance of his countryman, as if to bid him adieu, he stretched out
his neck to the blow he himself invited. A few strokes of the tomahawk,
with a circling gash of the knife, sufficed to sever the head from the
less valued trunk. The Teton mounted again, just in season to escape a
flight of arrows which came from his eager and disappointed pursuers.
Flourishing the grim and bloody visage, he darted away from the spot
with a shout of triumph, and was seen scouring the plains, as if he
were actually borne along on the wings of the powerful bird from whose
qualities he had received his flattering name. The Swooping Eagle
reached his village in safety. He was one of the few Siouxes who
escaped from the massacre of that fatal day; and for a long time he
alone of the saved was able to lift his voice, in the councils of his
nation, with undiminished confidence.

The knife and the lance cut short the retreat of the larger portion of
the vanquished. Even the retiring party of the women and children were
scattered by the conquerors; and the sun had long sunk behind the
rolling outline of the western horizon, before the fell business of
that disastrous defeat was entirely ended.




CHAPTER XXXI


Which is the merchant here, and which the Jew?
                   —Shakespeare.


The day dawned, the following morning, on a more, tranquil scene. The
work of blood had entirely ceased; and as the sun arose, its light was
shed on a broad expanse of quiet and solitude. The tents of Ishmael
were still standing, where they had been last seen, but not another
vestige of human existence could be traced in any other part of the
waste. Here and there little flocks of ravenous birds were sailing and
screaming above those spots where some heavy-footed Teton had met his
death, but every other sign of the recent combat had passed away. The
river was to be traced far through the endless meadows, by its
serpentine and smoking bed; and the little silvery clouds of vapour,
which hung above the pools and springs, were beginning to melt in air,
as they felt the quickening warmth, which, pouring from the glowing
sky, shed its bland and subtle influence on every object of the vast
and unshadowed region. The prairie was like the heavens after the
passage of the gust, soft, calm, and soothing.

It was in the midst of such a scene that the family of the squatter
assembled to make their final decision, concerning the several
individuals who had been thrown into their power, by the fluctuating
chances of the incidents related. Every being possessing life and
liberty had been afoot, since the first streak of grey had lighted the
east; and even the youngest of the erratic brood seemed conscious that
the moment had arrived, when circumstances were about to transpire that
might leave a lasting impression on the wild fortunes of their
semi-barbarous condition.

Ishmael moved through his little encampment, with the seriousness of
one who had been unexpectedly charged with matters of a gravity,
exceeding any of the ordinary occurrences of his irregular existence.
His sons however, who had so often found occasions to prove the
inexorable severity of their father’s character, saw, in his sullen
mien and cold eye, rather a determination to adhere to his resolutions,
which usually were as obstinately enforced as they were harshly
conceived, than any evidences of wavering or doubt. Even Esther was
sensibly affected by the important matters that pressed so heavily on
the interests of her family. While she neglected none of those domestic
offices, which would probably have proceeded under any conceivable
circumstances, just as the world turns round with earthquakes rending
its crust and volcanoes consuming its vitals, yet her voice was pitched
to a lower and more foreboding key than common, and the still frequent
chidings of her children were tempered by something like the milder
dignity of parental authority.

Abiram, as usual, seemed the one most given to solicitude and doubt.
There were certain misgivings, in the frequent glances that he turned
on the unyielding countenance of Ishmael, which might have betrayed how
little of their former confidence and good understanding existed
between them. His looks appeared to be vacillating between hope and
fear. At times, his countenance lighted with the gleamings of a sordid
joy, as he bent his look on the tent which contained his recovered
prisoner, and then, again, the impression seemed unaccountably chased
away by the shadows of intense apprehension. When under the influence
of the latter feeling, his eye never failed to seek the visage of his
dull and impenetrable kinsman. But there he rather found reason for
alarm than grounds of encouragement, for the whole character of the
squatter’s countenance expressed the fearful truth, that he had
redeemed his dull faculties from the influence of the kidnapper, and
that his thoughts were now brooding only on the achievement of his own
stubborn intentions.

It was in this state of things that the sons of Ishmael, in obedience
to an order from their father, conducted the several subjects of his
contemplated decisions, from their places of confinement into the open
air. No one was exempted from this arrangement. Middleton and Inez,
Paul and Ellen, Obed and the trapper, were all brought forth and placed
in situations that were deemed suitable to receive the sentence of
their arbitrary judge. The younger children gathered around the spot,
in momentary but engrossing curiosity, and even Esther quitted her
culinary labours, and drew nigh to listen.

Hard-Heart alone, of all his band, was present to witness the novel and
far from unimposing spectacle. He stood leaning, gravely, on his lance,
while the smoking steed, that grazed nigh, showed that he had ridden
far and hard to be a spectator, on the occasion.

Ishmael had received his new ally with a coldness that showed his
entire insensibility to that delicacy, which had induced the young
chief to come alone, in order that the presence of his warriors might
not create uneasiness, or distrust. He neither courted their
assistance, nor dreaded their enmity, and he now proceeded to the
business of the hour with as much composure, as if the species of
patriarchal power, he wielded, was universally recognised.

There is something elevating in the possession of authority, however it
may be abused. The mind is apt to make some efforts to prove the
fitness between its qualities and the condition of its owner, though it
may often fail, and render that ridiculous which was only hated before.
But the effect on Ishmael Bush was not so disheartening. Grave in
exterior, saturnine by temperament, formidable by his physical means,
and dangerous from his lawless obstinacy, his self-constituted tribunal
excited a degree of awe, to which even the intelligent Middleton could
not bring himself to be entirely insensible. Little time, however, was
given to arrange his thoughts; for the squatter, though unaccustomed to
haste, having previously made up his mind, was not disposed to waste
the moments in delay. When he saw that all were in their places, he
cast a dull look over his prisoners, and addressed himself to the
Captain, as the principal man among the imaginary delinquents.

“I am called upon this day, to fill the office which in the settlements
you give unto judges, who are set apart to decide on matters that arise
between man and man. I have but little knowledge of the ways of the
courts, though there is a rule that is known unto all, and which
teaches, that an ‘eye must be returned for an eye,’ and a ‘tooth for a
tooth.’ I am no troubler of countyhouses, and least of all do I like
living on a plantation that the sheriff has surveyed; yet there is a
reason in such a law, that makes it a safe rule to journey by, and
therefore it ar’ a solemn fact that this day shall I abide by it, and
give unto all and each that which is his due and no more.”

When Ishmael had delivered his mind thus far, he paused and looked
about him, as if he would trace the effects in the countenances of his
hearers. When his eye met that of Middleton, he was answered by the
latter—

“If the evil-doer is to be punished, and he that has offended none to
be left to go at large, you must change situations with me, and become
a prisoner instead of a judge.”

“You mean to say that I have done you wrong, in taking the lady from
her father’s house, and leading her so far against her will into these
wild districts,” returned the unmoved squatter, who manifested as
little resentment as he betrayed compunction at the charge. “I shall
not put the lie on the back of an evil deed, and deny your words. Since
things have come to this pass between us, I have found time to think
the matter over at my leisure, and though none of your swift thinkers,
who can see, or who pretend to see, into the nature of all things, by a
turn of the eye, yet am I a man open to reason, and give me my time,
one who is not given to deny the truth. Therefore have I mainly
concluded, that it was a mistake to take a child from its parent, and
the lady shall be returned whence she has been brought, as tenderly and
as safely as man can do it.”

“Ay, ay,” added Esther, “the man is right. Poverty and labour bore hard
upon him, especially as county officers were getting troublesome, and
in a weak moment he did the wicked act; but he has listened to my
words, and his mind has got round again into its honest corner. An
awful and a dangerous thing it is to be bringing the daughters of other
people into a peaceable and well-governed family!”

“And who will thank you for the same, after what has been already
done?” muttered Abiram, with a grin of disappointed cupidity, in which
malignity and terror were disgustingly united; “when the devil has once
made out his account, you may look for your receipt in full only at his
hands.”

“Peace!” said Ishmael, stretching his heavy hand towards his kinsman,
in a manner that instantly silenced the speaker. “Your voice is like a
raven’s in my ears. If you had never spoken, I should have been spared
this shame.”

“Since then you are beginning to lose sight of your errors, and to see
the truth,” said Middleton, “do not things by halves, but, by the
generosity of your conduct, purchase friends who may be of use in
warding off any future danger from the law—”

“Young man,” interrupted the squatter, with a dark frown, “you, too,
have said enough. If fear of the law had come over me, you would not be
here to witness the manner in which Ishmael Bush deals out justice.”

“Smother not your good intentions; and remember, if you contemplate
violence to any among us, that the arm of that law you affect to
despise, reaches far, and that though its movements are sometimes slow,
they are not the less certain!”

“Yes, there is too much truth in his words, squatter,” said the
trapper, whose attentive ears rarely suffered a syllable to be utterly
unheeded in his presence. “A busy and a troublesome arm it often proves
to be here, in this land of America; where, as they say, man is left
greatly to the following of his own wishes, compared to other
countries; and happier, ay, and more manly and more honest, too, is he
for the privilege! Why do you know, my men, that there are regions
where the law is so busy as to say, In this fashion shall you live, in
that fashion shall you die, and in such another fashion shall you take
leave of the world, to be sent before the judgment-seat of the Lord! A
wicked and a troublesome meddling is that, with the business of One who
has not made His creatures to be herded, like oxen, and driven from
field to field, as their stupid and selfish keepers may judge of their
need and wants. A miserable land must that be, where they fetter the
mind as well as the body, and where the creatures of God, being born
children, are kept so by the wicked inventions of men who would take
upon themselves the office of the great Governor of all!”

During the delivery of this pertinent opinion, Ishmael was content to
be silent, though the look, with which he regarded the speaker,
manifested any other feeling than that of amity. When the old man was
done, he turned to Middleton, and continued the subject which the other
had interrupted.

“As to ourselves, young Captain, there has been wrong on both sides. If
I have borne hard upon your feelings, in taking away your wife with an
honest intention of giving her back to you, when the plans of that
devil incarnate were answered, so have you broken into my encampment,
aiding and abetting, as they have called many an honester bargain, in
destroying my property.”

“But what I did was to liberate—”

“The matter is settled between us,” interrupted Ishmael, with the air
of one who, having made up his own opinion on the merits of the
question, cared very little for those of other people; “you and your
wife are free to go and come, when and how you please. Abner, set the
Captain at liberty; and now, if you will tarry until I am ready to draw
nigher to the settlements, you shall both have the benefit of carriage;
if not, never say that you did not get a friendly offer.”

“Now, may the strong oppress me, and my sins be visited harshly on my
own head, if I forget your honesty, however slow it has been in showing
itself,” cried Middleton, hastening to the side of the weeping Inez,
the instant he was released; “and, friend, I pledge you the honour of a
soldier, that your own part of this transaction shall be forgotten,
whatever I may deem fit to have done, when I reach a place where the
arm of government can make itself felt.”

The dull smile, with which the squatter answered to this assurance,
proved how little he valued the pledge that the youth, in the first
revulsion of his feelings, was so free to make.

“Neither fear nor favour, but what I call justice, has brought me to
this judgment,” he said, “do you that which may seem right in your
eyes, and believe that the world is wide enough to hold us both,
without our crossing each other’s path again! If you ar’ content, well;
if you ar’ not content, seek to ease your feelings in your own fashion.
I shall not ask to be let up, when you once put me fairly down. And
now, Doctor, have I come to your leaf in my accounts. It is time to
foot up the small reckoning, that has been running on, for some time,
atwixt us. With you, I entered into open and manly faith; in what
manner have you kept it?”

The singular felicity, with which Ishmael had contrived to shift the
responsibility of all that had passed, from his own shoulders to those
of his prisoners, backed as it was by circumstances that hardly
admitted of a very philosophical examination of any mooted point in
ethics, was sufficiently embarrassing to the several individuals, who
were so unexpectedly required to answer for a conduct which, in their
simplicity, they had deemed so meritorious. The life of Obed had been
so purely theoretic, that his amazement was not the least embarrassing
at a state of things which might not have proved so very remarkable had
he been a little more practised in the ways of the world. The worthy
naturalist was not the first by many, who found himself, at the precise
moment when he was expecting praise, suddenly arraigned, to answer for
the very conduct on which he rested all his claims to commendation.
Though not a little scandalised, at the unexpected turn of the
transaction, he was fain to make the best of circumstances, and to
bring forth such matter in justification, as first presented itself to
his disordered faculties.

“That there did exist a certain compactum, or agreement, between Obed
Batt, M.D., and Ishmael Bush, viator, or erratic husbandman,” he said,
endeavouring to avoid all offence in the use of terms, “I am not
disposed to deny. I will admit that it was therein conditioned, or
stipulated, that a certain journey should be performed conjointly, or
in company, until so many days had been numbered. But as the said time
has fully expired, I presume it fair to infer that the bargain may now
be said to be obsolete.”

“Ishmael!” interrupted the impatient Esther, “make no words with a man
who can break your bones as easily as set them, and let the poisoning
devil go! He’s a cheat, from box to phial. Give him half the prairie,
and take the other half yourself. He an acclimator! I will engage to
get the brats acclimated to a fever-and-ague bottom in a week, and not
a word shall be uttered harder to pronounce than the bark of a
cherry-tree, with perhaps a drop or two of western comfort. One thing
ar’ a fact, Ishmael; I like no fellow-travellers who can give a heavy
feel to an honest woman’s tongue, I—and that without caring whether her
household is in order, or out of order.”

The air of settled gloom, which had taken possession of the squatter’s
countenance, lighted for an instant with a look of dull drollery, as he
answered—

“Different people might judge differently, Esther, of the virtue of the
man’s art. But sin’ it is your wish to let him depart, I will not
plough the prairie to make the walking rough. Friend, you are at
liberty to go into the settlements, and there I would advise you to
tarry, as men like me who make but few contracts, do not relish the
custom of breaking them so easily.”

“And now, Ishmael,” resumed his conquering wife, “in order to keep a
quiet family and to smother all heart-burnings between us, show yonder
Red-skin and his daughter,” pointing to the aged Le Balafré and the
widowed Tachechana, “the way to their village, and let us say to
them—God bless you, and farewell, in the same breath!”

“They are the captives of the Pawnee, according to the rules of Indian
warfare, and I cannot meddle with his rights.”

“Beware the devil, my man! He’s a cheat and a tempter, and none can say
they ar’ safe with his awful delusions before their eyes! Take the
advice of one who has the honour of your name at heart, and send the
tawny Jezebel away.”

The squatter laid his broad hand on her shoulder, and looking her
steadily in the eye, he answered, in tones that were both stern and
solemn—

“Woman, we have that before us which calls our thoughts to other
matters than the follies you mean. Remember what is to come, and put
your silly jealousy to sleep.”

“It is true, it is true,” murmured his wife, moving back among her
daughters; “God forgive me, that I should forget it!”

“And now, young man; you, who have so often come into my clearing,
under the pretence of lining the bee into his hole,” resumed Ishmael,
after a momentary pause, as if to recover the equilibrium of his mind,
“with you there is a heavier account to settle. Not satisfied with
rummaging my camp, you have stolen a girl who is akin to my wife, and
who I had calculated to make one day a daughter of my own.”

A stronger sensation was produced by this, than by any of the preceding
interrogations. All the young men bent their curious eyes on Paul and
Ellen, the former of whom seemed in no small mental confusion, while
the latter bent her face on her bosom in shame.

“Harkee, friend Ishmael Bush,” returned the bee-hunter, who found that
he was expected to answer to the charge of burglary, as well as to that
of abduction; “that I did not give the most civil treatment to your
pots and pails, I am not going to gainsay. If you will name the price
you put upon the articles, it is possible the damage may be quietly
settled between us, and all hard feelings forgotten. I was not in a
church-going humour when we got upon your rock, and it is more than
probable there was quite as much kicking as preaching among your wares;
but a hole in the best man’s coat can be mended by money. As to the
matter of Ellen Wade, here, it may not be got over so easily. Different
people have different opinions on the subject of matrimony. Some think
it is enough to say yes and no, to the questions of the magistrate, or
of the parson, if one happens to be handy, in order to make a quiet
house; but I think that where a young woman’s mind is fairly bent on
going in a certain direction, it will be quite as prudent to let her
body follow. Not that I mean to say Ellen was not altogether forced to
what she did, and therefore she is just as innocent, in this matter, as
yonder jackass, who was made to carry her, and greatly against his
will, too, as I am ready to swear he would say himself, if he could
speak as loud as he can bray.”

“Nelly,” resumed the squatter, who paid very little attention to what
Paul considered a highly creditable and ingenious vindication, “Nelly,
this is a wide and a wicked world, on which you have been in such a
hurry to cast yourself. You have fed and you have slept in my camp for
a year, and I did hope that you had found the free air of the borders,
enough to your mind to wish to remain among us.”

“Let the girl have her will,” muttered Esther, from the rear; “he, who
might have persuaded her to stay, is sleeping in the cold and naked
prairie, and little hope is left of changing her humour; besides, a
woman’s mind is a wilful thing, and not easily turned from its
waywardness, as you know yourself, my man, or I should not be here the
mother of your sons and daughters.”

The squatter seemed reluctant to abandon his views of the abashed girl,
so easily; and before he answered to the suggestion of his wife, he
turned his usual dull look along the line of the curious countenances
of his boys, as if to see whether there was not one among them fit to
fill the place of the deceased. Paul was not slow to observe the
expression, and hitting nigher than usual on the secret thoughts of the
other, he believed he had fallen on an expedient which might remove
every difficulty.

“It is quite plain, friend Bush,” he said, “that there are two opinions
in this matter; yours for your sons, and mine for myself. I see but one
amicable way of settling this dispute, which is as follows:—do you make
a choice among your boys of any you will, and let us walk off together
for the matter of a few miles into the prairies; the one who stays
behind, can never trouble any man’s house or his fixen, and the one who
comes back may make the best of his way he can, in the good wishes of
the young woman.”

“Paul!” exclaimed the reproachful, but smothered voice of Ellen.

“Never fear, Nelly,” whispered the literal bee-hunter, whose
straight-going mind suggested no other motive of uneasiness, on the
part of his mistress, than concern for himself; “I have taken the
measure of them all, and you may trust an eye that has seen to line
many a bee into his hole!”

“I am not about to set myself up as a ruler of inclinations,” observed
the squatter. “If the heart of the child is truly in the settlements,
let her declare it; she shall have no let or hinderance from me. Speak,
Nelly, and let what you say come from your wishes, without fear or
favour. Would you leave us to go with this young man into the settled
countries, or will you tarry and share the little we have to give, but
which to you we give so freely?”

Thus called upon to decide, Ellen could no longer hesitate. The glance
of her eye was at first timid and furtive. But as the colour flushed
her features, and her breathing became quick and excited, it was
apparent that the native spirit of the girl was gaining the ascendency
over the bashfulness of sex.

“You took me a fatherless, impoverished, and friendless orphan,” she
said, struggling to command her voice, “when others, who live in what
may be called affluence compared to your state, chose to forget me; and
may Heaven in its goodness bless you for it! The little I have done,
will never pay you for that one act of kindness. I like not your manner
of life; it is different from the ways of my childhood, and it is
different from my wishes; still, had you not led this sweet and
unoffending lady from her friends, I should never have quitted you,
until you yourself had said, Go, and the blessing of God go with you!”

“The act was not wise, but it is repented of; and so far as it can be
done, in safety, it shall be repaired. Now, speak freely, will you
tarry, or will you go?”

“I have promised the lady,” said Ellen, dropping her eyes again to the
earth, “not to leave her; and after she has received so much wrong from
our hands, she may have a right to claim that I keep my word.”

“Take the cords from the young man,” said Ishmael. When the order was
obeyed, he motioned for all his sons to advance, and he placed them in
a row before the eyes of Ellen. “Now let there be no trifling, but open
your heart. Here ar’ all I have to offer, besides a hearty welcome.”

The distressed girl turned her abashed look from the countenance of one
of the young men to that of another, until her eye met the troubled and
working features of Paul. Then nature got the better of forms. She
threw herself into the arms of the bee-hunter, and sufficiently
proclaimed her choice by sobbing aloud. Ishmael signed to his sons to
fall back, and evidently mortified, though perhaps not disappointed by
the result, he no longer hesitated.

“Take her,” he said, “and deal honestly and kindly by her. The girl has
that in her which should make her welcome, in any man’s house, and I
should be loth to hear she ever came to harm. And now I have settled
with you all, on terms that I hope you will not find hard, but, on the
contrary, just and manly. I have only another question to ask, and that
is of the Captain; do you choose to profit by my teams in going into
the settlements, or not?”

“I hear, that some soldiers of my party are looking for me near the
villages of the Pawnees,” said Middleton, “and I intend to accompany
this chief, in order to join my men.”

“Then the sooner we part the better. Horses are plenty on the bottom.
Go; make your choice, and leave us in peace.”

“That is impossible, while the old man, who has been a friend of my
family near half a century, is left a prisoner. What has he done, that
he too is not released?

“Ask no questions that may lead to deceitful answers,” sullenly
returned the squatter; “I have dealings of my own with that trapper,
that it may not befit an officer of the States to meddle with. Go,
while your road is open.”

“The man may be giving you honest counsel, and that which it concerns
you all to hearken to,” observed the old captive, who seemed in no
uneasiness at the extraordinary condition in which he found himself.
“The Siouxes are a numberless and bloody-minded race, and no one can
say how long it may be, afore they will be out again on the scent of
revenge. Therefore I say to you, go, also; and take especial heed, in
crossing the bottoms, that you get not entangled again in the fires,
for the honest hunters often burn the grass at this season, in order
that the buffaloes may find a sweeter and a greener pasturage in the
spring.”

“I should forget not only my gratitude, but my duty to the laws, were I
to leave this prisoner in your hands, even by his own consent, without
knowing the nature of his crime, in which we may have all been his
innocent accessaries.”

“Will it satisfy you to know, that he merits all he will receive?”

“It will at least change my opinion of his character.”

“Look then at this,” said Ishmael, placing before the eyes of the
Captain the bullet that had been found about the person of the dead
Asa; “with this morsel of lead did he lay low as fine a boy as ever
gave joy to a parent’s eyes!”

“I cannot believe that he has done this deed, unless in self-defence,
or on some justifiable provocation. That he knew of the death of your
son, I confess, for he pointed out the brake in which the body lay, but
that he has wrongfully taken his life, nothing but his own
acknowledgment shall persuade me to believe.”

“I have lived long,” commenced the trapper, who found, by the general
pause, that he was expected to vindicate himself from the heavy
imputation, “and much evil have I seen in my day. Many are the prowling
bears and leaping panthers that I have met, fighting for the morsel
which has been thrown in their way; and many are the reasoning men,
that I have looked on striving against each other unto death, in order
that human madness might also have its hour. For myself, I hope, there
is no boasting in saying, that though my hand has been needed in
putting down wickedness and oppression, it has never struck a blow of
which its owner will be ashamed to hear, at a reckoning that shall be
far mightier than this.”

“If my father has taken life from one of his tribe,” said the young
Pawnee, whose quick eye had read the meaning of what was passing, in
the bullet and in the countenances of the others, “let him give himself
up to the friends of the dead, like a warrior. He is too just to need
thongs to lead him to judgment.”

“Boy, I hope you do me justice. If I had done the foul deed, with which
they charge me, I should have manhood enough to come and offer my head
to the blow of punishment, as all good and honest Red-men do the same.”
Then giving his anxious Indian friend a look, to re-assure him of his
innocence, he turned to the rest of his attentive and interested
listeners, as he continued in English, “I have a short story to tell,
and he that believes it will believe the truth, and he that disbelieves
it will only lead himself astray, and perhaps his neighbour too. We
were all out-lying about your camp, friend squatter, as by this time
you may begin to suspect, when we found that it contained a wronged and
imprisoned lady, with intentions neither more honest nor dishonest than
to set her free, as in nature and justice she had a right to be. Seeing
that I was more skilled in scouting than the others, while they lay
back in the cover, I was sent upon the plain, on the business of the
reconnoitrings. You little thought that one was so nigh, who saw into
all the circumventions of your hunt; but there was I, sometimes flat
behind a bush or a tuft of grass, sometimes rolling down a hill into a
bottom, and little did you dream that your motions were watched, as the
panther watches the drinking deer. Lord, squatter, when I was a man in
the pride and strength of my days, I have looked in at the tent door of
the enemy, and they sleeping, ay, and dreaming too, of being at home
and in peace! I wish there was time to give you the partic—”

“Proceed with your explanation,” interrupted Middleton.

“Ah! and a bloody and wicked sight it was. There I lay in a low bed of
grass, as two of the hunters came nigh each other. Their meeting was
not cordial, nor such as men, who meet in a desert, should give each
other; but I thought they would have parted in peace, until I saw one
put his rifle to the other’s back, and do what I call a treacherous and
sinful murder. It was a noble and a manly youth, that boy—Though the
powder burnt his coat, he stood the shock for more than a minute,
before he fell. Then was he brought to his knees, and a desperate and
manful fight he made to the brake, like a wounded bear seeking a
cover!”

“And why, in the name of heavenly justice, did you conceal this?” cried
Middleton.

“What! think you, Captain, that a man, who has spent more than
threescore years in the wilderness, has not learned the virtue of
discretion. What red warrior runs to tell the sights he has seen, until
a fitting time? I took the Doctor to the place, in order to see whether
his skill might not come in use; and our friend, the bee-hunter, being
in company, was knowing to the fact that the bushes held the body.”

“Ay; it ar’ true,” said Paul; “but not knowing what private reasons
might make the old trapper wish to hush the matter up, I said as little
about the thing as possible, which was just nothing at all.”

“And who was the perpetrator of this deed?” demanded Middleton.

“If by perpetrator you mean him who did the act, yonder stands the man;
and a shame, and a disgrace is it to our race, that he is of the blood
and family of the dead.”

“He lies! he lies!” shrieked Abiram. “I did no murder; I gave but blow
for blow.”

The voice of Ishmael was deep, and even awful, as he answered—

“It is enough. Let the old man go. Boys, put the brother of your mother
in his place.”

“Touch me not!” cried Abiram. “I’ll call on God to curse you if you
touch me!”

The wild and disordered gleam of his eye, at first induced the young
men to arrest their steps; but when Abner, older and more resolute than
the rest, advanced full upon him, with a countenance that bespoke the
hostile state of his mind, the affrighted criminal turned, and, making
an abortive effort to fly, fell with his face to the earth, to all
appearance perfectly dead. Amid the low exclamations of horror which
succeeded, Ishmael made a gesture which commanded his sons to bear the
body into the tent.

“Now,” he said, turning to those who were strangers in his camp,
“nothing is left to be done, but for each to go his own road. I wish
you all well; and to you, Ellen, though you may not prize the gift, I
say, God bless you!”

Middleton, awe-struck by what he believed a manifest judgment of
Heaven, made no further resistance, but prepared to depart. The
arrangements were brief, and soon completed. When they were all ready,
they took a short and silent leave of the squatter and his family; and
then the whole of the singularly constituted party were seen slowly and
silently following the victorious Pawnee towards his distant villages.




CHAPTER XXXII


And I beseech you,
Wrest once the law, to your authority:
To do a great right, do a little wrong.
                   —Shakespeare.


Ishmael awaited long and patiently for the motley train of Hard-Heart
to disappear. When his scout reported that the last straggler of the
Indians, who had joined their chief so soon as he was at such a
distance from the encampment as to excite no jealousy by their numbers,
had gone behind the most distant swell of the prairie, he gave forth
the order to strike his tents. The cattle were already in the gears,
and the movables were soon transferred to their usual places in the
different vehicles. When all these arrangements were completed, the
little wagon, which had so long been the tenement of Inez, was drawn
before the tent, into which the insensible body of the kidnapper had
been borne, and preparations were evidently made for the reception of
another prisoner. Then it was, as Abiram appeared, pale, terrified, and
tottering beneath a load of detected guilt, that the younger members of
the family were first apprised that he still belonged to the class of
the living. A general and superstitious impression had spread among
them, that his crime had been visited by a terrible retribution from
Heaven; and they now gazed at him, as at a being who belonged rather to
another world, than as a mortal, who, like themselves, had still to
endure the last agony before the great link of human existence could be
broken. The criminal himself appeared to be in a state, in which the
most sensitive and startling terror was singularly combined with total
physical apathy. The truth was, that while his person had been numbed
by the shock, his susceptibility to apprehension kept his agitated mind
in unrelieved distress. When he found himself in the open air, he
looked about him, in order to gather, if possible, some evidences of
his future fate, from the countenances of those gathered round. Seeing
every where grave but composed features, and meeting in no eye any
expression that threatened immediate violence, the miserable man began
to revive; and, by the time he was seated in the wagon, his artful
faculties were beginning to plot the expedients of parrying the just
resentment of his kinsmen, or, if these should fail him, the means of
escaping from a punishment that his forebodings told him would be
terrible.

Throughout the whole of these preparations Ishmael rarely spoke. A
gesture, or a glance of the eye, served to indicate his pleasure to his
sons, and with these simple methods of communication, all parties
appeared content. When the signal was made to proceed, the squatter
threw his rifle into the hollow of his arm, and his axe across his
shoulder, taking the lead as usual. Esther buried herself in the wagon
which contained her daughters; the young men took their customary
places among the cattle, or nigh the teams, and the whole proceeded, at
their ordinary, dull, but unremitted gait.

For the first time, in many a day, the squatter turned his back towards
the setting sun. The route he held was in the direction of the settled
country, and the manner in which he moved sufficed to tell his
children, who had learned to read their father’s determinations in his
mien, that their journey on the prairie was shortly to have an end.
Still nothing else transpired for hours, that might denote the
existence of any sudden, or violent, revolution in the purposes or
feelings of Ishmael. During all that time he marched alone, keeping a
few hundred rods in front of his teams, seldom giving any sign of
extraordinary excitement. Once or twice, indeed, his huge figure was
seen standing on the summit of some distant swell, with the head bent
towards the earth, as he leaned on his rifle; but then these moments of
intense thought were rare, and of short continuance. The train had long
thrown its shadows towards the east, before any material alteration was
made in the disposition of their march. Water-courses were waded,
plains were passed, and rolling ascents risen and descended, without
producing the smallest change. Long practised in the difficulties of
that peculiar species of travelling in which he was engaged, the
squatter avoided the more impracticable obstacles of their route by a
sort of instinct, invariably inclining to the right or left in season,
as the formation of the land, the presence of trees, or the signs of
rivers forewarned him of the necessity of such movements.

At length the hour arrived when charity to man and beast required a
temporary suspension of labour. Ishmael chose the required spot with
his customary sagacity. The regular formation of the country, such as
it has been described in the earlier pages of our book, had long been
interrupted by a more unequal and broken surface. There were, it is
true, in general, the same wide and empty wastes, the same rich and
extensive bottoms, and that wild and singular combination of swelling
fields and of nakedness, which gives that region the appearance of an
ancient country, incomprehensibly stripped of its people and their
dwellings. But these distinguishing features of the rolling prairies
had long been interrupted by irregular hillocks, occasional masses of
rock, and broad belts of forest.

Ishmael chose a spring, that broke out of the base of a rock some forty
or fifty feet in elevation, as a place well suited to the wants of his
herds. The water moistened a small swale that lay beneath the spot,
which yielded, in return for the fecund gift, a scanty growth of grass.
A solitary willow had taken root in the alluvion, and profiting by its
exclusive possession of the soil, the tree had sent up its stem far
above the crest of the adjacent rock, whose peaked summit had once been
shadowed by its branches. But its loveliness had gone with the
mysterious principle of life. As if in mockery of the meagre show of
verdure that the spot exhibited, it remained a noble and solemn
monument of former fertility. The larger, ragged, and fantastic
branches still obtruded themselves abroad, while the white and hoary
trunk stood naked and tempest-riven. Not a leaf, nor a sign of
vegetation, was to be seen about it. In all things it proclaimed the
frailty of existence, and the fulfilment of time.

Here Ishmael, after making the customary signal for the train to
approach, threw his vast frame upon the earth, and seemed to muse on
the deep responsibility of his present situation. His sons were not
long in arriving; for the cattle no sooner scented the food and water
than they quickened their pace, and then succeeded the usual bustle and
avocations of a halt.

The impression made by the scene of that morning was not so deep, or
lasting, on the children of Ishmael and Esther, as to induce them to
forget the wants of nature. But while the sons were searching among
their stores, for something substantial to appease their hunger, and
the younger fry were wrangling about their simple dishes, the parents
of the unnurtured family were differently employed.

When the squatter saw that all, even to the reviving Abiram, were busy
in administering to their appetites, he gave his downcast partner a
glance of his eye, and withdrew towards a distant roll of the land,
which bounded the view towards the east. The meeting of the pair, in
this naked spot, was like an interview held above the grave of their
murdered son. Ishmael signed to his wife to take a seat beside him on a
fragment of rock, and then followed a space, during which neither
seemed disposed to speak.

“We have journeyed together long, through good and bad,” Ishmael at
length commenced: “much have we had to try us, and some bitter cups
have we been made to swallow, my woman; but nothing like this has ever
before lain in my path.”

“It is a heavy cross for a poor, misguided, and sinful woman to bear!”
returned Esther, bowing her head to her knees, and partly concealing
her face in her dress. “A heavy and a burdensome weight is this to be
laid upon the shoulders of a sister and a mother!”

“Ay; therein lies the hardship of the case. I had brought my mind to
the punishment of that houseless trapper, with no great strivings, for
the man had done me few favours, and God forgive me if I suspected him
wrongfully of much evil! This is, however, bringing shame in at one
door of my cabin, in order to drive it out at the other. But shall a
son of mine be murdered, and he who did it go at large?—the boy would
never rest!”

“Oh, Ishmael, we pushed the matter far. Had little been said, who would
have been the wiser? Our consciences might then have been quiet.”

“Eest’er,” said the husband, turning on her a reproachful but still a
dull regard, “the hour has been, my woman, when you thought another
hand had done this wickedness.”

“I did, I did the Lord gave me the feeling, as a punishment for my
sins! but his mercy was not slow in lifting the veil; I looked into the
book, Ishmael, and there I found the words of comfort.”

“Have you that book at hand, woman; it may happen to advise in such a
dreary business.”

Esther fumbled in her pocket, and was not long in producing the
fragment of a Bible, which had been thumbed and smoke-dried till the
print was nearly illegible. It was the only article, in the nature of a
book, that was to be found among the chattels of the squatter, and it
had been preserved by his wife, as a melancholy relic of more
prosperous, and possibly of more innocent, days. She had long been in
the habit of resorting to it, under the pressure of such circumstances
as were palpably beyond human redress, though her spirit and resolution
rarely needed support under those that admitted of reparation through
any of the ordinary means of reprisal. In this manner Esther had made a
sort of convenient ally of the word of God; rarely troubling it for
counsel, however, except when her own incompetency to avert an evil was
too apparent to be disputed. We shall leave casuists to determine how
far she resembled any other believers in this particular, and proceed
directly with the matter before us.

“There are many awful passages in these pages, Ishmael,” she said, when
the volume was opened, and the leaves were slowly turning under her
finger, “and some there ar’ that teach the rules of punishment.”

Her husband made a gesture for her to find one of those brief rules of
conduct, which have been received among all Christian nations as the
direct mandates of the Creator, and which have been found so just, that
even they, who deny their high authority, admit their wisdom. Ishmael
listened with grave attention, as his companion read all those verses,
which her memory suggested, and which were thought applicable to the
situation in which they found themselves. He made her show him the
words, which he regarded with a sort of strange reverence. A resolution
once taken was usually irrevocable, in one who was moved with so much
difficulty. He put his hand upon the book, and closed the pages
himself, as much as to apprise his wife that he was satisfied. Esther,
who so well knew his character, trembled at the action, and casting a
glance at his steady eye, she said—

“And yet, Ishmael, my blood, and the blood of my children, is in his
veins, cannot mercy be shown?”

“Woman,” he answered sternly, “when we believed that miserable old
trapper had done this deed, nothing was said of mercy!”

Esther made no reply, but folding her arms upon her breast, she sat
silent and thoughtful for many minutes. Then she once more turned her
anxious gaze upon the countenance of her husband, where she found all
passion and care apparently buried in the coldest apathy. Satisfied
now, that the fate of her brother was sealed, and possibly conscious
how well he merited the punishment that was meditated, she no longer
thought of mediation. No more words passed between them. Their eyes met
for an instant, and then both arose and walked in profound silence
towards the encampment.

The squatter found his children expecting his return in the usual
listless manner with which they awaited all coming events. The cattle
were already herded, and the horses in their gears, in readiness to
proceed, so soon as he should indicate that such was his pleasure. The
children were already in their proper vehicle, and, in short, nothing
delayed the departure but the absence of the parents of the wild brood.

“Abner,” said the father, with the deliberation with which all his
proceedings were characterised, “take the brother of your mother from
the wagon, and let him stand on the ’arth.”

Abiram issued from his place of concealment, trembling, it is true, but
far from destitute of hopes, as to his final success in appeasing the
just resentment of his kinsman. After throwing a glance around him,
with the vain wish of finding a single countenance in which he might
detect a solitary gleam of sympathy, he endeavoured to smother those
apprehensions, that were by this time reviving in their original
violence, by forcing a sort of friendly communication between himself
and the squatter—

“The beasts are getting jaded, brother,” he said, “and as we have made
so good a march already, is it not time to camp. To my eye you may go
far, before a better place than this is found to pass the night in.”

“Tis well you like it. Your tarry here ar’ likely to be long. My sons,
draw nigh and listen. Abiram White,” he added, lifting his cap, and
speaking with a solemnity and steadiness, that rendered even his dull
mien imposing, “you have slain my first-born, and according to the laws
of God and man must you die!”

The kidnapper started at this terrible and sudden sentence, with the
terror that one would exhibit who unexpectedly found himself in the
grasp of a monster, from whose power there was no retreat. Although
filled with the most serious forebodings of what might be his lot, his
courage had not been equal to look his danger in the face, and with the
deceitful consolation, with which timid tempers are apt to conceal
their desperate condition from themselves, he had rather courted a
treacherous relief in his cunning, than prepared himself for the worst.

“Die!” he repeated, in a voice that scarcely issued from his chest; “a
man is surely safe among his kinsmen!”

“So thought my boy,” returned the squatter, motioning for the team,
that contained his wife and the girls, to proceed, as he very coolly
examined the priming of his piece. “By the rifle did you destroy my
son; it is fit and just that you meet your end by the same weapon.”

Abiram stared about him with a gaze that bespoke an unsettled reason.
He even laughed, as if he would not only persuade himself but others
that what he heard was some pleasantry, intended to try his nerves. But
nowhere did his frightful merriment meet with an answering echo. All
around was solemn and still. The visages of his nephews were excited,
but cold towards him, and that of his former confederate frightfully
determined. This very steadiness of mien was a thousand times more
alarming and hopeless than any violence could have proved. The latter
might possibly have touched his spirit and awakened resistance, but the
former threw him entirely on the feeble resources of himself.

“Brother,” he said, in a hurried, unnatural whisper, “did I hear you?”

“My words are plain, Abiram White: thou hast done murder, and for the
same must thou die!”

“Esther! sister, sister, will you leave me! Oh sister! do you hear my
call?”

“I hear one speak from the grave!” returned the husky tones of Esther,
as the wagon passed the spot where the criminal stood. “It is the voice
of my firstborn, calling aloud for justice! God have mercy, God have
mercy, on your soul!”

The team slowly pursued its route, and the deserted Abiram now found
himself deprived of the smallest vestige of hope. Still he could not
summon fortitude to meet his death, and had not his limbs refused to
aid him, he would yet have attempted to fly. Then, by a sudden
revolution from hope to utter despair, he fell upon his knees, and
commenced a prayer, in which cries for mercy to God and to his kinsman
were wildly and blasphemously mingled. The sons of Ishmael turned away
in horror at the disgusting spectacle, and even the stern nature of the
squatter began to bend before so abject misery.

“May that, which you ask of Him, be granted,” he said; “but a father
can never forget a murdered child.”

He was answered by the most humble appeals for time. A week, a day, an
hour, were each implored, with an earnestness commensurate to the value
they receive, when a whole life is compressed into their short
duration. The squatter was troubled, and at length he yielded in part
to the petitions of the criminal. His final purpose was not altered,
though he changed the means. “Abner,” he said, “mount the rock, and
look on every side, that we may be sure none are nigh.”

While his nephew was obeying this order, gleams of reviving hope were
seen shooting across the quivering features of the kidnapper. The
report was favourable, nothing having life, the retiring teams
excepted, was to be seen. A messenger was, however, coming from the
latter, in great apparent haste. Ishmael awaited its arrival. He
received from the hands of one of his wondering and frighted girls a
fragment of that book, which Esther had preserved with so much care.
The squatter beckoned the child away, and placed the leaves in the
hands of the criminal.

“Eest’er has sent you this,” he said, “that, in your last moments, you
may remember God.”

“Bless her, bless her! a good and kind sister has she been to me. But
time must be given, that I may read; time, my brother, time!”

“Time shall not be wanting. You shall be your own executioner, and this
miserable office shall pass away from my hands.”

Ishmael proceeded to put his new resolution in force. The immediate
apprehensions of the kidnapper were quieted, by an assurance that he
might yet live for days, though his punishment was inevitable. A
reprieve, to one abject and wretched as Abiram, temporarily produced
the same effects as a pardon. He was even foremost in assisting in the
appalling arrangements, and of all the actors, in that solemn tragedy,
his voice alone was facetious and jocular.

A thin shelf of the rock projected beneath one of the ragged arms of
the willow. It was many feet from the ground, and admirably adapted to
the purpose which, in fact, its appearance had suggested. On this
little platform the criminal was placed, his arms bound at the elbows
behind his back, beyond the possibility of liberation, with a proper
cord leading from his neck to the limb of the tree. The latter was so
placed, that when suspended the body could find no foot-hold. The
fragment of the Bible was placed in his hands, and he was left to seek
his consolation as he might from its pages.

“And now, Abiram White,” said the squatter, when his sons had descended
from completing this arrangement, “I give you a last and solemn asking.
Death is before you in two shapes. With this rifle can your misery be
cut short, or by that cord, sooner or later, must you meet your end.”

“Let me yet live! Oh, Ishmael, you know not how sweet life is, when the
last moment draws so nigh!”

“’Tis done,” said the squatter, motioning for his assistants to follow
the herds and teams. “And now, miserable man, that it may prove a
consolation to your end, I forgive you my wrongs, and leave you to your
God.”

Ishmael turned and pursued his way across the plain, at his ordinary
sluggish and ponderous gait. Though his head was bent a little towards
the earth, his inactive mind did not prompt him to cast a look behind.
Once, indeed, he thought he heard his name called, in tones that were a
little smothered, but they failed to make him pause.

At the spot where he and Esther had conferred, he reached the boundary
of the visible horizon from the rock. Here he stopped, and ventured a
glance in the direction of the place he had just quitted. The sun was
near dipping into the plains beyond, and its last rays lighted the
naked branches of the willow. He saw the ragged outline of the whole
drawn against the glowing heavens, and he even traced the still upright
form of the being he had left to his misery. Turning the roll of the
swell, he proceeded with the feelings of one, who had been suddenly and
violently separated from a recent confederate, for ever.

Within a mile, the squatter overtook his teams. His sons had found a
place suited to the encampment for the night, and merely awaited his
approach to confirm their choice. Few words were necessary to express
his acquiescence. Every thing passed in a silence more general and
remarkable than ever. The chidings of Esther were not heard among her
young, or if heard, they were more in the tones of softened admonition,
than in her usual, upbraiding, key.

No questions nor explanations passed between the husband and his wife.
It was only as the latter was about to withdraw among her children, for
the night, that the former saw her taking a furtive look at the pan of
his rifle. Ishmael bade his sons seek their rest, announcing his
intention to look to the safety of the camp in person. When all was
still, he walked out upon the prairie, with a sort of sensation that he
found his breathing among the tents too straitened. The night was well
adapted to heighten the feelings, which had been created by the events
of the day.

The wind had risen with the moon, and it was occasionally sweeping over
the plain, in a manner that made it not difficult for the sentinel to
imagine strange and unearthly sounds were mingling in the blasts.
Yielding to the extraordinary impulses of which he was the subject, he
cast a glance around, to see that all were slumbering in security, and
then he strayed towards the swell of land already mentioned. Here the
squatter found himself at a point that commanded a view to the east and
to the west. Light fleecy clouds were driving before the moon, which
was cold and watery though there were moments, when its placid rays
were shed from clear blue fields, seeming to soften objects to its own
mild loveliness.

For the first time, in a life of so much wild adventure, Ishmael felt a
keen sense of solitude. The naked prairies began to assume the forms of
illimitable and dreary wastes and the rushing of the wind sounded like
the whisperings of the dead. It was not long before he thought a shriek
was borne past him on a blast. It did not sound like a call from earth
but it swept frightfully through the upper air mingled with the hoarse
accompaniment of the wind. The teeth of the squatter were compressed,
and his huge hand grasped the rifle, as if it would crush the metal.
Then came a lull, a fresher blast, and a cry of horror that seemed to
have been uttered at the very portals of his ears. A sort of echo burst
involuntarily from his own lips, as men shout under unnatural
excitement, and throwing his rifle across his shoulder he proceeded
towards the rock with the strides of a giant.

It was not often that the blood of Ishmael moved at the rate with which
the fluid circulates in the veins of ordinary men; but now he felt it
ready to gush from every pore in his body. The animal was aroused, in
his most latent energies. Ever as he advanced he heard those shrieks,
which sometimes seemed ringing among the clouds, and sometimes passed
so nigh, as to appear to brush the earth. At length there came a cry,
in which there could be no delusion, or to which the imagination could
lend no horror. It appeared to fill each cranny of the air, as the
visible horizon is often charged to fulness by one dazzling flash of
the electric fluid. The name of God was distinctly audible, but it was
awfully and blasphemously blended with sounds that may not be repeated.
The squatter stopped, and for a moment he covered his ears with his
hands. When he withdrew the latter, a low and husky voice at his elbow
asked in smothered tones—

“Ishmael, my man, heard ye nothing?”

“Hist,” returned the husband, laying a powerful arm on Esther, without
manifesting the smallest surprise at the unlooked-for presence of his
wife. “Hist, woman! if you have the fear of Heaven, be still!”

A profound silence succeeded. Though the wind rose and fell as before,
its rushing was no longer mingled with those fearful cries. The sounds
were imposing and solemn, but it was the solemnity and majesty of
nature.

“Let us go on,” said Esther; “all is hushed.”

“Woman, what has brought you here?” demanded her husband, whose blood
had returned into its former channels, and whose thoughts had already
lost a portion of their excitement.

“Ishmael, he murdered our first-born; but it is not meet that the son
of my mother should lie upon the ground, like the carrion of a dog!”

“Follow,” returned the squatter, again grasping his rifle, and striding
towards the rock. The distance was still considerable; and their
approach, as they drew nigh the place of execution, was moderated by
awe. Many minutes had passed, before they reached a spot where they
might distinguish the outlines of the dusky objects.

“Where have you put the body?” whispered Esther. “See, here are pick
and spade, that a brother of mine may sleep in the bosom of the earth!”

The moon broke from behind a mass of clouds, and the eye of the woman
was enabled to follow the finger of Ishmael. It pointed to a human form
swinging in the wind, beneath the ragged and shining arm of the willow.
Esther bent her head and veiled her eyes from the sight. But Ishmael
drew nigher, and long contemplated his work in awe, though not in
compunction. The leaves of the sacred book were scattered on the
ground, and even a fragment of the shelf had been displaced by the
kidnapper in his agony. But all was now in the stillness of death. The
grim and convulsed countenance of the victim was at times brought full
into the light of the moon, and again as the wind lulled, the fatal
rope drew a dark line across its bright disk. The squatter raised his
rifle, with extreme care, and fired. The cord was cut and the body came
lumbering to the earth a heavy and insensible mass.

Until now Esther had not moved nor spoken. But her hand was not slow to
assist in the labour of the hour. The grave was soon dug. It was
instantly made to receive its miserable tenant. As the lifeless form
descended, Esther, who sustained the head, looked up into the face of
her husband with an expression of anguish, and said—

“Ishmael, my man, it is very terrible! I cannot kiss the corpse of my
father’s child!”

The squatter laid his broad hand on the bosom of the dead, and said—

“Abiram White, we all have need of mercy; from my soul do I forgive
you! May God in Heaven have pity on your sins!”

The woman bowed her face and imprinted her lips long and fervently on
the pallid forehead of her brother. After this came the falling clods
and all the solemn sounds of filling a grave. Esther lingered on her
knees, and Ishmael stood uncovered while the woman muttered a prayer.
All was then finished.

On the following morning the teams and herds of the squatter were seen
pursuing their course towards the settlements. As they approached the
confines of society the train was blended among a thousand others.
Though some of the numerous descendants of this peculiar pair were
reclaimed from their lawless and semi-barbarous lives, the principals
of the family, themselves, were never heard of more.




CHAPTER XXXIII


—No leave take I; for I will ride
As far as land will let me, by your side.
                   —Shakespeare.


The passage of the Pawnee to his village was interrupted by no scene of
violence. His vengeance had been as complete as it was summary. Not
even a solitary scout of the Siouxes was left on the hunting grounds he
was obliged to traverse, and of course the journey of Middleton’s party
was as peaceful as if made in the bosom of the States. The marches were
timed to meet the weakness of the females. In short, the victors seemed
to have lost every trace of ferocity with their success, and appeared
disposed to consult the most trifling of the wants of that engrossing
people, who were daily encroaching on their rights, and reducing the
Red-men of the west, from their state of proud independence to the
condition of fugitives and wanderers.

Our limits will not permit a detail of the triumphal entry of the
conquerors. The exultation of the tribe was proportioned to its
previous despondency. Mothers boasted of the honourable deaths of their
sons; wives proclaimed the honour and pointed to the scars of their
husbands, and Indian girls rewarded the young braves with songs of
triumph. The trophies of their fallen enemies were exhibited, as
conquered standards are displayed in more civilised regions. The deeds
of former warriors were recounted by the aged men, and declared to be
eclipsed by the glory of this victory. While Hard-Heart himself, so
distinguished for his exploits from boyhood to that hour, was
unanimously proclaimed and re-proclaimed the worthiest chief and the
stoutest brave that the Wahcondah had ever bestowed on his most
favoured children, the Pawnees of the Loup.

Notwithstanding the comparative security in which Middleton found his
recovered treasure, he was not sorry to see his faithful and sturdy
artillerists standing among the throng, as he entered in the wild
train, and lifting their voices, in a martial shout, to greet his
return. The presence of this force, small as it was, removed every
shadow of uneasiness from his mind. It made him master of his
movements, gave him dignity and importance in the eyes of his new
friends, and would enable him to overcome the difficulties of the wide
region which still lay between the village of the Pawnees and the
nearest fortress of his countrymen. A lodge was yielded to the
exclusive possession of Inez and Ellen; and even Paul, when he saw an
armed sentinel in the uniform of the States, pacing before its
entrance, was content to stray among the dwellings of the “Red-skins,”
prying with but little reserve into their domestic economy, commenting
sometimes jocularly, sometimes gravely, and always freely, on their
different expedients, or endeavouring to make the wondering housewives
comprehend his quaint explanations of what he conceived to be the
better customs of the whites.

This enquiring and troublesome spirit found no imitators among the
Indians. The delicacy and reserve of Hard-Heart were communicated to
his people. When every attention, that could be suggested by their
simple manners and narrow wants, had been fulfilled, no intrusive foot
presumed to approach the cabins devoted to the service of the
strangers. They were left to seek their repose in the manner which most
comported with their habits and inclinations. The songs and rejoicings
of the tribe, however, ran far into the night, during the deepest hours
of which, the voice of more than one warrior was heard, recounting from
the top of his lodge, the deeds of his people and the glory of their
triumphs.

Every thing having life, notwithstanding the excesses of the night, was
abroad with the appearance of the sun. The expression of exultation,
which had so lately been seen on every countenance, was now changed to
one better suited to the feeling of the moment. It was understood by
all, that the Pale-faces, who had befriended their chief were about to
take their final leave of the tribe. The soldiers of Middleton, in
anticipation of his arrival, had bargained with an unsuccessful trader
for the use of his boat, which lay in the stream ready to receive its
cargo, and nothing remained to complete the arrangements for the long
journey.

Middleton did not see this moment arrive entirely without distrust. The
admiration with which Hard-Heart regarded Inez, had not escaped his
jealous eye, any more than had the lawless wishes of Mahtoree. He knew
the consummate manner in which a savage could conceal his designs, and
he felt that it would be a culpable weakness to be unprepared for the
worst. Secret instructions were therefore given to his men, while the
preparations they made were properly masked behind the show of military
parade, with which it was intended to signalise their departure.

The conscience of the young soldier reproached him, when he saw the
whole tribe accompanying his party to the margin of the stream, with
unarmed hands and sorrowful countenances. They gathered in a circle
around the strangers and their chief, and became not only peaceful, but
highly interested observers of what was passing. As it was evident that
Hard-Heart intended to speak, the former stopped, and manifested their
readiness to listen, the trapper performing the office of interpreter.
Then the young chief addressed his people, in the usual metaphorical
language of an Indian. He commenced by alluding to the antiquity and
renown of his own nation. He spoke of their successes in the hunts and
on the war-path; of the manner in which they had always known how to
defend their rights and to chastise their enemies. After he had said
enough to manifest his respect for the greatness of the Loups, and to
satisfy the pride of the listeners, he made a sudden transition to the
race of whom the strangers were members. He compared their countless
numbers to the flights of migratory birds in the season of blossoms, or
in the fall of the year. With a delicacy, that none know better how to
practise than an Indian warrior, he made no direct mention of the
rapacious temper, that so many of them had betrayed, in their dealings
with the Red-men. Feeling that the sentiment of distrust was strongly
engrafted in the tempers of his tribe, he rather endeavoured to soothe
any just resentment they might entertain, by indirect excuses and
apologies. He reminded the listeners that even the Pawnee Loups had
been obliged to chase many unworthy individuals from their villages.
The Wahcondah sometimes veiled his countenance from a Red-man. No doubt
the Great Spirit of the Pale-faces often looked darkly on his children.
Such as were abandoned to the worker of evil could never be brave or
virtuous, let the colour of the skin be what it might. He bade his
young men look at the hands of the Big-knives. They were not empty,
like those of hungry beggars. Neither were they filled with goods, like
those of knavish traders. They were, like themselves, warriors, and
they carried arms which they knew well how to use—they were worthy to
be called brothers!

Then he directed the attention of all to the chief of the strangers. He
was a son of their great white father. He had not come upon the
prairies to frighten the buffaloes from their pastures, or to seek the
game of the Indians. Wicked men had robbed him of one of his wives; no
doubt she was the most obedient, the meekest, the loveliest of them
all. They had only to open their eyes to see that his words must be
true. Now, that the white chief had found his wife, he was about to
return to his own people in peace. He would tell them that the Pawnees
were just, and there would be a line of wampum between the two nations.
Let all his people wish the strangers a safe return to their towns. The
warriors of the Loups knew both how to receive their enemies, and how
to clear the briars from the path of their friends.

The heart of Middleton beat quick, as the young partisan[18] alluded to
the charms of Inez, and for an instant he cast an impatient glance at
his little line of artillerists; but the chief from that moment
appeared to forget he had ever seen so fair a being. His feelings, if
he had any on the subject, were veiled behind the cold mask of Indian
self-denial. He took each warrior by the hand, not forgetting the
meanest soldier, but his cold and collected eye never wandered, for an
instant, towards either of the females. Arrangements had been made for
their comfort, with a prodigality and care that had not failed to
excite some surprise in his young men, but in no other particular did
he shock their manly pride, by betraying any solicitude in behalf of
the weaker sex.

The leave-taking was general and imposing. Each male Pawnee was
sedulous to omit no one of the strange warriors in his attentions, and
of course the ceremony occupied some time. The only exception, and that
was not general, was in the case of Dr. Battius. Not a few of the young
men, it is true, were indifferent about lavishing civilities on one of
so doubtful a profession, but the worthy naturalist found some
consolation in the more matured politeness of the old men, who had
inferred, that though not of much use in war, the medicine of the
Big-knives might possibly be made serviceable in peace.

When all of Middleton’s party had embarked, the trapper lifted a small
bundle, which had lain at his feet during the previous proceedings, and
whistling Hector to his side, he was the last to take his seat. The
artillerists gave the usual cheers, which were answered by a shout from
the tribe, and then the boat was shoved into the current, and began to
glide swiftly down its stream.

A long and a musing, if not a melancholy, silence succeeded this
departure. It was first broken by the trapper, whose regret was not the
least visible in his dejected and sorrowful eye—

“They are a valiant and an honest tribe,” he said; “that will I say
boldly in their favour; and second only do I take them to be to that
once mighty but now scattered people, the Delawares of the Hills. Ah’s
me, Captain, if you had seen as much good and evil as I have seen in
these nations of Red-skins, you would know of how much value was a
brave and simple-minded warrior. I know that some are to be found, who
both think and say that an Indian is but little better than the beasts
of these naked plains. But it is needful to be honest in one’s self, to
be a fitting judge of honesty in others. No doubt, no doubt they know
their enemies, and little do they care to show to such any great
confidence, or love.”

“It is the way of man,” returned the Captain; “and it is probable they
are not wanting in any of his natural qualities.”

“No, no; it is little that they want, that natur’ has had to give. But
as little does he know of the temper of a Red-skin, who has seen but
one Indian, or one tribe, as he knows of the colour of feathers who has
only looked upon a crow. Now, friend steersman, just give the boat a
sheer towards yonder, low, sandy point, and a favour will be granted at
a short asking.”

“For what?” demanded Middleton; “we are now in the swiftest of the
current, and by drawing to the shore we shall lose the force of the
stream.”

“Your tarry will not be long,” returned the old man, applying his own
hand to the execution of that which he had requested. The oarsmen had
seen enough of his influence, with their leader, not to dispute his
wishes, and before time was given for further discussion on the
subject, the bow of the boat had touched the land.

“Captain,” resumed the other, untying his little wallet with great
deliberation, and even in a manner to show he found satisfaction in the
delay, “I wish to offer you a small matter of trade. No great bargain,
mayhap; but still the best that one, of whose hand the skill of the
rifle has taken leave, and who has become no better than a miserable
trapper, can offer before we part.”

“Part!” was echoed from every mouth, among those who had so recently
shared his dangers, and profited by his care.

“What the devil, old trapper, do you mean to foot it to the
settlements, when here is a boat that will float the distance in half
the time, that the jackass, the Doctor has given the Pawnee, could trot
along the same.”

“Settlements, boy! It is long sin’ I took my leave of the waste and
wickedness of the settlements and the villages. If I live in a
clearing, here, it is one of the Lord’s making, and I have no hard
thoughts on the matter; but never again shall I be seen running
wilfully into the danger of immoralities.”

“I had not thought of parting,” answered Middleton, endeavouring to
seek some relief from the uneasiness he felt, by turning his eyes on
the sympathising countenances of his friends; “on the contrary, I had
hoped and believed that you would have accompanied us below, where I
give you a sacred pledge, nothing shall be wanting to make your days
comfortable.”

“Yes, lad, yes; you would do your endeavours; but what are the
strivings of man against the working of the devil! Ay, if kind offers
and good wishes could have done the thing, I might have been a congress
man, or perhaps a governor, years agone. Your grand’ther wished the
same, and there are them still lying in the Otsego mountains, as I
hope, who would gladly have given me a palace for my dwelling. But what
are riches without content! My time must now be short, at any rate, and
I hope it’s no mighty sin for one, who has acted his part honestly near
ninety winters and summers, to wish to pass the few hours that remain
in comfort. If you think I have done wrong in coming thus far to quit
you again, Captain, I will own the reason of the act, without shame or
backwardness. Though I have seen so much of the wilderness, it is not
to be gainsayed, that my feelings, as well as my skin, are white. Now
it would not be a fitting spectacle, that yonder Pawnee Loups should
look upon the weakness of an old warrior, if weakness he should happen
to show in parting for ever from those he has reason to love, though he
may not set his heart so strongly on them, as to wish to go into the
settlements in their company.”

“Harkee, old trapper,” said Paul, clearing his throat with a desperate
effort, as if determined to give his voice a clear exit; “I have just
one bargain to make, since you talk of trading, which is neither more
or less than this. I offer you, as my side of the business, one half of
my shanty, nor do I much care if it be the biggest half; the sweetest
and the purest honey that can be made of the wild locust; always enough
to eat, with now and then a mouthful of venison, or, for that matter, a
morsel of buffaloe’s hump, seeing that I intend to push my acquaintance
with the animal, and as good and as tidy cooking as can come from the
hands of one like Ellen Wade, here, who will shortly be Nelly
somebody-else, and altogether such general treatment as a decent man
might be supposed to pay to his best friend, or for that matter, to his
own father; in return for the same, you ar’ to give us at odd moments
some of your ancient traditions, perhaps a little wholesome advice on
occasions, in small quantities at a time, and as much of your agreeable
company as you please.”

“It is well—it is well, boy,” returned the old man, fumbling at his
wallet; “honestly offered, and not unthankfully declined—but it cannot
be; no, it can never be.”

“Venerable venator,” said Dr. Battius; “there are obligations, which
every man owes to society and to human nature. It is time that you
should return to your countrymen, to deliver up some of those stores of
experimental knowledge that you have doubtless obtained by so long a
sojourn in the wilds, which, however they may be corrupted by
preconceived opinions, will prove acceptable bequests to those whom, as
you say, you must shortly leave for ever.”

“Friend physicianer,” returned the trapper, looking the other steadily
in the face, “as it would be no easy matter to judge of the temper of
the rattler by considering the fashions of the moose, so it would be
hard to speak of the usefulness of one man by thinking too much of the
deeds of another. You have your gifts like others, I suppose, and
little do I wish to disturb them. But as to me, the Lord has made me
for a doer and not a talker, and therefore do I consider it no harm to
shut my ears to your invitation.”

“It is enough,” interrupted Middleton, “I have seen and heard so much
of this extraordinary man, as to know that persuasions will not change
his purpose. First we will hear your request, my friend, and then we
will consider what may be best done for your advantage.”

“It is a small matter, Captain,” returned the old man, succeeding at
length in opening his bundle. “A small and trifling matter is it, to
what I once used to offer in the way of bargain; but then it is the
best I have, and therein not to be despised. Here are the skins of four
beavers, that I took, it might be a month afore we met, and here is
another from a racoon, that is of no great matter to be sure, but which
may serve to make weight atween us.”

“And what do you propose to do with them?”

“I offer them in lawful barter. Them knaves the Siouxes, the Lord
forgive me for ever believing it was the Konzas! have stolen the best
of my traps, and driven me altogether to make-shift inventions, which
might foretell a dreary winter for me, should my time stretch into
another season. I wish you therefore to take the skins, and to offer
them to some of the trappers you will not fail to meet below in
exchange for a few traps, and to send the same into the Pawnee village
in my name. Be careful to have my mark painted on them; a letter N,
with a hound’s ear, and the lock of a rifle. There is no Red-skin who
will then dispute my right. For all which trouble I have little more to
offer than my thanks, unless my friend, the bee-hunter here, will
accept of the racoon, and take on himself the special charge of the
whole matter.”

“If I do, may I b—!” The mouth of Paul was stopped by the hand of
Ellen, and he was obliged to swallow the rest of the sentence, which he
did with a species of emotion that bore no slight resemblance to the
process of strangulation.

“Well, well,” returned the old man, meekly; “I hope there is no heavy
offence in the offer. I know that the skin of a racoon is of small
price, but then it was no mighty labour that I asked in return.”

“You entirely mistake the meaning of our friend,” interrupted
Middleton, who observed, that the bee-hunter was looking in every
direction but the right one, and that he was utterly unable to make his
own vindication. “He did not mean to say that he declined the charge,
but merely that he refused all compensation. It is unnecessary,
however, to say more of this; it shall be my office to see that the
debt we owe, is properly discharged, and that all your necessities
shall be anticipated.”

“Anan!” said the old man, looking up enquiringly into the other’s face,
as if to ask an explanation.

“It shall all be as you wish. Lay the skins with my baggage. We will
bargain for you as for ourselves.”

“Thankee, thankee, Captain; you grand’ther was of a free and generous
mind. So much so, in truth, that those just people, the Delawares,
called him the ‘Openhand.’ I wish, now, I was as I used to be, in order
that I might send in the lady a few delicate martens for her tippets
and overcoats, just to show you that I know how to give courtesy for
courtesy. But do not expect the same, for I am too old to give a
promise! It will all be just as the Lord shall see fit. I can offer you
nothing else, for I haven’t liv’d so long in the wilderness, not to
know the scrupulous ways of a gentleman.”

“Harkee, old trapper,” cried the bee-hunter, striking his own hand into
the open palm which the other had extended, with a report but little
below the crack of a rifle, “I have just two things to say—Firstly,
that the Captain has told you my meaning better than I can myself; and,
secondly, if you want a skin, either for your private use or to send
abroad, I have it at your service, and that is the skin of one Paul
Hover.”

The old man returned the grasp he received, and opened his mouth to the
utmost, in his extraordinary, silent, laugh.

“You couldn’t have given such a squeeze, boy, when the Teton squaws
were about you with their knives! Ah! you are in your prime, and in
your vigour and happiness, if honesty lies in your path.” Then the
expression of his rugged features suddenly changed to a look of
seriousness and thought. “Come hither, lad,” he said, leading the
bee-hunter by a button to the land, and speaking apart in a tone of
admonition and confidence; “much has passed atween us on the pleasures
and respectableness of a life in the woods, or on the borders. I do not
now mean to say that all you have heard is not true, but different
tempers call for different employments. You have taken to your bosom,
there, a good and kind child, and it has become your duty to consider
her, as well as yourself, in setting forth in life. You are a little
given to skirting the settlements but, to my poor judgment, the girl
would be more like a flourishing flower in the sun of a clearing, than
in the winds of a prairie. Therefore forget any thing you may have
heard from me, which is nevertheless true, and turn your mind on the
ways of the inner country.”

Paul could only answer with a squeeze, that would have brought tears
from the eyes of most men, but which produced no other effect on the
indurated muscles of the other, than to make him laugh and nod, as if
he received the same as a pledge that the bee-hunter would remember his
advice. The trapper then turned away from his rough but warm-hearted
companion; and, having called Hector from the boat, he seemed anxious
still to utter a few words more.

“Captain,” he at length resumed, “I know when a poor man talks of
credit, he deals in a delicate word, according to the fashions of the
world; and when an old man talks of life, he speaks of that which he
may never see; nevertheless there is one thing I will say, and that is
not so much on my own behalf as on that of another person. Here is
Hector, a good and faithful pup, that has long outlived the time of a
dog; and, like his master, he looks more to comfort now, than to any
deeds in running. But the creatur’ has his feelings as well as a
Christian. He has consorted latterly with his kinsman, there, in such a
sort as to find great pleasure in his company, and I will acknowledge
that it touches my feelings to part the pair so soon. If you will set a
value on your hound, I will endeavour to send it to you in the spring,
more especially should them same traps come safe to hand; or, if you
dislike parting with the animal altogether, I will just ask you for his
loan through the winter. I think I can see my pup will not last beyond
that time, for I have judgment in these matters, since many is the
friend, both hound and Red-skin, that I have seen depart in my day,
though the Lord hath not yet seen fit to order his angels to sound
forth my name.”

“Take him, take him,” cried Middleton; “take all, or any thing!”

The old man whistled the younger dog to the land; and then he proceeded
to the final adieus. Little was said on either side. The trapper took
each person solemnly by the hand, and uttered something friendly and
kind to all. Middleton was perfectly speechless, and was driven to
affect busying himself among the baggage. Paul whistled with all his
might, and even Obed took his leave with an effort that bore the
appearance of desperate philosophical resolution. When he had made the
circuit of the whole, the old man, with his own hands, shoved the boat
into the current, wishing God to speed them. Not a word was spoken, nor
a stroke of the oar given, until the travellers had floated past a
knoll that hid the trapper from their view. He was last seen standing
on the low point, leaning on his rifle, with Hector crouched at his
feet, and the younger dog frisking along the sands, in the playfulness
of youth and vigour.

[18] The Americans and the Indians have adopted several words, which
each believe peculiar to the language of the others. Thus “squaw,”
“papoose,” or child, wigwam, &c. &c., though it is doubtful whether
they belonged at all to any Indian dialect, are much used by both
white and red men in their Intercourse. Many words are derived from
the French, in this species of prairie nomaic. Partisan, brave, &c.
are of the number.




CHAPTER XXXIV


—Methought, I heard a voice.
                   —Shakespeare.


The water-courses were at their height, and the boat went down the
swift current like a bird. The passage proved prosperous and speedy. In
less than a third of the time, that would have been necessary for the
same journey by land, it was accomplished by the favour of those rapid
rivers. Issuing from one stream into another, as the veins of the human
body communicate with the larger channels of life, they soon entered
the grand artery of the western waters, and landed safely at the very
door of the father of Inez.

The joy of Don Augustin, and the embarrassment of the worthy father
Ignatius, may be imagined. The former wept and returned thanks to
Heaven; the latter returned thanks, and did not weep. The mild
provincials were too happy to raise any questions on the character of
so joyful a restoration; and, by a sort of general consent, it soon
came to be an admitted opinion that the bride of Middleton had been
kidnapped by a villain, and that she was restored to her friends by
human agency. There were, as respects this belief, certainly a few
sceptics, but then they enjoyed their doubts in private, with that
species of sublimated and solitary gratification that a miser finds in
gazing at his growing, but useless, hoards.

In order to give the worthy priest something to employ his mind,
Middleton made him the instrument of uniting Paul and Ellen. The former
consented to the ceremony, because he found that all his friends laid
great stress on the matter; but shortly after he led his bride into the
plains of Kentucky, under the pretence of paying certain customary
visits to sundry members of the family of Hover. While there, he took
occasion to have the marriage properly solemnised, by a justice of the
peace of his acquaintance, in whose ability to forge the nuptial chain
he had much more faith than in that of all the gownsmen within the pale
of Rome. Ellen, who appeared conscious that some extraordinary
preventives might prove necessary to keep one of so erratic a temper as
her partner, within the proper matrimonial boundaries, raised no
objections to these double knots, and all parties were content.

The local importance Middleton had acquired, by his union with the
daughter of so affluent a proprietor as Don Augustin, united to his
personal merit, attracted the attention of the government. He was soon
employed in various situations of responsibility and confidence, which
both served to elevate his character in the public estimation, and to
afford the means of patronage. The bee-hunter was among the first of
those to whom he saw fit to extend his favour. It was far from
difficult to find situations suited to the abilities of Paul, in the
state of society that existed three-and-twenty years ago in those
regions. The efforts of Middleton and Inez, in behalf of her husband,
were warmly and sagaciously seconded by Ellen, and they succeeded, in
process of time, in working a great and beneficial change in his
character. He soon became a land-holder, then a prosperous cultivator
of the soil, and shortly after a town-officer. By that progressive
change in fortune, which in the republic is often seen to be so
singularly accompanied by a corresponding improvement in knowledge and
self-respect, he went on, from step to step, until his wife enjoyed the
maternal delight of seeing her children placed far beyond the danger of
returning to that state from which both their parents had issued. Paul
is actually at this moment a member of the lower branch of the
legislature of the State where he has long resided; and he is even
notorious for making speeches that have a tendency to put that
deliberative body in good humour, and which, as they are based on great
practical knowledge suited to the condition of the country, possess a
merit that is much wanted in many more subtle and fine-spun theories,
that are daily heard in similar assemblies, to issue from the lips of
certain instinctive politicians. But all these happy fruits were the
results of much care, and of a long period of time. Middleton, who
fills, with a credit better suited to the difference in their
educations, a seat in a far higher branch of legislative authority, is
the source from which we have derived most of the intelligence
necessary to compose our legend. In addition to what he has related of
Paul, and of his own continued happiness, he has added a short
narrative of what took place in a subsequent visit to the prairies,
with which, as we conceive it a suitable termination to what has gone
before, we shall judge it wise to conclude our labours.

In the autumn of the year, that succeeded the season, in which the
preceding events occurred, the young man, still in the military
service, found himself on the waters of the Missouri, at a point not
far remote from the Pawnee towns. Released from any immediate calls of
duty, and strongly urged to the measure by Paul, who was in his
company, he determined to take horse, and cross the country to visit
the partisan, and to enquire into the fate of his friend the trapper.
As his train was suited to his functions and rank, the journey was
effected, with the privations and hardships that are the accompaniments
of all travelling in a wild, but without any of those dangers and
alarms that marked his former passage through the same regions. When
within a proper distance, he despatched an Indian runner, belonging to
a friendly tribe, to announce the approach of himself and party,
continuing his route at a deliberate pace, in order that the
intelligence might, as was customary, precede his arrival. To the
surprise of the travellers their message was unanswered. Hour succeeded
hour, and mile after mile was passed, without bringing either the signs
of an honourable reception, or the more simple assurances of a friendly
welcome. At length the cavalcade, at whose head rode Middleton and
Paul, descended from the elevated plain, on which they had long been
journeying, to a luxuriant bottom, that brought them to the level of
the village of the Loups. The sun was beginning to fall, and a sheet of
golden light was spread over the placid plain, lending to its even
surface those glorious tints and hues, that, the human imagination is
apt to conceive, forms the embellishment of still more imposing scenes.
The verdure of the year yet remained, and herds of horses and mules
were grazing peacefully in the vast natural pasture, under the keeping
of vigilant Pawnee boys. Paul pointed out among them, the well-known
form of Asinus, sleek, fat, and luxuriating in the fulness of content,
as he stood with reclining ears and closed eye-lids, seemingly musing
on the exquisite nature of his present indolent enjoyment.

The route of the party led them at no great distance from one of those
watchful youths, who was charged with a trust heavy as the principal
wealth of his tribe. He heard the trampling of the horses, and cast his
eye aside, but instead of manifesting curiosity or alarm, his look
instantly returned whence it had been withdrawn, to the spot where the
village was known to stand.

“There is something remarkable in all this,” muttered Middleton, half
offended at what he conceived to be not only a slight to his rank, but
offensive to himself, personally; “yonder boy has heard of our
approach, or he would not fail to notify his tribe; and yet he scarcely
deigns to favour us with a glance. Look to your arms, men; it may be
necessary to let these savages feel our strength.”

“Therein, Captain, I think you’re in an error,” returned Paul, “if
honesty is to be met on the prairies at all, you will find it in our
old friend Hard-Heart; neither is an Indian to be judged of by the
rules of a white. See! we are not altogether slighted, for here comes a
party at last to meet us, though it is a little pitiful as to show and
numbers.”

Paul was right in both particulars. A group of horsemen were at length
seen wheeling round a little copse, and advancing across the plain
directly towards them. The advance of this party was slow and
dignified. As it drew nigh, the partisan of the Loups was seen at its
head, followed by a dozen younger warriors of his tribe. They were all
unarmed, nor did they even wear any of those ornaments or feathers,
which are considered testimonials of respect to the guest an Indian
receives, as well as evidence of his own importance.

The meeting was friendly, though a little restrained on both sides.
Middleton, jealous of his own consideration no less than of the
authority of his government, suspected some undue influence on the part
of the agents of the Canadas; and, as he was determined to maintain the
authority of which he was the representative, he felt himself
constrained to manifest a hauteur, that he was far from feeling. It was
not so easy to penetrate the motives of the Pawnees. Calm, dignified,
and yet far from repulsive, they set an example of courtesy, blended
with reserve, that many a diplomatist of the most polished court might
have strove in vain to imitate.

In this manner the two parties continued their course to the town.
Middleton had time, during the remainder of the ride, to revolve in his
mind, all the probable reasons which his ingenuity could suggest for
this strange reception. Although he was accompanied by a regular
interpreter, the chiefs made their salutations in a manner that
dispensed with his services. Twenty times the Captain turned his glance
on his former friend, endeavouring to read the expression of his rigid
features. But every effort and all conjectures proved equally futile.
The eye of Hard-Heart was fixed, composed, and a little anxious; but as
to every other emotion, impenetrable. He neither spoke himself, nor
seemed willing to invite discourse in his visiters; it was therefore
necessary for Middleton to adopt the patient manners of his companions,
and to await the issue for the explanation.

When they entered the town, its inhabitants were seen collected in an
open space, where they were arranged with the customary deference to
age and rank. The whole formed a large circle, in the centre of which,
were perhaps a dozen of the principal chiefs. Hard-Heart waved his hand
as he approached, and, as the mass of bodies opened, he rode through,
followed by his companions. Here they dismounted; and as the beasts
were led apart, the strangers found themselves environed by a thousand,
grave, composed, but solicitous faces.

Middleton gazed about him, in growing concern, for no cry, no song, no
shout welcomed him among a people, from whom he had so lately parted
with regret. His uneasiness, not to say apprehensions, was shared by
all his followers. Determination and stern resolution began to assume
the place of anxiety in every eye, as each man silently felt for his
arms, and assured himself, that his several weapons were in a state for
service. But there was no answering symptom of hostility on the part of
their hosts. Hard-Heart beckoned for Middleton and Paul to follow,
leading the way towards the cluster of forms, that occupied the centre
of the circle. Here the visiters found a solution of all the movements,
which had given them so much reason for apprehension.

The trapper was placed on a rude seat, which had been made, with
studied care, to support his frame in an upright and easy attitude. The
first glance of the eye told his former friends, that the old man was
at length called upon to pay the last tribute of nature. His eye was
glazed, and apparently as devoid of sight as of expression. His
features were a little more sunken and strongly marked than formerly;
but there, all change, so far as exterior was concerned, might be said
to have ceased. His approaching end was not to be ascribed to any
positive disease, but had been a gradual and mild decay of the physical
powers. Life, it is true, still lingered in his system; but it was as
if at times entirely ready to depart, and then it would appear to
re-animate the sinking form, reluctant to give up the possession of a
tenement, that had never been corrupted by vice, or undermined by
disease. It would have been no violent fancy to have imagined, that the
spirit fluttered about the placid lips of the old woodsman, reluctant
to depart from a shell, that had so long given it an honest and an
honourable shelter.

His body was placed so as to let the light of the setting sun fall full
upon the solemn features. His head was bare, the long, thin, locks of
grey fluttering lightly in the evening breeze. His rifle lay upon his
knee, and the other accoutrements of the chase were placed at his side,
within reach of his hand. Between his feet lay the figure of a hound,
with its head crouching to the earth as if it slumbered; and so
perfectly easy and natural was its position, that a second glance was
necessary to tell Middleton, he saw only the skin of Hector, stuffed by
Indian tenderness and ingenuity in a manner to represent the living
animal. His own dog was playing at a distance, with the child of
Tachechana and Mahtoree. The mother herself stood at hand, holding in
her arms a second offspring, that might boast of a parentage no less
honourable, than that which belonged to the son of Hard-Heart. Le
Balafré was seated nigh the dying trapper, with every mark about his
person, that the hour of his own departure was not far distant. The
rest of those immediately in the centre were aged men, who had
apparently drawn near, in order to observe the manner, in which a just
and fearless warrior would depart on the greatest of his journeys.

The old man was reaping the rewards of a life remarkable for temperance
and activity, in a tranquil and placid death. His vigour in a manner
endured to the very last. Decay, when it did occur, was rapid, but free
from pain. He had hunted with the tribe in the spring, and even
throughout most of the summer, when his limbs suddenly refused to
perform their customary offices. A sympathising weakness took
possession of all his faculties; and the Pawnees believed, that they
were going to lose, in this unexpected manner, a sage and counsellor,
whom they had begun both to love and respect. But as we have already
said, the immortal occupant seemed unwilling to desert its tenement.
The lamp of life flickered without becoming extinguished. On the
morning of the day, on which Middleton arrived, there was a general
reviving of the powers of the whole man. His tongue was again heard in
wholesome maxims, and his eye from time to time recognised the persons
of his friends. It merely proved to be a brief and final intercourse
with the world on the part of one, who had already been considered, as
to mental communion, to have taken his leave of it for ever.

When he had placed his guests in front of the dying man, Hard-Heart,
after a pause, that proceeded as much from sorrow as decorum, leaned a
little forward and demanded—

“Does my father hear the words of his son?”

“Speak,” returned the trapper, in tones that issued from his chest, but
which were rendered awfully distinct by the stillness that reigned in
the place. “I am about to depart from the village of the Loups, and
shortly shall be beyond the reach of your voice.”

“Let the wise chief have no cares for his journey,” continued
Hard-Heart with an earnest solicitude, that led him to forget, for the
moment, that others were waiting to address his adopted parent; “a
hundred Loups shall clear his path from briars.”

“Pawnee, I die as I have lived, a Christian man,” resumed the trapper
with a force of voice that had the same startling effect upon his
hearers, as is produced by the trumpet, when its blast rises suddenly
and freely on the air, after its obstructed sounds have been heard
struggling in the distance: “as I came into life so will I leave it.
Horses and arms are not needed to stand in the presence of the Great
Spirit of my people. He knows my colour, and according to my gifts will
he judge my deeds.”

“My father will tell my young men, how many Mingoes he has struck, and
what acts of valour and justice he has done, that they may know how to
imitate him.”

“A boastful tongue is not heard in the heaven of a white man,” solemnly
returned the old man. “What I have done, He has seen. His eyes are
always open. That, which has been well done, will He remember; wherein
I have been wrong will He not forget to chastise, though He will do the
same in mercy. No, my son; a Pale-face may not sing his own praises,
and hope to have them acceptable before his God.”

A little disappointed, the young partisan stepped modestly back, making
way for the recent comers to approach. Middleton took one of the meagre
hands of the trapper, and struggling to command his voice, he succeeded
in announcing his presence. The old man listened like one whose
thoughts were dwelling on a very different subject, but when the other
had succeeded in making him understand, that he was present, an
expression of joyful recognition passed over his faded features—“I hope
you have not so soon forgotten those, whom you so materially served!”
Middleton concluded. “It would pain me to think my hold on your memory
was so light.”

“Little that I have ever seen is forgotten,” returned the trapper: “I
am at the close of many weary days, but there is not one among them
all, that I could wish to overlook. I remember you with the whole of
your company; ay, and your grand’ther, that went before you. I am glad,
that you have come back upon these plains, for I had need of one, who
speaks the English, since little faith can be put in the traders of
these regions. Will you do a favour to an old and dying man?”

“Name it,” said Middleton; “it shall be done.”

“It is a far journey to send such trifles,” resumed the old man, who
spoke at short intervals, as strength and breath permitted; “a far and
weary journey is the same; but kindnesses and friendships are things
not to be forgotten. There is a settlement among the Otsego hills—”

“I know the place,” interrupted Middleton, observing that he spoke with
increasing difficulty; “proceed to tell me, what you would have done.”

“Take this rifle, and pouch, and horn, and send them to the person,
whose name is graven on the plates of the stock,—a trader cut the
letters with his knife,—for it is long, that I have intended to send
him such a token of my love.”

“It shall be so. Is there more that you could wish?”

“Little else have I to bestow. My traps I give to my Indian son; for
honestly and kindly has he kept his faith. Let him stand before me.”

Middleton explained to the chief what the trapper had said and
relinquished his own place to the other.

“Pawnee,” continued the old man, always changing his language to suit
the person he addressed, and not unfrequently according to the ideas he
expressed, “it is a custom of my people for the father to leave his
blessing with the son, before he shuts his eves for ever. This blessing
I give to you; take it, for the prayers of a Christian man will never
make the path of a just warrior, to the blessed prairies, either
longer, or more tangled. May the God of a white man look on your deeds
with friendly eyes, and may you never commit an act, that shall cause
Him to darken His face. I know not whether we shall ever meet again.
There are many traditions concerning the place of Good Spirits. It is
not for one like me, old and experienced though I am, to set up my
opinions against a nation’s. You believe in the blessed prairies, and I
have faith in the sayings of my fathers. If both are true, our parting
will be final; but if it should prove, that the same meaning is hid
under different words, we shall yet stand together, Pawnee, before the
face of your Wahcondah, who will then be no other than my God. There is
much to be said in favour of both religions, for each seems suited to
its own people, and no doubt it was so intended. I fear, I have not
altogether followed the gifts of my colour, inasmuch as I find it a
little painful to give up for ever the use of the rifle, and the
comforts of the chase. But then the fault has been my own, seeing that
it could not have been His. Ay, Hector,” he continued, leaning forward
a little, and feeling for the ears of the hound, “our parting has come
at last, dog, and it will be a long hunt. You have been an honest, and
a bold, and a faithful hound. Pawnee, you cannot slay the pup on my
grave, for where a Christian dog falls, there he lies for ever; but you
can be kind to him, after I am gone, for the love you bear his master.”

“The words of my father are in my ears,” returned the young partisan,
making a grave and respectful gesture of assent.

“Do you hear, what the chief has promised, dog?” demanded the trapper,
making an effort to attract the notice of the insensible effigy of his
hound. Receiving no answering look, nor hearing any friendly whine, the
old man felt for the mouth and endeavoured to force his hand between
the cold lips. The truth then flashed upon him, although he was far
from perceiving the whole extent of the deception. Falling back in his
seat, he hung his head, like one who felt a severe and unexpected
shock. Profiting by this momentary forgetfulness, two young Indians
removed the skin with the same delicacy of feeling, that had induced
them to attempt the pious fraud.

“The dog is dead!” muttered the trapper, after a pause of many minutes;
“a hound has his time as well as a man and well has he filled his days!
Captain,” he added, making an effort to wave his hand for Middleton, “I
am glad you have come; for though kind, and well meaning according to
the gifts of their colour, these Indians are not the men, to lay the
head of a white man in his grave. I have been thinking too, of this dog
at my feet; it will not do to set forth the opinion, that a Christian
can expect to meet his hound again; still there can be little harm in
placing what is left of so faithful a servant nigh the bones of his
master.”

“It shall be as you desire.”

“I’m glad, you think with me in this matter. In order then to save
labour, lay the pup at my feet, or for that matter put him, side by
side. A hunter need never be ashamed to be found in company with his
dog!”

“I charge myself with your wish.”

The old man made a long, and apparently a musing pause. At times he
raised his eyes wistfully, as if he would again address Middleton, but
some innate feeling appeared always to suppress his words. The other,
who observed his hesitation, enquired in a way most likely to encourage
him to proceed, whether there was aught else that he could wish to have
done.

“I am without kith or kin in the wide world!” the trapper answered:
“when I am gone, there will be an end of my race. We have never been
chiefs; but honest and useful in our way, I hope it cannot be denied,
we have always proved ourselves. My father lies buried near the sea,
and the bones of his son will whiten on the prairies—”

“Name the spot, and your remains shall be placed by the side of your
father,” interrupted Middleton.

“Not so, not so, Captain. Let me sleep, where I have lived, beyond the
din of the settlements! Still I see no need, why the grave of an honest
man should be hid, like a Red-skin in his ambushment. I paid a man in
the settlements to make and put a graven stone at the head of my
father’s resting place. It was of the value of twelve beaver-skins, and
cunningly and curiously was it carved! Then it told to all comers that
the body of such a Christian lay beneath; and it spoke of his manner of
life, of his years, and of his honesty. When we had done with the
Frenchers in the old war, I made a journey to the spot, in order to see
that all was rightly performed, and glad I am to say, the workman had
not forgotten his faith.”

“And such a stone you would have at your grave?”

“I! no, no, I have no son, but Hard-Heart, and it is little that an
Indian knows of White fashions and usages. Besides I am his debtor,
already, seeing it is so little I have done, since I have lived in his
tribe. The rifle might bring the value of such a thing—but then I know,
it will give the boy pleasure to hang the piece in his hall, for many
is the deer and the bird that he has seen it destroy. No, no, the gun
must be sent to him, whose name is graven on the lock!”

“But there is one, who would gladly prove his affection in the way you
wish; he, who owes you not only his own deliverance from so many
dangers, but who inherits a heavy debt of gratitude from his ancestors.
The stone shall be put at the head of your grave.”

The old man extended his emaciated hand, and gave the other a squeeze
of thanks.

“I thought, you might be willing to do it, but I was backward in asking
the favour,” he said, “seeing that you are not of my kin. Put no
boastful words on the same, but just the name, the age, and the time of
the death, with something from the holy book; no more no more. My name
will then not be altogether lost on ’arth; I need no more.”

Middleton intimated his assent, and then followed a pause, that was
only broken by distant and broken sentences from the dying man. He
appeared now to have closed his accounts with the world, and to await
merely for the final summons to quit it. Middleton and Hard-Heart
placed themselves on the opposite sides of his seat, and watched with
melancholy solicitude, the variations of his countenance. For two hours
there was no very sensible alteration. The expression of his faded and
time-worn features was that of a calm and dignified repose. From time
to time he spoke, uttering some brief sentence in the way of advice, or
asking some simple questions concerning those in whose fortunes he
still took a friendly interest. During the whole of that solemn and
anxious period each individual of the tribe kept his place, in the most
self-restrained patience. When the old man spoke, all bent their heads
to listen; and when his words were uttered, they seemed to ponder on
their wisdom and usefulness.

As the flame drew nigher to the socket, his voice was hushed, and there
were moments, when his attendants doubted whether he still belonged to
the living. Middleton, who watched each wavering expression of his
weather-beaten visage, with the interest of a keen observer of human
nature, softened by the tenderness of personal regard, fancied he could
read the workings of the old man’s soul in the strong lineaments of his
countenance. Perhaps what the enlightened soldier took for the delusion
of mistaken opinion did actually occur, for who has returned from that
unknown world to explain by what forms, and in what manner, he was
introduced into its awful precincts? Without pretending to explain what
must ever be a mystery to the quick, we shall simply relate facts as
they occurred.

The trapper had remained nearly motionless for an hour. His eyes,
alone, had occasionally opened and shut. When opened, his gaze seemed
fastened on the clouds, which hung around the western horizon,
reflecting the bright colours, and giving form and loveliness to the
glorious tints of an American sunset. The hour—the calm beauty of the
season—the occasion, all conspired to fill the spectators with solemn
awe. Suddenly, while musing on the remarkable position, in which he was
placed, Middleton felt the hand, which he held, grasp his own with
incredible power, and the old man, supported on either side by his
friends, rose upright to his feet. For a moment, he looked about him,
as if to invite all in presence to listen (the lingering remnant of
human frailty), and then, with a fine military elevation of the head,
and with a voice, that might be heard in every part of that numerous
assembly the word—

“Here!”

A movement so entirely unexpected, and the air of grandeur and
humility, which were so remarkably united in the mien of the trapper,
together with the clear and uncommon force of his utterance, produced a
short period of confusion in the faculties of all present. When
Middleton and Hard-Heart, each of whom had involuntarily extended a
hand to support the form of the old man, turned to him again, they
found, that the subject of their interest was removed for ever beyond
the necessity of their care. They mournfully placed the body in its
seat, and Le Balafré arose to announce the termination of the scene, to
the tribe. The voice of the old Indian seemed a sort of echo from that
invisible world, to which the meek spirit of the trapper had just
departed.

“A valiant, a just, and a wise warrior has gone on the path, which will
lead him to the blessed grounds of his people!” he said. “When the
voice of the Wahcondah called him, he was ready to answer. Go, my
children; remember the just chief of the Pale-faces, and clear your own
tracks from briars.”

The grave was made beneath the shade of some noble oaks. It has been
carefully watched to the present hour by the Pawnees of the Loup, and
is often shown to the traveller and the trader as a spot where a just
Whiteman sleeps. In due time the stone was placed at its head, with the
simple inscription, which the trapper had himself requested. The only
liberty, taken by Middleton, was to add—“May no wanton hand ever
disturb his remains!”




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