 | CHAPTER VII. The prairie |  |
7. 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
groupe of children, which clustered around their sullen
but despondent mother, and walked out upon the
open land, as if he found the air of the encampment
too confined to breathe in. He was followed by several
of the men, who were his 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 richer meal
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 so 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 fierce scorn. “It is good for such as they who
make their dinner better on beggars' beans than on
homminy. A crow would shed tears if forced 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
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 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,” he added, 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
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 red-skins.”
“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, 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 the
two, 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
to the interested feelings of the disputants; “but
there is something more than foreign words, or
words of any sort, 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 coloured 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 such 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 shew 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
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,” 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,
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 all 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 perfect 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 land-holder, or perhaps he should be
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 to come, and
not a blow have I struck, ag'in an enemy more humanized
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 humanized than the grizzly bear, or the
panther of the Rocky Mountains; unless the beaver,
which is a wise and knowing animal, may be so
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 inquiries 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 however, 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 groupe 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 naked 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
in its usual state of quiet melancholy gravity.
As vehicle after vehicle left the place of the encampment,
he noted the change, with increasing attention;
seldom failing to cast an inquiring 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 same 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 nigher 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 the most 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 consumed
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
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 was
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
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 very 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 shewing 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 though 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
its recent visiters, and as the old man was quick to
detect, of their waste also. He cast his eye upwards,
with a significant 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 that 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 such 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
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
even 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 of none of any other colour.”
“Lord! lord!” continued the trapper, shaking his
head, and still laughing in his deep but quiet mannan;
“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
earlier in the history of the country, to offer the
smallest resistance.
| CHAPTER VII. The prairie | |