 | CHAPTER X. The prairie |  |
10. 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
from the inroads of white adventurers. The semibarbarous
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.*
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
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 lappells 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,
which was marked by the well known initials
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 such 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 dont 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 hump to reject the food.”
“Ah! you're 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
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
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 his 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, which 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 can lay
no claim to,” 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 dark, 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
naughtily. “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 broad 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 birth-place,
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
ne 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 connexion; and as you
have already heard, bestowed a name on his firstborn,
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 any 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
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 gray 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
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 of the subject
of their discourse 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
—it is 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,
end 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 his 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
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 him 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
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.
| CHAPTER X. The prairie | |