 | CHAPTER XII. The prairie |  |
12. CHAPTER XII.
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 usually
quick intellects. The young men brooded over
the absence of their elder brother, and the brows
of Ishmael himself were sternly knit, as he cast his
scowling eyes from one to the other, like a man
who was 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 coolly observed. “Here has the live-long
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
such an uncertain 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
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
such 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 still 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 doser that, if it 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, which may be called a vacuum where, according
to the laws of physic, there should exist some
pretty palpable proofs of materiality.”
“Dont mind him, dont 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,
pass an hour or two in looking for him.”
“Does he?” interrupted the woman, “then Dr.
Battius has more sense in him that 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 victorious war-cry, among her
indolent 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 in
her train.
“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
looks of singular intelligence with Ellen, as he did
so. In this dilemma the squatter was obliged to
constitute the girl herself castellain; 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 groupe of wildly clad frontier-men, that
followed leisurely 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
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 salutary 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' the Indian footsteps that
you have seen, Abiram?”
“Still farther to the west,” returned the other,
pointing in the direction he named. “This was the
spot, where I struck the tracks of the buck, I killed;
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 tauntingly 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 throat of two lively does, and a scampering fawn,
you ar', you have made as much work for Eester and
her girls, as though butchering was your regular calling.
Come boys; I say it is enough. I am too old
not to know the signs of the frontiers, and 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. For who so proper, let me know, as a
mother, to head a search for her 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 again sullenly 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 lose any of its just and important
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
significant smiles. In a few minutes the train had
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 far 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
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 creaturs' 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 such 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 hindrance.
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 pitch'd
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 Sybil. “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 of the squatter
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, all of ye; 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,
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, this very moment, 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!”
“Ay, 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 too sensitive 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 dark, 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
of such an exciting 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 imposing 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 a 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 as well as dumb?”
One of the young men complied; and having succeeded
in detaching the hounds from the place,
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 anything
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
the aroused Esther. “Give me a truer piece than a
childish shot-gun, 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 thus given a pledge of their intentions,
they were far from being backward in redeeming it.
with steadiness to the brake. Nerves less
often tried than those of the young borderers might
easily 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 usually 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 entire
ascendancy in her bosom.
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 XII. The prairie | |