 | CHAPTER V. The prairie |  |
5. CHAPTER V.
“Why, worthy father, what have we to lose?”
—The law
To let an arrogant piece of flesh threat us!
Play judge and executioner.”
Cymbeline.
While the Teton warrior 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 wellknown
patience of the natives, for the signal which
was to summon them to action. To the eyes of the
anxious and deeply interested spectators who occupied
the little eminence already described as the
position of the captives, the scene merely 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, breathing 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 dependantly on his arm for support.
The shallow honesty, as well as the besetting infirmity
of Weucha, have already been exhibited.
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 to the
ears of the trapper, the savage rather muttered than
whispered—
“If the Tetons lose their great chief by the hands
of the Long-knives, 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 though a thousand demons
had opened their throats in common at the
a cry of savage 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 their 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 and savage 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 into
view, 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,
who were long accustomed to sympathize in the
untutored passions of their owners, and it was with
difficulty that their keepers were enabled to restrain
them. 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
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 his
flying cattle, with all the longings of a Western Indian.
The struggle between thirst for vengeance and
cupidity was short but severe. 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 all the guards. The trapper had continued
calmly facing his foe, during the instants of
suspense that succeeded his own 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 its 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 red-skins
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
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 seal 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 though he thought a bit of sheepskin was a
breastplate against a squatter's bullet! Now, Ellen,
you need'n'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 assistance 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
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
that train of thoughts 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
in her voice 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 again,
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 gun-lock!”
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 a 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 hear on the wrong end of a rifle!
What 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 may easily
go!”
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
“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 stern,
threatening voice met him with the 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
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, though 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 interrupted.
“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 sullen squatter, “I am as
rightful an owner of the land I stand on, as any governor
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 voice of
portentous tones, though it seemed as deep and sluggish
as he who uttered it. “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
side-long 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 a friend; though there is such good reason to suspect
him of harbouring with my 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
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 inquiring
glance at the form of 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 but silent 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 groupe, 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, as though a lost idea was recalled
by the hint of his sluggish 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 yon; she
cub, or of a wolf pup. I'll warrant ye, had your
stealing devils made their push by the light of the
sun, the good woman would have been seen 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 genuine 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,
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 sun-shine shooting
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 party, 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 through 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
then 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.
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.
| CHAPTER V. The prairie | |