 | CHAPTER XVII. The prairie |  |
17. CHAPTER XVII.
With a new Gorgon:—Do not bid me speak;
See, and then speak yourselves.”
Shakspeare
The little run, which supplied, the family of the
squatter with water, and had nourished the trees and
bushes that had grown near the base of the rocky
eminence, took its rise at no great distance from the
latter, in a small thicket of cotton-wood and vines.
Hither, then, the trapper directed the flight, as to the
place affording the only available cover in so pressing
an emergency. It will be remembered, that the
sagacity of the old man, which, from long practice
in similar scenes, amounted nearly to an instinct in
all cases of sudden danger, had first induced him to
take this course, as it placed the hill between them
and the approaching party of their enemies. Favoured
by this circumstance he succeeded in reaching
the bushes in sufficient time, and Paul Hover
had just hurried the breathless Ellen into the tangled
brush, as Ishmael gained the summit of the
rock, in the manner already described, where he
stood like a man momentarily bereft of his senses,
gazing at the confusion which had been created
among his chattles, or at his gagged and bound children,
who had been safely bestowed by the forethought
of the bee-hunter under the cover of a bark
roof, in a sort of irregular pile. A long rifle would
have thrown a bullet from the height, on which the
squatter now stood, into the very cover where the
fugitives, who had wrought all this mischief, were
clustered.
The trapper was the first to speak, as the man on
whose intelligence and experience they all depended
individuals who gathered about him, in order to see
that none were missing.
“Ah! natur' is natur', and has done its work!”
he said, nodding to the exulting Paul, with a smile
of approbation. “I thought it would be hard for
those, who had so often met in fair and foul, by starlight
and under the clouded moon, to part at last in
anger. Now is there little time to lose in talk, and
every thing to gain by industry! It cannot be long
afore some of yonder brood will be nosing along the
'arth for our trail, and should they find it, as find it
they surely will, and should they push us to stand on
our courage, the dispute must be settled with the
rifle; which may He in heaven forbid! Captain,
can you lead us to the place where any of your warriors
lie?—For the stout sons of the squatter will
make a manly brush of it, or I am but little of a
judge in warlike dispositions!”
“The place of rendezvous is many leagues from
this on the banks of La Platte.”
“It is bad—it is bad. If fighting is to be done, it
is always wise to enter on it on equal terms. But
what has one so near his time to do with ill-blood
and hot-blood at his heart! Listen to what a gray
head and some experience have to offer, and then if
any among you can point out a wiser fashion for a
retreat, we can just follow his design, and forget that
I have spoken. This thicket stretches for near a
mile, as it may be slanting, from the rock, and leads
towards the sunset instead of the settlements.”
“Enough, enough,” cried Middleton, too impatient
to wait until the deliberative and perhaps loquacious
old man could end his minute explanation.
“Time is too precious for words. Let us fly.”
The trapper made a gesture of compliance, and
turning in his tracks, he led Asinus across the trembling
earth of the swale and quickly emerged on the
of the squatter.
“If old Ishmael gets a squint at that highway
through the brush,” cried Paul, casting, as he left
the place, a hasty glance at the broad trail the party
had made through the thicket, “he'll need no finger-board
to tell him which way his road lies. But let
him follow! I know the vagabond would gladly
cross his breed with a little honest blood, but if any
son of his ever gets to be the husband of—”
“Hush, Paul, hush,” said the blushing and terrified
young woman, who leaned on his arm for support,
“your voice might be heard.”
The bee-hunter was silent, though he did not cease
to cast certain ominous looks behind him, as they
flew along the edge of the run, which sufficiently betrayed
the belligerent condition of his mind. As
each one was busy for himself, but a few minutes
elapsed before the party rose a swell of the prairie
and descending without a moment's delay on the opposite
side, they were at once removed from every
danger of being seen by the sons of Ishmael, unless
the pursuers should happen to fall upon their trail.
The old man now profited by the formation of the
land to take another direction, with a view to elude
pursuit, as a vessel changes her course in fogs and
darkness, to escape from the vigilance of her enemies.
Two hours, passed in the utmost diligence, had
enabled them to make a half circuit around the
rock, and to reach a point that was exactly opposite
to the original direction of their flight. To most of
the fugitives their situation was as entirely unknown
as is that of a ship in the middle of the ocean to the
uninstructed voyager: but the old man proceeded at
every turn, and through every bottom, with a decision
that inspired his followers with confidence, as it
spoke favourably of his own knowledge of the localities.
the expression of his eye, had preceded the trapper
throughout the whole distance, with as much certainty
as though a previous and intelligible communion
between them had established the route by which
they were to proceed. But at the expiration of the
time just named, the dog suddenly came to a stand,
and then seating himself on the prairie, he snuffed
the air a moment, and began a low and piteous
whining.
“Ay—pup—ay. I know the spot—I know the
spot, and reason there is to remember it well!” said
the old man, stopping by the side of his uneasy associate,
until those who followed had time to come up.
“Now, yonder, is a thicket before us,” he continued,
pointing forward, “where we may lie till tall trees
grow on these naked fields, afore any of the squatter's
kin will venture to molest us.”
“This is the spot, where the body of the dead
man lay!” cried Middleton, examining the place
with an eye that revolted at the recollection.
“The very same. But whether his friends have
put him in the bosom of the ground or not, remains
to be seen. The hound knows the scent, but seems
to be a little at a loss, too. It is therefore necessary
that you advance, friend bee-hunter, to examine,
while I tarry to keep the dogs from complaining in
too loud a voice.”
“I!” exclaimed Paul, thrusting his hand into his
shaggy locks, like one who thought it prudent to hesitate
before he undertook so formidable an adventure;
“Now heark'ee, old trapper; I've stood in my
thinnest cottons in the midst of many a swarm that
has lost its queen-bee, without winking, and let me
tell you, the man who can do that, is not likely to
fear any living son of skirting Ishmael; but as to
meddling with dead men's bones, why it is neither
my calling nor my inclination; so, after thanking
they make a man a corporal in the Kentucky militia,
I decline serving.”
The old man turned a disappointed look towards
Middleton, who was too much occupied in solacing
Inez to observe his embarrassment, which was, however,
suddenly relieved from a quarter, whence, from
previous circumstances, there was little reason to
expect such a demonstration of fortitude.
Doctor Battius had rendered himself a little remarkable,
throughout the whole of the preceding retreat,
for the exceeding diligence with which he had
laboured to effect that desirable object. So very conspicuous
was his zeal indeed, as to have entirely gotten
the better of all his ordinary predilections. The
worthy naturalist belonged to that species of discoverers,
who make the worst possible travelling-companions
to a man who has reason to be in a hurry.
No stone, no bush, no plant is ever suffered to escape
the examination of their vigilant eyes, and
thunder may mutter, and rain fall, without disturbing
the pleasing abstraction of their reveries. Not so,
however, with the disciple of Linnæus, during the
momentous period that it remained a mooted point
at the tribunal of his better judgment, whether the
stout descendants of the squatter were not likely to
dispute his right to traverse the prairie in freedom.
The highest blooded and best trained hound, with
his game in view, could not have run with an eye
more riveted than that with which the Doctor had
pursued his curvilinear course. It was perhaps lucky
for his fortitude that he was ignorant of the artifice
of the trapper in leading them around the citadel of
Ishmael, and that he had imbibed the soothing impression
that every inch of prairie he traversed was
just so much added to the distance between his own
person and the detested rock. Notwithstanding the
momentary shock he certainly experienced, when he
boldly volunteered to enter the thicket in which
there was some reason to believe the body of the
murdered Asa still lay. Perhaps the naturalist was
urged to show his spirit, on this occasion, by some
secret consciousness that his excessive industry in the
retreat might be liable to misconstruction; and it is
certain that, whatever might be his peculiar notions
of danger from the quick, his habits and his knowledge
had placed him far above the apprehension of
suffering harm from any communication with the
dead.
“If there is any service to be performed, which
requires the perfect command of the nervous system,”
said the man of science, with a look that was
slightly blustering, “you have only to give a direction
to his intellectual faculties, and here stands one
on whose physical powers you may depend.”
“The man is given to speak in parables,” muttered
the single-minded trapper, “but I conclude there
is always some meaning hidden in his words, though
it is as hard to find sense in his speeches, as to discover
three eagles on the same tree. It will be wise,
friend, to make a cover, lest the sons of the squatter
should be out skirting on our trail, and, as you well
know, there is some reason to fear yonder thicket
contains a sight that may horrify a woman's mind.
Are you man enough to look death in the face; or
shall I run the risk of the hounds raising an outcry,
and go in myself? You see the pup is willing to run
with an open mouth, already.”
“Am I man enough? Venerable trapper, our
communications have a recent origin, or thy interrogatory
might have a tendency to embroil us in an
angry disputation. Am I man enough? I claim to
be of the class, mammalia; order, primates; genus,
homo! such are my physical attributes; of my moral
be mute.”
“Physic may do for such as relish it; to my taste
and judgment it is neither palatable nor healthy; but
morals never did harm to any living mortal, be it
that he was a sojourner in the forest or a dweller in
the midst of glazed windows and smoking chimneys.
It is only a few hard words that divide us, friend,
for I am of an opinion that, with use and freedom,
we should come to understand one another, and
mainly settle down into the same judgments of mankind,
and of the ways of the world. Quiet, Hector,
quiet; what ruffles your temper, pup; is it not used
to the scent of human blood?”
The Doctor bestowed a gracious but commiserating
smile on the philosopher of nature, as he retrograded
a step or two from the place whither he had
been impelled by his excess of spirit, in order to reply
with less expenditure of breath and with a greater
freedom of air and attitude.
“A homo is certainly a homo,” he said, stretching
forth an arm in an imposing and argumentative manner;
“so far as the animal functions extend, there
are the connecting links of harmony, order, conformity
and design between the whole genus; but there
the resemblance ends. Man may be degraded to the
very margin of the line which separates him from
the brute, by ignorance; or he may be elevated to a
communion with the great master-spirit of all, by
knowledge; nay I know not, if time and opportunity
were given him, but he might become the master of
all learning, and consequently equal to the great
moving principle.”
The old man, who stood leaning on his rifle in
a thoughtful attitude, shook his head, as he answered
with a native steadiness, that entirely eclipsed the
imposing air which his antagonist had seen fit to assume—
`This is neither more than less than mortal wickedness!
Here have I been a dweller on the earth
for fourscore and six changes of the seasons, and all
that time have I look'd at the growing and the dying
trees, and yet do I not know the reasons why the bud
starts under the summer sun, or the leaf falls when
it is pinch'd by the frosts. Your l'arning, though it
is man's boast, is folly in the eyes of Him, who sits
in the clouds, and looks down, in sorrow, at the pride
and vanity of his creatur's. Many is the hour that
I've passed, lying in the shades of the woods, or
stretch'd upon the hills of these open fields, looking
up into the blue skies, where I could fancy the Great
One had taken his stand, and was solemnizing on the
waywardness of man and brute, below, as I myself
had often look'd at the ants tumbling over each other
in their eagerness, though in a way and a fashion
more suited to His mightiness and power. Knowledge!
It is his plaything. Say, you who think it
so easy to climb into the judgment-seat above, can
you tell me any thing of the beginning and the end?
Nay, you're a dealer in ailings and cures: what is
life, and what is death? Why does the eagle live so
long, and why is the time of the butterfly so short?
Tell me a simpler thing: why is this hound so uneasy,
while you, who have passed your days in looking
into books, can see no reason to be disturbed?”
The Doctor, who had been a little astounded by
the dignity and energy of the old man, drew a long
breath, like a sullen wrestler who is just released
from the throttling grasp of his antagonist, and seized
on the opportunity of the pause to reply—
“It is his instinct.”
“And what is the gift of instinct?”
“An inferior gradation of reason. A sort of mysterious
combination of thought and matter.”
“And what is that which you call thought?”
“Venerable venator, this is a method of reasoning
which sets at nought the uses of definitions, and
such as I do assure you is not at all tolerated in the
schools.”
“Then is there more cunning in your schools than
I had thought, for it is a certain method of showing
them their vanity;” returned the trapper, suddenly
abandoning a discussion, from which the naturalist
was just beginning to anticipate great delight, by
turning to his dog, whose restlessness he attempted
to appease by playing with his ears. “This is foolish,
Hector; more like an untrained pup than a sensible
hound; one who has got his education by hard
experience, and not by nosing over the trails of other
dogs, as a boy in the settlements follows on the track
of his masters, be it right or be it wrong. Well,
friend; you who can do so much, are you equal to
looking into the thicket? or must I go in myself?”
The Doctor again assumed his air of resolution,
and, without further parlance, proceeded to do as
desired. The dogs were so far restrained, by the remonstrances
of the old man, as to confine their noise
to low but often-repeated whinings. When they saw
the naturalist advance, the pup, however, broke
through all restraint, and made a swift circuit around
his person, scenting the earth as he proceeded, and
then, returning to his companion, he howled aloud.
“The squatter and his brood have left a strong
scent on the earth,” said the old man, watching as he
spoke for some signal from his learned pioneer to
follow; “I hope yonder-school bred man knows
enough to remember the errand on which I have
sent him.”
Doctor Battius had already disappeared in the
bushes, and the trapper was beginning to betray additional
evidences of impatience, when the person of
the former was seen retiring from the thicket backwards,
just left as though his look was bound in the thraldom
of some charm.
“Here is something skeary, by the wildness of the
creatur's countenance!” exclaimed the old man relinquishing
his hold of Hector, and moving stoutly
to the side of the totally unconscious naturalist.
“How is it, friend; have you found a new leaf in
your book of wisdom?”
“It is a basilisk!” muttered the Doctor, whose
altered visage betrayed the utter confusion which
had beset his faculties. “An animal of the order
serpens. I had thought its attributes were fabulous,
but mighty nature is equal to all that man can
imagine!”
“What is't? What is't? The snakes of the prairies
are harmless, unless it be now and then an angered
rattler, and he always gives you notice with his
tail, afore he works his mischief with his fangs.
Lord, Lord, what a humbling thing is fear! Here is
one who in common delivers words too big for a
humble mouth to hold, so much beside himself, that
his voice is as shrill as the whistle of the whip-poor-will!
Courage! what is it, man? what is it?”
“A prodigy! a lusus naturæ! a monster, that nature
has delighted to form in order to exhibit her
power! Never before have I witnessed such an utter
confusion in her laws, or a specimen that so completely
bids defiance to the distinctions of class and
genera. Let me record its appearance,” fumbling
for his tablets with hands that trembled too much to
perform their office, “while time and opportunity
are allowed—eyes, enthrallling; colour, various complex,
and profound — ”
“One would think the man was craz'd, with his
enthralling looks and pieball'd colours!” interrupted
the discontented trapper, who began to grow a
little uneasy that his party was all this time neglecting
is a reptile in the brush, show me the creatur', and
should it refuse to depart peaceably, why there must
be a quarrel for the possession of the place.”
“There!” said the Doctor, pointing into a dense
mass of the thicket, to a spot within fifty feet of where
they both stood. The trapper turned his look, with
perfect composure, in the required direction, but the
instant his keen and practised glance met the object
which had so utterly upset the philosophy of the
naturalist, he gave a start himself, and threw his rifle
rapidly forward, and as instantly recovered it, as
though a second flash of thought convinced him he
was wrong. Neither the instinctive movement nor
the sudden recollection was without a sufficient object.
At the very margin of the thicket, and in absolute
contact with the earth, lay an animate ball,
that might easily, by the singularity and fierceness of
its aspect, have justified the disturbed condition of
the naturalist's mind. It were difficult to describe
the shape or colours of this extraordinary substance,
except to say, in general terms, that it was nearly
spherical, and exhibited all the hues of the rainbow,
intermingled without reference to harmony, and
without any very ostensible design. The predominant
hues were a black and a bright vermilion.
With these, however, the several tints of white, yellow,
and crimson, were strangely and wildly blended.
Had this been all, it would have been difficult to
have pronounced that the object was possessed of
life, for it lay as motionless as any stone; but a pair
of dark, glaring, and moving eyeballs which watched
with jealousy the smallest movements of the trapper
and his companion, sufficiently established the important
fact of its possessing vitality.
“Your reptile is a scouter, or I'm no judge of Indian
paints and Indian deviltries!” muttered the old
man, dropping the butt of his weapon to the ground,
as he leaned on its barrel, in an attitude of great
composure. “He wants to face us out of sight and
reason, and make us think the head of a red-skin is
a stone covered with the autumn leaf; or he has
some other devilish artifice in his mind!”
“Is the animal human?” demanded the Doctor,
“of the genus, homo? I had fancied it a non-descript.”
“It's as human, and as mortal too, as a warrior of
these prairies is ever known to be. I have seen the
time when a red-skin would have shewn a foolish
daring to peep out of his ambushment in that fashion
on a hunter I could name, but who is too old now,
and too near his time, to be any thing better than a
miserable trapper. It will be well to speak to the
imp, and to let him know he deals with men whose
beards are grown. Come forth from your cover,
friend,” he continued in the language of the extensive
tribes of the Dahcotahs; “there is room on the
prairie for another warrior.”
The eyes appeared to glare more fiercely than
before, but the mass which, according to the trapper's
opinion, was neither more nor less than a human
head, shorn, as usual among the warriors of the
west, of its hair, still continued without motion or
any other sign of life.
“It is a mistake!” exclaimed the Doctor. “The
animal is not even of the class, Mammalia, much
less a man.”
“So much for your knowledge!” returned the
trapper, laughing with great inward exultation. “So
much for the l'arning of one who has look'd into so
many books, that his eyes are not able to tell a moose
from a wild-cat. Now my Hector, here, is a dog of
education after his fashion, and, though the meanest
primer in the settlements would puzzle his information,
you could not cheat the hound in a matter
shall see his whole formation, and then let an ignorant
old trapper, who never willingly pass'd a day
within reach of a spelling-book in his life, know by
what name to call it. Mind, I mean no violence;
but just to start the devil from his ambushment.”
The trapper now very deliberately examined the
priming of his rifle, taking care to make as great a
parade as possible of his hostile intentions, in going
through the necessary evolutions with the weapon.
When he thought the stranger began to apprehend
some danger, he very deliberately presented the
piece, and called aloud—
“Now, friend, I am all for peace, or all for war, as
you may say. No! well it is no man, as the wiser
one, here, says, and there can be no harm in just
firing into a bunch of leaves.”
The muzzle of the rifle fell as he concluded, and
the weapon was gradually settling into a steady, and
what would easily have proved a fatal aim, when a
tall Indian sprang from beneath that bed of leaves
and brush, which he had probably collected about
his person at the approach of the party, and stood
upright, uttering the sententious exclamation,
“Wagh!”
| CHAPTER XVII. The prairie | |