 | CHAPTER VI. The prairie |  |
6. CHAPTER VI.
Shakspeare.
The sleep of the fugitives lasted for several hours.
The trapper was the first to shake off its influence,
as he had been the last to court its refreshment.
Rising, just as the gray light of day began to brighten
that portion of the studded vault which rested on the
eastern margin of the plain, he summoned his companions
from their warm lairs, and pointed out the
necessity of their being once more on the alert.
While Middleton attended to the arrangements necessary
to the comforts of Inez and Ellen, in the long
and painful journey which lay before them, the old
man and Paul prepared the meal, which the former
had advised them to take before they proceeded to
horse. These several dispositions were not long in
making, and the little groupe was soon seated about
a repast which, though it might want the elegancies
to which the bride of Middleton had been accustomed,
was not deficient in the more important requisites
of savour and nutriment.
“When we get lower into the hunting-grounds of
the Pawnees,” said the trapper, laying a morsel of
of delicate venison before Inez, on a little trencher
neatly made of horn, and expressly for his own use,
“we shall find the buffaloes fatter and sweeter, the
deer in more abundance, and all the gifts of the Lord
abounding to satisfy our wants. Perhaps we may even
strike a beaver, and get a morsel from his tail by way
of a rare mouthful.”
“What course do you mean to pursue, when you
have once thrown these bloodhounds from the
chase?” demanded Middleton.
“If I might advise,” cried Paul, “it would be to
current as soon as may be. Give me a cotton-wood,
and I will turn you out a canoe that shall carry us
all, the jackass excepted, in perhaps the work of a
day and a night. Ellen, here, is a lively girl enough,
but then she is no great race-rider; and it would be
far more comfortable to boat six or eight hundred
miles, than to go loping along like so many elks measuring
the prairies; besides, water leaves no trail.”
“I will not swear to that,” returned the trapper;
“I have often thought the eyes of a Red-skin would
find a trail in air.”
“See, Middleton,” exclaimed Inez, in a sudden
burst of youthful pleasure, that caused her for a moment
to forget her situation. “How lovely is that
sky; surely it contains a promise of happier times!”
“It is glorious!” returned her husband. “Glorious
and heavenly is that streak of vivid red, and here
is a still brighter crimson—rarely have I seen a richer
rising of the sun.”
“Rising of the sun!” slowly repeated the old man,
lifting his tall person from its seat, with a deliberate
and abstracted air, while he kept his eye riveted on
the changing, and certainly beautiful tints, that were
garnishing the vault of Heaven. “Rising of the sun!
I like not such risings of the sun. Ah's me! the imps
have circumvented us with a vengeance. The prairie
is on fire!”
“God in Heaven protect us!” cried Middleton,
catching Inez to his bosom under the instant impression
of the imminence of their danger. “There is
no time to lose, old man; each instant is a day; let
us fly.”
“Whither?” demanded the trapper, motioning him
with calmness and dignity, to arrest his steps. “In
this wilderness of grass and reeds, you are like a vessel
in the broad lakes without a compass. A single
step on the wrong course might prove the destruction
there is not time enough for reason to do its work;
young officer, therefore let us await its biddings.”
“For my own part,” said Paul Hover, looking
about him with no unequivocal expression of concern,
“I acknowledge, that should this dry bed of
weeds get fairly in a flame, a bee would have to make
a flight higher than common to prevent his wings
from scorching. Therefore, old trapper, I agree with
the captain, and say mount and run.”
“Ye are wrong—ye are wrong—man is not a beast
to follow the gift of instinct, and to snuff up his knowledge
by a taint in the air, or a rumbling in the sound;
but he must see and reason, and then conclude. So
follow me a little to the left, where there is a rise in
the ground, whence we may make our reconnoitrings.”
The old man waved his hand with authority, and
led the way without further parlance to the spot he
had indicated, followed by the whole of his alarmed
companions. An eye less practised than that of the
trapper might have failed in discovering the gentle
elevation to which he alluded, and which looked on
the surface of the meadow like a growth a little taller
than common. When they reached the place,
however, the stinted grass, itself, announced the absence
of that moisture, which had fed the rank weeds
of most of the plain, and furnished a clue to the evidence,
by which he had judged of the formation of
the ground hidden beneath. Here a few minutes
were lost in breaking down the tops of the surrounding
herbage, which, notwithstanding the advantage of
their position, rose even above the heads of Middleton
and Paul, and in obtaining a look-out that might
command a view of the surrounding sea of fire.
The frightful prospect added nothing to the hopes
of those who had such a fearful stake in the result.
Although the day was beginning to dawn, the vivid
fierce element were bent on an impious rivalry of the
light of the sun. Bright flashes of flame shot up here
and there, along the margin of the waste, like the
nimble corruscations of the North, but far more angry
and threatening in their colour and changes.
The anxiety on the rigid features of the trapper sensibly
deepened as he leisurely traced these evidences
of a conflagration, which spread in a broad belt about
their place of refuge, until he had encircled the whole
horizon.
Shaking his head, as he again turned his face to the
point, where the danger seemed nighest and most
rapidly approaching, the old man said—
“Now have we been cheating ourselves with the
belief that we had thrown these Tetons from our
trail, while here is proof enough that they not only
know where we lie, but that they intend to smoke us
out, like so many skulking beasts of prey. See; they
have lighted the fire around the whole bottom at the
same moment, and we are as completely hemmed in
by the devils as an island by its waters.”
“Let us mount and ride,” cried Middleton; “is
life not worth a struggle?”
“Whither would ye go? Is a Teton horse a salamander
that can walk amid fiery flames unhurt, or
do you think the Lord will show his might in your
behalf, as in the days of old, and carry you harmless
through such a furnace as you may see glowing beneath
yonder red sky! There are Siouxes too, hemming
the fire with their arrows and knives, on every
side of us, or I am no judge of their murderous deviltries.”
“We will ride into the centre of the whole tribe,”
returned the youth fiercely, “and put their manhood
to the test.”
“Ay, it's well in words, but what would it prove
you wisdom in a matter like this.”
“Now for that matter, old trapper,” said Paul,
stretching his athletic form like a mastiff conscious of
his strength, “I am on the side of the captain, and
am clearly for a race against the fire, though it line
me into a Teton wigwam. Here is Ellen, who
will—”
“Of what use, of what use are your stout hearts,
when the element of the Lord is to be conquered as
well as human men. Look about you, friends; the
wreath of smoke, that is rising from the bottoms,
plainly says that there is no outlet from the spot,
without crossing a belt of fire. Look for yourselves,
my men; look for yourselves; and if you can find a
single opening I will engage to follow.”
The examination, which his companions so instantly
and so intently made, rather served to assure them
of their desperate situation than to appease their
fears. Huge columns of smoke were rolling up from
the plain, and thickening in gloomy masses around
the horizon. The red glow, which gleamed upon
their enormous folds, now lighting their volumes
with the glare of the conflagration, and now flashed
to another point, as the flame beneath glided ahead,
leaving all behind enveloped in awful darkness, and
proclaiming louder than words the character of the
imminent and rapidly approaching danger.
“This is terrible!” exclaimed Middleton, folding
the trembling Inez to his heart. “At such a time as
this, and in such a manner!”
“The gates of Heaven are open to all who truly
believe,” murmured the pious devotee in his bosom.
“This resignation is maddening! But we are men,
and will make a struggle for our lives! How now,
my brave and spirited friend, shall we yet mount and
push across the flames, or shall we stand here, and
without an effort.”
“I am for a swarming time, and a flight before the
hive is too hot to hold us,” said the bee-hunter, to
whom it will be at once seen that the half distracted
Middleton addressed himself. “Come, old trapper,
you must acknowledge this is but a slow way of getting
out of danger. If we tarry here much longer,
it will be in the fashion that the bees lie around the
straw after the hive has been smoked for its honey.
You may hear the fire begin to roar already, and I
know by experience, that when the flame once gets
fairly into the prairie grass, it is no sloth that can
outrun it.”
“Think you,” returned the old man, pointing
scornfully at the mazes of the dry and matted grass,
which environed them, “that mortal feet can outstrip
the speed of fire, on such a path! If I only knew
now on which side these miscreants lay!—”
“What say you, friend Doctor,” cried the bewildered
Paul, turning to the naturalist, with that sort
of helplessness with which the strong are often apt
to seek aid of the weak, when human power is baffled
by the hand of a mightier being, “what say you;
have you no advice to give away, in a case of life and
death?”
The naturalist stood, tablets in hand, looking at
the awful spectacle, with as much composure as
though the conflagration had been lighted in order to
solve the difficulties of some scientific problem.
Aroused by the question of his companion, he turned
to his equally calm though differently occupied associate
the trapper, demanding, with the most provoking
insensibility to the urgent nature of their situation—
“Venerable hunter, you have often witnessed similar
prismatic experiments—”
He was rudely interrupted by Paul, who struck
the tablets from his hands, with a violence that betrayed
overset the equanimity of his mind. Before time
was allowed for remonstrance, the old man, who had
continued during the whole scene like one much at
a loss how to proceed, though also like one who was
rather perplexed than alarmed, suddenly assumed a
decided air, as if he no longer doubted on the course
it was most adviseable to pursue.
“It is time to be doing,” he said, interrupting the
controversy that was about to ensue between the
naturalist and the bee-hunter; “it is time to leave
off books and moanings, and to be doing.”
“You have come to your recollections too late,
miserable old man,” cried Middleton; “the flames
are within a quarter of a mile of us, and the wind is
bringing them down in this quarter, with dreadful
rapidity.”
“Anan! the flames! I care but little for the flames.
If I only knew how to circumvent the cunning of the
Tetons, as I know how to cheat the fire of its prey,
there would be nothing needed but thanks to the
Lord for our deliverance. Do you call this a fire!
If you had seen, what I have witnessed in the Eastern
hills, when mighty mountains were like the furnace
of a smith, you would have known what it was to
fear the flames and to be thankful that you were
spared! Come, lads, come; 'tis time to be doing
now, and to cease talking; for yonder curling flame
is truly coming on like a trotting moose. Put hands
upon this short and withered grass where we stand,
and lay bare the 'arth.”
“Would you think to deprive the fire of its victims
in this childish manner!” exclaimed Middleton.
A faint but solemn smile passed over the features
of the old man as he answered—
“Your gran'ther would have said, that when the
enemy was nigh, a soldier could do no better than to
obey.”
The captain felt the reproof, and instantly began
to imitate the industry of Paul, who was tearing the
decayed herbage from the ground in a sort of desperate
compliance with the trapper's direction. Even
Ellen lent her hands to the labour, nor was it long before
Inez was seen similarly employed, though none
amongst them knew why or wherefore. When life
is thought to be the reward of labour, men are wont
to be industrious. A very few moments sufficed to
lay bare a spot of some twenty feet in diameter.
Into one edge of this little area the trapper brought
the females, directing Middleton and Paul to cover
their light and inflammable dresses with the blankets
of the party. So soon as this precaution was observed,
the old man approached the opposite margin
of the grass, which still environed them in a tall and
dangerous circle, and selecting a handful of the driest
of the herbage he placed it over the pan of his rifle.
The light combustible kindled at the flash. Then he
placed the little flame into a bed of the standing fog,
and withdrawing from the spot to the centre of the
ring, he patiently awaited the result.
The subtle element seized with avidity upon its
new fuel, and in a moment forked flames were gliding
among the grass, as the tongues of ruminating animals
are seen rolling among their food, apparently in quest
of its sweetest portions.
“Now,” said the old man, holding up a finger, and
laughing in his peculiarly silent manner, “you shall
see fire fight fire! Ah's me! many is the time I have
burnt a smootly path, from wanton laziness to pick
my way across a tangled bottom.”
“But is this not fatal!” cried the amazed Middleton;
“are you not bringing the enemy nigher to us
instead of avoiding it?”
“Do you scorch so easily? your gran'ther had a
tougher skin. But we shall live to see; we shall all
live to see.”
The experience of the trapper was in the right.
As the fire gained strength and heat it began to spread
on three sides, dying of itself on the fourth, for want
of aliment. As it increased, and the sullen roaring
announced its power, it cleared every thing before it,
leaving the black and smoking soil far more naked
than if the scythe had swept the place. The situation
of the fugitives would have still been hazardous
had not the area enlarged as the flame encircled
them. But by advancing to the spot where the trapper
had kindled the grass, they avoided the heat, and
in a very few moments the flames began to recede in
every quarter, leaving them enveloped in a cloud of
smoke, but perfectly safe from the torrent of fire that
was still furiously rolling onward.
The spectators regarded the simple expedient of
the trapper with that species of wonder, with which
the courtiers of Ferdinand are said to have viewed
the manner in which Columbus made his egg to stand
on its end, though with feelings that were filled with
gratitude instead of envy.
“Most wonderful!” said Middleton, when he saw
the complete success of the means by which they
had been rescued from a danger that he had conceived
to be unavoidable. “The thought was a gift
from heaven, and the hand that executed it should be
immortal.”
“Old trapper,” cried Paul, thrusting his fingers
through his shaggy locks, “I have lined many a loaded
bee into his hole, and know something of the nature
of the woods, but this is robbing a hornet of his
sting without touching the insect!”
“It will do—it will do,” returned the old man,
who after the first moment of his success seemed to
think no more of the exploit; “now get the horses
in readiness. Let the flames do their work for a
short half hour, and then we will mount. That
time is needed to cool the meadow, for these unshod
girl.”
Middleton and Paul, who considered this unlooked-for
escape as a species of resurrection, patiently
awaited the time the trapper mentioned with renewed
confidence in the infallibility of his judgment.
The Doctor regained his tablets, a little the worse
from having fallen among the grass which had been
subject to the action of the flames, and was consoling
himself for this slight misfortune by recording uninterruptedly
such different vaccillations in light and
shadow as he chose to consider as phenomena.
In the mean time the veteran, on whose experience
they all so implicitly relied for protection, employed
himself in reconnoitring objects in the distance,
through the openings which the air occasionally
made in the immense bodies of smoke, that by this
time lay in enormous piles on every part of the plain.
“Look you here, lads,” the trapper said, after a
long and anxious examination, “your eyes are young
and may prove better than my worthless sight—
though the time has been, when a wise and brave
people saw reason to think me quick on a look-out;
but those times are gone, and many a true and tried
friend has passed away with them. Ah's me! if I
could choose a change in the orderings of Providence—which
I cannot and which it would be blasphemy
to attempt, seeing that all things are governed
by a wiser mind than belongs to mortal weakness—
but if I were to choose a change, it would be to say,
that such as they who have lived long together in
friendship and kindness, and who have proved their
fitness to go in company, by many acts of suffering
and daring in each other's behalf, should be permitted
to give up life at such times, as when the death
of one leaves the other but little reason to wish to
live.”
“Is it an Indian, that you see?” demanded the
impatient Middleton.
“Red skin or White skin it is much the same.
Friendship and use can tie men as strongly together
in the woods as in the towns—ay, and for that matter,
stronger. Here are the young warriors of the
prairies—Often do they sort themselves in pairs, and
set apart their lives for deeds of friendship; and well
and truly do they act up to their promises. The
death-blow to one is commonly mortal to the other!
I have been a solitary man much of my time, if he
can be called solitary, who has lived for seventy
years in the very bosom of natur', and where he
could at any instant open his heart to God without
having to strip it of the cares and wickednesses of the
settlements—but making that allowance, have I been
a solitary man; and yet have I always found that intercourse
with my kind was pleasant, and painful to
break off, provided that the companion was but brave
and honest. Brave, because a skeary comrade in the
woods,” suffering his eyes inadvertently to rest a
moment on the person of the abstracted naturalist,
“is apt to make a short path long; and honest, in as
much as craftiness is rather an instinct of the brutes,
than a gift becoming the reason of a human man.”
“But the object, that you saw—was it a Sioux?”
“What the world of America is coming to, and
where the machinations and inventions of its people
are to have an end, the Lord, he only knows. I have
seen, in my day, the chief who, in his time, had beheld
the first Christian that placed his wicked foot in
the regions of York! How much has the beauty of
the wilderness been deformed in two short lives!
My own eyes were first opened on the shores of the
Eastern sea, and well do I remember, that I tried
the virtues of the first rifle I ever bore, after such a
march, from the door of my father to the forest, as a
without offence to the rights or prejudices of any man
who set himself up to be the owner of the beasts of
the fields. Natur' then lay in its glory along the
whole coast, giving a narrow stripe, between the
woods and the Ocean, to the greediness of the settlers.
And where am I now? Had I the wings of an
eagle they would tire before a tenth of the distance
which separates me from that sea could be passed;
and towns and villages, farms, and highways, churches
and schools, in short, all the inventions and deviltries
of man, are spread across the region. I have known
the time when a few, Red-skins, shouting along the
borders, could set the provinces in a fever; and men
were to be armed; and troops were to be called to
aid from a distant land; and prayers were said, and
the women frighted, and few slept in quiet because
the Iroquois were on the war path, and the accursed
Mingo had the tomahawk in his hand. How is it
now? The country sends out her ships to foreign
lands, to wage their battles; cannon are plentier than
the rifle used to be, and trained soldiers are never
wanting, in tens of thousands, when need calls for
their services. Such is the difference atween a province
and a state, my men; and I, miserable and worn
out as I seem, have lived to see it all!”
“That you must have seen many a chopper skimming
the cream from the face of the earth, and many
a settler getting the very honey of nature, old trapper,”
said Paul, “no reasonable man can, or, for that
matter, shall doubt. But here is Ellen getting uneasy
about the Siouxes, and now you have given
your mind so freely concerning these matters, if you
will just put us on the line of our flight, the swarm
will make another move.”
“Anan!”
“I say that Ellen is getting uneasy, and as the
take another flight.”
“The boy is reasonable. I had forgotten we were
in the midst of a raging fire, and that Siouxes were
round about us like hungry wolves watching a drove
of buffaloes. But when memory is at work in my
old brain, on times long past, it is apt to overlook
the matters of the day. You say right, my children,
it is time to be moving, and now comes the real
nicety of our case. It is easy to outwit a furnace,
for it is nothing but a raging element; and it is not
always difficult to throw a grizzly bear from his
scent, for the creatur' is both enlightened and blinded
by his instinct; but to shut the eyes of a waking Teton
is a matter of greater judgment, inasmuch as his
deviltry is backed by the cunning of reason.”
Notwithstanding the old man appeared thus conscious
of the difficulty of the undertaking, he set
about its achievement with great steadiness and alacrity.
After completing the examination, which had
been interrupted by the melancholy wanderings of
his mind, he gave the signal to his companions to
mount. The horses, which had continued passive
and trembling amid the raging of the fire, received
their burthens with a satisfaction so very evident, as
to furnish a favourable augury of their future industry.
The trapper invited the Doctor to take his own steed,
declaring his intention to proceed on foot.
“I am but little used to journeying with the feet
of others,” he added, as a reason for the measure,
“and my legs are a-weary of doing nothing. Besides,
should we light suddenly on an ambushment, which
is a thing far from impossible, the horse will be in a
better condition for a hard run with one man on his
back than with two. As for me, what matters it
whether my time is to be a day shorter or longer.
Let the Tetons take my scalp, if it be God's pleasure;
it is beyond the craft of man to cheat me of the
knowledge and experience by which they have been
whitened.”
As no one among the impatient listeners seemed
disposed to dispute the arrangement, it was acceded
to in silence. The Doctor, though he muttered a
few mourning exclamations on behalf of the lost
Asinus, was by far too well pleased in finding that his
speed was likely to be sustained by four legs instead
of two, to be long in complying, and, consequently,
in a very few moments the bee-hunter, who was never
last to speak on such occasions, vociferously announced
that they were ready to proceed.
“Now look off yonder to the East,” said the old
man, as he began to lead the way across the murky
and still smoking plain; “little fear of cold feet in
journeying such a path as this—but look you off to
the East, and if you see a sheet of shining white,
glistening like a plate of beaten silver through the
openings of the smoke, why that is water. A noble
stream is running thereaway, and I thought I got a
glimpse of it a while since; but other thoughts came
and I lost it. It is a broad and swift river, such as
the Lord has made many of its fellows in this desert.
For here may natur' be seen in all its richness, trees
alone excepted. Trees, which are to the 'arth, as
fruits to a garden; without them nothing can be pleasant
or thoroughly useful. Now watch all of you,
with open eyes, for that stripe of glittering water, for
we shall not be safe until it is flowing between our
trail and these sharp sighted Tetons.”
The latter declaration was enough to insure a vigilant
look-out for the desired stream on the part of
all the trapper's followers. With this object in view,
the party proceeded in profound silence, the old man
having admonished them of the necessity of caution
as they entered the clouds of smoke, which were rolling
over those spots where the fire had encountered
occasional pools of stagnant water.
They had travelled near a league in this manner,
without obtaining the desired glimpse of the river.
The fire was still raging in the distance, and as the
air swept away the first vapour of the conflagration,
fresh volumes rolled along the place, limiting the
view. At length the old man, who had begun to betray
some little uneasiness, which caused his followers
to apprehend that even his acute faculties were beginning
to be confused in the mazes of the smoke,
made a sudden pause, and dropping his rifle to the
ground, he stood, apparently musing over some object
at his feet. Middleton and the rest rode up to his
side and demanded the reason of the halt.
“Look ye, here,” returned the trapper, pointing
to the mutilated carcass of a horse, that lay more
than half consumed in a little hollow of the ground;
“here may you see the power of a prairie conflagration.
The 'arth is moist, hereaway, and the grass
has been taller than usual. This miserable beast has
been caught in his bed. You see the bones; the
crackling and scorched hide, and the grinning teeth.
A thousand winters could not wither an animal so
thoroughly as the element has done it in a minute.”
“And this might have been our fate,” said Middleton,
“had the flames come upon us in our sleep!”
“Nay, I do not say that. I do not say that. Not
but that man will burn as well as tinder; but, that
being more reasoning than a horse, he would better
know how to avoid the danger.”
“Perhaps this then has been but the carcass of an
animal, or he too would have fled.”
“See you these marks in the damp soil? Here
have been his hoofs,—and there is a moccasin print
as I'm a sinner! The owner of the beast has tried
hard to move him from the place, but it is in the instinct
obstinate in a fire.”
“It is a well-known fact. But if the animal has
had a rider, where is he?”
“Ay, therein lies the mystery,” returned the trapper,
stooping to examine the signs in the ground with
a closer eye. “Yes, yes, it is plain there has been a
long struggle atween the two. The master has tried
hard to save his beast, and the flames must have been
very greedy or he would have had better success.”
“Harkee, old trapper,” interrupted Paul, pointing
to a little distance, where the ground was drier and
the herbage had, in consequence, been less luxuriant;
“just call them two horses. Yonder lies another.”
“The boy is right! can it be, that the Tetons have
been caught in their own snares? Such things do happen;
and here is an example to all evil-doers. Ay,
look you here, this is iron; there have been some
white inventions about the trappings of the beast—
it must be so—it must be so—a party of the knaves
have been skirting in the grass after us, while their
friends have fired the prairie, and look you at the
consequences; they have lost their beasts, and happy
have they been if their own souls are not now skirting
along the path which leads to the Indian heaven.”
“They had the same expedient at command as
yourself,” rejoined Middleton, as the party slowly
proceeded, approaching the other carcass, which lay
directly on their route.
“I know not that. It is not every savage that carries
his steel and flint, or as good a rifle-pan as this
old friend of mine. It is slow making a fire with two
sticks, and little time was given to consider or invent
just at this spot, as you may see by yon streak of
flame, which is flashing along afore the wind as if it
were on a trail of powder. It is not many minutes
since the fire has passed hereaway, and it may be
well to look at our primings, not that I would willingly
needs be, it is always wise to get the first shot.”
“This has been a strange beast, old man,” said
Paul, who had pulled the bridle, or rather halter of
his steed over the second carcass, while the rest of
the party were already passing in their eagerness to
proceed; “a strange horse do I call it; it had neither
head nor hoofs!”
“The fire has not been idle,” returned the trapper,
keeping his eye vigilantly employed in profiting
by those glimpses of the horizon, which the whirling
smoke offered to his examination. “It would soon
bake you a buffaloe whole, or for that matter powder
his hoofs and horns into white ashes. Shame, shame,
old Hector; as for the captain's pup, it is to be expected
that he would show his want of years, and I
may say, I hope without offence, his want of education
too; but for a hound, like you, who has lived so
long in the forest afore he came into these plains, it
is very disgraceful, Hector, to be showing his teeth
and growling at the carcass of a roasted horse, the
same as if he was telling his master, that he had
found the trail of a grizzly bear.”
“I tell you, old trapper, this is no horse; neither
in hoofs, head nor hide.”
“Anan! Not a horse? your eyes are good for the
bees and for the hollow trees, my lad, but—bless me,
the boy is right! That I should mistake the hide of
a buffaloe, scorched and crimpled as it is, for the carcass
of a horse! Ah's me! The time has been, my
men, when I would tell you the name of a beast as
far as eye could reach, and that too with most of the
particulars of colour, age and sex.”
“An inestimable advantage have you then enjoyed,
venerable venator!” observed the attentive naturalist.
“The man, who can make these distinctions in
a desert, is saved the pain of many a weary walk,
and often of an inquiry that in its result proves useless.
of vision extend so far as to enable you to decide on
their order or genus?”
“I know not what you mean by your orders of
genius.”
“No!” interrupted the bee-hunter, a little disdainfully
for him, when speaking to his aged friend;
“now, old trapper, that is admitting your ignorance
of the English language in a way I should not expect
from a man of your experience and understanding.
By order, our comrade means whether they go in
promiscuous droves, like a swarm that is following
its queen-bee, or in single file, as you often see the
buffaloes trailing each other through a prairie. And
as for genius, I'm sure that is a word well understood,
and in every body's mouth. There is the congressman
in our district, and that tonguey little fellow,
who puts out the paper in our county, they are both
so called, for their smartness; which is what the
Doctor means as I take it, seeing that he seldom
speaks without some considerable meaning.”
When Paul finished this very clever explanation
he looked behind him with an expression, which,
rightly interpreted, would have said—“You see,
though I don't often trouble myself in these matters,
I am no fool.”
Ellen admired Paul for any thing but his learning.
There was enough in his frank, fearless, and manly
character, backed as it was by great personal attraction,
to awaken her sympathies, without the necessity
of prying into his mental attainments. The poor girl
reddened like a rose, her pretty fingers played with
the belt, by which she sustained herself on the horse,
and she hurriedly observed, as if anxious to direct
the attentions of the other listeners from a weakness,
on which her own thoughts could not bear to
dwell—
“And then this is not a horse, after all?”
“It is nothing more nor less than the hide of a
buffaloe,” continued the trapper, who had been no
less puzzled by the explanation of Paul, than by the
language of the Doctor; “the hair is beneath; the
fire has run over it as you see, for being fresh, the
flames could take no hold. The beast has not been
long killed, and it may be that some of the beef is
still hereaway.”
“Lift the corner of the skin, old trapper,” said
Paul, with the tone of one, who felt, as if he had
now proved his right to mingle his voice in any
council; “if there is a morsel of the hump left, it
must be well cooked, and it shall be welcome.”
The old man laughed heartily at the conceit of his
companion. Thrusting his foot beneath the skin, it
moved. Then it was suddenly cast aside, and an Indian
warrior sprang from its cover, to his feet, with
an agility, that bespoke how urgent he deemed the
occasion.
| CHAPTER VI. The prairie | |