 | CHAPTER VIII. The prairie |  |
8. CHAPTER VIII.
“What, are ancient pistol and
You friends, yet?”
Shakspeare.
The curtain of our imperfect drama must fall, to
rise upon another scene. The time is advanced
several days, during which very material changes had
occurred in the situation of the actors. The hour is
noon, and the place an elevated plain, that rose, at
no great distance from the water, somewhat abruptly
from the fertile bottom, which stretched along the
that region. The river took its rise near the base of
the Rocky Mountains, and, after washing a vast extent
of plain, it mingled its waters with a still larger
stream, to become finally lost in the turbid current
of the Missouri.
The landscape was changed materially for the better;
though the hand, which had impressed so much
of the desert on the surrounding region, had laid a
portion of its power on this spot. The appearance
of vegetation was, however, less discouraging than
in the more sterile wastes of the rolling prairies
Clusters of trees were scattered in greater profusion,
and a long outline of ragged forest marked the northern
boundary of the view. Here and there, on the
bottom, were to be seen the evidences of a hasty and
imperfect culture of such indigenous vegetables as
were of a quick growth, and which were known to
flourish, without the aid of art, in deep and alluvial
soils. On the very edge of what might be called the
table-land, were pitched the hundred lodges of a
horde of wandering Siouxes. Their light tenements
were arranged without the least attention to order.
Proximity to the water seemed to be the only consideration
which had been consulted in their disposition,
nor had even this important convenience been
always regarded. While most of the lodges stood
along the brow of the plain, many were to be seen
at greater distances, occupying such places as had
first pleased the capricious eyes of their untutored
owners. The encampment was not military, nor in
the slightest degree protected from surprise by its
position or defences. It was open on every side, and
on every side as accessible as any other point in those
wastes, if the imperfect and natural obstruction offered
by the river, be excepted. In short, the place
bore the appearance of having been tenanted longer
was not wanting in the signs of readiness for a hasty,
or even a compelled departure.
This was the temporary encampment of that portion
of his people, who had long been hunting under
the direction of Mahtoree, on those grounds which
separated the stationary abodes of his nation, from
those of the warlike tribes of the Pawnees. The
lodges were tents of skin, high, conical, and of the
most simple and primitive construction. The shield,
the quiver, the lance and the bow of its master, were
to be seen suspended from a light post before the opening,
or door of each tenement. The different domestic
implements of his one, two, or three wives, as the
brave was of greater or lesser renown, were carelessly
thrown at its side, and here and there the round, full,
patient countenance of an infant might be found
peeping from its comfortless wrappers of bark, as,
suspended by a deer-skin thong from the same post,
it rocked in the passing air. Children of a larger
growth were tumbling over each other in piles, the
males, even at that early age, making themselves
distinguished for that species of domination which,
in after life, was to mark the vast distinction between
the sexes. Youths were in the bottom, essaying their
juvenile powers in curbing the wild steeds of their
fathers, while here and there a truant girl was to be
seen, stealing from her labours to admire their fierce
and impatient daring.
Thus far the picture was the daily exhibition of
an encampment confident in its security. But immediately
in front of the lodges was a gathering, that
seemed to forbode some movements of much more
than usual interest. A few of the withered and remorseless
crones of the band were clustering together,
in readiness to lend their fell voices, if
needed, to aid in exciting their descendants to an exhibition,
which their depraved tastes coveted, as beings
love to look upon the interest of scarcely less appaling
spectacles. The men were subdivided into
groupes, assorted according to the deeds and reputations
of the several individuals of whom they were
composed.
They, who were of that equivocal age which admitted
them to the hunts, while their discretion was
still too doubtful to permit them to be trusted on the
war-path, hung around the skirts of the whole, catching,
from the fierce models before them, that gravity
of demeanour and restraint of manner, which in time
was to become so deeply ingrafted in their own characters.
A few of a still older class, and who had
heard the whoop in anger, were a little more presuming,
pressing nigher to the chiefs, though far from
presuming to mingle in their councils, sufficiently
distinguished by being permitted to catch the wisdom
which fell from lips so venerated. The ordinary
warriors of the band were still less diffident, not hestating
to mingle among the chiefs of lesser note,
though far from assuming the right to dispute the
sentiments of any established brave, or to call in question
the prudence of measures, that were recommended
by the more gifted counsellors of the nation.
Among the chiefs themselves there was a singular
compound of exterior. They were to be divided
into two classes; those who were mainly indebted
for their influence to physical causes and to deeds in
arms, and those who had become distinguished rather
for their wisdom than for their services in the field.
The former was by far the most numerous and the
most important class. They were men of stature
and mien, whose stern countenances were often rendered
doubly imposing by those evidences of their
valour, which had been roughly traced on their
lineaments by the hands of their enemies, in the
shape of deep and indelible scars. That class, which
extremely limited. They were uniformly to be distinguished
by the quick and lively expression of their
eyes, by the air of distrust that marked their movements,
and occasionally by the vehemence of their
utterance in those sudden outbreakings of the mind,
by which their present consultations were, from time
to time, distinguished.
In the very centre of a ring, formed by these chosen
counsellors, was to be seen the person of the disquieted
but seemingly calm Mahtoree. There was
a conjunction of all the several qualities of the others
in his person and character. Mind as well as matter
had contributed to establish his authority. His scars
were as numerous and deep as those of the whitest
head in his nation; his limbs were in their greatest
vigour, his courage at its fullest height. Endowed
with this rare combination of moral and physical influence,
the keenest eye in all that assembly was
wont to lower before his threatening glance. Courage
and cunning had established his ascendency, and
it had been rendered, in some degree, sacred by time.
He knew so well how to unite the powers of reason
and force, that in a state of society, which admitted
of a greater display of his energies, the Teton would
in all probability have been both a conqueror and a
despot.
A little apart from the gathering of the band, was
to be seen a set of beings of an entirely different
origin. Taller and far more muscular in their persons,
the lingering vestiges of their Saxon and Norman
ancestry were yet to be found beneath the
swarthy complexions, which had been bestowed by
an American sun. It would have been a curious
investigation, for one skilled in such an inquiry, to
have traced those points of difference, by which the
offspring of the most western European was still to
Asiatic, now that the two, in the revolutions of
the world, were approximating in their habits, their
residence, and not a little in their characters. The
groupe, of whom we write, was composed of the
family of the squatter. They stood indolent, lounging
and inert, as usual, when no immediate demand
was made on their dormant energies, clustered in
front of some four or five habitations of skin, for
which they were indebted to the hospitality of their
Teton allies. The terms of their unexpected confederation
were sufficiently explained, by the presence
of the horses and domestic cattle that were
quietly grazing on the bottom beneath, under the
jealous eyes of the spirited Hetty. Their wagons
were drawn about the lodges, in a sort of irregular
barrier, which at once manifested that their confidence
was not entirely restored, while, on the other
hand, their policy or indolence prevented any very
positive exhibition of distrust. There was a singular
union of passive enjoyment and of dull curiosity
slumbering in every dull countenance, as each of the
party stood leaning on his rifle, regarding the movements
of the Sioux conference. Still no sign of expectation
or interest escaped from the youngest
among them, the whole appearing to emulate the
most phlegmatic of their savage allies, in an exhibition
of the commendable quality of patience. They
rarely spoke; and when they did it was in some short
and contemptuous remark, which served to put the
physical superiority of a white man and that of an
Indian in a sufficiently striking point of view. In
short, the family of Ishmael appeared now to be in
the plenitude of an enjoyment, which depended on
inactivity, but which was not entirely free from certain
confused glimmerings of a perspective, in which
their security stood in some little danger of a rude
formed a solitary exception to this state of equivocal
repose.
After a life passed in the commission of a thousand
mean and insignificant villanies, the mind of the
kidnapper had become hardy enough to attempt the
desperate adventure, which has been laid before the
reader, in the course of our narrative. His influence
over the bolder, but less active, spirit of Ishmael was
far from great, and had not the latter been suddenly
expelled a fertile bottom, of which he had taken possession,
with intent to keep it, without much deference
to the forms of law, he would never have succeeded
in enlisting the husband of his sister in an enterprise
that required so much decision and forethought.
Their original success and subsequent disappointment
have been seen, and Abiram now sat
apart, plotting the means, by which he might secure
to himself the advantages of his undertaking, which
he perceived were each moment becoming more uncertain
through the open admiration of Mahtoree
for the innocent subject of his villany. We shall
leave him to his vacillating and confused expedients,
in order to pass to the description of certain other
personages in our drama.
There was still another corner of the picture that
was occupied. On a little bank, at the extreme right
of the encampment, lay the forms of Middleton and
Paul. Their limbs were painfully bound with thongs,
cut from that of a bison, while, by a sort of refinement
in cruelty, they were so placed, that each could
see a reflection of his own misery in the case of his
neighbour. Within a dozen yards of them a post was
set firmly in the ground, and against it was bound
the light and Apollo-like person of Hard-Heart. Between
the two stood the trapper, deprived of his
rifle, his pouch and his horn, but otherwise left in a
sort of contemptuous liberty. Some five or six young
long tough bows dangling from their shoulders, who
stood with grave watchfulness at no great distance
from the spot, sufficiently proclaimed how fruitless
any attempt to escape, on the part of one so aged and
so feeble, might prove. Unlike the other spectators
of the important conference these individuals were
engaged in a discourse that for them contained an
interest of its own.
“Captain,” said the bee-hunter with an expression
of comical concern, that no misfortune could depress
in one of his buoyant feelings, “do you really find
that accursed strap of untanned leather cutting into
your shoulder, or is it only the tickling in my own
arm that I feel?”
“When the spirit suffers so deeply, the body is insensible
to pain,” returned the more refined, though
scarcely so spirited Middleton; “would to Heaven
that some of my trusty artillerists might fall upon
this accursed encampment!”
“You might as well wish that these Teton lodges
were so many hives of hornets, and that the insects
would come forth and battle with yonder tribe of
half-naked savages.” Then chuckling, with his own
conceit, the bee-hunter turned away from his companion,
and sought a momentary relief from his misery,
by imagining that such a wild conceit might be realized,
and fancying the manner, in which the attack
would upset even the well-established patience of an
Indian.
Middleton was glad to be silent, but the old man,
who had listened to their words, drew a little nigher
and continued the discourse.
“Here is likely to be a merciless and a hellish
business!” he said, shaking his head in a manner to
prove that even his experience was at a loss for a
remedy in so trying a dilemma. “Our Pawnee friend
is already staked for the torture, and I well know, by
he is leading on the temper of his people to further
enormities.”
“Harkee, old trapper,” said Paul, writhing in his
bonds to catch a glimpse of the other's melancholy
face; “you ar' skilled in Indian tongues and know
somewhat of Indian deviltries. Go you to the council,
and tell their chiefs in my name, that is to say in
the name of Paul Hover, of the state of Kentucky,
that provided they will guarantee the safe return of
one Ellen Wade into the States, they are welcome
to take his scalp when and in such manner as best
suits their amusements; or, if-so-be they will not
trade on these conditions, you may throw in an hour
or two of torture before hand, in order to sweeten
the bargain to their damnable appetites.”
“Ah! lad, it is little they would hearken to such
an offer, knowing, as they do, that you are already
like a bear in a trap, as little able to fight as to fly.
But be not down-hearted, for the colour of a white
man is sometimes his death-warrant among these far
tribes of savages, and sometimes his shield. Though
they love us not, cunning often ties their hands.
Could the red nations work their will, trees would
shortly be growing again on the ploughed fields of
America, and woods would be whitened with Christian
bones. No one can doubt that, who knows the
quality of the love which a Red-skin bears a Pale-face;
but they have counted our numbers until their
memories fail them, and they are not without their
policy. Therefore is our fate unsettled; but I fear
me there is small hope left for the Pawnee!”
As the old man concluded, he walked slowly towards
the subject of his latter observation, taking his
post at no great distance from his side. Here he
stood, observing such a silence and mien as became
him to manifest, to a chief so renowned and so situated
as his captive associate. But the eye of Hard-Heart
that of one whose thoughts were entirely removed
from the present scene.
“The Siouxes are in council on my brother,” the
trapper at length observed, when he found he could
only attract the other's attention by speaking.
The young partizan turned his head with a calm
smile as he answered—
“They are counting the scalps over the lodge of
Hard-Heart!”
“No doubt, no doubt; their tempers begin to
mount, as they remember the number of Tetons you
have struck, and better would it be for you now, had
more of your days been spent in chasing the deer,
and fewer on the war-path. Then some childless
mother of this tribe might take you in the place of
her lost son, and your time would be filled in peace.”
“Does my father think that a warrior can ever
die? The Master of Life does not open his hand to
take away his gifts again. When he wants his young
men he calls them, and they go. But the Red-skin
he has once breathed on lives for ever.”
“Ay, this is a more comfortable and a more humble
faith than that which yonder heartless Teton
harbours! There is something in these Loups which
opens my inmost heart to them; they seem to have
the courage, ay, and the honesty, too, of the Delawares
of the hills. And this lad—it is wonderful, it
is very wonderful; but the age, and the eye, and the
limbs are as if they might have been brothers! Tell
me, Pawnee, have you ever in your traditions heard
of a mighty people who once lived on the shores of
the Salt-lake, hard by the rising sun?”
“The earth is white, by people of the colour of
my father.”
“Nay, nay, I speak not now of any strollers, who
have crept into the land to rob the lawful owners of
their birth-right, but of a people who are, or rather
the berry on the bush.”
“I have heard the old men say, that there were
bands, who hid themselves in the woods under the
rising sun, because they dared not come upon the
open prairies with men.”
“Do not your traditions tell you of the greatest,
the bravest, and the wisest nation of Red-skins that
the Wahcondah has ever breathed upon?”
Hard-Heart raised his head, with a loftiness and
dignity that even his bonds could not repress, as he
answered—
“Has age blinded my father; or does he see so
many Siouxes, that he believes there are no longer
any Pawnees?”
“Ah! such is mortal vanity and pride!” exclaimed
the disappointed old man, in English; “Natur' is
as strong in a Red-skin as in the bosom of a man of
white gifts. Now would a Delaware conceit himself
far mightier than a Pawnee, just as a Pawnee boasts
himself to be of the princes of the 'arth. And so it
was atween the Frenchers of the Canadas and the
red-coated English, that the king did use to send into
the States, when States they were not, but outcrying
and petitioning provinces, they fou't and they fou't,
and what marvellous boastings did they give forth to
the world of their own valour and victories, while
both parties forgot to name the humble soldier of the
land, who did the real service, but who, as he was
not privileged then to smoke at the great council fire
of his nation, seldom heard of his deeds, after they
were once bravely done.”
When the old man had thus given vent to the nearly
dormant, but far from extinct, military pride, that
had so unconsciously led him into the very error he
deprecated, his eye, which had begun to quicken and
and glimmer with some of the ardour of his youth,
softened and turned its anxious look on the devoted
former cold look of abstraction and thought.
“Young warrior,” he continued in a voice that
was growing tremulous, “I have never been father
or brother. The Wahcondah made me to live alone.
He never tied my heart to house or field, by the
cords with which the men of my race are bound to
their lodges; if he had, I should not have journeyed
so far, and seen so much. But I have tarried long
among a people, who lived in those woods you mention,
and much reason did I find to imitate their courage
and love their honesty. The Master of Life
has made us all, Pawnee, with a feeling for our kind.
I never was a father, but well do I know what is the
love of one. You are like a lad I valued, and I had
even begun to fancy that some of his blood might be
in your veins. But what matters that? You are a
true man, as I know by the way in which you keep
your faith; and honesty is a gift too rare to be forgotten.
My heart yearns to you, boy, and gladly
would I do you good.”
The youthful warrior listened to the words, which
came from the lips of the other with a force and simplicity
that established their truth, and he bowed his
head on his naked bosom, in testimony of the respect
with which he met the proffer. Then lifting his dark
eye to the level of the view, he seemed to be again
considering of things removed from every personal
consideration. The trapper, who well knew how
high the pride of a warrior would sustain him, in
those moments he believed to be his last, awaited the
pleasure of his young friend, with a meekness and
patience that he had acquired by his association with
that remarkable race. At length the gaze of the
Pawnee began to waver; and then quick, flashing
glances were turned from the countenance of the old
man to the air, and from the air to his deeply marked
their movements, was beginning to be troubled.
“Father,” the young brave finally answered in a
voice of confidence and kindness, “I have heard
your words. They have gone in at my ears, and are
now within me. The white-headed Long-knife has
no son; the Hard-Heart of the Pawnees is young, but
he is already the oldest of his family. He found the
bones of his father on the hunting-ground of the
Osages, and he has sent them to the prairies of the
Good Spirits. No doubt the great chief, his father,
has seen them, and knows what is part of himself.
But the Wahcondah will soon call to us both; you,
because you have seen all that is to be seen in this
country, and Hard-Heart, because he has need of a
warrior, who is young. There is no time for the
Pawnee to show the Pale-face the duty, that a son
owes to his father.”
“Old as I am, and miserable and helpless as I now
stand, to what I once was, I may live to see the sun
go down in the prairie. Does my son expect ever
to see darkness come again?”
“The Tetons are counting the scalps on my
lodge!” returned the young chief, with a smile whose
melancholy was singularly illuminated by a gleam of
triumph.
“And they find them many. Too many for the
safety of its owner, while he is in their revengeful
hands. My son is not a woman, and he looks on the
path he is about to travel with a steady eye. Has
he nothing to whisper in the ears of his people before
he starts? These legs are old, but they may yet
carry me to the forks of the Loup-river.”
“Tell them that Hard-Heart has tied a knot in his
wampum for every Teton!” burst from the lips of
the captive, with that vehemence with which sudden
passion is known to break through the barriers of artificial
restraint; “if he meets one of them all, in
Sioux!”
“Ah! that feeling would be a dangerous companion
for a man with white gifts to start with on such a
solemn journey,” muttered the old man in English.
“This is not what the good Moravians said to the
councils of the Delawares, nor what is so often
preached, to the White-skins in the settlements,
though to the shame of the colour be it said, it is so
little heeded. Pawnee, I love you; but being a
Christian man I cannot be the runner to bear such a
message.”
“If my father is afraid the Tetons will hear him,
let him whisper it softly to our old men.”
“As for fear, young warrior, it is no more the
shame of a Pale-face than of a Red-skin. The
Wahcondah teaches us to love the life he gives; but
it is as men love their hunts, and their dogs, and their
carabines, and not with the doting that a mother looks
upon her infant. The Master of Life will not have
to speak aloud twice when he calls my name. I am
as ready to answer to it now, as I shall be to-morrow,
or at any time it may please his mighty will. But
what is a warrior without his traditions? Mine forbid
me to carry your words.”
The chief made a dignified motion of assent, and
here there was great danger that those feelings of
confidence, which had been so singularly awakened,
would as suddenly subside. But the heart of the old
man had been too sensibly touched, through long dormant
but still living recollections, to break off the
communication so rudely. He pondered for a minute,
and then bending his look wistfully on his young
associate, again continued—
“Each warrior must be judged by his gifts. I
have told my son what I cannot, but let him open his
ears to what I can do. An elk shall not measure
the prairie much swifter than these old legs, if the
may bear.”
“Let the Pale-face listen;” returned the other,
after hesitating a single instant longer, under a lingering
sensation of his former disappointment. “He
will stay here till the Siouxes have done counting the
scalps of their dead warriors. He will wait until
they have tried to cover the heads of eighteen Tetons
with the skin of one Pawnee; he will open his
eyes wide, that he may see the place where they
bury the bones of a warrior.”
“All this will I and may I, do, noble boy.”
“He will mark the spot that he may know it.”
“No fear, no fear that I shall forget the place,”
interrupted the other, whose fortitude began to give
way under so trying an exhibition of calmness and
resignation.
“Then I know that my father will go to my people.
His head is grey and his words will not be
blown away with the smoke. Let him get on my
lodge, and call the name of Hard-Heart aloud. No
Pawnee will be deaf. Then let my father ask for
the colt, that has never been ridden, but which is
sleeker than the buck, and swifter than the elk.”
“I understand you, boy, I understand you,” interrupted
the attentive old man; “and what you say
shall be done, ay, and well done too, or I'm but little
skilled in the wishes of a dying Indian.”
“And when my young men have given my father
the halter of that colt, he will lead him by a crooked
path to the grave of Hard-Heart?”
“Will I! ay, that I will, my brave youth, though
the winter covers these plains in banks of snow, and
the sun is hidden as much by day as by night. To
the head of the holy spot will I lead the beast, and
place him with his eyes looking towards the setting
sun.”
“And my father will speak to him, and tell him,
has now need of him.”
“That, too, will I do; though the Lord he know;
that I shall hold discourse with a horse, not with any
vain conceit that my words will be understood, but
only to satisfy the cravings of Indian superstition.
Hector, my pup, what think you, dog, of talking to a
horse?”
“Let the grey-beard speak to him with the tongue
of a Pawnee,” interrupted the young victim, perceiving
that his companion had used an unknown language
for the preceding speech.
“My son's will shall be done—And with these old
hands, which I had hoped had nearly done with
blood-shed, whether it be of man or beast, will I slay
the animal on your grave!”
“It is good;” returned the other, a gleam of satisfaction
flitting across his grave and composed features.
“Hard-Heart will ride his horse to the blessed
prairies, and he will come before the Master of Life
like a chief!”
The sudden and striking change, which instantly
occurred in the countenance of the Indian, caused the
trapper to look aside, when he perceived that the
conference of the Siouxes had ended, and that Mahtoree,
attended by one or two of the principal warriors,
was deliberately approaching his intended victim.
| CHAPTER VIII. The prairie | |