 | CHAPTER XII. The prairie |  |
12. CHAPTER XII.
“If that shepherd be not in hand-fast, let him fly; the curses he shall
have, the tortures he shall feel, will break the back of man, the heart
of monster.”
Shakspeare.
It will readily be seen that the event just related
was attended by an extraordinary sensation among
the Siouxes. In leading the hunters of the band back
to the encampment, their chief had neglected none of
the customary precautions of Indian prudence, in
order that his trail might escape the eyes of his enemies.
It would seem, however, that the Pawnees
had not only made the dangerous discovery, but had
managed with great art to draw nigh the place by
the only side on which it was thought unnecessary to
guard the approaches with the usual line of sentinels.
The latter, who were scattered along the
different little eminences which lay in the rear of
the lodges, were among the last to be apprized of
the danger.
In such a crisis there was little time for deliberation.
It was by exhibiting the force of his character
in scenes of similar difficulty, that Mahtoree had obtained
and strengthened his ascendancy among his
people, nor did he seem likely to lose it by the manifestation
of any indecision on the present occasion.
In the midst of the screams of the young, the shrieks
of the women, and the wild howlings of the crones,
which were sufficient of themselves to have created
a chaos in the thoughts of one less accustomed to act
in emergencies, he promptly asserted his authority,
issuing his orders with the coolness of a veteran.
While the warriors were arming, the boys were
despatched to the bottom for the horses. The tents
were hastily struck by the women, and disposed of
trusted in combat. The infants were cast upon the
backs of their mothers, and those children, who were
of a size to march, were driven to the rear, like a
herd of less reasoning animals. Though these several
movements were made amid outcries, and a clamour,
that likened the place to another Babel, they were
executed with incredible alacrity and intelligence.
In the mean time Mahtoree neglected no duty that
belonged to his responsible station. From the elevation,
on which he stood, he could command a perfect
view of the force and evolutions of the hostile
party. A grim smile lighted his visage, when he
found that, in point of numbers, his own band was
greatly the superior. Notwithstanding this advantage,
however, there were other points of inequality,
which would probably have a tendency to render his
success, in the approaching conflict, exceedingly
doubtful. His people were the inhabitants of a
more northern and less hospitable region than their
enemies, and were far from being rich in that species
of property, horses and arms, which constitutes
the most highly prized wealth of a western Indian.
The band in view was mounted to a man, and as it
had come so far to rescue, or to revenge, their greatest
partisan, he had no reason to doubt its being
composed entirely of braves. On the other hand,
many of his followers were far better in a hunt than
in a combat; men who might serve to divert the
attention of his foes, but from whom he could expect
little desperate service. Still his flashing eye glanced
over a body of warriors on whom he had often relied,
and who had never deceived him, and though, in the
precise position in which he found himself, he felt no
disposition to precipitate the conflict, he certainly
would have had no intention to avoid it, had not the
presence of his women and children placed the option
altogether in the power of his adversaries.
On the other hand, the Pawnees, so unexpectedly
successful in their first and greatest object, manifested
no intention to drive matters to an issue. The river
was a dangerous barrier to pass in the face of a determined
foe, and it would now have been in perfect
accordance with their cautious policy, to have retired,
for a season, in order that their onset might be made
in the hours of darkness and of seeming security.
But there was a spirit in their chief that elevated
him, for the moment, high above the ordinary expedients
of savage warfare. His bosom burned with
the desire to wipe out that disgrace, of which he had
been the subject, and it is possible, that he believed
the retiring camp of the Siouxes contained a prize,
that begun to have a value in his eyes, far exceeding
any that could be found in fifty Teton scalps. Let
that be as it might, Hard-Heart had no sooner received
the brief congratulations of his band, and
communicated to the chiefs such facts as were important
to be known, than he prepared himself to
act such a part in the coming conflict, as would at
once maintain his well-earned reputation and gratify
his secret wishes. A led horse, one that had been
long trained in the hunts, had been brought to receive
his master, with but little hope that his services
would ever be needed again in this life. With a delicacy
and consideration, that proved how much the
generous qualities of the youth had touched the feelings
of his people, a bow, a lance, and a quiver, were
thrown across the animal, which it had been intended
to immolate on the grave of the young brave; a species
of care that would have superseded the necessity
for the pious duty that the trapper had pledged himself
to perform.
Though Hard-Heart was sensible of the kindness of
his warriors, and believed that a chief, furnished with
such appointments, might depart with credit for the
distant hunting-grounds of the Master of Life, he
rendered quite as useful in the actual state of things.
His countenance lighted with a gleam of stern pleasure,
as he tried the elasticity of the bow, and poised
the well-balanced spear. The glance he bestowed
on the shield was more cursory and indifferent, but
the exultation, with which he threw himself on the
back of his most favoured war-horse was so great, as
to break through all the forms of Indian reserve. He
rode to and fro among his scarcely less delighted warriors,
managing the animal with a grace and address
that no artificial rules can ever supply, at times flourishing
his lance, as if to assure himself of his seat,
and at others examining critically into the condition
of the fusee, with which he had also been furnished,
with the fondness of one, who was miraculously restored
to the possession of treasures that had ever
constituted his pride and his happiness.
It was at this particular moment that Mahtoree,
having completed the necessary arrangements, prepared
to make a more decisive movement. The
Teton had found no little embarrassment in disposing
of his captives. The tents of the squatter were still
in sight, and his wary cunning did not fail to apprize
him, that it was quite as necessary to guard against
an attack from that quarter, as to watch the motions
of his more open and more active foes. His first
impulse had been to make the tomahawk suffice for
the men, and to trust the females under the same
protection as the women of his band. But the manner,
in which many of his braves continued to regard
the imaginary medicine of the Long-knives, forewarned
him of the danger of so hazardous an experiment
on the eve of a battle. It might be deemed
the omen of defeat. In this dilemma he motioned
to a superannuated warrior, to whom he had confided
the charge of the non-combatants, and leading him
apart, he placed a finger significantly on his shoulder,
by confidence—
“When my young men are striking the Pawnees,
give the women knives. Enough; my father is very
old; he does not want to hear wisdom from a boy.”
The grim old savage returned a look of ferocious
assent, and then the mind of the chief appeared to
be at rest on this important subject. From that moment
he bestowed all his care on the achievement
of his revenge and the maintenance of his martial
character. Throwing himself on his horse, he made
a sign, with the air of a prince to his followers, to
imitate his example, interrupting without ceremony
the war-songs and solemn rites, by which many
among them were stimulating their spirits to deeds
of daring. When all were in order, the whole moved
with great steadiness and silence towards the margin
of the river.
The hostile bands were now only separated by the
water. The width of the stream was too great to
admit of the use of the ordinary Indian missiles, but
a few useless shots were exchanged from the fusees
of the chiefs, more in bravado than with any expectation
of doing execution. As some time was suffered
to elapse, in demonstrations and abortive efforts,
we shall leave them, for that period, to return to such
of our characters as remained in the hands of the
savages.
We have shed much ink in vain, and wasted quires,
that might possibly have been better employed, if
it be necessary now to tell the reader that few of
the foregoing movements escaped the observation of
the experienced trapper. He had been, in common
with the rest, astonished at the sudden act of Hard-Heart,
and there was a single moment, when a feeling
of regret and mortification got the better of his
longings to save the life of the youth. The simple
and well-intentioned old man would have felt, at
warrior, who had so strongly excited his sympathies,
the same species of sorrow that a Christian parent
would suffer in hanging over the dying moments of
an impious child. But when, instead of an impotent
and unmanly struggle for existence, he found that his
friend had forborne, with the customary and dignified
submission of an Indian warrior, until an opportunity
had offered to escape, and that he had then manifested
the spirit and decision of the most gifted brave,
his gratification became nearly too powerful to be
concealed. In the midst of the wailing and commotion,
which succeeded the death of Weucha and the
escape of the captive, he placed himself nigh the persons
of his white associates, with a determination of
interfering, at every hazard, should the fury of the
savages take that direction. The appearance of the
hostile band spared him however so desperate and
probably so fruitless an effort, and left him to pursue
his observations and to mature his plans more at
leisure.
He particularly remarked that, while by far the
greater part of the women and all the children, together
with the effects of the party were hurried to
the rear, probably with an order to secrete themselves
in some of the adjacent woods, the tent of
Mahtoree himself was left standing, and its contents
undisturbed. Two chosen horses, however, stood
near by, held by a couple of youths, who were too
young to go into the conflict, and yet of an age to
understand the management of the beasts. The
trapper perceived in this arrangement the reluctance
of Mahtoree to trust his newly found “flowers” beyond
the reach of his eye, and, at the same time, his
forethought in providing against any reverse of fortune.
Neither had the manner of the Teton in
giving his commission to the old savage, nor the
fierce pleasure, with which the latter had received
all these mysterious movements, the old man was
aware that the crisis was at hand, and he summoned
the utmost knowledge he had acquired in so long a
life, to aid him in the desperate conjuncture. It was
while musing on the means to be employed, that the
Doctor again attracted his attention to himself, by a
piteous appeal for assistance.
“Venerable trapper, or, as I may now say, liberator,”
commenced the dolorous Obed, “it would
seem, that a fitting time has at length arrived to dissever
the unnatural and altogether irregular connexion,
which exists between my inferior members and
the body of Asinus. Perhaps if such a portion of
my limbs were released as might leave me master of
the remainder, and this favourable opportunity were
suitably improved, by making a forced march towards
the settlements, all hopes of preserving the treasures
of knowledge, of which I am the unworthy receptacle,
would not be lost. The importance of the results
is surely worth the hazard of the experiment.”
“I know not, I know not,” returned the deliberate
old man; “the vermin and reptiles, which you bear
about you, were intended by the Lord for the prairies,
and I see no good in sending them into regions
that may not suit their natur's. And, moreover, you
may be of great and particular use as you now sit on
the ass, though it creates no wonder in my mind to
perceive that you are ignorant of it, seeing that usefulness
is altogether a new calling to so bookish a
man.”
“Of what service can I be in this painful thraldom,
in which the animal functions are in a manner suspended,
and the spiritual, or intellectual, blinded by
the secret sympathy that unites mind to matter.
There is likely to be blood spilt between yonder adverse
hosts of heathens, and, though but little desiring
the office, it would be better that I should employ
the precious moments, mortifying both soul and
body.”
“It is little that a Red-skin would care to have a
physicianer at his hurts, while the whoop is ringing
in his ears. Patience is a virtue in an Indian, and
can be no shame to a Christian white man. Look
at these hags of squaws, friend Doctor; I have no
judgment in savage tempers, if they are not bloody
minded, and ready to work their accursed pleasures
on us all. Now so long as you keep upon the ass,
and maintain the fierce look which is far from being
your natural gift, fear of so great a medicine may
serve to keep down their courage. I am placed here,
like a general at the opening of the battle, and it has
become my duty to make such use of all my force
as, in my judgment, each is best fitted to perform. If
I know these niceties you will be more serviceable
for your countenance, just now, than in any more
stirring exploits.”
“Harkee, old trapper,” shouted Paul, whose patience
could no longer maintain itself under the calculating
and prolix explanations of the other, “suppose
you cut two things I can name, short off. That is to
say, your conversation, which is agreeable enough
over a well-baked buffaloe's hump, and these damnable
thongs of hide, which, according to my experience,
can be pleasant no where. A single stroke of
your knife would be of more service, just now, than
the longest speech that was ever made in a Kentucky
court-house.”
“Ay, court-houses are the `happy hunting-grounds,'
as a Red-skin would say, for them that are born with
gifts no better than such as lie in the tongue. I was
carried into one of the lawless holes myself, once,
and it was all about a thing of no more value than
the skin of a deer. The Lord forgive them! the
Lord forgive them! they knew no better, and they
the more are they to be pitied; and yet it was a
solemn sight to see an aged man, who had always
lived in the air, laid neck and heels by the law, and
held up as a spectacle for the women and boys of a
wasteful settlement to point their fingers at!”
“If such be your commendable opinions of confinement,
honest friend, you had better manifest the
same, by putting us at liberty with as little delay as
possible,” said Middleton, who, like his companion,
began to find the tardiness of his often-tried companion
quite as extraordinary as it was disagreeable.
“I should greatly like to do the same; especially
in your behalf, Captain, who, being a soldier, might
find not only pleasure but profit in examining, more
at your ease, into the circumventions and cunning of
an Indian fight. As to our friend here, it is of but
little matter, how much of this affair he examines, or
how little, seeing that a bee is not to be overcome in
the same manner as an Indian.”
“Old man, this trifling with our misery is inconsiderate,
to give it a name no harsher—”
“Ay, your gran'ther was of a hot and hurrying
mind, and one must not expect, that the young of a
panther will crawl the 'arth like the litter of a porcupine.
Now keep you both silent, and what I say
shall have the appearance of being spoken concerning
the movements that are going on in the bottom;
all of which will serve to put jealousy to sleep, and
to shut the eyes of such as rarely close them on wickedness
and cruelty. In the first place, then, you
must know that I have reason to think yonder treacherous
Teton has left an order to put us all to death,
so soon as he thinks the deed may be done secretly,
and without tumult.”
“Great Heaven! will you suffer us to be butchered
like unresisting sheep.”
“Hist, Captain, hist; a hot temper is none of the
the Pawnee is a noble boy! it would do your heart
good to see how he draws off from the river, in order
to invite his enemies to cross; and yet, according
to my failing sight, they count two warriors to his
one! But as I was saying, little good comes of haste
and thoughtlessness. The facts are so plain, that any
child may see into their wisdom. The savages are
of many minds as to the manner of our treatment.
Some fear us for our colour, and would gladly let us
go, and other some would show us the mercy that the
doe receives from the hungry wolf. When opposition
gets fairly into the councils of a tribe, it is rare
that humanity is the gainer. Now see you these
wrinkled and cruel-minded squaws—No, you cannot
see them as you lie, but nevertheless they are here,
ready and willing, like so many raging she-bears, to
work their will upon us so soon as the proper time
shall come.”
“Harkee, old gentleman trapper,” interrupted
Paul, with a little bitterness in his manner. “Do
you tell us these matters for our amusement or for
your own. If for ours, you may keep your breath
for the next race you run, as I am tickled nearly to
suffocation, already, with my part of the fun.”
“Hist”—said the trapper, cutting with great dexterity
and rapidity the thong, which bound one of the
arms of Paul to his body, and dropping his knife at
the same time within reach of the liberated hand.
“Hist, boy, hist; that was a lucky moment! The
yell from the bottom drew the eyes of these blood-suckers
in another quarter, and so far we are safe.
Now make a proper use of your advantages; but be
careful, that what you do, is done without being seen.”
“Thank you for this small favour, old deliberation,”
muttered the bee-hunter, “though it comes
like a snow in May, somewhat out of season.”
“Foolish boy!” reproachfully exclaimed the other,
and appeared to be attentively regarding the movements
of the hostile parties, “will you never learn
to know the wisdom of patience. And you, too,
Captain; though a man myself, that seldom ruffles
his temper by vain feelings, I see that you are silent,
because you scorn to ask favours any longer from one
you think too slow to grant them. No doubt, ye are
both young and filled with the pride of your strength
and manhood, and I dare say you thought it only
needful to cut the thongs, to leave you masters of the
ground. But he, that has seen much, is apt to think
much. Had I run like a bustling woman to have
given you freedom, these hags of the Siouxes would
have seen the same, and then where would you both
have found yourselves! Under the tomahawk and
the knife, like helpless and outcrying children, though
gifted with the size and beards of men. Ask our
friend, the bee-hunter, in what condition he finds himself
to struggle with a Teton boy, after so many hours
of bondage; much less with a dozen marciless and
blood-thirsty squaws!”
“Truly, old trapper,” returned Paul stretching his
limbs, which were by this time entirely released, and
endeavouring to restore the suspended circulation,
“you have some judgmatical notions in these matters.
Now here am I, Paul Hover, a man who will
give in to few at a wrestle or a race, nearly as helpless
as the day I paid my first visit to the house of
old Paul, who is dead and gone, the Lord forgive him
any little blunders he may have made while he tarried
in Kentucky! Now there is my foot on the
ground, so far as eye-sight has any virtue, and yet it
would take no great temptation to make me swear it
didn't touch the earth by six inches. I say, honest
friend, since you have done so much, have the goodness
to keep these damnable squaws, of whom you
I have got the blood of this arm in motion and am
ready to receive them politely.”
The trapper made a sign that he perfectly understood
the emergency of the case, and he walked towards
the superannuated savage, who began to manifest
an intention of commencing his assigned task,
leaving the bee-hunter to recover the use of his limbs
as well as he could, and to put Middleton in a similar
situation to defend himself.
Mahtoree had not mistaken his man, in selecting
the one he did to execute his bloody purpose. He
had chosen one of those ruthless savages, more or
less of whom are to be found in every tribe, who had
purchased a certain share of military reputation, by
the exhibition of a hardihood that found its impulses
in an innate love of cruelty. Contrary to the high
and chivalrous sentiment, which among the Indians
of the prairies renders it a deed of even greater
merit to bear off the trophy of victory from a fallen
foe, than to slay him, he had been remarkable for
preferring the pleasure of destroying life, to the glory
of striking the dead. While the more self-devoted
and ambitious braves were intent on personal honour,
he had always been seen, established behind some
favourable cover, depriving the wounded of hope, by
finishing that which a more gallant warrior had begun.
In all the cruelties of the tribe he had ever been foremost,
and no Sioux was so uniformly found on the
side of merciless councils.
He had awaited, with an impatience which his
long-practised restraint could with difficulty subdue,
for the moment to arrive when he might proceed to
execute the wishes of the great chief, without whose
approbation and powerful protection he would not
have dared to undertake a step that had so many opposers
in the nation. But events had been hastening
had now arrived, greatly to his secret and malignant
joy, when he was free to act his will.
The trapper found him distributing knives to the
ferocious hags, who received the presents chanting a
low monotonous song, that recalled the losses of their
people, in various conflicts with the whites, and
which extolled the pleasures and glory of revenge.
The appearance of such a groupe was enough of itself
to have deterred one, less accustomed to such
sights than the old man, from trusting himself within
the circle of their wild and repulsive rites.
Each of the crones, as she received the weapon,
commenced a slow and measured, but ungainly step,
around the savage, until the whole were circling him
in a sort of magic dance. The movements were
timed, in some degree, by the words of their songs,
as were their gestures by the ideas. When they
spoke of their own losses, they tossed their long
straight locks of gray into the air, or suffered them
to fall in confusion upon their withered necks, but as
the sweetness of returning blow for blow was touched
upon, by any one among them, it was answered
by a common howl, as well as by gestures, that were
sufficiently expressive of the manner in which they
were exciting themselves to the necessary state of
fury.
It was into the very centre of this ring of seeming
demons that the trapper now stalked, with the same
calmness and observation as he would have walked
into a village church. No other change was made
by his appearance, than a renewal of the threatening
gestures, with, if possible, a still less equivocal display
of their remorseless intentions. Making a sign
for them to cease, the old man demanded—
“Why do the mothers of the Tetons sing with bitter
tongues? The Pawnee prisoners are not yet in
loaded with scalps!”
He was answered by another general howl, and a
few of the boldest of the furies even ventured to approach
him, flourishing their knives within a dangerous
proximity to his own steady eye-balls.
“It is a warrior you see, and no runner of the
Long-knives, whose face grows paler at the sight of a
tomahawk,” returned the trapper, without moving a
muscle. “Let the Sioux women think; if one White-skin
dies a hundred spring up where he falls.”
Still the hags made no other answer than by increasing
their speed in the circle, and occasionally
raising the threatening expressions of their chaunt
into louder and more intelligible strains. Suddenly
one of the oldest, and most ferocious of them all
broke out of the ring, and skirred away in the direction
of her victims, like a rapacious bird, that having
wheeled on poised wings, for the time necessary to
insure its object, makes the final dart upon its prey.
The others followed, a disorderly and screaming
flock, fearful of being too late to reap their portion
of the sanguinary pleasure.
“Mighty medecine of my people!” shouted the
old man, in the Teton tongue; “lift your voice and
speak, that the Sioux nation may hear.”
Whether it was that Asinus had acquired so much
knowledge, by his recent experience, as to know the
value of his sonorous properties, or that the strange
spectacle of a dozen hags flitting past him, filling the
air with such sounds as were even grating to the ears
of an ass, most moved his temper, it is certain that
the animal did that which Obed was requested to do,
and probably with far greater effect than if the naturalist
had strove with his mightiest effort to be heard.
It was the first time the strange beast had spoken
since his arrival in the encampment. Admonished
like vultures frightened from their prey, still
screaming and but half diverted from their purpose.
In the meantime the sudden appearance, and the
imminency of the danger, had quickened the blood
in the veins of Paul and Middleton, more than all
their laborious frictions and physical expedients.
The former had actually risen to his feet, and assumed
an attitude which perhaps threatened more than
the worthy bee-hunter was able to perform, and even
the latter had mounted to his knees, and shown a disposition
to do good service for his life. The unaccountable
release of the captives from their bonds
was attributed by the hags to the incantations of the
medecine, and the mistake was probably of as much
service as the miraculous and timely interposition of
Asinus in their favour.
“Now is the time to come out of our ambushment,”
exclaimed the old man, hastening to join his
friends, “and to make open and manful war. It
would have been policy to have kept back the struggle,
until the Captain was in better condition to join,
but as we have unmasked our battery, why, we must
maintain the ground—”
He was interrupted by feeling a gigantic hand on
his shoulder. Turning, under a sort of confused impression
that necromancy was actually abroad in the
place, he found that he was in the hands of a sorcerer
no less dangerous and powerful than Ishmael Bush.
The file of the squatter's well-armed sons, that was
seen issuing from behind the still standing tent of
Mahtoree, explained at once, not only the manner in
which their rear had been turned, while their attention
had been so earnestly bestowed on matters in
front, but the utter impossibility of resistance.
Neither Ishmael nor his sons deemed it necessary
to enter into prolix explanations. Middleton and
Paul were bound again, with extraordinary silence
was exempt from a similar fortune. The tent
was struck, the females placed upon the horses, and
the whole were on the way towards the squatter's
encampment, with a celerity that might well have
served to keep alive the idea of magic.
During this summary and brief disposition of
things, the disappointed agent of Mahtoree and his
callous associates were seen flying across the plain,
in the direction of the retiring families, and when
Ishmael left the spot with his prisoners and his booty,
the ground, which had so lately been alive with the
bustle and life of an extensive Indian encampment,
was as still and empty as any other spot in those extensive
wastes.
| CHAPTER XII. The prairie | |