 | CHAPTER II. The prairie |  |
2. CHAPTER II.
“How if he will not stand?”
Shakspeare.
The several movements related in the close of the
preceding chapter, had passed in so short a space of
time, that the old man, while he neglected not to
note the smallest incident, had no opportunity of expressing
his opinion concerning the stranger's motives.
After the Pawnee had disappeared, however,
he shook his head and muttered, while he walked
slowly to the angle of the thicket that the Indian
had just quitted—
“There are both scents and sounds in the air,
though my miserable senses are not good enough to
hear the one, or to catch the taint of the other.”
“There is nothing to be seen,” cried Middleton,
who kept close at his side. “My eyes and my ears
are good, and yet I can assure you that I neither
hear nor see any thing.”
“Your eyes are good! and you are not deaf!” returned
the other with a slight air of contempt; “no,
lad, no; they may be good to see across a church, or
to hear a town-bell, but afore you had passed a year
in these prairies you would find yourself taking a
turkey for a buffaloe, or conceiting, full fifty times,
that the roar of a buffaloe bull was the thunder of
the Lord! There is a deception of natur' in these
naked plains, in which the air throws up the images
like water, and then it is hard to tell the prairies from
a sea. But yonder is a sign that a hunter never fails
to know!”
The trapper pointed to a flight of vultures, that
were sailing over the plain at no great distance, and
apparently in the direction in which the Pawnee had
the small dark objects, that were dotting the
dusky clouds, but as they came swiftly onward, first
their forms, and then their heavy waving wings became
distinctly visible.
“Listen,” said the trapper, when he had succeeded
in making Middleton see the moving column of
birds. “Now you hear the buffaloes, or bisons, as
your knowing Doctor sees fit to call them, though
buffaloes is their name among all the hunters of these
regions. And, I conclude, that a hunter is a better
judge of a beast and of its name,” he added, winking
to the young soldier, “than any man who has
turned over the leaves of a book, instead of travelling
over the face of the 'arth, in order to find out
the name and the natur's of its inhabitants.”
“Of their habits, I will grant you;” cried the
naturalist, who rarely missed an opportunity to agitate
any disputed point in his favourite studies.
“That is, provided always deference is had to the
proper use of definitions, and that they are contemplated
with scientific eyes.”
“Eyes of a mole! as if man's eyes were not as
good for names as the eyes of any other creatur'!
Who named the works of His hand? can you tell
me that, with your books and college wisdom? Was
it not the first man in the Garden, and is it not a
plain consequence that his children inherit his gifts?”
“That is certainly the Mosaic account of the
event,” said the Doctor; “though your reading is
by far too literal.”
“My reading! nay, if you suppose, that I have
wasted my time in schools, you do such a wrong to
my knowledge as one mortal should never lay to the
door of another without sufficient reason. If I have
ever craved the art of reading, it has been that I
might better know the sayings of the book you name,
for it is a book which speaks, in every line, according
“And do you then believe,” said the Doctor a little
provoked by the dogmatism of his stubborn adversary,
and perhaps, secretly, too confident in his
own more liberal, though scarcely as profitable attainments—“Do
you then believe that all these
beasts were literally collected in a garden, to be enrolled
in the nomenclature of the first man?”
“Why not? I understand your meaning; for it
is not needful to live in towns to hear all the devilish
devices, that the conceit of man can invent to upset
his own happiness. What does it prove, except indeed
it may be said to prove that the garden He
made was not after the miserable fashions of our
times, thereby directly giving the lie to what the
world calls its civilizing. No, no, the garden of the
Lord was the forest then, and is the forest now,
where the fruits do grow, and the birds do sing, according
to his own wise ordering. Now, lady, you
may see the mystery of the vultures! There come
the buffaloes themselves, and a noble herd it is! I
warrant me, that Pawnee has a troop of his people
in some of the hollows, nigh by; and as he has gone
scampering after them, you are about to see a glorious
chace. It will serve to keep the squatter and
his brood under cover, and for ourselves there is
little reason to fear. A Pawnee is not apt to be a
malicious savage.”
Every eye was now drawn to the striking spectacle
that succeeded. Even the timid Inez hastened
to the side of Middleton to gaze at the sight, and
Paul summoned Ellen from her culinary labours, to
become a witness of the lively scene.
Throughout the whole of those moving events,
which it has been our duty to record, the prairies
had lain in all the majesty of perfect solitude. The
heavens had been blackened with the passage of the
and the ass of the Doctor, were the only quadrupeds
that had enlivened the broad surface of the waste
beneath. There was now a sudden exhibition of
animal life, which changed the scene, as it were, by
magic, to the very opposite extreme.
A few enormous bison bulls were first observed,
scouring along the most distant roll of the prairie,
and then succeeded long files of single beasts, which,
in their turns, were followed by a dark mass of
bodies, until the dun-coloured herbage of the plain
was entirely lost in the deeper hue of their shaggy
coats. The herd, as the column spread and thickened,
was like the endless flocks of the smaller birds,
whose extended flanks are so often seen to heave up
out of the abyss of the heavens, until they appear
as countless as the leaves in those forests, over which
they wing their endless flight. Clouds of dust shot
up in little columns from the centre of the mass, as
some animal, more furious than the rest, ploughed the
plain with his horns, and, from time to time, a deep
hollow bellowing was borne along on the wind, as
though a thousand throats vented their plaints in a
discordant murmuring.
A long and musing silence reigned in the party, as
they gazed on this spectacle of wild and peculiar
grandeur. It was at length broken by the trapper,
who, having been long accustomed to similar sights,
felt less of its influence, or, rather felt it in a less
thrilling and absorbing manner, than those to whom
the scene was more novel.
“There go ten thousand oxen in one drove, without
keeper or master, except Him who made them,
and gave them these open plains for their pasture!
Ay, it is here that man may see the proofs of his
wantonness and folly! Can the proudest governor
in all the States go into his fields, and slaughter a
nobler bullock than is here offered to the meanest
steak, can he eat it with as good a relish as he who
has sweetened his food with wholesome toil, and
earned it according to the law of natur', by honestly
mastering that which the Lord hath put before him?”
“If the prairie platter is smoking with a buffaloe's
hump I answer, no,” interrupted the luxurious beehunter.
“Ay, boy, you have tasted, and you feel the genuine
reasoning of the thing. But the herd is heading
a little this-a-way, and it behoves us to make ready
for their visit. If we hide ourselves, altogether, the
horned brutes will break through the place and trample
us beneath their feet, like so many creeping
worms; so we will just put the weak ones apart, and
take post, as becomes men and hunters, in the van.”
As there was but little time to make the necessary
arrangements, the whole party set about them in
good earnest. Inez and Ellen were placed in the
edge of the thicket on the side farthest from the approaching
herd. Asinus was posted in the centre,
in consideration of his nerves, and then the old man,
with his three male companions, divided themselves
in such a manner as they thought would enable them
to turn the head of the rushing column should it
chance to approach too nigh their position. By the
vacillating movements of some fifty or a hundred
bulls, that led the advance, it remained questionable,
for many moments, what course they intended to
pursue. But a tremendous and painful roar, which
came from behind the cloud of dust that rose in the
centre of the herd, and which was horridly answered
by the screams of the carrion birds, that were greedily
sailing directly above the flying drove, appeared
to give a new impulse to their flight, and at once to
remove every symptom of indecision. As if glad to
seek the smallest signs of the forest, the whole of the
affrighted herd became steady in its direction, rushing
which has already been so often named.
The appearance of danger was now, in reality, of
a character to try the stoutest nerves. The flanks
of the dark, moving mass, were advanced in such a
manner as to make a concave line of the front, and
every fierce eye, that was glaring from the shaggy
wilderness of hair in which the entire heads of the
males were enveloped, was riveted with mad anxiety
on the thicket. It seemed as if each beast strove to
outstrip his neighbour in gaining this desired cover,
and as thousands in the rear pressed blindly on those
in front, there was the appearance of an imminent
risk that the leaders of the herd would be precipitated
on the concealed party, in which case the destruction
of every one of them was certain. Each
of our adventurers felt the danger of his situation in
a manner peculiar to his individual character and
circumstances.
Middleton wavered. At times he felt inclined to
rush through the bushes, and, seizing Inez, attempt
to fly. Then recollecting the impossibility of outstripping
the furious speed of an alarmed bison, he
felt for his arms as if determined to make head
against the countless multitude of the drove. The
faculties of Dr. Battius were quickly wrought up to
the very summit of mental delusion. The dark
forms of the herd lost their distinctness, and then the
naturalist began to fancy he beheld a wild collection
of all the creatures of the world, rushing upon him
in a body, as if to revenge the various injuries, which
in the course of a life of indefatigable labour in behalf
of the natural sciences, he had inflicted on their
several genera. The paralysis it occasioned in his
system, was like the effect of the incubus. Equally
unable to fly or to advance, he stood riveted to the
spot, until the infatuation became so complete, that
the worthy naturalist was beginning, by a desperate
specimens. On the other hand, Paul shouted,
and called on Ellen to come and assist him in shouting,
but his voice was lost in the bellowings and
trampling of the herd. Furious, and yet strangely
excited by the obstinacy of the brutes and the wildness
of the sight, and nearly maddened by sympathy
and a species of unconscious apprehension, in which
the claims of nature were singularly mingled with
concern for his mistress, he nearly split his throat in
exhorting his aged friend to interfere.
“Come forth, old trapper,” he shouted, “with
your prairie inventions! or we shall be all smothered
under a mountain of buffaloe humps!”
The old man, who had stood all this while leaning
on his rifle, and regarding the movements of the
herd with a steady eye, now deemed it time to strike
his blow. Levelling his piece at the foremost bull,
with an agility that would have done credit to his
youth, he fired. The animal received the bullet on
the matted hair between his horns, and fell to his
knees: but shaking his head he instantly arose, the
very shock seeming to increase his exertions. There
was now no longer time to hesitate. Throwing down
his rifle, the trapper stretched forth his arms, and
advanced from the cover with naked hands, directly
towards the rushing column of the beasts.
The figure of a man, when sustained by the firmness
and steadiness that intellect can only impart,
rarely fails of commanding respect from all the inferior
animals of the creation. The leading bulls recoiled,
and for a single instant there was a sudden
stop to their speed, a dense mass of bodies rolling
up in front, until hundreds were seen floundering and
tumbling on the plain. Then came another of those
hollow bellowings from the rear and set the herd
again in motion. The head of the column, however,
divided. The immoveable form of the trapper,
life. Middleton and Paul instantly profited by his
example, and extended the feeble barrier by a similar
exhibition of their own persons.
For a few moments, the new impulse, given to the
animals in front, served to protect the thicket. But,
as the body of the herd pressed more and more upon
the open line of its defenders, and the dust thickened
so as to obscure their persons, there was, at each
instant, a renewed danger of the beasts breaking
through. It became necessary for the trapper and
his companions to become still more and more alert;
and they were gradually yielding before the headlong
multitude, when a furious bull darted by Middleton,
so near as to brush his person, and, at the next instant,
swept through the thicket with the velocity of
the wind.
“Close, and die for the ground,” shouted the old
man, “or a thousand of the devils will be at his
heels!”
All their efforts would have proved fruitless, however,
against the living torrent, had not Asinus, whose
domains had just been so rudely entered, lifted his
voice, in the midst of the uproar. The most sturdy
and furious of the bulls trembled at the alarming and
unknown cry, and then each individual brute was
seen madly pressing from that very thicket, which,
the moment before, he had endeavoured to reach
with the same sort of eagerness as that with which
the murderer seeks the sanctuary.
As the stream divided, the place became clear;
the two dark columns moving obliquely from the
copse to unite again at the distance of a mile, on its
opposite side. The instant the old man saw the sudden
effect which the voice of Asinus had produced,
he coolly commenced reloading his rifle, indulging at
the same time in a most heartfelt fit of his silent and
peculiar merriment.
“There they go, like dogs with so many half-filled
shot-pouches dangling at their tails, and no fear of
their breaking their order; for what the brutes in
the rear didn't hear with their own ears, they'll conceit
they did: besides, if they change their minds it
may be no hard matter to get the Jack to sing the
rest of his tune!”
“The ass has spoken, but Balaam is silent!” cried
the bee-hunter, catching his breath after a repeated
burst of noisy mirth, that might possibly have added
to the panic of the buffaloes by its vociferation!
“The man is as completely dumb-foundered, as
though a swarm of young bees had settled on the
end of his tongue, and he not willing to speak, for
fear of their answer.”
“How now, friend,” continued the trapper, addressing
the still motionless and entranced naturalist;
“How now, friend; are you, who make your livelihood
by booking the names and natur's of the beasts
of the fields and the fowls of the air, frightened at a
herd of scampering buffaloes! Though, perhaps,
you are ready to dispute my right to call them by a
word that is in the mouth of every hunter and
trader on the frontier!”
The old man was however mistaken, in supposing
he could excite the benumbed faculties of the Doctor,
by provoking a discussion on this momentous
topic. From that time, henceforth, he was never
known, except on one occasion, to utter a word that
indicated either the species or the genus of the animal.
He obstinately refused the nutritious food of
the whole ox family, and even to the present hour,
now that he is established in all the scientific dignity
and security of a savant in one of the maritime
towns, he turns his back with a shudder on those
delicious and unrivalled viands, that are so often
seen at the suppers of the craft, and which are unequalled
name, at the boasted chop-houses of London or at
the most renowned of the Parisian restaurans. In
short, the distaste of the worthy naturalist for beef
was not unlike that which the shepherd sometimes
produces, by first muzzling and fettering his delinquent
dog, and then leaving him as a stepping stone
for the whole flock to use in its transit over a wall
or through the opening of a sheep-fold; a process
which is said to produce in the culprit a species of
surfeit, on the subject of mutton, for ever after. By
the time Paul and the trapper saw fit to terminate
the fresh bursts of merriment, which the continued
abstraction of their learned companion did not fail
to excite, he commenced breathing again, as though
the suspended action of his lungs had been renewed
by the application of a pair of artificial bellows, and
was heard to make use of the ever afterwards proscribed
term, on that solitary occasion, to which we
have just alluded.
“Boves Americani horridi!” exclaimed the Doctor,
laying great stress on the latter word; after
which he continued mute, like one who pondered on
strange and unaccountable events.
“Ay, horrid eyes enough, I will willingly allow,”
returned the trapper; “and altogether the creatur'
has a frightful look, to one unused to the sights and
bustle of a natural life; but then the courage of the
beast is in no way equal to its countenance. Lord,
man, if you should once get fairly beset by a brood
of grizzly bears, as happened to Hector and I, at the
great falls of the Miss—Ah, here comes the tail
of the herd, and yonder goes a pack of hungry
wolves, ready to pick up the sick, or such as get a
disjointed neck by a tumble. Ha! there are mounted
men on their trail, or I'm no sinner! here, lad;
you may see them here-away, just where the dust is
a wounded buffaloe, making an end of the surly
devil with their arrows!”
Middleton and Paul soon caught a glimpse of the
dark groupe that the quick eye of the old man had
so readily detected. Some fifteen or twenty horsemen
were, in truth, to be seen riding, in quick circuits,
about a noble bull, which stood at bay, too
grievously hurt to fly, and yet seeming to disdain to
fall, notwithstanding his hardy body had already been
the target for a hundred arrows. A thrust from the
lance of a powerful Indian, however, completed his
conquest, and the brute gave up his obstinate hold of
life with a roar, that passed bellowing over the place
where our adventurers stood, and, reaching the ears
of the affrighted herd, added a new impulse to their
flight.
“How well the Pawnee knew the philosophy of a
buffaloe hunt,” said the old man, after he had stood
regarding the animated scene for a few moments,
with very evident satisfaction. “You saw how he
went off like the wind before the drove. It was in
order that he might not taint the air, and that he
might turn the flank, and join—Ha! how is this!
yonder Red-skins are no Pawnees! The feathers in
their heads are from the wings and tails of owls—
Ah! as I am but a miserable half-sighted trapper, it
is a band of the accursed Siouxes! To cover, lads,
to cover. A single cast of an eye this-a-way, would
strip us of every rag of clothes, as surely as the
lightning scorches the bush, and it might be that our
very lives would be far from safe.
Middleton had already turned from the spectacle,
to seek that which pleased him better; the sight of
his young and beautiful bride. Paul seized the Doctor
by the arm, and, as the trapper followed with the
smallest possible delay, the whole party was quickly
collected within the cover of the thicket. After a
this new danger, the old man, on whom the whole
duty of directing their movements was devolved, in
deference to his great experience, continued his discourse
as follows—
“This is a region, as you must all know, where a
strong arm is far better than the right, and where the
white law is as little known as needed. Therefore
does every thing, now, depend on judgment and
power. If,” he continued, laying his finger on his
cheek like one who considered deeply all sides of
the embarrassing situation in which he found himself,
“if an invention could be framed, which would
set these Siouxes and the brood of the squatter by the
ears, then might we come in, like the buzzards after
a fight atween the beasts, and pick up the gleanings
of the ground—there are Pawnees nigh us, too! It
is a certain matter, for yonder lad is not so far from
his village without an errand. Here are therefore
four parties within sound of a cannon, not one of
whom can trust the other. All which makes movement
a little difficult, in a district where covers are
far from plenty. But we are three well-armed, and
I think I may say three stout-hearted men—”
“Four,” interrupted Paul.
“Anan,” said the old man, looking up for the first
time at his companions.
“Four,” repeated the bee-hunter, pointing to the
naturalist.
“Every army has its hangers-on and idlers,” rejoined
the blunt border-man. “Friend, it will be
necessary to slaughter this ass.”
“To slay Asinus! such a deed would be an act
of supererogatory cruelty.”
“I know nothing of your words, which hide their
meaning in sound; but that is cruel which sacrifices
a Christian to a brute. This is what I call the reason
of mercy. It would be just as safe to blow a
inasmuch as it would prove a manifest challenge to
the Siouxes.”
“I will answer for the discretion of Asinus, who
seldom speaks without a reason.”
“They say a man can be known by the company
he keeps,” retorted the old man, “and why not a
brute! I once made a forced march, and went
through a great deal of jeopardy, with a companion
who never opened his mouth but to sing; and trouble
enough and great concern of mind did the fellow
give me. It was in that very business with your
grand'ther, captain. But then he had a human throat,
and well did he know how to use it, on occasion,
though he didn't always stop to regard the time and
seasons fit for such outcries. Ah's me! if I was now,
as I was then, it wouldn't be a band of thieving
Siouxes that should easily drive me from such a
lodgment as this! But what signifies boasting, when
sight and strength are both failing. The warrior, that
the Delawares once saw fit to call after the Hawk,
for the goodness of his eyes, would now be better
termed the Mole. In my judgment, therefore, it will
be well to slay the brute.”
“There's argument and good logic in it,” said
Paul; “music is music, and it's always noisy, whether
it comes from a fiddle or a jackass. Therefore I
agree with the old man, and say, kill the beast.”
“Friends,” said the naturalist, looking with a sorrowful
eye from one to another of his bloodily disposed
companions; “slay not Asinus; he is a specimen
of his kind, of whom much good and little evil
can be said. Hardy and docile, for his genus; abstemious
and patient, even for his humble species.
We have journeyed much together, and his death
would grieve me. How would it trouble thy spirit,
venerable venator, to separate, in such an untimely
manner, from your faithful hound?”
“The animal shall not die;” said the old man, suddenly
clearing his throat, in a manner that proved
he felt the fullest force of the appeal. “But his
voice must be smothered. Bind his jaws with the
halter, and then I think we may trust the rest to
Providence.”
With this double security for the discretion of
Asinus, for Paul instantly bound the muzzle of the
ass in the manner required, the trapper seemed content.
After which he proceeded to the margin of the
thicket to reconnoitre.
The uproar, which attended the passage of the
herd, was now gone, or rather it was heard rolling
along the prairie, at the distance of a mile. The
clouds of dust were already blown away by the
wind, and a clear range was left to the eye, in that
place where ten minutes before there existed such a
strange scene of wildness and confusion.
The Siouxes had completed their conquest, and,
apparently satisfied with this addition to the numerous
previous captures they had made, they now
seemed content to let the remainder of the herd escape.
A dozen remained around the carcass, over
which a few buzzards were balancing themselves,
with steady wings and greedy eyes, while the rest
were riding about, as if in quest of such further
booty as might come in their way, on the trail of so
vast a drove. The trapper measured the proportions,
and scanned the equipments of such individuals as
drew nearer to the side of the thicket, with careful
eyes. At length he pointed out one among them, to
Middleton, as Weucha.
“Now, know we not only who they are, but their
errand,” the old man continued, deliberately shaking
his head. “They have lost the trail of the squatter
and are on its hunt. These buffaloes have crossed
their path, and in chasing the animals, bad luck has
led them in open sight of the hill on which the brood
watching for the offals of the beast they have killed?
Therein is a moral, which teaches the manner of a
prairie life. A band of Pawnees are outlying for
these very Siouxes, as you see the buzzards looking
down for their food, and it behoves us, as Christian
men who have so much at stake, to look down upon
them both. Ha! what brings yonder two skirting
reptiles to a stand! As you live, they have found
the place where the miserable son of the squatter
met his death!”
The old man was not mistaken. Weucha, and a
savage who accompanied him, had reached that spot,
which has already been mentioned as furnishing such
frightful evidences of violence and bloodshed. There
they sat on their horses, examining the well-known
signs with all the intelligence that distinguishes the
habits of Indians. Their scrutiny was long, and apparently
not without distrust. At length they both
raised a cry at the same instant, that was scarcely
less piteous and startling than that which the hounds
had before made over the same fatal signs, and which
did not fail to draw the whole band immediately
around them, as the fell bark of the jackal is said to
gather his comrades to the chase.
| CHAPTER II. The prairie | |