 | CHAPTER XIII.
THE CAMP OF THE GLEN. The Crayon miscellany |  |
13. CHAPTER XIII.
THE CAMP OF THE GLEN.
Camp gossip. Pawnees and their habits. A
hunter's adventure. Horses found, and men
lost.
Being joined by the Captain and some of the
rangers, we struck into the woods for about half
a mile, and then entered a wild, rocky dell, bordered
by two lofty ridges of limestone, which
narrowed as we advanced, until they met and
united; making almost an angle. Here a fine
spring of water rose from among the rocks, and
fed a silver rill that ran the whole length of the
dell, freshening the grass with which it was carpeted.
In this rocky nook we encamped, among tall
trees. The rangers gradually joined us, straggling
through the forest singly or in groups;
some on horseback, some on foot, driving their
horses before them, heavily laden with baggage,
some dripping wet, having fallen into the river;
for they had experienced much fatigue and
trouble from the length of the ford, and the
depth and rapidity of the stream. They looked
not unlike banditti returning with their plunder,
them. The effect was heightened after
dark, when the light of the fires was cast upon
rugged looking groups of men and horses; with
baggage tumbled in heaps, rifles piled against
the trees, and saddles, bridles, and powder-horns
hanging about their trunks.
At the encampment we were joined by the
young Count and his companion, and the young
half-breed, Antoine, who had all passed successfully
by the ford. To my annoyance, however,
I discovered that both of my horses were missing.
I had supposed them in the charge of
Antoine; but he, with characteristic carelessness,
had paid no heed to them, and they had
probably wandered from the line on the opposite
side of the river. It was arranged that Beatte
and Antoine should recross the river at an early
hour of the morning, in search of them.
A fat buck, and a number of wild turkeys being
brought into the camp, we managed, with the
addition of a cup of coffee, to make a comfortable
supper: after which, I repaired to the Captain's
lodge, which was a kind of council fire
and gossiping place, for the veterans of the
camp.
As we were conversing together, we observed,
as on former nights, a dusky, red glow in the
west, above the summits of the surrounding
the prairies; and supposed to be on the western
side of the Arkansas. If so, it was thought they
must be made by some party of Pawnees, as the
Osage hunters seldom ventured in that quarter.
Our half-breeds, however, pronounced them
Osage fires; and that they were on the opposite
side of the Arkansas.
The conversation now turned upon the Pawnees,
into whose hunting grounds we were about
entering. There is always some wild untamed
tribe of Indians, who form, for a time, the terror
of a frontier, and about whom all kinds of fearful
stories are told. Such, at present, was the
casewith the Pawnees, who rove the regions between
the Arkansas and the Red River, and the
prairies of Texas. They were represented as
admirable horsemen, and always on horseback;
mounted on fleet and hardy steeds, the wild race
of the prairies. With these they roam the great
plains that extend about the Arkansas, the Red
River, and through Texas, to the Rocky Mountains;
sometimes engaged in hunting the deer
and buffalo, sometimes in warlike and predatory
expeditions; for, like their counterparts, the
sons of Ishmael, their hand is against every one,
and every one's hand against them. Some of
them have no fixed habitation, but dwell in tents
of skins, easily packed up and transported, so
knows where, to-morrow.
One of the veteran hunters gave several anecdotes
of their mode of fighting. Luckless, according
to his account, is the band of weary
traders or hunters descried by them, in the midst
of a prairie. Sometimes, they will steal upon
them by stratagem, hanging with one leg over
the saddle, and their bodies concealed; so that
their troop at a distance has the appearance of
a gang of wild horses. When they have thus
gained sufficiently upon the enemy, they will
suddenly raise themselves in their saddles, and
come like a rushing blast, all fluttering with
feathers, shaking their mantles, brandishing their
weapons, and making hideous yells. In this way,
they seek to strike a panic into the horses, and
put them to the scamper, when they will pursue
and carry them off in triumph.
The best mode of defence, according to this
veteran woodsman, is to get into the covert of
some wood, or thicket; or if there be none at
hand, to dismount, tie the horses firmly head to
head in a circle, so that they cannot break away
and scatter, and resort to the shelter of a ravine,
or make a hollow in the sand, where they may
be screened from the shafts of the Pawnees.
The latter chiefly use the bow and arrow, and
are dexterous archers; circling round and round
at full speed. They are chiefly formidable on
the prairies, where they have free career for
their horses, and no trees to turn aside their arrows.
They will rarely follow a flying enemy
into the forest.
Several anecdotes, also, were given, of the
secrecy and caution with which they will follow,
and hang about the camp of an enemy, seeking
a favourable moment for plunder or attack.
“We must now begin to keep a sharp look
out,” said the Captain. “I must issue written
orders, that no man shall hunt without leave, or
fire off a gun, on pain of riding a wooden horse
with a sharp back. I have a wild crew of young
fellows, unaccustomed to frontier service. It
will be difficult to teach them caution. We are
now in the land of a silent, watchful, crafty people,
who, when we least suspect it, may be around
us, spying out all our movements, and ready to
pounce upon all stragglers.”
“How will you be able to keep your men
from firing, if they see game while strolling round
the camp?” asked one of the rangers.
“They must not take their guns with them,
unless they are on duty, or have permission.”
“Ah, Captain!” cried the ranger, “that will
never do for me. Where I go, my rifle goes.
I never like to leave it behind: it's like a part
of it as I, and there's nothing will take such care
of me as my rifle.”
“There's truth in all that,” said the Captain,
touched by a true hunter's sympathy. “I've
had my rifle pretty nigh as long as I have had
my wife, and a faithful friend it has been
to me.”
Here the Doctor, who is as keen a hunter as
the Captain, joined in the conversation. “A
neighbour of mine says, next to my rifle, I'd as
leave lend you my wife.”
“There's few,” observed the Captain, “that
take care of their rifles as they ought to be taken
care of.”
“Or of their wives either,” replied the Doctor,
with a wink.
“That's a fact,” rejoined the Captain.
Word was now brought that a party of four
rangers, headed by “old Ryan,” were missing.
They had separated from the main body, on the
opposite side of the river, when searching for a
ford, and had straggled off, nobody knew whither.
Many conjectures were made about them, and
some apprehensions expressed for their safety.
“I should send to look after them,” said the
Captain, “but old Ryan is with them, and he
knows how to take care of himself and of them
too. If it were not for him, I would not give
in the woods or on a prairie, as he would be in
his own farm yard. He's never lost, wherever
he is. There's a good gang of them to stand
by one another; four to watch and one to take
care of the fire.”
“It's a dismal thing to get lost at night in a
strange and wild country,” said one of the
younger rangers.
“Not if you have one or two in company,”
said an older one. “For my part, I could feel
as cheerful in this hollow as in my own home,
if I had but one comrade to take turns to watch
and keep the fire going. I could lie here for
hours, and gaze up to that blazing star there,
that seems to look down into the camp as if it
were keeping guard over it.”
“Aye, the stars are a kind of company to
one, when you have to keep watch alone. That's
a cheerful star too, somehow; that's the evening
star, the planet Venus they call it, I think.”
“If that's the planet Venus,” said one of the
council, who, I believe, was the psalm-singing
schoolmaster, “it bodes us no good; for I recollect
reading in some book that the Pawnees
worship that star, and sacrifice their prisoners
to it. So I should not feel the better for the
sight of that star in this part of the country.”
“Well,” said the sergeant, a thorough-bred
a night alone in a wilder place than this, and
slept sound too, I'll warrant you. Once, however,
I had rather an uneasy time of it. I was
belated in passing through a tract of wood, near
the Tombigbee river; so I struck a light, made
a fire, and turned my horse loose, while I stretched
myself to sleep. By and bye I heard the
wolves howl. My horse came crowding near
me for protection, for he was terribly frightened.
I drove him off, but he returned, and drew nearer
and nearer, and stood looking at me and at
the fire, and dozing, and nodding, and tottering
on his fore feet, for he was powerful tired. After
a while, I heard a strange dismal cry. I thought
at first it might be an owl. I heard it again,
and then I knew it was not an owl, but must be
a panther. I felt rather awkward, for I had no
weapon but a double-bladed penknife. I however
prepared for defence in the best way I
could, and piled up small brands from the fire,
to pepper him with, should be come nigh. The
company of my horse now seemed a comfort
to me; the poor creature laid down beside me
and soon fell asleep, being so tired. I kept
watch, and nodded and dozed, and started awake,
and looked round, expecting to see the glaring
eyes of the panther close upon me; but somehow
or other, fatigue got the better of me, and
the tracks of a panther within sixty paces.
They were as large as my two fists. He had
evidently been walking backwards and forwards,
trying to make up his mind to attack me; but,
luckily, he had not courage.”
(Oct. 16.) I awoke before daybreak. The
moon was shining feebly down into the glen,
from among light drifting clouds; the camp fires
were nearly burnt out, and the men lying about
them, wrapped in blankets. With the first streak
of day, our huntsman, Beatte, with Antoine, the
young half-breed, set off to recross the river, in
search of the stray horses, in company with
several rangers who had left their rifles and
baggage on the opposite shore. As the ford
was deep, and they were obliged to cross in a
diagonal line, against a rapid current, they had
to be mounted on the tallest and strongest horses.
By eight o'clock, Beatte returned. He had
found the horses, but had lost Antoine. The
latter, he said, was a boy, a greenhorn, that
knew nothing of the woods. He had wandered
out of sight of him, and got lost. However,
there were plenty more for him to fall in company
with, as some of the rangers had gone
astray also, and old Ryan and his party had not
returned.
We waited until the morning was somewhat
stragglers, but they did not make their appearance.
The Captain observed, that the Indians
on the opposite side of the river, were all well
disposed to the whites; so that no serious apprehensions
need be entertained for the safety
of the missing. The greatest danger was, that
their horses might be stolen in the night by
straggling Osages. He determined, therefore,
to proceed, leaving a rear guard in the camp, to
await their arrival.
I sat on a rock that overhung the spring at
the upper part of the dell, and amused myself
by watching the changing scene before me.
First, the preparations for departure. Horses
driven in from the purlieus of the camp; rangers
riding about among rocks and bushes in
quest of others that had strayed to a distance;
the bustle of packing up camp equipage, and
the clamour after kettles and frying pans borrowed
by one mess from another, mixed up with
oaths and exclamations at restive horses, or others
that had wandered away to graze after being
packed: among which, the voice of our little
Frenchman, Tonish, was particularly to be distinguished.
The bugle sounded the signal to mount and
march. The troop filed off in irregular line
down the glen, and through the open forest,
trees, though the clamour of voices and the
notes of the bugle could be heard for some time
afterwards. The rear guard remained under
the trees in the lower part of the dell, some on
horseback, with their rifles on their shoulders;
others seated by the fire or lying on the ground,
gossiping in a low, lazy tone of voice, their horses
unsaddled, standing and dozing around: while
one of the rangers, profiting by this interval of
leisure, was shaving himself before a pocket
mirror stuck against the trunk of a tree.
The clamour of voices and the notes of the
bugle at length died away, and the glen relapsed
into quiet and silence, broken occasionally by
the low murmuring tone of the group around
the fire, or the pensive whistle of some laggard
among the trees; or the rustling of the yellow
leaves, which the lightest breath of air brought
down in wavering showers, a sign of the departing
glories of the year.
| CHAPTER XIII.
THE CAMP OF THE GLEN. The Crayon miscellany | |