The Prairie (31 page)

The old man turned a disappointed look towards Middleton, who was too
much occupied in solacing Inez to observe his embarrassment, which
was, however, suddenly relieved from a quarter, whence, from previous
circumstances, there was little reason to expect such a demonstration of
fortitude.

Doctor Battius had rendered himself a little remarkable throughout the
whole of the preceding retreat, for the exceeding diligence with which
he had laboured to effect that desirable object. So very conspicuous
was his zeal, indeed, as to have entirely gotten the better of all his
ordinary predilections. The worthy naturalist belonged to that species
of discoverers, who make the worst possible travelling companions to a
man who has reason to be in a hurry. No stone, no bush, no plant is ever
suffered to escape the examination of their vigilant eyes, and thunder
may mutter, and rain fall, without disturbing the abstraction of their
reveries. Not so, however, with the disciple of Linnaeus, during the
momentous period that it remained a mooted point at the tribunal of his
better judgment, whether the stout descendants of the squatter were
not likely to dispute his right to traverse the prairie in freedom. The
highest blooded and best trained hound, with his game in view, could not
have run with an eye more riveted than that with which the Doctor had
pursued his curvilinear course. It was perhaps lucky for his fortitude
that he was ignorant of the artifice of the trapper in leading them
around the citadel of Ishmael, and that he had imbibed the soothing
impression that every inch of prairie he traversed was just so much
added to the distance between his own person and the detested rock.
Notwithstanding the momentary shock he certainly experienced, when he
discovered this error, he now boldly volunteered to enter the thicket
in which there was some reason to believe the body of the murdered Asa
still lay. Perhaps the naturalist was urged to show his spirit, on this
occasion, by some secret consciousness that his excessive industry in
the retreat might be liable to misconstruction; and it is certain that,
whatever might be his peculiar notions of danger from the quick, his
habits and his knowledge had placed him far above the apprehension of
suffering harm from any communication with the dead.

"If there is any service to be performed, which requires the perfect
command of the nervous system," said the man of science, with a look
that was slightly blustering, "you have only to give a direction to his
intellectual faculties, and here stands one on whose physical powers you
may depend."

"The man is given to speak in parables," muttered the single-minded
trapper; "but I conclude there is always some meaning hidden in his
words, though it is as hard to find sense in his speeches, as to
discover three eagles on the same tree. It will be wise, friend, to make
a cover, lest the sons of the squatter should be out skirting on our
trail, and, as you well know, there is some reason to fear yonder
thicket contains a sight that may horrify a woman's mind. Are you man
enough to look death in the face; or shall I run the risk of the hounds
raising an outcry, and go in myself? You see the pup is willing to run
with an open mouth, already."

"Am I man enough! Venerable trapper, our communications have a recent
origin, or thy interrogatory might have a tendency to embroil us
in angry disputation. Am I man enough! I claim to be of the class,
mammalia; order, primates; genus, homo! Such are my physical attributes;
of my moral properties, let posterity speak; it becomes me to be mute."

"Physic may do for such as relish it; to my taste and judgment it is
neither palatable nor healthy; but morals never did harm to any living
mortal, be it that he was a sojourner in the forest, or a dweller in
the midst of glazed windows and smoking chimneys. It is only a few hard
words that divide us, friend; for I am of an opinion that, with use and
freedom, we should come to understand one another, and mainly settle
down into the same judgments of mankind, and of the ways of world.
Quiet, Hector, quiet; what ruffles your temper, pup; is it not used to
the scent of human blood?"

The Doctor bestowed a gracious but commiserating smile on the
philosopher of nature, as he retrograded a step or two from the place
whither he had been impelled by his excess of spirit, in order to reply
with less expenditure of breath, and with a greater freedom of air and
attitude.

"A homo is certainly a homo," he said, stretching forth an arm in an
argumentative manner; "so far as the animal functions extend, there are
the connecting links of harmony, order, conformity, and design, between
the whole genus; but there the resemblance ends. Man may be degraded
to the very margin of the line which separates him from the brute,
by ignorance; or he may be elevated to a communion with the great
Master-spirit of all, by knowledge; nay, I know not, if time and
opportunity were given him, but he might become the master of all
learning, and consequently equal to the great moving principle."

The old man, who stood leaning on his rifle in a thoughtful attitude,
shook his head, as he answered with a native steadiness, that entirely
eclipsed the imposing air which his antagonist had seen fit to assume—

"This is neither more nor less than mortal wickedness! Here have I been
a dweller on the earth for four-score and six changes of the seasons,
and all that time have I look'd at the growing and the dying trees, and
yet do I not know the reasons why the bud starts under the summer sun,
or the leaf falls when it is pinch'd by the frosts. Your l'arning,
though it is man's boast, is folly in the eyes of Him, who sits in
the clouds, and looks down, in sorrow, at the pride and vanity of his
creatur's. Many is the hour that I've passed, lying in the shades of the
woods, or stretch'd upon the hills of these open fields, looking up into
the blue skies, where I could fancy the Great One had taken his stand,
and was solemnising on the waywardness of man and brute, below, as I
myself had often look'd at the ants tumbling over each other in their
eagerness, though in a way and a fashion more suited to His mightiness
and power. Knowledge! It is his plaything. Say, you who think it so easy
to climb into the judgment-seat above, can you tell me any thing of the
beginning and the end? Nay, you're a dealer in ailings and cures: what
is life, and what is death? Why does the eagle live so long, and why is
the time of the butterfly so short? Tell me a simpler thing: why is this
hound so uneasy, while you, who have passed your days in looking into
books, can see no reason to be disturbed?"

The Doctor, who had been a little astounded by the dignity and energy
of the old man, drew a long breath, like a sullen wrestler who is just
released from the throttling grasp of his antagonist, and seized on the
opportunity of the pause to reply—

"It is his instinct."

"And what is the gift of instinct?"

"An inferior gradation of reason. A sort of mysterious combination of
thought and matter."

"And what is that which you call thought?"

"Venerable venator, this is a method of reasoning which sets at nought
the uses of definitions, and such as I do assure you is not at all
tolerated in the schools."

"Then is there more cunning in your schools than I had thought, for it
is a certain method of showing them their vanity," returned the trapper,
suddenly abandoning a discussion, from which the naturalist was just
beginning to anticipate great delight, by turning to his dog, whose
restlessness he attempted to appease by playing with his ears. "This is
foolish, Hector; more like an untrained pup than a sensible hound; one
who has got his education by hard experience, and not by nosing over the
trails of other dogs, as a boy in the settlements follows on the track
of his masters, be it right or be it wrong. Well, friend; you who can
do so much, are you equal to looking into the thicket? or must I go in
myself?"

The Doctor again assumed his air of resolution, and, without further
parlance, proceeded to do as desired. The dogs were so far restrained,
by the remonstrances of the old man, as to confine their noise to low
but often-repeated whinings. When they saw the naturalist advance, the
pup, however, broke through all restraint, and made a swift circuit
around his person, scenting the earth as he proceeded, and then,
returning to his companion, he howled aloud.

"The squatter and his brood have left a strong scent on the earth,"
said the old man, watching as he spoke for some signal from his learned
pioneer to follow; "I hope yonder school-bred man knows enough to
remember the errand on which I have sent him."

Doctor Battius had already disappeared in the bushes and the trapper was
beginning to betray additional evidences of impatience, when the person
of the former was seen retiring from the thicket backwards, with his
face fastened on the place he had just left, as if his look was bound in
the thraldom of some charm.

"Here is something skeery, by the wildness of the creatur's
countenance!" exclaimed the old man relinquishing his hold of Hector,
and moving stoutly to the side of the totally unconscious naturalist.
"How is it, friend; have you found a new leaf in your book of wisdom?"

"It is a basilisk!" muttered the Doctor, whose altered visage betrayed
the utter confusion which beset his faculties. "An animal of the order,
serpens. I had thought its attributes were fabulous, but mighty nature
is equal to all that man can imagine!"

"What is't? what is't? The snakes of the prairies are harmless, unless
it be now and then an angered rattler and he always gives you notice
with his tail, afore he works his mischief with his fangs. Lord, Lord,
what a humbling thing is fear! Here is one who in common delivers words
too big for a humble mouth to hold, so much beside himself, that his
voice is as shrill as the whistle of the whip-poor-will! Courage!—what
is it, man?—what is it?"

"A prodigy! a lusus naturae! a monster, that nature has delighted to
form, in order to exhibit her power! Never before have I witnessed such
an utter confusion in her laws, or a specimen that so completely bids
defiance to the distinctions of class and genera. Let me record its
appearance," fumbling for his tablets with hands that trembled too much
to perform their office, "while time and opportunity are allowed—eyes,
enthralling; colour, various, complex, and profound—"

"One would think the man was craz'd, with his enthralling looks and
pieball'd colours!" interrupted the discontented trapper, who began to
grow a little uneasy that his party was all this time neglecting to seek
the protection of some cover. "If there is a reptile in the brush, show
me the creatur', and should it refuse to depart peaceably, why there
must be a quarrel for the possession of the place."

"There!" said the Doctor, pointing into a dense mass of the thicket,
to a spot within fifty feet of that where they both stood. The trapper
turned his look, with perfect composure, in the required direction, but
the instant his practised glance met the object which had so utterly
upset the philosophy of the naturalist, he gave a start himself, threw
his rifle rapidly forward, and as instantly recovered it, as if a second
flash of thought convinced him he was wrong. Neither the instinctive
movement, nor the sudden recollection, was without a sufficient object.
At the very margin of the thicket, and in absolute contact with the
earth, lay an animate ball, that might easily, by the singularity and
fierceness of its aspect, have justified the disturbed condition of the
naturalist's mind. It were difficult to describe the shape or colours of
this extraordinary substance, except to say, in general terms, that
it was nearly spherical, and exhibited all the hues of the rainbow,
intermingled without reference to harmony, and without any very
ostensible design. The predominant hues were a black and a bright
vermilion. With these, however, the several tints of white, yellow, and
crimson, were strangely and wildly blended. Had this been all, it would
have been difficult to have pronounced that the object was possessed of
life, for it lay motionless as any stone; but a pair of dark, glaring,
and moving eyeballs which watched with jealousy the smallest movement
of the trapper and his companion, sufficiently established the important
fact of its possessing vitality.

"Your reptile is a scouter, or I'm no judge of Indian paints and Indian
deviltries!" muttered the old man, dropping the butt of his weapon to
the ground, and gazing with a steady eye at the frightful object, as he
leaned on its barrel, in an attitude of great composure. "He wants
to face us out of sight and reason, and make us think the head of a
red-skin is a stone covered with the autumn leaf; or he has some other
devilish artifice in his mind!"

"Is the animal human?" demanded the Doctor, "of the genus homo? I had
fancied it a non-descript."

"It's as human, and as mortal too, as a warrior of these prairies is
ever known to be. I have seen the time when a red-skin would have shown
a foolish daring to peep out of his ambushment in that fashion on a
hunter I could name, but who is too old now, and too near his time, to
be any thing better than a miserable trapper. It will be well to speak
to the imp, and to let him know he deals with men whose beards are
grown. Come forth from your cover, friend," he continued, in the
language of the extensive tribes of the Dahcotahs; "there is room on the
prairie for another warrior."

The eyes appeared to glare more fiercely than ever, but the mass which,
according to the trapper's opinion, was neither more nor less than a
human head, shorn, as usual among the warriors of the west, of its hair,
still continued without motion, or any other sign of life.

"It is a mistake!" exclaimed the doctor. "The animal is not even of the
class, mammalia, much less a man."