The Prairie (44 page)

"This has been a strange beast, old man," said Paul, who had pulled the
bridle, or rather halter of his steed, over the second carcass, while
the rest of the party were already passing, in their eagerness to
proceed; "a strange horse do I call it; it had neither head nor hoofs!"

"The fire has not been idle," returned the trapper, keeping his eye
vigilantly employed in profiting by those glimpses of the horizon, which
the whirling smoke offered to his examination. "It would soon bake you a
buffaloe whole, or for that matter powder his hoofs and horns into white
ashes. Shame, shame, old Hector: as for the captain's pup, it is to be
expected that he would show his want of years, and I may say, I hope
without offence, his want of education too; but for a hound, like you,
who have lived so long in the forest afore you came into these plains,
it is very disgraceful, Hector, to be showing your teeth, and growling
at the carcass of a roasted horse, the same as if you were telling your
master that you had found the trail of a grizzly bear."

"I tell you, old trapper, this is no horse; neither in hoofs, head, nor
hide."

"Anan! Not a horse? Your eyes are good for the bees and for the hollow
trees, my lad, but—bless me, the boy is right! That I should mistake
the hide of a buffaloe, scorched and crimpled as it is, for the carcass
of a horse! Ah's me! The time has been, my men, when I would tell you
the name of a beast, as far as eye could reach, and that too with most
of the particulars of colour, age, and sex."

"An inestimable advantage have you then enjoyed, venerable venator!"
observed the attentive naturalist. "The man who can make these
distinctions in a desert, is saved the pain of many a weary walk, and
often of an enquiry that in its result proves useless. Pray tell me, did
your exceeding excellence of vision extend so far as to enable you to
decide on their order, or genus?"

"I know not what you mean by your orders of genius."

"No!" interrupted the bee-hunter, a little disdainfully for him, when
speaking to his aged friend; "now, old trapper, that is admitting your
ignorance of the English language, in a way I should not expect from a
man of your experience and understanding. By order, our comrade means
whether they go in promiscuous droves, like a swarm that is following
its queen-bee, or in single file, as you often see the buffaloes
trailing each other through a prairie. And as for genius, I'm sure
that is a word well understood, and in every body's mouth. There is the
congress-man in our district, and that tonguey little fellow, who
puts out the paper in our county, they are both so called, for their
smartness; which is what the Doctor means, as I take it, seeing that he
seldom speaks without some considerable meaning."

When Paul finished this very clever explanation he looked behind him
with an expression, which, rightly interpreted, would have said—"You
see, though I don't often trouble myself in these matters, I am no
fool."

Ellen admired Paul for anything but his learning. There was enough in
his frank, fearless, and manly character, backed as it was by great
personal attraction, to awaken her sympathies, without the necessity of
prying into his mental attainments. The poor girl reddened like a rose,
her pretty fingers played with the belt, by which she sustained herself
on the horse, and she hurriedly observed, as if anxious to direct the
attentions of the other listeners from a weakness, on which her own
thoughts could not bear to dwell—

"And this is not a horse, after all?"

"It is nothing more, nor less, than the hide of a buffaloe," continued
the trapper, who had been no less puzzled by the explanation of Paul,
than by the language of the Doctor; "the hair is beneath; the fire has
run over it as you see; for being fresh, the flames could take no hold.
The beast has not been long killed, and it may be that some of the beef
is still hereaway."

"Lift the corner of the skin, old trapper," said Paul, with the tone of
one, who felt, as if he had now proved his right to mingle his voice
in any council; "if there is a morsel of the hump left, it must be well
cooked, and it shall be welcome."

The old man laughed, heartily, at the conceit of his companion.
Thrusting his foot beneath the skin, it moved. Then it was suddenly cast
aside, and an Indian warrior sprang from its cover, to his feet, with an
agility, that bespoke how urgent he deemed the occasion.

I would it were bed-time, Hal, and all well.
—Shakespeare.

A second glance sufficed to convince the whole of the startled party,
that the young Pawnee, whom they had already encountered, again stood
before them. Surprise kept both sides mute, and more than a minute was
passed in surveying each other, with eyes of astonishment, if not
of distrust. The wonder of the young warrior was, however, much more
tempered and dignified than that of his Christian acquaintances. While
Middleton and Paul felt the tremor, which shook the persons of their
dependant companions, thrilling through their own quickened blood, the
glowing eye of the Indian rolled from one to another, as if it could
never quail before the rudest assaults. His gaze, after making the
circuit of every wondering countenance, finally settled in a steady look
on the equally immovable features of the trapper. The silence was first
broken by Dr. Battius, in the ejaculation of—"Order, primates; genus,
homo; species, prairie!"

"Ay—ay—the secret is out," said the old trapper, shaking his head,
like one who congratulated himself on having mastered the mystery of
some knotty difficulty. "The lad has been in the grass for a cover; the
fire has come upon him in his sleep, and having lost his horse, he has
been driven to save himself under that fresh hide of a buffaloe. No
bad invention, when powder and flint were wanting to kindle a ring. I
warrant me, now, this is a clever youth, and one that it would be safe
to journey with! I will speak to him kindly, for anger can at least
serve no turn of ours. My brother is welcome again," using the language,
which the other understood; "the Tetons have been smoking him, as they
would a racoon."

The young Pawnee rolled his eye over the place, as if he were examining
the terrific danger from which he had just escaped, but he disdained to
betray the smallest emotion, at its imminency. His brow contracted, as
he answered to the remark of the trapper by saying—

"A Teton is a dog. When the Pawnee war-whoop is in their ears, the whole
nation howls."

"It is true. The imps are on our trail, and I am glad to meet a warrior,
with the tomahawk in his hand, who does not love them. Will my brother
lead my children to his village? If the Siouxes follow on our path, my
young men shall help him to strike them."

The young Pawnee turned his eyes from one to another of the strangers,
in a keen scrutiny, before he saw fit to answer so important an
interrogatory. His examination of the males was short, and apparently
satisfactory. But his gaze was fastened long and admiringly, as in their
former interview, on the surpassing and unwonted beauty of a being so
fair and so unknown as Inez. Though his glance wandered, for moments,
from her countenance to the more intelligible and yet extraordinary
charms of Ellen, it did not fail to return promptly to the study of
a creature who, in the view of his unpractised eye and untutored
imagination, was formed with all that perfection, with which the
youthful poet is apt to endow the glowing images of his brain. Nothing
so fair, so ideal, so every way worthy to reward the courage and
self-devotion of a warrior, had ever before been encountered on the
prairies, and the young brave appeared to be deeply and intuitively
sensible to the influence of so rare a model of the loveliness of the
sex. Perceiving, however, that his gaze gave uneasiness to the
subject of his admiration, he withdrew his eyes, and laying his hand
impressively on his chest, he, modestly, answered—

"My father shall be welcome. The young men of my nation shall hunt with
his sons; the chiefs shall smoke with the grey-head. The Pawnee girls
will sing in the ears of his daughters."

"And if we meet the Tetons?" demanded the trapper, who wished to
understand, thoroughly, the more important conditions of this new
alliance.

"The enemy of the Big-knives shall feel the blow of the Pawnee."

"It is well. Now let my brother and I meet in council, that we may not
go on a crooked path, but that our road to his village may be like the
flight of the pigeons."

The young Pawnee made a significant gesture of assent and followed
the other a little apart, in order to be removed from all danger of
interruption from the reckless Paul, or the abstracted naturalist. Their
conference was short, but, as it was conducted in the sententious manner
of the natives, it served to make each of the parties acquainted with
all the necessary information of the other. When they rejoined their
associates, the old man saw fit to explain a portion of what had passed
between them, as follows—

"Ay, I was not mistaken," he said; "this good-looking young warrior—for
good-looking and noble-looking he is, though a little horrified perhaps
with paint—this good-looking youth, then, tells me he is out on the
scout for these very Tetons. His party was not strong enough to strike
the devils, who are down from their towns in great numbers to hunt the
buffaloe, and runners have gone to the Pawnee villages for aid. It would
seem that this lad is a fearless boy, for he has been hanging on their
skirts alone, until, like ourselves, he was driven to the grass for a
cover. But he tells me more, my men, and what I am mainly sorry to hear,
which is, that the cunning Mahtoree instead of going to blows with the
squatter, has become his friend, and that both broods, red and white,
are on our heels, and outlying around this very burning plain to
circumvent us to our destruction."

"How knows he all this to be true?" demanded Middleton.

"Anan?"

"In what manner does he know, that these things are so?"

"In what manner! Do you think newspapers and town criers are needed to
tell a scout what is doing on the prairies, as they are in the bosom
of the States? No gossiping woman, who hurries from house to house to
spread evil of her neighbour, can carry tidings with her tongue, so fast
as these people will spread their meaning, by signs and warnings, that
they alone understand. 'Tis their l'arning, and what is better, it is
got in the open air, and not within the walls of a school. I tell you,
captain, that what he says is true."

"For that matter," said Paul, "I'm ready to swear to it. It is
reasonable, and therefore it must be true."

"And well you might, lad; well you might. He furthermore declares, that
my old eyes for once were true to me, and that the river lies, hereaway,
at about the distance of half a league. You see the fire has done most
of its work in that quarter, and our path is clouded in smoke. He also
agrees that it is needful to wash our trail in water. Yes, we must put
that river atween us and the Sioux eyes, and then, by the favour of the
Lord, not forgetting our own industry, we may gain the village of the
Loups."

"Words will not forward us a foot," said Middleton; "let us move."

The old man assented, and the party once more prepared to renew its
route. The Pawnee threw the skin of the buffaloe over his shoulder
and led the advance, casting many a stolen glance behind him as he
proceeded, in order to fix his gaze on the extraordinary and, to him,
unaccountable loveliness of the unconscious Inez.

An hour sufficed to bring the fugitives to the bank of the stream, which
was one of the hundred rivers that serve to conduct, through the mighty
arteries of the Missouri and Mississippi, the waters of that vast and
still uninhabited region to the Ocean. The river was not deep, but its
current was troubled and rapid. The flames had scorched the earth to its
very margin, and as the warm streams of the fluid mingled, in the cooler
air of the morning, with the smoke of the raging conflagration, most
of its surface was wrapped in a mantle of moving vapour. The trapper
pointed out the circumstance with pleasure, saying, as he assisted Inez
to dismount on the margin of the watercourse—

"The knaves have outwitted themselves! I am far from certain that I
should not have fired the prairie, to have got the benefit of this very
smoke to hide our movements, had not the heartless imps saved us the
trouble. I've known such things done in my day, and done with success.
Come, lady, put your tender foot upon the ground—for a fearful time has
it been to one of your breeding and skeary qualities. Ah's me! what
have I not known the young, and the delicate, and the virtuous, and
the modest, to undergo, in my time, among the horrifications and
circumventions of Indian warfare! Come, it is a short quarter of a mile
to the other bank, and then our trail, at least, will be broken."

Paul had by this time assisted Ellen to dismount, and he now stood
looking, with rueful eyes, at the naked banks of the river. Neither tree
nor shrub grew along its borders, with the exception of here and there a
solitary thicket of low bushes, from among which it would not have been
an easy matter to have found a dozen stems of a size sufficient to make
an ordinary walking-stick.

"Harkee, old trapper," the moody-looking bee-hunter exclaimed; "it is
very well to talk of the other side of this ripple of a river, or brook,
or whatever you may call it, but in my judgment it would be a smart
rifle that would throw its lead across it—that is, to any detriment to
Indian, or deer."

"That it would—that it would; though I carry a piece, here, that has
done its work in time of need, at as great a distance."

"And do you mean to shoot Ellen and the captain's lady across; or do you
intend them to go, trout fashion, with their mouths under water?"