The Prairie (56 page)

"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 did
according to their weak judgments, and therefore 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 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 grand'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 best, when cunning is
more needed than blows. Ah, 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 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 rarely 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, who had moved to
a little distance from his friends, 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 merciless
and bloodthirsty 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 wrestle or 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 say so many
interesting things, at a little distance, till I have got the blood of
this arm in motion, and am ready to receive them."

The trapper made a sign that he perfectly understood 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 to an issue, between the hostile parties; and the time 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
group 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 grey 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 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.

Into the very centre of this ring of seeming demons, 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 their village; their young men have not come
back loaded with scalps!"

He was answered by a general howl, and a few of the boldest of the
furies even ventured to approach him, flourishing their knives within a
dangerous proximity of 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 chant, into louder and more intelligible strains. Suddenly, one of
the oldest, and the 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 ensure
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 medicine of my people!" shouted the old man, in the Teton
tongue; "lift your voice and speak, that the Sioux nation may hear."

Whether Asinus had acquired so much knowledge, by his recent experience,
as to know the value of his sonorous properties, or 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 by so terrible a warning, the hags scattered themselves,
like vultures frightened from their prey, still screaming, and but half
diverted from their purpose.

In the mean time the sudden appearance, and the imminency of the danger,
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
medicine; 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 and despatch, and this time not even the aged trapper 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.