How skilfully it builds its cell,
How neat it spreads the wax,
And labors hard to store it well,
With the sweet food it makes.
WATTS' HYMNS FOR CHILDREN.
The next thing was to ascertain which was the particular tree in which
the bees had found a shelter. Collecting his implements, le Bourdon was
soon ready, and, with a light elastic tread, he moved off toward the
point of the wood, followed by the whole party. The distance was about
half a mile, and men so much accustomed to use their limbs made light
of it. In a few minutes all were there, and the bee-hunter was busy in
looking for his tree. This was the consummation of the whole process,
and Ben was not only provided for the necessities of the case, but he
was well skilled in all the signs that betokened the abodes of bees.
An uninstructed person might have passed that point of wood a thousand
times, without the least consciousness of the presence of a single
insect of the sort now searched for. In general, the bees flew too high
to be easily perceptible from the ground, though a practised eye can
discern them at distances that would almost seem to be marvellous. But
Ben had other assistants than his eyes. He knew that the tree he sought
must be hollow, and such trees usually give outward signs of the defect
that exists within. Then, some species of wood are more frequented
by the bees than others, while the instinct of the industrious little
creatures generally enables them to select such homes as will not be
very likely to destroy all the fruits of their industry by an untimely
fall. In all these particulars, both bees and bee-hunter were well
versed, and Ben made his search accordingly.
Among the other implements of his calling, le Bourdon had a small
spy-glass; one scarcely larger than those that are used in theatres,
but which was powerful and every way suited to its purposes. Ben was
not long in selecting a tree, a half-decayed elm, as the one likely to
contain the hive; and by the aid of his glass he soon saw bees flying
among its dying branches, at a height of not less than seventy feet
from the ground. A little further search directed his attention to a
knot-hole, in and out of which the glass enabled him to see bees passing
in streams. This decided the point; and putting aside all his implements
but the axe, Buzzing Ben now set about the task of felling the tree.
“STRANger,” said Gershom, when le Bourdon had taken out the first chip,
“perhaps you'd better let ME do that part of the job. I shall expect to
come in for a share of the honey, and I'm willing to 'arn all I take. I
was brought up on axes, and jack-knives, and sich sort of food, and can
cut OR whittle with the best chopper, or the neatest whittler, in or out
of New England.”
“You can try your hand, if you wish it,” said Ben, relinquishing the
axe. “I can fell a tree as well as yourself, but have no such love for
the business as to wish to keep it all to myself.”
“Waal, I can say, I LIKE it,” answered Gershom, first passing his
thumb along the edge of the axe, in order to ascertain its state; then
swinging the tool, with a view to try its “hang.”
“I can't say much for your axe, STRANGER, for this helve has no tarve
to't, to my mind; but, sich as it is, down must come this elm, though
ten millions of bees should set upon me for my pains.”
This was no idle boast of Waring's. Worthless as he was in so many
respects, he was remarkably skilful with the axe, as he now proved by
the rapid manner in which he severed the trunk of the large elm on which
he was at work. He inquired of Ben where he should “lay the tree,” and
when it came clattering down, it fell on the precise spot indicated.
Great was the confusion among the bees at this sudden downfall of their
long-cherished home. The fact was not known to their enemy, but they had
inhabited that tree for a long time; and the prize now obtained was the
richest he had ever made in his calling. As for the insects, they filled
the air in clouds, and all the invaders deemed it prudent to withdraw
to some little distance for a time, lest the irritated and wronged bees
should set upon them and take an ample revenge. Had they known their
power, this might easily have been done, no ingenuity of man being
able to protect him against the assaults of this insignificant-looking
animal, when unable to cover himself, and the angry little heroes are in
earnest. On the present occasion, however, no harm befell the marauders.
So suddenly had the hive tumbled that its late occupants appeared to be
astounded, and they submitted to their fate as men yield to the power of
tempests and earthquakes. In half an hour most of them were collected on
an adjacent tree, where doubtless a consultation on the mode of future
proceedings was held, after their fashion.
The Indians were more delighted with le Bourdon's ingenious mode of
discovering the hive than with the richness of the prize; while Ben
himself, and Gershom, manifested most satisfaction at the amount of the
earnings. When the tree was cut in pieces, and split, it was ascertained
that years of sweets were contained within its capacious cavities, and
Ben estimated the portion that fell to his share at more than three
hundred pounds of good honey--comb included--after deducting the
portions that were given to the Indians, and which were abstracted by
Gershom. The three last, however, could carry but little, as they had no
other means of bearing it away than their own backs.
The honey was not collected that night. The day was too far advanced for
that; and le Bourdon--certainly never was name less merited than this
sobriquet as applied to the active young bee-hunter--but le Bourdon, to
give him his quaint appellation, offered the hospitalities of his own
cabin to the strangers, promising to put them on their several paths the
succeeding day, with a good store of honey in each knapsack.
“They do say there ar' likely to be troublesome times.” he continued,
with simple earnestness, after having given the invitation to partake
of his homely fare; “and I should like to hear what is going on in the
world. From Whiskey Centre I do not expect to learn much, I will own;
but I am mistaken if the Pigeonswing, here, has not a message that will
make us all open our ears.”
The Indians ejaculated their assent; but Gershom was a man who could not
express anything sententiously. As the bee-hunter led the way toward
his cabin, or shanty, he made his comments with his customary freedom.
Before recording what he communicated, however, we shall digress for one
moment in order to say a word ourselves concerning this term “shanty.”
It is now in general use throughout the whole of the United States,
meaning a cabin that has been constructed in haste, and for temporary
purposes. By a license of speech, it is occasionally applied to more
permanent residences, as men are known to apply familiar epithets
to familiar objects. The derivation of the word has caused some
speculation. The term certainly came from the West-perhaps from the
Northwest-and the best explanation we have ever heard of its derivation
is to sup-pose “shanty,” as we now spell it, a corruption of “chiente,”
which it is thought may have been a word in Canadian French phrase to
express a “dog-kennel.” “Chenil,” we believe, is the true French
term for such a thing, and our own word is said to be derived from
it--“meute” meaning “a kennel of dogs,” or “a pack of hounds,” rather
than their dwelling. At any rate, “chiente” is so plausible a solution
of the difficulty, that one may hope it is the true one, even though
he has no better authority for it than a very vague rumor. Curious
discoveries are sometimes made by these rude analogies, however, though
they are generally thought not to be very near akin to learning. For
ourselves, now, we do not entertain a doubt that the sobriquet of
“Yankees” which is in every man's mouth, and of which the derivation
appears to puzzle all our philologists, is nothing but a slight
corruption of the word “Yengeese,” the term applied to the “English,” by
the tribes to whom they first became known. We have no other authority
for this derivation than conjecture, and conjectures that are purely
our own; but it is so very plausible as almost to carry conviction of
itself. [Footnote: Since writing the above, the author has met with an
allusion that has induced him to think he may not have been the first
to suggest this derivation of the word “Yankee.” With himself, the
suggestion is perfectly original, and has long since been published by
him; but nothing is more probable than the fact that a solution so very
natural, of this long-disputed question in language, may have suggested
itself to various minds.]
The “chiente'” or shanty of le Bourdon stood quite near to the banks of
the Kalamazoo, and in a most beautiful grove of the burr-oak. Ben had
selected the site with much taste, though the proximity of a spring of
delicious water had probably its full share in influencing his decision.
It was necessary, moreover, that he should be near the river, as
his great movements were all made by water, for the convenience of
transporting his tools, furniture, etc., as well as his honey. A famous
bark canoe lay in a little bay, out of the current of the stream,
securely moored, head and stern, in order to prevent her beating against
any object harder than herself.
The dwelling had been constructed with some attention to security. This
was rendered necessary, in some measure, as Ben had found by experience,
on account of two classes of enemies--men and bears. From the first, it
is true, the bee-hunter had hitherto apprehended but little. There were
few human beings in that region. The northern portions of the noble
peninsula of Michigan are some-what low and swampy, or are too broken
and savage to tempt the native hunters from the openings and prairies
that then lay, in such rich profusion, further south and west. With the
exception of the shores, or coasts, it was seldom that the northern
half of the peninsula felt the footstep of man. With the southern
half, however, it was very different; the “openings,” and glades, and
watercourses, offering almost as many temptations to the savage as they
have since done to the civilized man. Nevertheless, the bison, or
the buffalo, as the animal is erroneously, but very generally, termed
throughout the country, was not often found in the vast herds of which
we read, until one reached the great prairies west of the Mississippi.
There it was that the red men most loved to congregate; though always
bearing, in numbers, but a trifling proportion to the surface they
occupied. In that day, however, near as to the date, but distant as to
the events, the Chippewas, Ottawas, Pottawattamies, kindred tribes, we
believe, had still a footing in Michigan proper, and were to be found
in considerable numbers in what was called the St. Joseph's country, or
along the banks of the stream of that name; a region that almost merits
the lofty appellation of the garden of America. Le Bourdon knew many of
their warriors, and was much esteemed among them; though he had never
met with either of those whom chance now had thrown in his way. In
general, he suffered little wrong from the red men, who wondered at his
occupation, while they liked his character; but he had sustained losses,
and even ill-treatment, from certain outcasts of the tribes, as well as
from vagrant whites, who occasionally found their way to his temporary
dwellings. On the present occasion, le Bourdon felt far more uneasiness
from the circumstance of having his abode known to Gershom Waring, a
countryman and fellow-Christian, in one sense at least, than from its
being known to the Chippewa and the Pottawattamie.
The bears were constant and dangerous sources of annoyance to the
bee-hunter. It was not often that an armed man--and le Bourdon seldom
moved without his rifle--has much to apprehend from the common brown
bear of America. Though a formidable-looking animal, especially when
full grown, it is seldom bold enough to attack a human being, nothing
but hunger, or care for its young, ever inducing it to go so much out
of the ordinary track of its habits. But the love of the bear for honey
amounts to a passion. Not only will it devise all sorts of bearish
expedients to get at the sweet morsels, but it will scent them from
afar. On one occasion, a family of Bruins had looked into a shanty of
Ben's, that was not constructed with sufficient care, and consummated
their burglary by demolishing the last comb. That disaster almost ruined
the adventurer, then quite young in his calling; and ever since its
occurrence he had taken the precaution to build such a citadel as should
at least set teeth and paws at defiance. To one who had an axe, with
access to young pines, this was not a difficult task, as was proved by
the present habitation of our hero.
This was the second season that le Bourdon had occupied “Castle Meal,”
as he himself called the shanty. This appellation was a corruption of
“chateau au Mtel” a name given to it by a wag of a voyageur who had
aided Ben in ascending the Kalamazoo the previous summer, and had
remained long enough with him to help him put up his habitation. The
building was just twelve feet square, in the interior, and somewhat less
than fourteen on its exterior. It was made of pine logs, in the usual
mode, with the additional security of possessing a roof of squared
timbers of which the several parts were so nicely fitted together as to
shed rain. This unusual precaution was rendered necessary to protect the
honey, since the bears would have unroofed the common bark coverings
of the shanties, with the readiness of human beings, in order to get at
stores as ample as those which the bee-hunter had soon collected beneath
his roof. There was one window of glass, which le Bourdon had brought in
his canoe; though it was a single sash of six small lights, that opened
on hinges; the exterior being protected by stout bars of riven oak,
securely let into the logs. The door was made of three thicknesses of
oaken plank, pinned well together, and swinging on stout iron hinges, so
secured as not to be easily removed. Its outside fastening was made by
means of two stout staples, a short piece of ox-chain, and an unusually
heavy padlock. Nothing short of an iron bar, and that cleverly applied,
could force this fastening. On the inside, three bars of oak rendered
all secure, when the master was at home.
“You set consid'rable store by your honey, I guess, STRANger,” said
Gershom, as le Bourdon unlocked the fastenings and removed the chain,
“if a body may judge by the kear (care) you take on't! Now, down our way
we ain't half so partic'lar; Dolly and Blossom never so much as putting
up a bar to the door, even when I sleep out, which is about half the
time, now the summer is fairly set in.”
“And whereabouts is 'down our way,' if one may be so bold as to ask the
question?” returned le Bourdon, holding the door half-opened, while he
turned his face toward the other, in expectation of the answer.
“Why, down at Whiskey Centre, to be sure, as the v'y'gerers and other
boatmen call the place.”
“And where is Whiskey Centre?” demanded Ben, a little pertinaciously.
“Why, I thought everybody would 'a' known that,” answered Greshom; “sin'
whiskey is as drawin' as a blister. Whiskey Centre is just where _I_
happen to live; bein' what a body may call a travellin' name. As I'm now
down at the mouth of the Kalamazoo, why Whiskey Centre's there, too.”
“I understand the matter, now,” answered le Bourdon, composing his
well-formed mouth in a sort of contemptuous smile. “You and whiskey,
being sworn friends, are always to be found in company. When I came into
the river, which was the last week in April, I saw nothing like whiskey,
nor anything like a Centre at the mouth.”
“If you'd 'a' be'n a fortnight later, STRANger, you'd 'a' found both.
Travellin' Centres, and stationary, differs somewhat, I guess; one is
always to be found, while t'other must be s'arched a'ter.”
“And pray who are Dolly and Blossom; I hope the last is not a WHISKEY
blossom?”
“Not she--she never touches a spoonful, though I tell her it never hurt
mortal! She tries hard to reason me into it that it hurts ME--but that's
all a mistake, as anybody can see that jest looks at me.”
Ben DID look at him; and, to say truth, came to a somewhat different
conclusion.
“Is she so blooming that you call her 'Blossom'?” demanded the
bee-hunter, “or is she so young?”
“The gal's a little of both. Dolly is my wife, and Blossom is my sister.
The real name of Blossom is Margery Waring, but everybody calls her
Blossom; and so I gi'n into it, with the rest on 'em.”
It is probable that le Bourdon lost a good deal of his interest in
this flower of the wilderness, as soon as he learned she was so nearly
related to the Whiskey Centre. Gershom was so very uninviting an object,
and had so many palpable marks, that he had fairly earned the nickname
which, as it afterward appeared, the western adventurers had given
HIM, as well as his ABODE, wherever the last might be, that no one of
decently sober habits could readily fancy anything belonging to him. At
any rate, the bee-hunter now led the way into his cabin, whither he was
followed without unnecessary ceremony, by all three of his guests.
The interior of the “chiente,” to use the most poetical, if not the most
accurate word, was singularly clean for an establishment set up by
a bachelor, in so remote a part of the world. The honey, in neat,
well-constructed kegs, was carefully piled along one side of the
apartment, in a way to occupy the minimum of room, and to be rather
ornamental than unsightly. These kegs were made by le Bourdon himself,
who had acquired as much of the art as was necessary to that object.
The woods always furnished the materials; and a pile of staves that was
placed beneath a neighboring tree sufficiently denoted that he did not
yet deem that portion of his task completed.
In one corner of the hut was a pile of well-dressed bearskins, three
in number, each and all of which had been taken from the carcasses of
fallen foes, within the last two months. Three more were stretched on
saplings, near by, in the process of curing. It was a material part
of the bee-hunter's craft to kill this animal, in particular; and the
trophies of his conflicts with them were proportionably numerous. On the
pile already prepared, he usually slept.
There was a very rude table, a single board set up on sticks; and a
bench or two, together with a wooden chest of some size, completed the
furniture. Tools were suspended from the walls, it is true; and no
less than three rifles, in addition to a very neat double-barrelled
“shot-gun,” or fowling-piece, were standing in a corner. These were arms
collected by our hero in his different trips, and retained quite as much
from affection as from necessity, or caution. Of ammunition, there was
no very great amount visible; only three or four horns and a couple of
pouches being suspended from pegs: but Ben had a secret store, as well
as another rifle, carefully secured, in a natural magazine and arsenal,
at a distance sufficiently great from the chiente to remove it from all
danger of sharing in the fortunes of his citadel, should disaster befall
the last.
The cooking was done altogether out of doors. For this essential
comfort, le Bourdon had made very liberal provision. He had a small
oven, a sufficiently convenient fire-place, and a storehouse, at hand;
all placed near the spring, and beneath the shade of a magnificent elm.
In the storehouse he kept his barrel of flour, his barrel of salt,
a stock of smoked or dried meat, and that which the woodsman, if
accustomed in early life to the settlements, prizes most highly, a
half-barrel of pickled pork. The bark canoe had sufficed to transport
all these stores, merely ballasting handsomely that ticklish craft; and
its owner relied on the honey to perform the same office on the return
voyage, when trade or consumption should have disposed of the various
articles just named.
The reader may smile at the word “trade,” and ask where were those to
be found who could be parties to the traffic. The vast lakes and
innumerable rivers of that region, however, remote as it then was
from the ordinary abodes of civilized man, offered facilities for
communication that the active spirit of trade would be certain not to
neglect. In the first place, there were always the Indians to barter
skins and furs against powder, lead, rifles, blankets, and unhappily
“fire-water.” Then, the white men who penetrated to those semi-wilds
were always ready to “dicker” and to “swap,” and to “trade” rifles, and
watches, and whatever else they might happen to possess, almost to their
wives and Children.
But we should be doing injustice to le Bourdon, were we in any manner
to confound him with the “dickering” race. He was a bee-hunter quite as
much through love of the wilderness and love of adventure, as through
love of gain. Profitable he had certainly found the employment, or he
probably would not have pursued it; but there was many a man who--nay,
most men, even in his own humble class in life-would have deemed his
liberal earnings too hardly obtained, when gained at the expense of all
intercourse with their own kind. But Buzzing Ben loved the solitude of
his situation, its hazards, its quietude, relieved by passing moments
of high excitement; and, most of all, the self-reliance that was
indispensable equally to his success and his happiness. Woman, as yet,
had never exercised her witchery over him, and every day was his passion
for dwelling alone, and for enjoying the strange, but certainly most
alluring, pleasures of the woods, increasing and gaining strength in his
bosom. It was seldom, now, that he held intercourse even with the Indian
tribes that dwelt near his occasional places of hunting; and frequently
had he shifted his ground in order to avoid collision, however friendly,
with whites who, like himself, were pushing their humble fortunes along
the shores of those inland seas, which, as yet, were rarely indeed
whitened by a sail. In this respect, Boden and Waring were the very
antipodes of each other; Gershom being an inveterate gossip, in despite
of his attachment to a vagrant and border life.
The duties of hospitality are rarely forgotten among border men. The
inhabitant of a town may lose his natural disposition to receive all
who offer at his board, under the pressure of society; but it is only in
most extraordinary exceptions that the frontier man is ever known to
be inhospitable. He has little to offer, but that little is seldom
withheld, either through prudence or niggardliness. Under this
feeling--we might call it habit also--le Bourdon now set himself at work
to place on the table such food as he had at command and ready cooked.
The meal which he soon pressed his guests to share with him was composed
of a good piece of cold boiled pork, which Ben had luckily cooked the
day previously, some bear's meat roasted, a fragment of venison steak,
both lean and cold, and the remains of a duck that had been shot the
day before, in the Kalamazoo, with bread, salt, and, what was somewhat
unusual in the wilderness, two or three onions, raw. The last dish was
highly relished by Gershom, and was slightly honored by Ben; but the
Indians passed it over with cold indifference. The dessert consisted of
bread and honey, which were liberally partaken of by all at table.
Little was said by either host or guests, until the supper was finished,
when the whole party left the chiente, to enjoy their pipes in the cool
evening air, beneath the oaks of the grove in which the dwelling stood.
Their conversation began to let the parties know something of each
other's movements and characters.
“YOU are a Pottawattamie, and YOU a Chippewa,” said le Bourdon, as he
courteously handed to his two red guests pipes of theirs, that he had
just stuffed with some of his own tobacco--“I believe you are a sort of
cousins, though your tribes are called by different names.”
“Nation, Ojebway,” returned the elder Indian, holding up a finger, by
way of enforcing attention.
“Tribe, Pottawattamie,” added the runner, in the same sententious
manner.
“Baccy, good”--put in the senior, by way of showing he was well
contented with his comforts.
“Have you nothin' to drink?” demanded Whiskey Centre, who saw no great
merit in anything but “firewater.”
“There is the spring,” returned le Bourdon, gravely; “a gourd hangs
against the tree.”
Gershom made a wry face, but he did not move.
“Is there any news stirring among the tribes?” asked the bee-hunter,
waiting, however, a decent interval, lest he might be supposed to betray
a womanly curiosity.
Elksfoot puffed away some time before he saw fit to answer, reserving a
salvo in behalf of his own dignity. Then he removed the pipe, shook off
the ashes, pressed down the fire a little, gave a reviving draught or
two, and quietly replied:
“Ask my young brother--he runner--he know.”
But Pigeonswing seemed to be little more communicative than the
Pottawattamie. He smoked on in quiet dignity, while the bee-hunter
patiently waited for the moment when it might suit his younger guest to
speak. That moment did not arrive for some time, though it came at last.
Almost five minutes after Elksfoot had made the allusion mentioned, the
Ojebway, or Chippewa, removed his pipe also, and looking courteously
round at his host, he said with emphasis:
“Bad summer come soon. Pale-faces call young men togedder, and dig up
hatchet.”
“I had heard something of this,” answered le Bourdon, with a saddened
countenance, “and was afraid it might happen.”
“My brother dig up hatchet too, eh?” demanded Pigeonswing.
“Why should I? I am alone here, on the Openings, and it would seem
foolish in me to wish to fight.”
“Got no tribe--no Ojebway--no Pottawattamie, eh?”
“I have my tribe, as well as another, Chippewa, but can see no use I can
be to it, here. If the English and Americans fight, it must be a long
way from this wilderness, and on or near the great salt lake.”
“Don't know--nebber know, 'till see. English warrior plenty in Canada.”
“That may be; but American warriors are not plenty here. This country is
a wilderness, and there are no soldiers hereabouts, to cut each other's
throats.”
“What you t'ink him?” asked Pigeonswing, glancing at Gershom; who,
unable to forbear any longer, had gone to the spring to mix a cup from
a small supply that still remained of the liquor with which he had left
home. “Got pretty good scalp?”
“I suppose it is as good as another's--but he and I are countrymen, and
we cannot raise the tomahawk on one another.”
“Don't t'ink so. Plenty Yankee, him!”
Le Bourdon smiled at this proof of Pigeonswings sagacity, though he felt
a good deal of uneasiness at the purport of his discourse.
“You are right enough in THAT” he answered, “but I'm plenty of Yankee,
too.”
“No, don't say so,” returned the Chippewa--“no, mustn't say DAT.
English; no Yankee. HIM not a bit like you.”
“Why, we are unlike each other, in some respects, it is true, though we
are countrymen, notwithstanding. My great father lives at Washington, as
well as his.”
The Chippewa appeared to be disappointed; perhaps he appeared sorry,
too; for le Bourdon's frank and manly hospitality had disposed him to
friendship instead of hostilities, while his admissions would rather put
him in an antagonist position. It was probably with a kind motive that
he pursued the discourse in a way to give his host some insight into the
true condition of matters in that part of the world.
“Plenty Breetish in woods,” he said, with marked deliberation and point.
“Yankee no come yet.”
“Let me know the truth, at once, Chippewa,” exclaimed le Bourdon. “I am
but a peaceable bee-hunter, as you see, and wish no man's scalp, or any
man's honey but my own. Is there to be a war between America and Canada,
or not?”
“Some say, yes; some say, no,” returned Pigeonswing, evasively, “My
part, don't know. Go, now, to see. But plenty Montreal belt among
redskins; plenty rifle; plenty powder, too.”
“I heard something of this as I came up the lakes,” rejoined Ben; “and
fell in with a trader, an old acquaintance, from Canada, and a good
friend, too, though he is to be my enemy, according to law, who gave me
to understand that the summer would not go over without blows. Still,
they all seemed to be asleep at Mackinaw (Michilimackinac) as I passed
there.”
“Wake up pretty soon. Canada warrior take fort.”
“If I thought that, Chippewa, I would be off this blessed night to give
the alarm.”
“No--t'ink better of dat.”
“Go I would, if I died for it the next hour!”
“T'ink better--be no such fool, I tell you.”
“And I tell you, Pigeonswing, that go I would, if the whole Ojebway
nation was on my trail. I am an American, and mean to stand by my own
people, come what will.”
“T'ought you only peaceable bee-hunter, just now,” retorted the
Chippewa, a little sarcastically.
By this time le Bourdon had somewhat cooled, and he became conscious of
his indiscretion. He knew enough of the history of the past, to be fully
aware that, in all periods of American history, the English, and, for
that matter, the French too, so long as they had possessions on
this continent, never scrupled about employing the savages in their
conflicts. It is true, that these highly polished, and, we may justly
add, humane nations--(for each is, out of all question, entitled to that
character in the scale of comparative humanity as between communities,
and each if you will take its own account of the matter, stands at the
head of civilization in this respect)--would, notwithstanding these high
claims, carry on their AMERICAN wars by the agency of the tomahawk, the
scalping-knife, and the brand. Eulogies, though pronounced by ourselves
on ourselves, cannot erase the stains of blood. Even down to the present
hour, a cloud does not obscure the political atmosphere between England
and America, that its existence may not be discovered on the prairies,
by a movement among the In-dians. The pulse that is to be felt there
is a sure indication of the state of the relations between the parties.
Every one knows that the savage, in his warfare, slays both sexes and
all ages; that the door-post of the frontier cabin is defiled by the
blood of the infant, whose brains have been dashed against it; and that
the smouldering ruins of log-houses oftener than not cover the remains
of their tenants. But what of all that? Brutus is still “an honorable
man,” and the American, who has not this sin to answer for among his
numberless transgressions, is reviled as a semi-barbarian! The time is
at hand, when the Lion of the West will draw his own picture, too; and
fortunate will it be for the characters of some who will gather around
the easel, if they do not discover traces of their own lineaments among
his labors.
The feeling engendered by the character of such a warfare is the secret
of the deeply seated hostility which pervades the breast of the WESTERN
American against the land of his ancestors. He never sees the Times, and
cares not a rush for the mystifications of the Quarterly Review; but
he remembers where his mother was brained, and his father or brother
tortured; aye, and by whose instrumentality the foul deeds were mainly
done. The man of the world can understand that such atrocities may be
committed, and the people of the offending nation remain ignorant of
their existence, and, in a measure, innocent of the guilt; but the
sufferer, in his provincial practice, makes no such distinction,
confounding all alike in his resentments, and including all that bear
the hated name in his maledictions. It is a fearful thing to awaken the
anger of a nation; to excite in it a desire for revenge; and thrice
is that danger magnified, when the people thus aroused possess
the activity, the resources, the spirit, and the enterprise of the
Americans. We have been openly derided, and that recently, because,
in the fulness of our sense of power and sense of right, language that
exceeds any direct exhibition of the national strength has escaped
the lips of legislators, and, perhaps justly, has exposed them to the
imputation of boastfulness. That derision, however, will not soon be
repeated. The scenes enacting in Mexico, faint as they are in comparison
with what would have been seen, had hostilities taken an other
direction, place a perpetual gag in the mouths of all scoffers. The
child is passing from the gristle into the bone, and the next generation
will not even laugh, as does the present, at any idle and ill-considered
menaces to coerce this republic; strong in the consciousness of its own
power, it will eat all such fanfaronades, if any future statesman should
be so ill-advised as to renew them, with silent indifference.
Now, le Bourdon was fully aware that one of the surest pulses of
approaching hostilities between England and America was to be felt in
the far West. If the Indians were in movement, some power was probably
behind the scenes to set them in motion. Pigeonswing was well known to
him by reputation; and there was that about the man which awakened the
most unpleasant apprehensions, and he felt an itching desire to learn
all he could from him, without betraying any more of his own feelings,
if that were possible.
“I do not think the British will attempt Mackinaw,” Ben remarked, after
a long pause and a good deal of smoking had enabled him to assume an air
of safe indifference.
“Got him, I tell you,” answered Pigeonswing, pointedly.
“Got what, Chippewa?”
“Him--Mac-naw--got fort--got so'gers--got whole island. Know dat, for
been dere.”
This was astounding news, indeed! The commanding officer of that
ill-starred garrison could not himself have been more astonished, when
he was unexpectedly summoned to surrender by an enemy who appeared
to start out of the earth, than was le Bourdon, at hearing this
intelligence. To western notions, Michilimackinac was another Gibraltar,
although really a place of very little strength, and garrisoned by only
one small company of regulars. Still, habit had given the fortress a
sort of sanctity among the adventurers of that region; and its fall,
even in the settled parts of the country, sounded like the loss of
a province. It is now known that, anticipating the movements of the
Americans, some three hundred whites, sustained by more than twice that
number of Indians, including warriors from nearly every adjacent tribe,
had surprised the post on the 17th of July, and compelled the subaltern
in command, with some fifty odd men, to surrender. This rapid and highly
military measure, on the part of the British, completely cut off the
post of Chicago, at the head of Lake Michigan, leaving it isolated, on
what was then a very remote wilderness. Chicago, Mackinac, and Detroit,
were the three grand stations of the Americans on the upper lakes, and
here were two of them virtually gone at a blow!