Come, come, thou art as hot a Jack in thy mood, as any in Italy; and as
soon mov’d to be moody, and as soon moody to be moved.
—Romeo and Juliet.
Though the trapper manifested some surprise when he perceived that
another human figure was approaching him, and that, too, from a
direction opposite to the place where the emigrant had made his
encampment, it was with the steadiness of one long accustomed to scenes
of danger.
“This is a man,” he said; “and one who has white blood in his veins, or
his step would be lighter. It will be well to be ready for the worst,
as the half-and-halfs,[8] that one meets, in these distant districts,
are altogether more barbarous than the real savage.”
He raised his rifle while he spoke, and assured himself of the state of
its flint, as well as of the priming by manual examination. But his arm
was arrested, while in the act of throwing forward the muzzle of the
piece, by the eager and trembling hands of his companion.
“For God’s sake, be not too hasty,” she said; “it may be a friend—an
acquaintance—a neighbour!”
“A friend!” the old man repeated, deliberately releasing himself, at
the same time, from her grasp. “Friends are rare in any land, and less
in this, perhaps, than in another; and the neighbourhood is too thinly
settled to make it likely that he who comes towards us is even an
acquaintance.”
“But though a stranger, you would not seek his blood!”
The trapper earnestly regarded her anxious and frightened features, and
then he dropped the butt of his rifle on the ground, like one whose
purpose had undergone a sudden change.
“No,” he said, speaking rather to himself, than to his companion, “she
is right; blood is not to be spilt, to save the life of one so useless,
and so near his time. Let him come on; my skins, my traps, and even my
rifle shall be his, if he sees fit to demand them.”
“He will ask for neither:—he wants neither,” returned the girl; “if he
be an honest man, he will surely be content with his own, and ask for
nothing that is the property of another.”
The trapper had not time to express the surprise he felt at this
incoherent and contradictory language, for the man who was advancing,
was, already, within fifty feet of the place where they stood.—In the
mean time, Hector had not been an indifferent witness of what was
passing. At the sound of the distant footsteps, he had arisen, from his
warm bed at the feet of his master; and now, as the stranger appeared
in open view, he stalked slowly towards him, crouching to the earth
like a panther about to take his leap.
“Call in your dog,” said a firm, deep, manly voice, in tones of
friendship, rather than of menace; “I love a hound, and should be sorry
to do an injury to the animal.”
“You hear what is said about you, pup?” the trapper answered; “come
hither, fool. His growl and his bark are all that is left him now; you
may come on, friend; the hound is toothless.”
The stranger profited by the intelligence. He sprang eagerly forward,
and at the next instant stood at the side of Ellen Wade. After assuring
himself of the identity of the latter, by a hasty but keen glance, he
turned his attention, with a quickness and impatience, that proved the
interest he took in the result, to a similar examination of her
companion.
“From what cloud have you fallen, my good old man?” he said in a
careless, off-hand, heedless manner that seemed too natural to be
assumed: “or do you actually live, hereaway, in the prairies?”
“I have been long on earth, and never I hope nigher to heaven, than I
am at this moment,” returned the trapper; “my dwelling, if dwelling I
may be said to have, is not far distant. Now may I take the liberty
with you, that you are so willing to take with others? Whence do you
come, and where is your home?”
“Softly, softly; when I have done with my catechism, it will be time to
begin with yours. What sport is this, you follow by moonlight? You are
not dodging the buffaloes at such an hour!”
“I am, as you see, going from an encampment of travellers, which lies
over yonder swell in the land, to my own wigwam; in doing so, I wrong
no man.”
“All fair and true. And you got this young woman to show you the way,
because she knows it so well and you know so little about it yourself!”
“I met her, as I have met you, by accident. For ten tiresome years have
I dwelt on these open fields, and never, before to-night, have I found
human beings with white skins on them, at this hour. If my presence
here gives offence, I am sorry; and will go my way. It is more than
likely that when your young friend has told her story, you will be
better given to believe mine.
“Friend!” said the youth, lifting a cap of skins from his head, and
running his fingers leisurely through a dense mass of black and shaggy
locks, “if I have ever laid eyes on the girl before to-night, may I—”
“You’ve said enough, Paul,” interrupted the female, laying her hand on
his mouth, with a familiarity that gave something very like the lie
direct, to his intended asseveration. “Our secret will be safe, with
this honest old man. I know it by his looks, and kind words.”
“Our secret! Ellen, have you forgot—”
“Nothing. I have not forgotten any thing I should remember. But still I
say we are safe with this honest trapper.”
“Trapper! is he then a trapper? Give me your hand, father; our trades
should bring us acquainted.”
“There is little call for handicrafts in this region,” returned the
other, examining the athletic and active form of the youth, as he
leaned carelessly and not ungracefully, on his rifle; “the art of
taking the creatur’s of God, in traps and nets, is one that needs more
cunning than manhood; and yet am I brought to practise it, in my age!
But it would be quite as seemly, in one like you, to follow a pursuit
better becoming your years and courage.”
“I! I never took even a slinking mink or a paddling musk-rat in a cage;
though I admit having peppered a few of the dark-skin’d devils, when I
had much better have kept my powder in the horn and the lead in its
pouch. Not I, old man; nothing that crawls the earth is for my sport.”
“What then may you do for a living, friend? for little profit is to be
made in these districts, if a man denies himself his lawful right in
the beasts of the fields.”
“I deny myself nothing. If a bear crosses my path, he is soon the mere
ghost of Bruin. The deer begin to nose me; and as for the buffaloe, I
have kill’d more beef, old stranger, than the largest butcher in all
Kentuck.”
“You can shoot, then!” demanded the trapper, with a glow of latent
fire, glimmering about his eyes; “is your hand true, and your look
quick?”
“The first is like a steel trap, and the last nimbler than a buck-shot.
I wish it was hot noon, now, grand’ther; and that there was an acre or
two of your white swans or of black feathered ducks going south, over
our heads; you or Ellen, here, might set your heart on the finest in
the flock, and my character against a horn of powder, that the bird
would be hanging head downwards, in five minutes, and that too, with a
single ball. I scorn a shot-gun! No man can say, he ever knew me carry
one, a rod.”
“The lad has good in him! I see it plainly by his manner;” said the
trapper, turning to Ellen with an encouraging air; “I will take it on
myself to say, that you are not unwise in meeting him, as you do. Tell
me, lad; did you ever strike a leaping buck atwixt the antlers? Hector;
quiet, pup; quiet. The very name of venison quickens the blood of the
cur;—did you ever take an animal in that fashion, on the long leap?”
“You might just as well ask me, did you ever eat? There is no fashion,
old stranger, that a deer has not been touched by my hand, unless it
was when asleep.”
“Ay, ay; you have a long and a happy-ay, and an honest life afore you!
I am old, and I suppose I might also say, worn out and useless; but, if
it was given me to choose my time, and place, again,—as such things are
not and ought not ever to be given to the will of man—though if such a
gift was to be given me, I would say, twenty and the wilderness! But,
tell me; how do you part with the peltry?”
“With my pelts! I never took a skin from a buck, nor a quill from a
goose, in my life! I knock them over, now and then, for a meal, and
sometimes to keep my finger true to the touch; but when hunger is
satisfied, the prairie wolves get the remainder. No—no—I keep to my
calling; which pays me better, than all the fur I could sell on the
other side of the big river.”
The old man appeared to ponder a little; but shaking his head he soon
continued—
“I know of but one business that can be followed here with profit—”
He was interrupted by the youth, who raised a small cup of tin, which
dangled at his neck before the other’s eyes, and springing its lid, the
delicious odour of the finest flavoured honey, diffused itself over the
organs of the trapper.
“A bee hunter!” observed the latter, with a readiness that proved he
understood the nature of the occupation, though not without some little
surprise at discovering one of the other’s spirited mien engaged in so
humble a pursuit. “It pays well in the skirts of the settlements, but I
should call it a doubtful trade, in the more open districts.”
“You think a tree is wanting for a swarm to settle in! But I know
differently; and so I have stretched out a few hundred miles farther
west than common, to taste your honey. And, now, I have bated your
curiosity, stranger, you will just move aside, while I tell the
remainder of my story to this young woman.”
“It is not necessary, I’m sure it is not necessary, that he should
leave us,” said Ellen, with a haste that implied some little
consciousness of the singularity if not of the impropriety of the
request. “You can have nothing to say that the whole world might not
hear.”
“No! well, may I be stung to death by drones, if I understand the
buzzings of a woman’s mind! For my part, Ellen, I care for nothing nor
any body; and am just as ready to go down to the place where your
uncle, if uncle you can call one, who I’ll swear is no relation, has
hoppled his teams, and tell the old man my mind now, as I shall be a
year hence. You have only to say a single word, and the thing is done;
let him like it or not.”
“You are ever so hasty and so rash, Paul Hover, that I seldom know when
I am safe with you. How can you, who know the danger of our being seen
together, speak of going before my uncle and his sons?”
“Has he done that of which he has reason to be ashamed?” demanded the
trapper, who had not moved an inch from the place he first occupied.
“Heaven forbid! But there are reasons, why he should not be seen, just
now, that could do him no harm if known; but which may not yet be told.
And, so, if you will wait, father, near yonder willow bush, until I
have heard what Paul can possibly have to say, I shall be sure to come
and wish you a good night, before I return to the camp.”
The trapper drew slowly aside, as if satisfied with the somewhat
incoherent reason Ellen had given why he should retire. When completely
out of ear shot of the earnest and hurried dialogue, that instantly
commenced between the two he had left, the old man again paused, and
patiently awaited the moment when he might renew his conversation with
beings in whom he felt a growing interest, no less from the mysterious
character of their intercourse, than from a natural sympathy in the
welfare of a pair so young, and who, as in the simplicity of his heart
he was also fain to believe, were also so deserving. He was accompanied
by his indolent, but attached dog, who once more made his bed at the
feet of his master, and soon lay slumbering as usual, with his head
nearly buried in the dense fog of the prairie grass.
It was a spectacle so unusual to see the human form amid the solitude
in which he dwelt, that the trapper bent his eyes on the dim figures of
his new acquaintances, with sensations to which he had long been a
stranger. Their presence awakened recollections and emotions, to which
his sturdy but honest nature had latterly paid but little homage, and
his thoughts began to wander over the varied scenes of a life of
hardships, that had been strangely blended with scenes of wild and
peculiar enjoyment. The train taken by his thoughts had, already,
conducted him, in imagination, far into an ideal world, when he was,
once more suddenly, recalled to the reality of his situation, by the
movements of the faithful hound.
The dog, who, in submission to his years and infirmities, had
manifested such a decided propensity to sleep, now arose, and stalked
from out the shadow cast by the tall person of his master, and looked
abroad into the prairie, as if his instinct apprised him of the
presence of still another visitor. Then, seemingly content with his
examination, he returned to his comfortable post and disposed of his
weary limbs, with the deliberation and care of one who was no novice in
the art of self-preservation.
“What; again, Hector!” said the trapper in a soothing voice, which he
had the caution, however, to utter in an under tone; “what is it, dog?
tell it all to his master, pup; what is it?”
Hector answered with another growl, but was content to continue in his
lair. These were evidences of intelligence and distrust, to which one
as practised as the trapper could not turn an inattentive ear. He again
spoke to the dog, encouraging him to watchfulness, by a low guarded
whistle. The animal however, as if conscious of having, already,
discharged his duty, obstinately refused to raise his head from the
grass.
“A hint from such a friend is far better than man’s advice!” muttered
the trapper, as he slowly moved towards the couple who were yet, too
earnestly and abstractedly, engaged in their own discourse, to notice
his approach; “and none but a conceited settler would hear it and not
respect it, as he ought. Children,” he added, when nigh enough to
address his companions, “we are not alone in these dreary fields; there
are others stirring, and, therefore, to the shame of our kind, be it
said, danger is nigh.”
“If one of the lazy sons of Skirting Ishmael is prowling out of his
camp to-night,” said the young bee-hunter, with great vivacity, and in
tones that might easily have been excited to a menace, “he may have an
end put to his journey sooner than either he or his father is
dreaming!”
“My life on it, they are all with the teams,” hurriedly answered the
girl. “I saw the whole of them asleep, myself, except the two on watch;
and their natures have greatly changed, if they, too, are not both
dreaming of a turkey hunt, or a court-house fight, at this very
moment.”
“Some beast, with a strong scent, has passed between the wind and the
hound, father, and it makes him uneasy; or, perhaps, he too is
dreaming. I had a pup of my own, in Kentuck, that would start upon a
long chase from a deep sleep; and all upon the fancy of some dream. Go
to him, and pinch his ear, that the beast may feel the life within
him.”
“Not so—not so,” returned the trapper, shaking his head as one who
better understood the qualities of his dog.—“Youth sleeps, ay, and
dreams too; but age is awake and watchful. The pup is never false with
his nose, and long experience tells me to heed his warnings.”
“Did you ever run him upon the trail of carrion?”
“Why, I must say, that the ravenous beasts have sometimes tempted me to
let him loose, for they are as greedy as men, after the venison, in its
season; but then I knew the reason of the dog, would tell him the
object!—No—no, Hector is an animal known in the ways of man, and will
never strike a false trail when a true one is to be followed!”
“Ay, ay, the secret is out! you have run the hound on the track of a
wolf, and his nose has a better memory than his master!” said the
bee-hunter, laughing.
“I have seen the creatur’ sleep for hours, with pack after pack, in
open view. A wolf might eat out of his tray without a snarl, unless
there was a scarcity; then, indeed, Hector would be apt to claim his
own.”
“There are panthers down from the mountains; I saw one make a leap at a
sick deer, as the sun was setting. Go; go you back to the dog, and tell
him the truth, father; in a minute, I—”
He was interrupted by a long, loud, and piteous howl from the hound,
which rose on the air of the evening, like the wailing of some spirit
of the place, and passed off into the prairie, in cadences that rose
and fell, like its own undulating surface. The trapper was impressively
silent, listening intently. Even the reckless bee-hunter, was struck
with the wailing wildness of the sounds. After a short pause the former
whistled the dog to his side, and turning to his companions he said
with the seriousness, which, in his opinion, the occasion demanded—
“They who think man enjoys all the knowledge of the creatur’s of God,
will live to be disappointed, if they reach, as I have done, the age of
fourscore years. I will not take upon myself to say what mischief is
brewing, nor will I vouch that, even, the hound himself knows so much;
but that evil is nigh, and that wisdom invites us to avoid it, I have
heard from the mouth of one who never lies. I did think, the pup had
become unused to the footsteps of man, and that your presence made him
uneasy; but his nose has been on a long scent the whole evening, and
what I mistook as a notice of your coming, has been intended for
something more serious. If the advice of an old man is, then, worth
hearkening to, children, you will quickly go different ways to your
places of shelter and safety.”
“If I quit Ellen, at such a moment,” exclaimed the youth, “may I—”
“You’ve said enough!” the girl interrupted, by again interposing a band
that might, both by its delicacy and colour, have graced a far more
elevated station in life; “my time is out; and we must part, at all
events—so good night, Paul—father—good night.”
“Hist!” said the youth, seizing her arm, as she was in the very act of
tripping from his side—“Hist! do you hear nothing? There are buffaloes
playing their pranks, at no great distance—That sound beats the earth
like a herd of the mad scampering devils!”
His two companions listened, as people in their situation would be apt
to lend their faculties to discover the meaning of any doubtful noises,
especially, when heard after so many and such startling warnings. The
unusual sounds were unequivocally though still faintly audible. The
youth and his female companion had made several hurried, and
vacillating conjectures concerning their nature, when a current of the
night air brought the rush of trampling footsteps, too sensibly, to
their ears, to render mistake any longer possible.
“I am right!” said the bee-hunter; “a panther is driving a herd before
him; or may be, there is a battle among the beasts.”
“Your ears are cheats,” returned the old man, who, from the moment his
own organs had been able to catch the distant sounds, stood like a
statue made to represent deep attention:—“the leaps are too long for
the buffaloe, and too regular for terror. Hist! now they are in a
bottom where the grass is high, and the sound is deadened! Ay, there
they go on the hard earth! And now they come up the swell, dead upon
us; they will be here afore you can find a cover!”
“Come, Ellen,” cried the youth, seizing his companion by the hand, “let
us make a trial for the encampment.”
“Too late! too late!” exclaimed the trapper, “for the creatur’s are in
open view; and a bloody band of accursed Siouxes they are, by their
thieving look, and the random fashion in which they ride!”
“Siouxes or devils, they shall find us men!” said the bee-hunter, with
a mien as fierce as if he led a party of superior strength, and of a
courage equal to his own.—“You have a piece, old man, and will pull a
trigger in behalf of a helpless, Christian girl!”
“Down, down into the grass—down with ye both,” whispered the trapper,
intimating to them to turn aside to the tall weeds, which grew, in a
denser body than common, near the place where they stood. “You’ve not
the time to fly, nor the numbers to fight, foolish boy. Down into the
grass, if you prize the young woman, or value the gift of life!”
His remonstrance, seconded, as it was, by a prompt and energetic
action, did not fail to produce the submission to his order, which the
occasion seemed, indeed, imperiously to require. The moon had fallen
behind a sheet of thin, fleecy, clouds, which skirted the horizon,
leaving just enough of its faint and fluctuating light, to render
objects visible, dimly revealing their forms and proportions. The
trapper, by exercising that species of influence, over his companions,
which experience and decision usually assert, in cases of emergency,
had effectually succeeded in concealing them in the grass, and by the
aid of the feeble rays of the luminary, he was enabled to scan the
disorderly party which was riding, like so many madmen, directly upon
them.
A band of beings, who resembled demons rather than men, sporting in
their nightly revels across the bleak plain, was in truth approaching,
at a fearful rate, and in a direction to leave little hope that some
one among them, at least, would not pass over the spot where the
trapper and his companions lay. At intervals, the clattering of hoofs
was borne along by the night wind, quite audibly in their front, and
then, again, their progress through the fog of the autumnal grass, was
swift and silent; adding to the unearthly appearance of the spectacle.
The trapper, who had called in his hound, and bidden him crouch at his
side, now kneeled in the cover also, and kept a keen and watchful eye
on the route of the band, soothing the fears of the girl, and
restraining the impatience of the youth, in the same breath.
“If there’s one, there’s thirty of the miscreants!” he said, in a sort
of episode to his whispered comments. “Ay, ay; they are edging towards
the river—Peace, pup—peace—no, here they come this way again—the
thieves don’t seem to know their own errand! If there were just six of
us, lad, what a beautiful ambushment we might make upon them, from this
very spot—it won’t do, it won’t do, boy; keep yourself closer, or your
head will be seen—besides, I’m not altogether strong in the opinion it
would be lawful, as they have done us no harm.—There they bend again to
the river—no; here they come up the swell—now is the moment to be as
still, as if the breath had done its duty and departed the body.”
The old man sunk into the grass while he was speaking, as if the final
separation to which he alluded, had, in his own case, actually
occurred, and, at the next instant, a band of wild horsemen whirled by
them, with the noiseless rapidity in which it might be imagined a troop
of spectres would pass. The dark and fleeting forms were already
vanished, when the trapper ventured again to raise his head to a level
with the tops of the bending herbage, motioning at the same time, to
his companions to maintain their positions and their silence.
“They are going down the swell, towards the encampment,” he continued,
in his former guarded tones; “no, they halt in the bottom, and are
clustering together like deer, in council. By the Lord, they are
turning again, and we are not yet done with the reptiles!”
Once more he sought his friendly cover, and at the next instant the
dark troop were to be seen riding, in a disorderly manner, on the very
summit of the little elevation on which the trapper and his companions
lay. It was now soon apparent that they had returned to avail
themselves of the height of the ground, in order to examine the dim
horizon.
Some dismounted, while others rode to and fro, like men engaged in a
local enquiry of much interest. Happily, for the hidden party, the
grass in which they were concealed, not only served to skreen them from
the eyes of the savages, but opposed an obstacle to prevent their
horses, which were no less rude and untrained than their riders, from
trampling on them, in their irregular and wild paces.
At length an athletic and dark looking Indian, who, by his air of
authority, would seem to be the leader, summoned his chiefs about him,
to a consultation, which was held mounted. This body was collected on
the very margin of that mass of herbage in which the trapper and his
companions were hid. As the young man looked up and saw the fierce
aspect of the group, which was increasing at each instant by the
accession of some countenance and figure, apparently more forbidding
than any which had preceded it, he drew his rifle, by a very natural
impulse, from beneath him, and commenced putting it in a state for
service. The female, at his side, buried her face in the grass, by a
feeling that was, possibly, quite as natural to her sex and habits,
leaving him to follow the impulses of his hot blood; but his aged and
more prudent adviser, whispered, sternly, in his ear—
“The tick of the lock is as well known to the knaves, as the blast of a
trumpet to a soldier! lay down the piece—lay down the piece—should the
moon touch the barrel, it could not fail to be seen by the devils,
whose eyes are keener than the blackest snake’s! The smallest motion,
now, would be sure to bring an arrow among us.”
The bee-hunter so far obeyed as to continue immovable and silent. But
there was still sufficient light to convince his companion, by the
contracted brow and threatening eye of the young man, that a discovery
would not bestow a bloodless victory on the savages. Finding his advice
disregarded, the trapper took his measures accordingly, and awaited the
result with a resignation and calmness that were characteristic of the
individual.
In the mean time, the Siouxes (for the sagacity of the old man was not
deceived in the character of his dangerous neighbours) had terminated
their council, and were again dispersed along the ridge of land as if
they sought some hidden object.
“The imps have heard the hound!” whispered the trapper, “and their ears
are too true to be cheated in the distance. Keep close, lad, keep
close; down with your head to the very earth, like a dog that sleeps.”
“Let us rather take to our feet, and trust to manhood,” returned his
impatient companion.
He would have proceeded; but feeling a hand laid rudely on his
shoulder, he turned his eyes upward, and beheld the dark and savage
countenance of an Indian gleaming full upon him. Notwithstanding the
surprise and the disadvantage of his attitude, the youth was not
disposed to become a captive so easily. Quicker than the flash of his
own gun he sprang upon his feet, and was throttling his opponent with a
power that would soon have terminated the contest, when he felt the
arms of the trapper thrown round his body, confining his exertions by a
strength very little inferior to his own. Before he had time to
reproach his comrade for this apparent treachery, a dozen Siouxes were
around them, and the whole party were compelled to yield themselves as
prisoners.
[8] Half-breeds; men born of Indian women by white fathers. This race
has much of the depravity of civilisation without the virtues of the
savage.