What, are ancient Pistol and you friends, yet?
—Shakespeare.
The curtain of our imperfect drama must fall, to rise upon another
scene. The time is advanced several days, during which very material
changes had occurred in the situation of the actors. The hour is noon,
and the place an elevated plain, that rose, at no great distance from
the water, somewhat abruptly from a fertile bottom, which stretched
along the margin of one of the numberless water-courses of that region.
The river took its rise near the base of the Rocky Mountains, and,
after washing a vast extent of plain, it mingled its waters with a
still larger stream, to become finally lost in the turbid current of
the Missouri.
The landscape was changed materially for the better; though the hand,
which had impressed so much of the desert on the surrounding region,
had laid a portion of its power on this spot. The appearance of
vegetation was, however, less discouraging than in the more sterile
wastes of the rolling prairies. Clusters of trees were scattered in
greater profusion, and a long outline of ragged forest marked the
northern boundary of the view. Here and there, on the bottom, were to
be seen the evidences of a hasty and imperfect culture of such
indigenous vegetables as were of a quick growth, and which were known
to flourish, without the aid of art, in deep and alluvial soils. On the
very edge of what might be called the table-land, were pitched the
hundred lodges of a horde of wandering Siouxes. Their light tenements
were arranged without the least attention to order. Proximity to the
water seemed to be the only consideration which had been consulted in
their disposition, nor had even this important convenience been always
regarded. While most of the lodges stood along the brow of the plain,
many were to be seen at greater distances, occupying such places as had
first pleased the capricious eyes of their untutored owners. The
encampment was not military, nor in the slightest degree protected from
surprise by its position or defences. It was open on every side, and on
every side as accessible as any other point in those wastes, if the
imperfect and natural obstruction offered by the river be excepted. In
short, the place bore the appearance of having been tenanted longer
than its occupants had originally intended, while it was not wanting in
the signs of readiness for a hasty, or even a compelled departure.
This was the temporary encampment of that portion of his people, who
had long been hunting under the direction of Mahtoree, on those grounds
which separated the stationary abodes of his nation, from those of the
warlike tribes of the Pawnees. The lodges were tents of skin, high,
conical, and of the most simple and primitive construction. The shield,
the quiver, the lance and the bow of its master, were to be seen
suspended from a light post before the opening, or door, of each
habitation. The different domestic implements of his one, two, or three
wives, as the brave was of greater or lesser renown, were carelessly
thrown at its side, and here and there the round, full, patient
countenance of an infant might be found peeping from its comfortless
wrappers of bark, as, suspended by a deer-skin thong from the same
post, it rocked in the passing air. Children of a larger growth were
tumbling over each other in piles, the males, even at that early age,
making themselves distinguished for that species of domination which,
in after life, was to mark the vast distinction between the sexes.
Youths were in the bottom, essaying their juvenile powers in curbing
the wild steeds of their fathers, while here and there a truant girl
was to be seen, stealing from her labours to admire their fierce and
impatient daring.
Thus far the picture was the daily exhibition of an encampment
confident in its security. But immediately in front of the lodges was a
gathering, that seemed to forbode some movements of more than usual
interest. A few of the withered and remorseless crones of the band were
clustering together, in readiness to lend their fell voices, if needed,
to aid in exciting their descendants to an exhibition, which their
depraved tastes coveted, as the luxurious Roman dame witnessed the
struggles and the agony of the gladiator. The men were subdivided into
groups, assorted according to the deeds and reputations of the several
individuals of whom they were composed.
They, who were of that equivocal age which admitted them to the hunts,
while their discretion was still too doubtful to permit them to be
trusted on the war-path, hung around the skirts of the whole, catching,
from the fierce models before them, that gravity of demeanour and
restraint of manner, which in time was to become so deeply ingrafted in
their own characters. A few of the still older class, and who had heard
the whoop in anger, were a little more presuming, pressing nigher to
the chiefs, though far from presuming to mingle in their councils,
sufficiently distinguished by being permitted to catch the wisdom which
fell from lips so venerated. The ordinary warriors of the band were
still less diffident, not hesitating to mingle among the chiefs of
lesser note, though far from assuming the right to dispute the
sentiments of any established brave, or to call in question the
prudence of measures, that were recommended by the more gifted
counsellors of the nation.
Among the chiefs themselves there was a singular compound of exterior.
They were divided into two classes; those who were mainly indebted for
their influence to physical causes, and to deeds in arms, and those who
had become distinguished rather for their wisdom than for their
services in the field. The former was by far the most numerous and the
most important class. They were men of stature and mien, whose stern
countenances were often rendered doubly imposing by those evidences of
their valour, which had been roughly traced on their lineaments by the
hands of their enemies. That class, which had gained its influence by a
moral ascendency was extremely limited. They were uniformly to be
distinguished by the quick and lively expression of their eyes, by the
air of distrust that marked their movements, and occasionally by the
vehemence of their utterance in those sudden outbreakings of the mind,
by which their present consultations were, from time to time,
distinguished.
In the very centre of a ring, formed by these chosen counsellors, was
to be seen the person of the disquieted, but seemingly calm, Mahtoree.
There was a conjunction of all the several qualities of the others in
his person and character. Mind as well as matter had contributed to
establish his authority. His scars were as numerous and deep as those
of the whitest head in his nation; his limbs were in their greatest
vigour; his courage at its fullest height. Endowed with this rare
combination of moral and physical influence, the keenest eye in all
that assembly was wont to lower before his threatening glance. Courage
and cunning had established his ascendency, and it had been rendered,
in some degree, sacred by time. He knew so well how to unite the powers
of reason and force, that in a state of society, which admitted of a
greater display of his energies, the Teton would in all probability
have been both a conqueror and a despot.
A little apart from the gathering of the band, was to be seen a set of
beings of an entirely different origin. Taller and far more muscular in
their persons, the lingering vestiges of their Saxon and Norman
ancestry were yet to be found beneath the swarthy complexions, which
had been bestowed by an American sun. It would have been a curious
investigation, for one skilled in such an enquiry, to have traced those
points of difference, by which the offspring of the most western
European was still to be distinguished from the descendant of the most
remote Asiatic, now that the two, in the revolutions of the world, were
approximating in their habits, their residence, and not a little in
their characters. The group, of whom we write, was composed of the
family of the squatter. They stood indolent, lounging, and inert, as
usual when no immediate demand was made on their dormant energies,
clustered in front of some four or five habitations of skin, for which
they were indebted to the hospitality of their Teton allies. The terms
of their unexpected confederation were sufficiently explained, by the
presence of the horses and domestic cattle that were quietly grazing on
the bottom beneath, under the jealous eyes of the spirited Hetty. Their
wagons were drawn about the lodges, in a sort of irregular barrier,
which at once manifested that their confidence was not entirely
restored, while, on the other hand, their policy or indolence prevented
any very positive exhibition of distrust. There was a singular union of
passive enjoyment and of dull curiosity slumbering in every dull
countenance, as each of the party stood leaning on his rifle, regarding
the movements of the Sioux conference. Still no sign of expectation or
interest escaped from the youngest among them, the whole appearing to
emulate the most phlegmatic of their savage allies, in an exhibition of
patience. They rarely spoke; and when they did it was in some short and
contemptuous remark, which served to put the physical superiority of a
white man, and that of an Indian, in a sufficiently striking point of
view. In short, the family of Ishmael appeared now to be in the
plenitude of an enjoyment, which depended on inactivity, but which was
not entirely free from certain confused glimmerings of a perspective,
in which their security stood in some little danger of a rude
interruption from Teton treachery. Abiram, alone, formed a solitary
exception to this state of equivocal repose.
After a life passed in the commission of a thousand mean and
insignificant villanies, the mind of the kidnapper had become hardy
enough to attempt the desperate adventure, which has been laid before
the reader, in the course of the narrative. His influence over the
bolder, but less active, spirit of Ishmael was far from great, and had
not the latter been suddenly expelled from a fertile bottom, of which
he had taken possession, with intent to keep it, without much deference
to the forms of law, he would never have succeeded in enlisting the
husband of his sister in an enterprise that required so much decision
and forethought. Their original success and subsequent disappointment
have been seen; and Abiram now sat apart, plotting the means, by which
he might secure to himself the advantages of his undertaking, which he
perceived were each moment becoming more uncertain, through the open
admiration of Mahtoree for the innocent subject of his villany. We
shall leave him to his vacillating and confused expedients, in order to
pass to the description of certain other personages in the drama.
There was still another corner of the picture that was occupied. On a
little bank, at the extreme right of the encampment, lay the forms of
Middleton and Paul. Their limbs were painfully bound with thongs, cut
from the skin of a bison, while, by a sort of refinement in cruelty,
they were so placed, that each could see a reflection of his own misery
in the case of his neighbour. Within a dozen yards of them a post was
set firmly in the ground, and against it was bound the light and
Apollo-like person of Hard-Heart. Between the two stood the trapper,
deprived of his rifle, his pouch and his horn, but otherwise left in a
sort of contemptuous liberty. Some five or six young warriors, however,
with quivers at their backs, and long tough bows dangling from their
shoulders, who stood with grave watchfulness at no great distance from
the spot, sufficiently proclaimed how fruitless any attempt to escape,
on the part of one so aged and so feeble, might prove. Unlike the other
spectators of the important conference, these individuals were engaged
in a discourse that for them contained an interest of its own.
“Captain,” said the bee-hunter with an expression of comical concern,
that no misfortune could depress in one of his buoyant feelings, “do
you really find that accursed strap of untanned leather cutting into
your shoulder, or is it only the tickling in my own arm that I feel?”
“When the spirit suffers so deeply, the body is insensible to pain,”
returned the more refined, though scarcely so spirited Middleton;
“would to Heaven that some of my trusty artillerists might fall upon
this accursed encampment!”
“You might as well wish that these Teton lodges were so many hives of
hornets, and that the insects would come forth and battle with yonder
tribe of half naked savages.” Then, chuckling with his own conceit, the
bee-hunter turned away from his companion, and sought a momentary
relief from his misery, by imagining that so wild an idea might be
realised, and fancying the manner, in which the attack would upset even
the well established patience of an Indian.
Middleton was glad to be silent; but the old man, who had listened to
their words, drew a little nigher, and continued the discourse.
“Here is likely to be a merciless and a hellish business!” he said,
shaking his head in a manner to prove that even his experience was at a
loss for a remedy in so trying a dilemma. “Our Pawnee friend is already
staked for the torture, and I well know, by the eye and the countenance
of the great Sioux, that he is leading on the temper of his people to
further enormities.”
“Harkee, old trapper,” said Paul, writhing in his bonds to catch a
glimpse of the other’s melancholy face; “you ar’ skilled in Indian
tongues, and know somewhat of Indian deviltries. Go you to the council,
and tell their chiefs in my name, that is to say, in the name of Paul
Hover, of the state of Kentucky, that provided they will guarantee the
safe return of one Ellen Wade into the States, they are welcome to take
his scalp when and in such manner as best suits their amusements; or,
if-so-be they will not trade on these conditions, you may throw in an
hour or two of torture before hand, in order to sweeten the bargain to
their damnable appetites.”
“Ah! lad, it is little they would hearken to such an offer, knowing, as
they do, that you are already like a bear in a trap, as little able to
fight as to fly. But be not down-hearted, for the colour of a white man
is sometimes his death-warrant among these far tribes of savages, and
sometimes his shield. Though they love us not, cunning often ties their
hands. Could the red nations work their will, trees would shortly be
growing again on the ploughed fields of America, and woods would be
whitened with Christian bones. No one can doubt that, who knows the
quality of the love which a Red-skin bears a Pale-face; but they have
counted our numbers until their memories fail them, and they are not
without their policy. Therefore is our fate unsettled; but I fear me
there is small hope left for the Pawnee!”
As the old man concluded, he walked slowly towards the subject of his
latter observation, taking his post at no great distance from his side.
Here he stood, observing such a silence and mien as became him to
manifest, to a chief so renowned and so situated as his captive
associate. But the eye of Hard-Heart was fastened on the distance, and
his whole air was that of one whose thoughts were entirely removed from
the present scene.
“The Siouxes are in council on my brother,” the trapper at length
observed, when he found he could only attract the other’s attention by
speaking.
The young partisan turned his head with a calm smile as he answered
“They are counting the scalps over the lodge of Hard-Heart!”
“No doubt, no doubt; their tempers begin to mount, as they remember the
number of Tetons you have struck, and better would it be for you now,
had more of your days been spent in chasing the deer, and fewer on the
war-path. Then some childless mother of this tribe might take you in
the place of her lost son, and your time would be filled in peace.”
“Does my father think that a warrior can ever die? The Master of Life
does not open his hand to take away his gifts again. When He wants His
young men He calls them, and they go. But the Red-skin He has once
breathed on lives for ever.”
“Ay, this is a more comfortable and a more humble faith than that which
yonder heartless Teton harbours. There is something in these Loups
which opens my inmost heart to them; they seem to have the courage, ay,
and the honesty, too, of the Delawares of the hills. And this lad—it is
wonderful, it is very wonderful; but the age, and the eye, and the
limbs are as if they might have been brothers! Tell me, Pawnee, have
you ever in your traditions heard of a mighty people who once lived on
the shores of the Salt-lake, hard by the rising sun?”
“The earth is white, by people of the colour of my father.”
“Nay, nay, I speak not now of any strollers, who have crept into the
land to rob the lawful owners of their birth-right, but of a people who
are, or rather were, what with nature and what with paint, red as the
berry on the bush.”
“I have heard the old men say, that there were bands, who hid
themselves in the woods under the rising sun, because they dared not
come upon the open prairies to fight with men.”
“Do not your traditions tell you of the greatest, the bravest, and the
wisest nation of Red-skins that the Wahcondah has ever breathed upon?”
Hard-Heart raised his head, with a loftiness and dignity that even his
bonds could not repress, as he answered—
“Has age blinded my father; or does he see so many Siouxes, that he
believes there are no longer any Pawnees?”
“Ah! such is mortal vanity and pride!” exclaimed the disappointed old
man, in English. “Natur’ is as strong in a Red-skin, as in the bosom of
a man of white gifts. Now would a Delaware conceit himself far mightier
than a Pawnee, just as a Pawnee boasts himself to be of the princes of
the ’arth. And so it was atween the Frenchers of the Canadas and the
red-coated English, that the king did use to send into the States, when
States they were not, but outcrying and petitioning provinces, they
fou’t and they fou’t, and what marvellous boastings did they give forth
to the world of their own valour and victories, while both parties
forgot to name the humble soldier of the land, who did the real
service, but who, as he was not privileged then to smoke at the great
council fire of his nation, seldom heard of his deeds, after they were
once bravely done.”
When the old man had thus given vent to the nearly dormant, but far
from extinct, military pride, that had so unconsciously led him into
the very error he deprecated, his eye, which had begun to quicken and
glimmer with some of the ardour of his youth, softened and turned its
anxious look on the devoted captive, whose countenance was also
restored to its former cold look of abstraction and thought.
“Young warrior,” he continued in a voice that was growing tremulous, “I
have never been father, or brother. The Wahcondah made me to live
alone. He never tied my heart to house or field, by the cords with
which the men of my race are bound to their lodges; if he had, I should
not have journeyed so far, and seen so much. But I have tarried long
among a people, who lived in those woods you mention, and much reason
did I find to imitate their courage and love their honesty. The Master
of Life has made us all, Pawnee, with a feeling for our kind. I never
was a father, but well do I know what is the love of one. You are like
a lad I valued, and I had even begun to fancy that some of his blood
might be in your veins. But what matters that? You are a true man, as I
know by the way in which you keep your faith; and honesty is a gift too
rare to be forgotten. My heart yearns to you, boy, and gladly would I
do you good.”
The youthful warrior listened to the words, which came from the lips of
the other with a force and simplicity that established their truth, and
he bowed his head on his naked bosom, in testimony of the respect with
which he met the proffer. Then lifting his dark eye to the level of the
view, he seemed to be again considering of things removed from every
personal consideration. The trapper, who well knew how high the pride
of a warrior would sustain him, in those moments he believed to be his
last, awaited the pleasure of his young friend, with a meekness and
patience that he had acquired by his association with that remarkable
race. At length the gaze of the Pawnee began to waver; and then quick,
flashing glances were turned from the countenance of the old man to the
air, and from the air to his deeply marked lineaments again, as if the
spirit, which governed their movements, was beginning to be troubled.
“Father,” the young brave finally answered in a voice of confidence and
kindness, “I have heard your words. They have gone in at my ears, and
are now within me. The white-headed Long-knife has no son; the
Hard-Heart of the Pawnees is young, but he is already the oldest of his
family. He found the bones of his father on the hunting ground of the
Osages, and he has sent them to the prairies of the Good Spirits. No
doubt the great chief, his father, has seen them, and knows what is
part of himself. But the Wahcondah will soon call to us both; you,
because you have seen all that is to be seen in this country; and
Hard-Heart, because he has need of a warrior, who is young. There is no
time for the Pawnee to show the Pale-face the duty, that a son owes to
his father.”
“Old as I am, and miserable and helpless as I now stand, to what I once
was, I may live to see the sun go down in the prairie. Does my son
expect to do as much?”
“The Tetons are counting the scalps on my lodge!” returned the young
chief, with a smile whose melancholy was singularly illuminated by a
gleam of triumph.
“And they find them many. Too many for the safety of its owner, while
he is in their revengeful hands. My son is not a woman, and he looks on
the path he is about to travel with a steady eye. Has he nothing to
whisper in the ears of his people, before he starts? These legs are
old, but they may yet carry me to the forks of the Loup river.”
“Tell them that Hard-Heart has tied a knot in his wampum for every
Teton,” burst from the lips of the captive, with that vehemence with
which sudden passion is known to break through the barriers of
artificial restraint “if he meets one of them all, in the prairies of
the Master of Life, his heart will become Sioux!”
“Ah that feeling would be a dangerous companion for a man with white
gifts to start with on so solemn a journey,” muttered the old man in
English. “This is not what the good Moravians said to the councils of
the Delawares, nor what is so often preached, to the White-skins in the
settlements, though, to the shame of the colour be it said, it is so
little heeded. Pawnee, I love you; but being a Christian man, I cannot
be the runner to bear such a message.”
“If my father is afraid the Tetons will hear him, let him whisper it
softly to our old men.”
“As for fear, young warrior, it is no more the shame of a Pale-face
than of a Red-skin. The Wahcondah teaches us to love the life he gives;
but it is as men love their hunts, and their dogs, and their carabines,
and not with the doting that a mother looks upon her infant. The Master
of Life will not have to speak aloud twice when he calls my name. I am
as ready to answer to it now, as I shall be to-morrow, or at any time
it may please his mighty will. But what is a warrior without his
traditions? Mine forbid me to carry your words.”
The chief made a dignified motion of assent, and here there was great
danger that those feelings of confidence, which had been so singularly
awakened, would as suddenly subside. But the heart of the old man had
been too sensibly touched, through long dormant but still living
recollections, to break off the communication so rudely. He pondered
for a minute, and then bending his look wistfully on his young
associate, again continued—
“Each warrior must be judged by his gifts. I have told my son what I
cannot, but let him open his ears to what I can do. An elk shall not
measure the prairie much swifter than these old legs, if the Pawnee
will give me a message that a white man may bear.”
“Let the Pale-face listen,” returned the other, after hesitating a
single instant longer, under a lingering sensation of his former
disappointment. “He will stay here till the Siouxes have done counting
the scalps of their dead warriors. He will wait until they have tried
to cover the heads of eighteen Tetons with the skin of one Pawnee; he
will open his eyes wide, that he may see the place where they bury the
bones of a warrior.”
“All this will I, and may I, do, noble boy.”
“He will mark the spot, that he may know it.”
“No fear, no fear that I shall forget the place,” interrupted the
other, whose fortitude began to give way under so trying an exhibition
of calmness and resignation.
“Then I know that my father will go to my people. His head is grey, and
his words will not be blown away with the smoke. Let him get on my
lodge, and call the name of Hard-Heart aloud. No Pawnee will be deaf.
Then let my father ask for the colt, that has never been ridden, but
which is sleeker than the buck, and swifter than the elk.”
“I understand you, boy, I understand you,” interrupted the attentive
old man; “and what you say shall be done, ay, and well done too, or I’m
but little skilled in the wishes of a dying Indian.”
“And when my young men have given my father the halter of that colt, he
will lead him by a crooked path to the grave of Hard-Heart?”
“Will I! ay, that I will, brave youth, though the winter covers these
plains in banks of snow, and the sun is hidden as much by day as by
night. To the head of the holy spot will I lead the beast, and place
him with his eyes looking towards the setting sun.”
“And my father will speak to him, and tell him, that the master, who
has fed him since he was foaled, has now need of him.”
“That, too, will I do; though the Lord he knows that I shall hold
discourse with a horse, not with any vain conceit that my words will be
understood, but only to satisfy the cravings of Indian superstition.
Hector, my pup, what think you, dog, of talking to a horse?”
“Let the grey-beard speak to him with the tongue of a Pawnee,”
interrupted the young victim, perceiving that his companion had used an
unknown language for the preceding speech.
“My son’s will shall be done. And with these old hands, which I had
hoped had nearly done with bloodshed, whether it be of man or beast,
will I slay the animal on your grave!”
“It is good,” returned the other, a gleam of satisfaction flitting
across his features. “Hard-Heart will ride his horse to the blessed
prairies, and he will come before the Master of Life like a chief!”
The sudden and striking change, which instantly occurred in the
countenance of the Indian, caused the trapper to look aside, when he
perceived that the conference of the Siouxes had ended, and that
Mahtoree, attended by one or two of the principal warriors, was
deliberately approaching his intended victim.