The Prairie (14 page)

"I have seen too much mortal blood poured out in empty quarrels, to
wish ever to hear an angry rifle again. Ten weary years have I sojourned
alone on these naked plains, waiting for my hour, and not a blow have I
struck ag'in an enemy more humanised than the grizzly bear."

"Ursus horribilis," muttered the Doctor.

The speaker paused at the sound of the other's voice, but perceiving it
was no more than a sort of mental ejaculation, he continued in the same
strain—

"More humanised than the grizzly hear, or the panther of the Rocky
Mountains; unless the beaver, which is a wise and knowing animal, may
be so reckoned. What would I advise? Even the female buffaloe will fight
for her young!"

"It never then shall be said, that Ishmael Bush has less kindness for
his children than the bear for her cubs!"

"And yet this is but a naked spot for a dozen men to make head in, ag'in
five hundred."

"Ay, it is so," returned the squatter, glancing his eye towards his
humble camp; "but something might be done, with the wagons and the
cotton-wood."

The trapper shook his head incredulously, and pointed across the rolling
plain in the direction of the west, as he answered—

"A rifle would send a bullet from these hills into your very
sleeping-cabins; nay, arrows from the thicket in your rear would keep
you all burrowed, like so many prairie dogs: it wouldn't do, it wouldn't
do. Three long miles from this spot is a place, where as I have often
thought in passing across the desert, a stand might be made for days and
weeks together, if there were hearts and hands ready to engage in the
bloody work."

Another low, deriding laugh passed among the young men, announcing, in
a manner sufficiently intelligible, their readiness to undertake a task
even more arduous. The squatter himself eagerly seized the hint which
had been so reluctantly extorted from the trapper, who by some singular
process of reasoning had evidently persuaded himself that it was his
duty to be strictly neutral. A few direct and pertinent enquiries served
to obtain the little additional information that was necessary, in
order to make the contemplated movement, and then Ishmael, who was, on
emergencies, as terrifically energetic, as he was sluggish in common,
set about effecting his object without delay.

Notwithstanding the industry and zeal of all engaged, the task was one
of great labour and difficulty. The loaded vehicles were to be drawn by
hand across a wide distance of plain without track or guide of any sort,
except that which the trapper furnished by communicating his knowledge
of the cardinal points of the compass. In accomplishing this object,
the gigantic strength of the men was taxed to the utmost, nor were the
females or the children spared a heavy proportion of the toil. While the
sons distributed themselves about the heavily loaded wagons, and drew
them by main strength up the neighbouring swell, their mother and Ellen,
surrounded by the amazed group of little ones, followed slowly in the
rear, bending under the weight of such different articles as were suited
to their several strengths.

Ishmael himself superintended and directed the whole, occasionally
applying his colossal shoulder to some lagging vehicle, until he saw
that the chief difficulty, that of gaining the level of their intended
route, was accomplished. Then he pointed out the required course,
cautioning his sons to proceed in such a manner that they should not
lose the advantage they had with so much labour obtained, and beckoning
to the brother of his wife, they returned together to the empty camp.

Throughout the whole of this movement, which occupied an hour of time,
the trapper had stood apart, leaning on his rifle, with the aged hound
slumbering at his feet, a silent but attentive observer of all that
passed. Occasionally, a smile lighted his hard, muscular, but wasted
features, like a gleam of sunshine flitting across a ragged ruin, and
betrayed the momentary pleasure he found in witnessing from time to time
the vast power the youths discovered. Then, as the train drew slowly
up the ascent, a cloud of thought and sorrow threw all into the shade
again, leaving the expression of his countenance in its usual state
of quiet melancholy. As vehicle after vehicle left the place of the
encampment, he noted the change, with increasing attention; seldom
failing to cast an enquiring look at the little neglected tent, which,
with its proper wagon, still remained as before, solitary and apparently
forgotten. The summons of Ishmael to his gloomy associate had, however,
as it would now seem, this hitherto neglected portion of his effects for
its object.

First casting a cautious and suspicious glance on every side of him, the
squatter and his companion advanced to the little wagon, and caused it
to enter within the folds of the cloth, much in the manner that it had
been extricated the preceding evening. They both then disappeared behind
the drapery, and many moments of suspense succeeded, during which the
old man, secretly urged by a burning desire to know the meaning of so
much mystery, insensibly drew nigh to the place, until he stood within
a few yards of the proscribed spot. The agitation of the cloth betrayed
the nature of the occupation of those whom it concealed, though their
work was conducted in rigid silence. It would appear that long practice
had made each of the two acquainted with his particular duty; for
neither sign nor direction of any sort was necessary from Ishmael, in
order to apprise his surly associate of the manner in which he was to
proceed. In less time than has been consummated in relating it,
the interior portion of the arrangement was completed, when the men
re-appeared without the tent. Too busy with his occupation to heed the
presence of the trapper, Ishmael began to release the folds of the cloth
from the ground, and to dispose of them in such a manner around the
vehicle, as to form a sweeping train to the new form the little pavilion
had now assumed. The arched roof trembled with the occasional movement
of the light vehicle which, it was now apparent, once more supported its
secret burden. Just as the work was ended the scowling eye of Ishmael's
assistant caught a glimpse of the figure of the attentive observer of
their movements. Dropping the shaft, which he had already lifted from
the ground preparatory to occupying the place that was usually filled
by an animal less reasoning and perhaps less dangerous than himself, he
bluntly exclaimed—

"I am a fool, as you often say! But look for yourself: if that man is
not an enemy, I will disgrace father and mother, call myself an Indian,
and go hunt with the Siouxes!"

The cloud, as it is about to discharge the subtle lightning, is not
more dark nor threatening, than the look with which Ishmael greeted the
intruder. He turned his head on every side of him, as if seeking some
engine sufficiently terrible to annihilate the offending trapper at a
blow; and then, possibly recollecting the further occasion he might
have for his counsel, he forced himself to say, with an appearance of
moderation that nearly choked him—

"Stranger, I did believe this prying into the concerns of others was the
business of women in the towns and settlements, and not the manner in
which men, who are used to live where each has room for himself, deal
with the secrets of their neighbours. To what lawyer or sheriff do you
calculate to sell your news?"

"I hold but little discourse except with one and then chiefly of my
own affairs," returned the old man, without the least observable
apprehension, and pointing imposingly upward; "a Judge; and Judge of
all. Little does he need knowledge from my hands, and but little will
your wish to keep any thing secret from him profit you, even in this
desert."

The mounting tempers of his unnurtured listeners were rebuked by
the simple, solemn manner of the trapper. Ishmael stood sullen and
thoughtful; while his companion stole a furtive and involuntary glance
at the placid sky, which spread so wide and blue above his head, as if
he expected to see the Almighty eye itself beaming from the heavenly
vault. But impressions of a serious character are seldom lasting on
minds long indulged in forgetfulness. The hesitation of the squatter was
consequently of short duration. The language, however, as well as the
firm and collected air of the speaker, were the means of preventing much
subsequent abuse, if not violence.

"It would be showing more of the kindness of a friend and comrade,"
Ishmael returned, in a tone sufficiently sullen to betray his humour,
though it was no longer threatening, "had your shoulder been put to the
wheel of one of yonder wagons, instead of edging itself in here, where
none are wanted but such as are invited."

"I can put the little strength that is left me," returned the trapper,
"to this, as well as to another of your loads."

"Do you take us for boys!" exclaimed Ishmael, laughing, half in ferocity
and half in derision, applying his powerful strength at the same time
to the little vehicle, which rolled over the grass with as much seeming
facility as if it were drawn by its usual team.

The trapper paused, and followed the departing wagon with his eye,
marvelling greatly as to the nature of its concealed contents, until it
had also gained the summit of the eminence, and in its turn disappeared
behind the swell of the land. Then he turned to gaze at the desolation
of the scene around him. The absence of human forms would have scarce
created a sensation in the bosom of one so long accustomed to solitude,
had not the site of the deserted camp furnished such strong memorials
of its recent visitors, and as the old man was quick to detect, of their
waste also. He cast his eye upwards, with a shake of the head, at
the vacant spot in the heavens which had so lately been filled by
the branches of those trees that now lay stripped of their verdure,
worthless and deserted logs, at his feet.

"Ay," he muttered to himself, "I might have know'd it—I might have
know'd it! Often have I seen the same before; and yet I brought them
to the spot myself, and have now sent them to the only neighbourhood of
their kind within many long leagues of the spot where I stand. This is
man's wish, and pride, and waste, and sinfulness! He tames the beasts of
the field to feed his idle wants; and, having robbed the brutes of their
natural food, he teaches them to strip the 'arth of its trees to quiet
their hunger."

A rustling in the low bushes which still grew, for some distance, along
the swale that formed the thicket on which the camp of Ishmael had
rested, caught his ear, at the moment, and cut short the soliloquy. The
habits of so many years, spent in the wilderness, caused the old man
to bring his rifle to a poise, with something like the activity and
promptitude of his youth; but, suddenly recovering his recollection,
he dropped it into the hollow of his arm again, and resumed his air of
melancholy resignation.

"Come forth, come forth!" he said aloud: "be ye bird, or be ye beast, ye
are safe from these old hands. I have eaten and I have drunk: why should
I take life, when my wants call for no sacrifice? It will not be long
afore the birds will peck at eyes that shall not see them, and perhaps
light on my very bones; for if things like these are only made to
perish, why am I to expect to live for ever? Come forth, come forth; you
are safe from harm at these weak hands."

"Thank you for the good word, old trapper!" cried Paul Hover, springing
actively forward from his place of concealment. "There was an air about
you, when you threw forward the muzzle of the piece, that I did not
like; for it seemed to say that you were master of all the rest of the
motions."

"You are right, you are right!" cried the trapper, laughing with inward
self-complacency at the recollection of his former skill. "The day has
been when few men knew the virtues of a long rifle, like this I carry,
better than myself, old and useless as I now seem. You are right, young
man; and the time was, when it was dangerous to move a leaf within
ear-shot of my stand; or," he added, dropping his voice, and looking
serious, "for a Red Mingo to show an eyeball from his ambushment. You
have heard of the Red Mingos?"

"I have heard of minks," said Paul, taking the old man by the arm, and
gently urging him towards the thicket as he spoke; while, at the same
time, he cast quick and uneasy glances behind him, in order to make sure
he was not observed. "Of your common black minks; but none of any other
colour."

"Lord! Lord!" continued the trapper, shaking his head, and still
laughing, in his deep but quiet manner; "the boy mistakes a brute for a
man! Though, a Mingo is little better than a beast; or, for that matter,
he is worse, when rum and opportunity are placed before his eyes. There
was that accursed Huron, from the upper lakes, that I knocked from his
perch among the rocks in the hills, back of the Hori—"

His voice was lost in the thicket, into which he had suffered himself to
be led by Paul while speaking, too much occupied by thoughts which dwelt
on scenes and acts that had taken place half a century earlier in the
history of the country, to offer the smallest resistance.

Now they are clapper-clawing one another; I'll go look on. That
dissembling abominable varlet, Diomed, has got that same scurvy,
doting, foolish young knave in his helm.
—Troilus and Cressida.

It is necessary, in order that the thread of the narrative should not be
spun to a length which might fatigue the reader, that he should imagine
a week to have intervened between the scene with which the preceding
chapter closed and the events with which it is our intention to resume
its relation in this. The season was on the point of changing its
character; the verdure of summer giving place more rapidly to the brown
and party-coloured livery of the fall.
[12]
The heavens were clothed in
driving clouds, piled in vast masses one above the other, which whirled
violently in the gusts; opening, occasionally, to admit transient
glimpses of the bright and glorious sight of the heavens, dwelling in a
magnificence by far too grand and durable to be disturbed by the fitful
efforts of the lower world. Beneath, the wind swept across the wild and
naked prairies, with a violence that is seldom witnessed in any section
of the continent less open. It would have been easy to have imagined,
in the ages of fable, that the god of the winds had permitted his
subordinate agents to escape from their den, and that they now rioted,
in wantonness, across wastes, where neither tree, nor work of man, nor
mountain, nor obstacle of any sort, opposed itself to their gambols.