The Prairie (48 page)

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.

I am not prone to weeping, as our sex
Commonly are.
—But I have that honourable
Grief lodged here, which burns worse than
Tears drown
—Shakespeare.

When within twenty feet of the prisoners, the Tetons stopped, and their
leader made a sign to the old man to draw nigh. The trapper obeyed,
quitting the young Pawnee with a significant look, which was received,
as it was meant, for an additional pledge that he would never forget
his promise. So soon as Mahtoree found that the other had stopped within
reach of him, he stretched forth his arm, and laying a hand upon the
shoulder of the attentive old man, he stood regarding him, a minute,
with eyes that seemed willing to penetrate the recesses of his most
secret thoughts.

"Is a Pale-face always made with two tongues?" he demanded, when he
found that, as usual, with the subject of this examination, he was as
little intimidated by his present frown, as moved by any apprehensions
of the future.

"Honesty lies deeper than the skin."

"It is so. Now let my father hear me. Mahtoree has but one tongue, the
grey-head has many. They may be all straight, and none of them forked.
A Sioux is no more than a Sioux, but a Pale-face is every thing! He can
talk to the Pawnee, and the Konza, and the Omawhaw, and he can talk to
his own people."

"Ay, there are linguists in the settlements that can do still more. But
what profits it all? The Master of Life has an ear for every language!"

"The grey-head has done wrong. He has said one thing when he meant
another. He has looked before him with his eyes, and behind him with
his mind. He has ridden the horse of a Sioux too hard; he has been the
friend of a Pawnee, and the enemy of my people."

"Teton, I am your prisoner. Though my words are white, they will not
complain. Act your will."

"No. Mahtoree will not make a white hair red. My father is free. The
prairie is open on every side of him. But before the grey-head turns his
back on the Siouxes, let him look well at them, that he may tell his own
chief, how great is a Dahcotah!"

"I am not in a hurry to go on my path. You see a man with a white head,
and no woman, Teton; therefore shall I not run myself out of breath, to
tell the nations of the prairies what the Siouxes are doing."

"It is good. My father has smoked with the chiefs at many councils,"
returned Mahtoree, who now thought himself sufficiently sure of the
other's favour to go more directly to his object. "Mahtoree will speak
with the tongue of his very dear friend and father. A young Pale-face
will listen when an old man of that nation opens his mouth. Go; my
father will make what a poor Indian says fit for a white ear."

"Speak aloud!" said the trapper, who readily understood the metaphorical
manner, in which the Teton expressed a desire that he should become an
interpreter of his words into the English language; "speak, my young men
listen. Now, captain, and you too, friend bee-hunter, prepare yourselves
to meet the deviltries of this savage, with the stout hearts of white
warriors. If you find yourselves giving way under his threats, just turn
your eyes on that noble-looking Pawnee, whose time is measured with a
hand as niggardly, as that with which a trader in the towns gives
forth the fruits of the Lord, inch by inch, in order to satisfy
his covetousness. A single look at the boy will set you both up in
resolution."

"My brother has turned his eyes on the wrong path," interrupted
Mahtoree, with a complacency that betrayed how unwilling he was to
offend his intended interpreter.

"The Dahcotah will speak to my young men?"

"After he has sung in the ear of the flower of the Pale-faces."

"The Lord forgive the desperate villain!" exclaimed the old man in
English. "There are none so tender, or so young, or so innocent, as to
escape his ravenous wishes. But hard words and cold looks will profit
nothing; therefore it will be wise to speak him fair. Let Mahtoree open
his mouth."

"Would my father cry out, that the women and children should hear the
wisdom of chiefs! We will go into the lodge and whisper."

As the Teton ended, he pointed significantly towards a tent, vividly
emblazoned with the history of one of his own boldest and most commended
exploits, and which stood a little apart from the rest, as if to denote
it was the residence of some privileged individual of the band. The
shield and quiver at its entrance were richer than common, and the high
distinction of a fusee, attested the importance of its proprietor. In
every other particular it was rather distinguished by signs of poverty
than of wealth. The domestic utensils were fewer in number and simpler
in their forms, than those to be seen about the openings of the meanest
lodges, nor was there a single one of those high-prized articles of
civilised life, which were occasionally bought of the traders, in
bargains that bore so hard on the ignorant natives. All these had been
bestowed, as they had been acquired, by the generous chief, on his
subordinates, to purchase an influence that might render him the master
of their lives and persons; a species of wealth that was certainly more
noble in itself, and far dearer to his ambition.