The Prairie (33 page)

Not so Paul; conceiving himself to have obtained the two things dearest
to his heart, the possession of Ellen and a triumph over the sons of
Ishmael, he now enacted his part, in the business of the moment, with as
much coolness as though he was already leading his willing bride, from
solemnising their nuptials before a border magistrate, to the security
of his own dwelling. He had hovered around the moving family, during
the tedious period of their weary march, concealing himself by day, and
seeking interviews with his betrothed as opportunities offered, in the
manner already described, until fortune and his own intrepidity
had united to render him successful, at the very moment when he was
beginning to despair, and he now cared neither for distance, nor
violence, nor hardships. To his sanguine fancy and determined resolution
all the rest was easily to be achieved. Such were his feelings, and such
in truth they seemed to be. With his cap cast on one side, and whistling
a low air, he thrashed among the bushes, in order to make a place
suitable for the females to repose on, while, from time to time, he cast
an approving glance at the agile form of Ellen, as she tripped past him,
engaged in her own share of the duty.

"And so the Wolf-tribe of the Pawnees have buried the hatchet with their
neighbours, the Konzas?" said the trapper, pursuing a discourse which
he had scarcely permitted to flag, though it had been occasionally
interrupted by the different directions with which he occasionally saw
fit to interrupt it. (The reader will remember that, while he spoke to
the native warrior in his own tongue, he necessarily addressed his white
companions in English.) "The Loups and the light-fac'd Red-skins are
again friends. Doctor, that is a tribe of which I'll engage you've often
read, and of which many a round lie has been whispered in the ears of
the ignorant people, who live in the settlements. There was a story of
a nation of Welshers, that liv'd hereaway in the prairies, and how they
came into the land afore the uneasy minded man, who first let in the
Christians to rob the heathens of their inheritance, had ever dreamt
that the sun set on a country as big as that it rose from. And how they
knew the white ways, and spoke with white tongues, and a thousand other
follies and idle conceits."

"Have I not heard of them?" exclaimed the naturalist, dropping a piece
of jerked bison's meat, which he was rather roughly discussing, at
the moment. "I should be greatly ignorant not to have often dwelt
with delight on so beautiful a theory, and one which so triumphantly
establishes two positions, which I have often maintained are
unanswerable, even without such living testimony in their favour—viz.
that this continent can claim a more remote affinity with civilisation
than the time of Columbus, and that colour is the fruit of climate and
condition, and not a regulation of nature. Propound the latter question
to this Indian gentleman, venerable hunter; he is of a reddish tint
himself, and his opinion may be said to make us masters of the two sides
of the disputed point."

"Do you think a Pawnee is a reader of books, and a believer of printed
lies, like the idlers in the towns?" retorted the old man, laughing.
"But it may be as well to humour the likings of the man, which, after
all, it is quite possible are neither more nor less than his natural
gift, and therefore to be followed, although they may be pitied. What
does my brother think? all whom he sees here have pale skins, but the
Pawnee warriors are red; does he believe that man changes with the
season, and that the son is not like his father?"

The young warrior regarded his interrogator for a moment with a steady
and deliberating eye; then raising his finger upward, he answered with
dignity—

"The Wahcondah pours the rain from his clouds; when he speaks, he shakes
the lulls; and the fire, which scorches the trees, is the anger of his
eye; but he fashioned his children with care and thought. What he has
thus made, never alters!"

"Ay, 'tis in the reason of natur' that it should be so, Doctor,"
continued the trapper, when he had interpreted this answer to the
disappointed naturalist. "The Pawnees are a wise and a great people, and
I'll engage they abound in many a wholesome and honest tradition. The
hunters and trappers, that I sometimes see, speak of a great warrior of
your race."

"My tribe are not women. A brave is no stranger in my village."

"Ay; but he, they speak of most, is a chief far beyond the renown of
common warriors, and one that might have done credit to that once mighty
but now fallen people, the Delawares of the hills."

"Such a warrior should have a name?"

"They call him Hard-Heart, from the stoutness of his resolution; and
well is he named, if all I have heard of his deeds be true."

The stranger cast a glance, which seemed to read the guileless soul of
the old man, as he demanded—

"Has the Pale-face seen the partisan of my people?"

"Never. It is not with me now, as it used to be some forty years ago,
when warfare and bloodshed were my calling and my gifts!"

A loud shout from the reckless Paul interrupted his speech, and at the
next moment the bee-hunter appeared, leading an Indian war-horse from
the side of the thicket opposite to the one occupied by the party.

"Here is a beast for a Red-skin to straddle!" he cried, as he made the
animal go through some of its wild paces. "There's not a brigadier in
all Kentucky that can call himself master of so sleek and well-jointed
a nag! A Spanish saddle too, like a grandee of the Mexicos! and look at
the mane and tail, braided and platted down with little silver balls, as
if it were Ellen herself getting her shining hair ready for a dance, or
a husking frolic! Isn't this a real trotter, old trapper, to eat out of
the manger of a savage?"

"Softly, lad, softly. The Loups are famous for their horses, and it is
often that you see a warrior on the prairies far better mounted, than a
congress-man in the settlements. But this, indeed, is a beast that none
but a powerful chief should ride! The saddle, as you rightly think, has
been sit upon in its day by a great Spanish captain, who has lost it and
his life together, in some of the battles which this people often
fight against the southern provinces. I warrant me, I warrant me, the
youngster is the son of a great chief; may be of the mighty Hard-Heart
himself!"

During this rude interruption to the discourse, the young Pawnee
manifested neither impatience nor displeasure; but when he thought his
beast had been the subject of sufficient comment, he very coolly, and
with the air of one accustomed to have his will respected, relieved
Paul of the bridle, and throwing the reins on the neck of the animal, he
sprang upon his back, with the activity of a professor of the equestrian
art. Nothing could be finer or firmer than the seat of the savage. The
highly wrought and cumbrous saddle was evidently more for show than use.
Indeed it impeded rather than aided the action of limbs, which disdained
to seek assistance, or admit of restraint from so womanish inventions
as stirrups. The horse, which immediately began to prance, was, like
its rider, wild and untutored in all his motions, but while there was
so little of art, there was all the freedom and grace of nature in the
movements of both. The animal was probably indebted to the blood of
Araby for its excellence, through a long pedigree, that embraced the
steed of Mexico, the Spanish barb, and the Moorish charger. The rider,
in obtaining his steed from the provinces of Central-America, had also
obtained that spirit and grace in controlling him, which unite to form
the most intrepid and perhaps the most skilful horseman in the world.

Notwithstanding this sudden occupation of his animal, the Pawnee
discovered no hasty wish to depart. More at his ease, and possibly more
independent, now he found himself secure of the means of retreat, he
rode back and forth, eyeing the different individuals of the party with
far greater freedom than before. But, at each extremity of his ride,
just as the sagacious trapper expected to see him profit by his
advantage and fly, he would turn his horse, and pass over the same
ground, sometimes with the rapidity of the flying deer, and at others
more slowly, and with greater dignity of mien and attitude. Anxious to
ascertain such facts as might have an influence on his future movements,
the old man determined to invite him to a renewal of their conference.
He therefore made a gesture expressive at the same time of his wish to
resume the interrupted discourse, and of his own pacific intentions. The
quick eye of the stranger was not slow to note the action, but it
was not until a sufficient time had passed to allow him to debate the
prudence of the measure in his own mind, that he seemed willing to trust
himself again, so near a party that was so much superior to himself in
physical power, and consequently one that was able, at any instant, to
command his life, or control his personal liberty. When he did approach
nigh enough to converse with facility, it was with a singular mixture of
haughtiness and of distrust.

"It is far to the village of the Loups," he said, stretching his arm in
a direction contrary to that in which, the trapper well knew, the tribe
dwelt, "and the road is crooked. What has the Big-knife to say?"

"Ay, crooked enough!" muttered the old man in English, "if you are to
set out on your journey by that path, but not half so winding as the
cunning of an Indian's mind. Say, my brother; do the chiefs of the
Pawnees love to see strange faces in their lodges?"

The young warrior bent his body gracefully, though but slightly, over
the saddle-bow, as he replied—

"When have my people forgotten to give food to the stranger?"

"If I lead my daughters to the doors of the Loups, will the women take
them by the hand; and will the warriors smoke with my young men?"

"The country of the Pale-faces is behind them. Why do they journey so
far towards the setting sun? Have they lost the path, or are these the
women of the white warriors, that I hear are wading up the river of 'the
troubled waters?'"

"Neither. They, who wade the Missouri, are the warriors of my great
father, who has sent them on his message; but we are peace-runners. The
white men and the red are neighbours, and they wish to be friends.—Do
not the Omahaws visit the Loups, when the tomahawk is buried in the path
between the two nations?"

"The Omahaws are welcome."

"And the Yanktons, and the burnt-wood Tetons, who live in the elbow of
the river, 'with muddy water,' do they not come into the lodges of the
Loups and smoke?"

"The Tetons are liars!" exclaimed the other. "They dare not shut their
eyes in the night. No; they sleep in the sun. See," he added, pointing
with fierce triumph to the frightful ornaments of his leggings, "their
scalps are so plenty, that the Pawnees tread on them! Go; let a Sioux
live in banks of snow; the plains and buffaloes are for men!"

"Ah! the secret is out," said the trapper to Middleton, who was an
attentive, because a deeply interested, observer of what was passing.
"This good-looking young Indian is scouting on the track of the
Siouxes—you may see it by his arrow-heads, and his paint; ay, and by
his eye, too; for a Red-skin lets his natur' follow the business he is
on, be it for peace, or be it for war,—quiet, Hector, quiet. Have
you never scented a Pawnee afore, pup?—keep down, dog—keep down—my
brother is right. The Siouxes are thieves. Men of all colours and
nations say it of them, and say it truly. But the people from the rising
sun are not Siouxes, and they wish to visit the lodges of the Loups."

"The head of my brother is white," returned the Pawnee, throwing one
of those glances at the trapper, which were so remarkably expressive of
distrust, intelligence, and pride, and then pointing, as he continued,
towards the eastern horizon, "and his eyes have looked on many
things—can he tell me the name of what he sees yonder—is it a
buffaloe?"

"It looks more like a cloud, peeping above the skirt of the plain with
the sunshine lighting its edges. It is the smoke of the heavens."

"It is a hill of the earth, and on its top are the lodges of Pale-faces!
Let the women of my brother wash their feet among the people of their
own colour."

"The eyes of a Pawnee are good, if he can see a white-skin so far."

The Indian turned slowly towards the speaker, and after a pause of a
moment he sternly demanded—

"Can my brother hunt?"

"Alas! I claim to be no better than a miserable trapper!"

"When the plain is covered with the buffaloes, can he see them?"

"No doubt, no doubt—it is far easier to see than to take a scampering
bull."

"And when the birds are flying from the cold, and the clouds are black
with their feathers, can he see them too?"

"Ay, ay, it is not hard to find a duck, or a goose, when millions are
darkening the heavens."

"When the snow falls, and covers the lodges of the Long-knives, can the
stranger see flakes in the air?"

"My eyes are none of the best now," returned the old man a little
resentfully, "but the time has been when I had a name for my sight!"

"The Red-skins find the Big-knives as easily as the strangers see the
buffaloe, or the travelling birds, or the falling snow. Your warriors
think the Master of Life has made the whole earth white. They are
mistaken. They are pale, and it is their own faces that they see. Go! a
Pawnee is not blind, that he need look long for your people!"

The warrior suddenly paused, and bent his face aside, like one who
listened with all his faculties absorbed in the act. Then turning the
head of his horse, he rode to the nearest angle of the thicket, and
looked intently across the bleak prairie, in a direction opposite to the
side on which the party stood. Returning slowly from this unaccountable,
and to his observers, startling procedure, he riveted his eyes on
Inez, and paced back and forth several times, with the air of one who
maintained a warm struggle on some difficult point, in the recesses of
his own thoughts. He had drawn the reins of his impatient steed, and was
seemingly about to speak, when his head again sunk on his chest, and he
resumed his former attitude of attention. Galloping like a deer, to the
place of his former observations, he rode for a moment swiftly, in short
and rapid circles, as if still uncertain of his course, and then darted
away, like a bird that had been fluttering around its nest before it
takes a distant flight. After scouring the plain for a minute, he was
lost to the eye behind a swell of the land.