The Prairie (6 page)

"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—