The Prairie (8 page)

"Give Weucha the milk of the Long-knives, and he will sing your name in
the ears of the great men of his tribe."

"Go," repeated the trapper, motioning him away, with strong disgust.
"Your young men are speaking of Mahtoree. My words are for the ears of a
chief."

The savage cast a look at the other, which, notwithstanding the dim
light, was sufficiently indicative of implacable hostility. He then
stole away among his fellows, anxious to conceal the counterfeit he had
attempted to practise, no less than the treachery he had contemplated
against a fair division of the spoils, from the man named by the
trapper, whom he now also knew to be approaching, by the manner in
which his name passed from one to another, in the band. He had hardly
disappeared before a warrior of powerful frame advanced out of the dark
circle, and placed himself before the captives, with that high and proud
bearing for which a distinguished Indian chief is ever so remarkable.
He was followed by all the party, who arranged themselves around his
person, in a deep and respectful silence.

"The earth is very large," the chief commenced, after a pause of that
true dignity which his counterfeit had so miserably affected; "why can
the children of my great white father never find room on it?"

"Some among them have heard that their friends in the prairies are in
want of many things," returned the trapper; "and they have come to see
if it be true. Some want, in their turns, what the red men are willing
to sell, and they come to make their friends rich, with powder and
blankets."

"Do traders cross the big river with empty hands?"

"Our hands are empty because your young men thought we were tired, and
they have lightened us of our load. They were mistaken; I am old, but I
am still strong."

"It cannot be. Your load has fallen in the prairies. Show my young men
the place, that they may pick it up before the Pawnees find it."

"The path to the spot is crooked, and it is night. The hour is come for
sleep," said the trapper, with perfect composure. "Bid your warriors go
over yonder hill; there is water and there is wood; let them light their
fires and sleep with warm feet. When the sun comes again I will speak to
you."

A low murmur, but one that was clearly indicative of dissatisfaction,
passed among the attentive listeners, and served to inform the old man
that he had not been sufficiently wary in proposing a measure that he
intended should notify the travellers in the brake of the presence of
their dangerous neighbours. Mahtoree, however, without betraying, in the
slightest degree, the excitement which was so strongly exhibited by his
companions, continued the discourse in the same lofty manner as before.

"I know that my friend is rich," he said; "that he has many warriors
not far off, and that horses are plentier with him, than dogs among the
red-skins."

"You see my warriors, and my horses."

"What! has the woman the feet of a Dahcotah, that she can walk for
thirty nights in the prairies, and not fall! I know the red men of the
woods make long marches on foot, but we, who live where the eye cannot
see from one lodge to another, love our horses."

The trapper now hesitated, in his turn. He was perfectly aware that
deception, if detected, might prove dangerous; and, for one of his
pursuits and character, he was strongly troubled with an unaccommodating
regard for the truth. But, recollecting that he controlled the fate of
others as well as of himself, he determined to let things take their
course, and to permit the Dahcotah chief to deceive himself if he would.

"The women of the Siouxes and of the white men are not of the same
wigwam," he answered evasively. "Would a Teton warrior make his wife
greater than himself? I know he would not; and yet my ears have heard
that there are lands where the councils are held by squaws."

Another slight movement in the dark circle apprised the trapper that
his declaration was not received without surprise, if entirely without
distrust. The chief alone seemed unmoved; nor was he disposed to relax
from the loftiness and high dignity of his air.

"My white fathers who live on the great lakes have declared," he said,
"that their brothers towards the rising sun are not men; and now I know
they did not lie! Go—what is a nation whose chief is a squaw! Are you
the dog and not the husband of this woman?"

"I am neither. Never did I see her face before this day. She came into
the prairies because they had told her a great and generous nation
called the Dahcotahs lived there, and she wished to look on men. The
women of the pale-faces, like the women of the Siouxes, open their eyes
to see things that are new; but she is poor, like myself, and she will
want corn and buffaloes, if you take away the little that she and her
friend still have."

"My ears listen to many wicked lies!" exclaimed the Teton warrior, in
a voice so stern that it startled even his red auditors. "Am I a woman?
Has not a Dahcotah eyes? Tell me, white hunter; who are the men of your
colour, that sleep near the fallen trees?"

As he spoke, the indignant chief pointed in the direction of Ishmael's
encampment, leaving the trapper no reason to doubt, that the superior
industry and sagacity of this man had effected a discovery, which had
eluded the search of the rest of his party. Notwithstanding his regret
at an event that might prove fatal to the sleepers, and some little
vexation at having been so completely outwitted, in the dialogue
just related, the old man continued to maintain his air of inflexible
composure.

"It may be true," he answered, "that white men are sleeping in the
prairie. If my brother says it, it is true; but what men thus trust
to the generosity of the Tetons, I cannot tell. If there be strangers
asleep, send your young men to wake them up, and let them say why they
are here; every pale-face has a tongue." The chief shook his head with
a wild and fierce smile, answering abruptly, as he turned away to put an
end to the conference—

"The Dahcotahs are a wise race, and Mahtoree is their chief! He will not
call to the strangers, that they may rise and speak to him with their
carabines. He will whisper softly in their ears. When this is done, let
the men of their own colour come and awake them!"

As he uttered these words, and turned on his heel, a low and approving
laugh passed around the dark circle, which instantly broke its order and
followed him to a little distance from the stand of the captives, where
those who might presume to mingle opinions with so great a warrior again
gathered about him in consultation. Weucha profited by the occasion to
renew his importunities; but the trapper, who had discovered how great
a counterfeit he was, shook him off in displeasure. An end was, however,
more effectually put to the annoyance of this malignant savage, by a
mandate for the whole party, including men and beasts, to change their
positions. The movement was made in dead silence, and with an order that
would have done credit to more enlightened beings. A halt, however, was
soon made; and when the captives had time to look about them, they found
they were in view of the low, dark outline of the copse, near which lay
the slumbering party of Ishmael.

Here another short but grave and deliberative consultation was held.

The beasts, which seemed trained to such covert and silent attacks, were
once more placed under the care of keepers, who, as before, were charged
with the duty of watching the prisoners. The mind of the trapper was
in no degree relieved from the uneasiness which was, at each instant,
getting a stronger possession of him, when he found Weucha was placed
nearest to his own person, and, as it appeared by the air of triumph
and authority he assumed, at the head of the guard also. The savage,
however, who doubtless had his secret instructions, was content, for
the present, with making a significant gesture with his tomahawk, which
menaced death to Ellen. After admonishing in this expressive manner
his male captives of the fate that would instantly attend their female
companion, on the slightest alarm proceeding from any of the party, he
was content to maintain a rigid silence. This unexpected forbearance, on
the part of Weucha, enabled the trapper and his two associates to
give their undivided attention to the little that might be seen of the
interesting movements which were passing in their front.

Mahtoree took the entire disposition of the arrangements on himself. He
pointed out the precise situation he wished each individual to occupy,
like one intimately acquainted with the qualifications of his respective
followers, and he was obeyed with the deference and promptitude with
which an Indian warrior is wont to submit to the instructions of his
chief, in moments of trial. Some he despatched to the right, and
others to the left. Each man departed with the noiseless and quick step
peculiar to the race, until all had assumed their allotted stations,
with the exception of two chosen warriors, who remained nigh the person
of their leader. When the rest had disappeared, Mahtoree turned to these
select companions, and intimated by a sign that the critical moment had
arrived, when the enterprise he contemplated was to be put in execution.

Each man laid aside the light fowling-piece, which, under the name of
a carabine, he carried in virtue of his rank; and divesting himself of
every article of exterior or heavy clothing, he stood resembling a dark
and fierce looking statue, in the attitude, and nearly in the garb, of
nature. Mahtoree assured himself of the right position of his tomahawk,
felt that his knife was secure in its sheath of skin, tightened his
girdle of wampum and saw that the lacing of his fringed and ornamental
leggings was secure, and likely to offer no impediment to his exertions.
Thus prepared at all points, and ready for his desperate undertaking,
the Teton gave the signal to proceed.

The three advanced in a line with the encampment of the travellers,
until, in the dim light by which they were seen, their dusky forms were
nearly lost to the eyes of the prisoners. Here they paused, looking
around them like men who deliberate and ponder long on the consequences
before they take a desperate leap. Then sinking together, they became
lost in the grass of the prairie.

It is not difficult to imagine the distress and anxiety of the different
spectators of these threatening movements. Whatever might be the reasons
of Ellen for entertaining no strong attachment to the family in which
she has first been seen by the reader, the feelings of her sex, and,
perhaps, some lingering seeds of kindness, predominated. More than once
she felt tempted to brave the awful and instant danger that awaited such
an offence, and to raise her feeble, and, in truth, impotent voice in
warning. So strong, indeed, and so very natural was the inclination,
that she would most probably have put it in execution, but for the often
repeated though whispered remonstrances of Paul Hover. In the breast of
the young bee-hunter himself, there was a singular union of emotions.
His first and chiefest solicitude was certainly in behalf of his gentle
and dependent companion; but the sense of her danger was mingled, in
the breast of the reckless woodsman, with a consciousness of a high and
wild, and by no means an unpleasant, excitement. Though united to the
emigrants by ties still less binding than those of Ellen, he longed
to hear the crack of their rifles, and, had occasion offered, he would
gladly have been among the first to rush to their rescue. There were,
in truth, moments when he felt in his turn an impulse, that was nearly
resistless, to spring forward and awake the unconscious sleepers; but
a glance at Ellen would serve to recall his tottering prudence, and to
admonish him of the consequences. The trapper alone remained calm and
observant, as if nothing that involved his personal comfort or safety
had occurred. His ever-moving, vigilant eyes, watched the smallest
change, with the composure of one too long inured to scenes of danger
to be easily moved, and with an expression of cool determination
which denoted the intention he actually harboured, of profiting by the
smallest oversight on the part of the captors.

In the mean time the Teton warriors had not been idle. Profiting by the
high fog which grew in the bottoms, they had wormed their way through
the matted grass, like so many treacherous serpents stealing on their
prey, until the point was gained, where an extraordinary caution became
necessary to their further advance. Mahtoree, alone, had occasionally
elevated his dark, grim countenance above the herbage, straining his
eye-balls to penetrate the gloom which skirted the border of the brake.
In these momentary glances he gained sufficient knowledge, added to that
he had obtained in his former search, to be the perfect master of
the position of his intended victims, though he was still profoundly
ignorant of their numbers, and of their means of defence.

His efforts to possess himself of the requisite knowledge concerning
these two latter and essential points were, however, completely baffled
by the stillness of the camp, which lay in a quiet as deep as if it
were literally a place of the dead. Too wary and distrustful to rely, in
circumstances of so much doubt, on the discretion of any less firm and
crafty than himself, the Dahcotah bade his companions remain where they
lay, and pursued the adventure alone.

The progress of Mahtoree was now slow, and to one less accustomed to
such a species of exercise, it would have proved painfully laborious.
But the advance of the wily snake itself is not more certain or
noiseless than was his approach. He drew his form, foot by foot, through
the bending grass, pausing at each movement to catch the smallest sound
that might betray any knowledge, on the part of the travellers, of
his proximity. He succeeded, at length, in dragging himself out of the
sickly light of the moon, into the shadows of the brake, where not
only his own dark person was much less liable to be seen, but where
the surrounding objects became more distinctly visible to his keen and
active glances.