The Prairie

by James Fenimore Cooper

  CHAPTER I.

  I pray thee, shepherd, if that love or gold, Can in this desert place buy entertainment, Bring us where we may rest ourselves and feed. --As you like it.

  Much was said and written, at the time, concerning the policy ofadding the vast regions of Louisiana, to the already immense andbut half-tenanted territories of the United States. As the warmth ofcontroversy however subsided, and party considerations gave place tomore liberal views, the wisdom of the measure began to be generallyconceded. It soon became apparent to the meanest capacity, that, whilenature had placed a barrier of desert to the extension of our populationin the west, the measure had made us the masters of a belt of fertilecountry, which, in the revolutions of the day, might have become theproperty of a rival nation. It gave us the sole command of the greatthoroughfare of the interior, and placed the countless tribes ofsavages, who lay along our borders, entirely within our control; itreconciled conflicting rights, and quieted national distrusts; itopened a thousand avenues to the inland trade, and to the waters ofthe Pacific; and, if ever time or necessity shall require a peacefuldivision of this vast empire, it assures us of a neighbour that willpossess our language, our religion, our institutions, and it is also tobe hoped, our sense of political justice.

  Although the purchase was made in 1803, the spring of the succeedingyear was permitted to open, before the official prudence of theSpaniard, who held the province for his European master, admitted theauthority, or even of the entrance of its new proprietors. But theforms of the transfer were no sooner completed, and the new governmentacknowledged, than swarms of that restless people, which is ever foundhovering on the skirts of American society, plunged into the thicketsthat fringed the right bank of the Mississippi, with the same carelesshardihood, as had already sustained so many of them in their toilsomeprogress from the Atlantic states, to the eastern shores of the "fatherof rivers."[*]

  [*] The Mississippi is thus termed in several of the Indian languages. The reader will gain a more just idea of the importance of this stream, if he recalls to mind the fact, that the Missouri and the Mississippi are properly the same river. Their united lengths cannot be greatly short of four thousand miles.

  Time was necessary to blend the numerous and affluent colonists of thelower province with their new compatriots; but the thinner and morehumble population above, was almost immediately swallowed in the vortexwhich attended the tide of instant emigration. The inroad from theeast was a new and sudden out-breaking of a people, who had endured amomentary restraint, after having been rendered nearly resistless bysuccess. The toils and hazards of former undertakings were forgotten, asthese endless and unexplored regions, with all their fancied as well asreal advantages, were laid open to their enterprise. The consequenceswere such as might easily have been anticipated, from so tempting anoffering, placed, as it was, before the eyes of a race long trained inadventure and nurtured in difficulties.

  Thousands of the elders, of what were then called the New States[*],broke up from the enjoyment of their hard-earned indulgences, and wereto be seen leading long files of descendants, born and reared in theforests of Ohio and Kentucky, deeper into the land, in quest of thatwhich might be termed, without the aid of poetry, their natural and morecongenial atmosphere. The distinguished and resolute forester whofirst penetrated the wilds of the latter state, was of the number. Thisadventurous and venerable patriarch was now seen making his last remove;placing the "endless river" between him and the multitude his ownsuccess had drawn around him, and seeking for the renewal of enjoymentswhich were rendered worthless in his eyes, when trammelled by the formsof human institutions.[+]

  [*] All the states admitted to the American Union, since the revolution, are called New States, with the exception of Vermont: that had claims before the war; which were not, however, admitted until a later day.

  [+] Colonel Boon, the patriarch of Kentucky. This venerable and hardy pioneer of civilisation emigrated to an estate three hundred miles west of the Mississippi, in his ninety-second year, because he found a population of ten to the square mile, inconveniently crowded!

  In the pursuit of adventures such as these, men are ordinarily governedby their habits or deluded by their wishes. A few, led by the phantomsof hope, and ambitious of sudden affluence, sought the mines of thevirgin territory; but by far the greater portion of the emigrantswere satisfied to establish themselves along the margins of thelarger water-courses, content with the rich returns that the generous,alluvial, bottoms of the rivers never fail to bestow on the mostdesultory industry. In this manner were communities formed with magicalrapidity; and most of those who witnessed the purchase of the emptyempire, have lived to see already a populous and sovereign state,parcelled from its inhabitants, and received into the bosom of thenational Union, on terms of political equality.

  The incidents and scenes which are connected with this legend, occurredin the earliest periods of the enterprises which have led to so greatand so speedy a result.

  The harvest of the first year of our possession had long been passed,and the fading foliage of a few scattered trees was already beginning toexhibit the hues and tints of autumn, when a train of wagons issued fromthe bed of a dry rivulet, to pursue its course across the undulatingsurface, of what, in the language of the country of which we write, iscalled a "rolling prairie." The vehicles, loaded with household goodsand implements of husbandry, the few straggling sheep and cattle thatwere herded in the rear, and the rugged appearance and careless mien ofthe sturdy men who loitered at the sides of the lingering teams, unitedto announce a band of emigrants seeking for the Elderado of the West.Contrary to the usual practice of the men of their caste, this party hadleft the fertile bottoms of the low country, and had found its way, bymeans only known to such adventurers, across glen and torrent, overdeep morasses and arid wastes, to a point far beyond the usual limits ofcivilised habitations. In their front were stretched those broad plains,which extend, with so little diversity of character, to the bases of theRocky Mountains; and many long and dreary miles in their rear, foamedthe swift and turbid waters of La Platte.

  The appearance of such a train, in that bleak and solitary place, wasrendered the more remarkable by the fact, that the surrounding countryoffered so little, that was tempting to the cupidity of speculation,and, if possible, still less that was flattering to the hopes of anordinary settler of new lands.

  The meagre herbage of the prairie, promised nothing, in favour of a hardand unyielding soil, over which the wheels of the vehicles rattled aslightly as if they travelled on a beaten road; neither wagons nor beastsmaking any deeper impression, than to mark that bruised and witheredgrass, which the cattle plucked, from time to time, and as oftenrejected, as food too sour, for even hunger to render palatable.

  Whatever might be the final destination of these adventurers, or thesecret causes of their apparent security in so remote and unprotecteda situation, there was no visible sign of uneasiness, uncertainty, oralarm, among them. Including both sexes, and every age, the number ofthe party exceeded twenty.

  At some little distance in front of the whole, marched the individual,who, by his position and air, appeared to be the leader of the band. Hewas a tall, sun-burnt, man, past the middle age, of a dull countenanceand listless manner. His frame appeared loose and flexible; but itwas vast, and in reality of prodigious power. It was, only at moments,however, as some slight impediment opposed itself to his loiteringprogress, that his person, which, in its ordinary gait seemed solounging and nerveless, displayed any of those energies, which laylatent in his system, like the slumbering and unwieldy, but terrible,strength of the elephant. The inferior lineaments of his countenancewere coarse, extended and vacant; while the superior, or those noblerparts which are thought to affect the intellectual being, were low,receding and mean.

  The dress of this individual was a mixture of the coarsest vestments ofa husb
andman with the leathern garments, that fashion as well as use,had in some degree rendered necessary to one engaged in his presentpursuits. There was, however, a singular and wild display of prodigaland ill judged ornaments, blended with his motley attire. In place ofthe usual deer-skin belt, he wore around his body a tarnished silkensash of the most gaudy colours; the buck-horn haft of his knife wasprofusely decorated with plates of silver; the marten's fur of his capwas of a fineness and shadowing that a queen might covet; the buttonsof his rude and soiled blanket-coat were of the glittering coinage ofMexico; the stock of his rifle was of beautiful mahogany, riveted andbanded with the same precious metal, and the trinkets of no less thanthree worthless watches dangled from different parts of his person.In addition to the pack and the rifle which were slung at his back,together with the well filled, and carefully guarded pouch and horn,he had carelessly cast a keen and bright wood-axe across his shoulder,sustaining the weight of the whole with as much apparent ease, as if hemoved, unfettered in limb, and free from incumbrance.

  A short distance in the rear of this man, came a group of youths verysimilarly attired, and bearing sufficient resemblance to each other,and to their leader, to distinguish them as the children of one family.Though the youngest of their number could not much have passed theperiod, that, in the nicer judgment of the law, is called the age ofdiscretion, he had proved himself so far worthy of his progenitors asto have reared already his aspiring person to the standard height ofhis race. There were one or two others, of different mould, whosedescriptions must however be referred to the regular course of thenarrative.

  Of the females, there were but two who had arrived at womanhood; thoughseveral white-headed, olive-skinned faces were peering out of theforemost wagon of the train, with eyes of lively curiosity andcharacteristic animation. The elder of the two adults, was the sallowand wrinkled mother of most of the party, and the younger was asprightly, active, girl, of eighteen, who in figure, dress, and mien,seemed to belong to a station in society several gradations above thatof any one of her visible associates. The second vehicle was coveredwith a top of cloth so tightly drawn, as to conceal its contents,with the nicest care. The remaining wagons were loaded with such rudefurniture and other personal effects, as might be supposed to belongto one, ready at any moment to change his abode, without reference toseason or distance.

  Perhaps there was little in this train, or in the appearance of itsproprietors, that is not daily to be encountered on the highways of thischangeable and moving country. But the solitary and peculiar scenery,in which it was so unexpectedly exhibited, gave to the party a markedcharacter of wildness and adventure.

  In the little valleys, which, in the regular formation of the land,occurred at every mile of their progress, the view was bounded, on twoof the sides, by the gradual and low elevations, which gave name tothe description of prairie we have mentioned; while on the others,the meagre prospect ran off in long, narrow, barren perspectives, butslightly relieved by a pitiful show of coarse, though somewhat luxuriantvegetation. From the summits of the swells, the eye became fatigued withthe sameness and chilling dreariness of the landscape. The earth was notunlike the Ocean, when its restless waters are heaving heavily, afterthe agitation and fury of the tempest have begun to lessen. Therewas the same waving and regular surface, the same absence of foreignobjects, and the same boundless extent to the view. Indeed so verystriking was the resemblance between the water and the land, that,however much the geologist might sneer at so simple a theory, it wouldhave been difficult for a poet not to have felt, that the formation ofthe one had been produced by the subsiding dominion of the other. Hereand there a tall tree rose out of the bottoms, stretching its nakedbranches abroad, like some solitary vessel; and, to strengthen thedelusion, far in the distance, appeared two or three rounded thickets,looming in the misty horizon like islands resting on the waters. Itis unnecessary to warn the practised reader, that the sameness ofthe surface, and the low stands of the spectators, exaggerated thedistances; but, as swell appeared after swell, and island succeededisland, there was a disheartening assurance that long, and seeminglyinterminable, tracts of territory must be passed, before the wishes ofthe humblest agriculturist could be realised.

  Still, the leader of the emigrants steadily pursued his way, with noother guide than the sun, turning his back resolutely on the abodesof civilisation, and plunging, at each step, more deeply if notirretrievably, into the haunts of the barbarous and savage occupants ofthe country. As the day drew nigher to a close, however, his mind, whichwas, perhaps, incapable of maturing any connected system of forethought,beyond that which related to the interests of the present moment,became, in some slight degree, troubled with the care of providing forthe wants of the hours of darkness.

  On reaching the crest of a swell that was a little higher than the usualelevations, he lingered a minute, and cast a half curious eye, on eitherhand, in quest of those well known signs, which might indicate a place,where the three grand requisites of water, fuel and fodder were to beobtained in conjunction.

  It would seem that his search was fruitless; for after a few moments ofindolent and listless examination, he suffered his huge frame to descendthe gentle declivity, in the same sluggish manner that an over fattedbeast would have yielded to the downward pressure.

  His example was silently followed by those who succeeded him, thoughnot until the young men had manifested much more of interest, if not ofconcern in the brief enquiry, which each, in his turn, made on gainingthe same look-out. It was now evident, by the tardy movements both ofbeasts and men, that the time of necessary rest was not far distant. Thematted grass of the lower land, presented obstacles which fatigue beganto render formidable, and the whip was becoming necessary to urgethe lingering teams to their labour. At this moment, when, with theexception of the principal individual, a general lassitude was gettingthe mastery of the travellers, and every eye was cast, by a sort ofcommon impulse, wistfully forward, the whole party was brought to ahalt, by a spectacle, as sudden as it was unexpected.

  The sun had fallen below the crest of the nearest wave of the prairie,leaving the usual rich and glowing train on its track. In the centreof this flood of fiery light, a human form appeared, drawn against thegilded background, as distinctly, and seemingly as palpable, as thoughit would come within the grasp of any extended hand. The figure wascolossal; the attitude musing and melancholy, and the situation directlyin the route of the travellers. But imbedded, as it was, in its settingof garish light, it was impossible to distinguish its just proportionsor true character.

  The effect of such a spectacle was instantaneous and powerful. The manin front of the emigrants came to a stand, and remained gazing atthe mysterious object, with a dull interest, that soon quickened intosuperstitious awe. His sons, so soon as the first emotions of surprisehad a little abated, drew slowly around him, and, as they who governedthe teams gradually followed their example, the whole party was sooncondensed in one, silent, and wondering group. Notwithstandingthe impression of a supernatural agency was very general among thetravellers, the ticking of gun-locks was heard, and one or two of thebolder youths cast their rifles forward, in readiness for service.

  "Send the boys off to the right," exclaimed the resolute wife andmother, in a sharp, dissonant voice; "I warrant me, Asa, or Abner willgive some account of the creature!"

  "It may be well enough, to try the rifle," muttered a dull lookingman, whose features, both in outline and expression, bore no smallresemblance to the first speaker, and who loosened the stock of hispiece and brought it dexterously to the front, while delivering thisopinion; "the Pawnee Loups are said to be hunting by hundreds in theplains; if so, they'll never miss a single man from their tribe."

  "Stay!" exclaimed a soft toned, but alarmed female voice, which waseasily to be traced to the trembling lips of the younger of the twowomen; "we are not altogether; it may be a friend!"

  "Who is scouting, now?" demanded the father, scanning, at the same time,the cluster of his stout
sons, with a displeased and sullen eye. "Put bythe piece, put by the piece;" he continued, diverting the other'saim, with the finger of a giant, and with the air of one it might bedangerous to deny. "My job is not yet ended; let us finish the littlethat remains, in peace."

  The man, who had manifested so hostile an intention, appeared tounderstand the other's allusion, and suffered himself to be divertedfrom his object. The sons turned their inquiring looks on the girl, whohad so eagerly spoken, to require an explanation; but, as if contentwith the respite she had obtained for the stranger, she sunk back, inher seat, and chose to affect a maidenly silence.

  In the mean time, the hues of the heavens had often changed. In place ofthe brightness, which had dazzled the eye, a gray and more sober lighthad succeeded, and as the setting lost its brilliancy, the proportionsof the fanciful form became less exaggerated, and finally distinct.Ashamed to hesitate, now that the truth was no longer doubtful, theleader of the party resumed his journey, using the precaution, as heascended the slight acclivity, to release his own rifle from the strap,and to cast it into a situation more convenient for sudden use.

  There was little apparent necessity, however, for such watchfulness.From the moment when it had thus unaccountably appeared, as it were,between the heavens and the earth, the stranger's figure had neithermoved nor given the smallest evidence of hostility. Had he harbouredany such evil intention, the individual who now came plainly into view,seemed but little qualified to execute them.

  A frame that had endured the hardships of more than eighty seasons, wasnot qualified to awaken apprehension, in the breast of one as powerfulas the emigrant. Notwithstanding his years, and his look of emaciation,if not of suffering, there was that about this solitary being, however,which said that time, and not disease, had laid his hand heavily on him.His form had withered, but it was not wasted. The sinews and muscles,which had once denoted great strength, though shrunken, were stillvisible; and his whole figure had attained an appearance of induration,which, if it were not for the well known frailty of humanity, would haveseemed to bid defiance to the further approaches of decay. His dress waschiefly of skins, worn with the hair to the weather; a pouch and hornwere suspended from his shoulders; and he leaned on a rifle of uncommonlength, but which, like its owner, exhibited the wear of long and hardservice.

  As the party drew nigher to this solitary being, and came within adistance to be heard, a low growl issued from the grass at his feet, andthen, a tall, gaunt, toothless, hound, arose lazily from his lair, andshaking himself, made some show of resisting the nearer approach of thetravellers.

  "Down, Hector, down," said his master, in a voice, that was a littletremulous and hollow with age. "What have ye to do, pup, with men whojourney on their lawful callings?"

  "Stranger, if you ar' much acquainted in this country," said theleader of the emigrants, "can you tell a traveller where he may findnecessaries for the night?"

  "Is the land filled on the other side of the Big River?" demanded theold man, solemnly, and without appearing to hearken to the other'squestion; "or why do I see a sight, I had never thought to beholdagain?"

  "Why, there is country left, it is true, for such as have money, and ar'not particular in the choice," returned the emigrant; "but to my taste,it is getting crowdy. What may a man call the distance, from this placeto the nighest point on the main river?"

  "A hunted deer could not cool his sides, in the Mississippi, withouttravelling a weary five hundred miles."

  "And what may you name the district, hereaway?"

  "By what name," returned the old man, pointing significantly upward,"would you call the spot, where you see yonder cloud?"

  The emigrant looked at the other, like one who did not comprehend hismeaning, and who half suspected he was trifled with, but he contentedhimself by saying--

  "You ar' but a new inhabitant, like myself, I reckon, stranger,otherwise you would not be backward in helping a traveller to someadvice; words cost but little, and sometimes lead to friendships."

  "Advice is not a gift, but a debt that the old owe to the young. Whatwould you wish to know?"

  "Where I may camp for the night. I'm no great difficulty maker, as tobed and board; but, all old journeyers, like myself, know the virtue ofsweet water, and a good browse for the cattle."

  "Come then with me, and you shall be master of both; and little more isit that I can offer on this hungry prairie."

  As the old man was speaking, he raised his heavy rifle to his shoulder,with a facility a little remarkable for his years and appearance, andwithout further words led the way over the acclivity to the adjacentbottom.