The Prairie

by James Fenimore Cooper

  CHAPTER XVIII

  My visor is Philemon's roof; within the house is Jove. --Shakspeare.

  The trapper, who had meditated no violence, dropped his rifle again,and laughing at the success of his experiment, with great seemingself-complacency, he drew the astounded gaze of the naturalist from theperson of the savage to himself, by saying--

  "The imps will lie for hours, like sleeping alligators, brooding theirdeviltries in dreams and other craftiness, until such time as they seesome real danger is at hand, and then they look to themselves the sameas other mortals. But this is a scouter in his war-paint! There shouldbe more of his tribe at no great distance. Let us draw the truth outof him; for an unlucky war-party may prove more dangerous to us than avisit from the whole family of the squatter."

  "It is truly a desperate and a dangerous species!" said the Doctor,relieving his amazement by a breath that seemed to exhaust his lungs ofair; "a violent race, and one that it is difficult to define or class,within the usual boundaries of definitions. Speak to him, therefore; butlet thy words be strong in amity."

  The old man cast a keen eye on every side of him, to ascertainthe important particular whether the stranger was supported by anyassociates, and then making the usual signs of peace, by exhibiting thepalm of his naked hand, he boldly advanced. In the mean time, the Indianbetrayed no evidence of uneasiness. He suffered the trapper to drawnigh, maintaining by his own mien and attitude a striking air of dignityand fearlessness. Perhaps the wary warrior also knew that, owing to thedifference in their weapons, he should be placed more on an equality, bybeing brought nearer to the strangers.

  As a description of this individual may furnish some idea of thepersonal appearance of a whole race, it may be well to detain thenarrative, in order to present it to the reader, in our hasty andimperfect manner. Would the truant eyes of Alston or Greenough turn, butfor a time, from their gaze at the models of antiquity, to contemplatethis wronged and humbled people, little would be left for such inferiorartists as ourselves to delineate.

  The Indian in question was in every particular a warrior of fine statureand admirable proportions. As he cast aside his mask, composed of suchparty-coloured leaves, as he had hurriedly collected, his countenanceappeared in all the gravity, the dignity, and, it may be added, in theterror of his profession. The outlines of his lineaments were strikinglynoble, and nearly approaching to Roman, though the secondary features ofhis face were slightly marked with the well-known traces of his Asiaticorigin. The peculiar tint of the skin, which in itself is so welldesigned to aid the effect of a martial expression, had received anadditional aspect of wild ferocity from the colours of the war-paint.But, as if he disdained the usual artifices of his people, he bore noneof those strange and horrid devices, with which the children of theforest are accustomed, like the more civilised heroes of the moustache,to back their reputation for courage, contenting himself with abroad and deep shadowing of black, that served as a sufficient and anadmirable foil to the brighter gleamings of his native swarthiness.His head was as usual shaved to the crown, where a large and gallantscalp-lock seemed to challenge the grasp of his enemies. The ornamentsthat were ordinarily pendant from the cartilages of his ears had beenremoved, on account of his present pursuit. His body, notwithstandingthe lateness of the season, was nearly naked, and the portion which wasclad bore a vestment no warmer than a light robe of the finest dresseddeer-skin, beautifully stained with the rude design of some daringexploit, and which was carelessly worn, as if more in pride than fromany unmanly regard to comfort. His leggings were of bright scarletcloth, the only evidence about his person that he had held communionwith the traders of the Pale-faces. But as if to furnish some offsetto this solitary submission to a womanish vanity, they were fearfullyfringed, from the gartered knee to the bottom of the moccasin, with thehair of human scalps. He leaned lightly with one hand on a short hickorybow, while the other rather touched than sought support, from the long,delicate handle of an ashen lance. A quiver made of the cougar skin,from which the tail of the animal depended, as a characteristicornament, was slung at his back, and a shield of hides, quaintlyemblazoned with another of his warlike deeds, was suspended from hisneck by a thong of sinews.

  As the trapper approached, this warrior maintained his calm uprightattitude, discovering neither an eagerness to ascertain the character ofthose who advanced upon him, nor the smallest wish to avoid a scrutinyin his own person. An eye, that was darker and more shining than that ofthe stag, was incessantly glancing, however, from one to another of thestranger party, seemingly never knowing rest for an instant.

  "Is my brother far from his village?" demanded the old man, in thePawnee language, after examining the paint, and those other little signsby which a practised eye knows the tribe of the warrior he encounters inthe American deserts, with the same readiness, and by the same sort ofmysterious observation, as that by which the seaman knows the distantsail.

  "It is farther to the towns of the Big-knives," was the laconic reply.

  "Why is a Pawnee-Loup so far from the fork of his own river, without ahorse to journey on, and in a spot empty as this?"

  "Can the women and children of a Pale-face live without the meat of thebison? There was hunger in my lodge."

  "My brother is very young to be already the master of a lodge," returnedthe trapper, looking steadily into the unmoved countenance of theyouthful warrior; "but I dare say he is brave, and that many a chief hasoffered him his daughters for wives. But he has been mistaken," pointingto the arrow, which was dangling from the hand that held the bow, "inbringing a loose and barbed arrow-head to kill the buffaloe. Do thePawnees wish the wounds they give their game to rankle?"

  "It is good to be ready for the Sioux. Though not in sight, a bush mayhide him."

  "The man is a living proof of the truth of his words," muttered thetrapper in English, "and a close-jointed and gallant looking lad he is;but far too young for a chief of any importance. It is wise, however, tospeak him fair, for a single arm thrown into either party, if we cometo blows with the squatter and his brood, may turn the day. You seemy children are weary," he continued in the dialect of the prairies,pointing, as he spoke, to the rest of the party, who, by this time, werealso approaching. "We wish to camp and eat. Does my brother claim thisspot?"

  "The runners from the people on the Big-river, tell us that your nationhave traded with the Tawney-faces who live beyond the salt-lake, andthat the prairies are now the hunting grounds of the Big-knives!"

  "It is true, as I hear, also, from the hunters and trappers on LaPlatte. Though it is with the Frenchers, and not with the men who claimto own the Mexicos, that my people have bargained."

  "And warriors are going up the Long-river, to see that they have notbeen cheated, in what they have bought?"

  "Ay, that is partly true, too, I fear; and it will not be long before anaccursed band of choppers and loggers will be following on their heels,to humble the wilderness which lies so broad and rich on the westernbanks of the Mississippi, and then the land will be a peopled desert,from the shores of the main sea to the foot of the Rocky Mountains;fill'd with all the abominations and craft of man, and stript of thecomforts and loveliness it received from the hands of the Lord!"

  "And where were the chiefs of the Pawnee-Loups, when this bargain wasmade?" suddenly demanded the youthful warrior, a look of startlingfierceness gleaming, at the same instant, athwart his dark visage. "Is anation to be sold like the skin of a beaver?"

  "Right enough--right enough, and where were truth and honesty, also?But might is right, according to the fashions of the 'arth; and whatthe strong choose to do, the weak must call justice. If the law ofthe Wahcondah was as much hearkened to, Pawnee, as the laws of theLong-knives, your right to the prairies would be as good as that of thegreatest chief in the settlements to the house which covers his head."

  "The skin of the traveller is white," said the young native, laying afinger impressively on the
hard and wrinkled hand of the trapper. "Doeshis heart say one thing and his tongue another?"

  "The Wahcondah of a white man has ears, and he shuts them to a lie.Look at my head; it is like a frosted pine, and must soon be laid in theground. Why then should I wish to meet the Great Spirit, face to face,while his countenance is dark upon me."

  The Pawnee gracefully threw his shield over one shoulder, and placinga hand on his chest, he bent his head, in deference to the grey locksexhibited by the trapper; after which his eye became more steady, andhis countenance less fierce. Still he maintained every appearance of adistrust and watchfulness that were rather tempered and subdued, thanforgotten. When this equivocal species of amity was established betweenthe warrior of the prairies and the experienced old trapper, the latterproceeded to give his directions to Paul, concerning the arrangementsof the contemplated halt. While Inez and Ellen were dismounting, andMiddleton and the bee-hunter were attending to their comforts, thediscourse was continued, sometimes in the language of the natives,but often, as Paul and the Doctor mingled their opinions with the twoprincipal speakers, in the English tongue. There was a keen and subtletrial of skill between the Pawnee and the trapper, in which eachendeavoured to discover the objects of the other, without betrayinghis own interest in the investigation. As might be expected, when thestruggle was between adversaries so equal, the result of the encounteranswered the expectations of neither. The latter had put all theinterrogatories his ingenuity and practice could suggest, concerning thestate of the tribe of the Loups, their crops, their store of provisionsfor the ensuing winter, and their relations with their different warlikeneighbours without extorting any answer, which, in the slightest degree,elucidated the cause of his finding a solitary warrior so far from hispeople. On the other hand, while the questions of the Indian were farmore dignified and delicate, they were equally ingenious. He commentedon the state of the trade in peltries, spoke of the good or ill successof many white hunters, whom he had either encountered, or heard named,and even alluded to the steady march, which the nation of his greatfather, as he cautiously termed the government of the States, was makingtowards the hunting-grounds of his tribe. It was apparent, however, bythe singular mixture of interest, contempt, and indignation, that wereoccasionally gleaming through the reserved manner of this warrior, thathe knew the strange people, who were thus trespassing on his nativerights, much more by report than by any actual intercourse. Thispersonal ignorance of the whites was as much betrayed by the mannerin which he regarded the females, as by the brief, but energetic,expressions which occasionally escaped him.

  While speaking to the trapper he suffered his wandering glances to straytowards the intellectual and nearly infantile beauty of Inez, as onemight be supposed to gaze upon the loveliness of an ethereal being.It was very evident that he now saw, for the first time, one of thosefemales, of whom the fathers of his tribe so often spoke, and who wereconsidered of such rare excellence as to equal all that savage ingenuitycould imagine in the way of loveliness. His observation of Ellen wasless marked, but notwithstanding the warlike and chastened expressionof his eye, there was much of the homage, which man is made to pay towoman, even in the more cursory look he sometimes turned on her maturerand perhaps more animated beauty. This admiration, however, was sotempered by his habits, and so smothered in the pride of a warrior, ascompletely to elude every eye but that of the trapper, who was too wellskilled in Indian customs, and was too well instructed in the importanceof rightly conceiving, the character of the stranger, to let thesmallest trait, or the most trifling of his movements, escape him. Inthe mean time, the unconscious Ellen herself moved about the feebleand less resolute Inez, with her accustomed assiduity and tenderness,exhibiting in her frank features those changing emotions of joy andregret which occasionally beset her, as her active mind dwelt on thedecided step she had just taken, with the contending doubts and hopes,and possibly with some of the mental vacillation, that was natural toher situation and sex.

  Not so Paul; conceiving himself to have obtained the two things dearestto his heart, the possession of Ellen and a triumph over the sons ofIshmael, he now enacted his part, in the business of the moment, with asmuch coolness as though he was already leading his willing bride, fromsolemnising their nuptials before a border magistrate, to the securityof his own dwelling. He had hovered around the moving family, duringthe tedious period of their weary march, concealing himself by day, andseeking interviews with his betrothed as opportunities offered, in themanner already described, until fortune and his own intrepidityhad united to render him successful, at the very moment when he wasbeginning to despair, and he now cared neither for distance, norviolence, nor hardships. To his sanguine fancy and determined resolutionall the rest was easily to be achieved. Such were his feelings, and suchin truth they seemed to be. With his cap cast on one side, and whistlinga low air, he thrashed among the bushes, in order to make a placesuitable for the females to repose on, while, from time to time, he castan 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 theirneighbours, the Konzas?" said the trapper, pursuing a discourse whichhe had scarcely permitted to flag, though it had been occasionallyinterrupted by the different directions with which he occasionally sawfit to interrupt it. (The reader will remember that, while he spoke tothe native warrior in his own tongue, he necessarily addressed his whitecompanions in English.) "The Loups and the light-fac'd Red-skins areagain friends. Doctor, that is a tribe of which I'll engage you've oftenread, and of which many a round lie has been whispered in the ears ofthe ignorant people, who live in the settlements. There was a story ofa nation of Welshers, that liv'd hereaway in the prairies, and how theycame into the land afore the uneasy minded man, who first let in theChristians to rob the heathens of their inheritance, had ever dreamtthat the sun set on a country as big as that it rose from. And how theyknew the white ways, and spoke with white tongues, and a thousand otherfollies and idle conceits."

  "Have I not heard of them?" exclaimed the naturalist, dropping a pieceof jerked bison's meat, which he was rather roughly discussing, atthe moment. "I should be greatly ignorant not to have often dweltwith delight on so beautiful a theory, and one which so triumphantlyestablishes two positions, which I have often maintained areunanswerable, even without such living testimony in their favour--viz.that this continent can claim a more remote affinity with civilisationthan the time of Columbus, and that colour is the fruit of climate andcondition, and not a regulation of nature. Propound the latter questionto this Indian gentleman, venerable hunter; he is of a reddish tinthimself, and his opinion may be said to make us masters of the two sidesof the disputed point."

  "Do you think a Pawnee is a reader of books, and a believer of printedlies, 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, afterall, it is quite possible are neither more nor less than his naturalgift, and therefore to be followed, although they may be pitied. Whatdoes my brother think? all whom he sees here have pale skins, but thePawnee warriors are red; does he believe that man changes with theseason, and that the son is not like his father?"

  The young warrior regarded his interrogator for a moment with a steadyand deliberating eye; then raising his finger upward, he answered withdignity--

  "The Wahcondah pours the rain from his clouds; when he speaks, he shakesthe lulls; and the fire, which scorches the trees, is the anger of hiseye; but he fashioned his children with care and thought. What he hasthus 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 thedisappointed naturalist. "The Pawnees are a wise and a great people, andI'll engage they abound in many a wholesome and honest tradition. Thehunters and trappers, that I sometimes see, speak of a great warrior ofyour 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 ofcommon warriors, and one that might have done credit to that once mightybut 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; andwell 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 ofthe 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 thenext moment the bee-hunter appeared, leading an Indian war-horse fromthe 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 theanimal go through some of its wild paces. "There's not a brigadier inall Kentucky that can call himself master of so sleek and well-jointeda nag! A Spanish saddle too, like a grandee of the Mexicos! and look atthe mane and tail, braided and platted down with little silver balls, asif it were Ellen herself getting her shining hair ready for a dance, ora husking frolic! Isn't this a real trotter, old trapper, to eat out ofthe manger of a savage?"

  "Softly, lad, softly. The Loups are famous for their horses, and it isoften that you see a warrior on the prairies far better mounted, than acongress-man in the settlements. But this, indeed, is a beast that nonebut a powerful chief should ride! The saddle, as you rightly think, hasbeen sit upon in its day by a great Spanish captain, who has lost it andhis life together, in some of the battles which this people oftenfight against the southern provinces. I warrant me, I warrant me, theyoungster is the son of a great chief; may be of the mighty Hard-Hearthimself!"

  During this rude interruption to the discourse, the young Pawneemanifested neither impatience nor displeasure; but when he thought hisbeast had been the subject of sufficient comment, he very coolly, andwith the air of one accustomed to have his will respected, relievedPaul of the bridle, and throwing the reins on the neck of the animal, hesprang upon his back, with the activity of a professor of the equestrianart. Nothing could be finer or firmer than the seat of the savage. Thehighly wrought and cumbrous saddle was evidently more for show than use.Indeed it impeded rather than aided the action of limbs, which disdainedto seek assistance, or admit of restraint from so womanish inventionsas stirrups. The horse, which immediately began to prance, was, likeits rider, wild and untutored in all his motions, but while there wasso little of art, there was all the freedom and grace of nature in themovements of both. The animal was probably indebted to the blood ofAraby for its excellence, through a long pedigree, that embraced thesteed of Mexico, the Spanish barb, and the Moorish charger. The rider,in obtaining his steed from the provinces of Central-America, had alsoobtained that spirit and grace in controlling him, which unite to formthe most intrepid and perhaps the most skilful horseman in the world.

  Notwithstanding this sudden occupation of his animal, the Pawneediscovered no hasty wish to depart. More at his ease, and possibly moreindependent, now he found himself secure of the means of retreat, herode back and forth, eyeing the different individuals of the party withfar greater freedom than before. But, at each extremity of his ride,just as the sagacious trapper expected to see him profit by hisadvantage and fly, he would turn his horse, and pass over the sameground, sometimes with the rapidity of the flying deer, and at othersmore slowly, and with greater dignity of mien and attitude. Anxious toascertain 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 toresume the interrupted discourse, and of his own pacific intentions. Thequick eye of the stranger was not slow to note the action, but itwas not until a sufficient time had passed to allow him to debate theprudence of the measure in his own mind, that he seemed willing to trusthimself again, so near a party that was so much superior to himself inphysical power, and consequently one that was able, at any instant, tocommand his life, or control his personal liberty. When he did approachnigh enough to converse with facility, it was with a singular mixture ofhaughtiness and of distrust.

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

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

  The young warrior bent his body gracefully, though but slightly, overthe 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 takethem 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 sofar towards the setting sun? Have they lost the path, or are these thewomen of the white warriors, that I hear are wading up the river of 'thetroubled waters?'"

  "Neither. They, who wade the Missouri, are the warriors of my greatfather, who has sent them on his message; but we are peace-runners. Thewhite men and the red are neighbours, and they wish to be friends.--Donot the Omahaws visit the Loups, when the tomahawk is buried in the pathbetween the two nations?"

  "The Omahaws are welcome."

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

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

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

  "The head of my brother is white," returned the Pawnee, throwing oneof those glances at the trapper, which were so remarkably expressive ofdistrust, intelligence, and pride, and then pointing, as he continued,towards the eastern horizon, "and his eyes have looked on manythings--can he tell me the name of what he sees yonder--is it abuffaloe?"

  "It looks more like a cloud, peeping above the skirt of the plain withthe 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 theirown 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 amoment 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 scamperingbull."

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

  "Ay, ay, it is not hard to find a duck, or a goose, when mi
llions aredarkening the heavens."

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

  "My eyes are none of the best now," returned the old man a littleresentfully, "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 thebuffaloe, or the travelling birds, or the falling snow. Your warriorsthink the Master of Life has made the whole earth white. They aremistaken. They are pale, and it is their own faces that they see. Go! aPawnee is not blind, that he need look long for your people!"

  The warrior suddenly paused, and bent his face aside, like one wholistened with all his faculties absorbed in the act. Then turning thehead of his horse, he rode to the nearest angle of the thicket, andlooked intently across the bleak prairie, in a direction opposite to theside on which the party stood. Returning slowly from this unaccountable,and to his observers, startling procedure, he riveted his eyes onInez, and paced back and forth several times, with the air of one whomaintained a warm struggle on some difficult point, in the recesses ofhis own thoughts. He had drawn the reins of his impatient steed, and wasseemingly about to speak, when his head again sunk on his chest, and heresumed his former attitude of attention. Galloping like a deer, to theplace of his former observations, he rode for a moment swiftly, in shortand rapid circles, as if still uncertain of his course, and then dartedaway, like a bird that had been fluttering around its nest before ittakes a distant flight. After scouring the plain for a minute, he waslost to the eye behind a swell of the land.

  The hounds, who had also manifested great uneasiness for some time,followed him for a little distance, and then terminated their chase byseating themselves on the ground, and raising their usual low, whining,and warning howls.