The Prairie

by James Fenimore Cooper

  CHAPTER XXII

  The clouds and sunbeams o'er his eye, That once their shades and glories threw, Have left, in yonder silent sky, No vestige where they flew. --Montgomery.

  A stillness, as deep as that which marked the gloomy wastes in theirfront, was observed by the fugitives to distinguish the spot they hadjust abandoned. Even the trapper lent his practised faculties, invain, to detect any of the well-known signs, which might establishthe important fact that hostilities had actually commenced between theparties of Mahtoree and Ishmael; but their horses carried them out ofthe reach of sounds, without the occurrence of the smallest evidence ofthe sort. The old man, from time to time, muttered his discontent, butmanifested the uneasiness he actually entertained in no other manner,unless it might be in exhibiting a growing anxiety to urge the animalsto increase their speed. He pointed out in passing, the deserted swale,where the family of the squatter had encamped, the night they wereintroduced to the reader, and afterwards he maintained an ominoussilence; ominous, because his companions had already seen enough ofhis character, to be convinced that the circumstances must be criticalindeed, which possessed the power to disturb the well regulatedtranquillity of the old man's mind.

  "Have we not done enough," Middleton demanded, in tenderness to theinability of Inez and Ellen to endure so much fatigue, at the end ofsome hours; "we have ridden hard, and have crossed a wide tract ofplain. It is time to seek a place of rest."

  "You must seek it then in Heaven, if you find yourselves unequal toa longer march," murmured the old trapper. "Had the Tetons and thesquatter come to blows, as any one might see in the natur' of thingsthey were bound to do, there would be time to look about us, and tocalculate not only the chances but the comforts of the journey; but asthe case actually is, I should consider it certain death, or endlesscaptivity, to trust our eyes with sleep, until our heads are fairly hidin some uncommon cover."

  "I know not," returned the youth, who reflected more on the sufferingsof the fragile being he supported, than on the experience of hiscompanion; "I know not; we have ridden leagues, and I can see noextraordinary signs of danger:--if you fear for yourself, my goodfriend, believe me you are wrong, for--"

  "Your grand'ther, were he living and here," interrupted the old man,stretching forth a hand, and laying a finger impressively on the arm ofMiddleton, "would have spared those words. He had some reason to thinkthat, in the prime of my days, when my eye was quicker than the hawk's,and my limbs were as active as the legs of the fallow-deer, I neverclung too eagerly and fondly to life: then why should I now feel such achildish affection for a thing that I know to be vain, and the companionof pain and sorrow. Let the Tetons do their worst; they will not finda miserable and worn out trapper the loudest in his complaints, or hisprayers."

  "Pardon me, my worthy, my inestimable friend," exclaimed the repentantyoung man, warmly grasping the hand, which the other was in the act ofwithdrawing; "I knew not what I said--or rather I thought only of thosewhose tenderness we are most bound to consider."

  "Enough. It is natur', and it is right. Therein your grand'ther wouldhave done the very same. Ah's me! what a number of seasons, hot andcold, wet and dry, have rolled over my poor head, since the time weworried it out together, among the Red Hurons of the Lakes, back inthose rugged mountains of Old York! and many a noble buck has since thatday fallen by my hand; ay, and many a thieving Mingo, too! Tell me, lad,did the general, for general I know he got to be, did he ever tell youof the deer we took, that night the outlyers of the accursed tribedrove us to the caves, on the island, and how we feasted and drunk insecurity?"

  "I have often heard him mention the smallest circumstance of the nightyou mean; but--"

  "And the singer; and his open throat; and his shoutings in the fights!"continued the old man, laughing joyously at the strength of his ownrecollections.

  "All--all--he forgot nothing, even to the most trifling incident. Do younot--"

  "What! did he tell you of the imp behind the log and of the miserabledevil who went over the fall--or of the wretch in the tree?"

  "Of each and all, with every thing that concerned them.[*] I shouldthink--"

  [*] They who have read the preceding books, in which, the trapper appears as a hunter and a scout, will readily understand the allusions.

  "Ay," continued the old man, in a voice, which betrayed how powerfullyhis own faculties retained the impression of the spectacle, "I havebeen a dweller in forests, and in the wilderness for three-score and tenyears, and if any can pretend to know the world, or to have seen scarysights, it is myself! But never, before nor since, have I seen humanman in such a state of mortal despair as that very savage; and yet hescorned to speak, or to cry out, or to own his forlorn condition! It istheir gift, and nobly did he maintain it!"

  "Harkee, old trapper," interrupted Paul, who, content with the knowledgethat his waist was grasped by one of the arms of Ellen, had hithertoridden in unusual silence; "my eyes are as true and as delicate as ahumming-bird's in the day; but they are nothing worth boasting of bystarlight. Is that a sick buffaloe, crawling along in the bottom, there,or is it one of the stray cattle of the savages?"

  The whole party drew up, in order to examine the object, which Paulhad pointed out. During most of the time, they had ridden in the littlevales in order to seek the protection of the shadows, but just at thatmoment, they had ascended a roll of the prairie in order to cross intothe very bottom where this unknown animal was now seen.

  "Let us descend," said Middleton; "be it beast or man, we are too strongto have any cause of fear."

  "Now, if the thing was not morally impossible," cried the trapper, whothe reader must have already discovered was not always exact in the useof qualifying words, "if the thing was not morally impossible, I shouldsay, that was the man, who journeys in search of reptiles and insects:our fellow-traveller the Doctor."

  "Why impossible? did you not direct him to pursue this course, in orderto rejoin us?"

  "Ay, but I did not tell him to make an ass outdo the speed of ahorse:--you are right--you are right," said the trapper, interruptinghimself, as by gradually lessening the distance between them, his eyesassured him it was Obed and Asinus, whom he saw; "you are right, ascertainly as the thing is a miracle. Lord, what a thing is fear! Hownow, friend; you have been industrious to have got so far ahead in soshort a time. I marvel at the speed of the ass!"

  "Asinus is overcome," returned the naturalist, mournfully. "The animalhas certainly not been idle since we separated, but he declines all myadmonitions and invitations to proceed. I hope there is no instant fearfrom the savages?"

  "I cannot say that; I cannot say that; matters are not as they shouldbe, atween the squatter and the Tetons, nor will I answer as yet for thesafety of any scalp among us. The beast is broken down! you have urgedhim beyond his natural gifts, and he is like a worried hound. There ispity and discretion in all things, even though a man be riding for hislife."

  "You indicated the star," returned the Doctor, "and I deemed itexpedient to use great diligence in pursuing the direction."

  "Did you expect to reach it, by such haste? Go, go; you talk boldly ofthe creatur's of the Lord, though I plainly see you are but a child inmatters that concern their gifts and instincts. What a plight wouldyou now be in, if there was need for a long and a quick push with ourheels?"

  "The fault exists in the formation of the quadruped," said Obed, whoseplacid temper began to revolt under so many scandalous imputations. "Hadthere been rotary levers for two of the members, a moiety of the fatiguewould have been saved, for one item--"

  "That, for your moiety's and rotaries, and items, man; a jaded ass isa jaded ass, and he who denies it is but a brother of the beast itself.Now, captain, are we driven to choose one of two evils. We must eitherabandon this man, who has been too much with us through good and bad tobe easily cast away, or we must seek a cover to let the animal rest."


  "Venerable venator!" exclaimed the alarmed Obed; "I conjure you by allthe secret sympathies of our common nature, by all the hidden--"

  "Ah, fear has brought him to talk a little rational sense! It is notnatur', truly, to abandon a brother in distress; and the Lord He knowsthat I have never yet done the shameful deed. You are right, friend, youare right; we must all be hidden, and that speedily. But what to do withthe ass! Friend Doctor, do you truly value the life of the creatur'?"

  "He is an ancient and faithful servant," returned the disconsolateObed, "and with pain should I see him come to any harm. Fetter his lowerlimbs, and leave him to repose in this bed of herbage. I will engage heshall be found where he is left, in the morning."

  "And the Siouxes? What would become of the beast should any of thered imps catch a peep at his ears, growing up out of the grass like tomullein-tops?" cried the bee-hunter. "They would stick him as full ofarrows, as a woman's cushion is full of pins, and then believe theyhad done the job for the father of all rabbits! My word for it out theywould find out their blunder at the first mouthful!"

  Middleton, who began to grow impatient under the protracted discussion,interposed, and, as a good deal of deference was paid to his rank, hequickly prevailed in his efforts to effect a sort of compromise. Thehumble Asinus, too meek and too weary to make any resistance, was soontethered and deposited in his bed of dying grass, where he was left witha perfect confidence on the part of his master of finding him, again, atthe expiration of a few hours. The old man strongly remonstrated againstthis arrangement, and more than once hinted that the knife was much morecertain than the tether, but the petitions of Obed, aided perhaps by thesecret reluctance of the trapper to destroy the beast, were the meansof saving its life. When Asinus was thus secured, and as his masterbelieved secreted, the whole party proceeded to find some place wherethey might rest themselves, during the time required for the repose ofthe animal.

  According to the calculations of the trapper, they had ridden twentymiles since the commencement of their flight. The delicate frame of Inezbegan to droop under the excessive fatigue, nor was the more robust, butstill feminine person of Ellen, insensible to the extraordinary effortshe had made. Middleton himself was not sorry to repose, nor did thevigorous and high-spirited Paul hesitate to confess that he should beall the better for a little rest. The old man alone seemed indifferentto the usual claims of nature. Although but little accustomed to theunusual description of exercise he had just been taking, he appearedto bid defiance to all the usual attacks of human infirmities. Thoughevidently so near its dissolution, his attenuated frame still stood likethe shaft of seasoned oak, dry, naked, and tempest-driven, but unbendingand apparently indurated to the consistency of stone. On the presentoccasion he conducted the search for a resting-place, which wasimmediately commenced, with all the energy of youth, tempered by thediscretion and experience of his great age.

  The bed of grass, in which the Doctor had been met, and in which his asshad just been left, was followed a little distance until it was foundthat the rolling swells of the prairie were melting away into one vastlevel plain, that was covered, for miles on miles, with the same speciesof herbage.

  "Ah, this may do, this may do," said the old man, when they arrived onthe borders of this sea of withered grass. "I know the spot, and oftenhave I lain in its secret holes, for days at a time, while the savageshave been hunting the buffaloes on the open ground. We must enter itwith great care, for a broad trail might be seen, and Indian curiosityis a dangerous neighbour."

  Leading the way himself, he selected a spot where the tall coarseherbage stood most erect, growing not unlike a bed of reeds, both inheight and density. Here he entered, singly, directing the others tofollow as nearly as possible in his own footsteps. When they had pausedfor some hundred or two feet into the wilderness of weeds, he gave hisdirections to Paul and Middleton, who continued a direct route deeperinto the place, while he dismounted and returned on his tracks to themargin of the meadow. Here he passed many minutes in replacing thetrodden grass, and in effacing, as far as possible, every evidence oftheir passage.

  In the mean time the rest of the party continued their progress, notwithout toil, and consequently at a very moderate gait, until they hadpenetrated a mile into the place. Here they found a spot suited to theircircumstances, and, dismounting, they began to make their dispositionsto pass the remainder of the night. By this time the trapperhad rejoined the party, and again resumed the direction of theirproceedings.

  The weeds and grass were soon plucked and cut from an area of sufficientextent, and a bed for Inez and Ellen was speedily made, a little apart,which for sweetness and ease might have rivalled one of down. Theexhausted females, after receiving some light refreshments from theprovident stores of Paul and the old man, now sought their repose,leaving their more stout companions at liberty to provide for their ownnecessities. Middleton and Paul were not long in following the exampleof their betrothed, leaving the trapper and the naturalist still seatedaround a savoury dish of bison's meat, which had been cooked at aprevious halt, and which was, as usual, eaten cold.

  A certain lingering sensation, which had so long been uppermost in themind of Obed, temporarily banished sleep; and as for the old man, hiswants were rendered, by habit and necessity, as seemingly subject to hiswill as if they altogether depended on the pleasure of the moment. Likehis companion he chose therefore to watch, instead of sleeping.

  "If the children of ease and security knew the hardships and dangers thestudents of nature encounter in their behalf," said Obed, after a momentof silence, when Middleton took his leave for the night, "pillarsof silver, and statues of brass would be reared as the everlastingmonuments of their glory!"

  "I know not, I know not," returned his companion; "silver is far fromplenty, at least in the wilderness, and your brazen idols are forbiddenin the commandments of the Lord."

  "Such indeed was the opinion of the great lawgiver of the Jews, but theEgyptians, and the Chaldeans, the Greeks, and the Romans, were wont tomanifest their gratitude, in these types of the human form. Indeed manyof the illustrious masters of antiquity, have by the aid of scienceand skill, even outdone the works of nature, and exhibited a beautyand perfection in the human form that are difficult to be found in therarest living specimens of any of the species; genus, homo."

  "Can your idols walk or speak, or have they the glorious gift ofreason?" demanded the trapper, with some indignation in his voice;"though but little given to run into the noise and chatter of thesettlements, yet have I been into the towns in my day, to barter thepeltry for lead and powder, and often have I seen your waxen dolls, withtheir tawdry clothes and glass eyes--"

  "Waxen dolls!" interrupted Obed; "it is profanation, in the view of thearts, to liken the miserable handy-work of the dealers in wax to thepure models of antiquity!"

  "It is profanation in the eyes of the Lord," retorted the old man, "toliken the works of his creatur's, to the power of his own hand."

  "Venerable venator," resumed the naturalist, clearing his throat, likeone who was much in earnest, "let us discuss understandingly and inamity. You speak of the dross of ignorance, whereas my memory dwellson those precious jewels, which it was my happy fortune, formerly, towitness, among the treasured glories of the Old World."

  "Old World!" retorted the trapper, "that is the miserable cry of all thehalf-starved miscreants that have come into this blessed land, since thedays of my boyhood! They tell you of the Old World; as if the Lord hadnot the power and the will to create the universe in a day, or as if hehad not bestowed his gifts with an equal hand, though not with an equalmind, or equal wisdom, have they been received and used. Were they tosay a worn out, and an abused, and a sacrilegious world, they might notbe so far from the truth!"

  Doctor Battius, who found it quite as arduous a task to maintain anyof his favourite positions with so irregular an antagonist, as he wouldhave found it difficult to keep his feet within the hug of a westernwrestler, hemmed aloud, and pro
fited by the new opening the trapper hadmade, to shift the grounds of the discussion--

  "By Old and New World, my excellent associate," he said, "it is not tobe understood that the hills, and the valleys, the rocks and the riversof our own moiety of the earth do not, physically speaking, bear a dateas ancient as the spot on which the bricks of Babylon are found; itmerely signifies that its moral existence is not co-equal with itsphysical, or geological formation."

  "Anan!" said the old man, looking up enquiringly into the face of thephilosopher.

  "Merely that it has not been so long known in morals, as the othercountries of Christendom."

  "So much the better, so much the better. I am no great admirator of yourold morals, as you call them, for I have ever found, and I have liv'dlong as it were in the very heart of natur', that your old morals arenone of the best. Mankind twist and turn the rules of the Lord, to suittheir own wickedness, when their devilish cunning has had too much timeto trifle with His commands."

  "Nay, venerable hunter, still am I not comprehended. By morals I donot mean the limited and literal signification of the term, such asis conveyed in its synonyme, morality, but the practices of men, asconnected with their daily intercourse, their institutions, and theirlaws."

  "And such I call barefaced and downright wantonness and waste,"interrupted his sturdy disputant.

  "Well, be it so," returned the Doctor, abandoning the explanation indespair. "Perhaps I have conceded too much," he then instantly added,fancying that he still saw the glimmerings of an argument throughanother chink in the discourse. "Perhaps I have conceded too much, insaying that this hemisphere is literally as old in its formation, asthat which embraces the venerable quarters of Europe, Asia, and Africa."

  "It is easy to say a pine is not so tall as an alder, but it would behard to prove. Can you give a reason for such a belief?"

  "The reasons are numerous and powerful," returned the Doctor, delightedby this encouraging opening. "Look into the plains of Egypt and Arabia;their sandy deserts teem with the monuments of their antiquity; and thenwe have also recorded documents of their glory; doubling the proofs oftheir former greatness, now that they lie stripped of their fertility;while we look in vain for similar evidences that man has ever reachedthe summit of civilisation on this continent, or search, without ourreward, for the path by which he has made the downward journey to hispresent condition of second childhood."

  "And what see you in all this?" demanded the trapper, who, though alittle confused by the terms of his companion, seized the thread of hisideas.

  "A demonstration of my problem, that nature did not make so vast aregion to lie an uninhabited waste so many ages. This is merely themoral view of the subject; as to the more exact and geological--"

  "Your morals are exact enough for me," returned the old man, "for Ithink I see in them the very pride of folly. I am but little gifted inthe fables of what you call the Old World, seeing that my time has beenmainly passed looking natur' steadily in the face, and in reasoning onwhat I've seen, rather than on what I've heard in traditions. But I havenever shut my ears to the words of the good book, and many is the longwinter evening that I have passed in the wigwams of the Delawares,listening to the good Moravians, as they dealt forth the history anddoctrines of the elder times, to the people of the Lenape! It waspleasant to hearken to such wisdom after a weary hunt! Right pleasantdid I find it, and often have I talked the matter over with the GreatSerpent of the Delawares, in the more peaceful hours of our out-lyings,whether it might be on the trail of a war-party of the Mingoes, or onthe watch for a York deer. I remember to have heard it, then and there,said, that the Blessed Land was once fertile as the bottoms of theMississippi, and groaning with its stores of grain and fruits; butthat the judgment has since fallen upon it, and that it is now moreremarkable for its barrenness than any qualities to boast of."

  "It is true; but Egypt--nay much of Africa furnishes still more strikingproofs of this exhaustion of nature."

  "Tell me," interrupted the old man, "is it a certain truth thatbuildings are still standing in that land of Pharaoh, which may belikened, in their stature, to the hills of the 'arth?"

  "It is as true as that nature never refuses to bestow her incisores onthe animals, mammalia; genus, homo--"

  "It is very marvellous! and it proves how great He must be, when Hismiserable creatur's can accomplish such wonders! Many men must have beenneeded to finish such an edifice; ay, and men gifted with strength andskill too! Does the land abound with such a race to this hour?"

  "Far from it. Most of the country is a desert, and but for a mightyriver all would be so."

  "Yes; rivers are rare gifts to such as till the ground, as any one maysee who journeys far atween the Rocky Mountains and the Mississippi. Buthow do you account for these changes on the face of the 'arth itself,and for this downfall of nations, you men of the schools?"

  "It is to be ascribed to moral cau--"

  "You're right--it is their morals; their wickedness and their pride,and chiefly their waste that has done it all! Now listen to what theexperience of an old man teaches him. I have lived long, as these greyhairs and wrinkled hands will show, even though my tongue should failin the wisdom of my years. And I have seen much of the folly of man; forhis natur' is the same, be he born in the wilderness, or be he born inthe towns. To my weak judgment it hath ever seemed that his gifts arenot equal to his wishes. That he would mount into the heavens, withall his deformities about him, if he only knew the road, no one willgainsay, that witnesses his bitter strivings upon 'arth. If his poweris not equal to his will, it is because the wisdom of the Lord hath setbounds to his evil workings."

  "It is much too certain that certain facts will warrant a theory, whichteaches the natural depravity of the genus; but if science couldbe fairly brought to bear on a whole species at once, for instance,education might eradicate the evil principle."

  "That, for your education! The time has been when I have thought itpossible to make a companion of a beast. Many are the cubs, and many arethe speckled fawns that I have reared with these old hands, until I haveeven fancied them rational and altered beings--but what did it amountto? the bear would bite, and the deer would run, notwithstanding mywicked conceit in fancying I could change a temper that the Lord himselfhad seen fit to bestow. Now if man is so blinded in his folly as togo on, ages on ages, doing harm chiefly to himself, there is the samereason to think that he has wrought his evil here as in the countriesyou call so old. Look about you, man; where are the multitudes that oncepeopled these prairies; the kings and the palaces; the riches and themightinesses of this desert?"

  "Where are the monuments that would prove the truth of so vague atheory?"

  "I know not what you call a monument."

  "The works of man! The glories of Thebes and Balbec--columns, catacombs,and pyramids! standing amid the sands of the East, like wrecks on arocky shore, to testify to the storms of ages!"

  "They are gone. Time has lasted too long for them. For why? Time wasmade by the Lord, and they were made by man. This very spot of reedsand grass, on which you now sit, may once have been the garden of somemighty king. It is the fate of all things to ripen, and then to decay.The tree blossoms, and bears its fruit, which falls, rots, withers,and even the seed is lost! Go, count the rings of the oak and of thesycamore; they lie in circles, one about another, until the eye isblinded in striving to make out their numbers; and yet a full change ofthe seasons comes round while the stem is winding one of these littlelines about itself, like the buffaloe changing his coat, or the buck hishorns; and what does it all amount to? There does the noble tree fillits place in the forest, loftier, and grander, and richer, and moredifficult to imitate, than any of your pitiful pillars, for a thousandyears, until the time which the Lord hath given it is full. Then comethe winds, that you cannot see, to rive its bark; and the waters fromthe heavens, to soften its pores; and the rot, which all can feel andnone can understand, to humble its pride and bring it to the ground.From that momen
t its beauty begins to perish. It lies another hundredyears, a mouldering log, and then a mound of moss and 'arth; a sadeffigy of a human grave. This is one of your genuine monuments, thoughmade by a very different power than such as belongs to your chiselingmasonry! and after all, the cunningest scout of the whole Dahcotahnation might pass his life in searching for the spot where it fell, andbe no wiser when his eyes grew dim, than when they were first opened. Asif that was not enough to convince man of his ignorance; and as thoughit were put there in mockery of his conceit, a pine shoots up from theroots of the oak, just as barrenness comes after fertility, or as thesewastes have been spread, where a garden may have been created. Tell menot of your worlds that are old! it is blasphemous to set bounds andseasons, in this manner, to the works of the Almighty, like a womancounting the ages of her young."

  "Friend hunter, or trapper," returned the naturalist, clearing histhroat in some intellectual confusion at the vigorous attack of hiscompanion, "your deductions, if admitted by the world, would sadlycircumscribe the efforts of reason, and much abridge the boundaries ofknowledge."

  "So much the better--so much the better; for I have always found that aconceited man never knows content. All things prove it. Why have wenot the wings of the pigeon, the eyes of the eagle, and the legs ofthe moose, if it had been intended that man should be equal to all hiswishes?"

  "There are certain physical defects, venerable trapper, in which I amalways ready to admit great and happy alterations might be suggested.For example, in my own order of Phalangacru--"

  "Cruel enough would be the order, that should come from miserablehands like thine! A touch from such a finger would destroy the mockingdeformity of a monkey! Go, go; human folly is not needed to fill up thegreat design of God. There is no stature, no beauty, no proportions,nor any colours in which man himself can well be fashioned, that is notalready done to his hands."

  "That is touching another great and much disputed question," exclaimedthe Doctor, who seized upon every distinct idea that the ardent andsomewhat dogmatic old man left exposed to his mental grasp, with thevain hope of inducing a logical discussion, in which he might bring hisbattery of syllogisms to annihilate the unscientific defences of hisantagonist.

  It is, however, unnecessary to our narrative to relate the erraticdiscourse that ensued. The old man eluded the annihilating blows of hisadversary, as the light armed soldier is wont to escape the efforts ofthe more regular warrior, even while he annoys him most, and an hourpassed away without bringing any of the numerous subjects, on which theytouched, to a satisfactory conclusion. The arguments acted, however, onthe nervous system of the Doctor, like so many soothing soporifics, andby the time his aged companion was disposed to lay his head on his pack,Obed, refreshed by his recent mental joust, was in a condition to seekhis natural rest, without enduring the torments of the incubus, in theshapes of Teton warriors and bloody tomahawks.