The Prairie

by James Fenimore Cooper

  CHAPTER XXV

  What, are ancient Pistol and you friends, yet? --Shakspeare.

  The curtain of our imperfect drama must fall, to rise upon anotherscene. The time is advanced several days, during which very materialchanges had occurred in the situation of the actors. The hour is noon,and the place an elevated plain, that rose, at no great distance fromthe water, somewhat abruptly from a fertile bottom, which stretchedalong the margin of one of the numberless water-courses of that region.The river took its rise near the base of the Rocky Mountains, and,after washing a vast extent of plain, it mingled its waters with astill larger stream, to become finally lost in the turbid current of theMissouri.

  The landscape was changed materially for the better; though the hand,which had impressed so much of the desert on the surrounding region, hadlaid a portion of its power on this spot. The appearance of vegetationwas, however, less discouraging than in the more sterile wastes of therolling prairies. Clusters of trees were scattered in greater profusion,and a long outline of ragged forest marked the northern boundary of theview. Here and there, on the bottom, were to be seen the evidences of ahasty and imperfect culture of such indigenous vegetables as were of aquick growth, and which were known to flourish, without the aid of art,in deep and alluvial soils. On the very edge of what might be calledthe table-land, were pitched the hundred lodges of a horde of wanderingSiouxes. Their light tenements were arranged without the least attentionto order. Proximity to the water seemed to be the only considerationwhich had been consulted in their disposition, nor had even thisimportant convenience been always regarded. While most of the lodgesstood along the brow of the plain, many were to be seen at greaterdistances, occupying such places as had first pleased the capriciouseyes of their untutored owners. The encampment was not military, norin the slightest degree protected from surprise by its position ordefences. It was open on every side, and on every side as accessibleas any other point in those wastes, if the imperfect and naturalobstruction offered by the river be excepted. In short, the place borethe appearance of having been tenanted longer than its occupants hadoriginally intended, while it was not wanting in the signs of readinessfor a hasty, or even a compelled departure.

  This was the temporary encampment of that portion of his people, whohad long been hunting under the direction of Mahtoree, on those groundswhich separated the stationary abodes of his nation, from those of thewarlike tribes of the Pawnees. The lodges were tents of skin, high,conical, and of the most simple and primitive construction. The shield,the quiver, the lance and the bow of its master, were to be seensuspended from a light post before the opening, or door, of eachhabitation. The different domestic implements of his one, two, or threewives, as the brave was of greater or lesser renown, were carelesslythrown at its side, and here and there the round, full, patientcountenance of an infant might be found peeping from its comfortlesswrappers of bark, as, suspended by a deer-skin thong from the same post,it rocked in the passing air. Children of a larger growth were tumblingover each other in piles, the males, even at that early age, makingthemselves distinguished for that species of domination which, in afterlife, was to mark the vast distinction between the sexes. Youths were inthe bottom, essaying their juvenile powers in curbing the wild steedsof their fathers, while here and there a truant girl was to be seen,stealing from her labours to admire their fierce and impatient daring.

  Thus far the picture was the daily exhibition of an encampment confidentin its security. But immediately in front of the lodges was a gathering,that seemed to forbode some movements of more than usual interest. Afew of the withered and remorseless crones of the band were clusteringtogether, in readiness to lend their fell voices, if needed, to aid inexciting their descendants to an exhibition, which their depraved tastescoveted, as the luxurious Roman dame witnessed the struggles and theagony of the gladiator. The men were subdivided into groups, assortedaccording to the deeds and reputations of the several individuals ofwhom they were composed.

  They, who were of that equivocal age which admitted them to the hunts,while their discretion was still too doubtful to permit them to betrusted on the war-path, hung around the skirts of the whole, catching,from the fierce models before them, that gravity of demeanour andrestraint of manner, which in time was to become so deeply ingrafted intheir own characters. A few of the still older class, and who had heardthe whoop in anger, were a little more presuming, pressing nigher tothe chiefs, though far from presuming to mingle in their councils,sufficiently distinguished by being permitted to catch the wisdom whichfell from lips so venerated. The ordinary warriors of the band werestill less diffident, not hesitating to mingle among the chiefsof lesser note, though far from assuming the right to dispute thesentiments of any established brave, or to call in question the prudenceof measures, that were recommended by the more gifted counsellors of thenation.

  Among the chiefs themselves there was a singular compound of exterior.They were divided into two classes; those who were mainly indebted fortheir influence to physical causes, and to deeds in arms, and those whohad become distinguished rather for their wisdom than for their servicesin the field. The former was by far the most numerous and the mostimportant class. They were men of stature and mien, whose sterncountenances were often rendered doubly imposing by those evidences oftheir valour, which had been roughly traced on their lineaments by thehands of their enemies. That class, which had gained its influence bya moral ascendency was extremely limited. They were uniformly to bedistinguished by the quick and lively expression of their eyes, by theair of distrust that marked their movements, and occasionally by thevehemence of their utterance in those sudden outbreakings of themind, by which their present consultations were, from time to time,distinguished.

  In the very centre of a ring, formed by these chosen counsellors, wasto be seen the person of the disquieted, but seemingly calm, Mahtoree.There was a conjunction of all the several qualities of the others inhis person and character. Mind as well as matter had contributed toestablish his authority. His scars were as numerous and deep as those ofthe whitest head in his nation; his limbs were in their greatest vigour;his courage at its fullest height. Endowed with this rare combination ofmoral and physical influence, the keenest eye in all that assembly waswont to lower before his threatening glance. Courage and cunning hadestablished his ascendency, and it had been rendered, in some degree,sacred by time. He knew so well how to unite the powers of reason andforce, that in a state of society, which admitted of a greater displayof his energies, the Teton would in all probability have been both aconqueror and a despot.

  A little apart from the gathering of the band, was to be seen a set ofbeings of an entirely different origin. Taller and far more muscular intheir persons, the lingering vestiges of their Saxon and Norman ancestrywere yet to be found beneath the swarthy complexions, which had beenbestowed by an American sun. It would have been a curious investigation,for one skilled in such an enquiry, to have traced those points ofdifference, by which the offspring of the most western European wasstill to be distinguished from the descendant of the most remoteAsiatic, now that the two, in the revolutions of the world, wereapproximating in their habits, their residence, and not a little intheir characters. The group, of whom we write, was composed of thefamily of the squatter. They stood indolent, lounging, and inert, asusual when no immediate demand was made on their dormant energies,clustered in front of some four or five habitations of skin, for whichthey were indebted to the hospitality of their Teton allies. The termsof their unexpected confederation were sufficiently explained, by thepresence of the horses and domestic cattle that were quietly grazing onthe bottom beneath, under the jealous eyes of the spirited Hetty. Theirwagons were drawn about the lodges, in a sort of irregular barrier,which at once manifested that their confidence was not entirelyrestored, while, on the other hand, their policy or indolence preventedany very positive exhibition of distrust. There was a singular unionof passive enjoyment
and of dull curiosity slumbering in every dullcountenance, as each of the party stood leaning on his rifle, regardingthe movements of the Sioux conference. Still no sign of expectation orinterest escaped from the youngest among them, the whole appearing toemulate the most phlegmatic of their savage allies, in an exhibition ofpatience. They rarely spoke; and when they did it was in some short andcontemptuous remark, which served to put the physical superiority of awhite man, and that of an Indian, in a sufficiently striking pointof view. In short, the family of Ishmael appeared now to be in theplenitude of an enjoyment, which depended on inactivity, but which wasnot entirely free from certain confused glimmerings of a perspective, inwhich their security stood in some little danger of a rude interruptionfrom Teton treachery. Abiram, alone, formed a solitary exception to thisstate of equivocal repose.

  After a life passed in the commission of a thousand mean andinsignificant villanies, the mind of the kidnapper had become hardyenough to attempt the desperate adventure, which has been laid beforethe reader, in the course of the narrative. His influence over thebolder, but less active, spirit of Ishmael was far from great, and hadnot the latter been suddenly expelled from a fertile bottom, of which hehad taken possession, with intent to keep it, without much deference tothe forms of law, he would never have succeeded in enlisting the husbandof his sister in an enterprise that required so much decision andforethought. Their original success and subsequent disappointment havebeen seen; and Abiram now sat apart, plotting the means, by which hemight secure to himself the advantages of his undertaking, which heperceived were each moment becoming more uncertain, through the openadmiration of Mahtoree for the innocent subject of his villany. We shallleave him to his vacillating and confused expedients, in order to passto the description of certain other personages in the drama.

  There was still another corner of the picture that was occupied. On alittle bank, at the extreme right of the encampment, lay the forms ofMiddleton and Paul. Their limbs were painfully bound with thongs, cutfrom the skin of a bison, while, by a sort of refinement in cruelty,they were so placed, that each could see a reflection of his own miseryin the case of his neighbour. Within a dozen yards of them a postwas set firmly in the ground, and against it was bound the light andApollo-like person of Hard-Heart. Between the two stood the trapper,deprived of his rifle, his pouch and his horn, but otherwise left in asort of contemptuous liberty. Some five or six young warriors, however,with quivers at their backs, and long tough bows dangling from theirshoulders, who stood with grave watchfulness at no great distance fromthe spot, sufficiently proclaimed how fruitless any attempt to escape,on the part of one so aged and so feeble, might prove. Unlike the otherspectators of the important conference, these individuals were engagedin a discourse that for them contained an interest of its own.

  "Captain," said the bee-hunter with an expression of comical concern,that no misfortune could depress in one of his buoyant feelings, "do youreally find that accursed strap of untanned leather cutting into yourshoulder, or is it only the tickling in my own arm that I feel?"

  "When the spirit suffers so deeply, the body is insensible to pain,"returned the more refined, though scarcely so spirited Middleton; "wouldto Heaven that some of my trusty artillerists might fall upon thisaccursed encampment!"

  "You might as well wish that these Teton lodges were so many hives ofhornets, and that the insects would come forth and battle with yondertribe of half naked savages." Then, chuckling with his own conceit, thebee-hunter turned away from his companion, and sought a momentary relieffrom his misery, by imagining that so wild an idea might be realised,and fancying the manner, in which the attack would upset even the wellestablished patience of an Indian.

  Middleton was glad to be silent; but the old man, who had listened totheir words, drew a little nigher, and continued the discourse.

  "Here is likely to be a merciless and a hellish business!" he said,shaking his head in a manner to prove that even his experience was at aloss for a remedy in so trying a dilemma. "Our Pawnee friend is alreadystaked for the torture, and I well know, by the eye and the countenanceof the great Sioux, that he is leading on the temper of his people tofurther enormities."

  "Harkee, old trapper," said Paul, writhing in his bonds to catch aglimpse of the other's melancholy face; "you ar' skilled in Indiantongues, and know somewhat of Indian deviltries. Go you to the council,and tell their chiefs in my name, that is to say, in the name of PaulHover, of the state of Kentucky, that provided they will guarantee thesafe return of one Ellen Wade into the States, they are welcome to takehis scalp when and in such manner as best suits their amusements; or,if-so-be they will not trade on these conditions, you may throw in anhour or two of torture before hand, in order to sweeten the bargain totheir damnable appetites."

  "Ah! lad, it is little they would hearken to such an offer, knowing, asthey do, that you are already like a bear in a trap, as little able tofight as to fly. But be not down-hearted, for the colour of a white manis sometimes his death-warrant among these far tribes of savages, andsometimes his shield. Though they love us not, cunning often ties theirhands. Could the red nations work their will, trees would shortly begrowing again on the ploughed fields of America, and woods would bewhitened with Christian bones. No one can doubt that, who knows thequality of the love which a Red-skin bears a Pale-face; but they havecounted our numbers until their memories fail them, and they are notwithout their policy. Therefore is our fate unsettled; but I fear methere is small hope left for the Pawnee!"

  As the old man concluded, he walked slowly towards the subject of hislatter observation, taking his post at no great distance from hisside. Here he stood, observing such a silence and mien as became himto manifest, to a chief so renowned and so situated as his captiveassociate. But the eye of Hard-Heart was fastened on the distance, andhis whole air was that of one whose thoughts were entirely removed fromthe present scene.

  "The Siouxes are in council on my brother," the trapper at lengthobserved, when he found he could only attract the other's attention byspeaking.

  The young partisan turned his head with a calm smile as he answered"They are counting the scalps over the lodge of Hard-Heart!"

  "No doubt, no doubt; their tempers begin to mount, as they remember thenumber of Tetons you have struck, and better would it be for you now,had more of your days been spent in chasing the deer, and fewer on thewar-path. Then some childless mother of this tribe might take you in theplace of her lost son, and your time would be filled in peace."

  "Does my father think that a warrior can ever die? The Master of Lifedoes not open his hand to take away his gifts again. When He wantsHis young men He calls them, and they go. But the Red-skin He has oncebreathed on lives for ever."

  "Ay, this is a more comfortable and a more humble faith than that whichyonder heartless Teton harbours. There is something in these Loups whichopens my inmost heart to them; they seem to have the courage, ay, andthe honesty, too, of the Delawares of the hills. And this lad--it iswonderful, it is very wonderful; but the age, and the eye, and the limbsare as if they might have been brothers! Tell me, Pawnee, have you everin your traditions heard of a mighty people who once lived on the shoresof the Salt-lake, hard by the rising sun?"

  "The earth is white, by people of the colour of my father."

  "Nay, nay, I speak not now of any strollers, who have crept into theland to rob the lawful owners of their birth-right, but of a people whoare, or rather were, what with nature and what with paint, red as theberry on the bush."

  "I have heard the old men say, that there were bands, who hid themselvesin the woods under the rising sun, because they dared not come upon theopen prairies to fight with men."

  "Do not your traditions tell you of the greatest, the bravest, and thewisest nation of Red-skins that the Wahcondah has ever breathed upon?"

  Hard-Heart raised his head, with a loftiness and dignity that even hisbonds could not repress, as he answered--

  "Has age blinded my father; or does he see so many Sio
uxes, that hebelieves there are no longer any Pawnees?"

  "Ah! such is mortal vanity and pride!" exclaimed the disappointed oldman, in English. "Natur' is as strong in a Red-skin, as in the bosom ofa man of white gifts. Now would a Delaware conceit himself far mightierthan a Pawnee, just as a Pawnee boasts himself to be of the princes ofthe 'arth. And so it was atween the Frenchers of the Canadas and thered-coated English, that the king did use to send into the States, whenStates they were not, but outcrying and petitioning provinces, theyfou't and they fou't, and what marvellous boastings did they give forthto the world of their own valour and victories, while both partiesforgot to name the humble soldier of the land, who did the real service,but who, as he was not privileged then to smoke at the great councilfire of his nation, seldom heard of his deeds, after they were oncebravely done."

  When the old man had thus given vent to the nearly dormant, but far fromextinct, military pride, that had so unconsciously led him into the veryerror he deprecated, his eye, which had begun to quicken and glimmerwith some of the ardour of his youth, softened and turned its anxiouslook on the devoted captive, whose countenance was also restored to itsformer cold look of abstraction and thought.

  "Young warrior," he continued in a voice that was growing tremulous, "Ihave never been father, or brother. The Wahcondah made me to live alone.He never tied my heart to house or field, by the cords with which themen of my race are bound to their lodges; if he had, I should not havejourneyed so far, and seen so much. But I have tarried long among apeople, who lived in those woods you mention, and much reason did I findto imitate their courage and love their honesty. The Master of Life hasmade us all, Pawnee, with a feeling for our kind. I never was a father,but well do I know what is the love of one. You are like a lad I valued,and I had even begun to fancy that some of his blood might be in yourveins. But what matters that? You are a true man, as I know by theway in which you keep your faith; and honesty is a gift too rare to beforgotten. My heart yearns to you, boy, and gladly would I do you good."

  The youthful warrior listened to the words, which came from the lips ofthe other with a force and simplicity that established their truth, andhe bowed his head on his naked bosom, in testimony of the respect withwhich he met the proffer. Then lifting his dark eye to the level of theview, he seemed to be again considering of things removed from everypersonal consideration. The trapper, who well knew how high the prideof a warrior would sustain him, in those moments he believed to be hislast, awaited the pleasure of his young friend, with a meekness andpatience that he had acquired by his association with that remarkablerace. At length the gaze of the Pawnee began to waver; and then quick,flashing glances were turned from the countenance of the old man to theair, and from the air to his deeply marked lineaments again, as if thespirit, which governed their movements, was beginning to be troubled.

  "Father," the young brave finally answered in a voice of confidence andkindness, "I have heard your words. They have gone in at my ears,and are now within me. The white-headed Long-knife has no son; theHard-Heart of the Pawnees is young, but he is already the oldest of hisfamily. He found the bones of his father on the hunting ground of theOsages, and he has sent them to the prairies of the Good Spirits. Nodoubt the great chief, his father, has seen them, and knows what is partof himself. But the Wahcondah will soon call to us both; you, becauseyou have seen all that is to be seen in this country; and Hard-Heart,because he has need of a warrior, who is young. There is no time for thePawnee to show the Pale-face the duty, that a son owes to his father."

  "Old as I am, and miserable and helpless as I now stand, to what Ionce was, I may live to see the sun go down in the prairie. Does my sonexpect to do as much?"

  "The Tetons are counting the scalps on my lodge!" returned the youngchief, with a smile whose melancholy was singularly illuminated by agleam of triumph.

  "And they find them many. Too many for the safety of its owner, while heis in their revengeful hands. My son is not a woman, and he looks on thepath he is about to travel with a steady eye. Has he nothing to whisperin the ears of his people, before he starts? These legs are old, butthey may yet carry me to the forks of the Loup river."

  "Tell them that Hard-Heart has tied a knot in his wampum for everyTeton," burst from the lips of the captive, with that vehemencewith which sudden passion is known to break through the barriers ofartificial restraint "if he meets one of them all, in the prairies ofthe Master of Life, his heart will become Sioux!"

  "Ah that feeling would be a dangerous companion for a man with whitegifts to start with on so solemn a journey," muttered the old man inEnglish. "This is not what the good Moravians said to the councils ofthe Delawares, nor what is so often preached, to the White-skins in thesettlements, though, to the shame of the colour be it said, it is solittle heeded. Pawnee, I love you; but being a Christian man, I cannotbe the runner to bear such a message."

  "If my father is afraid the Tetons will hear him, let him whisper itsoftly to our old men."

  "As for fear, young warrior, it is no more the shame of a Pale-face thanof a Red-skin. The Wahcondah teaches us to love the life he gives; butit is as men love their hunts, and their dogs, and their carabines, andnot with the doting that a mother looks upon her infant. The Master ofLife will not have to speak aloud twice when he calls my name. I am asready to answer to it now, as I shall be to-morrow, or at any timeit may please his mighty will. But what is a warrior without histraditions? Mine forbid me to carry your words."

  The chief made a dignified motion of assent, and here there was greatdanger that those feelings of confidence, which had been so singularlyawakened, would as suddenly subside. But the heart of the old manhad been too sensibly touched, through long dormant but still livingrecollections, to break off the communication so rudely. He pondered fora minute, and then bending his look wistfully on his young associate,again continued--

  "Each warrior must be judged by his gifts. I have told my son what Icannot, but let him open his ears to what I can do. An elk shall notmeasure the prairie much swifter than these old legs, if the Pawnee willgive me a message that a white man may bear."

  "Let the Pale-face listen," returned the other, after hesitatinga single instant longer, under a lingering sensation of his formerdisappointment. "He will stay here till the Siouxes have done countingthe scalps of their dead warriors. He will wait until they have tried tocover the heads of eighteen Tetons with the skin of one Pawnee; he willopen his eyes wide, that he may see the place where they bury the bonesof a warrior."

  "All this will I, and may I, do, noble boy."

  "He will mark the spot, that he may know it."

  "No fear, no fear that I shall forget the place," interrupted the other,whose fortitude began to give way under so trying an exhibition ofcalmness and resignation.

  "Then I know that my father will go to my people. His head is grey,and his words will not be blown away with the smoke. Let him get on mylodge, and call the name of Hard-Heart aloud. No Pawnee will be deaf.Then let my father ask for the colt, that has never been ridden, butwhich is sleeker than the buck, and swifter than the elk."

  "I understand you, boy, I understand you," interrupted the attentive oldman; "and what you say shall be done, ay, and well done too, or I'm butlittle skilled in the wishes of a dying Indian."

  "And when my young men have given my father the halter of that colt, hewill lead him by a crooked path to the grave of Hard-Heart?"

  "Will I! ay, that I will, brave youth, though the winter covers theseplains in banks of snow, and the sun is hidden as much by day as bynight. To the head of the holy spot will I lead the beast, and place himwith his eyes looking towards the setting sun."

  "And my father will speak to him, and tell him, that the master, who hasfed him since he was foaled, has now need of him."

  "That, too, will I do; though the Lord he knows that I shall holddiscourse with a horse, not with any vain conceit that my words willbe understood, but only to satisfy the cravings of Indian superstition.Hector, m
y pup, what think you, dog, of talking to a horse?"

  "Let the grey-beard speak to him with the tongue of a Pawnee,"interrupted the young victim, perceiving that his companion had used anunknown language for the preceding speech.

  "My son's will shall be done. And with these old hands, which I hadhoped had nearly done with bloodshed, whether it be of man or beast,will I slay the animal on your grave!"

  "It is good," returned the other, a gleam of satisfaction flittingacross his features. "Hard-Heart will ride his horse to the blessedprairies, and he will come before the Master of Life like a chief!"

  The sudden and striking change, which instantly occurred in thecountenance of the Indian, caused the trapper to look aside, whenhe perceived that the conference of the Siouxes had ended, and thatMahtoree, attended by one or two of the principal warriors, wasdeliberately approaching his intended victim.