The Pioneers

by James Fenimore Cooper

  The sight of such an implement collected all the idle spectators to the spot, who, being mostly boys, filled the air with cries of exultation and delight. The gun was pointed high, and Richard, holding a coal of fire in a pair of tongs, patiently took his seat on a stump, awaiting the appearance of a flock worthy of his notice.

  So prodigious was the number of the birds, that the scattering fire of the guns, with the hurling of missiles, and the cries of the boys, had no other effect than to break off small flocks from the immense masses that continued to dart along the valley, as if the whole of the feathered tribe were pouring through that one pass. None pretended to collect the game, which lay scattered over the fields in such profusion as to cover the very ground with the fluttering victims.

  Leatherstocking was a silent, but uneasy spectator of all these proceedings, but was able to keep his sentiments to himself until he saw the introduction of the swivel into the sport.

  “This comes of settling a country!” he said. “Here have I known the pigeons to fly for forty long years, and, till you made your clearings, there was nobody to skear or to hurt them. I loved to see them come into the woods, for they were company to a body; hurting nothing; being, as it was, as harmless as a garter snake. But now it gives me sore thoughts when I hear the frighty things whizzing through the air, for I know it’s only a motion to bring out all the brats in the village. Well! the Lord won’t see the waste of his creatures for nothing, and right will be done to the pigeons, as well as others, by and by. There’s Mr. Oliver, as bad as the rest of them, firing into the flocks, as if he was shooting down nothing but Mingo warriors.”

  Among the sportsmen was Billy Kirby, who, armed with an old musket, was loading, and without even looking into the air, was firing and shouting as his victims fell even on his own person. He heard the speech of Natty and took upon himself to reply:

  “What! old Leatherstocking,” he cried, “grumbling at the loss of a few pigeons! If you had to sow your wheat twice, and three times, as I have done, you wouldn’t be so massy-fully feeling towards the divils. Hurrah, boys! scatter the feathers! This is better than shooting at a turkey’s head and neck, old fellow.”

  “It’s better for you, maybe, Billy Kirby,” replied the indignant old hunter, “and all them that don’t know how to put a ball down a rifle barrel, or how to bring it up again with a true aim; but it’s wicked to be shooting into flocks in this wasty manner; and none do it, who know how to knock over a single bird. If a body has a craving for pigeon’s flesh, why, it’s made the same as all other creatures, for man’s eating; but not to kill twenty and eat one. When I want such a thing I go into the woods till I find one to my liking, and then I shoot him off the branches, without touching the feather of another, though there might be a hundred on the same tree. You couldn’t do such a thing, Billy Kirby—you couldn’t do it, if you tried.”

  “What’s that, old cornstalk! You sapless stub!” cried the wood chopper. “You have grown wordy, since the affair of the turkey; but if you are for a single shot, here goes at that bird which comes on by himself.”

  The fire from the distant part of the field had driven a single pigeon below the flock to which it belonged, and, frightened with the constant reports of the muskets, it was approaching the spot where the disputants stood, darting first from one side and then to the other, cutting the air with the swiftness of lightning, and making a noise with its wings, not unlike the rushing of a bullet. Unfortunately for the wood chopper, notwithstanding his vaunt, he did not see this bird until it was too late to fire as it approached, and he pulled his trigger at the unlucky moment when it was darting immediately over his head. The bird continued its course with the usual velocity.

  Natty lowered the rifle from his arm when the challenge was made, and waiting a moment, until the terrified victim had got in a line with his eye, and had dropped near the bank of the lake, he raised it again with uncommon rapidity, and fired. It might have been chance, or it might have been skill, that produced the result; it was probably a union of both; but the pigeon whirled over in the air, and fell into the lake, with a broken wing. At the sound of his rifle, both his dogs started from his feet, and in a few minutes the “slut” brought out the bird, still alive.

  The wonderful exploit of Leatherstocking was noised through the field with great rapidity, and the sportsmen gathered in, to learn the truth of the report.

  “What!” said young Edwards, “have you really killed a pigeon on the wing, Natty, with a single ball?”

  “Haven’t I killed loons before now, lad, that dive at the flash?” returned the hunter. “It’s much better to kill only such as you want, without wasting your powder and lead, than to be firing into God’s creatures in this wicked manner. But I came out for a bird, and you know the reason why I like small game, Mr. Oliver, and now I have got one I will go home, for I don’t relish to see these wasty ways that you are all practysing, as if the least thing wasn’t made for use, and not to destroy.”

  “Thou sayest well, Leatherstocking,” cried Marmaduke, “and I begin to think it time to put an end to this work of destruction.”

  “Put an ind, Judge, to your clearings. An’t the woods his work as well as the pigeons? Use, but don’t waste. Wasn’t the woods made for the beasts and birds to harbor in? And when man wanted their flesh, their skins, or their feathers there’s the place to seek them. But I’ll go to the hut with my own game, for I wouldn’t touch one of the harmless things that cover the ground here, looking up with their eyes on me, as if they only wanted tongues to say their thoughts.”

  With this sentiment in his mouth, Leatherstocking threw his rifle over his arm, and followed by his dogs, stepped across the clearing with great caution, taking care not to tread on one of the wounded birds in his path. He soon entered the bushes on the margin of the lake and was hid from view.

  Whatever impression the morality of Natty made on the Judge, it was utterly lost on Richard. He availed himself of the gathering of the sportsmen to lay a plan for one “fell swoop” of destruction. The musket men were drawn up in battle array, in a line extending on each side of his artillery, with orders to await the signal of firing from himself.

  “Stand by, my lads,” said Benjamin, who acted as an aide-de-camp on this occasion, “stand by, my hearties, and when Squire Dickens heaves out the signal to begin firing, d’ye see, you may open upon them in a broadside. Take care and fire low, boys, and you’ll be sure to hull the flock.”

  “Fire low!” shouted Kirby. “Hear the old fool! If we fire low, we may hit the stumps, but not ruffle a pigeon.”

  “How should you know, you lubber?” cried Benjamin, with a very unbecoming heat for an officer on the eve of battle. “How should you know, you grampus? Haven’t I sailed aboard of the Boadishey for five years? And wasn’t it a standing order to fire low, and to hull your enemy? Keep silence at your guns, boys, and mind the order that is passed.”

  The loud laughs of the musket men were silenced by the more authoritative voice of Richard, who called for attention and obedience to his signals.

  Some millions of pigeons were supposed to have already passed that morning over the valley of Templeton; but nothing like the flock that was now approaching had been seen before. It extended from mountain to mountain in one solid blue mass, and the eye looked in vain, over the southern hills, to find its termination. The front of this living column was distinctly marked by a line but very slightly indented, so regular and even was the flight. Even Marmaduke forgot the morality of Leatherstocking as it approached, and, in common with the rest, brought his musket to a poise.

  “Fire!” cried the Sheriff, clapping a coal to the priming of the cannon. As half of Benjamin’s charge escaped through the touchhole, the whole volley of the musketry preceded the report of the swivel. On receiving this united discharge of small arms, the front of the flock darted upwards, while, at the same instant, myriads of those in the rear rushed with amazing rapidity into their places, so that when the column o
f white smoke gushed from the mouth of the little cannon, an accumulated mass of objects was gliding over its point of direction. The roar of the gun echoed along the mountains and died away to the north, like distant thunder, while the whole flock of alarmed birds seemed, for a moment, thrown into one disorderly and agitated mass. The air was filled with their irregular flight, layer rising above layer, far above the tops of the highest pines, none daring to advance beyond the dangerous pass; when, suddenly, some of the leaders of the feathered tribe shot across the valley, taking their flight directly over the village, and hundreds of thousands in their rear followed the example, deserting the eastern side of the plain to their persecutors and the slain.

  “Victory!” shouted Richard, “victory! We have driven the enemy from the field.”

  “Not so, Dickon,” said Marmaduke. “The field is covered with them; and, like the Leatherstocking, I see nothing but eyes, in every direction, as the innocent sufferers turn their heads in terror. Full one half of those that have fallen are yet alive; and I think it is time to end the sport, if sport it be.”

  “Sport!” cried the Sheriff; “it is princely sport! There are some thousands of the blue-coated boys on the ground, so that every old woman in the village may have a potpie for the asking.”

  “Well, we have happily frightened the birds from this side of the valley,” said Marmaduke, “and the carnage must of necessity end, for the present. Boys, I will give you sixpence a hundred for the pigeons’ heads only: so go to work, and bring them into the village.”

  This expedient produced the desired effect, for every urchin on the ground went industriously to work to wring the necks of the wounded birds. Judge Temple retired towards his dwelling with that kind of feeling that many a man has experienced before him, who discovers, after the excitement of the moment has passed, that he has purchased pleasure at the price of misery to others. Horses were loaded with the dead; and, after this first burst of sporting, the shooting of pigeons became a business, with a few idlers, for the remainder of the season. Richard, however, boasted for many a year, of his shot with the “cricket”; and Benjamin gravely asserted that he thought they killed nearly as many pigeons on that day, as there were Frenchmen destroyed on the memorable occasion of Rodney’s victory.

  CHAPTER XXIII

  Help, masters, help; here’s a fish hangs in the net, like a poor man’s right in the law.

  PERICLES OF TYRE

  THE advance of the season now became as rapid as its first approach had been tedious and lingering. The days were uniformly mild, while the nights, though cool, were no longer chilled by frosts. The whippoorwill was heard whistling his melancholy notes along the margin of the lake, and the ponds and meadows were sending forth the music of their thousand tenants. The leaf of the native poplar was seen quivering in the woods; the sides of the mountains began to lose their hue of brown, as the lively green of the different members of the forest blended their shades with the permanent colors of the pine and hemlock; and even the buds of the tardy oak were swelling with the promise of the coming summer. The gay and fluttering bluebird, the social robin, and the industrious little wren were all to be seen enlivening the fields with their presence and their songs; while the soaring fish hawk was already hovering over the waters of the Otsego, watching, with native voracity, for the appearance of his prey.

  The tenants of the lake were far-famed for both their quantities and their quality, and the ice had hardly disappeared, before numberless little boats were launched from the shores, and the lines of the fishermen were dropped into the inmost recesses of its deepest caverns, tempting the unwary animals with every variety of bait that the ingenuity or the art of man had invented. But the slow, though certain adventures with hook and line were ill-suited to the profusion and impatience of the settlers. More destructive means were resorted to; and as the season had now arrived when the bass fisheries were allowed by the provisions of the law that Judge Temple had procured, the Sheriff declared his intention, by availing himself of the first dark night, to enjoy the sport in person.

  “And you shall be present, cousin Bess,” he added, when he announced this design, “and Miss Grant, and Mr. Edwards; and I will show you what I call fishing—not nibble, nibble, nibble, as ’duke does when he goes after the salmon trout. There he will sit for hours, in a broiling sun, or, perhaps, over a hole in the ice, in the coldest days in winter, under the lee of a few bushes, and not a fish will he catch, after all this mortification of the flesh. No, no—give me a good seine that’s fifty or sixty fathoms in length, with a jolly parcel of boatmen to crack their jokes the while, with Benjamin to steer, and let us haul them in by thousands; I call that fishing.”

  “Ah! Dickon,” cried Marmaduke, “thou knowest but little of the pleasure there is in playing with the hook and line, or thou wouldst be more saving of the game. I have known thee to leave fragments enough behind thee, when thou hast headed a night party on the lake, to feed a dozen famishing families.”

  “I shall not dispute the matter, Judge Temple: this night will I go; and I invite the company to attend, and then let them decide between us.”

  Richard was busy during most of the afternoon making his preparations for the important occasion. Just as the light of the setting sun had disappeared, and a new moon had begun to throw its shadows on the earth, the fishermen took their departure in a boat, for a point that was situated on the western shore of the lake, at the distance of rather more than half a mile from the village. The ground had become settled, and the walking was good and dry. Marmaduke, with his daughter, her friend, and young Edwards, continued on the high grassy banks at the outlet of the placid sheet of water, watching the dark object that was moving across the lake, until it entered the shade of the western hills and was lost to the eye. The distance round by land to the point of destination was a mile, and he observed:

  “It is time for us to be moving: the moon will be down ere we reach the point, and then the miraculous hauls of Dickon will commence.”

  The evening was warm, and, after the long and dreary winter from which they had just escaped, delightfully invigorating. Inspirited by the scene and their anticipated amusement, the youthful companions of the Judge followed his steps, as he led them along the shores of the Otsego and through the skirts of the village.

  “See!” said young Edwards, “they are building their fire already; it glimmers for a moment and dies again like the light of a firefly.”

  “Now it blazes,” cried Elizabeth: “you can perceive figures moving around the light. Oh! I would bet my jewels against the gold beads of Remarkable, that my impatient cousin Dickon had an agency in raising that bright flame—and see; it fades again, like most of his brilliant schemes.”

  “Thou hast guessed the truth, Bess,” said her father; “he has thrown an armful of brush on the pile, which has burnt out as soon as lighted. But it has enabled them to find a better fuel, for their fire begins to blaze with a more steady flame. It is the true fisherman’s beacon now; observe how beautifully it throws its little circle of light on the water!”

  The appearance of the fire urged the pedestrians on, for even the ladies had become eager to witness the miraculous draught. By the time they reached the bank, which rose above the low point where the fishermen had landed, the moon had sunk behind the tops of the western pines, and, as most of the stars were obscured by clouds, there was but little other light than that which proceeded from the fire. At the suggestion of Marmaduke, his companions paused to listen to the conversation of those below them, and examine the party for a moment before they descended to the shore.

  The whole group were seated around the fire, with the exception of Richard and Benjamin; the former of whom occupied the root of a decayed stump, that had been drawn to the spot as part of their fuel, and the latter was standing, with his arms akimbo, so near to the flame that the smoke occasionally obscured his solemn visage, as it waved around the pile, in obedience to the night airs that swept gently over the wa
ter.

  “Why, look you, Squire,” said the major-domo, “you may call a lake fish that will weigh twenty or thirty pounds a serious matter; but to a man who has hauled in a shovel-nosed shirk, d’ye see, it’s but a poor kind of fishing after all.”

  “I don’t know, Benjamin,” returned the Sheriff: “a haul of one thousand Otsego bass, without counting pike, pickerel, perch, bullpouts, salmon trouts, and suckers, is no bad fishing, let me tell you. There may be sport in sticking a shark, but what is he good for after you have got him? Now, any one of the fish that I have named is fit to set before a king.”

  “Well, Squire,” returned Benjamin, “just listen to the philosophy of the thing. Would it stand to reason, that such fish should live and be catched in this here little pond of water, where it’s hardly deep enough to drown a man, as you’ll find in the wide ocean, where, as everybody knows, that is, everybody that has followed the seas, whales and grampuses are to be seen that are as long as one of the pine trees on yonder mountain?”

  “Softly, softly, Benjamin,” said the Sheriff, as if he wished to save the credit of his favorite; “why some of the pines will measure two hundred feet, and even more.”

  “Two hundred or two thousand, it’s all the same thing,” cried Benjamin, with an air which manifested that he was not easily to be bullied out of his opinion, on a subject like the present. “Haven’t I been there, and haven’t I seen? I have said that you fall in with whales as long as one of them there pines; and what I have once said I’ll stand to!”

  During this dialogue, which was evidently but the close of a much longer discussion, the huge frame of Billy Kirby was seen extended on one side of the fire, where he was picking his teeth with splinters of the chips near him and occasionally shaking his head with distrust of Benjamin’s assertions.