The Pioneers

by James Fenimore Cooper

  It was the frequency of these circuitous movements that, by confining the action to so small a compass, enabled the youth to keep near his companions. More than twenty times both the pursued and the pursuers glided by him, just without the reach of his oars, until he thought the best way to view the sport was to remain stationary and, by watching a favorable opportunity, assist as much as he could in taking the victim.

  He was not required to wait long, for no sooner had he adopted this resolution and risen in the boat, than he saw the deer coming bravely towards him, with an apparent intention of pushing for a point of land at some distance from the hounds, who were still barking and howling on the shore. Edwards caught the painter of his skiff and, making a noose, cast it from him with all his force and luckily succeeded in drawing its knot close around one of the antlers of the buck.

  For one instant, the skiff was drawn through the water, but in the next, the canoe glided before it, and Natty, bending low, passed his knife across the throat of the animal, whose blood followed the wound, dyeing the waters. The short time that was passed in the last struggles of the animal was spent by the hunters in bringing their boats together and securing them in that position, when Leatherstocking drew the deer from the water and laid its lifeless form in the bottom of the canoe. He placed his hands on the ribs and on different parts of the body of his prize, and then, raising his head, he laughed in his peculiar manner:

  “So much for Marmaduke Temple’s law!” he said. “This warms a body’s blood, old John; I haven’t killed a buck in the lake afore this, sin’ many a year. I call that good venison, lad; and I know them that will relish the creater’s steaks, for all the betterments in the land.”

  The Indian had long been drooping with his years, and perhaps under the calamities of his race, but this invigorating and exciting sport caused a gleam of sunshine to cross his swarthy face that had long been absent from his features. It was evident the old man enjoyed the chase more as a memorial of his youthful sports and deeds than with any expectation of profiting by the success. He felt the deer, however, lightly, his hand already trembling with the reaction of his unusual exertions, and smiled with a nod of approbation, as he said, in the emphatic and sententious manner of his people:

  “Good.”

  “I am afraid, Natty,” said Edwards, when the heat of the moment had passed, and his blood began to cool, “that we have all been equally transgressors of the law. But keep your own counsel, and there are none here to betray us. Yet, how came those dogs at large? I left them securely fastened, I know, for I felt the thongs and examined the knots, when I was at the hut.”

  “It has been too much for the poor things,” said Natty, “to have such a buck take the wind of them. See, lad, the pieces of the buckskin are hanging from their necks yet. Let us paddle up, John, and I will call them in and look a little into the matter.”

  When the old hunter landed and examined the thongs that were yet fast to the hounds, his countenance sensibly changed, and he shook his head doubtingly.

  “Here has been a knife at work,” he said. “This skin was never torn, nor is this the mark of a hound’s tooth. No, no—Hector is not in fault, as I feared.”

  “Has the leather been cut?” cried Edwards.

  “No, no—I didn’t say it had been cut, lad; but this is a mark that was never made by a jump or a bite.”

  “Could that rascally carpenter have dared!”

  “Ay! he durst to do anything when there is no danger,” said Natty. “He is a curious body and loves to be helping other people on with their consarns. But he had best not harbor so much near the wigwam!”

  In the meantime, Mohegan had been examining, with an Indian’s sagacity, the place where the leather thong had been separated. After scrutinizing it closely, he said, in Delaware:

  “It was cut with a knife—a sharp blade and a long handle—the man was afraid of the dogs.”

  “How is this, Mohegan?” exclaimed Edwards. “You saw it not! How can you know these facts?”

  “Listen, son,” said the warrior. “The knife was sharp, for the cut is smooth; the handle was long, for a man’s arm would not reach from this gash to the cut that did not go through the skin: he was a coward, or he would have cut the thongs around the necks of the hounds.”

  “On my life,” cried Natty, “John is on the scent! It was the carpenter; and he has got on the rock back of the kennel and let the dogs loose by fastening his knife to a stick. It would be an easy matter to do it, where a man is so minded.”

  “And why should he do so?” asked Edwards. “Who has done him wrong, that he should trouble two old men like you?”

  “It’s a hard matter, lad, to know men’s ways, I find, since the settlers have brought in their new fashions. But is there nothing to be found out in the place? And maybe he is troubled with his longings after other people’s business, as he often is.”

  “Your suspicions are just. Give me the canoe: I am young and strong, and will get down there yet, perhaps, in time to interrupt his plans. Heaven forbid that we should be at the mercy of such a man!”

  His proposal was accepted, the deer being placed in the skiff in order to lighten the canoe, and in less than five minutes the little vessel of bark was gliding over the glassy lake and was soon hid by the points of land, as it shot close along the shore.

  Mohegan followed slowly with the skiff, while Natty called his hounds to him, bade them keep close, and, shouldering his rifle, he ascended the mountain with an intention of going to the hut by land.

  CHAPTER XXVIII

  Ask me not what the maiden feels,

  Left in that dreadful hour alone;

  Perchance, her reason stoops, or reels;

  Perchance, a courage not her own,

  Braces her mind to desperate tone.

  SCOTT

  WHILE the chase was occurring on the lake, Miss Temple and her companion pursued their walk on the mountain. Male attendants on such excursions were thought to be altogether unnecessary, for none were ever known to offer an insult to a female who respected herself. After the embarrassment created by the parting discourse with Edwards had dissipated, the girls maintained a conversation that was as innocent and cheerful as themselves.

  The path they took led them but a short distance above the hut of Leatherstocking, and there was a point in the road which commanded a bird’s eye view of the sequestered spot.

  From a feeling that might have been natural, and must have been powerful, neither of the friends, in their frequent and confidential dialogues, had ever trusted herself to utter one syllable concerning the equivocal situation in which the young man who was now so intimately associated with them had been found. If Judge Temple had deemed it prudent to make any inquiries on the subject, he had also thought it proper to keep the answers to himself; though it was so common an occurrence to find the well-educated youth of the eastern states in every stage of their career to wealth, that the simple circumstances of his intelligence, connected with his poverty, would not, at that day, and in that country, have excited any very powerful curiosity. With his breeding, it might have been different; but the youth himself had so effectually guarded against surprise on this subject, by his cold, and even, in some cases, rude deportment, that when his manners seemed to soften by time, the Judge, if he thought about it at all, would have been most likely to imagine that the improvement was the result of his late association. But women are always more alive to such subjects than men; and what the abstraction of the father had overlooked, the observation of the daughter had easily detected. In the thousand little courtesies of polished life, she had early discovered that Edwards was not wanting, though his gentleness was so often crossed by marks of what she conceived to be fierce and uncontrollable passions. It may, perhaps, be unnecessary to tell the reader that Louisa Grant never reasoned so much after the fashions of the world. The gentle girl, however, had her own thoughts on the subject, and, like others, she drew her own conclusions.

 
“I would give all my other secrets, Louisa,” exclaimed Miss Temple, laughing, and shaking back her dark locks, with a look of childish simplicity that her intelligent face seldom expressed, “to be mistress of all that those rude logs have heard and witnessed.”

  They were both looking at the secluded hut at the instant, and Miss Grant raised her mild eyes as she answered:

  “I am sure they would tell nothing to the disadvantage of Mr. Edwards.”

  “Perhaps not; but they might, at least, tell who he is.”

  “Why, dear Miss Temple, we know all that already. I have heard it all very rationally explained by your cousin—”

  “The executive chief! He can explain anything. His ingenuity will one day discover the philosopher’s stone. But what did he say?”

  “Say!” echoed Louisa, with a look of surprise; “why everything that seemed to me to be satisfactory, and I have believed it to be true. He said that Natty Bumppo had lived most of his life in the woods, and among the Indians, by which means he had formed an acquaintance with old John, the Delaware chief.”

  “Indeed! That was quite a matter-of-fact tale for cousin Dickon. What came next?”

  “I believe he accounted for their close intimacy by some story about the Leatherstocking saving the life of John in a battle.”

  “Nothing more likely,” said Elizabeth, a little impatiently; “but what is all this to the purpose?”

  “Nay, Elizabeth, you must bear with my ignorance, and I will repeat all that I remember to have overheard; for the dialogue was between my father and the Sheriff, so lately as the last time they met. He then added that the kings of England used to keep gentlemen as agents among the different tribes of Indians, and sometimes officers in the army, who frequently passed half their lives on the edge of the wilderness.”

  “Told with wonderful historical accuracy! And did he end there?”

  “Oh! no—then he said that these agents seldom married; and—and—they must have been wicked men, Elizabeth! But I assure you he said so.”

  “Never mind,” said Miss Temple, blushing and smiling, though so slightly that both were unheeded by her companion—“skip all that.”

  “Well, then, he said that they often took great pride in the education of their children, whom they frequently sent to England and even to the colleges; and this is the way that he accounts for the liberal manner in which Mr. Edwards has been taught; for he acknowledges that he knows almost as much as your father—or mine—or even himself.”

  “Quite a climax in learning! And so he made Mohegan the granduncle, or grandfather of Oliver Edwards.”

  “You have heard him yourself, then?” said Louisa.

  “Often; but not on this subject. Mr. Richard Jones, you know, dear, has a theory for everything; but has he one which will explain the reason why that hut is the only habitation within fifty miles of us, whose door is not open to every person who may choose to lift its latch?”

  “I have never heard him say anything on this subject,” returned the clergyman’s daughter; “but I suppose that, as they are poor, they very naturally are anxious to keep the little that they honestly own. It is sometimes dangerous to be rich, Miss Temple; but you cannot know how hard it is to be very, very poor.”

  “Nor you, I trust, Louisa; at least I should hope that, in this land of abundance, no minister of the church could be left to absolute suffering.”

  “There cannot be actual misery,” returned the other in a low and humble tone, “where there is a dependence on our Maker; but there may be such suffering as will cause the heart to ache.”

  “But not you—not you,” said the impetuous Elizabeth—“not you, dear girl: you have never known the misery that is connected with poverty.”

  “Ah! Miss Temple, you little understand the troubles of this life, I believe. My father has spent many years as a missionary in the new countries, where his people were poor, and frequently we have been without bread; unable to buy, and ashamed to beg, because we would not disgrace his sacred calling. But how often have I seen him leave his home, where the sick and the hungry felt, when he left them, that they had lost their only earthly friend, to ride on a duty which could not be neglected for domestic evils. Oh! how hard it must be to preach consolation to others when your own heart is bursting with anguish!”

  “But it is all over now! Your father’s income must now be equal to his wants—it must be—it shall be——”

  “It is,” replied Louisa, dropping her head on her bosom to conceal the tears which flowed in spite of her gentle Christianity—“for there are none left to be supplied but me.”

  The turn the conversation had taken drove from the minds of the young maidens all other thoughts but those of holy charity; and Elizabeth folded her friend in her arms, when the latter gave vent to her momentary grief in audible sobs. When this burst of emotion had subsided, Louisa raised her mild countenance, and they continued their walk in silence.

  By this time they had gained the summit of the mountain, where they left the highway and pursued their course under the shade of the stately trees that crowned the eminence. The day was becoming warm, and the girls plunged more deeply into the forest, as they found its invigorating coolness agreeably contrasted to the excessive heat they had experienced in the ascent. The conversation, as if by mutual consent, was entirely changed to the little incidents and scenes of their walk, and every tall pine, and every shrub or flower, called forth some simple expression of admiration.

  In this manner they proceeded along the margin of the precipice, catching occasional glimpses of the placid Otsego, or pausing to listen to the rattling of wheels and the sounds of hammers that rose from the valley to mingle the signs of men with the scenes of nature, when Elizabeth suddenly started and exclaimed:

  “Listen! There are the cries of a child on this mountain! Is there a clearing near us? Or can some little one have strayed from its parents?”

  “Such things frequently happen,” returned Louisa. “Let us follow the sounds: it may be a wanderer starving on the hill.”

  Urged by this consideration, the females pursued the low, mournful sounds that proceeded from the forest with quick and impatient steps. More than once, the ardent Elizabeth was on the point of announcing that she saw the sufferer, when Louisa caught her by the arm, and pointing behind them, cried:

  “Look at the dog!”

  Brave had been their companion, from the time the voice of his young mistress lured him from his kennel, to the present moment. His advanced age had long before deprived him of his activity; and when his companions stopped to view the scenery, or to add to their bouquets, the mastiff would lay his huge frame on the ground and await their movements, with his eyes closed and a listlessness in his air that ill-accorded with the character of a protector. But when, aroused by this cry from Louisa, Miss Temple turned, she saw the dog with his eyes keenly set on some distant object, his head bent near the ground, and his hair actually rising on his body, through fright or anger. It was most probably the latter, for he was growling in a low key and occasionally showing his teeth, in a manner that would have terrified his mistress had she not so well known his good qualities.

  “Brave!” she said, “be quiet, Brave! What do you see, fellow?”

  At the sounds of her voice, the rage of the mastiff, instead of being at all diminished, was very sensibly increased. He stalked in front of the ladies and seated himself at the feet of his mistress, growling louder than before and occasionally giving vent to his ire by a short, surly barking.

  “What does he see?” said Elizabeth. “There must be some animal in sight.”

  Hearing no answer from her companion, Miss Temple turned her head and beheld Louisa, standing with her face whitened to the color of death and her finger pointing upwards with a sort of flickering, convulsed motion. The quick eye of Elizabeth glanced in the direction indicated by her friend, where she saw the fierce front and glaring eyes of a female panther fixed on them in horrid malignity, and threa
tening to leap.

  “Let us fly,” exclaimed Elizabeth, grasping the arm of Louisa, whose form yielded like melting snow.

  There was not a single feeling in the temperament of Elizabeth Temple that could prompt her to desert a companion in such an extremity. She fell on her knees by the side of the inanimate Louisa, tearing from the person of her friend, with instinctive readiness, such parts of her dress as might obstruct her respiration, and encouraging their only safeguard, the dog, at the same time by the sounds of her voice.

  “Courage, Brave!” she cried, her own tones beginning to tremble, “courage, courage, good Brave!”

  A quarter-grown cub that had hitherto been unseen now appeared, dropping from the branches of a sapling that grew under the shade of the beech which held its dam. This ignorant but vicious creature approached the dog, imitating the actions and sounds of its parent, but exhibiting a strange mixture of the playfulness of a kitten with the ferocity of its race. Standing on its hind legs, it would rend the bark of a tree with its forepaws and play the antics of a cat; and then by lashing itself with its tail, growling, and scratching the earth, it would attempt the manifestations of anger that rendered its parent so terrific.

  All this time Brave stood firm and undaunted, his short tail erect, his body drawn backward on its haunches, and his eyes following the movements of both dam and cub. At every gambol played by the latter, it approached nigher to the dog, the growling of the three becoming more horrid at each moment, until the younger beast overleaping its intended bound fell directly before the mastiff. There was a moment of fearful cries and struggles, but they ended almost as soon as commenced, by the cub appearing in the air, hurled from the jaws of Brave with a violence that sent it against a tree so forcibly as to render it completely senseless.