The Pioneers; Or, The Sources of the Susquehanna

by James Fenimore Cooper

  CHAPTER XXVI.

  "Speak on, my dearest father! Thy words are like the breezes of the west." --Milman.

  It was a mild and soft morning, when Marmaduke and Richard mounted theirhorses and proceeded on the expedition that had so long been uppermostin the thoughts of the latter; and Elizabeth and Louisa appeared at thesame instant in the hall, attired for an excursion on foot.

  The head of Miss Grant was covered by a neat little hat of green silk,and her modest eyes peered from under its shade, with the soft languorthat characterized her whole appearance; but Miss Temple trod herfather's wide apartments with the step of their mistress, holding in herhands, dangling by one of its ribbons, the gypsy that was to concealthe glossy locks that curled around her polished fore head in richprofusion.

  "What? are you for a walk, Bess?" cried the Judge, suspending hismovements for a moment to smile, with a father's fondness, at thedisplay of womanly grace and beauty that his child presented. "Rememberthe heats of July, my daughter; nor venture further than thou canstretrace before the meridian. Where is thy parasol, girl? thou wilt losetine polish of that brow, under this sun and southern breeze, unlessthou guard it with unusual care."

  "I shall then do more honor to my connections," returned the smilingdaughter. "Cousin Richard has a bloom that any lady might envy. Atpresent the resemblance between us is so trifling that no stranger wouldknow us to be 'sisters' children."

  "Grandchildren, you mean, Cousin Bess," said the sheriff. "But on, JudgeTemple; time and tide wait for no man; and if you take my counsel,sir, in twelve months from this day you may make an umbrella for yourdaughter of her camel's-hair shawl, and have its frame of solid silver.I ask nothing for myself, 'Duke; you have been a good friend to mealready; besides, all that I have will go to Bess there, one of thesemelancholy days, so it's as long as it's short, whether I or youleave it. But we have a day's ride before us, sir; so move forward, ordismount, and say you won't go at once."

  "Patience, patience, Dickon," returned the Judge, checking his horseand turning again to his daughter. "If thou art for the mountains, love,stray not too deep into the forest. I entreat thee; for, though it isdone often with impunity, there is sometimes danger."

  "Not at this season, I believe, sir," said Elizabeth; "for, I willconfess, it is the intention of Louisa and myself to stroll among thehills."

  "Less at this season than in the winter, dear; but still there may bedanger in venturing too far. But though thou art resolute, Elizabeth,thou art too much like thy mother not to be prudent."

  The eyes of the parent turned reluctantly from his child, and the Judgeand sheriff rode slowly through the gateway, and disappeared among thebuildings of the village.

  During this short dialogue, young Edwards stood, an attentive listener,holding in his hand a fishing-rod, the day and the season having temptedhim also to desert the house for the pleasure of exercise in the air.As the equestrians turned through the gate, he approached the youngfemales, who were already moving toward the street, and was about toaddress them, as Louisa paused, and said quickly:

  "Mr. Edwards would speak to us, Elizabeth."

  The other stopped also, and turned to the youth, politely but with aslight coldness in her air, that sensibly checked the freedom with whichhe had approached them,

  "Your father is not pleased that you should walk unattended in thehills, Miss Temple. If I might offer my self as a protector--"

  "Does my father select Mr. Oliver Edwards as the organ of hisdispleasure?" interrupted the lady.

  "Good Heaven! you misunderstood my meaning; I should have said uneasy ornot pleased. I am his servant, madam, and in consequence yours. I repeatthat, with your consent, I will change my rod for a fowling-piece, andkeep nigh you on the mountain."

  "I thank you, Mr. Edwards; but where there is no danger, no protectionis required. We are not yet reduced to wandering among these free hillsaccompanied by a body guard. If such a one is necessary there he is,however.--Here, Brave--Brave----my noble Brave!" The huge mastifthat has been already mentioned, appeared from his kennel, gaping andstretching himself with pampered laziness; but as his mistress againcalled:

  "Come, dear Brave; once you have served your master well; let us see howyou can do your duty by his daughter"--the dog wagged his tail, as if heunderstood her language, walked with a stately gait to her side, wherehe seated himself, and looked up at her face, with an intelligence butlittle inferior to that which beamed in her own lovely countenance.

  She resumed her walk, but again paused, after a few steps, and added, intones of conciliation:

  "You can be serving us equally, and, I presume, more agreeably toyourself, Mr. Edwards, by bringing us a string of your favorite perchfor the dinner-table."

  When they again began to walk Miss Temple did not look back to see howthe youth bore this repulse; but the head of Louisa was turned severaltimes before they reached the gate on that considerate errand.

  "I am afraid, Elizabeth," she said, "that we have mortified Oliver.He is still standing where we left him, leaning on his rod. Perhaps hethinks us proud."

  "He thinks justly," exclaimed Miss Temple, as if awaking from a deepmusing; "he thinks justly, then. We are too proud to admit of suchparticular attentions from a young man in an equivocal situation. What!make him the companion of our most private walks! It is pride, Louisa,but it is the pride of a woman."

  It was several minutes before Oliver aroused himself from the abstractedposition in which he was standing when Louisa last saw him; but when hedid, he muttered something rapidly and incoherently, and, throwing hisrod over his shoulder, he strode down the walk through the gateand along one of the streets of the village, until he reached thelake-shore, with the air of an emperor. At this spot boats were kept forthe use of Judge Temple and his family. The young man threw himself intoa light skiff, and, seizing the oars, he sent it across the lake towardthe hut of Leather-Stocking, with a pair of vigorous arms. By the timehe had rowed a quarter of a mile, his reflections were less bitter;and when he saw the bushes that lined the shore in front of Natty'shabitation gliding by him, as if they possessed the motion whichproceeded from his own efforts, he was quite cooled in mind, thoughsomewhat heated in body. It is quite possible that the very same reasonwhich guided the conduct of Miss Temple suggested itself to a man ofthe breeding and education of the youth; and it is very certain that, ifsuch were the case, Elizabeth rose instead of falling in the estimationof Mr. Edwards.

  The oars were now raised from the water, and the boat shot close in tothe land, where it lay gently agitated by waves of its own creating,while the young man, first casting a cautious and searching glancearound him in every direction, put a small whistle to his mouth, andblew a long, shrill note that rang among the echoing rocks behind thehut. At this alarm, the hounds of Natty rushed out of their bark kennel,and commenced their long, piteous howls, leaping about as if halffrantic, though restrained by the leashes of buckskin by which they werefastened.

  "Quiet, Hector, quiet," said Oliver, again applying his whistle to hismouth, and drawing out notes still more shrill than before. No replywas made, the dogs having returned to their kennel at the sound of hisvoice.

  Edwards pulled the bows of the boat on the shore, and landing, ascendedthe beach and approached the door of the cabin. The fastenings weresoon undone, and he entered, closing the door after him, when all was assilent, in that retired spot, as if the foot of man had never trod thewilderness. The sounds of the hammers, that were in incessant motionin the village, were faintly heard across the water; but the dogs hadcrouched into their lairs, satisfied that none but the privileged hadapproached the forbidden ground.

  A quarter of an hour elapsed before the youth reappeared, when hefastened the door again, and spoke kindly to the hounds. The dogscame out at the well-known tones, and the slut jumped upon his person,whining and barking as if entreating Oliver to release her from prison.But old Hector raised his nose to the light current of air, and openeda long howl, that
might have been heard for a mile. "Ha! what do youscent, old veteran of the woods?" cried Edwards. "If a beast, it is abold one; and if a man, an impudent."

  He sprang through the top of a pine that had fallen near the side of thehut, and ascended a small hillock that sheltered the cabin to the south,where he caught a glimpse of the formal figure of Hiram Doolittle, as itvanished, with unusual rapidity for the architect, amid the bushes.

  "What can that fellow be wanting here?" muttered Oliver. "He has nobusiness in this quarter, unless it be curiosity, which is an endemic inthese woods. But against that I will effectually guard, though the dogsshould take a liking to his ugly visage, and let him pass." The youthreturned to the door, while giving vent to this soliloquy, and completedthe fastenings by placing a small chain through a staple, and securingit there by a padlock. "He is a pettifogger, and surely must know thatthere is such a thing as feloniously breaking into a man's house."

  Apparently well satisfied with this arrangement, the youth again spoketo the hounds; and, descending to the shore, he launched his boat, andtaking up his oars, pulled off into the lake.

  There were several places in the Otsego that were celebratedfishing-ground for perch. One was nearly opposite to the cabin, andanother, still more famous, was near a point, at the distance of a mileand a half above it, under the brow of the mountain, and on the sameside of the lake with the hut. Oliver Edwards pulled his little skiff tothe first, and sat, for a minute, undecided whether to continue there,with his eyes on the door of the cabin, or to change his ground, witha view to get superior game. While gazing about him, he saw thelight-colored bark canoe of his old companions riding on the water, atthe point we have mentioned, and containing two figures, that he at onceknew to be Mohegan and the Leather-Stocking. This decided the matter,and the youth pulled, in a very few minutes, to the place where hisfriends were fishing, and fastened his boat to the light vessel of theIndian.

  The old men received Oliver with welcoming nods, but neither drew hisline from the water nor in the least varied his occupation. When Edwardshad secured his own boat, he baited his hook and threw it into the lake,with out speaking.

  "Did you stop at the wigwam, lad, as you rowed past?" asked Natty.

  "Yes, and I found all safe; but that carpenter and justice of the peace,Mr., or as they call him, Squire, Doolittle, was prowling through thewoods. I made sure of the door before I left the hut, and I think he istoo great a coward to approach the hounds."

  "There's little to be said in favor of that man," said Natty, while hedrew in a perch and baited his hook. "He craves dreadfully to come intothe cabin, and has as good as asked me as much to my face; but I put himoff with unsartain answers, so that he is no wiser than Solo mon.This comes of having so many laws that such a man may be called on tointarpret them."

  "I fear he is more knave than fool," cried Edwards; "he makes a tool of,that simple man, the sheriff; and I dread that his impertinent curiositymay yet give us much trouble."

  "If he harbors too much about the cabin, lad, I'll shoot the creatur',"said the Leather-Stocking, quite simply.

  "No, no, Natty, you must remember the law," said Edwards, "or we shallhave you in trouble; and that, old man, would be an evil day and soretidings to us all."

  "Would it, boy?" exclaimed the hunter, raising his eyes, with a look offriendly interest, toward the youth. "You have the true blood in yourveins, Mr. Oliver; and I'll support it to the face of Judge Temple or inany court in the country. How is it, John? Do I speak the true word? Isthe lad stanch, and of the right blood?"

  "He is a Delaware," said Mohegan, "and my brother. The Young Eagle isbrave, and he will be a chief. No harm can come."

  "Well, well," cried the youth impatiently, "say no more about it, mygood friends; if I am not all that your partiality would make me, I amyours through life, in prosperity as in poverty. We will talk of othermatters."

  The old hunters yielded to his wish, which seemed to be their law. For ashort time a profound silence prevailed, during which each man wasvery busy with his hook and line, but Edwards, probably feeling that itremained with him to renew the discourse, soon observed, with the air ofone who knew not what he said:

  "How beautifully tranquil and glassy the lake is! Saw you it ever morecalm and even than at this moment, Natty?"

  "I have known the Otsego water for five-and-forty years," saidLeather--Stocking, "and I will say that for it, which is, that a cleanerspring or better fishing is not to be found in the land. Yes, yes; I hadthe place to myself once, and a cheerful time I had of it. The game wasplenty as heart could wish; and there was none to meddle with the groundunless there might have been a hunting party of the Delawares crossingthe hills, or, maybe, a rifling scout of them thieves, the Iroquois.There was one or two Frenchmen that squatted in the flats further west,and married squaws; and some of the Scotch-Irishers, from the CherryValley, would come on to the lake, and borrow my canoe to take a messof parch, or drop a line for salmon-trout; but, in the main, it was acheerful place, and I had but little to disturb me in it. John wouldcome, and John knows." Mohegan turned his dark face at this appeal; and,moving his hand forward with graceful motion of assent, he spoke, usingthe Delaware language:

  "The land was owned by my people; we gave it to my brother incouncil--to the Fire-eater; and what the Delawares give lasts as long asthe waters run. Hawk-eye smoked at that council, for we loved him."

  "No, no, John," said Natty, "I was no chief, seeing that I knowednothing of scholarship, and had a white skin. But it was a comfortablehunting-ground then, lad, and would have been so this day, but for themoney of Marmaduke Temple, and the twisty ways of the law."

  "It must have been a sight of melancholy pleasure in deed," saidEdwards, while his eye roved along the shores and over the hills, wherethe clearings, groaning with the golden corn, were cheering the forestwith the signs of life, "to have roamed over these mountains and alongthis sheet of beautiful water, without a living soul to speak to, or tothwart your humor."

  "Haven't I said it was cheerful?" said Leather-Stocking. "Yes, yes, whenthe trees began to be covered with leaves, and the ice was out ofthe hake, it was a second paradise. I have travelled the woods forfifty-three years, and have made them my home for more than forty, andI can say that I have met but one place that was more to my liking; andthat was only to eyesight, and not for hunting or fishing."

  "And where was that?" asked Edwards.

  "Where! why, up on the Catskills. I used often to go up into themountains after wolves' skins and bears; once they paid me to get thema stuffed painter, and so I often went. There's a place in them hillsthat I used to climb to when I wanted to see the carryings on of theworld, that would well pay any man for a barked shin or a torn moccasin.You know the Catskills, lad; for you must have seen them on your left,as you followed the river up from York, looking as blue as a piece ofclear sky, and holding the clouds on their tops, as the smoke curlsover the head of an Indian chief at the council fire. Well, there's theHigh-peak and the Round-top, which lay back like a father and motheramong their children, seeing they are far above all the other hills. Butthe place I mean is next to the river, where one of the ridges juts outa little from the rest, and where the rocks fall, for the best part ofa thousand feet, so much up and down, that a man standing on their edgesis fool enough to think he can jump from top to bottom."

  "What see you when you get there?" asked Edwards,

  "Creation," said Natty, dropping the end of his rod into the water, andsweeping one hand around him in a circle, "all creation, lad. I wason that hill when Vaughan burned 'Sopus in the last war; and I saw thevessels come out of the Highlands as plain as I can see that lime-scowrowing into the Susquehanna, though one was twenty times farther from methan the other. The river was in sight for seventy miles, looking likea curled shaving under my feet, though it was eight long miles to itsbanks. I saw the hills in the Hampshire grants, the highlands of theriver, and all that God had done, or man could do, far as eye couldreach--you know t
hat the Indians named me for my sight, lad; and fromthe flat on the top of that mountain, I have often found the place whereAlbany stands. And as for 'Sopus, the day the royal troops burntthe town, the smoke seemed so nigh, that I thought I could hear thescreeches of the women."

  "It must have been worth the toil to meet with such a glorious view."

  "If being the best part of a mile in the air and having men's farms andhouses your feet, with rivers looking like ribbons, and mountains biggerthan the 'Vision seeming to be hay-stacks of green grass under you,gives any satisfaction to a man, I can recommend the spot. When I firstcame into the woods to live, I used to have weak spells when I feltlonesome: and then I would go into the Catskills, and spend a few dayson that hill to look at the ways of man; but it's now many a year sinceI felt any such longings, and I am getting too old for rugged rocks. Butthere's a place, a short two miles back of that very hill, that in latetimes I relished better than the mountains: for it was more covered withthe trees, and natural."

  "And where was that?" inquired Edwards, whose curiosity was stronglyexcited by the simple description of the hunter.

  "Why, there's a fall in the hills where the water of two little ponds.that lie near each other, breaks out of their bounds and runs over therocks into the valley. The stream is, maybe, such a one as would turna mill, if so useless thing was wanted in the wilderness. But the handthat made that 'Leap' never made a mill. There the water comes crookingand winding among the rocks, first so slow that a trout could swim init, and then starting and running like a creatur' that wanted to make afar spring, till it gets to where the mountain divides, like the clefthoof of a deer, leaving a deep hollow for the brook to tumble into. Thefirst pitch is nigh two hundred feet, and the water looks like flakesof driven snow afore it touches the bottom; and there the stream gathersitself together again for a new start, and maybe flutters over fiftyfeet of flat rock before it falls for another hundred, when it jumpsabout from shelf to shelf, first turning this-away and then turningthat-away, striving to get out of the hollow, till it finally comes tothe plain."

  "I have never heard of this spot before; it is not mentioned in thebooks."

  "I never read a book in my life," said Leather-Stocking; "and how shoulda man who has lived in towns and schools know anything about the wondersof the woods? No, no, lad; there has that little stream of water beenplaying among the hills since He made the world, and not a dozen whitemen have ever laid eyes on it. The rock sweeps like mason-work, in ahalf-round, on both sides of the fall, and shelves over the bottom forfifty feet; so that when I've been sitting at the foot of the firstpitch, and my hounds have run into the caverns behind the sheet ofwater, they've looked no bigger than so many rabbits. To my judgment,lad, it's the best piece of work that I've met with in the woods; andnone know how often the hand of God is seen in the wilderness, but themthat rove it for a man's life."

  "What becomes of the water? In which direction does it run? Is it atributary of the Delaware?"

  "Anan!" said Natty.

  "Does the water run into the Delaware?"

  "No, no; it's a drop for the old Hudson, and a merry time it has tillit gets down off the mountain. I've sat on the shelving rock many a longhour, boy, and watched the bubbles as they shot by me, and thoughthow long it would be before that very water, which seemed made for thewilderness, would be under the bottom of a vessel, and tossing in thesalt sea. It is a spot to make a man solemnize. You go right down intothe valley that lies to the east of the High Peak, where, in the fall ofthe year, thousands of acres of woods are before your eyes, in the deephollow, and along the side of the mountain, painted like ten thousandrainbows, by no hand of man, though without the ordering of God'sprovidence."

  "You are eloquent, Leather-Stocking," exclaimed the youth.

  "Anan!" repeated Natty.

  "The recollection of the sight has warmed your blood, old man. How manyyears is it since you saw the place?"

  The hunter made no reply; but, bending his ear near the water, he satholding his breath, and listening attentively as if to some distantsound. At length he raised his head, and said:

  "If I hadn't fastened the hounds with my own hands, with a fresh leashof green buckskin, I'd take a Bible oath that I heard old Hector ringinghis cry on the mountain."

  "It is impossible," said Edwards; "it is not an hour since I saw him inhis kennel."

  By this time the attention of Mohegan was attracted to the sounds; but,notwithstanding the youth was both silent and attentive, he could hearnothing but the lowing of some cattle from the western hills. He lookedat the old men, Natty sitting with his hand to his ear, like a trumpet,and Mohegan bending forward, with an arm raised to a level with hisface, holding the forefinger elevated as a signal for attention, andlaughed aloud at what he deemed to be imaginary sounds.

  "Laugh if you will, boy," said Leather-Stocking, "the hounds be out, andare hunting a deer, No man can deceive me in such a matter. I wouldn'thave had the thing happen for a beaver's skin. Not that I care for thelaw; but the venison is lean now, and the dumb things run the flesh offtheir own bones for no good. Now do you hear the hounds?"

  Edwards started, as a full cry broke on his ear, changing from thedistant sounds that were caused by some intervening hill, to confusedechoes that rang among the rocks that the dogs were passing, and thendirectly to a deep and hollow baying that pealed under the forest underthe Lake shore. These variations in the tones of the hounds passed withamazing rapidity; and, while his eyes were glancing along the margin ofthe water, a tearing of the branches of the alder and dogwood caughthis attention, at a spot near them and at the next moment a noble bucksprang on the shore, and buried himself in the lake. A full-mouthedcry followed, when Hector and the slut shot through the opening in thebushes, and darted into the lake also, bearing their breasts gallantlyagainst the water.