The Prairie (11 page)

The trapper made no reply to the harsh suspicion which the other did
not scruple to utter without the smallest delicacy, notwithstanding the
explanations and denials to which he had just listened. The summons of
the unnurtured squatter brought an immediate accession to their party.
Four or five of his sons made their appearance from beneath as many
covers, where they had been posted under the impression that the figures
they had seen, on the swell of the prairie, were a part of the Sioux
band. As each man approached, and dropped his rifle into the hollow
of his arm, he cast an indolent but enquiring glance at the stranger,
though neither of them expressed the least curiosity to know whence he
had come or why he was there. This forbearance, however, proceeded only
in part, from the sluggishness of their common temper; for long and
frequent experience in scenes of a similar character, had taught them
the virtue of discretion. The trapper endured their sullen scrutiny with
the steadiness of one as practised as themselves, and with the entire
composure of innocence. Content with the momentary examination he had
made, the eldest of the group, who was in truth the delinquent sentinel
by whose remissness the wily Mahtoree had so well profited, turned
towards his father and said bluntly—

"If this man is all that is left of the party I saw on the upland,
yonder, we haven't altogether thrown away our ammunition."

"Asa, you are right," said the father, turning suddenly on the trapper,
a lost idea being recalled by the hint of his son. "How is it, stranger;
there were three of you, just now, or there is no virtue in moonlight?"

"If you had seen the Tetons racing across the prairies, like so many
black-looking evil ones, on the heels of your cattle, my friend, it
would have been an easy matter to have fancied them a thousand."

"Ay, for a town bred boy, or a skeary woman; though for that matter,
there is old Esther; she has no more fear of a red-skin than of a
suckling cub, or of a wolf pup. I'll warrant ye, had your thievish
devils made their push by the light of the sun, the good woman would
have been smartly at work among them, and the Siouxes would have found
she was not given to part with her cheese and her butter without a
price. But there'll come a time, stranger, right soon, when justice will
have its dues, and that too, without the help of what is called the law.
We ar' of a slow breed, it may be said, and it is often said, of us; but
slow is sure; and there ar' few men living, who can say they ever struck
a blow, that they did not get one as hard in return, from Ishmael Bush."

"Then has Ishmael Bush followed the instinct of the beasts rather than
the principle which ought to belong to his kind," returned the stubborn
trapper. "I have struck many a blow myself, but never have I felt the
same ease of mind that of right belongs to a man who follows his reason,
after slaying even a fawn when there was no call for his meat or hide,
as I have felt at leaving a Mingo unburied in the woods, when following
the trade of open and honest warfare."

"What, you have been a soldier, have you, trapper! I made a forage or
two among the Cherokees, when I was a lad myself; and I followed mad
Anthony,
[10]
one season, through the beeches; but there was altogether
too much tatooing and regulating among his troops for me; so I left him
without calling on the paymaster to settle my arrearages. Though, as
Esther afterwards boasted, she had made such use of the pay-ticket, that
the States gained no great sum, by the oversight. You have heard of such
a man as mad Anthony, if you tarried long among the soldiers."

"I fou't my last battle, as I hope, under his orders," returned the
trapper, a gleam of sunshine shooting from his dim eyes, as if the
event was recollected with pleasure, and then a sudden shade of sorrow
succeeding, as though he felt a secret admonition against dwelling
on the violent scenes in which he had so often been an actor. "I was
passing from the States on the sea-shore into these far regions, when
I cross'd the trail of his army, and I fell in, on his rear, just as a
looker-on; but when they got to blows, the crack of my rifle was heard
among the rest, though to my shame it may be said, I never knew the
right of the quarrel as well as a man of threescore and ten should know
the reason of his acts afore he takes mortal life, which is a gift he
never can return!"

"Come, stranger," said the emigrant, his rugged nature a good deal
softened when he found that they had fought on the same side in the
wild warfare of the west, "it is of small account, what may be the
ground-work of the disturbance, when it's a Christian ag'in a savage. We
shall hear more of this horse-stealing to-morrow; to-night we can do no
wiser or safer thing than to sleep."

So saying, Ishmael deliberately led the way back towards his rifled
encampment, and ushered the man, whose life a few minutes before had
been in real jeopardy from his resentment, into the presence of his
family. Here, with a very few words of explanation, mingled with scarce
but ominous denunciations against the plunderers, he made his wife
acquainted with the state of things on the prairie, and announced his
own determination to compensate himself for his broken rest, by devoting
the remainder of the night to sleep.

The trapper gave his ready assent to the measure, and adjusted his gaunt
form on the pile of brush that was offered him, with as much composure
as a sovereign could resign himself to sleep, in the security of his
capital and surrounded by his armed protectors. The old man did not
close his eyes, however, until he had assured himself that Ellen Wade
was among the females of the family, and that her relation, or lover,
whichever he might be, had observed the caution of keeping himself out
of view: after which he slept, though with the peculiar watchfulness of
one long accustomed to vigilance, even in the hours of deepest night.

He is too picked, too spruce, too affected, too odd,
As it were too peregrinate, as I may call it.
—Shakespeare.

The Anglo-American is apt to boast, and not without reason, that his
nation may claim a descent more truly honourable than that of any other
people whose history is to be credited. Whatever might have been the
weaknesses of the original colonists, their virtues have rarely been
disputed. If they were superstitious, they were sincerely pious, and,
consequently, honest. The descendants of these simple and single-minded
provincials have been content to reject the ordinary and artificial
means by which honours have been perpetuated in families, and have
substituted a standard which brings the individual himself to the ordeal
of the public estimation, paying as little deference as may be to those
who have gone before him. This forbearance, self-denial, or common
sense, or by whatever term it may be thought proper to distinguish the
measure, has subjected the nation to the imputation of having an ignoble
origin. Were it worth the enquiry, it would be found that more than a
just proportion of the renowned names of the mother-country are, at this
hour, to be found in her ci-devant colonies; and it is a fact well known
to the few who have wasted sufficient time to become the masters of so
unimportant a subject, that the direct descendants of many a failing
line, which the policy of England has seen fit to sustain by collateral
supporters, are now discharging the simple duties of citizens in the
bosom of this republic. The hive has remained stationary, and they
who flutter around the venerable straw are wont to claim the empty
distinction of antiquity, regardless alike of the frailty of their
tenement and of the enjoyments of the numerous and vigorous swarms
that are culling the fresher sweets of a virgin world. But as this is a
subject which belongs rather to the politician and historian than to
the humble narrator of the homebred incidents we are about to reveal,
we must confine our reflections to such matters as have an immediate
relation to the subject of the tale.

Although the citizen of the United States may claim so just an ancestry,
he is far from being exempt from the penalties of his fallen race. Like
causes are well known to produce like effects. That tribute, which it
would seem nations must ever pay, by way of a weary probation, around
the shrine of Ceres, before they can be indulged in her fullest favours,
is in some measure exacted in America, from the descendant instead of
the ancestor. The march of civilisation with us, has a strong analogy
to that of all coming events, which are known "to cast their shadows
before." The gradations of society, from that state which is called
refined to that which approaches as near barbarity as connection with an
intelligent people will readily allow, are to be traced from the bosom
of the States, where wealth, luxury and the arts are beginning to seat
themselves, to those distant, and ever-receding borders which mark
the skirts, and announce the approach, of the nation, as moving mists
precede the signs of day.

Here, and here only, is to be found that widely spread, though far from
numerous class, which may be at all likened to those who have paved
the way for the intellectual progress of nations, in the old world. The
resemblance between the American borderer and his European prototype
is singular, though not always uniform. Both might be called without
restraint; the one being above, the other beyond the reach of the
law—brave, because they were inured to dangers—proud, because they
were independent, and vindictive, because each was the avenger of his
own wrongs. It would be unjust to the borderer to pursue the parallel
much farther. He is irreligious, because he has inherited the knowledge
that religion does not exist in forms, and his reason rejects mockery.
He is not a knight, because he has not the power to bestow distinctions;
and he has not the power, because he is the offspring and not the parent
of a system. In what manner these several qualities are exhibited, in
some of the most strongly marked of the latter class, will be seen in
the course of the ensuing narrative.

Ishmael Bush had passed the whole of a life of more than fifty years on
the skirts of society. He boasted that he had never dwelt where he might
not safely fell every tree he could view from his own threshold; that
the law had rarely been known to enter his clearing, and that his ears
had never willingly admitted the sound of a church bell. His exertions
seldom exceeded his wants, which were peculiar to his class, and rarely
failed of being supplied. He had no respect for any learning except that
of the leech; because he was ignorant of the application of any
other intelligence than such as met the senses. His deference to
this particular branch of science had induced him to listen to the
application of a medical man, whose thirst for natural history had led
him to the desire of profiting by the migratory propensities of the
squatter. This gentleman he had cordially received into his family, or
rather under his protection, and they had journeyed together, thus far
through the prairies, in perfect harmony: Ishmael often felicitating his
wife on the possession of a companion, who would be so serviceable in
their new abode, wherever it might chance to be, until the family were
thoroughly "acclimated." The pursuits of the naturalist frequently led
him, however, for days at a time, from the direct line of the route of
the squatter, who rarely seemed to have any other guide than the sun.
Most men would have deemed themselves fortunate to have been absent on
the perilous occasion of the Sioux inroad, as was Obed Bat, (or as he
was fond of hearing himself called, Battius,) M.D. and fellow of several
cis-Atlantic learned societies—the adventurous gentleman in question.

Although the sluggish nature of Ishmael was not actually awakened, it
was sorely pricked by the liberties which had just been taken with his
property. He slept, however, for it was the hour he had allotted to that
refreshment, and because he knew how impotent any exertions to recover
his effects must prove in the darkness of midnight. He also knew the
danger of his present situation too well to hazard what was left in
pursuit of that which was lost. Much as the inhabitants of the prairies
were known to love horses, their attachment to many other articles,
still in the possession of the travellers, was equally well understood.
It was a common artifice to scatter the herds, and to profit by the
confusion. But Mahtoree had, as it would seem in this particular
undervalued the acuteness of the man he had assailed. The phlegm with
which the squatter learned his loss, has already been seen, and it now
remains to exhibit the results of his more matured determinations.

Though the encampment contained many an eye that was long unclosed, and
many an ear that listened greedily to catch the faintest evidence of
any new alarm, it lay in deep quiet during the remainder of the night.
Silence and fatigue finally performed their accustomed offices, and
before the morning all but the sentinels were again buried in sleep. How
well these indolent watchers discharged their duties, after the assault,
has never been known, inasmuch as nothing occurred to confirm or to
disprove their subsequent vigilance.

Just as day, however, began to dawn, and a grey light was falling from
the heavens, on the dusky objects of the plain, the half startled,
anxious, and yet blooming countenance of Ellen Wade was reared above the
confused mass of children, among whom she had clustered on her stolen
return to the camp. Arising warily she stepped lightly across the
recumbent bodies, and proceeded with the same caution to the utmost
limits of the defences of Ishmael. Here she listened, as if she doubted
the propriety of venturing further. The pause was only momentary,
however; and long before the drowsy eyes of the sentinel, who overlooked
the spot where she stood, had time to catch a glimpse of her active
form, it had glided along the bottom, and stood on the summit of the
nearest eminence.