The Prairie (13 page)

When Dr. Bat was put in full possession of all the circumstances of the
inroad, his concern immediately took a different direction. He had left
sundry folios, and certain boxes well stored with botanical specimens
and defunct animals, under the good keeping of Ishmael, and it
immediately struck his acute mind, that marauders as subtle as the
Siouxes would never neglect the opportunity to despoil him of these
treasures. Nothing that Ellen could say to the contrary served to
appease his apprehensions, and, consequently, they separated; he to
relieve his doubts and fears together, and she to glide, as swiftly and
silently as she had just before passed it, into the still and solitary
tent.

What! fifty of my followers, at a clap!
—Lear.

The day had now fairly opened on the seemingly interminable waste of
the prairie. The entrance of Obed at such a moment into the camp,
accompanied as it was by vociferous lamentations over his anticipated
loss, did not fail to rouse the drowsy family of the squatter. Ishmael
and his sons, together with the forbidding looking brother of his wife,
were all speedily afoot; and then, as the sun began to shed his light on
the place, they became gradually apprised of the extent of their loss.

Ishmael looked round upon the motionless and heavily loaded vehicles
with his teeth firmly compressed, cast a glance at the amazed and
helpless group of children, which clustered around their sullen but
desponding mother, and walked out upon the open land, as if he found the
air of the encampment too confined. He was followed by several of the
men, who were attentive observers, watching the dark expression of his
eye as the index of their own future movements. The whole proceeded in
profound and moody silence to the summit of the nearest swell, whence
they could command an almost boundless view of the naked plains. Here
nothing was visible but a solitary buffaloe, that gleaned a meagre
subsistence from the decaying herbage, at no great distance, and the
ass of the physician, who profited by his freedom to enjoy a meal richer
than common.

"Yonder is one of the creatures left by the villains to mock us," said
Ishmael, glancing his eye towards the latter, "and that the meanest of
the stock. This is a hard country to make a crop in, boys; and yet food
must be found to fill many hungry mouths!"

"The rifle is better than the hoe, in such a place as this," returned
the eldest of his sons, kicking the hard and thirsty soil on which he
stood, with an air of contempt. "It is good for such as they who make
their dinner better on beggars' beans than on homminy. A crow would shed
tears if obliged by its errand to fly across the district."

"What say you, trapper?" returned the father, showing the slight
impression his powerful heel had made on the compact earth, and laughing
with frightful ferocity. "Is this the quality of land a man would choose
who never troubles the county clerk with title deeds?"

"There is richer soil in the bottoms," returned the old man calmly, "and
you have passed millions of acres to get to this dreary spot, where he
who loves to till the 'arth might have received bushels in return for
pints, and that too at the cost of no very grievous labour. If you have
come in search of land, you have journeyed hundreds of miles too far, or
as many leagues too little."

"There is then a better choice towards the other Ocean?" demanded the
squatter, pointing in the direction of the Pacific.

"There is, and I have seen it all," was the answer of the other, who
dropped his rifle to the earth, and stood leaning on its barrel, like
one who recalled the scenes he had witnessed with melancholy pleasure.
"I have seen the waters of the two seas! On one of them was I born, and
raised to be a lad like yonder tumbling boy. America has grown, my
men, since the days of my youth, to be a country larger than I once
had thought the world itself to be. Near seventy years I dwelt in York,
province and state together:—you've been in York, 'tis like?"

"Not I—not I; I never visited the towns; but often have heard the place
you speak of named. 'Tis a wide clearing there, I reckon."

"Too wide! too wide! They scourge the very 'arth with their axes. Such
hills and hunting-grounds as I have seen stripped of the gifts of the
Lord, without remorse or shame! I tarried till the mouths of my hounds
were deafened by the blows of the chopper, and then I came west in
search of quiet. It was a grievous journey that I made; a grievous toil
to pass through falling timber and to breathe the thick air of smoky
clearings, week after week, as I did! 'Tis a far country too, that state
of York from this!"

"It lies ag'in the outer edge of old Kentuck, I reckon; though what the
distance may be I never knew."

"A gull would have to fan a thousand miles of air to find the eastern
sea. And yet it is no mighty reach to hunt across, when shade and game
are plenty! The time has been when I followed the deer in the mountains
of the Delaware and Hudson, and took the beaver on the streams of the
upper lakes in the same season, but my eye was quick and certain at that
day, and my limbs were like the legs of a moose! The dam of Hector,"
dropping his look kindly to the aged hound that crouched at his feet,
"was then a pup, and apt to open on the game the moment she struck the
scent. She gave me a deal of trouble, that slut, she did!"

"Your hound is old, stranger, and a rap on the head would prove a mercy
to the beast."

"The dog is like his master," returned the trapper, without appearing to
heed the brutal advice the other gave, "and will number his days, when
his work amongst the game is over, and not before. To my eye things
seem ordered to meet each other in this creation. 'Tis not the swiftest
running deer that always throws off the hounds, nor the biggest arm
that holds the truest rifle. Look around you, men; what will the Yankee
Choppers say, when they have cut their path from the eastern to the
western waters, and find that a hand, which can lay the 'arth bare at
a blow, has been here and swept the country, in very mockery of their
wickedness. They will turn on their tracks like a fox that doubles, and
then the rank smell of their own footsteps will show them the madness of
their waste. Howsomever, these are thoughts that are more likely to rise
in him who has seen the folly of eighty seasons, than to teach wisdom to
men still bent on the pleasures of their kind! You have need, yet, of
a stirring time, if you think to escape the craft and hatred of the
burnt-wood Indians. They claim to be the lawful owners of this country,
and seldom leave a white more than the skin he boasts of, when once they
get the power, as they always have the will, to do him harm."

"Old man," said Ishmael sternly, "to which people do you belong? You
have the colour and speech of a Christian, while it seems that your
heart is with the redskins."

"To me there is little difference in nations. The people I loved most
are scattered as the sands of the dry river-beds fly before the fall
hurricanes, and life is too short to make use and custom with strangers,
as one can do with such as he has dwelt amongst for years. Still am I a
man without the cross of Indian blood; and what is due from a warrior
to his nation, is owing by me to the people of the States; though little
need have they, with their militia and their armed boats, of help from a
single arm of fourscore."

"Since you own your kin, I may ask a simple question. Where are the
Siouxes who have stolen my cattle?"

"Where is the herd of buffaloes, which was chased by the panther across
this plain, no later than the morning of yesterday? It is as hard—"

"Friend," said Dr. Battius, who had hitherto been an attentive listener,
but who now felt a sudden impulse to mingle in the discourse, "I
am grieved when I find a venator or hunter, of your experience and
observation, following the current of vulgar error. The animal you
describe is in truth a species of the bos ferus, (or bos sylvestris, as
he has been happily called by the poets,) but, though of close affinity,
it is altogether distinct from the common bubulus. Bison is the better
word; and I would suggest the necessity of adopting it in future, when
you shall have occasion to allude to the species."

"Bison or buffaloe, it makes but little matter. The creatur' is the
same, call it by what name you will, and—"

"Pardon me, venerable venator; as classification is the very soul of
the natural sciences, the animal or vegetable must, of necessity, be
characterised by the peculiarities of its species, which is always
indicated by the name—"

"Friend," said the trapper, a little positively, "would the tail of a
beaver make the worse dinner for calling it a mink; or could you eat of
the wolf, with relish, because some bookish man had given it the name of
venison?"

As these questions were put with no little earnestness and some spirit,
there was every probability that a hot discussion would have succeeded
between two men, of whom one was so purely practical and the other so
much given to theory, had not Ishmael seen fit to terminate the dispute,
by bringing into view a subject that was much more important to his own
immediate interests.

"Beavers' tails and minks' flesh may do to talk about before a maple
fire and a quiet hearth," interrupted the squatter, without the smallest
deference to the interested feelings of the disputants; "but something
more than foreign words, or words of any sort, is now needed. Tell me,
trapper, where are your Siouxes skulking?"

"It would be as easy to tell you the colours of the hawk that is
floating beneath yonder white cloud! When a red-skin strikes his blow,
he is not apt to wait until he is paid for the evil deed in lead."

"Will the beggarly savages believe they have enough, when they find
themselves master of all the stock?"

"Natur' is much the same, let it be covered by what skin it may. Do
you ever find your longings after riches less when you have made a good
crop, than before you were master of a kernel of corn? If you do, you
differ from what the experience of a long life tells me is the common
cravings of man."

"Speak plainly, old stranger," said the squatter, striking the butt of
his rifle heavily on the earth, his dull capacity finding no pleasure in
a discourse that was conducted in so obscure allusions; "I have asked a
simple question, and one I know well that you can answer."

"You are right, you are right. I can answer, for I have too often seen
the disposition of my kind to mistake it, when evil is stirring. When
the Siouxes have gathered in the beasts, and have made sure that you are
not upon their heels, they will be back nibbling like hungry wolves to
take the bait they have left or it may be, they'll show the temper of
the great bears, that are found at the falls of the Long River, and
strike at once with the paw, without stopping to nose their prey."

"You have then seen the animals you mention!" exclaimed Dr. Battius,
who had now been thrown out of the conversation quite as long as his
impatience could well brook, and who approached the subject with his
tablets ready opened, as a book of reference. "Can you tell me if what
you encountered was of the species, ursus horribilis—with the ears,
rounded—front, arquated—eyes—destitute of the remarkable supplemental
lid—with six incisores, one false, and four perfect molares—"

"Trapper, go on, for we are engaged in reasonable discourse,"
interrupted Ishmael; "you believe we shall see more of the robbers."

"Nay—nay—I do not call them robbers, for it is the usage of their
people, and what may be called the prairie law."

"I have come five hundred miles to find a place where no man can ding
the words of the law in my ears," said Ishmael, fiercely, "and I am
not in a humour to stand quietly at a bar, while a red-skin sits in
judgment. I tell you, trapper, if another Sioux is seen prowling around
my camp, wherever it may be, he shall feel the contents of old Kentuck,"
slapping his rifle, in a manner that could not be easily misconstrued,
"though he wore the medal of Washington,
[11]
himself. I call the man a
robber who takes that which is not his own."

"The Teton, and the Pawnee, and the Konza, and men of a dozen other
tribes, claim to own these naked fields."

"Natur' gives them the lie in their teeth. The air, the water, and the
ground, are free gifts to man, and no one has the power to portion them
out in parcels. Man must drink, and breathe, and walk,—and therefore
each has a right to his share of 'arth. Why do not the surveyors of the
States set their compasses and run their lines over our heads as well as
beneath our feet? Why do they not cover their shining sheep-skins with
big words, giving to the landholder, or perhaps he should be called
air holder, so many rods of heaven, with the use of such a star for a
boundary-mark, and such a cloud to turn a mill?"

As the squatter uttered his wild conceit, he laughed from the very
bottom of his chest, in scorn. The deriding but frightful merriment
passed from the mouth of one of his ponderous sons to that of the other,
until it had made the circuit of the whole family.

"Come, trapper," continued Ishmael, in a tone of better humour, like a
man who feels that he has triumphed, "neither of us, I reckon, has ever
had much to do with title-deeds, or county clerks, or blazed trees;
therefore we will not waste words on fooleries. You ar' a man that has
tarried long in this clearing, and now I ask your opinion, face to face,
without fear or favour, if you had the lead in my business, what would
you do?"

The old man hesitated, and seemed to give the required advice with deep
reluctance. As every eye, however, was fastened on him, and whichever
way he turned his face, he encountered a look riveted on the lineaments
of his own working countenance, he answered in a low, melancholy, tone—