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—”