But did not my father once ride on a horse, like a rich chief of the Pale-faces, instead of travelling on foot like a hungry Konza?”
“Never!
The Wahcondah has given me legs, and he has given me resolution to use them.
For sixty summers and winters did I journey in the woods of America, and ten tiresome years have I dwelt on these open fields, without finding need to call often upon the gifts of the other creatur’s of the Lord to carry me from place to place.”
“If my father has so long lived in the shade, why has he come upon the prairies?
The sun will scorch him.”
The old man looked sorrowfully about for a moment, and then turning with a confidential air to the other, he replied—
“I passed the spring, summer, and autumn of life among the trees.
The winter of my days had come, and found me where I loved to be, in the quiet—ay, and in the honesty of the woods!
Teton, then I slept happily, where my eyes could look up through the branches of the pines and the beeches, to the very dwelling of the Good Spirit of my people.
If I had need to open my heart to him, while his fires were burning above my head, the door was open and before my eyes.
But the axes of the choppers awoke me.
For a long time my ears heard nothing but the uproar of clearings.
I bore it like a warrior and a man; there was a reason that I should bear it: but when that reason was ended, I bethought me to get beyond the accursed sounds.
It was trying to the courage and to the habits, but I had heard of these vast and naked fields, and I came hither to escape the wasteful temper of my people.
Tell me, Dahcotah, have I not done well?”
The trapper laid his long lean finger on the naked shoulder of the Indian as he ended, and seemed to demand his felicitations on his ingenuity and success, with a ghastly smile, in which triumph was singularly blended with regret.
His companion listened intently, and replied to the question by saying, in the sententious manner of his race—
“The head of my father is very grey; he has always lived with men, and he has seen everything.
What he does is good; what he speaks is wise.
Now let him say, is he sure that he is a stranger to the Big-knives, who are looking for their beasts on every side of the prairies and cannot find them?”
“Dahcotah, what I have said is true. I live alone, and never do I mingle with men whose skins are white, if—”
His mouth was suddenly closed by an interruption that was as mortifying as it was unexpected.
The words were still on his tongue, when the bushes on the side of the thicket where they stood, opened, and the whole of the party whom he had just left, and in whose behalf he was endeavouring to reconcile his love of truth to the necessity of prevaricating, came openly into view.
A pause of mute astonishment succeeded this unlooked-for spectacle.
Then Mahtoree, who did not suffer a muscle or a joint to betray the wonder and surprise he actually experienced, motioned towards the advancing friends of the trapper with an air of assumed civility, and a smile, that lighted his fierce, dark, visage, as the glare of the setting sun reveals the volume and load of the cloud, that is charged to bursting with the electric fluid.
He however disdained to speak, or to give any other evidence of his intentions than by calling to his side the distant band, who sprang forward at his beck, with the alacrity of willing subordinates.
In the mean time the friends of the old man continued to advance.
Middleton himself was foremost, supporting the light and aerial looking figure of Inez, on whose anxious countenance he cast such occasional glances of tender interest as, in similar circumstances, a father would have given to his child.
Paul led Ellen, close in their rear.
But while the eye of the bee-hunter did not neglect his blooming companion, it scowled angrily, resembling more the aspect of the sullen and retreating bear than the soft intelligence of a favoured suitor.
Obed and Asinus came last, the former leading his companion with a degree of fondness that could hardly be said to be exceeded by any other of the party.
The approach of the naturalist was far less rapid than that of those who preceded him.
His feet seemed equally reluctant to advance, or to remain stationary; his position bearing a great analogy to that of Mahomet’s coffin, with the exception that the quality of repulsion rather than that of attraction held him in a state of rest.
The repulsive power in his rear however appeared to predominate, and by a singular exception, as he would have said himself, to all philosophical principles, it rather increased than diminished by distance.
As the eyes of the naturalist steadily maintained a position that was the opposite of his route, they served to give a direction to those of the observers of all these movements, and at once furnished a sufficient clue by which to unravel the mystery of so sudden a debouchement from the cover.
Another cluster of stout and armed men was seen at no great distance, just rounding a point of the thicket, and moving directly though cautiously towards the place where the band of the Siouxes was posted, as a squadron of cruisers is often seen to steer across the waste of waters, towards the rich but well-protected convoy.
In short, the family of the squatter, or at least such among them as were capable of bearing arms, appeared in view, on the broad prairie, evidently bent on revenging their wrongs.
Mahtoree and his party slowly retired from the thicket, the moment they caught a view of the strangers, until they halted on a swell that commanded a wide and unobstructed view of the naked fields on which they stood.
Here the Dahcotah appeared disposed to make his stand, and to bring matters to an issue.
Notwithstanding this retreat, in which he compelled the trapper to accompany him, Middleton still advanced, until he too halted on the same elevation, and within speaking distance of the warlike Siouxes.
The borderers in their turn took a favourable position, though at a much greater distance.
The three groups now resembled so many fleets at sea, lying with their topsails to the masts, with the commendable precaution of reconnoitring, before each could ascertain who among the strangers might be considered as friends, and who as foes.
During this moment of suspense, the dark, threatening, eye of Mahtoree rolled from one of the strange parties to the other, in keen and hasty examination, and then it turned its withering look on the old man, as the chief said, in a tone of high and bitter scorn—
“The Big-knives are fools!
It is easier to catch the cougar asleep, than to find a blind Dahcotah.
Did the white head think to ride on the horse of a Sioux?”
The trapper, who had found time to collect his perplexed faculties, saw at once that Middleton, having perceived Ishmael on the trail by which they had fled, preferred trusting to the hospitality of the savages, than to the treatment he would be likely to receive from the hands of the squatter.
He therefore disposed himself to clear the way for the favourable reception of his friends, since he found that the unnatural coalition became necessary to secure the liberty, if not the lives, of the party.
“Did my brother ever go on a war-path to strike my people?” he calmly demanded of the indignant chief, who still awaited his reply.