What a plight would you now be in, if there was need for a long and a quick push with our heels?”
“The fault exists in the formation of the quadruped,” said Obed, whose placid temper began to revolt under so many scandalous imputations. “Had there been rotary levers for two of the members, a moiety of the fatigue would have been saved, for one item—”
“That, for your moiety’s and rotaries, and items, man; a jaded ass is a jaded ass, and he who denies it is but a brother of the beast itself.
Now, captain, are we driven to choose one of two evils. We must either abandon this man, who has been too much with us through good and bad to be easily cast away, or we must seek a cover to let the animal rest.”
“Venerable venator!” exclaimed the alarmed Obed; “I conjure you by all the secret sympathies of our common nature, by all the hidden—”
“Ah, fear has brought him to talk a little rational sense!
It is not natur’, truly, to abandon a brother in distress; and the Lord He knows that I have never yet done the shameful deed.
You are right, friend, you are right; we must all be hidden, and that speedily.
But what to do with the ass!
Friend Doctor, do you truly value the life of the creatur’?”
“He is an ancient and faithful servant,” returned the disconsolate Obed, “and with pain should I see him come to any harm.
Fetter his lower limbs, and leave him to repose in this bed of herbage.
I will engage he shall be found where he is left, in the morning.”
“And the Siouxes?
What would become of the beast should any of the red imps catch a peep at his ears, growing up out of the grass like to mullein-tops?” cried the bee-hunter. “They would stick him as full of arrows, as a woman’s cushion is full of pins, and then believe they had done the job for the father of all rabbits!
My word for it out they would find out their blunder at the first mouthful!”
Middleton, who began to grow impatient under the protracted discussion, interposed, and, as a good deal of deference was paid to his rank, he quickly prevailed in his efforts to effect a sort of compromise.
The humble Asinus, too meek and too weary to make any resistance, was soon tethered and deposited in his bed of dying grass, where he was left with a perfect confidence on the part of his master of finding him, again, at the expiration of a few hours.
The old man strongly remonstrated against this arrangement, and more than once hinted that the knife was much more certain than the tether, but the petitions of Obed, aided perhaps by the secret reluctance of the trapper to destroy the beast, were the means of saving its life.
When Asinus was thus secured, and as his master believed secreted, the whole party proceeded to find some place where they might rest themselves, during the time required for the repose of the animal.
According to the calculations of the trapper, they had ridden twenty miles since the commencement of their flight.
The delicate frame of Inez began to droop under the excessive fatigue, nor was the more robust, but still feminine person of Ellen, insensible to the extraordinary effort she had made.
Middleton himself was not sorry to repose, nor did the vigorous and high-spirited Paul hesitate to confess that he should be all the better for a little rest.
The old man alone seemed indifferent to the usual claims of nature.
Although but little accustomed to the unusual description of exercise he had just been taking, he appeared to bid defiance to all the usual attacks of human infirmities.
Though evidently so near its dissolution, his attenuated frame still stood like the shaft of seasoned oak, dry, naked, and tempest-driven, but unbending and apparently indurated to the consistency of stone.
On the present occasion he conducted the search for a resting-place, which was immediately commenced, with all the energy of youth, tempered by the discretion and experience of his great age.
The bed of grass, in which the Doctor had been met, and in which his ass had just been left, was followed a little distance until it was found that the rolling swells of the prairie were melting away into one vast level plain, that was covered, for miles on miles, with the same species of herbage.
“Ah, this may do, this may do,” said the old man, when they arrived on the borders of this sea of withered grass. “I know the spot, and often have I lain in its secret holes, for days at a time, while the savages have been hunting the buffaloes on the open ground.
We must enter it with great care, for a broad trail might be seen, and Indian curiosity is a dangerous neighbour.”
Leading the way himself, he selected a spot where the tall coarse herbage stood most erect, growing not unlike a bed of reeds, both in height and density.
Here he entered, singly, directing the others to follow as nearly as possible in his own footsteps.
When they had paused for some hundred or two feet into the wilderness of weeds, he gave his directions to Paul and Middleton, who continued a direct route deeper into the place, while he dismounted and returned on his tracks to the margin of the meadow.
Here he passed many minutes in replacing the trodden grass, and in effacing, as far as possible, every evidence of their passage.
In the mean time the rest of the party continued their progress, not without toil, and consequently at a very moderate gait, until they had penetrated a mile into the place.
Here they found a spot suited to their circumstances, and, dismounting, they began to make their dispositions to pass the remainder of the night.
By this time the trapper had rejoined the party, and again resumed the direction of their proceedings.
The weeds and grass were soon plucked and cut from an area of sufficient extent, and a bed for Inez and Ellen was speedily made, a little apart, which for sweetness and ease might have rivalled one of down.
The exhausted females, after receiving some light refreshments from the provident stores of Paul and the old man, now sought their repose, leaving their more stout companions at liberty to provide for their own necessities.
Middleton and Paul were not long in following the example of their betrothed, leaving the trapper and the naturalist still seated around a savoury dish of bison’s meat, which had been cooked at a previous halt, and which was, as usual, eaten cold.
A certain lingering sensation, which had so long been uppermost in the mind of Obed, temporarily banished sleep; and as for the old man, his wants were rendered, by habit and necessity, as seemingly subject to his will as if they altogether depended on the pleasure of the moment.
Like his companion he chose therefore to watch, instead of sleeping.
“If the children of ease and security knew the hardships and dangers the students of nature encounter in their behalf,” said Obed, after a moment of silence, when Middleton took his leave for the night, “pillars of silver, and statues of brass would be reared as the everlasting monuments of their glory!”
“I know not, I know not,” returned his companion; “silver is far from plenty, at least in the wilderness, and your brazen idols are forbidden in the commandments of the Lord.”
“Such indeed was the opinion of the great lawgiver of the Jews, but the Egyptians, and the Chaldeans, the Greeks, and the Romans, were wont to manifest their gratitude, in these types of the human form.
Indeed many of the illustrious masters of antiquity, have by the aid of science and skill, even outdone the works of nature, and exhibited a beauty and perfection in the human form that are difficult to be found in the rarest living specimens of any of the species; genus, homo.”
“Can your idols walk or speak, or have they the glorious gift of reason?” demanded the trapper, with some indignation in his voice; “though but little given to run into the noise and chatter of the settlements, yet have I been into the towns in my day, to barter the peltry for lead and powder, and often have I seen your waxen dolls, with their tawdry clothes and glass eyes—”
“Waxen dolls!” interrupted Obed; “it is profanation, in the view of the arts, to liken the miserable handy-work of the dealers in wax to the pure models of antiquity!”
“It is profanation in the eyes of the Lord,” retorted the old man, “to liken the works of his creatur’s, to the power of his own hand.”
“Venerable venator,” resumed the naturalist, clearing his throat, like one who was much in earnest, “let us discuss understandingly and in amity.