“The knaves have outwitted themselves!
I am far from certain that I should not have fired the prairie, to have got the benefit of this very smoke to hide our movements, had not the heartless imps saved us the trouble.
I’ve known such things done in my day, and done with success.
Come, lady, put your tender foot upon the ground—for a fearful time has it been to one of your breeding and skeary qualities.
Ah’s me! what have I not known the young, and the delicate, and the virtuous, and the modest, to undergo, in my time, among the horrifications and circumventions of Indian warfare!
Come, it is a short quarter of a mile to the other bank, and then our trail, at least, will be broken.”
Paul had by this time assisted Ellen to dismount, and he now stood looking, with rueful eyes, at the naked banks of the river.
Neither tree nor shrub grew along its borders, with the exception of here and there a solitary thicket of low bushes, from among which it would not have been an easy matter to have found a dozen stems of a size sufficient to make an ordinary walking-stick.
“Harkee, old trapper,” the moody-looking bee-hunter exclaimed; “it is very well to talk of the other side of this ripple of a river, or brook, or whatever you may call it, but in my judgment it would be a smart rifle that would throw its lead across it—that is, to any detriment to Indian, or deer.”
“That it would—that it would; though I carry a piece, here, that has done its work in time of need, at as great a distance.”
“And do you mean to shoot Ellen and the captain’s lady across; or do you intend them to go, trout fashion, with their mouths under water?”
“Is this river too deep to be forded?” asked Middleton, who, like Paul, began to consider the impossibility of transporting her, whose safety he valued more than his own, to the opposite shore.
“When the mountains above feed it with their torrents, it is, as you see, a swift and powerful stream.
Yet have I crossed its sandy bed, in my time, without wetting a knee.
But we have the Sioux horses; I warrant me, that the kicking imps will swim like so many deer.”
“Old trapper,” said Paul, thrusting his fingers into his mop of a head, as was usual with him, when any difficulty confounded his philosophy, “I have swam like a fish in my day, and I can do it again, when there is need; nor do I much regard the weather; but I question if you get Nelly to sit a horse, with this water whirling like a mill-race before her eyes; besides, it is manifest the thing is not to be done dry shod.”
“Ah, the lad is right.
We must to our inventions, therefore, or the river cannot be crossed.” Then, cutting the discourse short, he turned to the Pawnee, and explained to him the difficulty which existed in relation to the women.
The young warrior listened gravely, and throwing the buffaloe-skin from his shoulder he immediately commenced, assisted by the occasional aid of the understanding old man, the preparations necessary to effect this desirable object.
The hide was soon drawn into the shape of an umbrella top, or an inverted parachute, by thongs of deer-skin, with which both the labourers were well provided.
A few light sticks served to keep the parts from collapsing, or falling in.
When this simple and natural expedient was arranged, it was placed on the water, the Indian making a sign that it was ready to receive its freight.
Both Inez and Ellen hesitated to trust themselves in a bark of so frail a construction, nor would Middleton or Paul consent that they should do so, until each had assured himself, by actual experiment, that the vessel was capable of sustaining a load much heavier than it was destined to receive.
Then, indeed, their scruples were reluctantly overcome, and the skin was made to receive its precious burden.
“Now leave the Pawnee to be the pilot,” said the trapper; “my hand is not so steady as it used to be; but he has limbs like toughened hickory.
Leave all to the wisdom of the Pawnee.”
The husband and lover could not well do otherwise, and they were fain to become deeply interested, it is true, but passive spectators of this primitive species of ferrying.
The Pawnee selected the beast of Mahtoree, from among the three horses, with a readiness that proved he was far from being ignorant of the properties of that noble animal, and throwing himself upon its back, he rode into the margin of the river.
Thrusting an end of his lance into the hide, he bore the light vessel up against the stream, and giving his steed the rein, they pushed boldly into the current.
Middleton and Paul followed, pressing as nigh the bark as prudence would at all warrant.
In this manner the young warrior bore his precious cargo to the opposite bank in perfect safety, without the slightest inconvenience to the passengers, and with a steadiness and celerity which proved that both horse and rider were not unused to the operation.
When the shore was gained, the young Indian undid his work, threw the skin over his shoulder, placed the sticks under his arm, and returned, without speaking, to transfer the remainder of the party, in a similar manner, to what was very justly considered the safer side of the river.
“Now, friend Doctor,” said the old man, when he saw the Indian plunging into the river a second time, “do I know there is faith in yonder Red-skin.
He is a good-looking, ay, and an honest-looking youth, but the winds of Heaven are not more deceitful than these savages, when the devil has fairly beset them.
Had the Pawnee been a Teton, or one of them heartless Mingoes, that used to be prowling through the woods of York, a time back, that is, some sixty years agone, we should have seen his back and not his face turned towards us.
My heart had its misgivings when I saw the lad choose the better horse, for it would be as easy to leave us with that beast, as it would for a nimble pigeon to part company from a flock of noisy and heavy winged crows.
But you see that truth is in the boy, and make a Red-skin once your friend, he is yours so long as you deal honestly by him.”
“What may be the distance to the sources of this stream?” demanded Doctor Battius, whose eyes were rolling over the whirling eddies of the current, with a very portentous expression of doubt. “At what distance may its secret springs be found?”
“That may be as the weather proves.
I warrant me your legs would be a-weary before you had followed its bed into the Rocky Mountains; but then there are seasons when it might be done without wetting a foot.”
“And in what particular divisions of the year do these periodical seasons occur?”
“He that passes this spot a few months from this time, will find that foaming water-course a desert of drifting sand.”
The naturalist pondered deeply.
Like most others, who are not endowed with a superfluity of physical fortitude, the worthy man had found the danger of passing the river, in so simple a manner, magnifying itself in his eyes so rapidly, as the moment of adventure approached, that he actually contemplated the desperate effort of going round the river, in order to escape the hazard of crossing it.
It may not be necessary to dwell on the incredible ingenuity, with which terror will at any time prop a tottering argument.
The worthy Obed had gone over the whole subject, with commendable diligence, and had just arrived at the consoling conclusion, that there was nearly as much glory in discerning the hidden sources of so considerable a stream, as in adding a plant, or an insect, to the lists of the learned, when the Pawnee reached the shore for the second time.
The old man took his seat, with the utmost deliberation, in the vessel of skin (so soon as it had been duly arranged for his reception), and having carefully disposed of Hector between his legs, he beckoned to his companion to occupy the third place.
The naturalist placed a foot in the frail vessel, as an elephant will try a bridge, or a horse is often seen to make a similar experiment, before he will trust the whole of his corporeal treasure on the dreaded flat, and then withdrew, just as the old man believed he was about to seat himself.
“Venerable venator,” he said, mournfully, “this is a most unscientific bark.
There is an inward monitor which bids me distrust its security!”