They, who were of that equivocal age which admitted them to the hunts, while their discretion was still too doubtful to permit them to be trusted on the war-path, hung around the skirts of the whole, catching, from the fierce models before them, that gravity of demeanour and restraint of manner, which in time was to become so deeply ingrafted in their own characters.
A few of the still older class, and who had heard the whoop in anger, were a little more presuming, pressing nigher to the chiefs, though far from presuming to mingle in their councils, sufficiently distinguished by being permitted to catch the wisdom which fell from lips so venerated.
The ordinary warriors of the band were still less diffident, not hesitating to mingle among the chiefs of lesser note, though far from assuming the right to dispute the sentiments of any established brave, or to call in question the prudence of measures, that were recommended by the more gifted counsellors of the nation.
Among the chiefs themselves there was a singular compound of exterior.
They were divided into two classes; those who were mainly indebted for their influence to physical causes, and to deeds in arms, and those who had become distinguished rather for their wisdom than for their services in the field.
The former was by far the most numerous and the most important class.
They were men of stature and mien, whose stern countenances were often rendered doubly imposing by those evidences of their valour, which had been roughly traced on their lineaments by the hands of their enemies.
That class, which had gained its influence by a moral ascendency was extremely limited.
They were uniformly to be distinguished by the quick and lively expression of their eyes, by the air of distrust that marked their movements, and occasionally by the vehemence of their utterance in those sudden outbreakings of the mind, by which their present consultations were, from time to time, distinguished.
In the very centre of a ring, formed by these chosen counsellors, was to be seen the person of the disquieted, but seemingly calm, Mahtoree.
There was a conjunction of all the several qualities of the others in his person and character.
Mind as well as matter had contributed to establish his authority.
His scars were as numerous and deep as those of the whitest head in his nation; his limbs were in their greatest vigour; his courage at its fullest height.
Endowed with this rare combination of moral and physical influence, the keenest eye in all that assembly was wont to lower before his threatening glance.
Courage and cunning had established his ascendency, and it had been rendered, in some degree, sacred by time.
He knew so well how to unite the powers of reason and force, that in a state of society, which admitted of a greater display of his energies, the Teton would in all probability have been both a conqueror and a despot.
A little apart from the gathering of the band, was to be seen a set of beings of an entirely different origin.
Taller and far more muscular in their persons, the lingering vestiges of their Saxon and Norman ancestry were yet to be found beneath the swarthy complexions, which had been bestowed by an American sun.
It would have been a curious investigation, for one skilled in such an enquiry, to have traced those points of difference, by which the offspring of the most western European was still to be distinguished from the descendant of the most remote Asiatic, now that the two, in the revolutions of the world, were approximating in their habits, their residence, and not a little in their characters.
The group, of whom we write, was composed of the family of the squatter.
They stood indolent, lounging, and inert, as usual when no immediate demand was made on their dormant energies, clustered in front of some four or five habitations of skin, for which they were indebted to the hospitality of their Teton allies.
The terms of their unexpected confederation were sufficiently explained, by the presence of the horses and domestic cattle that were quietly grazing on the bottom beneath, under the jealous eyes of the spirited Hetty.
Their wagons were drawn about the lodges, in a sort of irregular barrier, which at once manifested that their confidence was not entirely restored, while, on the other hand, their policy or indolence prevented any very positive exhibition of distrust.
There was a singular union of passive enjoyment and of dull curiosity slumbering in every dull countenance, as each of the party stood leaning on his rifle, regarding the movements of the Sioux conference.
Still no sign of expectation or interest escaped from the youngest among them, the whole appearing to emulate the most phlegmatic of their savage allies, in an exhibition of patience.
They rarely spoke; and when they did it was in some short and contemptuous remark, which served to put the physical superiority of a white man, and that of an Indian, in a sufficiently striking point of view.
In short, the family of Ishmael appeared now to be in the plenitude of an enjoyment, which depended on inactivity, but which was not entirely free from certain confused glimmerings of a perspective, in which their security stood in some little danger of a rude interruption from Teton treachery.
Abiram, alone, formed a solitary exception to this state of equivocal repose.
After a life passed in the commission of a thousand mean and insignificant villanies, the mind of the kidnapper had become hardy enough to attempt the desperate adventure, which has been laid before the reader, in the course of the narrative.
His influence over the bolder, but less active, spirit of Ishmael was far from great, and had not the latter been suddenly expelled from a fertile bottom, of which he had taken possession, with intent to keep it, without much deference to the forms of law, he would never have succeeded in enlisting the husband of his sister in an enterprise that required so much decision and forethought.
Their original success and subsequent disappointment have been seen; and Abiram now sat apart, plotting the means, by which he might secure to himself the advantages of his undertaking, which he perceived were each moment becoming more uncertain, through the open admiration of Mahtoree for the innocent subject of his villany.
We shall leave him to his vacillating and confused expedients, in order to pass to the description of certain other personages in the drama.
There was still another corner of the picture that was occupied.
On a little bank, at the extreme right of the encampment, lay the forms of Middleton and Paul.
Their limbs were painfully bound with thongs, cut from the skin of a bison, while, by a sort of refinement in cruelty, they were so placed, that each could see a reflection of his own misery in the case of his neighbour.
Within a dozen yards of them a post was set firmly in the ground, and against it was bound the light and Apollo-like person of Hard-Heart.
Between the two stood the trapper, deprived of his rifle, his pouch and his horn, but otherwise left in a sort of contemptuous liberty.
Some five or six young warriors, however, with quivers at their backs, and long tough bows dangling from their shoulders, who stood with grave watchfulness at no great distance from the spot, sufficiently proclaimed how fruitless any attempt to escape, on the part of one so aged and so feeble, might prove.
Unlike the other spectators of the important conference, these individuals were engaged in a discourse that for them contained an interest of its own.
“Captain,” said the bee-hunter with an expression of comical concern, that no misfortune could depress in one of his buoyant feelings, “do you really find that accursed strap of untanned leather cutting into your shoulder, or is it only the tickling in my own arm that I feel?”
“When the spirit suffers so deeply, the body is insensible to pain,” returned the more refined, though scarcely so spirited Middleton; “would to Heaven that some of my trusty artillerists might fall upon this accursed encampment!”
“You might as well wish that these Teton lodges were so many hives of hornets, and that the insects would come forth and battle with yonder tribe of half naked savages.”
Then, chuckling with his own conceit, the bee-hunter turned away from his companion, and sought a momentary relief from his misery, by imagining that so wild an idea might be realised, and fancying the manner, in which the attack would upset even the well established patience of an Indian.
Middleton was glad to be silent; but the old man, who had listened to their words, drew a little nigher, and continued the discourse.
“Here is likely to be a merciless and a hellish business!” he said, shaking his head in a manner to prove that even his experience was at a loss for a remedy in so trying a dilemma. “Our Pawnee friend is already staked for the torture, and I well know, by the eye and the countenance of the great Sioux, that he is leading on the temper of his people to further enormities.”
“Harkee, old trapper,” said Paul, writhing in his bonds to catch a glimpse of the other’s melancholy face; “you ar’ skilled in Indian tongues, and know somewhat of Indian deviltries.
Go you to the council, and tell their chiefs in my name, that is to say, in the name of Paul Hover, of the state of Kentucky, that provided they will guarantee the safe return of one Ellen Wade into the States, they are welcome to take his scalp when and in such manner as best suits their amusements; or, if-so-be they will not trade on these conditions, you may throw in an hour or two of torture before hand, in order to sweeten the bargain to their damnable appetites.”
“Ah! lad, it is little they would hearken to such an offer, knowing, as they do, that you are already like a bear in a trap, as little able to fight as to fly.
But be not down-hearted, for the colour of a white man is sometimes his death-warrant among these far tribes of savages, and sometimes his shield.
Though they love us not, cunning often ties their hands.