Buch lesen: «The Prairie Flower: A Tale of the Indian Border»

CHAPTER I
A HUNTING ENCAMPMENT

America is the land of prodigies! Everything there assumes gigantic proportions, which startle the imagination and confound the reason. Mountains, rivers, lakes and streams, all are carved on a sublime pattern.

There is a river of North America – not like the Danube, Rhine, or Rhone, whose banks are covered with towns, plantations, and time-worn castles: whose sources and tributaries are magnificent streams, the waters of which, confined in a narrow bed, rush onwards as if impatient to lose themselves in the ocean – but deep and silent, wide as an arm of the sea, calm and severe in its grandeur, it pours majestically onwards, its waters augmented by innumerable streams, and lazily bathes the banks of a thousand isles, which it has formed of its own sediment.

These isles, covered with tall thickets, exhale a sharp or delicious perfume which the breeze bears far away. Nothing disturbs their solitude, save the gentle and plaintive appeal of the dove, or the hoarse and strident voice of the tiger, as it sports beneath the shade.

At certain spots, trees that have fallen through old age, or have been uprooted by the hurricane, collect on its waters; then, attached by creepers and concealed by mud, these fragments of forests become floating islands. Young shrubs take root upon them: the petunia and nenuphar expand here and there their yellow roses; serpents, birds, and caimans come to sport and rest on these verdurous rafts, and are with them swallowed up in the ocean.

This river has no name! Others in the same zone are called Nebraska, Platte, Missouri; but this is simply the Mecha-Chebe the old father of waters, the river before all! the Mississippi in a word!

Vast and incomprehensible as is infinity, full of secret terrors, like the Ganges and Irrawaddy, it is the type of fecundity, immensity, and eternity to the numerous Indian nations that inhabit its banks.

Three men were seated on the bank of the river, a little below its confluence with the Missouri, and were breakfasting on a slice of roast elk, while gaily chatting together.

The spot where they were seated was remarkably picturesque. The bank of the river was formed of small mounds, enamelled with flowers. The strangers had selected for their halt the top of the highest mound, whence the eye embraced a magnificent panorama. In the foreground, dense curtains of verdure which undulated with each breath of air: on the islands innumerable flocks of dark-winged flamingos, perched on their long legs, plovers and cardinals fluttering from bough to bough, while numerous alligators lazily wallowed in the mud. Between the islands, the silvery patches of water reflected the sunbeams. In the midst of these masses of coruscating light, fishes of every description sported on the surface of the water, and traced sparkling furrows. Further back, as far as the eye could reach, the tops of the trees that bordered the prairie, and whose dark green scarcely showed upon the horizon.

But the three men we have mentioned seemed to trouble themselves very slightly about the natural beauties that surrounded them, as they were fully engaged in appeasing a true hunter's appetite. Their meal, however, only lasted a few minutes, and when the last fragments had been devoured, one lighted his Indian pipe, the other took a cigar from his pocket. They then stretched themselves on the grass, and began digesting with that beatitude which characterizes smokers, while following with a languid eye the clouds of bluish smoke that rose in long spirals with each mouthful they puffed forth. As for the third man, he leant his back against a tree, crossed his arms, on his chest, and went to sleep most prosaically.

We will profit by this momentary repose to present these persons to our readers, and make them better acquainted with each other. The first was a Canadian half-breed, of about fifty years of age, and known by the name of "Bright-eye." His life had been entirely spent on the prairie among the Indians, all of whose tricks he was thoroughly acquainted with.

Like the majority of his countrymen he was very tall, more than six feet in height: his body was thin and angular; his limbs were knotty, but covered with muscles, hard as ropes; his bony and yellow face had a remarkable expression of frankness and joviality, and his little grey eyes sparkled with intelligence; his prominent cheekbones, his nose bent down over a wide mouth supplied with long white teeth, and his rounded chin, made up a face which was the most singular, and, at the same time, the most attractive that could be imagined.

His dress differed in no respect from that of the other wood rangers; that is to say, it was a strange medley of European and Indian fashions, generally adopted by all the white prairie hunters and trappers. His weapons consisted of a knife, a pair of pistols, and an American rifle, now lying on the grass, but within reach of his hand.

His companion was a man of thirty to thirty-two years of age at the most, but who appeared scarce twenty-five, tall, and well made. His blue eyes, limpid as a woman's, the long light curls that escaped beneath the edge of his Panama hat, and floated in disorder on his shoulders, the whiteness of his skin, which contrasted with the olive and brown complexion of the hunter, were sufficient evidence that he was not born in the hot climate of America.

In fact, this young man was a Frenchman, Charles Edward de Beaulieu, and was descended from one of the oldest families in Brittany. But, under this slightly effeminate appearance, he concealed a lion's courage which nothing could startle or even surprise. Skilled in all bodily exercises, he was also endowed with prodigious strength, and the delicate skin of his white and unstained hands, with their rosy nails, covered nerves of steel.

The Count's dress would reasonably have appeared extraordinary in a country remote from civilization to anyone who had leisure to examine it. He wore a hunting jacket of green cloth, of a French cut, and buttoned over his chest; yellow doeskin breeches, fastened by a waist belt of varnished leather; a cartouche box, and a hunting knife in a bronzed steel sheath, and with an admirably chiselled hilt: while his legs were covered by long riding boots, coming up over the knee. Like his companion, he had laid his rifle on the grass: this weapon, richly damascened, must have cost an enormous sum.

The Count de Beaulieu, whose father followed the princes into exile and served them actively, first in Condé's army and then in all the Royalist plots that were incessantly formed during the Empire, was an ultra-Royalist. Left an orphan at an early age, and possessed of an immense fortune, he was nominated a lieutenant in the Gardes du Corps. After the fall of Charles X., the Count, whose career was broken up, was assailed by a fearful despondency, and an unenviable disregard for life filled his heart. Europe became hateful to him, and he resolved to bid it an eternal farewell. After intrusting the management of his fortune to a confidential agent, the Count embarked for the United States.

But American life, narrow, paltry, and egotistic, was not made for him; for the young man understood the Americans no better than they did him. His heart was ulcerated by the meanness and trickery he saw daily committed by the descendants of the Plymouth Brethren, so he one day resolved to bury himself in the depths of the country, and visit those immense prairies whence the first lords of the soil had been driven by the cunning and treachery of their crafty despoilers.

The Count had brought with him from France an old servant of the family, whose progenitors, for many generations, had uninterruptedly served the Beaulieus. Before embarking, the Count imparted his plans to Ivon Kergollec, leaving him at liberty to remain behind or follow; the servant's choice was not long, he simply replied that his master had the right to do what he pleased without consulting him, and as it was his duty to follow his master everywhere, he should do so. Even when the Count formed the resolve of visiting the prairies, and thought it right to tell his servant his resolution, the answer was still the same. Ivon was about forty-five years of age, and was a true type of the hardy, simple, and withal crafty Breton peasant; he was short and stumpy, but his well-knit limbs and wide chest denoted immense strength. His brick-coloured face was illumined by two small eyes, which sparkled with cleverness and flashed like carbuncles.

Ivon, whose life had been spent calmly and lazily in the gilded halls of Beaulieu House, had gradually assumed the regular habits of a nobleman's lackey; having had no occasion to prove his courage, he was completely ignorant of the possession of that quality, and, although during the last few months he had been placed in many dangerous circumstances while following his master, he was still at the same point, that is to say, he completely doubted himself, and had the innate conviction that he was as cowardly as a hare; so nothing was more curious after a meeting with the Indians than to hear Ivon, who had been fighting like a lion and performing prodigies of valour, excuse himself humbly to his master for having behaved so badly, as he was not used to fighting.

It is needless to say that the Count excused him, while laughing heartily, and telling him as a consolation – for the poor fellow was very unhappy at this supposed cowardice – that the next time he would probably do better, and that he would gradually grow accustomed to this life, which was so different from that he had hitherto led. At this consolation the worthy man-servant would nod his head sorrowfully, and reply, with an accent of thorough conviction: —

"No, sir, I can never have any courage. I feel sure of it; it is a sad truth, but I am a poltroon. I am only too well aware of it."

Ivon was dressed in a complete suit of livery, though, in regard to present circumstances, he was, like his companions, armed to the teeth, and his rifle leant against the tree by his side.

Three magnificent horses, full of fire and blood, hobbled a few paces from the hunters, were carelessly browsing on the climbing peas and young tree shoots.

We have omitted to mention two peculiarities of the Count. The first was, he always carried in his right eye a gold eyeglass, fastened round his neck by means of a black ribbon; the second, that he continually wore kid gloves, which we confess, greatly to his annoyance, had now grown very dirty and torn.

And now, by what strange combination of chance were these three men, so differing in birth, habits, and education, met together some five or six hundred leagues from any civilized abode, on the banks of a river, if not unknown, at any rate hitherto unexplored, seated amicably on the grass, and sharing a breakfast which was more than frugal? We can explain this in a few words to the reader by cursorily describing a scene that occurred in the prairie about six months prior to the beginning of our narrative.

Bright-eye was a determined man, who, with the exception of the time he served the Hudson's Bay Company, had always hunted and trapped alone, despising the Indians too much to fear them, and finding in braving them that delight which the courageous man experiences, when, alone and beneath the eye of Heaven, he struggles, confiding in his own resources, against a terrible and unknown danger. The Indians knew and feared him for many a long year. Many times they had come into collision with him, and they had nearly always been compelled to retreat, leaving several of their men on the field. Hence they had sworn against the hunter one of those hearty Indian hatreds which nothing can satiate save the punishment of the man who is the object of it.

But as they knew with what sort of man they had to deal, and did not care to increase the number of the victims he had already sacrificed, they resolved to await, with the peculiar patience characteristic of their race, the propitious moment for seizing their foe, and till then confine themselves to carefully watching all his movements, so as not to lose the favourable opportunity when it presented itself.

Bright-eye at this moment was hunting on the banks of the Missouri. Knowing himself watched, and instinctively suspecting a trap, he took all the precautions suggested to him by his inventive mind and the deep knowledge he possessed of Indian tricks. One day, while exploring the banks of the river, he fancied he noticed, a slight distance ahead of him, an almost imperceptible movement in the thick brushwood. He stopped, lay down, and began crawling gently in the direction of the thicket. Suddenly the forest seemed agitated to its most unexplored depths, A swarm of Indians rose from the earth, leaped from the trees, or rushed from behind rocks; the hunter, literally buried beneath the mass of his enemies, was reduced to a state of powerlessness, before he could even make an attempt to defend himself.

Bright-eye was disarmed in a twinkling; then a chief walked up to him, and holding out his hand, said coldly —

"Let my brother rise; the Redskin warriors are waiting for him."

"Good, good," the hunter growled; "all is not over yet, Indian, and I shall have my revenge."

The chief smiled.

"My brother is like the mockingbird," he said ironically; "he speaks too much."

Bright-eye bit his lips to keep back the insult that rose to them; he got up and followed his victors. He was a prisoner to the Piékanns, the most warlike tribe of the Blackfeet; and the chief who had taken him was his personal enemy. The chief's name was Natah Otann (the Grizzly Bear). He was a man of five-and-twenty at the most, with a fine intelligent face, bearing the imprint of honesty. His tall figure, well-proportioned limbs, the grace of his movements, and his martial aspect, rendered him a remarkable man. His long black hair, carefully parted, fell in disorder on his shoulders; like all the renowned warriors of his tribe, he wore on the back of his head an ermine skin, and round his neck bears' claws mingled with buffalo teeth, a very dear and highly-honoured ornament among the Indians. His shirt of buffalo hide, with short sleeves, was decorated round the neck with a species of collar of red cloth, ornamented with fringe and porcupine quills; the seams of the garment were embroidered with hair taken from scalps, the whole relieved by small bands of ermine skin. His moccasins of different colours, were loaded with very elegant embroidery, while his buffalo hide robe was quilted inside with a number of clumsy designs, intended to depict the young warrior's achievements.

Natah Otann held in his right hand a fan made of a single eagle's wing, and, suspended round the wrist from the same hand by a thong, the short-handled long-lashed whip peculiar to the prairie Indians; on his back hung his bow and arrows in a quiver of a jaguar's skin; at his waist a bullet bag, his powder flask, his long hunting knife, and his club. His shield hung on his left hip, while his gun lay across the neck of his horse, which wore a magnificent panther skin for a saddle. The appearance of this savage child of the woods, whose cloak and long plumes fluttered in the wind, curveting, on a steed as untamed as himself, had something about it striking, and, at the same time, grand.

Natah Otann was the first sachem of his tribe. He made the hunter a sign to mount a horse one of the warriors held by the bridle, and the whole party proceeded at a gallop towards the camp of the tribe. They rode onward in silence, and the chief seemed to pay no attention to his prisoner. The latter, free in appearance, and mounted on an excellent horse, made not the slightest attempt to escape; at a glance he had judged the position, saw that the Indians did not lose sight of him, and that he should be immediately recaptured if he attempted flight. The Piékanns had formed their camp on the slope of a wooded hill. For two days they seemed to have forgotten their prisoner, to whom they never once spoke. On the evening of the second day, Bright-eye was carelessly walking about and smoking his pipe, when Natah Otann approached him.

"Is my brother ready?" he asked him.

"For what?" the hunter said, stopping and pouring forth a volume of smoke.

"To die," the chief continued, laconically.

"Quite."

"Good; my brother will die tomorrow."

"You think so," the hunter replied with great coolness.

The Indian looked at him for a moment in amazement; then he repeated, "My brother will die tomorrow."

"I heard you perfectly well, chief," the Canadian said, with a smile; "and I repeat again, do you believe it?"

"Let my brother look," the sachem said, with a significant gesture.

The hunter raised his head.

"Bah!" he said, carelessly; "I see that all the preparations are made, and conscientiously so, but what does that prove? I am not dead yet, I suppose."

"No, but my brother will soon be so."

"We shall see tomorrow," Bright-eye answered, shrugging his shoulders.

And leaving the astonished chief, he lay down at the foot of a tree and fell asleep. His sleep was so real, that the Indians were obliged to wake him next morning at daybreak. The Canadian opened his eyes, yawned two or three times, as if going to put his jaw out, and got up. The Redskins led him to the post of torture, to which he was firmly fastened.

"Well!" Natah Otann said, with a grin, "what does my brother think at present?"

"Eh!" Bright-eye answered, with that magnificent coolness which never deserted him, "do you fancy that I am already dead?"

"No, but my brother will be so in an hour."

"Bah!" the Canadian said, carelessly; "many things can happen within an hour."

Natah Otann withdrew, secretly admiring the intrepid countenance of his prisoner; but, after taking a few steps, he reflected, and returned to Bright-eye's side.

"Let my brother listen," he said, "a friend speaks to him."

"Go on, chief, I am all ears."

"My brother is a strong man; his heart is great," Natah Otann said; "he is a terrible warrior."

"You know something of that, chief, I fancy," the Canadian replied.

The sachem repressed a movement of anger.

"My brother's eye is infallible, his arm is sure," he went on.

"Tell me at once what you want to come to, chief, and don't waste your time in your Indian beating round the bush."

The chief smiled as he said, in a gentler voice, "Bright-eye is alone; his lodge is solitary. Why has not so great a warrior a companion?"

The hunter fixed a searching glance on the speaker.

"What does that concern you?" he said.

Natah Otann continued, —

"The nation of the Blackfeet is powerful; the young women of the Piekann tribe are fair."

The Canadian quickly interrupted him.

"Enough, chief," he said; "in spite of all your shiftings to reach your point, I have guessed your meaning; but I will never take an Indian girl to be my wife; so you can refrain from further offers, which will not have a satisfactory result."

Natah Otann frowned.

"Dog of the palefaces," he cried, stamping his foot angrily, "this night my young men will make war whistles of thy bones, and will drink the firewater out of thy skull."

With this terrible threat, the chief finally quitted the hunter, who regarded him depart with a shrug, and muttered, "The last word is not spoken yet; this is not the first time I have found myself in a desperate position, but I have escaped; there are no reasons why I should be less lucky today. Hum! this will serve me as a lesson: another time I will be more prudent."

In the meantime the chief had given orders to begin the punishment, and the preparations were rapidly made. Bright-eye followed all the movements of the Indians with a curious eye, as if he were a perfectly unconcerned witness.

"Yes, yes," he went on, "my fine fellows, I see you; you are preparing all the instruments for my torture; there is the green wood intended to smoke me like a ham; you are cutting the spikes you mean to run up under my nails. Eh, eh!" he added, with a perfect air of satisfaction; "you are going to begin with firing; let's see how skilful you are. Ah, what fun it is for you to have a white hunter to torture. The Lord knows what strange ideas may be passing through your Indian noddles; but I recommend you to make haste, or it is very possible I may escape."

During this monologue, twenty warriors, the most skilful of the tribe, had ranged themselves about one hundred yards from the prisoner; the firing commenced; the balls all struck within an inch of the hunter's head, who, at each shot, shook his head like a drowned sparrow, to the great delight of the spectators. This amusement had gone on for some twenty minutes, and would probably have continued much longer, so great was the fun it afforded the Blackfeet; when suddenly a horseman bounded into the centre of the clearing, dispersed the Indians in his way by heavy blows of his whip, and profiting by the stupor occasioned by his unexpected appearance, galloped up to the prisoner, got down, quickly cut the thongs that bound him, thrust a brace of pistols in his hand, and remounted. All this was done in less time than it has taken us to write it.

"By Tobias!" Bright-eye joyfully exclaimed, "I was quite sure I wasn't going to die this time."

The Indians are not the men to allow themselves to be long subdued by any feeling; the first moment of surprise past, they surrounded the horseman, shouting, gesticulating, and brandishing their weapons furiously.

"Come, make way there, you scoundrels," the newcomer shouted in a commanding voice, lashing violently at those who had the imprudence to come too near him. "Let us be off," he added, turning to the hunter.

"I wish for nothing better," the latter made answer; "but it does not seem easy."

"Bah! let us try it, at any rate," the stranger continued, carefully affixing his glass in his eye.

"We will," Bright-eye said cheerfully.

The stranger who had so providentially arrived, was the Count de Beaulieu, as our readers will probably have conjectured.

"Hilloh!" the Count shouted loudly, "come here, Ivon."

"Here I am, my lord," a voice answered from the forest; and a second horseman, leaping into the clearing, coolly ranged himself by the side of the first.

There was something strange in the group formed by these three stoical men in the midst of the hundreds of Indians yelling around them. The Count, with his glass in his eye, his haughty glance, and disdainful lip, was setting the hammer of his rifle. Bright-eye, with a pistol in each hand, was preparing to sell his life dearly, while the servant calmly awaited the order to charge the savages. The Indians, furious at the audacity of the white men, were preparing, with multitudinous yells and gestures, to take a prompt vengeance on the men who had so imprudently placed themselves in their power.

"These Indians are very ugly," the Count said; "now that you are free, my friend, we have nothing more to do here, so let us be off."

And he made a sign, as if to force a passage. The Blackfeet moved forward.

"Take care," Bright-eye shouted.

"Nonsense," the Count said, shrugging his shoulders, "can these scamps intend to bar the way?"

The hunter looked at him with the air of a man who does not know exactly if he has to do with a madman or a being endowed with reason, so extraordinary did this remark seem to him. The Count dug his spurs into his horse.

"Well," Bright-eye muttered, "he will be killed, but for all that he is a fine fellow: I will not leave him."

In truth it was a critical moment: the Indians, formed in close column, were preparing to make a desperate charge on the three men – a charge which would, probably, be decisive, for the Europeans, without shelter, and entirely exposed to the shots of their enemies, could not hope to escape. Still, that was not the Count's conviction. Not noticing the gestures and hostile cries of the Redskins, he advanced towards them, with his glass still in his eye. Since the Count's apparition, the Indian sachem, as if struck with stupor at the sight, had not made a move, but stood with his eyes fixed upon him, under the influence of extraordinary emotion. Suddenly, at the moment when the Blackfeet warriors were shouldering their guns, or fitting their arrows to the bows, Natah Otann seemed to form a resolution: he rushed forward, and raising his buffalo robe, —

"Stop!" he shouted, in a loud voice.

The Indians, obedient to their chiefs voice, immediately halted. The sachem took three steps, bowed respectfully before the Count, and said in a submissive voice: —

"My father must pardon his children, they did not know him: but my father is great, his power is immense, his goodness infinite: he will forget anything offensive in their conduct toward him."

Bright-eye, astonished at this harangue, translated it to the Count, honestly confessing that he did not understand what it meant.

"By Jove!" the Count replied, with a smile, "they are afraid."

"Hum!" the hunter muttered, "that is not so clear: it is something else; but no matter, it will be diamond cut diamond."

Then he turned to Natah Otann.

"The great pale chief," he said, "is satisfied with the respect his red children feel for him: he pardons them." Natah Otann made a movement of joy. The three men passed through the ranks of the Indians, and buried themselves in the forest, their retreat being in no way impeded.

"Ouf!" Bright-eye said, as soon as he found himself in safety, "I'm well out of that; but," he added shaking his head, "there is something extraordinary about the matter, which I cannot fathom."

"Now, my friend," the Count said to him, "you are free to go whither you please."

The hunter thought for an instant. "Bah!" he replied, after a few moments had passed, "I owe you my life. Although I do not know you, you strike me as a good fellow."

"You flatter me," the Count remarked, smiling.

"My faith, no; I say what I think. If you are agreeable we will stay together, at any rate until I have acquitted the debt I owe you by saving your life in my turn."

The Count offered him his hand.

"Thanks, my friend," he said, much moved; "I accept your offer."

"That is settled, then," the hunter joyfully exclaimed, as he pressed the offered hand.

Bright-eye, at first attached to the Count by gratitude, soon felt quite a paternal affection for him. But he understood no more than the first day the young man's behaviour, for he acted under all circumstances as if he were in France, and, by his rashness, universally foiled the hunter's Indian experience. This was carried so far, that the Canadian, superstitious like all primitive natures, soon grew into the persuasion that the Count's life was protected by a charm, so many times had he seen him emerge victoriously from positions in which anyone else would have infallibly succumbed.

At length, nothing appeared to him impossible with such a companion, and the most extraordinary propositions the Count made him seemed perfectly feasible, the more so as success crowned all their enterprises by some incomprehensible charm, and in a way contrary to all foresight. The Indians, by a strict agreement, had given up all contests with them, and even avoided any contact: if they perceived them at any time, all the Redskins, whatever tribe they might belong to, treated the Count with the utmost deference, and addressed him with an expression of terror mingled with love, the explanation of which the hunter sought in vain, for none of the Indians could or would give it.

This state of things had lasted for six months up to the moment when we saw the three men breakfasting on the banks of the Mississippi. We will now take up our story again at the point where we left it, terminating our explanation, which was indispensable for the right comprehension of what follows.