The unfortunate bee-hunter and his companions
had now become the captives of a people, who might,
without exaggeration, be called the Ishmaelites of the
American deserts. From time immemorial, the hands
of the Siouxs had been turned against their neighbours
of the prairies, and even at this day, when the
influence and authority of a civilized government are
beginning to be felt around them, they are considered
as a treacherous and dangerous race. At the period
of our tale, the case was far worse; few white men
trusting themselves in the remote and unprotected
regions where so false a tribe was known to dwell.

[figure description] Page 054.[end figure description]

Notwithstanding the peaceable submission of the
trapper, he was quite aware of the character of the
band, into whose hands he had fallen. It would have
been difficult, however, for the nicest judge to have
determined whether fear, policy or resignation formed
the secret motive of the old man, in permitting
himself to be plundered as he did, without a murmur.
So far from opposing any remonstrance to the
rude and violent manner in which his conquerors
performed the customary office, he even anticipated
their cupidity, by tendering to the chiefs such articles
as he thought might prove the most acceptable. On
the other hand Paul Hover, who had been literally a
conquered man, manifested the strongest repugnance
to submit to the violent liberties that were taken with
his person and property. He even, gave several, exceedingly,
unequivocal demonstrations of his displeasure
during the summary process, and would, more
than once, have broken out, in open and desperate
resistance, but for the admonitions and intreaties of
the trembling girl, who clung to his side, in a manner
so dependant, as to show the youth, that her hopes
were now placed, no less on his discretion, than on
his disposition to serve her.

The Indians had, however, no sooner deprived the
captives of their arms and ammunition, and stript
them of a few articles of dress of little use and perhaps
of less value, than they appeared disposed to
grant them a respite. Business of greater moment
pressed on their hands, and required their instant attention.
Another consultation of the chiefs was con
vened, and it was apparent, by the earnest and vehement
manner of the few who spoke, that the warriors
conceived their success as yet to be far from
complete.

“It will be well,” whispered the trapper, who
knew enough of the language he heard to comprehend
perfectly the subject of the discussion, “if the

[figure description] Page 055.[end figure description]

travellers who lie near the willow brake are not
awoke out of their sleep by a visit from these miscreants.
They are too cunning to believe that a woman
of the “pale-faces” is to be found so far from
the settlements, without having a white man's inventions
and comforts at hand.”

“If they will carry the tribe of wandering Ishmael
to the Rocky Mountains,” said the young bee-hunter,
laughing in his vexation with a sort of bitter merriment,
“I may forgive the rascals.”

“Paul! Paul!” exclaimed his companion in a tone
of reproach, “you forget all! Think of the dreadful
consequences!”

“Ay, it was thinking of what you call consequences,
Ellen, that prevented me from putting the matter,
at once, to yonder red-devil, and making it a real
knock-down and drag-out! Old trapper, the sin of
this cowardly business lies on your shoulders! But
it is no more than your daily calling, I reckon, to
take men, as well as beasts, in the snares.”

“I implore you, Paul, to be calm—to be patient.”

“Well, since it is your wish, Ellen,” returned the
youth, endeavouring to swallow his spleen, “I will
make the trial; though, as you ought to know, it is
part of the religion of a Kentuckian, to fret himself,
a little, at a mischance.”

“I fear your friends in the other bottom will not
escape the eyes of the imps!” continued the trapper,
as coolly as though he had not heard a syllable
of the intervening discourse—“They scent plunder;
and it would be as hard to drive a hound from his
game as to throw the varmints from its trail.”

“Is there nothing to be done!” asked Ellen, in an
imploring manner which proved the sincerity of her
concern.

“It would be an easy matter to call out, in so loud
a voice as to make old Ishmael dream that the wolves
were among his flock,” Paul replied; “I can make

[figure description] Page 056.[end figure description]

myself heard a mile in these open fields, and his
camp is but a short quarter from us.”

“And get knocked on the head for your pains,”
returned the trapper—“No, no; cunning must match
cunning, or the hounds will murder the whole family.”

“Murder! no—no murder. Ishmael loves travel
so well, there would be no harm in his having a look
at the other sea, but the old fellow is in a bad condition
to take the long journey! I would try a lock
myself before he should be quite murdered.”

“His party is strong in number, and well armed;
do you think it will fight?”

“Look here, old trapper—Few men love Ishmael
Bush and his seven sledge-hammer sons less than one
Paul Hover; but I scorn to slander even a Tennessee
shot-gun. There is as much of the true stand-up
courage among them, as there is in any family that
was ever raised in Kentuck. They are a long-sided
and a double-jointed breed; and let me tell you, that
he who takes the measure of one of them on the
ground, must be a workman at a hug.”

“Hist! The savages have done their talk, and are
about to set their accursed devices in motion Let
us be patient; something may yet offer in favour of
your friends.”

“Friends! call none of the race a friend of mine,
trapper, if you have the smallest regard for my affection!
What I say in their favour is less from love
than honesty.”

“I did not know but the young woman was of the
kin,” returned the other, a little drily—“But no offence
should be taken, where none was intended.”

The mouth of Paul was again stopped by the hand
of Ellen, who took on herself to reply, in her gentle
and conciliating tones, “We should be all of a family,
when it is in our power to serve each other. We
depend entirely on your experience, honest old man,

[figure description] Page 057.[end figure description]

to discover the means to apprise our friends of their
danger.”

“There will be a real time of it,” muttered the
bee-hunter, laughing, “if the boys get at work in
good earnest with these red skins!”

He was interrupted by a general movement which
took place among the band. The Indians dismounted
to a man, giving their horses in charge to three or
four of the party, who were also intrusted with the
safe keeping of the prisoners. They then formed
themselves in a circle around a warrior, who appeared
to possess the chief authority; and at a given signal
the whole array moved slowly and cautiously
from the centre in straight and consequently in diverging
lines. Most of their dark forms were soon
blended with the brown covering of the prairie;
though the captives, who watched the slightest movement
of their enemies with vigilant eyes, were now
and then enabled to discern a human figure, drawn
against the horizon, as some one, more eager than
the rest, rose to his greatest height in order to extend
the limits of his view. But it was not long before
even these fugitive glimpses of the moving, and constantly
increasing circle, were lost, and uncertainty
and conjecture were added to apprehension. In this
manner passed many anxious and weary minutes, during
the close of which the listeners expected at each
moment to hear the whoop of the assailants and the
shrieks of the assailed, rising together on the stillness
of the night. But it would seem, that the search
which was so evidently making, was without a sufficient
object; for at the expiration of half an hour
the different individuals of the band began to return
singly, gloomy and sullen, like men who were disappointed.

“Our time is at hand,” observed the trapper, who
noted the smallest incident, or the slightest indication
of hostility among the savages; “we are now to be

[figure description] Page 058.[end figure description]

questioned; and if I know any thing of the policy
of our case, I should say it would be wise to choose
one among us to hold the discourse, in order that our
testimony may agree. And furthermore, if an opinion
from one as old and as worthless as a hunter of fourscore,
is to be regarded, I would just venture to say,
that man should be the one most skilled in the natur'
of an Indian, and that he should also know something
of their language—Are you acquainted with the
tongue of the Siouxes, friend?”

“Swarm your own hive,” returned the discontented
bee-hunter. “You are good at buzzing, old trapper,
if you are good at nothing else.”

“'Tis the gift of youth to be rash and heady,” the
trapper calmly retorted. “The day has been, boy,
when my blood was like your own, too swift and too
hot to run quietly in my veins. But what will it profit
to talk of silly risks and foolish acts at this time of
life! A grey head should cover a brain of reason,
and not the tongue of a boaster.”

“True, true,” whispered Ellen; “and we have
other things to attend to now! Here comes the Indian
to put his questions.”

The girl, whose apprehensions had quickened her
senses, was not deceived. She was yet speaking when
a tall, half naked savage, approached the spot where
they stood, and after examining the whole party as
closely as the dim light permitted, for more than a
minute in perfect stillness, he gave the usual salutation
in the harsh and guttural tones of his own language.
The trapper replied as well as he could,
which it seems was sufficiently well to be understood.
In order to escape the imputation of pedantry we
shall render the substance, and, so far as it is possible
the form of the dialogue that succeeded, into the
English tongue.

“Have the pale-faces eaten their own buffaloes,
and taken the skins from all their own beavers,”

[figure description] Page 059.[end figure description]

continued the savage, allowing the usual moment of decorum
to elapse, after his words of greeting, before
he again spoke, “that they come to count how many
are left among the Pawnees?”

“Some of us are here to buy, and some to sell,”
returned the trapper; “but none will follow, if they
hear it is not safe to come nigh the lodge of a Sioux.”

“The Siouxes are thieves, and they live among
the snow; why do we talk of a people who are so
far, when we are in the country of the Pawnees?”

“If the Pawnees are the owners of this land, then
white and red are here by equal right.”

“Have not the pale-faces stolen enough from the
red men, that you come so far to carry a lie? I have
said that this is a hunting-ground of my tribe.”

“My right to be here is equal to your own,” the
trapper rejoined with undisturbed coolness; “I do
not speak as I might—It is better to be silent. The
Pawnees and the white men are brothers, but a Sioux
dare not show his face in the village of the Loups.”

“The Dahcotahs are men!” exclaimed the savage,
fiercely; forgetting in his anger to maintain the
character he had assumed, and using the appellation
of which his nation was most proud; “the Dahcotahs
have no fear! Speak; what brings you so far from
the villages of the pale-faces?”

“I have seen the sun rise and set on many councils,
and have heard the words only of wise men.
Let your chiefs come, and my mouth shall not be
shut.”

“I am a great chief!” said the savage, affecting an
air of offended dignity. “Do you take me for an
Assiniboine! Weucha is a warrior often named, and
much believed!”

“Am I a fool not to know a burnt-wood Teton!”
demanded the trapper, with a steadiness that did
great credit to his nerves. “Go; it is dark, and you
do not see that my head is grey!”

[figure description] Page 060.[end figure description]

The Indian now appeared convinced that he had
adopted too shallow an artifice to deceive one so
practised as the man he addressed, and he was deliberating
what fiction he should next invent, in order
to obtain his real object, when a slight commotion
among the band put an end at once to all his schemes.
Casting his eyes behind him, as if fearful of a speedy
interruption, he said in tones much less pretending
than those he had first resorted to—

“Give Weucha the milk of the Long-Knives, and
he will sing your name in the ears of the great men
of his tribe.”

“Go;” said the trapper, motioning him away, with
strong disgust. “Your young men are speaking of
Mahtoree—My words are for the ears of a chief.”

The savage cast a look on the other, which, notwithstanding
the dim light, was sufficiently indicative
of implacable hostility. He then stole away among
his fellows, anxious to conceal the counterfeit he had
attempted to practise, no less than the treachery he
had contemplated against a fair division of the spoils,
from the man named by the trapper, whom he now
also knew to be approaching, by the manner in which
his name passed from one to another, in the band.
He had hardly disappeared before a warrior of powerful
frame advanced out of the dark circle, and placed
himself before the captives, with that high and
proud bearing for which a distinguished Indian chief
is ever so remarkable. He was followed by all the
party, who arranged themselves around his person,
in a deep and respectful silence.

“The earth is very large,” the chief commenced,
after a pause of that true dignity which his counterfeit
had so miserably affected—“Why can the children
of my great white father never find room on
it?”

“Some among them have heard that their friends
in the prairies are in want of many things,” returned

[figure description] Page 061.[end figure description]

the trapper; “and they come to see if it be true.
Some want, in their turns, what the red men are willing
to sell, and they come to make their friends rich,
with powder and blankets.”

“Do traders cross the big river with empty hands?”

“Our hands are empty because your young men
thought we were tired, and they lightened us of our
load. They were mistaken, I am old, but I am
strong.”

“It cannot be. Your load has fallen in the prairies.
Show my young men the place, that they may
pick it up, before the Pawnees find it.”

“The path to the spot is crooked, and it is now,
night. The hour is come for sleep,” said the trapper,
with perfect composure—“Bid your warriors
go over yonder hill; there is water and there is wood;
let them light their fires and sleep with warm feet.
When the sun comes again I will speak to you.”

A low murmur, but one that was clearly indicative
of great dissatisfaction, passed among the attentive
listeners, and served to inform the old man that
he had not been sufficiently wary in proposing a measure
that he intended should notify the travellers in
the brake of the presence of such dangerous neighbours.
Mahtoree, however, without betraying in the
slightest degree, the excitement which was so strongly
exhibited by his companions, continued the discourse
in the same lofty manner as before. “I know
that my friend is rich,” he said; “that he has many
warriors not far off, and that horses are plentier with
him, than dogs among the red-skins.”

“You see my warriors, and my horses.”

“What! has the woman the feet of a Dahcotah,
that she can walk for thirty nights in the prairies, and
not fall! I know the red men of the woods make
long marches on foot, but we, who live where the
eye cannot see from one lodge to another, love our
horses.”

[figure description] Page 062.[end figure description]

The trapper now hesitated, in his turn. He was
perfectly aware that deception, if detected, might
prove dangerous, and for one of his pursuits and
character, he was strongly troubled with an unaccommodating
regard to the truth. But, recollecting
that he controlled the fate of others as well as of
himself, he quickly decided to let things take their
course, and to permit the Dahcotah chief to deceive
himself if he would.

“The women of the Siouxes and of the white
men are not of the same wigwam,” he answered
evasively. “Would a Teton warrior make his wife
greater than himself! I know he would not; and
yet my ears have heard that there are lands where
the councils are held by squaws.”

Another slight movement in the dark circle apprised
the trapper that his declaration was not received
without surprise, if entirely without distrust.
The chief alone seemed unmoved or disposed, in
any degree, to relax from the loftiness and high dignity
of his air.

“My white fathers who live on the great lakes
have declared,” he said, “that their brothers towards
the rising sun are not men; and now I know
they did not lie! Go—what is a nation whose chief
is a squaw! Are you the dog and not the husband
of this woman?”

“I am neither. Never did I see her face before
this day. She came into the prairies, because they
had told her a great and generous nation called the
Dahcotahs lived there, and she wished to look on
men. The women of the pale-faces, like the women
of the Siouxes, open their eyes to see things that are
new; but she is poor, like myself, and she will want
corn and buffaloes, if you take away the little that
she and her friend still have.”

“Now do my ears listen to many wicked lies!”
exclaimed the Teton warrior, in a voice so stern that

[figure description] Page 063.[end figure description]

it startled even his red auditors. “Am I a woman!
Has not a Dahcotah eyes! Tell me, white hunter;
who are the men of your colour, that sleep near the
fallen trees?”

As he spoke, the indignant chief pointed in the
direction of Ishmael's encampment, leaving the trapper
no reason to doubt, that the superior industry
and sagacity of this man had effected a discovery,
which had eluded the search of the rest of his party.
Notwithstanding his regret at an event that might
prove fatal to the sleepers, and some little vexation
at having been so completely outwitted, in the dialogue
just related, the old man continued to maintain
his former air of inflexible composure.

“It may be true,” he answered, “that white men
are sleeping in the prairie. If my brother says it, it
is true; but what men are thus trusting to the generosity
of the Tetons, I cannot tell. If there be strangers
asleep, send your young men to wake them up,
and let them say why they are here; every pale-face
has a tongue.”

The chief shook his head with a wild and fierce
smile, answering abruptly, as he turned away to put
an end to the conference—

“The Dahcotahs are a wise race, and Mahtoree
is their chief! He will not call to the strangers, that
they may rise and speak to him with their carabines.
He will whisper softly in their ears. Then let the
men of their own colour come and awake them!”

As he uttered these words, and turned on his heel,
a low and approving laugh passed around the dark
circle, which instantly broke its order and followed
him to a little distance from the stand of the captives,
where those who might presume to mingle
opinions with so great a warrior, again gathered
about him in consultation. Weucha profited by the
occasion to renew his importunities; but the trapper,
who had now discovered how great a counterfeit he

[figure description] Page 064.[end figure description]

was, shook him off in high displeasure. An end was,
however, more effectually put to the annoyance of
this malignant savage, by a mandate for the whole
party, including men and beasts, to change their position.
The movement was made in dead silence, and
with an order that would have done credit to far
more enlightened beings. A halt, however, was soon
made, and when the captives had time to look about
them, they found they were in view of the low, dark
outline of the copse, near which lay the slumbering
party of Ishmael.

Here another short but exceedingly grave and deliberative
consultation was held.

The beasts, which seemed trained to such covert
and silent attacks, were once more placed under the
care of keepers, who as before were again charged
with the duty of watching the prisoners. The mind
of the trapper was in no degree relieved from the
uneasiness which was, at each instant, getting a
stronger possession of him, when he found Weucha
was placed nearest to his own person, and, as it appeared
by the air of triumph and authority he assumed,
at the head of the guard also. The savage, however,
who doubtless had his secret instructions, was
content, for the present, with making a significant
gesture with his tomahawk, which threatened instant
destruction to Ellen. After admonishing in this expressive
manner his male captives of the fate that
would instantly attend their female companion, on
the slightest alarm proceeding from any of the party,
he was content to maintain during the whole of the
succeeding scene a rigid and deep silence. This unexpected
forbearance, on the part of Weucha, enabled
the trapper and his two associates to give their
undivided attention to the little that might be seen
of those interesting movements which were passing
in their front.

Mahtoree took the entire disposition of the

[figure description] Page 065.[end figure description]

arrangements on himself. He pointed out the precise
situation he wished each individual to occupy, like
one intimately acquainted with the qualifications of
his respective followers, and he was obeyed with the
deference and promptitude with which an Indian
warrior is wont to submit to the instructions of his
chief, in moments of trial. Some he despatched to
the right, and others to the left. Each man departed
with the noiseless and quick step peculiar to the
race, until all had assumed their alloted stations, with
the exception of two chosen warriors, who remained
nigh the person of their leader. When the rest had
disappeared, Mahtoree turned to these select companions,
and intimated by a sign that the critical moment
had now arrived, when the enterprise he contemplated
was to be put in execution.

Each man laid aside the light fowling-piece which,
under the name of a carabine, he carried in virtue
of his rank, and then divesting himself of every article
of exterior or heavy clothing, he stood resembling
a dark and fierce looking statue, in the attitude
and nearly in the garb of nature. Mahtoree assured
himself of the right position of his tomahawk, felt
that his knife was secure in its sheath of skin, tightened
his girdle of wampum, and saw that the lacing
of his fringed and highly ornamented leggings was secure
and likely to offer no impediment to his exertions.
Thus prepared at all points, and ready for
his desperate undertaking, the Teton chieftain gave
the signal to proceed.

The three advanced in a line with the encampment
of the travellers, until, in the dim light by
which they were seen, their dusky forms were nearly
lost to the eyes of the prisoners. Here they paused,
looking around them like men who deliberate and
ponder long on the consequences before they take a
desperate leap. Then sinking together, they became
lost in the grass of the prairie.

[figure description] Page 066.[end figure description]

It is not difficult to imagine the distress and anxiety
of those different spectators of these threatening
movements, who felt so deep an interest in their results.
Whatever might be the reasons of Ellen for
entertaining no strong attachment to the family in
which she has first been seen by the reader, the feelings
of her sex, and, perhaps, some lingering seeds of
kindness, asserted their existence in her bosom.
More than once she felt tempted to brave the awful
and instant danger that awaited such an offence, and
to raise her feeble and in truth impotent voice in the
notes of warning. So strong, indeed, and so very
natural was the inclination, that she would most
probably have put it in execution, but for the often-repeated
though whispered remonstrances of Paul
Hover. In the breast of the young bee-hunter himself,
there was a singular union of emotions. His
first and chiefest solicitude was certainly in behalf of
his gentle and dependant companion; but the sense
of her danger was mingled in the breast of the reckless
woods-man with a consciousness of a high and
wild, and by no means unpleasant excitement.
Though united to the emigrants by ties still less
binding than those of Ellen, he longed to hear the
crack of their rifles, and, had occasion offered, he
would gladly have been among the first to rush to
their rescue. There were in truth moments when
he felt in his turn an impulse, that was nearly resistless,
to spring forward and awake the unconscious
sleepers; but a glance at Ellen would serve to recall
his tottering prudence, and to admonish him of the
consequences. The trapper, alone, remained calm
and observant, as though nothing that involved his
personal comfort or safety had occurred. His evermoving,
vigilant eyes, watched the smallest change
with the composure of one too long inured to scenes
of danger to be easily moved, and with an expression
of cool determination which denoted the

[figure description] Page 067.[end figure description]

intention he actually harboured, of profiting by the smallest
oversight on the part of the captors.

In the mean time the Teton warriors had not been
idle. Profiting by the high fog which grew in the
bottoms, they had wormed their way through the matted
grass, like so many treacherous serpents stealing
on their prey, until the point was gained, where an
extraordinary caution became necessary to their
further advance. Mahtoree, alone, had occasionally
elevated his dark, grim countenance above the herbage,
straining his eye-balls to penetrate the gloom
which skirted the border of the brake. In these
momentary glances he gained sufficient knowledge,
added to that he had obtained in his former search,
to be the perfect master of the position of his intended
victims, though he was still profoundly ignorant
of their numbers, and of their means of defence.

His efforts to possess himself of the requisite
knowledge concerning these two latter and essential
points were, however, completely baffled by the stillness
of the camp, which lay in a quiet as deep as
though it were literally a place of the dead. Too
wary and distrustful to rely, in circumstances of so
much doubt, on the discretion of any less firm and
crafty than himself, the Dahcotah bade his companions
remain where they lay, and pursued the adventure
alone.

The progress of Mahtoree was now slow, and to
one less accustomed to such a species of exercise, it
would have proved painfully laborious. But the advance
of the wily snake itself is not more certain or
noiseless than was his approach. He drew his form,
foot by foot, through the bending grass, pausing at
each movement to catch the smallest sound that
might betray any knowledge on the part of the travellers
of his proximity. He succeeded, at length, in
dragging himself out of the sickly light of the moon,
into the shadows of the brake, where not only his

[figure description] Page 068.[end figure description]

own dark person was much less liable to be seen,
but where the sorrounding objects became more distinctly
visible to his keen and active glances.

Here the Teton paused long and warily to make
his observations, before he ventured further. His
position enabled him to bring the whole encampment,
with its tent, wagons and lodges, into a dark
but clearly marked profile; furnishing a clue by which
the practised warrior was led to a tolerably accurate
estimate of the force he was about to encounter.
Still an unnatural silence pervaded the spot, as
though men suppressed even the quiet breathings of
sleep, in order to render the appearance of their
confidence more evident. The chief bent his head
to the earth, and listened intently. He was about to
raise it again in disappointment, when the long drawn
and trembling respiration of one who slumbered imperfectly
met his ear. The Indian was too well
skilled in all the means of deception to become himself
the victim of any common artifice. He knew
the sound to be natural, by its peculiar quivering,
and he hesitated no longer.

A man of nerves less tried than those of the fierce
and conquering Mahtoree would have been keenly
sensible of all the hazard he now so fearlessly incurred.
The reputation of those hardy and powerful
white adventurers, who so often penetrated the wilds
inhabited by his people, was well known to him; but
while he drew nigher, with the respect and caution
that a brave enemy never fails to inspire, it was with
the vindictive animosity of a red man, jealous and
resentful of the lawless inroads of the stranger.

Turning from the line of his former route, the
Teton dragged himself directly towards the margin
of the thicket. When this material object was effected
in safety, he arose to his seat, and took a still
better survey of his situation. A single moment served
to apprise him of the place where the

[figure description] Page 069.[end figure description]

unsuspecting traveller lay. The reader will readily anticipate
that the savage had succeeded in gaining a dangerous
proximity to one of those slothful sons of Ishmael,
who were deputed to watch over the isolated encampment
of the travellers.

When certain that he was undiscovered, the Dahcotah
raised his person again, and bending forward,
he moved his dark visage above the face of the sleeper,
in that sort of wanton and subtle manner with
which a reptile is often seen to play about its victim
before it strikes the deadly blow. Satisfied at length,
by his scrutiny, not only of the condition but of the
character of the stranger, Mahtoree was in the act
of withdrawing his head when a slight movement on
the part of the sleeper announced the symptoms of
reviving consciousness. The savage seized the knife
which hung at his girdle, and in an instant it was
poised above the breast of the young emigrant.
Then changing his purpose, with an action as rapid
as his own flashing thoughts, he sunk back behind the
trunk of the fallen tree against which the other reclined,
and lay in its shadow, as dark, as motionless,
and apparently as insensible as the wood itself.

The slothful sentinel opened his heavy eyes, and
after gazing upward for a moment at the hazy heavens,
he made an extraordinary exertion and raised
his powerful frame from the support of the log.
Then he looked about him, with an air of something
like watchfulness, suffering his dull glances to run
over the misty objects of the encampment until they
finally settled on the distant and dim field of the open
prairie. Meeting with nothing more attractive than
the same faint outlines of swell and interval, which
everywhere rose before his drowsy eyes, he changed
his position so as completely to turn his back on his
dangerous neighbour, and suffered his person to sink
sluggishly down into its former recumbent attitude.
A long, and, on the part of the Teton, an anxious and

[figure description] Page 070.[end figure description]

painful silence succeeded, before the deep breathing
of the traveller again announced that he was indulging
in his slumbers. The savage was, however, far
too jealous of a counterfeit to trust to the first appearance
of sleep. But the fatigues of a day of unusual
toil lay too heavy on the sentinel to leave the
other long in doubt. Still the motion with which
Mahtoree again raised himself to his knees was so
noiseless and guarded, that even a vigilant observer
might have hesitated to believe he stirred. The
change was, however, at length effected, and the Dahcotah
chief, then bent again over his enemy, without
having produced a noise louder than that of the cotton-wood
leaf which fluttered at his side in the currents
of the passing air.

Mahtoree now felt himself master of the sleeper's
fate. At the same time that he scanned the vast proportions
and athletic limbs of the youth, in that sort
of admiration which physical excellence seldom fails
to excite in the breast of a savage, he very coolly
prepared to extinguish the principle of vitality which
could alone render them formidable. After making
himself sure of the seat of life, by gently removing
the folds of the intervening cloth, he raised his keen
weapon, and was about to unite his strength and skill
in the impending blow, when the young man threw
his brawny arm carelessly backward, exhibiting in
the action the vast volume of its muscles.

The sagacious and wary Teton paused. It struck
his acute faculties that sleep was less dangerous to
him, at that moment, than even death itself might
prove. The smallest noise, the agony of struggling,
with which such a frame would probably relinquish
its hold of life, suggested themselves to his rapid
thoughts, and were all present to his experienced
senses. He looked back into the encampment, turned
his head into the thicket, and glanced his glowing
eyes abroad into the wild and silent prairies.

[figure description] Page 071.[end figure description]

Bending once more over the respited victim, he assured
himself that he was sleeping heavily, and then abandoned
his immediate purpose in obedience alone to
the suggestions of a more crafty policy.

The retreat of Mahtoree was as still and guarded
as had been his approach. He now took the direction
of the encampment, stealing along the margin
of the brake, as a cover into which he might easily
plunge at the smallest alarm. The drapery of the
solitary hut attracted his notice in passing. After
examining the whole of its exterior, and listening
with painful intensity, in order to gather counsel from
his ears, the savage ventured to raise the cloth at the
bottom, and to thrust his dark visage beneath. It
might have been a minute before the Teton chief
drew back and seated himself again with the whole
of his form without the linen tenement. Here he
sat, seemingly brooding over his own reflections, for
many moments, in rigid inaction. Then he resumed
his crouching attitude, and once more projected his
visage beyond the covering of the linen dwelling.
His second visit to the interior was longer, and, if
possible, more ominous than the first. But it had,
like every thing else, its termination, and the savage
again withdrew his glaring eyes from the secrets of
the place.

Mahtoree had drawn his person many yards from
the spot, in his slow progress towards the cluster of
objects which pointed out the centre of the position,
before he again stopped. Then he made another
pause, and looked back at the solitary little dwelling
he had left, as if doubtful whether he should not return.
But the chevaux-de-frise of branches now lay
within reach of his arm, and the very appearance of
precaution it presented, as it announced the value of
the effects it encircled, tempted his cupidity the
more strongly, and induced him to proceed.

The passage of the savage through the tender and

[figure description] Page 072.[end figure description]

brittle limbs of the cotton-wood could be likened
only to the sinuous and noiseless winding of the reptiles
which he imitated no less in sagacity than
in the manner of his approach. When, however, he
had effected his object, and had taken an instant to
become acquainted with the nature of the localities
within the enclosure, the Teton used the precaution
to open a way through which a retreat might be
made with fewer impediments to obstruct its rapidiity.
Then raising himself on his feet, he stalked
through the encampment, like the master of evil, seeking
whom and what he should first devote to his fell
purposes. He had already ascertained the contents
of the lodge in which were collected the woman and
her young children, and had passed several gigantic
frames, stretched on different piles of brush, which
happily for him lay in unconscious helplessness, when
he at last reached the spot occupied by Ishmael in
person. It could not escape the sagacity of one like
Mahtoree, that he had now within his power the
principal man among the travellers. He stood long
hovering above the recumbent and Herculean form
of the emigrant, keenly debating in his own mind the
chances of his enterprise, and the most effectual
means of reaping its richest harvest.

He had sheathed the knife, which, under the hasty
and burning impulse of his thoughts, he had been
tempted to draw, and was passing on, when Ishmael
turned in his lair, and demanded roughly who it was
that he dimly saw moving before his half-opened
eyes. Nothing short of the readiness and cunning
of a savage could now have evaded bringing the crisis
to an immediate issue. Imitating the gruff tones
and nearly unintelligible sounds he heard, Mahtoree
threw his body heavily on the earth, and appeared
to dispose himself to sleep. Though the whole
movement was seen by Ishmael in a sort of stupid
observation. the artifice was too bold and too

[figure description] Page 073.[end figure description]

admirably executed to fail of success. The drowsy father
once more closed his eyes, and soon slept heavily,
with this treacherous inmate in the very bosom of
his family.

It was necessary for the Teton to maintain the
position he had taken for many long and weary minutes,
in order to make sure that he was no longer
watched. Though his body lay so motionless, his
active mind was not idle. He profited by the delay
to mature a plan which he intended should put the
whole encampment, including both its effects and
their proprietors, entirely at his mercy. The instant
he could do so with safety, the indefatigable savage
was again in motion. He now took his way towards
the slight pen which contained the domestic animals,
worming himself along the ground in his former subtle
and guarded manner.

The first animal he encountered among the beasts
occasioned a long and hazardous delay. The weary
creature, perhaps conscious through its secret instinct
that in the endless wastes of the prairies its surest
protector was to be found in man, was so exceedingly
docile as quietly to submit to the close examination
it was doomed to undergo. The hand of the wandering
Teton passed over the downy coat, the meek
countenance and the slender limbs of the gentle animal,
with untiring curiosity; but he finally abandoned
the prize, as useless in his predatory expeditions,
and offering too little temptation to the appetite. As
soon, however, as he found himself among the beasts
of burden, his gratification was extreme, and it was
with difficulty that he restrained the customary ejaculations
of pleasure that were more than once on the
point of bursting from his lips. Here he lost sight
of the hazards by which he had gained access to his
dangerous position, and the watchfulness of the wary
and long practised warrior was momentarily forgotten
in the exultation of a savage.

CHAPTER V.

“Why, worthy father, what have we to lose?”

[figure description] Page 074.[end figure description]

While the Teton warrior thus enacted his subtle
and characteristic part, not a sound broke the stillness
of the surrounding prairie. The whole band
lay at their several posts, waiting, with the wellknown
patience of the natives, for the signal which
was to summon them to action. To the eyes of the
anxious and deeply interested spectators who occupied
the little eminence already described as the
position of the captives, the scene merely presented
the broad, solemn view of a waste, dimly lighted by
the glimmering rays of a clouded moon. The place
of the encampment was marked by a gloom deeper
than that which faintly shadowed out the courses of
the bottoms, and here and there a brighter streak
tinged the rolling summits of the ridges. As for the
rest, it was the deep, imposing, breathing quiet of a
desert.

But to those who so well knew how much was
brooding beneath this mantle of stillness and night,
it was a scene of high and wild excitement. Their
anxiety gradually increased, as minute after minute
passed away, and not the smallest sound of life arose
out of the calm and darkness which enveloped the
brake. The breathing of Paul grew louder and deeper,
and more than once Ellen trembled at she knew
not what, as she felt the quivering of his active frame,
while she leaned dependantly on his arm for support.

The shallow honesty, as well as the besetting infirmity
of Weucha, have already been exhibited.

[figure description] Page 075.[end figure description]

The reader, therefore, will not be surprised to learn
that he was the first to forget the regulations he had
himself imposed. It was at the precise moment
when we left Mahtoree yielding to his nearly ungovernable
delight, as he surveyed the number and quality
of Ishmael's beasts of burden, that the man he
had selected to watch his captives chose to indulge
in the malignant pleasure of tormenting those it was
his duty to protect. Bending his head nigh to the
ears of the trapper, the savage rather muttered than
whispered—

“If the Tetons lose their great chief by the hands
of the Long-knives, old shall die as well as young!”

“Life is the gift of the Wahcondah,” was the unmoved
reply—“The burnt-wood warrior must submit
to his laws, as well as his other children. Men
only die when he chooses; and no Dahcotah can
change the hour.”

“Look!” returned the savage, thrusting the blade
of his knife before the face of his captive. “Weucha
is the Wahcondah of a dog.”

The old man raised his eyes to the fierce visage
of his keeper, and, for a moment, a gleam of honest
and powerful disgust shot from their deep cells; but
it instantly passed away, leaving in its place an expression
of commiseration, if not of sorrow.

“Why should one made in the real image of God
suffer his natur' to be provoked by a mere effigy of
reason!” he said in English, and in tones much louder
than those in which Weucha had chosen to pitch the
conversation. The latter profited by the unintentional
offence of his captive, and seizing him by the
thin, grey locks, that fell from beneath his cap, was
on the point of passing the blade of his knife in malignant
triumph around their roots, when a long,
shrill, yell rent the air, and was instantly echoed
from the surrounding waste, as though a thousand demons
had opened their throats in common at the

[figure description] Page 076.[end figure description]

summons. Weucha relinquished his grasp and uttered
a cry of savage exultation.

“Now!” shouted Paul, unable to control his impatience
any longer, “now, old Ishmael, is the time
to show the native blood of Kentucky! Fire low,
boys—Level into the swales, for the red skins are
settling to the very earth!”

His voice was, however, lost, or rather unheeded,
in the midst of the shrieks, shouts, and yells, that
were by this time, bursting from fifty mouths on every
side of him. The guards still maintained their
posts at the side of the captives, but it was with
that sort of difficulty with which steeds are restrained
at the starting-post, when expecting the signal to
commence the trial of their speed. They tossed
their arms wildly in the air, leaping up and down
more like exulting children than sober men, and continued
to utter the most frantic and savage cries.

In the midst of this tumultuous disorder a rushing
sound was heard, similar to that which might be expected
to precede the passage of a flight of buffaloes,
and then came the flocks and cattle of Ishmael into
view, in one confused and frightened drove.

“They have robbed the squatter of his beasts!”
said the attentive trapper. “The reptiles have left
him as hoofless as a beaver!” He was yet speaking
when the whole body of the terrified animals rose the
little acclivity and swept by the place where he stood,
followed by a band of dusky and demon-like looking
figures, who pressed madly on their rear.

The impulse was communicated to the Teton horses,
who were long accustomed to sympathize in the
untutored passions of their owners, and it was with
difficulty that their keepers were enabled to restrain
them. At this moment, when all eyes were directed
to the passing whirlwind of men and beasts, the trapper
caught the knife from the hands of his inattentive
keeper, with a power that his age would have

[figure description] Page 077.[end figure description]

seemed to contradict, and at a single blow severed
the thong of hide which connected the whole of the
drove. The wild animals snorted with joy and terror,
and tearing the earth with their heels, they dashed
away into the broad prairies, in a dozen different
directions.

Weucha turned upon his assailant with the ferocity
and agility of a tiger. He felt for the weapon of
which he had been so suddenly deprived, fumbled
with impotent haste for the handle of his tomahawk,
and at the same moment glanced his eyes after his
flying cattle, with all the longings of a Western Indian.
The struggle between thirst for vengeance and
cupidity was short but severe. The latter quickly
predominated in the bosom of one whose passions
were proverbially grovelling, and scarcely a moment
intervened between the flight of the animals and the
swift pursuit of all the guards. The trapper had continued
calmly facing his foe, during the instants of
suspense that succeeded his own hardy act, and now
that Weucha was seen following his companions, he
pointed after the dark train, saying, with his deep and
nearly inaudible laugh—

“Red-natur' is red-natur', let it show itself on a
prairie, or in a forest! A knock on the head would
be the smallest reward to him who should take such
a liberty with a Christian sentinel; but there goes
the Teton after his horses as if he thought two legs
as good as four in such a race! And yet the imps
will have every hoof of them afore the day sets in,
because its reason ag'in instinct. Poor reason, I allow;
but still there is a great deal of the man in an
Indian. Ah's me! your Delawares were the red-skins
of which America might boast; but few and scattered
is that mighty people, now! Well! the traveller
may just make his pitch where he is; he has plenty
of water, though natur' has cheated him of the pleasure
of stripping the 'arth of its lawful trees. He

[figure description] Page 078.[end figure description]

has seen the last of his four-footed creatures, or I am
but little skilled in Sioux cunning.”

“Had we not better join the party of Ishmael,”
said the bee-hunter. “There will be a regular fight
about this matter, or the old fellow has suddenly
grown chicken-hearted.”

“No—no—no,” hastily exclaimed Ellen.

She was stopped by the trapper, who laid his hand
gently on her mouth as he answered—

“Hist!—hist!—the sound of voices might bring
us into danger. Is your friend,” he added turning to
Paul, “a man of spirit enough—”

“Don't call the squatter a friend of mine!” interrupted
the youth. “I never yet harboured with one
who could not show hand and seal for the land which
fed him.”

“Well—well. Let it then be acquaintance. Is he
a man to maintain his own stoutly by dint of powder
and lead?”

“His own! ay, and that which is not his own, too!
Can you tell me, old trapper, who held the rifle that
did the deed for the sheriff's deputy, that thought to
rout the unlawful settlers who had gathered nigh the
Buffaloe lick in old Kentucky! I had lined a beautiful
swarm that very day into the hollow of a dead
beech, and there lay the people's officer at its roots,
with a hole directly through the “grace of God;”
which he carried in his jacket pocket covering his
heart, as though he thought a bit of sheepskin was a
breastplate against a squatter's bullet! Now, Ellen,
you need'n't, be troubled; for it never strictly was
brought home to him; and there were fifty others
who had pitched in that neighbourhood with just the
same assistance from the law.”

The poor girl shuddered, struggling powerfully to
suppress the sigh which arose in spite of her efforts,
as if from the very bottom of her heart.

Thoroughly satisfied that he understood the

[figure description] Page 079.[end figure description]

character of the emigrants, by the short but comprehensive
description conveyed in Paul's reply, the old
man raised no further question concerning the readiness
of Ishmael to revenge his wrongs, but rather followed
that train of thoughts which was suggested to
his experience by the occasion.

“Each one knows the ties which bind him to his
fellow-creatures best,” he answered. “Though it is
greatly to be mourned that colour, and property, and
tongue, and l'arning should make so wide a difference
in those who, after all, are but the children of one
father! Howsomever,” he continued, by a transition
not a little characteristic of the pursuits and feelings
of the man, “as this is a business in which there is
much more likelihood of a fight than need for a sermon,
it is best to be prepared for what may follow—
Hush! there is a movement below; it is an equal
chance that we are seen.”

“The family is stirring;” cried Ellen with a tremor
in her voice that announced nearly as much terror at
the approach of her friends, as she had before manifested
at the presence of her enemies. “Go, Paul,
leave me. You, at least, must not be seen!”

“If I leave you, Ellen, in this desert before I see
you safe in the care of old Ishmael, at least, may I
never hear the hum of another bee, or, what is
worse, fail in sight to line him to his hive!”

“You forget this good old man. He will not leave
me. Though I am sure, Paul, we have parted before,
where there has been more of a desert than this.”

“Never! These Indians may come whooping back,
and then where are you! Half way to the Rocky
Mountains before a man can fairly strike the line of
your flight. What think you, old trapper? How
long may it be before these Tetons, as you call them,
will be coming for the rest of old Ishmael's goods
and chattels?”

“No fear of them,” returned the old man again,

[figure description] Page 080.[end figure description]

laughing in his own peculiar and silent manner; “I
warrant me the devils will be scampering after their
beasts these six hours yet! Listen! you may hear
them in the willow bottoms at this very moment; ay,
your real Sioux cattle will run like so many long-legged
elks. Hist! crouch again into the grass, down
with ye both; as I'm a miserable piece of clay, I
heard the ticking of a gun-lock!”

The trapper did not allow his companions time to
hesitate, but dragging them both after him, he nearly
buried his own person in the fog of the prairie, while
he was speaking. It was fortunate that the senses of
the aged hunter remained so acute, and that he had
lost none of his readiness of action. The three were
scarcely bowed to the ground, when their ears were
saluted with the well-known sharp, short reports of
the western rifle, and instantly, the whizzing of the
ragged lead was heard, buzzing within a dangerous
proximity of their heads.

“Well done, young chips! well done, old block!”
whispered Paul, whose spirits no danger nor situation
could entirely depress. “As pretty a volley, as one
would wish to hear on the wrong end of a rifle!
What say, trapper! here is likely to be a three-cornered
war. Shall I give'em as good as they send?”

“Give them nothing, but fair words,” returned
the other, hastily, “or you are both lost.”

“I'm not certain it would much mend the matter,
if I were to speak with my tongue instead of the
piece,” said Paul in a tone half jocular half bitter.

“For the sake of heaven, do not let them hear
you!” cried Ellen! “Go, Paul, go; you may easily
go!”

Several shots in quick succession, each sending its
dangerous messenger, still nearer than the preceding
discharge, cut short her speech, no less in prudence
than in terror.

“This must end,” said the trapper rising with the

[figure description] Page 081.[end figure description]

dignity of one bent only on the importance of his object.
“I know not what need ye may have, children,
to fear those you should both love and honour, but
something must be done to save your lives. A few
hours more or less can never be missed from the time
of one who has already numbered so many days;
therefore I will advance. Here is a clear space
around you. Profit by it as you need, and may God
bless and prosper each of you, as ye deserve!”

Without waiting for any reply, the trapper walked
boldly down the declivity in his front, taking the direction
of the encampment, neither quickening his
pace in trepidation, nor suffering it to be retarded by
fear. The light of the moon fell brighter for a moment
on his tall, gaunt form, and served to warn the
emigrants of his approach. Indifferent, however,
to this unfavourable circumstance, he held his way,
silently and steadily towards the copse, until a stern,
threatening voice met him with the challenge of—

“Who comes; friend or foe?”

“Friend,” was the reply; “one who has lived too
long to disturb the close of life with quarrels.”

“But not so long as to forget the tricks of his
youth,” said Ishmael, rearing his huge frame from
beneath the slight covering of a low bush, and meeting
the trapper, face to face; “old man, you have
brought this tribe of red devils upon us, and to-morrow
you will be sharing the booty.”

“What have you lost?” calmly demanded the
trapper.

“Eight as good mares as ever travelled in gears,
besides a foal that is worth thirty of the brightest
Mexicans that bear the face of the King of Spain.
Then the woman has not a cloven hoof for her dairy
or her loom, and I believe even the grunters, foot
sore as they be, are ploughing the prairie. And
now, stranger,” he added, dropping the butt of his
rifle on the hard earth, with a violence and clatter

[figure description] Page 082.[end figure description]

that would have intimidated one less firm than the
man he addressed, “how many of these creatures,
may fall to your lot?”

“Horses have I never craved, nor even used;
though few have journeyed over more of the wide
lands of America than myself, old and feeble as I
seem. But little use is there for a horse among the
hills and woods of York—that is, as York was, but
as I greatly fear York is no longer—as for woollen
covering and cow's milk, I covet no such womanly
fashions! The beasts of the field give me food and
raiment. No, I crave no cloth better than the skin
of a deer, nor any meat richer than his flesh.”

The sincere manner of the trapper, as he uttered
this simple vindication, was not entirely thrown away
on the emigrant, whose dull nature was gradually
quickening into a flame, that might speedily have
burst forth with dangerous violence. He listened
like one who doubted, though not entirely convinced;
and he muttered between his teeth the denunciation,
with which a moment before he intended to precede
the summary vengeance he had certainly meditated.

“This is brave talking,” he at length grumbled;
“but to my judgment, too lawyer-like, for a straight
forward, fair-weather, and foul-weather hunter.”

“I claim to be no better than a trapper,” the other
meekly interrupted.

“Hunter or trapper—There is little difference. I
have come, old man, into these districts because I
found the law sitting too tight upon me, and am not
over fond of neighbours who can't settle a dispute
without troubling a justice and twelve men; but I
didn't come to be robb'd of my plunder, and then to
say thank'ee to the man who did it!”

“He, who ventures far into the prairies, must abide
by the ways of its owners.”

“Owners!” echoed the sullen squatter, “I am as
rightful an owner of the land I stand on, as any

[figure description] Page 083.[end figure description]

governor in all the states! Can you tell me, stranger,
where the law or the reason is to be found, which
says that one man shall have a section, or a town, or
perhaps a county, to his use, and another have to
beg for earth to make his grave in. This is not
nature, and I deny that it is law. That is, your legal
law.”

“I cannot say that you are wrong,” returned the
trapper, whose opinions on this important topic,
though drawn from very different premises, were in
singular accordance with those of his companion,
“and I have often thought and said as much, when
and where I have believed my voice could be heard.
But your beasts are stolen by them who claim to be
masters of all they find in the deserts.”

“They had better not dispute that matter with a
man who knows better,” said the other in a voice of
portentous tones, though it seemed as deep and sluggish
as he who uttered it. “I call myself a fair trader,
and one who gives to his chaps as good as he receives.
You saw the Indians?”

“I did—they held me a prisoner, while they stole
into your camp.”

“It would have been more like a white-man and
a christian, to have let me known as much in better
season;” retorted Ishmael, casting another ominous
side-long glance at the trapper, as if still meditating
evil. “I am not much given to call every man I fall
in with, cousin, but colour should be something, when
christians meet in such a place as this. But what is
done, is done, and cannot be mended, by words.
Come out of your ambush boys; here is no one but
the old man: he has eaten of my bread, and should
be a friend; though there is such good reason to suspect
him of harbouring with my enemies.”

The trapper made no reply to the harsh suspicion
which the other did not scruple to utter without the
smallest delicacy, notwithstanding the explanations

[figure description] Page 084.[end figure description]

and denials to which he had just listened. The summons
of the unnurtured squatter brought an immediate
accession to their party. Four or five of his sons
made their appearance from beneath as many covers,
where they had been posted under the impression
that the figures they had seen, on the swell of the
prairie, were a part of the Sioux band. As each
man approached, and dropped his rifle into the hollow
of his arm, he cast an indolent but inquiring
glance at the form of the stranger, though neither of
them expressed the least curiosity to know whence
he had come or why he was there. This forbearance,
however, proceeded only in part, from the sluggishness
of their common temper; for long and frequent
experience in scenes of a similar character, had
taught them the virtue of discretion. The trapper
endured their sullen but silent scrutiny with the
steadiness of one as practised as themselves, and with
the entire composure of innocence. Content with
the momentary examination he had made, the eldest
of the groupe, who was in truth the delinquent sentinel
by whose remissness the wily Mahtoree had so
well profited, turned towards his father and said
bluntly:

“If this man is all that is left of the party I saw
on the upland, yonder, we haven't altogether thrown
away our ammunition.”

“Asa, you are right;” said the father, turning suddenly
on the trapper, as though a lost idea was recalled
by the hint of his sluggish son. “How is it,
stranger; there were three of you, just now, or there
is no virtue in moonlight!”

“If you had seen the Tetons racing across the
prairies, like so many black-looking evil-ones, on the
heels of your cattle, my friend, it would have been
an easy matter to have fancied them a thousand.”

“Ay, for a town bred boy or a skeary woman;
though, for that matter, there is old Esther yon; she

[figure description] Page 085.[end figure description]

has no more fear of a red-skin than of a suckling
cub, or of a wolf pup. I'll warrant ye, had your
stealing devils made their push by the light of the
sun, the good woman would have been seen smartly
at work among them, and the Siouxes would have
found she was not given to part with her cheese and
her butter without a price. But there'll come a time,
stranger, right soon, when justice will have its dues,
and that too, without the help of what is called the
law. We ar' of a slow breed, it may be said, and it
is often said of us; but slow is sure; and there ar'
few men, living, who can say they ever struck a
blow, that they did not get one as hard in return,
from Ishmael Bush.”

“Then has Ishmael Bush followed the instinct of
the beasts rather than the genuine principle which
ought to belong to his kind,” returned the stubborn
trapper. “I have struck many a blow myself, but
never have I felt the same ease of mind that of right
belongs to a man who follows his reason, after slaying
even a fawn when there was no call for his meat
or hide, as I have felt at leaving a Mingo unburied in
the woods, when following the trade of open and
honest warfare.”

“What, you have been a soldier, have you, trapper!
I made a forage or two among the Cherokees,
when I was a lad myself; and I followed mad Anthony,
one season, through the beeches; but there was
altogether too much tatooing and regulating among
his troops for me; so I left him without calling on
the paymaster to settle my arrearages. Though, as
Esther afterwards boasted, she had made such use
of the pay-ticket, that the States gained no great
sum, by the oversight. You have heard of such a
man as mad Anthony, if you tarried long among the
soldiers.”

“I fou't my last battle, as I hope, under his orders,”
returned the trapper, a gleam of sun-shine shooting

[figure description] Page 086.[end figure description]

from his dim eyes, as if the event was recollected
with pleasure, and then a sudden shade of sorrow
succeeding, as though he felt a secret admonition
against dwelling on the violent scenes in which he
had so often been an actor. “I was passing from
the states on the sea shore into these far regions,
when I cross'd the trail of his party, and I fell in, on
his rear, just as a looker-on; but when they got to
blows, the crack of my rifle was heard among the
rest, though to my shame it may be said, I never
knew the right of the quarrel as well as a man of
threescore and ten should know the reason of his
acts afore he takes mortal life, which is a gift he
never can return!”

“Come, stranger,” said the emigrant, his rugged
nature a good deal softened when he found that they
had fought on the same side in the wild warfare of
the west, “it is of small account, what may be the
ground-work of the disturbance, when it's a Christian
ag'in a savage. We shall hear more of this horse-stealing
to-morrow; to-night we can do no wiser or
safer thing than to sleep.”

So saying, Ishmael deliberately led the way back
towards his rifled encampment, and ushered the man,
whose life a few minutes before had been in real
jeopardy through his resentment, into the presence
of his family. Here, with a very few words of explanation,
mingled with scarce but ominous denunciations
against the plunderers, he made his wife acquainted
with the state of things on the Prairie, and
then announced his own determination to compensate
himself for his broken rest, by devoting the remainder
of the night to sleep.

The trapper gave his ready assent to the measure,
and adjusted his gaunt form on the pile of brush that
was offered him, with as much composure as a sovereign,
could resign himself to sleep in the security of
his capital and surrounded by his armed protectors.

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The old man, did not close his eyes, however, until
he had assured himself that Ellen Wade was among
the females of the family, and that her relation or
lover, whichever he might be, had observed the caution
of keeping himself out of view: after which he
slept, though with the peculiar watchfulness of one
long accustomed to vigilance, even in the hours of
deepest night.