The Prairie. James Fenimore Cooper

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СКАЧАТЬ 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 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 shotgun. There is as much of the true stand-up courage among them, as there is in any family that was ever raised in Kentuck, itself. 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 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, 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 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,” continued the savage, allowing the usual moment of decorum to elapse, after the 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 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!”

      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 СКАЧАТЬ