The Trapper's Daughter Part 45

"Do not be frightened," Nathan replied, roughly, "I am no fool."

"That is true; take a lump of meat, and good-bye."

"Good-bye, and the devil take you but watch over my sister; I care precious little for your old carca.s.s, so long as the girl runs no danger."

"All right," the squatter said, "We will do what is needful to protect your sister, so do not trouble yourself about her; come, be off."

Nathan embraced Ellen, who affectionately pressed his hand, as she wiped away her tears.

"Don't cry, Ellen," he said hoa.r.s.ely; "a man's life is nothing after all; don't bother yourself about me--the devil will look after his friends."

After uttering the words in a tone which he tried in vain to render careless, the young savage threw his rifle on his back, hung a piece of meat to his girdle, and went off hurriedly, not turning round once. Five minutes later, he disappeared in the chaparral.

"Poor brother!" Ellen murmured, "he is going to a certain death."

"Well," Red Cedar said, with a shrug of his shoulders, "we are all going to death, and each step unconsciously brings us nearer to it: what use is it feeling sorry about the fate that threatens him; do we know what awaits ourselves? We are not lying on a bed of roses. My child, I warn you, that we shall require all, our skill and sagacity to get out of it, for I cannot calculate on a miracle occurring."

"That is far more prudent," Fray, Ambrosio said, cunningly; "besides, it is written somewhere, I forget where, 'Help yourself, and heaven will help you.'"

"Yes," the squatter replied, with a grin, "and there never was a finer opportunity for putting the precept in practice."

"I think so, and am waiting for you to explain to us what we have to do."

Without answering the monk, Red Cedar turned to his daughter.

"Ellen, my child," he asked her, in an affectionate voice, "do you feel strong enough to follow us?"

"Do not trouble yourself about me, father," she replied; "wherever you pa.s.s, I will pa.s.s: you know that I have been accustomed to the desert from my childhood."

"That is true," Red Cedar remarked doubtfully: "but this is the first time you have tried the mode of travelling we shall be obliged to adopt."

"What do you mean? People travel on foot, horseback, or in a boat. We have moved about in one of those fas.h.i.+ons twenty times before."

"You are right; but now we are constrained by circ.u.mstances to modify our mode of marching. We have no horses, no river, and our enemies hold the ground."

"In that case," the monk exclaimed with a grin, "we will imitate the birds, and fly through the air."

Red Cedar, looked at him earnestly.

"You have nearly guessed it," he said.

"What?" the monk remarked, "you are making fun of us, Red Cedar. Do you think this the proper moment for jesting?"

"I am not naturally inclined to jesting," the squatter coldly replied, "and at this moment less than ever. We shall not fly like the birds, because we have no wings; but for all that, we will make our journey in the air, in this way. Look around you; on the sides of the mountains extend immense virgin forests, in which our enemies are concealed. They are coming on quietly, carefully picking out every sign of our pa.s.sing they can discover."

"Well?" the monk asked.

"While they are seeking our trail on the ground, we will slip through their hands like serpents, pa.s.sing from tree to tree, from branch to branch, thirty yards above their heads, and they not dreaming of looking up, which would, indeed, be useless, for the foliage is too dense, the creepers too close for them to discover us. And then, again, this chance of safety, though very slight, is the only one left us. Have you the courage to try it?"

There was a momentary silence. At length the monk took the squatter's hand, and shook it heartily.

"Canarios! Gossip," he said to him, with a species of respect, "you are a great man. Forgive my suspicions."

"You accept, then?"

"_Caspita!_ You need not ask that. Eagerly, and I swear it, that never squirrel leaped as I will do."

CHAPTER XXVI.

NATHAN PAINTS HIMSELF.

So soon as he had got out of sight of his comrades, Nathan halted. He was neither so careless nor confident as he wished to appear. When he was alone and away from those who might ridicule, he gave way to his ill temper, and cursed the chance that placed him in such a precarious and dangerous position.

Nathan, we think we have already said, was a species of Hercules, gifted with uncommon energy and ferocity. Accustomed from his childhood to a desert life and its sanguinary tragedies, he was not the man to despond and despair easily. Pitiless to himself as to others, he perfectly accepted the consequences of the situation in which he found himself at times placed, and, in case of necessity, was resolved to fight to the death in defence of his scalp.

At this moment, however, it was not his position in itself that rendered him anxious. He had been a hundred times beset by equal danger in crossing the prairie; but hitherto, when he had perilled his life, he had done it with an object he knew perfectly well, with the prospect, near or remote, of some profit; but this time he regarded himself as obeying a will he was ignorant of, for a purpose he did not understand, and for interests that were not his own. Hence, he cursed his father, Fray Ambrosio, and himself for having thus got into a trap, whence he did not know how to escape.

Red Cedar's last recommendation was necessary. Nathan was not at all anxious to have his trail discovered. He employed all the means his intelligence suggested to him to hide it from the keenest glance, only taking a step after convincing himself that the trace of the previous one had disappeared. After ripe reflection, he had arrived at the following conclusion--

"It's all the worse for them, but each for himself! If I lose my scalp they will not give it me back. I will, therefore, defend it as well as I can. They must do what they can, but for my part I must do my best to get out of the sc.r.a.pe."

After these words, uttered in a loud voice, in the way of men accustomed to live alone, Nathan gave that almost imperceptible shrug of his shoulders, which in all countries signifies "let what will happen." And, after carefully examining his rifle, he started afresh.

Europeans, accustomed to the horizons of the old world, to macadamised roads, bordered by pleasant houses and traversed in every direction, cannot form, even approximately, a correct idea of the position of a man alone in that ocean of verdure called the "Far West", who feels himself watched by invisible eyes, and knows he is tracked like a wild beast.

A man, however brave he may be, and accustomed to the adventurous life of the desert, shudders and feels very weak when he turns an enquiring glance around him, and sees himself, so little in the immensity that surrounds him. In the desert, if you wish to go north, you must march to the south; be attentive not to crush the leaves on which you walk, break the branches that bar the way, and, above all, not to make the pebbles on which you step grate against each other.

All the sounds of the desert are known to, explained, and commented on by the redskins. After listening for a few seconds, they can tell you if the animal whose footfall is heard in the distance, is a horse, a bear, a buffalo, an elk, or an antelope. A pebble rolling down the side of a ravine suffices to denounce a prowler. A few drops of water spilt on the edge of a ford, clearly reveal the pa.s.sing of several travellers. An unusual movement in the tall gra.s.s, betrays a watching spy. Everything, in short, from the down-trodden blade of gra.s.s to the buffalo that suddenly c.o.c.ks its ears while browsing, or the a.s.shata bounding in alarm without cause--all in the desert serves as a book, in which the Indian reads the pa.s.sage of friend or foe, and puts him on his trail, even though they be one hundred miles apart.

The men who live in these countries, where material life is everything, acquire a perfection of certain organs which, seems incredible; sight and hearing especially are enormously developed in them; and this, combined with extreme agility, dauntless courage, and sustained by muscles of remarkable vigour, renders them dangerous adversaries. In addition to this, we have that cunning and treachery which are never apart, and are the two great means which the Indians employ to seize their foes, whom they never attack face to face, but always by surprise.

Necessity is the supreme law of the Indian, and he sacrifices everything to it, and, like all incomplete or badly-developed natures, he only admits physical qualities, caring nothing for virtues he does not want, but, on the contrary, would injure him in the life he leads.

Nathan was himself almost a redskin: only at rare intervals had he visited, for a few days at a time, the towns of the American Union.

Hence all he knew of life he had learned in the desert; and that education is as good as another when the instincts of the man who receives it are good; because he is able to make a choice, and take what is n.o.ble and generous, laying aside what is bad. Unfortunately, Nathan had never any other teacher of morality but his father. From an early age he had been accustomed to regard things in the same way as the squatter did, and that was the worst of all. Hence with years the teaching be received had fructified so fully that he had become the true type of the civilised man who has turned savage; the most hideous transformation of species that can be imagined.

Nathan loved nothing, believed in nothing, and respected nothing. Only one person had any influence over him, and that was Ellen; but at this moment she was no longer by his side.

The young man marched on for a long time without perceiving anything that revealed the approach of danger; still this fact.i.tious security did not make him neglect his precautions. While walking on, with rifle thrust out before him, his body bent forward, and eye and ear on the watch, he thought, and the further he went, the more gloomy his thoughts became.

The reason was simple; he knew that he was surrounded by implacable foes, watched by numerous spies, and yet nothing disturbed the quiet of the prairie. All appeared to be in its ordinary state; it was impossible to notice the least suspicious movement in the gra.s.s or shrubs. This calmness was too profound to be natural, and Nathan was not deceived by it.

"Humph!" he said to himself, "I shall have a row presently, I feel certain; deuce take those brutes of redskins for not giving a sign of life. I am walking blindly, not knowing where I am going, I am convinced I shall fall into some trap laid for me by these villains, and which it will be impossible for me to get out of."

Nathan went on walking till about ten in the morning. At that hour, as he felt hungry, and his legs were rather stiff, he resolved at all hazards to take a few moments' rest and some mouthfuls of meat. He mechanically looked round him to seek a suitable, spot, but he suddenly gave a start of surprise as he raised his rifle, and hid himself behind an enormous tree. He had noticed, scarce fifty yards from him, an Indian, sitting carelessly on the ground and quietly eating a little pemmican.