The Trapper's Daughter Part 46

After the first emotion had worn off, Nathan attentively examined the Indian. He was a man of thirty at the most; he did not wear the garb of a warrior, and two screech owl feathers fixed in his thick hair, over his right ear, rendered it easy to recognise a Nez-Perce Indian. The adventurer looked at him a long time ere he could make up his mind what to do; at length he threw his rifle on his shoulder, left his hiding place, and walked up to the Indian. The latter probably saw him, though he displayed no alarm, and quietly went on eating. When about two paces from the Nez-Perce the American stopped.

"I salute my brother," he said, raising his voice, and unfolding his zarape in sign of peace; "may the Wacondah grant him a great hunt."

"I thank my paleface brother," the Indian replied, as he looked up; "he is welcome, I have two handfuls of pemmican left, and there is a place for him at my fire."

Nathan approached, and, without further ceremony, sat down by the side of his new friend, who paternally shared his food with him, but asked him no questions. After feeding, the Nez-Perce lit an Indian pipe, in which his companion at once imitated him.

The two men remained there, silently puffing the smoke in each other's face. When the Nez-Perce had finished his calumet, he shook out the ash on his thumb, placed the pipe in his belt, and and then resting his elbows on his knees, and his face in the palm of his hands, he plunged into that state of ecstatic beat.i.tude which the Italians call the _dolce far niente_, the Turks _keff_, and which has no equivalent in English.

Nathan filled his pipe a second time, and then turned to his comrade.

"Is my brother a chief?" he asked him.

The Indian raised his head.

"No," he answered, with a proud smile, "I am one of the masters of the great medicine."

Nathan bowed respectfully.

"I understand," he said, "my brother is one of the wise men, whom the redskins call _alla.n.u.s_."

"I am also a sorcerer," the Nez-Perce said.

"Oh, oh! What, is my brother one of the Ministers of the Great Turtle?"

"Yes," he answered, "we command the caciques and warriors; they only act on our orders."

"I know it; my father has great learning, his power extends over the whole earth."

The Nez-Perce smiled condescendingly at this praise, and holding up a small staff decorated with gay feathers and bells which he held in his right hand, he said:

"This _mulbache_ is a more tremendous weapon than the thunder of the palefaces; everywhere it makes me feared and respected."

A sinister smile for the second time curled the American's lips.

"Is my brother returning to his nation?" he asked.

"No," the Indian said with a shake of the hand; "I am expected at the village of the Buffalo Apaches, who require my counsel and my medicine, in order to undertake, under favourable auspices, a great expedition they are meditating at this moment. My brother will therefore forgive my leaving him, for I must reach the end of my journey this night."

"I will not leave my red brother," Nathan answered; "if he will permit me, I will walk in his moccasins, for my footsteps have the same direction as my brother's."

"I gladly accept my brother's proposition; let us start then."

"I am ready."

After rising and adjusting his dress, the Indian stooped to pick up a small bundle, which probably contained his scanty property. Nathan profited by the movement; swift as thought he drew his knife, and buried it to the hilt between the Indian's shoulders. The unhappy man uttered a stifled cry, stretched out his arms, and fell dead. The American phlegmatically drew his knife from the horrible wound, wiped it in the gra.s.s, and returned it to his girdle.

"Hum!" he said, with a grin; "there's a poor devil of a sorcerer, whose skill could not save him: I will try whether I cannot succeed better."

While talking with the redskin, whom he had at first no intention of killing, and whom he only wished to make a protector, a sudden idea crossed his mind. This idea, which at the first blush will seem extraordinary, suited the bandit, owing to the boldness and daring it required to carry it out successfully. He made up his mind to a.s.sume the sorcerer's clothes, and pa.s.s for him among the redskins. Long conversant with Indian habits and customs, Nathan felt sure he should play this difficult part with all the perfection necessary to deceive even sharper eyes than those of the savages. After a.s.suring himself that his victim gave no sign of life, Nathan began removing his garments, which he put on instead of his own. When this first change was effected, he riffled the sorcerer's bag, took out a mirror, bladders filled with vermilion, and a black pigment, and with small pieces of wood painted on his face the strange figures that were on the sorcerer's. The imitation was perfect; from the face he pa.s.sed to the body; then he fastened on his hair, and stuck in it the two screech owl feathers. Nathan had frequently disguised himself as an Indian, when going scalp hunting with his father, hence the metamorphosis in a few seconds.

"This carrion must not be found," he said.

Taking the body on his back, he hurled it to the bottom of a precipice.

"Well, that is settled," he continued, with a laugh; "if the Apaches are not satisfied with the great medicine man who is coming to them, they will be difficult to please."

As he did not wish to lose his clothes, he hid them in the Indian's bundle, which he pa.s.sed over his rifle barrel; he then took the poor sorcerer's staff, and gaily set out, muttering to himself with an impudent smile--

"We shall soon see whether this mulbache really possesses the magic powers that are attributed to it."

CHAPTER XXVII.

A TRAIL IN THE AIR.

Travellers and tourists who have only seen European forests, cannot imagine the grand, majestic, and sublime view offered by a virgin forest in the New World. There are none of those glades four or five yards wide, stretching out before you, straight and stiff for miles, but everything is abrupt and savage. There is no prospect, for the eye cannot see more than thirty or forty paces at the most in any direction.

The primitive soil has disappeared beneath the detritus of trees dead from old age, and which time, rain, and suns.h.i.+ne have reduced to dust.

The trees grow very freely, enveloped by thick lianas, which twine around the stems and branches in the strangest curves, das.h.i.+ng in every direction, plunging into the ground to reappear again a yard further on, and chaining the trees together for enormous distances. The wood varies but slightly in certain districts, and hence, one tree serves the repet.i.tion of all. Then again, a gra.s.s, close and thick like the straw of a wheat field, grows to a height of five and often six feet.

Suddenly immense pits open beneath the feet of the imprudent traveller, or bogs covered by a crust scarce an inch in thickness, which swallow up in their fetid mud the man who ventures to put a foot on them; further on, a stream runs silent and unvisited, forming rapids, and forcing a path with difficulty through the heaps of earth and dead trees which it collects and deposits on the banks. From this short description it may be understood that it is not so difficult as might be supposed to pa.s.s from one tree to another for a long distance.

In order, however, to explain this thoroughly to the reader, we will tell him what he is probably ignorant of: that in certain parts of the prairie this mode of travelling is employed, not, as might be supposed, to escape the obstinate pursuit of an enemy, but simply to get on the more rapidly, not to be obliged to cut a path with the axe, and run no risk of falling down a precipice, the more so as most of the trees are enormous, and their solid branches so intertwined, that they thus form a convenient flooring, at eighty feet above the ground.

Hence Red Cedar's proposition had nothing extraordinary in itself, when made to men who had probably tried this mode of locomotion before. But what would have been an easy and simple thing for the adventurers, became serious and almost impossible for a girl like Ellen, who, though strong and skillful, could not take a step without running a risk of breaking her neck, owing to her dress catching in every branch. A remedy for this must be found, and the three men reflected on it for an hour, but discovered nothing which offered the necessary security. It was Ellen again who came to their help, and relieved them from the trouble.

"Well," she asked her father, "what are we doing here? Why do we not start? Did you not say we had not a moment to lose?"

Red Cedar shook his head.

"I said so, and it is true; each moment we lose robs us of a day of life."

"Let us be off, then."

"It is not possible yet, my child, till I have found what I am seeking."

"What is it, father? Tell, me, perhaps I can help you."

"Bah!" Red Cedar said, suddenly making up his mind, "Why should I make a secret of what concerns you as much as myself?"

"What is it, then, father?"

"Hang it all, your confounded gown, which renders it impossible for you to leap from one branch to another as we shall do."

"Is that all that troubles you?"