Oak Openings. James Fenimore Cooper
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canoe, and Gershom expected an announcement on the part of Ben of his readiness to embark. But there still remained one duty to perform. The beehunter had killed a buck only the day before the opening of our narrative, and shouldering a quarter, he had left the remainder of the animal suspended from the branches of a tree, near the place where it had been shot and cleaned. As venison might be needed before they could reach the mouth of the river, Ben deemed it advisable that he and Gershom should go and bring in the remainder of the carcass. The men started on this undertaking accordingly, leaving the canoe about two in the afternoon.
The distance between the spot where the deer had been killed, and the chiente, was about three miles; which was the reason why the bee-hunter had not brought home the entire animal the day he killed it; the American woodsman often carrying his game great distances in preference to leaving it any length of time in the forest. In the latter case there is always danger from beasts of prey, which are drawn from afar by the scent of blood. Le Bourdon thought it possible they might now encounter wolves; though he had left the carcass of the deer so suspended as to place it beyond the reach of most of the animals of the wilderness. Each of the men, however, carried a rifle: and Hive was allowed to accompany them, by an act of grace on the part of his master.
For the first half-hour, nothing occurred out of the usual course of events. The bee-hunter had been conversing freely with his companion, who, he rejoiced to find, manifested far more common sense, not to say good sense, than he had previously shown; and from whom he was deriving information touching the number of vessels, and the other movements on the lakes, that he fancied might be of use to himself when he started for Detroit. While thus engaged, and when distant only a hundred rods from the place where he had left the venison, le Bourdon was suddenly struck with the movements of the dog. Instead of doubling on his own tracks, and scenting right and left, as was the animal's wont, he was now advancing cautiously, with his head low, seemingly feeling his way with his nose, as if there was a strong taint in the wind.
“Sartain as my name is Gershom,” exclaimed Waring, just after he and Ben had come to a halt, in order to look around them—“yonder is an Injin! The crittur' is seated at the foot of the large oak—hereaway, more to the right of the dog, and Hive has struck his scent. The fellow is asleep, with his rifle across his lap, and can't have much dread of wolves or bears!”
“I see him,” answered le Bourdon, “and am as much surprised as grieved to find him there. It is a little remarkable that I should have so many visitors, just at this time, on my hunting-ground, when I never had any at all before yesterday. It gives a body an uncomfortable feeling, Waring, to live so much in a crowd! Well, well—I'm about to move, and it will matter little twenty-four hours hence.”
“The chap's a Winnebago by his paint,” added Gershom—“but let's go up and give him a call.”
The bee-hunter assented to this proposal, remarking, as they moved forward, that he did not think the stranger of the tribe just named; though he admitted that the use of paint was so general and loose among these warriors, as to render it difficult to decide.
“The crittur' sleeps soundly!” exclaimed Gershom, stopping within ten yards of the Indian, to take another look at him.
“He'll never awake,” put in the bee-hunter, solemnly—“the man is dead. See; there is blood on the side of his head, and a rifle-bullet has left its hole there.”
Even while speaking, the bee-hunter advanced, and raising a sort of shawl, that once had been used as an ornament, and which had last been thrown carelessly over the head of its late owner, he exposed the well-known features of Elks-foot, the Pottawattamie, who had left them little more than twenty-four hours before! The warrior had been shot by a rifle-bullet directly through the temple, and had been scalped. The powder had been taken from his horn, and the bullets from his pouch; but, beyond this, he had not been plundered. The body was carefully placed against a tree, in a sitting attitude, the rifle was laid across its legs, and there it had been left, in the centre of the openings, to become food for beasts of prey, and to have its bones bleached by the snows and the rains!
The bee-hunter shuddered, as he gazed at this fearful memorial of the violence against which even a wilderness could afford no sufficient protection. That Pigeonswing had slain his late fellow-guest, le Bourdon had no doubt, and he sickened at the thought. Although he had himself dreaded a good deal from the hostility of the Pottawattamie, he could have wished this deed undone. That there was a jealous distrust of each other between the two Indians had been sufficiently apparent; but the bee-hunter could not have imagined that it would so soon lead to results as terrible as these!
After examining the body, and noting the state of things around it, the men proceeded, deeply impressed with the necessity, not only of their speedy removal, but of their standing by each other in that remote region, now that violence had so clearly broken out among the tribes. The bee-hunter had taken a strong liking to the Chippewa, and he regretted so much the more to think that he had done this deed. It was true, that such a state of things might exist as to justify an Indian warrior, agreeably to his own notions, in taking the life of any one of a hostile tribe; but le Bourdon wished it had been otherwise. A man of gentle and peaceable disposition himself, though of a profoundly enthusiastic temperament in his own peculiar way, he had ever avoided those scenes of disorder and bloodshed, which are of so frequent occurrence in the forest and on the prairies; and this was actually the first instance in which he had ever beheld a human body that had fallen by human hands. Gershom had seen more of the peculiar life of the frontiers than his companion, in consequence of having lived so closely in contact with the “fire-water”; but even HE was greatly shocked with the suddenness and nature of the Pottawattamie's end.
No attempt was made to bury the remains of Elksfoot, inasmuch as our adventurers had no tools fit for such a purpose, and any merely superficial interment would have been a sort of invitation to the wolves to dig the body up again.
“Let him lean ag'in' the tree,” said Waring, as they moved on toward the spot where the carcass of the deer was left, “and I'll engage nothin' touches him. There's that about the face of man, Bourdon, that skears the beasts; and if a body can only muster courage to stare them full in the eye, one single human can drive before him a whull pack of wolves.”
“I've heard as much,” returned the bee-hunter, “but should not like to be the 'human' to try the experiment That the face of man may have terrors for a beast, I think likely; but hunger would prove more than a match for such fear. Yonder is our venison, Waring; safe where I left it.”
The carcass of the deer was divided, and each man shouldering his burden, the two returned to the river, taking care to avoid the path that led by the body of the dead Indian. As both labored with much earnestness, everything was soon ready, and the canoe speedily left the shore. The Kalamazoo is not in general a swift and turbulent stream, though it has a sufficient current to carry away its waters without any appearance of sluggishness. Of course, this character is not uniform, reaches occurring in which the placid water is barely seen to move; and others, again, are found, in which something like rapids, and even falls, appear. But on the whole, and more especially in the part of the stream where it was, the canoe had little to disturb it, as it glided easily down, impelled by a light stroke of the paddle.
The bee-hunter did not abandon his station without regret. He had chosen a most agreeable site for his chiente, consulting air, shade, water, verdure, and groves, as well as the chances of obtaining honey. In his regular pursuit he had been unusually fortunate; and the little pile of kegs in the centre of his canoe was certainly a grateful sight to his eyes. The honey gathered this season, moreover, had proved to be of an unusually delicious flavor, affording the promise of high prices and ready sales. Still, the bee-hunter left the place with profound regret. He loved his calling; he loved solitude to a morbid degree, perhaps; and he loved the gentle excitement that naturally attended his “bee-lining,” his discoveries, and his gains. Of all the pursuits that are more or less dependent on the chances of the hunt and the field, that of the bee-hunter is of the most quiet and placid enjoyment. He has the stirring motives of uncertainty and doubt, without the disturbing qualities of bustle and fatigue; and, while his exercise is sufficient for health, and for the pleasures of the open air, it is seldom of a