Littlepage Manuscripts: Satanstoe, The Chainbearer & The Redskins (Complete Edition). James Fenimore Cooper
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in hesitating any longer; if asleep he would approach the chestnut cautiously, and capture the stranger, if an Indian, before he could rise; and if a white man, it must be some one belonging to our own set, who was taking a nap, probably, after a fatiguing march. Susquesus must have satisfied himself, by this time, that there was no immediate danger; for merely saying, “all go together,” he quitted the cover, and led down towards the chestnut with a rapid but noiseless step. As we moved in a body all five of us reached the tree at the same instant, where we found Sam, one of our own hunters, and whom we supposed to be with Mr. Traverse, stretched on his back, dead; with a wound in his breast that had been inflicted by a knife. He, too, had been scalped!
The looks we exchanged, said all that could be said on the subject of the gravity of this new discovery. Susquesus, alone, was undisturbed; I rather think he expected what he found. After examining the body, he seemed satisfied, simply saying, “kill, last night.”
That poor Sam had been dead several hours was pretty certain, and the circumstance removed all apprehension of any immediate danger from his destroyers. The ruthless warriors of the woods seldom remained long near the spot they had desolated, but passed on, like the tornado, or the tempest. Guert, who was ever prompt when anything was to be done, pointed to a natural hollow in the earth; one of those cavities that are so common in the forest, and which are usually attributed to the upturning of trees in remote ages, and suggested that we should use it as a grave. The body was accordingly laid in the hole, and we covered it in the best manner we could; succeeding in placing over it something like a foot deep of light loam, together with several flat stones; rolling logs on all, as we had done at the grave of Pete. By this time Guert’s feelings were so thoroughly aroused, that, in addition to the prayer and the creed, which he again repeated, in a very decorous and devout manner, he concluded the whole ceremony by a brief address. Nor was Guert anything but serious in what he did, or said, on either of these solemn occasions; his words, like his acts, being purely the impulses of a simple mind, which possesses longings after devotion and scriptural truths, without knowing exactly how to express them; and this, moreover, in spite of the mere animal propensities, and gay habits of his physical conformation, and constitutional tendencies.
“Deat’, my friends,” said Guert, most seriously, becoming Dutch, as usual, as he became interested; “Deat’ is a sutten visiter. He comes like a thief in the night, as you must all have often he’rt the Tominie say; and happy is he whose loins are girlet, and whose lamp is trimmed. Such, I trust, is the case with each of you; for, it is not to be concealet, that we are likely to have serious work before us. Here have been Injins, beyont a question; and they are Injins, too, that are out on the war-path, in search of English scalps; or, what is of equal importance to Mr. Follock and myself, Dutch scalps in the pargain; which makes it so much the more necessary for every man to be on his guart, and to stant up to his work, when it may come, as the pull-tog stants up to the ox. Got forpit t’at I should preach revenge over t’e grave of a frient; but the soltier fights none the worse for knowing t’at he has peen injuret in his feelin’s, as has certainly peen the case with ourselves. Perhaps I ought to say a wort in behalf of the teat, as this is the last, and only time, that a fellow-creature will ever have occasion to speak of him. Sam was an excellent hunter, as his worst enemy must allow; and now he is gone, few petter remain pehint. He had one weakness, which, stanting over his grave, an honest man ought not to try to conceal; he dit love liquor; put, in this, he was not alone. Nevertheless, he was honest; and his wort might pass where many a man’s pont would be wort’less; and I leave him in the merciful hants of his Creator. My frients, I haf but little more to say, and that is this—that life is uncertain, and deat’ is sure. Samuel has gone before us, only a little while; and may we all be equally preparet to meet our great account. Amen.”
Did any one smile at this address! Far from it! Singular, disconnected, and unsophisticated as it may seem to certain persons, it had one great merit that is not always discernible in the speeches of those who officiate at the most elaborate funeral rites. Guert was sincere, though he might not be either logical or very clear. This was apparent in his countenance, his voice, his whole manner. For myself, I will allow, I saw nothing particularly out of place, in this address, at the time, nor do I now regard it as either irreverent or unseasonable.
We left the grave of the hunter, in the depths of that interminable forest, as the ship passes away from the spot on the ocean where she has dropped her dead. At some future day, perhaps, the plough-share may turn up the bones, and the husbandman ruminate on the probable fate of the lonely man, whose remains will then again be brought to the light of day. As we left the spot, the Indian detained us a moment, to put us on our guard.
“Huron do that,” he said, meaningly—“No see difference, eh? Saw no hang up like Pete.”
“That is true enough, Susquesus,” Guert answered; for Guert, by his age, his greater familiarity with the woods, his high courage and his personal prowess, had now assumed, unresistingly on our part, a sort of chieftainship over us, “Can you tell us the reason, however?”
“Muss, you call him, back sore—that all. Know him well; don’t love flog. No Injin love flog.”
“And you think, then, Jaap’s prisoner has had a hand in this, and that the war-path is open to revenge as well as public service—that we are hunted less for our scalps than to put a plaster on the Huron’s back?”
“Sartain. T’ree canoe go by on lake—t’at Muss, you call him—know him, well. He no want sleep till back get well. See how he use nigger! Hang him on tree—only kill pale-face and take away scalp.”
“Do you suppose that he made this difference in the treatment of his two captives, on account of the colour? That he was so cruel to Petrus because Jaap, another nigger, had flogged him?”
“Sartain—just so. Back feel better after t’at. Good for back to hang nigger. Jaap see, some time.”
I will do my fellow the justice to say, that in the way of courage, few men were his equals. As I have said before, he only feared spooks, or Dutch ghosts; for the awe he had of me was so blended with love, as not to deserve the name of fear. In general, unless the weather happened to be cold, his face was of a deep, glistening black; coffin-colour, as the boys sometimes called it; but, I observed, notwithstanding his nerve and his keen desire to be revenged for the cruel treatment bestowed on his companion and brother, that his skin now assumed a greyish hue, such as is seen only in hard frosts, as a rule, in the people of his race. It was evident that the Trackless’ manner of speaking had produced an effect, and I have always thought the impresssion then made on Jaap was of infinite service to us, by setting in motion, and keeping in lively activity, every faculty of his mind and body. I had a specimen of this, as we moved off, Jaap walking for some distance close at my heels, in order to make me the repository of his griefs and solicitude.
“I hopes, Masser Corny, sah,” commenced the negro, “you doesn’t t’ink anyt’ing of what dis here Injin say?”
“I think, Jaap, it will be necessary for you to keep you eyes open, and by no means to fall into the hands of your friend Muss, as you call him, or he may serve you even worse than he served poor Pete. I hope, too, this will be warning to you, of the necessity of treating your prisoners kindly, should you ever make another.”
“I don’t t’ink, Masser Corny, you consider pretty much, sah. What good it do a nigger to captivate an Injin, if he let him go ag’in, and don’t lick him little? Only little, Masser Corny. Ebbery t’ing so handy too, sah—rope all ready, back bare, and feelin’ up, like, after such a time in takin’ ‘e varmint, sah!”
“Well, Jaap, what is done, is done, and there is no use in regretting it, in words. Of one thing, however, you may be certain; no mercy will be shown you, should this fellow, Muss, be actually out here, on our heels, and should you be so unfortunate as to fall into his hands.”
The negro growled out his discontent, and I could see that his mind was made up to give stout battle, ere his wool should be disturbed by the knife of a savage. A moment later, he stepped aside, and respectfully permitted Dirck to take his proper place, next to me, in the line.
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