The Prairie. James Fenimore Cooper
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nigher; we are friends,” said the trapper, associating himself with his companion by long use, and, probably, through the strength of the secret tie that connected them together; “we are your friends; none will harm you.”
Encouraged by the mild tones of his voice, and perhaps led on by the earnestness of her purpose, the female approached, until she stood at his side; when the old man perceived his visitor to be the young woman, with whom the reader, has already become acquainted by the name of “Ellen Wade.”
“I had thought you were gone,” she said, looking timidly and anxiously around. “They said you were gone; and that we should never see you again. I did not think it was you!”
“Men are no common objects in these empty fields,” returned the trapper, “and I humbly hope, though I have so long consorted with the beasts of the wilderness, that I have not yet lost the look of my kind.”
“Oh! I knew you to be a man, and I thought I knew the whine of the hound, too,” she answered hastily, as if willing to explain she knew not what, and then checking herself, like one fearful of having already said too much.
“I saw no dogs, among the teams of your father,” the trapper remarked.
“Father!” exclaimed the girl, feelingly, “I have no father! I had nearly said no friend.”
The old man turned towards her, with a look of kindness and interest, that was even more conciliating than the ordinary, upright, and benevolent expression of his weather-beaten countenance.
“Why then do you venture in a place where none but the strong should come?” he demanded. “Did you not know that, when you crossed the big river, you left a friend behind you that is always bound to look to the young and feeble, like yourself.”
“Of whom do you speak?”
“The law—'tis bad to have it, but, I sometimes think, it is worse to be entirely without it. Age and weakness have brought me to feel such weakness, at times. Yes—yes, the law is needed, when such as have not the gifts of strength and wisdom are to be taken care of. I hope, young woman, if you have no father, you have at least a brother.”
The maiden felt the tacit reproach conveyed in this covert question, and for a moment she remained in an embarrassed silence. But catching a glimpse of the mild and serious features of her companion, as he continued to gaze on her with a look of interest, she replied, firmly, and in a manner that left no doubt she comprehended his meaning:
“Heaven forbid that any such as you have seen, should be a brother of mine, or any thing else near or dear to me! But, tell me, do you then actually live alone, in this desert district, old man; is there really none here besides yourself?”
“There are hundreds, nay, thousands of the rightful owners of the country, roving about the plains; but few of our own colour.”
“And have you then met none who are white, but us?” interrupted the girl, like one too impatient to await the tardy explanations of age and deliberation.
“Not in many days—Hush, Hector, hush,” he added in reply to a low, and nearly inaudible, growl from his hound. “The dog scents mischief in the wind! The black bears from the mountains sometimes make their way, even lower than this. The pup is not apt to complain of the harmless game. I am not so ready and true with the piece as I used-to-could-be, yet I have struck even the fiercest animals of the prairie in my time; so, you have little reason for fear, young woman.”
The girl raised her eyes, in that peculiar manner which is so often practised by her sex, when they commence their glances, by examining the earth at their feet, and terminate them by noting every thing within the power of human vision; but she rather manifested the quality of impatience, than any feeling of alarm.
A short bark from the dog, however, soon gave a new direction to the looks of both, and then the real object of his second warning became dimly visible.
CHAPTER III
Come, come, thou art as hot a Jack in thy mood, as any in Italy;
and as soon mov'd to be moody, and as soon moody to be moved.
—Romeo and Juliet.
Though the trapper manifested some surprise when he perceived that another human figure was approaching him, and that, too, from a direction opposite to the place where the emigrant had made his encampment, it was with the steadiness of one long accustomed to scenes of danger.
“This is a man,” he said; “and one who has white blood in his veins, or his step would be lighter. It will be well to be ready for the worst, as the half-and-halfs,[*] that one meets, in these distant districts, are altogether more barbarous than the real savage.”
[*] Half-breeds; men born of Indian women by white fathers. This race
has much of the depravity of civilisation without the virtues of
the savage.
He raised his rifle while he spoke, and assured himself of the state of its flint, as well as of the priming by manual examination. But his arm was arrested, while in the act of throwing forward the muzzle of the piece, by the eager and trembling hands of his companion.
“For God's sake, be not too hasty,” she said; “it may be a friend—an acquaintance—a neighbour!”
“A friend!” the old man repeated, deliberately releasing himself, at the same time, from her grasp. “Friends are rare in any land, and less in this, perhaps, than in another; and the neighbourhood is too thinly settled to make it likely that he who comes towards us is even an acquaintance.”
“But though a stranger, you would not seek his blood!”
The trapper earnestly regarded her anxious and frightened features, and then he dropped the butt of his rifle on the ground, like one whose purpose had undergone a sudden change.
“No,” he said, speaking rather to himself, than to his companion, “she is right; blood is not to be spilt, to save the life of one so useless, and so near his time. Let him come on; my skins, my traps, and even my rifle shall be his, if he sees fit to demand them.”
“He will ask for neither:—he wants neither,” returned the girl; “if he be an honest man, he will surely be content with his own, and ask for nothing that is the property of another.”
The trapper had not time to express the surprise he felt at this incoherent and contradictory language, for the man who was advancing, was, already, within fifty feet of the place where they stood.—In the mean time, Hector had not been an indifferent witness of what was passing. At the sound of the distant footsteps, he had arisen, from his warm bed at the feet of his master; and now, as the stranger appeared in open view, he stalked slowly towards him, crouching to the earth like a panther about to take his leap.
“Call in your dog,” said a firm, deep, manly voice, in tones of friendship, rather than of menace; “I love a hound, and should be sorry to do an injury to the animal.”
“You hear what is said about you, pup?” the trapper answered; “come hither, fool. His growl and his bark are all that is left him now; you may come on, friend; the hound is toothless.”
The stranger profited by the intelligence. He sprang eagerly forward, and at the next instant stood at the side of Ellen Wade. After assuring himself of the identity of the latter, by a hasty but keen glance, he turned his attention, with a quickness and impatience, that proved the interest he took in the result, to a similar examination of her companion.
“From what cloud have you fallen, my good old man?” he said in a careless, off-hand, heedless manner that seemed too natural to be assumed: “or do you actually live, hereaway, in the prairies?”