Yielding
to the extraordinary impulses
of which he was the subject, he cast a glance around to see that
## p.
of which he was the subject, he cast a glance around to see that
## p.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v07 - Cic to Cuv
4006 (#376) ###########################################
4006
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
favorable entrance into the uncertain currents. To him, Hell-
Gate was known only by its fearful reputation among mariners;
and unless he might avail himself of the presence of the cruiser,
he had no other guide than his own general knowledge of the
power of the element.
When the Coquette had tacked, the calm and observant Skim-
mer was satisfied with throwing his head-sails flat to the mast.
From that instant the brigantine lay floating in the current,
neither advancing nor receding a foot, and always keeping her
position at a safe distance from the ship, that was so adroitly
made to answer the purposes of a beacon. The sails were
watched with the closest care; and so nicely was the delicate
machine tended, that it would have been at any moment in her
people's power to have lessened her way by turning to the
stream. The Coquette was followed till she anchored, and the
call on board the cruiser to heave the grapnels had been given,
because the brigantine was apparently floating directly down on
her broadside.
When the grapnels were hove from the royal cruiser, the free-
trader stood on the low poop of his little vessel, within fifty feet
of him who had issued the order. There was a smile of indiffer-
ence on his firm mouth, while he silently waved a hand to his
own crew. The signal was obeyed by bracing round their yards,
and suffering all the canvas to fill. The brigantine shot quickly
ahead, and the useless irons fell heavily into the water.
"Many thanks for your pilotage, Captain Ludlow! " cried the
daring and successful mariner of the shawl, as his vessel, borne
on by wind and current, receded rapidly from the cruiser.
"You will find me off Montauk; for affairs still keep us on the
coast. Our lady has however put on the blue mantle, and ere
many settings of the sun we shall look for deep water. Take
good care of her Majesty's ship, I pray thee, for she has neither
a more beautiful nor a faster. "
One thought succeeded another with the tumult of a torrent
in the mind of Ludlow. As the brigantine lay directly under
his broadside, the first impulse was to use his guns; at the next
moment he was conscious that before they could be cleared,
distance would render them useless. His lips had nearly parted
with intent to order the cables cut, but he remembered the
speed of the brigantine, and hesitated. A sudden freshening
of the breeze decided his course. Finding that the ship was
## p. 4007 (#377) ###########################################
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
4007
enabled to keep her station, he ordered the crew to thrust the
whole of the enormous ropes through the hawse-holes; and freed
from the restraint, he abandoned the anchors until an oppor-
tunity to reclaim them should offer.
The operation of slipping the cables consumed several min-
utes; and when the Coquette, with everything set, was again
steering in pursuit, the Water-Witch was already beyond the
reach of her guns.
Both vessels however held on their way,
keeping as near as possible to the centre of the stream, and
trusting more to fortune than to any knowledge of the channel
for safety.
When passing the two small islands that lie at no great dis-
tance from the Gate, a boat was seen moving toward the royal
cruiser. A man in it pointed to the signal, which was still
flying, and offered his services.
"Tell me," demanded Ludlow eagerly, "has yonder brigan-
tine taken a pilot? "
"By her movements, I judge not. She brushed the sunken
rock off the mouth of Flushing Bay; and as she passed, I heard
the song of the lead. I should have gone on board myself, but
the fellow rather flies than sails; and as for signals, he seems
to mind none but his own! "
"Bring us up with him, and fifty guineas is thy reward! "
The slow-moving pilot, who in truth had just awakened from
a refreshing sleep, opened his eyes, and seemed to gather a new
impulse from the promise. When his questions were asked and
answered, he began deliberately to count on his fingers all the
chances that still existed of a vessel, whose crew was ignorant of
the navigation, falling into their hands.
"Admitting that by keeping mid-channel she goes clear of
White Stone and Frogs," he said, giving to Throgmorton's its
vulgar name, "he must be a wizard to know that the Stepping-
Stones lie directly across his course, and that a vessel must steer
away northerly or bring up on rocks that will as surely hold
him as if he were built there. Then he runs his chance for the
Executioners, which are as prettily placed as needs be to make
our trade flourish; besides the Middle Ground farther
east,
though I count but little on that, having often tried to find it
myself, without success. Courage, noble captain! if the fellow
be the man you say, we shall get a nearer look at him before
the sun sets; for certainly he who has run the Gate without a
## p. 4008 (#378) ###########################################
4908
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
pilot in safety, has had as much good luck as can fall to his
share in one day. "
The opinion of the East River Branch proved erroneous.
Notwithstanding the hidden perils by which she was environed,
the Water-Witch continued her course, with a speed that in-
creased as the wind rose with the sun, and with an impunity
from harm that amazed all who were in the secret of her situa-
tion. Off Throgmorton's there was, in truth, a danger that
might even have baffled the sagacity of the followers of the mys-
terious. lady, had they not been aided by accident. This is the
point where the straitened arm of the sea expands into the basin
of the sound. A broad and inviting passage lies directly before
the navigator, while, like the flattering prospects of life, number-
less hidden obstacles are in wait to arrest the unheeding and
ignorant.
The "Skimmer of the Seas" was deeply practiced in all the
intricacies and dangers of shoals and rocks. Most of his life had
been passed in threading the one or in avoiding the other. So
keen and quick had his eye become in detecting the presence of
any of those signs which forewarn the mariner of danger, that a
ripple on the surface, or a deeper shade in the color of the
water, rarely escaped his vigilance. Seated on the topsail-yard
of his brigantine, he had overlooked the passage from the moment
they were through the Gate, and issued his mandates to those
below with a precision and promptitude that were not surpassed
by the trained conductor of the Coquette himself. But when his
sight embraced the wide reach of water that lay in front, as his
little vessel swept round the headland of Throgmorton, he
believed there no longer existed a reason for so much care. Still
there was a motive for hesitation. A heavily molded and dull-
sailing coaster was going eastward not a league ahead of the
brigantine, while one of the light sloops of those waters was
coming westward still farther in the distance. Notwithstanding
the wind was favorable to each alike, both vessels had deviated
from the direct line and were steering toward a common centre,
near an island that was placed more than a mile to the north-
ward of the straight course. A mariner like him of the India
shawl could not overlook so obvious an intimation of a change
in the channel. The Water-Witch was kept away, and her
lighter sails were lowered, in order to allow the royal cruiser,
whose lofty canvas was plainly visible above the land, to draw
## p. 4009 (#379) ###########################################
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
4009
near. When the Coquette was seen also to diverge, there no
longer remained a doubt of the direction necessary to be taken;
and everything was quickly set upon the brigantine, even to her
studding-sails. Long ere she reached the island the two coasters.
had met, and each again changed its course, reversing that on
which the other had just been sailing. There was in these
movements as plain an explanation as a seaman could desire,
that the pursued were right. On reaching the island, therefore,
they again luffed into the wake of the schooner; and having
nearly crossed the sheet of water, they passed the coaster, receiv-
ing an assurance in words that all was now plain sailing before
them.
Such was the famous passage of the "Skimmer of the Seas »
through the multiplied and hidden dangers of the eastern chan-
nel. To those who have thus accompanied him, step by step,
through its intricacies and alarms, there may seem nothing ex-
traordinary in the event; but coupled as it was with the charac-
ter previously earned by that bold mariner, and occurring as it
did in the age when men were more disposed than at present to
put faith in the marvelous, the reader will not be surprised to
learn that it greatly increased his reputation for daring, and had
no small influence on an opinion which was by no means un-
common, that the dealers in contraband were singularly favored
by a power which greatly exceeded that of Queen Anne and all
her servants.
THE DOOM OF ABIRAM WHITE
From The Prairie›
Α
BIRAM gave his downcast partner a glance of his eye, and
withdrew towards a distant roll of the land which bounded
the view towards the east. The meeting of the pair in
this naked spot was like an interview held above the grave of
their murdered son. Ishmael signed to his wife to take a seat
beside him on a fragment of rock, and then followed a space dur-
ing which neither seemed disposed to speak.
"We have journeyed together long, through good and bad,"
Ishmael at length commenced: "much have we had to try us,
and some bitter cups have we been made to swallow, my
## p. 4010 (#380) ###########################################
4010
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
woman; but nothing like this has ever before lain in my
path. "
"It is a heavy cross for a poor, misguided, and sinful woman
to bear! " returned Esther, bowing her head to her knees, and
partly concealing her face in her dress. "A heavy and a bur-
densome weight is this to be laid upon the shoulders of a sister
and a mother! "
"Ay; therein lies the hardship of the case. I had brought
my mind to the punishment of that houseless trapper with no
great strivings, for the man had done me few favors, and God
forgive me if I suspected him wrongfully of much evil! This
is, however, bringing shame in at one door of my cabin in order
to drive it out at the other. But shall a son of mine be mur-
dered, and he who did it go at large? -the boy would never
rest! »
"Oh, Ishmael, we pushed the matter far! Had little been
said, who would have been the wiser? Our consciences might
then have been quiet. "
"Esther," said the husband, turning on her a reproachful but
still a dull regard, "the hour has been, my woman, when you
thought another hand had done this wickedness. "
"I did, I did! the Lord gave me the feeling as a punishment
for my sins! but his mercy was not slow in lifting the veil; I
looked into the Book, Ishmael, and there I found the words of
comfort. "
"Have you that book at hand, woman? it may happen to
advise in such a dreary business. "
Esther fumbled in her pocket, and was not long in producing
the fragment of a Bible which had been thumbed and smoke-
dried till the print was nearly illegible. It was the only article
in the nature of a book that was to be found among the chattels
of the squatter, and it had been preserved by his wife as a melan-
choly relic of more prosperous, and possibly of more innocent
days. She had long been in the habit of resorting to it under
the pressure of such circumstances as were palpably beyond
human redress, though her spirit and resolution rarely needed
support under those that admitted of reparation through any of
the ordinary means of reprisal. In this manner Esther had
made a sort of convenient ally of the Word of God; rarely
troubling it for counsel, however, except when her own incom.
petency to avert an evil was too apparent to be disputed. We
## p. 4011 (#381) ###########################################
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
4011
shall leave casuists to determine how far she resembled any other
believers in this particular, and proceed directly with the matter
before us.
"There are many awful passages in these pages, Ishmael,"
she said, when the volume was opened and the leaves were
slowly turning under her finger, "and some there ar' that teach
the rules of punishment. "
Her husband made a gesture for her to find one of those
brief rules of conduct which have been received among all
Christian nations as the direct mandates of the Creator, and
which have been found so just that even they who deny their
high authority admit their wisdom. Ishmael listened with grave
attention as his companion read all those verses which her
memory suggested, and which were thought applicable to the
situation in which they found themselves. He made her show
him the words, which he regarded with a sort of strange rever-
ence. A resolution once taken was usually irrevocable in one
who was moved with so much difficulty. He put his
and upon
the book and closed the pages himself, as much as to apprise
his wife that he was satisfied. Esther, who so well knew his
character, trembled at the action, and casting a glance at his
steady eye, she said:-
"And yet, Ishmael, my blood and the blood of my children
is in his veins! Cannot mercy be shown? "
"Woman," he answered, sternly, "when we believed that
miserable old trapper had done this deed, nothing was said of
mercy! "
Esther made no reply, but folding her arms upon her breast
she sat silent and thoughtful for many minutes. Then she once
more turned her anxious gaze upon the countenance of her hus-
band, where she found all passion and care apparently buried in
the coldest apathy. Satisfied now that the fate of her brother
was sealed, and possibly conscious how well he merited the pun-
ishment that was meditated, she no longer thought of mediation.
No more words passed between them. Their eyes met for an
instant, and then both arose and walked in profound silence
towards the encampment.
The squatter found his children expecting his return in the
usual listless manner with which they awaited all coming events.
The cattle were already herded, and the horses in their gears
in readiness to proceed, so soon as he should indicate that such
## p. 4012 (#382) ###########################################
4012
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
was his pleasure. The children were already in their proper
vehicle, and in short, nothing delayed the departure but the
absence of the parents of the wild brood.
"Abner," said the father, with the deliberation with which all
his proceedings were characterized, "take the brother of your
mother from the wagon, and let him stand on the 'arth. "
Abiram issued from his place of concealment, trembling, it is
true, but far from destitute of hopes as to his final success in
appeasing the just resentment of his kinsman. After throwing a
glance around him with the vain wish of finding a single coun-
tenance in which he might detect a solitary gleam of sympathy,
he endeavored to smother those apprehensions that were by this
time reviving in their original violence, by forcing a sort of
friendly communication between himself and the squatter:-
"The beasts are getting jaded, brother," he said; "and as we
have made so good a march already, is it not time to camp?
To my eye you may go far before a better place than this is
found to pass the night in. "
'Tis well you like it. Your tarry here ar' likely to be long.
My sons, draw nigh and listen. Abiram White," he added, lift-
ing his cap, and speaking with a solemnity and steadiness that
rendered even his dull mien imposing, "you have slain my first-
born, and according to the laws of God and man must you die! ”
The kidnapper started at this terrible and sudden sentence,
with the terror that one would exhibit who unexpectedly found
himself in the grasp of a monster from whose power there was
no retreat. Although filled with the most serious forebodings of
what might be his lot, his courage had not been equal to look
his danger in the face, and with the deceitful consolation with
which timid tempers are apt to conceal their desperate condition
from themselves, he had rather courted a treacherous relief in
his cunning, than prepared himself for the worst.
"Die! " he repeated, in a voice that scarcely issued from his
chest; "a man is surely safe among his kinsmen ? "
"So thought my boy," returned the squatter, motioning for
the team that contained his wife and the girls to proceed, as he
very coolly examined the priming of his piece. "By the rifle
did you destroy my son; it is fit and just that you meet your
end by the same weapon. "
Abiram stared about him with a gaze that bespoke an unset-
tled reason. He even laughed, as if he would not only persuade
## p. 4013 (#383) ###########################################
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
4013
himself but others that what he heard was some pleasantry
intended to try his nerves. But nowhere did his frightful merri-
ment meet with an answering echo. All around was solemn and
still. The visages of his nephews were excited, but cold towards
him, and that of his former confederate frightfully determined.
This very steadiness of mien was a thousand times more alarm-
ing and hopeless than any violence could have proved. The
latter might possibly have touched his spirit and awakened
resistance, but the former threw him entirely on the feeble
resources of himself.
"Brother," he said, in a hurried unnatural whisper, “did I
hear you? "
"My words are plain, Abiram White: thou hast done murder,
and for the same must thou die! "
"Esther! sister, sister! will you leave me? O sister! do you
hear my call ? »
་
"I hear one speak from the grave! " returned the husky tones
of Esther, as the wagon passed the spot where the criminal
stood. "It is the voice of my first-born calling aloud for just-
ice! God have mercy, God have mercy on your soul! "
The team slowly pursued its route, and the deserted Abiram
now found himself deprived of the smallest vestige of hope.
Still he could not summon fortitude to meet his death, and had
not his limbs refused to aid him he would yet have attempted to
fly. Then by a sudden revolution from hope to utter despair
he fell upon his knees and commenced a prayer, in which cries
for mercy to God and to his kinsman were wildly and blasphe-
mously mingled. The sons of Ishmael turned away in horror at
the disgusting spectacle, and even the stern nature of the squat-
ter began to bend before so abject misery.
"May that which you ask of him be granted," he said; "but
a father can never forget a murdered child. "
He was answered by the most humble appeals for time. A
week, a day, an hour, were each implored with an earnestness
commensurate to the value they receive when a whole life is
compressed into their short duration. The squatter was troubled,
and at length he yielded in part to the petitions of the criminal.
His final purpose was not altered, though he changed the means.
"Abner," he said, "mount the rock and look on every side that
we may be sure none are nigh. "
While his nephew was obeying this order, gleams of reviving
hope were seen shooting across the quivering features of the kid-
## p. 4014 (#384) ###########################################
4014
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
napper. The report was favorable; nothing having life, the retir-
ing teams excepted, was to be seen. A messenger was however
coming from the latter in great apparent haste. Ishmael awaited
its arrival. He received from the hands of one of his wondering
and frighted girls a fragment of that Book which Esther had
preserved with so much care. The squatter beckoned his child
away, and placed the leaves in the hands of the criminal.
"Esther has sent you this," he said, "that in your last mo-
ments you may remember God. "
"Bless her, bless her! a good and kind sister has she been to
me! But time must be given that I may read; time, my brother,
time! "
"Time shall not be wanting. You shall be your own exe-
cutioner, and this miserable office shall pass away from my
hands. "
Ishmael proceeded to put his new resolution in force. The
immediate apprehensions of the kidnapper were quieted by an
assurance that he might yet live for days, though his punishment
was inevitable. A reprieve to one abject and wretched as
Abiram temporarily produced the same effects as a pardon. He
was even foremost in assisting in the appalling arrangements;
and of all the actors in that solemn tragedy, his voice alone was
facetious and jocular.
A thin shelf of the rock projected beneath one of the ragged
arms of the willow. It was many feet from the ground, and
admirably adapted to the purpose which in fact its appearance
had suggested. On this little platform the criminal was placed,
his arms bound at the elbows behind his back, beyond the possi
bility of liberation, with a proper cord leading from his neck to-
the limb of the tree. The latter was so placed that when sus-
pended the body could find no foot-hold. The fragment of the
Bible was placed in his hands, and he was left to seek his con-
solation as he might from its pages.
"And now, Abiram White," said the squatter, when his sons
had descended from completing this arrangement, "I give you
a last and solemn asking. Death is before you in two shapes.
With this rifle can your misery be cut short, or by that cord,
sooner or later, must you meet your end. "
"Let me yet live! O Ishmael, you know not how sweet life
is when the last moment draws so nigh! "
((
'Tis done," said the squatter, motioning for his assistants to
follow the herds and teams. "And now, miserable man, that it
## p. 4015 (#385) ###########################################
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
4015
may prove a consolation to your end, I forgive you my wrongs
and leave you to your God. "
Ishmael turned and pursued his way across the plain at his
ordinary sluggish and ponderous gait. Though his head was
bent a little towards the earth, his inactive mind did not prompt
him to cast a look behind. Once indeed he thought he heard
his name called in tones that were a little smothered, but they
failed to make him pause.
At the spot where he and Esther had conferred he reached the
boundary of the visible horizon from the rock. Here he stopped,
and ventured a glance in the direction of the place he had just
quitted. The sun was near dipping into the plains beyond, and
its last rays lighted the naked branches of the willow. He saw
the ragged outline of the whole drawn against the glowing
heavens, and he even traced the still upright form of the being
he had left to his misery. Turning the roll of the swell, he pro-
ceeded with the feelings of one who had been suddenly and vio-
lently separated from a recent confederate forever.
Within a mile the squatter overtook his teams. His sons had
found a place suited to the encampment for the night, and
merely awaited his approach to confirm their choice. Few words
were necessary to express his acquiescence. Everything passed
in a silence more general and remarkable than ever. The
chidings of Esther were not heard among her young, or if
heard, they were more in the tones of softened admonition than
in her usual upbraiding key.
No questions nor explanations passed between the and
and his wife. It was only as the latter was about to withdraw
among her children for the night, that the former saw her taking
a furtive look at the pan of his rifle. Ishmael bade his sons seek
their rest, announcing his intention to look to the safety of the
camp in person. When all was still, he walked out upon the
prairie with a sort of sensation that he found his breathing
among the tents too straitened. The night was well adapted to
heighten the feelings which had been created by the events of
the day.
The wind had risen with the moon, and it was occasionally
sweeping over the plain in a manner that made it not difficult
for the sentinel to imagine strange and unearthly sounds were
mingling in the blasts.
Yielding to the extraordinary impulses
of which he was the subject, he cast a glance around to see that
## p. 4016 (#386) ###########################################
4016
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
all were slumbering in security, and then he strayed towards the
swell of land already mentioned. Here the squatter found him-
self at a point that commanded a view to the east and to the
west. Light fleecy clouds were driving before the moon, which
was cold and watery, though there were moments when its
placid rays were shed from clear blue fields, seeming to soften
objects to its own mild loveliness.
For the first time, in a life of so much wild adventure, Ish-
mael felt a keen sense of solitude. The naked prairies began to
assume the forms of illimitable and dreary wastes, and the rush-
ing of the wind sounded like the whisperings of the dead. It
was not long before he thought a shriek was borne past him on
a blast.
It did not sound like a call from earth, but it swept
frightfully through the upper air, mingled with the hoarse accom-
paniment of the wind. The teeth of the squatter were com-
pressed and his huge hand grasped the rifle, as if it would crush
the metal. Then came a lull, a fresher blast, and a cry of hor-
ror that seemed to have been uttered at the very portals of his
ears. A sort of echo burst involuntarily from his own lips, as
men shout under unnatural excitement, and throwing his rifle
across his shoulder, he proceeded towards the rock with the
strides. of a giant.
It was not often that the blood of Ishmael moved at the rate
with which the fluid circulates in the veins of ordinary men; but
now he felt it ready to gush from every pore in his body. The
animal was aroused, in his most latent energies. Ever as he
advanced he heard those shrieks, which sometimes seemed
ringing among the clouds, and sometimes passed so nigh as to
appear to brush the earth. At length there came a cry in
which there could be no delusion, or to which the imagination
could lend no horror. It appeared to fill each cranny of the
air, as the visible horizon is often charged to fullness by one
dazzling flash of the electric fluid. The name of God was dis-
tinctly audible, but it was awfully and blasphemously blended
with sounds that may not be repeated. The squatter stopped,
and for a moment he covered his ears with his hands. When he
withdrew the latter, a low and husky voice at his elbow asked in
smothered tones:
-
"Ishmael, my man, heard ye nothing? "
"Hist! " returned the husband, laying a powerful arm on
Esther, without manifesting the smallest surprise at the unlooked
## p. 4017 (#387) ###########################################
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
4017
for presence of his wife. "Hist, woman! if you have the fear
of Heaven, be still! "
A profound silence succeeded. Though the wind rose and
fell as before, its rushing was no longer mingled with those
fearful cries. The sounds were imposing and solemn, but it was
the solemnity and majesty of nature.
"Let us go on," said Esther; "all is hushed. "
"Woman, what has brought you here? " demanded her hus-
band, whose blood had returned into its former channels, and
whose thoughts had already lost a portion of their excitement.
"Ishmael, he murdered our first-born: but it is not meet
that the son of my mother should lie upon the ground like the
carrion of a dog. "
"Follow! " returned the squatter, again grasping his rifle and
striding towards the rock. The distance was still considerable;
and their approach, as they drew nigh the place of execution,
was moderated by awe. Many minutes had passed before they
reached a spot where they might distinguish the outlines of the
dusky objects.
"Where have you put the body? " whispered Esther. "See,
here are pick and spade, that a brother of mine may sleep in
the bosom of the earth! "
The moon broke from behind a mass of clouds, and the eye
of the woman was enabled to follow the finger of Ishmael. It
pointed to a human form swinging in the wind, beneath the
ragged and shining arm of the willow. Esther bent her head
and veiled her eyes from the sight. But Ishmael drew nigher,
and long contemplated his work in awe, though not in compunc-
tion. The leaves of the sacred book were scattered on the
ground, and even a fragment of the shelf had been displaced by
the kidnapper in his agony. But all was now in the stillness of
death. The grim and convulsed countenance of the victim was
at times brought full into the light of the moon, and again, as
the wind lulled, the fatal rope drew a dark line across its bright
disk. The squatter raised his rifle with extreme care, and fired.
The cord was cut, and the body came lumbering to the earth, a
heavy and insensible mass.
Until now Esther had not moved nor spoken. But her hand
was not slow to assist in the labor of the hour. The grave was
soon dug. It was instantly made to receive its miserable tenant.
As the lifeless form descended, Esther, who sustained the head,
VII-252
## p. 4018 (#388) ###########################################
4018
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
looked up into the face of her husband with an expression of
anguish, and said:-
"Ishmael, my man, it is very terrible! I cannot kiss the
corpse of my father's child! »
The squatter laid his broad hand on the bosom of the dead,
and said:
"Abiram White, we all have need of mercy; from my soul
do I forgive you! May God in heaven have pity on your sins! »
The woman bowed her face, and imprinted her lips long and
fervently on the pallid forehead of her brother. After this came
the falling clods and all the solemn sounds of filling a grave.
Esther lingered on her knees, and Ishmael stood uncovered while
the woman muttered a prayer. All was then finished.
On the following morning the teams and herds of the squat-
ter were seen pursuing their course towards the settlements. As
they approached the confines of society the train was blended
among a thousand others. Though some of the numerous
descendants of this peculiar pair were reclaimed from their law-
less and semi-barbarous lives, the principals of the family them-
selves were never heard of more.
THE BISON STAMPEDE
From The Prairie
T
HE warrior suddenly paused and bent his face aside, like one
who listened with all his faculties absorbed in the act.
Then turning the head of his horse, he rode to the nearest
angle of the thicket, and looked intently across the bleak prairie
in a direction opposite to the side on which the party stood.
Returning slowly from this unaccountable, and, to his observers,
startling procedure, he riveted his eyes on Inez, and paced back
and forth several times with the air of one who maintained a
warm struggle on some difficult point in the recesses of his own
thoughts. He had drawn the reins of his impatient steed, and
was seemingly about to speak when his head again sank on his
chest, and he resumed his former attitude of attention. Gallop-
ing like a deer to the place of his former observations, he rode
for a moment swiftly in short and rapid circles as if still uncer-
tain of his course, and then darted away like a bird that had
## p. 4019 (#389) ###########################################
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
4019
been fluttering around its nest before it takes a distant flight.
After scouring the plain for a minute he was lost to the eye
behind a swell of the land.
The hounds, who had also manifested great uneasiness for
some time, followed him for a little distance, and then terminated
their chase by seating themselves on the ground and raising
their usual low, whining, and warning howls.
These movements had passed in so short a space of time
that the old man, while he neglected not to note the smallest
incident, had no opportunity of expressing his opinion concerning
the stranger's motives. After the Pawnee had disappeared, how-
ever, he shook his head and muttered, while he walked slowly
to the angle of the thicket that the Indian had just quitted:-
"There are both scents and sounds in the air, though my
miserable senses are not good enough to hear the one or to
catch the taint of the other. "
"There is nothing to be seen," cried Middleton, who kept
close at his side. "My ears and my eyes are good, and yet
I can assure you that I neither hear nor see anything. "
"Your eyes are good! and you are not deaf! " returned the
other, with a slight air of contempt; "no, lad, no; they may be
good to see across a church, or to hear a town bell, but afore
you had passed a year in these prairies you would find yourself
taking a turkey for a buffalo, or conceiting fifty times that the
roar of a buffalo bull was the thunder of the Lord! There is a
deception of natur' in these naked plains in which the air throws
up the images like water, and then it is hard to tell the prairies.
from a sea.
But yonder is a sign that a hunter never fails to
know. "
The trapper pointed to a flight of vultures that were sailing
over the plain at no great distance, and apparently in the direc-
tion in which the Pawnee had riveted his eyes. At first Middle-
ton could not distinguish the small dark objects that were
dotting the dusky clouds; but as they came swiftly onward,
first their forms and then their heavy waving wings became.
distinctly visible.
"Listen! " said the trapper, when he had succeeded in making
Middleton see the moving column of birds. "Now you hear the
buffaloes, or bisons, as your knowing Doctor sees fit to call
them; though buffaloes is their name among all the hunters of
these regions. And I conclude that a hunter is a better judge
## p. 4020 (#390) ###########################################
4020
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
of a beast and of its name," he added, winking at the young
soldier, "tha: any man who has turned over the leaves of a
book instead of traveling over the face of the 'arth, in order to
find out the natur's of its inhabitants. "
"Of their habits, I will grant you," cried the naturalist, who
rarely missed an opportunity to agitate any disputed point in his
favorite studies. "That is, provided always deference is had to
the proper use of definitions, and that they are contemplated
with scientific eyes. "
"Eyes of a nole! as if any man's eyes were not as good for
names as the eyes of any other creatur'! Who named the works
of His hand? can you tell me that, with your book and college
wisdom? Was it not the first man in the Garden, and is it not
a plain consequence that his children inherit his gifts? "
"That is certainly the Mosaic account of the event," said the
Doctor; "though your reading is by far too literal! "
"My reading! nay, if you suppose that I have wasted my
time in schools, you do such a wrong to my knowledge as one
mortal should never lay to the door of another without sufficient
reason. If I have ever craved the art of reading, it has been
that I might better know the sayings of the book you name, for
it is a book which speaks in every line according to human
feelings, and therein according to reason. ”
"And do you then believe," said the Doctor, a little provoked
by the dogmatism of his stubborn adversary, and perhaps secretly
too confident in his own more liberal, though scarcely as profita-
ble attainments, "do you then believe that all these beasts were
literally collected in a garden to be enrolled in the nomenclature
of the first man? "
«< Why not? I understand your meaning; for it is not needful
to live in towns to hear all the devilish devices that the conceit
of man
can invent to upset his own happiness. What does it
prove, except indeed it may be said to prove that the garden He
made was not after the miserable fashions of our times, thereby
directly giving the lie to what the world calls its civilizing?
No, no, the garden of the Lord was the forest then, and is the
forest now, where the fruits do grow and the birds do sing,
according to his own wise ordering. Now, lady, you may see
the mystery of the vultures! There come the buffaloes them-
selves, and a noble herd it is! I warrant me that Pawnee has
a troop of his people in some of the hollows nigh by; and as he
## p. 4021 (#391) ###########################################
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
4021
has gone scampering after them, you are about to see a glorious
chase. It will serve to keep the squatter and his brood under
cover, and for ourselves there is little reason to fear. A Pawnee
is not apt to be a malicious savage. "
Every eye was now drawn to the striking spectacle that suc-
ceeded. Even the timid Inez hastened to the side of Middleton
to gaze at the sight, and Paul summoned Ellen from her culi-
nary labors to become a witness of the lively scene.
Throughout the whole of those moving events which it has
been our duty to record, the prairies had lain in the majesty of
perfect solitude. The heavens had been blackened with the pas-
sage of the migratory birds, it is true; but the dogs of the
party and the ass of the Doctor were the only quadrupeds that
had enlivened the broad surface of the waste beneath. There
was now a sudden exhibition of animal life which changed the
scene, as it were by magic, to the very opposite extreme.
A few enormous bison bulls were first observed scouring
along the most distant roll of the prairie, and then succeeded
long files of single beasts, which in their turns were followed
by a dark mass of bodies, until the dun-colored herbage of the
plain was entirely lost in the deeper hue of their shaggy coats.
The herd, as the column spread and thickened, was like the
endless flocks of the smaller birds whose extended flanks are so
often seen to heave up out of the abyss of the heavens, until
they appear as countless as the leaves in those forests over
which they wing their endless flight. Clouds of dust shot up
in little columns from the centre of the mass, as some animal,
more furious than the rest, plowed the plain with his horns;
and from time to time a deep hollow bellowing was borne
along on the wind, as if a thousand throats vented their plaints
in a discordant murmuring.
A long and musing silence reigned in the party as they
gazed on this spectacle of wild and peculiar grandeur.
It was
at length broken by the trapper, who, having been long accus-
tomed to similar sights, felt less of its influence, or rather felt
it in a less thrilling and absorbing manner, than those to whom
the scene was more novel.
"There go ten thousand oxen in one drove, without keeper or
master, except Him who made them and gave them these open
plains for their pasture! Ay, it is here that man may see the
proofs of his wantonness and folly! Can the proudest governor
## p. 4022 (#392) ###########################################
4022
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
in all the States go into his fields and slaughter a nobler bullock
than is here offered to the meanest hand; and when he has got-
ten his sirloin or his steak, can he eat it with as good a relish
as he who has sweetened his food with wholesome toil, and
earned it according to the law of natur', by honestly mastering
that which the Lord hath put before him? "
"If the prairie platter is smoking with a buffalo's hump, I
answer no," interrupted the luxurious bee-hunter.
“Ay, boy, you have tasted, and you feel the genuine reason-
ing of the thing! But the herd is heading a little this-away,
and it behooves us to make ready for their visit. If we hide
ourselves altogether, the horned brutes will break through the
place and trample us beneath their feet like so many creeping
worms; so we will just put the weak ones apart, and take post,
as becomes men and hunters, in the van. "
As there was but little time to make the necessary arrange-
ments, the whole party set about them in good earnest. Inez
and Ellen were placed in the edge of the thicket on the side
furthest from the approaching herd. Asinus was posted in the
centre, in consideration of his nerves; and then the old man
with his three male companions divided themselves in such a
manner as they thought would enable them to turn the head of
the rushing column, should it chance to approach too nigh their
position. By the vacillating movements of some fifty or a hun-
dred bulls that led the advance, it remained questionable for
many moments what course they intended to pursue.
But a
tremendous and painful roar which came from behind the cloud
of dust that rose in the centre of the herd, and which was hor-
ridly answered by the screams of the carrion-birds that were
greedily sailing directly above the flying drove, appeared to give
a new impulse to their flight and at once to remove every symp-
tom of indecision. As if glad to seek the smallest signs of the
forest, the whole of the affrighted herd became steady in its
direction, rushing in a straight line toward the little cover of
bushes which has already been so often named.
The appearance of danger was now in reality of a character
to try the stoutest nerves. The flanks of the dark moving mass
were advanced in such a manner as to make a concave line of
the front; and every fierce eye that was glaring from the shaggy
wilderness of hair in which the entire heads of the males were
enveloped, was riveted with mad anxiety on the thicket. It
## p. 4023 (#393) ###########################################
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
4023
seemed as if each beast strove to outstrip his neighbor in gain-
ing this desired cover; and as thousands in the rear pressed
blindly on those in front, there was the appearance of an immi-
leaders of the herd would be precipitated on
in which case the destruction of every one of
Each of our adventurers felt the danger of
manner peculiar to his individual character
nent risk that the
the concealed party,
them was certain.
his situation in a
and circumstances.
Middleton wavered. At times he felt inclined to rush through
the bushes, and seizing Inez, attempt to fly. Then recollect-
ing impossibility of outstripping the furious speed of an
alarmed bison, he felt for his arms, determined to make head
against the countless drove. The faculties of Dr. Battius were
quickly wrought up to the very summit of mental delusion. The
dark forms of the herd lost their distinctness, and then the nat-
uralist began to fancy he beheld a wild collection of all the
creatures of the world rushing upon him in a body, as if to
revenge the various injuries which, in the course of a life of
indefatigable labor in behalf of the natural sciences, he had
inflicted on their several genera. The paralysis it occasioned in
his system was like the effect of the incubus. Equally unable to
fly or to advance, he stood riveted to the spot, until the infatu-
ation became so complete that the worthy naturalist was begin-
ning, by a desperate effort of scientific resolution, even to class
the different specimens. On the other hand, Paul shouted, and
called on Ellen to come and assist him in shouting, but his voice
was lost in the bellowings and trampling of the herd. Furious,
and yet strangely excited by the obstinacy of the brutes and the
wildness of the sight, and nearly maddened by sympathy and a
species of unconscious apprehension in which the claims of nature
were singularly mingled with concern for his mistress, he nearly
split his throat in exhorting his aged friend to interfere.
"Come forth, old trapper," he shouted, "with your prairie
inventions! or we shall be all smothered under a mountain of
buffalo humps! "
The old man, who had stood all this while leaning on his
rifle and regarding the movements of the herd with a steady
eye, now deemed it time to strike his blow. Leveling his piece
at the foremost bull, with an agility that would have done credit
to his youth, he fired. The animal received the bullet on the
matted hair between his horns, and fell to his knees; but shaking
## p. 4024 (#394) ###########################################
4024
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
his head he instantly arose, the very shock seeming to increase
his exertions. There was now no longer time to hesitate.
Throwing down his rifle, the trapper stretched forth his arms,
and advanced from the cover with naked hands directly towards
the rushing column of the beasts.
The figure of a man, when sustained by the firmness and
steadiness that intellect can only impart, rarely fails of com-
manding respect from all the inferior animals of the creation.
The leading bulls recoiled, and for a single instant there was a
sudden stop to their speed, a dense mass of bodies rolling up in
front until hundreds were seen floundering and tumbling on the
plain. Then came another of those hollow bellowings from the
rear, and set the herd again in motion. The head of the col-
umn, however, divided, the immovable form of the trapper
cutting it as it were into two gliding streams of life. Middle-
ton and Paul instantly profited by his example, and extended the
feeble barrier by a similar exhibition of their own persons.
For a few moments the new impulse given to the animals in
front served to protect the thicket. But as the body of the
herd pressed more and more upon the open line of its defenders,
and the dust thickened so as to obscure their persons, there
was at each instant a renewed danger of the beasts breaking
through. It became necessary for the trapper and his compan-
ions to become still more and more alert; and they were grad-
ually yielding before the headlong multitude, when a furious bull
darted by Middleton so near as to brush his person, and at the
next instant swept through the thicket with the velocity of the
wind.
"Close, and die for the ground," shouted the old man, “or a
thousand of the devils will be at his heels! "
All their efforts would have proved fruitless however against
the living torrent, had not Asinus, whose domains had just been
so rudely entered, lifted his voice in the midst of the uproar.
The most sturdy and furious of the bulls trembled at the alarm-
ing and unknown cry, and then each individual brute was seen
madly pressing from that very thicket which the moment before
he had endeavored to reach, with the eagerness with which the
murderer seeks the sanctuary.
As the stream divided the place became clear; the two dark
columns moving obliquely from the copse, to unite again at the
distance of a mile, on its opposite side. The instant the old
## p. 4025 (#395) ###########################################
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
4025
man saw the sudden effect which the voice of Asinus had pro-
duced, he coolly commenced reloading his rifle, indulging at
the same time in a heartfelt fit of his silent and peculiar merri-
ment.
"There they go, like dogs with so many half-filled shot-
pouches dangling at their tails, and no fear of their breaking
their order; for what the brutes in the rear didn't hear with
their own ears, they'll conceit they did: besides, if they change
their minds, it may be no hard matter to get the jack to sing
the rest of his tune! "
"The ass has spoken, but Balaam is silent! " cried the bee-
hunter, catching his breath after a repeated burst of noisy mirth,
that might possibly have added to the panic of the buffaloes by
its vociferation. "The man is as completely dumfounded as if
a swarm of young bees had settled on the end of his tongue,
and he not willing to speak for fear of their answer. "
"How now, friend," continued the trapper, addressing the
still motionless and entranced naturalist; "how now, friend; are
you, who make your livelihood by booking the names and natur's
of the beasts of the fields and the fowls of the air, frightened at
a herd of scampering buffaloes? Though perhaps you are ready
to dispute my right to call them by a word that is in the mouth.
of every hunter and trader on the frontier! "
The old man was however mistaken in supposing he could
excite the benumbed faculties of the Doctor by provoking a dis-
cussion. From that time henceforth he was never known,
except on one occasion, to utter a word that indicated either the
species or the genus of the animal. He obstinately refused the
nutritious food of the whole ox family; and even to the present
hour, now that he is established in all the scientific dignity and
security of a savant in one of the maritime towns, he turns his
back with a shudder on those delicious and unrivaled viands that
are so often seen at the suppers of the craft, and which are
unequaled by anything that is served under the same name at
the boasted chop-houses of London or at the most renowned of
the Parisian restaurants.
## p. 4026 (#396) ###########################################
4026
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
RUNNING THE GAUNTLET
From The Last of the Mohicans'
TH
HERE yet lingered sufficient light in the heavens to exhibit
those bright openings among the tree-tops where different
paths left the clearing to enter the depths of the wilder-
ness. Beneath one of them, a line of warriors issued from the
woods and advanced slowly toward the dwellings. One in front
bore a short pole, on which, as it afterward appeared, were sus-
pended several human scalps. The startling sounds that Duncan
had heard were what the whites have not inappropriately called
the "death-hallo"; and each repetition of the cry was intended to
announce to the tribe the fate of an enemy. Thus far the knowl-
edge of Heyward assisted him in the explanation; and as he
knew that the interruption was caused by the unlooked-for return
of a successful war-party, every disagreeable sensation was quieted
in inward congratulations for the opportune relief and insignifi-
cance it conferred on himself.
When at the distance of a few hundred feet from the lodges,
the newly arrived warriors halted. The plaintive and terrific cry
which was intended to represent equally the wailings of the dead
and the triumph of the victors, had entirely ceased. One of their
number now called aloud, in words that were far from appalling,
though not more intelligible to those for whose ears they were
intended than their expressive yells. It would be difficult to
convey a suitable idea of the savage ecstasy with which the news
thus imparted was received. The whole encampment in a
moment became a scene of the most violent bustle and commo-
tion. The warriors drew their knives, and flourishing them, they
arranged themselves in two lines, forming a lane that extended
from the war-party to the lodges. The squaws seized clubs, axes,
or whatever weapon of offense first offered itself to their hands,
and rushed eagerly to act their part in the cruel game that was
at hand. Even the children would not be excluded; but boys,
little able to wield the instruments, tore the tomahawks from the
belts of their fathers, and stole into the ranks, apt imitators of
the savage traits exhibited by their parents.
Large piles of brush lay scattered about the clearing, and
a wary and aged squaw was occupied firing as many as might
## p. 4027 (#397) ###########################################
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
4027
serve to light the coming exhibition. As the flame arose, its
power exceeded that of the parting day, and assisted to render
objects at the same time more distinct and more hideous. The
whole scene formed a striking picture, whose frame was com-
posed of the dark and tall border of pines.
4006
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
favorable entrance into the uncertain currents. To him, Hell-
Gate was known only by its fearful reputation among mariners;
and unless he might avail himself of the presence of the cruiser,
he had no other guide than his own general knowledge of the
power of the element.
When the Coquette had tacked, the calm and observant Skim-
mer was satisfied with throwing his head-sails flat to the mast.
From that instant the brigantine lay floating in the current,
neither advancing nor receding a foot, and always keeping her
position at a safe distance from the ship, that was so adroitly
made to answer the purposes of a beacon. The sails were
watched with the closest care; and so nicely was the delicate
machine tended, that it would have been at any moment in her
people's power to have lessened her way by turning to the
stream. The Coquette was followed till she anchored, and the
call on board the cruiser to heave the grapnels had been given,
because the brigantine was apparently floating directly down on
her broadside.
When the grapnels were hove from the royal cruiser, the free-
trader stood on the low poop of his little vessel, within fifty feet
of him who had issued the order. There was a smile of indiffer-
ence on his firm mouth, while he silently waved a hand to his
own crew. The signal was obeyed by bracing round their yards,
and suffering all the canvas to fill. The brigantine shot quickly
ahead, and the useless irons fell heavily into the water.
"Many thanks for your pilotage, Captain Ludlow! " cried the
daring and successful mariner of the shawl, as his vessel, borne
on by wind and current, receded rapidly from the cruiser.
"You will find me off Montauk; for affairs still keep us on the
coast. Our lady has however put on the blue mantle, and ere
many settings of the sun we shall look for deep water. Take
good care of her Majesty's ship, I pray thee, for she has neither
a more beautiful nor a faster. "
One thought succeeded another with the tumult of a torrent
in the mind of Ludlow. As the brigantine lay directly under
his broadside, the first impulse was to use his guns; at the next
moment he was conscious that before they could be cleared,
distance would render them useless. His lips had nearly parted
with intent to order the cables cut, but he remembered the
speed of the brigantine, and hesitated. A sudden freshening
of the breeze decided his course. Finding that the ship was
## p. 4007 (#377) ###########################################
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
4007
enabled to keep her station, he ordered the crew to thrust the
whole of the enormous ropes through the hawse-holes; and freed
from the restraint, he abandoned the anchors until an oppor-
tunity to reclaim them should offer.
The operation of slipping the cables consumed several min-
utes; and when the Coquette, with everything set, was again
steering in pursuit, the Water-Witch was already beyond the
reach of her guns.
Both vessels however held on their way,
keeping as near as possible to the centre of the stream, and
trusting more to fortune than to any knowledge of the channel
for safety.
When passing the two small islands that lie at no great dis-
tance from the Gate, a boat was seen moving toward the royal
cruiser. A man in it pointed to the signal, which was still
flying, and offered his services.
"Tell me," demanded Ludlow eagerly, "has yonder brigan-
tine taken a pilot? "
"By her movements, I judge not. She brushed the sunken
rock off the mouth of Flushing Bay; and as she passed, I heard
the song of the lead. I should have gone on board myself, but
the fellow rather flies than sails; and as for signals, he seems
to mind none but his own! "
"Bring us up with him, and fifty guineas is thy reward! "
The slow-moving pilot, who in truth had just awakened from
a refreshing sleep, opened his eyes, and seemed to gather a new
impulse from the promise. When his questions were asked and
answered, he began deliberately to count on his fingers all the
chances that still existed of a vessel, whose crew was ignorant of
the navigation, falling into their hands.
"Admitting that by keeping mid-channel she goes clear of
White Stone and Frogs," he said, giving to Throgmorton's its
vulgar name, "he must be a wizard to know that the Stepping-
Stones lie directly across his course, and that a vessel must steer
away northerly or bring up on rocks that will as surely hold
him as if he were built there. Then he runs his chance for the
Executioners, which are as prettily placed as needs be to make
our trade flourish; besides the Middle Ground farther
east,
though I count but little on that, having often tried to find it
myself, without success. Courage, noble captain! if the fellow
be the man you say, we shall get a nearer look at him before
the sun sets; for certainly he who has run the Gate without a
## p. 4008 (#378) ###########################################
4908
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
pilot in safety, has had as much good luck as can fall to his
share in one day. "
The opinion of the East River Branch proved erroneous.
Notwithstanding the hidden perils by which she was environed,
the Water-Witch continued her course, with a speed that in-
creased as the wind rose with the sun, and with an impunity
from harm that amazed all who were in the secret of her situa-
tion. Off Throgmorton's there was, in truth, a danger that
might even have baffled the sagacity of the followers of the mys-
terious. lady, had they not been aided by accident. This is the
point where the straitened arm of the sea expands into the basin
of the sound. A broad and inviting passage lies directly before
the navigator, while, like the flattering prospects of life, number-
less hidden obstacles are in wait to arrest the unheeding and
ignorant.
The "Skimmer of the Seas" was deeply practiced in all the
intricacies and dangers of shoals and rocks. Most of his life had
been passed in threading the one or in avoiding the other. So
keen and quick had his eye become in detecting the presence of
any of those signs which forewarn the mariner of danger, that a
ripple on the surface, or a deeper shade in the color of the
water, rarely escaped his vigilance. Seated on the topsail-yard
of his brigantine, he had overlooked the passage from the moment
they were through the Gate, and issued his mandates to those
below with a precision and promptitude that were not surpassed
by the trained conductor of the Coquette himself. But when his
sight embraced the wide reach of water that lay in front, as his
little vessel swept round the headland of Throgmorton, he
believed there no longer existed a reason for so much care. Still
there was a motive for hesitation. A heavily molded and dull-
sailing coaster was going eastward not a league ahead of the
brigantine, while one of the light sloops of those waters was
coming westward still farther in the distance. Notwithstanding
the wind was favorable to each alike, both vessels had deviated
from the direct line and were steering toward a common centre,
near an island that was placed more than a mile to the north-
ward of the straight course. A mariner like him of the India
shawl could not overlook so obvious an intimation of a change
in the channel. The Water-Witch was kept away, and her
lighter sails were lowered, in order to allow the royal cruiser,
whose lofty canvas was plainly visible above the land, to draw
## p. 4009 (#379) ###########################################
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
4009
near. When the Coquette was seen also to diverge, there no
longer remained a doubt of the direction necessary to be taken;
and everything was quickly set upon the brigantine, even to her
studding-sails. Long ere she reached the island the two coasters.
had met, and each again changed its course, reversing that on
which the other had just been sailing. There was in these
movements as plain an explanation as a seaman could desire,
that the pursued were right. On reaching the island, therefore,
they again luffed into the wake of the schooner; and having
nearly crossed the sheet of water, they passed the coaster, receiv-
ing an assurance in words that all was now plain sailing before
them.
Such was the famous passage of the "Skimmer of the Seas »
through the multiplied and hidden dangers of the eastern chan-
nel. To those who have thus accompanied him, step by step,
through its intricacies and alarms, there may seem nothing ex-
traordinary in the event; but coupled as it was with the charac-
ter previously earned by that bold mariner, and occurring as it
did in the age when men were more disposed than at present to
put faith in the marvelous, the reader will not be surprised to
learn that it greatly increased his reputation for daring, and had
no small influence on an opinion which was by no means un-
common, that the dealers in contraband were singularly favored
by a power which greatly exceeded that of Queen Anne and all
her servants.
THE DOOM OF ABIRAM WHITE
From The Prairie›
Α
BIRAM gave his downcast partner a glance of his eye, and
withdrew towards a distant roll of the land which bounded
the view towards the east. The meeting of the pair in
this naked spot was like an interview held above the grave of
their murdered son. Ishmael signed to his wife to take a seat
beside him on a fragment of rock, and then followed a space dur-
ing which neither seemed disposed to speak.
"We have journeyed together long, through good and bad,"
Ishmael at length commenced: "much have we had to try us,
and some bitter cups have we been made to swallow, my
## p. 4010 (#380) ###########################################
4010
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
woman; but nothing like this has ever before lain in my
path. "
"It is a heavy cross for a poor, misguided, and sinful woman
to bear! " returned Esther, bowing her head to her knees, and
partly concealing her face in her dress. "A heavy and a bur-
densome weight is this to be laid upon the shoulders of a sister
and a mother! "
"Ay; therein lies the hardship of the case. I had brought
my mind to the punishment of that houseless trapper with no
great strivings, for the man had done me few favors, and God
forgive me if I suspected him wrongfully of much evil! This
is, however, bringing shame in at one door of my cabin in order
to drive it out at the other. But shall a son of mine be mur-
dered, and he who did it go at large? -the boy would never
rest! »
"Oh, Ishmael, we pushed the matter far! Had little been
said, who would have been the wiser? Our consciences might
then have been quiet. "
"Esther," said the husband, turning on her a reproachful but
still a dull regard, "the hour has been, my woman, when you
thought another hand had done this wickedness. "
"I did, I did! the Lord gave me the feeling as a punishment
for my sins! but his mercy was not slow in lifting the veil; I
looked into the Book, Ishmael, and there I found the words of
comfort. "
"Have you that book at hand, woman? it may happen to
advise in such a dreary business. "
Esther fumbled in her pocket, and was not long in producing
the fragment of a Bible which had been thumbed and smoke-
dried till the print was nearly illegible. It was the only article
in the nature of a book that was to be found among the chattels
of the squatter, and it had been preserved by his wife as a melan-
choly relic of more prosperous, and possibly of more innocent
days. She had long been in the habit of resorting to it under
the pressure of such circumstances as were palpably beyond
human redress, though her spirit and resolution rarely needed
support under those that admitted of reparation through any of
the ordinary means of reprisal. In this manner Esther had
made a sort of convenient ally of the Word of God; rarely
troubling it for counsel, however, except when her own incom.
petency to avert an evil was too apparent to be disputed. We
## p. 4011 (#381) ###########################################
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
4011
shall leave casuists to determine how far she resembled any other
believers in this particular, and proceed directly with the matter
before us.
"There are many awful passages in these pages, Ishmael,"
she said, when the volume was opened and the leaves were
slowly turning under her finger, "and some there ar' that teach
the rules of punishment. "
Her husband made a gesture for her to find one of those
brief rules of conduct which have been received among all
Christian nations as the direct mandates of the Creator, and
which have been found so just that even they who deny their
high authority admit their wisdom. Ishmael listened with grave
attention as his companion read all those verses which her
memory suggested, and which were thought applicable to the
situation in which they found themselves. He made her show
him the words, which he regarded with a sort of strange rever-
ence. A resolution once taken was usually irrevocable in one
who was moved with so much difficulty. He put his
and upon
the book and closed the pages himself, as much as to apprise
his wife that he was satisfied. Esther, who so well knew his
character, trembled at the action, and casting a glance at his
steady eye, she said:-
"And yet, Ishmael, my blood and the blood of my children
is in his veins! Cannot mercy be shown? "
"Woman," he answered, sternly, "when we believed that
miserable old trapper had done this deed, nothing was said of
mercy! "
Esther made no reply, but folding her arms upon her breast
she sat silent and thoughtful for many minutes. Then she once
more turned her anxious gaze upon the countenance of her hus-
band, where she found all passion and care apparently buried in
the coldest apathy. Satisfied now that the fate of her brother
was sealed, and possibly conscious how well he merited the pun-
ishment that was meditated, she no longer thought of mediation.
No more words passed between them. Their eyes met for an
instant, and then both arose and walked in profound silence
towards the encampment.
The squatter found his children expecting his return in the
usual listless manner with which they awaited all coming events.
The cattle were already herded, and the horses in their gears
in readiness to proceed, so soon as he should indicate that such
## p. 4012 (#382) ###########################################
4012
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
was his pleasure. The children were already in their proper
vehicle, and in short, nothing delayed the departure but the
absence of the parents of the wild brood.
"Abner," said the father, with the deliberation with which all
his proceedings were characterized, "take the brother of your
mother from the wagon, and let him stand on the 'arth. "
Abiram issued from his place of concealment, trembling, it is
true, but far from destitute of hopes as to his final success in
appeasing the just resentment of his kinsman. After throwing a
glance around him with the vain wish of finding a single coun-
tenance in which he might detect a solitary gleam of sympathy,
he endeavored to smother those apprehensions that were by this
time reviving in their original violence, by forcing a sort of
friendly communication between himself and the squatter:-
"The beasts are getting jaded, brother," he said; "and as we
have made so good a march already, is it not time to camp?
To my eye you may go far before a better place than this is
found to pass the night in. "
'Tis well you like it. Your tarry here ar' likely to be long.
My sons, draw nigh and listen. Abiram White," he added, lift-
ing his cap, and speaking with a solemnity and steadiness that
rendered even his dull mien imposing, "you have slain my first-
born, and according to the laws of God and man must you die! ”
The kidnapper started at this terrible and sudden sentence,
with the terror that one would exhibit who unexpectedly found
himself in the grasp of a monster from whose power there was
no retreat. Although filled with the most serious forebodings of
what might be his lot, his courage had not been equal to look
his danger in the face, and with the deceitful consolation with
which timid tempers are apt to conceal their desperate condition
from themselves, he had rather courted a treacherous relief in
his cunning, than prepared himself for the worst.
"Die! " he repeated, in a voice that scarcely issued from his
chest; "a man is surely safe among his kinsmen ? "
"So thought my boy," returned the squatter, motioning for
the team that contained his wife and the girls to proceed, as he
very coolly examined the priming of his piece. "By the rifle
did you destroy my son; it is fit and just that you meet your
end by the same weapon. "
Abiram stared about him with a gaze that bespoke an unset-
tled reason. He even laughed, as if he would not only persuade
## p. 4013 (#383) ###########################################
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
4013
himself but others that what he heard was some pleasantry
intended to try his nerves. But nowhere did his frightful merri-
ment meet with an answering echo. All around was solemn and
still. The visages of his nephews were excited, but cold towards
him, and that of his former confederate frightfully determined.
This very steadiness of mien was a thousand times more alarm-
ing and hopeless than any violence could have proved. The
latter might possibly have touched his spirit and awakened
resistance, but the former threw him entirely on the feeble
resources of himself.
"Brother," he said, in a hurried unnatural whisper, “did I
hear you? "
"My words are plain, Abiram White: thou hast done murder,
and for the same must thou die! "
"Esther! sister, sister! will you leave me? O sister! do you
hear my call ? »
་
"I hear one speak from the grave! " returned the husky tones
of Esther, as the wagon passed the spot where the criminal
stood. "It is the voice of my first-born calling aloud for just-
ice! God have mercy, God have mercy on your soul! "
The team slowly pursued its route, and the deserted Abiram
now found himself deprived of the smallest vestige of hope.
Still he could not summon fortitude to meet his death, and had
not his limbs refused to aid him he would yet have attempted to
fly. Then by a sudden revolution from hope to utter despair
he fell upon his knees and commenced a prayer, in which cries
for mercy to God and to his kinsman were wildly and blasphe-
mously mingled. The sons of Ishmael turned away in horror at
the disgusting spectacle, and even the stern nature of the squat-
ter began to bend before so abject misery.
"May that which you ask of him be granted," he said; "but
a father can never forget a murdered child. "
He was answered by the most humble appeals for time. A
week, a day, an hour, were each implored with an earnestness
commensurate to the value they receive when a whole life is
compressed into their short duration. The squatter was troubled,
and at length he yielded in part to the petitions of the criminal.
His final purpose was not altered, though he changed the means.
"Abner," he said, "mount the rock and look on every side that
we may be sure none are nigh. "
While his nephew was obeying this order, gleams of reviving
hope were seen shooting across the quivering features of the kid-
## p. 4014 (#384) ###########################################
4014
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
napper. The report was favorable; nothing having life, the retir-
ing teams excepted, was to be seen. A messenger was however
coming from the latter in great apparent haste. Ishmael awaited
its arrival. He received from the hands of one of his wondering
and frighted girls a fragment of that Book which Esther had
preserved with so much care. The squatter beckoned his child
away, and placed the leaves in the hands of the criminal.
"Esther has sent you this," he said, "that in your last mo-
ments you may remember God. "
"Bless her, bless her! a good and kind sister has she been to
me! But time must be given that I may read; time, my brother,
time! "
"Time shall not be wanting. You shall be your own exe-
cutioner, and this miserable office shall pass away from my
hands. "
Ishmael proceeded to put his new resolution in force. The
immediate apprehensions of the kidnapper were quieted by an
assurance that he might yet live for days, though his punishment
was inevitable. A reprieve to one abject and wretched as
Abiram temporarily produced the same effects as a pardon. He
was even foremost in assisting in the appalling arrangements;
and of all the actors in that solemn tragedy, his voice alone was
facetious and jocular.
A thin shelf of the rock projected beneath one of the ragged
arms of the willow. It was many feet from the ground, and
admirably adapted to the purpose which in fact its appearance
had suggested. On this little platform the criminal was placed,
his arms bound at the elbows behind his back, beyond the possi
bility of liberation, with a proper cord leading from his neck to-
the limb of the tree. The latter was so placed that when sus-
pended the body could find no foot-hold. The fragment of the
Bible was placed in his hands, and he was left to seek his con-
solation as he might from its pages.
"And now, Abiram White," said the squatter, when his sons
had descended from completing this arrangement, "I give you
a last and solemn asking. Death is before you in two shapes.
With this rifle can your misery be cut short, or by that cord,
sooner or later, must you meet your end. "
"Let me yet live! O Ishmael, you know not how sweet life
is when the last moment draws so nigh! "
((
'Tis done," said the squatter, motioning for his assistants to
follow the herds and teams. "And now, miserable man, that it
## p. 4015 (#385) ###########################################
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
4015
may prove a consolation to your end, I forgive you my wrongs
and leave you to your God. "
Ishmael turned and pursued his way across the plain at his
ordinary sluggish and ponderous gait. Though his head was
bent a little towards the earth, his inactive mind did not prompt
him to cast a look behind. Once indeed he thought he heard
his name called in tones that were a little smothered, but they
failed to make him pause.
At the spot where he and Esther had conferred he reached the
boundary of the visible horizon from the rock. Here he stopped,
and ventured a glance in the direction of the place he had just
quitted. The sun was near dipping into the plains beyond, and
its last rays lighted the naked branches of the willow. He saw
the ragged outline of the whole drawn against the glowing
heavens, and he even traced the still upright form of the being
he had left to his misery. Turning the roll of the swell, he pro-
ceeded with the feelings of one who had been suddenly and vio-
lently separated from a recent confederate forever.
Within a mile the squatter overtook his teams. His sons had
found a place suited to the encampment for the night, and
merely awaited his approach to confirm their choice. Few words
were necessary to express his acquiescence. Everything passed
in a silence more general and remarkable than ever. The
chidings of Esther were not heard among her young, or if
heard, they were more in the tones of softened admonition than
in her usual upbraiding key.
No questions nor explanations passed between the and
and his wife. It was only as the latter was about to withdraw
among her children for the night, that the former saw her taking
a furtive look at the pan of his rifle. Ishmael bade his sons seek
their rest, announcing his intention to look to the safety of the
camp in person. When all was still, he walked out upon the
prairie with a sort of sensation that he found his breathing
among the tents too straitened. The night was well adapted to
heighten the feelings which had been created by the events of
the day.
The wind had risen with the moon, and it was occasionally
sweeping over the plain in a manner that made it not difficult
for the sentinel to imagine strange and unearthly sounds were
mingling in the blasts.
Yielding to the extraordinary impulses
of which he was the subject, he cast a glance around to see that
## p. 4016 (#386) ###########################################
4016
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
all were slumbering in security, and then he strayed towards the
swell of land already mentioned. Here the squatter found him-
self at a point that commanded a view to the east and to the
west. Light fleecy clouds were driving before the moon, which
was cold and watery, though there were moments when its
placid rays were shed from clear blue fields, seeming to soften
objects to its own mild loveliness.
For the first time, in a life of so much wild adventure, Ish-
mael felt a keen sense of solitude. The naked prairies began to
assume the forms of illimitable and dreary wastes, and the rush-
ing of the wind sounded like the whisperings of the dead. It
was not long before he thought a shriek was borne past him on
a blast.
It did not sound like a call from earth, but it swept
frightfully through the upper air, mingled with the hoarse accom-
paniment of the wind. The teeth of the squatter were com-
pressed and his huge hand grasped the rifle, as if it would crush
the metal. Then came a lull, a fresher blast, and a cry of hor-
ror that seemed to have been uttered at the very portals of his
ears. A sort of echo burst involuntarily from his own lips, as
men shout under unnatural excitement, and throwing his rifle
across his shoulder, he proceeded towards the rock with the
strides. of a giant.
It was not often that the blood of Ishmael moved at the rate
with which the fluid circulates in the veins of ordinary men; but
now he felt it ready to gush from every pore in his body. The
animal was aroused, in his most latent energies. Ever as he
advanced he heard those shrieks, which sometimes seemed
ringing among the clouds, and sometimes passed so nigh as to
appear to brush the earth. At length there came a cry in
which there could be no delusion, or to which the imagination
could lend no horror. It appeared to fill each cranny of the
air, as the visible horizon is often charged to fullness by one
dazzling flash of the electric fluid. The name of God was dis-
tinctly audible, but it was awfully and blasphemously blended
with sounds that may not be repeated. The squatter stopped,
and for a moment he covered his ears with his hands. When he
withdrew the latter, a low and husky voice at his elbow asked in
smothered tones:
-
"Ishmael, my man, heard ye nothing? "
"Hist! " returned the husband, laying a powerful arm on
Esther, without manifesting the smallest surprise at the unlooked
## p. 4017 (#387) ###########################################
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
4017
for presence of his wife. "Hist, woman! if you have the fear
of Heaven, be still! "
A profound silence succeeded. Though the wind rose and
fell as before, its rushing was no longer mingled with those
fearful cries. The sounds were imposing and solemn, but it was
the solemnity and majesty of nature.
"Let us go on," said Esther; "all is hushed. "
"Woman, what has brought you here? " demanded her hus-
band, whose blood had returned into its former channels, and
whose thoughts had already lost a portion of their excitement.
"Ishmael, he murdered our first-born: but it is not meet
that the son of my mother should lie upon the ground like the
carrion of a dog. "
"Follow! " returned the squatter, again grasping his rifle and
striding towards the rock. The distance was still considerable;
and their approach, as they drew nigh the place of execution,
was moderated by awe. Many minutes had passed before they
reached a spot where they might distinguish the outlines of the
dusky objects.
"Where have you put the body? " whispered Esther. "See,
here are pick and spade, that a brother of mine may sleep in
the bosom of the earth! "
The moon broke from behind a mass of clouds, and the eye
of the woman was enabled to follow the finger of Ishmael. It
pointed to a human form swinging in the wind, beneath the
ragged and shining arm of the willow. Esther bent her head
and veiled her eyes from the sight. But Ishmael drew nigher,
and long contemplated his work in awe, though not in compunc-
tion. The leaves of the sacred book were scattered on the
ground, and even a fragment of the shelf had been displaced by
the kidnapper in his agony. But all was now in the stillness of
death. The grim and convulsed countenance of the victim was
at times brought full into the light of the moon, and again, as
the wind lulled, the fatal rope drew a dark line across its bright
disk. The squatter raised his rifle with extreme care, and fired.
The cord was cut, and the body came lumbering to the earth, a
heavy and insensible mass.
Until now Esther had not moved nor spoken. But her hand
was not slow to assist in the labor of the hour. The grave was
soon dug. It was instantly made to receive its miserable tenant.
As the lifeless form descended, Esther, who sustained the head,
VII-252
## p. 4018 (#388) ###########################################
4018
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
looked up into the face of her husband with an expression of
anguish, and said:-
"Ishmael, my man, it is very terrible! I cannot kiss the
corpse of my father's child! »
The squatter laid his broad hand on the bosom of the dead,
and said:
"Abiram White, we all have need of mercy; from my soul
do I forgive you! May God in heaven have pity on your sins! »
The woman bowed her face, and imprinted her lips long and
fervently on the pallid forehead of her brother. After this came
the falling clods and all the solemn sounds of filling a grave.
Esther lingered on her knees, and Ishmael stood uncovered while
the woman muttered a prayer. All was then finished.
On the following morning the teams and herds of the squat-
ter were seen pursuing their course towards the settlements. As
they approached the confines of society the train was blended
among a thousand others. Though some of the numerous
descendants of this peculiar pair were reclaimed from their law-
less and semi-barbarous lives, the principals of the family them-
selves were never heard of more.
THE BISON STAMPEDE
From The Prairie
T
HE warrior suddenly paused and bent his face aside, like one
who listened with all his faculties absorbed in the act.
Then turning the head of his horse, he rode to the nearest
angle of the thicket, and looked intently across the bleak prairie
in a direction opposite to the side on which the party stood.
Returning slowly from this unaccountable, and, to his observers,
startling procedure, he riveted his eyes on Inez, and paced back
and forth several times with the air of one who maintained a
warm struggle on some difficult point in the recesses of his own
thoughts. He had drawn the reins of his impatient steed, and
was seemingly about to speak when his head again sank on his
chest, and he resumed his former attitude of attention. Gallop-
ing like a deer to the place of his former observations, he rode
for a moment swiftly in short and rapid circles as if still uncer-
tain of his course, and then darted away like a bird that had
## p. 4019 (#389) ###########################################
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
4019
been fluttering around its nest before it takes a distant flight.
After scouring the plain for a minute he was lost to the eye
behind a swell of the land.
The hounds, who had also manifested great uneasiness for
some time, followed him for a little distance, and then terminated
their chase by seating themselves on the ground and raising
their usual low, whining, and warning howls.
These movements had passed in so short a space of time
that the old man, while he neglected not to note the smallest
incident, had no opportunity of expressing his opinion concerning
the stranger's motives. After the Pawnee had disappeared, how-
ever, he shook his head and muttered, while he walked slowly
to the angle of the thicket that the Indian had just quitted:-
"There are both scents and sounds in the air, though my
miserable senses are not good enough to hear the one or to
catch the taint of the other. "
"There is nothing to be seen," cried Middleton, who kept
close at his side. "My ears and my eyes are good, and yet
I can assure you that I neither hear nor see anything. "
"Your eyes are good! and you are not deaf! " returned the
other, with a slight air of contempt; "no, lad, no; they may be
good to see across a church, or to hear a town bell, but afore
you had passed a year in these prairies you would find yourself
taking a turkey for a buffalo, or conceiting fifty times that the
roar of a buffalo bull was the thunder of the Lord! There is a
deception of natur' in these naked plains in which the air throws
up the images like water, and then it is hard to tell the prairies.
from a sea.
But yonder is a sign that a hunter never fails to
know. "
The trapper pointed to a flight of vultures that were sailing
over the plain at no great distance, and apparently in the direc-
tion in which the Pawnee had riveted his eyes. At first Middle-
ton could not distinguish the small dark objects that were
dotting the dusky clouds; but as they came swiftly onward,
first their forms and then their heavy waving wings became.
distinctly visible.
"Listen! " said the trapper, when he had succeeded in making
Middleton see the moving column of birds. "Now you hear the
buffaloes, or bisons, as your knowing Doctor sees fit to call
them; though buffaloes is their name among all the hunters of
these regions. And I conclude that a hunter is a better judge
## p. 4020 (#390) ###########################################
4020
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
of a beast and of its name," he added, winking at the young
soldier, "tha: any man who has turned over the leaves of a
book instead of traveling over the face of the 'arth, in order to
find out the natur's of its inhabitants. "
"Of their habits, I will grant you," cried the naturalist, who
rarely missed an opportunity to agitate any disputed point in his
favorite studies. "That is, provided always deference is had to
the proper use of definitions, and that they are contemplated
with scientific eyes. "
"Eyes of a nole! as if any man's eyes were not as good for
names as the eyes of any other creatur'! Who named the works
of His hand? can you tell me that, with your book and college
wisdom? Was it not the first man in the Garden, and is it not
a plain consequence that his children inherit his gifts? "
"That is certainly the Mosaic account of the event," said the
Doctor; "though your reading is by far too literal! "
"My reading! nay, if you suppose that I have wasted my
time in schools, you do such a wrong to my knowledge as one
mortal should never lay to the door of another without sufficient
reason. If I have ever craved the art of reading, it has been
that I might better know the sayings of the book you name, for
it is a book which speaks in every line according to human
feelings, and therein according to reason. ”
"And do you then believe," said the Doctor, a little provoked
by the dogmatism of his stubborn adversary, and perhaps secretly
too confident in his own more liberal, though scarcely as profita-
ble attainments, "do you then believe that all these beasts were
literally collected in a garden to be enrolled in the nomenclature
of the first man? "
«< Why not? I understand your meaning; for it is not needful
to live in towns to hear all the devilish devices that the conceit
of man
can invent to upset his own happiness. What does it
prove, except indeed it may be said to prove that the garden He
made was not after the miserable fashions of our times, thereby
directly giving the lie to what the world calls its civilizing?
No, no, the garden of the Lord was the forest then, and is the
forest now, where the fruits do grow and the birds do sing,
according to his own wise ordering. Now, lady, you may see
the mystery of the vultures! There come the buffaloes them-
selves, and a noble herd it is! I warrant me that Pawnee has
a troop of his people in some of the hollows nigh by; and as he
## p. 4021 (#391) ###########################################
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
4021
has gone scampering after them, you are about to see a glorious
chase. It will serve to keep the squatter and his brood under
cover, and for ourselves there is little reason to fear. A Pawnee
is not apt to be a malicious savage. "
Every eye was now drawn to the striking spectacle that suc-
ceeded. Even the timid Inez hastened to the side of Middleton
to gaze at the sight, and Paul summoned Ellen from her culi-
nary labors to become a witness of the lively scene.
Throughout the whole of those moving events which it has
been our duty to record, the prairies had lain in the majesty of
perfect solitude. The heavens had been blackened with the pas-
sage of the migratory birds, it is true; but the dogs of the
party and the ass of the Doctor were the only quadrupeds that
had enlivened the broad surface of the waste beneath. There
was now a sudden exhibition of animal life which changed the
scene, as it were by magic, to the very opposite extreme.
A few enormous bison bulls were first observed scouring
along the most distant roll of the prairie, and then succeeded
long files of single beasts, which in their turns were followed
by a dark mass of bodies, until the dun-colored herbage of the
plain was entirely lost in the deeper hue of their shaggy coats.
The herd, as the column spread and thickened, was like the
endless flocks of the smaller birds whose extended flanks are so
often seen to heave up out of the abyss of the heavens, until
they appear as countless as the leaves in those forests over
which they wing their endless flight. Clouds of dust shot up
in little columns from the centre of the mass, as some animal,
more furious than the rest, plowed the plain with his horns;
and from time to time a deep hollow bellowing was borne
along on the wind, as if a thousand throats vented their plaints
in a discordant murmuring.
A long and musing silence reigned in the party as they
gazed on this spectacle of wild and peculiar grandeur.
It was
at length broken by the trapper, who, having been long accus-
tomed to similar sights, felt less of its influence, or rather felt
it in a less thrilling and absorbing manner, than those to whom
the scene was more novel.
"There go ten thousand oxen in one drove, without keeper or
master, except Him who made them and gave them these open
plains for their pasture! Ay, it is here that man may see the
proofs of his wantonness and folly! Can the proudest governor
## p. 4022 (#392) ###########################################
4022
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
in all the States go into his fields and slaughter a nobler bullock
than is here offered to the meanest hand; and when he has got-
ten his sirloin or his steak, can he eat it with as good a relish
as he who has sweetened his food with wholesome toil, and
earned it according to the law of natur', by honestly mastering
that which the Lord hath put before him? "
"If the prairie platter is smoking with a buffalo's hump, I
answer no," interrupted the luxurious bee-hunter.
“Ay, boy, you have tasted, and you feel the genuine reason-
ing of the thing! But the herd is heading a little this-away,
and it behooves us to make ready for their visit. If we hide
ourselves altogether, the horned brutes will break through the
place and trample us beneath their feet like so many creeping
worms; so we will just put the weak ones apart, and take post,
as becomes men and hunters, in the van. "
As there was but little time to make the necessary arrange-
ments, the whole party set about them in good earnest. Inez
and Ellen were placed in the edge of the thicket on the side
furthest from the approaching herd. Asinus was posted in the
centre, in consideration of his nerves; and then the old man
with his three male companions divided themselves in such a
manner as they thought would enable them to turn the head of
the rushing column, should it chance to approach too nigh their
position. By the vacillating movements of some fifty or a hun-
dred bulls that led the advance, it remained questionable for
many moments what course they intended to pursue.
But a
tremendous and painful roar which came from behind the cloud
of dust that rose in the centre of the herd, and which was hor-
ridly answered by the screams of the carrion-birds that were
greedily sailing directly above the flying drove, appeared to give
a new impulse to their flight and at once to remove every symp-
tom of indecision. As if glad to seek the smallest signs of the
forest, the whole of the affrighted herd became steady in its
direction, rushing in a straight line toward the little cover of
bushes which has already been so often named.
The appearance of danger was now in reality of a character
to try the stoutest nerves. The flanks of the dark moving mass
were advanced in such a manner as to make a concave line of
the front; and every fierce eye that was glaring from the shaggy
wilderness of hair in which the entire heads of the males were
enveloped, was riveted with mad anxiety on the thicket. It
## p. 4023 (#393) ###########################################
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
4023
seemed as if each beast strove to outstrip his neighbor in gain-
ing this desired cover; and as thousands in the rear pressed
blindly on those in front, there was the appearance of an immi-
leaders of the herd would be precipitated on
in which case the destruction of every one of
Each of our adventurers felt the danger of
manner peculiar to his individual character
nent risk that the
the concealed party,
them was certain.
his situation in a
and circumstances.
Middleton wavered. At times he felt inclined to rush through
the bushes, and seizing Inez, attempt to fly. Then recollect-
ing impossibility of outstripping the furious speed of an
alarmed bison, he felt for his arms, determined to make head
against the countless drove. The faculties of Dr. Battius were
quickly wrought up to the very summit of mental delusion. The
dark forms of the herd lost their distinctness, and then the nat-
uralist began to fancy he beheld a wild collection of all the
creatures of the world rushing upon him in a body, as if to
revenge the various injuries which, in the course of a life of
indefatigable labor in behalf of the natural sciences, he had
inflicted on their several genera. The paralysis it occasioned in
his system was like the effect of the incubus. Equally unable to
fly or to advance, he stood riveted to the spot, until the infatu-
ation became so complete that the worthy naturalist was begin-
ning, by a desperate effort of scientific resolution, even to class
the different specimens. On the other hand, Paul shouted, and
called on Ellen to come and assist him in shouting, but his voice
was lost in the bellowings and trampling of the herd. Furious,
and yet strangely excited by the obstinacy of the brutes and the
wildness of the sight, and nearly maddened by sympathy and a
species of unconscious apprehension in which the claims of nature
were singularly mingled with concern for his mistress, he nearly
split his throat in exhorting his aged friend to interfere.
"Come forth, old trapper," he shouted, "with your prairie
inventions! or we shall be all smothered under a mountain of
buffalo humps! "
The old man, who had stood all this while leaning on his
rifle and regarding the movements of the herd with a steady
eye, now deemed it time to strike his blow. Leveling his piece
at the foremost bull, with an agility that would have done credit
to his youth, he fired. The animal received the bullet on the
matted hair between his horns, and fell to his knees; but shaking
## p. 4024 (#394) ###########################################
4024
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
his head he instantly arose, the very shock seeming to increase
his exertions. There was now no longer time to hesitate.
Throwing down his rifle, the trapper stretched forth his arms,
and advanced from the cover with naked hands directly towards
the rushing column of the beasts.
The figure of a man, when sustained by the firmness and
steadiness that intellect can only impart, rarely fails of com-
manding respect from all the inferior animals of the creation.
The leading bulls recoiled, and for a single instant there was a
sudden stop to their speed, a dense mass of bodies rolling up in
front until hundreds were seen floundering and tumbling on the
plain. Then came another of those hollow bellowings from the
rear, and set the herd again in motion. The head of the col-
umn, however, divided, the immovable form of the trapper
cutting it as it were into two gliding streams of life. Middle-
ton and Paul instantly profited by his example, and extended the
feeble barrier by a similar exhibition of their own persons.
For a few moments the new impulse given to the animals in
front served to protect the thicket. But as the body of the
herd pressed more and more upon the open line of its defenders,
and the dust thickened so as to obscure their persons, there
was at each instant a renewed danger of the beasts breaking
through. It became necessary for the trapper and his compan-
ions to become still more and more alert; and they were grad-
ually yielding before the headlong multitude, when a furious bull
darted by Middleton so near as to brush his person, and at the
next instant swept through the thicket with the velocity of the
wind.
"Close, and die for the ground," shouted the old man, “or a
thousand of the devils will be at his heels! "
All their efforts would have proved fruitless however against
the living torrent, had not Asinus, whose domains had just been
so rudely entered, lifted his voice in the midst of the uproar.
The most sturdy and furious of the bulls trembled at the alarm-
ing and unknown cry, and then each individual brute was seen
madly pressing from that very thicket which the moment before
he had endeavored to reach, with the eagerness with which the
murderer seeks the sanctuary.
As the stream divided the place became clear; the two dark
columns moving obliquely from the copse, to unite again at the
distance of a mile, on its opposite side. The instant the old
## p. 4025 (#395) ###########################################
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
4025
man saw the sudden effect which the voice of Asinus had pro-
duced, he coolly commenced reloading his rifle, indulging at
the same time in a heartfelt fit of his silent and peculiar merri-
ment.
"There they go, like dogs with so many half-filled shot-
pouches dangling at their tails, and no fear of their breaking
their order; for what the brutes in the rear didn't hear with
their own ears, they'll conceit they did: besides, if they change
their minds, it may be no hard matter to get the jack to sing
the rest of his tune! "
"The ass has spoken, but Balaam is silent! " cried the bee-
hunter, catching his breath after a repeated burst of noisy mirth,
that might possibly have added to the panic of the buffaloes by
its vociferation. "The man is as completely dumfounded as if
a swarm of young bees had settled on the end of his tongue,
and he not willing to speak for fear of their answer. "
"How now, friend," continued the trapper, addressing the
still motionless and entranced naturalist; "how now, friend; are
you, who make your livelihood by booking the names and natur's
of the beasts of the fields and the fowls of the air, frightened at
a herd of scampering buffaloes? Though perhaps you are ready
to dispute my right to call them by a word that is in the mouth.
of every hunter and trader on the frontier! "
The old man was however mistaken in supposing he could
excite the benumbed faculties of the Doctor by provoking a dis-
cussion. From that time henceforth he was never known,
except on one occasion, to utter a word that indicated either the
species or the genus of the animal. He obstinately refused the
nutritious food of the whole ox family; and even to the present
hour, now that he is established in all the scientific dignity and
security of a savant in one of the maritime towns, he turns his
back with a shudder on those delicious and unrivaled viands that
are so often seen at the suppers of the craft, and which are
unequaled by anything that is served under the same name at
the boasted chop-houses of London or at the most renowned of
the Parisian restaurants.
## p. 4026 (#396) ###########################################
4026
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
RUNNING THE GAUNTLET
From The Last of the Mohicans'
TH
HERE yet lingered sufficient light in the heavens to exhibit
those bright openings among the tree-tops where different
paths left the clearing to enter the depths of the wilder-
ness. Beneath one of them, a line of warriors issued from the
woods and advanced slowly toward the dwellings. One in front
bore a short pole, on which, as it afterward appeared, were sus-
pended several human scalps. The startling sounds that Duncan
had heard were what the whites have not inappropriately called
the "death-hallo"; and each repetition of the cry was intended to
announce to the tribe the fate of an enemy. Thus far the knowl-
edge of Heyward assisted him in the explanation; and as he
knew that the interruption was caused by the unlooked-for return
of a successful war-party, every disagreeable sensation was quieted
in inward congratulations for the opportune relief and insignifi-
cance it conferred on himself.
When at the distance of a few hundred feet from the lodges,
the newly arrived warriors halted. The plaintive and terrific cry
which was intended to represent equally the wailings of the dead
and the triumph of the victors, had entirely ceased. One of their
number now called aloud, in words that were far from appalling,
though not more intelligible to those for whose ears they were
intended than their expressive yells. It would be difficult to
convey a suitable idea of the savage ecstasy with which the news
thus imparted was received. The whole encampment in a
moment became a scene of the most violent bustle and commo-
tion. The warriors drew their knives, and flourishing them, they
arranged themselves in two lines, forming a lane that extended
from the war-party to the lodges. The squaws seized clubs, axes,
or whatever weapon of offense first offered itself to their hands,
and rushed eagerly to act their part in the cruel game that was
at hand. Even the children would not be excluded; but boys,
little able to wield the instruments, tore the tomahawks from the
belts of their fathers, and stole into the ranks, apt imitators of
the savage traits exhibited by their parents.
Large piles of brush lay scattered about the clearing, and
a wary and aged squaw was occupied firing as many as might
## p. 4027 (#397) ###########################################
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
4027
serve to light the coming exhibition. As the flame arose, its
power exceeded that of the parting day, and assisted to render
objects at the same time more distinct and more hideous. The
whole scene formed a striking picture, whose frame was com-
posed of the dark and tall border of pines.
