The Border Rifles Part 42

Suffering from the deepest anxiety, not knowing to what they should attribute this attack, or what enemies they had to fear, the three men knew not what to do, or how to escape with honour from the embarra.s.sing position into which chance had thrown them. At length Blue-fox resolved to go reconnoitring.

Still, as the Chief was justly afraid of falling into an ambuscade, carefully prepared to capture him and his comrades, without striking a blow, he thought it prudent, ere he started, to take the most minute precautions.

The Indians are justly renowned for their cleverness; forced, through the life they lead from their birth, to employ continually the physical qualities with which Providence has given them, in them hearing, smell, and, above all, sight have attained such a development, that they can fairly contend with wild beasts, of whom, after all, they are only plagiarists; but, as they have at their disposal one advantage over animals in the intelligence which permits them to combine their actions and see their probable consequences, they have acquired a cat-like success, if we may be allowed to employ the expression, which enables them to accomplish surprising things, of which only those who have seen them at work can form a correct idea, so greatly does their skill go beyond the range of possibility.

It is before all when they have to follow a trail, that the cleverness of the Indians, and the knowledge they possess of the laws of nature, acquire extraordinary proportions. Whatever care their enemy may have taken, whatever precautions he may have employed to hide his trail and render it invisible, they always succeed in discovering it in the end; from them the desert has retained no secrets, for them this virgin and majestic nature is a book, every page of which is known to them, and in which they read fluently, without the slightest--we will not say mistake, but merely--hesitation.

Blue-fox, though still very young, had already gained a well-deserved reputation for cleverness and astuteness; hence under the present circ.u.mstances, surrounded in all probability by invisible enemies, whose eyes, constantly fixed on the spot that served as his refuge, watched his every movement, he prepared with redoubled prudence to foil their machinations and countermine their plans.

After arranging with his comrades a signal in the probable event of their help being required, he took off his buffalo robe, whose wide folds might have impeded his movements, removed all the ornaments with which his head, neck, and chest were loaded, and only retained his _mita.s.ses_, a species of drawers made in two pieces, fastened from distance to distance with hair, bound round the loins with a strip of untanned deer-hide, and descending to his ankles.

Thus clothed, he rolled himself several times in the sand, for his body to a.s.sume an earthy colour. Then he pa.s.sed through his belt his tomahawk and scalping knife, weapons an Indian never lays aside, seized his rifle in his right hand, and, after giving a parting nod to his comrades who attentively watched his different preparations, he lay down on the ground, and began crawling like a serpent through the tall gra.s.s and detritus of every description.

Although the sun had risen for some time, and was pouring its dazzling beams over the prairie, Blue-fox's departure was managed with such circ.u.mspection that he was far out on the plain, while his comrades fancied him close to them; not a blade of gra.s.s had been agitated in his pa.s.sage, or a pebble slipped under his feet.

From time to time Blue-fox stopped, took a peering glance around, and then, when he felt a.s.sured that all was quiet, and nothing had revealed his position, he began crawling again on his hands and knees in the direction of the forest covert, from which he was now but a short distance.

He then reached a spot entirely devoid of trees, where the gra.s.s, lightly trodden down at various spots, led him to suppose he was reaching the place where the men who fired must have been ambushed.

The Indian stopped, in order to investigate more closely the trail he had discovered.

It apparently belonged to only one man; it was clumsy, wide, and made without caution, and rather the footsteps of a white man ignorant of the customs of the prairie, than of a hunter or Indian.

The bushes were broken as if the person who pa.s.sed through them had done so by force, running along without taking the trouble to part the brambles; while at several spots the trampled earth was soaked with blood.

Blue-fox could not at all understand this strange trail, which in no way resembled those he was accustomed to follow.

Was it a feint employed by his enemies to deceive him more easily by letting him see a clumsy trail intended to conceal the real one? Or was it, on the other hand, the trail of a white man wandering about the desert, of whose habits he was ignorant?

The Indian knew not what opinion to adhere to, and his perplexity was great. To him it was evident that from this spot the shot was fired which saluted him at the moment when he was about to begin his speech; but for what object had the man, whoever he was, that had chosen this ambush, left such manifest traces of his pa.s.sage? He must surely have supposed that his aggression would not remain unpunished, and that the persons he selected as a target would immediately start in pursuit of him.

At length, after trying for a long time to solve this problem, and racking his brains in vain to arrive at a probable conclusion, Blue-fox adhered to his first one, that this trail was fict.i.tious, and merely intended to conceal the true one.

The great fault of cunning persons is to suppose that all men are like themselves, and only employ cunning; hence they frequently deceive themselves, and the frankness of the means employed by their opponent completely defeats them, and makes them lose a game which they had every chance of winning.

Blue-fox soon perceived that his supposition was false, that he had given his enemy credit for much greater skill and sagacity than he really possessed, and that what he had regarded as an extremely complicated scheme intended to deceive him, was, in fact, what he had at first thought it, namely, the pa.s.sing of a man.

After hesitating and turning back several times, the Indian at length resolved on pus.h.i.+ng forward, and following what he believed to be a false trail, under the conviction that he would speedily find the real one; but, as he was persuaded that he had to do with extremely crafty fellows, he redoubled his prudence and precautions, only advancing step by step, carefully exploring the bushes and the chaparral, and not going on till he was certain he had no cause to apprehend a surprise.

His manoeuvres occupied a long time; he had left his comrades for more than two hours, when he found himself all at once at the entrance of a rather large clearing, from which he was only separated by a curtain of foliage.

The Indian stopped, drew himself up gently, parted the branches, and looked into the clearing.

The forests of America are full of these clearings, produced either by the fall of trees crumbling with old age, or of those which have been struck by lightning, and laid low by the terrible hurricanes which frequently utterly uproot the forests of the New World. The clearing to which we allude here was rather large; a wide stream ran through it, and in the mud of its banks might be seen the deeply-imprinted footprints of the wild beasts that came here to drink.

A magnificent mahogany tree, whose luxuriant branches overshadowed the whole clearing, stood nearly in the centre. At the foot of this gigantic denizen of the forest, two men were visible.

The first, dressed in a monk's gown, was lying on the ground with closed eyes, and face covered with a deadly pallor; the second, kneeling by his side, seemed to be paying him the most anxious attention.

Owing to the position occupied by the Redskin, he was enabled to distinguish the features of this second person, whose face was turned toward him.

He was a man of lofty stature, but excessively thin; his face, owing to the changes of weather to which it must have been long exposed, was of a brick colour, and furrowed by deep wrinkles; a snow-white beard fell on his chest, mingled with the long curls of his equally white hair, which fell in disorder on his shoulders. He wore the garb of the American rangers combined with the Mexican costume; thus a vicuna-skin hat, ornamented with a gold _golilla_, covered his head; a zarape served as his cloak, and his cotton velvet violet trousers were thrust into long deer-skin gaiters, that came up to his knees.

It was impossible to guess this man's age; although his harsh and marked features, and his wild eyes, which burned with a concentrated fire and had a wandering expression, revealed that he had attained old age, still no trace of decrepitude was visible in any part of his person; his stature seemed not to have lost an inch of its height, so straight was he still; his knotted limbs, full of muscles hard as ropes, seemed endowed with extraordinary strength and suppleness; in a word, he had all the appearance of a dangerous wood-ranger, whose eye must be as sure, and arm as ready, as if he were only forty years of age.

In his girdle he carried a pair of long pistols, and a sword with a straight and wide blade, called a machete, pa.s.sed through an iron ring instead of a sheath, hung on his left side. Two rifles, one of which doubtless belonged to him, were leant against the trunk of the tree, and a magnificent mustang, picketed a few yards off, was nibbling the young tree shoots.

What it has taken us so long to describe, the Indian saw at a glance; but it appeared as if this scene, which he was so far from antic.i.p.ating, was not very cheering to him, for he frowned portentously, and could hardly restrain an exclamation of surprise and disappointment on seeing the two persons.

By an instinctive movement of prudence he c.o.c.ked his rifle, and after he had done this, he went on watching what was doing in the clearing.

At length the man dressed in the monk's gown made a slight movement as if to rise, and partly opened his eyes; but too weak yet, probably, to endure the brilliancy of the sunbeams, though they were filtered through the dense foliage, he closed them again; still, the individual who was nursing him, saw that he had regained his senses, by the movement of his lips, which quivered as if he were murmuring a prayer in a low voice.

Considering, therefore, that, for the present at least, his attentions were no longer needed by his patient, the stranger rose, took his rifle, leant his crossed hands on the muzzle, and awaited stoically, after giving a look round the clearing, whose gloomy and hateful expression caused the Indian Chief to give a start of terror in his leafy hiding place.

Several minutes elapsed, during which no sound was audible, save the rustling of the stream over its bed, and the mysterious murmur of the insects of all descriptions hidden beneath the gra.s.s.

At length the man lying on the ground made a second movement, stronger than the first, and opened his eyes.

After looking wildly around him, his eyes were fastened with a species of strange fascination on the tall old man, still standing motionless by his side, and who gazed on him in return with a mingled feeling of ironical compa.s.sion and sombre melancholy.

"Thanks," he at last murmured, in a weak voice.

"Thanks for what?" the stranger asked, harshly.

"Thanks for having saved my life, brother," the sufferer answered.

"I am not your brother, monk," the stranger said, mockingly; "I am a heretic, a gringo, as you are pleased to call us; look at me, you have not examined me yet with sufficient attention; have I not horns and goat's feet?"

These words were uttered with such a sarcastic accent, that the monk was momentarily confounded.

"Who are you, then?" he at length asked, with secret apprehension.

"What does that concern you?" the other said, with an ill-omened laugh; "The demon, mayhap."

The monk made a sudden effort to rise, and crossed himself repeatedly.

"May Heaven save me from falling into the hands of the Evil Spirit!" he added.

"Well, you a.s.s," the other said, as he shrugged his shoulders contemptuously, "rea.s.sure yourself, I am not the demon, but a man like yourself, perhaps not quite so hypocritical, though, that's the only difference."

"Do you speak truly? Are you really one of my fellow men, disposed to serve me?"

"Who can answer for the future?" the stranger replied, with an enigmatical smile; "Up to the present, at any rate, you have had no cause of complaint against me.

"No, oh no, I do not think so, although since my fainting fit my ideas have been quite confused, and I can remember nothing."

"What do I care? That does not concern me, for I ask nothing of you; I have enough business of my own not to trouble myself with that of others. Come, do you feel better? Have you recovered sufficiently to continue your journey?"