CHAPTER XXII.
BLUE-FOX.
We will now return to Blue-fox and his two comrades, whom, in a previouschapter, we left at the moment when, after hearing bullets "ping" pasttheir ears, they instinctively entrenched themselves behind rocks andtrunks of trees.
So soon as they had taken this indispensable precaution against theinvisible assailants, the three men carefully inspected their weapons tobe ready to reply; and then waited with finger on trigger, and lookingsearchingly in all directions.
They remained thus for a rather lengthened period, though nothing againdisturbed the silence of the prairie, or the slightest sign revealed tothem that the attack made upon them would be renewed.
Suffering from the deepest anxiety, not knowing to what they shouldattribute this attack, or what enemies they had to fear, the three menknew not what to do, or how to escape with honour from the embarrassingposition into which chance had thrown them. At length Blue-fox resolvedto go reconnoitring.
Still, as the Chief was justly afraid of falling into an ambuscade,carefully prepared to capture him and his comrades, without striking ablow, he thought it prudent, ere he started, to take the most minuteprecautions.
The Indians are justly renowned for their cleverness; forced, throughthe life they lead from their birth, to employ continually the physicalqualities with which Providence has given them, in them hearing, smell,and, above all, sight have attained such a development, that they canfairly contend with wild beasts, of whom, after all, they are onlyplagiarists; but, as they have at their disposal one advantage overanimals in the intelligence which permits them to combine their actionsand see their probable consequences, they have acquired a cat-likesuccess, if we may be allowed to employ the expression, which enablesthem to accomplish surprising things, of which only those who have seenthem at work can form a correct idea, so greatly does their skill gobeyond the range of possibility.
It is before all when they have to follow a trail, that the clevernessof the Indians, and the knowledge they possess of the laws of nature,acquire extraordinary proportions. Whatever care their enemy may havetaken, whatever precautions he may have employed to hide his trail andrender it invisible, they always succeed in discovering it in the end;from them the desert has retained no secrets, for them this virgin andmajestic nature is a book, every page of which is known to them, and inwhich they read fluently, without the slightest--we will not saymistake, but merely--hesitation.
Blue-fox, though still very young, had already gained a well-deservedreputation for cleverness and astuteness; hence under the presentcircumstances, surrounded in all probability by invisible enemies, whoseeyes, constantly fixed on the spot that served as his refuge, watchedhis every movement, he prepared with redoubled prudence to foil theirmachinations and countermine their plans.
After arranging with his comrades a signal in the probable event oftheir help being required, he took off his buffalo robe, whose widefolds might have impeded his movements, removed all the ornaments withwhich his head, neck, and chest were loaded, and only retained his_mitasses_, a species of drawers made in two pieces, fastened fromdistance to distance with hair, bound round the loins with a strip ofuntanned deer-hide, and descending to his ankles.
Thus clothed, he rolled himself several times in the sand, for his bodyto assume an earthy colour. Then he passed through his belt his tomahawkand scalping knife, weapons an Indian never lays aside, seized his riflein his right hand, and, after giving a parting nod to his comrades whoattentively watched his different preparations, he lay down on theground, and began crawling like a serpent through the tall grass anddetritus of every description.
Although the sun had risen for some time, and was pouring its dazzlingbeams over the prairie, Blue-fox's departure was managed with suchcircumspection that he was far out on the plain, while his comradesfancied him close to them; not a blade of grass had been agitated in hispassage, or a pebble slipped under his feet.
From time to time Blue-fox stopped, took a peering glance around, andthen, when he felt assured that all was quiet, and nothing had revealedhis position, he began crawling again on his hands and knees in thedirection of the forest covert, from which he was now but a shortdistance.
He then reached a spot entirely devoid of trees, where the grass,lightly trodden down at various spots, led him to suppose he wasreaching the place where the men who fired must have been ambushed.
The Indian stopped, in order to investigate more closely the trail hehad discovered.
It apparently belonged to only one man; it was clumsy, wide, and madewithout caution, and rather the footsteps of a white man ignorant of thecustoms of the prairie, than of a hunter or Indian.
The bushes were broken as if the person who passed through them had doneso by force, running along without taking the trouble to part thebrambles; while at several spots the trampled earth was soaked withblood.
Blue-fox could not at all understand this strange trail, which in no wayresembled those he was accustomed to follow.
Was it a feint employed by his enemies to deceive him more easily byletting him see a clumsy trail intended to conceal the real one? Or wasit, on the other hand, the trail of a white man wandering about thedesert, of whose habits he was ignorant?
The Indian knew not what opinion to adhere to, and his perplexity wasgreat. To him it was evident that from this spot the shot was firedwhich 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 thisambush, left such manifest traces of his passage? He must surely havesupposed that his aggression would not remain unpunished, and that thepersons he selected as a target would immediately start in pursuit ofhim.
At length, after trying for a long time to solve this problem, andracking his brains in vain to arrive at a probable conclusion, Blue-foxadhered to his first one, that this trail was fictitious, and merelyintended to conceal the true one.
The great fault of cunning persons is to suppose that all men are likethemselves, and only employ cunning; hence they frequently deceivethemselves, and the frankness of the means employed by their opponentcompletely defeats them, and makes them lose a game which they had everychance of winning.
Blue-fox soon perceived that his supposition was false, that he hadgiven his enemy credit for much greater skill and sagacity than hereally possessed, and that what he had regarded as an extremelycomplicated scheme intended to deceive him, was, in fact, what he had atfirst thought it, namely, the passing of a man.
After hesitating and turning back several times, the Indian at lengthresolved on pushing forward, and following what he believed to be afalse trail, under the conviction that he would speedily find the realone; but, as he was persuaded that he had to do with extremely craftyfellows, he redoubled his prudence and precautions, only advancing stepby step, carefully exploring the bushes and the chaparral, and not goingon till he was certain he had no cause to apprehend a surprise.
His manoeuvres occupied a long time; he had left his comrades for morethan two hours, when he found himself all at once at the entrance of arather large clearing, from which he was only separated by a curtain offoliage.
The Indian stopped, drew himself up gently, parted the branches, andlooked into the clearing.
The forests of America are full of these clearings, produced either bythe fall of trees crumbling with old age, or of those which have beenstruck by lightning, and laid low by the terrible hurricanes whichfrequently utterly uproot the forests of the New World. The clearing towhich we allude here was rather large; a wide stream ran through it, andin the mud of its banks might be seen the deeply-imprinted footprints ofthe wild beasts that came here to drink.
A magnificent mahogany tree, whose luxuriant branches overshadowed thewhole clearing, stood nearly in the centre. At the foot of this giganticdenizen of the forest, two men were visible.
The first, dressed in a monk's gown, was lying on the ground with closedeyes, and face covered with a deadly pallor; the
second, kneeling by hisside, seemed to be paying him the most anxious attention.
Owing to the position occupied by the Redskin, he was enabled todistinguish the features of this second person, whose face was turnedtoward him.
He was a man of lofty stature, but excessively thin; his face, owing tothe changes of weather to which it must have been long exposed, was of abrick colour, and furrowed by deep wrinkles; a snow-white beard fell onhis chest, mingled with the long curls of his equally white hair, whichfell in disorder on his shoulders. He wore the garb of the Americanrangers combined with the Mexican costume; thus a vicuna-skin hat,ornamented with a gold _golilla_, covered his head; a zarape served ashis cloak, and his cotton velvet violet trousers were thrust into longdeer-skin gaiters, that came up to his knees.
It was impossible to guess this man's age; although his harsh and markedfeatures, and his wild eyes, which burned with a concentrated fire andhad a wandering expression, revealed that he had attained old age, stillno trace of decrepitude was visible in any part of his person; hisstature seemed not to have lost an inch of its height, so straight washe still; his knotted limbs, full of muscles hard as ropes, seemedendowed with extraordinary strength and suppleness; in a word, he hadall the appearance of a dangerous wood-ranger, whose eye must be assure, 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 astraight and wide blade, called a machete, passed through an iron ringinstead of a sheath, hung on his left side. Two rifles, one of whichdoubtless belonged to him, were leant against the trunk of the tree, anda magnificent mustang, picketed a few yards off, was nibbling the youngtree 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 anticipating,was not very cheering to him, for he frowned portentously, and couldhardly restrain an exclamation of surprise and disappointment on seeingthe two persons.
By an instinctive movement of prudence he cocked his rifle, and after hehad 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 asif to rise, and partly opened his eyes; but too weak yet, probably, toendure the brilliancy of the sunbeams, though they were filtered throughthe dense foliage, he closed them again; still, the individual who wasnursing him, saw that he had regained his senses, by the movement of hislips, which quivered as if he were murmuring a prayer in a low voice.
Considering, therefore, that, for the present at least, his attentionswere no longer needed by his patient, the stranger rose, took his rifle,leant his crossed hands on the muzzle, and awaited stoically, aftergiving a look round the clearing, whose gloomy and hateful expressioncaused the Indian Chief to give a start of terror in his leafy hidingplace.
Several minutes elapsed, during which no sound was audible, save therustling of the stream over its bed, and the mysterious murmur of theinsects of all descriptions hidden beneath the grass.
At length the man lying on the ground made a second movement, strongerthan the first, and opened his eyes.
After looking wildly around him, his eyes were fastened with a speciesof strange fascination on the tall old man, still standing motionless byhis side, and who gazed on him in return with a mingled feeling ofironical compassion 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 aheretic, a gringo, as you are pleased to call us; look at me, you havenot examined me yet with sufficient attention; have I not horns andgoat's feet?"
These words were uttered with such a sarcastic accent, that the monk wasmomentarily 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!" headded.
"Well, you ass," the other said, as he shrugged his shoulderscontemptuously, "reassure yourself, I am not the demon, but a man likeyourself, perhaps not quite so hypocritical, though, that's the onlydifference."
"Do you speak truly? Are you really one of my fellow men, disposed toserve me?"
"Who can answer for the future?" the stranger replied, with anenigmatical smile; "Up to the present, at any rate, you have had nocause of complaint against me.
"No, oh no, I do not think so, although since my fainting fit my ideashave been quite confused, and I can remember nothing."
"What do I care? That does not concern me, for I ask nothing of you; Ihave enough business of my own not to trouble myself with that ofothers. Come, do you feel better? Have you recovered sufficiently tocontinue your journey?"
"What! continue my journey?" the monk asked timidly; "Do you intend toabandon me then?"
"Why not? I have already wasted too much time with you, and must attendto my own affairs."
"What?" the monk objected, "After the interest you have so benevolentlytaken in me, you would have the courage to abandon me thus when almostdead, and not caring what may happen to me after your departure?"
"Why not? I do not know you, and have no occasion to help you.Accidentally crossing this clearing, I noticed you lying breathless andpale as a corpse. I gave you that ease which is refused to no one in thedesert; now that you have returned to life, I can no longer be ofservice to you, so I am off; what can be more simple or logical?Goodbye, and may the demon, for whom you took me just now, grant you hisprotection!"
After uttering these words in a tone of sarcasm and bitter irony, thestranger threw his rifle over his shoulder, and walked a few pacestoward his horse.
"Stay, in Heaven's name!" the monk exclaimed, as he rose with greaterhaste than with his weakness seemed possible, but fear produced thestrength; "What will become of me alone in this desert?"
"That does not concern me," the stranger answered, as he coolly loosedthe arm of his zarape, which the monk had seized; "is not the maxim ofthe desert, each for himself?"
"Listen," the monk said eagerly; "my name is Fray Antonio, and I amwealthy: if you protect me, I will reward you handsomely."
The stranger smiled contemptuously.
"What have you to fear? you are young, stout, and well armed; are younot capable of protecting yourself?"
"No, because I am pursued by implacable enemies. Last night theyinflicted on me horrible and degrading torture, and I only managed withgreat difficulty to escape from their clutches. This morning accidentbrought me across two of these men. On seeing them a species of ragingmadness possessed me; the idea of avenging myself occurred to me; Iaimed at them, and fired, and then fled, not knowing whither I wasgoing, mad with rage and terror; on reaching this spot I fell, crushedand exhausted, as much through the sufferings I endured this night, asthrough the fatigues caused by a long and headlong race along abominableroads. These men are doubtless pursuing me; if they find me--and theywill do so, for they are wood-rangers, perfectly acquainted with thedesert--they will kill me without pity; my only hope is in you, so inthe name of what you hold dearest on earth, save me! Save me, and mygratitude will be unbounded."
The stranger had listened to this long and pathetic pleading withoutmoving a muscle of his face. When the monk ceased, with breath andargument equally exhausted, he rested the butt of his rifle on theground.
"All that you say may be true," he answered drily, "but I care as littlefor it as I do for a flash in the pan; get out of the affair as youthink proper, for your entreaties are useless; if you knew who I am, youwould very soon give up tormenting my ears with your jabbering."
The monk fixed a terrified look on the strange man, not knowing what tosay to him, or the means he sho
uld employ to reach his heart.
"Who are you then?" he asked him, rather for the sake of sayingsomething than in the hope of an answer.
"Who I am?" he said, with an ironical smile, "You would like to know.Very good, listen in your turn; I have only a few words to say, but theywill ice the blood in your veins with terror; I am the man called theWhite Scalper, the Pitiless one!"
The monk tottered back a few paces, and clasped his hands with aneffort.
"Oh, my God!" he exclaimed, frenziedly; "I am lost!"
At this moment the hoot of an owl was heard a short distance off. Thehunter started.
"Some one was listening to us!" he exclaimed, and rushed rapidly to theside whence the signal came, while the monk, half dead with terror, fellon his knees, and addressed a fervent prayer to Heaven.