CHAPTER XXVIII

The Pioneers

by James F. Cooper

CHAPTER XXVIII, THE PIONEERS by James F. Cooper
An eText from LiteratureClassics.com.

Please see the eText readme for important copyright information (available from the options menu above if you are browsing online or as a separate file in the archive if you are browsing offline.)





“Ask me not what the maiden feels, Left in that dreadful hour alone:
Perchance, her reason stoops, or reel!;
Perchance, a courage not her own
Braces her mind to desperate tone.”—Scott.

While the chase was occurring on the lake, Miss Temple and her
companion pursued their walk on the mountain. Male attendants on such
excursions were thought to be altogether unnecessary, for none were
even known to offer insult to a female who respected herself. After
the embarrassment created by the parting discourse with Edwards had
dissipated, the girls maintained a conversation that was as innocent
and cheerful as themselves.

The path they took led them but a short distance above the hut of
Leather-Stocking, and there was a point in the road which commanded a
bird’s-eye view of the sequestered spot.

From a feeling that might have been, natural, and must have been
powerful, neither of the friends, in their frequent and confidential
dialogues, had ever trusted herself to utter one syllable concerning
the equivocal situation in which the young man who was now so
intimately associated with them had been found. If judge Temple had
deemed it prudent to make any inquiries on the subject, he had also
thought it proper to keep the answers to him self; though it was so
common an occurrence to find the well-educated youth of the Eastern
States in every stage of their career to wealth, that the simple
circumstance of his intelligence, connected with his poverty, would
not, at that day and in that country, have excited any very powerful
curiosity. With his breeding, it might have been different; but the
youth himself had so effectually guarded against surprise on this
subject, by his cold and even, in some cases, rude deportment, that
when his manners seemed to soften by time, the Judge, if he thought
about it at all, would have been most likely to imagine that the
improvement was the result of his late association. But women are
always more alive to such subjects than men; and what the abstraction
of the father had overlooked, the observation of the daughter had
easily detected. In the thousand little courtesies of polished life
she had early discovered that Edwards was not wanting, though his
gentleness was so often crossed by marks of what she conceived to be
fierce and uncontrollable passions. It may, perhaps, be unnecessary
to tell the reader that Louisa Grant never reasoned so much after the
fashions of the world. The gentle girl, however, had her own thoughts
on the subject, and, like others, she drew her own conclusions.

“I would give all my other secrets, Louisa,” exclaimed Miss Temple,
laughing, and shaking back her dark locks, with a look of childish
simplicity that her intelligent face seldom expressed, “to be mistress
of all that those rude logs have heard and witnessed.”

They were both looking at the secluded hut at the instant, and Miss
Grant raised her mild eyes as she answered:

“I am sure they would tell nothing to the disadvantage of Mr.
Edwards.”

“Perhaps not; but they might, at least, tell who he is.”

“Why, dear Miss Temple, we know all that already. I have heard it all
very rationally explained by your cousin—”

“The executive chief! he can explain anything. His ingenuity will one
day discover the philosopher’s stone. But what did he say?”

“Say!” echoed Louisa, with a look of surprise; “why, everything that
seemed to me to be satisfactory, and I now believed it to be true. He
said that Natty Bumppo had lived most of his life in the woods and
among the Indians, by which means he had formed an acquaintance with
old John, the Delaware chief.”

“Indeed! that was quite a matter-of-fact tale for Cousin Dickon. What
came next?”

“I believe he accounted for their close intimacy by some story about
the Leather-Stocking saving the life of John in a battle.”

“Nothing more likely,” said Elizabeth, a little impatiently; “but what
is all this to the purpose?”

“Nay, Elizabeth, you must bear with my ignorance, and I will repeat
all that I remember to have overheard for the dialogue was between my
father and the sheriff, so lately as the last time they met, He then
added that the kings of England used to keep gentlemen as agents among
the different tribes of Indians, and sometimes officers in the army,
who frequently passed half their lives on the edge of the wilderness.”

“Told with wonderful historical accuracy! And did he end there?”

“Oh! no—then he said that these agents seldom married; and—and—they
must have been wicked men, Elizabeth! but I assure you he said so.”

“Never mind,” said Miss Temple, blushing and smiling, though so
slightly that both were unheeded by her companion; “skip all that.”

“Well, then, he said that they often took great pride in the education
of their children, whom they frequently sent to England, and even to
the colleges; and this is the way that he accounts for the liberal
manner in which Mr. Edwards has been taught; for he acknowledges that
he knows almost as much as your father—or mine—or even himself.”

“Quite a climax in learning’. And so he made Mohegan the granduncle
or grandfather of Oliver Edwards.”

“You have heard him yourself, then?” said Louisa.

“Often; but not on this subject. Mr. Richard Jones, you know, dear,
has a theory for everything; but has he one which will explain the
reason why that hut is the only habitation within fifty miles of us
whose door is not open to every person who may choose to lift its
latch?”

“I have never heard him say anything on this subject,” returned the
clergyman’s daughter; “but I suppose that, as they are poor, they very
naturally are anxious to keep the little that they honestly own. It
is sometimes dangerous to be rich, Miss Temple; but you cannot know
how hard it is to be very, very poor.”

“Nor you, I trust, Louisa; at least I should hope that, in this land
of abundance, no minister of the church could be left in absolute
suffering.”

“There cannot be actual misery,” returned the other, in a low and
humble tone, “where there is a dependence on our Maker; but there may
be such suffering as will cause the heart to ache.”

“But not you—not you,” said the impetuous Elizabeth— “not you, dear
girl, you have never known the misery that is connected with poverty.”

“Ah! Miss Temple, you little understand the troubles of this life, I
believe. My father has spent many years as a missionary in the new
countries, where his people were poor, and frequently we have been
without bread; unable to buy, and ashamed to beg, because we would not
disgrace his sacred calling. But how often have I seen him leave his
home, where the sick and the hungry felt, when he left them, that they
had lost their only earthly friend, to ride on a duty which could not
be neglected for domes tic evils! Oh! how hard it must be to preach
consolation to others when your own heart is bursting with anguish!”

“But it is all over now! your father’s income must now be equal to his
wants—it must be—it shall be—”

“It is,” replied Louisa, dropping her head on her bosom to conceal the
tears which flowed in spite of her gentle Christianity—” for there are
none left to be supplied but me.”

The turn the conversation had taken drove from the minds of the young
maidens all other thoughts but those of holy charity; and Elizabeth
folded her friend in her arms, when the latter gave vent to her
momentary grief in audible sobs. When this burst of emotion had
subsided, Louisa raised her mild countenance, and they continued their
walk in silence.

By this time they had gained the summit of the mountain, where they
left the highway, and pursued their course under the shade of the
stately trees that crowned the eminence. The day was becoming warm,
and the girls plunged more deeply into the forest, as they found its
invigorating coolness agreeably contrasted to the excessive heat they
had experienced in the ascent. The conversation, as if by mutual
consent, was entirely changed to the little incidents and scenes of
their walk, and every tall pine, and every shrub or flower, called
forth some simple expression of admiration.

In this manner they proceeded along the margin of the precipice,
catching occasional glimpses of the placid Otsego, or pausing to
listen to the rattling of wheels and the sounds of hammers that rose
from the valley, to mingle the signs of men with the scenes of nature,
when Elizabeth suddenly started, and exclaimed:

“Listen! there are the cries of a child on this mountain! Is there a
clearing near us, or can some little one have strayed from its
parents?”

“Such things frequently happen,” returned Louisa. Let us follow the
sounds; it may be a wanderer starving on the hill.”

Urged by this consideration, the females pursued the low, mournful
sounds, that proceeded from the forest, with quick and impatient
steps. More than once, the ardent Elizabeth was on the point of
announcing that she saw the sufferer, when Louisa caught her by the
arm, and pointing behind them, cried:

“Look at the dog!”

Brave had been their companion, from the time the voice of his young
mistress lured him from his kennel, to the present moment. His
advanced age had long before deprived him of his activity; and when
his companions stopped to view the scenery, or to add to their
bouquets, the mastiff would lay his huge frame on the ground and await
their movements, with his eyes closed, and a listlessness in his air
that ill accorded with the character of a protector. But when,
aroused by this cry from Louisa, Miss Temple turned, she saw the dog
with his eyes keenly set on some distant object, his head bent near
the ground, and his hair actually rising on his body, through fright
or anger. It was most probably the latter, for he was growling in a
low key, and occasionally showing his teeth, in a manner that would
have terrified his mistress, had she not so well known his good
qualities.

“Brave!” she said, “be quiet, Brave! What do you see, fellow?”

At the sounds of her voice, the rage of the mastiff, instead of being
at all diminished, was very sensibly increased. He stalked in front
of the ladies, and seated himself at the feet of his mistress,
growling louder than before, and occasionally giving vent to his ire
by a short, surly barking.

“What does he see?” said Elizabeth; “there must be some animal in
sight.”

Hearing no answer from her companion, Miss Temple turned her head and
beheld Louisa, standing with her face whitened to the color of death,
and her finger pointing upward with a sort of flickering, convulsed
motion. The quick eye of Elizabeth glanced in the direction indicated
by her friend, where she saw the fierce front and glaring eyes of a
female panther, fixed on them in horrid malignity, and threatening to
leap.

“Let us fly,” exclaimed Elizabeth, grasping the arm of Louisa, whose
form yielded like melting snow.

There was not a single feeling in the temperament of Elizabeth Temple
that could prompt her to desert a companion in such an extremity. She
fell on her knees by the side of the inanimate Louisa, tearing from
the person of her friend, with instinctive readiness, such parts of
her dress as might obstruct her respiration, and encouraging their
only safeguard, the dog, at the same time, by the sounds of her voice.

“Courage, Brave!” she cried, her own tones beginning to tremble,
“courage, courage, good Brave!”

A quarter-grown cub, that had hitherto been unseen, now appeared,
dropping from the branches of a sapling that grew under the shade of
the beech which held its dam. This ignorant but vicious creature
approached the dog, imitating the actions and sounds of its parent,
but exhibiting a strange mixture of the playfulness of a kitten with
the ferocity of its race. Standing on its hind-legs, it would rend
the bark of a tree with its fore-paws, and play the antics of a cat;
and then, by lashing itself with its tail, growling, and scratching
the earth, it would at tempt the manifestations of anger that rendered
its parent so terrific.

All this time Brave stood firm and undaunted, his short tail erect,
his body drawn backward on its haunches, and his eyes following the
movements of both dam and cub. At every gambol played by the latter,
it approached nigher to the dog, the growling of the three becoming
more horrid at each moment, until the younger beast, over-leaping its
intended bound, fell directly before the mastiff. There was a moment
of fearful cries and struggles, but they ended almost as soon as
commenced, by the cub appearing in the air, hurled from the jaws of
Brave, with a violence that sent it against a tree so forcibly as to
render it completely senseless. Elizabeth witnessed the short
struggle, and her blood was warming with the triumph of the dog, when
she saw the form of the old panther in the air, springing twenty feet
from the branch of the beech to the back of the mastiff. No words of
ours can describe the fury of the conflict that followed. It was a
confused struggle on the dry leaves, accompanied by loud and terrific
cries. Miss Temple continued on her knees, bending over the form of
Louisa, her eyes fixed on the animals with an interest so horrid, and
yet so intense, that she almost forgot her own stake in the result.
So rapid and vigorous were the bounds of the inhabitant of the forest,
that its active frame seemed constantly in the air, while the dog
nobly faced his foe at each successive leap. When the panther lighted
on the shoulders of the mastiff, which was its constant aim, old
Brave, though torn with her talons, and stained with his own blood,
that already flowed from a dozen wounds, would shake off his furious
foe like a feather, and, rearing on his hind-legs, rush to the fray
again, with jaws distended, and a dauntless eye. But age, and his
pampered life, greatly disqualified the noble mastiff for such a
struggle. In everything but courage. he was only the vestige of what
he had once been. A higher bound than ever raised the wary and
furious beast far beyond the reach of the dog, who was making a
desperate but fruitless dash at her, from which she alighted in a
favorable position, on the back of her aged foe. For a single moment
only could the panther remain there, the great strength of the dog
returning with a convulsive effort. But Elizabeth saw, as Brave
fastened his teeth in the side of his enemy, that the collar of brass
around his neck, which had been glittering throughout the fray, was of
the color of blood, and directly that his frame was sinking to the
earth, where it soon lay prostrate and helpless. Several mighty
efforts of the wild-cat to extricate herself from the jaws of the dog
followed, but they were fruitless, until the mastiff turned on his
back, his lips collapsed, and his teeth loosened, when the short
convulsions and stillness that succeeded announced the death of poor
Brave.

Elizabeth now lay wholly at the mercy of the beast. There is said to
be something in the front of the image of the Maker that daunts the
hearts of the inferior beings of his creation; and it would seem that
some such power, in the present instance, suspended the threatened
blow. The eyes of the monster and the kneeling maiden met for an
instant, when the former stooped to examine her fallen foe; next, to
scent her luckless cub. From the latter examination it turned,
however, with its eyes apparently emitting flashes of fire, its tail
lashing its sides furiously, and its claws projecting inches from her
broad feet.

Miss Temple did not or could not move. Her hands were clasped in the
attitude of prayer, but her eyes were still drawn to her terrible
enemy—her cheeks were blanched to the whiteness of marble, and her
lips were slightly separated with horror.

The moment seemed now to have arrived for the fatal termination, and
the beautiful figure of Elizabeth was bowing meekly to the stroke,
when a rustling of leaves behind seemed rather to mock the organs than
to meet her ears.

“Hist! hist!” said a low voice, “stoop lower, gal; your bonnet hides
the creatur’s head.”

It was rather the yielding of nature than a compliance with this
unexpected order, that caused the head of our heroine to sink on her
bosom; when she heard the report of the rifle, the whizzing of the
bullet, and the enraged cries of the beast, who was rolling over on
the earth, biting its own flesh, and tearing the twigs and branches
within its reach. At the next instant the form of the Leather-
Stocking rushed by her, and he called aloud:

“Come in, Hector! come in, old fool; ‘tis a hard-lived animal, and may
jump agin.”

Natty fearlessly maintained his position in front of the females,
notwithstanding the violent bounds and threatening aspect of the
wounded panther, which gave several indications of returning strength
and ferocity, until his rifle was again loaded, when he stepped up to
the enraged animal, and, placing the muzzle close to its head, every
spark of life was extinguished by the discharge.

The death of her terrible enemy appeared to Elizabeth like a
resurrection from her own grave. There was an elasticity in the mind
of our heroine that rose to meet the pressure of instant danger, and
the more direct it had been, the more her nature had struggled to
overcome them. But still she was a woman. Had she been left to
herself in her late extremity, she would probably have used her
faculties to the utmost, and with discretion, in protecting her
person; but, encumbered with her inanimate friend, retreat was a thing
not to be attempted. Notwithstanding the fearful aspect of her foe,
the eye of Elizabeth had never shrunk from its gaze, and long after
the event her thoughts would recur to her passing sensations, and the
sweetness of her midnight sleep would be disturbed, as her active
fancy conjured, in dreams, the most trifling movements of savage fury
that the beast had exhibited in its moment of power.

We shall leave the reader to imagine the restoration of Louisa’s
senses, and the expressions of gratitude which fell from the young
women. The former was effected by a little water, that was brought
from one of the thousand springs of those mountains, in the cap of the
Leather-Stocking; and the latter were uttered with the warmth that
might be expected from the character of Elizabeth. Natty received her
vehement protestations of gratitude with a simple expression of good-
will, and with indulgence for her present excitement, but with a
carelessness that showed how little he thought of the service he had
rendered.

“Well, well,” he said, “be it so, gal; let it be so, if you wish it—
we'll talk the thing over another time. Come, come—let us get into
the road, for you’ve had terror enough to make you wish yourself in
your father’s house agin.”

This was uttered as they were proceeding, at a pace that was adapted
to the weakness of Louisa, toward the highway; on reaching which the
ladies separated from their guide, declaring themselves equal to the
remainder of the walk without his assistance, and feeling encouraged
by the sight of the village which lay beneath their feet like a
picture, with its limpid lake in front, the winding stream along its
margin, and its hundred chimneys of whitened bricks.

The reader need not be told the nature of the emotions which two
youthful, ingenuous, and well-educated girls would experience at their
escape from a death so horrid as the one which had impended over them,
while they pursued their way in silence along the track on the side of
the mountain; nor how deep were their mental thanks to that Power
which had given them their existence, and which had not deserted them
in their extremity; neither how often they pressed each other’s arms
as the assurance of their present safety came, like a healing balm,
athwart their troubled spirits, when their thoughts were recurring to
the recent moments of horror.

Leather-Stocking remained on the hill, gazing after their retiring
figures, until they were hidden by a bend in the road, when he
whistled in his dogs, and shouldering his rifle, he returned into the
forest.

“Well, it was a skeary thing to the young creatur’s,” said Natty,
while he retrod the path toward the plain. “It might frighten an
older woman, to see a she-painter so near her, with a dead cub by its
side. I wonder if I had aimed at the varmint’s eye, if I shouldn’t
have touched the life sooner than in the forehead; but they are hard-
lived animals, and it was a good shot, consid’ring that I could see
nothing but the head and the peak of its tail. Hah! who goes there?”

“How goes it, Natty?” said Mr. Doolittle, stepping out of the bushes,
with a motion that was a good deal accelerated by the sight of the
rifle, that was already lowered in his direction. “What! shooting
this warm day! Mind, old man, the law don’t get hold on you.”

“The law, squire! I have shook hands with the law these forty year,”
returned Natty; “for what has a man who lives in the wilderness to do
with the ways of the law?”

“Not much, maybe,” said Hiram; “but you sometimes trade in venison. I
s’pose you know, Leather-Stocking, that there is an act passed to lay
a fine of five pounds currency, or twelve dollars and fifty cents, by
decimals, on every man who kills a deer betwixt January and August.
The Judge had a great hand in getting the law through.”

“I can believe it,” returned the old hunter; “ I can believe that or
anything of a man who carries on as he does in the country.”

“Yes, the law is quite positive, and the Judge is bent on putting it
in force—five pounds penalty. I thought I heard your hounds out on
the scent of so’thing this morning; I didn’t know but they might get
you in difficulty.”

“They know their manners too well,” said Natty carelessly. “And how
much goes to the State’s evidence, squire?”

“How much?” repeated Hiram, quailing under the honest but sharp look
of the hunter; “the informer gets half, I—I believe—yes, I guess it’s
half. But there’s blood on your sleeve, man—you haven’t been shooting
anything this morning?”

“I have, though,” said the hunter, nodding his head significantly to
the other, “and a good shot I made of it.”

“H-e-m!” ejacuated the magistrate; “and where is the game? I s’pose
it’s of a good natur’, for your dogs won’t hunt anything that isn’t
choice.”

“They’ll hunt anything I tell them to, squire,” cried Natty, favoring
the other with his laugh. “They’ll hunt you, if I say so. He-e-e-re,
he-e-e-re, Hector—he-e-e-re, slut—come this a-way, pups—come this a-
way-—come hither.”

“Oh! I have always heard a good character of the dogs,” returned Mr.
Doolittle, quickening his pace by raising each leg in rapid
succession, as the hounds scented around his person. “And where is
the game, Leather-Stocking?”

During this dialogue, the speakers had been walking at a very fast
gait, and Natty swung the end of his rifle round, pointing through the
bushes, and replied: “There lies one. How do you like such meat?”

“This!” exclaimed Hiram; “why, this is Judge Temple’s dog Brave. Take
care, Leather-Stocking, and don’t make an enemy of the Judge. I hope
you haven’t harmed the animal?”

“Look for yourself, Mr. Doolittle,” said Natty, drawing his knife from
his girdle, and wiping it in a knowing manner, once or twice across
his garment of buckskin; “does his throat look as if I had cut it with
this knife?”

“It is dreadfully torn! it’s an awful wound—no knife ever did this
deed. Who could have done it?”

“The painters behind you, squire.”

“Painters!” echoed Hiram, whirling on his heel with an agility that
would have done credit to a dancing’ master.

“Be easy, man,” said Natty; “there’s two of the venomous things; but
the dog finished one, and I have fastened the other’s jaws for her; so
don’t be frightened, squire; they won’t hurt you.”

“And where’s the deer?” cried Hiram, staring about him with a
bewildered air.

“Anan? deer!” repeated Natty.
“Sartain; an’t there venison here, or didn’t you kill a buck?”

“What! when the law forbids the thing, squire!” said the old hunter,
“I hope there’s no law agin’ killing the painters.”

“No! there’s a bounty on the scalps—but—will your dogs hunt painters,
Natty?”

“Anything; didn’t I tell you they would hunt a man? He-e-re, he-e-re,
pups—”

“Yes, yes, I remember. Well, they are strange dogs, I must say—I am
quite in a wonderment.”

Natty had seated himself on the ground, and having laid the grim head
of his late ferocious enemy in his lap, was drawing his knife with a
practiced hand around the ears, which he tore from the head of the
beast in such a manner as to preserve their connection, when he
answered;

“What at, squire? did you never see a painter’s scalp afore? Come, you
are a magistrate, I wish you’d make me out an order for the bounty.”

“The bounty!” repeated Hiram, holding the ears on the end of his
finger for a moment, as if uncertain how to proceed. “Well, let us go
down to your hut, where you can take the oath, and I will write out
the order, I sup pose you have a Bible? All the law wants is the four
evangelists and the Lord’s prayer.”

“I keep no books,” said Natty, a little coldly; “not such a Bible as
the law needs.”

“Oh! there’s but one sort of Bible that’s good in law,” returned the
magistrate, “and your’n will do as well as another’s. Come, the
carcasses are worth nothing, man; let us go down and take the oath.”

“Softly, softly, squire,” said the hunter, lifting his trophies very
deliberately from the ground, and shouldering his rifle; “why do you
want an oath at all, for a thing that your own eyes has seen? Won’t
you believe yourself, that another man must swear to a fact that you
know to be true? You have seen me scalp the creatur’s, and if I must
swear to it, it shall be before Judge Temple, who needs an oath.”

“But we have no pen or paper here, Leather-Stocking; we must go to the
hut for them, or how can I write the order?”

Natty turned his simple features on the cunning magistrate with
another of his laughs, as he said:

“And what should I be doing with scholars’ tools? I want no pens or
paper, not knowing the use of either; and I keep none. No, no, I’ll
bring the scalps into the village, squire, and you can make out the
order on one of your law-books, and it will he all the better for it.
The deuce take this leather on the neck of the dog, it will strangle
the old fool. Can you lend me a knife, squire?”

Hiram, who seemed particularly anxious to be on good terms with his
companion, unhesitatingly complied. Natty cut the thong from the neck
of the hound, and, as he returned the knife to its owner, carelessly
remarked:

“Tis a good bit of steel, and has cut such leather as this very same,
before now, I dare say.”

“Do you mean to charge me with letting your hounds loose?” exclaimed
Hiram, with a consciousness that disarmed his caution.

“Loose!” repeated the hunter—” I let them loose my self. I always let
them loose before I leave the hut.”

The ungovernable amazement with which Mr. Doolittle listened to this
falsehood would have betrayed his agency in the liberation of the
dogs, had Natty wanted any further confirmation; and the coolness and
management of the old man now disappeared in open indignation.

“Look you here, Mr. Doolittle,” he said, striking the breech of his
rifle violently on the ground; “ what there is in the wigwam of a poor
man like me, that one like you can crave, I don’t know; but this I
tell you to your face, that you never shall put foot under the roof of
my cabin with my consent, and that, if you harbor round the spot as
you have done lately, you may meet with treatment that you will little
relish.”

“And let me tell you, Mr. Bumppo,” said Hiram, retreating, however,
with a quick step, “that I know you’ve broke the law, and that I’m a
magistrate, and will make you feel it too, before you are a day
older.”

“That for you and your law, too,” cried Natty, snap ping his fingers
at the justice of the peace; “away with you, you varmint, before the
devil tempts me to give you your desarts. Take care, if I ever catch
your prowling face in the woods agin, that I don’t shoot it for an
owl.”

There is something at all times commanding in honest indignation, and
Hiram did not stay to provoke the wrath of the old hunter to
extremities. When the intruder was out of sight, Natty proceeded to
the hut, where he found all quiet as the grave. He fastened his dogs,
and tapping at the door, which was opened by Edwards, asked;

“Is all safe, lad?”

“Everything,” returned the youth. “Some one attempted the lock, but
it was too strong for him.”

“I know the creatur’,” said Natty, “but he’ll not trust himself within
the reach of my rifle very soon——” What more was uttered by the
Leather-Stocking, in his vexation, was rendered inaudible by the
closing of the door of the cabin.