The Trapper's Daughter: A Story of the Rocky Mountains

Valentine was calm, gently whistling to the bear, which gradually turned its head toward him. Curumilla, with the lighted torch in his hand, attentively watched all the animal's movements. The bear at length faced the hunter; it was only a few paces from him, and Valentine felt its hot and fetid breath. The man and the brute gazed on each other; the bear's bloodshot eye seemed riveted on that of the Frenchman, who looked at it intrepidly while continuing to whistle softly.

There was a moment, an age of supreme anxiety. The bear, as if to escape the strange fascination it suffered under, shook its head twice, and then rushed forward with a fearful growl. At the same instant a shot was fired.

Don Miguel and his son ran up. Valentine, with his rifle butt resting on the ground, was laughing carelessly, while two paces from him the terrible animal was uttering howls of fury, and writhing in its dying convulsions. Curumilla bending forward, was curiously watching the movements of the animal as it rolled at his feet.

"Thank Heaven," Don Miguel eagerly exclaimed. "You are safe, my friend."

"Did you fancy that I ran any danger?" the hunter answered simply.

"I trembled for your life," the hacendero said with surprise and admiration.

"It was not worth the trouble, I assure you," the hunter said carelessly; "grizzly and I are old acquaintances; ask Curumilla how many we have knocked over in this way."

"But," Don Pablo objected, "the grizzly bear is invulnerable; bullets flatten on its skull, and glide off its fur."

"That is perfectly true; still, you forget there is a spot where it can be hit."

"I know it, the eye; but it is almost impossible to hit it at the first shot; to do so a man must be endowed with marvellous skill, not to say admirable courage and coolness."

"Thank you," Valentine replied with, a smile; "now that our enemy is dead, I would ask you to look and tell me where I hit it."

The Mexicans stooped down quickly; the bear was really dead. Its gigantic corpse, which Curumilla was already preparing to strip of its magnificent coat, covered a space of nearly ten feet. The hunter's bullet had entered its right eye; the two gentlemen uttered a cry of admiration.

"Yes," Valentine said, replying to their thought, "it was not a bad shot; but be assured that this animal enjoys an usurped reputation, owing to the habit it has of attacking man, whom, however, it hardly ever conquers."

"But look, my friend, at those sharp claws; why, they are nearly six inches long."

"That is true; I remember a poor Comanche, on whose shoulder a grizzly let his paw fall, and completely smashed it. But, is it an interesting sport? I confess that it possesses an irresistible attraction for me."

"You are quite at liberty, my friend," said Don Miguel, "to find a delight in fighting such monsters, and I can account for it; the life you lead in the desert has so familiarised you with danger, that you no longer believe in it; but we dwellers in towns have, I confess, an invincible respect and terror for this monster."

"Nonsense, Don Miguel, how can you say when I have seen you engaged in a hand-to-hand fight with tigers?"

"That is possible, my friend; I would do so again, if necessary – but a jaguar is not a grizzly."

"Come, come, I will not tease you any longer. While Curumilla prepares our breakfast, I will go down into the ravine. Help my friend to roast a piece of my game, and I am sure when you have tasted it, the exquisite flavour will make you quite alter your opinion about friend Grizzly."

And carelessly throwing his rifle on his shoulder, which he had reloaded, Valentine then entered the chaparral, in which he almost immediately disappeared.

The game, as Valentine called the grizzly, weighed about four hundred weight. After flaying it with that dexterity the Indians possess, Curumilla, aided by the two Mexicans, hung up the body to a branch, that bent beneath its weight; he cut steaks from the loin, and took out the pluck, which regular hunters consider the most delicate part of the beast; and then, while Don Miguel and Don Pablo lit the fire, and laid the steaks on the ashes, the Indian entered the cave.

Don Pablo and his father, long accustomed to the Araucano chief's way of behaving, made no remark, but went on with the preparations for breakfast actively, the more so because the night's fatigues and their long privations had given them an appetite which the smell of the cooking meat only heightened.

Still, the meal had been ready some time, and Valentine had not returned. The two gentlemen were beginning to feel anxious. Nor did Curumilla emerge either from the cavern in which he had now been upwards of an hour. The Mexicans exchanged a glance.

"Can anything have happened?" Don Miguel asked.

"We must go and see," said Don Pablo.

They rose; Don Pablo proceeded toward the cave, while his father went to the end of the platform. At this moment Valentine arrived on one side, Curumilla on the other, holding two young bearskins in his hands.

"What does that mean?" Don Pablo in his surprise could not refrain from asking.

The Indian smiled. "It was a she-bear," he said.

"Are we going to breakfast?" Valentine asked.

"Whenever you like, my friend," Don Miguel answered; "we were only waiting for you."

"I have been gone a long time."

"More than an hour."

"It was not my fault. Just fancy, down there it is as dark as in an oven. I had great difficulty in finding our friend's body; but, thanks to heaven, it is now in the ground, and protected from the teeth of the coyotes and the other vermin of the prairie."

Don Miguel took his hand and pressed it tenderly, while tears of gratitude ran down his cheeks.

"Valentine," he said, with great emotion. "You are better than all of us; you think of everything; no circumstance, however grave it may be, can make you forget what you regard in the light of a duty. Thanks, my friend, thanks, for having placed in the ground the poor general's body; you have made me very happy."

"That will do," Valentine said, as he turned his head away, not to let the emotion he felt in spite of himself, be noticed; "suppose we feed? I am fearfully hungry; the sun is rising, and we have not yet quitted that frightful labyrinth in which we so nearly left our bones."

The hunters set down round the fire, and began sharply attacking the meal that awaited them. When they had finished eating, which did not take long, thanks to Valentine, who continually urged them to take double mouthfuls, they rose and prepared to start again.

"Let us pay great attention, caballeros," the hunter said to them, "and carefully look around us, for I am greatly mistaken if we do not find a trail within an hour."

"What makes you suppose so?"

"Nothing, I have found no sign," Valentine answered, with a smile; "but I feel a foreboding that we shall soon find the man we have been seeking so long."

"May heaven hear you, my friend! Don Miguel exclaimed.

"Forward! Forward!" Valentine said, as he set out.

His comrades followed him. At this moment the sun appeared above the horizon, the forest awoke as if by enchantment, and the birds, concealed beneath the foliage, began their matin hymn, which they sing daily to salute the sun.

CHAPTER XXIX

A MOTHER'S LOVE

As we have said, Madame Guillois was installed by her son at the winter village of the Comanches, and the Indians gladly welcomed the mother of the adopted son of their tribe. The most commodious lodge was immediately placed at her service, and the most delicate attentions were lavished on her.

The redskins are incontestably superior to the whites in all that relates to hospitality. A guest is sacred to them to such an extent, that they become his slaves, so to speak, so anxious are they to satisfy all his desires, and even his slightest caprices.

After Father Seraphin had warned Red Cedar to be on his guard, he returned to Madame Guillois in order to watch more directly over it. The worthy missionary was an old acquaintance and friend of the Comanches, to whom he had been useful on several occasions, and who respected in him not the priest, whose sublime mission they could not understand, but the good and generous man, ever ready to devote himself to his fellow men.

Several weeks passed without producing any great change in the old lady's life. Sunbeam, on her own private authority, had constituted herself her handmaiden, amusing her with her medley of Indian-Spanish and French, attending to her like a mother, and trying, by all the means in her power, to help her to kill time. So long as Father Seraphin remained near her, Madame Guillois endured her son's absence very patiently. The missionary's gentle and paternal exhortations made her – not forget, because a mother never does that – but deceive herself as to the cruelty of this separation.

Unhappily, Father Seraphin had imperious duties to attend to which he could no longer neglect; to her great regret he must recommence his wandering life, and his mission of self-denial and suffering, while carrying to the Indian tribes, the light of the gospel, and the succour of religion. Father Seraphin was in Madame Guillois's sight a link of the chain that attached her to her son; she could speak about him with the missionary, who knew the most secret thoughts of her heart, and could by one word calm her alarm, and restore her courage. But when he left her for the first time since her arrival in America, she really felt alone, and lost her son once again, as it were. Thus the separation was cruel; and she needed all her Christian resignation and long habit of suffering to bear meekly the fresh blow that struck her.

Indian life is very dull and monotonous, especially in winter, in the heart of the forest, in badly built huts, open to all the winds, when the leafless trees are covered with hoar-frost; the villages are half buried beneath the snow, the sky is gloomy, and during the long nights the hurricane may be heard howling, and a deluge of rain falling.

Alone, deprived of a friend in whose bosom she could deposit the overflowing of her heart, Madame Guillois gradually fell into a gloomy melancholy, from which nothing could arouse her. A woman of the age of the hunter's mother does not easily break through all her habits to undertake a journey like that she had made across the American desert. However simple and frugal the life of a certain class of society may be in Europe, they still enjoy a certain relative comfort, far superior to what they may expect to find in Indian villages, where objects of primary necessity are absent, and life is reduced to its simplest expression.

Thus, for instance, a person accustomed to work in the evening in a comfortable chair, in the chimney corner, by the light of a lamp, in a well-closed room, would never grow used to sit on the beaten ground, crouching over a fire, whose smoke blinds her, in a windowless hut, only illumined by the flickering flame of a smoky torch.

When Madame Guillois left Havre, she had only one object, one desire, to see her son again; every other consideration must yield to that: she gladly sacrificed the comfort she enjoyed to find the son whom she believed she had lost, and who filled her heart.

Still, in spite of her powerful constitution and the masculine energy of her character, when she had endured the fatigue of a three months' voyage, and the no less rude toil of several weeks' travelling through forests and over prairies, sleeping in the open air, her health had gradually broken down, her strength was worn out in this daily and hourly struggle, and wounded, both physically and morally, she had been at length forced to confess herself beaten, and to allow that she was too weak to endure such an existence longer.

She grew thin and haggard visibly; her cheeks were sunken, her eyes buried more and more deeply in their orbits, her face was pale, her look languishing – in short, all the symptoms revealed that the nature which had hitherto so valiantly resisted, was rapidly giving way, and was undermined by an illness which had been secretly wasting her for a long time, and now displayed itself in its fell proportions.

Madame Guillois did not deceive herself as to her condition, she calculated coolly and exactly all the probable incidents, followed step by step the different phases of her illness, and when Sunbeam anxiously enquired what was the matter with her, and what she suffered from, she answered her with that calm and heart-breaking smile which the man condemned to death puts on when no hope is left him – a smile more affecting than a sob —

"It is nothing, my child, – I am dying."

These words were uttered with so strange an accent of gentleness and resignation that the young Indian felt her eyes fill with tears, and hid herself to weep.

One morning a bright sun shone on the village, the sky was blue, and the air mild. Madame Guillois, seated in front of her calli, was warming herself in this last smile of autumn, while mechanically watching the yellow leaves, which a light breeze turned round. Not far from her the children were sporting, chasing each other with merry bursts of laughter. Unicorn's squaw presently sat down by the old lady's side, took her hand, and looked at her sympathisingly.

"Does my mother feel better?" she asked her in her voice which was soft as the note of the Mexican nightingale.

"Thanks, my dear little one," the old lady answered, affectionately, "I am better."

"That is well," Sunbeam replied, with a charming smile; "for I have good news to tell my mother."

"Good news?" she said, hurriedly, as she gave her a piercing glance; "has my son arrived?"

"My mother would have seen him before this," the squaw said, with a tinge of gentle reproach in her voice.

"That is true," she muttered; "my poor Valentine!"

She let her head sink sadly on her bosom. Sunbeam looked at her for a moment with an expression of tender pity.

"Does not my mother wish to hear the news I have to tell her?" she went on.

Madame Guillois sighed.

"Speak, my child," she said.

"One of the great warriors of the tribe has just entered the village," the young woman continued; "Spider left the chief two days ago."

"Ah!" the old lady said, carelessly, seeing that Sunbeam stopped; "and where is the chief at this moment?"

"Spider says that Unicorn is in the mountains, with his warriors; he has seen Koutonepi."

"He has seen my son?" Madame Guillois exclaimed.

"He has seen him," Sunbeam repeated; "the hunter is pursuing Red Cedar with his friends."

"And – he is not wounded?" she asked anxiously.

The young Indian pouted her lips.

"Red Cedar is a dog and cowardly old woman," she said; "his arm is not strong enough, or his eye sure enough to wound the great pale hunter. Koutonepi is a terrible warrior, he despises the barkings of the coyote."

Madame Guillois had lived long enough among the Indians to understand their figurative expressions; she gratefully pressed the young squaw's hand.

"Your great warrior has seen my son?" she said eagerly.

"Yes," Sunbeam quickly answered, "Spider saw the pale hunter, and spoke. Koutonepi gave him a necklace for my mother."

"A necklace?" she repeated, in surprise, not understanding what the woman meant; "What am I to do with it?"

Sunbeam's face assumed a serious expression.

"The white men are great sorcerers," she said, "they know how to make powerful medicines; by figures traced on birch bark communicate their thoughts at great distances; space does not exist for them. Will not my mother receive the necklace her son sends her?"

"Give it me, my dear child," she eagerly answered; "everything that comes from him is precious to me."

The young squaw drew from under her striped calico dress a square piece of bark of the size of her hand, and gave it to her. Madame Guillois took it curiously, not knowing what this present meant. She turned it over and over, while Sunbeam watched her attentively. All at once the old lady's features brightened, and she uttered a cry of joy; she had perceived a few words traced on the inside of the bark with the point of a knife.

"Is my mother satisfied?" Sunbeam asked.

"Oh, yes," she answered.

She eagerly perused the note; it was short, contained indeed but a few words, yet they filled the mother with delight; for they gave her certain news of her son. This is what Valentine wrote —

"My dear mother, be of good cheer, my health is excellent, I shall see you soon: your loving son, Valentine."

It was impossible to write a more laconic letter; but on the desert, where communication is so difficult, a son may be thanked for giving news of himself, if only in a word. Madame Guillois was delighted, and when she had read the note again, she turned to the young squaw.

"Is Spider a chief?" she asked.

"Spider is one of the great warriors of the tribe," Sunbeam answered proudly; "Unicorn places great confidence in him."

"Good; I understand. He has come here on a particular mission?"

"Unicorn ordered his friend to choose twenty picked warriors from the tribe, and lead them to him."

A sudden idea crossed Madame Guillois's mind.

"Does Sunbeam love me?" she asked her.

"I love my mother," the squaw replied, feelingly; "her son saved my life."

"Does not my daughter feel grieved at being away from her husband?" the old lady continued.

"Unicorn is a great chief; when he commands, Sunbeam bows and obeys without a murmur; the warrior is the strong and courageous eagle, the squaw is the timid dove."

There was a long silence, which Sunbeam at last broke by saying, with a meaning smile —

"My mother had something to ask of me?"

"What use is it, dear child?" she answered hesitatingly, "As you will not grant my request."

"My mother thinks so, but is not sure," she said, maliciously.

The old lady smiled.

"Have you guessed, then, what I was about to ask of you?" she said.

"Perhaps so; my mother will explain, so that I may see whether I was mistaken."

"No, it is useless; I know that my daughter will refuse."

Sunbeam broke into a fresh and joyous laugh as she clapped her little hands.

"My mother knows the contrary," she said; "why does she not place confidence in me? Has she ever found me unkind?"

"Never; you have always been kind and attentive to me, trying to calm my grief, and dissipate my fears."

"My mother can speak then, as the ears of a friend are open," Sunbeam said to her quietly.

"In truth," the old lady remarked, after some thought, "what I desire is just. Is Sunbeam a mother?" she said, meaningly.

"Yes," she quickly replied.

"Does my daughter love her child?"

The Indian looked at her in surprise.

"Are there mothers in the great island of the whites who do not love their child?" she asked; "My child is myself, is it not my flesh and blood? What is there dearer to a mother than her child?"

"Nothing, that is true." Madame Guillois sighed. "If my daughter were separated from her child, what Would she do?"

"What would I do?" the Indian exclaimed, with a flash in her black eye; "I would go and join him, no matter when, no matter how."

"Good," the old lady remarked, eagerly; "I, too, love my child, and my daughter knows it. Well, I wish to join him, for my heart is lacerated at the thought of remaining any longer away from him."

"I know it, that is natural, it cannot be opposed. The flower fades when separated from the stem, the mother suffers when away from the son she nourished with her milk. What does my mother wish to do?"

"Alas! I wish to start as soon as possible to embrace my son."

"That is right: I will help my mother."

"What shall I do?"

"That is my business. Spider is about to assemble the council in order to explain his mission to the chiefs. Many of our young men are scattered through the forest, setting traps and hunting the elk to support their family. Spider will want two days to collect the warriors he needs, and he will not start till the third day. My mother can be at rest; I will speak to Spider, and in three days we will set out."

She embraced the old lady, who tenderly responded, then rose and went away, after giving her a final sign of encouragement. Madame Guillois returned to her calli, her heart relieved of a heavy weight; for a long time she had not felt so happy. She forgot her sufferings and the sharp pangs of illness that undermined her, in order to think only of the approaching moment when she would embrace her son.

All happened as Sunbeam had foreseen. An hour later, the hachesto convened the chiefs to the great medicine lodge. The council lasted a long time, and was prolonged to the end of the day. Spider's demand was granted, and twenty warriors were selected to go and join the sachem of the tribe. But, as the squaw had foretold, most of the warriors were absent, and their return had to be awaited.

During the two succeeding days Sunbeam held frequent conferences with Spider, but did not exchange a word with Madame Guillois, contenting herself, when the mother's glance became too inquiring, by laying her finger on her lip with a smile. The poor lady sustained by factitious strength, a prey to a burning fever, sadly counted the hours while forming the most ardent vows for the success of her plan. At length, on the evening of the second day, Sunbeam, who had hitherto seemed to avoid the old lady, boldly approached her.

"Well?" the mother asked.

"We are going."

"When?"

"Tomorrow, at daybreak."

"Has Spider pledged his word to my daughter?"

"He has; so my mother will hold herself in readiness to start."

"I am so now."

The Indian woman smiled.

"No, tomorrow."

At daybreak, as was agreed on the previous evening, Madame Guillois and Sunbeam set out under the escort of Spider and his twenty warriors to join Unicorn.

CHAPTER XXX

THE SORCERER

Although Spider was a Comanche warrior in the fullest meaning of the term, that is to say rash, cunning, brutal and cruel, the laws of gallantry were not entirely unknown to him, and he had eagerly accepted Sunbeam's proposition. The Indian, who, like most of his countrymen, was under great obligations to Valentine, was delighted at the opportunity to do him a kindness.

If Spider had only travelled with his warriors the journey would have been accomplished, to use a Comanche expression, between two sunsets; but having with him two women, one of whom was not only old, but a European, that is to say, quite unused to desert life, he understood, without anyone making the remark – for Madame Guillois would have died sooner than complain, and she alone could have spoken – that he must completely modify his mode of travelling, and he did so.

The women, mounted on powerful horses (Madame Guillois being comfortably seated on a cushion made of seven or eight panthers' skins) were, for fear of any accident, placed in the middle of the band, which did not take Indian file, owing to its numerical strength.

They trotted on thus during the whole day, and at sunset Spider gave orders to camp. He was one of the first to dismount, and cut with his knife a number of branches, of which he formed, as if by enchantment, a hut to protect the two females from the dew. The fires were lighted, supper prepared, and immediately after the meal, all prepared to sleep except the sentries.

Madame Guillois alone did not sleep, for fever and impatience kept her awake; she therefore spent the whole night crouched in a corner of the hut, reflecting. At sunrise they started again; as they were approaching the mountains the wind grew cold, and a dense fog covered the prairie. All wrapped themselves up carefully in their furs until the sun gained sufficient strength to render this precaution unnecessary.

In some parts of America the climate has this disagreeable peculiarity, that in the morning the frost is strong enough to split stones, at midday the heat is stifling, and in the evening the thermometer falls again below zero.

The day passed without any incident worth recording. Toward evening, at about an hour before the halt, Spider, who was galloping as scout about one hundred yards ahead of the band, discovered footsteps. They were clear, fresh, regular, deep, and seemed to be made by a young, powerful man accustomed to walking.