A TRAIL IN THE AIR.
Travellers and tourists who have only seen European forests, cannot imagine the grand, majestic, and sublime view offered by a virgin forest in the New World. There are none of those glades four or five yards wide, stretching out before you, straight and stiff for miles, but everything is abrupt and savage. There is no prospect, for the eye cannot see more than thirty or forty paces at the most in any direction. The primitive soil has disappeared beneath the detritus of trees dead from old age, and which time, rain, and sunshine have reduced to dust.
The trees grow very freely, enveloped by thick lianas, which twine around the stems and branches in the strangest curves, dashing in every direction, plunging into the ground to reappear again a yard further on, and chaining the trees together for enormous distances. The wood varies but slightly in certain districts, and hence, one tree serves the repetition of all. Then again, a grass, close and thick like the straw of a wheat field, grows to a height of five and often six feet.
Suddenly immense pits open beneath the feet of the imprudent traveller, or bogs covered by a crust scarce an inch in thickness, which swallow up in their fetid mud the man who ventures to put a foot on them; further on, a stream runs silent and unvisited, forming rapids, and forcing a path with difficulty through the heaps of earth and dead trees which it collects and deposits on the banks. From this short description it may be understood that it is not so difficult as might be supposed to pass from one tree to another for a long distance.
In order, however, to explain this thoroughly to the reader, we will tell him what he is probably ignorant of: that in certain parts of the prairie this mode of travelling is employed, not, as might be supposed, to escape the obstinate pursuit of an enemy, but simply to get on the more rapidly, not to be obliged to cut a path with the axe, and run no risk of falling down a precipice, the more so as most of the trees are enormous, and their solid branches so intertwined, that they thus form a convenient flooring, at eighty feet above the ground.
Hence Red Cedar's proposition had nothing extraordinary in itself, when made to men who had probably tried this mode of locomotion before. But what would have been an easy and simple thing for the adventurers, became serious and almost impossible for a girl like Ellen, who, though strong and skillful, could not take a step without running a risk of breaking her neck, owing to her dress catching in every branch. A remedy for this must be found, and the three men reflected on it for an hour, but discovered nothing which offered the necessary security. It was Ellen again who came to their help, and relieved them from the trouble.
"Well," she asked her father, "what are we doing here? Why do we not start? Did you not say we had not a moment to lose?"
Red Cedar shook his head.
"I said so, and it is true; each moment we lose robs us of a day of life."
"Let us be off, then."
"It is not possible yet, my child, till I have found what I am seeking."
"What is it, father? Tell, me, perhaps I can help you."
"Bah!" Red Cedar said, suddenly making up his mind, "Why should I make a secret of what concerns you as much as myself?"
"What is it, then, father?"
"Hang it all, your confounded gown, which renders it impossible for you to leap from one branch to another as we shall do."
"Is that all that troubles you?"
"Yes, nothing else."
"Well then, you were wrong not to speak to me sooner, for the evil would have been repaired, and we on the road."
"Is it true?" the squatter exclaimed joyfully.
"You shall see how quickly it will be done."
The girl rose, and disappeared behind a clump. In ten minutes she returned; her gown was so arranged that while allowing her the free use of her limbs, it no longer floated, and consequently ran no risk of being entangled in the trees.
"Here I am," she said, with a laugh; "how do you find me?"
"Admirable."
"Well, then, we will start when you please."
"At once."
Red Cedar made his final preparations; these were not long, for he had but to remove all traces of his encampment. More difficult still, none of the pursuers, if they happened to pass that way, should be able to discover the road taken by the adventurers. In consequence, Red Cedar took his daughter on his muscular shoulders, and heading the party in Indian file he followed for about an hour the road taken by Nathan. Then, he and his comrades returning, marching backwards, gradually effacing the footprints, not so carefully that they could not be discovered, but sufficiently so for those who found them not to suppose they had been left expressly.
After two hours of this fatiguing march, during which the adventurers had not exchanged a syllable, they reached a granite plateau, where they were enabled to rest for a few moments without any fear of leaving a trail, for the rock was too hard to take their footprints.
"Ouf!" Fray Ambrosio muttered, "I am not sorry to take breath, for this is the devil's own work."
"What, are you tired already, señor Padre?" Sutter replied with a grin; "You are beginning early; but wait a while; what you have done is nothing compared with what you have to do."
"I doubt whether the road we shall now follow can present so many difficulties; if so, we had better give it up."
"Well, if you prefer making a present of your scalp to those demons of Comanches, it is the easiest thing in the world; you need only remain quietly, where you are, and you may be certain they will soon pay you a visit. You know that the redskins are like vultures; fresh meat attracts them, and they scent it for a long distance."
"Canarios! I would sooner be roasted at a slow fire than fall into the hands of those accursed pagans."
"Come, come," Red Cedar interposed, "all that talking is of no use—what is written is written—no one can escape his destiny; hence, troubling oneself about what is going to happen is folly, take my word for it."
"Well said, Red Cedar; you have spoken like a man of great good sense, and I am completely of your opinion. Well, what have you to say to us?"
"I believe that, thanks to the manoeuvre we have employed, we have managed to hide our trail so cleverly, that the demon himself could not guess the direction we have taken. The first part of our task has been accomplished without an obstacle; now let us not betray ourselves by imprudence or extreme precipitation. I have brought you here, because, as you see, the virgin forest begins at the end of this platform. The most difficult task is to climb the first tree without leaving a trail; as for the rest, it is merely a question of skill. Leave me to act as I think proper, and I warrant you will have no cause to repent it."
"I know it; so, for my part, I assure you that you are quite at liberty to act as you please."
"Very good; that is what we will do; you see that enormous branch jutting out about thirty feet above our heads?"
"I see it—what next?"
"I will seize its end with my lasso, and we will pull it down till it touches the ground; we will hold it so while daughter mounts and reaches the higher branches; you will pass next, then Sutter, and myself last; in that way we shall leave no sign of our ascent."
"Your idea is very ingenious, I approve of it highly, especially as that way of mounting will be easy for your daughter and myself, while Sutter will not have much trouble. Still one thing bothers me."
"Out with it."
"So long as anyone is here to hold the branch, of course it will remain bent; but when we are up and you remain alone, how will you follow us? That I do not understand, and I confess I should not be sorry to learn it."
Red Cedar burst into a laugh.
"That need not bother you, señor Padre; I am too much used to the desert not to calculate my slightest actions."
"As it is so, we will say no more it. What I said was through the interest I take in you."
The squatter looked him in the face.
"Listen, Fray Ambrosio," he said as he laid his hand lightly on his shoulder, "we have known one another for a long while, so let us have no falsehoods; we shall never manage to divine each other, so let us remain as we are. Is that agreed, eh?"
The monk was upset by this harsh address; he lost countenance, and stammered a few words. Red Cedar had taken his lasso, and row whirled it round his head. He had measured so exactly, that the running knot caught the end of the branch.
"Help, all!" the squatter shouted.
Under their united efforts the branch gradually bent down to the level of the platform, as Red Cedar had foreseen.
"Make haste; Ellen, make haste, my child!" he shouted to the maiden.
The latter did not need any repetition of the invitation; she ran lightly along the branch, and in a twinkling was leaning against the stem. By her father's request she mounted to the upper branches, among which she disappeared.
"It is your turn, Fray Ambrosio," the squatter said.
The monk disappeared in the same way.
"It is yours, lad," the squatter said.
Sutter rejoined the other two. When left alone, Red Cedar put forth all his strength to hold the branch down, while he clung to its lower surface with his hand and feet. So soon as the branch was no longer held down, it rose, with a shrill whistle and a rapidity enough to make him giddy. The tree trembled to its roots. Ellen uttered a cry of terror and closed her eyes. When she opened them again, she saw her father astride on the end of the tree engaged in unfastening the running knot of his lasso, after which the squatter rose with perfect calmness, and while rolling the lasso round his loins, joined his companions.
"Well," he said to them, "you see it is finished; now we must continue our journey; are you ready?"
"Quite," they all said.
We repeat our assertion, that with the exception of the strangeness of the road, this way of travelling had nothing dangerous or even inconvenient about it, owing to the immense network of lianas that twined capriciously round the trees and the interlaced branches. The party proceeded, almost without perceiving it, from one tree to the other, constantly suspended over an abyss of sixty, even eighty, feet in depth.
Beneath them they at times perceived the wild beasts which they troubled in their mysterious lairs, and which, with outstretched necks and flashing eyes, watched them pass in surprise, not understanding what they saw. They marched thus the whole day, stopping for a moment to take breath, and starting again immediately. They had crossed, still on their floating bridge, a rather wide stream, and would soon find themselves in the lowlands.
It was about five in the evening; the beams of the setting sun lengthened the shadows of the trees; the owls, attracted by the startled flight of the beetles, of which they are excessively fond, were already flying about; a dense vapour rose from the ground, and formed a mist, in which the four persons almost disappeared: all, in a word, announced that night would soon set in.
Red Cedar had taken the lead of the little party for fear lest his companions might take a wrong direction in the inextricable labyrinth of the virgin forest; for at the height where they were the outlines of the ground entirely disappeared, and only an immense chaos of tufted branches and interlaced creepers could be seen.
"Hilloa, gossip!" Fray Ambrosio said, who, little accustomed to long walks, and weakened by the lengthened privations he had gone through, had walked for some time with extreme difficulty, "Shall we soon stop? I warn you that I can go no further."
The squatter turned sharply and laid his large hand on the monk's mouth.
"Silence!" he hissed; "Silence, if you value your scalp!"
"Cristo, if I value it!" the other muttered, with a movement of terror; "But what is happening fresh?"
Red Cedar cautiously moved a mass of leaves, and made a sign to his comrades to imitate him.
"Look," he said.
In a second the monk drew himself back with features convulsed with terror.
"Oh," he said, "this time we are lost!"
He tottered, and would have fallen, had not the squatter seized him by the arm.
"What is to be done?" he said.
"Wait," Red Cedar coldly answered: "our position for the present is not so desperate; you see them, but they do not see us."
Fray Ambrosio shook his head sadly,
"You have led us to our ruin," he said, reproachfully.
"You are an ass," Red Cedar answered with contempt; "do I not risk as much as you? Did I not warn you that we were surrounded? Leave me to act, I tell you."