A LOVE STORY OF THE PRAIRIES.
About the year 1820, among the Sioux, on Teton river, was a young chief whose reputation had extended throughout the West, and excited the envy and wonder, not only of the warriors of his own nation, but of every tribe, from the Chippeways, who paddle bark canoes on the western lakes, to the root-digging Shoshones at the base of the Rocky Mountains; and far and near the hearts of the young Indian girls were taken captive by the rude chivalry which added brilliancy to his invariable success. Like many other heroes, with his early history was mingled not a little of the fabulous and superhuman, and what was most singular, was, that there appeared to be some grounds for this belief, it being well known that he was not a Sioux by birth—a hunting-party of that tribe having found him, when a mere infant, lying in the open prairie, partially wrapped in a white buffalo-robe, a string of grisly-bear’s teeth around his neck, and an eagle-feather in his little clenched hand—all unmistakable evidences of exalted birth. The tradition did not stop here, for if the testimony of some was to be credited, a great war-eagle was perceived soaring away into the blue, from whose talons, beyond doubt, the child must have dropped. One thing was certain, the insignia of a chief about the young stranger admitted of no dispute, and accordingly as a chief and with no small care was he reared.
But now that Ta-his-ka (“the white buffalo,” a name given him by the Sioux, from the robe in which he was found) had grown, young as he was, to be the most prominent warrior and successful hunter from the Pacific to the Mississippi, it appeared that his parentage was not so celestial as had been by some imagined, for the Pawnees formally demanded the chief as one of themselves; and to prove their priority of right, described minutely a scar on his hip, which, whether really what they claimed it to be, or a mark of which they had obtained secret information and craftily turned to account, was found to be as they had described. The only result of this extraordinary proposal was a storm of words in the Tepe-wah-kah (council-house) of the Sioux, directed against the audacity of the Pawnees, and an amount of hate cherished between the two tribes which filled some of the lodges with scalps and others with wailing as well on the Teton, as in the vicinity of the River Platte. Ta-his-ka himself both in the council and on the prairies was foremost in opposing the Pawnees, and the trophies torn from these last were neither few nor bloodless when the young chief headed a hunting party whose search was more frequently after the hunters of the buffaloes than the herds themselves. But the latter were not readily baffled, and bringing all their ingenuity into play to entrap his person, succeeded at last one day in decoying Ta-his-ka into a ravine, where his braves were every man slain, and he himself, while performing feats worthy of a copper-colored Achilles, stunned by an arrow and disarmed instantaneously. Overjoyed at having in their possession one whose presence they superstitiously believed to be a pledge of good luck to their lodges, the captors hastened homeward, guarding him with the utmost vigilance, but always refraining from binding his limbs, as they did not despair now by large promises and offers to induce him to acknowledge his Pawnee paternity. Accordingly, the chiefs loaded him with honors and caresses, and made him proffers of squaws, horses, lodges, robes, and, in short, every thing which constitutes savage wealth; to all of which he listened with a contemptuous indifference and total silence, which was sufficient answer in itself. At this time there existed among the Pawnees a custom probably derived originally from the Mandans, remains of whose villages are to be seen even so low down the Missouri as the mouth of the Platte, the words used to designate it being found in the latter tongue; this custom was to select every alternate ten years the most beautiful female child of the tribe, who was placed under the strict guardianship of two old squaws, without whom she left the medicine-lodge neither day nor night, and between whom she was obliged to sleep until her term of years expired, in order that she might be a pure sacrifice to the Evil Spirit during the feast of green corn, at the termination of the ten years, when, in the midst of barbarous ceremonies, games, etc., the victim suddenly disappeared no one but the medicine-men knew where. This doomed girl was called Mah-pen’ke’ka-morse,[[4]] (wife of the Evil Spirit,) and they supposed, caused the fiend to abstain from injuring the tribe to which he was related by marriage. Now as Ta-his-ka was believed to be in some sort supernatural, one of the divisions of the medicine-lodge was assigned him, and the partitions in an Indian house being neither so impervious to sight nor bodily passage as plastered walls, a most unheard-of thing took place—the appointed squaw of the Evil One yielded up her heart and person to the illustrious prisoner, eluding nightly the vigilance of her duennas. As for Ta-his-ka, he loved for the first time, and with all the resistless passion of a wild but earnest soul; thus, although he was brought every moon before the council of chiefs, and the former offers renewed only to be answered by the same stern silence, (for no man had heard him speak since his capture,) he made no attempt at escape, contenting himself with merely food enough to sustain life, and scorning to touch the prairie delicacies daily set before him.
So light were, meanwhile, the feet of the girl, or so heavy the eyes of her ancient guardians, that none dreamed of the secret intercourse; and even when the condition of the former could no longer be concealed, strange to say, the medicine-men overlooked the proximity of the handsome captive, and concluded their evil-divinity willed to bestow on their nation one of his own offspring, who might in time assume the place proffered to the obstinate Ta-his-ka. But when the infant proved to be a girl, they were at a loss to determine whether their hero was to be born of this squaw, when arrived at woman’s years, or whether by the preference shown to the present wife above all precedent, it was his wish to protract her existence.
While they still debated the matter, an end was put to their discussions in rather a startling manner; maternal affection and love for the chief from whom she had been parted some weeks, got the better of prudence, and in the act of bearing the infant to her husband, (for the marriage rites are simple enough in the Great West,) a cry from the former at last aroused the duennas, and the whole was as clear as day even to their purblind eyes.
What a commotion was then in the village! the old witches were immediately put to death, and the unfortunate three reserved only until preparations for their torture could be made on a scale equivalent to the crime. All apathy had suddenly disappeared from the noble face of the Sioux chief, his voice was found, and dauntlessly acknowledging his child, offered to lead them against whomsoever they desired, if they would give him the Ka-morse for a squaw. But the tide had now turned as strongly against him as it had formerly flowed in his favor, and his proposal was received with rage and horror. They both bound his limbs, and surrounded the hut to which he was removed with a circle of braves who slept as near to one another as might be reached with the arm; but the White-buffalo was now at bay, and resistless as of old. In spite of these precautions, on the second morning after the discovery, one of the warriors was found stiff, with a knife in his heart, and despoiled of his weapons, two others at the entrance of the medicine-lodge as effectually silenced, and the two squaws who had been bound, one on each side of the young mother, strangled in their sleep, the cords cut, and their captive flown; in short, Ta-his-ka had gnawed through, or found means of severing his bonds, and after liberating his wife and child, had carried them off on his own horse, deliberately selected. Such a feat astounded the Pawnees, but quietly recovering from their stupor, every horse was bestrode, and the whole body of warriors gave chase; the trail of the fugitives being easily found and pursued. After many hours of vain pursuit, however, and when they had found time to consider the hopelessness of recapturing on the open prairie a warrior noted for his own craft and endurance, as well as the wonderful strength and size of his steed, they resolved to refrain from farther pursuit, but to send after the fugitives an enemy, which, with the high southern wind then blowing, must overtake them before the sun went down—a terrible messenger on the prairies, indeed—fire.
It was already past mid-day and Ta-his-ka had repeatedly turned his face to speak encouraging words to the young wife, while with covert uneasiness he watched the volumes of pale smoke rolling up from the line of horizon far behind, and now that they had entered one of those vast luxuriant bottoms so dreaded, even by the Indians, in autumn, although nothing but the sky overhead could be perceived, through the parted tops of the tall grass and reeds, it was no longer to be hidden even from the terrified Ka-Morse, that a dimness had spread above not occasioned by clouds, and that the scent of fire grew every moment less faint and uncertain. The bottom lands to which I have referred as so pregnant with danger during conflagrations on the prairies, can scarcely be called such, as they extend for leagues, and are not to the eye sensibly lower than the greater portion of the surrounding plain; yet that there is some depression may be deduced from the frequent humidity of the soil, and the wild luxuriance of the grass, rising to the height of eight or ten feet, and matted together about the stalks with innumerable pea-vines, from which causes a horseman can pursue no other route than the trails made by the files of buffaloes, and as these are often tortuous and winding in the last degree, it sometimes occurs that Indians or traders have found themselves enclosed between these combustible hedges, turning in every direction, when the whirlwind of fire behind would leave them little prospect of escape in a straight line and on the open prairie. And in this imminent risk must we leave the fugitives, and allow Jean, now that he comes into the simple narrative as an actor, to continue the story in his own words as nearly as I can recall them.
“Voilà!” cried Jean, standing up in his stirrups and reaching as high as he could with the hand, from which he had let fall his rein, “de grass was tall comme ça, oh, vere tall, and I could see not’ing mais smoke, smoke, and hear de rattlin’ terrible ven de fire leap into de canebrake like de—what you call?—volley ob de ten thousands mousquets. Den de little deer and de big deer, and de bears, and de painters, was all runnin’ deir best to save deir hide from scorchin; and de prairie-hens drop down and rise up and drop down agen—and it was all like one big oven! Mais—hola! j’ai oublié de buffalo, which was more worse dan all—he bellow and tear along on dis hand and on dat—je la confesse, I was vere much afraid dat a big bull would choose de trail I was in, and punce mon cheval in de hind part wid his horn!
“Presently, I look behind—ah, miséricorde! de grass was carry by de win’ en avant, all in de blaze, and w’ere it fall, it was one new fire immédiatement! Den I say to myself, Ah, Jean Moreau, mon brave, you will be roast alive, and dere is no help for it—and de beautiful skins will be lost in dis dam fire! mais, at de word, something say, not loud out, but softly—‘Quelle sottise! why you not pray, eh? better dan curse!’ Eh bien, good, I say—I will pray! Mais, I have not any prayers! Enfin, je remembre—je dis in de voice haute, ‘Malbrouc s’en va’t’en querre;’ and—what do I see? Oh, quelle joie—de grass not so high, and in de front a short hill! I gallop up—I am on de pieds—I am strike a light—I blow vere softly, den more hard—de grass is in one blaze—de win’ take de fire—de black spot is dere w’ere I stan, and—I am save! Den I feel de heart vere light, I smile at myself—I smile at de horse, I rub my hand, and walk about—eh bien, I was vere comfortàble! Presently I look; oh, misericorde! voila—voila de diable—misericorde! and I run to hide, for I was vere much scare; but dere was no place to hide. Den I look agen, and it was not de diable, mais one Ingen vere burn, and on de face in de grass. I make haste, I pull him out ob de fire—dere was one leetle drop in de canteen—ah, ha! dat bring back de life.
“Mais w’en de life was com’, he would have lose it immèdiatement, if I had not hold on to de horse. ‘Hola!’ I say, ‘you burn your own self, but you not roast mon cheval—non, non!’
“Den he look at me hard, and strike his breast, and talk in Ingen.
“‘Hist! de chief and his squaw and little one saw de fire yonder. Look! de prairie lies black, and de chief is here, but de squaw and little one are in de belly of de chief’s horse!’
“‘What is dat?’ I cry, bien surpris. ‘Dans son ventre! oh sacre! malheur—quel diable of a horse! Mais, what for you let him eat up your squaw, eh?’
“‘Non, non!’ he cry; ‘w’en de fire was vere close, he kills son cheval, and in de skin roll up de squaw, voyez?’
“Ah, dat was better—bien good! j’étais satisfait, moi!”
This was the most stirring part of Jean’s narrative, and therefore to save time and patience, I will relate the remainder, not in his but my words. The night was so dark, from the smoke obscuring the sky, that none but an Indian could have found his way back to where Jean had sat composedly, after watching the chief disappear toward the south on the former’s horse. Back he came, however, after the lapse of some hours, with a cheerful whoop, bearing in his arms his wife and child, the green skin having protected them while the fierce element swept over their heads.
The brave (for as yet Jean was ignorant of even the name of his companion) professed to be acquainted with the prairie thereabouts, and led them half a mile to an island in a moist hollow, which had not been touched by the conflagration; and here they all supped on the jerked meat which Jean chanced to have with him, all game being effectually frighted away. There is no need of following them on their journey, which was generally in the neighborhood of the Missouri, for the sake of the deer and buffalos which had fled for refuge to the wooded ravines and valleys intersecting the banks, the young squaw and child riding, while the men walked at her side. Not far from the mouth of the Teton river they parted company, Jean to proceed to the station of the American Fur Company, and Ta-his-ka to rejoin his tribe, the former insisting on the horse being retained for the use of the young mother, whose slender frame had begun to waste away under a continuance of fatigue and excitement, for which the peculiar nature of her former life, so different from that of ordinary Indian girls, had rendered her totally unfit. There Jean learned for the first time the name of the chief—one long familiar to his ears—and the events already narrated.
He had not been more than a week at the company’s fort, when, with marks of the deepest grief and rage stamped on his countenance, Ta-his-ka presented himself before him; the child lay mutely in his arms, but no squaw—where was she?
“Ee-ohk paze!” (dark-dead,) was the laconic answer, but accompanied by a twitching of the mouth-corners, which showed how the fierce spirit was moved. It seemed that the numerous enemies jealousy of his fame and power had created among the Sioux, had taken advantage of the White-buffalo’s prolonged absence, to spread the most injurious and unfounded reports of his deeds, and growing bolder by degrees, asserted openly that Ta-his-ka had abandoned his tribe, delivered up the warriors who followed him to the knives of the Pawnees, and, won over by their gifts and promises, become a Pawnee himself. Thus when the chief re-appeared, he was charged before the council of braves with treachery of the most abhorrent kind, and his Pawnee wife cited as a proof of their accusations; and but for his well-remembered strength and resistless fortune, which no one cared to dispute, even his proud and indignant denial would scarcely have delivered him from his former companions on the war-path.
But the frail flower from the Platte had drooped and died on the return, and it was his wish now to leave the child in charge of some one to whom it might be safely intrusted. Jean related the circumstances to the wife of one of the company’s officers, who immediately adopted the infant until the chief should return to claim it. Thus it was that Wah (snow) had surprised us by the correctness of her English in the chief’s lodge; for even after he had become once more a powerful chief, he contented himself with occasional and secret visits to the station, and did not carry her home until about a year previous to our visit. The rest of the story may be told in a few words. Ta-his-ka crossed the river and wandered on until he arrived at a village of the Ioways. These people pleased him, and they were equally gratified by the presence of a warrior whose feats in their hunts or games appeared every day more marvelous; for, until the Pawnees, who had traced the fugitive to his retreat, claimed his person with threats, they were ignorant of the renown of their guest. The Ioways were too proud of their acquisition to pay much heed to the repeated menaces of the ambassadors, and their principal chief dying about that time, they chose the Sioux by acclamation to lead them against the Pawnees of the Platte. The old fire now returned to Ta-his-ka’s breast—he was once more the terrible medicine chief, (“Wakon,”) and the scourge of his old enemies, who, losing more scalps in each skirmish than they could hope to regain while the White-Buffalo led on, presently petitioned that the hatchet might be buried, and conducted themselves with a crafty obsequiousness Ta-his-ka took no pains to conceal his contempt of; and, in fact, as in the instance occurring the night of our stay in his village, by stern opposition to their evil plottings, occasionally brought to light the smouldering hate lurking in their breasts. The story of Wah—the snow-flake—which I heard nearly two years afterward, if less wild than that of her mother, the young Ka-morse, was more touching, and more tinged with delicate romance—one of those gentle episodes in the stir of prairie life, like the soft down under the bristling feathers of the fierce war-eagle’s wings.
| [4] | Mandan. |
THE MIGHT OF SONG.
An extract from a Poem delivered by W. H. C. Hosmer before the Literary Societies of Hamilton College, July, 1848.
If we were chained forever to the Real,
God’s benison would be indeed withdrawn;
Without rich glimpses of the bright Ideal
In vain would morning dawn.
Upward, on pinions of sublime devotion,
The soul would cleave its native sky no more,
But loathsome grow—a pool devoid of motion,
Foul to its weedy floor.
Our grosser nature ever strives to win us
From worship of the beautiful and bright,
And deaf are many to the voice within us
That whispers “seek the light!”
Not they alone work faithfully who labor
On the dull, dusty thoroughfare of life;
The clerkly pen can vanquish when the sabre
Is useless in the strife.
In cloistered gloom the quiet man of letters,
Launching his thoughts like arrows from the bow,
Oft strikes at Treason, and his base abettors,
Bringing their grandeur low.
Armed with a scroll, the birds of evil omen
That curse a country he can scare away,
Or in the wake of Error marshal foemen
Impatient for the fray.
Scorn not the Sons of Song! or deem them only
Poor, worthless weeds upon the shore of Time;
Although they move in walks retired and lonely,
They have their tasks sublime.
When tyrants tread the hill-top and the valley,
Calling the birth-right of the brave their own,
Around the tomb of Liberty they rally,
And roll away the stone: —
Or, roused by some dark peril, they have written
Words that awe Guilt behind his guarded wall,
Or, by the lightning of their numbers smitten,
Beheld the Bigot fall.
Though fierce, unbridled passions, running riot,
Hiss like Medusa’s vipers in the breast,
The witchcraft of harmonic sound can quiet
The turmoil into rest.
Who through the chieftain’s castle-hall is stealing
With the light foot-fall of some beast of prey,
While vengeance hushes every softer feeling,
Nerving his arm to slay?
Where is his home? To flame its roof was given,
And heavy clouds above the ruin lower—
While the dread foe, by whom his soul was riven,
Unwarned, is in his power.
Where are his kinsmen? Ask the fox and raven
That feed upon their corpses gashed and red;
And will he now turn back a trembling craven—
What, what arrests his tread?
Young Annot Lyle, her Highland clairshack waking,
Trills an old ballad to remembrance dear—
And dagger-hilt his rugged hand forsaking
Brushes away the tear.
Lo! the proud Norman and his host are flying,
While in pursuit, with fierce, triumphant cheers,
That drown the groans of horse and rider dying,
Press on the Saxon spears.
What stays their flight? The song of Rolla rising
In angry swell above the dreadful roar —
Again they charge!—the bolts of death despising,
And Harold’s reign is o’er.
Dread Power of Song! whose voice can thus awaken
Notes that consign an empire to the grave;
Or, when recoils a host by panic shaken,
From rout the valiant save.
The fearful mantle that the seer is wearing
Derives from thee its tints of living fire —
And higher mounts Philosophy when sharing
The wealth of thy attire:
And in the distance to thy vision brightly
Gleam happy homes beyond this land of graves,
As airy domes and towers at sunset lightly
Rise from Sicilian waves.
When History, her task but ill-achieving,
Fails some far epoch faintly to illume,
Her thread the muse, like Ariadne weaving,
Conducts us through the gloom.
She fronts the sun—and on the purple ridges
The virgin Future lifts her veil of snow —
Looks westward, and an arch of splendor bridges
The gulf of Long Ago.
She speaks, and, lo! Italian sunlight flashes
Over the dark expanse of northern skies —
Death hears her thrilling cry, and cold, gray ashes
Take mortal shape, and rise.
When factions vex a state, and new abuses
Bring to her drooping banner-fold disgrace,
And Mind, forgetful of its nobler uses,
Grows sensual and base —
When the gray fathers of a nation falter,
Muffling their faces for the funeral knell.
A lightning-flash, from her poetic altar;
The darkness can dispel.
Then honored be the Bard!—a heavenly mansion
Alone could be the birth-place of an Art
That gives to deathless intellect expansion,
And purifies the heart.
THE LADY OF THE ROCK.
A LEGEND OF NEW ENGLAND.
———
BY MISS M. J. WINDLE.
———
(Continued from page 255.)