A few words now about the personages we have just brought upon the scene, and who are destined to play an important part in this history.
Loyal Heart—this name was the only one by which the hunter was known throughout the prairies of the West—enjoyed an immense reputation for skill, loyalty, and courage among the Indian tribes, with whom the chances of his adventurous existence had brought him in relation. All respected him. The white hunters and trappers, whether Spaniards, North Americans, or half-breeds, had a high opinion of his experience of the woods, and often had recourse to his counsels.
The pirates of the prairies themselves, thorough food for the gallows, the refuse of civilization, who only lived by rapine and exactions, did not dare to attack him, and avoided as much as possible throwing themselves in his way.
Thus this man had succeeded by the sheer force of his intelligence and his will, in creating for himself, and almost unknown to himself, a power accepted and recognized by the ferocious inhabitants of these vast deserts,—a power which he only employed in the common interest, and to facilitate for all the means of following in safety the occupations they had adopted.
No one knew who Loyal Heart was, or whence he came; the greatest mystery covered his early years.
One day, about twenty years before, when he was very young, some hunters had fallen in with him on the banks of the Arkansas in the act of setting traps for beavers. The few questions put to him concerning his preceding life remained unanswered; and the hunters, people not very talkative by nature, fancying they perceived, from the embarrassment and reticence of the young man, that he had a secret which he desired to keep, made a scruple about pressing him further—and nothing more was said on the subject.
At the same time, contrary to other hunters, or trappers of the prairies, who have all one or two companions with whom they associate, and whom they never leave, Loyal Heart lived alone, having no fixed habitation; he traversed the desert in all directions without pitching his tent anywhere.
Always reserved and melancholy, he avoided the society of his equals, although always ready, when occasion offered, to render them services, or even to expose his life for them. Then, when they attempted to express their gratitude, he would clap spurs to his horse, and go and set his traps at a distance, to give time to those he had obliged to forget the service he had rendered.
Every year, at the same period, that is to say, about the month of October, Loyal Heart disappeared for several entire weeks, without anyone being able to suspect whither he was gone; and when he returned it was observed that for several days his countenance was more dark and sad than ever.
One day he came back from one of these mysterious expeditions, accompanied by two magnificent young bloodhounds, which had from that time remained with him, and of which he seemed very fond.