"If you call these chiefs savages," returned the interpreter, a little offended at hearing such a term applied to his best friends and constant associates. "To be sure they have their ways, and so have the pale-faces; but Injin ways be not so very savage, when a body gets a little used to them. Now, I remember it was a long time before I could get reconciled to seeing a warrior scalp his enemy; but as I reasoned on it, and entered into the spirit of the practice, I began to feel it was all right."
I was walking just in front of my uncle, for we were in motion again on our way to the wood, but could not help turning and saying to him with a smile—
"So it would seem that this matter of the 'spirit' is to be found in other places beside the legislature. There is the 'spirit of scalping,' as well as the 'spirit of the institutions!'"
"Ay, Hugh; and the 'spirit of fleecing,' as a consequence of what is profanely termed the last. But it may be well to go no nearer to the wood than this spot. The Injins I have told you of are in these bushes in front, and they are armed; I leave you to communicate with them in any manner you please. They are about twenty in number."
The interpreter informed his chiefs of what had been said, who spoke together in earnest consultation for a moment. Then Prairiefire himself plucked a branch off the nearest bush, and holding it up he advanced close to the cover, and called out aloud in some one, or in many of the different dialects with which he was acquainted. I saw, by the moving of the branches, that men were in the bushes; but no answer of any sort was made. There was one savage in our band, who betrayed manifest impatience at these proceedings. He was a large, athletic Iowa chief, called in English Flintyheart, and, as we subsequently learned, of great renown for martial exploits. It was always difficult to hold him in when there was a prospect of scalps, and he was now less restrained than common, from the circumstance of his having no superior of his own particular tribe present. After Prairiefire had called two or three times in vain to the party in the cover, Flintyheart stepped out, spoke a few words with energy and spirit, terminating his appeal by a most effective, not to say appalling, whoop. That sound was echoed back by most of the band, when they all broke off, right and left, stealing more like snakes than bipeds to the fences, under cover of which they glanced forward to the wood, in which every man of them buried himself in the twinkling of an eye. In vain had the interpreter called to them, to remind them where they were, and to tell them that they might displease their great father, at Washington, and Prairiefire stood his ground, exposed to any shot the supposed foe might send at him; on they went, like so many hounds that have struck a scent too strong to be held in restraint by any whipper-in.
"They expect to find Injins," said the interpreter, in a sort of despair; "and there's no holdin' 'em back. There can be no enemies of their'n down hereaway, and the agent will be awfully angry if blood is drawn; though I shouldn't mind it a bit if the party was some of them scoundrels, the Sacs and Foxes, whom it's often a marcy to kill. It's different down here, however, and I must say I wish this hadn't happened."
My uncle and myself just waited long enough to hear this when we rushed forward, along the highway, and entered the wood, joined by Prairiefire, who, fancying by our movement that all was right, now raised such a whoop himself as to demonstrate it was not for want of "knowing how" that he had hitherto been silent. The road made a curve at the very point where it penetrated the forest, and being fringed with the bushes already mentioned, the two circumstances shut out the view of what was passing behind the scenes, until we reached the turn, where a common halt of the wagons had been made, when the whole view burst upon us at once in all its magnificence.
A rout of a "grand army" could scarcely have been more picturesque! The road was lined with vehicles in full retreat, to use a military term, or, to speak in the more common parlance, scampering off. Every whip was in active use, every horse was on the run, while half the faces were turned behind their owners, the women sending back screams to the whoops of the savages. As for the Injins, they had instinctively abandoned the woods, and poured down into the highway—speed like theirs demanding open ground for its finest display. Some had leaped into wagons, piling themselves up among those virtuous wives and daughters of that portion of the honest yeomanry who had collected to devise the means of cheating me out of my property. But, why dwell on this scene, since the exploits of these Indians, for the last six years, have amply proved that the only thing in which they excel, is in running away? They are heroes when a dozen can get round a single man to tar and feather him; valiant, as a hundred against five or six, and occasionally murderers, when each victim can be destroyed by five or six bullets, to make sure of him. The very cowardice of the scoundrels should render them loathsome to the whole community; the dog that has spirit only to hunt in packs being cur at the bottom.
I must add one other object to the view, however. Holmes and Shabbakuk brought up the rear, and both were flogging their devoted beast as if his employers—I dare not call them "masters," as I might be accused of aristocracy for using so offensive a term in this age of common-sense liberty, while "employers" is a very significant expression for the particular occasion—as if his "employers," then, had left something behind them, at "Little Neest," and were hurrying back to obtain it before it fell into other hands. Old Holmes kept looking behind, as if chased by the covenants of forty leases, while the "spirit of the institutions," headed by two governors, and "the honorable gentleman from Albany," was in full pursuit. If the "spirit of the institutions" was really there, it was quite alone; for I looked in vain for the exhibition of any other spirit. In much less time than it has taken me to write this account, the road was cleared, leaving my uncle, myself, and Prairiefire, in quiet possession; the latter uttering a very significant "hugh!" as the last wagon went out of sight in a cloud of dust.
It was but a moment, however, before our own tribe, or tribes would be more accurate, came down upon us, collecting in the road at the very spot where we stood. The victory had been bloodless, but it was complete. Not only had the savage Indians completely routed the virtuous and much-oppressed-by-aristocracy Injins, but they had captured two specimens of virtue and depression in the persons of as many of the band. So very significant and expressive was the manner of the captives, that Flintyheart, into whose hands they had fallen, not only seemed to hold their scalps in contempt, but actually had disdained to disarm them. There they stood, bundles of calico, resembling children in swaddling-clothes, with nothing partaking of that natural freedom of which their party love to boast, but their legs, which were left at perfect liberty, by way of a dernier resort. My uncle now assumed a little authority, and commanded these fellows to take off their disguises. He might as well have ordered one of the oaks, or maples, to lay down its leaves before the season came round; for neither would obey.