“Ask no questions that may lead to deceitful answers,” sullenly returned the squatter; “I have dealings of my own with that trapper, that it may not befit an officer of the States to meddle with. Go, while your road is open.”
“The man may be giving you honest counsel, and that which it concerns you all to hearken to,” observed the old captive, who seemed in no uneasiness at the extraordinary condition in which he found himself. “The Siouxes are a numberless and bloody-minded race, and no one can say how long it may be, afore they will be out again on the scent of revenge. Therefore I say to you, go, also; and take especial heed, in crossing the bottoms, that you get not entangled again in the fires, for the honest hunters often burn the grass at this season, in order that the buffaloes may find a sweeter and a greener pasturage in the spring.”
“I should forget not only my gratitude, but my duty to the laws, were I to leave this prisoner in your hands, even by his own consent, without knowing the nature of his crime, in which we may have all been his innocent accessaries.”
“Will it satisfy you to know, that he merits all he will receive?”
“It will at least change my opinion of his character.”
“Look then at this,” said Ishmael, placing before the eyes of the Captain the bullet that had been found about the person of the dead Asa; “with this morsel of lead did he lay low as fine a boy as ever gave joy to a parent’s eyes!”
“I cannot believe that he has done this deed, unless in self-defence, or on some justifiable provocation. That he knew of the death of your son, I confess, for he pointed out the brake in which the body lay, but that he has wrongfully taken his life, nothing but his own acknowledgment shall persuade me to believe.”
“I have lived long,” commenced the trapper, who found, by the general pause, that he was expected to vindicate himself from the heavy imputation, “and much evil have I seen in my day. Many are the prowling bears and leaping panthers that I have met, fighting for the morsel which has been thrown in their way; and many are the reasoning men, that I have looked on striving against each other unto death, in order that human madness might also have its hour. For myself, I hope, there is no boasting in saying, that though my hand has been needed in putting down wickedness and oppression, it has never struck a blow of which its owner will be ashamed to hear, at a reckoning that shall be far mightier than this.”
“If my father has taken life from one of his tribe,” said the young Pawnee, whose quick eye had read the meaning of what was passing, in the bullet and in the countenances of the others, “let him give himself up to the friends of the dead, like a warrior. He is too just to need thongs to lead him to judgment.”
“Boy, I hope you do me justice. If I had done the foul deed, with which they charge me, I should have manhood enough to come and offer my head to the blow of punishment, as all good and honest Red-men do the same.” Then giving his anxious Indian friend a look, to re-assure him of his innocence, he turned to the rest of his attentive and interested listeners, as he continued in English, “I have a short story to tell, and he that believes it will believe the truth, and he that disbelieves it will only lead himself astray, and perhaps his neighbour too. We were all out-lying about your camp, friend squatter, as by this time you may begin to suspect, when we found that it contained a wronged and imprisoned lady, with intentions neither more honest nor dishonest than to set her free, as in nature and justice she had a right to be. Seeing that I was more skilled in scouting than the others, while they lay back in the cover, I was sent upon the plain, on the business of the reconnoitrings. You little thought that one was so nigh, who saw into all the circumventions of your hunt; but there was I, sometimes flat behind a bush or a tuft of grass, sometimes rolling down a hill into a bottom, and little did you dream that your motions were watched, as the panther watches the drinking deer. Lord, squatter, when I was a man in the pride and strength of my days, I have looked in at the tent door of the enemy, and they sleeping, ay, and dreaming too, of being at home and in peace! I wish there was time to give you the partic—”