been a stranger. Their presence awakened recollections and emotions, to which his sturdy but honest nature had latterly paid but little homage, and his thoughts began to wander over the varied scenes of a life of hardships, that had been strangely blended with scenes of wild and peculiar enjoyment. The train taken by his thoughts had, already, conducted him, in imagination, far into an ideal world, when he was, once more suddenly, recalled to the reality of his situation, by the movements of the faithful hound.
The dog, who, in submission to his years and infirmities, had manifested such a decided propensity to sleep, now arose, and stalked from out the shadow cast by the tall person of his master, and looked abroad into the prairie, as if his instinct apprised him of the presence of still another visitor. Then, seemingly content with his examination, he returned to his comfortable post and disposed of his weary limbs, with the deliberation and care of one who was no novice in the art of self-preservation.
“What; again, Hector!” said the trapper in a soothing voice, which he had the caution, however, to utter in an under tone; “what is it, dog? tell it all to his master, pup; what is it?”
Hector answered with another growl, but was content to continue in his lair. These were evidences of intelligence and distrust, to which one as practised as the trapper could not turn an inattentive ear. He again spoke to the dog, encouraging him to watchfulness, by a low guarded whistle. The animal however, as if conscious of having, already, discharged his duty, obstinately refused to raise his head from the grass.
“A hint from such a friend is far better than man's advice!” muttered the trapper, as he slowly moved towards the couple who were yet, too earnestly and abstractedly, engaged in their own discourse, to notice his approach; “and none but a conceited settler would hear it and not respect it, as he ought. Children,” he added, when nigh enough to address his companions, “we are not alone in these dreary fields; there are others stirring, and, therefore, to the shame of our kind, be it said, danger is nigh.”
“If one of the lazy sons of Skirting Ishmael is prowling out of his camp to-night,” said the young bee-hunter, with great vivacity, and in tones that might easily have been excited to a menace, “he may have an end put to his journey sooner than either he or his father is dreaming!”
“My life on it, they are all with the teams,” hurriedly answered the girl. “I saw the whole of them asleep, myself, except the two on watch; and their natures have greatly changed, if they, too, are not both dreaming of a turkey hunt, or a court-house fight, at this very moment.”
“Some beast, with a strong scent, has passed between the wind and the hound, father, and it makes him uneasy; or, perhaps, he too is dreaming. I had a pup of my own, in Kentuck, that would start upon a long chase from a deep sleep; and all upon the fancy of some dream. Go to him, and pinch his ear, that the beast may feel the life within him.”
“Not so—not so,” returned the trapper, shaking his head as one who better understood the qualities of his dog.—“Youth sleeps, ay, and dreams too; but age is awake and watchful. The pup is never false with his nose, and long experience tells me to heed his warnings.”
“Did you ever run him upon the trail of carrion?”
“Why, I must say, that the ravenous beasts have sometimes tempted me to let him loose, for they are as greedy as men, after the venison, in its season; but then I knew the reason of the dog, would tell him the object!—No—no, Hector is an animal known in the ways of man, and will never strike a false trail when a true one is to be followed!”
“Ay, ay, the secret is out! you have run the hound on the track of a wolf, and his nose has a better memory than his master!” said the bee-hunter, laughing.
“I have seen the creatur' sleep for hours, with pack after pack, in open view. A wolf might eat out of his tray without a snarl, unless there was a scarcity; then, indeed, Hector would be apt to claim his own.”
“There are panthers down from the mountains; I saw one make a leap at a sick deer, as the sun was setting. Go; go you back to the dog, and tell him the truth, father; in a minute, I—”
He was interrupted by a long, loud, and piteous howl from the hound, which rose on the air of the evening, like the wailing of some spirit of the place, and passed off into the prairie, in cadences that rose and fell, like its own undulating surface. The trapper was impressively silent, listening intently. Even the reckless bee-hunter, was struck with the wailing wildness of the sounds. After a short pause the former whistled the dog to his side, and turning to his companions he said with the seriousness, which, in his opinion, the occasion demanded—
“They who think man enjoys all the knowledge of the creatur's of God, will live to be disappointed, if they reach, as I have done, the age of fourscore years. I will not take upon myself to say what mischief is brewing, nor will I vouch that, even, the hound himself knows so much; but that evil is nigh, and that wisdom invites us to avoid it, I have heard from the mouth of one who never lies. I did think, the pup had become unused to the footsteps of man, and that your presence made him uneasy; but his nose has been on a long scent the whole evening, and what I mistook as a notice of your coming, has been intended for something more serious. If the advice of an old man is, then, worth hearkening to, children, you will quickly go different ways to your places of shelter and safety.”
“If I quit Ellen, at such a moment,” exclaimed the youth, “may I—”
“You've said enough!” the girl interrupted, by again interposing a band that might, both by its delicacy and colour, have graced a far more elevated station in life; “my time is out; and we must part, at all events—so good night, Paul—father—good night.”
“Hist!” said the youth, seizing her arm, as she was in the very act of tripping from his side—“Hist! do you hear nothing? There are buffaloes playing their pranks, at no great distance—That sound beats the earth like a herd of the mad scampering devils!”
His two companions listened, as people in their situation would be apt to lend their faculties to discover the meaning of any doubtful noises, especially, when heard after so many and such startling warnings. The unusual sounds were unequivocally though still faintly audible. The youth and his female companion had made several hurried, and vacillating conjectures concerning their nature, when a current of the night air brought the rush of trampling footsteps, too sensibly, to their ears, to render mistake any longer possible.
“I am right!” said the bee-hunter; “a panther is driving a herd before him; or may be, there is a battle among the beasts.”
“Your ears are cheats,” returned the old man, who, from the moment his own organs had been able to catch the distant sounds, stood like a statue made to represent deep attention:—“the leaps are too long for the buffaloe, and too regular for terror. Hist! now they are in a bottom where the grass is high, and the sound is deadened! Ay, there they go on the hard earth! And now they come up the swell, dead upon us; they will be here afore you can find a cover!”
“Come, Ellen,” cried the youth, seizing his companion by the hand, “let us make a trial for the encampment.”
“Too late! too late!” exclaimed the trapper, “for the creatur's are in open view; and a bloody band of accursed Siouxes they are, by their thieving look, and the random fashion in which they ride!”
“Siouxes or devils, they shall find us men!” said the bee-hunter, with a mien as fierce as if he led a party of superior strength, and of a courage equal to his own.—“You have a piece, old man, and will pull a trigger in behalf of a helpless, Christian girl!”
“Down, down into the grass—down with ye both,” whispered the trapper, intimating to them to turn aside to the tall weeds, which grew, in a denser body than common, near the place where they stood. “You've not the time to fly, nor the numbers to fight, foolish boy. Down into the grass, if you prize the young woman, or value the gift of life!”
His remonstrance, seconded, as it was, by a prompt and energetic action, did not fail to produce the submission to his order, which the occasion seemed, indeed,