Gustave Aimard
The Trappers of Arkansas: or, The Loyal Heart

CHAPTER III.
DEVOTEDNESS

As we said in a preceding chapter, the doctor had left the camp of the Mexicans, charged by Doña Luz with a message for Black Elk.

Like all learned men, the doctor was absent by nature, and that with the best intentions in the world.

During the first moments, according to the custom of his brethren, he puzzled his brain to endeavour to make out the signification of the words, somewhat cabalistical in his opinion, that he was to repeat to the trapper.

He could not comprehend what assistance his friends could possibly obtain from a half-wild man, who lived alone in the prairie, and whose existence was passed in hunting and trapping.

If he had accepted this mission so promptly, the profound friendship he professed for the niece of the general was the sole cause: although he expected no advantageous result from it, as we have said, he had set out resolutely, convinced that the certainty of his departure would calm the uneasiness of the young lady. In short, he had rather meant to satisfy the caprice of a patient, than undertake a serious affair.

In the persuasion, therefore, that the mission with which he was charged was a useless one, instead of going full speed, as he ought to have done, to the toldo of Black Elk, he dismounted, passed his arm through his bridle, and began to look for simples, an occupation which, ere long, so completely absorbed him, that he entirely forgot the instructions of Doña Luz, and the reason why he had left the camp.

In the meanwhile, time passed slowly because anxiously; half the day was gone, and the doctor, who ought long before to have returned, did not appear.

The uneasiness became great in the camp, where the general and the captain had organized everything for a vigorous defence in case of attack.

But nothing appeared.

The greatest calm continued to prevail in the environs; the Mexicans were not far from thinking it a false alarm.

Doña Luz alone felt her inquietude increase every instant; with her eyes fixed upon the plain, she looked in vain in the direction her expected messengers should arrive by.

All at once, it struck her that the high grass of the prairie had an oscillating motion which was not natural to it.

There was not a breath in the air; a heavy, stifling heat weighed down all nature; the leaves of the trees, scorched by the sun, were motionless; the high grass alone, agitated by a slow and mysterious movement, continued to oscillate.

And, what was most extraordinary, this almost imperceptible motion, which required close attention to be observed, was not general; on the contrary, it was successive, approaching the camp by degrees, with a regularity which gave reason for supposing an organized impulsion; so that, in proportion as it was communicated to the nearest grass, the most distant returned by degrees to a state of complete immobility, from which it did not change.

The sentinels placed in the intrenchments could not tell to what to attribute this movement, of which they understood nothing.

The general, as an experienced soldier, resolved to know what it meant; although he had never personally had to do with the Indians, he had heard too much of their manner of fighting not to suspect some stratagem.

Not wishing to weaken the camp, which stood in need of all its defenders, he resolved himself to undertake the adventure, and go out on the scout.

At the instant he was about to climb over the intrenchments, the captain stopped him, by placing his hand respectfully on his shoulders.

"What do you want with, me, my friend?" the general asked, turning round.

"I wish, with your permission, to put a question to you, general."

"Do so."

"You are leaving the camp?"

"I am."

"To go in search of intelligence, no doubt?"

"I admit that is my intention."

"Then, general, it is to me that mission belongs."

"Ay! how is that?" said the astonished general.

"Good God! general, that is very plain; I am but a poor devil of an officer, and owe everything to you."

"What then?"

"The peril I shall run, if peril there be, will not in any way compromise the success of the expedition; whereas – "

"If you are killed."

The general started.

"Everything must be foreseen and provided for," continued the captain, "when we have before us such adversaries as those that threaten us."

"That is true. What then?"

"Well, the expedition will fail, and not one of us will ever see a civilized country again. You are the head; we are but the arms; remain, therefore, in the camp."

The general reflected for a few seconds; then pressing the hand of the young man cordially, he said, —

"Thank you, but I must see for myself what is being plotted against us. The circumstance is too serious to allow me to trust even to you."

"You must remain in the camp, general," persisted the captain, "if not for our sake, at least for that of your niece, that innocent and delicate creature, who, if any misfortune should happen to you, would find herself alone, abandoned amidst ferocious tribes, without support, and without a protector. Of what consequence is my life to me, a poor lad without a family, who owes everything to your kindness? The hour is come to prove my gratitude – let me discharge my debt."

"But – " the general tried to speak.

"You know," the young man continued, warmly, "if I could take your place with Doña Luz, I would do it with joy; but I am as yet too young to play that noble part. Come, general, let me go instead of you, it is my duty to do so."

Half by persuasion, half by force he succeeded in drawing the old soldier back; he sprang upon the intrenchments, leaped down on the other side, and set off at full speed, after making a last sign of farewell.

The general looked after him as long as he could perceive him; then he passed his hand across his careful brow, murmuring, —

"Brave boy! excellent nature!"

"Is he not, uncle?" Doña Luz replied, who had approached and listened without being seen.

"Ah! were you there, dear child?" he said, with a smile, which he endeavoured in vain to render cheerful.

"Yes, dear uncle, I have heard all."

"That is well, dear little one," the general said, with an effort; "but this is not the time to give way to feeling. I must think of your safety. Do not remain here longer; come with me; an Indian bullet might easily reach you here."

Taking her by the hand, he led her affectionately to the tent.

After leading her in, he gave her a kiss upon her brow, advised her not to go out again, and returned to the intrenchments, where he set himself to watch with the greatest care what was going on in the plain; calculating the while, mentally, the time that had passed since the departure of the doctor, and feeling astonished at not seeing him return.

"He must have fallen in with the Indians," he said; "I only hope they have not killed him."

Captain Aguilar was an intrepid soldier, trained in the incessant wars of Mexico; he knew how to unite prudence with courage.

When he arrived at a certain distance from the camp, he laid himself on the ground, face downwards, and reached, by creeping along thus, a rough piece of rock, admirably situated for concealment and observation.

Everything appeared quiet around him; nothing denoted the approach of an enemy. After spending a sufficient time in keenly exploring with his eyes the country beyond him, he was preparing to return to the camp, with a conviction that the general was deceived, and no imminent peril existed, when suddenly, within ten paces of him, an asshata bounded up in great terror, with ears erect and head thrown back, and fled away with extreme velocity.

"Oh! oh!" the young man said to himself, "there is something here, though. Let us try if we cannot make out what."

Quitting the rock behind which he had been screened, he, with great precaution, advanced a few steps, in order to satisfy his suspicions.

The grass became powerfully agitated, half a score men arose suddenly from various points, and surrounded him before he had time to put himself on the defensive, or regain the shelter he had imprudently quitted.

"Well," he said, with disdainful coolness, "luckily I know now with whom I have to deal."

"Surrender!" one of the men nearest to him shouted.

"No, thank you," he replied, with an ironical smile. "You are fools if you expect that. You must kill me out and out before you take me."

"Then we will kill you, my dainty spark," the first speaker answered, brutally.

"I reckon upon that," said the captain, in a jeering tone; "but I mean to defend myself; that will make a noise, my friends will hear us, your surprise will be a failure, and that is exactly what I wish."

These words were pronounced with a coolness that made the pirates pause. These men belonged to the band of Captain Waktehno, who was himself among them.

"Yes," retorted the captain of the bandits, "your idea is not a bad one, only you forget that we can kill you without making a noise; and so your clever plan will come to nothing."

"Bah! who knows?" said the young man, and before the pirates could prevent him, he made an extraordinary spring backwards, by which he overset two men, and ran with his best speed in the direction of the camp.

The first surprise over, the bandits darted forward in pursuit of him.

This trial of speed lasted a considerable time without the pirates being able to perceive that they gained ground on the fugitive. Though not relaxing in the pursuit, as they tried as much as possible to avoid being seen by the Mexican sentinels, whom they hoped to surprise, they were obliged to make turnings which necessarily impeded their course.

The captain had arrived within hearing of his friends, and he cast a glance behind him. Profiting by a moment in which he had paused to take breath, the bandits had gained upon him considerably, and the young man became aware that if he continued to fly, he should cause the misfortune he wished to avoid.

His determination was formed in an instant; he was satisfied he must die, but he wished to die as a soldier, and make his fall useful to those for whom he devoted himself.

He placed his back against a tree, laid his machete within reach, drew his pistols from his belt, and facing the bandits, who were not more than thirty paces from him, he cried in a loud voice, in order to attract the attention of his friends: —

"To arms! to arms! Be on your guard! The enemies are here!"

Then, with the greatest coolness, he discharged his weapons as if at a target – he had four double-barrelled pistols – repeating as every pirate fell, as loud as he could shout, —

"To arms! the enemies are here! they will surround you! Be on your guard! Be on your guard!"

The bandits, exasperated by this brave defence, rushed upon him with great rage, forgetting all the precautions they had till that time taken.

Then commenced a horrible but an almost superhuman struggle of one man against twenty or thirty; for it seemed, as every pirate fell, that another took his place.

The conflict was fearful! The young man had determined to make the sacrifice of his life, but he was equally resolved to sell it dearly.

We have said that at every shot he fired he had uttered a warning cry; his pistols being discharged, at every stroke of his machete that he dealt he did the same, to which the Mexicans replied by keeping up, on their part, a rolling fire of musketry upon the pirates, who showed themselves openly, blindly bent upon the destruction of a man who so audaciously barred their passage with the impenetrable barrier of his loyal breast.

At length the captain was brought down on one knee. The pirates rushed upon him, pell-mell, wounding each other in their frantic efforts to destroy him.

Such a combat could not last long.

Captain Aguilar fell, but in falling he drew with him a dozen pirates he had immolated, and who formed a bloody escort on his passage to the tomb.

"Hum!" muttered Captain Waktehno, surveying him with admiration, whilst staunching the blood of a large wound he had received in the breast; "a roughish sort of fellow! If the others are like him, we shall have more than our work to do. Come!" he continued turning towards his companions, who awaited his orders, "do not let us stand here any longer to be shot at like pigeons. To the assault, in God's name! – to the assault!"

The pirates rushed after him, brandishing their arms, and began to climb the rock, vociferating, "To the assault! to the assault!"

On their side, the Mexicans, witnesses of the heroic death of Captain Aguilar, prepared to avenge him.

CHAPTER IV.
THE DOCTOR

Whilst these terrible events were being accomplished, the doctor was quietly herbalizing. The worthy savant, enraptured by the rich flora he had beneath his eyes, had forgotten everything but the thoughts of the ample harvest he could make. He proceeded with his body bent towards the ground, stopping for a long time before every plant he admired, ere he resolved to pull it up.

When he had loaded himself with an infinite number of plants and herbs exceedingly valuable to him, he resolved at length to seat himself quietly at the foot of a tree, and classify them at his ease, with all the care that celebrated professors are accustomed to bring to this delicate operation, mumbling in the meantime, some morsels of biscuit which he drew from his bag.

He remained a long time absorbed in this occupation, which procured him one of those extreme delights which the learned alone can enjoy, and which are unknown to the vulgar. He would probably have forgotten himself in this labour until night had surprised him, and forced him to seek shelter, had not a dark shadow come between him and the sun, and projected its reflection upon the plants he had classified with so much care.

He mechanically raised his head.

A man, leaning on a long rifle, had stopped before him, and was contemplating him with a kind of laughing attention. This man was Black Elk.

"He! he!" he said to the doctor, "what are you doing there, my good sir? Seeing the grass moved about so, I thought there was a doe in the thicket, and, devil take me! if I was not on the point of sending a bullet at you."

"The deuce!" the doctor cried, eyeing him with an expression of terror, "you should be careful; do you know you might have killed me?"

"Well, I might," the trapper replied, laughing; "but don't be afraid! I perceived my error in time."

"God be praised!"

And the doctor, who had just perceived a rare plant stooped eagerly to seize it.

"Then you won't tell me what you are doing?" the hunter continued.

"Why, can't you see, my friend?"

"Who, I? Yes; I see you are amusing yourself with pulling up the weeds of the prairie, that is all; and I should like to know what for?"

"Oh! ignorance!" the savant murmured, and then added aloud with that tone of doctorial condescension peculiar to the disciples of Æsculapius: "my friend, I am gathering simples, which I collect, in order to classify them in my herbal; the flora of these prairies is magnificent; I am convinced that I have discovered at least three new species of the Chirostemon pentadactylon, of which the genus belongs to the Flora Mexicana."

"Ah!" said the hunter, staring with all his eyes, and making strong efforts to refrain from laughing in the doctor's face. "You think you have really found three new species of – "

"Chirostemon pentadactylon, my friend," said the doctor, patronizingly.

"Ah! bah!"

"At least; perhaps there may be a fourth!"

"Oh! oh! there is some use in it, then?"

"Some use in it, indeed!" the doctor cried, much scandalized.

"Well, don't be angry, I know nothing about it."

"That is true!" said the savant, softened by the tone of Black Elk; "You cannot comprehend the importance of these labours, which advance science at an immense speed."

"Well, only to think! And it was only for the purpose of pulling up herbs in this manner that you came into the prairie?"

"For nothing else."

Black Elk looked at him with the admiration created by the sight of an inexplicable phenomenon; the hunter could not succeed in comprehending how a sensible man should resolve willingly to endure a life of privation and perils for the, to him, unintelligible object of pulling up useless plants; therefore he soon came to a conviction that he must be mad. He cast upon him a look of commiseration; shaking his head, and shouldering his rifle, he prepared to go on his way.

"Well! well!" he said, in the tone usually employed towards children, and idiots; "you are right, my good sir; pull away! pull away! you do nobody any harm, and there will always be plenty left. I wish you good sport; such as it is. I shall see you again."

And, whistling his dogs, he proceeded a few steps, but almost immediately returned.

"One word more," he said, addressing the doctor, who had already forgotten him, and was again busied in the employment which the arrival of the hunter had forced him to interrupt.

"Speak!" he replied, raising his head.

"I hope that the young lady who came to visit my hatto yesterday, in company with her uncle, is well? Poor dear child, you cannot imagine how much I am interested in her, my good sir!"

The doctor rose up suddenly, striking his forehead.

"Fool that I am!" he cried, "I had completely forgotten it."

"Forgotten what?" the astonished hunter asked.

"This is always my way!" the savant muttered; "fortunately the mischief is not great; as you are here, it can easily be repaired."

"What mischief are you talking about?" said the trapper, beginning to feel uneasy.

"You may imagine," the doctor continued, quietly, "that if science absorbs me so completely as to make me often forget to eat and drink, I am likely sometimes not to remember the commissions I am charged with."

"To the point! to the point!" said the hunter impatiently.

"Oh! good Lord, it's very simple. I left the camp at daybreak to come to your hatto; but when I arrived here, I was so charmed with the innumerable rare plants that my horse trod under foot, that without thinking of pursuing my route, I stopped at first to pull up one plant, then I perceived another that was not in my herbal, and another after that, and so on. – In short, I thought no more of coming to you, and was, indeed, so absorbed by my researches, that even your unexpected presence, just now, did not recall to my mind the commission I had to you."

"And did you leave the camp at daybreak?"

"Good Heavens, yes!"

"And do you know what o'clock it is now?"

The savant looked at the sun.

"Almost three!" he said, "but I repeat that it is of little consequence. You being here, I can report to you what Doña Luz charged me to tell you, and all will be right, no doubt."

"God grant that your negligence may not prove the cause of a great misfortune," said the hunter, with a sigh.

"What do you mean by that?"

"You will soon know. I hope I may be deceived. Speak, I am listening to you."

"This is what Doña Luz begged me to repeat to you – "

"Was it Doña Luz that sent you to me?"

"Herself!"

"Has anything serious taken place at the camp, then?"

"Ah! why, yes; and that, perhaps, may make it more important than I at first imagined. This is what has happened: Last night one of our guides – "

"The Babbler?"

"The same. Do you know him?"

"Yes. Go on."

"Well! It appears that the man was plotting with another bandit of his own sort, to deliver up the camp to the Indians. Doña Luz, most probably by chance, overheard the conversation of these fellows, and, at the moment they were passing her, she fired two pistols at them, quite close."

"Did she kill them?"

"Unfortunately, no. One of them, although no doubt grievously wounded, was able to escape."

"Which of them?"

"The Babbler."

"Well, and then?"

"Why, then Doña Luz made me swear to come to you, and say stop a bit," said the savant, trying to recollect the words.

"Black Elk, the hour is come!" the hunter, impetuously interrupted.

"That's it! that's it!" said the savant, rubbing his hands for joy, "I had it at the tip of my tongue. I must confess it appeared rather obscure to me, I could not fancy what it meant; but you will explain it, will you not?"

The hunter seized him vigorously by the arm, and drawing his face close to his own, he said, with an inflamed look and features contracted by anger, —

"Wretched madman! why do you not come to me as quickly as possible, instead of wasting your time like an idiot? Your delay will, perhaps, cause the death of all your friends!"

"Is it possible!" cried the chapfallen doctor, without noticing the somewhat rough manner in which the hunter shook him.

"You were charged with a message of life and death, fool that you are! Now, what is to be done? Perhaps it is too late!"

"Oh! do not say so," said the savant, in great agitation, "I should die with despair if it were so."

The poor man burst into tears, and gave unequivocal proofs of the greatest grief.

Black Elk was obliged to console him.

"Come, come, courage, my good sir!" he said, softening a little. "What the devil, perhaps all is not lost?"

"Oh! if I were the cause of such a misfortune, I should never survive it!"

"Well, what is done, is done; we must act accordingly," said the trapper philosophically. "I will think how they are to be assisted. Thanks be to God, I am not so much alone as might be supposed – I hope within two hours to have got together thirty of the best rifles in the prairies."

"You will save them, will you not?"

"At least, I will do all that can be done, and, if it please God, I shall succeed."

"May Heaven hear you!"

"Amen!" said the hunter, crossing himself devoutly. "Now, listen to me; you must return to the camp."

"Immediately!"

"But no more gathering of flowers, or pulling up of grass, if you please."

"Oh, I swear I will not. Cursed be the hour in which I set myself to herbalize!" said the doctor, with comic despair.

"Very well, that's agreed. You must comfort the young lady as well as her uncle; you must recommend them to keep good guard, and, in case of an attack, to make a vigorous resistance; and tell them they shall soon see friends come to their assistance."

"I will tell them all that."

"To horse, then, and gallop all the way to the camp."

"Be satisfied, I will; but you, what are you going to do?"

"Oh! don't trouble yourself about me. I shall not be idle; all you have to do is to rejoin your friends as soon as possible."

"Within an hour I shall be with them."

"Courage and good luck, then! Above all, don't despair."

Black Elk let go the bridle which he had seized, and the doctor set off at a gallop, a pace to which the good man was so little accustomed, that he had great trouble to preserve his equilibrium.

The trapper watched his departure for an instant, then, turning round, he strode with hasty steps into the forest.

He had scarcely walked ten minutes when he met Nô Eusebio, who was conveying the mother of Loyal Heart across his saddle, in a fainting state.

This meeting was for the trapper a piece of good fortune, of which he took advantage to obtain from the old Spaniard some positive information about the hunter – information which Eusebio hastened to give him.

The two men then repaired to the hatto of the trapper, from which they were but a short distance, and in which they wished to place the mother of their friend for the present.