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

CHAPTER XI.
THE BARGAIN

Indians and wood rangers have two languages, of which they make use by turns, according to circumstances – spoken language, and the language of gestures.

Like the spoken language, the language of signs has, in America, infinite fluctuations; everyone, so to say, invents his own. It is a compound of strange and mysterious gestures, a kind of masonic telegraph, the signs of which, varying at will, are only comprehensible to a small number of adepts.

The Babbler and his companion were conversing in signs.

This singular conversation lasted nearly an hour; it appeared to interest the speakers warmly; so warmly, indeed, that they did not remark, in spite of all the precautions they had taken not to be surprised, two fiery eyes that, from the middle of a tuft of underwood, were fixed upon them with strange intenseness.

At length the Babbler, risking the utterance of a few words, said, "I await your good pleasure."

"And you shall not wait it long," the other replied.

"I depend upon you, Kennedy; for my part, I have fulfilled my promise."

"That's well! that's well! We don't require many words to come to an understanding," said Kennedy, shrugging his shoulders; "only you need not have conducted them to so strong a position – it will not be very easy to surprise them."

"That's your concern," said the Babbler, with an evil smile.

His companion looked at him for a moment with great attention.

"Hum," said he; "beware, compadre, it is almost always awkward to play a double game with men like us."

"I am playing no double game; but I think you and I have known each other a pretty considerable time, Kennedy, have we not?"

"What follows?"

"What follows? Well! I am not disposed that a thing should happen to me again that has happened before, that's all."

"Do you draw back, or are you thinking about betraying us?"

"I do not draw back, and I have not the least intention of betraying you, only – "

"Only?" the other repeated.

"This time I will not give up to you what I have promised till my conditions have been agreed to pretty plainly; if not, no – "

"Well, at least that's frank."

"People should speak plainly in business affairs," the Babbler observed, shaking his head.

"That's true! Well, come, repeat the conditions; I will see if we can accept them."

"What's the good of that? You are not the principal chief, are you?"

"No: – but – yet – "

"You could pledge yourself to nothing – so it's of no use. If Waktehno – he who kills – were here now, it would be quite another thing. He and I should soon understand one another."

"Speak then, he is listening to you," said a strong, sonorous voice.

There was a movement in the bushes, and the personage who, up to that moment, had remained an invisible hearer of the conversation of the two men, judged, without doubt, that the time to take a part in it was arrived, for, with a bound, he sprang out of the bushes that had concealed him, and placed himself between the speakers.

"Oh! oh! you were listening to us, Captain Waktehno, were you?" said the Babbler without being the least discomposed.

"Is that unpleasant to you?" the newcomer asked, with an ironical smile.

"Oh! not the least in the world."

"Continue, then, my worthy friend – I am all ears."

"Well," said the guide, "it will, perhaps, be better so."

"Go on, then – speak; I attend to you."

The personage to whom the Babbler gave the terrible Indian name of Waktehno was a man of pure white race, thirty years of age, of lofty stature, and well proportioned, handsome in appearance, and wearing with a certain dashing carelessness the picturesque costume of the wood rangers. His features were noble, strongly marked, and impressed with that loyal and haughty expression so often met with among men accustomed to the rude, free life of the prairies.

He fixed his large, black, brilliant eyes upon the Babbler, a mysterious smile curled his lips, and he leant carelessly upon his rifle whilst listening to the guide.

"If I cause the people I am paid to escort and conduct to fall into your hands, you may depend upon it I will not do so unless I am amply recompensed," said the bandit.

"That is but fair," Kennedy remarked; "and the captain is ready to assure your being so recompensed."

"Yes," said the other, nodding his head in sign of agreement.

"Very well," the guide resumed. "But what will be my recompense?"

"What do you ask?" the captain said. "We must know what your conditions are before we agree to satisfy them."

"Oh! my terms are very moderate."

"Well, but what are they?"

The guide hesitated, or, rather, he calculated mentally the chances of gain and loss the affair offered; then in an instant, he replied:

"These Mexicans are very rich."

"Probably," said the captain.

"Therefore it appears to me – "

"Speak without tergiversation, Babbler; we have not time to listen to your circumlocutions. Like all half-bloods, the Indian nature always prevails in you, and you never come frankly to the purpose."

"Well, then," the guide bluntly replied, "I will have five thousand duros, or nothing shall be done."

"For once you speak out; now we know what we have to trust to; you demand five thousand dollars?"

"I do."

"And for that sum you agree to deliver up to us, the general, his niece, and all the individuals who accompany them."

"At your first signal."

"Very well! Now listen to what I am going to say to you."

"I listen."

"You know me, do you not?"

"Perfectly."

"You know dependence is to be placed upon my word?"

"It is as good as gold."

"That's well. If you loyally fulfil the engagements you freely make with me, that is to say, deliver up to me, not all the Mexicans who comprise your caravan, very respectable people no doubt, but for whom I care very little, but only the girl, called, I think, Doña Luz, I will not give you five thousand dollars as you ask, but eight thousand – you understand me, do you not?"

The eyes of the guide sparkled with greediness and cupidity.

"Yes!" he said emphatically.

"That's well."

"But it will be a difficult matter to draw her out of the camp alone."

"That's your affair."

"I should prefer giving them all up in a lump."

"Go to the devil! What could I do with them?"

"Hum! what will the general say?"

"What he likes; that is nothing to me. Yes or no – do you accept the offer I make you?"

"Oh! I accept it."

"Do you swear to be faithful to your engagements?"

"I swear."

"Now then, how long does the general reckon upon remaining in this new encampment?"

"Ten days."

"Why, then, did you tell me that you did not know how to draw the young girl out, having so much time before you?"

"Hum! I did not know when you would require her to be delivered up to you?"

"That's true. Well, I give you nine days; that is to say, on the eve of their departure the young girl must be given up to me."

"Oh! in that way – "

"Then that arrangement suits you?"

"It could not be better."

"Is it agreed?"

"Irrevocably."

"Here, then, Babbler," said the captain, giving the guide a magnificent diamond pin which he wore in his hunting shirt, "here is my earnest."

"Oh!" the bandit exclaimed, seizing the jewel joyfully.

"That pin," said the captain, "is a present I make you in addition to the eight thousand dollars I will hand over to you on receiving Doña Luz."

"You are noble and generous, captain," said the guide; "it is a pleasure to serve you."

"Still," the captain rejoined, in a rough voice, and with a look cold as a steel blade, "I would have you remember I am called he who kills; and that if you deceive me, there does not exist in the prairie a place sufficiently strong or sufficiently unknown to protect you from the terrible effects of my vengeance.

"I know that, captain," said the half-breed, shuddering in spite of himself; "but you may be quite satisfied I will not deceive you."

"I hope you will not! Now let us separate; your absence may be observed. In nine days I shall be here."

"In nine days I will place the girl in your hands."

After these words the guide returned to the camp, which he entered without being seen.

As soon as they were alone, the two men with whom the Babbler had just made this hideous and strange bargain, retreated silently among the underwood, through which they crawled like serpents.

They soon reached the banks of a little rivulet which ran, unperceived and unknown, through the forest. Kennedy whistled in a certain fashion twice.

A slight noise was heard, and a horseman, holding two horses in hand, appeared at a few paces from the spot where they had stopped.

"Come on, Frank," said Kennedy, "you may approach without fear."

The horsemen immediately advanced.

"What is there new?" Kennedy asked.

"Nothing very important," the horseman replied.

"I have discovered an Indian trail."

"Ah! ah!" said the captain, "numerous?"

"Rather so."

"In what direction?"

"It cuts the prairie from east to west."

"Well done, Frank, and who are these Indians?"

"As well as I can make out, they are Comanches."

The captain reflected a moment.

"Oh! it is some detachment of hunters," he said.

"Very likely," Frank replied.

The two men mounted.

"Frank and you, Kennedy," said the captain, at the expiration of a minute, "will go to the passage of the Buffalo, and encamp in the grotto which is there; carefully watching the movements of the Mexicans, but in such a manner as not to be discovered."

"Be satisfied of that, captain."

"Oh; I know you are very adroit and devoted comrades, therefore I perfectly rely upon you. Watch the Babbler, likewise; that half-breed only inspires me with moderate confidence."

"That shall be done!"

"Farewell, then, till we meet again. You shall soon hear of me."

Notwithstanding the darkness, the three men set off at a gallop, and were soon far in the desert, in two different directions.

CHAPTER XII.
PSYCHOLOGICAL

The general had kept the causes which made him undertake a journey into the prairies from the west of the United States so profound a secret, that the persons who accompanied him had not even a suspicion of them.

Several times already, at his command, and without any apparent reason, the caravan had encamped in regions completely desert, where he had passed a week, and sometimes a fortnight, without any apparent motive for such a halt.

In these various encampments the general would set out every morning, attended by one of the guides, and not return till evening.

What was he doing during the long hours of his absence?

For what object were these explorations made, at the end of which a greater degree of sadness darkened his countenance?

No one knew.

During these excursions, Doña Luz led a sufficiently monotonous life, isolated among the rude people who surrounded her. She passed whole days seated sadly in front of her tent, or, mounted on horseback and escorted by Captain Aguilar or the fat doctor, she took rides near the camp, without object and without interest.

It happened this time again, exactly as it had happened at the preceding stations of the caravan.

The young girl, abandoned by her uncle, and even by the doctor, who was pursuing, with increasing ardour, the great research for his imaginary plant, and set out resolutely every morning herbalizing, was reduced to the company of Captain Aguilar.

But Captain Aguilar was, we are forced to admit, although young, elegant and endowed with a certain relative intelligence, not a very amusing companion for Doña Luz.

A brave soldier, with the courage of a lion, entirely devoted to the general, to whom he owed everything, the captain entertained for the niece of his chief great attachment and respect; he watched with the utmost care over her safety, but he was completely unacquainted with the means of rendering the time shorter by those attentions and that pleasant chat which are so agreeable to girls.

This time Doña Luz did not become so ennuyée as usual. Since that terrible night – from the time that one of those fabulous heroes whose history and incredible feats she had so often read, Loyal Heart, had appeared to her to save her and those who accompanied her – a new sentiment, which she had not even thought of analyzing, had germinated in her maiden heart, had grown by degrees, and in a very few days had taken possession of her whole being.

The image of the hunter was incessantly present to her thoughts, encircled with that ennobling glory which is won by the invincible energy of the man who struggles, body to body, with some immense danger, and forces it to acknowledge his superiority. She took delight in recalling to her partial mind the different scenes of that tragedy of a few hours, in which the hunter had played the principal character.

Her implacable memory, like that of all pure young girls, retraced with incredible fidelity the smallest details of those sublime phases.

In a word, she reconstructed in her thoughts the series of events in which the hunter had mingled, and in which he had, thanks to his indomitable courage and his presence of mind, extricated in so happy a fashion those he had suddenly come to succour, at the instant when they were without hope.

The hurried manner in which the hunter had left them, disdaining the most simple thanks, and appearing even unconcerned for those he had saved, had chilled the girl; she was piqued more than can be imagined by this real or affected indifference. And, consequently, she continually revolved means to make her preserver repent that indifference, if chance should a second time bring them together.

It is well known, although it may at the first glance appear a paradox, that from hatred, or, at least, from curiosity to love, there is but one step.

Doña Luz passed it at full speed, without perceiving it.

As we have said, Doña Luz had been educated in a convent, at the gates of which the sounds of the world died away without an echo. Her youth had passed calm and colourless, in the religious, or, rather, superstitious practices, upon which in Mexico religion is built. When her uncle took her from the convent to lead her with him through the journey he meditated into the prairies, the girl was ignorant of the most simple exigences of life, and had no more idea of the outward world, in which she was so suddenly cast, than a blind man has of the effulgent splendour of the sun's beams.

This ignorance, which seconded admirably the projects of the uncle, was for the niece a stumbling block against which she twenty times a day came into collision in spite of herself.

But, thanks to the care with which the general surrounded her, the few weeks which passed away before their departure from Mexico had been spent without too much pain by the young girl.

We feel called upon, however, to notice here an incident, trifling in appearance, but which left too deep a trace in the mind of Doña Luz not to be related.

The general was actively employed in getting together the people he wanted for his expedition, and was therefore obliged to neglect his niece more than he would have wished.

As he, however, feared that the young girl would be unhappy at being left so much alone with an old duenna in the palace he occupied, in the Calle de los Plateros, he sent her frequently to spend her evenings at the house of a female relation who received a select society, and with whom his niece passed her time in a comparatively agreeable manner.

Now one evening when the assembly had been more numerous than usual, the party did not break up till late.

At the first stroke of eleven, sounded by the ancient clock of the convent of the Merced Doña Luz and her duenna, preceded by a peon carrying a torch to light them, set off on their return home, casting anxious looks, right and left, on account of the character of the streets at that time of night. They had but a short distance to go, when all at once, on turning the corner of the Calle San Agustin to enter that of Plateros, four or five men of bad appearance seemed to rise from the earth, and surrounded the two women, after having previously, by a vigorous blow, extinguished the torch carried by the peon.

To express the terror of the young lady at this unexpected apparition, is impossible.

She was so frightened that, without having the strength to utter a cry, she fell on her knees, with her hands clasped, before the bandits.

The duenna, on the contrary, sent forth deafening screams.

The Mexican bandits, all very expeditious men, had, in the shortest time possible, reduced the duenna to silence, by gagging her with her own rebozo; then, with all the calmness which these worthies bring to the exercise of their functions, assured as they are of the impunity granted to them by that justice with which they generally go halves, proceeded to plunder their victims.

The operation was shortened by the latter, for, so far from offering any resistance, they tore off their jewels in the greatest haste, and the bandits pocketed them with grins of satisfaction.

But, at the very height of this enjoyment, a sword gleamed suddenly over their heads, and two of the bandits fell to the ground, swearing and howling with fury.

Those who were left standing, enraged at this unaccustomed attack, turned to avenge their companions, and rushed all together upon the aggressor.

The latter, heedless of their numbers, made a step backwards, placed himself on guard, and prepared to give them a welcome.

But, by chance, with the change in his position, the moonlight fell upon his face. The bandits instantly drew back in terror, and promptly sheathed their machetes.

"Ah, ah!" said the stranger, with a smile of contempt, as he advanced towards them, "you recognise me, my masters, do you? By the Virgin! I am sorry for it – I was preparing to give you a rather sharp lesson. Is this the manner in which you execute my orders?"

The bandits remained silent, contrite and repentant, in appearance at least.

"Come, empty your pockets, you paltry thieves, and restore to these ladies what you have taken from them!"

Without a moment's hesitation, the thieves unbandaged the duenna, and restored the rich booty which, an instant before, they had so joyfully appropriated to themselves.

Doña Luz could not overcome her astonishment, she looked with the greatest surprise at this strange man, who possessed such authority over bandits acknowledging neither faith nor law.

"Is this really all?" he said, addressing the young lady, "are you sure you miss nothing, señora?"

"Nothing – nothing, sir!" she replied, more dead than alive, and not knowing at all what she said.

"Now, then, begone, you scoundrels," the stranger continued; "I will take upon myself to be the escort of these ladies."

The bandits did not require to be twice told; they disappeared like a flight of crows, carrying off the wounded.

As soon as he was left alone with the two women, the stranger turned towards Doña Luz —

"Permit me, señorita," he said, with refined courtesy of manner, "to offer you my arm as far as your palace; the fright you have just experienced must render your steps uncertain."

Mechanically, and without reply, the young girl placed her hand within the arm so courteously offered to her, and they moved forward.

"When they arrived at the palace, the stranger knocked at the door, and then taking off his hat, said, —

"Señorita, I am happy that chance has enabled me to render you a slight service. I shall have the honour of seeing you again. I have already, for a long time, followed your steps like your shadow. God, who has granted me the favour of an opportunity of speaking with you once, will, I feel assured, grant me a second, although, in a few days, you are to set out on a long journey. Permit me then to say not adieu, but au revoir."

After bowing humbly and gracefully to the young lady, he departed at a rapid pace.

A fortnight after this strange adventure, of which she did not think fit to speak to her uncle, Doña Luz quitted Mexico, without having again seen the unknown. Only, on the eve of her departure, when retiring to her bedchamber, she found a folded note upon her prie-dieu. In this note were the following words, written in an elegant hand: —

"You are going, Doña Luz! Remember that I told you I should see you again.

"Your preserver of the Calle de los Plateros."

For a long time this strange meeting strongly occupied the mind of the young girl; for an instant, she had even believed that Loyal Heart and her unknown preserver were the same man; but this supposition had soon faded away. What probability was there in it? With that object could Loyal Heart, after having saved her, so quickly have departed? That would have been absurd.

But, by one of those consequences (or those inconsequences, whichever the reader pleases) of the human mind, in proportion as the affair of Mexico was effaced from her thoughts, that of Loyal Heart, became more prominent.

She longed to see the hunter and talk with him.

Why?

She did not herself know. To see him, – to hear his voice, – to meet his look, at once so soft and so proud, – nothing else; all maidens would have done the same.

But how was she to see him again?

In reply to that question arose an impossibility, before which the poor girl dropped her head with discouragement.

And yet something at the bottom of her heart, perhaps that voice divine which in the reflections of love whispers to young girls, told her that her wish would soon be accomplished.

She hoped, then?

What for?

For some unforeseen incident, – a terrible danger, perhaps, – which might again bring them together.

True love may doubt sometimes, but it never despairs.

Four days after the establishment of the camp upon the hill, in the evening, when retiring to her tent, Doña Luz smiled inwardly as she looked at her uncle, who was pensively preparing to go to rest.

She had at length thought of a means of going in search of Loyal Heart.