CHAPTER I
A HUNTING ENCAMPMENT

America is the land of prodigies! Everything there assumes gigantic proportions, which startle the imagination and confound the reason. Mountains, rivers, lakes and streams, all are carved on a sublime pattern.

There is a river of North America – not like the Danube, Rhine, or Rhone, whose banks are covered with towns, plantations, and time-worn castles: whose sources and tributaries are magnificent streams, the waters of which, confined in a narrow bed, rush onwards as if impatient to lose themselves in the ocean – but deep and silent, wide as an arm of the sea, calm and severe in its grandeur, it pours majestically onwards, its waters augmented by innumerable streams, and lazily bathes the banks of a thousand isles, which it has formed of its own sediment.

These isles, covered with tall thickets, exhale a sharp or delicious perfume which the breeze bears far away. Nothing disturbs their solitude, save the gentle and plaintive appeal of the dove, or the hoarse and strident voice of the tiger, as it sports beneath the shade.

At certain spots, trees that have fallen through old age, or have been uprooted by the hurricane, collect on its waters; then, attached by creepers and concealed by mud, these fragments of forests become floating islands. Young shrubs take root upon them: the petunia and nenuphar expand here and there their yellow roses; serpents, birds, and caimans come to sport and rest on these verdurous rafts, and are with them swallowed up in the ocean.

This river has no name! Others in the same zone are called Nebraska, Platte, Missouri; but this is simply the Mecha-Chebe the old father of waters, the river before all! the Mississippi in a word!

Vast and incomprehensible as is infinity, full of secret terrors, like the Ganges and Irrawaddy, it is the type of fecundity, immensity, and eternity to the numerous Indian nations that inhabit its banks.

Three men were seated on the bank of the river, a little below its confluence with the Missouri, and were breakfasting on a slice of roast elk, while gaily chatting together.

The spot where they were seated was remarkably picturesque. The bank of the river was formed of small mounds, enamelled with flowers. The strangers had selected for their halt the top of the highest mound, whence the eye embraced a magnificent panorama. In the foreground, dense curtains of verdure which undulated with each breath of air: on the islands innumerable flocks of dark-winged flamingos, perched on their long legs, plovers and cardinals fluttering from bough to bough, while numerous alligators lazily wallowed in the mud. Between the islands, the silvery patches of water reflected the sunbeams. In the midst of these masses of coruscating light, fishes of every description sported on the surface of the water, and traced sparkling furrows. Further back, as far as the eye could reach, the tops of the trees that bordered the prairie, and whose dark green scarcely showed upon the horizon.

But the three men we have mentioned seemed to trouble themselves very slightly about the natural beauties that surrounded them, as they were fully engaged in appeasing a true hunter's appetite. Their meal, however, only lasted a few minutes, and when the last fragments had been devoured, one lighted his Indian pipe, the other took a cigar from his pocket. They then stretched themselves on the grass, and began digesting with that beatitude which characterizes smokers, while following with a languid eye the clouds of bluish smoke that rose in long spirals with each mouthful they puffed forth. As for the third man, he leant his back against a tree, crossed his arms, on his chest, and went to sleep most prosaically.

We will profit by this momentary repose to present these persons to our readers, and make them better acquainted with each other. The first was a Canadian half-breed, of about fifty years of age, and known by the name of "Bright-eye." His life had been entirely spent on the prairie among the Indians, all of whose tricks he was thoroughly acquainted with.

Like the majority of his countrymen he was very tall, more than six feet in height: his body was thin and angular; his limbs were knotty, but covered with muscles, hard as ropes; his bony and yellow face had a remarkable expression of frankness and joviality, and his little grey eyes sparkled with intelligence; his prominent cheekbones, his nose bent down over a wide mouth supplied with long white teeth, and his rounded chin, made up a face which was the most singular, and, at the same time, the most attractive that could be imagined.

His dress differed in no respect from that of the other wood rangers; that is to say, it was a strange medley of European and Indian fashions, generally adopted by all the white prairie hunters and trappers. His weapons consisted of a knife, a pair of pistols, and an American rifle, now lying on the grass, but within reach of his hand.

His companion was a man of thirty to thirty-two years of age at the most, but who appeared scarce twenty-five, tall, and well made. His blue eyes, limpid as a woman's, the long light curls that escaped beneath the edge of his Panama hat, and floated in disorder on his shoulders, the whiteness of his skin, which contrasted with the olive and brown complexion of the hunter, were sufficient evidence that he was not born in the hot climate of America.

In fact, this young man was a Frenchman, Charles Edward de Beaulieu, and was descended from one of the oldest families in Brittany. But, under this slightly effeminate appearance, he concealed a lion's courage which nothing could startle or even surprise. Skilled in all bodily exercises, he was also endowed with prodigious strength, and the delicate skin of his white and unstained hands, with their rosy nails, covered nerves of steel.

The Count's dress would reasonably have appeared extraordinary in a country remote from civilization to anyone who had leisure to examine it. He wore a hunting jacket of green cloth, of a French cut, and buttoned over his chest; yellow doeskin breeches, fastened by a waist belt of varnished leather; a cartouche box, and a hunting knife in a bronzed steel sheath, and with an admirably chiselled hilt: while his legs were covered by long riding boots, coming up over the knee. Like his companion, he had laid his rifle on the grass: this weapon, richly damascened, must have cost an enormous sum.

The Count de Beaulieu, whose father followed the princes into exile and served them actively, first in Condé's army and then in all the Royalist plots that were incessantly formed during the Empire, was an ultra-Royalist. Left an orphan at an early age, and possessed of an immense fortune, he was nominated a lieutenant in the Gardes du Corps. After the fall of Charles X., the Count, whose career was broken up, was assailed by a fearful despondency, and an unenviable disregard for life filled his heart. Europe became hateful to him, and he resolved to bid it an eternal farewell. After intrusting the management of his fortune to a confidential agent, the Count embarked for the United States.

But American life, narrow, paltry, and egotistic, was not made for him; for the young man understood the Americans no better than they did him. His heart was ulcerated by the meanness and trickery he saw daily committed by the descendants of the Plymouth Brethren, so he one day resolved to bury himself in the depths of the country, and visit those immense prairies whence the first lords of the soil had been driven by the cunning and treachery of their crafty despoilers.

The Count had brought with him from France an old servant of the family, whose progenitors, for many generations, had uninterruptedly served the Beaulieus. Before embarking, the Count imparted his plans to Ivon Kergollec, leaving him at liberty to remain behind or follow; the servant's choice was not long, he simply replied that his master had the right to do what he pleased without consulting him, and as it was his duty to follow his master everywhere, he should do so. Even when the Count formed the resolve of visiting the prairies, and thought it right to tell his servant his resolution, the answer was still the same. Ivon was about forty-five years of age, and was a true type of the hardy, simple, and withal crafty Breton peasant; he was short and stumpy, but his well-knit limbs and wide chest denoted immense strength. His brick-coloured face was illumined by two small eyes, which sparkled with cleverness and flashed like carbuncles.

Ivon, whose life had been spent calmly and lazily in the gilded halls of Beaulieu House, had gradually assumed the regular habits of a nobleman's lackey; having had no occasion to prove his courage, he was completely ignorant of the possession of that quality, and, although during the last few months he had been placed in many dangerous circumstances while following his master, he was still at the same point, that is to say, he completely doubted himself, and had the innate conviction that he was as cowardly as a hare; so nothing was more curious after a meeting with the Indians than to hear Ivon, who had been fighting like a lion and performing prodigies of valour, excuse himself humbly to his master for having behaved so badly, as he was not used to fighting.

It is needless to say that the Count excused him, while laughing heartily, and telling him as a consolation – for the poor fellow was very unhappy at this supposed cowardice – that the next time he would probably do better, and that he would gradually grow accustomed to this life, which was so different from that he had hitherto led. At this consolation the worthy man-servant would nod his head sorrowfully, and reply, with an accent of thorough conviction: —

"No, sir, I can never have any courage. I feel sure of it; it is a sad truth, but I am a poltroon. I am only too well aware of it."

Ivon was dressed in a complete suit of livery, though, in regard to present circumstances, he was, like his companions, armed to the teeth, and his rifle leant against the tree by his side.

Three magnificent horses, full of fire and blood, hobbled a few paces from the hunters, were carelessly browsing on the climbing peas and young tree shoots.

We have omitted to mention two peculiarities of the Count. The first was, he always carried in his right eye a gold eyeglass, fastened round his neck by means of a black ribbon; the second, that he continually wore kid gloves, which we confess, greatly to his annoyance, had now grown very dirty and torn.

And now, by what strange combination of chance were these three men, so differing in birth, habits, and education, met together some five or six hundred leagues from any civilized abode, on the banks of a river, if not unknown, at any rate hitherto unexplored, seated amicably on the grass, and sharing a breakfast which was more than frugal? We can explain this in a few words to the reader by cursorily describing a scene that occurred in the prairie about six months prior to the beginning of our narrative.

Bright-eye was a determined man, who, with the exception of the time he served the Hudson's Bay Company, had always hunted and trapped alone, despising the Indians too much to fear them, and finding in braving them that delight which the courageous man experiences, when, alone and beneath the eye of Heaven, he struggles, confiding in his own resources, against a terrible and unknown danger. The Indians knew and feared him for many a long year. Many times they had come into collision with him, and they had nearly always been compelled to retreat, leaving several of their men on the field. Hence they had sworn against the hunter one of those hearty Indian hatreds which nothing can satiate save the punishment of the man who is the object of it.

But as they knew with what sort of man they had to deal, and did not care to increase the number of the victims he had already sacrificed, they resolved to await, with the peculiar patience characteristic of their race, the propitious moment for seizing their foe, and till then confine themselves to carefully watching all his movements, so as not to lose the favourable opportunity when it presented itself.

Bright-eye at this moment was hunting on the banks of the Missouri. Knowing himself watched, and instinctively suspecting a trap, he took all the precautions suggested to him by his inventive mind and the deep knowledge he possessed of Indian tricks. One day, while exploring the banks of the river, he fancied he noticed, a slight distance ahead of him, an almost imperceptible movement in the thick brushwood. He stopped, lay down, and began crawling gently in the direction of the thicket. Suddenly the forest seemed agitated to its most unexplored depths, A swarm of Indians rose from the earth, leaped from the trees, or rushed from behind rocks; the hunter, literally buried beneath the mass of his enemies, was reduced to a state of powerlessness, before he could even make an attempt to defend himself.

Bright-eye was disarmed in a twinkling; then a chief walked up to him, and holding out his hand, said coldly —

"Let my brother rise; the Redskin warriors are waiting for him."

"Good, good," the hunter growled; "all is not over yet, Indian, and I shall have my revenge."

The chief smiled.

"My brother is like the mockingbird," he said ironically; "he speaks too much."

Bright-eye bit his lips to keep back the insult that rose to them; he got up and followed his victors. He was a prisoner to the Piékanns, the most warlike tribe of the Blackfeet; and the chief who had taken him was his personal enemy. The chief's name was Natah Otann