In The Morning I Found, To My Great Disgust, That The Camp Was To
Retain Its Position For Another Day.
I dreaded its languor and
monotony, and to escape it, I set out to explore the surrounding
mountains.
I was accompanied by a faithful friend, my rifle, the
only friend indeed on whose prompt assistance in time of trouble I
could implicitly rely. Most of the Indians in the village, it is
true, professed good-will toward the whites, but the experience of
others and my own observation had taught me the extreme folly of
confidence, and the utter impossibility of foreseeing to what sudden
acts the strange unbridled impulses of an Indian may urge him. When
among this people danger is never so near as when you are unprepared
for it, never so remote as when you are armed and on the alert to
meet it any moment. Nothing offers so strong a temptation to their
ferocious instincts as the appearance of timidity, weakness, or
security.
Many deep and gloomy gorges, choked with trees and bushes, opened
from the sides of the hills, which were shaggy with forests wherever
the rocks permitted vegetation to spring. A great number of Indians
were stalking along the edges of the woods, and boys were whooping
and laughing on the mountain-sides, practicing eye and hand, and
indulging their destructive propensities by following birds and small
animals and killing them with their little bows and arrows. There
was one glen, stretching up between steep cliffs far into the bosom
of the mountain. I began to ascend along its bottom, pushing my way
onward among the rocks, trees, and bushes that obstructed it. A
slender thread of water trickled along its center, which since
issuing from the heart of its native rock could scarcely have been
warmed or gladdened by a ray of sunshine. After advancing for some
time, I conceived myself to be entirely alone; but coming to a part
of the glen in a great measure free of trees and undergrowth, I saw
at some distance the black head and red shoulders of an Indian among
the bushes above. The reader need not prepare himself for a
startling adventure, for I have none to relate. The head and
shoulders belonged to Mene-Seela, my best friend in the village. As
I had approached noiselessly with my moccasined feet, the old man was
quite unconscious of my presence; and turning to a point where I
could gain an unobstructed view of him, I saw him seated alone,
immovable as a statue, among the rocks and trees. His face was
turned upward, and his eyes seemed riveted on a pine tree springing
from a cleft in the precipice above. The crest of the pine was
swaying to and fro in the wind, and its long limbs waved slowly up
and down, as if the tree had life. Looking for a while at the old
man, I was satisfied that he was engaged in an act of worship or
prayer, or communion of some kind with a supernatural being.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 172 of 251
Words from 88166 to 88679
of 129303
