They Seemed By No Means To Relish This Foretaste Of What Was Before
Them.
Mine, in particular, had conceived a moral aversion to the
prairie life.
One of them, christened Hendrick, an animal whose
strength and hardihood were his only merits, and who yielded to
nothing but the cogent arguments of the whip, looked toward us with
an indignant countenance, as if he meditated avenging his wrongs with
a kick. The other, Pontiac, a good horse, though of plebeian
lineage, stood with his head drooping and his mane hanging about his
eyes, with the grieved and sulky air of a lubberly boy sent off to
school. Poor Pontiac! his forebodings were but too just; for when I
last heard from him, he was under the lash of an Ogallalla brave, on
a war party against the Crows.
As it grew dark, and the voices of the whip-poor-wills succeeded the
whistle of the quails, we removed our saddles to the tent, to serve
as pillows, spread our blankets upon the ground, and prepared to
bivouac for the first time that season. Each man selected the place
in the tent which he was to occupy for the journey. To Delorier,
however, was assigned the cart, into which he could creep in wet
weather, and find a much better shelter than his bourgeois enjoyed in
the tent.
The river Kansas at this point forms the boundary line between the
country of the Shawanoes and that of the Delawares. We crossed it on
the following day, rafting over our horses and equipage with much
difficulty, and unloading our cart in order to make our way up the
steep ascent on the farther bank. It was a Sunday moming; warm,
tranquil and bright; and a perfect stillness reigned over the rough
inclosures and neglected fields of the Delawares, except the
ceaseless hum and chirruping of myriads of insects. Now and then, an
Indian rode past on his way to the meeting-house, or through the
dilapidated entrance of some shattered log-house an old woman might
be discerned, enjoying all the luxury of idleness. There was no
village bell, for the Delawares have none; and yet upon that forlorn
and rude settlement was the same spirit of Sabbath repose and
tranquillity as in some little New England village among the
mountains of New Hampshire or the Vermont woods.
Having at present no leisure for such reflections, we pursued our
journey. A military road led from this point to Fort Leavenworth,
and for many miles the farms and cabins of the Delawares were
scattered at short intervals on either hand. The little rude
structures of logs, erected usually on the borders of a tract of
woods, made a picturesque feature in the landscape. But the scenery
needed no foreign aid. Nature had done enough for it; and the
alteration of rich green prairies and groves that stood in clusters
or lined the banks of the numerous little streams, had all the
softened and polished beauty of a region that has been for centuries
under the hand of man. At that early season, too, it was in the
height of its freshness and luxuriance. The woods were flushed with
the red buds of the maple; there were frequent flowering shrubs
unknown in the east; and the green swells of the prairies were
thickly studded with blossoms.
Encamping near a spring by the side of a hill, we resumed our journey
in the morning, and early in the afternoon had arrived within a few
miles of Fort Leavenworth. The road crossed a stream densely
bordered with trees, and running in the bottom of a deep woody
hollow. We were about to descend into it, when a wild and confused
procession appeared, passing through the water below, and coming up
the steep ascent toward us. We stopped to let them pass. They were
Delawares, just returned from a hunting expedition. All, both men
and women, were mounted on horseback, and drove along with them a
considerable number of pack mules, laden with the furs they had
taken, together with the buffalo robes, kettles, and other articles
of their traveling equipment, which as well as their clothing and
their weapons, had a worn and dingy aspect, as if they had seen hard
service of late. At the rear of the party was an old man, who, as he
came up, stopped his horse to speak to us. He rode a little tough
shaggy pony, with mane and tail well knotted with burrs, and a rusty
Spanish bit in its mouth, to which, by way of reins, was attached a
string of raw hide. His saddle, robbed probably from a Mexican, had
no covering, being merely a tree of the Spanish form, with a piece of
grizzly bear's skin laid over it, a pair of rude wooden stirrups
attached, and in the absence of girth, a thong of hide passing around
the horse's belly. The rider's dark features and keen snaky eyes
were unequivocally Indian. He wore a buckskin frock, which, like his
fringed leggings, was well polished and blackened by grease and long
service; and an old handkerchief was tied around his head. Resting
on the saddle before him lay his rifle; a weapon in the use of which
the Delawares are skillful; though from its weight, the distant
prairie Indians are too lazy to carry it.
"Who's your chief?" he immediately inquired.
Henry Chatillon pointed to us. The old Delaware fixed his eyes
intently upon us for a moment, and then sententiously remarked:
"No good! Too young!" With this flattering comment he left us, and
rode after his people.
This tribe, the Delawares, once the peaceful allies of William Penn,
the tributaries of the conquering Iroquois, are now the most
adventurous and dreaded warriors upon the prairies. They make war
upon remote tribes the very names of which were unknown to their
fathers in their ancient seats in Pennsylvania; and they push these
new quarrels with true Indian rancor, sending out their little war
parties as far as the Rocky Mountains, and into the Mexican
territories.
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