The Prairie by James Fenimore Cooper Page B

it was doomed to undergo. The hand
of the wandering Teton passed over the downy coat, the meek countenance,
and the slender limbs of the gentle creature, with untiring curiosity;
but he finally abandoned the prize, as useless in his predatory
expeditions, and offering too little temptation to the appetite. As
soon, however, as he found himself among the beasts of burden, his
gratification was extreme, and it was with difficulty that he restrained
the customary ejaculations of pleasure that were more than once on the
point of bursting from his lips. Here he lost sight of the hazards
by which he had gained access to his dangerous position; and the
watchfulness of the wary and long practised warrior was momentarily
forgotten in the exultation of the savage.

Chapter V
*
    Why, worthy father, what have we to lose?
—The law
    Protects us not. Then why should we be tender
To let an arrogant piece of flesh threat us!
Play judge and executioner.
—Cymbeline.
    While the Teton thus enacted his subtle and characteristic part, not a
sound broke the stillness of the surrounding prairie. The whole band
lay at their several posts, waiting, with the well-known patience of the
natives, for the signal which was to summon them to action. To the eyes
of the anxious spectators who occupied the little eminence, already
described as the position of the captives, the scene presented the
broad, solemn view of a waste, dimly lighted by the glimmering rays of
a clouded moon. The place of the encampment was marked by a gloom deeper
than that which faintly shadowed out the courses of the bottoms, and
here and there a brighter streak tinged the rolling summits of the
ridges. As for the rest, it was the deep, imposing quiet of a desert.
    But to those who so well knew how much was brooding beneath this mantle
of stillness and night, it was a scene of high and wild excitement.
Their anxiety gradually increased, as minute after minute passed away,
and not the smallest sound of life arose out of the calm and darkness
which enveloped the brake. The breathing of Paul grew louder and deeper,
and more than once Ellen trembled at she knew not what, as she felt the
quivering of his active frame, while she leaned dependently on his arm
for support.
    The shallow honesty, as well as the besetting infirmity of Weucha, have
already been exhibited. The reader, therefore, will not be surprised
to learn that he was the first to forget the regulations he had himself
imposed. It was at the precise moment when we left Mahtoree yielding to
his nearly ungovernable delight, as he surveyed the number and quality
of Ishmael's beasts of burden, that the man he had selected to watch his
captives chose to indulge in the malignant pleasure of tormenting
those it was his duty to protect. Bending his head nigh the ear of the
trapper, the savage rather muttered than whispered—
    "If the Tetons lose their great chief by the hands of the
Long-knives
[9]
, old shall die as well as young!"
    "Life is the gift of the Wahcondah," was the unmoved reply. "The
burnt-wood warrior must submit to his laws, as well as his other
children. Men only die when he chooses; and no Dahcotah can change the
hour."
    "Look!" returned the savage, thrusting the blade of his knife before the
face of his captive. "Weucha is the Wahcondah of a dog."
    The old man raised his eyes to the fierce visage of his keeper, and, for
a moment, a gleam of honest and powerful disgust shot from their deep
cells; but it instantly passed away, leaving in its place an expression
of commiseration, if not of sorrow.
    "Why should one made in the real image of God suffer his natur' to be
provoked by a mere effigy of reason?" he said in English, and in
tones much louder than those in which Weucha had chosen to pitch the
conversation. The latter profited by the unintentional offence of
his captive, and, seizing him by the thin, grey locks, that fell from
beneath his cap, was on the point of passing the blade of his knife in
malignant triumph