The Deerslayer (Barnes & Noble Classics) - James Fenimore Cooper [274]
“Ay, have your talk, Rivenoak; make the most of your advantage. ‘Tis your right, I suppose, and I know it is your gift. On that p’int there’ll be no words atween us; for all men must and ought to follow their gifts. Howsever, when your women begin to ta‘nt and abuse me, as I suppose will soon happen, let ’em remember that if a paleface struggles for life so long as it’s lawful and manful, he knows how to loosen his hold on it, decently, when he feels that the time has come. I’m your captyve; work your will on me.”
“My brother has had a long run on the hills, and a pleasant sail on the water,” returned Rivenoak, more mildly, smiling at the same time, in a way that his listener knew denoted pacific intentions. “He has seen the woods; he has seen the water; which does he like best? Perhaps he has seen enough to change his mind and make him hear reason.”
“Speak out, Huron. Something is in your thoughts, and the sooner it is said, the sooner you’ll get my answer.”
“That is straight! There is no turning in the talk of my paleface friend, though he is a fox in running. I will speak to him; his ears are now open wider than before, and his eyes are not shut. The Sumach is poorer than ever. Once she had a brother and a husband. She had children too. The time came, and the husband started for the happy hunting-grounds, without saying farewell; he left her alone with his children. This he could not help, or he would not have done it; Le Loup Cervier was a good husband. It was pleasant to see the venison, and wild ducks, and geese, and bear’s meat, that hung in his lodge, in winter. It is now gone; it will not keep in warm weather. Who shall bring it back again? Some thought the brother would not forget his sister, and that, next winter, he would see that the lodge should not be empty. We thought this; but the Panther yelled, and followed the husband on the path of death. They are now trying which shall first reach the happy hunting-grounds. Some think the Lynx can run fastest, and some think the Panther can jump the farthest. The Sumach thinks both will travel so fast and so far, that neither will ever come back. Who shall feed her and her young? The man who told her husband and her brother to quit her lodge, that there might be room for him to come into it. He is a great hunter, and we know that the woman will never want.”
“Ay, Huron, this is soon settled, accordin’ to your notions; but it goes sorely ag’in the grain of a white man’s feelin’s. I’ve heard of men’s saving their lives thisaway, and I’ve know’d them that would prefer death to such a sort of captivity. For my part, I do not seek my ind; nor do I seek matrimony.”
“The paleface will think of this while my people get ready for the council. He will be told what will happen. Let him remember how hard it is to lose a husband and a brother. Go: when we want him, the name of Deerslayer will be called.”
This conversation had been held with no one near but the speakers. Of all the band that had so lately thronged the place, Rivenoak alone was visible. The rest seemed to have totally abandoned the spot. Even the furniture, clothes, arms, and other property of the camp had entirely disappeared, and the place bore no other proofs of the crowd that had so lately occupied it, than the traces of their fires and resting places, and the trodden earth that still showed the marks of their feet. So sudden and unexpected a change caused Deerslayer a good deal of surprise and some uneasiness, for he had never known it to occur in the course of his experience among the Delawares. He suspected, however, and rightly, that a change of encampment was intended, and that the mystery of the movement was resorted to in order to work on his apprehensions.
Rivenoak walked up the vista of trees, as soon as he ceased speaking, leaving Deerslayer by himself. The chief disappeared behind the covers of the forest, and one unpracticed in such scenes might have believed the prisoner left to the dictates of his