Gaut Gurley; Or, the Trappers of Umbagog Part 13

"He has heard me; that was my father's whistle. He has been taking a short bout in the woods with his rifle, but will now soon be here. And Mr. Elwood will wait, I know, for the chief wishes to thank the brave that rescued his daughter," said the maiden, looking inquiringly at Claud.

"Yes," replied Claud, "yes, certainly; for, even without company, I am never tired of standing on this commanding point, and looking out on this beautiful lake and its surrounding scenery."

"Ah! then you think, Mr. Elwood," exclaimed Fluella, with a countenance sparkling with animation, "you think of our woods life, like one of your great writers, whom I have read to remember, and who so prettily says:

'And this our life, exempt from public haunt, Finds tongues in trees, books in running brooks, Sermons in stones, and good in every thing.'

One would almost think this wise writer must be one of my people, he describes our ways of becoming instructed so truly; for we Indians, Mr.

Elwood, read few other books than those we see opened to us on the face of nature, or hear or read few other sermons than those in the outspread pages of the bright lake, the green woods, and the grand mountain."

"You Indians!" said Elwood, looking at the other with a playful yet half-chiding expression. "Why, Fluella, should a stranger look at your fair skin, hear you conversing so well in our language, and quoting so appropriately from our books, he would hardly believe you an Indian, I think, unless you told him."

"Then I would tell him, Mr. Elwood," responded the maiden, with dignity, and a scarcely perceptible spice of offended pride in her manner. "I _am_ one,--on my father's side, at least, wholly so; and, for the first ten or twelve years of my life, was but a child of the woods and the wigwam; and I will never shame at my origin, so far as that matters."

"But you did not learn to read in the wigwam, Fluella?" said Claud, inquiringly.

"No," replied the girl; the proud air she had a.s.sumed, while speaking of her origin, quickly subsiding into one of meekness. "No; but I supposed that Mr. Phillips, who knows, might have told you that, for many years past, I have lived much with your people, learned their ways, been to their schools, and read their books. And, in owning my natural red father, may be I should have also said, I have a good white father, who has done every thing for the poor, ignorant, Indian girl."

"But where does this good and generous white father live, and what is his name?" asked Claud.

"He lives near the seaside city," answered she, demurely; "I may say so far. But I do not name him, ever. We think it not best. But, if he comes here sometime, as he may, you shall see him, Mr. Elwood."

At this point of the dialogue, the attention of its partic.i.p.ants was arrested by the sound of breaking twigs and other indications of the near approach of some one from the forest; and, the next moment, emerging through the thick underbrush, which he parted by the muzzle of his rifle as he made his way, the expected visitant came into view. Seemingly unmindful of the presence of others near by, or of the curious and scrutinizing gaze of Claud, he advanced with a firm, elastic tread, and stately bearing, exhibiting a strong, erect frame, a large, intellectual head, and handsomely moulded features, with a countenance of a grave and thoughtful cast, but now and then enlivened by the keenly-glancing black eyes by which it was particularly distinguished. With the exception of moccasins and wampum belt, he was garbed in a good English dress; and, so far as his exterior was in question, might have easily been mistaken, at a little distance, for some amateur hunter from the cities; while, from the vigor of his movements, and other general appearance, he might have equally well pa.s.sed for a man of the middle age, had not the frosts of time, which were profusely sprinkled over his temples, and other visible parts of his head, betrayed the secret of his advanced age.

"My daughter is not alone," he said, in very fair English utterance, coming to a stand ten or twelve yards distant from the young couple.

"No" promptly replied the daughter, a.s.suming the dignified tone and att.i.tude usual among those engaged in the ceremonies of some formal presentation, or public introduction. "No, but my father will be pleased to learn that this is the Mr. Claud Elwood, who did your daughter such good service in her dangers on the rapids, and whom she has now conducted here, that he might have the opportunity to see the chief, and receive the thanks which it is more fitting for the father than the daughter to bestow."

"My daughter's words are good," said the chief. "The young brave has our thanks to last; but the Red Man's thanks are acted, the White Man's spoken.

Does the young man understand the creed of our people?"

Fluella looked at Claud as if he was the one to answer the question, and he accordingly remarked:

"I have ever heard, chief, that your people always notice a benefit done to them, and that he who does them one secures their lasting grat.i.tude."

"The young man," rejoined the chief, considerately, "has heard words that make, sometime, too much; they make true, the good-doer doing no wrong to us after. But when he takes advantage of our grat.i.tude he wipes out the debt; he does more,--he stands to be punished like one an enemy always."

The maiden here cast an uneasy glance at Claud, and a deprecating one at her father, at the unnecessary caution, as she believed it, which she perceived the latter intended to convey by his words to the former. But, to her relief, Claud did not appear as if he thought the remarks had any application to himself, for he frankly responded:

"Your distinction is a just one, chief. Your views about these matters are my own views. Your creed is a good creed, so far as the remembrance of benefits is concerned; and I wish I could see it observed as generally among my people as I believe it to be among yours. But, chief, your daughter makes too much out of my a.s.sistance, the other day. I did only a common duty,--what I should have been a coward not to have done. I have no claim for any particular grat.i.tude from her or you."

"Our grat.i.tude was strong before; the young man now makes stronger,"

remarked the other, exchanging appreciating glances with his daughter.

"No, chief," resumed Claud, "I did not come here to boast of that small service, nor claim any thanks for it, but to see a sagamore, who could give me the knowledge of the Red Man which I would like to possess; to see one who, in times gone by, was as a king in this lake country. His own history, and that of his people especially, I would like to hear. They must be full of interest and instruction to an inquirer like me. Will not the chief relate it briefly? I have leisure,--my ears are open to his words."

"Would the young man know the history of Wenongonet, alone?" said the other, with a musing and melancholy air. "It may be told easier than by words. Does the young man see on yonder hill that tall, green pine, which stands braced on the rocks, and laughs at the storms, because it is strong and not afraid?"

"I do."

"That is Wenongonet fifty winters ago. Now, does the young man see that tall, dry pine, in the quiet valley below, with a slender young tree shooting up, and tenderly spreading its green branches around that aged trunk, so it would shield its bare sides in the colds of winter, and fan its leafless head in the heats of summer?"

"Yes, I see that, also."

"That dry tree, already tottering to its fall, is Wenongonet now."

"But what is the young tree with which you have coupled it?"

"The young man has eyes," said the speaker, glancing affectionately at his blushing daughter.

"But the young man," he resumed after a thoughtful pause, "would know more of the history of the Red Men who once held the country as their own? Let him read it in the history of his own people, turned about to the opposite.

Let him call the white man's increase from a little beginning, the red man's decrease from a great,--the white man's victories, the red man's defeats,--the white man's flourishing, the red man's fading; and he will have the history of the red men, and the reasons of their sad history, in this country.

"Two hundred year-seasons ago, the Abenaques were the great nation of the east. From the sea to the mountains they were the lords of Mavoshen.

[Footnote: The name by which the Province of Maine was designated by the early voyagers, and the Indian word probably from which the present name of the State of Maine was derived.] They were a nation of warriors and a wise and active people. But, of all the four tribes--the Sokokis, the Anasquanticooks, the Kenabas, the Wawenocks--who made up this great nation, the Sokokis were the wisest and bravest. Wenongonet is proud when he thinks of them. They were his tribe. All the land that sent its waters through the Sawocotuc [Footnote: The Indian appellation of the river Saco, which is doubtless an abbreviation of the Indian name here introduced.] to the sea was theirs. They stood with their warriors at the outposts against the crowding white settlers from the west and south. They were pleased to stand there, because it was the post of danger and of honor in the nation. And there they bravely kept their stand against that wide front of war, and took the battle on themselves, till the snows of more than a hundred winters were made red by their rifles and tomahawks. But those who court death must often fall into his embrace. So with the Sokokis. They were at first a great and many people; but they wasted and fell, as time, the bringer of new and strange things, wore away, before the thick and more thick coming of their greedy and pushing foes,--by their fire-water in peace and their bullets in war, till the many became few, the great small.

What the b.l.o.o.d.y Church, with his swarm of picked warriors, had left after his four terrible comings with fire and slaughter, the bold Lovewell finished, on that black day when the great Paugus and all the flower of the tribe found red graves round their ancient stronghold and home,--their beloved Pegwacket. [Footnote: The name of a once populous Indian village, which occupied the present beautiful site of the village of Fryeburg, Me., near Lovewell's Pond, where the sanguinary conflict here alluded to occurred in 1725.] This was the last time the tribe was ever a.s.sembled as a separate people. The name of the Sokokis, at which so many pale faces had been made paler, was buried in the graves of the brave warriors who had here died to defend its glory. The feeble remnant, panic-struck and heart-broken, fled northward, and, like the withered leaves of the forest flying before the strong east wind, were scattered and swept over the mountains into Canada; all but the family of Paugus, who took their stand on these lakes, where his son, Waurumba, took the empty t.i.tle of chief and, dying, left it still more empty to Wenongonet, the last of the long line of sagamores,--the last ever to stand here to tell the young white man the story of their greatness, and the fate of their tribe."

On concluding his story, the chief turned to his daughter and significantly pointed to the lengthening shadows of the trees on the water, with a motion of his head towards their home up the lakes.

"The chief thinks," said Fluella, arousing herself from the thoughtful att.i.tude in which she had been silently listening to the conversation,--"the chief thinks it time we were on the water, on our way home. We shall have now to bid Mr. Elwood a good-evening."

So saying, she stepped lightly into the canoe and took her seat. She was immediately followed by the chief, who, quickly handling his oar, sent the light craft, with a single stroke, some rods into the lake, when, partially turning its bow towards the spot where Claud was standing on the sh.o.r.e, he said:

"Should the young man ever stray from his companions in the hunt, or find himself weary, or wet, or cold, or in want of food, when out on the borders of the Molechunk-a-munk, let him feel, and doubt not, that he will be welcome to the lodge of Wenongonet."

"And, if Mr. Elwood should be in the vicinity of our lake this fall, and _not_ happen to be in a so very sad condition, he might, perhaps, find a good welcome on calling,--so, especially, if he come before the time of the first snows," added Fluella, playfully at first, but with a slight suffusion of the cheek as she proceeded to the close.

"I thank the chief," responded Claud with a respectful bow. "And I thank you, my fair friend," he continued, turning more familiarly to Fluella. "I hope to come, some time. But why do you speak of the first snows?"

"O, the birds take wing for a warmer country about that time, and perhaps some who have not wings may be off with them," replied Fluella, in the same tone of playfulness and emotion.

A stately bow from the father, and another with a sweetly eloquent smile from the daughter, completed, on their part, the ceremonies of the adieu; when the canoe was headed round, and, by the easy and powerful paddle-strokes of the still vigorous old man, sent bounding over the waters of the gla.s.sy lake.

Slowly and thoughtfully Claud turned and took his way homeward. "Who could have expected," he soliloquized, "to witness such an exhibition of intellect and exalted tone of feeling in one of that despised race, as that proud old man displayed, in his eloquently-told story? And that daughter!

Well, what is she to me? My faith is given to another. But why feel this strange interest? Yet, after all, it is probably nothing but what any one would naturally feel in the surprise occasioned on beholding such qualities in such a place and person. No, no, it can be nothing more; and I will whistle it to the winds."

And he accordingly quickened his steps, and literally began to whistle a lively tune, by way of silencing the unbidden sensation which he felt conscious had often, since he first met this fair daughter of the wilds, been lurking within. But, though he thus resolved and reasoned the intruding feeling into nothing, yet he felt he would not like to have Avis Gurley know how often the sparkling countenance and witching smile of this new and beautiful face had been found mingling themselves with the previously exclusive images of his dreams. But, if they did so before this second interview, would they do it less now? His head resolutely answered, "Yes, less, till they are banished." His heart softly whispered, "No." And we will not antic.i.p.ate by disclosing whether head or heart was to prove the better prophet.

CHAPTER XII.

"Away! nor let me loiter in my song, For we have many a mountain path to tread, And many a varied sh.o.r.e to sail along,-- By truth and sadness, not by fiction, led."

The day agreed on, by the trappers, for starting on their expedition into the unbroken wilds around and beyond the upper lakes to the extreme reservoirs of the lordly Androscoggin, had at length arrived. All the married men belonging to the company, not having sons of their own old enough, had engaged those of their neighbors to come and remain with their families during their absence from home, which, it was thought probable, would be prolonged to nearly December. Steel-traps and rifles had been put in order, ammunition plentifully provided, and supplies of such provisions as could not be generally procured by the rifle and fish-hook in the woods and its waters, carefully laid in; and all were packed up the night previous, and in readiness for a start the next morning.