Part 27 (1/2)
Captain Finn's hospitality was not, however, so heavily taxed, for during the day a flotilla of fifteen canoes stopped before the plantation, and a dozen of French traders came up to the house. They were intimate friends of the captain, who had known them for a long time, and it fortunately happened that they were proceeding with goods to purchase the furs of the p.a.w.nee Picts. They offered a pa.s.sage to Gabriel and Roche, who, of course, accepted the welcome proposition.
They embarked their saddles with sundry provisions, which the good Mrs.
Finn forced upon them, while her hospitable husband, unknown to them, put into the canoes a bale of such articles as he thought would be useful to them during their long journey. The gift, as I afterwards learned, was composed of pistols and holsters, a small keg of powder, bars of lead, new bits and stirrups, and of four Mackinaw blankets.
At last the moment arrived when I was to part with my friends. I felt a bitter pang, and I wept when I found myself alone. However, I consoled myself with the reflection that our separation was not to be a long one, and, cheered up by the captain, I soon overcame the bitterness of the separation. Yet, for months afterwards, I felt lonely and tired of myself; I had never had an idea how painful it is to part from the only few individuals who are attached to you. My worthy host showed much interest in my welfare. As he had some business to transact at the Land Office in the Arkansas, he resolved that he would accompany me two or three days on my journey. Five days after the departure of Gabriel and Roche, we crossed the Red River, and soon arrived at Was.h.i.+ngton, the only place of any importance in the west of Arkansas.
From Was.h.i.+ngton to Little Rock, the capital of the state, there is a mail-road, with farms at every fifteen or twenty miles; but the captain informed me they were inhabited by the refuse from other states, and that west of the Mississippi (except in Louisiana and Missouri) it was always safer to travel through the wilderness, and camp out. We accordingly took the back-wood trail, across a hilly and romantic country, entirely mineral, and full of extinct volcanoes. The quant.i.ty of game found in these parts is incredible; every ten minutes we would start a band of some twenty turkeys. At all times, deer were seen grazing within rifle-shot, and I don't think that, on our first day's journey over the hills, we met less than twenty bears.
Independent of his love for the wilderness, and his hatred of bowie-knife men, Captain Finn had another reason for not following the mail-road. He had business to transact at the celebrated hot springs, and he had to call on his way upon one of his brothers in-law, a son of Boone, and a mighty hunter, who had settled in the very heart of the mountains, and who made it a rule to take a trip every spring to the Rocky Mountains. The second day, at noon, after a toilsome ascent of a few thousand feet, we arrived at a small clearing on the top of the mountains, where the barking of the dogs and the crowing of the fowls announced the vicinity of a habitation, and, ere many minutes had elapsed, we heard the sharp report of a rifle.
”Young Boone's own, I declare,” exclaimed Finn; ”'twas I that gave him the tool. I should know its crack amidst a thousand. Now mark me, chief, Boone never misses; he has killed a deer or a bear; if the first, search for a hole between the fifth and sixth rib; if a bear, look in the eye.
At all events, the young chap is a capital cook, and we arrive in good time. Did I not-say so? By all the alligators in the swamps! Eh, Boone, my boy, how fares it with ye?”
We had by this time arrived at the spot where the buck lay dead, and near the body was standing the gaunt form of a man, about forty years old, dressed in tanned leather, and standing six feet nine in his moca.s.sins. Though we were within a yard of him, he reloaded his rifle with imperturbable gravity, and it was only when he had finished that job that I could perceive his grim features beaming with a smile.
”Welcome, old boy; welcome, stranger; twice welcome to the hunter's home. I knew somebody was coming, because I saw the pigeons were flying up from the valley below; and as dried venison won't do after a morning trip, why, I took the rifle to kill a beast out of my _flock_” The hunter grinned at his conceit. ”You see,” he continued, ”this place of mine is a genuine spot for a hunter. Every morning, from my threshold, I can shoot a deer, a bear, or a turkey. I can't abide living in a country where an honest man must toil a whole day for a mouthful of meat; it would never do for me. Down Blackey, down Judith, down dogs. Old boy, take the scalping-knife and skin the beast under the red oak.”
This second part of the sentence was addressed to a young lad of sixteen, an inmate of the hunter's cabin; and the dogs, having come to the conclusion that we were not robbers, allowed us to dismount our horses. The cabin was certainly the _ne plus ultra_ of simplicity, and yet it was comfortable. Four square logs supported a board--it was the table; many more were used _fauteuils_; and buffalo and bear hides, rolled in a corner of the room, were the bedding. A stone jug, two tin cups, and a large boiler completed the furniture of the cabin. There was no chimney: all the cooking was done outside. In due time we feasted upon the hunter's spoil, and, by way of pa.s.sing the time, Boone related to us his first grizzly bear expedition.
While a very young man, he had gone to the great mountains of the West with a party of trappers. His great strength and dexterity in handling the axe, and the deadly precision of his aim with the rifle, had given him a reputation among his companions, and yet they were always talking to him as if he were a boy, because he had not yet followed the Red-skins on the war-path, nor fought a grizzly bear, which deed is considered quite as honourable and more perilous.
Young Boone waited patiently for an opportunity, when one day he witnessed a terrible conflict, in which one of these huge monsters, although wounded by twenty b.a.l.l.s, was so closely pursuing the trappers, his companions, that they were compelled to seek their safety by plunging into the very middle of a broad river. There, fortunately, the strength of the animal failed, and the stream rolled him away. It had been a terrible fight, and for many days the young man would shudder at the recollection; but he could no longer bear the taunts which were bestowed upon him, and, without announcing his intention to his companions, he resolved to leave them and bring back with him the claws of a grizzly bear, or die in the attempt. For two days he watched in the pa.s.ses of the mountains, till he discovered, behind some bushes, the mouth of a dark cave, under a ma.s.s of rocks. The stench which proceeded from it and the marks at the entrance were sufficient to point out to the hunter that it contained the object of his search; but, as the sun had set, he reflected that the beast was to a certainty awake, and most probably out in search of prey. Boone climbed up a tree, from which he could watch the entrance of the cave; having secured himself and his rifle against a fall, by thongs of leather, with which a hunter is always provided, fatigue overpowered him, and he slept.
At morn he was awakened by a growl and a rustling noise below; it was the bear dragging to his abode the carcase of a buck. When he thought that the animal was glutted with flesh, and sleeping, Boone descended the tree, and, leaning his rifle against the rock, he crawled into the cave to reconnoitre. It must have been a terrible moment; but he had made up his mind, and he possessed all the courage of his father: the cave was s.p.a.cious and dark. The heavy grunt of the animal showed that he was asleep.
By degrees, the vision of Boone became more clear, and he perceived the s.h.a.ggy ma.s.s at about ten feet from him and about twenty yards from the entrance of the cave. The ground under him yielded to his weight, for it was deeply covered with the bones of animals, and more than once he thought himself lost, when rats, snakes, and other reptiles, disturbed by him from their meal, would start away, in every direction, with loud hissing and other noises. The brute, however, never awoke, and Boone, having finished his survey, crawled out from this horrid den to prepare for the attack.
He first cut a piece of pitch-pine, six or seven feet long, then, taking from his pouch a small cake of bees-wax, he wrapped it round one end of the stick, giving it at the extremity the shape of a small cup, to hold some whisky. This done, he re-entered the cavern, turned to his left, fixed his new kind of flambeau upright against the wall, poured the liquor in the wax cup, and then went out again to procure fire. With the remainder of his wax and a piece of cotton twine, he made a small taper, which he lighted, and crawled in again over the bones, shading his light with one hand, till he had applied the flame to the whisky. The liquor was above proof, and as Boone returned and took up his position nearer the entrance, with his rifle, it threw up a vivid flame, which soon ignited the wax and the pitch-pine itself.
The bear required something more than light to awake him from his almost lethargic sleep, and Boone threw bone after bone at him, till the brute woke up, growled with astonishment at the unusual sight before him, and advanced lazily to examine it. The young man had caught up his rifle by the barrel; he took a long and steady aim, as he knew that he must die if the bear was only wounded; and as the angry animal raised his paw to strike down the obnoxious torch, he fired. There was a heavy fall, a groan and a struggle,--the light was extinguished, and all was dark as before. The next morning Boone rejoined his companions as they were taking their morning meal, and, throwing at their feet his bleeding trophies, he said to them, ”Now, who will dare to say that I am not a man?”
The history of this bold deed spread in a short time to even the remotest tribes of the North, and when, years afterwards, Boone fell a prisoner to the Black-feet Indians, they restored him to liberty and loaded him with presents, saying that they could not hurt the great brave who had vanquished in his own den the evil spirit of the mountains.
At another time, Boone, when hardly pressed by a party of the Flat-head Indians, fell into a crevice and broke the b.u.t.t of his rifle. He was safe, however, from immediate danger; at least he thought so, and resolved he would remain where he was till his pursuers should abandon their search. On examining the place which had afforded him so opportune a refuge, he perceived it was a s.p.a.cious natural cave, having no other entrance than the hole or aperture through which he had fallen. He thanked Providence for this fortunate discovery, as, for the future, he would have a safe place to conceal his skins and provisions while trapping; but as he was prosecuting his search, he perceived with dismay that the cave was already inhabited.
In a corner he perceived two jaguars, which followed his movements with glaring eyes. A single glance satisfied him they were cubs; but a maddening thought shot across his brain; the mother was out, probably not far; she might return in a moment, and he had no arms, except his knife and the barrel of his broken rifle. While musing upon his perilous situation, he heard a roar, which summoned all his energy; he rolled a loose ma.s.s of rock to the entrance; made it as firm as he could, by backing it with other stones; tied his knife to the end of his rifle-barrel, and calmly waited for the issue. A minute pa.s.sed, when a tremendous jaguar dashed against the rock, and Boone needed all his giant's strength to prevent it from giving way.
Perceiving that main force could not clear the pa.s.sage, the animal began scratching and digging at the entrance, and its hideous roars were soon responded to by the cubs, which threw themselves upon Boone. He kicked them away, but not without receiving several ugly scratches, and, thrusting the blade of his knife through the opening between the large stone and the solid rock, he broke it in the shoulder of the female jaguar, which, with a yell, started away. This respite was fortunate, as by this time Boone's strength was exhausted; he profited by the suspension of hostility, so as to increase the impediments, in case of a new attack; and reflecting that the mewings of the cubs attracted and enraged the mother, he knocked their brains out with the barrel of his rifle. During two hours he was left to repose himself after his exertions, and he was beginning to think the animal had been scared away, when another terrible bound against the ma.s.sive stone forced it a few inches into the cave. For an hour he struggled, till the jaguar, itself tired, and not hearing the mewings of her cubs, retired with a piteous howl.
Night came, and Boone began to despond. Leaving the cave was out of question, for the brute was undoubtedly watching for him; and yet remaining was almost as dangerous, as long watching and continual exertion weighed down his eyelids and rendered sleep imperative. He decided to remain where he was, and after another hour of labour in fortifying the entrance, he lay down to sleep, with the barrel of his rifle close to him, in case of attack.
He had slept about three or four hours, when he was awakened by a noise close to his head. The moon was s.h.i.+ning, and shot her beams through the crevices at the mouth of the cave. A foreboding of danger would not allow Boone to sleep any more; he was watching with intense anxiety, when he observed several of the smaller stones he had placed round the piece of rock rolling towards him, and that the rays of light streaming into the cave were occasionally darkened by some interposed body. It was the jaguar, which had been undermining the rock: one after the other, the stones gave way; Boone rose, grasped his heavy rifle-barrel, and determined to await the attack of the animal.
In a second or two, the heavy stone rolled a few feet into the cave; the jaguar advanced her head, then her shoulders, and at last, a noiseless bound brought her within four feet of Boone, who at that critical moment collecting all his strength for a decisive blow, dashed her skull to atoms. Boone, quite exhausted, drank some of her blood to allay his thirst, pillowed his head upon her body, and fell into a deep sleep.
The next morning Boone, after having made a good meal off one of the cubs, started to rejoin his companions, and communicated to them his adventure and discovery. A short time afterwards, the cave was stored with all the articles necessary to a trapper's life, and soon became the rendezvous of all the adventurous men from the banks of the river Platte to the sh.o.r.es of the Great Salt Lake.
Since Boone had settled in his present abode, he had had a hand-to-hand fight with a black bear, in the very room where we were sitting. When he had built his log cabin, it was with the intention of taking to himself a wife. At that time he courted the daughter of one of the old Arkansas settlers, and he wished to have ”a place and a crop on foot” before he married. The girl was killed by the fall of a tree, and Boone, in his sorrow, sent away the men whom he had hired to help him in ”turning his field,” for he wished to be alone.