第97章

There is something peculiarly interesting in the character and habits of the mountain sheep, whose chosen retreats are above the region of vegetation and storms, and who leap among the giddy precipices of their aerial home as actively as the antelope skims over the prairies below.

Through the whole of the next morning we were moving forward, among the hills.On the following day the heights gathered around us, and the passage of the mountains began in earnest.Before the village left its camping ground, I set forward in company with the Eagle-Feather, a man of powerful frame, but of bad and sinister face.His son, a light-limbed boy, rode with us, and another Indian, named the Panther, was also of the party.Leaving the village out of sight behind us, we rode together up a rocky defile.After a while, however, the Eagle-Feather discovered in the distance some appearance of game, and set off with his son in pursuit of it, while I went forward with the Panther.This was a mere NOM DE GUERRE; for, like many Indians, he concealed his real name out of some superstitious notion.He was a very noble looking fellow.As he suffered his ornamented buffalo robe to fall into folds about his loins, his stately and graceful figure was fully displayed; and while he sat his horse in an easy attitude, the long feathers of the prairie cock fluttering from the crown of his head, he seemed the very model of a wild prairie-rider.He had not the same features as those of other Indians.Unless his handsome face greatly belied him, he was free from the jealousy, suspicion, and malignant cunning of his people.

For the most part, a civilized white man can discover but very few points of sympathy between his own nature and that of an Indian.

With every disposition to do justice to their good qualities, he must be conscious that an impassable gulf lies between him and his red brethren of the prairie.Nay, so alien to himself do they appear that, having breathed for a few months or a few weeks the air of this region, he begins to look upon them as a troublesome and dangerous species of wild beast, and, if expedient, he could shoot them with as little compunction as they themselves would experience after performing the same office upon him.Yet, in the countenance of the Panther, I gladly read that there were at least some points of sympathy between him and me.We were excellent friends, and as we rode forward together through rocky passages, deep dells, and little barren plains, he occupied himself very zealously in teaching me the Dakota language.After a while, we came to a little grassy recess, where some gooseberry bushes were growing at the foot of a rock; and these offered such temptation to my companion, that he gave over his instruction, and stopped so long to gather the fruit that before we were in motion again the van of the village came in view.An old woman appeared, leading down her pack horse among the rocks above.

Savage after savage followed, and the little dell was soon crowded with the throng.

That morning's march was one not easily to be forgotten.It led us through a sublime waste, a wilderness of mountains and pine forests, over which the spirit of loneliness and silence seemed brooding.

Above and below little could be seen but the same dark green foliage.