American fiction -- 19th century; Historical fiction; Indians of North America -- Fiction
“My brother sees his young men,” said le Bourdon, quietly, the instant a
dead calm had succeeded to the outcries with which he had been greeted.
“I thought he might wish to say something to them, and my bees told me
where to find them. Does my brother wish to know anything else?”
Great was the wonder of the three chiefs, at this exhibition of medicine
power! So far from suspecting the truth, or of detecting the lucky
coincidence by which le Bourdon had been led to the cover of their
warriors, it all appeared to them to be pure necromancy. Such an art
must be of great service; and how useful it would be to the warrior on
his path, to be accompanied by one who could thus command the vigilance
of the bees.
“You find enemy all same as friend?” demanded Peter, letting out the
thought that was uppermost, in the question.
“To be sure. It makes no difference with a bee; he can find an enemy as
easily as he can find a friend.'
“No whiskey-spring dis time?” put in Crowsfeather, a little
inopportunely, and with a distrust painted in his swarthy face that le
Bourdon did not like.
“Pottawattamie, you do not understand medicine-men. OUGHT I to have
shown your young men where whiskey was to be had for nothing? Ask
yourself that question. Did you wish to see your young men wallowing
like hogs in such a spring? What would the great medicine-priest of the
pale-faces, who is out yonder, have said to THAT?”
This was a coup de maitre on the part of the bee-hunter. Until that
moment, the affair of the whiskey-spring had weighed heavily in the
balance against him; but now, it was suddenly changed over in the
scales, and told as strongly in his favor. Even a savage can understand
the morality which teaches men to preserve their reason, and not to
lower themselves to the level of brutes, by swallowing “fire-water”; and
Crowsfeather suddenly saw a motive for regarding our hero with the eyes
of favor, instead of those of distrust and dislike.
“What the pale-face says is true,” observed Peter to his companion. “Had
he opened his spring, your warrior would have been weaker than women. He
is a wonderful medicine-man, and we must not provoke him to anger. How
COULD he know, but through his bees, that our young men were here?”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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