The Marauders of Frontiers

Antoine Crosby

Description

Today the forests have fallen; its gloomy inhabitants, gradually rejected by the civilization that persecutes them without truce or rest, have fled step by step before it; they have gone in search of safer retreats in the distance, taking their parents' bones with them lest they be unearthed and desecrated by the ruthless share of the white plow, which carves its long and productive furrow over their former homelands. hunt.

Is this continuous, incessant clearing of the American continent an evil? Not by the way; on the contrary, progress, which marches by leaps and bounds and tends to transform the soil of the New World within a century, deserves all our sympathies. Nevertheless, we cannot help feeling a feeling of painful sympathy for this unfortunate race brutally outlawed, pitilessly hemmed in on all sides, diminishing day by day and fatally doomed to disappear very soon from that land, whose immense territory, four centuries ago at the most, covered with its innumerable masses.

Sujets

• History
• Americas
• Histoire

Informations

• Publié par: eBookIt.com
• Date de parution: 14 février 2023
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781456640200
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

THE MARAUDERS OF FRONTIERS.
—BY—
ANTOINE CROSBY
Copyright © ANTOINE CROSBY

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

 
I.
The fugitive.
 
II.
Quoniam.
 
III.
Black and white.
 
IV.
The pack.
 
V.
The Deer-Black.
 
VI.
The concession.
 
VII.
Monkey face.
 
VIII.
The declaration of war.
 
IX.
The Pawnees-Serpents.
 
X
The battle.
 
XI.
The sale of the Potrero.
 
XII.
Conversation.
 
XIII.
carmela
 
XIV.
silver conduct.
 
XV.
The tall.
 
XVI.
Political summary.
 
XVII.
Calm.
 
XVIII.
Lanzi.
 
XIX.
The hunt.
 
XX.
Confidences.
 
XXI.
The jaguar.
 
XXII.
The Fox-Blue.
 
XXIII.
The White-Flayer.
 
XXIV.
After the fight.
 
XXV.
An explanation.
 
XXVI.
The part.
 
XXVII.
The guide.
 
XXVIII.
John Davis.
 
XXIX.
The deal.
 
XXX.
The ambush.
 

I.
THE FUGITIVE.

Today the forests have fallen; its gloomy inhabitants, gradually rejected by the civilization that persecutes them without truce or rest, have fled step by step before it; they have gone in search of safer retreats in the distance, taking their parents' bones with them lest they be unearthed and desecrated by the ruthless share of the white plow, which carves its long and productive furrow over their former homelands. hunt.
Is this continuous, incessant clearing of the American continent an evil? Not by the way; on the contrary, progress, which marches by leaps and bounds and tends to transform the soil of the New World within a century, deserves all our sympathies. Nevertheless, we cannot help feeling a feeling of painful sympathy for this unfortunate race brutally outlawed, pitilessly hemmed in on all sides, diminishing day by day and fatally doomed to disappear very soon from that land, whose immense territory, four centuries ago at the most, covered with its innumerable masses.
If the people chosen by God to carry out the changes that we are indicating had understood their mission, perhaps they would have turned a work of blood and carnage into a work of peace and paternity; and arming himself with the divine precepts of the Gospel, instead of taking up rifles, incendiary torches and sabers, he would have managed, at a given time, to verify a fusion of the two races, white and red, and to obtain a more profitable result for himself. progress, for civilization, and above all for that great fraternity of peoples that no one is lawful to despise, and of which one day all those who forget its divine and sacred precepts will have to give a terrible and close account.
One does not become the murderer of an entire race with impunity; it does not knowingly bathe in innocent blood, without that blood finally crying out for vengeance, without the day of justice shining and suddenly coming to cast its sword in the balance between the victors and the vanquished.
At the time our history begins, that is, towards the end of the year 1812, emigration had not yet acquired that immense increase that it was to have very soon; It had just begun, so to speak, and the vast forests that extended and covered an immense space between the borders of the United States and Mexico, were only crossed by the furtive steps of the traffickers and the hunters of the forests, or by the silent moccasins of the redskins.
In the middle of one of the immense forests that we have just mentioned, is where our story begins, on October 27, 1812, around three in the afternoon.
The heat had been stifling under the bower; but at that moment the rays of the sun, more and more oblique, lengthened the shadow of the trees, and the afternoon breeze, which had just risen, refreshed the atmosphere and carried away the clouds of mosquitoes that had been all day long. morning they had been buzzing and hovering above the swamps.
It was on the banks of a lost tributary of the Arkansas: the trees on both sides, gently sloping, formed a thick green canopy over its waters barely ruffled by the inconstant breeze: in places, flaming rosy white herons standing on their long legs, they fished for their food with that indolent meekness which generally characterizes the race of great stilt-walkers; but suddenly they stopped, craned their necks forward, as if listening for some unusual noise, and running suddenly to sniff in the direction of the wind, took off with a cry of terror.
Suddenly a shot rang out, repeated by the echoes of the forest, and two brand new fell.
At the same instant a light canoe quickly rounded a small cape formed by mangroves that were advancing on the river bed, and began to pursue the two brand new ones that had fallen into the water: one of them had been killed on the spot, and the other he was carried away by the current; but the other, apparently slightly wounded, fled with extreme speed and swam vigorously.
The vessel of which we have spoken was an Indian dugout made of birch bark torn from the trunk by means of hot water.
There was only one man in the canoe; his rifle, placed in the bow, and still smoking, proved that he had fired the shot.
We will make the portrait of this character, who is called to play an important role in our narrative.
As could be judged at that moment by reason of his posture in the dugout, he was a man of tall stature; his somewhat small head was joined by a robust neck to shoulders of unusual width; rope-hard muscles stood out on their arms with every movement they made; in short, the whole aspect of that individual denoted a vigor taken to its last limit.
His face, enlivened by large blue eyes, sparkling with sagacity, had an expression of frankness and loyalty that was pleasing from the first moment, and that completed the ensemble of his regular features and his wide mouth over which a mouth glided. eternal smile in a good mood. He would have been, at most, between twenty-three and twenty-four years old, although his complexion tanned by the bad weather of the seasons and the bushy pale blond beard that covered the lower part of his face, made him appear older.
That man wore the hunter's suit of the jungles; a beaver-skin cap, the tail of which hung down on her shoulders, laboriously held back the thick curls of her golden hair, which fell in disarray over her shoulders; a hunting smock of blue percale, pressed down on the hips by a buckskin belt, fell to near her sinewy knees; some mitasses or a kind of tight-fitting breeches covered his legs, and his feet were sheltered from thorns and from the bites of reptiles by Indian moccasins .
His tanned leather pack slung over his left shoulder like a bandolier, and like all audacious hunters in virgin forests, his weapons consisted of a good rifle, a straight-bladed hunting knife ten inches thick. length and two width, and an iron ax that shone like a mirror. These weapons, excepting of course the rifle, were hung from his belt, which also held two bison horns full of gunpowder and bullets.
Equipped in this way, sailing in that canoe surrounded by an imposing landscape, the appearance of that man had something grandiose, which commanded and inspired involuntary respect.
The forest hunter, properly speaking, is one of those numerous New World types who will soon disappear entirely in the face of the unceasing progress of civilization.
The hunters of the forests, those daring explorers of the deserts, in which he spent his entire existence, were men who, driven by a spirit of independence and an unbridled desire for freedom, shook, never to submit to them again, the heavy ties with which society binds its members, and who, with no other purpose than to live and die without being overwhelmed by any other will than their own, never driven by the hope of any profit, which they despised for complete, they abandoned the cities and resolutely entered the virgin forests; They lived from day to day, indifferent to the present, without caring about the future, convinced that God would never lack for them in a moment of need, and thus placing themselves outside the common law, which they were unaware of, at the last limit that separates barbarism. of civilization.
Most of the most famous hunters who lived in the forests were Canadians. Indeed, in the Norman character there is something daring and adventurous, which is very appropriate for that kind of life full of singular adventures and delicious sensations whose intoxicating charm can only be understood by those who have enjoyed it.
Canadians have never accepted as a principle the change of nationality that the English have tried to impose on them; they have always considered themselves French; their eyes have been constantly fixed on that ungrateful mother country that abandoned them with such cruel indifference.
Even today, after so many years, Canadians are still French; their fusion with the Anglo-Saxon race is only apparent, and the slightest pretext would suffice to produce a definitive break between the English and them.
The English government knows this very well; and for this reason it employs a meekness toward its Canadian colonies that it is very careful not to employ toward its other possessions.
In the early days of the conquest, this repulsion (we dare not say hate) was so pronounced between the two races that Canadians emigrated en masse to avoid suffering the humiliating yoke that was imposed on them. Th