Gustave Aimard - The Trappers of Arkansas - or, The Loyal Heart

This place was named by the hunters of these plains, the White Castle, from the colour of the blocks of granite which formed it.

"We shall never be able to get up there with our horses," said Loyal Heart, after carefully surveying for an instant the space they had to clear.

"Let us try, at all events!" said Belhumeur, pulling his horse by the bridle.

The ascent was rough, and any other horses than those of hunters, accustomed to the most difficult roads, would have been unable to accomplish it, but would have rolled from the top to the bottom.

It was necessary to choose with care the spot on which the foot must be placed, and then to spring forward at a bound, and all this with turnings and twisting enough to produce a dizziness.

After half an hour of extraordinary difficulties they arrived at a sort of platform, ten yards broad at most.

"This is it!" said Belhumeur, stopping.

"How this?" Loyal Heart replied, looking around on all sides without perceiving an opening.

"Come this way!" said Belhumeur, smiling.

And still dragging his horse after him, he passed behind a block of the rock, the hunter following him with awakened curiosity.

After walking for five minutes in a sort of trench, at most three feet wide, which seemed to wind round upon itself, the adventurers found themselves suddenly before the yawning mouth of a deep cavern.

This road, formed by one of those terrible convulsions of nature so frequent in these regions, was so well concealed behind the rocks and stones which masked it, that it was impossible to discover it except by a providential chance.

The hunters entered.

Before ascending the mountain, Belhumeur had collected a large provision of candlewood; he lit two torches, keeping one for himself, and giving the other to his companion.

Then the grotto appeared to them in all its wild majesty.

Its walls were high and covered with brilliant stalactites, which reflected back the light, multiplying it, and forming a fairy-like illumination.

"This cavern," said Belhumeur, after he had given his friend time to examine it in all its details, "is, I have no doubt, one of the wonders of the prairies; this gallery, which descends in a gentle declivity before us, passes under the Verdigris, and debouches on the other side of the river, at a distance of more than a mile, into the plain. In addition to the gallery by which we entered, and that which is before us, there exist four others, all of which have issues at different places. You see that here we are in no risk of being surrounded, and that these spacious chambers offer us a suite of apartments splendid enough to make the president of the United States himself jealous."

Loyal Heart, enchanted with the discovery of this refuge, wished to examine it perfectly, and although he was naturally very silent, the hunter could not always withhold his admiration.

"Why have you never told me of this place before?" he said to Belhumeur.

"I waited for the opportunity," the latter replied.

The hunters secured their horses, with abundance of provender, in one of the compartments of the grotto, into which the light penetrated by imperceptible fissures; and then, when they were satisfied that the noble animals; could want for nothing during their absence, and could not escape, they threw their rifles over their shoulders, whistled to their dogs, and, descended with hasty steps the gallery which passed under the river.

Soon the air became moist around them, a dull, continuous noise was heard above their heads, – they were passing under the Verdigris. Thanks to a species of lantern, formed by a hollow rock rising in the middle of the river's course, there was light sufficient to guide them.

After half an hour's walk they debouched in the prairie by an entrance masked by bushes and creeping plants.

They had remained a long time in the grotto. In the first place, they had examined it minutely, like men who foresaw that some day or other they should stand in need of seeking a shelter there; next they had made a kind of stable for their horses; and lastly, they had snatched a hasty morsel of food, so that the sun was on the point of setting at the moment when they set off again upon the track of the Comanches.

Then commenced the true Indian pursuit. The two hunters, after having laid on their bloodhounds, glided silently in their traces, creeping on their hands and knees through the high grass, the eye on the watch, the ear on the listen, holding their breath, and stopping at intervals to inhale the air, and interrogate those thousand sounds of the prairies which hunters notice with incredible facility, and which they explain without hesitation.

The desert was plunged in a death-like silence.

At the approach of night in these immense solitudes, nature seems to collect herself, and prepare, by a religious devotion, for the mysteries of darkness.

The hunters continued advancing, redoubling their precautions, and creeping along in parallel lines.

All at once the dogs came silently to a stop. The brave animals seemed to comprehend the value of silence in these parts, and that a single cry would cost their masters their lives.

Belhumeur cast a piercing glance around him. His eye flashed, he gathered himself up, and bounding like a panther, he sprang upon an Indian warrior, who, with his body bent forward, and his head down, seemed to be sensible of the approach of an enemy.

The Indian was roughly thrown upon his back, and before he could utter a cry of distress or for help, Belhumeur had his throat in his grasp and his knee on his breast.

Then, with the greatest coolness, the hunter unsheathed his knife, and plunged it up to the hilt in the heart of his enemy.

When the savage saw that he was lost, he disdained to attempt any useless resistance, but fixing upon the Canadian a look of hatred and contempt, an ironical smile curled his lips, and he awaited death with a calm face.

Belhumeur replaced his knife in his belt, and pushing the body on one side, said imperturbably, —

"One!"

And he crept on again.

Loyal Heart had watched the movements of his friend with the greatest attention, ready to succour him if it were necessary; when the Indian was dead, he calmly took up the trail again.

Ere long the light of a fire gleamed between the trees and an odour of roasted flesh struck the keen smell of the hunters.

They drew themselves up like two phantoms along an enormous cork tree, which was within a few paces of them, and embracing the gnarled trunk, concealed themselves among the tufted branches.

Then they looked out, and found that they were, it might be said, soaring over the camp of the Comanches, situated within ten yards of them, at most.

About the same hour that the trappers issued from the grotto, and took up the trail of the Comanches again, at twenty miles' distance from them, a rather large party of white travellers halted upon the banks of the great Canadian river and prepared to encamp for the night in a magnificent position, where there were still some remains of an ancient camp of an Indian hunting party.

The hunters and the half-breed Gambusinos who served as guides to the travellers hastened to unload a dozen mules, which were escorted by Mexican lanceros.

With the bales they made an enclosure of an oval form, in the interior of which they lit a fire; then, without troubling themselves any further about their companions, the guides united together in a little group and prepared their evening repast.

A young officer, of about twenty-five years of age, of martial bearing, with delicately marked features, went up respectfully to a palanquin drawn by two mules and escorted by two horsemen.