Chapter 22

The clouds and sunbeams o'er his eye,
That once their shades and glories threw,
Have left, in yonder silent sky,
No vestige where they flew.
--Montgomery.

A stillness, as deep as that which marked the gloomy wastes in their
front, was observed by the fugitives to distinguish the spot they had
just abandoned. Even the trapper lent his practised faculties, in
vain, to detect any of the well-known signs, which might establish the
important fact that hostilities had actually commenced between the
parties of Mahtoree and Ishmael; but their horses carried them out of
the reach of sounds, without the occurrence of the smallest evidence
of the sort. The old man, from time to time, muttered his discontent,
but manifested the uneasiness he actually entertained in no other
manner, unless it might be in exhibiting a growing anxiety to urge the
animals to increase their speed. He pointed out in passing, the
deserted swale, where the family of the squatter had encamped, the
night they were introduced to the reader, and afterwards he maintained
an ominous silence; ominous, because his companions had already seen
enough of his character, to be convinced that the circumstances must
be critical indeed, which possessed the power to disturb the well
regulated tranquillity of the old man's mind.

"Have we not done enough," Middleton demanded, in tenderness to the
inability of Inez and Ellen to endure so much fatigue, at the end of
some hours; "we have ridden hard, and have crossed a wide tract of
plain. It is time to seek a place of rest."

"You must seek it then in Heaven, if you find yourselves unequal to a
longer march," murmured the old trapper. "Had the Tetons and the
squatter come to blows, as any one might see in the natur' of things
they were bound to do, there would be time to look about us, and to
calculate not only the chances but the comforts of the journey; but as
the case actually is, I should consider it certain death, or endless
captivity, to trust our eyes with sleep, until our heads are fairly
hid in some uncommon cover."

"I know not," returned the youth, who reflected more on the sufferings
of the fragile being he supported, than on the experience of his
companion; "I know not; we have ridden leagues, and I can see no
extraordinary signs of danger:--if you fear for yourself, my good
friend, believe me you are wrong, for--"

"Your grand'ther, were he living and here," interrupted the old man,
stretching forth a hand, and laying a finger impressively on the arm
of Middleton, "would have spared those words. He had some reason to
think that, in the prime of my days, when my eye was quicker than the