Free The Prairie by James Fenimore Cooper Page A

their front.
    Mahtoree took the entire disposition of the arrangements on himself. He
pointed out the precise situation he wished each individual to occupy,
like one intimately acquainted with the qualifications of his respective
followers, and he was obeyed with the deference and promptitude with
which an Indian warrior is wont to submit to the instructions of his
chief, in moments of trial. Some he despatched to the right, and
others to the left. Each man departed with the noiseless and quick step
peculiar to the race, until all had assumed their allotted stations,
with the exception of two chosen warriors, who remained nigh the person
of their leader. When the rest had disappeared, Mahtoree turned to these
select companions, and intimated by a sign that the critical moment had
arrived, when the enterprise he contemplated was to be put in execution.
    Each man laid aside the light fowling-piece, which, under the name of
a carabine, he carried in virtue of his rank; and divesting himself of
every article of exterior or heavy clothing, he stood resembling a dark
and fierce looking statue, in the attitude, and nearly in the garb, of
nature. Mahtoree assured himself of the right position of his tomahawk,
felt that his knife was secure in its sheath of skin, tightened his
girdle of wampum and saw that the lacing of his fringed and ornamental
leggings was secure, and likely to offer no impediment to his exertions.
Thus prepared at all points, and ready for his desperate undertaking,
the Teton gave the signal to proceed.
    The three advanced in a line with the encampment of the travellers,
until, in the dim light by which they were seen, their dusky forms were
nearly lost to the eyes of the prisoners. Here they paused, looking
around them like men who deliberate and ponder long on the consequences
before they take a desperate leap. Then sinking together, they became
lost in the grass of the prairie.
    It is not difficult to imagine the distress and anxiety of the different
spectators of these threatening movements. Whatever might be the reasons
of Ellen for entertaining no strong attachment to the family in which
she has first been seen by the reader, the feelings of her sex, and,
perhaps, some lingering seeds of kindness, predominated. More than once
she felt tempted to brave the awful and instant danger that awaited such
an offence, and to raise her feeble, and, in truth, impotent voice in
warning. So strong, indeed, and so very natural was the inclination,
that she would most probably have put it in execution, but for the often
repeated though whispered remonstrances of Paul Hover. In the breast of
the young bee-hunter himself, there was a singular union of emotions.
His first and chiefest solicitude was certainly in behalf of his gentle
and dependent companion; but the sense of her danger was mingled, in
the breast of the reckless woodsman, with a consciousness of a high and
wild, and by no means an unpleasant, excitement. Though united to the
emigrants by ties still less binding than those of Ellen, he longed
to hear the crack of their rifles, and, had occasion offered, he would
gladly have been among the first to rush to their rescue. There were,
in truth, moments when he felt in his turn an impulse, that was nearly
resistless, to spring forward and awake the unconscious sleepers; but
a glance at Ellen would serve to recall his tottering prudence, and to
admonish him of the consequences. The trapper alone remained calm and
observant, as if nothing that involved his personal comfort or safety
had occurred. His ever-moving, vigilant eyes, watched the smallest
change, with the composure of one too long inured to scenes of danger
to be easily moved, and with an expression of cool determination
which denoted the intention he actually harboured, of profiting by the
smallest oversight on the part of the captors.
    In the mean time the Teton warriors had not been idle. Profiting by the
high fog which grew in the bottoms, they had wormed