Two Pioneers
IT was the year of the small-pox. ThePawnees had died in their cold tepeesby the fifties, the soldiers lay dead in thetrenches without the fort, and many a gayFrench voyageur, who had thought to gosinging down the Missouri on his fur-ladenraft in the springtime, would never againsee the lights of St. Louis, or the coin ofthe mighty Choteau company.It had been a winter of tragedies. Therigors of the weather and the scourge ofthe disease had been fought with Indiancharm and with Catholic prayer. Bothwere equally unavailing. If a man wastaken sick at the fort they put him in awarm room, brought him a jug of wateronce a day, and left him to find out what hisconstitution was worth. Generally he recovered; for the surgeon's supplies hadbeen exhausted early in the year. But theIndians, in their torment, rushed into theriver through the ice, and returned to rollthemselves in their blankets and die inungroaning stoicism.Every one had grown bitter and hard.The knives of the trappers were sharp, andnot one whit sharper than their tempers.Some one said that the friendly Pawneeswere conspiring with the Sioux, who werealways treacherous, to sack the settlement.The trappers doubted this. They and thePawnees had been friends many years, andthey had together killed the Sioux in fourfamous battles on the Platte. Yet -- whoknows? There was pestilence in the air,and it had somehow got into men's souls aswell as their bodies.So, at least, Father de Smet said. Healone did not despair. He alone triedneither charm nor curse. He dressed himan altar in the wilderness, and he prayed atit -- but not for impossible things. Whenin a day's journey you come across twolodges of Indians, sixty souls in each, lyingdead and distorted from the plague in theirdesolate tepees, you do not pray, if you area man like Father de Smet. You go on tothe next lodge where the living yet are, andteach them how to avoid death.Besides, when you are young, it is mucheasier to act than to pray. When the children cried for food, Father de Smet tookdown the rifle from the wall and went outwith it, coming back only when he couldfeed the hungry. There were places wherethe prairie was black with buffalo, and theshy deer showed their delicate heads amongthe leafless willows of the Papillion. Whenthey -- the children -- were cold, this youngman brought in baskets of buffalo chipsfrom the prairie and built them a fire, or hehung more skins up at the entrance to thetepees. If he wanted to cross a river andhad no boat at hand, he leaped the uncertainice, or, in clear current, swam, with hisclothes on his head in a bundle.A wonderful traveller for the time wasFather de Smet. Twice he had gone as faras the land of the Flathead nation, and hecould climb mountain passes as well as anyguide of the Rockies. He had built a dozenmissions, lying all the way from the Columbia to the Kaw. He had always a jest athis tongue's end, and served it out with asmuch readiness as a prayer; and he had,withal, an arm trained to do execution.Every man on the plains understood theart of self-preservation. Even in Cainsville,over by the council ground of the westerntribes, which was quite the most civilizedplace for hundreds of miles, life was uncertain when the boats came from St. Louiswith bad whiskey in their holds. But no onedared take liberties with the holy father.The thrust from his shoulder was straightand sure, and his fist was hard.Yet it was not the sinner that Father deSmet meant to crush. He always supplemented his acts of physical prowess withthat explanation. It was the sin that hestruck at from the shoulder -- and may noteven an anointed one strike at sin?Father de Smet could draw a fine line,too, between the things which were bad inthemselves, and the things which were onlyextrinsically bad. For example, there werethe soups of Mademoiselle Ninon. Mam'selleherself was not above reproach, but her soupswere. Mademoiselle Ninon was the onlyParisian thing in the settlement. And shewas certainly to be avoided -- which was perhaps the reason that no one avoided her. Itwas four years since she had seen Paris. Shewas sixteen then, and she followed the fortunes of a certain adventurer who found itadvisable to sail for Montreal. Ninon hadbeen bored back in Paris, it being dull in themantua-making shop of Madame Guittar. Ifshe had been a man she would have takento navigation, and might have made herselffamous by sailing to some unknown part ofthe New World. Being a woman, she took alover who was going to New France, and forgot to weep when he found an early and violent death. And there were others at hand,and Ninon sailed around the cold blue lakes,past Sault St. Marie, and made her wayacross the portages to the Mississippi, andso down to the sacred rock of St. Louis.That was a merry place. Ninon had faultto find neither with the wine nor the dances.They were all that one could have desired,and there was no limit to either of them.But still, after a time, even this grew tiresome to one of Ninon's spirit, and she tookthe first opportunity to sail up the Missouriwith a certain young trapper connected withthe great fur company, and so found herself at Cainsville, with the blue bluffs risingto the east of her, and the low whitestretches of the river flats undulating downto where the sluggish stream wound its waysouthward capriciously.Ninon soon tired of her trapper. Forone thing she found out that he was acoward. She saw him run once in a buffalofight. That was when the Pawnee stoodstill with a blanket stretched wide in a gaudysquare, and caught the head of the madanimal fairly in the tough fabric; his mustang's legs trembled under him, but he didnot move, -- for a mustang is the soul of anIndian, and obeys each thought; the Indianhimself felt his heart pounding at his ribs;but once with that garment fast over thebaffled eyes of the struggling brute, therest was only a matter of judicious knife-thrusts. Ninon saw this. She rode pasther lover, and snatched the twisted bullioncord from his hat that she had braided andput there, and that night she tied it on thehat of the Pawnee who had killed the buffalo.The Pawnees were rather proud of theepisode, and as for the Frenchmen, they didnot mind. The French have always beenvery adaptable in America. Ninon wasuniversally popular.And so were her soups.Every man has his price. Father deSmet's was the soups of Mademoiselle Ninon.Fancy! If you have an educated palate andare obliged to eat the strong distillation ofbuffalo meat, cooked in a pot which hasbeen wiped out with the greasy petticoat ofa squaw! When Ninon came down fromSt. Louis she brought with her a greatbox containing neither clothes, furniture,nor trinkets, but something much morewonderful! It was a marvellous compounding of spices and seasonings. The aromaticliquids she set before the enchanted men ofthe settlement bore no more relation toordinary buffalo soup than Chateaubrand'sIndian maidens did to one of the Pawnee girls, who slouched about the settlement with noxious tresses and sullen slavishcoquetries.Father de Smet would not at any timehave called Ninon a scarlet woman. Butwhen he ate the dish of soup or tasted thehot corn-cakes that she invariably invitedhim to partake of as he passed her littlehouse, he refrained with all the charity ofa true Christian and an accomplished epicurefrom even thinking her such. And he remembered the words of the Saviour, "Lethim who is without sin among you cast thefirst stone."To Father de Smet's healthy naturenothing seemed more superfluous than sin.And he was averse to thinking that anycommitted deeds of which he need beashamed. So it was his habit, especially ifthe day was pleasant and his own thoughtshappy, to say to himself when he saw oneof the wild young trappers leaving the cabinof Mademoiselle Ninon: "He has beenfor some of the good woman's hot cakes,"till he grew quite to believe that the onlyattractions that the adroit Frenchwomanpossessed were of a gastronomic nature.To tell the truth, the attractions of Mademoiselle Ninon were varied. To beginwith, she was the only thing in that wilderness to suggest home. Ninon had a geniusfor home-making. Her cabin, in which shecooked, slept, ate, lived, had become aboudoir.The walls were hung with rare and beautiful skins; the very floor made rich withhuge bear robes, their permeating odorssubdued by heavy perfumes brought, likethe spices, from St. Louis. The bed, in daytime, was a couch of beaver-skins; the fireplace had branching antlers above it, onwhich were hung some of the evidences ofthe fair Ninon's coquetry, such as silkenscarves, of the sort the voyageurs from thefar north wore; and necklaces made by theIndians of the Pacific coast and brought toNinon by -- but it is not polite to inquireinto these matters. There were little moccasins also, much decorated with porcupine-quills, one pair of which Father de Smethad brought from the Flathead nation, andpresented to Ninon that time when shenursed him through a frightful run of fever.She would take no money for her patientservices."Father," said she, gravely, when heoffered it to her, "I am not myself virtuous.But I have the distinction of having preserved the only virtuous creature in thesettlement for further usefulness. Sometimes, perhaps, you will pray for Ninon."Father de Smet never forgot those prayers.These were wild times, mind you. Nouse to keep your skirts coldly clean if youwished to be of help. These men were subduing a continent. Their primitive qualitiescame out. Courage, endurance, sacrifice,suffering without complaint, friendship tothe death, indomitable hatred, unfalteringhope, deep-seated greed, splendid gayety-- it takes these things to subdue a continent. Vice is also an incidental, -- that isto say, what one calls vice. This is becauseit is the custom to measure these men as ifthey were governed by the laws of civilization, where there is neither law norcivilization.This much is certain: gentlemen cannotconquer a country. They tried gentlemenback in Virginia, and they died, partly fromlack of intellect, but mostly from lack ofenergy. After the yeomen have fought theconquering fight, it is well enough to bringin gentlemen, who are sometimes cleverlawmakers, and who look well on thronesor in presidential chairs.But to return to the winter of the smallpox. It was then that the priest and Ninongrew to know each other well. They became acquainted first in the cabin wherefour of the trappers lay tossing in delirium.The horrible smell of disease weighted theair. Outside wet snow fell continuouslyand the clouds seemed to rest only a fewfeet above the sullen bluffs. The room wasbare of comforts, and very dirty. Ninonlooked about with disgust."You pray," said she to the priest, "andI will clean the room.""Not so," returned the broad-shoulderedfather, smilingly, "we will both clean theroom." Thus it came that they scrubbedthe floor together, and made the chimneyso that it would not smoke, and washed theblankets on the beds, and kept the woodpile high. They also devised ventilators,and let in fresh air without exposing thepatients. They had no medicine, but theycontinually rubbed the suffering men withbear's grease."It's better than medicine," said Ninon,after the tenth day, as, wan with watching, sheheld the cool hand of one of the recoveringmen in her own. "If we had had medicineswe should have killed these men.""You are a woman of remarkable sense,"said the holy father, who was eating a dishof corn-meal and milk that Ninon had justprepared, "and a woman also of Christiancourage.""Christian courage?" echoed Ninon; "doyou think that is what you call it? I amnot afraid, no, not I; but it is not Christiancourage. You mistake in calling it that."There were tears in her eyes. The priestsaw them."God lead you at last into peaceful ways,"said he, softly, lifting one hand in blessing."Your vigil is ended. Go to your homeand sleep. You know the value of thetemporal life that God has given to man.In the hours of the night, Ninon, think ofthe value of eternal life, which it is alsoHis to give."Ninon stared at him a moment with adawning horror in her eyes.Then she pointed to the table."Whatever you do," said she, "don'tforget the bear's grease." And she wentout laughing. The priest did not pauseto recommend her soul to further blessing.He obeyed her directions.March was wearing away tediously. Theriver was not yet open, and the belatedboats with needed supplies were mooredfar down the river. Many of the reducedsettlers were dependent on the meat theIndians brought them for sustenance. Themud made the roads almost impassable; forthe frost lay in a solid bed six inches belowthe surface, and all above that was semi-liquid muck. Snow and rain alternated,and the frightful disease did not cease itsravages.The priest got little sleep. Now he wasat the bed of a little half-breed child,smoothing the straight black locks fromthe narrow brow; now at the cot of somehulking trapper, who wept at the pain, butdied finally with a grin of bravado on hislips; now in a foul tepee, where some gravePawnee wrapped his mantle about him, andgazed with prophetic and unflinching eyesinto the land of the hereafter.The little school that the priest startedhad been long since abandoned. It was onlythe preservation of life that one thought ofin these days. And recklessness had madethe men desperate. To the ravages of disease were added horrible murders. Moralhealth is always low when physical healthis so.Give a nation two winters of grippe, andit will have an epidemic of suicide. Giveit starvation and small-pox, and it will havea contagion of murders. There are subtlelaws underlying these things, -- laws whichthe physicians think they can explain; butthey are mistaken. The reason is not somaterial as it seems.But spring was near in spite of fallingsnow and the dirty ice in the river. Therewas not even a flushing of the willow twigsto tell it by, nor a clearing of the leadensky, -- only the almanac. Yet all menwere looking forward to it The trappersput in the feeble days of convalescence,making long rafts on which to pile theskins dried over winter, -- a fine variety,worth all but their weight in gold. Moneywas easily got in those days; but thereare circumstances under which money isvalueless.Father de Smet thought of this the daybefore Easter, as he plunged through themud of the winding street in his bearskingaiters. Stout were his legs, firm his lungs,as he turned to breathe in the west wind;clear his sharp and humorous eyes. Hewas going to the little chapel where themission school had previously been held.Here was a rude pulpit, and back of it amuch-disfigured virgin, dressed in turkey-red calico. Two cheap candles in their tinsticks guarded this figure, and beneath, onthe floor, was spread an otter-skin of perfectbeauty. The seats were of pine, withoutbacks, and the wind whistled through thechinks between the logs. Moreover, theplace was dirty. Lenten service had beenout of the question. The living had neithertime nor strength to come to worship; andthe dead were not given the honor of aburial from church in these times of terror.The priest looked about him in dismay, theplace was so utterly forsaken; yet to letEaster go by without recognition was notto his liking. He had been the night beforeto every house in the settlement, biddingthe people to come to devotions on Sundaymorning. He knew that not one of themwould refuse his invitation. There was nohero larger in the eyes of these unfortunatesthan the simple priest who walked amongthem with his unpretentious piety. Thepromises were given with whispered blessings, and there were voices that broke inmaking them, and hands that shook withhonest gratitude. The priest, rememberingthese things, and all the awful suffering ofthe winter, determined to make the service symbolic, indeed, of the resurrectionand the life, -- the annual resurrection andlife that comes each year, a palpable miracle,to teach the dullest that God reigns."How are you going to trim the altar?"cried a voice behind him.He turned, startled, and in the doorwaystood Mademoiselle Ninon, her short skirtbelted with a red silk scarf, -- the token ofsome trapper, -- her ankles protected withfringed leggins, her head covered with a beribboned hat of felt, such as the voyageurswore."Our devotions will be the only decorations we can hang on it. But gratitude isbetter than blossoms, and humanity morebeautiful than green wreaths," said thefather, gently.It was a curious thing, and one that hehad often noticed himself; he gave thiswoman -- unworthy as she was -- the bestof his simple thoughts.Ninon tiptoed toward the priest with onefinger coquettishly raised to insure secrecy."You will never believe it," she whispered, "no one would believe it! But thefact is, father, I have two lilies.""Lilies," cried the priest, incredulously,"two lilies?""That's what I say, father -- two marvellously fair lilies with little sceptres of gold inthem, and leaves as white as snow. The bulbswere brought me last autumn by --; thatis to say, they were brought from St. Louis.Only now have they blossomed. Heavens,how I have watched the buds! I have saidto myself every morning for a fortnight:'Will they open in time for the goodfather's Easter morning service?' Then Isaid: 'They will open too soon. Buds,' Ihave cried to them, 'do not dare to open yet,or you will be horribly passée by Easter.Have the kindness, will you, to save yourselves for a great event.' And they did it;yes, father, you may not believe, but nolater than this morning these sensibleflowers opened up their leaves boldly, quiteconscious that they were doing the rightthing, and to-morrow, if you please, theywill be here. And they will perfume thewhole place; yes."She stopped suddenly, and relaxed hervivacious expression for one of pain."You are certainly ill," cried the priest."Rest yourself." He tried to push her onto one of the seats; but a sort of convulsiverigidity came over her, very alarming tolook at."You are worn out," her companion saidgravely. "And you are chilled.""Yes, I'm cold," confessed Ninon. "ButI had to come to tell you about the lilies.But, do you see, I never could bring myselfto put them in this room as it is now. Itwould be too absurd to place them amongthis dirt. We must clean the place.""The place will be cleaned. I will see toit. But as for you, go home and care foryourself." Ninon started toward the doorwith an uncertain step. Suddenly she cameback."It is too funny," she said, " that redcalico there on the Virgin. Father, I havesome laces which were my mother's, whowas a good woman, and which have neverbeen worn by me. They are all I have toremember France by and the days when Iwas -- different. If I might be permitted --"she hesitated and looked timidly at the priest."'She hath done what she could,'" murmured Father de Smet, softly. "Bring yourlaces, Ninon." He would have added:"Thy sins be forgiven thee." But unfortunately, at this moment, Pierre camelounging down the street, through the mud,fresh from Fort Laramie. His rifle wasslung across his back, and a full game-bagrevealed the fact that he had amused himself on his way. His curly and wind-bleachedhair blew out in time-torn banners from theedge of his wide hat. His piercing, blackeyes were those of a man who drinks deep,fights hard, and lives always in the open air.Wild animals have such eyes, only there isthis difference: the viciousness of ananimal is natural; at least one-half of theviciousness of man is artificial and devised.When Ninon saw the frost-reddened faceof this gallant of the plains, she gave a littlecry of delight, and the color rushed backinto her face. The trapper saw her, andgave a rude shout of welcome. The nextmoment, he had swung her clear of thechapel steps; and then the two went downthe street together, Pierre pausing only longenough to doff his hat to the priest."The Virgin will wear no fresh laces,"said the priest, with some bitterness; but hewas mistaken. An hour later, Ninon wasback, not only with a box of laces, but alsowith a collection of cosmetics, with whichshe proceeded to make startling the scratchedand faded face of the wooden Virgin, whowore, after the completion of Ninon's labors,a decidedly piquant and saucy expression.The very manner in which the laces weredraped had a suggestion of Ninon's stillunforgotten art as a maker of millinery, andwas really a very good presentment of Parisfashions four years past. Pierre, meantime,amused himself by filling up the chinks inthe logs with fresh mud, -- a commodity ofwhich there was no lack, -- and others ofthe neighbors, incited by these extraordinaryefforts, washed the dirt from seats, floor, andwindows, and brought furs with which to makepresentable the floor about the pulpit.Father de Smet worked harder than anyof them. In his happy enthusiasm he choseto think this energy on the part of the otherswas prompted by piety, though well heknew it was only a refuge from the insufferable ennui that pervaded the place. Ninonsuddenly came up to him with a white face."I am not well," she said. Her teethwere chattering, and her eyes had a littleblue glaze over them. "I am going home.In the morning I will send the lilies."The priest caught her by the hand."Ninon," he whispered, "it is on my soulnot to let you go to-night. Something tellsme that the hour of your salvation is come.Women worse than you, Ninon, have cometo lead holy lives. Pray, Ninon, pray tothe Mother of Sorrows, who knows the sufferings and sins of the heart." He pointedto the befrilled and highly fashionable Virginwith her rouge-stained cheeks.Ninon shrank from him, and the sameconvulsive rigidity he had noticed before,held her immovable. A moment later, shewas on the street again, and the priest,watching her down the street, saw her enterher cabin with Pierre........It was past midnight when the priest wasawakened from his sleep by a knock on thedoor. He wrapped his great buffalo-coatabout him, and answered the summons.Without in the damp darkness stood Pierre."Father," he cried, "Ninon has sent foryou. Since she left you, she has been veryill. I have done what I could; but now shehardly speaks, but I make out that shewants you." Ten minutes later, they werein Ninon's cabin. When Father de Smetlooked at her he knew she was dying. Hehad seen the Indians like that many timesduring the winter. It was the plague, butdriven in to prey upon the system by theexposure. The Parisienne's teeth were set,but she managed to smile upon her visitoras he threw off his coat and bent over her.He poured some whiskey for her; but shecould not get the liquid over her throat."Do not," she said fiercely between thoseset white teeth, "do not forget the lilies." Shesank back and fixed her glazing eyes on theantlers, and kept them there watching thosedangling silken scarves, while the priest, inhaste, spoke the words for the departing soul.The next morning she lay dead amongthose half barbaric relics of her coquetry,and two white lilies with hearts of goldshed perfume from an altar in a wilderness.
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