



Produced by Camille Bernard and Marc D'Hooghe at
http://www.freeliterature.org (Scans generously made
available by the Bodleian Library at Oxford)






THE PRAIRIE FLOWER

A TALE OF THE INDIAN BORDER

BY

GUSTAVE AIMARD,

AUTHOR OF

"THE INDIAN SCOUT," "TRAPPERS OF ARKANSAS," "TRAIL HUNTER,"
"GOLD SEEKERS," "BEE HUNTERS,"
ETC., ETC.

LONDON:

CHARLES HENRY CLARKE, 13 PATERNOSTER ROW,

1874



                       CONTENTS


             I. A HUNTING ENCAMPMENT
            II. A TRAIL DISCOVERED
           III. THE EMIGRANTS
            IV. THE GRIZZLY BEAR
             V. THE STRANGE WOMAN
            VI. THE DEFENCE OF THE CAMP
           VII. THE INDIAN CHIEF
          VIII. THE EXILE
            IX. THE MASSACRE
             X. THE GREAT COUNCIL
            XI. AMERICAN HOSPITALITY
           XII. THE SHE-WOLF OF THE PRAIRIE
          XIII. THE INDIAN VILLAGE
           XIV. THE RECEPTION
            XV. THE WHITE BUFFALO
           XVI. THE SPY
          XVII. FORT MACKENZIE
         XVIII. A MOTHER'S CONFESSION
           XIX. THE CHASE
            XX. INDIAN DIPLOMACY
           XXI. MOTHER AND DAUGHTER
          XXII. IVON
         XXIII. THE PLAN OF THIS CAMPAIGN
          XXIV. THE CAMP OF THE BLACKFEET
           XXV. BEFORE THE ATTACK
          XXVI. RED WOLF
         XXVII. THE ATTACK
        XXVIII. CONCLUSION





CHAPTER I.

A HUNTING ENCAMPMENT.


America is the land of prodigies! Everything there assumes gigantic
proportions, which startle the imagination and confound the reason.
Mountains, rivers, lakes and streams, all are carved on a sublime
pattern.

There is a river of North America--not like the Danube, Rhine, or
Rhone, whose banks are covered with towns, plantations, and time-worn
castles: whose sources and tributaries are magnificent streams, the
waters of which, confined in a narrow bed, rush onwards as if impatient
to lose themselves in the ocean--but deep and silent, wide as an arm
of the sea, calm and severe in its grandeur, it pours majestically
onwards, its waters augmented by innumerable streams, and lazily bathes
the banks of a thousand isles, which it has formed of its own sediment.

These isles, covered with tall thickets, exhale a sharp or delicious
perfume which the breeze bears far away. Nothing disturbs their
solitude, save the gentle and plaintive appeal of the dove, or the
hoarse and strident voice of the tiger, as it sports beneath the shade.

At certain spots, trees that have fallen through old age, or have
been uprooted by the hurricane, collect on its waters; then, attached
by creepers and concealed by mud, these fragments of forests become
floating islands. Young shrubs take root upon them: the petunia and
nenuphar expand here and there their yellow roses; serpents, birds, and
caimans come to sport and rest on these verdurous rafts, and are with
them swallowed up in the ocean.

This river has no name! Others in the same zone are called Nebraska,
Platte, Missouri; but this is simply the _Mecha-Chebe_ the old father
of waters, _the_ river before all! the Mississippi in a word!

Vast and incomprehensible as is infinity, full of secret terrors, like
the Ganges and Irrawaddy, it is the type of fecundity, immensity, and
eternity to the numerous Indian nations that inhabit its banks.

       *       *       *       *       *

Three men were seated on the bank of the river, a little below its
confluence with the Missouri, and were breakfasting on a slice of roast
elk, while gaily chatting together.

The spot where they were seated