Chapter Seventeen.The Buffalo-Hunt.In accordance with the assurance given to Okématan Antoine Dechamp at once gave orders to make preparation for an immediate start after the buffalo—much to the satisfaction of the hunters, especially the young ones.Buffaloes—or, to speak more correctly, bisons—roamed over the North American prairies at the time we write of in countless thousands; for the Indians, although extremely wasteful of animal life, could not keep their numbers down, and the aggressive white-man, with his deadly gun and rifle, had only just begun to depopulate the plains. Therefore the hunters had not to travel far before coming up with their quarry.In a very brief space of time they were all drawn up in line under command of their chosen leader, who, at least up to the moment of giving the signal for attack, kept his men in reasonably good order. They had not ridden long when the huge ungainly bisons were seen like black specks on the horizon.Still the horsemen—each armed with the muzzle-loading, single-barrelled, flint-lock gun of the period—advanced cautiously, until so near that the animals began to look up as if in surprise at the unwonted intrusion on their great solitudes.Then the signal was given, the horses stretched out at the gallop, the buffalo began to run—at first heavily, as if great speed were impossible to them; but gradually the pace increased until it attained to racing speed. Then the hunters gave the rein to their eager steeds, and the long line rushed upon the game like a tornado of centaurs.From this point all discipline was at an end. Each man fought for his own hand, killing as many animals as he could, so that ere long the plain was strewn with carcases, and the air filled with gunpowder smoke.We have said that all the hunters set out, but this is not strictly correct, for three were left behind. One of these had fallen sick; one had sprained his wrist, and another was lazy. It need scarcely be told that the lazy one was François La Certe.“There is no hurry,” he said, when the hunters were assembling for the start; “plenty of time. My horse has not yet recovered from the fatigues of the journey. And who knows but the report of the buffalo being so near may be false? I will wait and see the result. To-morrow will be time enough to begin. Then, Slowfoot, you will see what I can do. Your hands shall be busy. We will load our cart with meat and pemmican, pay off all our debts, and spend a happy winter in Red River. What have you got there in the kettle?”“Pork,” answered Slowfoot with characteristic brevity.“Will it soon be ready?”“Soon.”“Have you got the tea unpacked?”“Yes.”“Send me your pipe.”This latter speech was more in the tone of a request than a command, and the implied messenger from the opposite side of the fire was the baby—Baby La Certe. We never knew its name, if it had one, and we have reason to believe that it was a female baby. At the time, baby was quite able to walk—at least to waddle or toddle.A brief order from the maternal lips sent Baby La Certe toddling round the fire towards its father, pipe in hand; but, short though the road was, it had time to pause and consider. Evidently the idea of justice was strongly developed in that child. Fair wage for fair work had clearly got hold of it, for it put the pipe which was still alight, in its mouth and began to draw!At this the father smiled benignly, but Slowfoot made a demonstration which induced a rather prompt completion of the walk without a reasonable wage. It sucked vigorously all the time, however, being evidently well aware that François was not to be feared.At that moment the curtain of the tent lifted, and little Bill Sinclair limped in. He was a favourite with La Certe, who made room for him, and at once offered him the pipe, but Billie declined.“No, thank you, La Certe. I have not learned to smoke yet.”“Ha! you did not begin young enough,” said the half-breed, glancing proudly at his own offspring.We may explain here once for all that, although he had lived long enough in the colony to understand French, Billie spoke to his friend in English, and that, although La Certe understood English, he preferred to speak in French.“What have you been doing?” he asked, when the boy had seated himself.“I’ve been shooting at a mark with my bow and arrow—brother Archie made it for me.”“Let me see—yes, it is very well made. Where is brother Archie?”“Gone after the buffalo.”“What!—on a horse?”“He could not go very well after them on foot—could he?” replied the boy quietly. “Dan Davidson lent him a horse, but not a gun. He said that Archie was too young to use a gun on horseback, and that he might shoot some of the people instead of the buffalo, or burst his gun, or fall off. ButIdon’t think so. Archie can do anything. I know, for I’ve seen him do it.”“And so he has left you in camp all by yourself. What a shame, Billie!”“No, François, it is not a shame. Would you have me keep him from the fun just because I can’t go?Thatwould indeed be a shame, wouldn’t it?”“Well, perhaps you’re right, Billie.”“I know I’m right,” returned the boy, with a decision of tone that would have been offensive if it had not been accompanied with a look of straightforward gentleness that disarmed resentment. “But, I say, François, why are you not out with the rest?”“Oh, because—because—Well, you know, my horse is tired, and—and, I’m not quite sure that the buffalo really have been seen as near as they say. And I can go to-morrow just as well. You see, Billie, there is no need to hurry oneself.”“No, I don’t see that. I think there’s always need for hurry, specially with men like you. I know the reason you don’t go out better than yourself, François.”“Yes—what is it?” asked the half-breed with a slight laugh.“It’s laziness. That’s what it is, and you should be ashamed of yourself.”The large mild eyes and low voice, and pale earnest face of the plain-spoken invalid were such that it would have been impossible for any one to be offended with him, much less La Certe, whose spirit of indignation it was almost impossible to arouse. He winced a little at the home-thrust, however, because he knew it to be true.“You’re hard on me, Little Bill,” he said with a benignant look, as he picked a stick from the fire and inserted its glowing end in his pipe.“No, I’m not hard,” returned the boy gravely. Indeed he was always grave, and seldom laughed though he sometimes smiled faintly at the jokes and quips of his volatile brother and Fred Jenkins the seaman: “I’m not half hard enough,” he continued; “I like you, François, and that’s the reason why I scold you and try to get you to mend. I don’t think there’s such a lazy man in the whole Settlement as you. You would rather sit and smoke and stuff yourself with pork all day than take the trouble to saddle your horse and get your gun and go out with the rest. Why are you so lazy, François?”“I’m sure I don’t know, Little Bill, unless it be that I’m born to be lazy. Other people are born, I suppose, to be active and energetic. They like activity and energy, and so they do it. I like repose and quiet, and—so I do that. Not much difference after all! We both do what we like best!”Little Bill was perplexed. Although philosophical in tendency he had not had sufficient experience in sophistical reasoning to enable him to disentangle the sinuosities of bad logic. But he was a resolute little fellow, and not easily quelled.“What would happen,” he asked, “if everybody in the world did as you do?”“Well, I suppose everybody would enjoy themselves. There would be no more fightings or wars, or any trouble of that sort, if everybody would only take things easy and smoke the pipe of peace.”“Hm! I don’t know about that,” returned the boy, doubtfully; “but I’m quite sure there would not be much pemmican in Red River this winter if all the hunters were like you. I wonder you’re not ashamed, François. Sometimes I think that you’re not worth caring about; but I can’t help it, you know—we can’t force our likings one way or other.”La Certe was a good deal taken aback. He was not indeed unaccustomed to plain speaking, and to the receipt of gratuitous abuse; but his experience invariably was to associate both with more or less of a stern voice and a frowning brow. To receive both in a soft voice from a delicate meek-faced child, who at the same time professed to like him, was a complete novelty which puzzled him not a little.After a few minutes’ profound consideration, he put out his pipe and arose quickly with something like an appearance of firmness in his look and bearing.Slowfoot, whose utter ignorance of both French and English prevented her understanding the drift of the recent conversation, was almost startled by the unfamiliar action of her lord.“Where go you?” she asked.“To follow the buffalo,” answered La Certe, with all the dignity of a man bursting with good resolutions.“Are you ill?” asked his wife, anxiously.To this he vouchsafed no reply, as he raised the curtain and went out.Little Bill also went out, and, sitting down on a package, watched him with his large solemn eyes, but said never a word until the half-breed had loaded his gun and mounted his horse. Then he said: “Good luck to you, François!”La Certe did not speak, but with a grave nod of his head rode slowly out of the camp. Little Bill regarded him for a moment. He had his bow and a blunt-headed arrow in his hand at the time. Fitting the latter hastily to the bow he took a rapid shot at the retreating horseman. The arrow sped well. It descended on the flank of the horse with considerable force, and, bounding off, fell to the ground. The result was that the horse, to La Certe’s unutterable surprise, made a sudden demivolt into the air—without the usual persuasion—almost unseated its rider, and fled over the prairie like a thing possessed!A faint smile ruffled the solemnity of Little Bill at this, but it vanished when he heard a low chuckle behind him. Wheeling round, he stood face to face with Slowfoot, whose mouth was expanded from ear to ear.“Clever boy!” she said, patting him on the back, “come into the tent and have some grub.”She said this in the Cree language, which the boy did not understand, but he understood well enough the signs with which the invitation was accompanied. Thanking her with an eloquent look, he re-entered the tent along with her.
In accordance with the assurance given to Okématan Antoine Dechamp at once gave orders to make preparation for an immediate start after the buffalo—much to the satisfaction of the hunters, especially the young ones.
Buffaloes—or, to speak more correctly, bisons—roamed over the North American prairies at the time we write of in countless thousands; for the Indians, although extremely wasteful of animal life, could not keep their numbers down, and the aggressive white-man, with his deadly gun and rifle, had only just begun to depopulate the plains. Therefore the hunters had not to travel far before coming up with their quarry.
In a very brief space of time they were all drawn up in line under command of their chosen leader, who, at least up to the moment of giving the signal for attack, kept his men in reasonably good order. They had not ridden long when the huge ungainly bisons were seen like black specks on the horizon.
Still the horsemen—each armed with the muzzle-loading, single-barrelled, flint-lock gun of the period—advanced cautiously, until so near that the animals began to look up as if in surprise at the unwonted intrusion on their great solitudes.
Then the signal was given, the horses stretched out at the gallop, the buffalo began to run—at first heavily, as if great speed were impossible to them; but gradually the pace increased until it attained to racing speed. Then the hunters gave the rein to their eager steeds, and the long line rushed upon the game like a tornado of centaurs.
From this point all discipline was at an end. Each man fought for his own hand, killing as many animals as he could, so that ere long the plain was strewn with carcases, and the air filled with gunpowder smoke.
We have said that all the hunters set out, but this is not strictly correct, for three were left behind. One of these had fallen sick; one had sprained his wrist, and another was lazy. It need scarcely be told that the lazy one was François La Certe.
“There is no hurry,” he said, when the hunters were assembling for the start; “plenty of time. My horse has not yet recovered from the fatigues of the journey. And who knows but the report of the buffalo being so near may be false? I will wait and see the result. To-morrow will be time enough to begin. Then, Slowfoot, you will see what I can do. Your hands shall be busy. We will load our cart with meat and pemmican, pay off all our debts, and spend a happy winter in Red River. What have you got there in the kettle?”
“Pork,” answered Slowfoot with characteristic brevity.
“Will it soon be ready?”
“Soon.”
“Have you got the tea unpacked?”
“Yes.”
“Send me your pipe.”
This latter speech was more in the tone of a request than a command, and the implied messenger from the opposite side of the fire was the baby—Baby La Certe. We never knew its name, if it had one, and we have reason to believe that it was a female baby. At the time, baby was quite able to walk—at least to waddle or toddle.
A brief order from the maternal lips sent Baby La Certe toddling round the fire towards its father, pipe in hand; but, short though the road was, it had time to pause and consider. Evidently the idea of justice was strongly developed in that child. Fair wage for fair work had clearly got hold of it, for it put the pipe which was still alight, in its mouth and began to draw!
At this the father smiled benignly, but Slowfoot made a demonstration which induced a rather prompt completion of the walk without a reasonable wage. It sucked vigorously all the time, however, being evidently well aware that François was not to be feared.
At that moment the curtain of the tent lifted, and little Bill Sinclair limped in. He was a favourite with La Certe, who made room for him, and at once offered him the pipe, but Billie declined.
“No, thank you, La Certe. I have not learned to smoke yet.”
“Ha! you did not begin young enough,” said the half-breed, glancing proudly at his own offspring.
We may explain here once for all that, although he had lived long enough in the colony to understand French, Billie spoke to his friend in English, and that, although La Certe understood English, he preferred to speak in French.
“What have you been doing?” he asked, when the boy had seated himself.
“I’ve been shooting at a mark with my bow and arrow—brother Archie made it for me.”
“Let me see—yes, it is very well made. Where is brother Archie?”
“Gone after the buffalo.”
“What!—on a horse?”
“He could not go very well after them on foot—could he?” replied the boy quietly. “Dan Davidson lent him a horse, but not a gun. He said that Archie was too young to use a gun on horseback, and that he might shoot some of the people instead of the buffalo, or burst his gun, or fall off. ButIdon’t think so. Archie can do anything. I know, for I’ve seen him do it.”
“And so he has left you in camp all by yourself. What a shame, Billie!”
“No, François, it is not a shame. Would you have me keep him from the fun just because I can’t go?Thatwould indeed be a shame, wouldn’t it?”
“Well, perhaps you’re right, Billie.”
“I know I’m right,” returned the boy, with a decision of tone that would have been offensive if it had not been accompanied with a look of straightforward gentleness that disarmed resentment. “But, I say, François, why are you not out with the rest?”
“Oh, because—because—Well, you know, my horse is tired, and—and, I’m not quite sure that the buffalo really have been seen as near as they say. And I can go to-morrow just as well. You see, Billie, there is no need to hurry oneself.”
“No, I don’t see that. I think there’s always need for hurry, specially with men like you. I know the reason you don’t go out better than yourself, François.”
“Yes—what is it?” asked the half-breed with a slight laugh.
“It’s laziness. That’s what it is, and you should be ashamed of yourself.”
The large mild eyes and low voice, and pale earnest face of the plain-spoken invalid were such that it would have been impossible for any one to be offended with him, much less La Certe, whose spirit of indignation it was almost impossible to arouse. He winced a little at the home-thrust, however, because he knew it to be true.
“You’re hard on me, Little Bill,” he said with a benignant look, as he picked a stick from the fire and inserted its glowing end in his pipe.
“No, I’m not hard,” returned the boy gravely. Indeed he was always grave, and seldom laughed though he sometimes smiled faintly at the jokes and quips of his volatile brother and Fred Jenkins the seaman: “I’m not half hard enough,” he continued; “I like you, François, and that’s the reason why I scold you and try to get you to mend. I don’t think there’s such a lazy man in the whole Settlement as you. You would rather sit and smoke and stuff yourself with pork all day than take the trouble to saddle your horse and get your gun and go out with the rest. Why are you so lazy, François?”
“I’m sure I don’t know, Little Bill, unless it be that I’m born to be lazy. Other people are born, I suppose, to be active and energetic. They like activity and energy, and so they do it. I like repose and quiet, and—so I do that. Not much difference after all! We both do what we like best!”
Little Bill was perplexed. Although philosophical in tendency he had not had sufficient experience in sophistical reasoning to enable him to disentangle the sinuosities of bad logic. But he was a resolute little fellow, and not easily quelled.
“What would happen,” he asked, “if everybody in the world did as you do?”
“Well, I suppose everybody would enjoy themselves. There would be no more fightings or wars, or any trouble of that sort, if everybody would only take things easy and smoke the pipe of peace.”
“Hm! I don’t know about that,” returned the boy, doubtfully; “but I’m quite sure there would not be much pemmican in Red River this winter if all the hunters were like you. I wonder you’re not ashamed, François. Sometimes I think that you’re not worth caring about; but I can’t help it, you know—we can’t force our likings one way or other.”
La Certe was a good deal taken aback. He was not indeed unaccustomed to plain speaking, and to the receipt of gratuitous abuse; but his experience invariably was to associate both with more or less of a stern voice and a frowning brow. To receive both in a soft voice from a delicate meek-faced child, who at the same time professed to like him, was a complete novelty which puzzled him not a little.
After a few minutes’ profound consideration, he put out his pipe and arose quickly with something like an appearance of firmness in his look and bearing.
Slowfoot, whose utter ignorance of both French and English prevented her understanding the drift of the recent conversation, was almost startled by the unfamiliar action of her lord.
“Where go you?” she asked.
“To follow the buffalo,” answered La Certe, with all the dignity of a man bursting with good resolutions.
“Are you ill?” asked his wife, anxiously.
To this he vouchsafed no reply, as he raised the curtain and went out.
Little Bill also went out, and, sitting down on a package, watched him with his large solemn eyes, but said never a word until the half-breed had loaded his gun and mounted his horse. Then he said: “Good luck to you, François!”
La Certe did not speak, but with a grave nod of his head rode slowly out of the camp. Little Bill regarded him for a moment. He had his bow and a blunt-headed arrow in his hand at the time. Fitting the latter hastily to the bow he took a rapid shot at the retreating horseman. The arrow sped well. It descended on the flank of the horse with considerable force, and, bounding off, fell to the ground. The result was that the horse, to La Certe’s unutterable surprise, made a sudden demivolt into the air—without the usual persuasion—almost unseated its rider, and fled over the prairie like a thing possessed!
A faint smile ruffled the solemnity of Little Bill at this, but it vanished when he heard a low chuckle behind him. Wheeling round, he stood face to face with Slowfoot, whose mouth was expanded from ear to ear.
“Clever boy!” she said, patting him on the back, “come into the tent and have some grub.”
She said this in the Cree language, which the boy did not understand, but he understood well enough the signs with which the invitation was accompanied. Thanking her with an eloquent look, he re-entered the tent along with her.
Chapter Eighteen.Adventures of Archie and the Seaman.Meanwhile the buffalo-hunt progressed favourably, and the slaughter of animals was considerable.But there were two members of that hunt whose proceedings were not in exact accord with the habits and laws of the chase, as usually conducted on the Red River plains. These were the seaman Jenkins and Archie Sinclair.A mutual attachment having sprung up between these two, they had arranged to keep together during the chase; and when the signal for attack was given by Dechamp, as before related, they had “set sail,” according to Jenkins, fairly well with the rest. But they had not gone more than a few hundred yards when the boy observed that his nautical friend was hauling at both reins furiously, as if desirous of stopping his horse. Having a gun in one hand he found the operation difficult.Archie therefore reined in a little.“Bad luck to it!” growled Jenkins, as his young friend drew near, “the jaws o’ this craft seem to be made o’ cast-iron, but I’ll bring him to if I should haul my arms out o’ the sockets. Heave-to, my lad! Maybe he’ll be willin’ to follow a good example.”Archie pulled up, and, as the seaman had hoped, the hard-mouthed steed stopped, while the maddened buffalo and the almost as much maddened hunters went thundering on, and were soon far ahead of them.“What’s wrong, Jenkins?” asked Archie, on seeing the sailor dismount.“Not much, lad; only I want to take a haul at the main brace. Here, hold my gun a bit, like a good chap; the saddle, you see, ain’t all right, an’ if it was to slew round, you know, I’d be overboard in a jiffy. There, that’s all right. Now, we’ll up anchor, an’ off again. I know now that the right way to git on board is by the port side. When I started from Red River I was goin’ to climb up on the starboard side, but Dan Davidson kep’ me right—though he had a good laugh at me. All right now. Hand me the gun.”“Do you mean to say, Jenkins, that you never got on a horse till you came to Red River?” asked Archie, with a laugh, as they galloped off in pursuit of the hunters, who were almost out of sight by that time.“Well, you’ve no occasion to laugh, lad,” returned the seaman. “I’ve bin at sea ever since I was a small shaver, scarce half as long as a handspike, so I ain’t had many opportunities, d’ee see, for we don’t have cavalry at sea, as a rule—always exceptin’ the horse marines.“Then I’m afraid you’ll find runnin’ the buffalo somewhat difficult,” returned the boy. “Not that I know anything about it myself, for this is the first time I’ve been out; an’ even now Dan won’t let me use a gun; but I’ve often heard the men talkin’ about it! an’ some o’ them have complained that they have found it uncommon difficult to load when at full gallop—specially when the horse is hard in the mouth.”“I make no manner o’ doubt you’re right, lad, but I’ve got my sea-legs on now, so to speak; leastwise I’ve got used to ridin’ in the trip out here, as well as used to steerin’ wi’ the tiller-ropes in front, which seems to me right in the teeth o’ natur’, though I couldn’t see how it could well be otherwise. But I confess that my chief difficulty is the ordnance, for it interferes a good deal wi’ the steerin’. Hows’ever—‘never ventur’ never win,’ you know. I never expected to take up a noo purfession without some trouble.”As he spoke, the seaman’s horse—a large brown chestnut—put its foot in a hole, and plunged forward with great violence, barely escaping a fall.“Hold on!” shouted Archie in alarm.“Hold on it is!” sang out the sailor in reply.And hold on it was, for he had the chestnut round the neck with both arms. Indeed he was sitting, or lying, on its neck altogether.“It ain’t an easy job,” he gasped, while he struggled to regain the saddle, “when a fellow gets hove on to the bowsprit this way, to git fairly back on the main-deck again. But a Jenkins never was beaten in fair fight. That’s all right. Now then, Archie, you’re an obleegin’ cove. Do git down an’ pick up the gun for me. You see, if I git down it’s a tryin’ job to git up again—the side o’ this here craft bein’ so steep an’ so high out o’ the water. Thank’ee; why, boy, you jump down an’ up like a powder-monkey. It ain’t broke, is it?”“No. It seems all right,” answered the boy, as he handed the gun to its owner. “But if you let it go like that often, it won’t be much worth when the run’s over.”“Let it go, boy?” repeated the sailor. “It was either let it or myself go, an’ when it comes to a toss up o’ that sort, Fred Jenkins knows how to look arter number one.”It will be seen from all this that our seaman was not quite so much at home on the prairie as on the sea. Indeed, if the expression be permissible, he was very much at sea on that undulating plain, and did not take so kindly to the green waves of the rolling prairie as to the heaving billows of the restless ocean; but, as Archie remarked, he was fast getting broke in.The incidents which we have mentioned, however, were but the commencement of a series of disasters to poor Jenkins, which went far to cure him of a desire to excel in the “noo purfession,” and to induce a somewhat violent longing for a return to his first love, the ocean.“I can’t think what ever could have made you want to come out here,” said Archie, as they continued to follow up the still distant hunters.“What was it made yourself want to come out, lad?” asked the sailor.“It wasn’t me that wanted to come. It was father, you know, an’ of course I had to follow,” said the boy in a tone which induced his friend to say hastily, and in a tone of sympathy—“Ah, poor lad, I forgot you was a orphing. Well, you see, I think it must ha’ bin a love o’ change or a love o’ discontent, or suthin’ o’ that sort, as brought me cruising in these here waters, for I can’t say what else it was. You see I was born a sort o’ ro–oh—”“Look out! a badger-hole!” shouted the boy.His warning would have been too late, but the chestnut fortunately leaped over the danger instead of stumbling into it, and its rider was only partially shaken out of his seat.“It’s well,” he said, when fairly settled down again to an easy gallop, “that the tiller-ropes are stout else I’d ha’ bin over the starn this time instead of out on the bowsprit. Let me see, what was I sayin’ of?”“Somethin’ about your bein’ born a sort of ‘ro–oh—,’ though whatthatmay be I haven’t a notion.”“Ah! jist so—I was born a sort o’ rover (when this long-legged brute took the badger-hole), an’ I’ve bin to every quarter o’ the globe a’most, but if I’d lived to the age o’ Methooslum I’d never ha’ thought o’ comin’ here,—for the good reason that I knowed nothin’ o’ its existence,—if I hadn’t by chance in a furrin port fallen in wi’ André Morel, an’ took an uncommon fancy to him. You see, at the time, I was—well, I was no better nor I should be; p’raps a deal wuss, an’ Morel he meets me, an’ says—‘Hallo, my lad,’ says he, ‘where away?’“I looked at him gruff-like a moment or two, for it seemed to me he was raither too familiar for a stranger, but he’s got such a pleasant, hearty look with him—as you know—that I couldn’t feel riled with ’im, so ‘I’m goin’ on the spree,’ says I.“‘All right,’ says he, ‘I’m with ’ee, lad. D’ye know the town?’“‘No more than a Mother Carey’s chicken,’ says I. ‘Come along, then,’ says he; ‘I’ll tak’ ’ee to a fust-rate shop.’“So off we went arm in arm as thick as two peas, an’ after passin’ through two or three streets he turns into a shop that smelt strong o’ coffee.“‘Hallo! mate,’ says I, ‘you’ve made some sort o’ mistake. This here ain’t the right sort o’ shop.’“‘O yes, it is,’ says he, smilin’, quite affable-like. ‘The best o’ tipple here, an’ cheap too. Come along. I’ve got somethin’ very partikler to say to you. Look here, waiter—two cups o’ coffee, hot an’ strong, some buttered toast, an’ no end o’ buns, etceterer.’“Wi’ that he led me to a seat, an’ we sat down. I was so took aback an’ amused that I waited to see what would foller an’ what he’d got to say that was so partikler—but, I say, Archie, them buffalo runners has got the wind o’ us, an’ are showin’ us their heels, I fear.”“Never fear,” returned the boy, rising in his stirrups and shading his eyes to look ahead. “They do seem to be leavin’ us a bit, but you see by the dust that the buffalo are holdin’ away to the right, so if we keep still more to the right an’ cut round that knoll, I think we’ll be safe to catch them up. They’re doin’ good work, as the carcasses we’ve passed and the rattle o’ shots clearly show. But get on wi’ your story, Jenkins.”“Well, it ain’t much of a story, lad. What Morel had to say was that he’d arranged wi’ an agent o’ Lord Selkirk to come out to this country; an’ he was goin’ out wi’ a lot o’ his relations, an’ was beatin’ up for a few good hands, an’ he liked the look o’ me, an’ would I agree to go wi’ him?“Well, as you may believe, this was a poser, an’ I said I’d think over it, an’ let him know next day. You see, I didn’t want to seem to jump at it too eager-like, though I liked the notion, an’ I had neither wife, nor sweetheart, nor father or mother, to think about, for I’m a orphing, you see, like yourself, Archie—only a somewhat bigger one.“Well, when we’d finished all the coffee, an’ all the buns, an’ all the etceterers, he began to advise me not to ha’ nothin’ more to do wi’ grog-shops. I couldn’t tell ’ee the half o’ what he said—no, nor the quarter—but he made such a impression on me that I was more than half-convinced. To say truth, I was so choke-full o’ coffee an’ buns, an’ etceterers, that I don’t believe I could ha’ swallowed another drop o’ liquor.“‘Where are ye goin’ now?’ says he, when we’d done.“‘Back to my ship,’ says I.“‘Come an’ ha’ tea to-morrow wi’ me an’ my sister,’ says he, ‘an’ we’ll have another talk about Rupert’s Land.’“‘I will,’ says I.“‘Six o’clock, sharp,’ says he.“‘Sharp’s the word,’ says I.“An’, sure enough, I went to his house sharp to time next day, an’ there I found him an’ his sister. She was as pretty a craft as I ever set eyes on, wi’ a modest look an’ long fair ringlets—just borderin’ on nineteen or thereaway—but you know her, Archie, so I needn’t say no more.”“What! is that the same woman that’s keeping house for him now in Red River?”“Woman!” repeated the sailor, vehemently; “she’s not a woman—she’s a angel is Elise Morel. Don’t speak disrespectful of her, lad.”“I won’t,” returned Archie with a laugh; “but what was the upshot of it all?”“The upshot of it,” answered the seaman, “was that I’ve never touched a drop o’ strong drink from that day to this, an’ that I’m now blown entirely out o’ my old courses, an’ am cruisin’ arter the buffalo on the plains o’ Rupert’s Land.”At this point, their minds being set free from the consideration of past history, they made the discovery that the buffalo runners were nowhere to be seen on the horizon, and that they themselves were lost on the grassy sea.“Whatshallwe do?” said the boy, when they had pulled up to consider their situation. “You see, although I came out here a good while before you did,” he added, half apologetically, “I’ve never been out on the plains without a guide, and don’t know a bit how to find the way back to camp. The prairie is almost as bad as the sea you’re so fond of, with a clear horizon all round, and nothing worth speaking of to guide us. An’ as you have never been in the plains before, of course you know nothing. In short, Jenkins, I greatly fear that we are lost! Why, what are you grinning at?”The terminal question was induced by the fact that the tall seaman was looking down at his anxious companion with a broad smile on his handsome sunburnt countenance.“So we’re lost, are we, Archie?” he said, “like two sweet babes on the prairie instead of in the woods. An’ you think I knows nothin’. Well, p’r’aps I don’t know much, but you should remember, lad, that an old salt wi’ a compass in his wes’kit-pocket is not the man to lose his reck’nin’. I’ve got one here as’ll put us all right on that score, for I was careful to take my bearin’s when we set sail, an’ I’ve been keepin’ an eye on our course all the way. Make your mind easy, my boy.”So saying, the sailor pulled out the compass referred to, and consulted it. Then he pulled out a watch of the warming-pan type, which he styled a chronometer, and consulted that also; after which he looked up at the clouds—seamanlike—and round the horizon, especially to windward, if we may speak of such a quarter in reference to a day that was almost quite calm.“Now, Archie, boy, the upshot o’ my cogitations is that with a light breeze on our starboard quarter, a clear sky overhead, an’ a clear conscience within, you and I had better hold on our course for a little longer, and see whether we can’t overhaul the runners. If we succeed, good and well. If not, why, ’bout-ship, and homeward-bound is the sailin’ orders. What say ’ee, lad?”“I say whatever you say, Jenkins. If you’re sure o’ the way back, as I’ve no doubt you are, why, there couldn’t be greater fun than to go after the buffalo on our own account. And—I say, look there! Isn’t that somethin’ like them on the top o’ the far bluff yonder? A fellow like you, wi’ sharp sailor-eyes, ought to be able to make them out.”“You forget, lad, that I ain’t a buffalo runner, an’ don’t know the cut o’ the brutes’ jibs yet. It does look like somethin’. Come, we’ll go an’ see.” Putting their horses to the gallop, the two curiously matched friends, taking advantage of every knoll and hollow, succeeded in getting sufficiently near to perceive that a small herd was grazing quietly in a grassy bottom between two prairie waves. They halted at once for consultation.“Now, then, Archie,” said the sailor, examining the priming of his gun, “here we are at last, a-goin’ to begin a pitched battle. There’s this to be said for us, that neither you nor me knows rightly how to go to work, both on us havin’ up to this time bin trained, so to speak, on hearsay. But what o’ that? In the language o’ the immortial Nelson, ‘England expec’s every man to do his dooty.’ Now it seems to me my dooty on the present occasion is to lay myself alongside of a buffalo an’ blaze away! Isn’t that the order o’ battle?”“Yes. But don’t go for a bull, and don’t go too close for fear he turns sharp round an’ catches you on his horns. You know the bulls are apt to do that sometimes.”“Trust me, lad, I’ll keep clear o’ the bulls.”“And you understand how to re-load?” asked the boy.“O yes, all right. Dan put me thro’ the gunnery practice on the way out, an’ I went through it creditably. Only a slight hitch now and then. Two or three balls in the mouth ready to spit into the gun—”“Not all at once, though, Jenkins.”“In course not, lad: one at a time: no ramming; hit the butt on the saddle; blaze away; one down, another come on—eh?”“That’s it,” said Archie, eager for the fray. “How I wish Dan had let me have a gun!”“Safer not, lad. An’ keep well in rear, for I may be apt to fire wide in the heat of action.”With this final caution, the mariner put his gun on full cock, shook the reins, and trotted quietly forward until he saw that the buffalo had observed him. Then, as he afterwards expressed it, he “clapped on all sail-stuns’ls alow and aloft, and sky-scrapers—and went into action like a true blue British tar, with little Archie Sinclair full sail astern.”He did not, however, come out of action with as muchéclatas he went into it, but justice obliges us to admit that he came out victorious.We cannot do better than give his own description of that action as related beside the camp-fire that night, to a circle of admiring friends.“Well, you must know,” he began, after finishing his supper and lighting his pipe, “that long-legged frigate o’ mine that Dan calls a chestnut—though a cocoanut would be more like the thing, if you take size into account—he’s as keen for the chase as a small boy arter a butterfly, an’ before I could say ‘Jack Robinson,’ a’most, he had me into the middle o’ the herd an’ alongside o’ the big bull. Any one could tell it was him, in spite o’ the dust we kicked up, by reason o’ the side-glance o’ his wicked little eye, his big hairy fore’id, an’ his tail stickin’ out stiff like a crook’d spankerboom.“In course I was not a-goin’ to fire into him, so I gave the frigate a dig wi’ my heels—tho’ I’d got no irons on ’em—an’ tried to shove up alongside of a fat young cow as was skylarkin’ on ahead. As we went past the bull he made a vicious dab wi’ his horn, and caught the frigate on her flank—right abaft the mizzen chains, like. Whew! you should ha’ seen what a sheer she made right away to starboard! If it hadn’t bin that I was on the look-out, I’d ha’ bin slap overboard that time, but I see’d the squall comin’, an’, seizin’ my brute’s mane, held on like a monkey wi’ hand an’ leg.“Well, before I knew where I was, the cocoan— I mean the chestnut, had me alongside the cow. I stuck the muzzle a’most into her ribs, and let drive. Down she went by the head, fairly scuttled, an’ I could hear young Archie givin’ a wild cheer astern.”“‘That’s the way to go it, Jenkins!’ he yelled. ‘Load again.’“But it was easier said than done, I can tell you. You see, I’ve bin brought up to cartridges all my life, an’ the change to pullin’ a stopper out o’ a horn wi’ your teeth, pourin’ the powder into your left hand, wi’ the gun under your left arm, an’ the pitchin’ o’ the frigate, like as if it was in a cross sea, was raither perplexin’. Hows’ever, it had to be done, for I was alongside of another cow in a jiffy. I nigh knocked out two o’ my front teeth in tryin’ to shove the stopper in my mouth. Then, when I was pourin’ the powder into my hand, I as near as could be let fall the gun, which caused me to give a sort of gasp of anxiety, when two o’ the three bullets dropped out o’ my mouth, but I held on to the third wi’ my teeth. Just then a puff o’ wind blew the powder out o’ my hand into the buffalo’s eyes, causin’ her to bellow like a fog-horn, an’ obleegin’ me to pour out another charge. I did it hastily, as you may well believe, an’ about three times what I wanted came out. Hows’ever, I lost a deal of it in pourin’ it into the gun; then I spat the ball in, gettin’ another nasty rap on the teeth as I did so, but I’d bit the ball so that it stuck half-way down.“It was no time to think o’ trifles. I gave the butt an extra bang on the pommel to send the ball home, shoved the muzzle right in among the hair an’ pulled the trigger. There was a bang that sounded to me as if the ship’s magazine had blown up. It was followed by a constellation o’ fire-works and—Archie Sinclair must tell you what happened arter that, for I misremember the whole on it. The fire-works closed the scene to me.”Archie, nothing loath, and with glistening eyes, took up the narrative at this point, while the hero of the hour rekindled his pipe.“The fact is,” he said, “the gun had burst—was blown to atoms; not a bit o’ the barrel left, and a great lump o’ the stock struck Jenkins on the head, stunned him, and tumbled him off his horse.”“That was the magazine explosion and fire-works,” explained Jenkins.“But the queer thing was,” continued Archie, “that the buffalo fell dead, and, on examining it, we found that a bit o’ the barrel had been driven right into its brain.”“Ay, boy, but it was queerer still that none o’ the pieces struck me or my horse ’cept that bit o’ the stock. An’ I’m none the worse, barrin’ this lump on the head, that only serves to cock my hat a little more to one side than seems becomin’ to a sober-minded man.”“We were sorry to be able to bring away so little o’ the meat,” said Archie, with the gravity of an old hunter; “but, you see, it was too late to send a cart for it after we got back.”“Never mind,” said Dan Davidson, when the narrative was brought to a close, “you have done very well for a beginning.”“Moreover,” added Fergus, “it iss a goot feast the wolves will be havin’ on the plains this night, an’ so, Archie, I’ll be wishin’ ye better luck next time.”
Meanwhile the buffalo-hunt progressed favourably, and the slaughter of animals was considerable.
But there were two members of that hunt whose proceedings were not in exact accord with the habits and laws of the chase, as usually conducted on the Red River plains. These were the seaman Jenkins and Archie Sinclair.
A mutual attachment having sprung up between these two, they had arranged to keep together during the chase; and when the signal for attack was given by Dechamp, as before related, they had “set sail,” according to Jenkins, fairly well with the rest. But they had not gone more than a few hundred yards when the boy observed that his nautical friend was hauling at both reins furiously, as if desirous of stopping his horse. Having a gun in one hand he found the operation difficult.
Archie therefore reined in a little.
“Bad luck to it!” growled Jenkins, as his young friend drew near, “the jaws o’ this craft seem to be made o’ cast-iron, but I’ll bring him to if I should haul my arms out o’ the sockets. Heave-to, my lad! Maybe he’ll be willin’ to follow a good example.”
Archie pulled up, and, as the seaman had hoped, the hard-mouthed steed stopped, while the maddened buffalo and the almost as much maddened hunters went thundering on, and were soon far ahead of them.
“What’s wrong, Jenkins?” asked Archie, on seeing the sailor dismount.
“Not much, lad; only I want to take a haul at the main brace. Here, hold my gun a bit, like a good chap; the saddle, you see, ain’t all right, an’ if it was to slew round, you know, I’d be overboard in a jiffy. There, that’s all right. Now, we’ll up anchor, an’ off again. I know now that the right way to git on board is by the port side. When I started from Red River I was goin’ to climb up on the starboard side, but Dan Davidson kep’ me right—though he had a good laugh at me. All right now. Hand me the gun.”
“Do you mean to say, Jenkins, that you never got on a horse till you came to Red River?” asked Archie, with a laugh, as they galloped off in pursuit of the hunters, who were almost out of sight by that time.
“Well, you’ve no occasion to laugh, lad,” returned the seaman. “I’ve bin at sea ever since I was a small shaver, scarce half as long as a handspike, so I ain’t had many opportunities, d’ee see, for we don’t have cavalry at sea, as a rule—always exceptin’ the horse marines.
“Then I’m afraid you’ll find runnin’ the buffalo somewhat difficult,” returned the boy. “Not that I know anything about it myself, for this is the first time I’ve been out; an’ even now Dan won’t let me use a gun; but I’ve often heard the men talkin’ about it! an’ some o’ them have complained that they have found it uncommon difficult to load when at full gallop—specially when the horse is hard in the mouth.”
“I make no manner o’ doubt you’re right, lad, but I’ve got my sea-legs on now, so to speak; leastwise I’ve got used to ridin’ in the trip out here, as well as used to steerin’ wi’ the tiller-ropes in front, which seems to me right in the teeth o’ natur’, though I couldn’t see how it could well be otherwise. But I confess that my chief difficulty is the ordnance, for it interferes a good deal wi’ the steerin’. Hows’ever—‘never ventur’ never win,’ you know. I never expected to take up a noo purfession without some trouble.”
As he spoke, the seaman’s horse—a large brown chestnut—put its foot in a hole, and plunged forward with great violence, barely escaping a fall.
“Hold on!” shouted Archie in alarm.
“Hold on it is!” sang out the sailor in reply.
And hold on it was, for he had the chestnut round the neck with both arms. Indeed he was sitting, or lying, on its neck altogether.
“It ain’t an easy job,” he gasped, while he struggled to regain the saddle, “when a fellow gets hove on to the bowsprit this way, to git fairly back on the main-deck again. But a Jenkins never was beaten in fair fight. That’s all right. Now then, Archie, you’re an obleegin’ cove. Do git down an’ pick up the gun for me. You see, if I git down it’s a tryin’ job to git up again—the side o’ this here craft bein’ so steep an’ so high out o’ the water. Thank’ee; why, boy, you jump down an’ up like a powder-monkey. It ain’t broke, is it?”
“No. It seems all right,” answered the boy, as he handed the gun to its owner. “But if you let it go like that often, it won’t be much worth when the run’s over.”
“Let it go, boy?” repeated the sailor. “It was either let it or myself go, an’ when it comes to a toss up o’ that sort, Fred Jenkins knows how to look arter number one.”
It will be seen from all this that our seaman was not quite so much at home on the prairie as on the sea. Indeed, if the expression be permissible, he was very much at sea on that undulating plain, and did not take so kindly to the green waves of the rolling prairie as to the heaving billows of the restless ocean; but, as Archie remarked, he was fast getting broke in.
The incidents which we have mentioned, however, were but the commencement of a series of disasters to poor Jenkins, which went far to cure him of a desire to excel in the “noo purfession,” and to induce a somewhat violent longing for a return to his first love, the ocean.
“I can’t think what ever could have made you want to come out here,” said Archie, as they continued to follow up the still distant hunters.
“What was it made yourself want to come out, lad?” asked the sailor.
“It wasn’t me that wanted to come. It was father, you know, an’ of course I had to follow,” said the boy in a tone which induced his friend to say hastily, and in a tone of sympathy—
“Ah, poor lad, I forgot you was a orphing. Well, you see, I think it must ha’ bin a love o’ change or a love o’ discontent, or suthin’ o’ that sort, as brought me cruising in these here waters, for I can’t say what else it was. You see I was born a sort o’ ro–oh—”
“Look out! a badger-hole!” shouted the boy.
His warning would have been too late, but the chestnut fortunately leaped over the danger instead of stumbling into it, and its rider was only partially shaken out of his seat.
“It’s well,” he said, when fairly settled down again to an easy gallop, “that the tiller-ropes are stout else I’d ha’ bin over the starn this time instead of out on the bowsprit. Let me see, what was I sayin’ of?”
“Somethin’ about your bein’ born a sort of ‘ro–oh—,’ though whatthatmay be I haven’t a notion.”
“Ah! jist so—I was born a sort o’ rover (when this long-legged brute took the badger-hole), an’ I’ve bin to every quarter o’ the globe a’most, but if I’d lived to the age o’ Methooslum I’d never ha’ thought o’ comin’ here,—for the good reason that I knowed nothin’ o’ its existence,—if I hadn’t by chance in a furrin port fallen in wi’ André Morel, an’ took an uncommon fancy to him. You see, at the time, I was—well, I was no better nor I should be; p’raps a deal wuss, an’ Morel he meets me, an’ says—‘Hallo, my lad,’ says he, ‘where away?’
“I looked at him gruff-like a moment or two, for it seemed to me he was raither too familiar for a stranger, but he’s got such a pleasant, hearty look with him—as you know—that I couldn’t feel riled with ’im, so ‘I’m goin’ on the spree,’ says I.
“‘All right,’ says he, ‘I’m with ’ee, lad. D’ye know the town?’
“‘No more than a Mother Carey’s chicken,’ says I. ‘Come along, then,’ says he; ‘I’ll tak’ ’ee to a fust-rate shop.’
“So off we went arm in arm as thick as two peas, an’ after passin’ through two or three streets he turns into a shop that smelt strong o’ coffee.
“‘Hallo! mate,’ says I, ‘you’ve made some sort o’ mistake. This here ain’t the right sort o’ shop.’
“‘O yes, it is,’ says he, smilin’, quite affable-like. ‘The best o’ tipple here, an’ cheap too. Come along. I’ve got somethin’ very partikler to say to you. Look here, waiter—two cups o’ coffee, hot an’ strong, some buttered toast, an’ no end o’ buns, etceterer.’
“Wi’ that he led me to a seat, an’ we sat down. I was so took aback an’ amused that I waited to see what would foller an’ what he’d got to say that was so partikler—but, I say, Archie, them buffalo runners has got the wind o’ us, an’ are showin’ us their heels, I fear.”
“Never fear,” returned the boy, rising in his stirrups and shading his eyes to look ahead. “They do seem to be leavin’ us a bit, but you see by the dust that the buffalo are holdin’ away to the right, so if we keep still more to the right an’ cut round that knoll, I think we’ll be safe to catch them up. They’re doin’ good work, as the carcasses we’ve passed and the rattle o’ shots clearly show. But get on wi’ your story, Jenkins.”
“Well, it ain’t much of a story, lad. What Morel had to say was that he’d arranged wi’ an agent o’ Lord Selkirk to come out to this country; an’ he was goin’ out wi’ a lot o’ his relations, an’ was beatin’ up for a few good hands, an’ he liked the look o’ me, an’ would I agree to go wi’ him?
“Well, as you may believe, this was a poser, an’ I said I’d think over it, an’ let him know next day. You see, I didn’t want to seem to jump at it too eager-like, though I liked the notion, an’ I had neither wife, nor sweetheart, nor father or mother, to think about, for I’m a orphing, you see, like yourself, Archie—only a somewhat bigger one.
“Well, when we’d finished all the coffee, an’ all the buns, an’ all the etceterers, he began to advise me not to ha’ nothin’ more to do wi’ grog-shops. I couldn’t tell ’ee the half o’ what he said—no, nor the quarter—but he made such a impression on me that I was more than half-convinced. To say truth, I was so choke-full o’ coffee an’ buns, an’ etceterers, that I don’t believe I could ha’ swallowed another drop o’ liquor.
“‘Where are ye goin’ now?’ says he, when we’d done.
“‘Back to my ship,’ says I.
“‘Come an’ ha’ tea to-morrow wi’ me an’ my sister,’ says he, ‘an’ we’ll have another talk about Rupert’s Land.’
“‘I will,’ says I.
“‘Six o’clock, sharp,’ says he.
“‘Sharp’s the word,’ says I.
“An’, sure enough, I went to his house sharp to time next day, an’ there I found him an’ his sister. She was as pretty a craft as I ever set eyes on, wi’ a modest look an’ long fair ringlets—just borderin’ on nineteen or thereaway—but you know her, Archie, so I needn’t say no more.”
“What! is that the same woman that’s keeping house for him now in Red River?”
“Woman!” repeated the sailor, vehemently; “she’s not a woman—she’s a angel is Elise Morel. Don’t speak disrespectful of her, lad.”
“I won’t,” returned Archie with a laugh; “but what was the upshot of it all?”
“The upshot of it,” answered the seaman, “was that I’ve never touched a drop o’ strong drink from that day to this, an’ that I’m now blown entirely out o’ my old courses, an’ am cruisin’ arter the buffalo on the plains o’ Rupert’s Land.”
At this point, their minds being set free from the consideration of past history, they made the discovery that the buffalo runners were nowhere to be seen on the horizon, and that they themselves were lost on the grassy sea.
“Whatshallwe do?” said the boy, when they had pulled up to consider their situation. “You see, although I came out here a good while before you did,” he added, half apologetically, “I’ve never been out on the plains without a guide, and don’t know a bit how to find the way back to camp. The prairie is almost as bad as the sea you’re so fond of, with a clear horizon all round, and nothing worth speaking of to guide us. An’ as you have never been in the plains before, of course you know nothing. In short, Jenkins, I greatly fear that we are lost! Why, what are you grinning at?”
The terminal question was induced by the fact that the tall seaman was looking down at his anxious companion with a broad smile on his handsome sunburnt countenance.
“So we’re lost, are we, Archie?” he said, “like two sweet babes on the prairie instead of in the woods. An’ you think I knows nothin’. Well, p’r’aps I don’t know much, but you should remember, lad, that an old salt wi’ a compass in his wes’kit-pocket is not the man to lose his reck’nin’. I’ve got one here as’ll put us all right on that score, for I was careful to take my bearin’s when we set sail, an’ I’ve been keepin’ an eye on our course all the way. Make your mind easy, my boy.”
So saying, the sailor pulled out the compass referred to, and consulted it. Then he pulled out a watch of the warming-pan type, which he styled a chronometer, and consulted that also; after which he looked up at the clouds—seamanlike—and round the horizon, especially to windward, if we may speak of such a quarter in reference to a day that was almost quite calm.
“Now, Archie, boy, the upshot o’ my cogitations is that with a light breeze on our starboard quarter, a clear sky overhead, an’ a clear conscience within, you and I had better hold on our course for a little longer, and see whether we can’t overhaul the runners. If we succeed, good and well. If not, why, ’bout-ship, and homeward-bound is the sailin’ orders. What say ’ee, lad?”
“I say whatever you say, Jenkins. If you’re sure o’ the way back, as I’ve no doubt you are, why, there couldn’t be greater fun than to go after the buffalo on our own account. And—I say, look there! Isn’t that somethin’ like them on the top o’ the far bluff yonder? A fellow like you, wi’ sharp sailor-eyes, ought to be able to make them out.”
“You forget, lad, that I ain’t a buffalo runner, an’ don’t know the cut o’ the brutes’ jibs yet. It does look like somethin’. Come, we’ll go an’ see.” Putting their horses to the gallop, the two curiously matched friends, taking advantage of every knoll and hollow, succeeded in getting sufficiently near to perceive that a small herd was grazing quietly in a grassy bottom between two prairie waves. They halted at once for consultation.
“Now, then, Archie,” said the sailor, examining the priming of his gun, “here we are at last, a-goin’ to begin a pitched battle. There’s this to be said for us, that neither you nor me knows rightly how to go to work, both on us havin’ up to this time bin trained, so to speak, on hearsay. But what o’ that? In the language o’ the immortial Nelson, ‘England expec’s every man to do his dooty.’ Now it seems to me my dooty on the present occasion is to lay myself alongside of a buffalo an’ blaze away! Isn’t that the order o’ battle?”
“Yes. But don’t go for a bull, and don’t go too close for fear he turns sharp round an’ catches you on his horns. You know the bulls are apt to do that sometimes.”
“Trust me, lad, I’ll keep clear o’ the bulls.”
“And you understand how to re-load?” asked the boy.
“O yes, all right. Dan put me thro’ the gunnery practice on the way out, an’ I went through it creditably. Only a slight hitch now and then. Two or three balls in the mouth ready to spit into the gun—”
“Not all at once, though, Jenkins.”
“In course not, lad: one at a time: no ramming; hit the butt on the saddle; blaze away; one down, another come on—eh?”
“That’s it,” said Archie, eager for the fray. “How I wish Dan had let me have a gun!”
“Safer not, lad. An’ keep well in rear, for I may be apt to fire wide in the heat of action.”
With this final caution, the mariner put his gun on full cock, shook the reins, and trotted quietly forward until he saw that the buffalo had observed him. Then, as he afterwards expressed it, he “clapped on all sail-stuns’ls alow and aloft, and sky-scrapers—and went into action like a true blue British tar, with little Archie Sinclair full sail astern.”
He did not, however, come out of action with as muchéclatas he went into it, but justice obliges us to admit that he came out victorious.
We cannot do better than give his own description of that action as related beside the camp-fire that night, to a circle of admiring friends.
“Well, you must know,” he began, after finishing his supper and lighting his pipe, “that long-legged frigate o’ mine that Dan calls a chestnut—though a cocoanut would be more like the thing, if you take size into account—he’s as keen for the chase as a small boy arter a butterfly, an’ before I could say ‘Jack Robinson,’ a’most, he had me into the middle o’ the herd an’ alongside o’ the big bull. Any one could tell it was him, in spite o’ the dust we kicked up, by reason o’ the side-glance o’ his wicked little eye, his big hairy fore’id, an’ his tail stickin’ out stiff like a crook’d spankerboom.
“In course I was not a-goin’ to fire into him, so I gave the frigate a dig wi’ my heels—tho’ I’d got no irons on ’em—an’ tried to shove up alongside of a fat young cow as was skylarkin’ on ahead. As we went past the bull he made a vicious dab wi’ his horn, and caught the frigate on her flank—right abaft the mizzen chains, like. Whew! you should ha’ seen what a sheer she made right away to starboard! If it hadn’t bin that I was on the look-out, I’d ha’ bin slap overboard that time, but I see’d the squall comin’, an’, seizin’ my brute’s mane, held on like a monkey wi’ hand an’ leg.
“Well, before I knew where I was, the cocoan— I mean the chestnut, had me alongside the cow. I stuck the muzzle a’most into her ribs, and let drive. Down she went by the head, fairly scuttled, an’ I could hear young Archie givin’ a wild cheer astern.”
“‘That’s the way to go it, Jenkins!’ he yelled. ‘Load again.’
“But it was easier said than done, I can tell you. You see, I’ve bin brought up to cartridges all my life, an’ the change to pullin’ a stopper out o’ a horn wi’ your teeth, pourin’ the powder into your left hand, wi’ the gun under your left arm, an’ the pitchin’ o’ the frigate, like as if it was in a cross sea, was raither perplexin’. Hows’ever, it had to be done, for I was alongside of another cow in a jiffy. I nigh knocked out two o’ my front teeth in tryin’ to shove the stopper in my mouth. Then, when I was pourin’ the powder into my hand, I as near as could be let fall the gun, which caused me to give a sort of gasp of anxiety, when two o’ the three bullets dropped out o’ my mouth, but I held on to the third wi’ my teeth. Just then a puff o’ wind blew the powder out o’ my hand into the buffalo’s eyes, causin’ her to bellow like a fog-horn, an’ obleegin’ me to pour out another charge. I did it hastily, as you may well believe, an’ about three times what I wanted came out. Hows’ever, I lost a deal of it in pourin’ it into the gun; then I spat the ball in, gettin’ another nasty rap on the teeth as I did so, but I’d bit the ball so that it stuck half-way down.
“It was no time to think o’ trifles. I gave the butt an extra bang on the pommel to send the ball home, shoved the muzzle right in among the hair an’ pulled the trigger. There was a bang that sounded to me as if the ship’s magazine had blown up. It was followed by a constellation o’ fire-works and—Archie Sinclair must tell you what happened arter that, for I misremember the whole on it. The fire-works closed the scene to me.”
Archie, nothing loath, and with glistening eyes, took up the narrative at this point, while the hero of the hour rekindled his pipe.
“The fact is,” he said, “the gun had burst—was blown to atoms; not a bit o’ the barrel left, and a great lump o’ the stock struck Jenkins on the head, stunned him, and tumbled him off his horse.”
“That was the magazine explosion and fire-works,” explained Jenkins.
“But the queer thing was,” continued Archie, “that the buffalo fell dead, and, on examining it, we found that a bit o’ the barrel had been driven right into its brain.”
“Ay, boy, but it was queerer still that none o’ the pieces struck me or my horse ’cept that bit o’ the stock. An’ I’m none the worse, barrin’ this lump on the head, that only serves to cock my hat a little more to one side than seems becomin’ to a sober-minded man.”
“We were sorry to be able to bring away so little o’ the meat,” said Archie, with the gravity of an old hunter; “but, you see, it was too late to send a cart for it after we got back.”
“Never mind,” said Dan Davidson, when the narrative was brought to a close, “you have done very well for a beginning.”
“Moreover,” added Fergus, “it iss a goot feast the wolves will be havin’ on the plains this night, an’ so, Archie, I’ll be wishin’ ye better luck next time.”
Chapter Nineteen.Bright Hopes terminate in Furious War.Turning once again to the colony at Red River, we introduce the reader to the Scotch settlers in the autumn of the year—at a time when there was some appearance of the commencement of a season of prosperity, after all the troubles that had befallen and surrounded, and well-nigh overwhelmed them in time past.The Davidson and McKay families had re-established themselves on their farms, rebuilt their houses and planted their fields, and splendid crops of all kinds were now flourishing, ready for spade and sickle.The soil was found to be excellent. In after years, forty-fold was no uncommon return. In one case, for a bushel of barley sown, fifty-six bushels were reaped; and from a bushel of seed potatoes were obtained one hundred and forty-five bushels! Industry, however, had not at that time been rewarded with such encouraging results, but there was sufficient to indicate cheering prospects in the near future, and to gladden the hearts of the pioneer settlers.As a good number of these had, under the depressing influence of disappointment and failure in the past, neglected to sow extensively, not a few families were forced again to winter at Pembina, and draw their supplies from the chase to avoid consuming all the seed which alone ensured them against famine. Among these were the Swiss families, most of whom, being watch and clock makers, pastry-cooks, mechanics and musicians, were not well adapted for agricultural pursuits. Perhaps they were as ill-adapted for the chase, but seed takes time to sow and grow, whereas animals need no prolonged nursing—at least from man—and are quickly killed if one can shoot.The young leader of the Switzers, however, André Morel, soon left his party at Pembina under the care of his lieutenant, and returned to Red River Settlement, bent on mastering the details of husbandry, so as to be able afterwards to direct the energies of his compatriots into a more profitable occupation than the chase.For this purpose, he sought and obtained employment with the Davidsons in the new and enlarged edition of Prairie Cottage. His sister, Elise, was engaged by old McKay to act as companion and assistant to his daughter Elspie. Both the curly-haired André and the fair, blue-eyed Elise, proved to be invaluable acquisitions in the households in which they had found a home, for both were lively, intelligent companions, hard workers at whatever they undertook, and were possessed of sweet melodious voices. André also performed on the violin, an instrument which has played a prominent part in the wild Nor’-West ever since the white-man set down his foot there.“What do you think, Elspie, of my brother’s plan, of taking the farm just below this one, after he has had enough experience to be able to work it himself?” asked Elise.“It will be very nice to have him settled so near us. Do you think he will take the whole of it?”“I think so. You see, the terms on which the Earl has granted the land are so easy, and the supplies of goods, oatmeal, clothing, and farm implements sent us so generous, that André finds he will have money enough to enable him to start. Then, that strong, good-natured seaman, Fred Jenkins, has actually agreed to serve as a man on the farm for a whole year for nothing, except, of course, his food and lodging. Isn’t it generous of him?”“Do you know why he is going to serve him for nothing?” asked Elspie, with a quick look and smile.“No—I do not,” returned fair little Elise with an innocent look. “Do you?”“O no—of course I don’t; I can only guess,” replied her companion with a light laugh. “Perhaps it is because he knows his services as a farm servant can’t be worth much at first.”“There you are wrong,” returned Elise, stoutly. “No doubt he is ignorant, as yet, about sowing and reaping and the like, but he is wonderfully strong—just like a giant at lifting and carrying-and he has become quite knowing about horses, and carting, and such things. All that he stipulates for is that he shall board in our house. He says he’ll manage, somehow, to make enough money to buy all the clothes he wants.”“What a delightful kind of servant,” said Elspie, with an arch look, which was quite thrown away on Elise, “and so disinterested to do it without any reason.”“O! but he must have some reason, you know,” rejoined Elise. “I shouldn’t wonder if it was out of gratitude to my brother who was very kind to him—so he says—the first time they met.”“Did he say that was his reason?” asked Elspie quickly.“No, he did not say so, but he has said more than once that he feels very grateful to my brother, and it has just occurred to me that that may be his reason. It would be very natural—wouldn’t it?”“Oh, very natural!—very!” returned the other. “But d’you know, Elise, I don’t like your brother’s plan at all.”“No! why?”“Because, don’t you see, foolish girl, that it will take you away from me? You will, of course, want to keep house for your brother, and I have become so used to you, short though our intercourse has been, that I don’t see how I can get on at all without you?”“Never mind, Elspie, dear. It will be a long while before André is ready to take the farm. Besides, by that time, you know, you and Dan will be married, so you won’t miss me much—though I confess I should like you to miss me a little.”Elspie sighed at this point. “I suspect that our marriage will not be so soon as you think, Elise,” she said. “Dan has tried to arrange it more than once, but there seems to be a fate against it, for somethingalwayscomes in the way!”“Surely nothing will happen this time,” said the sympathetic Elise. “Everything begins to prosper now. The crops are beautiful; the weather is splendid; the house is ready to begin to—all the logs are cut and squared. Your father is quite willing, and Dan wishing for the day—what more could you desire, Elspie?”“Nothing; all seems well, but—” She finished the sentence with another sigh.While the two friends were thus conversing in the dairy, old McKay and Dan Davidson were talking on the same subject in the hall of Ben Nevis.“It iss a curious fact, Taniel,” said the old man, with a pleased look, “that it wass in this fery room in the old hoose that wass burnt, and about the same time of the year, too, that you would be speakin’ to me about this fery thing. An’ I do not think that we will be troubled this time wi’ the Nor’-Westers, whatever—though wan never knows what a tay may bring furth.”“That is the very reason, sir,” said Davidson, “that I want to get married at once, so that if anything does happen again I may claim the right to be Elspie’s protector.”“Quite right, my boy, quite right; though I must say I would like to wait till a real munister comes out; for although Mr Sutherland iss a fery goot man, an’ an elder too, he iss not chust exactly a munister, you know, as I have said before. But have it your own way, Tan. If my little lass is willin’, old Tuncan McKay won’t stand in your way.”That night the inhabitants of Red River lay down to sleep in comfort and to dream, perchance, of the coming, though long delayed, prosperity that had hitherto so often eluded their grasp.Next day an event occurred which gave the poor settlers new cause for grief amounting almost to despair.Dan Davidson and Elspie were walking on the verandah in front of Ben Nevis at the time. It was a warm sunny afternoon. All around looked the picture of peace and prosperity.“Does it not seem, Dan, as if all the troubles we have gone through were a dark dream—as if there never had been any reality in them?” said Elspie.“It does indeed seem so,” responded Dan, “and I hope and trust that we shall henceforth be able to think of them as nothing more than a troubled dream.”“What iss that you will be sayin’ about troubled dreams?” asked old McKay, coming out of the house at the moment.“We were just saying, daddy, that all our troubles seem—”“Look yonder, Tan,” interrupted the old man, pointing with his pipe-stem to a certain part of the heavens. “What iss it that I see? A queer cloud, whatever! I don’t remember seein’ such a solid cloud as that in all my experience.”“It is indeed queer. I hope it’s not what Fred Jenkins would call a ‘squall brewin’ up,’ for that wouldn’t improve the crops.”“A squall!” exclaimed Jenkins, who chanced to come round the corner of the house at the moment, with a spade on his shoulder. “That’s never a squall—no, nor a gale, nor a simoon, nor anything else o’ the sort that I ever heard of. Why, it’s growin’ bigger an’ bigger!”He shaded his eyes with his hand, and looked earnestly at the object in question, which did indeed resemble a very dense, yet not a black, cloud. For some moments the four spectators gazed in silence. Then old McKay suddenly dropped his pipe, and looked at Dan with an expression of intense solemnity.“It iss my belief,” he said in a hoarse whisper, “that it is them wee deevils the grasshoppers!”A very few minutes proved old McKay’s surmise to be correct. Once before, the colony had been devastated by this plague, and the memory of the result was enough to alarm the most courageous among the settlers who had experienced the calamity, though the new arrivals, being ignorant, were disposed to regard the visitation lightly at first. McKay himself became greatly excited when the air became darkened by the cloud, which, ever increasing in size, rapidly approached.“Haste ye, lads,” he cried to some of the farm-servants who had joined the group on the verandah, “get your spades, picks, an’ shovels. Be smart now: it is not possible to save all the crops, but we may try to save the garden, whatever. Follow me!”The garden referred to was not large or of great importance, but it was a favourite hobby of the Highlander, and, at the time, was in full bloom, luxuriant with fruit, flower, and vegetable. To save it from destruction at such a time, McKay would have given almost anything, and have gone almost any lengths. On this occasion, not knowing what to do, yet impelled by his eagerness to do something, he adopted measures that he had heard of as being used in other lands. He ordered a trench to be cut and filled with water on the side of his garden nearest the approaching plague, which might—if thoroughly carried out—have been of some use against wingless grasshoppers but could be of no use whatever against a flying foe. It would have taken an army of men to carry out such an order promptly, and his men perceived this; but the master was so energetic, so violent in throwing off his coat and working with his own hand at pick and shovel, that they were irresistibly infected with his enthusiasm, and set to work.Old Duncan, did not, however, wield pick or shovel long. He was too excited for that. He changed from one thing to another rapidly. Fires were to be kindled along the line of defence, and he set the example in this also. Then he remembered that blankets and other drapery had been used somewhere with great effect in beating back the foe; therefore he shouted wildly for his daughter and Elise Morel.“Here we are, father: what can we do?”“Go, fetch out all the blankets, sheets, table-cloths, an’ towels in the house, girls. It iss neck or nothin’ this tay. Be smart, now! Take men to help ye.”Two men were very busy there piling up little heaps of firewood, namely, Dan Davidson and Fred Jenkins. What more natural than that these two, on hearing the order given about blankets and table-cloths, etcetera, should quit the fires and follow Elspie and Elise into the house!In the first bedroom into which they entered they found Archie and Billie Sinclair, the latter seated comfortably in an arm-chair close to a window, the former wild with delight at the sudden demand on all his energies. For Archie had been one of the first to leap to the work when old McKay gave the order. Then he had suddenly recollected his little helpless brother, and had dashed round to Prairie Cottage, got him on his back, run with him to Ben Nevis Hall, placed him as we have seen in a position to view the field of battle, and then, advising him to sit quietly there and enjoy the fun, had dashed down-stairs to resume his place in the forefront of battle!He had run up again for a moment to inquire how Little Bill was getting on, when the blanket and sheet searchers found them.“All right,” he exclaimed, on learning what they came for; “here you are. Look alive! Don’t stir, Little Bill!”He hurled the bedding from a neighbouring bedstead as he spoke, tore several blankets from the heap, and tumbled rather than ran down-stairs with them, while the friends he had left behind followed his example.By that time all the inmates and farm-servants of Prairie Cottage had assembled at Ben Nevis Hall, attracted either by sympathy or curiosity as to the amazing fracas which old McKay was creating. Of course they entered into the spirit of the preparations, so that when the enemy at last descended on them they found the garrison ready. But the defenders might as well have remained quiet and gone to their beds.Night was drawing near at the time, and was, as it were, precipitated by the grasshoppers, which darkened the whole sky with what appeared to be a heavy shower of snow.The fires were lighted, water was poured into the trench, and the two households fought with blanket, sheet, counterpane, and towel, in a manner that proved the courage of the ancient heroes to be still slumbering in men and women of modern days.But what could courage do against such overwhelming odds? Thousands were slaughtered. Millions pressed on behind.“Don’t give in, lads,” cried the heroic and desperate Highlander, wielding a great green blanket in a way that might have roused the admiration if not the envy of Ajax himself. “Keep it up, Jenkins!”“Ay, ay, sir!” responded the nautical warrior, as he laid about him with an enormous buffalo robe, which was the only weapon that seemed sufficiently suited to his gigantic frame; “never say die as long as there’s a shot in the locker.”Elise stood behind him, lost in admiration, and giving an imbecile flap now and then with a towel to anything that happened to come in front of her.Elspie was more self-possessed. She tried to wield a jack-towel with some effect, while Dan, Fergus, Duncan junior, Bourassin, André Morel, and others ably, but uselessly, supported their heroic leader. La Certe, who chanced to be there at the time, went actively about encouraging others to do their very best. Old Peg made a feeble effort to do what she conceived to be her duty, and Okématan stood by, calmly looking on—his grave countenance exhibiting no symptom of emotion, but his mind filled with intense surprise, not unmingled with pity, for the Palefaces who displayed such an amount of energy in attempting the impossible.That self-defence, in the circumstances, was indeed impossible soon became apparent, for the enemy descended in such clouds that they filled up the half-formed ditch, extinguished the fires with their dead bodies, defied the blanket-warriors, and swarmed not only into the garden of old Duncan McKay but overwhelmed the whole land.Darkness and exhaustion from the fight prevented the people of Ben Nevis Hall and Prairie Cottage from at first comprehending the extent of the calamity with which they had thus been visited, but enough had been seen to convince McKay that his garden was doomed. When he at last allowed the sad truth to force itself into his mind he suffered Elspie to lead him into the house.“Don’t grieve, daddy,” she said, in a low comforting tone; “perhaps it won’t be as bad as it seems.”“Fetch me my pipe, lass,” he said on reaching his bedroom.“Goot-night to you, my tear,” he added, on receiving the implement of consolation.“Won’t you eat—or drink—something, daddy dear?”“Nothing—nothing. Leave me now. We hev had a goot fight, whatever, an’ it iss to bed I will be goin’ now.”Left alone the old man lay down in his warrior-harness, so to speak, lighted his pipe, smoked himself into a sort of philosophical contempt for everything under the sun, moon, and stars, and finally dropped his sufferings, as well as his pipe, by falling into a profound slumber.Next morning when the people of Red River arose, they became fully aware of the disaster that had befallen them. The grasshoppers had made what Jenkins styled a clean sweep from stem to stern. Crops, gardens, and every green herb in the settlement had perished; and all the sanguine hopes of the long-suffering settlers were blighted once more.Before passing from this subject it may be as well to mention that the devastating hosts which visited the colony at this time left behind them that which turned out to be a worse affliction than themselves. They had deposited their larvae in the ground, and, about the end of the June following, countless myriads of young grasshoppers issued forth to overrun the fields. They swarmed in such masses as to be two, three, and—in some places near water—even four inches deep. Along the rivers they were found in heaps like sea-weed, and the water was almost poisoned by them. Every vegetable substance was devoured—the leaves and even bark of trees were eaten up, the grain vanished as fast as it appeared above ground, everything was stripped to the bare stalk, and ultimately, when they died in myriads, the decomposition of their dead bodies was more offensive than their living presence.Thus the settlers were driven by stress of misfortune once again to the plains of Pembina, and obliged to consort with the Red-men and the half-breeds, in obtaining sustenance for their families by means of the gun, line, trap, and snare.
Turning once again to the colony at Red River, we introduce the reader to the Scotch settlers in the autumn of the year—at a time when there was some appearance of the commencement of a season of prosperity, after all the troubles that had befallen and surrounded, and well-nigh overwhelmed them in time past.
The Davidson and McKay families had re-established themselves on their farms, rebuilt their houses and planted their fields, and splendid crops of all kinds were now flourishing, ready for spade and sickle.
The soil was found to be excellent. In after years, forty-fold was no uncommon return. In one case, for a bushel of barley sown, fifty-six bushels were reaped; and from a bushel of seed potatoes were obtained one hundred and forty-five bushels! Industry, however, had not at that time been rewarded with such encouraging results, but there was sufficient to indicate cheering prospects in the near future, and to gladden the hearts of the pioneer settlers.
As a good number of these had, under the depressing influence of disappointment and failure in the past, neglected to sow extensively, not a few families were forced again to winter at Pembina, and draw their supplies from the chase to avoid consuming all the seed which alone ensured them against famine. Among these were the Swiss families, most of whom, being watch and clock makers, pastry-cooks, mechanics and musicians, were not well adapted for agricultural pursuits. Perhaps they were as ill-adapted for the chase, but seed takes time to sow and grow, whereas animals need no prolonged nursing—at least from man—and are quickly killed if one can shoot.
The young leader of the Switzers, however, André Morel, soon left his party at Pembina under the care of his lieutenant, and returned to Red River Settlement, bent on mastering the details of husbandry, so as to be able afterwards to direct the energies of his compatriots into a more profitable occupation than the chase.
For this purpose, he sought and obtained employment with the Davidsons in the new and enlarged edition of Prairie Cottage. His sister, Elise, was engaged by old McKay to act as companion and assistant to his daughter Elspie. Both the curly-haired André and the fair, blue-eyed Elise, proved to be invaluable acquisitions in the households in which they had found a home, for both were lively, intelligent companions, hard workers at whatever they undertook, and were possessed of sweet melodious voices. André also performed on the violin, an instrument which has played a prominent part in the wild Nor’-West ever since the white-man set down his foot there.
“What do you think, Elspie, of my brother’s plan, of taking the farm just below this one, after he has had enough experience to be able to work it himself?” asked Elise.
“It will be very nice to have him settled so near us. Do you think he will take the whole of it?”
“I think so. You see, the terms on which the Earl has granted the land are so easy, and the supplies of goods, oatmeal, clothing, and farm implements sent us so generous, that André finds he will have money enough to enable him to start. Then, that strong, good-natured seaman, Fred Jenkins, has actually agreed to serve as a man on the farm for a whole year for nothing, except, of course, his food and lodging. Isn’t it generous of him?”
“Do you know why he is going to serve him for nothing?” asked Elspie, with a quick look and smile.
“No—I do not,” returned fair little Elise with an innocent look. “Do you?”
“O no—of course I don’t; I can only guess,” replied her companion with a light laugh. “Perhaps it is because he knows his services as a farm servant can’t be worth much at first.”
“There you are wrong,” returned Elise, stoutly. “No doubt he is ignorant, as yet, about sowing and reaping and the like, but he is wonderfully strong—just like a giant at lifting and carrying-and he has become quite knowing about horses, and carting, and such things. All that he stipulates for is that he shall board in our house. He says he’ll manage, somehow, to make enough money to buy all the clothes he wants.”
“What a delightful kind of servant,” said Elspie, with an arch look, which was quite thrown away on Elise, “and so disinterested to do it without any reason.”
“O! but he must have some reason, you know,” rejoined Elise. “I shouldn’t wonder if it was out of gratitude to my brother who was very kind to him—so he says—the first time they met.”
“Did he say that was his reason?” asked Elspie quickly.
“No, he did not say so, but he has said more than once that he feels very grateful to my brother, and it has just occurred to me that that may be his reason. It would be very natural—wouldn’t it?”
“Oh, very natural!—very!” returned the other. “But d’you know, Elise, I don’t like your brother’s plan at all.”
“No! why?”
“Because, don’t you see, foolish girl, that it will take you away from me? You will, of course, want to keep house for your brother, and I have become so used to you, short though our intercourse has been, that I don’t see how I can get on at all without you?”
“Never mind, Elspie, dear. It will be a long while before André is ready to take the farm. Besides, by that time, you know, you and Dan will be married, so you won’t miss me much—though I confess I should like you to miss me a little.”
Elspie sighed at this point. “I suspect that our marriage will not be so soon as you think, Elise,” she said. “Dan has tried to arrange it more than once, but there seems to be a fate against it, for somethingalwayscomes in the way!”
“Surely nothing will happen this time,” said the sympathetic Elise. “Everything begins to prosper now. The crops are beautiful; the weather is splendid; the house is ready to begin to—all the logs are cut and squared. Your father is quite willing, and Dan wishing for the day—what more could you desire, Elspie?”
“Nothing; all seems well, but—” She finished the sentence with another sigh.
While the two friends were thus conversing in the dairy, old McKay and Dan Davidson were talking on the same subject in the hall of Ben Nevis.
“It iss a curious fact, Taniel,” said the old man, with a pleased look, “that it wass in this fery room in the old hoose that wass burnt, and about the same time of the year, too, that you would be speakin’ to me about this fery thing. An’ I do not think that we will be troubled this time wi’ the Nor’-Westers, whatever—though wan never knows what a tay may bring furth.”
“That is the very reason, sir,” said Davidson, “that I want to get married at once, so that if anything does happen again I may claim the right to be Elspie’s protector.”
“Quite right, my boy, quite right; though I must say I would like to wait till a real munister comes out; for although Mr Sutherland iss a fery goot man, an’ an elder too, he iss not chust exactly a munister, you know, as I have said before. But have it your own way, Tan. If my little lass is willin’, old Tuncan McKay won’t stand in your way.”
That night the inhabitants of Red River lay down to sleep in comfort and to dream, perchance, of the coming, though long delayed, prosperity that had hitherto so often eluded their grasp.
Next day an event occurred which gave the poor settlers new cause for grief amounting almost to despair.
Dan Davidson and Elspie were walking on the verandah in front of Ben Nevis at the time. It was a warm sunny afternoon. All around looked the picture of peace and prosperity.
“Does it not seem, Dan, as if all the troubles we have gone through were a dark dream—as if there never had been any reality in them?” said Elspie.
“It does indeed seem so,” responded Dan, “and I hope and trust that we shall henceforth be able to think of them as nothing more than a troubled dream.”
“What iss that you will be sayin’ about troubled dreams?” asked old McKay, coming out of the house at the moment.
“We were just saying, daddy, that all our troubles seem—”
“Look yonder, Tan,” interrupted the old man, pointing with his pipe-stem to a certain part of the heavens. “What iss it that I see? A queer cloud, whatever! I don’t remember seein’ such a solid cloud as that in all my experience.”
“It is indeed queer. I hope it’s not what Fred Jenkins would call a ‘squall brewin’ up,’ for that wouldn’t improve the crops.”
“A squall!” exclaimed Jenkins, who chanced to come round the corner of the house at the moment, with a spade on his shoulder. “That’s never a squall—no, nor a gale, nor a simoon, nor anything else o’ the sort that I ever heard of. Why, it’s growin’ bigger an’ bigger!”
He shaded his eyes with his hand, and looked earnestly at the object in question, which did indeed resemble a very dense, yet not a black, cloud. For some moments the four spectators gazed in silence. Then old McKay suddenly dropped his pipe, and looked at Dan with an expression of intense solemnity.
“It iss my belief,” he said in a hoarse whisper, “that it is them wee deevils the grasshoppers!”
A very few minutes proved old McKay’s surmise to be correct. Once before, the colony had been devastated by this plague, and the memory of the result was enough to alarm the most courageous among the settlers who had experienced the calamity, though the new arrivals, being ignorant, were disposed to regard the visitation lightly at first. McKay himself became greatly excited when the air became darkened by the cloud, which, ever increasing in size, rapidly approached.
“Haste ye, lads,” he cried to some of the farm-servants who had joined the group on the verandah, “get your spades, picks, an’ shovels. Be smart now: it is not possible to save all the crops, but we may try to save the garden, whatever. Follow me!”
The garden referred to was not large or of great importance, but it was a favourite hobby of the Highlander, and, at the time, was in full bloom, luxuriant with fruit, flower, and vegetable. To save it from destruction at such a time, McKay would have given almost anything, and have gone almost any lengths. On this occasion, not knowing what to do, yet impelled by his eagerness to do something, he adopted measures that he had heard of as being used in other lands. He ordered a trench to be cut and filled with water on the side of his garden nearest the approaching plague, which might—if thoroughly carried out—have been of some use against wingless grasshoppers but could be of no use whatever against a flying foe. It would have taken an army of men to carry out such an order promptly, and his men perceived this; but the master was so energetic, so violent in throwing off his coat and working with his own hand at pick and shovel, that they were irresistibly infected with his enthusiasm, and set to work.
Old Duncan, did not, however, wield pick or shovel long. He was too excited for that. He changed from one thing to another rapidly. Fires were to be kindled along the line of defence, and he set the example in this also. Then he remembered that blankets and other drapery had been used somewhere with great effect in beating back the foe; therefore he shouted wildly for his daughter and Elise Morel.
“Here we are, father: what can we do?”
“Go, fetch out all the blankets, sheets, table-cloths, an’ towels in the house, girls. It iss neck or nothin’ this tay. Be smart, now! Take men to help ye.”
Two men were very busy there piling up little heaps of firewood, namely, Dan Davidson and Fred Jenkins. What more natural than that these two, on hearing the order given about blankets and table-cloths, etcetera, should quit the fires and follow Elspie and Elise into the house!
In the first bedroom into which they entered they found Archie and Billie Sinclair, the latter seated comfortably in an arm-chair close to a window, the former wild with delight at the sudden demand on all his energies. For Archie had been one of the first to leap to the work when old McKay gave the order. Then he had suddenly recollected his little helpless brother, and had dashed round to Prairie Cottage, got him on his back, run with him to Ben Nevis Hall, placed him as we have seen in a position to view the field of battle, and then, advising him to sit quietly there and enjoy the fun, had dashed down-stairs to resume his place in the forefront of battle!
He had run up again for a moment to inquire how Little Bill was getting on, when the blanket and sheet searchers found them.
“All right,” he exclaimed, on learning what they came for; “here you are. Look alive! Don’t stir, Little Bill!”
He hurled the bedding from a neighbouring bedstead as he spoke, tore several blankets from the heap, and tumbled rather than ran down-stairs with them, while the friends he had left behind followed his example.
By that time all the inmates and farm-servants of Prairie Cottage had assembled at Ben Nevis Hall, attracted either by sympathy or curiosity as to the amazing fracas which old McKay was creating. Of course they entered into the spirit of the preparations, so that when the enemy at last descended on them they found the garrison ready. But the defenders might as well have remained quiet and gone to their beds.
Night was drawing near at the time, and was, as it were, precipitated by the grasshoppers, which darkened the whole sky with what appeared to be a heavy shower of snow.
The fires were lighted, water was poured into the trench, and the two households fought with blanket, sheet, counterpane, and towel, in a manner that proved the courage of the ancient heroes to be still slumbering in men and women of modern days.
But what could courage do against such overwhelming odds? Thousands were slaughtered. Millions pressed on behind.
“Don’t give in, lads,” cried the heroic and desperate Highlander, wielding a great green blanket in a way that might have roused the admiration if not the envy of Ajax himself. “Keep it up, Jenkins!”
“Ay, ay, sir!” responded the nautical warrior, as he laid about him with an enormous buffalo robe, which was the only weapon that seemed sufficiently suited to his gigantic frame; “never say die as long as there’s a shot in the locker.”
Elise stood behind him, lost in admiration, and giving an imbecile flap now and then with a towel to anything that happened to come in front of her.
Elspie was more self-possessed. She tried to wield a jack-towel with some effect, while Dan, Fergus, Duncan junior, Bourassin, André Morel, and others ably, but uselessly, supported their heroic leader. La Certe, who chanced to be there at the time, went actively about encouraging others to do their very best. Old Peg made a feeble effort to do what she conceived to be her duty, and Okématan stood by, calmly looking on—his grave countenance exhibiting no symptom of emotion, but his mind filled with intense surprise, not unmingled with pity, for the Palefaces who displayed such an amount of energy in attempting the impossible.
That self-defence, in the circumstances, was indeed impossible soon became apparent, for the enemy descended in such clouds that they filled up the half-formed ditch, extinguished the fires with their dead bodies, defied the blanket-warriors, and swarmed not only into the garden of old Duncan McKay but overwhelmed the whole land.
Darkness and exhaustion from the fight prevented the people of Ben Nevis Hall and Prairie Cottage from at first comprehending the extent of the calamity with which they had thus been visited, but enough had been seen to convince McKay that his garden was doomed. When he at last allowed the sad truth to force itself into his mind he suffered Elspie to lead him into the house.
“Don’t grieve, daddy,” she said, in a low comforting tone; “perhaps it won’t be as bad as it seems.”
“Fetch me my pipe, lass,” he said on reaching his bedroom.
“Goot-night to you, my tear,” he added, on receiving the implement of consolation.
“Won’t you eat—or drink—something, daddy dear?”
“Nothing—nothing. Leave me now. We hev had a goot fight, whatever, an’ it iss to bed I will be goin’ now.”
Left alone the old man lay down in his warrior-harness, so to speak, lighted his pipe, smoked himself into a sort of philosophical contempt for everything under the sun, moon, and stars, and finally dropped his sufferings, as well as his pipe, by falling into a profound slumber.
Next morning when the people of Red River arose, they became fully aware of the disaster that had befallen them. The grasshoppers had made what Jenkins styled a clean sweep from stem to stern. Crops, gardens, and every green herb in the settlement had perished; and all the sanguine hopes of the long-suffering settlers were blighted once more.
Before passing from this subject it may be as well to mention that the devastating hosts which visited the colony at this time left behind them that which turned out to be a worse affliction than themselves. They had deposited their larvae in the ground, and, about the end of the June following, countless myriads of young grasshoppers issued forth to overrun the fields. They swarmed in such masses as to be two, three, and—in some places near water—even four inches deep. Along the rivers they were found in heaps like sea-weed, and the water was almost poisoned by them. Every vegetable substance was devoured—the leaves and even bark of trees were eaten up, the grain vanished as fast as it appeared above ground, everything was stripped to the bare stalk, and ultimately, when they died in myriads, the decomposition of their dead bodies was more offensive than their living presence.
Thus the settlers were driven by stress of misfortune once again to the plains of Pembina, and obliged to consort with the Red-men and the half-breeds, in obtaining sustenance for their families by means of the gun, line, trap, and snare.