The Wild Man of the West by Robert Michael Ballantyne (epub e ink reader TXT) 📕

of the river, cried, "Push for it--'tis your only chance!"

March Marston made no reply, but at once obeyed; yet so exhausted was he, that, in the effort, he lost strength and sank. Bounce was prepared for this. He seized him by the hair and struck out with the energy of despair. A moment more and he was within a foot of the brink of the fall--but, also, within a foot of the point of rock on which Big Waller was lying at full length, part of his body overhanging the cataract, his arms extended, and Gibault and Hawkswing holding him firmly by the legs. Bounce caught his comrade's hand, and swung close in to the bank, while with the other hand he continued to grasp March by the hair of the head. The force of the current was so great, however, that not one of the party dared move, and it seemed for a moment as if all of them would be lost, when Bertram rushed forward, and, seizing Bounce by the arm, dragged him still nearer the bank, and relieved the strain upon the others. Just then, Redhand came to the rescue, and in another moment the two men were safe upon the land.

Poor Bertram fell upon his knees, and while he thanked God for the deliverance of his companions, sobbed liked a little child.

For some time the trappers spoke little. Accustomed though they were to danger, they were solemnised by the recent narrow escape from sudden death. Perhaps, too, their minds were more deeply affected than usual with a sense of their dependence upon the living God, by the example and the heartfelt, unrestrained thanksgiving of Bertram. But men whose lives are spent in the midst of alarms are not long seriously affected, even by the most solemn events. The trappers quickly recurred to their present circumstances, which were, in truth, of a nature calculated to fill them with anxiety, and cause them to bend the powers of their quick wits and iron energies to the simple consideration of how they were to subsist and how proceed on their journey.

"First of all," said Redhand quickly, "we must try what we can recover of our odds and ends."

"Right," cried Bounce, who was none the worse for his late gallant exertions; "the current won't stop for no man; an' the bales ain't likely to stem it o' their own accord till we're ready to look for 'em."

Saying this, he set off down the river at a run, followed by all the others, including March, who, after wringing the water from his garments, and resting a few minutes, felt as well and strong as ever. But, alas! their losses were grievous and irreparable. Their little bundles of spare clothing and trinkets for trading with, or conciliating, the Indians, were indeed saved, but their guns and all their ammunition were gone. All that remained to them of the latter were the few charges of powder in the horns suspended round their necks, and a few slugs and bullets in their pouches. The only firearms left were Bertram's cavalry pistols.

As for the canoe, it was smashed so thoroughly, that only a very few shreds of bark were cast up on the shore; but entangled with these shreds they were happy to find several of their steel traps--a most fortunate circumstance, as it held out hopes that they might still be enabled to prosecute to some extent the main object of their expedition.

As each man had been in the habit of carrying his axe and knife in his belt, those indispensable implements of the backwoodsman were saved; but the loss of guns and ammunition was a very severe misfortune, and one which, for at least half an hour after every attempt to recover them had failed, cast a damp over the spirits of the whole party. But these men had neither time nor inclination to hang down their heads and sigh. Big Waller, being a careless individual by nature, was the first to regain somewhat of his wonted tone and manner. Sitting on a grassy knoll, on which all the party had been resting for some time after their fruitless exertions, in moody silence, Waller looked up suddenly and said, "Who's afraid?"

As no one happened at that moment to be exhibiting symptoms of terror, and there was no apparent cause for fear, the question seemed irrelevant. We therefore conclude that the bold Yankee meant by it to imply that _he_, at least, was not afraid of _circumstances_, no matter how disastrous or heartrending they might be. Having said this, he looked at the faces of his companions one by one. The last face he looked at was that of Gibault Noir, and it wore such a lugubrious aspect of hopeless melancholy that Big Waller burst into an uncontrollable fit of laughter, and Bounce, without knowing why, joined him.

"Well, it's of no use looking blue about it," said March Marston, making an effort to cheer up; "the question to be settled now is, What's to be done?"

"Ay, _that_ is the question," observed Bertram gravely.

"Wall now, that _bein'_ the kee-westion," said Waller, "whose a-goin' to answer it? There's a chance now, lads; but don't all speak at once."

"Right; that's wot it is," observed Bounce, nodding; "that's the feelosophy on it. When a feller's turned upside down, wot's he a-goin' to do nixt? You can't put no other construction on it in this here wurld."

Redhand, who had been ruminating abstractedly for some minutes, now looked round on his comrades and said--

"Here's a plan for you, lads. That outrageous villain the Big Snake lives, for the most part, in a pretty little spot just three days' march from this place. He stole, as ye all know, the horses belongin' to Mr Bertram's party. Well, I propose that we shud go an' call on him, an' make him stand an' re-deliver. What say you?"

"Agreed," cried Waller, tossing his cap into the air. "Hurrah!" shouted March Marston. In one way or another, each gave his consent to the plan of making a descent upon the robbers and causing them to make restitution.

The plans of backwoodsmen, once formed, are always quickly put in execution. They had no arrangements to make, no portmanteaus to pack, no difficulties in the way to overcome. Each man strapped a portion of the remaining property on his broad shoulders, and, pushing into the forest with vigorous strides, they were soon far from the spot where their late disaster had occurred, and gradually drew near to the wild glens and gorges of the Rocky Mountains.


CHAPTER SEVEN.


A WOLFISH WAY OF KILLING BUFFALOES DESCRIBED--BOUNCE BECOMES METAPHYSICAL ON THE FINE ARTS--BUTCHERING ENLARGED ON--A GLORIOUS FEAST, AND SKETCHING UNDER DIFFICULTIES.

One of the ancient poets has said that wandering through the wild woods is a pleasant thing. At least, if one of them has not said that, he ought to have said it, and, certainly, many of them must have thought it, whether they said it or not. Undoubtedly, if future historians record faithfully all that has been said and written from the commencement of time to the period in which they flourish, they will embalm the fact that at least one prose writer of the present day has enunciated that incontrovertible proposition.

But we go a step further. We assert positively that wandering through the wild woods is a healthy as well as a pleasant sort of thing. The free air of the mountains and prairies is renovating, the perfumes of the forests are salubrious; while the constantly recurring necessity for leaping and scrambling is good for the muscles, and the occasional tripping over roots, tumbling into holes, scratching one's face and banging one's shins and toes against stumps, are good for--though somewhat trying to--the temper.

Further still--we affirm that wandering through the wild woods is a funny thing. Any one who had observed our friends March Marston, and Redhand, and Bounce, and Big Waller, and Black Gibault, the trappers, and Bertram the artist, and Hawkswing the Indian, one beautiful afternoon, not long after the day on which they lost their canoe, would have admitted, without hesitation, that wandering through the wild woods was, among other things, a funny thing.

On the beautiful afternoon referred to, the first six individuals above named were huddled together in a promiscuous heap, behind a small bush, in such a confused way that an ignorant spectator might have supposed that Bounce's head belonged to Big Waller's body, and the artist's shoulders to Redhand's head, and their respective legs and arms to no one individually, but to all collectively, in a miscellaneous sort of way. The fact was that the bush behind which they were huddled was almost too small to conceal them all, and, being a solitary bush in the midst of a little plain of about a half a mile in extent, they had to make the most of it and the least of themselves. It would have been a refreshing sight for a moralist to have witnessed this instance of man-- whose natural tendency is to try to look big--thus voluntarily endeavouring to look as small as possible!

This bundle of humanity was staring through the bush, with, as the saying is, all its eyes, that is, with six pairs of--or twelve individual--eyes; and they were staring at a wolf--an enormous wolf-- that was slowly walking away from the bush behind which they were ensconced! It was a very singular wolf indeed--one that was well calculated to excite surprise in the breast even of trappers. There was something radically wrong with that wolf, especially about the legs. Its ears and head were all right, and it had a tail, a very good tail for a wolf; but there was a strange unaccountable lump under its neck, and its fore legs bent the wrong way at the knees, and it seemed to have long feet trailing behind its hind legs, besides being otherwise misshapen. The mystery is explained when we state that this wolf was none other than Hawkswing, down on his hands and knees, with a wolf-skin over his back, and Bertram's blunderbuss-pistol in his hand. He was creeping cautiously towards a herd of six or seven buffaloes that chanced to be feeding quietly there, quite unconscious of the near proximity of so dangerous an enemy.

"I hope the old pistol won't miss fire," whispered Redhand, as he observed that the wolf paused, evidently for the purpose of examining the priming.

"I hope," added Bounce, "that the Injun won't miss his aim. He be'n't used to pistols."

"Never fear," said March with a quiet grin. "If he aims within a yard o' the brute he's sure to hit, for I loaded the old blunderbuss myself, an' it's crammed nigh to the muzzle with all sorts o' things, includin' stones."

At this Big Waller stared, and said emphatically, "It'll bust!" Bertram felt and looked uneasy, but Bounce shook his head.

"Them old things," said he, "never bust. I've been forty years, off an' on, in these parts, an' I've always obsarved that old irons o' that sort _don't_ bust; cause why? they'd ha' busted w'en they wos new, if they'd bin goin' to bust at all. The fact is, they _can't_ bust. They're too useless even for that."

"How comes it," inquired Bertram, "that the buffaloes are not afraid of a wolf? I have been