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

wonder that there is war between him and the red-men."

"That's bad," said Bounce, shaking his head slowly--"very bad; for the redskins 'll kill us if they can on account o' them rascally fur-traders. Howsomdiver we can't mend it, so we must bear it."

As Bounce uttered this consolatory remark, the party cantered up to the open space in front of the gate of the fort, just above which a man was seen leaning quietly over the wooden walls of the place with a gun resting on his arm.

"Hallo!" shouted this individual when they came within hail.

"Hallo!" responded Bounce.

"Friends or foes, and where from?" inquired the laconic guardian of the fort.

"Friends," replied Redhand riding forward, "we come from the Yellowstone. Have lost some of our property, but got some of it back, and want to trade furs with you."

To this the sentinel made no reply, but, looking straight at Big Waller, inquired abruptly, "Are you the Wild Man?"

"Wot wild man?" said Waller gruffly.

"Why, the Wild Man o' the West?"

"No, I hain't," said Waller still more gruffly, for he did not feel flattered by the question.

"Have you seen him?"

"No I hain't, an' guess I shouldn't know him if I had."

"Why do you ask?" inquired March Marston, whose curiosity had been roused by these unexpected questions.

"'Cause I want to know," replied the man quitting his post and disappearing. In a few minutes he opened the gate, and the trappers trotted into the square of the fort.

The Mountain Fort, in which they now dismounted, was one of those little wooden erections in which the hardy pioneers of the fur trade were wont in days of old to establish themselves in the very heart of the Indian country. Such forts may still be seen in precisely similar circumstances, and built in the same manner, at the present day, in the Hudson's Bay territories; with this difference that the Indians, having had long experience of the good intentions and the kindness of the pale-faces, no longer regard them with suspicion. The walls were made of strong tall palisades, with bastions built of logs at the corners, and a gallery running all round inside close to the top of the walls, so that the defenders of the place could fire over the palisades, if need be, at their assailants. There was a small iron cannon in each bastion. One large gate formed the entrance, but this was only opened to admit horsemen or carts; a small wicket in one leaf of the gate formed the usual entrance.

The buildings within the fort consisted of three little houses, one being a store, the others dwelling-houses, about which several men and women and Indian children, besides a number of dogs, were grouped. These immediately surrounded the trappers as they dismounted. "Who commands here?" inquired Redhand.

"I do," said the sentinel before referred to, pushing aside the others and stepping forward, "at least I do at present. My name's McLeod. He who ought to command is drunk. He's _always_ drunk."

There was a savage gruffness in the way in which McLeod said this that surprised the visitors, for his sturdy-looking and honest countenance seemed to accord ill with such tones.

"An' may I ask who _he_ is?" said Redhand.

"Oh yes, his name's Macgregor--you can't see him to-night, though. There'll be bloody work here before long if he don't turn over a new leaf--"

McLeod checked himself as if he felt that he had gone too far. Then he added, in a tone that seemed much more natural to him, "Now, sirs, come this way. Here," (turning to the men who stood by), "look to these horses and see them fed. Come into the hall, friends, an' the squaws will prepare something for you to eat while we have a smoke and a talk together."

So saying, this changeable man, who was a strange compound of a trapper and a gentleman, led the way to the principal dwelling-house, and, throwing open the door, ushered his guests into the reception hall of the Mountain Fort.


CHAPTER ELEVEN.


ORIGINAL EFFORTS IN THE ART OF PAINTING--FUR-TRADING HOSPITALITY-- WONDERFUL ACCOUNTS OF THE WILD MAN OF THE WEST, FROM AN EYE-WITNESS-- BUFFALO HUNTING, SCALPING, MURDERING, AND A SUMMARY METHOD OF INFLICTING PUNISHMENT.

The reception hall of the Mountain Fort, into which, as we have stated, the trappers were ushered by McLeod, was one of those curious apartments which were in those days (and in a few cases still are) created for the express purpose of "astonishing the natives!"

It was a square room, occupying the centre of the house, and having doors all round, which opened into the sleeping or other apartments of the dwelling. In the front wall of this room were the door which led direct into the open air, and the two windows. There were no passages in the house--it was all rooms and doors. One of these doors, towards the back, opened into a species of scullery--but it was not exactly a scullery, neither was it a kitchen, neither was it a pantry. The squaws lived there--especially the cooking squaws--and a few favoured dogs. A large number of pots and pans and kettles, besides a good deal of lumber and provisions in daily use, also dwelt there. A door led from this room out to the back of the house, and into a small offshoot, which was the kitchen proper. Here a spirited French Canadian reigned supreme in the midst of food, fire, and steam, smoke, smells, and fat.

But to return to the reception hall. There were no pictures on its walls, no draperies about its windows, no carpets on its floors, no cloths on its tables, and no ornaments on its mantelshelf. Indeed, there was no mantelshelf to put ornaments upon. The floor, the walls, the ceiling, the chairs, the tables; all were composed of the same material--wood. The splendour of the apartment was entirely due to paint. Everything was painted--and that with a view solely to startling effect. Blue, red, and yellow, in their most brilliant purity, were laid on in a variety of original devices, and with a boldness of contrast that threw Moorish effort in that line quite into the shade. The Alhambra was nothing to it! The floor was yellow ochre; the ceiling was sky-blue; the cornices were scarlet, with flutings of blue and yellow, and, underneath, a broad belt of fruit and foliage, executed in an extremely arabesque style. The walls were light green, with narrow bands of red down the sides of each plank. The table was yellow, the chairs blue, and their bottoms red, by way of harmonious variety. But the grand point--the great masterpiece in the ornamentation of this apartment--was the centre-piece in the ceiling, in the execution of which there was an extraordinary display of what can be accomplished by the daring flight of an original genius revelling in the conscious possession of illimitable power, without the paralysing influence of conventional education.

The device itself was indescribable. It was a sun or a star, or rather a union and commingling of suns and stars in violent contrast, wreathed with fanciful fruits and foliage, and Cupids, and creatures of a now extinct species. The rainbow had been the painter's palette; genius his brush; fancy-gone-mad his attendant; the total temporary stagnation of redskin faculties his object, and ecstasy his general state of mind, when he executed this magnificent _chef d'oeuvre_ in the centre of the ceiling of the reception hall at the Mountain Fort.

The fireplace was a capacious cavern in the wall opposite the entrance door, in which, during winter, there usually burned a roaring bonfire of huge logs of wood, but where, at the time of which we write, there was just enough fire to enable visitors to light their pipe's. When that fire blazed up in the dark winter nights, the effect of that gorgeous apartment was dazzling--absolutely bewildering.

The effect upon our trappers when they entered was sufficiently strong. They gazed round in amazement, each giving vent to his feelings in his own peculiar exclamatory grunt, or gasp, or cough. In addition to this, Bounce smote his thigh with unwonted vigour. Gibault, after gazing for a few minutes, sighed out something that sounded like _magnifique_! and Bertram grinned from ear to ear. He went further: he laughed aloud--an impolite thing to do, in the circumstances, and, for a grave man like him, an unusual ebullition of feeling. But it was observed and noted that on this occasion the artist did not draw forth his sketch-book.

McLeod, who, from his speech and bearing, was evidently a man of some education, placed chairs for his visitors, took the lid off a large canister of tobacco, and, pushing it into the middle of the yellow table, said--

"Sit ye down, friends, and help yourselves."

He set them the example by taking down his own pipe from a nail in the wall, and proceeding to fill it. Having done so, he took a piece of glowing charcoal from the fire, and, placing it on the bowl, began to smoke, glancing the while, with an amused expression on his grave face, at the trappers, who, while filling their pipes, kept gazing round the walls and up at the ceiling.

"Ha!" said he, "you are struck with our hall (puff, puff). It's rather (puff) an effective one (puff). Have a light?"

Bounce, to whom the light was offered, accepted the same, applied it to his pipe, and said--

"Well, yes (puff), it is (puff) raither wot ye may call (puff) pecooliar."

"Most visitors to this place think so," said McLeod. "The Indians highly approve of it, and deem me quite a marvel of artistic power."

"Wot! did _you_ paint it?" inquired Waller.

"I did," answered McLeod, with a nod.

"Vraiment, de Injuns am right in deir opinion of you," cried Gibault, relighting his pipe, which, in the astonished state of his mind, he had allowed to go out.

McLeod smiled, if we may so speak, _gravely_, in acknowledgment of the compliment.

"Ha!" cried Gibault, turning to Bertram as if a sudden thought had occurred to him, "Monsieur Bertram et Monsieur Mak Load, you be broders. Oui, Monsieur Mak Load, dis mine comrade--him be von painteur."

"Indeed!" said McLeod, turning to the artist with more interest than he had yet shown towards the strangers.

"I have, indeed, the honour to follow the noble profession of painting," said Bertram, "but I cannot boast of having soared so high as--as--"

"As to attempt the frescoes on the ceiling of a reception hall in the backwoods," interrupted McLeod, laughing. "No, I believe you, sir; but, although I cannot presume to call you brother professionally, still I trust that I may do so as an amateur. I am delighted to see you here. It is not often we are refreshed with the sight of the face of a civilised man in these wild regions."

"Upon my word, sir, you are plain-spoken," said March Marston with a look of affected indignation; "what do you call _us_?"

"Pardon me, young sir," replied McLeod, "I call you trappers, which means neither civilised nor savage; neither fish, nor flesh, nor fowl--"

"That's a foul calumny," cried Bounce, knocking the ashes out of his pipe, and refilling it from the canister; "it's wot may be called