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

Mary _said_ she did the deed, and to suppose it possible that Mary could tell a falsehood was, in March's opinion, more absurd than to suppose that the bright sun could change itself into melted butter! But Dick's enthusiastic reference to Mary one day becoming the wife of a mountaineer startled him. He felt that, in the event of such a calamitous circumstance happening, she could no longer be his sister, and the thought made him first fierce, and then sulky.

"D'ye kill many mountain sheep here, Dick?" inquired March, when his ruffled temper had been smoothed down with another marrow-bone.

"Ay, lots of 'em."

"What like are they close? I've never been nearer to 'em yet than a thousand yards or so--never within range."

"They're 'bout the size of a settlement sheep, an' skin somethin' like the red deer; ye've seen the red deer, of coorse, March?"

"Yes, often; shot 'em too."

"Well, like them; but they've got most treemendous horns. I shot one last week with horns three fut six inches long; there they lie now in that corner. Are ye a good shot, March?"

"Middlin'."

"D'ye smoke?"

"Yes, a little; but I an't a slave to it like some."

"Humph!" ejaculated Dick sarcastically. "If ye smoke `a little,' how d'ye know but ye may come to smoke much, an' be a slave to it like other men? Ye may run down a steep hill, an' say, when yer near the top, `I can stop when I like'; but ye'll come to a pint, lad, when ye'll try to stop an' find ye can't--when ye'd give all ye own to leave off runnin'; but ye'll have to go on faster an' faster, till yer carried off yer legs, and, mayhap, dashed to bits at the bottom. Smokin' and drinkin' are both alike. Ye can begin when you please, an', up to a certain pint, ye can stop when ye please; but after that pint, ye _can't_ stop o' yer own free will--ye'd die first. Many an' many a poor fellow _has_ died first, as I know."

"An' pray, Mister Solomon, do _you_ smoke?" inquired March testily, thinking that this question would reduce his companion to silence.

"No, never."

"Not smoke?" cried March in amazement. The idea of a trapper not smoking was to him a thorough and novel incomprehensibility.

"No; nor drink neither," said Dick. "I once did both, before I came to this part o' the country, and I thank the Almighty for bringing me to a place where it warn't easy to get either drink or baccy--specially drink, which I believe would have laid me under the sod long ago, if I had bin left in a place where I could ha' got it. An' now, as Mary has just left us, poor thing, I'll tell ye how I came by the big iron pot. There's no mystery about it; but as it b'longed to the poor child's father, I didn't want to speak about it before her."

Dick placed an elbow on each knee, and, resting his forehead upon his hands, stared for some moments into the fire ere he again spoke.

"It's many years now," said he in a low, sad tone, "since I left home, and--but that's nothin' to do wi' the pint," he added quickly. "You see, March, when I first came to this part o' the world I fell in with a comrade--a trapper--much to my likin'. This trapper had been jilted by some girl, and came away in a passion, detarminin' never more to return to his native place. I never know'd where he come from, nor the partic'lars of his story, for that was a pint he'd never speak on. I don't believe I ever know'd his right name. He called himself Adam; that was the only name I ever know'd him by.

"Well, him an' me became great friends. He lived wi' a band of Pawnee Injuns, and had married a wife among them; not that she was a pure Injun neither, she was a half-breed. My Mary was their only child; she was a suckin' babe at that time. Adam had gin her no name when we first met, an' I remember him askin' me one day what he should call her; so I advised Mary--an' that's how she come to git the name.

"Adam an' me was always together. We suited each other. For myself, I had ta'en a skunner at mankind, an' womankind, too; so we lived wi' the Pawnees, and hunted together, an' slep' together when out on the tramp. But one o' them reptiles took a spite at him, an' tried by every way he could to raise the Injuns agin' him, but couldn't; so he detarmined to murder him.

"One day we was out huntin' together, an', being too far from the Pawnee lodges to return that night, we encamped in the wood, an' biled our kettle--this iron one ye see here. Adam had a kind o' likin' for't, and always carried it at his saddle-bow when he went out o' horseback. We'd just begun supper, when up comes the Wild-Cat, as he was called--Adam's enemy--an' sits down beside us.

"Of course, we could not say we thought he was up to mischief, though we suspected it, so we gave him his supper, an' he spent the night with us. Nixt mornin' he bade us good-day, an' went off. Then Adam said he would go an' set beaver traps in a creek about a mile off. Bein' lazy that day, I said I'd lie a bit in the camp. So away he went. The camp was on a hill. I could see him all the way, and soon saw him in the water settin' his traps.

"Suddenly I seed the Wild-Cat step out o' the bushes with a bow an' arrow. I knew what was up. I gave a roar that he might have heard ten miles off, an' ran towards them. But an arrow was in Adam's back before he could git to the shore. In a moment more he had the Injun by the throat, an' the two struggled for life. Adam could ha' choked him easy, but the arrow in his back let out the blood fast, an' he could barely hold his own. Yet he strove like a true man. I was soon there, for I nearly burst my heart in that race. They were on the edge of the water. The Wild-Cat had him down, and was tryin' to force him over the bank.

"I had my big sword wi' me, an' hewed the reptile's head off with it at one blow, sendin' it into the river, an' tossin' the body in after it.

"`It's too late,' says Adam, as I laid him softly on the bank.

"I could see that. The head of the shaft was nearly in his heart. He tried to speak, but could only say, `Take care o' my wife an' Mary'-- then he died, and I buried him there."

Dick paused, and clenched both hands convulsively as the thought of that black day came back upon him. But the glare in his eye soon melted into a look of sadness.

"Well, well," he continued, "it's long past now. Why should I be angry with the dead? Adam's wife never got the better o' that. She dropped her head like a prairie flower in the first blast of winter, an' was soon beside her husband.

"I waited till the little child could stump about on its own legs, an' then I mounted my horse an' rode away with it in my arms. The only things belongin' to poor Adam I brought with me was the iron pot an' his long rifle. There the rifle stands in the corner. I've used it ever since."

"And have you and Mary lived here all alone since that day?"

"Ay. I came straight here--not carin' where I went, only anxious to get out o' the sight o' men, an' live alone wi' the child. I sought out a dwellin' in the wildest part o' these mountains, an' fell upon this cave, where we've lived happy enough together."

"Do you mean to say the child has never played with other children?" inquired March, amazed at this discovery.

"Not much. I give her a run for a month or two at a time, now an' agin, when I fall on a friendly set o' well-disposed redskins--just to keep the right sort o' spirit in her, and comfort her a bit. But she's always willin' to live alone wi' me."

"Then she's never learned to read?" said March sadly.

"That has she. She's got one book. It's a story about a giant an' a fairy, an' a prince an' princess. Most 'xtraornar' stuff. I got it from a Blood Injun, who said he picked it up in a frontier settlement where the people had all been murdered. When we had nothin' better to do, I used to teach her her letters out o' that book, an' the moment she got 'em off she seemed to pick up the words, I dun' know how. She's awful quick. She knows every word o' that story by heart. An' she's invented heaps o' others o' the most amazin' kind. I've often thought o' goin' to the settlements to git her some books, but--"

Dick paused abruptly, and a dark frown settled on his features, as if the thoughts of civilised men and things revived unpleasant memories.

"The fact is," he continued somewhat bitterly, "I've been a hater of my race. You'd scarcely believe it, lad, but you are the first man I've ever told all this to. I can't tell why it is that I feel a likin' for ye, boy, an' a desire to have ye stop with me. But that must not be. I had but one friend. I must not make another to have him murdered, mayhap, before my eyes. Yet," he added in a gentle tone, taking March's hand in his and stroking it, "I feel a likin' for ye, boy, that makes me sad to think o' partin'."

"But we don't need to part, Dick," said March eagerly. "I like you too, and I like your style of life, an'--" He was going to have added that he liked Mary, and that he would live with them both all his days, when the little cottage at Pine Point settlement and his loving mother rose before him, and caused him to drop his head and terminate his speech abruptly.

Just then Mary re-entered the cavern, and put an end to the conversation.


CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.


MARCH, THOUGH WILLING IN SPIRIT, FINDS HIS BODY WEAK--HE MAKES MARY A PRESENT--THE TRAPPERS SET OUT TO SEARCH FOR THEIR LOST COMRADE--AN UNEXPECTED MEETING--BIG WALLER WAXES PUGNACIOUS--NEWS OF MARCH--DICK BECOMES MORE MYSTERIOUS THAN EVER--A RECKLESS PROPOSAL AND A HAPPY MEETING.

Next morning, before daybreak, March Marston attempted to set out for the Mountain Fort with Dick; but he was so thoroughly knocked up before the end of the first mile that he had to call a halt, and admit that he could not think of going further. This was just what Dick wanted; so he laughed, told him to go back and take