The Red Man's Revenge, Robert Michael Ballantyne [if you liked this book txt] 📗

point of its nose, coursed under the skin over its forehead, and went out at the back of its head.

Never before was a shot taken with a more demonstrative expression of rage. To say that the bear roared would be feeble. A compounded steam-whistle and bassoon might give a suggestive illustration. The pain must have been acute, for the creature fell on its knees, drove its nose into the ground, and produced a miniature earthquake with a snort. Then it sprang up and rushed at its foe. Ian was reloading swiftly for his life. Vain hope. Men used to breech-loaders can scarce understand the slow operations of muzzle-loaders. He had only got the powder in, and was plucking a bullet from his pouch. Another moment and he would have been down, when crack! crack! went shots on either side of him, and the bear fell with a ball from Victor in its heart and another from Rollin in its spine.

Even thus fatally wounded it strove to reach its conquerors, and continued to show signs of ungovernable fury until its huge life went out.

Poor Ian stood resting on his gun, and looking at it, the picture of despair.

"You hit him after all," said Victor, with a look of admiration at his friend, not on account of the shooting, but of his dauntless courage. "And of course," he continued, "the grizzly is yours, because you drew first blood."

Ian did not reply at once, but shook his head gravely.

"If you and Rollin had not been here," he said, "I should have been dead by this time. No, Vic, no. Do you think I would present Elsie with a collar thus procured? The bear belongs to you and Rollin, for it seems to me that both shots have been equally fatal. You shall divide the claws between you, I will have none of them."

There was bitterness in poor Ian's spirit, for grizzly bears were not to be fallen in with every day, and it might be that he would never have another opportunity. Even if he had, what could he do?

"I don't believe I could hit a house if it were running," he remarked that night at supper. "My only chance will be to wait till the bear is upon me, shove my gun into his mouth, and pull the trigger when the muzzle is well down his throat."

"That would be throttling a bear indeed," said Victor, with a laugh, as he threw a fresh log on the fire. "What say you, Rollin?"

"It vould bu'st de gun," replied the half-breed, whose mind, just then, was steeped in tobacco smoke. "Bot," he continued, "it vould be worth vile to try. Possiblement de bu'stin' of de gun in his troat might do ver vell. It vould give him con--con--vat you call him? De ting vat leetil chile have?"

"Contrariness," said Victor.

"Contradictiousness," suggested Ian; "they're both good long words, after your own heart."

"Non, non! Con--convulsions, dat is it. Anyhow it vould injure his digestiveness."

"Ha! ha! yes, so it would," cried Victor, tossing off a can of cold water like a very toper. "Well, boys, I'm off to sleep, my digestiveness being uninjured as yet. Good-night."

"What! without a pipe, Vic?"

"Come, now, don't chaff. To tell you the truth, Ian, I've been acting your part lately. I've been preaching a sermon to myself, the text of which was given to me by Herr Winklemann the night before we left the buffalo-runners, and I've been considerably impressed by my own preaching. Anyhow, I mean to take my own advice--good-night, again."

Ian returned "good-night" with a smile, and, lying down beside him, gazed long and thoughtfully through the trees overhead at the twinkling, tranquil stars. Michel Rollin continued to smoke and meditate for another hour. Then he shook the ashes out of his pipe, heaped fresh logs on the declining fire, and followed his comrades to the land of Nod.


CHAPTER TEN.


FATE OF THE BUFFALO-HUNTERS.

In vain did the pursuers search after the lost Tony. Finding it impossible to rediscover the trail, they made for the nearest post of the fur-traders, from whom they heard of an Indian who had passed that way in the direction of the Rocky Mountains, but the traders had taken no special notice of the boy, and could tell nothing about him. They willingly, however, supplied the pursuers with provisions on credit, for they knew Victor's father well by repute, and allowed them to join a party who were about to ascend the Saskatchewan river.

On being further questioned, one of the traders did remember that the hair of the boy seemed to him unusually brown and curly for that of a redskin, but his reminiscences were somewhat vague. Still, on the strength of them, Victor and Ian resolved to continue the chase, and Rollin agreed to follow. Thus the summer and autumn passed away.

Meanwhile a terrible disaster had befallen the buffalo-hunters of the Red River.

We have said that after disposing of the proceeds of the spring hunt in the settlement, and thus securing additional supplies, it is the custom of the hunters to return to the plains for the fall or autumn hunt, which is usually expected to furnish the means of subsistence during the long and severe winter. But this hunt is not always a success, and when it is a partial failure the gay, improvident, harum-scarum half-breeds have a sad time of it. Occasionally there is a total failure of the hunt, and then starvation stares them in the face. Such was the case at the time of which we write, and the improvident habits of those people in times of superabundance began to tell.

Many a time in spring had the slaughter of animals been so great that thousands of their carcasses were left where they fell, nothing but the tongues having been carried away by the hunters. It was calculated that nearly two-thirds of the entire spring hunt had been thus left to the wolves. Nevertheless, the result of that hunt was so great that the quantity of fresh provisions--fat, pemmican, and dried meat--brought into Red River, amounted to considerably over one million pounds weight, or about two hundred pounds weight for each individual, old and young, in the settlement. A large proportion of this was purchased by the Hudson's Bay Company, at the rate of twopence per pound, for the supply of their numerous outposts, and the half-breed hunters pocketed among them a sum of nearly 1200 pounds. This, however, was their only market, the sales to settlers being comparatively insignificant. In the same year the agriculturists did not make nearly so large a sum--but then the agriculturists were steady, and their gains were saved, while the jovial half-breed hunters were volatile, and their gains underwent the process of evaporation. Indeed, it took the most of their gains to pay their debts. Thus, with renewed supplies on credit, they took the field for the fall campaign in little more than a month after their return from the previous hunt.

It is not our purpose to follow the band step by step. It is sufficient to say that the season was a bad one; that the hunters broke up into small bands when winter set in, and some of these followed the fortunes of the Indians, who of course followed the buffalo as their only means of subsistence.

In one of these scattered groups were Herr Winklemann and Baptiste Warder--the latter no longer a captain, his commission having lapsed with the breaking up of the spring hunt. The plains were covered with the first snows. The party were encamped on a small eminence whence a wide range of country could be seen.

"There is a small herd on the horizon," said Baptiste, descending from the highest part of the hillock towards the fire where the German was seated eating a scrap of dried meat.

"Zat is vell. I vill go after dem."

He raised his bulky frame with a sigh, for he was somewhat weak and dispirited--the band with which he hunted having been at the starving-point for some days. Winklemann clothed himself in a wolf-skin, to which the ears and part of the head adhered. A small sledge, which may be described as a long thin plank with one end curled up, was brought to him by a hungry-looking squaw. Four dogs were attached to it with miniature harness made to fit them. When all was ready the hunter flung himself flat on his face at full length on the sledge, cracked his whip, and away went the dogs at full speed. Herr Winklemann was armed only with bow and arrows, such weapons being most suitable for the work in hand.

Directing his course to a small clump of trees near to which the buffalo were scraping away the yet shallow snow to reach their food, he soon gained the shelter of the bushes, fastened up the dogs, and advanced through the clump to the other side.

It was a fine sight to a hungry man. About a dozen animals were browsing there not far out of gunshot. Winklemann at once went down on all-fours, and arranged the large wolf-skin so that the legs hung down over his own legs and arms, while the head was pulled over his eyes like a hood. Thus disguised, he crept into the midst of the unsuspicious band.

The buffalo is not afraid of wolves. He treats them with contempt. It is only when he is wounded, or enfeebled by sickness or old age, that his sneaking enemy comes and sits down before him, licking his chops in the hope of a meal.

A fat young cow cast a questioning glance at Winklemann as he approached her. He stopped. She turned aside and resumed her feeding. Then she leaped suddenly into the air and fell quivering on the snow, with an arrow up to the feathers in her side. The hunter did not rise. The animals near to the cow looked at her a moment, as if in surprise at her eccentric behaviour, and then went on feeding. Again the hunter bent his bow, and another animal lay dying on the plain. The guardian bull observed this, lifted his shaggy head, and moved that subtle index of temper, his tail. An ill-directed arrow immediately quivered in his flank. With a roar of rage he bounded into the air, tossed up his heels, and seeing no enemy on whom to wreak his vengeance--for the wolf was crouching humbly on the snow--he dashed wildly away, followed by the rest of the astonished herd.

The whole camp had turned out by that time to resume their journey, and advanced joyfully to meet the returning hunter. As they passed one of the numerous clumps of wood with which the plains were studded, another herd of buffalo started suddenly into view. Among other objects of interest in the band of hunters, there happened to be a small child, which was strapped with some luggage on a little sled and drawn by two dogs. These dogs were lively. They went after the buffalo full swing, to the consternation of the parents of the child. It was their only child. If it had only been