The Buffalo Runners: A Tale of the Red River Plains, R. M. Ballantyne [most recommended books .txt] 📗

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 something always comes 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