The Buffalo Runners, Robert Michael Ballantyne [best fiction novels of all time .txt] 📗

They seem rather to apologise for their degradation as a thing inevitable, for which they are not accountable-- and sometimes, in the case of the rich, as a thing justifiable.

"I'm glad I did not go to the plains this fall," said La Certe, stirring the logs on the fire with his toe and emitting a prolonged sigh of mingled smoke and contentment, while a blast from the bleak nor'-west shook every blackened rafter in his little hut.

"Heel hee!" responded his wife, whose Indian name--translated--was Slowfoot, and might have been Slowtongue with equal propriety, for she was quite an adept at the art of silence. She frequently caused a giggle to do duty for speech. This suited her husband admirably, for he was fond of talking--could tell a good story, sing a good song, and express his feelings in a good hearty laugh.

"Yes, it will be hard for the poor boys who have gone to the plains, the weather is so awful, to say nothing of the women."

"Ho," replied Slowfoot--though what she meant to express by this no mortal knows--nor, perhaps, cares. It meant nothing bad, however, for she smiled seraphically and sent forth a stream of smoke, which, mingling with that just emitted by her husband, rose in a curling harmony to the roof.

Slowfoot was not a bad-looking woman as North American Indians go. She was brown unquestionably, and dirty without doubt, but she had a pleasant expression, suggestive of general good-will, and in the budding period of life must have been even pretty. She was evidently older than her husband, who might, perhaps, have been a little over thirty.

"I should not wonder," continued La Certe, "if the buffalo was drove away, and the people starved this year. But the buffalo, perhaps, will return in time to save them."

"Hm!" responded the wife, helping herself to some very strong tea, which she poured out of a tin kettle into a tin mug and sweetened with maple sugar.

"Do you know if Cloudbrow went with them?" asked the half-breed, pushing forward his mug for a supply of the cheering beverage.

"No, he stopped in his house," replied the woman, rousing herself for a moment to the conversational point, but relapsing immediately.

The man spoke in patois French, the woman in her native Cree language. For convenience we translate their conversation as near as may be into the English in which they were wont to converse with the Scotch settlers who, some time before, had been sent out by the Earl of Selkirk to colonise that remote part of the northern wilderness.

La Certe's father was a French Canadian, his mother an Indian woman, but both having died while he was yet a boy he had been brought or left to grow up under the care of an English woman who had followed the fortunes of the La Certe family. His early companions had been half-breeds and Indians. Hence he could speak the English, French, and Indian languages with equal incorrectness and facility.

"You don't like Cloudbrow," remarked the man with an inquiring glance over the rim of his mug. "Why you not like him?"

"Hee! hee!" was Slowfoot's lucid reply. Then, with an unwonted frown on her mild visage, she added with emphasis--

"No! I _not_ like him."

"I know that," returned the husband, setting down his mug and resuming his pipe, "but why?"

To this the lady answered with a sound too brief to spell, and the gentleman, being accustomed to his wife's little eccentricities, broke into a hilarious laugh, and assured her that Cloudbrow was not a bad fellow--a capital hunter and worthy of more regard than she was aware of.

"For," said he, "Cloudbrow is willing to wait till spring for payment of the horse an' cart I hired from him last year. You know that I could not pay him till I go to the plains an' get another load of meat an' leather. You will go with me, Slowfoot, an' we will have grand times of it with buffalo-humps an' marrow bones, an' tea an' tobacco. Ah! it makes my mouth water. Give me more tea. So. That will do. What a noise the wind makes! I hopes it won't blow over the shed an' kill the horse. But if it do I cannot help that. Cloudbrow could not ask me to pay for what the wind does."

There came another gust of such violence, as he spoke, that even Slowfoot's benignant expression changed to a momentary glance of anxiety, for the shingles on the roof rattled, and the rafters creaked as if the hut were groaning under the strain. It passed, however, and the pair went on smoking with placid contentment, for they had but recently had a "square" meal of pemmican and flour.

This compost when cooked in a frying-pan is exceedingly rich and satisfying--not to say heavy--food, but it does not incommode such as La Certe and his wife. It even made the latter feel amiably disposed to Cloudbrow.

This _sobriquet_ had been given by the half-breeds to a young Scotch settler named Duncan McKay, in consequence of the dark frown which had settled habitually on his brow--the result of bad temper and unbridled passion. He was younger brother to that Fergus who has already been introduced to the reader. Having been partially trained, while in Scotland, away from the small farm-house of his father, and having received a better education, Duncan conceived himself to stand on a higher level than the sedate and uneducated Fergus. Thus pride was added to his bad temper. But he was not altogether destitute of good points. What man is? One of these was a certain reckless open-handedness, so that he was easily imposed on by the protestations and assurances of the sly, plausible, and lazy La Certe.

The couple were still engaged in smoking, quaffing tea, and other intellectual pursuits, when they heard sounds outside as of some one approaching. Another moment, and the door burst open, and a man in white stepped in. He saluted them with a familiar and hasty "_bonjour_," as he stamped and beat the snow vigorously from his garments.

"What? Antoine Dechamp!" exclaimed La Certe, rising slowly to welcome his friend; "you seem in hurry?"

"Ay--in great hurry! They are starving on the plains! Many are dead! Davidson has come in! He is more than half-dead! Can hardly tell the news! Drops asleep when he is speaking! Luckily I met him when going home in my cariole! Okematan, the Indian, was with me. So he got out, and said he would pilot Davidson safe home! He said something about Fergus McKay, which I could not understand, so I have come on, and will drive to Fort Garry with the news! But my horse has broke down! Is yours in the stable?"

Dechamp was a sturdy young half-breed and an old playmate of La Certe. He spoke with obvious impatience at the delay caused by having so much to tell.

"Is your horse in the stable?" he demanded sharply a second time, while his friend began, with exasperating composure, to assure him that it was, but that the horse was not his.

"Cloudbrow is its owner," he said, "and you know if anything happens to it he will ---. Stay, I will get you lantern--"

He stopped, for Dechamp, observing a large key hanging on the wall, had seized it and rushed out of the hut without waiting for a lantern.

"Strange, how easy some men get into a fuss!" remarked La Certe to his surprised, but quiet, spouse as he lighted a large tin lantern, and went to the door. Looking out with an expression of discomfort, he put on his cap, and prepared to face the storm in the cause of humanity. He held the lantern high up first, however, and peered under it as if to observe the full extent of the discomfort before braving it. Just then a furious gust blew out the light.

"Ha! I expected that," he said, with a sigh that was strongly suggestive of relief, as he returned to the fire to relight the lantern.

On going the second time to the door he observed the form of his friend leading the horse past--both of them looking dim and spectral through the driving snow.

"Dechamp have good eyes!" he remarked, halting on the threshold. "There is light enough without the lantern; besides--ha! there, it is out again! What a trouble it is! Impossible to keep it in--such a night!"

"Hee! hee!" giggled Slowfoot, who was busy refilling her pipe.

La Certe was still standing in a state of hesitancy, troubled by a strong desire to help his friend, and a stronger desire to spare himself, when he was thrown somewhat off his wonted balance by the sudden reappearance of Dechamp, leading, or rather supporting, a man.

Need we say that it was Fergus McKay, almost blind and dumb from exhaustion, for the parting from Dan Davidson which we have mentioned had proved to be the last straw which broke them both down, and it is probable that the frozen corpse of poor Dan would have been found next day on the snow, had he not been accidentally met by Dechamp, and taken in charge by the Indian Okematan. Fergus, having a shorter way to go, and, perhaps, possessing a little more vitality or endurance, had just managed to stagger to La Certe's hut when he encountered the same man who, an hour previously, had met and saved his companion further down the Settlement.

The moment Fergus entered the hut, he looked wildly round, and opened his mouth as if to speak. Then he suddenly collapsed, and fell in a heap upon the floor, scattering flakes of snow from his person in all directions.

La Certe and his wife, though steeped in selfishness, were by no means insensible to the sufferings of humanity when these were actually made visible to their naked eyes. Like many--too many--people, they were incapable of being impressed very deeply through their ears, but could be keenly touched through the eyes. No sooner did they behold the condition of Fergus--who was well-known to them--than they dropped their apathetic characters as though they had been garments.

In her haste Slowfoot let fall her pipe, which broke to atoms on the floor--but she heeded it not. La Certe capsized his mug of tea--but regarded it not; and while the former proceeded to remove the shawl from Fergus's neck and chafe his cold hands, the latter assisted Dechamp to drag the exhausted man a little nearer to the fire, and poured a cup of warm tea down his throat.

Their efforts, though perchance not as wisely directed as they might have been, were so vigorously conducted that success rewarded them. Fergus soon began to show signs of returning animation. A hunter of the western wilderness is not easily overcome, neither is he long of reviving, as a rule, if not killed outright.

They set him up in a sitting posture with his back against a box, and his feet towards the fire. Heaving a deep sigh, Fergus looked round with a bewildered, anxious expression. In a moment intelligence returned to his eyes, and he made a violent attempt to rise, but Dechamp held him down.

"Let me up!"