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

deal wi' the steerin'. Hows'ever--`never ventur' never win,' you know. I never expected to take up a noo purfession without some trouble."

As he spoke, the seaman's horse--a large brown chestnut--put its foot in a hole, and plunged forward with great violence, barely escaping a fall.

"Hold on!" shouted Archie in alarm.

"Hold on it is!" sang out the sailor in reply.

And hold on it was, for he had the chestnut round the neck with both arms. Indeed he was sitting, or lying, on its neck altogether.

"It ain't an easy job," he gasped, while he struggled to regain the saddle, "when a fellow gets hove on to the bowsprit this way, to git fairly back on the main-deck again. But a Jenkins never was beaten in fair fight. That's all right. Now then, Archie, you're an obleegin' cove. Do git down an' pick up the gun for me. You see, if I git down it's a tryin' job to git up again--the side o' this here craft bein' so steep an' so high out o' the water. Thank'ee; why, boy, you jump down an' up like a powder-monkey. It ain't broke, is it?"

"No. It seems all right," answered the boy, as he handed the gun to its owner. "But if you let it go like that often, it won't be much worth when the run's over."

"Let it go, boy?" repeated the sailor. "It was either let it or myself go, an' when it comes to a toss up o' that sort, Fred Jenkins knows how to look arter number one."

It will be seen from all this that our seaman was not quite so much at home on the prairie as on the sea. Indeed, if the expression be permissible, he was very much at sea on that undulating plain, and did not take so kindly to the green waves of the rolling prairie as to the heaving billows of the restless ocean; but, as Archie remarked, he was fast getting broke in.

The incidents which we have mentioned, however, were but the commencement of a series of disasters to poor Jenkins, which went far to cure him of a desire to excel in the "noo purfession," and to induce a somewhat violent longing for a return to his first love, the ocean.

"I can't think what ever could have made you want to come out here," said Archie, as they continued to follow up the still distant hunters.

"What was it made yourself want to come out, lad?" asked the sailor.

"It wasn't me that wanted to come. It was father, you know, an' of course I had to follow," said the boy in a tone which induced his friend to say hastily, and in a tone of sympathy--

"Ah, poor lad, I forgot you was a orphing. Well, you see, I think it must ha' bin a love o' change or a love o' discontent, or suthin' o' that sort, as brought me cruising in these here waters, for I can't say what else it was. You see I was born a sort o' ro-oh--"

"Look out! a badger-hole!" shouted the boy.

His warning would have been too late, but the chestnut fortunately leaped over the danger instead of stumbling into it, and its rider was only partially shaken out of his seat.

"It's well," he said, when fairly settled down again to an easy gallop, "that the tiller-ropes are stout else I'd ha' bin over the starn this time instead of out on the bowsprit. Let me see, what was I sayin' of?"

"Somethin' about your bein' born a sort of `ro-oh--,' though what _that_ may be I haven't a notion."

"Ah! jist so--I was born a sort o' rover (when this long-legged brute took the badger-hole), an' I've bin to every quarter o' the globe a'most, but if I'd lived to the age o' Methooslum I'd never ha' thought o' comin' here,--for the good reason that I knowed nothin' o' its existence,--if I hadn't by chance in a furrin port fallen in wi' Andre Morel, an' took an uncommon fancy to him. You see, at the time, I was-- well, I was no better nor I should be; p'raps a deal wuss, an' Morel he meets me, an' says--`Hallo, my lad,' says he, `where away?'

"I looked at him gruff-like a moment or two, for it seemed to me he was raither too familiar for a stranger, but he's got such a pleasant, hearty look with him--as you know--that I couldn't feel riled with 'im, so `I'm goin' on the spree,' says I.

"`All right,' says he, `I'm with 'ee, lad. D'ye know the town?'

"`No more than a Mother Carey's chicken,' says I. `Come along, then,' says he; `I'll tak' 'ee to a fust-rate shop.'

"So off we went arm in arm as thick as two peas, an' after passin' through two or three streets he turns into a shop that smelt strong o' coffee.

"`Hallo! mate,' says I, `you've made some sort o' mistake. This here ain't the right sort o' shop.'

"`O yes, it is,' says he, smilin', quite affable-like. `The best o' tipple here, an' cheap too. Come along. I've got somethin' very partikler to say to you. Look here, waiter--two cups o' coffee, hot an' strong, some buttered toast, an' no end o' buns, etceterer.'

"Wi' that he led me to a seat, an' we sat down. I was so took aback an' amused that I waited to see what would foller an' what he'd got to say that was so partikler--but, I say, Archie, them buffalo runners has got the wind o' us, an' are showin' us their heels, I fear."

"Never fear," returned the boy, rising in his stirrups and shading his eyes to look ahead. "They do seem to be leavin' us a bit, but you see by the dust that the buffalo are holdin' away to the right, so if we keep still more to the right an' cut round that knoll, I think we'll be safe to catch them up. They're doin' good work, as the carcasses we've passed and the rattle o' shots clearly show. But get on wi' your story, Jenkins."

"Well, it ain't much of a story, lad. What Morel had to say was that he'd arranged wi' an agent o' Lord Selkirk to come out to this country; an' he was goin' out wi' a lot o' his relations, an' was beatin' up for a few good hands, an' he liked the look o' me, an' would I agree to go wi' him?

"Well, as you may believe, this was a poser, an' I said I'd think over it, an' let him know next day. You see, I didn't want to seem to jump at it too eager-like, though I liked the notion, an' I had neither wife, nor sweetheart, nor father or mother, to think about, for I'm a orphing, you see, like yourself, Archie--only a somewhat bigger one.

"Well, when we'd finished all the coffee, an' all the buns, an' all the etceterers, he began to advise me not to ha' nothin' more to do wi' grog-shops. I couldn't tell 'ee the half o' what he said--no, nor the quarter--but he made such a impression on me that I was more than half-convinced. To say truth, I was so choke-full o' coffee an' buns, an' etceterers, that I don't believe I could ha' swallowed another drop o' liquor.

"`Where are ye goin' now?' says he, when we'd done.

"`Back to my ship,' says I.

"`Come an' ha' tea to-morrow wi' me an' my sister,' says he, `an' we'll have another talk about Rupert's Land.'

"`I will,' says I.

"`Six o'clock, sharp,' says he.

"`Sharp's the word,' says I.

"An', sure enough, I went to his house sharp to time next day, an' there I found him an' his sister. She was as pretty a craft as I ever set eyes on, wi' a modest look an' long fair ringlets--just borderin' on nineteen or thereaway--but you know her, Archie, so I needn't say no more."

"What! is that the same woman that's keeping house for him now in Red River?"

"Woman!" repeated the sailor, vehemently; "she's not a woman--she's a angel is Elise Morel. Don't speak disrespectful of her, lad."

"I won't," returned Archie with a laugh; "but what was the upshot of it all?"

"The upshot of it," answered the seaman, "was that I've never touched a drop o' strong drink from that day to this, an' that I'm now blown entirely out o' my old courses, an' am cruisin' arter the buffalo on the plains o' Rupert's Land."

At this point, their minds being set free from the consideration of past history, they made the discovery that the buffalo runners were nowhere to be seen on the horizon, and that they themselves were lost on the grassy sea.

"What _shall_ we do?" said the boy, when they had pulled up to consider their situation. "You see, although I came out here a good while before you did," he added, half apologetically, "I've never been out on the plains without a guide, and don't know a bit how to find the way back to camp. The prairie is almost as bad as the sea you're so fond of, with a clear horizon all round, and nothing worth speaking of to guide us. An' as you have never been in the plains before, of course you know nothing. In short, Jenkins, I greatly fear that we are lost! Why, what are you grinning at?"

The terminal question was induced by the fact that the tall seaman was looking down at his anxious companion with a broad smile on his handsome sunburnt countenance.

"So we're lost, are we, Archie?" he said, "like two sweet babes on the prairie instead of in the woods. An' you think I knows nothin'. Well, p'r'aps I don't know much, but you should remember, lad, that an old salt wi' a compass in his wes'kit-pocket is not the man to lose his reck'nin'. I've got one here as'll put us all right on that score, for I was careful to take my bearin's when we set sail, an' I've been keepin' an eye on our course all the way. Make your mind easy, my boy."

So saying, the sailor pulled out the compass referred to, and consulted it. Then he pulled out a watch of the warming-pan type, which he styled a chronometer, and consulted that also; after which he looked up at the clouds--seamanlike--and round the horizon, especially to windward, if we may speak of such a quarter in reference to a day that was almost quite calm.

"Now, Archie, boy, the upshot o' my cogitations is that with a light breeze on our starboard quarter, a clear sky overhead, an' a clear conscience within, you and I had better hold on our course for a little longer, and see whether we can't overhaul the runners. If we succeed, good and well. If not, why, 'bout-ship, and homeward-bound is the sailin' orders. What say 'ee, lad?"

"I say whatever you say, Jenkins. If you're sure o' the way back, as I've no doubt you are, why, there couldn't be greater fun than to go after the buffalo on our own account. And--I say, look there!