The Buffalo Runners: A Tale of the Red River Plains

Explanations were speedily exchanged, and our fugitives learned that news had been carried to the Settlement of the approach of the very band of Saulteaux whom they had encountered, and a band of fiery young men, led by Dechamp, had come out to meet them for the purpose of asking them whether they meant their visit to be friendly, or whether they wished to measure their strength with the men of Red River; as, if so, a sample had come out for the express purpose of accommodating them!

On hearing the news that Okématan and Fergus had to give, the men—most of whom were half-breeds connected with Cree families—gave a cheer and voted for an immediate advance against the Saulteaux. This, after very brief palaver, was unanimously agreed to.

“You’ll not object to return with us, I suppose?” asked Dechamp of Fergus.

“Iss it objectin’ to a fecht you will mean?”

“Well—it’s not unlikely that there may be something of the sort going if we meet.”

“Did you ever hear of a McKay objectin’ to a fecht, Antoine?”

Dechamp laughed.

“Well,” he said, “I know Okématan won’t object to turn back, and show us the way to the place where he met the reptiles.”

“Okématan was on his way to seek for help,” said the Indian quietly.

Every one being agreed on this point, the whole band re-embarked, and proceeded on their way up the river. They advanced rapidly, for although the stream was against them it was so sluggish as to be scarcely appreciable, and by keeping near to the banks they were not delayed by it at all.

Towards the afternoon the place where the struggle had taken place was reached, but no Saulteaux were to be seen. They had taken their departure, and, from the fact that several small things belonging to them had been left behind, it seemed not unlikely that they had obtained information of the expedition sent out against them, and had departed in haste.

“It iss of no use,” said Fergus, when this became evident, “for us to keep up a stern-chase after them. They have got too much of a start, so it seems to me, boys, we could not do better than follow up the tracks of Daniel Davidson an’ make sure that he has got clear away from them.”

To this proposal there was much objection at first, for it involved some of the party quitting the canoes and journeying no one could tell how far through the woods on foot.

“Besides,” said one, “Dan is quite able to take care of himself, and if he got off in the dark, as you tell us he did, there’s not a man in the Saulteaux nation could come up with him either in dark or light.”

“That may be all fery true, my frund,” returned Fergus, “nevertheless I’m goin’ to follow up his track, for it is sure that he took no proveesions wi’ him, an’ it was too dark for me to see if he escaped wi’ his gun. Dan is a strong man, but the strongest man will be findin’ himself in diffeeculties without grub. It iss followin’ up his trail I will be doin’, wi’ some proveesions on my back, if wan or two o’ you will go wuth me.”

“I will go,” said Archie Sinclair, promptly, “if some o’ you will promise to take care o’ Little Bill.”

A laugh greeted this offer, and half-a-dozen of the men at once agreed to take good care of the invalid.

“Moreover,” said Dechamp, “whoever goes need not go further than the Pine Portage. The party on foot will have found out, before the canoes reach that, whether Dan has got clear off, and they can rejoin the canoes at the Portage. So, Fergus, I’ll join your party too. Who else will go?”

Okématan and Jacques Bourassin here stepped forward, but none of the others seemed disposed to undertake the tramp.

“There iss enough of us—whatever,” remarked the Highlander as he and the others put some provisions into their wallets and shouldered their guns. “You will be our leader, Antoine Dechamp. It iss yourself that knows the outs an’ ins o’ the land better than any of us—except Okématan, may be—but I dar’ say he’s not as weel acquaint wi’ the Red River woods as wi’ the plains.”

The chief bowed a dignified assent to this proposition, which, however, he hardly understood.

Dechamp, being accustomed to lead, accepted the position at once, stepped off on the trail of Dan, which had been made distinctly visible when he went crashing through the underwood the day before. Fergus followed, and Bourassin came third.

“Now, then,” said Archie, looking into the chief’s face, “come along, Oké. You and I will form the rearguard, which is the position of danger and honour in warfare o’ this sort—at least if it isn’t, it ought to be. Take care o’ yourself, Little Bill. We’ll soon find Dan. Good-bye.”

So saying, the rearguard of the column vanished into the forest, and the others, returning to their canoes, began to descend the river.

Archie was nearer the mark than he imagined when he said they would soon find Dan. The distance which it had taken our hero so long to traverse in the dark was comparatively short, and the light was only beginning to fade when they came to the edge of the wood where Dan had spent the night.

Dechamp, of course, was first to come upon his encampment, and the instant he entered it he observed the open space giving a view of the plain beyond. He also saw the wolf sitting on his haunches about two hundred yards off.

Quick as the lightning flash his gun flew to his shoulder. Dechamp was a first-rate shot. He fired, and, as we have seen, the wolf stretched himself in death upon the plain.

Thus was Dan Davidson rescued at almost the eleventh hour.

Chapter Twenty Six.

Home-Coming and Bargaining

The return of the hunting party to Red River Settlement was an illustration of the uncertainty of all human affairs. They went forth rejoicing in all the strength of youth and manhood; they returned in sorrow, with one at least of the strong men reduced to the last stage of weakness.

We would not be understood to refer to this in a pessimistic spirit. On the contrary, the optimistic view suggests the very same idea of uncertainty, though in a pleasant aspect; for does not many a day that dawns in cloud and rain progress to brilliant sunshine? while equally true it is that many a life which begins in sorrow culminates in joy.

Okématan, who was intensely philosophical and inquisitive, had been carrying on a semi-speculative conversation with Billie on this very subject while descending the Red River towards Prairie Cottage—much to the perplexity of the invalid, who scarce knew how to answer the chief’s queries, and greatly to the interest of Archie, who wondered at Little Bill’s powers of reply.

“By the way,” said Archie, “when you two have settled that knotty point, will you tell me who is to take the news of Dan’s accident to Mrs Davidson? We’ll have to carry him up to the house, you know, on a blanket ’tween two poles, an’ she’ll be sure to think that he’s dead, or has been killed, an’ that’ll half-kill her, it’ll give her such a fright. Somebody will have to go on ahead and tell her.”

“I will, if you like,” said Billie; “if you’ll only carry me up to the garden gate and set me down, I can easily walk up the path.”

This proposal had just been agreed to when the whole flotilla of canoes paddled up alongside of the bank close under Prairie Cottage.

It was evening at the time. The Davidson family was at supper, and as the canoes had approached very quietly, with Dan in the leading one, no person stood on the bank to welcome them.

“It’s as well they don’t know,” said Archie, jumping on shore. “Now, Little Bill, come along, and I’ll carry you to the gate while they’re arranging matters for Dan.”

Seated at the foot of the family table was Peter Davidson. He could see the garden path through the window.

“Hallo! mother,” he exclaimed, dropping his knife and fork, “there is Little Bill or his ghost coming up the track.”

“Impossible, Peter,” said the good lady, with, however, a look of anxiety which showed she believed that, or something else, to be quite possible.

“Look for yourself, mother,” cried Peter, springing up and running out.

“It is Billie,” said Jessie, reflecting her mother’s anxiety; “what can have brought them back so soon?”

Peter re-entered at the moment with Little Bill in his arms. He set the boy down and again ran out.

Taking the widow’s trembling hand in both of his, Billie addressed her as “mother,” like the rest of the family.

“Dan has been hurt,” he said, in his soft way, “and he’s come home to get well. They will bring him up directly.”

“Is he too ill to walk?” asked the widow.

“No, not too ill—but too weak,” answered the matter-of-fact Billie. “Indeed he is not ill at all, but he has lost a heap of blood, for they shot him.”

Jessie waited to hear no more, but immediately followed Peter, and the small servant Louise followed suit; leaving the widow in a half-fainting condition with the boy. But she did not remain long thus, for just then old Duncan McKay entered by the back-door.

“It will be bad news you’ve been hearin’, Mrs Davidson,” he said, in some surprise, pouring out a glass of water as he spoke, and considerately handing it to the widow.

“Yes—O yes! I’ve just heard that Dan has been shot.”

“Bless my soul!” exclaimed the horrified old man, almost falling into a chair. “Iss—iss he tead?”

“No, thank God—only weak from loss of blood. He’ll be here directly.”

“That iss goot news—whatever; for as long as there’s life there’s hope.”

Trying to comfort himself, as well as his friend, with this truism, the old man staggered out of the house in search of those who had gone before.

Soon a sad procession was seen coming up the path, led by Archie. Four men carried Dan on a rudely-extemporised litter. His bloodless face and lips gave him the appearance of death, but the glow in his eyes told of still unexhausted life.

“I’ll be all right, mother,” he said feebly, as they laid him on his bed. “I only want food and rest. Thank God—home at last!”

As he spoke, a quiet step was heard, and Elspie, with a face as pale as his own, knelt by his bedside and took his hand.

That touch was the first impulse the youth received towards decided recovery. Old McKay perceived the change in his countenance.

“Yes, yes! ay, ay!” he exclaimed, pacing violently up and down the room, “he wants nothin’ but victuals an’ rest—steaks an’ shops, and plenty o’ whusky an’ water—hot. Don’t be croodin’ about him an’ botherin’ him. Come away, and leave him to his mother, an’ send for the doctor. Has no wan gone for him yet?”

“Yes; Peter has just started. I heard the clatter of his horse’s feet,” said Jessie.

“It iss not the doctor that will put him right, whatever,” muttered the old man, as he left the room, followed by most of the family.

And the doctor himself held the same opinion; for he said, on returning to the reception hall after seeing his patient—

“It will be a considerable time before he recovers, for the fountain of life had been well-nigh drained when he fortunately extemporised that tourniquet. But there’s no fear of him: all that he wants is food, rest, and peace of mind.”

“An’ whusky, doctor,” added old McKay. “Don’t forget the best pheesic; an’ I hev goot store of it, too, in my cellar at Ben Nevis.”

“I’m not so sure about the whisky, Mr McKay,” returned the doctor with a laugh. “I think we shall manage to pull him through without that.”

The other requisites for recovery were applied without stint at Prairie Cottage; for, despite the misfortune which had attended the cultivation of the soil, the Davidsons had a little money, which enabled them to buy provisions and other necessaries, obtainable from the Hudson Bay Company, and thus tide over the disastrous year in greater comfort than fell to the lot of many of the other settlers.

Thus Dan was well looked after. His brother Peter found the food—at least much of it—on the prairie and in the woods; his sister Jessie cooked it; Louise helped, looked on, and learned; home afforded rest; Elspie supplied the peace of mind—at least as much of it as it was possible for a fellow-mortal to supply; and his mother superintended all. Add to this that Archie Sinclair cheered him with miscellaneous gossip; that Little Bill read to him, or entertained him with serious talk and grave speculation; that André Morel and his sister often entertained him with song; that on such occasions Jenkins, the sailor, frequently amused him with nautical tales; that old Peg sometimes came from Ben Nevis to gaze at him tenderly; and that Okématan came to glare at him more or less affectionately—and we have said enough to warrant the conclusion that Dan Davidson had a pretty good time of it in spite of his weak condition.

Nevertheless Dan was not quite happy. He could not get rid of the memory of Henri Perrin’s murder, and the terrible thought that Elspie’s brother Duncan had some sort of guilty knowledge of it. These thoughts he buried deep, however, in his own breast, and even tried to forget them. Vain effort! for does it not stand to reason that the thing we strive most earnestly to forget is the very thing which, by that effort, we are fixing with a deeper stamp on memory?

François La Certe was somewhat exercised about the same question, about the same time.

That estimable member of the colony was seated one fine day on the banks of the river fishing for goldeyes—a small fish about the size of a plump herring. His amiable spouse was helping, or rather fishing with him. It was a fine healthy, contemplative occupation; one that admirably suited their tendency to repose, and at the same time filled them with that virtuous sensation which awaits those who know that they are engaged in useful occupation—for were not goldeyes the best of eating?

Branches of trees were their primitive rods, twine their simple lines, grasshoppers their bait, and a violent jerk their method.

“Slowfoot!” said La Certe.

“My husband!” or some such Indian phrase, answered the woman.

“I have been wondering for a long time now why—hi!—no! I thought there was something at my bait—but it was deception. Nothing is so unreal as the bite of the goldeye—when it is not there. It brings to mind the lights in the sky of winter, which dance and shoot—and yet they are not. Hi! ho!—I have him. I was mistaken. I thought the fish was not—but it was.”

While speaking La Certe sent a small fish with bursting violence on the grass behind him. Almost at the same moment Slowfoot landed another, with less violence and more coolness.

“What was I saying, Slowfoot?” asked the half-breed, when the hooks had been re-baited, and their eyes were riveted on their respective floats.

“Nothing that any one could remember,” answered his truthful spouse.

“Now I remember—ho! was that another?”

“No, it was not,” answered his matter-of-fact helpmate.

“Where is our child?” asked the father, with that wayward wandering of mind which is a not uncommon characteristic of genius.

“Smoking in the tent,” answered the mother.

“And with my pipe, no doubt,” said the father, laying down his rod and searching in the bag in which he was wont to carry, among other things, his pipe and tobacco.

A cry of pain from the tent in question—which was close behind the pair—apprised the parents that something was wrong. Immediately their first and only one issued with a tobacco pipe in one hand and a burnt finger on the other. It came to the father for sympathy, and got it. That is to say, La Certe put the burnt finger in his mouth for a moment, and uttered some guttural expressions of sympathy. Having thus fulfilled duty and relieved conscience, he exchanged the finger for the pipe-stem, and began to smoke. The spoiled, as well as despoiled, child uttered a howl of indignation, and staggered off to its mother; but she received it with a smile of affectionate indifference, whereupon the injured creature went back to the tent, howling, and, apparently, howled itself to sleep.

Again La Certe broke the piscatorial spell that had settled down on them, and, taking up the thread of discourse where he had dropped it, repeated his statement that he had been wondering for a long time why Cloudbrow, alias young Duncan McKay, was so sharp and fierce in denying that he knew anything about the murder of Henri Perrin.

“Hee! hee!” was Slowfoot’s significant reply.

“Can Slowfoot not guess?” he asked, after attending to a hopeful nibble, which came to nothing.

“Slowfoot need not guess; she knows,” said the woman with an air of great mystery.

“What does Slowfoot know?”

The woman’s answer to this was a look of exceeding slyness. But this did not content her lord, who, after repeated questions, and a threat to resort to extreme measures in case of continued refusal, drew from her a distinct answer.

“Slowfoot knows that Cloudbrow killed Perrin.”

“Sh!” exclaimed La Certe, with a look of real concern, “I am not yet tired of you, Slowfoot; and if old McKay hears you say that he will shoot you.”

“Slowfoot is not a fool,” retorted the woman: “the old man will never hear her say that. What has Slowfoot got to do with it? She can hold her tongue!”

“She can do that, for certain,” returned her husband with good-natured sarcasm. “In that, as in many things, she excels other women. I would never have married her had it not been so. But how do you come to be so sure?”

“I know the knife,” returned the woman, becoming more literal as she went on, “and Marie Blanc knows it. Her husband once got the loan of it from Cloudbrow, and she looked at it with care, because she had never seen such a knife before. She knew all its marks. Why does Cloudbrow deny that it is his? Because it was Cloudbrow who killed Perrin. If it had been anybody else he would have known it, and he would have said so—for he was there.”

“How know you that he was there?”

“Marie Blanc knows. She netted the snowshoes that Cloudbrow wore, and she saw the footprints.”

“But pairs of snowshoes are very like each other,” objected La Certe.

“Very like. Yes; but did ever two shoes have the same mends in the same places of the netting, where it had been broken, and the same marks on the frames?”

“Never. It will go hard with Cloudbrow if this is true.”

“It will go hard with him whether it is true or not,” returned the woman; “for some of the friends of Perrin believe it to be true, and swear—”

The disappearance of Slowfoot’s float at this moment stopped her swearing, and brought the conversation to an abrupt end. The landing of another goldeye prevented its resumption.

Having caught more than enough for a good supper, this easy-going pair leaned their rods against a tree, and ascended the bank towards their tent, which was an ordinary conical Indian wigwam, composed partly of leather and partly of birch-bark, with a curtain for a door and a hole in the top for a window; it also served for a chimney.

On the way they encountered one of the poor Swiss immigrants, who, having a wife and family, and having been unsuccessful in buffalo-hunting, and indeed in all other hunting, was in a state which bordered on starvation.

“You have been lucky,” said the Switzer, eyeing La Certe’s fish greedily.

“Sometimes luck comes to us—not often,” answered the half-breed. “Have you caught any?”

“Yes, two small ones. Here they are. But what are these among three children and a wife? I know not how to fish,” said the mountaineer disconsolately.

The fact was not surprising, for the poor man was a watchmaker by trade, and had never handled rod or gun till he was, as it were, cast adrift in Rupert’s Land.

“I will sell you some of my fish,” said La Certe, who on all occasions had a keen eye for a bargain.

“Good! I am ready to buy,” said the poor fellow, “but I have not much to spend. Only last week I gave my silver watch for eight gallons of wheat. I meant it for seed, but my wife and children were starving, so we were have no seed and only five shillings to spare.”

“Well, my friend,” said La Certe, “fish is very scarce just now, but you may have five goldeyes for your five shillings.”

“O! that is too much,” remonstrated the Switzer.

“No, no,” interrupted the half-breed, amiably, “by no means—but if you really think it too much fish for the money I will give you four goldeyes!”

“Come, you know I don’t mean that,” returned the other, with a cynical smile. “Make it six, and I will agree. And here is a pinch of snuff in to the bargain.”

He pulled out a box as he spoke, and opened it.

“Ha!” said La Certe, helping himself. “I love snuff, and so does my wife. Do you not?”

Slowfoot answered, “Hee! hee!” and helped herself to as much as a good broad finger and thumb could grasp, after which she sneezed with violence.

“Now, behold! my friend—a-wheesht!” said La Certe, sneezing a bass accompaniment to Slowfoot’s treble. “I will give you a catfish—a whole catfish for—a-wheesht!—for that box and snuff.”

The Switzer shook his head.

“Nay,” he said. “The snuff you may have, but the box was the gift of a friend, and I am loath to part with it. Besides, the box is of little real value.”

“You may have the head of the catfish for the snuff, and the whole catfish for the box,” said La Certe, with the firmness of a man who has irrevocably made up his mind—for there are none so firm of purpose as the weak and vacillating when they know they have got the whip-hand of any one! “And, behold! I will be liberal,” he added. “You shall have another goldeye into the bargain—six goldeyes for the five shillings and a whole catfish for the box and snuff—voilà!” The poor Switzer still hesitated.

“It is a great deal to give for so little,” he said.

“That may be true,” said the other, “but I would not see my family starve for the satisfaction of carrying a snuff-box and five shillings in my pocket.”

This politic reference to the starving family decided the matter; the poor Switzer emptied his pockets with a sigh, received the fish, and went on his way, leaving La Certe and Slowfoot to return to their wigwam highly pleased with their bargain. As must have been noted by the reader long ere now, this like-minded couple did not possess a conscience between them—at least, if they did, it must at that time have been a singularly shrunken and mummified one, which they had managed to keep hidden away in some dark and exceedingly un-get-at-able chamber of the soul.

Commercially speaking, however, they had some ground for satisfaction; for at that time the ordinary price of a catfish, which is a little larger than a haddock, was threepence.

Awakening the juvenile La Certe to the blissful realisation that a good “square” meal was pending, Slowfoot ordered it to fill and light the pipe for the father, while she set about preparing the fish for supper.

Chapter Twenty Seven.

Visit from Sioux brought to a disastrous Close

Happening to hear of the bargain which we have just described, and being under the impression that it might be good for La Certe’s spirit to receive a mild reproof, Mr Sutherland paid him a visit.

The Scotch Elder was, for a long time, the only man fitted to perform the duties of a minister to his countrymen in that out-of-the-world colony, and, being a true man of God, he could not hear of gross injustice, or heartless conduct, without some slight attempt to open the other’s eyes to his sin.

It may well be understood that, in the nature of things and the state of the country, the solitary Elder’s duties were by no means light or agreeable. Indeed he would have had no heart to cope with them and with the difficulties they entailed, had he not remembered that the battle was not his, but the Lord’s, and that he was only an instrument in the all-powerful hand of the Spirit of God. His own weapons were the Word, Prayer, and the name of Jesus.

But it was not given to him to see much fruit of his visit to La Certe at that time. The half-breed, besides asserting himself to be a “Catholic,” (by which he meant a Roman Catholic), and, therefore, in no way amenable to Sutherland’s jurisdiction, received his remonstrances with philosophical arguments tending to prove that men were meant to make the best of circumstances as they found them, without any regard to principles—which, after all, were not very seriously held or practised by any one, he thought—especially in Red River.