The Wild Man of the West: A Tale of the Rocky Mountains

by R. M. Ballantyne

  CHAPTER TWO.

  THE GREAT PRAIRIE--A WILD CHASE--A REMARKABLE ACCIDENT AND ANEXTRAORDINARY CHARGER, ALL OF WHICH TERMINATE IN A CRASH--BOUNCE TALKSPHILOSOPHY AND TELLS OF TERRIBLE THINGS--OUR HERO DETERMINES TO BEARDTHE WILD MAN OF THE WEST IN HIS OWN DEN.

  The rising sun lifted his head above the horizon of the great westernprairie, gilding the upper edges of those swelling undulations that bearso strong a resemblance to solidified billows as to have acquired thename of prairie waves.

  On the sunny side of these waves the flowerets of the plains werealready basking in full enjoyment of the new day; on the summits onlythe tips of their petals were turned to gold. On the other side ofthose waves, and down in the hollows, everything was clothed in deepshadow, as if the still undissipated shades of night were lingeringthere, unwilling or unable to depart from so beautiful a scene. Thismingling of strong lights and deep shadows had the effect of renderingmore apparent the tremendous magnitude of those vast solitudes.

  There were no trees within the circuit of vision, but there were a fewscattered bushes, so low and insignificant in appearance as to be quiteunobvious to the eye, except when close to the feet of the spectator.Near to a clump of these bushes there stood two horses motionless, as ifchiselled in stone, and with their heads drooping low, as if soundasleep. Directly under the noses of these horses lay two men, eachwrapped in a blanket, with his head pillowed on his saddle, and hisrifle close at his side. Both were also sound asleep.

  About a mile distant from the spot on which those sleepers rested, theregrew another small bush, and under its sheltering boughs, in thesnuggest conceivable hole, nestled a grouse, or prairie hen, also soundasleep, with its head lost in feathers, and its whole rotund aspectconveying the idea of extreme comfort and good living. Now, we do notdraw the reader's attention to that bird because of its rarity, butbecause of the fact that it was unwittingly instrumental in influencingthe fortunes of the two sleepers above referred to.

  The sun in his upward march overtopped a prairie wave, and his rays,darting onward, struck the bosom of the prairie hen, and awoke it.Looking up quickly with one eye, it seemed to find the glare too strong,winked at the sun, and turned the other eye. With this it winked also,then got up, flapped its wings, ruffled its feathers, and, after apause, sprang into the air with that violent _whirr-r_ which is sogladdening, yet so startling, to the ear of a sportsman. It wasinstantly joined by the other members of the covey to which it belonged,and the united flock went sweeping past the sleeping hunters, causingtheir horses to awake with a snort, and themselves to spring to theirfeet with the alacrity of men who were accustomed to repose in the midstof alarms, and with a grunt of surprise.

  "Prairie-hens," muttered the elder of the two--a big, burlybackwoodsman--as he turned towards his companion with a quiet smile."It was very thoughtful on 'em to rouse us, lad, considerin' the workthat lies before us."

  "I wish, with all my heart, they didn't rise quite so early," repliedthe younger man, also a stout backwoodsman, who was none other than ourhero March Marston himself; "I don't approve of risin' until one wakesin the course of nature; d'ye see, Bounce?"

  "I _hear_; but we can't always git things to go 'xactly as we approvesof," replied Bounce, stooping down to arrange the embers of the previousnight's fire.

  Bounce's proper name was Bob Ounce. He styled himself, and wrotehimself (for he could write to the extent of scrawling his own name inangularly irregular large text), "B. Ounce." His comrades called him"Bounce."

  "You see, March," continued Bounce in a quiet way, thrusting his ruggedcountenance close to the embers occasionally, and blowing up the sparkwhich he had kindled by means of flint, steel, and tinder--"you see,this is a cur'ous wurld; it takes a feelosopher to onderstand itc'rectly, and even he don't make much o't at the best. But I've alwaysnoticed that w'en the time for wakin' up's come, we've got to wake upwhether we like it or no; d'ye see, lad?"

  "I'd see better if you didn't blow the ashes into my eyes in that way,"answered March, laughing at the depth of his companion's philosophicalremark. "But I say, old chap," (March had no occasion to call him "oldchap," for Bounce was barely forty), "what if we don't fall in with aherd?"

  "Then we shall have to go home without meat that's all," replied Bounce,filling and lighting his pipe.

  "But I promised my mother a buffalo-hump in less than three days, andthe first day and night are gone."

  "You'd no right to promise your mother a hump," returned theplain-spoken and matter-of-fact hunter. "Nobody shud never go topromise wot they can't perform. I've lived, off an' on, nigh fortyyears now, and I've obsarved them wot promises most always does least;so if you'll take the advice of an oldish hunter, you'll give it up,lad, at once."

  "Humph!" ejaculated March, "I suppose you began your _obsarvations_before you were a year old--eh, Bounce?"

  "I began 'em afore I was a day old. The first thing I did in this lifewas to utter an 'orrible roar, and I obsarved that immediately I got adrink; so I roared agin, an' got another. Leastwise I've bin told thatI did, an' if it wasn't obsarvation as caused me for to roar w'en Iwanted a drink, wot wos it?"

  Instead of replying, March started up, and shading his eyes with hisright hand, gazed intently towards the horizon.

  "Wot now, lad?" said Bounce, rising quickly. "Ha! buffaloes!"

  In half a minute the cords by which the two horses were fastened to pegsdriven into the plain, were coiled up; in another half-minute thesaddle-girths were buckled; in half a second more the men were mountedand tearing over the prairie like the wind.

  "Ha, lad," remarked Bounce with one of his quiet smiles--for he was apre-eminently quiet man--"but for them there prairie-hens we'd ha' sleptthis chance away."

  The buffaloes, or, more correctly speaking, the bisons which youngMarston's sharp eye had discovered, were still so far-distant that theyappeared like crows or little black specks against the sky. In order toapproach them as near as possible without attracting their attention, itwas necessary that the two horsemen should make a wide circuit, so as toget well to leeward, lest the wind should carry the scent of them to theherd. Their horses, being fleet, strong, and fresh, soon carried themto the proper direction, when they wheeled to the right, and gallopedstraight down upon their quarry, without any further attempt atconcealment. The formation of the ground favoured their approach, sothat they were within a mile of the herd before being discovered.

  At first the huge, hairy creatures gazed at the hunters in stupidsurprise; then they turned and fled. They appeared, at the outset, torun slowly and with difficulty, and the plain seemed to thunder withtheir heavy tread, for there could not have been fewer than a thousandanimals in the herd. But as the horsemen drew near they increased theirspeed and put the steeds, fleet and strong though they were, to theirmettle.

  On approaching the buffaloes the horsemen separated, each fixing hisattention on a particularly fat young cow and pressing towards it.Bounce was successful in coming up with the one he had selected, and puta ball through its heart at the first shot. Not so Marston. Misfortuneawaited him. Having come close up with the animal he meant to shoot, hecocked his rifle and held it in readiness across the pommel of hissaddle, at the same time urging his horse nearer, in order to make asure shot. When the horse had run up so close that its head was in linewith the buffalo's flank, he pointed his rifle at its shoulder. At thatprecise moment the horse, whose attention was entirely engrossed withthe buffalo, put its left forefoot into a badger's hole. Theconsequence of such an accident is, usually, a tremendous flight throughthe air on the part of the rider, while his steed rolls upon the plain;but on the present occasion a still more surprising result followed.March Marston not only performed the aerial flight, but he alighted withconsiderable violence on the back of the affrighted buffalo. Falling onhis face in a sprawling manner, he chanced to grasp the hairy mane ofthe creature with both hands, and, with a violent half-involuntaryeffort, succeeded in seating himself astride its back.r />
  The whole thing was done so instantaneously that he had scarce time torealise what had happened to him ere he felt himself sweepingcomfortably over the prairie on this novel and hitherto unridden steed!A spirit of wild, ungovernable glee instantly arose within him. Seizingthe handle of the heavy hunting-whip, which still hung from his rightwrist by a leather thong, he flourished it in the air, and brought itdown on his charger's flank with a crack like a pistol-shot, causing theanimal to wriggle its tail, toss its ponderous head, and kick up itsheels, in a way that wellnigh unseated him.

  The moment Bounce beheld this curious apparition, he uttered a shortlaugh, or grunt, and, turning his horse abruptly, soon ranged upalongside.

  "Hallo, March!" he exclaimed, "are you mad, boy?"

  "Just about it," cried Marston, giving the buffalo another cut with thewhip, as he looked round with sparkling eyes and a broad grin at thehunter.

  "Come, now, that won't do," said Bounce gravely. "I'm 'sponsible toyour mother for you. Git off now, or I'll poke ye over."

  "Git off!" shouted the youth, "how can I?"

  "Well, keep your right leg a bit to one side, an' I'll stop yer horsefor ye," said Bounce, coolly cocking his rifle.

  "Hold hard, old fellow!" cried Marston, in some alarm; "you'll smash mythigh-bone if you try. Stay, I'll do the thing myself."

  Saying this, Marston drew his long hunting-knife, and plunged it intothe buffalo's side.

  "Lower down, lad--lower down. Ye can't reach the life there."

  March bent forward, and plunged his knife into the animal's side again--up to the hilt; but it still kept on its headlong course, although theblood flowed in streams upon the plain. The remainder of the buffaloeshad diverged right and left, leaving this singular group alone.

  "Mind your eye," said Bounce quickly, "she's a-goin' to fall."

  Unfortunately Marston had not time given him to mind either his eye orhis neck. The wounded buffalo stumbled, and fell to the ground with asudden and heavy plunge, sending its wild rider once again on an aerialjourney, which terminated in his coming down on the plain so violentlythat he was rendered insensible.

  On recovering consciousness, he found himself lying on his back, in whatseemed to be a beautiful forest, through which a stream flowed with agentle, silvery sound. The bank opposite rose considerably higher thanthe spot on which he lay, and he could observe, through his half-closedeyelids, that its green slope was gemmed with beautiful flowers, andgilded with patches of sunlight that struggled through the branchesoverhead.

  Young Marston's first impression was that he must be dreaming, and thathe had got into one of the fairytale regions about which he had so oftenread to his mother. A shadow seemed to pass over his eyes as he thoughtthis, and, looking up, he beheld the rugged face of Bounce gazing at himwith an expression of considerable interest and anxiety.

  "I say, Bounce, this is jolly!"

  "Is it?" replied the hunter with a "humph!"

  "If ye try to lift yer head, I guess you'll change yer opinion."

  Marston did try to raise his head, and did change his opinion. His neckfelt as if it were a complication of iron hinges, which had becomeexceedingly rusty, and stood much in need of oil.

  "Oh dear!" groaned Marston, letting his head fall back on the saddlefrom which he had raised it.

  "Ah, I thought so!" remarked Bounce.

  "And is that all the sympathy you have got to give me, you old savage?"said the youth testily.

  "By no means," replied the other, patting his head; "here's a drop o'water as'll do ye good, lad, and after you've drunk it, I'll rub yedown."

  "Thank'ee for the water," said Marston with a deep sigh, as he lay back,after drinking with difficulty; "as to the rubbin' down, I'll ask forthat when I want it. But tell me, Bounce, what has happened to me?--oh!I remember now--the buffalo cow and that famous gallop. Ha! ha! ha!--ho--o!"

  Marston's laugh terminated in an abrupt groan as the rusty hinges againclamoured for oil.

  "You'll have to keep quiet, boy, for a few hours, and take a sleep ifyou can. I'll roast a bit o' meat and rub ye down with fat after you'veeat as much of it as ye can. There's nothing like beef for a sick man'sinside, an' fat for his outside--that's the feelosophy o' the wholematter. You've a'most bin bu'sted wi' that there fall; but you'll bealright to-morrow. An' you've killed yer buffalo, lad, so yer mother'll get the hump after all. Only keep yer mind easy, an' I guess humannature 'll do the rest."

  Having delivered himself of these sentiments in a quietly oracularmanner, Bounce again patted March on the head, as if he had been a largebaby or a favourite dog, and, rising up, proceeded to kindle a smallfire, and to light his pipe.

  Bounce smoked a tomahawk, which is a small iron hatchet used by most ofthe Indians of North America as a battle-axe. There is an iron pipebowl on the top of the weapon, and the handle, which is hollow, answersthe purpose of a pipe stem.

  The hunter continued to smoke, and Marston continued to gaze at him tillhe fell asleep. When he awoke, Bounce was still smoking his tomahawk inthe self-same attitude. The youth might have concluded that he had beenasleep only a few minutes and that his friend had never moved; but hewas of an observant nature, and noticed that there was a savoury,well-cooked buffalo-steak near the fire, and that a strong odour ofmarrow-bones tickled his nostrils--also, that the sun no longer restedon the green bank opposite. Hence, he concluded that he must have slepta considerable time, and that the tomahawk had been filled and emptiedmore than once.

  "Well, lad," said Bounce, looking round, "had a comf'rable nap?"

  "How did you know I was awake?" said March. "You weren't looking at me,and I didn't move."

  "P'r'aps not, lad; but you winked."

  "And, pray, how did you know that?"

  "'Cause ye couldn't wink if ye wos asleep, an' I heerd ye breathediff'rent from afore, so I know'd ye wos awake; an' I knows that a manalways winks w'en he comes awake, d'ye see? That's wot I calls thefeelosophy of obsarvation."

  "Very good," replied Marston, "and, that bein' the case, I should likemuch to try a little of the `feelosophy' of supper."

  "Right, lad, here you are; there's nothin' like it," rejoined Bounce,handing a pewter plate of juicy steak and marrow-bones to his youngcompanion.

  Marston attained a sitting posture with much difficulty and pain; butwhen he had eaten the steak and the marrow-bones he felt much better;and when he had swallowed a cup of hot tea (for they carried a smallquantity of tea and sugar with them, by way of luxury), he feltimmensely better; and when he finally lay down for the night he feltperfectly well--always excepting a sensation of general batterednessabout the back, and a feeling of rusty-hinges-wanting-oiliness in theregion of the neck.

  "Now, Bounce," said he, as he lay down and pulled his blanket over hisshoulder, "are the horses hobbled and the rifles loaded, and my mother'shump out o' the way of wolves?"

  "All right, lad."

  "Then, Bounce, you go ahead and tell me a story till I'm off asleep.Don't stop tellin' till I'm safe off. Pull my nose to make sure; and ifI don't say `hallo!' to that, I'm all right--in the land of Nod."

  March Marston smiled as he said this, and Bounce grinned by way ofreply.

  "Wot'll I tell ye about, boy?"

  "I don't mind what--Indians, grislies, buffaloes, trappers--it's all oneto me; only begin quick and go ahead strong."

  "Well, I ain't great at story-tellin'! P'r'aps it would be more to thep'int if I was to tell ye about what I heer'd tell of on my last trip tothe Mountains. Did I ever tell ye about the feller as the trappers thatgoes to the far North calls the `Wild Man o' the West'?"

  "No; what was he?" said Marston, yawning and closing his eyes.

  "I dun know 'xactly wot he _was_. I'm not overly sure that I even knowwot he _is_, but I know wot the trappers says of him; an' if only thehalf o't's true, he's a shiner, he is."

  Having said this much, Bounce filled his tomahawk, lighted it, puffed alarge cloud from it, and looked throu
gh the smoke at his companion.

  March, whose curiosity was aroused, partly by the novelty of the "WildMan's" title, and partly by the lugubrious solemnity of Bounce, said--

  "Go on, old boy."

  "Ha! it's easy to say, `go on;' but if you know'd the 'orrible things asis said about the Wild Man o' the Mountains, p'r'aps you'd say, `Gooff.' It 'll make yer blood froze."

  "Never mind."

  "An' yer hair git up on end."

  "Don't care."

  "An' yer two eyes start out o' yer head."

  "All right."

  Bounce, who was deeply superstitious, looked at his young friend withsevere gravity for at least two minutes. Marston, who was not quite sosuperstitious, looked at his comrade for exactly the same length oftime, and winked with one eye at the end of it.

  "They says," resumed Bounce in a deep tone, "the Wild Man o' the West_eats men_!"

  "Don't he eat women?" inquired March sleepily.

  "Yes, an' childers too. An' wot's wuss, he eats 'em raw, an' they sayhe once swallered one--a little one--alive, without chewin' or chokin'!"("Horrible!" murmured March.) "He's a dead shot, too; he carries adouble-barrelled rifle twenty foot long that takes a small cannon-ball.I forgot to tell ye he's a giant--some o' the trappers calls him the`giant o' the hills,' and they say he's 'bout thirty feet high--somesays forty. But there's no gittin' at the truth in this here wurld."

  Bounce paused here, but, as his companion made no observation, he wenton in a half-soliloquising fashion, looking earnestly all the time intothe heart of the fire, as if he were addressing his remarks to asalamander.

  "Ay, he's a crack shot, as I wos sayin'. One day he fell in with agrisly bar, an' the brute rushed at him; so he up rifle an' puts a ballup each nose,"--("I didn't know a grisly had two noses," murmuredMarch,)--"an' loaded agin', an' afore it comed up he put a ball in eacheye; then he drew his knife an' split it right down the middle from noseto tail at one stroke, an' cut it across with another stroke; an',puttin' one quarter on his head, he took another quarter under each arm,an' the fourth quarter in his mouth, and so walked home to his cave inthe mountains--'bout one hundred and fifty miles off, where he roastedan' ate the whole bar at one sittin'--bones, hair, an' all!"

  This flight was too strong for March. He burst into a fit of laughter,which called the rusty hinges into violent action and produced a groan.The laugh and the groan together banished drowsiness, so he turned onhis back, and said--

  "Bounce, do you really believe all that?"

  Thus pointedly questioned on what he felt to be a delicate point, Bouncedrew a great number of whiffs from the tomahawk ere he ventured toreply. At length he said--

  "Well, to say truth, an' takin' a feelosophical view o' the p'int--I_don't_. But I b'lieve _some_ of it. I do b'lieve there's some'xtraord'nary critter in them there mountains--for I've lived nigh fortyyears, off and on, in these parts, an' I've always obsarved that in thiswurld w'enever ye find _anythin'_ ye've always got _somethin'_. Nobodynever got hold o' somethin' an' found afterwards that it wos nothin'.So I b'lieve there's somethin' in this wild man--how much I dun know."

  Bounce followed up this remark with a minute account of the reputeddeeds of this mysterious creature, all of which were more or lessmarvellous; and at length succeeded in interesting his young companionso deeply, as to fill him with a good deal of his own belief in at leasta wild _something_ that dwelt in the heart of the Rocky Mountains.

  After a great deal of talk, and prolonged discussion, Bounce concludedwith the assertion that "he'd give his best rifle, an' that was his onlyone, to see this wild man."

  To which Marston replied--

  "I'll tell you what it is, Bounce, I _will_ see this wild man, if it'sin the power of bones and muscles to carry me within eyeshot of him.Now, see if I don't."

  Bounce nodded his head and looked sagacious, as he said--

  "D'ye know, lad, I don't mind if I go along with ye. It's true, I'm nottired of them parts hereabouts--and if I wos to live till I couldn'tsee, I don't think as ever I'd git tired o' the spot where my fatherlarned me to shoot an' my mother dandled me on her knee; but I've got afancy to see a little more o' the wurld--'specially the far-off parts o'the Rocky Mountains, w'ere I've never bin yit; so I do b'lieve if ye wosto try an' persuade me very hard I'd consent to go along with ye."

  "Will you, though?" cried March eagerly (again, to his cost, forgettingthe rusty hinges).

  "Ay, that will I, boy," replied the hunter; "an' now I think on it,there's four as jolly trappers in Pine Point settlement at this heremoment as ever floored a grisly or fought an Injun. They're the realsort of metal. None o' yer tearin', swearin', murderin' chaps, asthinks the more they curse the bolder they are, an' the more Injuns theykill the cliverer they are; but steady quiet fellers, as don't speakmuch, but _does_ a powerful quantity; boys that know a deer from aBlackfoot Injun, I guess; that goes to the mountains to trap and comesback to sell their skins, an' w'en they've sold 'em, goes right offagin, an' niver drinks."

  "I know who you mean, I think; at least I know one of them," observedMarch.

  "No ye don't, do ye? Who?"

  "Waller, the Yankee."

  "That's one," said Bounce, nodding; "Big Waller, we calls him."

  "I'm not sure that I can guess the others. Surely Tim Slater isn'tone?"

  "No!" said Bounce, with an emphasis of tone and a peculiar twist of thepoint of his nose that went far to stamp the individual named with acharacter the reverse of noble. "Try agin."

  "I can't guess."

  "One's a French Canadian," said Bounce; "a little chap, with a red nosean' a pair o' coal-black eyes, but as bold as a lion."

  "I know him," interrupted March; "Gibault Noir--Black Gibault, as theysometimes call him. Am I right?"

  "Right, lad; that's two. Then there's Hawkswing, the Injun whose wifeand family were all murdered by a man of his own tribe, and who left hispeople after that an' tuck to trappin' with the whites; that's three.An' there's Redhand, the old trapper that's bin off and on between thisplace and the Rocky Mountains for nigh fifty years, I believe."

  "Oh, I know him well. He must be made of iron, I think, to go throughwhat he does at his time of life. I wonder what his right name is?"

  "Nobody knows that, lad. You know, as well as I do, that he wos calledRedhand by the Injuns in consekence o' the lot o' grislies he's killedin his day; but nobody never could git at his real name. P'r'aps it'snot worth gittin' at. Now, them four 'll be startin' in a week or twofor the mountains, an' wot's to hinder us a-jinin' of them?"

  To his own question Bounce, after a pause, replied with deliberateemphasis, "Nothin' wotsomdiver;" and his young companion heartily echoedthe sentiment.

  Exactly thirty-six hours after the satisfactory formation of the aboveresolution, March Marston galloped furiously towards the door of hismother's cottage, reined up, leaped to the ground, seized thebuffalo-hump that hung at his saddle-bow, and entered with a good dealof that impetuosity that had gone far to procure for him the title ofmadman. Flinging the bloody mass of meat on the floor he sat down on achair, and said--

  "There, mother!"

  "Well, you _are_ a clever fellow," said Mrs Marston, drying her hands(for she had been washing dishes), and giving her son a hearty kiss onthe forehead.

  "Clever or not clever, mother, I'm off to the Rocky Mountains in twodays."

  Mrs Marston was neither dismayed nor surprised. She was used to thatsort of thing, and didn't mind it.

  "What to do there, my boy?"

  "To see the Wild Man o' the West."

  "The what?"

  "The Wild Man o' the West, mother."

  It is needless to try our reader's patience with the long conversationthat followed. March had resolved to preach a discourse with the "WildMan o' the West" for his text, and he preached so eloquently that hismother (who was by no means a timid woman) at length not only agreed tolet him go, but commended him for his resolution. The only restraintshe lai
d upon her son had reference to his behaviour towards the WildMan, if he should happen to meet with him.

  "You may look at him, March (Mrs Marston spoke of him as if he were acaged wild beast!) and you may speak to him, but you _must not_ fightwith him, except in self-defence. If he lets _you_ alone, you must let_him_ alone. Promise me that, boy."

  "I promise, mother."

  Not long after this promise was made, a light bark canoe was launchedupon the river, and into it stepped our hero, with his friend Bounce,and Big Waller, Black Gibault, Hawkswing, and Redhand, the trappers. Acheer rang from the end of the little wharf at Pine Point, as the frailcraft shot out into the stream. The wild woods echoed back the cheer,which mingled with the lusty answering shout of the trappers as theywaved their caps to the friends they left behind them. Then, dippingtheir paddles with strong rapid strokes, they headed the canoe towardsthe Rocky Mountains, and soon disappeared up one of those numeroustributary streams that constitute the head waters of the Missouri river.