CHAPTER TEN.
SHORT TREATISE ON HORSEFLESH--REMARKS ON SLANG--DOINGS AND SIGHTS ON THEPRAIRIE--THE MOUNTAIN FORT.
A horse is a wonderful thing--if we may presume to style so noble acreature "a thing!" And the associations connected in some minds with ahorse are wonderful associations. No doubt a horse, to many people, isa commonplace enough sort of thing; and the associations connected withhorseflesh in general, in some minds, are decidedly low--having relationto tugging a cart, or tumbling along with a plough, or rattling with acab, or prancing in a carriage, or being cut up into butcher's meat forcats and dogs. Nevertheless, a horse is a wonderful creature; and man'sassociations in connection with him are, not infrequently, of the mostwonderful and romantic kind. Talk to the warrior of his steed, and hewill speak of him as of his dearest friend. Talk to the Arab of hishorse, and he will talk of his pet, his spoiled child! As it is withthese, so is it with the trapper of the western prairies.
After a few weeks' acquaintance, the trapper and his horse become one--part and parcel of each other, at least as far as it is possible for manand horse to amalgamate. On the one hand, the horse is tended, hobbled,patted, saddled, spoken to, watched over, and tenderly cared for by theman; on the other hand, the man is carried, respected, sometimes bitten(playfully), depended on, and loved by the horse. Day after day, andweek after week, the limbs of the one and the ribs of the other arepressed against each other, until they become all but united, and thevarious play of muscles on the part of both becomes so delicatelysignificant that the bridle, to a great extent, becomes unnecessary, andthe rider feels when the horse is about to shy, just as quickly as thehorse feels, by a gentle pressure on either side, how much the riderwishes him to diverge to the right or left.
Sometimes the horse breaks his hobbles and runs away, thus aggravatingthe spirits of, and causing infinite annoyance to, the man. Frequentlythe man, out of revenge for such or similar freaks, larrups and painsand worries the horse. But these little asperities are the occasionallandmarks that give point and piquancy to the even tenor of their lovingcareer. Neither would, for a moment, think of allowing such incidentsto rankle in his bosom. Both would repudiate with scorn the idea thatthey were a whit less useful, or in any degree less attached, to eachother on account of such trifling tiffs!
Day after day our trappers mounted their steeds and traversed the greatprairie--now at a rattling trot, now at a tearing gallop; frequently ata quiet foot-pace, when the nature of the ground rendered a more rapidprogress dangerous, or when the exhaustion of horses and men renderedrest necessary, or when the beautiful nature of the scenery and the warmsunny condition of the atmosphere induced a contemplative frame of mindand a placid state of body.
Night after night the horses--having stuffed themselves, like greedythings as they were, with the greenest and tenderest herbage on the richplains--returned to the camp fire round which the trappers were lying indeep slumber, and each selecting his own master, would stand over himwith drooping head and go to sleep, until dawn called them again tounited action.
Thus day and night passed for the space of three weeks after the nightof the surprise of the Indian camp, without anything particularoccurring; and thus quadrupeds and bipeds came to be familiar and wellacquainted with each other--so thoroughly united in sympathetic action--as almost to become hexapeds, if we may be permitted the expression.
March Marston's quadruped was a beautiful little bay, whose tendency tobound over every little stick and stone, as if it were a five-barredgate, and to run away upon all and every occasion, admirably suited thetastes and inclinations of its mercurial rider.
There was one among the quadrupeds which was striking in appearance--notto say stunning. No; we won't say stunning, because that is a slangexpression, and many persons object to slang expressions; therefore wewill avoid that word; although we confess to being unable to see why, ifit is allowable (as every one will admit it is) to assert that men maybe mentally "struck," it is not equally proper to say that they may bestunned. But we bow to prejudice. We won't say that that horse was"stunning." While on this subject, we think it right to guard ourself,parenthetically, from the charge of being favourable to _all_ kinds ofslang. We are in favour of speech--yes, we assert that broadly andfearlessly, without reservation--but we are not in favour of _all_speech. Coarse speech, for instance, we decidedly object to. So, weare in favour of slang, but not of _all_ slang. There are some slangwords which are used instead of oaths, and these, besides being wicked,are exceedingly contemptible. Tempting, however, they are--too apt toslip from the tongue and from the pen, and to cause regret afterwards.
But to return. Although we won't say that the quadruped in question wasstunning, we will say again that it was striking--so powerfully strikingthat the force of the stroke was calculated almost to stun. It wasuncommonly tall, remarkably short in the body, and had a piebald coat.Moreover, it had no tail--to speak of--as that member had, in someunguarded moment, got into the blaze of the camp fire and been burnt offclose to the stump. The stump, however, was pretty long, and, at thetime when the trappers became possessed of the animal, that appendagewas covered with a new growth of sparsely scattered and very stiff hair,about three inches long, so that it resembled a gigantic bottle-brush.Being a spirited animal, the horse had a lively bottle-brush, which wasgrotesque, if it was nothing else.
This quadruped's own particular biped was Theodore Bertram. He had apeculiar liking for it (as he had for everything picturesque), not onlyon account of its good qualities--which were, an easy gait and a tendermouth--but also because it was his own original animal, that of which hehad been deprived by the Indians, and which he had recaptured withfeelings akin to those of a mother who recovers a long-lost child.
We have said that the space of three weeks passed without anythingparticular occurring to our trappers. This remark, however, must betaken in a limited sense. Nothing particularly connected with thethread of this story occurred; though very many and particularlyinteresting things of a minor nature did occur during the course of thatperiod.
It would require a work equal in size to the "Encyclopaedia Britannica"to contain all the interesting things that were said and seen and doneon those prairies by these trappers within that brief space of time. Aconscientiously particular chronicler of events would have detailed theroute of each day, the latitude and longitude of each resting-place, thevery nature of the wood which composed the fuel of each fire. He wouldhave recorded that March Marston's little bay ran away with him--not, ina general way, fifty or a hundred times, but exactly so many times,specifying the concomitant circumstances of each separate time, and theresults of each particular race. He would have noted, with painfulaccuracy, the precise number of times in which Theodore Bertram (being abad rider) fell off his horse, or was pitched off in consequence of thatquadruped putting its foot inadvertently into badger holes. He wouldhave mentioned that on each occasion the unfortunate artist blackenedhis eye, or bled or skinned his nasal organ, and would have dilatedanatomically on the peculiar colour of the disfigured orb and the exactamount of damage done to the bruised nose. He would have told not onlythe general fact that bears, and elks, and antelopes, and prairie dogs,and wolves, and buffaloes, were seen in great numbers continually, andwere shot in abundance, but he would have recorded that Bertram did, onone occasion, in the height of his enthusiastic daring, give a shout anddraw one of his blunderbuss-pistols, on observing a grisly bear at ashort distance ahead of him; that he dashed his heels violently againstthe sides of his remarkable horse; that the said horse did toss hishead, shake his bottle-brush, and rush full tilt towards the bear untilhe caught sight of it, when he turned off at a sharp angle, leavingBertram on the plain at the mercy of the bear; that Bruin, who was innowise alarmed, observing his condition, came to see what was the matterwith him; and that he, Mr Bertram, would certainly have fallen a victimto his own headstrong courage on the one hand, and to the bear's knowntendency to rend human beings on the
other, had not March come up atthat moment and shot it through the heart, while Redhand shot it throughthe brain.
And this supposed conscientious chronicler of events, had he been anaturalist, would have further detailed, with graphic particularity, therich, exuberant, and varied _flora_ of the region--from the largestplant that waved and blossomed in the prairie winds to the lowliestfloweret that nestled among the tender and sweet-scented grasses on theprairie's breast. In regard to the _fauna_ of those regions, he wouldhave launched out upon the form, the colour, size, habits,peculiarities, etcetera, of every living thing, from the great buffalo(which he would have carefully explained was _not_ the buffalo, but the_bison_) down to the sly, impudent, yet harmless little prairie dog(which he would have also carefully noted was _not_ the prairie dog, butthe marmot).
Had this supposed recorder of facts been of an erratic nature, given towander from anecdote to description, and _vice versa_, he would perhapshave told, in a parenthetical sort of way, how that, during these threeweeks, the trappers enjoyed uninterrupted fine weather; how the artistsketched so indefatigably that he at last filled his book to overflowingand had to turn it upside down, begin at the end, and sketch on thebacks of his previous drawings; how Big Waller and Black Gibault becameinseparable friends and sang duets together when at full gallop, thelatter shrieking like a wild-cat, the former roaring like a buffalobull; how March Marston became madder than ever, and infected his littlesteed with the same disease, so that the two together formed a speciesof insane compound that caused Redhand and Bounce to give vent to many alow chuckle and many a deep sagacious remark, and induced Hawkswing togaze at it--the compound--in grave astonishment.
All this and a great deal more might be told, and, no doubt, might provedeeply interesting. But, as no man can do everything, so no man canrecord everything; therefore we won't attempt it, but shall at once, andwithout further delay, proceed to that part of our tale which bears moredirectly on the Rocky Mountains and the Wild Man of the West himself.
"It's a strong place," said Redhand, checking the pace of his horse andpointing to a small edifice or fort which stood on the summit of alittle mound or hill about a quarter of a mile in advance of them--"avery strong place--such as would puzzle the redskins to break into ifdefended by men of ordinary pluck."
"Men of pluck sometimes get careless, and go to sleep, though," saidMarch Marston, riding up to the old trapper; "I've heard o' such fortsbein' taken by redskins before now."
"So have I, lad, so have I," returned Redhand; "I've heard o' a fortbein' attacked by Injuns when the men were away huntin', an' bein' burntdown. But it ginerally turns out that the whites have had themselves tothank for't."
"Ay, that's true," observed Bounce; "some o' the whites in them parts isno better nor they should be. They treats the poor Injuns as if theywos dogs or varmints, an' then they're astonished if the redskins murderthem out o' revenge. I know'd one feller as told me that when he livedon the west side o' the mountains, where some of the Injuns are amurderin' set o' thieves, he niver lost a chance o' killin' a redskin.Of course the redskins niver lost a chance o' killin' the whites; an' sothey come to sich a state o' war, that they had to make peace by givin'them no end o' presents o' guns an' cloth an' beads--enough to buy upthe furs o' a whole tribe."
"I guess they was powerful green to do anything o' the sort," said BigWaller. "I knowed a feller as was in command of a party o' whites, whogot into much the same sort of fix with the Injuns--always fightin' andmurderin'; so what does he do, think ye?"
"Shooted de chief and all hims peepil," suggested Gibault.
"Nothin' o' the sort," replied Waller. "He sends for the chief, an'gives him a grand present, an' says he wants to marry his darter. An'so he _did_ marry his darter, right off, an' the whites an' redskins wasfriends ever after that. The man what did that was a gentleman too--sothey said; tho' for my part I don't know wot a gentleman is--no more doI b'lieve there ain't sich a thing; but if there be, an' it meansanything good, I calc'late that that man _wos_ a gentleman, for w'en hegrew old he took his old squaw to Canada with him, 'spite the larfin' o'his comrades, who said he'd have to sot up a wigwam for her in hisgarden. But he says, `No,' says he, `I married the old ooman for betteran' for worse, an' I'll stick by her to the last. There's too many o'you chaps as leaves yer wives behind ye when ye go home--I'm detarminedto sot ye a better example.' An' so he did. He tuk her home an' puther in a grand house in some town in Canada--I don't well mind which--but when he wasn't watchin' of her, the old ooman would squat down onthe carpet in the drawin'-room, for, d'ye see, she hadn't bin used tochairs. His frinds used to advise him to put her away, an' the kindliersort said he should give her a room to herself, and not bring her intocompany where she warn't at ease; but no, the old man said always,`She's my lawful wedded wife, an' if she was a buffalo cow I'd stick byher to the last'--an' so he did."
"Vraiment he was von cur'ous creetur," observed Gibault.
"See, they have descried us!" exclaimed Bertram, pointing to the fort,which they were now approaching, and where a bustle among theinhabitants showed that their visitors were not always peacefullydisposed, and that it behoved them to regard strangers with suspicion.
"Would it not be well to send one of our party on in advance with awhite flag?" observed Bertram.
"No need for that," replied Redhand, "they're used to all kinds o'visitors--friends as well as foes. I fear, however, from the haste theyshow in closing their gate, that they ain't on good terms with theInjuns."
"The red-men and the pale-faces are at war," said Hawkswing.
"Ay, you're used to the signs, no doubt," returned Redhand, "for you'velived here once upon a time, I b'lieve."
The Indian made no reply, but a dark frown overspread his countenancefor a few minutes. When it passed, his features settled down into theirusual state of quiet gravity.
"Have ye ever seed that fort before?" inquired Bounce in the Indiantongue.
"I have," answered Hawkswing. "Many moons have passed since I was inthis spot. My nation was strong then. It is weak now. Few braves areleft. We sometimes carried our furs to that fort to trade with thepale-faces. It is called the Mountain Fort. The chief of thepale-faces was a bad man then. He loved fire-water too much. If he isthere still, I do not wonder that there is war between him and thered-men."
"That's bad," said Bounce, shaking his head slowly--"very bad; for theredskins 'll kill us if they can on account o' them rascallyfur-traders. Howsomdiver we can't mend it, so we must bear it."
As Bounce uttered this consolatory remark, the party cantered up to theopen space in front of the gate of the fort, just above which a man wasseen leaning quietly over the wooden walls of the place with a gunresting on his arm.
"Hallo!" shouted this individual when they came within hail.
"Hallo!" responded Bounce.
"Friends or foes, and where from?" inquired the laconic guardian of thefort.
"Friends," replied Redhand riding forward, "we come from theYellowstone. Have lost some of our property, but got some of it back,and want to trade furs with you."
To this the sentinel made no reply, but, looking straight at Big Waller,inquired abruptly, "Are you the Wild Man?"
"Wot wild man?" said Waller gruffly.
"Why, the Wild Man o' the West?"
"No, I hain't," said Waller still more gruffly, for he did not feelflattered by the question.
"Have you seen him?"
"No I hain't, an' guess I shouldn't know him if I had."
"Why do you ask?" inquired March Marston, whose curiosity had beenroused by these unexpected questions.
"'Cause I want to know," replied the man quitting his post anddisappearing. In a few minutes he opened the gate, and the trapperstrotted into the square of the fort.
The Mountain Fort, in which they now dismounted, was one of those littlewooden erections in which the hardy pioneers of the fur trade were wontin days of old to establish themselves in the very hea
rt of the Indiancountry. Such forts may still be seen in precisely similarcircumstances, and built in the same manner, at the present day, in theHudson's Bay territories; with this difference that the Indians, havinghad long experience of the good intentions and the kindness of thepale-faces, no longer regard them with suspicion. The walls were madeof strong tall palisades, with bastions built of logs at the corners,and a gallery running all round inside close to the top of the walls, sothat the defenders of the place could fire over the palisades, if needbe, at their assailants. There was a small iron cannon in each bastion.One large gate formed the entrance, but this was only opened to admithorsemen or carts; a small wicket in one leaf of the gate formed theusual entrance.
The buildings within the fort consisted of three little houses, onebeing a store, the others dwelling-houses, about which several men andwomen and Indian children, besides a number of dogs, were grouped.These immediately surrounded the trappers as they dismounted. "Whocommands here?" inquired Redhand.
"I do," said the sentinel before referred to, pushing aside the othersand stepping forward, "at least I do at present. My name's McLeod. Hewho ought to command is drunk. He's _always_ drunk."
There was a savage gruffness in the way in which McLeod said this thatsurprised the visitors, for his sturdy-looking and honest countenanceseemed to accord ill with such tones.
"An' may I ask who _he_ is?" said Redhand.
"Oh yes, his name's Macgregor--you can't see him to-night, though.There'll be bloody work here before long if he don't turn over a newleaf--"
McLeod checked himself as if he felt that he had gone too far. Then headded, in a tone that seemed much more natural to him, "Now, sirs, comethis way. Here," (turning to the men who stood by), "look to thesehorses and see them fed. Come into the hall, friends, an' the squawswill prepare something for you to eat while we have a smoke and a talktogether."
So saying, this changeable man, who was a strange compound of a trapperand a gentleman, led the way to the principal dwelling-house, and,throwing open the door, ushered his guests into the reception hall ofthe Mountain Fort.
The Wild Man of the West: A Tale of the Rocky Mountains Page 10