The Buffalo Runners: A Tale of the Red River Plains

Chapter Five.

Saved

Duncan McKay senior was dreaming of, and gloating over, the flesh-pots of Red River, and his amiable daughter was rambling over the green carpet of the summer prairies, when the sun arose and shone upon the bushes which surrounded their winter camp—Starvation Camp, as the old man had styled it.

There is no saying how long Duncan would have gloated, and the fair Elspie wandered, if a hair of the buffalo robe on which the former lay had not entered his nostril, and caused him to sneeze.

Old McKay’s sneeze was something to be remembered when once heard. Indeed it was something that could not be forgotten! From the profoundest depths of his person it seemed to burst, and how his nose sustained the strain without splitting has remained one of the mysteries of the Nor’-West unto this day. It acted like an electric shock on Elspie, who sat bolt upright at once with a scared look that was quite in keeping with her tousled hair.

“Oh! daddy, what a fright you gave me!” Elspie said, remonstratively.

“It iss goot seventeen years an’ more that you hev had to get used to it, whatever,” growled the old man. “I suppose we’ve got nothin’ for breakfast?”

He raised himself slowly, and gazed at Elspie with a disconsolate expression.

“Nothing,” returned the girl with a look of profound woe.

It is said that when things are at the worst they are sure to mend. It may be so: the sayings of man are sometimes true. Whether or not the circumstances of Elspie and old McKay were at the worst is an open question; but there can be no doubt that they began to mend just about that time, for the girl had not quite got rid of her disconsolate feelings when the faint but merry tinkle of sleigh-bells was heard in the frosty air.

The startled look of sudden surprise and profound attention is interesting to behold, whether in old or young. It is a condition of being that utterly blots out self for a brief moment in the person affected, and allows the mind and frame for once to have free unconscious play.

Elspie said, “Sh!—” and gazed aside with wide and lustrous eyes, head a little on one side, a hand and forefinger slightly raised, as if to enforce silence, and her graceful figure bent forward—a petrifaction of intensely attentive loveliness.

Old McKay said “Ho!” and, with both hands resting on the ground to prop him up, eyes and mouth wide open, and breath restrained, presented the very personification of petrified stupidity.

Another moment, and the sound became too distinct to admit of a doubt.

“Here they are at long last!” exclaimed the old man, rising with unwonted alacrity for his years.

“Thank God!” ejaculated Elspie, springing up and drawing a shawl round her shoulders, at the same time making some hasty and futile attempts to reduce the confusion of her hair.

It need scarcely be said that this was the arrival of the rescue-party of which Daniel Davidson was in command. Before the starving pair had time to get fairly on their legs, Daniel strode into the camp and seized Elspie in his arms.

We need not repeat what he said, for it was not meant to be made public, but no such reticence need trouble us in regard to old Duncan.

“Hoot! Taniel,” said he, somewhat peevishly, “keep your coortin’ till efter breakfast, man! It iss a wolf that will be livin’ inside o’ me for the last few tays—a hungry wolf too—an’ nothin’ for him to eat. That’s right, Okématan, on wi’ the kettle; it iss yourself that knows what it iss to starve. Blow up the fire, Peter Tavidson. You’re a cliver boy for your age, an’ hes goot lungs, I make no doubt.”

“That I have, Mr McKay, else I should not be here,” said the lad, laughing, as he knelt before the embers of the fire, and blew them into a blaze.

“Wow! Dan, hev ye not a pit pemmican handy?” asked McKay. “It iss little I care for cookin’ just now.”

“Here you are,” said Dan, taking a lump of the desired article from his wallet and handing it to the impatient man; at the same time giving a morsel to Elspie. “I knew you would want it in a hurry, and kept it handy. Where is Duncan? I thought he was with you.”

“So he wass, Taniel, when you left us to go to Rud Ruver, but my son Tuncan was never fond o’ stickin’ to his father. He left us, an’ no wan knows where he iss now. Starvin’, maybe, like the rest of us.”

“I hope not,” said Elspie, while her sire continued his breakfast with manifest satisfaction. “He went off to search for buffalo with Perrin and several others. They said they would return to us if they found anything. But, as they have not come back, we suppose they must have been unsuccessful. Did you meet any of the poor people on the way out, Dan?”

“Ay, we met some of them,” replied the hunter, in a sad tone. “All struggling to make their way back to the Settlement, and all more or less starving. We helped them what we could, but some were past help; and we came upon two or three that had fallen in their tracks and died in the snow. But we have roused the Settlement, and there are many rescue-parties out in all directions now, scouring the plains.”

“You hev stirred it enough, Okématan,” said old McKay, referring to the kettle of food which was being prepared. “Here, fill my pannikin: I can wait no longer.”

“Whenever you have finished breakfast we must start off home,” said Davidson, helping Elspie to some of the much-needed and not yet warmed soup, which was quickly made by mixing pemmican with flour and water. “I have brought two sleds, so that you and your father may ride, and we will carry the provisions. We never know when the gale may break out again.”

“Or when heavy snow may come on,” added Peter, who was by that time busy with his own breakfast.

Okématan occupied himself in stirring the contents of the large kettle, and occasionally devouring a mouthful of pemmican uncooked.

An hour later, and they were making for home almost as fast as the rescue-party had travelled out—the provisions transferred to the strong backs of their rescuers—old McKay and Elspie carefully wrapped up in furs, reposing on the two sledges.

Chapter Six.

Discord and Deceit, Etcetera

It was found, on their arrival at the home of Duncan McKay senior, that Duncan junior had got there before them, he having been met and brought in by one of the settlers who had gone out with his cariole to do what he could for the hunters. The two women who discovered the body of Perrin, however, had not yet arrived, and nothing was known of the murder in the Settlement.

“It iss little troubled you wass, what came over us,” remarked old Duncan angrily, on entering his house, and finding his younger son engaged with a pipe beside the kitchen fire.

“An’ how could I know where you wass; efter I had been huntin’ for nothin’ for two days?” retorted his son. “Wass I to think you would be stoppin’ in the lame camp till you died? Wass it not more likely that some wan would find you an’ bring you in—as they did?”

“No thanks to you that they did, Tuncan, whatever. Where did you leave the other boys?”

“How should I know?” returned the son sharply; “they dropped off—wan here an’ wan there—sayin’ they would try for a buffalo in wan place or another, or, that they would rest awhile; an’ so I wass left by myself. I found it quite enough to look efter number wan.”

“It hes always been as much, that, as ye could manitch, Tuncan, even when things wass goin’ easy,” said the old man with a sarcastic laugh, that induced the young man to rise and quit the room.

He went towards a small shop, or store, as such places were styled in the Nor’-West. It fell to his lot in the family arrangements to look after and manage this store. Indeed the youth’s anxiety for the ease and comfort of “number wan” had induced him to select the post as being a part of the family duties that was peculiarly suited to himself.

On reaching the store he went straight to a large roll of Canadian twist tobacco, cut off a piece, refilled his pipe, and, sitting down on a bale began or, rather, continued to smoke. He had not been seated long when the door opened, and the head of a half-breed peeped cautiously in with an uncommonly sly look.

“That you, François La Certe?” said McKay rather sternly, for he knew the man well. “What iss it you will be wantin’ now?”

François wanted many things—things almost too numerous to mention; but, first, he would pay his debts to Cloudbrow.

“Come, that’s something new,” said McKay with a cynical laugh. “You must have come by a fortune, or committed a robbery before ye would be so honest. How much are you goin’ to pay?”

“The sledge that you lent me, I have brought back,” said the half-breed with a deprecatory air.

“So, you call returning a loan paying your debts?” said Duncan.

La Certe did not quite say that, but he thought it bore some resemblance to a payment to account, and at all events was proof of his good intentions.

“And on the strength of that you’ll want plenty more credit, I hev no doubt.”

“No—not plenty,” said La Certe, with the earnest air of a man who is exposing his whole soul to inspection, and who means to act this time with the strictest sincerity, to say nothing of honesty. “It is only a little that I want. Not much. Just enough to keep body and soul from sayin’ good-bye.”

“But you have not paid a fraction of your old debt. How will you be expectin’ to meet the new one?”

Oh! La Certe could easily explain that. He was going off immediately to hunt and trap, and would soon return with a heavy load, for there were plenty of animals about. Then in the spring, which was near at hand, he meant to fish, or go to the plains with the hunters, and return laden with bags of pemmican, bales of dried meat, and buffalo-robes enough to pay off all his debts, and leave something over to enable him to spend the winter in luxurious idleness.

“And you expect me to believe all that nonsense?” said McKay, sternly.

La Certe was hurt. Of course he expected to be believed! His feelings were injured, but he was of a forgiving disposition and would say no more about it. He had expected better treatment, however, from one who had known him so long.

“A trip to the plains requires more than powder and shot,” said the store-keeper; “where will you be goin’ to get a horse an’ cart? for you can hev mine no longer.”

“Dechamp, he promise to sole me a horse, an’ Mrs Davis’n will loan me a cart,” returned the half-breed, with lofty independence.

“Hm! an’ you will be returnin’ the cart an’ payin’ for the horse when the hunt is over, I suppose?”

Yes, that was exactly the idea that was in La Certe’s brain, and which, he hoped and fully expected, to reduce to practice in course of time—if Duncan McKay would only assist him by making him a few advances at that present time.

“Well, what do you want?” asked McKay, getting off the bath.

The half-breed wanted a good many things. As he was going off in the course of a few days, and might not be able to return for a long time, he might as well take with him even a few things that he did not absolutely need at the moment. Of course he wanted a good supply of powder, shot, and ball. Without that little or nothing could be done. Then a new axe, as his old one was much worn—the steel almost gone—and it was well-known that a trapper without an axe was a very helpless creature. A tin kettle was, of course, an absolute necessity; and the only one he possessed had a small hole in it. A few awls to enable him to mend his bark canoe when open water came, and a couple of steel traps, some gun-flints, and, O yes, he had almost forgotten a most essential thing—twine to make a net, and some fish-hooks.

“It iss a regular outfit you will be wanting,” remarked the store-keeper, as he handed over the various articles.

O no—not a regular one—only a very little one, considering the length of time he should be away, and the wealth with which he would return. But again he suddenly remembered that he had forgotten something else.

“Well, what iss it?”

Some glover’s needles and sinews for making leather coats and moccasins. Needles and thread and scissors, for it was quite clear that people could not live without suitable clothing. A new capote, also, and—and—a yard or two of scarlet cloth with a few beads.

As he made the last request, La Certe attempted to speak insinuatingly, and to look humble.

“Come, that iss pure extravagance,” said McKay, remonstrating.

La Certe could not, dare not, face his wife without these articles. He pleaded earnestly. “Slowfoot is so clever wi’ the needle,” he said. “See! she send you a pair of moccasins.”

The wily man here drew from the breast of his capote a pair of beautifully made moccasins, soft as chamois leather, and richly ornamented with dyed quills of the porcupine.

McKay laughed; nevertheless he swallowed the bait and was pleased. He finally handed the goods to La Certe, who, when he had obtained all that he could possibly squeeze out of the store-keeper, bundled up the whole, made many solemn protestations of gratitude and honest intentions, and went off to cheer Slowfoot with the news of his success.

It chanced that Antoine Dechamp, the very man about whom he had been talking to Duncan McKay, had dropped in to see him and his spouse, and was sitting beside the fire smoking when he entered. Displaying his possessions with much pride, he assured Dechamp that he had paid for the whole outfit, and meant to return in the spring a rich man with means enough to buy a horse and cart, and start with the buffalo-hunters for the plains.

“You have a horse to sell—they say?” he remarked to his friend in a careless way.

“Yes—and a good one too,” answered Dechamp.

“Well, if you will loan him to me in the spring, I will pay for him when I come back. It takes all I have to fit me out to start, you see.”

Dechamp did not quite see his way to that—but there was plenty of time to think over it!

“Have you heard,” said Dechamp, willing to change the subject, “there is some talk that Perrin has been killed? George McDermid was out, like many others, huntin’ about for the starvin’ people, an’ he came across the wives of Blanc and Pierre—poor things! they’re widows now, for Blanc and Pierre are both dead. Well, the women had well-nigh given in. I had dropped down, they were so tired, and were crawlin’ on their hands and knees when McDermid found them. I didn’t hear all the outs and ins of it, but there is no doubt that poor Perrin has been murdered, for he was shot right through the breast.”

“Perhaps he shot hisself,” suggested La Certe.

“No—that could not be, for the women have brought his coat, which shows that the ball went in at the breast and came straight out at the back. If he had shot himself he must have pulled the trigger with his toe, an’ then the ball would have slanted up from his breast to somewhere about his shoulders.”

“It was a Saulteaux, may be,” said Slowfoot, who had been listening with all the eagerness of a gossip.

“There were no marks of Redskins’ snow-shoes about,” returned Dechamp, “an’ the tracks were too confused to make them out. A knife was found, but there were no marks about it to tell who owned it—only it was a settler’s knife, but there are lots of them about, an’ many have changed hands since the settlers came.”

At the time we write of, the colony of Red River of the north was in a very unhappy and disorganised condition. There were laws indeed, but there was no authority or force sufficiently strong to apply the laws, and discord reigned because of the two great fur companies—the Hudson’s Bay, and the Nor’-West—which opposed each other with extreme bitterness, carrying fire-water, dissension, and disaster all over the wilderness of Rupert’s Land. Happily the two companies coalesced in the year 1821, and from that date, onward, comparative peace has reigned under the mild sway of the Hudson’s Bay Company.

But at the period which we describe the coalition had not taken place, and many of the functionaries of the Hudson’s Bay Company in Red River, from the Governor downward, seem to have been entirely demoralised, if we are to believe the reports of contemporary historians.

Some time previous to this, the Earl of Selkirk—chiefly from philanthropic views, it is said—resolved to send a colony to Red River. At different times bands of Scotch, Swiss, Danes, and others, made their appearance in the Settlement. They had been sent out by the agents of the Earl, but there was a great deal of mismanagement and misunderstanding, both as to the motives and intentions of the Earl. The result was that the half-breeds of Red River—influenced, it is said, by the Nor’-West Company—received the newcomers with suspicion and ill-will. The Indians followed the lead of the half-breeds, to whom they were allied. Not only was every sort of obstruction thrown in the way of the unfortunate immigrants, but more than once during those first years they were driven from the colony, and their homesteads were burned to the ground.

There must have been more than the usual spirit of indomitable resolution in those people, however, for notwithstanding all the opposition and hardship they had to endure, they returned again and again to their farms, rebuilt their dwellings, cultivated their fields, and, so to speak, compelled prosperity to smile on them—and that, too, although several times the powers of Nature, in the shape of grass hoppers and disastrous floods, seemed to league with men in seeking their destruction.

Perhaps the Scottish element among the immigrants had much to do with this resolute perseverance. Possibly the religious element in the Scotch had more to do with it still.

The disastrous winter which we have slightly sketched was one of the many troubles with which not only the newcomers, but all parties in the colony, were at this time afflicted.

Chapter Seven.

Vixen Delivered and Wolves Defeated

With much labour and skill had the Davidsons and McKays erected two timber cottages side by side in the land of their adoption.

These two families were among the first band of settlers. They were very different in character—one being Highland, the other Lowland Scotch, but they were more or less united by sympathy, intermarriage, and long residence beside each other on the slopes of the Grampian Hills, so that, on the voyage out, they made a compact that they should stick by each other, and strive, and work, and fight the battle of life together in the new land.

All the members of the Davidson family were sterling, sedate, hearty, and thorough-going. Daniel and Peter were what men style “dependable” fellows, and bore strong resemblance to their father, who died almost immediately after their arrival in the new country. Little Jessie was like her mother, a sort of bottomless well of sympathy, into which oceans of joy or sorrow might be poured without causing an overflow—except, perchance, at the eyelids—and out of which the waters of consolation might be pumped for evermore without pumping dry. The idea of self never suggested itself in the presence of these two. The consequence was that everybody adored them. It was rather a selfish adoration, we fear, nevertheless it was extremely delightful—to the adorers, we mean—and doubtless not unpleasant to the adored.

The love of God, in Christ, was the foundation of their characters.

Of the McKay family we cannot speak so confidently. Elspie, indeed, was all that could be desired, and Fergus was in all respects a sterling man; but the head of the family was, as we have seen, open to improvement in many respects, and Duncan junior was of that heart-breaking character which is known as ne’er-do-weel. Possibly, if differently treated by his father, he might have been a better man. As it was, he was unprincipled and hasty of temper.

Little wonder that, when thrown together during a long voyage—to an almost unknown land—Elspie McKay and Daniel Davidson should fall into that condition which is common to all mankind, and less wonder that, being a daring youth with a resolute will, Daniel should manage to induce the pliant, loving Elspie, to plight her troth while they were gazing over the ship’s side at the first iceberg they met. We may as well hark back here a little, and very briefly sketch the incident. It may serve as a guide to others.

The two were standing—according to the report of the bo’s’n, who witnessed the whole affair—“abaft the main shrouds squintin’ over the weather gangway.” We are not quite sure of the exact words used by that discreditable bo’s’n, but these are something like them. It was moon-light and dead calm; therefore propitious, so far, to Daniel’s design—for Daniel undoubtedly had a design that night, obvious to his own mind, and clearly defined like the great iceberg, though, like it too, somewhat hazy in detail.

“What a glorious, magnificent object!” exclaimed Elspie, gazing in wonder at the berg, the pinnacles of which rose considerably above the mast-head.

“Yes, very glorious, very magnificent!” said Daniel, gazing into the maiden’s eyes, and utterly regardless of the berg.

“I wonder how such a huge mass ever manages to melt,” said Elspie—for the human mind, even in pretty girls, is discursive.

“I wonder it does not melt at once,” said Dan, with pointed emphasis.

“What do you mean?” she asked, turning her eyes in considerable astonishment from the berg to the man.

“I mean,” said he, “that under the influence of your eyes the iceberg ought to melt straight away. They have melted my heart, Elspie, and That has been an iceberg, I find, till now.”

He seized her hand. It had all come on so suddenly that poor Elspie was quite unprepared for it. She turned as if to fly, but Daniel put his arm round her waist and detained her.