The Buffalo Runners Part 12

The abundant supply of provisions thus unexpectedly received was very acceptable, because during the day on which the boys were absent, a fresh band of immigrants had arrived on their way to Red River, and one party of these, hailing from Switzerland, had come on to the little lake where our Scotch friends were encamped, for the purpose of consulting as to their future movements--for it was evident that it would be dangerous as well as useless for them to proceed to Red River in the existing state of affairs. The leader of the party was a fair-haired youth, who could speak English very well.

The Scotch families were having their mid-day meal around the camp-fires, when the Switzers arrived and introduced themselves. Of course they were made heartily welcome by Mr Sutherland, who acted as spokesman for his countrymen.

"We are unfortunate," said the leader of the new arrivals, whose name was Andre Morel. "We hoped that the severe climate would be our only foe to fight with--especially in a land where the people are so few."

Sutherland--whose sedate and quiet manner was consistent with his position as an elder and spiritual guide of his countrymen at that time--smiled gravely, shook his head, and stroked his chin.

"You will find," he said, "that whatever part of this world you go to, the pa.s.sions of man are always more deadly in their consequences than surroundings, or climates, or anything else."

"H'm! what you say iss ferry true," remarked old McKay, who was busy picking the drum-stick of a wild-goose at the moment. "If it wa.s.s not for the jealousy an' ill-will o' the North-Westers we should hev been at this goot hour in our comfortable houses amang the green fields of Rud Ruver."

"Wheesht! faither!" interposed Duncan junior, "Mr Sutherland wa.s.s speakin', an' ye've stoppit him."

"An' what if I hev, Tuncan? Can he not continoo to speak when I hev done?" retorted the old man, resuming his drum-stick.

"You are right, Mr McKay," said the elder. "But for the unfortunate jealousies of the two Companies, we might have been in very different circ.u.mstances to-day. If the North-Westers could only see that the establishment of a colony in Red River would in no way hinder the fur-trade, we could all get along peaceably enough together. But it seems to have been ordained that man shall reach every good thing through much tribulation."

"I do not agree wi' you at all, Muster Sutherland," said old McKay.

"There iss many of rich people in this world, who hev all that hert can wush, an' are born to it without hevin' any treebulation at all."

"But I did not say `all that heart could wish,' Mr McKay. I said `_every_ good thing'."

"Well, an' iss not wealth a goot thing, Muster Sutherland?"

"Only if G.o.d's blessing goes along with it," returned the elder. "If it does not, wealth is a curse."

"H'm! I wush I had a little more o' that curse--whatever," answered the irreverent old man.

"Besides," continued Sutherland, not noticing the remark, "the rich are by no means exempt from tribulation. They are sometimes afflicted with bad children; not infrequently with bad health, which doctors, at two or three guineas a visit, cannot cure, and many of them are much troubled with poverty!"

"You are talking in ruddles now, Muster Sutherland," said old Duncan, who, having finished the drum-stick and its duplicate, was preparing his pipe for action.

"It is not much of a riddle, Mr McKay. I suppose you consider a man with ten thousand a year rich, and a man with two hundred poor."

"Well, yes; I wull not be denyin' that."

"Well--if the rich man spends ten thousand and fifty pounds a year and never has anything to spare or to lay by, is he not miserably poor--poor in spirit as well as in purse? For, at the end of the year his purse is empty, and he is in debt. On the other hand, if the man with two hundred a year spends one hundred and fifty, gives away twenty, and lays by thirty every year, is he not rich?"

"Ferry true, Muster Sutherland," said McKay, with a peculiar smile, as he emitted his first whiff. "I wull not be arguin' wi' you, for you always get the best of it. Nevertheless, it is my opeenion that we've had treebulation enough in Rud Ruver since we came oot, an' I would be ferry gled of a luttle prosperity now--if only by way of a pleesant change."

Recurring to this subject a few days later, young Morel asked Dan Davidson, while they were paddling back to camp together one evening with the proceeds of a day's hunt: "Has your life in the colony, since the beginning, been as bad as old McKay made it out the other day?"

"Well, making due allowance for the old man's use of strong language, his account of matters has not been much overdrawn," answered Dan, who, in virtue of his superior canoe-craft, acted the part of steersman.

"You see, when we came out here we expected, like you, that all would be plain sailing, except as regarded climate and ordinary difficulties, but our eyes were soon opened to the true state of things. Instead of the wilderness, with a few peaceful inhabitants living under the mild sway of the Hudson Bay Company, we found another company, apparently as strong as the Hudson's Bay one, in violent opposition. They regarded our coming as likely to ruin their trade, for Lord Selkirk was a share holder in the Hudson's Bay Company, and it was supposed his object in planting the colony was to advance his scheme of monopolising the whole fur-trade of the Far West. I cannot myself see how this colony could injure the fur-trade; but, anyhow, I know that the opposition has affected the colonists very severely, for we have been deceived by the contending parties, and misled, and delayed or thwarted in all our operations.

"At the very outset, on our arrival, a band of the Nor'-Westers, composed of half-breeds and Indians, warned us that our presence was unwelcome, and tried to frighten us away by their accounts of the savage nature of the natives. Then the fear of peris.h.i.+ng for want of food induced a lot of us to take their advice, leave the farms allotted to us, and go to a place called Pembina, about seventy miles distant from the colony, there to spend the long and hard winter in tents, according to the Indian fas.h.i.+on, and live on the produce of the chase."

"I should have thought that was a pleasant way of spending the first winter," remarked Andre Morel, who, besides being young, was strong and enthusiastic.

"So thought some of us at first," returned Dan, "but when we found that the thermometer fell to somewhere between 40 and 50 degrees below zero; that walking in snow-shoes, trapping, hunting buffalo, and shooting, were not to be learned in a few days; and when we saw our women and children dependent sometimes on the charity of Indians, and reduced almost to starvation, we changed our minds as to the pleasure of the thing. However, if the school was rough, it made the scholars all the quicker, and now I think that most of us are equal to the Redskins themselves at their own work.

"When that winter came to an end," continued Dan, "we returned to Red River, in the month of May, wiser men, thoroughly determined to plant and sow, and make ourselves independent of the savages. But hunger followed us, for fish were scarce that season; so were roots and berries; and, if it had not been for a kind of parsnip which grows wild in the plains, and a species of eatable nettle, I do believe some of us would have gone under altogether."

"And did your first sowing turn out well?" asked the young Swiss, who having been bred a watchmaker, had only hazy notions as to farming.

"Ay, there was a gleam of prosperity there that led us to hope great things for the future," answered Dan; "but the gleam did not continue.

Why, one fellow, not far from our place, sowed four quarts of wheat, and reaped twelve and a half bushels; but we had terrible trouble to save our crops from the birds. In the Spring and Fall, blackbirds and wild pigeons pa.s.s over the prairies on their way north or south, in immense numbers. They pa.s.s in such numbers that they could, I do believe, swallow our whole harvest, if they got only a grain a-piece. The berries failed them that year, an' men, women, and children had to work hard wi' guns, bird-nets, and rattles, from morning to night, to say nothing o' scarecrows. We had resolved never to go near Pembina again, but what we saved of the harvest was little more than enough for seed, so we were forced to try it for another winter. Troubles again awaited us there. The half-breeds and Indians--who had been kind at first-- became jealous. A plot was discovered to murder two of our party who had undertaken to hunt, so we were obliged to buy our provisions at a high price, and even to barter away our clothing to avoid starvation, and we returned half-naked to the Settlement the following spring.

Then, coming upon us in armed bands and superior numbers, they drove us out of the Settlement altogether at last, and we came here to Jack River to spend the winter as we best could. After that we went back and struggled on for some time, but now, here have they a second time banished us! What the end is to be, who can tell?"

"Truly, if such be the country I have come to, I will go back to my native land and make watches," remarked the Swiss in a tone from which the sanguine element had almost entirely disappeared.

CHAPTER TWELVE.

ROUND THE CAMP-FIRES.

Had any one been watching the camp-fires of the banished colonists that night, the last idea that would have entered the observer's mind would have been that of suffering or distress.

The night was brilliantly fine, and just cold enough to make the blazing fires agreeable without being necessary--except, indeed, as a means of cooking food. The light of these fires, s.h.i.+ning through the green, yellow, and golden foliage, and illuminating the sunburnt faces of men, women, and children, gave to the scene a strain of the free, the wild, and the romantic, which harmonised well with the gypsy-like appearance of the people, and formed a ruddy contrast to the pure cold light of the innumerable stars overhead, which, with their blue-black setting, were reflected in the neighbouring lake.

Over every fire pots and kettles were suspended from tripods, or rested on the half-burned logs, while impaled wild-fowl roasted in front of it.

Food being in great abundance, hearts were light in spite of other adverse circ.u.mstances, and men and women, forgetting to some extent the sufferings of the past and the dark prospects of the future, appeared to abandon themselves to the enjoyment of the present.

The children, of course, were full of glee, and not altogether empty of mischief; and there were fortunately no infants of age so tender as to induce a squalling protest against the discomforts of a situation which could be neither understood nor appreciated.

"It iss a pleesant night, whatever," remarked old McKay, lighting his pipe with a brand plucked from the fire which his family and the Davidsons shared in common; "an' if it wa.s.s always like this, it iss myself that would not object to be a rud savitch."

"I don't know that a rud savitch is much worse than a white wan,"

growled Duncan junior, in an under-tone.

"What iss that you say?" demanded the old man with a look of suspicion, for his hearing was imperfect.

"Surely the water must be boiling now, daddy?" said Elspie, by way of checking the conversation.

"I don't know whuther it iss boilin' or not," answered Duncan senior, applying another brand to his pipe.

"Archie, boy!" exclaimed Dan Davidson, "you're letting that goose roast to a cinder."

"No, Dan, I'm not--but Billie can't a-bear meat underdone, so it's better to blacken the outside than have the inside raw."

"Who iss that singing? Wheesht, boys," said Fergus McKay, turning his head a little on one side as if to listen.

There was profound silence for a few moments as a rich manly voice was heard to swell forth from the neighbourhood of one of the camp-fires.

"It comes from the camp of the Switzers, I think," said Elspie McKay.

"I know it," said Jessie Davidson, who was seated on a log beside her friend. "It is Francois La Certe. He came to our meeting-place in Red River, you know, just after Cuthbert Grant and his men left us, and, hearing that we were starting off to Jack River again, he resolved to follow. I heard him tell Slowfoot to get ready to go along with us."