The Wild Man of the West: A Tale of the Rocky Mountains. Robert Michael Ballantyne
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as a feller should gratilate hisself on havin’. Who be ye in love wi’, lad?”
“Vid dat necklace,” replied Gibault, sighing again heavily.
“Oh! if that’s all, ye don’t need to look so blue, for it’s yer own by rights,” said Bounce. “I’m jist doin’ it up for ye.”
“Non; it cannot be mine,” returned Gibault.
“How so?” inquired Waller, “ye ’arned it, didn’t ye? Drew first blood I calc’late.”
“Non, I not draw de fuss blood. Mais, I vill hab chance again no doubt. Monsieur Bertram he drew fuss blood.”
“Ho, he!” cried Waller in surprise. “You didn’t tell us that before. Come, I’m glad on’t.”
“What!” exclaimed Bertram, “the necklace mine? there must be some mistake. I certainly fired my pistol at the bear, but it seemed to have had no effect whatever.”
“Gibault,” said Bounce emphatically, “did you fire at all?”
“Non, pour certain, cause de gun he not go off.”
“Then,” continued Bounce, handing the much-coveted necklace to Bertram, “the thing b’longs to you, sir, for that bar comed up wounded, an’ as he couldn’t ha’ wounded hisself, you must ha’ done it—there.”
The young man positively refused for some time to accept of the necklace, saying, that as Gibault had tracked and discovered the bear, it certainly belonged to him; but Gibault as positively affirmed that he would not disgrace himself by wearing what belonged rightfully to another man; and as the other trappers confirmed what their comrade said, Bertram was at last fain to accept of a trophy which, to say truth, he was in his heart most anxious to possess.
At the close of this amicable dispute, each man rolled himself in his blanket and lay down to sleep with his feet to the fire. Being in a part of the country where there were very few Indians, and these few on pretty good terms with the white trappers, no watch was set. Bertram lay down with his tattered cloak around him, and, taking a little book from his pocket, read it, or appeared to read it, till he fell asleep—on observing which, March Marston crept noiselessly to his side, and, lying gently down beside him, covered him with a portion of his own blanket. Ere long the camp was buried in repose.
Chapter Six
There are few passages in Holy Writ more frequently brought to remembrance by the incidents of everyday life than this—“Ye know not what a day or an hour may bring forth.” The uncertainty of sublunary things is proverbial, whether in the city or in the wilderness, whether among the luxuriously nurtured sons and daughters of civilisation, or among the toil-worn wanderers in the midst of savage life. To each and all there is, or may be, sunshine to-day and cloud to-morrow; gladness to-day sadness to-morrow. There is no such thing as perpetual felicity in the world of matter. A nearer approach to it may perhaps be made in the world of mind; but, like perpetual motion, it is not to be absolutely attained to in this world of ours. Those who fancy that it is to be found in the wilderness are hereby warned, by one who has dwelt in savage lands, that its habitation is not there.
March Marston thought it was. On the morning after the night whose close we have described, he awoke refreshed, invigorated, and buoyant with a feeling of youthful strength and health. Starting up, he met the glorious sun face to face, as it rose above the edge of a distant blue hill, and the meeting almost blinded him. There was a saffron hue over the eastern landscape that caused it to appear like the plains of Paradise. Lakelets in the prairies glittered in the midst of verdant foliage; ponds in the hollows lay, as yet unillumined, like blots of ink; streams and rivulets gleamed as they flowed round wooded knolls, or sparkled silvery white as they leaped over rocky obstructions. The noble river, on the banks of which the camp had been made, flowed with a calm sweep through the richly varied country—refreshing to look upon and pleasant to hear, as it murmured on its way to join the “Father of waters.” The soft roar of a far-distant cataract was heard mingling with the cries of innumerable water fowl that had risen an hour before to enjoy the first breathings of the young day. To March Marston’s ear it seemed as though all Nature, animate and inanimate, were rejoicing in the beneficence of its Creator.
The youth’s reverie was suddenly broken by the approach of Theodore Bertram.
“Good morrow, friend,” said the latter, grasping March’s hand and shaking it heartily. “You are early astir. Oh, what a scene! What heavenly colours! What a glorious expanse of beauty!”
The artist’s hand moved involuntarily to the pouch in which he was won’t to carry his sketch-book, but he did not draw it forth; his soul was too deeply absorbed in admiration to permit of his doing aught but gaze in silence.
“This repays my toils,” he resumed, soliloquising rather than speaking to March. “’Twere worth a journey such as I have taken, twice repeated, to witness such a scene as this.”
“Ay, ain’t it grand?” said March, delighted to find such congenial enthusiasm in the young painter.
Bertram turned his eyes on his companion, and, in doing so, observed the wild rose at his side.
“Ah! sweet rose,” he said, stooping eagerly down to smell it.
“Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.”
“He was no poet who wrote that, anyhow,” observed March with a look of disdain.
“You are wrong, friend. He was a good poet and true.”
“Do you mean to tell me that the sweetness o’ that rose is wasted here?”
“Nay, I do not say that. The poet did not mean to imply that its sweetness is utterly wasted, but to assert the fact that, as far as civilised man is concerned, it is so.”
“‘Civilised man,’” echoed March, turning up his nose (a difficult feat, by the way, for his nose by nature turned down). “An’ pray what’s ‘civilised man’ that he should think everything’s wasted that don’t go in at his own eyes, or up his own nose, or down his own throat? eh?”
Bertram laughed slightly (he never laughed heartily). “You are a severe critic, friend.”
“I don’t know, and I don’t care, what sort o’ cricket I am; but this I do know, that roses are as little wasted here as in your country—mayhap not so much. Why, I tell ye I’ve seen the bars smell ’em.”
“Indeed.”
“Ay, an’ eat ’em too!”
“That was not taking a poetical view of them,” suggested Bertram.
“Perhaps not, but it was uncommonly practical,” returned March, laughing.
The conversation was abruptly terminated at this point by a flock of wild ducks, which, ignorant of the presence of the two youths, swept close past their heads with a startling whirr. The artist leaped backwards, and March, partly in the exuberant glee of his heart and partly to relieve his own startled feelings, gave utterance to a hideous yell.
“Hi! hallo!” roared Big Waller, starting up and replying to the yell with compound interest. “Wot’s to do? Bars or savages—which? Oh! savages I see,” he added, rubbing his eyes, as he observed March laughing at him. “Ha! lad, d’ye know there’s a sort o’ critter in other diggins o’ this here world as they calls a hi-eeno, or somethin’ o’ that sort, as can laugh, it can; so you’re not the only beast as can do it, d’ye see!”
The camp was now thoroughly roused, and the trappers set about making preparations for a start; but little was said. It is generally the case at early morning—at least among healthy men who have work to do before breakfast in the wilderness—that tongues are disinclined to move. After the first somewhat outrageous and rather unusual burst, no one