Robert Michael Ballantyne
The Buffalo Runners: A Tale of the Red River Plains
Chapter Twenty Three.
A Midnight Chase, and Dan in Extremity
For some time they advanced in absolute silence, dipping their paddles so as to make no noise whatever; Dan following as close as possible in the wake of the chief, for it was one of those nights which people describe as being so dark that one cannot see one’s hand before one’s face.
On reaching the lower end of the lake-like expansion where the river narrowed suddenly and the stream began to be felt, it was discovered that the enemy was in advance of them—that, anticipating some such attempt at escape, they had stationed an ambush at the narrows to cut off their retreat.
Archie was naturally the first to make this discovery, being in the bow of the canoe. He heard no sound, but suddenly there loomed out of the darkness another canoe close to them—so close that they were on the point of running into it when the sharp-witted boy saw it, and, with an adroit turn of his paddle prevented a collision. Then he ceased to paddle, and held his breath. Not knowing what to do next he wisely did nothing, but left matters to Oké and fate!
As they passed, the steersman in the strange canoe uttered something in a low tone. Evidently he mistook them for his friends.
“Sh!” was Okématan’s prompt reply—or the Indian equivalent for that caution.
They glided silently and slowly past, but the suspicion of the strange Indian had obviously been aroused, for the paddles of his canoe were heard to gurgle powerfully. Hearing this, Okématan made a stroke that sent his canoe ahead like an arrow, and Archie, who appreciated the situation, seconded the movement.
“Stop!” exclaimed the strange Indian, in the Saulteaux tongue, but the Cree chief did not feel the duty of obedience strongly upon him just then. On the contrary, he put forth all his strength, but quietly, for he remembered that Dan Davidson was behind.
As there was now no need for concealment, the pursuer uttered a shrill war-whoop which was immediately answered and repeated until the woods rang with the fiendish sound, while half-a-dozen canoes dashed out from the banks on either side, and sought to bar the river.
“Now, Arch-ee,” said the Cree chief in a low voice, “paddle for your life and be a man!”
“I’ll be two men, if you like, Oké,” answered the boy, whose courage was of that type which experiences something almost like desperate glee in the presence of imminent danger.
The canoe, obedient to the double impulse and the power of the current, was soon out of hearing of the pursuers.
“O! if I only had a paddle I might help you,” said Little Bill eagerly.
“Yes, an’ bu’st your biler, or explode your lungs, or something o’ that sort,” said his brother. “No, no, Little Bill; you sit there like a lord or an admiral, an’ leave men like Oké an’ me to do all the dirty work.”
While he spoke thus flippantly it is but justice to say that Archie was never more anxiously in earnest in his life, and that he strained at his paddle with a degree of energy that made him, perhaps, more than equal to many an average man. So that the canoe forged well ahead of the pursuers and finally got to a part of the river where three islets divided it into several channels, rendering further pursuit in the dark useless if not impossible.
Their comrades, however, were not so fortunate. Left behind by the sudden spurt of his leader, Davidson and his companion exerted themselves to overtake him, but the canoes of the enemy, which were just too late to cut off the retreat of Okématan, were in time to intercept the second canoe. In this emergency Dan swerved aside, hoping to get to the bank before the Saulteaux could discover his exact whereabouts. His intentions were thwarted by the want of caution in his companion.
“Iss it to the land ye are going?” asked Fergus.
“Yes—it’s our only chance,” whispered Dan.
“It iss my opeenion—” murmured the Highlander.
“Hush!” ejaculated Dan.
But the caution came too late. A listening Red-skin overheard the sounds, and, with a sudden dash was alongside of them. He did not, however, know the vigour of the men with whom he had to deal. While he was in the very midst of a triumphant war-whoop, Dan cut him over the head with the paddle so violently that the instrument became splinters, and the whoop ceased abruptly. At the same time Fergus caught hold of the bow of the enemy’s canoe with an iron grasp, and, giving it a heave that might have put Samson to shame, fairly overturned it.
“Ye can wet your whustle now—whatever,” he muttered.
As he spoke, the canoe ran with extreme violence against the invisible bank. At the same moment a random volley was fired from the canoes in rear. Fear lest they should wound or kill a comrade probably caused them to send the whizzing bullets rather high, but for one instant the flame revealed the position of the fugitives, and those who had reserved their fire took better aim.
“Take to the bush, Fergus!” cried Dan, as he grasped his gun and leaped into the shallow water.
The Highlander stooped to lay hold of his weapon, which lay in the bow of the canoe, just as another volley was fired. The act was the means of saving his life, for at least half-a-dozen bullets whizzed close over his head. Before he could recover himself a strong hand grasped his neck and flung him backwards. Probably a desperate hand-to-hand fight would have ensued, for Fergus McKay had much of the bone, muscle, and sinew, that is characteristic of his race, but a blow from an unseen weapon stunned him, and when his senses returned he found himself bound hand and foot lying in the bottom of a canoe. He could tell from its motion, that it was descending the river.
Meanwhile Dan Davidson, under the impression that his comrade was also seeking safety in the bush, did his best to advance in circumstances of which he had never yet had experience, for, if the night was dark on the open bosom of the river, it presented the blackness of Erebus in the forest. Dan literally could not see an inch in advance of his own nose. If he held up his hand before his face it was absolutely invisible.
In the haste of the first rush he had crashed through a mass of small shrubbery with which the bank of the stream was lined. Then on passing through that he tumbled head over heels into a hollow, and narrowly missed breaking his gun. Beyond that he was arrested by a tree with such violence that he fell and lay for a minute or two, half-stunned. While lying thus, experience began to teach him, and common sense to have fair-play.
“A little more of this,” he thought, “and I’m a dead man. Besides, if it is difficult for me to traverse the forest in the dark, it is equally difficult for the savages. My plan is to feel my way step by step, with caution. That will be the quietest way, too, as well as the quickest. You’re an excited fool, Dan!”
When a man begins to think, and call himself a fool, there is some hope of him. Gathering himself up, and feeling his gun all over carefully, to make sure that it had not been broken, he continued to advance with excessive caution, and, in consequence, was ere long a considerable distance from the banks of the river, though, of course, he had but a hazy idea as to what part of the country he had attained, or whither he was tending.
As the first excitement of flight passed away, Dan began to feel uneasy prickings of conscience at having so hastily sought safety for himself, though, upon reflection, he could not accuse himself of having deserted his comrades. Okématan and the boys, he had good reason to believe—at least to hope—had succeeded in evading the foe, and Fergus he supposed had landed with himself, and was even at that moment making good his escape into the forest. To find him, in the circumstances, he knew to be impossible, and to shout by way of ascertaining his whereabouts he also knew to be useless as well as dangerous, as by doing so he would make his own position known to the enemy.
He also began to feel certain pricking sensations in his right leg as well as in his conscience. The leg grew more painful as he advanced, and, on examination of the limb by feeling, he found, to his surprise, that he had received a bullet-wound in the thigh. Moreover he discovered that his trousers were wet with blood, and that there was a continuous flow of the vital fluid from the wound. This at once accounted to him for some very unusual feelings of faintness which had come over him, and which he had at first attributed to his frequent and violent falls.
The importance of checking the haemorrhage was so obvious, that he at once sat down and did his best to bind up the wound with the red cotton kerchief that encircled his neck. Having accomplished this as well as he could in the dark, he resumed his journey, and, after several hours of laborious scrambling, at last came to a halt with a feeling of very considerable, and to him unusual, exhaustion.
Again he sat down on what seemed to be a bed of moss, and began to meditate.
“Impossible to go further!” he thought. “I feel quite knocked up. Strange! I never felt like this before. It must have been the tumbles that did it, or it may be that I’ve lost more blood than I suppose. I’ll rest a bit now, and begin a search for Fergus by the first streak of dawn.”
In pursuance of this intention, the wearied man lay down, and putting his head on a mossy pillow, fell into a profound sleep, which was not broken till the sun was high in the heavens on the following day.
When at last he did awake, and attempted to sit up, Dan felt, to his surprise and no small alarm, that he was as weak as a child, that his leg lay in a pool of coagulated gore, and that blood was still slowly trickling from the wound in his thigh.
Although disposed to lie down and give way to an almost irresistible tendency to slumber, Dan was too well aware that death stared him in the face to succumb to the feeling without a struggle. He therefore made a mighty effort of will; sat up; undid the soaking bandage, and proceeded to extemporise a sort of tourniquet with it and a short piece of stick.
The contrivance, rude as it was, proved effectual, for it stopped the bleeding, but Dan could not help feeling that he had already lost so much blood that he was reduced almost to the last stage of exhaustion, and that another hour or two would probably see the close of his earthly career. Nothing, perhaps, could have impressed this truth upon him so forcibly as his inability to shout when he tried to do so.
In the faint hope that Fergus might be within call, he raised his voice with the full knowledge that he ran the risk of attracting a foe instead of a comrade. The sound that complied with the impulse of his will would have made him laugh if he had not felt an amazing and unaccountable disposition to cry. Up to that period of his life—almost from his earliest babyhood—Dan Davidson’s capacious chest had always contained the machinery, and the power, to make the nursery or the welkin ring with almost unparalleled violence. Now, the chest, though still capacious, and still full of the machinery, seemed to have totally lost the power, for the intended shout came forth in a gasp and ended in a sigh.
It was much the same when he essayed to rise. His legs almost refused to support him; everything appeared to swim before his eyes, and he sank down again listlessly on the ground. For the first time, perhaps, in his life, the strong man had the conviction effectually carried home to him that he was mortal, and could become helpless. The advantage of early training by a godly mother became apparent in this hour of weakness, for his first impulse was to pray for help, and the resulting effect—whether men choose to call it natural or supernatural—was at least partial relief from anxiety, and that degree of comfort which almost invariably arises from a state of resignation.
After a brief rest, the power of active thought revived a little, and Dan, again raising himself on one elbow, tried to rouse himself to the necessity of immediate action of some sort if his life was to be saved.
The spot on which he had lain, or rather fallen down, on the preceding night happened to be the fringe of the forest where it bordered on an extensive plain or stretch of prairie land. It was surrounded by a dense growth of trees and bushes, except on the side next the plain, where an opening permitted of an extensive view over the undulating country. No better spot could have been chosen, even in broad daylight, for an encampment, than had been thus fallen upon by the hunter in the darkness of night.
But the poor man felt at once that this advantage could be of no avail to him, for in the haste of landing he had thought only of his gun, and had left his axe, with the bag containing materials for making fire, in the canoe. Fortunately he had not divested himself of his powder-horn or shot-pouch, so he was not without the means of procuring food, but of what use could these be, he reflected, if he had not strength to use them?
Once again, in the energy of determination, he rose up and shouldered his gun with the intention of making his way across the plain, in the hope that he might at all events reach the wigwam of some wandering Indian, but he trembled so from excessive weakness that he was obliged to give up the attempt, and again sank down with feelings akin to despair.
To add to his distress, hunger now assailed him so violently that he would have roasted and eaten his moccasins—as many a starving man had done before him, though without much benefit—but even this resource was denied him for the want of fire, and raw moccasin was not only indigestible but uneatable!
Still, as it seemed his only hope, he gathered a few dry twigs and sticks together, drew the charge from his gun and sought to kindle some mossy lichen into flame by flashing the priming in the pan of the lock. Recent rains had damped everything, however, and his attempts proved abortive. Fortunately the weather was warm, so that he did not suffer from cold.
While he was yet labouring assiduously to accomplish his purpose, the whir of wings was heard overhead. Glancing quickly up, he perceived that a small flock of willow-grouse had settled on the bushes close to him. He was not surprised, though very thankful, for these birds were numerous enough and he had heard them flying about from time to time, but that they should settle down so near was exceedingly opportune and unexpected.
With eager haste and caution he rammed home the charge he had so recently withdrawn—keeping his eyes fixed longingly on the game all the time. That the birds saw him was obvious, for they kept turning their heads from side to side and looking down at him with curiosity. By good fortune grouse of this kind are sometimes very stupid as well as tame. They did not take alarm at Dan’s motions, but craned their necks and seemed to eye him with considerable curiosity. Even when he tried to take aim at them their general aspect suggested that they were asking, mentally, “What next?”
But Dan found that he could not aim. The point of the gun wavered around as it might have done in the hands of a child.
With a short—almost contemptuous—laugh at his ridiculous incapacity, Dan lowered the gun.
Stupid as they were, the laugh was too much for the birds. They spread their wings.
“Now or never!” exclaimed Dan aloud. He pointed his gun straight at the flock; took no aim, and fired!
The result was that a plump specimen dropped almost at his feet. If he had been able to cheer he would have done so. But he was not, so he thanked God, fervently, instead.
Again the poor man essayed to kindle a fire, but in trying to do this with gunpowder he made the startling discovery that he had only one more charge in his powder-horn. He therefore re-loaded his gun, wiped out the pan and primed with care, feeling that this might be the last thing that would stand between him and starvation. It might have stood between him and something worse—but of that, more hereafter.
Starving men are not particular. That day Dan did what he would have believed to have been, in him, an impossibility—he drank the blood of the bird and ate its flesh raw!
“After all,” thought he, while engaged in this half-cannibalistic deed, “what’s the difference between raw grouse and raw oyster?”
It is but right to add that he did not philosophise much on the subject. Having consumed his meal, he lay down beside his gun and slept the sleep of the weary.
Chapter Twenty Four.
A Desperate Situation
Awaking next morning much refreshed, but with a keen appetite for more grouse, Dan Davidson sat up and reflected. He felt that, although refreshed, the great weakness resulting from excessive loss of blood still rendered him almost helpless, and he knew that making new blood was a process that required good feeding and considerable time. What, then, was to be done?
He had scarcely asked himself the question when a rustle in the bushes near him caused him to look quickly round and seize his gun. But the noise was not repeated, and nothing could be seen to justify alarm. Still Dan felt that the sound justified caution; he therefore kept his gun handy, and loosened in its sheath the scalping-knife which he always carried in his belt—for eating purposes, not for scalping.
Thus he sat for nearly an hour with an uncomfortable sensation that danger of some sort lurked near him, until he almost fell asleep. Then, rousing himself he proceeded to breakfast on the bones and scraps of the previous night’s supper.
While thus engaged he tried to make up his mind what course he ought to pursue—whether to remain where he was until his friends should have time to find him—for he felt sure that Okématan would escape and reach the Settlement, in which case a search for him would certainly be set on foot—or whether he should make a desperate effort to stagger on, and ultimately, if need be, creep towards home. The pain of his wound was now so great as to render the latter course almost impossible. He therefore resolved to wait and give his friends time to institute a search, trusting to another shot at willow-grouse for a supply of food.
He had scarcely made up his mind to this plan when the rustling in the bushes was repeated again. Seizing his gun, which he had laid down, Dan faced round just in time to see the hindquarters and tail of a large grey wolf disappearing in the bushes.
To say that he felt considerable alarm when he saw this is not to stamp him with undue timidity, for he would have rejoiced to have had the wolf in his clutches, then and there, and to engage in single combat with it, weak though he was. What troubled him was his knowledge of the fact that the mean spirited and sly brute was noted for its apparent sagacity in finding out when an intended victim was growing too feeble to show fight—either from wounds or old age—and its pertinacity and patience in biding the time when an attack could be made with safety.
Had this horrible creature discerned, by some occult knowledge, that the sands in his glass were running low? Was it to be his fate to face his glaring murderer until he had not vital power left to grapple with it, or to guard his throat from its hideous fangs? These were questions which forced themselves upon him, and which might well have caused the stoutest heart to shrink from the threatened and terrible doom.
In the strength of his emotion he had almost fired at a venture at the spot where the brute had disappeared; but luckily the remembrance that it was his last charge of ammunition came to him in time, and he had the resolution to restrain himself even when his finger was on the trigger.
Dan now perceived that he must not venture to remain on the spot where he had passed the night, because, being surrounded on three sides by shrubbery, it afforded his grisly foe an opportunity to approach from any quarter, and spring on him the moment he should find him off his guard.
There was a natural bank of earth out on the plain about three or four hundred yards off, with neither trees nor bushes near it. The bank was not more than four feet high, and the top slightly overhung its base, so that it afforded some slight protection from the sun. To this spot Dan resolved to betake himself, and immediately began the journey—for a journey it surely was, seeing that the hunter had to do it on hands and knees, lifting his gun and pushing it before him, each yard or so, as he went along. The inflammation of his wound rendered the process all the slower and more painful, and a burning thirst, which he had no means of slaking, added to his misery.
By the time he had passed over the short distance, he was so much exhausted that he fell at the foot of the bank almost in a swoon.
Evidently the wolf imagined that its time had now come, for it sneaked out of the wood when the hunter fell, and began cautiously to advance. But Dan saw this, and, making a desperate effort, arose to a sitting posture, leaned his back against the bank, and placed his gun across his knees.
Seeing this, the wolf sat down on its haunches, and coolly began to bide its time.
“Ha! you brute!” muttered Dan, “I could easily stop your mischief if my strength wasn’t all gone. As it is, I dare not give you my last shot till you are so close that you can look down the barrel o’ my gun.”
From this point a watch of endurance began on both sides—the brute, of course, unaware of the deadly weapon which its intended victim held, and the man fully aware of the fact that if he should venture to lie down and sleep, his doom would be sealed.
It is impossible for any one who has not had trial of similar experiences to imagine the rush of thought and feeling that passed through the brain and breast of Dan Davidson during the long dreary hours of that terrible day. Sometimes he fell into a half-dreamy condition, in which his mind leaped over forests and ocean to bonnie Scotland, where his days of childhood were spent in glorious revelry on her sunny banks and braes. At other times the memory of school-days came strong upon him, when play and lessons, and palmies were all the cares he had; or thoughts of Sabbaths spent with his mother—now in the church, now in the fields, or at the cottage door learning Bible stories and hearing words of wisdom and the story of the crucified One from her lips. Then the scene would change, and he was crossing the stormy ocean, or fighting with Red-skins, or thundering after the buffalo on the wide prairies. But through all the varied fabric of his thoughts there ran two distinct threads, one golden, the other black. The first we need hardly say was Elspie McKay; the second was that awful wolf which sat there glaring at him with a hang-dog expression, with the red tongue hanging out of its mouth, and from which he never for a moment allowed his eyes to wander.
As evening began to draw on, the situation became terrible, for Dan felt that the little strength he had left was fast sinking. The efforts by which he had succeeded in rousing himself in the earlier parts of the day were failing of their effect. Then a strange and sudden change occurred, for, while he knew that the end of the trial was rapidly approaching, he began to experience a feeling of indifference—the result, no doubt, of excessive weariness—and almost a wish that all was over. Nevertheless, whenever that wolf moved, or changed its position ever so little, the instinct of self-preservation returned in full force, and Dan, pulling himself together, prepared to defend himself desperately to the last gasp.
While the two were thus glaring at each other, Dan was startled and thoroughly aroused from his irresistible lethargy by a loud report.
Next moment he saw the wolf extended dead upon the plain.
