The Buffalo Runners Part 15

"Well," he said, quietly, "what about the knife?"

"Would you like to have it--my wife bade me inquire?"

"Why should _I_ like to have it?" he asked carelessly.

"Oh! I thought it was yours," said La Certe.

"You are mistaken. I said it was very like mine. But it is _not_ mine--and I have no wish for what does not belong to me."

"Of course not. Well, I must be going," said the half-breed, preparing to leave. "I wished much to have your horse and cart, for they are both good, and I would offer you 4 pounds for the trip, which, you know, is double the usual charge, for I never grudge a good price for a good thing."

"Yes, all the more when you hev no intention to pay it," said McKay with a laugh. "However, since you seem so anxious, and offer so good a price, I am willing to oblige you this time, in the hope that you are really becoming an honest man!"

The half-breed was profuse in his thanks, and in his a.s.surance that Cloudbrow's hopes would certainly not be disappointed.

Having thus attained his chief object, our arch-beggar went off to obtain provisions. Those which had been supplied him the previous autumn by young McKay had been quite consumed by himself and his friends--for the man, you see, had a liberal heart and hand.

But his first attempts were unsuccessful. He wanted ammunition. To go to the plains without ammunition was obviously useless. He wanted food--sugar, tea, flour, pork. To go to the plains without these would be dreary work. But men knew La Certe's character, and refused him.

One after another he tried his friends. Then he tried them again. Then he tried comparative strangers. He could not try his enemies, for, strange to say, he had none. Then he went over them all again.

At last, by indomitable perseverance, he managed to wear out the patience of one of his friends, who believed in the restoration of the incorrigible, and he found himself fully equipped to take the field with his hard-working comrades.

It may be remarked here that the buffalo runners generally went on the credit system, trusting to a successful hunt to pay off their debts, and leave them supplied with food for the winter. But, then, most of these men were in earnest, and meant to pay off their debts loyally. Whereas La Certe--good, humorous, easy-going man--had not the slightest intention of paying his debts at all!

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

TREACHERY IN THE AIR.

At this time the half-breeds of the colony of Red River formed a small party compared with the numbers to which they multiplied in after years, and the band of hunters who annually went to the plains to chase the buffalo was proportionally small. Nevertheless, they were numerous enough to const.i.tute a formidable band, capable of holding their own, when united, against any band of wandering Indians who might feel disposed to attack them. They were a brave, hardy race of men, but of course there were some black sheep among them like La Certe.

About sixty or a hundred miles from the Settlement, the party, under command of Antoine Dechamp, found the buffalo, and preparations were at once made to attack them. It was dusk, however, when the herds were discovered, so that the hunt had to be postponed to the following day.

A small clump of bushes afforded wood enough for camp-fires. The carts were ranged in a circle with the trains outward. Sentries were posted; the horses were secured; the kettles put on; pipes lighted; and noise, laughter, song and story, mingled with the shrill voices of children, were heard far on into the night.

Among the children, if we may venture so to cla.s.s them, were Archie and Billie Sinclair--though we suspect that Archie would have claimed, and with some reason, to be cla.s.sed with the men. They belonged to the camp-fire, which formed a centre to the party composed of Dan and Peter, Fergus, Dechamp, and Fred Jenkins the sailor. The latter, who it was thought had come out to the country by way of a skylark rather than as a settler, had followed the hunters, bent, he said, on firing a broadside into a buffalo. He had brought with him a blunderbuss, which he averred had been used by his great-grandfather at the battle of Culloden. It was a formidable old weapon, capable of swallowing, at one gulp, several of the bullets which fitted the trading guns of the country. Its powers of scattering ordinary shot in large quant.i.ty had proved to be very effective, and had done such execution among flocks of wild-fowl, that the Indians and half-breeds, although at first inclined to laugh at it, were ultimately filled with respect.

"I doubt its capacity for sending ball straight, however," remarked Dan to Jenkins, who was carefully cleaning out the piece, "especially if charged with more than one ball."

"No fear of it," returned the sailor, with a confident air. "Of course it scattered the b.a.l.l.s about six yards apart the only time I tried it with a lot of 'em, but that was at fifty yards off, an' they tell me that you a'most ram the muzzle against the brutes' sides when chasin'

buffalo. So there's no room to scatter, d'ee see, till they get inside their bodies, and when there it don't matter how much they scatter."

"It's well named a young cannon by La Certe," said Peter Davidson, who, like the seaman, was out on his first buffalo-hunt. "I never heard such a roar as it gave that time you brought down ten out of one flock of ducks on the way up here."

"Ay, Peter, she barked well that time," remarked the sailor, with a grin, "but, then there was a reason. I had double-shotted her by mistake."

"An' ye did it too without an aim, for you had both eyes tight shut at the time," remarked Fergus. "Iss that the way they teach ye to shoot at sea?"

"In course it is," replied Jenkins, gravely. "That's the beauty o' the blunderbuss. There's no chance o' missin', so what 'ud be the use o'

keepin' yer eyes open, excep' to get 'em filled wi' smoke. You've on'y got to point straight, an' blaze away."

"I did not know that you use the blunderbuss in your ships at all," said Dechamp, with a look of a.s.sumed simplicity.

"Ho yes, they do," said Jenkins, squinting down the bell-mouthed barrel, as if to see that the touch-hole was clear. "Aboard o' one man-o'-war that I sailed in after pirates in the China seas, we had a blunderbuss company. The first-leftenant, who was thought to be queer in his head, he got it up.

"The first time the company was ranged along the deck he gave the order to load with ball cartridges. There was twenty-six of us, all told.

"`We've got no cartridges for 'em, sir,' whispered the man nearest him.

"`If you don't obey orders,' growled the leftenant 'tween his teeth, `I'll have ye strung up for mutiny every man Jack of you--_load_!' he repeated in a kind of a yell.

"We had our or'nary belts and pouches on, so we out wi' the or'nary cartridges--some three, some four,--an', biting off the ends, poured in the powder somehow, shoved in the b.a.l.l.s anyhow, an' rammed the whole consarn down.

"`Present--fire!' roared the leftenant.

"Bang! went the six an' twenty blunderbusses, an' when the smoke cleared away there was fourteen out o' the twenty-six men flat on their backs.

The rest o' us was raither stunned, but hearty.

"`Take these men below,' cried the leftenant, `an' send fourteen strong men here. We don't want weaklings for _this_ company.'

"After that we loaded in moderation, an' got on better."

"And the pirates--what did _they_ think o' the new weapon?" asked Peter Davidson, with an amused expression.

"O! they couldn't stand it at all," answered the sailor, looking up from his work, with a solemnity that was quite impressive. "They stood fire only once. After that they sheered off like wild-cats. I say, Mistress La Certe, how long is that lobscouse--or whatever you call it,--goin' to be in cookin'?" Slowfoot gave vent to a sweet, low giggle, as she lifted the kettle off the hook, and thus gave a practical answer to the question. She placed before him the robbiboo, or pemmican, soup, which the seaman had so grievously misnamed.

During the time that the hunters were appeasing their appet.i.tes, it was observed that Antoine Dechamp, the leader of the expedition, was unusually silent and thoughtful, and that he betrayed a slight look of anxiety. It therefore did not surprise Dan Davidson, when the supper was nearly ended, that Dechamp should rise and leave the fire after giving him a look which was a silent but obvious invitation to follow.

Dan obeyed at once, and his leader, conducting him between the various camp-fires, led him outside the circle of carts.

A clear moon lit up the prairie all round, so that they could see its undulating sweep in every direction.

"Anything wrong, Antoine?" asked Dan in a low voice, when they were out of earshot of the camp.

"Nothing wrong, Dan."

"Surely," continued the other, while Dechamp paused as if in perplexity, "surely there can be no chance of Red-skins troubling us on a clear night like this. I can distinguish every bush for miles around."

"There is no fear o' Red-skins. No, I am not troubled about them. It is matters concerning yourself that trouble me."

"How's that? What do you mean, Antoine?"

"Is your brother-in-law-to-be, Duncan McKay, coming to join us this spring?" asked Dechamp.

"I believe he is--after he has helped his father a bit longer wi' the farm. Why do you ask?"

"Well, to say truth, I can't give you a very good reason for my bein'