The return of the hunting party to Red River Settlement was an
illustration of the uncertainty of all human affairs. They went forth
rejoicing in all the strength of youth and manhood; they returned in
sorrow, with one at least of the strong men reduced to the last stage of
weakness.
We would not be understood to refer to this in a pessimistic spirit. On
the contrary, the optimistic view suggests the very same idea of
uncertainty, though in a pleasant aspect; for does not many a day that
dawns in cloud and rain progress to brilliant sunshine? while equally
true it is that many a life which begins in sorrow culminates in joy.
Okematan, who was intensely philosophical and inquisitive, had been
carrying on a semi-speculative conversation with Billie on this very
subject while descending the Red River towards Prairie Cottage--much to
the perplexity of the invalid, who scarce knew how to answer the chief's
queries, and greatly to the interest of Archie, who wondered at Little
Bill's powers of reply.
"By the way," said Archie, "when you two have settled that knotty point,
will you tell me who is to take the news of Dan's accident to Mrs
Davidson? We'll have to carry him up to the house, you know, on a
blanket 'tween two poles, an' she'll be sure to think that he's dead, or
has been killed, an' that'll half-kill _her_, it'll give her such a
fright. Somebody will have to go on ahead and tell her."
"I will, if you like," said Billie; "if you'll only carry me up to the
garden gate and set me down, I can easily walk up the path."
This proposal had just been agreed to when the whole flotilla of canoes
paddled up alongside of the bank close under Prairie Cottage.
It was evening at the time. The Davidson family was at supper, and as
the canoes had approached very quietly, with Dan in the leading one, no
person stood on the bank to welcome them.
"It's as well they don't know," said Archie, jumping on shore. "Now,
Little Bill, come along, and I'll carry you to the gate while they're
arranging matters for Dan."
Seated at the foot of the family table was Peter Davidson. He could see
the garden path through the window.
"Hallo! mother," he exclaimed, dropping his knife and fork, "there is
Little Bill or his ghost coming up the track."
"Impossible, Peter," said the good lady, with, however, a look of
anxiety which showed she believed that, or something else, to be quite
possible.
"Look for yourself, mother," cried Peter, springing up and running out.
"It _is_ Billie," said Jessie, reflecting her mother's anxiety; "what
can have brought them back so soon?"
Peter re-entered at the moment with Little Bill in his arms. He set the
boy down and again ran out.
Taking the widow's trembling hand in both of his, Billie addressed her
as "mother," like the rest of the family.
"Dan has been hurt," he said, in his soft way, "and he's come home to
get well. They will bring him up directly."
"Is he too ill to walk?" asked the widow.
"No, not too ill--but too weak," answered the matter-of-fact Billie.
"Indeed he is not ill at all, but he has lost a _heap_ of blood, for
they shot him."
Jessie waited to hear no more, but immediately followed Peter, and the
small servant Louise followed suit; leaving the widow in a half-fainting
condition with the boy. But she did not remain long thus, for just then
old Duncan McKay entered by the back-door.
"It will be bad news you've been hearin', Mrs Davidson," he said, in
some surprise, pouring out a glass of water as he spoke, and
considerately handing it to the widow.
"Yes--O yes! I've just heard that Dan has been shot."
"Bless my soul!" exclaimed the horrified old man, almost falling into a
chair. "Iss--iss he tead?"
"No, thank God--only weak from loss of blood. He'll be here directly."
"That iss goot news--whatever; for as long as there's life there's
hope."
Trying to comfort himself, as well as his friend, with this truism, the
old man staggered out of the house in search of those who had gone
before.
Soon a sad procession was seen coming up the path, led by Archie. Four
men carried Dan on a rudely-extemporised litter. His bloodless face and
lips gave him the appearance of death, but the glow in his eyes told of
still unexhausted life.
"I'll be all right, mother," he said feebly, as they laid him on his
bed. "I only want food and rest. Thank God--home at last!"
As he spoke, a quiet step was heard, and Elspie, with a face as pale as
his own, knelt by his bedside and took his hand.
That touch was the first impulse the youth received towards decided
recovery. Old McKay perceived the change in his countenance.
"Yes, yes! ay, ay!" he exclaimed, pacing violently up and down the room,
"he wants nothin' but victuals an' rest--steaks an' shops, and plenty o'
whusky an' water--hot. Don't be croodin' about him an' botherin' him.
Come away, and leave him to his mother, an' send for the doctor. Has no
wan gone for him yet?"
"Yes; Peter has just started. I heard the clatter of his horse's feet,"
said Jessie.
"It iss not the doctor that will put him right, whatever," muttered the
old man, as he left the room, followed by most of the family.
And the doctor himself held the same opinion; for he said, on returning
to the reception hall after seeing his patient--
"It will be a considerable time before he recovers, for the fountain of
life had been well-nigh drained when he fortunately extemporised that
tourniquet. But there's no fear of him: all that he wants is food,
rest, and peace of mind."
"An' whusky, doctor," added old McKay. "Don't forget the best pheesic;
an' I hev goot store of it, too, in my cellar at Ben Nevis."
"I'm not so sure about the whisky, Mr McKay," returned the doctor with
a laugh. "I think we shall manage to pull him through without that."
The other requisites for recovery were applied without stint at Prairie
Cottage; for, despite the misfortune which had attended the cultivation
of the soil, the Davidsons had a little money, which enabled them to buy
provisions and other necessaries, obtainable from the Hudson Bay
Company, and thus tide over the disastrous year in greater comfort than
fell to the lot of many of the other settlers.
Thus Dan was well looked after. His brother Peter found the food--at
least much of it--on the prairie and in the woods; his sister Jessie
cooked it; Louise helped, looked on, and learned; home afforded rest;
Elspie supplied the peace of mind--at least as much of it as it was
possible for a fellow-mortal to supply; and his mother superintended
all. Add to this that Archie Sinclair cheered him with miscellaneous
gossip; that Little Bill read to him, or entertained him with serious
talk and grave speculation; that Andre Morel and his sister often
entertained him with song; that on such occasions Jenkins, the sailor,
frequently amused him with nautical tales; that old Peg sometimes came
from Ben Nevis to gaze at him tenderly; and that Okematan came to glare
at him more or less affectionately--and we have said enough to warrant
the conclusion that Dan Davidson had a pretty good time of it in spite
of his weak condition.
Nevertheless Dan was not quite happy. He could not get rid of the
memory of Henri Perrin's murder, and the terrible thought that Elspie's
brother Duncan had some sort of guilty knowledge of it. These thoughts
he buried deep, however, in his own breast, and even tried to forget
them. Vain effort! for does it not stand to reason that the thing we
strive most earnestly to forget is the very thing which, by that effort,
we are fixing with a deeper stamp on memory?
Francois La Certe was somewhat exercised about the same question, about
the same time.
That estimable member of the colony was seated one fine day on the banks
of the river fishing for goldeyes--a small fish about the size of a
plump herring. His amiable spouse was helping, or rather fishing with
him. It was a fine healthy, contemplative occupation; one that
admirably suited their tendency to repose, and at the same time filled
them with that virtuous sensation which awaits those who know that they
are engaged in useful occupation--for were not goldeyes the best of
eating?
Branches of trees were their primitive rods, twine their simple lines,
grasshoppers their bait, and a violent jerk their method.
"Slowfoot!" said La Certe.
"My husband!" or some such Indian phrase, answered the woman.
"I have been wondering for a long time now why--hi!--no! I thought
there was something at my bait--but it was deception. Nothing is so
unreal as the bite of the goldeye--when it is not there. It brings to
mind the lights in the sky of winter, which dance and shoot--and yet
they are not. Hi! ho!--I have him. I was mistaken. I thought the fish
_was_ not--but it was."
While speaking La Certe sent a small fish with bursting violence on the
grass behind him. Almost at the same moment Slowfoot landed another,
with less violence and more coolness.
"What was I saying, Slowfoot?" asked the half-breed, when the hooks had
been re-baited, and their eyes were riveted on their respective floats.
"Nothing that any one could remember," answered his truthful spouse.
"Now I remember--ho! was that another?"
"No, it was not," answered his matter-of-fact helpmate.
"Where is our child?" asked the father, with that wayward wandering of
mind which is a not uncommon characteristic of genius.
"Smoking in the tent," answered the mother.
"And with my pipe, no doubt," said the father, laying down his rod and
searching in the bag in which he was wont to carry, among other things,
his pipe and tobacco.
A cry of pain from the tent in question--which was close behind the
pair--apprised the parents that something was wrong. Immediately their
first and only one issued with a tobacco pipe in one hand and a burnt
finger on the other. It came to the father for sympathy, and got it.
That is to say, La Certe put the burnt finger in his mouth for a moment,
and uttered some guttural expressions of sympathy. Having thus
fulfilled duty and relieved conscience, he exchanged the finger for the
pipe-stem, and began to smoke. The spoiled, as well as despoiled, child
uttered a howl of indignation, and staggered off to its mother; but she
received it with a smile of affectionate indifference, whereupon the
injured creature went back to the tent, howling, and, apparently, howled
itself to sleep.
Again La Certe broke the piscatorial spell that had settled down on
them, and, taking up the thread of discourse where he had dropped it,
repeated his statement that he had been wondering for a long time why
Cloudbrow, _alias_ young Duncan McKay, was so sharp and fierce in
denying that he knew anything about the murder of Henri Perrin.
"Hee! hee!" was Slowfoot's significant reply.
"Can Slowfoot not guess?" he asked, after attending to a hopeful nibble,
which came to nothing.
"Slowfoot need not guess; she _knows_," said the woman with an air of
great mystery.
"What does Slowfoot know?"
The woman's answer to this was a look of exceeding slyness. But this
did not content her lord, who, after repeated questions, and a threat to
resort to extreme measures in case of continued refusal, drew from her a
distinct answer.
"Slowfoot knows that Cloudbrow _killed_ Perrin."
"Sh!" exclaimed La Certe, with a look of real concern, "I am not yet
tired of you, Slowfoot; and if old McKay hears you say that he will
shoot you."
"Slowfoot is not a fool," retorted the woman: "the old man will never
hear her say that. What has Slowfoot got to do with it? She can hold
her tongue!"
"She can do that, for certain," returned her husband with good-natured
sarcasm. "In that, as in many things, she excels other women. I would
never have married her had it not been so. But how do you come to be so
sure?"
"I know the knife," returned the woman, becoming more literal as she
went on, "and Marie Blanc knows it. Her husband once got the loan of it
from Cloudbrow, and she looked at it with care, because she had never
seen such a knife before. She knew all its marks. Why does Cloudbrow
deny that it is his? Because it was Cloudbrow who killed Perrin. If it
had been anybody else he would have known it, and he would have said
so--for he was _there_."
"How know you that he was there?"
"Marie Blanc knows. She netted the snowshoes that Cloudbrow wore, and
she saw the footprints."
"But pairs of snowshoes are very like each other," objected La Certe.
"Very like. Yes; but did ever two shoes have the same mends in the same
places of the netting, where it had been broken, and the same marks on
the frames?"
"Never. It will go hard with Cloudbrow if this is true."
"It will go hard with him whether it is true or not," returned the
woman; "for some of the friends of Perrin believe it to be true, and
swear--"
The disappearance of Slowfoot's float at this moment stopped her
swearing, and brought the conversation to an abrupt end. The landing of
another goldeye prevented its resumption.
Having caught more than enough for a good supper, this easy-going pair
leaned their rods against a tree, and ascended the bank towards their
tent, which was an ordinary conical Indian wigwam, composed partly of
leather and partly of birch-bark, with a curtain for a door and a hole
in the top for a window; it also served for a chimney.
On the way they encountered one of the poor Swiss immigrants, who,
having a wife and family, and having been unsuccessful in
buffalo-hunting, and indeed in all other hunting, was in a state which
bordered on starvation.
"You have been lucky," said the Switzer, eyeing La Certe's fish
greedily.
"Sometimes luck comes to us--not often," answered the half-breed. "Have
you caught any?"
"Yes, two small ones. Here they are. But what are these among three
children and a wife? I know not how to fish," said the mountaineer
disconsolately.
The fact was not surprising, for the poor man was a watchmaker by trade,
and had never handled rod or gun till he was, as it were, cast adrift in
Rupert's Land.
"I will sell you some of my fish," said La Certe, who on all occasions
had a keen eye for a bargain.
"Good! I am ready to buy," said the poor fellow, "but I have not much
to spend. Only last week I gave my silver watch for eight gallons of
wheat. I meant it for seed, but my wife and children were starving, so
we were have no seed and only five shillings to spare."
"Well, my friend," said La Certe, "fish is very scarce just now, but you
may have five goldeyes for your five shillings."
"O! that is too much," remonstrated the Switzer.
"No, no," interrupted the half-breed, amiably, "by no means--but if you
really think it too much fish for the money I will give you four
goldeyes!"
"Come, you know I don't mean that," returned the other, with a cynical
smile. "Make it six, and I will agree. And here is a pinch of snuff in
to the bargain."
He pulled out a box as he spoke, and opened it.
"Ha!" said La Certe, helping himself. "I love snuff, and so does my
wife. Do you not?"
Slowfoot answered, "Hee! hee!" and helped herself to as much as a good
broad finger and thumb could grasp, after which she sneezed with
violence.
"Now, behold! my friend--a-wheesht!" said La Certe, sneezing a bass
accompaniment to Slowfoot's treble. "I will give you a catfish--a whole
catfish for--a-wheesht!--for that box and snuff."
The Switzer shook his head.
"Nay," he said. "The snuff you may have, but the box was the gift of a
friend, and I am loath to part with it. Besides, the box is of little
real value."
"You may have the head of the catfish for the snuff, and the whole
catfish for the box," said La Certe, with the firmness of a man who has
irrevocably made up his mind--for there are none so firm of purpose as
the weak and vacillating when they know they have got the whip-hand of
any one! "And, behold! I will be liberal," he added. "You shall have
another goldeye into the bargain--six goldeyes for the five shillings
and a whole catfish for the box and snuff--voila!" The poor Switzer
still hesitated.
"It is a great deal to give for so little," he said.
"That may be true," said the other, "but I would not see my family
starve for the satisfaction of carrying a snuff-box and five shillings
in my pocket."
This politic reference to the starving family decided the matter; the
poor Switzer emptied his pockets with a sigh, received the fish, and
went on his way, leaving La Certe and Slowfoot to return to their wigwam
highly pleased with their bargain. As must have been noted by the
reader long ere now, this like-minded couple did not possess a
conscience between them--at least, if they did, it must at that time
have been a singularly shrunken and mummified one, which they had
managed to keep hidden away in some dark and exceedingly un-get-at-able
chamber of the soul.
Commercially speaking, however, they had some ground for satisfaction;
for at that time the ordinary price of a catfish, which is a little
larger than a haddock, was threepence.
Awakening the juvenile La Certe to the blissful realisation that a good
"square" meal was pending, Slowfoot ordered it to fill and light the
pipe for the father, while she set about preparing the fish for supper.