The Buffalo Runners: A Tale of the Red River Plains

Time passed by, as time is rather apt to do, and still the feud between the rival fur companies continued, to the detriment of the Indians and the fur-trade, the unsettling of Red River Settlement, and the demoralisation more or less of all concerned.

Men who would gladly have devoted all their energies to the arts of peace, became more or less belligerent in spirit, if not in act, and many were forced to take sides in the controversy—some siding with the Nor’-Westers and others with the Hudson’s Bay Company.

With the merits of their contentions we do not propose to meddle. We confine ourselves to facts.

One important fact was that our hero Daniel Davidson took the side of the Hudson’s Bay Company. Being a stout fellow, with a good brain, a strong will, an independent spirit, and a capable tongue, he was highly appreciated by the one side and considerably hated by the other, insomuch that some of the violent spirits made dark suggestions as to the propriety of putting him out of the way. It is not easy, however, or safe, to attempt to put a strong, resolute man out of the way, and his enemies plotted for a considerable time in vain.

The unsettled state of the colony, and the frequent failure of the crops had, as we have seen, exerted an evil influence for a long time on poor Dan’s matrimonial prospects, and at last, feeling that more settled times might yet be in the remote future, and that, as regarded defence and maintenance, it would be on the whole better both for Elspie and himself that they should get married without delay, he resolved to take the important step, and, as old McKay remarked, have it over.

“You see, Taniel,” said the old man, when the subject was again broached, “it iss of no use hangin’ off an’ on in this fashion. Moreover, this nasty stiff leg o’ mine is so long of getting well that it may walk me off the face o’ the earth altogether, an’ I would not like to leave Elspie till this matter iss settled. Tuncan also iss a little better just now, so what say you to have the weddin’ the month after next? Mr Sutherland will be back from the Whitehorse Plains by then, an’ he can tie the knot tight enough—whatever. Anyway, it iss clear that if we wait for a munister o’ the Auld Kirk, we will hev to wait till doomsday. What say you, Taniel?”

It need hardly be said that Dan had nothing whatever to say in objection to this scheme. It was therefore settled—under the proviso, of course, that Elspie had no objection. Dan went off at once to see Elspie, and found that she had no objection, whereupon, after some conversation, etcetera, with which we will not weary the reader, he sought out his friend Fred Jenkins, to whom he communicated the good news, and treated him to a good many unanswerable reasons why young people should not delay marriage when there was any reasonable prospect of their getting on comfortably in life together.

The sailor agreed with effusive heartiness to all that he said, and Dan thought while he was speaking—orating—as one of the American settlers would have expressed it—that Jenkins wore a peculiar expression on his manly countenance. Attributing it to unusual interest in the event, he continued—

“Now, Fred, I want you to be my best-man—”

“Unpossible—quite unpossible,” interrupted the seaman with a grave shake of the head.

“How—impossible!”

“Ab-so-lutely unpossible.”

“But why? Explain yourself, Fred.”

“’Cause it’s only a bachelor as can be a best-man to a bachelor—ain’t it?”

“I believe so, though I’m no authority in such matters; but surely that is a matter of no importance, for you are a bachelor, you know.”

“True, that’s what I am to-day, but I won’t be that long, for I am goin’ to be married next month, so I won’t be available, d’ee see, the month after.”

“You—married!—to whom?” exclaimed Dan in amazement.

“Well, that’s a point blank shot right between wind an’ water. Hows’ever, I suppose I can’t go wrong in tellin’ you, Dan, for it’s all settled, though not a soul knows about it except Little Bill, an’ yourself, an’ her brother.”

“But I don’t know about it yet,” returned Dan. “Who is it?”

“A angel—pure an’ unmixed—come straight down from heaven a-purpus to marry poor, unedicated, sea-farin’ Fred Jenkins, an’ her terrestrial name is Elise Morel!”

Dan laughed while he congratulated the modest seaman, and admitted the strength of his difficulty.

“D’you know, Fred, I’ve had a suspicion for some time past that you had a leaning in that direction?”

“So have I, Dan, had an uncommon strong suspicion for a very long time past, not only that I had a leanin’ that way, but a regular list to port, an’ now I’m fairly over on my beam-ends!”

“But, surely, it must have come upon you very sudden at last,” said Dan. “How was it?”

“Sudden! I should just think it did—like a white squall in the Mediterranean, or a hurricane in the China seas. This is how it was. I’d bin cruisin’ about her—off an’ on—for a considerable time, tryin’ to make up my mind to go into action, an’ screwin’ my courage up to the stickin’ pint by recallin’ all the fine sentiments that has carried Jack-tars through fire an’ smoke, shot and shell since the world began—‘England expects every man to do his dooty,’—‘Never say die,’—‘Hookey Bunkum,’ an’ such like. But it warn’t no manner o’ use, for I’m an’ outrageous coward wi’ the gals, Dan. So, in a sort o’ despair, I sailed away this very mornin’ into the plantation at the futt o’ your garden, intendin’ to cool myself an’ think over it, when, who should I see almost hull down on my lee bow but the enemy—Elise herself!

“Well, I changed my course at once; bore straight down on her, an’ soon overhauled her, but the nearer I came the more did my courage run out, so I gradooally begun to take in sail an drop astarn. At last I got savage, ‘You’re a fool, Jenkins!’ says I to myself. ‘That’s a fact!’ says su’thin’ inside o’ me.

“Now, if that su’thin’ had kep’ quiet, I do believe that I’d have gone about-ship an’ showed her my heels, but that su’thin’, whatever it was, set up my dander. ‘Now then,’ says I, ‘haul taut the main brace! Up wi’ the t’gall’nt-s’ls an’ sky-scrapers! “England expects,” etceterer!’

“Afore you could say Jack Robinson, I was along side—grapplin’-irons hove into her riggin’, and a broadside fired. The way I gave it her astonished even myself. Nelson himself could scarce ha’ done it better! Well, she struck her colours at the first broadside, an’ somehow—I never could make out exactly how—we was sittin’ on the stump of a tree with her head on my rough unworthy buzzum. Think o’ that! Dan, her head—the head of a Angel! Give us your flipper, mate.”

“I congratulate you, Jenkins, with all my heart,” said Dan, grasping the seaman’s flipper, and giving it a hearty shake. “So now, I must look out for another best-man. Morel will do for me, I think, and you can have my brother Peter, no doubt. But could we not manage to have both weddings on the same day?”

“Impossible,” answered the seaman, promptly. “Couldn’t wait.”

“But we might compromise the matter. I might have mine a little sooner and you could have yours a little later.”

Still Jenkins shook his head. “Not fair-play,” he said. “All the advantage on your side. However, we might consider it. Hold a sort o’ drum-head court-martial over it, with Elise and Elspie as judges.”

When the said court-marital—as Dan called it—was held, the compromise was agreed to, and it was finally fixed that six weeks thereafter the two couples should be united in Ben Nevis Hall.

But the current of these parallel streams of true love was not yet destined to run smooth—as the next chapter will show.

Chapter Thirty Four.

A New Disaster

“I mean to go off to-morrow on a shooting trip to the lake,” said Dan Davidson to Archie Sinclair. “I’ve had a long spell at farming operations of late, and am tired of it. The double wedding, you know, comes off in six weeks. So I want to have one more run in the wilderness in all the freedom of bachelorhood. Will you go with me?”

“‘Unpossible,’ as Jenkins would say,” answered Archie. “Nothing would please me better, but, duty before pleasure! I’ve promised to spend a week along wi’ Little Bill at the Whitehorse Plains. Billie has taken a great fancy to that chief o’ the half-breeds, Cuthbert Grant, and we are goin’ to visit him. I’ve no doubt that Little Bill would let me off, but I won’t be let off.”

“Then I must ask Okématan to go with me,” said Dan.

“You needn’t trouble yourself, for I heard him say that he was goin’ off to see some o’ his relations on important business—a great palaver o’ some sort—and Elise told me this morning that she saw him start yesterday.”

“Morel is too busy with his new farm to go,” rejoined Dan, “and Jenkins is too busy helping Morel. Perhaps Dechamp or Bourassin may be more at leisure. I will go see.”

But on search being made, neither Dechamp nor Bourassin was to be found, and our hero was returning home with the intention of taking a small hunting canoe and going off by himself, when he chanced to meet with La Certe.

That worthy seemed unusually depressed, and returned Dan’s greeting with very little of his habitual cheerfulness.

“What’s wrong with you, François?” asked Dan, anxiously.

“Domestic infelicity,” answered La Certe, with a sorrowful shake of the head.

“What! surely Slowfoot has not taken to being unkind to you?”

“O no! Slowfoot could not be unkind, but she is unhappy; she has lost her cheerful looks; she does not take everything as she once did; she does not now let everything go anyhow with that cheerful resignation which was once her delightful characteristic. She no longer hands the pipe of peace to our little one—indeed she refuses to let it have the pipe at all, though the poor child cries for it, and comes to me secretly, when Slowfoot is out of the way, to beg for a draw. Then, she scolds me—no, she does not scold. Slowfoot cannot scold. She is too amiable—but she remonstrates, and that is worse than scolding, for it enlists myself against myself. O! I am now miserable. My days of peace are gone!”

“This is all very sad, La Certe,” said Dan, in a tone of sympathy. “What does she remonstrate about?”

“About my laziness! She does it very kindly, very gently—so like her old self!—but she does it. She says, ‘Husband; we have gone on this way too long. We must change. You must change. You are lazy!’”

“Well, La Certe,” said Dan, “I’m afraid that Slowfoot is right.”