Over the Rocky Mountains: Wandering Will in the Land of the Redskin. Robert Michael Ballantyne

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a goose, Larry,” observed Bunco.

      “Faix if I was it’s mesilf as would fly away an’ lave you to waller on the dirty earth ye belongs to,” retorted the other.

      “Dirty earth!” echoed Will Osten, gazing round on the plains of bright green grass that waved in the soft air with something like the gentle heavings of the sea. “Come, let’s have another!”

      They stretched out again at full gallop and swept away like the wind itself.

      “Hooroo!” shouted Larry O’Hale, wildly throwing out both arms and rising in his stirrups; “look here, Bunco, I’m goin’ to fly, boy!”

      Larry didn’t mean to do so, but he did fly! His horse put its foot in a badger-hole at that moment and fell. The rider, flying over its head, alighted on his back, and remained in that position quite motionless, while his alarmed comrades reined up hastily and dismounted.

      “Not hurt, I hope,” said Will, anxiously.

      “Och! ha! gintly, doctor, take me up tinderly,” gasped the poor man as they raised him to the perpendicular position, in which he stood for nearly a minute making very wry faces and slowly moving his shoulders and limbs to ascertain whether any bones were fractured.

      “I do belave I’m all right,” he said at length with a sigh of relief; “have a care, Bunco, kape yer paws off, but take a squint at the nape o’ me neck an’ see if me back-bone is stickin’ up through me shirt-collar.”

      “Me no can see him,” said the sympathetic Bunco.

      “That’s a blissin’ anyhow. I only wish ye cud feel him, Bunco. Doctor, dear, did ye iver see stars in the day-time?”

      “No, never.”

      “Then ye’d better make a scientific note of it in yer book, for I see ’em at this good minit dancin’ about like will-o’-the-wisps in a bog of Ould Ireland. There, help me on to the back o’ the baste—bad luck to the badgers, say I.”

      Thus muttering to himself and his comrades, half exasperated by the stunning effects of his fall, yet rather thankful to find that no real damage was done, Larry remounted, and all three continued their journey with not much less enjoyment, but with abated energy.

      Thus much for the beginning. Availing ourselves of an author’s privilege to annihilate time and space at pleasure, we change the scene. The three travellers are still riding over the same prairie, but at the distance of a hundred miles or so from the spot where the accident above described took place.

      It was evening. The sun was gradually sinking in the west—far beyond that “far west” to which they had penetrated. The wanderers looked travel-stained, and appeared somewhat fatigued, while their horses advanced with slow steps and drooping heads. Two pack-horses, which had been procured by them with an additional supply of necessaries at a solitary fort belonging to the fur-traders of that region, were driven by Larry, whose voice and action seemed to indicate that he and they were actuated by different sentiments and desires.

      “Of all the lazy bastes,” he exclaimed, giving one of the horses a tremendous cut over the flank that startled it into temporary life, “I iver did see—but, och! what’s the use—there’s niver a dhrop o’ wather in this wilderness. We may as well lie down an’ die at wance.”

      “Hush, Larry,” said Will Osten, “don’t talk lightly of dying.”

      “Lightly is it? Well, now, there’s nothin’ light about me from the sole o’ me fut to the top o’ the tallest hair on me head, an’ the heaviest part about me is the heart, which feels like lead intirely. But cheer up, Larry, yer owld grandmother always said ye was born to be hanged, so of coorse ye can’t be starved—that’s a comfort, anyhow!”

      “What think you, Bunco,” said Will Osten, turning to his dark-skinned companion, “shall we encamp on this arid part of the plain and go waterless as well as supperless to rest, or shall we push on? I fear the horses will break down if we try to force them much further.”

      “Water not be far-off,” said Bunco curtly.

      “Very well, we shall hold on.”

      In silence they continued to advance until the sun was descending towards the horizon, when there suddenly appeared, on the brow of an eminence, the figure of a solitary horseman. Sharply defined as he was against the bright sky, this horseman appeared to be of supernaturally huge proportions—insomuch that the three travellers pulled up by tacit consent, and glanced inquiringly at each other.

      “It’s a ghost at last!” muttered the superstitious Irishman, whose expression of countenance showed that he was not by any means in a jesting humour.

      “Ghost or not, we must be prepared to meet him,” said Will, loosening a large hunting-knife in its sheath and examining the priming of his rifle.

      The strange horseman had evidently observed the party, for he presently descended the rising ground and rode slowly towards them. In doing so he passed out of the strong light, and consequently assumed more ordinary proportions, but still when he drew near, it was evident that he was a man of immense size. He rode a black steed of the largest and most powerful description; was clad in the leathern hunting-shirt, belt, leggings, moccasins, etcetera, peculiar to the western hunter, and carried a short rifle in the hollow of his right arm.

      “Good-evening, strangers,” he said, in a tone that savoured of the Yankee, but with an easy manner and good-humoured gravity that seemed to indicate English extraction. “Goin’ far?”

      “To California,” said Will, smiling at the abrupt commencement of the conversation.

      “H’m, a longish bit. Come far?”

      “From England.”

      “H’m, a longish bit, too. Lost and starvin’, I see.”

      “Not exactly, but pretty nearly so,” said Will. “I had entertained the belief, presumptuous if you will, that I could find my way in any part of the wilderness by means of a sextant and pocket compass, and, to say truth, I don’t feel quite sure that I should have failed, but before I had a sufficient opportunity of testing my powers, one of our baggage horses rolled down the bank of a creek and broke my sextant. In trying to save him I rolled down along with him and smashed my compass, so I have resigned the position of guide in favour of my friend here, who, being a native, seems to possess a mysterious power in the matter of finding his way.”

      “From the other side of the mountains?” asked the strange horseman, glancing at Bunco.

      “Yoo’s right,” said Bunco, with a grin.

      There was a slight touch of humour in the grave stern countenance of the stranger as he replied in a language which was quite unintelligible to Will and Larry, but which appeared to create wonderful sensations in the breast of Bunco, who for some minutes continued to talk with much volubility and eagerness.

      “You appear to be old friends?” said Will, inquiringly, to the stranger.

      “Not ’xactly,” he replied, “but I’ve trapped on the west side o’ the mountains, and the Redskin is excited a bit at meetin’ with a man who knows his nation and his name. I’ve heard of him before. He was thought a brave warrior by his tribe, but it is so long since he disappeared from the face o’ the ’arth that they’ve

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