It must not be supposed that the life of a backwoodsman is all pleasure and excitement. Not wishing to disappoint our readers with it, we have hitherto presented chiefly its bright phases, but truth requires that we should now portray some of the darker aspects of that life. For instance, it was a very sombre aspect indeed of prairie-life when Victor Ravenshaw and his party crossed a stony place where Victor’s horse tripped and rolled over, causing the rider to execute a somersault which laid him flat upon the plain, compelling the party to encamp there for three days until he was sufficiently recovered to resume the journey. Perhaps we should say the chase, for, although the trail had been lost, hope was strong, and the pursuers continued to advance steadily in what they believed to be the right direction.
The aspect of things became still more dreary when the fine weather, which was almost uninterrupted as summer advanced, gave way to a period of wind and rain. Still, they pushed on hopefully. Michel Rollin alone was despondent.
“It is a wild goose chase now,” he remarked sulkily one day, while the wet fuel refused to kindle.
That same night Victor half awoke and growled. He seldom awoke of his own accord. Nature had so arranged it that parents, or comrades, usually found it necessary to arouse him with much shouting and shaking—not unfrequently with kicks. But there was a more powerful influence than parents, comrades, or kicks at work that night. Being tired and sleepy, the party had carelessly made their beds in a hollow. It was fair when they lay down. Soon afterwards, a small but exceedingly heavy rain descended like dew upon their unprotected heads. It soaked their blankets and passed through. It soaked their garments and passed through. It reached their skins, which it could not so easily pass through, but was stopped and warmed before being absorbed. A few uneasy turns and movements, with an occasional growl, was the result—nothing more. But when the density of the rain increased, and the crevices in the soil turned into active water-courses, and their hollow became a pool, Victor became, as we have said, half-awake. Presently he awoke completely, sat up, and scratched his head. It was the power of a soft and gentle but persistent influence triumphantly asserted.
“W’ass-’e-marrer?” asked Ian, without moving.
“Why,” (yawning), “Lake Winnipeg is a trifle to this,” said Victor.
“O-gor-o-sleep,” returned Ian.
“Niagara have com to de plains!” exclaimed Rollin, rising to a sitting posture in desperation. “It have been rush ’longside of me spine for two hours by de cloke. Oui.”
This aroused Ian, who also sat up disconsolate and yawned.
“It’s uncomfortable,” he remarked.
No one replied to so ridiculously obvious a truth, but each man slowly rose and stumbled towards higher ground. To add to their discomfort the night was intensely dark; even if wide awake they could not have seen a yard in front of them.
“Have you found a tree?” asked Victor.
“Oui—yes—to be sure,” said Rollin angrily. “Anyhow von branch of a tree have found me, an’ a’most split my head.”
“Where is it?—speak, Ian; I can see nothing. Is it—ah! I’ve found it too.”
“Vid yoos head?” inquired Rollin, chuckling.
Victor condescended not to reply, but lay down under the partial shelter of the tree, rolled himself up in his wet blanket, and went to sleep. His companions followed suit. Yes, reader, we can vouch for the truth of this, having more than once slept damp and soundly in a wet blanket. But they did not like it, and their spirits were down about zero when they mounted at grey dawn and resumed the chase in a dull, dreadful drizzle.
After a time the aspect of the scenery changed. The rolling plain became more irregular and broken than heretofore, and was more studded with patches of woodland, which here and there almost assumed the dignity of forests.
One evening the clouds broke; glimpses of the heavenly blue appeared to gladden our travellers, and ere long the sun beamed forth in all its wonted splendour. Riding out into a wide stretch of open country, they bounded away with that exuberance of feeling which is frequently the result of sunshine after rain.
“It is like heaven upon earth,” cried Victor, pulling up after a long run.
“I wonder what heaven is like,” returned Ian musingly. “It sometimes occurs to me that we think and speak far too little of heaven, which is a strange thing, considering that we all hope to go there in the long-run, and expect to live there for ever.”
“Oh! come now, Mr Wiseman,” said Victor, “I didn’t mean to call forth a sermon.”
“Your remark, Vic, only brings out one of the curious features of the case. If I had spoken of buffalo-hunting, or riding, or boating, or even of the redskin’s happy hunting-grounds—anything under the sun or above it—all would have been well and in order, but directly I refer to our own heaven I am sermonising!”
“Well, because it’s so like the parsons,” pleaded Victor.
“What then? Were not the parsons, as you style them, sent to raise our thoughts to God and heaven by preaching Christ? I admit that some of them don’t raise our thoughts high, and a few of them help rather to drag our thoughts downward. Still, as a class, they are God’s servants; and for myself I feel that I don’t consider sufficiently what they have to tell us. I don’t wish to sermonise; I merely wish to ventilate my own thoughts and get light if I can. You are willing to chat with me, Vic, on all other subjects; why not on this?”
“Oh! I’ve no objection, Ian; none whatever, only it’s—it’s—I say, there seems to me to be some sort of brute moving down in the woods there. Hist! let’s keep round by that rocky knoll, and I’ll run up to see what it is.”
Victor did not mean this as a violent change of subject, although he was not sorry to make the change. His attention had really been attracted by some animal which he said and hoped was a bear. They soon galloped to the foot of the knoll, which was very rugged—covered with rocks and bushes. Victor ascended on foot, while his comrades remained at the bottom holding his horse.
The sight that met his eyes thrilled him. In the distance, on a wooded eminence, sat a huge grizzly bear. The size of Victor’s eyes when he looked back at his comrades was eloquently suggestive, even if he had not drawn back and descended the slope toward them on tiptoe and with preternatural caution.
“A monstrous grizzly!” he exclaimed in a hoarse whisper—though the bear was at beast half a mile off on the other side of the knoll.
The eyes of Ian surpassed those of Victor in the matter of dilation.
“Did he see you?”
“No; he was nibbling his paws when I gave him my last look.”
“Now, comrades,” said Ian, whose usually calm demeanour had given place to intense, yet suppressed excitement, “it may seem selfish—though I hope it is not—when I ask you to leave that bear entirely to me. You know, Vic, that your sister Elsie once expressed a wish for a grizzly-bear collar, and at the time I inwardly resolved to get her one, of my own procuring, if I could. It is a whim, you know, but, in the circumstances, I do hope that—that—”
“Ah! it is for une dame—une affair of de heart. Bon! You shall go in an’ vin,” said the gallant Rollin.
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Chapter Eight. The Chase Continued, and Brought to a Fiery Termination.
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