The Wild Man of the West: A Tale of the Rocky Mountains

Chapter Twenty

A Gallop to the Rescue—A Discovery—Right-about Face—A disagreeable Surprise and a sudden Ejection—A Calm after the Storm—Mary a Huntress—Dick’s Story of the murdered Trapper

When Dick, alias the Wild Man of the West, left his cave, as narrated in a previous chapter, and galloped away with reckless speed to afford the aid of his stout right arm to his friends in the Mountain Fort—for he counted them friends, although they little knew it—he felt that if he was to be of any use he must travel over the country as he had never travelled before, except once, when he had to fly for his life before five hundred Pawnee warriors.

It was a grand sight to behold that herculean backwoodsman on his noble steed, which seemed so well proportioned to its rider that it carried him as if he were but a boy, flying over the country on this brotherly errand. Mile after mile was passed, not indeed at full speed, for that would have broken the good horse down long before the goal was reached, but at a bowling gallop, taking bogs, and rocks, and fallen trees, and watercourses, with an elastic bound that told of bone and muscle overflowing with surplus energy.

Dick patted the horse’s arching neck with a look of pride and affection, and the animal tossed its head with a slight neigh of pleasure and a playful snap towards its rider’s right foot; for it loved its master, as the lower animals do always love those who treat them well, and it loved a wild, long, careering gallop, for that was the only means by which it could relieve its feelings.

There was something unusually wild-like about this horse, besides its great size and extraordinarily long mane and tail. It carried its head high and its ears pointed forward, and it looked boldly from side to side, as it went springingly along, more like a human being than a horse. It actually appeared to be taking intelligent notice of things around it. So much so, that Dick had got into a habit of saying a word or two now and then to it in a grave tone, as if he were conversing with a friend.

“Ay, it’s a fine country, isn’t it?” he said, patting the neck again.

The ears were pointed backwards at once, and a little neigh or squeak, with a toss of the head, was the reply.

“Pity ye can’t speak, an’t it?” continued Dick in a low, quiet tone.

The horse appeared to know that this was merely a meditative remark, not pointedly addressed to itself for it only put back one ear and kept the other forward.

“Now, lass,” said Dick firmly (both ears went full back at that sound and remained there), “take it easy; don’t exert yerself over much. It an’t o’ no use—a short pace or two, and—so.”

The horse went full swing over a roaring watercourse as he spoke, and alighted safe on the opposite bank, but the gravelly soil was treacherous; it gave way, and the animal’s hind legs slipped back. With a bound Dick sprang to the ground.

“Hyp, good horse,” he cried, raising the rein.

A powerful effort, and footing was regained. Dick vaulted into the saddle (he seldom used the stirrup), and away they went again, blithe as ever. Then a long strip of tangled forest appeared. Dick diverged here. It was easier to skirt it than to crash through it. Presently a broad deep river came in view. There was no looking for a ford, no checking the pace. In they went with sounding plunge, as if water were their native element, breasted the foaming tide, and gaining the opposite bank, went steadily forward.

Thus on they sped, over hill and dale, all that night, for the moon was bright in a cloudless sky, and part of next day. Then Dick made a sudden halt and dismounted, to examine something on the ground. Footprints of Indian horses—four of them—going in the direction of his dwelling!

Dick rose, and his strong brows were knitted, and his lips firmly pressed together. For a moment or two he pondered, then he told his horse to follow him, and, dropping the bridle, set off at a rapid walk, keeping steadily on the tracks, and stooping now and then to examine them when the nature of the ground rendered them less discernible. Thus he retraced his course for about a mile, when he stopped and muttered, “No doubt o’t. Them reptiles niver come to these diggins but when they want to pay me a visit.”

As he said this he remounted his horse and sat for a minute or two undecided. It was hard to give up his purpose; but it was impossible to leave his cavern defenceless with Mary in it, and the certainty that savages were hunting it out. That thought settled the matter. He shook the reins, and back they flew again towards the cave, at a much quicker pace than they had hitherto maintained.

The result was that Dick gained the entrance of his ravine just two hours later than the savages, and in time to superintend personally the hospitalities of his own dwelling. Riding quickly up to the head of the gorge, he dismounted and ascended the pathway to his cave with giant strides and a beating heart, for Dick thought of Mary, and the words “too late” would whizz about in his brain.

The Indians were still sitting round the fire enjoying themselves when March and Mary, to their unutterable surprise, beheld Dick stride through the low doorway of the cave, raise himself to his full height, and stand before the stricken invaders, absolutely blazing with wrath. His eyes, his hair, his beard, his glistening teeth, seemed each individually imbued with indignation.

The Indians did not move—they could not move—they simply sat and stared; and thus both parties continued for a quarter of a minute.

Mary used that short time well. She knew exactly what to do. Darting into her chamber, she seized the end of the rope connected with the tank and pulled it violently. March saw the rock above the fireplace drop! A clear, sparkling cataract sprang as if by magic from the wall! Next instant there was black darkness and yells, steam, shrieks, and howls—a hissing, hurling hubbub, such as no man can possibly conceive of unless he has seen and heard it! We will not, therefore, even attempt a description.

The Indians rushed en masse to the doorway. Death in the jaws of the Wild Man of the West was infinitely preferable to being parboiled and suffocated; but the Wild Man had judiciously made way for them. They gained the outer cave, and sprang down the pathway. Dick plied the handle of the shrieking-machine with the secondary object in view of relieving his own feelings! The din was indescribable! If those Indians are not lunatics at this moment they must be dead, for there could be no alternative in the circumstances. Certain it is they vanished like smoke, and they have never been heard of since—from that day to this!

Really, dear reader, if it were not that we are recounting the doings of a Wild Man—a notoriously eccentric creature—we would feel it necessary to impress upon you that such scenes as we have been describing are not characteristic of life in the Rocky Mountains; nay, more, we question whether such scenes as these have ever been witnessed or enacted in those regions at any time, with the exception, of course, of the present occasion. But it must be carefully borne in mind that we are recounting the deeds of a “Wild Man,” and, although the aspect of outward things—the general tone and current of manners and customs and natural phenomena—may remain exactly the same as heretofore, and be faithfully described without exaggeration (as we maintain they are), yet the acts, devices, and vagaries of such a creature as a Wild Man may, indeed must necessarily, be altogether eccentric and unparalleled. We therefore pause here to express a hope that, whatever credit you may be able to give to the reported deeds of this hero, you will not withhold your belief in the fidelity of the other portions of this narrative.

No sooner, then, were those unwelcome visitors ejected than Dick returned to the scene of devastation and shouted, “Hullo! Mary!”

“Safe, all safe,” she replied, as, with the assistance of March Marston, she pushed the plank across the chasm, and returned to the centre cave.

“Is the lad March safe too?” inquired Dick as he busied himself in striking a light with flint and steel.

“All right,” answered the youth for himself, “but horribly battered, an’ fit to yell with pain, not to mention surprise. Do look sharp and get the fire up. Sich doins’ as this I never did see nor hear of since I left the frontier. I do declare it’s worthy o’ the Wild Man o’ the West himself. What d’ye find to laugh at, Dick? I’m sure if ye had my miserable bones in yer body at this moment, ye’d laugh wi’ your mouth screwed the wrong way. Look alive, man!”

“Patience, lad, patience. That’s one o’ the vartues, I believe; leastwise, so I’m told. Ah, it’s caught at last. (Hand me that dry stuff on the south shelf, Mary; ye can find it i’ the dark, I doubt not.) Yes, it’s a vartue, but I can’t boast o’ having much o’t myself. I dun know much about it from ’xperience, d’ye see? There, now, we’ll git things put to rights,” he added, applying the kindled spark to some dry chips and producing a flame, with which he ignited a pine-knot, and stuck it blazing in a cleft in the rock. “Just see what them reptiles ha’ done to me. If it wasn’t that I’m a good-tempered feller, I b’lieve I’d git angry. See, March, boy, there’s a shelf in the corner that’s escaped the flood. Lie ye down there, while Mary and me puts the place in order.”

“I’d rather help you,” said March dismally. “I don’t b’lieve it can make me worse, an’ perhaps it’ll make me better. I wonder what in the world pain was made for.”

“Ye’ll only be in our way, lad. Lie down,” said Dick, seizing a large broom and beginning to sweep away the water and ashes and pieces of charcoal with which the floor was plentifully covered, while Mary picked up the scattered skins and furniture of the cave, and placed them on the ledge of rock, about four feet from the ground, which Dick termed a shelf.

This ledge ran all round the apartment, so March selected a corner, and, throwing a dry skin upon it, stretched himself thereon, and soon found his sufferings relieved to such an extent that he began to question his host as to his sudden and unlooked-for return.

“How came ye to drop in upon us in the very nick o’ time like that?” he said, gazing languidly at Mary, who bustled about with the activity of a kitten—or, to use an expression more in keeping with the surrounding circumstances, a wild kitten.

Dick, without checking his broom, told how he had discovered the tracks of the Indians, and returned at once, as has been related.

“Then,” said March, looking anxiously at his host, “you’ll not be able to help my poor comrades and the people at the Mountain Fort.”

“It an’t poss’ble to be in two places at once nohow ye can fix it,” returned Dick, “else I’d ha’ been there as well as here in the course of a few hours more.”

“But should we not start off at once—now?” cried March eagerly, throwing his legs off the ledge and coming to a sitting position.

“You an’t able,” replied Dick quietly, “and I won’t move till I have put things to rights here, an’ had a feed an’ a night’s rest. If it would do any good, I’d start this minute. But the fight’s over by this time—leastwise, it’ll be over long afore we could git there! and if it’s not to be a fight at all, why nobody’s none the worse, d’ye see?”

“But maybe they may hold the place for a long time,” argued March, “an’ the sudden appearance of you and me might turn the scale in their favour.”

“So it might—so it might. I’ve thought o’ that, and we’ll start to-morrow if yer able. But it would be o’ no use to-night. My good horse can’t run for ever right on end without meat and rest.”

“Then we’ll start to-morrow,” cried March eagerly.

“Ay, if ye can mount and ride.”

“That I have no fear of; but—but—” at that moment March’s eye encountered Mary’s—“but what about Mary?”

“Oh, she’ll stop here till we come back. No fear o’ redskins troublin’ her agin for some time,” replied Dick, throwing down the broom and patting the girl’s head. “Come, lass, let’s have some supper. Show March what a capital cook ye are. I’ll kindle a rousin’ fire an’ spread some pine-branches round it to sit on, for the floor won’t be quite dry for some time. What red reptiles, to be sure! and they was actually devourin’ my poor old bay horse. What cannibals!”

In the course of an hour the cavern had resumed its former appearance of comfort. The ruddy glare of the fire fell warmly on the rocky walls and on the curling smoke, which found egress through the hole near the roof that let in light during the day. Branches were spread on the floor, so as to form a thick pile near the fire, and on the top of this sat the Wild Man of the West with the most amiable of smiles on his large, handsome countenance, and most benignant of expressions beaming in his clear blue eyes, as he gazed first at Mary, who sat on his right hand, then at March, who sat on his left, and then at the iron pot which sat or stood between his knees, and into which he was about to plunge a large wooden ladle.

“There’s worse things than buffalo-beef-bergoo, March, an’t there? Ha, ha! my lad, tuck that under yer belt; it’ll put the sore bones right faster than physic. Mary, my little pet lamb, here’s a marrow-bone; come, yer growin’, an’ ye can’t grow right if ye don’t eat plenty o’ meat and marrow-bones; there,” he said, placing the bone in question on her pewter plate. “Ah! Mary, lass, ye’ve been mixin’ the victuals. Why, what have we here?”

“Moose nose,” replied the girl with a look of pleasure.

“I do b’lieve—so it is! Why, where got ye it? I han’t killed a moose for three weeks an’ more.”

“Me kill him meself,” said Mary.

“You!”

“Ay, me! with me own gun, too!”

“Capital!” cried Dick, tossing back his heavy locks, and gazing at the child with proud delight. “Yer a most fit an’ proper darter for the Wild—a—ho!” sneezed Dick, with sudden violence, while Mary glanced quickly up and opened her eyes very wide. “Whisst—to—a—hah! whew! wot a tickler! I raally think the mountain air’s a-goin’ to make me subjick to catchin’ colds.”

March took no notice of the remark. His attention was at that moment divided between Mary’s eyes and a marrow-bone.

There is no accounting for the besotted stupidity at this time of March Marston, who was naturally quick-witted, unless upon the principle that prejudice renders a man utterly blind. A hundred glaring and obvious facts, incidents, words, and looks, ought to have enlightened him as to who his new friend Dick really was. But his mind was so thoroughly imbued, so saturated, with the preconceived notion of the Wild Man of the West being a huge, ferocious, ugly monster, all over red, or perhaps blue, hair, from the eyes to the toes, with canine teeth, and, very probably, a tail, that unintentional hints and suggestive facts were totally thrown away upon him. The fact is, that if Dick had at that moment looked him full in the face and said, “I’m the Wild Man of the West,” March would have said he didn’t believe it!

“How came ye by the iron pot?” inquired March suddenly, as the sight of that vessel changed the current of his thoughts.

Dick’s countenance became grave, and Mary’s eyes dropped.

“I’ll tell ye some other time,” said the former quietly; “not now—not now. Come, lad, if ye mean to mount and ride wi’ me to-morrow, you’ll ha’ to eat heartier than that.”

“I’m doing my best. Did you say it was you that shot the moose deer, Mary?”

“Yes, it was me. Me go out to kill bird for make dinner, two days back, an’ see the moose in one place where hims no can escape but by one way—narrow way, tree feets, not more, wide. Hims look to me—me’s look to him. Then me climb up side of rocks so hims no touch me, but must pass below me quite near. Then me yell—horbuble yell!” (“Ha!” thought March, “music, sweetest music, that yell!”) “an’ hims run round in great fright!” (“Oh, the blockhead,” thought March)—“but see hims no can git away, so hims rush past me! Me shoot in back of hims head, an’ him drop.”

“Huzza!” shouted Dick, in such a bass roar that March involuntarily started. “Well done, lass; ye’ll make a splendid wife to a bold mountaineer.”

March could not believe his eyes, while he looked at the modest little creature who thus coolly related the way in which she slaughtered the moose; but he was bound to believe his ears, for Mary said she did the deed, and to suppose it possible that Mary could tell a falsehood was, in March’s opinion, more absurd than to suppose that the bright sun could change itself into melted butter! But Dick’s enthusiastic reference to Mary one day becoming the wife of a mountaineer startled him. He felt that, in the event of such a calamitous circumstance happening, she could no longer be his sister, and the thought made him first fierce, and then sulky.

“D’ye kill many mountain sheep here, Dick?” inquired March, when his ruffled temper had been smoothed down with another marrow-bone.

“Ay, lots of ’em.”

“What like are they close? I’ve never been nearer to ’em yet than a thousand yards or so—never within range.”

“They’re ’bout the size of a settlement sheep, an’ skin somethin’ like the red deer; ye’ve seen the red deer, of coorse, March?”

“Yes, often; shot ’em too.”

“Well, like them; but they’ve got most treemendous horns. I shot one last week with horns three fut six inches long; there they lie now in that corner. Are ye a good shot, March?”

“Middlin’.”

“D’ye smoke?”

“Yes, a little; but I an’t a slave to it like some.”

“Humph!” ejaculated Dick sarcastically. “If ye smoke ‘a little,’ how d’ye know but ye may come to smoke much, an’ be a slave to it like other men? Ye may run down a steep hill, an’ say, when yer near the top, ‘I can stop when I like’; but ye’ll come to a pint, lad, when ye’ll try to stop an’ find ye can’t—when ye’d give all ye own to leave off runnin’; but ye’ll have to go on faster an’ faster, till yer carried off yer legs, and, mayhap, dashed to bits at the bottom. Smokin’ and drinkin’ are both alike. Ye can begin when you please, an’, up to a certain pint, ye can stop when ye please; but after that pint, ye can’t stop o’ yer own free will—ye’d die first. Many an’ many a poor fellow has died first, as I know.”

“An’ pray, Mister Solomon, do you smoke?” inquired March testily, thinking that this question would reduce his companion to silence.

“No, never.”

“Not smoke?” cried March in amazement. The idea of a trapper not smoking was to him a thorough and novel incomprehensibility.

“No; nor drink neither,” said Dick. “I once did both, before I came to this part o’ the country, and I thank the Almighty for bringing me to a place where it warn’t easy to get either drink or baccy—specially drink, which I believe would have laid me under the sod long ago, if I had bin left in a place where I could ha’ got it. An’ now, as Mary has just left us, poor thing, I’ll tell ye how I came by the big iron pot. There’s no mystery about it; but as it b’longed to the poor child’s father, I didn’t want to speak about it before her.”

Dick placed an elbow on each knee, and, resting his forehead upon his hands, stared for some moments into the fire ere he again spoke.

“It’s many years now,” said he in a low, sad tone, “since I left home, and—but that’s nothin’ to do wi’ the pint,” he added quickly. “You see, March, when I first came to this part o’ the world I fell in with a comrade—a trapper—much to my likin’. This trapper had been jilted by some girl, and came away in a passion, detarminin’ never more to return to his native place. I never know’d where he come from, nor the partic’lars of his story, for that was a pint he’d never speak on. I don’t believe I ever know’d his right name. He called himself Adam; that was the only name I ever know’d him by.

“Well, him an’ me became great friends. He lived wi’ a band of Pawnee Injuns, and had married a wife among them; not that she was a pure Injun neither, she was a half-breed. My Mary was their only child; she was a suckin’ babe at that time. Adam had gin her no name when we first met, an’ I remember him askin’ me one day what he should call her; so I advised Mary—an’ that’s how she come to git the name.

“Adam an’ me was always together. We suited each other. For myself, I had ta’en a skunner at mankind, an’ womankind, too; so we lived wi’ the Pawnees, and hunted together, an’ slep’ together when out on the tramp. But one o’ them reptiles took a spite at him, an’ tried by every way he could to raise the Injuns agin’ him, but couldn’t; so he detarmined to murder him.

“One day we was out huntin’ together, an’, being too far from the Pawnee lodges to return that night, we encamped in the wood, an’ biled our kettle—this iron one ye see here. Adam had a kind o’ likin’ for’t, and always carried it at his saddle-bow when he went out o’ horseback. We’d just begun supper, when up comes the Wild-Cat, as he was called—Adam’s enemy—an’ sits down beside us.

“Of course, we could not say we thought he was up to mischief, though we suspected it, so we gave him his supper, an’ he spent the night with us. Nixt mornin’ he bade us good-day, an’ went off. Then Adam said he would go an’ set beaver traps in a creek about a mile off. Bein’ lazy that day, I said I’d lie a bit in the camp. So away he went. The camp was on a hill. I could see him all the way, and soon saw him in the water settin’ his traps.

“Suddenly I seed the Wild-Cat step out o’ the bushes with a bow an’ arrow. I knew what was up. I gave a roar that he might have heard ten miles off, an’ ran towards them. But an arrow was in Adam’s back before he could git to the shore. In a moment more he had the Injun by the throat, an’ the two struggled for life. Adam could ha’ choked him easy, but the arrow in his back let out the blood fast, an’ he could barely hold his own. Yet he strove like a true man. I was soon there, for I nearly burst my heart in that race. They were on the edge of the water. The Wild-Cat had him down, and was tryin’ to force him over the bank.

“I had my big sword wi’ me, an’ hewed the reptile’s head off with it at one blow, sendin’ it into the river, an’ tossin’ the body in after it.

“‘It’s too late,’ says Adam, as I laid him softly on the bank.

“I could see that. The head of the shaft was nearly in his heart. He tried to speak, but could only say, ‘Take care o’ my wife an’ Mary’—then he died, and I buried him there.”

Dick paused, and clenched both hands convulsively as the thought of that black day came back upon him. But the glare in his eye soon melted into a look of sadness.

“Well, well,” he continued, “it’s long past now. Why should I be angry with the dead? Adam’s wife never got the better o’ that. She dropped her head like a prairie flower in the first blast of winter, an’ was soon beside her husband.

“I waited till the little child could stump about on its own legs, an’ then I mounted my horse an’ rode away with it in my arms. The only things belongin’ to poor Adam I brought with me was the iron pot an’ his long rifle. There the rifle stands in the corner. I’ve used it ever since.”

“And have you and Mary lived here all alone since that day?”

“Ay. I came straight here—not carin’ where I went, only anxious to get out o’ the sight o’ men, an’ live alone wi’ the child. I sought out a dwellin’ in the wildest part o’ these mountains, an’ fell upon this cave, where we’ve lived happy enough together.”

“Do you mean to say the child has never played with other children?” inquired March, amazed at this discovery.

“Not much. I give her a run for a month or two at a time, now an’ agin, when I fall on a friendly set o’ well-disposed redskins—just to keep the right sort o’ spirit in her, and comfort her a bit. But she’s always willin’ to live alone wi’ me.”

“Then she’s never learned to read?” said March sadly.

“That has she. She’s got one book. It’s a story about a giant an’ a fairy, an’ a prince an’ princess. Most ’xtraornar’ stuff. I got it from a Blood Injun, who said he picked it up in a frontier settlement where the people had all been murdered. When we had nothin’ better to do, I used to teach her her letters out o’ that book, an’ the moment she got ’em off she seemed to pick up the words, I dun’ know how. She’s awful quick. She knows every word o’ that story by heart. An’ she’s invented heaps o’ others o’ the most amazin’ kind. I’ve often thought o’ goin’ to the settlements to git her some books, but—”

Dick paused abruptly, and a dark frown settled on his features, as if the thoughts of civilised men and things revived unpleasant memories.

“The fact is,” he continued somewhat bitterly, “I’ve been a hater of my race. You’d scarcely believe it, lad, but you are the first man I’ve ever told all this to. I can’t tell why it is that I feel a likin’ for ye, boy, an’ a desire to have ye stop with me. But that must not be. I had but one friend. I must not make another to have him murdered, mayhap, before my eyes. Yet,” he added in a gentle tone, taking March’s hand in his and stroking it, “I feel a likin’ for ye, boy, that makes me sad to think o’ partin’.”

“But we don’t need to part, Dick,” said March eagerly. “I like you too, and I like your style of life, an’—” He was going to have added that he liked Mary, and that he would live with them both all his days, when the little cottage at Pine Point settlement and his loving mother rose before him, and caused him to drop his head and terminate his speech abruptly.

Just then Mary re-entered the cavern, and put an end to the conversation.