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

In the agony of that moment he uttered a cry so terrible that it might well have been supposed to have come from the throat of a supernatural being. The Indians had not time to evade the danger. The ponderous mass in its descent hit a projecting crag, and burst into smaller fragments, which fell in a rattling shower, killing two men, and wounding others. Those of the group who escaped, as well as those who chanced to be beyond the danger, saw, by the dim moonlight, the Wild Man of the West descending, as it were, like a furious demon in the midst of the dire confusion of dust and rocks. They knew him well. It wanted but this to fill them to overflow with superstitious dread. They turned and fled. The trappers, although amazed beyond measure, and half suspecting who it was that had thus suddenly come to their aid, mounted their horses, and, leaping over their barricade, rushed down the valley in pursuit, firing a volley at starting, and loading as they rode at full speed. In his descent Dick made what might well be termed a miraculous escape. Near the foot of the cliff he went crashing through a thick bush, which broke his fall. Still he retained impetus sufficient to have seriously injured if not killed him, had he not alighted in the midst of another bush, which saved him so completely that he was not even hurt.

Dick could scarcely believe his own senses; but he was not a man given to indulge much wandering thought in times of action. Giving himself one shake, to make sure of his being actually sound in wind and limb, he bounded away up the precipice by a path with which he was well acquainted, reached his horse, flew by a short cut to the mouth of the valley, and, wheeling suddenly round, met the horrified Indians in the very teeth!

The roar with which he met them was compound in its nature, and altogether hideous! His mind was in a mingled condition of amazement and satisfaction at his escape, triumph at the success of his plan, and indignation at the cowardly wickedness of the savages. A rollicking species of mad pugnacity took possession of him, and the consequence was, that the sounds which issued from his leathern throat were positively inhuman.

The rushing mass of terror-stricken men, thus caught, as it were, between two fires, divided, in order to escape him. Dick was not sorry to observe this. He felt that the day was gained without further bloodshed. He knew that the superstitious dread in which he was held was a guarantee that the savages would not return; so, instead of turning with the trappers to join in the pursuit, he favoured them with a concluding and a peculiarly monstrous howl, and then rode quietly away by a circuitous route to his own cavern.

Thus he avoided March Marston, who, on finding that his friend Dick was out, had returned at full speed to aid his comrades, and arrived just in time to meet them returning, triumphant and panting, from their pursuit of the foe!

“Are they gone?” cried March in amazement.

“Ay, right slick away into the middle o’ nowhar,” replied Big Waller, laughing heartily. “Did ye iver hear such a roarer, comrades?”

“Have you licked ’em out an’ out?” continued the incredulous March, “Ay, out an’ out, an’ no mistake,” replied Bounce, dismounting.

“Well, that

is

 lucky,” said March; “for my friend Dick I found was not—”

“Ah! we not have need him,” interrupted Gibault, wiping the perspiration from his forehead, “de Wild Man of de West hims come, an’—oh! you should see what hims have bin do!”

“The Wild Man again!” exclaimed March in dismay—“an’ me absent!”

Gibault nodded and laughed.

At that moment an exclamation from Redhand attracted the attention of the whole party. He was kneeling beside Macgregor, who had dismounted and lain down.

“I believe they’ve done for me,” said the fur trader faintly. “That arrow must have gone deeper than I thought.”

“You’d better let me see the wound, sir,” said Redhand; “your shirt is covered with blood.”

“No, no,” said the wounded man savagely; “let me rest—see, I’m better now. You will find a flask in the bag at my saddle-bow. Bring it here.”

“I know that Dick—the hunter—is a good hand at doctoring,” said March. “What a pity he is not here! We might carry you there, sir.”

“Carry me,” laughed the fur trader fiercely; “no, I’ll never be carried till I’m carried to my grave. How far off is his place? Where stays he?”

“Four miles from this. I’ll take you if you can ride,” said March.

“Ay, that I can, bravely,” cried the trader, who, having taken a deep draught of spirits, seemed to be imbued with new life. “Come, young sir, mount.”

The trappers endeavoured to dissuade the violent man from the attempt, but he could not be controlled; so March, hastily observing that he would see him safe to the hunter’s abode and return without delay, mounted his horse and rode away, followed by the wounded man.

Chapter Twenty Three

The Wounded Fur Trader

When they reached the entrance to the cavern, March and his companion dismounted; but the latter was so weak from loss of blood that he stumbled at the foot of the track, and fell to the earth insensible.

March ran hastily in for assistance, and was not a little surprised to find Dick sitting alone by the side of the fire, and so absorbed in the perusal of a little book that he had not noticed his entrance—a very singular and unaccountable piece of absence of mind in one so well trained in the watchful ways of the backwoods.

“Ho! Dick!” cried the youth.

“What, March—March Marston!” exclaimed the Wild Man, springing up, seizing him by the shoulders, and gazing intently into his face, as if to assure himself that he was not dreaming.

“Ay, no doubt I’m March Marston; though how you came to find out my name I don’t know—”

“Easy enough that, lad, when you leave your mother’s Bible behind ye,” cried Dick with a wild laugh. “She must be a good mother that o’ yours. Is she alive yet, boy?”

“That is she, an’ well, I trust—”

“An’ your father,” interrupted Dick; “how’s he, lad, eh?”

“I don’t know,” said March, frowning; “he forsook us fourteen years agone; but it’s little good talking o’ such matters now, when there’s a poor fellow dyin’ outside.”

“Dyin’?”

“Ay, so it seems to me. I’ve brought him to see if ye can stop the bleedin’, but he’s fainted, and I can’t lift—”

Dick waited for no more, but, hastening out, raised Macgregor in his arms, and carried him into the inner cave, where Mary was lying sound asleep on her lowly couch.

“Come, Mary, lass, make way for this poor feller.”

The child leaped up, and, throwing a deerskin round her, stepped aside to allow the wounded man to be placed on her bed. Her eye immediately fell on March, who stood in the entrance, and she ran to him in surprise.

“What’s de matter, March?”

“Hush, Mary,” said Dick in a low voice; “we’ll have to speak soft. Poor Macgregor won’t be long for this world, I’m afear’d. Fetch me the box o’ things.”

“You know him, then?” whispered March, in surprise.

“Ay, I’ve often bin to the Mountain Fort and seed him there. See, he’s comin’ to. Put that torch more behind me, lad. It’ll be better for him not to see me.”

As he spoke the wounded man sighed faintly. Opening his eyes, he said, “Where am I?”

“Speak to him,” whispered Dick, looking over his shoulder at March, who advanced, and, kneeling at the side of the couch, said—

“You’re all right, Mr Macgregor. I’ve brought you to the hunter’s home. He’ll dress your wound and take care of you, so make your mind easy. But you’ll have to keep quiet. You’ve lost much blood.”

The fur trader turned round and seemed to fall asleep, while Dick bound his wound, and then, leaving him to rest, he and March returned to the other cave.

During that night Dick seemed in an unaccountably excited state. Sometimes he sat down by the fire and talked with March in an absent manner on all kinds of subjects—his adventures, his intentions, his home at Pine Point; but from his looks it seemed as if his thoughts were otherwise engaged, and occasionally he started up and paced the floor hurriedly, while his brows darkened and his broad chest heaved as though he were struggling with some powerful feeling or passion.

“Could it be,” thought March, “that there was some mysterious connection between Dick and the wounded fur trader?” Not being able to find a satisfactory reply to the thought, he finally dismissed it, and turned his attentions altogether towards Mary, whose looks of surprise and concern showed that she too was puzzled by the behaviour of her adopted father.

During that night and all the next day the wounded man grew rapidly worse, and March stayed with him, partly because he felt a strong interest in and pity for him, and partly because he did not like to leave to Mary the duty of watching a dying man.

Dick went out during the day in the same excited state, and did not return till late in the evening. During his absence, the dying man’s mind wandered frequently, and, in order to check this as well as to comfort him, March read to him from his mother’s Bible. At times he seemed to listen intently to the words that fell from March’s lips, but more frequently he lay in a state apparently of stupor.

“Boy,” said he, starting suddenly out of one of those heavy slumbers, “what’s the use of reading the Bible to me? I’m not a Christian, an’ it’s too late now—too late!”

“The Bible tells me that ‘

now

’ is God’s time. I forget where the words are, an’ I can’t find ’em,” said March earnestly; “but I

know

 they’re in this book. Besides, don’t you remember the thief who was saved when he hung on the cross in a dyin’ state?”

The fur trader shook his head slowly, and still muttered, “Too late, too late.”

March now became deeply anxious about the dying man, who seemed to him like one sinking in the sea, yet refusing to grasp the rope that was flung to him. He turned over the sacred pages hurriedly to find appropriate texts, and blamed himself again and again for not having made himself better acquainted with the Word of God. He also repeated all he could think of from memory; but still the dying man shook his head and muttered, “Too late!” Suddenly March bent over him and said—

“Christ is able to save to the

uttermost

 all who come unto God through Him.”

The fur trader looked up in silence for a few seconds. “Ay,” said he, “many a time have I heard the old minister at Pine Point say that.”

“Pine Point!” exclaimed March in surprise.

“Perhaps they’re true, after all,” continued Macgregor, not noticing the interruption. “Oh! Mary, Mary, surely I did the uttermost when I forsook ye. Let me see the words, boy; are they there?”

A strange suspicion flashed suddenly on the mind of March as he listened to these words, and he trembled violently as he handed him the book.

“What—what’s this? Where got ye my wife’s Bible? You must,” (he added between his teeth, in a sudden burst of anger) “have murdered my boy.”

“Father!” exclaimed March, seizing Macgregor’s hand.

The dying man started up with a countenance of ashy paleness, and, leaning on one elbow, gazed earnestly into the youth’s face—“March! can it be my boy?” and fell back with a heavy groan. The bandages had been loosened by the exertion, and blood was pouring freely from his wound. The case admitted of no delay. March hurriedly attempted to stop the flow of the vital stream, assisted by Mary, who had been sitting at the foot of the couch bathed in tears during the foregoing scene.

Just then Dick returned, and, seeing how matters stood, quickly staunched the wound; but his aid came too late. Macgregor, or rather Obadiah Marston, opened his eyes but once after that, and seemed as if he wished to speak. March bent down quickly and put his ear close to his mouth; there was a faint whisper, “God bless you, March, my son,” and then all was still!

March gazed long and breathlessly at the dead countenance; then, looking slowly up in Dick’s face, he said, pointing to the dead man, “My father!” and fell insensible on the couch beside him.

We will pass over the first few days that succeeded the event just narrated, during which poor March Marston went about the wild region in the vicinity of the cave like one in a dream. It may be imagined with what surprise the trappers learned from him the near relationship that existed between himself and the fur trader. They felt and expressed the deepest sympathy with their young comrade, and offered to accompany him when he laid his father in the grave. But Dick had firmly refused to allow the youth to bring the trappers near his abode, so they forbore to press him, and the last sad rites were performed by himself and Dick alone. The grave was made in the centre of a little green vale which lay like an emerald in the heart of that rocky wilderness; and a little wooden cross, with the name and date cut thereon by March, was erected at the head of the low mound to mark the fur trader’s last lonely resting-place. March Marston had never known his father in early life, having been an infant when he deserted his family; and the little that he had seen of him at the Mountain Fort, and amid the wild scenes of the Rocky Mountains, had not made a favourable impression on him. But, now that he was gone, the natural instinct of affection arose within his breast. He called to remembrance the last few and sad hours which he had spent by his parent’s dying bed. He thought of their last few words on the momentous concerns of the soul, and of the eagerness with which, at times, the dying man listened to the life-giving Word of God; and the tear of sorrow that fell upon the grave, as he turned to quit that solitary spot, was mingled with a tear of joy and thankfulness that God had brought him there to pour words of comfort and hope into his dying father’s ear.

That night he spent in the cave with Dick; he felt indisposed to join his old comrades just then. The grave tenderness of his eccentric friend, and the sympathy of little Mary, were more congenial to him.

“March,” said Dick in a low, sad tone, as they sat beside the fire, “that funeral reminds me o’ my friend I told ye of once. It’s a lonesome grave his, with nought but a wooden cross to mark it.”

“Had you known him long, Dick?”

“No, not long. He left the settlement in a huff—bein’, I b’lieve, crossed in love, as I told ye.”

Dick paused, and clasping both hands over his knee, gazed with a look of mingled sternness and sorrow at the glowing fire.

“Did ye ever,” he resumed abruptly, “hear o’ a feller called Louis, who once lived at Pine Point—before ye was born, lad; did ye ever hear yer mother speak of him?”

“Louis? Yes—well, I believe I do think I’ve heard the name before. Oh yes! People used to say he was fond o’ my mother when she was a girl; but I never heard her speak of him. Now ye mention it, I remember the only time I ever asked her about it, she burst into tears, and told me never to speak of him again. Thadwick was his name—Louis Thadwick; but he was better known as Louis the Trapper. But he’s almost forgotten at the settlement now; it’s so long ago. Every one thinks him dead. Why d’ye ask?”

“Think he’s dead?” repeated Dick slowly. “An’ why not? My poor friend that was killed when he left his native place swore he’d never go back, an’ no more he did—no more he did; though he little thought that death would step in so soon to make him keep his word.”

“Was Louis your friend who died?” inquired March with much interest and not a little pity, for he observed that his companion was deeply affected.

Dick did not reply. His thoughts seemed to be wandering again, so March forbore to interrupt him, and, turning to Mary, said in a more cheerful tone—

“Whether would ye like to go to Pine Point settlement and stay with my mother, or that I should come here and spend the winter with you and Dick?”

Mary looked puzzled, and after some moments’ consideration replied, “Me don’t know.” Then, looking up quickly, she added, “Which

you

 like?”

“Indeed, I must make the same reply, Mary—‘I don’t know.’ But, as I can’t expect my friend Dick to give up his wild life, I suppose I must make up my mind to come here.”

“March,” said Dick quickly, “I’ve changed my mind, lad. It won’t do. You’ll have to spend next winter at home—anyhow ye can’t spend it with me.”

Had a thunderbolt struck the earth between March and Mary, they would not have been filled with half so much consternation as they were on hearing these words. It was plain that both had thoroughly made up their minds that they were to be together for many months to come. Dick noted the effect of his remark, and a peculiar frown crossed his countenance for a moment, but it gave place to a smile, as he said—

“I’m sorry to disappoint ye, lad, but the thing cannot be.”

“Cannot be!” repeated March in a tone of exasperation, for he felt that this was an unwarrantable piece of caprice on the part of his friend; “surely you don’t claim to be chief of the Rocky Mountains! If I choose to come an’ spend the winter in this region, you have no right to prevent me. And if I offer to bring you furs and venison, besides pretty good company, will ye be such a surly knave as to refuse me a corner of your cave?”

“Nay, lad. Right welcome would ye be, with or without furs or venison; but I mean to leave the cave—to quit this part of the country altogether. The fact is, I’m tired of it, an’ want a change.”

“Very good, all right, an’ what’s to hinder my going with you? I’m fond o’ change myself. I’d as soon go one way as another.”

Dick shook his head. “It’s o’ no use, March, I’ve my own reasons for desirin’ to travel alone. The thing cannot be.”

This was said in such a decided tone that March looked at Mary in dismay. He gathered no consolation from her countenance, however.

“March,” said Dick firmly, “I’m sorry to grieve ye, lad, but it can’t be helped. All I can say is, that if ye choose to come back here next summer you’ll be heartily welcome, and I’ll engage that ye’ll find me here; but I’m quite sartin’ ye won’t want to come.”

“Won’t want to come! I’ll bet ye a hundred thousand million dollars I’ll want to come, ay, and

will

 come,” cried March.

“Done!” said Dick, seizing the youth’s hand, “an’ Mary’s a witness to the wager.”

It is needless to say that the conversation did not rest here. The greater part of that night, and during great part of the week that March remained there, he continued to press the Wild Man of the West to alter his purpose, but without avail. Each day he passed with his comrades, hunting and trapping, and each night he bade them adieu and returned to sup and sleep in the cave, and, of course, persecuted Dick all that time; but Dick was immovable.

Of course, the trappers renewed their attempts to get March to show them Dick’s abode, but he persistently refused, and they were too good-natured to annoy him, and too honest to follow his trail, which they might easily have done, had they been so disposed.

At last the time arrived when it became necessary that the trappers should return to Pine Point settlement. In the midst of all their alarms and fights they had found time to do, what Big Waller termed, a “pretty considerable stroke o’ business.” That is to say, they had killed a large number of fur-bearing animals by means of trap, snare, and gun, so that they were in a position to return home with a heavy load of valuable skins. The day of their departure was therefore arranged, and March, mounting his steed, galloped, for the last time, and with a heavy heart, towards the cave of his friend Dick.

As he passed rapidly over the wild country, and entered the gloomy recesses that surrounded the Wild Man’s home, he thought over the arguments and persuasive speeches with which he meant to make a last and, he still hoped, successful appeal. But March might have spared himself the trouble of all this thought, for when he reached the cave Dick was absent. This grieved, him deeply, because every preparation had been made by his companions for starting on their homeward journey that evening, so that he had no time to spare.

Mary, was at home, however, so March felt a little consoled, and, seating himself in his wonted place beside the fire, he said—

“When will Dick be home, Mary?”

“Me no can know ’xactly. To-morray hims say, perhaps.”

“Then it’s all up,” sighed March, leaning recklessly back against the wall; “all up! I’m off to-night, so I’ll not be able to spend the winter with you after all.”

Had Mary burst into tears on hearing this, March would have felt satisfied. Had she groaned or sobbed, or even sighed, he would have experienced some degree of relief to his annoyed and disappointed spirit, but when Mary, instead of any such demonstration, hung down her head so that the heavy masses of her soft brown hair hid her pretty face and said in a tone which March fancied was not very genuine, “What a pity!” he became extremely exasperated, and deemed himself ill-used.

During the half-hour that succeeded he endeavoured to converse in a pleasant tone of voice, but without success. At last he rose to go.

“Must you go ’way dis night?” said Mary with a look of concern.

“Ay, Mary, an’ it’s not much matter, for ye don’t seem to care.”

The girl looked at him reproachfully, “You is not please’ with me, March—why?”

The question puzzled the youth. He certainly was displeased, but he could not make up his mind to say that he was so because Mary had not fallen into a state of violent grief at the prospect of a separation. But the anxious gaze of Mary’s truthful blue eyes was too much for him—he suddenly grasped both her hands, and, kissing her forehead, said—

“Mary dear, I’m not displeased. I’m only sorry, and sad, and annoyed, and miserable—very miserable—I can scarcely tell why. I suppose I’m not well, or I’m cross, or something or other. But this I know, Mary, Dick has invited me to come back to see him next year, and I certainly shall come if life and limb hold out till then.”

Mary’s eyes filled with tears, and as she smiled through them, March, being very near her face, beheld in each eye an excessively miniature portrait of himself gazing out at him lovingly.

“Perhaps!” faltered Mary, “you no want for come when it be nixt year.”

Poor March was overwhelmed again, absolutely disgusted, that

she

 could entertain a doubt upon that point!

“We shall see,” he cried with a sudden impulse, pressing his lips again to her forehead. “May the Great Spirit bless and keep you! Good-bye, Mary—till next spring.”

March burst away from her, rushed out of the cave in