Kitabı oku: «The Cruise of the Snowbird: A Story of Arctic Adventure», sayfa 9
Chapter Thirteen
Was it an Old Man’s Dream? – Sunday on Mid-Ocean – Land Ho! – A Strange Adventure – Lost in the Great Forest
Captain McBain and our heroes stayed up for hours that night after old man Magnus left, talking and musing upon the strange story they had just been listening to.
“Think you,” said Ralph, “there is much in it, or is it merely an old man’s dream?”
“An old man’s dream!” said McBain. “No, I do not; old men do not dream such dreams as those, but, like Magnus himself, I put little faith in the spirit part of the story.”
“The question then to be answered,” said Allan, “is, where did Jan Jansen stay during the four or five years of his sojourn in the polar seas?”
“Well,” said McBain, “I have thought that over too, and I think it admits of a feasible enough answer, without having recourse to the spirit theory. There is a mystery altogether about the regions of the Pole that has never been revealed.”
“In fact,” said Rory, “nobody has ever been there to reveal it.”
“That is just it,” contained McBain; “our knowledge of the country is terribly meagre, and merely what we have gleaned from sealers or whalers – men, by the way, who are generally too busy, looking after the interests of their owners, to bother their heads about exploration – or from the tales of travellers who have attempted – merely attempted, mind you – to penetrate as far north as they could.”
“True,” said Ralph.
“England,” continued McBain, “has not all the credit to herself, brave though her sailors be, of telling us all we know about the Pole and the country – lands and seas – around it. Why, I myself have heard tales from Norwegian walrus-hunters, the most daring fellows that ever sailed the seas, that prove to my facile satisfaction that there is an open ocean near the North Pole, that there are islands in it – the Isle of Alba if you like – and that these islands are inhabited. You may tell me it is too cold for human beings to live there; you may ask me where they came from. To your first assertion I would reply that the inhabitants may depend to a great extent for heat on the volcanic nature of the islands themselves, just as they depend in winter for light on the glorious aurora, or the radiant light of stars and moon. When you ask me where they came from, I have but to remind you that Spitsbergen and the islands around it were, before their glacial period, covered with vegetation of the most luxuriant kind, that mighty trees grew on their hills and in their dales, and that giants of the lower animal kingdom roamed through the forests, the wilder beasts preying on the flocks and herds that came down at mid-day to quench their thirst in the streams and in the lakes; Man himself must have lived there too, and if he still exists in the regions of the Pole, he is but the descendant of a former race.
“With some of these tribes Jan Jansen no doubt lived: they were good to him, perhaps so good that he got lazy and wouldn’t work, and so they were glad to get rid of him.”
“And what about the mammoth caves – do you believe in them too?” said Allan.
“Ah! ha!” cried Ralph, laughing; “our brother Allan has an eye to the main chance, you see; he wants to ‘malt’ money.”
“I want to see all I can see on this cruise,” said Allan, reddening a little as he spoke, “and I want if possible to make the voyage pay. Well, bother take you, Ralph, call it ‘makin’ money’ if you like.”
“The gigantic mammoth,” continued McBain, “used inhabit the far northern regions, where they existed in millions. Now human nature is the same all over the world, and, I suppose, always has been. Man is a collecting animal; the North American Indians collect scalps – ”
“Misers collect money,” said Rory, “and little boys stamps.”
“In some parts of the world,” McBain went on, “the natives make giant pyramids of the antlers of deer; the King of Dahomey prefers human skulls, and if there be caves filled with mammoth tusks, as the traditions of the Norwegians would lead us to believe, they were doubtless collected by the natives as trophies of the hunt, and stowed away in caves. The mammoth you know was the largest kind of elephant – ”
“Och!” cried Rory, interrupting McBain; “what an iconoclast you are to be sure; what a breaker of images?”
“Explain, my boy,” said McBain, smiling, for he could spy fun in Rory’s eye.
“You say the mam-moth was an elephant,” said Rory. “Och! sure it was myself was thinking all the time it was a kind of a butterfly.”
“Indeed, indeed, Rory,” said Ralph, “I think it is time little boys like you were in bed.”
“Well, boys,” said McBain, rising, “maybe it is time we all turned in, and thankful we have to be for a quiet night, for a fair wind, and a clear sea. Dream about your ‘butterfly,’ Rory, my son, for depend upon it we’ll see him yet.”
Next day was Sunday. How inexpressibly calm and delightful, when weather is fine and wind is fair, is a Sunday at sea. It is then indeed a Sabbath, a day of quiet rest.
On this particular morning, saving a few fleecy cloudlets that lay along the southern horizon, there was no cloud to be seen in all the blue sky, and the sun shone warmly down on the snowy canvas and white decks of the Snowbird, as she coquetted over the rippling sea. The men, dressed in their neatest suits, were assembled aft on the quarter-deck, near the binnacle, so that even the man at the wheel could join in the beautiful Form of Prayer to be used at Sea, read by McBain in rich and manly tones. Had you climbed into the maintop of that yacht, that white speck on the ocean’s blue, and gazed around you on every side, you would have scanned the horizon in vain for a sight of a single living thing. They were indeed alone on the wide ocean. Alone, yet not alone, for One was with them to whom they were now appealing. “One terrible in all His works of wonder, at whose command the winds do blow, and who stilleth the raging of the tempest.”
Prayers over, Ap pipes down, the men move forward to read or to talk, and by-and-bye it will be the dinner-hour; this is “plum-dough” day, and, mind you, sailors are just like schoolboys, they think about this sort of thing. Oscar, the Saint. Bernard, has mounted on top of the skylight – his favourite resting-place in fine weather – and laid himself down to sleep in dog fashion, with one eye a little open, and one ear on half-cock to catch the faintest unusual sound.
“Do you know,” said Ralph, looking over the bulwarks and down at the gliding water, “I think I should like to live at sea.”
“Ay, ay,” said Rory, “if it was always like this, O! thou fair-weather sailor, but when we’re lying-to in a gale of wind, Ralph, that is the time I like to see you, fast in your armchair, with the long legs of you against the bulkheads to steady yourself, and trying in vain to swallow a cup of tea. Oh! then is the time you look so pleasant.”
Ralph looked at this teasing shipmate of his for a moment or two with a kind of amused smile on his handsome face, then he pulled his ear for him and walked away aft.
About five days after this Rory came on deck; he had been talking to Captain McBain in his cabin. The captain was working out the reckoning, during which I don’t think Rory helped him very much.
“Well, Rory,” said Allan, “you’ve been plaguing the life out of poor McBain, I know. But tell us the news – where are we?”
“Indeed,” said Rory, with pretended gravity, “we’re in a queer place altogether, and I don’t know that ever we’ll get out of it.”
“Out of what?” cried Ralph; “speak out, man – anything gone wrong?”
“Indeed then,” replied Rory, “there has been a collision.”
“A collision?”
“Yes, a collision between the latitude and the longitude, and they’re both standing stock still at 60.”
“I’ll explain,” said McBain, who had just joined them. “The good ship Snowbird, latitude 60 degrees North, longitude 60 degrees West.”
“Now do you see, Mr Obtuse?” said Rory.
“I do,” said Ralph, “but no thanks to you.”
Next morning land was in sight on the lee bow, and by noon they had cast anchor and clewed sails in a small bay near a creek.
“Not a very hospitable-looking shore, is it?” said McBain; “but never mind, here are birds in plenty, and no doubt we’ll find fur as well as feather. So be ready by to-morrow for a big shoot.”
“I’m ready now,” said Rory, “just for a small ‘explore,’ you know, and we’ll come back by sunset and report.”
“And I’ll go with him,” said Allan.
“Mind you don’t get lost,” cried McBain; “and we don’t expect a big bag, you know.”
Rory carried his rifle, Allan his gun; they were armed for anything, and felt big enough to tackle a bear for that matter. They pulled straight in-shore and up the creek, and to their joy they found at the head of it a nice stream; not a river by any means, but still navigable enough for more than a mile for their little craft. They soon came to a rapid, almost a waterfall, indeed, and not thinking it expedient to carry their boat, or to proceed farther on water, they landed, made her fast to the stump of an old tree, and trudged on in quest of adventure, with their guns over their shoulders.
“Now,” said Rory, pausing to gaze around him, after they had walked on in silence over a wild and scraggy heath for more than an hour, “if we had merely come in quest of the beautiful and the picturesque, and if I had brought my sketch-book with me, it strikes me we would have been rewarded, but as for shooting, why, we would have done well to have stopped on the seashore and kept potting away at the gulls.”
The scenery about them was indeed lovely, with a loveliness peculiarly its own. It was summer in this wild northern land; everywhere the moorlands and plains were carpeted with the greenest of grass, or bedecked with mosses and lichens of every hue imaginable, from the sombrest brown to the brightest scarlet. Of wild flowers there were but few, but heaths, still green, there were in abundance, and many curious wild shrubs they had never seen before; but they knew the juniper-plant and the sweet-scented wild myrtle. Why, it was the same that adorned the braes of Arrandoon! Then there were fruit-trees of various kinds, and trees that bore large pink and white flowers. It seemed odd to our heroes to see big flowers growing on tree-tops, but this, and indeed everything else around them, only served to remind them that they were in a foreign land. What they missed the most were the wild flowers and the song of birds. Birds there were, but they were silent: they would rush out from a bush, or flutter down from a tree, to gaze curiously at them, then be off again. The horizon was bounded by rugged hills, surrounded by a forest of pine-trees.
“I think,” said Rory, “we should climb that sugar-loaf hill. What a grand view we would get. Let us walk towards the wood; we are sure to find game there.”
“Do you know in what direction our ship lies?” said Allan.
“That I don’t,” said Rory; “but if we follow the stream we are sure to find the boat.”
“But we have left the stream. Do you think you know in what direction that lies?”
“Pooh! no!” cried Rory. “Oh, look, Allan! look at that lovely blue and crimson bird! Fire, boy, fire!”
Allan fired and Rory bagged the beauty.
Then on they went, firing now at some strange bird and now at a weasel or polecat, taking little heed of where they were going, just as heedless as youth so often is.
There was a ravine between them and the forest, which the purple haze of distance had hidden from their view, but, as they were bent on reaching the pines by hook or by crook, they descended. The grass grew greener at the bottom of this dale, and here they found a stream of pure water, with a bottom of golden sand and boulders. This was a temptation not to be resisted, so they threw themselves down on the bank after quenching their thirsty and proceeded, in a languid and dreamy kind of manner, to watch the movements of the shoals of speckled trout that gambolled in the stream, chasing each other round the stones, and poking each other in the ribs with their round slimy noses.
“Don’t they look happy?” said Rory, “and wouldn’t they eat nicely?”
“Which reminds me,” said Allan, “that I’ve something good in my bag.”
“And ain’t I hungry just!” Rory said; and his eyes sparkled as Allan produced, all neatly begirt with a towel of sparkling whiteness, a dish containing a pie of such delicious flavour that when it was finished, and washed down with what Rory, mimicking the rich brogue of his countrymen, called “a taste of the stramelet,” they both thought they had never dined so well before.
Half-a-dozen wood-pigeons flew hurriedly over them. Rory seized Allan’s gun and fired, and one dropped dead within a dozen yards of them. Such a beauty, so plump and so large.
“That is our game,” cried Rory; “let us on to the wood. We’ll get such bags as will make Ralph chew his tongue with regret that he wasn’t with us.”
“Hoo-hoo-hooo-o!” resounded from the spruce thickets as they neared the woods.
“Here, at them?” cried Allan, excitedly. “Now for it, my boy!”
“Yes,” said Rory; “it’s all very well, but I can’t pot them so well with the rifle.”
“Then in all brotherly love and fairness we’ll exchange guns every twenty minutes.”
As it was arranged so it was carried out. They crept along under the trees.
“Hoo-hoo-hooo-o!” cried the great blue-grey birds, rising in the air on flapping wings. Bang, bang, bang! Down they came thick and fast. The sportsmen had many little mishaps, and tore their clothes considerably, but the fun was so “fine” they did not mind that much.
After about three hours of this, —
“I say,” says Rory, “isn’t it getting duskish!”
“Bless me!” cried Allan, looking at his watch, “I declare it is long past seven o’clock. Let us start for the brook at once and find our boat.”
“You mustn’t shout,” said Rory, “till you’re out of the wood.”
“We came this way, I know,” said Allan.
They went that way, but only seemed to get deeper and deeper into the forest. They tried another direction with the same result; another and another, but all to no purpose. Then they looked at each other in consternation.
“We’re lost!” cried Allan. “How could we have been so mad?”
“We can gain nothing, though,” said Rory, “by crying about it;” and down he sat.
“I see nothing for it but to follow your example,” said Allan, dolefully; and down he sat also.
“What a pretty little pair of babes in the wood we make, don’t we?” continued Allan, after a pause.
“What a pity we ate all Peter’s pie, though,” says Rory; “but we won’t let down our hearts. The moon will be up ere long, but sleep here to-night we’ll have to. If we tried now to find our way we’d only be going round and round, with no more chance of finding our way than a dog has of catching his tail.”
Presently there was a whirring noise, and a great black bird, apparently as big as a Newfoundland, alighted on an adjoining tree.
“It is an eagle,” said Rory. “Down with him.”
“It’s a wild turkey,” said Allan, coming back with the spoil.
He had hardly laid it down when an immense, great, gaunt, and hungry-looking wolf seemed to start from the very earth in front of them. Rory fired, but missed.
“In case,” said Allan, “we have a visit from any more of these gentry, let us light a fire.”
This was soon done, and the blaze from the burning wood caused the gloom of the forest to close around them like a thick black pall, and, lit up by the glare of the fire, their faces and figures stood out in bold relief. It was like a picture of Rembrandt’s.
“In the morning, you know,” Allan remarked, “we will find our way out of the wood by blazing the trees.”
“What, would you set fire to the forest?” laughed Rory.
“No, Mr Greenhorn,” said Allan, “only chip a bit of bark here and there off the trees’ stems to prevent us from going round in a circle.”
“Well,” said Rory, “you know how the thing is done, I don’t.”
The night wore on; it was very quiet in that gloomy pine-wood. The moon rose slowly over the horizon, but her beams could hardly penetrate the thick branches of the spruce firs. The fire burnt low, only starting occasionally into a fitful blaze; the two friends from talking fell to nodding, then their weary heads dropped on their arms, and they slept.
But is this forest quite so deserted as the two friends imagined? No; for behold that dark figure gliding swiftly from tree to tree through the chequered moonlight; and now the branches are pushed aside, and he stands erect before them. Tall he is, gaunt and ungainly, dressed from the crown of the head to his moccasined feet in skins, and armed with gun, dagger, and revolver. He stands for a moment in silence, then quite aloud, and with a strong Yankee nasal twang, —
“Well, I’m skivered!” he says.
Rory rose on his feet first, and had his rifle at the stranger’s neck in the twinkling of an eye.
“Who are you?” he cries. “Speak quick, or I fire!”
“Seth,” was the reply. “Now put aside that tool, or see if I don’t put a pill through you.”
“What seek you here?”
“Well!” said Seth, “I do like cheek when it is properly carried out. Here you two chaps have been a-prowling round my premises all day, and a-potting at my pigeons; you’ve been and shot my pet turkey, and you’ve fired at my mastiff, and now you ask me what I want on my own property. I’ve heard of cheek before, but this licks all.”
“Well, well, well!” cried Allan, laughing, “I declare we thought the land uninhabited.”
“So it is,” said the Yankee; “there ain’t a soul within three days’ journey o’ here, bar old trapper Seth that you see before you.”
“And we took your mastiff for a wolf,” said Rory, “and your turkey for a gaberlunzie. Troth, it’s too bad entirely.”
(Gaberlunzie, Scottice for an old beggar man. Rory no doubt meant to say capercailzie, the wild turkey of the Scottish woods.)
“You see there are no game laws in this land, and no trespass laws either,” said Seth, “else I’d take you prisoners; but if you’ll come and help old Seth to eat his supper, it’ll be more of a favour than anything else, that’s all.”
“That we will, with pleasure,” said Rory and Allan, both in one breath.
Seth’s cottage was about as wild and uncouth as himself or his mastiff. No wonder, by the way, they took the latter for a wolf, but the trapper made them right welcome. The venison steaks were delicious, and although they had to “fist” them, knives and forks being unknown in Seth’s log hut, they enjoyed them none the less. After supper this solitary trapper, who felt civilised life far too crowded for him, entertained them with tales of his adventures till long past midnight; then he spread them couches of skins, and their slumbers thereon were certainly sweeter than they would have been in the centre of the cold forest.
Chapter Fourteen
Oscar Finds the Truants – Breakfast for Seven – Seth Spins a Yarn – The Walrus-Hunters – The Indians – Beautiful Scenery – A Week’s Good Sport
Rap – rap – rap! Rat – tat – tat – tat!
“What, ho! within there.” Rat – tat – tat!
Bow – wow – wow.
Old Seth had been up hours ago, and far away in the forest, but sleep still sealed the eyelids of both Allan and Rory, although it must have been pretty nearly eight bells, in the morning watch.
Rat – tat – tat! “Hi! hi! any one within?”
After a considerable deal of the silly sort of dreaming that heavy sleepers persist in conducting on such occasions, when you are trying your very best to awake them, Rory first, then Allan heard the sound, became sensible at once, and sprang from their couches of skins.
“Why,” cried Rory, “it is McBain’s voice as sure as a gun is a gun.”
“That it is,” said the gentleman referred to, entering the wigwam, accompanied by Ralph and Oscar, “and if I had known the door was only latched, it is in I would have been to shake you. Pretty pair of truants you are.”
“Indeed,” said Ralph, “we had almost given you up for lost, and a weary night of suspense we have had.”
You may be sure Oscar the Saint Bernard was not slow in expressing his delight at this reunion. Some large dogs are not demonstrative, but Oscar was an exception; he was not even content with simply leaping on Allan’s shoulders and half smothering him with caresses. No, this would not satisfy a dog of his stamp; he must let off the steam somehow, so he seized Allan’s hat, and next moment he was careering round and round among the forest trees, in a circle with a radius of about fifty yards, and at the rate of twenty knots an hour. Having thus relieved himself of his extra excitement, he returned to the hut, gave up the hat, and lay quietly down to look at his master.
“Yes,” said McBain, “but there was no good starting a search expedition last night, you know, so we left the yacht at daybreak and here we are.”
“And here we wouldn’t be,” added Ralph, “but for that honest dog.”
While they were talking, Seth returned with dog and gun, bearing on his shoulders a young doe, its eyes not yet glazed, so recently had it been shot.
“Well, gentlemen,” he said, throwing down his burden at the door, while Oscar ran out to say “How d’ye do?” to the mastiff, “I’m skivered. A kind o’ right down skivered.”
“Well,” said McBain smiling, “I trust it is a pleasant sensation.”
“Sensation?” said Seth, “here’s where the sensation lies. I go out to shoot a doe for breakfast, and when I come back, if I don’t find three more on ye. Seven of us and only one doe! But never mind, the old trapper’ll do his level utmost. But I say, though, seven of us to one doe. Well, I am skivered!”
When men of the world meet in foreign lands, especially in wild foreign forests, they can dispense with a deal of ceremony, and the old trapper was soon talking away as free-and-easily, and as merrily, with our travellers as if he had known them all his life.
But it would have done your heart good to have seen Seth preparing breakfast. He built a log fire outside the hut and placed an immense tripod over it; on this he hung an immense pot, all in gipsy-fashion. This was what Seth called the “dirty work.” That finished, this curious old trapper at once set about transforming himself into chef, first and foremost placing a basin and spoon handy for each of his visitors, not forgetting the dogs, and the former were surprised to see everything scrupulously clean. Seth retired for a few minutes with the deer, and in a surprisingly short time reappeared with a large wooden tray, containing evidently everything that would be required for the morning’s meal, and old Seth had divested himself of his coat and skin cap, and now wore an immense leathern apron, with a clean linen cap, while his sleeves were rolled up above the elbows.
Our heroes lay on the grass talking and laughing and looking lazily on, but enjoying the sight nevertheless. It was evidently a curry on a grand scale that Seth was going to give them, and he soon had about a dozen sliced onions simmering in fat; when they were enough done the doe’s flesh was added, and then Seth set about compounding his curry out of freshly-grated turmeric and many curious herbs. His pestle and mortar were rude but efficient. This was the longest part of the operation, and he had to pause often to take off the lid and stir up the flesh, and every time he did this the two dogs, who had sworn eternal friendship when first they met, must needs walk round to the lee side of the old trapper, and hold their heads high in the air to sniff the fragrant steam.
And now Seth added the goat’s milk, then the curry, and lastly the flour; after this he left the mess to simmer while he busied himself in preparations for dishing up. Our heroes were intensely hungry, but they were also intensely happy, and when hunger and happiness both go together, it is a sure sign that a man is in health.
“Well, I do declare,” said Ralph, passing his dish for the third if not the fourth time, “I don’t think I ever enjoyed a breakfast more in my life.”
“Nor I either; and fancy getting freshly-baked bread,” said Allan.
“And the drink,” said McBain, lifting a foaming mug to his lips, “what a glad surprise!”
Simple heather ale it was, reader, made from the heath-tops and sweetened with wild honey.
“And you tell us,” said McBain, “that you’ve been alone in this forest for twelve long years?”
“Not alone,” said Seth, pointing with his foot to the mastiff. “I had he, and his father and mother before him.”
“And you’re your own baker and brewer?”
“Blame me,” replied Seth, “if I ain’t my own everything, and bar a couple of journeys a year of a hundred odd miles to sell my furs, and buy powder and an old newspaper, I never sees a soul save the Yack Injuns. A little civilisation goes a long way with Seth.”
“I dare say,” says Rory, “you built your house yourself?”
“Shouldn’t wonder if I did,” said Seth. “And I cleared all the space you see around; I knocked the forest about a bit, I can tell you, gentlemen; the spruce pines that grow to the north and east of the wigwam are left on purpose for shelter, for in winter it does blow a bit here – ay, and snow a bit as well, and there is sometimes a week and more that old Seth can’t put his nose over the threshold. And that’s just the time, gentlemen, that I receives visitors, skiver ’em!”
“What, Indians?” asked Rory.
“Oh! no, sirree,” said the Yankee trapper; “’tain’t likely any Injun could live in a storm that Seth couldn’t stand. No, b’ars, sir, b’ars.”
“Ah! bears! yes, I see, and I suppose you give them a warm reception?”
Seth chuckled to himself as he replied, “Whatever I gives ’em, gentlemen, I serves it up hot. Then their skins come in handy for blankets and such, you see.”
“And the Indians – when do they pay you a visit?”
“After the first fall of snow,” said Seth – “soon as they can chivey along in their caribou sledges.”
“It must be grand fun,” said Allan, “that chiveying along, as you call it, in a caribou sledge.”
“It is,” said Seth, “when once you get used to it, and you have a deer you can trust. I remember the time when the Yacks knew nothing at all about training deer for the work. A party of Norwegians, in a tub of a walrus brig, got stranded round north here some years ago. Well, sir, the Injuns were going to kill every man Jack of them.”
“Savage are they, then?” said McBain. “Not a bit of it!” replied Seth; “they were going to kill them for fun, that was all!”
“Troth?” says Rory, “they must have a drop of the rale ould Oirish blood in them, these same Yacks?”
“They ain’t Yacks quite, though,” says Seth, “though I calls ’em so; they ain’t so indolent as a Yack; they are bigger, too, and a deal more treacherous.”
“Did they kill the poor fellows?” asked McBain. “Not a bit of it!” Seth replied. “Nary a one o’ them. Seth interceded. Though I say it,” continued the trapper, “as mebbe shouldn’t say it, and wouldn’t say it if there was anybody else to say it for me, Seth had some little influence with these wily blueskins – it ain’t red that they be, mind you, but blue. They’ll never forget the first taste of my temper they had. Plunket’s mother were livin’ then, and a fine dog she was, and so was Plunket himself, although not much more’n a year old. The old lady was left to keep the house one day, and Plunket and I went to look for caribou. When we returns in the evening I could tell at a glance the Injuns had been on to us. Everything was upside down; everything was taken away they could carry, and poor Ino was lying wounded and bleeding in a corner; the scoundrels had tomahawked her. You should have seen the way Plunket set his back up and ran round and round the place. But his turn didn’t come then for a bit. We just kept quiet for a few weeks, and nursed Ino back to life. We knew they’d return, and they did. Lying awake I was one morning, when I hears Plunket give a low growl. I knew something was up, so I kept the dogs still and waited to see what the next move would be. Half-an-hour and more passed, then a great brown bare arm stole in through the hole in the door-top; in the hand was a knife, which was moved across the leathern hinges. Gentlemen, Plunket had a mouthful of that arm ere ever you’d say ‘axe’! ‘Hold on, Plunket!’ I cried, and the good dog didn’t need two biddings, I can tell you; he stuck to his prisoner like grim Death to a dead nigger, until, with a bar and a rope, I had made sure the arm couldn’t be withdrawn. Well, you should have heard the yell that blueskin gave. But a louder yell than his rang all around the hut next minute, and I knew then, gentlemen, it was to be war to the knife-hilt. My windows are small, but the walls are strong, and I was safe enough for a bit. I fired through each shutter as a kind of warning to ’em; then I crept upstairs to the little garret and prepared to give them pepper! Fifteen I could count in all, armed with tomahawks and spears; fifteen, and Plunket’s prisoner. Sixteen in all, and only three of us! No use their trying to get in in an ordinary way, they soon gave up that game, and drew off and held a council. I didn’t want to begin the game of killing, gentlemen, or now I could have had three with one bullet. The conclusion they came to was to burn this old trapper out. But you see, gentlemen, this old trapper didn’t mean to be burnt out if he could help it. Shame on the wretches! they didn’t mind even burning the poor Injun who was fast to the door. Well, when they began to make the faggots, I just let them have it as hot as ever I could. It was my six-shooting rifle, and it didn’t seem a moment ere three had bit the dust, and a fourth, wounded, jumped over the ravine yonder. Well, after this it ’peared to me the fight just began in real earnest. They tried to scale the hut, and they tried to scale the trees. From both positions they came down faster than they went up. They threw their hatchets and they threw their spears, but, worse than all, they fired and threw their faggots. In that case, thinks I, it’s time I brought out my reserves, so, giving them one other rattling volley, I got down as quick as feet would take me. ‘Come, good dogs!’ I cried; ‘now to give them fits!’ Gentlemen, I was about as “mad” (a Yankeeism signifying angry) as ever I was in my life, and the dogs were madder, and the way I laid around me with my club when I got out must have been fine to see; but the way that mastiff went for them blueskins was finer. The field was all our own in five minutes; the garrison was unscathed, the enemy had six killed, and it must have taken the others weeks to mend their dog-holes.”
