The effect upon our trappers when they entered was sufficiently strong.
They gazed round in amazement, each giving vent to his feelings in his own peculiar exclamatory grunt, or gasp, or cough. In addition to this, Bounce smote his thigh with unwonted vigour. Gibault, after gazing for a few minutes, sighed out something that sounded like _magnifique_! and Bertram grinned from ear to ear. He went further: he laughed aloud--an impolite thing to do, in the circ.u.mstances, and, for a grave man like him, an unusual ebullition of feeling. But it was observed and noted that on this occasion the artist did not draw forth his sketch-book.
McLeod, who, from his speech and bearing, was evidently a man of some education, placed chairs for his visitors, took the lid off a large canister of tobacco, and, pushing it into the middle of the yellow table, said--
"Sit ye down, friends, and help yourselves."
He set them the example by taking down his own pipe from a nail in the wall, and proceeding to fill it. Having done so, he took a piece of glowing charcoal from the fire, and, placing it on the bowl, began to smoke, glancing the while, with an amused expression on his grave face, at the trappers, who, while filling their pipes, kept gazing round the walls and up at the ceiling.
"Ha!" said he, "you are struck with our hall (puff, puff). It"s rather (puff) an effective one (puff). Have a light?"
Bounce, to whom the light was offered, accepted the same, applied it to his pipe, and said--
"Well, yes (puff), it is (puff) raither wot ye may call (puff) pecooliar."
"Most visitors to this place think so," said McLeod. "The Indians highly approve of it, and deem me quite a marvel of artistic power."
"Wot! did _you_ paint it?" inquired Waller.
"I did," answered McLeod, with a nod.
"Vraiment, de Injuns am right in deir opinion of you," cried Gibault, relighting his pipe, which, in the astonished state of his mind, he had allowed to go out.
McLeod smiled, if we may so speak, _gravely_, in acknowledgment of the compliment.
"Ha!" cried Gibault, turning to Bertram as if a sudden thought had occurred to him, "Monsieur Bertram et Monsieur Mak Load, you be broders.
Oui, Monsieur Mak Load, dis mine comrade--him be von painteur."
"Indeed!" said McLeod, turning to the artist with more interest than he had yet shown towards the strangers.
"I have, indeed, the honour to follow the n.o.ble profession of painting,"
said Bertram, "but I cannot boast of having soared so high as--as--"
"As to attempt the frescoes on the ceiling of a reception hall in the backwoods," interrupted McLeod, laughing. "No, I believe you, sir; but, although I cannot presume to call you brother professionally, still I trust that I may do so as an amateur. I am delighted to see you here.
It is not often we are refreshed with the sight of the face of a civilised man in these wild regions."
"Upon my word, sir, you are plain-spoken," said March Marston with a look of affected indignation; "what do you call _us_?"
"Pardon me, young sir," replied McLeod, "I call you trappers, which means neither civilised nor savage; neither fish, nor flesh, nor fowl--"
"That"s a foul calumny," cried Bounce, knocking the ashes out of his pipe, and refilling it from the canister; "it"s wot may be called a-- a--"
"Lie," suggested Waller.
"No," said Bounce, "it ain"t that. I don"t like that word. It"s a ugly word, an" you shouldn"t ought to use it, Waller. It"s a _error_; that"s wot it is, in a feelosophical pint o" view. Jest as much of a error, now, as it was in you, Mister McLeod, putting so little baccy in this here thing that there ain"t none left."
"What! is it all done?" cried McLeod, rising, and seizing the canister; "so it is. I declare you smoke almost as fast as the Wild Man himself; for whom I mistook you, Mr Waller, when I saw you first, at some distance off."
Saying this, he left the room to fetch a further supply of the soothing weed, and at the same moment two squaws appeared, bearing smoking dishes of whitefish and venison.
"That fellow knows something about the Wild Man o" the West," said March Marston in a low, eager tone, to his comrades. "Twice has he mentioned his name since we arrived."
"So he has," observed Redhand, "but there may be other wild men besides our one."
"Unpossible," said Bounce emphatically.
"Ditto," cried Waller still more emphatically; "what say you, Hawkswing?"
"There is but one Wild Man of the West," replied the Indian.
"By the way, Hawkswing, what was the name o" the rascally trader you said was in charge o" this fort when you lived here?" asked Redhand.
"Mokgroggir," replied the Indian.
"Ha, Macgregor, ye mean, no doubt."
Hawkswing nodded.
"Here you are, friends," said McLeod, re-entering the room with a large roll of tobacco. "Help yourselves and don"t spare it. There"s plenty more where that came from. But I see the steaks are ready, so let us fall to; we can smoke afterwards."
During the repast, to which the trappers applied themselves with the gusto of hungry men, March Marston questioned McLeod about the Wild Man.
"The Wild Man o" the West," said he in some surprise; "is it possible there are trappers in the Rocky Mountains who have not heard of _him_?"
"Oh yes," said March hastily, "we"ve heard of him, but we want to hear more particularly about him, for the accounts don"t all agree."
"Ha! that"s it," said Bounce, speaking with difficulty through a large mouthful of fish, "that"s it. They don"t agree. One says his rifle is thirty feet long, another forty feet, an" so on. There"s no gittin" at truth in this here--"
A bone having stuck in Bounce"s throat at that moment he was unable to conclude the sentence.
"As to the length of his rifle," said McLeod, when the noise made by Bounce in partially choking had subsided, "you seem to have got rather wild notions about that, and about the Wild Man too, I see."
"But he _is_ a giant, isn"t he?" inquired March anxiously.
"N-not exactly. Certainly he is a big fellow, about the biggest man I ever saw--but he"s not forty feet high!"
March Marston"s romantic hopes began to sink. "Then he"s an ordinary man just like one o" us," he said almost gloomily.
"Nay, that he is not," returned McLeod, laughing. "Your comrade Waller does indeed approach to him somewhat in height, but he"s nothing to him in breadth; and as for ferocity, strength, and activity, I never saw anything like him in my life. He comes sometimes here to exchange his furs for powder and lead, but he"ll speak to no one, except in the sharpest, gruffest way. I think he"s mad myself. But he seems to lead a charmed life here; for although he has had fights with many of the tribes in these parts, he always puts them to flight, although he fights single-handed."
"Single-handed!" exclaimed Bounce in surprise.
"Ay. I"ve seen him at it myself, and can vouch for it, that if ever there was a born fiend let loose on this earth it"s the Wild Man of the West when he sets-to to thrash a dozen Indians. But I must do him the justice to say that I never heard of him making an unprovoked attack on anybody. When he first came to these mountains, many years ago--before I came here--the Indians used to wonder who he was and what he meant to do. Then after a while, seeing he had a good horse, a good rifle, and plenty of ammunition, they tried to kill him; but the first fellow that tried that only tried it once. He lay in a close thicket nigh to where the Wild Man used to pa.s.s from his home in the mountains to places where he used to hunt the elk and the buffalo, so, when he came up, the Indian laid an arrow on his bow. But the Wild Man"s eye was sharp as a needle.
He stopped his horse, took aim like a flash of lightning, and shot him through the head. I heard this from another Indian that was with the murderin" fellow that was shot. The Wild Man did nothing to the other.
He let him escape.
"Of course the relations of the man who was killed were up immediately, and twenty of them set out to murder the Wild Man. They took their horses, spears, and bows, with them, and lay in wait at a place where he was often seen pa.s.sing. Sure enough up he came, on horseback, at a slow walk, looking as careless and easy as if no blood of a redskin rested on his hand.
"It chanced the day before that day that we had run out of fresh meat, so Mr Macgregor, our commandant here, ordered me to take three of the men, and go out after the buffaloes. Away we went, looking sharp out, however, for some of the Indians had been treated by Macgregor so brutally, I am sorry to say, that we knew our scalps were not safe.
Next morning I happened to pa.s.s close by the place where the Indians lay in ambush, and we came to the top of a precipice that overlooked the spot. We saw them before they saw us, so we went quietly back into the bush, tied our horses to trees, and lay on the edge of the cliff to watch them.