Fort Desolation

Fort Desolation, by R.M.
Ballantyne

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Title: Fort Desolation Red Indians and Fur Traders of Rupert's Land
Author: R.M. Ballantyne
Release Date: June 7, 2007 [EBook #21732]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
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DESOLATION ***

Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England

FORT DESOLATION, BY R.M. BALLANTYNE.
CHAPTER ONE.
OR, SOLITUDE IN THE WILDERNESS.

THE OUTSKIRTER.
To some minds solitude is depressing, to others it is congenial. It was
the former to our friend John Robinson; yet he had a large share of it in
his chequered life. John--more familiarly known as Jack--was as
romantic as his name was the reverse. To look at him you would have
supposed that he was the most ordinary of common-place men, but if
you had known him, as we did, you would have discovered that there
was a deep, silent, but ever-flowing river of enthusiasm, energy,
fervour--in a word, romance--in his soul, which seldom or never
manifested itself in words, and only now and then, on rare occasions,
flashed out in a lightning glance, or blazed up in a fiery countenance.
For the most part Jack was calm as a mill-pond, deep as the Atlantic,
straightforward and grave as an undertaker's clerk and good-humoured
as an unspoilt and healthy child.
Jack never made a joke, but, certes, he could enjoy one; and he had a
way of showing his enjoyment by a twinkle in his blue eye and a
chuckle in his throat that was peculiarly impressive.
Jack was a type of a large class. He was what we may call an outskirter
of the world. He was one of those who, from the force of necessity, or
of self-will, or of circumstances, are driven to the outer circle of this
world to do as Adam and Eve's family did, battle with Nature in her
wildest scenes and moods; to earn his bread, literally, in the sweat of
his brow.
Jack was a middle-sized man of strong make. He was not sufficiently
large to overawe men by his size, neither was he so small as to invite
impertinence from "big bullies," of whom there were plenty in his
neighbourhood. In short, being an unpretending man and a plain man,
with a good nose and large chin and sandy hair, he was not usually
taken much notice of by strangers during his journeyings in the world;
but when vigorous action in cases of emergency was required Jack
Robinson was the man to make himself conspicuous.
It is not our intention to give an account of Jack's adventurous life from
beginning to end, but to detail the incidents of a sojourn of two months

at Fort Desolation, in almost utter solitude, in order to show one of the
many phases of rough life to which outskirters are frequently subjected.
In regard to his early life it may be sufficient to say that Jack, after
being born, created such perpetual disturbance and storm in the house
that his worthy father came to look upon him as a perfect pest, and as
soon as possible sent him to a public school, where he fought like a
Mameluke Bey, learned his lessons with the zeal of a philosopher, and,
at the end of ten years ran away to sea, where he became as sick as a
dog and as miserable as a convicted felon.
Poor Jack was honest of heart and generous of spirit, but many a long
hard year did he spend in the rugged parts of the earth ere he recovered,
(if he ever did recover), from the evil effects of this first false step.
In course of time Jack was landed in Canada, with only a few shillings
in his pocket; from that period he became an outskirter. The romance in
his nature pointed to the backwoods; he went thither at once, and was
not disappointed. At first the wild life surpassed his expectations, but as
time wore on the tinsel began to wear off the face of things, and he
came to see them as they actually were. Nevertheless, the romance of
life did not wear out of his constitution. Enthusiasm, quiet but deep,
stuck to him all through his career, and carried him on and over
difficulties that would have disgusted and turned back many a colder
spirit.
Jack's first success was the obtaining of a situation as clerk in the store
of a general merchant in an outskirt settlement of