The Buffalo Runners | Page 2

snow-clad plains, and Davidson had left his affianced bride.
The buffalo-hunt had failed that year; winter had set in with unwonted severity and earlier than usual. The hunters, with the women and children who followed them in carts to help and to reap the benefit of the hunt, were starving. Their horses died or were frozen to death; carts were snowed up; and the starving hunters had been scattered in making the best of their way back to the Settlement of Red River from which they had started.
When old McKay broke down, and his only daughter Elspie had firmly asserted her determination to remain and die with him, Fergus McKay and Daniel Davidson felt themselves to be put upon their mettle--called on to face a difficulty of the most appalling nature. To remain on the snow-clad prairie without food or shelter would be death to all, for there was no living creature there to be shot or trapped. On the other hand, to travel a hundred miles or so on foot--and without food, seemed an impossibility. Love, however, ignores the impossible! The two young men resolved on the attempt. They were pretty well aware of the extent of their physical powers. They would put them fairly to the test for once--even though for the last time! They prepared for the old man and his daughter a shelter in the heart of a clump of willows, near to which spot they had found a group of the hapless hunters already dead and frozen.
Here, as far from the frozen group as possible, they made an encampment by digging down through the snow till the ground was reached. As much dried wood as could be found was collected, and a fire made. The young men left their blankets behind, and, of the small quantity of provisions that remained, they took just sufficient to sustain life. Then, with cheery words of encouragement, they said good-bye, and set out on their journey to the Settlement for help.
The object at which they aimed was almost gained at the point when we introduce them to the reader.
"Taniel!" said Fergus, coming to a sudden halt.
"Well?" exclaimed the other.
"It iss sleepy that I am. Maybe if I wass to lie down--"
He ceased to speak. Davidson looked anxiously into his face, and saw that he had already begun to give way to irresistible drowsiness. Without a moment's hesitation he seized the Highlander by the throat, and shook him as if he had been a mere baby.
"Iss it for fightin' ye are?" said Fergus, whose good-nature was not proof against such rough and unexpected treatment.
"Yes, my boy, that's just what I am for, and I think you'll get the worst of it too."
"What iss that you say? Ay, ay! You will hev to bend your back then, Taniel, for it iss not every wan that can give Fergus McKay the worst of it!"
Davidson made no reply, but gave his comrade a shake so violent that it put to flight the last vestige of his good-humour and induced him to struggle so fiercely that in a few minutes the drowsiness was also, and effectually, driven away.
"You'll do now," said Davidson, relaxing his grip and panting somewhat.
"Ay, Taniel, I will be doin' now. An' you're a frund in need whatever," returned the restored Highlander with a smile of appreciation.
About an hour later the travellers again stopped. This time it was Davidson who called a halt.
"Fergus," he said, "we have been successful so far, thank God. But we must part here. Half-an-hour will take me to my father's house, and I want you to go down to the hut of Francois La Certe; it is nearer than our house, you know--and get him to help you."
"Surely, Tan, that will be wasted time," objected the Highlander. "Of all the lazy useless scamps in Rud Ruver, Francois La Certe iss the laziest an' most useless."
"Useful enough for our purpose, however," returned Davidson. "Send him up to Fort Garry with a message, while you lie down and rest. If you don't rest, you will yourself be useless in a short time. La Certe is not such a bad fellow as people think him, specially when his feelings are touched."
"That may be as you say, Tan. I will try--whatever."
So saying, the two men parted and hurried on their several ways.
CHAPTER TWO.
A LAZY COUPLE DESCRIBED--AND ROUSED.
Francois La Certe was seated on the floor of his hut smoking a long clay pipe beside an open wood fire when Fergus McKay approached. His wife was seated beside him calmly smoking a shorter pipe with obvious enjoyment.
The man was a Canadian half-breed. His wife was an Indian woman. They were both moderately young and well matched, for they thoroughly agreed in everything conceivable--or otherwise. In the length and breadth of the Settlement there