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The Scarlet Hunter
by
The information had come somewhat suddenly, and McGann was the first to recover from the pleasant shock: “It’s divil a wink of sleep I’ll get this night, with the thought of them below there ripe for slaughter, and the tumble of fight in their beards.”
Pierre, with a meaning glance from his half-closed eyes, added: “But it is the old saying of the prairies that you do not shout dinner till you have your knife in the loaf. Your knife is not yet in the loaf, Shon McGann.”
The boom of the trampling ceased, and now there was a stirring in the snow-clad tree tops, and a sound as if all the birds of the North were flying overhead. The weather began to moan and the boles of the pines to quake. And then there came war,–a trouble out of the north, a wave of the breath of God to show inconsequent man that he who seeks to live by slaughter hath slaughter for his master.
They hung over the fire while the forest cracked round them, and the flame smarted with the flying snow. And now the trees, as if the elements were closing in on them, began to break close by, and one lurched forward towards them. Trafford, to avoid its stroke, stepped quickly aside right into the line of another which he did not see. Pierre sprang forward and swung him clear, but was himself struck senseless by an outreaching branch.
As if satisfied with this achievement, the storm began to subside. When Pierre recovered consciousness Trafford clasped his hand and said,–“You’ve a sharp eye, a quick thought, and a deft arm, comrade.”
“Ah, it was in the game. It is good play to assist your partner,” the half-breed replied sententiously. Through all, the Indian had remained stoical. But McGann, who swore by Trafford–as he had once sworn by another of the Trafford race–had his heart on his lips, and said:
“There’s a swate little cherub that sits up aloft,
Who cares for the soul of poor Jack!”
It was long after midnight ere they settled down again, with the wreck of the forest round them. Only the Indian slept; the others were alert and restless. They were up at daybreak, and on their way before sunrise, filled with desire for prey. They had not travelled far before they emerged upon a plateau. Around them were the hills of the Mighty Men–austere, majestic; at their feet was a vast valley on which the light newly-fallen snow had not hidden all the grass. Lonely and lofty, it was a world waiting chastely to be peopled! And now it was peopled, for there came from a cleft of the hills an army of buffaloes lounging slowly down the waste, with tossing manes and hoofs stirring the snow into a feathery scud.
The eyes of Trafford and McGann swam; Pierre’s face was troubled, and strangely enough he made the sign of the cross.
At that instant Trafford saw smoke issuing from a spot on the mountain opposite. He turned to the Indian: “Someone lives there”? he said.
“It is the home of the dead, but life is also there.”
“White man, or Indian?”
But no reply came. The Indian pointed instead to the buffalo rumbling down the valley. Trafford forgot the smoke, forgot everything except that splendid quarry. Shon was excited. “Sarpints alive,” he said, “look at the troops of thim! Is it standin’ here we are with our tongues in our cheeks, whin there’s bastes to be killed, and mate to be got, and the call to war on the ground below! Clap spurs with your heels, sez I, and down the side of the turf together and give ’em the teeth of our guns!” The Irishman dashed down the slope. In an instant, all followed, or at least Trafford thought all followed, swinging their guns across their saddles to be ready for this excellent foray. But while Pierre rode hard, it was at first without the fret of battle in him, and he smiled strangely, for he knew that the Indian had disappeared as they rode down the slope, though how and why he could not tell. There ran through his head tales chanted at camp-fires when he was not yet in stature so high as the loins that bore him. They rode hard, and yet they came no nearer to that flying herd straining on with white streaming breath and the surf of snow rising to their quarters. Mile upon mile, and yet they could not ride these monsters down!