The Wild Man of the West Part 38

"Think he's dead?" repeated d.i.c.k slowly. "An' why not? My poor friend that was killed when he left his native place swore he'd never go back, an' no more he did--no more he did; though he little thought that death would step in so soon to make him keep his word."

"Was Louis your friend who died?" inquired March with much interest and not a little pity, for he observed that his companion was deeply affected.

d.i.c.k did not reply. His thoughts seemed to be wandering again, so March forbore to interrupt him, and, turning to Mary, said in a more cheerful tone--

"Whether would ye like to go to Pine Point settlement and stay with my mother, or that I should come here and spend the winter with you and d.i.c.k?"

Mary looked puzzled, and after some moments' consideration replied, "Me don't know." Then, looking up quickly, she added, "Which _you_ like?"

"Indeed, I must make the same reply, Mary--'I don't know.' But, as I can't expect my friend d.i.c.k to give up his wild life, I suppose I must make up my mind to come here."

"March," said d.i.c.k quickly, "I've changed my mind, lad. It won't do.

You'll have to spend next winter at home--anyhow ye can't spend it with me."

Had a thunderbolt struck the earth between March and Mary, they would not have been filled with half so much consternation as they were on hearing these words. It was plain that both had thoroughly made up their minds that they were to be together for many months to come. d.i.c.k noted the effect of his remark, and a peculiar frown crossed his countenance for a moment, but it gave place to a smile, as he said--

"I'm sorry to disappoint ye, lad, but the thing cannot be."

"Cannot be!" repeated March in a tone of exasperation, for he felt that this was an unwarrantable piece of caprice on the part of his friend; "surely you don't claim to be chief of the Rocky Mountains! If I choose to come an' spend the winter in this region, you have no right to prevent me. And if I offer to bring you furs and venison, besides pretty good company, will ye be such a surly knave as to refuse me a corner of your cave?"

"Nay, lad. Right welcome would ye be, with or without furs or venison; but I mean to leave the cave--to quit this part of the country altogether. The fact is, I'm tired of it, an' want a change."

"Very good, all right, an' what's to hinder my going with you? I'm fond o' change myself. I'd as soon go one way as another."

d.i.c.k shook his head. "It's o' no use, March, I've my own reasons for desirin' to travel alone. The thing cannot be."

This was said in such a decided tone that March looked at Mary in dismay. He gathered no consolation from her countenance, however.

"March," said d.i.c.k firmly, "I'm sorry to grieve ye, lad, but it can't be helped. All I can say is, that if ye choose to come back here next summer you'll be heartily welcome, and I'll engage that ye'll find me here; but I'm quite sartin' ye won't want to come."

"Won't want to come! I'll bet ye a hundred thousand million dollars I'll want to come, ay, and _will_ come," cried March.

"Done!" said d.i.c.k, seizing the youth's hand, "an' Mary's a witness to the wager."

It is needless to say that the conversation did not rest here. The greater part of that night, and during great part of the week that March remained there, he continued to press the Wild Man of the West to alter his purpose, but without avail. Each day he pa.s.sed with his comrades, hunting and trapping, and each night he bade them adieu and returned to sup and sleep in the cave, and, of course, persecuted d.i.c.k all that time; but d.i.c.k was immovable.

Of course, the trappers renewed their attempts to get March to show them d.i.c.k's abode, but he persistently refused, and they were too good-natured to annoy him, and too honest to follow his trail, which they might easily have done, had they been so disposed.

At last the time arrived when it became necessary that the trappers should return to Pine Point settlement. In the midst of all their alarms and fights they had found time to do, what Big Waller termed, a "pretty considerable stroke o' business." That is to say, they had killed a large number of fur-bearing animals by means of trap, snare, and gun, so that they were in a position to return home with a heavy load of valuable skins. The day of their departure was therefore arranged, and March, mounting his steed, galloped, for the last time, and with a heavy heart, towards the cave of his friend d.i.c.k.

As he pa.s.sed rapidly over the wild country, and entered the gloomy recesses that surrounded the Wild Man's home, he thought over the arguments and persuasive speeches with which he meant to make a last and, he still hoped, successful appeal. But March might have spared himself the trouble of all this thought, for when he reached the cave d.i.c.k was absent. This grieved, him deeply, because every preparation had been made by his companions for starting on their homeward journey that evening, so that he had no time to spare.

Mary, was at home, however, so March felt a little consoled, and, seating himself in his wonted place beside the fire, he said--

"When will d.i.c.k be home, Mary?"

"Me no can know 'xactly. To-morray hims say, perhaps."

"Then it's all up," sighed March, leaning recklessly back against the wall; "all up! I'm off to-night, so I'll not be able to spend the winter with you after all."

Had Mary burst into tears on hearing this, March would have felt satisfied. Had she groaned or sobbed, or even sighed, he would have experienced some degree of relief to his annoyed and disappointed spirit, but when Mary, instead of any such demonstration, hung down her head so that the heavy ma.s.ses of her soft brown hair hid her pretty face and said in a tone which March fancied was not very genuine, "What a pity!" he became extremely exasperated, and deemed himself ill-used.

During the half-hour that succeeded he endeavoured to converse in a pleasant tone of voice, but without success. At last he rose to go.

"Must you go 'way dis night?" said Mary with a look of concern.

"Ay, Mary, an' it's not much matter, for ye don't seem to care."

The girl looked at him reproachfully, "You is not please' with me, March--why?"

The question puzzled the youth. He certainly was displeased, but he could not make up his mind to say that he was so because Mary had not fallen into a state of violent grief at the prospect of a separation.

But the anxious gaze of Mary's truthful blue eyes was too much for him-- he suddenly grasped both her hands, and, kissing her forehead, said--

"Mary dear, I'm not displeased. I'm only sorry, and sad, and annoyed, and miserable--very miserable--I can scarcely tell why. I suppose I'm not well, or I'm cross, or something or other. But this I know, Mary, d.i.c.k has invited me to come back to see him next year, and I certainly shall come if life and limb hold out till then."

Mary's eyes filled with tears, and as she smiled through them, March, being very near her face, beheld in each eye an excessively miniature portrait of himself gazing out at him lovingly.

"Perhaps!" faltered Mary, "you no want for come when it be nixt year."

Poor March was overwhelmed again, absolutely disgusted, that _she_ could entertain a doubt upon that point!

"We shall see," he cried with a sudden impulse, pressing his lips again to her forehead. "May the Great Spirit bless and keep you! Good-bye, Mary--till next spring."

March burst away from her, rushed out of the cave in a tumult of conflicting feelings and great resolves, and despite a little stiffness that still remained to remind him of his late accident, flung himself into the saddle with a bound that would have done credit to the Wild Man himself, and galloped down the rocky gorge at a pace that threatened a sudden and total smash to horse and man. Had any of his old comrades or friends witnessed that burst, they would certainly have said that March Marston was mad--madder, perhaps, than the most obstreperous March hare that ever marched madly through the wild regions of insanity.

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR.

MARCH MARSTON AT HOME--HIS ASTONIs.h.i.+NG BEHAVIOUR--NARRATION OF HIS EXTRAORDINARY ADVENTURES--WIDOW MARSTON'S BOWER--THE RENDEZVOUS OF THE TRAPPERS--A STRANGE INTERRUPTION TO MARCH'S NARRATIVE--A WILD SURPRISE AND RECOVERY OF A LOST LOVER--GREAT DESTRUCTION OF HOUSEHOLD GOODS--A DOUBLE WEDDING AND TREMENDOUS EXCITEMENT--THE WILD MAN OF THE WEST THE WISEST MAN IN PINE POINT SETTLEMENT.

Three months pa.s.sed away, and at the end of that period March Marston found himself back again in Pine Point settlement, sitting on a low stool at that fireside where the yelling and kicking days of his infancy had been spent, and looking up in the face of that buxom, blue-eyed mother, with whom he had been wont to hold philosophical converse in regard to fighting and other knotty--not to say naughty--questions, in those bright but stormy days of childhood when he stood exactly "two-foot-ten," and when he looked and felt as if he stood upwards of ten feet two!

Three months pa.s.sed away, and during the pa.s.sage of that period March Marston's bosom became a theatre in which, unseen by the naked eye, were a legion of spirits, good, middling, and bad, among whom were hope, fear, despair, joy, fun, delight, interest, surprise, mischief, exasperation, and a military demon named General Jollity, who overbore and browbeat all the rest by turns. These scampered through his brain and tore up his heart and tumbled about in his throat and lungs, and maintained a furious harlequinade, and in short behaved in a way that was quite disgraceful, and that caused the poor young man alternately to amuse, annoy, astonish, and stun his comrades, who beheld the exterior results of those private theatricals, but had no conception of the terrific combats that took place so frequently on the stage within.

During those three months, March saw many things. He saw his old friends the prairie dogs, and the p.r.o.ng-horned antelopes, and the grisly bears, and the wolves; more than that, he chased, and shot, and ate many of them. He also saw clouds of locusts flying high in the air, so thick that they sometimes darkened the very sky, and herds of buffaloes so large that they often darkened the whole plain.

During those three months March learned a good deal. He learned that there was much more of every sort of thing in this world than he had had any idea of--that there was much, very much, to be thankful for--that there were many, very many, things to be grieved for, and many also to be glad about--that the fields of knowledge were inimitably large, and that his own individual acquirements were preposterously, humblingly small!

He thought much, too. He thought of the past, present, and future in quite a surprising way. He thought of his mother and her loneliness, of d.i.c.k and his obstinacy, of Mary and her sweetness, of the Wild Man of the West and his invisibility. When this latter thought arose, it had the effect invariably of rousing within him demon Despair; also General Jollity, for the general had a particular spite against that demon, and, whenever he showed symptoms of vitality, attacked him with a species of frenzy that was quite dreadful to feel, and the outward manifestations of which were such as to cause the trappers to fear seriously that the poor youth had "gone out of his mind," as they expressed it. But they were wrong--quite wrong--it was only the natural consequence of those demons and sprites having gone into his mind, where they were behaving themselves--as Bounce, when March made him his confidant, said--with "horrible obstropolosity."

Well, as we have said, March was seated on a low stool, looking up in his mother's face. He had already been three days at home, and, during every spare minute he had he sat himself down on the same stool, and went on with his interminable narrations of the extraordinary adventures through which he had pa.s.sed while among the Rocky Mountains and out upon the great prairies.

Widow Marston--for she knew that she was a widow now, though the knowledge added but little to the feeling of widowhood to which she had been doomed for so many years--widow Marston, we say, listened to this interminable narration with untiring patience and unmitigated pleasure.

There was as yet no symptom of the narrative drawing to a close, neither was there the slightest evidence of the widow Marston becoming wearied.

We have seen a cat worried and pulled and poked by its kitten almost beyond endurance, and we have observed that the cat endured it meekly-- nay, evidently rejoiced in the annoyance: it was pleasurable pain. As it is with feline, so is it with human mothers. Their love overbears and outweighs _everything_. Ah! good cause have the rugged males of this world to rejoice that such is the fact; and although they know it well, we hold that it is calculated to improve the health and refresh the spirit of men to have that fact brought prominently and pointedly to their remembrance!

Had March Marston talked the most unutterable balderdash, widow Marston would have listened with unwearied delight as long, we believe, as her eyes and ears could do their duty. But March did _not_ talk balderdash.

For a madman, he spoke a great deal of common, besides a considerable amount of uncommon sense, and his mother listened with intelligent interest: commenting on what he said in her quiet way, as she found opportunity--we say this advisedly, for opportunities were not so frequent as one might suppose. March had always been possessed of a glib tongue, and he seemed, as Bounce remarked, to have oiled the hinges since his return to Pine Point settlement.