The Big Otter - Robert Michael Ballantyne (most difficult books to read TXT) 📗

fire kindled, a couple of ptarmigan roasting and the tea-kettle bubbling, while the dogs in the background solaced themselves with raw birds to their heart's content.

Then the red-man and the white man smoked a friendly pipe. They would probably have smoked even if it had been an unfriendly pipe!

"I wonder," said Macnab, who was apt to become speculative and philosophical over his pipe after supper, "I wonder if dogs ever envy us our pipes? You look so comfortable, Big Otter, as you sit there with half-shut eyes letting the smoke trickle from your mouth and nose, that I can't help thinking they must feel envious. I'm sure that I should if I were not smoking!"

The Indian, who was neither a speculator nor a philosopher--though solemn enough for either or both--replied, "Waugh!"

"Very true," returned the Highlander, "I have no doubt your opinion is quite correct, though not as clearly put as might be wished. Have you ever been at Fort Dunregan?"

"Once when Big Otter was a little boy, he stood beside the Great River," answered the Indian, gravely; "but the white man had no tent there at that time."

"The white man has got some pretty big tents there now--made of wood most of 'em," returned Macnab. "In a few days you shall judge for yourself, if all goes well."

The red-man smoked over this remark in silence for a considerable time, evidently engaged in profound thought. He was one of those children of nature whose brains admit ideas slowly, and who, when they are admitted, turn them round and round and inside out without much apparent advantage.

At last he looked earnestly at his companion and asked--"Is there fire-water at Fort Dunregan?"

"Well, no--I believe not. At least there is none for red-men. Why do you ask? Did you ever taste fire-water?"

The Indian's dark eyes seem to gleam with unwonted light as he replied in tones more solemn than usual:--

"Yes. Once--only once--a white brother gave some fire-water to Big Otter."

"Humph!" ejaculated Macnab, "and what did you think of it!"

"Waugh!" exclaimed the red-man, sending a cloud out of his mouth with such energy that it seemed like a little cannon-shot, while he glared at his friend like a superannuated owl. "Big Otter thought that he was in the happy hunting-grounds with his fathers; his heart was so light and his limbs were so strong, but that was only a dream--he was still in this world. Then he took a little more fire-water, and the dream became a reality! He was away with his fathers on the shining plains; he chased the deer with the lightness of a boy and the strength of a bear. He fought, and his foes fell before his strong arm like snowflakes on the river, but he scalped them not. He could not find them--they were gone. Big Otter was so strong that he had knocked both their lives and bodies into the unknown! He saw his father and his mother--and--his wife and the little one who--died. But he could not speak to them, for the foes came back again, and he fought and took some more fire-water to make him fight better; then the world went on fire, the stars came down from the sky like snow when the wind is high. The Big Otter flew up into the air, and then--forgot--"

"Forgot what?" asked Macnab, much interested in his red friend's idea of intoxication.

"Forgot everything," replied the Indian, with a look of solemn perplexity.

"Well, I don't wonder; you must have had a good swig, apparently. How did ye feel next morning?"

If the Indian's looks were serious before, they became indescribably solemn now.

"Big Otter felt," he replied with bated breath, "like bags of shot-- heavy like the great stones. He could scarcely move; all his joints were stiff. Food was no longer pleasant to his tongue. When he tried to swallow, it would not remain, but came forth again. He felt a wish to drink up the river. His head had an evil spirit inside which squeezed the brain and tried to burst open the skull. His eyes, also, were swelled up so that he could hardly see, and his nose was two times more big than the day before."

"That must have been an awful size, Big Otter, considering the size of it by nature! And what d'ye think was the cause of it all?"

As this question involved thought, the Indian smoked his pipe in silence for some time, staring for inspiration into the fire.

"It must have been," he at length replied, "hunting with his fathers before the right time had come. Big Otter was not dead, and he chased the deer too much, perhaps, or fought too much. It may be that, having only his earth-body, he ate too much."

"Don't ye think it's just possible," suggested Macnab, "that, having only your earth-body, you _drank_ too much?"

"Waugh!" replied the red-man. Then, after a few minutes' devotion to the pipe, he added, "Big Otter would like very much to taste the fire-water again."

"It's well for you, my boy," returned the other, "that you can't get it in these regions, for if you could you'd soon be in the happy hunting-grounds (or the other place) without your earth-body."

At this point the Highlander became more earnest, and treated his companion to what would have passed in civilised lands for a fair temperance lecture, in which he sought to describe graphically the evils of strong drink. To this the Indian listened with the most intense attention and an owlish expression, making no audible comment whatever-- with the exception, now and then, of an emphatic "Waugh!" but indicating his interest by the working of his features and the glittering of his great eyes. Whether the reasoning of Macnab had much influence at that time could not be ascertained, for he was yet in the middle of one of his most graphic anecdotes when the Indian's owlish eyes shut with a suddenness that was quite startling, and he roused himself just in time to prevent his chin from dropping on his chest.

"Waugh!" he exclaimed with a slightly-confused look.

"Just so," replied Macnab with a laugh, "and now, boy, we'll turn in, for it strikes me we're going to have warmish weather, and if so, we shall have to make the most of our time."

Soon the blankets were spread; the fire was replenished with mighty logs; the travellers lay down side by side and in a few minutes snored in concert; the flames leaped upwards, and the sparks, entangling themselves on the snow-encrusted branches of bush and tree, gleamed there for an instant, or, escaping, flew gaily away into the wintry sky.

While the two men were sleeping, a change came over the scene--a slow, gentle, scarce perceptible change, which, however, had a powerful influence on the prospects of the sleepers. The sky became overcast; the temperature, which had been down at arctic depth for many months, suddenly rose to that of temperate climes, and snow began to fall--not in the small sharp particles to which the fur-traders of the great northern wilderness are accustomed, but in the broad, heavy flakes that one often sees in England. Softly, silently, gently they fell, like the descent of a sweet influence--but steadily, persistently, continuously, until every object in nature became smothered in the soft white garment. Among other objects the two sleepers were buried.

The snow began by powdering them over. Had any one been there to observe the process, he would have seen by the bright light of the camp-fire that the green blankets in which they were wrapt became piebald first; then assumed a greyish-green colour, which speedily changed into a greenish-grey, and finally into a pure white. The two sleepers might thus have represented those figures in chiselled marble on the tombs of crusaders, had it not been that they lay doubled up, for warmth--perhaps also for comfort--with their knees at their chins, instead of flat on their backs with their hands pressed together. By degrees the correct outline of their forms became an incorrect outline, and gradually more and more rotund--suggesting the idea that the buried ones were fat.

As the night wore on the snow accumulated on them until it lay several inches deep. Still they moved not. Strong, tired and healthy men are not easily moved. The fire of course sank by degrees until it reached that point where it failed to melt the snow; then it was quickly smothered out and covered over. The entire camp was also buried; the tin kettle being capped with a knob peculiarly its own, and the snow-shoes and other implements having each their appropriate outline, while some hundredweights, if not tons, of the white drapery gathered on the branches overhead. It was altogether an overwhelming state of things, and the only evidence of life in all the scene was the little hole in front of each slumberer's nose, out of which issued intermittent pufflets of white vapour.

So the night passed by and the morning dawned, and the wintry sun arose like a red-hot cannon ball. Then Macnab awoke with a start and sat up with an effort.

"Hallo!" was his first exclamation, as he tried to clear his eyes, then he muttered something in Gaelic which, being incomprehensible, I cannot translate, although the worthy man has many a time, since the day of which I write, tried to explain it to me!

It may have been his action, or it may have been indignant northern fairies, I know not, but certain it is that the Gaelic was instantly followed by an avalanche of snow from the branch over the Highlander's head, which knocked him down and reburied him. It also knocked Big Otter up and drew forth the inevitable "Waugh!"

"Humph!" said Macnab, on clearing himself a second time, "I was half afraid of this. We've got our work cut out for us."

The Indian replied not, but proceeded to light the fire and prepare breakfast, while his companion cleared the camp of some of its snow. The wolfish dogs took a lively interest in these proceedings, but lent no assistance beyond wagging their tails, either in approval or in anticipation of breakfast.

Of course breakfast was a repetition of the previous supper, and was soon disposed of both by men and dogs. Then the latter were harnessed to their sledge, the snow-shoes were put on, and the journey was resumed--Macnab manfully leading the way.

And let not the reader imagine that this leadership involved little or no manhood. Northern snow-shoes are about five feet long, and twelve or fifteen inches broad. The netting with which the frames are filled up-- somewhat like the bottom of a cane chair--allows fine well-frozen snow to fall through it like dust and the traveller, sinking it may be only a few inches in old well-settled-down snow, progresses with ease. But when a heavy fall such as I have described takes place, especially in spring, and the weather grows comparatively warm, the traveller's circumstances change greatly for the worse. The new snow being light permits him to sink deep into it--perhaps eight or ten inches--at every step; being also soft, that which falls upon the shoes cannot pass through the netting, but sticks there, giving him many extra pounds weight to lift as he goes heavily