The Buffalo Runners - Robert Michael Ballantyne (read aloud .txt) 📗

his food and lodging. Isn't it generous of him?"

"Do you know why he is going to serve him for nothing?" asked Elspie, with a quick look and smile.

"No--I do not," returned fair little Elise with an innocent look. "Do you?"

"O no--of course I don't; I can only guess," replied her companion with a light laugh. "Perhaps it is because he knows his services as a farm servant can't be worth much at first."

"There you are wrong," returned Elise, stoutly. "No doubt he is ignorant, as yet, about sowing and reaping and the like, but he is wonderfully strong--just like a giant at lifting and carrying-and he has become quite knowing about horses, and carting, and such things. All that he stipulates for is that he shall board in our house. He says he'll manage, somehow, to make enough money to buy all the clothes he wants."

"What a delightful kind of servant," said Elspie, with an arch look, which was quite thrown away on Elise, "and so disinterested to do it without any reason."

"O! but he must have some reason, you know," rejoined Elise. "I shouldn't wonder if it was out of gratitude to my brother who was very kind to him--so he says--the first time they met."

"Did he say that was his reason?" asked Elspie quickly.

"No, he did not say so, but he has said more than once that he feels very grateful to my brother, and it has just occurred to me that that may be his reason. It would be very natural--wouldn't it?"

"Oh, very natural!--very!" returned the other. "But d'you know, Elise, I don't like your brother's plan at all."

"No! why?"

"Because, don't you see, foolish girl, that it will take you away from me? You will, of course, want to keep house for your brother, and I have become so used to you, short though our intercourse has been, that I don't see how I can get on at all without you?"

"Never mind, Elspie, dear. It will be a long while before Andre is ready to take the farm. Besides, by that time, you know, you and Dan will be married, so you won't miss me much--though I confess I should like you to miss me a little."

Elspie sighed at this point. "I suspect that our marriage will not be so soon as you think, Elise," she said. "Dan has tried to arrange it more than once, but there seems to be a fate against it, for something _always_ comes in the way!"

"Surely nothing will happen this time," said the sympathetic Elise. "Everything begins to prosper now. The crops are beautiful; the weather is splendid; the house is ready to begin to--all the logs are cut and squared. Your father is quite willing, and Dan wishing for the day-- what more could you desire, Elspie?"

"Nothing; all seems well, but--" She finished the sentence with another sigh.

While the two friends were thus conversing in the dairy, old McKay and Dan Davidson were talking on the same subject in the hall of Ben Nevis.

"It iss a curious fact, Taniel," said the old man, with a pleased look, "that it wass in this fery room in the old hoose that wass burnt, and about the same time of the year, too, that you would be speakin' to me about this fery thing. An' I do not think that we will be troubled this time wi' the Nor'-Westers, whatever--though wan never knows what a tay may bring furth."

"That is the very reason, sir," said Davidson, "that I want to get married at once, so that if anything does happen again I may claim the right to be Elspie's protector."

"Quite right, my boy, quite right; though I must say I would like to wait till a real munister comes out; for although Mr Sutherland iss a fery goot man, an' an elder too, he iss not chust exactly a munister, you know, as I have said before. But have it your own way, Tan. If my little lass is willin', old Tuncan McKay won't stand in your way."

That night the inhabitants of Red River lay down to sleep in comfort and to dream, perchance, of the coming, though long delayed, prosperity that had hitherto so often eluded their grasp.

Next day an event occurred which gave the poor settlers new cause for grief amounting almost to despair.

Dan Davidson and Elspie were walking on the verandah in front of Ben Nevis at the time. It was a warm sunny afternoon. All around looked the picture of peace and prosperity.

"Does it not seem, Dan, as if all the troubles we have gone through were a dark dream--as if there never had been any reality in them?" said Elspie.

"It does indeed seem so," responded Dan, "and I hope and trust that we shall henceforth be able to think of them as nothing more than a troubled dream."

"What iss that you will be sayin' about troubled dreams?" asked old McKay, coming out of the house at the moment.

"We were just saying, daddy, that all our troubles seem--"

"Look yonder, Tan," interrupted the old man, pointing with his pipe-stem to a certain part of the heavens. "What iss it that I see? A queer cloud, whatever! I don't remember seein' such a solid cloud as that in all my experience."

"It is indeed queer. I hope it's not what Fred Jenkins would call a `squall brewin' up,' for that wouldn't improve the crops."

"A squall!" exclaimed Jenkins, who chanced to come round the corner of the house at the moment, with a spade on his shoulder. "That's never a squall--no, nor a gale, nor a simoon, nor anything else o' the sort that I ever heard of. Why, it's growin' bigger an' bigger!"

He shaded his eyes with his hand, and looked earnestly at the object in question, which did indeed resemble a very dense, yet not a black, cloud. For some moments the four spectators gazed in silence. Then old McKay suddenly dropped his pipe, and looked at Dan with an expression of intense solemnity.

"It iss my belief," he said in a hoarse whisper, "that it is them wee deevils the grasshoppers!"

A very few minutes proved old McKay's surmise to be correct. Once before, the colony had been devastated by this plague, and the memory of the result was enough to alarm the most courageous among the settlers who had experienced the calamity, though the new arrivals, being ignorant, were disposed to regard the visitation lightly at first. McKay himself became greatly excited when the air became darkened by the cloud, which, ever increasing in size, rapidly approached.

"Haste ye, lads," he cried to some of the farm-servants who had joined the group on the verandah, "get your spades, picks, an' shovels. Be smart now: it is not possible to save all the crops, but we may try to save the garden, whatever. Follow me!"

The garden referred to was not large or of great importance, but it was a favourite hobby of the Highlander, and, at the time, was in full bloom, luxuriant with fruit, flower, and vegetable. To save it from destruction at such a time, McKay would have given almost anything, and have gone almost any lengths. On this occasion, not knowing what to do, yet impelled by his eagerness to do something, he adopted measures that he had heard of as being used in other lands. He ordered a trench to be cut and filled with water on the side of his garden nearest the approaching plague, which might--if thoroughly carried out--have been of some use against wingless grasshoppers but could be of no use whatever against a flying foe. It would have taken an army of men to carry out such an order promptly, and his men perceived this; but the master was so energetic, so violent in throwing off his coat and working with his own hand at pick and shovel, that they were irresistibly infected with his enthusiasm, and set to work.

Old Duncan, did not, however, wield pick or shovel long. He was too excited for that. He changed from one thing to another rapidly. Fires were to be kindled along the line of defence, and he set the example in this also. Then he remembered that blankets and other drapery had been used somewhere with great effect in beating back the foe; therefore he shouted wildly for his daughter and Elise Morel.

"Here we are, father: what can we do?"

"Go, fetch out all the blankets, sheets, table-cloths, an' towels in the house, girls. It iss neck or nothin' this tay. Be smart, now! Take men to help ye."

Two men were very busy there piling up little heaps of firewood, namely, Dan Davidson and Fred Jenkins. What more natural than that these two, on hearing the order given about blankets and table-cloths, etcetera, should quit the fires and follow Elspie and Elise into the house!

In the first bedroom into which they entered they found Archie and Billie Sinclair, the latter seated comfortably in an arm-chair close to a window, the former wild with delight at the sudden demand on all his energies. For Archie had been one of the first to leap to the work when old McKay gave the order. Then he had suddenly recollected his little helpless brother, and had dashed round to Prairie Cottage, got him on his back, run with him to Ben Nevis Hall, placed him as we have seen in a position to view the field of battle, and then, advising him to sit quietly there and enjoy the fun, had dashed down-stairs to resume his place in the forefront of battle!

He had run up again for a moment to inquire how Little Bill was getting on, when the blanket and sheet searchers found them.

"All right," he exclaimed, on learning what they came for; "here you are. Look alive! Don't stir, Little Bill!"

He hurled the bedding from a neighbouring bedstead as he spoke, tore several blankets from the heap, and tumbled rather than ran down-stairs with them, while the friends he had left behind followed his example.

By that time all the inmates and farm-servants of Prairie Cottage had assembled at Ben Nevis Hall, attracted either by sympathy or curiosity as to the amazing fracas which old McKay was creating. Of course they entered into the spirit of the preparations, so that when the enemy at last descended on them they found the garrison ready. But the defenders might as well have remained quiet and gone to their beds.

Night was drawing near at the time, and was, as it were, precipitated by the grasshoppers, which darkened the whole sky with what appeared to be a heavy shower of snow.

The fires were lighted, water was poured into the trench, and the two households fought with blanket, sheet, counterpane, and towel, in a manner that proved the courage of the ancient heroes to be still slumbering in men and women of modern days.

But what could courage do against such overwhelming odds? Thousands were slaughtered. Millions pressed on behind.

"Don't give in, lads," cried the heroic and desperate Highlander, wielding a great green blanket in a way that might have roused