Chapter Twenty.
Part VIII—The Backwoods.
Rounding Cape Horn—Storm and Tempest—San Francisco—Guides for the Backwoods—The Group around the Camp-fire—A Wild Hunter’s Story.
Two months after the adventures related in last chapter, our wandering trio of friends found themselves bivouacked in one of the forests of the far West, just as the shades of evening were beginning to deepen into night. They had bade adieu to kind-hearted Captain Lyell at Monte Video, finding a passage in an American ship to San Francisco. Heavy weather had been experienced while rounding the Horn, weather that put them in mind of the old days up north in the ice-fields: strong head-winds snow-laden, against which they could scarcely stand, far less walk; tempestuous grey seas, foam-fringed, that often broke aboard of them with sullen roar, or went hurrying astern with an angry growl, like a wild beast disappointed in its prey. But the good barque had borne herself well. And when at length her head was fairly north, clouds, and gloom, and storm fled away; the sun shone down on a sea of rippling blue; reefs were shaken out, stu’n’sails set alow and aloft; and in a few weeks they were safely at anchor not far off that busy world’s mart, that mighty mushroom city called San Francisco. Here they had lazed for a whole week, then wended their way towards the wilderness. Yet am I loth to call it a wilderness, this beautiful tract of country in which they now found themselves. Savage and wild it was; its woods more often rang with the war-whoop of the Indian, or the roar of the grizzly bear, than echoed to the sound of the white roan’s rifle; savage in all conscience. But no one who has not wandered in its great and interminable forests, roamed over its mountains, or embarked on its thousand and one rivers and lakes, could imagine that such sublime scenery could exist anywhere out of a poet’s dream or an artist’s fancy.
Now, although as the historian of their adventures, I am quite willing to admit that our heroes were, after nearly three years of wandering and hair-breadth ’scapes, and adventures in almost every land the sun shines upon, both good travellers and sportsmen in the true sense of the word, still, I think, it was lucky for them they met with two experienced hunters, who consented to guide them on their expedition to the northern backwoods of America. They met them, as they had met Lyell, at a table d’hôte, in the Palace Hotel in San Francisco; and in a few days a friendship was cemented between them, which none of the party had ever reason to repent of, because they were men of the world.
And here we have the five of them, mostly intent on the preparation of the evening meal. Lyell is cook to-night; and he evidently cooks from no badly-stored larder. Yonder hangs a lordly deer; wild-fowl they have in prolusion; and in a short time they will, doubtless, enjoy their al fresco dinner as only sportsmen can.
Dugald McArthur, one of their pioneers, is standing with his arms folded, and his brawny shoulders leant against a tree, while honest John Travers is carefully examining the mechanism of Chisholm O’Grahame’s bone-crusher. Chisholm himself is gazing dreamily at the log-fire, and so, too, is Frank. But Dugald is the first to break the silence. He bends down, and lays a hand on Chisholm’s shoulder.
“I say,” he remarks, “you wouldn’t think to look at me that there was much the matter with me, would you?” Chisholm smiled by way of reply.
“But there is, though,” continued Dugald. “I’m suffering from a disease the doctors call nostalgia, and I oftentimes dream o’ the bonnie hills and glens of dear auld Scotland.”
(Nostalgia, home-sickness; an irresistible longing to return to one’s native land, which sometimes becomes with the Swiss a fatal disease.)
“Well, you don’t look very bad, I must say,” said Chisholm. “But if going back will cure you, why not go with us?”
“It is just what Jack and I mean to,” said Dugald. “Now wait a wee until we have eaten supper, and sit down to toast our toes, and John and I will tell you what brought us out.”
“Now,” said Dugald, when the time had come, “it is ten long years, and begun again, since Jack there and I came to the conclusion that civilisation was a grand mistake, that broad Scotland wasn’t big enough to hold us, and so turned our eyes to the West, to seek for adventures and fortune. What determined our choice? Why this, we both fell in love with the same lass. John and I always rowed in the same boat. We were both orphans, and had been at school and college together; and had, on coming to age, both put our monies into the same grand scheme. The grand scheme was a bubble; and, like all bubbles, it burst. While we were still rich and fortunate, neither Jack nor I could ever tell which of the two of us was most regarded by the beautiful, accomplished, but heartless Maggie Rae. As soon as we became poor, however, Maggie didn’t leave us much longer in doubt; she ended our suspense by marrying the wealthy old laird of Drumliedykes. That was a sad blow for me; and, I believe, for Jack too, though it wasn’t his nature to say very much. But I took to moping. I used to wander about the woods and lonely glens, longing for peace, even if it were in the grave.”
“I met Jack one evening as I was returning from one of these rambles; and I suppose I looked very lugubrious. I addressed him in the words of our national poet—
“‘Oppress’d with grief, oppress’d with care,
A burden more than I can bear,
I sit me down and sigh:
O life! thou art a galling load,
Along a rough and weary road,
To wretches such as I.’”
But Jack pulled me up sharp.
“‘Havers,’” (Scottish for absurd nonsense) said Jack, in a bold, manly voice. “I tell you, Dugald, man was never made to sit on a stane and greet (weep); man was made to work. You envy the rich? Bah! Carriages were made for the sick and the auld. A young man should feel the legs beneath him, should feel the soul within him. Let us be up and doin’, Dugald; there’s no pleasure on earth, man, can equal his, wha can look up to God, fra honest wark.
“Well, gentlemen, after this I was just as anxious to get away from England as Jack was, so we made our preparations; and in a month’s time we had crossed the wide Atlantic, and journeyed as near to the Rocky Mountains as cars would take us. I don’t think we had either of us any very definite notion of what we should do, or what adventures we should meet with. We were not unprepared, however, for anything. We had not gone abroad with our fingers in our mouths, so to speak; but we had read books on travel, and taken the best advice on everything. We had good horses, good waggons, good guns and compasses, and a fair supply of the necessaries of life, to say nothing of a trusty guide. So we just set a stout heart to a stiff brae (hill), and began the march. ‘To the west’ was our watchword; and there was in all our wanderings, ever in our hearts, the reflection of a sweet dream, which we firmly believed would one day become a reality, namely, that we would fall in with some land of gold, make riches in time, and then return to our own country.
“For many months after we had once crossed the prairie-lands, and the terrible alkali flats, we followed the course of a broad-bosomed river, so that our compasses were of but little use to us, for one day this stream would take us right away up north, the next day west or south-west. It certainly was in no great hurry to reach its destination; but neither were we, so it just suited us. We were contented, nay, more, we were perfectly happy; we slept at night as hunters sleep, and we awoke at early dawn fresh as the forest birds that flitted joyously around us, and quite prepared for another day’s work. It was work sometimes, too, and no mistake; work that many a British ploughman would have considered toil, for we had our waggons to fetch along, and that sometimes entailed long journeys round, to avoid a forest too dense, or river banks too rocky.
“For months we never came across the trail of a living soul, so that we were not afraid to picket our horses, leaving them plenty to eat and drink, and go off pleasuring for days at a time in our birch canoes, after the deer and wild-fowl by the river, or the swans by night. We knew, or we could generally guess, where their haunts were. Erecting a bit of canvas in the stern sheets, by way of cover, we would light a bundle of hay, and throw it overboard, then drop slowly down stream before it. If they were anywhere about, they were sure to be out soon; and as they came sailing towards us, wondering what was up, one or two of them was sure to pay for his curiosity with the forfeiture of his life.”