“All right,” he said, raising the youth’s head, “he’s only stunned. Run, Gibault, fetch a drop o’ water. The horse that brained this here redskin, by good luck, only stunned March.”
“Ah! mon pauvre enfant!” cried Gibault as he ran to obey.
The water quickly restored March, and in a few minutes he was able to sit up and call to remembrance what had passed. Ere his scattered faculties were quite recovered, the fur-traders returned, with Macgregor at their head.
“Well done, the Wild Man of the West!” cried McLeod, as he dismounted. “Not badly hurt, young man, I trust.”
“Oh! nothing to speak of. Only a thump on the head from a horse’s hoof,” said March; “I’ll be all right in a little time. Did you say anything about the Wild Man of the West?” he added earnestly.
“To be sure I did; but for him you and Mr Bertram would have been dead men, I fear. Did you not see him?”
“See him? no,” replied March, much excited. “I heard a tremendous roar, but just then I fell to the ground, and remember nothing more that happened.”
“Was that quiet, grave-looking man the Wild Man of the West?” inquired Bertram, with a mingled feeling of interest and surprise.
This speech was received with a loud burst of laughter from all who heard it.
“Well, I’ve never seed the Wild Man till to-day,” said one, “though I’ve often heer’d of him, but I must say the little glimpse I got didn’t show much that was mild or grave.”