It may, perhaps, be necessary to explain that Waller’s last word referred to the unusually small waists of the party, the result of a pretty long fast.
“I’ll tell ye what it is,” said March, advancing towards Bounce with a swagger and drawing his hunting-knife, “I quite agree with Waller’s sentiments. I don’t mean to allow myself to get any more waspisher, so I vote that we cut Bounce up and have a feed. What say you, comrades?”
“All right,” replied Bounce, laying bare his broad chest as if to receive the knife, “only, p’r’aps, ye’ll allow me to eat the first slice off myself afore ye begin, ’cause I couldn’t well have my share afterwards, d’ye see? But, now I think on’t, I’d be rather a tough morsel. Young meat’s gin’rally thought the tenderest. Wot say ye to cuttin’ up March first, an’ tryin’ me nixt?”
“If you’ll only wait, lads,” said Redhand, “till Mr Bertram gits a new flint into his pistol, we’ll shoot the victim instead o’ cutting him up. It’ll be quicker, you know.”
“Hah! non,” cried Gibault, leaping a few inches off the ground, under the impulse of a new idea, “I vill show to you vat ve vill do. Ve vill each cot hoff von finger. Redhand, he vill begin vid de thomb, et so on till it come to me, and I vill cot hoff mine leetle finger. Each vill devour the finger of de oder, an’ so’ve shall have von dinner vidout committing mordor—ha! vat say you?”
As Bertram had by this time arranged the lock of his pistol and reprimed it, the hungry travellers resumed their weary march without coming to a decision upon this delicate point.
It had happened that, during the last few days, the land over which they travelled being somewhat barren, small game had become scarce, and the large game could not be approached near enough to be shot with such weapons as the artist’s antiquated pistols; and as the party possessed nothing better in the shape of a projectile, they had failed to procure supplies. They had now, however, again reached a rich country, and had succeeded in trapping a large wolf, under the skin of which Hawkswing had made, as we have seen, an unsuccessful effort to shoot a buffalo. Soon after this failure the party came to a ridge of gravelly soil that stretched across the plain like a wave.
The plain, or small prairie, to which we refer was in the midst of a most lovely scene. The earth was carpeted with rich green grass, in which the wild flowers nestled like gems. The ground was undulating, yet so varied in its formations that the waves and mounds did not prevent the eyes of the travellers ranging over a vast tract of country, even when they were down among the hollows; and, when they had ascended the backs of the ridges, they could cast a wide glance over a scene of mingled plain and wood, lake and river, such as is never seen except in earth’s remotest wilds, where man has not attempted to adorn the face of nature with the exuberances of his own wonderful invention.
Far away on the horizon the jagged forms and snowy peaks of the Rocky Mountains rose clear and sharp against the sky. For some days past the trappers had sighted this stupendous “backbone” of the far west, yet so slowly did they draw near that March Marston and Bertram, in their impatience, almost believed they were a range of phantom hills, which ever receded from them as they advanced.
On reaching the summit of the gravelly ridge, Redhand looked along it with an earnest, searching gaze.