The Wild Man of the West (A Western Classic). R.M. Ballantyne

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СКАЧАТЬ go to promise wot they can’t perform. I’ve lived, off an’ on, nigh forty years now, and I’ve obsarved them wot promises most always does least; so if you’ll take the advice of an oldish hunter, you’ll give it up, lad, at once.”

      “Humph!” ejaculated March, “I suppose you began your obsarvations before you were a year old—eh, Bounce?”

      “I began ’em afore I was a day old. The first thing I did in this life was to utter an ’orrible roar, and I obsarved that immediately I got a drink; so I roared agin, an’ got another. Leastwise I’ve bin told that I did, an’ if it wasn’t obsarvation as caused me for to roar w’en I wanted a drink, wot wos it?”

      Instead of replying, March started up, and shading his eyes with his right hand, gazed intently towards the horizon.

      “Wot now, lad?” said Bounce, rising quickly. “Ha! buffaloes!”

      In half a minute the cords by which the two horses were fastened to pegs driven into the plain, were coiled up; in another half-minute the saddle-girths were buckled; in half a second more the men were mounted and tearing over the prairie like the wind.

      “Ha, lad,” remarked Bounce with one of his quiet smiles—for he was a pre-eminently quiet man—“but for them there prairie-hens we’d ha’ slept this chance away.”

      The buffaloes, or, more correctly speaking, the bisons which young Marston’s sharp eye had discovered, were still so far-distant that they appeared like crows or little black specks against the sky. In order to approach them as near as possible without attracting their attention, it was necessary that the two horsemen should make a wide circuit, so as to get well to leeward, lest the wind should carry the scent of them to the herd. Their horses, being fleet, strong, and fresh, soon carried them to the proper direction, when they wheeled to the right, and galloped straight down upon their quarry, without any further attempt at concealment. The formation of the ground favoured their approach, so that they were within a mile of the herd before being discovered.

      At first the huge, hairy creatures gazed at the hunters in stupid surprise; then they turned and fled. They appeared, at the outset, to run slowly and with difficulty, and the plain seemed to thunder with their heavy tread, for there could not have been fewer than a thousand animals in the herd. But as the horsemen drew near they increased their speed and put the steeds, fleet and strong though they were, to their mettle.

      On approaching the buffaloes the horsemen separated, each fixing his attention on a particularly fat young cow and pressing towards it. Bounce was successful in coming up with the one he had selected, and put a ball through its heart at the first shot. Not so Marston. Misfortune awaited him. Having come close up with the animal he meant to shoot, he cocked his rifle and held it in readiness across the pommel of his saddle, at the same time urging his horse nearer, in order to make a sure shot. When the horse had run up so close that its head was in line with the buffalo’s flank, he pointed his rifle at its shoulder. At that precise moment the horse, whose attention was entirely engrossed with the buffalo, put its left forefoot into a badger’s hole. The consequence of such an accident is, usually, a tremendous flight through the air on the part of the rider, while his steed rolls upon the plain; but on the present occasion a still more surprising result followed. March Marston not only performed the aerial flight, but he alighted with considerable violence on the back of the affrighted buffalo. Falling on his face in a sprawling manner, he chanced to grasp the hairy mane of the creature with both hands, and, with a violent half-involuntary effort, succeeded in seating himself astride its back.

      The whole thing was done so instantaneously that he had scarce time to realise what had happened to him ere he felt himself sweeping comfortably over the prairie on this novel and hitherto unridden steed! A spirit of wild, ungovernable glee instantly arose within him. Seizing the handle of the heavy hunting-whip, which still hung from his right wrist by a leather thong, he flourished it in the air, and brought it down on his charger’s flank with a crack like a pistol-shot, causing the animal to wriggle its tail, toss its ponderous head, and kick up its heels, in a way that wellnigh unseated him.

      The moment Bounce beheld this curious apparition, he uttered a short laugh, or grunt, and, turning his horse abruptly, soon ranged up alongside.

      “Hallo, March!” he exclaimed, “are you mad, boy?”

      “Just about it,” cried Marston, giving the buffalo another cut with the whip, as he looked round with sparkling eyes and a broad grin at the hunter.

      “Come, now, that won’t do,” said Bounce gravely. “I’m ’sponsible to your mother for you. Git off now, or I’ll poke ye over.”

      “Git off!” shouted the youth, “how can I?”

      “Well, keep your right leg a bit to one side, an’ I’ll stop yer horse for ye,” said Bounce, coolly cocking his rifle.

      “Hold hard, old fellow!” cried Marston, in some alarm; “you’ll smash my thigh-bone if you try. Stay, I’ll do the thing myself.”

      Saying this, Marston drew his long hunting-knife, and plunged it into the buffalo’s side.

      “Lower down, lad—lower down. Ye can’t reach the life there.”

      March bent forward, and plunged his knife into the animal’s side again—up to the hilt; but it still kept on its headlong course, although the blood flowed in streams upon the plain. The remainder of the buffaloes had diverged right and left, leaving this singular group alone.

      “Mind your eye,” said Bounce quickly, “she’s a-goin’ to fall.”

      Unfortunately Marston had not time given him to mind either his eye or his neck. The wounded buffalo stumbled, and fell to the ground with a sudden and heavy plunge, sending its wild rider once again on an aerial journey, which terminated in his coming down on the plain so violently that he was rendered insensible.

      On recovering consciousness, he found himself lying on his back, in what seemed to be a beautiful forest, through which a stream flowed with a gentle, silvery sound. The bank opposite rose considerably higher than the spot on which he lay, and he could observe, through his half-closed eyelids, that its green slope was gemmed with beautiful flowers, and gilded with patches of sunlight that struggled through the branches overhead.

      Young Marston’s first impression was that he must be dreaming, and that he had got into one of the fairytale regions about which he had so often read to his mother. A shadow seemed to pass over his eyes as he thought this, and, looking up, he beheld the rugged face of Bounce gazing at him with an expression of considerable interest and anxiety.

      “I say, Bounce, this is jolly!”

      “Is it?” replied the hunter with a “humph!”

      “If ye try to lift yer head, I guess you’ll change yer opinion.”

      Marston did try to raise his head, and did change his opinion. His neck felt as if it were a complication of iron hinges, which had become exceedingly rusty, and stood much in need of oil.

      “Oh dear!” groaned Marston, letting his head fall back on the saddle from which he had raised it.

      “Ah, I thought so!” remarked Bounce.

      “And is that all the sympathy you have got to give me, you old savage?” said the youth testily.

      “By no means,” replied the other, patting his head; “here’s СКАЧАТЬ