The Best Ballantyne Westerns. R. M. Ballantyne

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      Mr Park smiled grimly, and turning on his heel re-entered the tent and continued his pipe, while Harry flung himself down beside Charley under the bark canoe.

      This species of “tent” is, however, by no means a perfect one. An Indian canoe is seldom three feet broad—frequently much narrower—so that it only affords shelter for the body as far down as the waist, leaving the extremities exposed. True, one may double up as nearly as possible into half one’s length, but this is not a desirable position to maintain throughout an entire night. Sometimes, when the weather is very bad, an additional protection is procured by leaning several poles against the bottom of the canoe, on the weather side, in such a way as to slope considerably over the front; and over these are spread pieces of birch bark or branches and moss, so as to form a screen, which is an admirable shelter. But this involves too much time and labour to be adopted during a voyage, and is only done when the travellers are under the necessity of remaining for some time in one place.

      The canoe in which Harry arrived was a pretty large one, and looked so comfortable when arranged for the night that Charley resolved to abandon his own tent and Mr Park’s society, and sleep with his friend.

      “I’ll sleep with you, Harry, my boy,” said he, after Harry had explained to him in detail the cause of his being sent away from Red River; which was no other than that a young gentleman, as Mr Park said, who was to have gone, had been ordered elsewhere.

      “That’s right, Charley; spread out our blankets, while I get some supper, like a good fellow.” Harry went in search of the kettle while his friend prepared their bed. First, he examined the ground on which the canoe lay, and found that the two Indians had already taken possession of the only level places under it. “Humph!” he ejaculated, half inclined to rouse them up, but immediately dismissed the idea as unworthy of a voyageur. Besides, Charley was an amiable, unselfish fellow, and would rather have lain on the top of a dozen stumps than have made himself comfortable at the expense of any one else.

      He paused a moment to consider. On one side was a hollow “that” (as he soliloquised to himself) “would break the back of a buffalo.” On the other side were a dozen little stumps surrounding three very prominent ones, that threatened destruction to the ribs of any one who should venture to lie there. But Charley did not pause to consider long. Seizing his axe, he laid about him vigorously with the head of it, and in a few seconds destroyed all the stumps, which he carefully collected, and, along with some loose moss and twigs, put into the hollow, and so filled it up. Having improved things thus far, he rose and strode out of the circle of light into the wood. In a few minutes he reappeared, bearing a young spruce fir tree on his shoulder, which with the axe he stripped of its branches. These branches were flat in form, and elastic—admirably adapted for making a bed on; and when Charley spread them out under the canoe in a pile of about four inches in depth by four feet broad and six feet long, the stumps and the hollow were overwhelmed altogether. He then ran to Mr Park’s tent, and fetched thence a small flat bundle covered with oilcloth and tied with a rope. Opening this, he tossed out its contents, which were two large and very thick blankets—one green, the other white; a particularly minute feather pillow, a pair of moccasins, a broken comb, and a bit of soap. Then he opened a similar bundle containing Harry’s bed, which he likewise tossed out; and then kneeling down, he spread the two white blankets on the top of the branches, the two green blankets above these, and the two pillows at the top, as far under the shelter of the canoe as he could push them. Having completed the whole in a manner that would have done credit to a chambermaid, he continued to sit on his knees, with his hands in his pockets, smiling complacently, and saying, “Capital—first-rate!”

      “Here we are, Charley. Have a second supper—do!”

      Harry placed the smoking kettle by the head of the bed, and squatting down beside it, began to eat as only a boy can eat who has had nothing since breakfast.

      Charley attacked the kettle too—as he said, “out of sympathy,” although he “wasn’t hungry a bit.” And really, for a man who was not hungry, and had supped half an hour before, the appetite of sympathy was wonderfully strong.

      But Harry’s powers of endurance were now exhausted. He had spent a long day of excessive fatigue and excitement, and having wound it up with a heavy supper, sleep began to assail him with a fell ferocity that nothing could resist. He yawned once or twice, and sat on the bed blinking unmeaningly at the fire, as if he had something to say to it which he could not recollect just then. He nodded violently, much to his own surprise, once or twice, and began to address remarks to the kettle instead of to his friend. “I say, Charley, this won’t do. I’m off to bed!” and suiting the action to the word, he took off his coat and placed it on his pillow. He then removed his moccasins, which were wet, and put on a dry pair; and this being all that is ever done in the way of preparation before going to bed in the woods, he lay down and pulled the green blankets over him.

      Before doing so, however, Harry leaned his head on his hands and prayed. This was the one link left of the chain of habit with which he had left home. Until the period of his departure for the wild scenes of the North-west, Harry had lived in a quiet, happy home in the West Highlands of Scotland, where he had been surrounded by the benign influences of a family the members of which were united by the sweet bonds of Christian love—bonds which were strengthened by the additional tie of amiability of disposition. From childhood he had been accustomed to the routine of a pious and well-regulated household, where the Bible was perused and spoken of with an interest that indicated a genuine hungering and thirsting after righteousness, and where the name of Jesus sounded often and sweetly on the ear. Under such training Harry, though naturally of a wild, volatile disposition, was deeply and irresistibly impressed with a reverence for sacred things, which, now that he was thousands of miles away from his peaceful home, clung to him with the force of old habit and association, despite the jeers of comrades and the evil influences and ungodliness by which he was surrounded. It is true that he was not altogether unhurt by the withering indifference to God that he beheld on all sides. Deep impression is not renewal of heart. But early training in the path of Christian love saved him many a deadly fall. It guarded him from many of the grosser sins into which other boys, who had merely broken away from the restraints of home, too easily fell. It twined round him—as the ivy encircles the oak—with a soft, tender, but powerful grasp, that held him back when he was tempted to dash aside all restraint; and held him up when, in the weakness of his human nature, he was about to fall. It exerted its benign sway over him in the silence of night, when his thoughts reverted to home, and during his waking hours, when he wandered from scene to scene in the wide wilderness; and in after years, when sin prevailed, and intercourse with rough men had worn off much of at least the superficial amiability of his character, and to some extent blunted the finer feelings of his nature, it clung faintly to him still, in the memory of his mother’s gentle look and tender voice, and never forsook him altogether. Home had a blessed and powerful influence on Harry. May God bless such homes, where the ruling power is love! God bless and multiply such homes in the earth! Were there more of them there would be fewer heart-broken mothers to weep over the memory of the blooming, manly boys they sent away to foreign climes—with trembling hearts but high hopes—and never saw them more. They were vessels launched upon the troubled sea of time, with stout timbers, firm masts, and gallant sails—with all that was necessary above and below, from stem to stern, for battling with the billows of adverse fortune, for stemming the tide of opposition, for riding the storms of persecution, or bounding with a press of canvas before the gales of prosperity; but without the rudder—without the guiding principle that renders the great power of plank and sail and mast available; with which the vessel moves obedient to the owner’s will, without which it drifts about with every current, and sails along with every shifting wind that blows. Yes, may the best blessings of prosperity and peace rest on such families, whose bread, cast continually on the waters, returns to them after many days.

      After Harry had lain down, Charley, who did not feel inclined for repose, sauntered СКАЧАТЬ