Part 17 (2/2)

”Wot wild man?” said Waller gruffly.

”Why, the Wild Man o' the West?”

”No, I hain't,” said Waller still more gruffly, for he did not feel flattered by the question.

”Have you seen him?”

”No I hain't, an' guess I shouldn't know him if I had.”

”Why do you ask?” inquired March Marston, whose curiosity had been roused by these unexpected questions.

”'Cause I want to know,” replied the man quitting his post and disappearing. In a few minutes he opened the gate, and the trappers trotted into the square of the fort.

The Mountain Fort, in which they now dismounted, was one of those little wooden erections in which the hardy pioneers of the fur trade were wont in days of old to establish themselves in the very heart of the Indian country. Such forts may still be seen in precisely similar circ.u.mstances, and built in the same manner, at the present day, in the Hudson's Bay territories; with this difference that the Indians, having had long experience of the good intentions and the kindness of the pale-faces, no longer regard them with suspicion. The walls were made of strong tall palisades, with bastions built of logs at the corners, and a gallery running all round inside close to the top of the walls, so that the defenders of the place could fire over the palisades, if need be, at their a.s.sailants. There was a small iron cannon in each bastion.

One large gate formed the entrance, but this was only opened to admit hors.e.m.e.n or carts; a small wicket in one leaf of the gate formed the usual entrance.

The buildings within the fort consisted of three little houses, one being a store, the others dwelling-houses, about which several men and women and Indian children, besides a number of dogs, were grouped.

These immediately surrounded the trappers as they dismounted. ”Who commands here?” inquired Redhand.

”I do,” said the sentinel before referred to, pus.h.i.+ng aside the others and stepping forward, ”at least I do at present. My name's McLeod. He who ought to command is drunk. He's _always_ drunk.”

There was a savage gruffness in the way in which McLeod said this that surprised the visitors, for his st.u.r.dy-looking and honest countenance seemed to accord ill with such tones.

”An' may I ask who _he_ is?” said Redhand.

”Oh yes, his name's Macgregor--you can't see him to-night, though.

There'll be b.l.o.o.d.y work here before long if he don't turn over a new leaf--”

McLeod checked himself as if he felt that he had gone too far. Then he added, in a tone that seemed much more natural to him, ”Now, sirs, come this way. Here,” (turning to the men who stood by), ”look to these horses and see them fed. Come into the hall, friends, an' the squaws will prepare something for you to eat while we have a smoke and a talk together.”

So saying, this changeable man, who was a strange compound of a trapper and a gentleman, led the way to the princ.i.p.al dwelling-house, and, throwing open the door, ushered his guests into the reception hall of the Mountain Fort.

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

ORIGINAL EFFORTS IN THE ART OF PAINTING--FUR-TRADING HOSPITALITY-- WONDERFUL ACCOUNTS OF THE WILD MAN OF THE WEST, FROM AN EYE-WITNESS-- BUFFALO HUNTING, SCALPING, MURDERING, AND A SUMMARY METHOD OF INFLICTING PUNISHMENT.

The reception hall of the Mountain Fort, into which, as we have stated, the trappers were ushered by McLeod, was one of those curious apartments which were in those days (and in a few cases still are) created for the express purpose of ”astonis.h.i.+ng the natives!”

It was a square room, occupying the centre of the house, and having doors all round, which opened into the sleeping or other apartments of the dwelling. In the front wall of this room were the door which led direct into the open air, and the two windows. There were no pa.s.sages in the house--it was all rooms and doors. One of these doors, towards the back, opened into a species of scullery--but it was not exactly a scullery, neither was it a kitchen, neither was it a pantry. The squaws lived there--especially the cooking squaws--and a few favoured dogs. A large number of pots and pans and kettles, besides a good deal of lumber and provisions in daily use, also dwelt there. A door led from this room out to the back of the house, and into a small offshoot, which was the kitchen proper. Here a spirited French Canadian reigned supreme in the midst of food, fire, and steam, smoke, smells, and fat.

But to return to the reception hall. There were no pictures on its walls, no draperies about its windows, no carpets on its floors, no cloths on its tables, and no ornaments on its mantelshelf. Indeed, there was no mantelshelf to put ornaments upon. The floor, the walls, the ceiling, the chairs, the tables; all were composed of the same material--wood. The splendour of the apartment was entirely due to paint. Everything was painted--and that with a view solely to startling effect. Blue, red, and yellow, in their most brilliant purity, were laid on in a variety of original devices, and with a boldness of contrast that threw Moorish effort in that line quite into the shade.

The Alhambra was nothing to it! The floor was yellow ochre; the ceiling was sky-blue; the cornices were scarlet, with flutings of blue and yellow, and, underneath, a broad belt of fruit and foliage, executed in an extremely arabesque style. The walls were light green, with narrow bands of red down the sides of each plank. The table was yellow, the chairs blue, and their bottoms red, by way of harmonious variety. But the grand point--the great masterpiece in the ornamentation of this apartment--was the centre-piece in the ceiling, in the execution of which there was an extraordinary display of what can be accomplished by the daring flight of an original genius revelling in the conscious possession of illimitable power, without the paralysing influence of conventional education.

The device itself was indescribable. It was a sun or a star, or rather a union and commingling of suns and stars in violent contrast, wreathed with fanciful fruits and foliage, and Cupids, and creatures of a now extinct species. The rainbow had been the painter's palette; genius his brush; fancy-gone-mad his attendant; the total temporary stagnation of redskin faculties his object, and ecstasy his general state of mind, when he executed this magnificent _chef d'oeuvre_ in the centre of the ceiling of the reception hall at the Mountain Fort.

The fireplace was a capacious cavern in the wall opposite the entrance door, in which, during winter, there usually burned a roaring bonfire of huge logs of wood, but where, at the time of which we write, there was just enough fire to enable visitors to light their pipe's. When that fire blazed up in the dark winter nights, the effect of that gorgeous apartment was dazzling--absolutely bewildering.

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