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diff --git a/38262.txt b/38262.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a950fcf --- /dev/null +++ b/38262.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4375 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Wild Adventures in Wild Places, by Gordon Stables + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Wild Adventures in Wild Places + +Author: Gordon Stables + +Release Date: December 10, 2011 [EBook #38262] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WILD ADVENTURES IN WILD PLACES *** + + + + +Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England + + + + +Wild Adventures in Wild Places +By Gordon Stables +Published by Cassell, Petter, Galpin & Co, London, Paris & New York. +This edition dated 1881. + +CHAPTER ONE. + +PART I--THE MOORS AND FENS OF ENGLAND. + +IN THE DEPTHS OF THE FOREST--FRANK AND HIS TOAD--A DAY WITH THE HOUNDS-- +THE FURIES' LEAP--"THAT FOX WAS MY FATE." + +There is no doubt at all that when young Frank Willoughby brought out +his book with him, and seated himself on the trunk of the old fallen +tree, he meant to read it; but this intention had soon been abandoned, +and, at the moment our tale commences, the book lay on the grass at his +feet, and Frank was dreaming. He was not asleep, not a bit of it; his +eyes were as wide open as yours or mine are at this moment; but there +was a far-away look in them, and you could tell by the cloud that seemed +to hang on his lowered brow that his thoughts were none of the +pleasantest. He was not alone, at least not quite, for, not a yard away +from his feet, there sat gazing up into his face--why, what do you +think? A great toad! Do not start; men in solitude have taken up with +stranger companions than this. And Frank was solitary, or at least he +conceived himself to be so; and day after day he left his home on the +borders of the great forest of Epping, and wandered down here into the +depths of the wood, and seated himself idly on that log as we see him +now. The toad had come to know him, and he to know the toad. He even +brought crumbs for him, which the batrachian never failed to discuss, +and seemed to enjoy. So the two took a kindly interest in each other's +welfare. + +On this particular forenoon the summer sun was very bright; it shimmered +down through the trees like a shower of gold, it glittered on the +grass-stems, it brightened the petals of the wild flowers, and burnished +the backs of myriads of beetles, as they opened their cloaks and tried +to fly in it. No wonder that on this glorious morning the birds sang in +every tree, and that the happy hum of insect life was everywhere around. + +"Well, old gentleman," said Frank at last, addressing the toad, "you are +like myself, I think; you are not over happy." + +"Pooh!" the toad seemed to reply. "I'm enjoying the sunshine and the +free, fresh air, ain't I? My house isn't many yards round the corner. +I'm a jolly old bachelor, that's what I am, and there's no life like it. +No, I'm not unhappy, if you are. Pooh!" + +"Heigho!" sighed Frank. + +But list! There is some one singing, some one hidden at present by the +trees, but evidently coming nearer and nearer to where Frank is +sitting--a rich, mellow, manly voice; and the song comes directly from +the heart, that you can easily tell, and from a gladsome heart, too, and +one in unison with the freshness and brightness to be seen on every +hand-- + + "I wish I were as I have been, + Hunting the hart in forests green. + With bended bow and bloodhound free; + For that's the life that's meet for me." + +Next moment, brushing the boughs aside, a tall, handsome young man of +some five-and-twenty years appeared upon the scene. Brown he was as to +beard and whiskers, bronzed as to cheeks and brow, and clear in eye as a +little child. + +"Why, Chisholm!" cried Frank, starting up and grasping his friend's +extended hand. + +"Why, Frank!" cried Chisholm, "you terrible old recluse; and so I have +found you at last, have I? Fairly ferreted you out. Sit down, old man, +and give an account of yourself." + +"Well, you see," said Willoughby, "I--I want to go up for my degree, and +I--the fact is I've been reading." + +"Ha, ha, ha!" roared Chisholm, laughing till the forest rang again. +"Been reading, have you?" As he spoke he kicked the book that lay on +the grass. "Been reading Byron--ha, ha, ha! I do believe the boy's in +love." + +Young Frank turned red all over. + +"Why, how do you know?" he said, "and how did you find me out, here in +the forest? Chisholm, you're a wizard, or something worse." + +"Been to your father's house, dear boy," replied Chisholm, explaining. +"Splendid fellow, your father, by the way. Enjoyed some rare sport and +fun--but missed you sadly, you may be sure; but your father told me +everything. `My young rascal,'--these are his very words, Frank--`my +young rascal,' he said, `has fallen in love, and wants to marry right +away; of course I couldn't give my consent, because he is only a boy, +you know, so he went into a pet, and has taken lodgings somewhere on the +borders of Epping Forest, under the pretence of reading.' And that, +Frank, was the only clue to your whereabouts that I could get; but you +see I've found you, my boy. And now tell me all about it." + +"A most modest request, I do declare," said Frank, with a smile; "but +never mind, I never did have a secret from you, and it may do me good to +unburden my mind." + +"That it will," said Chisholm; "but before you begin just pitch Byron at +that ugly toad there, will you?" + +"That I certainly won't; he has been my only companion for weeks." + +"Well, well, well," said Chisholm, "buried in the depths of Epping +Forest, his only companion a toad, the once gay and jolly Frank +Willoughby. Why you must be _deeply_ in love." + +"I am, and that is a fact, and if you only saw the object of my +affections, I do not think you would wonder much. She is--" + +"Now Frank, dear boy," Chisholm said, "I must apologise for interrupting +you; but pray do not begin to dilate on the charms of your fair +enslaver. I know she must be everything that is good and beautiful, +else she never could have captivated you. Just tell me how it happened, +and where it happened." + +"It happened down in Wales," replied Frank, "that is _where_ it +happened; but the day, Chisholm, that was big with my fate, was a day +with the hounds. You know how fond I am of hunting, don't you?" + +"I know," said Chisholm, laughing, "that there used not to be a better +man than yourself, Frank, in the field; that you crossed the very +stiffest country at the very heels of the hounds, and though you often +said you didn't like to see a poor fox broken up, you managed, +nevertheless, to be always in at the death. That is what you _used_ to +be, my boy. What you are now may be quite another thing, since a lady +has come to be woven up in the web of your history. Remember the story +of Hercules, Frank." + +"Oh! bother Hercules," cried Frank impatiently; "pray let me get on with +my own story." + +"Heave round then," said Chisholm. + +"Well, then, when I arrived this year, early in spring, back from my +little trip to Malta, I brought with me a letter of introduction to +General Lyell, of Penmawhr Castle, in Brecknockshire. He keeps a nice +little pack of smallish foxhounds--oh! such rare ones for a run--they +can puzzle out the coldest scent, and when they find, they follow in +such beautiful form, that it seems to me you could cover the pack with +the mainsail of my father's yacht." + +"Go on," cried Chisholm, "you're warming to your subject; there's life +in you yet." + +"You may be sure," continued Frank, "that I did not take long to forward +my letter, and in due course an invitation followed. `Hounds meet at +the Three Cross Roads,' ran the epistle, `on Tuesday, the 9th. Come and +spend the Easter holidays with us, and take us as you find us.' There +were three clear days before the 9th, but my impatience would not let me +wait. I sent Bob, my man, down with my mare the next morning, and +followed on the same evening. My man had chosen the best inn in the +village, for I meant to meet the general for the first time with the +hounds, and show him what sort of metal my mare and I were made of. + +"Next morning, to my sorrow, the ground was hard with frost, the sky +clear and blue, and the wind blowing high from the east. The day after +there was no improvement, and my heart sank to zero; but my spirits rose +that day, because down went the glass, and the wind veered round to +about a south and by west. The sunset was a gorgeous one, and long +after the god of day had sunk behind the hills, crimson clouds lying +along in a sky of palest, purest yellow, shading off into the blue dome +above, where bright stars shone, gave token of a beautiful to-morrow. I +was up betimes, you may be certain, and found to my joy that a little +rain had fallen. I ate a huntsman's breakfast, and then dressed. I +donned a new coat of scarlet--in fact, it was so new that I felt ashamed +of it, and had half a mind to make Bob splash it a bit with mud. It was +well splashed before night, I can tell you. + +"The meet wasn't a large one, but men and hounds and horses all looked +as if they had plenty of go in them, and they required it too. The +country is a rough, rolling one, and there is no want of stone fences; +so you need pith and pluck if you'd keep the hounds in view. + +"Not knowing any one, I kept aloof for a time until they drew a cover or +two, until the mellow music of the hounds, mingling with the cheering +notes of the huntsman's horn, told me they had found, and that the run +had commenced. Across country, straight almost as the crow could fly, +for ten miles, that old fox led us. Then he changed course near a +plantation, and took us five miles in another direction. Then, doubling +round, he took us almost straight away back, so that the stragglers once +more had a chance of joining the hunt. But the terribly rough state of +the country told on all but the best of us, and if we were few in number +to start, we were still less numerous when the fox finally took to earth +and refused to show again. A fine old gentlemanly fox, I can assure +you, who had apparently enjoyed the run as much as any of us, and having +done so, bade us good-morning and retired. + +"I had made acquaintance with the general, and we were laughing and +talking together when he suddenly started and turned pale. + +"`Great heavens!' he cried, `it is Eenie, my daughter. Black Bess, her +mare, has bolted with her, and is heading straight for the Furies' Leap. +She is lost! she is lost!' + +"I hardly heard the last word. I had struck the spurs into my own good +mare, and was off like a meteor. I could see the lady's terrible +danger. She was heading for an awful precipice. I saw I might +intercept her if I crossed her bows, as a sailor would say. It was a +ride for life--we near each other, riding swift as arrows. Onward she +comes--onwards I dash, and we are barely fifty yards from the Furies' +Leap, when our horses come into collision with fearful force. + +"I remember nothing more until I open my eyes and find myself in bed, +powerless to move. But a beautiful young girl rose from a seat near the +window, and, approaching the bed, gave me to drink, but enjoined me to +be still. This was Miss Lyell; she nursed me back to life, and the next +few weeks seemed all one happy dream." + +"She loves you?" + +"She does, and has promised never to be another's." + +"And she'll be yours, Frank, my boy. Come, I've news to give you. +Neither your father nor her father object, except on the score of your +youth and hers, and your inexperience of the world. Now, depend upon +it, Frank, what your father advises is best. He wants you to spend your +next few years in travelling." + +"And I will," cried Frank; "I'll seek adventures and dangers in every +part of the globe--among the snows of the north, amidst the jungles of +India, in Afric's bush, and the wild plain-lands of far distant +Australia. I care not if I am killed; life without my Eenie is not +worth having." + +"Bravo! Frank," cried Chisholm, jumping up and shaking him by the hand. +"I'll go with you; and my friend, Fred Freeman, will go too. There's +luck in odd numbers. But don't talk about being killed; it is time that +we want to kill, and all the wild beasts we can draw a bead upon." + +Frank left the gloomy forest a happier man than he had entered it. He +was laughing right merrily too. + +"Bless that dear old fox, though," he was saying; "may he always be +jolly and fat and frolicsome 'mid summer's sunshine or winter's snow. +That fox was my fate." + +CHAPTER TWO. + +FRANK UNDERGOES THE PROCESS OF "HARDENING OFF"--CAMP-LIFE ON THE BANKS +OF THE THAMES--A WEEK AMONG RABBITS--"'WARE HARE." + +There was something about Fred Freeman which is difficult to describe, +but which caused everybody to like him. He had the manners of a +high-bred English gentleman, but that did not, of course, constitute the +something that made him a favourite, because _bon ton_, manners are +happily not rare. However, there's no harm in my trying to describe him +to you, because he is one of our three heroes. Fred wasn't much, if +any, above the middle height; he had a short dark beard and moustache-- +they were not black, however. He was very regular in features-- +handsome, in fact, handsome when he was in his quiet moods, which he +very frequently was, and even more so when merry, for then he was simply +all sunshine, and it made you laugh to look at him. He was very +unobtrusive. He was a capital shot, and a daring hunter and sportsman, +but never boasted about his own doings. His constitution was as tough +as india-rubber, and as hard as nails. If there be anything wanting in +this description, the reader must supply it himself. Anyhow, Fred was a +genuine good fellow. He had hitherto travelled a good deal, +sport-intent, chiefly on the Continent; but he jumped at the proposal to +go round the world on "a big shoot," as he called it. + +Freeman was a bachelor, and said he would always remain so; Chisholm +O'Grahame was also a bachelor. Perhaps he was seen to the best +advantage when his foot was on his native heath, and a covey of grouse +ahead of him. He was one of the so-called "lucky dogs" of this world. +On the death of an uncle, he would come into a fine old Highland estate. +Meanwhile he had nothing to do, and plenty of time to do it in. After +his visit to Frank, he went back to see Frank's father, who was +delighted at the success of his mission. + +"Ah," said he, "I'm so pleased! And so you must take the young dog off, +and show him the world. But look here, he's in your charge, mind you; +and if you take my advice, you'll show him some shooting in England +before you go abroad. He's only a hot-house plant as yet; he wants +hardening off." + +Chisholm laughed. "I'll harden him off," he said. + +And so the hardening-off process commenced at once. Frank was not +sorry, after all, to leave the gloom of Epping Forest, and commence a +sportsman's life in earnest. The plan adopted by Chisholm and his +friend, Fred, to "break young Frank in, and to harden him off," was, I +think, a good one. They were to travel a good deal in England, be here +to-day and away to-morrow, and visit any of the fens or moors or shores +where there was the chance of a week or two of good shooting. + +That was one part of the plan. The other was that they were, as Fred +called it, "to forswear civilisation, and to live in tents;" in other +words, to do a deal of camping out, instead of living in hotels or +houses of any kind. + +"How do you think you will like that kind of thing?" asked Chisholm. + +"Oh, I think it will be perfectly delightful," said Frank, +enthusiastically. + +"But Frank _is_ a bit of a shot, isn't he?" asked Fred. + +"Always during vacation times," said Frank, speaking for himself. "I +used to potter around my father's property. I have done so ever since I +was a boy." + +"Ha! ha!" laughed Chisholm. "Why, you're only a boy yet." + +"All stuff," said Frank stoutly. "I'll be twenty next birthday." + +"Well, well," said Chisholm; "but tell Fred what you used to shoot." + +"Oh, anything about the farms, you know, bar the song-birds; father +thought it cruel to kill them. But there were rats, such lots of rats, +and sometimes a hawk or a rabbit, or even a hare. Then there were the +wild pigeons--wary beggars they are, too; I used to wait for them under +the fir-trees." + +"What, and kill them sitting?" asked Fred. + +"Well," said Frank, "it isn't sportsman-like, I know; but I could hardly +ever get near them else. Then the young rooks were great fun in spring; +and mind you, there is many a worse dish to set before a hungry man than +rook-pie." + +"I believe you, lad," said Fred. + +"Well, I've shot stoats and weasels by the score; and I once shot a +polecat, and another day an otter, and another day an owl." + +"Well, well, well," cried Fred. "What bags you must have made, to be +sure! Never mind, you've got the makings of a good sportsman in you. +Chisholm and I will bring you out, never fear. Did you often go +owl-shooting?" + +"No," replied Frank; "I only remember one owl, and I don't know which of +the two of us had the bigger fright--Ponto the pointer, or myself. I +had killed nothing that day but one old rook, a few field-mice, and a +snake or two, and we were coming home in the dusk, when some great bird +flew heavily out of the ivy-covered old tree near the churchyard. `Down +you come, whatever you are,' says I; and bang! bang! went both barrels. +He flew a goodly way, but finally fell; and off went Ponto, and off went +I in search of him. Ponto _was_ in a way, I can tell you; he wasn't +pointing half prettily. `Hoo! hoo! hoo!' the owl was screaming. `Come +a bit nearer, and out come both your eyes.' `I'll stand here, anyhow,' +Ponto seemed saying, `till master comes up.' Well, Chisholm, when I +came up and saw the creature, it looked so like one of the winged images +you see on tombstones, that, troth, I thought I'd shot a cherub of some +sort." + +"Well done, Frank," cried Chisholm, laughing. "Now," he continued, +pulling a letter from his pocket, "How will this suit? It is from a +farmer friend of mine in Berkshire, a rough and right sort of a fellow. +He farms about five hundred acres close to the Thames. He invites us +down for a rabbit shoot, shall we go?" + +"Oh! by all means," cried Frank. + +"I'm ready," said Fred quietly. + +And that "rabbit shoot" began Frank Willoughby's sporting adventures. +They had a whole week of it, and very much they enjoyed it. Chestnut +Farm was a dear old-fashioned, rustic, rumble-tumble of a place, with a +rolling country all around it, and the river quietly meandering through +its midst. They pitched their tent not far from the river; under canvas +they lived and ate and slept. Fred Freeman was a capital cook; he built +his fire of wood and hung his kettle-pot gipsy fashion on a tripod, and +the curries and stews he used to turn out were quite delightful. The +farmer and his wife would fain have had them to live in their hospitable +dwelling, but being told that Frank was undergoing the process of +hardening off and general tuition in camp and sporting life, the good +farmer looked at the young man for a moment or two from top to bottom, +just as if he had been a colt. + +"Oh!" he said, with a grunt of satisfaction, "bein' broke, is he? Well, +a rare, fine, upstanding one he be. He'll do." + +But the farmer's wife sent to the tent every day the freshest of butter +and sweetest of creamy milk, with eggs that never had time to get cool, +and so, on the whole, they were very well off. + +It was deliciously comfortable, so thought Frank, this camping out. His +bed was a hammock, and, though there were at first some things he looked +upon as drawbacks, he soon got used to them. If a heavy shower came on +it made noise enough to waken the seven sleepers, and large drops used +to ooze in through the canvas. The gnats' bites were hard to put up +with, but Chisholm comforted him by bidding him "just wait until he went +to India and had a touch of the jungle bugs." Early to bed and early to +rise was our heroes' motto; early to bed to calm and dreamless slumber, +such as your dwellers within brick walls never know; early to rise to +have a header in the river, and to return to breakfast as fresh as a +jack; early to rise to get the lines and punt clear and ready for a few +hours' fishing; early to rise if only to hear the birds singing, to +watch the squirrels skipping about aloft among the trees, or to observe +the thousand-and-one queer ways of the tiny dwellers by the river side, +friends in fur and friends in feather. Why, in one week Frank felt +himself growing quite a naturalist. + +They had come down to shoot rabbits, but it must not be supposed that +this was all the sport they had down by the charming river; for many +wild-fowl fell to Frank's gun, and he procured a good many beautiful +specimens of birds, which he took the pains to skin and preserve for the +purpose of having them stuffed. A good deal of their time was spent in +fishing. They did not catch a Thames salmon, it is true, and grayling +were not in season; but there were trout and perch and jack in +abundance, and one day, greatly to his joy, Frank landed a lordly pike. + +"I must tell you this, Mr O'Grahame and gen'l'm'n all," said the farmer +to our friends on the very first day of their arrival, "I have an order +to kill five hundred to seven hundred rabbits, so there is plenty of +sport for you all, and 'specially for the young 'un that's bein' broke; +but mind, gen'l'm'n, 'ware hare, that's wot I says, 'ware hare. My +man'll go with ye and see it is all right like, and my boys will carry +the bags." + +"Whatever does he mean by `'ware hare'?" asked Frank afterwards. + +"Why, that we mustn't shoot a hare on any account," replied Chisholm; +"rabbits and nothing but rabbits." + +"Gearge," the farmer's man, went with them every day to help to carry +the rabbits our sportsmen killed. On the other hand, there were boys in +the rear to help Gearge. Besides Gearge and the boys, there were two +dogs--a beautiful setter and a pointer, but good useful country dogs-- +dogs that did not think it beneath their dignity to retrieve as well as +set and point. The most curious part of the whole business to young +Frank, was the fact that these dogs knew a hare from a rabbit at first +sight far better than he did. Well, to a young sportsman, to see a +beautiful hare pass within easy shooting distance was a great temptation +to fire. Frank had his doubts whether Gearge always knew one from the +other, or t'other from which, because, no matter what it was, if Gearge +saw only a bit of brown fur flitting from one bush to another, he sang +out in stentorian tones, "'Ware hare." + +So it was "'Ware hare" all day long with Gearge. But once Frank did +make a mistake, or his gun did, for the latter seemed to rise to his +shoulder of its own accord, and next moment a hare was dead. + +The pointer brought it and laid it solemnly down at Frank's feet, and +looked up into his face. + +"See what you've done," he seemed to say; "here is a pretty kettle of +fish. What do you think of yourself? and how do you feel?" + +And when Gearge came up and saw the result of the accident, his red, +round face, which, as a rule, was wreathed in smiles, got long, and his +jaw fell, while his eyes seemed wanting to jump out of their sockets. + +"Well, I never?" said Gearge, rubbing the palms of his hands nervously +in his cow-gown, "and I warned ye sir, too." + +"Bag him," said Frank, "and never mind." + +"Bag 'im!" cried Gearge, aghast. "Bag _he_, bag a _hare_! No, sir, not +if I knows it. Master'd give me the sack myself. We'll leave 'im to +the blue-bottles and the beetles; but oh! sir, in future, 'ware hare." + +"You seem fond of hare-shooting," said Fred that evening, when Frank +told him his adventure, or rather misadventure. "Why, if you had been +where I was last winter you would have had hare-shooting to your heart's +content." + +"Beaters was it you had?" asked Chisholm. + +"Yes, we had no dogs; but good sport, mind you--right and left +sometimes, and one to each barrel if you only chose to hold straight." + +About the third morning, when Gearge came to the tent as usual, his face +seemed rounder and redder than ever; his eyes, too, were so wreathed in +smile-begotten wrinkles that they had almost disappeared. It was +moreover observed that the pockets of his cow-gown were more bulky than +usual. + +"We'll have a rare lark to-day," said Gearge, pulling out first one +polecat ferret and then another. + +And so they had; for what with working the banks all the morning and +shooting the rabbits in the open that succeeded in running the blockade, +they had wonderful bags. Though Frank didn't say much, he was glad to +get back to the tent; his feet were swollen, and he could hardly carry +his gun. He was certainly "bein' broke" with a vengeance. + +CHAPTER THREE. + +FRANK IS THOROUGHLY "HARDENED OFF"--DEER-STALKING IN THE HIGHLANDS-- +PARTRIDGE, PHEASANT, AND DUCK SHOOTING--"GOOD-BYE"--"NONE BUT THE BRAVE +DESERVE THE FAIR." + +"How does he harden, Fred?" cried Chisholm, bursting all unannounced one +morning into the dining-room of a North Wales hotel, where Freeman and +young Willoughby were just putting the finishing touches to a glorious +breakfast, with boiled eggs and mountain trout. Chisholm had been +absent for a whole week. "How does he harden?" + +"I think he is getting on famously. He's curing nicely." + +"I declare," said Frank, laughing, "you talk of me as if I were a ham or +something; and Chisholm asks about me in the same tone of voice he would +use if he wanted to know how your meerschaum coloured." + +"'Cause we're interested in you, dear boy," said Chisholm, feeling +Frank's arm. "But, bless my heart," he continued, "there is a biceps +for you; why, it's as hard as a hawser! And there's a sunburnt face for +you! Waiter, bring the beef. And what are you doing, boys?" + +"Well," said Fred, "you know we've been two months now under canvas, so +we thought we would try a week of civilisation. But we've had rare +sport enough, fishing in river and fishing in lake, and shooting almost +whatever we came across--rabbits, leverets, pigeons, plovers, anything." + +"Bad boys," said Chisholm. "But never mind, we're off to-morrow." + +"Where away?" + +"To the Highlands, the stern Scottish Highlands," said Chisholm. "I'm +promised a week among the deer. You're hard enough for that now, +Frank." + +"What a ubiquitous trio we are, to be sure!" said Fred. + +They certainly seemed so, reader; for two days after the foregoing +conversation they were dining at a quiet little hotel in Beauley, and by +four of the clock next morning they were on their way to the house of +Duncan McPhee, the head keeper of the great forest of Cairntree, one of +the wildest tracts of country in the wild North. Though termed a +forest, it is only partially wooded; for gigantic hills, bare and +rugged, tower skywards every here and there from amidst the pine-trees, +and there are, too, vast tracts of bare brae or moorland, covered only +with heather, the home of the grouse and the ptarmigan. Deer abound in +this forest in countless herds; but, saving the houses of the keepers, +you might journey for days in all directions without seeing the smoke +from a single habitation. + +Early as our heroes were abroad, Duncan and his dogs were there to meet +them. But their first day was a blank, and they returned very tired and +somewhat disheartened to the keeper's house, where, putting up with +Highland fare, they determined to stay all night. The next day they +were rewarded with the sight of deer in hundreds, but that was all; the +deer were too wild and wary to reach. More than once that day, as some +noble stag stood for a moment on knoll or brae-top, scenting the wind, +then dashing wildly off adown the glen, the words of Walter Scott came +to Frank's mind-- + + "The crested leader, proud and high, + Tossed his beamed frontlet to the sky, + A moment gazed adown the dale, + A moment snuffed the tainted gale; + Then, as the headmost foe appeared. + With one brave bound the copse he cleared, + And stretching forward free and far, + Sought the wild heaths of Uam Var." + +But the third was a never-to-be-forgotten day, for Frank brought down +his first stag, and it was a "royal." Luck seemed to set in after this. +It never rains but it pours, you know, and nobody had any reason to be +dissatisfied with that week spent among the red deer in the wilds of +Cairntree. + +I wish I had space wherein to tell you of one-half of the delightful +sporting adventures our heroes had during the many months Frank was +"bein' broke," or of the many happy, pleasant days they had to look back +to, when afterwards sojourning with wild beasts and wilder men--of days +spent among the partridges, or with the cockers at work, or following +the pheasants. They all agreed that there was but little true sport +attached to pheasant-shooting, the birds are so tame. + +"It's just like shooting hens," Chisholm remarked. + +But perhaps their dearest recollections went back to the time they spent +in duck shooting. These were days they might have marked in their +diaries with a red cross--spent entirely under canvas they were, in true +gipsy fashion; for although the season was autumn, the weather was still +bright and warm, and the nights just cool enough to be pleasant. By +marshes or lonely moorlands, by inland lakes and ponds, or by wooded +friths and estuaries, following up the wild-fowl never failed to give +them the very greatest of pleasure and sport. In these adventures their +chief companion was a dog of the Irish water-spaniel type, and Pattie by +name. Red all over was Pattie, and one mass of ringlets, which even a +whole day's swimming in sea or river failed to unravel; he even had a +fringe or top-knot over his bonnie brow, which quite set off his +peculiar style of beauty. Pattie's style of beauty was what would be +designated in Scotland "the daft." Mind, you couldn't help loving +Pattie--I defy you not to love him if you tried; but he had such queer +ways, and such a funny face, that you couldn't look at him long without +laughing. Pattie was truly Irish, but grand at his work nevertheless, +whether retrieving a dead duck or a maimed one. When plunging into the +water after the latter, "Be quiet wid yer skraiching," Pattie would seem +to say. "Sure I'll fetch you out, and you'll never feel it at all, at +all." But you ought to have seen Pattie coming up out of the river with +a dead duck that he probably had had to swim a long distance against the +tide for; there was a pride in his beaming eye that my pen would attempt +in vain to depict. "What do ye think av me now?" Pattie would seem to +say. + +But summer and autumn and the first months of winter wore away, and, +after spending a whole fortnight at the white hare-shooting among the +mountains of Perthshire--and harder work I defy you to find--Frank was +at last declared thoroughly broken in, completely hardened off. + +"A man," said Chisholm, "that can stand a week or two among white hares, +and not feel too tired to sleep at night, is fit for anything. Now, +boys," he added, "what do you say to a run right away up to the polar +ice-fields?" + +"I'm in," said Fred quietly. + +"Oh!" said Chisholm, "you're always in for anything. If I asked you to +take a trip to the moon you'd jump at it." + +"Or over it," said Fred, smiling, "like the cow in the poem of `Hey, +diddle diddle;' but are you in earnest about the ice-fields?" + +"Downright." + +"Well," said Frank, with assumed modesty, "if you think I'm `broke' +enough, please I'd like to go too." + +"Bravo!" cried Chisholm O'Grahame, "that settles the question." + +They made arrangements to sail in a seal-and-whale ship in February. +They got an introduction to a captain of one of these, and he gladly +undertook to convey them to Greenland and back, "free, gratis, and for +nothing, except the pleasure of their company, and the skins and blubber +they would no doubt kill." That was how the captain expressed it. +"But, mind you," he said, "you'll have to rough it a bit." + +"We don't mind that," said Chisholm. + +Before he left for the far distant north, Frank Willoughby spent some +weeks at General Lyell's castle. Happy, happy weeks they were, and how +quickly, too, they fled away! I could make you feel very sentimental +and "gushive," reader, if I told you all that passed between the lovely +young Eenie and our hero Frank, but I never tell tales out of school, so +there. I may just say, however, that, when the last moment _did_ come, +poor Eenie could hardly breathe the fond "good bye" for the tears that +she could not repress. + +The General's adieu was a hearty one. + +"Good-bye," he said, "keep up a good heart, and," he added laughingly, +as he patted Frank on the back, "remember-- + +"`None but the brave deserve the fair.'" + +CHAPTER FOUR. + +PART II--THE POLAR ICE-FIELDS. + +OUTWARD BOUND--NIGHT IN THE PACK--THE AURORA--THE AWFUL SILENCE OF THE +ICE-FIELDS--SEALS! SEALS!--THE BATTLE WITH THE BLADDER-NOSES--JACK IN +THE BOX WITH A VENGEANCE--A FIGHT WITH WALRUSES. + +The good ship _Grampus_ slipped away from her moorings on the 13th of +February, 18--, and steamed slowly seaward from the port of Peterhead, +North Britain, hound for the wild and desolate regions that surround the +pole. She steamed slowly away in the very teeth of a breeze of winds +that might have frightened a man of less daring and pluck than Captain +Anderson, for the sea was grey and stormy, the sky was leaden and +threatening, and the very sea-birds that screamed around the vessel's +bows seemed to warn him that there was danger on the deep. But the +Captain heeded them not. He had said he would sail on this day, and he +did, for well he knew what his vessel could now do, and had done before; +besides, he was a true sailor, and had all a sailor's impatience to +begin the voyage. + +"It looks a bit squally," he said to the pilot as he bade him adieu, +"and we may have a dirty day or two, but the _Grampus_ can stand it, and +I'm not the man to linger in the harbour one half-hour after I'm ready +to start. Good-bye, old man." + +The _Grampus_ was a steam brig of some three hundred and fifty tons, +fitted with powerful engines, and a screw that could be hoisted up out +of the water when sail was on her. Built of wood, she was as stout and +strong a ship as ever clove the waves. And she needed all her strength +too--there was a wide and stormy ocean to cross, and there was ice to +plough through that no fragile ship dare ever face. The captain was the +owner of the vessel; and many a voyage, and not unsuccessful ones +either, had he made to the polar ice-fields, but the present one was +fated to be the most eventful of all. + +From the very commencement of the cruise, until the first ice was +sighted, the wind kept steadily ahead, and the seas kept washing over +the brave brig from stem to stern. But she was not to be daunted, so +steadily she steamed on northwards, ever northwards. + +A week after the last of the lonely isles of Shetland had sunk like a +little cloud beneath the southern horizon they were far away at sea-- +indeed, there was nothing to be seen from the masthead, only the great +tumbling seas that dashed their sprays high over the funnel. Even the +birds had left them, all save that strange mysterious creature that is +ever seen wheeling around ships sailing over the broad Atlantic, or +crossing the northern seas, and which naturalists call the stormy +petrel, and mariners Mother Carey's chicken. No wonder sailors look +upon this bird with something akin to superstition and awe, so dark and +dusky is the creature, the very little white about it serving but to +make its blackness visible; it flits from stormy wave to stormy wave +like a veritable evil spirit. + +Our friend Frank, in his voyage to the polar ice-fields, suffered +somewhat from _mal de mer_--it sounds far nicer in French than in +English--but he bravely stuck to the deck. He was more than once washed +into the lee scuppers, but he had on an oilskin suit of fear-nothing +dimensions; so he just scrambled up again, or in other words, like the +cork leg of the merchant of Rotterdam, he got up "and went on as +before." + +The farther north the _Grampus_ got, the shorter grew the days. Indeed, +they seemed to be sailing into the home of eternal night, only it must +be remembered that the season was yet early, and that in the polar +regions for three months of the year the sun never appears above the +horizon. If the nights were long, however, it cannot be said they were +dark; they were lighted up with a magnificence never seen in more +southern latitudes. The sky itself was at times of a deep and +indescribably dark-blue colour, and the stars were great wheels of +sparkling light. This was in itself a beautiful sight, and our heroes +used to linger on deck till far on in the night, as if under some +pleasant spell. But what pen can describe the gorgeous splendour of the +northern lights, or Aurora. Imagine if you can a vast and broad bow, or +arc of a circle, stretched athwart the heavens, twenty times as broad as +any rainbow, and seeming to be ever so much farther away; imagine this +bow to be composed of spears or needles of light--green, blue, crimson, +and yellow--and imagine these spears in constant motion, shooting +upwards and downwards, changing places incessantly, changing colours +constantly, and this too with inconceivable rapidity, and you will be +able to form some faint notion of the wonderful sight the Aurora +presented to the eyes of our astonished travellers. + +Reader, I have been alone in the ice-fields by night, while the Aurora +was playing in the heavens above. You cannot conceive of the solitude +and lonesomeness of such a situation, nor can you form any conception of +the deep, the indescribable silence that reigns in the frozen ocean. +Well, upwards as I gazed at the northern lights, I have heard sounds +emanating from them. That I do not remember having ever read of +anywhere. A line of spears would advance from the east and another from +the west; they would meet and commingle with a subdued clashing and +hissing noise, such as you might make by rubbing the palms of the hands +rapidly together. What this strange sound can be is a mystery that may +never be revealed. + +Captain Anderson told our heroes that he never thought the voyage had +begun until the crow's-nest, or out-look barrel, was hoisted to the +mainmast head. + +One morning our travellers were awakened by the sound of singing and +shouting, and on going on deck they found the brave skipper rubbing his +hands with glee, as he gazed up at the ascending nest. + +"Cheerily does it!" he was crying. "Heave, lads! heave, heave, and she +goes. Now, young gentlemen," he continued, "are your rifles in order? +In two days more, if all goes well, I'll show you such sport as you +couldn't even have dreamt of before." + +And sure enough, in two days' time they had made "the country," as the +ice-fields are termed. If, however, any one on board had expected to +find wealth, in the shape of plump seals, lying thereon ready for the +gathering, he was much mistaken. There was the ice, to be sure, but +never a seal in sight, neither in the water nor out of it, for it seemed +that the country was unusually open that year. + +"Well," said Anderson, one day, "I'm tired of this north Greenland work; +I'll bear away for the west land." + +A week's steaming through fields of slushy ice and floating snow, and +streams of flat snow-clad bergs, brought them into open water, and they +sighted the lofty and desolate shores of Greenland West, and much to +their surprise, found a large three-masted Dutchman quietly lying at +anchor in a bay, sails all clewed up, and men away on the ice. It was +not long ere the _Grampus_ had followed her example, so far as letting +go the anchor went, and making all snug and ready for action. A great +bear--always a sign seals are about--stood sniffing on the edge of a +floe. Perhaps he had never seen a steamship before, or perhaps he was +wondering what the crew were having for breakfast. Frank got his +Henri-Martini up, and began potting at him with a long-range sight, and +presently Master Bruin remembered an appointment he had, and made tracks +to keep it. + +It was a glorious morning when the boats were called away. All hands +were half frantic with joy at the thought they would soon be among the +seals. In they trundle, and down go the boats with a splash into the +water, and next moment they are off. Frank and Chisholm are in one +boat, Fred Freeman in another, and there is a grand race between the two +to see who shall first touch the ice and fire the first shot. The boats +seemed to fly over the water, and when they at last ran alongside the +floe and the crew jumped on shore, there was hardly a yard's length +between them; but Fred was declared winner. + +And now the day's work was begun. Warily at first, the riflemen had to +creep towards their prey on hands and knees, taking advantage of every +hummock or boulder to screen themselves from view. On each piece of ice +some forty or fifty seals lay, and each "patch" had a sentry set. When +they succeeded in killing him, the others were very much at their mercy; +but oftentimes the seal on watch would succeed, even before his eyes +closed in death, in giving his companions warning. Then, almost ere +another bullet could reach them, they had leapt helter-skelter into the +water. But when the sun got higher, the seals seemed to get almost too +lazy to move; they could then be approached very much more closely, and +the work of death was carried on with an earnestness and energy that was +terrible to behold. Indeed, a kind of madness to shed blood seemed to +take possession of every man on the ice. There was no thought but to +slay. The excitement was intense--awful in its intensity. The sun went +slowly round and down, and as he set behind the rugged hills, his disc +seemed to reflect the blood on the ice. Even his parting beams had +borrowed the self-same hue, and the tops of the highest icebergs looked +as if dipped in gore. + +When the shadows fell, tired and weary enough now, our heroes went +slowly back towards the boats. + +"Oh! boys," cried Fred, "don't you remember how bright and lovely the +snow was in the morning? Behold it now!" + +"Ay, behold it now," said Chisholm. "Indeed, Fred, this is murder. I +don't feel I can call it by any other name, and I'm half ashamed of +myself." + +"So am I," said Frank, "for a seal can't defend itself." + +"But the bladder-nosed seals can," said the first mate, who had just +joined the trio. "They are terrible beasts to deal with. I'd rather +fight a bear single-handed than I would one of these. Once they fill +that kettle-pot-like bladder over their noses, they mean mischief, I can +tell you. A rifle bullet has no more effect on it than a pea from a +pea-shooter." + +"Is that so?" said Fred. + +"Five years ago," continued the mate, "I was one of the crew of a boat, +of ten men in all, that were attacked by these monsters of the deep. +They seemed mad with rage and fury; they swarmed up from the sea to the +ice where we stood, with blazing eyes and flashing teeth, by the dozen +and by the score. We all fought like fiends; we fought with spears and +axes and our rifles clubbed, but the faster we killed them the faster-- +they came. Our shouts brought assistance from the ship, but not before +a whole hour was spent in this battle with the bladder-noses, and not +until we were quite exhausted, with three of our number lying dead on +the ice." + +They were walking over a floe of thick bay ice as the mate told his +story. No sooner had he spoken the last words than-- + +"Down, men, down!" he cried; "the ice is rising ahead." + +They followed the mate's advice, and threw themselves on their faces. + +In two places the ice was heaving and rising. Then all at once it gave +way, with a noise like the firing of great guns, and up from the depths +of the dark sea rose two gigantic forms, with wild eyes and yard-long +tusks, and of such fearful aspect that Frank's heart almost stood still +with dread. + +"By George!" cried Chisholm, "this is playing at Jack in the box with a +vengeance." + +Bang, bang, bang went the rifles, and down sank the apparitions, leaving +the broken ice all red with blood. + +"They are only wounded," said the mate; "they'll have revenge if it is a +month hence, depend on that." + +The _Grampus_, sealing intent, steamed farther and farther north, and +the nearer to the pole they got, the heavier grew the ice. There was +shooting every day now for three months and more--seals and bears, and +sometimes a fox--and, when there was nothing else to go for, they +brought down gulls for their feathers, and looms for the sake of fresh +meat. Sometimes they were rewarded by the sight of the lonely narwhal, +or giant unicorn of the sea--a creature which always makes direct for a +boat as soon as it spies one, and has been known to attack and sink a +whaler or gig. + +They were after the looms one day, Chisholm and Frank being as usual in +one boat, with the first mate steering. + +Suddenly, "Stand by your clubs and guns, men!" cried the mate; "Here +they come. Now we're in for it. I knew they'd seek revenge." + +The sea around them seemed alive with the great tusked heads of +walruses, coming from all directions and making straight for the boat. + +"In oars, and keep cool, lads," said the mate, seizing an axe; "but for +mercy's sake keep the boat trimmed. If she capsizes we are all dead +men." + +How long they fought with those desperate brutes Frank could never tell; +but it seemed to him an age ere the other boats came to their relief, +and poured volley after volley into the midst of the pack of walruses. +Then they disappeared, and but for the sea around them, all reddened +with blood, and the floating corpses--which, however, speedily sank-- +there was not a sign of the fearful hand-to-hand and all-unequal +contest. + +CHAPTER FIVE. + +THE WEST LAND OF GREENLAND--A FALL! A FALL!--DANGER ON ALL SIDES--"MAN +THE ICE-SAWS"--WORKING FOR LIFE--BESET IN THE DREARY PACK. + +"I feel," said the captain one day, at breakfast, "that I am making a +dangerous experiment. I am keeping far in to the west land; I am all +but hugging the shore; and if it were to come on to blow from seawards, +we would--Steward, I'll have another cup of coffee." + +"You think," said Chisholm, "our chances of further cups of coffee +wouldn't be very great, eh?" + +"I don't think they would," said the captain. "Well, lads, I've shown +you a bit of sport, haven't I? And if we had only a little more blubber +in her, troth, I'd bear up for bonnie Scotland. I've just come down +from the crow's-nest, and what do you think I've spied? Why, open water +for miles ahead, stretching away to the north as far as eyes can reach. +There are whales there, boys, if we can but wait for them." + +After breakfast it was, "All hands assist ship!" + +Up sprang the men, and ere one could wink, so to speak, half the crew +were at the side with poles, pressing on the ice to make room for the +_Grampus_. It was strange work, and it seemed at first impossible that +twenty men with a spar could move a floe. But they did, and three hours +afterwards they were in this mysterious open sea. + +"Why," cried Frank, "I declare there is the Dutchman dodging yonder with +foreyard aback. A sailing ship beat a steamer!" + +"Ay, she's got the pull on us, boys," the captain said. "And see, she +is flenshing [skinning] a whale; the crang [the skinned corpse] lies +beside her. She has met with a lane of open water, and taken advantage +of it." + +Just at that moment came the cry, "A fall! a fall! on the weather +quarter!" + +"A fall! a fall!" Surely never was excitement seen like this before, +thought Frank. + +There was no waiting for orders. The ship seemed to stop of her own +accord, and the escaping steam roared uselessly through the funnel. + +"A fall! a fall!" Up tumble the men, many undressed, with their clothes +in a bundle. They spring to the boats, our heroes follow the example, +and in three minutes more are tearing through the water towards the +coveted leviathan. The Dutchman has spied the monster too, and her +boats are soon afloat. Who shall be first? + +[The origin of this cry is this, I think. "Whaol" is the ordinary +Scotch for "whale," but Aberdonians use the "f" instead of the "wh" in +such words as "what," "where," etc, which they pronounce "fat" and +"far." Hence "whale" would become "faul," or "fall."] + +"Pull, lads, pull! Hurrah, lads, hurrah! We'll never let a Dutchman +beat us!" + +Is the whale asleep, that she lies so quietly? Nay, for now she scents +the danger, and, lashing her tail madly skywards, is off; but not before +the roar of the harpoon gun from the foremost boat has awakened the +echoes of the Greenland sea. + +"A fall! a fall! She is struck! she is struck!" Vainly now she dashes +through the surging sea; another boat pulls around to intercept her, and +again she is struck; the lines whirl over the gunwale of Frank's boat +till it smokes again. There is blood now in the great beast's wake, and +her way is not so swift; she dives and dives again, but she is +breathless now. Dreadful her wound must be--for see, she is spouting +water mingled with blood; and now she lies still on the surface of the +ocean. + +"In line, men!" cries the mate, springing up and seizing his long lance, +and standing bravely up in the bows. "Pull gently alongside, and stand +by to back water the moment I spear the fall." + +"How bold and daring he looks!" thinks Frank; all thought of danger +swallowed up in admiration of the man who stands, spear in hand, in the +boat's bows. + +They are close now. Swish! Quick as lightning the spear is sent home; +quickly it is turned, to sever the carotid; next moment the backing boat +is almost swamped in blood. But not quickly enough can they back, I +fear, to save the boat from destruction, themselves from speedy death. +High, high in air is raised that dreadful tail; half the animal seems +out of the water; they are under the shadow of it; and now it descends, +and every oar on the port-side of the boat is broken off close to the +rowlocks. But the boat is saved. For fully half an hour the whale +flaps the sea in her dying agony, and the noise may be heard for miles +around, while the waters around her are churned into crimson foam. Then +there is one more terrible convulsion; her great jaw opens and shuts +again. The leviathan is dead. The men of the brig and the men in the +boats answer each other with boisterous cheers; but the Dutchman fills +her sails, puts about, and bears sullenly up for the south. + +Well would it have been for the _Grampus_ had Captain Anderson followed +her example; but he would not. + +"She can go," he said; "she is a full ship, and only a sailing ship. +Now let us get but two other `fish,' then hey for the sunny south, +boys." + +For a whole month they remained dodging about in that open sea, but +without seeing another whale. All their good luck seemed to have gone +with the Dutchman, and the captain was about to bear up, and force his +way once more out through the southern ice to the open sea beyond, when +suddenly a change came o'er the spirit of the scene. To their surprise, +if not to their horror, the ice began to close in around them in all +directions. Nearer and nearer came the mighty floes. They came from +the north; they came from the south and the east; they even deployed +into two long lines, or horns, that crept along the land until they met. +At the same time a heavy swell began to roll in from seawards. + +"There is a gale of wind outside," the captain said to Chisholm, "and +this is the result; but come, I don't mean to be caught like a mouse in +a trap." Then, addressing the mate, "Call all hands, Mr Lewis. Get +out the ice-saws and anchors." + +"Ay, ay, sir," replied the mate. + +"Now, my lads," continued the captain, when the men came aft in a body, +"you've all been to Greenland before, and you know the danger we are in +as well as I can tell you. If we are caught between two floes in that +heaving pack, we'll be crunched like a walnut-shell. So we'll have to +work to make a harbour. That alone can save us. Call the steward. +Steward! we'll splice the main brace." + +The men gave a cheer; they stripped off coats and jackets, and even +their gloves. They meant business, and looked it. Meanwhile the +_Grampus_ was going ahead at full speed, straight towards the ice in +shore. Why, it looked to our heroes as if the captain was positively +courting destruction; for he was steering for the very largest berg he +could find, and presently he was alongside it. The ship was stopped, +and every man that could be spared sent over the side. The anchors were +got out speedily, and made fast to the berg. Then the men began to +work. + +The iceberg against which they directed their operations was indeed a +mighty one. Although not very high close to the edge, it towered above +them many hundreds of feet, a snow-clad mountain of ice, its green and +rugged sides glittering in the beams of the mid-day sun. It was soon +evident to Chisholm O'Grahame that the captain's object was to hollow +out a temporary harbour in the side of the berg, sufficiently wide to +enable the ship to fit into it, so that she might be safe from being +ground into matchwood when the whole pack was joined. + +"Come," he cried, to his comrades, "three hands of us here idle! We can +work too, captain. Only tell us what to do, and we'll do it." + +"Bravo! my lads," said the captain, cheerily. "Over the side with you +then, and help with the ice-saws." + +Those great ice-saws were about twenty feet long, and had four cross +handles at the top, so that when let down, on the perpendicular, against +the piece, four men standing above could work one saw. Frank and his +two friends, with Mr Lewis, the mate, took charge of a saw, and the +work went on cheerily. The men sang as they laboured, and there was as +much laughing and joking as if they had been husbandmen working together +in the harvest-field, instead of men working for their dear lives. By +eight o'clock the harbour was complete. + +By eight o'clock the ice had almost closed upon them. + +And now to get the ship into this _portus salutis_. There was so little +time; other giant bergs were close aboard of them, rising and falling on +the swelling waves with a noise that was simply appalling. The captain +had to give his orders through the speaking-trumpet, and even then his +voice was often drowned by the grinding, shrieking din of the heaving +floes. But at last they have worked her in, and now for a time at least +she is safe, for she rises and falls with the ice; and, though hemmed in +on all sides, has nothing to fear. + +The _Grampus_ was "beset;" and from that very hour began one of the +dreariest seasons of imprisonment that ever a beleaguered ship's crew +experienced. They were far away from aid of any kind that they knew of, +the ice was terribly heavy, and, worse than all, the summer season was +far advanced, and already the sun dipped very close to the northern +horizon at midnight. + +The storm abated; in twelve hours the ice had ceased to rise and fall, +and a silence, deep as death, reigned once more over the frozen sea. + +"We must do the best we can," said brave Captain Anderson, "to amuse +ourselves and each other. God only knows when we may get clear, but we +can trust in Him who rules the sea as well as the dry land." + +"Amen!" said Chisholm, in a quiet and earnest voice. + +"We'll make off skins now for a week or two," said the captain; "that +will help to pass the time." + +So it did, reader, and it also brought the birds around them in +millions. These, as usual, they shot for feathers and fresh meat. +Bears in twos, and sometimes in threes, prowled round the ship to pick +up the offal. Ugly customers they looked, and ugly customers they were. +Poor Tom Reid, the cooper's mate, sat on a bit of ice one day smoking, +not far from the ship. A monster bear crept round a corner and clawed +his heart and lungs out with one stroke of his mighty paw. The +carpenter and captain were both on the ice one day, when they were +suddenly confronted with the man-eater. They had no arms, and would +have been instantly killed had not the danger been perceived by Fred +Freeman; he fired from the deck of the _Grampus_, wounded the bear, and +saved their lives. After this it was determined to hunt and kill the +bears, and many good skins were thus procured. One day Fred surprised +the man-eater in a corner, licking his wounded foot. The bear bellowed +like a bull, and prepared to spring. Fred was too fast for him, and +rolled him over at ten paces distance. Poor Fred! he did not see that +this bear had a companion within hail, and that he was coming up fast +and furiously and intent on revenge, not fifty yards away. Men are +behind him, but they fear to fire, lest they kill Fred. Chisholm is on +an adjoining floe, but the warning he shouts comes all too late; for +next moment his poor friend lies helpless and bleeding in the talons of +the terrible ice-king. Chisholm kneels to fire. It is a fearful risk, +but it is Fred's only chance. The sound of the rifle rings out on the +silent air, the bear quits his victim, springs upwards with a convulsive +start, then falls dead beside the man he would have slain. It is three +weeks ere Fred can crawl again. + +Meanwhile the whole of the skins have been "made off." [The seal-skins, +with blubber about three inches thick, are spread on boards on idle days +in Greenland ships, and the fat pared off. The skins are then rubbed in +salt and stowed away in a tank; the blubber also is put in tanks by +itself. This is called "off."] There are no more bits of flesh and fat +thrown overboard, so the birds all leave them, then the bears; and, +except that a wondering seal sometimes lifts its black head for a moment +out of a pool of water to stare at the ship, there is no sign or sound +of animal life on all the dreary pack. They feel more lonely now than +ever, but they play games on the ice and games on board, and they read +much and talk a great deal about home. This last makes them feel the +time still more long and monotonous, but one day-- + +"Happy thought!" says Fred, "let us get up theatricals." + +Well, this passed the time away pleasantly enough for a whole month, but +they tired at last even of theatricals; and then a dense fog rolled in +from the south and the west, and enveloped the whole pack as with a dark +pall. They saw no more of the sun for two weary months, but they knew +he _set_ now, and that the order of day and night had been restored; but +alas! they knew likewise that it would, in a few weeks more, be all one +long night, and their hearts sank at the very thoughts of it. + +The mist rolled away at last, but shorter and shorter grew the days and +colder and colder the weather. I hesitated before I wrote that last +word "weather," for really in that ice-pack there was no weather. Never +a cloud in the blue vault of heaven, and never a breath of wind--not +even as much as would suffice to raise one feathery flake of the starry +snow. But the silence--it was a silence that was felt at the heart; you +could have heard a whisper almost a mile away, there was nothing to +break it. Nature seemed asleep, and all things seemed to fear to wake +her. No wonder that poor Frank said one day, as he closed his book-- + +"Heigho! boys, it is _such_ a treat to hear the clock tick." + +Night was the most trying, cheerless time; for after they had turned +into their box-like bunks, they would lie for hours before it was +possible to get warm. Then in the morning each bunk looked like a +little cave of snow, the breath of the occupant during the night having +been frozen into hoar-frost, which covered the sides and the top, and +lay half-an-inch thick on the coverlet. It was, indeed, a dreary time. + +CHAPTER SIX. + +WINTER IN THE ICE-FIELDS--THE ICE BREAKS UP--SAILING SOUTH--A SLEDGE +ADVENTURE--THE STORM AND SHIPWRECK--AFLOAT ON AN ICEBERG--LAND! LAND!-- +A TERRIBLE JOURNEY--CRONSTADT. + +Was it always so silent and still in that lonely ice-pack as I have +tried to describe it? Not always: there were times when the floes +around the ship began to move slowly up and down, telling of a swell +beneath them; then the rending, shrieking, and groaning noises were +indescribable. But only twice during the months of darkness did a +breeze blow, and, when it did, snow fell, or rather was borne along on +the wings of the wind, with a fierce bitterness that no living being +could be exposed to for an hour and live. A snow-house was built over +the decks, and this served in some slight measure to mitigate the +terrible cold. + +And so the winter wore away, for the longest time has an end. Our +heroes had borne their privations and their deprivations nobly. They +did not even let down their hearts when the captain told them they would +have to go on "short commons," and only laughed when the steward +reported the eggs finished, and the last potato vanished. The biscuits +held out, however, and the soup in bouilli, so they rejoiced +accordingly, and were thankful. + +But when the sun showed face one day, there were no bounds to the joy +that every one on board manifested. They even manned the rigging, and +gave him three times three heartfelt cheers. Even Rouskia, the ship's +dog, seemed glad to see the light of day again, and joined in the +cheering with a kind of half hysterical bark, as if the tears were in +his throat and partially stopped his utterance. The sun did not stop to +look at them long, but, like an invalid in the stage of convalescence, +he stayed up longer and longer every day, and his presence soon began to +work a change in the appearance of the ice; the snow on the top of it +became less dry, and the cold to a large extent left the air. Then the +ice began to float farther apart, and, on taking the reckoning one day, +the captain found, to his joy, that the whole pack was moving slowly +southwards. + +After many days the _Grampus_ left her harbour, and began "boring" her +way through the ice. It was slow, tedious work; but slow as it was they +were homeward bound, so there was happiness at the hearts of all on +board. But their hopes of escape were doomed to be blighted; for once +again the light wind which had begun to blow from the gentle south fell +to a dead calm, winter once more resumed his sway, and the good ship +_Grampus_ was beset a second time. Although the ice was not heavy, but +hummock-covered or flat, it was dangerous enough in all conscience. + +One day they were surprised by a visit from some natives, with sledges +drawn by dogs. They brought fish with them, and the carcase of a +reindeer, and begged, in their strange but musical labial language, for +blankets and tobacco. They came from land that was visible on the +starboard bow, and this country, or island, or whatever it was, Chisholm +begged leave of the captain to be allowed, with his friends, to visit. + +"It must be at your own risk, then, gentlemen," the captain replied; +"for, although we are most likely to lie here for six weeks to come, the +ice may break up at any moment." + +But our heroes did risk it. They packed a sledge with many things which +they knew the natives would appreciate, and off they started, the +captain waving his hand and wishing them luck. It was more pleasant to +run for a little way on first starting; but having by this means +succeeded in starting the circulation of the blood, as Chisholm phrased +it, they handed the whips to the natives, and squatted on the tops of +the curious and primitive sledges. + +They found the Esquimaux very friendly, and willing to barter. Their +huts were mere mole-hills, and far from cleanly inside, and were built +with no attempt at architecture; but they were strong, nevertheless. +The only kind of religion these people had was a kind of sun worship. +They were expert in hunting and fishing, and very brave and daring. +Chisholm soon found that he could accomplish the journey from the ship +to the village of Redinvolsk in an hour; so he started a sledge, drawn +by two dogs, and, great though the risk was, went on shore almost every +day. But these little trips of his had a sad and all but fatal ending. +His team one day took fright, and, instead of running directly for the +village, dashed over a precipice. Half-way down the crevasse the sledge +was brought up by a snow-covered shelf of rock. But kindly aid was at +hand, a rope was lowered by some friendly natives, and a sheathed knife. +With the latter he cut the poor plunging dogs adrift, sorry in his +manly heart that he had to leave them to their fate. He was then drawn +to bank much bruised and shaken, but thankful to escape with life. + +One morning clouds began to bank up in the sky, and that very day the +ice broke up, steam was got up, and, more quickly than before, the +_Grampus_ headed homewards. + +There was an air of greater gravity about the captain, as he came below +to dinner that day, than ever Frank and his friends had seen. + +"I hope there is nothing serious the matter, captain?" Chisholm +inquired. + +"Not as yet, gentlemen," replied the captain, with an uneasy kind of a +smile, "but the glass is going tumbling down, and the ice grows heavier +and more dangerous the nearer to the open sea we get. I fear we're +going to have a blow." + +He soon after went on deck, whither our heroes followed him. The floes +were of great size, heavy, mischievous-looking pieces, covered with snow +on the top, but with a deal of hard green stuff under water. Against +these the ship was constantly bumping, with a violence that made every +one on deck stagger and reel. The captain himself was on the bridge +giving constant orders, for the ship was being steered by the ice; the +object being to strike the pieces stem on, and so save the more +vulnerable bows or quarters. + +The day wore gloomily away, and the night closed in dark and stormy. No +one cared to lie down or seek for rest; there was a cloud on the heart +of every one on board--a strange foreboding of evil to come. The wind +soon increased to all the fury of a gale; the waves dashed over the ship +with such violence that when struck you couldn't have told whether it +was with a piece of ice or a green sea. + +It was just two bells in the morning watch, and the night was at its +darkest, when the good ship was caught with tremendous force between two +mighty floes, which, as soon as they had done the mischief, began to +part and leave the sinking ship to her sad fate. The next moment the +engineer had rushed on deck to say the engines had stopped. All was now +confusion on board, for there was a strange steadiness about the vessel +that told she was sinking fast. + +Boats were of no use in that terrible tempest-tossed ocean, so orders +were given to get ready the ice-anchors. By dint of courage and +strength, the anchors were thrown, and the ship made fast for a time, to +the nearest berg. It was but for a time, alas! And now commenced all +the hurry and horror of this pitiful disembarkation. The waves washed +over both ship and berg, making the former quiver all over like some +creature in the throes of death, and causing the berg itself to heel +over like a great raft. + +Morning broke grey and cold and dismal; but hours before, the _Grampus_ +had slipped her ice-anchors, and gone down head foremost; and, out of +all her crew of fifty men, fifteen only were alive to see the sunrise, +and thank the God who had spared their lives--fifteen, and the ship's +dog. Our heroes were saved, or this story would not be written; but, +with the exception of Captain Anderson, every other officer met with a +watery grave. + +I have not the heart to harrow the feelings of my youthful readers with +a relation of the horrors the survivors of the foundered ship had to +endure on that floating iceberg. For a whole week they were tossed +about among the stormy waves of that cold ocean, drifting before an +eastern gale that blew with almost the force of a hurricane. But if +their half-frozen hearts were still capable of feeling one atom of joy, +they must surely have beat faster when the captain, glass in hand, but +half buried in spray, shouted--"Land, land! I see it, I see it!" + +Ah! there were hearts on that berg that would never beat again, for at +that moment six of the original fifteen lay dead on the berg. + +The storm now abated, and the sea went down; but yet another danger had +to be encountered, for strange black monsters, with fierce eyes, rose up +from the depth of ocean and sought to scale the berg. Was it after the +dead they had come? + +Boats at last!--only the boats of native Indians, but they came with +friendly intentions. + +So they committed the bodies of their late comrades to the deep, and, +embarking with the Indians, were rowed on shore to a new land. Frank +was in a sad way: he was carried to the hut of a chief; medicine men +were sent for to look upon him and administer to him herbs strangely +compounded, and wise old squaws uttered their spells over his prostrate +form; but it was the nursing he received, after all, from Chisholm and +Fred that at last brought him round. + +Their fare while they lived among the Indians was very poor of its kind; +but then, a gift-horse should not be looked in the mouth. These poor +people gave them a portion of all they possessed, and they gave it, too, +with right good will. Captain Anderson could speak their language--a +kind of Yack _patois_--and held many long conversations with the chief-- +a great man in the estimation of the tribe, and in reality a true man, +although only a savage. Anderson held him spell-bound, as he told of +some of the strange cities and countries there were in the world. He +liked to hear the captain talk, and still, from the sinister look and +incredulous smile on his face as he listened, you could see that he +thought the narrator was drawing largely on his imagination. + +It was very kind of this chief to invite the captain, our heroes, and +the survivors of the melancholy shipwreck to stay with him for the rest +of their lives. + +"Blubber," he said, "would never fail them; salt fish and seal's flesh +could always be had in abundance, with now and then a bit of a whale as +a treat. Then they could take them wives from the daughters of his +people, and the smoke from their wigwams would ascend for ever." + +It was a pretty picture, Anderson allowed; but--there is no accounting +for taste; he loved his own home in England better. + +"Then in that case," said Kit Chak--and here spoke the noble savage--"I +and my brother will guide you through the great forest to Inchboon, +where lies a Danish whaler. The journey will take us one moon." + +One moon!--nearly thirty days. It was a fearful undertaking; but what +will not men do for home and country? So all preparations were made for +the march, and in three days they were ready to start. + +"You do well to wrap up, Frank, my boy," said Chisholm to his young +friend; "but, beside the captain, you _do_ look odd." + +In twenty-five days, after sufferings and hardships that they never +forgot, they arrived at Inchboon, and sure enough they found the Danish +ship. She was bound to Russia, though; if that would suit them, said +the captain, his vessel was at their service. + +They gladly accepted his offer, bade brave Kit Chak and his brother +adieu (not without well rewarding them), and in six weeks' time they +were landed at Cronstadt. + +Our travellers now were as happy as kings; but where, they wondered, +would they turn up next? + +CHAPTER SEVEN. + +PART III--THE RUSSIAN STEPPES. + +QUIET DAYS ON THE KYRA--CAPTAIN VARDE'S HAPPY HOME--FRED FREEMAN'S +RUSTIC RUSSIAN--THE CAPTAIN TELLS A TALE OF ADVENTURE. + +The captain of the Danish barque, who had brought our three heroes +safely into Russian waters, was one of those individuals who are never +so happy as when ministering to the comfort and pleasure of others. + +"Having landed you in Europe," he said, on the very last day they dined +together on board, "I dare say I ought to let you go, but I assure you, +gentlemen, I am not tired of you, and if you will accept of a few weeks +of the kind of rude hospitality I can offer you, at my little country +home on the banks of the Kyra, I shall be delighted." + +"Stop," he continued, smilingly, holding up his hand as Chisholm was +about to speak, "I know everything you would say, so there is no +occasion to say anything. I have been kind to you, and you feel so much +indebted to me already, that you are unwilling to trespass further on my +goodness. That is what you would say; but, dear gentlemen, if you do +feel under an obligation to me, you can amply repay me, and even confer +a favour on me, by giving me a few weeks of your company." + +"What say you, Fred?" asked Chisholm. + +"Oh!" Fred replied, "I am delighted at finding such a pleasant `new way +of paying old debts.' Let us go by all means." + +"As for me, my friends," said Captain Anderson, "I must leave you +to-morrow. Although the loss of my ship was no fault of mine, it was a +terrible misfortune, and one which it will be long ere I can forget, and +longer still ere it will be forgotten against me." + +"We need not tell you," said Chisholm, "how truly sorry we are to part +with you. We will live in the hopes of meeting you some day in England, +and renewing our acquaintance with one in whose ship we sailed so long +and spent so many happy hours." + +So next day the captain of the lost brig _Grampus_ and our friends +parted. They stayed just one week in Cronstadt, communicating by +telegraph with those at home, then, in company with their new friend, +started for his cottage on the Kyra. They were not sorry when, three +days after leaving Saint Petersburg, they found themselves down in the +very heart of the cool green country, and in a spot which, but for the +different dress and language of the people they met, they could easily +have fancied was a part of England itself. If they were delighted with +the country, they were not less so with the house and home itself of +Captain Varde, their kindly host. Half buried in trees, it was +approached by a broad and beautiful avenue, which led through well-kept +lawns to what you would have been bound to have styled the hall door, or +front entrance, but the truth is Captain Varde's house had no front, or, +in other words, it had two; for the spacious hall led you straight +through to the wide terraced lawn and flower garden, that skirted the +lovely river. + +"When we go down to the village," said Varde, "which is situated about +three miles from here, we sometimes go by boat, and sometimes with the +horses in the conveyance I have landed you in to-day. But here comes my +wife and daughter, the only two beings I love on earth." + +The first greetings betwixt himself and family being ended, Captain +Varde introduced our heroes, who were very kindly welcomed, and made to +feel perfectly at home; so much so that before the first day of their +visit had come to an end, they seemed to have known this family all +their lives. + +When, after dinner, the ladies had retired, and the gentlemen lingered +over the walnuts and wine,-- + +"Captain Varde," said Fred Freeman, "I cannot tell you how much +astonished I and my comrades feel at all we see around us in this pretty +home of yours. It is so different from anything we could have expected +to meet with in Russia." + +"It is, indeed," added Chisholm, "there is an air of refinement +everywhere, and, if you will excuse me for saying so, captain, the +English spoken by Mrs and Miss Varde, with the exception of a slight +foreign accent, which, in my opinion, adds a charm to it, is as perfect +as any you will hear in London." + +"We have travelled a good deal, even in your country," said the Danish +captain, with a smile. + +"Yes, but," said Fred, "you would travel a very long way in England +without meeting with a family who could talk the Russian language. As +linguists, the people of this country undoubtedly beat us. Now, my idea +of a Russian peasant, or small farmer, was somewhat as follows--shall I +offend you if I describe my beau-ideal rustic Russian?" + +"Certainly not; though my wife and child are Russians by birth, I myself +am a Dane." + +"Well, then," said Fred, "the rustic Russian that I had on the brain, +and whose prototype I look for here in vain, was indeed a sorry lout--a +short, stout, rough, and unkempt fellow, with less appearance of good +breeding about him than a Nottingham cowherd, and less manners than a +Newcastle navvy, with a good deal of reverence about him for the +aristocracy, and an extraordinary relish for rum. He was guiltless of +anything resembling ablution; dressed in sheep's skins, with the hairy +side next the skin; slept in this same jacket, and never changed it from +one year's end to another, except for the purpose of taking a bath, +which operation he performed by getting inside the stove and raking the +hot ashes all about him; his principal diet was the blackest of bread, +and the greatest treat you could give him a basin of train-oil and a +horn spoon." + +Captain Varde laughed. "Anyhow," he said, "I am glad you have already +found yourselves undeceived, and I do not doubt but that, in your +intercourse with the people of this country, you will find many of them +brave, generous, and gentlemanly fellows, and quite worthy of being +reckoned among the number of your friends." + +And Captain Varde was right. + +The first two or three months of their life at the house of their +newly-found friend was quite idyllic in its simplicity. Much of their +time was spent in fishing and shooting, or in climbing the hills to +obtain a view of the wild but beautiful country around them; but in +whatever way the day had been passed, the afternoon always found them +gathered around the hospitable board of their worthy host. Then the +evening would be spent in pleasant conversation, with music and +story-telling, the stories nearly all coming from the captain himself. +He had spent a great deal of his life at sea, and had come through +innumerable adventures both on the ocean and on land. + +"Old sailors," said Varde, once, "are sometimes accused of spinning +yarns, with less of facts about them than there might be; but, for my +own part, I think that a man who has knocked about the world for about +twenty years has little occasion to draw upon his imagination." + +"I fought a bear one time," he continued, "single-handed, face to face-- +ay, and I may say breast to breast." + +"No easy task that, I should say," remarked Chisholm, "if he were of any +size." + +"He was a monster," said Varde, "of Herculean strength; yonder is his +skin on the couch. You may be sure though that I did not court the +struggle, nor am I ever likely to forget it, for two reasons--the first +is that in my right leg I still carry the marks of the brute's talons; +the other reason is a far dearer one." + +Captain Varde paused, and took his wife's hand in his, gazing at her +with a look of inexpressible tenderness. + +"But for that bear adventure I never should have met with my wife. How +my Adeline's father came to settle down for life in the wild unpeopled +district where I first made his acquaintance and hers, I can hardly +tell. In his youth he had been a merchant and a dweller in cities; in +his old age he built himself a house many many versts even from a +village of any pretensions, on the confines of a great gloomy forest, +and close by a lake that people say is far deeper than the great hills +around it are high. Here he lived the life of a recluse and a bookworm. + +"In the summer of 1845, myself and a few friends had encamped in the +neighbourhood of this lake, chiefly to enjoy the excellent fishing there +to be obtained. Not that we did not find work for our guns as well, for +there was abundance of both fur and feather; but my chief delight lay in +the gentler art. One of my friends, Satiesky by name, could do enough +gunning for the whole camp, so I at least was content, and the time was +spent most pleasantly until it set in for settled wet weather. + +"At last after several days' rain it was evident the weather was broken, +and the summer gone; so, very reluctantly, we prepared to pack our +horses and trudge back again to the distant city. Packing did not take +us long, and, having packed, we started. A march of six or eight versts +brought us to the little village or hamlet of Odstok. We had just +reached its first house--a small outlying farm built on a wooded +eminence. It was well for us we had, for in less than ten minutes the +low land that we had just passed was completely covered with water. +What had been fields before was now an inland sea. Swollen by the +mountain torrents, the river had burst its bounds and swept down the +valley with terrible force, carrying before it fences and trees, and +even the scattered houses which stood in its way, and drowning oxen, +horses, sheep, and alas! human beings as well. + +"For three whole weeks we were in a state of siege. Not that we wanted +food, however; Jerikoff the farmer's larder was well stored, and he was +very good to us indeed. He found his old boat, in which he used to +paddle about in a little canal before the floods, very handy now. I +shouldn't have cared to risk my life in the ricketty tub; but Jerikoff +did, and used to make voyages to a distant shop, and return laden with +many a little Russian dainty. Once he brought in a haul of hares and +rabbits from the flood. They had doubtless taken refuge on a tree as an +extemporised island; but when that island itself became flooded, down +the stream, _nolens volens_, they had to float. It is an ill wind that +blows nobody good, and Jerikoff set out in great glee to reap this rich +harvest of living fur. His face was a study while so engaged. `Oh! my +pretty dears,' he said, addressing his victims; `I couldn't think of +seeing you drown before my very face. Come into my boat; there is room +for you all.' But when the old man, before landing, began to knock them +on the head, I daresay the little mariners thought they had got out of +the frying pan into the fire. + +"But about my bear, gentlemen. Well, I am coming to that." + +CHAPTER EIGHT. + +THE CAPTAIN'S TALE CONTINUED--WINTER BRINGS THE BEARS FROM THE +MOUNTAINS--THE TRAGEDY IN THE FOREST--BEARS AT BAY--BREAST TO BREAST +WITH BRUIN--FRED FREEMAN FALLS IN LOVE! + +"Kind and all as our host Jerikoff was," continued the captain, "none of +us were sorry when the floods began to abate and finally disappeared. +But hardly had they gone when yet another change came over the +landscape; for hard frost set in, then small powdery snow began to fall, +followed shortly by great flakes, and before twenty-four hours were over +our heads the whole country was locked in the embrace of an early +winter. We weren't altogether sorry for this, for we could now prolong +our stay with prospects of good duck and wild-goose shooting, for both +these and many other kinds of game would visit the running streams. We +would also have an opportunity of doing old Jerikoff a favour by filling +his larder for him. Your Russian rustic, Mr Freeman, is oftentimes as +proud as a prince. Jerikoff was, at all events; and we dared not insult +him by the offer of a single rouble. + +"Our host used to do a little shooting himself. One day he met a young +peasant leading his horse from the forest, where he had been for wood. +The little lad's eyes were as round and apparently as big as +saucers--_he had seen a bear_. Jerikoff made haste home to tell us, and +we determined to go in search of Mr Bruin. Hardly had we made up our +minds and got ready our guns when another report, and that a very +singular one indeed--although we had no reason to doubt the truth of +it--reached us. + +"A farmer's sledge drawn by three horses, and on its way to the very +hamlet in which we now dwelt, had been attacked by a bear of monstrous +size and terrible ferocity. It was not the horses, however, but human +flesh on which this brute made up his mind to regale himself. He had +sprung from an ambush, alighting in the very centre of the sledge. The +poor kyoorshik's struggles I trust were brief, but very dreadful +nevertheless; his screams were heard by more than one individual-- +powerless, however, to render aught of assistance--as the terrified +horses plunged madly through the forest, a tragedy being acted behind +them which it makes one's blood run cold even to think of. The poor +beasts pulled up at last with the shattered remains of the sledge, and +the mutilated body of the unhappy driver, at the very door of the little +village inn; but of the bear there were no signs save the ghastly work +he had accomplished. + +"News like this only served to stimulate our desire for revenge on this +bold and ferocious bear, and we set out in all haste to seek him in the +forest. There were four of us, all told, with two moudjiks in two +sledges drawn by six horses. We were all armed to the teeth, but this +did not prevent us from taking proper precautions to avoid a sudden +surprise. Farther than the confines of the great forest it was +impractical to take our sledges; but the horses were unlimbered, and +accompanied us until we came upon the trail of our first bear. They +were then fastened to trees, and left in the charge of the moudjiks. + +"`Now,' said Satiesky, one of my friends, `these tracks are very recent. +Mr Bruin cannot therefore be very far away, and as it will be unsafe +to go a long distance from our horses, let us try the effects of a +little ruse. I have come all prepared to carry it out.' + +"To build a fire, camp-fashion, was with Satiesky the work of but a few +minutes. He piled it in an open space or glade in the forest, so that +the heat should not bring down the snow from the pines over it. Having +got it well alight, he hung from the tripod above a three-pound piece of +ham, which was soon frizzling away in fine style, and making us all +hungry with its fragrance. + +"`Let us get under cover, now,' said Satiesky; `if a bear is any where +within six versts, you'll soon see him prowl round, licking his chops, +and looking for dinner, which pray Providence we will serve up to him +hot.' + +"We took up a position, as he spoke, as well screened as possible by the +snow-laden branches, and waited. Half-an-hour went wearily past, and +after that every minute seemed interminable. We were rewarded at last, +though, but in a way we little expected. Some of us know, to our cost, +the terrible bull-like bellow which a bear emits from his stentorian +lungs, when he is suddenly disturbed and means mischief. This is +intended, no doubt, to startle and paralyse the victim on which he means +to spring. Be this as it may, such was now the sound we heard, yet not +anywhere near the fire, but close in the rear of our position. It was +an immense bear, probably the very same that had attacked and killed the +poor sledge-driver; for, as Satiesky afterwards said, having once tasted +human flesh, he would prefer it to the best bit of bacon that ever was +frizzled. + +"He gave us little time now for consideration. But Satiesky was quick; +he discharged his rifle almost point-blank at the charging beast. Down +rolled Bruin, not dead, but so dreadfully wounded that it was an easy +enough matter for us to dispatch him with our pikes. + +"Hardly had he ceased to writhe, when down the wind came the sharp ring +of another rifle. + +"`Hark!' cried Satiesky, springing out into the open; `that sound comes +not from the direction where we left our horses. There is another party +in the forest as well as ourselves.' + +"Satiesky's surmise was right, as he knew a moment afterwards to his +sorrow. The strange hunting party had wounded a bear, and were +following him up, and, in his desperation, he charged our companion. He +had no power or time for defence, and next moment we saw him laid +senseless on the snow; while over him stood his terrible antagonist, his +eyes flashing fire, his jaws dripping blood. + +"I will not attempt to describe to you, gentlemen, the wild _melee_ that +followed. Bar a shot at close quarters with a revolver, there was no +time for using fire-arms. With pikes and axes and rifles clubbed, we +fought the giant beast until strength succumbed to skill, and he lay +dead beside Satiesky. With the exception of a few scratches, nobody was +any the worse, and we found, to our delight, that our fallen companion +was merely stunned. + +"You should have seen the spread that Jerikoff placed before us that +evening, on our return. Jerikoff excelled himself for once; and it +needed but little wine-drinking, I can tell you, to make the feast pass +merrily by. + +"Jerikoff would have bear hams all the winter. That was the reason he +was so pleased; that was the reason he invited a pair of inseparable +companions, in the shape of an old fiddler and a dancing bear, to +minister to our amusement after dinner was over. + +"Next day we bagged three more bears. We had, however, no adventure to +speak of; they succumbed to their fate with a kind of sleepy dignity, +after they had been pitted by some peasants hired for the occasion. + +"On this particular day I had wandered some distance away from my +companions. I had got clear out of the forest, and had climbed an +eminence, where I could see well about me, accompanied by an armed +servant; but certainly apprehending no danger, for the coast all around +seemed well clear. I had reckoned without my host, however. My host on +this occasion was an enormous bear, who had probably been asleep in the +sun behind a boulder, and a very disagreeable entertainment he had +provided for me." + +"He wasn't very hospitable, then?" said Chisholm, smiling. + +"Rather much so, I might say," said the captain; "indeed, he received me +with open arms. He was too affectionate altogether, and even now I +think I hear the roar of delight he gave vent to as he commenced the +fearful hug. I tried to prick him under the ribs with my knife. It +broke on a bone, which caused the brute to increase rather than diminish +the pressure. I could feel my bones crack, and my breath was squeezed +out of me. Why at this awful moment my scared moudjik should hand me +his knife, instead of using it himself, I never could tell; but God gave +me strength to handle it, gentlemen. I had one hand free, and with that +I plunged the weapon into the animal's chest, and we both rolled down +together. + +"That evening two sledges in particular left the forest, going in +different directions. One dashed along as fast as three horses could +carry it, towards the house of my dear Adeline's father. It was the +nearest house to the forest; therefore thither was I borne, all but +lifeless from loss of blood. The other sledge went more slowly, of +course, towards the village we had that morning left so merrily +together. That sledge brought Bruin home. Gentlemen," said the +captain, concluding his narrative, and once more taking his wife's hand, +"I need not tell you how kind the old merchant was to me. Here is a +proof of it. + +"The house where he and Adeline used to reside is now tenanted by some +relations of ours, for my father-in-law has long since crossed the +bourne whence no traveller ever returns; but we often visit the dear old +home by the lake, and spend a few weeks there. We hope to do so this +Christmas, and if you will but prolong your stay till then and accompany +us, I think I can show you some nice sport." + +What could our heroes reply to so kind an invitation, but that they +would be delighted to do so? One of them, indeed, was much more +delighted than either of the other two; and that was Fred Freeman. +Would you know the reason why, reader? You may learn it, then, from the +following fragment of a conversation which took place between the trio +one evening when they were alone together:-- + +"Chisholm O'Grahame," said Fred, "we used to laugh at poor Frank for +being so deeply in love with his beautiful Eenie Lyell. You must laugh +alone now, my boy, for I can feel for him." + +"What!" cried Chisholm, delightedly, "Are you too in for it?" + +"I fear it's a fact," said Fred; "and so you two can leave me here to my +fate, if you choose, and go on with your adventures by yourselves--that +is, if Miss Varde will look kindly on me." + +"Ridiculous!" said Chisholm. "No, no, Fred, my lad, engage yourself if +you like, and return some other day for this charming girl; but round +the world with us you come, and, indeed, I think the sooner we start the +better." + +"Heigho!" sighed Fred, and Frank felt for him if Chisholm did not. + +CHAPTER NINE. + +THE RUSSIAN STEPPES (CONCLUDED). + +PLEASANT TIMES--A GLORIOUS HIDE--A HAPPY CHRISTMAS--BOAR-HUNTING-- +ATTACKED BY WOLVES. + +Still pleasantly passed the time of our heroes away at Captain Varde's +delightful residence. He did all in his power to render them happy and +comfortable; he even invited friends from a distance to visit at the +house, in case they should be dull in the evenings, with no one to talk +to but himself; and very pleasant people they turned out to be. As +autumn wore away, and the days got shorter and colder, they were, of +course, confined a good deal to the house; but, what with whist and +chess, music and dancing, they never thought a day too long. + +Fred's "little love affair," as Chisholm somewhat irreverently styled +it, flourished apace. In fact he was engaged to Miss Varde, and the +engagement received the sanction of her parents. + +"What a pity it is," said Captain Varde, one day, "that I cannot find a +match for you, Mr O'Grahame." + +"You are very kind, I am sure, to think of me," said Chisholm. + +"Yes," continued Varde, "for then, you know, there would be no more +occasion for you to leave Russia." + +"Ah! but," said Chisholm, "I have that young dog, Frank, to show the +world to. He is in my charge and in Fred's. After we have done the +needful by him, we may return--Fred is bound to--and then there is no +saying what might happen." + +One day, when our friends came out to have their usual run before +breakfast, they found the ground all white with snow. This would have +warned them, if nothing else had, that Christmas was on ahead; but they +also found the moudjiks busy at work getting ready the sledges, and +preparations going on everywhere for a long journey. + +The morning arrives, and the sledges are brought round, and soon filled +with as happy a party, probably, as ever set out on a long dreary +mid-winter journey in the wilds of Russia. Crack go the whips; the +horses toss their saucy heads and manes in the air; then, with a brave +plunge, forward they flee, and, with a cheer from the servants left +behind, and a shout from onlooking moudjiks, they are off. Paddy, in +the song of "The Groves of Blarney," talks about "the complatest thing +in nature being a coach-and-six or a feather bed;" had he ridden in a +Russian travelling-sledge, I daresay he would have considered it a sort +of combination of the two. Conversation is easy, as there is no +rattling of vile wheels; the air is bracing, and the scenery charming, +though hills and dales, and the great still forests themselves, are +robed in a garment of snow. At noon they stop for rest and refreshment, +then mount and go on again; but in the evening they reach a town of some +importance, and here they stop for the night. Onward again next day, +and onward the next; and at noon of the fourth the country gets wilder; +there is hardly a house to be seen; there are giant trees in the wide, +wild forests they traverse, and giant hills on the horizon. Suddenly, +at a bend of the road, a great lake--frozen hard, and partially +snow-clad--makes its appearance; and not far from its banks, though +almost hidden by trees, a lordly mansion, from many of the chimneys of +which blue smoke is curling upwards, against the white of a hill that +almost overhangs it. + +Captain Varde hails the second sledge, and points laughingly towards +this mansion, and they know they are nearing the home of his people. +Half an hour afterwards, everybody is dismounting from the sledges, +greetings are being exchanged, and steaming horses led away to their +stables by smiling retainers. + +I am not going to describe the life our heroes led at this mansion, +which might well be termed a castle; nor even to tell you of the many +adventures--some of them wild enough--they had among the hills and in +the forests around. + +One evening the sledge containing Captain Varde and Chisholm got behind +the others, and they were attacked by a pack of hungry wolves in fine +form. They had had a good day among the boars--our friends, I mean, not +the wolves--and one was towing astern. This particular "piggie" the +wolves thought would make them an excellent supper; although, for that +matter, being, as they are, hippophagists, they would not have objected +to a bite of horse-flesh. The sun was declining in the west, as the +sledge tore along through the forest; they had still many versts to +ride, and attacked in flank and rear by such a number of these unwelcome +guests--for the woods seemed alive with them--the danger was one not to +be made light of. Happily for them, their horses were hardy and fleet; +they had good guns, and plenty of ammunition, so the slaughter was +immense. Kept at bay for a time, the wolves, being reinforced, rallied +and pressed the sledgemen closely. Chisholm thought of cutting the boar +adrift, but Varde wouldn't hear of it. + +"Nay, my boy, nay," he cried, "we will never strike our colours while +we've a single cartridge left unfired." + +Chisholm laughed, and peppered away, and with such good effect, that ere +the sun had quite gone down, the enemy drew off and left them, and they +soon after regained their companions. + +There was much more of this kind of thing; suffice it to say that they +spent a Christmas of never-to-be-forgotten happiness, and left at last +with the heartfelt farewells of their kind entertainers ringing in their +ears, and promises that, if Providence spared them, this visit would +certainly not be their last. + +CHAPTER TEN. + +PART IV--THE WILDS OF AFRICA. + +OFF TO THE CAPE--AMONG THE ROCK RABBITS--A WILD RIDE--LOST ON THE +PLAINS. + +"Isn't it a glorious morning," said Chisholm, coming on deck and joining +his friends Frank and Fred, who were reclining in their lounge chairs, +books in hand, under the awning reading, or pretending to read. And +Chisholm himself looked glorious, glorious in the strength and beauty of +his young manhood. He was dressed in white from top to toe, with sun +hat and low cut collar, which showed his brown and shapely neck to +perfection. His face was weather-beaten, that was the least that could +be said of it, and loosely dressed as he was, you seemed to see the play +of every muscle in his manly form, as he moved; and, when he waved his +arms almost rejoicingly in the balmy but bracing breeze, that fanned the +sunny sea, he looked as lithe and graceful as a young tiger. + +"A glorious morning," he said again. + +"Beautiful," said Fred, gazing languidly around him. + +"You seem in fine form," said Frank, smiling. + +"Just had a salt water bath. The other fellows in my cabin had soda and +brandy. I feel fresher now than they do." + +The ship was a steamer, _Druid_, but she was staggering along under a +power of canvas and, bar accident, two more days would see them safe in +Cape Town. + +Fred Freeman had been very loth and sorry to leave his friends in +Russia, for reasons well known to the reader. Frank, for reasons of a +similar nature, had been just as anxious to get back to dear old Wales, +to enjoy, so he said, six weeks' hunting. But Chisholm had looked at +him with a right merry twinkle in his blue eyes as he replied,-- + +"Nay, boy, nay, the next hunting you'll do will be at the Cape. I +promised your father to take you right round the world, and I told some +one else that some one else wouldn't see you again for three years at +the very least. So there!" + +Here is an extract from Chisholm's diary, written three months after:-- + +"The Cape hills in sight at last. But I shouldn't say _at last_, +because our passage has been everything one could wish. Fred and Frank +are both a bit low, leastways they don't talk enough, perhaps they +think. Wonder if it is their late lotus-eating life that is telling +upon their constitutions, or is it merely that they're in love. A +little bit of both, perhaps. But they'll wake up ere long without a +doubt." + +Chisholm was perfectly correct in his surmises, both Fred and Frank did +wake up, and as soon as the roaring of the steam from the funnel, and +the rattling of the anchor chains, convinced them that the voyage was +indeed at an end, they threw aside their hooks, pulled themselves +together, and entered heart and soul into the excitement of shore going. + +A whole week was to be spent at Cape Town, and it was the best and +sweetest time of all the year they could have chosen to visit the place. +In the town itself and the suburbs the gardens were gorgeous in their +floral beauty, and all the wild romantic hills around were crimson and +white with geraniums, and the rarest and loveliest of heaths and wild +flowers. Roaming among the mountains was pleasant even by day, for the +sub-tropical heat of the sun was tempered by the pleasant breeze that +blew inland from the ocean. Although they never went abroad for a +ramble without taking their guns along with them, of sport, properly +so-called, there was but little. They managed to make several good bags +of rock rabbits, nevertheless. These funny little creatures are as much +like rats as rabbits, but they are delicious eating. It was quite half +a day's journey to reach their haunts, over the hills and through the +stunted bush, and across broad uplands where little else save a kind of +hard, tough grass grew, and walking among which was dangerous, owing to +the number of deadly snakes that slept or crept among it. Beyond this +there would be more bush, in which bright-winged but songless birds +flitted noiselessly about, then the rocks or cliffs where dwelt the +coneys. + +There is one trait in the character of a rock rabbit which breeds it a +deal of harm, and that is curiosity. They like to know all they can +learn about any one who honours them with a domiciliary visit. No +sooner had our heroes appeared at the foot of the chaos of boulders +which formed the cliff, than one rock rabbit mounted a stone to see what +they looked like. I suppose he meant to go back and report to his +comrades, but Frank's gun spoiled his good intention, and he came +tumbling down to meet them. The crack of the fowling-piece brought a +dozen at least of his relations out, to see what on earth the matter +was, and many of them, not content with the advantage of the good view +which a bit of boulder gave them, must needs stand on their hind-legs to +add to their elevation; then it was bang, bang, right and left, and +bang, bang, left and right _ad libitum_, or as fast at least as the +rabbits appeared. Did they kill all they fired at? Oh! no, not by a +very great deal. Many downed to the flash, and many that were knocked +over succeeded in reaching the friendly shelter of their holes, and it +is to be hoped, for their sakes, that their hospital arrangements were +as complete as possible, else many of these poor curious creatures must +have suffered a good deal more than our heroes meant them to. + +On their way to and from these little shooting excursions snakes were +shot wherever seen, whip snakes and sand snakes, black snakes and +cobras. + +"It's no sin to slay a snake," Fred would say, "and it expends the +ammunition, you know." + +Well, this sort of life was certainly less slow than lotus-eating, but a +week of it was enough. They felt "crowded," as the Yankees call it, +even at Cape Town. They wanted to be off and away into the wilds; the +only question was how to get into the interior. The subject was +broached one day at the _table d'hote_, at which they were dining, and +Chisholm thought the best plan would be to hire a dhow to take them on +to Zanzibar. + +"For it strikes me," he said, "that it is quite the orthodox plan to +start for the interior of Africa by way of Zanzibar, just as it is to go +to New York from Liverpool." + +"It is," said a gentleman present, "but you'll find it slow work getting +to Zanzibar in a dhow, and precious rough work too. I'm Commander Lyell +of the _Dodo_; my gunboat sails to-morrow for Zanzibar. I've heard you +mention my uncle's name, General Lyell, and if you like to rough it with +me, I'll take you." + +A nephew of General Lyell! This was news indeed, to Frank at least; and +it is needless to say the offer was gladly accepted. + +Three spare cots were rigged in the Commander's cabin, and in every way +they were made as comfortable as could be. + +Half a gale of wind was what they had to start with, up the Mozambique; +next day it had increased to nearly hurricane force. They saw many +ships lying-to, but the _Dodo_ did nothing of that sort; wet enough +though, she was in all conscience, in fact she seemed to spend most of +her time under instead of over the waves; very wet she was, and likewise +very lively, but she made a good passage, and in little over a week, she +had cast anchor in a beautiful wooded hay on the African coast, where +white-roofed houses, close by the shore, peeped out through the greenery +of trees. + +"There is a bit of fun to be got not far from here," said Captain Lyell, +"for a day's journey beyond the little Portuguese village there, the +antelope swarm, and horses, too, are procurable, by paying for them." + +Frank was a splendid horseman, and his delight at the prospect of a hunt +was unbounded. + +Horses they could and did procure, and wild and unmanageable brutes they +proved at first, but after the third day they became quiet enough. +Their way led through a most beautiful well-timbered undulating country, +and travelling was far from difficult, but as they journeyed more +inland, and bore more to the north, not only their difficulties, but +their dangers too, increased; the land got more rugged and mountainous, +the jungles more dense and impenetrable, and the forests grew darker and +deeper. They found themselves, too, bordering on a country, the +inhabitants of which were far from friendly, and it was then they found +their Portuguese guides of the greatest of use; they could speak the +language of these savages, and their relations with them were the +relations of trade. Portuguese the natives could bear with. Englishmen +they both feared and hated. But little cared our heroes; in fact they +treated the blacks with the coolest indifference, and probably that was +the best way they could have treated them. + +Many a lordly antelope fell to their guns, they had days on days of good +sport, and the very dangers that surrounded them, seemed only to make +their life in the bush all the more enjoyable. A glorious hunt Frank +had one day all to himself. It was a ride he is never likely to forget, +either, for it came nigh costing him dear life itself. Out on the open +plain one morning, though but a little way from the camp, he started a +fine buck. It seemed positively to invite him to the chase; well, his +horse was fresh, he was fresh himself, a ten miles' run he thought would +do them both good, and yonder was the deer, so off he went. Off went +man and horse, and buck, but the latter seemed never to tire, and the +plain over which he rode seemed interminable. Hours flew by; then +Frank's horse began to flag, for he must have ridden thirty miles in a +bee line; so the buck won the day, he took to cover in a small bit of +scrub, and from that he would not be moved. If he had, Frank thought, +but one good hound, he could rest his horse, then start the chase, and +probably turn him again towards the camp, and thus finish a day that +would make the roaster of Her Majesty's Staghounds envy him even to read +of it. But no, he must mount his horse again and ride back. Back? +Yes, it seemed about the easiest thing in the world to find his way +back; but when, after journeying on and on all the day, without seeing a +sign or token of the camp he had left, when, faint and weary, he saw the +sun dipping slowly downwards to the western horizon, then his heart sank +within him, and for the first time he realised the terribleness of his +situation--_he was lost_! Lost! and it mattered little to him now which +way he rode; he allowed the bridle to hang loose on the neck of his +jaded horse, his own chin to fall on his breast; a sense of weariness +crept over him that almost induced sleep, and more than once he nearly +slipped from the saddle. Presently it was night, and big bright stars +shone over him, which he did not care even to glance at. He only felt +tired, cold, sleepy. + +"Coo--oo--ee!" Hark! does he dream? No, for list! once again that long +unearthly yell. The horse pricks up his ears and neighs. Frank seizes +the bridle, and once more listens himself, for well he knows what he +hears is the night-shout of the outpost African sentinels. In ten +minutes more he is beside the camp-fire. Thanks to the sagacity of that +good horse. + +CHAPTER ELEVEN. + +CRUISING IN THE DODO--THE BLUEBELL--HOW OYSTERS GROW ON TREES--AWAY UP +THE BEAUTIFUL RIVER--THE BLUEBELL AGROUND--NOONTIDE ON THE RIVER. + +On board the _Dodo_ once more, steaming steadily northwards; some times +far out at sea, with nothing but the blue all round them: sometimes +hugging the green-wooded shore: sometimes casting anchor at the mouths +of mighty rivers, and sending armed boats away to seek for the slave +dhows that hid all day under the hanging boughs, and stole out to sea at +night. Chisholm, the oldest of our heroes, confessed he had never +enjoyed a voyage so much in his life. At last, however, they cast +anchor in Zanzibar, and were nothing loth to go on shore to stretch +their legs. The captain accompanied them in his gig, dressed in full +uniform--cocked-hat, epaulettes, and sword. He was going to visit the +Consulate, and expected news of some importance. + +Accompanied by a black boy, who wore no clothes worth mentioning, but +could speak English and prided himself thereon, they went for a grand +tour of inspection. The streets were narrow, long, and winding, and +oftentimes bridged over at the top, so that the residents in one house +could cross over to see their friends on the other side of the way, +without the trouble of coming downstairs. There was a singular absence +of windows in the houses of the gentlemen Arabs, Banians, or Hindus; +every room of which, although furnished luxuriantly, is very dark and +cool. In the bazaar and in the streets where the shops were, there was +hardly any moving along, so great was the motley crowd, and, saving the +women and the innumerable slaves, every one they met was armed to the +teeth. The warrior Arabs, with their long flowing hair, dressed in +embroidered robes of snowy white, with cloaks of camel's hair, gilded +turbans and jewelled sword-belts, looked boldly picturesque; these +mingled in the streets with--white-gowned Hindus, and long-faced, +dark-coated Parsees; sailors in blue and soldiers in scarlet, and sacred +solemn-looking cows with gilded horns, which many a one touched with +fond reverence, as they walked quietly along. And the background of all +this picture was slavery; slavery panting and perspiring as it dragged +itself along in chains; slavery cowering under the lash of the driver's +whip; slavery bent to the ground under loads of cowrie shells; slavery, +dark unhappy slavery. + +Our heroes were glad to find themselves at last out in the green and +flowery country, wandering under the shade of giant trees, and inhaling +the sweet perfume of orange blossom. The first person they met on their +return from shore was Captain Lyell himself. He shook hands with them +all round, at which they were not a little surprised, but they could see +by his face there was something in the wind. + +"Come down below," he said. When he got them there he continued, "I've +got good news, gentlemen, in fact, I may say glorious news; let me tell +it to you all in one sentence. First, then, I'm promoted; I'm now +Captain Lyell in reality, and not by courtesy alone; secondly, I'm going +home--another officer has arrived to take command of the _Dodo_; +thirdly, I've applied to the Commodore for four months' leave; fourthly, +I've got it; fifthly and lastly, I've hired a pretty little river +steamboat from a Scotch friend on shore here, one that takes all to +pieces for the boys to carry, quite an African explore boat, and I'm +ready to start with you to-morrow if you like for the interior, and if +we don't get the rarest of sport, why I shan't believe that my name is +plain John Lyell." + +It is needless to say that after this there was another round of +hand-shaking, or that the dinner that day was enlivened by some of the +captain's very best and rarest of reminiscences. + +The little steamer which Lyell had hired was indeed a beauty, quite a +fairy boat. Getting her ready for the voyage and packing the stores, +getting in all necessaries, and hiring "the boys" occupied quite a week. +Then they went out on their trial trip. The day was beautiful--it was +the sunny season in the Indian ocean--there was just enough wind to +temper the heat and ripple the sea. The many pretty islands they +visited seemed, at a distance, to float in the sky; they were emerald +green, and fringed with a beach of snowy sand. They landed on some of +these and shot a species of small deer and rabbits--wild rabbits such as +we have at home. [I cannot account for the presence of rabbits on some +islands in the channel of the Mozambique, but there they are.] In a +little sandy cove of one of these islands, they took luncheon _al +fresco_, previously enjoying the luxury of a bath, all taking a header +at once and making all the noise they could to keep the sharks at bay. + +The trial trip was perfectly satisfactory; so next morning early, it was +up anchor and off. The _Bluebird_ hadn't much space between decks, but +they had an awning spread, and lounging on deck was delightful. They +headed north, keeping two or three miles from the shore. This shore was +a cloudland of green, without beach or sea border of any kind. + +"Yonder," said Lyell, "is where oysters grow on trees." + +There was a laugh at this; but next morning the captain verified his +statement, and he took Frank with him in the little boat, and they +brought off a bucketful. The explanation is this: the roots of the +mangrove trees grow among the water, to these the oysters cling, and at +low water can be gathered. + +Now here they are at the mouth of a great river; they can hear the +thundering of the breakers on the terrible bar as they approach it, over +these mountain waves their boat must go, and it is lucky for them that +they have so experienced a sailor as Lyell at the helm. But beyond all +is peace; the peace that reigns on the broad bosom of a great river +whose waters roll slowly seaward. On each side the banks are wooded to +the water's edge. The trees are mangroves, but here and there are +bunches of feathery palms. + +After dinner they land among a clump of these to drink cool delicious +cocoa-nut milk. [This glorious nectar can only be had in perfection in +lands where the cocoa palms grow. Each green nut before the fruit is +formed contains about a quart of it.] In Africa, wherever you find +cocoa-nut trees you find human beings, and here was a negro village, but +at sight of the white faces of the travellers the natives fled screaming +into the dark depths of the forest. So they had to help themselves. +Onward again, and now a thick fog envelopes them, and in a few minutes +the _Bluebell_ has run aground and refuses to budge. Then it is all +hands to strip and get overboard to lighten ship; all save the little +engineer; he stays aboard to go all speed astern. All speed astern +means no speed at all for ten minutes at least, during which time it +comes on to rain in fearful torrents, and the surface of the river +becomes all at once so hot, that they are glad when the _Bluebell_ moves +again, and they can get up out of it. They hadn't bargained for a warm +bath. But the mist rolls off presently, and they can once more see +their way. But this running aground becomes an almost every day +occurrence, so that at last they quite look forward to the order to +strip and plunge. + +They have left the last Portuguese settlement, and the last Arab +encampment, leagues and leagues behind them; they have passed the +countries of many different tribes of natives. Most of these fled on +their approach, but the warriors of some lined the shores, yelling +maniacally, and brandishing their war spears. They have come at last to +a portion of the stream where they are but little troubled with the +presence of the aborigines, a few only being seen in their log canoes +peacefully fishing. But where mankind does not abound in Africa birds +and beasts hold sway; and one day, on rounding a point of land, they +came upon a scene of such animation, as my poor pen would fail in any +attempt to describe. It was noontide on the river; countless herds of +zebus and zebras had come down to drink, hippopotami wallowed in the +shallows, and the sky above was alive with myriads of strange and +beautiful birds, that floated screaming around, or perched on the trees, +deafening the ear with their noise and chatter; parrots and lories, +ibises, flamingoes and storks--some of these as they circled high in the +air being arrayed in plumage of pure white and scarlet, looked strangely +beautiful against the sky's azure blue. + +"O!" cried Chisholm, "we mustn't let such an opportunity as this pass +for a big shoot." + +"Give them time to drink," said Fred; "it would be a shame to disturb +them yet a little." + +This was agreed to, and the _Bluebird_ lay still for two hours, which +gave ample time to watch the strange manners and customs of these +curious specimens of animal life, and after this shooting began. The +larger game were wilder than they imagined, and soon made themselves +very scarce indeed; but the birds took hardly any heed of their +presence, and even when dozens of them fluttered down dead, instead of +being afraid, the majority seemed to look upon the matter as a very +pretty joke, and the parrots in particular shrieked and laughed till the +very welkin rang. + +The scenery got more varied as they proceeded more inland; the river +swept at times through vast treeless wastes, and on its banks lay +alligators basking in the sunshine. This was a temptation never to be +resisted. It afforded good ball practice, and I daresay it tickled the +alligators up a little if it did nothing else. At other times the river +was bounded by gigantic cliffs; here it narrowed, and the current was so +strong that a mile an hour of headway was all that could be made, under +the highest pressure of steam commensurate with safety. + +They had come to the right hunting grounds at last, so thought Chisholm, +Frank, and Fred. But Lyell, although always willing to lie to for a day +to enjoy the wild scenery, and the shooting the jungles afforded, always +counselled going on and on. Early in the morning and an hour or two +before the shades of evening fell, were the times they generally chose +to disembark for a ramble in the forest. + +One day they crept quietly through the bush to a spot whence some noise +proceeded. They expected a shot at something. Suddenly they found +themselves within a stone's throw of a herd of most beautiful zebras; +they had come to a pool to drink. But beyond them were quite a regiment +of giraffes. _They_ could sniff the danger from afar if the zebras +could not; they swung their heads as if they were gigantic hammers, +stamped with rage, and bounded off ere ever a trigger could be drawn. +But our heroes were rewarded half-an-hour afterwards, by falling in with +a quantity of hippopotami. These unwieldly monsters were quietly +browsing on the rank herbage that the plain afforded them. Probably +they never ran so quickly before as they did when fire was opened on +them from the bush. Before they had began to shoot, "I say, boys," said +Chisholm, "what a charming view, a nobleman's castle on a hill, park and +trees and all complete! Doesn't it look like it, though?" + +"Yes," Fred replied, laughing; "and deer and all in it. Don't they look +elegant with their short legs and their swollen mouths?" + +Bang--bang--bang! + +CHAPTER TWELVE. + +AN INLAND LAKE--ENCHANTING SCENERY--THE ENCAMPMENT--TROPICAL STORMS-- +HUNTING THE RHINOCEROS--FRANK UNHORSED--LYELL'S ADVENTURE WITH A LION-- +ENCOUNTER WITH A GORILLA. + +Some degrees south of the Equator, and nearly four hundred miles from +the eastern shores of Africa, a tributary of the river up which the +saucy little _Bluebell_ was so quietly steaming, suddenly broadened out +into a beautiful lake. Here about a week after the events narrated in +last chapter, our friends found themselves. Not even Captain Lyell knew +the name of this sheet of water. Perhaps it never had one, but Chisholm +was equal to the occasion. + +"Call it," he said, "Loch Row Allan, in honour of my departed friend the +lion killer." [Row Allan Gordon Cumming.] + +And so, Loch Row Allan it was called. + +I hope my young reader has not been taught at school to believe that the +interior of Africa is composed _entirely_ of deep, dark forests, +entangled bush, and dismal swamp. If he has been, and could catch but +one glance at the wild and charming scenery around this inland lake; how +speedily he would be undeceived. It is a bold and rugged mountain land, +hills above hills towering skywards, clusters of hills, not round but +facaded--peaked, and clad to two-thirds of their height with gigantic +forest trees and feathery palms. There is many a bosky glen and dell +encompassed by these hills, and many a dark, wide wooded strath, and it +did not detract in the least from the charm of the scenery, in our +heroes' view, to know that these glens and straths were the home of the +elephant, the rhinoceros, and the king of the forest himself--the lordly +lion. They determined to make this country their home for two or three +months at the least, and with this end they built themselves and their +people huts high up on the green side of a swelling hill that overlooked +the lake. + +The woods and the plains beyond, nature had stocked with herds of deer, +the lake teemed with fish, there were patches of pine apples acres in +extent, mango-trees, guava trees, oranges, citron, limes and pomolos, +with bananas and plantains, and a hundred other delicious fruits they +knew not even the names of. Surely in a land like this, there was but +little chance of their falling short of the means of subsistence. + +But do not imagine they had not to rough it, for that they often had; +nor that the sun always shone, for that it did not. Sometimes great +dark clouds would roll rapidly up from the horizon, and above them the +fast disappearing blue of the sky looked preternaturally deep and +intense, and from out these clouds the storm would burst in all its +fierce intensity, lightning such as they had never seen before, thunder +that seemed to rend the very hills, and rain that soon gathered into +cataracts that steamed and foamed down the mountain sides, on their way +to the lakes beneath. These storms ended almost as quickly as they had +begun, and probably our heroes would have minded them but very little, +had it not been for the fact that, a few minutes before the rain began +to fall, scorpions, centipedes, and the largest and most loathsome of +spiders, came hastily trooping into the hut to seek for shelter. What +instinct teaches them to do this I wonder? + +Many gigantic specimens of the rhinoceros fell before the fire of their +rifles. They afforded good but not always safe sport, as Frank one day +found to his cost. He appeared one morning dressed "after the fashion +of the country," as he termed it, with shoulders, arms, and face well +greased and stained, and when he mounted his horse, every one was +obliged to admit that, to say the least, he looked "a noble savage." + +Frank was greatly pleased at this, and away he rode, in company with his +friend Chisholm, determined, he said, to put in a good day. There was a +plain not far away from the encampment which Chisholm, who liked to +retain Scottish nomenclature wherever he went, used to call the moor. +Here, on this particular occasion, they had the good luck to fall in +with several rhinoceroses, and rare sport they had with them. They did +not wish to kill, they came out to chase, and rough though the ground +was, they had the best of it. Frank slung his rifle behind him, and +when he got alongside any of the monsters he used his riding whip, +causing them at first to increase their speed, but soon to lose temper +and stand at bay, and use their terrible horns. This gave the young man +a chance of showing his horsemanship off to perfection. + +Several deer were brought down from the saddle, and, on the whole, +Chisholm, and the noble savage Frank, made a glorious day of it, and +were returning about four in the afternoon, tired and hungry, when, just +on the verge of the forest, lo! and behold, a rhinoceros scratching his +chin, and looking as mild as any old cow. + +Frank rode up to flick him with his whip. The beast backed for a +moment, but charged again fiercely and furiously, the dead wood snapped, +and, when Chisholm looked up, he saw his friend and horse rolling on the +ground. The next to roll on the ground was the huge beast himself, for +Chisholm was handy with the rifle. Frank got up smiling, and but little +hurt, but, alas! for the poor horse, he was stabbed to the heart. The +noble savage had to ride into camp ignominiously perched on the crupper +of Chisholm's saddle. + +But perhaps the sport which our friends enjoyed above all others was +elephant shooting, either on horseback or on foot, according to the +nature of the ground. Of their haunts in the forests around the camp +they knew nothing at first, nor did their Zanzibar boys, and the first +to lead them on their sport was young 'Mboona, the son of a king of one +of the native tribes, who had become servant and guide-in-chief to the +camp. His reward was to be a rifle, and well he earned it. + +People who have never seen an elephant in his native fastnesses, can +have no idea of the strength, the ferocity, ay, and the cunning of the +animal. Our sporting party took back with them in the little _Bluebell_ +many hundreds of pounds' worth of valuable ivory, but if they did they +had to pay for it with many a hard day's work, in many a wild ride, and +many a hair-breadth escape. + +As a rule, the elephants would run when pursued by men and dogs; then, +as they passed the spot where the rifles were stationed, they fell easy +victims to the hardened bullets. They were not always particular in +which way they did run, however, and when they did not run right in the +direction of the guns, our friends would rush out in pursuit, when all +at once perhaps the herd would be turned, and come crashing back upon +them and their people. They were not always angry; perhaps they were +thinking more of escape than revenge; but to be run down by even a small +herd of cow elephants is no joke. Their feet are terribly heavy, and +they are not particular where they place them, so whenever a stampede +was checked and rolled back on the pursuers, it was _sauve qui peut_ +with a vengeance. + +Frank was one day rolled down thus, while on foot, and not only down, +but over and over; indeed the herd seemed for a time to be playing at +football with him. He was covered from top to toe with blood and earth. + +"Eton style of football is all very well," Frank said afterwards, "but I +never had such a doing as that before." + +Chisholm had a worse doing, however. He had fired at, without killing, +a gigantic bull. The brute was on him ere he could either reload or +escape. He was picked up as one might seize a kitten, and dashed into a +tree beyond even the elephant's reach. The dogs would not tackle this +monster. Hearing the terrible screaming, Lyell rode down to attack the +foe next, but the wounded animal was careering madly through the forest, +and trees that would be thought far from small in a park at home, were +snapping before him with the fury and impetus of the rush. Lyell had +served in the Crimea, but he confessed himself he had never been nearer +to death before, except once. He had been out shooting with a party in +the rough and solitary plains, that bound the Zulu land to the north and +west. They had come principally for buffalo-shooting, but they soon +found out that there was wilder game than these to be found; and on the +very first night on which they bivouacked under the stars, they were +fain to entrench themselves well, and to keep the fires alight till +morning, for every now and then they could hear the peevish scream of +the hyena, the shrill bark of the jackal, and the appalling roar of the +lion. Next day they found the carcases of the buffaloes they had slain +torn and devoured, and even their enormous bones broken and gnawed. +Lions are not looked upon by the true sportsman as very brave animals, +but a lion at bay, or a man-eating lion, is a terrible foe to encounter. + +"One night," said Captain Lyell, "just as my biggest and strongest +Caffre servant was putting the finishing touch to our laager, he was +seized by an immense lion and home away, as one might say, from our very +midst; borne away, shrieking for help, into the darkness of the +adjoining bush. The silence that succeeded the shrieks made our blood +run cold, for we knew that the poor boy was dead, and that the man-eater +had commenced his revolting feast. We knew well, that having once +tasted human flesh, our camp, while he lived, would not be safe from his +attacks. We lost no time, you may be sure, in carrying out the +execution of our plans. It was a long weary day's work, and we were +about to return to camp, too exhausted by the heat and fatigue to do +much more, when suddenly there arose a shout from the party nearest the +laager--a shout and a roar--quickly followed by the report of rifles, +then more shouting and warning cries. Then I could see the tawny +monster appearing suddenly in front of us. I had no time to fire; my +comrade did, but I think he missed, and with a howl that seemed to shake +the earth, he sprang full upon me, seized me by the side, and bore me +almost fainting away, my two hands clutched in his murderous mane. He +carried me far off into the jungle, running at first, then walking, +finally lying down with his burden under a tree. The terrible moment, +then, had arrived, he was about to rend me in pieces, and no power on +earth could save me. Overcome by fear and weakness, and by the loss of +blood, I fainted, and was found hours after by my comrades in the same +condition, with the lion extended by my side--dead of his wounds!" + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +The _Bluebell_ made many a run to different parts of the lake, and it +was during one of these excursions that Frank and Chisholm landed, for +the purpose of exploring a part of a forest that grew down close to the +water's edge. It was not a likely place for lions--they are fond of +more light than this gloomy wood afforded--but they might, they thought, +get a chance shot at an elephant. The ground was carpetted with moss, +and, with the exception of monkey ropes, so called, the stems of the +sturdy creepers, there was but little undergrowth. Chisholm and Frank +strolled on and on, fearing nothing. + +How silent it is in that dark wood, and how still! Not a leaf moves, +not a fern frond quivers, only high over head there is a gentle sighing, +and when they gaze upwards they can see the sparkling of the leaves in +the sunshine, but that leafy canopy seems very far away. + +Chisholm lags behind for a moment, he is looking to his rifle, and +sighting it for close quarters. Frank strolls on. Suddenly the silence +of the forest is broken by the most terrible yells, and Chisholm rushes +forward to find his poor friend in the clutches of a gorilla, with his +rifle torn from his grasp, and brandished high in air by the awful +beast. But Frank, clutched by the throat, is quite insensible. There +is not a moment, not a second, to be lost, and Chisholm fires almost at +close quarters, and the gorilla rolls dead at his feet. + +It was well for both Frank and him that assistance was close at hand. +Dreading some danger, Fred and Lyell had followed them into the forest, +and come up just in time, for now the woods all around rang again with +the screams of the enraged gorillas, who, it would almost seem, had only +allowed Chisholm and Frank to penetrate so far into their domains, with +the hopes of encompassing the destruction of both. But all the way back +to the boat, it was a close hand-to-hand fight with these wild and +terrible apes. Frank, once on board, and laid on deck, with the +_Bluebell_ well clear of the wood, and the gentle breeze blowing in his +face, revival was a mere question of time; but he never forgot his first +and only encounter with the savage pongo. + +CHAPTER THIRTEEN. + +PART V--THE INDIAN JUNGLE. + +A TETE-A-TETE DINNER--LETTERS FROM HOME--THE JOURNEY JUNGLEWARDS--THE +CAMP AND SCENERY AROUND IT--A SPORTSMAN'S PARADISE--LOST IN THE FOREST. + +In a large and beautiful room in one of the upper storeys of a Club, on +the outskirts of Bombay, four gentlemen are seated at dinner one +evening, not long after the events related in the last chapter. It is +evidently quite a _tete-a-tete_ affair, for they are all by themselves +in a corner, at the extreme end of the spacious apartment, close to the +great windows that lead on to the verandah. The balmy evening air, +laden with the scent of a thousand flowers, steals in, and is put in +motion by an immense punkah which hangs above them, and kept moving by a +little nigger-boy, dressed in a jacket of snow apparently, who squats in +a far corner like a monkey, and requires the united efforts of the three +servants who wait at table to keep him awake. No matter what these men +are carrying, they always stop as they pass to give Jumlah a kick, +making some such remark as--"Jumlah, you asleep again, you black rascal! +I kick ebery bit of skin off you presently?" Or, "Jumlah, you young +dog, suppose you go asleep just one oder time, den I break ebery bone in +your black body!" + +The jalousies are wide open, for the day has been hot, and every breath +of air is precious. Although the waiters indignantly refer to the +colour of poor Jumlah's skin, they themselves are black, though dressed +in cool white linen. + +You have guessed already who the gentlemen are. Let us follow them out +to the verandah, where they have gone to sip their fragrant coffee. +Stars are twinkling in the bright sky, fireflies flit from bush to bush +in the gardens beneath, the distant sound of music falls upon their ear, +mingling with the far-off city's hum, the beating of tom-toms, and +shrill screams and yells, which may mean anything from mirth to murder. + +Conversation during dinner had been very animated indeed; but sitting +out here on the cool verandah no one seemed much inclined to speak. +Frank had received letters from home, Fred had received letters from +Russia; and very pleasant letters, I ween, they were, for they bore +reading over and over and over again. Chisholm's letters were what he +called "jolly enough," only as soon as he had read them, and laughed +over them, he just tore them up and pitched them into the basket. + +"Hallo, you fellows!" cried Chisholm suddenly. "Awake from your +slumbers." + +"I wasn't asleep," said Frank. + +"No; but you were dreaming, you young rascal." + +"Do you know how _I_ feel?" said Lyell. "I'm feeling sad at the +thoughts of parting with you fellows and going back to England." + +"Then, my dear fellow, don't go," said matter-of-fact Chisholm +O'Grahame. + +"By George, then," cried Lyell, "and I won't. I'll apply for more +leave; and while the application is going home, and the reply coming +back, I'll run off with you boys into the jungles. I know a deal more +about the country than either of you." + +"Lyell," said Chisholm, "I knew you were a brick the very first day I +clapped eyes upon you." + +They were indeed lucky to have made the acquaintance of such a man as +Lyell. He had been pretty much at home in Africa; but in India he was +more so; and as soon as he had made up his mind to go with our heroes, +he commenced forthwith making preparations for the campaign against big +beasts. + +He explained everything he did to his three friends, and told them his +reasons for acting as he did. Tents were bought in Bombay, and +additional rifles--he was very learned on the subject of rifles and +rifle-bullets--and Chisholm, being the biggest man, was furnished with a +regular bone-smasher. Twenty servants were hired, and a boat was +chartered to take their little expedition on to Madras. Just three days +were spent in that city. + +"If we stay any longer," Chisholm said to Lyell, "my young _confreres_ +will be starting lotus-eating again. Let us be off as soon as we can." + +And so the very next day the journey up country was commenced: by train +at first, for a long long way; nobody was sorry when this part of the +cruise came to an end at a station near a tall forest, with a name that +was worse than Welsh to every one save Captain Lyell and a few of the +attendants. By seven o'clock next morning, a start was made in the +direction of the south and east. + +By the evening of the third day they had left civilisation a long way +behind them; they had journeyed on and on through vast tracts of jangle +lands, and mighty forests clad in all the rich and varied luxuriance of +a tropical summer. They had passed many a strange romantic hamlet; from +the doors of the huts of grass and clay, little innocent naked children +had waddled forth to stare in wonder at the cavalcade, while the simple +owners offered them fruits of many kinds to eat, and water to drink. +They were often tempted to get down and spend a few hours shooting, for +they came to places where feathered game of many kinds abounded, +especially duck and peafowl. But Lyell's counsel was always taken, and +his advice was, "Let us go on as speedily as possible towards the +mountain forests, and there encamp." And so, as the last rays of the +setting sun shimmered down through the trees on them, they reached a +spot which Lyell thought would do excellently well as a camping-ground. + +"Oh, isn't this a charming sight?" said Chisholm, addressing Frank, who +lounged on the howdah by his side. + +They were a long way behind the others. They did not mind that, +however; indeed, the elephant on which they were seated, pleased the two +friends far better than any other could have done. He was slow, but +wondrous sure. No fears of Jowser, as Frank baptised him, taking sudden +fright and dashing suddenly off and away over the jungle, as elephants +sometimes do, and ending by dashing their brains out, or tumbling over +some mighty precipice with them. Jowser was somewhat more than a +hundred years old--a very experienced matter-of-fact old fellow, who +knew better than to hurry himself. He required but little guidance--a +gentle touch with a cane on his left ear or his right, as the case might +be, was quite enough for him. When he stopped short sometimes, to reach +above him for a few leaves to munch, his attendant would gently goad +him; but Jowser would turn up the tip of his trunk to him as much as to +say, "Put a handful of rice into that. That's what Jowser wants. +Jowser is hungry." + +But it suited Frank and Chisholm to be a little late of an evening, +because they found their friends already encamped, probably under the +banian-tree, and, better than all, supper ready--a curry of such +fragrance, that even a sniff at it would have made them hungry, if they +had not, as they always did have, the appetite of hunters. + +The master of ceremonies did allow them one day, however, among the +peafowl. In a piece of jungle--which Chisholm as usual persisted in +calling a moor--they found these beautiful birds in great abundance: +they were early astir that morning. They had their own beaters, who +were principally Mahratta men, whom they had engaged in Bombay, and whom +Lyell had armed with rifles as well as spears. "It is a mean thing," +this gallant officer said to our heroes, "to send a man into the bush +unarmed; yet Englishmen constantly do it." + +Independently of these they had volunteers from among the simple Hindoo +folks in whose country they were. Brave, fool-hardy in fact, but as a +rule indolent, these men would work all day, for the sake of earning a +morsel of tobacco. + +It was a glorious day's shooting our sportsmen, had, and it was but one +of many such days they enjoyed, after their encampment at the foot of +the mountains had been fairly formed. Neither of them were fond of what +is called battue shooting, deeming it, as every true sportsman must, +somewhat unjust to the birds; but here there were very many mouths to +fill, and four guns to do all the work of filling them. So they had to +make good bags. + +And they did too. It was always their custom to be early astir, but +they did not start on an empty stomach you may be well sure; and they +were quite ready for luncheon at twelve. Then would come the hour for +siesta; for during the time of day when the sun is at its highest and +its hottest, it is neither pleasant nor safe to be out of the shade in +India. + +"Why, Lyell," Fred Freeman said on the evening of the first day's big +shoot, "you have brought us to a perfect paradise, and a sportsman's +paradise too." + +A sportsman's paradise? Yes, surely the contents of those lordly bags +testified to that. And what was it that was wanting in that bag, I +wonder? Nothing you could wish to see. Here were pigeons by the dozen, +and peafowls and jungle-fowls, to shoot which they had threaded the dark +mazes of the forest. Here were ducks and geese, ay, and snipe and teal, +which they had waded neck-deep in paddy fields to find, to say nothing +of big fat bustards, and grouse and red-legged partridge, that had +fallen to their guns while crossing the moor; and last, but certainly +not least, a hare or two as well. + +Now, when I say that there were growing around them, everywhere, the +most luscious fruits that can be imagined; when I say that the earth +yielded its turmeric [the basis of curry powder], and its deliciously +esculent roots; that spices of all kinds could be had for the gathering, +that the cocoa-nut palms held high aloft their tempting fruits, and that +the river abounded with fish, will you wonder when I tell you that our +friends lived like fighting-cocks. Would they not have been fools if +they hadn't? + +Chisholm and Frank occupied one sleeping tent, Fred Freeman and Captain +Lyell another. Very comfortably too those tents were furnished, and +each canvas bed had its own mosquito curtain. One night, however, Frank +found it impossible to sleep, so he got up quietly, dressed, and went +out. What a heavenly night! Never, except in the far-off sea of ice, +had he seen stars so bright and large. There was light enough almost to +read by. He could see everything around him--the men lying asleep at +the foot of the snow-white dining tent, the elephants and the picketed +horses, and, farther away, jungle and plain, forest and hills, all +bathed in starlight. Frank could hear, high over the loud hum of insect +life, the distant yelp of the jackal, the gibber of the striped hyaena, +and the unearthly yell of the jungle cat. + +"If there is nothing more terrible than that about," he said to himself, +"I shall go for a walk, just a little way. Jooma," he continued, +addressing the sentinel, "I'm going to the banks of the river." + +"Take care, sahib, take care," was the sentinel's warning. + +When two whole hours passed away, and there were no signs of Frank's +return, Jooma became alarmed, and roused Chisholm, and Chisholm aroused +the whole camp. Frank must be found, and that right speedily; but where +were they to seek him? While they were deliberating which way to go, +the report of a rifle fell on their ears, coming from the forest behind +the camp. Meanwhile clouds had banked up and obscured a great portion +of the sky. + +"Now, hurry men, hurry, get your torches and come, there isn't a moment +to be lost if you would save my friend." + +In ten minutes more they were on his track: by bent grass by a single +footprint, by a broken twig, and a hundred little signs that the eye of +a European would never have noticed, these men followed the trail by +torchlight, till far into the deepest and darkest part of the great +forest. But now a pause ensued. The trackers were puzzled. The truth +is, that it was just at this spot that the disagreeable truth flashed +upon poor Frank that he was lost. He had felt sure he could easily +retrace his steps, but trying to do so only led to a series of useless +wanderings up and down and round and round, often coming back again to +the same spot, though he knew it not, until the starlight forsook him, +and he found himself at last in the terrible position presently to be +described. + +The trackers are at fault, and no wonder, yet not three hundred yards +away Frank lies at the bottom of a pit, into which he had stumbled, and +pulled after him the large withered branch of a mango-tree, and his +rifle had gone off as he fell. He hears his friends firing to attract +his attention, he cannot reach his rifle to reply. But there adown the +wind at last comes a thrice-welcome shout, "Coo-ee-ee!" He tries to +answer, but the branch lies across his chest, and he can hardly breathe. +"Coo-ee-ee! Coo-ee-ee!" They hear his muffled tones at last; they +look no more for track nor trail. Forward they dash, holding the +torches high over head. "Coo-oo-ee!" A gigantic leopard rises from his +lair, but with a startled yell disappears in a moment in the darkness. +Was that a huge python coiled round the tree? If it was he had no time +to strike, so quickly do they speed along. "Coo-ee-ee!" They are close +at hand now, and now they are at the very mouth of the pit, and Frank +can talk to them and tell them how he is trapped. + +Chisholm was so glad to see his friend once more safe and alive, that he +forgot entirely that he had resolved to scold him properly for his +rashness and folly. But Frank never afterwards cared to have any +allusion made to his night ramble, and resented almost warmly Fred +Freeman's attempt to dub him the "somnambulist." + +CHAPTER FOURTEEN. + +ADVENTURE WITH A PYTHON--MOONDAH'S HOUSE--"THE TIGER! THE TIGER!"-- +PANTHERS--HUNTING WITH THE CHEETAH--THE PANTHER AND THE BOAR. + +"Do you really think there are pythons or boa constrictors in the +forest?" asked Frank next day at dinner. + +"I haven't a doubt of it," replied Lyell. "At the same time I cannot +quite swallow all the tracker says about the enormity of the serpent he +saw when following up your trail in the woods." + +"No," said Chisholm, "fifty feet of snake is rather more than most men +can swallow; but had you seen the tracker's eyes when he saw the tiger, +you'd have been willing to admit that they were big enough to +accommodate a very large amount of boa constrictor." + +"It puts me in mind of an adventure I once had in South Africa," said +Lyell. "One doesn't like speaking much of one's self, but I think, on +the occasion I refer to, I exhibited a fair amount of firmness and +presence of mind in a moment of deadly peril to one of my men. I had +been out for a fortnight's shoot, beyond and to the nor'ard of the Natal +provinces. There were four of us--our doctor, our purser, marine +officer, and myself. Our sport was good, and the fun we had fairish. +We were seated at lunch one day in an open glade in the forest, when +suddenly we were startled by hearing the most terrific yells; and on +looking up beheld one of our Caffres speeding towards us, pursued by an +enormous python. There was no time for escape, had escape been +honourable, which it was not. I seized the rifle and bayonet from one +of our attendant marines, and next moment the python was impaled. Oh, +don't think for a moment that that would have killed him! In half a +second he had almost wriggled clear; but in doing so he turned the rifle +round so that the muzzle pointed almost down his throat. It was a +terrible moment--thank Heaven that rifle was loaded, and that I had the +presence of mind to pull the trigger! It was a case of `all hands stand +clear' now. The python's head was shattered, but the convulsions of his +body, ere death closed the scene, were fearful to witness. I don't want +to see the like again. His body measured five-and-thirty feet; the gape +of his jaws measured over a yard. I can understand a monster like this +swallowing a goat or even a deer itself." + +A day or two after this the camp was struck, and a move made nearer to +the mountains, the tents being erected close to the river as before, but +still on elevated ground. Here they were, then, in the very centre of +what might be called the home of the wild beasts, and both sport and +adventure might reasonably be expected in any quantity. Herds of +elephants roamed in the deep forests, tigers and wild pigs were in the +thickets; bears, too, would be found, and birds everywhere. They formed +no particular plan of attack upon the denizens of this wilderness; they +were bold hunters every one of them; they carried their lives in their +hands, but they omitted no precaution to defend and protect them. They +always went abroad prepared for anything. + +Chisholm called the spot where the camp was now fixed--and where it +remained until the commencement of the south-west monsoon warned them it +was time for departure--his Highland home. It was indeed a Highland +home, and the scenery all around was charming. And yet a walk of some +eight or nine miles brought them to what might be called the lowlands. +Here were great stretches of open country, interspersed with lakes and +streams, immense green fields of rice or paddy and maize, with groves of +cocoa-nut palms, and gardens where grew the orange-tree and the citron, +and where the giant mango-trees hid completely from view the primitive +huts of the villagers. + +Moondah was head-man of one of these villages, and our heroes, while +returning home after a day's promiscuous shooting, used to stop to +refresh themselves at his house. Moondah was a kind of a feudal lord +among his people. He had built himself a house on the outskirts of his +village, just under the shadow of a vast precipice. Indeed, it was +quite a castle compared to the frail huts of mud and wood in which the +villagers dwelt. Moondah's castle was built of solid stone and lime, +the walls were of great thickness, and the roof was flat and surrounded +by embattlements; and it was very pleasant to sit here for half an hour, +while the sun was declining in the west, and sip the fragrant coffee, +which nobody could make so well as Moondah, and which he always +presented to them with his own hands. The five miles that intervened +between his house and their encampment, seemed a trifle to them after +that. + +It was, strange to say, at this head-man's house, and not in the jungle, +that they formed their first acquaintance with a tiger. Close by the +walls ran a rapid stream, by no means large at the time of which I +write, but in the rainy season it mast have been swollen into quite a +broad and mighty river. The day had been unusually warm, and the sport +very exciting. Moondah was extremely pleased to see them; perhaps the +contents of Jowser's howdah, which had been left at Moondah's garden +gate, had something to do with his delight, for they seldom called upon +him without leaving a souvenir of some kind. Moondah was in no wise +particular, so long as it was not buffalo or cow's flesh; but pigs and +deer pleased him much, and neither wild-cat, jackal, nor iguana lizards, +came wrong to him. + +"Well, Moondah?" said Lyell. + +"Salaam Sahib," replied Moondah, leading the way up-stairs to his +darkest and coolest room. "I dessay you tired after your 'xertions; you +squat dere on de skins, and munch de fruit my little boy bring you. I +fetch de coffee quick enough, you see. Hallo! what is de matter now?" + +This was addressed to the above-mentioned little boy, who had just +rushed in with the fruit-tray, which he dropped at his master's feet. + +"Hooli! hooli!" was all the boy could gasp. "The tiger! the tiger!" + +"What!" cried Lyell, starting up, "a tiger in the very village?" + +But it was easily explained: a dead bullock lay in a bit of bush only a +stone's throw up the stream, and on this the beast had doubtless come to +regale himself. He was there now; and it was resolved to wait quietly +on the top of Moondah's house, and watch. + +It was a long watch. Daylight faded away, twilight faded into darkness; +the stars shone out; a great red round moon rose slowly up from behind +the trees, paling as it went, till at last it shone out high above them, +bright, and white, and clear. But still no tiger made his appearance. +At last though, there was a crackling noise amongst the bushes, then a +stealthy footstep, and out into the open stalked the majestic beast. He +stood for a moment as if to listen, then moved onwards to the river to +drink. He presented a splendid shot. Seeing Lyell's rifle at the +shoulder, Chisholm, who was of a chivalrous nature, withheld his fire. +But Lyell only wounded the brute in the leg. He was staggered, and +emitted a roaring cough that seemed to shake Moondah's house to its very +foundation. Now it was Chisholm's chance; he had knelt, and ere the +crack of his rifle had ceased to reverberate among the rocks the tiger +was stretched lifeless on the river's brink. + +One day Moondah came to the camp. It was evident he had something on +his mind, for he never came without good news of some kind. + +"Twenty mile from here," he began, "lives a man who married two or tree +of my sister." + +"Well done," said Lyell, laughing. + +"But that is nothing," continued Moondah; "in the scrub around his +village are antelope plenty; and my brodder he keep cheetah. There are +also panther in the scrub; and dere are,"--here Moondah's eyes sparkled, +and his mouth seemed to water--"dere are wild pigs in de woods." + +"Oh, bother the pigs!" said Lyell. "Let us go to the village and see +the cheetahs hunting. Let us go for two or three days, and make a +regular big shoot of it." + +Accordingly, next day they set out, and Moondah and his merrie men went +too. The camp was not broken up, but elephants were taken--Jowser among +others--and horses, with plenty of ammunition and plenty of the good +things of this life, both to eat and to drink. Their road led through +jungle, scrub, and moorland, and just skirted the great forests. At +noonday they stopped for luncheon, and the usual siesta. Chisholm and +Frank strolled off together, while it was getting ready; they walked +with caution, as usual, for there was cover enough about for anything. +They soon discovered that there was some one not far off who did not +belong to their party at all, and that he too was going in for a siesta. +An immense tiger! Stretched on the grass by the river side, what a +lovely picture he made. Chivalrous Chisholm O'Grahame! he would not +have fired at the beast thus for the world. He admired him fully a +minute in silence, then-- + +"Pitch a cartridge at him," he whispered to Frank. + +The result may easily be guessed. + +"Wough, woa, oa!" roared the beast, springing up. Chisholm gave him +both barrels. He was quiet enough after that. But had Chisholm only +wounded the creature, it might have interfered materially with the +continuation of my story, for Frank had no arms. + +That evening found them encamped near the village of Chowdrah. They +were duly introduced to Moondah's much-married brother-in-law, and to +the cheetahs. Frank was a little afraid of these animals at first, +especially when one of them made a kind of a playful spring at him and +brought him down, but this the much-married man assured Frank was all in +fun. Next minute the same cheetah sat down by Frank's side, and purred +to him, like a monster cat. In shape of body they were not unlike a +mastiff, long-tailed, spotted, loose in the loins and leggy; they had +none of the grace and beauty of the panther. + +Next day and for several days our heroes enjoyed the sport of antelope +hunting, and the enjoyment was very real. They did not always find, but +when they did it was interesting to watch the movements of the +now-unhooded cheetah. How lightly and cautiously he springs to the +ground, flopping at once behind a bit of cover; how slowly but carefully +he crawls towards the herd. Ah! but they see him now, and off they +bound. Frank strikes spurs into his charger, and, wild horseman that he +is, follows the chase. Chisholm and Lyell and Fred are not very far +behind. + +But that bounding antelope and that fleet-footed cheetah distanced them +all. They were never once in at the death. Moondah and his men used to +go wild with joy when the antelopes were brought in. They could do +nothing but clap their hands and sing, "Hoolay-kara! Hoolay-kara!" till +they were tired. + +Frank so set his heart upon those cheetahs, that he determined to beg +for a young one. Ay, and he got one too; but for the life of him he +could not make up his mind whether to term it "kitten" or "puppy." + +Greatly to the joy of Moondah they managed to kill not a few wild pigs. + +In a bit of scrub or bush about an acre in extent they were told one day +that a panther was hid. This was a chance not to be missed. Stake nets +were planted at the side next to the hill where doubtless the beast's +cave lay, the guns were well positioned, and the beaters began their +work. Mr Panther, however, did not see the fun of going into that net. +Disturbed at last, he quitted cover by making a wild rush at the +beaters themselves; two were rolled over, and one severely lacerated in +the leg. Fred was the nearest gun, and he wounded the panther in the +shoulder, without stopping his way however. Well, a wounded panther +must attack whatever with life in it happens to come his way. In this +instance it was an old grey boar, who was coming round a corner, +wondering to himself what all the row meant. The panther repented his +rashness next minute, when the boar's tusks were fleshed in his neck. +It was a curious battle, brought to a speedy termination by Chisholm's +bone-crusher. His monster bullet whizzed through the panther's body, +and pierced the breast of the huge boar, and they fell as they fought. + +"Now," said Lyell, "I do call that a good shot. Bravo! Chisholm." + +CHAPTER FIFTEEN. + +ELEPHANT HUNTING--THE ELEPHANT AND TIGER--THE TUSKER'S CHARGE--THE +RUNAWAY ELEPHANT--THE MAN-EATING TIGRESS. + +Those of my readers who have followed me so far in my history of the +wanderings and adventures of our heroes cannot but have observed that in +the character of Frank Willoughby there was a certain amount of what, to +give it the right name, must be called foolhardiness. But poor Frank's +last adventure in the Indian jungle taught him a lesson which he is not +likely to forget while life lasts. + +Elephant shooting seemed at first, to Frank and Fred at least, very +cruel and unnecessary sport. Elephants are so sagacious and wise. + +"Just think, for instance," said Frank, "of shooting a noble beast like +poor old Jowser!" + +"Ah, but," Lyell explained, "it isn't every elephant you'll find equal +to Jowser. Moondah there will tell you of the immense destruction +elephants cause to the maize and rice crops." + +"Yes, yes, dat is so," said Moondah; "if they are not kill, and plenty +kill too, they soon conquer all de country worse dan de Breetish." + +Well, apart from the apparent cruelty of killing the elephant, which Sir +Samuel Baker calls the "lord of all created animals," there is no sport +in the world so exciting and dangerous as this, and none that requires +greater hardihood or daring. No wonder then that our heroes spent over +a month at it, meeting of course with many other wild adventures, but +_seeking_ none other. Moondah it was who organised for them their army +of beaters and trackers, and the scenery through which these men led +them, was oftentimes grand and beautiful in the extreme; not that they +had much time during the chase to admire the loveliness of nature, it +was while riding homewards to their temporary camp in the cool of the +evening, or stretched beneath the trees when dinner was over, that they +could thoroughly enjoy quietly gazing on all things around them. This +was indeed the _dolce far niente_. + +Our heroes one day had an opportunity of witnessing a curious encounter, +between an elephant and a tiger. They themselves were within fifty +yards of the herd when it took place, and under cover; the elephants +were quietly browsing on the plain, and evidently not suspecting that +danger lurked on either hand. One young calf had strayed some little +distance from the parent. + +"So capital a chance as this," said a tiger to himself, "is seldom to be +found; I would be a fool to miss it." + +There was a scream from an elephant in the rear, and a wild rush from +one in the van. The tiger seemed quite unable to check his speed in +time, and next moment he was crushed to atoms under the terrible feet of +the furious tusker. There was a crash and a scream, and a cloud of +dust. Then the elephant could be seen gathering himself up from where +he had literally fallen upon his foe. + +Fred Freeman used to chaff Chisholm O'Grahame about the immensity of his +rifle. + +"I wouldn't carry such a tool as that for the world," Fred said one day. + +"No," said Chisholm, laughing, "for, my dear boy, you couldn't. +Besides, its kicking would kill you." + +Now, early next morning a rogue elephant was to be tracked, and if +possible bagged. He was a wily old rascal this, who seldom cared to go +with the other herds; he doubtless thought he fared better when all by +himself. He was a murderous old rascal too; for on two separate +occasions he had attacked men, and more than one death could be laid at +his door. It was not the first time that some or other of our heroes +had gone out against this Goliath. But though he had been wounded +several times, he did not seem to mind it; it evidently did not spoil +his appetite, for on this particular morning they tracked him for miles +through a bamboo brake, and at last could hear him on ahead, browsing on +the branches as he marched. + +"Now give me this shot," cried Fred, "all to myself." + +"Have a care, then," said Lyell. + +"Never fear for me," said Fred, and next minute he had crept into the +bush and was out of sight; and his companions with a portion of the +people sat down near a pool, left by some recent rain, to wait. +Presently the ring of a rifle was heard, then a shout, then back rushed +Fred, faster far than he had gone away, and far less buoyant too, for +behind him was the monster tusker, eyes aflame and ears erect, bent on +revenge--bent on doing some one to death. Yes, but the pen has never +yet been dipped in ink that can describe the fury of an angry tusker's +charge. + +Lyell fired quickly. Lyell missed. Now Chisholm's mighty rifle made +the welkin ring, and down rolled the elephant on his head, raising a +sheet of water that drenched every one of the party as a green sea would +have done on ship-board. + +"I took a temple shot at him," said Fred. + +Lyell roared with laughter. "Yes," he said, "and you hit him through +the nose. Ha! ha! ha! that accounts for the beggar charging with trunk +in air, instead of curled close." [As they almost invariably do.] + +"What do you think of my rifle now?" said Chisholm, quietly. + +Fred smiled, but said nothing. + +Tiger-shooting from howdahs they found excellent sport--just a little +slow for Frank though, who would rather have been on horseback. But one +day he had a ride he little expected; he was all by himself in Jowser's +howdah. The grass was long and rough, but there were bushes about. +From one of these an enormous tiger tried to steal away. Chisholm, +handy though he was in times of danger, wounded but didn't kill. Next +moment the beast had settled on Jowser. "Come, come, none o' that," +roared Jowser, setting off at the gallop. The tiger fell next moment, +with a bullet from Frank's Express through his head. But Jowser was +off; fairly off. Who would have thought it of Jowser? Two hours of +that wild ride, ere Jowser brought up to rub his rump against a tree, +and for a week after Frank felt as if he had no more bones than a +jelly-fish. + +A tigress had been fired at by a party of horsemen, and wounded; but man +and horse went down before that fearful charge. Next moment she had +seized the rider, and borne him away into the bush. It was her first +taste of human blood; but not the last, for long after this she was +known and feared by the natives as the most daring man-eater ever known. +She would even enter villages by night and carry people away. + +Poor Frank! he seemed destined, although the youngest of the three, to +have all the hard knocks and blows. He was one night asleep beneath a +banian-tree when the man-eater entered, and attempted to seize a man. +Frank, _with unloaded rifle_, rushed to the rescue. Well it was for him +that Fred Freeman was close at hand: that man-eating tigress drank no +more blood. But Frank, how frightfully still he lay! Was he dead? All +but, reader. + +This was, indeed, a sad ending to their adventures in India; but life +cannot be all sunshine. When camp was broken up a week after, and our +heroes turned their faces once more seaward--Frank on a litter--one +sorrowing heart at least was left behind. It beat in the breast of +honest Moondah. + +CHAPTER SIXTEEN. + +PART VI--AUSTRALIA. + +CONVALESCENT AT LAST--A RUN TO AUSTRALIA--SET OUT FOR THE INTERIOR--THE +SCENERY--A QUEER MISTAKE--FRANK'S COUSINS. + +Poor Frank Willoughby--for two long weeks his spirit hovered 'twixt life +and death. It was a happy hour for his friends when he was pronounced +out of danger; and for Frank himself, when he was told that he had +nothing now to do in the world but just to get well again. For many +weeks longer he had to lie on his back, however. But he was in that +weak, dreamy kind of a state, that he did not mind the confinement. +Every morning Chisholm brought him all the news, and read to him for +hours. But how shall I describe the joy he felt the first day he went +out for exercise? This getting well after a long illness in a foreign +land is a pleasure that few ever know; but the joys of convalescence are +sufficient reward to the invalid for all he has previously suffered. + +Frank was borne about in a palanquin. He wondered whether he would ever +again bestride a fiery steed, and go bounding along over the plains, as +had been his wont. But he grew so rapidly strong and well, after he +began to walk, that he ceased to wonder at anything; and when he and his +friends embarked on board a saucy clipper bound for distant Australia, +he felt nearly as strong as ever he was in his life. + +Frank had cousins in Australia. They farmed sheep or something, Frank +was not quite sure it mightn't be kangaroos; but they were good people, +and had ornithorynchus soup and cockatoo pie for dinner as often as not, +with cold black swan on the sideboard. So one of the boys had written +him to say. Frank had the letter in his portfolio, and showed it to +Lyell, and there was a deal of laughing over it. If I had that letter +now I would just print it _in extenso_, to save myself the trouble of +writing this chapter. Such a glowing account of Australian life was +surely never penned before; and, if it could only be credited, what a +life of wild adventure Frank's cousins must have led! Here were +wonderful stories about emigrants and convicts, and settlers and +savages, serpents and snakes, mixed up with emus, and kangaroos, and +cockatoos, and any amount of other _oos_. And here were tales about +bushrangers, and bush-riding, and buck-jumpers, and bullock-hunters; and +the allusions to woomeras, and spears, and boomerangs, were as numerous +as though they had been sprinkled in from a pepper-box. + +Frank was himself again long ere the clipper reached Sydney, but he felt +doubly himself when, a few days afterwards, mounted on a goodly horse, +with valise strapped on the saddle, he and his friends, with guides and +guards, left the smoke of Sydney far behind them, and cantered merrily +away bushwards. + +It was a long journey to the station or village where Frank's cousins +lived. It took them quite a week to get there. They travelled +principally in the morning, and again at eventide, resting in the shade +near their hobbled horses, during the time the sun was high. + +They had not gone far from the capital ere they plunged into a deep, +dark, silent forest--silent save for the strangely monotonous song of +the cicala, and so for miles, and so for many leagues. Our heroes felt +they would have given anything to listen, sometimes, to the cry of a +bird, or even the howl of a wild beast. The inns at which they stayed +at nights were rough in the extreme, but they soon got worse, then they +gave them up, and preferred camping out, and whenever of an evening they +reached some open glade, there they took up their abode. But forests +grew less dense at last, and the scenery most charming. The blue +gum-trees, with stripes of pendent bark, that Fred and Frank used to +admire and marvel at, gave place to lighter timber. By night the whole +air was alive with strange sounds and strange sights, especially when +the camp was near the water. The snoring sound of the bull-frog, the +cry of the flying fox and opossum, mingled with the cooing of wild +birds. + +But now they were nearing the home of Frank's cousins. They inquired +one day at an inn if the Thompsons lived near. + +"Certainly," said the man. "Jack," calling to an old black, "show these +gentlemen where the Thompsons live." + +"I'll go and prepare dem," said Jack. + +And off he went. He was back again in half an hour, and then led the +way through the wood. + +"What sort of people are they?" asked Frank of Jack, the guide. + +"Oh! ever so nice, _beautiful_ people, b-be-beautiful?" + +"The old gentleman is my uncle," continued Frank. + +"Oh!" said the guide, "he is a beautiful old man. Bea-utiful!" + +Now there were two families named Thompson, one white and the other +black; the family old Jack took them to was the black; but judge of the +amusement of Frank's friends when old Jack, standing stick in hand on +the right of the group, introduced them to the Thompsons at home. Of +course Chisholm, on the spot, demanded an introduction to Frank's +prettiest cousin, who was nursing a pickaninny [a baby], and Fred must +go up and shake hands with the old man and call him uncle, and Lyell, +not to be outdone in politeness, squatted down beside the old "jin," his +wife, and got into conversation right pleasantly. Poor Frank hardly +knew what to do, but when Jack said the old couple liked grogs, he sent +for some, and Jack shared it with the Thompsons, and there was such +laughing and merriment, and talking and fun, that it isn't any wonder +that after they had left, Lyell laughingly declared he never remembered +spending such a pleasant time in his life. + +Frank found the right Thompsons next day, and nicer nor braver boys +never lived. + +CHAPTER SEVENTEEN. + +THE COROBORY--NATIVE ARMS--QUIET LIFE IN THE AUSTRALIAN BUSH--CHISHOLM +AND EROS--A DAY WITH THE KANGAROO HOUNDS. + +A corobory is a war dance by native savages. Our heroes had the +pleasure of gazing at more than one, before they finally left Australia +in search of new adventures. But very terrible those savages look, +dancing madly round the fire in the depths of the gloomy forest, and +wildly brandishing their war weapons, their boomerangs, their woomeras, +their waddies, and their spears, while the flickering flames light up +their naked painted bodies, and their yells and cries re-echo through +the woods. + +Very expert are these New Hollanders with the use of the few weapons +they carry. They can hurl their spears with terrible effect for a +hundred yards or more, with the assistance of the woomera, a piece of +wood which is retained in the hand, and acts as a lever. The boomerang +is apparently a magical instrument. Its actions, when thrown by the +hand of a native, are marvellous; the thing does his bidding as if it +were one of the fabled genii under the control of a magician. + +The uncle and cousins of Frank were right glad to see him and his +friends. They did not know how kind to be to them. + +"You see," said Mr Thompson, "you find us all in the rough." + +"But I'll be bound all in the right as well," said Lyell. + +"Well, well, well," he said to Frank, "who would have thought of seeing +you out here, and do you know, my boy, I would hardly have known you, +you are wonderfully changed." + +"Well," replied Frank, laughing heartily at his uncle's pleasantry, +"seeing that I was only a year and a half old when you left England, you +cannot wonder there is a little change." + +"How do you like your welcome?" Frank asked of Chisholm on the morning +of the second day. + +"It's a Highland welcome, Frank; a Highland welcome." + +Chisholm thought he could not say more than that. + +Old Mr Thompson was greatly amused at the mistake of Jack, the native +guide, and their adventure with the other Thompsons, but he added he +really believed Jack had done it on purpose, for the humour of the +Australian native is of a very strange order, but none the less genuine +for all that. + +The house where our heroes now found themselves billeted was somewhat +after the bungalow stamp--a widely-spread comfortable house, all on one +flat, but it was altogether pleasant to live in. The gardens around it +formed one of its principal charms; so cool they were, so green, so +shady and scented. + +Frank and Lyell and Fred went everywhere about the great farm; a farm so +big, so wide, and wild, that it not only took days and days to ride +across; but when they went out of a morning, with their horses and +kangaroo hounds, they never knew what might turn up before they +returned. It might be a warragh hunt [the wild dog of the interior], or +a scamper after the emu or kangaroo, or they might settle down to hours +and hours of quiet fishing, or try to shoot the _ornithorynchus +paradoxus_. Then there were wild-fowl in abundance, quails and snipe +and pigeons, and all were just tame enough to afford what might be +called decent sport. + +I have not mentioned Chisholm as taking much part in these sporting +adventures, and must I tell you why? "Well, he was very fond of a game +of whist, and also of smoking under the honeysuckles and the green +mimosa trees; and Frank's uncle was such a genuine old fellow, and +Frank's aunt such a delightful, and kindly, thoroughly English lady. +Oh! but I feel that I am only beating about the bush, so I must confess +the truth at once, though for Chisholm's sake I'd rather have concealed +it. One of Frank's cousins there was a young and charming girl; and-- +and--and Chisholm had fallen over head and ears in love. It is with +much reluctance I tell it; and it is strange, too, that one by one my +heroes, my mighty hunters, whose hearts, like their sinewy arms, ought +to have been hearts of oak or steel, should fall into the power of the +saucy little god Eros. But it is the truth, and there is no getting +away from it. As soon, however, as Chisholm knew and felt he was +conquered at last, he confessed the same to his companions. + +"But I'm not going to make any engagement, you know," he added. "I've +never been in love before, so I don't know much about it; but if I'm not +cured by the time we get back to old England, why then I'll return to +this lovely place just to see if Edith will know me again." + +Sly Chisholm! He felt sure that he would not be forgotten. + +Many, many miles from the farm where lived the Thompsons, on a certain +day there was to be a grand meet, and thitherwards went our heroes with +Frank's cousins, starting on the day before. What a difference, they +thought, from an English meet, where after an early breakfast one can +mount his horse and ride leisurely away, along well-paved roads and +green lanes to the appointed rendezvous, and after a scamper of hours +return to a comfortable dinner. Here there were no roads; their way lay +across the plains, through the deep dark forest, over lofty mountains, +and through rivers; and it was very late ere they arrived at their +camping-ground. Then their saddles were their pillows, a blanket the +bed, and the star-spangled dome of heaven their roof-tree. + +But they were none the less fresh next morning, and were early astir; it +would be a delightful day, they felt sure of that, for the sun was +already up, and there was hardly a cloud in all the mild blue sky. +Neither too hot nor too cold: it was quite a hunter's morning. The +scenery, too, through which they rode all day was ever varying, but ever +beautiful. Frank said when the day was done, and they once more +stretched their tired limbs around the camp-fire, that he had never +enjoyed himself so much in his life. + +"What, not down in Wales?" said Fred, quietly. + +"Circumstances alter cases," said Frank. + +The hunters on this occasion mustered strongly, there being a field of +little under fifty, principally settlers and settlers' sons. They +brought their own dogs--strong-built hounds, just suited for the wild +work they have to accomplish. More and more exciting grew the chase as +the day wore on; and it ended in such a finale as can only be witnessed +in one country in the world, and that is Australia. Kangaroos, wild +horses, bullocks, emus, hounds and men, mixed in apparently inextricable +confusion. + +Now it was all very well for Frank to boast about the grand day he had +enjoyed. He had been lucky: his horse and he seemed made for each +other. He was in at the death. Fred was not; but Fred's horse was. +Chisholm and his horse were both there; but, alas for glory! Chisholm's +horse's heels were all in the air, and Chisholm himself--why, he was +down under somewhere. + +CHAPTER EIGHTEEN. + +PART VII--THE PAMPAS. + +SWALLOWED UP IN THE FOREST--BUENOS AYRES--AWAY TO THE WILDS--A COLONY OF +HIGHLANDERS--FRANK TO THE FORE. + +There is no word in the world your true British sailor better knows the +meaning of than that little noun _duty_. Lyell's time was up; he must +hurry back to Sydney, and thence to England, by very quickest boat; and +so he did, and his last words to our heroes were these:-- + +"Don't think of returning without having a look at the Pampas; to be +sure you might go straight to San Francisco and away home by train and +steamer. That would be going round the world in one sense--a landsman's +not a sailor's sense. Whenever I meet a man who says he has been round +the world, I just pull him up sharp by asking him some such question as, +`Did you ever drink tea in Pay-San-Du?' That usually settles him. +By-bye. We'll meet again." + +And away went merry-hearted Lyell, leaving sadder hearts behind him. +Yes, but sad only for a time. There was a deal to be seen in Australia +yet, and Chisholm was not sorry to spend a few months longer in this +queer country, where everything seems topsy-turvy. But their last day +in the kind and hospitable home of the Thompsons came round, and all too +soon to one at least; and so adieus were spoken and whispered, hands +were pressed, ay, and foolish tears were shed by pretty eyes, and +handkerchiefs waved; then the great forest seemed to swallow them up. + +The great green and gloomy forest has swallowed our heroes up; but, hey +presto! what is this we see? A blue, blue sea in which a brave ship has +just dropped anchor--a bluer sky that makes the eyes ache to behold; +other ships at anchor and boats coming and going from a distant town, +only the spires and steeples of which can be seen with the naked eye. +On the deck of this ship stand Chisholm, Fred, and Frank, and beside +them a smart naval officer in blue and gold and white. + +Yes, you have guessed right. Lyell was the first to greet them when the +anchor rattled down into the shallow waters off Buenos Ayres. He had +been appointed to a South American station, and here he was, looking as +happy and jolly and red as ever. + +"And at present," said Lyell, "I am my own master; so for six weeks I'm +at your service." + +There was little encouragement for stopping in this city of straight +streets and tame houses, and heat and dust, so they jumped at Lyell's +suggestion to get on land as soon as possible. Lyell knew some folks, +he said, that would "show them a thing or two." + +A long journey first in a comfortless train, through a country as level +and lonesome as mid-ocean itself. Hot! it was indeed hot, and they were +glad when the sun went down; for the carriages in which they rode were +over-upholstered, and the paint stood up in soft boiling blisters on the +wood-work. + +Now the journey is changed to one by river. Not much of a boat, to be +sure; but then it is comparatively cool, and the scenery is sylvan and +delightful. On once more next day, this time by diligence. This +conveyance had none of the comfort of the Hyde Park canoe-landau. It +was just what Lyell called it in pardonable slang, "a rubbly old +concern--a sort of breed betwixt an orange-box, a leathern portmanteau, +and a venerable clothes-basket. They paid a hawser out from its bows, +and bent the nags on to that." Frank thought of his elephant ride. + +But the country grew more hilly and romantic as they proceeded, and the +inns, sad to say, worse and worse. Their beds were inhabited--strangely +so; our heroes did not turn in to study natural history, or they might +have done so. Indeed they had to rough it. The country grew wilder +still; they had left the diligence with nearly broken bones; bought +hones, hired guides, and now they found themselves on the very +boundaries of a savage land. Ha! the fort at last, where Lyell's +friends lived. Their welcome was a regal one. Half a dozen Scotchmen +lived here, four of them married and with grown-up families--quite a +little colony. + +They shook hands with Lyell a dozen times. "Oh, man!" they cried, "but +you're welcome." Then they killed the fatted calf. + +These good people were farmers; their houses all rough, but well +furnished; their flocks and herds numerous as the sands by the +sea-shore. A wild, lonely kind of a life they led with their wives and +their little ones, but they were content. There were fish in the +streams and deer in the forest. You had but to tickle the earth with a +toasting-fork, and it smilingly yielded up _pommes de terre_ which would +grace the table of a prince. + +Every soul in the colony was a McSomebody or other; so no wonder +Chisholm was in his glory, no wonder-- + + "The nicht drive on wi' sangs and clatter." + +When our heroes heard their principal host call out, "Send auld Lawrie +McMillan here [his real name was Lorenzo Maximilian] to give us a tune," +they had expected to see some tall old Highlander stride in with the +bagpipes, not an ancient, wiry Spaniard, guitar-armed. Is it any wonder +Chisholm burst out laughing when this venerable ghost began to sing-- + + "Come under my plaidie, the night's gaun to fa'." + +Well, getting such a welcome as this in the midst of a wilderness was +enough to make our heroes forget all former hardships. The dinner was a +banquet. There were many dishes that were new to them; but had Frank, +who was fastidious as regards eating, known that _lagarto soup_ was made +from the iguana lizard, a perfect dragon; that curried _potro_ was +horse, and that _peludo_-pie was made of armadillo, I don't think he +would have sent his plate twice for either. + +Frank trod on the tail of an iguana next day. The dragon, seven feet +long, and fearful to behold, turned and snapped. Frank, armed with a +stick, would not fly, but fought. The Scotchmen were delighted. They +tossed their bonnets in the air, and shouted "Saint George for merrie +England!" Never mind, they might laugh as they pleased; but Frank +killed the dragon. + +Saint George, as Chisholm now dubbed him, quite won the affection of the +llama hunters next day; he was the only one of our heroes who kept +alongside the Indians in their furious gallop at the heels of the fleet +pacos. + +[The _lama pacos_, hunted for its wool, chiefly used in rope and +cloth-making.] + +All day long Frank was well to the fore, and how he was wishing he could +throw the lassoo or bolas. + +Sweet Lizzie McDonald was the prettiest girl in the fort; she was the +wildest huntress as well. She and her brothers "rigged out," as Lyell +called it, young Frank in native dress; and he rode by her side to the +hills next day, presumably in the capacity of cavalier, but really as +pupil. And Frank was an apt pupil; he didn't think the time long. + +"Lucky dog you," said Lyell, "if I wasn't a sailor, I'd throw myself at +Lizzie's feet. I wouldn't mind being lassooed by a girl like her. +Heigho!" + +CHAPTER NINETEEN. + +CHASING WILD HORSES--OSTRICH-STALKING--A MOONLIGHT RIDE--A DEED OF +BLOOD--LOS INDIOS!--THE FIGHT--VICTORY AND PURSUIT. + +Knowing, as we do, how good a horseman Frank was, it is almost needless +to say that before he was one month in this country he was as handy with +bolas or lassoo as one of the natives. The former he preferred: it +quitted his hands like stone from a sling, next moment the llama or +guanaco was down; there was no dragging, no cruelty. + +The battue he did not like. But chasing wild horses was quite another +thing. This was a manly and a useful sport; the very hunted horses +themselves seemed to like it, and used to stand in herds on heights +sniffing the air, as much as to say, "catch me if you can, but I don't +mean to be caught napping." Nor were they; and a chase of this kind was +sometimes most exciting. The poor colts that were lassooed were broken +in speedily enough, it must be allowed, but in a manner that was cruel +in the extreme; but brutality to animals is the order of the day in the +Pampas. The bullocks are treated horribly; so, too, are their dogs, and +every animal that comes under the native's domination. The estancia, +where our heroes dwelt, was about two hundred yards square; there was a +fort at one end of it, surrounded by a strong wall covered with a ditch +filled with water--the whole of the little village being near the river. +In case of trouble with the Indians, all the colony could take refuge +here, and draw up the bridge. The servants were Gauchos. On the +arrival of Mr McDonald and his kinsmen, there had at first been many +broils with Los Indios. These treacherous Indians are a flat-faced +copper-hued race, with most forbidding countenances; and lying and +thieving seem really to be part and parcel of their education. At all +events, they are adepts at both. + +Chisholm wanted one day to go ostrich-stalking, or rhea-hunting you +might better term it. These curious birds are as fleet as the wind, you +cannot ride them down in the open; but you can approach them near enough +with mules, to get a shot when fires are lit here and there on the +plain, and the creatures get confused. It had been a long day's sport; +and the moon had arisen, and was flooding all the beautiful country with +its soft and mellow light, ere the party had got within two leagues of +the estancia. But they knew the welcome that there awaited them, and so +on they rode, slowly but cheerfully, singing as they went. There would +have been less music at their hearts, had they seen the expression of +mingled hate and cunning on the faces of those fiends behind the cactus +bush. What were they lurking there for? Why did they not come boldly +forth? + +Lizzie and her sister met them at the garden gate. They had been +watching for the cavalcade for fully an hour, and were rejoiced when +their song fell upon their listening ears. Everyone was extremely happy +and lively that evening; and it was quite ten o'clock before any one +thought of retiring. Silence at last fell on the estancia. Higher and +higher rose the moon, flooding the land with light; there isn't a sound +to be heard, save the buzz of insect, the call of wild drake, or the +mournful cry of the owl. + +And the night wore on. + +It must have been considerably past midnight when suddenly from down the +glade where the horses were grazing, there arose a shriek so piercing, +so full of wild imploring grief, that it found a response in every heart +in the estancia sleeping or awake. While they listened it was repeated +only once, but this time it died away in a moan, that told the terrible +tale that a deed of blood had been done. + +"Los Indios? Los Indios?" That was the shout from the Gaucho camp. + +"To arms, men, to arms!" roared patriarchal old McDonald, rushing sword +in hand into our heroes' bed-chamber. + +There was bustle and hurry now, but no confusion. The women were got +into the fort first, the men covering their retreat, and hardly was this +effected ere there was a headlong rush of a dark cloud that swept +upwards from the river's brink. + +"Fire, men!" cried McDonald. "Give it 'em." + +There was a rattling volley, and the cloud fell back with shouts and +groans. In five minutes more every man was inside, and the drawbridge +was up. + +Foiled in their attempt to seize and occupy the estancia by a surprise, +the Indians, who were over a hundred strong, would hardly dare to attack +the fort before morning. Nor did they seem to want to, but twice they +made attempts to creep towards the houses, intent on plunder, but such a +contingency as this had been well considered while building the fort, +and those who now made the attempt bitterly repented their rashness the +very next moment. + +The men in the fort were thirty in all; their rifles were twenty. +Twenty rifles against a hundred spears, the odds were not so +overwhelming; but those Indians are terribly cunning in their mode of +warfare, as our heroes soon found out, for small balls of burning grass, +thrown sling-fashion, attached to a stone and rope of skin, soon began +to fall thick and fast into the garrison. + +McDonald made up his mind he would wait no longer. The drawbridge was +suddenly lowered, and out rushed the defenders. The surprise was +sudden, the rout complete. + +"To horse, to horse!" cried McDonald, who seemed to be everywhere in the +fight. Then followed a wild stampede of the Indians, numbers of them +bit the sod, and the rest scattered and disappeared. They seemed indeed +to melt away. + +When the victors returned it was so nearly day that no one would think +of retiring, so breakfast was got ready. + +This night's adventure did not interfere in the least with the sport our +heroes enjoyed, during the remainder of their stay. But the Indians +never showed face again. + +CHAPTER TWENTY. + +PART VIII--THE BACKWOODS. + +ROUNDING CAPE HORN--STORM AND TEMPEST--SAN FRANCISCO--GUIDES FOR THE +BACKWOODS--THE GROUP AROUND THE CAMP-FIRE--A WILD HUNTER'S STORY. + +Two months after the adventures related in last chapter, our wandering +trio of friends found themselves bivouacked in one of the forests of the +far West, just as the shades of evening were beginning to deepen into +night. They had bade adieu to kind-hearted Captain Lyell at Monte +Video, finding a passage in an American ship to San Francisco. Heavy +weather had been experienced while rounding the Horn, weather that put +them in mind of the old days up north in the ice-fields: strong +head-winds snow-laden, against which they could scarcely stand, far less +walk; tempestuous grey seas, foam-fringed, that often broke aboard of +them with sullen roar, or went hurrying astern with an angry growl, like +a wild beast disappointed in its prey. But the good barque had borne +herself well. And when at length her head was fairly north, clouds, and +gloom, and storm fled away; the sun shone down on a sea of rippling +blue; reefs were shaken out, stu'n'sails set alow and aloft; and in a +few weeks they were safely at anchor not far off that busy world's mart, +that mighty mushroom city called San Francisco. Here they had lazed for +a whole week, then wended their way towards the wilderness. Yet am I +loth to call it a wilderness, this beautiful tract of country in which +they now found themselves. Savage and wild it was; its woods more often +rang with the war-whoop of the Indian, or the roar of the grizzly bear, +than echoed to the sound of the white roan's rifle; savage in all +conscience. But no one who has not wandered in its great and +interminable forests, roamed over its mountains, or embarked on its +thousand and one rivers and lakes, could imagine that such sublime +scenery could exist anywhere out of a poet's dream or an artist's fancy. + +Now, although as the historian of their adventures, I am quite willing +to admit that our heroes were, after nearly three years of wandering and +hair-breadth 'scapes, and adventures in almost every land the sun shines +upon, both good travellers and sportsmen in the true sense of the word, +still, I think, it was lucky for them they met with two experienced +hunters, who consented to guide them on their expedition to the northern +backwoods of America. They met them, as they had met Lyell, at a table +d'hote, in the Palace Hotel in San Francisco; and in a few days a +friendship was cemented between them, which none of the party had ever +reason to repent of, because they were men of the world. + +And here we have the five of them, mostly intent on the preparation of +the evening meal. Lyell is cook to-night; and he evidently cooks from +no badly-stored larder. Yonder hangs a lordly deer; wild-fowl they have +in prolusion; and in a short time they will, doubtless, enjoy their _al +fresco_ dinner as only sportsmen can. + +Dugald McArthur, one of their pioneers, is standing with his arms +folded, and his brawny shoulders leant against a tree, while honest John +Travers is carefully examining the mechanism of Chisholm O'Grahame's +bone-crusher. Chisholm himself is gazing dreamily at the log-fire, and +so, too, is Frank. But Dugald is the first to break the silence. He +bends down, and lays a hand on Chisholm's shoulder. + +"I say," he remarks, "you wouldn't think to look at me that there was +much the matter with me, would you?" Chisholm smiled by way of reply. + +"But there is, though," continued Dugald. "I'm suffering from a disease +the doctors call nostalgia, and I oftentimes dream o' the bonnie hills +and glens of dear auld Scotland." + +[Nostalgia, home-sickness; an irresistible longing to return to one's +native land, which sometimes becomes with the Swiss a fatal disease.] + +"Well, you don't look very bad, I must say," said Chisholm. "But if +going back will cure you, why not go with us?" + +"It is just what Jack and I mean to," said Dugald. "Now wait a wee +until we have eaten supper, and sit down to toast our toes, and John and +I will tell you what brought us out." + +"Now," said Dugald, when the time had come, "it is ten long years, and +begun again, since Jack there and I came to the conclusion that +civilisation was a grand mistake, that broad Scotland wasn't big enough +to hold us, and so turned our eyes to the West, to seek for adventures +and fortune. What determined our choice? Why this, we both fell in +love with the same lass. John and I always rowed in the same boat. We +were both orphans, and had been at school and college together; and had, +on coming to age, both put our monies into the same grand scheme. The +grand scheme was a bubble; and, like all bubbles, it burst. While we +were still rich and fortunate, neither Jack nor I could ever tell which +of the two of us was most regarded by the beautiful, accomplished, but +heartless Maggie Rae. As soon as we became poor, however, Maggie didn't +leave us much longer in doubt; she ended our suspense by marrying the +wealthy old laird of Drumliedykes. That was a sad blow for me; and, I +believe, for Jack too, though it wasn't his nature to say very much. +But I took to moping. I used to wander about the woods and lonely +glens, longing for peace, even if it were in the grave." + +"I met Jack one evening as I was returning from one of these rambles; +and I suppose I looked very lugubrious. I addressed him in the words of +our national poet-- + + "`Oppress'd with grief, oppress'd with care, + A burden more than I can bear, + I sit me down and sigh: + O life! thou art a galling load, + Along a rough and weary road, + To wretches such as I.'" + +But Jack pulled me up sharp. + +"`Havers,'" [Scottish for absurd nonsense] said Jack, in a bold, manly +voice. "I tell you, Dugald, man was never made to sit on a stane and +greet (weep); man was made to work. You envy the rich? Bah! Carriages +were made for the sick and the auld. A young man should feel the legs +beneath him, should feel the soul within him. Let us be up and doin', +Dugald; there's no pleasure on earth, man, can equal his, wha can look +up to God, fra honest wark. + +"Well, gentlemen, after this I was just as anxious to get away from +England as Jack was, so we made our preparations; and in a month's time +we had crossed the wide Atlantic, and journeyed as near to the Rocky +Mountains as cars would take us. I don't think we had either of us any +very definite notion of what we should do, or what adventures we should +meet with. We were not unprepared, however, for anything. We had not +gone abroad with our fingers in our mouths, so to speak; but we had read +books on travel, and taken the best advice on everything. We had good +horses, good waggons, good guns and compasses, and a fair supply of the +necessaries of life, to say nothing of a trusty guide. So we just set a +stout heart to a stiff brae (hill), and began the march. `To the west' +was our watchword; and there was in all our wanderings, ever in our +hearts, the reflection of a sweet dream, which we firmly believed would +one day become a reality, namely, that we would fall in with some land +of gold, make riches in time, and then return to our own country. + +"For many months after we had once crossed the prairie-lands, and the +terrible alkali flats, we followed the course of a broad-bosomed river, +so that our compasses were of but little use to us, for one day this +stream would take us right away up north, the next day west or +south-west. It certainly was in no great hurry to reach its +destination; but neither were we, so it just suited us. We were +contented, nay, more, we were perfectly happy; we slept at night as +hunters sleep, and we awoke at early dawn fresh as the forest birds that +flitted joyously around us, and quite prepared for another day's work. +It _was_ work sometimes, too, and no mistake; work that many a British +ploughman would have considered toil, for we had our waggons to fetch +along, and that sometimes entailed long journeys round, to avoid a +forest too dense, or river banks too rocky. + +"For months we never came across the trail of a living soul, so that we +were not afraid to picket our horses, leaving them plenty to eat and +drink, and go off pleasuring for days at a time in our birch canoes, +after the deer and wild-fowl by the river, or the swans by night. We +knew, or we could generally guess, where their haunts were. Erecting a +bit of canvas in the stern sheets, by way of cover, we would light a +bundle of hay, and throw it overboard, then drop slowly down stream +before it. If they were anywhere about, they were sure to be out soon; +and as they came sailing towards us, wondering what was up, one or two +of them was sure to pay for his curiosity with the forfeiture of his +life." + +CHAPTER TWENTY ONE. + +DUGALD CONTINUES HIS STORY--A FEARFUL STORM--ATTACKED BY WOLVES--LOST IN +THE FOREST--INDIANS--THE SURRENDER--THE ESCAPE--THE MINE OF GOLD. + +"But it wasn't always plain sailing with us either on these +expeditions," said Dugald, continuing the narrative of his adventures; +"sometimes storms would arise, ay, and such storms too! One I shall +never forget; our horses were picketed down stream, but on high ground; +so as soon as the blue sky got overcast, and while yet the thunder was +muttering ominously in the distance, we made up our minds to get down +towards them as speedily as possible, not knowing how they would fare. + +"Well was it for us we had lashed our frail canoes together, for there +was one portion of the great river which it was dangerous to descend, +even in fine weather, so rapid was the current. When we reached this +place the storm was at its very worst, and we found ourselves suddenly +whirling along in the midst of a raging cataract, a boiling surging +cataract. The thunder seemed rending the forest, and the very rocks +around us; the rain was terrible, and I had never seen such lightning +before; forked and sheet I had been used to, but here great balls of +fire fell from heaven, splitting, and hissing as they reached the waves. +It was indeed a fearful storm. When we reached camp at long last, we +expected to find that our horses had broken loose in the extremity of +their terror, but we were greatly mistaken; here they were safe enough, +and although there was evidence in the state of the ground that they had +been at first alarmed, they were quiet now; ay, even cowed in their joy +to see us, they fawned upon us almost as a dog would have done. + +"But this forest life of ours was not so very pleasant when summer +ended, and winter began to give token of his speedy approach. However, +we determined to make the best of it. We built ourselves a hut of logs, +and a rude stable for our horses, then we had to lay aside for a time +our guns and fishing-rods, and instead of hunting, take to farming, and +make hay while yet the sun shone. As long as the horses could be turned +out lariated, they could find provisions for themselves, but when the +snow fell, as fall it did ere long, we had to find fodder for them +indoors. + +"We did not forget our own larder, you may be sure, and right thankful +were we that we had not forgotten to take with us a traveller's cooking +stove, with a store of oil by way of fuel. Not that we expected an +Arctic winter by any means. Our guide, a sturdy bearded man of some +fifty summers, had trapped in these wilds for more than twenty years, +and could remember many a winter passing without the grass being even +once covered with snow. But travellers should always be provided +against even probabilities, and as it turned out it was well we were. +We enjoyed Christmas in our rude log hut almost if not quite as well as +if at home, and it would have done your heart good to have heard the +merry songs we sang, or to have listened to the strange stories of our +guide. No traveller's tales were these, they were painted from the life +and natural. The wolves used to come howling round our doors now of +nights. A fall of snow, that came on about the beginning of the new +year, seemed to make the creatures hungry. They came after the bones +that were thrown out, at least that was how they pretended to account +for their visit, but we knew well they would not hesitate a moment to +attack the horses if they could only find a chance. + +"There were trees all round our humble abode, and wearisome enough it +was sometimes to awake on stormy nights and listen to the wild wind +roaring through their branches, mingling with the awesome cry of the +forest wolves. On just such a night Jack and I once started from our +beds, and sat up and listened. There was the dread of some impending +danger lying like a lump of lead at my heart, and Jack afterwards +confessed that he too was awakened by the same kind of feeling. Almost +in the same breath we called aloud to our guide. There was no answer, +but a rush of cold wind that swept through the cabin told us that the +door was open. We sprang at once from our couches and hurried on some +clothing, then seizing our pistols we sallied out; just as a cry for +help fell upon our ear, a cry that was drowned the next moment in the +horrid `hubbering' sound that wolves make while worrying a victim. +`Come on, Jack,' I cried; `they are killing poor Walter.' + +"Jack and I were both in the melee next moment. The merciful moon shone +out, and we could see our guide on his feet covered with blood, but +defending himself bravely with a brawny fist and a broken lantern. Not +far off was our burly camp-dog engaged with three of the hungry-eyed +monsters. Jack and I soon turned the odds to deadly game, but Walter +was badly wounded, and it took weeks to get him well. It seems he had +taken his lantern and gone out to see if the horses were secure, when he +was at once attacked by the wolves. Winter brought us visitors from the +far north, the grizzly bear and his cousin the cinnamon bear. They used +to hide in the darkest and deepest nooks of the forest by day, or in +rocky dens by the mountain sides, and come prowling out by night, +oftentimes making the woods shake with their terrible roaring. + +"A better guide or trapper than Walter couldn't have been; he was good +for forest, hill, or plain, and yet he lost himself one day not +half-a-mile from our hut-door. He had gone for a short walk in the +forest; and, according to his own account, his head all of a sudden got +turned round, as it were. This is a kind of madness not at all uncommon +in the prairie or wilderness. And now to honest Walter west seemed +east, and south seemed north. He had no compass with him; and it is +questionable whether he would have believed it if he had had one. It is +a good thing in cases of this kind, that a man usually marches round and +round in a circle. We found our guide next day lying exhausted at the +foot of a pine tree, not five miles from our wigwam; or, rather, his +good and trusty Newfoundland dog found him; but how the wolves had +spared him was to us a mystery. He had never once stopped walking till +he fell where we found him. + +"The time flew by, gentlemen; winter had almost passed, although snow +still lay deep in woodland and glade, and we were fain to wear our +snow-shoes when going abroad; still the winds blew more softly, and +budlets began to peep out on the larch trees, which are ever the first +to welcome the balmy breath of returning spring. + +"One morning, greatly to our annoyance, we found the rude stable-door +open, and our horses gone. But their tracks were fresh on the snow, and +so we felt sure we soon should find them. + +"The trail led us to the uplands, and we were not sorry for this, as by +mounting an eminence or hill we would be enabled to see the country for +miles on miles around us. When we did at long last reach a hill-top, a +sight we saw not two miles off was quite enough to curdle the blood of +such inexperienced woodsmen as we were then. + +"Indians! a score and more of them, with their horses picketed, and ours +among the rest. It was evident from their armour, their rifles and +spears, and their dress, that they were on the war-path. + +"Gentlemen, I have but little heart to look back upon what immediately +followed our discovery. Some day I may tell you all our wild adventures +among the backwoods savages. Suffice it for me here to say, that after +days and nights of fierce fighting, our foes were driven off by fresh +bands of Indians. This was a tribe our guide Walter well knew; and, on +his advice, we surrendered to them. They spared our lives; but they +made us prisoners, because they found us of use to them. For five long +years we remained the slaves of this warlike tribe; but the dawn came +after the long darkness. We escaped on three of their horses--we chose +the best, you may be sure. It was on the evening of a great feast, in +commemoration of a successful raid they had made into the white man's +territory, returning with cattle, and, sad to say, with scalps. + +"Fire-water was abundant that night, and horrible revelry and dancing. +But sleep stole over the camp at last; and then we felt our time had +come. We had left them leagues on leagues ere morning light. But we +took little rest till we were far, far away in the southern and western +states. + +"This did not quite tire Jack and me of adventure and travel. No; we +just worked for a year, and then, once more accoutring ourselves, we +made tracks for the mountain-forests. The gold fever had broken out, +and we had caught it, only we determined to go prospecting all by our +two selves. And a good thing we did. We built ourselves a house. Jack +called it `the little hut among the bushes.' Some of the bushes, +gentlemen, were three hundred feet in height. We found gold, too. Fact +is, we had a small mine all to ourselves. As soon as we made a pile, we +used to go south, disguised as poor trappers, to sell our skins and fill +our powder-flasks; but, in reality, to bank our gold. + +"We've made all we want. The mine itself is sold, and well sold; and as +soon as we have shown you a bit of life in the backwoods, we shan't be +sorry to return to our dear auld Hielan' hills once more." + +The huntsman finished speaking, and soon after our heroes turned in for +the night, and the silence was unbroken--the silence of the dark +primeval forest. + +CHAPTER TWENTY TWO. + +MERRIE ENGLAND--A WEEK AT WILLOUGHBY PLACE--OUR HEROES PART--A PLEASANT +RE-UNION, ON WHICH THE CURTAIN DROPS. + +It was a lovely evening towards the close of an autumn day, many months +after the events related in the last chapter, that you might have seen a +carriage and pair, drawn up at the gate of the down station of the quiet +little village of Twintleton. There was but one person on the platform, +a tall, elderly gentleman, who was pacing up and down with evident +impatience. When I tell you that the proud crest of the Willoughbys was +emblazoned on the panels of the carriage, you will guess that the +gentleman himself was none other than Frank's father. + +"She's long overdue, isn't she, porter?" he said at last. + +"Only five minutes, sir," was the reply. + +"Five minutes!" muttered Mr Willoughby, "why, I seem to have waited +here for a whole hour." + +In a first-class compartment of this late train--still at some +considerable distance--sat three gentlemen. Brown were they in +complexion as the waters of a mountain burn, and just as vivacious. + +"Now, Frank," said one, "I do wonder what your father will think of you +when he sees you." + +"We've hardened him off properly," said the other, laughing. Frank +smiled, his thoughts just then wandered away down to a certain shire in +Wales. He was wondering what his betrothed--what Eenie would think of +him, and whether she herself would be much changed. + +Half an hour afterwards all three were rattling off in the carriage, to +the home of the Willoughbys. Need I say that that evening the fatted +calf was killed, or that Frank was the hero there for weeks. + +Heigho! but time _will_ fly. I have kept my trio well in hand through +all their years of wandering in wild places, but now at last the wizard +power of pen must fail, our friends must scatter. It was very pleasant +for a time roaming over the lovely fields and moors, gun in hand, dogs +ahead, in the bright, bracing September days. The dinners in the +evening at Willoughby Place were pleasant, too, and yet after one of the +best of these, all of a sudden, during a lull in the conversation-- + +"Father," said Frank, "I'm off to-morrow, like a bird, away down to +Penmawhr Castle." + +"You young dog," replied his father, laughing; "I've been expecting to +hear this every day for the last week." + +"Filial affection prevented me," said Frank, "from making up my mind +before." + +"Oh! that just reminds me," said Chisholm O'Grahame, "that I sail for +Australia next week." + +"And, oh!" cried Fred Freeman, "that puts me in mind. I'm off about the +same time to the Russian Steppes." + +"What!" exclaimed Mr Willoughby, "all bent on the same errand? Well, +well, boys will be boys. But, I will miss you all sadly." + +"I say, though," said Frank, "there is one thing I do look forward to, +and that is, when Fred and Chisholm return--I, of course, am going no +distance--we may have a grand re-union, here at old Willoughby Place." + +"Yes," said his father, "If we are all spared I'm sure I'll be +delighted; and there is one thing you mustn't forget, that is, if you +can find them; namely, to bring with you the companions of your +adventures in the backwoods." + +"Oh! never fear, sir," Frank replied; "we'll ferret them out--ay, and +Lyell as well." + +"That will be delightful," said Mr Willoughby, rubbing his hands in +joyous anticipation of the hoped-for event. + +"And," he continued enthusiastically, "up on the hill, near the ruins of +the ancient home of our fathers, on the night of the re-union, I'll +kindle such a bonfire as never blazed on the heights before." + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +One short week after this conversation took place my three heroes were-- + + "--Severed far and wide + By mountain, stream, and sea." + +And this just reminds me that my tale is wonderfully near its close, +for, dear me! you know an author who has lost his heroes is just like a +bird who has lost its eggs, there is not a bit of good in trying to sing +any more. Besides, they have all gone in different directions, and I +can't be in three places at once; and even if I could, my presence would +doubtless be deemed an intrusion, for I'll warrant they are all happy +enough. + +But did the re-union ever take place, and did the bonfire blaze fierce +on the hill-top? Both events came off, reader, I'm glad to tell you. +And here they all are with happy beaming faces, seated around the table +in the banquetting hall of the home of the Willoughbys: Fred, and Frank, +and Chisholm O'Grahame, each with their wives by their side. Ay, and +brave Captain Lyell, too, though he has got no wife by his side--his lot +is to be a rover, his home is on the deep. And here is brawny Dugald +McArthur and honest John Travers, the bold hunters of the backwoods. + +And here is precisely the place to drop the curtain. Let it descend +then, and slowly hide the happy scene. + +Yet one word. My chief reward in having written these "Wild +Adventures," rests in a _thought_ and in a _hope_. The thought is, that +I may have sometimes interested and amused you; the hope, that we may-- +for stranger things have happened--meet again another day. + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Wild Adventures in Wild Places, by Gordon Stables + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WILD ADVENTURES IN WILD PLACES *** + +***** This file should be named 38262.txt or 38262.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/8/2/6/38262/ + +Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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