The Buffalo Runners

The Buffalo Runners, by R.M.
Ballantyne

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Title: The Buffalo Runners A Tale of the Red River Plains
Author: R.M. Ballantyne
Illustrator: R.M. Ballantyne
Release Date: November 6, 2007 [EBook #23372]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
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BUFFALO RUNNERS ***

Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England

The Buffalo Runners, A tale of the Red River Plains, by R.M.
Ballantyne.

CHAPTER ONE.
A TALE OF THE RED RIVER PLAINS.
HELP!
A blizzard was blowing wildly over the American prairies one winter
day in the earlier part of the present century.
Fresh, free and straight, it came from the realms of Jack Frost, and
cold--bitterly cold--like the bergs on the Arctic seas, to which it had but
recently said farewell.
Snow, fine as dust and sharp as needles, was caught up bodily by the
wind in great masses--here in snaky coils, there in whirling eddies,
elsewhere in rolling clouds; but these had barely time to assume
indefinite forms when they were furiously scattered and swept away as
by the besom of destruction, while earth and sky commingled in a
smother of whitey-grey.
All the demons of the Far North seemed to have taken an outside
passage on that blizzard, so tremendous was the roaring and shrieking,
while the writhing of tormented snow-drifts suggested powerfully the
madness of agony.
Two white and ghostly pillars moved slowly but steadily through all
this hurly-burly in a straight line. One of the pillars was short and broad;
the other was tall and stately. Both were very solid--agreeably so, when
contrasted with surrounding chaos. Suddenly the two pillars
stopped--though the gale did not.
Said the short pillar to the tall one--
"Taniel Tavidson, if we will not get to the Settlement this night; it iss
my belief that every one o' them will perish."
"Fergus," replied the tall pillar, sternly, "they shall not perish if I can
help it. At all events, if they do, I shall die in the attempt to save them.

Come on."
Daniel Davidson became less like a white pillar as he spoke, and more
like a man, by reason of his shaking a good deal of the snow off his
stalwart person. Fergus McKay followed his comrade's example, and
revealed the fact--for a few minutes--that beneath the snow-mask there
stood a young man with a beaming countenance of fiery red, the
flaming character of which, however, was relieved by an expression of
ineffable good-humour.
The two men resumed their march over the dreary plain in silence.
Indeed, conversation in the circumstances was out of the question. The
brief remarks that had been made when they paused to recover breath
were howled at each other while they stood face to face.
The nature of the storm was such that the gale seemed to rush at the
travellers from all quarters at once--including above and below. Men of
less vigour and resolution would have been choked by it; but men who
don't believe in choking, and have thick necks, powerful frames, vast
experience, and indomitable wills are not easily choked!
"It blows hard--whatever," muttered Fergus to himself, with that
prolonged emphasis on the last syllable of the last word which is
eminently suggestive of the Scottish Highlander.
Davidson may have heard the remark, but he made no reply.
Day declined, but its exit was not marked by much difference in the
very feeble light, and the two men held steadily on. The moon came out.
As far as appearances went she might almost as well have stayed in, for
nobody saw her that night. Her mere existence somewhere in the sky,
however, rendered the indescribable chaos visible. Hours passed by,
but still the two men held on their way persistently.
They wore five-feet-long snow-shoes. Progress over the deep snow
without these would have been impossible. One traveller walked
behind the other to get the benefit of his beaten track, but the benefit
was scarcely appreciable, for the whirling snow filled each footstep up

almost as soon as it was made. Two days and a night had these men
travelled with but an hour or two of rest in the shelter of a copse,
without fire, and almost without food, yet they pushed on with the
energy of fresh and well-fed men.
Nothing but some overpowering necessity could have stimulated them
to such prolonged and severe exertion. Even self-preservation might
have failed to nerve them to it, for both had well-nigh reached