The Red River Half-Breed

shook off the snow like so many feathers off a shot bird, as well as their robes, which would encumber their onset. Immediately fir

aid Cherokee Bill, w

no timid emigrants to deal with, whatever they might have thought. Quite otherwise, for the Bois Brulés were on the alert, employing all defensive measures in their full know

igs smeared with elk fat, and using them first as shields by which to reach the waggon wheels, dropped them between them and fired the

horses, which they hoped to stampede, and so augment the confusion, whilst relieving the owners

contained their valuables, including the captive women, whose psalms had been heard b

upon a young Canadian, who had a keg under o

aughing and yelling in his face under the very axe which menace

!" he returned, contemp

nd swept towards the group the blazing shreds of a tarpaulin of a waggon being pillaged. A spark kindled the outpouri

gement of their chiefs prevented a panic. On the other hand, the view of so much harm wrought by a single hand revived the Half-breeds' cour

acted as a signal for an arm

ge seemed thus chafing to take a share in the sanguinary game. They only controlled their warlike instincts till the bursting of the gunpowder keg forced them to applaud the Canadian

two stumps, of which the trunk and limbs had helped fence the enclosure, and went half round it to inspect the smoking ruins, where gashed and mutilated bodies proved that n

charging cry. In another moment the redskins who survived the last shots of the Bois Brul

ed Ridge, furious at the scene, not

s snow, a dozen shots resounded, and at least ten of them pitched headfirst towards the Ca

ws scattered through the camp, and tried to scramble out of the environment with even more alacrity than they had shown in entering. Shot down by the unknown foe and cut to pieces by the reanimated Half-breeds-it was a "fix." Weaponless, stripped almost n

the whole tract for thousands upon thousands of miles is often transformed in a few hours. The wind came out of gorges like a compacted bolt, and basalt was pierced like putty; the eddies, or "screw wind," uprooted hoary pines and waltzed away with them in the distance. The snow and hail clouds were compressed to the tree and hill tops, and condensed the lower atmosphere so that breathing was difficult, and cattle stopped in frantic flight a

beasts, whose lifelong lairs and nests were wrecked, and which grovelled flat in agony of apprehension. Most dreadful of all, now and then a fugitive was balled up in a thick gust,

iracle, blindly, yet surely, led the band back to their late post, however preca

out impetuously for outlets which continual changes of the rocky barriers offered and withdrew. As the torrent rose to the hunters, the snow massively came down. But they were hardened border men, and far f

idly than they break out-suddenly and without a warning lull. This the adventurers knew, except Filditch and Ranald

so that every now and then the more exposed should be replaced by the best sh

died away sharply, "We have weathered it. Old R

t the cheek, ay, and even the leather of their dress, like a sandblast. Soon

ed in the crotches of dismantled trunks. The grove where the hunters had been ambushed among the stumps, to succour the Half-breeds' captives, no longer exist

he still raging current. Then, rigging up temporary snowshoes out of fragments of elder and their ragged robes, they began to glide over the fresh floor, hardly firm enou

ld have made one huge snowball of waggons and cattle, and trundled it ir