第48章 CHAPTER XI THE EDMONTON TRAIL(3)

Kalman sprang forward with a stick in his hand, dodged under the poles which formed the sides of the stall, and laid a resounding whack upon the pony's flank. There was a flash of heels, a bang on the shed wall, a plunge forward, and the pony was found clear of the shed and Kalman senseless on the ground.

"Jimmy, you eternal fool!" cried French, "hold this rope!" He ran to the boy and picked him up in his arms. "The boy is killed, and there'll be the very deuce to pay."

He laid the insensible lad on the grass, ran for a pail of water and dashed a portion of it in his face. In a few moments the boy opened his eyes with a long deep sigh, and closed them again as if in contented slumber. French took a flask from his pocket, opened the boy's mouth, and poured some of its contents between his lips.

At once Kalman began to cough, sat up, gazed around in a stupid manner upon the ponies and the men.

"He's out," he said at length, with his eyes upon the pinto.

"Out? Who's out?" cried French.

"Judas priest!" exclaimed Jimmy, using his favourite oath. "He means the broncho."

"By Jove! he IS out, boy," said French, "and you are as near out as you are likely to be for some time to come. What in great Caesar's name were you trying to do?"

"He wouldn't move," said the boy simply, "and I hit him."

"Listen here, boy," said Jimmy Green solemnly, "when you go to hit a broncho again, don't take anything short of a ten-foot pole, unless you're on top of him."

The boy said nothing in reply, but got up and began to walk about, still pale and dazed.

"Good stuff, eh, Jimmy?" said French, watching him carefully.

"You bet!" said Jimmy, "genuINE clay."

"It is exceptionally lucky that you were standing so near the little beast," said French to the boy. "Get into the buckboard here, and sit down."

Kalman climbed in, and from that point of vantage watched the rest of the hitching process. By skillful manoeuvering the two men led, backed, shoved the ponies into position, and while one held them by the heads, the other hitched the traces. Carefully French looked over all straps and buckles, drew the lines free, and then mounting the buckboard seat, said quietly, "Stand clear, Jimmy. Let them go." Which Jimmy promptly did.

For a few moments they stood surprised at their unexpected freedom, and uncertain what to do with it, then they moved off slowly a few steps till the push of the buckboard threw them into a sudden terror, and the fight was on. Plunging, backing, kicking, jibing, they finally bolted, fortunately choosing the trail that led in the right direction.

"Good-by, Jimmy. See you later," sang out French as, with cool head and steady hand, he directed the running ponies.

"Jumpin' cats!" replied Jimmy soberly, "don't look as if you would," as the bronchos tore up the river bank at a terrific gallop.

Before they reached the top French had them in hand, and going more smoothly, though still running at top speed. Kalman sat clinging to the rocking, pitching buckboard, his eyes alight and his face aglow with excitement. There was stirring in the boy's brain a dim and far-away memory of wild rides over the steppes of Southern Russia, and French, glancing now and then at his glowing face, nodded grim approval.

"Afraid, boy?" he shouted over the roar and rattle of the pitching buckboard.

Kalman looked up and smiled, and then with a great oath he cried, "Let them go!"

Jack French was startled. He hauled up the ponies sharply and turned to the boy at his side.

"Boy, where did you learn that?"

"What?" asked the boy in surprise.

"Where did you learn to swear like that?"

"Why," said Kalman, "they all do it."

"Who all?"

"Why, everybody in Winnipeg."

"Does Mrs. French?" said Jack quietly.

The boy's face flushed hotly.

"No, no," he said vehemently, "never her." Then after a pause and an evident struggle, "She wants me to stop, but all the men and the boys do it."

"Kalman," said French solemnly, "no one swears on my ranch."

Kalman was perplexed, remembering the scene of the previous night.

"But you--" he began, and then paused.

"Boy," repeated French with added solemnity, "swearing is a foolish and unnecessary evil. There is no swearing on my ranch. Promise me you will give up this habit."

"I will not," said the boy promptly, "for I would break my word.

Don't you swear?"

French hesitated, and then as if forming a sudden resolution he replied, "When you hear me swear you can begin. And if you don't mean to quit, don't promise. A gentleman always keeps his word."

The boy looked him steadily in the eye and then said, as if pondering this remark, "I remember. I know. My father said so."

French forbore to press the matter further, but for both man and boy an attempt at a new habit of speech began that day.

Once clear of the Saskatchewan River, the trail led over rolling prairie, set out with numerous "bluffs" of western maple and poplar, and diversified with sleughs and lakes of varying size, a country as richly fertile and as fair to look upon as is given the eyes of man to behold anywhere in God's good world. In the dullest weather this rolling, tree-decked, sleugh-gemmed prairie presents a succession of scenes surpassingly beautiful, but with a westering sun upon it, and on a May day, it offers such a picture as at once entrances the soul and lives forever in the memory. The waving lines, the rounded hills, the changing colour, the chasing shadows on grass and bluff and shimmering water, all combine to make in the soul high music unto God.

For an hour and more the buckboard hummed along the trail smooth and winding, the bronchos pulling hard on the lines without a sign of weariness, till the bluffs began to grow thicker and gradually to close into a solid belt of timber. Beyond this belt of timber lay the Ruthenian Colony but newly placed. The first intimation of the proximity of this colony came in quite an unexpected way.