Читать книгу The Long Rifle - Stewart Edward White - Страница 29

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For the first time in his life Andrew slept out in bivouac, for Crane declined flatly to stop at a farmhouse or an inn. All the days through he strode behind the untiring figure of the Mountain Man; for he soon found by experiment that Crane was impatient of conversation while journeying, and favored single file. Andy was willing to trail along behind. The strange barbaric figure of the Mountain Man, his head turning constantly in a habit of watchfulness, was very satisfying to the romanticism of his years. And, truth to tell, Andy found that after the first hour of the morning, he had scant breath wherewith to talk if he would. The frontiersman did not appear to hurry, but the swing of his stride was such that Andy was well put to it to keep pace.

But in the evening when the campfire had been lighted and the simple evening meal disposed, Crane became as conversational as one could desire. Before Andy realized that he was being drawn out, he found himself confiding in his new acquaintance. The latter listened attentively, without other comment than the strange, throat-scraping wagh! That Andy should run away from a harsh and fanatical stepfather seemed to him a matter of course. That he should travel west only natural to a grandson of Gail Burnett. But that he should be going to Missouri with the idea of taking up a farm was too fantastic to rate consideration. Crane brushed that notion aside as though it were a mosquito.

“I don’t deny you’re green for the prairies,” said he. “You can shoot, purty fair; and you can throw a knife, a little. Beyond that you’re mostly a total loss. You’d lose yore ha’r in two days. But yo’re likely in larnin’. You’ve the makin’s in you. Farm! Wagh! That don’t shine with me! Leave them things to farmers. They don’t fit with Burnett.”

Immediately after this talk he took charge of Andy’s schooling. He found the young man’s ignorance appalling.

“Why, you ain’t had any eddication at all!” he protested.

The curriculum was quite haphazard.

“If you see buffalo runnin’ around in leetle small groups,” Crane would observe suddenly, “you’ll know they’s been chased by Injuns not long ago.” ...

... “If you’re looking a way through strange mountains, remember to look for black rock, for when rocks is black snow has not stuck—and this: where snow don’t stick a man can’t climb.” ...

... “In Injun country quakin’ asp’s yore best fire. It ain’t got no smoke nor smell.” ...

... “If you git caught in the fog in strange mountains, throw rocks ahead. If no sound comes back, set still.” ...

These and many other brief and pithy but unrelated bits of wisdom Crane threw back over his shoulder as he strode along. Later, perhaps at a resting period, perhaps at the evening fire, he would test Andy’s memory, proposing imaginary emergencies to which the lad must state his remedy. And each evening Crane catechized him strictly as to what he had observed along the road. Andy found that to notice a chipmunk trail counted more with the Mountain Man than any number of red-painted barns!

At every opportunity Crane drilled him in the handling of his weapons. Mere marksmanship with the rifle received little of his attention.

“You hold well enough,” said he indifferently, “and you’ll hold better. Burn powder, lad; that is all. But you must learn to load, for an empty piece helps no man but yore enemy.”

It was not sufficient, it seemed, merely to understand the proper charging of the rifle. One must be able to accomplish that necessary act in all varieties of circumstances, lying down, in cramped space, even running at full speed, on horseback. Crane practised him at estimating his powder charge poured direct from the horn. He showed him how a supply of bullets carried in the mouth could be flipped skillfully into the barrel by the tongue, and driven home by a smart smack of the butt of the weapon against a stone or a tree or even hard earth; or the pommel of the saddle if one were ahorseback.

“The spit’ll hold her,” explained Crane. “Don’t need no patch for that.” He removed from his mouth the long-stemmed stone pipe and pointed it didactically. “It’s all right to measure yore powder to the last grain when you got time. But if you have to load quick, yo’re so close that you’ll hit anyways. If yo’re fur away, you got time to load with a proper charge and a proper patch fur fine shootin’.”

He made Andy perform the maneuver over and over. At first Andy was clumsy. He was appalled at the amount of powder he spilled and wasted.

“Never mind spilled powder. Powder’s cheaper’n ha’r,” said Crane grimly.

He himself, in demonstration, spilled no powder. He was extraordinarily deft and could charge, prime, and discharge his rifle in an incredibly brief period, whether running, lying, or huddled behind shelter.

Likewise he kept Andy almost tiresomely at his knife-throwing. In this the boy made faster progress. He learned the knack that drove the point deep. And now he discovered that he should also be able to cast the weapon, not only straight ahead, but to right or left, and even over his shoulder; and that without turning his body. Crane possessed uncanny skill with his own knife. He insisted on Andy’s practising with that weapon also.

“She’s a standard blade,” Crane explained, “such as you will find in the sheath of every hivernant, and once you have the feel of one of them, you know them all.”

The balance differed only slightly from that with which Andy was familiar, and his progress was so rapid that Crane expressed approval.

“That shines!” he cried; and patted Andy on the shoulder.

The schooling for the evening finished, the Mountain Man smoked and talked. Andy drank it in. The talk was of the sweep of plains, and the buffalo, and the rise of foothills, and the snowy peaks of great ranges, and the fall of beaver waters, and strange wild people, and hidden parks. And above all space and size and the fling of distances. Crane somehow made this country in which they journeyed seem very small and tame.

“Ain’t hardly room to take exercise,” said he contemptuously. He dismissed the surrounding forest with a lift of scorn. “Call them trees! Wagh! Why, out in the Mountains, lad, there’s trees so stout it would tire a rat to run clean around them!”