



Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England




The Wild Man of the West, by R.M. Ballantyne.

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The action of this book takes place entirely in the foothills of the
Rocky Mountains in North America.  We can certainly appreciate the
hardness of the life of the hunters in those days, which were during the
early part of the nineteenth century.  The action is very well narrated,
and is very exciting and interesting.  All sorts of things are suddenly
pulled together in the very last few pages, and it would be quite hard
for the reader to guess what was going to happen, before the last two
chapters.

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THE WILD MAN OF THE WEST, BY R.M. BALLANTYNE.



CHAPTER ONE.

IN WHICH THE READER IS INTRODUCED TO A MAD HERO, A RECKLESS LOVER, AND A
RUNAWAY HUSBAND--BACKWOODS JUVENILE TRAINING DESCRIBED--THE PRINCIPLES
OF FIGHTING FULLY DISCUSSED, AND SOME VALUABLE HINTS THROWN OUT.

March Marston was mad!  The exact state of madness to which March had
attained at the age when we take up his personal history--namely,
sixteen--is uncertain, for the people of the backwoods settlement in
which he dwelt differed in their opinions on that point.

The clergyman, who was a Wesleyan, said he was as wild as a young
buffalo bull; but the manner in which he said so led his hearers to
conclude that he did not think such a state of ungovernable madness to
be a hopeless condition, by any means.  The doctor said he was as mad as
a hatter; but this was an indefinite remark, worthy of a doctor who had
never obtained a diploma, and required explanation, inasmuch as it was
impossible to know _how_ mad he considered a hatter to be.  Some of the
trappers who came to the settlement for powder and lead, said he was as
mad as a grisly bear with a whooping-cough--a remark which, if true,
might tend to throw light on the diseases to which the grisly bear is
liable, but which failed to indicate to any one, except perhaps
trappers, the extent of young Marston's madness.  The carpenter and the
blacksmith of the place--who were fast friends and had a pitched battle
only once a month, or twice at most--agreed in saying that he was as mad
as a wild-cat.  In short, every one asserted stoutly that the boy was
mad, with the exception of the women of the settlement, who thought him
a fine, bold, handsome fellow; and his own mother, who thought him a
paragon of perfection, and who held the opinion (privately) that, in the
wide range of the habitable globe there was not another like him--and
she was not far wrong!

Now, the whole and sole reason why March Marston was thus deemed a
madman, was that he displayed an insane tendency, at all times and in
all manners, to break his own neck, or to make away with himself in some
similarly violent and uncomfortable manner.

There was not a fence in the whole countryside that March had not bolted
over at full gallop, or ridden crash through if he could not go over it.
There was not a tree within a circuit of four miles from the top of
which he had not fallen.  There was not a pond or pool in the
neighbourhood into which he had not soused at some period of his stormy
juvenile career, and there was not a big boy whom he had not fought and
thrashed--or been thrashed by--scores of times.

But for all this March had not a single enemy.  He did his companions
many a kind turn; never an unkind one.  He fought for love, not for
hatred.  He loved a dog--if any one kicked it, he fought him.  He loved
a little boy--if any one was cruel to that little boy, he fought him.
He loved fair play--if any one was guilty of foul play, he fought him.
When he was guilty of foul play himself (as was sometimes the case, for
who is perfect?) he felt inclined to jump out of his own body and turn
about and thrash himself!  And he would have done so often, had it been
practicable.  Yes, there is no doubt whatever about it March Marston was
mad--as mad, after a fashion, as any creature, human or otherwise, you
choose to name.

Young Marston's mother was a handsome, stout, blue-eyed, flaxen-haired
woman, of a little over thirty-five summers.  She was an English
emigrant, and had, seventeen years before the time we write of settled
at Pine Point, on the banks of the Yellowstone River, along with her
brother, the blacksmith above referred to.  At that time she was the
sweetest maiden in all the village, and now she was the handsomest
matron.  Indeed, the bloom of her youth remained on her cheeks so little
impaired that she was often mistaken by strangers for March Marston's
elder sister.  The men of the place called her pretty widow Marston; but
she was not a widow--at least, they had as little ground for saying that
she was as they had for asserting that her son was mad.  Mrs Marston
was peculiarly circumstanced, but she was not a widow.

The peculiar circumstances connected with her history are soon told.
Immediately after the arrival of the blacksmith and his pretty sister at
Pine Point settlement, a tall stout young stripling--a trapper--about a
year older than herself, fell deeply in love with Mary West--that being
Mrs Marston's maiden name.  The young trapper's case was desperate.  He
sank at once so deep into the profundities of love, that no deep-sea
