"I'll stay here in spite of all the Sioux warriors on earth, till I find out about that knave of an Indian and his captives," I vowed.

Louis looked at me queerly and gave another whistle.

"You always were a pig-head," said he. "I can keep them from harming you; but remember, I pay you back in your own coin. And look out for the daughter of L'Aigle, curse her! She is the only thing I ever fear! Keep you in my tent! If Le Grand Diable see you——" and Louis touched his knife-handle significantly.

"Then Diable is here!"

"I not say so," but he flushed at the slip of his tongue and moved quickly towards what appeared to be his quarters.

"He is coming?" I questioned, suspicious of Louis' veracity.

"Dolt!" said Louis. "Why else do I hide you in my tent? But remember I pay you back in your own coin afterwards! Ha! There they come!"

A shout of returning hunters arose from the ravine, at which Louis bounded for the tent on a run, dashing inside breathlessly, I following close behind.

"Stay you here, inside, mind! Mon Dieu! If you but show your face; 'tis two white men under one stone-pile! Louis Laplante is a fool—dammie—a fool—to help you, his enemy, or any other man at his own risk."

With these enigmatical words, the Frenchman hurried out, fastening the tent flap after him and leaving me to reflect on the wild impulses of his wayward nature. Was his strange, unwilling generosity the result of animosity to the big squaw, who seemed to exercise some subtle and commanding influence over him; or of gratitude to me? Was the noble blood that coursed in his veins, directing him in spite of his degenerate tendencies; or had the man's heart been touched by the sight of a white woman's suffering? If his alarm at the sound of returning hunters had not been so palpably genuine—for he turned pale to the lips—I might have suspected treachery. But there was no mistaking the motive of fear that hurried him to the tent; and with Le Grand Diable among the hunters, Louis might well fear to be seen in my company. There was a hubbub of trappers returning to the lodges. I heard horses turned free and tent-poles clattering to the ground; but Laplante did not come back till it was late and the Indians had separated for the night.

"I can take you to her!" he whispered, his voice thrilling with suppressed emotion. "Le Grand Diable and the squaw have gone to the valley to set snares! And when I whistle, come out quickly! Mon Dieu! If you're caught, both our scalps go! Dammie! Louis is a fool. I take you to her; but I pay you back all the same!"

"To whom?" The question throbbed with a rush to my lips.

"Stupid dolt!" snarled Louis. "Follow me! Keep your ears open for my whistle—one—they return—two—come you out of the tent—three, we are caught, save yourself!"

I followed the Frenchman in silence. It was a hazy summer night with just enough light from the sickle moon for us to pick our way past the lodges to a large newly-erected wigwam with a small white tent behind.

"This way," whispered Louis, leading through the first to an opening hidden by a hanging robe. Raising the skin, he shoved me forward and hastened out to keep guard.

The figure of a woman with a child in her arms was silhouetted against the white tent wall. She was sitting on some robes, crooning in a low voice to the child, and was unaware of my presence.

"And was my little Eric at the hunt, and did he shoot an arrow all by himself?" she asked, fondling the face that snuggled against her shoulder.

The boy gurgled back a low, happy laugh and lisped some childish reply, which only a mother could translate.

"And he will grow big, big and be a great warrior and fight—fight for his poor mother," she whispered, lowering her voice and caressing the child's curls.

The little fellow sat up of a sudden facing his mother and struck out squarely with both fists, not uttering a word.

"My brave, brave little Eric! My only one, all that God has left to me!" she sobbed hiding her weeping face on the child's neck. "O my God, let me but keep my little one! Thou hast given him to me and I have treasured him as a jewel from Thine own crown! O my God, let me but keep my darling, keep him as Thy gift—and—and—O my God!—Thy—Thy—Thy will be done!"

The words broke in a moan and the child began to cry.

"Hush, dearie! The birds never cry, nor the beavers, nor the great, bold eagle! My own little warrior must never cry! All the birds and the beasts and the warriors are asleep! What does Eric say before he goes to sleep?"

A pair of chubby arms were flung about her neck and passionate, childish kisses pressed her forehead and her cheeks and her lips. Then he slipped to his knees and put his face in her lap.

"God bless my papa—and keep my mamma—and make little Eric brave and good—for Jesus' sake——" the child hesitated.

"Amen," prompted the gentle voice of the mother.

"And keep little Eric for my mamma so she won't cry," added the child, "for Jesus' sake—Amen," and he scrambled to his feet.

A low, piercing whistle cut the night air like the flight of an arrow-shaft. It was Louis Laplante's signal that Diable and the squaw were coming back. At the sound, mother and child started up in alarm. Then they saw me standing in the open way. A gasp of fright came from the white woman's lips. I could tell from her voice that she was all a-tremble, and the little one began to whimper in a smothered, suppressed way.

I whispered one word—"Miriam!"

With a faint cry of anguish, she leaped forward. "Is it you, Eric? O Eric! is it you?" she asked.

"No—no, Miriam, not Eric, but Eric's friend, Rufus Gillespie."

She tottered as if I had struck her. I caught her in my arms and helped her to the couch of robes.

Then I took up my station facing the tent entrance; for I realized the significance of Laplante's warning.

"We have hunted for more than a year for you," I whispered, bending over her, "but the Sioux murdered our messenger and the other you yourself let out of the tent!"

"That—your messenger for me?" she asked in sheer amazement, proving what I had suspected, that she was kept in ignorance of our efforts.

"I have been here for a week, searching the lodges. My horses are in the valley, and we must dare all in one attempt."

"I have given my word I will not try," she hastily interrupted, beginning to pluck at her red shawl in the frenzied way of delirious fever patients. "If we are caught, they will torture us, torture the child before my eyes. They treat him well now and leave me alone as long as I do not try to break away. What can you, one man, do against two thousand Sioux?" and she began to weep, choking back the anguished sobs, that shook her slender frame, and picking feverishly at the red shawl fringe.

To look at that agonized face would have been sacrilege, and in a helpless, nonplussed way, I kept gazing at the painful workings of the thin, frail fingers. That plucking of the wasted, trembling hands haunts me to this day; and never do I see the fingers of a nervous, sensitive woman working in that delirious, aimless fashion but it sets me wondering to what painful treatment from a brutalized nature she has been subjected, that her hands take on the tricks of one in the last stages of disease. It may be only the fancy of an old trader; but I dare avow, if any sympathetic observer takes note of this simple trick of nervous fingers, it will raise the veil on more domestic tragedies and heart-burnings than any father-confessor hears in a year.

"Miriam," said I, in answer to her timid protest, "Eric has risked his life seeking you. Won't you try all for Eric's sake? There'll be little risk! We'll wait for a dark, boisterous, stormy night, and you will roll out of your tent the way you thrust my Indian out. I'll have my horses ready. I'll creep up behind and whisper through the tent."

"Where is Eric?" she asked, beginning to waver.

Two shrill, sharp whistles came from Louis Laplante, commanding me to come out of the tent.

"That's my signal! I must go. Quick, Miriam, will you try?"

"I will do what you wish," she answered, so low, I had to kneel to catch the words.

"A stormy night our signal, then," I cried.

Three, sharp, terrified whistles, signifying, "We are caught, save yourself," came from Laplante, and I flung myself on the ground behind Miriam.

"Spread out your arms, Miriam! Quick!" I urged. "Talk to the boy, or we're trapped."

With her shawl spread out full and her elbows sticking akimbo, she caught the lad in her arms and began dandling him to right, and left, humming some nursery ditty. At the same moment there loomed in the tent entrance the great, statuesque figure of the Sioux squaw, whom I had seen in the gorge. I kicked my feet under the canvas wall, while Miriam's swaying shawl completely concealed me from the Sioux woman and thus I crawled out backwards. Then I lay outside the tent and listened, listened with my hand on my pistol, for what might not that monster of fury attempt with the tender, white woman?

"There were words in the tepee," declared the angry tones of the Indian woman. "The pale face was talking! Where is the messenger from the Mandanes?"

At that, the little child set up a bitter crying.

"Cry not, my little warrior! Hush, dearie! 'Twas only a hunter whistling, or the night hawk, or the raccoon! Hush, little Eric! Warriors never cry! Hush! Hush! Or the great bear will laugh at you and tell his cubs he's found a coward!" crooned Miriam, making as though she neither heard, nor saw the squaw; but Eric opened his mouth and roared lustily. And the little lad unconsciously foiled the squaw; for she presently took herself off, evidently thinking the voices had been those of mother and son.

I skirted cautiously around the rear of the lodges to avoid encountering Diable, or his squaw. The form of a man hulked against me in the dark. 'Twas Louis.

"Mon Dieu, Gillespie, I thought one scalp was gone," he gasped.

"What are you here for? You don't want to be seen with me," I protested, grateful and alarmed for his foolhardiness in coming to meet me.

"Sacredie! The dogs! They make pretty music at your shins without me," and Louis struck boldly across the open for his tent. "Fool to stay so long!" he muttered. "I no more ever help you once again! Mon Dieu! No! I no promise my scalp too! They found your horses in the valley! They—how you say it?—think for some Mandane is here and fear. They rode back fast on your horses. 'Twas why I whistle for, twice so quick! They ride north in the morning. I go too, with the devil and his wife! I be gone to the devil this many a while! But I must go, or they suspect and knife me. That vampire! Ha! she would drink my gore! I no more have nothing to do with you. Before morning, you must do your own do alone! Sacredie! Do not forget, I pay you back yet!"

So he rattled on, ever keeping between me and the lodges. By his confused words, I knew he was in great trepidation.

"Why, there are my horses!" I exclaimed, seeing all six standing before Diable's lodge.

"You do your do before morning! Take one of my saddles!" said Louis.

Sure enough, all my saddles were piled before the Iroquois' wigwam; and there stood my enemy and the Sioux squaw, talking loudly, pointing to the horses and gesticulating with violence.

"Mon Dieu! Prenez garde! Get you in!" muttered Louis. We were at his tent door, and I was looking back at my horses. "If they see you, all is lost," he warned.

And the warning came just in time. With that animal instinct of nearness, which is neither sight, nor smell, my favorite broncho put forward his ears and whinnied sharply. Both Diable and the squaw noted the act and turned; but Louis had knocked me forward face down into the tent.

With an oath, he threw himself on his couch. "Take my saddle," he said. "I steal another. Do your do before morning. I no more have nothing to do with you, till I pay you back all the same!"

And he was presently fast asleep, or pretending to be.



CHAPTER XIX

WHEREIN LOUIS INTRIGUES

Next morning Le Grand Diable would set out for the north. This night, then, was my last chance to rescue Miriam. "Do your do before morning!" How Laplante's words echoed in my ears! I had told Miriam a stormy night was to be the signal for our attempt; and now the rising moon was dispelling any vague haziness that might have helped to conceal us. In an hour, the whole camp would be bright as day in clear, silver light. Presently, the clatter of the lodges ceased. Only an occasional snarl from the dogs, or the angry squeals of my bronchos kicking the Indian ponies, broke the utter stillness. There was not even a wind to drown foot-treads, and every lodge of the camp was reflected across the ground in elongated shadows as distinct as a crayon figure on white paper. What if some watchful Indian should discover our moving shadows? La Robe Noire's fate flashed back and I shuddered.

Flinging up impatiently from the robes, I looked from the tent way. Some dog of the pack gave the short, sharp bark of a fox. Then, but for the crunching of my horses over the turf some yards away, there was silence. I could hear the heavy breathing of people in near-by lodges. Up from the wooded valley came the far-off purr of a stream over stony bottom and the low washing sound only accentuated the stillness. The shrill cry of some lonely night-bird stabbed the atmosphere with a throb of pain. Again the dog snapped out a bark and again there was utter quiet.

"One chance in a thousand," said I to myself, "only one in a thousand; but I'll take it!" And I stepped from the tent. This time the wakeful dog let out a mouthful of quick barkings. Jerking off my boots—I had not yet taken to the native custom of moccasins—I dodged across the roadway into the exaggerated shadow of some Indian camp truckery. Here I fell flat to the ground so that no reflection should betray my movements. Then I remembered I had forgotten Louis Laplante's saddle. Rising, I dived back to the tepee for it and waited for the dogs to quiet before coming out again. That alert canine had set up a duet with a neighboring brute of like restless instincts and the two seemed to promise an endless chorus. As I live, I could have sworn that Louis Laplante laughed in his sleep at my dilemma; but Louis was of the sort to laugh in the face of death itself. A man flew from a lodge and dealing out stout blows quickly silenced the vicious curs; but I had to let time lapse for the man to go to sleep before I could venture out.

Once more, chirp of cricket, croak of frog and the rush of waters through the valley were the only sounds, and I darted across to the camp shadow. Lying flat, I began to crawl cautiously and laboriously towards my horses. One gave a startled snort as I approached and this set the dogs going again. I lay motionless in the grass till all was quiet and then crept gently round to the far side of my favorite horse and caught his halter strap lest he should whinny, or start away. I drew erect directly opposite his shoulders, so that I could not be seen from the lodges and unhobbling his feet, led him into the concealment of a group of ponies and had the saddle on in a trice. To get the horse to the rear of Miriam's tent was no easy matter. I paced my steps so deftly with the broncho's and let him munch grass so often, the most watchful Indian could not have detected a man on the far side of the horse, directing every move. Behind the Sioux lodge, the earth sloped abruptly away, bare and precipitous; and I left the horse below and clambered up the steep to the white wall of Miriam's tent. Once the dogs threatened to create a disturbance, but a man quieted them, and with gratitude I recognized the voice of Laplante.

Three times I tapped on the canvas but there was no response. I put my arm under the tent and rapped on the ground. Why did she not signal? Was the Sioux squaw from the other lodge listening? I could hear nothing but the tossings of the child.

"Miriam," I called, shoving my arm forward and feeling out blindly.

Thereupon, a woman's hand grasped mine and thrust it out, while a voice so low it might have been the night breeze, came to my ear—"We are watched."

Watched? What did it matter if we were? Had I not dared all? Must not she do the same? This was the last chance. We must not be foiled. My horse, I knew, could outrace any cayuse of the Sioux band.

"Miriam," I whispered back, lifting the canvas, "they will take you away to-morrow—my horse is here! Come! We must risk all!"

And I shoved myself bodily in under the tent wall. She was not a hand's length away, sitting with her face to the entrance of Diable's lodge, her figure rigid and tense with fear. In the half light I could discern the great, powerful, angular form of a giantess in the opening. 'Twas the Sioux squaw. Miriam leaned forward to cover the child with a motion intended to conceal me, and I drew quickly out.

I thought I had not been detected; but the situation was perilous enough, in all conscience, to inspire caution, and I was backing away, when suddenly the shadows of two men coming from opposite sides appeared on the white tent, and something sprang upon me with tigerish fury. There was the swish of an unsheathing blade, and I felt rather than saw Le Grand Diable and Louis Laplante contesting over me.

"Never! He's mine, my captive! He stole my saddle! He's mine, I tell you," ground out the Frenchman, throwing off my assailant. "Keep him for the warriors and let him be tortured," urged Louis, snatching at the Indian's arm.

I sprang up. It was Louis, who tripped my feet from under me, and we two tumbled to the bottom of the cliff, while the Indian stood above snarling out something in the Sioux tongue.

"Idiot! Anglo-Saxon ox!" muttered Louis, grappling with me as we fell. "Do but act it out, or two scalps go! I no promise mine when I say I help you, bah——"

That was the last I recall; for I went down head backwards, and the blow knocked me senseless.

When I came to, with an aching neck and a humming in my ears, there was the gray light of a waning moon, and I found myself lying bound in Miriam's tent. Her child was whimpering timidly and she was hurriedly gathering her belongings into a small bundle.

"Miriam, what has happened?" I asked. Then the whole struggle and failure came back to me with an overwhelming realization that torture and death would be our portion.

"Try no more," she whispered, brushing past me and making as though she were gathering things where I lay. "Never try, for my sake, never try! They will torture you. I shall die soon. Only save the child! For myself, I am past caring. Good-by forever!" and she dashed to the other side of the tent.

At that, with a deal of noisy mirth, in burst Laplante and the Sioux squaw.

"Ho-ho! My knight-errant has opened his eyes! Great sport for the braves, say I! Fine mouse-play for the cat, ho-ho!" and Louis looked down at me with laughing insolence, that sent a chill through my veins. 'Twas to save his own scalp the rascal was acting and would have me act too; but I had no wish to betray him. Striking at her captives and rudely ordering them out, the Sioux led the way and left Louis to bring up the rear.

"Leave this, lady," said Louis with an air that might have been impudence or gallantry; and he grabbed the bundle from Miriam's hand and threw it over his shoulder at me. This was greeted with a roar of laughter from the Sioux woman and one look of unspeakable reproach from Miriam. Whistling gaily and turning back to wink at me, the Frenchman disappeared in Diable's lodge. For my part, I was puzzled. Did Louis act from the love of acting and trickery and intrigue? Was he befooling the daughter of L'Aigle, or me?

They tore down Diable's tepee, stringing the poles on the bronchos stolen from me and leaving Miriam's white tent with the Sioux. I saw them mount with my horses to the fore, and they set out at a sharp trot. From the hoof-beats, I should judge they had not gone many paces, when one rider seemed to turn back, and Louis ran into the tent where I lay. I did not utter one word of pleading; but as he stooped for Miriam's bundle, he whisked out a jack-knife and my heart bounded with a great hope. I suppose, involuntarily, I must have lifted my arms to have the bonds severed; for Laplante shook his head.

"No—mine frien'—not now—I not scalp Louis Laplante for your sake,—no, never. Use your teeth—so!" said he, laying the blade of the knife in his own teeth to show me how; and he slipped the thing into hiding under my armpits. "The warriors—they come back to-day," he warned. "You wait till we are far, then cut quick, or they do worse to you than to La Robe Noire! I leave one horse for you in the valley beyond the beaver-dam. Tra-la, comrade, but not forget you. I pay you back yet all the same," and with a whistle, he had vanished.

I hung upon the Frenchman's words as a drowning sailor to a life-line, and heard the hoof-beats grow fainter and fainter in the distance, hardly daring to realize the fearful peril in which I lay. By the light at the tent opening, I knew it was daybreak. Already the Sioux were stirring in their lodges and naked urchins came to the entrance to hoot and pelt mud. Somehow, I got into sitting posture, with my head bowed forward on my arms, so I could use the knife without being seen. At that, the impertinent brats became bolder and swarming into the tent began poking sticks. I held my arm closer to my side, and felt the hard steel's pressure with a pleasure not to be marred by that tantalizing horde. There seemed to be a gathering hubbub outside. Indians, squaws and children were rushing in the direction of the trail to the Mandanes. The children in my tent forgot me and dashed out with the rest. I could not doubt the cause of the clamor. This was the morning of the warriors' return; and getting the knife in my teeth, I began filing furiously at the ropes about my wrists. Man is not a rodent; but under stress of necessity and with instruments of his own designing, he can do something to remedy his human helplessness. To the din of clamoring voices outside were added the shouts of approaching warriors, the galloping of a multitude of horses and the whining yells of countless dogs.

While all the Sioux were on the outskirts of the encampment, I might yet escape unobserved, but the returning braves were very near. Putting all my strength in my wrists, I burst the half-cut bonds; and the rest was easy. A slash of the knife and my feet were free and I had rolled down the cliff and was running with breathless haste over fallen logs, under leafy coverts, across noisy creeks, through the wooded valley to the beaver dam. How long, or how far, I ran in this desperate, heedless fashion, I do not know. The branches, that reached out like the bands of pursuers, caught and ripped my clothing to shreds. I had been bootless, when I started; but my feet were now bare and bleeding. A gleam of water flashed through the green foliage. This must be the river, with the beaver-dam, and to my eager eyes, the stream already appeared muddy and sluggish as if obstructed. My heart was beating with a sensation of painful, bursting blows. There was a roaring in my ears, and at every step I took, the landscape swam black before me and the trees racing into the back ground staggered on each side like drunken men. Then I knew that I had reached the limit of my strength and with the domed mud-tops of the beaver-dam in sight half a mile to the fore, I sank down to rest. The river was marshy, weed-grown and brown; but I gulped down a drink and felt breath returning and the labored pulse easing. Not daring to pause long, I went forward at a slackened rate, knowing I must husband my strength to swim or wade across the river. Was it the apprehension of fear, or the buzzing in my ears, that suggested the faint, far-away echo of a clamoring multitude? I stopped and listened. There was no sound but the lapping of water, or rush of wind through the leaves. I went on again at hastened pace, and distinctly down the valley came echo of the Sioux war-whoop.

I was pursued. There was no mistaking that fact, and with a thrill, which I have no hesitancy in confessing was the most intense fear I have ever experienced in my life, I broke into a terrified, panic-stricken run. The river grew dark, sluggish and treacherous-looking. By the blood flowing from my feet, Indian scouts could track me for leagues. I looked to the river with the vague hope of running along the water bed to throw my pursuers off the trail; but the water was deep and I had not strength to swim. The beaver-dam was huddled close to the clay bank of the far side and on the side, where I ran, the current spread out in a flaggy marsh. Hoping to elude the Sioux, I plunged in and floundered blindly forward. But blood trails marked the pond behind and the soft ooze snared my feet.

I was now opposite the beaver-dam and saw with horror there were branches enough floating in mid-stream to entangle the strongest swimmer. The shouts of my pursuers sounded nearer. They could not have known how close they were upon me, else had they ambushed me in silence after Indian custom, shouting only when they sighted their quarry. The river was not tempting for a fagged, breathless swimmer, whose dive must be short and sorry. I had nigh counted my earthly course run, when I caught sight of a hollow, punky tree-trunk standing high above the bank. I could hear the swiftest runners behind splashing through the marsh bed. Now the thick willow-bush screened me, but in a few moments they would be on my very heels. With the supernatural strength of a last desperate effort, I bounded to the empty trunk and like some hounded, treed creature, clambered up inside, digging my wounded feet into the soft, wet wood-rot and burrowing naked fingers through the punk of the rounded sides till I was twice the height of a man above the blackened opening at the base. Then a piece of wood crumbled in my right hand. Daylight broke through the trunk and I found that I had grasped the edge of a rotted knot-hole.

Bracing my feet across beneath me like tie beams of raftered scaffolding, I craned up till my eye was on a level with the knot-hole and peered down through my lofty lookout. Either the shouting of the Sioux warriors had ceased, which indicated they had found my tracks and knew they were close upon me, or my shelter shut out the sound of approaching foes. I broke more bark from the hole and gained full view of the scene below.

A crested savage ran out from the tangled foliage of the river bank, saw the turgid settlings of the rippling marsh, where I had been floundering, and darted past my hiding-place with a shrill yell of triumph. Instantaneously the woods were ringing, echoing and re-echoing with the hoarse, wild war-cries of the Sioux. Band after band burst from the leafy covert of forest and marsh willows, and dashed in full pursuit after the leading Indian. Some of the braves still wore the buckskin toggery of their visit to the Mandanes; but the swiftest runners had cast off all clothing and tore forward unimpeded. The last coppery form disappeared among the trees of the river bank and the shoutings were growing fainter, when, suddenly, there was such an ominous calm, I knew they were foiled.

Would they return to the last marks of my trail? That thought sent the blood from my head with a rush that left me dizzy, weak and shivering. I looked to the river. The floating branches turned lazily over and over to the lapping of the sluggish current, and the green slime oozing from the clustered beaver lodges of the far side might hide either a miry bottom, or a treacherous hole.

A naked Indian came pattering back through the brush, looking into every hollow log, under fallen trees, through clumps of shrub growth, where a man might hide, and into the swampy river bed. It was only a matter of time when he would reach my hiding-place. Should I wait to be smoked out of my hole, like a badger, or a raccoon? Again I looked hopelessly to the river. A choice of deaths seemed my only fate. Torture, burning, or the cool wash of a black wave gurgling over one's head?

A broad-girthed log lay in the swamp and stretched out over mid-stream in a way that would give a quick diver at least a good, clean, clear leap. A score more savages had emerged from the woods and were eagerly searching, from the limbs of trees above, where I might be perched, to the black river-bed below. However much I may vacillate between two courses, once my decision is taken, I have ever been swift to act; and I slipped down the tree-trunk with the bound of a bullet through a gun-barrel, took one last look from the opening, which revealed pursuers not fifty yards away, plunged through the marsh, dashed to the fallen log and made a rush to the end.

A score of brazen throats screeched out their baffled rage. There was a twanging of bow-strings. The humming of arrow flight sung about my head. I heard the crash of some savage blazing away with his old flintlock. A deep-drawn breath, and I was cleaving the air. Then the murky, greenish waters splashed in my face, opened wide and closed over me.

A tangle of green was at the soft, muddy bottom. Something living, slippery, silky and furry, that was neither fish, nor water snake, got between my feet; but countless arrows, I knew, were aimed and ready for me, when I came to the surface. So I held down for what seemed an interminable time, though it was only a few seconds, struck for the far shore, and presently felt the green slime of the upper water matting in my hair.

Every swimmer knows that rich, sweet, full intake of life-giving air after a long dive. I drew in deep, fresh breaths and tried to blink the slime from my eyes and get my bearings. There were the howlings of baffled wolves from what was now the far side of the river bank; but domed clay mounds, mossy, floating branches and a world of willows shrubs were about my head. Then I knew what the furry thing among the tangle at the river bottom was, and realized that I had come up among the beaver lodges. The dam must have been an old one; for the clay houses were all overgrown with moss and water-weeds. A perfect network of willow growth interlaced the different lodges.

I heard the splash as of a diver from the opposite side. Was it a beaver, or my Indian pursuers? Then I could distinctly make out the strokes of some one swimming and splashing about. My foes were determined to have me, dead, or alive. I ducked under, found shallow, soft bottom, half paddled, half waded, a pace more shoreward, and came up with my head in utter darkness.

Where was I? I drew breath. Yes, assuredly, I was above water; but the air was fetid with heavy, animal breath and teeth snarled shut in my very face. Somehow, I had come up through the broken bottom of an old beaver lodge and was now in the lair of the living creatures. What was inside, I cannot record; for to my eyes the blackness was positively thick. I felt blindly out through the palpable darkness and caught tight hold of a pole, that seemed to reach from side to side. This gave me leverage and I hoisted myself upon it, bringing my crown a mighty sharp crack as I mounted the perch; for the beaver lodge sloped down like an egg shell.

I must have seemed some water monster to the poor beaver; for there was a scurrying, scampering and gurgling off into the river. Then my own breathing and the drip of my clothes were all that disturbed the lodge.

Time, say certain philosophers, is the measure of a man's ideas marching along in uniform procession. But I hold they are wrong. Time is nothing of the sort; else had time stopped as I hung panting over the pole in the beaver lodge; for one idea and one only, beat and beat and beat to the pulsing of the blood that throbbed through my brain—"I am safe—I am safe—I am safe!"

How can I tell how long I hung there? To me it seemed a century. I do not even know whether I lost consciousness. I am sure I repeatedly awakened with a jerk back from some hazy, far-off, oblivious realm, shut off even in memory from the things of this life. I am sure I tried to burrow my hand through the clammy moss-wall of the beaver lodge to let in fresh air; but my spirit would be suddenly rapt away to that other region. I am sure I felt the waters washing over my head and sweeping me away from this world to another life. Then I would lose grip of the pole and come to myself clutching at it with wild terror; and again the drowse of life's borderland would overpower me. And all the time I was saying over and over, "I am safe! I am safe!"

How many of the things called hours slipped past, I do not know. As I said before, it seemed to me a century. Whether it was mid-day, or twilight, when I let myself down from the pole and crawled like a bedraggled water-rat to the shore, I do not know. Whether it was morning, or night, when I dragged myself under the fern-brake and fell into a death-like sleep, I do not know. When I awakened, the forest was a labyrinth of shafted moonlight and sombre shadows. All that had happened in the past twenty-four hours came back to me with vivid reality. I remembered Laplante's promise to leave a horse for me in the valley beyond the beaver dam. With this hope in my heart I crawled cautiously down through the silent shadows of the night.

At daybreak I found Louis had made good his promise, and I was speeding on horseback towards the trail, where Little Fellow awaited me.



CHAPTER XX

PLOTS AND COUNTER-PLOTS

He who would hear that paradox of impossibilities—silence become vocal—must traverse the vast wastes of the prairie by night. As a mother quiets a fretful child, so the illimitable calm lulls tumultuous thoughts. The wind moving through empty solitudes comes with a sigh of unutterable loneliness. Unconsciously, men listen for some faint rustling from the gauzy, wavering streamers that fire northern skies. The dullest ear can almost fancy sounds from the noiseless wheeling of planets through the overspanning vaulted blue; and human speech seems sacrilege.

Though the language of the prairie be not in words, some message is surely uttered; for the people of the plains wear the far-away look of communion with the unseen and the unheard. The fine sensibility of the white woman, perhaps, shows the impress of the vast solitudes most readily, and the gravely repressed nature of the Indian least; but all plain-dwellers have learned to catch the voice of the prairie. I, myself, know the message well, though I may no more put it into words than the song love sings in one's heart. Love, says the poet, is infinite. So is the space of the prairie. That, I suppose, is why both are too boundless for the limitation of speech.

Night after night, with only a grassy swish and deadened tread over the turf breaking stillness, we journeyed northward. Occasionally, like the chirp of cricket in a dry well, life sounded through emptiness. Skulking coyotes, seeking prey among earth mounds, or night hawks, lilting solitarily in vaulted mid-heaven, uttered cries that pierced the vast blue. Owls flapped stupidly up from our horses' feet. Hungry kites wheeled above lonely Indian graves, or perched on the scaffolding, where the dead lay swathed in skins.

Reflecting on my experiences with the Mandanes and the Sioux, I was disposed to upbraid fate as a senseless thing with no thread of purpose through life's hopeless jumble. Now, something in the calm of the plains, or the certainty of our unerring star-guides, quieted my unrest. Besides, was I not returning to one who was peerless? That hope speedily eclipsed all interests. That was purpose enough for my life. Forthwith, I began comparing lustrous gray eyes to the stars, and tracing a woman's figure in the diaphanous northern lights. One face ever gleamed through the dusk at my horse's head and beckoned northward. I do not think her presence left me for an instant on that homeward journey. But, indeed, I should not set down these extravagances, which each may recall in his own case, only I would have others judge whether she influenced me, or I, her.

Thus we traveled northward, journeying by night as long as we were in the Sioux territory. Once in the land of the Assiniboines, we rode day and night to the limit of our horses' endurance. Remembering the Hudson's Bay outrage at the Souris, and having also heard from Mandane runners of a raid planned by our rivals against the North-West fort at Pembina, I steered wide of both places, following the old Missouri trail midway between the Red and Souris rivers. It may have been because we traveled at night, but I did not encounter a single person, native or white, till we came close to the Red and were less than a day's journey from Fort Gibraltar. On the river trail, we overtook some Hudson's Bay trappers. The fellows would not answer a single question about events during the year and scampered away from us as if we carried smallpox, which had thinned the population a few years before.

"That's bad!" said I aloud, as the men fled down the river bank, where we could not follow. Little Fellow looked as solemn as a grave-stone. He shook his head with ominous wisdom that foresees all evil but refuses to prophesy.

"Bother to you, Little Fellow!" I exclaimed. "What do you mean? What's up?"

Again the Indian shook his head with dark mutterings, looking mighty solemn, but he would not share his foreknowledge. We met more Hudson's Bay men, and their conduct was unmistakably suspicious. On a sudden seeing us, they reined up their horses, wheeled and galloped off without a word.

"I don't like that! I emphatically don't!" I piloted my broncho to a slight roll of the prairie, where we could reconnoitre. Distinctly there was the spot where the two rivers met. Intervening shrubbery confused my bearings. I rose in my stirrups, while Little Fellow stood erect on his horse's back.

"Little Fellow!" I cried, exasperated with myself, "Where's Fort Gibraltar? I see where it ought to be, where the towers ought to be higher than that brush, but where's the fort?"

The Indian screened his eyes and gazed forward. Then he came down with a thud, abruptly re-straddling his horse, and uttered one explosive word—"Smoke."

"Smoke? I don't see smoke! Where's the fort?"

"No fort," said he.

"You're daft!" I informed him, with the engaging frankness of a master for a servant. "There—is—a fort, and you know it—we're both lost—that's more! A fine Indian you are, to get lost!"

Little Fellow scrambled with alacrity to the ground. Picking up two small switches, he propped them against each other.

"Fort!" he said, laconically, pointing to the switches.

"L'anglais!" he cried, thrusting out his foot, which signified Hudson's Bay.

"No fort!" he shouted, kicking the switches into the air. "No fort!" and he looked with speechless disgust at the vacancy.

Now I knew what he meant. Fort Gibraltar had been destroyed by Hudson's Bay men. We had no alternative but to strike west along the Assiniboine, on the chance of meeting some Nor'-Westers before reaching the company's quarters at the Portage. That post, too, might be destroyed; but where were Hamilton and Father Holland? Danger, or no danger, I must learn more of the doings in Red River. Also, there were reasons why I wished to visit the settlers of Fort Douglas. We camped on the south side of the Assiniboine a few miles from the Red, and Little Fellow went to some neighboring half-breeds for a canoe.

And a strange story he brought back! A great man, second only to the king—so the half-breeds said—had come from England to rule over Assiniboia. He boasted the shock of his power would be felt from Montreal to Athabasca. He would drive out all Nor'-Westers. This personage, I afterwards learned, was the amiable Governor Semple, who succeeded Captain Miles McDonell. Already, as a hunter chases a deer, had the great governor chased Nor'-Westers from Red River. Did Little Fellow doubt their word? Where was Fort Gibraltar? Let Little Fellow look and see for himself if aught but masonry and charred walls stood where Fort Gibraltar had been! Let him seek the rafters of the Nor-Westers' fort in the new walls of Fort Douglas! Pembina, too, had fallen before the Hudson's Bay men. Since the coming of the great governor, nothing could stand before the English.

But wait! It was not all over! The war drum was beating in the tents of all the Bois-Brules! The great governor should be taught that even the king's arms could not prevail against the Bois-Brules! Was there smoke of battle? The Bois-Brules would be there! The Bois-Brules had wrongs to avenge. They would not be turned out of their forts for nothing! Knives would be unsheathed. There were full powder-bags! There was a grand gathering of Bois-Brules at the Portage. They, themselves, were on the way there. Let Little Fellow and the white trader join them! Let them be wary; for the English were watchful! Great things were to be done by the Bois-Brules before another moon—and Little Fellow's eyes snapped fire as he related their vauntings.

I was inclined to regard the report as a fairy tale. If the half-breeds were arming and the English watchful, the distrust of the Hudson's Bay men was explained. A nomad, himself, the Indian may be willing enough to share running rights over the land of his fathers; but when the newcomer not only usurps possession, but imposes the yoke of laws on the native, the resentment of the dusky race is easily fanned to that point which civilized men call rebellion. I could readily understand how the Hudson's Bay proclamations forbidding the sale of furs to rivals, when these rivals were friends by marriage and treaty with the natives, roused all the bloodthirsty fury of the Indian nature. Nor'-Westers' forts were being plundered. Why should the Bois-Brules not pillage Hudson's Bay posts? Each company was stealing the cargo of its rival, as boats passed and repassed the different forts. Why should the half-breed not have his share of the booty? The most peace-loving dog can be set a-fighting; and the fight-loving Indian finds it very difficult indeed, to keep the peace. This, the great fur companies had not yet realized; and the lesson was to be driven home to them with irresistible force.

The half-breeds also had news of a priest bringing a delirious man to Fort Douglas. The description seemed to fit Hamilton and Father Holland. Whatever truth might be in the rumors of an uprising, I must ascertain whether or not Frances Sutherland would be safe. Leaving Little Fellow to guard our horses, at sundown I pushed my canoe into the Assiniboine just east of the rapids. Paddling swiftly with the current, I kept close to the south bank, where overhanging willows concealed one side of the river.

As I swung out into the Red, true to the Bois-Brules' report, I saw only blackened chimneys and ruined walls on the site of Fort Gibraltar. Heading towards the right bank, I hugged the naked cliff on the side opposite Fort Douglas, and trusted the rising mist to conceal me. Thus, I slipped past cannon, pointing threateningly from the Hudson's Bay post, recrossed to the wooded west bank again, and paddled on till I caught a glimpse of a little, square, whitewashed house in a grove of fine old trees. This I knew, from Frances Sutherland's description, was her father's place.

Mooring among the shrubbery I had no patience to hunt for beaten path; but digging my feet into soft clay and catching branches with both hands, I clambered up the cliff and found myself in a thicket not a stone's throw from the door. The house was in darkness. My heart sank at a possibility which hardly framed itself to a thought. Was the apparition in the Mandane lodge some portent? Had I not read, or heard, of departed spirits hovering near loved ones? I had no courage to think more.

Suddenly the door flung open. Involuntarily, I slipped behind the bushes, but dusk hid the approaching figure. Whoever it was made no noise. I felt, rather than heard, her coming, and knew no man could walk so silently. It must be a woman. Then my chest stifled and I heard my own heart-beats. Garments fluttered past the branches of my hiding-place. She of whom I had dreamed by night and thought by day and hoped whether sleeping, or waking, paused, not an arm's length away.

Toying with the tip of the branch, which I was gripping for dear life, she looked languorously through the foliage towards the river. At first I thought myself the victim of another hallucination, but would not stir lest the vision should vanish. She sighed audibly, and I knew this was no spectre. Then I trembled all the more, for my sudden appearance might alarm her.

I should wait until she went back to the house—another of my brave vows to keep myself in hand!—then walk up noisily, giving due warning, and knock at the door. The keeping of that resolution demanded all my strength of will; for she was so near I could have clasped her in my arms without an effort. Indeed, it took a very great effort to refrain from doing so.

"Heigh-ho," said a low voice with the ripple of a sunny brook tinkling over pebbles, "but it's a long day—and a long, long week—and a long, long, long month—and oh!—a century of years since——" and the voice broke in a sigh.

I think—though I would not set this down as a fact—that a certain small foot, which once stamped two strong men into obedience, now vented its impatience at a twig on the grass. By the code of eastern proprieties, I may not say that the dainty toe-tip first kicked the offensive little branch and then crunched it deep in the turf.

"I hate this lonely country," said the voice, with the vim of water-fret against an obstinate stone. "Wonder what it's like in the Mandane land! I'm sure it's nicer there."

Now I affirm there is not a youth living who would not at some time give his right hand to know a woman's exact interpretation of that word "nicer." For my part, it set me clutching the branch with such ferocity, off snapped the thing with the sharp splintering of a breaking stick. The voice gave a gasp and she jumped aside with nervous trepidation.

"Whatever—was that? I am—not frightened." No one was accusing her. "I won't go in! I won't let myself be frightened! There! The very idea!" And three or four sharp stamps followed in quick succession; but she was shivering.

"I declare the house is so lonely, a ghost would be live company." And she looked doubtfully from the dark house to the quivering poplars. "I'd rather be out here with the tree-toads and owls and bats than in there alone, even if they do frighten me! Anyway, I'm not frightened! It's just some stupid hop-and-go-spring thing at the base of our brains that makes us jump at mice and rats." But the hands interlocking at her back twitched and clasped and unclasped in a way that showed the automatic brain-spring was still active.

"It's getting worse every day. I can't stand it much longer, looking and looking till I'm half blind and no one but Indian riders all day long. Why doesn't he come? Oh! I know something is wrong."

"Afraid of the Metis," thought I, "and expecting her father. A fine father to leave his daughter alone in the house with the half-breeds threatening a raid. She needs some one else to take care of her." This, on after thought, I know was unjust to her father; for pioneers obey necessity first and chivalry second.

"If he would only come!" she repeated in a half whisper.

"Hope he doesn't," thought I.

"For a week I've been dreaming such fearful things! I see him sinking in green water, stretching his hands to me and I can't reach out to save him. On Sunday he seemed to be running along a black, awful precipice. I caught him in my arms to hold him back, but he dragged me over and I screamed myself awake. Sometimes, he is in a black cave and I can't find any door to let him out. Or he lies bound in some dungeon, and when I stoop to cut the cords, he begins to sink down, down, down through the dark, where I can't follow. I leap after him and always waken with such a dizzy start. Oh! I know he has been in trouble. Something is wrong! His thoughts are reaching out to me and I am so gross and stupid I can't hear what his spirit says. If I could only get away from things, the clatter of everyday things that dull one's inner hearing, perhaps I might know! I feel as if he spoke in a foreign language, but the words he uses I can't make out. All to-day, he has seemed so near! Why does he not come home to me?"

"Mighty fond daughter," thought I, with a jealous pang. She was fumbling among the intricate draperies, where women conceal pockets, and presently brought out something in the palm of her hand.

"I wouldn't have him know how foolish I am," and she laid the thing gently against her cheek.

Now I had never given Frances Sutherland a gift of any sort whatever; and my heart was pierced with anguish that cannot be described. I was, indeed, falling over a precipice and her arms were not holding me back but dragging me over. Would that I, like the dreamer, could awaken with a start. In all conscience, I was dizzy enough; and every pressure of that hateful object to her face bound me faster in a dungeon of utter hopelessness. My sweet day-dreams and midnight rhapsodies trooped back to mock at me. I felt that I must bow broken under anguish or else steel myself and shout back cynical derision to the whole wan troop of torturing regrets. And all the time, she was caressing that thing in her hand and looking down at it with a fondness, which I—poor fool—thought that I alone could inspire. I suppose if I could have crept away unobserved, I would have gone from her presence hardened and embittered; but I must play out the hateful part of eavesdropper to the end.

She opened the hand to feast her eyes on the treasure, and I craned forward, playing the sneak without a pang of shame, but the dusk foiled me.

Then the low, mellow, vibrant tones, whose very music would have intoxicated duller fools than I—'tis ever a comfort to know there are greater fools—broke in melody: "To my own dear love from her ever loyal and devoted knight," and she held her opened hand high. 'Twas my birch-bark message which Father Holland had carried north. I suddenly went insane with a great overcharge of joy, that paralyzed all motion.

"Dear love—wherever are you?" asked a voice that throbbed with longing.

Can any man blame me for breaking through the thicket and my resolution and discretion and all?

"Here—beloved!" I sprang from the bush.

She gave a cry of affright and would have fallen, but my arms were about her and my lips giving silent proof that I was no wraith.

What next we said I do not remember. With her head on my shoulder and I doing the only thing a man could do to stem her tears, I completely lost track of the order of things. I do not believe either of us was calm enough for words for some time after the meeting. It was she who regained mental poise first.

"Rufus!" she exclaimed, breaking away from me, "You're not a sensible man at all."

"Never said I was," I returned.

"If you do that," she answered, ignoring my remark and receding farther, "I'll never stop crying."

"Then cry on forever!"

With womanly ingratitude, she promptly called me "a goose" and other irrelevant names.

The rest of our talk that evening I do not intend to set down. In the first place, it was best understood by only two. In the second, it could not be transcribed; and in the third, it was all a deal too sacred.

We did, however, become impersonal for short intervals.

"I feel as if there were some storm in the air," said Frances Sutherland. "The half-breeds are excited. They are riding past the settlement in scores every day. O, Rufus, I know something is wrong."

"So do I," was my rejoinder. I was thinking of the strange gossip of the Assiniboine encampment.

"Do you think the Bois-Brules would plunder your boats?" she asked innocently, ignorant that the malcontents were Nor'-Westers.

"No," said I. "What boats?"

"Why, Nor'-West boats, of course, coming up Red River from Fort William to go up the Assiniboine for the winter's supplies. They're coming in a few days. My father told me so."

"Is Mr. Sutherland an H. B. C. or Nor'-Wester?" I asked in the slang of the company talk.

"I don't know," she answered. "I don't think he knows himself. He says there are numbers of men like that, and they all know there is to be a raid. Why, Rufus, there are men down the river every day watching for the Nor'-Westers' Fort William express." "Where do the men come from?" I questioned, vainly trying to patch some connection between plots for a raid on North-West boats and plots for a fight by Nor'-West followers.

"From Fort Douglas, of course."

"H. B. C.'s, my dear. You must go to Fort Douglas at once. There will be a fight. You must go to-morrow with your father, or with me to-night," I urged, thinking I should take myself off and notify my company of the intended pillaging.

"With you?" she laughed. "Father will be home in an hour. Are you sure about a fight!"

"Quite," said I, trembling for her safety. This certainty of mine has been quoted to prove premeditation on the Nor'-Westers' part; but I meant nothing of the sort. I only felt there was unrest on both sides, and that she must be out of harm's way.

Truly, I have seldom had a harder duty to perform than to leave Frances alone in that dark house to go and inform my company of the plot.

Many times I said good-by before going to the canoe and times unnumbered ran back from the river to repeat some warning and necessitate another farewell.

"Rufus, dear," she said, "this is about the twentieth time. You mustn't come back again."

"Then good-by for the twenty-first," said I, and came away feeling like a young priest anointed for some holy purpose.

* * * * *

I declare now, as I declared before the courts of the land, that in hastening to the Portage with news of the Hudson's Bay's intention to intercept the Nor'-Westers' express from Fort William, I had no other thought but the faithful serving of my company. I knew what suffering the destruction of Souris had entailed in Athabasca, and was determined our brave fellows should not starve in the coming winter through my negligence.

Could I foresee that simple act of mine was to let loose all the punishment the Hudson's Bay had been heaping up against the day of judgment?



CHAPTER XXI

LOUIS PAYS ME BACK

What tempted me to moor opposite the ruins of Fort Gibraltar? What tempts the fly into the spider's web and the fish with a wide ocean for play-ground into one small net? I know there is a consoling fashion of ascribing our blunders to the inscrutable wisdom of a long-suffering Providence; but common-sense forbids I should call evil good, deify my errors, and give thanks for what befalls me solely through my own fault.

Bare posts hacked to the ground were all that remained of Fort Gibraltar's old wall. I had not gone many paces across the former courtyard, when voices sounded from the gravel-pit that had once done duty as a cellar. The next thing I noticed was the shaggy face of Louis Laplante bobbing above the ground. With other vagabond wanderers, the Frenchman had evidently been rummaging old Nor'-West vaults.

"Tra-la, comrade," he shouted, leaping out of the cellar as soon as he saw me. "I, Louis Laplante, son of a seigneur, am resurrecting. I was a Plante! Now I'm a Louis d'or, fresh coined from the golden vein of dazzling wit. Once we were men, but they drowned us in a wine-barrel like your lucky dog of an English prince. Now we're earth-goblins re-incarnate! Behold gnomes of the mine! Knaves of the nethermost depths, tra-la! Vampires that suck the blood of whisky-cellars and float to the skies with dusky wings and dizzy heads! Laugh with us, old solemncholy! See the ground spin! Laugh, I say, or be a hitching-post, and we'll dance the May-pole round you! We're vampires, comrade, and you're our cousin, for you're a bat," and Louis applauded his joke with loud, tipsy laughter and staggered up to me drunk as a lord. His heavy breath and bloodshot eyes testified what he had found under the rubbish heaps of Fort Gibraltar's cellar. Embracing me with the affection of a long-lost brother, he rattled on with a befuddled, meaningless jargon.

"So the knife cut well, did it? And the Sioux did not eat you by inches, beginning with your thumbs? Ha! Tres bien! Very good taste! You were not meant for feasts, my solemncholy? Some men are monuments. That's you, mine frien'! Some are champagne bottles that uncork, zip, fizz, froth, stars dancing round your head! That's me! 'Tis I, Louis Laplante, son of a seigneur, am that champagne bottle!"

Pausing for breath, he drew himself erect with ridiculous pomposity. Now there are times when the bravest and wisest thing a brave and wise man can do is take to his heels. I have heard my Uncle Jack MacKenzie say that vice and liquor and folly are best frustrated by flight; and all three seemed to be embodied in Louis Laplante that night. A stupid sort of curiosity made me dally with the mischief brewing in him, just as the fly plays with the spider-web, or the fish with a baited hook.

"There's a fountain-spout in Nor'-West vaults for those who know where to tap the spigot, eh, Louis?" I asked.

"I'm a Hudson's Bay man and to the conqueror comes the tribute," returned Louis, sweeping me a courtly bow.

"I hope such a generous conqueror draws all the tribute he deserves. Do you remember how you saved my life twice from the Sioux, Louis?"

"Generous," shouted the Frenchman, drawing himself up proudly, "generous to mine enemy, always magnificent, grand, superb, as becomes the son of a seigneur! Now I pay you back, rich, well, generous."

"Nonsense, Louis," I expostulated. "'Tis I who am in your debt. I owe you my life twice over. How shall I pay you?" and I made to go down to my canoe.

"Pay me?" demanded Louis, thrusting himself across my path in a menacing attitude. "Stand and pay me like a man!"

"I am standing," I laughed. "Now, how shall I pay you?"

"Strike!" ordered Louis, launching out a blow which I barely missed. "Strike, I say, for kicking me, the son of a seigneur, like a pig!"

At that, half a dozen more drunken vagabonds of the Hudson's Bay service reeled up from the cellar pit; and I began to understand I was in for as much mischief as a young man could desire. The fellows were about us in a circle, and now, that it was too late, I was quite prepared like the fly and the fish to seek safety in flight.

"Sink his canoe," suggested one; and I saw that borrowed craft swamped.

"Strike! Sacredie! I pay you back generous," roared Louis. "How can I, Louis Laplante, son of a seigneur, strike a man who won't hit back?"

"And how can I strike a man who saved my life?" I urged, trying to mollify him. "See here, Louis, I'm on a message for my company to-night. I can't wait. Some other day you can pay me all you like—not to-night, some-other-time——"

"Some-oder-time! No—never! Some-oder-time—'tis the way I pay my own debts, always some-oder-time, and I never not pay at all. You no some-oder-time me, comrade! Louis knows some-oder-time too well! He quit his cups some-oder-time and he never quit, not at all! He quit wild Indian some-oder-time, and he never quit, not at all! And he go home and say his confess to the cure some-oder-time, and he never go, not at all! And he settle down with a wife and become a grand seigneur some-oder-time, and he never settle down at all!"

"Good night, Laplante! I have business for the company. I must go," I interrupted, trying to brush through the group that surrounded us.

"So have we business for the company, the Hudson's Bay Company, and you can't go," chimed in one of the least intoxicated of the rival trappers; and they closed about me so that I had not striking room.

"Are you men looking for trouble?" I asked, involuntarily fingering my pistol belt.

"No—we're looking for the Nor'-West brigade billed to pass from Fort William to Athabasca," jeered the boldest of the crowd, a red-faced, middle-aged man with blear eyes. "We're looking for the Nor'-Westers' express," and he laughed insolently.

"You don't expect to find our brigades in Fort Gibraltar's cellar," said I, backing away from them and piecing this latest information to what I had already heard of plots and conspiracies.

Forthwith I felt strong hands gripping both my arms like a vise and the coils of a rope were about me with the swiftness of a lasso. My first impulse was to struggle against the outrage; but I was beginning to learn the service of open ears and a closed mouth was often more valuable than a fighter's blows. Already I had ascertained from their own lips that the Hudson's Bay intended to molest our north-bound brigade.

"Well," said I, with a laugh, which surprised the rascals mightily, "now you've captured your elephant, what do you propose to do with him?"

Without answering, the men shambled down to the landing place of the fort, jostling me along between the red-faced man and Louis Laplante.

"I consider this a scurvy trick, Louis," said I. "You've let me into a pretty scrape with your idiotic heroics about paying back a fancied grudge. To save a mouse from the tigers, Louis, and then feed him to your cats! Fie, man! I like your son-of-a-seigneur ideas of honor!"

"Ingrate! Low-born ingrate," snapped the Frenchman, preparing to strike one of his dramatic attitudes, "if I were not the son of a seigneur, and you a man with bound arms, you should swallow those words," and he squared up to me for a second time. "If you won't fight, you shan't run away——"

"Off with your French brag," ordered the soberest of the Hudson's Bay men, catching Louis by the scruff of his coat and spinning him out of the way. "There'll be neither fighting nor running away. It is to Fort Douglas we'll take our fine spy."

The words stung, but I muffled my indignation.

"I'll go with pleasure," I returned, thinking that Frances Sutherland and Hamilton and Father Holland were good enough company to compensate for any captivity. "With pleasure, and 'tis not the first time I'll have found friends in the Hudson's Bay fort."

At that speech, the red-faced man, who seemed to be the ringleader, eyed me narrowly. We all embarked on a rickety raft, that would, I declare, have drowned any six sober men who risked their lives on it; but drunk men and children seem to do what sober, grown folk may not are.

How Louis Laplante was for fighting a duel en route with the man, who spoke of "French brag" and was only dissuaded from his purpose by the raft suddenly teetering at an angle of forty-five degrees with the water, which threatened to toboggan us all into mid-river; how I was then stationed in the centre and the other men distributed equally on each side of the raft to maintain balance; how we swung out into the Red, rocking with each shifting of the crew and were treated to a volley of objurgations from the red-faced man—I do not intend to relate. This sort of melodrama may be seen wherever there are drunken men, a raft and a river. The men poled only fitfully, and we were driven solely by the current. It was dark long before we had neared Fort Douglas and the waters swished past with an inky, glassy sheen that vividly recalled the murky pool about the beaver-dam. And yet I had no fear, but drifted along utterly indifferent to the termination of the freakish escapade in which I had become involved. Nature mercifully sets a limit to human capacity for suffering; and I felt I had reached that limit. Nothing worse could happen than had happened, at least, so I told myself, and I awaited with cynical curiosity what might take place inside the Hudson's Bay fort. Then a shaft of lantern light pierced the dark, striking aslant the river, and the men began poling hard for Fort Douglas wharf. We struck the landing with a bump, disembarked, passed the sentinel at the gate and were at the entrance to the main building.

"You kick me here," said Louis. "I pay you back here!"

"What are you going to do with him?" asked the soberest man of the red-faced leader.

"Hand him over to Governor Semple for a spy."

"The governor's abed. Besides, they don't want him about to hear H. B. secrets when the Nor'-West brigade's a-coming! You'd better get sobered up, yez hed! That's my advice to yez, before going to Governor Semple," and the prudent trapper led the way inside. To the fore was the main stairway, on the right the closed store, and on the left a small apartment which the governor had fitted up as a private office. For some unaccountable reason—the same reason, I suppose, that mischief is always awaiting the mischief-maker—the door to this office had been left ajar and a light burned inside. 'Twas Louis, ever alert, when mischief was abroad, who tip-toed over to the open door, poked his head in and motioned his drunken companions across the sacred precincts of Governor Semple's private room. I was loath to be a party to this mad nonsense, but the fly and the fish should have thought of results before venturing too near strange coils. The red-faced fellow gave me a push. The sober man muttered, "Better come, or they'll raise a row," and we were all within the forbidden place, the door shut and bolted.

To city folk, used to the luxuries of the east, I dare say that office would have seemed mean enough. But the men had been so long away from leather chairs, hair-cloth sofa, wall mirror, wine decanter and other odds and ends which furnish a gentleman's living apartments that the very memory of such things had faded, and that small room, with its old-country air, seemed the vestibule to another world.

"Sump—too—uss—ain't it?" asked the sober man with bated breath and obvious distrust of his tongue.

"Mag—nee—feque! M. Louis Laplante, look you there," cried the Frenchman, catching sight of his full figure in the mirror and instantly striking a pose of admiration. Then he twirled fiercely at both ends of his mustache till it stood out with the wire finish of a Parisian dandy.

The red-faced fellow had permitted me, with arms still tied, to walk across the room and sit on the hair-cloth sofa. He was lolling back in the governor's armchair, playing the lord and puffing one of Mr. Semple's fine pipes.

"We are gentlemen adventurers of the ancient and honorable Hudson's Bay Company, gentlemen adventurers," he roared, bringing his fist down with a thud on the desk. "We hereby decree that the Fort William brigade be captured, that the whisky be freely given to every dry-throated lad in the Hudson's Bay Company, that the Nor'-Westers be sent down the Red on a raft, that this meeting raftify this dissolution, afterwards moving—seconding—and unanimously amending——"

"Adjourning—you mean," interrupted one of the orator's audience.

"I say," called one, who had been dazed by the splendor, "how do you tell which is the lookin' glass and which is the window?" And he looked from the window on one side to its exact reflection, length and width, directly opposite.

The puzzle was left unsolved; for just then Louis Laplante found a flask of liquor and speedily divided its contents among the crowd—which was not calculated to clear up mysteries of windows and mirrors among those addle-pates. Dull wit may be sport for drunken men, but it is mighty flat to an onlooker, and I was out of patience with their carousal.

"The governor will be back here presently, Louis," said I.

"Tired of being a tombstone, ha—ha! Better be a champagne bottle!" he laughed with slightly thickened articulation and increased unsteadiness in his gait.

"If you don't hide that bottle in your hand, there'll be a big head and a sore head for you men to-morrow morning." I rose to try and get them out of the office; but a sober man with tied arms among a drunken crew is at a disadvantage.

"Ha—old—wise—sh—head! To—be—sh—shure! Whur—d'—y'—hide—it?"

"Throw it out of the window," said I, without the slightest idea of leading him into mischief.

"Whish—whish—ish—the window, Rufush?" asked Louis imploringly.

The last potion had done its work and Louis was passing from the jovial to the pensive stage. He would presently reach a mood which might be ugly enough for a companion in bonds. Was it this prospect, I wonder, or the mischievous spirit pervading the very air from the time I reached the ruins that suggested a way out of my dilemma?

"Throw it out of the window," said I, ignoring his question and shoving him off.

"Whish—ish—the window—dammie?" he asked, holding the bottle irresolutely and looking in befuddled distraction from side to side of the room.

"Thur—both—windows—fur as I see," said the man, who had been sober, but was no longer so.

"Throw it through the back window! Folks comin' in at the door won't see it."

The red-faced man got up to investigate, and all faith in my plan died within me; but the lantern light was dusky and the red-faced man could no longer navigate a course from window to mirror.

"There's a winder there," said he, scratching his head and looking at the window reflected in perfect proportion on the mirrored surface.

"And there's a winder there," he declared, pointing at the real window. "They're both winders and they're both lookin'-glasses, for I see us all in both of them. This place is haunted. Lem-me out!"

"Take thish, then," cried Louis, shoving the bottle towards him and floundering across to the door to bar the way. "Take thish, or tell me whish—ish—the window."

"Both winders, I tell you, and both lookin'-glasses," vowed the man. The other four fellows declined to express an opinion for the very good reason that two were asleep and two befuddled beyond questioning.

"See here, Louis," I exclaimed, "there's only one way to tell where to throw that bottle."

"Yesh, Rufush," and he came to me as if I were his only friend on earth.

"The bottle will go through the window and it won't go through the mirror," I began.

"Dammie—I knew that," he snapped out, ready to weep.

"Well—you undo these things," nodding to the ropes about my arms, "and I'll find out which opens, and the one that opens is the window, and you can throw out the bottle."

"The very thing, Rufush, wise—sh—head—old—old—ol' solemncholy," and he ripped the ropes off me.

Now I offer no excuse for what I did. I could have opened that window and let myself out some distance ahead of the bottle, without involving Louis and his gang in greater mischief. What I did was not out of spite to the governor of a rival company; but mischief, as I said, was in the very air. Besides, the knaves had delayed me far into midnight, and I had no scruples about giving each twenty-four hours in the fort guardroom. I took a precautionary inspection of the window-sash. Yes, I was sure I could leap through, carrying out sash and all.

"Hurry—ol' tombshtone—governor—sh-comin'," urged Louis.

I made towards the window and fumbled at the sash.

"This doesn't open," said I, which was quite true, for I did not try to budge it. Then I went across to the mirror. "Neither does this," said I.

"Wha'—wha'—'ll—we do—Rufush?"

"I'll tell you. You can jump through a window but not through a glass. Now you count—one two—three,"—this to the red-faced man—"and when you say 'three' I'll give a run and jump. If I fall back, you'll know it's the mirror, and fling the bottle quick through the other. Ready, count!"

"One," said the red-faced man.

Louis raised his arm and I prepared for a dash.

"Two!"

Louis brought back his arm to gain stronger sweep.

"Three!"

I gave a leap and made as though I had fallen back. There was the pistol-shot splintering of bottle and mirror crashing down to the floor. The window frame gave with a burst, and I was outside rushing past the sleepy sentinel, who poured out a volley of curses after me.



CHAPTER XXII

A DAY OF RECKONING

As well play pussy-wants-a-corner with a tiger as make-believe war with an Indian. In both cases the fun may become ghastly earnest with no time for cry-quits. So it was with the great fur-trading companies at the beginning of this century. Each held the Indian in subjection and thought to use him with daring impunity against its rival. And each was caught in the meshes of its own merry game.

I, as a Nor'-Wester, of course, consider that the lawless acts of the Hudson's Bay had been for three years educating the natives up to the tragedy of June 19, 1816. But this is wholly a partisan, opinion. Certainly both companies have lied outrageously about the results of their quarrels. The truth is Hudson's Bay and Nor'-Westers were playing war with the Indian. Consequences having exceeded all calculation, both companies would fain free themselves of blame.

For instance, it has been said the Hudson's Bay people had no intention of intercepting the North-West brigade bound up the Red and Assiniboine for the interior—this assertion despite the fact our rivals had pillaged every North-West fort that could be attacked. Now I acknowledge the Nor'-Westers disclaim hostile purpose in the rally of three hundred Bois-Brules to the Portage; but this sits not well with the warlike appearance of these armed plain rangers, who sallied forth to protect the Fort William express. Nor does it agree with the expectations of the Indian rabble, who flocked on our rear like carrion birds keen for the spoils of battle. Both companies had—as it were—leveled and cocked their weapon. To send it off needed but a spark, and a slight misunderstanding ignited that spark.

My arrival at the Portage had the instantaneous effect of sending two strong battalions of Bois-Brules hot-foot across country to meet the Fort William express before it could reach Fort Douglas. They were to convoy it overland to a point on the Assiniboine where it could be reshipped. To the second of these parties, I attached myself. I was anxious to attempt a visit to Hamilton. There was some one else whom I hoped to find at Fort Douglas; so I refused to rest at the Portage, though I had been in my saddle almost constantly for twenty days.

When we set out, I confess I did not like the look of things. Those Indians smeared with paint and decked out with the feathered war-cap kept increasing to our rear. There were the eagles! Where was the carcass? The presence of these sinister fellows, hot with the lust of blood, had ominous significance. Among the half-breeds there was unconcealed excitement.

Shortly before we struck off the Assiniboine trail northward for the Red, in order to meet the expected brigade beyond Fort Douglas, some of our people slipped back to the Indian rabble. When they reappeared, they were togged out in native war-gear with too many tomahawks and pistols for the good of those who might interfere with our mission. There was no misunderstanding the ugly temper of the men. Here, I wish to testify that explicit orders were given for the forces to avoid passing near Fort Douglas, or in any way provoking conflict. There was placed in charge of our division the most powerful plain-ranger in the service of the company, the one person of all others, who might control the natives in case of an outbreak—and that man was Cuthbert Grant. Pierre, the minstrel, and six clerks were also in the party; but what could a handful of moderate men do with a horde of Indians and Metis wrought up to a fury of revenge?

"Now, deuce take those rascals! What are they doing?" exclaimed Grant angrily, as we left the river trail and skirted round a slough of Frog Plains on the side remote from Fort Douglas. Our forces were following in straggling disorder. The first battalions of the Bois-Brules, which had already rounded the marsh, were now in the settlement on Red River bank. It was to them that Grant referred. Commanding a halt and raising his spy-glass, he took an anxious survey of the foreground.

"There's something seriously wrong," he said. "Strikes me we're near a powder mine! Here, Gillespie, you look!" He handed the field-glass to me.

A great commotion was visible among the settlers. Ox-carts packed with people were jolting in hurried confusion towards Fort Douglas. Behind, tore a motley throng of men, women and children, running like a frightened flock of sheep. Whatever the cause of alarm, our men were not molesting them; for I watched the horsemen proceeding leisurely to the appointed rendezvous, till the last rider disappeared among the woods of the river path.

"Scared! Badly scared! That's all, Grant," said I. "You've no idea what wild stories are going the rounds of the settlement about the Bois-Brules!"

"And you've no idea, young man, what wild stories are going the rounds of the Bois-Brules about the settlement," was Grant's moody reply.

My chance acquaintance with the Assiniboine encampment had given me some idea, but I did not tell Grant so.

"Perhaps they've taken a few old fellows prisoners to ensure the fort's good behavior, while we save our bacon," I suggested.

"If they have, those Highlanders will go to Fort Douglas shining bald as a red ball," answered the plain-ranger.

In this, Grant did his people injustice; for of those prisoners taken by the advance guard, not a hair of their heads was injured. The warden was nervously apprehensive. This was unusual with him; and I have since wondered if his dark forebodings arose from better knowledge of the Bois-Brules than I possessed, or from some premonition.

"There'd be some reason for uneasiness, if you weren't here to control them, Grant," said I, nodding towards the Indians and Metis.

"One man against a host! What can I do?" he asked gloomily.

"Good gracious, man! Do! Why, do what you came to do! Whatever's the matter with you?"

The swarthy face had turned a ghastly, yellowish tint and he did not answer.

"'Pon my honor," I exclaimed. "Are you ill, man?"

"'Tisn't that! When I went to sleep, last night, there were—corpses all round me. I thought I was in a charnel house and——"

"Good gracious, Grant!" I shuddered out. "Don't you go off your head next! Leave that for us green chaps! Besides, the Indians were raising stench enough with a dog-stew to fill any brain with fumes. For goodness' sake, let's go on, meet those fellows with the brigade, secure that express and get off this 'powder mine'—as you call it."

"By all means!" Grant responded, giving the order, and we moved forward but only at snail pace; for I think he wanted to give the settlers plenty of time to reach the fort.

By five o'clock in the afternoon we had almost rounded the slough and were gradually closing towards the wooded ground of the river bank. We were within ear-shot of the settlers. They were flying past with terrified cries of "The half-breeds! The half-breeds!" when I heard Grant groan from sheer alarm and mutter—

"Look! Look! The lambs coming to meet the wolves!"

To this day I cannot account for the madness of the thing. There, some twenty, or thirty Hudson's Bay men—mere youths most of them—were coming with all speed to head us off from the river path, at a wooded point called Seven Oaks. What this pigmy band thought it could do against our armed men, I do not know. The blunder on their part was so unexpected and inexcusable, it never dawned on us the panic-stricken settlers had spread a report of raid, and these poor valiant defenders had come out to protect the colony. If that be the true explanation of their rash conduct in tempting conflict, what were they thinking about to leave the walls of their fort during danger? My own opinion is that with Lord Selkirk's presumptuous claims to exclusive possession in Red River and the recent high-handed success of the Hudson's Bay, the men of Fort Douglas were so flushed with pride they did not realize the risk of a brush with the Bois-Brules. Much, too, may be attributed to Governor Semple's inexperience; but it was very evident the purpose of the force deliberately blocking our path was not peaceable. If the Hudson's Bay blundered in coming out to challenge us, so did we, I frankly admit; for we regarded the advance as an audacious trick to hold us back till the Fort William express could be captured.

Now that the thing he feared had come, all hesitancy vanished from Grant's manner. Steeled and cool like the leader he was, he sternly commanded the surging Metis to keep back. Straggling Indians and half-breeds dashed to our fore-ranks with the rush of a tempest and chafed hotly against the warden. At a word from Grant, the men swung across the enemy's course sickle-shape; but they were furious at this disciplined restraint. From horn to horn of the crescent, rode the plain-ranger, lashing horses back to the circle and shaking his fist in the quailing face of many a bold rebel.

Both sides advanced within a short distance of each other. We could see that Governor Semple, himself, was leading the Hudson's Bay men. Immediately, Boucher, a North-West clerk, was sent forward to parley. Now, I hold the Nor'-Westers would not have done that if their purpose had been hostile; but Boucher rode out waving his hand and calling—

"What do you want? What do you want?"

"What do you want, yourself?" came Governor Semple's reply with some heat and not a little insolence.

"We want our fort," demanded Boucher, slightly taken aback, but thoroughly angered. His horse was prancing restively within pistol range of the governor.

"Go to your fort, then! Go to your fort!" returned Semple with stinging contempt in manner and voice.

He might as well have told us to go to Gehenna; for the fort was scattered to the four winds.

"The fool!" muttered Grant. "The fool! Let him answer for the consequences. Their blood be on their own heads."

Whether the Bois-Brules, who had lashed their horses into a lather of foam and were cursing out threats in the ominous undertone that precedes a storm-burst, now encroached upon the neutral ground in spite of Grant, or were led gradually forward by the warden as the Hudson's Bay governor's hostility increased, I did not in the excitement of the moment observe. One thing is certain, while the quarrel between the Hudson's Bay governor and the North-West clerk was becoming more furious, our surging cohorts were closing in on the little band like an irresistible tidal wave. I could make out several Hudson's Bay faces, that seemed to remind me of my Fort Douglas visit; but of the rabble of Nor'-Westers and Bois-Brules disguised in hideous war-gear, I dare avow not twenty of us were recognizable.

"Miserable rogue!" Boucher was shouting, utterly beside himself with rage and flourishing his gun directly over the governor's head, "Miserable rogue! Why have you destroyed our fort?"

"Call him off, Grant! Call him off, or it's all up!" I begged, seeing the parley go from bad to worse; but Grant was busy with the Bois-Brules and did not hear.

"Wretch!" Governor Semple exclaimed in a loud voice. "Dare you to speak so to me!" and he caught Boucher's bridle, throwing the horse back on its haunches.

Boucher, agile as a cat, slipped to the ground.

"Arrest him, men!" commanded the governor. "Arrest him at once!"

But the clerk was around the other side of the horse, with his gun leveled across its back.

Whether, when Boucher jumped down, our bloodthirsty knaves thought him shot and broke from Grant's control to be avenged, or whether Lieutenant Holt of the Hudson's Bay at that unfortunate juncture discharged his weapon by accident, will never be known.

Instantaneously, as if by signal, our men with a yell burst from the ranks, leaped from their saddles and using horses as breast-work, fired volley after volley into the governor's party. The neighing and plunging of the frenzied horses added to the tumult. The Hudson's Bay men were shouting out incoherent protest; but what they said was drowned in the shrill war-cry of the Indians. Just for an instant, I thought I recognized one particular voice in that shrieking babel, which flashed back memory of loud, derisive laughter over a camp fire and at the buffalo hunt; but all else was forgotten in the terrible consciousness that our men's murderous onslaught was deluging the prairie with innocent blood.

Throwing himself between the Bois-Brules and the retreating band, the warden implored his followers to grant truce. As well plead with wild beasts. The half-breeds were deaf to commands, and in vain their leader argued with blows. The shooting had been of a blind sort, and few shots did more than wound; but the natives were venting the pent-up hate of three years and would give no quarter. From musketry volleys the fight had become hand-to-hand butchery.

I had dismounted and was beating the scoundrels back with the butt end of my gun, begging, commanding, abjuring them to desist, when a Hudson's Bay youth swayed forward and fell wounded at my feet. There was the baffled, anguished scream of some poor wounded fellow driven to bay, and I saw Laplante across the field, covered with blood, reeling and staggering back from a dozen red-skin furies, who pressed upon their fagged victim, snatching at his throat like hounds at the neck of a beaten stag. With a bound across the prostrate form of the youth, I ran to the Frenchman's aid. Louis saw me coming and struck out so valiantly, the wretched cowards darted back just as I have seen a miserable pack of open-mouthed curs dodge the last desperate sweep of antlered head. That gave me my chance, and I fell on their rear with all the might I could put in my muscle, bringing the flat of my gun down with a crash on crested head-toggery, and striking right and left at Louis' assailants.

"Ah—mon Dieu—comrade," sobbed Louis, falling in my arms from sheer exhaustion, while the tears trickled down in a white furrow over his blood-splashed cheeks, "mon Dieu—comrade, but you pay me back generous!"

"Tutts, man, this is no time for settling old scores and playing the grand! Run for your life. Run to the woods and swim the river!" With that, I flung him from me; for I heard the main body of our force approaching. "Run," I urged, giving the Frenchman a push.

"The run—ha—ha—my old spark," laughed Louis with a tearful, lack-life sort of mirth, "the run—it has all run out," and with a pitiful reel down he fell in a heap.

I caught him under the armpits, hoisted him to my shoulders, and made with all speed for the wooded river bank. My pace was a tumble more than a run down the river cliff, but I left the man at the very water's edge, where he could presently strike out for the far side and regain Fort Douglas by swimming across again. Then I hurried to the battle-field in search of the wounded youth whom I had left. As I bent above him, the poor lad rolled over, gazing up piteously with the death-look on his face; and I recognized the young Nor'-Wester who had picked flowers with me for Frances Sutherland and afterwards deserted to the Hudson's Bay. The boy moaned and moved his lips as if speaking, but I heard no sound. Stooping on one knee, I took his head on the other and bent to listen; but he swooned away. Afraid to leave him—for the savages were wreaking indescribable barbarities on the fallen—I picked him up. His arms and head fell back limply as if he were dead, and holding him thus, I again dashed for the fringe of woods. Rogers of the Hudson's Bay staggered against me wounded, with both hands thrown up ready to surrender. He was pleading in broken French for mercy; but two half-breeds, one with cocked pistol, the other with knife, rushed upon him. I turned away that I might not see; but the man's unavailing entreaties yet ring in my ears. Farther on, Governor Semple lay, with lacerated arm and broken thigh. He was calling to Grant, "I'm not mortally wounded! If you could get me conveyed to the fort I think I would live!"

Then I got away from the field and laid my charge in the woods. Poor lad! The pallor of death was on every feature. Tearing open his coat and taking letters from an inner pocket to send to relatives, I saw a knife-stab in his chest, which no mortal could survive. Battle is pitiless. I hurriedly left the dying boy and went back to the living, ordering a French half-breed to guard him.

"See that no one mutilates this body," said I, "and I'll reward you."

My shout seemed to recall the lad's consciousness. Whether he fully understood the terrible significance of my words, I could not tell; but he opened his eyes with a reproachful glazed stare; and that was the last I saw of him.

Knowing Grant would have difficulty in obtaining carriers for Governor Semple, and only too anxious to gain access to Fort Douglas, I ran with haste towards the recumbent form of the fallen leader. Grant was at some distance scouring the field for reliable men, and while I was yet twenty or thirty yards away an Indian glided up.

"Dog!" he hissed in the prostrate man's face. "You have caused all this! You shall not live! Dog that you are!"

Then something caught my feet. I stumbled and fell. There was the flare of a pistol shot in Governor Semple's face and a slight cry. The next moment I was by his side. The shot had taken effect in the breast. The body was yet hot with life; but there was neither breath, nor heart beat.

A few of the Hudson's Bay band gained hiding in the shrubbery and escaped by swimming across to the east bank of the Red, but the remnant tried to reach the fort across the plain. Calling me, Grant, now utterly distracted, directed his efforts to this quarter. I with difficulty captured my horse and galloped off to join the warden. Our riders were circling round something not far from the fort walls and Grant was tearing over the prairie, commanding them to retire. It seems, when Governor Semple discovered the strength of our forces, he sent some of his men back to Fort Douglas for a field-piece. Poor Semple with his European ideas of Indian warfare! The Bois-Brules did not wait for that field-piece. The messengers had trundled it out only a short distance from the gateway, when they met the fugitives flying back with news of the massacre. Under protection of the cannon, the men made a plucky retreat to the fort, though the Bois-Brules harassed them to the very walls. This disappearance—or rather extermination—of the enemy, as well as the presence of the field-gun, which was a new terror to the Indians, gave Grant his opportunity. He at once rounded the men up and led them off to Frog Plains, on the other side of the swamp. Here we encamped for the night, and were subsequently joined by the first division of Bois-Brules.



CHAPTER XXIII

THE IROQUOIS PLAYS HIS LAST CARD

The Bois-Brules and Indian marauders, who gathered to our camp, were drunk with the most intoxicating of all stimulants—human blood. This flush of victory excited the redskins' vanity to a boastful frenzy. There was wild talk of wiping the pale-face out of existence; and if a weaker man than Grant had been at the head of the forces, not a white in the settlement would have escaped massacre. In spite of the bitterness to which the slaughter at Seven Oaks gave rise, I think all fair-minded people have acknowledged that the settlers owed their lives to the warden's efforts.

That night pandemonium itself could not have presented a more hideous scene than our encampment. The lust of blood is abhorrent enough in civilized races, but in Indian tribes, whose unrestrained, hard life abnormally develops the instincts of the tiger, it is a thing that may not be portrayed. Let us not, with the depreciatory hypocrisy, characteristic of our age, befool ourselves into any belief that barbaric practices were more humane than customs which are the flower of civilized centuries. Let us be truthful. Scientific cruelty may do its worst with intricate armaments; but the blood-thirst of the Indian assumed the ghastly earnest of victors drinking the warm life-blood of dying enemies and of torturers laving hands in a stream yet hot from pulsing hearts.

Decked out in red-stained trophies with scalps dangling from their waists, the natives darted about like blood-whetted beasts; and the half-breeds were little better, except that they thirsted more for booty than life. There was loud vaunting over the triumph, the ignorant rabble imagining their warriors heroes of a great battle, instead of the murderous plunderers they were. Pierre, the rhymester, according to his wont, broke out in jubilant celebration of the half-breeds' feat:[A]

Ho-ho! List you now to a tale of truth Which I, Pierre, the rhymester, proudly sing, Of the Bois-Brules, whose deeds dismay The hearts of the soldiers serving the king!

Swift o'er the plain rode our warriors brave To meet the gay voyageurs come from the sea. Out came the bold band that had pillaged our land, And we taught them the plain is the home of the free.

We were passing along to the landing-place, Three hostile whites we bound on the trail. The enemy came with a shout of acclaim, We flung back their taunts with the shriek of a gale.

"They have come to attack us," our people cry. Our cohorts spread out in a crescent horn, Their path we bar in a steel scimitar, And their empty threats we flout with scorn.

They halt in the face of a dauntless foe, They spit out their venom of baffled rage! Honor, our breath to the very death! So we proffer them peace, or a battle-gage.

The governor shouts to his soldiers, "Draw!" 'Tis the enemy strikes the first, fateful blow! Our men break from line, for the battle-wine Of a fighting race has a fiery glow.

The governor thought himself mighty in power. The shock of his strength—Ha-ha!—should be known From the land of the sea to the prairie free And all free men should be overthrown![B]

But naked and dead on the plain lies he, Where the carrion hawk, and the sly coyote Greedily feast on the great and the least, Without respect for a lord of note.

The governor thought himself mighty in power. He thought to enslave the Bois-Brules, "Ha-ha," laughed the hawk. Ho-ho! Let him mock. "Plain rangers ride forth to slay, to slay."

Whose cry outpierces the night-bird's note? Whose voice mourns sadly through sighing trees? What spirits wail to the prairie gale? Who tells his woes to the evening breeze?

Ha-ha! We know, though we tell it not. We fought with them till none remained. The coyote knew, and his hungry crew Licked clean the grass where the turf was stained.

Ho-ho! List you all to my tale of truth. 'Tis I, Pierre, the rhymester, this glory tell Of freedom saved and brave hands laved In the blood of tyrants who fought and fell!

The whole scene was repugnant beyond endurance. My ears were so filled with the death cries heard in the afternoon, I had no relish for Pierre's crude recital of what seemed to him a glorious conquest. I could not rid my mind of that dying boy's sad face. Many half-breeds were preparing to pillage the settlement. Intending to protect the Sutherland home and seek the dead lad's body, I borrowed a fresh horse and left the tumult of the camp.

I made a detour of the battle-field in order to reach the Sutherland homestead before night. I might have saved myself the trouble; for every movable object—to the doors and window sashes—had been taken from the little house, whether by father and daughter before going to the fort, or by the marauders, I did not know.

It was unsafe to return by the wooded river trail after dark and I struck directly to the clearing and followed the path parallel to the bush. When I reached Seven Oaks, I was first apprised of my whereabouts by my horse pricking forward his ears and sniffing the air uncannily. I tightened rein and touched him with the spur, but he snorted and jumped sideways with a suddenness that almost unseated me, then came to a stand, shaking as if with chill. Something skulked across the trail and gained cover in the woods. With a reassuring pat, I urged my horse back towards the road, for the prairie was pitted with badger and gopher holes; but the beast reared, baulked and absolutely refused to be either driven, or coaxed.

"Wise when men are fools!" said I, dismounting. Bringing the reins over his head, I tried to pull him forward; but he planted all fours and jerked back, almost dragging me off my feet.

"Are you possessed?" I exclaimed, for if ever horror were plainly expressed by an animal, it was by that horse. Legs rigid, head bent down, eyes starting forward and nostrils blowing in and out, he was a picture of terror.

Something wriggled in the thicket. The horse rose on his hind legs, wrenched the rein from my hand and scampered across the plain. I sent a shot into the bush. There was a snarl and a scurrying through the underbrush.

"Pretty bold wolf! Never saw a broncho act that way over a coyote before!"

I might as well find the body of the English lad before trying to catch my horse, so I walked on. Suddenly, in the silver-white of a starry sky, I saw what had terrified the animal. Close to the shrubbery lay the stark form of a white man, knees drawn upwards and arms spread out like the bars of a cross. Was that the lad I had known? I rushed towards the corpse—but as quickly turned away. From downright lack of courage, I could not look at it; for the body was mutilated beyond semblance to humanity. Would that I had strength and skill to paint that dead figure as it was! Then would those, who glory in the shedding of blood, glory to their shame; and the pageant of war be stripped of all its false toggery revealing carnage and slaughter in their revolting nakedness.