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 a.s.sailant. "Keep him for the warriors and let him be tortured," urged Louis, s.n.a.t.c.hing 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 mult.i.tude of horses and the whining yells of countless dogs.
While all the Sioux were on the outskirts of the encampment, I might yet escape un.o.bserved, 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 mult.i.tude? 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 f.a.gged, 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 hoa.r.s.e, 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 cl.u.s.tered 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 racc.o.o.n? 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 tw.a.n.ging 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 sh.o.r.e, 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 sh.o.r.eward, and came up with my head in utter darkness.
Where was I? I drew breath. Yes, a.s.suredly, 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 sh.e.l.l.
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 sh.o.r.e, 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 s.p.a.ce of the prairie. That, I suppose, is why both are too boundless for the limitation of speech.
Night after night, with only a gra.s.sy 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 l.u.s.trous 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 a.s.siniboines, 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?"