But Louis Laplante"s palm was forcibly slapped across my mouth and his other hand he laid significantly on his dagger, giving me one threatening look. By the firelight I saw his lips mechanically counting the numbers of the enemy and mechanically I audited his count.
"Twenty men, thirty squaws and the slaves," said he under his breath.
An Indian left the fire and approached the captives.
"See! Watch! Is that woman Miriam?" demanded the priest. "She"ll take her hands from her face now."
"Of course it is!" I was furious at the restraint and hesitancy; but as I said before, the experienced intriguer proceeds as warily as a cat.
"You not sure--not for sure--_Mon Dieu_--no," muttered Laplante; and he was right. With the forest shadows across the captives, it was impossible to distinguish the color of their faces. Taking a knife from his belt, the Indian cut the cords of all but the woman with her hands across her face. A girl brought refuse of food; but this woman took no notice, never moving her hands. Thereupon the young squaw sneered and the Indian idlers jeered loud in harsh, strident laughter. This roused the big squaw. She strode up, Little Fellow all the while with glistening teeth following her motions as a cat"s head turns to a mouse.
With the flat of her hand she struck the silent woman, who leaped up and ran to a wigwam. In speechless fear, the child had scrambled to its feet and backed away from the angry group towards the ferns; but the light was fitful and shadowy, and we could recognize neither woman, nor child.
"I can"t stand this any longer," I declared. "I must know if that"s Miriam. Let"s draw closer."
Father Holland and I crawled stealthily to the very border of fern growth, Louis and the Indian lying still and muttering over some plan of action.
"Hist," said the priest, "we"ll try the child."
Unlike naked Indian children, the little thing had a loose garment banded about its waist; but its feet were bare and its hair as raven black as that of any young savage. It stood like some woodland elf in the maze of heavy sleepiness, at each harsh word from the camp, sidling shyly closer to our hiding-place. We dragged forward till I could have touched the child, but feared to startle it.
Putting his hand out slowly, Father Holland caught the little creature"s arm. It gave a start, jerked back and looked in mute wonderment at our strange hiding-place.
"Pretty boy," crooned the priest in low, coaxing tones, gently tightening his hold.
"Is it white?" I whispered.
"I can"t see."
"Good little man," he went on, slowly folding his hands about it.
Drawing quickly back, he lifted the child completely into his arms.
"Is boy sleepy?" he asked.
"Call him "Eric,"" I urged.
"Is Eric sleepy?"
The child"s head fell wearily against the priest"s shoulder. Snuggling closer, he lisped back in perfect English, "Eric"s tired."
At once Father Holland"s free hand caught my arm as if he feared I might rush out. For a moment neither of us spoke.
Then he said, "Give me your coat."
I ripped off my buckskin-smock. Wrapping the sleeping boy about, the priest laid him gently among the ferns.
"Where"s the mother?" asked Father Holland with a catching intake of breath.
I pointed to the wigwam. The big squaw had come out, leaving Miriam alone and was engaged in noisy dispute with the men. Louis and Little Fellow had now wriggled abreast of us.
"Ha, ha, _mon brave_--your time, it come now! You save the white woman!
I pay my devoirs to the lady, ha, ha--I owe her much--I pay you both back with one stroke, one grand stroke. Little Fellow, he watch for spring surprise and help us both! Swoop--snitch--s.n.a.t.c.h--snap her up!
"Tis done--tra-la!" and Louis drew up for all the world like a tiger about to spring, but the priest drew him down.
"Listen," commanded the churchman, in the slow, tense way of one who intended to be obeyed. "I"ll go back and come up by the beach. I"ll brow-beat them and tongue-whack them for having slaves. They"ll offer fight; so"ll I. They"ll all run down; that"s your chance. Wait till they all go. I"ll make them, every one. That"s your chance. You rush! Try that! If it fail, in the name of the Lord, have y"r weapons ready--and the Lord be with us!"
"They"ll kill you," I protested. "Let me go!"
"You? What about Frances?"
"Pah!" said Louis. "I go myself--I trick--I trap--I snare "em----"
"Hush to ye, ye braggart," interrupted the priest. "Gillespie is as flabby as dough from an illness. "Tis here you sit quiet, and help with Miriam as ye"d save y"r soul! Howld down with y"r bouncing nonsense, lad, and the saints be with ye; for it"s a fight there"ll be, and there is the fightin" stuff of a soldier in ye! Never turn to me--mind ye never turn to help me, or the curse of the fool be on y"r head--and the Lord be with us!"
"Amen." But I spoke to vacancy. While a rising wind set the branches overhead grating noisily, he had risen and darted away. Louis Laplante, contrary to the priest"s orders, also rose and disappeared in the woods.
Little Fellow still lay by me, but I could not rely on him for intelligent action, and there came over me that sense of aloneness in danger, which I knew so well in the Mandane country. The child"s slightest cry might alarm the camp, and I shivered when he breathed heavily, or turned in his sleep. The Indians might miss the boy and search the woods. Instinctively my hand was on my pistol. It was well to be as near Miriam"s tent as possible; and I, too, took advantage of the wind to change my place. I moved back, signalling the Indian to follow, and skirted round the open till I was directly opposite Miriam"s wigwam.
Why had Louis gone off, and why did he not come back? Had he gone to keep secret guard over the priest, or to decoy the vigilant Sioux woman?
In his intentions I had confidence enough, but not in his judgment. At that moment my speculations were interrupted by a loud shout from the beach. Every Indian in camp started up as if hostiles had uttered their war-cry.
"Hallo, there! Hallo! Hallo!" called the priest. Indians dashed to the river, while bedraggled squaws and naked children rushed from wigwams and stood in clamorous groups between the lodges and the water. The topmost branches of the trees swayed back and forward in the wind, alternately throwing shafts of moonlight and shadows across the opening of Miriam"s wigwam. When the light flooded the tent a solitary, white-faced form appeared in dark, sharp outline. The bare arms were tied at the wrists, and beat aimlessly through the darkness. And there was a sound of piteous weeping.
Should I make the final, desperate dash now? "Don"t bungle His plans,"
came the priest"s warning; and I waited. The squaws were very near; and the angular figure of Diable"s wife hung on the rear of the group. She was scolding like a termagant in the Sioux tongue, ordering the other women to the fray; but still she kept back, looking over her shoulder suspiciously at Miriam"s tent, uncertain whether to go or stay. We had failed in every other attempt to rescue Miriam. If the Lord--as the priest believed--had planned the sufferer"s aid, His instruments had blundered badly. There must be no more feeble-fingering.
"Thieves! Thieves! Cut-throats!" bawled Father Holland in a storm of abuse. "Ye rascals," he thundered, cutting the air with his stick and purposely backing away from the camp to draw the Indians off. Then his voice was lost in a chorus of shrill screams.
The moonlight shone across the wigwam opening. The captive had heard the English tongue, and was listening. But the Sioux squaw had also heard and recognized the voice of a former prisoner. She ran forward a pace, then hesitated, looking back doubtfully. As she turned her head, out from the gloom of the thicket with the leap of a lynx, lithe and swift, sprang the crouching form of Louis Laplante. I felt Little Fellow all in a tremor by my side; the tremor not of fear, but of the couchant panther; and he uttered the most vicious snarl I have ever heard from human throat. Louis alighted neatly and noiselessly, directly behind the Sioux woman. She must have felt his presence, for she turned round and round expectantly. Louis, silent and elusive as a shadow, circled about her, tripping from side to side as she turned her head. But the fire betrayed him. She had wheeled towards the forest as if spying for the unseen presence among the foliage, and Louis deftly dodged behind. The move put him between the fire and his antagonist, and the full profile of his queer, bending figure was shadowed clear past the woman. She turned like some vengeful, malign G.o.ddess, and I thought it all up with the daring trapper; but he doffed his red toque and swept the advancing fury the low bow of a French courtier. Then he drew himself erect and laughed insolently in the woman"s face. His careless a.s.surance allayed her suspicions.
"Oh, "tis you!" she growled.
""Tis I, fleet-foot, winged messenger, humble slave," laughed Louis, with another grotesque bow; but the rogue had cleverly put himself between the squaw and Miriam"s tent.
I should have rushed to Miriam"s rescue long since, instead of watching this by-play between trapper and mountain cat; but as the foray waxed hotter with the priest, the young braves had run back to their tents for guns and clubs.
"Stand off, ye scoundrels," roared the priest, in tones of genuine anger; for the Indians were closing threateningly about him. "Stand back, ye knaves, ye sons of Satan," and every soul but Louis Laplante and the Sioux squaw ran with querulous shouts to the river.
"Cruel! Cruel! Cruel!" sobbed a voice from the wigwam; and there was a straining to break the thongs which bound her. "Cruel! Cruel! Hast Thou no pity? O my G.o.d! Hast Thou no pity? Shall not a sparrow fall to the ground without Thy knowledge? Is this Thy pity? O my G.o.d!" The voice broke in a torrent of heart-piercing cries.
I could endure it no longer.
"Have at ye, ye villains! Come out like men! Now, me brave bhoys, show the stuff that"s in ye! A fig for y"r valor if ye fail! The curse o" the Lord on the coward heart! Back with ye; ye red divils! Out with ye, Rufus! The Lord shall deliver the captive! What, "an wuld ye dare strike a servant o" the Lord? Let the deliverer appear, I say," he shouted, weaving in commands to us as he dealt stout blows about him and receded down the river bank. "Take that--and that--and that," I heard him shout, with a rat-tat-too of sharp thuds from the staff accompanying each word. Then I knew the quarrel on the beach was at its height; and Louis Laplante was still foiling the Sioux"s approach to Miriam"s wigwam like a deft fencer.
"Follow me, Little Fellow," I commanded. "Have your knife ready," and I had not finished speaking when three shrill whistles came from Louis.
"Twas his old-time signal of danger. Above the hubbub at the river the Sioux squaw was screaming to the braves.
Bounding from concealment, I tore off the layer roofing of the wigwam, plunged through the tapering pole frame, shaking the frail lean-to like a house of cards, and was beside Miriam. Again I heard Louis" whistle and again the squaw"s angry scream; but Little Fellow had followed on my heels and stood with knife-blade glittering bare at the tent-entrance.
"Hush," I whispered, slashing my dagger through the thongs around her hands and cutting the rope that held her to the central stake. "We"ve found you at last. Come! Come!" and I caught her up.
"O my G.o.d!" she cried. "At last! At last! Where is the child? They have taken little Eric!"