"We have him safe! His father is waiting! Don"t hesitate, Miriam!"
"Run, Little Fellow," I ordered, "Across the camp. Get the child," and I sprang from the wigwam, which crashed to the ground behind me. I had thought to save skirting the woods by a run across the camping-ground; but when my Indian dashed for the child and the Sioux saw me undefended with the white woman in my arms, she made a desperate lunge at Laplante and called at the top of her voice for the braves.
Louis, with weapons in hand, still kept between the fury and Miriam; but I think his French chivalry must have been restraining him. Though the Sioux offered him many opportunities and was doing her best to sheathe a knife in his heart, he seemed to refrain from using either dagger or pistol. An insolent laugh was on his face. The life-and-death game which he was playing was to his daring spirit something novel and amusing.
"The lady is--perturbed," he laughed, dodging a thrust at his neck; "she fences wide, tra-la," this as the barrel of his pistol parried a drive of her knife; "she hits afar--ho--ho--not so fast, my fury--not so furious, my fair--zipp, ha--ha--ha--another miss--another miss--the lady"s a-miss," for the squaw"s weapon struck fire against his own.
"Look out for the braves, have a care," I shouted; for a dozen young bucks were running up behind to the woman"s aid.
"Ha--ha---_prenez garde_--my tiger-cat has kittens," he laughed; and he looked over his shoulder.
That backward look gave the fury her opportunity. In the firelight blue steel flashed bright. The Frenchman reeled, threw up his arms, and fell. One sharp, deep, broken draw of breath, and with a laugh on his lips, Louis Laplante died as he had lived. Then the tiger-cat leaped over the dead form at Miriam and me.
What happened next I can no more set down consecutively than I can distinguish the parts in a confused picture with a red-eyed fury striking at me, naked Indians brandishing war-clubs, flashes of powder smoke, a circle of gesticulating, screeching dark faces in the background, my Indian fighting like a very fiend, and a pale-faced woman with a little curly-headed boy at her feet standing against the woods.
"Run, _Monsieur_; I keep bad Indians off," urged Little Fellow.
"Run--save white squaw and papoose--run, _Monsieur_."
Now, whatever may be said to the contrary, however brave two men may be, they cannot stand off a horde of armed savages. I let go my whole pistol-charge, which sent the red demons to a distance and intended dashing for the woods, when the Sioux woman put her hand in her pocket and hurled a flint head at Little Fellow. The brave Indian sprang aside and the thing fell to the ground. With it fell a crumpled sheet of paper. I heard rather than saw Little Fellow"s crouching leap. Two forms rolled over and over in the camp ashes; and with Miriam on my shoulder and the child under the other arm, I had dashed into the thicket of the upper ground.
Overhead tossed the trees in a swelling wind, and up from the sh.o.r.e rushed the din of wrangling tongues, screaming and swearing in a clamor of savage wrath. The wind grew more boisterous as I ran. Behind the Indian cries died faintly away; but still with a strength not my own, always keeping the river in view, and often mistaking the pointed branches, which tore clothing and flesh from head to feet, for the hands of enemies--I fled as if wolves had been pursuing.
Again and again sobbed Miriam--"O, my G.o.d! At last! At last! Thanks be to G.o.d! At last! At last!"
We were on a hillock above our camp. Putting Miriam down, I gave her my hand and carried the child. When I related our long, futile search and told her that Eric was waiting, agitation overcame her, and I said no more till we were within a few feet of the tents.
"Please wait." I left her a short distance from the camp that I might go and forewarn Eric.
Frances Sutherland met me in the way and read the news which I could not speak.
"Have you--oh--have you?" she asked. "Who is that?" and she pointed to the child in my arms.
"Where"s Hamilton? Where"s your father?" I demanded, trembling from exhaustion and all undone.
"Mr. Hamilton is in his tent priming a gun. Father is watching the river. And oh, Rufus! is it really so?" she cried, catching, sight of Miriam"s stooped, ragged figure. Then she darted past me. Both her arms encircled Miriam, and the two began weeping on each other"s shoulders after the fashion of women.
I heard a cough inside Hamilton"s tent. Going forward, I lifted the canvas flap and found Eric sitting gloomily on a pile of robes.
"Eric," I cried, in as steady a voice as I command, which indeed, was shaking sadly, and I held the child back that Hamilton might not see, "Eric, old man, I think at last we"ve run the knaves down."
"Hullo!" he exclaimed with a start, not knowing what I had said. "Are you men back? Did you find out anything?"
"Why--yes," said I: "we found this," and I signalled Frances to bring Miriam.
This was no way to prepare a man for a shock that might unhinge reason; but my mind had become a vacuum and the warm breath of the child nestling about my neck brought a mist before my eyes.
"What did you say you had found?" asked Hamilton, looking up from his gun to the tent-way; for the morning light already smote through the dark.
"This," I said, lifting the canvas a second time and drawing Miriam forward.
I could but place the child in her arms. She glided in. The flap fell.
There was the smothered outcry of one soul--rent by pain.
"Miriam--Miriam--my G.o.d--Miriam!" "Come away," whispered a choky voice by my side, and Frances linked her arm through mine.
Then the tent was filled and the night air palpitated with sounds of anguished weeping. And with tears raining from my eyes, I hastened away from what was too sacred for any ear but a pitying G.o.d"s. That had come to my life which taught me the depths of Hamilton"s suffering.
"Dearest," said I, "now we understand both the pain and the joy of loving," and I kissed her white brow.
CHAPTER XXIX
THE PRIEST JOURNEYS TO A FAR COUNTRY
Again the guest-chamber of the Sutherland home was occupied.
How came it that a Catholic priest lay under a Protestant roof? How comes it that the new west ever ruthlessly strips reality naked of creed and prejudice and caste, ever breaks down the barrier relics of a mouldering past, ever forces recognition of men as individuals with individual rights, apart from sect and cla.s.s and unmerited prerogatives?
The Catholic priest was wounded. The Protestant home was near. Manhood in Protestant garb recognized manhood in Roman ca.s.sock. Necessity commanded. Prejudice obeyed as it ever obeys in that vast land of untrameled freedom. So Father Holland was cared for in the Protestant home with a tenderness which Mr. Sutherland would have repudiated. For my part, I have always thanked G.o.d for that leveling influence of the west. It pulls the fools from high places and awards only one crown--merit.
It was Little Fellow who had brought Father Holland, wounded and insensible, from the Sioux camp.
"What of Louis Laplante"s body, Little Fellow?" I asked, as soon as I had seen all the others set out for the settlement with Father Holland lying unconscious in the bottom of the canoe.
"The white man, I buried in the earth as the white men do--deep in the clay to the roots of the willow, so I buried the Frenchman," answered the Indian. "And the squaw, I weighted with stones at her feet; for they trod on the captives. And with stones I weighted her throat, which was marked like the deer"s when the mountain cat springs. With the stones at her throat and her feet, the squaw, I rolled into the water."
"What, Little Fellow," I cried, remembering how I had seen him roll over and over through the camp-fire, with his hands locked on the Sioux woman"s throat, "did you kill the daughter of L"Aigle?"
"Non, _Monsieur_; Little Fellow no bad Indian. But the squaw threw a flint and the flint was poison, and my hands were on her throat, and the squaw fell into the ashes, and when Little Fellow arose she was dead.
Did she not slay La Robe Noire? Did she not slay the white man before Monsieur"s eyes? Did she not bind the white woman? Did she not drag me over the ground like a dead stag? So my fingers caught hard in her throat, and when I arose she lay dead in the ashes. So I fled and hid till the tribe left. So I shoved her into the water and pushed her under, and she sank like a heavy rock. Then I found the priest."
I had no reproaches to offer Little Fellow. He had only obeyed the savage instincts of a savage race, exacting satisfaction after his own fashion.
"The squaw threw a flint. The flint was poison. Also the squaw threw this at Little Fellow, white man"s paper with signs which are magic,"
and the Indian handed me the sheet, which had fallen from the woman"s pocket as she hurled her last weapon.
Without fear of the magic so terrifying to him, I took the dirty, crumpled missive and unfolded it. The superscription of Quebec citadel was at the top. With overwhelming revulsion came memory of poor Louis Laplante lying at the camp-fire in the gorge tossing a crumpled piece of paper wide of the flames, where the Sioux squaw surrept.i.tiously picked it up. The paper was foul and tattered almost beyond legibility; but through the stains I deciphered in delicate penciling these words:
"In memory of last night"s carouse in Lower Town, (one favor deserves another, you know, and I got you free of that sc.r.a.pe), spike the gun of my friend the enemy. If R-f-s G--p--e, E.
H--l-t-n, J--k MacK, or any of that prig gang come prying round your camp for news, put them on the wrong track. I owe the whole ---- ---- set a score. Pay it for me, and we"ll call the loan square."
No name was signed; but the scene in the Quebec club three years before, when Eric had come to blows with Colonel Adderly, explained not only the authorship but Louis" treachery. "Tis the misfortune of errant rogues like poor Louis that to get out of one sc.r.a.pe ever involves them in a worse. Now I understood the tumult of contradictory emotions that had wrought upon him when I had saved his life and he had resolved to undo the wrong to Miriam.
Little Fellow put the small canoe to rights, and I had soon joined the others at the Sutherland homestead. But for two days the priest lay as one dead, neither moaning nor speaking. On the morning of the third, though he neither opened his eyes nor gave sign of recognition, he asked for bread. Then my heart gave a great bound of hope--for surely a man desiring food is recovering!--and I sent Frances Sutherland to him and went out among the trees above the river.
That sense of resilient relief which a man feels on discharging an impossible task, or throwing off too heavy a burden, came over me.