"I will, Mr. Alfred; now, sir, there is the sun more than half up, which with them points out it is the setting and not the rising sun; the setting sun therefore means to the westward."
"Very good, that is plain, I think."
"There are twelve wigwams, that is, twelve days" journey for a warrior, which the Indians reckon at about fifteen miles a day. How much does fifteen times twelve make, sir?"
"One hundred and eighty, Malachi."
"Well, sir, then that is to say that it is one hundred and eighty miles off, or thereabouts. Now, the first figure is a chief, for it has an eagle"s feather on the head of it, and the snake before it is his _totem_, "the Angry Snake," and the other six are the number of the band; and you observe, that the chief and the first figure of the six have a gun in their hands, which is to inform us that they have only two rifles among them."
"Very true; but what is that little figure following the chief with his arms behind him?"
"There is the whole mystery of the letter, sir, without which it were worth nothing. You perceive that little figure has a pair of snow-shoes over it."
"Yes, I do."
"Well, that little figure is your brother Percival, whom we supposed to be dead."
"Merciful heavens! is it possible?" exclaimed Alfred; "then he is alive?"
"There is no doubt of it, sir," replied Malachi; "and now I will put the whole letter together. Your brother Percival has been carried off by the Angry Snake and his band, and has been taken to some place one hundred and eighty miles to the westward, and this information comes from the Indian woman who belongs to the band, and whose life was preserved by your kindness. I don"t think, Mr. Alfred, that any white person could have written a letter more plain and more to the purpose."
"I agree with you, Malachi; but the news has so overpowered me, I am so agitated with joy and anxiety of mind, that I hardly know what to say.
Percival alive! we"ll have him, if we have to go one thousand miles and beat two thousand Indians. Oh, how happy it will make my mother! But what are we to do, Malachi? tell me, I beseech you."
"We must do nothing, sir," replied Malachi.
"Nothing, Malachi!" replied Alfred with surprise.
"No, sir; nothing at present, at all events. We have the information that the boy is alive, at least it is presumed so; but of course the Indians do not know that we have received such information; if they did, the woman would be killed immediately. Now, sir, the first question we must ask ourselves is, why they have carried off the boy; for it would be no use carrying off a little boy in that manner without some object."
"It is the very question that _I_ was going to put to you, Malachi."
"Then, sir, I"ll answer it to the best of my knowledge and belief. It is this: the Angry Snake came to the settlement, and saw our stores of powder and shot, and every thing else. He would have attacked us last winter if he had found an opportunity and a chance of success. One of his band was killed, which taught him that we were on the watch, and he failed in that attempt: he managed, however, to pick up the boy when he was lagging behind us, at the time you were wounded by the painter, and carried him off, and he intends to drive a bargain for his being restored to us. That is my conviction."
"I have no doubt but that you are right, Malachi," said Alfred, after a pause. "Well, we must make a virtue of necessity, and give him what he asks."
"Not so, sir; if we did, it would encourage him to steal again."
"What must we do then?"
"Punish him, if we can; at all events, we must wait at present, and do nothing. Depend upon it we shall have some communication made to us through him that the boy is in their possession, and will be restored upon certain conditions--probably this spring. It will then be time to consider what is to be done."
"I believe you are right, Malachi."
"I hope to circ.u.mvent him yet, sir," replied Malachi; "but we shall see."
"Well; but, Malachi, are we to let this be known to any body, or keep it a secret?"
"Well, sir, I"ve thought of that; we must only let Martin and Strawberry into the secret; and I would tell them, because they are almost Indians, as it were; they may have some one coming to them, and there"s no fear of their telling. Martin knows better, and as for the Strawberry, she is as safe as if she didn"t know it."
"I believe you are right; and still what delight it would give my father and mother!"
"Yes, sir, and all the family too, I have no doubt, for the first hour or two after you had told them; but what pain it would give them for months afterward. "Hope deferred maketh the heart sick," as my father used to read out of the Bible, and that"s the truth, sir. Only consider how your father, and particularly your mother, would fret and pine during the whole time, and what a state of anxiety they would be in; they would not eat or sleep. No, no, sir; it would be a cruelty to tell them, and it must not be. Nothing can be done till the spring, at all events, and we must wait till the messenger comes to us."
"You are right, Malachi; then do as you say, make the communication to Martin and his wife,--and I will keep the secret as faithfully as they will."
"It"s a great point our knowing whereabouts the boy is," observed Malachi; "for if it is necessary to make a party to go for him, we know what direction to go in. And it is also a great point to know the strength of the enemy, as now we shall know what force we must take with us in case it is necessary to recover the lad by force or stratagem. All this we gained from the letter, and shall not learn from any messenger sent to us by the Angry Snake, whose head I hope to bruise before I"ve done with him."
"If I meet him, one of us shall fall," observed Alfred.
"No doubt, sir, no doubt," replied Malachi, "but if we can retake the boy by other means, so much the better. A man, bad or good, has but one life and G.o.d gave it to him. It is not for his fellow-creatures to take it away unless from necessity. I hope to have the boy without shedding of blood."
"I am willing to have him back upon any terms, Malachi; and, as you say, if we can do it without shedding of blood, all the better; but have him I will, if I have to kill a hundred Indians."
"That"s right, sir; that"s right; only let it be the last resort; recollect the Indian seeks the powder and ball, not the life of the boy; and recollect if we had not been so careless as to tempt him with the sight of what he values so much, he never would have annoyed us thus."
"That is true; well then, Malachi, it shall be as you propose in every thing."
The conversation was here finished; Alfred and all those who were possessed of the secret never allowed the slightest hint to drop of their knowledge. The winter pa.s.sed away without interruption of any kind. Before the snow had disappeared the seed was all prepared ready for sowing; the planks had been sawed out, and all the wheat not required for seed had been ground down and put into flour-barrels, ready for any further demand from the fort. And thus terminated the third winter in Canada.
CHAPTER x.x.xIII.
It was now April, and for some days Malachi and John had been very busy, a.s.sisted by the Strawberry; for the time had come for tapping the maple-trees, to make the maple-sugar, and Mrs. Campbell had expressed a wish that she could be so supplied with an article of such general consumption, and which they could not obtain but by the _bateaux_ which went to Montreal. In the evening, when Malachi and John were, as usual, employed in cutting small trays out of the soft wood of the balsam-fir, and of which they had already prepared a large quant.i.ty, Mrs. Campbell asked Malachi how the sugar was procured.
"Very easily, ma"am: we tap the trees."
"Yes, so you said before; but how do you do it? Explain the whole affair to me."
"Why, ma"am, we pick out the maple trees which are about a foot wide at the bottom of the trunk, as they yield most sugar. We then bore a hole in the trunk of the tree, about two feet above the ground, and into that hole we put a hollow reed, just the same as you would put a spigot in a cask. The liquor runs out into one of these trays that we have been digging out."
"Well, and then what do you do?"
"We collect all the liquor every morning till we have enough to fill the coppers, and then we boil it down."
"What coppers will you use, then?"
"There are two large coppers in the store-room, not yet put up, which will answer our purpose very well, ma"am. They hold about a hogshead each. We shall take them into the woods with us, and pour the liquor into them, and boil them down as soon as they are ready. You must come and see us on the boiling-day, and we can have a frolic in the woods."
"With all my heart," replied Mrs. Campbell. "How much liquor do you get from one tree?"
"A matter of two or three gallons," replied Malachi; "sometimes more and sometimes less. After we have tapped the trees and set our trays, we shall have nothing more to do for a fortnight. The Strawberry can attend to them all, and will let us know when she is ready."
"Do you tap the trees every year?"
"Yes, ma"am, and a good tree will bear it for fifteen or twenty years; but it kills them at last."