The Trapper's Daughter Part 43

Ellen rose, approached the squatter, and laying her hand softly on his shoulder, placed her charming face close to his. Red Cedar smiled.

"What do you want, my girl?" he asked her.

"I wish, father," she said, in a coaxing voice, "that you should save us."

"Save you, poor child," he said, as he shook his head gravely, "I am afraid that is impossible."

"Then," she continued, "you will let us fall into the hands of our enemies?"

The squatter shuddered.

"Oh! Do not say that, Ellen," he replied, hoa.r.s.ely.

"Still, my father, as you cannot help us to escape--"

Red Cedar pa.s.sed the back of his hard hand over his dark forehead.

"Listen," he said presently, "there is perhaps one way--"

"What is it?" the three men said, eagerly, as they collected round him.

"It is very precarious, dangerous, and probably will not succeed."

"Tell it us for all that," the monk pressed him.

"Yes, yes--speak father," Ellen urged him.

"You desire it?"

"Yes, yes."

"Very well, then, listen to me attentively, for the means I am about to propose, strange as they may at first appear to you, offer a chance of success, which, in our desperate situation, must not be despised."

"Speak, pray speak!" the monk said impatiently.

Red Cedar looked at him with a grin.

"You are in a precious hurry," he said; "perhaps you will not be so presently."

CHAPTER XXV.

A GAME AT HAZARD.

"Before explaining my plan to you," Red Cedar went on, "I must tell you what our position really is, so that when I have described the means I wish to employ, you can decide with a full knowledge of the facts."

His hearers gave a nod of a.s.sent, but no one made an answer.

The squatter continued--

"We are surrounded on three sides: firstly, by the Comanches, next by Bloodson's rangers, and lastly by the French hunter and his friends.

Weakened as we are by the terrible privations we have suffered since we came into the mountains, any contest is impossible; we must, therefore, give up all hope of opening a pa.s.sage by force."

"What is to be done, then?" the monk asked; "it is plain that we must escape, and each second that slips away renders our prospects worse."

"I am as fully convinced of that as you can be. My absence today had a double object; the first was to obtain provisions, in which, as you see, I succeeded--"

"That is true."

"Secondly, to reconnoitre carefully the positions held by our enemies."

"Well?" they asked anxiously.

"I have succeeded. I advanced unnoticed close to their camps; they keep a good watch, and it would be madness to try and pa.s.s through them; they form a wide circle around us, of which we are the centre; this circle is being daily contracted, so that in two or three days, perhaps before, we shall find ourselves so pressed that it will be impossible to hide ourselves, and we must fall into their hands."

"Demonios!" Fray Ambrosio exclaimed, "that is anything but a pleasant prospect; we have no mercy to expect from these villains, who will, on the contrary, find a pleasure in torturing us in every way possible.

Hum! the mere thought of falling into their hands makes my flesh creep; I know what the Indians are capable of in torturing, for I have seen them at work often enough."

"Very good; I will not press that point then."

"It would be perfectly useless. You will do better to explain to us the plan you have formed, and which, as you say, can save us."

"Pardon me! I did not offer you any certainty; I merely said that it had some chances of success."

"We are not in a position to quibble about words; let us have your scheme."

"It is this--"

The three men listened with the deepest attention.

"It is evident," Red Cedar went on, "that if we remain together, and try to fly in one direction, we shall be infallibly lost, supposing, as is certain, that our trail is discovered by our pursuers."

"Very well," the monk growled; "go ahead; I do not exactly understand what you want to come at."

"I have, therefore, reflected on this inconvenience, and I have formed the following scheme."

"Out with it."

"It is very simple; we will make a double trail."

"Hum! I suppose you mean, a false and a true one. The plan seems to me defective."

"Why so? Red Cedar asked with a smile.

"Because there must be a point where the false trail runs into the real one, and--"