The Rising Of The Red Man Part 18

In another minute the men were hurried away. An Indian pony with a saddle was brought for Dorothy, and she was told to mount. The young squaw who had her in charge, and who was called "The Star that Falls by Night," mounted another pony and took over a leading-rein from Dorothy's.

Poundmaker, after giving a few instructions, rode off to direct operations and to see that his sharpshooters were posted in such a way that it would be impossible for the British to advance until his main body had made good their retreat into the more inaccessible country. Of course, it was only a matter of time before they would be starved out of those hills, but much might occur before then.

The middle-aged brave who was handicapped with a name that suggested froggy agility, proudly took his place at the head of the little cavalcade, and a few minutes later they were threading their way through deep, narrow gullies, crossing from the head of one little creek on to the source of another, and choosing such places generally that the first shower of rain would gather there and wash out their tracks. When they pa.s.sed the main camp, Dorothy saw that the lodges had been pulled down, and were being packed on _travois_, [Footnote: Two crossed poles with cross pieces trailing from the back of a pony.] preparatory to a forced march. She noted that the sleighs had been abandoned, as, of course, there were no wheels there to take the place of the runners. Her own slender belongings were secured on the back of a pack-horse, and the squaw saw to it that she had her full complement of provisions and camp paraphernalia such as suited the importance of her prisoner.

Poor Dorothy! There would, however, be no more tea or sugar, or other things she had been accustomed to, for many a long day, but, after all, that was of no particular moment There was pure water in the streams, and there would soon be any amount of luscious wild berries in the woods, and plants by the loamy banks of creeks that made delicious salads and spinaches, and they would bring such a measure of health with them that she would experience what the spoilt children of fortune, and the dwellers in cities, can know little about--the mere physical joy of being alive--the glorious pulsing of the human machine.

They kept steadily on their way till dusk, and then halted for a brief s.p.a.ce. The party was a small one now, only some half-dozen braves and a few squaws. Dorothy wandered with her jailer, whom she had for shortness called the Falling Star, to a little rise, and looked down upon the great desolate, purpling land in which evidently Nature had been amusing herself. There were huge, pillar-like rocks streaked with every colour of the rainbow, from pale pink and crimson to slate-blue. There were yawning canyons, on the scarped sides of which Nature had been fas.h.i.+oning all manner of grotesqueries--gargoyles and griffins, suggestions of many-spired cathedrals, the profile of a face which was that of an angel, and of another which was so weirdly and horribly ugly--suggesting as it did all that was evil and sinister--that one s.h.i.+vered and looked away. All these showed themselves like phantasmagoria, and startled one with a suggestion of intelligent design. But it was not with the face of the cliff alone that Nature had trifled.

The gigantic boulders of coloured clays, strewn about all higgledy-piggledy, resolved themselves into uncouth antediluvian monsters, with faces so suggestive of something human and malign that they were more like the weird imaginings of some evil dream than inanimate things of clay. And over all brooded the mysterious dusk and the silence--the silence as of death that had been from the beginning, and which haunted one like a living presence. Only perhaps now and again there was a peculiar and clearly-defined, trumpet-toned sound caused by the outstretched wing of a great hawk as it swooped down to seize its prey. It was the very embodiment of desolation.

It might well have been some dead lunar landscape in which for aeons no living thing had stirred.

But Dorothy had other things to think of. Her position was now seemingly more perilous than before. It was so hard to think that they had all been so near deliverance, and, in fact, had given themselves over entirely to hope, and then had been so ruthlessly disappointed.

But there had been compensations. Putting on one side the shedding of blood, for which nothing could compensate, there was that new interest which had sprung into glorious life within her, and had become part of her being--her love for the man who had more than once put himself in the power of the enemy so that she and her father might be saved. Yes, that was something very wonderful and beautiful indeed.

When the moon got up the party was reformed, and they started out again. In the pale moonlight the freaks of Nature's handiwork were more fantastic than ever, and here and there tall, strangely-fas.h.i.+oned boulders of clay took on the semblance of threatening, half-human monsters meditating an attack.

Dorothy had noticed by the stars that the party had changed its direction. They were now heading due north.

With the exception of one short halt they travelled all through the night, and in the early grey dawn of the morning came out upon a great plain of drifting sand that looked for all the world like an old ocean bed stretching on and on interminably. It was the dangerous s.h.i.+fting sands, which the Indians generally avoided, as it contained spots where, it was said, both man and horse disappeared if they dared to put foot on it. But Poundmaker's lieutenant was not without some measure of skill and daring, and piloted them between the troughs of the waste with unerring skill.

When the sun gained power in the heavens and a light breeze sprang up, a strange thing took place. The face of the wave-like heights and hollows began to move. The tiny grains of sand were everywhere in motion, and actually gave out a peculiar singing sound, somewhat resembling the noise of grain when it falls from the spout of a winnowing machine into a sack. It was as if the sand were on the boil. There was no stopping now unless they wanted to be swallowed up in the quicksand. Dorothy noticed that the squaws, and even the braves, looked not a little anxious. But their leader kept steadily on. The sand was hard enough and offered sufficient resistance to the broad hoof of a horse, but if one stood still for a minute or so, it began gradually to silt up and bury it. It was a horrible place. When at noon that devil's slough resolved itself into a comparatively narrow strip, and Dorothy saw that they could easily have left it, she began to understand their reason for keeping on such dangerous ground--_they did not wish to leave any tracks behind them_. In all truth there was absolutely nothing to show that they had ever been in that part of the country. At last they came to what looked like a high hill with a wall-like cliff surmounting it. They stepped on to the firm clayey soil where the sage-bush waved, and had their midday meal. As soon as that had been disposed of, they resumed their journey.

They now went on foot, and steadily climbed the steep hillside by the bed of an old watercourse. Dorothy wondered what was behind the sharply-cut outline of the cliffs, for it gave the impression that nothing lay beyond save infinite s.p.a.ce. They entered a narrow ravine, and then suddenly it was as if they had reached the jumping-off place of the world, for they pa.s.sed, as it were, into another land. Immediately beneath them lay a broken shelf of ground shaped like a horseshoe, the sides of which were sheer cliffs, the gloomy base of which, many hundred feet below, were swept by the coldly gleaming, blue waters of the mighty Saskatchewan. Beyond that, drowsing in a pale blue haze, lay the broad valley, and beyond that again the vast purpling panorama of rolling prairie and black pinewoods until earth and sky were merged in indistinctness and became one. It resembled a perch on the side of the world, a huge eyrie with cliffs above and cliffs below, with apparently only that little pa.s.sage, the old creek bed, by which one might get there.

Dorothy realised that people might pa.s.s and repa.s.s at the foot of the hill on the other side and never dream there was such a place behind it. Still less would they imagine that there was a narrow cleft by which one could get through. Moreover, a couple of Indians stationed at the narrow track could easily keep two hundred foe-men at bay. Dorothy realised that she was now as effectually a prisoner as if she had been hidden away in an impregnable fortress.

The party descended a gentle slope, and there, in a saucer-shaped piece of low-lying ground fringed with saskatoon and choke-cherry trees, they pitched their camp.

For the first three days Dorothy was almost inclined to give way to the depression of spirits which her surroundings and the enforced inaction naturally encouraged. Though the Red folk were not actually unkind to her, still, their ways were not such as commended themselves to a well-brought-up white girl. Fortunately, the Falling Star was well disposed to her, and did all she could to make Dorothy feel her captivity as little as possible. The two would sit together in a shady place on the edge of the great cliff for hours, gazing out upon the magnificent prospect that outspread itself far beneath them, and the Indian girl, to try and woo the spirit of her white sister from communing too much within itself, would tell her many of the quaint, beautiful legends of the Indian Long Ago.

On the third day, just as Dorothy was beginning to wonder if it were not possible to steal out of the wigwam one night when Falling Star slept soundly, and, by evading the sentries--who might also chance to be asleep--make her way out through the narrow pa.s.s and so back to freedom, there was an arrival in camp that exceedingly astonished her. She was sitting some little distance back from the edge of the great cliff with Falling Star near at hand, when some one behind her spoke.

"Ah, Mam'selle," said the voice, "it ees ze good how-do-you-do I will be wish you."

Dorothy turned, and to her surprise Bastien Lagrange stood before her.

Despite the jauntiness of his speech, and the evident desire he evinced to appear perfectly at his ease, Dorothy at once detected an under-current of shame-facedness and apprehension in Bastien's manner. His presence urged that he was no longer a prisoner with Poundmaker's band. What did it portend?

In her eagerness to learn something of her father, Pasmore, and the others, Dorothy sprang to her feet and ran towards Lagrange. But that gentleman gave her such a significant look of warning that she stopped short. He glanced meaningly at the Indian woman, Falling Star. Dorothy understood, and a presentiment that she was about to be disappointed in the feeble-hearted half-breed took possession of her.

"You can speak, Bastien," Dorothy said. "Falling Star will not understand a word. I can see you have come with a message to Jumping Frog, but first, tell me--what about my father and the others?"

"_Helas_, I know not!" said Bastien, feeling vastly relieved that it had not been a more awkward question.

"They haf go 'way South branch of Saskatchewan. They all right. I tink Poundmaker mooch 'fraid keel them. They--"

"But how is it you are here? Have you joined the enemy again?"

It had come at last, and Bastien, shrugging his high shoulders, spread his hands out deprecatingly.

"_Helas_, Mam'selle! What was there for to do? I say I Eenglish, and they go for to shoot me mooch dead. I say 'Vive Riel!' and they say, 'Zat ees all right, Bastien Lagrange, you mooch good man.' I tell them that I nevare lof ze Eenglish, that your father and shermoganish peleece she was took me pressonar, and I was not able to get 'way, and that I plenty hate the Eenglish, oh! yees, and haf keel as many as three, four, fife, plenty times. So they say, 'Bully for you, pardner! and you can go tell Man-Who-Jumps-Like-a-Frog to sit down here more long and ozer tings.' _Comprenez?_"

The peculiar and delicate line of policy the unstable breed was pursuing was obvious. Lagrange was one of those who wanted to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds simply because he did not particularly care for either, and it was inc.u.mbent upon him that he should do one or the other. When the proper time came he certainly wanted to be with the side that got the best of it, and he had a shrewd suspicion that that would be the English. He was delightfully immune from any moral prejudice in the matter, and already a brilliant scheme was developing in his plastic brain that promised both safety and entertainment. He, however, resolved to do whatever lay in his power to a.s.sist this charming young lady and her father.

"Bastien," observed the girl, after a pause, "you'd better take good care what you do. Take my word for it that all the rebels, both half-breeds and Indians, who have done wrong will have to answer for it. I do not ask you what message you carry to the Indians here, but it is unlikely that you will stay with us. Now, I know that Battleford is not so very far away; will you go and tell Pepin Quesnelle to come to me? The Indians are all afraid of him, so he will suffer no harm. See, give him this from me."

She turned and plucked a little bunch of blue flowers that grew close at hand, which in the Indian language signify "Come to me." Then she produced a little brooch which she had worn at her throat that night she had met the dwarf, and wrapping both In a small piece of silk, gave them to the half-breed.

CHAPTER XXII

ANTOINE IN TROUBLE

Four nights later Pepin Quesnelle and his mother were having their supper in the large common sitting-room, which also did duty as kitchen and workshop. The tidy, silver-haired old dame had set out a place for Pepin at the well-scrubbed table, but the _pet.i.t maitre_, much to her regret, would not sit down at it as was his wont He insisted on having his supper placed on the long, low bench, covered with tools and harness, at which he was working. He had a Government job on hand, and knew that if he sat down to the table in state, there would be much good time wasted in useless formality. His mother therefore brought some bread and a large steaming plate of some kind of stew, and placed them within reach of his long arms.

"Pepin," she said, with a hint of fond remonstrance, "it is not like you to eat so. If any one should happen to come and catch you, my sweet one, eating like a common Indian, what would they think? Take care, apple of my eye, it is ver' hot!"

She hastily put down the steaming bowl, from which a savoury steam ascended, and Antoine the bear, who was sitting on his haunches in evident meditation behind the bench, deliberately looked in another direction. What mattered the master's dinner to a bear of his high-cla.s.s principles!

"Thank you, my mother," said Pepin, without lifting his eyes, and sewing away with both hands as if for dear life. "What you say is true, ver' true, but the General he will want this harness, and the troops go to-morrow to catch Poundmaker. And, after all, what matters it where I sit--am I not Pepin Quesnelle?"

Antoine, still looking vacantly in another direction, moved meditatively nearer the steaming dish. Why had they not given him his supper? He had been out for quite a long walk that day, his appet.i.te was excellent.

"Mother," said Pepin again, "that young female Douglas, who was here some time ago, I wonder where she may be now? Since then I have been many times think that, after all, she was, what the soldier-officers call it, not half-bad."

"Ah, Pepin!" and the old lady sighed, "she was a sweet child, and some day might even have done as wife for you.

But you are so particular, my son. Of course, I do not mean to say she was good enough for you, but at least she was more better than those other women who would try and steal you from me. _Mon Dieu_, how they do conspire!"

"So, that is so," commented Pepin resignedly, but at the same time not without a hint of satisfaction in his voice; "they _will_ do it, you know, mother. Bah! if the shameless females only knew how Pepin Quesnelle sees through their little ways, how they would be confounded--astonished, and go hide themselves for the shame of it! But this girl, that is the thing, she was nice girl, I think, and if perhaps she had the airs of a _grande dame_ and would expect much--well, after all, there was myself to set against that Eh? What? Don't you think that is so, my mother?"

"Yes, Pepin, yes, of course that is so, my sweet one, and what more could any woman want? And that girl, I think, she was took wid you, for I see her two, three times look at you so out of the corners of the eyes."

While this conversation was proceeding, Antoine had more than once glanced at his master without turning his head.

The plate of stew was now within easy reach of his short grizzled snout, and really it looked as if it had been put there on purpose for him to help himself.

When Pepin happened to look round, he thought his mother, in a fit of absent-mindedness, must have put down an empty plate--it was so clean, so beautifully clean. But when he looked at Antoine, who was now sitting quite out of reach of the plate, and observed the Sunday-school expression on the bear's old-fas.h.i.+oned face, he understood matters. He knew Antoine of old.

"Mother," he said, in his natural voice and quite quietly, "my dear mother, don't let the old beast know that you suspect anything. Take up that plate, and don't look at him, or he will find out we have discovered all. What have you got left in the pot, my mother?"

"Two pigeons, my sweet one, but--"

"That will do, mother. Do not excite yourself. Your Pepin will be avenged. The b'ar shall have the lot, _ma foi!_ the whole lot, and he will wish that he had waited until his betters were finished. Take down the mustard tin, and the pepper-pot, and yes, those little red peppers that make the mouth as the heat of the pit below, and put them all in the insides of one pigeon. Do you hear me, my mother dear? Now, do not let him see you do it, for his sense is as that of the Evil One himself, and he would not eat that pigeon."

"Oh, my poor wronged one, and to think that that--"

"Hush hush, my mother! Can you not do as I have told you?

Pick up the plate quietly. _Bien_, that is right! Now, do not look at him, but fill the pigeon up. So ... that is so, mother dear. O, Antoine, you sweet, infernal b'ar, but I will make you wish as how the whole Saskatchewan were running down your crater of a throat in two, three minutes more. But there will be no Saskatchewan--_non_, not one leetle drop of water to cool your thieving tongue!"

And despite the lively state of affairs he predicted for his four-footed friend, he never once looked at it, but kept tinkering at the harness as if nothing particular were exciting him.