The Rising Of The Red Man Part 19

The good old lady was filled with concern for Antoine, for whom, as sharing the companions.h.i.+p of her well-beloved, she had quite a friendly regard. Still, had not the traitorous animal robbed her darling--her Pepin--of his supper? It was a hard, a very hard thing to do, but he must be taught a lesson. With many misgivings she stuffed the cavernous fowl with the fiery condiments.

"Now, mother dear, just wipe it clean so that the fire and brimstone does not show on the outside, and pour over it some gravy. That is right, _ma mere_. I will reward you--later. Now, just place it on the bench and take away the other plate. Do not let the cunning malefactor think you notice him at all. He will think it is the second course. _Bien!_"

He turned his head sharply and looked at the bear with one of his quick, bird-like movements, just at the same moment as the bear looked at him. But there was nothing on the artless Antoine's face but mild, sentimental inquiry.

"Ha! he is cunning!" muttered Pepin. "Do you remember, my mother, how--_Mon Dieu!_ he's got it!"

That was very apparent. Antoine had nipped up the fowl, and with one or two silent crunches was in the act of swallowing it. So pressed was he for time that at first he did not detect the fiery horrors he was swallowing.

But in a minute or two he realised that something unlooked for had occurred, that there was a young volcano in his mouth that had to be quenched at any cost So he sprang to his feet and rushed at a bucket of water that stood in a corner of the room, and went so hastily that he knocked the bucket over and then fell on it. The burning pain inside him made him snap and growl and fall to worrying the unfortunate bucket.

As for Pepin, he evinced the liveliest joy. He threw the harness from him, leapt from the bench, and seizing his long stick, danced out on the floor in front of the bear.

The good old dame stood with clasped hands in a far corner of the room, looking with considerable apprehension upon this fresh domestic development.

"Aha, Antoine, _mon enfant!_" cried the dwarf, "and so my supper you will steal, will you? And how you like it, _mon ami?_ Now, for to digest it, a dance, that is good.

So--get up, get up and dance, my sweet innocence! Houp-la!"

But just at that moment there came a knock at the door.

It was pushed open, and the unstable breed, Bastien Lagrange, entered. Antoine, beside himself with internal discomfort and rage, eyed the intruder with a fiery, ominous light in his eyes. Here surely was a heaven-sent opportunity for letting off steam. Before his master could prevent him he had rushed open-mouthed at Lagrange and thrown him upon his back. Quicker than it takes to write it, he had ripped the clothing from his body with his great claws and was at his victim's throat. The dwarf, with a strange, hoa.r.s.e cry, threw himself upon the bear.

With his powerful arms and huge hands he caught it by the throat, and compressed the windpipe, until the astonished animal loosed its hold and opened its mouth to gasp for breath. Then, bracing himself, Pepin threw it backwards with as much seeming ease as when, on one occasion, he had strangled a young cinnamon in the woods.

Bastien Lagrange lay back with the blood oozing from his mouth, the whites of his eyes turned upwards. He tried to speak, but the words came indistinctly from his lips.

He put one hand to his breast, and a small packet fell to the ground.

"From the daughter of Douglas," he gasped. And then he lay still.

CHAPTER XXIII

THE DEPARTURE OF PEPIN

After all, Bastien Lagrange had been more frightened than hurt by Antoine the bear. When Pepin Quesnelle had satisfied himself that there were no bones broken, and that the wound from which the blood flowed was a mere scratch, he, as usual, became ashamed of his late display of feeling and concern, and again a.s.sumed his old truculent att.i.tude. He gave the breed time to recover his breath, then roughly asked him whom he thought he was that he should make such a noisy and ostentatious entry into his house.

"It ees me, Pepin, your ver' dear friend, Bastien Lagrange,"

whined the big breed, with an aggrieved look at the dwarf and an apprehensive one at Antoine.

"What, villain, _coquin_, _I_ your ver' dear friend?

--may the good Lord forbid! But sit up, and let me once more look upon your ugly face. Idiot, _entrez!_ Sit up, and take this for to drink." So spoke Pepin as he handed Bastien a dipper of water.

In all truth the s.h.i.+fty breed had an expression on his face as he tried to put his torn garments to rights that savoured not a little of idiocy. He had been for the last three hours working himself into a mood of unconcern and even defiance, so that he might be able to repel the attacks of the outspoken Pepin. But now, at the very first words this terrible manikin uttered, he felt his heart sinking down into his boots. Still, he bore news which he fancied would rather stagger the dwarf.

"And so, _mon ami_--"

"_Tenez vous la_, villain! You will pardon me, but I am not the friend of a turncoat and traitor! _Dis donc_, you will bear this in mind. Now what is it you have for to say? _Bien?_"

"_Parbleu!_ what ees ze matter wit' Antoine?" exclaimed the breed uneasily. "What for he look at me so? Make him for to go 'way, Pepin."

Pepin caught up his stick and changed the trend of Antoine's aggressive thoughts. The big brute slunk to the far end of the room, sat upon his haunches, and blinked at the party in a disconcerting fas.h.i.+on. Then Pepin again turned upon Bastien with such a quick, fierce movement that the latter started involuntarily.

"Bah! blockhead, pudding-head!" cried Pepin impatiently.

"Antoine has only that fire in his mouth that you will have in the pit below before two, three days when you have been hanged by the neck or been shot by the soldiers of the great Queen. Proceed!"

"Aha! you ver' funny man, Pepin, but do you know that Poundmaker has been catch what zey call ze convoy--sixteen wagons wit' ze drivers and ze soldiers belongin' to your great Queen, and now zey haf no more food and zey perish?

Haf you heard that, _mon_--M'sieur Pepin?"

Pepin had not heard it, but then he had heard some awkward things about Bastien Lagrange, and he immediately proceeded to let him know that he was acquainted with them. The soldiers, with their great guns, were now swarming up the Saskatchewan, and it was only a matter of a few weeks before Poundmaker and Big Bear would be suing for mercy.

This and more of a disquieting nature did the dwarf tell the unstable one, so that by the time he had finished there was no hesitation in Bastien's mind as to which side he must once and for all definitely espouse. So he told of the capture of the Douglas party by Poundmaker and of the fight at Cut-Knife. Then he called Pepin's attention to the packet he had dropped, and explained how it had been entrusted to him.

The manikin examined it in silence. A strange look of intelligence came into his face. He shot a half-shy, suspicious glance at the breed, but that gentleman, with an awe-stricken expression, was watching Antoine, as with sinister design that intelligent animal was piling up quite a collection of boots, moccasins, and odds and ends in a corner preparatory to having a grand revenge for the trick that had been played upon him. He would chew up every sc.r.a.p of that leather and buckskin if he wore his teeth out in the attempt The old lady, fortunately for him, had left the room.

Pepin opened the packet, and the sight of that plain little gold brooch and the bunch of prairie forget-me-nots moved him strangely. After all, his heart was not adamant where youth and beauty were concerned--he only realised the immense gulf that was fixed between a man of his great parts and graces and the average female.

He abruptly ordered Bastien into the summer kitchen to look for his mother and get something to eat, and then, when he realised he had the room to himself, he literally let himself go. He sprang to his feet, and, waving the flowers and the brooch over his head, advanced a few paces into the middle of the room, struck a melodramatic att.i.tude, and, with one hand pressed to his heart, carried Dorothy's tokens to his lips.

Then he turned and observed Antoine. This somewhat absent-minded follower had already begun operations on his little pile; but he had been so taken aback by the unwonted jubilation of his master, that he stopped work to gaze upon him in astonishment, and quite forgot to remove the half-torn moccasin from his mouth. When he saw he was caught red-handed, he dropped the spoil as he had dropped the hot potato, and crouched apprehensively.

His master made a fierce rush at him.

"What ho! Antoine, you pig, you!" he cried; "and so you would have revenge, you chuckle-pate!" And then he punched Antoine's head.

Just at that moment his mother and Bastien re-entered the room; the former set Lagrange down at a small table in a far corner with some food before him. The dwarf lounged towards the fire-place with an a.s.sumed air of indifference and boredom, and, leaning against the chimney-piece, stroked his black moustache.

"What is it, Pepin, my son?" asked the old lady anxiously.

"Oh, nothing--nothing, my mother; only that they are at it again!"

"The shameless wretches!" she exclaimed; "will they never cease? Who is it this time, Pepin?"

"Only that young Douglas female we have spoke about"--he tried hard to infuse contempt into his voice--"she wants me to go to her! Just think of it mother! But she is a preesonar, and, perhaps, it is also my help she wants.

And she was a nice girl, was it not so, _ma mere?_"

Between them they came to the conclusion that Pepin must go with Bastien to where Dorothy was kept a prisoner and see what could be done. They also wisely decided that it was no use notifying or trying to lead the Imperial troops to the spot, for that might only force the Indians to some atrocity.

Later on, when the moon arose, Pepin took Lagrange out and showed him the British camp with its apparently countless tents, and its battery of guns. It appeared to the unstable one as if all the armies of the earth must be camped on that spot. When the dwarf told him that there were other camps further up the river, to which the one before him was as nothing, Bastien fairly trembled in his moccasins. When a sentry challenged them, the now thoroughly disillusioned breed begged piteously that they should return to Pepin's house and set out early on the following morning for the place where Dorothy was imprisoned up the Saskatchewan, before that army of soldiers, who surely swarmed like a colony of ants, was afoot.

Pepin knew that the approach of an army would only be the means of preventing him from finding Dorothy. He must go to her himself. He would also, for the sake of the proprieties, take his mother along in a Red River cart; his mind was quite made up upon that point. If he did not do so, who could tell that the Douglas female, with the cunning of her s.e.x, would not lay some awkward trap for him? The girl had plainly said, "Come to me,"

and he was secretly elated, but his conviction of old growth, that all women were "after" him, made him cautious.

So next morning, before break of day, the Red River cart was packed up and at the door. Pepin and his mother got into it, Antoine was led behind by means of a rope, and Bastien rode alongside on a st.u.r.dy little Indian pony.

It was indeed an _outre_ and extraordinary little procession that started out.

CHAPTER XXIV

THE INDIANS' AWAKENING

Little Running Cropped-eared Dog of the Stonies sat smoking his red clay calumet at the narrow entrance of the gorge that looked out upon the wooded hillside, the only means of ingress to the shelf which const.i.tuted Dorothy's prison-house. He was keeping watch and ward with his good friend "Black Bull Pup," who also sat smoking opposite him. Their rifles lay alongside; they had finished a _recherche_ repast of roasted dog, and were both very sleepy. It was a horrible nuisance having to keep awake such a warm afternoon. No one was going to intrude upon their privacy, for they had heard that the British General, Middleton, was in hot pursuit after Poundmaker, and it was unlikely that Jumping Frog, who was over them, would trouble about visiting the sentries.