The Maid of the Whispering Hills Part 34

Maren leaned behind him and looked into the shadows.

On every side dark shapes covered the face of the stream like water-bugs, from every side there came the "whoo-sh-st-whoo-sh" of dipping paddles, the little plank and rattle of their shafts against gunwales.

They had glided into the midst of a flotilla of canoes travelling at night and in silence.

The maid from Grand Portage threw up her head.

"In among them," she whispered, "quick! Deep as we can!"

"But, Ma'amselle," whispered back Wilson, "they may be Indians."

"What matters? A chance is a chance, and who would not risk its turning?"

Unconsciously she was quoting that kinsman whose dauntless courage and love of venture had found its last thrill in covering her retreat in the gorge.

"In among them! Deep!"

Softly, as one of their number, the fugitive craft crept out to midstream and forward, usurping boldly place and speed.

Leaning low at each stroke the little company strained eye and ear for sight and sound, but, look as they might, they saw no eagle feathers against the stars, heard no word or whisper.

Barely had they reached their uncertain sanctuary when the light of torches shot southward across the bend and next moment circled, a far-reaching arm, to spread out and illumine the river broadcast as the Nakonkirhirinons swept into view, their savage faces peering under the raised flambeaux, their eyes like fiery points--searching their prey.

It fell on all the river, that light, on the running waters disturbed by myriad blades of white ash, on the banked background of the trees, on the drooping foliage at the stream's edge,--frail triflers of the wilderness, stooping from the sweet winds of Heaven to the water's wanton kiss,--and on a swarm of canoes, each manned by full complement of men, most of whose faces were eagle-featured and dark, blackeyed and high-cheekboned, though here and there were the fair hair and white skin of white men.

Odd, indeed, was the effect of this tableau on the Indians under the torches. They had come for one lone canoe,--to find a horde; for one man and one woman,--to fall upon a brigade.

They halted and the distance widened between.

And then the flotilla parted at a word of command from the darkness ahead and a boat came back among them. It pa.s.sed close to the fugitives, and Maren saw a tall man with a square chin, who stood up in it.

When it reached the fringe it went on out into the open water toward the halted canoes of the Nakonkirhirinons, on whose eager faces sat a sort of stupid awe.

"What do yez want?" called the tall man sternly, as he swept face to face with the foremost canoe in which stood a headman of the tribe.

"Whyfore is all this bally-hoo wid th' lights?"

There was no answer and he roared at them like a lion

"Can yez not shpake, ye haythen?"

Whereat a canoe glided from the back shadows and the voice of Bois DesCaut came in its broken English,

"A boat,--M'sieu,--we seek a boat that but now escaped from camp with a murderer aboard,--one who killed in cold blood the chief Negansahima back at the post of De Seviere. My brothers travel to the Pays d'en Haut that justice may be done. We only seek the murderer."

The tall man stood in silence a moment and glared at the scene, at the excited faces, the gleaming eyes, the s.h.i.+fting glance of the spokesman.

"A likely sthory!" he said presently. "An' who, may I make bould to ask, is this murderer?"

DesCaut squirmed a moment in silence.

"Who,--did ye say?"

"A man, M'sieu,--a-a-trapper."

"One lone man? Troth I commend his valour in evadin' such a rabble o' h.e.l.l-sp.a.w.n! An' what from did he escape,--th' sthake an' th'

stretchline?"

"Justice, M'sieu,--his life for the chief's."

"Ho-ho! From th' looks o' yer fri'nds, me lad, I'm thinkin' 'twill be justice wid her eyes shut!... But ye may turrn back an' search the forest,--we have no sthrangers in our party."

DesCaut glowered at him a moment and spoke to the headmen around in their speech. There were threatening gutturals and gestures.

The flotilla was small compared to that of the tribe back at the gorge, they would know, at any rate.

"They say, if M'sieu will let one canoe go through his people with the torches, all will be well. Otherwise,--five hundred warriors, M'sieu, can take their will with two hundred."

"Aye?" said the tall man, jerking his head around. He had been scanning the ma.s.s of his own craft, packed behind him, fading into the shadows out of the light. There was a peculiar look in his eyes when he faced DesCaut again, a thrust to his square jaw. In that backward look he had caught sight of the brown face of Maren Le Moyne, the white garment, glittering with its beads,--but he had seen, too, the crown of braids, wrapped round her head after the manner of the white woman.

"Go yer ways," he said; "we thravel fast on urgent business,--ye cannot throuble us wid yer lookin' an' pokin'. Tell yer fri'nds--No."

At this there was commotion among the Indians. A hurried consultation took place, with indrawing of canoes under the flambeaux, waving arms, and angry gestures.

"Then, M'sieu,--we come,--make way!" It was DesCaut, important and ugly.

"No, ye don't, me lad. Shwing back The Little Devil, bhoys!"

The leader's canoe s.h.i.+fted sidewise and another craft, heavy, lumbersome, and vastly bigger than the light boats of the rest poked its nose into its place,--and that nose was bra.s.s and round with a gaping maw,--a small cannon, scarcely big enough for the name, but a roaring braggart for all that.

"Belch, me darlin', if ye have th' belly-ache!" cried this tall man, and, without more warning, there was a tremendous flash and detonation, a mighty flying of the clear waters just under the bows of the foremost canoes of the Indians.

There was hiss and sputter of the torches, an upward leap of canoe and savage, capsize and panic and fear, and the night screamed with many voices.

"Formation again, lads!" called the st.u.r.dy voice of the leader. "We do be wastin' time wid these haythen!"

The canoe rounded, pa.s.sed up between the others, which closed in behind, and the cannon-boat lumbered into place in the rear.

As he pa.s.sed the strangers in their midst the tall man looked hard at Maren, the five men, and leaned out a bit to see what lay in the bottom.

"A close shave!" he said; "kape close in the middle an' shpake me at camp in the marnin'."

The ma.s.s of dark objects, drawing out of the light, moved forward and, with a rush of intuition, the girl knew that all danger was past and that safety hovered over them like the luminous wings of an angel.

"Holy Master!" she cried within, "Thou didst answer my prayer,--but at what cost! Oh, Lord of Heaven, what cost!"

Then she dropped her blade and, under cover of the darkness, sat back upon her heels, covered her face with her hands, and wept.

In the silence that had fallen deep again, save for the lessening tumult behind, her weeping sounded to the outermost canoe low and awful, hard and terrible as the weeping of a man.