XXVI ESCAPE
Taking the lead again, Blaise crawled cautiously and silently away fromthe vicinity of the fire and the wigwams. Hugh, his legs and feet oncemore under control, followed close behind, Blaise still guiding him bythe cord attached to his wrist. The half-breed boy seemed able to glidelike a snake without a sound, but Hugh was less experienced in stealth.In spite of all his care, the bushes he brushed rustled now and then. Thenoises were very slight, but each rustle or creak brought the lad's heartinto his mouth. Yet the Indian by the fire lay still, and no sound camefrom the wigwams.
At last the fugitives were far enough from the camp, and well screened bytrees and bushes, so they dared go upright. Blaise had kept his sense ofdirection in the darkness and knew where he wanted to go. Turning to theright, he led Hugh across level ground and through open growth of birchesand poplars. Then he turned again. A little farther on he paused amongsome alders, handed Hugh the cord, uttered a low whisper of caution, andslipped between the bushes.
Hugh carefully pushed his way through, and stopped still. Before him laythe lake, the ripples lit by the stars and moon. Glancing along thenarrow strip of sand that separated him from the water, he could make outa dark shape lying above the reach of the waves. It was an overturnedcanoe. Blaise had circled about in the woods and had come back to theshore. A little way beyond the canoe, back from the beach and hidden fromwhere Hugh stood by trees and bushes, was the Indian camp. This was adangerous manoeuvre of his younger brother's and at first Hugh could seeno reason for it. Why had not Blaise led straight back through the woodsand up the ridge? The bateau, to which they must trust to get clear away,was on the other side of those ridges. _Was_ the bateau still there orhad the Indians found it?
Blaise was moving swiftly along the beach, and, after hesitating amoment, Hugh followed. He was relieved to find that the alder bushesstill screened them from the camp. They could launch the canoe withoutbeing visible from the wigwams or from the spot where the fire burned.The canoe was not one of those he had seen Ohrante's band using, but asmall craft, barely large enough to hold two men. Silently the boysturned it over, carried it down the beach and placed it in the lake.Blaise, standing in the water to his knees, held the boat while Hughstepped into the stern. The younger boy took his place in the bow, thepaddles dipped.
Hugh had expected to steer around the inner beach and on up the long bay.He was astonished when Blaise signalled him to go the other way. This wasindeed a risk. The older boy would have protested, had he dared speakloud enough to make his brother hear. But they were too near the camp tochance conversation, whatever foolhardy venture Blaise might be planning.Moreover Hugh knew that the half-breed lad was far from foolhardy andmust have good reason for what he was doing. The elder brother obeyed thesignal and said nothing.
Crouched as far down in the canoe as they could kneel and still wieldtheir paddles, the two dipped the blades noiselessly. A few strokes andthey were out of the shelter of the fringe of bushes. They were passingthe camp, where the ground was open from lodges to beach. Fearfully Hughglanced in that direction. He could make out the dark bulk of one of thewigwams and near it the dull glow of the dying fire. His guard lay besidethat fire. If the man should wake and raise his head, he could scarcelyfail to see the passing canoe, a dark, moving shape on the moonlit water.A vigorous but careful stroke, and both lads held their paddlesmotionless while the canoe slipped by of its own momentum. It made nosound audible above the rippling of the water on the pebbles. The squatIndian slept on.
A clump of mountain ash, leafy almost to the ground, came between thecanoe and the fire. The paddles dipped again. In a few moments the slightprojection, scarce long enough to be called a point, had been rounded.The wigwams and the fire were hidden by trees and bushes.
Hugh drew a long breath and put more speed into his strokes. The brotherswere moving down the bay, and he realized now the reason for theirmanoeuvre. Had they struck through the woods to the ridge, they wouldinevitably, in spite of the greatest care and caution, have left a trail.The canoe left no tracks. When they passed out from the narrowest part ofthe channel, they were obliged to put strength and vigor into theirpaddling, for they were going almost directly against the fresh wind.They kept as close to the right hand shore as they dared, and so had someprotection. Vigorous and careful handling were necessary, however, tomake headway in the roughening water.
As they went by one of the shallow curves that could scarcely be calledcoves, Blaise uttered a little exclamation and pointed with his paddle toa black object moving on the water. As Hugh looked, the thing turned alittle, and he could make out, in silhouette, great branching antlers. Amoose was swimming from one shore of the little indentation to the other.
"There is meat to last us a long time," he muttered regretfully, "if onlywe dared risk a shot."
Blaise laughed softly. "We could not shoot if we wished. Neither has agun."
"True. When you set out to find me, Blaise, why didn't you bring yours?"
The lad in the bow shrugged slightly. "I could not use it without anoise, and I wished not to be burdened with it. Let us not talk now.Voices carry far in the night."
Hugh heeded the warning. As the bay widened, the force of wind and wavesincreased. The lads were paddling northeast, almost in the teeth of thewind. Hugh began to doubt whether they would be able to round the longpoint, or even keep on along it much farther. Blaise had no intention ofrounding the point, however. He had another plan. As they passed the twincoves, where they had camped while they sought for the cache of furs, heturned his head ever so slightly and spoke.
"Steer into the crack where we carried out the furs."
Hugh replied with a word of assent and steered close under the riven rockwall. The water was slightly sheltered, and the waves were running pastthe fissures, not into them. The canoe slipped by the stern of thewrecked bateau, projecting from the crack into which it had been driven.The narrow rift was passed. At the wider black gap, Hugh made the turn.In response to his brother's quick "Take care," he held his paddlesteady.
The canoe glided into the gap, slowed down. Before the bottom could grateon the pebbles, Blaise had warned Hugh to step over the side. The latterfound himself in the water above his knees.
"We must take the canoe well up the crack and hide it," he said.
"And risk its discovery, which would put Ohrante on our trail? No, layyour paddle in the bottom. Turn around, but do not let go."
Hugh did not at first grasp the half-breed lad's intention, but heobeyed. When Hugh had turned, Blaise spoke again.
"Push out with all your strength. Now."
Together they gave the light craft a strong shove and let go. It slidover the water, out from the mouth of the rift. The wind caught it and itwas borne away in the moonlight.
"The wind will take it up the bay," the younger boy explained. "It maystay right side up, it may not. It may be shattered on the rocks orwashed on some beach. Wherever Ohrante finds it, it will be a long wayfrom here."
"It will not help him to pick up our trail certainly," Hugh exclaimed."That was a clever thought, Blaise."
Blaise turned to lead the way up the crack. It was black dark in thefissure. Patches of moonlit sky could be seen overhead, between thebranches and spreading sprays of the cedars, but no light penetrated tothe bottom. Guiding themselves by their outstretched hands, and feelingfor each step, as they had done on that other night when they had enteredthis cleft, the two made their way up. As he thought of that other night,Hugh put his hand to his breast to feel if the precious packet was stillthere, attached to a piece of fish line around his neck. It was luck thatthe Indians had merely taken his weapons and had not searched him.
Feeling along the left wall of the gap, Blaise found the slit that ledinto the pit where the furs had been concealed, but he did not squeezethrough. He led on up the wider rift. Where the walls were less sheer andtrees grew on the gully bottom, pushing through
in the darkness becameincreasingly difficult. When the brothers had come that way in daylight,they had found it troublesome enough. Now exposed roots and undergrowthsnared Hugh's toes, rocks and tree trunks bruised his shoulders, pricklyevergreen branches scratched his face and caught his clothes. These weresmall troubles, however, not to be heeded by a fugitive flying from sucha cruel fate as Ohrante had in mind for him. The boy's only desire was toput as great a distance as possible between himself and the giant Mohawk.Indeed he had to hold himself in restraint to keep from panic flight.
After a few hundred feet of stumbling, groping progress, the two came tothe broken birch, ghostly in the moonlight which shone down into the openspace where the guide tree stood. They paused for a moment. On eitherhand and ahead the growth was thick.
"Which way now?" Hugh whispered the words as if he still feared an enemylurking near.
"Straight ahead to the top of the high ridge. It will be difficult. Iknow not if we can do it in the darkness."
"We must do it," said Hugh emphatically.
Blaise nodded. "We will try," he agreed.
The ground was low here, protected from the lake by the rock ridge withits rifts and cracks. A few steps beyond the little birch, the lads foundthemselves in a veritable tangle of growth, through which but littlelight penetrated from the sky. They struggled forward among closestanding, moss-draped, half dead evergreens and old rotten birches, theirfeet sinking deep into the soft leaf mould and decayed wood that formedthe soil. Where fallen trees had made an opening that let in a littlelight, thickets of bushes and tangles of ground yew had grown up, moredifficult to penetrate than the black woods. Compelled to make their way,for the most part, by feeling instead of sight, they could go but slowly.Hugh soon lost all sense of direction, and he wondered whether Blaiseknew where he was going.
Rising ground and a thinning of the woods reassured the white boy. Theymust be going up the ridges, not back towards the Indian camp. Hemarvelled that Blaise had managed to find the way. Blaise was far frominfallible though, and there soon came a time when he did not think itwise to go farther. They had climbed a steeper slope, treading firmersoil and outcroppings of rock, but still in thick woods, and had reacheda small rock opening overgrown with moss and low plants. The sweetperfume of the carpet of twin flowers he could not see came to Hugh'snostrils. Blaise stopped and peered about him. Clouds must have coveredthe moon, for the open space was very dark.
"We had best wait here," he said after a few moments. "If the moon shinesagain, or after dawn comes, I will climb a tree and see where we are."
"Don't you know where you are?" Hugh asked.
"I am not certain. How can I be certain in the darkness, when I havenever come this way before? I think our way lies over there." He pointedacross the opening. "We are on the top of a low ridge, but if we go downwhere the trees stand thick, we may lose our way and much time also. Weare well hidden here. When Ohrante wakes, he will not know which way toseek. It will be long before he finds our trail."
"I hate to stop as long as we can go on."
"I too, my brother, but I think we shall gain time, not lose it if wewait for light."