CHAPTER XIX
WHEREIN LOUIS INTRIGUES
Next morning Le Grand Diable would set out for the north. This night,then, was my last chance to rescue Miriam. "Do your do before morning!"How Laplante's words echoed in my ears! I had told Miriam a stormy nightwas to be the signal for our attempt; and now the rising moon wasdispelling any vague haziness that might have helped to conceal us. Inan hour, the whole camp would be bright as day in clear, silver light.Presently, the clatter of the lodges ceased. Only an occasional snarlfrom the dogs, or the angry squeals of my bronchos kicking the Indianponies, broke the utter stillness. There was not even a wind to drownfoot-treads, and every lodge of the camp was reflected across the groundin elongated shadows as distinct as a crayon figure on white paper. Whatif some watchful Indian should discover our moving shadows? La RobeNoire's fate flashed back and I shuddered.
Flinging up impatiently from the robes, I looked from the tent way. Somedog of the pack gave the short, sharp bark of a fox. Then, but for thecrunching of my horses over the turf some yards away, there wassilence. I could hear the heavy breathing of people in near-by lodges.Up from the wooded valley came the far-off purr of a stream over stonybottom and the low washing sound only accentuated the stillness. Theshrill cry of some lonely night-bird stabbed the atmosphere with a throbof pain. Again the dog snapped out a bark and again there was utterquiet.
"One chance in a thousand," said I to myself, "only one in a thousand;but I'll take it!" And I stepped from the tent. This time the wakefuldog let out a mouthful of quick barkings. Jerking off my boots--I hadnot yet taken to the native custom of moccasins--I dodged across theroadway into the exaggerated shadow of some Indian camp truckery. Here Ifell flat to the ground so that no reflection should betray mymovements. Then I remembered I had forgotten Louis Laplante's saddle.Rising, I dived back to the tepee for it and waited for the dogs toquiet before coming out again. That alert canine had set up a duet witha neighboring brute of like restless instincts and the two seemed topromise an endless chorus. As I live, I could have sworn that LouisLaplante laughed in his sleep at my dilemma; but Louis was of the sortto laugh in the face of death itself. A man flew from a lodge anddealing out stout blows quickly silenced the vicious curs; but I had tolet time lapse for the man to go to sleep before I could venture out.
Once more, chirp of cricket, croak of frog and the rush of watersthrough the valley were the only sounds, and I darted across to the campshadow. Lying flat, I began to crawl cautiously and laboriously towardsmy horses. One gave a startled snort as I approached and this set thedogs going again. I lay motionless in the grass till all was quiet andthen crept gently round to the far side of my favorite horse and caughthis halter strap lest he should whinny, or start away. I drew erectdirectly opposite his shoulders, so that I could not be seen from thelodges and unhobbling his feet, led him into the concealment of a groupof ponies and had the saddle on in a trice. To get the horse to the rearof Miriam's tent was no easy matter. I paced my steps so deftly with thebroncho's and let him munch grass so often, the most watchful Indiancould not have detected a man on the far side of the horse, directingevery move. Behind the Sioux lodge, the earth sloped abruptly away, bareand precipitous; and I left the horse below and clambered up the steepto the white wall of Miriam's tent. Once the dogs threatened to create adisturbance, but a man quieted them, and with gratitude I recognized thevoice of Laplante.
Three times I tapped on the canvas but there was no response. I put myarm under the tent and rapped on the ground. Why did she not signal? Wasthe Sioux squaw from the other lodge listening? I could hear nothing butthe tossings of the child.
"Miriam," I called, shoving my arm forward and feeling out blindly.
Thereupon, a woman's hand grasped mine and thrust it out, while a voiceso low it might have been the night breeze, came to my ear--"We arewatched."
Watched? What did it matter if we were? Had I not dared all? Must notshe do the same? This was the last chance. We must not be foiled. Myhorse, I knew, could outrace any cayuse of the Sioux band.
"Miriam," I whispered back, lifting the canvas, "they will take you awayto-morrow--my horse is here! Come! We must risk all!"
And I shoved myself bodily in under the tent wall. She was not a hand'slength away, sitting with her face to the entrance of Diable's lodge,her figure rigid and tense with fear. In the half light I could discernthe great, powerful, angular form of a giantess in the opening. 'Twasthe Sioux squaw. Miriam leaned forward to cover the child with a motionintended to conceal me, and I drew quickly out.
I thought I had not been detected; but the situation was perilousenough, in all conscience, to inspire caution, and I was backing away,when suddenly the shadows of two men coming from opposite sides appearedon the white tent, and something sprang upon me with tigerish fury.There was the swish of an unsheathing blade, and I felt rather than sawLe Grand Diable and Louis Laplante contesting over me.
"Never! He's mine, my captive! He stole my saddle! He's mine, I tellyou," ground out the Frenchman, throwing off my assailant. "Keep him forthe warriors and let him be tortured," urged Louis, snatching at theIndian's arm.
I sprang up. It was Louis, who tripped my feet from under me, and we twotumbled to the bottom of the cliff, while the Indian stood abovesnarling out something in the Sioux tongue.
"Idiot! Anglo-Saxon ox!" muttered Louis, grappling with me as we fell."Do but act it out, or two scalps go! I no promise mine when I say Ihelp you, bah----"
That was the last I recall; for I went down head backwards, and the blowknocked me senseless.
When I came to, with an aching neck and a humming in my ears, there wasthe gray light of a waning moon, and I found myself lying bound inMiriam's tent. Her child was whimpering timidly and she was hurriedlygathering her belongings into a small bundle.
"Miriam, what has happened?" I asked. Then the whole struggle andfailure came back to me with an overwhelming realization that tortureand death would be our portion.
"Try no more," she whispered, brushing past me and making as though shewere gathering things where I lay. "Never try, for my sake, never try!They will torture you. I shall die soon. Only save the child! Formyself, I am past caring. Good-by forever!" and she dashed to the otherside of the tent.
At that, with a deal of noisy mirth, in burst Laplante and the Siouxsquaw.
"Ho-ho! My knight-errant has opened his eyes! Great sport for thebraves, say I! Fine mouse-play for the cat, ho-ho!" and Louis lookeddown at me with laughing insolence, that sent a chill through my veins.'Twas to save his own scalp the rascal was acting and would have me acttoo; but I had no wish to betray him. Striking at her captives andrudely ordering them out, the Sioux led the way and left Louis to bringup the rear.
"Leave this, lady," said Louis with an air that might have beenimpudence or gallantry; and he grabbed the bundle from Miriam's hand andthrew it over his shoulder at me. This was greeted with a roar oflaughter from the Sioux woman and one look of unspeakable reproach fromMiriam. Whistling gaily and turning back to wink at me, the Frenchmandisappeared in Diable's lodge. For my part, I was puzzled. Did Louis actfrom the love of acting and trickery and intrigue? Was he befooling thedaughter of L'Aigle, or me?
They tore down Diable's tepee, stringing the poles on the bronchosstolen from me and leaving Miriam's white tent with the Sioux. I sawthem mount with my horses to the fore, and they set out at a sharp trot.From the hoof-beats, I should judge they had not gone many paces, whenone rider seemed to turn back, and Louis ran into the tent where I lay.I did not utter one word of pleading; but as he stooped for Miriam'sbundle, he whisked out a jack-knife and my heart bounded with a greathope. I suppose, involuntarily, I must have lifted my arms to have thebonds severed; for Laplante shook his head.
"No--mine frien'--not now--I not scalp Louis Laplante for yoursake,--no, never. Use your teeth--so!" said he, laying the blade of theknife in his own teeth to show me how; and he slipped the thing intohiding under my armpits. "The warriors--they come back to-
day," hewarned. "You wait till we are far, then cut quick, or they do worse toyou than to La Robe Noire! I leave one horse for you in the valleybeyond the beaver-dam. Tra-la, comrade, but not forget you. I pay youback yet all the same," and with a whistle, he had vanished.
I hung upon the Frenchman's words as a drowning sailor to a life-line,and heard the hoof-beats grow fainter and fainter in the distance,hardly daring to realize the fearful peril in which I lay. By the lightat the tent opening, I knew it was daybreak. Already the Sioux werestirring in their lodges and naked urchins came to the entrance to hootand pelt mud. Somehow, I got into sitting posture, with my head bowedforward on my arms, so I could use the knife without being seen. Atthat, the impertinent brats became bolder and swarming into the tentbegan poking sticks. I held my arm closer to my side, and felt the hardsteel's pressure with a pleasure not to be marred by that tantalizinghorde. There seemed to be a gathering hubbub outside. Indians, squawsand children were rushing in the direction of the trail to the Mandanes.The children in my tent forgot me and dashed out with the rest. I couldnot doubt the cause of the clamor. This was the morning of the warriors'return; and getting the knife in my teeth, I began filing furiously atthe ropes about my wrists. Man is not a rodent; but under stress ofnecessity and with instruments of his own designing, he can do somethingto remedy his human helplessness. To the din of clamoring voices outsidewere added the shouts of approaching warriors, the galloping of amultitude of horses and the whining yells of countless dogs.
While all the Sioux were on the outskirts of the encampment, I might yetescape unobserved, but the returning braves were very near. Putting allmy strength in my wrists, I burst the half-cut bonds; and the rest waseasy. A slash of the knife and my feet were free and I had rolled downthe cliff and was running with breathless haste over fallen logs, underleafy coverts, across noisy creeks, through the wooded valley to thebeaver dam. How long, or how far, I ran in this desperate, heedlessfashion, I do not know. The branches, that reached out like the bands ofpursuers, caught and ripped my clothing to shreds. I had been bootless,when I started; but my feet were now bare and bleeding. A gleam ofwater flashed through the green foliage. This must be the river, withthe beaver-dam, and to my eager eyes, the stream already appeared muddyand sluggish as if obstructed. My heart was beating with a sensation ofpainful, bursting blows. There was a roaring in my ears, and at everystep I took, the landscape swam black before me and the trees racinginto the back ground staggered on each side like drunken men. Then Iknew that I had reached the limit of my strength and with the domedmud-tops of the beaver-dam in sight half a mile to the fore, I sank downto rest. The river was marshy, weed-grown and brown; but I gulped down adrink and felt breath returning and the labored pulse easing. Not daringto pause long, I went forward at a slackened rate, knowing I musthusband my strength to swim or wade across the river. Was it theapprehension of fear, or the buzzing in my ears, that suggested thefaint, far-away echo of a clamoring multitude? I stopped and listened.There was no sound but the lapping of water, or rush of wind through theleaves. I went on again at hastened pace, and distinctly down the valleycame echo of the Sioux war-whoop.
I was pursued. There was no mistaking that fact, and with a thrill,which I have no hesitancy in confessing was the most intense fear I haveever experienced in my life, I broke into a terrified, panic-strickenrun. The river grew dark, sluggish and treacherous-looking. By theblood flowing from my feet, Indian scouts could track me for leagues. Ilooked to the river with the vague hope of running along the water bedto throw my pursuers off the trail; but the water was deep and I had notstrength to swim. The beaver-dam was huddled close to the clay bank ofthe far side and on the side, where I ran, the current spread out in aflaggy marsh. Hoping to elude the Sioux, I plunged in and flounderedblindly forward. But blood trails marked the pond behind and the softooze snared my feet.
I was now opposite the beaver-dam and saw with horror there werebranches enough floating in mid-stream to entangle the strongestswimmer. The shouts of my pursuers sounded nearer. They could not haveknown how close they were upon me, else had they ambushed me in silenceafter Indian custom, shouting only when they sighted their quarry. Theriver was not tempting for a fagged, breathless swimmer, whose dive mustbe short and sorry. I had nigh counted my earthly course run, when Icaught sight of a hollow, punky tree-trunk standing high above the bank.I could hear the swiftest runners behind splashing through the marshbed. Now the thick willow-bush screened me, but in a few moments theywould be on my very heels. With the supernatural strength of a lastdesperate effort, I bounded to the empty trunk and like some hounded,treed creature, clambered up inside, digging my wounded feet into thesoft, wet wood-rot and burrowing naked fingers through the punk of therounded sides till I was twice the height of a man above the blackenedopening at the base. Then a piece of wood crumbled in my right hand.Daylight broke through the trunk and I found that I had grasped the edgeof a rotted knot-hole.
Bracing my feet across beneath me like tie beams of rafteredscaffolding, I craned up till my eye was on a level with the knot-holeand peered down through my lofty lookout. Either the shouting of theSioux warriors had ceased, which indicated they had found my tracks andknew they were close upon me, or my shelter shut out the sound ofapproaching foes. I broke more bark from the hole and gained full viewof the scene below.
A crested savage ran out from the tangled foliage of the river bank, sawthe turgid settlings of the rippling marsh, where I had beenfloundering, and darted past my hiding-place with a shrill yell oftriumph. Instantaneously the woods were ringing, echoing and re-echoingwith the hoarse, wild war-cries of the Sioux. Band after band burst fromthe leafy covert of forest and marsh willows, and dashed in full pursuitafter the leading Indian. Some of the braves still wore the buckskintoggery of their visit to the Mandanes; but the swiftest runners hadcast off all clothing and tore forward unimpeded. The last coppery formdisappeared among the trees of the river bank and the shoutings weregrowing fainter, when, suddenly, there was such an ominous calm, I knewthey were foiled.
Would they return to the last marks of my trail? That thought sent theblood from my head with a rush that left me dizzy, weak and shivering. Ilooked to the river. The floating branches turned lazily over and overto the lapping of the sluggish current, and the green slime oozing fromthe clustered beaver lodges of the far side might hide either a mirybottom, or a treacherous hole.
A naked Indian came pattering back through the brush, looking into everyhollow log, under fallen trees, through clumps of shrub growth, where aman might hide, and into the swampy river bed. It was only a matter oftime when he would reach my hiding-place. Should I wait to be smoked outof my hole, like a badger, or a raccoon? Again I looked hopelessly tothe river. A choice of deaths seemed my only fate. Torture, burning, orthe cool wash of a black wave gurgling over one's head?
A broad-girthed log lay in the swamp and stretched out over mid-streamin a way that would give a quick diver at least a good, clean, clearleap. A score more savages had emerged from the woods and were eagerlysearching, from the limbs of trees above, where I might be perched, tothe black river-bed below. However much I may vacillate between twocourses, once my decision is taken, I have ever been swift to act; and Islipped down the tree-trunk with the bound of a bullet through agun-barrel, took one last look from the opening, which revealed pursuersnot fifty yards away, plunged through the marsh, dashed to the fallenlog and made a rush to the end.
A score of brazen throats screeched out their baffled rage. There was atwanging of bow-strings. The humming of arrow flight sung about my head.I heard the crash of some savage blazing away with his old flintlock. Adeep-drawn breath, and I was cleaving the air. Then the murky, greenishwaters splashed in my face, opened wide and closed over me.
A tangle of green was at the soft, muddy bottom. Something living,slippery, silky and furry, that was neither fish, nor water snake, gotbetween my feet; but countless arrows, I knew, were aimed and ready forme, when I came to the surface. So I held dow
n for what seemed aninterminable time, though it was only a few seconds, struck for the farshore, and presently felt the green slime of the upper water matting inmy hair.
Every swimmer knows that rich, sweet, full intake of life-giving airafter a long dive. I drew in deep, fresh breaths and tried to blink theslime from my eyes and get my bearings. There were the howlings ofbaffled wolves from what was now the far side of the river bank; butdomed clay mounds, mossy, floating branches and a world of willowsshrubs were about my head. Then I knew what the furry thing among thetangle at the river bottom was, and realized that I had come up amongthe beaver lodges. The dam must have been an old one; for the clayhouses were all overgrown with moss and water-weeds. A perfect networkof willow growth interlaced the different lodges.
I heard the splash as of a diver from the opposite side. Was it abeaver, or my Indian pursuers? Then I could distinctly make out thestrokes of some one swimming and splashing about. My foes weredetermined to have me, dead, or alive. I ducked under, found shallow,soft bottom, half paddled, half waded, a pace more shoreward, and cameup with my head in utter darkness.
Where was I? I drew breath. Yes, assuredly, I was above water; but theair was fetid with heavy, animal breath and teeth snarled shut in myvery face. Somehow, I had come up through the broken bottom of an oldbeaver lodge and was now in the lair of the living creatures. What wasinside, I cannot record; for to my eyes the blackness was positivelythick. I felt blindly out through the palpable darkness and caught tighthold of a pole, that seemed to reach from side to side. This gave meleverage and I hoisted myself upon it, bringing my crown a mighty sharpcrack as I mounted the perch; for the beaver lodge sloped down like anegg shell.
I must have seemed some water monster to the poor beaver; for there wasa scurrying, scampering and gurgling off into the river. Then my ownbreathing and the drip of my clothes were all that disturbed the lodge.
Time, say certain philosophers, is the measure of a man's ideasmarching along in uniform procession. But I hold they are wrong. Time isnothing of the sort; else had time stopped as I hung panting over thepole in the beaver lodge; for one idea and one only, beat and beat andbeat to the pulsing of the blood that throbbed through my brain--"I amsafe--I am safe--I am safe!"
How can I tell how long I hung there? To me it seemed a century. I donot even know whether I lost consciousness. I am sure I repeatedlyawakened with a jerk back from some hazy, far-off, oblivious realm, shutoff even in memory from the things of this life. I am sure I tried toburrow my hand through the clammy moss-wall of the beaver lodge to letin fresh air; but my spirit would be suddenly rapt away to that otherregion. I am sure I felt the waters washing over my head and sweeping meaway from this world to another life. Then I would lose grip of the poleand come to myself clutching at it with wild terror; and again thedrowse of life's borderland would overpower me. And all the time I wassaying over and over, "I am safe! I am safe!"
How many of the things called hours slipped past, I do not know. As Isaid before, it seemed to me a century. Whether it was mid-day, ortwilight, when I let myself down from the pole and crawled like abedraggled water-rat to the shore, I do not know. Whether it wasmorning, or night, when I dragged myself under the fern-brake and fellinto a death-like sleep, I do not know. When I awakened, the forest wasa labyrinth of shafted moonlight and sombre shadows. All that hadhappened in the past twenty-four hours came back to me with vividreality. I remembered Laplante's promise to leave a horse for me in thevalley beyond the beaver dam. With this hope in my heart I crawledcautiously down through the silent shadows of the night.
At daybreak I found Louis had made good his promise, and I was speedingon horseback towards the trail, where Little Fellow awaited me.