The Cryptogram: A Story of Northwest Canada

  CHAPTER XIV.

  AN INDIAN'S GRATITUDE.

  Above the thunder of the falls my warning was heard and understood.Glancing back to make sure, I saw the startled faces of the two women,and the grimly-set countenance of Jim Gummidge. From the stern Morallehalf-rose, looked this way and that, and made two daring strokes withthe paddle. He dropped under cover again just as a volley of musketballs swept close over the canoe.

  "You fool!" I shouted at him.

  "I had to do it," he yelled back. "We were swinging to the left. It'sall right now."

  "Steady! Here we go!" cried Gummidge.

  I gave Flora a brief look that brought a dash of hot color to her palecheeks, and then I turned quickly to one of my loopholes--Baptiste wasgazing from the other. There was scarcely time to see anything. Like aflash I made out the little knot of painted savages on the reef to theleft, and caught a blur of scarlet and copper from the shallows beyondthe rapids. The next instant the turbulent waters leaped up and hid theview, and we struck the verge of the falls.

  The Indians to right and left of the channel had evidently been postedthere to prevent us from landing, and they did not fire on us as we shotby, but they yelled and screeched like fiends, their comrades belowjoining in, and above the horrid din of voices I heard the roar of thegreat waves that now surrounded us.

  For a few seconds--it could have been no more--we hugged the bottomtightly. Spray and foam dashed over us; the frail craft pitched andtossed, swung round and round; billows and rocks smote the toughenedbirch-bark. Then came a sudden crash, the canoe turned over in thetwinkling of an eye, and out we went into the raging falls, studdedthickly with sunken bowlders and jagged, protruding reefs.

  I was whirled about by the angry waters as though I had been a merechip, sucked deep down, hurled to the surface, and bruised againstrocks. I fought hard for life and held my breath, and when a spar ofmoss-grown bowlder loomed suddenly in front of me, I caught it with botharms and held it fast.

  At the first I was grateful to Heaven for this mercy, and thought ofnothing else. I filled my lungs with air and took a tighter grip of therock. Then a burst of shrill yells and a couple of musket shots, ringingabove the clamor of the rapids, roused me from my semi-stupor. Iremembered that the canoe had capsized, flinging us all to the flood orto the waiting savages. And Flora! What was her fate? The dread that shehad perished sickened my heart.

  I shook the water from my dripping hair and eyes, and looked about me.There was little of cheer or hope in what I saw. I was stuck midway inthe falls, with my face downstream. Many yards below, where the foamingslide of water broadened into choppy waves and swirling shallows,Baptiste was splashing hip-deep for shore. Three redskins were dashingafter him with drawn tomahawks, and I gave the poor fellow up for lost.

  Moralle had been carried through the cordon of savages, and had reachedthe farther bank. There, on the edge of the forest, he was locked limbto limb with a stalwart warrior. The two were down, rolling amid thegrass and gravel, and three Indians were watching for a chance to shootthe voyageur without injuring their comrade. Off to my right, in a deep,whirling eddy formed by a big bowlder, Gummidge was struggling hard tosave himself and his wife; he had the use of but one arm, for the otherwas fastened around the little woman's waist. A short distance beyondthem, Lavigne, in spite of his wounded shoulder, was clinging in thebushy limb of a tree that overhung and dipped to the surface of thestream.

  All this I observed at a sweeping glance--scarcely a moment could haveelapsed since the upsetting of the canoe--and in vain I sought furtherfor trace of Flora. That my companions were in peril of their lives,that death by drowning or the tomahawk must be my own fate--these thingsseemed of slight importance to me at the time. The canoe I discoveredreadily enough. It was wedged broadside to the stream no more than fouryards above me, creaking and bending with the fierce current, its bowand stern jammed against half-submerged pinnacles of rock.

  "Flora--Flora!" I shouted, loud and hoarsely.

  Above the thunder of the waters, above the yelling of the bloodthirstysavages, I fancied I heard an answering cry. Again I called her name.

  Just then I saw two white hands gripping the gunwale of the canoe, andLavigne, who was still clinging to the tree, nodded his head in thatdirection, and shouted something I could not understand. The nextinstant the shattered canoe was torn loose by the rush of the current.It shot toward me, turned over twice, and sank from sight. And closebehind it--she had been clinging to it all the while--my darling roseout of the greenish water. Swiftly she drifted on, the folds of herdress inflated with air, her hands beating feebly, and her white,agonized face staring at mine.

  I saw that she must pass beyond me, at least an arm's length out ofreach. I did not hesitate an instant. Letting go of my precious rock, Istruck out across the current. I swam alongside of the helpless girl,and caught her slender waist tightly.

  Escaping the network of bowlders and reefs as by a miracle, we wereswept down the remainder of the tumbling rapids. At the bottom I found afooting, and with my burden I struggled on, now slipping andfloundering, now breasting the furious current, half-blinded at everystride by the dashing spray that beat in my face. But I was alive to thedanger that awaited below, and I felt that there was no hope for eitherof us.

  "Save me, Denzil! Don't let me die!" Flora murmured faintly in my ear.

  "I will save you," I cried, "or I will perish with you."

  I had hardly spoken when a voice--an English voice--rang loud and sharpfrom the forest:

  "Don't harm the girl! Take her alive!"

  I knew that the command came from Cuthbert Mackenzie. He was hidden bythe trees, and I vainly tried to catch a glimpse of him while I foughtmy way through the boiling current. A moment later the stream grewsuddenly calmer and more shallow, and few feet below me, on a reef thatjutted out into the water I saw an Indian standing. The sunlight shoneon his feathered scalp-lock, on his breech-clout and fringed leggings, onhis hideously painted face. With a whoop of triumph he leveled hismusket and pointed it straight at my head.

  I heard the click of the hammer as it was drawn back, and knew that Imust die--shot down like a dog. Life was sweet, and I could have cursedmy bitter fate as I stood there, breast-deep in the water, trying toshelter Flora with my body. She uttered a heart-rending cry, and clungto me tightly.

  "Save the girl, but kill the Englishman!" Mackenzie yelled again fromthe shelter of the forest.

  The savage seemed to hesitate, still keeping his finger on the triggerof his weapon and the muzzle pointed at my head and as I stared at him,and noted the purple scars on his breast, I suddenly recognized himbeneath the war-paint that wrinkled his face. A wild hope flashed to mymind.

  "Gray Moose!" I cried hoarsely. "Is this your gratitude? Don't you knowme?"

  The merciless aspect of the savage's countenance softened. With aguttural grunt he leaped forward and gazed at me hard. Then he loweredhis musket and said quickly:

  "Pantherfoot!"

  "Ay, Pantherfoot," I replied. "Do I deserve death at your hands?"

  "The white man is my brother," said the Indian. "I knew not that hewould be here, else I would have refused to take the war-path. I havelistened to words of evil."

  "And you will save us all?" I cried.

  For answer, Gray Moose turned to his braves, who were whooping likefiends and firing an occasional shot, and shouted a few words to them inthe native tongue. In a moment more--almost before I could realize mygood fortune, every Indian had melted away into the forest. I heardMackenzie cry out with baffled rage and furiously curse his recreantallies. Then a silence fell, broken only by the dull roar of the falls.

  I waded to the shore, and placed Flora's trembling and half-unconsciousform against a tree. Baptiste quickly joined me; he had escaped from hispursuers, and had seen the whole affair from his hiding-place in thethick timber. Gummidge and his wife were clinging to the bowlders inmidstream, and with some d
ifficulty they joined us. But Lavigne haddisappeared and poor Moralle lay motionless on the opposite bank,apparently dead. Cuthbert Mackenzie's villainy had cost us dear.