Part 27 (1/2)
Here and there among the Indians appeared strangers. More Bois-Brules, lean half-breeds more to be feared than any Indian from the Mandane country to the polar regions, decked half after the manner of white man and savage, all more animated than was the wont of these sullen Runners of the Burnt Woods, they pa.s.sed back and forth among the fires, and presently McElroy caught the gleam of liquid that shone like rubies or topaz in the evening light.
”Aha!” he said, ”these Bois-Brules that have joined our captors appear to have had dealings with the whites. Yonder is the source of your discovered animation. Whiskey, as I live, and circling fast among the braves. It bodes ill for us, my friend.”
”So? Why so?”
”Because never was redskin yet who could hold fire-water and himself at the same time. No matter how determined they are to reach their stamping-ground before the ceremonies of our despatch, their determination will evaporate like morning mists before the sun in the warmth of the spirit, or I know not Indian nature. Prepare for something, M'sieu.”
As the evening fell and the fires leaped against the darkness, sounds increased in the camp. Groups of warriors gathered and broke, voices rose; and shrill yells began to cut above the melee of the noise.
From time to time a brave would come running out of the bustle and, stopping near, glare ferociously at the captives. Twice a hatchet came flittering through the firelight, its bright blade flas.h.i.+ng as it circled, to fall perilously close, and several times a squaw or two prodded one or the other with a moccasined toe.
Once a young brave, his black eyes alight with devilishness, sprang out from the bushes behind and caught McElroy's face in a pinching clasp of fingers. With one bound the factor was on his feet and had dealt the stripling a blow which sent him sprawling with his oiled head in a squaw's fire. Instantly his long feather was ablaze and his yelp of dismay brought forth a storm of derisive yells of laughter.
McElroy sat quietly down again.
”It has begun, M'sieu,” he said grimly.
All night the liquor circled among the savages, as the spirit fired the brains in their narrow skulls the uproar became worse. A huge fire was built in the centre of the camp, tom-toms placed beside it in the hands of old men, and, forming in a giant circle, the braves began a dance.
At first it was the stamp-dance*, harmless enough, with bending forms and palms extended to the central fire and the ceaseless ”Ah-a, ah-a-a, ah-a,” capable of a thousand intonations and the whole gamut of suggestion and portent, blood-chilling in its slow excitement.
*I have witnessed this.--V. R.
Without the circle the squaws fought and quarrelled over the portion of liquor doled out to them by their lords, and their clamour was worse than the rest.
No sleep came to the two white men lying at the foot of a tree to the west of the camp, with a guard pacing slowly between them and liberty.
Instead, thoughts were seething like dalle's foam in the mind of each.
If only this giant guard might drink deep enough of the libations of the others,--who knew?--there might be the faint chance of escape for which they had watched ceaselessly since leaving Red River.
But, with the irony of fate, this one Indian became the model warrior of the tribe. As the confusion and uproar grew in intensity, one after another joined the dancing circle, until it seemed that every brave in the camp was leaping around the fire. Blue-eyed Indians, Bois-Brules, Nakonkirhirinons, they circled and uttered the monotonous ”Ah-a, ah-a,”
and in the light could be seen the white lock on the temple of Bois DesCaut.
”I should have killed him long ago,” thought McElroy simply, ”as one kills a wolf,--for the good of the settlement.”
As they lay watching the unearthly orgy at the fire a plan slowly took shape in McElroy's mind. They were unbound as they had been for many days, the silent guard proving sufficient surety for their retention, and they were two to one in the wild confusion of the growing excitement. What easier than a swift grapple in the dusk, one man locked in combat with the sentinel and one lost in the forest and the night? It was a desperate chance, but they were desperate men with the post, the hatchet, and the matete before them. As the thought grew it took on proportions of possibility and the factor threw up his head with the old motion, shaking out of his eyes the falling sun-burnt hair.
”M'sieu,” he said, in a low voice, carefully modulated to the careless tone of weary speech which was their habit of nights; ”M'sieu, I have a plan.”
The cavalier looked up quickly.
”Ah!” he said; ”a plan? Of what,--conduct at the stake? The etiquette of the ceremony of the Feast of Flame?”
”Peace!” replied McElroy sternly; ”you jest, M'sieu. We are in sore straits and a drowning man s.n.a.t.c.hes at straws. It is this. The fire of liquor is rising out there. Hear it in the rising note of the blended voices. How long, think you, will they be content with the dance and the chanting, the tom-toms and the empty fire? How long before we are dragged in, to be the centre of affairs? In this plan of mine there is room for one of us, a bare chance of escape. This guard behind,--he is a powerful man, but, with every warrior wild in the circling ma.s.s yonder, he might be engaged for the moment needed for one to dart into the darkness and take to the river. Once there, the mercy of night and bending bushes might aid him. What think you?”
”Truly 'tis worth the try. My blood answers the risk. At the most it would but hasten things. But give the word and we'll at it.”
”Nay,--we must understand each other, lest we bungle. As the plan was mine, I take the choice of parts. There is a stain upon my conscience, M'sieu.” McElroy spoke simply from his heart, as was his wont.