Part 34 (1/2)
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.