DETECTED
For the moment a horrible sickening fear took possession
of Dorothy when she found herself thrust into such a very
prominent position. It was quite bad enough to have to
pass through that scene of pillage and riot, but to pose
as the partner of an excitable half-breed in the execution
of the Red River jig was more than the girl had bargained
for. The fantastic shuffling and capering of the long-legged
metis were wonderful to behold. The tassel of his long
red tuque dangled and bobbed behind him like the pigtail
of a Chinaman trying to imitate a dancing Dervish. His
flushed face, long snaky black locks, and flashing eyes
all spoke of the wild fever in his blood and his Gallic
origin. Still, the girl noted he was not what might be
termed an ill-looking fellow; he did not look bad-natured,
nor was he in drink. He was merely an excited
irresponsible.
The barbaric, musical rhyme on the cat-gut took a fresh
lease of life; the delighted spectators clapped their
hands in time, and supplemented the music with the
regulation dog-like yelps. The Red River jig consists of
two persons of opposite sex standing facing each other,
each possessed with the laudable ambition of dancing his
or her partner down. As may readily be imagined, it is
a dance necessitating considerable powers of endurance.
When one of the dancers sinks exhausted and vanquished,
another steps into the breach. When Dorothy had made her
appearance, a slim and by no means bad-looking half-breed
girl had been unwillingly obliged to drop out of the
dance. The bright eyes of the new arrival had caught
Pierre La Chene's fancy, and, after the manner of his
kind, he had made haste to secure her as a partner. Pierre
was a philanderer and an inconstant swain. The dark eyes
of Katie the Belle flushed with anger as she saw this
strange girl take her place. She noticed with jealous
eyes the elegant fur coat which the other wore, the dainty
silk-sewn moccasins, the natty beaver cap, and felt that
she, herself a leader of fashion among her people, had
yet much to learn.
Dorothy stood stock still for a moment while her partner
and the spectators shouted to her to begin. A wrinkled
old dame remarked, in the flowery language of her people,
that, as the figure of the girl was slender as the willow,
and her feet small and light as those of the wood spirits
that return to the land in the spring, surely she could
out-dance Pierre La Chene, who had already out-worn the
light-footed Jeanette and the beautiful Katie. Pierre
shouted to his partner to make a start. Surely now she
must be discovered and undone!
Then something that, when one comes to think of it, was
not strange, happened--Dorothy rose to the occasion. She
had danced the very same fantasia many a time out of
sheer exuberance of spirits, and the love of dancing
itself. She must dance and gain the sympathy of that
rough crowd, in the event of her identity being discovered.
There was nothing so terrible about this particular group
after all. They were merely dancing while the others were
going in for riot and pillage. There was something so
incongruous and ludicrous in the whole affair that the
odd, wayward, fun-loving spirit of the girl, of late held
in abeyance, asserted itself, and she forgot all else
save the fact that she must do her best to dance her
partner down.
Her feet caught the rhythm of the "Arkansaw Traveller"
--that stirring, foot-catching melody without beginning
or ending--and in another minute Dorothy was dancing
opposite the delighted and capering half-breed, and almost
enjoying it. With hands on hips, with head thrown back,
and with feet tremulous with motion, she kept time to
the music. She was a good dancer, and realised what is
meant by the poetry of motion. The fiddler played fairly
well, and Pierre La Chene, if somewhat pronounced in his
movements, was at least a picturesque figure, whose soul
was in the dance. So amusing, were his antics that the
girl laughed heartily, despite the danger of her position.
It was evident that Pierre was vastly taken with his
partner. He rolled his eyes about in a languishing and
alarming fashion; he twisted and wriggled like a
contortionist, and occasionally varied the lightning-like
shuffle of his own feet by kicking a good deal higher
than his own head. He called upon his partner to "stay
with it" in almost inarticulate gasps. "Whoop her up!"
he yelled. "Git thar, Jean! Bravo, ma belle! Whoo-sh!"
It was a very nightmare of grotesqueness to Dorothy. The
moonlight night, the black houses and pines looming up
against the snowy landscape, the red glare in the immediate
foreground caused by the burning buildings, the
gesticulating figure of her half-breed partner, the
excited, picturesque onlookers, the vagaries of the
fiddler and the never-ceasing sound of the Indian drum,
all tinged with an air of unreality and a sense of the
danger that menaced, made up a situation that could not
easily be eclipsed. And she was dancing and trying to
make herself believe she was enjoying it, opposite a
crazy half-breed rebel! She recognised him now as the
dandy Pierre, the admiration of the fair sex in his own
particular world on the Saskatchewan. If only any of her
people could see her now, what would they think of her?
But was this wild dance to go on for ever? Already she
was becoming warm in her fur coat, despite the lowness
of the temperature. There was a limit to her powers of
endurance, albeit she was stronger than the average girl.
The onlookers, charmed with the grace of this unknown
dancer, were noisy in their applause. She must feign
fatigue and drop out, letting some one else take her
place.
With an inclination of her head to her partner she did
so, but he, doubtless captivated by the dark, laughing
eyes he saw gazing at him above the deep fur collar, did
not care to continue the dance with some one whose eyes
might not be so bewitching, and dropped out also. The
half-breed girl, his former partner, who up till now had
contented herself by gazing sulkily from lowering brows
upon this strange rival, was at last stirred by still
deeper feeling. She came close up to Dorothy, and gazed
searchingly into her face. At the same moment they
recognised each other, for often had Dorothy admired the
full, wildflower beauty, the delicate olive skin, and
the dark, soulful eyes of this part descendant of a noble
Gallic race and a barbaric people, and spoken kindly to
her. The half-savage Katie had looked upon her white
sister as a superior being from another world, and had
almost made up her mind that she loved her, but she loved
Pierre La Chene in a different way, and when that sort
of love comes into one's life, all else has to give place
to it With a quick movement she drew down Dorothy's fur
collar, exposing her face.
"_Voila!_" she cried; "_one of the enemy--the daughter
of Douglas!_"
It was as if the rebels had suddenly detected an embodied
spirit that had worked evil in their midst, for the music
stopped, and the excited crew rushed upon her. But Pierre
La Chene kept them back. Those proud, defiant eyes had
exercised a singular charm over him, and when he saw her
face he almost felt ready to fight the whole crowd--almost
ready, for, like a good many other lady-killers, Pierre
had a very tender regard for his own personal safety.
Still, he cried--
"_Prenez garde_--tek caar! _Ma foi_, but she can dance
it! Let us tek her to Louis Riel. He is at the chapel.
We may learn much."
With her keen instincts, Katie saw the ruse.
"She has the evil eye, and has bewitched Pierre!" she
cried, and made as if to lead her old lover away.
But Pierre's response was to thrust her violently from
him. Katie would have fallen but that Dorothy caught her.
"Oh, Katie, poor Katie!" was all she said.
And then the half-breed girl realised the evil she had
wrought, and shrunk from the kindly arms of the sister
she had betrayed.
"To Riel with her!--to Riel with her!" was the cry of
the fickle malcontents, and, with a yelling following at
her heels, Dorothy was led away.