Out of the forest at the signal came running Alloybeau and McDonald and
Frith, alert, ready for anything, wondering beyond wonder at the call
that meant deliverance. Not one of them had thought to see again this
strange, intrepid woman who pierced the forbidden places and wound men
like Mr. Mowbray around her fingers. It would have been a toss-up for
men to attempt what she had done.
She was coming to the canoe, and she was victorious. Yet they knew that
death was up and at her heels, from the sound of the shots.
The big canoe was in the water, the men were ready, paddle in hand, with
Wilson knee-deep in the stream ready to push off, when along the reach
of shore there came that sorry ending to the gallant venture,--Ridgar
and the girl, staggering, stumbling, trying to make what haste they
could, with swinging roughly between them the apparently lifeless body
of the factor of Fort de Seviere.
Breathless and exhausted they reached the boat. Brilliers and Wilson
reached for their burden, threw it into the bottom, and hauled Maren on
her knees among the thwarts.
There was a shove, a word, a dip of the paddles, and the canoe shot
out to the deeper waters, and none aboard her saw the form of Edmonton
Ridgar draw back into the shelter of tangled vines on shore.
“Give me a blade!”
From the rocking bottom Maren was reaching for a paddle, got it, thrust
by some one into her hands, and was cleaving water with the best of
them, deep stroke after deep stroke, the rush and suck of the eddy in
her ears.
In the cold blue darkness the stream whispered and warned like some old
witch at her cauldron, the night was clammy, and behind the new fires
flared against the towering trees.
A babble of voices told of pursuit,--shouts and gutturals that strung
out from the camp all through the gorge and were beginning to flow with
the river.
“Only a matter of time,--a little time,” thought Wilson, at the prow,
but never a word was uttered in the canoe.
Exerting every atom of strength, calling on all the will-power aboard,
they shot forward into the night and the current.
The noise behind increased, as the tones of a bell blown by the wind
increase when the wind sets in one's direction.
“Not now!” Maren was saying to herself. “Not now,--when we are so far
toward the winning! Not now,--oh, Friend of my heart! why was that
price demanded? Holy Mary rest him, that young Marc Dupre--and send
deliverance for this--”
Ahead the river swept around a turn. Keeping close to the shore they
caught shallow water and cut round into a wider opening.
The cries behind veered and deadened, and suddenly Wilson in the prow
raised his blade.
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 passed 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 shifting 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.
“Who,--did ye say?”
“A man, M'sieu,--a-a-trapper.”
“One lone man? Troth I commend his valour in evadin' such a rabble
o' hell-spawn! An' what from did he escape,--th' sthake an' th'
stretchline?”
“Justice, M'sieu,--his life for the chief's.”
“Ho-ho! From th' looks o' yer fri'nds, me lad, I'm thinkin' 'twill
be justice wid her eyes shut!... But ye may turrn back an' search the
forest,--we have no sthrangers in our party.”
DesCaut glowered at him a moment and spoke to the headmen around in
their speech. There were threatening gutturals and gestures.
The flotilla was small compared to that of the tribe back at the gorge,
they would know, at any rate.
“They say, if M'sieu will let one canoe go through his people with the
torches, all will be well. Otherwise,--five hundred warriors, M'sieu,
can take their will with two hundred.”
“Aye?” said the tall man, jerking his head around. He had been scanning
the mass of his own craft, packed behind him, fading into the shadows
out of the light. There was a peculiar look in his eyes when he faced
DesCaut again, a thrust to his square jaw. In that backward look he had
caught sight of the brown face of Maren Le Moyne, the white garment,
glittering with its beads,--but he had seen, too, the crown of braids,
wrapped round her head after the manner of the white woman.
“Go yer ways,” he said; “we thravel fast on urgent business,--ye cannot
throuble us wid yer lookin' an' pokin'. Tell yer fri'nds--No.”
At this there was commotion among the Indians. A hurried consultation
took place, with indrawing of canoes under the flambeaux, waving arms,
and angry gestures.
“Then, M'sieu,--we come,--make way!” It was DesCaut, important and ugly.
“No, ye don't, me lad. Shwing back The Little Devil, bhoys!”
The leader's canoe shifted sidewise and another craft, heavy,
lumbersome, and vastly bigger than the light boats of the rest poked its
nose into its place,--and that nose was brass and round with a gaping
maw,--a small cannon, scarcely big enough for the name, but a roaring
braggart for all that.
“Belch, me darlin', if ye have th' belly-ache!” cried this tall man,
and, without more warning, there was a tremendous flash and detonation,
a mighty flying of the clear waters just under the bows of the foremost
canoes of the Indians.
There was hiss and sputter of the torches, an upward leap of canoe and
savage, capsize and panic and fear, and the night screamed with many
voices.
“Formation again, lads!” called the sturdy voice of the leader. “We do
be wastin' time wid these haythen!”
The canoe rounded, passed up between the others, which closed in behind,
and the cannon-boat lumbered into place in the rear.
As he passed the strangers in their midst the tall man looked hard at
Maren, the five men, and leaned out a bit to see what lay in the bottom.
“A close shave!” he said; “kape close in the middle an' shpake me at
camp in the marnin'.”
The mass of dark objects, drawing out of the light, moved forward and,
with a rush of intuition, the girl knew that all danger was past and
that safety hovered over them like the luminous wings of an angel.
“Holy Master!” she cried within, “Thou didst answer my prayer,--but at
what cost! Oh, Lord of Heaven, what cost!”
Then she dropped her blade and, under cover of the darkness, sat back
upon her heels, covered her face with her hands, and wept.
In the silence that had fallen deep again, save for the lessening tumult
behind, her weeping sounded to the outermost canoe low and awful, hard
and terrible as the weeping of a man.
She did not even feel if the breath was still in McElroy.
Friendship was taking its toll of love.