We left Ian Macdonald, it will be remembered, far away in the western
wilderness, suffering from the wounds received during his memorable and
successful combat with a grizzly bear. These wounds were much more
serious than had at first been supposed, and, despite the careful
nursing of Vic Ravenshaw and Michel Rollin, he grew so weak from loss of
blood that it became evident to all of them that they should have to
take up their abode in that wild unpeopled spot for a considerable
period of time. They therefore planned and built a small log-hut in a
wood well stocked with game, and on the margin of a little stream where
fish abounded.
At first Victor resolved to ride to the nearest fort of the fur-traders
and fetch a doctor, or the means of conveying their wounded friend to a
place where better attendance and shelter were to be had, but
insurmountable difficulties lay in the way. There were no doctors in
the land! The nearest abode of civilised man was several hundred miles
distant, and neither he nor Rollin knew the way to any place whatever.
They had depended entirely on Ian as a guide, and now that he was
helpless, so were they! It would have been difficult for them even to
have found their way back to the Red River Settlement without the aid of
the scholastic backwoodsman. They were constrained, therefore, to rest
where they were, hoping from day to day that Ian would regain strength
sufficient to bear the fatigue of a journey. Thus the winter slowly
slipped away, and wild-fowl--the harbingers of spring--were beginning to
awake the echoes of the northern woods before Ian felt himself strong
enough to commence the journey homewards.
That winter, with all its vicissitudes, hopes, fears, adventures, and
pleasures, we must pass over in absolute silence, and re-introduce our
three friends on the evening of a fine spring day, while riding over a
sweep of prairie land in the direction of a thick belt of forest.
"The river must be somewhere hereabouts," said Ian, reining up on an
eminence, and gazing earnestly round him.
"Vas you ever here before?" asked Rollin.
"Ay, once, but not at this precise spot. I don't quite recognise it. I
hope my long illness has not damaged my memory."
"If we don't reach the river soon," said Victor, with something of
weariness in his tone, "this poor brute will give in."
Victor referred to his horse, which had been reduced by some unknown
disease to skin and bone.
"However, I'm well able to walk," he continued, more cheerfully; "and it
can't be long before we shall fall in with the river, and some Indians,
who will sell or lend us a canoe."
"Ah! my cheval is not much more better dan your von," said Rollin; and
he spoke the truth, for his horse was afflicted with the same disease
that had attacked that of Victor. Ian's steed, however, was in
excellent condition.
That night the invalid horses were freed from all their troubles by a
pack of wolves while their owners were asleep. They had been "hobbled"
so carelessly that they had broken loose and strayed far from the
encampment. Being weak they fell an easy prey to their sneaking
enemies.
Next day, however, the three friends reached the river of which they
were in search, found a family of Indians there who bartered with them a
canoe and some provisions for the remaining horse, and continued their
homeward journey by water.
For a time all went well. The river was in high flood, for the
snow-fall there, as elsewhere, had been unusually heavy, but all three
were expert voyageurs, and succeeded in steering past difficulties of
all kinds, until one afternoon, when good fortune seemed to forsake them
utterly. They began by running the canoe against a sunk tree, or snag,
and were obliged to put ashore to avoid sinking. The damage was,
however, easily remedied; and while Ian was busy with the repairs his
comrades prepared a hot dinner, which meal they usually ate cold in the
canoe. Next they broke a paddle. This was also easily replaced. After
that they ventured to run a rapid which almost proved too much for them;
it nearly overturned the canoe, and filled it so full of water that they
were compelled to land again, unload, and empty it.
"Dat is too bad," observed Rollin, with a growl of discontent.
"It might have been worse," said Ian.
"Bah!" returned Rollin.
"Pooh!" ejaculated Victor.
"Very good," said Ian; "I only hope the truth of my remark mayn't be
proved to both of you."
It has been asserted by the enemies of Ian Macdonald that the
catastrophe which followed was the result of a desire on his part to
prove the truth of his own remark, but we acquit him of such baseness.
Certain it is, however, that the very next rapid they came to they ran
straight down upon a big stone over which the water was curling in grand
fury.
"Hallo!" shouted Ian, in sudden alarm, dipping his paddle powerfully on
the right.
"Hi!" yelled Rollin, losing his head and dipping wildly on the same
side--which was wrong.
"Look out!" roared Victor.
He might as well have roared "Look in," for any good that could have
come of it. There was a crash; the canoe burst up and doubled down, the
bow was hurled high in the air, the rest of it lay out limp, and
disappeared. Rollin went clean over the rock, Victor went round it, and
Ian, after grasping it for a second, went under it apparently, for, like
the canoe, he disappeared. That rapid treated these voyagers roughly.
Of the three, Michel Rollin appeared to suffer most. After sending him
round the stone in a rush of foam that caused his arms and legs to go
round like a mad windmill, it sucked him down, rubbed his head on the
boulders at the bottom, shot him up feet foremost into the air, received
him on its raging breast again, spun him round like a teetotum, and, at
last, hurled him almost contemptuously upon a sandbank at its foot.
Ian and Victor also received a severe buffeting before gaining the same
sandbank, where they faced each other in a blaze of surprise and horror!
Unable to find words to express their feelings, they turned
simultaneously, and waded in silence from the sandbank to the shore.
Here a consultation of the most doleful character that can be imagined
was entered into.
"Everything lost," said Ian, sitting down on a bank, and wringing the
water out of his garments.
"Not even a gun saved," said Victor gravely.
"No, nor von mout'ful of pemmican," cried Rollin, wildly grasping his
hair and glaring.
The poor fellow seemed to his friends to have gone suddenly mad, for the
glare of despair turned to a grin of wild amusement, accompanied by a
strange laugh, as he pointed straight before him, and became, as it
were, transfixed.
Turning to look in the direction indicated, they beheld a small Indian
boy, absolutely naked, remarkably brown, and gazing at them with a look
of wonder that was never equalled by the most astonished owl known to
natural history.
Seeing that he was observed, the boy turned and fled like an antelope.
Rollin uttered a yell, and bounded away in pursuit. The half-breed
could easily have caught him, but he did not wish to do so. He merely
uttered an appalling shriek now and then to cause the urchin to increase
his speed. The result was that the boy led his pursuer straight to the
wigwam of his father, which was just what Rollin wanted. It stood but a
short distance from the scene of the wreck.
And now, when, to all appearance, they had reached the lowest turn in
the wheel of fortune, they were raised to the highest heights of joy,
for the Indian proved to be friendly, supplied them with provisions to
continue their journey, and gave them a good bow and quiver of arrows on
their simple promise to reward him if he should visit them at Red River
in the course of the summer. He had not a canoe to lend them, however.
They were therefore constrained to complete their journey over the
prairies on foot.
"You see, I said that things might be worse," said Ian, as they lay on
their backs beside each other that night after supper, each rolled in
his blanket and gazing complacently at the stars.
"Yes, but you did not say that they might also be better. Why did not
your prophetic soul enable you to see further and tell of our present
state of comparative good fortune, Mr Wiseman?" asked Victor with a
sigh of contentment.
"I did not prophesy, Vic; I only talked of what _might_ be."
"Vat is dat you say? vat _might_ be?" exclaimed Rollin. "Ah! vat _is_
is vorse. Here am me, go to bed vidout my smok. Dat is most shockable
state I has yet arrive to."
"Poor fellows!" said Ian, in a tone of commiseration.
"You indeed lose everything when you lose that on which your happiness
depends."
"Bah!" ejaculated Rollin, as he turned his back on his comrades and went
to sleep.
A feeling of sadness as well as drowsiness came over Victor as he lay
there blinking at the stars. The loss of their canoe and all its
contents was but a small matter compared with the failure of their
enterprise, for was he not now returning home, while Tony still remained
a captive with the red man? Ian's thoughts were also tinged with
sadness and disappointment on the same account. Nevertheless, he
experienced a slight gleam of comfort as the spirit of slumber stole
over him, for had he not, after all, succeeded in killing a grizzly
bear, and was not the magnificent claw collar round his neck at that
very moment, with one of the claw-points rendering him, so to speak,
pleasantly uncomfortable? and would he not soon see Elsie? and--.
Thought stopped short at this point, and remained there--or left him--we
know not which.
Again we venture to skip. Passing over much of that long and toilsome
journey on foot, we resume the thread of our tale at the point when our
three travellers, emerging suddenly from a clump of wood one day, came
unexpectedly to the margin of an unknown sea!
"Lak Vinnipeg have busted hisself, an' cover all de vorld," exclaimed
Rollin, with a look of real alarm at his companions.
"The Red River has overflowed, and the land is flooded," said Ian, in a
low solemn voice.
"Surely, surely," said Victor, in sudden anxiety, "there must have been
many houses destroyed, since the water has come so far, but--but,
father's house stands high."