Some time before the outbreak, Riel, in company with a
half-breed, had gone in the autumn shooting chicken along
the prairies. The hunting-ground was many miles distant
from Riel's home, so that the intention of the sportsmen
was to trust themselves to the hospitality of some
farm-house in the neighbourhood. The settlers were all,
with two or three exceptions, Metis; and the door of the
half-breed is never shut against traveller or stranger.
One late afternoon, as the two men were passing along
the prairie footpath towards a little settlement, they
heard at some distance over the plain, a girl singing.
The song was exquisitely worded and touching, and the
singer's voice was sweet and limpid as the notes of a
bobolink. M. Riel, like Mohammed, El Mahdi, and other
great patrons of race and religion, is strong of will;
but he is weaker than a shorn Samson when a lovely woman
chooses to essay a conquest. So he marvelled much to his
companion as to who the singer might be, and proposed
that both should leave the path and join the unknown fair
one. A few minutes walk brought the two beyond a small
poplar grove, and there, upon a fallen tree-bole, in the
delicious cool of the autumn evening, they saw the
songstress sitting. She was a maiden of about eighteen
years, and her soft, silky-fine, dark hair was over her
shoulders. In girlish fancy she had woven for herself a
crown of flowers out of marigolds and daisies, and put
it upon her head. She did not hear the footsteps of the
men upon the soft prairie, and they did not at once reveal
themselves, but stood a little way back listening to her.
She had ceased her song, and was gazing beyond intently.
On the naked limb of a desolate, thunder-riven tree that
stood apart from its lush, green-boughed neighbours, sat
a lonely thrush in seeming melancholy. Every few seconds
he would utter a note of song. Sometimes it was low and
sorrowful, then it was louder, with the same sad quality
in it, as if the lonely bird were calling for some
responsive voice from far away over the prairie.
"Dear bird, you have lost your mate, and are crying out
for her," the girl said, stretching out her little brown
hand compassionately toward the low-crouching songster.
"Your companions have gone to the South, and you wait
here trusting that your mate will come back, and not
journey to summer lands without you. Is not that so, my
poor bird? Ah, would that I could go with you where there
are always flowers, and ever can be heard the ripple of
little brooks. Here the leaves will soon fall, ah, me!
and the daisies wither, and instead of the delight of
summer we shall have only the cry of hungry wolves, and
the bellowing of bitter winds above the ghastly plains.
But could I go to the South, there is no one who would
sing over my absence one lamenting note, as you sing, my
bird, for the mate with whom you had so many hours of
sweet lovemaking in these prairie thickets. Nobody loves
me woos me, cares for me, or sings about me. I am not
even as the wild rose here, though it seems to be alone
and is forbidden to take its walk: for it holds up its
bright face and can see its lover; and he breathes back
upon the kind, willing, breeze-puffs, through all the
summer, sweet-scented love messages, tidings of a matrimony
as delicious as that of the angels." She stood up, and
raised her arms above her head yearningly. The autumn
wind was cooing in her hair, and softly swaying its silken
meshes.
"Fare well, my desolate one: may your poor little heart
be gladder soon. Could I but be a bird, arid you would
have me for a companion, your lamenting should not be
for long. We should journey loitering and love-making
all the long sweet way, from here to the South, and have
no repining."
Turning around, she perceived two men standing close
beside her. She became very confused, and clutched for
the blanket to cover her face, but she had strayed away
among the flowers without it. Very deeply she blushed
that the strangers should have heard her; and she spake
not.
"Bon jour, ma belle fille." It was M. Riel who had
addressed her. He drew closer, and she, in a very low
voice, her olive face stained with a faint flush of
crimson, answered,
"Bon jour, Monsieur."
"Be not abashed. We heard what you were saying to the
bird, and I think the sentiments were very pretty."
This but confused the little prairie beauty all the more.
But the gallant stranger took no heed of her embarrassment.
"With part of your declaration I cannot agree. A maiden
with such charms as yours is not left long to sigh for
a lover. Believe me, I should like to be that bird to
whom you said you would, if you could, offer love and
companionship." M. Riel made no disguise of his admiration
for the beautiful girl of the plains. He stepped up by
her side and was about to take her hand after delivering
himself of this gallant speech, but she quickly drew
it away. Passing through a covert as they neared the
little settlement, Riel's sportsman companion walked
ahead, leaving the other two some distance in the rear.
The ravishing beauty of the girl was more than the
amorously-disposed stranger could resist, and suddenly
throwing his arms around her he sought to kiss her. But
the soft-eyed fawn of the desert soon showed herself in
the guise of a petit bete sauvage. With a startling scream
she bounded away from his grasp.
"How do you dare take this liberty with me, Monsieur,"
she said, her eyes kindled with anger and wounded pride.
"You first meanly come and intrude upon my privacy; next
you must turn what knowledge you gain by acting spy and
eavesdropper, into a means of offering me insult. You
have heard me say that I had no lover to sigh for me. I
spoke the truth: I _have_ no such lover. But you I will
not accept as one; your very sight is already hateful
to me." And turning, with flushed cheek and gleaming
eyes, she entered the cosy, cleanly-kept little cottage
of her father. But she soon reflected that she had been
guilty of an unpardonably inhospitable act in not asking
the strangers to enter. Suddenly turning, she walked
rapidly back, and overtook the crest-fallen wooer and
his companion, and said in a voice from which every trace
of her late anger had disappeared.
"Entrez, Messieurs."
M. Riel's countenance speedily lost its gloom, and,
respectfully touching his hat, he said:
"Oui, Mademoiselle, avec le plus grand plaisir." Tripping
lightly ahead she announced the two strangers, and then
returned, going to the bars where the cows were lowing,
waiting to be milked. The persistent sportsman had not
by any means made up his mind to desist in the wooing.
"The colt shies," he murmured, "when she first sees the
halter. Presently she becomes tractable enough." Then,
while he sat waiting for the evening meal, blithely
through the hush of the exquisite evening came the voice
of the girl. She was singing from _La Claire Fontaine_:
"A la claire fontaine
Je m'allait promener,
J'ai trouve l'eau si belle
Que je me suis baigne."
Her song ended with her work, and as she passed the
strangers, with her two flowing pails of yellow milk,
Riel whispered softly, as he touched her sweet little
hand:
"Ah, ma petite amie!"
The same flash came in her eyes, the same proud blood
mantled through the dusk of her cheek, but she restrained
herself. He was a guest under her father's roof, and she
would suffer the offence to pass. The persistent gallant
was more crest-fallen by this last silent rebuke, than
by the first with its angry words. The first, in his
vanity, he had deemed an outburst of petulance, instead
of an expression of personal dislike, especially as the
girl had so suddenly calmed herself and extended
hospitalities. He gnashed his teeth that a half-breed
girl, in an obscure village, should resent his advances;
he for whom, if his own understanding was to be trusted,
so many bright eyes were languishing. At the evening meal
he received courteous, kindly attention from Marie; but
this was all. He related with much eloquence all that
he had seen in the big world in the East during his school
days, and took good care that his hosts should know how
important a person he was in the colony of Red River. To
his mortification he frequently observed in the midst of
one of his most self-glorifying speeches that the girl's
eyes were abstracted, as if her imagination were wandering.
He was certain she was not interested in him, or in his
exploits.
"Can she have a lover?" he asked himself, a keen arrow
of jealousy entering at his heart, and vibrating through
all his veins. "No, this cannot be. She said in her
musings on the prairie that she had nobody who would sing
a sad song if she were to go to the South. Stop! She
may love, and not find her passion requited. I shall
stay about here some days, upon some pretext, and I shall
see what is in the wind."
The next morning, when breakfast was ended, he perceived
Marie rush to the window, and then hastily, and with a
dainty coyness withdraw her head from the pane.
Simultaneously he heard a sprightly tune whistled, as if
by some glad, young heart that knew no care. Looking now,
he saw a tall, well-formed young whiteman, a gun on his
back, and a dog at his heels, walking along the little
meadow-path toward the cottage.
"This is the lover," he muttered; "curses upon him." From
that moment he hated with all the bitterness of his nature
the man now striding carelessly up toward the cottage
door.
"Bon jour, mademoiselle et messieurs" the newcomer said
in cheery tones, as he entered, making a low bow.
"Bon jour, Monsieur Scott," was the reply. Louis Riel,
intently watching, saw the girl's colour come and go as
she spoke to the young man. This was the same Scott, the
Thomas Scott, the tidings of whose fate, at the hands of
the rebel and murderer, Louis Riel, in later years, sent
the blood boiling through the veins of Western Canada.
The young man stayed only for a few moments, and Riel
observed that everybody in the house treated him as if
in some way he had been the benefactor of all. When he
arose to go, young Jean, who knew of every widgeon in
the mere beyond the cottonwood grove, and where the last
flock of quail had been seen to alight, followed him out
the door, and very secretly communicated his knowledge.
Marie had seen a large flock of turkeys upon the prairie
a few moments walk south of the poplar grove, and perhaps
they had not yet gone away.
"When did you see them, ma chere mademoiselle Marie?
enquired Scott. You know turkeys do not settle down like
immigrants in one spot, and wait till we inhabitants of
the plains come out and shoot them. Was it last week, or
only the day before yesterday that you saw them?" There
was a very merry twinkle in his eye as he went on with
this banter. Marie affected to pout, but she answered.
"This morning, while the dew was shining upon the grass,
and you, I doubt not, were sleeping soundly, I was abroad
on the plains for the cows. It was then I saw them. I am
glad, however, that you have pointed out the difference
between turkeys and immigrants. I did not know it before."
He handed her a tiger lily which he had plucked on the
way, saying,
"There, for your valuable information, I give you that.
Next time I come, if you are able to tell me where I can
find several flocks, I shall bring you some coppers." With
a world of mischief in his eyes, he disappeared, and Mary,
in spite of herself, could not conceal from everybody in
the house a quick little sigh at his departure.
"It seems to me this Monsieur Scott is a great favourite
with your folk, Monsieur?" Said M. Riel, when the young
man had left the cottage. "Now I came with my friend also
for sport, but no pretty eyes had seen any flocks to
reserve for me." And he gave a somewhat sneering glance
at poor Marie, who was pretending to be engaged in
examining the petals of the tiger-lilly, although she
was all the while thinking of the mischievous, manly,
sunny-hearted lad who had given it to her. M. Riel's
words and the sneer were lost, so far as she was concerned.
Her ears were where her heart was, out on the plain beyond
the cottonwood, where she could see the tall, straight,
lithe figure of young Scott, with his dog at his heels,
its head now bobbing up from the grass, and now its tail.
"Oui, Monsieur," returned Marie's father, "Monsieur Scott
is a very great favourite with our family. We are under
an obligation to him that it will be difficult for us
ever to repay."
"Whence comes this benefactor," queried M. Riel, with
an ugly sneer, "and how has he placed you under such
obligation?" Then, reflecting that he was showing a
bitterness respecting the young man which he could just
then neither explain nor justify, he said:
"Mais, pardonnez moi. Think me not rude for asking these
questions. When pretty eyes are employed to see, and
pretty lips to tell of, game for one sportsman in preference
to another, the neglected one may be excused for seeking
to know in what way fortune has been kind with his rival."
"Shall I tell the whole story, Marie?" enquired the
_pere_, "or will you do so?"
"O I know that you will not leave anything out that can
show, the bravery of Mr. Scott, so I shall leave you to
tell it," replied the girl.
"Well, last spring, Marie was spending some days with
her aunt, a few miles up Red River. It was the flood
time, and as you remember the river was swollen to a
point higher than it had ever reached within the memory
of any body in the settlement. Marie is venturesome, and
since a child has shown a keen delight in going upon
boats, or paddling a canoe; so one day, during the visit
which I have mentioned, she got into a birch that swung
in a little pond formed behind her uncle's premises by
the over-flowing of the stream's channel. Untying the
canoe, she seized the blade and began to paddle about in
the lazy water. Presently she reached the eddies, which,
since a child, she has always called the 'rings of the
water-witches,' wherever she learned that term. Her
cousin, Violette, was standing in the doorway, as she
saw Marie move off, and she cried out to her to beware
of the eddies; but my daughter, wayward and reckless, as
it is her habit to be in such matters, merely replied
with a laugh; and then, as the canoe began to turn round
and round in the gurgling circles, she cried out, 'I am
in the rings of the water-witches. C'est bon! bon! C'est
magnifique! O I wish you were with me, Violette, ma chere.
It is so delightful to go round and round.' A little way
beyond, not more than twice the canoe's length, rushed
by, roaring, the full tide of the river. 'Beware, Marie,
beware, for the love of heaven, of the river. If you get
a little further out, and these eddies will drag you out,
you will be in the mad current, and no arm can paddle
the canoe to land out of the flood. Then, dear, there is
the fall below, and the fans of the mill. Come back,
won't you!' But my daughter heeded not the words. She
only laughed, and began dipping water up from the eddies
with the paddle-blade, as if it were a spoon that she
held in her hand. 'I am dipping water from the witches
rings,' she cried. 'How the drops sparkle! Every one is
a glittering jewel of priceless value. I wish you were
here with me, Violette!' Suddenly, and in an altered
tone, she cried, 'Mon Dieu! My paddle is gone.' The paddle
had no sooner glided out into the rushing, turbulent
waters than the canoe followed it, and Marie saw herself
drifting on to her doom. Half a mile below was the fall,
and at the side of the fall, went ever and ever around
with tremendous violence, the rending fans of the
water-mill. Marie knew full well that any drift boat, or
log, or raft, carried down the river at freshet-flow,
was always swept into the toils of the inexorable wheels.
Yet, if she were reckless and without heed a few minutes
before, I am told that now she was calm. As she is present,
I must refrain from too much eulogy of her behaviour.
Violette gave the alarm that Marie was adrift in the
river without a paddle, and in a few seconds, every body
living near had turned out, and were running down the
shore. Several brought paddles, but it took hard running
to keep up with the canoe, for the flood was racing at
a speed of eight miles an hour. When they did get up in
line each one flung out a paddle. But one fell too far
out, and another not far enough. About fifteen men were
about the banks in violent excitement, and every one of
them saw nothing but doom for Marie. As the canoe neared
a point about two hundred yards above the fall, a young
white man--all the rest were bois-brules--rushed out upon
the bank, with a paddle in his hand, and, without a word,
leaped into the mad waters. With a few strokes, he was
at the side of the canoe, and put the paddle into Marie's
hand. 'Here,' he said, 'Keep away from the mill; that
is your only danger, and steer sheer over the fall,
getting as close as possible to the left bank.' The height
of the fall, as you are aware, was not more than fifteen
or eighteen feet, and there was plenty of water below,
and not very much danger from rocks. 'Go you on shore
now, and I will meet my doom, or achieve my safety,'
Marie said; but the young man answered, 'Nay, I will go
over the fall too: I can then be of some service to you.'
So he swam along by the canoe's side directing my daughter,
and shaping the course of the prow on the very brink of
the fall. Then all shot over together. The canoe and
Marie, and the young man were buried far under the terrible
mass of water, but they soon came to the surface again,
when the heroic stranger saved my daughter, and through
the fury of the mad churning waters, landed her safe and
unhurt upon the bank. The young man was Thomas Scott,
whom you saw here this morning. Is it any wonder, think
you, that when Marie sees wild turkeys upon the prairie,
she keeps the knowledge of it to herself till she gets
the ear of her deliverer? Think you, now, that it is
strange he should be looked upon by us as a benefactor?"
"A very brave act, indeed, on the part of this young
man," replied the swarthy M. Riel. "He has excellent
judgment, I perceive, or he would not so readily have
calculated that no harm could come to any one who could
swim well by being carried over the falls."
Marie's eyes flashed indignantly at this cold blooded
discounting of the generous, uncalculating bravery of
her young preserver.
"I doubt, Monsieur, she said, whether if you had been on
the bank where Monsieur Scott jumped in, you would have
looked upon the going over of the fall as an exploit so
free of danger as you describe it now. As a matter of
fact, there _were_ many half-breeds there, many of whom,
no doubt, were as brave as yourself, but I should have
perished in the fans of the mill if I had to depend upon
the succour of any one of them."
"Mademoiselle," he retorted with a fierce light in his
eye, "I am not a half-breed."
"O, pardonnez mois, I thought from your features and the
straightness of your coal-black hair, that you were."
Riel's blood was nigh unto boiling in his veins, but he
had craft enough to preserve a tolerably unruffled
exterior.
"And in return for this great bravery, ma petite demoiselle
has, I suppose, given her heart to her deliverer?"
"I think Monsieur is impertinent; and I shall ask my
father to forbid him to continue to address me in such
a manner."
"A thousand pardons; I did not mean to pain, but only to
chaff, your brave daughter. I think that Monsieur Scott
is most fortunate in having a friend, a beautiful friend,
so loyal to him, and so jealous of his fair fame. But
to pass to other matters. Have you had visits from any
emissaries of the Canadian government during the autumn?"
"Yes, Monsieur Mair came here one day in company with
Monsieur Scott. They were both quail shooting. They
stayed only for a little, and I was quite favourably
impressed with the agreeableness and politeness of M.
Mair's manners."
"O, indeed! Monsieur Mair was here and with Mr. Scott!
I am glad that you conceive an opinion so favourable of
Monsieur Mair, but I regret that I am unable to share in
the regard. I think I had better open your eyes somewhat
to the character of this agreeable gentleman. Since
coming to Red River, his chief occupation has been writing
correspondence respecting our colony, and the civilization
and morals of our people. I have been preserving carefully
some of the communications for future use, and if you
will permit me I shall read an extract from a late
contribution of his to a newspaper printed in Ontario.
You will, I think, be able to gather from it something
of his opinion respecting the Metis women. Indeed, I am
surprised that Mademoiselle's great friend and preserver,"
he looked sneeringly at Marie, "should have for so close
a companion a person who entertains these views about
our people."
"I do not know that Monsieur Scott is so close a companion
of Monsieur Mair," put in Marie. "I think Monsieur is
now, as he has been doing all along, assuming quite too
much."
"I sincerely trust that I am doing so, but I shall read
the extract," and he took from his pocket-book a newspaper
slip. Smoothing the creases out of the same, he read,
with the most malignant glee, the following paragraph,
dwelling with emphasis upon every disparaging epithet:--
"Here I am in Red River settlement. What a paradise
of a place it is. The mud, which is a beautiful dusky
red, like the complexion of the Red River belles, does
not rise much beyond my knees; and resembling the
brown-skinned beauties in more than complexion, it
affectionately clings to me, and do what I will, I
cannot get rid of it."
"That is a very flattering description of our Red River
young women, I am sure, and from the pen of your great
friend's friend, too. Now is it not? But there is more
than this," and he proceeded to read further.
"The other evening they had a pow-wow in the settlement,
which they called a dance. I was invited, and being
considered such a great man here, of course--I do not
speak it boastingly--the hearts of all the
tallow-complexioned girls throbbed at a great rate
when I entered."
"Tallow complexioned girls!" reiterated the reader.
"Very complimentary, indeed, on the part of the friend
of your greatest friend."
"Monsieur will either please finish reading his slip,
since he wishes to do so, although, for my part, I am
not at all interested in it, or put it by. In any case,
I must ask that he will cease addressing me in this
insolent tone."
"Then, since Mademoiselle wills it so, I shall finish
the very truthful and complimentary paragraph without
further comment."
"Such a bear garden as that dance was; yet I somewhat
enjoyed the languishing glances of the bright-eyed
damsels. But, ugh! the savages never can be made to
wash themselves. When the dance had continued for
three or four hours, the dancers began to pair off
like pigeons and in each nook you could observe a
half-breed and his girl, sometimes the demoiselle
nursing her beau with arms about his neck, or _vice
versa_. ... The women are all slatterns, and as a rule
they exhibit about as much morality as is found among
the female elk of the prairies. A white man here who
is at all successful in winning female attention,
needs but to whistle, or to raise his finger, to have
half a dozen of the dusky beauties running after him.
While I write this letter I see two maidens passing
under my window. I no longer take pride or fun in the
matter. To me they have become a nuisance."