For some time they advanced in absolute silence, dipping their paddles
so as to make no noise whatever; Dan following as close as possible in
the wake of the chief, for it was one of those nights which people
describe as being so dark that one cannot see one's hand before one's
face.
On reaching the lower end of the lake-like expansion where the river
narrowed suddenly and the stream began to be felt, it was discovered
that the enemy was in advance of them--that, anticipating some such
attempt at escape, they had stationed an ambush at the narrows to cut
off their retreat.
Archie was naturally the first to make this discovery, being in the bow
of the canoe. He heard no sound, but suddenly there loomed out of the
darkness another canoe close to them--so close that they were on the
point of running into it when the sharp-witted boy saw it, and, with an
adroit turn of his paddle prevented a collision. Then he ceased to
paddle, and held his breath. Not knowing what to do next he wisely did
nothing, but left matters to Oke and fate!
As they passed, the steersman in the strange canoe uttered something in
a low tone. Evidently he mistook them for his friends.
"Sh!" was Okematan's prompt reply--or the Indian equivalent for that
caution.
They glided silently and slowly past, but the suspicion of the strange
Indian had obviously been aroused, for the paddles of his canoe were
heard to gurgle powerfully. Hearing this, Okematan made a stroke that
sent his canoe ahead like an arrow, and Archie, who appreciated the
situation, seconded the movement.
"Stop!" exclaimed the strange Indian, in the Saulteaux tongue, but the
Cree chief did not feel the duty of obedience strongly upon him just
then. On the contrary, he put forth all his strength, but quietly, for
he remembered that Dan Davidson was behind.
As there was now no need for concealment, the pursuer uttered a shrill
war-whoop which was immediately answered and repeated until the woods
rang with the fiendish sound, while half-a-dozen canoes dashed out from
the banks on either side, and sought to bar the river.
"Now, Arch-ee," said the Cree chief in a low voice, "paddle for your
life and be a man!"
"I'll be two men, if you like, Oke," answered the boy, whose courage was
of that type which experiences something almost like desperate glee in
the presence of imminent danger.
The canoe, obedient to the double impulse and the power of the current,
was soon out of hearing of the pursuers.
"O! if I only had a paddle I might help you," said Little Bill eagerly.
"Yes, an' bu'st your biler, or explode your lungs, or something o' that
sort," said his brother. "No, no, Little Bill; you sit there like a
lord or an admiral, an' leave men like Oke an' me to do all the dirty
work."
While he spoke thus flippantly it is but justice to say that Archie was
never more anxiously in earnest in his life, and that he strained at his
paddle with a degree of energy that made him, perhaps, more than equal
to many an average man. So that the canoe forged well ahead of the
pursuers and finally got to a part of the river where three islets
divided it into several channels, rendering further pursuit in the dark
useless if not impossible.
Their comrades, however, were not so fortunate. Left behind by the
sudden spurt of his leader, Davidson and his companion exerted
themselves to overtake him, but the canoes of the enemy, which were just
too late to cut off the retreat of Okematan, were in time to intercept
the second canoe. In this emergency Dan swerved aside, hoping to get to
the bank before the Saulteaux could discover his exact whereabouts. His
intentions were thwarted by the want of caution in his companion.
"Iss it to the land ye are going?" asked Fergus.
"Yes--it's our only chance," whispered Dan.
"It iss my opeenion--" murmured the Highlander.
"Hush!" ejaculated Dan.
But the caution came too late. A listening Red-skin overheard the
sounds, and, with a sudden dash was alongside of them. He did not,
however, know the vigour of the men with whom he had to deal. While he
was in the very midst of a triumphant war-whoop, Dan cut him over the
head with the paddle so violently that the instrument became splinters,
and the whoop ceased abruptly. At the same time Fergus caught hold of
the bow of the enemy's canoe with an iron grasp, and, giving it a heave
that might have put Samson to shame, fairly overturned it.
"Ye can wet your whustle now--whatever," he muttered.
As he spoke, the canoe ran with extreme violence against the invisible
bank. At the same moment a random volley was fired from the canoes in
rear. Fear lest they should wound or kill a comrade probably caused
them to send the whizzing bullets rather high, but for one instant the
flame revealed the position of the fugitives, and those who had reserved
their fire took better aim.
"Take to the bush, Fergus!" cried Dan, as he grasped his gun and leaped
into the shallow water.
The Highlander stooped to lay hold of his weapon, which lay in the bow
of the canoe, just as another volley was fired. The act was the means
of saving his life, for at least half-a-dozen bullets whizzed close over
his head. Before he could recover himself a strong hand grasped his
neck and flung him backwards. Probably a desperate hand-to-hand fight
would have ensued, for Fergus McKay had much of the bone, muscle, and
sinew, that is characteristic of his race, but a blow from an unseen
weapon stunned him, and when his senses returned he found himself bound
hand and foot lying in the bottom of a canoe. He could tell from its
motion, that it was descending the river.
Meanwhile Dan Davidson, under the impression that his comrade was also
seeking safety in the bush, did his best to advance in circumstances of
which he had never yet had experience, for, if the night was dark on the
open bosom of the river, it presented the blackness of Erebus in the
forest. Dan literally could not see an inch in advance of his own nose.
If he held up his hand before his face it was absolutely invisible.
In the haste of the first rush he had crashed through a mass of small
shrubbery with which the bank of the stream was lined. Then on passing
through that he tumbled head over heels into a hollow, and narrowly
missed breaking his gun. Beyond that he was arrested by a tree with
such violence that he fell and lay for a minute or two, half-stunned.
While lying thus, experience began to teach him, and common sense to
have fair-play.
"A little more of this," he thought, "and I'm a dead man. Besides, if
it is difficult for me to traverse the forest in the dark, it is equally
difficult for the savages. My plan is to feel my way step by step, with
caution. That will be the quietest way, too, as well as the quickest.
You're an excited fool, Dan!"
When a man begins to think, and call himself a fool, there is some hope
of him. Gathering himself up, and feeling his gun all over carefully,
to make sure that it had not been broken, he continued to advance with
excessive caution, and, in consequence, was ere long a considerable
distance from the banks of the river, though, of course, he had but a
hazy idea as to what part of the country he had attained, or whither he
was tending.
As the first excitement of flight passed away, Dan began to feel uneasy
prickings of conscience at having so hastily sought safety for himself,
though, upon reflection, he could not accuse himself of having deserted
his comrades. Okematan and the boys, he had good reason to believe--at
least to hope--had succeeded in evading the foe, and Fergus he supposed
had landed with himself, and was even at that moment making good his
escape into the forest. To find him, in the circumstances, he knew to
be impossible, and to shout by way of ascertaining his whereabouts he
also knew to be useless as well as dangerous, as by doing so he would
make his own position known to the enemy.
He also began to feel certain pricking sensations in his right leg as
well as in his conscience. The leg grew more painful as he advanced,
and, on examination of the limb by feeling, he found, to his surprise,
that he had received a bullet-wound in the thigh. Moreover he
discovered that his trousers were wet with blood, and that there was a
continuous flow of the vital fluid from the wound. This at once
accounted to him for some very unusual feelings of faintness which had
come over him, and which he had at first attributed to his frequent and
violent falls.
The importance of checking the haemorrhage was so obvious, that he at
once sat down and did his best to bind up the wound with the red cotton
kerchief that encircled his neck. Having accomplished this as well as
he could in the dark, he resumed his journey, and, after several hours
of laborious scrambling, at last came to a halt with a feeling of very
considerable, and to him unusual, exhaustion.
Again he sat down on what seemed to be a bed of moss, and began to
meditate.
"Impossible to go further!" he thought. "I feel quite knocked up.
Strange! I never felt like this before. It must have been the tumbles
that did it, or it may be that I've lost more blood than I suppose.
I'll rest a bit now, and begin a search for Fergus by the first streak
of dawn."
In pursuance of this intention, the wearied man lay down, and putting
his head on a mossy pillow, fell into a profound sleep, which was not
broken till the sun was high in the heavens on the following day.
When at last he did awake, and attempted to sit up, Dan felt, to his
surprise and no small alarm, that he was as weak as a child, that his
leg lay in a pool of coagulated gore, and that blood was still slowly
trickling from the wound in his thigh.
Although disposed to lie down and give way to an almost irresistible
tendency to slumber, Dan was too well aware that death stared him in the
face to succumb to the feeling without a struggle. He therefore made a
mighty effort of will; sat up; undid the soaking bandage, and proceeded
to extemporise a sort of tourniquet with it and a short piece of stick.
The contrivance, rude as it was, proved effectual, for it stopped the
bleeding, but Dan could not help feeling that he had already lost so
much blood that he was reduced almost to the last stage of exhaustion,
and that another hour or two would probably see the close of his earthly
career. Nothing, perhaps, could have impressed this truth upon him so
forcibly as his inability to shout when he tried to do so.
In the faint hope that Fergus might be within call, he raised his voice
with the full knowledge that he ran the risk of attracting a foe instead
of a comrade. The sound that complied with the impulse of his will
would have made him laugh if he had not felt an amazing and
unaccountable disposition to cry. Up to that period of his life--almost
from his earliest babyhood--Dan Davidson's capacious chest had always
contained the machinery, and the power, to make the nursery or the
welkin ring with almost unparalleled violence. Now, the chest, though
still capacious, and still full of the machinery, seemed to have totally
lost the power, for the intended shout came forth in a gasp and ended in
a sigh.
It was much the same when he essayed to rise. His legs almost refused
to support him; everything appeared to swim before his eyes, and he sank
down again listlessly on the ground. For the first time, perhaps, in
his life, the strong man had the conviction effectually carried home to
him that he was mortal, and could become helpless. The advantage of
early training by a godly mother became apparent in this hour of
weakness, for his first impulse was to pray for help, and the resulting
effect--whether men choose to call it natural or supernatural--was at
least partial relief from anxiety, and that degree of comfort which
almost invariably arises from a state of resignation.
After a brief rest, the power of active thought revived a little, and
Dan, again raising himself on one elbow, tried to rouse himself to the
necessity of immediate action of some sort if his life was to be saved.
The spot on which he had lain, or rather fallen down, on the preceding
night happened to be the fringe of the forest where it bordered on an
extensive plain or stretch of prairie land. It was surrounded by a
dense growth of trees and bushes, except on the side next the plain,
where an opening permitted of an extensive view over the undulating
country. No better spot could have been chosen, even in broad daylight,
for an encampment, than had been thus fallen upon by the hunter in the
darkness of night.
But the poor man felt at once that this advantage could be of no avail
to him, for in the haste of landing he had thought only of his gun, and
had left his axe, with the bag containing materials for making fire, in
the canoe. Fortunately he had not divested himself of his powder-horn
or shot-pouch, so he was not without the means of procuring food, but of
what use could these be, he reflected, if he had not strength to use
them?
Once again, in the energy of determination, he rose up and shouldered
his gun with the intention of making his way across the plain, in the
hope that he might at all events reach the wigwam of some wandering
Indian, but he trembled so from excessive weakness that he was obliged
to give up the attempt, and again sank down with feelings akin to
despair.
To add to his distress, hunger now assailed him so violently that he
would have roasted and eaten his moccasins--as many a starving man had
done before him, though without much benefit--but even this resource was
denied him for the want of fire, and raw moccasin was not only
indigestible but uneatable!
Still, as it seemed his only hope, he gathered a few dry twigs and
sticks together, drew the charge from his gun and sought to kindle some
mossy lichen into flame by flashing the priming in the pan of the lock.
Recent rains had damped everything, however, and his attempts proved
abortive. Fortunately the weather was warm, so that he did not suffer
from cold.
While he was yet labouring assiduously to accomplish his purpose, the
whir of wings was heard overhead. Glancing quickly up, he perceived
that a small flock of willow-grouse had settled on the bushes close to
him. He was not surprised, though very thankful, for these birds were
numerous enough and he had heard them flying about from time to time,
but that they should settle down so near was exceedingly opportune and
unexpected.
With eager haste and caution he rammed home the charge he had so
recently withdrawn--keeping his eyes fixed longingly on the game all the
time. That the birds saw him was obvious, for they kept turning their
heads from side to side and looking down at him with curiosity. By good
fortune grouse of this kind are sometimes very stupid as well as tame.
They did not take alarm at Dan's motions, but craned their necks and
seemed to eye him with considerable curiosity. Even when he tried to
take aim at them their general aspect suggested that they were asking,
mentally, "What next?"
But Dan found that he could not aim. The point of the gun wavered
around as it might have done in the hands of a child.
With a short--almost contemptuous--laugh at his ridiculous incapacity,
Dan lowered the gun.
Stupid as they were, the laugh was too much for the birds. They spread
their wings.
"Now or never!" exclaimed Dan aloud. He pointed his gun straight at the
flock; took no aim, and fired!
The result was that a plump specimen dropped almost at his feet. If he
had been able to cheer he would have done so. But he was not, so he
thanked God, fervently, instead.
Again the poor man essayed to kindle a fire, but in trying to do this
with gunpowder he made the startling discovery that he had only one more
charge in his powder-horn. He therefore re-loaded his gun, wiped out
the pan and primed with care, feeling that this might be the last thing
that would stand between him and starvation. It might have stood
between him and something worse--but of that, more hereafter.
Starving men are not particular. That day Dan did what he would have
believed to have been, in him, an impossibility--he drank the blood of
the bird and ate its flesh raw!
"After all," thought he, while engaged in this half-cannibalistic deed,
"what's the difference between raw grouse and raw oyster?"
It is but right to add that he did not philosophise much on the subject.
Having consumed his meal, he lay down beside his gun and slept the
sleep of the weary.