In another minute Sergeant John Dick was standing on the western
shore of the lake, looking across its dark waters at a bright light
shining out in the middle of these, almost directly opposite him.
The light came, of course, from a window of “Water Castle.” It was
so small and ray-like that he knew it must be issuing from the open
loophole of a closed shutter.
He was considering whether it would be quite safe to fire the three
shots that Muriel Arnold had told him was the signal “want to come
off shore,” when suddenly a guttural voice spoke quite close to
him--a word or two in the Indian tongue.
Startled beyond measure, he faced in the direction of the sound, and
crouched down instinctively as he did so, pointing his revolver,
which he was already gripping in case of need, and breathing hard
and fast.
A light flared, and became a great blaze of dancing flame, amid the
loud crackling of burning brushwood. Some one had lit a bonfire--no
ordinary camp fire that--within a hundred feet or so of him!
The guttural Indian words told him that he had to deal with foes. He
thanked his stars that he had been prudent enough to approach the
lakeside with every caution of woodcraft.
Softly parting the bushes beside him, he craned his neck round a
tree which partly stood in the way, and saw that the fire had been
made in a fairly open space abutting right on the lakeside--a sort
of wide glade or avenue extending some thirty feet or more back from
the water’s edge.
The flames were shooting high into the air, lighting up the glade
and casting a ruddy glow out over the dark waters of the lake.
And in the lurid, flickering glare, Sergeant Dick saw a sight which
filled him with consternation.
Being set against three trees by a number of the rebellious redmen,
were Muriel Arnold, her uncle, and his son Amos, while just in
front, nearer the water’s edge that is, was poor half-witted Jenny
in the grip of several more hideously painted braves!
Near by, evidently directing operations, was a most truculent
looking athletic young sagamore or chief!
Some two score or more warriors stood, leaning on their rifles and
looking on, on the farther side of the glade.
Muriel and her uncle and cousin were being bound to the three trees,
with their faces towards the lake and the distant light in “Water
Castle.” The fire being slightly to one side of them would reveal
them plainly to anybody looking out of “Water Castle” on that side.
“Ugh! The white girl, beloved by Manito, and therefore sacred to all
true redmen, will now go in canoe to her home on the water, dat is
when I have fired my rifle to attract the attention of her friends.
She will then, on arriving at her home, say that all within ‘Water
Castle’ must come ashore in the ark and give themselves up, when we
will spare their lives and the lives of their friends here. But if
they do not agree to this--do not come ashore and surrender, then
they will see their friends here--that is the two white men, not the
beautiful white girl--put to the torture. The beautiful white girl,
the Lily o’ the Valley, she become my squaw. I have spoken--I,
Howling Wolf, the War Chief of the Ogalcrees.”
The Indian chief made this declaration in a slow, deliberate, and
dignified manner, with his rifle-butt resting on the ground, and the
weapon held in his left hand at arm’s length.
With the last word he caught up the piece, put it to his shoulder,
and, pointing it into the air and out over the lake, pulled the
trigger.
Sharp on the report, a flood of light streamed forth from the
southern side of “Water Castle”--its front really--displaying part
of the verandah. And then out on to this, in the glare of the light,
rushed in a body the rest of the squatter’s family--his wife, and
three other sons, and his two daughters-in-law.
The six stood as if transfixed, staring across the water at the
spectacle on the lakeside, which must have been plainly visible to
them.
It was too far for even a modern rifle to carry with effect, and the
light on both sides, of course, was of the poorest for such long
range. Moreover, the men and women on the verandah were partly
screened by the waist-high, boarded-in end of this.
“Put the child of the Manito in the canoe and let her depart with
the message of Howling Wolf,” said the chief, with a grim chuckle.
The North American Indians have always considered persons of feeble
intellect as under the direct protection of the Almighty--“Manito”
as they call Him--and therefore invariably treat them with respect,
and a reverence that is half-pity, half-awe. What a lesson for our
own much-vaunted civilization, where the half-witted are too often
regarded as fair butts for all manner of rough practical joking!
Jenny Arnold was led to the water’s edge, where Sergeant Dick now
saw a score and more canoes had been beached. His eye noted in the
same glance that some half-dozen of the canoes--farthermost from
him--which could not be drawn up on the limited strip of shelving
sand under the bank like the others, were floating, moored to trees
by their painters.
Jenny was put in the nearest canoe and given the paddles. Then three
of the Indians pushed the craft off, and she paddled away
frantically across the lake towards “Water Castle.”
Sergeant Dick racked his brains to think how he might effect a
rescue of the three prisoners. His heart was full of bitter grief
and anxiety as regarded the sweet girl before him, whom he now knew
he loved with all the strength of his deep-feeling, but not easily
moved, nature.
“I would sooner see her dead before me--kill her with my own hands
than that she should become the squaw of that villainous young
chief, Howling Wolf,” he reflected, his heart surcharged with
poignant rage. “He would treat her worse than his dog after awhile,
and her life would be a misery to her. I will deliver her and her
uncle and cousin, or share their fate. But how to effect my purpose?
That’s the question.”
He could think of no plan which at all held out a promise of
success, and he was still hopelessly regarding the scene in the
glade and ransacking his brains, when suddenly three spears of flame
darted from the thicket on the opposite side of the glade to him,
and the reports of as many rifle-shots rang out almost as one.
Howling Wolf had been standing, leaning on his rifle, and peering
out under his shading left hand after Jenny. He reeled, clapping his
left hand to the back of his feather-plumed head, and then crashed
heavily upon his side.
Two other redskins standing near, also fell and rolled over, then
lay still with feebly twitching limbs. And the forest aisles
promptly resounded with furious shouts of “Down with them! Give ’em
it, boys! Let ’em have it,” and the swift popping of revolvers.
But the redskins, though taken so completely by surprise, were quick
to note that they had apparently only three foemen to deal with.
Even as they broke and scattered for the nearest trees, they shouted
this to one another.
In a flash every redskin except the chief and some half-dozen others
who had been shot down by the first volley or by the quick
revolver-shots, had vanished behind a tree; and a brisk fusillade
now took place between the unseen trio in the thicket and the
Indians.
Only a few seconds, however, did the fusillade last--just while the
redmen were reassuring themselves that they had but three foes to
deal with. Then with a ringing war-whoop one of them burst from his
tree and ran, doubled up, and jumping from side to side towards the
surprisers’ place of concealment.
As one man the rest of the band followed him, yelling like so many
railway engines; and, to Sergeant Dick’s astonishment, Howling Wolf
bounded to his feet as if unhurt and raced after them, adding his
quota to the terrific whooping.
The three men in the bushes fled incontinently before that
overwhelming rush. The police officer could hear them tearing away
madly through the undergrowth without waiting to shoot back.
Quick as thought, he himself darted forward towards the open space.
He ran at full speed, and yet made hardly the slightest sound, on
account of his backwoods’ training, and with the firelight showing
him his path.
Into the glade he burst, just as two of the Indians lying there
showed symptoms of life and struggled into reclining postures.
Paying no heed to them, he flew to the prisoners, and hurriedly
began to slash through the ropes, which bound Amos, the nearest of
the trio. He used his clasp knife, which he had opened even as he
sprang into the glade; and the blade was as sharp as any razor.
As the cords parted, and Amos stood free in body and limb, Sergeant
Dick handed him his revolver, exclaiming:
[Illustration: HE FLEW TO THE PRISONERS, AND HURRIEDLY BEGAN TO SLASH
THRU THE ROPES.]
“Get one of the redskins’ knives, and free your father, while I free
Muriel. If you are quick we should get away in one of their canoes.”
Without a word, Amos grabbed the revolver, and, rushing to the
nearest dead Indian, snatched his scalping-knife from his belt, then
ran to liberate the old man; what time Sergeant Dick had sprung to
Muriel’s side, and was cutting the cords confining her wrists.