At War with Pontiac by Kirk Munroe (best book reader txt) 📕

that he had been discovered by his friends, and then all was quiet save for an occasional yell from the camp, where the fire-water was exerting its baneful influence. At length these, too, died into silence, the last glimmer of firelight was lost in the distance, and the fugitives felt that they might safely exult over their escape, though they still observed the precaution of speaking in the lowest of tones.

"Take a rest, Bullen," said Donald, breaking the enforced silence. "You must be pretty well exhausted with this work coming on top of what you've done all day, and it is no longer necessary for us to travel at full speed."

"I am about used up, that's a fact," admitted the little man, laying in his paddle and stretching himself wearily in the bottom of the canoe.

"I don't wonder. But I say I how like a trump you bowled that fellow over, on the beach. I was just wondering how we could down him without giving him a chance to alarm the camp, when all at once you had the job done. How did you happen to think of it?"

"I hadn't been thinking of anything else from the first," replied the paymaster, "and I knew your thoughts were running in the same direction, for I noticed the glances exchanged between you and Christie. Poor fellow! I wonder what will become of him."

"Yes. The dear old chap is in the worst of it now," sighed Donald. "We can only hope he'll be held for ransom or exchange. How I wish he were with us, not only for his own sake, but for the aid he could afford in the task we have undertaken."

"What task?"

"The rescue of my sister and Madam Rothsay, of course."

"You don't mean that you propose, unarmed and unaided, to attempt anything so hopeless as that?"

"Certainly I do. And that is what we are going to the island for. You wouldn't leave them in captivity, would you?"

"No, I wouldn't do that; but I would wait in hiding somewhere for the arrival of the reinforcements that must surely be coming up the lake by this time."

"And so give the Indians ample opportunity for removing their captives to some remote and inaccessible place, which I only hope they have not done already. No, indeed, that would never do. We must act promptly, and before those chaps on the island have a suspicion of our coming."

"But there are at least a dozen of them, and all are well armed."

"If there were twice as many I should still make the attempt to rescue my sister from their hands. Just imagine the distress she must be suffering all this time, uncertain as to her ultimate fate, dreading the worst, and hoping against hope, that some one will come to her assistance. Poor child! the suspense must be terrible."

"Yes," sighed Bullen. "And poor Madam Rothsay, too, plunged from the height of civilization into the depths of savagery without even a maid or a mirror. I can fully sympathize with her. But what do you propose to do? Have you thought out any plan?"

"I have thought of a great many; but only one of them appears at all feasible. It is that we advance boldly into the camp and demand that the ladies be at once taken to Detroit, or Fort Niagara if the Indians prefer, where we will promise that a goodly ransom shall be paid for them."

"As we have no means for enforcing such a demand, they will only laugh at us and add us to their list of captives."

"But we have the means of at least frightening them into compliance with our wishes. Are not you a great medicine man in their estimation, and capable of commanding the fire-demon? Am I not of the Totem of the Bear and wearer of the mystic emblem of the Metai? To be sure, I am very ignorant of these things, but we have had ample proof of their importance, and in the present case I propose to make the most of them."

"But, Hester, I can't appear before the ladies in this hideous costume. Do you realize that I am barefooted and literally bareheaded, while my only garment is a wretched old blanket, dirty and ragged, held in place by a rope of bark? I declare I don't think I have ever been so sorry for any one as I am for myself, when I reflect what an object for mirth I must appear. You should remember, too, that I have already gone through with a similar experience, which I have no desire to repeat."

"And came out of it with flying colors and waving plumes. Why, my dear fellow, those chaps on the island will delight in decorating, and befeathering, and fixing you up again in great shape, as they did before. You need not present yourself to the ladies until all your former gorgeousness is restored. Then imagine your triumph. You have no idea how becoming the costume of a forest warrior is to you. Don't you remember how highly Madam Rothsay complimented your impersonation of that character? But seriously, Bullen, I doubt if there is any other plan so good as the one I have suggested; and unless you can think of a better, it is the one we must adopt. Now, as we must be at least within sight of the island, and have no desire to pass it, or land on it in the dark, I propose that we get a little sleep while waiting for daylight to show us its position. My! won't I be glad of a breakfast, though? Plenty to eat was at least one alleviating feature of our recent captivity, and it is to be hoped that our new hosts will be equally generous with their provisions."

A few hours later Donald awoke with an uneasy motion of the canoe, to find it dancing on the little seas raised by a brisk breeze from the westward. The eastern sky was aglow; and, rising darkly against the ruddy light, not a mile away lay an island.

"Is that the one?" he asked of his companion, after awakening him, and pointing to the forest-crowned land.

"How should I know?" answered Bullen, sleepily. "They all look alike from this distance."

"All right," replied Donald, cheerily. "I'll put you so close to it that you can't help knowing." So saying, he seized his paddle and headed their craft toward the shore. He was weary and faint from hunger; but filled with an exhilaration born of near-by danger, and the possible meeting within a few minutes with the dearly loved sister whom he had sought so long, and for whose sake he had suffered so much.

They skirted the shore for a short distance before finding a little cove, bordered with overhanging spruce and cedars, at the head of which they made a landing on a beach of smooth pebbles.

"I believe this is the place," whispered the paymaster, visibly agitated by excitement.

The silence about them was unbroken, and if there were people near at hand, friends or foes, they gave no sign of their presence.

"Hello! Hello the camp!" called Donald, loud and clear. He had no idea of running the risk of being made a target for rifle bullets, by attempting to surprise an Indian camp in broad daylight.

There was no response, no sound of any kind; and after waiting a full minute he sprang into a little path that wound upward among the evergreens, leaving Bullen to follow more slowly.

When the latter overtook his companion, a few moments later, he found him standing in an open space that he instantly recognized as the place where he had bidden farewell to Edith Hester some two weeks before. Now it was silent and deserted. The empty frames of a few lodges stood like gaunt skeletons of human habitations, and Donald was gazing wofully at the sodden ashes of a campfire.

"They are gone," he said, bitterly, "as I might have known they would be; and from the look of things they must have left very soon after you did. Now, if you can tell me which way to turn, or what to do next, you will prove yourself a better reader of riddles than I am."

"Find something to eat first, and plan afterwards," answered the little man, promptly. He could not help feeling relieved at escaping the ordeal of laughter he so much dreaded; and, though honestly sympathizing with Donald's keen disappointment, could think of nothing better to suggest at that moment than breakfast.

"I suppose you are right," agreed Donald, wearily, "and if you will start a fire I will see what I can provide in the way of food."

No hunter in those days travelled without a fire-bag containing flints, steel, and tinder; and, through all vicissitudes, Donald had retained the one that he had appropriated, together with his Indian costume, in the Wyandot camp. With this, then, Bullen started a fire, and finding a broken iron pot in the débris of the camp, cleaned it and set some water to boil.

In the meantime Donald, armed with the fish-spear that he had taken from the young Indian the night before, succeeded, within an hour, in killing a large fish, and a raccoon that he discovered digging for mussels on the beach.

When he returned with his trophies, Bullen greeted him with a joyous shout. "See what I have found!" he cried, at the same time holding up a small object that proved to be a cake of scented soap. It was one of a number that he had presented to the ladies when there before, and now it seemed to him even more precious than the welcome food procured by his companion.

After a hearty meal, that seemed to them one of the best they had ever tasted, in spite of the crudeness of its preparation, the little man treated himself to a bath in the lake, which he declared to be almost as good as a tub, after all. Before he emerged from it, he had succeeded, with the aid of his new-found treasure, in removing the last traces of savage paint from his body.

Then they discussed their situation and decided to make an effort to reach Detroit travelling only by night, and concealing themselves during the hours of daylight. They slept for the greater part of that day; and when, shortly before sunset, Donald visited the highest point of the island to scan the horizon in search of possible enemies, he had the bitter disappointment of seeing a distant sail, that must have passed close by the island, heading for the mouth of the Detroit river. It was the schooner that Gladwyn had sent to hasten Cuyler's movements, returning from the Niagara with the remnant of that expedition, and other reinforcements for the beleaguered post.

"If we had only kept watch!" he remarked to his companion, when telling him of what he had seen.

"Yes, if we only had!"

If they had, and had succeeded in gaining the vessel, it would probably never have reached Detroit; they, and every soul on board, would probably have been killed, and the whole course of events in that section of country would have been changed. Even as it was, the schooner was in most imminent danger; for her coming had been anticipated by Pontiac as well as by the garrison at Detroit, and every preparation known to that warlike chief had been made for her capture.

As she entered the river her every movement was watched by hundreds of gleaming eyes from the wooded banks, and when, with the dying out of the breeze, she was forced to drop anchor, it was with difficulty that the impatient warriors were persuaded from making an attack then and there.

CHAPTER XXXI PONTIAC RECOGNIZES THE TOTEM

The vexatious calm lasted for two days. During this time the schooner Gladwyn caught only such puffs of wind as carried her a few miles up the river, and left her again anchored in