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- Author: R. M. Ballantyne
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This plan was agreed to by Wapaw, who thereupon advised that they should all lie down to sleep without delay. Roy, who was fatigued with his day’s exertions, agreed, and in less than half an hour the three were sound asleep.
Next morning they arose with the sun, much refreshed; and while Wapaw and Nelly collected together and packed on their new sledge the few things that they possessed, Roy went for the last time to cast his line in Silver Lake. He was more fortunate than usual, and returned in an hour with four fine fish of about six pounds’ weight each.
With this acceptable, though small, addition to their slender stock of provisions, they left the hut about noon, and commenced their journey, making a considerable détour in order to avoid meeting with any of the Indians who might chance to have continued the pursuit of Wapaw.
That same evening, towards sunset, a party of hunters marched out of the woods, and stood upon the shores of Silver Lake, the tracks about which they began to examine with particular interest. There were six of the party, five of them being white hunters, and one an Indian. We need scarcely add that they were our friend Robin and his companions.
“I tell ’ee what it is,” cried Robin, in an excited tone, “that’s my Nelly’s fut; I’d know the prints o’t among a thousand, an’ it’s quite plain Roy is with her, an’ that Wapaw has come on ’em, for their tracks are clear.”
“Sure it looks like it,” observed Larry O’Dowd, scratching his head as if in perplexity, “but the tracks is so mixed up, it ain’t aisy to foller ’em.”
“See, here’s a well-beaten track goin’ into the wood!” cried Walter, who had, like his companions, been searching among the bushes.
Every one followed Walter, who led the way towards the hut, which was finally discovered with a thin, scarcely perceptible line of smoke still issuing from the chimney. They all stopped at once, and held back to allow Robin to advance alone. The poor man went forward with a beating heart, and stopped abruptly at the entrance, where he stood for a few seconds as if he were unable to go in. At length he raised the curtain and looked in; then he entered quickly.
“Gone, Walter, they’re gone!” he cried; “come in, lad, and see. Here’s evidence o’ my dear children everywhere. It’s plain, too, that they have left only a few hours agone.”
“True for ye, the fire’s hot,” said Larry, lighting his pipe from the embers in testimony of the truth of his assertion.
“They can’t be far off,” said Slugs, who was examining every relic of the absent ones with the most minute care. “The less time we lose in follerin’ of ’em the better—what think ye, lad?” The Black Swan nodded his approval of the sentiment.
“What! without sleep or supper?” cried Stiff, whose enthusiasm in the chase had long ago evaporated.
“Ay,” said Robin sternly, “I start now. Let those stop here who will.”
To do Stiff justice, his objections were never pressed home, so he comforted himself with a quid of tobacco, and accompanied Robin and his men with dogged resolution when they left the hut. Plunging once more into the forest, they followed up the track all night, as they had already followed it up all day.
Some hours before dawn Robin Gore came to an abrupt pause, and looking over his shoulder, held up his hand to command silence. Then he pointed to a small mound, on the top of which a faint glow of light was seen falling on the boughs of the shrubs with which it was crowned.
The moon had just set, but there was sufficient light left to render surrounding objects pretty distinct.
“That’s them,” said Robin to Walter, in a low whisper, as the latter came close to his side; “no doubt they’re sound asleep, an’ I’m puzzled how to wake ’em up without givin’ ’em a fright.”
“Musha! it’s a fright that Wapaw will give us, av we start him suddenly, for he’s murtherin’ quick wi’ his rifle,” whispered Larry.
“We’d better hide and then give a howl,” suggested Stiff, “an’, after they’re sot up, bring ’em down with a familiar hail.”
The deliberations of the party were out short and rendered unnecessary, however, by Wapaw himself. That sharp-eared red man had been startled by the breaking of a branch which Larry O’Dowd chanced to set his foot on, and, before Robin had observed their fire, he had roused Roy and Nelly and hurried with them to the summit of a rocky eminence, from which stronghold they now anxiously watched the proceedings of the hunters. The spot to which they had fled for refuge was almost impregnable, and might have been held for hours by a couple of resolute men against a host of savages.
Robin, after a little further consultation, resolved to send the Black Swan in advance to reconnoitre. This he did, contrary to his wonted custom of taking the lead in everything, because of an unaccountable feeling of dread lest he should not find his children there.
Black Swan at once stepped cautiously forward with his rifle, ready cocked, in the hollow of his left arm, and his finger on the trigger-guard. Step by step he moved towards the encampment without making the slightest noise, and with so little motion that he might easily have been mistaken for a dark shadow. Raising his head over the edge of the encampment he gazed earnestly into it, then he advanced another pace or two, finally he stepped into it, and, standing erect, looked around him. With a wave of his hand he summoned his comrades to advance. Robin Gore’s heart beat hard as he approached, followed by the others.
Meanwhile they were closely watched by Roy and Wapaw. When the Black Swan’s head appeared, Roy exclaimed in a whisper, “An Injun—d’ye know him, Wapaw?”
“He is one of our tribe, I think,” replied the Indian, in the same low voice, “but I know him not; the light of the fire is not strong.”
“If he’s one o’ your tribe,” said Roy, “it’s all up with us, for they won’t be long o’ findin’ us here. Keep close to me, Nell. I’ll stick by you, lass, don’t fear.”
Wapaw’s brows lowered when he saw the Black Swan step into the encampment, and make the signal to his comrades to advance. He raised his rifle, and took deliberate aim at his heart.
“Roy,” he whispered, “get an arrow ready, aim at the next man that steps into the light and let fly; I’ll not fire till after you, for the smoke would blind you.”
Roy obeyed with a trembling hand. Notwithstanding the rough life he had led in those wild woods of the West, he had never yet been called on to lift his hand against a human being, and the thought of taking life in this deliberate and almost murderous way caused him to shudder; still he felt that their case was desperate, and he nerved himself to the deed.
Another moment, and Robin stood beside the Black Swan. Roy tried to raise his bow, but his heart failed him. Wapaw glanced at him, and said sternly—
“Shoot first.”
At that moment Obadiah Stiff stepped into the encampment, and, stirring the embers of the fire with a piece of stick, caused a bright flame and showers of sparks to shoot upwards. This revealed the fact that some of the party were white men, so Wapaw lowered his rifle. A single glance of his practised eye told him who they were. Laying his hand suddenly and heavily on Roy’s shoulder he pressed him down.
“Come, let us go,” he said quickly; “I must see these men alone, and you must keep close—you must not look.”
He said the latter words with emphasis; but in order to make sure that they should not have a chance of looking, he led his young companions to a point whence the encampment could not be seen, and left them there with strict injunctions not to quit the spot until he should return.
In a few seconds Wapaw stepped into the circle of light where Robin and his party were all assembled, and so rapid and noiseless had his movement been, that he was in the midst of them almost before they were aware of his approach.
“Wapaw!” exclaimed Walter in surprise, “why, you seem to have dropped from the clouds.”
“Sure it’s a ghost ye must be,” cried Larry. The Indian took no notice of these remarks, but turned to Robin, who, with a look of deep anxiety, said—
“Have ’ee seed the childer, Wapaw?”
“They are safe,” answered the Indian.
“Thank God for that!” cried Robin, while a sigh of relief burst from him: “I believe ye, Wapaw, yer a true man an’ wouldn’t tell me a lie, would ye?”
The tone in which the hunter said this implied that the statement was scarcely a true index to his feelings, and that he would be glad to hear Wapaw assure him that he was indeed telling the truth. But this Indian was a man of truthfulness, and did not deem it necessary to repeat his assertion. He said, however, that he would go and fetch the children, and immediately quitted the camp. Soon after he returned with Roy and Nelly; he had not told them, however, who the strangers were.
When Roy first caught sight of his father he gave a shout of surprise, and stood still as if he were bewildered. Nelly uttered a wild scream, and rushed forward with outstretched arms. Robin met her more than half way, and the next moment folded his long-lost little one to his bosom.
It were needless to detail all that was said and done during the remainder of that night, or, rather, morning, for day began to break soon after the happy meeting narrated in the last chapter. It would require more space than we can afford to tell of all that was said and done; how Robin embraced his children over and over again in the strength of his love, and thanked God in the fervour of his gratitude; how Roy and Nelly were eager to relate all that had befallen them since they were carried away into captivity, in a much shorter time than such a long story could by any possibility be told; how Walter rendered the telling of it much more difficult by frequent interruptions with eager questions, which induced divergencies from which the tale-tellers forgot to return to the points where the interruptions occurred; how Larry O’Dowd complicated matters by sometimes volunteering anecdotes of his own, illustrative of points similar to those which were being related; how Slugs always cut these anecdotes short with a facetious poke in the ribs, which caused Larry to howl; how Stiff rendered confusion worse confounded by trying to cook some breakfast, and by upsetting the whole affair into the fire; and how the children themselves broke in on their own discourse continually with sudden and enthusiastic questions as to the health of their mother and the welfare of the live stock at Fort Enterprise.
All this cannot be described, therefore we leave it to the vivid imagination of the reader.
“Now, comrades,” said Robin, after the sun had risen, after breakfast had been and eaten, after every incident had been related at least twice over, and after every conceivable question had been asked four or five times—“now, comrades, it remains for us to fix what we’ll do.”
“To the Fort,” said Larry O’Dowd abruptly.
“Ay—home!” cried Walter.
“Oh yes—home—home!” exclaimed Roy and
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