Annette, the Metis Spy Part 9

"But there is no use in waiting here to-night. The band is divided into watches; and one division has lain down to sleep. From some words that I heard one of the braves say I judge that they will carry the prisoners to Beaver Mountain, where there is a Cree stronghold.

Here they will be held to abide the will of le chef. The march will last at least three days. But as they advance they will grow less cautious; then we may be able to accomplish something. Come, let us get back to our tent."

Stretching themselves upon the fresh, fragrant boughs, they drew the rug over their two sweet, tired bodies, and fell into a restoring sleep.

CHAPTER VI.

A DARING RESCUE.

When they awoke the sun was up, the mists had rolled out of the hollow, and every bush and blade of gra.s.s glittered as if set in diamonds. Hard by the tent ran a little brook, leaping, rushing, eddying, gurgling, sparkling down the incline, to join the larger stream whose slow moaning had sounded so terrible in the fog and dark.

"It is full of fish," gleefully exclaimed Julie; and casting a fly (for they had not come without tackle), she soon landed a trout about a pound weight. It was a blending of pink and silver on the belly, and was mottled with dots of brown. "One apiece," she cried, as another beauty curled and leaped upon the gra.s.s, by one of Annette's deftly booted little feet.

The kit supplied two or three flat pans that could be stowed conveniently; and into one of these the fish were put.

"Now, Julie, while you prepare the breakfast, I shall go and take a look at how things stand in the next camp."

She crept noiselessly through bush and brake, and perceived the band just making ready for a start. Captain Stephens was put upon a horse in the centre of the cavalcade, and his companion, pale and blood- stained, rode next behind.

Annette and Julie cautiously followed, drawing close to the party when it rode through the bush, but keeping far in the rear when the course lay over the plain. Towards the set of sun, they observed a horseman about a mile behind them, riding at high speed. They waited till the man drew near, and perceived that he was a Cree Indian.

"Message from Little Poplar," the brave said, as he reined in his splashed and foam-flecked pony, "The Great Chief rages against mademoiselle, and has braves searching for her through every part of the territory." Producing a paper, he handed it to Annette. Upon it were written in bold letters the following:

PROCLAMATION.

Any one bringing to my presence a young person, disguised as a Cree spy, and riding a large gray mare, will receive a reward of $500.

This spy and traitor is usually accompanied by another person of smaller stature, and also disguised as a Cree boy. Rides a black gelding. These traitors have heard our secret counsels as friends, and have gone and disclosed our plans to the enemy. They gave warning of our approach to a band of government officers; they procured the escape of the oppressors from Fort Pitt; and they turned away Big Bear and his braves from pursuit of the fugitives, by lies. Our first duty is to capture them. No injury is to be done to the chief offender, who is to be immediately brought to my presence.

LOUIS DAVID RIEL.

"Tell your brave chief, mon ami," Annette said, "that we shall take care to avoid the followers of le grand chef, and of unfriendly Indians."

The Indian turned his pony, and was about retracing his steps, when Julie rode up to him, and in her exquisitely timid little way, said in a soft voice,

"Faites mes amities a monsieur, votre chef." The Indian replied, "Oui, oui," and urged his pony to the height of its speed. When Julie joined her mistress there was a little rose in each cheek, and a gleam in her faintly humid eye.

"Sending a message to her chief?" Annette said, looking at the bright, brown beauty. "She need not have blushed at giving her message to the brave; he thought that she was an Indian lad."

"Oh, I forgot," Julie murmured; and she pressed her deftly booted feet against the flanks of her pony.

The savage was, evidently, not enamoured of the lonesome journey back to his chief, for rumour had peopled every square mile of all the plains with warriors, and with hidden a.s.sa.s.sins. And spread across that arc of the sky where the sun had just gone down, were troops of clouds, of crimson, and bronze and pink; and in their curious shapes the solitary rider saw mighty horses, bestrode by giant riders, all congregated to join in the war. He knew that these were the spirits of chiefs who had ruled the plains long before the stranger with the pale face came; they always a.s.sembled when great battles were to be fought; and when their brothers began to lose heart in the fray, they would descend from the clouds and give to each warrior the heart of the lion, and the arm of the jaguar.

His heart swelled with a wild war-fever as these thoughts pa.s.sed through his brain. Then the darkness began to creep over the plains; it came softly and as remorselessly as the prairie panther; and a fear grew upon the savage. The hors.e.m.e.n in the sky had come nearer to the earth; some of them had trooped across through the dusk, till they stood directly above his head; and he fancied that several of the figures had lowered themselves down till they almost touched him.

In the deepening dusk he could not observe what they were doing. They at last actually reached the earth;--and three giants stood before his horse.

"Mon Dieu," shrieked the terrified creature, and his hand lost control over the reins. His pony did not heed the spectres, but walked straight on. Nay, he pa.s.sed so close to one of the dread things that the Indian's arm brushed the goblin. Its touch was hard.

The man shrieked, and in a terror that stopped the beating of his heart fell to the ground. When he arose, he found that the spectre was not from the sky; but only a tall prairie poplar.

Pray, readers, do not laugh at the unreasonable terror of this untutored savage. I have seen some of yourselves just as unreasonable.

While the Indian was suffering the sunset clouds to fill him, now with enthusiasm, and again with dread, Annette and Julie were keeping their ponies at their fleetest pace to regain sight of the party.

"Do you know, Julie, I feel a presentiment that an opportunity for the rescue will come to-night. The captors will not dream of pursuit so far from the frequented grounds and known trails, and they will be off their guard. See! yonder they camp;" and while she was yet speaking, a pyramid of scarlet flame, scattering showers of sparks, shot up from a recess in the bluff lying directly before them.

"Rein in, Julie, we must find a bluff a safe distance off for our horses. Should they get scent or sight of the ponies in yonder camp, and whinny, all would be lost."

So swerving to the left, and taking a course at right angles to their late one, they rode slowly and silently till a bluff rose from the prairie, a short distance in front, like a hill.

"We shall tether our horses here, Julie; but I believe our stay will not be a long one." And the pair dismounted, tied their tired beasts, and swiftly raised the white sides of their tent.

"Ee-e-e-e!" it was Julie who gave the shriek. The thicket was swarming with soft, noiseless wings, and a bird with burning eyes had brushed the face of the maiden with its pinion. "What is it, ma maitresse? It has two bright eyes, and it touched my face. Ee-e-e. O!

There it is again."

"What is the matter, Julie? Do you want to bring Jean and his Indians here, with this pretty screaming of yours?"

"But it brushed me in the face twice, mademoiselle."

"These are only night hawks, Julie; they gather sometimes like this in our own poplar-grove."

"O-o that's what it was? Pardonnez-moi. What a simpleton I am, my mistress. Do you think they heard me?" and her sweet voice was now so low, that the locust, dozing among the spray of the golden-rod, could scarcely have heard her tones. The thicket was literally swarming with these noiseless birds; and wondering they flew round and round the figures of the intruders, but most of all did they marvel at the great mound of white that had been raised amongst them. Some of them, in alarm, rose high above the bluff, wheeling and darting hither and thither, and the girls could hear their c-h-u-n-g as if some hand, high up in the air, had smote the ba.s.s chord of a violoncello. But when the flame from the camp fire arose, terror seized every feathered thing in the bluff, and they all flew, in wild haste, away from the bewildering light.

Annette was now away wandering through the grove, gathering dry and fallen limbs for the fire; and as Julie bustled about through the long prairie gra.s.s, preparing the meal, she was startled with a little cry.

"Mon Dieu, what is it?" Julie hastened away to her mistress, her bright eyes widened and gleaming with alarm.

"What has happened my mistress?"

"Oh! is that all it is? Why Julie, I am just as silly as you are. I stooped to pick up what I thought a little bramble, but when I laid my hand upon it, it moved; and then went under the ground. It was a gopher. I am now rebuked for chiding the fears of my little maid."

"But anybody would scream at touching a live thing like that on the ground. It was foolish, though, to be frightened at a bird."

Generous, sweet little Julie!

They now busied themselves with their supper, brewing some tea in a shallow pan; and when they had spread their store of provisions they sat down by the side of the fire, and ate their meal of home-made bread and cold meat. It would have gladdened the heart of the most withered monk to see those two healthy, plump little maidens in the flickering fire light, their garments loosened, their eyes glowing, their cheeks and lips in hue like the cherry, eating slice after slice of bread and meat, and draining cup after cup of the fragrant tea.

"Now Julie," Annette said rising, after the precious maiden had eaten enough to make some miserable philosopher ill for a week of dyspepsia, "I shall creep out and make a reconnaissance." And buckling on her belt, with its large bright-bladed knife, and her ready revolver, she went away softly and cunning as a cat. The very field-mouse could have known nothing of her coming till her sweet foot was upon its head: and when she came in sight of the hostile camp fire with the dull scarlet glow that the ma.s.s of dying embers threw out, she stooped so low that a spectator near by would have imagined that the dark thing moving across the level was a prairie dog.

At last she was at the very edge of the bluff, and was peering between the branches at the party, about the flight of an arrow within. Captain Stephens was there, full in the light, his arms and legs fast bound, and tied to a st.u.r.dy white oak tree. Near a poplar, a few paces distant, lay his comrade, likewise bound and fastened to a tree. Most of the Indians were asleep; the remainder lolled about, showing no evidence of keeping vigil. Jean she could not perceive; and she believed, and was no doubt right, that he was sleeping.

"It is well," the maiden e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed in a little whisper; and she returned swiftly and noiselessly as a shadow to her own camp fire.

"Most of them sleep; and presently there will not be an open eye among the braves. Ah, Julie, if you but saw how they have _him_ bound--both of the captives, I mean." And her eyes flashed, while her hand made a little blind, convulsive motion toward her pistol. "We have no time now to waste; help me to pack." In the s.p.a.ce of a few minutes everything was ready for a start, and the horses led away to another bluff which loomed up about five hundred yards distant. Julie could not divine the reason for this precaution, but Annette whispered,

"Child, the light of our fire might, at the first moment of flight lead to recapture, should any of my plans fail; and it would take us a half an hour to extinguish the embers by fetching water in our little pans."

Yes, Julie saw a little of what her mistress was aiming at; and reposed perfect trust in Annette's ability to do everything with skill and success. The beasts were tethered, and dark as was that prairie night, these two girls with skill as unerring as the instinct of a pair of night-hawks could come back and find them. Then they struck out through the long gra.s.s, and made for the bluff where lay the Stonies and their prisoners.