Lords of the North Part 30

"No--no, Miriam, not Eric, but Eric's friend, Rufus Gillespie."

She tottered as if I had struck her. I caught her in my arms and helped her to the couch of robes.

Then I took up my station facing the tent entrance; for I realized the significance of Laplante's warning.

"We have hunted for more than a year for you," I whispered, bending over her, "but the Sioux murdered our messenger and the other you yourself let out of the tent!"

"That--your messenger for me?" she asked in sheer amazement, proving what I had suspected, that she was kept in ignorance of our efforts.

"I have been here for a week, searching the lodges. My horses are in the valley, and we must dare all in one attempt."

"I have given my word I will not try," she hastily interrupted, beginning to pluck at her red shawl in the frenzied way of delirious fever patients. "If we are caught, they will torture us, torture the child before my eyes. They treat him well now and leave me alone as long as I do not try to break away. What can you, one man, do against two thousand Sioux?" and she began to weep, choking back the anguished sobs, that shook her slender frame, and picking feverishly at the red shawl fringe.

To look at that agonized face would have been sacrilege, and in a helpless, nonplussed way, I kept gazing at the painful workings of the thin, frail fingers. That plucking of the wasted, trembling hands haunts me to this day; and never do I see the fingers of a nervous, sensitive woman working in that delirious, aimless fashion but it sets me wondering to what painful treatment from a brutalized nature she has been subjected, that her hands take on the tricks of one in the last stages of disease. It may be only the fancy of an old trader; but I dare avow, if any sympathetic observer takes note of this simple trick of nervous fingers, it will raise the veil on more domestic tragedies and heart-burnings than any father-confessor hears in a year.

"Miriam," said I, in answer to her timid protest, "Eric has risked his life seeking you. Won't you try all for Eric's sake? There'll be little risk! We'll wait for a dark, boisterous, stormy night, and you will roll out of your tent the way you thrust my Indian out. I'll have my horses ready. I'll creep up behind and whisper through the tent."

"Where _is_ Eric?" she asked, beginning to waver.

Two shrill, sharp whistles came from Louis Laplante, commanding me to come out of the tent.

"That's my signal! I must go. Quick, Miriam, will you try?"

"I will do what you wish," she answered, so low, I had to kneel to catch the words.

"A stormy night our signal, then," I cried.

Three, sharp, terrified whistles, signifying, "We are caught, save yourself," came from Laplante, and I flung myself on the ground behind Miriam.

"Spread out your arms, Miriam! Quick!" I urged. "Talk to the boy, or we're trapped."

With her shawl spread out full and her elbows sticking akimbo, she caught the lad in her arms and began dandling him to right, and left, humming some nursery ditty. At the same moment there loomed in the tent entrance the great, statuesque figure of the Sioux squaw, whom I had seen in the gorge. I kicked my feet under the canvas wall, while Miriam's swaying shawl completely concealed me from the Sioux woman and thus I crawled out backwards. Then I lay outside the tent and listened, listened with my hand on my pistol, for what might not that monster of fury attempt with the tender, white woman?

"There were words in the tepee," declared the angry tones of the Indian woman. "The pale face was talking! Where is the messenger from the Mandanes?"

At that, the little child set up a bitter crying.

"Cry not, my little warrior! Hush, dearie! 'Twas only a hunter whistling, or the night hawk, or the racc.o.o.n! Hush, little Eric!

Warriors never cry! Hush! Hush! Or the great bear will laugh at you and tell his cubs he's found a coward!" crooned Miriam, making as though she neither heard, nor saw the squaw; but Eric opened his mouth and roared l.u.s.tily. And the little lad unconsciously foiled the squaw; for she presently took herself off, evidently thinking the voices had been those of mother and son.

I skirted cautiously around the rear of the lodges to avoid encountering Diable, or his squaw. The form of a man hulked against me in the dark.

'Twas Louis.

"Mon Dieu, Gillespie, I thought one scalp was gone," he gasped.

"What are you here for? You don't want to be seen with me," I protested, grateful and alarmed for his foolhardiness in coming to meet me.

"Sacredie! The dogs! They make pretty music at your shins without me,"

and Louis struck boldly across the open for his tent. "Fool to stay so long!" he muttered. "I no more ever help you once again! Mon Dieu! No! I no promise my scalp too! They found your horses in the valley! They--how you say it?--think for some Mandane is here and fear. They rode back fast on your horses. 'Twas why I whistle for, twice so quick! They ride north in the morning. I go too, with the devil and his wife! I be gone to the devil this many a while! But I must go, or they suspect and knife me. That vampire! Ha! she would drink my gore! I no more have nothing to do with you. Before morning, you must do your own do alone! Sacredie! Do not forget, I pay you back yet!"

So he rattled on, ever keeping between me and the lodges. By his confused words, I knew he was in great trepidation.

"Why, there are my horses!" I exclaimed, seeing all six standing before Diable's lodge.

"You do your do before morning! Take one of my saddles!" said Louis.

Sure enough, all my saddles were piled before the Iroquois' wigwam; and there stood my enemy and the Sioux squaw, talking loudly, pointing to the horses and gesticulating with violence.

"Mon Dieu! Prenez garde! Get you in!" muttered Louis. We were at his tent door, and I was looking back at my horses. "If they see you, all is lost," he warned.

And the warning came just in time. With that animal instinct of nearness, which is neither sight, nor smell, my favorite broncho put forward his ears and whinnied sharply. Both Diable and the squaw noted the act and turned; but Louis had knocked me forward face down into the tent.

With an oath, he threw himself on his couch. "Take my saddle," he said.

"I steal another. Do your do before morning. I no more have nothing to do with you, till I pay you back all the same!"

And he was presently fast asleep, or pretending to be.

CHAPTER XIX

WHEREIN LOUIS INTRIGUES

Next morning Le Grand Diable would set out for the north. This night, then, was my last chance to rescue Miriam. "Do your do before morning!"

How Laplante's words echoed in my ears! I had told Miriam a stormy night was to be the signal for our attempt; and now the rising moon was dispelling any vague haziness that might have helped to conceal us. In an hour, the whole camp would be bright as day in clear, silver light.

Presently, the clatter of the lodges ceased. Only an occasional snarl from the dogs, or the angry squeals of my bronchos kicking the Indian ponies, broke the utter stillness. There was not even a wind to drown foot-treads, and every lodge of the camp was reflected across the ground in elongated shadows as distinct as a crayon figure on white paper. What if some watchful Indian should discover our moving shadows? La Robe Noire's fate flashed back and I shuddered.

Flinging up impatiently from the robes, I looked from the tent way. Some dog of the pack gave the short, sharp bark of a fox. Then, but for the crunching of my horses over the turf some yards away, there was silence. I could hear the heavy breathing of people in near-by lodges.

Up from the wooded valley came the far-off purr of a stream over stony bottom and the low washing sound only accentuated the stillness. The shrill cry of some lonely night-bird stabbed the atmosphere with a throb of pain. Again the dog snapped out a bark and again there was utter quiet.

"One chance in a thousand," said I to myself, "only one in a thousand; but I'll take it!" And I stepped from the tent. This time the wakeful dog let out a mouthful of quick barkings. Jerking off my boots--I had not yet taken to the native custom of moccasins--I dodged across the roadway into the exaggerated shadow of some Indian camp truckery. Here I fell flat to the ground so that no reflection should betray my movements. Then I remembered I had forgotten Louis Laplante's saddle.

Rising, I dived back to the tepee for it and waited for the dogs to quiet before coming out again. That alert canine had set up a duet with a neighboring brute of like restless instincts and the two seemed to promise an endless chorus. As I live, I could have sworn that Louis Laplante laughed in his sleep at my dilemma; but Louis was of the sort to laugh in the face of death itself. A man flew from a lodge and dealing out stout blows quickly silenced the vicious curs; but I had to let time lapse for the man to go to sleep before I could venture out.

Once more, chirp of cricket, croak of frog and the rush of waters through the valley were the only sounds, and I darted across to the camp shadow. Lying flat, I began to crawl cautiously and laboriously towards my horses. One gave a startled snort as I approached and this set the dogs going again. I lay motionless in the gra.s.s till all was quiet and then crept gently round to the far side of my favorite horse and caught his halter strap lest he should whinny, or start away. I drew erect directly opposite his shoulders, so that I could not be seen from the lodges and unhobbling his feet, led him into the concealment of a group of ponies and had the saddle on in a trice. To get the horse to the rear of Miriam's tent was no easy matter. I paced my steps so deftly with the broncho's and let him munch gra.s.s so often, the most watchful Indian could not have detected a man on the far side of the horse, directing every move. Behind the Sioux lodge, the earth sloped abruptly away, bare and precipitous; and I left the horse below and clambered up the steep to the white wall of Miriam's tent. Once the dogs threatened to create a disturbance, but a man quieted them, and with grat.i.tude I recognized the voice of Laplante.

Three times I tapped on the canvas but there was no response. I put my arm under the tent and rapped on the ground. Why did she not signal? Was the Sioux squaw from the other lodge listening? I could hear nothing but the tossings of the child.

"Miriam," I called, shoving my arm forward and feeling out blindly.

Thereupon, a woman's hand grasped mine and thrust it out, while a voice so low it might have been the night breeze, came to my ear--"We are watched."

Watched? What did it matter if we were? Had I not dared all? Must not she do the same? This was the last chance. We must not be foiled. My horse, I knew, could outrace any cayuse of the Sioux band.

"Miriam," I whispered back, lifting the canvas, "they will take you away to-morrow--my horse is here! Come! We must risk all!"

And I shoved myself bodily in under the tent wall. She was not a hand's length away, sitting with her face to the entrance of Diable's lodge, her figure rigid and tense with fear. In the half light I could discern the great, powerful, angular form of a giantess in the opening. 'Twas the Sioux squaw. Miriam leaned forward to cover the child with a motion intended to conceal me, and I drew quickly out.