The Rising Of The Red Man Part 12

"Oh, you fiends!" cried the girl as the horror of the situation dawned upon her. "Would you murder the men in cold blood who spared your lives when they had every right to take them? You cowards! Why don't you shoot me? Do you think I am afraid of being shot?"

It was all like some horrible nightmare to her just then.

Brief time seemed such an eternity that she longed for it to come to an end. She felt like one who, dreaming, knows she dreams and struggles to awake.

The cross-eyed one was evidently delighted to see that he had at length aroused this. .h.i.therto wonderfully self-possessed girl to such a display of emotion; she looked ever so much handsomer now that she was angry.

His watery, awry eyes gleamed, and his thick underlip drooped complacently. He would see if she had as much grit as she laid claim to. It was all in the day's sport; but he would have to hurry up.

He seized the Winchester, and, holding it in front of him, jerked down the lever as he had seen Dorothy do, so as to eject the old and put a fresh cartridge into the breech. But the old cartridge, in springing out, flew up and hit him such a smart rap between the eyes that Leon at once seized his little opportunity and laughed ironically.

"Good shot, Lucien!" he cried. "Encore, _mon ami!_"

Lucien's eyes were watering and smarting, and he felt quite like shooting his sympathetic friend on the spot, but he kept his wrath bravely under, and resolved to show Leon in a very practical fashion how he could shoot on the first auspicious occasion. Yes, such a blessed opportunity would be worth waiting and suffering for.

And now they prepared to remove Dorothy from the roof, and take her inside the hut. Leon was to descend first, and then Lucien was to make her jump into the snowdrift, where she would stick, and Leon would be waiting for her.

Poor Dorothy knew that if help did not come speedily she would be undone. She prayed for Divine aid. She could not believe that G.o.d would look down from Heaven and see these fiends prevail. G.o.d's ways, she was aware, were sometimes inscrutable, and seemed to fall short of justice, but she knew that sooner or later they invariably worked out retributive justice more terrible than man's. This was to be made plain to her sooner than she imagined, and unexpectedly, as G.o.d's ways occasionally are.

Leon descended, and his comrade, with an evil light in his eyes and an oath on his lips, came towards Dorothy to force her to jump on to the snowdrift; but villain number two stopped him.

"Ze gun, Lucien," he said, "hand me ze gun first time."

The half-breed grasped the Winchester by the barrel and handed it down to his comrade, but as he did so he was unaware of the fact that the lever, in pumping up a fresh cartridge, had also put the weapon on full c.o.c.k. Leon, in grasping it, did so clumsily, and inadvertently touched the trigger. In an instant the death-fire spurted from the muzzle, and Lucien fell forward with a bullet through his brain.

Not always slow are the ways of Him Who said, "Vengeance is Mine."

The girl sank back in horror at the sight. To see a man sent to his account red-handed is a terrible thing.

The fatal shot was still ringing in her ears when another sound broke in upon the reverberating air. It was the m.u.f.fled drumming of hoofs and the hurried exclamations of voices which she recognised. It was her father and the others returning with the horses. She staggered to her feet again as best she could, for her hands, being tied behind her back, made rising a difficult matter.

She must have presented a strange sight to the party, bound as she was, and with her long hair streaming behind her. She heard her father's cry of apprehension, and the next moment she caught sight of the remaining rebel scuttling like a startled iguana towards the dense plantation, where it would have been quite possible for him to have eluded pursuit. But before he reached it there was a sharp ping. He threw up his hands and fell dead on his face. Douglas had made sure of him.

"It's all right, dad, and I'm not hurt," said the girl rea.s.suringly, as her father ran towards her with a look of anguish on his face. "You just came in the nick of time; they were going to ambush you. Don't let the horses go too near the corral, as they will be stampeded again.

A dead bear is lying there."

In a few minutes she had told her father what had occurred, and he had explained the delay. It had been as the two rebels had said. The horses had gone off the trail into a deep snowdrift, and it had required a great deal of hard work to get them out. They had not heard the shot which Dorothy had fired at the bear, for the very sufficient reason that two bluffs intervened, and the fairly strong chinook wind carried away all sound. They had not thought there was any reason to be apprehensive about her, but they had worked toilsomely to get back. Bastien had proved a pleasant surprise in this respect--he had, doubtless, by no means incorrect views regarding Riel's powers of pursuit and revenge. That the two rebels should have come back, and that a bear--a sure harbinger of spring--should have made itself so intrusive were contingencies the party could hardly have foreseen. As it was, Dorothy, save for the fright, was little the worse for the rough handling she had received, so they resolved to proceed on their way in about an hour's time, when certain necessary duties had been fulfilled.

Before the ruddy sun began to go down behind the pine-crested bluffs and far-stretching sea of white-robed prairie in a fairy cloudland of crimson and gold and keenest blue, the horses were hitched up into the sleighs, and the fugitives were bowling merrily up the valley so as to strike the main trail before nightfall.

CHAPTER XVI

THE FATE OF SERGEANT PASMORE

When Sergeant Pasmore was left in the dug-out, or, to explain more fully, the hut built into the side of a hill, he sat down in the semi-darkness and calmly reviewed the situation. It was plain enough.

He was a prisoner, and would be shot within twelve hours; but Douglas and Dorothy were probably now safe, and well on their way to friends. This, at least, was a comforting reflection.

He heard the talking of the breeds at the door; then he saw it open, and one looked in upon him with his rifle resting upon his chest. These were two of the sober crowd.

There was no getting away from them. The leaders of the rebels probably by this time knew they had a prisoner, and if he were not forthcoming when they were asked to produce him, the lives of his gaolers would more than likely pay the penalty. True, for Katie's sake they had made an exchange, but that did not matter--no one would know. Yes, they were ready to shoot him like a dog if he made the slightest attempt to escape.

And she, Dorothy--well, he didn't mind dying for her.

Within the last twenty-four hours he had realised how fully she had come into his life. And he had striven against it, but it was written in the book. He could not altogether understand her. At one moment she would be kind and sympathetic, and then, when he unbent and tried to come a step nearer to her, she seemed to freeze and keep him at arm's length. And he thought he had known women once upon a time, in the palmy days across the seas. He wondered what she would think on finding out the truth about her father's release.

It was cold sitting on an upturned pail with his moccasins resting on the frozen clay, and breathing an atmosphere which was like that of a sepulchre. He wished the dawn would break, even although it meant a resumption of that awful riot and bloodshed.

Yes, they would certainly shoot him when they discovered that he was one of the hated red-coats who represented the might and majesty of Great Britain. Why they should now hate the Mounted Police, who had indeed always been their best friends, was one of those problems that can only be explained by the innate perversity of what men call human nature.

He was becoming drowsy, but he heard a strange sc.r.a.ping on the low roof over his head, and that kept him awake for some little time speculating as to whether or not it could be a bear. It seemed a silly speculation, but then, in wild regions, inconvenient prisoners have often been quietly disposed of through roofs and windows during their sleep. As he did not intend to be taken unawares like that, he groped around and found the neck yoke of a bullock. It would do to fell a man with, anyhow.

He could hear the voices of his two guards at the door only indistinctly, for, as has been said, it was a long, narrow room. He wished it were a little lighter so that he might see what he was doing. When the thing on the roof once broke through, he would be in the shadow, while it would be against the light That would give him the advantage.

At length the unseen intruder reached the straw that covered the thin poles laid one alongside the other. The straw was sc.r.a.ped aside, and then against the dark grey sky Pasmore could see an uncertain shape, but whether man or beast he could not make out To push aside the pole would be an easy matter. He held his breath, and gripped the neck yoke.

"Hist!" and the figure was evidently trying to attract his attention.

Pasmore thought it as well to wait until he was surer of his visitor. A Mounted Policeman knew better than to give himself away so simply.

"His-st, Sar-jean! Katie and Pepin she was send," said the voice again.

It flashed through Pasmore's brain that here now was the explanation of this strange visit. The half-breed (and it was Pierre La Chene himself) had been sent by his sweetheart to effect his rescue. It was, of course, absurd to suppose that Pierre was undertaking this hazardous and philanthropical job on his own account. What else save love could work such wonders?

"Sar-jean, Sar-jean, you ready now?" asked Pierre, impatiently, preparing to pull up the poles.

But Pasmore hesitated. Was he not imperilling the safety of Douglas and his daughter by following so soon after them? For, should they not have got quite clear of the settlement, the hue and cry would be raised and scouts would be sent out all around to cut off their retreat.

He thought of Dorothy. No, he could not in his sober senses risk such a thing.

"Sar-jean, Sar-jean!"

But just at that moment, somewhere over in the village, there was a wild outbreak of noise, the sound of rifle-firing being predominant.

The straw was quickly pushed back over the poles and some _debris_ and snow scooped over that At the same moment the door was thrown open and his two guards entered; but they came no farther than the doorway. One of them struck a light, and immediately lit some hemp-like substance he carried in his hand. It flared up instantly, illuminating the long barn from end to end.

"Hilloa! you thar?" cried one of them.

But it was unnecessary to have asked such a question, for the light disclosed the form of the sergeant re-seated on the upturned pail, with his head resting on his hands.

He appeared to be asleep.

Evidently satisfied with their scrutiny his guards again turned towards the door to find out, if possible, the reason of the firing. The whole settlement would be aroused in a few minutes if it went on, or at least those would who had not entered so fully as the others into the orgie. What could it be? It was in reality Jacques making good his escape, but Pasmore was not to know that.

To the sergeant the uncertainty was painful. Could the rancher and his daughter have been delayed until they had been detected by some vigilant rebels? The idea was terrible. But he noted that the grey wintry dawn was fast creeping over the snow-bound earth, and he concluded that the fugitives must have got through some considerable time before.

The firing ceased, and at last the thoroughly tired-out man laid himself down on some old sacking, and fell fast asleep.

It was broad daylight when he was awakened by a kick from a moccasined foot.

"Ho, thar!" cried some one. "Git up and be shot!"