The Dog Crusoe and his Master, Robert Michael Ballantyne [mystery books to read TXT] 📗

live charcoal from the fire with his fingers and lighted his pipe,--"ye see, there's more difficulties in the way o' gettin' off than ye think--"

"Oh! nivare mind de difficulties," interrupted Henri, whose wrath at the treatment he had received had not yet cooled down. "Ve must jump on de best horses ve can git hold, shake our fist at de red reptiles, and go away fast as ve can. De best hoss _must_ vin de race."

Joe shook his head. "A hundred arrows would be in our backs before we got twenty yards from the camp. Besides, we can't tell which are the best horses. Our own are the best in my 'pinion, but how are we to git 'em?"

"I know who has charge o' them," said Dick; "I saw them grazing near the tent o' that poor squaw whose baby was saved by Crusoe. Either her husband looks after them or some neighbours."

"That's well," said Joe. "That's one o' my difficulties gone."

"What are the others?"

"Well, d'ye see, they're troublesome. We can't git the horses out o' camp without bein' seen, for the red rascals would see what we were at in a jiffy. Then, if we do git 'em out, we can't go off without our bales, an' we needn't think to take 'em from under the nose o' the chief and his squaws without bein' axed questions. To go off without them would niver do at all."

"Joe," said Dick, earnestly, "I've hit on a plan."

"Have ye, Dick? what is't?"

"Come and I'll let ye see," answered Dick, rising hastily and quitting the tent, followed by his comrades and his faithful dog.

It may be as well to remark here, that no restraint whatever had yet been put on the movements of our hunters as long as they kept to their legs, for it was well-known that any attempt by men on foot to escape from mounted Indians on the plains would be hopeless. Moreover, the savages thought that as long as there was a prospect of their being allowed to depart peaceably with their goods, they would not be so mad as to fly from the camp, and, by so doing, risk their lives and declare war with their entertainers. They had, therefore, been permitted to wander unchecked, as yet, far beyond the outskirts of the camp, and amuse themselves in paddling about the lake in the small Indian canoes and shooting wild-fowl.

Dick now led the way through the labyrinths of tents in the direction of the lake, and they talked and laughed loudly, and whistled to Crusoe as they went, in order to prevent their purpose being suspected. For the purpose of further disarming suspicion they went without their rifles. Dick explained his plan by the way, and it was at once warmly approved of by his comrades.

On reaching the lake they launched a small canoe, into which Crusoe was ordered to jump; then, embarking, they paddled swiftly to the opposite shore, singing a canoe song as they dipped their paddles in the moonlit waters of the lake. Arrived at the other side, they hauled the canoe up and hurried through the thin belt of wood and willows that intervened between the lake and the prairie. Here they paused.

"Is that the bluff, Joe?"

"No, Dick, that's too near. T'other one'll be best. Far away to the right. It's a little one, and there's others near it. The sharp eyes o' the Red-skins won't be so likely to be prowlin' there."

"Come on, then; but we'll have to take down by the lake first."

In a few minutes the hunters were threading their way through the outskirts of the wood at a rapid trot, in the opposite direction from the bluff, or wooded knoll, which they wished to reach. This they did lest prying eyes should have followed them. In a quarter of an hour they turned at right angles to their track, and struck straight out into the prairie, and after a long run they edged round and came in upon the bluff from behind. It was merely a collection of stunted but thick-growing willows.

Forcing their way into the centre of this they began to examine it.

"It'll do," said Joe.

"De very ting," remarked Henri.

"Come here, Crusoe."

Crusoe bounded to his master's side, and looked up in his face.

"Look at this place, pup; smell it well."

Crusoe instantly set off all round among the willows, in and out, snuffing everywhere, and whining with excitement.

"Come here, good pup; that will do. Now, lads, we'll go back." So saying, Dick and his friends left the bluff and retraced their steps to the camp. Before they had gone far, however, Joe halted, and said--

"D'ye know, Dick, I doubt if the pup's so cliver as ye think. What if he don't quite onderstand ye?"

Dick replied by taking off his cap and throwing it down, at the same time exclaiming, "Take it yonder, pup," and pointing with his hand towards the bluff. The dog seized the cap, and went off with it at full speed towards the willows, where it left it, and came galloping back for the expected reward--not now, as in days of old, a bit of meat, but a gentle stroke of its head and a hearty clap on its shaggy side.

"Good pup, go now an' _fetch it_."

Away he went with a bound, and, in a few seconds, came back and deposited the cap at his master's feet.

"Will that do?" asked Dick, triumphantly.

"Ay, lad, it will. The pup's worth its weight in goold."

"Oui, I have said, and I say it agen, de dog is _human_, so him is. If not--fat am he?"

Without pausing to reply to this perplexing question, Dick stepped forward again, and in half an hour or so they were back in the camp.

"Now for _your_ part of the work, Joe; yonder's the squaw that owns the half-drowned baby. Everything depends on her."

Dick pointed to the Indian woman as he spoke. She was sitting beside her tent, and playing at her knee was the identical youngster that had been saved by Crusoe.

"I'll manage it," said Joe, and walked towards her, while Dick and Henri returned to the chiefs tent.

"Does the Pawnee woman thank the Great Spirit that her child is saved?" began Joe as he came up.

"She does," answered the woman, looking up at the hunter. "And her heart is warm to the Pale-faces."

After a short silence Joe continued--

"The Pawnee chiefs do not love the Pale-faces. Some of them hate them."

"The Dark Flower knows it," answered the woman; "she is sorry. She would help the Pale-faces if she could."

This was uttered in a low tone, and with a meaning glance of the eye.

Joe hesitated again--could he trust her? Yes; the feelings that filled her breast and prompted her words were not those of the Indian just now--they were those of a _mother_, whose gratitude was too full for utterance.

"Will the Dark Flower," said Joe, catching the name she had given herself, "help the Pale-face if he opens his heart to her? Will she risk the anger of her nation?"

"She will," replied the woman; "she will do what she can."

Joe and his dark friend now dropped their high-sounding style of speech, and spoke for some minutes rapidly in an undertone. It was finally arranged that on a given day, at a certain hour, the woman should take the four horses down the shores of the lake to its lower end, as if she were going for firewood, there cross the creek at the ford, and drive them to the willow-bluff, and guard them till the hunters should arrive.

Having settled this, Joe returned to the tent and informed his comrades of his success.

During the next three days Joe kept the Indians in good-humour by giving them one or two trinkets, and speaking in glowing terms of the riches of the white men, and the readiness with which they would part with them to the savages if they would only make peace.

Meanwhile, during the dark hours of each night, Dick managed to abstract small quantities of goods from their pack, in room of which he stuffed in pieces of leather to keep up the size and appearance. The goods thus taken out he concealed about his person, and went off with a careless swagger to the outskirts of the village, with Crusoe at his heels. Arrived there, he tied the goods in a small piece of deerskin, and gave the bundle to the dog, with the injunction, "Take it yonder, pup."

Crusoe took it up at once, darted off at full speed with the bundle in his mouth, down the shore of the lake towards the ford of the river, and was soon lost to view. In this way, little by little, the goods were conveyed by the faithful dog to the willow-bluff and left there, while the stuffed pack still remained in safekeeping in the chief's tent.

Joe did not at first like the idea of thus sneaking off from the camp; and more than once made strong efforts to induce San-it-sa-rish to let him go, but even that chief's countenance was not so favourable as it had been. It was clear that he could not make up his mind to let slip so good a chance of obtaining guns, powder, and shot, horses and goods, without any trouble; so Joe made up his mind to give them the slip at once.

A dark night was chosen for the attempt, and the Indian woman went off with the horses to the place where firewood for the camp was usually cut. Unfortunately the suspicion of that wily savage Mahtawa had been awakened, and he stuck close to the hunters all day--not knowing what was going on, but feeling convinced that something was brewing which he resolved to watch, without mentioning his suspicions to any one.

"I think that villain's away at last," whispered Joe to his comrades; "it's time to go, lads, the moon won't be up for an hour. Come along."

"Have ye got the big powder-horn, Joe?"

"Ay, ay, all right."

"Stop! stop! my knife, my couteau. Ah! here it be. Now, boy."

The three set off as usual, strolling carelessly to the outskirts of the camp; then they quickened their pace, and, gaining the lake, pushed off in a small canoe.

At the same moment Mahtawa stepped from the bushes, leaped into another canoe and followed them.

"Hah! he must die," muttered Henri.

"Not at all," said Joe, "we'll manage him without that."

The chief landed and strode boldly up to them, for he knew well that whatever their purpose might be, they would not venture to use their rifles within sound of the camp at that hour of the night; as for their knives, he could trust to his own active limbs and the woods to escape and give the alarm if need be.

"The Pale-faces hunt very late," he said with a malicious grin. "Do they love the dark better than the sunshine?"

"Not so," replied Joe, coolly, "but we love to walk by the light of the moon.