Silver Lake, Robert Michael Ballantyne [important books to read txt] 📗

so he once more attempted to stagger on.

A slight rising ground lay before him. To ascend this was a labour so great that he almost sank in the midst of it. He reached the top, however, and gazed eagerly before him. He had gazed thus at the top of every rising ground that he had reached during the last two days, in the hope of seeing some sign of the Fort.

A deep sigh escaped him as he rested his hands on the muzzle of his gun, and his grave countenance was overspread with a look of profound melancholy. For the first time in his life, the once stout and active Wapaw had reached the point of giving way to despair. A wide open plain stretched out before him. The cold wind was howling wildly across it, driving the keen snow-drift before it in whirling clouds. Even a strong man might have shrunk from exposing himself on such a plain and to such a blast on that bitter arctic day. Wapaw felt that, in his case, to cross it would be certain death; so, with the calm philosophy of a Red Indian, he made up his mind to lay him down and die!

His manner of preparing for his end was somewhat singular. Turning aside into the woods, he set about making an encampment with as much vigour as he could summon up. Clearing away the snow from the roots of a large spreading pine-tree, he strewed branches on the ground, and thus made a rude couch. On this he spread his blanket. Then he cut some firewood with the axe that hung at his side, and soon kindled, by means of flint, steel, and tinder, a good fire. Seating himself before the warm blaze, the exhausted man rested awhile, with his legs drawn together and his head resting on his knees.

He sat so long thus that he nearly fell asleep. Presently he roused himself, and proceeded to make a close examination of his wallet and firebag--the latter being a beautifully ornamented pouch, which Indians and fur-traders wear at their belts, for the purpose of containing the materials for producing fire, besides pipes and tobacco.

Poor Wapaw had already searched his wallet and firebag twice, without finding a crumb of food or a morsel of tobacco. He knew well that they were empty, yet he turned them inside out, and examined the seams and corners with as much earnestness as if he really expected to find relief from his sufferings there.

There was no expression of pain on the red man's face--only a look of profound melancholy.

He laid aside the firebag after a little while, and then quietly drew his knife, and cut a piece of leather from the skirt of his hunting coat.

The leather had been dried and smoked, and contained no substance whatever that could sustain life. Wapaw was aware of this--nevertheless he singed a portion of it until it was reduced almost to ashes, and mingling a little snow with this, ate it greedily.

Then, raising his eyes to the sky with a long earnest gaze, he sat immovable, until the sinking fire and the increasing cold recalled his wandering faculties.

There was a wild, glassy look about the Indian's eyes now, which probably resulted from exhaustion. He seemed to struggle several times to rouse himself before he succeeded; shuddering with intense cold, he crept to the little pile of firewood, and placed several billets on the fire, which speedily blazed up again, and the dying man cowered over it, regardless of the smoke which ever and anon wreathed round his drooping head.

In a few minutes Wapaw started up as if new energy had been infused into him. He placed his gun, axe, firebag, and powder-horn by themselves on the ground; then he wrapped himself in his blanket and lay slowly down beside them with his feet towards the fire. For a few minutes he lay on his back, gazing earnestly upwards, while his lips moved slowly, but no sound issued from them. Then he turned wearily on his side, and, covering his head with the blanket and turning his face towards the ground, he resigned himself to death.

But God had ordained that, at that time, the red man should not die.

About the time when he lay down, our hunters emerged upon the plain which had caused the Indian to despair.

"It's of no use goin' farther," observed Robin, as he and his companions stood at the edge of the forest and looked across the plain; "the wind blows too hard, and the drift is keen; besides there ain't much to be got hereaway, even in seasons of plenty."

"Father! is that smoke risin' over the bluff yonder?" asked Roy, pointing with his finger as he spoke.

"No doubt of it, lad."

"Indians, may be," said Walter.

Robin shook his head. "Don't think so," said he, "for the redskins don't often come to see me at this time o' the year. But we'll go see; an' look to your primin', lads--if it's a war-party we'll ha' to fight, mayhap, if we don't run."

The three hunters crossed the plain in the teeth of the howling drift, and cautiously approached the bluff referred to by Roy, and from behind which the smoke ascended.

"It's a camp fire," whispered Robin, as he glanced back at his companions, "but I see no one there. They must have just left the place."

There was a shade of anxiety in the hunter's voice as he spoke, for he thought of Fort Enterprise, its defenceless condition, and the possibility of the Indians having gone thither.

"They can't have gone to the Fort," said Walter, "else we should have seen their tracks on the way hither."

"Come," said Robin, stepping forward quickly, "we can see their tracks now, anyhow, and follow them up, and if they lead to the Fort."

The hunter did not finish his sentence, for at that moment he caught sight of the recumbent form of Wapaw in the camp.

"Hist! A redskin alone, and asleep! Well, I never did 'xpect to see that."

"Mayhap, he's a decoy-duck," suggested Walter. "Better look sharp out."

Robin and Roy heeded not the caution. They at once went forward, and the father lifted the blanket from the Indian's head.

"Dead!" exclaimed Roy, in a solemn tone.

"Not yet, lad! but I do b'lieve the poor critter's a'most gone wi' starvation. Come, bestir you, boys--rouse up the fire, and boil the kettle."

Walter and Roy did not require a second bidding. The kettle was ere long singing on a blazing fire. The Indian's limbs were chafed and warmed; a can of hot tea was administered, and Wapaw soon revived sufficiently to look up and thank his deliverers.

"Now, as good luck has it, I chanced to leave my hand-sled at the Wolf's Glen. Go, fetch it, Roy," said Robin.

The lad set off at once, and, as the glen was not far distant, soon returned with a flat wooden sledge, six feet long by eighteen inches broad, on which trappers are wont to pack their game in winter. On this sledge Wapaw was firmly tied, and dragged by the hunters to Fort Enterprise.

"Hast got a deer, father?" cried little Nelly, as she bounded in advance of her mother to meet the returning party.

"No, Nelly--'tis dearer game than that."

"What? a redskin!" exclaimed Dame Gore in surprise; "is he dead?"

"No, nor likely to die," said Robin, "he's in a starvin' state though, an'll be none the worse of a bit of our New Year's dinner. Here is game enough for one meal an' more; come, lass, get it ready as fast as may be."

So saying the bold hunter passed through the Fort gate, dragging the red man behind him.


CHAPTER THREE.


PREPARATIONS FOR A FEAST.

"Why so grave, Robin?" inquired Mrs Gore, when her husband returned to the parlour after seeing Wapaw laid in a warm corner of the kitchen, and committed to the care of Larry O'Dowd.

"Molly, my dear, it's of no use concealin' things from you, 'cause when bad luck falls we must just face it. This Injun--Wapaw, he calls himself--tells me he has com'd here a-purpose, as fast as he could, to say that his tribe have resolved to attack me, burn the Fort, kill all the men, and carry you off into slavery."

"God help me! can this be true?"

"True enough, I don't doubt, 'cause Wapaw has the face of an honest man, and I believe in faces. He says some of the worst men of his tribe are in power just now; that they want the contents of my store without paying for them; that he tried to get them to give up the notion, but failed. On seeing that they were bent on it, he said he was going off to hunt, and came straight here to warn me. He says they talked of starting for the Fort two days after he did, and that he pushed on as fast as he could travel, so it's not likely they'll be here for two or three days yet. I'll get ready for them, hows'ever, and when the reptiles do come they'll meet with a warm reception, I warrant them; meanwhile, do you go and get dinner ready. We won't let such varmints interfere with our New Year's feast."

While Robin's wife went to her larder, his children were in the kitchen tending the Indian with earnest solicitude, and Larry was preparing a little soup for him.

"Do you like rabbit soup?" asked Nelly, kneeling beside the pallet of pine branches on which Wapaw lay.

The Indian smiled, and said something in his native tongue.

"Sure he don't onderstan' ye," exclaimed Larry, as he bustled in an energetic way amongst his pots and pans.

"Let me try him with Cree," said Roy, kneeling beside his sister, "I know a little--a _very_ little Cree."

Roy tried his "very little Cree," but without success.

"It's o' no use," he said, "father must talk to him, for _he_ knows every language on earth, I believe."

Roy's idea of the number of languages "on earth" was very limited.

"Och! don't bother him, see, here is a lingo that every wan onderstan's," cried Larry, carrying a can of hot soup towards Wapaw.

"Oh, let me! _do_ let me!" cried Nelly, jumping up and seizing the can.

"Be all manes," said Larry, resigning it.

The child once more knelt by the side of the Indian and held the can to him, while he conveyed the soup to his lips with a trembling, unsteady hand. The eyes of the poor man glittered as he gazed eagerly at the food, which he ate with the avidity of a half-famished wolf.

His nurses looked on with great satisfaction, and when Wapaw glanced up from time to time in their faces, he was advised to continue his meal with nods and smiles of goodwill.

Great preparations were made for the dinner of that New Year's Day. Those who "dwell at home at ease" have no idea of the peculiar feelings with which the world's wanderers hail the season of Christmas and New Year. Surrounded as they usually are by strange scenes, and ignorant as they are of what