The Best Ballantyne Westerns. R. M. Ballantyne
said he, “it’s plain enough now. Look there!”
Jacques pointed as he spoke to the narrows which they were now approaching with tremendous speed, which increased every instant. A heavy tree lay directly across the stream, reaching from rock to rock, and placed in such a way that it was impossible for a canoe to descend without being dashed in pieces against it. This was the more curious that no trees grew in the immediate vicinity, so that this one must have been designedly conveyed there.
“There has been foul work here,” said Jacques, in a deep tone. “We must dive, Mr Charles; there’s no chance any way else, and that’s but a poor one.”
This was true. The rocks on each side rose almost perpendicularly out of the water, so that it was utterly impossible to run ashore, and the only way of escape, as Jacques said, was by diving under the tree—a thing involving great risk, as the stream immediately below was broken by rocks, against which it dashed in foam, and through which the chances of steering one’s way in safety by means of swimming were very slender indeed.
Charley made no reply, but with tightly-compressed lips, and a look of stern resolution on his brow, threw off his coat, and hastily tied his belt tightly round his waist. The canoe was now sweeping forward with lightning speed; in a few minutes it would be dashed to pieces.
At that moment a shout was heard in the woods, and Redfeather darting out, rushed over the ledge of rock on which one end of the tree rested, seized the trunk in his arms, and exerting all his strength, hurled it over into the river. In doing so he stumbled, and ere he could recover himself a branch caught him under the arm as the tree fell over, and dragged him into the boiling stream. This accident was probably the means of saving his life, for just as he fell the loud report of a gun rang through the woods, and a bullet passed through his cap. For a second or two both man and tree were lost in the foam, while the canoe dashed past in safety. The next instant Wabisca passed the narrows in her small craft, and steered for the tree. Redfeather, who had risen and sunk several times, saw her as she passed, and making a violent effort, he caught hold of the gunwale, and was carried down in safety.
“I’ll tell you what it is,” said Jacques, as the party stood on a rock promontory after the events just narrated: “I would give a dollar to have that fellow’s nose and the sights o’ my rifle in a line at any distance short of two hundred yards.”
“It was Misconna,” said Redfeather. “I did not see him, but there’s not another man in the tribe that could do that.”
“I’m thankful we escaped, Jacques. I never felt so near death before, and had it not been for the timely aid of our friend here, it strikes me that our wild life would have come to an abrupt close.—God bless you, Redfeather,” said Charley, taking the Indian’s hand in both of his and kissing it.
Charley’s ebullition of feeling was natural. He had not yet become used to the dangers of the wilderness so as to treat them with indifference. Jacques, on the other hand, had risked his life so often that escape from danger was treated very much as a matter of course, and called forth little expression of feeling. Still, it must not be inferred from this that his nature had become callous. The backwoodsman’s frame was hard and unyielding as iron, but his heart was as soft still as it was on the day on which he first donned the hunting-shirt, and there was much more of tenderness than met the eye in the squeeze that he gave Redfeather’s hand on landing.
As the four travellers encircled the fire that night, under the leafy branches of the forest, and smoked their pipes in concert, while Wabisca busied herself in clearing away the remnants of their evening meal, they waxed communicative, and stories, pathetic, comic, and tragic, followed each other in rapid succession.
“Now, Redfeather,” said Charley, while Jacques rose and went down to the luggage to get more tobacco, “tell Jacques about the way in which you got your name. I am sure he will feel deeply interested in that story—at least I am certain that Harry Somerville and I did when you told it to us the day we were wind-bound on Lake Winnipeg.”
Redfeather made no reply for a few seconds. “Will Mr Charles speak for me?” he said at length; “his tongue is smooth and quick.”
“A doubtful kind of compliment,” said Charley, laughing; “but I will, if you don’t wish to tell it yourself.”
“And don’t mention names. Do not let him know that you speak of me or my friends,” said the Indian, in a low whisper, as Jacques returned and sat down by the fire again.
Charley gave him a glance of surprise; but being prevented from asking questions, he nodded in reply, and proceeded to relate to his friend the story that has been recounted in a previous chapter. Redfeather leaned back against a tree, and appeared to listen intently.
Charley’s powers of description were by no means inconsiderable, and the backwoodsman’s face assumed a look of good-humoured attention as the story proceeded. But when the narrator went on to tell of the meditated attack and the midnight march, his interest was aroused, the pipe which he had been smoking was allowed to go out, and he gazed at his young friend with the most earnest attention. It was evident that the hunter’s spirit entered with deep sympathy into such scenes; and when Charley described the attack, and the death of the trapper’s wife, Jacques seemed unable to restrain his feelings. He leaned his elbows on his knees, buried his face in his hands, and groaned aloud.
“Mr Charles,” he said, in a deep voice, when the story was ended, “there are two men I would like to meet with in this world before I die: one is the young Injin who tried to save that girl’s life, the other is the cowardly villain that took it. I don’t mean the one who finished the bloody work; my rifle sent his accursed spirit to its own place—”
“Your rifle!” cried Charley, in amazement.
“Ay, mine! It was my wife who was butchered by these savage dogs on that dark night. Oh, what avails the strength o’ that right arm!” said Jacques bitterly, as he lifted up his clenched fist; “it was powerless to save her—the sweet girl who left her home and people to follow me, a rough hunter, through the lonesome wilderness!”
He covered his face again, and groaned in agony of spirit, while his whole frame quivered with emotion.
Jacques remained silent, and his sympathising friends refrained from intruding on a sorrow which they felt they had no power to relieve.
At length he spoke. “Yes,” said he; “I would give much to meet with the man who tried to save her. I saw him do it twice; but the devils about him were too eager to be balked of their prey.”
Charley and the Indian exchanged glances. “That Indian’s name,” said the former, “was Redfeather!”
“What!” exclaimed the trapper, jumping to his feet, and grasping Redfeather, who had also risen, by the two shoulders, stared wildly into his face; “was it you that did it?”
Redfeather smiled, and held out his hand, which the other took and wrung with an energy that would have extorted a cry of pain from any one but an Indian. Then dropping it suddenly and clinching his hands, he exclaimed:—
“I said that I would like to meet the villain who killed her—yes, I said it in passion, when your words had roused all my old feelings again; but I am thankful—I bless God that I did not know this sooner—that you did not tell me of it when I was at the camp, for I verily believe that I would not only have fixed him, but half the warriors o’ your tribe too, before they had settled me!”
It need scarcely be added that the friendship which already subsisted between Jacques and Redfeather was now doubly cemented; nor will it create surprise when we say that the former, in the fullness of his heart, and from sheer inability to find adequate outlets for the expression of his feelings, offered Redfeather in succession all the articles of value he possessed, even to his much-loved rifle, and was seriously annoyed at their not being accepted. At last he finished off by assuring the Indian that he might look out for him soon at the missionary settlement, where he meant to stay with him evermore in the capacity of hunter, fisherman, and jack-of-all-trades to the whole