When McElroy's eyes fell upon the woman he loved the breath was stopped in his throat. For a moment it seemed he would suffocate with the surge of emotions that choked him. Then a great sigh filled his lungs and a cry was forced from him which pierced the uproar like an arrow.
“Maren!” he cried, in anguish; “Maren!”
It drew her eyes as the pole the faithful needle, and across the fire they stared wide-eyed at each other.
Then De Courtenay's silver voice cut them apart.
“Again, Ma'amselle!” he cried, with the old magic of his smile. “Do you bring by any chance a red flower to the council of the Nakonkirhirinons?”
But the Indians closed in around her, pulling and plucking at her with eager fingers, and they saw her fighting among them like a man.
McElroy for the first time loosed his tongue in blasphemy and cursed like a madman, tugging at the bonds which held him.
“'Tis all in a day's march, M'sieu,” said De Courtenay, “and the sweet spirit of Ma'amselle is like to cross the Styx with us.”
But for the first time, also, there was in his tone a note of weariness, a breath of sadness that sang under the light words with infinite pathos.
The new attraction drew the crowd, and the old ones were left in solitude, while the Nakonkirhirinons surged and scrambled for a look at the white woman fallen from a clear sky, leagues from where they had seen her. Half-breeds, dissolute renegades, and Indians, they pushed and peered and in many a face was already burning the excitement of her beauty, especially those of the savage Bois-Brules.
McElroy prayed aloud to God for the heavens to fall, for some great disaster.
But soon it became apparent that something of importance was to take place. A hundred headmen gathered in knots and there was dissension and brawling and once near a riot, while the girl stood in a circle of malodorous, leering humans with her back against a tree, warding off hands with man-like blows.
There was no order in the tribe. Negansahima, whose iron hand had ruled with power and justice above the average, was dead. The new chief had not yet come into power with fitting ceremony, and thus the old men of the tribe were for the moment authority, and, as too many cooks spoil the broth, so too many rulers breed dissension.
But finally a conclusion was reached.
A hundred hands scurried into preparation and the shouts were filled with anticipation.
In the open space a post was set up, tall as a man's head and some two feet thick, adzed flat on one side and painted in two sections, perpendicularly, one half in red, the other in black. A medicine man, hideous in adornments of buffalo horns and bearskin, approached De Courtenay and with a feather painted on his bare breast a circle of black with little red flames within.
McElroy was decorated in like manner, save that his circle was red and it enclosed a death-maul, a dozen little arrows, and two knives.
Thus was foreshadowed the manner of their death.
Then arose a babble of voices.
“The White Doe! The White Doe that runs in the forest! Now shall She who Follows decide!”
And into the midst of the vast circle once more Maren Le Moyne was brought. She stood panting as they drew back and left her, and McElroy looked upon her as he had never looked upon living being in all his days.
There was the same high head, shining in the light, the same tall form sweet in its rounded womanhood, the same strong shoulders, and from them hung the white garment that he had carried to her door that day, in spring. He had wondered then if he would ever see it cling to the swelling breast, set up the round throat from its foamy fringe. And thus he saw it again as he had dreamed, though, Holy Mother! in what sad plight!
She had told him she would wear it. She had relied upon it to help her get to De Courtenay! Of what depth and glory must be the love that sent her after the savages! Even in the stress of the moment the old pain came back an hundredfold. But events went forward and he had soon no time to think.
They drew a line upon the earth as they had done before, squabbling over its distance from the painted post; Bois-Brules, their keen eyes gleaming, haggling for a greater stretch, and presently Maren stood upon that line and they had pressed into her hand a bright new hatchet, one of those bought from McElroy himself in the first days of trading.
Then an Indian, naked and painted like a fiend, whose toes turned out, stepped forth and spoke in good English.
“Woman Who Follows,” he said distinctly, “one of these two dogs is a murderer,—having killed the Great Chief when his people came in peace to trade at the Fort. Therefore, one of them must die. The Nakonkirhirinons take a skin for a skin,—not two skins for one. So did the Great Chief teach his people. But none know which hand is red with his blood. For two sleeps and a sun have the braves given them the tests,—the Test of the Flying Knives, the Test of the Pine Splinters, the Test of the Little Lines, but neither has shown Colour of the Dog's Blood. Therefore, justice waits. Now has Wiskend-jac, the Great Spirit, sent the White Doe from the forest to decide. Throw, White Woman, and where the tomahawk strikes shall Death sit. Hi-a-wo!”
The renegade stepped back and a silence like death itself fell upon the assembly.
Then did the colour drain out of the soft cheeks under the berry stain and the girl from Grand Portage stand fingering the bright hatchet in her hand. Her eyes went to McElroy's face and then to that of the cavalier leaning forward between his swinging curls, and both men saw the shine that was like light behind black marble, so mystic was it and thrilling, beginning to flicker in them.
“Bravo!” cried De Courtenay, his brilliant face aglow with the splendid hazard. “Bravo! We are akin, Ma'amselle,—both venturers, and my blood leaps to your spirit! Throw, Sweetheart, throw! And may the gods of Chance guide your hand!”
“Think not of me, Maren!” cried McElroy, in deadly earnest. “You owe me naught! Throw for M'sieu, whose peril is my doing!”
For many moments she stood so, fingering the white handle of the weapon, and there was no sound in all the vast assemblage save the crackle of the flames. Then they saw her muscles tauten throughout her whole young body, saw her draw herself up to her full height, and again for a second's space she stood still. In that moment she had deliberately put herself back in the surging turmoil of Grand Portage, was listening to the words of old Pierre Vernaise: “Well done, Little Maid! Again now! Into the cleft! Into the cleft! Ah-a! Little One, well done! Alas, but you beat your old teacher!”—was feeling again the surge of a childhood triumph which scorned to bring nearer that wilderness of her dreams.
With a swift motion her arm shot up and forward and the tomahawk left her hand, flying straight as an arrow for the target. It struck with a clean impact and stood, the handle a little raised and the point well set in the green wood. There was a rush of the medicine men, who seemed to act as judges, and then a silence. Peering, bending near to look closer, they gathered with confusion of voices and presently stepped back, that all might see.
Neither in black nor red, but directly between the two, the blade cleaved cleanly down the dividing-line.
They surged forward, gathering round like flies with buzzing and excitement, examining it from all sides, while the girl stood upon the line with her hands shut hard beside her.
She did not glance again at the two men beside the fire.
A sachem pulled out the hatchet and carried it back to her, while the circle formed and widened again.
Again she stood at poise, again they saw the tension of her body, again the little wait, while the two men held their breath and De Courtenay's eyes were shining like stars.
“A fitting close!” he was saying to himself, in that joy which was of his venturer's soul and knew not time or place. “Heart of my Life! What a close to a merry span!”
Again the swift, sure motion, unmeasured of the brain, coming out of habit and pure instinct, again the “thud” of the strike, again the rush, and again the wondering buzz of talk.
Once more the hatchet stood upon the line between the black and the red, directly in its own cleft!
There was wondering comment, gesticulation, and swarthy faces turned upon the woman on the line.
Once more the sachem in his waving feathers and tinkling ornaments drew the blade from the post and gravely carried it back to her.
Excitement was riding high in the eager faces bending forward on all sides, and everywhere a growing admiration. A tribe of prowess themselves, the Nakonikirhirinons knew a clever feat when they saw it.
For the third time the tall woman in the beaded garment took the hatchet and squared her shoulders.
“What does it mean?” McElroy was thinking wildly; “why does she not save him while there is time?” And, even as the words went through his brain, something snapped therein and he was conscious of the circle of faces in the forest edge waving in grotesque undulations, of the arm of Maren as it straightened forward, of the flash of the hatchet as it flew for the painted post, and then of great darkness sewn with a thousand stars.
As Maren had raised her hand for the throw, from somewhere out of the darkness behind the fire a stone death-maul had hurtled, aimed at her wrist, but he who threw was sorry of sight as a drunken man, for it struck the head of McElroy instead and he sagged down against the moosehide thongs, even as the hatchet once more clicked snugly in its former cleft.
Then from all the concourse there went up a shout, half in anger and half in wild applause.
“Nik-o-men-wa!” they cried; “the Thrower of the Seven Tribes! But the White Doe plays with the decree of Gitche Manitou! Bring the spear! Fetch forth the spears, oh, Men of Wisdom!”
But in the midst of the excitement a figure walked slowly forth in the light and held up a hand for silence.
It was Edmonton Ridgar.
Reluctantly they obeyed, sullenly, as if bound by a bond against their will.
In the sudden hush he spoke.
“What do ye here, my brothers?” he asked, and waited.
There was no reply from the mass before him.
“Wherefore is the spirit of my Father vexed that it disturbs my watch inside the death-lodge?”
The small rustling of the excited crowd ceased in every quarter.
They stilled themselves in a peculiar manner.
“Oh, ye sachems and Men of Wisdom,” he said, turning to the headmen gathered together, “come ye to the tepee of Negansahima and behold what ye have done!”
Slowly, as he had come, the chief trader of De Seviere turned about and passed out of the light. One by one, in utter silence, their faces changed in a moment into masks of uneasiness, the sachems and medicine men rose and followed. In the wavering shadows thrown by the central fire the big tepee stood in awesome majesty. Ridgar raised the flap and entered, dropping it as the savages filed in to the number of all it would hold.
“See!” he said dramatically.
Over the bier of piled skins which held the wrapped and smoke-dried figure of the dead chief there danced upon the darkness, eerie in pale-green living fire, the ghost of the crested and sweeping head-dress that he had worn in life.
There was never a word among them, but, with one accord, after one awe-struck look at the ghostly thing, they fled the lodge in a mass.
For several moments Ridgar stood in the darkness as those outside peered fearfully in, and, when the last moccasin had slipped silently away, he reached up and took down the fearsome thing, folding it beside the chief.
“We were wise together, old friend,” he said sadly; “would I had your knowledge and your power.”
Outside the word was spreading wildly.
“The spirit of Negansahima rests not in the lodge! The medicine men have not dreamed true! Silence in the camp while They who Dream repair to the forest fastnesses and seek true wisdom!”
And while the sachems and the headmen, the beaters of the tom-toms, and those who tended the Sacred fires of the Dreamers formed into procession and slowly filed out into the forest, Edmonton Ridgar drew a long breath of relief. Maren had postponed the sure culmination of the tests by her clever feat, he had postponed it a little longer by his own. Full well he knew that the girl could not go on forever after the manner of her beginning. She knew the hatchet, but would she know the spear, the arrow, and the Test of the Flaming Ring? Sooner or later she would fail, and then would come the last orgy of the rites of a Skin for a Skin. He thought of the whimsical fate which so oddly gave the “Pro pelle cutem” of the H. B. C. to this unknown tribe of the North, and flayed one with the other.
This night was the last wherein there lay one chance of help for the two men and this woman who had so strangely followed from the post, and he lay in the darkness of the death-lodge watching the hushing of the camp, the loosing of the captives, the carrying of his factor, a limp figure, to the lodge of captives on the edge, the leading thither of De Courtenay and Maren.
“Fool woman!” he said in his heart; “sweet, brave, loving fool with the woman's heart and the man's simple courage!”
Long Ridgar lay in the darkness listening to the hushed sounds that came from lodge and dying fire—vague, awed sounds, that presently died into silence as night took toll of humanity and sleep settled among the savages.
Here and there low gutturals droned into the stillness, and at the west there was oath and whispered comment where the Bois-Brules camped together. Not wholly under the spell of mystery were these half-breeds, but restless and suspicious under the conflicting promptings of their mixed blood. Slower than the Indians were they to obey the mandate of silence and peace that the Spirits of Dreams might descend upon the forest, but at last they were quiet, the tires burned down to red heaps of coals, then to white ashes, the great fire in the centre flamed and died and flamed again like some vindictive spirit striving for vengeance in the grip of death, and the utter stillness of the solitude fell thick as a garment on all the wilderness. It seemed to Ridgar that only himself in all the earth was awake and watching, save perhaps the two guards pacing without a sound the lodge of the captives, and those two within, so oddly brought near.
As for McElroy, his friend of friends, an aching fear tugged in his heart that he had waited too long for the chance to help, that the patient strength was sapped at last, that the end had come. He had seen the flight of the maul, the sagging of the sturdy figure.
Who had thrown it, if not that brute DesCaut? Who save DesCaut was so keen on the trail of the factor and the girl? True, De Courtenay was his latest master, and his spoiling of Maren's aim might as easily send the blade into the black as the red, but in either case he would cause her to decide the death she was trying so bravely to postpone.
DesCaut, surely.
The stars wheeled in their endless march, the well-known ones of the forenight giving place to strangers of the after hours, and Ridgar had begun to move with the caution of the hunted, inch by inch, out from the shelter of the lodge, when he felt a hand steal from the darkness and touch him with infinite care. He lay still and presently a voice whispered,
“M'sieu Ridgar?
“Aye?” breathed Ridgar.
“'Tis I,—Marc Dupre from De Seviere.”
“Voila! Another! Are there more of you?”
“I would know first, M'sieu,—where is your heart, with savage or Hudson's Bay?”
“Fair question, truly. I but now am started for yonder lodge on quest of their deliverance, though without hope. Your appearance lends me that.”
“Sacre! 'Tis done already. Listen, M'sieu, with all your ears. Just beyond earshot, up the river to the south there lies a big canoe, with at its nose for instant action two men of Mowbray's brigade, while a hundred yards inland another waits, armed and ready to cover a hurried flight. There needs but loosing of those yonder, M'sieu, and here are we. Two Indians pace the lodge.... You one, me one. What easier?
“Many things, my young hot-blood. Yet it is our only way. Here are death-mauls,—two. Take you,—they make no sound, provided a practised hand is behind. Strike near and ease the fall, there are those who sleep lightly here. Even the earth has ears to-night.”
“Think you Ma'amselle is bound?” whispered Dupre next; “I could not see for the swinging of the factor's body.”
“No,” replied the trader; “both she and the Nor'wester walked free. But how, for love of Heaven, comes she here?” he added.
Dupre sighed softly in the darkness.
“For love,” he said; “for love of a man.”
“I had guessed as much,—how how did she pass the many miles of lake and stream and forest? And how overtake us?”
“I brought her. By day and night also, without camp, have we come, aided by canoe-men from Mr. Mowbray's brigade, which we met on the eastern shore of Winnipeg coming down from York, bound for the Assiniboine and Cumberland House.”
“But for which man? She is unreadable, that woman, though love lives naked in her face.”
But a sudden ache had gripped the throat of the young trapper and he did not answer.
“Let us be off, M'sieu,” he whispered; “now is the time.”
“Aye,—if ever.”
Slowly, inch by inch, lifting their bodies that they might not rustle the loose earth and trampled leaves of the camp, Ridgar and Dupre drew forth into the shadows.
Meantime, within the skin tepee, where all three had been summarily placed, Maren Le Moyne sat with her head upon her arms and her arms crossed on her drawn-up knees. Across the opening, just inside the flap, the body of McElroy lay inert, though she knew that a low breath rose and fell within him, for she had laid a hand upon his breast. Beside her, close in the darkness, De Courtenay sat upright and alert, as if no forty hours of torture had hail their will of him. She could hear his quick breathing.
Anguish rode her soul like a thousand imps and the slow tears were falling, bitter as aloes, the symbol of defeat. Every fibre of her being trembled with love of the man stretched beyond; she longed with all the passion of her nature to gather the tawny head in her arms, to kiss the silent lips, the closed eyes. Through the dim cloud that seemed to envelop him since that night at the factory steps, holding her from him like bars of iron, she heard again the ringing sweetness of his voice:
“From this day forth you are mine! Mine only and against the whole world! I have taken you and you are mine!”
False as Lucifer, but, O bon Dieu! sweet as salvation to the lost
A hundred feelings tore at her heart,—bitterness and unbearable scorn of her own blundering, and wild protest against failure, but chief of all was the love that drew her to this man like running water to the sea.
Now that death was near, so near that even now it might be calling his earnest spirit out of the darkness, she would do more—a thousandfold!—to give him life. Only life, the gentle, strong soul of him safe in the sturdy body!
And she had but hastened the end she had come to avert!
“Jesu mia,” she prayed, from the shelter of her arms, “help! Help Thou—Lord of Heaven, give him to be spared!”
And not once did she think of the great quest, broken by a meagre waiting by the way; no thought crossed her mind in this crisis of the Land of the Whispering Hills, of an old man, dreaming his dreams in the wilderness.
Thus had love set aside like a bauble the thing for which her life had been lived, for which she had grown and prepared herself in the attainments of men.
She had felt the magic touch of the great mystery, and henceforth she was captive, servant to its will, and its mandate had been service. And here was the end—
A hand touched her shoulder, a hand infinitely soft of pressure, infinitely gentle.
“Ma'amselle,” whispered the cavalier in her ear, “one more turn of the wheel of Fate,—and we take the plunge together. Kin are we, truly; kin of the tribe of Daring Hearts. A lioness are you, oh, maid with the Madonna face! No woman, but a creature of the wild, superb in courage and unknown to fear! I saw it in your face that day in De Seviere,—the something alien to the common race, the spark, the light; oh, I know not what it is, save that it is Divine and yet splendidly of the earth! We are matched in heart. Venturers both, and like true venturers we shall take the longest trail with a laugh and our hands together,—and trust to the Aftermath to give us largess of that love which has its beginning in such glorious wise. Pledge me, oh, my Queen of the World!”
With a grace beyond compare he drew her into his arms, silent and velvet soft, light and inimitable in his love way.
In utter astonishment Maren felt his silken curls sweep her cheek, his lips on hers. Her tears were wet on his face. She put up her hands and pushed him loose.
“M'sieu!” she said, “what do you do?”
“Do? Why, bow to the One Woman of my heart,” he said; “my Maid of the Red Flower, whom love has led to share my fate.”
“In all pity! M'sieu, you do mistake most grievously!”
“What? Was it not confession at the post gate when this painted rabble fell upon us? Or is it still the maiden within fearing the word of love? In such short space, Sweetheart, there is no time for girlish fears. Be strong in that as in the courage of the lone trail. Speak!”
“Speak?” said Maren, with her old calmness; “of a surety, M'sieu. Though I have thrilled at your careless bravery, your laughing daring which, as you say truly, is kin of my heart,—though I have taken your red flowers, yet there is in me no spark of love for you, no thought beyond the admiration of a true son of fortune. That alone, M'sieu.”
De Courtenay was staring at her in the blackness of the lodge, his arm fallen loose about her shoulders.
“Name of God!” he whispered wonderingly, “it is not love? Then what, in the living world, has brought you over the waste to this camp of hostile savages?”
“This,” said Maren, and she reached a hand to the body of McElroy.
“Sancta Maria! This factor? This heavy-blooded man?... But he did speak of half-requited—Oh, Saints of Heaven! What a jest of the world! The threads of tragedy are tangled into a farce!”
De Courtenay threw up his head and took a silent laugh at the ways of Fate.
“Three fools together! And the riddle's key too late! At least I can set it straight for one—”
He broke his laughing whisper to listen to new sounds without, a dull blow, muffled and heavy, the slight whisper of garments sliding against garments, the crunch and rustle of a body eased down to earth,—nay, two blows, coming at a little interval, and from either end the beat walked by the two guards, and from the southern end there came a grunt, a cry choked in the throat that uttered it. Instantly the venturer was up and at the flap, peering outside. A figure loomed against the stars, paced slowly by with an audible step, passed and turned and passed again.
It was Marc Dupre, an eagle feather, snatched from the quivering form of the guard lying in the darkness by the wall of the lodge, slanting from his head against the heavens.
A little way beyond at the ashes of a fire a warrior stirred, lifted a head, and peered toward the tepee of captives; then, satisfied that all was well, lay down again to slumber. Back and forth, back and forth paced the solitary watcher. De Courtenay within was quivering from head to foot with the knowledge that something was happening. As he stood so the pacing figure halted a moment before the opening.
“S-s-t!” it whispered; “warn Ma'amselle!” then walked away.
Swift on the words another figure crept noiselessly to the lodge door.
“M'sieu,” said Edmonton Ridgar, beneath his breath, “give me the factor's shoulders. Do you take his feet and follow,—softly, for your life. Bring the maid.”
De Courtenay stepped back, groped for Maren, took her head in his hands, and brought her ear up to his lips.
“Rescue!” he breathed; “Ridgar and Dupre. We carry our friend of the fort here. Follow.”
He loosed her and bent to lift McElroy.
With all her courage leaping at the turn, Maren quietly raised the flap and in a moment they were all outside among the sleeping camp.
With measured tread Dupre came up to them, walked with them as they moved silently back, and was on the turn when Maren touched his arm.
“This way,” she whispered; “straight ahead.”
One more step,—two,—the youth took beside her. It seemed that the heart within him was breaking in his agony. The shadows of the wood were drawing very near, the chances of escape multiplying with every step.
Another sweet moment of nearness and the misty white figure beside him would fade into the darkness forever, pass forever out of his sight.
Dearer than all the joys of Paradise was that black head, that wondrous face with its strength and its tenderness so adoringly mingled. The one supreme thing in all the universe was this woman,—and she was passing. With an involuntary motion he touched her softly and she stopped instantly, even at that great moment. It thrilled through him, that quick perception of his desire.
“Ma'amselle,” he whispered, “fare thee well!”
She caught his hand swiftly, pulling him forward. “Eh?” she said. “What mean you?”
There was startled anxiety in her voice and the heart of Dupre leaped exultantly.
“Naught,” he lied bravely, “save that I must hang behind for a moment or so to cover any sound with my sentry's step, but I cannot part from you even so small a space without,—God-speed. Hurry now, Ma'amselle! They pass from sight!”
He pushed her gently after, but she turned against his hand.
“Come!” she commanded; “I will not leave you!”
“Nay,—how long, think you, before utter silence awakes that mob? You must be at the water's edge before I follow. Go now,—quick, for love of Heaven!”
He pushed her away and turned back toward the camp, pacing slowly by the huddled heap that attested Ridgar's hand, past the empty lodge, and on to the northern turn, where lay that other figure prone upon the earth, yet still quivering in every muscle. He died hardly, this strong North warrior, and Dupre almost regretted the need, though the trapper of the Pays d'en Haut took without thought whatever of life menaced his own and considered the deed accomplishment.
Back and forth, back and forth he walked the beat of the watcher and a holy joy played over his soul like a light from the beyond. He turned his mind to that hour in the woods, to the memory of the lips of Maren Le Moyne, the warm sweetness of her beaded breast, the tender affection of her embrace, and the present faded into that land of dreams wherein walk those who love greatly.
Meanwhile Ridgar and De Courtenay pushed silently forward with the limp body of McElroy swinging between, while the girl stepped softly in their trail, straining her ears for sounds from the camp, and carrying the only weapon among them, a rifle which Ridgar had taken from the Indian he had killed.
“To the east,” she whispered, “down the little defile to the river, then south along the shore,—it is shingled and open,—to the canoe. Walk fast as you can, M'sieu.”
It was riskful going through the strip of woods, but when they entered the little canon that cleft a ridge of cliffs, rising impudently out of a level land, they mended their pace. Here was solid, dry rock beneath them, walls of rock on either side, and a narrow strip of star-strewn sky above.
“Thank God!” Ridgar was saying, under his breath, “the distance widens!”
But no sooner were the words out of his mouth than a cold chill shot through him, and Maren pushed forward with compelling hands on De Courtrnay's shoulders.
“Hurry, M'sieu!” she cried; “they have awakened!”
“Hi! Hi! Hi-a! He-a! Hi!”
Danger was waking in the camp behind, first with one sharp cry, then another and another, until throat after throat took up the sound and the yapping turned into a roar.
They were but half-way through the narrow gorge. The two men broke into a stumbling run. Ridgar was going backwards, half-turned to see ahead, and suddenly his foot struck a loose pebble and he fell headlong. De Courtenay stumbled, and in the scramble to right themselves they lost more time than they could spare. Before they were up and started, a shrill voice came into the gorge, yelling its “Hi! Hi! Hi-a!”
De Courtenay suddenly stopped.
“'Tis useless!” he said breathlessly; “We'll never make it! Here,—do you take my place, Ma'amselle!”
He caught Maren's shoulder and pushed her forward.
“Take his knees,—so! You are strong,—give me the rifle. Make haste, Ridgar,—Ma'amselle!”
He bowed in the darkness.
“The last turn of the wheel, Ma'amselle,—and I take the plunge alone. All in the day's march!”
With the last words he turned back to face the way they had come, shook his long curls back across his shoulder, and lifted the rifle to his cheek.
The footsteps of Ridgar and Maren were echoing down the rocky gap.
It had been a promising escape, a neat plan well carried out, and there was but one thing lacking to its fulfilment,—another step to pace the deserted lodge of captives.
Across in the darkness among the Bois-Brules one ear had lain close to the tell-tale earth, one evil face peered unsleeping among the dusky shapes of the camp, a swarthy face with a white lock on its temple.
Keener than all the rest, Bois DesCaut, driven by personal hate, listened to all the sounds of night.
And he had heard a changing in the steps that passed and repassed, that separated and came together, before that lodge across the sleeping mob,—a change, a little silence, and then the steps again that presently thinned to ONE,—one step that paced evenly, with a measured tread, a moccasined step like that of an Indian, yet somehow alien in its firmness and swing.
One step where there should have been two,—and the half-breed trapper raised himself and gave the first “Hi! Hi!”
Like startled wolves they were up all around him in a moment and down on that empty tepee with its one sentry!
A torch flared redly with the sudden revealing of a slim youth in buckskins and two Nakonkirhirinon warriors deep in the Great Sleep.
What was there for Marc Dupre in that moment of roused fury,—that tense moment of awaking rage, of baffled rights of payment?
What but death too swift and unrestrained for torture?
A dozen weapons reached him from as many crowding hands and he went down on the last earth her feet had trod, the spot where she had last touched his hand.
Her golden voice, sweet with its sliding minors, was in his ears, the sweetness of her lips on his.
“A stone to your foot, Ma'amselle,” he whispered, as the darkness broke and the stars began to dance on a sky of blood-red fire; “serve you with my life,—no better fate,—oh, I love you! I—a stone to your foot,—Ma'amselle!”
And at that moment Maren Le Moyne, straining every muscle of her young body to save the man she loved, looked swiftly back, having left the defile to stagger, stumbling, southward to where Mowbray's men waited with the canoe.
She saw the sudden flaming of the torch, the slim, boyish figure in its buckskins, the ring of faces, and the flash of weapons; saw the forms close in and the slim boy go down like a reed in the winter storm, and a cry broke from her lips as De Courtenay's rifle began to sound in the gorge.
With tears on her cheeks and her face drawn hard, she raised her head and gave a panther's far-off call.
Out of the forest at the signal came running Alloybeau and McDonald and Frith, alert, ready for anything, wondering beyond wonder at the call that meant deliverance. Not one of them had thought to see again this strange, intrepid woman who pierced the forbidden places and wound men like Mr. Mowbray around her fingers. It would have been a toss-up for men to attempt what she had done.
She was coming to the canoe, and she was victorious. Yet they knew that death was up and at her heels, from the sound of the shots.
The big canoe was in the water, the men were ready, paddle in hand, with Wilson knee-deep in the stream ready to push off, when along the reach of shore there came that sorry ending to the gallant venture,—Ridgar and the girl, staggering, stumbling, trying to make what haste they could, with swinging roughly between them the apparently lifeless body of the factor of Fort de Seviere.
Breathless and exhausted they reached the boat. Brilliers and Wilson reached for their burden, threw it into the bottom, and hauled Maren on her knees among the thwarts.
There was a shove, a word, a dip of the paddles, and the canoe shot out to the deeper waters, and none aboard her saw the form of Edmonton Ridgar draw back into the shelter of tangled vines on shore.
“Give me a blade!”
From the rocking bottom Maren was reaching for a paddle, got it, thrust by some one into her hands, and was cleaving water with the best of them, deep stroke after deep stroke, the rush and suck of the eddy in her ears.
In the cold blue darkness the stream whispered and warned like some old witch at her cauldron, the night was clammy, and behind the new fires flared against the towering trees.
A babble of voices told of pursuit,—shouts and gutturals that strung out from the camp all through the gorge and were beginning to flow with the river.
“Only a matter of time,—a little time,” thought Wilson, at the prow, but never a word was uttered in the canoe.
Exerting every atom of strength, calling on all the will-power aboard, they shot forward into the night and the current.
The noise behind increased, as the tones of a bell blown by the wind increase when the wind sets in one's direction.
“Not now!” Maren was saying to herself. “Not now,—when we are so far toward the winning! Not now,—oh, Friend of my heart! why was that price demanded? Holy Mary rest him, that young Marc Dupre—and send deliverance for this—”
Ahead the river swept around a turn. Keeping close to the shore they caught shallow water and cut round into a wider opening.
The cries behind veered and deadened, and suddenly Wilson in the prow raised his blade.
Maren leaned behind him and looked into the shadows.
On every side dark shapes covered the face of the stream like water-bugs, from every side there came the “whoo-sh-st-whoo-sh” of dipping paddles, the little plank and rattle of their shafts against gunwales.
They had glided into the midst of a flotilla of canoes travelling at night and in silence.
The maid from Grand Portage threw up her head.
“In among them,” she whispered, “quick! Deep as we can!”
“But, Ma'amselle,” whispered back Wilson, “they may be Indians.”
“What matters? A chance is a chance, and who would not risk its turning?”
Unconsciously she was quoting that kinsman whose dauntless courage and love of venture had found its last thrill in covering her retreat in the gorge.
“In among them! Deep!”
Softly, as one of their number, the fugitive craft crept out to midstream and forward, usurping boldly place and speed.
Leaning low at each stroke the little company strained eye and ear for sight and sound, but, look as they might, they saw no eagle feathers against the stars, heard no word or whisper.
Barely had they reached their uncertain sanctuary when the light of torches shot southward across the bend and next moment circled, a far-reaching arm, to spread out and illumine the river broadcast as the Nakonkirhirinons swept into view, their savage faces peering under the raised flambeaux, their eyes like fiery points—searching their prey.
It fell on all the river, that light, on the running waters disturbed by myriad blades of white ash, on the banked background of the trees, on the drooping foliage at the stream's edge,—frail triflers of the wilderness, stooping from the sweet winds of Heaven to the water's wanton kiss,—and on a swarm of canoes, each manned by full complement of men, most of whose faces were eagle-featured and dark, blackeyed and high-cheekboned, though here and there were the fair hair and white skin of white men.
Odd, indeed, was the effect of this tableau on the Indians under the torches. They had come for one lone canoe,—to find a horde; for one man and one woman,—to fall upon a brigade.
They halted and the distance widened between.
And then the flotilla parted at a word of command from the darkness ahead and a boat came back among them. It passed close to the fugitives, and Maren saw a tall man with a square chin, who stood up in it.
When it reached the fringe it went on out into the open water toward the halted canoes of the Nakonkirhirinons, on whose eager faces sat a sort of stupid awe.
“What do yez want?” called the tall man sternly, as he swept face to face with the foremost canoe in which stood a headman of the tribe. “Whyfore is all this bally-hoo wid th' lights?”
There was no answer and he roared at them like a lion
“Can yez not shpake, ye haythen?”
Whereat a canoe glided from the back shadows and the voice of Bois DesCaut came in its broken English,
“A boat,—M'sieu,—we seek a boat that but now escaped from camp with a murderer aboard,—one who killed in cold blood the chief Negansahima back at the post of De Seviere. My brothers travel to the Pays d'en Haut that justice may be done. We only seek the murderer.”
The tall man stood in silence a moment and glared at the scene, at the excited faces, the gleaming eyes, the shifting glance of the spokesman.
“A likely sthory!” he said presently. “An' who, may I make bould to ask, is this murderer?”
DesCaut squirmed a moment in silence.
“Who,—did ye say?”
“A man, M'sieu,—a-a-trapper.”
“One lone man? Troth I commend his valour in evadin' such a rabble o' hell-spawn! An' what from did he escape,—th' sthake an' th' stretchline?”
“Justice, M'sieu,—his life for the chief's.”
“Ho-ho! From th' looks o' yer fri'nds, me lad, I'm thinkin' 'twill be justice wid her eyes shut!... But ye may turrn back an' search the forest,—we have no sthrangers in our party.”
DesCaut glowered at him a moment and spoke to the headmen around in their speech. There were threatening gutturals and gestures.
The flotilla was small compared to that of the tribe back at the gorge, they would know, at any rate.
“They say, if M'sieu will let one canoe go through his people with the torches, all will be well. Otherwise,—five hundred warriors, M'sieu, can take their will with two hundred.”
“Aye?” said the tall man, jerking his head around. He had been scanning the mass of his own craft, packed behind him, fading into the shadows out of the light. There was a peculiar look in his eyes when he faced DesCaut again, a thrust to his square jaw. In that backward look he had caught sight of the brown face of Maren Le Moyne, the white garment, glittering with its beads,—but he had seen, too, the crown of braids, wrapped round her head after the manner of the white woman.
“Go yer ways,” he said; “we thravel fast on urgent business,—ye cannot throuble us wid yer lookin' an' pokin'. Tell yer fri'nds—No.”
At this there was commotion among the Indians. A hurried consultation took place, with indrawing of canoes under the flambeaux, waving arms, and angry gestures.
“Then, M'sieu,—we come,—make way!” It was DesCaut, important and ugly.
“No, ye don't, me lad. Shwing back The Little Devil, bhoys!”
The leader's canoe shifted sidewise and another craft, heavy, lumbersome, and vastly bigger than the light boats of the rest poked its nose into its place,—and that nose was brass and round with a gaping maw,—a small cannon, scarcely big enough for the name, but a roaring braggart for all that.
“Belch, me darlin', if ye have th' belly-ache!” cried this tall man, and, without more warning, there was a tremendous flash and detonation, a mighty flying of the clear waters just under the bows of the foremost canoes of the Indians.
There was hiss and sputter of the torches, an upward leap of canoe and savage, capsize and panic and fear, and the night screamed with many voices.
“Formation again, lads!” called the sturdy voice of the leader. “We do be wastin' time wid these haythen!”
The canoe rounded, passed up between the others, which closed in behind, and the cannon-boat lumbered into place in the rear.
As he passed the strangers in their midst the tall man looked hard at Maren, the five men, and leaned out a bit to see what lay in the bottom.
“A close shave!” he said; “kape close in the middle an' shpake me at camp in the marnin'.”
The mass of dark objects, drawing out of the light, moved forward and, with a rush of intuition, the girl knew that all danger was past and that safety hovered over them like the luminous wings of an angel.
“Holy Master!” she cried within, “Thou didst answer my prayer,—but at what cost! Oh, Lord of Heaven, what cost!”
Then she dropped her blade and, under cover of the darkness, sat back upon her heels, covered her face with her hands, and wept.
In the silence that had fallen deep again, save for the lessening tumult behind, her weeping sounded to the outermost canoe low and awful, hard and terrible as the weeping of a man.
She did not even feel if the breath was still in McElroy.
Friendship was taking its toll of love.