Signs of trouble—Reconnoitring—Precautions—We retire into the island—Daylight—The enemy shows himself—A search—He prepares to attack the island—A midnight storm—The raft—“Aim low and fire fast”—In the whirl of waters—On the lip of the fall—The end of crime.
When we got back to the camp near the lake the scout had news that at once excited the suspicions of Red Cloud. He had gone, he said, back upon our trail towards where we had entered the valley, to look for one of our horses which had strayed in that direction. He had found the missing animal, but during the search he had observed a single white wolf standing on the edge of a thicket some distance away. Endeavouring to approach the place in order to get a shot at this beast, he had found the animal gone, and no trace of trail or footmark could he see, but he had noticed the impression of a moccasined foot in the soft clay of the thicket. When he first had noticed this solitary wolf, it appeared to him to be standing three parts within the thicket, only the head and portion of the neck being visible.
Such was the story which roused the suspicions of the Sioux.
The north side of the valley was bounded by a wooded ridge, which commanded a view of the trail by which we had approached our present camp. To this ridge Red Cloud directed his steps, having first taken the precaution to have the horses driven in from the farther end of the meadow to the close vicinity of the camp, and our baggage made ready for any sudden shift of quarters that might be necessary. The Iroquois remained in camp; the scout was to join us on the look-out ridge.
As Red Cloud was fully convinced that our movements were even now under the observation of hostile eyes, he directed that we were to separate as though in pursuit of game, and by circuitous routes gain the points of observation selected. He believed that the object seen by the scout had been a Sircie disguised under the head and skin of a white wolf; these masks were often adopted by the plain Indians, when reconnoitring previous to an attack. They enabled the Indian scout to approach a camp, to lurk along a ravine, or to show himself upon the sky-line of a hill-top, when no other means of concealment could be used.
If the Sioux’s surmise was correct, the hostile party to which this wolf-scout belonged was not far away, and it was likely that ere the evening closed in some indication of its presence would be noticeable.
From the top of the look-out hill a view was obtained of the trail leading to our camp, the only path by which men coming from the east could enter the valley of the lake and meadow; but no sign of man, hostile or peaceful, was visible; and the summer winds as they stole gently through the whispering pines, alone made audible sound in the solitude. Nevertheless the suspicions of the Sioux were not to be allayed by the quiet aspect of the trail by which our camp could be approached.
None knew better than he that if the Sircies had really followed us into these hills, they would have come in all the craft and concealment of their race, keeping within the cover of the woods by day, and moving when night hid their presence. He knew too that any party venturing into these solitudes would be strong in numbers, and that nothing but the most powerful incentive could induce men whose natural sphere of life lay in the open prairie country, to venture among those rough rocks and tangled woods.
The day was yet young; there was plenty of time to examine the trail further towards the east; the scout would push his way quietly through the woods, and return by nightfall to our camp. Red Cloud gave him a few directions as to his movements, and we returned back to the meadow, to prepare for action in the event of attack. We at once proceeded to ferry our goods across to the island; the horses were swum one by one in the wake of the canoe, and landed in the little bay between the rocks.
At this season of the year there was ample forage for them among the rocks and trees, and in several places, where the soil was low and swampy, the goose-grass, so greedily sought for by horses, grew plentifully.
It was evening by the time we had finished this work, and the shadow of the great mountain that rose between us and the west was already darkening our little meadow. The lake surface was broken in a hundred places, by the rising of many trout at the midges and flies brought forth by the approach of night. We still kept our fire lighted at the place of our first camp, but we were ready to fall back at a moment’s notice upon the island; in fact, we only awaited the return of the scout before returning to that secure resting-place for the night.
We had not long to wait. The light was still good when his signal-cry sounded from the entrance to the valley, and he was with us a few minutes later. His news was soon told. The Sircies were in force below the ridge which ended the valley of the Red Deer river—they were in fact not six miles distant. He had counted a score of braves, and there were others whom he could not see. There was a white man with them—at least he had seen an English saddle on the back of a strong horse picketted under the trees.
All this was conclusive; our preparations had not been made a moment too soon; the night now closing around us would scarcely pass without an attack.
The small dug-out canoe just held three persons. At the first trip the Iroquois and I landed on the island, then Red Cloud returned to fetch over the scout, who had remained at our camp. The Sioux was absent longer than I had expected; the daylight had now all gone, and it was too dark to discern his movements, but soon we saw the fire burning brightly, and in its red reflection upon the water I made out the canoe, dropping quietly down for the island.
Red Cloud and the scout now landed, and then we all sat quiet in the shade of the trees, waiting for what the night would bring forth. The hours passed by—nothing appeared; the fire still burned at our old camp. Save the rushing of the water by the island shores, and the dull thunder of the cataract below its plunge, all was silent.
Three of us lay down to sleep. The Iroquois remained alone to watch. How long I had slept I could not say, but I was deep in dreams when a touch was laid upon my shoulder, and I awoke instantly to that consciousness to which wild life in the wilderness soon accustoms its followers.
“Look out,” whispered Red Cloud. “They are come at last.”
I looked out over the water, but I could see nothing. It was yet night, but the first faint ray of light was in the east behind us as we looked from the island, and its indistinct hue made vague and shadowy the whole range[302] of vision. The fire was no longer visible.
As I strove to pierce the gloom, there suddenly flashed forth in the darkness a long volley of musketry, and the echoes from a hundred mountain cliffs rolled in tumultuous thunder around our island; nor had they ceased ere their reverberations were blended in the fierce war-cry of the Sircies, which pealed forth close to our old camp. We lay within our shelter while this wild storm of shot and shout died away. We could then hear a scurrying of feet, and voices raised in tones of rage and disappointment; then all was again quiet.
The daylight was now gaining rapidly upon the darkness; soon we could distinguish figures moving to and fro where our camp had been, and then we could make out with greater precision the dress and faces of individual Indians, some on the borders of the lake, others in the clump of trees, and others along the banks of the river, within one hundred paces of where we lay.
And now as the dawn momentarily filled the valley with increasing light, there appeared upon the scene a figure which centred upon it all our attention. I looked at Red Cloud, to mark how he bore himself within sight of his arch-enemy, for the mounted man who now rode up to our camping-place was none other than the villain trader; but neither in feature nor in gesture did the Sioux show symptoms of those long-cherished feelings which must have filled his heart. There,[303] within easy rifle-shot of where we lay, stood this man, whose slowly accumulated crimes and long-pursued hatred, had brought him even to this remote resting-place of one whose life he had betrayed—to this home of him whose murder he had so often tried to compass; yet the rifle of Red Cloud remained lowered, and his eye betokened neither rage nor astonishment as he thus beheld his enemy.
As yet there seemed to have occurred to the war-party no suspicion that we had retired to the island. Our disappearance from camp was evidently an event which they had not calculated upon; and even now, when the camp was found deserted, while traces of its recent occupation were numerous, they did not imagine that we had done more than conceal ourselves in the surrounding woods.
That our ultimate destruction was assured, naturally appeared certain to them, for excepting the trail by which they had entered the valley, no outlet was apparent to them; and as they now held that sole means of egress, a thorough search seemed certain to promise our capture.
They therefore set to work at once when daylight enabled them to see the ground, to hunt us up amid the rocks and woods that lay between the meadow and the loftier hills, whose rugged and precipitous sides forbade all chance of escape.
At the upper end of the valley, where the river first entered the level space, the perpendicular walls of a ca?on[304] prevented horses going further into the mountains in that direction. It is true that by scrambling over the boulders and many rocks which lay piled on each side at the base of these walls, a man on foot might force his way at low water; but at this time the snows of the upper mountains, the vast glaciers which here formed the parent spring of the Saskatchewan river, were pouring forth their volumes under the influence of the midsummer sun, and the snow-fed river was foaming full through the rocky aperture into the prairie valley.
If they could have found our horses, then the question of the possibility of our escaping on foot up some cleft or landslip in the mountain wall would still have remained an open one; but wherever we had got to, there also must be our horses, and the horses must still be within the confines of the valley. They now set to work diligently to seek us out; while some remained near our old camping-place, the greater number spread themselves along both sides of the lake. Meantime the sun had risen. All through the forenoon the search went on and when mid-day came there was not a spot in the valley which had not been visited, excepting the island on which we stood. It was now that, returning from their fruitless quest, they turned their attention with more persevering examination to the ground around our old camp. The spot where the little raft had been constructed showed more signs of wood-cutting than the supply of the summer camp would have necessitated; the bank of the river also betrayed our trail at the water’s edge. Then we saw them consult together, while their looks and gestures, as they pointed towards the island, clearly told us that the next attempt would be made in our direction.
Coming down upon both sides of the river, they tried to find a place where they could cross the water, and we could see them endeavouring to peer through the close-set branches that fringed the rocks, for indications of our presence. The central portion of our rocky refuge was, however, more depressed in level than the edges, so that our horses would have been quite concealed from view even had the bordering screen of brushwood been less dense.
When they found the current flowing on both sides of the island was everywhere too rapid to permit a man to cross, we saw them gather again about our old camping-place, and again we could discern by their actions that the idea of making a descent upon the point of the island above the rapid—the point where we ourselves had landed—had not escaped their notice.
But to think of the descent was one thing, to carr............