G LOOMY as the hole was, there was no help for it. I could perceive nothing below, not even my hand when held within a foot of my eyes; nor had I the slightest previous knowledge of the place to guide me, even had not the fire ruins above effectually blocked every passage-way with fallen debris. Listening however intently, my ears could distinguish only the faint lapping of the river as it crept about the log piling on which the house had been built; but beyond this dim guidance, I had to feel my way forward with extended hands and groping feet. Swinging to my back the rifle that De Croix had brought, and casting an inquiring glance backward at the little group huddled upon the bank, almost invisible even at that short distance, I grasped the piling nearest me and slid down into the unknown darkness.
My feet found solid earth, although as I reached ? 359 ? out toward the left my moccasin came in contact with water, which told me at once that only a narrow path divided the steep bank of the excavation from the encroaching river. The floor above was originally low, so that I could easily touch the heavy supporting beams; and I had felt my way scarcely a yard before coming in contact with a serious obstruction, where the weakened floor had sagged so as almost to close the narrow passage. This caused me to wade farther out into the water, testing each step carefully as I followed the sharp curving of the shore-line. I had no fear of meeting any living enemy within that silent cave, my sole doubt being as to whether the half-breed chief had fulfilled his promise and brought the boat, my gravest anxiety to discover it early and get my party safely away before the Indian encampment learned the truth.
I must have reached the apex of the little cove, moving so cautiously that not a ripple of the water revealed my progress, and feeling for each inch of way like a blind man along city streets, when my knee suddenly struck some obstacle, and seeking to learn what it might be, I muttered a silent prayer of thanksgiving as I touched the unmistakable sides of a boat. It was a lumping, awkward craft, rudely fashioned, yet of a seeming length of keel and breadth of beam that set my heart beating with new joy, as I wondered if it was not the same craft in which the Kinzie family ? 360 ? put forth upon the lake the morning of the massacre. This seemed very likely, for there could hardly be two such boats at hand, where the Indian water-craft were slender, fragile canoes, poorly fitted for serious battle with lake waves. Doubtless this was the only vessel Sau-ga-nash could find suitable for the venture, or he would never have chosen it for the use of a single man, as it was of a size to require the services of several paddles. Yet the thought meant much; for this very lack of water-craft was likely to render pursuit by the baffled savages impossible, if only once we got fairly away from the shore.
With these reflections driving swiftly through my brain, I ran one hand hastily along the thwarts of the boat, seeking to discover if paddles had been provided, or even a sail of any kind. I touched a coil of rope, a rude oar-blade so broad as to seem unwieldy, a tightly rolled cloth,—and then my groping fingers rested on the oddest-feeling thing that ever a startled man touched in the dark. It was God's mercy I did not cry out from the sudden nervous fit that seized me. The thing I touched had a round, smooth, creepy feeling of flesh about it, so that I believed I fingered a corpse; until it began to turn slowly under my hand like a huge ball, the loose skin of it twitching yet revealing no human features to my touch. Saint Andrew! but it frightened me! I knew not what species of strange animal it might prove to be, nor whence its ? 361 ? grip or sting might come. Yet the odd feeling of it was strangely fascinating,—I could not let it go; the damp flesh-like skin seemed to cling to my fingers in a horrible sort of magnetism that bound me prisoner, the cold perspiration of terror bursting from every pore, even as my other hand, trembling and unnerved, sought in my shirt for the knife of Little Sauk.
As I gripped the weapon, the thing began to straighten out, coming up in the quick odd jerks with which some snakes uncoil their joints after the torpidity of winter. My hand, finding naught to grasp, slipped from the smooth round ball, and as it fell touched what seemed an ear, and then a human nose.
"Merciful God! 'tis a man!" I gasped, in astonishment and yet relief, as I closed upon his throat, madly determined to shut off his wind before he could give alarm.
"Cuss the luck!" he gasped hoarsely, and I let go of him, scarcely able to ejaculate in my intense surprise at that familiar voice.
"Burns? For Heaven's sake, Burns! can this indeed be you?"
For an instant he did not speak, doubtless as greatly perplexed as I at the strange situation.
"If ye're Injun," he ventured at last gravely, "then I'm a bloody ghost; but if by any chance ye're the lad, Wayland, which yer voice sounds like, then it's Ol' Tom Burns as ye're a-maulin' 'round, which seems ? 362 ? ter be yer specialty, a-jumpin' on unoffensive settlers in the dark, an' a-chokin' the life outer them."
The growling tone of his voice was growing querulous, and it was evident that his temper, never quite childlike, had not been greatly improved by his late experiences as an Indian captive.
"But Burns, old friend!" I persisted heartily, my courage returned once more, "it was surely enough to stir any man to violence to encounter such a thing in the dark! What in Heaven's name has happened to leave you with such a poll? What has become of your hair and beard? Is their loss a part of Indian torture?"
There was a low chuckle in the darkness, as if the old rascal were laughing to himself.
"Injun nuthin!" he returned with vehemence. "Thet's jist my way of sarcumventin' the bloody varmints. I shaved the hull blame thing soon as ever they let me loose, an' then played loony, till thar ain't no Injun 'long the shore as 'd tech me fer all the wampum in the Illini country. 'Tain't the fust time I saved my scalp by some sech dern trick. I tell ye, it's easy 'nough ter beat Injuns if ye only know how. By snakes! I'm sacred, I am,—specially teched by the Great Spirit. I tell ye, ter be real loony is dern nigh as good in an Injun camp as ter hev red hair like thet thar little Sister Celeste with the Pottawattomies. She knows her business, you bet; an' so does Ol' Burns know him!"
? 363 ?
His mention of her name instantly recalled me to the little gr............