We left Ian Macdonald, it will be remembered, far away in the western wilderness, suffering from the wounds received during his memorable and successful combat with a grizzly bear. These wounds were much more serious than had at first been supposed, and, despite the careful nursing of Vic Ravenshaw and Michel Rollin, he grew so weak from loss of blood that it became evident to all of them that they should have to take up their abode in that wild unpeopled spot for a considerable period of time. They therefore planned and built a small log-hut in a wood well stocked with game, and on the margin of a little stream where fish abounded.
At first Victor resolved to ride to the nearest fort of the fur-traders and fetch a doctor, or the means of conveying their wounded friend to a place where better attendance and shelter were to be had, but insurmountable difficulties lay in the way. There were no doctors in the land! The nearest abode of civilised man was several hundred miles distant, and neither he nor Rollin knew the way to any place whatever. They had depended entirely on Ian as a guide, and now that he was helpless, so were they! It would have been difficult for them even to have found their way back to the Red River Settlement without the aid of the scholastic backwoodsman. They were constrained, therefore, to rest where they were, hoping from day to day that Ian would regain strength sufficient to bear the fatigue of a journey. Thus the winter slowly slipped away, and wild-fowl—the harbingers of spring—were beginning to awake the echoes of the northern woods before Ian felt himself strong enough to commence the journey homewards.
That winter, with all its vicissitudes, hopes, fears, adventures, and pleasures, we must pass over in absolute silence, and re-introduce our three friends on the evening of a fine spring day, while riding over a sweep of prairie land in the direction of a thick belt of forest.
“The river must be somewhere hereabouts,” said Ian, reining up on an eminence, and gazing earnestly round him.
“Vas you ever here before?” asked Rollin.
“Ay, once, but not at this precise spot. I don’t quite recognise it. I hope my long illness has not damaged my memory.”
“If we don’t reach the river soon,” said Victor, with something of weariness in his tone, “this poor brute will give in.”
Victor referred to his horse, which had been reduced by some unknown disease to skin and bone.
“However, I’m well able to walk,” he continued, more cheerfully; “and it can’t be long before we shall fall in with the river, and some Indians, who will sell or lend us a canoe.”
“Ah! my cheval is not much more better dan your von,” said Rollin; and he spoke the truth, for his horse was afflicted with the same disease that had attacked that of Victor. Ian’s steed, however, was in excellent condition.
That night the invalid horses were freed from all their troubles by a pack of wolves while their owners were asleep. They had been “hobbled” so carelessly that they had broken loose and strayed far from the encampment. Being weak they fell an easy prey to their sneaking enemies.
Next day, however, the three friends reached the river of which they were in search, found a family of Indians there who bartered with them a canoe and some provisions for the remaining horse, and continued their homeward journey by water.
For a time all went well. The river was in high flood, for the snow-fall there, as elsewhere, had been unusually heavy, but all three were expert voyageurs, and succeeded in steering past difficulties of all kinds, until one afternoon, when good fortune seemed to forsake them utterly. They began by running the canoe against a sunk tree, or snag, and were obliged to put ashore to avoid sinking. The damage was, however, easily remedied; and while Ian was busy with the repairs his comrades prepared a hot dinner, which meal they usually ate cold in the canoe. Next they broke a paddle. This was also easily replaced. After that they ventured to run a rapid which almost proved too much for them; it nearly overturned the canoe, and filled it so full of water that they were compelled to land again, unload, and empty it.
“Dat is too bad,” observed Rollin, with a growl of discontent.
“It might have been worse,” said Ian.
“Bah!” returned Rollin.
“Pooh!” ejaculated Victor.
“Very good,” said Ian; “I only hope the truth of my remark mayn’t be proved to both of you.”
It has been asserted by the enemies of Ian Macdonald that the catastrophe which followed was the result of a desire on his part to prove the truth of his own remark, but we acquit him of such baseness. Certain it is, however, that the very next rapid they came to they ran straight down upon a big stone over which the water was curling in grand fury.
“Hallo!” shouted Ian, in sudden alarm, dipping his paddle powerfully on the right.
“Hi!” yelled Rollin, losing his head and dipping wildly on the same side—which was wrong.
“Look out!” roared Victor.
He might as well have roared “Look in,” for any good that could have come of it. There was a crash; the canoe burst up and doubled down, the bow was hurled high in the air, the rest of it lay out limp, and disappeared. Rollin went clean over the rock, Victor went round it, and Ian, after grasping it for a second, went under it apparently, for, like the canoe, he disappeared. That rapid treated these voyagers roughly. Of the three, Michel Rollin appeared to suffer most. After sending him round the stone in a rush of foam that caused his arms and legs to go round like a mad windmill, it sucked him down, rubbed his head on the boulders at the bottom, shot him up feet foremost into the air, received him on its raging breast again, spun him round like a teetotum, and, at last, hurled him almost contemptuously upon a sandbank at its foot.
Ian and Victor also received a severe buffeting before gaining the same sandbank, where they faced each other in a blaze of surprise and horror!
Unable to find words to express their feelings, they turned simultaneously, and waded in silence from the sandbank to the shore.
Here a consultation of the most doleful character that can be imagined was entered into.
“Everything lost,” said Ian, sitting down on a bank, and wringing the water out of his garments.
“Not even a gun saved,” said Victor gravely.
“No, nor von mout’ful of pemmican,” cried Rollin, wildly grasping his hair and glaring.
The poor fellow seemed to his friends to have gone suddenly mad, for the glare of despair turned to a grin of wild amusement, accompanied by a strange laugh, as he pointed straight before him, and became, as it were, transfixed.
Turning to look in the direction indicated, they beheld a small Indian boy, absolutely naked, remarkably brown, and gazing at them with a look of wonder that was never equalled by the most astonished owl known to natural history.
Seeing that he was observed, the boy turned and fled like an antelope. Rollin uttered a yell, and bounded away in pursuit. The half-breed could easily have caught him, but he did not wish to do so. He merely uttered an appalling shriek now and then to cause the urchin to increase his speed. The result was that the boy led his pursuer straight to the wigwam of his father, which was just what Rollin wanted. It stood but a short distance from the scene of the wreck.
And now, when, to all appearance, they had reached the lowest turn in the wheel of fortune, they were raised to the highest heights of joy, for the Indian proved to be friendly, supplied them with provisions to continue their journey, and gave them a good bow and quiver of arrows on their simple promise to reward him if he should visit them at Red River in the course of the summer. He had not a canoe to lend them, however. They were therefore constrained to complete their journey over the prairies on foot.
“You see, I said that things might be worse,” said Ian, as they lay on their backs beside each other that night after supper, each rolled in his blanket and gazing complacently at the stars.
“Yes, but you did not say that they might also be better. Why did not your prophetic soul enable you to see further and tell of our present state............