The Red River Half-Breed: A Tale of the Wild North-West Read online

  CHAPTER II.

  THE FALSE PILOT.

  To the north of the trappers, approaching, but out of their reach ofvision, a singular train was skimming over the snows. From a distanceone might have supposed it a flight of birds, for no four-footedcreatures could have travelled at that surprising pace.

  But it was a procession of _carrioles_, or dog sledges, preceded by twolarge ones. These were impelled by the wind alone, caught in sails,which would be the tent canvas by night, fastened to masts set in thebreadth of the beam like that of an "ice yacht." The runners, on theprinciple of a mail coach's, shoes were formed of thin wood turnedup in front; their width prevented the sledges sinking materially.But the speed was what saved them better from being submerged in thetwenty-five feet dead level snow. Moreover, the steersmen, so to callthem, of the queer craft, were both fitted for their posts. The secondsledge was governed, thanks to the adroit manipulation of a tough pole,by one of those Scotch-Americans who are the indisputable rulers ofthe Northwest. At the cold they never wince; they are sober, prudent,rather silent than talkative, as firm as a rock in defence, and astrusty as a dog.

  In the foremost snow ship an Indian was pilot and helmsman too. Uponhim depended the lives of all in those two vehicles. Those followingmight swerve off from any danger they met by whipping the dogs to turnquickly.

  This savage seemed less thickly clad than the white men, who, however,crouched down, but he flinched as little from the cutting blast as abronze statue. Now and again a whirl of wind caught up the ice crystalsand encircled his erect figure within the cruel clouds. The next momenthe was seen again, his face as sternly set, his eyes as rigidly bentahead, as before his disappearance.

  The sense of safety he inspired and the glorious thrill which therapidity of the course provided left the passengers in a placid joy.

  The dog sledges contained the provisions necessary in these uninhabitedwilds, with the hunters, servants, and guards of the party leader.The second snow ship carried the more valuable property and the "newhands," who could not be trusted with the semiwild dogs; under thesteersman, it was commanded by the secretary of the chief.

  This gentleman was in the foremost conveyance with his daughter and themost "reliable" men.

  He was an important man, as this escort, nearly thirty strong,abundantly manifested.

  Sir Archie Maclan was a retired shipping merchant, enriched by theEastern tea and silk trade. He was chairman of a land purchase companythat contemplated founding a city on the line of the British PacificRailway. He never invested his money on hearsay, and he would notask his friends to do so either. Hence, having volunteered to go andinvestigate, at his own expense, the shareholders had voted him thanksand unanimously approved.

  He was a widower, and took with him the sole object of his affection inhis daughter.

  Miss Ulla Maclan was one of those fair Northern beauties, born typesof "Norma," though the black-haired and swart-complexioned Italians dotheir most to mar our proper conception of that ideal of the druidess.At the officers' ball at Quebec, and the Mayor and Council ball inMontreal, she had carried away the palms for grace, amiability andloveliness.

  Ofttimes dreamy and somewhat superstitious, Ulla had insisted uponnot being left behind when her father prepared to push west for theRed River. As she was indomitable, he compromised as usual when theydisputed. He put off the original project till spring; and, in themeanwhile, assented to her wish to see something of the marvels whichwere currently reported of the Yellowstone Basin. By the greatest goodluck, an Indian was at Fort Sailor King who had come up that way.The officers recommended him. In a few days he had proven himselfweather-wise, brave, devoted, cautious as Sandy Ferguson himself, andmore ingenious than nine out of ten of his race.

  Little by little he had risen in esteem till no one was hurt by hishaving charge of the patron and his precious daughter, for whom any manwould gladly have died. If there were one exception to this universalhomage to talent in the scorned aborigine, it was the English secretaryof Sir Archie, and that distrust seemed to be caused by a kind ofjealousy at being consigned to the other sailing sledge, remote fromthe charming girl. But then, had he exhaled any plaint, who would havelistened to him--a raw Old Country sportsman, who carried his rifleslung across his shoulders when he went gunning?

  There was one drawback to the full enjoyment of the fleet course: theimmense and oppressive silence. All the deer were stripping the treesof bark and moss in secret coverts; even the Arctic fox kept secludedbehind the tops of trees buried in the snow, so that they seemed meretopknots of Indians. The dogs wore no bells; the men talked in whispers.

  Nevertheless, the complete desert offered no cause for alarm. Butthe illimitable white field, the ice-clad mountains, the mightywind that hurried the two ponderous sledges onward as if they werefeathers--these struck the rudest with awe as the short day closed in.

  As darkness threatened the men brightened in their chat. Visions ofhot tea made lips water, where, alas, the frost seized the moistureinstantly.

  For hours the uninterrupted rush had been maintained. Few obstaclescropped up which the Indian had not avoided with dexterity and warnedhis successor of by a sharp cry.

  The wind strengthened with the dusk. A faint dark blue line at lengthrevealed the limit of the snowy plateau. It was so swiftly "lifted"that in an hour or so all believed they would be camping down inshelter of a forest which would furnish the welcome fire.

  The Indian himself relaxed his muscles, for they saw him faintly smiletoo.

  All at once he began to murmur, and then to utter audibly a curiousmonotonous chant, which amused Miss Maclan. Her father had dozed off inthe warm furs that muffled them both.

  "Oh, the Chippeway is singing," she remarked. "What a funny song! Icannot call it lively, though."

  "Lively be hanged!" burst out the Canadian at her elbow, who had neverbeen so rude before. "It's a death song. Look out, mates. _Au guet,camarades!_" with a great shout, "This red nigger's turned 'bad!'"

  The savage responded to the accusation by a defiant whoop. Fiftydifferent spots sent up its echo, and what seemed wolves bounded up outof the snow here and there in the gathering gloom.

  It was too late for the hunters to attempt a seizure of the steersman.Already they were paralyzed, as they had partly arisen, by beholdingthe snow plain unexpectedly end in a sheer descent. Two seconds afterthe first sledge was over the precipice; in five the second followed.Three or four men leaped out of this--of the other it was impossibleto do so in time, and it sank in the snow of which their leap brokethe crust. The conductors of the dog sledges began plying their whips,and the yelping of the dogs rent the frosty air. Upon these fugitives,scattered on each side, the fifty dark figures shot arrows with almosta fatal aim.

  By night, in about half an hour only, no living representative of theparty seemed forthcoming. Till then the assailing force had not relaxedtheir murderous intentions. Dragging the dog sledges to a hollow,where they could light a fire unobserved, they greedily feasted on theprovisions, with the additional dainty of one of the dogs roasted for"fresh meat!"

  In the morning they descended into the chasm where the Indian guidehad so deliberately wrecked the "canoes-that-slide-on-the-snow." Noneof the fallen had survived the descent as far as they could be foundin the snow. They were smothered, or the cold had killed them in thelong night. Over the whites the Indians showed no emotion save a brutalrejoicing. But it was different when they discovered the body of theircountryman. Not only were they a little perplexed how to regard asuicide which so profited the tribe, for the Indian rarely commits thatcrime, but Sandy Ferguson, chancing to be hurled near the villain, haddragged himself, though his limbs were dislocated, so as to fall onhim, and had half torn off his scalp when death had fastened his icygrip on him.

  The joy of the victors was thus damped. They sang over theirmartyr-hero, and, bestowing on his corpse the prizes he would have wonif alive, gave him a chief's burial.

  "He was a great man, and _
Ahnemekee_ (the Thunderbolt) gives up his owntrophy, the English gun, to adorn his last sleeping place. May the fearinspiring Crow nation never know the son who would not do as much tolead a prey into their grasp. Ahnemekee salutes thee!"

  They had rigged up a kind of bed with crosspieces in the united apex offern pines. These were within reach of the men on the snow at present.When the thaws came, the dead Crow, laid upon this platform, would beforty feet in the air. About him was laid and hung his share of thespoil due to his long and patient plotting.

  In times of distress, the funereal offerings to any Indian of mark maybe as symbolical and worthless, intrinsically, as the cut paper of theChinese. But when valuables can be afforded, they themselves are leftwith the dead, and dogs and horses are sacrificed.

  On the completion of this mournful ceremony the Crows departed, surethat they had made a clean sweep of the party, so skilfully anddaringly decoyed to their doom by the pretended Chippeway. Not till thestealing up of the whitened wolves proved they had long since left thewind untainted with their odour did the rubbish heap of a large decayedtree move as if a gigantic mole were in operation, and the apprehensiveface of Miss Maclan showed itself.

  Apparently she alone had escaped the butchery following the hurling ofthe large sledges over into the snowy gulf.

  Spilt out, like all the other occupants of the vehicle except two orthree, when it "turned turtle" in its leap, the sail had chanced toembosom her in its folds as the circularly rising column of cold airfrom below caught it and momentarily swelled it out. By this accidentthe swiftness was lessened. Nevertheless, the sail was soon snatchedfrom her and rent to shreds, whilst she landed on the touchwood of thestorm felled cedar.

  When she recovered consciousness it was night. She fancied she heard avoice calling, but that may have been pure fancy. On the height aboveshe could hear only too plainly the ghoulish merriment of the Indiansover their carouse, and the moans of some wretch being tortured to adda zest to their regale. All she had heard of the redskin's mercilesstreatment of women captives impressed her. She crept still more deeplyinto the cavity of the rotten tree, and waited with little hope. Nota sound to cheer her in her neighbourhood. Absorbed in prayers, todrive away the poignant anxiety for her father, she did not feel theintense cold. As for that, she was well garbed in superb furs, thedouble clothing which Canadian ladies had chosen for her with theirexperience, when she announced her resolve to accompany her father.

  When dawn came, her fears were harrowing. Around and even over herhead in her ambush, the ravenous foe scampered and scuttled like thebeasts of rapine and carnage they were. They probed the snow and everycleft of the rocks to secure the hairy trophies from the haplesscrews of the snow ships. Not one could have been found alive, for ateach unearthing, Ulla judged by the tone that the finders experienceddisappointment. On the other hand, the spoil of the sledges wasembarrassing in its quantity for the band.

  She dared not peep out; she dreaded that the feeble blue thread ofcondensed breath from her nook would betray her. She did not see,therefore, that, unable to bear away more than a tenth of the plunder,the rest was hidden under the precipice.

  At last came the time when hunger drove her forth. The desolation andstillness in this hollow were overwhelming. The snow was trampledand pulled about by the searchers. Dead bodies, gashed and unlimbed,strewed the late virgin white expanse, amid the broken boxes anddisrupted cases.

  Ulla shuddered to tread among these hideous corpses, where it wasimpossible for her to recognise her late companions. To find her fatherwas a vain idea. She took a smashed tin of meat and some chocolate, andate ferociously.

  On high, the stars glittered with a cold brightness, which revealedthey saw her misery and grief, but offered no consolation. On the edgeof the precipice, gorged wolves, that had devoured the _voyageurs_ upthere, were lazily contemplating the solitary form with motion in thewreck, and among the human remains of the expedition so gay and gallantfifty hours before.

  Her ungovernable appetite appeased, and her thirst far from quenched bysucking a snowball, she mournfully reflected on her plight.

  A child of luxury, it was more a nightmare than reality that she couldbe here, in the Northwestern desert, the great mass of the RockyMountains looming up beyond, impressive, insurmountable, and on theother three points, a thousand miles of snow! And she a young girl,alone!

  A company of sappers and miners would have had a week's work in theironbound soil under the snow to inter this mangled _debris_ ofmortality. For her to attempt the pious duty was a mockery.

  Nevertheless, when the moon rose, a frenzied impulse to veil the poorcreatures, with at least a little shrouding snow, would have set herin action. But at the first step towards the nearest corpse, with itstrunk bristling with arrows, and its eyeless sockets appealing to theCreator against the barbarous outrage, Ulla stopped short.

  She was fascinated by the spectacle presented at the junction ofprotruding pines where the deceptive Indian guide reposed upon theplatform. The moon inundated it with tremulous beams.

  Suddenly she was sure that the body was animated. So do the vampiresspring to life when the moon bathes them in radiance. Certainly thefigure sat up cautiously; the pale face was even visible; with a steadyhand some of the trophies which adorned the monument were unhangedfrom the branches--the knife of Sandy Ferguson, the English rifle andcartridge container of her father, diverse appurtenances which had beenleft to equip the departing spirit for the happy hunting ground "overthe range" yonder.

  Thus armed, the ghastly phantom leaped down, and threatened to marchupon the horrified observer. Already three wolves, descending the faceof the bluff, sniffed danger. As the spectre proceeded, the largestsquatted, and emitted a lugubrious howl. All the others echoed it. Forsome minutes the scene was filled with this bloodcurdling concert, loudenough to have awakened still more dead.

  But Ulla did not hear the infernal chorus any longer. On beholding thecourse of the appalling apparition to be aimed indubitably at her, theconviction was too strong for her overtasked nerves. She murmured aprayer, and turned to flee frantically; but the snow was treacherous,and she slid down in a soft gap, where the feathery particles closedover her head.

  Perfectly unconscious, she did not hear the supposed Indian halt almostat the edge of the sealed up cavity which concealed her from even hiseagerly questioning eyes.

  "What a terrible tragedy," he exclaimed, with the deepest emotion, inEnglish.

  It was the secretary of Sir Archie.

  "All torn to pieces by those odious villains!" he continued. "On thedead they vented their spite; on the goods they have inflicted allthe wanton damage possible, so that they might not benefit even somestarving traveller who came into this Pit of Abomination. That generousold gentleman, these brave, patient, devoted, cheerful hunters andcampmen, that young lady never to be too much pitied! It brings thetears into my eyes--miserable solitary mourner that I am to try to doso much barbarity justice. Heaven knows that I came out here with noprejudice against the red man. This same Indian who enlisted merelyto lure the expedition to destruction, accepted my courtesies with agrateful mien. And yet he was a monster! I glory to have profaned hisresting place--to rob the robber of the weapons with which, God aidingme, I shall avenge my massacred comrades!"

  He perambulated the valley of death till sunrise. He called andexamined every spot with care; but all the time no response was givenhim. Then, having made a meal on the height, where the same fatal talewas displayed in the bones with which the wolves sported, he doggedlytook up the trail of the victors.

  But at the woods, where the snow presented a different aspect andwas absent in tracts, he found that the wily savages were not tobe followed by an inexperienced man, however brave, vigorous, anddetermined.