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 of comparative good fortune, Mr Wiseman?” asked Victor with a sigh of contentment.
“I did not prophesy, Vic; I only talked of what might be.”
“Vat is dat you say? vat might be?” exclaimed Rollin. “Ah! vat is is vorse. Here am me, go to bed vidout my smok. Dat is most shockable state I has yet arrive to.”
“Poor fellows!” said Ian, in a tone of commiseration.
“You indeed lose everything when you lose that on which your happiness depends.”
“Bah!” ejaculated Rollin, as he turned his back on his comrades and went to sleep.
A feeling of sadness as well as drowsiness came over Victor as he lay there blinking at the stars. The loss of their canoe and all its contents was but a small matter compared with the failure of their enterprise, for was he not now returning home, while Tony still remained a captive with the red man? Ian’s thoughts were also tinged with sadness and disappointment on the same account. Nevertheless, he experienced a slight gleam of comfort as the spirit of slumber stole over him, for had he not, after all, succeeded in killing a grizzly bear, and was not the magnificent claw collar round his neck at that very moment, with one of the claw-points rendering him, so to speak, pleasantly uncomfortable? and would he not soon see Elsie? and—. Thought stopped short at this point, and remained there—or left him—we know not which.
Again we venture to skip. Passing over much of that long and toilsome journey on foot, we resume the thread of our tale at the point when our three travellers, emerging suddenly from a clump of wood one day, came unexpectedly to the margin of an unknown sea!
“Lak Vinnipeg have busted hisself, an’ cover all de vorld,” exclaimed Rollin, with a look of real alarm at his companions.
“The Red River has overflowed, and the land is flooded,” said Ian, in a low solemn voice.
“Surely, surely,” said Victor, in sudden anxiety, “there must have been many houses destroyed, since the water has come so far, but—but, father’s house stands high.”
Ian’s face wore a troubled look as he replied—
“Ay, boy, but the water has come more than twelve miles over the plains, for I know this spot well. It must be deep—very deep—at the Willow Creek.”
“Vat shall ye do vidout bot or canoe?”
Rollin’s question was not heeded, for at that moment two canoes were seen in the distance coming from the direction of Lake Winnipeg. One was paddled by an Indian, the other by a squaw and a boy. They made straight for the spot where our travellers were standing. As they drew near, Victor hailed them. The boy in the bow of the foremost canoe was observed to cease paddling. As he drew nearer, his eyes were seen to blaze, and eager astonishment was depicted on his painted face. When the canoe touched land he leaped of it, and, with a yell that would have done credit to the wildest redskin in the prairie, rushed at Victor, leaped into his arms, and, shouting “Vic! Vic!” besmeared his face with charcoal, ochre, vermilion, and kisses!
To say that Victor was taken by surprise would be feeble language. Of course he prepared for self-defence, at the first furious rush, but the shout of “Vic!” opened his eyes; he not only submitted to be kissed, but returned the embrace with tenfold interest, and mixed up the charcoal, ochre, and vermilion with his mouth and pose and Tony’s tears of joy.
Oh, it was an amazing sight, the meeting of these brothers. It is hard to say whether the eyes or the mouth of the onlookers opened widest. Petawanaquat was the only one who retained his composure. The eyes of Meekeye were moistened despite her native stoicism, but her husband stood erect with a grave sad countenance, and his blanket folded, with his arms in classic fashion, on his breast. As for Rollin, he became, and remained for some time, a petrifaction of amazement.
When the first burst was over, Victor turned to Petawanaquat, and as he looked at his stern visage a dark frown settled on his own, and he felt a clenching of his fists, as he addressed the Indian in his native tongue.
“What made you take him away?” he demanded indignantly.
“Revenge,” answered the red man, with dignified calmness.
“And what induces you now to bring him back?” asked Victor, in some surprise.
“Forgiveness,” answered Petawanaquat.
For a few moments Victor gazed at the calm countenance of the Indian in silent surprise.
“What do you mean?” he asked, with a puzzled look.
“Listen,” replied the Indian slowly. “Petawanaquat loves revenge. He has tasted revenge. It is sweet, but the Indian has discovered a new fountain. The old white father thirsts for his child. Does not the white man’s Book say, ‘If your enemy thirst, give him drink?’ The red man brings Tonyquat back in order that he may heap coals of fire on the old white father’s head. The Great Spirit has taught Petawanaquat that forgiveness is sweeter than revenge.”
He stopped abruptly. Victor still looked at him with a puzzled expression.
“Well,” he said, smiling slightly, “I have no doubt that my father will forgive you, now that you have brought back the child.”
A gleam, which seemed to have a touch of scorn in it, shot from the Indian’s eye as he rejoined—
“When Petawanaquat brings back Tonyquat, it is a proof that he forgives the old white father.”
This was all that the Indian would condescend to say. The motives which had decided him to return good for evil were too hazy and complex for him clearly to understand, much less explain. He took refuge, therefore, in dignified silence.
Victor was too happy in the recovery of his brother to push the investigation further, or to cherish feelings of ill-will. He therefore went up to the Indian, and, with a smile of candour on his face, held out his hand, which the latter grasped and shook, exclaiming “Wat-chee!” under the belief that these words formed an essential part of every white man’s salutation.
This matter had barely been settled when a man came out of the woods and approached them. He was one of the Red River settlers, but personally unknown to any of them. From him they heard of the condition of the settlement. Of course they asked many eager questions about their own kindred after he had mentioned the chief points of the disastrous flood.
“And what of my father, Samuel Ravenshaw?” asked Victor anxiously.
“What! the old man at Willow Creek, whose daughter is married to Lambert?”
“Married to Lambert!” exclaimed Ian, turning deadly pale.
“Ay, or engaged to be, I’m not sure which,” replied the man. “Oh, he’s all right. The Willow Creek house stands too high to be washed away. The family still lives in it—in the upper rooms.”
“And Angus Macdonald, what of him?” asked Ian.
“An’ ma mère—my moder, ole Liz Rollin, an’ ole Daddy, has you hear of dem?” demanded Rollin.
At the mention of old Liz the man’s face became grave.
“Angus Macdonald and his sister,” he said, “are well, and with the Ravenshaws, I believe, or at the Little Mountain, their house being considered in danger; but old Liz Rollin,” he added, turning to the anxious half-breed, “has been carried away with her hut, nobody knows where. They say that her old father and the mother of Winklemann have gone along with her.”
Words cannot describe the state of mind into which this information threw poor Michel Rollin. He insisted on seizing one of the canoes and setting off at once. As his companions were equally anxious to reach their flooded homes an arrangement was soon come to. Petawanaquat put Tony into the middle of his canoe with Victor, while Ian took the bow paddle. Michel took the steering paddle of the other canoe, and Meekeye seated herself in the bow.
Thus they launched out upon the waters of the flood, and, bidding adieu to the settler who had given them such startling information, were soon paddling might and main in the direction of the settlement.
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