The Rising Of The Red Man Part 14

"This man is a spy, and he must die. He is of the hated English, and it is the will of the Lord that His people, the metis, inherit the land."

"And I say, Louis Riel, that it is the will of the Lord that this man shall not die!" reiterated the dwarf, emphasising his words with a flourish of his stick.

Then an uncanny thing happened that to this day the metis speak about with bated breath, and the Indians are afraid to mention at all. Heinault, who during the wrangle had concluded that his quarry was about to slip through his hands, took the opportunity of raising his gun to the shoulder. But ere he could pull the trigger there was the whistle of a bullet, and he fell dead in the snow.

Then, somewhere from the wooded bluffs--for the echoes deceived one--there came the distant ring of a rifle.

The perspiration was standing in beads on Pasmore's forehead, for he would have been more than human had not the strain of the terrible ordeal told upon him. From a dogged abandonment to his fate, a ray of hope lit up the darkness that seemed to have closed over him. It filtered through his being, but he feared to let it grow, knowing the bitterness of hope's extinction. But the blue through the pines seemed more beautiful, and the snow on the crest of the ridge scintillated more cheerily.

As the would-be executioner fell, something like a moan of consternation ran through the crowd. The dwarf was the only one who seemed to take the tragedy as a matter of course. He was quick to seize the opportunity.

"It is as the Lord has willed," he said simply, pointing to the body.

But Riel, visibly taken aback by this sudden _contretemps_, knew only too well that his cause and influence would be imperilled if he allowed this manikin, of whom his people stood so much in awe, to get the better of him; and he was too quick-witted not to know exactly what to do. He turned to his officers, and immediately a number of breeds started out to scour the bluffs. Then he called upon five breeds and Indians by name to step forward, and to see that their rifles were charged. Pepin waited quietly until his arrangements were completed, and then, looking round upon the crowd with his dark eyes, and finally fixing them upon the arch rebel, he spoke with such strength and earnestness that his hearers stood breathless and spellbound. The file of men which had been drawn up to act as executioners, and the condemned man himself, hung upon his words. It was significant that, after the fatal shot had been fired, no one seemed to be apprehensive of a second.

"Louis Riel," he began, "you are one bigger fool than I did take you for!"

Riel started forward angrily, and was about to speak when the dwarf stopped him with a motion of his hand.

"You are a fool because you cannot see where you are going," he continued.

"Can't I, Mr. Hop-o'-my-thumb?" broke out the rebel in a white heat, shouldering his rifle.

But the dwarf raised his stick warningly, and catching Riel's s.h.i.+fty gaze, held it as if by some spell until the rifle barrel sunk lower inch by inch.

"If you do, Louis Riel, if you do, the Lord will give you short shrift!" he said. "Now, I will tell you what I see, and to you it ought to be plain, for you have been in Montreal and Quebec, and know much more than is known to the metis. I see--and it will come to pa.s.s long before the ice that is in one great ma.s.s in this river is carried down and melts in the big lakes, whose waters drain into the Bay of Hudson--I see the soldiers of the great Queen swarming all over the land in numbers like the gophers on the prairie. They have wrested from you Battleford, Prince Albert, and Batoche. I see a battlefield, and the soldiers of the Queen have the great guns--as big as Red River carts--that shoot high into the air as flies the kite, and rain down bullets and jagged iron like unto the hailstorms that sweep the land in summer time. I see the bodies of the metis lying dead upon the ground as thick as the sheaves of wheat upon the harvest-field.

Many I see that crawl away into the woods to die, like to the timber-wolves when they have eaten of the poison.

I see the metis scattered and homeless. I see you, Louis Riel, who have misled them, skulking alone in the woods like a hunted coyote, without rest night and day, with nothing to eat, and with no moccasins to your feet. But the red-coats will catch you, for there is no trail too long or too broken for the Riders of the Plains to follow.

And, above all, and take heed, Louis Riel, I see the great beams of the gallows-tree looming up blackly against the grey of a weary dawn; and that will be your portion if you shoot this man. Put him in prison if you will, and keep him as a hostage; but if you spill innocent blood wantonly, as the Lord liveth, you shall swing in mid-air. And now I have spoken, and you have all seen how the hand of the Lord directed the bullet that laid that thing low. Remember this--there are more bullets!"

The dwarf paused, and there was a death-like stillness.

Riel stood motionless, glaring into s.p.a.ce, as if he still saw that picture of the gallows. While as for Pasmore, his heart was thumping against his ribs, for the spark of Hope within him had burst into flame, and he saw how beautiful was the blue between the columns of the pines.

CHAPTER XVIII

ACROSS THE ICE

Pepin Quesnelle's weird speech had worked upon the superst.i.tious natures of the rebel leader and his followers alike, for they unbound Pasmore from the tree and hurried him away to a tenantless log hut, the big breed and two others staying to guard him. Riel, with some of his followers, started off on sleighs to Prince Albert, to direct operations there, while the remainder stayed behind to further hara.s.s the beleaguered garrison. Pasmore was now glad that he had not offered a resistance that must have proved futile when his life hung in the balance. He offered up a silent prayer of thanksgiving for his deliverance so far, and he mused over the strange little being with a deformed body, to whom G.o.d had given powers to see more clearly than his fellows.

The big breed was remarkably attentive to his wants, but strangely silent When night arrived, Pasmore was placed in a little room which had a window much too small for a man's body to pa.s.s through, and left to himself.

He could hear his guards talking in the only room that led to it. Pasmore had slept during the afternoon, and when he awoke late in the evening he was imbued with but one idea, and that was to escape. The fickle natures of the half-breeds might change at any moment.

It was close on midnight, and there was not a sound in the other room. Pasmore had, by standing on the rude couch, begun operations on the roof with a long thatching needle he had found on the wall-plate, when the door silently opened and a flood of light streamed in. He turned, and there stood the big breed silently watching.

Pasmore stared at him apprehensively, but the big breed merely placed one finger on his lips to enjoin silence, and beckoned him to descend. Wondering, Pasmore did so.

His gaoler took him by the arm, and stealthily they entered the other room, their moccasined feet making no noise. There, on the floor, lay the other two guards, fast asleep. The big breed opened the door and they pa.s.sed out. Pasmore's brain almost refused to grasp the situation.

Was his gaoler going to a.s.sist him to escape?

But so it was. There was no one about. Every one seemed to be asleep after the orgie on the previous night. At last they reached a large empty shed on the outskirts of the village, and there his guide suddenly left him without a word. Pasmore was about to pa.s.s out, and make good his escape, when suddenly he was hailed by a voice that he knew well.

"Aha! villain, _coquin!_" it said, "and so you are here!

_Bien!_ This is a good day's work; is it not so?"

"Pepin Quesnelle!" cried Pasmore, going towards him. "No words can thank you for what you have done for me this day."

"And who wants your thanks?" asked the dwarf, good-naturedly. "Come, the shake of a hand belonging to an honest man is thanks enough for me. Put it thar, as the Yanks say."

And Pasmore felt, as he obeyed, that, despite his extraordinary foibles, Pepin Quesnelle was a man whom he could respect, and to whom he owed a debt of grat.i.tude that he could never repay.

"Now, that is all right," observed Pepin, "and you will come with me. Some friends of Katie's have found a friend of yours to-day in the woods, and I will take you to him."

But Pepin would tell him no more; his short legs, indeed, required all his energies. But after winding in and out of the bluffs for an hour or more, Pasmore found out who the friend was. Coming suddenly upon a couple of hay-stacks in a hollow of the bluffs, the dwarf put his fingers to his lips and whistled in a peculiar fas.h.i.+on. In another moment a dark figure emerged from the shadow.

"Top av the marnin' t'ye," it said.

"Rory, by all that's wonderful!" exclaimed Pasmore as they wrung each other's hands.

"That's me," said Rory. "Now, here's a sleigh. I fancy it was wance Dumont's, or some other gint's, but I'm thinkin' it's ours now. It's bruk the heart av me thet I couldn't bring them dogs along. If we have luck we'll be back at the ranche before noon to-morrer. Jest ketch hould av this rifle, and I'll drive."

In the clear moonlight Pasmore could see a team standing on an old trail not fifteen yards away.

"But just let me say good-bye first to Pepin," said Pasmore.

But Pepin Quesnelle had vanished mysteriously into the night.

"Rory," asked Pasmore a little later, when the team of spirited horses was bowling merrily along the by-trail, "was it you who fired that shot to-day and saved my life?"

"Young man," said Rory, solemnly, "hev yer got sich a thing about yer as a match--me poipe's gone out?"

And Pasmore knew that, so far as Rory was concerned, the subject was closed.

Next day about noon the two were to the north of the valley, where lay the ranche. On rounding a bluff they came unexpectedly upon three Indians in sleighs, who had evidently just cut the trail.

"Child-of-Light!" they cried, recognising the foremost.

A wave of apprehension swept over Pasmore when he saw the inscrutable expression on the face of the friendly chief. Was it well with the rancher and his daughter?

"Ough, ough!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Child-of-Light, wonderingly, as he caught sight of Pasmore. He pulled up, jumped out of his sleigh, and shook hands cordially. "Child-of-Light's heart lightens again to see you, brother," he said. "His heart was heavy because he thought Poundmaker must have stilled yours."

"Child-of-Light is ever a friend," rejoined Pasmore.

"But what of Douglas and the others?"

Then Child-of-Light told him how on the previous morning Douglas and his daughter had reached the ranche. But as Poundmaker's men were hovering in great strength in the neighbourhood, he, Child-of-Light, had deemed it advisable that they should take fresh horses and proceed in an easterly direction towards Fort Pitt, and then in a northerly, until they came to that secluded valley of which he had previously told them. They had done this, and gone on with hardly a pause.

In the meantime Child-of-Light had sent some of his braves to run off the rancher's herd of horses to a remote part of the country, where they would be safe from the enemy, while he and one or two others remained behind to cover his retreat. But alarming news had just been brought him by a runner. Big Bear had perpetrated a terrible ma.s.sacre at Frog Lake, near Fort Pitt. Ten persons had been shot in the church, and two brave priests, Fathers Farfand and Marchand, had been beaten to death. If Douglas and the others kept on they must run right into their hands.

It was to catch them up, if possible, and fetch them back before they crossed the Saskatchewan, that Child-of-Light was on his way now. Better to fall into the hands of Poundmaker and his braves, who probably now realised that they had gone too far, than into those of Big Bear, who was a fiend. Of course, he, Pasmore, would come with them.