The Cryptogram Part 11

We started off rapidly, Baptiste and the three other voyageurs leading the way with the canoe on their shoulders. The paddles and a part of the load were inside, and Gummidge and I carried the rest. The women had no burdens, and could easily keep pace with us.

"Have you pa.s.sed this way before?" asked Gummidge.

"Only once," I replied, "and that was some years ago."

"The place reminds me of the enchanted forests one reads of in old fairy tales," said Mrs. Gummidge.

"I wish we were out of it," exclaimed Flora. "It has a sad and depressing influence on me."

Something in her voice made me turn and look at her, and she quickly averted her eyes.

"What's that?" cried Gummidge, an instant later. "Don't you see? There it lies, s.h.i.+ning."

I darted past him to the left of the path and at the base of a tree I picked up a hunting knife sheathed in a case of tanned buckskin. We all stopped, and Lavigne, one of the voyageurs, left the canoe to his comrades and took the weapon from my hand. He examined it with keen and grave interest.

"It is just such a knife as the men of the Northwest Company carry," he declared.

"Yes, you are right," a.s.sented Gummidge; and I agreed with him.

For a minute or more Lavigne searched the ground in the vicinity, creeping here and there on all-fours. Then he rose to his feet with the air of one who has made an unpleasant discovery.

"Indians have pa.s.sed this way within a few hours," he announced, "and a white man was with them. They went toward the northwest."

Gummidge and I were fairly good at woodcraft, but the marks in the gra.s.s baffled us. Yet we did not dream of doubting or questioning Lavigne's a.s.sertion, for he was known to be a skilled and expert tracker. Redskins and a Northwest man together! It was a combination, in these times of evil rumor, that boded no good. I remembered Moralle's tale of the swimmer, and I felt a sudden uneasiness.

"We must be careful," said Gummidge. "This is a fine neighborhood for an ambuscade."

I glanced at Flora, and by her pale and frightened face I saw she was thinking of the same thing that was in my own mind.

"Do you suppose he is near us, Denzil?" she asked, stepping close to my side.

"Impossible," I replied. "Cuthbert Mackenzie is hundreds of miles away in Quebec. Do not be afraid. There is no danger, and the river is not far off."

But my a.s.suring words were from the lips only. At heart I felt that Mackenzie was just the sort of man to have followed us to the North--a thing he could easily have done by land in this time. Gummidge took as serious a view of the matter, though for different reasons, and he approved the precautions I suggested.

So when we started off again, our order of march was reversed and otherwise changed. Gummidge and I went ahead single file, with, our muskets ready for immediate use. The women came next, and then the canoe; we had put the luggage into it, and the voyageurs did not grumble at the extra load.

Less than a mile remained to be covered, and I was alert for attack with every foot of the way. But no Indian yells or musket-shots broke the stillness of the forest, and I was heartily glad when we emerged on the bank of the Churchill. Only twenty miles down stream to Fort Royal! No further thoughts of danger troubled us. Swiftly we embarked, and swung out on the rus.h.i.+ng blue tide.

After the first five miles the scene changed a little. The river narrowed, and grew more swift. The hills receded right and left, and a strip of dense forest fringed the banks on either hand. A dull roar in the distance warned us that we were approaching well-known and dangerous falls, where it would be necessary to land and make a brief portage through the woods.

Closer and closer we swept, and louder and louder rang the thunder of the rapids. The voyageurs began to make in a little toward the left sh.o.r.e, and just then a musket cracked shrilly from the forest on that side. Gardapie, who was immediately in front of me, dropped his paddle, and leaped convulsively to his feet He clutched at his bleeding throat, gave a gurgling cry of agony, and pitched head first out of the canoe, nearly upsetting it as he slid off the gunwale.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE AMBUSCADE.

The attack was so sudden and unlooked for, and took us at such a disadvantage, that it was a mercy the half of us were not killed by the enemy's first straggling volley. For on the instant that Gardapie fell dead into the river two more shots rang out, and then a third and a fourth. A bullet whistled by my ear, and another flew so close to Baptiste that he dropped his paddle and threw himself flat, uttering a shrill "_Nom de Dieu!_" The women screamed, and Lavigne cried out with a curse that he had a ball in his right arm.

"Redskins!" I yelled. "Down--down for your lives!"

The canoe was luckily of a good depth, and we all crouched low and hugged the bottom. The firing had ceased as abruptly as it opened. Not a shot or a yell disturbed the quiet of the woods on either hand, and but for poor Gardapie's vacant place, and the splash of blood where he had been kneeling, I might have thought that the whole thing was a hideous dream. We drifted on with the current for a moment, while the roar of the falls swelled louder. Our loaded muskets were in our grasp, but we dared not expose our heads above the gunwales.

I looked back toward the stern, and saw Moralle tying a bandage on Lavigne's wounded arm. Gummidge was bareheaded, and he told me that a ball had carried his cap into the river.

"We're not done with the red devils," he added. "It's a bad sc.r.a.pe, Carew. I've no doubt the Indians have been won over by the Northwest people, and hostilities have already begun."

On that point I did not agree with him, but I was unwilling to speak what was in my mind while Flora was listening. We were between two perils, and I called out to Moralle for his opinion.

"If the redskins are in any force it will be impossible to land and make the portage," I said. "We are within a quarter of a mile of the rapids now. What are the chances of running them safely?"

"I have taken a canoe through them twice," replied Moralle, "and I could do it again. That is, provided I can paddle and look where I am going.

Shall I try it, sir?"

"No, not yet; wait a little," I answered.

"I don't like this silence," exclaimed Gummidge. "Why did the redskins stop firing so suddenly? Mark my word, Carew, there's a piece of deviltry brewing. I'm afraid not one of us will--"

I stopped him by a gesture, and spoke a few comforting words to Flora; her face was very white, but beyond that she showed no trace of fear.

Then I crept a little past Baptiste, and with the point of my knife I hurriedly made two small holes below the gunwales of the canoe, one on each side. I peeped through both in turn, and the curve of the bow gave me as clear a view ahead as I could have wished.

What I saw partly explained the meaning of the brief silence--scarcely more than a minute had elapsed since the musket volley. Here and there, in the leafy woods to right and left I caught a glimpse of dusky, swiftly moving bodies. We were close upon the falls, and but for the noise of the tumbling waters I could have heard the scurrying feet of our determined foes.

"What do you make out?" Gummidge whispered.

"The Indians are running ahead of us through the forest," I replied.

"They expect that we will try the portage, and then they will have us in a trap. Our only chance is to dash down the rapids."

"It's a mighty poor one," murmured Gummidge; and as he spoke I heard an hysterical sob from his wife.

"We are not going quite straight," I called to Moralle. "If we keep on this course we will hit the rocks. A few strokes to the left--"

"I'll manage that, sir," the plucky voyageur interrupted.

I glanced over my shoulder, and saw him rise to his knees and begin to paddle. He was not fired on, as I had expected would be the case, so Baptiste and I ventured to lift our heads. As we watched, we held our muskets ready for the shoulder.

The current was bearing us on swiftly. A short distance below, the river narrowed to a couple of hundred feet, and here stretched the line of half-sunken rocks that marked the beginning of the falls. In the very center was a break several yards wide, and straight for this the canoe was now driving. There was no sign of the enemy, and it was difficult to realize that such a deadly peril awaited us.

Bang went a musket, and a puff of bluish smoke curled from the forest on the left. The ball pa.s.sed over Moralle's head; he ceased paddling and dropped under cover. Baptiste did the same, but I kept my head up, looking for a chance to return the shot. My attention had just been attracted by a movement between the trees, when Gummidge cried, hoa.r.s.ely:

"Keep down, Miss Hatherton! That was a mad thing to do!"

I turned around sharply as Gummidge released his hold of Flora, who, I judged, had been exposing herself recklessly. I was startled by her appearance. She looked at me with frightened eyes and parted lips, with a face the hue of ashes.