The Wilderness Trail Part 12

But then what? The bars were outside, and not two inches away.

Following a plan already matured, he took a block of wood from the box beside the little, pot-bellied iron stove. This he wrapped in a blanket, and used as a battering ram, at first gently, but, presently, with more force, since the noise of the storm without almost negatived any other sound. Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Each corner of the window, in turn, moved an eighth of an inch from its long resting-place, with many groans and snappings of wood and ice.

But, resolutely, he kept to the work, stopping every now and then to listen and make sure that Michael was still breathing heavily.

At last, the window was at the edge of its deep cas.e.m.e.nt, and Donald now devoted his entire attention to the lower corners. Tapping them gently, he got them gradually to swing off the frame, and the blast came rus.h.i.+ng in. The window now appeared as though swung from hinges at the top. McTavish pushed it until it came to rest against the iron bars outside. There was an inch and a half of s.p.a.ce beneath the outswung frame.

Then, the prisoner changed his tools. Going to the stove, he returned with the poker, and the end of this he set firmly against the last bar to the right. A quick, mighty effort, and the sawed iron snapped noiselessly, and bent outward and upward. One after another, he gave the remaining four the same treatment. Eventually, they all stood out six inches from their almost imperceptible stumps.

Now, to get rid of the window. Donald resorted once again to his m.u.f.fled block of wood, and tapped at the top until the frame dropped silently off into the snow. To bend the bars back so as to allow his exit was now an easy matter, and soon accomplished. With his snowshoes in his hands, he wriggled head first through the square opening, and landed easily on the heaped snow.

With nimble fingers, the snowshoes were quickly strapped on, when an idea occurred to him. He groped on the ground until he found the window.

This he lifted up and inserted in the frame, driving it home with a few sharp blows. Then, he bent the iron bars back down until each fitted nicely over its stump. Whimsically, he imagined old Michael's amazement and superst.i.tious fear when he should find the animal gone, but the trap itself still unsprung.

But what was that? Where did that light come from? McTavish was just bending the last bar into place when he saw the glow on the snow about him, and looked up in terror. There, in the room, with lamp held high and terror on his face, stood the old Indian, gazing on the undisturbed bed. Even as Donald looked, Michael, the instinct of the hunter still strong in him, leaped toward the window, the only possible means of escape.

With a curse the fugitive shrank back, then sprang into the storm as fast as he could struggle against it. But so strong was the wind that he could scarcely move, and all the while he could feel the Indian's eyes striving to pierce through the snow curtain to him.

And then, five minutes later, came the sound of a bell being violently tolled, and he knew that Michael had given the alarm.

That night of terrible storm the few men still left in the fort dreamed of battle and murder and Indian attacks, as they had been in the old days; fires were heaped high, and frightened children were quieted. What then was the chill that gripped them by the heart when above the howling of the blast the old warning tocsin broke out! Hands clutched at guns and clothing, and the women and children ran to the windows, sick for fear lest the fort be afire.

But there was no glow brightening and growing lurid through the snow curtain. Commanding their dependents to light lamps and dress, the men made all speed to the vestibule of the old soldiers'

quarters, where McTavish had been confined, on top of which the bell whirled over and over, its unaccustomed voice thin and shrill with cold. It was twenty years since that bell had sounded a general alarm, and the men, wild with anxiety, rushed in upon Michael.

Meanwhile, McTavish was experiencing a fearful trial. During the day, his plans of campaign had been worked out thoroughly and had appeared simple. But, now, confused, battered, whirled ruthlessly about, a plaything in the mighty wind, he was scarcely able to tell his right from his left, and, had it not been for Michael's zeal in giving the alarm, this story might have ended here.

With the sound of the bell to give him direction, McTavish bore off to the left. There, the snow had been drifted high against the wall. More than that, the path that ran along the latter had contributed materially to the height of the bank, and McTavish counted on this means of scaling the fifteen-foot obstruction...

Would he ever find the place?

At last, he felt the ascent under his feet, and struggled up. With a thankfulness that he had never before experienced, he found but three feet of wall confronting him at the top, and swung his feet over quickly. What fortune awaited him on the long drop to earth, he did not know. He remembered the spot in summer as a gra.s.sy mound, with a few small rocks showing here and there. With fatalistic indifference, he pushed himself off, and, after a breathless second, struck the hard snow crust, and went through it with a crash, snowshoes and all, sinking to his ankles. It took but a moment to extricate himself, and he now turned his back to the wind, which was theoretically from the north--"theoretically," because in a genuine blizzard the wind has been known to blow upon the bewildered traveler from four directions inside a minute. Everywhere one turns, he is met by a breath-taking blast.

The old Beaver Trail started south of the fort, alongside the little hillock where Jean had been tobogganing the day of her disappearance, and thence ran for miles, crossing the little streams and ponds where the beaver villages had been built. Because most of the beaver colonies had been broken up along this route, the trail had been superseded by another, called the New Trail; hence this was an unfrequented, almost untraveled, path that Peter Rainy had named.

Donald McTavish knew every shrub, tree, and stone within a mile of Fort Severn in any direction, after the summer spent there, and to-night he relied upon his recognition of inanimate objects to lead him aright. A ghostly spruce with a wedge-shaped bite out of its stiff foliage told him he was a hundred feet to the right; a flat-topped rock, suddenly stumbled upon, convinced him that for five minutes he had been walking back toward the fort.

The alarm-bell had ceased ringing now, and he could hear nothing but the shriek of the wind, the hollow roaring of it in the woods, and the hiss and whish of driving snow. The folds of his _capote_ protected him partially from the stinging particles, and his gauntleted hands s.h.i.+elded his eyes somewhat.

Not another man in Fort Severn could have found the old Beaver Trail that night, and many a time during the hour Donald blessed the memory of Jean Fitzpatrick and their many excursions in the vicinity of the post. By devious zigzags and retracings, he suddenly found himself face to face with a ten-foot stump that Indians had long ago carved into a sort of totem, which had been left standing as a curiosity. There, the trail began, and he was able to make faster time, although all evidence of a footway were, of course, obliterated. As he went deeper into the forest, the wind became steadier and less changeable in direction, and the snow lost the worst of its sting.

Still guided by old, friendly landmarks, Donald drew near the rendezvous. He knew the place well. It was slightly off the trail, behind a bowlder. At last he reached it and peered around. There, sleeping in a huddle, his feet to a camp-fire, the sleigh snow-banked as a wind break, and the dogs curled in a black-and-white, steaming bundle, Peter Rainy lay unconcernedly.

With a cry of joy, Donald awakened his faithful servant, and, in the comparative shelter of the rock, told his story briefly.

"Quick, kick the dogs up!" he cried. "We must push on at once. I am followed."

CHAPTER XI

A HOT SCENT

Without a word, Rainy made preparations for moving. A lesser woodsman or lazier servant would have demurred, for, while the blizzard lasted, there was scarcely a chance in a million that any searcher from the fort would find their hiding-place. Even now, the newcomer's tracks were already wiped clean from the white page of the snow.

But, when the storm cleared away, as it might do with great suddenness, they would be in great peril of observation, for, until they should reach the denser forest to the south, there would be many open spots to be crossed--open spots well within the range of a field-gla.s.s at the fort.

While Peter hitched up the growling dogs, Donald made the pack, and fastened it on the sledge. But, before they were ready to scatter the fire and plunge into the maelstrom of the storm, the Scotchman pulled the other's sleeve.

"What was that clew you had in regard to Jean Fitzpatrick?" he shouted above the wind.

"Friends told me, very quiet, that old Maria, who was at the fort the day before we arrived, and who tried to see the factor, had kidnaped her. But for what reason I have no idea. Maybe she's angry because old Fitzpatrick wouldn't see her, but the man who told me hinted at other things."

"Was he an Indian?"

"Yes; it was Tee-ka-mee."

"How did he know?"

"b.u.t.ts tell him, he said. He and b.u.t.ts good friends, because of working in the house together."

"Why didn't they say as much when the search was being made? Then, they could have run this Indian hag to earth."

"Like most English servants, that b.u.t.ts was afraid to speak out, and Tee-ka-mee says the idea never occurred to him until too late."

"Do you think it is good talk, and that the old woman did the trick?

"I think it is the most likely explanation. At least, it is something to work on."

Shortly afterward, they drove the dogs from the shelter of the rock into the teeth of the storm. Then, turning, they fled south before the gale with what cert.i.tude they might. They had nothing to guide them, neither stars nor brilliant aurora, and they struggled along the heavy trail only by their memories of it, and the exercise of every particle of woodcraft they both possessed.

The trail was cruelly heavy with the snow, and the dogs floundered shoulder-deep at times, even when the two men had gone on before to break the way. Traveling would be hard until a warm west wind melted the surface, and gave a crust chance to form over-night.

Frequently, they rested in the lee of a bold rock, and continued their talk. They left no back trail, for hardly could they lift a foot ere the hollow it had formed had been filled with snow. On one of these occasions McTavish asked: "Who is this Maria?"

Peter Rainy did not seem to hear, and bent down to examine the dog-harness. Donald repeated the question, and was surprised to have his companion change the subject without answering. There was something peculiar about this, and a third time he put the query, uttering it now in a tone of authority. "Captain," said the Indian, "I would rather not tell you. It would only make you unhappy."

"I'll be much more unhappy if I know there is a mystery, without knowing what it is. Tell me, Peter. We must go on in a minute."

"Maria is the mother of Charley Seguis."

"Well," Donald exclaimed impatiently, as the other paused, "what's so terrible about that?

"Don't you remember last summer, at the fort, that he was there all the time; that he made a great show with his cleverness among the maidens, but would have none of them? And why would he not?

Truly, they were rare Indian maidens, and warm with love, but his eyes were elsewhere. As the wolf looks upward, and wishes the beautiful white moon, so did he look upward and desire the lovely white daughter of the factor."

"What are you telling me, you devil?" shouted McTavish, his eyes blazing.

The old Indian did not move, but bent slightly, as though expecting a blow.