Chapter XXXIX: Safe

Not one of the three boys thought of disobeying Duncan McNab’s stern command. On hands and knees, for fear some Indian might catch a glimpse of them and send a shot in their direction, they crawled through the bushes. Not until they were out of sight as well as out of range, did they stand upright.

They tried to follow McNab’s instructions and make good speed towards Lake Traverse, but all three suddenly found themselves very tired. The night before, after a hard day’s journey, they had had not a wink of sleep. It had been a night of continuous physical exertion and intense strain. Then came the meeting with Scar Face, and the anxious waiting for Murray and the Dakotas, capped by the excitement of the brief fight. The time had seemed long, yet in reality events had followed one another so swiftly that the sun even now was scarcely more than half-way up the sky.

“If I didn’t know we were going in the right direction, I should think we were headed north, not south,” said Walter, as he plodded wearily along. “It seems as if the sun must be on the way down, instead of up.”

Neil nodded. “I’m dead sleepy,” he admitted, “but we must try to keep on going till McNab overtakes us.”

“The firing has stopped,” put in Raoul. “The fight must be over.”

“Or else the noise doesn’t reach us here.”

If the fight was over, who had won? The answer to that question might mean life or death to the fugitives. Murray had fallen, but if the Dakotas had destroyed the Ojibwas, they might, even without his leadership, cross the river and continue the pursuit. The boys felt they must go on as long as they possibly could. They trudged doggedly on, casting many a glance behind them.

At last Neil, turning to look back, gave a cry of joy. A single horseman was on their trail, coming at good speed. He raised one long arm in the friendship sign. The three stopped short and dropped down to rest and let him overtake them. They were almost asleep when he reached them.

McNab reined in his horse and looked down at the weary figures with a grim smile. “Weel,” he said slowly, in his peculiar Scots’ English with its guttural suggestion of Dakota, “ye disappeart sa quick I thocht the prairie had swallowed ye.”

“Did the Saulteux win?” Neil roused himself to ask.

“Aye, an’ withoot losin’ a man. Scar Face himsel got a shot in the thigh, but it’s only a flesh wound. The ither side didna ken the number o’ the enemy, an’ they were mair nor a little upset by Murray’s fa’. When they found they coudna drive the Ojubwas fra the wee isle, they turnt tail theirsel an’ were awa’. If ye can mak it, we’d best be gettin’ ta that bit _île des bois_ ower yon, where ye can be sleepin’ in the shade.”

The clump of small trees was only a short distance away. There, shaded from the heat of midday, the boys slept, utterly relaxed, until the sun was far on its downward course. Duncan McNab kept watch. He had had no more sleep than they the night before, but he was more used to going without and needed less than growing boys required.

Neil’s first words, when he woke to find the sun low in the west, were, “How far have we got to go to Lake Traverse?”

“Ta the post thirty mile or mair,” was the reply.

Neil groaned and stretched. “And we’ve got to walk it,” he muttered.

“Weel, ye may be glad ye’ve got twa soond legs left ta walk it wi’,” McNab returned with his grim smile. There were no more complaints.

McNab, old campaigner that he was, carried cooking utensils, pemmican, and a packet of tea in his saddle bags. A hot meal put new courage into the lads. Before the sun was down they were on their way again. The night was clear and light, and they kept up a steady pace till midnight. Then they stopped for a brief rest and more tea.

Luckily for the boys they did not have to walk the whole distance to the trading post. Dawn had not yet come, when McNab made out a party of horsemen coming towards them. The foremost rider waved his arms and shouted. The boys knew that voice. Louis had come back to seek them.

Unashamed to display his feelings, Louis sprang from his pony to hug his brother and his friends. “Thank the good God,” he cried. “I felt like a coward and a traitor to leave you behind.”

“It was the only thing to do,” Walter and Neil exclaimed together. “Are the others safe?”

“All safe, but we did not reach the fort till after sunset. After we crossed the Bois des Sioux we had to rest our horses a little, and the children slept. We dared not stop long. The ponies did their best, but they could not carry double all the time. My mother and M’sieu Perier and I walked much of the way, and sometimes Marie and Elise walked also.”

“And you started right back to find us?” cried Walter.

“I rested a while first, but I could not sleep. M’sieu Renville gave me a fresh horse, and these men offered to come with me. I thought you would follow our trail. If I kept to it, I would find you; if _le Murrai_ had not overtaken you.”

The _bois brulés_ from the trading post gladly gave up their horses to the weary boys, and went afoot. So Lake Traverse and the shelter of the Columbia Fur Company’s fort was reached at last. There, in one of the log buildings within the stockade on the shore of the lake, the rest of the little party were waiting anxiously. The boys, almost dropping from their saddles with sleep and weariness, were embraced and shaken by the hand, and cried over, and questioned, until the trader, Joseph Renville, intervened. He led them away to bunks where they could sleep undisturbed for as many hours as they cared to.

When the boys had had their sleep out, the two sections of the party exchanged stories. Afterwards Duncan McNab had something to add. He had returned to the Indian camp two nights before to find the dance in full swing. Within the medicine lodge, Murray was instructing the chosen initiates in some sort of mystic rites. From time to time one of them would come out to chant or howl a few words or syllables and to go through the steps and posturings of the new dance. The men around the fires would repeat the lesson over and over, until another of the chosen ones appeared to teach them something new.

“As near as I could mak oot,” said Duncan, “it was something like the medicine dance the Mdewakanton Dakota on the Mississippi mak ta their god Unktahi, that Murray was teachin’ yon Wahpetons, but he was puttin’ in some stuff of his ain. Some o’ the words o’ the sangs soundit like Gaelic, but made na sense as far as I could ken, an’ I hae a bit o’ the Gaelic mysel. I’m thinkin’ he picked the words for their mysterious sound like.”

When the excitement had reached the right pitch, Murray began to serve out liquor. “I dinna ken where he got sa mickle,”—McNab shook his head. “He had a cairt loadit wi’ goods an’ kegs an’ what a’. He must be in wi’ ither free traders, some o’ the men on the Missouri most like, or mayhap he stole the stuff fra them. It’s the wrang time o’ year ta be buyin’ furs. It was the good will o’ the sauvages an’ power ower ’em he was after, sa they’d be sure an’ bring him their next winter’s catch.”

As the liquor flowed more freely, the performance grew frenzied. It was a wild night in Tatanka Wechacheta’s village, and McNab spared his listeners the details. He feared every moment that the Indians would raid the neighboring camp, and discover too soon that the white men had gone. But the Black Murray overdid the celebration. He supplied liquor so lavishly that his followers were soon entirely overcome by it. Perhaps he dared not try to withhold what they knew he had. And he failed to curb his own immoderate thirst, but overindulged until, inert in the medicine lodge, he slept as heavily as they. “I’m thinkin’ it was the rascal’s owerfondness for _minnewakan_ that saved a’ your lives,” said McNab. “If he hadna slept sa late, he wad sure hae owertaken the lads on foot an’ maybe the rest o’ ye.”

When Murray finally roused himself, in ugly mood, he gathered together eight or ten reckless young braves who could still sit their horses, and started for the white men’s camp. Up to that time McNab had not felt himself in any great danger, as long as he kept to his own lodge. He was a man of influence among the Dakotas, and back of him was the authority of the Columbia Fur Company and of Joseph Renville. Renville himself was half Dakota and powerful and respected among his mother’s people. But the young chief, still partially drunk, was in almost as savage a mood as Murray that morning, and McNab did not know what might happen.

As soon as Murray had gone, McNab took his leave. On the other side of a tiny clump of trees, he threw his buffalo robe over his horse and himself, hoping that, seen from behind, horse and rider might be taken for a lone bull. He made for the head of the coulee, intending to follow the fugitives and lend his aid if they were attacked. Finding that Murray and his men were coming, he urged his horse to its best speed, to get across the Bois des Sioux before them.

After he had sent the boys on their way, McNab remained to watch the outcome of the fight. It was soon over. The fall of Murray had struck panic into the hearts of his followers. “There was reason for that,” Duncan explained. “Yon Wahpetons are na cowards, but Wechacheta’s chief medicine man was against Murray. The auld fellow claimed Murray was na medicine man at a’ an’ had na _wakan_ or _tonwan_, na magic powers. When Murray was gatherin’ men ta plunder the white men, the auld man tauld ’em they’d gang ta destruction sure. Murray’s time was come, he said. Afore the sun gaed doon, he wad be deed, an’ likewise a’ that followt him. Sa it was na wonder the young braves was scairt when Murray was shot doon at the ford.”

“You’re sure he was killed?” questioned Renville. “From what I have heard of the fellow, he seems to have as many lives as a cat.”

“I made sure afore ever I left the Bois des Sioux,” McNab replied quietly. “An’ there’s his medicine bag ta prove it.” He handed Renville a curious looking pouch made of rattlesnake skin. “An’ a fine lot o’ trash there is in it,—birds’ claws, an’ dried roots, a copper nugget, a snake’s fang, a man’s finger bone, an’ a wee packet o’ black, sticky stuff. Do na handle that, it micht be poison.”

“It is poison,” asserted Walter, and told the story of his infected hand.