The Maid of the Whispering Hills Part 33

Meanwhile Ridgar and De Courtenay pushed silently forward with the limp body of McElroy swinging between, while the girl stepped softly in their trail, straining her ears for sounds from the camp, and carrying the only weapon among them, a rifle which Ridgar had taken from the Indian he had killed.

"To the east," she whispered, "down the little defile to the river, then south along the sh.o.r.e,--it is s.h.i.+ngled and open,--to the canoe. Walk fast as you can, M'sieu."

It was riskful going through the strip of woods, but when they entered the little canon that cleft a ridge of cliffs, rising impudently out of a level land, they mended their pace. Here was solid, dry rock beneath them, walls of rock on either side, and a narrow strip of star-strewn sky above.

"Thank G.o.d!" Ridgar was saying, under his breath, "the distance widens!"

But no sooner were the words out of his mouth than a cold chill shot through him, and Maren pushed forward with compelling hands on De Courtrnay's shoulders.

"Hurry, M'sieu!" she cried; "they have awakened!"

"Hi! Hi! Hi-a! He-a! Hi!"

Danger was waking in the camp behind, first with one sharp cry, then another and another, until throat after throat took up the sound and the yapping turned into a roar.

They were but half-way through the narrow gorge. The two men broke into a stumbling run. Ridgar was going backwards, half-turned to see ahead, and suddenly his foot struck a loose pebble and he fell headlong. De Courtenay stumbled, and in the scramble to right themselves they lost more time than they could spare. Before they were up and started, a shrill voice came into the gorge, yelling its "Hi! Hi! Hi-a!"

De Courtenay suddenly stopped.

"'Tis useless!" he said breathlessly; "We'll never make it! Here,--do you take my place, Ma'amselle!"

He caught Maren's shoulder and pushed her forward.

"Take his knees,--so! You are strong,--give me the rifle. Make haste, Ridgar,--Ma'amselle!"

He bowed in the darkness.

"The last turn of the wheel, Ma'amselle,--and I take the plunge alone.

All in the day's march!"

With the last words he turned back to face the way they had come, shook his long curls back across his shoulder, and lifted the rifle to his cheek.

The footsteps of Ridgar and Maren were echoing down the rocky gap.

It had been a promising escape, a neat plan well carried out, and there was but one thing lacking to its fulfilment,--another step to pace the deserted lodge of captives.

Across in the darkness among the Bois-Brules one ear had lain close to the tell-tale earth, one evil face peered unsleeping among the dusky shapes of the camp, a swarthy face with a white lock on its temple.

Keener than all the rest, Bois DesCaut, driven by personal hate, listened to all the sounds of night.

And he had heard a changing in the steps that pa.s.sed and repa.s.sed, that separated and came together, before that lodge across the sleeping mob,--a change, a little silence, and then the steps again that presently thinned to ONE,--one step that paced evenly, with a measured tread, a moccasined step like that of an Indian, yet somehow alien in its firmness and swing.

One step where there should have been two,--and the half-breed trapper raised himself and gave the first "Hi! Hi!"

Like startled wolves they were up all around him in a moment and down on that empty tepee with its one sentry!

A torch flared redly with the sudden revealing of a slim youth in buckskins and two Nakonkirhirinon warriors deep in the Great Sleep.

What was there for Marc Dupre in that moment of roused fury,--that tense moment of awaking rage, of baffled rights of payment?

What but death too swift and unrestrained for torture?

A dozen weapons reached him from as many crowding hands and he went down on the last earth her feet had trod, the spot where she had last touched his hand.

Her golden voice, sweet with its sliding minors, was in his ears, the sweetness of her lips on his.

"A stone to your foot, Ma'amselle," he whispered, as the darkness broke and the stars began to dance on a sky of blood-red fire; "serve you with my life,--no better fate,--oh, I love you! I--a stone to your foot,--Ma'amselle!"

And at that moment Maren Le Moyne, straining every muscle of her young body to save the man she loved, looked swiftly back, having left the defile to stagger, stumbling, southward to where Mowbray's men waited with the canoe.

She saw the sudden flaming of the torch, the slim, boyish figure in its buckskins, the ring of faces, and the flash of weapons; saw the forms close in and the slim boy go down like a reed in the winter storm, and a cry broke from her lips as De Courtenay's rifle began to sound in the gorge.

With tears on her cheeks and her face drawn hard, she raised her head and gave a panther's far-off call.

CHAPTER XXV ANSWERED PRAYERS

Out of the forest at the signal came running Alloybeau and McDonald and Frith, alert, ready for anything, wondering beyond wonder at the call that meant deliverance. Not one of them had thought to see again this strange, intrepid woman who pierced the forbidden places and wound men like Mr. Mowbray around her fingers. It would have been a toss-up for men to attempt what she had done.

She was coming to the canoe, and she was victorious. Yet they knew that death was up and at her heels, from the sound of the shots.

The big canoe was in the water, the men were ready, paddle in hand, with Wilson knee-deep in the stream ready to push off, when along the reach of sh.o.r.e there came that sorry ending to the gallant venture,--Ridgar and the girl, staggering, stumbling, trying to make what haste they could, with swinging roughly between them the apparently lifeless body of the factor of Fort de Seviere.

Breathless and exhausted they reached the boat. Brilliers and Wilson reached for their burden, threw it into the bottom, and hauled Maren on her knees among the thwarts.

There was a shove, a word, a dip of the paddles, and the canoe shot out to the deeper waters, and none aboard her saw the form of Edmonton Ridgar draw back into the shelter of tangled vines on sh.o.r.e.

"Give me a blade!"

From the rocking bottom Maren was reaching for a paddle, got it, thrust by some one into her hands, and was cleaving water with the best of them, deep stroke after deep stroke, the rush and suck of the eddy in her ears.

In the cold blue darkness the stream whispered and warned like some old witch at her cauldron, the night was clammy, and behind the new fires flared against the towering trees.

A babble of voices told of pursuit,--shouts and gutturals that strung out from the camp all through the gorge and were beginning to flow with the river.

"Only a matter of time,--a little time," thought Wilson, at the prow, but never a word was uttered in the canoe.

Exerting every atom of strength, calling on all the will-power aboard, they shot forward into the night and the current.

The noise behind increased, as the tones of a bell blown by the wind increase when the wind sets in one's direction.

"Not now!" Maren was saying to herself. "Not now,--when we are so far toward the winning! Not now,--oh, Friend of my heart! why was that price demanded? Holy Mary rest him, that young Marc Dupre--and send deliverance for this--"

Ahead the river swept around a turn. Keeping close to the sh.o.r.e they caught shallow water and cut round into a wider opening.

The cries behind veered and deadened, and suddenly Wilson in the prow raised his blade.