_ CHAPTER IX. THE INDIAN MAIDEN AT THE RIVER TILT
"Well," said Ed Matheson, as the boat rounded a bend in the river, "there's the river tilt, an' she looks good."
"That she do," agreed Dick Blake. "I hopes, now, Bob's there an' has a fire on. I'm wet t' th' last rag."
"So be I. This snow an' rain comin' mixed always 'pears t' make a wetter wet 'n just rain alone," observed Ed.
"Bob's there now," broke in Bill Campbell. "I sees smoke comin' from th' tilt pipe."
The voyageurs were returning from Eskimo Bay with their second cargo of winter supplies for the trails. Five weeks had elapsed since the morning Ungava Bob and Shad Trowbridge had watched them disappear around the river bend, and returning to camp had found Sishetakushin and Mookoomahn awaiting them at the edge of the forest.
Since early morning there had been a steady drizzle of snow and rain, accompanied by a raw, searching, easterly wind, a condition of weather that renders wilderness travel most disheartening and disagreeable.
This was, however, the first break in a long series of delightfully cool, transparent days, characteristic of Labrador during the month of September, when Nature pauses to take breath and assemble her forces preparatory to casting upon the land the smothering snows and withering blasts of a sub-Arctic winter.
Despite the pleasant weather, the whole journey from Eskimo Bay had been one of tremendous effort. With but three, instead of five, as on the previous journey, to transport the boat and carry the loads over portages, the labour had been proportionately increased.
It was, then, with a feeling of intense satisfaction and relief that the voyageurs hailed the end of their journey, with its promised rest, when they finally ran their boat to the landing below the river tilt of the Big Hill trail.
"I'll be tellin' Bob an' Shad we're here now, an' have un help us up with th' outfit," said Ed Matheson cheerily, stepping ashore and striding up the trail leading to the clearing a few yards above, in the centre of which stood the trail.
But at the edge of the clearing he stopped in open-mouthed amazement. Before the open door of the tilt stood a tall, comely Indian maiden, perhaps seventeen years of age. She was clad in fringed buckskin garments, decorated in coloured designs. Her hair hung in two long black braids, while around her forehead she wore a band of dark-red cloth ornamented with intricate beadwork. From her shoulder hung a quiver of arrows, and resting against the tilt at her side was a long bow.
She stood motionless as a statue, striking, picturesque and graceful, and for a full minute the usually collected and loquacious Ed gazed at her in speechless surprise.
"Good evenin'," said he finally, regaining his composure and his power of speech at the same time. "I weren't expectin' t' find any one here but Ungava Bob an' Shad Toobridge. Be they in th' tilt?"
With Ed's words she took a step forward, and in evident excitement launched upon him a torrent of Indian sentences spoken so rapidly and with such vehemence that, though he boasted a smattering of the language, he was unable to comprehend in the least what she was saying. It was evident, however, she was addressing him upon some subject of import.
"There now," he interrupted finally, forgetting even his smattering of Indian and addressing her in English, "just 'bide there a bit, lass, whilst I gets Dick Blake. He knows your lingo better'n me. I'll send he up."
And, hurrying down the trail, he called:
"Dick, come up here. They's a Injun lass at th' tilt, firin' a lot o' lingo at me I can't fathom."
"A Injun lass!" exclaimed Dick. "What's she doin' there, now? An' where's Bob an' Shad?"
"Yes, a Injun lass," said Ed impatiently, "an' what she's doin' you'll have t' find out. It seems like she's achin' t' tell somethin'. I'm not seein' Bob an' Shad."
"They must be somethin' wrong, Ed. Come down an' help Bill get th' cargo ashore, an' I'll find out what 'tis;" and Dick hurried up the trail past Ed, to meet Manikawan, for she it was.
She was still standing where Ed had left her, and Dick asked kindly in Indian:
"What message does the maiden bring to her white brothers?"
"Listen!" she commanded, in a clear, musical voice. "I am Manikawan, the daughter of Sishetakushin, whose lodge is pitched on the shores of the Great Lake, to the north. Yesterday some men of the South visited the lodge of my father."
"Mingens!" exclaimed Dick.
"They told him," she continued, not heeding the interruption, "that five suns back they had found a lodge built where the big river broadens. The lodge was newly made. It was a white man's lodge, for it was built of trees. The men of the South waited in hiding at the end of the portage that was once used by my people. It is above the place where evil spirits dwell."
"How many of the men of the South were there?" asked Dick, again interrupting.
"Six," she answered promptly. "While they waited two white men passed with a painted canoe and much provisions. Then, while they still waited, the white men returned with the canoe empty.
"They fired their guns at the white men. Then the evil spirits that dwell where the river falls reached up for the canoe and dragged it down to the place of thunder.
"I have come to tell you this, and to ask if White Brother of the Snow and his friend are here. All night and all day have I travelled, for I am afraid for White Brother of the Snow. He has lived in the lodge of Sishetakushin, my father. He is one of my people, and I am afraid for him."
Her rapid speech, her dramatic pose and gestures, and her intensely earnest manner left no doubt in Dick Blake's mind that she spoke the truth. Neither had he any doubt that she referred to Ungava Bob and Shad Trowbridge as the two white men, for no other white men were in the region, or, he was sure, within several hundred miles of the place, at the time to which she referred.
"No," said he, after a moment's pause, "White Brother of the Snow and his friend are not with us."
"They are not here!" she wailed, lifting her arms in a gesture of despair. "Where is he? Tell me! It was not White Brother of the Snow sent to the torment of evil spirits?"
"I'm afraid, Manikawan, it was. There were no other white men here than White Brother of the Snow and his friend."
Manikawan's hands dropped at her side, and for an instant she stood, a picture of mingled horror and grief. But it was for only an instant. Then her face grew hard and vengeful, and in low, even tones she said:
"These men of the South killed White Brother of the Snow. They are no longer of my people. They must die."
"They must die," echoed Dick.
"Come!" she said laconically, reaching for her bow and slinging it on her back.
"No, we will rest to-night, and to-morrow at dawn we will go. Rest to-night and be strong for the chase to-morrow," Dick counselled, kindly, as she turned toward the portage trail leading around the rapids.
"I cannot rest," she answered. "I go now;" and like a shadow, and as silently, she melted into the darkening forest.
Big Dick Blake's heart was full of vengeance, as he strode down the trail to rejoin his companions.
"What speech were th' Injun maid tryin' t' get rid of, now?" asked Ed Matheson, pausing in his work of unloading the canoe as Dick appeared.
"Bob an' Shad's dead!" announced Dick bluntly.
"Dead! Dead!" echoed Ed and Bill together.
"Aye, dead. Drove over th' falls by Mingen Injuns," continued Dick. "Five or six days ago, she's sayin'. They's six o' them Injuns down north o' here, huntin' deer, an' their camp's up th' river somewheres. I'm not knowin' rightly where, but we'll find un, an' we'll shoot them Injuns just like a passel o' wolves. If we don't, they'll sure be layin' for us an' shoot us."
"Be you sure, now, th' lads is dead?" insisted Ed.
"They's no doubtin' it. She tells th' story straight an' clean as a rifle shot;" and Dick went on to repeat in detail the story he had heard from Manikawan.
"It looks bad, now, whatever," commented Ed. "But they's a chanct they gets a ashore. I were caught onct in th' rapids above Muskrat Falls, an' thinks it all up with me--right in th' middle o' th' rapids, too--an'--"
"Ed," broke in Dick, with vast impatience, "this be no time for yamin'. You knows you never could be gettin' out o' them rapids an' not goin' over th' falls. An' these rapids is a wonderful sight worse."
"Maybe they be," admitted Ed. "Th' poor lad, now, bein' killed in that way. Dick," he continued, raising his tall, awkward figure to its full height and placing his hand on Dick's shoulder, "me an' you's stood by one 'nother for a good many years, an' in all sorts o' hard places, an' if it's fight Injuns with you now, Dick, it's fight un, an' Bill's with us."
"Aye," said Bill, "that I am."
The boat was unloaded, and with heavy hearts the men prepared and ate their evening meal. Then while they smoked their pipes, light packs were put up and all was made snug for an early start the following morning.
With the first blink of dawn the three determined men, armed with their rifles, swung out into the forest, and rapidly but cautiously filed up the old portage trail in the direction Manikawan had taken. _