_ CHAPTER VIII. AFTER THE INDIAN ATTACK
Below them rose the appalling roar of the hungry rapids and the dull, thunderous, monotonous undertone of the falls themselves.
Before their vision a vivid picture passed of the scene they had so recently beheld--the onrushing, white piled billows above the cataract, gathering strength for their mighty leap--the final plunge of the resistless torrent--the bank of rainbow-coloured mist hovering in space over a dark abyss--and far below and beyond the mist-bank the murky chasm, where a white seething flood was beating its wild anger out against jagged rocks in its mad endeavour to fight its way to freedom between narrow canyon walls rising in frowning cliffs on either side.
Impotent to resist the power that was drawing them down, Shad Trowbridge and Ungava Bob were certain beyond a doubt that presently they were to be hurled into this awful chasm, and that in all human probability but a few minutes more of life remained to them.
Then suddenly there flashed upon Bob's memory the recollection of an island which he had observed when walking along the river bank from the falls to the portage trail.
He remembered that this island was of curious formation, with high polished cliffs rising on its upper end and on either side, like bulwarks to guard it from the rushing tide.
At its lower end a long, low, gravelly point reached downward, like a pencil point, among the swirling eddies. The gravel which formed this point, he had remarked at the time, had been deposited by the eddies created by the meeting of the waters where they rushed together from either side below the island.
With the recollection of the island came also a realisation that here possibly lay a means of escape. A quick estimate of the distance they had already drifted below the portage trail satisfied him that they were still perhaps half a mile above the island, and probably not too far amidstream to enable them to swing in upon it before it was passed, in which case a landing might be made with comparative ease upon the gravelly point.
The canoe, as previously stated, was heading upstream, with Bob in the bow, Shad in the stern. It was necessary that they turn around and secure a view of the river in order to avoid possible reefs near the island shore, and to properly pick an available landing place.
But to attempt to turn the canoe itself in the swift current would in all probability result in fatal delay. Therefore, acting upon the moment's instinct, Bob ceased paddling, arose, and himself quickly turned, seating himself face to the stern, shouting to Shad as he did so:
"Turn! I'll steer!"
Shad had no doubt Bob had become demented, but without question obeyed the command. In this position what had previously been the stern of the canoe now became the bow, Shad Trowbridge the bowman and Ungava Bob the steersman.
The moment paddling ceased the canoe shot forward in the current, heading toward the white waters of the rapids. The manoeuvre had not been made a moment too soon, for directly before them, a little to the left, lay the island.
With a quick, dexterous turn of the paddle Bob swung the canoe toward the island shore farthest from the mainland and, close under the cliffs, caught the retarding shore current. A few seconds later the bow of the little craft ground upon the gravelly point, Shad sprang ashore, Bob at his heels, and the canoe was drawn after them to safety.
For a moment Bob and Shad looked at each other in silence, then Shad exclaimed simply: "Thank God!"
"Aye," said Bob reverently, "thank th' Lard. He were watchin' an' guardin' us when we were thinkin' we was lost. 'Tis th' Lard's way, Shad."
"My God, Bob! Look at that!" exclaimed Shad, pointing toward the mad white waters below them. "If you hadn't thought of this island, Bob, we'd be in there now--in there--dead! My God, what an escape! And such a death!"
Shad sank upon a bowlder, white and trembling. He was no coward, but he was highly imaginative at times. During the trying period in the canoe he was cool and brave. He had done his part at the paddle equally as well as Bob. He would have gone to his death without a visible tremor. But now the reaction had come, and his imagination ran riot with his reason.
"Why, Shad, what's th' matter now?" asked Bob solicitously. "Were th' strain at th' paddle too much? You looks sick."
"No--I'm all right--just foolish. I'm afraid you'll think I'm not game, Bob."
"Oh, but I knows you is, Shad. I seen you turned over in th' Bay, Shad--an' I knows you'm wonderful brave."
"Thank you, Bob. I hope I deserve your opinion."
"I were terrible scairt first, when I finds th' canoe's slippin' back toward th' rapid an' I'm seein' no way t' land," said Bob. "Then I stops bein' scairt an' has a feelin' that I don't care--"
"Just as I felt," broke in Shad. "A sort of hopeless speculation on what was going to happen, but not much caring."
"Aye," continued Bob. "Then I thinks 'twill be sore hard on Mother--my never goin' home--an' I prays th' Lard t' help us, an' soon's I says 'Amen' I thinks o' this island. 'Twere th' Lard puts un in my head, Shad."
"I think," said Shad, "it was your quick wit and resourcefulness, Bob."
"No," Bob insisted positively, "'twere th' Lard. An', Shad, we must be thankin' th' Lard now."
Then Ungava Bob and Shad Trowbridge knelt by the side of the boulder, the former reverently, the latter courteously, while Bob prayed aloud:
"Dear Lard, Shad and me is wonderful thankful that you p'inted out t' us th' landin' place on this island, an', Lard, we wants t' thank you. We knows, Lard, if you hadn't been p'intin' she out t' us, we'd be dead in th' rapids now, or handy t' un. We'll never be forgettin'. An', Lard, keep clost t' Shad an' me always. Amen."
"That," said Shad, when they rose to their feet, "was the most honest, simple, straightforward prayer I ever heard offered. Thank you, Bob, for including me. If the Lord hears prayers, Bob, He heard yours, for it was honest and from the heart and to the point."
"He hears un, Shad, an' He answers un." There was a note of conviction in Bob's tone that left no room for doubt.
"We're here, because we're here, because we're here--" Shad began to sing. "Bob, I'm feeling all right now, and I guess I've got my nerve back again. Foolish, wasn't it, to get frightened after it was all over? Let's see, now, what the prospects are of getting away."
From an eminence in the centre of the island they surveyed their surroundings. The mainland lay not more than a short stone's throwaway, but between it and the island the water ran as swift as a mill race. Some two hundred yards below the point on which they had landed the heavy white rapids began, and with but one exception the perpendicular wall of rock that formed the mainland shore extended to and beyond the white water.
This exception occurred about half-way between the island and the heavy rapids, where for a distance of some six or eight yards frost action had caused disintegration of the rock, and the wall sloped down toward the river at an angle of forty-five degrees.
At the foot of this slope, and on a level with the water, a narrow platform had been formed by the dislodged portion of the rock. Under the most favourable conditions exceedingly expert canoemen might succeed in making a landing here, but it was plain that the foothold offered was so narrow and so unstable that any attempt to make a landing upon it would prove perilous and more than likely fatal.
The island itself was oblong in shape and contained an area of three or four acres. Its rocky surface sustained a scant growth of gnarled black spruce and stunted white birch, with here and there patches of brush.
From their vantage point no sign of the Indians who had caused their trouble could be seen, and it was evident they had not descended the river bank below the portage trail.
"Well, what do you think of it, Bob?" Shad asked.
"I'm thinkin' now, th' Injuns are headin' for th' tilt up th' river, an' that they'll be cleanin' un out an' burnin' un. Th' Injuns t' th' post tells me they never comes below th' portage. They's afraid o' th' evil spirits o' th' falls. But they goes back in th' country sometimes an' circles around by th' Big Hill trail."
"But what do you think of trying to cross, and make a landing down there where the rock slopes?" inquired Shad.
"We'd never make un, Shad," decided Bob. "I knows th' handlin' o' boats. I'm too uncertain in a canoe, an' so be you, Shad."
"What are we to do, then? We can't stay here," insisted Shad.
"I'm not knowin' yet. They'll be some way showin'," promised Bob, "but we'll have t' think un out first."
"What was the matter with those Indians, anyway? I thought all the Indians were friendly to white men," Shad asked, as they turned down again to the canoe.
"They's Mingen Injuns," explained Bob. "I were forgettin' t' tell you, Shad. When we was t' th' post, Douglas Campbell tells me that last fall some Mingens comes t' th' last tilt o' th' Big Hill trail an' tells he they'd not let any white trapper hunt above th' Big Hill trail. They's likely seen our tilt up th' river, an' laid for us. I'm sorry, now, I were bringin' you here an' not tellin' you, Shad."
"Oh, don't worry about that, Bob. I'd have come just the same," assured Shad. "In fact, I'd have been all the more ready to come, with the prospect of a scrap with Indians in view. If I'd known, though, I'd have had my eyes open and my rifle ready, and dropped a bullet or two among them before we got caught in the current."
"Injuns were never givin' me trouble before, an' I weren't takin' their threatenin' t' Douglas in earnest, so I forgets all about un till I sees th' Injuns at th' portage trail," Bob explained.
"'Twouldn't have done t' kill any of un, Shad. If you had, th' rest would have laid in th' bushes an' killed us, for they's no knowin' how many they is of un. Then they'd gone back an' laid for Ed an' Dick an' Bill an' killed they before they'd be knowin' they was any trouble.
"Now 'tis more 'n likely th' Injuns is thinkin' we be th' only white men about, an' when we thinks up a way o' gettin' out o' here we'll give warnin' t' Ed an' th' others, an' being on th' lookout one of us can hold off a hull passel o' Injuns, for we has Winchesters, an' all they has is muzzle-loadin' trade guns."
"But suppose we don't get off this island before the others come to look for us? What then?" asked Shad.
"If they misses us an' goes lookin' for us, they'll be knowin' we're missin' for some cause. Bill Campbell's been hearin' from his father what th' Mingens were sayin' last year, an' they'll suspicion 'tis th' Mingens an' be watchin' for un."
"But I don't understand yet what objection the Mingens have to our trapping here. I supposed this was the country of your Nascaupee friends."
"'Tis this way," Bob explained. "Th' Nascaupees hunts t' th' n'uth'ard, th' Bay Mountaineers t' th' east'ard, an' th' Mingens t' th' s'uth'ard, an' all of un comes in hereabouts t' get deer's meat, mostly th' Mingens, when deer's scarce t' th' s'uth'ard, an' they thinks if white trappers is about th' deer'll be drove out."
"Well, Bob, let's boil the kettle and try to figure out a plan of escape," suggested Shad. "With the reaction from the morning's excitement, I'm developing a vast hunger."
"They's not a mouthful o' grub in th' bag, Shad," Bob announced sorrowfully, "only a bit o' tea with th' kettle an' our cups. I leaves un all in th' tilt, thinkin' we'd get back t' th' next tilt an' use th' grub that's there, an' I just leaves th' bit o' tea in th' bag."
"No grub!" exclaimed Shad. "Then we've got to try to make a landing down on that wall. We can't stay here and starve!"
"An' we can't make th' landin'. 'Twould be sure drownin' t' try."
"Then it is just a choice between drowning and starving? For my part, I'd rather drown and have it over with, than starve to death!"
"Th' Lard weren't showin' us here just t' have us die right off," said Bob quietly. "He were savin' us because He's wantin us t' live, an' He'll be thinkin' if we tries t' make th' landin' knowin' we can't make un, that we're not wantin' t' live. If we takes time now t' plan un out, th' Lard'll show us how."
"I wish I had your faith, Bob, but I haven't, and I'm still in favour of making a try for the shore," insisted Shad. "However, let us make some tea and argue the matter out later."
"Aye, we'll boil th' kettle an' talk un over, whatever," agreed Bob, rising from the rock upon which they had seated themselves, and turning into the scant growth to collect dry sticks for a fire.
But instead of collecting the sticks he returned to the canoe, secured Shad's doublebarrelled shotgun, and a moment later Shad, who was dipping a kettle of water for their tea and had not noticed the movement, was startled by the report of the gun. Looking up, he saw Bob stoop, reach into a clump of bushes, and bring forth a rabbit.
"Well, I'll be jiggered!" exclaimed Shad, as Bob held his game aloft for inspection. "I didn't suppose there was hide or hair or feather on this wind-blasted, forsaken island of desolation!"
"I sees th' signs," said Bob, "an' then I looks about an' sees th' rabbit. Where they's one they's like t' be quite a passel of un. They likely crosses over last winter on th' ice an' th' break-up catches un here an' they can't get off."
"That's some relief to the situation. But we've only about a dozen shells in the canoe," announced Shad, "and when they are gone we'll be as badly off as ever."
"We'll not be wastin' shells, now, on rabbits," said Bob. "They's other ways t' catch un. I uses that shell t' get our dinner. I'll get th' rabbit ready now whilst you puts a fire on."
"Very well," agreed Shad, collecting wood for a fire, "and when we've eaten I hope we can think of some way of escape." _