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very great so long as one so experienced as the Chippewa felt so
much confidence in his own future proceedings; and, after talking a
short time longer with this man, the bee-hunter went to seek
Margery, in order to impart to her a due portion of his own hopes.
The sisters were preparing the breakfast. This was done without the
use of fire, it being too hazardous to permit smoke to rise above
the tops of the trees. Many is the camp that has been discovered by
the smoke, which can be seen at a great distance; and it is a
certain sign of the presence of man, when it ascends in threads, or
such small columns as denote a domestic fire beneath. This is very
different from the clouds that float above the burning prairies, and
which all, at once, impute to their true origin. The danger of using
fire had been so much guarded against by our fugitives, that the
cooking of the party had been done at night; the utmost caution
having been used to prevent the fire itself from being seen, and
care taken to extinguish it long before the return of day. A supply
of cold meat was always on hand, and had it not been, the fugitives
would have known how to live on berries, or, at need, to fast;
anything was preferable, being exposed to certain capture.
As soon as the party had broken their fast, arrangements were made
for recruiting nature by sleep. As for Pigeonswing, Indian-like, he
had eaten enormously, no reasonable quantity of venison sufficing to
appease his appetite; and when he had eaten, he lay down in the
bottom of his canoe and slept. Similar dispositions were made of
their persons by the rest, and half an hour after the meal was
ended, all there were in a profound sleep. No watch was considered
necessary, and none was kept.
The rest of the weary is sweet. Long hours passed, ere any one there
awoke; but no sooner did the Chippewa move than all the rest were
afoot. It was now late in the day, and it was time to think of
taking the meal that was to sustain them through the toil and
fatigues of another arduous night. This was done; the necessary
preparations being made for a start ere the sun had set. The canoes
were then shoved as near the mouth of the inlet as it was safe to
go, while the light remained. Here they stopped, and a consultation
took place, as to the manner of proceeding.
No sooner did the shades of evening close around the place than the
fugitives again put forth. The night was clouded and dark, and so
much of the way now lay through forests that there was little reason
to apprehend detection. The chief causes of delay were the rifts,
and the portages, as had been the case the night before. Luckily, le
Bourdon had been up and down the stream so often as to be a very
tolerable pilot in its windings. He assumed the control, and by
midnight the greatest obstacle to that evening's progress was
overcome. At the approach of day, Pigeonswing pointed out another
creek, in another swamp, where the party found a refuge for the
succeeding day. In this manner four nights were passed on the river,
and as many days in swamps, without discovery. The Chippewa had
nicely calculated his time and his distances, and not the smallest
mistake was made. Each morning a place of shelter was reached in
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sufficient season; and each night the fugitives were ready for the
start as the day shut in. In this manner, most of the river was
descended, until a distance that could be easily overcome in a
couple of hours of paddling alone remained between the party and the
mouth of the stream. Extreme caution was now necessary, for signs of
Indians in the neighborhood had been detected at several points in
the course of the last night's work. On one occasion, indeed, the
escape was so narrow as to be worth recording.
It was at a spot where the stream flowed through a forest denser
than common, that Pigeonswing heard voices on the river, ahead of
him. One Indian was calling to another, asking to be set across the
stream in a canoe. It was too late to retreat, and so much
uncertainty existed as to the nearness, or distance, of the danger,
that the Chippewa deemed it safest to bring all three of his canoes
together, and to let them float past the point suspected, or rather [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]