For hours after retiring Kingswell lay awake, reviewing, in his restless brain, the incidents of that crowded day. His couch was luxurious, compared to the resting-places he had known since leaving the Heart of the West; but, for all that, sleep evaded him. From the other side of the hearth Ouenwa's deep and regular breathing reached his alert ears. He saw the yellow light blink to darkness above the curtain of skins, when D'Antons extinguished his candle in the other apartment. The red firelight rose and fell, dwindled and flooded high. The core of it contracted and expanded, and a straight log across the middle of the glow was like a heavy eyelid. It was like something alive—like something stirring between sleeping and waking, desiring sleep, yet afraid to forsake a vigil. To the restless explorer beside the hearth it suggested a drowsy servitor nodding and starting in a deserted hall. "What is it waiting From such harmless imagery his mind slipped to the less pleasant subject of Sir Ralph Westleigh. He recalled what he had seen and heard of the days of the baronet's glory—of the great places near Bristol, with their stables that were the envy of dukes, and their routs that lured people weary and dangerous journeys—of the famous Lady Westleigh and her jewels—of Sir Ralph's kindliness to great and small alike. His own father, the merchant-knight of Bristol, had held the baronet in high esteem. Bernard himself, when a child, and later when a well-grown lad, had experienced the hospitality of Randon Hall and Beverly. At the time of his last visit to Beverly, rumour was busy with the baronet's affairs. During Lady Westleigh's life, all had gone well, apparently. After her death, Sir Ralph spent less of his time at home, and more of it in distant London, and even in Paris. Stories went abroad of his heavy gaming and his ruinous bad luck. People said the love of the dice and the cards had settled in the man like a disease, working on him physically to such an extent that he looked a different person when the heat of the All these matters employed Kingswell's thoughts as he lay awake in Captain d'Antons' cabin and watched the fire on the rough hearth fall lower and lower. Pity for the young girl, who had been born and bred to such a different heritage, pained and fretted him more keenly than a personal loss. The discomfort of it was almost as if his conscience were accusing him of disloyalty to a friend, though For the next few days matters went smoothly Kingswell put his men under William Trigget's orders, and he and Ouenwa spent much of their time with the choppers. Also, they journeyed with the trappers. Captain d'Antons, who was a skilled and tireless woodsman, led them on many weary marches in quest of game and fur. Most of the caribou had travelled southward, in herds of from ten to one hundred head, at the approach of winter; but a few remained in the sheltered valleys. Fortunately the settlers were familiar with the habits of the deer, and had laid in a supply of dried venison during the summer. However, One day in early December, when Kingswell, D'Antons, the younger Donnelly, and Ouenwa were traversing a drifted expanse of "barren," marching in single file and without undue noise, they came upon another trail of racquet prints. They halted. They regarded this unexpected evidence of the proximity of their fellow man with misgivings—for snow had fallen in abundance, and therefore the trail was new. They glanced uneasily about them, scanning clumps of spruce and fir and mounds of snow-drifted rock with anxious eyes. They strained their ears for some warning sound—or for the twanging of bowstrings. They saw nothing. They heard nothing but the "From the westward, and heading for the river," he said. "Then they are not from the village on Gander Lake." "Big number," remarked Ouenwa. "Ten, twenty, thirty—don't know how much! Whole camp, I think." "Ay," agreed Donnelly, "they sure has packed clear down through two falls o' snow. Ye could trot a pony along the pat' they has made." "Are you on friendly terms with the savages?" inquired Kingswell of Captain d'Antons. The Frenchman smiled uncheerfully and shrugged his lean shoulders. He was not one to speak unconsidered words. "Yes, we are on friendly terms with the people from Gander Lake," he replied, presently. "That is, we have traded with them a number of times, and have exchanged gifts with their chief, and through him with old Soft Hand. But Soft Hand is dead now; and these fellows are evidently from the West. Also, friendship means nothing where these vermin are concerned. Treachery is as the breath of life to them." "Panounia," whispered Ouenwa, excitedly. "Panounia no good for friend. He is a D'Antons smiled thinly at the lad. "There is a time for all things," he said—"a time for oratory and another time for action. If you are willing, Master Kingswell, let us now retrace our steps as swiftly and quietly as may be. It would be wise to warn the fort that a band of the sly devils is abroad." Ouenwa glanced uncertainly at the speaker and flushed darkly. Kingswell intimated his willingness to return immediately to Fort Beatrix by a curt nod. It was in his heart to administer a kick to Captain Pierre d'Antons, though just why the desire he could not say. They turned in their tracks and started back along the twisting, seven-mile trail. D'Antons led; and the pace he set was a stiff one. Mile after mile was passed, with no other sound save those of padding racquet and toiling breath. In the hollows their shoulders brushed the snow from the crowding spruce-fronds. Going over the knolls, they crouched low, and scanned the horizon with alert eyes as they ran. At last, all but breathless from the prolonged exertion, the hunters turned aside from the path and ascended the gradual, heavily wooded side of a hill which overlooked the fort from the south. They crossed the naked summit with painful caution, bending double, and taking every advantage of the sheltering thickets. "The choppers are inside," whispered D'Antons to Kingswell, as they peered furtively out between the snow-weighted branches. "See! And the savages are in cover along the river." It was quite evident to Kingswell that the place had been attacked, and was now in a state of siege. The platform in the southeast corner of the stockade was protected by shields composed of bundles of firewood. Men whom he recognized as those who had been working in the woods earlier in the day moved about within the enclosure. The wide, snow-covered clearing that had been so spotless when he had last seen it was trampled and stained here and there by dark patches. Along the fringe of timber that shut the river from the clearing, and extended to within a dozen paces of the southeast corner of the stockade, a Beothic warrior would frequently show himself for a moment, hoot derisively, and let fly a harmless shaft. Presently the watchers on the knoll saw the head and shoulders of William Kingswell turned to D'Antons. "More of them than we thought," he said. "There must have been a hundred arrows in that volley." Captain d'Antons nodded with a preoccupied air. He did not look at his companion, and his brow was puckered in lines of thought. If the Englishman had been able to read the other's mind at that moment, a deal of future trouble would have been spared him. However, as Kingswell was but an adventurous, keen-witted young man, with no superhuman powers, he was content with the Frenchman's nod, and returned his attentions to the fort. Suddenly, from the screen of faggots above which Trigget had so lately exposed his head, burst a flash of yellow flame, a spurt of white smoke, and a clapping bulk of sound. The stockade shook. A spruce-tree shook in the wood by the river, and cries of fear and consternation rang across the "Now is our time!" exclaimed Kingswell. "Run for the gate, lads." |