CHAPTER II
TIDINGS OF ILL
"Mislike me not for my complexion,
The shadow'd livery of the burnished sun."
Merchant of Venice.
"How! How!" said the rancher, looking up at the tall
Indian. "You are welcome to my fireside, Child-of-Light.
Sit down."
He rose and gave him his hand. With a simple dignity the fine-looking savage returned his salutation.
"The master is good," he said. "Child-of-Light still remembers how in that bad winter so many years ago, when the cotton-tails and rabbits had died from the disease that takes them in the throat, and the wild animals that live upon them died also because there was nought to eat, and how when disease and famine tapped at the buffalo robe that screens the doorways of the tepees, he who is the brother of the white man and the red man had compassion and filled the hungry mouths."
"Ah, well, that's all right, Child-of-Light," lightly said Douglas, wondering what the chief had come to say. He understood the red man's ways, and knew he would learn all in good time.
But the chief would not eat or drink. He would, however, smoke, and helped himself from the pouch that Douglas offered. He let his blanket fall from his shoulders, and underneath there showed a richly-wrought shirt of true barbaric grandeur. On a groundwork of crimson flannel was wrought a rare and striking mosaic in beads of blue and yellow and red. The sun glowed from his breast, countless showy ermine tails dangled from his shoulders, his arms and his sides like a gorgeous fringe, and numerous tiny bells tinkled all over him as he moved. His features were large and marked, his forehead, high, and his nose aquiline. His Mongolian set eyes were dark and full of intellect, his expression a strange mixture of alertness, conscious power, and dignity. He was a splendid specimen of humanity.
He filled his pipe leisurely, then spoke as if he hardly expected that what he had to say would interest his hearers.
The half-breeds, led by Louis Riel and Gabriel Dumont, had risen, he said, and large numbers of the Indians had joined them. Before twenty-four hours there would hardly be a farmstead or ranche in Saskatchewan that would not be pillaged and burnt to the ground. He, Child-of-Light, had managed to keep his band in check, but there were thousands of Indians in the country, Crees, Salteaus, Chippeywans, Blackfoot, Bloods, Piegans, Sarcees, renegade Siouxs, and Crows who would join the rebels. Colonel Irvine, of the North-West Mounted Police at Fort Carlton, had already destroyed all the stores, and, having set fire to the buildings, was retreating on the main body.
Douglas the rancher had "sat quietly while the chief told his alarming news. He hardly dared look at his daughter.
"I have been a fool!" he said bitterly. "I have tried to
hide the truth from myself, and now it may be too late.
Of course it's not the stock and place I'm thinking about,
Dorothy, but it's you—I had no right—-"
"Oh, hush, dad!" cried the girl, who seemed the least concerned of any. "I don't believe the rebels will interfere with us. Besides, have we not our friend, Child-of-Light?"
"The daughter of my brother Douglas is as my own child," said the chief simply, "and her life I will put before mine. But Indians on the war-path are as the We'h-ti-koo, [Footnote: Indians of unsound mind who become cannibals.] who are possessed of devils, whose onward rush is as the waters of the mighty Saskatchewan river when it has forced the ice jam."
"And so, Child-of-Light, what would you have us do?" asked Douglas. "Do you think if possible for my daughter and the women to reach the Fort at Battleford?"
But a sharp tapping at the door stopped the answer of the chief.
Rory shot back the bolt and threw open the door. A fur-clad figure entered; the white frost glistened on his buffalo-coat and bear-skin cap as if they were tipped with ermine. He walked without a word into the light and looked around—an admirable man, truly, about six feet in height, broad-shouldered, narrow-hipped, and without a spare ounce of flesh—a typical Rider of the Plains, and a soldier, every inch of him. In the thousands upon thousands of square miles in which these dauntless military police have to enforce law and order, the inhabitants know that never yet has the arm of justice not proved long enough to bring an offender to book. On one occasion a policeman disappeared into the wilderness after some one who was wanted. As in three months he neither came back, nor was heard of, he was struck off the strength of the force. But one day, as the men stood on parade in the barrack square, he came back in rags and on foot, more like a starved tramp than a soldier. But with him he brought his prisoner. That was the man, Sergeant Pasmore, who stood before them.
He inclined his head to Dorothy, and nodded to the men around the fire, but when he saw Child-of-Light he extended his left hand.
The Indian looked straight into the sergeant's eyes.
"What has happened?" he asked. "Ough! Ough! I see; you have met Thunderchild?"
The sergeant nodded.
"Yes," he said, with apparent unconcern, "Thunderchild managed to put a bullet through my arm. You may give me a hand off with my coat, Jacques. Luckily, the wound's not bad enough to prevent my firing a gun."
When they removed his overcoat they found that the sleeve of the tunic had been cut away, and that his arm had been roughly bandaged. The girl was gazing at it in a peculiarly concentrated fashion.
"I beg your pardon, Miss Douglas," he said, hastily turning away from her. "I had forgotten it looked like that, but fortunately the look is the worst part of it. It's only a flesh wound."
The girl had stepped forward to help him, as if resenting the imputation that the sight of blood frightened her, but Jacques had anticipated what was required. She wanted to bring him something to eat and drink, but he thanked her and declined. He had weightier matters on hand.
"Mr. Douglas," he said, quietly, "I've told my men to move over here. You may require their services in the course of the next twenty-four hours. What I apprehended and told you about some time ago has occurred."
"Pasmore," said the rancher, earnestly, "is there any immediate danger? If there is, my daughter and the women had better go into Battleford right now."
"You cannot go now—you must wait till to-morrow morning," was the reply. "It's no use taking your household goods into the Fort—there's no room there. Your best plan is to leave things just as they are, and trust to the rebels being engaged elsewhere. I believe your warriors, Child-of-Light, are in the wood in the deep coulee just above where the two creeks meet?"
"That is right, brother," said the Indian, "but what about Thunderchild, the turncoat?"
And then Pasmore told them how he had gone to Thunderchild's camp that day to arrest the outlaw, and warn his braves against joining the rebels, and how he had been shot through the arm, and only escaped with his life. He had come straight on to warn them. In the meantime he would advise the women to make preparations for an early start on the morrow. Food and clothing would have to be taken, as they might be away for weeks.
Then, while Dorothy Douglas and her two women-servants were already making preparations for a move, a brief council of war was held. Child-of-Light, when asked, advised that the Mounted Police and those present should next day escort the women into Fort Battleford, while he and his braves ran off the rancher's fine herd of horses, so as to prevent its falling into the hands of the enemy.
Pasmore said that this was exactly the right thing to do. He also intimated that there was a party of half-breeds, the Racettes and the St. Croixs, coming by trail at that very moment from Battleford to plunder and pillage; they would probably arrive before many hours. He had, however, taken the precaution of stationing men on the look-out on the neighbouring ridges.
"Mon Dieu!" exclaimed Jacques, springing to his feet. "It is the neck of that St. Croix I will want to wring. It is two, three years ago now he say he will wring mine; but very good care he will take to keep away. Ah, well, we shall see, my friend, we shall see!"
Child-of-Light stole out to his men in the coulee, and Jacques and Rory went to the stables and out-houses to make certain preparations so that they might be able to start at any moment. The windows were boarded up, so that if the half-breeds came no signs of life might be observed in the house. Douglas saw that certain loopholes in the walls commanding the lines of approach, which he himself had made by way of precaution when danger from the Indians had threatened in the old days, were reopened and plugged in case of emergency.
As for the sergeant, he had not slept for three days, and was too utterly tired out to be of any assistance. He had done what he could, and had now to await developments. The fire was good, and he had dropped, at the rancher's request, into a comfortable high-backed chair in a corner, where he fell asleep.