Lords of the North

by Agnes C. Laut

I was pursued. There was no mistaking that fact, and with a thrill, which I have no hesitancy in confessing was the most intense fear I have ever experienced in my life, I broke into a terrified, panic-stricken run. The river grew dark, sluggish and treacherous-looking. By the blood flowing from my feet, Indian scouts could track me for leagues. I looked to the river with the vague hope of running along the water bed to throw my pursuers off the trail; but the water was deep and I had not strength to swim. The beaver-dam was huddled close to the clay bank of the far side and on the side, where I ran, the current spread out in a flaggy marsh. Hoping to elude the Sioux, I plunged in and floundered blindly forward. But blood trails marked the pond behind and the soft ooze snared my feet.

I was now opposite the beaver-dam and saw with horror there were branches enough floating in mid-stream to entangle the strongest swimmer. The shouts of my pursuers sounded nearer. They could not have known how close they were upon me, else had they ambushed me in silence after Indian custom, shouting only when they sighted their quarry. The river was not tempting for a fagged, breathless swimmer, whose dive must be short and sorry. I had nigh counted my earthly course run, when I caught sight of a hollow, punky tree-trunk standing high above the bank. I could hear the swiftest runners behind splashing through the marsh bed. Now the thick willow-bush screened me, but in a few moments they would be on my very heels. With the supernatural strength of a last desperate effort, I bounded to the empty trunk and like some hounded, treed creature, clambered up inside, digging my wounded feet into the soft, wet wood-rot and burrowing naked fingers through the punk of the rounded sides till I was twice the height of a man above the blackened opening at the base. Then a piece of wood crumbled in my right hand. Daylight broke through the trunk and I found that I had grasped the edge of a rotted knot-hole.

Bracing my feet across beneath me like tie beams of raftered scaffolding, I craned up till my eye was on a level with the knot-hole and peered down through my lofty lookout. Either the shouting of the Sioux warriors had ceased, which indicated they had found my tracks and knew they were close upon me, or my shelter shut out the sound of approaching foes. I broke more bark from the hole and gained full view of the scene below.

A crested savage ran out from the tangled foliage of the river bank, saw the turgid settlings of the rippling marsh, where I had been floundering, and darted past my hiding-place with a shrill yell of triumph. Instantaneously the woods were ringing, echoing and re-echoing with the hoarse, wild war-cries of the Sioux. Band after band burst from the leafy covert of forest and marsh willows, and dashed in full pursuit after the leading Indian. Some of the braves still wore the buckskin toggery of their visit to the Mandanes; but the swiftest runners had cast off all clothing and tore forward unimpeded. The last coppery form disappeared among the trees of the river bank and the shoutings were growing fainter, when, suddenly, there was such an ominous calm, I knew they were foiled.

Would they return to the last marks of my trail? That thought sent the blood from my head with a rush that left me dizzy, weak and shivering. I looked to the river. The floating branches turned lazily over and over to the lapping of the sluggish current, and the green slime oozing from the clustered beaver lodges of the far side might hide either a miry bottom, or a treacherous hole.

A naked Indian came pattering back through the brush, looking into every hollow log, under fallen trees, through clumps of shrub growth, where a man might hide, and into the swampy river bed. It was only a matter of time when he would reach my hiding-place. Should I wait to be smoked out of my hole, like a badger, or a raccoon? Again I looked hopelessly to the river. A choice of deaths seemed my only fate. Torture, burning, or the cool wash of a black wave gurgling over one's head?

A broad-girthed log lay in the swamp and stretched out over mid-stream in a way that would give a quick diver at least a good, clean, clear leap. A score more savages had emerged from the woods and were eagerly searching, from the limbs of trees above, where I might be perched, to the black river-bed below. However much I may vacillate between two courses, once my decision is taken, I have ever been swift to act; and I slipped down the tree-trunk with the bound of a bullet through a gun-barrel, took one last look from the opening, which revealed pursuers not fifty yards away, plunged through the marsh, dashed to the fallen log and made a rush to the end.

A score of brazen throats screeched out their baffled rage. There was a twanging of bow-strings. The humming of arrow flight sung about my head. I heard the crash of some savage blazing away with his old flintlock. A deep-drawn breath, and I was cleaving the air. Then the murky, greenish waters splashed in my face, opened wide and closed over me.

A tangle of green was at the soft, muddy bottom. Something living, slippery, silky and furry, that was neither fish, nor water snake, got between my feet; but countless arrows, I knew, were aimed and ready for me, when I came to the surface. So I held down for what seemed an interminable time, though it was only a few seconds, struck for the far shore, and presently felt the green slime of the upper water matting in my hair.

Every swimmer knows that rich, sweet, full intake of life-giving air after a long dive. I drew in deep, fresh breaths and tried to blink the slime from my eyes and get my bearings. There were the howlings of baffled wolves from what was now the far side of the river bank; but domed clay mounds, mossy, floating branches and a world of willows shrubs were about my head. Then I knew what the furry thing among the tangle at the river bottom was, and realized that I had come up among the beaver lodges. The dam must have been an old one; for the clay houses were all overgrown with moss and water-weeds. A perfect network of willow growth interlaced the different lodges.