“Easy, Jan; keep cool,” he said.
Jan ceased plunging, and Ben slowly hauled away on the slender limb, going up it hand over hand, as sailors do. If it should break! He looked below and saw the jagged rocks and the high walls of stone on both sides of the cañon. To drift lower down was certain death.
He felt the limb bend in his grasp, but it held firmly, and at last he laid his strong hand on a stouter one. As he did so, he allowed the shout of joy which had been pent up in his breast so long to escape in an exultant cry. Jan took it up and made the rocks fairly ring.
It was easy work now. In a moment more their feet trod the unyielding soil of the bottom of the stream, and they clambered to the shore. Ben ran to the place where his clothes lay, and got into them without delay.
“There! I feel better,” he said, as the last garment was donned. “I kain’t say I like the other style of costume in the winter. ’Tain’t voluminous enuff. Fer summer, now, a light an’ airy rig like thet ar’ would be jest the thing; but it won’t do fer the Black Hills; oh no.”
“I dinks ve petter haf a vire,” said Jan, with rattling teeth. “It ish very cold here.”
“Yer mighty right,” rejoined Ben. “Say, Jule, kain’t ye do thet much fer us?”
Jules walked away slowly and began to gather the materials for a fire; but he walked lazily, and Jan turned in to help him, dripping as he was. Ben looked at the Frenchman in considerable astonishment. A change seemed to have come over him since his capture by the Indian band. His eye had a sullen light; his looks were downcast, and his whole appearance that of a man who was wholly actuated by some bad passion.
“Blowed ef I kin make out what’s the matter with Jule,” muttered Ben. “He’s got trouble on his mind, somehow.”
“Come here, father Ben,” said Millicent at this moment. “I have something to show you.”