MENEHWEHNA SETTLES ACCOUNTS.
Weary as they were, there could be no thought of halting. The river and the plain lay far below them yet, and they must push on through the darkness.
Hitherto the forest had awed John by its loneliness; its night-voices, falling at rare intervals on his ear and awaking him from dreams beside the camp-fire, had seemed to cry and challenge across immense distances as though the very beasts were far astray. But now, as he crouched behind Menehwehna, he felt it to be no less awfully inhabited. A thousand creeping things stirred or slunk away through the undergrowth; roosting birds edged towards one another in the branches, ever on the point of flapping off in panic; the thickets were warm from the flanks of moose and deer. And all this wild life, withdrawing, watched the four fugitives with a thousand eyes.
These imaginary terrors did him one service. They kept him awake. By and by his brain began to work clearly, as it often will when the body has passed a certain point of fatigue. "If these Indians on the ridge are Iroquois, why should I run? The Iroquois are friends of England, and would recognise my red coat. The man they killed was a Canadian, a coureur de bois; they will kill Barboux if they catch him, and also these two Ojibways. But to me capture will bring release."
He understood now why Menehwehna had called him a fool. Nevertheless, as he went, the screams on the cliff rang in his ears again, closing the argument.
Muskingon still led. He had struck a small mountain stream and was tracking it down towards the river—keeping wide of it to avoid the swampy ground, relying on his ears and the lie of the slope. Menehwehna followed close, ready to give counsel if needed; but the young Indian held on in silence, never once hesitating.
The debate in John's brain started afresh. "These Iroquois mean me no harm. I am sure enough of that, at any rate, to face the risk of it. Barboux is my enemy—my country's enemy—and I dislike in him the little I don't despise. As for Menehwehna and Muskingon—they, I suppose, are my enemies, and the Iroquois my friends." Somehow John felt that when civilised nations employ uncivilised allies, the simplest questions of ethics may become complicated. He remembered a hundred small acts of kindness, of good-fellowship; and he recalled, all too vividly, the murdered man and his gory head.
But might he not escape back and show himself without lessening his comrades' chances? It was a nuisance that he must always be thinking of them as comrades. Was he not their prisoner? Would their comradeship help him at the end of the journey?…
The moon had risen over the hills when Muskingon's piloting brought them out once more under open sky, at a point where the mountain stream met and poured itself into a larger one hurrying down from the northeast. A few yards below their confluence the riverbed narrowed, and the waters, gathering speed, were swept down through a rocky chasm towards a cataract, the noise of which had been sounding in John's ears while he debated.
Hitherto he had weighed the question as one between himself and his three companions. For the moment he saw no chance of giving them the slip; and, if a chance occurred, the odds must be terribly unequal. Still, supposing that one occurred, ought he to take it? Putting aside the insane risk, ought he to bring death—and such a death— down upon these three men, two of whom he looked upon as friends? Did his country, indeed, require this of him? He wished he had his cousin Dick beside him for counsellor, or could borrow Dick's practical mind. Dick always saw clearly.