Lost in the Backwoods: A Tale of the Canadian Forest

by Catharine Parr Strickland Traill

Petulantly Louis chid these discordant minstrels of the night, and joyfully he hailed the first gush of moonlight that rose broad and full and red over the Oak Hills to the eastward.

Louis envied the condition of the unconscious sleeper, who lay in happy forgetfulness of all her sorrows, her fair curls spread in unbound luxuriance over the dark shaggy neck of the faithful Wolfe, who seemed as if proud of the beloved burden that rested so trustingly upon him. Sometimes the careful dog just unclosed his large eyes, raised his nose from his shaggy paws, snuffed the night air, growled in a sort of undertone, and then dozed again, but watchfully.

It would be no easy task to tell the painful feelings that agitated young Louis's breast. He was angry with Hector for having thus madly, as he thought, rushed into danger. "It was wilful and almost cruel," he thought, "to leave them the prey of such tormenting fears on his account;" and then the most painful fears for the safety of his beloved companion took the place of less kindly thoughts, and sorrow filled his heart. The broad moon now flooded the hills and vales with light, casting broad checkering shadows of the old oaks' gray branches and now reddened foliage across the ground.

Suddenly the old dog raises his head, and utters a short half-angry note: slowly and carefully he rises, disengaging himself gently from the form of the sleeping girl, and stands forth in the full light of the moon. It is an open cleared space, that mound beneath the pine-tree; a few low shrubs and seedling pines, with the slender waving branches of the late-flowering pearly-tinted asters, the elegant fringed gentian with open bells of azure blue, the last and loveliest of autumn flowers and winter-greens, brighten the ground with wreaths of shining leaves and red berries.

Louis is on the alert, though as yet he sees nothing. It is not a full free note of welcome that Wolfe gives; there is something uneasy and half angry in his tone. Yet it is not fierce, like the bark of angry defiance he gives when wolf, or bear, or wolverine is near.

Louis steps forward from the shadow of the pine branches to the edge of the inclined plane in the foreground. The slow tread of approaching steps is now distinctly heard advancing; it may be a deer.

Two figures approach, and Louis moves a little within the shadow again. A clear shrill whistle meets his ear. It is Hector's whistle, he knows that, and assured by its cheerful tone, he springs forward, and in an instant is at his side, but starts at the strange companion that he half leads, half carries. The moonlight streams broad and bright upon the shrinking figure of an Indian girl apparently about the same age as Catharine: her ashy face is concealed by the long mass of raven black hair which falls like a dark veil over her features; her step is weak and unsteady, and she seems ready to sink to the earth with sickness or fatigue. Hector, too, seems weary. The first words that Hector said were, "Help me, Louis, to lead this poor girl to the foot of the pine: I am so tired I can hardly walk another step."

Louis and his cousin together carried the Indian girl to the foot of the pine. Catharine was just rousing herself from sleep, and she gazed with a bewildered air on the strange companion that Hector had brought with him. The stranger lay down, and in a few minutes sank into a sleep so profound it seemed to resemble that of death itself. Pity and deep interest soon took the place of curiosity and dread in the heart of the gentle Catharine, and she watched the young stranger's slumber as tenderly as though she had been a sister or beloved friend, while Hector proceeded to relate in what manner he had encountered the Indian girl.

"When I struck the high slope near the little birch grove we called the 'Birken Skaw,' I paused to examine if the council-fires were still burning on Bare Hill; but there was no smoke visible, neither was there a canoe to be seen at the lake shore where Louis had described their landing-place at the mouth of the creek. All seemed as silent and still as if no human footstep had trodden the shore. I sat down and watched for nearly an hour, till my attention was attracted by a noble eagle, which was sailing in wide circles over the tall pine-trees on Bare Hill. Assured that the Indian camp was broken up, and feeling some curiosity to examine the spot more closely, I crossed the thicket of cranberries and cedars and small underwood that fringed the borders of the little stream, and found myself, after a little pushing and scrambling, among the bushes at the foot of the hill.

"I thoughts it not impossible I might find something to repay me for my trouble, flint arrowheads, a knife, or a tomahawk; but I little thought of what these cruel savages had left there,—a miserable wounded captive, bound by the long locks of her hair to the stem of a small tree! Her hands and feet were fastened by thongs of deer-skin to branches of the tree, which had been bent downward for that purpose. Her position was a most painful one. She had evidently been thus left to perish by a miserable death of hunger and thirst; for these savages, with a fiendish cruelty, had placed within sight of their victim an earthen jar of water, some dried deers' flesh, and a cob [Footnote: A head of the maize, or Indian corn, is called a "cob.">[ of Indian corn. I have the corn here," he added, putting his hand in his breast and displaying it to view.