Little Rifle; or, The Young Fur Hunters

by Edward Sylvester Ellis

“They will see the canoe! they will discover the lad and he will be lost!” was the agonized thought of the little fellow, who, turning his gaze in the same direction, just managed to descry the boat, as it glided out of sight around the bend in the river.

The Blackfeet indeed acted as if they had discovered something suspicious; for one of them pointed down-stream, and the other following the direction indicated, seemed to be gazing intently as though his keen vision had detected the same thing.

Little Rifle could plainly hear their guttural voices, as they spoke in louder and more excited tones, but he was unable to catch or comprehend a word they uttered. Fortunately they remained in view but a few minutes, when they turned about and strode into their lodge at a much more rapid gait than they had employed in leaving.

The watcher behind the rocks was determined to wait no longer. Extricating himself as carefully and hastily as possible from his station, he placed himself so far away from the stream, that he felt secure from observation in case the Blackfeet should come forth again, and then he hurried down the river with all the speed of which he was capable.

Sinewy and active as was the boy, he made rapid progress, and shortly after came back to the margin opposite the point where he had last seen the canoe, and, as he did so, a sudden terror almost took the breath from his body.

For directly below this bend were the falls of which we have made mention, and of which he would not have thought again, even at this moment, but for the overwhelming roar that broke upon his ear, as he emerged from the forest, where the sound met with no obstruction.

He cast one hurried glance down the stream, and gracious Heaven! what did he see?

There was the canoe, still near the center of the stream, and within a hundred yards of the falls, toward which it was rushing with the speed of a race-horse.

But the occupant was no longer asleep or insensible to the frightful peril of his position. He had evidently awakened to a sense of his dreadful danger, the instant he had passed around the bend in the river, which not only gave the rush and whirl a terrible power, but showed him the surging current, and the mist rising from the churning foam below.

From one danger into a greater, he had striven with the desperation of despair to bring the canoe out of its plunge into destruction; but had either broken his paddle or had lost it; for he was now using his rifle, as a substitute, grasping the barrel and driving the stock through the water, with a fierce rapidity, that proved that he understood that his life depended upon his success.