XXXVII
FLIGHT
Louis and Walter decided that Neil’s plan was worth trying. They muffled the axles of the two carts with strips torn from a ragged blanket, and carefully cased the vehicles over the edge of the coulee. The moon, shining into the rift, lighted them down the steep slope. Along the bed of the shallow brook that ran through the coulee to join the Wild Rice River, they pushed and pulled the carts, and left them well hidden among willows and cottonwoods where the ravine widened.
“There,” said Neil when the job was done, “if those Indians follow straight up the coulee after us, they won’t find the carts at all. If they come down here and find them, they may think we have gone back across the river.”
“Probably,” Louis returned, “they will divide into two parties, one to go up, the other down the coulee. But if they get all our things they may be content to let us go.”
Hiding the carts had taken less than a half hour. In the meantime Mrs. Brabant and the children had gone down into the coulee, Jeanne and Max stumbling along, scarcely awake enough to realize what was happening. While the horses were being led down, Walter remained behind as rear guard. As he threw a last armful of fuel on the fire, a burst of hideous noise came across the prairie from the Indian camp. Howls and yells, to the thumping of many drums, proved that Murray’s medicine dance was in full swing. A picture flashed through the boy’s mind; a picture of that central space within the circle of tipis as it must look now, with scores of naked, painted, befeathered savages, stamping, leaping, yelling around the blazing fires. There was no time to lose.
Mrs. Brabant was impatient and anxious to be away. She had made no protest at leaving the carts behind. All her household belongings were in them, but what were blankets and copper kettles, and the precious wooden chest of clothing and little things, compared with the safety of her children? She and little Jeanne had been placed on one of the ponies. There were only four horses for ten people. Mr. Perier took Max with him on another, and the remaining two were given to Elise and Marie. Marie could ride almost as well as her brothers, and Elise had learned since leaving Pembina.
It was very dark at the bottom of the coulee among the willows that fringed the stream. Speed was not possible, and the foot travelers could easily keep up with the ponies. Yet there was no doubt in anyone’s mind that this was the only route to take. On the open prairie, in the moonlight, they would be plainly visible from every direction. Here they were completely hidden. They hoped to be miles away before the Indians discovered that they had gone.
Progress seemed heart-breakingly slow, however, as the little party picked their way up the bed of the brook in the darkness. Louis, on foot, went ahead as guide. Walter, Neil and Raoul brought up the rear. The stream was not much over a foot deep at its deepest, with a sticky mud bottom. Luckily the ponies were sure-footed and almost cat-eyed. One or another slipped or stumbled now and then, but recovered quickly without unseating the rider. The night remained oppressively warm. Not a breath of breeze stirred the willows down below the level of the prairie. Pale flashes lit up the narrow strip of sky overhead, and distant thunder rumbled.
The coulee grew narrower and shallower. The brook dwindled to a rivulet, the fringing willows were smaller and met above the stream. It was difficult to push a way through. At last Louis called a halt.
“Wait a little,” he said. “I will go on and find a way.”