[CHAPTER XXIII.]
THE PLAN OF THE CAMPAIGN.
The night was black, gloomy, and storm-laden. The wind howled with a mournful murmur through the branches; at each gust the trees shook their damp crowns, and sent down showers, which pattered on the shrubs. The sky was of a leaden hue; so great was the silence in the desert, that the fall of a withered leaf, or the rustling of a branch touched in its passage by some invisible animal, could be distinctly heard.
Ivon and his guides advanced cautiously through the forest, seeking their road in the darkness, half lying on their horses, so as to avoid the branches that lashed their faces at every moment. Owing to the endless turns they were compelled to take, nearly two hours elapsed ere they left the forest. At length they debouched on the plain, and found themselves almost simultaneously on the banks of the Missouri. The river, swollen by rain and snow, rolled along its yellowish waters noisily. The fugitives followed the bank in a south-western direction. Now that they had struck the river, all uncertainty had ceased for them; their road was so distinctly traced that they had no fear of losing it.
On arriving at a spot where a point of sand jutted out for several yards into the bed of the river, and formed a species of cape, from the end of which objects could be seen for some distance, owing to the transparency of the water, Red Wolf made a sign to his companions to halt, and himself dismounted. Prairie-Flower and Ivon imitated him. Ivon was not sorry to take a few moments' rest, and, above all, make some inquiries before proceeding further. At the first blush, carried away by an unreflecting movement of the heart, which impelled him to save his master by any means that offered, he had not hesitated to follow his two strange guides; but, with reflection, distrust had returned still more powerfully, and the Breton was unwilling to go further with the persons he had met, until he possessed undoubted proofs of their honesty.
So soon as he had dismounted then, and taken off his horse's bridle, so that it should crop the tender shoots, Ivon walked up boldly to the Redskin, and struck him on the shoulder. The Indian, whose eyes were eagerly fixed on the rider, turned to him.
"What does the Paleface want?" he asked him.
"To talk a little with you, Chief."
"The moment is not good for talking," the Indian answered, sententiously; "the Palefaces are like the mockingbird; their tongues must be ever in motion; let my brother wait."