"O I know that you will not leave anything out that can show, the bravery of Mr. Scott, so I shall leave you to tell it," replied the girl.
"Well, last spring, Marie was spending some days with her aunt, a few miles up Red River. It was the flood time, and as you remember the river was swollen to a point higher than it had ever reached within the memory of any body in the settlement. Marie is venturesome, and since a child has shown a keen delight in going upon boats, or paddling a canoe; so one day, during the visit which I have mentioned, she got into a birch that swung in a little pond formed behind her uncle's premises by the over-flowing of the stream's channel. Untying the canoe, she seized the blade and began to paddle about in the lazy water. Presently she reached the eddies, which, since a child, she has always called the 'rings of the water-witches,' wherever she learned that term. Her cousin, Violette, was standing in the doorway, as she saw Marie move off, and she cried out to her to beware of the eddies; but my daughter, wayward and reckless, as it is her habit to be in such matters, merely replied with a laugh; and then, as the canoe began to turn round and round in the gurgling circles, she cried out, 'I am in the rings of the water-witches. C'est bon! bon! C'est magnifique! O I wish you were with me, Violette, ma chere. It is so delightful to go round and round.' A little way beyond, not more than twice the canoe's length, rushed by, roaring, the full tide of the river. 'Beware, Marie, beware, for the love of heaven, of the river. If you get a little further out, and these eddies will drag you out, you will be in the mad current, and no arm can paddle the canoe to land out of the flood. Then, dear, there is the fall below, and the fans of the mill. Come back, won't you!' But my daughter heeded not the words. She only laughed, and began dipping water up from the eddies with the paddle-blade, as if it were a spoon that she held in her hand. 'I am dipping water from the witches rings,' she cried. 'How the drops sparkle! Every one is a glittering jewel of priceless value. I wish you were here with me, Violette!' Suddenly, and in an altered tone, she cried, 'Mon Dieu! My paddle is gone.' The paddle had no sooner glided out into the rushing, turbulent waters than the canoe followed it, and Marie saw herself drifting on to her doom. Half a mile below was the fall, and at the side of the fall, went ever and ever around with tremendous violence, the rending fans of the water-mill. Marie knew full well that any drift boat, or log, or raft, carried down the river at freshet-flow, was always swept into the toils of the inexorable wheels. Yet, if she were reckless and without heed a few minutes before, I am told that now she was calm. As she is present, I must refrain from too much eulogy of her behaviour. Violette gave the alarm that Marie was adrift in the river without a paddle, and in a few seconds, every body living near had turned out, and were running down the shore. Several brought paddles, but it took hard running to keep up with the canoe, for the flood was racing at a speed of eight miles an hour. When they did get up in line each one flung out a paddle. But one fell too far out, and another not far enough. About fifteen men were about the banks in violent excitement, and every one of them saw nothing but doom for Marie. As the canoe neared a point about two hundred yards above the fall, a young white man—all the rest were bois-brules—rushed out upon the bank, with a paddle in his hand, and, without a word, leaped into the mad waters. With a few strokes, he was at the side of the canoe, and put the paddle into Marie's hand. 'Here,' he said, 'Keep away from the mill; that is your only danger, and steer sheer over the fall, getting as close as possible to the left bank.' The height of the fall, as you are aware, was not more than fifteen or eighteen feet, and there was plenty of water below, and not very much danger from rocks. 'Go you on shore now, and I will meet my doom, or achieve my safety,' Marie said; but the young man answered, 'Nay, I will go over the fall too: I can then be of some service to you.' So he swam along by the canoe's side directing my daughter, and shaping the course of the prow on the very brink of the fall. Then all shot over together. The canoe and Marie, and the young man were buried far under the terrible mass of water, but they soon came to the surface again, when the heroic stranger saved my daughter, and through the fury of the mad churning waters, landed her safe and unhurt upon the bank. The young man was Thomas Scott, whom you saw here this morning. Is it any wonder, think you, that when Marie sees wild turkeys upon the prairie, she keeps the knowledge of it to herself till she gets the ear of her deliverer? Think you, now, that it is strange he should be looked upon by us as a benefactor?"
"A very brave act, indeed, on the part of this young man," replied the swarthy M. Riel. "He has excellent judgment, I perceive, or he would not so readily have calculated that no harm could come to any one who could swim well by being carried over the falls."
Marie's eyes flashed indignantly at this cold blooded discounting of the generous, uncalculating bravery of her young preserver.
"I doubt, Monsieur, she said, whether if you had been on the bank where Monsieur Scott jumped in, you would have looked upon the going over of the fall as an exploit so free of danger as you describe it now. As a matter of fact, there were many half-breeds there, many of whom, no doubt, were as brave as yourself, but I should have perished in the fans of the mill if I had to depend upon the succour of any one of them."
"Mademoiselle," he retorted with a fierce light in his eye, "I am not a half-breed."
"O, pardonnez mois, I thought from your features and the straightness of your coal-black hair, that you were." Riel's blood was nigh unto boiling in his veins, but he had craft enough to preserve a tolerably unruffled exterior.
"And in return for this great bravery, ma petite demoiselle has, I suppose, given her heart to her deliverer?"
"I think Monsieur is impertinent; and I shall ask my father to forbid him to continue to address me in such a manner."
"A thousand pardons; I did not mean to pain, but only to chaff, your brave daughter. I think that Monsieur Scott is most fortunate in having a friend, a beautiful friend, so loyal to him, and so jealous of his fair fame. But to pass to other matters. Have you had visits from any emissaries of the Canadian government during the autumn?"