“Can't sit here lookin' at young squaw,” said this literal being. “Get up, and put thing in canoe. Time come to go on path dat lead to pale-face country.”
“What has happened, Peter?” demanded the bee-hunter, springing to his feet. “You come like a runner rushing in with his bad tidings. Has anything happened to give an alarm?”
“Up, and off, tell you. No use talkin' now. Put all he can in canoe, and paddle away fast as can.” There was no mistaking Peter's manner. The bee-hunter saw the uselessness of questioning such a man, at a time like that, and he called to Gershom to join him.
“Here is the chief, to warn us to move,” said the bee-hunter, endeavoring to appear calm, in order that he might not needlessly alarm the females, “and what he advises, we had better do. I know there is danger, by what has fallen from Pigeonswing as well as from himself; so let us lose no time, but stow the canoes, and do as he tells us.”
As Gershom assented, it was not two minutes ere all were at work. For several days, each canoe had been furnished with provisions for a hasty flight. It remained only to add such of the effects as were too valuable and necessary to be abandoned, and which had not been previously exposed without the palisades. For half an hour le Bourdon and Gershom worked as for life. No questions were asked, nor was a single moment lost, in a desire to learn more. The manner in which Peter bore himself satisfied Boden that the emergency was pressing, and it is seldom that more was done by so few hands in so short a period. Fortunately, the previous preparation greatly aided the present object, and nearly everything of any value was placed in the canoes within the brief space mentioned. It then became necessary to decide concerning the condition in which Castle Meal was to be left. Peter advised closing every aperture, shutting the gate, and leaving the dog within. There is no doubt that these expedients prevented the parties falling early into the hands of their enemies; for the time lost by the savages in making their approaches to the hut was very precious to the fugitives.
Just as the canoes were loaded, Pigeonswing came in. He announced that the whole band was in motion, and might be expected to reach the grove in ten minutes. Placing an arm around the slender waist of Margery, le Bourdon almost carried her to his own canoe, Gershom soon had Dorothy in his little bark, while Peter entered that to the ownership of which he may be said to have justly succeeded by the deaths of the corporal and the missionary. Pigeonswing remained behind, in order to act as a scout, having first communicated to Peter the course the last ought to steer. Before the Chippewa plunged into the cover in which it was his intention to conceal himself, he made a sign that the band was already in sight.
The heart of le Bourdon sunk within him, when he learned how near were the enemy. To him, escape seemed impossible; and he now regretted having abandoned the defences of his late residence. The river was sluggish for more than a mile at that spot, and then occurred a rift, which could not be passed without partly unloading the canoes, and where there must necessarily be a detention of more than an hour. Thus, it was scarcely possible for canoes descending that stream to escape from so large a band of pursuers. The sinuosities, themselves, would enable the last to gain fifty points ahead of them, where ambushes, or even open resistance, must place them altogether at the mercy of the savages.
Peter knew all this, as well as the bee-hunter, and he had no intention of trusting his new friends in a flight down the river. Pigeonswing, with the sententious brevity of an Indian, had made an important communication to him, while they were moving, for the last time, toward the canoes, and he now determined to profit by it. Taking the lead, therefore, with his own canoe, Peter paddled UP, instead of DOWN the stream, going in a direction opposite to that which it would naturally be supposed the fugitives had taken. In doing this, also, he kept close under the bank which would most conceal the canoes from those who approached it on its southern side.
It will be remembered that the trees for the palisades had been cut from a swamp, a short distance above the bee-hunter's residence. They had grown on the margin of the river, which had been found serviceable in floating the logs to their point of destination. The tops of many of these trees, resinuous, and suited by their nature to preserve their leaves for a considerable time, lay partly in the stream and partly on its banks; and Pigeonswing, foreseeing the necessity of having a place of refuge, had made so artful a disposition of several of them, that, while they preserved all the appearance of still lying where they had fallen, it was possible to haul canoes up beneath them, between the branches and the bank, in a way to form a place of perfect concealment. No Indian would have trusted to such a hiding-place, had it not been matter of notoriety that the trees had been felled for a particular purpose, or had their accidental disposition along the bank been discernibly deranged. But such was not the case, the hand of Pigeonswing having been so skilfully employed that what he had done could not be detected. He might be said to have assisted nature, instead of disturbing her.
The canoes were actually paddling close under the bank, in the Castle Meal reach of the river, when the band arrived at the grove, and commenced what might be called the investment of the place. Had not all the attention of the savages been drawn toward the hut, it is probable that some wandering eye might have caught a glimpse of some one of them, as inequalities in the bank momentarily exposed each, in succession, to view. This danger, however, passed away, and by turning a point, the fugitives were effectually concealed from all who did not actually approach the river at that particular point. Here it was, however, that the swamp commenced, and the ground being wet and difficult, no one would be likely to do this. The stream flowed through this swamp, having a dense wood on each side, though one of no great extent. The reach, moreover, was short, making a completely sheltered haven of the Kalamazoo, within its limits.