The Silver Maple

by Mary Esther Miller MacGregor

Ever since he had left Cairo that young man's one hope in life had been to participate in a battle. There came a day, later, when he and Scotty worked side by side on the blood-stained rocks of the desert, helping to remove the dead and wounded; when they saw their General's body lowered into its lonely grave, and witnessed the hundred harrowing sights of a battlefield; and then and there, much of the boyish glamour of battle faded before the horrible reality. But that time had not yet come; and, like Napoleon, Dan was convinced that war was a grand game.

So when the reluctant enemy at last massed itself upon the rocky ledges of Kirbekan to delay the column, and the joyful news spread through the impatient army that at last they were to meet the foe, none was so eager for the fray as Dan. In spite of Scotty's admonitions, he went to one of his officers to beg permission to join the advance the next morning. The request was promptly refused, and the volunteer bidden with scant ceremony to go back to his boat and mind his own business. But Mr. Murphy was convinced that his business lay with the front rank of the advancing column. He had not been trained to army discipline and was not minded to lose the glorious chance of participating in a real battle for such a trifling consideration as one man's opinion.

So in the grey dawn of the morning, when the troops marched out over sand and barren rock, there went with them a man who had neither the uniform nor the dogged stride of the rank and file. But he made up in enthusiasm what he lacked in military precision; for, having appropriated the arms and accoutrements of the first man who fell, he rushed to the front, and was right in the van of the victorious charge that swept the enemy from their rocky stronghold.

Dan Murphy was the hero of the Canadian voyageurs for the remainder of the journey. When the six months' term for which they had signed had expired, and he and Scotty resolved to go on to the end, there were many who remained with the column because the former chose to act as an independent recruiting officer. If he was going to Khartoum, then they would follow, for where Murphy was there must surely be some fun.

But the end of the journey came sooner than was expected. A little above Kirbekan General Brackenbury received the tragic news of the fall of Khartoum and the martyred Gordon's death. Just a few days earlier, just a little more haste, and the gallant heart that had looked bravely into the face of despair for so many weary weeks, still patient, still hoping, might have seen the answer to his prayers! But the succors were too late by less than a week. Gordon was murdered, Khartoum was fallen, and at Huella the baffled column received orders to return.

If the toil of descending the Nile was not equal to that experienced in the ascent, the skill and vigilance required of the pilots was even greater. Only a few days' journey had been completed when the column halted at the head of a long series of cataracts. Here the Dongolese boatmen had been put to their utmost strength to haul up the boats through the boiling, writhing channel, and the question was, could any boat go down it and live? General Brackenbury gave orders that none but the Canadians should be entrusted with the descent; so, early in the morning, the voyageurs walked down the stream to survey it. They pronounced the channel bad, but not impossible, while one old St. Lawrence pilot sniffed contemptuously and declared that the Lachine would make this puddle look "seek."

But the Nile cataract was bad enough, as Scotty realised, when he found himself among the first called to go down. Dan was his bowman and the stroke oar was a hardy old Scotch sergeant. Upon both of these he could rely with certainty. Nevertheless, as he steered out into the middle of the river, he realised that they had good need of all their courage and resource. On an overhanging rock above him stood the commander with some of his staff, anxiously watching the experiment. The shore was lined with soldiers, as though they had come to witness a boat-race. Scotty had a fleeting glimpse of them as he raced past, and then his boat was caught in the swift current and shot forward with lightning speed. The men bent to their oars with all the might of their brawny arms, to give their helmsman more power, Dan stood in the bow, alert and tense, his paddle ready, and Scotty held the tiller in an iron grip. The channel curved sharply to right and left; at the quickest turns great rocks stood in mid-stream over which the angry waters boiled and roared. At many points an instant's hesitation on his own part, Scotty well knew, or a second's relaxation of Dan's vigilance, would hurl boat and crew to destruction. They were in it now, dashing through a blinding rain of spray, leaping, turning, dodging, twisting, as though the boat were a living creature pursued.

Down they shot through the boiling zig-zag current, now avoiding great, jagged rocks by a hair's-breadth, now bounding like a deer over a smooth incline, now plunging into a seething white billow; and, when at last they swept round into the quiet bay at the foot of the cataract, Dan leaped up, and waving his paddle on high uttered a wild war-whoop learned long ago in the swamps of the Oro. There was an answering cheer from the group of men waiting at the landing. "Well done, Big Scalper!" cried the foreman.

A young naval officer who had just ridden down from the head of the rapid turned quickly at the words.

"What, Big Scalper, is that you?" he cried as the pilots stepped from the boat. "How is it you're not hanged yet?"