Under the conditions, they had no trouble in approaching her and making her again a prisoner.
Lightfoot was on the point of lifting the scalp of the apparently dead white man, when a sound off in the distance made him think that enemies were near and haste was desirable; so he caught up the girl, and, with the aid of Red Antelope, bore her hastily toward the cañon. There they brought to light a sunken canoe, which they emptied of its water, and set out down the cañon stream in it, taking the helpless and almost insane white girl with them.
Of the running of the cañon river, Lena Forest had afterward no very clear recollection. That recollection was like the memory of a hideous nightmare. The flying canoe, the water that boiled round the sharp rocks, the black shadows and the blacker cañon tunnel, together with the painted faces and half-naked bodies of her Blackfeet captors, were things and shapes of terror from which she shrank in fright, cowering, and covering her eyes.
Her strength and the temporary heroism she had shown when with her lover had gone. She felt that death was better than this; and once, in her despair, she would have thrown herself into the river, if Red Antelope had not restrained her. He threw her down in the bottom of the canoe, with a cry of warning and anger, and then swung his hatchet menacingly before her terrified eyes.
Lightfoot, wielding the paddle, grunted assent to this threat. In his eyes, a squaw should be made obedient, and fear and threats were good weapons for that purpose. If an Indian squaw was disobedient to her lord and master, she was flogged; and he, without compunction, would have applied a whip to this white girl, if he had thought it necessary. Women were wholly inferior creatures, and they might be stolen as a horse is stolen; and if so stolen, they belonged by right to the one who thus carried them away. It was Indian custom, and to the Indian mind that made it right.
So they gave scant attention to the tears and entreaties and the pitiful terror of the white girl thus dragged into a horrible captivity. Tears did not kill women. In their opinion, tears and crying were good for them; they often made the eyes brighter and washed the dust of the prairie from smooth brown cheeks!
After the passage of the underground river, the canoe shot out into comparatively placid water, with green banks on each side, between which it floated, until soon Blackfeet horsemen were seen, off on the right bank. These horsemen brandished lances and yelled as they came riding wildly toward the canoe.
Lightfoot stood up, waving his paddle, and then his hand.
He was immediately recognized. With a thunder of hoofs, and more yelling, the wild horsemen drew up on the bank as the canoe was shot to land.
Lena Forest, white-faced and fearful, regarded this array of naked warriors with dismay. But her heart was already broken, because of her belief that her lover was dead. If these Indians would only kill her, she would not object, she thought. She feared captivity and Indian cruelty more than she feared death.