Ian and Victor also received a severe buffeting before gaining the same sandbank, where they faced each other in a blaze of surprise and horror!
Unable to find words to express their feelings, they turned simultaneously, and waded in silence from the sandbank to the shore.
Here a consultation of the most doleful character that can be imagined was entered into.
“Everything lost,” said Ian, sitting down on a bank, and wringing the water out of his garments.
“Not even a gun saved,” said Victor gravely.
“No, nor von mout’ful of pemmican,” cried Rollin, wildly grasping his hair and glaring.
The poor fellow seemed to his friends to have gone suddenly mad, for the glare of despair turned to a grin of wild amusement, accompanied by a strange laugh, as he pointed straight before him, and became, as it were, transfixed.
Turning to look in the direction indicated, they beheld a small Indian boy, absolutely naked, remarkably brown, and gazing at them with a look of wonder that was never equalled by the most astonished owl known to natural history.
Seeing that he was observed, the boy turned and fled like an antelope. Rollin uttered a yell, and bounded away in pursuit. The half-breed could easily have caught him, but he did not wish to do so. He merely uttered an appalling shriek now and then to cause the urchin to increase his speed. The result was that the boy led his pursuer straight to the wigwam of his father, which was just what Rollin wanted. It stood but a short distance from the scene of the wreck.
And now, when, to all appearance, they had reached the lowest turn in the wheel of fortune, they were raised to the highest heights of joy, for the Indian proved to be friendly, supplied them with provisions to continue their journey, and gave them a good bow and quiver of arrows on their simple promise to reward him if he should visit them at Red River in the course of the summer. He had not a canoe to lend them, however. They were therefore constrained to complete their journey over the prairies on foot.