“Angus Macdonald and his sister,” he said, “are well, and with the Ravenshaws, I believe, or at the Little Mountain, their house being considered in danger; but old Liz Rollin,” he added, turning to the anxious half-breed, “has been carried away with her hut, nobody knows where. They say that her old father and the mother of Winklemann have gone along with her.”
Words cannot describe the state of mind into which this information threw poor Michel Rollin. He insisted on seizing one of the canoes and setting off at once. As his companions were equally anxious to reach their flooded homes an arrangement was soon come to. Petawanaquat put Tony into the middle of his canoe with Victor, while Ian took the bow paddle. Michel took the steering paddle of the other canoe, and Meekeye seated herself in the bow.
Thus they launched out upon the waters of the flood, and, bidding adieu to the settler who had given them such startling information, were soon paddling might and main in the direction of the settlement.
Chapter Twenty One.
Return of the Lost One.
It chanced that, on the morning of the arrival of Victor and his comrades at the margin of the flood, Peegwish went a-fishing.
That astute Indian was fond of fishing. It suited his tastes and habits; it was an art which was admirably adapted to his tendencies. Peegwish was, naturally as well as by training, lazy, and what could be more congenial to a lazy man than a “gentle art” which involved nothing more than sitting on a river bank smoking a pipe and awaiting a bite? It had a spice of intellectuality about it too, for did it not foster a spirit of meditation, contemplation, and even of philosophical speculation—when he chanced to be awake? Moreover, it saved him from harder labour, and shut the mouths of those ill-natured people who objected to drones, and had a tendency to reproach them, for was he not assiduously procuring for men and women a portion of that nourishment without which labour would be impossible?
The peculiar action of the flood had favoured Peegwish in regard to his beloved art, for, whereas in former days he was obliged to get up from his lair and go down to the river bank to fish, now he had nothing more to do than open the window and cast out his line, and Wildcat was close at hand to fetch him a light when his pipe chanced to go out, which it frequently did, for the red old savage slept much. When, therefore, we say that Peegwish went a-fishing, it must be understood that he merely left his seat by the stove in the upper room at Willow Creek and opened the window.