Mrs Ravenshaw chanced to be the first to observe them.
“Ian Macdonald!” she shouted, for his form in the bow of the leading canoe was the most conspicuous.
“Victor!” cried the sisters, with a scream that quite eclipsed the pig.
They rushed to another window, under which the canoes were pulled up.
“Oh! Victor, Victor,” cried Mrs Ravenshaw, with a deadly faintness at her heart; “you haven’t found—”
“Mother!” cried Tony, casting off his Indian reserve and starting up with a hysterical shout, “Mother!”
“Tony!” exclaimed everybody in the same breath, for they all knew his voice, though they did not believe their eyes.
It was only four feet or so from the canoe to the window. Mrs Ravenshaw leaned over and seized Tony’s uplifted hands. Elsie and Cora lent assistance. A light vault, and Tony went in at the window, from which immediately issued half-stifled cries of joy. At that moment Peegwish uttered a terrible roar, as he fell back into the room with the broken line in his hand, accidentally driving Wildcat into a corner. A last supreme effort had been made by the pig. He had broken the hook, and went off with a final shriek of triumph.
Thus, amid an appropriate whirlwind of confusion, noise, and disaster, was the long-lost Tony restored to his mother’s arms!
Seated calmly in the stern of his canoe, Petawanaquat observed the scene with a look of profound gravity. His revenge was complete! He had returned to his enemy the boy of whom he had become so fond that he felt as though Tony really were his own son. He had bowed his head to the dictates of an enlightened conscience. He had returned good for evil. A certain feeling of deep happiness pervaded the red man’s heart, but it was accompanied, nevertheless, by a vague sense of bereavement and sadness which he could not shake off just then.