“You will always keep well out of sight in advance of us,” said Gartok to this scout, “and the first sight you get of the Fire-spouters, shove in to some quiet place, land, haul up your kayak, and creep near them through the bushes as quietly and cleverly as if you were creeping up to a bear or a walrus. Then come back and tell us what you have seen. So we will land and attack them and throw them all into the river.”
“I will do my best,” answered Raventik gravely.
“It is not likely,” added Gartok, “that you will find them to-day, for they seldom come down as far as here, and they don’t know we are coming.”
The scout made no reply. Having received his orders he stepped into his kayak and paddled off into the stream, against which he made but slow progress, however, for the river happened to be considerably swollen at the time. He was also impeded at first by his comparative ignorance of river navigation. Being accustomed to the currentless waters of the ocean, he was not prepared by experience to cope with the difficulty of rushing currents. He went too far out into the stream at first, and was nearly upset. Natural intelligence, however, and the remembrance of talks to which he had listened between men of his tribe who had already visited the place, taught him to keep close in to the banks, and make as much use of eddies and backwater as possible. The double-bladed paddle hampered him somewhat, as its great length, which was no disadvantage in the open sea, prevented him from keeping as close to the banks as he desired. Despite these drawbacks, however, Raventik soon acquired sufficient skill, and in a short time a curve in the river hid him from the flotilla which followed him.
Now it so happened that the Indians who were supposed to be a considerable distance inland were in reality not many miles from the spot where the Eskimos had held their final conference, which ended in Raventik being sent off in advance. It was natural that, accustomed as they were to all the arts of woodcraft, they should discover the presence of the scout long before he discovered them; and so in truth it turned out.
The Indians had ten birch-bark canoes, with three warriors in most of them—all armed, as we have said, with the dreaded fire-spouters and tomahawks, etcetera—for, as they were out on the war-path for the express purpose of driving the dirty Eskimos off their lands, Magadar had resolved to make sure by starting with a strong and well-equipped force.
Of course Magadar’s canoe led the van; the others followed in single file, and, owing to the nature of their paddles, which were single-bladed, and could be dipped close to the sides of the canoes, they were able to creep along much nearer to the bank than was possible to the kayaks.
At a bend in the river, where a bush-covered point jutted out into a large pool, Magadar thrust his canoe in among some reeds and landed to reconnoitre. Scarcely had he raised his head above the shrubs when he caught sight of Raventik in his kayak.
To stoop and retire was the work of a few seconds. The men in the other canoes, who were watching him intently, at once disembarked, and, at a signal from their chief, carried their light barks into the bushes and hid them there, so that the Eskimo scout would certainly have passed the place in half an hour without perceiving any sign of his foes, but for an incident which enlightened him.
Accidents will happen even in the best regulated families, whether these be composed of red men or white. Just as the last canoe was disappearing behind its leafy screen, one of the young braves, who was guilty of the unpardonable offence of carrying his gun on full-cock, chanced to touch the trigger, and the piece exploded with, in the circumstances, an appalling report, which, not satisfied with sounding in the ears of his exasperated comrades like a small cannon, went on echoing from cliff to cliff, as if in hilarious disregard of secrecy, and to the horror of innumerable rabbits and wild-fowl, which respectively dived trembling into holes or took to the wings of terror.