Chapter Nine.
Bounce cogitates upon the embarrassing Circumstances of his Condition—Discovery of Black Gibault—Terrible Fate in Store for their Comrades—A Mode of Rescue planned—Dreadful Effects of Fire-Water—The Rescue.
About ten minutes after making his escape from his Indian foes, Bounce seated himself on the trunk of a fallen tree and began to think upon “Number One.”
A little red squirrel had been seated on the trunk of that tree just two minutes before his arrival. It was now seated on the topmost branch of a neighbouring pine, looking with a pair of brilliant black eyes indignantly at the unceremonious intruder.
Possibly the reader may think that it was selfish of Bounce, at such a time, to devote much attention to Number One. He had just escaped; he was in comparative safety; he was free; while there could be little or no doubt that his late companions were prisoners, if not killed, and that, in the ordinary course of things, they would eventually suffer death by torture. At such a time and in such circumstances it would be more natural, even in a selfish man, to think of any or of all the other numerals than number one.
But, reader, I need scarcely tell you that things are not always what they seem. Men are frequently not so bad as, at a first glance, they would appear to be.
Bounce always reasoned philosophically, and he often thought aloud. He did so on this occasion, to the immense edification of the little red squirrel, no doubt. At least, if we may judge from the way in which it glared and stared at the trapper—peeped at him round the trunk of the tree, and over the branches and under the twigs and through the leaves, jerking its body and quirking its head and whisking its tail—we have every reason to conclude that it experienced very deep interest and intense excitement. Pleasure and excitement being, with many people, convertible terms, we have no reason for supposing that it is otherwise with squirrels, and therefore every reason for concluding that the squirrel in question enjoyed Bounce’s visit greatly.
“Now this is wot it comes to,” said Bounce, calmly filling his pipe, from the mere force of habit, for he had not at that time the most distant idea of enjoying a smoke. “This is wot it comes to. Savages is savages all the wurld over, and they always wos savages, an’ they always will be savages, an’ they can’t be nothin’ else.”