Bounce’s honest face assumed an expression of deep anxiety, for, fertile though his resources usually were, he could not at that moment conceive how it was possible for two unarmed men, either by force or by stratagem, to rescue five comrades who were securely bound, and guarded by forty armed warriors, all of whom were trained from infancy in the midst of alarms that made caution and intense watchfulness second nature to them.
“It looks bad,” said Bounce, sitting down on a stone, clasping his hard hands together, and resting an elbow on each knee. “Sit ye down, Gibault. We’ll think a bit, an’ then go to work. That’s wot we’ll do—d’ye see?”
“Non, I don’t see,” groaned Gibault. “Vat can ve do? Two to forty! If it was only swords ve had to fight vid—Hah! But, alas! we have noting—dey have everyting.”
“True, lad, force won’t do,” returned Bounce; “an’ yit,” he added, knitting his brows, “if nothin’ else ’ll do, we’ll try at least how much force ’ll do.”
After a short pause Bounce resumed, “Wos they tied very tight, Gibault?”
“Oui. I see de cords deep in de wrists, an’ poor Redhand seem to be ver’ moch stunned; he valk as if hims be dronk.”
“Drunk!” exclaimed Bounce, suddenly springing up as if he had received an electric shock, and seizing his companion by both shoulders, while, for a moment, he gazed eagerly into his eyes; then, pushing him violently away, he turned round and darted along the bank of the river, crying, as he went, “Come along, Gibault; I’ll tell ye wot’s up as we go!”
The astonished Canadian followed as fast as he could, and, in an exclamatory interjectional sort of way, his friend explained the plan of rescue which he had suddenly conceived, and which was as follows:—
First, he proposed to go back to the cache at the foot of the tall tree, and dig up the keg of brandy, with which he resolved to proceed to the camp of the Indians, and, by some means or other, get the whole clan to drink until they should become intoxicated. Once in this condition, he felt assured they could be easily circumvented.
Gibault grasped at this wild plan as a drowning man is said to grasp at a straw, and lent his aid right willingly to disentomb and carry the brandy keg. Neither he nor Bounce knew whether there was enough brandy to intoxicate the whole tribe, but they had no time to inquire minutely into probabilities.