CHAPTER XXXI
A SEARCH, AND ITS REWARD
I slept at last, soundly, for several hours, lying well hidden behind the skins at the back of the lodge. There seemed nothing else to do; for poor De Croix had no thought other than that of the woman who had just left us, and I was exhausted by hours of excitement and toil. He was asleep when I awoke, lying just as I had left him, his face still buried in the short trodden grass that carpeted the floor.
It was so quiet without that I listened in vain for a sound to indicate the presence of Indians. Silence so profound was in strange contrast with the hideous uproar of the preceding night, and curiosity led me finally to project my head from beneath the lodge covering and gain a cautious glimpse of the camp without. The yellow sunshine of the calm summer afternoon rested hot and glaring on the draped skins of the tepees, and on the brown prairie-grass, trampled by hundreds of passing feet. I could perceive a few squaws working lazily in the shade of the trees near the bank of the river; but no other moving figures were visible. Several recumbent forms were within my sight, their faces toward the sun, evidently sleeping off the heavy potations of the night. Otherwise the great encampment appeared completely deserted; there were no spirals of smoke rising above the lodge-poles, no gossiping groups anywhere about.
It was plain enough to me. Those of the warriors capable of further action were elsewhere engaged upon some fresh foray, while the majority, overcome by drinking, were asleep within their darkened lodges. Surely, daylight though it was, no safer moment could be expected in which to establish communication with Toinette. With night the camp would be again astir; and even if I succeeded in reaching her at some later hour it would leave small margin of darkness for our escape. Every moment of delay now added to our grave peril, and there was much planning to be done after we met. Possibly I should have waited, as I had been told to do; but it was ever in my blood to act rather than reason, and I am sure that in this case no cause remains for regret.
I must confess that my heart beat somewhat faster, as I crept slowly forth and peered cautiously around the bulging side of the big lodge I had just left, to assure myself no savages were stirring. It was not that I greatly feared the venture, nor that a sense of danger excited my nerves; but rather the one thought in my mind was that now my way lay toward Mademoiselle. How would she greet me? Should I learn my fate from her tell-tale eyes, or by a sudden gleam of surprise in her lovely face? These were the reflections that inspired me, for a new hope had been born within me through the forced confession of De Croix.
There was little danger of exposure while I advanced through the shelter of the lodges, for I was always under partial cover. But I waited and watched long before daring to pass across the wide open space in the centre of which the fire had been kindled. The torture-post yet stood there, black and charred, while the ground beneath was littered with dead ashes. The bodies of three white men, two of them naked and marked by fire, lay close at hand, just as they had been carelessly flung aside to make room for new victims; yet I dared not stop to learn who they might have been in life. The sight of their foul disfigurement only rendered me the more eager to reach the living with a message of hope.
I moved like a snake, dragging my body an inch at a time by firmly grasping with extended hands the tough grass-roots, and writhing forward as noiselessly as if I were stalking some prey. There were times when I advanced so slowly it would have puzzled a watcher to determine whether mine was not also the body of the dead. At length, even at that snail's rate of progress, I gained the protection of the tepees upon the other side of the camp, and skulked in among them. The lodge just before me, blackened by paint and weather, must be the one I sought. I rested close within its shadow, striving to assure myself there was no possibility of mistake. As my eyes lifted, I could trace in dim outline the totem of the chief faintly sketched on the taut skin: it was the same I had noted on the brawny breast of Little Sauk.
Never did I move with greater woodland skill, for I felt that all depended upon my remaining undiscovered; a single false move now would defeat all hope. Who might be within, concealed by that black covering, was a mystery to be solved only by extremest caution.
Inch by inch I worked the skin covering of the tepee entrance up from the ground, screwing my eye to the aperture in an effort to penetrate the shrouded interior. But the glare of the sun was so reflected into my eyeballs, that it left me almost blind in the semi-gloom beneath that dark roof, and I could distinguish no object with certainty. Surely, nothing moved within; and I drew myself slowly forward, until half my body lay extended upon the beaten dirt-floor. It was then that I caught a glimpse of a face peering at me from out the shadows,—the face of Toinette; and, alas for my eager hopes of surprising her heart and solving its secrets! the witch was actually laughing in silence at my predicament. The sight made my face flush in sudden indignation; but before I could find speech, she had hastily accosted me.