I tried to assure her that she had done well; but finding that she would pay me no heed, I went to look at her victim. I turned him over, and muttered a thanksgiving to Heaven as I recognized him for one of the worst of the Black Abbé's flock. I found his tracks all about the canoe. Then I went back to Mizpah.
"Good soldier! Good comrade!" said I, earnestly. "You have killed Little Fox, the blackest and cruelest rogue on the whole Shubenacadie. Oh, I tell you you have done a good deed this day!"
The knowledge of this appeared to ease her somewhat, and in a few moments I gathered the details. The Indian had come suddenly to the bank, and seeing a canoe there had examined it curiously,—she, the while, waiting in great fear, for she had at once recognized him as one of her former captors, and one of whom she stood in special dread. While looking at our things in the canoe, he had appeared all at once to understand. He had picked up my coat, and examined it carefully,—and the grin that disclosed his long teeth disclosed also that he recognized it. Looking to the priming of his musket, he started cautiously up the bank upon my trail.
"As soon as he left the canoe," said Mizpah, still shaken with sobs, "I knew that something must be done. If he went away, it would be just to give the alarm, and then we could not escape, and Philip would be lost forever. But I saw that, instead of going away, he was going to track you and shoot you down. I didn't know what to do, or how I could ever shoot a man in cold blood,—but something made me do it. Just as he reached the end of the log, I seemed to see him already shooting you, away in the woods over there,—and then I fired. And oh, oh, oh, I shall never forget how he groaned and fell over!" And she stared at her right hand.
"Comrade," said I, "I owe my life to you. He would have shot me down; for, as I think of it, I went carelessly, and seldom looked behind when I got into the woods. To be so incautious is not my way, believe me. I know not how it was, unless I so trusted the comrade whom I had left behind to guard my trail. And now, here are news! They have brought the child this way, up this very river! The saints have surely led us thus far, for we are hot upon their track!"
And this made her forget to weep for the excellence of her shooting.
Chapter XV
Grûl's Hour
Though we were in a hot haste to get away, it was absolutely necessary first to bury the dead Indian, lest a hue and cry should be raised that might involve and delay us. With my paddle, therefore, I dug him a shallow grave in the soft mud at the edge of the tide, which was then on the ebb. This meagre inhumation completed, I smoothed the surface as best I could with my paddle; and then we set off, resting easy in the knowledge that the next tide would smooth down all traces of the work.