One evening, late at night, an Indian was seen approaching and driving before him a number of horses, tied by strings of bark, and so disposed as to keep up the order of what is called the Indian file. Three stout Canadians were sitting on a sort of elevated platform, which served as a look-out over the stockade, one cutting with a great clasp knife a piece of fat pork upon his bread, that served him as a substitute for a plate; a second puffing a cloud of smoke from a long handled black stone pipe; and the third lying on his back with his knees drawn up, and singing one of those plaintive boat songs which were peculiar to the Canadian voyageur of the commencement of the present century.
“I say, Baptiste, cease that refrain of yours and listen,” said the man who was eating his supper of pork, and who evidently was at that moment on duty as look-out. “I am sure I hear the tramp of horses—and sure enough it is them. See how they come, in file, like a string of dried peaches. I’ll bet the best beaver I shoot or trap to-morrow, that scoundrel Filou, the Chippewa, has been at his old work again and stolen a lot.”
Baptiste finished his singing, as directed, jumped to his feet, and looked in the direction in which his companions had turned their gaze. There was a mass of something moving, but whether men or horses the night was too dark to enable him to distinguish with accuracy.
“Parbleu!” said the man who was smoking, “we had better tell the master. The Saukies are not over friendly to us, and it may be a party of them stealing upon us, in the hope of catching us napping.”
“Bah! Latour,” returned the man of the watch, “the Saukies don’t make so much noise when they move. It’s horses’ hoofs we hear, and not the feet of men. A bottle of whisky to a blanket it’s Filou with a fresh prize.”
“The odds are certainly long you give,” said Le Marie, after he had delivered himself of a prolonged puff; “but, sure enough, it is a gang of horses, and that’s devilish like the Chippewa, who rides the first and leads the remainder.”
All doubt was soon at rest, by the well-known voice of the Chippewa asking for admission for himself and horses into the stockade.
“Comment!” said Le Marie, “do you take me for a blancbec, to suppose I shall do any thing of the sort? You have stolen those horses, Filou, and no good will ever come to us if we let them in here.”
“Ask captin,” said the Chippewa, in a tone that denoted he expected his application to be made known to that responsible officer.
The moment was a critical one. The Saukie Indians, as has been before stated, had manifested a hostile feeling toward the inmates of the post, and the avoidance of offense had been strictly enjoined, as a matter of policy, upon the people of the establishment. Filou, more than all the others, knew of the position and means of defense of the stockade, and therefore it became particularly a matter of precaution not to offend him.