Menotah: A Tale of the Riel Rebellion

'Well, well,' said the Captain, when he had finished. 'So he's got right away.'

'They're after him,' said Sinclair hopefully. 'He didn't get much of a start, and they're armed.'

McAuliffe had a word to say. 'Pshaw! as if he couldn't get away from those bullet stoppers,' he cried disdainfully. 'Tell you, Lamont's a match for that crowd. Might as well try and catch a badger on open prairie as him. The badger jumps into a hole and pulls it in after him. Lamont's the same.'

In the meantime, Dave was half choking Menotah with the fiery spirit. 'When whisky fails, order the coffin,' he proclaimed, as she began to cough.

Sinclair listened at the window. The night was very dark and pleasantly cool by then. Rain was falling heavily. 'They should be back soon.'

'It's not far to the river, and he'll swim that,' said the Captain.

'Then he'll be all right,' added the Factor. 'The bullet stoppers won't follow. First place, they can't swim; if they could, they'd be too darned scared of getting wet.'

The hunter turned to Dave. 'If you want to save her, you'd better get her away before they come back.'

'I'll chaw them up if they try to start fooling,' said Dave.

'You can't do it. They'd hang her quick enough for this night's business.'

Dave rubbed his coarse hand along the girl's smooth neck. 'They don't get her from Dave Spencer. We'll walk our chalks when we hear the bullet stoppers coming.'

Menotah stirred slightly, while a faint groan burst from her lips. Slowly she was returning from the bliss of insensibility to the awful dreariness of life. Then the Factor bethought himself of offering assistance to Marie.

So he snatched the bottle from the unwilling Dave, came over and touched her awkwardly on the shoulder. Not for years had he spoken with a 'civilised' woman.

'No darned use in crying, far as I can see.'

Marie dropped her handkerchief a little, but made no reply.

'I reckon tears are sort of unsatisfactory.'

Still no answer.

McAuliffe grew desperate. 'Never mind Lamont. He's not worth troubling over, anyway. See here! this is first-class whisky. Have a good pull at it. It'll make you feel fine and comfortable.'

He rubbed his coat sleeve over the neck, then pushed it close to her mouth.

Then she raised an angry flushed face. 'Leave me alone!' she cried.

'You'll have a drink?' said the Factor, blankly. 'It's fine whisky; I'm not fooling.'

'I don't want it,' she said, with a passionate movement.

This rendered McAuliffe speechless. The person who refused a drink of good whisky was, in his estimation, something worse than a criminal.

'If you want to do something for me,' continued Marie, 'you can take her out of the house. She has no business here.'

'Reckon none of us have,' the Factor managed to exclaim. Then he comforted himself secretly by means of the rejected bottle.

Here Sinclair buttoned up his coat and announced his intention of going down to the river. Menotah had sufficiently recovered to walk, so Dave, with a stubborn determination not to have her captured, proposed they should return to the hotel and learn final results the next day.

The others agreed. 'How about you, though?' asked Sinclair.

Marie saw she had been addressed. 'I shall stay here,' she said fiercely. 'I want to learn whether the soldiers have caught that traitor. To-morrow I can go home.'

'She's provided for,' muttered the Factor. 'Come on, Captain. Dave's got his gal.'

They went down the slippery wooden steps, while silence fell again over the frame house where human passion had raged so fiercely that night.

Three men, heated with running, wet to the skin by the heavy rain, came to the shelving bank of the Red River. About three minutes earlier another runner had reached that spot. Without hesitation, he had ploughed a rapid course through the mud reach and sought the deeper water. The former had arrived in time to see the latter swimming towards the opposite shore, putting all the force he could muster into the arm strokes.

They stopped at the edge of the mud, with the knowledge that the adventurer had beaten them.

Lightning still played softly across the heavens. The officer pulled his revolver, then fired shot after shot into the deceptive red glow, glimmering over the waters round the indistinct and distant swimmer. With the shot that emptied the chamber they saw the fugitive drag himself to land by aid of the long willows which swept the stream. For a moment he paused at the foot of the tree-spread bank, to coolly wave his hand in their direction by way of farewell. The next minute he was swallowed up by the dark, pathless line of bush.

'No good following him there,' muttered one of the men resignedly.

The officer swore softly to himself. 'Follow! I should say not. He's as good a bushman as any nitchi!

Sullenly they began to retrace their steps, the officer wondering how he could summon courage to face his superiors; but before they had gone far they came across the hunter, tramping stolidly along the rapidly miring trail.

'Where is he?' cried the latter eagerly, as he recognised them.

The officer was sulkily silent, but one of the men answered for him. 'Safe in the bush.'

The hunter's face fell, for he had allowed himself to hope a capture might be made in the mud flats.

'Well, well,' he muttered savagely, as he joined the small band and tramped dismally back with them, 'the White Chief has escaped. That's the devil's business.'

Lamont did not penetrate very far into the dripping bush. He knew there could be no search before daybreak, and by that time he would be in a place of absolute safety. So he rested for some time beneath a bluff of black poplar, the while he planned his future course of action.

There were plenty of friendly half-breeds in the immediate vicinity. In one of these huts or dug-outs he could safely hide for a day or so, with his former disguise resumed. For he could make up and act the part of the native Indian to the life. Then he would steal or borrow a shaganappi pony and ride some night to the States, only forty miles distant in a bee-line across prairie. After, he would escape from that continent at his leisure.

'There's a rising in Brazil,' he muttered thoughtfully. 'That will be a good place for me to try my hand in next. A new rifle, and then for the strongest side. Besides, there are fine women among the Creoles.'

He laughed quietly to himself in the glory of this unexpected freedom and new life, then gathered up a handful of the clammy red clay which had earlier given the great river its name. He squeezed forth the moisture, then rubbed the soft slime across his features.

Next he scraped some powder from the roots of the black poplar and applied this also in carefully arranged markings. The change was startling. It would have required a very keen eye to have penetrated that disguise. Then he made his cautious way into the bush, destroying his trail as he went. There were no bloodhounds in Garry, very few Indians or breeds would lend assistance to track the White Chief Even so, none of them were better bushmen than himself. He was entirely safe from pursuit.

Once he thought of Menotah, but then he only laughed at the weak foolishness of a loving woman; he thought, indeed, more of Marie, but then he frowned with a longing to get her again within his power.

So he passed on until he came to a place of shelter.

Shortly before autumn, he made safe landing at Rio Janeiro.

CHAPTER X

McAULIFFE'S RESOLUTION