"What is it, monsieur?"

"You are a spy. You are an enemy to the cause."

"Even to you, monsieur, I say it is a lie. I will pa.s.s;" and she struck her heels into her horse's flank. The animal bounded forward, but the rebel chief seized the bridle, as he cried:

"You are an enemy to the cause; and you go now to the enemy. I know you, mademoiselle Annette." And a terrible light blazed in his eyes, as he looked the disguised maiden in the face.

"Ay, monsieur! you are quick at penetrating disguises. I am Mademoiselle Annette; and I go to the enemy. Nor can monsieur hinder me." As she spoke these words she suddenly drew a pistol, and c.o.c.king it placed the cold, glittering barrel within a foot of the leader's face.

"Unhand my bridle or by our Holy Lady I fire." The coward hand quivered, the fingers relaxed, and the bridle was free.

"Now I advise monsieur to meddle with me no more this night. I will not suffer any bar to my project; I have sworn it." So saying her horse sprang forward, and she disappeared down the slope, leaving the baulked chief sitting upon his horse still as a stone. Away, away out over the soft gra.s.sy plain she sped, swiftly and as lightly as a bird might fly. Three minutes brought her in sight of Hickory Bush, a grove of trees straggling up from the flat in the moonlight, and resembling a congregation of witches with draggled hair, suffering torture. Beyond the trees shone a cl.u.s.ter of white camps; and the girl's heart gave a great bound as she saw by the order prevailing there, that the inmates had been so far unmolested. She sprang into the midst of the camps and shouted,

"Awaken! Arise! Quick! The Crees are bound hither to make you captives. Allons! Allons!"

A tall supple figure sprang from one of the tents. How readily she recognised his manly step, his proud head, his bright eye, his musical voice.

"Who are you? Why this attack?"

"I am you friend. Away, if you value your liberty, and mount your horse. I await to lead you from the danger." With motion quick and noiseless as the movements of night birds, the inmates of the tents armed themselves, strapped their knapsacks, and got into the saddle.

No one questioned the graceful Indian boy further. There was something so appealing in his voice, so impatient in his gestures as he waited for their departure, that suspicion could not lurk in any mind.

"Hark!" cried the unknown. "They come. Hear you not the dull trample of their hoofs?"

"By the saints in heaven, yes, and I see them too," said one of the party, looking from his saddle through a night-gla.s.s.

"Away, away," cried the Indian boy. "Follow me;" and as the savages behind surrounded the empty tents with their h.e.l.lish cries, he led the rescued ones at full speed down the valley, around the northern edge of Hickory Ridge, and out toward the Chequered Hills. After half an hour's ride, he drew bridle and the company gathered about him.

Captain Stephens was the first to speak.

"Brave lad, we owe our liberty to you; yet wherefore, I am sure, I cannot tell."

But the boy only raised his hand, as if imposing silence upon that point.

"You are by no means safe from the Indians yet. They will scour the plains, and on this untrodden prairie you cannot conceal your trail.

My advice is that you make no delay, but push on to Fort Pitt, which is only about twelve miles distant."

"Of all points this is the one that I should most desire to be at,"

responded Stephens; "but I do not know that I can find Pitt."

One of the number had been at the Fort a few years before; but he could not make it again from this unknown part of the prairie.

"Follow me, then," answered the unknown. "I shall take you through the hills by a short route to the river. Then you need but to follow the bank to find the fort;" and as he spoke he once more dashed his heels into his horse's flanks and set off towards the center of the group of hills, that resembled in the distance a row of Dutchwomen in heavy petticoats.

Several times as the party followed their deliverer, Stephens would exclaim,

"Where have I heard that voice? The tone is familiar to me, but I cannot give the slightest guess as to the boys' ident.i.ty."

"Do you think he is an Indian?" enquired one.

"His voice is certainly finer and sweeter than any Indian's that I have ever heard. And his French is perfect.

"True, captain, and notice the delicate little hands that he has, and the proud, dainty poise of his head. He is evidently in disguise; and what is equally plain, he does not relish our attempts at penetrating his ident.i.ty." Upon the crest of a round hill, the guide stayed his horse and pointed eastward.

"A few minutes ride will take you to the river; half an hour then to the north and you are at Pitt. Before I leave, just a word. Tall Elk put on paint to-day, and before the set of to-morrow's sun, there is not a Cree in all the region who will not be on the war-path. To-morrow the chief goes to Big Bear, to press him to dig up the hatchet; so Messieurs, look to your guns in the Fort, as you will have more than three hundred enemies under the stockades before the rising of the next moon. Au revoir."

Before any of the group could utter a word of thanks, the mysterious boy was off again to the north-west with the speed of the wind.

"That voice!" exclaimed Stephen striking his forehead. "I know it surely; whose _can_ it be?" and bewildered past hope of enlightenment, he turned his horse down the slope, and dashed towards the Saskatchewan.

His followers and himself were admitted readily enough by Inspector d.i.c.ken, a son of the great novelist, and destined afterwards to be one of the heroes of the war.

When Annette rode away from Louis Riel to give warning to her lover, the rebel chief ground his teeth and swore terrible oaths.

"It is as well" he muttered; "I have now justifiable grounds for depriving her of liberty." Putting a whistle to his mouth he blew a long blast, which was immediately answered from a clump of cottonwood, about a quarter of a mile distant. Then came the tramp of hoofs, and a minute later a horseman drew bridle by his chief.

"The spy has escaped me, Jean, and he was none other than I supposed, ma belle Demoiselle. She did not deny that she was on a mission hostile to our interests, and when I remonstrated, she held a pistol in my face and swore by the Virgin that she would fire. This is reason enough, Jean, for her apprehension. Let us away."

The chief led along the skirt of the upland, till he entered the mouth of a wide, darksome valley. Upon either side straggled a growth of mixed larch and cedar; in the centre was a dismal bog, through which slowly rolled a black, foul stream. As they pa.s.sed along the shoulder of solid ground, troops of birds rose out of the wide sea of bog, and the noise of their wings made a low, mournful whirring as they pa.s.sed in dark troops upwards into the ever-deepening dusk.

Then out of the gloom came a Ding Dong, like the low, solemn beat of a bell. Jean crossed himself and exclaimed,

"Mon Dieu! What is that Monsieur?"

"What, afraid Jean? That is no toll for a lost soul, but the crying of the dismal bell bird."

"I never heard it before Mon Chef."

"And may never hear it again. It lives only in the most doleful and solitary swamps, and I doubt if there is another place in all the wide territories save here, where you may hear its voice."

It had now grown so dark that the horses could only tread their way by instinct, and at every noise or cry that came from the swamp, Jeans' blood shivered in his veins. He had no idea where his master was leading him, and had refrained from 'asking all along, though the query hung constantly upon his tongue. Then a pair of noiseless wings brushed his cheek, paused, and hovered about his head; while two red eyes glared at him.

"In the name of G.o.d what is it?" he screamed, smiting the creature with the handle of his whip. "Where are you leading me Mon Chef?"

"Peace Jean, I did not believe that you were such an arrant coward.

You shall soon see where I go. It is seldom that man is seen or heard in this region, and the strange creatures marvel. That was one of the large night-hawks which so terrified your weak senses. Do you see yonder light?"

From a point which appeared to be the head of the valley, came a piercing white light, and its reflection fell upon the wide, black, shining stream that ran through the valley, like the links of a golden chain.

"Yonder, Jean, is the abode of Mother Jubal--thither am I bound."

"What, to Madame Jubal, the Snake Charmer, the witch, the woman that comes to her enemies when they sleep at nights, and thickens their blood with cold? I thought, Monsieur, that she lived in h.e.l.l, and only appeared on earth when she came to do harm to mankind."

"You will find her of the earth, Jean; but she has ever been willing to do my behests."

By the reflection of the light could be seen a hut standing in a cup-shaped niche at the head of the valley. It was ringed around with draggled larch and cedars; and a belt of dark hills encircled it. No moonlight penetrated here, save toward the dawn, when pale beams fell slantwise across the ghostly swamp.

As the horses, drew near there was heard to come from the hut a low, suppressed yelp, half like the bark of a dog, yet resembling the cry of a wolf. The door was open, and by a low table, upon which burned the clear, unflickering light which the two had seen so far down the valley, sat the old woman. Upon hearing the approach of footsteps, she blew out this light, and through the hideous gloom the Too whit, Too whoo of an owl came from the cabin. Then several pairs of eyes began to gleam at the intruders out of the dusk, and all the while several throats went on repeating in ghostly tones Too whit, Too whoo.

The chief pulled up his horse, while his companion shivered from head to foot. Then raising his voice, he cried: