The Best Ballantyne Westerns. R. M. Ballantyne

Чтение книги онлайн.

      CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

       Table of Contents

      The return—Narrow escape—A murderous attempt, which fails—And a discovery.

      All nature was joyous and brilliant, and bright and beautiful. Morning was still very young—about an hour old. Sounds of the most cheerful, light-hearted character floated over the waters and echoed through the woods, as birds and beasts hurried to and fro with all the bustling energy that betokened preparation and search for breakfast. Fish leaped in the pools with a rapidity that brought forcibly to mind that wise saying, “The more hurry, the less speed;” for they appeared constantly to miss their mark, although they jumped twice their own length out of the water in the effort.

      Ducks and geese sprang from their liquid beds with an amazing amount of unnecessary sputter, as if they had awakened to the sudden consciousness of being late for breakfast, then alighted in the water again with a squash, on finding (probably) that it was too early for that meal, but, observing other flocks passing and repassing on noisy wing, took to flight again, unable, apparently, to restrain their feelings of delight at the freshness of the morning air, the brightness of the rising sun, and the sweet perfume of the dewy verdure, as the mists cleared away over the tree-tops and lost themselves in the blue sky. Everything seemed instinct not only with life, but with a large amount of superabundant energy. Earth, air, sky, animal, vegetable, and mineral, solid, and liquid, all were either actually in a state of lively, exulting motion, or had a peculiarly sprightly look about them, as if nature had just burst out of prison en masse, and gone raving mad with joy.

      Such was the delectable state of things the morning on which two canoes darted from the camp of the Knisteneux, amid many expressions of good-will. One canoe contained our two friends, Charley and Jacques; the other, Redfeather and his wife Wabisca.

      A few strokes of the paddle shot them out into the stream, which carried them rapidly away from the scene of their late festivities. In five minutes they swept round a point which shut them out from view, and they were swiftly descending those rapid rivers that had cost Charley and Jacques so much labour to ascend.

      “Look out for rocks ahead, Mr Charles,” cried Jacques, as he steered the light bark into the middle of a rapid, which they had avoided when ascending by making a portage. “Keep well to the left o’ yon swirl. Parbleu, if we touch the rock there, it’ll be all over with us.”

      “All right,” was Charley’s laconic reply. And so it proved, for their canoe, after getting fairly into the run of the rapid, was evidently under the complete command of its expert crew, and darted forward amid the foaming waters like a thing instinct with life. Now it careered and plunged over the waves where the rough bed of the stream made them more than usually turbulent. Anon it flew with increased rapidity through a narrow gap where the compressed water was smooth and black, but deep and powerful, rendering great care necessary to prevent the canoe’s frail sides from being dashed on the rocks. Then it met a curling wave, into which it plunged like an impetuous charger, and was checked for a moment by its own violence. Presently an eddy threw the canoe a little out of its course, disconcerting Charley’s intention of shaving a rock which lay in their track, so that he slightly grazed it in passing.

      “Ah, Mr Charles,” said Jacques, shaking his head, “that was not well done; an inch more would have sent us down the rapids like drowned cats.”

      “True,” replied Charley, somewhat crestfallen; “but you see the other inch was not lost, so we’re not much the worse for it.”

      “Well, after all, it was a ticklish bit, and I should have guessed that your experience was not up to it quite. I’ve seen many a man in my day who wouldn’t ha’ done it half so slick, an’ yet ha’ thought no small beer of himself; so you needn’t be ashamed, Mr Charles. But Wabisca beats you, for all that,” continued the hunter, glancing hastily over his shoulder at Redfeather, who followed closely in their wake, he and his modest-looking wife guiding their little craft through the dangerous passage with the utmost sangfroid and precision.

      “We’ve about run them all now,” said Jacques, as they paddled over a sheet of still water which intervened between the rapid they had just descended and another which thundered about a hundred yards in advance.

      “I was so engrossed with the one we have just come down,” said Charley, “that I quite forgot this one.”

      “Quite right, Mr Charles,” said Jacques, in an approving tone, “quite right. I holds that a man should always attend to what he’s at, an’ to nothin’ else. I’ve lived long in the woods now, and that fact becomes more and more sartin every day. I’ve know’d chaps, now, as timersome as settlement girls, that were always in such a mortal funk about what was to happen, or might happen, that they were never fit for anything that did happen; always lookin’ ahead, and never around them. Of coorse, I don’t mean that a man shouldn’t look ahead at all, but their great mistake was that they looked out too far ahead, and always kep’ their eyes nailed there, just as if they had the fixin’ o’ everything, an’ Providence had nothin’ to do with it at all. I mind a Canadian o’ that sort that travelled in company with me once. We were goin’ just as we are now, Mr Charles, two canoes of us—him and a comrade in one, and me and a comrade in t’other. One night we got to a lot o’ rapids that came one after another for the matter o’ three miles or thereabouts. They were all easy ones, however, except the last; but it was a tickler, with a sharp turn o’ the land that hid it from sight till ye were right into it, with a foamin’ current, and a range o’ ragged rocks that stood straight in front СКАЧАТЬ