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"Molly, my dear, it's of no use concealin' things from you, 'cause when bad luck falls we must just face it. This Injun Wapaw, he calls himself tells me he has com'd here a-purpose, as fast as he could, to say that his tribe have resolved to attack me, burn the Fort, kill all the men, and carry you off into slavery." "God help me! can this be true?"
He therefore volunteered a little additional information by means of signs; rubbed his stomach, looked dreadfully rueful, rolled himself as if in agony on the ground, and then, getting up, pretended to eat and look happy! By all of which he meant to show how that Wapaw had been on the borders of starvation, but had been happily saved therefrom.
She rose up quickly, therefore, and, running down to the lake, soon returned with a can of clear water, with which she purposed bathing Wapaw's wounds. Wapaw seized the can, however, and emptied the contents down his throat, so she was constrained to go for a second supply.
Poor Wapaw had already searched his wallet and firebag twice, without finding a crumb of food or a morsel of tobacco. He knew well that they were empty, yet he turned them inside out, and examined the seams and corners with as much earnestness as if he really expected to find relief from his sufferings there.
For many weeks Wapaw had been travelling in the woods, guided on his way by the stars, and by those slight and delicate signs of the wilderness such as the difference of thickness in the bark on the north, from that on the south side of a tree which are perceptible only to the keen eye of an Indian, or a white man whose life has been spent in the wilderness.
In a few minutes Wapaw started up as if new energy had been infused into him. He placed his gun, axe, firebag, and powder-horn by themselves on the ground; then he wrapped himself in his blanket and lay slowly down beside them with his feet towards the fire. For a few minutes he lay on his back, gazing earnestly upwards, while his lips moved slowly, but no sound issued from them.
"`Friends, said he turnin' to me an' Wapaw, an' a poor terrified chap that was the only one o' his men as chanced to be in the house at the time, `friends, it's every man for himself now; I'll cut my way though them, or . He stopped short, an' took hold o' his axe in one hand, an' his gun in the other. `Are ye ready? says he.
Slugs now made a rush into the camp to unbind Macdonell, but to his horror he discovered that a knife was plunged up to the handle in his breast, and that he was almost dead. Hawk had evidently committed this cowardly deed on the first alarm, for the knife was known to be his. Macdonell tried hard to speak, but all that he was able to say was, "Wapaw, wounded, escaped follow."
Here is game enough for one meal an' more; come, lass, get it ready as fast as may be." So saying the bold hunter passed through the Fort gate, dragging the red man behind him. "Why so grave, Robin?" inquired Mrs Gore, when her husband returned to the parlour after seeing Wapaw laid in a warm corner of the kitchen, and committed to the care of Larry O'Dowd.
The cold wind was howling wildly across it, driving the keen snow-drift before it in whirling clouds. Even a strong man might have shrunk from exposing himself on such a plain and to such a blast on that bitter arctic day. Wapaw felt that, in his case, to cross it would be certain death; so, with the calm philosophy of a Red Indian, he made up his mind to lay him down and die!
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