CHAPTER XVII--A SURPRISE, AND A RESCUE

In another minute Sergeant John Dick was standing on the western shore of the lake, looking across its dark waters at a bright light shining out in the middle of these, almost directly opposite him.

The light came, of course, from a window of “Water Castle.” It was so small and ray-like that he knew it must be issuing from the open loophole of a closed shutter.

He was considering whether it would be quite safe to fire the three shots that Muriel Arnold had told him was the signal “want to come off shore,” when suddenly a guttural voice spoke quite close to him--a word or two in the Indian tongue.

Startled beyond measure, he faced in the direction of the sound, and crouched down instinctively as he did so, pointing his revolver, which he was already gripping in case of need, and breathing hard and fast.

A light flared, and became a great blaze of dancing flame, amid the loud crackling of burning brushwood. Some one had lit a bonfire--no ordinary camp fire that--within a hundred feet or so of him!

The guttural Indian words told him that he had to deal with foes. He thanked his stars that he had been prudent enough to approach the lakeside with every caution of woodcraft.

Softly parting the bushes beside him, he craned his neck round a tree which partly stood in the way, and saw that the fire had been made in a fairly open space abutting right on the lakeside--a sort of wide glade or avenue extending some thirty feet or more back from the water’s edge.

The flames were shooting high into the air, lighting up the glade and casting a ruddy glow out over the dark waters of the lake.

And in the lurid, flickering glare, Sergeant Dick saw a sight which filled him with consternation.

Being set against three trees by a number of the rebellious redmen, were Muriel Arnold, her uncle, and his son Amos, while just in front, nearer the water’s edge that is, was poor half-witted Jenny in the grip of several more hideously painted braves!

Near by, evidently directing operations, was a most truculent looking athletic young sagamore or chief!

Some two score or more warriors stood, leaning on their rifles and looking on, on the farther side of the glade.

Muriel and her uncle and cousin were being bound to the three trees, with their faces towards the lake and the distant light in “Water Castle.” The fire being slightly to one side of them would reveal them plainly to anybody looking out of “Water Castle” on that side.

“Ugh! The white girl, beloved by Manito, and therefore sacred to all true redmen, will now go in canoe to her home on the water, dat is when I have fired my rifle to attract the attention of her friends. She will then, on arriving at her home, say that all within ‘Water Castle’ must come ashore in the ark and give themselves up, when we will spare their lives and the lives of their friends here. But if they do not agree to this--do not come ashore and surrender, then they will see their friends here--that is the two white men, not the beautiful white girl--put to the torture. The beautiful white girl, the Lily o’ the Valley, she become my squaw. I have spoken--I, Howling Wolf, the War Chief of the Ogalcrees.”

The Indian chief made this declaration in a slow, deliberate, and dignified manner, with his rifle-butt resting on the ground, and the weapon held in his left hand at arm’s length.

With the last word he caught up the piece, put it to his shoulder, and, pointing it into the air and out over the lake, pulled the trigger.

Sharp on the report, a flood of light streamed forth from the southern side of “Water Castle”--its front really--displaying part of the verandah. And then out on to this, in the glare of the light, rushed in a body the rest of the squatter’s family--his wife, and three other sons, and his two daughters-in-law.

The six stood as if transfixed, staring across the water at the spectacle on the lakeside, which must have been plainly visible to them.

It was too far for even a modern rifle to carry with effect, and the light on both sides, of course, was of the poorest for such long range. Moreover, the men and women on the verandah were partly screened by the waist-high, boarded-in end of this.

“Put the child of the Manito in the canoe and let her depart with the message of Howling Wolf,” said the chief, with a grim chuckle.

The North American Indians have always considered persons of feeble intellect as under the direct protection of the Almighty--“Manito” as they call Him--and therefore invariably treat them with respect, and a reverence that is half-pity, half-awe. What a lesson for our own much-vaunted civilization, where the half-witted are too often regarded as fair butts for all manner of rough practical joking!

Jenny Arnold was led to the water’s edge, where Sergeant Dick now saw a score and more canoes had been beached. His eye noted in the same glance that some half-dozen of the canoes--farthermost from him--which could not be drawn up on the limited strip of shelving sand under the bank like the others, were floating, moored to trees by their painters.

Jenny was put in the nearest canoe and given the paddles. Then three of the Indians pushed the craft off, and she paddled away frantically across the lake towards “Water Castle.”

Sergeant Dick racked his brains to think how he might effect a rescue of the three prisoners. His heart was full of bitter grief and anxiety as regarded the sweet girl before him, whom he now knew he loved with all the strength of his deep-feeling, but not easily moved, nature.

“I would sooner see her dead before me--kill her with my own hands than that she should become the squaw of that villainous young chief, Howling Wolf,” he reflected, his heart surcharged with poignant rage. “He would treat her worse than his dog after awhile, and her life would be a misery to her. I will deliver her and her uncle and cousin, or share their fate. But how to effect my purpose? That’s the question.”

He could think of no plan which at all held out a promise of success, and he was still hopelessly regarding the scene in the glade and ransacking his brains, when suddenly three spears of flame darted from the thicket on the opposite side of the glade to him, and the reports of as many rifle-shots rang out almost as one.

Howling Wolf had been standing, leaning on his rifle, and peering out under his shading left hand after Jenny. He reeled, clapping his left hand to the back of his feather-plumed head, and then crashed heavily upon his side.

Two other redskins standing near, also fell and rolled over, then lay still with feebly twitching limbs. And the forest aisles promptly resounded with furious shouts of “Down with them! Give ’em it, boys! Let ’em have it,” and the swift popping of revolvers.

But the redskins, though taken so completely by surprise, were quick to note that they had apparently only three foemen to deal with. Even as they broke and scattered for the nearest trees, they shouted this to one another.

In a flash every redskin except the chief and some half-dozen others who had been shot down by the first volley or by the quick revolver-shots, had vanished behind a tree; and a brisk fusillade now took place between the unseen trio in the thicket and the Indians.

Only a few seconds, however, did the fusillade last--just while the redmen were reassuring themselves that they had but three foes to deal with. Then with a ringing war-whoop one of them burst from his tree and ran, doubled up, and jumping from side to side towards the surprisers’ place of concealment.

As one man the rest of the band followed him, yelling like so many railway engines; and, to Sergeant Dick’s astonishment, Howling Wolf bounded to his feet as if unhurt and raced after them, adding his quota to the terrific whooping.

The three men in the bushes fled incontinently before that overwhelming rush. The police officer could hear them tearing away madly through the undergrowth without waiting to shoot back.

Quick as thought, he himself darted forward towards the open space. He ran at full speed, and yet made hardly the slightest sound, on account of his backwoods’ training, and with the firelight showing him his path.

Into the glade he burst, just as two of the Indians lying there showed symptoms of life and struggled into reclining postures.

Paying no heed to them, he flew to the prisoners, and hurriedly began to slash through the ropes, which bound Amos, the nearest of the trio. He used his clasp knife, which he had opened even as he sprang into the glade; and the blade was as sharp as any razor.

As the cords parted, and Amos stood free in body and limb, Sergeant Dick handed him his revolver, exclaiming:

[Illustration: HE FLEW TO THE PRISONERS, AND HURRIEDLY BEGAN TO SLASH THRU THE ROPES.]

“Get one of the redskins’ knives, and free your father, while I free Muriel. If you are quick we should get away in one of their canoes.”

Without a word, Amos grabbed the revolver, and, rushing to the nearest dead Indian, snatched his scalping-knife from his belt, then ran to liberate the old man; what time Sergeant Dick had sprung to Muriel’s side, and was cutting the cords confining her wrists.