"I have it! I have it!" exclaimed Pathfinder, with exultation.
"There lies the canoe of the Sarpent on the cutter's deck; and the chief has got on board, and no doubt has given a true account of our condition; for, unlike a Mingo, a Delaware is sartain to get a story right, or to hold his tongue."
"That canoe may not belong to the cutter," said the captious seaman.
"Oh-deuce had one on board when he sailed." "Very true, friend Cap; but if you know your sails and masts by your gores and fishes, I know my canoes and my paths by frontier knowledge.
If you can see new cloth in a sail, I can see new bark in a canoe.
That is the boat of the Sarpent, and the noble fellow has struck off for the garrison as soon as he found the block besieged, has fallen in with the Scud, and, after telling his story, has brought the cutter down here to see what can be done.
The Lord grant that Jasper Western be still on board her!"
"Yes, yes; it might not be amiss; for, traitor or loyal, the lad has a handy way with him in a gale, it must be owned."
"And in coming over waterfalls!" said Pathfinder, nudging the ribs of his companion with an elbow, and laughing in his silent but hearty manner.
"We will give the boy his due, though he scalps us all with his own hand."
The Scud was now so near, that Cap made no reply.
The scene, just at that instant, was so peculiar, that it merits a particular description, which may also aid the reader in forming a more accurate nature of the picture we wish to draw.
The gale was still blowing violently.
Many of the smaller trees bowed their tops, as if ready to descend to the earth, while the rushing of the wind through the branches of the groves resembled the roar of distant chariots.
The air was filled with leaves, which, at that late season, were readily driven from their stems, and flew from island to island like flights of birds.
With this exception, the spot seemed silent as the grave.
That the savages still remained, was to be inferred from the fact that their canoes, together with the boats of the 55th, lay in a group in the little cove that had been selected as a harbor.
Otherwise, not a sign of their presence was to be detected.
Though taken entirely by surprise by the cutter, the sudden return of which was altogether unlooked-for, so uniform aud inbred were their habits of caution while on the war-path, that the instant an alarm was given every man had taken to his cover with the instinct and cunning of a fox seeking his hole.
The same stillness reigned in the blockhouse; for though Pathfinder and Cap could command a view of the channel, they took the precaution necessary to lie concealed.
The unusual absence of anything like animal life on board the Scud, too, was still more remarkable.
As the Indians witnessed her apparently undirected movements, a feeling of awe gained a footing among them, and some of the bold-est of their party began to distrust the issue of an expedition that had commenced so prosperously.
Even Arrowhead, accustomed as he was to intercourse with the whites on both sides of the lakes, fancied there was something ominous in the appearance of this unmanned vessel, and he would gladly at that moment have been landed again on the main.
In the meantime the progress of the cutter was steady and rapid.
She held her way mid-channel, now inclining to the gusts, and now rising again, like the philosopher that bends to the calamities of life to resume his erect attitude as they pass away, but always piling the water beneath her bows in foam.
Although she was under so very short canvas, her velocity was great, and there could not have elapsed ten minutes between the time when her sails were first seen glancing past the trees and bushes in the distance and the moment when she was abreast of the blockhouse.
Cap and Pathfinder leaned forward, as the cutter came beneath their eyrie, eager to get a better view of her deck, when, to the delight of both, Jasper Eau-douce sprang upon his feet and gave three hearty cheers.
Regardless of all risk, Cap leaped upon the rampart of logs and returned the greeting, cheer for cheer.
Happily, the policy of the enemy saved the latter; for they still lay quiet, not a rifle being discharged.
On the other hand, Pathfinder kept in view the useful, utterly disregarding the mere dramatic part of warfare.
The moment he beheld his friend Jasper, he called out to him with stentorian lungs, --
"Stand by us, lad, and the day's our own!
Give 'em a grist in yonder bushes, and you'll put 'em up like partridges." Part of this reached Jasper's ears, but most was borne off to leeward on the wings of the wind.
By the time this was said, the Scud had driven past, and in the next moment she was hid from view by the grove in which the blockhouse was partially concealed.
Two anxious minutes succeeded; but, at the expiration of that brief space, the sails were again gleaming through the trees, Jasper having wore, jibed, and hauled up under the lee of the island on the other tack.
The wind was free enough, as has been already explained, to admit of this manoeuvre; and the cutter, catching the current under her lee bow, was breasted up to her course in a way that showed she would come out to windward of the island again without any difficulty.
This whole evolution was made with the greatest facility, not a sheet being touched, the sails trimming themselves, the rudder alone controlling the admirable machine.
The object appeared to be a reconnoissance.
When, however, the Scud had made the circuit of the entire island, and had again got her weatherly position in the channel by which she had first approached, her helm was put down, and she tacked.
The noise of the mainsail flapping when it filled, loose-reefed as it was, sounded like the report of a gun, and Cap trembled lest the seams should open.
"His Majesty gives good canvas, it must be owned," muttered the old seaman; "and it must be owned, too, that boy handles his boat as if he were thoroughly bred!
D--- me, Master Pathfinder, if I believe, after all that has been reported in the matter, that this Mister Oh-deuce got his trade on this bit of fresh water."
"He did; yes, he did.
He never saw the ocean, and has come by his calling altogether up here on Ontario.
I have often thought he has a nat'ral gift in the way of schooners and sloops, and have respected him accordingly.
As for treason and lying and black-hearted vices, friend Cap, Jasper Western is as free as the most virtuousest of the Delaware warriors; and if you crave to see a truly honest man, you must go among that tribe to discover him."
"There he comes round!" exclaimed the delighted Cap, the Scud at this moment filling on her original tack; "and now we shall see what the boy would be at; he cannot mean to keep running up and down these passages, like a girl footing it through a country-dance."
The Scud now kept so much away, that for a moment the two observers on the blockhouse feared Jasper meant to come-to; and the savages, in their lairs, gleamed out upon her with the sort of exultation that the crouching tiger may be supposed to feel as he sees his unconscious victim approach his bed.
But Jasper had no such intention: familiar with the shore, and acquainted with the depth of water on every part of the island, he well knew that the Scud might be run against the bank with impunity, and he ventured fearlessly so near, that, as he passed through the little cove, he swept the two boats of the soldiers from their fastenings and forced them out into the channel, towing them with the cutter.
As all the canoes were fastened to the two Dunham boats, by this bold and successful attempt the savages were at once deprived of the means of quitting the island, unless by swimming, and they appeared to be instantly aware of the very important fact. Rising in a body, they filled the air with yells, and poured in a harmless fire.