Snow Shoes and Canoes by William Henry Giles Kingston

Author:William Henry Giles Kingston
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: novel, adventure, historical, hudson bay territory, William Henry Giles Kingston
ISBN: 9781781667521
Publisher: Andrews UK Limited 2012
Published: 2012-06-19T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seven.

Return to the fort - Find it destroyed - Poor Sandy and honest Pat missing - A watchful night - The fish-hawks - Robin’s suspicions - No horses - “Up, boys, up!” - We begin our tramp - Turkey eggs very nice for hungry men - The Sunjegwun is reached - Bitter disappointment - The bear and its cub - I kill them - Robin’s soup-pot - Crees of the plain - Our new companions - Picheto - The young Cree kills a buffalo - The “pound” - The hunting party - The Chief is willing to trade - Offers us horses for our guns - The feast.

As we approached the fort towards the end of the day we looked out for the flag, which we expected to see floating over it, but it was not visible.

“Can Sandy have forgotten to hoist it?” observed Alick. “It is yet too early for him to have hauled it down. Expecting us, he would certainly have kept it flying till dark.”

“Perhaps your prognostications of evil may have come true,” I said, laughing, not at all thinking that such was the case.

“I trust not,” answered Alick, in a grave tone. “I shall never forgive myself if any misfortune has happened during my absence from the fort. I ought to have remained at my post; though Sandy is so cautious and vigilant that I considered he would take as good care of it as I could.”

Martin and Robin now trotted up to us.

“What has become of the flag?” exclaimed Martin. “Robin says that he has seen suspicious signs of Indians having been in the neighbourhood, and see! I’ve picked up this arrow-head. It looks as if it had been only lately dropped.”

Robin confirmed what Martin had said, and expressed his fears that the fort had been again attacked.

“We shall soon know the worst, at all events,” said Alick; and putting our horses into a gallop, we dashed forward.

We all uttered exclamations of dismay when, coming near where the fort had stood, we beheld only a blackened ruin. The towers had been burned to the ground, the palisades pulled down and destroyed, as was every wooden building inside the enclosure.

“This has not happened by accident,” observed Alick. “My worst apprehensions are fulfilled. The Indians must have attacked the fort, and having succeeded in capturing it, put the whole garrison to death.”

“Perhaps some may have escaped, and are hidden in the neighbourhood,” said Martin; and before Alick could stop him, he shouted out at the top of his voice, “Hillo! any one hereabouts? Answer, friends.”

“Stay!” cried Alick; “our voices may be heard by foes as well as friends. Keep a look round; in case the former should appear, we may have to fly for our lives.”

We followed his injunctions.

“Alas! alas! poor Sandy and honest Pat and the rest. What has been their fate?” I said to myself. We kept tight rein on our horses, ready to turn round and gallop off in the direction Alick might select; but not a human being appeared.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.