CHAPTER XVII

SAVED BY A LITTLE SIWASH KID

The attention of the departing revenue-officer being attracted by the barking dog, he paused, and glanced inquiringly in that direction. It was a critical moment for our lads, who knew not whether to run, which would be to reveal their presence at once, or to try and kill the dog, with probably the same result. Fortunately they were spared the necessity of a decision, for a little girl, whom up to this moment they had not noticed, though she was quietly at play with a family of clam-shell dolls directly in front of them, took the matter into her own hands. She had just arranged her score or so of dolls in _potlatch_ order, with the most favored near at hand, when the dog, charging that way, threatened to upset the whole company. To avert such a catastrophe the child snatched up a stick, and springing forward in defence of her property, began to belabor him with such a hearty will, and scream at him so shrilly, as to entirely divert his attention from his original object.

Taking advantage of this diversion in their favor, the boys stole softly away, and after making a long detour through the forest, cautiously approached the coast a mile or more from Skookum John's camp, but where they could command a wide view of the Sound. Here they had the satisfaction of seeing the yawl, under sail, standing off shore, and a full half-mile from it. The sloop was not visible, nor was the cutter.

"How could he have known just where to look for us?" asked Alaric, who had been greatly alarmed at the imminence of their recent danger.

"He couldn't have known," replied Bonny. "It was only a good guess. I suppose he overhauled our boat, and, finding her empty, made up his mind that we had landed somewhere. Of course he couldn't tell on which shore to look, but, noticing John's camp, thought it would be a good idea to find out if the Indians had seen anything of us. Of course they hadn't, and now that he has left, it will be safe enough for us to go back."

"Do you really think so? Isn't there any other place to which we can go?" asked Alaric, whose dread of being captured by the revenue-officers was so great as to render him overcautious.

"Plenty of them, but no other that I know of within reach, where we could find food, fire to cook it, and a boat to carry us somewhere else; for there aren't any white settlers or any other Indians that I know of within miles of here."

In spite of this assurance Alaric was so loath to venture that the boys spent several hours in discussing their situation and prospects before he finally consented to revisit Skookum John's camp. By this time the day was drawing to its close, and the lengthening forest shadows, flung far out over the placid waters of the Sound, were so suggestive of a night of darkness and hunger amid all sorts of possible terrors as to outweigh all other considerations. So the boys plunged into the twilight gloom of the thick-set trees, and began the uncertain task of retracing the way by which they had come.

As neither of them was a woodsman, this soon proved more difficult than they had expected. The trees all looked alike, and they made so many turns to avoid prostrate trunks and masses of entangled branches that within half an hour they came to a halt, and each read in the troubled face of the other a confirmation of his own fears. They had certainly lost their way, and could not even tell in which direction lay the sea-shore they had so recently left. Bonny thought it was in front, while Alaric was equally certain that it still lay behind them.

"If we could only make a fire," said the former, "I wouldn't mind so much staying right where we are till daylight; but I should hate to do so without one. Haven't you any matches?"

"Not one," replied Alaric; "but I thought you always carried them."

"So I do; but I used them all on that old lantern last night. I almost wish now I'd never invented that thing, and that they had caught us. They wouldn't have starved us, at any rate, and perhaps the prison isn't so very bad, after all."

"I don't know about that," rejoined Alaric, stoutly. "To my mind a prison is the very worst thing, worse even than starving. After all, this doesn't seem to me so bad a fix as some from which I've already escaped. Going to China, for instance, or drifting alone at night in a small boat."

"What do you mean by going to China?" asked Bonny, wonderingly.

"Hark!" exclaimed the other, without answering this question. "Don't you hear something?"

"Nothing but the wind up aloft."

"Well, I do. I hear some sort of a moaning, and it sounds like a child."

"Maybe it's a bear or a wolf, or something of that kind," suggested Bonny, whose notions concerning wild animals were rather vague.

"Of course it may be," admitted Alaric; "but it sounds so human that we must go and find out, for if it is a child in distress we are bound to rescue it."

"Yes, I suppose we are; only if it proves to be a bear, I wonder who will rescue us."

Alaric had already set off in the direction of the moaning; and ere they had taken half a dozen steps Bonny also heard it plainly. Then they paused and shouted, hoping that if the sound came from a bear the animal would run away. As they could hear no evidences of a retreat, and as the moaning still continued, they again pushed on. It was now so dark that they could do little more than feel their way past trees, over logs, and through dense beds of ferns. All the while the sound by which they were guided grew more and more distinct, until it seemed to come from their very feet.

At this moment the moaning ceased, as though the sufferer were listening. Then it was succeeded by a plaintive cry that went straight to Alaric's heart. He could dimly see the outline of a great log directly before him. Stooping beside it and groping among the ferns, his hands came in contact with something soft and warm that he lifted carefully. It was a little child, who uttered a sharp cry of mingled pain and terror at being picked up by a stranger.

"Poor little thing!" exclaimed the boy. "I am afraid it is badly injured, and shouldn't be one bit surprised if it had broken a limb. I must try and find out so as not to hurt it unnecessarily."

"Well," said Bonny, in a tragic tone, "they say troubles fly in flocks. I thought we were in a pretty bad fix before; but now we surely have run into difficulty. Whatever are we to do with a baby?"

"Bonny!" cried Alaric, without answering this question, "I do believe it's the little Indian girl who drove away the dog, and something is the matter with one of her ankles."

"Skookum John's little Siwash kid!" exclaimed Bonny, joyfully. "Then we can't be so very far from his camp. Now if we only knew in which direction it lay."

As if in answer to this wish there came a cry, far-reaching and long drawn: "Nittitan! Nittitan! Ohee! Ohee!"

For several hours Skookum John and his eldest son, Bah-die, had been searching the woods for two white lads whom the third lieutenant of the cutter claimed to have lost. He had promised the Indian a reward of twenty-five dollars if he would bring them to the cutter, and Skookum John had at once set forth with the idea of earning this money as speedily as possible.

Little Nittitan, his youngest daughter, whom he loved above all others, noted his going, and after a while decided to follow him. When darkness put an end to the Indian's fruitless search and he returned to his camp, he found it in an uproar. Nittitan was missing, and no one could imagine what had become of her.

For a moment the bereaved father was stunned. Then he prepared several torches, and, accompanied by Bah-die, set forth to find her. At the edge of the forest he raised a mighty cry that he hoped would reach the little one's ears. To his amazement it was answered by a cheery "Hello! Hello there, Skookum John!"

"Ohee! Ohee!" shouted the Indian.

"Here's your _tenas klootchman_" (little woman), came the voice from the forest, and the happy father knew that he who shouted had found the lost child and was bringing her to him.

On the outskirts of his camp he stood and waited, with blazing torch uplifted above his head, and an expectant group of women and half-grown children huddled behind him. He was greatly perplexed when a few minutes later a tall white lad whom he had never before seen emerged from the forest bearing the lost child in his arms. There was another behind him, though, who was promptly recognized, for Skookum John knew Bonny Brooks well, and instantly it came to him that these were the boys whom the revenue-man claimed to have lost. And they had found his little one. How glad he was that his own search for them had been unsuccessful! But this was not the time to be thinking of them. There was his own little Nittitan. He must have her in his arms and hold her close before he could feel that she was really safe.

He stepped forward to take her, but the strange lad drew back, and Bonny cried out: "_Kloshe nanitsh, Skookum. Tenas klootchman la pee, hyas sick_," by which he conveyed the idea that the little woman had hurt her foot quite badly. Then he added, "It's all right, Rick. He understands that he must handle her gently."

So Alaric relinquished his burden, and the swarthy father, rejoicing but anxious, bore the child to a rude hut of brush and cedar mats, the open front of which was faced by a brightly blazing fire. Here he laid her gently down on a soft bear-skin and knelt beside her.

Alaric, who seemed to consider the child as still under his care, knelt on the opposite side and began to feel very carefully of one of the little ankles. He had not spent all his life in company with doctors without learning something of their trade, and after a brief examination he announced to Bonny that there were no broken bones, but merely a dislocation of the ankle-joint.

"I don't know anything about it," said Bonny, "but I should think that would be just as bad."

"No, indeed! A dislocation is not serious if promptly attended to. You explain to him that I am a sort of a doctor, and can make the child well in a few seconds if he will let me. Then I want him to hold her while I pull the joint into place."

So Bonny explained that his friend was a _hyas doctin_ or great medicine-man who could make Nittitan well _hyak_ (quick), and the anxious father, having implicit faith in the white man's skill, consented to allow Alaric to make the attempt.

The little one uttered a sharp cry, as, with a quick wrench, the dislocated bone was snapped into place, and Alaric, with flushed face, but very proud of what he had done, regained his feet.

"Now," he said, "let them bathe the ankle in water as hot as the child can bear, and by to-morrow she'll be all right. And, Bonny, if you know how to ask for anything to eat, for goodness' sake take pity on the starving poor, and say it quick."