CHAPTER XXIX

THE MISSING WAMPUM BELT

CREEPING along, with their guns held in readiness for instant use, the three gradually approached the sleepers. Pat frequently paused to observe closely. Bob knew what he was keeping in mind; for the trapper had only lately been telling a story of how once he had been followed by a pair of hardened border renegades, who hoped to catch him asleep and wind up his career. Pat had managed, before they came up, to divest himself of certain of his garments, which he stuffed with dead leaves and arranged so that it looked as though he might be sleeping near his flickering fire. And, when the intended murderers crept near, he was conveniently placed for opening fire upon them.

In that case the border had been well rid of a pair of rascals, and many a settler's home rendered the more secure because of Pat's ruse.

But the shrewd Irish trapper did not mean to be caught by any similar trick; and that was why he was making positive, as he advanced, that the two figures were real flesh and blood, and no make-believe forms. And, when he saw each of them move an arm or leg, as a fly or mosquito bothered them, this fact was soon so apparent that Pat lost all fear.

It had already been fully arranged what the programme should be, under such conditions. Pat was to throw himself upon one recumbent figure, while the two boys covered the other with their guns, and threatened him with immediate death unless he held up his hands.

When all was ready, and Pat just about to carry out his part of the arrangement, Henri, who, it happened, had been selected for the victim of the boys, suddenly sat up, and started to stretch, as he yawned sleepily.

Imagine his amazement at seeing three crouching figures within a few feet of him, while two muskets were levelled at his head. Stricken dumb with surprise he could only stare and gasp.

Meanwhile Pat was not idle. With a leap that a panther might have envied he was upon the second figure. Jacques Larue had not the faintest chance. Taken utterly unawares, and at a complete disadvantage, he was as putty in the hands of the stalwart Irish trapper, even though himself a man of sinew.

"Don't so much as move a hand except to raise them above your head, Henri Lacroix, or you are a dead man!" exclaimed Bob, sternly.

True, these two were only boys, but the Frenchman knew to his sorrow that they were to be feared just as much as men. And it was almost ludicrous to see how quickly he elevated his hands, and made motions with his head to indicate that he gave in.

After that it was no hard task to bind the trappers, though first of all their weapons were taken. They looked alarmed, as indeed they had good cause for being, since they had long been a thorn in the flesh of these English settlers, and might expect to be treated harshly. And doubtless they both remembered with regret how they had just lately done a rascally deed, for which these three might well demand their lives as a recompense.

Had they not known that Pat O'Mara must have trailed them from the place where they set the dugout adrift, containing Mr. Armstrong's daughter, Jacques Larue and Henri Lacroix might have stoutly denied all knowledge of the crime. As it was they kept their lips sealed, and remained mute.

When, however, Bob and Sandy, astonished and chagrined at not finding the wampum belt upon either of the Frenchmen, although they recovered most of the little keepsakes lost by their mother, demanded to know where it had been hidden, Jacques took it upon himself to explain, with many extravagant shrugs of his broad shoulders; for even in those days his countrymen, even as now, do considerable of their talking with gestures.

"I haf not seen ze belt since last night!" he declared. "Ven I allow myself to go to sleep she is here about my vaist as before; yet, _sacré_! it amaze me to find ven I am open my eyes dis same morning zat ze belt no longer adorn my person. So it seem zat while I sleep some unknown von, he crawl into ze camp, and take avay ze belt, and me not any ze wiser. I feel nossings, know nossings, only ze belt she be disappear."

"Did you not suspect that your friend, Henri here, might have taken a notion to take the belt and hide it?" asked Bob, as soon as he could recover from the shock which this declaration gave him.

"Zat is exact vat pass through my mind!" exclaimed Jacques, eagerly. "He, himself, tell you ze same, because him I accuse. But hold on, he say, let us then examine ze ground, and know ze truth. So zat is vat ve do, accordingly. Great is our amazement to learn zat an Indian, he crawl into our camp as ve sleep. I know ze tracks only too vell to believe zat it can be a white man. And I gif you my vord, Monsieur O'Mara, zat ees ze truth, ze whole truth, and nossings but ze truth."

Bob and Sandy were grievously disappointed. Whether, as Larue declared, some unknown Indian had really crept upon them while they slept, and were wholly off their guard, taking only the sacred wampum belt, as though that were the single object of his mission; or whether, on the other hand, Larue had secreted the belt for reasons of his own, the result was all the same so far as they were concerned, since the belt was gone.

After talking it over, they decided that the two prisoners should be taken to the new settlement. They hardly felt in a condition to declare what measure of punishment should be meted out to such scoundrels; and would much rather a council of the elder men decided this question.

Jacques and Henri seemed very much cast down. They belonged to a class of bordermen who believed in the old adage, "an eye for an eye; a tooth for a tooth;" and under the circumstances had reason to expect nothing in the way of mercy from Mr. Armstrong, whom they had attempted to injure many times.

So the return march was taken up, it being the desire of the boys to reach their destination that day, even though the journey continued into the hours of darkness.

Pat knew that, by taking a bee-line route across country, they could cut off a considerable distance. When a bee is loaded with honey it always rises up, as if to take an observation, and then makes a direct line for its hive, even though a full mile away from it at the time. Many claim that it is a peculiar "homing instinct" that guides the little insect at such times; but this, on the other hand, seems far from being the case; since, if the hive be moved in the night time, the bees, starting out in the morning, will not return to the old position, but fly straight to the new.

To lose Pat O'Mara in any woods would be next to impossible, because he was perfectly at home there, and, although they were now passing over ground which he saw for the first time that afternoon, the accuracy of his deduction was made manifest just about dusk, when Sandy declared that he certainly heard the well-known sound of an axe being used upon firewood, somewhere ahead.

Half an hour later, they walked in on the sentry who stood guard, and whose quick hearing, detecting their advance, caused a peremptory challenge.

Great was the rejoicing among the settlers when they saw how successful had been the chase after the rascally trappers belonging to that league of French Canadians who were employed all along the great river in catching the rich pelt-bearing animals inhabiting that region, or else trading with the Indians for their furs.

When Mrs. Armstrong found almost all of her little belongings returned to her, she was of course delighted; though this circumstance was of small value in her fond eyes as compared with the safe home-coming of her brave boys.

When the story of the missing belt was told, few believed what the Frenchman had advanced as the truth.

The general opinion seemed to be that, for some unknown reason, the pair had secreted the wampum belt somewhere, meaning to get it again at a later time. And some of the settlers were loud in their demand that the men be forced to confess what had been done with the belt, which, if only possessed again, was certain to be a great source of security to the new settlement. They believed it would be a talisman calculated to act as a bar upon the passions of the Indians, as long as the name of Pontiac was held in reverence by the confederated tribes of the middle West.

So the two men were tightly bound and thrust into a cabin that was nearly completed, being told that their fate would be decided at a council later on. They acted in a sullen manner, declaring they had told only the truth; and that, even though the English put them to the stake, they could say nothing different. At the same time Larue took occasion to say that, should their fate ever become known to the commandant of the nearest trading post, an expedition would assuredly be fitted out against the new settlement that would wipe it from the face of the earth.

Mr. Armstrong was uneasy. He knew that the men deserved death, according to the law of the border; and yet, for many reasons, he was personally averse to meting out such judgment upon them.

He was far from being a bloodthirsty man to begin with. Then Kate had really not been injured when in their hands, and he had that to be thankful for; though their method of annoying the English settlers by setting the girl adrift on the river was a cowardly proceeding that surely merited severe punishment.

Last of all, Mr. Armstrong was really desirous of making a truce with the French traders in charge of the posts along the Mississippi. He could see far enough ahead to realize that, when the Colonies split with the Mother Country, the natural allies of the rebels would be the French. And, as far as possible, he did not wish to do anything calculated to defer this adjustment of past differences between the two nations.

And so it was decided to keep the two men shut up for a few days, in order that they would suffer the tortures of uncertainty concerning their fate. Then, if they did not confess concerning the disposal of the precious wampum belt, the English settlers could hold back their weapons, and cast them adrift, to make their way back to the nearest post as best they could; perhaps with a message to the commandant pertaining to the news from the seacoast, and the threatening rupture that was surely coming between England and her rebellious child in America.

Accordingly, three days later, the two men were released, with a stern warning to keep away from this settlement, if they valued their lives.