Chapter 44 - Wood Rangers: The Trappers of Sonora by Mayne Reid
The Floating Islet
The three men kept silence as they followed with anxious eyes the movement of the floating island. Day would soon break, but the freshness of the night, which always increases an hour or two before sunrise, had condensed more and more the vapours which rose from the water. The fires on the bank appeared only like stars, which grow pale in the heavens at the approach of dawn. From this source, therefore, they had little to fear; but another danger menaced the three hunters. The island followed the stream, but turned round as it went, and they feared that in this continual rotation it might deviate from the centre of the liver and strike on one of the banks on which the Indians were encamped.
Like the sailor who, with a heart full of anguish, follows the movements of his ship, almost disabled by the storm, and contemplates with terror the breakers into which he is perhaps destined to be driven, thus the three hunters—a prey to the most cruel anxiety—regarded in silence the uncertain progress of their island. When sometimes the border of osiers and reeds which surrounded the island trembled in the breeze which proceeded from one of the banks, it seemed then to be driven towards the opposite side. Sometimes it went straight along with the current, but in any event, the efforts of those who were on it could do nothing to direct it. Luckily the fog was so thick that the very trees which bordered the river were invisible.
“Courage,” muttered Pepé; “as long as we cannot see the trees it is a sign that we are going on rightly. Ah! if God but favour us, many a howl will resound along these banks, now so peaceful, when at daybreak the Indians find neither the island nor those it sheltered.”
“Yes,” replied Bois-Rose, “it was a grand idea, Pepé; in the trouble of my mind I should not have thought of it, and yet it was such a simple thing.”
“Simple ideas are always the last to present themselves,” rejoined Pepé. “But do you know, Bois-Rose,” added he, in a low voice, “it proves that in the desert it is imprudent to venture with one whom you love more than life, since fear for him takes away a man’s senses. I tell you frankly, Bois-Rose, you have not been like yourself.”
“It is true; I scarcely recognise myself,” replied the Canadian, simply; “and yet—”
He did not finish, but fell into a profound reverie, during which, like a man whose body only is present, and his soul absent, he appeared no longer to watch the movements of the island. For the hunter who, during twenty years has lived the free life of the desert, to renounce this life seemed like death; but to renounce the society of Fabian, and the consolation of having his eyes closed by his adopted son, was still worse than death. Fabian and the desert were the two dominant affections of his life, and to abandon either seemed impossible.
His reverie, however, was soon interrupted by Pepé, who had for some minutes been casting uneasy glances towards one of the banks. Through the fog he fancied he could perceive the fantastic forms which trees appear to take in a mist. They looked like indistinct phantoms, covered with long draperies, hanging over the river.
“We are going wrong, Bois-Rose,” said he, “are not those the tops of the willows on the bank?”
“It is true,” cried Bois-Rose, rousing himself; “and by the fires being still visible it is evident how little progress we have made in the last half hour.”
At that moment the island began to move more rapidly, and the trees became more distinct. The hunters looked anxiously at each other. One of the fires was more clearly seen, and they could even distinguish an Indian sentinel in his frightful battle-costume. The long mane of a bison covered his head, and above that waved a plume of feathers. Bois-Rose pointed him out to Pepé, but luckily the fog was so thick that the Indian, rendered himself visible by the fire, near which he stood, could not yet see the island. However, as if an instinct had warned him to be watchful, he raised his head and shook back the flowing hair which ornamented it.
“Can he have any suspicion?” said Bois-Rose.
“Ah! if a rifle made no more noise than an arrow, with what pleasure I should send that human buffalo to mount guard in another world,” replied Pepé.
Just then they saw the Indian stick his lance in the ground, and leaning forward, shade his eyes with his hands so as to concentrate their power. A keen anxiety was in their hearts as they watched him. The ferocious warrior bending down like a wild beast ready to spring, his face half covered with the straggling hair, was hideous and terrible to look upon; but the fugitives would only have laughed at the spectacle had they not had so much to dread. All at once, the Apache after remaining a few minutes in this attentive attitude, walked towards the bank and disappeared from sight—for nothing was visible except in the circle of light thrown by the fire. It was a moment of intense anxiety for the fugitives, as the island continued to glide silently on.
“Has he seen us?” murmured Pepé.
“I fear so.”
A doleful cry now caused them to start. It was repeated from the opposite side; it was the signal of the sentinels one to the other, but all became again silent. Bois-Rose uttered a murmur of relief, as he saw the man return to his former place and attitude. It was a false alarm.
Still the island continued to approach the bank.
“At this rate,” said Bois-Rose, “in ten minutes we shall fall into the hands of the Indians. If we could but paddle a little with that great branch, we should soon be in the right direction again, but the noise, I fear, would betray us.”
“Nevertheless,” replied Pepé, “it is what we must do, it is better to run the chance of betraying ourselves, than be drifted into the hands of our enemies. But first, let us see if the current in which we now are, runs towards the bank. If it does, we must hesitate no longer, and although the branch of a tree is more noisy in the water than an oar, we must do our best to paddle in silence.”
Pepé then gently broke off a piece of wood and placed it on the water, and leaning over the edge, he and Bois-Rose watched it anxiously. There was in that place a violent eddy, caused by some deep hole in the bed of the river. For a moment the wood turned round as though going to sink, then it took a direction opposite to the bank, towards which they were driving. Both uttered a stifled exclamation of joy, as their island also, after a moment’s stoppage, began to float away from the shore, and the increasing thickness of the fog assured them that they were taking the right course.
About an hour passed thus, amidst poignant alternatives of fear and hope; then the bivouac fires were lost in the distance, and the fugitives perceived that they were nearly out of danger. Reassured by this belief Bois-Rose placed himself at one end of the islet, and paddled vigorously, until the raft, ceasing to gyrate, advanced more swiftly down the current, like a horse long abandoned to his own caprices, who feels at last the hand and spur of an able rider. Keeping where the water was deepest, they now proceeded at a considerable rate of speed, and began to think themselves entirely out of danger.
“Daylight will not be long in appearing,” said Bois-Rose, “and we must now land and endeavour to get on faster; we shall go twice as fast on foot as on this island, which sails slower than a Dutch lugger.”
“Well! land where you like, Bois-Rose, and we will follow. Let us wade down the stream a bit, so as to hide our traces from the Indians; and even if we have to carry the wounded man, we can manage two leagues an hour. Do you think, Don Fabian, that the Golden Valley is far off?”
“You saw the sun go down behind the foggy mountains which shut in this valley,” replied Fabian. “It lies at their foot—we cannot be many hours’ march from it.”
Bois-Rose now gave to the island an oblique direction, and in about a quarter of an hour, it struck violently against the bank. While Pepé and Fabian jumped ashore, the Canadian took the wounded man in his arms, and laid him gently down. This awoke him, and opening his eyes and throwing round him an astonished glance, he murmured, “Virgen Santa! shall I again hear those frightful howls which troubled my sleep?”
“No, my lad, the Indians are far off now, and we are in safety. Thank God, who has permitted me to save all that are dear to me—my child Fabian and my old friend.”
They then prepared to continue their course.
“If you are not able to walk,” said Pepé to Gayferos, “we shall construct a kind of litter to carry you on. We have no time to lose if we wish to escape these wretches, who, as soon as daylight appears, will begin to chase us as eagerly as ever they chased a white enemy.”
So great was the desire of Gayferos to escape, that he almost forgot the pain he was enduring, and declaring that he would follow his liberators as quickly as they could go themselves, he begged them to set off at once.
“We have some precautions to take first,” said Bois-Rose; “rest a few minutes while we break to pieces and commit to the current this raft, which has been so useful to us. It is important the Indians should not trace us.”
All three set to work, and already disjointed by the breaking of the root which held it, and by the shock it had received on touching the shore, the floating island opposed no great resistance to their efforts. The trunks of the trees which composed it, were torn asunder and pushed into the current—which carried them quickly away—and there soon remained no vestige of what it had taken years to construct. When the last branch had disappeared from their eyes, Bois-Rose and Pepé busied themselves in raising up the stalks of the plants, to efface the marks of their feet, and then all prepared to start. They first entered the water and walked along the edge, so as to leave no footmarks, and to lead the Indians to suppose that they had remained on the island. It was too fatiguing for them to walk very quickly; but, in about an hour, just as their wounded feet were about to force them to make halt, they arrived at the fork of two rivers which formed a delta. In this delta lay the Golden Valley. Daylight was just beginning to appear in the horizon, and a grey tint upon the sky was taking the place of darkness. Luckily the arm of the river that they had to cross was not deep, the mass of the water flowing in the opposite direction. This was fortunate, for the wounded man could not swim. Bois-Rose lifted him on his shoulders, and all three waded through the water, which scarcely reached to their knees. The chain of mountains was only about a league off, and after a short rest, all resumed their way with renewed ardour.
Soon the country changed its aspect. To the fine sand—for the triangle formed by the junction of the two rivers was inundated during part of the year—succeeded deep ruts, and then dry beds of streams, hollowed out by the torrents in the rainy season. Instead of the narrow border of willows and cotton-trees which shaded the deserted banks, green oaks rose up, and the landscape terminated in the line of the foggy mountains. All looked strange and imposing, and rarely had the foot of a white man pressed this desert clothed in its virgin wildness. Perhaps Marcos Arellanos and Cuchillo were the only white men who had ever wandered to this remote place. A vague sentiment of awe caused the hunters involuntarily to lower their voices before the supernatural charm of this austere landscape. Those hills, enveloped in mist—even when the plains shone with the blazing rays of the sun—seemed to hide some impenetrable mystery. It might be fancied that the invisible guardians of the treasures, the lords of the mountains according to Indian superstition, were hidden under this veil of eternal vapour.