The Red Man's Revenge: A Tale of The Red River Flood

“He seems to be miserable enough about it if one may judge from the expression of his face,” observed Miss Trim.

Poor Ian was indeed profoundly miserable. The excitement of the recent event over, his mind insisted on reverting to his forlorn condition. “So near,” he thought, “and yet to miss her! Old Ravenshaw could not refuse her to me now, but of what avail is his consent without Elsie’s? Ah, Lambert! you’re a lucky fellow, and it is shameful in me to wish it were otherwise when it makes Elsie happy.”

Ian now tried to act philosophically, but it would not do. In the upper room he gave the ladies a brief account of his adventure. He spoke in a cold, passionless manner, without looking once at Elsie. Of course, he did not reveal the motives that had influenced him. When he had finished he rose abruptly to leave.

“Don’t go yet,” said Mrs Ravenshaw, “there’s a bit of carpentering that I want done, and there is not a man left at the house to do it. The last gale loosened some of the shingles on the roof, and one of them slipped down to-day, so that the place leaks.—Go, Elsie, and show him the shingle near the attic window.”

Ian looked at Elsie, and his resolves vanished like smoke. He went meekly to the attic.

“You are much changed,” said Elsie, “since you went on this trip.”

“Changed? Not for the worse, I hope,” said Ian.

“Well, scarcely for the better,” returned the girl with a smile. “See, here is the window, and the loose shingle is close to the sill. You won’t require to go out on the roof. There is father’s tool-box. If you want anything some of us will be in the room below. You may call, or come down.”

“Stay, Elsie,” said the youth, turning abruptly on her. “You say I am changed. Well, perhaps I am. I’ve gone through pretty severe hardships since we parted, and the injuries I received on gaining this have left their mark.”

He touched, as he spoke, the splendid bear-claw collar which still graced his neck.

“I doubt not you have suffered,” returned Elsie, in a softened tone, “but you are now well, or nearly so, and your reason is not a sufficient one to account for your being rude to all your old friends, and taking no interest in anything.”

“Am I, then, so rude, so callous?” rejoined Ian, drawing his hand across his brow. “Ah! Elsie, if—if—but what am I saying? Forgive me! I think that grizzly must have touched my brain when he had me under his paw. There can be no harm, however, in telling you that a wish, lightly expressed by you long ago, has been the motive power which led to the procuring of this collar. Will you accept it of me now? It is but a trifle, yet, being a bad hunter, and more used to grammars than to guns, it cost me no trifle of anxiety and trouble before I won it. I am afraid that the hope of procuring it for you had almost as much to do with cheering me on as the hope of finding Tony. Nay, don’t refuse it, Elsie, from one who has known you so long that he feels almost as if he might regard you as a sister.”

He took off the collar as he spoke, and, with a return of his wonted heartiness, presented it to Elsie. There was something in his manner, however, which induced her to blush and hesitate.

“Your kindness in searching for Tony we can never forget or repay,” she said quickly, “and—and—”

She paused.

“Well, well,” continued Ian, a little impatiently; “I did not mean to talk of Tony just now. Surely you won’t refuse a gift from so old a friend as I on the eve of my departure for Canada?”

“For Canada!” echoed Elsie, in surprise.

“Yes. I leave the instant I can get my affairs in Red River settled.”

“And you return?”

“Never!”

Elsie looked at the youth in undisguised astonishment. She, too, began to suspect that a claw of the collar must have touched his brain.

“But why hesitate?” continued Ian. “Surely you cannot refuse me so simple a favour! Even Lambert himself would approve of it in the circumstances.”

“Lambert!” exclaimed Elsie, with increasing amazement; “what has Lambert got to do with it?”

It was now Ian’s turn to look surprised.

“Forgive me if I have touched on a forbidden subject; but as every one in the settlement seems to know of your engagement to Lambert, I thought—”

“My engagement!” interrupted Elsie. “It is Cora who is engaged to Lambert.”

A sudden and mighty shock seemed to fall on Ian Macdonald. He slightly staggered, paled a little, then became fiery red, leaped forward, and caught the girl’s hand.

“Elsie! Elsie!” he exclaimed, in tones of suppressed eagerness, “will—will you accept the collar?”

He put it over her head as he spoke, and she blushed deeply, but did not refuse it.

“And, Elsie,” he added, in a deeper voice, drawing her nearer, “will you accept the hunter?”

“No,” answered Elsie, with such an arch smile; “but I would accept the schoolmaster if he were not going away to Canada for—”

She did not finish the sentence, because something shut her mouth.

“You’re taking a very long time to that shingle,” called Mrs Ravenshaw from below. “Have you got everything you want, Ian?”

“Yes,” replied Ian promptly; “I’ve got all that the world contains.”

“What’s that you say?”

“It will soon be done now, mother,” cried Elsie, breaking away with a soft laugh, and hurrying down-stairs.

She was right. A few minutes sufficed to put the loose shingle to rights, and then Ian descended to the room below.

“What a time you have been about it!” said Cora, with a suspicious glance at the young man’s face; “and how flushed you are! I had no idea that fixing a loose shingle was such hard work.”

“Oh yes, it’s tremendously hard work,” said Ian, recovering himself; “you have to detach it from the roof, you know, and it is wonderful the tenacity with which nails hold on sometimes; and then there’s the fitting of the new shingle to the—”

“Come, don’t talk nonsense,” said Cora; “you know that is not what kept you. You have been telling some secret to Elsie. What was it?”

Instead of answering, Ian turned with a twinkle in his eyes, and asked abruptly:

“By the way—when does Louis Lambert return?”

It was now Cora’s turn to flush.

“I don’t know,” she said, bending quickly over her work; “how should I know? But you have not answered my question.—Oh! look there!”

She pointed to the doorway, where a huge rat was seen seated, looking at them as if in solemn surprise at the trifling nature of their conversation.

Not sorry to have a reason for escaping, Ian uttered a laughing shout, threw his cap at the creature, missed, and rushed out of the room in chase of it. Of course he did not catch it; but, continuing his flight down-stairs, he jumped into the punt, pushed through the passage, and out at the front door. As he passed under the windows he looked up with a smile, and saw Cora shaking her little fist at him.

“You have not improved in your shooting,” she cried; “you missed the rat.”

“Never mind,” he replied, “Lambert will fetch his rifle and hunt for it; and, I say, Cora, ask Elsie to explain how shingles are put on. She knows all about it.”

He kissed his hand as he turned the corner of the house, and rowed away.

A dark shadow falling over him at the moment caused him to turn round, and there, to his amazement, stood one of his father’s largest barns! It had been floated, like many other houses, from its foundation, and, having been caught by a diverging current, had been stranded on the lawn at the side of Mr Ravenshaw’s house so as to completely shut out the view in that direction.