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But as Providence would have it, we had four muskets left dry–they being slung round us in bandoliers–and the greater part of our powder unspoiled. We met the foe with a volley which disposed of three and sank the canoe. The survivors swam for it, and I dare say reached shore. A second canoe put off, and from the bows of it the rascally toen (cause of all this misfortune, as we deemed) hailed Obed and offered to let us go in peace and even restore Margit if we would surrender our firearms.

I think the coldest heart must have pitied my poor brother then. He paced the bank like a mad creature, silent, directing the most agonised looks at his comrades and at me in particular. We turned our faces aside; for his wishes were madness, yet we were asking him to sacrifice what was dearest to him in the world. In his distraction then he tore off most of his clothes, and piling them in a heap besought the toen to take them for the ransom; and we too stripped and stood all but naked, adding our prayers to his. But the scoundrel, without regard of our offering, spoke to his men, and was paddled away.

I will pass over the hour that followed. We quieted Obed’s ravings at length; or rather, they ceased out of pure exhaustion. We were all starving in fact, and the food left in our wallets would not keep a cat alive for another forty-eight hours. Retiring to a clump of firs about 100 yards back from the river’s bank, we scooped a hole in the snow and entrenched ourselves as well as we could for the night. Some of us managed to sleep a little; the others tried to allay the pangs of hunger by chewing their musket-covers, the sponges on their ramrods, even their boot-soles.

At midnight came my turn for watching. In my weakness I may have dozed, or perhaps was light-headed. At any rate, turning after some time to glance at the sleepers, I missed Obed. An ugly suspicion seized me; I counted the muskets. Two of these were missing. After shaking one of the sleepers by the elbow and bidding him watch, I leaped over our low breastwork and ran towards the river in the track of my brother’s footsteps. Almost as I started, a flash and a report of a musket right ahead changed the current of my fears. By the light of the young moon I saw two figures struggling and rolling together on the river’s brink. They were Obed and our peculiar enemy, the toen. The body of a dead Indian lad was stretched some ten paces off beside a small canoe which lay moored by the bank.

Our comrades came running up as I flung myself into the struggle, and we quickly secured the toen. I believe Obed would have killed him. “Don’t be a fool!” said I; “cannot you see that we now have a hostage for Margit?” I ought at the same time to have begged his pardon for my suspicions. As the reader already knows, Obed had a far keener ear than I, and it had warned him of the canoe’s approach. It turned out afterwards that the toen had planned this little reconnoitring expedition on his own account, and on the chance perhaps of filching a musket or two.

We quickly laid our plans; and at daybreak flung my gentleman, bound hand and foot, into his own canoe, which Obed and I paddled into mid-stream, while our party stood on the bank and watched. The village opposite seemed deserted: but at Obed’s hail an Indian woman ran out of the largest hut, and returning, must have summoned the good-looking chief Yootramaki; who emerged in a minute or so, and came slowly down the bank. By this time several groups of Indians had gathered and stood looking on, in all perhaps eighty or a hundred people.