"Eric Hamilton!" both the priest and I shouted.
"Yes--why? What--what--is it? He's wounded, and he wants a Rufus Gillespie, who's with the Nor'-Westers. The _Bois-Brulés_ fired on the fort. Where _is_ Rufus Gillespie?"
"Bless you, lassie! Here--here--here he is!" The holy father thumped my back at every word. "Here he is, crazy as a March hare for news of Hamilton!"
"You--Rufus--Gillespie!" So she did not even know my name. Evidently, if she troubled my thoughts, I did not trouble hers.
"He's told me so much about you," she went on, with a little pant of astonishment. "How brave and good----"
"Pshaw!" I interrupted roughly. "What's the message?"
"Mr. Hamilton wishes to see you at once," she answered coldly.
"Then kill two birds with one stone! Take her home and see Hamilton--and hurry!" urged the priest.
"Put it over your head!" and Father Holland clapped the shawl about Frances Sutherland after the fashion of the half-breed women.
She stood demurely behind him while I ran up-stairs in the warehouse to disguise myself in tartan plaid. When I came out, Duncan Cameron was in the gateway welcoming Cuthbert Grant and the _Bois-Brulés_, as if pillaging defenceless settlers were heroic. Victors from war may be inspiring, but a half-breed rabble, red-handed from deeds of violence, is not a sight to edify any man.
"What's this ye have, Father?" bawled one impudent fellow, and he pointed sneeringly at the figure in the folds of the shawl.
"Let the wench be!" was the priest's reply, and the half-breed lounged past with a laugh.
I was about to offer Frances Sutherland my arm to escort her from the mob, when I felt Father Holland's hard knuckles dig viciously into my ribs.
"Ye fool ye! Ye blundering idiot!" he whispered, "she's a half-breed. Och! But's time y'r eastern greenness was tannin' a good western russet! Let her follow with bowed head, or you'll have the whole pack on y'r heels!"
With that admonition I strode boldly out, she behind, humble, with downcast eyes like a half-breed girl.
We ran down the river path through the willows and jumping into a canoe swiftly rounded the forks of the Assiniboine and Red. There we left the canoe and fled along a trail beneath the cliff till the shouting of the half-breeds could be no longer heard. At once I turned to offer her my arm. She must have bruised her feet through the thin moccasins, for the way was very rough. I saw that she was trembling from fatigue.