"Oui, Monsieur," returned Paul, "Monsieur Stephens is a very great
favourite with our family. We are under an obligation to him that it
will be difficult ever to repay."
"Whence comes this benefactor," queried M. Riel, with an ugly sneer,
"and how has he placed you under such an obligation?" Then,
reflecting that he was showing a bitterness respecting the young man
which he could neither explain nor justify, he said: '"Mais, pardonnez-moi. Think me not rude for asking these questions.
When pretty eyes are employed to see, and pretty lips to tell of,
game for one sportsman in preference to another, the neglected one
might be excused for seeking to know in what way fortune has been
kind with his rival."
"Shall I tell the whole story, Annette" enquired Paul, or will you
do so?"
"O, I know that you will not leave anything out that can show the
bravery of Mr. Stephens," replied the girl.
"Well, last spring, Annette was spending some days with her aunt, a
few miles up Red River. It was the flood time, and as you remember,
the river was swollen to a point higher than it had ever reached
within the memory of any body in the settlement. Annette is
venturesome, and since a child has shown a keen delight in going upon
boats, or paddling a canoe; so, one day, during the visit which I
have mentioned, she went into a birch that swung in a little pond,
formed behind her uncle's premises by the over-flowing of the
stream's channel. Untying the canoe, she seized the blade and began
to paddle about in the lazy water. Presently she reached the eddies,
which, since a child, she has always called the 'rings of the
water-witches,' wherever she learned that term. Her cousin Violette was
standing in the doorway as she saw Annette move off, and she cried
out to her to beware of the eddies; but my sister, wayward and
reckless as it is her habit to be in such matters, merely replied
with a laugh; and then as the canoe began to turn round and round in
the gurgling circles she cried out.
"I am in the rings of the water-witches. C'est bon! bon! C'est
magnifique! O I wish you were with me, Violette, ma chere. It is so
delightful to go round and round." A little way beyond, not more than
twice the canoe's length, rushed by roaring, the full tide of the
river.
"Beware, Annette, beware, for the love of heaven, of the river. If
you get a little further out, and these eddies must drag you out, you
will be in the mad current, and no arm can paddle the canoe to land
out of the flood. Then, dear, there is the fall below, and the fans
of the mill. Come back, won't you! But my sister heeded not the
words. She only laughed, and began dipping water from the eddies with
the paddle-blade, as if it were a spoon she had in her hand. 'I am
dipping water from the witches-rings,' she cried. 'How the drops
sparkle! Every one is a glittering jewel. I wish you were here with
me, Violette!' Suddenly and in an altered tone, she cried, 'Mon Dieu!
My paddle is gone.' The paddle had no sooner glided out into the
rushing, turbulent waters than the canoe followed it, and Annette saw
herself drifting on to her doom. Half a mile below was the fall, and
at the side of the fall, went ever and ever around with tremendous
violence, the rending fans of the water-mill. Annette knew full well
that any drift boat, or log, or raft, carried down the river at
freshet-flow, was always swept into the toils of the inexorable
wheels. Yet, if she were reckless and without heed a few minutes
before, I am told that now she was calm. Violette gave the alarm that
Annette was adrift in the river without a paddle, and in a few
seconds every body living near had turned out, and was running down
the shore. Several brought paddies, but it took hard running to keep
up with the canoe, for the flood was racing at a speed of eight miles
an hour. When they did get up in line each one flung out a paddle.
But one fell too far out, and another not far enough. About fifteen
men were along the banks in violent excitement, and every one of them
saw nothing but doom for Annette. As the canoe neared a point about
two hundred yards above the falls, a young white-man--all the rest
were bois-brules--rushed out upon the bank, with a paddle in his
hand, and without a word sprang into the mad waters. With a few
strokes he was at the side of the canoe, and put the paddle into
Annette's hand. 'Here;' he said, 'Keep away from the mill; that is
your only danger; and steer sheer over the falls, getting as close as
possible to the left bank.' The height of the fall, as you are aware,
was not more than fifteen or eighteen feet, and there was plenty of
water below, with not very much danger from rocks. 'Go you on shore
now and I will meet my doom, or achieve my safety,' my sister said;
but the young man answered, 'Nay, I will go over the fall too: I can
then be of some service to you.' So he swam along by the canoe's side
directing my sister, and shaping the course of the prow on the very
brink of the fall. Then all shot over together. The canoe and
Annette, and the young man were buried far under the terrible mass of
water, but they soon came to the surface again, when the heroic
stranger seized my sister, and through the fury of the mad churning
flood, landed her unhurt upon the bank. That young man was Philip
Edmund Stephens, whom you saw here this morning. Is it any wonder,
think you, Monsieur, that when Annette sees wild turkeys upon the
prairie, she keeps the knowledge of it to herself till she gets the
ear of her deliverer?