Walker, whose business detained him for some time at the mission, decided upon marrying one of the fair-haired sisters,—­he did not much care which, they were so singularly alike.  Alixe happened to be the one, however, to whom he tendered a share in his fortunes, which she accepted in the random manner of one to whom it was of but little consequence whether she said “Yes” or “No.”  Bloyse would have followed him, and him only, to the end of all; but he never knew it at the right time, though the women of the fort could have told him.

It was late one afternoon when he was married to Alixe, in the chapel of the mission.  That was the night of the massacre.  Two hours after the wedding, the Blackfeet, combined with some allied tribe, came down like wolves upon the fort.  There was treachery, somewhere, and they got in.  In the thick of the fight, and when all seemed hopeless, Walker shot down a tall Indian who was dragging his bride away to where the horses of the tribe were picketed.  In a second he had leaped upon a horse, and, holding the young girl before him, galloped away in the direction of a stream running into the Columbia,—­a stream of fierce torrents, navigable only at one place, and that by flat-bottomed boats or scows, in which passengers warped themselves across by a grass rope stretched from bank to bank.  Once over this river, he could easily reach a friendly camp, where he and his bride would have been in safety.

The moon had risen when he reached the ferry.  Turning the horse adrift, he lifted the young woman into the scow, and began to warp rapidly across by the rope with one hand, while he supported his fainting companion close to him with the other.  Suddenly, a sharp click sounded from the opposite bank:  the rope gave way, and Walker and his companion were precipitated violently into the water, the boat shooting far away from beneath their feet.  It ran a strong current there, culminating in a furious rapid not two hundred yards lower down.  Retaining his grasp of the young woman, Walker fought bravely against the stream, down which he felt they were sweeping, faster and faster, until a violent concussion deprived him, for a moment, of consciousness.  When he came to himself, he was still swimming, but his companion was gone.  The current had driven them forcibly against a rock, throwing her from his grasp.  The wild rapid was just below them.  She was never heard of again; but Walker managed to reach the shore, where he must have lain long in an exhausted condition, for it was daylight when he awoke to any recollection of what had happened.

The ferry-rope had been cut, as he afterwards discovered, by an Indian, in whose brother’s removal by hanging he had been instrumental, and who had been watching him, day and night, for the purpose of wreaking a bitter vengeance.

Returning to reconnoitre, with some of his friends, Walker found the mission a heap of ruins,—­blackened walls, charred rafters, and unrecognizable human remains.