CONTAINS THE APOLOGUE OF MANABOZHO'S TOE.
They had threaded their course through the many islets at the foot of
the lake, and were speeding down the headwaters of the Richelieu.
The forests had closed in upon them, shutting out the mountains.
The convoy--officered for the most part by Canadian militiamen with
but a sprinkling of regulars such as Sergeant Barboux--soon began to
straggle. The prisoners were to be delivered at Montreal. Montcalm
had dispatched them thither, on short rations, for the simple reason
that Fort Carillon held scarcely food enough to support his own army;
but he could detach very few of his efficients for escort, and, for
the rest, it did not certainly appear who was in command. Barboux,
for example, was frankly insubordinate, and declared a dozen times a
day that it did not become gentlemen of the Bearn and Royal Roussillon
to take their orders from any _coureur de bois_ who might choose to
call himself Major.
Consequently the convoy soon straggled at will, the boatmen labouring
if the fancy took them, or resting their paddles across their thighs
and letting their canoes drift on the current. Now and again they
met a train of bateaux labouring up with reinforcements, that had
heard of the victory from the leading boats and hurrahed as they
passed, or shouted questions which Barboux answered as a conscious
hero of the fight and with no false modesty. But for hour after hour
John lived alone with his own boat's company and the interminable
procession of the woods.
They descended to the river, these woods, and overhung it--each bank
a mute monotonous screen of foliage, unbroken by glade or clearing;
pine and spruce and hemlock, maple and alder; piled plumes of green,
motionless, brooding, through which no sunrays broke, though here and
there a silver birch drew a shaft of light upon their sombre
background. Here were no English woodlands, no stretches of pale
green turf, no vistas opening beneath flattened boughs, with blue
distant hills and perhaps a group of antlers topping the bracken.
The wild life of these forests crawled among thickets or lurked in
sinister shadows. No bird poured out its heart in them; no lark
soared out of them, breasting heaven. At rare intervals a note fell
on the ear--the scream of hawk or eagle, the bitter cackling laugh of
blue jay or woodpecker, the loon's ghostly cry--solitary notes, and
unhappy, as though wrung by pain out of the choking silence; or away
on the hillside a grouse began drumming, or a duck went whirring down
the long waterway until the sound sank and was overtaken again by the
river's slow murmur.
When night had hushed down these noises, the forest would be silent
for an hour or two, and then awake more horribly with the howling of
wolves. John slept little of nights; not on account of the wolves,
but because the mosquitoes allowed him no peace. (They were torture
to a wounded man; but he declared afterwards that they cured his
wounded arm willynilly, for they forced him to keep it active under
pain of being eaten alive.) By day he dozed, lulled by the eternal
woods, the eternal dazzle on the water, the eternal mutter of the
flood, the paddle-strokes, M. le Chameau's singing.
They were now six in the canoe--the sergeant, le Chameau, the two
Indians, John a Cleeve and the elder Highlander, Corporal Hugh
McQuarters.
By this time--that is to say, having seen him--John understood the
meaning of M. le Chameau's queer name. He was a hunchback, but a gay
little man nevertheless; reputedly a genius in the art of shooting
rapids. He was also a demon to work, when allowed; but the sergeant
would not allow him.
It suited the sergeant's humour to lag behind the other boats by way
of asserting his dignity and proving that he, Barboux, held himself
at no trumpery colonial's beck and call. Also he had begun to nurse
a scheme; as will appear by and by.
At present it amused him to order the canoe to shore for an hour or
two in the heat of the day, lend his bayonet to the Indians, and
watch, smoking, while they searched the banks and dug out musquashes.
These they cooked and ate; which Barboux asserted to be good economy,
since provisions were running short. It occurred to John that this
might be a still better reason for hurrying forward, but he was
grateful for the siesta under the boughs while the Indians worked.
They were Ojibways both, the elder by name Menehwehna and the younger
(a handsome fellow with a wonderful gift of silence) Muskingon.
Since that one stealthy act of kindness Menehwehna had given no sign
of cordiality. John had tried a score of times to catch his eye, and
had caught it once or twice, but only to find the man inscrutable.
Yet he was by no means taciturn; but seemed, as his warpaint of soot
and vermilion wore thinner, to thaw into what (for an Indian) might
pass for geniality. After a successful rat-hunt he would even grow
loquacious, seating himself on the bank and jabbering while he
skinned his spoils, using for the most part a jargon of broken French
(in which he was fluent) and native words of which Barboux understood
very few and John none at all. When he fell back on Ojibway pure and
simple, it was to address Muskingon, who answered in monosyllables,
and was sparing of these. Muskingon and McQuarters were the silent
men of the party--the latter by force as well as choice, since he
knew no French and in English could only converse with John.
He and Muskingon had this further in common--they both detested the
sergeant.
John, for his part, had patched up a peace with the man, after this
fashion: On the second day Barboux had called upon le Chameau for a
song; and, the little hunchback having given "En roulant ma boule,"
demanded another.
"But it is monsieur's turn, who has a charming voice," suggested le
Chameau politely.
"It has the misfortune to grate on the ears of our English milord,"
Barboux answered with an angry flush, stealing a malevolent glance at
John. "And I do not sing to please myself."
John doubted this; but being by nature quick to forgive and repent a
quarrel, he answered with some grace: "I was annoyed, Sergeant
Barboux, and said what I thought would hurt rather than what was
just. You possess, indeed, a charming voice, and I regret to have
insulted it."
"You mean it?" asked Barboux, still red in the face, but patently
delighted.
"So entirely that I shall not pardon myself until you have done us
the favour to sing."
The sergeant held out his hand. "And that's very handsomely said!
Given or taken, an apology never goes astray between brave fellows.
And, after all," he added, "I had, if I remember, something the
better of that argument! You really wish me to sing, then?"
"To be sure I do," Jack assured him, smiling.
Barboux cleared his throat, wagged his head once or twice impassively
and trolled out:
"Belle meuniere, en passant par ici,
Ne suis-je-t'y pas eloigne d'ltalie. . . ."
From this graceful opening the song declined into the grossest filth;
and it was easy to see, watching his face, why McQuarters, without
understanding a word of French, had accused him of singing
"sculduddery." John, though disgusted, could not help being amused
by a performance which set him in mind now of a satyr and now of a
mincing schoolgirl--_vert galant avec un sourire de cantatrice_--
lasciviousness blowing affected kisses in the intervals of licking
its chops. At the conclusion he complimented the singer, with a
grave face.
Barboux bowed. "It has, to say true, a little more marrow in it than
le Chameau's _rossignols_ and _rosiers_. Hola, Chameau; the
Englishman here agrees that you sing well, but that your matter is
watery stuff. You must let me teach you one or two of my songlets--"
"Pardon, m'sieur, mais ca sera un peu trop--trop vif; c'est-a-dire
pour moi," stammered the little hunchback.
Barboux guffawed. The idea of le Chameau as a ladies' man tickled
him hugely, and he tormented the patient fellow with allusions to it,
and to his deformity, twenty times a day.
And yet the sergeant was not ill-natured--until you happened to cross
him, when his temper became damnable--but merely a big, vain,
boisterous lout. John, having taken his measure, found it easy to
study him philosophically and even to be passably amused by him.
But he made himself, it must be owned, an affliction; and an
affliction against which, since the boats had parted company, there
was no redress. He was conceited, selfish, tyrannical, and
inordinately lazy. He never took a hand with the paddle, but would
compel the others to work, or to idle, as the freak took him.
He docked the crew's allowance but fed himself complacently on more
than full rations, proving this to be his due by discourse on the
innate superiority of Frenchmen over Canadians, Englishmen or
Indians. He would sit by the hour bragging of his skill with the
gun, his victories in love, his feats of strength--baring his
chest, arms, legs, and inviting the company to admire his muscles.
He jested from sunrise until sundown, and never made a jest that did
not hurt. Worst of all was it when he schooled le Chameau to sing
his obscenities after him, line for line.
"No, no, I beg you, monsieur," the little fellow would protest,
"c'est--c'est sale!"--and would blush like a girl.
"_Sale_, you dog? I'll teach you--" A blow would follow.
M. Barboux was getting liberal with his blows. Once he struck
Muskingon. Menehwehna growled ominously, and the growl seemed to
warn not only Barboux but Muskingon, who for the moment had looked
murderous.
John guessed that some tie, if not of blood-relationship, at least of
strong affection, bound the two Indians together.
For himself, as soon as his wound allowed him to sit upright, which
it did on the second day--the bullet having glanced across his ribs
and left but its ugly track in the thin flesh covering them--the
monotony of the woods and the ceaseless glint of the water were a
drug which he could summon at will and so withdraw himself within a
stupor untroubled by Barboux or his boastings. He suffered the man,
but saw no necessity for heeding him.
He had observed two or three hanks of fishing-line dangling from the
thin strips of cedar which sheathed the canoe within, a little below
the gunwale. They had hooks attached, and from the shape of these
hooks he judged them to belong to the Indians. He unhitched one of
the lines, and more for the sake of killing time than for any set
purpose, began to construct a gaudy salmon-fly with a few frayed
threads of cloth from his tunic. After a minute or two he was aware
of Muskingon watching him with interest, and by signs begged for a
feather from the young Indian's top-knot. Muskingon drew one forth
and, under instructions, plucked off a piece of fluff from the root
of the feather, a small quill or two, and handed them over. With a
length of red silk drawn from his sash John, within half an hour, was
bending a very pretty fly on the hook. It did not in the least
resemble any winged creature upon earth; but it had a meretricious
air about it, and even a "killing" one when he finished up by binding
its body tight with an inch of gilt thread from his collar.
Meanwhile, his ambition growing with success, he had cast his eyes
about, to alight on a long jointed cane which the canoe carried as
part of its appanage, to be lifted on cross-legs and serve as the
ridge of an awning on wet nights. It was cumbrous, but flexible in
some small degree. Muskingon dragged it within reach, and sat
watching while John whipped a loop to its end and ran the line
through it.
He had begun in pure idleness, but now the production of the rod had
drawn everyone's eyes. Barboux was watching him superciliously, and
Menehwehna with grave attention, resting his paddle on his knees
while the canoe drifted. Fish had been leaping throughout the
afternoon--salmon by the look of them. John knew something of
salmon; he had played and landed many a fish out of the Dart above
Totnes, and in his own river below Cleeve Court. The sun had dropped
behind the woods, the water was not too clear, and in short it looked
a likely hour for feeding. He lifted his clumsy rod in his right
hand, steadied it with his injured left, and put all his skill into
the cast.
As he cast, the weight of his rod almost overbalanced him: a dart of
pain came from his closing wound and he knew that he had been a fool
and overtaxed his strength. But to his amazement a fish rose at once
and gulped the fly down. He tossed the rod across to Muskingon,
calling to him to draw it inboard and sit quite still; and catching
the line, tautened it and slackened it out slowly, feeling up to the
loop in which (as was to be expected) it had kinked and was sticking
fast.
He had the line in both hands now, with Muskingon paying out the
slack behind him; and if the hook held--the line had no gut--he felt
confident of his fish. By the feel of him he was a salmon--or a
black bass. John had heard of black bass and the sport they gave.
A beauty, at any rate!
Yes, he was a salmon. Giving on the line but never slackening it,
though it cut his forefinger cruelly (his left being all but useless
to check the friction), John worked him to the top of the water and
so, by little and little, to the side of the canoe. But his own
strength was giving out, faster now than the salmon's. His wound had
parted; and as he clenched his teeth he felt the line fraying.
The fish would have been lost had not Muskingon, almost without
shaking the canoe, dropped overboard, dived under and clenched both
hands upon his struggles.
It was Menehwehna who dragged the salmon across the gunwale; for John
had fainted. And when he recovered, Menehwehna was coolly gutting
the monster--if a fish of eighteen pounds can be called a monster; as
surely he can when taken in such fashion.
After this, John being out of action, Sergeant Barboux must take a
turn with the rod. He did not (he protested) count on landing a
fish; but the hooking of one had been so ridiculously prompt and easy
that it was hard to see how he could fail.
But he did. He flogged the water till nightfall, confidently at
first though clumsily, at length with the air of a Xerxes casting
chains into the flood; but never a bite rewarded him. He gave over
the rod in a huff, but began again at dawn, to lay it down after
an hour and swear viciously. As he retired Muskingon took the pole;
he had watched John's one and only cast and began to imitate it
patiently, while the sergeant jeered and the canoe drifted.
Towards noon he felt a bite, struck, and missed; but half an hour
later he struck again and Menehwehna shouted and pointed as John's
fly was sucked under in a noble swirl of water. Muskingon dragged
back his rod and stretched out a hand for the line; but Barboux had
already run forward and clutched it, at the same moment roughly
thrusting him down on his seat; and then in a moment the mischief was
done. The line parted, and the sergeant floundered back with a lurch
that sent the canoe down to her gunwale.
McQuarters laughed aloud and grimly. Menehwehna's dark eyes shone.
Even John, though the lurch obliged him to fling out both hands to
balance the boat, and the sudden movement sent a dart of pain through
his wound, could not hold back a smile. Barboux was furious.
"Eh? So you are pleased to laugh at me, master Englishman!
Wait then, and we'll see who laughs last. And you, dog of an Indian,
at what are you rubbing your hands?"
"Your exploit, O illustrious warrior," answered Menehwehna with
gravity, "set me in mind of Manabozho; and when one thinks upon
Manabozho it is permitted and even customary to rub the hands."
"Who the devil was Manabozho?"
"He was a very Great One--even another such Great One as yourself.
It was he who made the earth once on a time, by accident.
And another time he went fishing."
"Have a care, Menehwehna. I bid you beware if you are poking fun at
me."
"I am telling of Manabozho. He went fishing in the lake and let down
a line. 'King Fish,' said he, 'take hold of my bait,' and he kept
saying this until the King Fish felt annoyed and said, 'This
Manabozho is a nuisance. Here, trout, take hold of his line.'
The trout obeyed, and Manabozho shouted, 'Wa-i-he! Wa-i-he! I have
him!' while the canoe rocked to and fro. But when he saw the trout
he called, 'Esa, esa! Shame upon you, trout; I fish for your
betters.' So the trout let go; and again Manabozho sank his line,
saying, 'O King Fish, take hold of my bait.' 'I shall lose my temper
soon with this fellow,' said the King Fish; 'here, sunfish, take hold
of his line.' The sunfish did so, and Manabozho's canoe spun round
and round; but when he saw what he had caught, he cried out,
'Esa, esa! Shame upon you, sunfish; I am come for your betters.'
So the sunfish let go, and again Manabozho--"
"Joli amphigouri!" yawned the sergeant. "Pardon, M. Menehwehna, but
this story of yours seems likely to last."
"Not so, O chief; for this time the King Fish took the bait and
swallowed Manabozho, canoe and all."
John laughed aloud; but enough sense remained in Barboux to cover his
irritation. "Well, that was the last of him, and the Lord be
praised!"
"There is much more of the story," said Menehwehna, "and all full of
instruction."
"We will postpone it, anyhow. Take up your paddle, if you have not
forgotten how to work."
So Menehwehna and the hunchback paddled anew, while the great Barboux
sat and sulked--a sufficiently childish figure. Night fell, the
canoe was brought to shore, and the Indians as usual lifted out the
wounded men and laid them on beds of moss strewn with pine-boughs and
cedar. While Menehwehna lit the camp-fire, Muskingon prepared John's
salmon for supper, and began to grill it deftly as soon as the smoke
died down on a pile of clear embers.
John sleepily watched these preparations, and was fairly dozing when
he heard Barboux announce with an oath that for his impudence
the dog of an Englishman should go without his share of the fish.
The announcement scarcely awoke him--the revenge was so petty.
Barboux in certain moods could be such a baby that John had ceased to
regard him except as an object of silent mirth. So he smiled and
answered sweetly that Sergeant Barboux was entirely welcome; for
himself a scrap of biscuit would suffice. And with that he closed
his eyes again.
But it seemed that, for some reason, the two Indians were angry, not
to say outraged. By denying him his share Barboux had--no doubt
ignorantly--broken some sacred law in the etiquette of hunting.
Muskingon growled; the firelight showed his lips drawn back, like a
dog's, from his white teeth. Menehwehna remonstrated. Even le
Chameau seemed to be perturbed.
Barboux, however, did not understand; and as nobody would share in
John's portion, ate it himself with relish amid an angry silence,
which at length impressed him.
"Eh? What the devil's wrong with you all?" he demanded, looking
about him.
Menehwehna broke into a queer growl, and began to rub his hands.
"Manabozho--" he began.
"Fichtre! It appears we have not heard the end of him, then?"
"It is usual," Menehwehna explained, "to rub one's hands at the
mention of Manabozho. In my tribe it is even necessary."
"Farceur de Manabozho! the habit has not extended to mine," growled
Barboux. "Is this the same story?"
"O slayer of heads, it is an entirely different one." The sergeant
winced, and John cast himself back on his leafy bed to smile up at
the branches. _Tueur de tetes_ may be a high compliment from an
Indian warrior, but a vocalist may be excused for looking twice at
it.
"This Manabozho," Menehwehna continued tranquilly, "was so big and
strong that he began to think himself everybody's master. One day he
walked in the forest, cuffing the ears of the pine-trees for sport,
and knocking them flat if they took it ill; and at length he came on
a clearing. In the clearing was a lodge, and in the lodge was no one
but a small child, curled up asleep with its toe in its mouth.
Manabozho gazed at the child for a long while, and said he, 'I have
never seen anyone before who could lie with his toe in his mouth.
But I can do it, to be sure.' Whereupon he lay down in much the same
posture as the child, and took his right foot in his hand. But it
would not reach by a long way. 'How stupid I am,' cried Manabozho,
'when it was the left foot all the time!' So he tried the left foot,
but this also would not reach. He rolled on his back, and twisted
and bent himself, and strained and struggled until the tears ran down
his face. Then he sat up in despair; and behold! he had awakened the
child, and the child was laughing at him. 'Oh, oh!' cried Manabozho
in a passion, 'am I then to be mocked by a babe!' And with that he
drew a great breath and blew the child away over the mountains, and
afterwards walked across and across the lodge, trampling it down
until not a trace of it remained. 'After all,' said Manabozho,
'I can do something. And I see nobody hereabouts to deny that I can
put my toe in my mouth!'"
As Menehwehna concluded, John waited for an explosion of wrath.
None came. He raised his head after a minute and looked about him.
Barboux sat smoking and staring into the camp-fire. The Indian had
laid himself down to slumber, with his blanket drawn up to his ears.