I am to carry Mamselle Rosalin of Green Bay from Mackinac to Cheboygan
that time, and it is the end of March, and the wind have turn from east
to west in the morning. A man will go out with the wind in the east, to
haul wood from Boblo, or cut a hole to fish, and by night he cannot get
home--ice, it is rotten; it goes to pieces quick when the March wind
turns.
I am not afraid for me--long, tall fellow then; eye that can see to
Point aux Pins; I can lift more than any other man that goes in the
boats to Green Bay or the Soo; can swim, run on snow-shoes, go without
eating two, three days, and draw my belt in. Sometimes the ice-floes
carry me miles, for they all go east down the lakes when they start, and
I have landed the other side of Drummond. But when you have a woman with
you--Oh God, yes, that is different.
The way of it is this: I have brought the mail from St. Ignace with my
traino--you know the train-au-galise--the birch sledge with dogs. It
is flat, and turn up at the front like a toboggan. And I have take the
traino because it is not safe for a horse; the wind is in the west, and
the strait bends and looks too sleek. Ice a couple of inches thick will
bear up a man and dogs. But this old ice a foot thick, it is turning
rotten. I have come from St. Ignace early in the afternoon, and the
people crowd about to get their letters, and there is Mamselle Rosalin
crying to go to Cheboygan, because her lady has arrive there sick, and
has sent the letter a week ago. Her friends say:
“It is too late to go to-day, and the strait is dangerous.”
She say: “I make a bundle and walk. I must go when my lady is sick and
her husband the lieutenant is away, and she has need of me.”
Mamselle's friends talk and she cry. She runs and makes a little bundle
in the house and comes out ready to walk to Cheboygan. There is nobody
can prevent her. Some island people are descend from noblesse of France.
But none of them have travel like Mamselle Rosalin with the officer's
wife to Indiana, to Chicago, to Detroit. She is like me, French.* The
girls use to turn their heads to see me walk in to mass; but I never
look grand as Mamselle Rosalin when she step out to that ice.
* The old fellow would not own the Chippewa.
I have not a bit of sense; I forget maman and my brothers and sisters
that depend on me. I run to Mamselle Rosalin, take off my cap, and bow
from my head to my heel, like you do in the dance. I will take her to
Cheboygan with my traino--Oh God, yes! And I laugh at the wet track the
sledge make, and pat my dogs and tell them they are not tired. I wrap
her up in the fur, and she thank me and tremble, and look me through
with her big black eyes so that I am ready to go down in the strait.
The people on the shore hurrah, though some of them cry out to warn us.
“The ice is cracked from Mission Point to the hook of Round Island,
Ignace Pelott!”
“I know that,” I say. “Good-day, messieurs!”
The crack from Mission Point--under what you call Robinson's Folly--to
the hook of Round Island always comes first in a breaking up; and I hold
my breath in my teeth as I skurry the dogs across it. The ice grinds,
the water follows the sledge. But the sun is so far down in the
southwest, I think “The wind will grow colder. The real thaw will not
come before to-morrow.”
[Illustration: The Train au Galise 080]
I am to steer betwixt the east side of Round Island and Boblo. When we
come into the shadow of Boblo we are chill with damp, far worse than the
clear sharp air that blows from Canada. I lope beside the traino, and
not take my eyes off the course to Cheboygan, except that I see the
islands look blue, and darkness stretching before its time. The sweat
drop off my face, yet I feel that wind through my wool clothes, and
am glad of the shelter between Boblo and Round Island, for the strait
outside will be the worst.
There is an Indian burying-ground on open land above the beach on that
side of Round Island. I look up when the thick woods are pass, for the
sunset ought to show there. But what I see is a skeleton like it is
sliding down hill from the graveyard to the beach. It does not move. The
earth is wash from it, and it hangs staring at me.
I cannot tell how that make me feel! I laugh, for it is funny; but I am
ashame, like my father is expose and Mamselle Rosalin can see him. If
I do not cover him again I am disgrace. I think I will wait till some
other day when I can get back from Cheboygan; for what will she say if
I stop the traino when we have such a long journey, and it is so near
night, and the strait almost ready to move? So I crack the whip, but
something pull, pull! I cannot go on! I say to myself, “The ground is
froze; how can I cover up that skeleton without any shovel, or even a
hatchet to break the earth?”
But something pull, pull, so I am oblige to stop, and the dogs turn in
without one word and drag the sledge up the beach of Bound Island.
“What is the matter?” says Mamselle Eosalin. She is out of the sledge as
soon as it stops.
I not know what to answer, but tell her I have to cut a stick to mend
my whip-handle. I think I will cut a stick and rake some earth over the
skeleton to cover it, and come another day with a shovel and dig a new
grave. The dogs lie down and pant, and she looks through me with her big
eyes like she beg me to hurry.
But there is no danger she will see the skeleton. We both look back to
Mackinac. The island have its hump up against the north, and the village
in its lap around the bay, and the Mission eastward near the cliff; but
all seem to be moving! We run along the beach of Bound Island, and then
we see the channel between that and Boblo is moving too, and the ice is
like wet loaf-sugar, grinding as it floats.
We hear some roars away off, like cannon when the Americans come to the
island. My head swims. I cross myself and know why something pull,
pull, to make me bring the traino to the beach, and I am oblige to that
skeleton who slide down hill to warn me.
When we have seen Mackinac, we walk to the other side and look south and
southeast towards Cheboygan.. All is the same. The ice is moving out of
the strait.
“We are strand on this island!” says Mamselle Rosalin. “Oh, what shall
we do?”
I tell her it is better to be prisoners on Bound Island than on a cake
of ice in the strait, for I have tried the cake of ice and know.
“We will camp and build a fire in the cove opposite Mackinac,” I say.
“Maman and the children will see the light and feel sure we are safe.”
“I have done wrong,” says she. “If you lose your life on this journey,
it is my fault.”
Oh God, no! I tell her. She is not to blame for anything, and there is
no danger. I have float many a time when the strait breaks up, and not
save my hide so dry as it is now. We only have to stay on Round Island
till we can get off.
“And how long will that be?” she ask.
I shrug my shoulders. There is no telling. Sometimes the strait clears
very soon, sometimes not. Maybe two, three days.
Rosalin sit down on a stone.
I tell her we can make camp, and show signals to Mackinac, and when the
ice permit, a boat will be sent.
She is crying, and I say her lady will be well. No use to go to
Cheboygan anyhow, for it is a week since her lady sent for her. But
she cry on, and I think she wish I leave her alone, so I say I will get
wood. And I unharness the dogs, and run along the beach to cover that
skeleton before dark. I look and cannot find him at all. Then I go up to
the graveyard and look down. There is no skeleton anywhere. I have seen
his skull and his ribs and his arms and legs, all sliding down hill. But
he is gone!
The dusk close in upon the islands, and I not know what to think--cross
myself, two, three times; and wish we had land on Boblo instead of Round
Island, though there are wild beasts on both.
But there is no time to be scare at skeletons that slide down and
disappear, for Mamselle Rosalin must have her camp and her place to
sleep. Every man use to the bateaux have always his tinder-box, his
knife, his tobacco, but I have more than that; I have leave Mackinac so
quick I forget to take out the storekeeper's bacon that line the bottom
of the sledge, and Mamselle Eosalin sit on it in the furs! We have
plenty meat, and I sing like a voyageur while I build the fire. Drift,
so dry in summer you can light it with a coal from your pipe, lay on the
beach, but is now winter-soaked, and I make a fireplace of logs, and cut
pine branches to help it.
It is all thick woods on Round Island, so close it tear you to pieces if
you try to break through; only four-footed things can crawl there. When
the fire is blazing up I take my knife and cut a tunnel like a little
room, and pile plenty evergreen branches. This is to shelter Mamselle
Rosalin, for the night is so raw she shiver. Our tent is the sky,
darkness, and clouds. But I am happy. I unload the sledge. The bacon is
wet. On long sticks the slices sizzle and sing while I toast them, and
the dogs come close and blink by the fire, and lick their chops. Rosalin
laugh and I laugh, for it smell like a good kitchen; and we sit and eat
nothing but toasted meat--better than lye corn and tallow that you have
when you go out with the boats. Then I feed the dogs, and she walk with
me to the water edge, and we drink with our hands.
It is my house, when we sit on the fur by the fire. I am so light I want
my fiddle. I wish it last like a dream that Mamselle Rosalin and me keep
house together on Round Island. You not want to go to heaven when the
one you think about all the time stays close by you.
But pretty soon I want to go to heaven quick. I think I jump in the lake
if maman and the children had anybody but me. When I light my pipe she
smile. Then her great big eyes look off towards Mackinac, and I turn and
see the little far-away lights.
“They know we are on Round Island together,” I say to cheer her, and she
move to the edge of the fur. Then she say “Good-night,” and get up and
go to her tunnel-house in the bushes, and I jump up too, and spread the
fur there for her. And I not get back to the fire before she make a
door of all the branches I have cut, and is hid like a squirrel I feel
I dance for joy because she is in my camp for me to guard. But what is
that? It is a woman that cry out loud by herself! I understand now why
she sit down so hopeless when we first land. I have not know much about
women, but I understand how she feel. It is not her lady, or the dark,
or the ice break up, or the cold. It is not Ignace Pelott. It is the
name of being prison on Round Island with a man till the ice is out
of the straits. She is so shame she want to die. I think I will kill
myself. If Mamselle Rosalin cry out loud once more, I plunge in the
lake--and then what become of maman and the children?
She is quieter; and I sit down and cannot smoke, and the dogs pity me.
Old Sauvage lay his nose on my knee. I do not say a word to him, but I
pat him, and we talk with our eyes, and the bright camp-fire shows each
what the other is say.
“Old Sauvage,” I tell him, “I am not good man like the priest. I have
been out with the boats, and in Indian camps, and I not had in my life a
chance to marry, because there are maman and the children. But you know,
old Sauvage, how I have feel about Mamselle Rosalin, it is three years.”
Old Sauvage hit his tail on the ground and answer he know.
“I have love her like a dog that not dare to lick her hand. And now she
hate me because I am shut on Round Island with her while the ice goes
out. I not good man, but it pretty tough to stand that.” Old Sauvage
hit his tail on the ground and say, “That so.” I hear the water on the
gravel like it sound when we find a place to drink; then it is plenty
company, but now it is lonesome. The water say to people on Mackinac,
“Rosalin and Ignace Pelott, they are on Round Island.” What make you
proud, maybe, when you turn it and look at it the other way, make you
sick. But I cannot walk the broken ice, and if I could, she would be lef
alone with the dogs. I think I will build another camp.
But soon there is a shaking in the bushes, and Sauvage and his
bledgemates bristle and stand up and show their teeth. Out comes
Mamselle Eosalin with a scream to the other side of the fire.
I have nothing except my knife, and I take a chunk of burning wood and
go into her house. Maybe I see some green eyes. I have handle vild-cat
skin too much not to know that smell in the dark.
I take all the branches from Rosalin's house and pile them by the fire,
and spread the fur robe on them. And I pull out red coals and put more
logs on before I sit down away off between her and the spot where she
hear that noise. If the graveyard was over us, I would expect to see
that skeleton once more.
“What was it?” she whisper.