CIVILIZATION'S VENEER RUBS OFF
My uncle accompanied our flotilla as far as Lachine and occupied a place
in my division of canoes. Many were the admonitions he launched out like
thunderbolts whenever his craft and mine chanced to glide abreast.
"If you lay hands on that skunk," he had said, the malodorous epithet
being his designation for Louis Laplante, "If you lay hands on that
skunk, don't be a simpleton. Skin him, Sir, by the Lord, skin him! Let
him play the ostrich act! Keep your own counsel and work him for all
you're worth! Let him play his deceitful game! By Jove! Give the villain
rope enough to hang himself! Gain your end! Afterwards forget and
forgive if you like; but, by the Lord, remember and don't ignore the
fact, that repentance can't turn a skunk into an innocent, pussy cat!"
And so Mr. Jack MacKenzie continued to warn me all the way from Quebec
to Montreal, mixing his metaphors as topers mix drinks. But I had long
since learned not to remonstrate against these outbursts of explosive
eloquence--not though all the canons of Laval literati should be
outraged. "What, Sir?" he had roared out when I, in full conceit of new
knowledge, had audaciously ventured to pull him up, once in my student
days. "What, Sir? Don't talk to me of your book-fangled balderdash! Is
language for the use of man, or man for the use of language?" and he
quoted from Hamlet's soliloquy in a way that set me packing my pedant
lore in the unused lumber-room of brain lobes. And so, I say, Mr. Jack
MacKenzie continued to pour instructions into my ear for the venturesome
life on which I had entered. "The lad's a fool, only a fool," he said,
still harping on Louis, "and mind you answer the fool according to his
folly!"
"Most men are fools first, and then knaves, knaves because they have
been fools," I returned to my uncle, "and I fancy Laplante has graduated
from the fool stage by this time, and is a full diploma knave!"
"That's all true," he retorted, "but don't you forget there's always
fool enough left in the knave to give you your opportunity, if you're
not a fool. Joint in the armor, lad! Use your cutlass there."
Apart from the peppery discourses of my kinsman, I remember very little
of the trip up the St. Lawrence from Ste. Anne to Lachine with Eric
sitting dazed and silent opposite me. We, of course, followed the river
channel between the Island of Orleans and the north shore; and whenever
our boats drew near the mainland, came whiffs of crisp, frosty air from
the dank ravines, where snow patches yet lay in the shadow. Then the
fleet would sidle towards the island and there would be the fresh,
spring odor of damp, uncovered mold, with a vague suggestiveness of
violets and May-flowers and ferns bursting with a rush through the black
clods. The purple folds of the mountains, with their wavy outlines
fading in the haze of distance, lay on the north as they lie to-day; and
everywhere on the hills were the white cots of _habitant_ hamlets with
chapel spires pointing above tree-tops. At the western end of the
island, where boats sheer out into mid-current, came the dull, heavy
roar of the cataract and above the north shore rose great, billowy
clouds of foam. With a sweep of our paddles, we were opposite a cleft in
the vertical rock and saw the shimmering, fleecy waters of Montmorency
leap over the dizzy precipice churning up from their own whirling depths
and bound out to the river like a panther after prey.
Now the Isle of Orleans was vanishing on our rear and the bold heights
of Point Levis had loomed up to the fore; and now we had poked our prows
to the right and the sluggish, muddy tide of the St. Charles lapped our
canoes, while a forest of masts and yard-arms and flapping sails arose
from the harbor of Quebec City. The great walls of modern Quebec did not
then exist; but the rude fortifications, that sloped down from the lofty
Citadel on Cape Diamond and engirt the whole city on the hillside,
seemed imposing enough to us in those days.
It was late in the afternoon when we passed. The sunlight struck across
the St. Charles, brightening the dull, gray stone of walls and
cathedrals and convents, turning every window on the west to fire and
transforming a multitude of towers and turrets and minarets to
glittering gold. Small wonder, indeed, that all our rough tripmen
stopped paddling and with eyes on the spire of Notre Dame des Victoires
muttered prayers for a prosperous voyage. For some reason or other, I
found my own hat off. So was Mr. Jack MacKenzie's, so was Eric
Hamilton's. Then the _voyageurs_ fell to work again. The canoes spread
out. We rounded Cape Diamond and the lengthening shadow of the high peak
darkened the river before us. Always the broad St. Lawrence seemed to be
winding from headland to headland among the purple hills, in sunlight a
mirror between shadowy, forest banks, at night, molten silver in the
moon-track. Afternoon slipped into night and night to morning, and each
hour of daylight presented some new panorama of forests and hills and
torrents. Here the river widened into a lake. There the lake narrowed to
rapids; and so we came to Lachine--La Chine, named in ridicule of the
gallant explorer, La Salle, who thought these vast waterways would
surely lead him to China.
At Lachine, Mr. Jack MacKenzie, with much brusque bluster to conceal his
longings for the life he was too old to follow and many cynical
injunctions about "skinning the skunk" and "knocking the head off
anything that stood in my way" and "always profiting from the follies
of other men"--"mind, have none yourself,"--parted from us. Here, too,
Eric gripped my hand a tense, wordless farewell and left our party for
the Hudson's Bay brigade under Colin Robertson.
It has always been a mystery to me why our rivals sent that brigade to
Athabasca by way of Lachine instead of Hudson Bay, which would have been
two thousand miles nearer. We Nor'-Westers went all the way to and from
Montreal, solely because that was our only point of access to the sea;
but the Hudson's Bay people had their own Hudson Bay for a starting
place. Why, in their slavish imitation of the methods, which brought us
success, they also adopted our disadvantages, I could never understand.
Birch canoes and good tripmen could, of course, as the Hudson's Bay men
say, be most easily obtained in Quebec; but with a good organizer, the
same could have been gathered up two thousand miles nearer York Factory,
on Hudson Bay. Indeed, I have often thought the sole purpose of that
expedition was to get Nor'-Westers' methods by employing discarded
Nor'-Westers as trappers and _voyageurs_. Colin Robertson, the leader,
had himself been a Nor'-Wester; and all the men with him except Eric
Hamilton were renegades, "turn-coat traders," as we called them. But I
must not be unjust; for neither company could possibly exceed the other
in its zeal to entice away old trappers, who would reveal opponents'
secrets. Acting on my uncle's advice, I made shift to pick up a few
crumbs of valuable information. Had the Hudson's Bay known, I suppose
they would have called me a spy. That was the name I gave any of them
who might try such tricks with me. The General Assembly of the
North-West partners was to meet at Fort William, at the head of Lake
Superior. I learned that Robertson's brigade were anxious to slip past
our headquarters at Fort William before the meeting and would set out
that very day. I also heard they had sent forward a messenger to notify
the Hudson's Bay governor at Fort Douglas of their brigade's coming.
Almost before I realized it, we were speeding up the Ottawa, past a
second and third and fourth Ste. Anne's; for she is the _voyageurs'_
patron saint and her name dots Canada's map like ink-blots on a boy's
copybook. Wherever a Ste. Anne's is now found, there has the _voyageur_
of long ago passed and repassed. In places the surface of the river,
gliding to meet us, became oily, almost glassy, as if the wave-current
ran too fast to ripple out to the banks. Then little eddies began
whirling in the corrugated water and our paddlers with labored breath
bent hard to their task. By such signs I learned to know when we were
stemming the tide of some raging waterfall, or swift rapid. There would
follow quick disembarking, hurried portages over land through a tangle
of forest, or up slippery, damp rocks, a noisy launching far above the
torrent and swifter progress when the birch canoes touched water again.
Such was the tireless pace, which made North-West _voyageurs_ famous.
Such was the work the great _Bourgeois_ exacted of their men. A liberal
supply of rum, when stoppages were made, and of bread and meat for each
meal--better fare than was usually given by the trading companies--did
much to encourage the tripmen. Each man was doing his utmost to
out-distance the bold rivals following by our route. The _Bourgeois_
were to meet at Fort William early in June. At all hazards we were
determined to notify our company of the enemy's invading flotilla; and
without margin for accidents we had but a month to cross half a
continent.
At nightfall the fourth day from the shrine, after a tiresome nine-mile
traverse past the Chaudière Falls of the Ottawa, glittering camp-fires
on the river bank ahead showed where a fresh relay of canoemen awaited
us. They were immediately taken into the different crews and
night-shifts of paddlers put to work. It was quite dark, when the new
hands joined us; but in the moonlight, as the chief steersman told off
the men by name, I watched each tawny figure step quickly to his place
in the canoes, with that gliding Indian motion, which scarcely rocked
the light craft. There came to my crew Little Fellow, a short, thick-set
man, with a grinning, good-natured face, who--despite his size--would
solemnly assure people he was equal in force to the sun. With him was La
Robe Noire, of grave aspect and few words, mighty in stature and
shoulder power. There were five or six others, whose names in the
clangor of voices I did not hear. Of these, one was a tall, lithe,
swift-moving man, whose cunning eyes seemed to gleam with the malice of
a serpent. This canoeman silently twisted into sleeping posture directly
behind me.
The signal was given, and we were in mid-stream again. Wrapping my
blanket about me, half propped by a bale of stuff and breathing deep of
the clear air with frequent resinous whiffs from the forest I drowsed
off. The swish of waters rushing past and the roar of torrents, which I
had seen and heard during the day, still sounded in my ears. The sigh of
the night-wind through the forest came like the lonely moan of a
far-distant sea, and I was sleepily half conscious that cedars, pines
and cliffs were engaged in a mad race past the sides of the canoe. A bed
in which one may not stretch at random is not comfortable. Certainly my
cramped limbs must have caused bad dreams. A dozen times I could have
sworn the Indian behind me had turned into a snake and was winding round
my chest in tight, smothering coils. Starting up, I would shake the
weight off. Once I suddenly opened my eyes to find blanket thrown aside
and pistol belt unstrapped. Lying back eased, I was dozing again when I
distinctly felt a hand crawl stealthily round the pack on which I was
pillowed and steal towards the dagger handle in the loosened belt. I
struck at it viciously only to bruise my fist on my dagger. Now wide
awake, I turned angrily towards the Indian. Not a muscle of the still
figure had changed from the attitude taken when he came into the canoe.
The man was not asleep, but reclined in stolid oblivion of my existence.
His head was thrown back and the steely, unflinching eyes were fixed on
the stars.
"It may not have been you, my scowling sachem," said I to myself, "but
snakes have fangs. Henceforth I'll take good care you're not at my
back."
I slept no more that night. Next day I asked the fellow his name and he
poured out such a jumbled mouthful of quick-spoken, Indian syllables, I
was not a whit the wiser. I told him sharply he was to be Tom Jones on
my boat, at which he gave an evil leer.
Without stay we still pushed forward. The arrowy pace was merciless to
red men and white; but that was the kind of service the great North-West
Company always demanded. Some ten miles from the outlet of Lake
Nipissangue (Nipissing) foul weather threatened delay. The _Bourgeois_
were for proceeding at any risk; but as the thunder-clouds grew blacker
and the wind more violent, the head steersman lost his temper and
grounded his canoe on the sands at _Point à la Croix_. Springing ashore
he flung down his pole and refused to go on.
"Sacredie!" he screamed, first pointing to the gathering storm and then
to the crosses that marked the fate of other foolhardy _voyageurs_,
"Allez si vous voulez! Pour moi je n'irai pas; ne voyez pas le danger!"
A hurricane of wind, snapping the great oaks as a chopper breaks
kindling wood, enforced his words. Canoes were at once beached and
tarpaulins drawn over the bales of provisions. The men struggled to
hoist a tent; but gusts of wind tossed the canvas above their heads, and
before the pegs were driven a great wall of rain-drift drenched every
one to the skin. By sundown the storm had gone southeast and we
unrighteously consoled ourselves that it would probably disorganize the
Hudson's Bay brigade as much as it had ours. Plainly, we were there for
the night. _Point à la Croix_ is too dangerous a spot for navigation
after dark. With much patience we kindled the soaked underbrush and
finally got a pile of logs roaring in the woods and gathered round the
fire.
The glare in the sky attracted the lake tribes from their lodges.
Indians, half-breeds and shaggy-haired whites--degenerate traders, who
had lost all taste for civilization and retired with their native wives
after the fashion of the north country--came from the Nipissangue
encampments and joined our motley throng. Presently the natives drew off
to a fire by themselves, where there would be no white-man's restraint.
They had either begged or stolen traders' rum, and after the hard trip
from Ste. Anne, were eager for one of their mad _boissons_--a
drinking-bout interspersed with jigs and fights.
Stretched before our camp, I watched the grotesque figures leaping and
dancing between the firelight and the dusky woods like forest demons.
With the leaves rustling overhead, the water laving the pebbles on the
shore, and the washed pine air stimulating one's blood like an
intoxicant, I began wondering how many years of solitary life it would
take to wear through civilization's veneer and leave one content in the
lodges of forest wilds. Gradually I became aware of my sulky canoeman's
presence on the other side of the camp-fire. The man had not joined the
revels of the other _voyageurs_ but sat on his feet, oriental style,
gazing as intently at the flames as if spellbound by some fire-spirit.
"What's wrong with that fellow, anyhow?" I asked a veteran trader, who
was taking last pulls at a smoked-out pipe.
"Sick--home-sick," was the laconic reply.
"You'd think he was near enough nature here to feel at home! Where's his
tribe?"
"It ain't his tribe he wants," explained the trader.
"What, then?" I inquired.
"His wife, he's mad after her," and the trader took the pipe from his
teeth.
"Faugh!" I laughed. "The idea of an Indian sentimental and love-sick for
some fat lump of a squaw! Come! Come! Am I to believe that?"
"Don't matter whether you do, or not," returned the trader. "It's a
fact. His wife's a Sioux chief's daughter. She went north with a gang of
half-breeds and hunters last month; and he's been fractious crazy ever
since."
"What's his name?" I called, as my informant vanished behind the tent
flaps.
Again that mouthful of Indian syllables, unintelligible and unspeakable
for me was tumbled forth. Then I turned to the fantastic figures
carousing around the other camp fire. One form, in particular, I seemed
to distinguish from the others. He was gathering the Indians in line for
some native dance and had an easy, rakish sort of grace, quite different
from the serpentine motions of the redskins. By a sudden turn, his
profile was thrown against the fire and I saw that he wore a pointed
beard. He was no Indian; and like a flash came one of those strange,
reasonless intuitions, which precede, or proceed from, the slow motions
of the mind. Was this the _avant-courier_ of the Hudson's Bay, delayed,
like ourselves, by the storm? I had hardly spelled out my own suspicion,
when to the measured beatings of the tom-tom, gradually becoming faster,
and with a low, weird, tuneless chant, like the voices of the forest,
the Indians began to tread a mazy, winding pace, which my slow eyes
could not follow, but which in a strange way brought up memories of
snaky convolutions about the naked body of some Egyptian
serpent-charmer. The drums beat faster. The suppressed voices were
breaking in shrill, wild, exultant strains, and the measured tread had
quickened from a walk to a run and from a swaying run to a swift,
labyrinthine pace, which has no name in English, and which I can only
liken to the wiggling of a green thing under leafy covert. The coiling
and circling and winding of the dancers became bewildering, and in the
centre, laughing, shouting, tossing up his arms and gesticulating like a
maniac, was the white man with the pointed beard. Then the performers
broke from their places and gave themselves with utter abandon to the
wild impulses of wild natures in a wild world; and there was such a
scene of uncurbed, animal hilarity as I never dreamed possible. Savage,
furious, almost ferocious like the frisking of a pack of wolves, that at
any time may fall upon and destroy a weaker one, the boisterous antics
of these children of the forest fascinated me. Filled with the curiosity
that lures many a trader to his undoing, I rose and went across to the
thronging, shouting, shadowy figures. A man darted out of the woods full
tilt against me. 'Twas he of the pointed beard, my _suspect_ of the
Hudson's Bay Company. Quick as thought I thrust out my foot and tripped
him full length on the ground. The light fell on his upturned face. It
was Louis Laplante, that past-master in the art of diplomatic deception.
He snarled out something angrily and came to himself in sitting posture.
Then he recognized me.
"_Mon Dieu!_" he muttered beneath his breath, momentarily surprised into
a betrayal of astonishment. "You, Gillespie?" he called out, at once
regaining himself and assuming his usual nonchalance. "Pardon, my
solemncholy! I took you for a tree."
"Granted, your impudence," said I, ignoring the slight but paying him
back in kind. I was determined to follow my uncle's advice and play the
rascal at his own game. "Help you up?" said I, as pleasantly as I could,
extending my hand to give him a lift; and I felt his palm hot and his
arm tremble. Then, I knew that Louis was drunk and this was the fool's
joint in the knave's armor, on which Mr. Jack MacKenzie bade me use my
weapons.
"Tra-la!" he answered with mincing insult. "Tra-la, old tombstone!
Good-by, my mausoleum! Au revoir, old death's-head! Adieu, grave skull!"
With an absurdly elaborate bow, he reeled back among the dancers.
"Get up, comrade," I urged, rushing into the tent, where the old trader
I had questioned about my canoeman was now snoring. "Get up, man," and I
shook him. "There's a Hudson's Bay spy!"
"Spy," he shouted, throwing aside the moose-skin coverlet. "Spy! Who?"
"It's Louis Laplante, of Quebec."
"Louis Laplante!" reiterated the trader. "A Frenchman employed by the
Hudson's Bay! Laplante, a trapper, with them! The scoundrel!" And he
ground out oaths that boded ill for Louis.
"Hold on!" I exclaimed, jerking him back. He was for dashing on Laplante
with a cudgel. "He's playing the trapper game with the lake tribes."
"I'll trapper him," vowed the trader. "How do you know he's a spy?"
"I don't _know_, really know," I began, clumsily conscious that I had no
proof for my suspicions, "but it strikes me we'd better not examine this
sort of suspect at too long range. If we're wrong, we can let him go."
"Bag him, eh?" queried the trader.
"That's it," I assented.
"He's a hard one to bag."
"But he's drunk."
"Drunk, Oh! Drunk is he?" laughed the man. "He'll be drunker," and the
trader began rummaging through bales of stuff with a noise of bottles
knocking together. He was humming in a low tone, like a grimalkin
purring after a full meal of mice--
"Rum for Indians, when they come,
Rum for the beggars, when they go,
That's the trick my grizzled lads
To catch the cash and snare the foe."
"What's your plan?" I asked with a vague feeling the trader had some
shady purpose in mind.
"Squeamish? Eh? You'll get over that, boy. I'll trap your trapper and
spy your spy, and Nor'-Wester your H. B. C.! You come down to the sand
between the forest and the beach in about an hour and I'll have news for
you," and he brushed past me with his arms full of something I could not
see in the half-light.
Then, as a trader, began my first compromise with conscience, and the
enmity which I thereby aroused afterwards punished me for that night's
work. I knew very well my comrade, with the rough-and-ready methods of
traders, had gone out to do what was not right; and I hung back in the
tent, balancing the end against the means, our deeds against Louis'
perfidy, and Nor'-Westers' interests against those of the Hudson's Bay.
It is not pleasant to recall what was done between the cedars and the
shore. I do not attempt to justify our conduct. Does the physician
justify medical experiments on the criminal, or the sacrificial priest
the driving of the scape-goat into the wilderness? Suffice it to say,
when I went down to the shore, Louis Laplante was sitting in the midst
of empty drinking-flasks, and the wily, old Nor'-Wester was tempting the
silly boy to take more by drinking his health with fresh bottles. But
while Louis Laplante gulped down his rum, becoming drunker and more
communicative, the tempter threw glass after glass over his shoulder and
remained sober. The Nor'-Wester motioned me to keep behind the Frenchman
and I heard his drunken lips mumbling my own name.
"Rufush--prig--stuck-up prig--serve him tam right!
Hamilton's--sh--sh--prig too--sho's his wife. Serve 'em all tam right!"
"Ask him where she is," I whispered over his head.
"Where's the gal?" demanded the trader, shoving more liquor over to
Louis.
"Shioux squaw--Devil's wife--how you say it in English? Lah Grawnd
Deeahble," and he mouthed over our mispronunciation of his own tongue
"Joke, isn't it?" he went on. "That wax-face prig--slave to Shioux
Squaw. Rufush--a fool. Stuffed him to hish--neck. Made him believe
shmall-pox was Hamilton's wife. I mean, Hamilton's wife was shmall-pox.
Calf bellowed with fright--ran home--came back--'tamme,' I say, 'there
he come again' 'shmall-pox in that grave,' say I. Joke--ain't it?" and
he stopped to drain off another pint of rum.
"Biggest joke out of jail," said the Nor'-Wester dryly, with meaning
which Louis did not grasp.
"Ask him where she is," I whispered, "quick! He's going to sleep." For
Louis wiped his beard on his sleeve and lay back hopelessly drunk.
"Here you, waken up," commanded the Nor'-Wester, kicking him and shaking
him roughly. "Where's the gal?"
"Shioux--_Pays d'En Haut_," drawled the youth. "Take off your boots!
Don't wear boots. _Pays d'En Haut_--moccasins--softer," and he rolled
over in a sodden sleep, which defied all our efforts to shake him into
consciousness.
"Is that true?" asked the Nor'-Wester, standing above the drunk man and
speaking across to me. "Is that true about the Indian kidnapping a
woman?"
"True--too terribly true," I whispered back.
"I'd like to boot him into the next world," said the trader, looking
down at Louis in a manner that might have alarmed that youth for his
safety. "I've bagged H. B. dispatches anyway," he added with
satisfaction.
"What'll we do with him?" I asked aimlessly. "If he had anything to do
with the stealing of Hamilton's wife----"
"He hadn't," interrupted the trader. "'Twas Diable did that, so Laplante
says."
"Then what shall we do with him?"
"Do--with--him," slowly repeated the Nor'-Wester in a low, vibrating
voice. "Do--with--him?" and again I felt a vague shudder of apprehension
at this silent, uncompromising man's purpose.
The camp fires were dead. Not a sound came from the men in the woods and
there was a gray light on the water with a vague stirring of birds
through the foliage overhead. Now I would not have any man judge us by
the canons of civilization. Under the ancient rule of the fur companies
over the wilds of the north, 'twas bullets and blades put the fear of
the Lord in evil hearts. As we stooped to gather up the tell-tale
flasks, the drunken knave, who had lightly allowed an innocent white
woman to go into Indian captivity, lay with bared chest not a hand's
length from a knife he had thrown down. Did the Nor'-Wester and I
hesitate, and look from the man to the dagger, and from the dagger to
the man; or is this an evil dream from a black past? Miriam, the
guiltless, was suffering at his hands; should not he, the guilty, suffer
at ours? Surely Sisera was not more unmistakably delivered into the
power of his enemies by the Lord than this man; and Sisera was
discomfited by Barak and Jael. Heber's wife--says the Book--drove a tent
nail--through the temples--of the sleeping man--and slew him! Day was
when I thought the Old Volume recorded too many deeds of bloodshed in
the wilderness for the instruction of our refined generation; but I,
too, have since lived in the wilderness and learned that soft speech is
not the weapon of strong men overmastering savagery.
I know the trader and I were thinking the same thoughts and reading each
other's thoughts; for we stood silent above the drunk man, neither
moving, neither uttering a word.
"Well?" I finally questioned in a whisper.
"Well," said he, and he knelt down and picked up the knife. "'Twould
serve him right." He was speaking in the low, gentle, purring voice he
had used in the tent. "'Twould serve him jolly right," and he knelt over
Louis hesitating.
My eyes followed his slow, deliberate motions with horror. Terror seemed
to rob me of the power of speech. I felt my blood freeze with the fear
of some impending crime. There was the faintest perceptible fluttering
of leaves; and we both started up as if we had been assassins, glancing
fearfully into the gloom of the forest. All the woods seemed alive with
horrified eyes and whisperings.
"Stop!" I gasped, "This is madness, the madness of the murderer. What
would you do?" And I was trying to knock the knife out of his hand,
when among the shadowy green of the foliage, an open space suddenly
resolved itself into a human face and there looked out upon us gleaming
eyes like those of a crouching panther.
"Squeamish fool!" muttered the Nor'-Wester, raising his arm.
"Stop!" I implored. "We are watched. See!" and I pointed to the face,
that as suddenly vanished into blackness.
We both leaped into the thicket, pistol in hand, to wreak punishment on
the interloper. There was only an indistinct sound as of something
receding into the darkness.
"Don't fire," said I, "'twill alarm the camp."
At imminent risk to our own lives, we poked sticks through the thicket
and felt for our unseen enemy, but found nothing.
"Let's go back and peg him out on the sand, where the Hudson's Bay will
see him when they come this way," suggested the Nor'-Wester, referring
to Laplante.
"Yes, or hand-cuff him and take him along prisoner," I added, thinking
Louis might have more information.
But when we stepped back to the beach, there was no Louis Laplante.
"He was too drunk to go himself," said I, aghast at the certainty, which
now came home to me, that we had been watched.
"I wash my hands of the whole affair," declared the trader, in a state
of high indignation, and he strode off to his tent, I, following, with
uncomfortable reflections trooping into my mind. Compunctions rankled in
self-respect. How near we had been to a brutal murder, to crime which
makes men shun the perpetrators. Civilization's veneer was rubbing off
at an alarming rate. This thought stuck, but for obvious reasons was not
pursued. Also I had learned that the worst and best of outlaws
easily justify their acts at the time they commit them; but
afterwards--afterwards is a different matter, for the thing is past
undoing.
I heard the trader snorting out inarticulate disgust as he tumbled into
his tent; but I stood above the embers of the camp fire thinking. Again
I felt with a creepiness, that set all my flesh quaking, felt, rather
than saw, those maddening, tiger eyes of the dark foliage watching me.
Looking up, I found my morose canoeman on the other side of the fire,
leaning so close to a tree, he was barely visible in the shadows.
Thinking himself unseen by me, he wore such an insolent, amused,
malicious expression, I knew in an instant, who the interloper had been,
and who had carried Louis off. Before I realized that such an act
entails life-long enmity with an Indian, I had bounded over the fire and
struck him with all my strength full in the face. At that, instead of
knifing me as an Indian ordinarily would, he broke into hyena shrieks of
laughter. He, who has heard that sound, need hear it only once to have
the echo ring forever in his ears; and I have heard it oft and know it
well.
"Spy! Sneak!" I muttered, rushing upon him. But he sprang back into the
forest and vanished. In dodging me, he let fall his fowling-piece, which
went off with a bang into the fire.
"Hulloo! What's wrong out there?" bawled the trader's voice from the
tent.
"Nothing--false alarm!" I called reassuringly. Then there caught my eyes
what startled me out of all presence of mind. There, reflecting the
glare of the firelight was the Indian's fowling-piece, richly mounted in
burnished silver and chased in the rare design of Eric Hamilton's family
crest. The morose canoeman was Le Grand Diable.
* * * * *
A few hours later, I was in the thick of a confused re-embarking. Le
Grand Diable took a place in another boat; and a fresh hand was assigned
to my canoe. Of that I was glad; I could sleep sounder and he, safer.
The _Bourgeois_ complained that too much rum had been given out.
"Keep a stiffer hand on your men, boy, or they'll ride over your head,"
one of the chief traders remarked to me.