CONTENTS

“WHEN LAROQUE’S BOAT REACHED THE LANDING, THE SHORE WAS LINED

WITH PEOPLE.”

“South from Hudson Bay.” (See Page 82)

SOUTH FROM

HUDSON BAY

AN ADVENTURE AND MYSTERY

STORY FOR BOYS

BY

E. C. BRILL

_ILLUSTRATED_

CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY

PUBLISHERS NEW YORK

ADVENTURE AND MYSTERY

STORIES FOR BOYS

_By_ E. C. BRILL

Large 12 mo. Cloth. Illustrated.

THE SECRET CACHE

SOUTH FROM HUDSON BAY

THE ISLAND OF YELLOW SANDS

Copyright, 1932, by

Cupples & Leon Company

PRINTED IN U. S. A.

Copyright, 1932, by

Cupples & Leon Company

PRINTED IN U. S. A.

CONTENTS

I The New Land 9

II Fort York 14

III The Selkirk Colony and the Rival Fur Traders 24

IV The Start from Fort York 32

V The Black Murray 39

VI Toiling Up Stream 45

VII Norway House 53

VIII The Missing Pemmican 61

IX Hunger and Cold 67

X The Red River at Last 74

XI Fort Douglas 81

XII By Cart Train to Pembina 89

XIII The Red-Headed Scotch Boy 97

XIV Pembina 108

XV The Ojibwa Hunter 118

XVI Letters from Fort Douglas 124

XVII Christmas at Pembina 134

XVIII Mirage of the Prairie 140

XIX Blizzard 147

XX A Night Attack 154

XXI The Burned Cabin 161

XXII The Painted Buffalo Skull 167

XXIII Unwelcome Visitors 176

XXIV A Sore Hand 186

XXV The Travelers without Snowshoes 193

XXVI Elise’s Story 200

XXVII Why the Periers Came to Pembina 207

XXVIII The Land to the South 214

XXIX The Coming of the Sioux 225

XXX With the Buffalo Hunters 231

XXXI The Charging Buffalo 239

XXXII To the Sheyenne River 245

XXXIII A Lonely Camp 253

XXXIV Danger 261

XXXV In the Chief’s Tipi 270

XXXVI The White Trader 280

XXXVII Flight 289

XXXVIII The Fight at the Bois des Sioux 299

XXXIX Safe 309

XL Conclusion 316

I

THE NEW LAND

Before Walter Rossel was wholly awake, even before he opened his eyes, he

realized that the ship was unusually quiet. There was only a slight

rolling motion from side to side, a dead roll. Was she caught in the ice

again, or had she reached Fort York at last? Could it be that the long

voyage was really over? Walter hurried into the few clothes he had taken

off, and ran up on deck, hoping to see land close by.

He was disappointed. He could see nothing but gray water, a line of white

where waves were breaking on a long bar, and the dim, shadowy forms of

the other ships, hulls, masts, and spars veiled in dense fog. There was

no ice in sight, yet all three vessels were riding at anchor.

Eagerly the boy turned to a sailor who was scrubbing the deck. Walter’s

native tongue was French, but he had picked up a little English during

the voyage, enough to ask why the ships were at anchor, and to understand

part of the man’s reply. They had crossed the bar in the night, the

sailor said, and were lying in the shallow water of York Flats. Over

there to the south, hidden in the fog, was the shore.

The news that they had arrived off Fort York spread rapidly among the

passengers on the _Lord Wellington_. Men, women, and children crowded on

deck, gazed into the fog, questioned one another and the sailors in

French, German, and broken English, and talked and laughed excitedly. A

little boy of seven and his older sister, a bright-faced girl of thirteen

with hazel eyes and heavy braids of brown hair, joined Walter and poured

out eager questions.

“They say we are at the end of our voyage,” cried the girl, “but where is

the land?”

Walter pointed to the south. “We’ll see it when the fog lifts. Does your

father know we are almost at Fort York?”

“Yes, he is coming on deck. There he is now.”

A middle aged man, thin and somewhat stooped, was coming towards them,

his pale face smiling and eager. “Well, my boy,” he greeted Walter, “this

is good news indeed. We shall soon be settled on our own farm. Think of

that, children, our own farm, a far larger one than we could ever dream

of having in Switzerland.”

“Yes, Monsieur Perier,” replied Walter, “the voyage is almost over,

and——”

“Look, Walter,” Elise interrupted. “The fog is thinner. See how red it is

in the east. And look at that dark line, like a shadow. Can that be the

shore?”

The fog was certainly thinning. A wider stretch of water had become

visible, and the outlines of the other ships were clearer. Though steam

power was coming into use for river navigation on both sides of the

Atlantic, there were no ocean-going steamships in 1821. The _Lord

Wellington_, the _Prince of Wales_, and the _Eddystone_ were sailing

vessels, sturdily built craft with extra heavy oak sheathing and

iron-plated bows, suitable for cruising ice-strewn, northern waters. That

all three had been in contact with the ice, their scraped and battered

hulls betrayed. From each mizzen peak fluttered the British red ensign,

and the mainmast head bore a flag with a red cross and the letters H. B.

C., the flag of the Hudson Bay Company.

The immigrants aboard the _Lord Wellington_ wasted scarcely a glance on

the other ships. It was the land they were interested in. As the rising

sun drank up the fog, and the shore line grew clearer, the eager faces of

Elise and Walter sobered with disappointment. A most unattractive shore

was revealed. It was low, swampy, sparsely clad with stunted trees, a

desolate land without sign of human dwelling. Fort York could not be

seen. It was fifteen or twenty miles in the interior, on the Hayes River.

Unpromising as the land appeared, it was land nevertheless, and everyone

longed to set foot upon it. To the one hundred and sixty Swiss

immigrants, the voyage had seemed endless. On May 30 they had sailed from

Dordrecht in Holland. Now it was the last of August. For nearly three

months they had been on shipboard. Delayed by stormy weather and crowding

ice, they had spent a whole month navigating Hudson Straits and Bay.

Luckily for them they did not realize what a long and toilsome way they

had yet to travel before they reached their destination, the Selkirk

Colony on the Red River of the North.

Though many of the new colonists looked thin, worn, and even ill from the

hardships of the long voyage, they appeared to be neat, self-respecting

folk, intelligent and fairly well to do. Some wore the peasant dress of

their native cantons, but the majority were townspeople,—shopkeepers and

skilled workmen. Mr. Perier was a chemist and apothecary.

Walter Rossel had not one blood relation in the whole company, but he

considered himself one of the Perier family. For the past two years, as

an apprentice in Mr. Perier’s shop, he had lived with them. When his

master had decided to emigrate, he had offered to either release Walter

from his apprenticeship or take the boy with him. Walter had decided

quickly, and his father and stepmother had given their consent.

The Periers and Walter had breakfasted, packed their personal belongings,

and were on deck again, when a small, open sailboat came in sight from

the direction of the shore. It headed for the _Eddystone_ and disappeared

on the other side of that ship. Presently it reappeared, visited the

_Prince of Wales_, and finally came on to the _Lord Wellington_.

As the little boat drew close, Elise, Walter, and Max looked curiously

down on the crew of sun-tanned, bearded men, strangely dressed in hooded

coats of bright blue or of white blanketing, bound about the waists with

colorful silk or woolen sashes. The man in command came aboard, climbing

the ladder up the side. He was broad shouldered and strongly built, with

reddish hair, bristly beard, and skin burned red-brown. With his blue

coat and bright red sash, he wore buckskin trousers fringed at the seams,

and the queerest footgear Walter had ever seen, slipper-like, heel-less

shoes of soft leather embroidered in colors. They were Indian moccasins

ornamented with dyed porcupine quills.

After glancing about him and inclining his head slightly in a general

greeting, the newcomer shook hands with the Master of the ship and with

Captain Mai, the man in charge of the Swiss immigrants, who had hurried

forward to greet him. He went below with them, but remained only a few

minutes.

As soon as the red-haired man was overside again, the Swiss crowded

around their conductor to ask when they were to go ashore. Captain Mai

pointed to the other ships. Their sails were up and they were getting

under way.

“A pilot has just gone aboard the _Eddystone_,” he said. “We are to

follow her.”

Even before Captain Mai had finished speaking, the _Lord Wellington_ was

waking to activity. The anchors came up, the sails were set, and caught

the breeze. In a few moments the immigrant vessel was following the

supply ships towards the mouth of the Hayes River.

II

FORT YORK

The first view of Fort York was as disappointing as the first glimpse of

shore. To Elise and Walter a fort meant massive stone walls and towers,

rising from some high and commanding position. A stretch of log fencing

in a bog was not their idea of fortification. It had the interest of

novelty, however, for it was very different from anything they had ever

seen before. The logs were set upright and close together, and above this

stockade rose the flat, leaded roofs of the buildings. Near the fort

stood a cluster of strange dwellings, quite unlike the Eskimo summer huts

of stones, sod, and skins, with which the Swiss had become familiar since

reaching Arctic waters. These queer skin tents were roughly cone-shaped,

and the ends of the framework of poles projected at the peak. They were

Cree Indian summer lodges. Up the wide board walk from the dock to the

fort gates, men were carrying sacks and boxes. The unloading of the

supply ships had begun.

The Perier family were among the last of the immigrants to go ashore.

Very much like a homeless wanderer, motherless Elise Perier felt as she

stood on the river bank beside her father, with Max clinging to her hand,

and their scanty belongings piled around them. It was good to be on land

again of course, but this was such a strange land. In spite of cramped

quarters, poor food, seasickness, and the other hardships of the voyage,

the _Lord Wellington_ seemed almost homelike compared to this wild,

barren country. Elise tried bravely to smile at her father and Walter,

but she felt as if she must cry instead.

Captain Mai was calling them. “Go right up to the fort, Perier. I want to

get you all together.”

Walter picked up as much of the luggage as he could carry. Mr. Perier was

looking doubtfully at a heavy wooden chest, when a boyish voice at his

shoulder said in French, “Let me help, M’sieu. If you will put that on my

back, I will carry it for you.”

Walter dropped his own load, and he and Mr. Perier lifted the chest and

placed it so it rested on the portage strap, as the young Canadian

directed. Then the latter led the way up the walk. He was a slender,

supple lad, not as tall as Walter, but he carried the heavy load with

apparent ease. The Swiss boy admired the young fellow’s strength as much

as he liked his face, with its bright brown eyes and clean-cut features.

The log stockade proved to be more imposing and fort-like than it had

appeared from the river. It was about twenty feet high, with bastions at

the corners pierced with openings for cannon. The massive entrance gates

stood open, and in front of them was a tall flagstaff, bearing the

Company flag with the letters H. B. C. and the curious motto, “_Pro pelle

cutem_,”—“Skin for skin.” Entering the gates and passing within the

double row of stockades, their guide led the Perier family among

workshops and cabins to an inner court, which was surrounded with

substantial log structures where the officers lived and where the

merchandise and furs were stored. In this court the Swiss were gathered.

Mr. Perier tried to thank the friendly lad, but he shook his head. “It is

nothing, nothing, M’sieu,” he replied, a quick smile displaying his even,

white teeth. “I must not linger. There is much to do.” And he was off at

a run.

When all of the Swiss were assembled, one of their leaders suggested that

it was fitting they should give thanks to God that the dangerous ocean

voyage was over and they were safe on land once more. They stood with

bowed heads while he led the prayer. The lump in Elise’s throat

disappeared and she felt better.

In the meantime, Captain Mai had been arranging with the Chief Factor,—as

the Hudson Bay Company officer in charge of the fort was called,—for

quarters for the immigrants. There was not room for all in the buildings,

so many of the men and boys would have to sleep in tents. A place in one

of the houses was found for the Periers, but Walter was assigned to a

tent with Mr. Scheidecker and his sons, German Swiss from Berne.

That first night on land was a miserable one for Walter. Fort York stood

in a veritable bog or muskeg, firm and hard enough the greater part of

the year, when it was frozen, but wet and soft in the short summer

season. The ground was damp of course, and Walter’s one blanket did not

keep out the chill. To make matters worse, he and his companions were

pestered by the bloodthirsty mosquitoes that bred in inconceivable hordes

in the swampy lowlands. But the discomfort of the night was quickly

forgotten the next day.

A busy and interesting place the Swiss boy found York Factory, as the

Hudson Bay men called the fort. It was not a factory in our common

meaning of the word,—not a _manufactory_,—for nothing was manufactured

there except boats for river traffic, dog sleds, wooden kegs, and such

articles of use and trade as an ordinary carpenter, blacksmith, or

tinsmith could make with simple tools. _Factory_ in the fur trade meant a

trading post in charge of an officer called a _factor_, a commercial

agent who bought and sold.

For more than a century York Factory had been the principal port of entry

for the Hudson Bay Company. There the Company’s ships from England

brought the supplies and trade goods destined for all the widely

separated posts in the interior. To York Factory, in bark canoes and

wooden boats, down rivers and lakes, from all parts of the Company’s

great domain, came the bales of costly furs to be sorted and repacked and

shipped. A considerable staff was employed at the place, a Chief Factor,

a Chief Trader, a surgeon, several clerks and apprentice clerks, a

steward, a shipwright, a carpenter, a mason, a cooper, a blacksmith, a

tailor, laborers, cooks, and servants. The boatmen or _voyageurs_ who

went to and fro into the interior were hired independently for each trip.

Until he sailed for America, Walter had never even heard of the Hudson

Bay Company or the fur trade. Everything in the fort was novel and

interesting to him. A good-natured apprentice clerk, who spoke French

readily, showed him the Indian store, a large room well filled with all

sorts of goods used in the Indian trade, from bales of heavy blankets,

blue and red woolens, calicos of every color, long-barreled trading guns,

kegs of powder, and big iron and copper kettles, to drawers of useful

little things, gun flints, fire steels, files, awls, needles, fish hooks,

twine, beads of all imaginable tints, and ochre, vermilion, and other dry

colors, used by the Indians to adorn both their handiwork and themselves.

“I never saw so many different things in one shop,” Walter commented.

The clerk laughed. “The worst of it is that we have to keep the closest

account of it all. We must know what is in every package sent out and

what post it goes to. Being a fur trader isn’t all adventure I can tell

you. There is a lot of office drudgery, with all the bookkeeping,

invoicing, and checking of lists. We can’t afford to make mistakes,” he

added soberly. “The very lives of the men in some far-away post may

depend on their getting the right supplies. Why, last year——” He broke

off suddenly, and switched to English. “I spoke to the Chief Trader about

your proposal. He says it can’t be done. It’s not the policy of the

Company to send voyageurs out to trade, especially on such long trips.”

Walter had turned to see to whom the clerk was speaking. He had heard no

footsteps, but there, close behind him, was a tall man in blue coat,

deerskin leggings, and moccasins. In his surprise, the boy drew back a

little and stood staring. Of all the men he had seen since coming ashore,

this one was the strangest and most striking. He was tall, powerfully

built, and very dark of skin, with high cheek bones and high-bridged

nose. His long, coarse black hair, slick and shining with grease, was

worn in what seemed to the Swiss boy a curious fashion for a man, parted

in the middle and plaited in two braids bound with deerskin thongs and

hanging one over each shoulder.

“You not give me goods?” The man’s voice was peculiarly deep, not

unmusical but of a hard, metallic quality. His small, dark eyes looked

straight into the clerk’s large blue ones.

The young man shook his head. “No, your plan is too wild, too much risk

in it. That sort of thing is against the Company’s policy.”

The voyageur’s brown face stiffened. His hard eyes seemed to catch fire

as they rested first on the clerk and then, for a moment, on Walter.

Without a word he turned and with long, soft-footed stride, left the room

as noiselessly as he had entered it.

“Pleasant manners,” commented the clerk. “He needn’t have included you in

his wrath.”

“What did he want?” asked Walter. He had understood but little of the

brief conversation.

“A lot of goods on credit. He claims to have great influence with the

Sioux, and he wants an outfit to go and trade with them. Of course we

can’t let him have it.”

“You don’t trust him?”

“We don’t know anything about him, except that he is a good voyageur.

It’s against the Company’s policy to send voyageurs out to trade. And his

scheme is a crazy one. The Sioux country is a thousand miles away. He

said he would bring all the furs back here and take whatever commission

we chose to give, but probably we should never hear of him or the goods

again.”

“Is he an Indian?”

“Half-breed I imagine. Finely built fellow, isn’t he? Has the strength of

a moose, they say. He is an expert voyageur.”

“I don’t like him,” Walter commented.

“Neither do I, and I suppose he has a grudge against me now, though the

refusal wasn’t my doing of course. Well, I must stop talking and get to

work checking this new stuff that has come in.”

Thus dismissed, Walter wandered out into the court, through the open

gates and down to the shore. Everywhere was bustle and activity. There

was much to be done, and done quickly. With the least possible delay the

ships must be unloaded and loaded again with the furs waiting packed and

ready for the voyage to England. The little fleet must get away promptly

while Hudson Straits were still open. All the goods and supplies received

had to be checked, examined, and sorted. The things to be sent to trading

posts in the interior were repacked for transport in open boats up the

rivers, and every package was invoiced and plainly marked. Boats must be

made ready and equipped and provisioned, not only to carry the supplies

and trade goods, but the one hundred and sixty new settlers as well. The

twelve hours a day that the employees of the Company were required to

work in summer, if necessary, were not enough. Most of the men were

simply doing all they possibly could each day until the rush should be

over.

Down by the river Walter found the young fellow who had carried Mr.

Perier’s chest. He was putting a new seat in one of the large, heavily

built boats ranged along the bank. Looking up from his work, he greeted

the Swiss boy with a cheery “_Bo jou_,” which the latter guessed to be

the Canadian way of saying “_Bon jour_” or “Good day.” Walter, who was

handy with tools, offered his help.

As they worked they talked. His new acquaintance’s French was fluent, but

Walter found it puzzling. To a Swiss, the Canadian dialect seemed a

strange sort of French, differing considerably in pronunciation and in

many of its words from his own native tongue. Yet Walter and Louis

Brabant managed to understand each other fairly well.

“I suppose this is your home, here at the fort,” said Walter.

“My home? _Non_, I live at the Red River.”

“Why, that is where we are going!”

“You go to the Selkirk Colony at Fort Douglas. It is not there that I

live, but at Pembina, farther up the river.”

“Is Pembina a town?”

“Not what you would call a town. It is a settlement and there are trading

posts there, a Hudson Bay post and a Northwest Company post. Now the two

companies have united, one of the forts will be abandoned I suppose. You

may be glad the fighting between them is over. There will be better times

in the Selkirk Colony now. They have had a hard time and much trouble,

those poor settlers!”

“What do you mean by fighting,—and trouble?” asked the surprised Walter.

“What is the Northwest Company? Isn’t the Hudson Bay the only trading

company? Doesn’t it own all the country where the Indians and the fur

bearing animals are?”

“Oh no,” returned Louis with a smile and a shake of his head. “Farther

south there is fur country that belongs to the United States. The Hudson

Bay Company has no power there. It is true that the Company claims all

the northern fur country, but the Northwest Company said they had a right

to trade and trap there too, and that was how the trouble began. Have you

never heard of the Northwest Company, and how for years they have fought

the Hudson Bay men for the furs, and how they drove the settlers from the

Selkirk Colony and captured Fort Douglas and killed the Governor?”

Walter shook his head in bewilderment, and Louis went on to tell, briefly

and vividly, something of the conflict between the two great trading

companies, and the disasters that conflict had brought upon the settlers.

The Swiss boy listened in amazement, understanding enough of the story to

grasp its significance.

“But why didn’t Captain Mai tell us all that?” he cried. “Why did he let

us think that everything was all right?”

“Perhaps he thought you would not come if you knew. But those old

troubles are all over. Last spring the two companies became one.”

Louis’ story troubled Walter. He retold it to Mr. Perier and Mr.

Scheidecker, and they carried it to other leading men of the prospective

settlers. Several of them sought out Captain Mai and demanded to know why

they had not been informed of all those wild doings in the colony.

Unsatisfied by their conductor’s explanations, they asked for an

interview with the Chief Factor, and put their questions to him. He

confirmed the statement that the fur-traders’ rivalry and warfare were at

an end. About five months before the arrival of the Swiss, the two great

trading companies had united under the Hudson Bay name. The colony on the

Red River would now have a chance to develop in peace.

In spite of this assurance, the Hudson Bay officer’s replies to some of

their queries left the Swiss in no happy mood. Mr. Perier was stunned to

learn that they still had some seven hundred miles to travel, all the way

through untamed wilderness. But he had no thought of turning back. He had

signed an agreement with Captain Mai, and had paid for his family’s

passage,—a moderate sum, but he could ill afford to lose it. To pay their

fare back again would leave him penniless. Fertile land, one hundred

acres of prairie,—that would not have to be cleared,—had been promised

him rent free for a year. After that he was to pay a rent of from twenty

to fifty bushels of wheat from his crop, or he might buy the land

outright for five hundred bushels. The offer was enticing, and he and

Walter had made many plans for the future.

III

THE SELKIRK COLONY AND THE RIVAL FUR TRADERS

What was the Selkirk Colony, and how did it happen that this party of

Swiss had come so far to join it?

When Thomas Douglas, Earl of Selkirk, one of the famous Douglas family of

the Scottish border, planned the settlement on the Red River of the

North, his purpose was to find homes and livelihood for the

poverty-stricken Scotch Highlanders. Hundreds of those unfortunate people

had been turned out of their homes through changes in the system of

management of the great landed estates in Scotland, and there was little

opportunity in the old country for them to make a living. Though a

Lowlander himself, Lord Selkirk had often visited the Highland glens. He

knew the people, and had learned their native Gaelic language. He

sympathized with them in their misfortunes. Seeking for some way to help

them, he realized that their only chance for prosperity and success lay

in emigration to a country where land was cheap and plentiful. He had

heard of the rich soil of the Red River valley, and decided that was the

place to plant his colony.

The lower Red River valley was included in the vast domain of the Hudson

Bay Company. The charter from King Charles II of England issued in 1670

had given to Prince Rupert and the “Company of Adventurers of England,

trading into Hudson Bay”—“the whole trade of all those seas, streights,

and bays, rivers, lakes, creeks, and sounds,—that lie within the entrance

of the streights commonly called Hudson’s Streights, together with all

the lands, countries, and territories upon the coasts and confines of the

seas, streights, bays, lakes, rivers, creeks, and sounds aforesaid, which

are not now actually possessed by any of our subjects, or by the subjects

of any other Christian prince or State.” Not only did the royal charter

grant the “Adventurers” the trade of that vast region,—which, in the

widest interpretation of the terms, included a quarter or a third of the

whole of North America,—but it conferred upon the Company the right to

hold the land “in free and common socage” which means absolute

proprietorship. Whether King Charles really had the right to give away

this vast territory to anyone may be questioned, but the Hudson Bay

Company claimed proprietorship under the charter.

The Red River empties into Lake Winnipeg, and the northern end of the

lake drains into the Nelson River which flows to Hudson Bay. Accordingly

the valley of the Red was included in the territory claimed by the

Company. However, before the time of this story, the purchase from France

by the United States of a vast extent of country west of the Mississippi

River,—the Louisiana Purchase—and the boundary treaties with the British

government, gave the greater part of the Red River to the United States.

Only the stretch from what is now the northern limit of Minnesota and

North Dakota to Lake Winnipeg remained in English possession. It was to

this lower part of the valley that Lord Selkirk wished to take his

colonists. He knew well enough that the Hudson Bay Company would not be

inclined to part with any of its domain for such a purpose, but he had

set his heart upon planting his colony in that particular spot.

Accordingly he laid his plans to get possession of the required land.

Quietly, by buying shares himself and persuading his friends to buy also,

he obtained control over a majority of the stock of the great trading

company. Then he offered to purchase a wide strip of land on the Red and

Assiniboine rivers. As he controlled the majority of votes in the

Company, he got what he wanted, about one hundred and sixteen square

miles, of which he became absolute proprietor.

The first settlers he sent over were of course Scotch Highlanders, with a

few Irish. They arrived at Fort York in the autumn of 1811, too late to

go to the Red River that year. The next summer they reached their new

home on the Red, and were followed within three years by other parties,

numbering in all a little more than two hundred, most of them Scotch.

The troubles of the settlers were many and discouraging. Had the Earl of

Selkirk been a more practical man he would scarcely have undertaken to

plant a farming colony in the midst of a wilderness, hundreds of miles

from any other settlement, and without communication with the civilized

world except by canoe and rowboat over long and difficult river trails.

Not all of the colonists’ troubles were due to natural conditions

however.

The Hudson Bay Company had a strong trading rival in the Northwest Fur

Company. The latter was a Canadian organization with headquarters at

Montreal, while the Hudson Bay Company was strictly English, its chief

offices in London. The Northwest men had established trading posts along

the Great Lakes and far to the west and north beyond Lake Superior. They

had penetrated farther and farther into the country claimed by the Hudson

Bay Company. The Hudson Bay men themselves had done almost nothing to

develop trade in the interior, until the Canadian traders began to go

among the Indians and secure furs that might otherwise have been brought

to the posts on the Bay. Awakening to the realization that the Northwest

Company was actually taking away the trade, the Hudson Bay men also

sought the interior. In this way began a race and a fight for the furs

that grew hotter and fiercer with each year. Everywhere on the principal

lakes and streams of the west and northwest, rival posts were

established, sometimes within a few hundred rods of each other.

The rivalry between the fur traders was approaching its height when Lord

Selkirk founded his colony. From the first, the Northwest Company opposed

the scheme. The fur trader never likes to see the country from which the

pelts come opened up to settlement. He knows that as the land is settled

the wild animals disappear. Moreover Lord Selkirk was now the controlling

power in the Hudson Bay Company, and the Northwesters suspected him of

some deep laid plan to interfere with and ruin their trade. Several years

before, they had established a post called Fort Gibraltar at the junction

of the Red and the Assiniboine, and their route to the rich fur districts

of the west lay up the latter river. They believed that the settlement

was merely a scheme to cut off their trade. So they looked with

unfriendly eyes upon the colony, and even persuaded a considerable number

of the colonists to leave and settle on lands farther east in Canada.

Most of the Northwest traders were of Scotch blood, many of them of

Highland descent, and doubtless they honestly thought that their

countrymen would find better homes elsewhere. The chance that the Red

River settlement would ever succeed seemed, to practical-minded men, very

slender indeed.

The ill feeling between the two great trading companies and between the

Northwest Company and the Selkirk settlement grew stronger and bitterer

as time went on. Mistakes and high handed acts on both sides, in a land

where there was no law, led at last to open conflict. In 1815 the

colonists were driven from their homes and obliged to flee to the shelter

of a Hudson Bay post at the northern end of Lake Winnipeg. The Hudson Bay

men made reprisals by capturing the Northwesters’ posts and interrupting

their trade. The settlers were rallied and taken back to their homes,

only to face a worse disaster the next year. An open fight between the

men of Governor Semple of the colony and a party of half-breeds in the

employ of the Northwest Company resulted in the killing of the Governor

and his twenty followers, and the capture of their stronghold, Fort

Douglas.

Lord Selkirk was in America at the time seeking from the Canadian

government some means of protection for his colonists. Failing to get

satisfaction from a government whose sympathies were with the Northwest

rather than with the Hudson Bay company, he had hired, to guard his

colony, one hundred men from two regiments of mercenary soldiers that had

been disbanded after the War of 1812. While he was traversing Lake

Superior on his way west with these men, he met canoes bringing word of

the disastrous fight of Seven Oaks, the death of Governor Semple, and the

capture of Fort Douglas. Skirting the shores of the lake, Lord Selkirk

went to Fort William, the headquarters of the Northwest Company on

Thunder Bay. There he demanded the release of the prisoners who had been

brought from the Red River. The controversy that followed finally led to

his taking possession of the fort. The fact that he had been appointed a

magistrate for the Indian country and sought the arrest of the

Northwesters who had taken part in or instigated the troubles at Fort

Douglas, gave his action some color of legal right. From Fort William he

went on to his disordered and devastated colony, and gathered together

all the settlers who were willing to remain.

In spite of all the settlement had been through, Lord Selkirk had no

intention of giving up his plans. So many of the colonists had been

driven or enticed away and would not return, that he sought to find

others to take their places. It was then that he hit upon the idea of

bringing over the steady, hard-working Swiss, who would, he believed,

make the very best of settlers.

Captain Mai or May,—the English spelling of his name,—a Swiss who had

served as a mercenary soldier in the British army, and other agents were

sent to Switzerland to secure settlers. Throughout the cantons of

Neuchatel, Vaud, Geneva, and Berne, they traveled, explaining the

advantages of emigration to the Red River country. The pamphlets they

distributed, printed in French and German, gave a highly colored and

alluring description of that country with its many miles of fertile soil

to be had for the asking. Like all emigration agents, Captain Mai and his

assistants told all the good things about both country and colony and

left out the bad. About the civil war between the fur companies and the

troubles it had led to, they said nothing.

Early in May 1821, about one hundred and sixty emigrants were gathered

together at a small village on the Rhine near Basel. In great barges they

were taken down the Rhine, a delightful trip on that famous river with

its beautiful and striking scenery, to Dordrecht in Holland. There they

embarked on the _Lord Wellington_ for the trip to Hudson Bay. The voyage

took far longer than they had realized it would take, the food provided

was inferior to what they were used to, the drinking water became bad,

and storms and ice caused delay. At Hudson Straits the _Lord Wellington_

overtook the two Hudson Bay Company supply ships, and the three were held

for three weeks in the ice with which the Straits were filled. The heavy

swell coming in from the open ocean and rushing between the icebergs,

caused rapid tides and currents in which sailing ships were almost

helpless. Luckily the _Lord Wellington_ escaped serious injury, but one

of the supply ships was nearly wrecked and badly damaged by collision

with a berg. Not far away were two other vessels also caught in the ice,

the _Fury_ and the _Hecla_ carrying Captain Parry and his Arctic

exploring expedition. The _Hecla_ had one of her anchors broken and

several hawsers carried away.

The Swiss emigrants were a hopeful, cheerful folk. They had been together

so long they had become like a large family party, and they made the best

of their hardships. When it was safe to do so, the young and active

climbed down from the ship to the solid ice field, ran races, and even

held a dance on a particularly smooth stretch. At last the ships

succeeded in entering the bay. Skirting the barren shores, the three

vessels destined for the Hudson Bay post reached anchorage off York

Factory in safety.

IV

THE START FROM FORT YORK

Finding transport for so large a party of settlers taxed the resources of

the Hudson Bay Company. Several new boats had to be built, and every one

of the immigrants who could handle wood-working tools was called upon to

help.

The boats were to be despatched in two divisions or brigades. Walter had

taken for granted that he would travel with the Periers, but he found

himself assigned to the first division, the Periers to the second. He

asked to be transferred to their boat, but Captain Mai declared the

change could not be made. Only young people were to go in the first

brigade which was expected to make the best possible speed. Walter was

young and strong and without family. The boy protested that he was one of

the Perier family, he had come with them, and was to live with them in

the settlement, but his protest was of no avail. Elise and Max were as

much distressed as he was at the arrangement, and he had to comfort them

with the assurance that they would all be together soon at the Red River.

It was well after noon on the day appointed for departure, when the start

was made. The boat carrying the guide, who was really the commanding

officer of the brigade, was propelled by oars out into the stream, and

the square sail raised. With shouts, cheers, and farewells, the long,

open craft, well laden with settlers, supplies, and goods, was away up

the river.

When Walter took his place he was pleased to find himself in the same

boat with Louis Brabant. In spite of his disappointment at not traveling

with the Periers, the Swiss boy was in high spirits to be away at last,

headed for the wonderful Red River country where his fortune, he felt

sure, awaited him. He waved his hat and shouted himself hoarse in

farewells to those on shore.

It was a picturesque crowd massed on the dock and fringing the river

bank. Mingled with the Swiss were brown-skinned, long-haired post

employees and voyageurs with bright colored sashes, beaded garters tied

below the knees of their deerskin or homespun trousers, caps of fur or

cloth, or gaudy handkerchiefs bound about their heads. A little to one

side stood a group of Indians from the wigwams, in buckskin, bright

calicos, blankets, feathers, and beadwork. One old Cree was proudly clad

in a discarded army coat of scarlet with gold lace and a tall black hat

adorned with feathers. The dress of the Swiss, though in general more

sober, was brightened by the gay colors of shawls, aprons, and kerchiefs,

of short jackets or long-tailed coats with metal buttons, and of

home-knit stockings. As various as the costumes were the shouts and

farewells and words of advice exchanged between boats and shore in a

babel of tongues, English, Scots English, Swiss French, Canadian French,

German, Gaelic, and Cree.

The sail was raised and caught the breeze. Sitting at his ease, Walter

turned his attention to what lay ahead. The surrounding country was not

very pleasing in appearance. Scantily wooded with a scrub of willow,

poplar, tamarack, and swamp spruce, it was low and flat, especially on

the west, where the York Factory stood between the Hayes and the Nelson

rivers. The Nelson, Louis said, was the larger stream, but the Hayes was

supposed to afford a better route into the interior. Certainly the latter

river was not attractive, with its raw, ragged looking, clay banks,

embedded with stones, its muddy islands, and frequent bars and shallows

that interfered with navigation.

The immigrants were not suffered to sit in idleness all that afternoon.

There were two or more experienced rivermen in each boat, but the new

colonists were required to help. When the wind went down before sunset,

Walter expected to be called upon to wield an oar. But the current of the

Hayes was too strong and rapid to be stemmed with oars. The boat was

brought close to the bank, and the sail lowered. Standing in the stern,

the steersman surveyed his crew. Walter, in the other end of the boat,

had not noticed the steersman before. Now, he recognized the tall man

with the braided hair, who had come up behind him so noiselessly in the

Indian trading room at the fort.

In his deep, metallic voice the steersman began to speak, pointing first

at one man, then at another. When his bright, hard little eyes alighted

on Walter, and his long, brown forefinger pointed him out, the boy was

moved by the same strong, instinctive dislike, almost akin to fear, he

had felt when he first looked into the half-breed’s face. The fellow’s

French was so strange that Walter could not grasp the meaning. With a

questioning glance, he turned to Louis Brabant.

“You are to go ashore,” Louis explained. “Murray has chosen you in his

crew. The tracking begins now.”

Walter had no idea what tracking might be, but he rose to obey. With

several others, including Louis, he jumped from the boat to the muddy bit

of beach. The steersman handed each a leather strap, and Louis showed

Walter how to attach his to the tow-line and pass the strap over his

“inshore” shoulder. Like horses on a tow-path, the men were to haul the

boat, with the rest of the party in it, up stream.

The steep, clay banks were slippery from recent rains. Fallen trees, that

had been undermined and had slid part way down the incline, projected at

all angles. The willing, but inexperienced tracking crew slipped,

stumbled, scrambled, and struggled along, tugging at the tow-line. With

maddening ease the tall steersman, in the lead, strode through and over

the obstacles, turning his head every minute or two to shout back orders

and abuse. He seemed to have the utmost contempt for his greenhorn crew,

but he tried to urge and threaten them to a pace of which they were quite

incapable. Every time a man slipped or stumbled, jerking the tow-line,

Murray poured out a torrent of violent and profane abuse, in such bad

French and English, so intermixed with Gaelic and Indian words, that,

luckily, the Swiss could not understand a quarter of it.

Walter understood the tone, if not the words. He grew angrier and

angrier, as he strained and tugged at the rope and struggled to keep his

footing on the slippery bank. But he had the sense to realize that he

must not start a mutiny on the first day of the journey. He held his

tongue and labored on. The boy was thin, not having filled out to his

height, but he was strong. He was mountain bred, with muscular legs, good

heart and lungs. Nevertheless when at last Murray gave the order to halt,

only pride kept Walter from dropping to the ground to rest.

The second shift was led by a fair-haired, blue-eyed man from the Orkney

Islands, off the coast of Scotland, where the Hudson Bay Company

recruited many of its employees. Before his crew were through with their

turn at the tow-line, they came in sight, on rounding a bend, of the

first two boats with bows drawn up on a stretch of muddy beach. Farther

back on higher ground tents were going up and fires being kindled. Murray

ordered out the oars, and boat number three was run in beside the others.

After the tent, bedding, and provisions for the night were unloaded, the

tall steersman, without troubling to help with the camp making, took

himself off. It was young Louis Brabant who took charge. He selected the

spot for the one tent and helped to pitch it. Then he sent a man and a

boy to collect fuel, and Walter and another into the woods to strip

balsam fir branches for beds. Louis himself started the cooking fire,

between two green logs spaced so that the big iron kettle rested upon

them. From a chunk of dried caribou meat,—so hard and dry it looked a

good deal like sole leather,—he shaved off some shreds. After he had

ground the bits of meat between two stones, he put the partly pulverized

stuff to boil in a kettle of water. This soup, thickened with flour, was

the principal dish of the meal. Several handfuls of dark blue saskatoon

or service berries, gathered near by, served as dessert. By the time

supper was ready, the young Canadian’s swift, deft way of working, his

skill and certainty, his good nature and helpfulness, had won the good

will of everyone.

Walter asked Louis how long it would be before the second brigade left

Fort York.

“That I cannot tell. As soon as all is ready. You regret to be separated

from your family?”

“They aren’t really my family. I am apprenticed to Monsieur Perier.”

“The young Englishmen who come over to be clerks for the Company,” Louis

remarked, “sign a paper to serve for five years. Is it so with you?”

“Something like that, and in return Monsieur Perier agrees to give me a

home and teach me the business. When he decided to come to America, he

really released me from the agreement though. He offered to treat me like

his own son if I came with him.”

“If you are twenty-one you can get land of your own in the Colony.”

“I’m not sixteen yet.”

“Is it so?” cried Louis. “Then we are the same age, you and me. Fifteen

years last Christmas day I was born. So my mother told Père Provencher

when I was baptized.”

“My birthday is in February,” Walter replied. “I thought you must be

older than that. How long have you been a voyageur for the Company?”

“For the Hudson Bay Company only this summer. This is the first time I

have come to Fort York. Last year, after my father died, I went to the

Kaministikwia with the Northwest men. But always since I was big enough I

have known how to carry a pack and paddle a canoe. The birch canoe,—ah,

that is the right kind of boat! These heavy affairs of wood,” Louis

shrugged contemptuously. “They are so slow, so heavy to track and to

portage. You have the birch canoe in your country? No? Then you cannot

understand. When you have voyaged in a birch canoe, you will want no more

of these heavy things.”

“Why does the Company use them?”

Louis shrugged again as if the ways of the Hudson Bay Company were past

understanding. “The wooden boats will carry greater loads,” he admitted,

“and they are stronger, yes. Sometimes you get a hole in a canoe and you

must stop to mend it. Yet I think you do not lose so much time that way

as in dragging these heavy boats over portages.”

The wavering white bands of the aurora borealis were mounting the

northern sky before the camp was ready for the night. The one tent

carried by boat number three was given up to the women and children.

Walter rolled himself in a blanket and lay down with the other men on a

bed of fir branches close to the fire. The air was sharp and cold, and he

would have been glad of another blanket. But he had been well used to

cold weather in his native country, and had become still more hardened to

it during the long voyage in northern waters.

V

THE BLACK MURRAY

Louis’ voice, almost in Walter’s ear, was crying, “_Leve, leve_,—rise,

rise!”

Surely the night could not be over yet. Walter threw off his blanket,

scrambled up, shook himself, and pulled out his cherished silver watch.

It was ten minutes to five.

In a few moments the whole camp was stirring. Following the usual

voyageur custom, the boats got off at once, without delaying for

breakfast. After a spell of tracking, the Swiss boy was more than ready

for the pemmican and tea taken on a small island almost in midstream. The

Swiss lad had never tasted tea until he sailed on an English ship, but

after the drinking water had turned bad, he had been driven to try the

strange beverage and had grown accustomed to it. Tea was the universal

drink of the northern fur country, where coffee was practically unknown.

He was amazed at the quantity of scalding hot, black stuff the voyageurs

could drink.

Pemmican, the chief article of food used in the wilderness, he had eaten

for the first time at Fort York. The mixture of shredded dried meat and

grease did not look very inviting, but its odor, when heated, was not

unappetizing. He tasted his portion gingerly, and decided it was not bad.

The little dark specks of which he had been suspicious proved to be dried

berries of some kind. Walter had a healthy appetite, and the portion

served him looked small. He was surprised to find, before he had eaten

all of it, that he had had enough. Pemmican was very hearty food indeed.

That was a day of back-breaking, heart-breaking labor towing the heavy

boats up the Hayes. The clay banks grew steeper and steeper. Sometimes

there was a muddy beach at the base wide enough for the trackers to walk

on. Often there was no beach whatever, and they were forced to scramble

along slippery slopes, through and over landslips, fallen trees,

driftwood, and brush. Where tiny streams trickled down to join the river,

the ground was soft, miry, almost impassable. The forest crowning the

bank had become thicker, the trees larger and more flourishing. Poplars

and willows everywhere were flecked with autumn yellow. The tamarack

needles,—which fall in the autumn like the foliage of broad leaved

trees,—were turning bronze, and contrasted with the dark green of the

spruce. There was more variety and beauty in the surroundings than on the

preceding day, but Walter, stumbling along the difficult shore and

tugging at the tow-line, paid little attention to the scenery. With

aching back and shoulders and straining heart and lungs, he labored on.

Each time his shift was over and he was allowed to sit in the boat while

others did the tracking, he was too weary to care for anything but rest.

The boats were strung out a long way, some crews making better speed than

others. Some of the leaders were more considerate of their inexperienced

followers, though most of the voyageurs could scarcely understand why the

Swiss could not trot with the tow-line and keep up the pace all day, as

the Canadians and half-breeds were accustomed to. The steersman of boat

number three drove his men mercilessly. When at the tow-rope himself, he

kept up a steady flow of profane abuse in his bad French, almost equally

bad English, occasional Indian and Gaelic. Even when seated in the boat,

he grumbled at the slowness and lack of skill of those on shore, and

shouted orders and oaths at them.

At noon, when a short stop was made for a meal of cold pemmican and hot

tea, Walter said to Louis, “If our steersman doesn’t take care he will

have a mutiny on his hands. You had better tell him so. We have kept our

tempers so far, but we can’t stand his abuse forever.”

Louis shrugged. “I tell him? No, no. I tell _le Murrai Noir_ nothing,

_moi_. It would but make more trouble. With a crew of voyageurs he would

not dare act so. They will endure much, but not everything. Someone would

kill him. As a voyageur the Black Murray is good. He is strong, he is

swift, he knows how to shoot a rapid, he is a fine steersman. But as a

man—bah! Being in charge of a boat has turned his head.”

“He may get his head cracked if he does not change his manners.”

“We would not grieve, you and me, eh, my friend? But this is certain,”

the Canadian boy added seriously. “_Le Murrai Noir_ can hurt no one with

his tongue. Heed him not, though he bawl his voice away. It is so that I

do.”

Of all the men in the boat, the one who found the tracking hardest was a

young weaver named Matthieu. He was a lank, high-shouldered fellow, who

looked strong, but had been weakened by seasickness on the way over, and

had not regained his strength. Matthieu did his best, he made no

complaint, but he was utterly exhausted at the end of his shift each

time. The weaver was next to Murray in line, and much of the steersman’s

ill temper was vented on the poor fellow.

Late in the afternoon, Murray’s crew were tracking on a wet clay slope

heavily wooded along the rim and without beach at the base. In an

especially steep place Matthieu slipped. His feet went from under him.

The tow-rope jerked, and Walter barely saved himself from going down too.

Murray, his moccasins holding firm on the slippery clay, seized the rope

with both hands and roared abuse at the weaver. Exhausted and panting,

the poor fellow tried to regain his footing. Walter dug his heels into

the bank, and leaned down to reach Matthieu a hand, just as the enraged

steersman gave the fallen man a vicious and savage kick.

The boy’s anger flamed beyond control. He forgot that he was attached by

the left shoulder to the towline. Fists doubled, he started for Murray.

The rope pulled him up short. As he struggled to free himself and reach

the steersman, one of his companions intervened. He was a big, strong,

intelligent Swiss, a tanner by trade, who had assumed the leadership of

the immigrants in boat number three. His size, his authoritative manner,

his firm voice, had their effect on Murray. The half-breed paused, his

foot raised for another kick.

“There must be no fighting here,” said the tanner, “and no brutality.

Rossel, help Matthieu up. He must go back to the boat.”

Murray began to protest that he would allow no man to interfere with his

orders. The Swiss was quiet, but determined. The steersman had no right

to work a man to death, or to strike with hand or foot any member of the

party. The settlers were not his slaves.

Murray growled and muttered. His hard little eyes glowed angrily. When

Louis shouted to the Orkneyman to bring the boat to shore to receive the

worn-out Matthieu, the steersman opened his mouth to countermand the

order, but thought better of it and merely uttered an oath instead. He

could recognize the voice of authority,—when numbers were against him.

After Matthieu had been put aboard, the work was resumed. Murray, very

ugly, plodded sullenly ahead. He seized every opportunity to abuse

Walter, but the boy, now that one victory had been scored over the Black

Murray, did not heed his words.

The sky had clouded over, and rain began to fall, a chilly, sullen

drizzle. Yet the trackers toiled on. The oars were used only when

crossing from one side of the river to the other to find a possible

tow-path.

As darkness gathered, camp was made in the rain. The pemmican ration was

eaten cold, but by using under layers of birch bark shredded very fine,

and chopping into the dry heart of the stub of a lightning-killed tree,

Louis succeeded in starting a small blaze and keeping it going long

enough to boil water for tea.

After supper the tanner asked Walter to go with him to talk to the

voyageur in charge of the entire brigade. Laroque, the guide, a

middle-aged, steady-eyed French Canadian, listened to the complaint in

silence, then shook his head gravely.

“_Le Murrai Noir_ is not the best of men to be in control of a boat,—that

I know,” he admitted, “but it was hard to find men enough. He can do the

work, and do it well,—and there is this to say for him. You settlers know

nothing of voyaging. You are so slow and clumsy it is trying to the

patience. I find it so myself. _Le Murrai Noir_ has little patience. It

is you who must be patient with him.”

“But he has no right to strike and abuse men who are doing their best,

men who are not even employees of the Company,” protested the tanner.

Laroque nodded in agreement. “That is true.”

“Can’t you put someone else in as steersman of our boat?”

“No, there is no man of experience to be spared. Let the young man who is

sick remain in the boat with the women and children, until he is strong

again. I will speak to _le Murrai_ in the morning, and I think things

will go better. These first few days, they are the hardest for all.”

Wet, chilled, aching with weariness, and a bit discouraged, Walter

trudged back to his own camping place. Louis and the Orkneyman had laid

the mast and oars across the boat and had covered them with the sail and

a tarpaulin. Under this shelter the men spent the night, packed in so

closely there was scarcely room to turn over.

VI

TOILING UP STREAM

Things did go better next day, as the guide had foretold. What he had

said to Murray in that early morning talk, no one learned, but the

steersman attempted no more kicks and blows. He took his revenge upon

those who had complained of him by riding in the boat all day, devoting

his whole time and attention to steering. Not once did he touch the

tow-line, Louis taking his place. All the men, except the two voyageurs,

were lame and muscle sore from the unaccustomed work, but they were

gradually learning the trick of it. In comparison with trained rivermen,

they made slow time, but they got along better than on the day before. To

Walter it was a great relief to be freed from Murray’s brutality. He was

on his mettle to show the steersman that just as good progress could be

made without him.

On the fourth day of the journey a fork in the stream was reached, where

the Shamattawa and the Steel rivers came together to form the Hayes.

There Murray and Louis took down the mast and threw it overboard. There

would be no more sailing for a long way, Louis explained.

Up the winding course of the Steel the boats were hauled laboriously. The

banks were higher than those of the Hayes, but less steep, affording a

better tow-path. In appearance the country was far more attractive than

the low, flat desolation around Fort York, and the woods were at their

best in full autumn color. Utterly wild and lonely was this savage land,

but by no means devoid of beauty. It seemed to the Swiss immigrants,

however, that they were but going farther and farther from all

civilization. Towns and farms, the homelike dwellings of men, seemed

almost as remote as though on some other planet.

Walter was surprised to see so little game in the wilderness, until he

realized that the constant talking, laughing, and shouting back and forth

must frighten every bird and beast. Wild creatures could not be expected

to show themselves to such noisy travelers. Only the “whiskey-johneesh,”

as Louis called the bold and thievish Canada jays, dared to cry out at

the passing boats and come about the camps to watch for scraps.

Just as the Swiss were growing used to the labor of the tow-rope, they

were given a new task, portaging. Below the first really bad rapid, the

boat was beached, everyone was ordered ashore, and the cargo unloaded.

The traders’ custom was to put all goods and supplies in packages of from

ninety to one hundred pounds’ weight. One such package was considered a

light load. An experienced voyageur usually carried two. That the new

settlers might help with the work, part of the food, clothing, and other

things had, for this trip, been made into lighter parcels.

The Orkneyman was the first to receive a load. He adjusted his portage

strap, the broad band across his forehead, the ends passing back over his

shoulders to support his pack. Picking up a hundred pound sack of

pemmican, Murray put it in position on the small of the Orkneyman’s back,

then placed another bulky package on top of the sack. The load extended

along the man’s spine to the crown of his head, and weighed nearly two

hundred pounds, but the Orkneyman, his body bent forward, trotted away

with it. It was the steersman’s work to place the packages, and the ease

with which Murray had swung the hundred pound sack into position revealed

one reason why he had been chosen.

Walter’s pack of forty or fifty pounds did not seem heavy. He felt

confident that he could carry it easily enough, and imitated the

Orkneyman by starting off at a trot. The portage trail was an unusually

good one, neither very rough nor very steep, yet the boy soon found that

he could not keep up the pace. He slowed down to a walk. His burden grew

heavier. The muscles of his neck began to ache. He tried to ease them a

little, and his pack twisted, pulling his head back with a wrench. He

stumbled, went down, strove to straighten his load and get up again. One

of his companions, plodding along, overtook him, stopped to laugh, tried

to help him, and succeeded only in dislocating his own pack. Louis had to

come to the rescue of both. Walter’s confidence in his own strength had

diminished, and he had discovered several new muscles in his back and

neck. Moreover he had learned that balancing a pack is an art not to be

acquired in a moment.

Another forking of the streams had been reached, where the Fox and the

Hill rivers joined to form the Steel. The Hill River proved shallower and

more rapid than the Steel. Ledges, rocks, and boulders obstructed the

current, and portages became so frequent that Walter got plenty of

practice in carrying a pack. Sometimes the empty boats could be poled or

tracked through the rapids or warped up the channel by throwing the line

around a tree and pulling. In other places the men, standing in the

water, lifted the heavy craft over the stones. Around the worst stretches

they dragged it over the portage trails.

At Rock Portage, where a ridge extends across the river and the water

rushes down in rapids and cascades between small islands, each boat and

its cargo had to be carried clear over one of the islands. Then, to the

great relief of the crews, they were able to row a short distance to Rock

House, a storehouse for goods and supplies for the Selkirk Colony. There

more pemmican, dried meat, flour, tea, and a little sugar were taken

aboard. To make room for the provisions, some of the personal belongings

of the settlers had to be unloaded, but the man in charge of Rock House

promised to send the things to Fort Douglas at the first opportunity.

Traveling up stream had now become an almost continual fight with rapid

waters through rough and rocky country. Walter’s muscles were hardening

and he was learning how to use his strength to the best advantage, but

each night when camp was made, he was ready to roll in his blanket and

sleep anywhere, on evergreen branches, on the hard planks of the boat, or

on the bare ground.

How was Mr. Perier standing the tow-path and the portage, the boy

wondered. The apothecary was far from robust. He had been so hopeful,

too, looking forward so eagerly to the rich land of the Red River. He

seemed to think of that land in the Bible terms, as “flowing with milk

and honey.” They would be too late to do any real farming this year, he

had said, but they could plow their land and have it ready for seeding in

the spring. Of course they would be provided with a house, fuel, and food

for the winter. The contract he and Captain Mai,—in Lord Selkirk’s

name,—had signed, promised him such things on credit. He had brought with

him some chemist’s supplies; dried and powdered roots and other

ingredients used in medicines. He and Walter would set up a shop and earn

enough to buy whatever they needed during the cold weather. Walter had

shared his master’s hopefulness, but now, after questioning Louis about

affairs in the Colony, he was beginning to doubt whether it would be so

easy to make a fortune there as Mr. Perier believed.

September was advancing. Most of the time the weather held good, but the

nights were chilly and the mornings raw, often with fog on the river. One

night, after the boat had been dragged through several short rapids, or

“spouts,” and carried over two portages,—the whole day’s progress less

than two miles,—snow fell heavily. When Walter, stiff with cold, crawled

out from under the tarpaulin in the morning, the ground was white.

“This looks more like Christmas than September,” he grumbled between

chattering teeth. “I’m glad of one thing, Louis, we’re headed south, not

north.”

“Oh, the winter is not quite so long at the Red River as in this

country,” Louis returned with a cheerful grin, “but it is long

enough,—yes, quite long enough,—and cold enough too, on the prairie.”

So the journey went slowly on, rowing, poling, tracking, warping, and

carrying the heavy boats up stream, and there was little enough rowing

compared with the poling and portaging.

Five or six miles had become a fair day’s progress. In the worst

stretches only a mile or two could be made by working from dawn to dark.

The Swiss would have been glad to rest on Sundays, and had expected to

observe the day as they were accustomed to, but the guide and the

voyageurs would not consent. It was too late in the season, the journey

was too long, the food supply too scanty, to permit the losing of one

whole day each week. The immigrants had to be content with a brief prayer

service morning and evening. The Swiss were Protestants, while all of the

voyageurs, except two or three Orkneymen, belonged to the Roman Catholic

church, so they worshiped separately. It surprised Walter at first to see

the wild-looking rivermen kneeling with bowed heads repeating their

“Aves” before lying down to rest. He never saw _le Murrai Noir_ in that

posture, however. He wondered if the steersman was a heathen.

There were accidents in the brigade now and then. Once when the

Orkneyman’s shift were tracking, the rope broke and boat number three

began to swing broadside to the current. At Murray’s fierce yell of

command, the men in the boat jumped into the water nearly to their waists

and held it headed straight, while Louis, keeping his footing with

difficulty in the swift current, carried the remains of the line to

shore.

The next day the boat ahead met with misfortune, while it was being poled

through rapids. To avoid a great rock, the bowman turned too far out into

the strong current. The rushing water swung the clumsy craft about and

bore it down the rapids. It struck full on its side on a rock that rose

well out of water, and was held there by the strength of the current.

There were but two men in the boat, and it was separated from shore by a

channel of rushing white water. The crew of number three turned their own

craft in to shore, and ran to help. Walter, carrying the tow-line,

reached the spot first and attempted to throw the rope to the imperiled

boat. The end fell short. Then Louis tried his hand, but succeeded no

better. He was preparing for another attempt, when the line was snatched

from his hands, and Murray sent the coiled end hurtling out across the

water and into the boat.

Growling and cursing, the half-breed took control of the rescue. Under

his leadership, the men on shore succeeded in pulling the boat away from

the rock, and warping it, half full of water, up the rapids. Walter’s

fondness for the Black Murray had certainly not increased as the days

went by, but he had to admit that the brutal steersman knew how to act in

an emergency.

The toilsome ascent of Hill River was over at last when camp was made

late one afternoon on an island which Louis called Sail Island. The

reason for the name became apparent when Murray, after carefully

examining the trees, selected a straight, sound spruce and ordered Louis

and the Orkneyman to cut it down. The spruce was to be trimmed for a

mast. If a mast was needed, thought Walter, the worst of the journey must

be over. The night was cold and snow threatened, but there was plenty of

fuel, and the camp on Sail Island was a cheerful one.

VII

NORWAY HOUSE

The first thing Walter did when he woke the next morning was to notice

the direction of the wind. Though light it was favorable. That made a day

of easy, restful sailing. The weary men sat and lay about in as lazy

positions as the well-filled boat would permit, while the women busied

themselves with knitting and mending. The journey was a hard one on

clothes, even of the stoutest materials, but by mending and darning

whenever they had a chance, and by washing soiled things out at night and

hanging them around the fire to dry, the Swiss managed to keep themselves

fairly neat and clean. They had not been in the wilds long enough to grow

careless.

The following day’s journey commenced with a portage. The brigade was

going up the Jack River, which was short but full of rapids. All the

rivers in this country were made up of rapids, it seemed to Walter. Then

came another period of ease on Knee Lake, so called from an angle like a

bent knee. About twenty miles were made that day, one of the best of the

trip.

The hard work was not over by any means. On Trout River were some of the

worst portages of all. A waterfall, plunging down fifteen or sixteen

feet, obstructed the passage. The boats were unloaded and dragged and

carried up a rugged trail, to be launched again over steep rocks.

On Holey Lake,—named from a deep spot believed by the Indians to be

bottomless,—was Oxford House, a Hudson Bay Company post. The boats made a

short stop there, then went on to pitch camp on one of the islands. The

waters abounded in fish. With trolling lines Walter and his companions

caught lake trout enough for both supper and breakfast. The fish, broiled

over the coals, were a luxury after days of pemmican and hard dried meat.

A narrow river, more portages, a little pond, a deep stream flowing

through flat, marshy land, followed Holey Lake. In strong contrast was

the passage called Hell Gates, a narrow cut with sheer cliffs so close on

either hand that there was not always room to use the oars.

A whole day was spent in passing the White Falls, where everything had to

be carried a long mile. Three of the crews made the crossing at the same

time, crowding each other on the portage. The Swiss caught the voyageurs’

spirit of good-natured rivalry and entered heartily into the contest to

see which crew would get boat and cargo over in the shortest time. With a

ninety pound sack of pemmican, Walter trotted over the slippery trail and

won a grin from Louis.

“You will make a good voyageur when you have gone two or three voyages,”

said the young Canadian.

By the time Walter had helped to drag the heavy boat across three rock

ridges, which caused three separate waterfalls, he felt that one voyage

would be quite enough. Yet he was not too tired to dance a jig when he

learned that his boat had won.

Small lakes, connected by narrow, grassy streams, gave relief from

portaging, tracking, and poling. Muskrat houses, conical heaps of mud and

débris, rose above the grass in the swamps, and ducks flew up as the

boats approached. The sight of those ducks made Walter’s mouth water. His

regular portion of pemmican or dried meat left him hungry enough to eat

at least twice as much. He had not had a really satisfying meal since

leaving Holey Lake. Yet he could do a harder day’s work and be far less

tired than at the beginning of the trip. His muscles had hardened, and he

carried not one pound of extra weight. During the cold nights he would

have been glad of a layer of fat to keep him warm.

The boat was sailing along a sluggish, marshy stream, when Louis, who was

in the bow picking the channel, raised a shout. “The Painted Stone,” he

cried, pointing ahead.

“I don’t see any stone, painted or not,” Walter returned, gazing in the

same direction.

Louis laughed. “There used to be such a stone,—so they say. The Indians

worshiped it.”

“But why make such a fuss about a stone that isn’t there?”

Again Louis laughed. “Do you see that flat rock? Perhaps it was painted

once, I do not know, but it marks the Height of Land. All the way we have

come up and up, but from there we go down stream,—until we come to Sea

River, which is a part of the Nelson and takes us to Lake Winnipeg. Isn’t

that something to make a fuss about?”

“It’s the best news I have heard in many a day,” Walter agreed.

A short portage at the Height of Land brought the boats to the Echemamis

River, where they were headed down stream into a rush-grown lake,

connected by a creek with the Sea River. This stream is a part of the

Nelson, which rises in Lake Winnipeg, so the brigade had to go against

the current to Lower Play Green Lake and Little Jack River.

From a log cabin on the shore of Little Jack, a bearded, buckskin-clad

man came down to the water’s edge. Louis called to ask if he had any

fish. The man shook his head. The first boat had taken all he could

spare. The fisherman, Louis explained, supplied trout and sturgeon to

Norway House.

Many a time during the trip Walter had heard of Norway House, an

important Hudson Bay Company post. “Isn’t that on Lake Winnipeg?” he

cried. “Are we so near the lake?”

“We shall be there to-morrow.”

Before sunrise next morning, the voyageurs bathed and scrubbed in Little

Jack’s cold, muddy-looking water. They appeared at starting time in

clean, bright calico shirts, and new moccasins elaborately embroidered.

Louis and the Orkneyman wore gaudy sashes. A broad leather belt girt the

steersman’s middle and held his beaded deerskin pouch. Around his oily

black hair he had bound a scarlet silk handkerchief. The Orkneyman had

trimmed his yellow beard. No hair seemed to grow on Murray’s face.

Possibly it had been plucked out, Indian fashion.

Little Jack River is merely a channel winding about among the islands

that separate Lower and Upper Play Green lakes, extensions of Lake

Winnipeg. Louis told Walter that the “play green” was on one of the

islands, where two bands of Indians had been accustomed to meet and hold

feasts and games of strength and skill.

Not a hundred yards behind the guide’s boat, number three came in sight

of Norway Point, the tip of the narrow peninsula separating Upper Play

Green Lake from Lake Winnipeg proper. Shouts and cheers greeted the log

wall of Norway House and the flag of the Hudson Bay Company. The Swiss

were in high spirits. Once more they were nearing a land where men dwelt.

Their journey would soon be over, they believed. Not yet could they grasp

the vastness of this new world.

As the boats drew near the post, dogs began to bark and men came running

down to the shore. Voices shouted greetings in English and French, not

merely to the voyageurs, but to the immigrants as well. Though the fur

traders, trappers, and voyageurs were reluctant to see their wilderness

opened up to settlement, yet the arrival of the white strangers, even

though they were settlers, was too important a break in the monotony of

life at the trading post for their welcome to be other than cordial.

Moreover the white men and half-breeds at Norway House, and even the

Indians camped outside the walls, were curious to see these new

immigrants. So the Swiss were welcomed warmly by bronzed white men and

dusky-faced mixed bloods, while the full blood Indians looked on with

silent but intent curiosity.

The first boats to arrive made a stay of several hours at the post, and

Walter, conducted by Louis, had a good chance to see the place. Like York

Factory, Norway House consisted of a group of log buildings within a

stockade, but it stood on dry ground, not in a swamp, and its

surroundings were far more attractive than those of the Hudson Bay fort.

As the two boys were coming out of the big gate, after their tour of

inspection, Walter, who was ahead, caught sight of a tall figure

disappearing around one corner of the stockade. He glanced towards the

shore. The boats were deserted. The voyageurs had sought friends within

the stockade or in the tents and cabins outside the walls. The Swiss were

visiting the fort or wandering about the point.

“Do we take on more supplies here?” Walter asked his companion.

“If we can get them,” Louis returned. “They can spare little here, they

say. Are you so starved that you think of food all the time?” he

questioned smilingly.

“No, I’m not quite so hungry as that. I just saw Murray carrying a sack,

and I wondered what he had.” Louis looked towards the boats. “Where is

he? I don’t see him.”

“He didn’t go to the boat. He was coming the other way. He went around

the corner of the wall.”

“With an empty sack?”

“No, a full one.”

Louis stared at the corner bastion. “He was going around there, carrying

a full sack? You are sure it was Murray?”

“I saw his back, but I’m sure. He has that red handkerchief around his

head, you know.”

“Well, it was not anything for us he was taking in that direction,” Louis

commented, “and we brought nothing to be left at Norway House. It is some

affair of his own. He——”

“Ho, Louis Brabant! What is the news from the north?”

Louis had swung about at the first word. Two buckskin-clad men, one old,

the other young, were coming through the gate. Louis turned back to

reply, and Walter followed him to listen to the exchange of news between

the newly arrived voyageur and these two employees of the post. The Swiss

boy was growing used to the Canadian French tongue, and during the

conversation he learned several things that surprised him.

Walter had taken for granted that the journey would be nearly over when

Lake Winnipeg was reached. Now he was amazed to learn that he had still

more than three hundred miles to go to Fort Douglas, the stronghold of

the Red River colony.

“But how far have we come?” he cried.

“About four hundred and thirty miles the way you traveled,” the

leather-faced old man answered promptly.

“The rest of the voyage will not be so hard though,” Louis said

reassuringly. “There are few portages. If the wind is fair, we can sail

most of the way. Of course if there are storms on the lake——”

“There are always storms this time of year,” put in the old voyageur

discouragingly.

The prospect of bad weather on Lake Winnipeg did not disturb Walter so

much, however, as a piece of news which the old man led up to with the

question, “How is it that settlers are still coming to the Colony on the

Red River now that Lord Selkirk is dead?”

“Lord Selkirk dead?” cried Walter and Louis together.

“But yes, that is what people say. I was at Fort Douglas in June, and

everyone there was talking about it, and wondering what would happen to

the settlement.”

“They did not tell us that at Fort York,” cried Walter. “When did he die?

Since we left Europe in May?”

“No, no, the news could not come to the Red River so quickly. It was last

year some time he died.”

“You haven’t heard of this before, Louis?” Walter turned to his

companion.

“No, I heard nothing of it when I came down the Red River in the spring.

I left Pembina as soon as the ice was out, and at Fort Douglas I took

service with the Company, but I did not stay there long. They sent me on

here to Norway House. I heard no such story. Perhaps it is not true, but

only a false rumor started by someone who wishes to make trouble in the

colony.”

“That must be it,” agreed Walter. “If Lord Selkirk died last year they

would surely have heard it at Fort York. Captain Mai would have known it

anyway before we left Switzerland. No, it can’t be true.”

But the old voyageur shook his head. “Everyone at Fort Douglas believed

it,” he said.

VIII

THE MISSING PEMMICAN

About the middle of the afternoon, Laroque the guide began to round up

crews and passengers. His shout of “Embark, embark” was taken up by one

man after another, and the idle sled dogs, that wandered at will about

the post and the Indian village, added their voices to the chorus.

Walter and Louis ran down to the shore at the first call. Most of the

Swiss obeyed the summons promptly. Their fear of being left behind was

too great to permit taking risks. Several of the voyageurs, however, were

slow in appearing. When they did come, they gave evidence of having been

too generously treated to liquor by their friends at the post. After

everyone else was ready to start, Laroque had to go in search of Murray.

Carrying a bundle wrapped in a piece of old canvas, Black Murray came

back with the guide, his sullen face set and heavy, his small eyes

shining with a peculiar glitter. He showed no other sign of drunkenness,

but walked steadily to the boat, placed his bundle in the stern, and

stepped in.

Laroque sprang to his own place, oars were dipped, sails raised, and the

boats were off, amid shouts of farewell and the howling of dogs. Leaving

the handling of the sail to the Orkneyman, Murray remained stolidly

silent in the stern. His steering was careless, even erratic, but no one

ventured to try to take the tiller. Luckily the wind was light, the lake

smooth, and the boats had not far to go. Camp was pitched on a beach of

the long point, where the travelers had an unobstructed view down the

lake to the meeting place of sky and water.

“It seems as if we had come to another ocean,” Walter confided to Louis.

“Why do they call this Norway Point, and the trading post Norway House?

What has Norway to do with Lake Winnipeg?”

“I have heard,” Louis replied, “that some men from a country called

Norway were brought over by the Company and stationed here. Then too I

have heard that the point was named from the pine trees that grow here,

because they look like the pines in that country of Norway. Which story

is true I know not. The post has been here a long time, and always, I

think, it has been called Norway House. When the Selkirk colonists were

driven from the Red River by the Northwesters, they came this way and

camped on the Little Jack River.”

That night’s camp was one of the most comfortable of the whole journey.

The evening was fine, there was plenty of wood, and an abundance of fish

for supper. The Swiss sat about their fires later than usual, talking of

the journey, speculating on what was to come, and planning for the

future. Nearly three weeks they had been on the way from Fort York. Now

they looked out over the star-lit waters stretching far away to the

south, and cheered their hearts with the hope and belief that the worst

was over. At least they would not have to track up stream and portage

around rapids for some days to come.

“How long will it take us to reach the Red River?” The question was asked

over and over again, with varying replies from the voyageurs. Walter

asked it of Louis, and the young Canadian shook his head doubtfully. If

the weather was good, the winds favorable, they might go the whole length

of Lake Winnipeg in a week, but if the weather should be bad, no one

could tell how long they might be delayed.

The autumn weather showed its fickleness that very night. The wind

shifted, the sky clouded over, and the morning dawned raw and

threatening. The breeze was almost directly east, however, a favorable

direction for the travelers, whose route lay along the north and west

shores. So the boats got away early, and, with sails raised, held to the

southwest, well out from land. They made good progress before the brisk

wind, but as it grew stronger the lake roughened. Along the north shore

high cliffs towered, with narrow stretches of beach here and there at the

base. Safe landing places were few, but the waves were growing

dangerously high, and the open boats were too heavily laden to ride such

rough water buoyantly.

Laroque changed his course, tacking in towards a bit of beach. Murray’s

boat was not far behind, and the half-breed handled it with skill and

judgment. At just the right instant, he ordered the sail down, the oars

out. The boat was run up on the sand without shipping a drop of water.

The rest of the brigade were some distance behind. They were forced to

put in close under the cliffs, but by using the oars managed to reach the

beach.

“We’ll have to open that last bag of pemmican,” said Walter to Louis who

was kindling a fire.

“Yes, but we must make it last through the voyage.”

Walter brought the rawhide sack, and Louis cut the leather cord with

which it was sewed. An exclamation of surprise and anger escaped him.

“What devil’s trick is this? Look, Walter!”

Walter looked, in amazement. “Why, it’s not pemmican. How on earth——”

“It is a fraud, a cheat.” Walter had never seen Louis so angry. “Some

fiend has filled this sack with clay and leaves and sold it to the

Company for good pemmican.”

“See here, Louis.” Walter lowered his voice. “This isn’t the bag I

carried over the portage at the White Falls.” He turned the sack over and

examined the other side. “There is no Company mark. Our pemmican has been

stolen and this trash left in its place.”

“No one from the other boats would steal our supplies.” Louis was

puzzled. “It must have been done at Norway House. Yet I think the Indians

would hardly dare to steal from a Company boat under the very walls of

the post. And they did not take the tea. The Indians like tea so well

they can never get enough.”

“Murray had a sack on his shoulder when I saw him dodge around the corner

of the wall, and the sack had the Company mark.” Walter’s voice had sunk

to a whisper. “But why in the world should he steal the provisions from

his own boat?”

Louis was thoughtful. “There might be a reason, yes,” he said. “_Le

Murrai_ might sell that pemmican for something he wanted. He has a bundle

that he did not have before.”

“But how could he?” Walter objected. “They would know at Norway House

that there was something wrong if the steersman of one of the boats

offered to sell them a sack of pemmican.”

“That is true, but he might have traded it to the Indians, or some Indian

friend of his might have sold it for him. I would like to know what is in

that bundle. He slept with his head on it last night.”

“Shall we tell Laroque about this?”

“That this sack is not good, yes, but not about _le Murrai_, no, not yet.

We can prove nothing. It may not have been the pemmican he had.”

“I’m sure it was,” Walter insisted stubbornly.

Louis shrugged. “I am no coward, Walter, but I will not accuse _le

Murrai_ of stealing and then voyage in the same boat with him. We have

yet far to go.”

Louis was right and Walter knew it. Together they went to Laroque and

told him of the fraud, but said nothing about their suspicions of Murray.

The guide was much disturbed. He examined the sack of clay, and

questioned Murray and the Orkneyman. Both disclaimed any responsibility.

The Orkneyman agreed with the boys that the sacks brought from Fort York

had all borne the Company mark. Murray said he had not noticed. He had

had nothing to do with provisioning the boats. If the Company had been

cheated, that was no affair of his.

From his own supplies, Laroque lent boat number three a little pemmican

for supper. The Swiss were indignant at the fraud. Some of them even

wanted to return to Norway House and seek for the culprit.

Before the scanty meal was over, rain began to fall. The beach was not a

good camping ground. If the wind shifted to the south, the waves would

wash over the narrow margin of sand and break against the perpendicular

cliffs. To find a better place was impossible, for the lake was far too

stormy to venture out upon. The boats were pulled well up, the tents

pitched with one wall almost against the cliff, and the sails, masts, and

oars converted into additional shelters. Luckily the campers were

protected from the strong wind, which had become more northerly. But the

water came down the cliffs in cascades, digging pools and channels in the

sand and shingle.

Fortunately the worst of the storm did not last long. The rain became

fine and light like mist driven by the wind, and before sundown ceased

entirely. As the wind shifted farther towards the north, the water

receded from the base of the cliff, leaving a wider stretch of sand. The

lake was still too rough for the boats to go out, but as long as the wind

remained in the north, the beach was a safe camping place.

A little dry driftwood had been collected and put under shelter before

the rain began. So everyone was able to warm and dry himself before

creeping between his blankets. Laroque assigned the voyageurs to watches,

and cautioned each man to walk the beach while on guard and keep an eye

on wind and waves.

IX

HUNGER AND COLD

The guide aroused the camp before daylight. Wind and waves had fallen,

and the boats got away quickly. All day they went ahead under sail or

oars along the north shore. Camp was made on a narrow ridge of sand

separating a large bay from the main body of water. A contrary wind kept

the boats at Limestone Bay,—as it was called from the fragments of

limestone strewn along its shores,—until late the following day.

Among the reeds and wild rice ducks were feeding. The voyageurs succeeded

in shooting a number of the birds, made a stew of some, and buried the

rest, unplucked, in ashes and hot sand. A fire was kept going above them

for several hours until they were well cooked. When they were taken out

and the skins stripped off, Walter found his portion very good eating

indeed.

Two days later the mouth of the Saskatchewan River was reached. Walter

was beginning to understand why the length of time required to traverse

Lake Winnipeg could not be foretold. The lake is about two hundred and

sixty miles long in a direct course, but the open boats were obliged to

keep well in towards shore, making the journey upwards of three hundred.

When the weather was favorable, sails were raised and good speed made,

but the autumn gales had set in, and contrary winds were frequent.

Skirting the shore in head winds and high waves was both slow and

dangerous. Sometimes the boats had to be beached through surf, the men

jumping into the water and dragging them above the danger line. By the

time camp was pitched, both voyageurs and settlers were not only tired

and hungry, but usually wet and chilled to the bone.

October came with unseasonable cold, even for that northern country. With

darkness the temperature sank far below the freezing point. One night

Matthieu the unfortunate went to sleep without drying his wet shoes and

stockings, and frosted both feet so that they were sore for the rest of

the journey.

Whenever it was possible to go on, whether at daybreak, noon, or

midnight, the boats were away. Meals were irregular and food scanty. Much

of the time the lake was too rough for fishing, but sometimes ducks were

shot. To Murray’s boat the loss of the sack of pemmican was serious. The

supplies were reduced to tea and a little barley meal.

The boats did not always make the same camping ground, though they tried

to keep together. How far behind the second brigade might be, no one

could guess. Walter worried about the Periers. Surely this must be a hard

experience for Elise and little Max, and for Mr. Perier also.

For two days the guide’s boat and Murray’s were windbound on an exposed

beach where everything had to be carried well above the water line.

Fishing was impossible in this open, wind-swept spot, but Louis shot a

white pelican. The clumsy looking bird with its great pouched beak was a

curiosity to Walter. If he had not been so very hungry he could not have

eaten its fishy-tasting flesh.

Suddenly the weather changed for the better. In less than eight hours

after the boats got away from their enforced camping ground, the lake

looked as if it had never been disturbed. There was not a breath of wind

to catch the sail, not a wave, or even a ripple. Plying the oars, the

crews held a course far out across the mouth of a bay. On and on they

rowed, watching the sunset and the afterglow reflected in still water and

the stars coming out one by one.

The southern half of Lake Winnipeg is very broken in outline, with many

points and islands. One night, reaching the sheltered head of a deep,

sandy bay with a high background of rocks and forest, the travelers found

the sands covered thick with the dead bodies of insects.

“Grasshoppers!” exclaimed Louis. “They have come again!”

Walter was gazing up and down the beach in amazement. “I never knew there

could be so many grasshoppers in the world,” he said. “Where did they all

come from?”

“From the prairie to the south. They’re not ordinary grasshoppers like

the big green ones. These are smaller and a different color, and their

horns,”—Louis meant their antennæ,—“are short. I never saw this kind till

three years ago, and then they came all of a sudden. They ate up

everything. Ugh, how they smell! We can’t camp here.”

The place was indeed impossible as a camping ground. The boats put off

again to seek a spot where the waves had washed the shores clean of the

remains of the dead insects. Louis was right when he said that they were

not ordinary grasshoppers. They were the dread locust,—the Rocky Mountain

locust. At the camp fire that night, the Canadian boy told Walter and his

companions how the locusts had come to the Red River valley.

“I was at Fort Douglas with my father,” he began. “We had just come down

from Pembina with some carts. Everything looked well on the settlers’

farms. The grain was in the ear and ripening. Then came the grasshoppers.

These short-horned grasshoppers fly much higher than the ordinary kind.

Their wings are stronger. They came in great clouds that darkened the air

as if real clouds were passing across the sun. Late in the afternoon they

began to alight, such hordes of them you can’t imagine. Men, women, and

children ran out into the fields, crushing grasshoppers at every step,

the flying creatures dashing against them like hailstones. The poor

settlers could do nothing against such an army. They saved a few half

ripe ears of barley, the women hiding them under their aprons, but that

was all. By the next morning everything was gone.”

“Do you mean that the grasshoppers ate the crops?” asked Walter, scarcely

able to believe what he had heard.

“They ate everything green,” Louis replied impressively, “not only the

grain and the gardens, but every green blade of grass on the prairie.”

“And they have come again this year,” said Matthieu the weaver slowly,

“and perhaps they have again taken everything.” His voice sounded

discouraged.

“I fear it,” was Louis’ grave response.

“What did the settlers do for food?” asked Walter. “Did Lord Selkirk

supply it?”

Louis shook his head. “That was a hard winter. Most of the colonists went

to Pembina, where they could hunt the buffalo. They got some food from

the Company and some pemmican from the Indians. But they had almost no

seed for the next year. In the spring they sowed the little barley they

had saved, and it came up and promised well. Then the young grasshoppers

hatched out from the eggs left in the ground the year before, and ate it

all. So again the settlers were without meal for the winter. The Governor

sent M’sieu Laidlaw and other men into the Sioux country, up the Red

River and down the St. Peter to the great Mississippi where there is a

settlement called Prairie du Chien. It was a hard journey in winter on

snowshoes, but they came back in June with more than three hundred

bushels of seed wheat, oats, and peas. The seeding was too late for a

good crop last year, but this year they hoped for a big one.”

“And the grasshoppers have come again,” Matthieu repeated dully.

Around points and among islands the boats threaded their way, hugging the

shore most of the time, risking traverses across the mouths of bays when

the weather permitted.

No food was left in Murray’s boat, nothing but a little tea. Fishing had

to be resorted to, often with poor luck. Few animals were seen, though

the howling of wolves had come to be a familiar sound at night. Flocks of

ducks and geese passed high overhead, but to shoot them the hunters had

to seek the marshy places in bays or at stream mouths. Bad weather caused

so much delay that to take advantage of calm water or favorable wind

everyone was compelled, more than once, to go breakfastless or

supperless. Walter was reduced to skin, muscle and bone. He felt a

constant gnawing hunger, was seldom warm except when exercising, and

found his hard-won muscular strength diminishing. An hour’s pulling at

the oar almost exhausted him. He wondered at Murray, on whose strength

and endurance starvation seemed to have no effect. Even Louis admitted

weakness and had lost some of his cheery high spirits.

At last the low shore at the south end of the lake, a long point of

shingle and sand, came in view. When the water was high and the wind from

the north, much of the long sand bar was covered, but luckily the lake

was calm when the guide’s boat reached the point. Murray’s craft followed

Laroque’s closely.

Sharing one gun between them, Louis and Walter went, with some of the

others, hunting for their supper. They rowed along the sand spit to the

marsh which was alive with birds,—ducks, geese, tall herons, and many

other smaller kinds. In a little pond several graceful, long-necked swans

were feeding. Walter did not think of firing at swans, but Louis had no

scruples. He brought one down with his first shot.

At sunset the hunters returned to camp with four fat geese, one of which

Walter had killed, two swans, and eighteen or twenty ducks. A party from

one of the other boats brought in almost as many. For the first time in

many days Walter had a chance to really satisfy his appetite. Wrapped in

his blanket, he slept soundly on his bed of sand, untroubled by hunger

dreams.

X

THE RED RIVER AT LAST

The mouth of the Red River divides into several channels that wind

through the marsh. The guide chose one of the main waterways, of good

depth and gentle current, and the oarsmen, eager to reach the settlement,

pulled with a will. They had some forty miles, by water, yet to go.

“Why do they call it _Red River_?” Walter asked Louis. “Not from the

color of the water?”

“It is from the Indian name, Miscousipi,” was the reply. “I have heard

that when the Saulteux and the Sioux fought a great battle on the banks,

the water ran red with blood. Both nations claim the valley as a hunting

ground.”

“Then it can hardly be a good place for settlers if the Indians fight

over it,” Walter said doubtfully.

“There are only Saulteux and Crees on the lower river now. The Sioux no

longer dare venture here. The upper river is the dangerous country.”

Where the marsh gave way to firmer ground, in an open space on the low

bank of a creek coming in from the west, stood a group of Indian lodges.

As the boat passed, the Swiss boy looked with interest at the low, round

topped structures of hides and rush mats.

“Those are Saulteur wigwams,” Louis explained.

“No one seems to be at home to-day.”

“No, but they intend to come back or they would have taken down the

lodges. There was a fight in this place many years ago. A band of Crees

came down that stream, and the old people and children camped here, while

the young men went to Fort York with their furs. That was before the

Hudson Bay Company had posts in this part of the country. While the

braves were all away, the Sioux came and killed the old people and took

the children captive. So the stream is called Rivière aux Morts—the river

of the dead.”

“What a fiendish thing to do,” Walter exclaimed, “and cowardly.”

Louis shrugged expressively. “It is the Indian way of fighting. The Sioux

are not cowards, but fiends, yes. And so are the Crees and the Saulteux

in war. I say it though my grandmother was an Ojibwa.”

“Have you Indian blood, Louis?” Walter asked in surprise. “I supposed you

were pure French.”

“I am _bois brulé_, as we mixed bloods are called from our dark skins,

and I am not ashamed of it. My father, he was pure French, and my mother

is half French, but her mother was Ojibwa, Saulteur. Perhaps I do not

look so Indian as _le Murrai Noir_.” Louis lowered his voice. “They say

he is at least half Sioux.”

“Sioux! Well, he certainly doesn’t act like a white man.”

“He has the worst of both the white man and the Indian I think.”

As the boats went on up stream, the banks became higher and covered with

trees, not willows and aspens only, but elms and oaks and maples. The

frosty weather had practically stripped the trees of what leaves the

locusts had left, yet no wide view was possible, for the river ran

through a narrow trench with steep sides.

At the foot of a stretch of rapids camp was made, and a number of small

fish caught for supper. Early in the morning the ascent was begun. The

fall was slight, but the current was strong, and the channel sown with

boulders and interrupted by ledges. After the boats had been tracked

through, the voyageurs delayed for the scrubbing and hair trimming that

preceded their approach to the dwellings of men. Again they put on their

best and brightest shirts, sashes, and moccasins, which they had

carefully stowed away after leaving Norway House.

After he was washed and dressed, Louis, with an air of secrecy, drew

Walter aside. “I have seen the inside of Murray’s big package,” he

whispered.

“You have? How did that happen?”

“He left the package in the boat. I opened it.”

“What did you find?”

“Little things,—awls, flints, fish hooks, net twine, beads, all wrapped

in red or blue handkerchiefs. I had no time to unwrap them, but I could

feel some of them. I wonder what he wants of all those things.”

Walter remembered the conversation in the Indian room at Fort York.

“Can’t he sell them to the Indians for furs?” he asked.

“The Company will not permit a voyageur to trade. Sometimes, it is true,

they may send a man out to buy skins. Perhaps they might send Murray, but

I do not think so, and he would need more goods, a whole canoe or cart or

sled load.”

“But the Company refused to let him have them,” Walter explained. “At

Fort York he asked for a lot of goods, on credit, so he could go trade

with the Sioux.”

“The Sioux?”

“Yes, I heard the clerk tell him that the Chief Trader wouldn’t give him

the goods. The clerk said it was a crazy scheme. Murray must have stolen

our pemmican and exchanged it, or got someone else to do it for him, at

Norway House. He must have wanted those things badly to be willing to go

hungry for them.”

“He can endure hunger like an Indian,” Louis returned, “and one of the

voyageurs in Laroque’s boat has been sharing his food with him. I saw him

do it. He is afraid of Murray for some reason. It may be you are right

about his selling the pemmican. The Indians want all those little things.

They are eager to get them. He might begin——”

“Embark, embark!”

The two boys hurried towards the boat. As they went, Walter whispered,

“Are you going to tell about that package?”

“I think so. Not to Laroque, but to the Chief Trader at Fort Douglas.”

When Murray stepped into the boat, he stooped to examine his bundle.

Would he discover that it had been opened? It was an anxious moment for

Louis and Walter, but the steersman took his place without even looking

in their direction. Walter would not have thought of opening Murray’s

package. But the Canadian boy’s upbringing had been different.

The banks bordering the rapids were gravelly, the growth thinner and

smaller. Then came lower, muddy shores, and Walter got his first glimpse

of the prairie. On the west side, only a few trees and bushes edged the

river. The country beyond stretched away flat and open, but it was not

the fertile, green land the Swiss boy had heard about. The plain was

yellow-gray, desolate and dead looking. In one place a wide stretch was

burned black. Could this be the rich and beautiful land Captain Mai had

described?

Walter’s disappointment was too deep for expression. All he said was, “I

thought the prairie would be like our meadows at home. It doesn’t look as

if anything could grow here.”

“Oh, things grow very fast, once the ground is broken,” Louis assured

him. “Wheat, barley and oats, peas and potatoes, everything that is

planted. And the prairie grass is fine pasture. The buffalo eat nothing

else. It is as I feared though. The grasshoppers have taken everything.

But the grass will grow again. It is coming now. Look at that low place.

It is all green. Wait until spring and then you will see. The prairie is

beautiful then, the fresh, new grass, and flowers everywhere.”

“And the grasshoppers come and eat it all up,” Walter added dejectedly.

“They may never come again. No one at Fort Douglas or Pembina had ever

seen the short horned grasshoppers till three years ago. And they didn’t

come last year. Perhaps we shall never see them again.”

Walter knew that Louis was trying to cheer him, and he felt a little

ashamed of his discouragement. He put aside his disappointment and

forebodings, and tried to share in his friend’s good spirits. In a few

hours the long journey would be over, and that was something to be

thankful for. He hoped it was nearly over for Elise and Max and their

father. The second brigade could not be very far behind.

The current was not strong and there were no rocks, so making their way

up stream was not hard work for the boat crews. The first person from the

settlement who came in sight was a sturdy, red-haired boy of about

Walter’s own age, fishing from a dugout canoe. He raised a shout at the

appearance of the brigade, and snatching off his blue Scotch bonnet or

Tam-o’-Shanter, he waved it around his head. Then he paddled to shore in

haste to spread the news.

Log houses came in view on the west side of the river at the place Louis

called the Frog Pond. Lord Selkirk himself, when he had visited the

settlement four years before, had named that part of his colony Kildonan

Parish, after the settlers’ old home in Scotland. The little cabins were

scattered along the bank facing the stream, the narrow farms stretching

back two miles across the prairie. From the river there was but little

sign of cultivation and scarcely anything green to be seen.

From nearly every house folk came out to watch the brigade go by. Roughly

clad, far from prosperous looking they were, in every combination of

homespun, Hudson Bay cloth, and buckskin. Some of the men wore kilts

instead of trousers, and nearly all waved flat Scotch bonnets. Walter’s

heart warmed to these folk. Like himself they were white and from across

the ocean, though their land and language were not his own. One bent old

woman in dark blue homespun dress, plaid shawl, and white cap reminded

him of his own grandmother.

All the Swiss were waving hats and kerchiefs, and shouting “_Bon jour_”

and “_Guten Tag_,” the women smiling while the tears ran down their

cheeks. The long journey with all its suffering and hardships was

over,—so they believed. At last they had reached the “promised land.” As

yet it did not look very promising to be sure, but they would soon make

homes for themselves. The thin face of Matthieu, the weaver, who had been

so disheartened when he heard about the grasshoppers, was shining with

happiness.

XI

FORT DOUGLAS

“Where do we land, Louis?” asked Walter.

“At Fort Douglas, where Governor Sauterelle lives.”

“I thought the Governor’s name was Mc-something.”

“It is McDonnell, but people call him Governor Grasshopper because, they

say, he is as great a destroyer as those pests.”

“What do they mean?”

“They do not like their Governor, these colonists. You will soon hear all

about him.”

A few cabins, set down hit or miss, less well kept than those on the west

bank, and interspersed with several Indian lodges, came in view on the

east shore. Black haired, dark skinned men and women, and droves of

children and sharp nosed dogs were running down to the river.

“_Bois brulés_,” Louis explained, using the name he had given himself. It

means “burnt wood” and is descriptive of the dark color of the

half-breed.

The boat made a turn to the east, following a big bend in the river.

“This is Point Douglas, and there is the fort,” said Louis, pointing to

the roofs of buildings, the British flag and that of the Hudson Bay

Company flying over them. Point Douglas had been burned over many years

before, and was a barren looking place. The fort, like York Factory and

Norway House, was a mere group of buildings enclosed within a stockade.

When Laroque’s boat reached the landing, the shore was lined with people;

Hudson Bay employees, white settlers, and _bois brulés_. As each craft

drew up to the landing place, the boatmen sprang out to be embraced and

patted on the back by their friends. The new settlers’ warmest reception

came from a group of bearded, bold eyed, rough looking, white men. When

one of these men spoke to Walter in German, and another in unmistakably

Swiss French, the boy’s face betrayed his astonishment.

The first man, a red-faced fellow with untrimmed, sandy beard, laughed

and switched from German to French. “Oh, I am a Swiss like you,” he

explained, “though I have not seen Switzerland for many a year. I am a

soldier by trade, and I served the British king. We DeMeurons are the

pick of many countries.”

Walter did not like the man’s looks. He had seen swaggering, mercenary

soldiers of fortune before, and he was not sorry when his bold-mannered

countryman turned from him to make the acquaintance of his companions.

The voyageurs were hastily unloading. They had reached the end of the

journey and were in a hurry to be paid off. Murray did not even wait for

the unloading. Carrying his big bundle, he strode quickly towards the

fort. Louis looked after him, swung a bale of goods to his back, and

trotted up the slope.

Seeing no reason why he should stand idle when there was work to do,

Walter shouldered a package and followed. As he reached the gate, three

men came through, and he stepped aside to let them pass. The leading

figure, a red-faced man of middle age and important air, cast a sharp

glance at the boy. Walter’s clothes betrayed him.

“Ye’re na voyageur.” The man spoke peremptorily in Scotch sounding

English. “Put down that packet and follow me. I’ve a few words to say to

a’ of ye.”

Walter had learned enough English to understand, and the tone warned him

that obedience was expected. He left his load lying on the ground, and

followed down the slope towards the river. From the red-faced man’s

dictatorial manner, the boy guessed him to be Alexander McDonnell, the

“Grasshopper Governor.” He was obeyed promptly, but the sullen, even

angry, looks on the faces of the half-breeds and Scotch settlers who made

way for him, showed that he was not popular. Only the ex-soldiers seemed

boldly at their ease in his presence.

The new colonists were quickly gathered together so that the Governor

might address them. To make his meaning plain, he used both English and

French. His manner was abrupt, yet what he said was reasonable enough,

discouraging though it was to the newcomers. After a few words of welcome

to the Selkirk Colony and an expression of hope that the Swiss would be

industrious and would prosper accordingly, he told them frankly that they

had come at an unfortunate time. The settlement was ill prepared for

them. The grasshoppers had utterly destroyed the crops. The food supply

for the coming winter was inadequate. There was not enough to feed the

colonists already established. Most of the settlers, old and new, must

spend the winter farther up the Red River at Fort Daer, the Colony post

at the mouth of the Pembina. Game animals, especially the buffalo upon

which the people must depend for food until new crops could be grown,

were much more abundant and easily reached near Fort Daer. Pemmican could

be obtained there from the _bois brulés_ and the Indians. Some of the

settlers had already gone. Every one of the newcomers able to endure the

journey must leave on the morrow. They might pitch their tents near Fort

Douglas for the night. Fuel for their fires would be supplied and food

for the evening meal and for the journey to the Pembina. More than this

the Governor could not promise. At the Pembina they would find timber for

cabin building, game for the hunting. Some other necessaries might be

bought at Fort Daer. In the spring they could return, and land for

farming would be assigned to them. The Swiss had arrived at a bad time

when the Colony could do little for them. They would have to do the best

they could for themselves.

It was a sober and depressed group of immigrants who listened to Governor

McDonnell’s speech. In spite of what they had heard and seen of the

ravages of the locusts, they had clung to the hope that their worst

troubles would be over when they reached Fort Douglas. They had expected

to be housed and fed for a little while at least, until they could make

homes for themselves on their own land. Now that dream was over. They

must go on,—all of them who could go on. And when they reached a stopping

place at last, it would be only a temporary one, with the doubtful

prospect of depending on hunting for a living, and perhaps starving

before spring. No wonder discouragement and foreboding rested heavily

upon their hearts. Even Walter Rossel, young and strong and hopeful, was

dismayed at the Governor’s words.