The Swiss were a steadfast and courageous people. They soon roused

themselves to make the best of a bad situation. Food and fuel for the

night at least had been promised them. They left the future to

Providence, and set about pitching camp. Heretofore the voyageurs had

done part of that work. Now, having reached the end of their journey,

having unloaded the boats and been paid off, they joined their own

friends at Fort Douglas or crossed the river to the _bois brulé_

settlement on the east bank. Only Louis Brabant lingered to lend

encouragement and help to those whom the long journey had made his

friends.

After their first curiosity, the old settlers showed little interest in

the new. To the Scotch and Irish, the Swiss were foreigners in speech and

ways. The colonists knew from experience the hardships of the voyage

across the ocean and of the wilderness trip from Fort York. They could

understand the discouraging situation in which the newcomers found

themselves, but they could do little or nothing for them. They were not

hard hearted, but, pinched for food themselves, they could not be

overjoyed at the coming of all these additional hungry mouths to be fed.

Had the Swiss been actually starving, the old settlers would have shared

with them the last pint of meal and ounce of pemmican, yet they could

scarcely help resenting the arrival of the strangers. Why did the heirs

of Lord Selkirk keep on sending settlers without providing for them even

the barest necessities? No wonder the old colonists grumbled and growled.

If their attitude towards the new was not actually unfriendly, it was far

from cordial or encouraging. Only the ex-soldiers mingled freely with the

Swiss, and even invited certain families to their cabins.

Walter did not like the appearance and manner of these men, but they

aroused his curiosity. “Who are the DeMeurons?” he asked Louis. “How did

they come here, and why do they call themselves by that name?”

“They came with Lord Selkirk when he recaptured Fort Douglas from the

Northwesters. They were soldiers brought over from Europe to fight for

the King in the last war with the Americans. After the war they were

discharged and Lord Selkirk engaged about a hundred of them to protect

his colony. Because most of them had belonged to a regiment commanded by

a man named DeMeuron, the settlers call them all DeMeurons. Lord Selkirk

gave them land along the _Rivière la Seine_, which comes into the Red

about a mile above here, but they do little farming, those DeMeurons.

They would rather hunt. I blame them not for that. The other colonists

have no love for them.”

“I don’t like their looks myself,” Walter replied, “but they seem kinder

to strangers than anyone else here is.”

“The DeMeurons are all bachelors,” Louis explained with a grin. “They

seek wives to keep their houses and to help them farm their lands, and

perhaps they think Swiss girls will work harder than _bois brulés_. So

they are kind to the fathers and brothers that they may not be refused

when they propose marriage to daughters and sisters. Soon there will be

weddings I think.”

“I should hate to see a sister of mine marry a DeMeuron,” was Walter’s

emphatic comment. He changed the subject. “Have you found out,” he asked,

“if it is true that Lord Selkirk is dead?”

“Yes, it is true. He died, they say, a year ago last spring.”

“Then who owns the Colony now, the Hudson Bay Company?”

“I don’t quite understand about that,” was the doubtful reply. “I asked

one of the Company clerks at the fort and he said that the land and

everything belong to Lord Selkirk’s heirs. But M’sieu Garry, the

Vice-Governor of the Company, as they call him, was here during the

summer, and with him was M’sieu McGillivray, a big man among the

Northwesters, and now, since the two companies are one, of the Hudson Bay

also. They were much interested in the settlement, the clerk said, and

made plans about what should be done.”

“Lord Selkirk was one of the owners of the Company, wasn’t he?” Walter

questioned. “Then his heirs must own part of it. Perhaps the Company is

going to run the Colony for them. Does Governor McDonnell belong to the

Company?”

“That I don’t know. It was Lord Selkirk who made McDonnell governor.

Truly it is _he_ who runs the Colony now, with a high hand.”

Mention of Governor McDonnell brought Walter’s own personal problem

uppermost in his thoughts. “Do you suppose they will really send us on up

the river to-morrow?” he asked.

“Yes, truly. It is the only place for you to go. Here you would starve

before spring. Perhaps a few may stay, those the DeMeurons have taken

into their cabins. You, Walter, will go of course, and I am glad. Pembina

is my home, and we go together.”

“But I can’t go until the Periers come,” the Swiss boy protested. “I

intend to stay with them wherever they are, and I ought to wait for

them.”

Louis shook his head. “I think the Governor will not let you. What good

would it do? As soon as the second brigade arrives, they will be sent on

to Pembina. You can wait for them there as well as here. Come with me

to-morrow. My mother will make you welcome, and we will find a place for

your friends. Perhaps we can have a cabin all ready for them. They would

be glad of that.”

XII

BY CART TRAIN TO PEMBINA

Louis slept with friends on the other side of the river, Walter remaining

with his country people. The weather was sharp and cold, but Governor

McDonnell’s promise of fuel and food was fulfilled. After a hearty meal,

the newcomers, in spite of their disappointment, passed a more

comfortable night than many they had endured during the long journey.

They were somewhat disturbed, however, by the sounds of revelry borne on

the wind from Fort Douglas. That the voyageurs and their friends would

celebrate hilariously, the Swiss had expected, but not that such wild

revels would take place within the fort walls, where lived the Governor

and his household.

“The Colony is short of food, so they say,” Matthieu the weaver

complained bitterly, “but the folk in the fort must have plenty to eat

and drink and make merry with.”

Walter clung to the hope that the departure for Pembina might be delayed

until after the arrival of the second boat brigade. But early in the

morning word came from Fort Douglas that the Swiss must make ready to

leave at once. The boy resolved to ask the Governor to let him remain. He

went up to the fort, and felt encouraged when he was admitted at the gate

without question, but his request to see the Governor met with flat

refusal. The Governor was busy and could not be disturbed. He had given

his orders and those orders must be obeyed. Walter was well and strong

and able to travel. He had no friends in the settlement to take him in.

Well, then, he must go on to Pembina.

Finding it useless to plead his cause to the Governor’s underlings and

impossible to get to McDonnell himself, the angry, discouraged lad left

the fort. He found Louis Brabant at the Swiss camp, and poured out his

story wrathfully. “I have a notion to stay here anyway,” he concluded

stubbornly. “I can find someone who will give me lodging for a few days.”

“Yes,” Louis admitted. “At St. Boniface, across the river, I can ask my

friends to take you in, but if the Governor learns you have disobeyed his

command he will be most angry.”

“What can he do to me? I have a right to be here.”

“Perhaps, but when the Governor is angry, he does not think of the rights

of others. You would have to go anyway, tied in a cart as a prisoner, or

he would shut you up in the fort, or send you out of the Colony.”

“Where could he send me except to Pembina?” Walter questioned, still

unconvinced.

“To Norway House,—to be taken to Fort York in the spring and sent back to

Europe in a ship,” was the startling reply. “Oh, yes, as Governor of the

Colony, he could do all that.”

“But surely he wouldn’t do it, for such a little thing?”

“Governor ‘Sauterelle’ does not think it a little thing when he is

disobeyed. He is not gentle to one who opposes his will. No, no, Walter,

you must not think of it. At Pembina you will be far enough away to do as

you please, but not here. Come, you shall stay at my home, and we will

find a place for your friends and make all ready for them. It won’t be

long until they join you.”

Reluctantly Walter yielded to the Canadian boy’s advice. He did not want

to yield, but, if what Louis said of the Governor was true, the risk of

disobedience was too great. He himself had seen enough already of

Alexander McDonnell to realize that he was not the kind of man to be

lenient with anyone who disobeyed his orders. So the Swiss boy set about

getting his own scanty belongings ready for the journey. He had taken for

granted that the party would travel by boat, but he had returned to the

camp on the river bank to find his companions’ baggage being loaded into

carts.

Clumsy looking things were those carts,—a box body and two great wheels

at least five feet tall, with strong spokes, thick hubs, and wooden rims

three inches wide and without metal tires. Between the shafts, which were

straight, heavy beams, a small, shaggy, sinewy pony, harnessed with

rawhide straps, stood with lowered head and tail and an air of dejection

or sleepy indifference.

“What queer vehicles,” Walter exclaimed. “Are we to travel overland?”

“Yes, the journey is much shorter that way. By water, following the bends

of the river, is almost twice as far. You never saw carts like these

before? No, I think that is true. The _bois brulés_ of the Red River

invented this sort of cart. It is made all of wood, not a bit of metal

anywhere. Every man makes his own cart. All the tools he needs are an

axe, a saw, and an auger or an Indian drill. I have a cart at home I made

myself, and it is a good one. In this country you must make things for

yourself or you have nothing.”

Examining one of the queer contrivances, Walter found that Louis had

spoken the simple truth. No metal had been used in its construction.

Wooden pegs and rawhide lashings took the place of nails and spikes. Even

the harness was guiltless of a buckle. The carts were far from beautiful,

but they were strong and serviceable. The Swiss boy, who knew something

of woodworking, admired the ingenuity and skill that had gone into their

making. Enough vehicles had been supplied to transport the few belongings

of the Swiss and to allow the women and children to ride. Now other

carts,—with the families and baggage of the Scotch settlers who were

leaving for Pembina,—began to arrive at the rendezvous, the discordant

squeaking and screeching of their wooden axles announcing their approach

some time before they came in sight.

It took so long to gather the cart train together and make everything

ready for departure, that Walter kept hoping for the appearance of the

boat brigade. But not a craft, except a canoe or two, came into view

around the bend of the river, and no songs or shouts of voyageurs were

heard in the distance. The boy, still determined to plead his cause, kept

a lookout for Governor McDonnell, but he did not appear. He left the

carrying out of his commands to his assistants.

The start was made at last. At the sharp “_Marche donc!_” of the drivers,

the sleepy looking ponies woke into life and were off at a brisk trot.

The carts pitched and wobbled, each with a gait of its own, over the

rough, hard ground, the ungreased axles groaning and screeching in every

key. The discord set Walter’s teeth on edge, as he walked with Louis

beside the vehicle the latter was driving.

At the head of the column the guide in charge, Jean Baptiste Lajimonière,

rode horseback, followed closely by the cart carrying his wife and

younger children. The whole family had come from Pembina a short time

before to have the newest baby christened by Father Provencher, the

priest. Behind the Lajimonières, the train stretched out across the

plain, the two wheeled carts piled with baggage and household belongings

or occupied by the women and children sitting flat on the bottom, their

heels higher than their hips. The drivers sat on the shafts or walked

alongside. The Swiss men and boys went afoot, but some of the Scotch and

Canadians rode wiry ponies and drove a few cattle. The riders used

deerskin pads for saddles and long stirrups or none at all. Spare cart

horses ran loose beside their harnessed companions.

Not all of the Swiss were in the party. Several families, taken into the

cabins of the DeMeurons, had been allowed to remain. Matthieu and his

wife also stayed behind. The baby was ill and Matthieu himself scarce

able to travel. The Colony had started a new industry, the manufacture of

cloth from buffalo hair, and the weaver was to be given employment. When

Walter learned that Matthieu was to remain, the boy entrusted to him a

letter for Mr. Perier, explaining how he had been forced to go on to

Pembina.

Leaving Point Douglas, the cart train turned southeast, traveling a

little back from the west bank of the river, along a worn track across

open prairie. Beyond the narrow valley, scattered cabins could be seen

among the trees on the east side.

“That is St. Boniface settlement,” Louis told his companion. “Père

Provencher is building a church there.”

About a mile south of Point Douglas, the carts approached the junction of

the Assiniboine River with the Red, the place Louis called _Les

Fourches_, the Forks. On the north bank of the Assiniboine stood a small

Hudson Bay post, and not far from it were piles of logs for a new

building or stockade.

“The Company is going to make a new fort,” Louis explained. “M’sieu Garry

and M’sieu McGillivray chose this spot. There was an old Northwest post,

Fort Gibraltar, here, but five years ago M’sieu Colin Robertson, a Hudson

Bay man, seized it, and Governor Semple had it pulled down. The logs and

timber were taken down river to Fort Douglas. Fort Gibraltar had been

here a long time, and so has this trading house. Les Fourches is an old

trading place. Men say there was a fort here a hundred years ago, when

all Canada and the fur country were French, but nothing is left of those

old buildings now.”

The cart train halted near the trading post, as some of the men had

business there, and Louis asked Walter to go with him to see the Chief

Trader. “At Fort Douglas I told a clerk how our pemmican disappeared and

about _le Murrai’s_ package of trade goods. _Le Murrai_ had received his

pay and had left the fort. The clerk knew not where he had gone. He told

me to report the affair to M’sieu the Chief Trader here. Come with me,

and we will tell what we know.”

The men of the little post were busy outfitting boats to go up the

Assiniboine with goods and supplies for stations farther west, but the

two boys had a few minutes’ conversation with the Chief Trader. Louis

told the story and Walter corroborated it. The trader looked grave and

shook his head perplexedly. The charge against Murray,—stealing supplies

and exchanging them for goods with which to trade on his own account,—was

a serious one. Could it be proved? The trader did not doubt the story of

the contents of the bundle, but Murray might have come by the things

honestly and for a legitimate purpose.

“He is due here to-day to go with the Assiniboine brigade,” the trader

explained, “but I have seen nothing of him. You have no proof that he

took the pemmican and substituted the bag of clay. If he denies it, the

only thing I can do is to report the matter to Norway House at the first

opportunity. They ought to know whether anyone exchanged pemmican for

goods while your brigade was there. Of course Murray didn’t make the

bargain himself. Someone else did it for him. It won’t be necessary to

mention your names at present, to Murray I mean. You would find the Black

Murray a bad enemy.”

“Yes,” Louis agreed. “He does not love either of us now. I thank you,

M’sieu.”

“The thanks are due to you, from the Company, for reporting this matter.

Don’t you want to sign for the Assiniboine voyage? We can use you both.”

Walter shook his head. He had had quite enough voyaging for the present.

Louis answered simply, “No, M’sieu. I go to my mother at Pembina.”

XIII

THE RED-HEADED SCOTCH BOY

Instead of continuing on the west bank of the Red River and crossing the

Assiniboine, the cart train turned to the east, followed a well-traveled

track down to the Red, and forded that river below the Forks. The country

just south of the Assiniboine was marshy and thickly wooded with willows

and small poplars. By following the east bank of the Red the almost

impassable low ground was avoided.

The carts were now on the St. Boniface side, where the stream that Louis

called _Rivière la Seine_, and the Scotch settlers, German Creek, entered

the river. Some of the DeMeuron cabins were near at hand, and the Swiss

who were to remain there were on the lookout for a chance to say good-bye

to their friends. Walter saw again the red-faced ex-soldier who had

boasted that he and his comrades were the pick of many countries. He

carried a gun on his shoulder and looked as if he had been drinking. The

boy liked him even less than before.

The carts crossed the creek, which was narrow and shallow where it joined

the river. Ten or twelve miles farther on, they forded the Red again,

above the mouth of the _Rivière la Sale_, a small, muddy stream coming in

from the west.

Their way now lay across the open prairie west of the Red River; treeless

plains such as the Swiss immigrants had never seen before. Trees grew

along the river bank only. The few elevations in sight seemed scarcely

high enough to be called hills. This was the fertile, rich soiled land of

which the new settlers had been told. Its grass ravaged by locusts, dried

by the sun, withered by frost, in some places consumed by sweeping fires;

the prairie showed little outward sign of its fertility. The immigrants

gazed across the yellow-gray expanse and the unsightly black stretches,

and shook their heads wonderingly and doubtfully. Many a heart was heavy

with homesickness for native mountains and valleys.

Walter Rossel was not a little heartsick, as he walked beside the loaded

cart or took a turn at riding on the shafts and driving the shaggy pony.

He was trudging along, absorbed in his own thoughts, when he was startled

by the sudden dash of a horse so close that he instinctively jumped the

other way. Looking up, he saw a freckled, red-haired lad in a

Tam-o’-Shanter, grinning cheerfully down from the back of the wiry, black

pony he had pulled up so short it was standing on its hind legs.

Instantly Walter recognized the horseman. This red-headed boy was the

first of the settlers he had seen when the brigade approached the Scotch

settlement of Kildonan. He was the fisherman who had waved his blue

bonnet to the boats.

The Scotch lad was greeting Louis as an old friend, and the Canadian

responded smilingly. “_Bo’jou_, Neil MacKay,” he cried. “So your family

goes again to Pembina.”

“What else can we do?” was the question. “We must eat, and there is sure

to be more food at Pembina this winter than at Kildonan. We will hunt

together again, Louis.”

“Yes, you and I and my other friend here, Walter Rossel.”

Walter and Neil responded to this introduction by exchanging nods and

grins. The red-haired lad dismounted, and, leading his pony, fell into

step by Walter’s side. The conversation of the three was carried on

principally in French. The Scotch boy had learned that language during

his first winter at the Red River. That winter, and several of the

succeeding ones, he had spent at Pembina. Among the French and _bois

brulés_ he had had plenty of practice in the Canadian tongue. Indeed he

spoke it far better than English, for his native speech was the Gaelic of

northern Scotland. Already familiar with Louis’ Canadian French, Walter

had little difficulty in understanding Neil, except when he introduced a

Gaelic word or phrase.

The Scotch boy answered the newcomer’s questions readily and told him

much about the Colony. Neil had come from Scotland with his father and

mother, brothers and sisters, before he was nine years old. He was just

fifteen now. When the MacKays and their companions had reached the Red

River, they had found the settlement deserted, the houses burned. The

settlers were gathered together again and spent the winter at Pembina,

returning to Fort Douglas in the spring. Then came Cuthbert Grant and his

wild _bois brulé_ followers. Governor Semple was killed and Fort Douglas

captured for the Northwest Company. The colonists, including the MacKays,

were compelled to go to Norway House. They had returned when Lord Selkirk

and his DeMeurons arrived and had gone on with their farming.

There were some two hundred settlers at Kildonan now, Neil said, and

about a hundred DeMeurons along German Creek. How many Canadians and

_bois brulés_ really belonged at St. Boniface it was hard to tell, they

came and went so constantly. “They do little farming on the east side of

the river,” the boy remarked. “Hunting and fishing are more to their

taste. I don’t blame them. They can get enough to eat more easily that

way. Raising crops here is discouraging work. You will learn that soon

enough.”

“Isn’t the soil good?” asked Walter. “We were told it was rich.”

“Oh, the soil is all right, after you get the ground broken. Breaking is

hard work though, when you have nothing but a hoe and a spade. There is

scarcely a plow in the Colony. There hasn’t been an ox till just lately.

The Indian ponies aren’t trained for farm work. Things grow fast once

they are planted, but what is the good of raising them when the

grasshoppers take them all? I would go to Canada, as so many have done,

or to the United States, but my father is stubborn. He won’t leave

Kildonan. He has worked hard and he doesn’t want to give up his land. Yet

if the grasshoppers keep coming every year, they will drive even him

away.” Neil shook his red head, his face very sober.

The settlers, he went on to say, had no sheep and few pigs. Until a few

weeks before, they had had no cattle. Alexis Bailly, a _bois brulé_

trader had come, during the summer, clear from the Mississippi River with

a herd of about forty.

“He got a good price for the beasts,” Neil commented, “but he deserved

it, after bringing them hundreds of miles through the Sioux country. Why

the Indians didn’t get every one of them I can’t understand.”

“It was a great feat truly,” Louis agreed. “But most of those cattle will

be killed for food this winter.”

“I’m afraid so. It will be hard times in the Colony, and everyone is deep

in debt to the store now.”

“The prices are high there I hear,” Louis remarked.

“High? Yes, and that’s not the worst of it. The Colony store isn’t run

honestly. So many of the settlers can’t read or write, it is easy to

cheat them. My father can write and he keeps account of everything he

buys, but they won’t let him have anything more until he settles the bill

they have against him. Half of that bill is for things he never had, and

he swears he won’t pay for what he didn’t buy.”

“I should think not,” cried Walter indignantly. “Why doesn’t he appeal to

the Governor?”

Neil laughed shortly. “He tried, but it did him no good. If the Governor

doesn’t do the cheating himself, he winks at it. Governor ‘Grasshopper’

is one of the Colony’s worst troubles. He thinks he is a little king,

with his high-handed ways, and the court he keeps at Fort Douglas, and

the revels he holds there.”

“We heard something of that last night.”

“Aye, it’s no uncommon thing. McDonnell is not the man to be at the head

of the Colony. We’re all hoping he won’t last much longer. Many

complaints have been made to the Company, to Nicholas Garry and Simon

McGillivray when they were here in the summer, and even by letter across

the sea.”

The prairie track the carts followed ran well back from the wooded river

banks. As the sun was setting behind a far distant rise of land across

the plain, the guide turned from the trail. The squeaking carts followed

his lead, bumping, pitching, and wobbling over the untracked ground.

Supposing that Lajimonière was seeking the shelter of the woods, Walter

was surprised when the guide reined in his mount at a distance of at

least a half mile from the nearest trees. His cart stopped also and the

flag it bore was lowered, as a signal to the rest of the train. Camp was

to be made on the prairie in the full sweep of the sharp northwest wind.

“This is a poor place it seems to me,” the Swiss boy commented. “Farther

over, among the trees, there would be shelter, and plenty of wood.”

“Lajimonière prefers the open. It is safer.”

“What is there to fear?”

“Nothing probably, but we can’t be sure.” Neil MacKay spoke quietly but

seriously. “Out here on the prairie, we can see anyone approaching.”

“You mean Indians? I thought the Saulteux and Crees were friendly.”

“They are. Lajimonière is thinking about Sioux. Whether the Sioux are

friendly or not is an open question just now. Didn’t you hear what

happened at Fort Douglas a few weeks ago?”

“The visit of the Sioux?” questioned Louis. “I was told of it last night

at St. Boniface. It was a most unfortunate affair.”

“What was it?” Walter asked. “I didn’t know the Sioux ever came to Fort

Douglas. Louis told me their country was farther south.”

“So it is,” replied the Scotch lad. “A Sioux seldom ventures this far

down the Red River nowadays, but a party of them did come clear to the

fort a while ago. They said they had heard how fine the Company’s goods

were and what generous presents the traders gave. So they came to pay a

visit to the Hudson Bay white men. They were friendly, almost too

friendly. They expected drink and gifts. The Governor was away, and one

of the Company clerks was in charge. He didn’t know just what to do with

such dangerous guests. He told them there wasn’t any rum in the fort, and

gave them tea instead. Then he fed them and distributed a few trinkets

and little things. If they would go back to their own country, he said,

the Company would send traders to them with goods and more presents.”

“The Company will get into trouble with the American traders if goods are

sent to the Sioux country beyond the border,” Louis commented.

“Yes, but he had to promise something to get rid of the fellows. If they

stayed around, he was afraid of trouble with the Saulteux. The Sioux

seemed satisfied when they left the fort. But several Saulteux were

hiding in ambush in the fort garden. They fired on the Sioux, killed two,

and wounded another, then escaped by swimming the river and dodging

through the willows. Of course the Sioux were furious. They said the

white men had given the Saulteux powder and shot to kill friendly

visitors. One of them boasted to a _bois brulé_ from St. Boniface,—who is

part Sioux himself and speaks their language,—that they were going back

to the fort to scalp the clerk. The half-breed went right to the fort

with the story. Things looked serious. If the party of Sioux had been

larger they might have attacked the fort or massacred all of us, but they

knew they were far outnumbered. Somehow they learned that the men in the

fort had been warned of their plot. They decamped suddenly, and nothing

more has been seen of them. Probably they have gone back to their own

country, but no one knows. They may be hiding somewhere waiting for a

chance to attack any Saulteur or _bois brulé_ or white man who comes

along.”

Louis nodded soberly. “When an Indian seeks revenge he is not always

careful what man he strikes. Lajimonière does well to camp in the open.”

Neil’s story had sent a chill up Walter’s spine. Hardship he had become

used to during the journey from Fort York, hardship and danger from the

forces of Nature; water and wind, cold and storm. But this was the first

time in his life that real peril from enemy human beings had ever

confronted him. He had known of course that there might be danger from

Indians in this wild land to which he had come, but he had never actually

sensed that danger before. He glanced towards the woods, and saw, in

imagination, half naked, copper colored savages concealed in the shadows

and watching with fierce eyes the approaching carts.

Although camp was pitched out of musket range from that belt of trees,

the woods nevertheless must be penetrated. The beasts must be taken to

the river. Water and fuel must be brought back. After listening to Neil’s

story, Walter was surprised at the apparent light-hearted carelessness of

the men and boys who started riverward with the horses and cattle. Neil

had a cow and three ponies to water, and he offered one of the latter to

Walter.

“Ride the roan,” he advised, “if you’re not used to our ponies. He is

older and better broken.”

Neil took for granted that Walter wanted to go with Louis and himself,

and the Swiss boy, who was far from being a coward, did not think of

declining. He had not been on a horse for several years, but before his

apprenticeship to Mr. Perier, he had been used to riding. The roan was

unusually well broken and sedate for a prairie pony. Though obliged to

ride bareback and with only a halter instead of bridle and bit, Walter

had no trouble with the animal. The horse knew it was being taken to

water and needed no guidance to keep with the other beasts.

The boy could not help a feeling of uneasiness as he approached the

woods, and he noticed that Louis, though he seemed to ride carelessly,

kept one hand on his gun. The irregular cavalcade of mounted men and boys

and loose animals passed in among the trees,—sturdy oaks, broad topped

elms, great basswoods, which Louis called _bois blanc_,—white wood,—and

Walter _lindens_. All were nearly leafless now, except the oaks, which

retained part of their dry, brown foliage, but the trunks stood close

enough together to furnish cover for any lurking enemy. Without alarm,

however, the animals threaded their way through the belt of larger growth

to the river bank. The steep slopes and narrow bottom were covered with

smaller trees and bushes, aspen poplar, wild plum and cherry, highbush

cranberry, saskatoon or service berry, prickly raspberry canes, and,

especially along the river margin, thick willows.

Following a track where wild animals had broken a way through the bushes

and undergrowth, dogs, cattle, horses, and men made their way down the

first slope, along a shelf or terrace, and on down a yet steeper incline

to the river bottom. The sure-footed, thirsty beasts made the descent in

quick time, and crashed eagerly through the willows to the water. The Red

River ran sluggishly here. It was smooth and deep, with muddy shores. In

the dried mud along the margin were the old tracks of the animals that

had broken the trail down the slope.

When the boys had dismounted to water their horses, Louis pointed out the

prints, which resembled those of naked feet. “Somewhere near here,” he

said, “the bears must cross. They have regular fords. Once in the fall I

watched a band of bears cross the Pembina. I was up in a tree and I

counted nineteen, old and young, but I was too far away for a good shot.”

The bear tracks led up stream. Leaving the horses to bathe and splash,

Louis and Walter, who preferred to drink at a less muddy spot, pushed

their way among the willows. A hundred yards up stream, they came to a

bend and shallows, caused by a limestone cliff.

“This is the bears’ fording place,” said Louis, “and a good one too. Not

only bears but men have been here,” he added quickly, “and not long ago.

Look.”

On the bit of beach at the base of the cliff lay a little heap of charred

wood and ashes. Near by, clearly imprinted in the damp sand, were foot

tracks and marks that must have been made by the bow of a boat.

“Indians?” questioned Walter, the chill creeping up his spine again.

“Or white men,” Louis returned. “These are moccasin prints, but the color

of the feet inside those moccasins I know no way to tell. There were two

men, that is plain, and one is tall, I think, for his feet are long. They

were voyaging, those two, and stopped here to boil their tea. They have

not been gone many hours. That fire was burning since last night’s

frost.” The Canadian boy’s tone was careless. His curiosity had in it no

suggestion of fear.

Walter was more concerned. “Those Sioux,” he ventured. “Do you suppose——”

“No, no,” came the prompt reply. “The Sioux had horses. They didn’t come

by river. Sioux seldom travel by water. These men were white, or _bois

brulés_, or Saulteux, or other Ojibwas. They had a birch canoe. No clumsy

wooden boat or dugout made that mark.” Louis examined the footprints

again. “That one man is a big fellow truly. See how long his track is.”

The boy placed his own left foot in the most distinct of the prints. “He

must be as tall as _le Murrai Noir_.”

XIV

PEMBINA

Without alarm or hint of lurking enemy, men and beasts made their way

slowly up the steep river bank and through the woods to the prairie. The

carts, shafts out, had been arranged in a circle, and within this

defensive barricade camp had been pitched. Families fortunate enough to

have tents had set them up. Others had devised shelters by stretching a

buffalo skin, a blanket, or a square of canvas over the box and one wheel

of a cart. The ponies, hobbled around the fore legs or staked out with

long rawhide ropes, were left to feed on the short, dry prairie grass,

and to take care of themselves, but the few precious oxen and cows were

carefully watched and guarded against straying.

With the fuel brought from the woods fires were kindled within the

circle. Kettles were swung on tripods of sticks or on stakes driven into

the hard ground and slanted over the blaze. Pemmican and tea had been

supplied to the Swiss. The older settlers had, in addition, a little

barley meal for porridge and a few potatoes which they roasted in the

ashes. Louis and Walter eked out their scanty supper with a handful of

hazelnuts that had escaped the notice of the squirrels in the woods. The

autumn was too far advanced for berries of any kind.

After the meal, Walter made the acquaintance of the MacKay family, Neil’s

burly, red-bearded father, his mother, his two sisters, and next younger

brother. The eldest brother, who was married, had gone to Pembina nearly

a month earlier. Mrs. MacKay, a tall, thin woman with a rather stern

face, spoke little French, but with true Highland hospitality she made

Walter and Louis welcome to the family fire. Wrapped in a blanket and

knitting a stocking, she sat on a three-legged stool close to the blaze.

At her right was her older daughter patching, by firelight, the sleeve of

a blue cloth capote. On the other side, the father was mending a piece of

harness, cutting the ends of the rawhide straps into fine strips and

braiding them as if he were splicing a rope. Neil too was busy cleaning

and oiling his gun, and his younger brother, a sandy-haired lad of ten,

was whittling a wooden arrow. The two little children had been put to bed

in a snug nest of blankets and robes underneath the cart. The sight of

this family gathering around the fire gave Walter a feeling of

homesickness and loneliness that brought a lump to his throat. The

feeling deepened as he and his companion strolled from cart to cart and

fire to fire. Everyone in the camp but Louis and himself had his own

family circle, and Louis was on the way to home and mother.

It was the Lajimonières who gave the two boys the warmest welcome and

made the Swiss lad forget his homesickness. They were old friends of the

Brabant family, and Louis called Madame Lajimonière “_marraine_.” She had

acted as his godmother when Père Provencher baptized him. Indeed she was

godmother to so many of the Canadian children at St. Boniface and Pembina

that the younger members of the two settlements seldom called her by any

other name. There was no Indian blood in Marie Lajimonière, and she had

lived in the valley of the Red River longer than any other white woman.

Several years before the first band of Selkirk settlers had reached the

forks of the Assiniboine and the Red, she had come with her husband to

the Red River country from Three Rivers on the St. Lawrence. When, in

1818, the Roman Catholic missionaries, Father Provencher and Father

Dumoulin, had arrived in the Selkirk Colony, Madame Lajimonière had

received them with warmth and enthusiasm. She was a devout member of

their church, and she gladly stood sponsor for the Canadian and _bois

brulé_ children brought to the priests for baptism. Louis had a warm

affection for his _marraine_, and Walter took an immediate liking to her

and her family.

One of the Lajimonière children was a girl of about Elise Perier’s age, a

slender, black-haired, red-cheeked girl named Reine. When Reine, somewhat

shyly, questioned the Swiss boy about his long journey from Fort York, he

told her of Elise and Max and Mr. Perier, and how anxious he was about

their welfare.

“Oh, we will all help to make them comfortable and happy when they come

to Pembina,” Reine eagerly assured him. “It will be delightful to have a

new girl, just my age, who speaks French. The Scotch girls are so hard to

talk to, when you don’t know their language or they yours. I shall like

your sister I know, and I hope she will like me.”

At Louis’ urging, Jean Baptiste Lajimonière told Walter of the greatest

adventure of his adventurous life. In the winter of 1815 and ’16 he had

gone alone from Red River to Montreal. He carried letters to Lord

Selkirk,—who had come over from England,—telling how the Northwesters had

driven away his colonists. All alone, the plucky voyageur faced the

perils and hardships of the long wilderness journey. He came through

safely, to give the letters into Lord Selkirk’s own hands and relate to

his own ears the story of the settlers’ troubles. Lajimonière told his

tale well, and the boy forgot his own perplexities as he listened. Not

until the story was finished did Walter realize how late the hour was,

long past time to seek his blanket. Madame Lajimonière and the children

had already disappeared under their buffalo skin shelter, Louis had

stolen quietly away, and the whole camp was wrapped in silence.

Walter thanked the guide, said good night, and hurried back to his own

camping place. The horses and cattle had been brought within the circle

and picketed or tied to cart wheels. The settlers were taking no chance

of Indian horse thieves making away with their beasts. Everyone in the

camp, except the guards stationed outside the barricade, was sleeping,

and the fires were burning low. The night was dark, without moon or

stars. How lonely and insignificant was this little circle of carts, with

the prairie stretching around it and the vast arch of the sky overhead!

The flickering light of the fires, only partly revealing picketed beasts,

clumsy carts, and rude shelters, seemed merely to intensify the darkness,

the vastness, the loneliness beyond.

Not a wild animal, except a few gophers, had been seen all day; the cart

train was too noisy. But now the wind that swept the prairie brought a

chorus of voices, the high-pitched barking of the small prairie wolves,

and the long-drawn howling of the big, gray timber ones. The dogs

answered, until their masters, waking, belabored them into silence. The

camps along the rivers and the shores of Lake Winnipeg had seemed remote

enough from civilization, but not one had impressed the mountain-bred lad

with such an overwhelming sense of loneliness as did this circle of carts

on the prairie.

He found Louis already asleep, and crawled in beside him. There he lay,

listening to the wolves and, when their howlings ceased for a time, to

the faint and far-away cries of a flock of migrating birds passing high

overhead. Then he drifted away into sleep.

The approach of dawn was beginning to gray the blackness in the east when

every dog in the camp suddenly began to growl. The horses grew restive,

neighing and moving about. Startled wide awake, Walter, thrilling at the

thought of a Sioux attack, asked his comrade what the matter was. Louis

did not know. He had thrown aside his blanket and was crawling out from

under the cart. As Walter followed, he heard the guide calling to the

watchers beyond the barricade. The guards replied that all was quiet on

the prairie. They could see nothing wrong, discern no moving form.

For a few minutes everyone in the camp was awake, anxious, excited, but

nothing happened, no war whoop came out of the darkness. The dogs ceased

growling, the ponies neighing, and soon all was silence again. What had

caused the alarm, whether prowling wild beast or skulking man, or the

mere restlessness of some sleepless dog or nervous horse, no one could

tell.

The camp was astir before the sun was up, and the first task was to water

the horses and cattle. Louis remained behind to get breakfast while

Walter rode the pony to the river.

The late start from Fort Douglas made getting to Pembina that day

impossible. After plodding along the prairie track and crossing several

small streams, the cart train passed a cold and stormy night in the open

beyond the wooded bank of a muddy creek that Louis called Rivière aux

Marais. Pembina was reached next day in a driving storm of rain, sleet

and snow.

The Pembina River took its name from _anepeminan_, the Ojibwa term for

the shrub we call highbush cranberry. The junction of the Pembina with

the Red was an old trading place. The Northwest men had established

themselves there before the close of the eighteenth century, and in the

early years of the nineteenth all three rival companies, the Northwest,

the Hudson Bay, and the New Northwest or X. Y. Company, as it was called

by the old Northwesters, maintained posts a short distance from one

another. Those old posts were gone,—burned or torn down,—long before the

time of this story. The two forts then standing had been built at a later

date. Fort Daer, the Selkirk Colony post, dated from the autumn of 1812,

when the first of the colonists, under the leadership of Miles McDonnell,

had come to the Pembina to winter. It stood on the south bank of that

river near where it empties into the Red. Just opposite, across the

Pembina, was a former Northwest fort, which had become, since the uniting

of the companies, a Hudson Bay trading post.

Some of the Scotch settlers and all of the Swiss except Walter were to be

lodged at Fort Daer until they could build cabins of their own. Louis had

asked Walter to be his guest. The cart he was driving, which was not his

own, was loaded with the household goods of some of the settlers, and had

to be taken to Fort Daer. After leaving the fort, the two boys, carrying

their scanty belongings in packs, made their way to Louis’ home. The

little village of log cabins was not actually on the Pembina, but near

the bank of the Red a mile or more from the junction point. The arrival

at Fort Daer of a cart train from down river was an important event, but

the abominable weather curbed curiosity, and the boys saw few people as

they made their way against the storm to the Brabant cabin.

Louis’ mother, hoping that he might have come with the party from Fort

Douglas, was on the lookout for him. Before he could reach the door, it

flew open. Followed by the younger children and three shaggy-haired sled

dogs, Mrs. Brabant ran out into the sleet and snow. Very heartily Louis

hugged and kissed her. When he presented his companion, she welcomed

Walter warmly. The children greeted him shyly. The dogs, inclined at

first to resent his presence, concluded, after a curt command and a kick

or two from the moccasined toe of Louis’ younger brother, to accept the

newcomer as one of the family.

To the Swiss lad, weary, soaked, and chilled through, the rude but snug

cabin with a fire blazing in the rough stone fireplace, promised a

comfort that seemed almost heavenly. He had not spent a night or even

eaten a meal inside a building for many weeks. The warmth was so

grateful, the smell from the steaming kettle that hung above the blaze so

appetizing, that for a few minutes he could do nothing but stand before

the fire, speechless, half dazed by the sudden transition from the wet

and the bitter cold.

He was roused by Mrs. Brabant who offered him dry moccasins and one of

the shirts she had been making for Louis during his absence. Walter had a

dry shirt in his pack, but he accepted the moccasins gratefully. His

shoes were not only soaked, but so worn from the long journey that they

scarcely held together. The cabin, one of the best in the settlement,

boasted two rooms, and Louis’ mother and sisters retired to the other one

while the boys changed their clothes. As soon as they were warm and

partly dry, supper was served.

The household sat on stools and floor in front of the fire, each with his

cup and wooden platter. From the bubbling pot standing on the hearth

Madame Brabant ladled out generous portions. The rich and savory stew was

made up of buffalo meat, wild goose, potatoes, carrots, onions, and other

ingredients that Walter did not recognize but enjoyed nevertheless. It

was the best meal he had tasted in months, and he ate until he could hold

no more.

The hunters had returned only a few days before from the great fall

buffalo chase, and there was abundance of meat in the settlement. It was

during the autumn hunt two years before that Louis’ father had been

accidentally killed, and the Brabant family had not accompanied the

hunters since that time, but Mrs. Brabant’s brother had brought her a

supply of fresh and dried meat and pemmican. The goose thirteen-year-old

Raoul had shot, and the potatoes and other vegetables were from the

Brabant garden. The grasshopper hordes had missed Pembina. Mrs. Brabant

expressed sympathy for the poor Selkirk colonists who had lost all their

crops. She listened with lively interest to the boys’ account of the trip

from Fort York, and asked the Swiss lad many questions about his own

people.

Walter was so grateful for shelter, warmth, food, and the kindly welcome

he was receiving that he could not have been critical of the Brabant

family whatever they had been. As it happened, he liked them all

heartily. He was to discover, within the next few days, that this

household was considerably superior to most of those in Pembina. The

interior of the cabin was neat and clean, differing markedly in this

respect from many of the _bois brulé_ dwellings. Her straight black hair,

smoothly arranged in braids hanging over her shoulders, her dark skin,

and high cheek-bones betrayed the Ojibwa in Louis’ mother, but in every

other way, especially in her ready smile, lively speech, and alert

movements, she seemed wholly French. She wore deerskin leggings with

moccasins, but her dark blue calico dress, belted with a strip of bright

beadwork, was fresh and clean. Her little daughters were dressed in the

same fashion, except that Marie, the elder, who was about ten years old,

wore skirt and tunic of soft, fringed doeskin, instead of calico. The

dark eyes of both little girls sparkled when Louis, unknotting a small

bundle wrapped in a red handkerchief, handed each one a length of

bright-colored ribbon, one red, the other orange, to tie in their long

black braids. For his mother he brought a silk handkerchief, a gilt

locket, and a packet of good tea, the kind, he had been told, the Chief

Factor at Fort York drank. Raoul was made happy with a shiny new knife.

Louis and Walter were tired enough to take to their blankets early. Mrs.

Brabant and the girls slept in a great box bed, made of hand-hewn boards

painted bright blue, that stood in the corner of the room where the

fireplace was. In the smaller room, which was nothing but a lean-to shed

with a dirt floor, was a curious couch for the boys. It was made of

strips of rawhide stretched tightly on a frame of poles, and was covered

with buffalo robe and blankets. This cot Louis shared with Walter, who

found the rawhide straps not nearly so hard as bare ground. Raoul rolled

himself in a robe and lay down in front of the fire.

XV

THE OJIBWA HUNTER

Walter was anxious to get a place ready for the Periers, but he found

that every one of the fifty or sixty log cabins in Pembina was full to

overflowing. Indeed he marveled at the number of men, women, and children

of all sizes that could be packed into a one-room cabin. The houses were

built of logs chinked with clay and moss, and roofed with bark or grass

thatch, and few had more than one room.

A straggling, unkempt place was the settlement, the cabins set down hit

or miss, with cart tracks wandering around among them. The tracks and

dooryards were deep in mud, which was stiff with frost when the boys

started out that morning. As the sun softened the ground, Walter found

walking in the sticky stuff something like wading through thick glue, it

clung to his moccasins so. Gardens were rare. The surroundings of most of

the cabins were very untidy, cluttered with broken-down carts, disorderly

piles of firewood, odds, ends, and rubbish of all sorts. Shaggy, unkempt

ponies, hobbled or staked out, and wolfish looking sled dogs, running

loose, were everywhere.

The people were most of them _bois brulés_ whose hair, skin, and features

showed all degrees of mixed blood from almost pure white to nearly pure

Indian. They seemed good-natured and very hospitable. The merrymaking in

celebration of the return of the hunt was not yet at an end. Everywhere

Louis and his companion were urged to share in a feast of buffalo meat,

to join in a gambling game or in dancing to the scraping of a fiddle. So

pressing were the invitations that declining was difficult.

The neatest, best kept buildings in the village were the mission chapel

and presbytery. Father Dumoulin was setting a good example to his flock

by cleaning up his garden patch. Looking up from his work, he greeted

Louis by name. The priest was a striking looking man, tall and strong of

frame, his height emphasized by his long, straight, black cassock. His

face was strong too. Walter, though not of Father Dumoulin’s church, felt

instantly that here was a man to command the respect of white men,

half-breeds, and savages. When the priest learned that the boy was one of

the newly arrived immigrants, he asked a number of questions.

Near Fort Daer, in the edge of the woods bordering the river, a cluster

of better kept cabins housed some of the more thrifty of the Scotch. In

one of the largest and best of the houses, the two lads found the MacKay

family settled for the winter. Neil was eager to arrange for an immediate

buffalo hunt, but Louis replied that he could not go for a while. There

were things he must do for his mother, and Walter did not want to be away

when his friends arrived.

From the MacKay cabin the boys went on to Fort Daer. Like all the forts

in that part of the world, Daer and Pembina House, the old Northwest

post, consisted of log stockades enclosing a few buildings. They stood on

opposite sides of the Pembina and the land about each had been cleared of

most of its trees and bushes. The Pembina was a good-sized stream, deep,

sluggish, and like the Red, colored with the mud it carried. At Fort Daer

Walter talked with some of his countrymen, who were feeling somewhat

encouraged. They had been well fed, and were grateful for warmth and

shelter. Real winter, the bitterly cold winter of this northern country,

might come at any moment now to stay.

If Walter was to hunt to help supply himself and the Periers with food,

he needed a gun. With Louis he went to the Company store at Pembina House

to buy one. He could not pay for it in money, but hoped that he might get

it on credit, paying later in buffalo skins and other furs. The Hudson

Bay Company frowned on fur hunting as well as on Indian trading by the

colonists, but the settlers would be obliged to hunt that winter if they

wished to eat. Louis thought that if Walter agreed to turn over to the

Company the pelts of the food animals he killed, and not to engage in

barter with the Indians, he might arrange for a gun and ammunition.

The two were explaining Walter’s needs, when an Indian burst suddenly

into the room. His buckskin clothing was covered with mud. Blood matted

his black hair and stained one dark cheek which was disfigured by a great

scar. His eyes glittered, and his manner was wild and excited. The boys

thought for a moment that he was going to attack the trader. The Indian,

however, had no weapons,—no gun, hatchet, or knife. He began to talk

rapidly, angrily. Walter could not understand a word of Ojibwa, but he

could see that the Indian’s speech startled both Louis and the trader.

The latter replied briefly in the same tongue, then darted out of the

door, the Ojibwa after him. Before Walter could voice a question, Louis

was gone too. The Swiss boy turned to follow, hesitated, and decided to

stay where he was.

In a few moments Louis was back again. “What is it? Are the Sioux

coming?” Walter asked anxiously.

“No, unless this affair is the work of spies.”

“What affair? Could you understand what he said?”

“Most of it. He was so wild it was hard to follow him. He has been

attacked. He was down at the river loading his canoe. Two men came along.

While one was talking to him, the other stole up behind him, knocked him

over the head, and ‘put him to sleep.’ When he came to his senses, the

goods he had just bought and his gun and knife were gone. There was a

hole cut in his canoe. Of course he may be lying. He may have hidden the

things and made up the story.”

“Why would he do that?”

“To get a double supply of goods and ammunition. The trader believes him

though. He is sending men in search of those two fellows.”

When the trader returned he added further details to the story. The

Ojibwa, he said, was an honest, trustworthy hunter, who had been bringing

his furs to the Company for several years. He had come alone from Red

Lake to get his winter’s supplies and ammunition. Having finished his

bargaining, he was loading his boat at the riverside when another canoe,

with two men, appeared, coming up stream. One of the men shouted a

greeting in Ojibwa, they turned their boat in to shore, jumped out, and

engaged him in talk. Entirely unsuspicious of treachery, Scar Face was

answering one man’s questions, when the other struck him from behind and

knocked him senseless.

“Does he know the fellows?” questioned Louis.

“He never saw them before.”

“Could they be Sioux passing themselves off as Ojibwa?”

“No, one was a white man, he says, and the other,—the man who attacked

him,—was in white man’s clothes, but looked like an Indian. He wore his

hair in braids, had no beard, and spoke like a Cree. He was a very tall

man, strong and broad shouldered.”

“Do you think he is telling the truth?”

“I’m sure he is. Scar Face is a reliable fellow, always pays his debts,

and has never tried to deceive us in any way. You saw the blood on his

face. He has a bad cut on the side of his head. One of our men is

dressing it for him. No, he isn’t lying. His description of the men is

good, and he was not in the fort when they were here.”

“They have been here? You know who they are?”

“I think so; beyond doubt. Two fellows answering to the description were

here this morning and bought some tobacco. They said they had just come

from St. Boniface with a letter for Father Dumoulin. The white man is a

DeMeuron, a red-faced fellow with a sandy beard. I don’t know his name.

The other one is a _bois brulé_ voyageur called Murray.”

“Not Black Murray?” cried Walter.

“That’s the name he goes by. You know him?”

“_Vraiment_, we know him,” put in Louis emphatically. “So he did not go

up the Assiniboine with the western brigade, but came this way. He must

have started before we did, to get here by water so soon. We found his

tracks and those of his companion, where they had landed to boil their

kettle. They were ahead of us then. He wasted little time at Fort

Douglas, _le Murrai Noir_.”

“Whatever possessed him to attack that Ojibwa?” queried the puzzled

trader.

“I think I can guess,” replied Louis slowly, “though I know not for sure.

He wanted the Ojibwa’s supplies. He plans, I think, to become a trader.

To trade he must have some goods to commence with. This is not the first

time he has obtained them dishonestly.” Louis told the story of the

missing sack of pemmican and Murray’s bundle of trade articles.

The Hudson Bay man listened intently and nodded thoughtfully. “That must

be what the rascal is up to. Well, I have sent men out on horseback, up

and down the Red River. The thieves haven’t come by here on the Pembina.

They’re not likely to show themselves in the neighborhood of the forts.

Perhaps they will be caught, though I doubt it. They have a good start

and there is plenty of cover to hide in until the going is safe. It is

useless to try to overtake them by canoe.”

XVI

LETTERS FROM FORT DOUGLAS

The white man and the half-breed were not caught. Had the thieves trusted

merely to speed in paddling, the men sent out from the post must have

overtaken them. Even down stream, canoemen, obliged to follow every bend

and twist of the river, could not make as good time as mounted men riding

along the bank. Probably the two had crossed to the other shore and had

concealed themselves and their canoe until the search was over. There was

little chance that Pembina settlement would see or hear anything more of

them for a long time.

The Ojibwa being a skilful hunter whose goodwill was worth retaining, he

was supplied with another outfit. He went away contented with his

treatment at the post, but seething with desire for vengeance on the men

who had robbed him.

When questioned, Father Dumoulin said that the white man, Kolbach, had

brought him a letter from his superior, Father Provencher, at St.

Boniface. “The Father said in his letter,” Dumoulin explained, “that

Kolbach had just come to tell him that he was going to Pembina. He asked

if the Father had any message to send me. So Père Provencher wrote

hastily, while Kolbach waited. Kolbach is a DeMeuron, a German Swiss. He

is a wild, unruly fellow who comes but seldom to confession. I felt

surprised that he had taken the trouble to do Père Provencher and myself

a kindness.”

Louis and Walter had failed to find an unoccupied cabin that could be

made ready for the Periers. When Louis suggested that they set to work at

once to build one, his mother interposed. It would be better to wait, she

insisted, until the Periers arrived. They could stay in her house for a

few days. The cabin would be a little crowded to be sure, but there would

be room enough to make three extra ones comfortable. “Then M’sieu Perier

can decide where he wishes his house and can help to build it,” she

concluded.

Walter rather doubted if the apothecary would prove of much help in cabin

building, but he yielded to Mrs. Brabant’s decision. He knew she would do

everything in her power for the comfort of the homeless immigrants.

While he waited for the coming of his friends, Walter helped Louis

prepare the Brabant home for winter. They put fresh mud chinking in the

holes between the logs, mended the bark roof, cut firewood and hauled it

in Louis’ cart. The cart itself had to have one new wheel rim. The rim,

which was about three inches thick, was made in sections, and put

together without nails. Louis wanted a new dog sled, and Walter would

need snowshoes. For the sled, thin oak boards were bent at one end by

steaming them over the big kettle, and lashed together. Louis called the

affair a _tabagane_, the French version of an Indian word. Nowadays we

spell it _toboggan_.

The snowshoe frames were of birch wood bent to the required racket form,

the toes turned up a little to prevent tripping. The netting of sinew,

Louis explained, must be put in with the greatest care. Where the weight

of the foot would rest he used a fine mesh of _babiche_ or twisted sinew.

The ankle and toe loops he was careful to make just the right size to

slip on and off easily, yet not too loose to hold the foot in the proper

position. Walter had been trained to use his hands, and he was deft and

sure with them. He made one of the shoes himself, and did a workmanlike

job. Learning to walk with the awkward things might be more difficult

than making them, he thought.

Louis examined his dog harness and shook his head. “The beasts need a new

harness truly,” he said, “but that will have to wait until we can kill a

buffalo, and get fresh _shaganappy_.”

Though the buffalo hunt had been postponed, Walter found plenty of

opportunity to use his new gun. Migrating flocks of water fowl passed

every night, and many of them stopped to rest and feed by day along the

rivers and in the marshes. It was the boys’ duty to keep up the food

supply by shooting as many ducks and geese as possible. The weather was

now cold enough so the birds could be kept several days. Those that the

Brabant and MacKay families could not use were disposed of at Fort Daer.

Neil MacKay and Raoul Brabant, who was almost as good a shot as his elder

brother, were included in the hunting party.

Every day Walter watched for the Periers. Whenever he heard the creaking

of a cart, he hoped that another brigade was arriving from Fort Douglas.

He never went a mile from the settlement without wondering if his friends

would be there when he came back. As the days passed, he grew more and

more anxious. Had disaster overtaken the boats of the second division?

One day, just at dusk, as the four hunters were returning along the bank

of the Pembina, there came to their ears, faintly at first, from the

prairie to the north, the screeching of ungreased axles. As the noise

grew louder, the boys realized that such a squawking and screaming could

never come from two or three carts only. A whole brigade must be

approaching. Leaving the woods along the river, the lads started across

the prairie to meet the cart train. They could hear it much farther than

they could see it in the gathering darkness.

Louis was the first to make out a line of black objects against the sky.

He and Walter were some distance ahead of their companions when they met

the guide of the brigade riding in advance. Louis shouted a question and

the reply in Canadian French came promptly:

“We come from Fort Douglas. We bring some of the new colonists.”

At the guide’s words, Walter dropped his gun and his birds and ran

towards the carts. He was too impatient to wait for them to come to him.

The first vehicle belonged to the guide and his family, but walking

beside the second was someone Walter knew, Johan Scheidecker. He and the

Scheidecker boys had shared the same tent at York Factory. As he greeted

Johan, Walter looked eagerly around for some sign of his friends.

“Where is Monsieur Perier?” he demanded.

“He is not with us.”

“Not with you? Why, what has happened?”

“Nothing,—to the Periers,” was Johan’s reassuring reply. “They remain at

Fort Douglas. A man named Kolbach has taken them into his house. I have a

letter for you that will explain it all.” He handed Walter a folded

packet of coarse paper.

The boy was dumbfounded. The possibility that the Periers might not come

on to Pembina had never occurred to him. It was too dark to read his

letter, so he fell into step beside Johan and questioned him.

“Are they all right? How did they stand the trip? Are they well?”

“About as well as any of us.”

Even in the darkness Walter could see that Johan was very thin. His voice

was husky, and he plodded along with drooping shoulders and bent head.

“We were all nearly starved, and some of us were sick, when we reached

Fort Douglas,” he explained. “Elise and Max were as well as any, but

Perier himself had a bad cough. One of the soldiers who live above the

fort, a Swiss, took them into his house. My sister Marianne stays behind

too. She was married to one of those soldiers the morning we left. Tell

me, can we get food at Fort Daer?” he asked abruptly.

“Oh, yes. Wait a moment.” Walter had remembered his gun and birds. He ran

to where they lay, and, returning, thrust the two fat geese into Johan’s

hands. “Take them,” he cried. “They are good eating and we have more.”

Walter did not accompany the cart train to Fort Daer. He and the Brabant

boys made speed to the cabin, where, by the light of a candle of buffalo

tallow, he read his letters. There were two, one from Mr. Perier, the

other from Elise. Mr. Perier’s was brief. The trip had been a very hard

one, but he and the children had come through safely. Matthieu had given

him Walter’s note, and he appreciated the boy’s thought for their

comfort. It seemed best, however, for them to remain at Fort Douglas. He

was suffering with a bad cold and was scarcely able to travel farther.

One of the DeMeurons had shown them great kindness. He had offered to

share his cabin with them and had assured them that by hunting and

fishing he could provide food for all.

“I am disappointed,” Mr. Perier wrote, “that I cannot open a shop. All my

chemical and medical supplies were lost when our boat was wrecked. I

saved only a few packages of herb seeds that I was carrying in my

pockets. I intend in the spring to plant an herb garden. Through Matthieu

I hope to obtain a place in the buffalo wool factory for the winter. Do

not think that you must come back here to be with us. It would not be

wise. If you have found food and shelter, remain where you are till

spring. Then you can return and we will begin cultivating our land. You

need not be concerned for us, for we have fallen among friends. Our

nearest neighbor will be Marianne Scheidecker who is to be married

to-morrow to one of the ex-soldiers. Several of them have found wives

among our Swiss girls. I would not want a daughter of mine to marry in

such haste. I am glad Elise is still a little girl.”

Elise’s letter, dated November 4th, the day of arrival at Fort Douglas,

told more of the journey. The second division had traveled slowly, and

with many delays. On September the twentieth another boat from Fort York,

carrying the Rev. John West, the English clergyman of the Selkirk Colony,

had overtaken the Swiss. The first of October the weather had turned very

cold, and some nights the travelers had nearly frozen, especially when

everything was so wet or frost covered that the fires would not burn. In

a storm on Lake Winnipeg, the boat the Periers were in was wrecked.

“No one was drowned,” wrote Elise, “but we were all soaked, and we lost

most of our food and blankets and other things. The men had to cut down

trees and split them into boards to mend our boat, and that took a long

time. It rained and snowed, and the nights were terribly cold. M. West

gave Max and me one of his blankets. We had plenty of wood for fires, but

very little food left, only some barley that we boiled. The weather was

so stormy the men could not catch fish, but they shot a few birds. We ate

a big owl and a raven that M. West shot. It was a week before we could go

on. Then Samuel Scheidecker was taken sick and died, and we stopped at an

island to bury him. I feel so sorry for the Scheideckers. By the time we

came to the mouth of the Red River we were starving, but there were

Indians there, and the chief, Peguis, gave us dried fish.”

Elise went on to say that her father had a bad cough and needed a warm

place to stay. So Sergeant Kolbach had kindly taken them in. “This house

is only one room with a loft above that has a floor of loose boards and a

ladder instead of a stairway. But there is a fireplace, and it is warm

and dry. M. Kolbach sleeps in the loft and lets us have the room. It is

rather dirty, but I have cleaned it up a little and will do more

to-morrow. We shall be comfortable here and kind Mr. West wants Max and

me to go to his school and learn English. We miss you very much, Walter,

but Father says you must not come back here till spring. We are going to

be all right now. It is so good to be warm and dry and have enough to

eat, and in the spring we can be together again.”

Walter read this letter aloud to Louis and his mother. “The poor child!”

Mrs. Brabant exclaimed again and again. At the close Louis said

earnestly, “That is a brave little girl, your little sister.”

Walter was disappointed that his friends were not coming to Pembina, but

relieved to know that they were safe and comfortable. He was quite ready

to go back to Fort Douglas and share any hardships they might have to

undergo, but Mr. Perier had forbidden him to do so. Apprentices in those

days seldom thought of disobeying their masters. Moreover Walter felt

that his return to Fort Douglas would probably do more harm than good.

There was no employment for him, no way to earn a living, and very likely

the Governor would not let him stay. Louis was strongly against his going

back.

Walter was not wholly at ease about his friends. “I wonder,” he pondered,

“if that DeMeuron really will provide for them. What will happen if he

doesn’t keep his promise?”

“If there is not food for them they will be sent on here to Pembina

later.”

“Could they make the trip when the snow is deep and the weather very

cold?”

“Oh, yes. By dog sled the journey is easier and, if the trail is good,

quicker than by cart. Dogs can travel where ponies can not. Write to your

friends and tell them if all is not well to send word to you here, and

you and I will go get them. Ask someone at Fort Daer to send your letter

the first time anyone goes to Fort Douglas. Every week or so someone

comes and goes between the two forts. What is the name of that DeMeuron

they live with?”

Walter glanced at Mr. Perier’s letter. “Kolbach, Sergeant Kolbach.

Louis,” he exclaimed, “that was the name of the man with Murray!”

“Kolbach, yes, that was surely his name.”

“I wonder if he can be the same man who spoke to me when we landed at

Fort Douglas. He had a red face and a sandy beard. I don’t like it,

Louis, their living with that fellow!”

“No,” the Canadian boy agreed thoughtfully. “We must go to Père Dumoulin

and ask him about that Kolbach. He may be a wild fellow, and yet be good

to your friends. Oh, yes, that is quite possible.”

The two boys went to see the priest the next morning. They found him at

the mission in the little room that served him as bedroom, living-room

and study.

“Père Dumoulin,” Louis asked, “was the man who brought you that letter

from Fort Douglas Sergeant Kolbach?”

“Sergeant Kolbach? Oh no,” came the prompt reply. “It was Fritz Kolbach,

the sergeant’s brother.”

Walter felt relieved. “What kind of a man is Sergeant Kolbach?” he

inquired.

“Why do you ask?” The priest looked at the boy keenly.

Walter explained, and Father Dumoulin listened with interest.

“Sergeant Kolbach,” he said thoughtfully, “is a very different person

from his younger brother. The sergeant is a man of influence among the

DeMeurons. I do not know him well, but I should think him a somewhat

domineering man, used to authority and fond of exercising it, but he is

quieter, more self-controlled, more steady going than most of the

DeMeurons. He has usually exercised his influence over his fellows in the

interest of law and order. I know no reason why you should fear that he

will not treat your friends well, since he has chosen to take them into

his house.”

“His brother lives with him?” asked Louis.

“I do not think so. Every DeMeuron has his own land, and the Kolbachs are

too unlike to live together peaceably.”

Reassured by Father Dumoulin’s information, Walter did not think of

disobeying Mr. Perier’s instructions. At Fort Daer the lad obtained a few

sheets of paper, and, borrowing quill pen and ink from a good-natured

apprentice clerk, he wrote a letter to Mr. Perier and another to Elise,

addressing them in Sergeant Kolbach’s care. The clerk promised to send

them at the first opportunity.

XVII

CHRISTMAS AT PEMBINA

There was no reason now why Walter should hesitate to be away from the

settlement, yet the proposed buffalo hunt was postponed again. The

animals were far from Pembina that autumn. For miles to the south and

west, the prairie had been swept by fires started by careless Indians or

half-breeds who had allowed their camp fires to spread. In that blackened

desolation there was no feed for buffalo. The boys had expected to go

beyond the burned country in search of the herds, but, before they were

ready to start, a heavy fall of snow made horseback travel impossible.

Storm winds swept the prairie, and Louis shook his head at the prospect.

“This will drive the beasts yet farther away,” he said. “They will go

where the snow is not so deep and where there are trees for shelter. We

could travel with dog sleds of course, but we might search for long to

find buffalo, and to hunt them on foot is much more difficult than on

horseback. But perhaps this snow will not last.”

With the coming of deep snow Walter was given his first lessons in

snowshoeing and dog driving. Learning to walk with the clumsy rackets was

not easy, he found. He got more than one tumble before he mastered the

art. Driving a dog sled looked simple enough, when Louis hitched up his

dogs and took his little sisters for a ride. The three animals differed

considerably in size, appearance and breed, but worked well together.

Hitched tandem, they were off with a dash, the little bells on their

harness jingling merrily. They followed a trail already broken by other

sleds, and Louis ran alongside shouting and flourishing his whip. After a

turn on the prairie, they were back again.

“Come, you shall have a ride now,” Louis said to Walter, as the little

girls,—cheeks red and black eyes sparkling,—unrolled themselves from the

fur robes.

Curious to try this new mode of travel, Walter seated himself on the

robes. “_Marche donc_,” cried Louis, and the team was away, the toboggan

slipping smoothly over the well-packed trail. Running alongside or

standing behind Walter on the sled, Louis urged his dogs to their best

speed. When, after a first spurt, they slowed to a steadier pace, he

suggested that Walter try driving.

“Stay where you are. You don’t need to get up. There must be weight to

hold the _tabagane_ down.” Handing Walter the whip, Louis stepped off the

sled.

Louis seemed to manage the team easily, and Walter had no doubt of his

own ability to drive. He shouted to the dogs in imitation of his friend,

and, waving the long whip high in air, flicked the leader’s back with the

lash.

The dogs must have noticed the difference in the voice. They must have

sensed the awkwardness and inexperience of the new driver. Without

warning, the leader,—a woolly haired, bushy tailed beast with fox-like

head and sharp pointed ears,—swerved from the trail into untracked snow.

In vain Walter tried to get him back on the track. The dogs were out for

a frolic and they had it. They bounded and floundered through the soft

spots and raced across hard packed stretches. The prairie, Walter

discovered, was by no means so smooth as it looked. The wind had swept

the snow into waves and billows. The toboggan mounted the windward side

of a snow wave, balanced on the crest, and bumped down abruptly. Shouts

and commands were of no avail. Walter could but cling to the swaying,

jouncing, skidding sled, and let the dogs go where they would.

Suddenly the beasts concluded they had had about enough of the sport. It

was time for the grand climax. With a quick turn, they swung about

towards home. The toboggan turned too, clear over, and Walter went

sprawling. When he picked himself up, the provoking animals were sitting

quietly in the snow, more or less tangled up in their traces, tongues

hanging out, laughing at him. Louis, shouting hilariously, came running

up on his snowshoes to right the toboggan.

For a moment Walter was angry. “You knew what would happen,” he cried

accusingly. “What did you do to make them act that way?”

“No, no,” laughed Louis. “I did nothing. Askimé knew you had never driven

before, and so he played you a trick. He is a wise dog, Askimé, but he

deserves a beating.”

The leader of the team was a hardy, swift, intelligent beast, almost pure

Eskimo, as his name indicated. The other dogs were of more mixed breed.

Both had sharp muzzles and thick, straight hair, brown with white spots

on one, dark wolf-gray on the other. Louis was proud of the husky, whom

he had raised from puppyhood. Nevertheless he picked up his whip and

started towards Askimé.

Walter, his flash of anger past, intervened. “No, don’t thrash him. He

was just having a little fun. He has taken the conceit out of me, but

I’ll get even with him yet. I’ll learn to drive those dogs and make them

behave.”

Louis was still grinning. “Truly you will learn,” he hastened to say,

“and—well—perhaps,” his grin broadened, “I might have told you more

before you tried this first time. Next time it will go better.”

It did go better next time, and before the winter was over, Walter could

handle the dogs satisfactorily, though they never obeyed him as well as

their real master.

The snow remained, and the buffalo did not return to the neighborhood of

Pembina. Winter had set in in earnest, but Walter was used to cold

winters and the Brabant cabin was snug and comfortable. Even the bitter

winds that swept the prairie could not find an entrance between the well

chinked logs.

The Swiss lad cherished the hope of spending Christmas with the Periers.

He planned to go to the Selkirk settlement with a dog train that expected

to leave Fort Daer December twenty-first or twenty-second, but he was

disappointed. A hard snowstorm, a genuine blizzard, with a high wind out

of the north, prevented the sleds from getting away, and he was forced to

remain in Pembina.

On Christmas morning he went with the Brabant family to Father Dumoulin’s

mission. There was no Protestant church in Pembina, he liked and

respected Father Dumoulin, and he did not want to hurt Mrs. Brabant and

Louis by refusing to go with them. The boy was surprised to see how

crowded the mission chapel was with the Canadians and _bois brulés_, men,

women, and children. Very reverently and devoutly the rough, half savage

hunters and voyageurs joined in the service and listened to the priest’s

words.

The rest of the day the simple, light-hearted people of Pembina

celebrated in a very different fashion, feasting, dancing, gaming, and

drinking. Gambling and fondness for liquor were the besetting sins of the

half-breeds as well as of the Indians, though Father Dumoulin was trying

hard to teach them to restrain these passions.

Walter had come to know the rough, wild, but generous and hospitable

_bois brulés_ well. He could not decline all their invitations to join in

the merrymaking. Moreover he was young, and homesick, and he wanted to

share in the festivities. He went with Louis and Neil MacKay to several

of the cabins during the afternoon and early evening, where the three ate

as much as they could manage of the food pressed upon them. The gaming

was carried on principally by the older men, the younger ones preferring

to dance. With a little diplomacy, drinking could be avoided without

giving offence. Louis and Neil, as well as Walter, had been brought up to

be temperate. They did not hesitate to take part in the dancing.

Never had Walter seen such lively, agile jigging as some of the lithe,

muscular, swarthy skinned half-breeds were capable of. Men and women were

arrayed in their best, and the dark, smoke-blackened cabins were alive

with the gay colors of striped shirts and calico dresses, fringed sashes,

gaudy shawls, silk and cotton kerchiefs, ribbons, and Indian beadwork.

After dancing until they were weary, the three boys slipped away early,

before the fun grew too fast and furious. Walter found it good to be out

in the clean, cold air again, away from the heat and smoke and heavy

odors of the tightly closed cabins.

The night was a beautiful one, clear and windless. To the north and

northeast, from horizon to zenith, wavering, flashing bands and masses of

light flooded the sky. Parting with Neil, Louis and Walter trudged

through the snow towards the Brabant cabin. Both were absorbed in

watching the aurora borealis, the ever changing rays and columns and

spreading masses of white, green, and pale pink light, fading out in one

spot only to flash up in another, in constant motion and never alike for

two moments in succession. But when he turned from the beauty of the

night to enter the cabin, there swept over Walter, in a great wave, the

homesickness he had been holding at arms’ length all day. He thought of

the Christmas of a year ago in Switzerland, and he was heartsick for the

mountains and valleys and forests of his native land,—so different from

these flat, monotonous prairies,—heartsick for his own people and their

speech and ways. What kind of a Christmas had this been for Elise and

Max, he wondered. Were they homesick too?

XVIII

MIRAGE OF THE PRAIRIE

Early in the New Year, Louis, Neil and Walter set out for the Pembina

Mountains or the Hare Hills, as that ridge of rough land was sometimes

called. New Year’s day, ushered in with the firing of muskets, was

another occasion for merrymaking and hilarity in the settlement. Indeed

the feasting, dancing, and gaiety had scarcely ceased day or night since

Christmas. Many a _bois brulé_ family had shared their winter supplies so

generously with their guests that they had almost nothing left and would

have to resort to hunting and fishing through the ice. Though they might

starve before spring, the light-hearted, improvident half-breeds did not

grudge what had been consumed in the festivities. They would do the same

thing over again at the first opportunity.

The rapid decrease of supplies in the village gave Louis and Neil excuse

for a hunting trip, and Walter was ready and eager to go along. At the

Pembina Mountains they would be sure to find both game and fur animals,

Louis asserted. He had been there the winter before and had found good

hunting. On that trip he and his companion had come across an old and

empty but snug log cabin that had been built by some hunting or trading

party. He proposed to return to the old camp and stay several weeks.

Walter was the more ready to go because, on the last day of the old year,

he had received word from the Periers that they were getting along all

right. The letter, from Elise, was brought by a half-breed who had come

from St. Boniface to be married on New Year’s day to a Pembina girl. Her

father’s cough was much better, Elise wrote. He was working at the

buffalo wool factory with Matthieu. Max had been disappointed to find

that Mr. West’s school was a good two miles from Sergeant Kolbach’s home,

too far for the little fellow to go and come in cold weather. “But we are

both of us learning some English without going to school,” Elise added.

The cabin was warm, and they had enough to eat, principally pemmican, and

fish caught in nets set under the ice in the rivers. “You know I did not

like pemmican,” wrote Elise, “but now I am used to it. For Christmas we

had a feast, a piece of fresh venison, and a pudding made with some wheat

flour M. Kolbach had saved and with a sauce of melted sugar, the sugar

the Indians make from the sap of the maple tree. Have you eaten any of

that sugar, Walter? It is the best thing I have tasted since we came to

this new land. You wrote to me that I must tell you if everything here

did not go well. Of course it is not like home in Switzerland. We are not

as comfortable or as happy as we were there, and sometimes Max and I are

very lonely and homesick. Father does not complain of the hardships and

is always planning what we are going to do when spring comes. We keep

warm, we are well, and we have enough to eat, though we long for bread

with butter, and milk, and cheese. I get the meals and wash and mend our

clothes and keep the house clean. M. Kolbach says it is more comfortable

than before we came. I can’t really like M. Kolbach, though I know I

ought to, it is so good of him to have us here. He is rather harsh to Max

sometimes, but not to me, and yet I feel a little afraid of him. Isn’t it

strange that we can’t like people by just trying to, no matter how hard

we try? But I am very grateful to M. Kolbach for taking care of us.”

This part of the letter troubled Walter a little, but, reading it over a

second time, he concluded that Elise was merely homesick. Kolbach was

very likely a rough sort of man, but he must have a kind heart or he

would not do so much for strangers. There was no mention of the younger

brother. Probably Elise knew nothing of him. Father Dumoulin thought

Fritz Kolbach might not be on very good terms with the Sergeant. Perhaps

after the robbery of the Indian, Fritz had not returned to St. Boniface.

Undoubtedly the trader at Pembina had sent an account of that affair to

Fort Douglas. Kolbach and Murray might not dare to show their faces

there.

The day of their start for the Pembina Mountains, Louis and Walter were

up before dawn. The morning was still and very cold. After packing their

few supplies and belongings on the toboggan, the boys passed a long

rawhide rope, or _shaganappy_, back and forth over the load and through

the loops of the leather lashing that ran along the edges of the sled.

Before the work was done their fingers were aching. They were glad to go

back into the cabin for a breakfast of hot pemmican and tea.

As he went out again, Walter paused on the threshold to stare in

amazement. The sun was not yet above the horizon, but the whole world had

changed. He seemed to be standing in the center of a vast bowl. On every

hand the country appeared to curve upward. And the distance was no longer

distant! Groves of bare branched trees, streams, heights of land that he

knew to be miles away had moved in around the settlement until they

seemed only a few rods distant. To the west the line of hills,—Pembina

Mountains,—that he had never glimpsed, even on the clearest day, as more

than a faint blue line on the horizon, loomed up a mighty, flat-topped

ridge. Once before, in December, Walter had seen the landscape

transformed, but it was nothing to compare with this. Louis, familiar

from childhood with the mirage of the prairie, declared he had never

known such an extraordinary one.

Awed and wondering, the two lads stood gazing about them. Turning to the

east, they watched a spreading ray of crimson light mount the sky from

the soft, low lying, rose and gold bordered clouds at the horizon. The

sun was coming up. As the horizon clouds reddened and the rim of the

glowing disk appeared, an exclamation from his companion caused Walter to

wheel about.

Louis was pointing at two men and a dog team gliding through the

air,—upside down! Every detail was startlingly clear, capotes with hoods

pulled up, sashes, buckskin leggings, snowshoes. The driver with the long

whip looked very tall. He belabored his dogs cruelly. It seemed to Walter

that he ought to hear the man’s shouts and curses, the howls and whines

of the abused beasts. He could see their tracks in the snow, and a fringe

of trees beyond them,—everything inverted as if he himself were standing

on his head to watch men and dogs moving across the prairie. As he

watched, the figures grew to gigantic stature, the outlines became

indistinct. They vanished altogether. The sun was above the clouds now.

The distance grew hazy. Only part of the chain of hills was visible.

Louis turned to Walter, excitement in his voice.

“I think those men go to the mountain too,” he said. “Do you know how far

away they are?”

Walter shook his head. He felt quite incapable of estimating distance in

this fantastic world, where things he knew to be miles away were almost

hitting him in the face.

“At least fifteen miles,” declared Louis impressively.

“Impossible. We couldn’t see them so plainly.”

“And yet we have seen them. The mirage is always unbelievable.”

“What is it anyway, Louis? What causes it?”

The Canadian lad shrugged his shoulders. “The Indians say the spirits of

the air play tricks to bewilder men and make them wander off the trail to

seek things that are not there. Once I asked Father Dumoulin and he said

the spirits had nothing to do with it. He called it a false effect of

light, but that does not explain it, do you think?”

Again Walter shook his head.

“This I have noticed,” Louis went on. “I have never seen the mirage in

winter except at dawn or sunset. In summer I have seen it in the middle

of the day when it was very hot and still. But why it comes, winter or

summer, I do not know.”

Neil’s arrival stirred the others to action. The dogs were harnessed and

good-byes said to Louis’ mother and sisters and rather sulky younger

brother. Raoul wanted to go too, but one of the boys was needed at home.

Fresh and full of spirits, the dogs set off at such a pace that the boys

had all they could do to keep up. When they left the trail and took to

the untracked snow, speed slackened considerably. Louis now went ahead of

the team, though track breaking was hardly necessary. Underneath an inch

or more of dry, loose stuff, almost like sand, the snow was well packed

and held up the dogs and sled. The line of hills had vanished, but the

mirage did not entirely disappear and the landscape resume its natural

appearance until the sun had been up nearly two hours.

The day was cold, much colder than the lads realized at first, for, when

the start was made and for some time thereafter, there was not a breath

of wind. All three wore fur caps and mittens, woolen capotes, and thick

knit stockings under their moccasins. Walter had possessed none of these

things when he came to Pembina, but Mrs. Brabant had made him a capote

from a Hudson Bay blanket and a cap and mittens from a rather well worn

bearskin. She had knit warm, new stockings for both boys from yarn bought

at the trading post. A prickling feeling in his nose was Walter’s first

warning that his flesh was freezing. Stooping for a handful of snow, he

rubbed the prickly spot to restore circulation, and pulled the hood of

his capote farther around his face.

Their course at first lay to the north of the Pembina River, over flat

prairie without an elevation high enough to be called a hill. On that

January morning, the whole plain was a stretch of dazzling white. In the

distance it appeared level, but it was actually made up of rolling snow

waves. It was, Walter thought, like a great lake or sea, the waves of

which had suddenly frozen while in motion and turned to snow instead of

ice.

XIX

BLIZZARD

As the sun rose higher the wind began to blow. The loose surface snow was

set in motion, crawling and creeping up the frozen waves. The wind gained

in strength, and everywhere the plain seemed to be moving. The glitter

was less trying to the eyes now, for the sun had grown hazy. Louis

glanced up at the sky, shouted to his dogs, sent his long whip flying

through the air and flicked the leader with the lash.

“A storm comes,” he called to his companions. “We must make haste and

reach the river where it bends to the north.”

With the increase of speed, Walter, less experienced in this sort of

travel than his comrades, found keeping up difficult. Neither with nor

without snowshoes was he the equal of the swift, tireless Louis. Neil too

was his superior on snowshoes, though on bare ground Walter could outrun

the Scotch boy. In spite of all his efforts he fell behind. Seeing his

difficulty, Louis suggested that he ride for a while, standing on the

rear of the sled. Glad though he was of a few minutes’ rest, Walter did

not ride long. The northwest wind soon chilled him through, and he was

forced to run to warm himself.

The dogs’ pace was slackening. The course was due west, and the wind,

striking them at an angle, slowed their progress. The surface snow,

caught up by the gale, drove against and swirled about beasts and boys.

Walter plodded after the others, head lowered, capote hood pulled down

over his cap to his eyes. Suddenly he realized that the fine, driving,

blinding stuff that struck against him with such force and stung wherever

it touched his bare skin, was not merely the fallen snow whipped forward

by the wind. Snow was falling,—or being lashed down upon him,—from above.

The sunshine was gone. The distance, the sky were wholly blotted out. He

and his comrades were in the grip of a hard northwest storm, a genuine

prairie blizzard.

Louis was having his hands full trying to keep a straight course. All

landmarks blotted out, the wind was the only guide, and the dogs were

continually edging away from the bitter blast. The French boy, of a

naturally kind disposition and brought up by a good mother and a father

who had no Indian blood, was far more humane than most dog drivers. He

never abused his beasts, and he punished them only when discipline was

necessary. Now, however, he was compelled to use the whip vigorously to

keep them from swinging far to the south. Shouts and commands, drowned

out by the roaring of the wind, were of little avail.

Dogs and boys struggled on in the driving wind, the bitter cold, and the

blinding snow; and the struggle saved them from freezing. The snow was

coming so thick and fast they could see only a few feet in any direction.

Following behind the toboggan, Walter could not make out Askimé or the

second dog. The third beast, next to the sled, was but a dim shape. Louis

and Neil took turns going ahead of Askimé. While one was breaking trail,

the other wielded the whip and tried to keep the dogs in the track.

Plodding on through a white, swirling world, fighting against wind and

snow, his whole mind intent on keeping the shadowy, moving forms in

sight, his feet feeling like clogs of wood, his ankles and calves aching

with the unaccustomed exercise of snowshoeing, Walter lost all count of

time. When the sled stopped, he kept on blindly and nearly fell over it.

Louis seized him by the arm and shouted, “We can go no farther. We can’t

keep a straight course. We must camp here.”

Walter tried to look about him. He could see nothing but wind-driven

snow, not a tree or hill or other sign of shelter. “We’ll freeze to

death,” he protested huskily.

“No, no, we will be safe and warm. Kick off your snowshoes and help Neil

dig.”

Walter obeyed, slipping his feet from the thongs. Following the Scotch

lad’s example, he seized one of the shoes and, using it as a shovel,

began to scoop up snow. Louis unharnessed the dogs and unlaced the hide

cover, almost freezing his fingers in the process. Hastily dumping the

supplies in a heap, he turned the sled on its side, and joined the

diggers. In the lee of the toboggan, which kept the drifting snow from

filling the hole as fast as they dug it out, the three boys worked for

their lives. Down through the dry, loose surface, through the firm packed

layer below, to the hard frozen ground, they dug. Scooping out the snow,

they tried to make a wall, though the wind swept it away almost as

rapidly as they piled it up.

Working steadily at their best speed, they succeeded at last in

excavating a hole large enough to hold all three. The heap of supplies

had been converted into a mound, the toboggan into a drift. Burrowing

into the mound, the boys pulled out robes and blankets, hastily spread

them at the bottom of the hole, and threw in their supplies. A long pole,

that Louis had added to the load just before starting, was laid across

the hole, one end resting on the toboggan. Clinging to the hide cover to

keep it from blowing away, they drew it over the pole and weighted down

the corners with a keg of powder, a sack of bullets, and the steel traps.

After the edges of this tent roof had been banked with snow to hold it

more securely, the three lads crawled under it.

When he had recovered his breath, Walter asked, “What has become of the

dogs?” He had not noticed them since Louis took off their harness.

“Do you think they are lost then?” said their master with a grin. “No,

they have buried themselves in the snow to keep warm. They have earned a

meal though, and they shall have it.” Seizing three of the frozen fish he

had brought for the dogs, Louis crawled out into the storm to find and

feed them.

He was back in a few minutes, huddling among the robes and blankets. The

hole was none too large. When they sat up straight, their heads nearly

touched the hide cover, and all three could not lie down at one time. But

in the snug burrow, with the snow-banked sled to windward, they did not

feel the wind at all.

Knowing that they might have to camp where there was no fuel to be found,

Louis had included a few small sticks among their supplies. Shaving one

of the sticks into splinters, he struck his flint and steel and kindled a

tiny fire on the bare ground in the center of the shelter. In the cover

above he cut a little hole for the smoke to escape. Small though the

blaze was, it sent out heat enough to thaw the boys’ stiff fingers and

feet, and its light was cheering in the dark burrow. Louis melted snow,

made tea, and thawed out a chunk of frozen pemmican.

By the time the meal was over, Walter found himself surprisingly warm and

comfortable. He had not supposed he could be so comfortable in such a

crude shelter. He was drowsy and wanted to take a nap, but one fear

troubled him and made him reluctant to yield to his sleepiness.

“If the snow covers us over, won’t we smother in this hole?” he asked.

Louis shook his head. “There is no danger, I think. Often men overtaken

by storm camp in the snow like this, and I never heard of anyone being

smothered. There is not much snow on our tent now. It banks up against

the toboggan and blows off our roof. But even if we are buried in a

drift, we can still breathe I think, and we won’t freeze while we have

food and a little wood to make hot tea.”

“And the dogs?”

“They will sleep warm, covered by the snow.”

Reassured, Walter settled himself as comfortably as he could manage in

the cramped quarters, and went to sleep. When he woke, he found the

others both sleeping, Neil curled up in his thick plaid, and Louis in a

sitting position with his head down on his knees. The fire had gone out,

and in spite of the blanket in which he was wrapped and the buffalo robe

spread over Neil and himself, Walter felt chilled through. It was too

dark in the hole for him to see the figures on his watch. Trying to rub

some warmth into his cramped legs, he roused Louis.

“How long have I been asleep? Is it night?”

“I think not yet,” replied Louis, answering the second question. “It

grows colder. I will make a fire and we will have some hot tea.”

To clear a space for the fire, Louis unceremoniously rolled Neil over and

woke him. The Scotch lad growled and grumbled at being disturbed, but the

prospect of hot tea restored his good humor. Looking at his watch in the

light of the tiny blaze, Walter discovered that it was not yet five

o’clock. The storm still raged over them.

“Do we get something to eat with this?” Neil asked, as Louis poured the

steaming tea into his tin cup.

“Not now. We have only a little wood. We must not keep the fire burning.

Warm your fingers and your feet well before it burns out.”

Louis was the leader of the expedition, and Neil did not question his

decree. The three drew their blankets and robes closer about them, and

made the most of the hot drink and the tiny fire. They were not sleepy

now, so they talked, huddled together for warmth.

After a time conversation lagged. They grew silent, then drowsy. Walter

dropped off, and woke to find Louis kindling another little blaze. It was

after nine, and the three made a scanty meal of thawed pemmican before

going to sleep again.

During the night Walter woke several times to rub his chilly body and

limbs and snuggle closer to his companions. A buffalo robe and a blanket

lay between him and the ground, his capote hood was drawn over his fur

cap, he was wrapped in a blanket, and with his companions, covered with

another robe, yet in his dreams he was conscious of the cold. He did not

think of complaining. He had slept cold many a night since leaving Fort

York. In the midst of this howling blizzard, he was thankful to be as

comfortable as he was and in no immediate danger of freezing.

XX

A NIGHT ATTACK

It must have been instinct that roused Louis and set him to shaving

kindlings from the last stick of wood, for there was no change in the

darkness of the hole to indicate that morning had come. The smoke no

longer found a way out through the hide cover. Though the wood was dry

and the blaze small, Walter was half choked and his eyes were smarting by

the time the tea and pemmican were ready.

“We are covered with snow,” said Louis as, in changing his position, he

struck his head against the sagging roof. “But I think the storm is

over.”

He was right. When the three crawled out from under the hide and burrowed

their way through the drift that covered all but the wind-swept peak of

their shelter, they found that the flakes had ceased to fall. The wind

still blew, though not so hard, and swept the dry, fallen snow up the

wave-like drifts, but the sky was clear and flushed with the red of

sunrise. It was a world of sky and snow, for the swirling clouds of fine,

icy particles blotted out the distance.

The boys did not stand gazing about them for long. The morning was too

bitterly cold for inaction, and they wanted to be on their way.

Floundering through the drifts, they found the dogs buried in the snow,

and pulled them, whining piteously, out of their warm nests. Each animal

bolted his frozen fish, then burrowed for another nap.

Dismantling the almost buried shelter, digging out the toboggan and

loading it took some time. To fasten the cover over the load, Neil had to

take off his fur mittens to handle the stiffened lacings, and frosted

four fingers. He was, as he said, “ready to howl” with the pain when the

blood began to circulate in them. In the meantime Louis and Walter had

dug out the whining dogs. Once in the harness, they ceased their

protests. At the crack of the whip and their master’s shout of “_Marche,

marche_,” they were off willingly enough.

“I hope you know where we are and where we’re going, Louis,” said Neil as

he fell into line. “I don’t.”

“I think that must be the river over there where those trees are,” Louis

replied. “We cross it and go on to the west and cross it again. It makes

a great bend to the north.”

The dogs were headed for the line of woods, dimly visible through the

blowing snow. The trees proved to be on the bank of the Pembina, which

was crossed without difficulty. The ice was thick and solid beneath its

snow blanket. Beyond the river was open prairie again, a succession of

snow waves, up and down, across and through which, boys and dogs made

their way westward. Both Louis and Neil went ahead to break the track.

Askimé, the intelligent leader of the team, seemed to sense his

responsibility and kept close behind the snowshoes.

Walter brought up the rear. His ankles were lame, the muscles of his

calves strained and sore from the snowshoeing of yesterday. He found the

going quite hard enough, even in the trail made by two pairs of rackets,

three dogs, and a loaded sled. The sky was clear blue overhead, the

blowing snow particles glittered in the sunlight, but the sun seemed to

give out no warmth. The north wind was piercingly cold. The strenuous

exercise kept body and limbs warm, but in spite of his capote hood Walter

had to rub and slap his face frequently. His hands grew numb in his fur

mittens.

Only one stop was made, about mid afternoon, when they reached an _île

des bois_, or wood island. The thick clump of leafless small trees and

bushes, though broken and trampled by buffalo, furnished plenty of fuel

and some protection from the wind. The boys kindled a fire, not a tiny

flame but a big blaze that threw out real heat. Close around it they

crouched to drink hot tea and eat a little pemmican.

Heartened by food and drink, they smothered their fire with snow that

there might be no danger of its destroying the little grove, and resumed

their march. Higher land came into view through the blowing drift, and

Louis scanned it eagerly. He admitted that he did not know just where he

was.

“We should have crossed the river again before this,” he said. “Without

knowing it we have edged away from the cold wind and gone too far south.

I fear we cannot find the old cabin to-night.”

“We must find fuel and shelter,” was Neil’s emphatic reply.

It was after sunset when the cold and tired travelers reached an abrupt

rise of wooded ground. Skirting the base of this tree-clad cliff, they

came to a steep-sided gully, where a small stream, now frozen over and

snow covered, broke through. The narrow cut was lined with boulders, but

trees and bushes bordered the stream and grew wherever they could find

foothold on the abrupt sides among the stones. The gully was drifted with

snow, but it would provide protection from the bitter wind.

Leaving his comrades with the sled, Louis explored until he found a

suitable spot, where the almost perpendicular north slope cut off the

wind. A huge boulder, partly embedded in the bank, would serve as the

east wall of the shelter. He shouted to his companions, who joined him

with sled and dogs.

“We will dig out the snow behind this big stone,” he explained, “and pile

it up to make a wall on the other two sides. When we have put the

toboggan and the hide cover over the top, we shall have a good warm

lodge.”

The three set to work at once, Walter almost forgetting his lameness and

weariness in his eagerness to complete the queer hut. When it was all

done but the roof, Neil left the others to unload the sled, while he took

the ax and climbed the bank to cut firewood.

Before the shelter was finished, darkness had come, and the howling of

wolves echoed from the hills above. On the narrow strip of frozen, sandy

ground that had been uncovered, a robe was spread. The fire was kindled

against the big boulder, which reflected the heat. To the cold and tired

boys, the hut seemed very snug. Wrapped in blankets, they huddled before

the blaze, warm and comfortable, even though the heat did not carry far

enough to make much impression on the two snow walls.

By the time Walter had eaten his portion of melted pemmican and drunk two

cups of hot tea, he was so sleepy he could not keep his eyes open. Neil

too was nodding, and Louis was not much wider awake. They replenished the

fire, and stretched out side by side, feet to the blaze, and heads

wrapped in their capote hoods.

An excited barking and howling waked Walter suddenly. How could three

dogs make such an unearthly racket? With a sharp exclamation, Louis freed

himself from his blanket. In a flash Walter realized that the dogs were

not guilty of all that noise.

Louis was gone, Neil was following. Walter sprang up, felt for his gun,

and could not find it. The fire was still smouldering. Remembering that

wild animals were supposed to be afraid of fire, he seized a stick that

was alight at one end. As he crawled from the shelter, he knew from the

sounds that the wolves were attacking the dogs.

The loud report of a gun drowned out for an instant the snarls and

growls. The dark forms of the beasts could be seen against the white

snow, but the light was too dim down in the gully to show friends from

foes. Louis had fired into the air.

Before the echoes of the shot had died away, Walter flung his blazing

firebrand, with sure aim. It landed among the dark shapes. There was a

sharp snarl, a quick backward leap of a long, thin body. Neil risked a

shot. The snarling creature made a convulsive plunge forward, and fell in

a heap. Black figures, three or four of them, were moving swiftly up the

gully.

Louis fired again, then called commandingly, “Askimé, back!”

The brave husky had started in pursuit of the wolves. At his master’s

command, he paused, hesitated, turned. Louis ran forward to seize the

dog.

Askimé had been hurt, but not seriously. One of the wolves had got him by

the throat, but the Eskimo’s heavy hair had protected him and the skin

was only slightly torn. The other dogs were uninjured. The actual attack

had but just begun, when Walter flung his firebrand. The blazing stick

had struck Askimé’s attacker on the head, and had made him loose his

hold. It had frightened the rest of the beasts. Then Neil’s quick and

lucky shot had killed the one wolf almost instantly. The dead animal

proved,—as the voices of the pack had already betrayed,—that the

attackers were not the small, cowardly prairie beasts, but big, gray

timber wolves.

“It was you, Walter, who saved Askimé’s life,” Louis exclaimed

gratefully. “I didn’t dare take aim. I couldn’t tell which was wolf and

which dog. I fired over their heads, hoping to frighten the wicked

brutes. But you saved Askimé. Come, brave fellow,” he said to the dog.

“You shall sleep in the lodge with me the rest of the night.”

“Will the wolves come back, do you think?” asked Walter.

“If they do, the dogs will warn us. But I think they will not trouble us

again. They have lost their leader, and they are well frightened.”

The boys were so thoroughly aroused that it was some time before they

could go to sleep again. But they heard no more of the wolves, and

finally dropped off, first Neil, then Louis, and finally Walter. Between

his two companions, Walter slept more warmly than on the night before,

though he woke several times when the fire had to be replenished.

XXI

THE BURNED CABIN

Before sunrise Louis was stirring and woke the others. When Walter tried

to move, he found his ankles and calves so stiff and sore that he

wondered if he could possibly go on with the march. Of course he must go

on. Louis and Neil seemed as spry as ever. He would not hold them back.

Pride helped him to set his teeth and bear the pain of getting to his

feet and moving about. His first few minutes of snowshoeing were agony.

As he went on, some of the stiffness wore off, but sharp darts of pain

stabbed foot, ankle, or leg at every step. Doggedly he trudged behind the

toboggan, thankful that trail breaking through the deep snow prevented

speed.

Keeping to open, level ground at the foot of the hills, Louis watched for

familiar landmarks. The day was clear and cold. Going north and

northwest, the party traveled against the piercing wind. The boys walked

with heads lowered. The dogs, every now and then, veered to one side or

stopped and turned about in their traces. Most drivers would have beaten

and abused the poor beasts for such behavior, but Louis was not without

sympathy for them. He himself had to turn his back to the wind

occasionally. With a fellow feeling for the dogs, he encouraged rather

than drove them. Askimé did his best, and the others were usually ready

to follow him.

What he had seen so far of the Pembina Mountains was a disappointment to

Walter. He could not understand why anyone should dignify mere low ridges

and irregular, rolling hills with the name of mountains. Nevertheless,

after weeks of open prairie, the rolling, partly wooded land looked good

to him. He felt more at home in broken country.

The wind-driven surface snow obscured the distance, so that landmarks

were difficult to recognize. In a momentary lull, a line of woods,

winding out across the plain, was revealed. Louis paused in his trail

breaking, and turned to call to his comrades.

“There is the river again,” he cried. “We came too far to the south, as I

thought.”

“Is the cabin on the river bank?” asked Walter, hoping that the long

tramp was almost over.

“No, it is in the hills about a mile beyond,” was the rather discouraging

reply.

Walter’s heart sank. He had been wondering at every step how long he

could go on. Could he keep going to that line of trees and then on for

another mile or more? He must of course, no matter how much it hurt.

Louis, sure of the way now, led to and across the river, then turned to

the northwest into the broken, hilly country. There they were less

exposed to the sweep of the wind, but in other ways the going was harder.

It seemed to Walter that they must have gone at least three miles beyond

the river, when he heard Louis, who had rounded a clump of leafless

trees, give a cry of dismay. Following their leader, Walter and Neil

entered a snug, tree-protected hollow, backed by a steep, sandy slope.

And all three stood staring at a roofless, blackened ruin.

Louis was the first to recover himself. “This is bad, yes, but the walls

still stand, and the chimney has not fallen.”

“We can rig up some sort of a roof,” Neil responded. “It will be better

than camping in the open.”

Walter said nothing. He had expected to find a cabin all ready for

occupancy, where they could make themselves comfortable at once. Cold and

suffering sharply with the pain in his feet and legs, his bitter

disappointment quite overwhelmed his courage.

“Someone has camped here since the blizzard. There are raquette and sled

and dog tracks, but it is strange,”—Louis, turning towards Walter, forgot

what he intended to say, seized a handful of snow, made a lunge at his

friend, and clapped the snow on his face. “Your cheek is frozen. It is

all white. Rub it,—not so hard, you will take the skin off. Let me do it.

Neil, cut some wood, dry branches. We will make a fire the first thing we

do, even if we have no roof over our heads.”

Neil took the ax from the sled, and started to obey Louis’ order, while

the latter skilfully rubbed and slapped Walter’s stiff, white cheek,

until it began to tingle.