Jo Portugtais was breaking the law of the river--he was running a
little raft down the stream at night, instead of tying up at sundown and
camping on the shore, or sitting snugly over cooking-pot by the little
wooden caboose on his raft. But defiance of custom and tradition was a
habit with Jo Portugais. He had lived in his own way many a year, and he
was likely to do so till the end, though he was a young man yet. He had
many professions, or rather many gifts, which he practised as it pleased
him. He was river-driver, woodsman, hunter, carpenter, guide, as whim or
opportunity came to him. On the evening when Charley Steele met with his
mishap he was a river-driver--or so it seemed. He had been up nor’west
a hundred and fifty miles, and he had come down-stream alone with his
raft-which in the usual course should take two men to guide it--through
slides, over rapids, and in strong currents. Defying the code of the
river, with only one small light at the rear of his raft, he voyaged the
swift current towards his home, which, when he arrived opposite the Cote
Dorion, was still a hundred miles below. He had watched the lights in
the river-drivers’ camps, had seen the men beside the fires, and had
drifted on, with no temptation to join in the songs floating out over
the dark water, to share the contents of the jugs raised to boisterous
lips, or to thrust his hand into the greasy cooking-pot for a succulent
bone.
He drifted on until he came opposite Charlemagne’s tavern. Here the
current carried him inshore. He saw the dim light, he saw dark figures
in the bar-room, he even got a glimpse of Suzon Charlemagne. He dropped
the house behind quickly, but looked back, leaning on the oar and
thinking how swift was the rush of the current past the tavern. His eyes
were on the tavern door and the light shining through it. Suddenly
the light disappeared, and the door vanished into darkness. He heard a
scuffle, and then a heavy splash.
“There’s trouble there,” said Jo Portugais, straining his eyes through
the night, for a kind of low roar, dwindling to a loud whispering, and
then a noise of hurrying feet, came down the stream, and he could dimly
see dark figures running away into the night by different paths.
“Some dirty work, very sure,” said Jo Portugais, and his eyes travelled
back over the dark water like a lynx’s, for the splash was in his ear,
and a sort of prescience possessed him. He could not stop his raft. It
must go on down the current, or be swerved to the shore, to be fastened.
“God knows, it had an ugly sound,” said Jo Portugais, and again strained
his eyes and ears. He shifted his position and took another oar, where
the raft-lantern might not throw a reflection upon the water. He saw a
light shine again through the tavern doorway, then a dark object
block the light, and a head thrust forward towards the river as though
listening.
At this moment he fancied he saw something in the water nearing him. He
stretched his neck. Yes, there was something.
“It’s a man. God save us--was it murder?” said Jo Portugais, and
shuddered. “Was it murder?”
The body moved more swiftly than the raft. There was a hand thrust
up--two hands.
“He’s alive!” said Jo Portugais, and, hurriedly pulling round his waist
a rope tied to a timber, jumped into the water.
Three minutes later, on the raft, he was examining a wound in the head
of an insensible man.
As his hand wandered over the body towards the heart, it touched
something that rattled against a button. He picked it up mechanically
and held it to the light. It was an eye-glass.
“My God!” said Jo Portugais, and peered into the man’s face. “It’s him.”
Then he remembered the last words the man had spoken to him--“Get out of
my sight. You’re as guilty as hell!” But his heart yearned towards the
man nevertheless.