thankful. He could not see that matters could be much worse. A big
hard lump was in his throat as he thought of his father's hunger, and
the home-coming so different from what they had fondly counted on.
Great slow tears came into the boy's eyes, and he wiped them away,
ashamed even in the dark to have been guilty of such weakness.
In the gray dawn little Baptiste suddenly awoke, with the sensation of
having slept on his post. How heavy his heart was! Why? He sat dazed
with indefinite sorrow. Ah, now he remembered! Conolly threatening to
turn them out! and his father back penniless! No breakfast! Well, we
must see about that.
Very quietly he rose, put on his patched clothes, and went out. Heavy
mist covered the face of the river, and somehow the rapid seemed stilled
to a deep, pervasive murmur. As he pushed his boat off, the morning fog
was chillier than frost about him; but his heart got lighter as he rowed
toward his night-line, and he became even eager for the pleasure of
handling his fish. He made up his mind not to be much disappointed if
there were no sturgeon, but could not quite believe there would be none;
surely it was reasonable to expect one, perhaps two--why not
three?--among the catfish and _dore_.
How very taut and heavy the rope felt as he raised it over his gunwales,
and letting the bow swing up stream, began pulling in the line hand over
hand! He had heard of cases where every hook had its fish; such a thing
might happen again surely! Yard after yard of rope he passed slowly
over the boat, and down into the water it sank on his track.
Now a knot on the line told him he was nearing the first hook; he
watched for the quiver and struggle of the fish,--probably a big one,
for there he had put a tremendous bait on and spat on it for luck,
moreover. What? the short line hung down from the rope, and the baited
hook rose clear of the water!
Baptiste instantly made up his mind that that hook had been placed a
little too far inshore; he remembered thinking so before; the next hook
was in about the right place!
Hand over hand, ah! the second hook, too! Still baited, the big worm
very livid! It must be thus because that worm was pushed up the shank
of the hook in such a queer way: he had been rather pleased when he gave
the bait that particular twist, and now was surprised at himself; why,
any one could see it was a thing to scare fish!
Hand over hand to the third,--the hook was naked of bait! Well, that
was more satisfactory; it showed they had been biting, and, after all,
this was just about the beginning of the right place.
Hand over hand; now the splashing will begin, thought little Baptiste,
and out came the fourth hook with its livid worm! He held the rope in
his hand without drawing it in for a few moments, but could see no
reasonable objection to that last worm. His heart sank a little, but
pshaw! only four hooks out of forty were up yet! wait till the eddy
behind the shoal was reached, then great things would be seen. Maybe the
fish had not been lying in that first bit of current.
Hand over hand again, now! yes, certainly, _there_ is the right swirl!
What? a _losch_, that unclean semi-lizard! The boy tore it off and
flung it indignantly into the river. However, there was good luck in a
_losch_; that was well known.
But the next hook, and the next, and next, and next came up baited and
fishless. He pulled hand over hand quickly--not a fish! and he must
have gone over half the line! Little Baptiste stopped, with his heart
like lead and his arms trembling. It was terrible! Not a fish, and his
father had no supper, and there was no credit at the store. Poor little
Baptiste!
Again he hauled hand over hand--one hook, two, three--oh! ho! Glorious!
What a delightful sheer downward the rope took! Surely the big sturgeon
at last, trying to stay down on the bottom with the hook! But Baptiste
would show that fish his mistake. He pulled, pulled, stood up to pull;
there was a sort of shake, a sudden give of the rope, and little
Baptiste tumbled over backward as he jerked his line up from under the
big stone!
Then he heard the shutters clattering as Conolly's clerk took them off
the store window; at half-past five to the minute that was always done.
Soon big Baptiste would be up, that was certain. Again the boy began
hauling in line: baited hook! baited hook! naked hook! baited
hook!--such was still the tale.
"Surely, surely," implored little Baptiste, silently, "I shall find some
fish!" Up! up! only four remained! The boy broke down. Could it be?
Had he not somehow skipped many hooks? Could it be that there was to be
no breakfast for the children? Naked hook again! Oh, for some fish!
anything! three, two!
"Oh, send just one for my father!--my poor, hungry father!" cried little
Baptiste, and drew up his last hook. It came full baited, and the line
was out of the water clear away to his outer buoy!
He let go the rope and drifted down the river, crying as though his
heart would break. All the good hooks useless! all the labor thrown
away! all his self-confidence come to naught!
Up rose the great sun; from around the kneeling boy drifted the last of
the morning mists; bright beams touched his bowed head tenderly. He
lifted his face and looked up the rapid. Then he jumped to his feet
with sudden wonder; a great joy lit up his countenance.
Far up the river a low, broad, white patch appeared on the sharp
sky-line made by the level dark summit of the long slope of tumbling
water. On this white patch stood many figures of swaying men black
against the clear morning sky, and little Baptiste saw instantly that an
attempt was being made to "run" a "band" of deals, or many cribs lashed
together, instead of single cribs as had been done the day before.
The broad strip of white changed its form slowly, dipped over the slope,
drew out like a wide ribbon, and soon showed a distinct slant across the
mighty volume of the deep raft channel. When little Baptiste,
acquainted as he was with every current, eddy, and shoal in the rapid,
saw that slant, he knew that his first impression of what was about to
happen had been correct. The pilot of the band had allowed it to drift
too far north before reaching the rapid's head.
Now the front cribs, instead of following the curve of the channel, had
taken slower water, while the rear cribs, impelled by the rush under
them, swung the band slowly across the current. All along the front the
standing men swayed back and forth, plying sweeps full forty feet long,
attempting to swing into channel again, with their strokes dashing the
dark rollers before the band into wide splashes of white. On the rear
cribs another crew pulled in the contrary direction; about the middle of
the band stood the pilot, urging his gangs with gestures to greater
efforts.
Suddenly he made a new motion; the gang behind drew in their oars and
ran hastily forward to double the force in front. But they came too
late! Hardly had the doubled bow crew taken a stroke when all drew in
their oars and ran back to be out of danger. Next moment the front
cribs struck the "hog's-back" shoal.
Then the long broad band curved downward in the centre, the rear cribs
swung into the shallows on the opposite side of the raft-channel, there
was a great straining and crashing, the men in front huddled together,
watching the wreck anxiously, and the band went speedily to pieces.
Soon a fringe of single planks came down stream, then cribs and pieces
of cribs; half the band was drifting with the currents, and half was
"hung up" on the rocks among the breakers.
Launching the big red flat-bottomed bow boat, twenty of the raftsmen
came with wild speed down the river, and as there had been no rush to
get aboard, little Baptiste knew that the cribs on which the men stood
were so hard aground that no lives were in danger. It meant much to
him; it meant that he was instantly at liberty to gather in _money!_
money, in sums that loomed to gigantic figures before his imagination.
He knew that there was an important reason for hurrying the deals to
Quebec, else the great risk of running a band at that season would not
have been undertaken; and he knew that hard cash would be paid down as
salvage for all planks brought ashore, and thus secured from drifting
far and wide over the lake-like expanse below the rapid's foot. Little
Baptiste plunged his oars in and made for a clump of deals floating in
the eddy near his own shore. As he rushed along, the raftsmen's boat
crossed his bows, going to the main raft below for ropes and material to
secure the cribs coming down intact.
"Good boy!" shouted the foreman to Baptiste. "Ten cents for every deal
you fetch ashore above the raft!"
Ten cents! he had expected but five! What a harvest!
Striking his pike-pole into the clump of deals,--"fifty at least," said
joyful Baptiste,--he soon secured them to his boat, and then pulled,
pulled, pulled, till the blood rushed to his head, and his arms ached,
before he landed his wealth.
"Father!" cried he, bursting breathlessly into the sleeping household.
"Come quick! I can't get it up without you."
"Big sturgeon?" cried the shantyman, jumping into his trousers.
"Oh, but we shall have a good fish breakfast!" cried Delima.
"Did I not say the blessed _le bon Dieu_ would send plenty fish?"
observed _Memere_.
"Not a fish!" cried little Baptiste, with recovered breath. "But look!
look!" and he flung open the door. The eddy was now white with planks.
"Ten cents for each!" cried the boy. "The foreman told me."
"Ten cents!" shouted his father. "_Bapteme_! it's my winter's wages!"
And the old grandmother! And Delima? Why, they just put their arms
round each other and cried for joy.
"And yet there's no breakfast," said Delima, starting up. "And they
will work hard, hard."
At that instant who should reach the door but Monsieur Conolly! He was
a man who respected cash wherever he found it, and already the two
Baptistes had a fine show ashore.
"Ma'ame Larocque," said Conolly, politely, putting in his head, "of
course you know I was only joking yesterday. You can get anything you
want at the store."
What a breakfast they did have, to be sure! the Baptistes eating while
they worked. Back and forward they dashed till late afternoon, driving
ringed spikes into the deals, running light ropes through the rings,
and, when a good string had thus been made, going ashore to haul in. At
that hauling Delima and _Memere_, even little Andre and Odillon gave a
hand.
[Illustration: BACK AND FORWARD THEY DASHED]
Everybody in the little hamlet made money that day, but the Larocques
twice as much as any other family, because they had an eddy and a low
shore. With the help of the people "the big _Bourgeois_" who owned the
broken raft got it away that evening, and saved his fat contract after
all.
"Did I not say so?" said "_Memere_" at night, for the hundredth time.
"Did I not say so? Yes, indeed, _le bon Dieu_ watches over us all."
"Yes, indeed, grandmother," echoed little Baptiste, thinking of his
failure on the night-line. "We may take as much trouble as we like, but
it's no use unless _le bon Dieu_ helps us. Only--I don't know what de
big Bourgeois say about that--his raft was all broke up so bad."
"Ah, _oui_," said _Memere_, looking puzzled for but a moment. "But he
didn't put his trust in _le bon Dieu_; that's it, for sure. Besides,
maybe _le bon Dieu_ want to teach him a lesson; he'll not try for run a
whole band of deals next time. You see that was a tempting of
Providence; and then--the big Bourgeois is a Protestant."
*RED-HEADED WINDEGO*
Big Baptiste Seguin, on snow-shoes nearly six feet long, strode mightily
out of the forest, and gazed across the treeless valley ahead.
"Hooraw! No choppin' for two mile!" he shouted.
"Hooraw! Bully! Hi-yi!" yelled the axemen, Pierre, "Jawnny," and
"Frawce," two hundred yards behind. Their cries were taken up by the
two chain-bearers still farther back.
"Is it a lake, Baptiste?" cried Tom Dunscombe, the young surveyor, as he
hurried forward through balsams that edged the woods and concealed the
open space from those among the trees.
"No, seh; only a beaver meddy."
"Clean?"
"Clean! Yesseh! Clean's your face. Hain't no tree for two mile if de
line is go right."
"Good! We shall make seven miles to-day," said Tom, as he came forward
with immense strides, carrying a compass and Jacob's-staff. Behind him
the axemen slashed along, striking white slivers from the pink and scaly
columns of red pines that shot up a hundred and twenty feet without a
branch. If any underbrush grew there, it was beneath the
eight-feet-deep February snow, so that one could see far away down a
multitude of vaulted, converging aisles.
Our young surveyor took no thought of the beauty and majesty of the
forest he was leaving. His thoughts and those of his men were set
solely on getting ahead; for all hands had been promised double pay for
their whole winter, in case they succeeded in running a line round the
disputed Moose Lake timber berth before the tenth of April.
Their success would secure the claim of their employer, Old Dan
McEachran, whereas their failure would submit him perhaps to the loss of
the limit, and certainly to a costly lawsuit with Old Rory Carmichael,
another potentate of the Upper Ottawa.
At least six weeks more of fair snow-shoeing would be needed to "blaze"
out the limit, even if the unknown country before them should turn out
to be less broken by cedar swamps and high precipices than they feared.
A few days' thaw with rain would make slush of the eight feet of snow,
and compel the party either to keep in camp, or risk _mal de
raquette_,--strain of legs by heavy snow-shoeing. So they were in great
haste to make the best of fine weather. Tom thrust his Jacob's-staff
into the snow, set the compass sights to the right bearing, looked
through them, and stood by to let Big Baptiste get a course along the
line ahead. Baptiste's duty was to walk straight for some selected
object far away on the line. In woodland the axeman "blazed" trees on
both sides of his snow-shoe track.
Baptiste was as expert at his job as any Indian, and indeed he looked as
if he had a streak of Iroquois in his veins. So did "Frawce," "Jawnny,"
and all their comrades of the party.
"The three pines will do," said Tom, as Baptiste crouched.
"Good luck to-day for sure!" cried Baptiste, rising with his eyes fixed
on three pines in the foreground of the distant timbered ridge. He saw
that the line did indeed run clear of trees for two miles along one side
of the long, narrow beaver meadow or swale.
Baptiste drew a deep breath, and grinned agreeably at Tom Dunscombe.
"De boys will look like dey's all got de double pay in deys' pocket when
dey's see _dis_ open," said Baptiste, and started for the three pines as
straight as a bee.
Tom waited to get from the chainmen the distance to the edge of the
wood. They came on the heels of the axemen, and all capered on their
snow-shoes to see so long a space free from cutting.
It was now two o'clock; they had marched with forty pound or "light"
packs since daylight, lunching on cold pork and hard-tack as they
worked; they had slept cold for weeks on brush under an open tent
pitched over a hole in the snow; they must live this life of hardship
and huge work for six weeks longer, but they hoped to get twice their
usual eighty-cents-a-day pay, and so their hearts were light and jolly.
But Big Baptiste, now two hundred yards in advance, swinging along in
full view of the party, stopped with a scared cry. They saw him look to
the left and to the right, and over his shoulder behind, like a man who
expects mortal attack from a near but unknown quarter.
"What's the matter?" shouted Tom.
Baptiste went forward a few steps, hesitated, stopped, turned, and
fairly ran back toward the party. As he came he continually turned his
head from side to side as if expecting to see some dreadful thing
following.
The men behind Tom stopped. Their faces were blanched. They looked,
too, from side to side.
"Halt, Mr. Tom, halt! Oh, _monjee_, M'sieu, stop!" said Jawnny.
Tom looked round at his men, amazed at their faces of mysterious terror.
"What on earth has happened?" cried he.
Instead of answering, the men simply pointed to Big Baptiste, who was
soon within twenty yards.
"What is the trouble, Baptiste?" asked Tom.
Baptiste's face was the hue of death. As he spoke he shuddered:--
"_Monjee_, Mr. Tom, we'll got for stop de job!"
"Stop the job! Are you crazy?"
"If you'll not b'lieve what I told, den you go'n' see for you'se'f."
"What is it?"
"De track, seh."
"What track? Wolves?"
"If it was only wolfs!"
"Confound you! can't you say what it is?"
"Eet's de--it ain't safe for told its name out loud, for dass de way it
come--if it's call by its name!"
"Windego, eh?" said Tom, laughing.
"I'll know its track jus' as quick's I see it."
"Do you mean you have seen a Windego track?"
"_Monjee_, seh, _don't_ say its name! Let us go back," said Jawnny.
"Baptiste was at Madores' shanty with us when it took Hermidas Dubois."
"Yesseh. That's de way I'll come for know de track soon's I see it,"
said Baptiste. "Before den I mos' don' b'lieve dere was any of it. But
ain't it take Hermidas Dubois only last New Year's?"
"That was all nonsense about Dubois. I'll bet it was a joke to scare
you all."
"Who's kill a man for a joke?" said Baptiste.
"Did you see Hermidas Dubois killed? Did you see him dead? No! I
heard all about it. All you know is that he went away on New Year's
morning, when the rest of the men were too scared to leave the shanty,
because some one said there was a Windego track outside."
"Hermidas never come back!"
"I'll bet he went away home. You'll find him at Saint Agathe in the
spring. You can't be such fools as to believe in Windegos."
"Don't you say dat name some more!" yelled Big Baptiste, now fierce with
fright. "Hain't I just seen de track? I'm go'n' back, me, if I don't
get a copper of pay for de whole winter!"
"Wait a little now, Baptiste," said Tom, alarmed lest his party should
desert him and the job. "I'll soon find out what's at the bottom of the
track."
"Dere is blood at de bottom--I seen it!" said Baptiste.
"Well, you wait till _I_ go and see it."
"No! I go back, me," said Baptiste, and started up the slope with the
others at his heels.
"Halt! Stop there! Halt, you fools! Don't you understand that if
there was any such monster it would as easily catch you in one place as
another?"
The men went on. Tom took another tone.
"Boys, look here! I say, are you going to desert me like cowards?"
"Hain't goin' for desert you, Mr. Tom, no seh!" said Baptiste, halting.
"Honly I'll hain' go for cross de track." They all faced round.
Tom was acquainted with a considerable number of Windego superstitions.
"There's no danger unless it's a fresh track," he said. "Perhaps it's
an old one."
"Fresh made dis mornin'," said Baptiste.
"Well, wait till I go and see it. You're all right, you know, if you
don't cross it. Isn't that the idea?"
"No, seh. Mr. Humphreys told Madore 'bout dat. Eef somebody cross de
track and don't never come back, _den_ de magic ain't in de track no
more. But it's watchin', watchin' all round to catch somebody what
cross its track; and if nobody don't cross its track and get catched,
den de--de _Ting_ mebby get crazy mad, and nobody don' know what it's
goin' for do. Kill every person, mebby."
Tom mused over this information. These men had all been in Madore's
shanty; Madore was under Red Dick Humphreys; Red Dick was Rory
Carmichael's head foreman; he had sworn to stop the survey by hook or by
crook, and this vow had been made after Tom had hired his gang from
among those scared away from Madore's shanty. Tom thought he began to
understand the situation.
"Just wait a bit, boys," he said, and started.
"You ain't surely go'n' for cross de track?" cried Baptiste.
"Not now, anyway," said Tom. "But wait till I see it."
When he reached the mysterious track it surprised him so greatly that he
easily forgave Baptiste's fears.
If a giant having ill-shaped feet as long as Tom's snow-shoes had passed
by in moccasins, the main features of the indentations might have been
produced. But the marks were no deeper in the snow than if the huge
moccasins had been worn by an ordinary man. They were about five and a
half feet apart from centres, a stride that no human legs could take at
a walking pace.
Moreover, there were on the snow none of the dragging marks of striding;
the gigantic feet had apparently been lifted straight up clear of the
snow, and put straight down.
Strangest of all, at the front of each print were five narrow holes
which suggested that the mysterious creature had travelled with bare,
claw-like toes. An irregular drip or squirt of blood went along the
middle of the indentations! Nevertheless, the whole thing seemed of
human devising.
This track, Tom reflected, was consistent with the Indian superstition
that Windegos are monsters who take on or relinquish the human form, and
vary their size at pleasure. He perceived that he must bring the maker
of those tracks promptly to book, or suffer his men to desert the
survey, and cost him his whole winter's work, besides making him a
laughing-stock in the settlements.
The young fellow made his decision instantly. After feeling for his
match-box and sheath-knife, he took his hatchet from his sash, and
called to the men.
"Go into camp and wait for me!"
Then he set off alongside of the mysterious track at his best pace. It
came out of a tangle of alders to the west, and went into such another
tangle about a quarter of a mile to the east. Tom went east. The men
watched him with horror.
"He's got crazy, looking at de track," said Big Baptiste, "for that's
the way,--one is enchanted,--he must follow."
"He was a good boss," said Jawnny, sadly.
As the young fellow disappeared in the alders the men looked at one
another with a certain shame. Not a sound except the sough of pines
from the neighboring forest was heard. Though the sun was sinking in
clear blue, the aspect of the wilderness, gray and white and severe,
touched the impressionable men with deeper melancholy. They felt
lonely, masterless, mean.
"He was a good boss," said Jawnny again.
"_Tort Dieu!_" cried Baptiste, leaping to his feet. "It's a shame for
desert the young boss. I don't care; the Windego can only kill me. I'm
going for help Mr. Tom."
"Me also," said Jawnny.
Then all wished to go. But after some parley it was agreed that the
others should wait for the portageurs, who were likely to be two miles
behind, and make camp for the night.
Soon Baptiste and Jawnny, each with his axe, started diagonally across
the swale, and entered the alders on Tom's track.
It took them twenty yards through the alders, to the edge of a warm
spring or marsh about fifty yards wide. This open, shallow water was
completely encircled by alders that came down to its very edge. Tom's
snow-shoe track joined the track of the mysterious monster for the first
time on the edge--and there both vanished!
[Illustration: BAPTISTE AND JAWNNY LOOKED AT THE PLACE IN THE WILDEST
TERROR]
Baptiste and Jawnny looked at the place with the wildest terror, and
without even thinking to search the deeply indented opposite edges of
the little pool for a reappearance of the tracks, fled back to the
party. It was just as Red Dick Humphreys had said; just as they had
always heard. Tom, like Hermidas Dubois, appeared to have vanished from
existence the moment he stepped on the Windego track!
The dimness of early evening was in the red-pine forest through which
Tom's party had passed early in the afternoon, and the belated
portageurs were tramping along the line. A man with a red head had been
long crouching in some cedar bushes to the east of the "blazed" cutting.
When he had watched the portageurs pass out of sight, he stepped over
upon their track, and followed it a short distance.
A few minutes later a young fellow, over six feet high, who strongly
resembled Tom Dunscombe, followed the red-headed man.
The stranger, suddenly catching sight of a flame far away ahead on the
edge of the beaver meadow, stopped and fairly hugged himself.
"Camped, by jiminy! I knowed I'd fetch 'em," was the only remark he
made.
"I wish Big Baptiste could see that Windego laugh," thought Tom
Dunscombe, concealed behind a tree.