“MONGA LOOKED BACK ONCE JUST IN TIME TO SEE ONE OF THE GIANTS SPRING UP
OUT OF THE ROCKS.”
“The Secret Cache.” (See Page 277)
THE
SECRET
CACHE
AN ADVENTURE AND MYSTERY
STORY FOR BOYS
BY
E. C. BRILL
_ILLUSTRATED_
CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY
PUBLISHERS NEW YORK
ADVENTURE AND MYSTERY
STORIES FOR BOYS
_By_ E. C. BRILL
Large 12 mo. Cloth. Illustrated.
THE SECRET CACHE
SOUTH FROM HUDSON BAY
THE ISLAND OF YELLOW SANDS
Copyright, 1932, by
Cupples & Leon Company
PRINTED IN U. S. A.
CONTENTS
I. The Birch Bark Letter 7
II. The Sloop “Otter” 14
III. Driven Before the Gale 22
IV. The Isle Royale 29
V. The Half-Breed Brother 37
VI. Down the Northwest Shore 46
VII. At Wauswaugoning 55
VIII. The Blood-Stained Tunic 62
IX. The Giant Iroquois 70
X. The Looming Sailboat 77
XI. The Fire-Lit Orgy 85
XII. The Hungry Porcupine 92
XIII. The Painted Thwart 100
XIV. Sailing Towards the Sunrise 110
XV. The Rift in the Rock 117
XVI. The Cache 127
XVII. The Sealed Packet 137
XVIII. The Fleeing Canoe 147
XIX. The Bay of Manitos 156
XX. Hugh Climbs the Ridge 164
XXI. The Grinning Indian 172
XXII. Blaise Follows Hugh’s Trail 178
XXIII. A Captive 185
XXIV. In the Hands of the Giant 193
XXV. The Chief of Minong 201
XXVI. Escape 209
XXVII. What Blaise Overheard 217
XXVIII. Confusing the Trail 223
XXIX. The Cedar Barrier 234
XXX. The Flight From Minong 242
XXXI. With Wind and Waves 249
XXXII. The Fire at the End of the Trail 256
XXXIII. The Capture of Monga 264
XXXIV. Monga’s Story 272
XXXV. The Fall of the Giant 280
XXXVI. How Blaise Missed His Revenge 290
XXXVII. The Packet is Opened 297
THE SECRET CACHE
I
THE BIRCH BARK LETTER
On the river bank a boy sat watching the slender birch canoes bobbing
about in the swift current. The fresh wind reddened his cheeks and the
roaring of the rapids filled his ears. Eagerly his eyes followed the
movements of the canoes daringly poised in the stream just below the
tossing, foaming, white water. It was the first day of the spring
fishing, and more exciting sport than this Indian white-fishing Hugh
Beaupré had never seen. Three canoes were engaged in the fascinating
game, two Indians in each. One knelt in the stern with his paddle. The
other stood erect in the bow, a slender pole fully ten feet long in his
hands, balancing with extraordinary skill as the frail craft pitched
about in the racing current.
The standing Indian in the nearest canoe was a fine figure of a young
man, in close-fitting buckskin leggings, his slender, muscular, bronze
body stripped to the waist. Above his black head, bent a little as he
gazed intently down into the clear water, gulls wheeled and screamed in
anger at the invasion of their fishing ground. Suddenly the fisherman
pointed, with a swift movement of his left hand, to the spot where his
keen eyes had caught the gleam of a fin. Instantly his companion
responded to the signal. With a quick dig and twist of the paddle blade,
he shot the canoe forward at an angle. Down went the scoop net on the end
of the long pole and up in one movement. A dexterous flirt of the net,
and the fish, its wet, silvery sides gleaming in the sun, landed in the
bottom of the boat.
The lad on the bank had been holding his breath. Now his tense
watchfulness relaxed, and he glanced farther up-stream at the white water
boiling over and around the black rocks. A gleam of bright red among the
bushes along the shore caught his eye. The tip of a scarlet cap, then a
head, appeared above the budding alders, as a man came, with swift,
swinging strides, along the shore path.
“Holá, Hugh Beaupré,” he cried, when he was close enough to be heard
above the tumult of the rapids. “M’sieu Cadotte, he want you.”
The lad scrambled to his feet. “Monsieur Cadotte sent you for me?” he
asked in surprise. “What does he want with me, Baptiste?”
“A messenger from the New Fort has come, but a few moments ago,” Baptiste
replied, this time in French.
Hugh, half French himself, understood that language well, though he spoke
it less fluently than English.
“From the Kaministikwia? He has brought news of my father?”
“That M’sieu did not tell me, but yes, I think it may be so, since M’sieu
sends for you.”
Hugh had scarcely waited for an answer. Before Baptiste had finished his
speech, the boy was running along the river path. The French Canadian
strode after, the tassel of his cap bobbing, the ends of his scarlet sash
streaming in the brisk breeze.
Hastening past the small cabins that faced the St. Mary’s River, Hugh
turned towards a larger building, like the others of rough, unbarked
logs. Here he knew he should find Monsieur Cadotte, fur trader and agent
for the Northwest Fur Company. Finding the door open, the lad entered
without ceremony.
Monsieur Cadotte was alone, going through for a second time the reports
and letters the half-breed messenger had brought from the Company’s
headquarters on the River Kaministikwia at the farther end of Lake
Superior. The trader looked up as the boy entered.
“A letter for you, Hugh.” He lifted a packet from the rude table.
“From my father?” came the eager question.
“That I do not know, but no doubt it will give you news of him.”
A strange looking letter Cadotte handed the lad, a thin packet of birch
bark tied about with rough cedar cord. On the outer wrapping the name
“Hugh Beaupré” was written in a brownish fluid. Hugh cut the cord and
removed the wrapper. His first glance at the thin squares of white,
papery bark showed him that the writing was not his father’s. The letter
was in French, in the same muddy brown ink as the address. The
handwriting was good, better than the elder Beaupré’s, and the spelling
not so bad as Hugh’s own when he attempted to write French. He had little
difficulty in making out the meaning.
“My brother,” the letter began, “our father, before he died, bade me
write to you at the Sault de Ste. Marie. In March he left the Lake of
Red Cedars with one comrade and two dog sleds laden with furs. At the
Fond du Lac he put sail to a bateau, and with the furs he started for
the Grand Portage. But wind and rain came and the white fog. He knew
not where he was and the waves bore him on the rocks. He escaped
drowning and came at last to the Grand Portage and Wauswaugoning. But
he was sore hurt in the head and the side, and before the setting of
the sun his spirit had left his body. While he could yet speak he told
me of you, my half-brother, and bade me write to you. He bade me tell
you of the furs and of a packet of value hid in a safe place near the
wreck of the bateau. He told me that the furs are for you and me. He
said you and I must get them and take them to the New Northwest Company
at the Kaministikwia. The packet you must bear to a man in Montreal.
Our father bade us keep silence and go quickly. He had enemies, as well
I know. So, my brother, I bid you come as swiftly as you can to the
Kaministikwia, where I will await you.
Thy half-brother,
Blaise Beaupré or Attekonse, Little Caribou.”
Hugh read the strange letter to the end, then turned back to the first
bark sheet to read again. He had reached the last page a second time when
Cadotte’s voice aroused him from his absorption.
“It is bad news?” the trader asked.
“Yes,” Hugh answered, raising his eyes from the letter. “My father is
dead.”
“Bad news in truth.” Cadotte’s voice was vibrant with sympathy. “It was
not, I hope, _la petite vérole_?” His despatches had informed him that
the dreaded smallpox had broken out among the Indian villages west of
Superior.
“No, he was wrecked.” Hugh hesitated, then continued, “On his spring trip
down his boat went on the rocks, and he was so sorely hurt that he lived
but a short time.”
“A sad accident truly. Believe me, I feel for you, my boy. If there is
anything I can do——” Cadotte broke off, then added, “You will wish to
return to your relatives. We must arrange to send you to Michilimackinac
on the schooner. From there you can readily find a way of return to
Montreal.”
Hugh was at a loss for a reply. He had not the slightest intention of
returning to Montreal so soon. He must obey his half-brother’s summons
and go to recover the furs and the packet that made up the lads’ joint
inheritance. Kind though Cadotte had been, Hugh dared not tell him all.
“He bade us keep silence,” Little Caribou had written, and one word in
the letter disclosed to Hugh a good reason for silence.
Jean Beaupré had been a free trader and trapper, doing business with the
Indians on his own account, not in the direct service of any company.
Hugh knew, however, that his father had been in the habit of buying his
supplies from and selling his pelts to the Old Northwest Company. Very
likely he had been under some contract to do so. Yet in these last
instructions to his sons, he bade them take the furs to the _New_
Northwest Company, a secession from and rival to the old organization. He
must have had some disagreement, an actual quarrel perhaps, with the Old
Company. The rivalry between the fur companies was hot and bitter. Hugh
was very sure that if Monsieur Cadotte learned of the hidden pelts, he
would inform his superiors. Then, in all probability, the Old Northwest
Company’s men would reach the cache first. Certainly, if he even
suspected that the pelts were destined for the New Company, Cadotte would
do nothing to further and everything to hinder Hugh’s project. The boy
was in a difficult position. He had to make up his mind quickly. Cadotte
was eying him sharply and curiously.
“I cannot return to Montreal just yet, Monsieur Cadotte,” Hugh said at
last. “This letter is from my half-brother.” He paused in embarrassment.
Cadotte nodded and waited for the boy to go on. The trader knew that Jean
Beaupré had an Indian wife, and supposed that Hugh had known it also.
Part Indian himself, Cadotte could never have understood the lad’s
amazement and consternation at learning now, for the first time, of his
half-brother.
“My father,” Hugh went on, “bade Blaise, my half-brother, tell me to—come
to the Kaministikwia and meet Blaise there. He wished me to—to make my
brother’s acquaintance and—and receive from him—something my father left
me,” he concluded lamely.
Cadotte was regarding Hugh keenly. The boy’s embarrassed manner was
enough to make him suspect that Hugh was not telling the truth. Cadotte
shrugged his shoulders. “It may be difficult to send you in that
direction. If you were an experienced canoeman, but you are not and——”
“But I _must_ go,” Hugh broke in. “My father bade me, and you wouldn’t
have me disobey his last command. Can’t I go in the _Otter_? I still have
some of the money my aunt gave me. If I am not sailor enough to work my
way, I can pay for my passage.”
“Eh bien, we will see what can be done,” Cadotte replied more kindly.
Perhaps the lad’s earnestness and distress had convinced him that Hugh
had some more urgent reason than a mere boyish desire for adventure, for
making the trip. “I will see if matters can be arranged.”
II
THE SLOOP “OTTER”
His mind awhirl with conflicting thoughts and feelings, Hugh Beaupré left
Cadotte. The preceding autumn Hugh had come from Montreal to the Sault de
Ste. Marie. Very reluctantly his aunt had let him go to be with his
father in the western wilderness for a year or two of that rough,
adventurous life. Hugh’s Scotch mother had died when he was less than a
year old, nearly sixteen years before the opening of this story. His
French father, a restless man of venturesome spirit, had left the child
with the mother’s sister, and had taken to the woods, the then untamed
wilderness of the upper Great Lakes and the country beyond. In fifteen
years he had been to Montreal to see his son but three times. During each
brief stay, his stories of the west had been eagerly listened to by the
growing boy. On his father’s last visit to civilization, Hugh had begged
to be allowed to go back to Lake Superior with him. The elder Beaupré,
thinking the lad too young, had put him off. He had consented, however,
to his son’s joining him at the Sault de Ste. Marie a year from the
following autumn, when Hugh would be sixteen.
Delayed by bad weather, the boy had arrived at the meeting place late,
only to find that his father had not been seen at the Sault since his
brief stop on his return from Montreal the year before. The disappointed
lad tried to wait patiently, but the elder Beaupré did not come or send
any message. At last, word arrived that he had left the Grand Portage, at
the other end of Lake Superior, some weeks before, not to come to the
Sault but to go in the opposite direction to his winter trading ground
west of the lake. There was no chance for Hugh to follow, even had he
known just where his father intended to winter. By another trader going
west and by a Northwest Company messenger, the boy sent letters, hoping
that in some manner they might reach Jean Beaupré. All winter Hugh had
remained at the Sault waiting for some reply, but none of any sort had
come until the arrival of the strange packet he was now carrying in his
hand. This message from his younger brother seemed to prove that his
father must have received at least one of Hugh’s letters. Otherwise he
would not have known that his elder son was at the Sault. But there was
no explanation of Jean Beaupré’s failure to meet the boy there.
Hugh was grieved to learn of his parent’s death, but he could not feel
the deep sorrow that would have overwhelmed him at the loss of an
intimately known and well loved father. Jean Beaupré was almost a
stranger to his older son. Hugh remembered seeing him but the three times
and receiving but one letter from him. Indeed he was little more than a
casual acquaintance whose tales of adventure had kindled a boy’s
imagination. It was scarcely possible that Hugh’s grief could be deep,
and, for the time being, it was overshadowed by other feelings. He had
been suddenly plunged, it seemed, into a strange and unexpected
adventure, which filled his mind to the exclusion of all else.
He must find some way to reach the Kaministikwia River, there to join his
newly discovered Indian brother in a search for the wrecked bateau and
its cargo of pelts. Of that half-brother Hugh had never heard before. He
could not but feel a sense of resentment that there should be such a
person. The boy had been brought up to believe that his father had loved
his bonny Scotch wife devotedly, and that it was his inconsolable grief
at her death that had driven him to the wilderness. It seemed, however,
that he must have consoled himself rather quickly with an Indian squaw.
Surely the lad who had written the letter must be well grown, not many
years younger than Hugh himself.
As he walked slowly along the river bank, Hugh turned the bark packet
over and over in his hand, and wondered about the half-breed boy who was
to be his comrade in adventure. Attekonse had not spent his whole life in
the woods, that was evident. Somewhere he had received an education, had
learned to write French readily and in a good hand. Perhaps his father
had taught him, thought Hugh, but quickly dismissed that suggestion. He
doubted if the restless Jean Beaupré would have had the patience, even if
he had had the knowledge and ability to teach his young son to write
French so well.
Uncertain what he ought to do next, the puzzled boy wandered along,
glancing now and then at the canoes engaged in the white-fishing below
the rapids. That daring sport had lost its interest for him. At the
outskirts of an Indian village, where he was obliged to beat off with a
stick a pack of snarling, wolf-like dogs, he turned and went back the way
he had come, still pondering over the birch bark letter.
Presently he caught sight once more of Baptiste’s scarlet cap. No message
from Cadotte had brought the simple fellow this time, merely his own
curiosity. Hugh was quite willing to answer Baptiste’s questions so far
as he could without betraying too much. Seated in a sheltered, sunny spot
on an outcrop of rock at the river’s edge, he told of his father’s death.
Then, suddenly, he resolved to ask the good-natured Canadian’s help.
“Baptiste, I am in a difficulty. My half-brother who wrote this,”—Hugh
touched the bark packet—“bids me join him at the Kaministikwia. It was my
father’s last command that I should go there and meet this Blaise or
Little Caribou, as he calls himself. We are to divide the things father
left for us.”
“There is an inheritance then?” questioned Baptiste, interested at once.
“Nothing that amounts to much, I fancy,” the lad replied with an
assumption of carelessness; “some personal belongings, a few pelts
perhaps. For some reason he wished Blaise and me to meet and divide them.
It is a long journey for such a matter.”
“Ah, but a dying father’s command!” cried Baptiste. “You must not disobey
that. To disregard the wishes of the dead is a grievous sin, and would
surely bring you misfortune.”
“True, but what can I do, Baptiste? Monsieur Cadotte doesn’t feel greatly
inclined to help me. He wishes me to return to Montreal. How then am I to
find an opportunity to go to the Kaministikwia?”
Baptiste took a long, thoughtful pull at his pipe, then removed it from
his mouth. “There is the sloop _Otter_,” he suggested.
“Would Captain Bennett take me, do you think?”
“I myself go as one of the crew. To-morrow early I go to Point aux Pins.
Come with me and we shall see.”
“Gladly,” exclaimed Hugh. “When does she sail?”
“Soon, I think. There were repairs to the hull, where she ran on the
rocks, but they are finished. Then there is new rigging and the painting.
It will not be long until she is ready.”
That night Hugh debated in his own mind whether he should tell Cadotte of
his proposed visit with Baptiste to Point aux Pins. He decided against
mentioning it at present. He did not know what news might have come in
Cadotte’s despatches, whether the trader was aware of the elder Beaupré’s
change of allegiance. At any rate, thought the lad, it would be better to
have his passage in the _Otter_ arranged for, if he could persuade her
captain, before saying anything more to anyone.
Early the next morning Baptiste and Hugh embarked above the rapids in
Baptiste’s small birch canoe. The distance to Point aux Pins was short,
but paddling, even in the more sluggish channels, against the current of
the St. Mary’s River in spring flood was strenuous work, as Hugh,
wielding the bow blade, soon discovered. Signs of spring were everywhere.
The snow was gone, and flocks of small, migrating birds were flitting and
twittering among the trees and now and then bursting into snatches of
song. The leaves of birches, willows and alders were beginning to unfold,
the shores showing a faint mist of pale green, though here and there in
the quiet backwaters among rocks and on the north sides of islands, ice
still remained.
At Point aux Pins, or Pine Point, was the Northwest Company’s shipyard.
In a safe and well sheltered harbor, formed by the long point that ran
out into the river, the sailing vessels belonging to the company were
built and repaired. The sloop _Otter_, which had spent the winter there,
was now anchored a little way out from shore. The repairs had been
completed and a fresh coat of white paint was being applied to her hull.
Tents and rude cabins on the sandy ground among scrubby jack pines and
willows housed the workers, and near by, waiting for the fish cleanings
and other refuse to be thrown out, a flock of gulls, gray-winged, with
gleaming white heads and necks, rode the water like a fleet of little
boats. As the canoe approached, the birds, with a splashing and beating
of wings, rose, whirled about in the air, and alighted again farther out,
each, as it struck the water, poising for a moment with black-tipped
wings raised and half spread.
On a stretch of sand beyond the shipyard, Baptiste and Hugh landed,
stepping out, one on each side, the moment the canoe touched, lifting it
from the water and carrying it ashore. Then they sought the master of the
sloop.
Captain Bennett was personally superintending the work on his ship. To
him Baptiste, who had been previously engaged as one of the small crew,
made known Hugh’s wish to sail to the Kaministikwia. The shipmaster
turned sharply on the lad, demanding to know his purpose in crossing the
lake. Hugh explained as well as he could, without betraying more than he
had already told Cadotte and Baptiste.
“Do you know anything of working a ship?” Captain Bennett asked.
“I have sailed a skiff on the St. Lawrence,” was the boy’s reply. “I can
learn and I can obey orders.”
“Um,” grunted the Captain. “At least you are a white man. I can use one
more man, and I don’t want an Indian. I can put you to work now. If you
prove good for anything, I will engage you for the trip over. Here,
Duncan,” to a strapping, red-haired Scot, “give these fellows something
to do.”
So it came about that Hugh Beaupré, instead of going back at once to the
Sault, remained at the Point aux Pins shipyard. He returned in the
_Otter_, when, three days later, she sailed down the St. Mary’s to the
dock above the rapids where she was to receive her lading. In the
meantime, by an Indian boy, Hugh had sent a message to Cadotte informing
him that he, Hugh Beaupré, had been accepted as one of the crew of the
_Otter_ for her trip to the Kaministikwia. Cadotte had returned no reply,
so Hugh judged that the trader did not intend to put any obstacles in the
way of his adventure.
The goods the sloop was to transport had been received the preceding
autumn by ship from Michilimackinac too late to be forwarded across
Superior. They were to be sent on now by the _Otter_. A second Northwest
Company ship, the _Invincible_, which had wintered in Thunder Bay, was
expected at the Sault in a few weeks. When the great canoe fleet from
Montreal should arrive in June, part of the goods brought would be
transferred to the _Invincible_, while the remainder would be taken on in
the canoes. Hugh was heartily glad that he was not obliged to wait for
the fleet. In all probability there would be no vacant places, and if
there were any, he doubted if, with his limited experience as a canoeman,
he would be accepted. He felt himself lucky to obtain a passage on the
_Otter_.
The sloop was of only seventy-five tons burden, but the time of loading
was a busy one. The cargo was varied: provisions, consisting largely of
corn, salt pork and kegs of tried out grease, with some wheat flour,
butter, sugar, tea and other luxuries for the clerks at the
Kaministikwia; powder and shot; and articles for the Indian trade,
blankets, guns, traps, hatchets, knives, kettles, cloth of various kinds,
vermilion and other paints, beads, tobacco and liquor, for the fur
traders had not yet abandoned the disastrous custom of selling strong
drink to the Indians.
During the loading Hugh had an opportunity to say good-bye to Cadotte.
The latter’s kindness and interest in the boy’s welfare made him ashamed
of his doubts of the trader’s intentions.
III
DRIVEN BEFORE THE GALE
On a clear, sunny morning of the first week in May, the Northwest
Company’s sloop _Otter_, with a favoring wind, made her way up-stream
towards the gateway of Lake Superior. At the Indian village on the curve
of the shore opposite Point aux Pins, men, women, children and
sharp-nosed dogs turned out to see the white-sailed ship go by. Through
the wide entrance to the St. Mary’s River, where the waters of Lake
Superior find their outlet, the sloop sailed under the most favorable
conditions. Between Point Iroquois on the south and high Gros Cap, the
Great Cape, on the north, its summit indigo against the bright blue of
the sky, she passed into the broad expanse of the great lake. The little
fur-trading vessels of the first years of the nineteenth century did not
follow the course taken by the big passenger steamers and long freighters
of today, northwest through the middle of the lake. Instead, the Captain
of the _Otter_ took her almost directly north.
The southerly breeze, light at first, freshened within a few hours, and
the sloop sailed before it like a gull on the wing. Past Goulais Point
and Coppermine Point and Cape Gargantua, clear to Michipicoton Bay, the
first stop, the wind continued favorable, the weather fine. It was
remarkably fine for early May, and Hugh Beaupré had hopes of a swift and
pleasant voyage. So far his work as a member of the crew of six was not
heavy. Quick-witted and eager to do his best, he learned his duties
rapidly, striving to obey on the instant the sharply spoken commands of
master and mate.
At the mouth of the Michipicoton River was a Northwest Company trading
post, and there the _Otter_ ran in to discharge part of her cargo of
supplies and goods. She remained at Michipicoton over night, and, after
the unloading, Hugh was permitted to go ashore. The station, a far more
important one, in actual trade in furs, than the post at the Sault, he
found an interesting place. Already some of the Indians were arriving
from the interior, coming overland with their bales of pelts on dog
sleds. When the Michipicoton River and the smaller streams should be free
of ice, more trappers would follow in their birch canoes.
As if on purpose to speed the ship, the wind had shifted to the southeast
by the following morning. The weather was not so pleasant, however, for
the sky was overcast. In the air was a bitter chill that penetrated the
thickest clothes. Captain Bennett, instead of appearing pleased with the
direction of the breeze, shook his head doubtfully as he gazed at the
gloomy sky and the choppy, gray water. A sailing vessel must take
advantage of the wind, so, in spite of the Captain’s apprehensive
glances, the _Otter_ went on her way.
All day the wind held favorable, shifting to a more easterly quarter and
gradually rising to a brisk blow. The sky remained cloudy, the distance
thick, the water green-gray.
As darkness settled down, rain began to fall, fine, cold and driven from
the east before a wind strong enough to be called a gale. In the wet and
chill, the darkness and rough sea, Hugh’s work was far harder and more
unpleasant. But he made no complaint, even to himself, striving to make
up by eager willingness for his ignorance of a sailor’s foul weather
duties. There was no good harbor near at hand, and, the gale being still
from the right quarter, Captain Bennett drove on before it. After
midnight the rain turned to sleet and snow. The wind began to veer and
shift from east to northeast, to north and back again.
Before morning all sense of location had been lost. Under close-reefed
sails, the sturdily built little _Otter_ battled wind, waves, sleet and
snow. She pitched and tossed and wallowed. All hands remained on deck.
Hugh, sick and dizzy with the motion, chilled and shivering in the bitter
cold, wished from the bottom of his heart he had never set foot upon the
sloop. Struggling to keep his footing on the heaving, ice-coated deck,
and to hold fast to slippery, frozen ropes, he was of little enough use,
though he did his best.
The dawn brought no relief. In the driving snow, neither shore nor sky
was to be seen, only a short stretch of heaving, lead-gray water.
Foam-capped waves broke over the deck. Floating ice cakes careened
against the sides of the ship. On the way to Michipicoton no ice had been
encountered, but now the tossing masses added to the peril.
Midday might as well have been midnight. The falling snow, fine, icy,
stinging, shut off all view more completely than blackest darkness. The
weary crew were fighting ceaselessly to keep the _Otter_ afloat. The
Captain himself clung with the steersman to the wheel. Then, quite
without warning, out of the northeast came a sudden violent squall. A
shriek of rending canvas, and the close-reefed sail, crackling with ice,
was torn away. Down crashed the shattered mast. As if bound for the
bottom of the lake, the sloop wallowed deep in the waves.
Hugh sprang forward with the others. On the slanting, ice-sheathed deck,
he slipped and went down. He was following the mast overboard, when
Baptiste seized him by the leg. The dangerous task of cutting loose the
wreckage was accomplished. The plucky _Otter_ righted herself and drove
on through the storm.
With the setting of the sun, invisible through the snow and mist, the
wind lessened. But that night, if less violent than the preceding one,
was no less miserable. Armored in ice and frozen snow, the sloop rode
heavy and low, battered by floating cakes, great waves washing her decks.
She had left the Sault on a spring day. Now she seemed to be back in
midwinter. Yet, skillfully handled by her master, she managed to live
through the night.
Before morning, the wind had fallen to a mere breeze. The waves no longer
swept the deck freely, but the lake was still so rough that the
ice-weighted ship made heavy going. Her battle with the storm had sprung
her seams. Two men were kept constantly at the pumps. No canvas was left
but the jib, now attached to the stump of the mast. With this makeshift
sail, and carried along by the waves, she somehow kept afloat.
From the lookout there came a hoarse bellow of warning. Through the
muffling veil of falling snow, his ears had caught the sound of surf. The
steersman swung the wheel over. The ship sheered off just as the foaming
crests of breaking waves and the dark mass of bare rocks appeared close
at hand.
Along the abrupt shore the _Otter_ beat her way, her captain striving to
keep in sight of land, yet far enough out to avoid sunken or detached
rocks. Anxiously his tired, bloodshot eyes sought for signs of a harbor.
It had been so long since he had seen sun or stars that he had little
notion of his position or of what that near-by land might be. Shadowy as
the shore appeared in the falling snow, its forbidding character was
plain enough, cliffs, forest crowned, rising abruptly from the water, and
broken now and then by shallow bays lined with tumbled boulders. Those
shallow depressions promised no shelter from wind and waves, even for so
small a ship as the _Otter_.
No less anxiously than Captain Bennett did Hugh Beaupré watch that
inhospitable shore. So worn was he from lack of sleep, exhausting and
long continued labor and seasickness, so chilled and numbed and weak and
miserable, that he could hardly stand. But the sight of solid land,
forbidding though it was, had revived his hope.
A shout from the starboard side of the sloop told him that land had
appeared in that direction also. In a few minutes the _Otter_, running
before the wind, was passing between forest-covered shores. As the shores
drew closer together, the water became calmer. On either hand and ahead
was land. The snow had almost ceased to fall now. The thick woods of
snow-laden evergreens and bare-limbed trees were plainly visible.
Staunch little craft though the _Otter_ was, her strained seams were
leaking freely, and her Captain had decided to beach her in the first
favorable spot. A bit of low point, a shallow curve in the shore with a
stretch of beach, served his purpose. There he ran his ship aground, and
made a landing with the small boat.
His ship safe for the time being, Captain Bennett’s next care was for his
crew. That they had come through the storm without the loss of a man was
a matter for thankfulness. Everyone, however, from the Captain himself to
Hugh, was worn out, soaked, chilled to the bone and more or less battered
and bruised. One man had suffered a broken arm when the mast went over
side, and the setting of the bone had been hasty and rough. The mate had
strained his back painfully.
All but the mate and the man with the broken arm, the Captain set to
gathering wood and to clearing a space for a camp on the sandy point. The
point was almost level and sparsely wooded with birch, mountain ash and
bushes. Every tree and shrub, its summer foliage still in the bud, was
wet, snow covered or ice coated. Birch bark and the dry, crumbly center
of a dead tree trunk made good tinder, however. Baptiste, skilled in the
art of starting a blaze under the most adverse conditions, soon had a
roaring fire. By that time the snow had entirely ceased, and the clouds
were breaking.
Around the big fire the men gathered to dry their clothes and warm their
bodies, while a thick porridge of hulled corn and salt pork boiled in an
iron kettle over a smaller blaze. The hot meal put new life into the
tired men. The broken arm was reset, the minor injuries cared for, and a
pole and bark shelter, with one side open to the fire, was set up. Before
the lean-to was completed the sun was shining. In spite of the sharp
north wind, the snow and ice were beginning to melt. A flock of
black-capped chickadees were flitting about the bare-branched birches,
sounding their brave, deep-throated calls, and a black and white
woodpecker was hammering busily at a dead limb.
No attempt was made to repair the ship that day. Only the most necessary
work was done, and the worn-out crew permitted to rest. A lonely place
seemed this unknown bay or river mouth, without white man’s cabin,
Indian’s bark lodge or even a wisp of smoke from any other fire. But the
sheltered harbor was a welcome haven to the sorely battered ship and the
exhausted sailors. Wolves howled not far from the camp that night, and
next morning their tracks were found in the snow on the beach close to
where the sloop lay. It would have required far fiercer enemies than the
slinking, cowardly, brush wolves to disturb the rest of the tired crew of
the _Otter_. Hugh did not even hear the beasts.
IV
THE ISLE ROYALE
Shortly after dawn work on the _Otter_ was begun. The water was pumped
out, most of the cargo piled on the beach, and the sloop hauled farther
up by means of a rudely constructed windlass. Then the strained seams
were calked and a few new boards put in. A tall, straight spruce was
felled and trimmed to replace the broken mast, and a small mainsail
devised from extra canvas. The repairs took two long days of steady
labor. During that time the weather was bright, and, except in the deeply
shaded places, the snow and ice disappeared rapidly.
From the very slight current in the water, Captain Bennett concluded that
the place where he had taken refuge was a real bay, not a river mouth. He
had not yet discovered whether he was on the mainland or an island. The
repairs to his ship were of the first importance, and he postponed
determining his whereabouts until the _Otter_ was made seaworthy once
more. Not a trace of human beings had been found. The boldness of the
wolves and lynxes, that came close to the camp every night, indicated
that no one, red or white, was in the habit of visiting this lonely spot.
On the third day the sloop was launched, anchored a little way from shore
and rigged. While the reloading was going on, under the eyes of the mate,
the Captain, with Baptiste and Hugh at the oars, set out in the small
boat for the harbor mouth.
The shore along which they rowed was, at first, wooded to the water line.
As they went farther out and the bay widened, the land they were skirting
rose more steeply, edged with sheer rocks, cliffs and great boulders.
From time to time Captain Bennett glanced up at the abrupt rocks and
forested ridges on his right, or across to the lower land on the other
side of the bay. Directly ahead, some miles across the open lake, he
could see a distant, detached bit of land, an island undoubtedly. Most of
the time, however, his eyes were on the water. He was endeavoring to
locate the treacherous reefs and shallows he must avoid when he took his
ship out of her safe harbor.
An exclamation from Baptiste, who had turned his head to look to the west
and north, recalled the Captain from his study of the unfamiliar waters.
Beyond the tip of the opposite or northwestern shore of the bay, far
across the blue lake to the north, two dim, misty shapes had come into
view.
“Islands!” Captain Bennett exclaimed. “High, towering islands.”
Baptiste and Hugh pulled on with vigorous strokes. Presently the Captain
spoke again. “Islands or headlands. Go farther out.”
The two bent to their oars. As they passed beyond the end of the low
northwestern shore, more high land came into view across the water.
“What is it, Baptiste? Where are we?” asked Hugh, forgetting in his
eagerness that it was not his place to speak.
“It is Thunder Cape,” the Captain replied, overlooking the breach of
discipline, “the eastern boundary of Thunder Bay, where the Kaministikwia
empties and the New Fort is situated.”
“Truly it must be the Cap au Tonnerre, the Giant that Sleeps,” Baptiste
agreed, resting on his oars to study the long shape, like a gigantic
figure stretched out at rest upon the water. “The others to the north are
the Cape at the Nipigon and the Island of St. Ignace.”
“We are not as far off our course as I feared,” remarked the Captain with
satisfaction.
Hugh ventured another question. “What then, sir, is this land where we
are?”
Captain Bennett scanned the horizon as far as he could see. “Thunder Cape
lies a little to the north of west,” he said thoughtfully. “We are on an
island of course, a large one. There is only one island it can be, the
Isle Royale. I have seen one end or the other of Royale many times from a
distance, when crossing to the Kaministikwia or to the Grand Portage, but
I never set foot on the island before.” Again he glanced up at the steep
rocks and thick woods on his right, then his eyes sought the heaving blue
of the open lake. “This northwest breeze would be almost dead against us,
and it is increasing. We’ll not set sail till morning. By that time I
think we shall have a change of wind.”
Their purpose accomplished, the oarsmen turned the boat and started back
towards camp. Hugh, handling the bow oars, watched the shore close at
hand. They were skirting a rock cliff, sheer from the lake, its
brown-gray surface stained almost black at the water line, blotched
farther up with lichens, black, orange and green-gray, and worn and
seamed and rent with vertical cracks from top to bottom. The cracks ran
in diagonally, opening up the bay. As Hugh came into clear view of one of
the widest of the fissures, he noticed something projecting from it.
“See, Baptiste,” he cried, pointing to the thing, “someone has been here
before us.”
The French Canadian rested on his oars and spoke to Captain Bennett.
“There is the end of a boat in that hole, M’sieu, no birch canoe either.
How came it here in this wilderness?”
“Row nearer,” ordered the shipmaster, “and we’ll have a look at it.”
The two pulled close to the mouth of the fissure. At the Captain’s order,
Baptiste stepped over side to a boulder that rose just above the water.
From the boulder he sprang like a squirrel. His moccasined feet gripped
the rim of the old boat, and he balanced for an instant before jumping
down. Hugh, in his heavier boots, followed more clumsily. Captain Bennett
remained in the rowboat.
The wrecked craft in which the two found themselves was tightly wedged in
the crack. The bow was smashed and splintered and held fast by the ice
that had not yet melted in the dark, cold cleft. Indeed the boat was half
full of ice. It was a crude looking craft, and its sides, which had never
known paint, were weathered and water stained to almost the same color as
the blackened base of the rocks. The wreck was quite empty, not an oar or
a fragment of mast or canvas remaining.
The old boat had one marked peculiarity which could be seen even in the
dim light of the crack. The thwart that bore the hole where the mast had
stood was painted bright red, the paint being evidently a mixture of
vermilion and grease. It was but little faded by water and weather, and
on the red background had been drawn, in some black pigment, figures such
as the Indians used in their picture writing. Hugh had seen birch canoes
fancifully decorated about prow and stern, and he asked Baptiste if such
paintings were customary on the heavier wooden boats as well.
“On the outside sometimes they have figures in color, yes,” was the
reply, “but never have I seen one painted in this way.”
“I wonder what became of the men who were in her when she was driven on
these rocks.”
Baptiste shook his head. “It may be that no one was in her. What would he
do so far from the mainland? No, I do not think anyone was wrecked here.
This bateau was carried away in a storm from some beach or anchorage on
the north or west shore. There is nothing in her, though she was right
side up when she was driven in here by the waves. And here, in this
lonely place, there has been no one to plunder her.”
“Do no Indians live on this big island?” queried Hugh.
“I have never heard of anyone living here. It is far to come from the
mainland, and I have been told that the Indians have a fear of the place.
They think it is inhabited by spirits, especially one bay they call the
Bay of Manitos. It is said that in the old days the Ojibwa came here
sometimes for copper. They picked up bits of the metal on the beaches and
in the hills. Nowadays they have a tale that spirits guard the copper
stones.”
“If there is copper on the island perhaps this boat belonged to some
white prospector,” suggested Hugh.
Baptiste shrugged his shoulders. “Perhaps, but then the Indian manitos
must have destroyed him.”
“Well, at any rate the old manitos haven’t troubled us,” Hugh commented.
Again Baptiste shrugged. “We have not disturbed their copper, and—we are
not away from the place yet.”
The inspection of the wreck did not take many minutes. When Baptiste made
his report, the Captain agreed with him that the boat had probably
drifted away from some camp or trading post on the mainland, and had been
driven into the cleft in a storm. As nothing of interest had been found
in the wreck, he ordered Baptiste and Hugh to make speed back to camp.
By night the reloading was finished and everything made ready for an
early start. After sunset, the mate, adventuring up the bay, shot a
yearling moose. The crew of the _Otter_ feasted and, to celebrate the
completion of the work on the sloop, danced to Baptiste’s fiddle. From
the ridges beyond and above the camp, the brush wolves yelped in response
to the music.
Baptiste’s half superstitious, half humorous forebodings of what the
island spirits might do to the crew of the _Otter_ came to nothing, but
Captain Bennett’s prophecy of a change of wind proved correct. The next
day dawned fair with a light south breeze that made it possible for the
sloop to sail out of harbor. She passed safely through the narrower part
of the bay. Then, to avoid running close to the towering rocks which had
first appeared to her Captain through the falling snow, he steered across
towards the less formidable appearing northwest shore. That shore proved
to be a low, narrow, wooded, rock ridge running out into the lake. When
he reached the tip of the point, he found it necessary to go on some
distance to the northeast to round a long reef. The dangerous reef
passed, he set his course northwest towards the dim and distant Sleeping
Giant, the eastern headland of Thunder Bay.
To the relief of Hugh Beaupré, the last part of the voyage was made in
good time and without disaster. The boy looked with interest and some awe
at the towering, forest-clad form of Thunder Cape, a mountain top rising
from the water. On the other hand, as the _Otter_ entered the great bay,
were the scarcely less impressive heights of the Isle du Paté, called
to-day, in translation of the French name, Pie Island. Hugh asked
Baptiste how the island got its name and learned that it was due to some
fancied resemblance of the round, steep-sided western peak to a French
paté or pastry.
By the time the sloop was well into Thunder Bay, the wind, as if to speed
her on her way, had shifted to southeast. Clouds were gathering and rain
threatened as she crossed to the western shore, to the mouth of the
Kaministikwia. The river, flowing from the west, discharges through three
channels, forming a low, triangular delta. The north channel is the
principal mouth, and there the sloop entered, making her way about a mile
up-stream to the New Fort of the Northwest Company.
From the organization of the Northwest Fur Company down to a short time
before the opening of this story, the trading post at the Grand Portage,
south of the Pigeon River, and about forty miles by water to the
southwest of the Kaministikwia, had been the chief station and
headquarters of the company. The ground where the Grand Portage post
stood became a part of the United States when the treaty of peace after
the Revolution established the Pigeon River as the boundary line between
the United States and the British possessions. Though the Northwest
Company was a Canadian organization, it retained its headquarters south
of the Pigeon River through the last decade of the eighteenth century. In
the early years of the nineteenth, however, when the United States
government proposed to levy a tax on all English furs passing through
United States territory, the company headquarters was removed to Canadian
soil. Near the mouth of the Kaministikwia River on Thunder Bay was built
the New Fort, later to be known as Fort William after William
McGillivray, head of the company.
V
THE HALF-BREED BROTHER
The Northwest Fur Company’s chief post was bustling with activity. The
New Fort itself, a stockaded enclosure, had been completed the year
before, but work on the log buildings within the walls was still going
on. Quarters for the agents, clerks and various employees, storehouses,
and other buildings were under construction or receiving finishing
touches. When the sloop _Otter_ came in sight, however, work ceased
suddenly. Log cabin builders threw down their axes, saws and hammers,
masons dropped their trowels, brick makers left the kilns that were
turning out bricks for chimneys and ovens, the clerks broke off their
bartering with Indians and half-breed trappers, and all ran down to the
riverside. There they mingled with the wild looking men, squaws and
children who swarmed from the camps of the voyageurs and Indians. When
the _Otter_ drew up against the north bank of the channel, the whole
population, permanent and temporary, was on hand to greet the first ship
of the season.
From the deck of the sloop, Hugh Beaupré looked on with eager eyes. It
was not so much of the picturesqueness and novelty of the scene, however,
as of his own private affairs that he was thinking. Anxiously he scanned
the crowd of white men, half-breeds and Indians, wondering which one of
the black-haired, deerskin-clad, half-grown lads, who slipped so nimbly
between their elders into the front ranks, was his half-brother. Many of
the crowd, old and young, white and red, came aboard, but none sought out
Hugh. He concluded that Blaise was either not there or was waiting for
him to go ashore.
Hugh soon had an opportunity to leave the ship. He had feared that he
might be more closely questioned by Captain Bennett or by some of the
crew about what he intended to do at the Kaministikwia, and was relieved
to reach shore without having to dodge the curiosity of his companions.
Only Baptiste asked him where he expected to meet his brother. Hugh
replied truthfully that he did not know.
Unobtrusively, calling as little attention to himself as possible, the
boy made his way through the crowd, but not towards the New Fort. No
doubt the Fort, with all its busy activity in its wilderness
surroundings, was worth seeing, but he did not choose to visit the place
for fear someone might ask his business there. He was keenly aware that
his business was likely to be, not with the Old Northwest Company, but
with its rival, the New Northwest Company, sometimes called in derision
the X Y Company. In a quandary where to look for his unknown brother, he
wandered about aimlessly for a time, avoiding rather than seeking
companionship.
The ground about the New Fort was low and swampy, with thick woods of
evergreens, birch and poplar wherever the land had not been cleared for
building or burned over through carelessness. Away from the river bank
and the Fort, the place was not cheerful or encouraging to a lonely boy
on that chill spring day. The sky was gray and lowering, the wind cold,
the distance shrouded in fog, the air heavy with the earthy smell of
damp, spongy soil and sodden, last year’s leaves. Hugh had looked forward
with eager anticipation to his arrival at the Kaministikwia, but now all
things seemed to combine to make him low spirited and lonely.