fortitude the stinging of the multitude of mosquitoes that surrounded
him. When both canoes had rounded a point farther up the shore and
vanished from sight, Blaise rose to his feet. Hugh followed his example,
and they made their way back across the rocks in silence. By the time
camp was reached, the elder brother was almost bursting with curiosity.
Who was the huge Indian, and why had Blaise been so startled, even
frightened, at the sight of him?
“Who is Ohrante?” Hugh asked, as he helped to lift the canoe from the
poles that propped it.
“He is more to be feared than the devil of the lake himself,” was the
grim reply. Then briefly Blaise told how the big Indian, the summer
before, had treacherously robbed and slain a white trader and had
severely wounded his Ojibwa companion, scalped him and left him to die.
The wounded man had not died, though he would always be a cripple. He had
told the tale of the attack, and a party of Ojibwas, led by Hugh’s
father, had pursued Ohrante and captured him. They were taking him back
to stand trial by Indian law or to be turned over to white justice,—there
was some disagreement between Jean Beaupré and his companions as to which
course should be followed,—when the giant made his escape through the
help of two of the party who secretly sympathized with him and had fled
with him. From that day until this morning, when he had recognized the
big Indian in the passing canoe, Blaise had heard nothing of Ohrante.
“But two men went with him when he fled,” the boy concluded. “Now he has
five. He is bold to return so soon. I am glad he goes up the shore, not
down. I should not wish to follow him or have him follow us. He hated our
father and nothing would please him more than to get us in his hands. I
hope my mother is with others, a strong party. I think Ohrante will not
risk an encounter with the Ojibwas again so soon, unless it be with two
or three only.”
“Isn’t he an Ojibwa himself?” Hugh asked.
“No, he is a Mohawk, one of the Iroquois wolves the Englishmen have
brought into the Ojibwa country to hunt and trap for the Old Company. It
is said his mother was an Ojibwa captive, but Ohrante is an evil Iroquois
all through.”
“Monsieur Cadotte says the bringing in of Iroquois hunters is unwise
policy,” Hugh remarked.
“The company never did a worse thing,” Blaise replied passionately. “The
Iroquois hunters trap and shoot at all seasons of the year. They are
greedy for pelts good and bad, and care not how quickly they strip the
country of beasts of all kinds. If the company brings in many more of
these thieving Iroquois, the Ojibwa, to whom the land belongs, will soon
be left without furs or food.”
“That is short-sighted policy for the company itself, it seems to me,”
commented Hugh.
“So our father said. He too hated the Iroquois intruders. He told the men
of the company they did ill to bring strange hunters into lands where
they had no right. Let the Iroquois keep to their own hunting grounds.
Here they do nothing but harm, and Ohrante is the worst of them all.”
Hugh had scarcely heard the last part of the lad’s speech. His mind was
occupied with a thought which had just come to him. “Do you think,” he
asked suddenly, “that it was Ohrante who killed father?”
“I had not thought it till I saw him passing by,” Blaise replied gravely.
“I believed it might be another enemy. Now I know not what to think. I
cannot believe the traders have brought Ohrante back to hunt and trap for
them. And my heart is troubled for my mother. Once when she was a girl
she was a captive among the Sioux. To be captured by Ohrante would be
even worse, and now there is no Jean Beaupré to take her away.”
“Do you mean that father rescued her from the Sioux?” Hugh asked in
surprise.
“He found her among the Sioux far south of here on the great river. She
was sad because she had been taken from her own people. So he bought her
from the chief who wished to make her his squaw. Then our father brought
her to the Grand Portage. There the priest married them. She was very
young then, young and beautiful. She is not old even now, and she is
still beautiful,” Blaise added proudly.
Hugh had listened to this story with amazement. Had he misjudged his own
father? Was it to be wondered at that the warm-hearted young Frenchman
should have taken the only possible way to save the sad Ojibwa girl from
captivity among the cruel Sioux? The elder son felt ashamed of his bitter
thoughts. Blaise loved his mother and was anxious about her. Hugh tried
to comfort his younger brother as well as he could.
“The willow wand showed that your mother had gone up the shore,” he
hastened to say. “Ohrante is not coming from that way, but from the
opposite direction, and there are no women in his canoes. Surely your
mother is among friends by this time, and Ohrante, the outlaw, will never
dare attack them.”
“That is true,” Blaise replied. “She cannot have fallen into his hands,
and he, with so few followers, will not dare make open war.” He was
silent for a moment. Then he said earnestly, “There is but one thing for
us to do. We must first find the wreck and the cache, as our father bade
us. Then we must track down his murderer.”
Hugh nodded in perfect agreement. “Let us get our breakfast and be away
then.”
Blaise was untying the package of maple sugar. He took out a piece and
handed it to Hugh. “We make no fire here,” he said abruptly. “The
Iroquois is not yet far away. He might see the smoke. We will go now.
When the wind rises again we can eat.”
Hugh was hungry, but he had no wish to attract the attention of the huge
Mohawk and his band. So he made no objection, but nibbled his lump of
sugar as he helped to load the canoe and launch it. Before the sun peeped
over the far-away line where lake and sky met, the two lads were well on
their way again.
X
THE LOOMING SAILBOAT
Though favored by the weather most of the time for several days in
succession, the brothers went ahead but slowly. The discovery of the worn
moccasin and the stained tunic had raised their hopes of finding the
wrecked bateau soon. At any moment they might come upon it. Accordingly
they were even more vigilant than before, anxiously scanning every foot
of open shore, bay, cove, stream mouth and island.
One evening before sunset, they reached a beautiful bay with small
islands and wooded shores, where they caught sight of a group of bark
lodges. Blaise proposed that they land and bargain for provisions. There
proved to be about a dozen Indians in the encampment, men, squaws and
children. Luckily two deer and a yearling moose had been killed the day
before, and Blaise, after some discussion in Ojibwa, succeeded in
obtaining a piece of fresh venison and another of moose meat. The Indians
refused Hugh’s offer of payment in money, preferring to exchange the meat
for ammunition for their old, flint-lock muskets. They were from the deep
woods of the interior, unused to frequenting trading posts, and with no
idea of money, but they understood the value of powder and shot.
To one of the men Blaise spoke of having seen the outlaw Ohrante. The
Ojibwa replied that he had heard Ohrante had come from his hiding place
seeking vengeance on those who had captured him. He had never seen the
giant Iroquois, the man said, but he had heard that it was through his
great powers as a medicine man that he had escaped from his captors.
Without divulging that he was the son of the man who had led the
expedition against Ohrante, Blaise asked the Indian if he knew when and
where the outlaw had first been seen since his exile.
“I was told he was here at this Bay of the Beaver late in the Moon of the
Snow Crust,” the Ojibwa replied, and the boy’s hazel eyes gleamed.
Not until they had made camp did Blaise tell Hugh of the information he
had received.
“In the Moon of the Snow Crust!” the latter cried. “That is February or
March, isn’t it? And it was late in March that father died!”
The younger boy nodded. “Ohrante killed him, that I believe. Some day,
some day——” Blaise left the sentence unfinished, but his elder brother
had no doubt of the meaning. Hugh’s heart, like the younger lad’s, was
hot against his father’s murderer, but he remembered the powerful figure
of the Iroquois standing out dark against the dawn. How and when would
the day come?
After thoroughly exploring the Bay of the Beaver that night, the boys
were off shortly after dawn the next morning. Just as the sun was coming
up, reddening the white mist that lay upon the gently rippling water,
they paddled out of the bay. As they rounded the southern point, Blaise
uttered a startled exclamation.
Hugh, in the stern, looked up from his paddle. “A ship!” he cried.
Coming directly towards them, the light breeze scarce filling her sail,
was a ship. So high she loomed through the morning mist Hugh thought she
must be at least as large as the _Otter_, though she seemed to have but
one square sail. What was a ship doing here, so far south of the
Kaministikwia and even of the Grand Portage? Did she belong to some of
the Yankee traders who were now invading the Superior region? Hugh knew
he had been in United States waters ever since passing the mouth of the
Pigeon River.
And then, as the canoe and the ship approached one another, a curious
thing happened. The ship shrank. She was no longer as large as the
_Otter_. She was much smaller. She was not a ship at all, only a wooden
boat with a sail. There was something about the light and the atmospheric
conditions, the rising sun shining through the morning mist, that had
deceived the eye and caused the approaching craft to appear far taller
than it really was.
The sailboat was coming slowly in the light wind. As the boys paddled
past, they saw it was a small, flat-sided, wooden boat pointed at both
ends. It was well loaded and carried three men. Hugh shouted a greeting
and an inquiry. A tall fellow in blanket coat and scarlet cap, who was
steering, replied in a big, roaring voice and bad French, that they were
from the Fond du Lac bound for the Kaministikwia.
Blaise had been even more amazed than Hugh at the deceptive appearance of
the sailboat. When they landed later to inspect a stream mouth, the
half-breed said seriously that some spirit of the lake must have been
playing tricks with them. He wondered if one of the men aboard that
bateau was using magic.
“I doubt that,” Hugh answered promptly. “I think the queer light, the
sunrise through the mist, deceived our eyes and made the boat look
taller. Once on the way from Michilimackinac to the Sault, we saw
something like that. A small, bare rock ahead of us stretched up like a
high island. The Captain said he had seen the same thing before in that
very same spot. He called it ‘looming,’ but he did not think there was
anything magical about it.”
Blaise made no reply, but Hugh doubted if the lad had been convinced.
Several times during the rest of the trip down shore, the boys met canoes
loaded with trappers and traders or with families of Indians journeying
to the Grand Portage or to the New Fort. The two avoided conversation
with the strangers, as they did not care to answer questions about
themselves or their destination.
The journey was becoming wearisome indeed. The minuteness of the search
and the delays from bad weather prolonged the time. Moreover the store of
food was scant. The lads fished and hunted whenever possible without too
greatly delaying progress, but their luck was poor. Seldom were they able
to satisfy their hearty appetites. They lay down hungry under the stars
and took up their paddles at chilly dawn with no breakfast but a bit of
maple sugar. Hugh grew lean and brown and hard muscled. Except for the
redder hue of his tan, the light color of his hair and his gray eyes, he
might almost have been whole brother to Blaise. The older boy had become
expert with the paddle and could hold his own for any length of time and
at any pace the half-breed set. As a camper he was nearly the Indian
lad’s equal and he prided himself on being a better cook. It would take
several years of experience and wilderness living, however, before he
could hope to compete with his younger brother in woodcraft, weather
wisdom or the handling of a canoe in rough water.
As mile after mile of carefully searched shore line passed, without sign
of the wrecked bateau or trace of Jean Beaupré’s having come that way,
the boys grew more and more puzzled and anxious. Nevertheless they
persisted in their quest until they came at last to the Fond du Lac.
Fond du Lac means literally the “bottom of the lake,” but the name was
used by the early French explorers to designate the end or head of Lake
Superior, where the River St. Louis discharges and where the city of
Duluth now stands. To-day the name is no longer applied to the head of
the lake itself, but is restricted to the railway junction and town of
Fond du Lac several miles up the river. There was no town of Fond du Lac
or of Duluth in the days of this story. Wild, untamed, uninhabited, rose
the steep rock hills and terraces where part of the city now stands.
As they skirted the shore, the boys could see ahead of them a narrow line
stretching across the water to the southeast. That line was the long, low
point now known as Minnesota Point, a sand-bar that almost closes the
river mouth and served then, as it does now, to form a sheltered harbor.
Drawing nearer, they discovered that the long, sand point was by no means
bare, much of it being covered more or less thickly with bushes,
evergreens, aspens and willows. The two lads were weary, discouraged and
very hungry. Since their scanty breakfast of wild rice boiled with a
little fat, they had eaten nothing but a lump of sugar each, the last
remnant of their provisions. Nevertheless they paddled patiently along
the bar to the place where the river cut diagonally through it to reach
the lake. Entering the narrow channel, they passed through to absolutely
still water.
The sun was setting. Unless they went several miles farther to a trading
post or caught some fish, they must go to sleep hungry. They decided to
try the fishing. Luck with the lines had been poor throughout most of the
trip, but that night fortune favored the lads a little. In the shallower
water within the bar, they caught, in less than half an hour, two small,
pink-fleshed lake trout, which Hugh estimated at somewhat less than three
pounds each.
On the inner side of the point, the brothers ran their canoe upon the
sand beach. Then they kindled a fire and cooked their long delayed
supper. When the meal was over, nothing remained of the fish but heads,
fins, skin and bones.
Usually both fell asleep as soon as they were rolled in their blankets.
That night, on the low sand-bar, the mosquitoes came in clouds to the
attack, but it was not the annoying insects that kept the boys awake.
They wanted to talk over their situation.
“It seems,” Hugh said despondently, “that we have failed. That wrecked
boat must have been battered to pieces and washed out into the lake. Our
only chance of discovering the cache was to find the boat, and that
chance seems to be gone.”
“There is still one other chance, my brother,” Blaise replied quietly.
“Have you forgotten what we found at the River of Devil Tracks? We must
go back there and make search again.”
“You are right,” was Hugh’s quick rejoinder. “We didn’t find any sign of
the boat, yet it may once have been there or near by.”
Blaise nodded. “The bateau was perhaps driven on the bar at the river
mouth and afterwards washed out into the lake. We must make speed back
there. But, Hugh, if it was Ohrante who killed our father, he may also
have found the furs.”
“And carried them away.” Hugh slapped savagely at a mosquito. “I have
thought of that. I believe in my heart that Ohrante killed father. Yet
the murderer may not have taken the furs. Father told you he was wrecked
in a storm, and, unable to carry the furs with him, he hid them. That
much you say he made clear. When and where he was attacked we do not
know, but I believe it must have been after he cached the furs. When he
told of the wreck and the hiding of the pelts, he said nothing of his
wound?”
“Nothing then or afterwards of the wound or how he got it. He bade me
seek you out and find the furs and the packet. When I asked him how he
came by the hurt, he was beyond replying.”
Both boys were silent a moment listening to the howling of a lonely wolf
far off in the high hills to the north.
Then Hugh said emphatically, “We must go back and search every inch of
ground about that river. We will not give up while a chance remains of
finding the cache,” he added with stubborn determination.
XI
THE FIRE-LIT ORGY
Before starting back the way they had come, the brothers had to have
provisions. Early the next morning they went up the St. Louis River.
Beyond the bar the river widened to two miles or more. In midstream the
current was strong, but Hugh steered into the more sluggish water just
outside the lily pads, reeds and grass of the low shore. About three
miles above the mouth, a village of bark lodges was passed, where
sharp-nosed dogs ran out to yelp and growl at the canoe.
A short distance beyond the Indian village stood the log fort and trading
post of the Old Northwest Company’s Fond du Lac station, one of several
posts that were still maintained in United States territory. The two boys
landed and attempted to buy provisions. Blaise was not known to the clerk
in charge, and Hugh, when asked, gave his middle name of MacNair. Jean
Beaupré had passed this post on his way down the river, and the lads did
not know what conversation or controversy he might have had with the Old
Company’s men. So they thought it wise to say nothing of their
relationship to the elder Beaupré. Brought up to be truthful and
straightforward, Hugh found it difficult to evade the clerk’s questions.
The older boy left most of the talking to the younger, who had his share
of the Indian’s wiliness and secretiveness. Blaise saw nothing wrong in
deceiving enemies and strangers in any way he found convenient. To Hugh,
brother and comrade, Blaise would have scorned to lie, but he did not
scruple to let the Northwest Company’s man think that he and Hugh were on
their way from the south shore to the Kaministikwia in the hope of taking
service with the Old Company.
The post could spare but little in the way of provisions. Less than a
half bushel of hulled corn, a few pounds of wild rice, left from the
supply brought the preceding autumn from the south shore, and a very
small piece of salt pork were all the clerk could be persuaded to part
with. As they were leaving he gave the boys a friendly warning.
“Watch out,” he said, “for an Iroquois villain and his band. They are
reported to be lingering along the north shore and they are a bad lot. He
used to be a hunter for the company, but he murdered a white man and is
an outcast now, a fugitive from justice. The rascal is called Ohrante. If
you catch sight of a huge giant of an Indian, lie low and get out of his
way as soon and as fast as you can.”
On the way back to the river mouth, the lads stopped at the Indian
village. After much bargaining in Ojibwa, Blaise secured a strip of dried
venison, as hard as a board, and a bark basket of sugar. To these people
the lad spoke of the warning the clerk had given him, but they could tell
him no more of the movements of Ohrante than he already knew.
The brothers were glad to get away from the Indian encampment and out on
the river again. The village was unkempt, and disgustingly dirty and ill
smelling. It was evident that most of the men and some of the squaws were
just recovering from a debauch on the liquor they had obtained from the
traders.
“They are ruining the Ojibwa people, those traders,” Blaise said angrily,
after the two had paddled a short distance down-stream. “Once an Ojibwa
gets the habit of strong drink, he will give all he has for it. The rival
companies contend for the furs, and each promises more and stronger
liquor than the other. So the evil grows worse and worse. In the end, as
our father said, it will ruin the Ojibwa altogether.”
Hugh did not reply for a moment, then he said hesitatingly, “Did father
buy pelts with drink?”
“Not the way most of the others do,” Blaise replied promptly. “Liquor he
had to give sometimes, as all traders must, now the custom is started,
but our father gave only a little at a time and not strong. Whenever he
could he bought his furs with other things. Always he was a friend to the
Ojibwa. He became one of us when he married into the nation, and he was a
good son, not like some white men who take Ojibwa wives. Many friends he
had, and some enemies, but few dared stand against him. He was a strong
man and a true one.”
Blaise spoke proudly. Once again Hugh, though glad to hear so much good
of his adventurous father, felt a pang of jealousy that the half-breed
boy should have known and loved him so well.
Departure was delayed by rain and a brisk wind from the lake, that swayed
and bent the trees on the exposed bar, drove the waves high on the outer
shore and blew the sand into food and cooking fire. Not until late
afternoon of the next day did Hugh and Blaise succeed in getting away.
They paddled till midnight and, determined to make the greatest possible
speed up the shore, took but four hours’ rest. All the following day they
travelled steadily, then camped at a stream mouth and were away again at
dawn. Bad weather delayed them that day, however, and caused a late start
next morning. Eager to get ahead, they did not land to prepare food until
mid-afternoon. After the meal and a rest of not more than a half hour,
they resumed their paddles.
Even the going down of the sun did not persuade them to cease their
labor. There would be no moon till towards morning, but the brothers
paddled on through the darkening twilight. The wind was light, merely
rippling the water, and they wanted to get as far on their way as
possible.
Blaise, in the bow, was still steadily plying his blade, when, through
the blackness of the gathering night, he caught sight of a spark of
light. He uttered an exclamation and pointed to the light with his
paddle.
“A camp,” he said, speaking softly as if he feared being overheard even
at that distance. “It is best to avoid it.”
As they went on, the light grew stronger and brighter. A fire was blazing
in an open spot on an island or point. Tiny black figures became visible
against the flames. The sounds of shouts and yells were borne across the
water. Something out of the ordinary was going on. That was no mere
cooking fire, but a huge pile, the flames lighting up the land and water.
Around the blaze, the black figures were capering and yelling. Was it
some orgy of devils? Had the place where the fire burned been near the
Devil Track River, even Hugh might have thought this a feast of fiends.
But it was some miles away from the Devil Track. Moreover, his ears
assured him that the yells, sounding louder and louder, were from the
throats of men, not of spirits.
Blaise had been considering his whereabouts. With the Indian’s keen sense
of location and accurate memory of ground he has been over, he had
concluded that the place where the fire burned was the rocky end of an
island he remembered passing on the way down. The island lay close in,
only a narrow waterway separating it from the heavily wooded main shore
where trees grew down to the water’s edge.
Paddles dipped and raised noiselessly, the canoe slipped through the
water. Blaise set the pace, and Hugh kept the craft close in the shadow
of the wooded mainland. As they drew nearer the island, Blaise raised his
blade and held it motionless. Hugh immediately did the same. The canoe,
under good headway, slipped by, without a sound that could be
distinguished from the rippling of the water on the rocks of the island.
Hidden in the blackness beyond the circle of wavering firelight, the two
gazed on a fear-inspiring scene.
Close to the leaping flames, lighted clearly by the glare, rose the white
stem of a tall birch. Tied to the tree was a man, his naked body red
bronze in the firelight and streaked with darker color. Five or six other
figures were leaping and yelling like fiends about the captive, darting
in on him now and again to strike a blow with club, knife or fire brand.
The meaning of the horrid scene was plain enough. An unlucky Indian
captive was being tortured to death.
It was not the tortured man, however, or the human fiends dancing about
him that held Hugh’s fascinated gaze. Motionless, arms folded, another
figure stood a little back from the fire, a towering form, gigantic in
the flickering light.