lads remained motionless until the slackening and swerving of their craft
made it necessary for Blaise to dip his blade cautiously. They were
beyond the fire now and still in the deep shadow of the overhanging
trees. But the waterway between shore and island was narrow. Until they
had put a greater distance between themselves and the hideous, fire-lit
picture, they could feel no assurance of security. Keeping close to
shore, they used the utmost caution. At last a bend in the mainland, with
a corresponding curve in the island, hid the fire from sight. Looking
back, they could still see the light of the flames through the trees and
on the water, but the blazing pile itself was hidden from view.
Even then the two boys relaxed their caution but little. Near exhaustion
though they were, they paddled on and on, with aching muscles and heads
nodding with sleep. Not until they were several miles away from the
island orgy of Ohrante and his band, did the brothers dare to land and
rest. Too weary to cook a meal, each ate a lump of maple sugar, sucked a
bit of the hard, unchewable, dried venison, rolled himself in his blanket
and slept.
XII
THE HUNGRY PORCUPINE
Hugh was alone in a canoe struggling to make headway against the waves.
Bearing down upon him, with the roaring of the storm wind, was an
enormous black craft with a gigantic form towering in the bow and
menacing him with a huge knife. The boy was trying to turn his canoe, but
in spite of all his efforts, it kept heading straight for the terrifying
figure.
From somewhere far away a voice shouted, “Hugh, Hugh.” The shouts grew
louder. Hugh woke suddenly to find his half-brother shaking him by the
shoulder. Storm voices filled the air, wind roared through the trees,
surf thundered on the rocks. A big wave, curling up the beach, wet his
moccasins as he struggled to his feet.
Wide awake in an instant, Hugh seized his blanket and fled up over the
smooth, rounded pebbles out of reach of the waves. In a moment he
realized that Blaise was not with him. He looked back—and then he
remembered. The supplies, the canoe, where were they? He and his brother
had unloaded the canoe as usual the night before, had propped it up on
the paddles, and had crawled under it. But, overcome with weariness, they
had left the packets of food and ammunition lying where they had been
tossed, on the lower beach. Now, in the dull light of dawn, Hugh could
see the waves rolling in and breaking far above where the packages had
been dropped. The canoe had disappeared. It took him but a moment to
grasp all this. He ran back down the beach to join Blaise, who was
plunging in to his knees in the attempt to rescue what he could.
“The canoe?” Hugh shouted.
“Safe,” Blaise replied briefly, and made a dash after a retreating wave,
seizing a skin bag of corn just as it was floating away.
At the same instant Hugh caught sight of a packet of powder, and darted
after it, a bitter cold wave breaking over him just as he bent to snatch
the packet.
The two worked with frantic haste, heedless of the waves that soaked them
above the knees and sometimes broke clear over their heads as they
stooped to seize bag or package. They saved what they could, but the
dried meat, one sack of corn, Hugh’s bundle of extra clothing, the roll
of birch bark and the pine gum for repairing the canoe, had all gone out
into the lake. The maple sugar was partly dissolved. Some of the powder,
though the wrapping was supposed to be water-proof, was soaked, and
Hugh’s gun, which he had carelessly left with the other things, was so
wet it would have to be dried and oiled before it could be used. Blaise
had carried his gun to bed with him, and it was safe and dry.
Even the half-breed boy, who usually woke at the slightest sound, had
been so tired and had slept so heavily that the rising of the wind and
the pounding of the waves had not disturbed him. It was not until a
strong gust lifted the canoe from over his head, and a falling paddle
struck him sharply, that he woke. He had sprung up, seized the overturned
canoe and carried it to the shelter of a large rock. Then he had
returned, flung his gun and the paddles farther up the beach, and had
aroused the still sleeping Hugh.
When everything they had rescued had been carried beyond the reach of the
waves and placed in the lee of a rock out of the wind, the two boys
skirted the beach in the hope that the meat, corn or clothes might have
been cast up in some other spot. The beach, at the head of a small and
shallow cove, was not long. When Hugh had gone as far over pebbles and
boulders as he could, he scrambled up the rock point that bounded the
cove on the north and followed it to the end, without seeing anything of
the lost articles. As he reached the bare rock tip, the sun was just
coming up among red and angry clouds across the water, flushing with
crimson and orange the wildly heaving waves. The wind was a little east
of north. No rain had fallen where the boys were camped, but Hugh felt
sure from the clouds that a storm must have passed not many miles away.
The little cove being open and unprotected to the northeast, the full
force of the wind entered it and piled the waves upon the beach.
When Hugh returned to the camping place, he found that Blaise, who had
gone in the other direction, had had no better luck. The strong under
pull of the retreating waves had carried the lost articles out to deep
water.
Going on with the journey in such a blow was out of the question. The
boys made themselves as comfortable as possible behind a heap of boulders
out of the wind.
“I wish we knew in which direction Ohrante is bound,” Hugh said, as he
scraped the last morsel of his scanty portion of corn porridge from his
bark dish, with the crude wooden spoon he had carved for himself.
“He went up the shore as we came down,” Blaise replied. “He is probably
going down now. Somewhere he has met his enemies and has taken one
prisoner at least.”
“I wish we might have travelled farther before camping,” Hugh returned.
Blaise shrugged in his French fashion. “He cannot go on in this weather,
and we cannot either. Passing him last night was a great risk. I knew
that all their eyes would be blinded by the fire glare, so they could not
see into the shadows, else I should not have dared. All went well, yet we
must still be cautious and make but small fires and little smoke.”
“No column of smoke can ascend high enough in this gale to be seen,” Hugh
argued.
“But the smell will travel far, and the wind blows from us to them.
Caution is never wasted, my brother.”
Forced to discontinue the journey for most of the day, the lads spent the
time seeking food. They were far enough from Ohrante’s camp to have
little fear that any of his party would hear their shots, yet they chose
to hunt to the north rather than to the south. With some of the dry
powder and the shot that had been saved, Blaise started out first, while
Hugh spread the wet powder to dry on a flat rock exposed to the sun but
sheltered from the wind. Then he cleaned and dried his gun and greased it
with pork fat before leaving camp.
Hugh wandered the woods in search of game for several hours. He did not
go far back from shore. Traversing the thick woods, where there was much
undergrowth, was difficult and he did not greatly trust his own
woodcraft. He had no wish to humiliate himself in his half-brother’s eyes
by losing his way. Moreover, as long as he kept where the wind reached
him, he was not much annoyed by the mosquitoes, at their worst in June.
Whenever he reached a spot where the wind did not penetrate, the
irritating insects came about him in clouds, settling on his hands, face,
wrists and neck and even getting inside his rather low necked, deerskin
shirt.
Whether he did not go far enough into the woods or for some other reason,
his luck was not good. He shot a squirrel and a long-eared, northern hare
or snowshoe rabbit and missed another, but did not catch a glimpse of
deer, moose, or bear. Neither squirrel nor rabbit meat was at its best in
June, but it was at least better than no meat at all. Carrying his meager
bag, he returned late in the afternoon. He found Blaise squatting over a
small cooking fire. The iron kettle gave out a most appetizing odor. The
younger boy had secured three plump ruffed grouse. In the Lake Superior
wilderness of that day no laws prohibited the shooting of game birds out
of season. The stew which appealed so strongly to Hugh’s nostrils was
made up of grouse and squirrel meat, with a very little salt pork to give
it savor.
The wind had fallen and since noon the waves had been going down. By
sunset, though the lake was by no means smooth, travel had become
possible for skilled canoeists. Had Hugh and Blaise not been in such a
hurry to put distance between themselves and Ohrante, they would have
waited until morning. They were so anxious to go on that they launched
the canoe while the afterglow was still reflected in pink and lavender on
the eastern sky. A few miles would bring them to the Devil Track River,
but, not choosing to camp in that evil spot, Blaise insisted on landing
about a mile below the stream mouth.
Leaving their camp early next morning, the two started overland to the
Devil Track. All day long they sought for some trace of the hidden cache.
Not until after sunset did they cease their efforts. Weary and
disheartened they returned to their camping place, Hugh in the lead. They
had left the canoe turned bottom up over their supplies and well
concealed by a thicket of red-stemmed osier dogwoods. The elder brother’s
sharp exclamation when he reached the spot made the younger one hasten to
his side.
“Look!” cried Hugh, pointing to the birch craft.
Blaise did not need to be told to look. The ragged, gaping hole in the
bark was too conspicuous. “A porcupine,” he exclaimed.
“It was the devil in the form of a porcupine, I think,” Hugh muttered.
“What possessed the beast?”
“He smelled the pork and gnawed his way through to it. The porcupine
loves all things salt. We will see.”
Blaise was right. When the canoe was lifted, the boys discovered that the
small chunk of salt pork was gone, taken out through the hole the beast
had gnawed. Nothing else was missing.
“Either he didn’t like the other things or the pork was all he could
carry away at one trip,” said Hugh. “If we had stayed away a little
longer, he might have made off with the corn and the sugar as well.”
“The loss of the pork is bad,” Blaise commented gravely. “The hole in the
canoe is bad also, and we must delay to mend it.”
The loss of the pork was indeed serious. The rabbit and the squirrel Hugh
had shot the day before had been eaten, and nothing else remained but a
few handfuls of corn and a little sugar. So once more, after setting some
snares, the lads went to sleep supperless. They slept with the corn and
sugar between them for protection.
Blaise might have suspected that the fiend of the river had put a spell
on his snares, for in the morning he found them all empty. The dry, stony
ground showed no tracks. If any long-legged hare had come that way, he
had been wary enough to avoid the nooses.
After the scantiest of breakfasts the boys set about repairing the canoe.
Luckily the ball of wattap, the fine, tough roots of the spruce prepared
for use as thread, had not been lost when the waves covered the beach at
their former camp. From a near-by birch Blaise cut a strong, smooth piece
of bark without knotholes. With his knife he trimmed the ragged edges of
the hole. Having softened and straightened his wattap by soaking it, he
sewed the patch on neatly, using a large steel needle he had bought at
the trading post at the Kaministikwia.
In the meantime Hugh sought a pine grove up the river, where he obtained
some chunks of resin. The resin he softened with heat to a sticky gum and
applied it to the seams and stitches. Blaise went over them again with a
live coal held in a split stick, and spread the softened resin skillfully
with thumb and knife blade. Then the canoe was left bottom side up for
the gum to dry and harden.
In spite of the fact that the boys, on their way down the shore, had
searched the land to the east of the Devil Track with considerable
thoroughness, they were determined to go over it again. By means of a
fallen tree and the boulders that rose above the foaming rapids, they
crossed the river where it narrowed between rock walls. Late in the
afternoon, Blaise, scrambling up a steep and stony slope well back from
the stream, heard two shots in quick succession and then a third at a
longer interval, the signal agreed upon to indicate that one or the other
had come across something significant. The sounds came from the direction
of the lake, and Blaise hastened down to the shore.
XIII
THE PAINTED THWART
Blaise found Hugh stooping over a heap of shattered, water-stained
boards, crude planks, axe hewn from the tree.
“Can this be the boat, do you think?” Hugh asked.
Blaise shook his head doubtfully. “It was not here on the beach when we
came this way before.”
“Yet it may be part of the wreck washed from some outer rock and cast
here by that last hard blow,” reasoned the older boy.
“That is possible. If we could find more of it, the part that bears the
sign——”
“What sign? You told me of no sign. I have often wondered how, if we
found a wrecked boat, we should know whether it was the right one.”
“Surely I told you of the sign. The board that bears the hole for the
mast is painted with vermilion, and on it in black is our father’s sign,
the figure that means his Ojibwa name, ‘man with the bright eyes, the
eyes that make sparks.’ Twice the sign is there, once on each side of the
mast.”
Hugh was staring at his younger brother. Black figures on a vermilion
ground! Where had he seen such a thing, seen it recently, since he left
the Sault? Then he remembered. “Show me, Blaise,” he cried, “what that
figure looks like, that means father’s Indian name.”
Blaise picked up a smooth gray flake and with a bit of softer, dark red
stone scratched the figure.
“That is it,” Hugh exclaimed. “I have seen that wrecked boat, a bateau
with the thwart painted red and that very same figure drawn in black.”
“You have seen it?” The younger brother looked at the elder wonderingly.
“In your dreams?”
“No, I was wide awake, but it was a long way from here and before ever I
saw you, Blaise.” Rapidly Hugh related how he and Baptiste had examined
the old bateau in the cleft of the rocks of the Isle Royale.
Blaise listened in silence, only his eyes betraying his interest. “Truly
we know not where to search,” he said when Hugh had finished. “The bateau
drifted far. How can we find where it went upon the rocks?”
“I don’t believe it drifted far. If it was so badly damaged father had to
abandon it, could it have floated far? Surely it would have gone to the
bottom. When that boat was carried across to Isle Royale, I believe
father and Black Thunder were still in it with all their furs. The storm
drove them out into the lake, they lost their bearings, just as we in the
_Otter_ did. They were borne away and dashed by the waves into that crack
in the rocks. Near there somewhere we shall find the cache, if we find it
at all.”
Hugh spoke confidently, very sure of his own reasoning, but the younger
lad was not so easily convinced.
“How,” Blaise questioned, “did he come away from that island Minong if he
was wrecked there? He could not come by land and the bateau is still
there.”
“He made himself a dugout or birch canoe to cross in when the weather
cleared.”
“But then why came he not to Wauswaugoning by canoe?”
“Because,” persisted Hugh, “when he reached the mainland he fell in with
some enemy here at the Devil Track River. We know his wound was not
received in the wreck. You yourself say it was a knife wound. Black
Thunder wasn’t killed in the wreck either. They escaped unharmed but the
bateau was beyond repair. So they built a canoe and crossed to this
shore. Here they were set upon and Black Thunder was killed and father
sorely wounded.”
Again the sceptical Blaise shook his head. “Why were they away down here
so far below the Grand Portage? And why, if they had a canoe, brought
they not the furs and the packet with them?”
Hugh was aware of the weak links in his theory, yet he clung to it.
“Maybe they did bring them,” he said, “but couldn’t carry them overland,
so they hid them.”
“No, no. Our father told me that the furs were not far from the wreck. He
said that three or four times. I cannot be mistaken.”
“Perhaps their canoe wasn’t big enough to hold all of the pelts,” Hugh
speculated. “What they did bring may have fallen into Ohrante’s hands. So
father spoke only of the rest, hidden in a secret place near the wreck.
To me that seems reasonable enough. But,” he admitted honestly, “I don’t
quite understand how they came to be so far down the shore here, and, if
the packet is valuable, why didn’t father bring that with him if he
brought anything? And why didn’t he tell you that the storm drove him on
Isle Royale?”
“You forget,” Blaise said slowly, “that our father’s body was very weak
and his spirit just about to leave it. I asked him where to find the
bateau. He told me of the way it was marked, but he could say no more. I
think he could not hear my questions.”
Both lads were silent for several minutes, then Hugh said decisively,
“Well, Blaise, there are just two things we can do, unless we give up the
quest entirely. We can go back down the shore, searching the land for
some sign of the cache, or we can cross to Isle Royale, find the cleft in
the rocks where the bateau lies, and seek there for the furs and the
packet. I am for the latter plan. To search the whole shore from here to
the Fond du Lac for a hidden cache to which we have no clue seems to me a
hopeless task.”
“But to cross that long stretch of open water in a small canoe,” Blaise
returned doubtfully.
“We must choose good weather of course, and paddle our swiftest to reach
the island before a change comes. Perhaps we can rig some kind of sail
and make better time than with our paddles.”
It was plain that Hugh had made up his mind to return to Isle Royale.
Hitherto he had been content to let Blaise take the lead, but now he was
asserting his elder brother’s right to leadership. Better than his white
brother, Blaise understood the hazards of such an undertaking, but the
half-breed lad was proud. He was not going to admit himself less
courageous than his elder brother. If Hugh dared take the risk, he,
Little Caribou, as his mother’s people called him, dared take it also.
The brothers must provision themselves for the trip. Even if they reached
the island safely and in good time, they could not guess how long their
search might take, or how many days or weeks they might be delayed before
they could return. Fresh supplies might have reached the Grand Portage by
now and corn at least could be bought. From the Indians always to be
found near the posts, other food supplies and new moccasins might be
obtained.
Considering food supplies reminded the lads of their hunger. They decided
to devote the remaining hours of daylight to fishing for their supper.
They would start for the Grand Portage in the morning. Blaise paddled
slowly along a submerged reef some distance out from shore, while Hugh
fished.
In a very few minutes he felt a pull at his line. Hand over hand he
hauled it in, Blaise helping by managing the canoe so that the line did
not slacken even for an instant. Nearer and nearer Hugh drew his prize,
until he could see the gleaming silver of the big fish flashing through
the clear water. Then came the critical moment. He had no landing net,
and reaching over the side with net or gaff would have been a risk at
best. Without shifting his weight enough to destroy the balance, while
Blaise endeavored to hold the canoe steady with his paddle, Hugh must
land his fish squarely in the bottom. With a sudden swing, the long,
silvery, dark-flecked body, tail wildly flapping, was raised from the
water and flung into the canoe. Almost before it touched the bottom, Hugh
had seized his knife and dealt a swift blow. A few ineffectual flaps and
the big fish lay still.
“Fifteen pounds at least,” Hugh exulted. “I have seen larger trout, but
most of them were taken in nets.”
“They grow very big sometimes, two, three times as big, but it is not
good to catch such a big one with a line. Unless you have great luck, it
overturns your canoe.”
The sight of the big trout sharpened the boys’ hunger pangs and took away
all zest from further fishing. They paddled full speed for shore and
supper.
Favored by good weather they made a quick trip to the Grand Portage. In
the bay a small ship lay at anchor, and they knew supplies must have
arrived.
“That is not the _Otter_,” Hugh remarked as they paddled by.
“No, it is not one of the Old Company’s ships. I think it belongs to the
New Company.”
“I’m glad it isn’t the _Otter_,” Hugh replied. “I shouldn’t know how to
answer Baptiste’s questions.”
The ship proved, as Blaise had guessed, to belong to the New Company. She
sailed the day after the boys arrived, but had left ample supplies. They
had no difficulty in buying the needed stores, though Hugh’s money was
exhausted by the purchases. He left explanations to Blaise, confident
that his younger brother could not be persuaded to divulge the
destination or purpose of their trip.
Again bad weather held the lads at the Grand Portage and Wauswaugoning.
The last day of their stay, when they were returning from the New
Company’s post, they came upon the camp of the trappers whose bateau had
loomed like a ship through the morning mist when the boys were leaving
the Bay of the Beaver. Hugh recognized at once the tall fellow in the
scarlet cap who had replied to his shout of greeting. The trappers had
disposed of their furs at the Old Company’s post and were about to leave.
They were going to portage their supplies to Fort Charlotte above the
falls of the Pigeon River and go up the river in a canoe. Hugh inquired
what they intended to do with their small bateau which was drawn up on
the shore.
“You want it?” the leader questioned in his big voice.
“Will you sell it?” the boy asked eagerly.
The man nodded. “What you give?”
Hugh flushed with chagrin, remembering that all his money was gone.
Blaise came to the rescue by offering to trade some ammunition for the
boat. The man shook his head. Blaise added to his offer a small quantity
of food supplies, but still the fellow refused. “Too little,” he
grumbled, then added something in his curious mixture of Scotch-English
and Ojibwa. He was a Scotch half-breed and Hugh found his dialect
difficult to understand.
Blaise shrugged, walked over to the boat and examined it. He turned
towards the man and spoke in rapid Ojibwa. The fellow answered in the
same tongue, pointing to the lad’s gun.
“What does he say?” asked Hugh.
“I told him his bateau needs mending,” Blaise answered in French, “but he
will not trade for anything but my gun, which is better than his. I will
not give him the gun. Our father gave it to me.”
Hugh understood his half-brother’s feeling, but he was eager to secure
the boat. “He may have my gun,” he whispered. He knew that the tall
fellow understood some French. “Tell him if he will include the sail—he
had one, you know—I’ll give him my gun and some ammunition. Mine doesn’t
shoot as accurately as yours, but it looks newer.”
Blaise made the offer in Ojibwa, Hugh repeated it in English, and after
an unsuccessful attempt to get more, the man agreed. He put into the boat
the mast and canvas, which he had been using as a shelter, and Hugh
handed over the gun and ammunition.