wall. The water was slightly sheltered, and the waves were running past
the fissures, not into them. The canoe slipped by the stern of the
wrecked bateau, projecting from the crack into which it had been driven.
The narrow rift was passed. At the wider black gap, Hugh made the turn.
In response to his brother’s quick “Take care,” he held his paddle
steady.
The canoe glided into the gap, slowed down. Before the bottom could grate
on the pebbles, Blaise had warned Hugh to step over the side. The latter
found himself in the water above his knees.
“We must take the canoe well up the crack and hide it,” he said.
“And risk its discovery, which would put Ohrante on our trail? No, lay
your paddle in the bottom. Turn around, but do not let go.”
Hugh did not at first grasp the half-breed lad’s intention, but he
obeyed. When Hugh had turned, Blaise spoke again.
“Push out with all your strength. Now.”
Together they gave the light craft a strong shove and let go. It slid
over the water, out from the mouth of the rift. The wind caught it and it
was borne away in the moonlight.
“The wind will take it up the bay,” the younger boy explained. “It may
stay right side up, it may not. It may be shattered on the rocks or
washed on some beach. Wherever Ohrante finds it, it will be a long way
from here.”
“It will not help him to pick up our trail certainly,” Hugh exclaimed.
“That was a clever thought, Blaise.”
Blaise turned to lead the way up the crack. It was black dark in the
fissure. Patches of moonlit sky could be seen overhead, between the
branches and spreading sprays of the cedars, but no light penetrated to
the bottom. Guiding themselves by their outstretched hands, and feeling
for each step, as they had done on that other night when they had entered
this cleft, the two made their way up. As he thought of that other night,
Hugh put his hand to his breast to feel if the precious packet was still
there, attached to a piece of fish line around his neck. It was luck that
the Indians had merely taken his weapons and had not searched him.
Feeling along the left wall of the gap, Blaise found the slit that led
into the pit where the furs had been concealed, but he did not squeeze
through. He led on up the wider rift. Where the walls were less sheer and
trees grew on the gully bottom, pushing through in the darkness became
increasingly difficult. When the brothers had come that way in daylight,
they had found it troublesome enough. Now exposed roots and undergrowth
snared Hugh’s toes, rocks and tree trunks bruised his shoulders, prickly
evergreen branches scratched his face and caught his clothes. These were
small troubles, however, not to be heeded by a fugitive flying from such
a cruel fate as Ohrante had in mind for him. The boy’s only desire was to
put as great a distance as possible between himself and the giant Mohawk.
Indeed he had to hold himself in restraint to keep from panic flight.
After a few hundred feet of stumbling, groping progress, the two came to
the broken birch, ghostly in the moonlight which shone down into the open
space where the guide tree stood. They paused for a moment. On either
hand and ahead the growth was thick.
“Which way now?” Hugh whispered the words as if he still feared an enemy
lurking near.
“Straight ahead to the top of the high ridge. It will be difficult. I
know not if we can do it in the darkness.”
“We must do it,” said Hugh emphatically.
Blaise nodded. “We will try,” he agreed.
The ground was low here, protected from the lake by the rock ridge with
its rifts and cracks. A few steps beyond the little birch, the lads found
themselves in a veritable tangle of growth, through which but little
light penetrated from the sky. They struggled forward among close
standing, moss-draped, half dead evergreens and old rotten birches, their
feet sinking deep into the soft leaf mould and decayed wood that formed
the soil. Where fallen trees had made an opening that let in a little
light, thickets of bushes and tangles of ground yew had grown up, more
difficult to penetrate than the black woods. Compelled to make their way,
for the most part, by feeling instead of sight, they could go but slowly.
Hugh soon lost all sense of direction, and he wondered whether Blaise
knew where he was going.
Rising ground and a thinning of the woods reassured the white boy. They
must be going up the ridges, not back towards the Indian camp. He
marvelled that Blaise had managed to find the way. Blaise was far from
infallible though, and there soon came a time when he did not think it
wise to go farther. They had climbed a steeper slope, treading firmer
soil and outcroppings of rock, but still in thick woods, and had reached
a small rock opening overgrown with moss and low plants. The sweet
perfume of the carpet of twin flowers he could not see came to Hugh’s
nostrils. Blaise stopped and peered about him. Clouds must have covered
the moon, for the open space was very dark.
“We had best wait here,” he said after a few moments. “If the moon shines
again, or after dawn comes, I will climb a tree and see where we are.”
“Don’t you know where you are?” Hugh asked.
“I am not certain. How can I be certain in the darkness, when I have
never come this way before? I think our way lies over there.” He pointed
across the opening. “We are on the top of a low ridge, but if we go down
where the trees stand thick, we may lose our way and much time also. We
are well hidden here. When Ohrante wakes, he will not know which way to
seek. It will be long before he finds our trail.”
“I hate to stop as long as we can go on.”
“I too, my brother, but I think we shall gain time, not lose it if we
wait for light.”
XXVII
WHAT BLAISE OVERHEARD
Far from the Indian camp and well hidden, the brothers could risk
conversation. Instinctively they kept their voices low. Hugh was curious
to learn how Blaise had crossed from the pond in the small island to the
long point, and Blaise equally eager to hear how Hugh had fallen into
Ohrante’s hands. Seated on moss patches in the rock opening, they
satisfied each other’s curiosity on those points. Then Blaise went on to
tell how he had tracked his elder brother. When he had smelled smoke he
had known he must be near a camp.
“I heard the rippling of water,” the boy said in his soft singsong. “Then
I caught the sound of men’s voices. I left the trail and crept towards
the water. I peeped through the alders and saw the lake and the beach.
Canoes lay on the pebbles, but no man was in sight. I wished to find out
if you were in the camp. So I went back into the woods and crawled
towards the voices. I crept from tree to tree and bush to bush, and found
myself behind a wigwam. I lay flat and tried to peep around it, but a
clump of willows was in the way, and I could see nothing. I crawled like
a snake for the willows. I looked through them and saw you, my brother,
bound to the birch. My heart gave a leap when I saw you unharmed and knew
there was yet time to steal you away. I saw Ohrante too. He sat by the
fire and ate. He turned his head, and I feared his sharp eyes might find
me through the willows, so I crept away. I went back into the woods and
hid not far from the trail. The Iroquois I had seen on the trail
returned. Crawling nearer the camp again, I heard him talk to Ohrante,
but I could not understand, for he spoke the Iroquois language. I saw no
way to get you away before nightfall, and I feared they might carry you
off somewhere in a canoe where I could not follow.
“Back to the beach I went and hid myself in the alders near the big
canoes. I saw Ohrante and six others go away. By their moccasins I knew
that two were Iroquois, the others Ojibwas and Crees. A small canoe was
left on the beach. When Ohrante had been gone a while, I heard voices,
and two more men came along the shore from the camp. One carried a net of
cedar cord. He had an ugly face and a red band around his head. The
other, a short, strong man, I knew at once. He is Monga, an Ojibwa, one
of the two who helped Ohrante to escape. The two sat down on the sand
just below where I was hidden, and I crawled nearer to listen to what
they said as they mended their net. They spoke Ojibwa. Red Band has not
been with Ohrante long. He asked what the chief would do with the white
captive. Monga,—his name means the _loon_,—answered that Ohrante would
take the white man to the mainland, to the Isle of Torture, but they
could not start to-day because the wind was too strong and the lake too
rough. Red Band was not pleased. He said he wished the chief would let
the white men alone until his people were stronger. Monga said that
Ohrante hated all white men. When the trader Beaupré escaped his
vengeance——”
“What?” interrupted Hugh. “He said ‘the trader Beaupré’?”
“Yes. When the trader Beaupré escaped Ohrante’s vengeance, the chief
swore to kill every white man who fell into his hands.”
“But what did he mean by father’s escaping Ohrante’s vengeance?”
“It was as we thought,” Blaise replied, his voice low and tense. “It was
Ohrante who brought our father to his death. Red Band said it was true
that Beaupré escaped, but in his escape he received his death wound.”
“That explains what we found at the Devil Track River.”
“Yes. From what they said it seems that our father and Black Thunder both
fell into Ohrante’s hands. In some way they escaped, but they were
overtaken at the River of Devil Tracks. They fought and our father got
away again, but sorely wounded. That is the way I put together the things
I heard the two men say.”
“How comes it then that the bateau and furs are here on Isle Royale? Did
Ohrante bring them here?”
“I think Ohrante knows nothing of the furs. When we first saw him here I
thought he had come to Minong to seek the furs, but no, this is not the
first time he has been here. His braves call him ‘Chief of Minong.’ I
think he fled here, he and Monga and the other man who helped him, when
he escaped from our father and the Ojibwas. I know not when the rest of
the band joined him, but I believe Ohrante and those two were living
somewhere on this island when white men and red sought them and could not
find them. This I know, here on Minong Ohrante captured our father and
Black Thunder. Monga said it was strange that two white men had been
found here, where no man was believed to come. Both Jean Beaupré and the
new white captive pretended to be only traders, he said, and told tales
of how they were driven here by storm and wrecked on the rocks. The chief
believed Beaupré’s story, but now that this other white man came with the
same tale, Ohrante began to doubt. He thought perhaps they came to spy on
him.”
“I feared Ohrante did not believe me,” Hugh confessed, “but it made
little difference what story I told. He says he hates all white men and
intends to destroy them and drive them out of this country. He thinks he
is destined to be some sort of king over this part of the world. Did
those two say more of father?”
“No, their net was finished and they went out in the little canoe. At
once I sought you, my brother, but I dared not cut your bonds. The two
were only a little way out in the bay. Later I listened to them talk
again. I could not get the meaning of all they said, but I think Ohrante
intends to hold a council on that island where he tortures his prisoners.
I am sure that others are to meet him there to join his band.”
“And he was reserving me to be put to death by torture as a sort of
entertainment for his new adherents, I suppose,” Hugh muttered grimly.
“That is not the part in the performance I should choose to play. Perhaps
I can find some other part more to my liking.” A daring suggestion had
come into his mind as Blaise told of the council on the “Island of
Torture.” “Did you learn when the meeting was to be?” Hugh asked
abruptly.
“It is to be soon, I think. They wait only for safe weather to make the
crossing.”
Hugh was silent in frowning thought. When he spoke, it was not of the
council. “It is plain to see what happened,” he said musingly. “The storm
bore father and his comrade here to this island. Their boat was driven
into that crack in the rocks and wrecked. Ohrante came upon them, took
them captive and carried them to the mainland. Father must have had some
warning, though, for he hid the pelts and the packet. I wonder, Blaise,
if, when he was first wrecked, he put the furs up on that rock shelf to
keep them dry and safe. Then, afterwards, when he learned Ohrante was
near, he moved the bales to a more secret spot farther from the wreck.”
Blaise nodded. “It may be,” was all he said.
“We were right all the time,” Hugh added, “in believing that Ohrante had
something to do with father’s death.”
“I felt in my heart that Ohrante was the guilty one,” the younger lad
replied simply.
“Yet of course it may not have been Ohrante himself who gave father his
death blow,” Hugh mused.
Blaise waved away his brother’s reasoning with a gesture. “It matters not
whether Ohrante himself or one of his men struck the blow. It is not the
knife that we punish when a murder is committed, but the man who wields
the knife. Ohrante is that man. It was he who captured our father, who
would have put him to the torture, who caused his death.”
“And Ohrante shall pay for it,” Hugh broke in passionately. “He shall pay
soon if we can but reach the mainland in time. The sky is lighter,
Blaise,” he added, looking up above the surrounding tree tops. “We must
be moving.”
XXVIII
CONFUSING THE TRAIL
Looking around for a tall tree, Blaise found a tapering spruce, growing
in a pocket of deeper soil and towering above its fellows. The stubs of
the lower branches, that, deprived of light by adjacent trees, had died
and fallen off, formed a ladder, up which he climbed, Hugh not far
behind. Reaching the live limbs, they pushed their way among the thick
masses of dark green needles. The smaller lad went on until the slender
spire bent threateningly under his weight.
The moon had come out from behind the clouds, and the paling sky foretold
the dawn. From his perch above the surrounding trees, Blaise could see
the water, and, across it, the narrow black line of the low point. On the
other side, directly below him, he could make out from the growth that
the ground dipped down. Beyond the slight dip, the rising ranks of trees
betrayed the steepness of the ascent. A little to his right and far up,
his keen eyes detected a bare stretch of rock between the masses of
foliage above and below. He took a long look in every direction, then
started to climb down.
Hugh, learning from the movement of the branches above him that Blaise
was descending, also moved farther down. There, resting on a stout limb,
he waited for his brother.
“What did you make out?” he asked eagerly. “I could see that we are part
way up the ridges. Have we kept a straight course?”
“Yes, we have come straighter than I feared, but we are scarce more than
half-way up, and we must go farther to the left. You remember that bare
cliff?”
“The wall, like a fortification, that we saw from across the bay?”
“The same. We cannot climb that place. We must go to the left to avoid
it. Come, we must make haste.”
Darkness still lay deep in the woods, as the two plunged down the short
slope into a narrow and shallow gully. Through the thicker growth at the
bottom, they threaded their way to the left a hundred yards or more, then
began to ascend again. The rapidly rising ground, interrupted by shallow
depressions only, served as a guide. Where the slope was regular and not
too steep and there was soil enough to anchor them, trees grew thick, but
abrupt bare places, masses of tumbled rocks and almost vertical walls
made up much of the way. The northwestern side of the long point was far
more abrupt than the southeastern, but the increasing light made it
possible for the boys to choose their path. They were no longer compelled
to proceed by sense of feeling only. Sound of wind, active of limb, and
goaded on by the signs of breaking day, they climbed swiftly and without
pause.
Crossing a narrow shelf of broken rock débris, that had crumbled into
soil deep enough to bear trees, they came to the last rise. By going
farther to the left, they had thought to avoid the bare, pillared, rock
ramparts, and had indeed escaped the steepest and highest stretch.
Nevertheless the cliff before them was almost vertical, and clothed with
only an occasional sturdy, dwarfed mass of cedar or trailing juniper, a
little seedling tree, stunted bush or tiny plant, growing in crevice or
hollow, and the ever present, tight clinging moss and lichens. Had the
ancient rock not been ribbed and blocked and weathered, it would have
been unclimbable. The splitting off of blocks and scaling away of flakes,
which had crumbled into débris at the foot of the cliff, had left shelves
and crannies affording some foothold and finger-hold to the active
climber.
It was a bad place to go up but not an impossible one. The fugitives
paused only long enough to select what appeared to be a possible route up
a sort of flue, caused by the falling out of one of the pillars. Blaise
went first, and Hugh would have followed close behind, had not the
half-breed boy bade him, somewhat sharply, wait below. If Blaise lost his
hold and slipped back, it would not advantage him any to take his elder
brother down with him. The lad was nearing the top when he let his weight
rest too heavily on an insecure ledge. The rock flaked off, and he was
left hanging, one hand thrust into a crack, the other clinging to a cedar
stem. Down below, Hugh held his breath in suspense. For the interval of
an instant, while the agile climber drew up his left foot and thrust his
toes into a cranny, the cedar held. Then its roots pulled loose. But
Blaise managed to keep his balance, and quickly hooked his strong fingers
around the rim of the hole where the cedar clump had been growing. In a
few moments he was over the top, and it was Hugh’s turn to make the
ascent.
The scaling away of the piece of rock that had formed the narrow ledge
made it necessary for Hugh to take a slightly different route up the
flue. He was heavier than Blaise and for him the climb was even more
perilous. Profiting by his younger brother’s experience, Hugh trusted to
crannies and cracks into which he could thrust his fingers and toes,
rather than to the more treacherous projections. Climbing cautiously, he
reached the summit without accident.
The growth on the ridge top prevented the boys from seeing to the east,
but the sky was now so light they knew sunrise could not be far away.
Hurrying across the summit, they came out upon the southeastern slope.
From there they could see the rose pink flush of day.
The southeastern side of the high ridge was far less abrupt than the
northwestern. Except for occasional open rock stretches, it was, however,
thickly forested. In spite of the rough going, the fugitives made good
speed on the down grade. Nimbly the light-footed Blaise threaded his way
among trees and undergrowth, and sprang down the open slopes. Hugh, to
whose feet the very thought of the cruel Iroquois seemed to give wings,
kept close behind. In a shorter time than they would have believed
possible, they were at the edge of the water.
Blaise glanced towards the woods across the channel. “That is not the
island where the little lake is,” he said. “We are too far down. The
bateau is over that way.” Without waiting for Hugh to reply, the lad
turned to the right and began to make his way along shore.
A moment later, Hugh, following closely, said anxiously, “We are leaving
a plain trail here. The ground is damp and there is much undergrowth.”
“We cannot help that. If we must leave a trail, we will use it to lead
our enemies astray, Step as lightly as you can, and in a little while I
will show you a trick.” Hugh had been possessed with the fear that some
of Ohrante’s men might have discovered the boat and taken it away. He was
greatly relieved to find it tied to the overhanging tree where he had
left it.
“Take the bateau,” the younger boy ordered, “and paddle down to the place
where we came out of the woods. I will join you there.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Lead our enemies astray. If they find my tracks near their camp and
follow them, they may also find the trail down to this place. They must
not think that we crossed the water from here. I shall make tracks, plain
tracks, from here down towards the mouth of the bay, beyond the place
where you and I came out of the woods a little while ago.”
“But in our old trail from here to the ridge top the footprints point up,
not down.”
“Yes, and we have not time to go back and make new. I hope they will
think we travelled both ways on that trail. I will go back a little way
and make a few prints leading down.”
While Hugh was untying and pushing off the bateau, Blaise, going
carefully and lightly, followed for a little way the route he had taken
when he went in search of his white brother. Then, turning, he came back,
leaving here and there clear impressions to show direction. Twenty or
thirty feet from the shore, he branched off to the left, making tracks
leading to the alongshore trail, but avoiding the spot where the bateau
lay. He then went on towards the mouth of the bay, carefully obliterating
all toe marks that pointed up the channel, and making sure to leave some
pointing down.
In the meantime Hugh had pushed off the bateau. He noticed that the boat
had left no clear traces, except where the rope had rubbed the bark from
the limb around which it had been tied. That scar might easily have been
made by the claws of some animal climbing out over the water. To make
such an origin seem more likely, he scratched the scar lengthwise several
times with his thumb nail. As he paddled along close to shore, he came
upon the tree Blaise had crossed on, and pushed it out into mid channel.
About a hundred feet below the place where they had come out of the
woods, Hugh joined Blaise. Here they took pains to leave distinct signs
that a boat had been pulled up on shore. They wished their pursuers to
see that they had taken to the water at this spot. Their intention was to
lead Ohrante, should he find their trail, away from the island where the
furs were hidden.
“Wouldn’t it be possible, Blaise,” Hugh questioned, “to load the furs and
start across the lake at once? If the wind is right, I am willing to risk
Ohrante’s seeing us and giving chase. With a good breeze we can
outdistance his canoes.”
Blaise shook his head. “We could not run away from him in this wind. Last
night it was nearly northeast, but now it is northwest. Surely you
noticed that when we were on the ridge top. We cannot make speed with
this heavy bateau against the wind. Yet it is not too strong for canoes
to go against it, if the men at the paddles have skill. No, we must wait
till the wind changes or till darkness comes again. Now we will carry our
false trail farther.”
Blaise steered the boat straight across the channel to the outer end of
the opposite island. Between steep, high, bare masses of detached rock
and the small island itself, a reef extended, the inner end rising out of
the water to form a beach of boulders and pebbles. The boys ran the
bateau on the pebbles and jumped out. They could see off across the open
water to the east, where the sun was already above the horizon.
“Here,” said Blaise, “we will leave the ashes of a fire, as if we had
stopped to cook a meal. Make haste and get wood.”
Hugh did not need to be warned to make haste. A small fire was soon
kindled on the pebbles where it could not spread, then partly stamped out
and left smouldering. As the boys embarked again, Hugh glanced back to
satisfy himself that the wind was not carrying any sparks towards the
woods. Heretofore he had always drenched his cooking fire before leaving
camp, but to have poured water on this one would have defeated his
younger brother’s purpose. Blaise wanted the recent kindling of the fire
to be in plain evidence.
“Where we have gone from here our enemies cannot tell,” he explained.
“They will find no tracks or signs on this little island except around
the fire. Then they will be sure we have gone by boat, but which way they
will not know.”
“Which way shall we go?” Hugh questioned.
“Back to our camp in the little inland lake, but not down the channel
next the point. We will steer around these big rocks and up the other
side of this island.”