carry the boat northwest to Thunder Bay, but would be more hindrance than
help in going southwest to Grand Portage. In the lee of an island, the
brothers raised their mast and ran up their sail. As they paddled out
from shelter, the breeze caught the canvas and they were off across the
lake.
Clouds had covered the moon, and it was too dark to sight Thunder Cape.
The boys could do nothing but run before the wind and trust to it to
carry them somewhere near their destination. At any rate they were
leaving Minong and putting the miles between themselves and the cruel,
self-appointed chief of the island. That wonderful and beautiful island,
which the white men had appropriately called Royale, deserved a better
king, and the first step in the right direction was to depose the present
usurper, thought Hugh with grim humor.
XXXI
WITH WIND AND WAVES
In the light breeze the bateau sailed but slowly, and the boys, in their
impatience, strove to increase speed by helping with the paddles. As they
went farther out, however, the wind increased, and before long they laid
aside the blades, satisfied that they were making fairly good progress.
Overhead the stars shone dimly. To the south and east, the sky was banked
with masses of cloud. Hugh, glancing that way, felt uneasy. A rain-storm
coming down upon the heavily loaded, open bateau would be unpleasant if
not disastrous. From the behavior of the sail, he knew that the wind was
less steady. During the past two months he had learned something of the
moods of Lake Superior, and he understood that he must be ready for a
sudden shift. He had been handling both sheet and tiller, but now he
turned the steering over to his brother.
The change of wind came suddenly and with force. For a few moments Hugh
had his hands full. Blaise obeyed orders on the instant, sail and boat
were swung about, and were soon running freely before the wind again.
“We may not reach the Kaministikwia so soon as we hoped,” Hugh commented,
when the momentary danger was past. “The wind seems to be taking us where
it chooses. As near as I can tell we must be running almost directly west
now instead of northwest.”
Blaise looked up at the only patch of clear sky visible. “Yes, I think we
go west. If the wind holds steady we shall reach the shore somewhere
between the Kaministikwia and the Grand Portage. If it shifts again——” He
broke off with a shrug.
“If it shifts again,” Hugh took up the words, “we shall reach somewhere
sometime, unless we go to the bottom. Even that would be a better fate
than falling into Ohrante’s hands.”
The breeze was increasing in force, the waves running ever higher. Hugh
and Blaise were kept busy and alert. Before the wind, the bateau was
sailing swiftly enough so that there was little danger of following seas
actually swamping it, but, heavily laden, it rode low, with little
buoyancy. Every time it pitched down into the trough of the waves it
shipped water. Those were the dangerous moments. With the utmost care in
handling sail and rudder, the brothers could do little to insure against
disaster. To keep straight before the wind, not to lose control of sail
or rudder, and to take the chances with coolness and composure was about
all there was to do. As they drove on in the darkness, now riding high on
the summit of a wave, now pitching down between walls of water, they lost
all count of time.
The waves seemed to be flattening out a little. Surely they were less
high and long, yet they were even more troublesome, for they had grown
choppy and uneven. When Blaise steered straight with them, Hugh found the
sail swinging around. When he sailed directly before the wind, the boat
pitched at an angle with the waves.
“The wind has shifted again,” he said anxiously.
“It comes from the northeast now,” Blaise returned.
Both were too busy and anxious to talk. Hugh confined his speech to
sharply given orders and Blaise to answering grunts. The spray of
breaking waves soaked them both, time and again. The boat was shipping a
good deal of water, but bailing was impossible. The elder brother had his
hands full with the sail, the younger was compelled to give all his
attention to steering.
Gradually conditions improved. The wind steadied and the waves obeyed it.
Once more the bateau could ride them straight, while running directly
before the breeze. The clouds were broken now, moving swiftly across the
sky, covering and uncovering the moon and stars. Whenever the boys dared
to take their eyes from sail and water, they glanced upward. When enough
sky had been blown clean to show them the position of the moon and
principal stars, both lads were surprised to learn that dawn was not
nearer. It seemed to them that they had been pitching about in the waves
for a very long time, yet the day was still hours away.
The wind continued strong, the waves were higher than ever, but the
brothers had gained more confidence in the sailing qualities of the boat
and in their own ability to handle it. Less water was being shipped, and
by bailing when they had a chance, they managed to keep it from rising
too high. Now that the sky was clearing and there was more light on the
lake, they could see farther across it. As the boat rose to the top of a
wave, Blaise said suddenly, “L’isle du Paté.”
Hugh looked quickly and, before the bateau pitched down between the
waves, he caught a glimpse of a compact, abrupt, black mass towering from
the water not many miles to his right. There seemed to be no chance of
reaching the mouth of the Kaministikwia though. To turn and run in past
the south side of Pie Island was out of the question. The square sail
would be worse than useless, and the laden bateau would inevitably be
swamped in the trough of the waves.
The stars were waning in the paling sky. The short summer night was
drawing to a close and dawn was approaching. South and west of Pie Island
and nearer at hand, lower lines of shore appeared, the chain of islands
from one of which the adventurers had set out for the Isle Royale. Those
islands, across several miles of heaving water, were still too far away
to be reached. Wind and waves were carrying the bateau by. The sun,
coming up in an almost clear sky, found the boat still running southwest
on a course almost parallel with the unattainable chain of islands.
As the hours passed, the boys were encouraged to discover that they were
drawing gradually nearer and nearer to the islands on the right. What was
still better, they were bearing straight towards land ahead, continuous,
high land they knew must be the main shore. It seemed that they must
reach the mainland not many miles to the southwest of the place where the
chain of islands diverged from it. Hugh had long since ceased to be
particular where he landed, if it was only in some spot where food might
be obtained. Rations the day before had been very scanty, and he was
exceedingly hungry.
The wind was strong but steady, the waves long and high. The bateau, as
it plunged down into the trough, continued to ship a little water, but
the boys kept it down by bailing when a hand and arm could be spared.
They were borne nearer and nearer to the land. As they ran past a group
of small islets not more than a half mile distant, with a larger and
higher island showing beyond them, Hugh glanced that way and considered
trying to turn.
Blaise guessed his brother’s thought. “The mainland is not far now,” he
said, “and we go straight towards it. Let us go on until we can land
without danger to the furs. There will be more chance to find food on the
mainland also.”
Both of the younger boy’s arguments had weight with Hugh. He gave up the
idea of attempting to turn, and they went on with wind and waves. At the
end of another hour they were bearing down upon an irregular, rocky
point.
“Is that island or mainland, do you think?” Hugh inquired.
“Mainland,” was the unhesitating reply. “I remember the place. Have I not
passed it three times in the last two moons?”
Hugh made no answer. He himself must have passed that spot twice within
two months, but there were so many rocky points along the shore. Hugh was
observing enough in the white man’s way, but he did not see how Blaise
could remember all those places and tell them apart.
The bateau ran close to the point. When a bay came into view, Hugh
expected Blaise to steer in, but the latter made no move to do so.
“It is steep and rocky there,” he explained, with a nod towards the
abrupt-shored cove. “Beyond yet a little way is a better place, shallow
and well protected.”
Past another point and along a steep rock shore they sailed. Here they
were in much calmer water, for the points broke the force of wind and
waves. As they approached a group of small islands, Blaise remarked, “It
is best to take down the sail. We can paddle in.”
Accordingly Hugh lowered the sail and took up his paddle, while Blaise
steered the bateau in among the islets. In a few moments the haven lay
revealed, an almost round bay, its entrance nearly closed by islets. The
islands and the points on either side were rocky, but the shores of the
bay were low and densely wooded with tamarack, cedar and black spruce.
The water was almost calm, and the boys made a landing on a bit of beach
on the inner side and under the high land of the right hand point.
Hugh had not realized that he was particularly tired. The strain of the
dangerous voyage had kept him alert, but he had had no sleep for two
nights. Now, suddenly, an overpowering weariness and weakness came over
him. His legs almost collapsed under him. He dropped down on the beach,
too utterly exhausted to move. He was on solid land again, but he could
scarcely realize it. His head was dizzy, and the moment his eyes closed
he seemed to be heaving up and down again.
XXXII
THE FIRE AT THE END OF THE TRAIL
When Hugh woke, the dizziness and sense of swaying up and down were gone.
He sat up, feeling strangely weak and hollow, and looked about him. The
bateau was drawn up on the beach, but Blaise was nowhere in sight. From
the shadows Hugh could tell that the sun was on its downward journey. He
had slept several hours. He was just gathering up his courage to get up,
when he heard a stone rattling down the rock hill behind him. Turning his
head, he saw Blaise descending. The boy was carrying several fish strung
on a withe. Hugh eyed those fish with hungry eyes. He could almost eat
them raw, he thought. He got to his feet and looked around for fuel. Not
until he had a fire kindled, and,—too impatient to let it burn down to
coals or to wait for water to heat,—was holding a piece of fish on a
crotched stick before the blaze, did he ask his younger brother where he
had been.
“I slept for a while,” Blaise admitted, “but not for long. My hunger was
too great. I took my gun and my line and climbed to the top of the point.
I went along the steep cliff, but I found no game and no tracks. Then I
came to that rocky bay. The shores are steep there and the water clear. I
climbed out upon a rock and caught these fish. They are not big, but they
are better than no food.”
“They certainly are,” Hugh agreed whole-heartedly.
The elder brother’s pride in his own strength and endurance was humbled.
He had slept, exhausted, for hours, while the half-breed boy, nearly
three years younger than himself, had walked two or three miles in search
of food.
When no eatable morsel of the fish remained, the brothers’ thoughts
turned to their next move.
“We are far nearer the Grand Portage than the Kaministikwia,” Hugh said
thoughtfully. “We had better follow my first plan and go down the shore
instead of up. We can surely find others at the Portage willing to go
with us against Ohrante.”
“It is all we can do,” Blaise assented, “unless we wait here for the wind
to change. It is almost from the north now. We must go against it if we
go up the Bay of Thunder. The other way, the shore will shelter us. But
we cannot start yet. We must wait a little for the waves to go down.”
“And in the meantime we will seek more food,” Hugh added. “Why not try
fishing among those little islands?”
The channels among the islets proved good fishing ground. By sunset the
lads had plenty of trout to insure against any danger of starvation for
another day at least. The waves had gone down enough to permit travel in
the shelter of the shore. Sailing was out of the question, and paddling
the laden bateau would be slow work, but Hugh was too impatient to delay
longer, and Blaise more than willing to go on.
After half an hour of slow progress, the younger brother made a
suggestion. “We are not far from the Rivière aux Tourtres now.” He used
the French name for the Pigeon River, a name which seems to mean “river
of turtles.” The word _tourtres_ doubtless referred to turtle doves or
pigeons. “To paddle this bateau,” Blaise went on, “is very slow, and to
reach Wauswaugoning by water we must go far out into the waves around
that long point below the river mouth. But along the south bank of the
river is an Ojibwa trail. At a bend the trail leaves the river and goes
on across the point to Wauswaugoning. We shall save time if we go that
way, by land.”
“What about the boat and the furs?”
“We will leave them behind. There is a little cove near the river mouth
where the bateau will be safe. The furs we can hide among the rocks. We
shall not be gone many days if all goes well. No white man I think and
few Ojibwas go that way. An Ojibwa will not disturb a cache,” Blaise
added confidently.
“Yet I don’t like the idea of leaving the furs,” Hugh protested.
“They will be safer there than at the Grand Portage, where the men of the
Old Company might find them.”
“Why not turn them over to the X Y clerk at the Portage?” Hugh
questioned.
“No, no. If our father had wanted them taken there he would have said so.
Again and again he said to take them to the New Company at the
Kaministikwia. He had a debt there, a small one, and he did not like the
man in charge at the Grand Portage. There was some trouble between them,
I know not what.”
Blaise was usually willing to yield to his elder brother’s judgment, but
this time he proved obstinate. Jean Beaupré’s commands must be carried
out to the letter. His younger son would not consent to the slightest
modification.
Darkness had come when the two reached the mouth of the Pigeon River, but
the moon was bright and Blaise had no difficulty steering into the little
cove. Alders growing down to the water concealed the boat when it was
pulled up among them. Blaise assured Hugh that, even in daylight, it
could not be seen from the narrow entrance to the cove. The mast was
taken down and the sail spread over the bottom of a hollow in the rocks.
On the canvas the bales of furs were piled, and a blanket was thrown over
the heap. The boys cut several poles, laid them across the hole, the ends
resting on the rock rim, and covered them with sheets of birch bark,
stripped from an old, half-dead tree. The crude roof, weighted down with
stones, would serve to keep out small animals as well as to shed rain.
All this work was done rapidly by the light of the moon.
The cache completed, Blaise led Hugh to the opening of the trail at the
river mouth. The trail, the boy said, had been used by the Ojibwas for
many years. A narrow, rough, but distinct path had been trodden by the
many moccasined feet that had travelled over it. The moonlight filtered
through the trees, and Blaise, who had been that way before, followed the
track readily. With them the brothers carried the remaining blanket, the
gun, ammunition, kettle and the rest of their fish. As Blaise had said,
the trail ran along the south bank until a bend was reached, then,
leaving the river, went on in the same westerly direction across the
point of land between the mouth of the Pigeon River and Wauswaugoning
Bay. The whole distance was not more than three miles, and the boys made
good time.
Hugh thought they must be nearing the end of the path, when Blaise
stopped suddenly with a low exclamation. The elder brother looked over
the younger’s shoulder. Among the trees ahead glowed the yellow light of
a small fire.
“Wait here a moment,” Blaise whispered. And he slipped forward among the
trees.
In a few minutes he was back again. “There are three men,” he said,
“sleeping by a fire, a white man and two Ojibwas. One of the Ojibwas I
know and he knew our father. We need not fear, but because of the white
man, we will say nothing of the furs.”
The two went forward almost noiselessly, but, in spite of their quiet
approach, when they came out of the woods by the fire, one of the Indians
woke and sat up.
“Bo-jou,” remarked Blaise.
The second Indian was awake now. “Bo-jou, bo-jou,” both replied, gazing
at the newcomers.
The white man rolled over, but before he could speak, Hugh sprang towards
him with a cry of pleasure. “Baptiste, it is good to see you! How come
you here?”
“Eh lá, Hugh Beaupré, and I might ask that of you yourself,” returned the
astonished Frenchman. “I inquired for you at the Grand Portage, but the
men at the fort knew nothing of you. When I said you were with your
brother Attekonse, one man remembered seeing him with a white man. That
was all I could learn. I was sore afraid some evil had befallen you. You
are long in returning to the Sault.”
“Yes,” Hugh replied with some hesitation. “I have stayed longer than I
intended. Is the _Otter_ at the Grand Portage, Baptiste?”
“No, she has returned to the New Fort. I came on her to the Grand
Portage. We brought supplies for the post and for the northmen going
inland to winter. There was a man at the Portage, a Canadian like myself,
who wanted sorely to go to the Kaministikwia. He has wife and child
there, and the mate of the sloop brought him word that the child was very
sick. So as I have neither wife nor child and am in no haste, I let him
have my place. Now I am returning by canoe, with Manihik and Keneu here.”
At the mention of their names, the two Indians nodded gravely towards
Hugh and repeated their “Bo-jou, bo-jou.”
“We camp here until the wind goes down,” Baptiste concluded.
During the Frenchman’s explanation, Hugh had been doing some rapid
thinking and had come to a decision. He knew Baptiste for a simple,
honest, true-hearted fellow. In one of his Indian companions Blaise had
already expressed confidence.
“Baptiste,” Hugh asked abruptly, “have you ever heard of Ohrante, the
Iroquois hunter?”
There was a fierce grunt from one of the Indians. The black eyes of both
were fixed on Hugh.
“Truly I have,” Baptiste replied promptly. “As great a villain as ever
went unhanged.”
“Would you like to help get him hanged?”
Keneu sprang to his feet. It was evident he had understood something of
what Hugh had said. “I go,” he cried fiercely in bad French. “Where is
the Iroquois wolf?”
“There is an island down the shore,” Hugh went on, “the Island of
Torture, Ohrante calls it, where he and his band take their prisoners and
torture them to death. Sometime soon he is to hold a sort of council
there.”
“How know you that?” Baptiste interrupted.
“I shall have to tell you the whole story.” Hugh turned to his
half-brother. “Blaise, shall we tell them all? Baptiste I can trust, I
know.”
“As you think best, my brother.”
Sitting on a log by the fire at the edge of the woods, while the
moonlight flooded the bay beyond, Hugh related his strange tale to the
amazed and excited Canadian and the intent, fierce-eyed Keneu, the “War
Eagle.” The other Indian also watched and listened, but it was evident
from his face that he understood little or nothing of what was said. Hugh
made few concealments. Frankly he told the story of the search for the
hidden furs, the encounters with Ohrante and his band, the capture and
escape, and what Blaise had learned from overhearing the conversations
between Monga and the Indian with the red head band. Hugh did not
mention, however, the packet he carried under his shirt, nor did he say
definitely where he and Blaise had left the bateau and the furs. Those
details were not essential to the story, and might as well be omitted.
“We know now it was through Ohrante father was killed,” the boy
concluded, “and we, Blaise and I, intend that the Iroquois shall pay the
penalty for his crime. He has other evil deeds to pay for as well, and
that isn’t all. As long as he is at liberty, he is a menace to white man
and peaceable Indian alike. He calls himself Chief of Minong, and he has
an ambition to be a sort of savage king. He is swollen with vanity and
belief in his own greatness, and he seems to be a natural leader of men,
with a sort of uncanny influence over those he draws about him. One
moment you think him ridiculous, but the next you are not sure he is not
a great man. If he succeeds in gathering a really strong band he can do
serious harm.”
Keneu gave a grunt of assent, and Baptiste nodded emphatically. “He must
be taken,” the latter said.
“Taken or destroyed, like the wolf he is,” Hugh replied grimly. “We have
a plan, Blaise and I.”
For nearly an hour longer, the five sat by the fire discussing, in
English, French and Ojibwa, Hugh’s plan. Then, a decision reached, each
rolled himself in his blanket for a few hours’ sleep.
XXXIII
THE CAPTURE OF MONGA
Baptiste’s canoe was large enough to accommodate Hugh and Blaise, and the
party were up and away early. The lake was no longer rough, so they made
good time through Wauswaugoning Bay and around the point to the Grand
Portage. Though Baptiste had been employed, in one capacity or another,
by the Old Northwest Company, he was under no contract. An independent
spirited fellow, who came and went much as he pleased, he did not feel
under any obligation to the Old Company and was not an ardent partisan of
that organization, so he made no objection when Hugh proposed that they
try the X Y post for help in their undertaking. The men of either company
would be glad no doubt to lay hands on the rascally Iroquois but the X Y
men’s grievance was the stronger, since Ohrante had been in the employ of
the Old Company when he committed his first crime. The white man he had
slain was an independent trapper, affiliated with neither company, but
Jean Beaupré had been under contract, for the one season at least, to the
New Company. To learn that he too had come to his death through the Giant
Mohawk would add fuel to the flame of the X Y men’s anger.
Shunning the Old Company’s dock, the party crossed the bay to the X Y
landing. At the post Hugh and Blaise told as much of their story as was
essential to prove that they had really encountered Ohrante, had learned
his plans and knew where to lay hands on him. The time for the annual
meeting of the New Northwest Company, still held at the Grand Portage
post, was approaching. None of the partners or leading men had yet
arrived, but most of the northmen, as the men who wintered inland west of
the lake, were called, had come with their furs, and a considerable
number of Indians were gathered at the post. The agent in charge could
not leave, but in a very few minutes the boys had recruited a dozen men,
half-breeds and Indians, with one white man, a Scotchman, to lead them.
It would not do to approach the Island of Torture in too great force.
Hugh and Blaise, with Baptiste and the two Indians, were to go first,
find out whether Ohrante’s recruits had assembled and watch for the
coming of the chief himself. The men from the Grand Portage, in two
canoes, would start later. Hugh had a very simple plan, which promised to
be effective, to prevent Ohrante from leaving his council island before
the Grand Portage party arrived.
The plan of campaign arranged, the scouts got under way at once. As they
rounded the high point to the south and west of the Grand Portage Bay,
they noticed, coming from the open lake, a large canoe with only two men.
It was headed straight for the land, but suddenly swung about and turned
down shore. Blaise, who was second from the bow, raised his paddle for a
moment, while he gazed intently at the other canoe.
Turning his head, he called back to Hugh and Baptiste, “Red Band! We must
catch them. It is Red Band and I think Monga.”
“_Vite!_ Make speed!” ordered Baptiste. “We will separate those two from
the rest of Ohrante’s rascals.”