end of the little island. If the Indians were all gathered around the
fire, they could not see the canoe crossing from the mainland. Someone
might be down at the shore, but the attacking party had to take a chance
of that. Luckily the short passage was accomplished before the next
flash.
On the inner side of the little island, the trees and bushes grew down to
the water. In absolute silence, the canoe slipped along, close in.
Another bright flash of lightning, quickly followed by a peal of thunder,
caused Keneu to hold his blade motionless. The boat was well screened by
the trees, however, and there was no sign that it had been observed.
That flash of lightning had revealed something to Hugh. Just ahead was a
little curve in the margin of the island, and beyond it, a short, blunt
projection, a bit of beach with alders growing well down upon it. On the
beach were two canoes. To reach the spot, however, it would be necessary
to pass an open gap, a sort of lane leading up from the shore to the
place where the fire burned. Through the gap the firelight shone out upon
the water. It would never do to try to pass in the canoe.
Hugh dipped his paddle and gave it a twist. The Indian understood. He too
saw the firelight on the water. The canoe swerved towards shore and
slowed down. Before it could touch and make a noise, Hugh was overside,
stepping quickly but carefully, to avoid the slightest splash. Blaise
followed. Keneu remained in the boat. He allowed his end to swing in far
enough so he could grasp an overhanging branch and hold the craft steady.
Now came the most difficult part of the undertaking, to creep in the
darkness through the dense growth, which came clear to the water line,
around to the beach where the canoe lay. Hugh, as leader, intended to go
first, but he did not get the chance. Before he realized what the younger
boy was about, Blaise had slipped past him and taken the lead. It was
well he did so for Blaise, slender and agile, was an adept at wriggling
his way snake-like, and he seemed to have a sixth sense in the darkness
that Hugh did not possess. So Hugh was constrained to let his younger
brother pick the route. He had all he could do to follow without rustling
or crackling the thick growth. Progress was necessarily very slow, only a
few feet or even inches at a time. Whenever there came a lightning flash,
both lay flat. The flashes were less revealing in the dense growth, and
luckily the trees stood thick between the two lads and the fire.
Blaise had reached the edge of the gap through which the yellow-red
firelight shone. He could see the fire itself, a big, roaring pile, and
the figures moving around it. The sound of voices speaking Ojibwa and
Iroquois came to his ears. Reaching back with one foot, he gave Hugh a
little warning kick, then looked for some way to cross the open space.
The Island of Torture, like most of the islands off the northwest shore
of the lake, consisted of a low, flat-topped, rock ridge descending
gradually to the water on one side and more abruptly on the other. The
lane was a natural opening down a steep slope from the ridge top to the
water. Just at the base of the open rock lane, at the very edge of the
water, grew a row of low shrubs, so low that they did not shut off the
light of the fire, but cast only a narrow line of shadow. The one way to
cross that gap without being seen was to crawl along in the shadow of
those bushes. The water might be shallow there or it might be deep. Lying
flat, Blaise put one hand into the shadowed water. His fingers touched
bottom. He felt around a little, then crawled forward. The water proved
to be only a few inches deep. Prostrate, he wriggled along the rock
bottom in the narrow band of shadow. When Blaise had reached the shelter
of the woods beyond, Hugh followed, taking extreme care to slip along
like an eel, without a splash.
The brothers were now but a short distance from the canoes. The thick
growing alders fringing the pebbles shut off the firelight. The chief
peril was that someone might be guarding the boats. Eyes and ears
strained for the slightest sign of danger, the two crawled forward on
hands and knees. They reached the first canoe without alarm and went on
to the second. Still hidden from the Indians around the fire, the boys
lifted the canoe and turned it bottom side up. Blaise drew his knife from
the sheath and carefully, without a sound of ripping, cut a great hole in
the bark, removing a section between the ribs. Then the two carried the
boat out a few feet and deposited it upon the water. It began to fill
immediately, the water entering the big hole with only a slight gurgling
noise. Even that sound alarmed the lads. They beat a hasty retreat and
lay close under the alders. The Indians around the fire, however, were
too engrossed in their own affairs to heed the sound, if indeed it
carried that far.
A man with a full, deep voice was speaking at length, his tones reaching
the boys where they lay hidden. Every now and then his listeners broke in
with little grunts and ejaculations of approval or assent. A crash of
thunder, following close upon a bright flash, drowned his voice. When the
rumbling ceased, he was no longer speaking. Something else was happening
now. Little cries and grunts, accompanied by the beating together of wood
and metal and the click of rattles in rude rhythm, came to the boys’
ears.
“They are dancing,” thought Hugh. “What fools to make such an exhibition
here where a boat may pass at any moment! Ohrante is certainly insane or
very sure he is invincible. It is time we finished our work.”
He missed Blaise from his side, and crept down to the remaining canoe,
supposing his younger brother had gone that way. Blaise was not there.
Hugh waited several minutes, listening to the grunts and cries, which,
low voiced at first, were growing louder and faster as the dancers warmed
to their work. Suddenly one of them uttered a yell, which was followed by
quite a different sound, an animal’s bellow of rage or pain. Hugh was
both alarmed and curious. What was going on up there, and what had become
of Blaise?
The elder brother crept back across the pebbles, pushed his way
cautiously among the alders, and crawled up a short, steep slope topped
by more bushes and trees, through which the firelight flickered. The
noises of the dance, broken by louder cries and angry bellows, continued.
Crouching low in the shadow, Hugh peeped through at the strangest scene
he had ever looked upon.
In the open space a big fire blazed, casting its reddish-yellow glare
over the picture. Between the fire and the boy, the dancing figures of
the Indians passed back and forth, crouching, stamping, gesticulating, to
the rhythm of their hoarse cries and the clicking of their weapons and
rattles. All were naked to the waist and some entirely so. Their faces
and bodies were streaked and daubed with black and white, yellow and red.
Near by, in dignified immobility, stood the self-styled Chief of Minong,
his tall feather upright in his head band, his face and breast
fantastically painted in black and vermilion. His bronze body was
stripped to the waist, displaying to advantage the breadth of his
shoulders and the great muscles of his long arms. A little shudder passed
down Hugh’s spine as his eyes rested upon that huge, towering form and
the set, cruel face. Yet it was neither the war dance nor Ohrante that
held his surprised gaze longest.
A little to one side of the fire, the tall birch rose straight and high
above its fellows. To its white stem was tied, not a human victim this
time, but the dark form of an animal, a moose. As the beast tossed its
head about in frenzy, Hugh could see that its antlers, still covered with
the fuzzy velvet, had no broad palms and bore but two points on either
side. It was a crotch horn or two year old. Every few moments one or
another of the dancers would utter a yell or war whoop, dart towards the
captive animal, strike it a swift blow with knife, spear or firebrand,
then leap nimbly out of the way of its tossing antlers and flying
forefeet. A favorite sport seemed to be to strike the beast upon the
sensitive end of the nose with a burning pole. The moose was wild with
rage and pain, plunging madly about, swaying the birch almost to
breaking. The bonds were strong and the tree failed to snap, yet the boy
wondered how long it would be before something gave and freed the
frenzied beast. He thought the young moose did not realize his own
strength, but when he should find it out, Hugh did not want to be in the
way.
The watcher was just about to retreat to the beach, when the dancing
suddenly stopped. Drops of rain were beginning to fall, but the shower
was not the reason for the cessation of the dancing. Ohrante had raised
his arm in an impressive gesture. The dancers lowered their weapons and
rattles and drew back to the other side of the fire. Majestically Ohrante
stalked forward and confronted the plunging moose. Lightning flashed,
thunder pealed, there came a sharp dash of rain, the fire hissing and
spitting like a live thing as the drops struck it. But Ohrante did not
intend to be deprived of his cruel sport by a mere thunder shower. He
held in his right hand a long pole with a knife lashed to the end.
Standing just out of reach of the enraged beast’s antlers and forefeet,
he lunged directly at its throat.
There came a dazzling flash, a flare of light, a stunning crash that
seemed to shatter Hugh’s ear-drums. Even as the flash blinded his eyes,
they received a momentary impression of a great black object hurtling at
and over the giant Indian, as he toppled backward into the fire. The next
instant a huge bulk crashed through the bushes almost on top of the boy.
A tremendous splash followed.
XXXVI
HOW BLAISE MISSED HIS REVENGE
The rain came down in torrents. Thunder pealed and crashed, and Hugh, a
roaring in his head, his whole body shaking convulsively, lay on his face
among the bushes. A hand seized his shoulder and instantly he came to
himself. He started up and reached for the knife he had borrowed from
Baptiste, then knew it was his half-brother who was speaking.
“Quick,” Blaise whispered. “Follow me close.”
The rain was lessening, the thunder peals were not so deafening. From the
beach below came the sound of voices. With bitterness, Hugh realized that
he and Blaise had delayed too long. The Indians had reached the one canoe
and had discovered that the other was missing.
“They are going to get away. We must do something to stop Ohrante at
least.”
“Ohrante is stopped, I think,” Blaise replied quietly. “I go to see.” And
he wriggled through the dripping bushes.
Hugh followed close on his younger brother’s heels. Out from the shelter
of the trees into the open space the two crawled. Where the fire had
blazed there was now only smoke. A flash of lightning illuminated the
spot. It seemed utterly deserted except for one motionless form. Without
hesitation the brothers crept across the open, no longer single file, but
side by side. The thing they had caught sight of when the lightning
flashed, lay outstretched and partly hidden by the cloud of smoke from
the quenched fire. As they drew near, there was another bright flash.
There lay the giant figure of Ohrante the Mohawk, his head among the
blackened embers, his broad chest battered to a shapeless mass by the
sharp fore hooves of the frenzied moose. Hugh was glad that the flash of
light lasted but an instant. The merciful darkness blotted out the
horrible sight. He turned away sickened.
The report of a musket, another and another, shouts and yells and
splashings, came from the channel between island and mainland.
“The men from the Grand Portage,” cried Hugh. “They have come just in
time. Not all of Ohrante’s rascals will escape.”
He ran down the open lane, Blaise after him. The flashes and reports, the
shouts and cries, proved that a battle was on. The black shapes of canoes
filled with men were distinguishable on the water. A pale flash of the
now distant lightning revealed to the lads one craft close in shore. It
contained but one man.
“Keneu,” Hugh called.
The Indian had seen the boys. He swerved the canoe towards the line of
low bushes at the foot of the gap, and Hugh and Blaise ran out into the
water to step aboard. The yells and musket shots had ceased. The fight
seemed to be over. But another canoe was coming in towards the island
beach. Did that boat hold friends or enemies?
“Holá, Hugh Beaupré,” a familiar voice called. “Where are you?”
“Here, Baptiste, all right, both of us,” Hugh shouted in reply.
“Thank the good God,” Baptiste ejaculated fervently.
The canoe came on and made a landing on the beach. Hugh, Blaise and Keneu
beached their craft near by.
“Did you catch those fellows?” Hugh asked eagerly.
“We sunk their canoe and some are drowned. Others may have reached shore.
The rest of our men have gone over there to search. But where is Ohrante?
We have seen nothing of him. Is he still on this isle?”
“Yes, he is here,” Hugh replied, a little shudder convulsing his body.
“But Ohrante is no longer to be feared.”
“He is dead? Who killed him? One of you?” Baptiste glanced quickly from
one lad to the other.
“No, the victim he was torturing killed him.”
“Another victim? What became of him? Did he escape?”
“He escaped. By now he is probably in safety.”
“Good! Then we have——”
A shout from the top of the island interrupted Baptiste. The other men
from the canoe, who had scattered to search for any of Ohrante’s band who
might be in hiding, had discovered the body. The boys and Baptiste went
up to join them, and Hugh described what he had seen and how the Chief of
Minong had come to his death.
“A frightful fate truly, but he brought it upon himself by torturing the
beast,” the Frenchman exclaimed. “But how was it they had a captive
moose? Surely they did not bring it across from the Isle Royale?”
“No.” It was Blaise who spoke. “Keneu says the men from the mainland
brought the moose. Keneu saw the beast tied to a tree at their camp. It
was a two year old and seemed tame. He thought it had been raised in
captivity. They brought it to kill for a feast. Hugh and I saw it swim
across behind their canoe.”
“Ohrante had no human captive to torture.” Hugh shuddered again,
realizing that he himself had been the intended victim. “He had no man to
practice his cruelty upon, so he used the animal. What a fiend the fellow
was!”
Not one of Ohrante’s band was found on the island. The sudden fall of
their chief had so appalled them that they had fled, every man of them,
to the beach and had crowded into the one remaining canoe. The
explanation of Ohrante’s fate was clear. The lightning had struck the top
of the tall birch. The young moose, already wild with pain and fright,
was driven to utter frenzy by the crash and shock. It had burst its bonds
and plunged straight at its nearest tormentor, knocking him into the
fire, stamping upon his body with its sharp hooves, and then dashing for
the lake and freedom. A terrible revenge the crotch horn had taken.
Hugh’s plan had been to sink one canoe and steal the other, leaving the
Chief of Minong and his followers marooned on the little island. He had
hoped that the loss of the boats would not be discovered before morning.
Then the besieging party could demand the surrender of Ohrante, promising
his followers, if necessary, that they should go free if they would
deliver up their chief. Even if they refused, there seemed no chance for
Ohrante to get away. Before he could build canoes, the attacking party
could easily raise a force sufficient to rush the island. If members of
the band should attempt to swim the channel or cross it on a raft, they
would be at the mercy of the besiegers. Sooner or later the giant and his
men would be compelled to yield.
In accordance with this plan, the boys had set out to make away with
Ohrante’s canoes. When ample time to carry out the manœuvre had passed,
and they did not return, Baptiste had grown anxious. The sounds of the
war dance and the bellows of the captive moose, carrying across the
water, had increased his alarm. The men from the Grand Portage arriving
just before the storm broke, Baptiste signalled them and they held
themselves in readiness to go to the rescue of the lads. The watchers saw
the lightning strike the island. They heard the tumult as the frightened
Indians, believing some supernatural power had intervened to destroy
their chief, fled to the beach. At once Baptiste’s men, regardless of the
storm, started for the island. A flash of lightning showed them a canoe
crossing to the mainland. Attack followed and the canoe was sunk or
overturned. One boat of the attacking party put into shore to cut off the
flight of any of the band who might succeed in reaching land. The other
turned to the island.
When the whole force came together at dawn, they had taken two prisoners
and had found the dead bodies of two other Indians besides Ohrante. The
Mohawk had brought but three men with him and four others had joined him
at the island. Three were therefore unaccounted for. They might have been
drowned or they might have escaped. The important thing was that Ohrante
was dead and his band broken up.
The headlong flight of the great chief’s followers was explained by one
of the prisoners. The Indians had believed the giant Iroquois invincible.
He had the reputation, as Monga had said, of being a medicine man or
magician of great powers. He claimed to have had, in early youth, a dream
in which it was revealed to him that no human hand would ever strike him
down. The dream explained the boldness and rashness of his behavior. It
also threw light on his fear of powers not human. Suddenly he was felled,
not by human hand indeed, but by the dreadful thunder bird and the hooves
of a beast which surely must be a spirit in disguise. The invincible was
vanquished and his followers were panic stricken. The three men Ohrante
had brought from Minong led the flight. They had seen and heard the
threatening manifestations of Nanibozho, Kepoochikan and their attendant
manitos on that island. Two of the band, the captive said, had been left
on Minong to guard the camp. Of them neither Hugh nor Blaise ever heard
again. Whether the Indians remained on the island or whether after a time
they returned to the mainland and learned of Ohrante’s death, the lads
never knew.
With the fate of the giant Mohawk all the attacking party were well
satisfied except Blaise. He was so glum and silent that Hugh could not
understand what had come over the lad. After their return to the Grand
Portage, Blaise opened his heart.
“I wished to kill our father’s enemy with my own hands,” he confessed to
Hugh. “It was the duty of you or me to avenge him, and I wished for the
honor. You saw not in the darkness that I took my musket with me. When we
crept in the water below that open place, I carried the musket on my back
not to wet it. And then when I knelt among the trees and he stood there
with his arms folded, I had him in good range. But, my brother, I could
not shoot. It was not that I feared for myself or you. No, I felt no
fear. I could not shoot him unarmed and with no chance to fight for his
life. I am a fool, a coward, a disgrace to the Ojibwa nation.”
“No, no, you are nothing of the kind,” Hugh cried indignantly. “There is
no braver lad anywhere. You are no coward, you are a white man, Blaise,
and an honorable one. That is why you couldn’t shoot Ohrante in the back
from ambush. I know there are white men who do such things and feel no
shame. But would father have done it, do you think? Would he?”
A little anxiously, Hugh waited for the answer. He had known his father
so little, and Jean Beaupré had lived long among savages. The reply came
at last, slowly and thoughtfully.
“No,” said the younger son, “no, our father would never have shot a man
in the back.”
XXXVII
THE PACKET IS OPENED
With eager curiosity Hugh Beaupré sat watching Monsieur Dubois unwrap the
mysterious packet. The adventurous journey was over. The ex-members of
Ohrante’s band, including Monga, had been turned over to the fur
companies to be dealt with. The pelts had been safely delivered to the
New Northwest Company at the Kaministikwia, Jean Beaupré’s small debt
cancelled, and the rest of the price paid divided between the two boys.
The furs had proved of fine quality, and Hugh was well satisfied with his
share. He had been given a draft on the company’s bankers in Montreal,
who had paid him in gold. Blaise had chosen to take his half in winter
supplies, and, with Hugh and Baptiste to back him, had won the respect of
the company’s clerk as a shrewd bargainer. At the Kaministikwia, the
younger boy had found his mother with a party of her people, and Hugh,
less reluctant than at the beginning of his journey, had made her
acquaintance. Regretfully parting with Blaise, the elder brother had
joined the great canoe fleet returning with the furs. He was able to
qualify as a canoeman, and he had remained with the fleet during the
whole trip to Montreal. Of that interesting but strenuous journey there
is no space to tell here.
One of the lad’s first acts after reaching the city had been to seek out
Monsieur Dubois. Dubois proved to be a prominent man among the French
people of Montreal, and Hugh had found him without difficulty. After
explaining how he had come by the packet, the lad had placed it in the
Frenchman’s hands. He had learned from this thin, grave, white-haired man
that he, René Dubois, had lived in the Indian country for many years.
During the first months of Jean Beaupré’s life in the wild Superior
region, Dubois, though considerably older, had been the friend and
companion of Hugh’s father. When an inheritance had come to him, the
elder man had been called back to Montreal, where he had since lived.
Beaupré, on his infrequent returns to civilization, had made brief calls
on his old comrade, but they had no common business interests and had
never corresponded. Monsieur Dubois was, therefore, at a loss to
understand why Hugh’s father had been so anxious that this packet should
reach him.
He undid the outer wrapping, glanced at his own name on the bark label,
cut the cord, broke the seals and removed the doeskin. Several thin white
sheets of birch bark covered with fine writing in the faint, muddy,
home-made ink, and a small, flat object wrapped in another thin cover of
doeskin, were all the packet contained. When his fingers closed on the
object within the skin cover, the man’s face paled, then flushed. His
hands trembled as he removed the wrapping. For several moments he sat
staring at the little disk of yellow metal, turning it over and over in
his fingers. Why it should affect Monsieur Dubois so strongly Hugh could
not imagine. It was obvious that the white-haired man was trying to
control some strong emotion. Without a word to the boy, he laid the disk
down, and Hugh could see that it was a gold coin. Taking the bark sheets
from the table where he had laid them, Dubois scanned them rapidly, then
turned again to the beginning and read them slowly and intently. When he
raised his eyes, Hugh was surprised to see that they were glistening with
tears. His voice trembled as he spoke.
“You cannot know, Hugh Beaupré, what a great service you have done me. It
is impossible that I can ever repay you. You do not understand, you
cannot, until I explain. But first I would ask you a question or two, if
you will pardon me.”
“Of course,” replied Hugh wonderingly. “I shall be glad to answer
anything that I can, Monsieur Dubois.”
“Well then, about that half-brother of yours, what sort of a lad is he?”
“As fine a lad as you will find anywhere, Monsieur,” Hugh answered
promptly. “When I first received his letter, I was prejudiced against
him, I admit.” He flushed and hesitated.
Dubois nodded understandingly. “But now?” he questioned.
“Now I love him as if he were my _whole_ brother,” Hugh said warmly. “We
went through much together, he saved me from a horrible fate, and I
learned to know him well. A finer, truer-hearted fellow than Blaise never
existed.”
Again Dubois nodded, apparently well satisfied. “And his mother?”