Men, women, dogs, children sprang into sight from nowhere, and ran
pell-mell to the two cannon. Galen Albret, reappearing from the
factory, began to issue orders. Two men set about hoisting on the
tall flag-staff the blood-red banner of the Company. Speculation,
excited and earnest, arose among the men as to which of the
branches of the Moose this _brigade_ had hunted--the Abitibi, the
Mattagami, or the Missinaibie. The half-breed women shaded their
eyes. Mrs. Cockburn, the doctor's wife, and the only other white
woman in the settlement, came and stood by Virginia Albret's side.
Wishkobun, the Ojibway woman from the south country, and Virginia's
devoted familiar, took her half-jealous stand on the other.
"It is the same every year. We always like to see them come," said
Mrs. Cockburn, in her monotonous low voice of resignation.
"Yes," replied Virginia, moving a little impatiently, for she
anticipated eagerly the picturesque coming of these men of the
Silent Places, and wished to savor the pleasure undistracted.
"Mi-di-mo-yay ka'-win-ni-shi-shin," said Wishkobun, quietly.
"Ae," replied Virginia, with a little laugh, patting the woman's
brown hand.
A shout arose. Around the bend shot a canoe. At once every paddle
in it was raised to a perpendicular salute, then all together
dashed into the water with the full strength of the _voyageurs_
wielding them. The canoe fairly leaped through the cloud of spray.
Another rounded the bend, another double row of paddles flashed in
the sunlight, another crew broke into a tumult of rapid exertion as
they raced the last quarter mile of the long journey. A third
burst into view, a fourth, a fifth. The silent river was alive
with motion, glittering with color. The canoes swept onward, like
race-horses straining against the rider. Now the spectators could
make out plainly the boatmen. It could be seen that they had
decked themselves out for the occasion. Their heads were bound
with bright-colored fillets, their necks with gay scarves. The
paddles were adorned with gaudy woollen streamers. New leggings,
of holiday pattern, were intermittently visible on the bowsmen and
steersmen as they half rose to give added force to their efforts.
At first the men sang their canoe songs, but as the swift rush of
the birch-barks brought them almost to their journey's end, they
burst into wild shrieks and whoops of delight.
All at once they were close to hand. The steersman rose to throw
his entire weight on the paddle. The canoe swung abruptly for the
shore. Those in it did not relax their exertions, but continued
their vigorous strokes until within a few yards of apparent
destruction.
"Hola! hola!" they cried, thrusting their paddles straight down
into the water with a strong backward twist. The stout wood bent
and cracked. The canoe stopped short and the _voyageurs_ leaped
ashore to be swallowed up in the crowd that swarmed down upon them.
The races were about equally divided, and each acted after its
instincts--the Indian greeting his people quietly, and stalking
away to the privacy of his wigwam; the more volatile white catching
his wife or his sweetheart or his child to his arms. A swarm of
Indian women and half-grown children set about unloading the
canoes. Virginia's eyes ran over the crews of the various craft.
She recognized them all, of course, to the last Indian packer, for
in so small a community the personality and doings of even the
humblest members are well known to everyone. Long since she had
identified the _brigade_. It was of the Missinaibie, the great
river whose head-waters rise a scant hundred feet from those that
flow as many miles south into Lake Superior. It drains a wild and
rugged country whose forests cling to bowlder hills, whose streams
issue from deep-riven gorges, where for many years the big gray
wolves had gathered in unusual abundance. She knew by heart the
winter posts, although she had never seen them. She could imagine
the isolation of such a place, and the intense loneliness of the
solitary man condemned to live through the dark Northern winters,
seeing no one but the rare Indians who might come in to trade with
him for their pelts. She could appreciate the wild joy of a return
for a brief season to the company of fellow-men.
When her glance fell upon the last of the canoes, it rested with a
flash of surprise. The craft was still floating idly, its bow
barely caught against the bank. The crew had deserted, but
amidships, among the packages of pelts and duffel, sat a stranger,
The canoe was that of the post at Kettle Portage.
She saw the stranger to be a young man with a clean-cut face, a
trim athletic figure dressed in the complete costume of the
_voyageurs_, and thin brown and muscular hands. When the canoe
touched the bank he had taken no part in the scramble to shore, and
so had sat forgotten and unnoticed save by the girl, his figure
erect with something of the Indian's stoical indifference. Then
when, for a moment, he imagined himself free from observation, his
expression abruptly changed. His hands clenched tense between his
buckskin knees, his eyes glanced here and there restlessly, and an
indefinable shadow of something which Virginia felt herself obtuse
in labelling desperation, and yet to which she discovered it
impossible to fit a name, descended on his features, darkening
them. Twice he glanced away to the south. Twice he ran his eye
over the vociferating crowd on the narrow beach.
Absorbed in the silent drama of a man's unguarded expression,
Virginia leaned forward eagerly. In some vague manner it was borne
in on her that once before she had experienced the same emotion,
had come into contact with someone, something, that had affected
her emotionally just as this man did now. But she could not place
it. Over and over again she forced her mind to the very point of
recollection, but always it slipped back again from the verge of
attainment. Then a little movement, some thrust forward of the
head, some nervous, rapid shifting of the hands or feet, some
unconscious poise of the shoulders, brought the scene flashing
before her--the white snow, the still forest, the little square pen
trap, the wolverine, desperate but cool, thrusting its blunt nose
quickly here and there in baffled hope of an orifice of escape.
Somehow the man reminded her of the animal, the fierce little woods
marauder, trapped and hopeless, but scorning to cower as would the
gentler creatures of the forest.
Abruptly his expression changed again. His figure stiffened, the
muscles of his face turned iron. Virginia saw that someone on the
beach had pointed toward him. His mask was on.
The first burst of greeting was over. Here and there one or
another of the _brigade_ members jerked their heads in the
stranger's direction, explaining low-voiced to their companions.
Soon all eyes turned curiously toward the canoe. A hum of
low-voiced comment took the place of louder delight.
The stranger, finding himself generally observed, rose slowly to
his feet, picked his way with a certain exaggerated deliberation of
movement over the duffel lying in the bottom of the canoe, until he
reached the bow, where he paused, one foot lifted to the gunwale
just above the emblem of the painted star. Immediately a dead
silence fell. Groups shifted, drew apart, and together again, like
the slow agglomeration of sawdust on the surface of water, until at
last they formed in a semicircle of staring, whose centre was the
bow of the canoe and the stranger from Kettle Portage. The men
scowled, the women regarded him with a half-fearful curiosity.
Virginia Albret shivered in the shock of this sudden electric
polarity. The man seemed alone against a sullen, unexplained
hostility. The desperation she had thought to read but a moment
before had vanished utterly, leaving in its place a scornful
indifference and perhaps more than a trace of recklessness. He was
ripe for an outbreak. She did not in the least understand, but she
knew it from the depths of her woman's instinct, and unconsciously
her sympathies flowed out to this man, alone without a greeting
where all others came to their own.
For perhaps a full sixty seconds the newcomer stood uncertain what
he should do, or perhaps waiting for some word or act to tip the
balance of his decision. One after another those on shore felt the
insolence of his stare, and shifted uneasily. Then his deliberate
scrutiny rose to the group by the cannon. Virginia caught her
breath sharply. In spite of herself she could not turn away. The
stranger's eye crossed her own. She saw the hard look fade into
pleased surprise. Instantly his hat swept the gunwale of the
canoe. He stepped magnificently ashore. The crisis was over. Not
a word had been spoken.