THE GOLD ROCK
OF THE CHIPPEWA
BY
D. LANGE
ILLUSTRATED BY FRANK T. MERRILL
BOSTON
LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD CO.
FOREWORD
Robert Louis Stevenson, in one of his essays on the art of writing,
says in substance that one of the methods of telling a story is to
choose a background and then build in harmony with the landscape
selected.
In The Gold Rock of the Chippewa the writer has followed this method.
The story opens in 1775, a dozen years after the Great Lakes region had
been ceded by France to England. But it does not attempt to tell of the
great war in which Wolfe and Montcalm gave their lives for their
countries. It might be called “The Robinson Crusoe of Lake Superior,”
as the events of the whole story take place among the rocky wooded
hills, on the cold streams, the clear lakes, the wild islands, and on
the deep blue waters of “Gitche Gumee,” the largest and most beautiful
of the great inland seas of North America.
D. Lange.
St. Paul, Minnesota,
August, 1925.
CONTENTS
PAGE
I. The Council 11
II. Ganawa Speaks 17
III. Gitche Gumee 23
IV. Vague News 34
V. The White Boy Learns 45
VI. A Spooky Camp 54
VII. A Wolf 61
VIII. Tawny 68
IX. The Proving of Tawny 74
X. The Riddle 81
XI. Mystery and Danger 89
XII. Beginning the Search 97
XIII. At the Big Pool 105
XIV. A Puzzle 113
XV. The Smoke-House 121
XVI. A Double Surprise 129
XVII. Into the Unknown 137
XVIII. Real Trouble 144
XIX. On Wild Lakes 151
XX. Farthest North 159
XXI. Wild Fruit 166
XXII. On a New Tack 173
XXIII. The Beaver Hunt 179
XXIV. Much Work and a Clue 186
XXV. A Mystery 193
XXVI. Stalking a Moose 202
XXVII. The Storm Camp 211
XXVIII. Fighting a Wolf 218
XXIX. A Discovery 228
XXX. Ganawa Is Frightened 238
XXXI. Sailing The Pirate 247
XXXII. Caribou Island 254
XXXIII. The Last Search 260
XXXIV. A Bold Venture 268
ILLUSTRATIONS
One of the women handed to each a birch-bark
dish (Page 35) Frontispiece
FACING PAGE
On a big bare rock stood a wolf looking at him 66
He barely clung to the rock with hands and feet 132
A big black bear was coming straight for him 172
There he stood, a fine young bull moose, feeding
on some willows 210
He was some fearsome wild giant 262
THE GOLD ROCK OF THE CHIPPEWA
CHAPTER I
THE COUNCIL
There was great excitement in the Chippewa camp on a small lake near
the Sault Sainte Marie early in June, 1775. A council was going to be
held to decide the fate of two Americans who had ventured into that
part of the country as unwelcome visitors.
The prevailing opinion in the camp was that they should not be allowed
to stay or to continue their journey, but should go back to their own
country. However, there were a few warriors who demanded a much more
radical proceeding against the strangers; and the most clamorous
amongst these was Hamogeesik, who strutted about with his face painted
black and bragged that he was going to take the scalp of the two
Englishmen, as he called them, because twelve years before at the siege
of Detroit the English had killed his brother.
In the meantime, the two Americans, Bruce Henley, a young man who might
be twenty-five years old, and his brother, Ray Henley, a lad of
thirteen, kept rather close to the tepee of Ganawa, an old warrior who
ridiculed the claims of Hamogeesik, whom he called a coward and “a much
bad Indian.”
About an hour after sunset the beat of the tom-tom called the warriors
to council. There were about twenty-five of them presided over by a
chief who had seen many winters and had twice gone on the warpath
against the Sioux, even then the enemies of the Chippewas.
The council-house was a very simple structure. It consisted of poles
set in the ground, over which had been built a roof of boughs; but no
white man’s court or jury ever assembled with greater dignity and
listened with more gravity to the arguments of eloquent lawyers or the
charges of dignified judges than the unlettered warriors in Chief
Winnego’s camp near the Sault Sainte Marie listened to the speakers.
Hamogeesik was the first to speak. He pleaded that the Englishmen
should be turned over to him. That he should be allowed to keep them as
slaves or to take their scalps, because the English had killed his
brother, a brave Chippewa warrior, in the fights at Detroit, when the
great war chief Pontiac led all the Indians against the English.
When Hamogeesik had finished and sat down on his deerskin robe, Ganawa
arose. He was a man over six feet tall. His hair was beginning to turn
gray, but his shoulders did not stoop, and from his eyes flashed the
anger and fire of a young warrior.
“My brother,” he began in a low, deep voice, “has told you that his
brother was killed by the English at Detroit. In that Hamogeesik has
told you the truth. But I ask you now why Hamogeesik’s brother went to
Detroit. That place, as you all know, is many days’ journey from our
country, and we had no grievance against the English. You know that
many of our wise men and our own chief Winnego advised our young men
not to join in the great war of the Ottawas and their chief Pontiac,
but to stay at home and hunt deer and keep the bears and the coons out
of the cornfields, which our women were beginning to plant.
“If Hamogeesik’s brother desired so much to fight our enemies, why did
he not make up a war party against the Sioux?
“You know, brothers, that the young Englishmen are our guests, and live
in my tepee, and you know what the little Englishman did only a day
after he and his big brother came to our camp. You know that the little
son of my daughter was fishing from a canoe and that the canoe drifted
away with him. There was no other canoe on the beach and only our women
and some old men were in camp. When my daughter cried aloud and
believed that her small son must drown, the little Englishman took off
his shoes and plunged into the cold water. He showed that he was a
better swimmer than most of us are. He reached the canoe and pushed it
ashore, because there was no paddle with which to steer. You know that,
when he reached the shore, his eyes closed and his legs would not move
any more, so the women had to carry him to my tent. You know that the
water which runs out of the great sea Gitche Gumee is so cold that it
never gives up its dead.
“Here under this deerskin is a present for all of you, including
Hamogeesik, and I ask you that the Englishmen be given to me that I may
adopt them as my sons. They have shown themselves good and brave men
and true friends of our people.
“We do not wish it told at the camp-fires of the Chippewas and the
Ottawas that the warriors of Winnego have turned traitors to their
friends and have forgotten the sacred laws of hospitality that our
fathers have taught us. I have finished.”
Contrary to Indian habit and custom the case was not held open for
another council, but it was decided that the two Americans should
belong to Ganawa, a decision which Hamogeesik heard with scowling
silence.
Bruce Henley and Ray had surmised what the general drift of the two
talks had been, but did not know what had been said until Ganawa
translated the speeches to them after the council had broken up.