THE RIDDLE
Before the travellers started next morning they had more broiled trout
for breakfast, and Ray caught and cooked another pickerel for Tawny.
Ray and Bruce had not expected to catch brook trout and pickerel in
Lake Superior, but Ganawa informed them that these fish may be caught
in many places near shore in shallow water, but that they are never
caught in nets set in deep water far from shore.
Rainbow trout found along the shore in Lake Superior are called
“coasters” by fishermen and explorers at the present time, as has been
told. These trout as well as pickerel come into the lake from the many
streams that enter Lake Superior. They continue to feed along the
shore, but never go into the deep water away from shore.
It was a surprise to Bruce and Ray to catch pickerel and brook trout in
the same pool, but Ganawa told them that the big brook or rainbow trout
are not afraid of either pickerel or pike and are often found in the
same pools in some of the streams that flow into the lake.
Brook or rainbow trout must not be confused with the lake trout that
live in both deep and shallow water of Lake Superior, as well as in a
number of other northern lakes. Lake trout, whitefish, and lake herring
are to this day important commercial fish of Lake Superior.
“It is ten leagues to the mouth of the Michipicoten,” said Ganawa when
they were ready to start. Ganawa generally gave distances in leagues,
because he had become accustomed to do so during his contact with the
French traders and voyageurs. France had lost her vast North American
possessions only two years before, and the Indians had not yet become
used to English ways and English measures, but Bruce and Ray had
learned by this time that a league was equal to about three English
miles.
The weather continued fine, so that Ganawa steered the canoe straight
across from point to point, and while approaching Brule Point, they
were three miles from shore. Beyond Brule Point the wooded hills rose
to a height of seven hundred feet above the lake and made both lads
feel that they would like to go inland and explore the mountains as Ray
called them.
“Maybe we shall explore plenty of mountains,” Ganawa promised the lads,
“after we have reached the Michipicoten.”
“There is a house!” exclaimed Ray, as they entered the mouth of the
river, which at that time was not obstructed by sand-bars as it is at
the present time. The log house to which Ray had pointed stood on a
clearing south of the river. It was not occupied, but above the door
were painted the letters H. B. C., which Bruce knew meant Hudson Bay
Company.
Those were the days when this great English company tried to extend the
monopoly in the fur trade, which it enjoyed farther north, also along
the Great Lakes. But it was never very successful in this attempt.
Independent individual traders, and later the Northwest Company and
American traders were active competitors of the Hudson Bay Company.
A little farther up-stream, on the north side of the river on a level
sandy plateau, where now stands a small village of whites and Indians
known as “the Mission,” the travellers found a small camp of Indians,
consisting of Ininiwac people and a few families of Chippewas.
The arrival of the visitors caused a great stir in the lonely camp. A
dozen cur dogs barked savagely at the men and at Tawny, who, however,
treated the whole pack with an air of contempt. He walked erect close
to Ray, with his hair bristling and his teeth flashing and uttering now
and then a fierce low growl, when one of the half-starved curs made a
move as if to snap at him. A few small children scampered into the
tepees at the sight of the strangers while several men arose from their
seats outside the tepees, drove away the yelping dogs and shook hands
with the strangers.
Ganawa was delighted to find some of his own people at the camp, for he
did not understand the talk of Ininiwac people very well, and the
Indians of the Great Lakes region were not good sign-talkers like the
Indians of the plains.
By this time Ray and Bruce had picked up quite a number of Chippewa
words, and when they joined the circle of Ganawa and his friends, they
could understand enough of the conversation to learn that Ganawa was
asking if they knew anything about Jack Dutton, or if they had seen
him.
Later in the evening, when the three were inside of their own tepee,
with a small bright fire of dry sticks burning in the center, Ganawa
told the lads in English what he had learned.
Jack Dutton with another white man had been in the Michipicoten country
about twelve moons ago, last winter. There had been a rumor that the
two men had made a valuable cache of fur within one or two days’
journey of this place, the mouth of the Michipicoten. A hunter, who had
been following the track of a moose, had accidentally discovered the
camp and the fur cache of the two white men, because they had made
their camp on a little stream near a moose trail which led from a big
lake to a small lake farther back in the wilderness of rocky wooded
hills that stretch northward from the Sault Sainte Marie and Lake
Superior for a distance of fifty to two hundred miles, where they run
out into a flat country of the greatest black spruce forest in North
America, a sombre dark forest which extends northward almost to Hudson
Bay and eastward a thousand miles from Lake of the Woods to Nova Scotia
and New Brunswick.
The two white men, the hunter had told, had collected and bought of
some Indians only the most valuable furs, such as silver foxes, dark
prime beaver, and marten. All lower-grade furs they had traded to the
Indians for a few high-grade furs or had used them for clothing and
robes. “They had a big canoe-load of furs worth ten hundred beavers,”
the old hunter had told, holding up the fingers of both hands to
emphasize his story. “The white man gave me lead and powder so I could
kill the fat moose, and my squaw and I had plenty of meat till the
ducks came north and the ice left the streams so we could catch fish.”
The Indians had understood that the lead and powder had been given the
old hunter on the condition that he would not betray the location of
the white men’s fur cache. He had not even told them the distance of
the cache from Lake Superior, but he had returned within four days and
had then taken his squaw with him. “Where is the hunter now?” asked
Bruce. “Perhaps he would tell us more, so we might learn if one of the
white men was my friend, Jack Dutton.”
“He and his squaw have gone to visit a married daughter, who lives on
Lake Winnipeg,” Ganawa replied.
“My father,” asked Ray after a brief silence, “do you know the way to
Lake Winnipeg? Perhaps we might find the hunter and ask him to tell us
more.”
“My son,” Ganawa answered kindly, “I know the way to Lake Winnipeg, but
it is so far away that I fear the lakes and streams would be frozen
again by the time we returned to this camp.
“And now, my sons, it is time to roll up in our blankets. To-morrow I
shall tell you more news; and, maybe, we shall paddle up the
Michipicoten, which is a good river, with clear cold water in which
live many good fish of the color of the rainbow.”