MYSTERY AND DANGER
In the morning Ganawa told the lads some news which he had kept to
himself the evening before.
“There was a visitor at this camp only a few sleeps ago,” he said. “It
was Hamogeesik. He is no good Indian, he is no good white man. He is a
bad Indian and a bad white man in one. He asked my Chippewa friends if
they had seen two white boys and he tried to find out from the Ininiwac
people where two white men had made a cache of fur, and if the white
men had been looking for any gold rock. Most white men, he said, were
looking for gold rock all the time. The Ininiwac people told him they
did not know where the two white men had cached their fur more than
twelve moons ago; and none of the Indians here know whether the two
white men are still back in the hills or whether they have left and
taken their furs away.
“But I know what is in the black heart of Hamogeesik. I think he is
trying to follow us, for he has learned that we are trying to find the
two men who made a cache of fur and looked for gold rock in the hills
from which the waters run to the Michipicoten.”
The three travellers remained several days at the camp with the
Ininiwacs and the Chippewas, because Ganawa thought he might discover
more definite information about the place where the two white men had
made their cache, whether they had found or had been looking for any
gold rock, and whether they were still in the country.
On the fourth morning he said: “My sons, we must leave this camp. I
have learned very little from the people here, and I know now that I
shall learn nothing more; so we must travel among the hills up the
river and look for signs of our friends. But I fear we shall find
nothing, unless the Great Spirit sends me more light. The country is
very big, and there are as many hills and streams and lakes as there
are leaves on a tree. There are many big lakes and many more small
lakes. No Indian has ever found all the small lakes and small streams,
only the beaver people have found them and the fish that shine like a
rainbow. But we must now paddle up-stream among the high hills and
trust in the Great Spirit that he may let us find some sign that may
tell us where to look for your friends.”
Had the three travellers been on a pleasure or camping trip, they could
hardly have chosen a finer and more beautiful river. For a mile or two
they passed through a level sandy country into which the river has cut
its channel, making on the north side a steep bank more than fifty feet
high. This level country was covered with a growth of jack-pine,
spruces and balsam firs; and to this day a most beautiful, natural
jack-pine park extends some miles up-stream toward the big falls of the
Michipicoten, of which we shall soon hear more.
The area of this jack-pine park was covered by the waters of Lake
Superior a long time ago, when the big lake was even bigger than it is
now; and over the whole Lake Superior region is written a most
wonderful story of great ice-sheets and floods for those who can read
the story of lakes and streams and hills and of the great deposits of
gravel and small stones and large boulders.
While Ganawa and Bruce were paddling the canoe up the fairly swift
current, Ray sat in the stern and had a line out, baited with a piece
of flannel; and by the time Ganawa stopped for a meal and for rest, Ray
had caught enough rainbow trout for the men, and a pike and a pickerel
for Tawny.
The Michipicoten is carrying about as much water as the Wabash or the
Minnesota, but its water is clear and cold with just a tint of brown in
it, and pike and pickerel and large rainbow trout may still be caught
in its waters in the same pool. It is not to be thought, however, that
they will always bite on a piece of flannel; for, like fish in other
waters, at times no bait will tempt them.
If any of my readers should ever paddle up the Michipicoten from the
mouth toward the big falls, they would naturally use a fly or they
might keep a trolling-line out and enjoy the thrill of catching a big
rainbow trout, for the country of the Michipicoten is still a
wilderness and its waters still flow cold and clear.
In 1775 spoon hooks had not yet been invented and, of course, no
trout-flies could be bought of any Indian traders.
Whenever the three travellers came to a place where some one had
camped, they landed and examined the spot with great care.
“My father,” asked Bruce, “how would you be able to tell whether
Indians or white men had camped on the river?”
“If I found a button,” Ganawa replied, “or a coin, or paper with
printed words, I should say that white men had made the camp.”
They spent the better part of a day in paddling some ten or twelve
miles up-stream. They examined minutely three camping-places near the
river. At each place the Indians had left their tepee-poles standing,
as is their custom to this day. None of the places showed signs of very
recent camps; however, at one camp Ray picked up a scrap of printed
paper; but the words were French and the sign, therefore, gave no clue
as to the whereabouts of the friend of Bruce.
At the foot of some rapid water, Ganawa made camp for the night, and
the lads now saw the advantage of leaving the tepee-poles standing at
each camp, for within a few minutes Ganawa had their long strip of
deerskin wound around the poles, fastened it to the ground, and the
tepee was ready.
“We had better sleep in the tepee,” he remarked, “for the night will be
cool and the air damp in the deep shaded valley near the river.
“To-morrow, my sons,” he added, “we must push our canoe with a pole or
drag it on a rope, and in some places we must carry it, for it is a
league from here to the big falls and the water is very swift all the
way and many rocks have rolled into the river from the hills.”
That evening Ray lay awake a long time listening to the talk of the
river, which gurgled and bubbled, roared and rushed and rippled past
the camp, as if a crowd of living men or spirits talking in a strange
language were for ever and ever marching past the camp.
Then the lad was bold enough to turn aside the tepee-flap and step out
into the night. If Tawny had not come out with him, he would have been
afraid. A strange sight met his eyes. Above the stream, which now
looked uncanny and forbidding, hung a fog which in the moonlight looked
like a long gray cloud. Patches of moonlight lay bright on the trail
and the high tree tops on the hills opposite stood out in bold relief,
while the tree trunks near by stood like black spectres. A big owl was
hooting in the distance. Or was it the howling of a wolf? And some
small creature rushed from the trail into the thicket.
The spookiness of the moonlight night seized Ray. He turned and walked
quickly back to the tepee, crept under his blanket, head and all, and,
listening again to the talk of the river, he soon fell asleep.