When John Trenton came in to breakfast, he found his friend Mason
waiting for him. That genial gentleman was evidently ill at ease, but he
said in an offhand way--
“The ladies have already breakfasted. They are busily engaged in the
preparations for the trip, and so you and I can have a snack together,
and then we will go and see to the canoe.”
After breakfast they went together to the river, and found the canoe and
the two half-breeds waiting for them. A couple of rugs were spread on
the bottom of the canoe rising over the two slanting boards which served
as backs to the lowly seats.
“Now,” said Mason with a blush, for he always told a necessary lie with
some compunction, “I shall have to go and see to one of my men who was
injured in the mill this morning. You had better take your place in the
canoe, and wait for your passenger, who, as is usual with ladies, will
probably be a little late. I think you should sit in the back seat, as
you are the heavier of the two. I presume you remember what I told you
about sitting in a canoe? Get in with caution while these two men hold
the side of it; sit down carefully, and keep steady, no matter what
happens. Perhaps you may as well put your camera here at the back, or in
the prow.”
“No,” said Trenton, “I shall keep it slung over my shoulder. It isn’t
heavy, and I am always afraid of forgetting it if I leave it anywhere.”
Trenton got cautiously into the canoe, while Mason bustled off with
a very guilty feeling at his heart. He never thought of blaming Miss
Sommerton for the course she had taken, and the dilemma into which she
placed him, for he felt that the fault was entirely his own.
John Trenton pulled out his pipe, and, absent-mindedly, stuffed it full
of tobacco. Just as he was about to light it, he remembered there was to
be a lady in the party, and so with a grimace of disappointment he put
the loaded pipe into his pocket again.
It was the most lovely time of the year. The sun was still warm, but the
dreaded black fly and other insect pests of the region had disappeared
before the sharp frosts that occurred every night. The hilly banks of
the St. Maurice were covered with unbroken forest, and “the woods of
autumn all around, the vale had put their glory on.” Presently Trenton
saw Miss Sommerton, accompanied by old Mrs. Perrault, coming over the
brow of the hill. He attempted to rise, in order to assist the lady to a
seat in the canoe, when the half-breed-said in French--:
“Better sit still. It is safer. We will help the lady.”
Miss Sommerton was talking rapidly in French--with rather overdone
eagerness--to Mrs. Perrault. She took no notice of her fellow-voyager as
she lightly stepped exactly in the centre of the canoe, and sank down on
the rug in front of him, with the ease of one thoroughly accustomed to
that somewhat treacherous craft. The two stalwart boatmen--one at the
prow, the other at the stern of the canoe--with swift and dexterous
strokes, shot it out into the stream. Trenton could not but admire the
knowledge of these two men and their dexterous use of it. Here they
were on a swiftly flowing river, with a small fall behind them and a
tremendous cataract several miles in front, yet these two men, by their
knowledge of the currents, managed to work their way up stream with the
least possible amount of physical exertion. The St. Maurice at this
point is about half a mile wide, with an island here and there, and now
and then a touch of rapids. Sometimes the men would dash right across
the river to the opposite bank, and there fall in with a miniature Gulf
Stream that would carry them onward without exertion. Sometimes they
were near the densely wooded shore, sometimes in the center of the
river. The half-breed who stood behind Trenton, leant over to him, and
whispered--
“You can now smoke if you like, the wind is down stream.”
Naturally, Mr. Trenton wished to smoke. The requesting of permission to
do so, it struck him, might open the way to conversation. He was not an
ardent conversationalist, but it seemed to him rather ridiculous that
two persons should thus travel together in a canoe without saying a word
to each other.
“I beg your pardon, madam,” he began; “but would you have any objection
to my smoking? I am ashamed to confess that I am a slave to the
pernicious habit.”
There was a moment or two of silence, broken only by the regular dip of
the paddle, then Miss Sommerton said, “If you wish to desecrate this
lovely spot by smoking, I presume anything I can say will not prevent
you.”
Trenton was amazed at the rudeness of this reply, and his face flushed
with anger. Finally he said, “You must have a very poor opinion of me!”
Miss Sommerton answered tartly, “I have no opinion whatever of you.”
Then, with womanly inconsistency, she proceeded to deliver her opinion,
saying, “A man who would smoke here would smoke in a cathedral.”
“I think you are wrong there,” said Mr. Trenton, calmly. “I would smoke
here, but I would not think of smoking in a cathedral. Neither would I
smoke in the humblest log-cabin chapel.”
“Sir,” said Miss Sommerton, turning partly round, “I came to the St.
Maurice for the purpose of viewing its scenery. I hoped to see it alone.
I have been disappointed in that, but I must insist on seeing it in
silence. I do not wish to carry on a conversation, nor do I wish to
enter into a discussion on any subject whatever. I am sorry to have to
say this, but it seems to be necessary.”
Her remarks so astonished Trenton that he found it impossible to get
angrier than he had been when she first spoke. In fact, he found his
anger receding rather than augmenting. It was something so entirely
new to meet a lady who had such an utter disregard for the rules of
politeness that obtain in any civilized society that Mr. Trenton felt he
was having a unique and valuable experience.
“Will you pardon me,” he said, with apparent submissiveness--“will you
pardon me if I disregard your request sufficiently to humbly beg
forgiveness for having spoken to you in the first place?”
To this Miss Sommerton made no reply, and the canoe glided along.
After going up the river for a few miles the boatmen came to a difficult
part of the voyage. Here the river was divided by an island. The dark
waters moved with great swiftness, and with the smoothness of oil, over
the concealed rocks, breaking into foam at the foot of the rapids. Now
for the first time the Indians had hard work. For quite half an hour
they paddled as if in despair, and the canoe moved upward inch by inch.
It was not only hard work, but it was work that did not allow of a
moment’s rest until it was finished. Should the paddles pause but an
instant, the canoe would be swept to the bottom of the rapids. When
at last the craft floated into the still water above the rapids, the
boatmen rested and mopped the perspiration from their brows. Then,
without a word, they resumed their steady, easy swing of the paddle. In
a short time the canoe drew up at a landing, from which a path ascended
the steep hill among the trees. The silence was broken only by the deep,
distant, low roar of the Shawenegan Falls. Mr. Trenton sat in his place,
while the half-breeds held the canoe steady. Miss Sommerton rose and
stepped with firm, self-reliant tread on the landing. Without looking
backward she proceeded up the steep hill, and disappeared among the
dense foliage. Then Trenton leisurely got out of the canoe.
“You had a hard time of it up that rapid,” said the artist in French to
the boatmen. “Here is a five-dollar bill to divide when you get down;
and, if you bring us safely back, I shall have another ready for you.”
The men were profusely grateful, as indeed they had a right to be, for
the most they expected was a dollar each as a fee.
“Ah,” said the elder, “if we had gentlemen like you to take up every
day,” and he gave an expressive shrug.
“You shouldn’t take such a sordid view of the matter,” said the artist.
“I should think you would find great pleasure in taking up parties of
handsome ladies such as I understand now and then visit the falls.”
“Ah,” said the boatman, “it is very nice, of course; but, except from
Miss Sommerton, we don’t get much.”
“Really,” said the artist; “and who is Miss Sommerton, pray?”
The half-breed nodded up the path.
“Oh, indeed, that is her name. I did not know.”
“Yes,” said the man, “she is very generous, and she always brings us
tobacco in her pocket--good tobacco.”
“Tobacco!” cried the artist. “The arrant hypocrite. She gives you
tobacco, does she? Did you understand what we were talking about coming
up here?”
The younger half-breed was about to say “Yes,” and a gleam of
intelligence came into his face; but a frown on the other’s brow checked
him, and the elder gravely shook his head.
“We do not understand English,” he said.
As Trenton walked slowly up the steep hillside, he said to himself,
“That young woman does not seem to have the slightest spark of gratitude
in her composition. Here I have been good-natured enough to share my
canoe with her, yet she treats me as if I were some low ruffian instead
of a gentleman.”
As Miss Sommerton was approaching the Shawenegan Falls, she said to
herself, “What an insufferable cad that man is? Mr. Mason doubtless told
him that he was indebted to me for being allowed to come in the canoe,
and yet, although he must see I do not wish to talk with him, he tried
to force conversation on me.”
Miss Sommerton walked rapidly along the very imperfect woodland path,
which was completely shaded by the overhanging trees. After a walk
of nearly a mile, the path suddenly ended at the top of a tremendous
precipice of granite, and opposite this point the great hillside of
tumbling white foam plunged for ever downward. At the foot of the falls
the waters flung themselves against the massive granite barrier, and
then, turning at a right angle, plunged downward in a series of wild
rapids that completely eclipsed in picturesqueness and grandeur and
force even the famous rapids at Niagara. Contemplating this incomparable
scene, Miss Sommerton forgot all about her objectionable travelling
companion. She sat down on a fallen log, placing her sketch-book on her
lap, but it lay there idly as, unconscious of the passing time, she
gazed dreamily at the great falls and listened to their vibrating
deafening roar. Suddenly the consciousness of some one near startled
her from her reverie. She sprang to her feet, and had so completely
forgotten her companion that she stared at him for a moment in dumb
amazement. He stood back some distance from her, and beside him on its
slender tripod was placed a natty little camera. Connected with the
instantaneous shutter was a long black rubber tube almost as thin as a
string. The bulb of this instantaneous attachment Mr. Trenton held in
his hand, and the instant Miss Sommerton turned around, the little
shutter, as if in defiance of her, gave a snap, and she knew her picture
had been taken, and also that she was the principal object in the
foreground.
“You have photographed me, sir!” cried the young woman, with her eyes
blazing.
“I have photographed the falls, or, at least, I hope I have,” replied
Trenton.
“But my picture is in the foreground. You must destroy that plate.”
“You will excuse me, Miss Sommerton, if I tell you I shall do nothing of
the kind. It is very unusual with me to deny the request of a lady, but
in this case I must do so. This is the last plate I have, and it may be
the one successful picture of the lot. I shall, therefore, not destroy
the plate.”
“Then, sir, you are not a gentleman!” cried the impetuous young lady,
her face aflame with anger.
“I never claimed to be one,” answered Trenton, calmly.
“I shall appeal to Mr. Mason; perhaps he has some means of making you
understand that you are not allowed to take a lady’s photograph without
her permission, and in defiance of her wishes.”
“Will you allow me to explain why it is unnecessary to destroy the
plate? If you understand anything about photography, you must be aware
of the fact----”
“I am happy to say I know nothing of photography, and I desire to know
nothing of it. I will not hear any explanation from you, sir. You have
refused to destroy the plate. That is enough for me. Your conduct to-day
has been entirely contemptible. In the first place you have forced
yourself, through Mr. Mason, into my company. The canoe was mine for
to-day, and you knew it. I granted you permission to come, but I made it
a proviso that there should be no conversation. Now, I shall return in
the canoe alone, and I shall pay the boatmen to come back for you this
evening.” With this she swept indignantly past Mr. Trenton, leaving the
unfortunate man for the second or third time that day too much
dumbfounded to reply. She marched down the path toward the landing.
Arriving at the canoe, she told the boatmen they would have to return
for Mr. Trenton; that she was going back alone, and she would pay them
handsomely for their extra trip. Even the additional pay offered did not
seem to quite satisfy the two half-breeds.
“It will be nearly dark before we can get back,” grumbled the elder
boatman.
“That does not matter,” replied Miss Sommerton, shortly.
“But it is dangerous going down the river at night.”
“That does not matter,” was again the reply.
“But he has nothing----”
“The longer you stand talking here the longer it will be before you get
back. If you are afraid for the safety of the gentleman, pray stay here
with him and give me the paddle--I will take the boat down alone.”
The boatman said nothing more, but shot the canoe out from the landing
and proceeded rapidly down the stream.
Miss Sommerton meditated bitterly on the disappointments and annoyances
of the day. Once fairly away, conscience began to trouble her, and she
remembered that the gentleman so unceremoniously left in the woods
without any possibility of getting away was a man whom Mr. Mason, her
friend, evidently desired very much to please. Little had been said by
the boatmen, merely a brief word of command now and then from the elder
who stood in the stern, until they passed down the rapids. Then Miss
Sommerton caught a grumbling word in French which made her heart stand
still.
“What is that you said?” she cried to the elder boatman.
He did not answer, but solemnly paddled onward.
“Answer me,” demanded Miss Sommerton. “What is that you said about the
gentleman who went up with us this morning?”
“I said,” replied the half-breed, with a grim severity that even the
remembrance of gifts of tobacco could not mitigate, “that the canoe
belonged to him today.”
“How dare you say such a thing! The canoe was mine. Mr. Mason gave it to
me. It was mine for to-day.”
“I know nothing about that,” returned the boatman doggedly; “but I do
know that three days ago Mr. Mason came to me with this gentleman’s
letter in his hand and said, ‘Pierre, Mr. Trenton is to have the canoe
for Tuesday. See it is in good order, and no one else is to have it for
that day.’ That is what Mr. Mason said, and when they were down at the
canoe this morning, Mr. Mason asked Mr. Trenton if he would let you go
up to the falls in his canoe, and he said ‘Yes.’”
Miss Sommerton sat there too horrified to speak. A wild resentment
against the duplicity of Ed. Mason arose for a moment in her heart, but
it speedily sank as she viewed her own conduct in the light of this
astounding revelation. She had abused an unknown gentleman like a
pickpocket, and had finally gone off with his canoe, leaving him
marooned, as it were, to whose courtesy she was indebted for being there
at all. Overcome by the thoughts that crowded so quickly upon her, she
buried her face in her hands and wept. But this was only for an instant.
Raising her head again, with the imperious air characteristic of her,
she said to the boatman--
“Turn back at once, please.”
“We are almost there now,” he answered, amazed at the feminine
inconsistency of the command.
“Turn back at once, I say. You are not too tired to paddle up the river
again, are you?”
“No, madame,” he answered, “but it is so useless; we are almost there.
We shall land you, and then the canoe will go up lighter.”
“I wish to go with you. Do what I tell you, and I will pay you.”
The stolid boatman gave the command; the man at the bow paddled one way,
while the man at the stern paddled another, and the canoe swung round
upstream again.