"Cold and forsaken, destitute of friends,
And all good comforts else, unless some tree
Whose speechless chanty doth better ours,
With which the bitter east winds made their sport,
And sang through hourly, hath invited thee
To shelter half a day. Shall she be thus,
And I draw in soft slumbers?"
BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.
It was near sunset before Hector and his companions returned on the
evening of the eventful day that had found Catharine a prisoner on
Long Island. They had met with good success in hunting, and brought
home a fine half-grown fawn, fat and in good order. They were
surprised at finding the fire nearly extinguished, and no Catharine
awaiting their return. There, it is true, was the food that she had
prepared for them, but she was not to be seen. Supposing that she had
been tired of waiting for them, and had gone out to gather
strawberries, they did not at first feel anxious, but ate of the rice
and honey, for they were hungry with long fasting. Then taking some
Indian meal cake in their hands, they went out to call her in; but no
trace of her was visible. Fearing she had set off by herself to seek
them, and had missed her way home again, they hurried back to the
happy valley,--she was not there; to Pine-tree Point,--no trace of her
there; to the edge of the mount that overlooked the lake,--she was not
to be seen: night found them unsuccessful in their search. Sometimes
they fancied that she had seated herself beneath some tree and fallen
asleep; but no one imagined the true cause, nothing having been seen
of the Indians since they had proceeded up the river.
Again they retraced their steps back to the house; but they found her
not there. They continued their unavailing search till the moon
setting left them in darkness, and they lay down to rest, but not to
sleep. The first streak of dawn saw them again hurrying to and fro,
calling in vain upon the name of the loved and lost companion of their
wanderings.
Indiana, whose vigilance was untiring--for she yielded not easily to
grief and despair--now returned with the intelligence that she had
discovered the Indian trail, through the big ravine to the lake-shore;
she had found the remains of a wreath of oak leaves which had been
worn by Catharine in her hair; and she had seen the mark of feet,
Indian feet, on the soft clay at the edge of the lake, and the
furrowing of the shingles by the pushing off of a canoe. Poor Louis
gave way to transports of grief and despair; he knew the wreath, it
was such as Catharine often made for herself, and Mathilde, and petite
Louise, and Marie; his mother had taught her to make them; they were
linked together by the stalks, and formed a sort of leaf chain. Louis
placed the torn relic in his breast, and sadly turned away to hide his
grief from Hector and the Indian girl.
Indiana now proposed searching the island for further traces, but
advised wariness in so doing. They saw, however, neither smoke nor
canoes. The Indians had departed while they were searching the ravines
and flats round Mount Ararat, and the lake told no tales, The
following day they ventured to land on Long Island, and on going to
the north side saw evident traces of a temporary encampment having
been made, but no trace of any violence having been committed. It was
Indiana's opinion that, though a prisoner, Catharine was unhurt, as
the Indians rarely killed women and children, unless roused to do so
by some signal act on the part of their enemies, when an exterminating
spirit of revenge induced them to kill and spare not; but where no
offence had been offered, they were not likely to take the life of a
helpless, unoffending female. The Indian is not cruel for the wanton
love of blood, but to gratify revenge for some injury done to himself
or to his tribe. But it was difficult to still the terrible
apprehensions that haunted the minds of Louis and Hector. They spent
much time in searching the northern shores and the distant islands, in
the vain hope of finding her, as they still thought the camp might
have been moved to the opposite side of the lake.
Inconsolable for the loss of their beloved companion, Hector and Louis
no longer took interest in what was going on; they hardly troubled
themselves to weed the Indian corn, in which they had taken such great
delight; all now seemed to them flat, stale, and unprofitable; they
wandered listlessly to and fro, silent and sad; the sunshine had
departed from their little dwelling; they ate little, and talked less,
each seeming absorbed in his own painful reveries.
In vain the gentle Indian girl strove to revive their drooping
spirits; they seemed insensible to her attentions, and often left her
for hours alone. They returned one evening about the usual hour of
sunset, and missed their meek, uncomplaining guest from the place she
was wont to occupy. They called, but there was none to reply,--she too
was gone. They hurried to the shore just time enough to see the canoe
diminishing to a mere speck upon the waters, in the direction of the
mouth of the river; they called to her, in accents of despair, to
return, but the wind wafted back no sound to their ears and soon the
bark was lost to sight, and they sat them down disconsolately on the
shore.
"What is she doing?" said Hector. "It is cruel to abandon us thus."
"She has gone up the river, in the hope of bringing us some tidings of
Catharine," said Louis.
"How came you to think that such is her intention?"
"I heard her say the other day that she would go and bring her back,
or die."
"What! do you think she would risk the vengeance of the old chief
whose life she attempted to take?"
"She is a brave girl; she does not fear pain or death to serve those
she loves."
"How can she, unprotected and alone, dare such perils? Why did she not
tell us? We would have shared her danger."
"She feared for our lives more than for her own; that poor Indian girl
has a noble heart. I care not now what befalls us; we have lost all
that made life dear to us," said Louis gloomily, sinking his head
between his knees.
"Hush, Louis; you are older than I, and ought to bear these trials
with more courage. It was our own fault Indiana's leaving us; we left
her so much alone to pine after her lost companion, she seemed to
think that we did not care for her. Poor Indiana, she must have felt
lonely and sad."
"I tell you what we will do, Hec,--make a log canoe. I found an old
battered one lying on the shore, not far from Pine-tree Point. We have
an axe and a tomahawk,--what should hinder us from making one like
it?"
"True! we will set about it to-morrow."
"I wish it were morning, that we might set to work to cut down a good
pine for the purpose."
"As soon as it is done, we will go up the river; anything is better
than this dreadful suspense and inaction."
The early dawn saw the two cousins busily engaged chopping at a tree
of suitable dimensions. They worked hard all that day, and the next,
and the next, before the canoe was hollowed out; but, owing to their
inexperience and the bluntness of their tools, their first attempt
proved abortive--it was too heavy at one end, and did not balance well
in the water.
Louis, who had been quite sure of success, was disheartened; not so
Hector.
"Do not let us give it up: my maxim is perseverance; let us try again,
and again--ay, and a fourth and a fifth time. I say, never give it up;
that is the way to succeed at last."
"You have ten times my patience, Hec."
"Yes; but you are more ingenious than I, and are excellent at starting
an idea."
"We are a good pair then for partnership."
"We will begin anew and this time I hope we shall profit by our past
blunders."
"Who would imagine that it is now more than a month since we lost
Catharine?"
"I know it--long, long, weary month," replied Louis; and he struck his
axe sharply into the bark of the pine as he spoke, and remained silent
for some minutes. The boys, wearied by chopping down the tree, rested
from their work, and sat down on the side of the condemned canoe to
resume their conversation. Suddenly Louis grasped Hector's arm, and
pointed to a bark canoe that appeared making for the westernmost point
of the island. Hector started to his feet, exclaiming, "It is Indiana
returned!"
"Nonsense! Indiana!--it is no such thing. Look you, it is a stout man
in a blanket coat."
"The Indians?" asked Hector, inquiringly.
"I do not think he looks like an Indian; but let us watch. What is he
doing?"
"Fishing. See now, he has just caught a fine bass--another--he has
great luck--now he is pushing the canoe ashore."
"That man does not move like an Indian--hark! he is whistling. I ought
to know that tune. It sounds like the old _chanson_ my father used to
sing;" and Louis, raising his voice, began to sing the words of an old
French Canadian song, which we will give in the English, as we heard
it sung by an old lumberer,--
"Down by those banks where the pleasant waters flow,
Through the wild woods we'll wander, and we'll chase the buffalo.
And we'll chase the buffalo."
"Hush, Louis! you will bring the man over to us," said Hector.
"The very thing I am trying to do, mon ami. This is our country, and
that may be his; but we are lords here, and two to one, so I think he
will not be likely to treat us ill. I am a man now, and so are you,
and he is but one; so he must mind how he affronts us," replied Louis,
laughing.
"Hark, if he is not singing now! ay, and the very chorus of the old
song"--and Louis raised his voice to its highest pitch as he repeated,--
"'Through the wild woods we'll wander,
And we'll chase the buffalo
--And we'll chase the buffalo.'
"What a pity I have forgotten the rest of that dear old song. I used
to listen with open ears to it when I was a boy. I never thought to
hear it again, and to hear it here of all places in the world!"
"Come, let us go on with our work," said Hector, with something like
impatience in his voice, and the strokes of his axe fell once more in
regular succession on the log; but Louis's eye was still on the
mysterious fisher, whom he could discern lounging on the grass and
smoking his pipe. "I do not think he sees or hears us," said Louis to
himself, "but I think I'll manage to bring him over soon;" and he set
himself busily to work to scrape up the loose chips and shavings, and
soon began to strike fire with his knife and flint.
"What are you about, Louis?" asked Hector.
"Lighting a fire."
"It is warm enough without a fire, I am sure."
"I know that; but I want to attract the notice of yonder tiresome
fisherman."
"And perhaps bring a swarm of savages down upon us, who may be lurking
in the bushes of the island."
"Pooh, pooh! Hec; there are no savages. I am weary of this
place--anything is better than this horrible solitude." And Louis
fanned the flame into a rapid blaze, and heaped up the light dry
branches till it soared up among the bushes. Louis watched the effect
of his fire, and rubbed his hands gleefully as the bark canoe was
pushed off from the island, and a few vigorous strokes of the paddle
sent it dancing over the surface of the calm lake.
Louis waved his cap above his head with a cheer of welcome as the
vessel lightly glided into the little cove, near the spot where the
boys were chopping, and a stout-framed, weather-beaten man, in a
blanket coat, also faded and weather-beaten, with a red worsted sash
and worn moccasins, sprang upon one of the timbers of Louis's old
raft, and gazed with a keen eye upon the lads. Each party silently
regarded the other. A few rapid interrogations from the stranger,
uttered in the broad _patois_ of the Lower Province, were answered in
a mixture of broken French and English by Louis.
A change like lightning passed over the face of the old man as he
cried out--"Louis Perron, son of my ancient compagnon!"
"Oui! oui!"--with eyes sparkling through tears of joy, Louis threw
himself into the broad breast of Jacob Morelle, his father's friend
and old lumbering comrade.
"Hector, son of la belle Catharine Perron!" and Hector, in his turn,
received the affectionate embrace of the warm-hearted old man.
"Who would have thought of meeting with the children of my old comrade
here at the shore of the Rice Lake? Oh! what a joyful meeting!"
Jacob had a hundred questions to ask--Where were their parents? did
they live on the Plains now? how long was it since they had left the
Cold Springs? were there any more little ones? and so forth.
The boys looked sorrowfully at each other. At last the old man stopped
for want of breath, and remarked their sad looks.
Hector told the old lumberer how long they had been separated from
their families, and by what sad accident they had been deprived of the
society of their beloved sister. When they brought their narrative
down to the disappearance of Catharine, the whole soul of the old
trapper seemed moved; he started from the log on which they were
sitting, and with one of his national asseverations, declared "that
he, her father's old friend, would go up the river and bring her back
in safety, or leave his gray scalp behind him among the wigwams."
"It is too late, Jacob, to think of starting to-day," said Hector.
"Come home with us, and eat some food, and rest a bit."
"No need of that, my son I have a lot of fish here in the canoe; and
there is an old shanty on the island yonder, if it be still
standing--the Trapper's Fort I used to call it some years ago. We will
go off to the island and look for it."
"No need for that," replied Louis, "though I can tell you the old
place is still in good repair, for we used it this very spring as a
boiling-house for our maple sap. We have a better place of our own
nearer at hand--just two or three hundred yards over the brow of
yonder hill. So come with us, and you shall have a good supper, and
bed to lie upon."
"And you have all these, boys!" said Jacob opening his merry black
eyes, as they came in sight of the little log-house and the field of
green corn.
The old man praised the boys for their industry and energy. "Ha! here
is old Wolfe too," as the dog roused himself from the hearth, and gave
one of his low grumbling growls. He had grown dull and dreamy, and
instead of going out as usual with the young hunters, he would lie for
hours dozing before the dying embers of the fire. He pined for the
loving hand that used to pat his sides, caress his shaggy neck, and
pillow his great head upon her lap, or suffer him to put his huge paws
on her shoulders, while he licked her hands and face; but she was
gone, and the Indian girl was gone, and the light of the shanty had
gone with them. Old Wolfe seemed dying of sorrow.
That evening, as Jacob sat on the three-legged stool smoking his short
Indian pipe, he again would have the whole story of their wanderings
over, and the history of all their doings and contrivances.
"And how far do you think you are from the Cold Springs?"
"At least twenty miles, perhaps fifty; for it is a long, long time now
since we left home--three summers ago."
"Well, boys, you must not reckon distance by the time you have been
absent," said the old man. "Now, I know the distance through the
woods, for I have passed through them on the Indian trail, and by my
reckoning, as the bee flies, it cannot be more than seven or eight
miles--no, nor that either."
The boys opened their eyes. "Jacob, is this possible? So near, and yet
to us the distance has been as great as though it were a hundred miles
or more."
"I tell you, boys, that is the provoking part of it. I remember, when
I was out on the St. John lumbering, missing my comrades, and I was
well-nigh starving, when I chanced to come back to the spot where we
parted; and I verily believe I had not been two miles distant the
whole eight days that I was moving round and round, and backward and
forward, just in a circle, because, d'ye see, I followed the sun, and
that led me astray the whole time."
"Was that when you well-nigh roasted the bear?" asked Louis, with a
sly glance at Hector.
"Well, no--that was another time; your father was out with me then."
And old Jacob, knocking the ashes out of his pipe, settled himself to
recount the adventure of the bear. Hector, who had heard Louis's
edition of the roast bear, was almost impatient at being forced to
listen to old Jacob's long-winded history, which included about a
dozen other stories, all tagged on to this, like links of a lengthened
chain; and he was not sorry when the old lumberer, taking his red
night-cap out of his pocket, at last stretched himself out on a
buffalo skin he had brought up from the canoe, and soon was soundly
sleeping.
The morning was yet gray when the old man shook himself from his
slumber; and, after having roused up a good fire, which, though the
latter end of July, at that dewy hour was not unwelcome, he lighted
his pipe, and began broiling a fish for his breakfast; and was thus
engaged when Hector and Louis wakened.
"I have been turning over in my mind about your sister," said he, "and
have come to the resolution of going up the river alone without any
one to accompany me. I know the Indians: they are a suspicious people;
they deal much in stratagems; and they are apt to expect treachery in
others. Perhaps they have had some reason; for the white men have not
always kept good faith with them, which I take to be the greater
shame, as they have God's laws to guide and teach them to be true and
just in their dealing, which the poor benighted heathen have not, the
more's the pity. Now, d'ye see, if the Indians see two stout lads with
me, they will say to themselves there may be more left behind,
skulking in ambush. So, boys, I go to the camp alone; and, God
willing, I will bring back your sister, or die in the attempt. I shall
not go empty-handed; see, I have here scarlet cloth, beads, and powder
and shot. I carry no fire-water: it is a sin and a shame to tempt
these poor wretches to their own destruction; it makes fiends of them
at once."
It was to no purpose that Hector and Louis passionately besought old
Jacob to let them share the dangers of the expedition; the old man was
firm, and would not be moved from his purpose.
"Look you, boys," he said, "if I do not return by the beginning of the
rice-harvest, you may suppose that evil has befallen me and the girl.
Then I would advise you to take care for your own safety; for if they
do not respect my gray head, neither will they spare your young ones.
In such case make yourselves a good canoe--a dug-out [Footnote:
Log-canoe] will do--and go down the lake till you are stopped by the
rapids; [Footnote: Heeley's Falls, on the Trent] make a portage there;
but as your craft is too weighty te carry far, e'en leave her and chop
out another, and go down to the falls; [Footnote: Crook's Rapids.]
then, if you do not like to be at any further trouble, you may make
out your journey to the bay [Footnote: Bay Quinte] on foot, coasting
along the river; there you will fall in with settlers who know old
Jacob Morelle, ay, and your two fathers, and they will put you in the
way of returning home. If I were to try ever so to put you on the old
Indian trail in the woods, though I know it myself right well, you
might be lost, and maybe never return home again. I leave my traps and
my rifle with you; I shall not need them. If I come back I may claim
the things; if not, they are yours. So now I have said my say, had my
_talk_, as the Indians say. Farewell. But first let us pray to
Him who alone can bring this matter to a safe issue." And the old man
devoutly kneeled down, and prayed for a blessing on his voyage and on
those he was leaving; and then hastened down to the beach, and the
boys, with full hearts, watched the canoe till it was lost to their
sight on the wide waters of the lake.