Stranded in Arcady

by Francis Lynde

  XV

  JEAN BA'TISTE

  ON a morning which Prime, consulting his notched stick, named as thetwenty-fourth of July, they gave the canoe patches another daubing ofpitch for good luck, relaunched their argosy, loaded the dunnage, andbegan to learn the art of paddling anew--the relearning being madestrictly necessary by the new green-wood paddles.

  From a boisterous mill-race in its upper reaches, their river had nowsubsided into a broad stream with a current so leisurely that they hadto paddle continuously to make any headway. With this handicap theirprogress was slow, and it was not until the afternoon of the second daythat they began to see signs to hint that they were approaching thesettlements.

  The signs were neither numerous nor indicative of any recent habitancy:a few old clearings with their stumps weathered and rotting; here andthere a spot luxuriantly green to mark an area where slashings had beenburned; in one place a decaying runway to show where the logs had beenskidded into the river; all these proved that they were not pioneers;but withal they saw no human being to dispute possession with them.

  In the evening of this second day they camped on the right-hand bank ashort distance below one of the old clearings, kindling their night firea few yards from the river in a small grove of second-growth pines. Theplace was not entirely to their liking; the river-bank was high, andthey could not draw the canoe out without partially unloading it. WhileLucetta was busying herself with the supper, Prime, as a precautionarymeasure, made a porter of himself to the extent of carrying a good partof the dunnage up to the fire, and after thus lightening the canoe hehauled it out of water as far as the steep bank would permit.

  While they were eating supper an unexpected guest turned up. Lucetta wasthe first to hear the dip of a paddle in the stream, and a moment laterthey both heard the grating of a boat bottom on the sand. Prime sprangup, rifle in hand, and went to meet the newcomer, prepared to do battleif needful. When he returned he was followed by a small man, dark,bearded, and with bead-like black eyes roving and shifty. He was dressedmore like an Indian than a white man; there were fringes on hismoccasins and also on the belted coat, which was much the worse for wearand hard usage.

  "_Moi_, Jean Ba'tiste; I mek you de good evenin', _m'sieu' et madame_,"he said, introducing himself brusquely, and as he spoke the roving eyeswere taking in every detail of the bivouac camp. Then, with no more ado,he squatted beside the fire and became their supper guest, sayingsimply: "You eat?--good; _moi_, I eat, too."

  Since there seemed to be no question of ceremony, Prime made the guestwelcome, heaping his tin plate and pouring tea for him in the spare cup.The small man ate as if he were half starved, and was saving of speechduring the process, though the roving eyes seemed to be doing doubleduty. The meal devoured, he produced a black clay pipe with a brokenstem and uttered a single word, "Tabac'?" and when the want was suppliedhe crumbled himself a pipeful from the twist which Prime handed him.

  Prime filled his own home-made pipe, and at its lighting the guest begana curt inquisition.

  "W'ere you come from?"

  Prime explained without going into any of the kidnapping details.

  "You campin' out for fon, mebbe, yes?" was the next query.

  "A little that way," said Prime.

  "You shoot wiz ze gon? W'ere all dat game w'at you get?"

  "It isn't the game season," Prime parried. "We haven't tried to shootanything."

  "But you 'ave ze gon. Lemme see 'um," holding out a hand for the rifle.

  Prime passed over the gun nearest at hand and drew the other one upwithin reach. The inquisitive supper guest looked the weapon overcarefully and seemed to be trying to read something in the scratches onthe stock.

  "_Vraiment!_ she's one good gon," he commented, passing it back. "W'ereyou get 'um?"

  "_Vraiment!_ she's one good gon," he commented.... "W'ereyou get 'um?"]

  Prime did not answer the question. He thought it was high time to ask afew of his own.

  "What river is this?" he wanted to know.

  "You make canoe on him and you not know dat? She is Mishamen; comesbimeby to Riviere du Lievres."

  "How far?"

  "One, two, t'ree day; mebbe more."

  "You mean that we will reach a town in two or three days?"

  "Mebbe so, if you don' get los'."

  Prime exchanged a quick glance with his fellow castaway. Lucettasignalled "Yes," and he acted accordingly.

  "What will you charge to show us the way to the nearest town?" he asked.

  The small man did not seem especially eager for money. He was examiningthe gun again. "_Moi_, I can't go--too bizzee. W'ere you got dis gon?"

  "It came with our outfit," said Prime shortly. "We got it when we gotthe canoe."

  "And w'ere you got dat canoe?"

  The inquisition was growing rather embarrassing, but Prime answered asbest he could.

  "We got the outfit up at the big lake where we started from. We havecome all the way down the river."

  With this the restless-eyed querist appeared to be satisfied. At allevents he did not press the questioning any further, and was content totake another pipe-filling from Prime's tobacco twist and to tell alittle more about himself. He was "one ver' great trapper," in his ownphrase, and was also a "timber looker" for a lumber company. Lucetta hadwithdrawn to the privacy of her tent, and Prime could not divest himselfof the idea that the small man whose tongue had been so suddenlyloosened was merely sparring for time, time in which to accomplish someend of his own. In due course the battery was unmasked.

  "You say you begin _voyageur_ on ze big lake. W'ere you leave JulesBeaujeau an' Pierre Cambon, eh, w'at?"

  "I don't know them," said Prime, telling the simple truth.

  "Dis Pierre Cambon's gon," said the little man, suddenly tapping theweapon he had been inspecting. "She 'ave hees name on ze stock. An' zebirch-bark down yonder; she's belong' to Jules Beaujeau. You buy 'um?"

  Prime scarcely knew what to say; whether to tell the truth, which wouldnot be believed, or to make up a lie, which might be believed. As acompromise he chose a middle course, which is always the most dangerous.

  "I don't know these two you speak of, by name; but the two men who ownedthe canoe and the guns are both dead."

  The supper guest sprang up as if a bomb had been exploded under him andquickly put a safe distance between himself and the camp-fire.

  "You--you kill 'um?" he demanded.

  "No; come back here and sit down. They had a fight and killed eachother."

  The man returned hesitantly and squatted beside the fire to pressanother live coal into the bowl of his pipe. Prime switched the talkabruptly.

  "You'd better change your mind about the offer I made you and pilot usto the nearest town. We will pay you well for it."

  "You got money?" was the short question.

  "Plenty of it."

  At this the "ver' great trapper" assumed to take the proposal underconsideration, smoking other pipes, chaffering and bargaining andprolonging his stay deep into the night. When he finally took his leave,saying that he must go on to his camp, which was a few miles up one ofthe smaller tributaries of the main stream, it was with a half promiseto come back in the morning for the piloting.

  Prime took counsel of prudence and did not settle himself for the nightimmediately after the sharp-eyed one had gone. Laying his pipe aside, hecrept cautiously out to the river-bank and assured himself that his latevisitor was doing what he had said he would do, namely, heading off upthe river with clean, quick strokes of the paddle, which soon sent hislight craft out of sight. Prime climbed down the bank, satisfiedhimself that the patched canoe and its partial lading had not beendisturbed, and then went back to the fire to roll himself in hisblankets. The incident, with its inquisitorial pryings, had been ratherdisturbing, in a way, but it was apparently an incident closed.

  Turning in so late after a laborious day on the river, Prime oversleptthe nex
t morning, and when he awoke he found Lucetta already up andfrying the bacon.

  "Your man didn't stay all night?" she questioned, after Prime hadscolded her for not making him get up and do his part.

  "No; he sat here until between ten and eleven o'clock and gave me two orthree bad minutes. He recognized our canoe and one of the guns, told methe names of the dead men, and wanted to know what had become of them."

  "You didn't tell him?" she gasped.

  "In the cold light of the morning after, I am afraid I told him too muchor too little. I told him the men who owned the canoe and its outfitwere dead; that they'd had a fight and killed each other. Candidly, Idon't think he believed it. It scared him until I thought he was goingto have a fit. I had to jolly him up a bit before he would come back tothe fire and talk some more."

  "What does he believe?" she inquired anxiously.

  "He wouldn't tell me, and I couldn't decide by merely looking at him. Ihope I've hired him to pilot us to the nearest town. When he went awayhe intimated that he might be back this morning."

  "Shall we wait for him?"

  "No; if he isn't here by the time we are ready to start, we'll go on andtake our chance of 'gettin' los',' as he put it. I think that was abluff, anyway."

  They breakfasted leisurely, and Prime even took time to smoke a pipebefore beginning to break camp. But his first trip to the river-bankwith a load of the dunnage brought him back on a run.

  "Our canoe's gone!" he announced breathlessly. "That little wretch cameback and stole it while we were asleep!"

  Lucetta sat down and propped her chin in her hands.

  "This is the beginning of the end, Donald," she said quite calmly andwith a touch of resignation in her voice. "Do you know why he took thecanoe?"

  "Because he's an infernal thief!" Prime raged hotly.

  "No," she contradicted. "It is because he thinks we have murdered thetwo owners of the canoe, and he wanted to make sure that we wouldn't runaway while he went after help to arrest us."