The Third Western Megapack

by Barker, S. Omar

  This feat of finding his way in the fog gave the elder brother some respect for the younger. Before the day was over, that respect had considerably increased. As the older boy was also the heavier, he had taken his place in the stern, kneeling on his folded blanket. Wielding a paddle was not a new exercise to Hugh. He thought that Blaise set too easy a pace, and, anxious to prove that he was no green hand, he quickened his own stroke. Blaise took the hint and timed his paddling to his brother’s. Hugh was sturdy, well knit and proud of his muscular strength. For a couple of hours he kept up the pace he had set. Then his stroke grew slower and he put less force into it. After a time Blaise suggested a few minutes’ rest. With the stern blade idle and the bow one dipped only now and then to keep the course, they floated for ten or fifteen minutes.

  Refreshed by this brief respite and ashamed of tiring so soon, Hugh resumed work with a more vigorous stroke, but it was Blaise who set the pace now. In a clear, boyish voice, which gave evidence in only an occasional note of beginning to break and roughen, he started an old French song, learned from his father, and kept time with his paddle.

  “Je n’ai pas trouvé personne

  Que le rossignol chantant la belle rose,

  La belle rose du rosier blanc!”

  Roughly translated:

  “Never yet have I found anyone

  But the nightingale, to sing of the lovely rose,

  The lovely rose of the white rose tree!”

  At first Hugh, though his voice broke and quavered, attempted to join in, but singing took breath and strength. He soon fell silent, content to dip and raise his blade in time to the younger lad’s tune. An easy enough pace it seemed, but the half-breed boy kept it up hour after hour, with only brief periods of rest.

  Hugh began to feel the strain sorely. His arms and back ached, his breath came wearily, and the lower part of his body was cramped and numb from his kneeling position. He had eaten breakfast at dawn and, as the sun climbed the sky and started down again, he began to wonder when and where his Indian brother intended to stop for the noon meal. Did Blaise purpose to travel all day without food, Hugh wondered. He opened his lips to ask, then, through pride, closed them again. Blaise, just fourteen, was nearly three years younger than Hugh. What Blaise could endure, the elder lad felt he must endure also. He did not intend to admit hunger or weariness, so long as his companion appeared untouched by either. With empty stomach and aching muscles, the white boy plied his paddle steadily and doggedly in time to the voyageur songs and the droning, monotonous Indian chants, the constantly repeated syllables of which had no meaning for him.

  It was the weather that came to Hugh’s rescue at last. After the lifting of the chill, frosty, morning fog, the day was bright. The waters of Thunder Bay were smooth at first, then rippled by a light north breeze. As the day wore on, the breeze came up to a brisk blow. Partly protected by the islands and points of the irregular shore, the two lads kept on their way. The wind increased. It roughened every stretch of open water to waves that broke foaming on the beaches or dashed in spray against the gray-brown rocks. Paddling became more and more difficult. Blaise ceased his songs. As they rounded a low point edged with gravel and sand, and saw before them a stretch of green-blue water swept by the full force of the wind into white-tipped waves, the half-breed boy told Hugh to steer for the beach. A few moments later he gave his elder brother a quick order to cease paddling.

  Realizing that Blaise wished to take the canoe in alone, Hugh, breathing a sigh of relief, laid down his paddle. The muscles of his back and shoulders were strained, it seemed to him, almost to the breaking point, and he felt that, in spite of his pride, he must soon have asked for rest. Without disturbing the balance of the wobbly craft, he tried to rub his cramped leg muscles. He feared that in trying to rise and step out, he might overturn the boat, to the mirth and disgust of his Indian brother.

  With a few strong and skillful strokes, Blaise shot the canoe into the shallow water off the point. When the bow struck the sand, with a sharp command to Hugh, he rose and stepped out. As quickly as he could, Hugh got to his feet, and managed to step over the opposite side without stumbling or upsetting the canoe. Raising the light bark craft, the two carried it up the shelving shore, to the bushes that edged the woods, well beyond the reach of the waves.

  The canoe carefully deposited in a safe spot, Hugh turned to Blaise. “Shall we be delayed long, do you think?” he asked.

  Blaise gave his French shrug. “It may be that the wind will go down with the sun.”

  “Then, if we are to stay here so long, a little food wouldn’t come amiss.”

  The younger boy nodded and began to unlash the packages which, to distribute the weight evenly, were securely tied to two poles lying along the bottom of the canoe. Hugh sought dry wood, kindled it with sparks from his flint and steel, and soon had a small fire on the pebbles. From a tripod of sticks the iron kettle was swung over the blaze, and when the water boiled, Blaise put in corn, a little of the dried venison, which he had pounded to a powder on a flat stone, and a portion of fat. He had made no mention of hunger, but when the stew was ready, Hugh noticed that he ate heartily. Meanwhile the elder boy, tired and sore muscled, watched for some sign of weariness in his companion. If Blaise was weary he had too much Indian pride to admit the fact to his new-found white brother.

  The open lake was now rich blue, flecked with foamy whitecaps, the air so clear that the deep color of the water formed a sharp cut line against the paler tint of the sky at the horizon. The May wind was bitterly cold, so the lads rigged a shelter with the poles of the canoe and a blanket. The ground was so hard the poles could not be driven in. Three or four inches down, it was either frozen or composed of solid rock. The boys were obliged to brace each pole with stones and boulders. The blanket, stretched between the supports, kept off the worst of the wind, and between the screen and the fire, the two rested in comfort. Hugh soon fell asleep, and when he woke he was pleased to find that Blaise had dropped off also. Perhaps the latter was wearier than he had chosen to admit.

  The wind did not go down with the sun, and the adventurers made camp for the night. Both blankets would be needed for bedding, so the screen was taken down and the canoe propped up on one side. Then a supply of wood was gathered and balsam branches cut for a bed. After a supper of corn porridge and maple sugar, the two turned in. Blaise went to sleep as soon as he was rolled in his blanket, but Hugh was wakeful. He lay there on his fragrant balsam bed in the shelter of the canoe, watching the flickering light of the camp fire and the stars coming out in the dark sky. Listening to the rushing of the wind in the trees and the waves breaking on the pebbles and thundering on a bit of rock shore near at hand, surrounded on every side by the strange wilderness of woods and waters, the boy could not sleep for a time. He kept thinking of his roving, half-wild father, and of the strange legacy he had left his sons. Twice Hugh rose to replenish the fire, when it began to die down, before he grew drowsy and drifted away into the land of dreams.

  CHAPTER VII

  AT WAUSWAUGONING

  Hugh woke chilled and stiff, to find Blaise rekindling the fire. The morning was clear and the sun coming up across the water. Winds and waves had subsided enough to permit going on with the journey.

  Cutting wood limbered Hugh’s sore muscles somewhat, and a hot breakfast cheered him, but the first few minutes of paddling were difficult and painful. With set teeth he persisted, and gradually the worst of the lameness wore off.

  Skirting the shore of Lake Superior in a bark canoe requires no small amount of patience. Delays from unfavorable weather must be frequent and unavoidable. On the whole, Hugh and Blaise were lucky during the first part of their trip, and they reached the Pigeon River in good time. Rounding the long point to the south of the river mouth, they paddled to the north end of Wauswaugoning Bay.

  Hugh was gaining experience and his paddl
ing muscles were hardening. He would soon be able, he felt, to hold his own easily at any pace his half-brother set. So far Blaise had proved a good travelling companion, somewhat silent and grave to be sure, but dependable, patient and for the most part even tempered. His lack of talkativeness Hugh laid to his Indian blood, his gravity to his sorrow at the loss of the father he had known so much better than Hugh had known him. Blaise, the older boy decided, was, in spite of his Quebec training and many civilized ways, more Indian than French. Only now and then, in certain gestures and quick little ways, in an unexpected gleam of humor or sudden flash of anger, did the lad show his kinship with Jean Beaupré.

  Satisfactory comrade though the half-breed boy seemed, Hugh was in no haste to admit Blaise to his friendship. Since first receiving his letter, Hugh had felt doubtful of this Indian brother, inclined to resent his very existence. Their relations from their first meeting had been entirely peaceful but somewhat cool and stiff. As yet, Hugh was obliged to admit to himself, he had no cause for complaint of his half-brother’s behavior, but he felt that the real test of their companionship was to come.

  The search for the cache of pelts had not yet begun, but was to begin soon. It was into his wife’s lodge at Wauswaugoning Bay that Jean Beaupré had stumbled dying. Somewhere between Grand Portage Bay, which lies just to the west and south of Wauswaugoning, and the Fond du Lac at the mouth of the St. Louis River, the bateau must have been wrecked and the furs hidden.

  The two boys landed on a bit of beach at the north end of the bay, hid the canoe among the alders, and set out on foot. Blaise fully expected to find his mother awaiting him, but the cleared spot among the trees was deserted. Of the camp nothing remained but the standing poles of a lodge, from which the bark covering had been stripped, and refuse and cast-off articles strewn upon the stony ground in the untidy manner in which the Indians and most of the white voyageurs left their camping places. With a little grunt, which might have meant either disappointment or disgust, Blaise looked about him. He noticed two willow wands lying crossed on the ground and pegged down with a crotched stick.

  “She has gone that way,” said the boy, indicating the longest section of willow, pointing towards the northeast.

  “If she travelled by canoe, it is strange we did not meet her,” Hugh remarked.

  Blaise shrugged. “Who knows how long ago she went? The ashes are wet with rain. I cannot tell whether the fire burned two days ago or has been out many days. There is another message here.” He squatted down to study the shorter stick. At one end the bark had been peeled off and a cross mark cut into the wood. The marked end pointed towards a thick clump of spruces.

  The boy rose and walked towards the group of trees, Hugh following curiously. Blaise pushed his way between the spruces, and, before Hugh could join him, came out again carrying a mooseskin bag. In the open space by the ashes of the fire, he untied the thong and dumped the contents. There was a smaller skin bag, partly full, a birch bark package and a bundle of clothing. Tossing aside the bundle, Blaise opened the small bag, thrust in his hand, then, with the one word “manomin,” passed the bag to Hugh. It was about half full of wild rice grains, very hard and dry. The bark package Blaise did not open. He merely sniffed at it and laid it down. Hugh, picking it up and smelling of it, recognized the unmistakable odor of smoked fish. The bundle, which the younger boy untied next, contained two deerskin shirts or tunics, two pairs of leggings of the same material and half a dozen pairs of moccasins. All were new and well made, the moccasins decorated with dyed porcupine quills, the breasts of the tunics with colored bead embroidery.

  The lad’s face lighted with a look of pleasure, and he glanced at Hugh proudly. “They are my mother’s work,” he said, “made of the best skins, well made. Now we have strong new clothes for our journey.”

  “We?” replied Hugh questioningly.

  “Truly. There are two suits and six pairs of moccasins. Look.” He held up one of the shirts. “This she made larger than the other. She knows you are the elder and must be the larger.” He handed the shirt to Hugh, following it with a pair of the leggings. Looking over the moccasins, he selected the larger ones and gave them also to his white brother. “They are better to wear in a canoe than boots,” he said.

  For a moment Hugh was silent with embarrassment. He was touched by the generosity of the Indian woman, who had put as much time and care on these clothes for her unknown stepson as upon those for her own boy. He flushed, however, at the thought of accepting anything from the squaw who had taken his mother’s place in his father’s life. Yet to decline the gift would be to offer a deadly insult not only to the Indian woman but to her son as well.

  “I am obliged to your mother,” Hugh stammered. “It was—kind of her.”

  Blaise made no other reply than a nod. He appeared pleased with the appearance and quality of the clothes, but took it as a matter of course that his mother should make them for Hugh as well as for himself.

  “I wish she had left more food,” he said after a moment, “but at this time of the year food is scarce. That manomin is all that remained of the harvest of the autumn. We have eaten much of our food. We must fish when we can.”

  “Can’t we buy corn and pork from the traders at the Grand Portage?” Hugh inquired.

  Blaise shook his head doubtfully. “We will try,” he said.

  He put the food back in the mooseskin bag and hung it on a tree. Then he turned to Hugh and said softly and questioningly, “You wish to see where we laid him?”

  Hugh nodded, a lump rising in his throat, and followed his brother. Beyond the clump of spruces, in a tiny clearing, was Jean Beaupré’s grave. Hugh was surprised and horrified to see that it was, in appearance, an Indian grave. Poles had been stuck in the ground on either side, bent over and covered with birch bark. The boy’s face flushed with indignation.

  “Why,” he demanded, “did you do that?” He pointed to the miniature lodge.

  Blaise looked puzzled. “It is the Ojibwa custom.”

  “Father was not an Ojibwa. He was a white man and should have been buried like a white man and a Christian,” Hugh burst out.

  Blaise drew himself up with a dignity strange in so young a lad. “He was buried like a Christian,” he replied quietly. “Look.” He pointed to the rude cross set up in front of the opening to the shelter, instead of the pole, with offerings and trophies hung upon it, usually placed beside Ojibwa graves. “The good father absolved him and read the burial service over him,” the lad went on, “and I placed the cross there. Then the friends of my mother covered the spot according to the Ojibwa custom. Our father was an Ojibwa by adoption and it was right they should do that. Now no Ojibwa will ever disturb that spot.”

  Hugh’s anger had been cooling. After all, his father had thrown in his lot with the Indians and they had meant to honor him. At least he had received Christian burial, and it was something to know that his grave would not be disturbed. In silence Hugh turned away. He could not quite bring himself to apologize for his hasty words.

  The relations between the half-brothers were more than ordinarily cool the rest of that day. Blaise, travelling overland by a trail he knew, went to the Grand Portage Bay in quest of supplies. Even before the formation of the Northwest Company, the bay had been a favorite stopping place, first for the French, and then for the English traders who followed the Pigeon River route to the country west of the lake. An old Indian trail led from the bay to a spot on the river above the falls and rapids that make its lower course unnavigable. Gitchi Onegam Kaministigoya the Indians had called the trail and the bay, “the great carrying place of the river that is hard to navigate.” Early in the history of the fur trade, the white traders began to use that trail, portaging their goods some nine miles from the bay to the river and bringing the bales of furs back over the same route.

  Since the Old Northwest Company had removed its
headquarters to Thunder Bay and had practically abandoned the Pigeon River route for the Kaministikwia, Grand Portage was not so busy a place, but the Old Company still maintained a post at the partly deserted fort on the north shore of the bay. On the west side the chief post and headquarters of the New Company also remained open for business. Blaise visited both posts, only to find that, as the winter’s supplies were almost exhausted and no one knew when fresh stores would arrive, nothing could be spared.

  Anxious to avoid questions, Hugh had not accompanied Blaise. He occupied himself with fishing from the canoe, and caught one lake trout of about three pounds weight. Making a grill of willow twigs resting on stones over the coals, he had the trout ready to broil when Blaise returned. The common way of cooking fish among both the Indians and white men of the woods was to boil them, but Hugh, recently from the civilized world, preferred his broiled, baked or fried.

  Blaise, after one mouthful, deigned to approve his elder brother’s cooking. “It is good,” he said. “I have not eaten fish so cooked since I ate it on Fridays in school at Quebec.”

  Neither lad had anything more to say during the meal or for some time afterwards. Finally Blaise put his hand in the leather pouch he wore at his belt, drew out something and handed it to Hugh. The latter unwrapped the bit of soft doeskin and found his father’s gold seal ring. He glanced quickly up at Blaise.

  “It is yours,” the younger brother said. “I gave it not to you before, because I liked not to part with it.”

  Moved by a generous impulse, Hugh stretched out his hand to return the ring, but Blaise would not take it.