The Third Western Megapack

by Barker, S. Omar

  “What would you do then, Blaise?”

  “I would go quickly to the Kaministikwia, leave the furs there, and find other men to go with us to the Isle of Torture.”

  “That will take a long time,” Hugh objected. “We may be too late.”

  “Then we will cross to Minong again. We know where his camp is. Oh, we can find men eager to seek out Ohrante and his wolf pack wherever they may be, and destroy them like the wolves they are. The X Y agent will help us to raise a party. Ohrante was brought into this country by the Old Company. He is a skillful hunter and took to them many pelts.”

  “True. The New Company will be glad to help capture the fellow no doubt,” Hugh agreed.

  “But you and I, as our father’s sons, will claim the right to deal with him.” There was a hard, fierce note in the lad’s voice. Jean Beaupré had not been a mild man, yet it was not so much the hot-tempered French father that spoke now in the son, as the fierce, implacable savage. Bitterly as Hugh hated the giant Mohawk, he sensed something different and alien in his half-brother’s passion. Through the weeks of constant association with Blaise, Hugh had ceased ordinarily to think of him as Indian, but now, for the moment, he was not Blaise Beaupré, but Attekonse, Ojibwa. Yet it was the white boy who was the most impatient at the thought of delay in dealing with Ohrante.

  The wind, however, had apparently settled the question. The breeze would carry the boat northwest to Thunder Bay, but would be more hindrance than help in going southwest to Grand Portage. In the lee of an island, the brothers raised their mast and ran up their sail. As they paddled out from shelter, the breeze caught the canvas and they were off across the lake.

  Clouds had covered the moon, and it was too dark to sight Thunder Cape. The boys could do nothing but run before the wind and trust to it to carry them somewhere near their destination. At any rate they were leaving Minong and putting the miles between themselves and the cruel, self-appointed chief of the island. That wonderful and beautiful island, which the white men had appropriately called Royale, deserved a better king, and the first step in the right direction was to depose the present usurper, thought Hugh with grim humor.

  CHAPTER XXXI

  WITH WIND AND WAVES

  In the light breeze the bateau sailed but slowly, and the boys, in their impatience, strove to increase speed by helping with the paddles. As they went farther out, however, the wind increased, and before long they laid aside the blades, satisfied that they were making fairly good progress.

  Overhead the stars shone dimly. To the south and east, the sky was banked with masses of cloud. Hugh, glancing that way, felt uneasy. A rain-storm coming down upon the heavily loaded, open bateau would be unpleasant if not disastrous. From the behavior of the sail, he knew that the wind was less steady. During the past two months he had learned something of the moods of Lake Superior, and he understood that he must be ready for a sudden shift. He had been handling both sheet and tiller, but now he turned the steering over to his brother.

  The change of wind came suddenly and with force. For a few moments Hugh had his hands full. Blaise obeyed orders on the instant, sail and boat were swung about, and were soon running freely before the wind again.

  “We may not reach the Kaministikwia so soon as we hoped,” Hugh commented, when the momentary danger was past. “The wind seems to be taking us where it chooses. As near as I can tell we must be running almost directly west now instead of northwest.”

  Blaise looked up at the only patch of clear sky visible. “Yes, I think we go west. If the wind holds steady we shall reach the shore somewhere between the Kaministikwia and the Grand Portage. If it shifts again——” He broke off with a shrug.

  “If it shifts again,” Hugh took up the words, “we shall reach somewhere sometime, unless we go to the bottom. Even that would be a better fate than falling into Ohrante’s hands.”

  The breeze was increasing in force, the waves running ever higher. Hugh and Blaise were kept busy and alert. Before the wind, the bateau was sailing swiftly enough so that there was little danger of following seas actually swamping it, but, heavily laden, it rode low, with little buoyancy. Every time it pitched down into the trough of the waves it shipped water. Those were the dangerous moments. With the utmost care in handling sail and rudder, the brothers could do little to insure against disaster. To keep straight before the wind, not to lose control of sail or rudder, and to take the chances with coolness and composure was about all there was to do. As they drove on in the darkness, now riding high on the summit of a wave, now pitching down between walls of water, they lost all count of time.

  The waves seemed to be flattening out a little. Surely they were less high and long, yet they were even more troublesome, for they had grown choppy and uneven. When Blaise steered straight with them, Hugh found the sail swinging around. When he sailed directly before the wind, the boat pitched at an angle with the waves.

  “The wind has shifted again,” he said anxiously.

  “It comes from the northeast now,” Blaise returned.

  Both were too busy and anxious to talk. Hugh confined his speech to sharply given orders and Blaise to answering grunts. The spray of breaking waves soaked them both, time and again. The boat was shipping a good deal of water, but bailing was impossible. The elder brother had his hands full with the sail, the younger was compelled to give all his attention to steering.

  Gradually conditions improved. The wind steadied and the waves obeyed it. Once more the bateau could ride them straight, while running directly before the breeze. The clouds were broken now, moving swiftly across the sky, covering and uncovering the moon and stars. Whenever the boys dared to take their eyes from sail and water, they glanced upward. When enough sky had been blown clean to show them the position of the moon and principal stars, both lads were surprised to learn that dawn was not nearer. It seemed to them that they had been pitching about in the waves for a very long time, yet the day was still hours away.

  The wind continued strong, the waves were higher than ever, but the brothers had gained more confidence in the sailing qualities of the boat and in their own ability to handle it. Less water was being shipped, and by bailing when they had a chance, they managed to keep it from rising too high. Now that the sky was clearing and there was more light on the lake, they could see farther across it. As the boat rose to the top of a wave, Blaise said suddenly, “L’isle du Paté.”

  Hugh looked quickly and, before the bateau pitched down between the waves, he caught a glimpse of a compact, abrupt, black mass towering from the water not many miles to his right. There seemed to be no chance of reaching the mouth of the Kaministikwia though. To turn and run in past the south side of Pie Island was out of the question. The square sail would be worse than useless, and the laden bateau would inevitably be swamped in the trough of the waves.

  The stars were waning in the paling sky. The short summer night was drawing to a close and dawn was approaching. South and west of Pie Island and nearer at hand, lower lines of shore appeared, the chain of islands from one of which the adventurers had set out for the Isle Royale. Those islands, across several miles of heaving water, were still too far away to be reached. Wind and waves were carrying the bateau by. The sun, coming up in an almost clear sky, found the boat still running southwest on a course almost parallel with the unattainable chain of islands.

  As the hours passed, the boys were encouraged to discover that they were drawing gradually nearer and nearer to the islands on the right. What was still better, they were bearing straight towards land ahead, continuous, high land they knew must be the main shore. It seemed that they must reach the mainland not many miles to the southwest of the place where the chain of islands diverged from it. Hugh had long since ceased to be particular where he landed, if it was only in some spot where food might be obtained. Rations the day before had been very scanty, and he was exceedingly
hungry.

  The wind was strong but steady, the waves long and high. The bateau, as it plunged down into the trough, continued to ship a little water, but the boys kept it down by bailing when a hand and arm could be spared. They were borne nearer and nearer to the land. As they ran past a group of small islets not more than a half mile distant, with a larger and higher island showing beyond them, Hugh glanced that way and considered trying to turn.

  Blaise guessed his brother’s thought. “The mainland is not far now,” he said, “and we go straight towards it. Let us go on until we can land without danger to the furs. There will be more chance to find food on the mainland also.”

  Both of the younger boy’s arguments had weight with Hugh. He gave up the idea of attempting to turn, and they went on with wind and waves. At the end of another hour they were bearing down upon an irregular, rocky point.

  “Is that island or mainland, do you think?” Hugh inquired.

  “Mainland,” was the unhesitating reply. “I remember the place. Have I not passed it three times in the last two moons?”

  Hugh made no answer. He himself must have passed that spot twice within two months, but there were so many rocky points along the shore. Hugh was observing enough in the white man’s way, but he did not see how Blaise could remember all those places and tell them apart.

  The bateau ran close to the point. When a bay came into view, Hugh expected Blaise to steer in, but the latter made no move to do so.

  “It is steep and rocky there,” he explained, with a nod towards the abrupt-shored cove. “Beyond yet a little way is a better place, shallow and well protected.”

  Past another point and along a steep rock shore they sailed. Here they were in much calmer water, for the points broke the force of wind and waves. As they approached a group of small islands, Blaise remarked, “It is best to take down the sail. We can paddle in.”

  Accordingly Hugh lowered the sail and took up his paddle, while Blaise steered the bateau in among the islets. In a few moments the haven lay revealed, an almost round bay, its entrance nearly closed by islets. The islands and the points on either side were rocky, but the shores of the bay were low and densely wooded with tamarack, cedar and black spruce. The water was almost calm, and the boys made a landing on a bit of beach on the inner side and under the high land of the right hand point.

  Hugh had not realized that he was particularly tired. The strain of the dangerous voyage had kept him alert, but he had had no sleep for two nights. Now, suddenly, an overpowering weariness and weakness came over him. His legs almost collapsed under him. He dropped down on the beach, too utterly exhausted to move. He was on solid land again, but he could scarcely realize it. His head was dizzy, and the moment his eyes closed he seemed to be heaving up and down again.

  CHAPTER XXXII

  THE FIRE AT THE END OF THE TRAIL

  When Hugh woke, the dizziness and sense of swaying up and down were gone. He sat up, feeling strangely weak and hollow, and looked about him. The bateau was drawn up on the beach, but Blaise was nowhere in sight. From the shadows Hugh could tell that the sun was on its downward journey. He had slept several hours. He was just gathering up his courage to get up, when he heard a stone rattling down the rock hill behind him. Turning his head, he saw Blaise descending. The boy was carrying several fish strung on a withe. Hugh eyed those fish with hungry eyes. He could almost eat them raw, he thought. He got to his feet and looked around for fuel. Not until he had a fire kindled, and,—too impatient to let it burn down to coals or to wait for water to heat,—was holding a piece of fish on a crotched stick before the blaze, did he ask his younger brother where he had been.

  “I slept for a while,” Blaise admitted, “but not for long. My hunger was too great. I took my gun and my line and climbed to the top of the point. I went along the steep cliff, but I found no game and no tracks. Then I came to that rocky bay. The shores are steep there and the water clear. I climbed out upon a rock and caught these fish. They are not big, but they are better than no food.”

  “They certainly are,” Hugh agreed whole-heartedly.

  The elder brother’s pride in his own strength and endurance was humbled. He had slept, exhausted, for hours, while the half-breed boy, nearly three years younger than himself, had walked two or three miles in search of food.

  When no eatable morsel of the fish remained, the brothers’ thoughts turned to their next move.

  “We are far nearer the Grand Portage than the Kaministikwia,” Hugh said thoughtfully. “We had better follow my first plan and go down the shore instead of up. We can surely find others at the Portage willing to go with us against Ohrante.”

  “It is all we can do,” Blaise assented, “unless we wait here for the wind to change. It is almost from the north now. We must go against it if we go up the Bay of Thunder. The other way, the shore will shelter us. But we cannot start yet. We must wait a little for the waves to go down.”

  “And in the meantime we will seek more food,” Hugh added. “Why not try fishing among those little islands?”

  The channels among the islets proved good fishing ground. By sunset the lads had plenty of trout to insure against any danger of starvation for another day at least. The waves had gone down enough to permit travel in the shelter of the shore. Sailing was out of the question, and paddling the laden bateau would be slow work, but Hugh was too impatient to delay longer, and Blaise more than willing to go on.

  After half an hour of slow progress, the younger brother made a suggestion. “We are not far from the Rivière aux Tourtres now.” He used the French name for the Pigeon River, a name which seems to mean “river of turtles.” The word tourtres doubtless referred to turtle doves or pigeons. “To paddle this bateau,” Blaise went on, “is very slow, and to reach Wauswaugoning by water we must go far out into the waves around that long point below the river mouth. But along the south bank of the river is an Ojibwa trail. At a bend the trail leaves the river and goes on across the point to Wauswaugoning. We shall save time if we go that way, by land.”

  “What about the boat and the furs?”

  “We will leave them behind. There is a little cove near the river mouth where the bateau will be safe. The furs we can hide among the rocks. We shall not be gone many days if all goes well. No white man I think and few Ojibwas go that way. An Ojibwa will not disturb a cache,” Blaise added confidently.

  “Yet I don’t like the idea of leaving the furs,” Hugh protested.

  “They will be safer there than at the Grand Portage, where the men of the Old Company might find them.”

  “Why not turn them over to the X Y clerk at the Portage?” Hugh questioned.

  “No, no. If our father had wanted them taken there he would have said so. Again and again he said to take them to the New Company at the Kaministikwia. He had a debt there, a small one, and he did not like the man in charge at the Grand Portage. There was some trouble between them, I know not what.”

  Blaise was usually willing to yield to his elder brother’s judgment, but this time he proved obstinate. Jean Beaupré’s commands must be carried out to the letter. His younger son would not consent to the slightest modification.

  Darkness had come when the two reached the mouth of the Pigeon River, but the moon was bright and Blaise had no difficulty steering into the little cove. Alders growing down to the water concealed the boat when it was pulled up among them. Blaise assured Hugh that, even in daylight, it could not be seen from the narrow entrance to the cove. The mast was taken down and the sail spread over the bottom of a hollow in the rocks. On the canvas the bales of furs were piled, and a blanket was thrown over the heap. The boys cut several poles, laid them across the hole, the ends resting on the rock rim, and covered them with sheets of birch bark, stripped from an old, half-dead tree. The crude roof, weighted down with stones, would serve to keep out small animals as well a
s to shed rain. All this work was done rapidly by the light of the moon.

  The cache completed, Blaise led Hugh to the opening of the trail at the river mouth. The trail, the boy said, had been used by the Ojibwas for many years. A narrow, rough, but distinct path had been trodden by the many moccasined feet that had travelled over it. The moonlight filtered through the trees, and Blaise, who had been that way before, followed the track readily. With them the brothers carried the remaining blanket, the gun, ammunition, kettle and the rest of their fish. As Blaise had said, the trail ran along the south bank until a bend was reached, then, leaving the river, went on in the same westerly direction across the point of land between the mouth of the Pigeon River and Wauswaugoning Bay. The whole distance was not more than three miles, and the boys made good time.

  Hugh thought they must be nearing the end of the path, when Blaise stopped suddenly with a low exclamation. The elder brother looked over the younger’s shoulder. Among the trees ahead glowed the yellow light of a small fire.

  “Wait here a moment,” Blaise whispered. And he slipped forward among the trees.

  In a few minutes he was back again. “There are three men,” he said, “sleeping by a fire, a white man and two Ojibwas. One of the Ojibwas I know and he knew our father. We need not fear, but because of the white man, we will say nothing of the furs.”

  The two went forward almost noiselessly, but, in spite of their quiet approach, when they came out of the woods by the fire, one of the Indians woke and sat up.

  “Bo-jou,” remarked Blaise.

  The second Indian was awake now. “Bo-jou, bo-jou,” both replied, gazing at the newcomers.

  The white man rolled over, but before he could speak, Hugh sprang towards him with a cry of pleasure. “Baptiste, it is good to see you! How come you here?”