Adrift in the Ice-Fields Part 6

"Do just as you please, Charley," said the warmhearted hunter. "I don't claim any share, for we are all on our own hook, unless by special agreement; but I shall be very glad if you are kind enough to share with him, poor fellow!"

"Well, Ben, you are to take the fox at your own price, giving Peter an order on your partner for the gun, and credit to the amount of twenty-five dollars more. The other seventy-five we divide. You have only to give me credit for my moiety, as I owe you nearly that amount."

"I'm satisfied if you are; so let us hurry up, and see Peter prepare the skin, and send him home happy."

"The finest skin I ever saw," said Risk. "It's worth three hundred dollars in St. Petersburg, if it's worth a cent."

"Who killed him?" said the elder Davies. "If you did, Ben, I'd like to buy the skin."

"I bought it myself of La Salle for one hundred and fifty. He killed it, and sold it to me. I guess I can sell to good advantage."

In the mean time Peter had drawn his _waghon_, or curved Indian knife, from his belt, and, carefully commencing at the rear of the body, skinned the animal without forming another aperture, removing the mask, and ears attached, with great nicety. With equal dexterity he whittled a piece of pine board to the proper shape, and, turning the skin inside out, drew it tightly over the batten, fastening it in place with a few tacks. His task completed, he handed it to La Salle, and rose to go.

The latter restrained him, saying,--

"Hold, Peter; you must have your pay first. Here is a pair of rubber boots and some dry stockings. Put them on, and throw away those old moccasons, and take these few things to your wife."

"You very kind, brother," said Peter, simply, taking the small bundle of tea, sugar, bread, cake, and jellies which could be spared from their limited stock of "small stores."

"And, Peter," continued La Salle, "Ben and I have concluded to share with you in the matter of the fox. We have no wives yet, and therefore think about one half the price ought to go to you. This paper will get you that double-barrel of Ben's father to-morrow, if you feel like going over for it; and you will also be allowed to purchase twenty-five dollars' worth more of ammunition, food, and clothing."

The tears came into the poor fellow's eyes.

"d.a.m.n! I know you hite men. I know you heretic. I say I no hunt with you. I try cheat you on the trail, and you make Peter cly like squaw. I wish--I wish--you two, tlee, six fathom deep in river. I jump in for you if I die."

And, seizing the bundle and the precious order, he dashed the moisture from his eyes, and took the road homeward.

"He will never repay your kindness," said Lund. "Them Indians is never grateful for anything."

"I think he will repay it, if it is ever in his power," said Risk.

"Peter is one of the most honest and industrious of his tribe, and it is not his fault when his children want food."

"Well, boys," said the elder Davies, "I suppose you have done right, and that you will receive as much grat.i.tude as we give to our heavenly Father; but, as men look at things, you have, indeed, 'cast your bread upon the waters.'"

"If it is so, Mr. Davies," said La Salle, with a solemnity unusual with him, "our reward is sure; for the promise is, 'Thou _shalt_ find it after many days.'"

"But," said Lund, with a quiet twinkle in his sharp gray eye, "I'd like to bet five shillin' that, when you are repaid, it won't be in Indian bread."

"Pretty good!" laughed Kennedy, who had taken the day to finish up a large pile of "back numbers" of his favorite daily, "but I think hardly just to the Indians. Horace Greeley has given a great deal of thought to this Indian question, and although he would disapprove of supplying them with arms and ammunition, yet in all other matters would indorse your policy."

"You don't mean to say that Greeley would disapprove of letting poor Peter have a gun to shoot game to help support his family--do you?"

asked Ben, in astonishment.

"Certainly I do. With that fifty dollars, he could have procured tools and seed, and started a farm on Indian Island. Instead of that, you give him the means of continuing a savage, instead of encouraging him to become a farmer and a civilized being. Horace Greeley would have tried--"

"To attempt an impossibility," said La Salle, excitedly. "As well may you expect to raise a draught horse from a pair of racers, or keep a flock of eagles as you would a coop of hens. The French have been the only people on this continent with an Indian policy founded in reason, and a just estimate of the character and capabilities of the aborigines."

"And yet they were completely driven from this continent," said Kennedy.

"True, sir; but their Indian policy made their scanty population of two hundred thousand Europeans a dreaded foe to the nearly three million colonists of English descent. They made of their savage allies an arm that struck secretly, swiftly, and with terrible effect, and a defence that kept actual hostilities a long distance from their main settlements. I believe, sir, that the philosophers of the future will condemn alike our policy of extermination, and the impossible attempt to mould hunters, warriors, and absolutely free men, into peaceful, plodding citizens of a republic."

"What else can be done with them?" asked Kennedy, sharply.

"It seems to me that in generations to come, it will be said of us, 'They did not try in those days to yoke the racer to the plough, nor to chain the hound to the kennel, while they urged the mastiff on the track of the deer; yet they failed to see that the Creator, and peculiar conditions unchanged for centuries, had moulded the races of men to different forms of government, modes of life, and varieties of avocation. The Roman conqueror of the world knew better than to put in his heavily-armed legions the flying Parthian, the light-armed horseman of Numidia, or the slinger of the Balearic Isles. The American of the past had at his disposal a race capable of being the skirmish line of his march of civilization to wrest a continent from the wilderness. As trappers, hunters, and guides; as fishermen and slayers of whale and seal; as the light horseman, quick, brave, self-sustaining, and self-reliant, the Indian was capable of valuable services to a people who offered him but two alternatives--extinction, or a dull, plodding, vegetative, unnatural existence.'"

"Well, La Salle, if you two Yankees can let your argument rest a little, we'll go down to the sh.o.r.e, to take a look at the ice, and see what to-morrow has in store for us," said Risk; and, as it was nearly sundown, the party hastened down to a part of the bank clear of trees, from whence they could discern the bay and the surrounding sh.o.r.es.

The rain was falling in gentle and melting showers; the south wind, laden with penetrating warmth, borne from lands hundreds of leagues distant, cut down drift and ice-hill with its fatal kisses; from the rocky cliff a thousand tiny cascades wept and plashed; and over the icy bonds of every brook and river another stream ran swiftly to the sea.

Over the icy levels of harbor and bay rippled another sheet of fresh water, which each moment grew deeper and wider as the warm rain fell more heavily, and the withering south wind came in increasing strength.

"If this lasts all night, boys," said Lund, oracularly, "it will open the spring-holes and oyster-beds, and give the geese, which are sure to come with this wind, a certain amount of feeding-grounds which are not likely to be frozen up this winter. Come," continued he, turning away; "the geese will be getting cold, and we want to have time to hear a good yarn before we go to bed."

"It's your turn to-night, Mr. Risk," said Ben; "and we must have a story as different as possible from the last. You know all about the old notables of the country, who used to own thousands of acres, and keep horses and servants as they do on large manors in the old country. Tell us a story about some of that set, as you used to tell father and uncle Dan, down at Morell."

"I won't try to back out, gentlemen," said Risk, laying aside his meerschaum; "for the sooner I tell my story the better, as you will 'have it over with,' and hear a great many good stories before it becomes my turn to bore you again. My story is about

"OLD ANTHONY WORRELL AND HIS NEWFOUNDLAND DOG.

"In my young days, a number of the immediate heirs of the original proprietors were resident here; and among them this Major Worrell, whose estate has since been purchased by the government. He was a little, nervous, black-haired bachelor, who shared his chamber with a favorite black Newfoundland retriever, named Carlo.

"One or two domestics did the housework, and helped the farm-hands in haying, harvest, and potato-digging; and over all presided Mrs. Sims, a tall, stout, and resolute widow, with a heavy hand and a shrewish temper. With a huge bunch of keys at her side, and an eye quick to detect the smallest waste and the slightest irregularity, she kept the household in terror, and her master (poor little man!) in almost abject va.s.salage. A specimen of one of their daily breakfast dialogues may be worthy of reproduction.

"_She._ 'Good mornin,' sir. 'Ope you're well this morning.'

"_He._ 'Yes--quite well. Breakfast ready, eh?'

"_She._ 'Almost. Heggs just boiling when I came in. That Gillbear (Gilbert, a little, French orphan) sucks heggs, hi'm sure. Hi wonder you keep 'im hon the place.'

"_He._ 'Well, you know, Mrs. Sims, he's an orphan, and--'

"_She._ 'Well, hi like that. Han horphan! hand 'is father lives hup hin has good a farm has there his hin Tracadie.'

"_He._ 'Well, his father Gilbert died, and Lisette, his mother, married Francois: and then Lisette, his mother, died, and Francois married his cousin Christine; and then Francois died, and Christine married Jacques the blacksmith; and so he hasn't any father or mother, and no home, and I let him stay here.'

"_She._ 'Yes, hand you'd 'ave the place heaten hup with lazy, dirty, thieving beggars hif hit wasn't for me. Hi told your brother when 'e sent me hover. Says 'e, 'My brother his too heasy, han' needs some un to see that 'e hisn't himposed hupon.' Says hi, 'Wen hi'm hunable to do my duty, hi've honly to return 'ome to Hingland. Wich hi've just 'ad a letter from my sister; han' hif hi must slave for sich, hi'd rather give warnin' for to-morrow come four weeks.'

"_He_ (nervously). 'Why, my dear Mrs. Sims--'

"_She._ 'Yes, sir; hand that dratted dog Carlo, hevery mornin', when hi goes to hair your sheets, gives me ha start with growlin' hat me from hunder the bed-clothes, wich 'e wraps 'isself hup hin hevery mornin', sir, like has hif 'e were a Christian. Now, sir, hi'm ready to slave hand wear myself hout for you, but has for slavin' for a dirty cur and a French brat, hi've no need to, han' hi won't.'

_He._ 'Well, well, Mrs. Sims, we'll see what can be done--what can be done. I'll get a chain for Gilbert, and send the dog away. No, I mean I'll--No, I'll--Confound it, madam, let's have breakfast.'

"On the same afternoon Mr. Grahame, the nearest magistrate, called on business, and to him Worrell related his domestic troubles.

"'I can't do without her, for she is a splendid cook, and keeps my clothes in first-rate order. I can't bear the thought of the cookery I should have to eat, and the dirt and disorder I should see around me, if she does go away. But she's a regular Tartar, and I've no authority at all in my house.'

"'Well, Worrell, it's a hard case; but I would chain up that dog. As to poor little Gilbert, do what you think is right in spite of her. If she leaves--Ah, I have it. Go into town, and propose to one of the F.

sisters. They are all good cooks and amiable women, and you'll be rid of your Tartar.'