Joan of Arc of the North Woods Part 31

"Frank Orono," said one, patting his hand on his beaded breast. "Him brother, Louis Orono."

"The drive is up there. If you're going only a little way in that direction won't you take me along in your canoe?" she pleaded, confessing, "I'm so tired. There was an accident to the team--I've had to walk."

"You see!" said Frank Orono, stroking his hand over the feathers of his headdress. "Big time for tribe. All dressed up. Him, me, we go to Olamon Island. Governor live there--Chief Susep Nicola. His girl she marry to-night. Big time!" He grinned. That evidence of human feeling in the countenance which had been so impa.s.sive heartened the girl.

"And if I can get as far as Olamon with you----"

They ducked their heads in permission.

"Maybe Chief Susep send you on. Chief he much like him!" Frank Orono pointed to the staff. "Chief cut in totem sign, his own hands. You come.

Be all right."

They spread a blanket for her in the middle of the canoe and paddled on.

It was then past midafternoon of her crowded day.

When at last they swung around a wooded point and beheld the Indian village of Olamon the dusk was deepening. Many lights twinkled and a huge bonfire waved flaming tongues.

"Big time!" chuckled Frank Orono. "Pretty girl--nice feller she marry.

Chief be glad to see you--you tell him!"

Those who were gathered at the pull-out place surveyed her with curiosity. The bonfire lighted the scene and many were able to see the totem mark on the staff of the cant dog. Those saluted her respectfully and pa.s.sed the word to others, who came crowding about.

Therefore, when the brothers Orono escorted her into the presence of Sachem Nicola, Lida entertained the confidence of one who was among friends. The chief--or rather, the elected governor of the tribe--dwelt in a modest cottage, and with him was the priest who had come for the wedding ceremony. It was the priest who displayed the liveliest interest in the girl and he promptly began to seek the reason that had brought her north with that emblem of authority. He questioned her with kindness, but with much vigor.

But Susep Nicola asked no questions. He seemed to accept her presence as a quite natural thing. A Tarratine never puts a question to a guest; the guest may explain or state his business in his own good time. The sachem set a chair for her and relieved her of the staff and her bag. He put his finger on the emblem and smiled. There was inquiry in his eyes whether she knew and understood. She bowed her head.

As best she could she parried the questions of the inquisitive priest without making it appear that she was trying to hide anything. "It's an errand, and Mr. Flagg was kind enough to loan the staff as my token in these parts. You know he is ill and cannot go about any more. He must leave certain things to others."

"Well," admitted the priest, plainly struggling with a hankering to ask her bluntly what service a girl could perform for Flagg on the drive, "the ladies in these days are into all the affairs of men as well as on the juries, so we must consider it as quite natural that you have been sent up here by Mr. Flagg. At any rate, we should be grateful that you are here," he declared, gallantly.

"It's on account of the accident to my team that I'm forced to intrude at a time like this," she apologized to Nicola. He was an old man, gaunt and bowed, and his festal trappings seemed rather incongruous decorations.

"But you bring my brother's staff, and it makes you welcome for yourself and stands for him because he cannot come."

He called, and a woman appeared. He gave directions, and the woman offered to conduct Lida to a room in the cottage.

"You are honored guest," said the governor. "In an hour the wedding takes place in the church, and then the wedding supper!"

"To which I beg permission to escort you," said the priest, bowing low as Lida went from the room.

She laid off her woods panoply of cap and jacket and made herself fit for the festival to such an extent as her scanty wardrobe would permit.

Before the wedding procession started for the church she was presented to the bride, Nicola's youngest daughter. The woman who had shown Lida to her room had gossiped a bit. The bride was the fruit of the governor's second marriage and had inherited her French Canadian mother's beauty. And the groom was a French Canadian, a strapping chap, a riverman of repute.

Lida was told that the men of the river, the jacks of the driving crews far and near, were making much of the wedding on account of their liking for Felix Lapierre. She had looked from her window and had seen bateaus come sweeping down, loaded with shouting men, the oars flashing in the light of torches set in the bows of the big boats. She felt more confident in regard to the morrow; those bateaus would be going back to the north and she had determined to make her plea for pa.s.sage. In her anxiety the halt for the night was irksome. But she concealed her feelings and took her place in the procession, a post of honor that was deferentially a.s.signed to her by the chief.

The flares of moving torches lighted all and the smoke from them wavered above the plumes of the festal costumes and spread the illumination among the swaying boughs of the spruces and the pines.

An Indian bra.s.s band of pretensions rather more than modest led the way toward the church. The rear guard was made of rivermen who marched in ragged formation, scuffling, elbowing one another, shouting jokes, making merry after their manner. Their boots, spurred with drivers'

spikes, crunched into the hard earth and occasionally struck fire from an outcropping of ledge. They pulled off those boots at the door of the church and went into the place, tiptoeing in their stocking feet.

So Alice and Felix were joined in marriage.

Lida sat beside the girl's mother during the ceremony.

The tears that are shed by womankind at weddings form a baptism for sentiments which cannot be easily translated into exact understanding.

It had begun to seem very far away in time and s.p.a.ce, that tragedy of the morning in Adonia, that wreck of a man's love, and the blasting of what Lida had admitted to herself was her own fond hope. Now, in this scene, hearing the words which gave lovers the sacred right to face the world hand in hand, her own grievous case came back to her in poignant clearness. She wept frankly; there had been honest tears in the mother's eyes. The two looked at each other and then the mother's hand slid into the girl's and mutely expressed for the stranger what could not be put into words. There were no questions and no replies--the situation required none.

For the more casual guests, the rivermen and others, the supper was spread out of doors near the water. It was a simple feast which had been cooked over coals in the open.

The sachem's party ate in a large room; by day it served the women of the tribe as a workshop. The walls were gay with the handicraft which had been hung up to clear a s.p.a.ce for the tables. There were braided or woven baskets of all sizes and every hue; there were beaded skins and frippery of feathered gewgaws and moccasins and miniature canoes and plaques of birch, hand carved. And subordinating all else, even the scents and savors of the food, was the perfume of the sweet gra.s.s.

Outdoors, in a circle of torches, the band played merry airs.

"You should not be sad, mam'selle," reproved Father Leroque, who had const.i.tuted himself Lida's squire at supper. "This is a very merry occasion."

"I feel all the more as if I were intruding--bringing my troubles here."

The chatter of many voices made a shield for conversation between the two. The priest hesitated for some time; then he made sure that n.o.body was listening and leaned closer to her.

"I beg your pardon, mam'selle, if I seem presumptuous in touching on a matter regarding which you have not given me your confidence. I may be allowed to mention a bit of news. It came to me just before we sat down to supper. News travels fast in this region, you may know. From mouth to mouth it flies. Bateaus have come up the river, and the men of those bateaus have listened to timber cruisers and have heard from the drivers of tote teams who have come scattering through the woods below.

There is the news of an engagement. I trust I may be allowed to speak of the news to you because it is my thought that you are the young lady concerned."

She was not able to reply.

"And there is more news," he persisted. "Pardon me if I mention that, too. It is my province to console those who are in trouble, as best I may. Perhaps there is some way in which I can help you. I think highly of young Latisan. I know him because my duties have taken me into the Tomah region. There has been trouble between you and him--a misunderstanding. Is there any way in which I can be a mediator--as his friend?"

"He has gone away," she choked. "I don't know where he is. It was my fault. If I could have explained, it might have helped, but he would not wait to hear me through."

The priest's gentleness had conquered her resolution to keep her secret till she reached the men of the Flagg drive. He perceived her bitter need of sympathy.

"I respect confidences, even those given me outside the pale of my church's confessional. Young Latisan is like his grandfather--tinder for a stray spark. If I know your fault--if I can tell him, when I see him, what you would have liked to tell him----"

Hurriedly, in low tones, stammering in her eagerness, she did reveal who she was, what she had tried to do, and what she hoped to be able to do.

He was instantly alive to her cause with all the sympathy that was in him--an especially sincere sympathy because as a missionary priest he was close to the hearts of all the folk of the north country, probing their affairs with an innocent but vivid interest and striving always to aid with earnest zeal.

Though Lida had parried his questions at first, protecting her secret, she was now grateful because he had persisted; his manner and his nature removed him from the ranks of mere busybodies. A comforting sense arose from having confided in him.

"In the Tomah I will find young Latisan; I am on my way across the mountains, mam'selle. He must be awake and himself by now; he must have gone home. When I tell him the truth he will lift all the trouble from your shoulders. But till he comes you must be brave. And who knows? You may be able to smooth the path! If you plead your grandfather's cause up here, I believe even the great Comas company will listen and be kind.

There are many outside this door who have come down from the drives to have a bit of fun at the wedding. There must be Flagg men. I will find out."

"Let me go with you," she urged, anxiously.

He demurred.

"But I'll not speak to them. If I can see them--only a few of them--the real men of our drive--I believe I shall find courage to go on."