The Cryptogram Part 10

Trouble has been brewing this long time, and the crisis can't be far off. By the by, have you had news from Quebec later than the date of our sailing?"

"Not a word. The last mail, which brought me some London papers, left Fort Garry at the close of June."

The factor sighed. He was fond of the life of towns and he had been buried in the wilderness for ten years!

"Gentlemen, fill your gla.s.ses," he added. "Here's to the prosperity of the company!"

"May it continue forever!" supplemented the captain.

I drank the toast, and then inquired what was the state of the lower country.

"There have been no open hostilities as yet," the factor replied, "but there are plenty of rumors--ugly rumors. And that reminds me, Mr. Carew, a half-breed brought me a message from Griffith Hawke two days ago."

"I rather expected to find him here," said I, trying to hide my eagerness at the opening of a subject which I had wished to come to.

"He has abandoned that intention," the factor stated. "He is afraid to leave at present. The redskins have been impudent in his neighborhood of late, and he thinks their loyalty has been tampered with by the Northwest people. He begged me to send you and Miss Hatherton on to Fort Royal at the first opportunity after your arrival, and there happens to be one open now."

"How is that?" I asked.

"My right-hand man, Gummidge--you met him at supper--has been transferred to Fort Garry," the factor explained. "He is married, and he and his wife will go by way of the Churchill River and Fort Royal. Mrs Gummidge will be a companion to Miss Hatherton. They expect to start in a week, so as to cover as much ground as possible before the winter sets in."

"The sooner the better," said I.

"And what about the marriage?" Captain Rudstone inquired carelessly.

"There will be a priest here--one of the French fathers--in the course of a month," said the factor, "and I will send him on to Fort Royal."

I tried hard to appear unconcerned, for I saw that Captain Rudstone was watching me keenly.

"I trust I shall be present for the ceremony," he remarked. "I go south by that route when I have finished with the business that brought me to the bay. I have three forts to visit hereabouts first."

The factor sucked thoughtfully at his pipe.

"Hawke is a lucky man," he said. "By gad, I envy him! Miss Hatherton is the prettiest bit of womanhood I ever clapped eyes on."

"She is too young for Hawke," said Captain Rudstone, with a sly glance in my direction.

"She will make him a good wife," I replied aggressively.

"There is another who wishes to marry her," he answered.

"What do you mean by that?" I cried.

"I refer to Cuthbert Mackenzie," said the captain.

I gave him an angry look, for I knew he had been purposely drawing me on, and to hide my confusion I drank a gla.s.s of brandy and water. There was a pause, and then, to my relief, the factor turned the conversation on the prices of furs.

The next five days pa.s.sed slowly and uneventfully. Baptiste came out of hospital, and was p.r.o.nounced fit for travel. Flora was none the worse for her exposure and suffering; I saw very little of her, for she lived in the married men's quarters and was looked after by the factor's wife and Mrs. Gummidge. But when we found ourselves alone together, as happened several times, her guarded conversation gave me to understand that the past must be forgotten, and she showed plainly that she was deeply grateful to me for not bringing up the subject that was next my heart. And indeed I had no intention of doing so. I realized that the girl could not be mine, and that what had occurred between us, when we believed ourselves to be on the edge of the grave--was the more reason why I should remain true to faith and honor. But my love for her was stronger and deeper-rooted than ever, and I still adhered to my resolution to take myself out of temptation's way at the first opportunity--to begin a new life in the wilderness or the towns of Lower Canada. I would have evaded the journey with her to Fort Royal had it been possible to do so.

Captain Rudstone made no further mention of the girl, and during the time he remained at the fort we were on the best of terms, though I observed that he took no pains to seek my company, and that he often looked at me with the puzzled and uneasy expression which I had noted from the first. On the morning of the fourth day he left for a fort some miles to the eastward, and on the night before an incident happened which I must not forget to mention.

We were sitting in the factor's room after supper--the captain and I--and he was reading an English paper that had come up with the last mail. Suddenly he uttered a sharp cry of surprise, and brought his tilted chair to the floor with a crash. When I inquired what was the matter he looked at me suspiciously, and made some inaudible reply. He tossed the paper on the table, gulped down a stiff brandy, and left the room.

As he did not return, I ventured to pick the paper up and examine it. It was a copy of the London Times, dated a year back. I scanned the page he had been reading, but could find nothing to account for his agitation.

Where his hand had rumpled it was a brief paragraph stating that the Earl of Heathermere, of Heathermere Hall, in Surrey, was dead; that his two unmarried sons had died during the previous year--one by an accident while hunting; and that the t.i.tle was now extinct, and the estate in Chancery. I read it with momentary interest, and then it pa.s.sed from my mind. The notice of deaths was close by, and I concluded that it contained the name of one of the captain's English friends. I remembered that he had resided in London for some time.

Early the next morning Captain Rudstone departed, expressing the hope that he would see me within a month or six weeks. Two days later--on the morning of the sixth day after the wreck of the Speedwell--I was on my way to Fort Royal. Our party numbered eight, as follows: Jim Gummidge and his wife, Miss Hatherton and myself, Baptiste, and three trusty voyageurs. Gummidge was a companionable fellow, and his wife was a hardy, fearless little woman of the woods.

Our course was to the west, across a seventy-mile stretch of waterway, formed of connecting lakes and streams, that would bring us to the Churchill River, at a point a few miles above Fort Royal--the Churchill, it may be said, empties into Hudson Bay more than a hundred miles to the northwest of Fort York. We traveled in one long, narrow canoe, which was light enough to be portaged without difficulty, and on the evening of the second day we were within thirty-five miles of our destination.

CHAPTER XII.

A WARNING IN WOODCRAFT.

That night we pitched our camp on a wooded island in a small lake, erecting, as was the usual custom, a couple of lean-tos of bark and fir boughs. Gummidge owned the traveling outfit and the factor of Fort York had provided Baptiste and myself with what we needed in the way of weapons and ammunition. We were all well armed, for none journeyed otherwise through the wilderness in those days. But at this time, and from the part of the country we had to traverse, it seemed a most unlikely thing that we would run into any peril. However, neither Gummidge nor I were disposed to relax the ordinary precautions, and when we retired we set one of the voyageurs to watch.

This man--Moralle by name--awakened me about two o'clock in the morning by shaking my arm gently, and in a whisper begged me to come outside. I followed him from the lean-to across the island, which was no more than a dozen yards in diameter. The night was very dark, and it was impossible to make out the sh.o.r.e, though it was less than a quarter of a mile away. A deep silence brooded on land and water.

"What do you want with me?" I asked sharply.

"Pardon, sir," replied Moralle, "but a little while ago, as I stood here, I heard a low splash. I crouched down to watch the better, and out yonder on the lake I saw the head and arms of a swimmer. Then a pebble crunched under my moccasins, and the man turned and made off as quietly as he came."

"You have keen eyes," said I. "Look, the water is black! A fish made a splash, and you imagined the rest."

"I saw the swimmer, sir," he persisted doggedly.

"You saw a moose or a caribou," I suggested.

"Would a moose approach the island," he asked, "with the scent of our camp fire blowing to his nostrils?"

This was true, and I could not deny it.

"Then you would have me believe," said I, "that some enemy swam out from the mainland to spy upon us?"

"It was a man," the voyageur answered, "and he was swimming this way."

"I will finish your watch, Moralle," said I. "Give me your musket, and go to bed. Be careful not to waken the others."

He shuffled off without a word, and I was left to my lonely vigil. I had detected a smell of liquor in Moralle's breath, and I was disposed to believe that his story had no more foundation than the splashing of a fish. At all events, while I paced the strip of beach for two hours, I saw or heard nothing alarming. There was now a glimmer of dawn in the east, so I wakened Baptiste, bidding him without explanation to take my place, and returned to the lean-to for a half-hour's sleep.

It was broad daylight when Gummidge roused me. The fire was blazing and the voyageurs were preparing breakfast. Flora and Mr. Gummidge were kneeling on a flat stone, dipping their faces and hands into the crystal waters of the lake. The wooded sh.o.r.es rose around us in majestic solitude, and I scanned them in all directions without discovering any trace of human occupation. I made no mention of the incident of the night, attaching no importance to it; nor did Moralle have anything to say on the subject.

Sunrise found us embarked and already some distance down the lake. We were in the heart of the woods, and the wild beauty of the Great Lone Land cast its mystic spell upon all of us.

The morning was yet young when we pa.s.sed from the lake into one of its many outlets. This was a narrow stream, navigable at first, but quickly becoming too shallow and rocky for our further progress. So we left the water, and there was now a portage of two miles over a level stretch of forest, at the end of which we would strike the Churchill River at a point twenty miles above Fort Royal.