The Young Fur Traders Part 15

"And Misconna?" asked Harry.

"Misconna is with his tribe," replied the Indian, and a frown overspread his features as he spoke. "But Redfeather has been following in the track of his white friends; he has not seen his nation for many moons."

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

THE CANOE--ASCENDING THE RAPIDS--THE PORTAGE--DEER-SHOOTING, AND LIFE IN THE WOODS.

We must now beg the patient reader to take a leap with us, not only through s.p.a.ce, but also through time. We must pa.s.s over the events of the remainder of the journey along the sh.o.r.e of Lake Winnipeg.

Unwilling though we are to omit anything in the history of our friends that would be likely to prove interesting, we think it wise not to run the risk of being tedious, or of dwelling too minutely on the details of scenes which recall powerfully the feelings and memories of bygone days to the writer, but may nevertheless appear somewhat flat to the reader.

We shall not, therefore, enlarge at present on the arrival of the boats at Norway House, which lies at the north end of the lake, nor on what was said and done by our friends and by several other young comrades whom they found there. We shall not speak of the horror of Harry Somerville, and the extreme disappointment of his friend Charley Kennedy, when the former was told that, instead of hunting grizzly bears up the Saskatchewan, he was condemned to the desk again at York Fort, the depot on Hudson's Bay--a low, swampy place near the seash.o.r.e, where the goods for the interior are annually landed and the furs shipped for England, where the greater part of the summer and much of the winter is occupied by the clerks who may be doomed to vegetate there in making up the accounts of what is termed the Northern Department, and where the brigades converge from all the wide-scattered and far-distant outposts, and the _ship_ from England--that great event of the year--arrives, keeping the place in a state of constant bustle and effervescence until autumn, when ship and brigades finally depart, leaving the residents (about thirty in number) shut up for eight long, dreary months of winter, with a tenantless wilderness around and behind them, and the wide, cold, frozen sea before. This was among the first of Harry's disappointments. He suffered many afterwards, poor fellow!

Neither shall we accompany Charley up the south branch of the Saskatchewan, where his utmost expectations in the way of hunting were more than realised, and where he became so accustomed to shooting ducks and geese, and bears and buffaloes, that he could not forbear smiling when he chanced to meet with a red-legged gull, and remembered how he and his friend Harry had comported themselves when they first met with these birds on the sh.o.r.es of Lake Winnipeg! We shall pa.s.s over all this, and the summer, autumn, and winter too, and leap at once into the spring of the following year.

On a very bright, cheery morning of that spring, a canoe might have been seen slowly ascending one of the numerous streams which meander through a richly-wooded, fertile country, and mingle their waters with those of the Athabasca River, terminating their united career in a large lake of the same name. The canoe was small--one of the kind used by the natives while engaged in hunting, and capable of holding only two persons conveniently, with their baggage. To any one unacquainted with the nature or capabilities of a northern Indian canoe, the fragile, bright orange-coloured machine that was battling with the strong current of a rapid must indeed have appeared an unsafe and insignificant craft; but a more careful study of its performances in the rapid, and of the immense quant.i.ty of miscellaneous goods and chattels which were, at a later period of the day, disgorged from its interior, would have convinced the beholder that it was in truth the most convenient and serviceable craft that could be devised for the exigencies of such a country.

True, it could only hold two men (it _might_ have taken three at a pinch), because men, and women too, are awkward, unyielding baggage, very difficult to stow compactly; but it is otherwise with tractable goods. The canoe is exceedingly thin, so that no s.p.a.ce is taken up or rendered useless by its own structure, and there is no end to the amount of blankets, and furs, and coats, and paddles, and tent-covers, and dogs, and babies, that can be stowed away in its capacious interior.

The canoe of which we are now writing contained two persons, whose active figures were thrown alternately into every graceful att.i.tude of manly vigour, as with poles in hand they struggled to force their light craft against the boiling stream. One was a man apparently of about forty-five years of age. He was a square-shouldered, muscular man, and from the ruggedness of his general appearance, the soiled hunting-shirt that was strapped round his waist with a parti-coloured worsted belt, the leather leggings, a good deal the worse for wear, together with the quiet, self-possessed glance of his grey eye, the compressed lip and sunburned brow, it was evident that he was a hunter, and one who had seen rough work in his day. The expression of his face was pleasing, despite a look of habitual severity which sat upon it, and a deep scar which traversed his brow from the right temple to the top of his nose.

It was difficult to tell to what country he belonged. His father was a Canadian, his mother a Scotchwoman. He was born in Canada, brought up in one of the Yankee settlements on the Missouri, and had, from a mere youth, spent his life as a hunter in the wilderness. He could speak English, French, or Indian with equal ease and fluency, but it would have been hard for any one to say which of the three was his native tongue. The younger man, who occupied the stern of the canoe, acting the part of steersman, was quite a youth, apparently about seventeen, but tall and stout beyond his years, and deeply sunburned. Indeed, were it not for this fact, the unusual quant.i.ty of hair that hung in ma.s.sive curls down his neck, and the voyageur costume, we should have recognised our young friend Charley Kennedy again more easily. Had any doubts remained in our mind, the shout of his merry voice would have scattered them at once.

"Hold hard, Jacques!" he cried, as the canoe trembled in the current; "one moment, till I get my pole fixed behind this rock. Now then, shove ahead. Ah!" he exclaimed, with chagrin, as the pole slipped on the treacherous bottom and the canoe whirled round.

"Mind the rock," cried the bowsman, giving an energetic thrust with his pole, that sent the light bark into an eddy formed by a large rock which rose above the turbulent waters. Here it rested while Jacques and Charley raised themselves on their knees (travellers in small canoes always sit in a kneeling position) to survey the rapid.

"It's too much for us, I fear, Mr Charles," said Jacques, shading his brow with his h.o.r.n.y hand. "I've paddled up it many a time alone, but never saw the water so big as now."

"Humph! we shall have to make a portage, then, I presume. Could we not give it one trial more? I think we might make a dash for the tail of that eddy, and then the stream above seems not quite so strong. Do you think so, Jacques?"

Jacques was not the man to check a daring young spirit. His motto through life had ever been, "Never venture, never win,"--a sentiment which his intercourse among fur-traders had taught him to embody in the pithy expression, "Never say die;" so that, although quite satisfied that the thing was impossible, he merely replied to his companion's speech by an a.s.senting "Ho," and pushed out again into the stream. An energetic effort enabled them to gain the tail of the eddy spoken of, when Charley's pole snapped across, and falling heavily on the gunwale, he would have upset the little craft, had not Jacques, whose wits were habitually on the _qui vive_, thrown his own weight at the same moment on the opposite side, and counterbalanced Charley's slip. The action saved them a ducking; but the canoe, being left to its own devices for an instant, whirled off again into the stream, and before Charley could seize a paddle to prevent it, they were floating in the still water at the foot of the rapids.

"Now, isn't that a bore?" said Charley, with a comical look of disappointment at his companion.

Jacques laughed.

"It was well to _try_, master. I mind a young clerk who came into these parts the same year as I did, and _he_ seldom _tried_ anything. He couldn't abide canoes. He didn't want for courage neither; but he had a nat'ral dislike to them, I suppose, that he couldn't help, and never entered one except when he was obliged to do so. Well, one day he wounded a grizzly bear on the banks o' the Saskatchewan (mind the tail o' that rapid, Mr Charles; we'll land t'other side o' yon rock). Well, the bear made after him, and he cut stick right away for the river, where there was a canoe hauled up on the bank. He didn't take time to put his rifle aboard, but dropped it on the gravel, crammed the canoe into the water and jumped in, almost driving his feet through its bottom as he did so, and then plumped down so suddenly, to prevent its capsizing, that he split it right across. By this time the bear was at his heels, and took the water like a duck. The poor clerk, in his hurry, swayed from side to side tryin' to prevent the canoe goin' over.

But when he went to one side, he was so unused to it that he went too far, and had to jerk over to the other pretty sharp; and so he got worse and worse, until he heard the bear give a great snort beside him. Then he grabbed the paddle in desperation, but at the first dash he missed his stroke, and over he went. The current was pretty strong at the place, which was lucky for him, for it kept him down a bit, so that the bear didn't observe him for a little; and while it was pokin' away at the canoe, he was carried downstream like a log and stranded on a shallow. Jumping up, he made tracks for the wood, and the bear (which had found out its mistake) after him; so he was obliged at last to take to a tree, where the beast watched him for a day and a night, till his friends, thinking that something must be wrong, sent out to look for him. (Steady, now, Mr Charles; a little more to the right. That's it.) Now, if that young man had only ventured boldly into small canoes when he got the chance, he might have laughed at the grizzly and killed him too."

As Jacques finished, the canoe glided into a quiet bay formed by an eddy of the rapid, where the still water was overhung by dense foliage.

"Is the portage a long one?" asked Charley, as he stepped out on the bank, and helped to unload the canoe.

"About half a mile," replied his companion. "We might make it shorter by poling up the last rapid; but it's stiff work, Mr Charles, and we'll do the thing quicker and easier at one lift."

The two travellers now proceeded to make a portage. They prepared to carry their canoe and baggage overland, so as to avoid a succession of rapids and waterfalls which intercepted their further progress.

"Now, Jacques, up with it," said Charley, after the loading had been taken out and placed on the gra.s.sy bank.

The hunter stooped, and seizing the canoe by its centre bar, lifted it out of the water, placed it on his shoulders, and walked off with it into the woods. This was not accomplished by the man's superior strength. Charley could have done it quite as well; and, indeed, the strong hunter could have carried a canoe of twice the size with perfect ease. Immediately afterwards Charley followed with as much of the lading as he could carry, leaving enough on the bank to form another load.

The banks of the river were steep--in some places so much so that Jacques found it a matter of no small difficulty to climb over the broken rocks with the unwieldy canoe on his back; the more so that the branches interlaced overhead so thickly as to present a strong barrier, through which the canoe had to be forced, at the risk of damaging its delicate bark covering. On reaching the comparatively level land above, however, there was more open s.p.a.ce, and the hunter threaded his way among the tree stems more rapidly, making a detour occasionally to avoid a swamp or piece of broken ground; sometimes descending a deep gorge formed by a small tributary of the stream they were ascending, and which, to an unpractised eye, would have appeared almost impa.s.sable, even without the enc.u.mbrance of a canoe. But the said canoe never bore Jacques more gallantly or safely over the surges of lake or stream than did he bear _it_ through the intricate mazes of the forest; now diving down and disappearing altogether in the umbrageous foliage of a dell; anon reappearing on the other side and scrambling up the bank on all-fours, he and the canoe together looking like some frightful yellow reptile of antediluvian proportions; and then speeding rapidly forward over a level plain until he reached a sheet of still water above the rapids. Here he deposited his burden on the gra.s.s, and halting only for a few seconds to carry a few drops of the clear water to his lips, retraced his steps to bring over the remainder of the baggage. Soon afterwards Charley made his appearance on the spot where the canoe was left, and throwing down his load, seated himself on it and surveyed the prospect. Before him lay a reach of the stream, which spread out so widely as to resemble a small lake, in whose clear, still bosom were reflected the overhanging foliage of graceful willows, and here and there the bright stem of a silver birch, whose light-green leaves contrasted well with scattered groups and solitary specimens of the spruce fir. Reeds and sedges grew in the water along the banks, rendering the junction of the land and the stream uncertain and confused. All this and a great deal more Charley noted at a glance; for the hundreds of beautiful and interesting objects in nature that take so long to describe even partially, and are feebly set forth after all even by the most graphic language, flash upon the _eye_ in all their force and beauty, and are drunk in at once in a single glance.

But Charley noted several objects floating on the water which we have not yet mentioned. These were five grey geese feeding among the reeds at a considerable distance off, and all unconscious of the presence of a human foe in their remote domains. The travellers had trusted very much to their guns and nets for food, having only a small quant.i.ty of pemmican in reserve, lest these should fail--an event which was not at all likely, as the country through which they pa.s.sed was teeming with wild-fowl of all kinds, besides deer. These latter, however, were only shot when they came inadvertently within rifle-range, as our voyageurs had a definite object in view, and could not afford to devote much of their time to the chase.

During the day previous to that on which we have introduced them to our readers, Charley and his companion had been so much occupied in navigating their frail bark among a succession of rapids, that they had not attended to the replenishing of their larder, so that the geese which now showed themselves were looked upon by Charley with a longing eye. Unfortunately they were feeding on the opposite side of the river, and out of shot. But Charley was a hunter now, and knew how to overcome slight difficulties. He first cut down a pretty large and leafy branch of a tree, and placed it in the bow of the canoe in such a way as to hang down before it and form a perfect screen, through the interstices of which he could see the geese, while they could only see, what was to them no novelty, the branch of a tree floating down the stream. Having gently launched the canoe, Charley was soon close to the unsuspecting birds, from among which he selected one that appeared to be unusually complacent and self-satisfied, concluding at once, with an amount of wisdom that bespoke him a true philosopher, that such _must_ as a matter of course be the fattest.

"Bang" went the gun, and immediately the sleek goose turned round upon its back and stretched out its feet towards the sky, waving them once or twice as if bidding adieu to its friend. The others thereupon took to flight, with such a deal of sputter and noise as made it quite apparent that their astonishment was unfeigned. Bang went the gun again, and down fell a second goose.

"Ha!" exclaimed Jacques, throwing down the remainder of the cargo as Charley landed with his booty, "that's well. I was just thinking as I comed across that we should have to take to pemmican to-night."

"Well, Jacques, and if we had, I'm sure an old hunter like you, who have roughed it so often, need not complain," said Charley, smiling.

"As to that, master," replied Jacques, "I've roughed it often enough; and when it does come to a clear fix, I can eat my shoes without grumblin' as well as any man. But, you see, fresh meat is better than dried meat when it's to be had; and so I'm glad to see that you've been lucky, Mr Charles."

"To say truth, so am I; and these fellows are delightfully plump. But you spoke of eating your shoes, Jacques; when were you reduced to that direful extremity?"

Jacques finished reloading the canoe while they conversed, and the two were seated in their places, and quietly but swiftly ascending the stream again, ere the hunter replied.

"You've heerd of Sir John Franklin, I s'pose?" he inquired, after a minute's consideration.

"Yes, often."

"An' p'r'aps you've heerd tell of his first trip of discovery along the sh.o.r.es of the Polar Sea?"

"Do you refer to the time when he was nearly starved to death, and when poor Hood was shot by the Indian?"

"The same," said Jacques.

"Oh yes; I know all about that. Were you with them?" inquired Charley, in great surprise.

"Why, no--not exactly _on_ the trip; but I was sent in winter with provisions to them--and much need they had of them, poor fellows! I found them tearing away at some old parchment skins that had lain under the snow all winter, and that an Injin's dog would ha' turned up his nose at--and they don't turn up their snouts at many things, I can tell ye. Well, after we had left all our provisions with them, we started for the fort again, just keepin' as much as would drive off starvation; for, you see, we thought that surely we would git something on the road.

But neither hoof nor feather did we see all the way (I was travellin'

with an Injin), and our grub was soon done, though we saved it up, and only took a mouthful or two the last three days. At last it was done, and we was pretty well used up, and the fort two days ahead of us. _So_ says I to my comrade--who had been looking at me for some time as if he thought that a cut off my shoulder wouldn't be a bad thing--says I, `Nipitabo, I'm afeard the shoes must go for it now;' so with that I pulls out a pair o' deerskin moccasins. `They looks tender,' said I, trying to be cheerful. `Wah!' said the Injin; and then I held them over the fire till they was done black, and Nipitabo ate one, and I ate the tother, with a lump o' snow to wash it down!"

"It must have been rather dry eating," said Charley, laughing.

"Rayther; but it was better than the Injin's leather breeches, which we took in hand next day. They was _uncommon_ tough, and very dirty, havin' been worn about a year and a half. Hows'ever, they kept us up; an' as we only ate the legs, he had the benefit o' the stump to arrive with at the fort next day."

"What's yon ahead?" exclaimed Charley, pausing as he spoke, and shading his eyes with his hand.

"It's uncommon like trees," said Jacques. "It's likely a tree that's been tumbled across the river; and from its appearance, I think we'll have to cut through it."

"Cut through it!" exclaimed Charley; "if my sight is worth a gun-flint, we'll have to cut through a dozen trees."

Charley was right. The river ahead of them became rapidly narrower; and, either from the looseness of the surrounding soil or the pa.s.sing of a whirlwind, dozens of trees had been upset, and lay right across the narrow stream in terrible confusion. What made the thing worse was that the banks on either side, which were low and flat, were covered with such a dense thicket down to the water's edge, that the idea of making a portage to overcome the barrier seemed altogether hopeless.

"Here's a pretty business, to be sure!" cried Charley, in great disgust.