“How long will it take us to reach the Red River?” The question was asked over and over again, with varying replies from the voyageurs. Walter asked it of Louis, and the young Canadian shook his head doubtfully. If the weather was good, the winds favorable, they might go the whole length of Lake Winnipeg in a week, but if the weather should be bad, no one could tell how long they might be delayed.
The autumn weather showed its fickleness that very night. The wind shifted, the sky clouded over, and the morning dawned raw and threatening. The breeze was almost directly east, however, a favorable direction for the travelers, whose route lay along the north and west shores. So the boats got away early, and, with sails raised, held to the southwest, well out from land. They made good progress before the brisk wind, but as it grew stronger the lake roughened. Along the north shore high cliffs towered, with narrow stretches of beach here and there at the base. Safe landing places were few, but the waves were growing dangerously high, and the open boats were too heavily laden to ride such rough water buoyantly.
Laroque changed his course, tacking in towards a bit of beach. Murray’s boat was not far behind, and the half-breed handled it with skill and judgment. At just the right instant, he ordered the sail down, the oars out. The boat was run up on the sand without shipping a drop of water.
The rest of the brigade were some distance behind. They were forced to put in close under the cliffs, but by using the oars managed to reach the beach.
“We’ll have to open that last bag of pemmican,” said Walter to Louis who was kindling a fire.
“Yes, but we must make it last through the voyage.”
Walter brought the rawhide sack, and Louis cut the leather cord with which it was sewed. An exclamation of surprise and anger escaped him. “What devil’s trick is this? Look, Walter!”
Walter looked, in amazement. “Why, it’s not pemmican. How on earth——”
“It is a fraud, a cheat.” Walter had never seen Louis so angry. “Some fiend has filled this sack with clay and leaves and sold it to the Company for good pemmican.”
“See here, Louis.” Walter lowered his voice. “This isn’t the bag I carried over the portage at the White Falls.” He turned the sack over and examined the other side. “There is no Company mark. Our pemmican has been stolen and this trash left in its place.”
“No one from the other boats would steal our supplies.” Louis was puzzled. “It must have been done at Norway House. Yet I think the Indians would hardly dare to steal from a Company boat under the very walls of the post. And they did not take the tea. The Indians like tea so well they can never get enough.”
“Murray had a sack on his shoulder when I saw him dodge around the corner of the wall, and the sack had the Company mark.” Walter’s voice had sunk to a whisper. “But why in the world should he steal the provisions from his own boat?”
Louis was thoughtful. “There might be a reason, yes,” he said. “Le Murraimight sell that pemmican for something he wanted. He has a bundle that he did not have before.”
“But how could he?” Walter objected. “They would know at Norway House that there was something wrong if the steersman of one of the boats offered to sell them a sack of pemmican.”
“That is true, but he might have traded it to the Indians, or some Indian friend of his might have sold it for him. I would like to know what is in that bundle. He slept with his head on it last night.”
“Shall we tell Laroque about this?”
“That this sack is not good, yes, but not aboutle Murrai, no, not yet. We can prove nothing. It may not have been the pemmican he had.”
“I’m sure it was,” Walter insisted stubbornly.
Louis shrugged. “I am no coward, Walter, but I will not accusele Murraiof stealing and then voyage in the same boat with him. We have yet far to go.”
Louis was right and Walter knew it. Together they went to Laroque and told him of the fraud, but said nothing about their suspicions of Murray.
The guide was much disturbed. He examined the sack of clay, and questioned Murray and the Orkneyman. Both disclaimed any responsibility. The Orkneyman agreed with the boys that the sacks brought from Fort York had all borne the Company mark. Murray said he had not noticed. He had had nothing to do with provisioning the boats. If the Company had been cheated, that was no affair of his.
From his own supplies, Laroque lent boat number three a little pemmican for supper. The Swiss were indignant at the fraud. Some of them even wanted to return to Norway House and seek for the culprit.
Before the scanty meal was over, rain began to fall. The beach was not a good camping ground. If the wind shifted to the south, the waves would wash over the narrow margin of sand and break against the perpendicular cliffs. To find a better place was impossible, for the lake was far too stormy to venture out upon. The boats were pulled well up, the tents pitched with one wall almost against the cliff, and the sails, masts, and oars converted into additional shelters. Luckily the campers were protected from the strong wind, which had become more northerly. But the water came down the cliffs in cascades, digging pools and channels in the sand and shingle.
Fortunately the worst of the storm did not last long. The rain became fine and light like mist driven by the wind, and before sundown ceased entirely. As the wind shifted farther towards the north, the water receded from the base of the cliff, leaving a wider stretch of sand. The lake was still too rough for the boats to go out, but as long as the wind remained in the north, the beach was a safe camping place.
A little dry driftwood had been collected and put under shelter before the rain began. So everyone was able to warm and dry himself before creeping between his blankets. Laroque assigned the voyageurs to watches, and cautioned each man to walk the beach while on guard and keep an eye on wind and waves.
The guide aroused the camp before daylight. Wind and waves had fallen, and the boats got away quickly. All day they went ahead under sail or oars along the north shore. Camp was made on a narrow ridge of sand separating a large bay from the main body of water. A contrary wind kept the boats at Limestone Bay,—as it was called from the fragments of limestone strewn along its shores,—until late the following day.
Among the reeds and wild rice ducks were feeding. The voyageurs succeeded in shooting a number of the birds, made a stew of some, and buried the rest, unplucked, in ashes and hot sand. A fire was kept going above them for several hours until they were well cooked. When they were taken out and the skins stripped off, Walter found his portion very good eating indeed.
Two days later the mouth of the Saskatchewan River was reached. Walter was beginning to understand why the length of time required to traverse Lake Winnipeg could not be foretold. The lake is about two hundred and sixty miles long in a direct course, but the open boats were obliged to keep well in towards shore, making the journey upwards of three hundred. When the weather was favorable, sails were raised and good speed made, but the autumn gales had set in, and contrary winds were frequent. Skirting the shore in head winds and high waves was both slow and dangerous. Sometimes the boats had to be beached through surf, the men jumping into the water and dragging them above the danger line. By the time camp was pitched, both voyageurs and settlers were not only tired and hungry, but usually wet and chilled to the bone.
October came with unseasonable cold, even for that northern country. With darkness the temperature sank far below the freezing point. One night Matthieu the unfortunate went to sleep without drying his wet shoes and stockings, and frosted both feet so that they were sore for the rest of the journey.
Whenever it was possible to go on, whether at daybreak, noon, or midnight, the boats were away. Meals were irregular and food scanty. Much of the time the lake was too rough for fishing, but sometimes ducks were shot. To Murray’s boat the loss of the sack of pemmican was serious. The supplies were reduced to tea and a little barley meal.
The boats did not always make the same camping ground, though they tried to keep together. How far behind the second brigade might be, no one could guess. Walter worried about the Periers. Surely this must be a hard experience for Elise and little Max, and for Mr. Perier also.
For two days the guide’s boat and Murray’s were windbound on an exposed beach where everything had to be carried well above the water line.
Fishing was impossible in this open, wind-swept spot, but Louis shot a white pelican. The clumsy looking bird with its great pouched beak was a curiosity to Walter. If he had not been so very hungry he could not have eaten its fishy-tasting flesh.
Suddenly the weather changed for the better. In less than eight hours after the boats got away from their enforced camping ground, the lake looked as if it had never been disturbed. There was not a breath of wind to catch the sail, not a wave, or even a ripple. Plying the oars, the crews held a course far out across the mouth of a bay. On and on they rowed, watching the sunset and the afterglow reflected in still water and the stars coming out one by one.
The southern half of Lake Winnipeg is very broken in outline, with many points and islands. One night, reaching the sheltered head of a deep, sandy bay with a high background of rocks and forest, the travelers found the sands covered thick with the dead bodies of insects.
“Grasshoppers!” exclaimed Louis. “They have come again!”
Walter was gazing up and down the beach in amazement. “I never knew there could be so many grasshoppers in the world,” he said. “Where did they all come from?”
“From the prairie to the south. They’re not ordinary grasshoppers like the big green ones. These are smaller and a different color, and their horns,”—Louis meant their antennæ,—“are short. I never saw this kind till three years ago, and then they came all of a sudden. They ate up everything. Ugh, how they smell! We can’t camp here.”
The place was indeed impossible as a camping ground. The boats put off again to seek a spot where the waves had washed the shores clean of the remains of the dead insects. Louis was right when he said that they were not ordinary grasshoppers. They were the dread locust,—the Rocky Mountain locust. At the camp fire that night, the Canadian boy told Walter and his companions how the locusts had come to the Red River valley.
“I was at Fort Douglas with my father,” he began. “We had just come down from Pembina with some carts. Everything looked well on the settlers’ farms. The grain was in the ear and ripening. Then came the grasshoppers. These short-horned grasshoppers fly much higher than the ordinary kind. Their wings are stronger. They came in great clouds that darkened the air as if real clouds were passing across the sun. Late in the afternoon they began to alight, such hordes of them you can’t imagine. Men, women, and children ran out into the fields, crushing grasshoppers at every step, the flying creatures dashing against them like hailstones. The poor settlers could do nothing against such an army. They saved a few half ripe ears of barley, the women hiding them under their aprons, but that was all. By the next morning everything was gone.”
“Do you mean that the grasshoppers ate the crops?” asked Walter, scarcely able to believe what he had heard.
“They ate everything green,” Louis replied impressively, “not only the grain and the gardens, but every green blade of grass on the prairie.”
“And they have come again this year,” said Matthieu the weaver slowly, “and perhaps they have again taken everything.” His voice sounded discouraged.
“I fear it,” was Louis’ grave response.
“What did the settlers do for food?” asked Walter. “Did Lord Selkirk supply it?”
Louis shook his head. “That was a hard winter. Most of the colonists went to Pembina, where they could hunt the buffalo. They got some food from the Company and some pemmican from the Indians. But they had almost no seed for the next year. In the spring they sowed the little barley they had saved, and it came up and promised well. Then the young grasshoppers hatched out from the eggs left in the ground the year before, and ate it all. So again the settlers were without meal for the winter. The Governor sent M’sieu Laidlaw and other men into the Sioux country, up the Red River and down the St. Peter to the great Mississippi where there is a settlement called Prairie du Chien. It was a hard journey in winter on snowshoes, but they came back in June with more than three hundred bushels of seed wheat, oats, and peas. The seeding was too late for a good crop last year, but this year they hoped for a big one.”
“And the grasshoppers have come again,” Matthieu repeated dully.
Around points and among islands the boats threaded their way, hugging the shore most of the time, risking traverses across the mouths of bays when the weather permitted.
No food was left in Murray’s boat, nothing but a little tea. Fishing had to be resorted to, often with poor luck. Few animals were seen, though the howling of wolves had come to be a familiar sound at night. Flocks of ducks and geese passed high overhead, but to shoot them the hunters had to seek the marshy places in bays or at stream mouths. Bad weather caused so much delay that to take advantage of calm water or favorable wind everyone was compelled, more than once, to go breakfastless or supperless. Walter was reduced to skin, muscle and bone. He felt a constant gnawing hunger, was seldom warm except when exercising, and found his hard-won muscular strength diminishing. An hour’s pulling at the oar almost exhausted him. He wondered at Murray, on whose strength and endurance starvation seemed to have no effect. Even Louis admitted weakness and had lost some of his cheery high spirits.
At last the low shore at the south end of the lake, a long point of shingle and sand, came in view. When the water was high and the wind from the north, much of the long sand bar was covered, but luckily the lake was calm when the guide’s boat reached the point. Murray’s craft followed Laroque’s closely.
Sharing one gun between them, Louis and Walter went, with some of the others, hunting for their supper. They rowed along the sand spit to the marsh which was alive with birds,—ducks, geese, tall herons, and many other smaller kinds. In a little pond several graceful, long-necked swans were feeding. Walter did not think of firing at swans, but Louis had no scruples. He brought one down with his first shot.
At sunset the hunters returned to camp with four fat geese, one of which Walter had killed, two swans, and eighteen or twenty ducks. A party from one of the other boats brought in almost as many. For the first time in many days Walter had a chance to really satisfy his appetite. Wrapped in his blanket, he slept soundly on his bed of sand, untroubled by hunger dreams.
The mouth of the Red River divides into several channels that wind through the marsh. The guide chose one of the main waterways, of good depth and gentle current, and the oarsmen, eager to reach the settlement, pulled with a will. They had some forty miles, by water, yet to go.
“Why do they call itRed River?” Walter asked Louis. “Not from the color of the water?”
“It is from the Indian name, Miscousipi,” was the reply. “I have heard that when the Saulteux and the Sioux fought a great battle on the banks, the water ran red with blood. Both nations claim the valley as a hunting ground.”
“Then it can hardly be a good place for settlers if the Indians fight over it,” Walter said doubtfully.
“There are only Saulteux and Crees on the lower river now. The Sioux no longer dare venture here. The upper river is the dangerous country.”
Where the marsh gave way to firmer ground, in an open space on the low bank of a creek coming in from the west, stood a group of Indian lodges. As the boat passed, the Swiss boy looked with interest at the low, round topped structures of hides and rush mats.
“Those are Saulteur wigwams,” Louis explained.
“No one seems to be at home to-day.”
“No, but they intend to come back or they would have taken down the lodges. There was a fight in this place many years ago. A band of Crees came down that stream, and the old people and children camped here, while the young men went to Fort York with their furs. That was before the Hudson Bay Company had posts in this part of the country. While the braves were all away, the Sioux came and killed the old people and took the children captive. So the stream is called Rivière aux Morts—the river of the dead.”
“What a fiendish thing to do,” Walter exclaimed, “and cowardly.”
Louis shrugged expressively. “It is the Indian way of fighting. The Sioux are not cowards, but fiends, yes. And so are the Crees and the Saulteux in war. I say it though my grandmother was an Ojibwa.”
“Have you Indian blood, Louis?” Walter asked in surprise. “I supposed you were pure French.”
“I ambois brulé, as we mixed bloods are called from our dark skins, and I am not ashamed of it. My father, he was pure French, and my mother is half French, but her mother was Ojibwa, Saulteur. Perhaps I do not look so Indian asle Murrai Noir.” Louis lowered his voice. “They say he is at least half Sioux.”
“Sioux! Well, he certainly doesn’t act like a white man.”
“He has the worst of both the white man and the Indian I think.”
As the boats went on up stream, the banks became higher and covered with trees, not willows and aspens only, but elms and oaks and maples. The frosty weather had practically stripped the trees of what leaves the locusts had left, yet no wide view was possible, for the river ran through a narrow trench with steep sides.
At the foot of a stretch of rapids camp was made, and a number of small fish caught for supper. Early in the morning the ascent was begun. The fall was slight, but the current was strong, and the channel sown with boulders and interrupted by ledges. After the boats had been tracked through, the voyageurs delayed for the scrubbing and hair trimming that preceded their approach to the dwellings of men. Again they put on their best and brightest shirts, sashes, and moccasins, which they had carefully stowed away after leaving Norway House.
After he was washed and dressed, Louis, with an air of secrecy, drew Walter aside. “I have seen the inside of Murray’s big package,” he whispered.
“You have? How did that happen?”
“He left the package in the boat. I opened it.”
“What did you find?”
“Little things,—awls, flints, fish hooks, net twine, beads, all wrapped in red or blue handkerchiefs. I had no time to unwrap them, but I could feel some of them. I wonder what he wants of all those things.”
Walter remembered the conversation in the Indian room at Fort York. “Can’t he sell them to the Indians for furs?” he asked.
“The Company will not permit a voyageur to trade. Sometimes, it is true, they may send a man out to buy skins. Perhaps they might send Murray, but I do not think so, and he would need more goods, a whole canoe or cart or sled load.”
“But the Company refused to let him have them,” Walter explained. “At Fort York he asked for a lot of goods, on credit, so he could go trade with the Sioux.”
“The Sioux?”
“Yes, I heard the clerk tell him that the Chief Trader wouldn’t give him the goods. The clerk said it was a crazy scheme. Murray must have stolen our pemmican and exchanged it, or got someone else to do it for him, at Norway House. He must have wanted those things badly to be willing to go hungry for them.”
“He can endure hunger like an Indian,” Louis returned, “and one of the voyageurs in Laroque’s boat has been sharing his food with him. I saw him do it. He is afraid of Murray for some reason. It may be you are right about his selling the pemmican. The Indians want all those little things. They are eager to get them. He might begin——”
“Embark, embark!”
The two boys hurried towards the boat. As they went, Walter whispered, “Are you going to tell about that package?”
“I think so. Not to Laroque, but to the Chief Trader at Fort Douglas.”
When Murray stepped into the boat, he stooped to examine his bundle. Would he discover that it had been opened? It was an anxious moment for Louis and Walter, but the steersman took his place without even looking in their direction. Walter would not have thought of opening Murray’s package. But the Canadian boy’s upbringing had been different.
The banks bordering the rapids were gravelly, the growth thinner and smaller. Then came lower, muddy shores, and Walter got his first glimpse of the prairie. On the west side, only a few trees and bushes edged the river. The country beyond stretched away flat and open, but it was not the fertile, green land the Swiss boy had heard about. The plain was yellow-gray, desolate and dead looking. In one place a wide stretch was burned black. Could this be the rich and beautiful land Captain Mai had described?
Walter’s disappointment was too deep for expression. All he said was, “I thought the prairie would be like our meadows at home. It doesn’t look as if anything could grow here.”
“Oh, things grow very fast, once the ground is broken,” Louis assured him. “Wheat, barley and oats, peas and potatoes, everything that is planted. And the prairie grass is fine pasture. The buffalo eat nothing else. It is as I feared though. The grasshoppers have taken everything. But the grass will grow again. It is coming now. Look at that low place. It is all green. Wait until spring and then you will see. The prairie is beautiful then, the fresh, new grass, and flowers everywhere.”
“And the grasshoppers come and eat it all up,” Walter added dejectedly.
“They may never come again. No one at Fort Douglas or Pembina had ever seen the short horned grasshoppers till three years ago. And they didn’t come last year. Perhaps we shall never see them again.”
Walter knew that Louis was trying to cheer him, and he felt a little ashamed of his discouragement. He put aside his disappointment and forebodings, and tried to share in his friend’s good spirits. In a few hours the long journey would be over, and that was something to be thankful for. He hoped it was nearly over for Elise and Max and their father. The second brigade could not be very far behind.
The current was not strong and there were no rocks, so making their way up stream was not hard work for the boat crews. The first person from the settlement who came in sight was a sturdy, red-haired boy of about Walter’s own age, fishing from a dugout canoe. He raised a shout at the appearance of the brigade, and snatching off his blue Scotch bonnet or Tam-o’-Shanter, he waved it around his head. Then he paddled to shore in haste to spread the news.
Log houses came in view on the west side of the river at the place Louis called the Frog Pond. Lord Selkirk himself, when he had visited the settlement four years before, had named that part of his colony Kildonan Parish, after the settlers’ old home in Scotland. The little cabins were scattered along the bank facing the stream, the narrow farms stretching back two miles across the prairie. From the river there was but little sign of cultivation and scarcely anything green to be seen.
From nearly every house folk came out to watch the brigade go by. Roughly clad, far from prosperous looking they were, in every combination of homespun, Hudson Bay cloth, and buckskin. Some of the men wore kilts instead of trousers, and nearly all waved flat Scotch bonnets. Walter’s heart warmed to these folk. Like himself they were white and from across the ocean, though their land and language were not his own. One bent old woman in dark blue homespun dress, plaid shawl, and white cap reminded him of his own grandmother.
All the Swiss were waving hats and kerchiefs, and shouting “Bon jour” and “Guten Tag,” the women smiling while the tears ran down their cheeks. The long journey with all its suffering and hardships was over,—so they believed. At last they had reached the “promised land.” As yet it did not look very promising to be sure, but they would soon make homes for themselves. The thin face of Matthieu, the weaver, who had been so disheartened when he heard about the grasshoppers, was shining with happiness.
“Where do we land, Louis?” asked Walter.
“At Fort Douglas, where Governor Sauterelle lives.”
“I thought the Governor’s name was Mc-something.”
“It is McDonnell, but people call him Governor Grasshopper because, they say, he is as great a destroyer as those pests.”
“What do they mean?”
“They do not like their Governor, these colonists. You will soon hear all about him.”
A few cabins, set down hit or miss, less well kept than those on the west bank, and interspersed with several Indian lodges, came in view on the east shore. Black haired, dark skinned men and women, and droves of children and sharp nosed dogs were running down to the river.
“Bois brulés,” Louis explained, using the name he had given himself. It means “burnt wood” and is descriptive of the dark color of the half-breed.
The boat made a turn to the east, following a big bend in the river. “This is Point Douglas, and there is the fort,” said Louis, pointing to the roofs of buildings, the British flag and that of the Hudson Bay Company flying over them. Point Douglas had been burned over many years before, and was a barren looking place. The fort, like York Factory and Norway House, was a mere group of buildings enclosed within a stockade.
When Laroque’s boat reached the landing, the shore was lined with people; Hudson Bay employees, white settlers, andbois brulés. As each craft drew up to the landing place, the boatmen sprang out to be embraced and patted on the back by their friends. The new settlers’ warmest reception came from a group of bearded, bold eyed, rough looking, white men. When one of these men spoke to Walter in German, and another in unmistakably Swiss French, the boy’s face betrayed his astonishment.
The first man, a red-faced fellow with untrimmed, sandy beard, laughed and switched from German to French. “Oh, I am a Swiss like you,” he explained, “though I have not seen Switzerland for many a year. I am a soldier by trade, and I served the British king. We DeMeurons are the pick of many countries.”
Walter did not like the man’s looks. He had seen swaggering, mercenary soldiers of fortune before, and he was not sorry when his bold-mannered countryman turned from him to make the acquaintance of his companions.
The voyageurs were hastily unloading. They had reached the end of the journey and were in a hurry to be paid off. Murray did not even wait for the unloading. Carrying his big bundle, he strode quickly towards the fort. Louis looked after him, swung a bale of goods to his back, and trotted up the slope.
Seeing no reason why he should stand idle when there was work to do, Walter shouldered a package and followed. As he reached the gate, three men came through, and he stepped aside to let them pass. The leading figure, a red-faced man of middle age and important air, cast a sharp glance at the boy. Walter’s clothes betrayed him.
“Ye’re na voyageur.” The man spoke peremptorily in Scotch sounding English. “Put down that packet and follow me. I’ve a few words to say to a’ of ye.”
Walter had learned enough English to understand, and the tone warned him that obedience was expected. He left his load lying on the ground, and followed down the slope towards the river. From the red-faced man’s dictatorial manner, the boy guessed him to be Alexander McDonnell, the “Grasshopper Governor.” He was obeyed promptly, but the sullen, even angry, looks on the faces of the half-breeds and Scotch settlers who made way for him, showed that he was not popular. Only the ex-soldiers seemed boldly at their ease in his presence.
The new colonists were quickly gathered together so that the Governor might address them. To make his meaning plain, he used both English and French. His manner was abrupt, yet what he said was reasonable enough, discouraging though it was to the newcomers. After a few words of welcome to the Selkirk Colony and an expression of hope that the Swiss would be industrious and would prosper accordingly, he told them frankly that they had come at an unfortunate time. The settlement was ill prepared for them. The grasshoppers had utterly destroyed the crops. The food supply for the coming winter was inadequate. There was not enough to feed the colonists already established. Most of the settlers, old and new, must spend the winter farther up the Red River at Fort Daer, the Colony post at the mouth of the Pembina. Game animals, especially the buffalo upon which the people must depend for food until new crops could be grown, were much more abundant and easily reached near Fort Daer. Pemmican could be obtained there from thebois brulésand the Indians. Some of the settlers had already gone. Every one of the newcomers able to endure the journey must leave on the morrow. They might pitch their tents near Fort Douglas for the night. Fuel for their fires would be supplied and food for the evening meal and for the journey to the Pembina. More than this the Governor could not promise. At the Pembina they would find timber for cabin building, game for the hunting. Some other necessaries might be bought at Fort Daer. In the spring they could return, and land for farming would be assigned to them. The Swiss had arrived at a bad time when the Colony could do little for them. They would have to do the best they could for themselves.
It was a sober and depressed group of immigrants who listened to Governor McDonnell’s speech. In spite of what they had heard and seen of the ravages of the locusts, they had clung to the hope that their worst troubles would be over when they reached Fort Douglas. They had expected to be housed and fed for a little while at least, until they could make homes for themselves on their own land. Now that dream was over. They must go on,—all of them who could go on. And when they reached a stopping place at last, it would be only a temporary one, with the doubtful prospect of depending on hunting for a living, and perhaps starving before spring. No wonder discouragement and foreboding rested heavily upon their hearts. Even Walter Rossel, young and strong and hopeful, was dismayed at the Governor’s words.
The Swiss were a steadfast and courageous people. They soon roused themselves to make the best of a bad situation. Food and fuel for the night at least had been promised them. They left the future to Providence, and set about pitching camp. Heretofore the voyageurs had done part of that work. Now, having reached the end of their journey, having unloaded the boats and been paid off, they joined their own friends at Fort Douglas or crossed the river to thebois brulésettlement on the east bank. Only Louis Brabant lingered to lend encouragement and help to those whom the long journey had made his friends.
After their first curiosity, the old settlers showed little interest in the new. To the Scotch and Irish, the Swiss were foreigners in speech and ways. The colonists knew from experience the hardships of the voyage across the ocean and of the wilderness trip from Fort York. They could understand the discouraging situation in which the newcomers found themselves, but they could do little or nothing for them. They were not hard hearted, but, pinched for food themselves, they could not be overjoyed at the coming of all these additional hungry mouths to be fed. Had the Swiss been actually starving, the old settlers would have shared with them the last pint of meal and ounce of pemmican, yet they could scarcely help resenting the arrival of the strangers. Why did the heirs of Lord Selkirk keep on sending settlers without providing for them even the barest necessities? No wonder the old colonists grumbled and growled. If their attitude towards the new was not actually unfriendly, it was far from cordial or encouraging. Only the ex-soldiers mingled freely with the Swiss, and even invited certain families to their cabins.
Walter did not like the appearance and manner of these men, but they aroused his curiosity. “Who are the DeMeurons?” he asked Louis. “How did they come here, and why do they call themselves by that name?”
“They came with Lord Selkirk when he recaptured Fort Douglas from the Northwesters. They were soldiers brought over from Europe to fight for the King in the last war with the Americans. After the war they were discharged and Lord Selkirk engaged about a hundred of them to protect his colony. Because most of them had belonged to a regiment commanded by a man named DeMeuron, the settlers call them all DeMeurons. Lord Selkirk gave them land along theRivière la Seine, which comes into the Red about a mile above here, but they do little farming, those DeMeurons. They would rather hunt. I blame them not for that. The other colonists have no love for them.”
“I don’t like their looks myself,” Walter replied, “but they seem kinder to strangers than anyone else here is.”
“The DeMeurons are all bachelors,” Louis explained with a grin. “They seek wives to keep their houses and to help them farm their lands, and perhaps they think Swiss girls will work harder thanbois brulés. So they are kind to the fathers and brothers that they may not be refused when they propose marriage to daughters and sisters. Soon there will be weddings I think.”
“I should hate to see a sister of mine marry a DeMeuron,” was Walter’s emphatic comment. He changed the subject. “Have you found out,” he asked, “if it is true that Lord Selkirk is dead?”
“Yes, it is true. He died, they say, a year ago last spring.”
“Then who owns the Colony now, the Hudson Bay Company?”
“I don’t quite understand about that,” was the doubtful reply. “I asked one of the Company clerks at the fort and he said that the land and everything belong to Lord Selkirk’s heirs. But M’sieu Garry, the Vice-Governor of the Company, as they call him, was here during the summer, and with him was M’sieu McGillivray, a big man among the Northwesters, and now, since the two companies are one, of the Hudson Bay also. They were much interested in the settlement, the clerk said, and made plans about what should be done.”
“Lord Selkirk was one of the owners of the Company, wasn’t he?” Walter questioned. “Then his heirs must own part of it. Perhaps the Company is going to run the Colony for them. Does Governor McDonnell belong to the Company?”
“That I don’t know. It was Lord Selkirk who made McDonnell governor. Truly it ishewho runs the Colony now, with a high hand.”
Mention of Governor McDonnell brought Walter’s own personal problem uppermost in his thoughts. “Do you suppose they will really send us on up the river to-morrow?” he asked.
“Yes, truly. It is the only place for you to go. Here you would starve before spring. Perhaps a few may stay, those the DeMeurons have taken into their cabins. You, Walter, will go of course, and I am glad. Pembina is my home, and we go together.”
“But I can’t go until the Periers come,” the Swiss boy protested. “I intend to stay with them wherever they are, and I ought to wait for them.”
Louis shook his head. “I think the Governor will not let you. What good would it do? As soon as the second brigade arrives, they will be sent on to Pembina. You can wait for them there as well as here. Come with me to-morrow. My mother will make you welcome, and we will find a place for your friends. Perhaps we can have a cabin all ready for them. They would be glad of that.”
Louis slept with friends on the other side of the river, Walter remaining with his country people. The weather was sharp and cold, but Governor McDonnell’s promise of fuel and food was fulfilled. After a hearty meal, the newcomers, in spite of their disappointment, passed a more comfortable night than many they had endured during the long journey. They were somewhat disturbed, however, by the sounds of revelry borne on the wind from Fort Douglas. That the voyageurs and their friends would celebrate hilariously, the Swiss had expected, but not that such wild revels would take place within the fort walls, where lived the Governor and his household.
“The Colony is short of food, so they say,” Matthieu the weaver complained bitterly, “but the folk in the fort must have plenty to eat and drink and make merry with.”
Walter clung to the hope that the departure for Pembina might be delayed until after the arrival of the second boat brigade. But early in the morning word came from Fort Douglas that the Swiss must make ready to leave at once. The boy resolved to ask the Governor to let him remain. He went up to the fort, and felt encouraged when he was admitted at the gate without question, but his request to see the Governor met with flat refusal. The Governor was busy and could not be disturbed. He had given his orders and those orders must be obeyed. Walter was well and strong and able to travel. He had no friends in the settlement to take him in. Well, then, he must go on to Pembina.
Finding it useless to plead his cause to the Governor’s underlings and impossible to get to McDonnell himself, the angry, discouraged lad left the fort. He found Louis Brabant at the Swiss camp, and poured out his story wrathfully. “I have a notion to stay here anyway,” he concluded stubbornly. “I can find someone who will give me lodging for a few days.”
“Yes,” Louis admitted. “At St. Boniface, across the river, I can ask my friends to take you in, but if the Governor learns you have disobeyed his command he will be most angry.”
“What can he do to me? I have a right to be here.”
“Perhaps, but when the Governor is angry, he does not think of the rights of others. You would have to go anyway, tied in a cart as a prisoner, or he would shut you up in the fort, or send you out of the Colony.”
“Where could he send me except to Pembina?” Walter questioned, still unconvinced.
“To Norway House,—to be taken to Fort York in the spring and sent back to Europe in a ship,” was the startling reply. “Oh, yes, as Governor of the Colony, he could do all that.”
“But surely he wouldn’t do it, for such a little thing?”
“Governor ‘Sauterelle’ does not think it a little thing when he is disobeyed. He is not gentle to one who opposes his will. No, no, Walter, you must not think of it. At Pembina you will be far enough away to do as you please, but not here. Come, you shall stay at my home, and we will find a place for your friends and make all ready for them. It won’t be long until they join you.”
Reluctantly Walter yielded to the Canadian boy’s advice. He did not want to yield, but, if what Louis said of the Governor was true, the risk of disobedience was too great. He himself had seen enough already of Alexander McDonnell to realize that he was not the kind of man to be lenient with anyone who disobeyed his orders. So the Swiss boy set about getting his own scanty belongings ready for the journey. He had taken for granted that the party would travel by boat, but he had returned to the camp on the river bank to find his companions’ baggage being loaded into carts.
Clumsy looking things were those carts,—a box body and two great wheels at least five feet tall, with strong spokes, thick hubs, and wooden rims three inches wide and without metal tires. Between the shafts, which were straight, heavy beams, a small, shaggy, sinewy pony, harnessed with rawhide straps, stood with lowered head and tail and an air of dejection or sleepy indifference.
“What queer vehicles,” Walter exclaimed. “Are we to travel overland?”
“Yes, the journey is much shorter that way. By water, following the bends of the river, is almost twice as far. You never saw carts like these before? No, I think that is true. Thebois brulésof the Red River invented this sort of cart. It is made all of wood, not a bit of metal anywhere. Every man makes his own cart. All the tools he needs are an axe, a saw, and an auger or an Indian drill. I have a cart at home I made myself, and it is a good one. In this country you must make things for yourself or you have nothing.”
Examining one of the queer contrivances, Walter found that Louis had spoken the simple truth. No metal had been used in its construction. Wooden pegs and rawhide lashings took the place of nails and spikes. Even the harness was guiltless of a buckle. The carts were far from beautiful, but they were strong and serviceable. The Swiss boy, who knew something of woodworking, admired the ingenuity and skill that had gone into their making. Enough vehicles had been supplied to transport the few belongings of the Swiss and to allow the women and children to ride. Now other carts,—with the families and baggage of the Scotch settlers who were leaving for Pembina,—began to arrive at the rendezvous, the discordant squeaking and screeching of their wooden axles announcing their approach some time before they came in sight.
It took so long to gather the cart train together and make everything ready for departure, that Walter kept hoping for the appearance of the boat brigade. But not a craft, except a canoe or two, came into view around the bend of the river, and no songs or shouts of voyageurs were heard in the distance. The boy, still determined to plead his cause, kept a lookout for Governor McDonnell, but he did not appear. He left the carrying out of his commands to his assistants.