A few hours later a coppery sun slowly dispersed the morning mists above the Thames. The same sun warmed the court-yards of the London jail, which lately had confined John Law, convicted of the murder of Beau Wilson, gentleman. It was discovered that the said John Law had, in some superhuman fashion, climbed the spiked walls of the inner yard. The jailer pointed out the very spot where this act had been done. It was not so plain how he had passed the outer gates of the prison, yet those were not wanting who said that he had overpowered the turnkey at the gate, taken from him his keys, and so forced his way out into London city.
Far and wide went forth the proclamation of reward for the apprehension of this escaped convict. The streets of London were placarded broadcast with bills bearing this description of the escaped prisoner:
"Five hundred pounds reward for information regarding the escaped felon, John Law, convicted in the King's Bench of murder and under sentence of death. The same Law escaped from prison on the night of 20 July. May be known by the following description: Is tall, of dark complexion, spare of build, raw-boned, face hath deep pock-marks. Eyes dark, hair dark and scanty. Speaks broad and loud. Carries his shoulders stooped, and is of mean appearance.
"WESTON, High Sheriff.
Done at Newgate prison, this 21 July."
Yet though the authorities of the law made full search in London, and indeed in other of the principal cities of England, they got no word of the escaped prisoner.
The clouded dawn which broke over the Thames below the Pool might have told its own story. There sat upon the deck of the good ship Polly Greenway, outbound from Thames' mouth, this same John Law. He regarded idly the busy scenes of the shipping about him. His gaze, dull and listless, looked without joy upon the dawn, without inquiry upon the far horizon. For the first time in all his life John Law dropped his head between his hands.
Not so Mary Connynge. "Good sir," cried she, merrily, "'tis morning. Let's break our fast, and so set forth proper on our voyage."
"So now we are free," said Law, dully. "I could swear there were shackles on me."
"Yes, we are free," said Mary Connynge, "and all the world is before us. But saw you ever in all your life a man so dumfounded as was Sir Arthur when he discovered 'twas I, and not the Lady Catharine, had stepped into the carriage? That confusion of the carriages was like to have cost us everything. I know not how your brother made such mistake. He said he would fetch me home the night. Gemini! It sure seems a long way about! And where may be your brother now, or Sir Arthur, or the Lady Catharine—why, 'tis as much confused as though 'twere all in a play!"
"But Sir Arthur cried that my ship was for France. Yet here they tell me that this brigantine is bound for the mouth of the St. Lawrence, in America! What then of this other, and what of my brother—what of us—what of—?"
"Why, I think this," said Mary Connynge, calmly. "That you do very well to be rid of London jail; and for my own part, 'tis a rare appetite the salt air ever gives me!"
Upon the same morning tide there was at this very moment just setting aloft her sails for the first high airs of dawn the ship of McMasters, the Polly Perkins, bound for the port of Brest.
She came down scarce a half-dozen cable lengths behind the craft which bore the fugitives now beginning their journey toward another land. Upon the deck of this ship, even as upon the other, there were those who waited eagerly for the dawn. There were two men here, Will Law and Sir Arthur Pembroke, and whether their conversation had been more eager or more angry, were hard to tell. Will Law, broken and dejected, his heart torn by a thousand doubts and a thousand pains, sat listening, though but half comprehending.
"Every plan gone wrong!" cried Sir Arthur. "Every plan gone wrong, and out of it all we can only say that he has escaped from prison for whom no prison could be enough of hell! Though he be your brother, I tell it to your face, the gallows had been too good for John Law! Look you below. See that girl, pure as an angel, as noble and generous a soul us ever breathed—what hath she done to deserve this fate? You have brought her from her home, and to that home she can not now return unsmirched. And all this for a man who is at this moment fleeing with the woman whom she deemed her friend! What is there left in life for her?"
Will Law groaned and buried his own head deeper in his hands. "What is there left for any of us?" said he. "What is there left for me?"
"For you?" said Sir Arthur, questioningly. "Why, the next ship back from Brest, or from any other port of France. 'Tis somewhat different with a woman."
"You do not understand," said Will Law. "The separation means somewhat for me."
"Surely you do not mean—you have no reference to Mary Connynge?" cried Sir Arthur.
Will bowed his head abjectly and left the other to guess that which sat upon his mind. Sir Arthur drew a long breath and stopped his angry pacing up and down.
"It ran on for weeks," said Will Law. "We were to have been married. I had no thought of this. 'Twas I who took her to and from the prison regularly, and 'twas thus that we met. She told me she was but the messenger of the Lady Catharine."
Sir Arthur drew a long, slow breath. "Then I may say to you," said he, "that your brother, John Law, is a hundred times more traitor and felon than even now I thought him. Yonder he goes"—and he shook his fist into the enveloping mist which hung above the waters. "Yonder he goes, somewhere, I give you warning, where he deems no trail shall be left behind him. But I promise you, whatever be your own wish, I shall follow him into the last corner of the earth, but he shall see me and give account for this! There is none of us he has not deceived, utterly, and like a black-hearted villain. He shall account for it, though it be years from now."
So now, inch by inch, fathom after fathom, cable length after cable length, soon knot after knot, there sped two English ships out into the open seaway. Before long they began to toss restlessly and to pull eagerly at the helm as the scent of the salt seas came in. Yet neither knew fully the destination of the other, and neither knew that upon the deck of that other there was full solution of those questions which now sat so heavily upon these human hearts. Thus, silently, slowly, steadily, the two drew outward and apart, and before that morn was done, both were tossing widely upon the swell of that sea beyond which there lay so much of fate and mystery.
"Nearly a league farther, Du Mesne, and the sun but an hour high. Come, let us hasten!"
"You are right, Monsieur L'as," replied the one addressed, as the first speaker seated himself on the thwart of the boat in whose bow he had been standing. "Bend to it,mes amis!"
John Law turned about on the seat, gazing back over the length of the little ship which had brought him and his comrades thus far on the wildest journey he had ever undertaken. Six paddlers there were for this greatcanot du Nord, and steadily enough they sent the thin-shelled craft along over the curling blue waves of the great inland sea. And now their voices in one accord fell into the cadences of an ancient boat-song of New France:
"En roulant ma boule, roulant,
Roulant, rouler, ma boule roulant."
The ictus of the measure marked time for the sweeping paddles, and under the added impetus the paper shell, reinforced as it was by close-laid splints of cedar, and braced by the fiber-fastened thwarts, fairly yielded to the rush of the waves as the stalwart paddlers sent it flying forward. A tiny blur of white showed about the bows, and now and again a splash of spray came inboard, as some little curling white cap was divided by the rush of the swiftly moving prow.
"We shall not arrive too soon, my friend," rejoined the captain of thevoyageurs, casting an eye back across the great lake, which lay black and ominous under a threatening sky, the sweep and swirl of its white caps ever racing hard after the frail craft, as though eager to break through its paper sides and tear away the human beings who thus fled on so lightly.
This boat, mysteriously appearing as though it were some spirit craft railed from the ancient deeps, was far from the beginning of its wild journey. Wide as the eye might reach, there arose no fleck of snowy canvas, nor showed the dark line of any similar craft propelled by oar or paddle. They were alone, these travelers. Before them, at the entrance of the wide arm of the great lake Michiganon, lay the point even at that early day known as the Door of the West, the beginning of the winding water-way which led on into the interior of that West, then so alluring and unknown. The eyes of all were fixed on the low, white-fronted bluffs, crowned by dark forest growth, which guarded the bay at either hand. This spot, so wild, so remote, so significant—it was home for thesevoyageursas much as any; as much, too, for Law and the woman who lay back, pale-faced and wide-eyed, among the bales in the great canoe.
In time the graceful craft approached the beach, on which the long waves rolled and curled, now gently, now with imposing force. With the water yet half-leg deep, Du Mesne and two of the paddlers sprang bodily overboard and held the boat back from the pebbles, so that its tender shell might not be damaged. Law himself was as soon as they in the water, and he waded back along the gunwale until he reached the stern, the water nearly up to his hips. Reaching out his arms, he picked up Mary Connynge from her seat and carried her dry-shod ashore, bending down to catch some whispered word. Not so gallant was Du Mesne, the leader of thevoyageurs. He uttered a few short words of semi-command to the Indian woman, who had been seated on the floor of the canoe, and she, without protest, crawled forward over the thwarts and the heaped bundles until she reached the bow, and then went ankle deep into the creaming flood. The great canoe, left empty and anchored safe from the pebbles of the beach, tossed light as a cork on the incoming waves.
A little open space was quickly found at the edge of the cove in which the disembarkation was made, and here Du Mesne and his followers soon kicked away the twigs and leveled out a smooth place upon the grass. Each man produced from his belt a broad-bladed knife, and for the moment disappeared in the deep fringe of evergreens which lined the shore. Fairly in the twinkling of an eye a rude frame of bent poles was made, above which were spread strips of unrolled birch bark from the cargo of the canoe. Over the spaces left uncovered by the supply of bark sheets there were laid down long mats made by Indian hands from dried reeds and bulrushes, affording no inconsiderable protection against the weather. Inside the lodge, bales of goods and packages of provisions were quickly arranged in comfortable fashion. Gaudy blankets were spread upon layers of soft skins of the buffalo. The Indian woman had meantime struck a fire, whose faint blue smoke curled lakeward in the soft evening air. Quickly, and with the system of experienced campaigners, the evening bivouac had been prepared; and wildly picturesque it must have seemed to a bystander, had there been indeed any possible spectator within many leagues.
Far enough was this from the turmoil of London, which Law and his companion had left nearly a year before; far enough still from the wild capital of New France, where they had spent the winter, after landing, as much by chance as through any plan, at the port of the St. Lawrence. Ever a demon of unrest drove Law forward; ever there beckoned to him that irresistible West, of which he was one of the earliest to feel the charm. Farther and farther westward, swift and swifter than ever the boats of the fur traders had made the journey before, he and his party, led by Du Mesne, the ex-galley-slave and wanderer whom Law had by chance met again, and gladly, at Montréal, had made the long and dangerous run up the lakes, past Michilimackinac, down the lake of Michiganon, headed toward the interior of a new continent which was then, as for generations after then, the land of wondrous distances, of grand enterprises, of magnificent promises and immense fulfilments. The bales and bundles of this bivouac belonged to John Law, bought by gold from the gaming tables of Montréal and Quebec, and ventured in the one great hazard which appealed to him most irresistibly, the hazard of life and fortune in a far land, where he might live unneighbored, and where he might forget. Gambler in England, gambler again in New France, now trading fur-merchant andvoyageur, he was, as always, an adventurer. Du Mesne and his hardy crew hailed him already as a new captain of the trails, a newcoureur, won from the Old World by the savage witchery of the New. He was their brother; and had he indeed owned longer years of training, his keenness of eye, his strength of arm, his tirelessness of limb could hardly have been greater than they seemed in his first voyage to the West.
"Tous les printemps,
Tant des nouvelles"
hummed Du Mesne, as he busied himself about the camp, casting the while a cautious eye to note the progress of the threatening storm.
"Tous les amants
Changent des maîtresses.
Jamais le bon vin n'endort—
L'amour me réveille!"
"The best is before us now, Monsieur L'as," said Du Mesne, joining Law, at length. "Assuredly the best is always that which is ahead and which is unknown; but in point of fact the hardest of our journey is over, for henceforth we may stretch our legs ashore, and hunt and fish, and make good camps for madame, who, as we both perceive, is much in need of ease and care. We shall make all safe and comfortable for this night, doubt not.
"Meantime," continued he, "let us see that all is well with our men and arms, for henceforth we must put out guards. Attention, comrades! Present your pieces and answer the roll-call! Pierre Berthier!"
"Ici!Monsieur," replied the one better known as Pierre Noir, a tall and dark-visaged Canadian, clad in the common costume, half-Indian and half-civilized, which marked his class. A shirt of soft dressed buckskin fell about his thighs; his legs were encased in moose-skin leggings, deeply fringed at the seams. About his middle was a broad sash, once red, and upon his head a scanty cap of similar color was pushed back. At his belt hung the great hunting knife of thevoyageur, balanced by a keen steel tomahawk such as was in common use among the Indians. In his hand he supported a long-barreled musket, which he now examined carefully in the presence of the captain of thevoyageurs.
"Robert Challon!" next commanded Du Mesne, and in turn the one addressed looked over his piece, the captain also scrutinizing the flint and priming with careful eye.
"Naturally,mes enfants," said he, "your weapons are perfect, as ever. Kataikini, and you, Kabayan, my brothers, let me see," said he to the two Indians, the former a Huron and the latter an Ojibway, both from the shores of Superior. The Indians arose silently, and without protest submitted to the scrutiny which ever seemed to them unnecessary.
"Jean Breboeuf!" called Du Mesne; and in response there arose from the shadows a wiry little Frenchman, who might have been of any age from twenty to forty-five, so sun-burnt and wrinkled, yet so active and vigorous did he seem.
"Mon ami," said Du Mesne to him, chidingly, "see now, here is your flint all but out of its engagement. Pray you, have better care of your piece. For this you shall stand the long watch of the night. And now let us all to bed."
One by one the little party was lost to view within the dark interior of the hut which they had arranged for themselves. Du Mesne retired a distance from the fire and seated himself upon a fallen log, his pipe glowing like a coal in the enveloping darkness.
Law himself did not so soon leave the outer air. He remained gazing out at the wild scene about him, at the rolling waves dashing on the shore, their crests whitening in the glare of the lightning, now approaching more closely. He harkened to the roll of the far-off thunder reënforced by the thunder of the waves upon the shore, and noted the sweep of the black forest about, of the black sky overhead, unlit save for one far-off, faint and feeble star.
It was a new world, this that lay around him, a new and savage world. If there were a world behind him, a world which once held sunlight and flowers, and love and hope—why then, it was a world lost and gone forever, and it was very well that this new world should be so different and so stern.
In the darkness John Law heard a voice, the voice of a woman in terror. Swiftly he stepped to the door of the rude lodge.
"Don't let them sing it again—never any more—that song."
"And what, Madam?"
"That one—'Tous les amants changent des maîtresses!'"
A moment later she whispered, "I am afraid."
Marshaling to the imperious orders of the tempest, and crowding close upon the flaming standards of the lightning, the armies of the clouds came on. The sea-wide surface of the lake went dull, and above it bent a sky appalling in its blackness. The wind at first was light, then fitful and gusty, like the rising choler of a man affronted and nursing his own anger. It gained in volume and swept on across the tops of the forest trees, as though with a hand contemptuous in its strength, forbearing only by reason of its own whimsy. Now and again the cohorts of the clouds just hinted at parting, letting through a pale radiance from the western sky, where lingered the departing day. This light, as did the illuminating glare of the forked flames above, disclosed the white helmets of the trooping waters, rushing on with thunderous unison of tread; and the rattling thunder-shocks, intermittent, though coming steadily nearer, served but to emphasize these foot strokes of the waves. The heavens above and the waters under the earth—these conspired, these marched together, to assail, to overwhelm, to utterly destroy.
To destroy what? Why this wild protest of the wilderness? Was it this wide-blown, scattered fire, whose sparks and ashes were sown broadcast, till but stubborn remnants clung under the sheltering back-log of the bivouac hearth? Was it this frail lodge, built upon pliant, yielding poles, covered cunningly with mats and bark, carpeted with robe of elk and buffalo? Yet why should the elements rage at a tiny fire, and why should they tear at a little house of nomad man, since these things were old upon the earth? Was it somewhat else that incited this elemental rage? This might have been; for surely, builder of this hearth-fire which would not quench, master of this house which would not yield, there was now come up to the door of the wilderness the white man, risen from the sea, heralding the day which the tribes had for generations blindly prophesied! The white man, stern, stubborn, fruitful, had come to despoil the West of its secrets!
Let all the elements therefore join in riotous revolt! Let earth and sea and sky make common cause! Rage, waves, and blaze, ye fiery tongues, and threaten, forests, with all your ominous voices! Smite, destroy, or terrify into swift retreat this little band! Crush out their tenement! Loosen and brush off this feeble finger-grasp at the ancient threshold! With banners of flame, with armies of darkness, with shoutings of the captains of the storms, assail, denude, destroy, if even by the agony of their terrors, these feeble folk now come hither! And by this more especially, since they would set the seal of fruitfulness upon the land, and bring upon the earth a generation yet to follow. Hover about this bed in the frail and swaying lodge of bark and boughs, all ye most terrifying spirits! Let not this thing be!
"Mother of God!" cried Jean Breboeuf, bending low and pulling his tunic tighter by the belt, as he came gasping into the faint circle of light which still remained at the fire log. "'Tis murderous, this storm! Ah, Monsieur du Mesne, we are dead men! But what matter? 'Tis as well now as later. Said I not so to you all the way down Michiganon from the Straits? A rabbit crossed my path at the last camp before Michilimackinac, and when we took boat to leave the mission at the Straits, three crows flew directly across our way. Did I not beseech you to turn back? Did I not tell you, most of all, that we had no right, honestvoyageursthat we are, to leave for the woods without confessing to the good father? 'Tis two years now since I have been proper shriven, and two years is too long for avoyageurto remain unabsolved. Mother of God! When I see the lightnings and listen to that wind, I bethink me of my sins—my sins! I vow a bale of beaver—"
"Pish! Jean," responded Du Mesne, who had come in from the cover of the wood and was casting about in the darkness as best he might to see that all was made secure. "Thou'lt feel better when the sun shines again. Call Pierre Noir, and hurry, or our canoe will pound to bits upon the beach. Come!"
All three went now knee-deep in the surf, and Du Mesne, clinging to the gunwale as he passed out, was soon waist deep, and time and again lost his footing in the flood.
"Pull!" he cried at last. "Now,en avant!" He had flung himself over the stern, and with his knife cut the hide rope of the anchor-stone. Overboard again in an instant, he joined the others in their rush up the beach, and the three bore their ship upon their shoulders above the reach of the waves.
"Myself," said Pierre Noir, "shall sleep beneath the boat to-night, for since she sheds water from below, she may do as well from above."
"Even so, Pierre Noir," said Du Mesne, "but get you the boat farther toward your own camp to-night. Do you not see that Monsieur L'as is not with us?"
"Eh bien?"
"And were he not surely with us at such time, unless—?"
"Oh,assurément!" replied Pierre Noir. "Jean Breboeuf, aid me in taking the boat back to our camp in the woods."
Now came the rain. Not in steady and even downpour, not with intermittent showers, but in a sidelong, terrifying torrent, drenching, biting, cutting in its violence. The swift weight of the rain gave to the trees more burden than they could bear. As before the storm, when all was still, there had come time and again the warning boom of a falling tree, stricken with mysterious mortal dread of that which was to come, so now, in the riot of that arrived danger, first one and then another wide-armed monarch of the wood crashed down, adding with its downfall to the testimony of the assailing tempest's strength and fury. The lightning now came not only in ragged blazes and long ripping lines of light, but in bursts and shocks, and in bomb-like balls, exploding with elemental detonations. Balls of this tense surcharged essence rolled out over the comb of the bluff, fell upon the shadows of the water, and seemed to bound from crest to white-capped crest, till at last they split and burst asunder like some ominous missiles from engines of wrath and destruction.
And now, suddenly, all grew still again. The sky took on a lighter, livid tone, one of pure venom. There came a whisper, a murmur, a rush as of mighty waters, a sighing as of an army of the condemned, a shrieking as of legions of the lost, a roaring as of all the soul-felt tortures of a world. From the forest rose a continuous rending crash. The whiplash of the tempest cracked the tree trunks as a child beheads a row of daisies. Piled up, falling, riven asunder, torn out by the wind, the giant trees joined the toys which the cynic storm gathered in its hands and bore along until such time as it should please to crush and drop them.
There passed out over the black sea of Michiganon a vast black wraith; a thing horrible, tremendous, titanic in organic power. It howled, execrated, menaced; missed its aim, and passed. The little swaying house still stood! Under the sheltered log some tiny sparks of fire still burned, omen of the unquenchable hearthstones which the land was yet to know!
"Holy God! what was it? What was that which passed?" cried Jean Breboeuf, crawling out from beneath his shelter. "Saint Mary defend us all this night! 'Twas the great Canoe of the Damned, runningau largeacross the sky! Mary, Mother of God, hear my vow! From this time Jean Breboeuf shall lead a better life!"
The storm, baffled, passed on. The rain, unsatisfied, sullenly ceased in its attack. The waves, hopeless but still vindictive, began to call back their legions from the narrow shore. The lightnings, unsated in their wrath, flared and flickered on and out across the eastward sea. With wild laughter and shrieks and imprecations, the spirit of the tempest wailed on its furious way. The red West had raised its hand to smite, but it had not smitten sure.
In the silence of the night, in the hush following the uproar of the storm, there came a little wailing cry; so faint, so feeble, yet so mighty, so conquering, this sign of the coming generation, the voice of the new-born babe. At this little human voice, born of sorrow and sin, born to suffering and to knowledge, born to life in all its wonders and to death in all its mystery—the elements perchance relented and averted their fury. Not yet was there to be punished sin, or wrong, or doubt, or weakness. Not at once would justice punish the parents of this babe and blot out at once the record of their fault. Storm and lightning, darkness and the night yielded to the voice of the infant and allowed the old story of humanity and sin, and hope and mercy to run on.
The babe wailed faintly in the silence of the night. Under the hearth-log there still endured the fire. And then the red West, seeing itself conquered, smiled and flung wide its arms, and greeted them with the burgeoning dawn, and the voices of birds, with a sky blue and repentant, a sun smiling and not unkind.
It was weeks after the night of the great storm, and the camp of thevoyageursstill held its place on the shore of the great Green Bay. The wild game and the abundant fishes of the lake gave ample provender for the party, and the little bivouac had been rendered more comfortable in many ways best known to those dwellers of the forest. The light jest, the burst of laughter, the careless ease of attitude showed the light-heartedvoyageurscontent with this, their last abode, nor for the time did any word issue which threatened to end their tarrying.
Law one morning strolled out from the lodge and seated himself on a bit of driftwood at the edge of the forest's fringe of cedars, where, seemingly half forgetting himself in the witchery of the scene, he gazed out idly over the wide prospect which lay before him. He was the same young man as ever. Surely, this increased gauntness was but the result of long hours at the paddle, the hollow cheeks but betokened hard fare and the defining winds of the outdoor air. If the eye were a trace more dim, that could be due but to the reflectiveness induced by the quiet scene and hour. Yet why should John Law, young and refreshed, drop chin in hand and sit there moodily looking ahead of him, comprehending not at all that which he beheld?
Indeed there appeared now to the eye of this young man not the white shores and black crowned bluffs and distant islands, not the sweep of broad-winged birds circling near the waters, nor the shadow of the high-poised eagle drifting far above. He felt not the soft wind upon his cheek, nor noted the warmth of the on-coming sun. In truth, even here, on the very threshold of a new world and a new life, he was going back, pausing uncertainly at the door of that life and of that world which he had left behind. There appeared to him not the rolling undulations of the black-topped forest, not the tossing surface of the inland sea, nor the white-pebbled beach laved by its pulsing waters. He saw instead a white and dusty road, lined by green English hedge-rows. Back, over there, beyond these rolling blue waves, back of the long water trail over which he had come, there were chapel and bell and robed priest, and the word which made all fast forever. But back of the wilderness mission, back of the straggling settlements of Montréal and Quebec, back of the blue waters of the ocean, there, too, were church and minister; and there dwelt a woman whose figure stood now before his eyes, part of this mental picture of the white road lined with the hedges of green.
A hand was laid on his shoulder, and he half started up in sudden surprise. Before him, the sun shining through her hair, her eyes dark in the shadow, stood Mary Connynge. A fair woman indeed, comely, round of form, soft-eyed, and light of touch, she might none the less have been a very savage as she stood there, clad no longer in the dress of civilization, but in the soft native garb of skins, ornamented with the stained quills of the porcupine and the bizarre adornments of the native bead work; in her hair dull metal bands, like any Indian woman, upon her feet little beaded moccasins—the very moccasin, it might have been, which Law had first seen in ancient London town and which had played so strange a part in his life since then.
"You startled me," said Law, simply. "I was thinking."
A sudden jealous wave of woman's divining intuition came upon the woman at his side. "I doubt not," said she, bitterly, "that I could name the subject of your thought! Why? Why sit here and dream of her, when here am I, who deserve everything that you can give?"
She stood erect, her eyes flashing, her arms outstretched, her bosom panting under the fringed garments, her voice ringing as it might have been with the very essence of truth and passion. Law looked at her steadily. But the shadow did not lift from his brow, though he looked long and pondered.
"Come," said he, at length, gently. "None the less we are as we are. In every game we take our chances, and in every game we pay our debts. Let us go back to the camp."
As they turned back down the beach Law saw standing at a little distance his lieutenant, Du Mesne, who hesitated as though he would speak.
"What is it, Du Mesne?" asked Law, excusing himself with a gesture and joining thevoyageurwhere he stood.
"Why, Monsieur L'as," said Du Mesne, "I am making bold to mention it, but in good truth there was some question in my mind as to what might be our plans. The spring, as you know, is now well advanced. It was your first design to go far into the West, and there to set up your station for the trading in furs. Now there have come these little incidents which have occasioned us some delay. While I have not doubted your enterprise, Monsieur, I bethought me perhaps it might be within your plans now to go but little farther on—perhaps, indeed, to turn back—"
"To go back?" said Law.
"Well, yes; that is to say, Monsieur L'as, back again down the Great Lakes."
"Have you then known me so ill as this, Du Mesne?" said Law. "It has not been my custom to set backward foot on any sort of trail."
"Oh, well, to be sure, Monsieur, that I know quite well," replied Du Mesne, apologetically. "I would only say that, if you do go forward, you will do more than most men accomplish on their first voyageau largein the wilderness. There comes to many a certain shrinking of the heart which leads them to find excuse for not faring farther on. Yonder, as you know, Monsieur, lie Quebec and Montréal, somewhat better fitted for the abode of monsieur and madame than the tents of the wilderness. Back of that, too, as we both very well know, Monsieur, lie London and old England; and I had been dull of eye indeed did I not recognize the opportunities of a young gallant like yourself. Now, while I know yourself to be a man of spirit, Monsieur L'as, and while I should welcome you gladly as a brother of the trail, I had only thought that perhaps you would pardon me if I did but ask your purpose at this time."
Law bent his head in silence for a moment. "What know you of this forward trail, Du Mesne?" said he. "Have you ever gone beyond this point in your own journeyings?"
"Never beyond this," replied Du Mesne, "and indeed not so far by many hundred miles. For my own part I rely chiefly upon the story of my brother, Greysolon du L'hut, the boldest soul that ever put paddle in the St. Lawrence. My brother Greysolon, by the fire one night, told me that some years before he had been at the mouth of the Green Bay—perhaps near this very spot—and that here he and his brothers found a deserted Indian camp. Near it, lying half in the fire, where he had fallen in exhaustion, was an old, a very old Indian, who had been abandoned by his tribe to die—for that, you must know, Monsieur, is one of the pleasant customs of the wilderness.
"Greysolon and his men revived this savage in some fashion, and meantime had much speech with him about this unknown land at whose edge we have now arrived. The old savage said that he had been many moons north and west of that place. He knew of the river called the Blue Earth, perhaps the same of which Father Hennepin has told. And also of the Divine River, far below and tributary to the Messasebe. He said that his father was once of a war party who went far to the north against the Ojibways, and that his people took from the Ojibways one of their prisoners, who said that he came from some strange country far to the westward, where there was a very wide plain, of no trees. Beyond that there were great mountains, taller than any to be found in all this region hereabout. Beyond these mountains the prisoner did not know what there might be, but these mountains his people took to be the edge of the world, beyond which could live only wicked spirits. This was what the prisoner of the Ojibways said. He, too, was an old man.
"The captive of my brother Greysolon was an Outagamie, and he said that the Outagamies burned this prisoner of the Ojibways, for they knew that he was surely lying to them. Without doubt they did quite right to burn him, for the notion of a great open country without trees or streams is, of course, absurd to any one who knows America. And as for mountains, all men know that the mountains lie to the east of us, not to the westward."
"'Twould seem much hearsay," said Law, "this information which comes at second, third and fourth hand."
"True," said Du Mesne, "but such is the source of the little we know of the valley of the Messasebe, and that which lies beyond it. None the less this idea offers interest."
"Yet you ask me if I would return."
"'Twas but for yourself, Monsieur. It is there, if I may humbly confess to you, that it is my own ambition some day to arrive. Myself—this West, as I said long ago to the gentlemen in London—appeals to me, since it is indeed a land unoccupied, unowned, an empire which we may have all for ourselves. What say you, Monsieur L'as?"
John Law straightened and stiffened as he stood. For an instant his eye flashed with the zeal of youth and of adventure. It was but a transient cloud which crossed his face, yet there was sadness in his tone as he replied.
"My friend," said he, "you ask me for my answer. I have pondered and I now decide. We shall go on. We shall go forward. Let us have this West, my friend. Heaven helping us, let me find somewhere, in some land, a place where I may be utterly lost, and where I may forget!"
The news of the intended departure was received with joy by the crew ofvoyageurs, who, on the warning of an instant, fell forthwith to the simple tasks of breaking camp and storing the accustomed bales and bundles in their places in the greatcanot du Nord.
"La voilà!" said Tête Gris. "Here she sits, this canoe, eager to go on. 'Tis forward again,mes amis!Forward once more; and glad enough am I for this day. We shall see new lands ere long."
"For my part," said Jean Breboeuf, "I also am most anxious to be away, for I have eaten this white-fish until I crave no more. I had bethought me how excellent are the pumpkins of the good fathers at the Straits; and indeed I would we had with us more of that excellent fruit, the bean."
"Bah! Jean Breboeuf," retorted Pierre Noir. "'Tis but a poor-heartedvoyageurwould hang about a mission garden with a hoe in his hand instead of a gun. Perhaps the good sisters at the Mountain miss thy skill at pulling weeds."
"Nay, now, I can live as long on fish and flesh as any man," replied Jean Breboeuf, stoutly, "nor do I hold myself, Monsieur Tête Gris, one jot in courage back of any man upon the trail."
"Of course not, save in time of storm," grinned Tête Gris. "Then, it is 'Holy Mary, witness my vow of a bale of beaver!' It is—"
"Well, so be it," said Jean Breboeuf, stoutly. "'Tis sure a bale of beaver will come easily enough in these new lands; and—though I insist again that I have naught of superstition in my soul—when a raven sits on a tree near camp and croaks of a morning before breakfast—as upon my word of honor was the case this morning—there must be some ill fate in store for us, as doth but stand to reason."
"But say you so?" said Tête Gris, pausing at his task, with his face assuming a certain seriousness.
"Assuredly," said Jean Breboeuf. "'Tis as I told you. Moreover, I insist to you, my brothers, that the signs have not been right for this trip at any time. For myself, I look for nothing but disaster."
The humor of Jean Breboeuf's very gravity appealed so strongly to his older comrades that they broke out into laughter, and so all fell again to their tasks, in sheer light-heartedness forgetting the superstitions of their class.
Thus at length the party took ship again, and in time made the head of the great bay within whose arms they had been for some time encamped. They won up over the sullen rapids of the river which came into the bay, toiling sometimes waist-deep at thecordelle, yet complaining not at all. So in time they came out on the wide expanse of the shallow lake of the Winnebagoes, which body of water they crossed directly, coming into the quiet channel of the stream which fell in upon its western shore. Up this stream in turn steadily they passed, amid a panorama filled with constant change. Sometimes the gentle river bent away in long curves, with hardly a ripple upon its placid surface, save where now and again some startled fish sprang into the air in fright or sport, or in the rush upon its prey. Then the stream would lead away into vast seas of marsh lands, waving in illimitable reaches of rushes, or fringed with the unspeakably beautiful green of the graceful wild rice plant.
In these wide levels now and again the channel divided, or lost itself in littlecul de sacs, from which the paddlers were obliged to retrace their way. All about them rose myriads of birds and wild fowl, which made their nests among these marshes, and the babbling chatter of the rail, the high-keyed calling of the coot, or the clamoring of the home-building mallard assailed their ears hour after hour as they passed on between the leafy shores. Then, again, the channel would sweep to one side of the marsh, and give view to wide vistas of high and rolling lands, dotted with groves of hardwood, with here and there a swamp of cedar or of tamarack. Little herds of elk and droves of deer fed on the grass-covered slopes, as fat, as sleek and fearless of mankind as though they dwelt domesticated in some noble park.
It was a land obviously but little known, even to the most adventurous, and as chance would have it, they met not even a wandering party of the native tribes. Clearly now the little boat was climbing, climbing slowly and gently, yet surely, upward from the level of the great Lake Michiganon. In time the little river broadened and flattened out into wide, shallow expanses, the waters known as the Lakes of the Foxes; and beyond that it became yet more shallow and uncertain, winding among quaking bogs and unknown marshes; yet still, whether by patience, or by cheerfulness, or by determination, the craft stood on and on, and so reached that end of the waterway which, in the opinion of the more experienced Du Mesne, must surely be the place known among the Indian tribes as the "Place for the carrying of boats."
Here they paused for a few days, at that mild summit of land which marks the portage between the east bound and the west bound waters; yet, impelled ever by the eager spirit of the adventurer, they made their pause but short. In time they launched their craft on the bright, smooth flood of the river of the Ouisconsins, stained coppery-red by its far-off, unknown course in the north, where it had bathed leagues of the roots of pine and tamarack and cedar. They passed on steadily westward, hour after hour, with the current of this great stream, among little islands covered with timber; passed along bars of white sand and flats of hardwood; beyond forest-covered knolls, in the openings of which one might now and again see great vistas of a scenery now peaceful and now bold, with turreted knolls and sweeping swards of green, as though some noble house of old England were set back secluded within these wide and well-kept grounds. The country now rapidly lost its marshy character, and as they approached the mouth of the great stream, it being now well toward the middle of the summer, they reached, suddenly and without forewarning, that which they long had sought.
The sturdy paddlers were bending to their tasks, each broad back swinging in unison forward and back over the thwart, each brown throat bared to the air, each swart head uncovered to the glare of the midday sun, each narrow-bladed paddle keeping unison with those before and behind, the hand of the paddler never reaching higher than his chin, since each had learned the labor-saving fashion of the Indian canoeman. The day was bright and cheery, the air not too ardent, and across the coppery waters there stretched slants of shadow from the embowering forest trees. They were alone, these travelers; yet for the time at least part of them seemed care-free and quite abandoned to the sheer zest of life. There arose again, after the fashion of thevoyageurs, the measure of the paddling song, without which indeed the paddler had not been able to perform his labor at the thwart.