Neither lad had anything more to say during the meal or for some time afterwards. Finally Blaise put his hand in the leather pouch he wore at his belt, drew out something and handed it to Hugh. The latter unwrapped the bit of soft doeskin and found his father’s gold seal ring. He glanced quickly up at Blaise.
“It is yours,” the younger brother said. “I gave it not to you before, because I liked not to part with it.”
Moved by a generous impulse, Hugh stretched out his hand to return the ring, but Blaise would not take it.
“No,” he said firmly. “You are the elder son. It is yours.”
The adventurers intended to continue their trip next day, but fate was against them. Before dawn rain was beating on the canoe that sheltered them, and the thundering of the waves on the rocks in the more exposed part of the bay sounded in Hugh’s ears as he woke. That storm was the beginning of a period of bad weather, rain, fog, and wind that cleared the air, but rose to a gale, lashing the waters of the bay to white-capped waves that did not diminish until hours after the wind had blown itself out. Eight days the two camped in a hastily built wigwam on Wauswaugoning Bay, fishing when they could, and snaring one lean hare and a few squirrels. They hunted for larger game and found some deer tracks, but did not catch sight of the animals. As for birds, they saw none but gulls, a loon or two and an owl, and did not care to try anything so tough and strong for food. So they were obliged to consume a good part of their corn.
But a few days of May remained when Hugh and Blaise left Wauswaugoning. Their progress was necessarily slow, not only on account of delays due to wind and weather, but because they were obliged to skirt the shore closely, entering each bay and cove, rounding every point, and keeping keen watch for any sign of the wrecked boat. They had no clue to the spot where it lay. It might have been thrown up on the open shore, or driven into some rock-infested bay or stream mouth. At each stream they made a close examination, ascending a short distance, by canoe where that was possible, or up over the rocky banks on foot. They had searched the mouths of more than a dozen streams and creeks when they came to one, where Blaise, in entering, cautioned Hugh to steer far to one side. Almost across the river mouth extended a long bar of sand and gravel, covered by an inch or two of water, for the river was still high from the spring flood. Bars or rock reefs were, Hugh was learning, common characteristics of the streams emptying into Superior. To enter them without accident required care and caution.
The bar was passed, but further progress up-stream proved impossible. The current was strong, and just ahead were foaming rapids where the water descended among rocks and over boulders. Steering into a bit of quiet backwater behind the bar, the boys found a landing place and carried the canoe ashore. Then they scrambled up the bank a short distance, searching the stream mouth for signs of the wreck. Caught in a blossoming serviceberry bush growing on a rock at the very edge of the river, Blaise found an old moccasin. He examined the ragged, dirty, skin shoe in silence for a moment. Then, hazel eyes gleaming, he held the thing out to Hugh.
“It is my mother’s work,” he said in tense tones. Hugh snatched the worn moccasin. “Do you mean this was my father’s?”
Blaise nodded. “It is my mother’s work,” he repeated. “I would know it anywhere, the pattern of quills, the shaping, even the skin. It is from the elk hide our father brought from the region of the great river.” He made a gesture towards the southwest, and Hugh knew he referred to the Mississippi. “See, it is just like ours,” Blaise concluded, holding up one foot.
Hugh glanced from the almost new moccasin to the ragged one, and drew a long breath. “Then it may be about here somewhere father was wrecked.”
“We must make search,” was the brief reply.
Thoroughly they searched, first the banks of the stream, then the lake beach, parallel ridges of flat flakes of rock pushed up by the waves. They even examined the ground beyond the beach, a rough slope composed of the same sort of dark rock flakes, partly decomposed into crumbly soil. The two pushed through the bushes and small trees that sparsely clothed the stony ground, but nowhere did they find any sign of wrecked boat or hidden cache. Yet they did find something, something that hinted of violence and crime.
Well up from the shore and not far from the stream bank, Hugh came upon an open space, where a ring of blackened stones and ashes showed that a cooking fire had burned. He took one look, turned and plunged into the bushes to find Blaise. But he stopped suddenly. His foot had come in contact with something that was not a rock, a stump or a stick. Stooping, he pulled from under a scraggly wild raspberry, where it had been dropped or thrust, a bundle. Unrolling it, he found it to be a ragged deerskin tunic, damp, dirty and bearing dark stains. The boy stood transfixed staring at the thing in his hands. After a moment he raised his head and shouted for Blaise.
Blaise answered from near by, but to Hugh it seemed a long time before the younger boy came through the bushes. In silence the elder handed the other the stained shirt. Blaise took it, examined it quickly and uttered an Indian grunt.
“Blood?” asked Hugh pointing to the stains.
Blaise grunted assent.
“Father’s blood?” Hugh’s voice broke.
Blaise looked up quickly. “No, no. Black Thunder’s.”
“How do you know?”
“By this.” The lad pointed to a crude figure, partly painted, partly embroidered in black wool, on the breast of the tunic. “This is Black Thunder’s mark, the thunder bird. Without doubt this shirt was his.”
“But how did it come here? There’s no sign of the wrecked boat.”
Blaise shook his head in puzzlement. “I do not understand,” he said slowly.
The half-breed lad was keen witted in many ways, but the white boy’s mind worked more quickly on such a problem. “It may be,” Hugh speculated, “that they were wrecked farther along the shore. Coming on by land, they camped here and some accident happened to Black Thunder, or perhaps he had been bleeding from a hurt received in the wreck, and he changed his shirt and threw away the bloody one.”
“Where was it?” asked Blaise.
“Under this raspberry bush, rolled up.”
“And why think you they camped here?”
“I’ll show you.”
Hugh led the way to the little clearing. Carefully and absorbedly Blaise examined the spot.
“Someone has camped here,” he concluded, “but only a short time, not more than one night. He made no lodge, for there are no poles. He cut no boughs for beds, and he left scarce any litter. It may be he cooked but one meal and went on. If he lay here for the night, the marks of his body no longer remain. If anyone was slain here,” he added after a moment, “the rains washed out the stains. It was a long time ago that he was here, I think.”
“If Black Thunder was killed here,” Hugh questioned, “what was done with his body?”
Blaise shrugged. “There is the lake, and a body weighted with stones stays down.”
“Then why was his blood-stained shirt not sunk with him?”
“That I know not,” and the puzzled look returned to the lad’s face.
“Might it not be that father was wearing Black Thunder’s shirt and that the stains are from his wound?”
“He wore his own when he came to the lodge, and the stains are in the wrong place. They are on the breast. No, he never wore this shirt. The blood must be Black Thunder’s.”
The sun was going down when the two boys finally gave up the search for the wrecked boat or some further trace of Jean Beaupré and his companion. Neither lad had any wish to camp in the vicinity. Blaise especially showed strong aversion to the spot.
“There are evil stories of this river,” he explained to his brother. “If our father camped here, it was because he was very weary indeed. He was a brave man though, far braver than most men, white or red.”
“Why should he have hesitated to camp here?” Hugh inquired curiously. “It’s true we have seen pleasanter spots along this shore, yet this is not such a bad one.”
“There are evil stories of the place,” Blaise repeated in a low voice. “The lake from which this river flows is the abode of a devil.” The boy made the sign of the cross on his breast and went on in his musical singsong. “On the shores of that lake have been found the devil’s tracks, great footprints, like those of a man, but many times larger and very far apart. So the lake is called the ‘Lake of Devil Tracks’ and the river bears the same name. It is said that when that devil wishes to come down to the shore of the great lake to fish for trout, it is this way he comes, striding along the bed of the river, even at spring flood.”
Hugh Beaupré, half Scotch, half French, and living in a time when the superstitious beliefs of an earlier day persisted far more actively than they do now, was not without his share of such superstitions. But this story of a devil living on a lake and walking along a river, struck him as absurd and he said so with perfect frankness.
“Surely you don’t believe such a tale, Blaise, and neither did my father.”
“I know not if the tale is true,” the younger boy answered somewhat sullenly. “Men say they have seen the footprints and everyone knows there are devils, both red and white. Why should not one live on that lake then? How know we it was not that devil who killed Black Thunder and left the bloody tunic under the raspberry bush as a warning to others not to camp on his hunting ground? I am no coward, as I will speedily show you if you want proof, but I will not camp here. If you stay, you stay alone.”
“I don’t want to stay,” Hugh replied quickly. “Devil or not, I don’t like the place. We’ll go on till we find a better camping ground.”
In the light of the afterglow, which was tinting sky and water with pale gold, soft rose and lavender, and tender blue, they launched their canoe again and paddled on. The peace and beauty around him made the sinister thing he had found under the raspberry bush, and the evil deed that thing suggested, seem unreal to Hugh, almost as unreal as the devil who lived at the lake and walked down the river to his fishing. Nevertheless he turned his eyes from the soft colors of sky and water to scan the shore the canoe was skirting. Not a trace of the wrecked bateau appeared, though both boys watched closely.
Several miles beyond the Devil Track River, they made camp on a sloping rock shore wooded with spruce and balsam, where nothing worse than a plague of greedy mosquitoes disturbed their rest. Hugh thought of suggesting that the horde of voracious insects might have been sent by the evil spirit of Devil Track Lake to torment the trespassers. Fearing however that a humorous treatment of his story might offend the halfbreed lad’s sensitive pride, he kept the fancy to himself.
Going on with their journey the next morning, the two came to the spot known to the French fur traders and to the English who followed them as the Grand Marais, the great marsh or meadow. There a long sand and gravel point connects with a low, marshy shore, a higher, rocky stretch, once a reef or island, running at right angles to the gravel spit. The T-shaped projection forms a good harbor for small boats. Closely scanning every foot of beach and rock shore, Hugh and Blaise paddled around the T. On the inner side of the spit, they caught sight of what appeared to be part of a boat half buried in the sand and gravel. They landed to investigate. The thing was indeed the shattered remnants of a wreck, old and weathered and deep in sand and pebbles. It was not Jean Beaupré’s boat, but a birch canoe.
Leaving the T, the lads skirted the low, curving shore. When they rounded the little point beyond, they discovered that the waves, which had been increasing for some hours, had reached a height dangerous to a small boat. The time was past noon, and Blaise thought that the sea would not be likely to go down before sunset. So he gave the word to turn back and seek a camping ground. In the angle of the T just where the sand spit joined the rocky reef, they found shelter.
Realizing that they must conserve their scanty food supply, the two, instead of eating at once, went fishing in the sheltered water. Hugh, in the stern of the canoe, held the hand line, while Blaise paddled. Luck was with them and when they went ashore an hour later they had four fine trout, the smallest about three and the largest at least eight pounds. In one thing at least, cooking fish, Hugh excelled his younger brother. He set about broiling part of his catch as soon as he had cleaned them. Without touching their other supplies, the lads made a hearty meal of trout.
The wind did not fall till after sunset. Knowing it would be some hours before the lake would be calm enough for canoe travel, the boys prepared to stay where they were till morning. The night was unusually mild for the time of year, so they stretched themselves under their canoe and let the fire burn itself out.
At dawn Hugh woke and found his half-brother stirring.
“I go to see how the lake appears,” Blaise explained.
“I’ll go with you,” was Hugh’s reply, and Blaise nodded assent.
They crawled out from under the canoe, and, leaving the beach, climbed up the rocky cross bar of the T-shaped point. The younger boy in the lead, they crossed the rough, rock summit, pushing their way among stunted evergreens and bushes now leafed out into summer foliage. Suddenly Blaise paused, turned his head and laid his finger on his lips. Hugh strained his ears to listen, but could catch no sound but the whining cry of a sea-gull and the rippling of the water on the outer rocks. Blaise had surely heard something, for he dropped on hands and knees and crept forward. Hugh followed in the same manner, trying to move as noiselessly as the Indian lad. With all his caution, he could not avoid a slight rustling of undergrowth and bushes. Blaise turned his head again to repeat his gesture of silence.
After a few yards of this cautious progress, Blaise came to a stop. Crawling up beside his brother, Hugh found himself on the edge of a steep rock declivity. Lying flat, screened by an alder and a small balsam fir, he looked out across the water. He saw what Blaise had heard. Only a few hundred feet away were two canoes, three men in each. Even at that short distance Hugh could barely detect the sound of the dipping paddles and the water rippling about the prows. His respect for his half-brother’s powers of hearing increased.
The sun had not yet risen, but the morning was clear of fog or haze. As the first canoe passed, the figures of the men stood out clear against lake and sky. Hugh’s attention was attracted to the man in the stern. Indeed that man was too notable and unusual a figure to escape attention. A gigantic fellow, he towered, even in his kneeling position, a good foot above his companions. A long eagle feather upright from the band about his head made him appear still taller, while his huge shoulders and big-muscled arms were conspicuous as he wielded his paddle on the left side of the canoe.
Hugh heard Blaise at his side draw a quick breath. “Ohrante!” he whispered in his elder brother’s ear. “Do not stir!”
Obeying that whispered command, Hugh lay motionless, bearing with Spartan fortitude the stinging of the multitude of mosquitoes that surrounded him. When both canoes had rounded a point farther up the shore and vanished from sight, Blaise rose to his feet. Hugh followed his example, and they made their way back across the rocks in silence. By the time camp was reached, the elder brother was almost bursting with curiosity. Who was the huge Indian, and why had Blaise been so startled, even frightened, at the sight of him?
“Who is Ohrante?” Hugh asked, as he helped to lift the canoe from the poles that propped it.
“He is more to be feared than the devil of the lake himself,” was the grim reply. Then briefly Blaise told how the big Indian, the summer before, had treacherously robbed and slain a white trader and had severely wounded his Ojibwa companion, scalped him and left him to die. The wounded man had not died, though he would always be a cripple. He had told the tale of the attack, and a party of Ojibwas, led by Hugh’s father, had pursued Ohrante and captured him. They were taking him back to stand trial by Indian law or to be turned over to white justice,—there was some disagreement between Jean Beaupré and his companions as to which course should be followed,—when the giant made his escape through the help of two of the party who secretly sympathized with him and had fled with him. From that day until this morning, when he had recognized the big Indian in the passing canoe, Blaise had heard nothing of Ohrante.
“But two men went with him when he fled,” the boy concluded. “Now he has five. He is bold to return so soon. I am glad he goes up the shore, not down. I should not wish to follow him or have him follow us. He hated our father and nothing would please him more than to get us in his hands. I hope my mother is with others, a strong party. I think Ohrante will not risk an encounter with the Ojibwas again so soon, unless it be with two or three only.”
“Isn’t he an Ojibwa himself?” Hugh asked.
“No, he is a Mohawk, one of the Iroquois wolves the Englishmen have brought into the Ojibwa country to hunt and trap for the Old Company. It is said his mother was an Ojibwa captive, but Ohrante is an evil Iroquois all through.”
“Monsieur Cadotte says the bringing in of Iroquois hunters is unwise policy,” Hugh remarked.
“The company never did a worse thing,” Blaise replied passionately. “The Iroquois hunters trap and shoot at all seasons of the year. They are greedy for pelts good and bad, and care not how quickly they strip the country of beasts of all kinds. If the company brings in many more of these thieving Iroquois, the Ojibwa, to whom the land belongs, will soon be left without furs or food.”
“That is short-sighted policy for the company itself, it seems to me,” commented Hugh.
“So our father said. He too hated the Iroquois intruders. He told the men of the company they did ill to bring strange hunters into lands where they had no right. Let the Iroquois keep to their own hunting grounds. Here they do nothing but harm, and Ohrante is the worst of them all.”
Hugh had scarcely heard the last part of the lad’s speech. His mind was occupied with a thought which had just come to him. “Do you think,” he asked suddenly, “that it was Ohrante who killed father?”
“I had not thought it till I saw him passing by,” Blaise replied gravely. “I believed it might be another enemy. Now I know not what to think. I cannot believe the traders have brought Ohrante back to hunt and trap for them. And my heart is troubled for my mother. Once when she was a girl she was a captive among the Sioux. To be captured by Ohrante would be even worse, and now there is no Jean Beaupré to take her away.”
“Do you mean that father rescued her from the Sioux?” Hugh asked in surprise.
“He found her among the Sioux far south of here on the great river. She was sad because she had been taken from her own people. So he bought her from the chief who wished to make her his squaw. Then our father brought her to the Grand Portage. There the priest married them. She was very young then, young and beautiful. She is not old even now, and she is still beautiful,” Blaise added proudly.
Hugh had listened to this story with amazement. Had he misjudged his own father? Was it to be wondered at that the warm-hearted young Frenchman should have taken the only possible way to save the sad Ojibwa girl from captivity among the cruel Sioux? The elder son felt ashamed of his bitter thoughts. Blaise loved his mother and was anxious about her. Hugh tried to comfort his younger brother as well as he could.
“The willow wand showed that your mother had gone up the shore,” he hastened to say. “Ohrante is not coming from that way, but from the opposite direction, and there are no women in his canoes. Surely your mother is among friends by this time, and Ohrante, the outlaw, will never dare attack them.”
“That is true,” Blaise replied. “She cannot have fallen into his hands, and he, with so few followers, will not dare make open war.” He was silent for a moment. Then he said earnestly, “There is but one thing for us to do. We must first find the wreck and the cache, as our father bade us. Then we must track down his murderer.”
Hugh nodded in perfect agreement. “Let us get our breakfast and be away then.”
Blaise was untying the package of maple sugar. He took out a piece and handed it to Hugh. “We make no fire here,” he said abruptly. “The Iroquois is not yet far away. He might see the smoke. We will go now. When the wind rises again we can eat.”
Hugh was hungry, but he had no wish to attract the attention of the huge Mohawk and his band. So he made no objection, but nibbled his lump of sugar as he helped to load the canoe and launch it. Before the sun peeped over the far-away line where lake and sky met, the two lads were well on their way again.
Though favored by the weather most of the time for several days in succession, the brothers went ahead but slowly. The discovery of the worn moccasin and the stained tunic had raised their hopes of finding the wrecked bateau soon. At any moment they might come upon it. Accordingly they were even more vigilant than before, anxiously scanning every foot of open shore, bay, cove, stream mouth and island.
One evening before sunset, they reached a beautiful bay with small islands and wooded shores, where they caught sight of a group of bark lodges. Blaise proposed that they land and bargain for provisions. There proved to be about a dozen Indians in the encampment, men, squaws and children. Luckily two deer and a yearling moose had been killed the day before, and Blaise, after some discussion in Ojibwa, succeeded in obtaining a piece of fresh venison and another of moose meat. The Indians refused Hugh’s offer of payment in money, preferring to exchange the meat for ammunition for their old, flint-lock muskets. They were from the deep woods of the interior, unused to frequenting trading posts, and with no idea of money, but they understood the value of powder and shot.
To one of the men Blaise spoke of having seen the outlaw Ohrante. The Ojibwa replied that he had heard Ohrante had come from his hiding place seeking vengeance on those who had captured him. He had never seen the giant Iroquois, the man said, but he had heard that it was through his great powers as a medicine man that he had escaped from his captors. Without divulging that he was the son of the man who had led the expedition against Ohrante, Blaise asked the Indian if he knew when and where the outlaw had first been seen since his exile.
“I was told he was here at this Bay of the Beaver late in the Moon of the Snow Crust,” the Ojibwa replied, and the boy’s hazel eyes gleamed.
Not until they had made camp did Blaise tell Hugh of the information he had received.
“In the Moon of the Snow Crust!” the latter cried. “That is February or March, isn’t it? And it was late in March that father died!”
The younger boy nodded. “Ohrante killed him, that I believe. Some day, some day——” Blaise left the sentence unfinished, but his elder brother had no doubt of the meaning. Hugh’s heart, like the younger lad’s, was hot against his father’s murderer, but he remembered the powerful figure of the Iroquois standing out dark against the dawn. How and when would the day come?
After thoroughly exploring the Bay of the Beaver that night, the boys were off shortly after dawn the next morning. Just as the sun was coming up, reddening the white mist that lay upon the gently rippling water, they paddled out of the bay. As they rounded the southern point, Blaise uttered a startled exclamation.
Hugh, in the stern, looked up from his paddle. “A ship!” he cried.
Coming directly towards them, the light breeze scarce filling her sail, was a ship. So high she loomed through the morning mist Hugh thought she must be at least as large as theOtter, though she seemed to have but one square sail. What was a ship doing here, so far south of the Kaministikwia and even of the Grand Portage? Did she belong to some of the Yankee traders who were now invading the Superior region? Hugh knew he had been in United States waters ever since passing the mouth of the Pigeon River.
And then, as the canoe and the ship approached one another, a curious thing happened. The ship shrank. She was no longer as large as theOtter. She was much smaller. She was not a ship at all, only a wooden boat with a sail. There was something about the light and the atmospheric conditions, the rising sun shining through the morning mist, that had deceived the eye and caused the approaching craft to appear far taller than it really was.
The sailboat was coming slowly in the light wind. As the boys paddled past, they saw it was a small, flat-sided, wooden boat pointed at both ends. It was well loaded and carried three men. Hugh shouted a greeting and an inquiry. A tall fellow in blanket coat and scarlet cap, who was steering, replied in a big, roaring voice and bad French, that they were from the Fond du Lac bound for the Kaministikwia.
Blaise had been even more amazed than Hugh at the deceptive appearance of the sailboat. When they landed later to inspect a stream mouth, the half-breed said seriously that some spirit of the lake must have been playing tricks with them. He wondered if one of the men aboard that bateau was using magic.
“I doubt that,” Hugh answered promptly. “I think the queer light, the sunrise through the mist, deceived our eyes and made the boat look taller. Once on the way from Michilimackinac to the Sault, we saw something like that. A small, bare rock ahead of us stretched up like a high island. The Captain said he had seen the same thing before in that very same spot. He called it ‘looming,’ but he did not think there was anything magical about it.”
Blaise made no reply, but Hugh doubted if the lad had been convinced.
Several times during the rest of the trip down shore, the boys met canoes loaded with trappers and traders or with families of Indians journeying to the Grand Portage or to the New Fort. The two avoided conversation with the strangers, as they did not care to answer questions about themselves or their destination.
The journey was becoming wearisome indeed. The minuteness of the search and the delays from bad weather prolonged the time. Moreover the store of food was scant. The lads fished and hunted whenever possible without too greatly delaying progress, but their luck was poor. Seldom were they able to satisfy their hearty appetites. They lay down hungry under the stars and took up their paddles at chilly dawn with no breakfast but a bit of maple sugar. Hugh grew lean and brown and hard muscled. Except for the redder hue of his tan, the light color of his hair and his gray eyes, he might almost have been whole brother to Blaise. The older boy had become expert with the paddle and could hold his own for any length of time and at any pace the half-breed set. As a camper he was nearly the Indian lad’s equal and he prided himself on being a better cook. It would take several years of experience and wilderness living, however, before he could hope to compete with his younger brother in woodcraft, weather wisdom or the handling of a canoe in rough water.
As mile after mile of carefully searched shore line passed, without sign of the wrecked bateau or trace of Jean Beaupré’s having come that way, the boys grew more and more puzzled and anxious. Nevertheless they persisted in their quest until they came at last to the Fond du Lac.
Fond du Lac means literally the “bottom of the lake,” but the name was used by the early French explorers to designate the end or head of Lake Superior, where the River St. Louis discharges and where the city of Duluth now stands. To-day the name is no longer applied to the head of the lake itself, but is restricted to the railway junction and town of Fond du Lac several miles up the river. There was no town of Fond du Lac or of Duluth in the days of this story. Wild, untamed, uninhabited, rose the steep rock hills and terraces where part of the city now stands.
As they skirted the shore, the boys could see ahead of them a narrow line stretching across the water to the southeast. That line was the long, low point now known as Minnesota Point, a sand-bar that almost closes the river mouth and served then, as it does now, to form a sheltered harbor. Drawing nearer, they discovered that the long, sand point was by no means bare, much of it being covered more or less thickly with bushes, evergreens, aspens and willows. The two lads were weary, discouraged and very hungry. Since their scanty breakfast of wild rice boiled with a little fat, they had eaten nothing but a lump of sugar each, the last remnant of their provisions. Nevertheless they paddled patiently along the bar to the place where the river cut diagonally through it to reach the lake. Entering the narrow channel, they passed through to absolutely still water.
The sun was setting. Unless they went several miles farther to a trading post or caught some fish, they must go to sleep hungry. They decided to try the fishing. Luck with the lines had been poor throughout most of the trip, but that night fortune favored the lads a little. In the shallower water within the bar, they caught, in less than half an hour, two small, pink-fleshed lake trout, which Hugh estimated at somewhat less than three pounds each.
On the inner side of the point, the brothers ran their canoe upon the sand beach. Then they kindled a fire and cooked their long delayed supper. When the meal was over, nothing remained of the fish but heads, fins, skin and bones.
Usually both fell asleep as soon as they were rolled in their blankets. That night, on the low sand-bar, the mosquitoes came in clouds to the attack, but it was not the annoying insects that kept the boys awake. They wanted to talk over their situation.
“It seems,” Hugh said despondently, “that we have failed. That wrecked boat must have been battered to pieces and washed out into the lake. Our only chance of discovering the cache was to find the boat, and that chance seems to be gone.”
“There is still one other chance, my brother,” Blaise replied quietly. “Have you forgotten what we found at the River of Devil Tracks? We must go back there and make search again.”
“You are right,” was Hugh’s quick rejoinder. “We didn’t find any sign of the boat, yet it may once have been there or near by.”
Blaise nodded. “The bateau was perhaps driven on the bar at the river mouth and afterwards washed out into the lake. We must make speed back there. But, Hugh, if it was Ohrante who killed our father, he may also have found the furs.”
“And carried them away.” Hugh slapped savagely at a mosquito. “I have thought of that. I believe in my heart that Ohrante killed father. Yet the murderer may not have taken the furs. Father told you he was wrecked in a storm, and, unable to carry the furs with him, he hid them. That much you say he made clear. When and where he was attacked we do not know, but I believe it must have been after he cached the furs. When he told of the wreck and the hiding of the pelts, he said nothing of his wound?”
“Nothing then or afterwards of the wound or how he got it. He bade me seek you out and find the furs and the packet. When I asked him how he came by the hurt, he was beyond replying.”
Both boys were silent a moment listening to the howling of a lonely wolf far off in the high hills to the north.
Then Hugh said emphatically, “We must go back and search every inch of ground about that river. We will not give up while a chance remains of finding the cache,” he added with stubborn determination.
Before starting back the way they had come, the brothers had to have provisions. Early the next morning they went up the St. Louis River. Beyond the bar the river widened to two miles or more. In midstream the current was strong, but Hugh steered into the more sluggish water just outside the lily pads, reeds and grass of the low shore. About three miles above the mouth, a village of bark lodges was passed, where sharp-nosed dogs ran out to yelp and growl at the canoe.
A short distance beyond the Indian village stood the log fort and trading post of the Old Northwest Company’s Fond du Lac station, one of several posts that were still maintained in United States territory. The two boys landed and attempted to buy provisions. Blaise was not known to the clerk in charge, and Hugh, when asked, gave his middle name of MacNair. Jean Beaupré had passed this post on his way down the river, and the lads did not know what conversation or controversy he might have had with the Old Company’s men. So they thought it wise to say nothing of their relationship to the elder Beaupré. Brought up to be truthful and straightforward, Hugh found it difficult to evade the clerk’s questions. The older boy left most of the talking to the younger, who had his share of the Indian’s wiliness and secretiveness. Blaise saw nothing wrong in deceiving enemies and strangers in any way he found convenient. To Hugh, brother and comrade, Blaise would have scorned to lie, but he did not scruple to let the Northwest Company’s man think that he and Hugh were on their way from the south shore to the Kaministikwia in the hope of taking service with the Old Company.
The post could spare but little in the way of provisions. Less than a half bushel of hulled corn, a few pounds of wild rice, left from the supply brought the preceding autumn from the south shore, and a very small piece of salt pork were all the clerk could be persuaded to part with. As they were leaving he gave the boys a friendly warning.
“Watch out,” he said, “for an Iroquois villain and his band. They are reported to be lingering along the north shore and they are a bad lot. He used to be a hunter for the company, but he murdered a white man and is an outcast now, a fugitive from justice. The rascal is called Ohrante. If you catch sight of a huge giant of an Indian, lie low and get out of his way as soon and as fast as you can.”
On the way back to the river mouth, the lads stopped at the Indian village. After much bargaining in Ojibwa, Blaise secured a strip of dried venison, as hard as a board, and a bark basket of sugar. To these people the lad spoke of the warning the clerk had given him, but they could tell him no more of the movements of Ohrante than he already knew.
The brothers were glad to get away from the Indian encampment and out on the river again. The village was unkempt, and disgustingly dirty and ill smelling. It was evident that most of the men and some of the squaws were just recovering from a debauch on the liquor they had obtained from the traders.
“They are ruining the Ojibwa people, those traders,” Blaise said angrily, after the two had paddled a short distance down-stream. “Once an Ojibwa gets the habit of strong drink, he will give all he has for it. The rival companies contend for the furs, and each promises more and stronger liquor than the other. So the evil grows worse and worse. In the end, as our father said, it will ruin the Ojibwa altogether.”
Hugh did not reply for a moment, then he said hesitatingly, “Did father buy pelts with drink?”
“Not the way most of the others do,” Blaise replied promptly. “Liquor he had to give sometimes, as all traders must, now the custom is started, but our father gave only a little at a time and not strong. Whenever he could he bought his furs with other things. Always he was a friend to the Ojibwa. He became one of us when he married into the nation, and he was a good son, not like some white men who take Ojibwa wives. Many friends he had, and some enemies, but few dared stand against him. He was a strong man and a true one.”
Blaise spoke proudly. Once again Hugh, though glad to hear so much good of his adventurous father, felt a pang of jealousy that the half-breed boy should have known and loved him so well.
Departure was delayed by rain and a brisk wind from the lake, that swayed and bent the trees on the exposed bar, drove the waves high on the outer shore and blew the sand into food and cooking fire. Not until late afternoon of the next day did Hugh and Blaise succeed in getting away. They paddled till midnight and, determined to make the greatest possible speed up the shore, took but four hours’ rest. All the following day they travelled steadily, then camped at a stream mouth and were away again at dawn. Bad weather delayed them that day, however, and caused a late start next morning. Eager to get ahead, they did not land to prepare food until mid-afternoon. After the meal and a rest of not more than a half hour, they resumed their paddles.
Even the going down of the sun did not persuade them to cease their labor. There would be no moon till towards morning, but the brothers paddled on through the darkening twilight. The wind was light, merely rippling the water, and they wanted to get as far on their way as possible.
Blaise, in the bow, was still steadily plying his blade, when, through the blackness of the gathering night, he caught sight of a spark of light. He uttered an exclamation and pointed to the light with his paddle.
“A camp,” he said, speaking softly as if he feared being overheard even at that distance. “It is best to avoid it.”
As they went on, the light grew stronger and brighter. A fire was blazing in an open spot on an island or point. Tiny black figures became visible against the flames. The sounds of shouts and yells were borne across the water. Something out of the ordinary was going on. That was no mere cooking fire, but a huge pile, the flames lighting up the land and water. Around the blaze, the black figures were capering and yelling. Was it some orgy of devils? Had the place where the fire burned been near the Devil Track River, even Hugh might have thought this a feast of fiends. But it was some miles away from the Devil Track. Moreover, his ears assured him that the yells, sounding louder and louder, were from the throats of men, not of spirits.
Blaise had been considering his whereabouts. With the Indian’s keen sense of location and accurate memory of ground he has been over, he had concluded that the place where the fire burned was the rocky end of an island he remembered passing on the way down. The island lay close in, only a narrow waterway separating it from the heavily wooded main shore where trees grew down to the water’s edge.
Paddles dipped and raised noiselessly, the canoe slipped through the water. Blaise set the pace, and Hugh kept the craft close in the shadow of the wooded mainland. As they drew nearer the island, Blaise raised his blade and held it motionless. Hugh immediately did the same. The canoe, under good headway, slipped by, without a sound that could be distinguished from the rippling of the water on the rocks of the island. Hidden in the blackness beyond the circle of wavering firelight, the two gazed on a fear-inspiring scene.
Close to the leaping flames, lighted clearly by the glare, rose the white stem of a tall birch. Tied to the tree was a man, his naked body red bronze in the firelight and streaked with darker color. Five or six other figures were leaping and yelling like fiends about the captive, darting in on him now and again to strike a blow with club, knife or fire brand. The meaning of the horrid scene was plain enough. An unlucky Indian captive was being tortured to death.
It was not the tortured man, however, or the human fiends dancing about him that held Hugh’s fascinated gaze. Motionless, arms folded, another figure stood a little back from the fire, a towering form, gigantic in the flickering light.
Paddles raised, rigid as statues, scarcely daring to breathe, the two lads remained motionless until the slackening and swerving of their craft made it necessary for Blaise to dip his blade cautiously. They were beyond the fire now and still in the deep shadow of the overhanging trees. But the waterway between shore and island was narrow. Until they had put a greater distance between themselves and the hideous, fire-lit picture, they could feel no assurance of security. Keeping close to shore, they used the utmost caution. At last a bend in the mainland, with a corresponding curve in the island, hid the fire from sight. Looking back, they could still see the light of the flames through the trees and on the water, but the blazing pile itself was hidden from view.
Even then the two boys relaxed their caution but little. Near exhaustion though they were, they paddled on and on, with aching muscles and heads nodding with sleep. Not until they were several miles away from the island orgy of Ohrante and his band, did the brothers dare to land and rest. Too weary to cook a meal, each ate a lump of maple sugar, sucked a bit of the hard, unchewable, dried venison, rolled himself in his blanket and slept.
Hugh was alone in a canoe struggling to make headway against the waves. Bearing down upon him, with the roaring of the storm wind, was an enormous black craft with a gigantic form towering in the bow and menacing him with a huge knife. The boy was trying to turn his canoe, but in spite of all his efforts, it kept heading straight for the terrifying figure.
From somewhere far away a voice shouted, “Hugh, Hugh.” The shouts grew louder. Hugh woke suddenly to find his half-brother shaking him by the shoulder. Storm voices filled the air, wind roared through the trees, surf thundered on the rocks. A big wave, curling up the beach, wet his moccasins as he struggled to his feet.
Wide awake in an instant, Hugh seized his blanket and fled up over the smooth, rounded pebbles out of reach of the waves. In a moment he realized that Blaise was not with him. He looked back—and then he remembered. The supplies, the canoe, where were they? He and his brother had unloaded the canoe as usual the night before, had propped it up on the paddles, and had crawled under it. But, overcome with weariness, they had left the packets of food and ammunition lying where they had been tossed, on the lower beach. Now, in the dull light of dawn, Hugh could see the waves rolling in and breaking far above where the packages had been dropped. The canoe had disappeared. It took him but a moment to grasp all this. He ran back down the beach to join Blaise, who was plunging in to his knees in the attempt to rescue what he could.