“The canoe?” Hugh shouted.
“Safe,” Blaise replied briefly, and made a dash after a retreating wave, seizing a skin bag of corn just as it was floating away.
At the same instant Hugh caught sight of a packet of powder, and darted after it, a bitter cold wave breaking over him just as he bent to snatch the packet.
The two worked with frantic haste, heedless of the waves that soaked them above the knees and sometimes broke clear over their heads as they stooped to seize bag or package. They saved what they could, but the dried meat, one sack of corn, Hugh’s bundle of extra clothing, the roll of birch bark and the pine gum for repairing the canoe, had all gone out into the lake. The maple sugar was partly dissolved. Some of the powder, though the wrapping was supposed to be water-proof, was soaked, and Hugh’s gun, which he had carelessly left with the other things, was so wet it would have to be dried and oiled before it could be used. Blaise had carried his gun to bed with him, and it was safe and dry.
Even the half-breed boy, who usually woke at the slightest sound, had been so tired and had slept so heavily that the rising of the wind and the pounding of the waves had not disturbed him. It was not until a strong gust lifted the canoe from over his head, and a falling paddle struck him sharply, that he woke. He had sprung up, seized the overturned canoe and carried it to the shelter of a large rock. Then he had returned, flung his gun and the paddles farther up the beach, and had aroused the still sleeping Hugh.
When everything they had rescued had been carried beyond the reach of the waves and placed in the lee of a rock out of the wind, the two boys skirted the beach in the hope that the meat, corn or clothes might have been cast up in some other spot. The beach, at the head of a small and shallow cove, was not long. When Hugh had gone as far over pebbles and boulders as he could, he scrambled up the rock point that bounded the cove on the north and followed it to the end, without seeing anything of the lost articles. As he reached the bare rock tip, the sun was just coming up among red and angry clouds across the water, flushing with crimson and orange the wildly heaving waves. The wind was a little east of north. No rain had fallen where the boys were camped, but Hugh felt sure from the clouds that a storm must have passed not many miles away. The little cove being open and unprotected to the northeast, the full force of the wind entered it and piled the waves upon the beach.
When Hugh returned to the camping place, he found that Blaise, who had gone in the other direction, had had no better luck. The strong under pull of the retreating waves had carried the lost articles out to deep water.
Going on with the journey in such a blow was out of the question. The boys made themselves as comfortable as possible behind a heap of boulders out of the wind.
“I wish we knew in which direction Ohrante is bound,” Hugh said, as he scraped the last morsel of his scanty portion of corn porridge from his bark dish, with the crude wooden spoon he had carved for himself.
“He went up the shore as we came down,” Blaise replied. “He is probably going down now. Somewhere he has met his enemies and has taken one prisoner at least.”
“I wish we might have travelled farther before camping,” Hugh returned.
Blaise shrugged in his French fashion. “He cannot go on in this weather, and we cannot either. Passing him last night was a great risk. I knew that all their eyes would be blinded by the fire glare, so they could not see into the shadows, else I should not have dared. All went well, yet we must still be cautious and make but small fires and little smoke.”
“No column of smoke can ascend high enough in this gale to be seen,” Hugh argued.
“But the smell will travel far, and the wind blows from us to them. Caution is never wasted, my brother.”
Forced to discontinue the journey for most of the day, the lads spent the time seeking food. They were far enough from Ohrante’s camp to have little fear that any of his party would hear their shots, yet they chose to hunt to the north rather than to the south. With some of the dry powder and the shot that had been saved, Blaise started out first, while Hugh spread the wet powder to dry on a flat rock exposed to the sun but sheltered from the wind. Then he cleaned and dried his gun and greased it with pork fat before leaving camp.
Hugh wandered the woods in search of game for several hours. He did not go far back from shore. Traversing the thick woods, where there was much undergrowth, was difficult and he did not greatly trust his own woodcraft. He had no wish to humiliate himself in his half-brother’s eyes by losing his way. Moreover, as long as he kept where the wind reached him, he was not much annoyed by the mosquitoes, at their worst in June. Whenever he reached a spot where the wind did not penetrate, the irritating insects came about him in clouds, settling on his hands, face, wrists and neck and even getting inside his rather low necked, deerskin shirt.
Whether he did not go far enough into the woods or for some other reason, his luck was not good. He shot a squirrel and a long-eared, northern hare or snowshoe rabbit and missed another, but did not catch a glimpse of deer, moose, or bear. Neither squirrel nor rabbit meat was at its best in June, but it was at least better than no meat at all. Carrying his meager bag, he returned late in the afternoon. He found Blaise squatting over a small cooking fire. The iron kettle gave out a most appetizing odor. The younger boy had secured three plump ruffed grouse. In the Lake Superior wilderness of that day no laws prohibited the shooting of game birds out of season. The stew which appealed so strongly to Hugh’s nostrils was made up of grouse and squirrel meat, with a very little salt pork to give it savor.
The wind had fallen and since noon the waves had been going down. By sunset, though the lake was by no means smooth, travel had become possible for skilled canoeists. Had Hugh and Blaise not been in such a hurry to put distance between themselves and Ohrante, they would have waited until morning. They were so anxious to go on that they launched the canoe while the afterglow was still reflected in pink and lavender on the eastern sky. A few miles would bring them to the Devil Track River, but, not choosing to camp in that evil spot, Blaise insisted on landing about a mile below the stream mouth.
Leaving their camp early next morning, the two started overland to the Devil Track. All day long they sought for some trace of the hidden cache. Not until after sunset did they cease their efforts. Weary and disheartened they returned to their camping place, Hugh in the lead. They had left the canoe turned bottom up over their supplies and well concealed by a thicket of red-stemmed osier dogwoods. The elder brother’s sharp exclamation when he reached the spot made the younger one hasten to his side.
“Look!” cried Hugh, pointing to the birch craft.
Blaise did not need to be told to look. The ragged, gaping hole in the bark was too conspicuous. “A porcupine,” he exclaimed.
“It was the devil in the form of a porcupine, I think,” Hugh muttered. “What possessed the beast?”
“He smelled the pork and gnawed his way through to it. The porcupine loves all things salt. We will see.”
Blaise was right. When the canoe was lifted, the boys discovered that the small chunk of salt pork was gone, taken out through the hole the beast had gnawed. Nothing else was missing.
“Either he didn’t like the other things or the pork was all he could carry away at one trip,” said Hugh. “If we had stayed away a little longer, he might have made off with the corn and the sugar as well.”
“The loss of the pork is bad,” Blaise commented gravely. “The hole in the canoe is bad also, and we must delay to mend it.”
The loss of the pork was indeed serious. The rabbit and the squirrel Hugh had shot the day before had been eaten, and nothing else remained but a few handfuls of corn and a little sugar. So once more, after setting some snares, the lads went to sleep supperless. They slept with the corn and sugar between them for protection.
Blaise might have suspected that the fiend of the river had put a spell on his snares, for in the morning he found them all empty. The dry, stony ground showed no tracks. If any long-legged hare had come that way, he had been wary enough to avoid the nooses.
After the scantiest of breakfasts the boys set about repairing the canoe. Luckily the ball of wattap, the fine, tough roots of the spruce prepared for use as thread, had not been lost when the waves covered the beach at their former camp. From a near-by birch Blaise cut a strong, smooth piece of bark without knotholes. With his knife he trimmed the ragged edges of the hole. Having softened and straightened his wattap by soaking it, he sewed the patch on neatly, using a large steel needle he had bought at the trading post at the Kaministikwia.
In the meantime Hugh sought a pine grove up the river, where he obtained some chunks of resin. The resin he softened with heat to a sticky gum and applied it to the seams and stitches. Blaise went over them again with a live coal held in a split stick, and spread the softened resin skillfully with thumb and knife blade. Then the canoe was left bottom side up for the gum to dry and harden.
In spite of the fact that the boys, on their way down the shore, had searched the land to the east of the Devil Track with considerable thoroughness, they were determined to go over it again. By means of a fallen tree and the boulders that rose above the foaming rapids, they crossed the river where it narrowed between rock walls. Late in the afternoon, Blaise, scrambling up a steep and stony slope well back from the stream, heard two shots in quick succession and then a third at a longer interval, the signal agreed upon to indicate that one or the other had come across something significant. The sounds came from the direction of the lake, and Blaise hastened down to the shore.
Blaise found Hugh stooping over a heap of shattered, water-stained boards, crude planks, axe hewn from the tree.
“Can this be the boat, do you think?” Hugh asked.
Blaise shook his head doubtfully. “It was not here on the beach when we came this way before.”
“Yet it may be part of the wreck washed from some outer rock and cast here by that last hard blow,” reasoned the older boy.
“That is possible. If we could find more of it, the part that bears the sign——”
“What sign? You told me of no sign. I have often wondered how, if we found a wrecked boat, we should know whether it was the right one.”
“Surely I told you of the sign. The board that bears the hole for the mast is painted with vermilion, and on it in black is our father’s sign, the figure that means his Ojibwa name, ‘man with the bright eyes, the eyes that make sparks.’ Twice the sign is there, once on each side of the mast.”
Hugh was staring at his younger brother. Black figures on a vermilion ground! Where had he seen such a thing, seen it recently, since he left the Sault? Then he remembered. “Show me, Blaise,” he cried, “what that figure looks like, that means father’s Indian name.”
Blaise picked up a smooth gray flake and with a bit of softer, dark red stone scratched the figure.
Stick figure
“That is it,” Hugh exclaimed. “I have seen that wrecked boat, a bateau with the thwart painted red and that very same figure drawn in black.”
“You have seen it?” The younger brother looked at the elder wonderingly. “In your dreams?”
“No, I was wide awake, but it was a long way from here and before ever I saw you, Blaise.” Rapidly Hugh related how he and Baptiste had examined the old bateau in the cleft of the rocks of the Isle Royale.
Blaise listened in silence, only his eyes betraying his interest. “Truly we know not where to search,” he said when Hugh had finished. “The bateau drifted far. How can we find where it went upon the rocks?”
“I don’t believe it drifted far. If it was so badly damaged father had to abandon it, could it have floated far? Surely it would have gone to the bottom. When that boat was carried across to Isle Royale, I believe father and Black Thunder were still in it with all their furs. The storm drove them out into the lake, they lost their bearings, just as we in theOtterdid. They were borne away and dashed by the waves into that crack in the rocks. Near there somewhere we shall find the cache, if we find it at all.”
Hugh spoke confidently, very sure of his own reasoning, but the younger lad was not so easily convinced.
“How,” Blaise questioned, “did he come away from that island Minong if he was wrecked there? He could not come by land and the bateau is still there.”
“He made himself a dugout or birch canoe to cross in when the weather cleared.”
“But then why came he not to Wauswaugoning by canoe?”
“Because,” persisted Hugh, “when he reached the mainland he fell in with some enemy here at the Devil Track River. We know his wound was not received in the wreck. You yourself say it was a knife wound. Black Thunder wasn’t killed in the wreck either. They escaped unharmed but the bateau was beyond repair. So they built a canoe and crossed to this shore. Here they were set upon and Black Thunder was killed and father sorely wounded.”
Again the sceptical Blaise shook his head. “Why were they away down here so far below the Grand Portage? And why, if they had a canoe, brought they not the furs and the packet with them?”
Hugh was aware of the weak links in his theory, yet he clung to it. “Maybe they did bring them,” he said, “but couldn’t carry them overland, so they hid them.”
“No, no. Our father told me that the furs were not far from the wreck. He said that three or four times. I cannot be mistaken.”
“Perhaps their canoe wasn’t big enough to hold all of the pelts,” Hugh speculated. “What they did bring may have fallen into Ohrante’s hands. So father spoke only of the rest, hidden in a secret place near the wreck. To me that seems reasonable enough. But,” he admitted honestly, “I don’t quite understand how they came to be so far down the shore here, and, if the packet is valuable, why didn’t father bring that with him if he brought anything? And why didn’t he tell you that the storm drove him on Isle Royale?”
“You forget,” Blaise said slowly, “that our father’s body was very weak and his spirit just about to leave it. I asked him where to find the bateau. He told me of the way it was marked, but he could say no more. I think he could not hear my questions.”
Both lads were silent for several minutes, then Hugh said decisively, “Well, Blaise, there are just two things we can do, unless we give up the quest entirely. We can go back down the shore, searching the land for some sign of the cache, or we can cross to Isle Royale, find the cleft in the rocks where the bateau lies, and seek there for the furs and the packet. I am for the latter plan. To search the whole shore from here to the Fond du Lac for a hidden cache to which we have no clue seems to me a hopeless task.”
“But to cross that long stretch of open water in a small canoe,” Blaise returned doubtfully.
“We must choose good weather of course, and paddle our swiftest to reach the island before a change comes. Perhaps we can rig some kind of sail and make better time than with our paddles.”
It was plain that Hugh had made up his mind to return to Isle Royale. Hitherto he had been content to let Blaise take the lead, but now he was asserting his elder brother’s right to leadership. Better than his white brother, Blaise understood the hazards of such an undertaking, but the half-breed lad was proud. He was not going to admit himself less courageous than his elder brother. If Hugh dared take the risk, he, Little Caribou, as his mother’s people called him, dared take it also.
The brothers must provision themselves for the trip. Even if they reached the island safely and in good time, they could not guess how long their search might take, or how many days or weeks they might be delayed before they could return. Fresh supplies might have reached the Grand Portage by now and corn at least could be bought. From the Indians always to be found near the posts, other food supplies and new moccasins might be obtained.
Considering food supplies reminded the lads of their hunger. They decided to devote the remaining hours of daylight to fishing for their supper. They would start for the Grand Portage in the morning. Blaise paddled slowly along a submerged reef some distance out from shore, while Hugh fished.
In a very few minutes he felt a pull at his line. Hand over hand he hauled it in, Blaise helping by managing the canoe so that the line did not slacken even for an instant. Nearer and nearer Hugh drew his prize, until he could see the gleaming silver of the big fish flashing through the clear water. Then came the critical moment. He had no landing net, and reaching over the side with net or gaff would have been a risk at best. Without shifting his weight enough to destroy the balance, while Blaise endeavored to hold the canoe steady with his paddle, Hugh must land his fish squarely in the bottom. With a sudden swing, the long, silvery, dark-flecked body, tail wildly flapping, was raised from the water and flung into the canoe. Almost before it touched the bottom, Hugh had seized his knife and dealt a swift blow. A few ineffectual flaps and the big fish lay still.
“Fifteen pounds at least,” Hugh exulted. “I have seen larger trout, but most of them were taken in nets.”
“They grow very big sometimes, two, three times as big, but it is not good to catch such a big one with a line. Unless you have great luck, it overturns your canoe.”
The sight of the big trout sharpened the boys’ hunger pangs and took away all zest from further fishing. They paddled full speed for shore and supper.
Favored by good weather they made a quick trip to the Grand Portage. In the bay a small ship lay at anchor, and they knew supplies must have arrived.
“That is not theOtter,” Hugh remarked as they paddled by.
“No, it is not one of the Old Company’s ships. I think it belongs to the New Company.”
“I’m glad it isn’t theOtter,” Hugh replied. “I shouldn’t know how to answer Baptiste’s questions.”
The ship proved, as Blaise had guessed, to belong to the New Company. She sailed the day after the boys arrived, but had left ample supplies. They had no difficulty in buying the needed stores, though Hugh’s money was exhausted by the purchases. He left explanations to Blaise, confident that his younger brother could not be persuaded to divulge the destination or purpose of their trip.
Again bad weather held the lads at the Grand Portage and Wauswaugoning. The last day of their stay, when they were returning from the New Company’s post, they came upon the camp of the trappers whose bateau had loomed like a ship through the morning mist when the boys were leaving the Bay of the Beaver. Hugh recognized at once the tall fellow in the scarlet cap who had replied to his shout of greeting. The trappers had disposed of their furs at the Old Company’s post and were about to leave. They were going to portage their supplies to Fort Charlotte above the falls of the Pigeon River and go up the river in a canoe. Hugh inquired what they intended to do with their small bateau which was drawn up on the shore.
“You want it?” the leader questioned in his big voice.
“Will you sell it?” the boy asked eagerly.
The man nodded. “What you give?”
Hugh flushed with chagrin, remembering that all his money was gone. Blaise came to the rescue by offering to trade some ammunition for the boat. The man shook his head. Blaise added to his offer a small quantity of food supplies, but still the fellow refused. “Too little,” he grumbled, then added something in his curious mixture of Scotch-English and Ojibwa. He was a Scotch half-breed and Hugh found his dialect difficult to understand.
Blaise shrugged, walked over to the boat and examined it. He turned towards the man and spoke in rapid Ojibwa. The fellow answered in the same tongue, pointing to the lad’s gun.
“What does he say?” asked Hugh.
“I told him his bateau needs mending,” Blaise answered in French, “but he will not trade for anything but my gun, which is better than his. I will not give him the gun. Our father gave it to me.”
Hugh understood his half-brother’s feeling, but he was eager to secure the boat. “He may have my gun,” he whispered. He knew that the tall fellow understood some French. “Tell him if he will include the sail—he had one, you know—I’ll give him my gun and some ammunition. Mine doesn’t shoot as accurately as yours, but it looks newer.”
Blaise made the offer in Ojibwa, Hugh repeated it in English, and after an unsuccessful attempt to get more, the man agreed. He put into the boat the mast and canvas, which he had been using as a shelter, and Hugh handed over the gun and ammunition.
The rest of the day was spent in making a few necessary repairs to the bateau, and the following morning, before a light southwest breeze, the lads set sail. Blaise knew nothing of this sort of water travel, but Hugh had handled a sailboat before, though never one quite so clumsy as this crude, heavy bateau. The boat was pointed at both ends, flat bottomed and built of thick, hand-hewn boards. It carried a small, square sail on a stubby mast. With axe and knife Hugh had made a crude rudder and had lashed it to the stern in the place of the paddle the trappers had been content to steer with. Blaise quickly learned to handle the rudder, leaving Hugh free to manage the sail. It was a satisfaction to the older boy to find something in which he excelled his younger brother and could take the lead. It restored his self-respect as the elder. Blaise, on the other hand, obeyed orders instantly and proved himself as reliable a subordinate as he had been leader. The breeze holding steady, the bateau made fairly good speed. They might possibly have made better time in a canoe, but the new mode of travel was a pleasant change from the constant labor of plying the blades.
Had the lads but known it, their wisest course would have been to cross directly from the Grand Portage to the southwestern end of Isle Royale and then skirt the island to its northeast tip. But they had no map to tell them this. Indeed in those days the position of Isle Royale was but imperfectly understood. It had been visited by scarcely any white men and was avoided by the Indians. During the boys’ detention at the Grand Portage, rain and fog had rendered the island, some eighteen or twenty miles away, invisible. The day they set sail the sky was blue overhead, but there was still haze enough on the water to obscure the distance. It was not strange that they believed Isle Royale farther off than it really was. From its northeastern end theOtterhad sailed to the Kaministikwia, and Hugh took for granted that the shortest way to reach the island must be from some point on Thunder Bay. He was aware of the deep curve made by the shore to form the great bay, and realized that to follow clear around that curve would be a loss of time. Instead of turning north to follow the shore, he held on to the northeast, along the inner side of a long line of narrow, rocky islands and reefs, rising from the water like the summits of a mountain chain and forming a breakwater for the protection of the bay.
It was from one of those islands, now called McKellar Island, south about two miles from the towering heights of the Isle du Paté and at least fifteen miles by water from the southern mouth of the Kaministikwia, that the adventurers finally set out for Isle Royale. Before they dared attempt the perilous sail across the long stretch of the open lake, they remained in camp a day to let the southwest wind, which had risen to half a gale, blow itself out. Wind they needed for their venture, but not too much wind.
“Truly the spirit of the winds favors us.” Blaise forgot for the moment his Christian training and spoke in the manner of his Indian forefathers. He had waked at dawn and, finding the lake merely rippled by a steady west breeze, had aroused Hugh.
So anxious were the two to take advantage of the perfect weather that they did not wait for breakfast, but hastily flung their blankets and cooking utensils into the boat. With the two strong paddles included in the purchase, they ran the bateau out of the little cove where it had lain sheltered. Then, hoisting the sail, they steered towards the dawn.
Hugh Beaupré never forgot that sail into the sunrise. Ahead of him the sky, all rose and gold and faint green blending into soft blue, met the water without the faintest, thinnest line of land between. Before and around the boat, the lake shimmered with the reflected tints that glorified even the patched and dirty sail. Was he bound for the other side of the world, for some glorious, unearthly realm beyond that gleaming water? A sense of mingled dread and exultation swept over the boy, his face flushed, his gray eyes sparkled, his pulse quickened. He knew the feeling of the explorer setting out for new lands, realms of he knows not what perils and delights.
The moment of thrill passed, and Hugh turned to glance at Blaise. The younger boy, his hand on the tiller rope, sat like a statue, his dark face tense, his shining hazel eyes betraying a kindred feeling to that which had held Hugh in its thrall. Never before in all their days of journeying together had the white lad and the half-breed felt such perfect comradeship. Speech was unnecessary between them.
As the sun rose higher and the day advanced, Blaise was not so sure that fortune was favoring the venture. The wind sank until the water was broken by the merest ripple only. There was scarcely enough pressure against the sail to keep the boat moving.
“At this rate we shall be a week in reaching the island,” said Hugh, anxiously eying the canvas. “We can go faster with the paddles. Lash the rudder and we’ll try the blades.”
For the first time since they had changed from canoe to sailboat Blaise voiced an objection. “To paddle this heavy bateau is hard work,” he said. “We cannot keep at it all day and all night, as we could in a bark canoe. As long as the wind blows at all and we move onward, even slowly, we had best save our strength. Soon we shall need it. Before the sun is overhead, there will be no wind at all, and then we must paddle.”
Hugh nodded agreement, but, less patient than his half-brother, he found it trying to sit idle waiting for the gentle breeze to die. Blaise had prophesied truly. Before noon the sail was hanging loose and idle, the water, blue under a cloudless sky, was without a wrinkle. It is not often really hot on the open waters of Lake Superior, but that day the sun glared down upon the little boat, and the distance shimmered with heat haze. The bateau had no oars or oarlocks, only two stout paddles, and paddling the heavy, clumsy boat was slow, hot work.
Pausing for a moment’s rest after an hour’s steady plying of his blade, Hugh uttered an exclamation. “Look, Blaise,” he cried. “We haven’t so far to go. There is the Isle Royale ahead, and not far away either.”
He pointed with his blade to the hazy blue masses across the still water. High the land towered, with points and bays and detached islands. Encouraged by the sight, the two bent to their paddles.
In a few minutes Hugh cried out again. “How strange the island looks, Blaise! I don’t remember any flat-topped place like that. See, it looks as if it had been sliced off with a knife.”
The distant shore had taken on a strange appearance. High towering land it seemed to be, but curiously level and flattened at the top, like no land Hugh had seen around Lake Superior.
“There is something wrong,” the boy went on, puzzled. “We must be off our course. That is not Isle Royale, at least not the part I saw. Where are we, Blaise? Are we going in the wrong direction? Can that be part of the mainland?”
“It is not the mainland over that way,” Blaise made prompt reply. “It must be some part of Minong.” He used the Indian name for the island.
“But I saw nothing the——” Hugh began, then broke off to cry out, “Look, look, the island is changing before our eyes! It towers up there to the right, and over there, where it was high a moment ago, it shrinks and fades away!”
“It is some enchanted land,” the younger boy murmured, gazing in wonder at the dim blue shapes that loomed in one place, shrank in another, changed size and form before his awestruck eyes. “It is a land of spirits.” He ceased his paddling to cross himself.
For a moment Hugh too was inclined to believe that he and his brother were the victims of witchcraft. But, though not free from superstition, he had less of it than the half-breed. Moreover he remembered the looming of the very boat he was now in, when he had first seen it in the mists of dawn, and also the rock that had looked like an island, when he was on his way from Michilimackinac. The captain of the ship had told him of some of the queer visions called mirages he had seen when sailing the lakes. Turning towards Blaise, Hugh attempted to explain the strange sight ahead.
“It is the mirage. I have heard of it. The Captain of theAthabascatold me that the mirage is caused by the light shining through mist or layers of cloud or air that reflect in some way we do not understand, making images of land appear where there is no land or changing the appearance of the real land. Sometimes, he said, images of islands are seen upside down in the sky, above the real water-line. It is all very strange and no one quite understands why it comes or how, but there is no enchantment about it, Blaise.”
The younger boy nodded, his eyes still on the changing, hazy shapes ahead. Without reply, he resumed his paddling. How much he understood of his elder brother’s explanation, Hugh could not tell. At any rate Blaise was too proud to show further fear of something Hugh did not seem to be afraid of.
In silence the two plied their paddles under the hot sun, but the heavy wooden boat did not respond like a bark canoe to their efforts. Progress was very slow. White clouds were gathering in the south, moving slowly up and across the sky, though the water remained quiet. The clouds veiled the sun. The distant land shrank to a mere blue line, its natural shape and size, and seemed to come no nearer for all their efforts. Both boys were growing anxious. After the heat and stillness of the day, the clouds, slow moving though they were, threatened storm. The two dug their blades into the water, straining muscles of arms and shoulders to put all their strength into the stroke.
A crinkle, a ripple was spreading over the green-blue water. A breeze was coming up from the southwest. Hugh laid down his blade to raise the sail. In the west the rays of the setting sun were breaking through the clouds and dyeing them crimson, flame and orange. He was glad to see the sun again, for it brought him assurance that he was keeping the course, not swinging too far to north or south.
The breeze, very light at first, strengthened after sunset and became more westerly, the most favorable direction. The clumsy boat and square sail could not be made to beat against the wind, but Hugh’s course was a little north of east. He could sail directly with the wind and yet be assured of not going far out of his way. The farthest tip of land ahead, now freed from the false distortions of mirage, he took to be the end of the long, high shore, where, in the fissure, he and Baptiste had found the old bateau. That land was still very far away, other islands or points of the main island lying nearer.
As darkness gathered, the breeze swept away the clouds, and stars and moon shone out. Sailing over the gently heaving water, where the moonlight made a shimmering path, was a pleasant change from paddling the heavy boat in the heat of the day. The boys’ evening meal consisted of a few handfuls of hulled corn and some maple sugar, with the clear, cold lake water for drink. Both Blaise at the tiller and Hugh handling the sheet found it difficult to keep awake. The day had been a long one, but they must remain alert to hold their course and avoid disaster.
They were approaching land now. In the moonlight, to avoid islands and projecting rocks was not difficult. Sunken reefs were harder to discern. Only the breaking of waves upon the rocks that rose near to the surface betrayed the danger. So the steersman shunned points and the ends of islands from which hidden reefs might run out. Hugh would have been glad to camp on the first land reached, but he knew he ought to take advantage of the favorable wind and get as near as possible to the spot where the wreck lay. Shaking off his drowsiness, he gave his whole attention to navigation.
Several islands and a number of points, that might belong either to the great island or to smaller bordering ones, were passed before reaching a low shore, well wooded, which Hugh felt sure he recognized. He remembered that theOtterhad been obliged to go far out around the tip to avoid a long reef. He warned Blaise to steer well out, but the latter did not go quite far enough and the boat grazed a rock. No damage was done, however. The bateau was now headed for a strip of much higher land, showing dark between sky and water. Hugh thought that must be the towering, tree-crowned, rock shore he recalled. To land there tonight was out of the question. The moon had gone down, and to run, in the darkness, up the bay to the spot where theOtterhad taken shelter might also prove difficult. Hugh decided they had better tie up somewhere on the point they had just rounded. He lowered the sail and both boys took up their paddles. For some distance they skirted the steep, slanting rock shore where the trees grew down as far as they could cling.
One mountain ash had lost its footing and fallen into the lake. To the fallen tree Hugh tied the boat, in still water and under the shadow of the shore. Then he and Blaise rolled themselves in their blankets and lay down in the bottom. Heedless of the dew-wet planking they were asleep immediately. The water rippled gently against the rough sides of the boat, an owl in a spruce sent forth its eerie hoots, from across the water a loon answered with a wild, mocking cry, but the tired lads slept on undisturbed.
The brothers were in the habit of waking early, but it had been nearly dawn when they lay down, and, in the shadow of the trees, they slept until the sun was well started on his day’s journey. When they did wake, Hugh’s first glance was towards the land across the water.
There was no mistaking that high towering shore, steep rocks at the base, richly forest clad above. It was the same shore he had seen weeks before, the first time dimly through fog and snow, again clear cut and distinct, when he and Baptiste had rowed Captain Bennett out of the bay, and yet a third time from the deck of theOtteras she sailed away towards Thunder Cape.
“We have come aright, Blaise,” said Hugh with satisfaction. “That is the place we seek, and it can’t be more than a mile away. Do you see that spot where the trees come to the water, that tiny break in the rocks? It is a little cove with a bit of beach, and in that stretch of rocks to the left is the crack where the old boat lies. I’m sure of the spot, because from theOtter, when we were leaving, I noticed the bare rock pillars of that highest ridge away up there, like the wall of a fort among the trees. It doesn’t show quite so plainly now the birches are in leaf, but I’m sure it is the same. There are two little coves almost directly below that pillared rock wall, and the cliff is a little farther to the left. Oh, but I am hungry,” he added. “We must have a good breakfast before we start across.”
Over the short stretch of water that separated the low point from the high shore, the bateau sailed before the brisk wind. The stretch of gray, pillared rock, like the wall of a fortress, high up among the greenery, served as a guide. As the boat drew nearer, the twin coves, shallow depressions in the shore line separated by a projecting mass of rock, came clear to view.
“Steer for the cliff just beyond the left hand cove,” Hugh ordered. “We’ll run in close and then turn.”
Blaise obediently steered straight for the mass of rock with the vertical fissures, as if his purpose were to dash the boat against the cliff. As they drew close, Hugh gave a shout.
The crack had come into view, a black rift running at an angle into the cliff. As the boat swung about to avoid going on the rocks, the younger boy’s quick eye caught a glimpse, in that dark fissure, of the end of a bateau. To give him that glimpse, Hugh had taken a chance of wrecking their own boat. Now he was obliged to act quickly, lowering the sail and seizing a paddle.
In the trough of the waves, they skirted, close in, the steep, rugged rocks. Almost hidden by a short point was the bit of beach at the end of the first of the twin coves. With a dexterous twist of the paddles, the boys turned their boat and ran up on the beach. Landing with so much force would have ground the bottom out of a birch canoe, but the heavy planks of the bateau would stand far worse battering.
The appearance of the cove had changed greatly since that day when Hugh and Baptiste had rowed past. Then the bushes, birches and mountain ash trees that ringed the pebbles had been bare limbed. Now, with June more than two-thirds gone, they were all in full leaf. Big clusters of buds among the graceful foliage of the mountain ashes were almost ready to open into handsome flowers. The high-bush cranberries bore white blossoms here and there, and the ninebark bushes were covered with masses of pinkish buds. Though Hugh’s mind was on the wreck, his eyes took note of the almost incredible difference a few weeks had made. His nose sniffed with appreciation the spicy smell of the fresh, growing tips of the balsams, mingled with the heliotrope-like odor of the tiny twin-flowers blooming in the woods. He did not let enjoyment of these things delay him, however.
“Now,” he cried, when he and Blaise had pulled up the boat, “we must get into that crack. We can’t reach it from the water in this wind. Perhaps we can climb down from the top.”
Up a steep rock slope, dotted with fresh green moss, shiny leaved bearberry, spreading masses of juniper and a few evergreen trees growing in the depressions, he hastened with Blaise close behind. Along the top of the cliff they made their way until they reached the rift. Though the sides of the crack were almost vertical, trees and bushes grew wherever they could anchor a root. Through branches and foliage, the boys could get no view of the old boat at the bottom.
“We must climb down,” said Hugh.
“It will be difficult,” Blaise replied doubtfully. “To do it we must cling to the roots and branches. Those trees have little soil to grow in. Our weight may pull them over.”
“We must get down some way,” Hugh insisted. “We shall have to take our chances.”
“The wind and waves will calm. We have but to wait and enter from the water.”
Hugh had not the Indian patience. “The wind is not going down, it is coming up,” he protested. “It may blow for a week. I didn’t come here to wait for calm weather. I’m going down some way.”
He wriggled between the lower branches of a spruce growing on the very verge of the crack and let himself down a vertical wall, feeling with his toes for a support. Carefully he rested his weight on the slanting stem of a stunted cedar growing in a niche. It held him. Clinging with fingers and moccasined feet to every projection of rock and each branch, stem or root that promised to hold him, he worked his way down. He heeded his younger brother’s warning in so far as to test every support before trusting himself to it. But in spite of his care, a bit of projecting rock crumbled under his feet. His weight was thrown upon a root he had laid hold of. The root seemed to be firmly anchored, but it pulled loose, and Hugh went sliding down right into the old boat. The ice, which had filled the wreck when he first saw it, had melted. The bateau was more than half full of water, into which he plumped, splashing it all over him. He was not hurt, however, only wet and shaken up a bit.
Blaise had already begun to follow his elder brother into the cleft, when he heard Hugh crash down. Halfway over the edge, the younger boy paused for a moment. Then Hugh’s shout came up to him. “All right, but be careful,” the elder brother cautioned.
Light and very agile, the younger lad had better luck, landing nimbly on his feet on the cross plank of the old boat. It was the vermilion painted thwart that had held the mast. Eagerly both lads bent over it to make out, in the dim light, the black figures on the red ground.
“It is our father’s sign,” Blaise said quietly, “our father’s sign, just as I have seen it many times. This was his bateau, but whether it was wrecked here or elsewhere we cannot tell.”
“I believe it was wrecked here,” Hugh asserted. “See how the end is splintered. This boat was driven upon these very rocks where it now lies, the prow smashed and rents ripped in the bottom and one side. But it is empty. We must seek some sign to guide us to the furs. We need more light.”
“I will make a torch. Wait but a moment.”
Blaise straightened up, hooked his fingers over the edge of a narrow, rock shelf, swung himself up, and ascended the rest of the way as nimbly as a squirrel. In a few minutes he came scrambling down again, holding in one hand a roughly made torch, resinous twigs bound together with a bit of bearberry vine. With sparks from his flint and steel, he lighted the balsam torch. It did not give a very bright light, but it enabled the boys to examine the old bateau closely. The only mark they could find that might have been intended as a guide was a groove across the fore thwart. At one end of the groove short lines had been cut diagonally to form an arrow point.