Book: The Shagganappi

E >> E. Pauline Johnson >> The Shagganappi




"We lose two miles good work," he explained. "We build decoy fire, we
leave tin can, he come; he think we go that way, but we go north." Back
to the forks and up the northern branch they pulled, both Larry and Jack
not only willing to have done four miles of seemingly unnecessary
paddling, but loud in their praise and appreciation of the Indian's
shrewd tactics. At supper time Fox-Foot would allow no fire to be built,
no landing to be made, no trace of their passing to be left. They ate
canned meat and marmalade, drank again of the stream and pushed on,
until just at dusk they reached the edge of a long, still lake, with
shores of granite and dense fir forest. "Larry and Jack, you sleep in
canoe to-night; no camp. Lake ten miles long; no current; I paddle--me,"
said the Indian, and nothing that Larry could urge would alter the boy's
edict.

"Jack, you must wonder what all these precautions are for, yet you never
ask," said Larry.

"Because I know," returned the boy. "We are trying to escape the man in
the mackinaw. He is following you. He is your enemy."

"Yes, boy, and to-night you shall know why," replied Larry. "You have
taken so much for granted, you have never asked a single question; now
you shall know what Foxy and I are after."

"You said you were after furs," Jack smiled.

"Yes, but not furs _alone_, my son," said the man. Then leaning
meaningly towards the boy he half whispered, "I am after the king's
coin--_gold_! My boy, nuggets and nuggets of _gold_, that I prospected
for myself up in these wilds two years ago, found _pockets_ of it in the
rocks, cached it, away, as I thought, from all human eyes, awaiting the
time I could safely bring it to 'the front.' I knew of but one being in
all the North that I could trust with my secret. That being is Fox-Foot.
One night I confided it to him, showing him the map I had made of the
lakes and streams of the north country, and the spot where the gold was
cached. We were, as I thought, alone in Fox-Foot's log house. That is,
alone in speaking English, for his people don't understand a single
word that is not Chippewa. We were poring over the map I had made, when
something made me look behind me. Against the small hole in the logs
that served as a window was a man's head and shoulders--a white man--and
he wore a grey mackinaw. Foxy and I were on our feet at once, but the
man crashed through the woods and was gone. But he had heard my story,
had seen I had a map, and--well, he wants my gold! That is all."


III

"And the grey hair above your eyes, Larry?" asked Jack, in an awed
voice.

"_That_ came the time I mentioned when I gave you your revolver, and you
remarked you would hate to be in a position where you might _wish_ you
had one. I told you I had been there myself. It was last August, on a
lonely trail far east of here. I had lain down during the intense heat
of the day to sleep, only to wake to see his peering eyes, to feel that
my feet were tied together, my hands caught in his vise-like clutch,
bound together. Then I was dragged to a tree and lashed to it by yards
of leather strapping, and all the time looking into the barrel of his
revolver. He searched every stitch of clothing I had on, but he did
not find the map. I was not armed, was perfectly helpless, and he left
me lashed to that tree, naked all but my trousers and socks. I was
there forty hours. The black flies came in swarms, the mosquitoes in
thousands, and the second night timber wolves barked in the distance.
Towards morning they came nearer, nearer. The agony from the insects
made me desperate, but it was the yapping of those wolves that drove me
crazy. I chewed through the leather straps binding my shoulder, chewed
the shoulder with it, boy, and broke loose, with the blood running from
every fly-bite, my eyes blinded with their poison, my throat cracked
with thirst. I staggered to the river to drink, drink, drink, to lie
in its cool waters, then to drink again, again, again."

Jack's face blanched, his hands turned stiff with cold, at the horror of
the tale.

"When I could really see with my eyes," continued Larry, "I discovered,
while looking into the still river, that this powder had puffed itself
above my ears."

"And the map?" questioned Jack.

"Oh, the map? Well, he didn't get _that_," answered Larry, in something
of his natural voice. "You see, I had once an accident, breaking through
the ice on the lake. The map got wet and was almost destroyed, so I
copied it out on cotton with marking ink, and sewed it inside the lining
of my coat, and it did not crackle, as the paper map would have done had
he passed his hands over it. Why, he never suspected it was there."

Jack drew a great breath of relief. "I wouldn't care if he did get it,
Larry, so long as he left you alive."

"Oh, he's too cowardly to kill a man outright; don't be afraid of that.
But he's after the King's Coin, all right," was the reply.

"And he don't get King's Coin, not while I live--me," said the low voice
of Fox-Foot, as, with squared shoulders and set teeth, he gripped his
paddle firmly and started up the long stretch of Ten-mile Lake.

* * * * * * * *

All that night Larry and Jack slept in the canoe, while the Chippewa boy
paddled noiselessly, mile after mile. Above them the loons laughed, and
herons called, and in the dense forest ashore foxes barked and owls
hooted. A beautiful bow of light arched itself in the north, its long,
silvery fingers stretching and darting up to the sky's zenith. But the
Indian paddled on. Those wild sounds and scenes were his birthright, and
he knew no fear of them.

At daylight he beached the canoe so motionlessly the sleepers never
stirred, and he wakened them only when he had the coffee made and a
huge pan of delicious bacon fried above the coals. Both of the paleface
friends then arose, yawned, stretched, stripped and plunged into the
lake, to swim about for a few moments, and then to jump into their
shirts and sweaters, and fall upon the coffee and bacon with fine
relish.

"I believe," said Jack, devouring his third helping, "that my eyes are
better. They don't ache or smart in the least to-day."

"Eye bad?" asked Fox-Foot.

Jack explained.

"I cure, me, if you like. Root good for bad eye grows here, north," said
the Chippewa.

"Better let him try," urged Larry. "He knows all these things. His
flower seeds have evidently put the kibosh on the man in the mackinaw."

"I get root, you try. No harm," said the Indian. "You scairt put in your
eye, then just smell it, and tie round your head."

"I'll try it, by all means," asserted Jack.

So, at noon, while Larry and Jack cooked the dinner, Fox-Foot penetrated
the woods, returning with some crooked little brown roots, which he
bound about Jack's forehead and made him inhale. They exuded a peculiar
sweetish odor, that seemed to wash the eyeball like water, and when the
afternoon was half spent, Jack remarked that his eyelids had ceased to
smart.

"One week, maybe, be all right," answered the Indian. And his words
proved correct. Daily he gathered fresh roots, treating Jack's eyes as
skilfully as the oldest medicine man of his tribe could have done, until
the poor red rims faded white, and the bloodshot eyeballs grew clear
and bluish. Jack was beside himself with gratitude and delight, his one
regret being that there was no possible way of mailing a letter to his
parents telling them the good news. This week was one of work, sometimes
toil. Often they encountered rapids over which they must portage. Once
it was a whole mile through brush and rock and deep, soft mosses, but
still they struggled on, until one evening, as they pitched camp and
lighted their fire, Fox-Foot said coolly:

"You know this place, Larry?"

"No," was the answer, "never saw it before."

"The reason you say that," said the Indian, "is 'cause you come and go
over that bluff behind us. Lake Nameless just twenty yards 'cross that
bluff."

"_What_!" yelled Larry.

"I bring you in other side. Bluff separate this river and Lake Nameless.
There is your cache," laughed Fox-Foot, throwing a pebble and striking a
point of red rock ten yards away.

Larry and Jack fairly stumbled over their own feet to get there. Every
mark that Matt Larson had left to identify the hiding-place of his
treasure still remained undisturbed. The round white pebble placed near
the shelving rock, the three-cornered flint, the fine, tiny grey bits of
stone set like a bird's eggs in a nest of lichen, the two standing pines
with a third fallen, storm-wrecked, at their roots--every landmark was
there, intact.

Larry almost flew for the pick, and began to hack away at loose rocks,
swinging the pick above shoulder as a woodsman swings an axe. Two feet
below the surface, the pick caught in a web of cloth. In another minute
Larry lifted out an old woollen jersey undershirt, that had been
fastened up bag-wise. He snatched his knife, ripped open the sleeves,
and the setting sun shot over a huge heap of yellow richness, quarts
and quarts of heavy golden nuggets--_the King's Coin_. Larry sat down
limply, wiping the oozing drops from his forehead. The two boys stood
gazing at the treasure as if fascinated. Then Jack moistened his lips
with his tongue, drew the back of his hand across his blinking eyes,
moistened his lips again, but no words seemed to come to him. It was
Fox-Foot who spoke first. Touching one splendid nugget almost
contemptuously with the toe of his moccasin, he sneered "It is the
curse of the paleface, this gold. 'Most every white man he sell the
soul within his body for gold, gold, but not so Larry. _I_ know him.
He prize this thing because it is the reward of pluck, of work, of
great patience, of what white men call 'grit.'"

"Thank you, Foxy," said Larry, rising and extending his fine hand, which
grasped the Indian's with a warm, true grip. "You mean that--mean it
with all your loyal young redskin heart. Yes, boys, I hope it is for the
love of pluck, the pride of 'grit,' that I value this thing. I hope it
is not greed, not avarice, not--"

"_Never_!" interrupted Jack's ringing voice. "Never any greed of gold in
you, Larry. You best and bulliest of men alive, but I _am_ glad the gold
is yours. You deserve every ounce of it," and Jack was clinging to his
handsome young uncle's other hand with a heartiness that rang as true
as the nuggets lying at his feet. Presently he stooped to lift one. Its
rugged yellow bulk reflected the dying sun. It was a goodly thing
to look at, rare, precious, beautiful. Then he dropped it among its
fellows, his fingers curled into his palms. Unconsciously his hands
moulded themselves into fists, and each fist rested with a peculiar
bulldog movement above each sturdy hip. His eyes met Larry's.

"We'll have a tough fight for it," he said, meaningly, "but that gold is
going to get past the man in the mackinaw."

"It certainly will, if you're going to act as you look now," laughed
Larry. "Why, boy, you look as if you would stop at nothing to outwit our
unpleasant follower."

"I shall stop at very little," said Jack doggedly. "Your gold will get
to the front, Larry, if I have full fling in the matter."

"Fling away, son," was the reply. "Only always remember: don't _use_
your revolver unless he is killing you."

"Or killing you or Fox-Foot," supplemented the boy.

"Same thing," said Larry. "We are all one in this matter, but I don't
want you to be sorry in after years that you pulled a gun too quickly,
that is all."

"No gun," joined Fox-Foot, slyly. "You leave the man to me. I fix him."

"I guess that's right," answered Larry. "Foxy's the boy to trip up Mr.
Mackinaw in his nice little race for what does not belong to him. Now,
boys, for supper, but we'll tuck away these pretty little playthings
first."

The nuggets were divided into two stout canvas sacks, which were never
to leave the lynx eyes of these three adventurers. They were to eat off
those sacks, sleep on them, sit on them, think of them, dream of them,
work for them, swim for them, fight for them. That was the vow that
these three sturdy souls and manly hearts made one to another, before
they sat down to bacon and beans, in the vast wilderness of the North,
that glorious summer night.

"Downy pillow, this!" growled Larry, as he folded his sweater over a
gold sack to get at least a semblance of softness for his ear to burrow
into.

"Never mind, Larry, you can swap it for a good slice of 'down' when
we get to the front," said Jack from the depths of his blankets. "It
strikes me that it will be the cause of your sleeping on 'down' for
the rest of your life."

"I shall never sleep or rest for long, son, nor do I want a downy life,
but there is a difference between rose leaves and these bulky nuggets
prodding a fellow in the neck."

"You sleep on blankets, I sleep on the wampum," said Fox-Foot,
extracting with his slim brown fingers the "pillow" from beneath
Larry's tired head.

"All right, Foxy," murmured the man, sleepily. "The gold only goes to
itself when it goes to you. You're gold right through and through.
Good-night."

"Good-night," came Jack's voice.

"How," answered the Chippewa, after the quaint custom of his tribe.


IV

And all night long they slept the hours peacefully away, the strong,
athletic, well-knit, muscular white boy, the slender, agile, adroit
Indian side by side, their firm young cheeks pillowed on thousands and
thousands of dollars' worth of yellow gold.

With the first hint of dawn, Fox-Foot was astir. Before he left the
tent, however, he cautiously placed his sack under Larry's blanket, and
within the turn of that gentleman's elbow. Once more good luck attended
his efforts with rod and line, and he got a dozen trout in almost as
many minutes. Larry's nose usually awakened him when it sniffed early
cooking, so now he rolled over to pummel Jack, then up to sing and
whistle through his morning toilet like a schoolboy. Breakfast over,
they struck camp, Fox-Foot taking command in packing the canoe, giving
most rigid instructions as to saving the sacks should there be an upset.
Larry took one long, last look at the wild surroundings. The dense pine
forest, the forbidding rocks, the silver upper reaches of the river
where his fought-for treasure had lain hidden for two years from all
human eyes, unknown to any living man save himself. Then the canoe swung
into midstream for the return voyage, its narrow little bow facing the
south at last.

For many days the taut little craft danced merrily, homeward bound. For
many nights the three voyageurs camped, slept, and dreamed, with only
the laughing loons, the calling herons, the plaintive owls, and distant
fox bark to sweep across their slumbers. But as the days went on, the
Indian boy grew more wary; his glance seemed keener, his ears forever
on the alert; he appeared like a lithe, silent watchdog, holding itself
ready to spring, and snap, and bury its fine white teeth in the throat
of an enemy to its household. His paddle dipped noiselessly, his head
turned rapidly, his eye narrowed dangerously. Larry and Jack saw it all,
but they said nothing, only relieved the Chippewa of all the work they
possibly could, so that, should necessity demand that Fox-Foot must lose
rest and food, he would be well fortified for every tax placed upon
him. Jack took to cooking the meals, as a wild duck takes to the water,
insisting that Fox-Foot rest after paddling, and the Indian accepting
it all without comment, and sleeping at a moment's notice--seemingly
storing it up against future needs. But the evening came when the
laughing river gurgled into Lake Nameless, and that night they camped
below its frowning shores on a narrow strip of beach, where the
driftwood of many years and many storms had stranded, seemingly forever.
All three had rolled into blankets, with sleep hovering above and about
them, when, noiselessly as the dawn, Fox-Foot slipped from his bed like
an eel, dipped under the tent, and was gone.

"Larry," whispered Jack, fearfully.

"Yes, boy?" came the reply.

"Did you see that?"

"Yes, boy."

"But--Larry, oh, it's horrible! I hate myself for saying it--but, oh,
Larry, he's taken a sack with him. I saw it."

"Yes, boy."

"Listen! Oh, Larry, s-s-h--"

Matt Larson turned on his back, every nerve strung to snapping pitch.
Two whispering voices assailed his ears. The horror of them seemed to
grip his heart and stop its very beating. Fox-Foot was speaking.

"You's not a good man. I hate you. You's bad all over, but I _have_ to
trust you. You got me cornered. Here's the gold, same's I promised. You
take half. I take half. _You hide it_. Bime-by when I get _them_ out
of this, I come back, _then_ we divide. But you sure _hide it now, hide
it. Good. GOOD_."

Then came the reply in English, good English. There was only one voice
in all the world that had that hissing, snaky sound, and Larry knew it
to his cost. It was the voice of the man in the mackinaw, and it was
hissing:

"Bet your life I'll hide it, Fox-Foot, and you're a good, decent Indian
boy. You shall have half, _sure_, but get both of those _dogs_ out of
here. Get 'em away, right off."

"I scairt," replied the Indian, "I clean scairt. When he finds out,
maybe he kill me. I got no knife, no gun--nothing. I scairt."

"Here, take my revolver," replied the man. "And I tell you, Fox-Foot,
if they kick up, you put a bullet clean through them, _both_ of them."

"Sure. Give me it," said the Indian in a soft, oily voice. Then, "Now,
now, I feel safer with _that_ inside my shirt."

Matt Larson's face was white as a sheet. He did not care a dollar
for his lost gold, but for this Indian boy to fail him--oh, it was
heartbreaking! He buried his face in his hands. "Oh, Foxy!" he almost
sobbed. "Foxy, my little Chippewa friend, I have tried _so_ hard to
treat you square--and--Foxy, you've failed me! You've failed me." And
big, burly Jack Cornwall's tear-wet face was lying against Larry's hand,
and poor, big, burly Jack Cornwall's voice was catching in his throat
as he said:

"Oh, Fox-Foot! Fox-Foot! I'd rather have died than heard this--this
from _you_!"

Then came a hurried good-bye between the two creatures outside, and
Fox-Foot slipped back into the tent, slipped back noiselessly, snakily
as an eel in its own slime.

For a full hour Larry and Jack lay there in the dark, hand gripping
hand. One sack of gold had gone, stolen by their trusted friend, who
lay near them, a loaded revolver inside his shirt, and a threat on his
lips--a threat to kill them both.

At the end of the hour the Indian arose, struck a match, lighted a bit
of candle, and taking the revolver from his shirt, examined it closely.
Through narrowed lids Larry could see by even that faint light that it
was fully loaded.

With a sweet, almost motherly movement, Matt Larson curled his arm
around the boy at his side. They at least would face death together. But
the Indian was crawling slowly, silently up towards them, closer,
closer. At last the slim, brown fingers touched Larry's shoulder, and
the soft Chippewa voice whispered:

"Larry, Jack, wake! See, see, the great thing I got. I got _his_
revolver. He never harm us now."

Larry sat bolt upright.

"What do you mean, Foxy? What do you mean, I say? What have you done
_with my gold_?"

"Gold? Your gold?" exclaimed the Indian boy in surprise. "Your gold?
Why, she's all here"; and flinging back his cover blanket he displayed
a gorgeous sight. There, in a thick, deep layer, piled on his under
blanket, lay every single, blessed nugget belonging to the one sack he
had slept on.

"But," stammered Larry, his eyes popping out of his head in amazement,
"but, Foxy, I _heard_ you bargain with him, I _heard_ you give him the
sack of gold."

"No," replied the Indian, smiling; "heard me give him the _sack_, the
sack filled with stones and pebbles, _not_ with gold. But I've got his
gun, got it _here, here_ in my shirt. He is now unarmed. _He can't shoot
you now_!"

Matt Larson held out his arms. "Oh, Foxy, Foxy, forgive me, forgive me!
For the moment I mistrusted you, I doubted you, my boy."

"I love you just same as ever; no difference if you did suspect, I no
change," said the Indian, as Larry's splendid arms closed about his
lithe young shoulders.

Then Jack Cornwall's voice found utterance. "Fox-Foot! Oh, Fox-Foot!"
was all he could say, but the Indian boy laid his slim finger across
Jack's honest, boyish lips, saying:

"I know. Indian he always know. I love you just same as if you never
doubt."

And Jack knew that Fox-Foot spoke the truth.

"But we must go, go at once," continued the Chippewa. "He maybe come
back, if he find I cheat him. I bad fellow--me. Long ago, before you
come on train, I think maybe he follow us, maybe steal your gold, so
I find him, I speak to him with two tongues, one false tongue, one
straight tongue. I bargain with him to come to Lake Nameless. I meet him
here. We divide your gold, he and I. All the time I make bargain with
him I have plan in my heart, just trick to get all his revolver from
him, so he can't shoot you, Larry. I know he shoot you if I don't get
that gun from him. So--I do all this to-night. I play my trick on him.
We save our gold, we save our lives, maybe. So--you understand now? I
bad fellow, me, but I am only bad to bad man like him. You understand
now? You?"

"Understand?" cried Larry, leaping to his feet. "Understand? Why, Foxy,
you're a prince! You're a king! You're the best boy that ever drew the
breath of life. You are--"

"Don't stop now to tell me what I am," laughed Fox-Foot. "It is enough
that I am your friend, Jack's friend, and the man may be back with his
sack of pebbles." Here the Indian sat down in a fit of irresistible
laughter. Then, controlling himself, he continued, "We must be away
inside ten minutes--quick!"

The other two had long ago grasped the entire situation, and in a
twinkling camp was struck, and they were heading for the far shore,
Larry paddling bow, the Indian astern, and both working for dear life.

Before daybreak they had reached the outlet of the lake, and, wearied as
they were with excitement, haste and continuous paddling, Larry still
urged that they proceed. But the Indian would not listen to it. Larry
and Jack must sleep, he insisted, or none of them would be fit to face
the man should he follow, which he undoubtedly would, as soon as he
discovered the trick which had been played on him. So the two palefaces
once more rolled in their blankets, not waiting to pitch the tent, and
the Indian crouched forward near the water's edge to watch, watch,
watch, with sleepless, peering eyes, that nothing, living or dead, could
hope to escape.


V

Jack found sleep impossible. "I feel myself such a cad," he began to
Larry, "such a sneak ever to have doubted our Fox-Foot; but oh, Larry,
things did look so against him."

"They certainly did, son," assented Matt Larson, "and I feel just as
caddish as you do--more so, in fact, for I should have known, and you
were not expected to. From now on, Jack, let's you and I make it a life
rule, no matter how much things look against any chap, not to believe
it of him, but just believe the best and the noblest of everybody."

"My hand on it!" came Jack's reply, and once more those two fell fast
asleep, palm to palm, but with a vastly different emotion from the one
they had felt a few hours before.

"He will try once more," said Fox-Foot, as they swallowed a hurried
breakfast. "He not quite give up yet. At the head of that first big
rapid--you know where we portaged over Red Rock Falls--there's short cut
through woods to Lake Nameless. Maybe he catch us there. We there about
to-morrow noon. But he can't shoot; his gun here." And the boy tapped
his shirt with an air of confidence.

"Yes, thanks to your stratagem, you young schemer," said Larry. "What do
you think, Jack? Are you equal to a good tussle with his mackinaw nibs?"

"I'm not only equal, but aching to get at him," responded the boy, with
spirit. "I'd give him enough to battle against."

But the man in the mackinaw had to battle against a far more formidable
enemy than this little crew of three venturesome stalwarts.

For the next twenty-four hours things went on much as usual, then came
the sweeping bend in the river, and the roar of the distant falls. This
meant to put ashore and to portage the canoe, duffle, guns and gold
bags around to the foot of the falls, for no canoe could possibly
live through such a cataract, and there was no record, even among the
Indians, of anyone ever having "run" it. All the morning Jack had
paddled bow, and worked like a nailer, so the other two lifted the canoe
to their shoulders, scrambling up the steep, rocky shores, and leaving
Jack to bear the lighter burdens of blankets, tin kettles and one
gold-sack.

Following their prearranged plan, Jack left the sack beside the water
where he could keep a constant eye on it, while he made several trips up
the heights, leaving his various packs on the summit only to return for
more. Last of all he shouldered the heavy gold sack, stumbling among the
rocks under its weight. As he reached the shore heights he noticed his
comrades had already been swallowed up in the woods, canoe and all, but
he could hear their voices and their feet crunching through the
underbrush.

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