Book: The Young Fur Traders

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But there was a snake in the grass there that they little suspected.
Misconna had crept through the bushes after them, with a degree of
caution that might have baffled their vigilance, even had they
suspected treason in a friendly camp. He lay listening intently to
all their plans, and when they returned to their camp, he rose out
from among the bushes, like a dark spirit of evil, clutched the
handle of his scalping-knife, and gave utterance to a malicious
growl; then, walking hastily after them, his dusky figure was soon
concealed among the trees.




CHAPTER XVI.

The return--Narrow escape--A murderous attempt, which fails--And a
discovery.


All nature was joyous and brilliant, and bright and beautiful.
Morning was still very young--about an hour old. Sounds of the most
cheerful, light-hearted character floated over the waters and echoed
through the woods, as birds and beasts hurried to and fro with all
the bustling energy that betokened preparation and search for
breakfast. Fish leaped in the pools with a rapidity that brought
forcibly to mind that wise saying, "The more hurry, the less speed;"
for they appeared constantly to miss their mark, although they jumped
twice their own length out of the water in the effort.

Ducks and geese sprang from their liquid beds with an amazing amount
of unnecessary sputter, as if they had awakened to the sudden
consciousness of being late for breakfast, then alighted in the water
again with a _squash,_ on finding (probably) that it was too early
for that meal, but, observing other flocks passing and re-passing on
noisy wing, took to flight again, unable, apparently, to restrain
their feelings of delight at the freshness of the morning air, the
brightness of the rising sun, and the sweet perfume of the dewy
verdure, as the mists cleared away over the tree-tops and lost
themselves in the blue sky. Everything seemed instinct not only with
life, but with a large amount of superabundant energy. Earth, air,
sky, animal, vegetable, and mineral, solid and liquid, all were
either actually in a state of lively exulting motion, or had a
peculiarly sprightly look about them, as if nature had just burst out
of prison _en masse_, and gone raving mad with joy.

Such was the delectable state of things the morning on which two
canoes darted from the camp of the Knisteneux, amid many expressions
of goodwill. One canoe contained our two friends, Charley and
Jacques; the other, Redfeather and his wife Wabisca.

A few strokes of the paddle shot them out into the stream, which
carried them rapidly away from the scene of their late festivities.
In five minutes they swept round a point which shut them out from
view, and they were swiftly descending those rapid rivers that had
cost Charley and Jacques so much labour to ascend.

"Look out for rocks ahead, Mr. Charles," cried Jacques, as he steered
the light bark into the middle of a rapid, which they had avoided
when ascending by making a portage. "Keep well to the left of yon
swirl. _Parbleu_, if we touch the rock _there_ it'll be all over with
us."

"All right," was Charley's laconic reply. And so it proved, for their
canoe, after getting fairly into the run of the rapid, was evidently
under the complete command of its expert crew, and darted forward
amid the foaming waters like a thing instinct with life. Now it
careered and plunged over the waves where the rough bed of the stream
made them more than usually turbulent. Anon it flew with increased
rapidity through a narrow gap where the compressed water was smooth
and black, but deep and powerful, rendering great care necessary to
prevent the canoe's frail sides from being dashed on the rocks. Then
it met a curling wave, into which it plunged like an impetuous
charger, and was checked for a moment by its own violence. Presently
an eddy threw the canoe a little out of its course, disconcerting
Charley's intention of _shaving_ a rock, which lay in their track, so
that he slightly grazed it in passing.

"Ah, Mr. Charles," said Jacques, shaking his head, "that was not well
done; an inch more would have sent us down the rapids like drowned
cats."

"True," replied Charley, somewhat crestfallen; "but you see the other
inch was not lost, so we're not much the worse for it."

"Well, after all, it was a ticklish bit, and I should have guessed
that your experience was not up to it quite. I've seen many a man in
my day who wouldn't ha' done it _half_ so slick, an' yet ha' thought
no small beer of himself; so you needn't be ashamed, Mr. Charles. But
Wabisca beats you for all that," continued the hunter, glancing
hastily over his shoulder at Redfeather, who followed closely in
their wake, he and his modest-looking wife guiding their little craft
through the dangerous passages with the utmost _sangfroid_ and
precision.

"We've about run them all now," said Jacques, as they paddled over a
sheet of still water which intervened between the rapid they had just
descended and another which thundered about a hundred yards in
advance.

"I was so engrossed with the one we have just come down," said
Charley, "that I quite forgot this one."

"Quite right, Mr. Charles," said Jacques, in an approving tone,
"quite right. I holds that a man should always attend to what he's
at, an' to nothin' else. I've lived long in the woods now, and the
fact becomes more and more sartin every day. I've know'd chaps, now,
as timersome as settlement girls, that were always in such a mortal
funk about what _was_ to happen, or _might_ happen, that they were
never fit for anything that _did_ happen; always lookin' ahead, and
never around them. Of coorse, I don't mean that a man shouldn't look
ahead at all, but their great mistake was that they looked out too
far ahead, and always kep' their eyes nailed there, just as if they
had the fixin' o' everything, an' Providence had nothin' to do with
it at all. I mind a Canadian o' that sort that travelled in company
with me once. We were goin' just as we are now, Mr. Charles, two
canoes of us; him and a comrade in one, and me and a comrade in
t'other. One night we got to a lot o' rapids that came one after
another for the matter o' three miles or thereabouts. They were all
easy ones, however, except the last; but it _was_ a tickler, with a
sharp turn o' the land that hid it from sight until ye were right
into it, with a foamin' current, and a range o' ragged rocks that
stood straight in front o' ye, like the teeth of a cross-cut saw. It
was easy enough, however, if a man _knew_ it, and was a cool hand.
Well, the _pauvre_ Canadian was in a terrible takin' about this shoot
long afore he came to it. He had run it often enough in boats where
he was one of a half-dozen men, and had nothin' to do but look on;
but he had never _steered_ down it before. When he came to the top o'
the rapids, his mind was so filled with this shoot that he couldn't
attend to nothin', and scraped agin' a dozen rocks in almost smooth
water, so that when he got a little more than half-way down, the
canoe was as rickety as if it had just come off a six months' cruise.
At last we came to the big rapid, and after we'd run down our canoe I
climbed the bank to see them do it. Down they came, the poor Canadian
white as a sheet, and his comrade, who was brave enough, but knew
nothin' about light craft, not very comfortable. At first he could
see nothin' for the point, but in another moment round they went, end
on, for the big rocks. The Canadian gave a great yell when he saw
them, and plunged at the paddle till I thought he'd have capsized
altogether. They ran it well enough, straight between the rocks (more
by good luck than good guidance), and sloped down to the smooth water
below; but the canoe had got such a battering in the rapids above,
where an Injin baby could have steered it in safety, that the last
plunge shook it all to pieces. It opened up, and lay down flat on the
water, while the two men fell right through the bottom, screechin'
like mad, and rolling about among shreds o' birch bark!"

While Jacques was thus descanting philosophically on his experience
in time past, they had approached the head of the second rapid, and
in accordance with the principles just enunciated, the stout
backwoodsman gave his undivided attention to the work before him. The
rapid was short and deep, so that little care was required in
descending it, excepting at one point, where the stream rushed
impetuously between two rocks about six yards asunder. Here it was
requisite to keep the canoe as much in the middle of the stream as
possible.

Just as they began to feel the drag of the water, Redfeather was
heard to shout in a loud warning tone, which caused Jacques and
Charley to back their paddles hurriedly.

"What can the Injin mean, I wonder?" said Jacques, in a perplexed
tone. "He don't look like a man that would stop us at the top of a
strong rapid for nothin'."

"It's too late to do that now, whatever is his reason," said Charley,
as he and his companion struggled in vain to paddle up stream.

"It's no use, Mr. Charles; we must run it now--the current's too
strong to make head against; besides, I do think the man has only
seen a bear, or something o' that sort, for I see he's ashore, and
jumpin' among the bushes like a cariboo."

Saying this, they turned the canoe's head down stream again, and
allowed it to drift, merely retarding its progress a little with the
paddles.

Suddenly Jacques uttered a sharp exclamation. "_Mon Dieu!_" said he,
"it's plain enough now. Look there!"

Jacques pointed as he spoke to the narrows to which they were now
approaching with tremendous speed, which increased every instant. A
heavy tree lay directly across the stream, reaching from rock to
rock, and placed in such a way that it was impossible for a canoe to
descend without being dashed in pieces against it. This was the more
curious that no trees grew in the immediate vicinity, so that this
one must have been designedly conveyed there.

"There has been foul work here," said Jacques, in a deep tone. "We
must dive, Mr. Charles; there's no chance any way else, and _that's_
but a poor one."

This was true. The rocks on each side rose almost perpendicularly out
of the water, so that it was utterly impossible to run ashore, and
the only way of escape, as Jacques said, was by diving under the
tree, a thing involving great risk, as the stream immediately below
was broken by rocks, against which it dashed in foam, and through
which the chances of steering one's way in safety by means of
swimming were very slender indeed.

Charley made no reply, but with tightly-compressed lips, and a look
of stern resolution on his brow, threw off his coat, and hastily tied
his belt tightly round his waist. The canoe was now sweeping forward
with lightning speed; in a few minutes it would be dashed to pieces.

At that moment a shout was heard in the woods, and Redfeather darting
out, rushed over the ledge of rock on which one end of the tree
rested, seized the trunk in his arms, and exerting all his strength,
hurled it over into the river. In doing so he stumbled, and ere he
could recover himself a branch caught him under the arm as the tree
fell over, and dragged him into the boiling stream. This accident was
probably the means of saving his life, for just as he fell the loud
report of a gun rang through the woods, and a bullet passed through
his cap. For a second or two both man and tree were lost in the foam,
while the canoe dashed past in safety. The next instant Wabisca
passed the narrows in her small craft, and steered for the tree.
Redfeather, who had risen and sunk several times, saw her as she
passed, and making a violent effort, he caught hold of the gunwale,
and was carried down in safety.

"I'll tell you what it is," said Jacques, as the party stood on a
rock promontory after the events just narrated: "I would give a
dollar to have that fellow's nose and the sights o' my rifle in a
line at any distance short of two hundred yards."

"It was Misconna," said Redfeather. "I did not see him, but there's
not another man in the tribe that could do that."

"I'm thankful we escaped, Jacques. I never felt so near death before,
and had it not been for the timely aid of our friend here, it strikes
me that our wild life would have come to an abrupt close.--God bless
you, Redfeather," said Charley, taking the Indian's hand in both of
his and kissing it.

Charley's ebullition of feeling was natural. He had not yet become
used to the dangers of the wilderness so as to treat them with
indifference. Jacques, on the other hand, had risked his life so
often that escape from danger was treated very much as a matter of
course, and called forth little expression of feeling. Still, it must
not be inferred from this that his nature had become callous. The
backwoodsman's frame was hard and unyielding as iron, but his heart
was as soft still as it was on the day on which he first donned the
hunting-shirt, and there was much more of tenderness than met the eye
in the squeeze that he gave Redfeather's hand on landing.

As the four travellers encircled the fire that night, under the leafy
branches of the forest, and smoked their pipes in concert, while
Wabisca busied herself in clearing away the remnants of their evening
meal, they waxed communicative, and stories, pathetic, comic, and
tragic, followed each other in rapid succession.

"Now, Redfeather," said Charley, while Jacques rose and went down to
the luggage to get more tobacco, "tell Jacques about the way in which
you got your name. I am sure he will feel deeply interested in that
story--at least I am certain that Harry Somerville and I did when you
told it to us the day we were wind-bound on Lake Winnipeg."

Redfeather made no reply for a few seconds. "Will Mr. Charles speak
for me?" he said at length. "His tongue is smooth and quick."

"A doubtful kind of compliment," said Charley, laughing; "but I will,
if you don't wish to tell it yourself."

"And don't mention names. Do not let him know that you speak of me or
my friends," said the Indian, in a low whisper, as Jacques returned
and sat down by the fire again.

Charley gave him a glance of surprise; but being prevented from
asking questions, he nodded in reply, and proceeded to relate to his
friend the story that has been recounted in a previous chapter.
Redfeather leaned back against a tree, and appeared to listen
intently.

Charley's powers of description were by no means inconsiderable, and
the backwoodsman's face assumed a look of good-humoured attention as
the story proceeded. But when the narrator went on to tell of the
meditated attack and the midnight march, his interest was aroused,
the pipe which he had been smoking was allowed to go out, and he
gazed at his young friend with the most earnest attention. It was
evident that the hunter's spirit entered with deep sympathy into such
scenes; and when Charley described the attack, and the death of the
trapper's wife, Jacques seemed unable to restrain his feelings. He
leaned his elbows on his knees, buried his face in his hands, and
groaned aloud.

"Mr. Charles," he said, in a deep voice, when the story was ended,
"there are two men I would like to meet with in this world before I
die. One is the young Injin who tried to save that girl's life, the
other is the cowardly villain that took it. I don't mean the one who
finished the bloody work: my rifle sent his accursed spirit to its
own place--"

"_Your_ rifle!" cried Charley, in amazement.

"Ay, mine! It was _my_ wife who was butchered by these savage dogs on
that dark night. Oh, what avails the strength o' that right arm!"
said Jacques, bitterly, as he lifted up his clenched fist; "it was
powerless to save _her_--the sweet girl who left her home and people
to follow me, a rough hunter, through the lonesome wilderness!"

He covered his face again, and groaned in agony of spirit, while his
whole frame quivered with emotion.

Jacques remained silent, and his sympathising friends refrained from
intruding on a sorrow which they felt they had no power to relieve.

At length he spoke. "Yes," said he, "I would give much to meet with
the man who tried to save her. I saw him do it twice; but the devils
about him were too eager to be balked of their prey."

Charley and the Indian exchanged glances. "That Indian's name," said
the former, "was _Redfeather!_"

"What!" exclaimed the trapper, jumping to his feet, and grasping
Redfeather, who had also risen, by the two shoulders, stared wildly
in his face; "was it _you_ that did it?"

Redfeather smiled, and held out his hand, which the other took and
wrung with an energy that would have extorted a cry of pain from any
one but an Indian. Then, dropping it suddenly and clinching his
hands, he exclaimed,--

"I said that I would like to meet the villain who killed her--yes, I
said it in passion, when your words had roused all my old feelings
again; but I am thankful--I bless God that I did not know this
sooner--that you did not tell me of it when I was at the camp, for I
verily believe that I would not only have fixed _him_, but half the
warriors o' your tribe too, before they had settled _me!_"

It need scarcely be added that the friendship which already subsisted
between Jacques and Redfeather was now doubly cemented; nor will it
create surprise when we say that the former, in the fulness of his
heart, and from sheer inability to find adequate outlets for the
expression of his feelings, offered Redfeather in succession all the
articles of value he possessed, even to the much-loved rifle, and was
seriously annoyed at their not being accepted. At last he finished
off by assuring the Indian that he might look out for him soon at the
missionary settlement, where he meant to stay with him evermore in
the capacity of hunter, fisherman, and jack-of-all-trades to the
whole clan.




CHAPTER XVII.

The scene changes--Bachelor's Hall--A practical joke and its
consequences--A snow-shoe walk at night in the forest.


Leaving Charley to pursue his adventurous career among the Indians,
we will introduce our reader to a new scene, and follow for a time
the fortunes of our friend Harry Somerville. It will be remembered
that we left him labouring under severe disappointment at the idea of
having to spend a year, it might be many years, at the depot, and
being condemned to the desk, instead of realising his fond dreams of
bear-hunting and deer-stalking in the woods and prairies.

It was now the autumn of Harry's second year at York Fort. This
period of the year happens to be the busiest at the depot, in
consequence of the preparation of the annual accounts for
transmission to England, in the solitary ship which visits this
lonely spot once a year; so that Harry was tied to his desk all day
and the greater part of the night too, so that his spirits fell
infinitely below zero, and he began to look on himself as the most
miserable of mortals. His spirits rose, however, with amazing
rapidity after the ship went away, and the "young gentlemen," as the
clerks were styled _en masse_, were permitted to run wild in the
swamps and woods for the three weeks succeeding that event. During
this glimpse of sunshine they recruited their exhausted frames by
paddling about all day in Indian canoes, or wandering through the
marshes, sleeping at nights in tents or under the pine trees, and
spreading dismay among the feathered tribes, of which there were
immense numbers of all kinds. After this they returned to their
regular work at the desk; but as this was not so severe as in summer,
and was further lightened by Wednesdays and Saturdays being devoted
entirely to recreation, Harry began to look on things in a less
gloomy aspect, and at length regained his wonted cheerful spirits.

Autumn passed away. The ducks and geese took their departure to more
genial climes. The swamps froze up and became solid. Snow fell in
great abundance, covering every vestige of vegetable nature, except
the dark fir trees, that only helped to render the scenery more
dreary, and winter settled down upon the land. Within the pickets of
York Fort, the thirty or forty souls who lived there were actively
employed in cutting their firewood, putting in double window-frames
to keep out the severe cold, cutting tracks in the snow from one
house to another, and otherwise preparing for a winter of eight
months' duration, as cold as that of Nova Zembla, and in the course
of which the only new faces they had any chance of seeing were those
of the two men who conveyed the annual winter packet of letters from
the next station. Outside of the fort, all was a wide, waste
wilderness for _thousands_ of miles around. Deathlike stillness and
solitude reigned everywhere, except when a covey of ptarmigan whirred
like large snowflakes athwart the sky, or an arctic fox prowled
stealthily through the woods in search of prey.

As if in opposition to the gloom and stillness and solitude outside,
the interior of the clerks' house presented a striking contrast of
ruddy warmth, cheerful sounds, and bustling activity.

It was evening; but although the sun had set, there was still
sufficient daylight to render candles unnecessary, though not enough
to prevent a bright glare from the stove in the centre of the hall
taking full effect in the darkening chamber, and making it glow with
fiery red. Harry Somerville sat in front, and full in the blaze of
this stove, resting after the labours of the day; his arms crossed on
his breast, his head a little to one side, as if in deep
contemplation, as he gazed earnestly into the fire, and his chair
tilted on its hind legs so as to balance with such nicety that a
feather's weight additional outside its centre of gravity would have
upset it. He had divested himself of his coat--a practice that
prevailed among the young gentlemen when _at home_, as being free-
and-easy as well as convenient. The doctor, a tall, broad-shouldered
man, with red hair and whiskers, paced the room sedately, with a long
pipe depending from his lips, which he removed occasionally to
address a few remarks to the accountant, a stout, heavy man of about
thirty, with a voice like a Stentor, eyes sharp and active as those
of a ferret, and a tongue that moved with twice the ordinary amount
of lingual rapidity. The doctor's remarks seemed to be particularly
humorous, if one might judge from the peals of laughter with which
they were received by the accountant, who stood with his back to the
stove in such a position that, while it warmed him from his heels to
his waist, he enjoyed the additional benefit of the pipe or chimney,
which rose upwards, parallel with his spine, and, taking a sudden
bend near the roof, passed over his head--thus producing a genial and
equable warmth from top to toe.

"Yes," said the doctor, "I left him hotly following up a rabbit-
track, in the firm belief that it was that of a silver fox."

"And did you not undeceive the greenhorn?" cried the accountant, with
another shout of laughter.

"Not I," replied the doctor. "I merely recommended him to keep his
eye on the sun, lest he should lose his way, and hastened home; for
it just occurred to me that I had forgotten to visit Louis Blanc, who
cut his foot with an axe yesterday, and whose wound required
redressing, so I left the poor youth to learn from experience."

"Pray, who did you leave to that delightful fate?" asked Mr. Wilson,
issuing from his bedroom, and approaching the stove.

Mr. Wilson was a middle-aged, good-humoured, active man, who filled
the onerous offices of superintendent of the men, trader of furs,
seller of goods to the Indians, and general factotum.

"Our friend Hamilton," answered the doctor, in reply to his question.
"I think he is, without exception, the most egregious nincompoop I
ever saw. Just as I passed the long swamp on my way home, I met him
crashing through the bushes in hot pursuit of a rabbit, the track of
which he mistook for a fox. Poor fellow! He had been out since
breakfast, and only shot a brace of ptarmigan, although they are as
thick as bees and quite tame. 'But then, do you see,' said he, in
excuse, 'I'm so very shortsighted! Would you believe it, I've blown
fifteen lumps of snow to atoms, in the belief that they were
ptarmigan!' and then he rushed off again."

"No doubt," said Mr. Wilson, smiling, "the lad is very green, but
he's a good fellow for all that."

"I'll answer for that," said the accountant; "I found him over at the
men's houses this morning doing _your_ work for you, doctor."

"How so?" inquired the disciple of Æsculapius.

"Attending to your wounded man, Louis Blanc, to be sure; and he
seemed to speak to him as wisely as if he had walked the hospitals,
and regularly passed for an M.D."

"Indeed!" said the doctor, with a mischievous grin. "Then I must pay
him off for interfering with my patients."

"Ah, doctor, you're too fond of practical jokes. You never let slip
an opportunity of 'paying off' your friends for something or other.
It's a bad habit. Practical jokes are very bad things--shockingly
bad," said Mr. Wilson, as he put on his fur cap, and wound a thick
shawl round his throat, preparatory to leaving the room.

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