A WARNING IN WOODCRAFT.
That night we pitched our camp on a wooded island in a small lake, erecting, as was the usual custom, a couple of lean-tos of bark and fir boughs. Gummidge owned the traveling outfit and the factor of Fort York had provided Baptiste and myself with what we needed in the way of weapons and ammunition. We were all well armed, for none journeyed otherwise through the wilderness in those days. But at this time, and from the part of the country we had to traverse, it seemed a most unlikely thing that we would run into any peril. However, neither Gummidge nor I were disposed to relax the ordinary precautions, and when we retired we set one of the voyageurs to watch.
This man—Moralle by name—awakened me about two o’clock in the morning by shaking my arm gently, and in a whisper begged me to come outside. I followed him from the lean-to across the island, which was no more than a dozen yards in diameter. The night was very dark, and it was impossible to make out the shore, though it was less than a quarter of a mile away. A deep silence brooded on land and water.
“What do you want with me?” I asked sharply.
“Pardon, sir,” replied Moralle, “but a little while ago, as I stood here, I heard a low splash. I crouched down to watch the better, and out yonder on the lake I saw the head and arms of a swimmer. Then a pebble crunched under my moccasins, and the man turned and made off as quietly as he came.”
“You have keen eyes,” said I. “Look, the water is black! A fish made a splash, and you imagined the rest.”
“I saw the swimmer, sir,” he persisted doggedly.
“You saw a moose or a caribou,” I suggested.
“Would a moose approach the island,” he asked, “with the scent of our camp fire blowing to his nostrils?”
This was true, and I could not deny it.
“Then you would have me believe,” said I, “that some enemy swam out from the mainland to spy upon us?”
“It was a man,” the voyageur answered, “and he was swimming this way.”
“I will finish your watch, Moralle,” said I. “Give me your musket, and go to bed. Be careful not to waken the others.”
He shuffled off without a word, and I was left to my lonely vigil. I had detected a smell of liquor in Moralle’s breath, and I was disposed to believe that his story had no more foundation than the splashing of a fish. At all events, while I paced the strip of beach for two hours, I saw or heard nothing alarming. There was now a glimmer of dawn in the east, so I wakened Baptiste, bidding him without explanation to take my place, and returned to the lean-to for a half-hour’s sleep.
It was broad daylight when Gummidge roused me. The fire was blazing and the voyageurs were preparing breakfast. Flora and Mr. Gummidge were kneeling on a flat stone, dipping their faces and hands into the crystal waters of the lake. The wooded shores rose around us in majestic solitude, and I scanned them in all directions without discovering any trace of human occupation. I made no mention of the incident of the night, attaching no importance to it; nor did Moralle have anything to say on the subject.
Sunrise found us embarked and already some distance down the lake. We were in the heart of the woods, and the wild beauty of the Great Lone Land cast its mystic spell upon all of us.
The morning was yet young when we passed from the lake into one of its many outlets. This was a narrow stream, navigable at first, but quickly becoming too shallow and rocky for our further progress. So we left the water, and there was now a portage of two miles over a level stretch of forest, at the end of which we would strike the Churchill River at a point twenty miles above Fort Royal.
We started off rapidly, Baptiste and the three other voyageurs leading the way with the canoe on their shoulders. The paddles and a part of the load were inside, and Gummidge and I carried the rest. The women had no burdens, and could easily keep pace with us.
“Have you passed this way before?” asked Gummidge.
“Only once,” I replied, “and that was some years ago.”
“The place reminds me of the enchanted forests one reads of in old fairy tales,” said Mrs. Gummidge.
“I wish we were out of it,” exclaimed Flora. “It has a sad and depressing influence on me.”
Something in her voice made me turn and look at her, and she quickly averted her eyes.
“What’s that?” cried Gummidge, an instant later. “Don’t you see? There it lies, shining.”
I darted past him to the left of the path and at the base of a tree I picked up a hunting knife sheathed in a case of tanned buckskin. We all stopped, and Lavigne, one of the voyageurs, left the canoe to his comrades and took the weapon from my hand. He examined it with keen and grave interest.
“It is just such a knife as the men of the Northwest Company carry,” he declared.
“Yes, you are right,” assented Gummidge; and I agreed with him.
For a minute or more Lavigne searched the ground in the vicinity, creeping here and there on all-fours. Then he rose to his feet with the air of one who has made an unpleasant discovery.
“Indians have passed this way within a few hours,” he announced, “and a white man was with them. They went toward the northwest.”
Gummidge and I were fairly good at woodcraft, but the marks in the grass baffled us. Yet we did not dream of doubting or questioning Lavigne’s assertion, for he was known to be a skilled and expert tracker. Redskins and a Northwest man together! It was a combination, in these times of evil rumor, that boded no good. I remembered Moralle’s tale of the swimmer, and I felt a sudden uneasiness.
“We must be careful,” said Gummidge. “This is a fine neighborhood for an ambuscade.”
I glanced at Flora, and by her pale and frightened face I saw she was thinking of the same thing that was in my own mind.
“Do you suppose he is near us, Denzil?” she asked, stepping close to my side.
“Impossible,” I replied. “Cuthbert Mackenzie is hundreds of miles away in Quebec. Do not be afraid. There is no danger, and the river is not far off.”
But my assuring words were from the lips only. At heart I felt that Mackenzie was just the sort of man to have followed us to the North—a thing he could easily have done by land in this time. Gummidge took as serious a view of the matter, though for different reasons, and he approved the precautions I suggested.
So when we started off again, our order of march was reversed and otherwise changed. Gummidge and I went ahead single file, with, our muskets ready for immediate use. The women came next, and then the canoe; we had put the luggage into it, and the voyageurs did not grumble at the extra load.
Less than a mile remained to be covered, and I was alert for attack with every foot of the way. But no Indian yells or musket-shots broke the stillness of the forest, and I was heartily glad when we emerged on the bank of the Churchill. Only twenty miles down stream to Fort Royal! No further thoughts of danger troubled us. Swiftly we embarked, and swung out on the rushing blue tide.
After the first five miles the scene changed a little. The river narrowed, and grew more swift. The hills receded right and left, and a strip of dense forest fringed the banks on either hand. A dull roar in the distance warned us that we were approaching well-known and dangerous falls, where it would be necessary to land and make a brief portage through the woods.
Closer and closer we swept, and louder and louder rang the thunder of the rapids. The voyageurs began to make in a little toward the left shore, and just then a musket cracked shrilly from the forest on that side. Gardapie, who was immediately in front of me, dropped his paddle, and leaped convulsively to his feet He clutched at his bleeding throat, gave a gurgling cry of agony, and pitched head first out of the canoe, nearly upsetting it as he slid off the gunwale.