Next morning Barboux and Menehwehna held a long colloquy aft, but in tones so low that John could not catch a word. By and by Muskingon was called into council, and lastly le Chameau.
The two Indians were arguing against some proposal of the sergeant's, which by the way they pointed and traced imaginary maps with their fingers, spreading their palms apart to indicate distances, plainly turned on a point of geography. Le Chameau's opinion seemed to settle the dispute in the sergeant's favour. Coming that afternoon to the mouth of a tributary stream on the left bank he headed the canoe for it without a word, and at once the paddles were busy, forcing her against the rapid current.
Then followed days during which, though reason might prove that in the river he held an infallible clue, John's senses lost themselves in the forest maze. It overlapped and closed upon him, folding him deeper and illimitably deeper. On the Richelieu he had played with thoughts of escape, noting how the canoe lagged behind its convoy, and speculating on the Indians' goodwill—faint speculations, since (without reckoning his own raw wound) McQuarters was almost too weak to stir as yet, and to abandon him would be a scurvy trick. So he had put aside his unformed plans, which at the best had been little better than hopes; and now the wilderness oppressed and smothered and buried them out of recollection.
The voyageurs made tedious progress; for almost at once they came to a chain of rapids around which the canoe had to be ported. The Indians toiled steadily, and le Chameau too, stripped to the waist and sweating; and by the end of the day each man carried a dark red weal on one shoulder, sunk in the flesh by the canoe's weight. John could walk, but was powerless to help, and McQuarters had to be lifted and carried with the baggage. Barboux confined himself to swearing and jeering at le Chameau's naked back—diable de torse, as he proclaimed it. The man was getting past endurance.
On the second day he called a halt, left le Chameau in charge of the camp and the prisoners, and went off with the Indians in search of a moose, whose lowing call had twice echoed through the woods during the night and been answered by Menehwehna on his birch-horn. The forest swallowed them, and a blessed relief fell on the camp—no more oaths and gibes for a while, but rest and green shade and the murmur of the rapids below.
After the noon-day meal the hunchback stretched himself luxuriously and began to converse. He was explaining the situation with the help of three twigs, which he laid in the form of a triangle—two long sides and a short base.
"Voyons, this long one will be the Richelieu and that other the St. Lawrence; and here"—he put his finger near the base—"here is Montreal. The sergeant knows what he is about. Those other boats, look you, will go around so—" He traced their course around the apex very slowly. "Whereas we—!" A quick stroke of the finger across the base filled up the sentence, and the little man smiled triumphantly.
"I see," said John, picking up the short twig and bending it into an arch, "we are now climbing up this side of the slope, eh? And on the other there will likewise be a river?"
The boatman nodded. "A hard way to find, m'sieur. But have no fear. I have travelled it."
"Assuredly I have no fear with you, M.—"