Fort Amity

by Arthur Quiller-Couch

But to this Bateese would not listen. So the wounded were left, on hunting days, in Muskingon's charge; and with him, too, John contrived to make friends. The young Indian had a marvellous gift of silence, and would sit brooding for hours. Perhaps he nursed his hatred of Barboux; perhaps he distrusted the journey—for he and Menehwehna, Ojibways both, were hundreds of miles from their own country, which lay at the back of Lake Huron. Now and again, however, he would unbend and teach John a few words of the Ojibway language; or would allow him, as a fellow-sportsman, to sit by the water's edge and study the Indian tricks of fishing.

There was one in particular which fairly amazed John. He had crawled after Muskingon on his belly—though not understanding the need of this caution—to the edge of a rock overhanging a deep pool. The Indian peered over, unloosed his waist-belt, and drew off his scarlet breeches as if for a bathe. But no, he did not intend this— at least, not just yet. He wound the breeches about his right arm and dipped it cautiously, bending over the ledge until his whole body from the waist overhung the water, and it was a wonder how his thighs kept their grip. Then, in a moment, up flew his heels and over he soused. John, peering down as the swirl cleared, saw only a red-brown back heaving below; and as the seconds dragged by, and the back appeared to heave more and more faintly, was plucking off his own clothes to dive and rescue Muskingon from the rocks, when a pair of hands shot up, holding aloft an enormous, bleeding cat-fish, and hitched him deftly on the gaff which John hurried to lower. But the fish had scarcely a kick left in him, Muskingon having smashed his head against the crevices of the rock.

Indeed Barboux had this excuse for leaving Muskingon in camp by the river—that there was always a string of fish ready before nightfall when he and Menehwehna returned. John, stupefied through the daylight hours, always seemed to awake with the lighting of the camp-fire. This at any rate was the one scene he afterwards saw most clearly, in health and in the delirium of fever—the fire; the ring of faces; beyond the faces a sapling strung with fish like short broad-swords reflecting the flames' glint; a stouter sapling laid across two forked boughs, and from it a dead deer suspended, with white filmed eyes, and the firelight warm on its dun flank; behind, the black deep of the forest, sounded, if at all, by the cry of a lonely wolf. These sights he recalled, with the scent of green fir burning and the smart of it on his lashes.

But by day he went with senses lulled, having forgotten all desire of escape or return. These five companions were all his world. Was he a prisoner? Was Barboux his enemy? The words had no meaning. They were all in the same boat, and "France" and "England" had become idle names. If he considered Barboux's gun, it was as a provider of game, or a protector against any possible foe from the woods. But the woods kept their sinister silence.

Once, indeed, at the head of a portage, they came upon a still reach of water with a strip of clearing on its farther bank—bois brulé Bateese called it; but the fire, due to lightning no doubt, must have happened many years before, for spruces of fair growth rose behind the alders on the swampy shore, and tall wickup plants and tussocks of the blueberry choked the interspaces. A cool breeze blew down the waterway, as through a funnel, from the uplands ahead, and the falls below sang deafeningly in the voyageurs' ears as they launched their boat.

Suddenly Menehwehna touched Barboux by the elbow. His ear had caught the crackling of a twig amid the uproar. John, glancing up as the sergeant lifted his piece, spied the antlers of a bull-moose spreading above an alder-clump across the stream. The tall brute had come down through the bois brulé to drink, or to browse on the young spruce-buds, which there grew tenderer than in the thick forest; and for a moment moose and men gazed full at each other in equal astonishment.

Barboux would have fired at once had not Menehwehna checked him with a few rapid words. With a snort of disgust the moose turned slowly, presenting his flank, and crashed away through the undergrowth as the shot rang after him. Bateese and Muskingon had the canoe launched in a second, and the whole party clambered in and paddled across. But before they reached the bank the beast's hoofs could be heard drumming away on the ridge beyond the swamp and the branches snapping as he parted them.

Barboux cursed his luck. The two Indians maintained that the moose had been hit. At length Muskingon, who had crossed the swamp, found a splash of blood among the mosses, and again another on the leaves of a wickup plant a rod or two farther on the trail. The sergeant, hurrying to inspect these traces, plunged into liquid mud up to his knees, and was dragged out in the worst of tempers by John, who had chosen to follow without leave. Bateese and McQuarters remained with the canoe.

Each in his own fashion, then, the trackers crossed the swamp, and soon were hunting among a network of moose-trails, which criss-crossed one another through the burnt wood. John, aware of his incompetence, contented himself with watching the Indians as they picked up a new trail, followed it for a while, then patiently harked back to the last spot of blood and worked off on a new line. Barboux had theories of his own, which they received with a galling silence. It galled him at length to fury, and he was lashing them with curses which made John wonder at their forbearance, when a call from the river silenced him.

It came from Bateese. Bateese, who cared nothing for sport, had paddled up-stream to inspect the next reach of the river, and there, at the first ford, had found the moose lying dead and warm, with the ripple running over his flank and his gigantic horns high out of the water like a snag.