The men of the little post were busy outfitting boats to go up the Assiniboine with goods and supplies for stations farther west, but the two boys had a few minutes’ conversation with the Chief Trader. Louis told the story and Walter corroborated it. The trader looked grave and shook his head perplexedly. The charge against Murray,—stealing supplies and exchanging them for goods with which to trade on his own account,—was a serious one. Could it be proved? The trader did not doubt the story of the contents of the bundle, but Murray might have come by the things honestly and for a legitimate purpose.
“He is due here to-day to go with the Assiniboine brigade,” the trader explained, “but I have seen nothing of him. You have no proof that he took the pemmican and substituted the bag of clay. If he denies it, the only thing I can do is to report the matter to Norway House at the first opportunity. They ought to know whether anyone exchanged pemmican for goods while your brigade was there. Of course Murray didn’t make the bargain himself. Someone else did it for him. It won’t be necessary to mention your names at present, to Murray I mean. You would find the Black Murray a bad enemy.”
“Yes,” Louis agreed. “He does not love either of us now. I thank you, M’sieu.”
“The thanks are due to you, from the Company, for reporting this matter. Don’t you want to sign for the Assiniboine voyage? We can use you both.”
Walter shook his head. He had had quite enough voyaging for the present. Louis answered simply, “No, M’sieu. I go to my mother at Pembina.”
XIII
THE RED-HEADED SCOTCH BOY
Instead of continuing on the west bank of the Red River and crossing the Assiniboine, the cart train turned to the east, followed a well-traveled track down to the Red, and forded that river below the Forks. The country just south of the Assiniboine was marshy and thickly wooded with willows and small poplars. By following the east bank of the Red the almost impassable low ground was avoided.
The carts were now on the St. Boniface side, where the stream that Louis called Rivière la Seine, and the Scotch settlers, German Creek, entered the river. Some of the DeMeuron cabins were near at hand, and the Swiss who were to remain there were on the lookout for a chance to say good-bye to their friends. Walter saw again the red-faced ex-soldier who had boasted that he and his comrades were the pick of many countries. He carried a gun on his shoulder and looked as if he had been drinking. The boy liked him even less than before.
The carts crossed the creek, which was narrow and shallow where it joined the river. Ten or twelve miles farther on, they forded the Red again, above the mouth of the Rivière la Sale, a small, muddy stream coming in from the west.
Their way now lay across the open prairie west of the Red River; treeless plains such as the Swiss immigrants had never seen before. Trees grew along the river bank only. The few elevations in sight seemed scarcely high enough to be called hills. This was the fertile, rich soiled land of which the new settlers had been told. Its grass ravaged by locusts, dried by the sun, withered by frost, in some places consumed by sweeping fires; the prairie showed little outward sign of its fertility. The immigrants gazed across the yellow-gray expanse and the unsightly black stretches, and shook their heads wonderingly and doubtfully. Many a heart was heavy with homesickness for native mountains and valleys.