“Why not turn them over to the X Y clerk at the Portage?” Hugh questioned.
“No, no. If our father had wanted them taken there he would have said so. Again and again he said to take them to the New Company at the Kaministikwia. He had a debt there, a small one, and he did not like the man in charge at the Grand Portage. There was some trouble between them, I know not what.”
Blaise was usually willing to yield to his elder brother’s judgment, but this time he proved obstinate. Jean Beaupré’s commands must be carried out to the letter. His younger son would not consent to the slightest modification.
Darkness had come when the two reached the mouth of the Pigeon River, but the moon was bright and Blaise had no difficulty steering into the little cove. Alders growing down to the water concealed the boat when it was pulled up among them. Blaise assured Hugh that, even in daylight, it could not be seen from the narrow entrance to the cove. The mast was taken down and the sail spread over the bottom of a hollow in the rocks. On the canvas the bales of furs were piled, and a blanket was thrown over the heap. The boys cut several poles, laid them across the hole, the ends resting on the rock rim, and covered them with sheets of birch bark, stripped from an old, half-dead tree. The crude roof, weighted down with stones, would serve to keep out small animals as well as to shed rain. All this work was done rapidly by the light of the moon.
The cache completed, Blaise led Hugh to the opening of the trail at the river mouth. The trail, the boy said, had been used by the Ojibwas for many years. A narrow, rough, but distinct path had been trodden by the many moccasined feet that had travelled over it. The moonlight filtered through the trees, and Blaise, who had been that way before, followed the track readily. With them the brothers carried the remaining blanket, the gun, ammunition, kettle and the rest of their fish. As Blaise had said, the trail ran along the south bank until a bend was reached, then, leaving the river, went on in the same westerly direction across the point of land between the mouth of the Pigeon River and Wauswaugoning Bay. The whole distance was not more than three miles, and the boys made good time.
Hugh thought they must be nearing the end of the path, when Blaise stopped suddenly with a low exclamation. The elder brother looked over the younger’s shoulder. Among the trees ahead glowed the yellow light of a small fire.
“Wait here a moment,” Blaise whispered. And he slipped forward among the trees.
In a few minutes he was back again. “There are three men,” he said, “sleeping by a fire, a white man and two Ojibwas. One of the Ojibwas I know and he knew our father. We need not fear, but because of the white man, we will say nothing of the furs.”
The two went forward almost noiselessly, but, in spite of their quiet approach, when they came out of the woods by the fire, one of the Indians woke and sat up.
“Bo-jou,” remarked Blaise.