“No, I didn’t know my father had any friends in Montreal. He never lived there, you know. His old home was in Quebec, where I was born. I don’t remember that I ever heard of Monsieur René Dubois, but my relatives in Montreal may know him. Probably I can find him. If I can’t, then I think it would be right to open this packet, but not until I have tried. Shall I take charge of this, Blaise?”
“You are the elder and our father said you must take the packet to Montreal.”
To the impatient Hugh the wait until the sun descended beyond the woods of the low point across the water seemed long indeed. He found it hard to realize that only two nights before he and Blaise had reached the point and had tied up there. They had surely been lucky to find the cache of furs so soon.
Not until the shadows of the shore lay deep upon the water did the lads push off the bateau. They paddled silently out of the little cove and close under the abrupt, riven rocks, taking care not to let a blade splash as it dipped and was withdrawn. The water was rippled by the lightest of breezes, and the moon was bright. The deep cleft where Jean Beaupré’s wrecked boat lay was in black darkness, though. Hugh could not even make out the stern. His mind was busy with thoughts of the father he had known so slightly, with speculations about his coming to the island, about the way he had left it. Through what treachery had he received his death blow?
Another rift in the rock was passed before the boys reached a wider, shallower cleft they felt sure was the one leading to the cache. Cautiously they turned into the dark mouth of the fissure and grounded the boat on the pebbles, water-worn and rounded here where the waves reached them. Overhead the moonlight filtered down among the thick sprays of the stunted cedars that grew along the rim and even down into the crack. But the darkness at the bottom was so deep the brothers could proceed only by feeling their way with both hands and feet. In this manner they went up over pebbles and angular rock fragments to the narrow slit in the wall, and squeezed through in pitch blackness to the circular hollow.
There was moonlight in the pit, but the cache, close under the rock wall, was in the shadow. So difficult did the boys find it to remove the stones in the darkness, that they decided to risk lighting a torch. During the afternoon Blaise had made a couple of torches of spruce and balsam. He lighted one now and stuck it in a cranny of the rock just above the heap of stones. By the feeble, flickering and smoky light, the cache was uncovered. Pushing and hauling the bales through the narrow crack was difficult and troublesome. The larger ones would not go through, and had to be unwrapped and reduced to smaller parcels. Even by the dim light of the torch, the boys could see that the furs were of excellent quality. Before loading, the bateau had to be pushed out a little way, Blaise standing in the water to hold it while Hugh piled in the bales. Then both climbed in and paddled quietly out of the crack.
There was not breeze enough for sailing. Hugh and Blaise were anxious to get away from the spot where they had found the furs and had heard the shout, but paddling the heavily laden bateau was slow work. Without a breeze to fill the sail, they were loth to start across the open lake, so they kept on along shore to the northeast. When they had put a mile or more between themselves and the place where they had found the furs, they would camp and wait for sunrise and a breeze.
Slowly and laboriously they paddled on, close to the high shore. The calm, moonlit water stretched away on their left. The dark, forest-crowned rocks, huge, worn and seamed pillars, towered forbiddingly on the other side. At last the wider view of the water ahead and the barrenness of the tumbled rocks to the right indicated that they were reaching the end of the shore along which they had been travelling.
“We’ll land now,” said Hugh, “as soon as we can find a place.”
The abrupt, truncated pillars of rock were not so high here, but were bordered at the water’s edge with broken blocks and great boulders, affording little chance of a landing place. By paddling close in, however, slowly and cautiously to avoid disaster, the boys discovered a niche between two blocks of rock, with water deep enough to permit running the boat in. There they climbed out on the rock and secured the bateau by a couple of turns of the rope around a smaller block. In rough weather such a landing would have been impossible, but on this still night there was no danger of the bateau bumping upon the rocks. Farther along Blaise found a spot where the solid rock shelved down gradually. Rolling themselves in their blankets, the brothers stretched out on the hard bed.