Captain Bennett was personally superintending the work on his ship. To him Baptiste, who had been previously engaged as one of the small crew, made known Hugh’s wish to sail to the Kaministikwia. The shipmaster turned sharply on the lad, demanding to know his purpose in crossing the lake. Hugh explained as well as he could, without betraying more than he had already told Cadotte and Baptiste.
“Do you know anything of working a ship?” Captain Bennett asked.
“I have sailed a skiff on the St. Lawrence,” was the boy’s reply. “I can learn and I can obey orders.”
“Um,” grunted the Captain. “At least you are a white man. I can use one more man, and I don’t want an Indian. I can put you to work now. If you prove good for anything, I will engage you for the trip over. Here, Duncan,” to a strapping, red-haired Scot, “give these fellows something to do.”
So it came about that Hugh Beaupré, instead of going back at once to the Sault, remained at the Point aux Pins shipyard. He returned in the Otter, when, three days later, she sailed down the St. Mary’s to the dock above the rapids where she was to receive her lading. In the meantime, by an Indian boy, Hugh had sent a message to Cadotte informing him that he, Hugh Beaupré, had been accepted as one of the crew of the Otter for her trip to the Kaministikwia. Cadotte had returned no reply, so Hugh judged that the trader did not intend to put any obstacles in the way of his adventure.
The goods the sloop was to transport had been received the preceding autumn by ship from Michilimackinac too late to be forwarded across Superior. They were to be sent on now by the Otter. A second Northwest Company ship, the Invincible, which had wintered in Thunder Bay, was expected at the Sault in a few weeks. When the great canoe fleet from Montreal should arrive in June, part of the goods brought would be transferred to the Invincible, while the remainder would be taken on in the canoes. Hugh was heartily glad that he was not obliged to wait for the fleet. In all probability there would be no vacant places, and if there were any, he doubted if, with his limited experience as a canoeman, he would be accepted. He felt himself lucky to obtain a passage on the Otter.
The sloop was of only seventy-five tons burden, but the time of loading was a busy one. The cargo was varied: provisions, consisting largely of corn, salt pork and kegs of tried out grease, with some wheat flour, butter, sugar, tea and other luxuries for the clerks at the Kaministikwia; powder and shot; and articles for the Indian trade, blankets, guns, traps, hatchets, knives, kettles, cloth of various kinds, vermilion and other paints, beads, tobacco and liquor, for the fur traders had not yet abandoned the disastrous custom of selling strong drink to the Indians.
During the loading Hugh had an opportunity to say good-bye to Cadotte. The latter’s kindness and interest in the boy’s welfare made him ashamed of his doubts of the trader’s intentions.
III
DRIVEN BEFORE THE GALE
On a clear, sunny morning of the first week in May, the Northwest Company’s sloop Otter, with a favoring wind, made her way up-stream towards the gateway of Lake Superior. At the Indian village on the curve of the shore opposite Point aux Pins, men, women, children and sharp-nosed dogs turned out to see the white-sailed ship go by. Through the wide entrance to the St. Mary’s River, where the waters of Lake Superior find their outlet, the sloop sailed under the most favorable conditions. Between Point Iroquois on the south and high Gros Cap, the Great Cape, on the north, its summit indigo against the bright blue of the sky, she passed into the broad expanse of the great lake. The little fur-trading vessels of the first years of the nineteenth century did not follow the course taken by the big passenger steamers and long freighters of today, northwest through the middle of the lake. Instead, the Captain of the Otter took her almost directly north.