On the Edge of the Arctic; Or, An Aeroplane in Snowland

by H. L. Sayler

THE SONG OF THE VOYAGEUR

Hardly seeming to move, the deeply laden scows veered more and more into the current, until at last the swift flow of the river began to push them forward. But even before La Biche’s boat, which was ahead and farthest from the shore, was fully in the grasp of a swirling eddy, the bronzed steersman, his pipe firmly set in his teeth, hurled his body on the steering oar and plunged the far end of it against the oily current.

At the same moment Moosetooth dropped his own oar and almost instantly both boats straightened out before the onrushing waters. It was a moment long waited for by Norman and Roy, and at the time no thought was given to any arrangements for comfort. The boys threw themselves on the forward deck, their sweaters close about their throats against the chilling fog and the cool breeze, while Colonel Howell sat muffled in his overcoat on the edge of the deck.

Such events in the history of the Northern rivers were in the old days momentous. Their only ceremony had been the parting “Bon jour” of the policeman.

“In the old days,” suggested Norman, “in the days that our friend Paul would have loved, the voyageurs had a song for a time like this.”

“The riverman’s song of farewell,” spoke up young Zept with animation. “I wish I knew one.”

Almost instantly, those on the fast-receding shore heard from the boat the soft notes of some one in song. Under the conditions, whatever the words and the air, they floated back as many of those left behind had heard the old voyageur take his leave. But this song came from neither of the weatherworn steersmen, nor from the stolid members of their half-breed crew. Count Zept, his hat in his hand and the cool river wind paling his flushed face, had mounted to the top of the cargo and was singing something he had learned in far away lands. The fascinating tenor of his voice carried far over the river.

Even out of the hidden heights on the far side of the current, the strains of the song came back with a melancholy pathos. Perhaps the young singer himself was moved. But to those who listened, it wafted over the waters as for two centuries the voyageurs into the unknown north had celebrated the setting out of the long voyage that might have no return. None in the boat spoke to him, but as he went on, repeating the lines, and his voice gradually dropping lower and lower, the boats, lost in the fog and darkness, swept into the great bend, and the stragglers on shore turned and left the river.

Although he did not realize it then, Paul Zept’s impromptu tribute in farewell marked the great turning point in his life.

Three hundred miles of dangerous water lay before the travelers and their valuable outfit. On this part of the voyage the river ran wide and deep. At the suggestion of the steersmen, it was at once decided to make no landing that night but to take advantage of the easy going, as the cold wind would soon sweep the fog away. Strongly touched by the air of Paul’s song, which the singer laughingly explained was a song without words, as he had made it up mainly from snatches of Italian opera, the words of which he could not recall, Norman and Roy got Paul on the rear deck and began to prepare for the night. The assistance of one of the crew was necessary to prepare the blankets in an expert manner. Before midnight Colonel Howell and the three young men, snugly wrapped in their new “four points,” found no trouble in losing themselves to the world without.