CHAPTER V
THE FIRST FLOWER OF SPRING
There was a report like a pistol shot from the ice in the river, followed by others at short intervals. "That means for us to get out the boats," said Mackenzie to Chandonnais.
Only one of the boats stored in the trader's barn was worthy of the name. It was a large bateau, capable of accommodating a dozen people and a small amount of baggage. The others were pirogues, or logs trimmed at the ends and hollowed out in the centre. One person might be negatively comfortable, but two crowded the small craft to the danger-point.
A pirogue furnished the ordinary means of communication with the Fort, and two or three were fastened to a sapling on the other side of the stream. There was also a good boat, belonging to the Fort, which would hold five or six people. The bateau was used for carrying freight between the Fort, the Agency House, and Mackenzie's.
The river was a narrow, deep, weedy channel, with a very slight fall, and a large sand-bar stretched across the mouth of it. In Summer, one could stand at the end of the broad piazza in front of the house and see the Indians in their light canoes pass the sand-bar at will, go down into the lake, and return up-stream.
Gradually the river filled with great masses of ice, which moved lazily in a circle at the whim of some concealed current, or drifted gently toward the mouth of the stream. For several days there was no communication with the Fort; then Mackenzie broke the ice-jam at the bar, and by the middle of March a boat could easily cross.
Seemingly by preconcerted arrangement, the pack-trains arrived during the last week of March. Twenty horses came from the Illinois and Kankakee districts, and seventeen from the Rock River, loaded with skins. For a year the Indians in the Mississippi valley had exchanged peltries for provisions, beads, and liquor. Five Canadian engagés, with rude camping outfits strapped to their backs, walked in leisurely fashion beside the horses.
The skins were stored in the Agency House, awaiting the schooner from the American Fur Company at Fort Mackinac. The horses were tethered on the plains near the Fort, and business was carried on there, except at meal-time, when eight hungry men and four children taxed Mrs. Mackenzie's strength to the utmost.