CHAPTER XX
In Which David Grey’s Friend, the Son of the Factor at Fort Red Wing, Yarns of the Professor With the Broken Leg, a Stretch of Rotten River Ice and the Tug of a White Rushing Current
One quiet evening, after sunset, in the early summer, when the folk of Ruddy Cove were passing time in gossip on the wharf, while they awaited the coming of the mail-boat, old David Grey, who had told the tale of McLeod and the tomahawks, called to Billy Topsail and his friends. A bronzed, pleasant-appearing man, David’s friend, shook hands with the boys with the grip of a woodsman. Presently he drifted into a tale of his own boyhood at Fort Red Wing in the wilderness far back of Quebec. “You see,” said he, “my father had never fallen into the habit of coddling me. So when the lost Hudson Bay Geological Expedition made Fort Red Wing in the spring––every man exhausted, except the young professor, who had broken a leg a month back, and had set it with his own hands––it was the most 173 natural thing in the world that my father should command me to take the news to Little Lake, whence it might be carried, from post to post, all the way to the department at Ottawa.
“‘And send the company doctor up,’ said he. ‘The little professor’s leg is in a bad way, if I know anything about doctoring. So you’ll make what haste you can.’
“‘Yes, sir,’ said I.
“‘Keep to the river until you come to the Great Bend. You can take the trail through the bush from there to Swift Rapids. If the ice is broken at the rapids, you’ll have to go round the mountain. That’ll take a good half day longer. But don’t be rash at the rapids, and keep an eye on the ice all along. The sun will be rotting it by day now. It looks like a break-up already.’
“‘Shall I go alone, sir?’ said I.
“‘No,’ said my father, no doubt perceiving the wish in the question. ‘I’ll have John go with you for company.’
“John was an Indian lad of my own age, or thereabouts, who had been brought up at the fort––my companion and friend. I doubt if I shall ever find a stancher one. 174
“With him at my heels and a little packet of letters in my breast pocket, I set out early the next day. It was late in March, and the sun, as the day advanced, grew uncomfortably hot.