Brothers of Peril: A Story of old Newfoundland

by Theodore Goodridge Roberts

On the third day of the journey the blue sky thickened to gray, the wind veered, and a great storm of snow overtook them. The snowflakes were large and damp. The travellers turned aside and climbed the bank of the river to the thickets of evergreens. With their rude axes of stone they broke away the fir boughs and reared themselves a shelter in the heart of the wood. Into this they drew their sledge of provisions and their sleeping-bags. Then they collected whatever dry fuel they could find—dead twigs and branches, tree-moss and birch bark—and, with his ingenious contrivance of bow and notched stick, Ouenwa started a blaze. They roasted dried venison by holding it to the flame on the ends of pointed sticks. Each cooked what he wanted, and ate it without talk. All creation seemed shrouded in silence. There was not a sound save the occasional soft hiss of a melting snowflake in the fire. The storm became denser. It was as if a sudden, colourless night had descended upon the wilderness, blotting out even the nearer trees with its reeling gray. The old retainer crouched low, and gazed out at the storm from between his bony knees. His eyes fairly protruded with superstitious terror.

"What do you see?" inquired Ouenwa. The awe of the storm was creeping over his courage like the first film of ice over a bright stream. The old man did not move. He did not reply. Ouenwa drew closer to him, and heaped dry moss on the fire. It glowed high, and splashed a ruddy circle of light on the eddying snowflakes as on a wall.

"Hark!" whispered the old man. Yes, it was the sound of muffled footsteps, approaching behind the impenetrable curtain of the storm. The boy's blood chilled and thinned like water in his veins. He clutched his companion with frenzied hands. The fear of all the devils and shapeless beings of the wilderness was upon him. In the whirling snow loomed a great figure. It emerged into the glow of the fire.

"Ah! ah!" cried the old man, cackling with relief. For their visitor was nothing more terrible than a fellow human. The stranger greeted them cordially, and told them that, but for the glow of their fire, he would have been lost.

"But what are you doing here—an old man and a child?" he asked.

Ouenwa told him. He explained his identity, and his intention of dwelling with the great arrow-maker of his grandfather's tribe to learn wisdom.

"Then are we well met," replied the other, "for my lodge is not half a spear-throw from the lodge of the arrow-maker. The old man has been as a father to me since the day he saved my wife from death. Now I hunt for him, and work at his craft, and have left the river to be near him. My children play about his lodge. My wife broils his fish and meat. Truly the old man has changed since the return of laughter and friendship to his lodge."

The stranger's name was Black Feather. He was taller than the average Beothic, and broad of shoulder in proportion. His hair was brown, and one lock of it, which was worn longer than the rest, was plaited with jet-black feathers. His garments consisted of a shirt of beaver skins that reached half-way between hip and knee, trousers of dressed leather, and leggins and moccasins of the same material. Around his waist was a broad belt, beautifully worked in designs of dyed porcupine quills. His head was uncovered.

Black Feather seated himself beside Ouenwa, and replied, good-naturedly, and at great length, to the youth's many questions. He told of the high-walled ships, and of how he had once seen four of these monsters swinging together in the tide, with little boats plying between them, and banners red as the sunset flapping above them. He told of trading with the strangers, and described their manner of spreading out lengths of bright cloth, knives and hatchets of gray metal, and flasks of strong drink.

"Their knives are edged with magic," he said. "Many of them carry weapons called muskets, which kill at a hundred paces, and terrify at even a greater distance. But a nimble bowman might loose four arrows in the time that they are conjuring forth the spirit of the musket."