Uncle Jim was impressed by the red pirogue. He had seen bigger ones but not many of them. In the days of his unsettled and adventurous youth, when he was a “white-water boy,” chopping in the woods every winter and “stream-driving” logs every spring, he had once helped to shape and dig out a thirty-five-foot pirogue. But that had been close onto fifty miles farther upriver and back in the days of big pine timber.
“She’s a sockdolager, all right,” he said. “Didn’t know there was any such pines left on French River. What’s underneath the blankets, aft there?”
Ben stepped into the grounded craft, went aft and lifted the blankets, disclosing a lumpy sack tied at the neck with twine, a battered leather gun case and a bundle wrapped in a rubber ground sheet and securely tied about with rope.
“It’s her dunnage!” exclaimed Uncle Jim. “Off you walked and left it laying! You’re a fine feller to catch a young lady in a net, you ain’t! Where was your wits, Ben?”
“I was upset, that’s a sure thing,” admitted the youth. “And I’m still a good deal puzzled about these Sherwoods,” he added.
In the net they found four salmon, three still sound and one already fallen a prey to devouring eels. Several eels had entered the largest fish by way of the gills and mouth and what had been salmon was now more eel. The silver skin was undamaged and the eels were still inside.
With Marion Sherwood’s baggage, the salmon and the skinful of eels, Ben and his uncle had to make two trips from the river to the house. The eels were thrown to the hogs as they were, alive and in their attractive container. The undamaged fish were cleaned, salted and hung in the smokehouse. During that operation and the journey to the potato field and between brisk bouts of hoe work, James McAllister told his nephew most of what he knew of the Sherwoods of French River.
Mr. Richard Sherwood first appeared at O’Dell’s Point twenty-six years ago when James McAllister was only twenty years of age. He was direct from England, by way of the big town sixty miles downriver. He arrived with three loaded canoes and six Maliseet canoemen from the reservation near Kingstown and jumped knee-deep into the water before the canoes could make the shore and set up a shout that started the echoes on the far side of the river.
“Jack O’Dell. Guncotton Jack! Tally-ho! Steady the Buffs!”
The Maliseets wondered; the mowers on island and mainland ceased their labors to give ear; and John O’Dell, in the orchard, hooked his scythe into the crotch of an apple tree and started for the beach at top speed with Jim McAllister close at his heels. O’Dell went down the bank in two jumps. The stranger saw him and splashed ashore. They met halfway between the willows and the water and shook hands two-handed. They were certainly glad to see each other.