The Red Pirogue: A Tale of Adventure in the Canadian Wilds

by Theodore Goodridge Roberts

“Nobody catch you!” cried Noel. “You all safe now. Jim an’ me take you to Marion. You sick an’ crazy, dat’s all. Go to sleep. Shut up!”

He was quiet for a time but again broke out in terrified ravings before they had gone far. They had to set him down to quiet him. Again they built a fire, boiled the kettle, applied hot compresses to his arm. They fed him a hot drink and he went to sleep. But Jim saw that it would be dangerous to try to carry him farther that day, that all the traveling must be done in the morning when the fever was at its lowest. They had already covered about four of the eight miles. Old Noel rubbed his arms and said he had never before traveled such hard miles.

Jim was tired and anxious, but more anxious than tired. His anxiety was for the farm and his sister and the little girl almost as much as for the sick man. He was afraid of old Tim Hood, though he didn’t admit it frankly even to himself. But Hood had always been a tricky character as well as a spiteful one and he had held a grudge against the O’Dells for many years; yesterday, when the old fellow’s eyes had met his for an instant after the humiliating adventure with Red Chief, Jim had seen danger there. So after drinking a mug of tea he continued on his way, promising to return some time during the night. He took one of the rifles and Red Lily with him.

Jim reached home in time for supper. The last load of grain was in, but Bear and Sacobie and Mrs. Sacobie had not yet taken their departure. He asked all three to remain until after breakfast next morning, which they gladly agreed to do; and then, without his sister’s knowledge, he arranged with the men that one should stand guard on the barns all night and one on the house. He told them that he had caught Tim Hood in the woods with a loaded rifle and disarmed him and that the old man was mad enough for anything. Hood was not popular with the Indians or any other poor and needy folk on the river, so Jim knew that the watch would be well kept.

He didn’t say a word about Mel Lunt. He wasn’t worrying about the constable, knowing that his worst faults were stupidity and professional vanity. That Lunt would try to get even with him was very likely, but by means and methods within the law—to the best of Mel’s knowledge and belief, at least. He would probably make another effort to arrest Sherwood if he was able to obtain a warrant through the blundering of his superiors at Woodstock; and he was sure to try to get a warrant for Jim’s arrest. But Jim didn’t worry about anything Mel Lunt might do. Old Hood was the man he feared.

Jim managed a few minutes of private conversation with his sister, and they decided that if Sherwood should reach the house next day the little girl should be kept in ignorance of his identity—at least until medical care had cured him of his wild delirium. They believed that Doctor Scott and good nursing would accomplish this in a day or two. Little Marion was not of a prying disposition. To tell her that the sick man in the big spare room was not to be disturbed would be enough. The big spare room was so far from Mrs. O’Dell’s room, in one corner of which Marion occupied a small bed, that there would be no danger of poor Sherwood’s humiliating and pitiful and cruelly illuminating fever talk reaching the child’s ears.

Jim spent a few minutes with the little girl before she went to bed. She took him to the library, set the lamp on the floor, sat down beside it and pulled a portfolio of old colored prints out from under one of the bookcases. She had discovered it a few days ago. The prints were of hunting scenes—of men in red coats and white breeches riding tall horses after red foxes, flying over green hedges, tumbling into blue brooks, but always streaming after the black and liver and white dogs who streamed after the fox.

“My dad once told me about that,” said Marion. “He used to do it before he came out to this country, whenever he wasn’t soldiering.”

“Rough on the fox,” said Uncle Jim. “Worse than trapping him, I guess. Why didn’t they shoot him and be done with it?”

“That’s what I said to dad,” replied Marion. “But he said it wasn’t so, for as soon as the fox felt tired he jumped into a hole in the ground and then the hunt was finished. They must have chased foxes a great many years in England, for I am sure these pictures are a great deal older than dad.”