The Island of Yellow Sands: An Adventure and Mystery Story for Boys

“It may be merely an Indian or two come here for copper,” he said.

“And it may be Le Forgeron Tordu still on our track,” Jean added.

“If it is, he’ll gain nothing by following us now,” Ronald replied. “We shall not lead him to the Island of Yellow Sands this year, that is certain.”

“No,” answered Jean with a laugh, “if he is following us for that, we have cheated him sorely. We may take that much comfort for not having found the island ourselves. He will be in a fine rage when he discovers he has had his journey all for nothing.”

“He will surely,” Ronald chuckled, “but,” he added more seriously, “he’ll seek some way to make us smart for the trick we’ve played him, we may be sure of that. He’ll hate us more deeply, and Le Forgeron’s hate is not to be despised.”

“It were best for us to keep out of his way then,” the French youth replied soberly. “It may be that he does not know yet that we are anywhere near. Instead of going on to the end of this bay, we will return and tell Etienne what we have seen. If he chooses, he can spy upon that camp. We had best leave such spying to him, who is more skilled at it than we are.”

For once Ronald agreed to the more cautious course. As they returned down the cove, they caught a glimpse of three caribou on an open slope, and the sight almost drove the thought of the Twisted Blacksmith out of their heads. The hillside was probably a regular feeding ground, for, even from the water, the light colored patches of reindeer moss could be seen plainly among the dark green trailing juniper. A caribou would furnish a good supply of meat for the three, as soon as they had the means to shoot it. To secure such large game with bow and arrow would not be easy, for they would have to creep up very close for a good shot, but they had confidence in Etienne’s skill with the bow, if not in their own.

The lads reached their camping ground just as the sun was setting, eager to tell the Ojibwa of the wisp of smoke and the caribou, but they did not have a chance that night. He was nowhere to be seen when they landed. On searching for him, they came upon a small lodge of bark and poles concealed behind a clump of birches, several hundred yards from their camp. The lodge was tightly closed, and steam was issuing in wisps from little interstices between the bark sheets. The Indian had built a sweating lodge, and had sealed himself up in it. On red hot stones he had thrown water to make a steam bath. His tunic, leggings and moccasins hanging on a tree were further proof of what he was about.

“This is why he would not eat,” said Jean. “He was fasting, and now he is purifying himself after the savage custom. That is what he meant by preparing for the mining. It is doubtless part of the ceremony performed by the savage miners whenever they come to Minong.”

Ronald shook his head. “If all the savages, who pretend to be Christians, go back to their old heathen customs whenever occasion offers, as Etienne does, I fear they’re not very well converted,” he said.

Jean nodded. “The good fathers thought him one of the best,” he replied, “and indeed he is. My father says Etienne comes nearer to living a Christian life than any other savage convert he has ever known. But I am afraid it takes many years and much care and teaching to purge out the old heathen notions from the heart of a savage. Their people have been heathens for so long, you see, and they have so many customs and ceremonies and traditions that have come down from generation to generation. Perhaps we need not wonder that they are not made into new men in a few years.”

XXIII

MINING AND HUNTING

When Etienne emerged from the sweating lodge, he took a swift dip in the lake, but refused to eat, and went at once to his couch of balsam branches. It was not until morning that the boys told him about the smoke wisp Ronald had seen and the caribou on the ridge. He made no comment and again refused food. While the lads were preparing breakfast, he went to examine his snares, and returned with two hares. The appearance of the animals was a strong reminder that winter was not far off, for they had begun to change their grayish-brown summer coats for the winter white. The feet, ears, nose, front of the head and part of the legs of one of them were conspicuously white, though the rest of its fur remained brown. The coats of the others did not show so much change.

After the lads had finished their breakfast, the three launched the canoe, putting into it a cedar shovel and three large birch buckets the Indian had made. They went ashore not far from their former place of landing, and Nangotook led them to the foot of a ridge, where a stream flowed through a narrow, swampy valley. There they filled the buckets, and then climbed up a well defined and partly cleared trail to the summit. Close to the edge they came upon a pit that showed plain signs of having been worked in recent years. It was without trees or bushes, though the sides were partly covered with moss and trailing plants. On the bottom, surrounded by leaves, sticks and earth, and standing in shallow water, which, that morning, bore a thin coating of ice, was a detached mass of rock that might have weighed two tons. Even from the edge of the hole, Jean and Ronald could see that the rock was composed largely of copper. A primitive ladder, made of a single pole with cross pieces tied on with strips of rawhide, rested against the side of the pit. Though grayed and stained by the weather, the ladder seemed perfectly sound, and the boys scrambled down, eager to examine the rock mass.

They found that the copper rock rested on poles, and was held away from the farther wall of the pit by the trunk of a tree wedged behind it. Around it, in the shallow water and leaves, were many stone hammers, most of them broken, and heaps of charred and blackened sticks. Jean, poking about in the rubbish to get out one of the round stones, uncovered a large bowl of cedar wood, that had been almost entirely buried. Nangotook had not followed the lads down into the pit. Looking up, they noticed that he had kindled a small fire almost on the edge, and was carefully placing something in the flames.

“He is making a sacrifice,” whispered Jean to Ronald, “that is what he brought the fish head for.”

Nangotook had carried with him from camp a fish’s head carefully wrapped in a bit of birch bark. From the odor that drifted down to them, the boys knew he had also offered up some of his precious kinni-kinnik, tobacco mixed with bearberry leaves. Standing on the edge of the pit as the burnt offering was consumed, he gazed down at the copper rock and said a few words in his own language. Then, apparently satisfied that the required ceremonies had all been performed, he climbed down the ladder and prepared to begin work.

With the cedar shovel, he scraped off the rubbish that had accumulated on top of the rock. The pure copper showed plainly in a number of places, but it was evident that much work had been done on the mass, for all the knobs and projections had been hammered away, leaving the surface almost smooth. There seemed to be no place where any of the metal could be broken off, and the boys wondered how Nangotook would manage without steel tools. The Indian did not seem concerned, however. He examined the surface carefully, then ordered the lads to collect kindling and fuel. One side of the mass was composed of what appeared to be a thin sheet of dark rock. On top, just where the free copper and this dark rock came together, Nangotook made a fire, feeding it until it burned hot and clear. When he thought the surface had been heated sufficiently, he hastily scraped off the embers, and picking up a bucket of water he had placed within reach, dashed it quickly over the hot rock. A cloud of steam arose, there was a sharp, cracking report, and a thin piece of rock split off from the mass and fell into the puddle below. Seizing the second pail, which Ronald swung up to him, the Indian emptied it, then followed with the third. The cold water striking the hot surface had split off a part of the sheet of dark rock, but had not exposed enough of the copper to satisfy the Indian miner. Twice he repeated the process, making a hot fire, raking it off when the rock was thoroughly heated, and throwing cold water on it. After the third operation he gave a grunt of satisfaction. A ledge of copper lay exposed.

Raising one of the heavy stones, he struck it against the exposed metal and broke off a small corner. Pure copper is a comparatively soft metal, and heating and dashing with cold water anneals or softens it still more. With a heavy stone maul and, part of the time, with the aid of a wedge-shaped piece of hard rock used as a chisel, Nangotook hammered and split off pieces of the metal. The boys would gladly have helped him with his laborious mining, but he would not let them take part in the actual operations. They might carry water from the stream, gather fuel for the fire, find and hand him another stone sledge when he splintered the one he was using, but the actual processes of fire making, rock splitting and beating off copper, he would not permit them to share. Evidently by Ojibwa tradition, this peculiar mining had something of a sacred or mysterious character, and, to his mind, must be performed by one of his own medicine clan, duly appointed, initiated and trained for the work. The boys knew enough of Indian customs to understand this, so they did not urge their help upon him, but merely obeyed orders.

Such mining was slow work. The rock had to be heated and cooled several times, and the wielding of the stone maul was heavy labor, but at last Nangotook obtained copper enough for his immediate purpose. As they were returning down the cove, he told the boys that the pit where they had been working was the same he and his companions had taken metal from on his previous visit to the island, and the only one he knew of that had been worked in recent years. Jean had picked up a stone hammer with a groove around it, and he showed it to the Indian and asked him what the groove was for. Nangotook answered that a handle of some sort had been attached to the boulder. One of the party he had come to the island with had used such a hammer, he remembered, with a withe twisted about it to hold it by, but he had broken the stone and had thrown it aside. Nangotook thought this might be the very stone. It was not customary to use handles, he said, but he did not know why. Ronald asked how the copper mass came to be in the bottom of the pit. Had it been split off from the side, or was it found by digging down? Nangotook could not answer the question. The rock had been in the same place when he was there before, though then it was well covered with moss and earth, as if it had not been disturbed for a number of years. The tree trunk wedged behind it had been there too, but he and his companions had made the ladder.

No wisp of smoke, was to be seen where Ronald had noticed it the day before, but caribou were again discovered feeding on the ridge, near the spot where the lads had caught a glimpse of them.

The rest of the day and evening were spent in bow and arrow making. Laying a piece of copper on a hard, smooth stone, Nangotook hammered it out with another stone, heating the metal and plunging it in water from time to time, to keep it soft enough to be worked without cracking. When it was hammered out thin at the edge, he could cut it with a knife. After an arrowhead had been properly shaped, he went over it carefully with light, quick blows, to harden it as much as possible without getting it out of shape. Even at the best, copper heads were somewhat soft, but they did not split and warp like bone tips. Their main advantage over stone ones was that they could be made in much less time. Moreover flints suitable for arrowheads were difficult to find. Nangotook made a few sharp pointed bone tips in addition to the copper ones. The latter were attached to shafts of serviceberry wood in the same way as the flint and bone heads, and the shafts were straightened by being pulled through the hole in the piece of bone the Indian had used in his former arrow making. A gull, which Jean caught in a snare, baited with a piece of fish and set on the rocks, furnished feathers for the arrows. Hawk or eagle feathers would have been better, Nangotook insisted, but he had no way of obtaining either without ammunition or finished arrows. He also made another bow, using hare sinew well twisted and braided.

The weather next day was favorable for continuing the journey, but the lads were eager for a caribou hunt, not only for the sake of the sport, but because they sorely needed the nourishing meat. So departure was postponed. When the three reached the place where the animals had been seen the day before, they found distinct trails running in two directions. As they had guessed, the rocky ridge, where the reindeer lichen grew in abundance, was a favorite caribou resort. The hunters decided to separate, Nangotook following one trail and the boys the other. They had only two bows, so Ronald was without a weapon.

Along the top of the ridge, the lads followed the trail, going quietly and cautiously not to disturb the game, if it should happen to be near by. As Jean, who was in advance with the bow, rounded a thicket of leafless bushes, he came upon a place where fire, kindled perhaps by lightning striking a tree, had swept the ridge summit. Small birches, alders and low bushes had grown up among the fallen and standing skeletons of the evergreens, and, scratching about among the underbrush and fallen leaves, were a flock of birds. With a backward gesture, Jean motioned to Ronald, who was just behind him, to stand still. Creeping forward a little to get within range, he fitted an arrow to the string, drew it back and let fly. So swiftly and noiselessly did the arrow pierce the bird, that the rest of the flock did not take fright, and Jean had a chance to make a second shot. That time the whistling of the shaft alarmed the birds. Some of them ran off into the brush, while three rose with a loud whirring noise and a swift direct flight that carried them out of range in a moment. However, Jean had secured two plump, full grown, sharp-tailed grouse. The hunting expedition had begun well.

Not far beyond the spot where Jean killed the grouse, the boys came to a fresh caribou trail, made that morning they were sure, which crossed the older one. They followed the new track, going more cautiously than ever, for the beast might be just ahead. The trail led them down the side of the ridge, and across a bog covered with sphagnum moss stiff with the frost of the night before. There the animal had stopped several times to feed. After a somewhat winding course through the bog, it had climbed another hill beyond.

Jean had a feeling that, when he came to the top of that hill, he would find his game sunning itself in the open. So he bade Ronald keep back, and went very carefully. Through a leafless bush he caught sight of spreading antlers. Cautiously he crept around the bush. He could see the animal’s head and horns above a clump of tiny balsams, but the little trees hid the body. Moreover the range was too great for Jean’s skill and strength. Etienne might have sent a shaft from that distance with a strong enough pull to pierce his game, but Jean felt sure that he could not do so. He must go nearer. Fortunately the wind was blowing towards the hunter, and the beast was wholly unaware of the danger threatening. It lowered its head to graze, and Jean crept forward towards the clump of balsams. He reached them safely, without betraying himself by so much as a snapped twig or the rustle of a dry leaf. Crouching behind the little trees, he peeped around them.

The caribou’s body was plainly exposed, and so close that the boy felt he could not miss. Straightening himself suddenly but noiselessly, he drew back his bowstring and let fly. He struck the beast squarely, but though he had aimed for the heart, his arrow evidently did not pierce that vital spot. The caribou felt the sting of the wound, sprang into the air and was off at a great pace. After it sped Jean, his moccasined feet scarcely seeming to touch the rocks, moss and intervening low bushes, as he cleared them.

XXIV

NANGOTOOK’S DISAPPEARANCE

Had the caribou not been badly wounded, pursuit would have been hopeless, but it was bleeding freely, as its trail showed. Nevertheless it led the boys a long chase, down the hillside, along thickly wooded, low ground, through a gap between ridges and to the edge of a brook. There, exhausted by loss of blood, it sank down among the thick underbrush. But when it caught sound or scent of the hunters, the beast struggled to its feet again, and attempted to cross the stream. Jean, pushing through the bushes, caught sight of it, and let fly another arrow. He hit his mark, and the caribou fell before it could reach the other side.

After the lads had recovered their breath, they pulled the dead animal out of the shallow water. To take such a load up the ridge would be hard work, and Ronald suggested that they try following the brook.

“It empties into the cove of course,” he said. “When we reach there, one of us can go back along shore for the canoe.”

The banks of the brook were thickly covered with trees and bushes. With their heavy load tied to a pole and carried between them, the boys made slow progress. More than once they wished they had turned back the other way. At last they came to a place where the brook rippled down a slope into a marsh, and joined a larger stream that wound sluggishly, in many turns and twists, through the tall, ripe grass and sedges. On the farther side of the larger stream was a dense belt of leafless shrubs that appeared to stand almost in the water, and beyond them thick cedar woods.

“Now where are we?” exclaimed Ronald disgustedly. “It seems I guessed wrong about this little brook. I never thought of its emptying into another stream.”

“I’m not sure you were so very wrong,” Jean replied. “We could see when we paddled up the cove that it was low and swampy at its head. This may well be the very swamp. If we follow it we can soon discover.”

Accordingly, turning to the north, they made their way along the higher ground. The marsh was roughly triangular in shape and, as they went on towards its base, they soon found that Jean was right. Beyond a belt of rushes and other aquatic plants, the waters of the cove came in view. When the boys reached the shore, Jean offered to go for the canoe while Ronald kept watch over the game. Ronald did not like inaction, but he knew his friend was the better woodsman, and could make his way through the forest and over rough ground almost as rapidly and tirelessly as Nangotook himself. So the Scotch lad set himself to wait as patiently as he could.

The cove was longer, and the distance from the head to the place where the hunters had first landed was considerably farther, than Jean had thought. He had supposed that he might have half a mile to go, but it was really two or three times that far. He found the canoe safe, and saw no sign of the Indian’s having returned from the hunt.

To let Nangotook know who had taken the canoe and when, the boy left an Indian sign. He drove a straight stick in the ground in an open place and scratched a line in the earth along the shadow the stick cast. When Nangotook returned, he would be able to tell, from the difference in the position of the shadow at that time and the mark on the ground, how far the sun had traveled in the meantime. On a piece of birch bark Jean scratched with the point of his knife a large J and beneath it two arrows pointing opposite ways. This bit of bark he pegged to the ground beside the stick, with one arrow pointing up the cove, the other down, signs of the way he had gone and that he would return.

When the two lads reached the rendezvous again with their game, they rather expected to find Nangotook waiting for them. He was not there, so they decided to go on to camp. Ronald helped Jean to dress and cut up the caribou. Then, leaving his companion to begin the drying process, he went back for the Ojibwa.

The hunter had not arrived, and there was nothing to do but wait. Ronald occupied the time in fishing, paddling about where he would be in plain sight from shore and could be easily hailed. The afternoon drew to a close, and still Nangotook did not return.

“He must have followed his game a long way,” thought Ronald, “or else he missed the caribou entirely and is looking for other tracks. We’ll have the laugh on him if he fails to get anything.”

The sun had set behind threatening clouds, and, as darkness deepened, Ronald became a little uneasy. Could anything have happened to Nangotook, he wondered, but he put the idea out of his head. The Indian was abundantly able to take care of himself. He had merely gone far in pursuit of game. It was slow work coming back in the darkness, especially if he were heavily loaded.

Ronald went ashore, kindled a cooking fire and broiled a fish for his supper. He was sorry he had not brought some of the fresh meat with him, but he had not expected to stay so long. After he had finished his meal, he sat down on a fallen tree beside his little fire and waited as patiently as he could.

Time dragged slowly. Ronald was meditatively chewing a wintergreen leaf and thinking back over the search for the golden sands, when he was startled by an owl that hooted from a tree above his head, the long-drawn, blood-chilling, hunting cry of the great horned owl. The big bird swooped down suddenly and flew out over the water with noiseless wings. A little later he heard its call again from far away. There was a scratching on the bark of a tall tree near by, and for a moment a red squirrel broke out in peevish chattering. Ronald half rose from his seat, thinking the little animal’s excitement might mean Nangotook’s approach. But no one appeared and all was silent again, except for the faint lapping of the water and the monotonous rustling of the spruce needles in the light breeze.

The night was growing very chilly, and the boy replenished his fire, regretting that he had not gathered more fuel while he could see to get it. Clouds covered the sky and the darkness was thick. He fell into a doze, from which he woke suddenly, as a small, slim, black form glided by his feet and disappeared in the water. The mink had made no sound, but its mere presence had somehow served to arouse his suspicious senses. The fire was almost out. As the boy stooped to put on the last of his wood, he heard in the distance the snarling, cat-like screech of a lynx. He made an instinctive movement of disgust. He loathed lynxes more than any other animal, the treacherous, cruel cats. Most beasts had something noble about them, however fierce they might be, he thought, but in the lynx he could see no good whatever. He remembered the time the cat had fallen through the roof of the shelter, and the scrimmage he and Jean had had with the beast. That was the night Etienne had heard Le Forgeron and had found his footprints and those of his companion. Then a disturbing thought flashed into the boy’s mind, and he sat upright on his log, wide awake.

Could it be that Le Forgeron was preventing Etienne’s return? Had it been the smoke from the Blacksmith’s fire he had seen, and had Le Forgeron by some trick waylaid the Indian and killed him or badly injured him? Ronald had no doubt of the fight Nangotook would put up if attacked. But if he had been taken by surprise and attacked two to one – A dash of rain interrupted the lad’s thoughts. He had no idea how far advanced the night was, for the stars were all obscured. He sprang up, groped his way to the canoe, turned it over, propped up one side with the paddles, and crept under it. By the time he had settled himself, the rain was coming down hard.

Ronald slept no more that night. His mind was too full of anxiety, his apprehensions and imagination too wide awake. He tried to convince himself that Nangotook had gone too far in pursuit of game to get back before dark, so had camped and waited for daylight. The lad could convince his reason of all this but not his imagination. It kept picturing to him how the Ojibwa might have been ambushed or waylaid by his enemies, and left dead in his tracks. He began to worry about Jean alone in the camp. If the evil Frenchman had made way with Nangotook, would not the next move be to steal upon the camp at night and get Jean also? At that point in his imaginings, common sense reasserted itself. What possible reason could the Frenchman have for destroying them all? If he knew why they had come back to the lake, and was following them, he would surely not want to put them out of the way until they had led him to the golden sands. “But,” whispered his imagination, “he might work to separate you and get rid of you two boys. He did try to get rid of you when he knocked you over the cliff. He might think he could force or bribe Nangotook to lead him to the island.” In such manner the lad’s thoughts and feelings argued with one another through the rest of the night, which seemed to him well-nigh endless.