South from Hudson Bay: An Adventure and Mystery Story for Boys

The boy’s anger flamed beyond control. He forgot that he was attached by the left shoulder to the towline. Fists doubled, he started for Murray. The rope pulled him up short. As he struggled to free himself and reach the steersman, one of his companions intervened. He was a big, strong, intelligent Swiss, a tanner by trade, who had assumed the leadership of the immigrants in boat number three. His size, his authoritative manner, his firm voice, had their effect on Murray. The half-breed paused, his foot raised for another kick.

“There must be no fighting here,” said the tanner, “and no brutality. Rossel, help Matthieu up. He must go back to the boat.”

Murray began to protest that he would allow no man to interfere with his orders. The Swiss was quiet, but determined. The steersman had no right to work a man to death, or to strike with hand or foot any member of the party. The settlers were not his slaves.

Murray growled and muttered. His hard little eyes glowed angrily. When Louis shouted to the Orkneyman to bring the boat to shore to receive the worn-out Matthieu, the steersman opened his mouth to countermand the order, but thought better of it and merely uttered an oath instead. He could recognize the voice of authority, – when numbers were against him.

After Matthieu had been put aboard, the work was resumed. Murray, very ugly, plodded sullenly ahead. He seized every opportunity to abuse Walter, but the boy, now that one victory had been scored over the Black Murray, did not heed his words.

The sky had clouded over, and rain began to fall, a chilly, sullen drizzle. Yet the trackers toiled on. The oars were used only when crossing from one side of the river to the other to find a possible tow-path.

As darkness gathered, camp was made in the rain. The pemmican ration was eaten cold, but by using under layers of birch bark shredded very fine, and chopping into the dry heart of the stub of a lightning-killed tree, Louis succeeded in starting a small blaze and keeping it going long enough to boil water for tea.

After supper the tanner asked Walter to go with him to talk to the voyageur in charge of the entire brigade. Laroque, the guide, a middle-aged, steady-eyed French Canadian, listened to the complaint in silence, then shook his head gravely.

“Le Murrai Noir is not the best of men to be in control of a boat, – that I know,” he admitted, “but it was hard to find men enough. He can do the work, and do it well, – and there is this to say for him. You settlers know nothing of voyaging. You are so slow and clumsy it is trying to the patience. I find it so myself. Le Murrai Noir has little patience. It is you who must be patient with him.”

“But he has no right to strike and abuse men who are doing their best, men who are not even employees of the Company,” protested the tanner.

Laroque nodded in agreement. “That is true.”

“Can’t you put someone else in as steersman of our boat?”

“No, there is no man of experience to be spared. Let the young man who is sick remain in the boat with the women and children, until he is strong again. I will speak to le Murrai in the morning, and I think things will go better. These first few days, they are the hardest for all.”

Wet, chilled, aching with weariness, and a bit discouraged, Walter trudged back to his own camping place. Louis and the Orkneyman had laid the mast and oars across the boat and had covered them with the sail and a tarpaulin. Under this shelter the men spent the night, packed in so closely there was scarcely room to turn over.

VI

TOILING UP STREAM

Things did go better next day, as the guide had foretold. What he had said to Murray in that early morning talk, no one learned, but the steersman attempted no more kicks and blows. He took his revenge upon those who had complained of him by riding in the boat all day, devoting his whole time and attention to steering. Not once did he touch the tow-line, Louis taking his place. All the men, except the two voyageurs, were lame and muscle sore from the unaccustomed work, but they were gradually learning the trick of it. In comparison with trained rivermen, they made slow time, but they got along better than on the day before. To Walter it was a great relief to be freed from Murray’s brutality. He was on his mettle to show the steersman that just as good progress could be made without him.

On the fourth day of the journey a fork in the stream was reached, where the Shamattawa and the Steel rivers came together to form the Hayes. There Murray and Louis took down the mast and threw it overboard. There would be no more sailing for a long way, Louis explained.

Up the winding course of the Steel the boats were hauled laboriously. The banks were higher than those of the Hayes, but less steep, affording a better tow-path. In appearance the country was far more attractive than the low, flat desolation around Fort York, and the woods were at their best in full autumn color. Utterly wild and lonely was this savage land, but by no means devoid of beauty. It seemed to the Swiss immigrants, however, that they were but going farther and farther from all civilization. Towns and farms, the homelike dwellings of men, seemed almost as remote as though on some other planet.

Walter was surprised to see so little game in the wilderness, until he realized that the constant talking, laughing, and shouting back and forth must frighten every bird and beast. Wild creatures could not be expected to show themselves to such noisy travelers. Only the “whiskey-johneesh,” as Louis called the bold and thievish Canada jays, dared to cry out at the passing boats and come about the camps to watch for scraps.

Just as the Swiss were growing used to the labor of the tow-rope, they were given a new task, portaging. Below the first really bad rapid, the boat was beached, everyone was ordered ashore, and the cargo unloaded. The traders’ custom was to put all goods and supplies in packages of from ninety to one hundred pounds’ weight. One such package was considered a light load. An experienced voyageur usually carried two. That the new settlers might help with the work, part of the food, clothing, and other things had, for this trip, been made into lighter parcels.

The Orkneyman was the first to receive a load. He adjusted his portage strap, the broad band across his forehead, the ends passing back over his shoulders to support his pack. Picking up a hundred pound sack of pemmican, Murray put it in position on the small of the Orkneyman’s back, then placed another bulky package on top of the sack. The load extended along the man’s spine to the crown of his head, and weighed nearly two hundred pounds, but the Orkneyman, his body bent forward, trotted away with it. It was the steersman’s work to place the packages, and the ease with which Murray had swung the hundred pound sack into position revealed one reason why he had been chosen.

Walter’s pack of forty or fifty pounds did not seem heavy. He felt confident that he could carry it easily enough, and imitated the Orkneyman by starting off at a trot. The portage trail was an unusually good one, neither very rough nor very steep, yet the boy soon found that he could not keep up the pace. He slowed down to a walk. His burden grew heavier. The muscles of his neck began to ache. He tried to ease them a little, and his pack twisted, pulling his head back with a wrench. He stumbled, went down, strove to straighten his load and get up again. One of his companions, plodding along, overtook him, stopped to laugh, tried to help him, and succeeded only in dislocating his own pack. Louis had to come to the rescue of both. Walter’s confidence in his own strength had diminished, and he had discovered several new muscles in his back and neck. Moreover he had learned that balancing a pack is an art not to be acquired in a moment.

Another forking of the streams had been reached, where the Fox and the Hill rivers joined to form the Steel. The Hill River proved shallower and more rapid than the Steel. Ledges, rocks, and boulders obstructed the current, and portages became so frequent that Walter got plenty of practice in carrying a pack. Sometimes the empty boats could be poled or tracked through the rapids or warped up the channel by throwing the line around a tree and pulling. In other places the men, standing in the water, lifted the heavy craft over the stones. Around the worst stretches they dragged it over the portage trails.

At Rock Portage, where a ridge extends across the river and the water rushes down in rapids and cascades between small islands, each boat and its cargo had to be carried clear over one of the islands. Then, to the great relief of the crews, they were able to row a short distance to Rock House, a storehouse for goods and supplies for the Selkirk Colony. There more pemmican, dried meat, flour, tea, and a little sugar were taken aboard. To make room for the provisions, some of the personal belongings of the settlers had to be unloaded, but the man in charge of Rock House promised to send the things to Fort Douglas at the first opportunity.

Traveling up stream had now become an almost continual fight with rapid waters through rough and rocky country. Walter’s muscles were hardening and he was learning how to use his strength to the best advantage, but each night when camp was made, he was ready to roll in his blanket and sleep anywhere, on evergreen branches, on the hard planks of the boat, or on the bare ground.

How was Mr. Perier standing the tow-path and the portage, the boy wondered. The apothecary was far from robust. He had been so hopeful, too, looking forward so eagerly to the rich land of the Red River. He seemed to think of that land in the Bible terms, as “flowing with milk and honey.” They would be too late to do any real farming this year, he had said, but they could plow their land and have it ready for seeding in the spring. Of course they would be provided with a house, fuel, and food for the winter. The contract he and Captain Mai, – in Lord Selkirk’s name, – had signed, promised him such things on credit. He had brought with him some chemist’s supplies; dried and powdered roots and other ingredients used in medicines. He and Walter would set up a shop and earn enough to buy whatever they needed during the cold weather. Walter had shared his master’s hopefulness, but now, after questioning Louis about affairs in the Colony, he was beginning to doubt whether it would be so easy to make a fortune there as Mr. Perier believed.

September was advancing. Most of the time the weather held good, but the nights were chilly and the mornings raw, often with fog on the river. One night, after the boat had been dragged through several short rapids, or “spouts,” and carried over two portages, – the whole day’s progress less than two miles, – snow fell heavily. When Walter, stiff with cold, crawled out from under the tarpaulin in the morning, the ground was white.

“This looks more like Christmas than September,” he grumbled between chattering teeth. “I’m glad of one thing, Louis, we’re headed south, not north.”

“Oh, the winter is not quite so long at the Red River as in this country,” Louis returned with a cheerful grin, “but it is long enough, – yes, quite long enough, – and cold enough too, on the prairie.”

So the journey went slowly on, rowing, poling, tracking, warping, and carrying the heavy boats up stream, and there was little enough rowing compared with the poling and portaging.

Five or six miles had become a fair day’s progress. In the worst stretches only a mile or two could be made by working from dawn to dark. The Swiss would have been glad to rest on Sundays, and had expected to observe the day as they were accustomed to, but the guide and the voyageurs would not consent. It was too late in the season, the journey was too long, the food supply too scanty, to permit the losing of one whole day each week. The immigrants had to be content with a brief prayer service morning and evening. The Swiss were Protestants, while all of the voyageurs, except two or three Orkneymen, belonged to the Roman Catholic church, so they worshiped separately. It surprised Walter at first to see the wild-looking rivermen kneeling with bowed heads repeating their “Aves” before lying down to rest. He never saw le Murrai Noir in that posture, however. He wondered if the steersman was a heathen.

There were accidents in the brigade now and then. Once when the Orkneyman’s shift were tracking, the rope broke and boat number three began to swing broadside to the current. At Murray’s fierce yell of command, the men in the boat jumped into the water nearly to their waists and held it headed straight, while Louis, keeping his footing with difficulty in the swift current, carried the remains of the line to shore.

The next day the boat ahead met with misfortune, while it was being poled through rapids. To avoid a great rock, the bowman turned too far out into the strong current. The rushing water swung the clumsy craft about and bore it down the rapids. It struck full on its side on a rock that rose well out of water, and was held there by the strength of the current. There were but two men in the boat, and it was separated from shore by a channel of rushing white water. The crew of number three turned their own craft in to shore, and ran to help. Walter, carrying the tow-line, reached the spot first and attempted to throw the rope to the imperiled boat. The end fell short. Then Louis tried his hand, but succeeded no better. He was preparing for another attempt, when the line was snatched from his hands, and Murray sent the coiled end hurtling out across the water and into the boat.

Growling and cursing, the half-breed took control of the rescue. Under his leadership, the men on shore succeeded in pulling the boat away from the rock, and warping it, half full of water, up the rapids. Walter’s fondness for the Black Murray had certainly not increased as the days went by, but he had to admit that the brutal steersman knew how to act in an emergency.

The toilsome ascent of Hill River was over at last when camp was made late one afternoon on an island which Louis called Sail Island. The reason for the name became apparent when Murray, after carefully examining the trees, selected a straight, sound spruce and ordered Louis and the Orkneyman to cut it down. The spruce was to be trimmed for a mast. If a mast was needed, thought Walter, the worst of the journey must be over. The night was cold and snow threatened, but there was plenty of fuel, and the camp on Sail Island was a cheerful one.

VII

NORWAY HOUSE

The first thing Walter did when he woke the next morning was to notice the direction of the wind. Though light it was favorable. That made a day of easy, restful sailing. The weary men sat and lay about in as lazy positions as the well-filled boat would permit, while the women busied themselves with knitting and mending. The journey was a hard one on clothes, even of the stoutest materials, but by mending and darning whenever they had a chance, and by washing soiled things out at night and hanging them around the fire to dry, the Swiss managed to keep themselves fairly neat and clean. They had not been in the wilds long enough to grow careless.

The following day’s journey commenced with a portage. The brigade was going up the Jack River, which was short but full of rapids. All the rivers in this country were made up of rapids, it seemed to Walter. Then came another period of ease on Knee Lake, so called from an angle like a bent knee. About twenty miles were made that day, one of the best of the trip.

The hard work was not over by any means. On Trout River were some of the worst portages of all. A waterfall, plunging down fifteen or sixteen feet, obstructed the passage. The boats were unloaded and dragged and carried up a rugged trail, to be launched again over steep rocks.

On Holey Lake, – named from a deep spot believed by the Indians to be bottomless, – was Oxford House, a Hudson Bay Company post. The boats made a short stop there, then went on to pitch camp on one of the islands. The waters abounded in fish. With trolling lines Walter and his companions caught lake trout enough for both supper and breakfast. The fish, broiled over the coals, were a luxury after days of pemmican and hard dried meat.

A narrow river, more portages, a little pond, a deep stream flowing through flat, marshy land, followed Holey Lake. In strong contrast was the passage called Hell Gates, a narrow cut with sheer cliffs so close on either hand that there was not always room to use the oars.

A whole day was spent in passing the White Falls, where everything had to be carried a long mile. Three of the crews made the crossing at the same time, crowding each other on the portage. The Swiss caught the voyageurs’ spirit of good-natured rivalry and entered heartily into the contest to see which crew would get boat and cargo over in the shortest time. With a ninety pound sack of pemmican, Walter trotted over the slippery trail and won a grin from Louis.

“You will make a good voyageur when you have gone two or three voyages,” said the young Canadian.

By the time Walter had helped to drag the heavy boat across three rock ridges, which caused three separate waterfalls, he felt that one voyage would be quite enough. Yet he was not too tired to dance a jig when he learned that his boat had won.

Small lakes, connected by narrow, grassy streams, gave relief from portaging, tracking, and poling. Muskrat houses, conical heaps of mud and débris, rose above the grass in the swamps, and ducks flew up as the boats approached. The sight of those ducks made Walter’s mouth water. His regular portion of pemmican or dried meat left him hungry enough to eat at least twice as much. He had not had a really satisfying meal since leaving Holey Lake. Yet he could do a harder day’s work and be far less tired than at the beginning of the trip. His muscles had hardened, and he carried not one pound of extra weight. During the cold nights he would have been glad of a layer of fat to keep him warm.

The boat was sailing along a sluggish, marshy stream, when Louis, who was in the bow picking the channel, raised a shout. “The Painted Stone,” he cried, pointing ahead.

“I don’t see any stone, painted or not,” Walter returned, gazing in the same direction.

Louis laughed. “There used to be such a stone, – so they say. The Indians worshiped it.”

“But why make such a fuss about a stone that isn’t there?”

Again Louis laughed. “Do you see that flat rock? Perhaps it was painted once, I do not know, but it marks the Height of Land. All the way we have come up and up, but from there we go down stream, – until we come to Sea River, which is a part of the Nelson and takes us to Lake Winnipeg. Isn’t that something to make a fuss about?”

“It’s the best news I have heard in many a day,” Walter agreed.

A short portage at the Height of Land brought the boats to the Echemamis River, where they were headed down stream into a rush-grown lake, connected by a creek with the Sea River. This stream is a part of the Nelson, which rises in Lake Winnipeg, so the brigade had to go against the current to Lower Play Green Lake and Little Jack River.

From a log cabin on the shore of Little Jack, a bearded, buckskin-clad man came down to the water’s edge. Louis called to ask if he had any fish. The man shook his head. The first boat had taken all he could spare. The fisherman, Louis explained, supplied trout and sturgeon to Norway House.

Many a time during the trip Walter had heard of Norway House, an important Hudson Bay Company post. “Isn’t that on Lake Winnipeg?” he cried. “Are we so near the lake?”

“We shall be there to-morrow.”

Before sunrise next morning, the voyageurs bathed and scrubbed in Little Jack’s cold, muddy-looking water. They appeared at starting time in clean, bright calico shirts, and new moccasins elaborately embroidered. Louis and the Orkneyman wore gaudy sashes. A broad leather belt girt the steersman’s middle and held his beaded deerskin pouch. Around his oily black hair he had bound a scarlet silk handkerchief. The Orkneyman had trimmed his yellow beard. No hair seemed to grow on Murray’s face. Possibly it had been plucked out, Indian fashion.

Little Jack River is merely a channel winding about among the islands that separate Lower and Upper Play Green lakes, extensions of Lake Winnipeg. Louis told Walter that the “play green” was on one of the islands, where two bands of Indians had been accustomed to meet and hold feasts and games of strength and skill.

Not a hundred yards behind the guide’s boat, number three came in sight of Norway Point, the tip of the narrow peninsula separating Upper Play Green Lake from Lake Winnipeg proper. Shouts and cheers greeted the log wall of Norway House and the flag of the Hudson Bay Company. The Swiss were in high spirits. Once more they were nearing a land where men dwelt. Their journey would soon be over, they believed. Not yet could they grasp the vastness of this new world.

As the boats drew near the post, dogs began to bark and men came running down to the shore. Voices shouted greetings in English and French, not merely to the voyageurs, but to the immigrants as well. Though the fur traders, trappers, and voyageurs were reluctant to see their wilderness opened up to settlement, yet the arrival of the white strangers, even though they were settlers, was too important a break in the monotony of life at the trading post for their welcome to be other than cordial. Moreover the white men and half-breeds at Norway House, and even the Indians camped outside the walls, were curious to see these new immigrants. So the Swiss were welcomed warmly by bronzed white men and dusky-faced mixed bloods, while the full blood Indians looked on with silent but intent curiosity.

The first boats to arrive made a stay of several hours at the post, and Walter, conducted by Louis, had a good chance to see the place. Like York Factory, Norway House consisted of a group of log buildings within a stockade, but it stood on dry ground, not in a swamp, and its surroundings were far more attractive than those of the Hudson Bay fort.

As the two boys were coming out of the big gate, after their tour of inspection, Walter, who was ahead, caught sight of a tall figure disappearing around one corner of the stockade. He glanced towards the shore. The boats were deserted. The voyageurs had sought friends within the stockade or in the tents and cabins outside the walls. The Swiss were visiting the fort or wandering about the point.

“Do we take on more supplies here?” Walter asked his companion.

“If we can get them,” Louis returned. “They can spare little here, they say. Are you so starved that you think of food all the time?” he questioned smilingly.

“No, I’m not quite so hungry as that. I just saw Murray carrying a sack, and I wondered what he had.” Louis looked towards the boats. “Where is he? I don’t see him.”

“He didn’t go to the boat. He was coming the other way. He went around the corner of the wall.”

“With an empty sack?”

“No, a full one.”

Louis stared at the corner bastion. “He was going around there, carrying a full sack? You are sure it was Murray?”

“I saw his back, but I’m sure. He has that red handkerchief around his head, you know.”

“Well, it was not anything for us he was taking in that direction,” Louis commented, “and we brought nothing to be left at Norway House. It is some affair of his own. He – ”

“Ho, Louis Brabant! What is the news from the north?”

Louis had swung about at the first word. Two buckskin-clad men, one old, the other young, were coming through the gate. Louis turned back to reply, and Walter followed him to listen to the exchange of news between the newly arrived voyageur and these two employees of the post. The Swiss boy was growing used to the Canadian French tongue, and during the conversation he learned several things that surprised him.

Walter had taken for granted that the journey would be nearly over when Lake Winnipeg was reached. Now he was amazed to learn that he had still more than three hundred miles to go to Fort Douglas, the stronghold of the Red River colony.

“But how far have we come?” he cried.

“About four hundred and thirty miles the way you traveled,” the leather-faced old man answered promptly.

“The rest of the voyage will not be so hard though,” Louis said reassuringly. “There are few portages. If the wind is fair, we can sail most of the way. Of course if there are storms on the lake – ”