Mooswa & Others of the Boundaries

Mooswa & Others of the Boundaries

Introduction

This simple romance of a simple people, the furred dwellers of the Northern forests, came to me from time to time during the six seasons I spent on the Athabasca and Saskatchewan Rivers in the far North-West of Canada.

Long evenings have passed pleasantly, swiftly, as sitting over a smouldering camp-fire I have listened to famous Trappers as they spoke with enthusiastic vividness of the most fascinating life in the world, – the fur-winner's calling.

If the incidents and tales in this book fail of interest the fault is mine, for, coming from their lips, they pleased as did the song of the Minstrel in the heroic past.

Several of the little tales are absolutely true. Black Fox was trapped as here described, by a Half-breed, Johnnie Groat, who was with me for a season.

Carcajou has raided, not one, but many shacks through the chimney, as fifty Trappers in the North-West could be brought to testify. The trapping of this clever little animal by means of a hollow stump, all other schemes having failed, was an actual occurrence. It is a well known fact that many a Trapper has had to abandon his "marten road" and move to another locality when Carcajou has set up to drive him out.

Mooswa is still plentiful in the forests of the Athabasca, and is the embodiment of dignity among animals.

There is no living thing more characteristic of the Northern land than Whisky-Jack, the Jay. Wherever a traveller stops, on plain or in forest, and uncovers food, there will be one or two of these saucy, thieving birds. Where they nest, or how, is much of a mystery. I never met but one man who claimed to have found Jack's nest, and this man, a Trapper, was of rather an imaginative turn of mind.

The Rabbit of that land is really a hare, never burrowing, but living quite in the open. As told in the story they go on multiplying at a tremendous rate for six years; the seventh, a plague carries a great number of them off, and very few are seen for the next couple of years. The supply of fur depends almost entirely upon the rabbit-he is the food reserve for the other forest dwellers.

Blue Wolf is also an actuality. Once in a while one of the gray wolves grows larger than his fellows, and wears a rich blue-gray coat. I have one of these pelts in my house now-they are very rare, and are known to the Traders and Trappers as Blue Wolf.

Perhaps this story is too simple, too light, too prolific of natural history, too something or other-I don't know; I have but tried to tell the things that appeared very fascinating to me under the giant spruce and the white-barked poplars, with the dark-faced Indians and open-handed white Trappers sitting about a spirit-soothing camp-fire.

THE DWELLERS OF THE BOUNDARIES AND

THEIR NAMES IN THE CREE

INDIAN LANGUAGE

MOOSWA, the Moose. Protector of The Boy.

MUSKWA, the Bear.

BLACK FOX, King of the Boundaries.

THE RED WIDOW, Black Fox's Mother.

CROSS-STRIPES, Black Fox's Baby Brother.

ROF, the Blue Wolf. Leader of the Gray Wolf Pack.

CARCAJOU, the Wolverine. Lieutenant to Black King, and known as the "Devil of the Woods."

PISEW, the Lynx. Possessed of a cat-like treachery.

UMISK, the Beaver. Known for his honest industry.

WAPOOS, the Rabbit (really a Hare). The meat food for Man and Beast in the Boundaries.

WAPISTAN, the Marten. With fur like the Sable.

NEKIK, the Otter. An eater of Fish.

SAKWASEW, the Mink. Would sell his Mother for a Fish.

WUCHUSK, the Muskrat. A houseless vagabond who admired Umisk, the Beaver.

SIKAK, the Skunk. A chap to be avoided, and who broke up the party at Nekik's slide.

WENUSK, the Badger.

WUCHAK, the Fisher.

WHISKY-JACK, the Canada Jay. A sharp-tongued Gossip.

COUGAR, EAGLE, BUFFALO, ANT, and CARIBOU.

WIE-SAH-KE-CHACK. Legendary God of the Indians, who could change himself into an animal at will.

FRANÇOIS, French Half-breed Trapper.

NICHEMOUS, Half-breed hunter who tried to kill Muskwa.

TRAPPERS, HALF-BREEDS, and TRAIN DOGS.

ROD, The Boy. Son of Donald MacGregor, formerly Factor to Hudson's Bay Company at Fort Resolution.

When Rod was a little chap, Mooswa had been brought into Fort Resolution as a calf, his mother having been killed, and they became playmates. Then MacGregor was moved to Edmonton, and Rod was brought up in civilization until he was fourteen, when he got permission to go back to the Athabasca for a Winter's trapping with François, who was an old servant of the Factor's. This story is of that Winter. Mooswa had been turned loose in the forest by Factor MacGregor when leaving the Fort.

THE BOUNDARIES. The great Spruce forests and Muskeg lands lying between the Saskatchewan River, the Arctic Ocean, and the Rocky Mountains-being the home of the fur-bearing animals.

CHOOSING THE KING

The short, hot Summer, with its long-drawn-out days full of coaxing sunshine, had ripened Nature's harvest of purple-belled pea-vine, and yellow-blossomed gaillardia, and tall straight-growing moose weed; had turned the heart-shaped leaves of the poplars into new sovereigns that fell with softened clink from the branches to earth, waiting for its brilliant mantle-a fairy mantle all splashed blood-red by crimson maple woven in a woof of tawny bunch-grass and lace-fronded fern.

Oh, but it was beautiful! that land of the Boundaries, where Black Fox was King; and which stretched from the Saskatchewan to where the Peace first bounded in splashing leaps from the boulder-lined foothills of the Rockies; all beautiful, spruce-forested, and muskeg-dotted-the soft muskegs knee deep under a moss carpet of silver and green.

The Saskatoons, big brother to the Huckleberry, were drying on the bush where they had ripened; the Raspberries had grown red in their time and gladdened the heart of Muskwa, the Bear; the Currants clustered like strings of black pearls in the cool beds of lazy streams, where pin-tailed Grouse, and Pheasant in big, red cravat, strutted and crouked in this glorious feeding-ground so like a miniature vineyard; the Cranberries nestled shyly in the moss; and the Wolf and Willow-berries gleamed like tiny white stars along the banks of the swift-running, emerald-green Saskatchewan and Athabasca. All this was in the heritage land of Black Fox, and Muskwa, and Mooswa.

It was at this time, in the full Autumn, that Whisky-Jack flew North and South, and East and West, and called to a meeting the Dwellers that were in the Boundaries. This was for the choosing of their King, a yearly observance, and for the settling of other matters.

When they had gathered, Black Fox greeted the Animals: -

"Good Year to you, Subjects, and much eating, each unto his own way of life!"

Whisky-Jack preened his mischievous head, ruffled his blue-gray feathers, broke into the harsh, cackling laugh of the Jay, and sneered, "Eating! always of eating; and never a more beautiful song to you, or-"

"Less thieving to you, eh, Mister Jay," growled Muskwa. "You who come by your eating easily have it not so heavily on your mind as we Toilers."

"Well, let me see," continued Black Fox, with reflective dignity, "here Ye have all assembled; for form's sake I will call your names."

From Mooswa to Wapoos each one of the Dwellers as his name was spoken stepped forward in the circle and saluted the King.

"Jack has been a faithful messenger," said Black King; "but where are Cougar, and Buffalo, and Eagle?"

"They had notice, thank you, Majesty, for your praise. Cougar says the mountain is his King, and that he wouldn't trust himself among a lot of Plain Dwellers."

"He's a Highway Robber and an Outlaw, anyway, so it doesn't matter," asserted Carcajou.

"You wouldn't talk that way if he were at your throat, my fat little Friend," lisped Whisky-Jack. "Buffalo is afraid of Man, and won't come; nearly all his brothers have been killed off, and he is hiding in the Spruce woods near Athabasca Lake."

"I saw a herd of them last Summer," declared Mooswa; "fine big fellows they have grown to be, too. Their hair is longer, and blacker, and curlier than it was when they were on the Plains. There's no more than fifty of them left alive in all the North woods; it's awful to think of how they were slaughtered. That's why I stick to the Timber Boundaries."

"Eagle won't come, Your Majesty, because Jay's chatter makes his head ache," declared Carcajou.

"Blame me," cried Whisky-Jack, "if anybody doesn't turn up at the meeting-say it's my fault; I don't mind."

"You know why we meet as usual?" queried Black Fox, placing his big white-tipped brush affectedly about his feet.

"That they do," piped Whisky-Jack; "it's because they're afraid of losing their hides. I'm not-nobody tries to rob me."

"Worthless Gabbler!" growled Muskwa.

"Jack is right," declared Black Fox; "if we do not help each other with the things we have learned, our warm coats will soon be on the shoulders of the White Men's Wives."

"Is that why the Men are always chasing us?" asked Beaver, turning his sharp-pointed head with the little bead eyes toward the King.

"Not in your case," snapped Whisky-Jack, "for they eat you, old Fat Tail. I heard the two White Men who camped on our river last Winter say that your Brother, whom they caught when they raided your little round lodge, tasted like beefsteak, whatever that is. – He, he! And François the Guide ate his tail and said it was equal to fat bacon."

"Unthinking Wretch!" cried Umisk angrily, bringing his broad tail down on a stone like the crack of a pistol.

"I picked his bones," taunted the Jay; "he was dead, and cooked too, so it didn't matter."

"Cannibal!" grunted Bear.

"They eat you also, Muskwa; only when they're very hungry though, – they say your flesh is like bad pork, strong and tough."

Black Fox interrupted the discord. "Comrades," he pleaded, "don't mind Jack; he's only a Jay, and you know what chatterers they are. He means well-does he not tell us when the Trappers are coming, and where the Traps are?"

"Yes, and steal the Bait so you won't get caught," added Jay. "Oh, I am good-I help you. You're a lot of crawling fools-all but the King. You can run, and fight, but you don't know things. That's because you don't associate with Man, and sit in his camp as I do."

"I've been in his camp," asserted Carcajou, picking up a small stone slyly to shy at Jack.

"Not when he was home," retorted the Jay; "you sneaked in to steal when he was away."

"Stop!" commanded the King, angrily. "Your chatter spoils everything, do stop!"

Whisky-Jack spread his feathers till he looked like a woollen ball, and subsided.

"This is the end of the year," continued Black Fox, "and the great question is, are you satisfied with the rule-is it good?"

Wolverine spoke: "I have been Lieutenant to the Black King for four years-I am satisfied. When our enemies, the Trappers, have tried to catch us by new wiles His Majesty has told us how to escape."

"Did he, always?" demanded the Bird. "Who knew of the little White Powder that François put in the Meat-the White Medicine Powder he had in a bottle? Neither you, Carcajou, nor Black King, nor any one tasted that-did you? Even now you do not know the name of it; but I can tell you-it's strychnine. Ha, ha! but that was funny. They put it out, and I, Whisky-Jack, whom you call a Tramp, told you. I, Jack the Gabbler, flew till my wings were tired warning you to beware."

"You might have saved yourself the trouble," retorted Wolverine; "Black King would have found it with his nose. Can he not tell even if any Man has touched the Meat that is always a Bait?"

"Stupid!" exclaimed Jack; "do you think the Men are such fools? They handle not the Bait which is put in the Traps-they know that all the brains you chaps have are in your noses. Catch François, the Half-breed, doing that; he's too clever. He cuts it with a long knife, and handles it with a stick. The little White Powder that is the essence of death is put in a hole in the Meat. I know; I've seen them at it. Haven't their Train-Dogs noses also-and didn't two of them that time eat the Bait, and die before they had travelled the length of a Rabbit-run. I saw them-they grew stiff and quiet, like the White Man who fell in the snow last Winter when he was lost. But I'm satisfied with Black Fox; and you can be his Lieutenant-I don't care."

"Yes," continued Carcajou, "who among us is more fitted to be King? Muskwa is strong, and big, and brave; but soon he will go into his house, and sleep until Spring. What would become of us with no King for months?"

"Yes, I'm sleepy," answered Bear-"and tired. I've tramped up and down the banks of the river eating white Buffalo-berries and red Cranberries until I'm weary. They are so small, and I am so big; it keeps me busy all day."

"You've got stout on it," chuckled Jack. "I wish I could get fat."

"You talk too much, and fret yourself to death over other people's business," growled Bear. "You're a meddling Tramp."

"Muskwa," said Mink, "there are bushels and bushels of big, juicy, Black Currants up in the Muskeg, near the creek I fish in-I wish I could eat them. Swimming, swimming all day after little frightened Fish, that are getting so cunning. Why, they hide under sticks, and get up in shallow water among the stones, so that I can hardly see them. It must be pleasant to sit up on your quarters, nice and dry, pull down the bushes and eat great, juicy Berries. I wish I lived on fruit."

"No you don't," snarled Jay; "you'd sell your Mother for a fish."

"If you're quite through wrangling," interrupted Wolverine, "I'll go on talking about the King. Who is better suited than Black Fox? Is it Mooswa? He would make a very magnificent-looking King. See his great horns. He would protect us-just now; but do you not know that in the Spring they will drop off, and our Comrade will be like a Man without hands all Summer. Why, even his own Wife won't look at him while he is in that condition. Then the young horns come out soft and pulpy, all covered with velvet, and until they get hard again are tender, and he's afraid to strike anything with them. You see, we must have somebody that is King all the year round. Why, Mooswa couldn't tell us about the Bait; he can't put his nose to the ground; he can't even eat grass, because of his short neck."

"I wish I could," sighed the Moose. "I get tired of the purple-headed Moose-weed, and the leaves and twigs. The young grass looks so sweet and fresh. But Carcajou is right; I was made this way-I don't know why, though."

"No, you weren't!" objected Whisky-Jack; "you're such a lordly chap when you get your horns in good order, and have gone around so much with that big nose stuck up in the air, that you've just got into that shape-He, he! I've seen Men like you. The Hudson's Bay Factor, at Slave Lake, is just your sort. Bah! I don't want you for a King."

The Bull Moose waved his tasselled beard back and forth angrily, and stamped a sharp, powerful fore-foot on the ground like a trip-hammer.

Black Fox interfered again. "Why do you make everybody angry, you silly Bird?" he said to the Jay. "Do you learn this bitter talk from listening to your Men friends while you are waiting for their scraps?"

"Perhaps so; I learn many things from them, and you learn from me. But go on, Bully Carcajou. Tell us all why we're not fit to be Kings. Perhaps Rof, there, would like to hear of his failings."

"I don't want to be King," growled Rof, the big Blue Wolf, surlily.

"No, your manners are against you," sneered Jack; "you'd do better as executioner."

"Well," commenced Carcajou, taking up the challenge, "to tell you the truth, we're all just a little afraid of Rof. We don't want a despotic Ruler if we can help it. I don't wish to hurt his feelings, but when Blue Wolf got hungry his subjects might suffer."

"I don't want him for King," piped Mink; "his jaws are too strong and his legs too long."

"Oh, I couldn't stay here," declared Blue Wolf, "and manage things for you fellows. Next month I'm going away down below Grand Rapids. My Brother has been hunting there with a Pack of twenty good fellows, and says the Rabbits are so thick that he's actually getting fat;" and Wolf licked his steel jaws with a hungry movement that made them all shudder. His big lolling tongue looked like a firebrand.

"You needn't fret," squeaked Jay; "we don't want you. We don't want a rowdy Ruler. I saw you fighting with the Train Dogs over at Wapiscaw last Winter. You're as disgraceful as any domestic cur."

"Now, Pisew-" began Carcajou.

As he mentioned the Lynx's name, a smile went round the meeting. Whisky-Jack took a fit of chuckling laughter, until he fell off his perch. This made him cranky in an instant. "Of all the silly Sneaks!" he exclaimed scornfully, as he fluttered up on a small Jack-pine, and stuck out his ruffled breast. "That Spear-eared Creature for King! Oh, my! Oh, my! that's too rich! He'd have you all catching Rabbits for him to eat. Kings are great gourmands, I know, but they don't eat Field Mice, and Frogs, and Snails, and trash of that sort-not raw, anyway."

Carcajou proceeded more gravely with his objection. "As I said before, this is purely a matter of business with us; and anything I say must not be taken as a personal affront."

"Of course not, of course not," interrupted Jack. "Go on with your candid observations, Hump-back."

"We all know our Friend's weakness for perfume," continued Wolverine.

"Do you call Castoreum a perfume?" questioned Whisky-Jack. "It's a vile, diabolical stink-that's what it is. Why, the Trappers won't keep it in their Shacks-it smells so bad; they bury it outside. Nobody but a gaunt, brainless creature, like the Cat there, would risk his neck for a whiff of that horrible-smelling stuff."

"Order!" commanded Black King; "you get so personal, Jack. You know that our Comrade, Beaver, furnishes the Castoreum, don't you?"

"Yes, I know; and he ought to be ashamed of it."

"It's not my fault," declared Umisk; "your friends, the cruel Trappers, don't get it from us till we're dead."

"Well, never mind about that," objected Carcajou. "We know, and the Trappers know, that Lynx is the easiest caught of all our fellows; if he were our King they'd snare him in a week-then we'd be without a Ruler. We must have some one that not only can take care of us, but of himself too."

"Pisew can't do that-he can't take care of his own family," twittered Jay. "His big furry feet make a trail in the snow like Panther's, and then when you come up to him, he's just a great starved Cat, with less brains than a Tadpole."

Carcajou suddenly reared on his hind quarters and let fly the stone with his short, strong, right arm at the Bird. "Evil Chatterer!" he exclaimed angrily, "you are always making mischief."

Jack hopped nimbly to one side, cocked his saucy silvered head downward, and piped: "Proceed with the meeting; the Prince of all Mischief-makers, Carcajou, the Devil of the Woods, lectures us on morality."

"Yes, let us proceed with the discussion," commanded Black Fox.

"Brothers," said the Moose, in a voice that was strangely plaintive, coming from such a big, deep throat, "I am satisfied with Black Fox for King; but if anything were to happen requiring us to choose another, one of almost equal wisdom, I should like to nominate Beaver. We know that when the world was destroyed by the great flood, and there was nothing but water, that Umisk took a little mud, made it into a ball with his handy tail, and the ball grew, and they built it up until it became dry land again. Wiesahkechack has told us all about that. I have travelled from the Athabasca across Peace River, and up to the foothills of the big mountains, to the head-waters of the Smoky, and have seen much of Brother Umisk's clever work, and careful, cautious way of life. I never heard any one say a word against his honesty."

"That's something," interrupted Jay; "that's more than can be said for many of us."

The big melancholy eyes of the Moose simply blinked solemnly, and he proceeded: "Brother Umisk has constructed dams across streams, and turned miles of forest into rich, moist Muskeg, where the loveliest long grasses grow-most delicious eating. These dams are like the great hard roads you have seen the White Men cut through our country to pull their stupid carts over; I can cross the softest Muskeg on one and my sharp hoofs hardly bury to the fetlock. Is that not work worthy of an Animal King? And he has more forethought, more care for the Winter, than any of us. Some of you have seen his stock of food."

"I have," eagerly interrupted Nekik, the Otter.

"And I," said Fisher.

"I too, Mooswa," cried Mink.

"I have seen it," quoth Muskrat; "it's just beautiful!"

"You tell them about Umisk's food supply, Brother Muskrat," commanded the Moose. "I can't dive under the water like you and see it ready stored, but I have observed the trees cut down by his chisel-teeth."

"You make me blush," remonstrated Beaver, modestly.

"Beautiful White Poplar trees," went on Mooswa; "and always cut so they fall just on the edge of the stream. Is that not clever for one of us? Man can't do it every time."

"Trowel Tail only cuts the leaning trees-that's why!" explained Whisky-Jack.

Mooswa was too haughty to notice the interruption, but continued his laudation of Beaver's cunning work.

"Then our Brother Umisk cuts the Poplar into pieces the length of my leg; and, while I think of it, I'd like to ask him why he leaves on the end of each stick a piece like the handle of a rolling-pin."

"What's a rolling-pin?" gasped Jay.

"Something the Cook throws at your head when you're trying to steal his dinner," interjected Carcajou.

Lynx laughed maliciously at this thrust. "Isn't Wolverine a witty chap?" he said, fawningly, to Blue Wolf.

"I know what that cunning little end is for," declared Muskrat; "I'll tell you what Beaver does with the sticks under water, and then you'll understand."

Black King yawned as though all this bored him. "He doesn't like to hear his rival praised," sneered Whisky-Jack; "it makes him sleepy."

"Well," continued Wuchusk, "Beaver floats the Poplar down to his pond, to a little place just up stream from his lodge, with a nice, soft bottom. There he dives swiftly with each piece, and the small round end you speak of, Mooswa, sticks in the mud, see? Oh, it is clever; I wish I could do it, – but I can't. I have to rummage around all Winter for my dinner. All the sticks stand there close together on end; the ice forms on top of the water, and nobody can see them. When Umisk wants his dinner, he swims up the pond, selects a nice, fat, juicy Poplar, pulls it out of the mud, floats it in the front door of his pretty, round-roofed lodge, strips off the rough covering, and eats the white, mealy inner-bark. It's delicious! No wonder Beaver is fat."

"I should think it would be indigestible," said Lynx. "But isn't Umisk kind to his family-dear little Chap!"

"Must be hard on the teeth," remarked Mink. "I find fishbones tough enough."

"Oh, it's just lovely!" sighed Beaver. "I like it."

"What do you do with the logs after you've eaten the crust?" asked Black King, pretending to be interested.

"Float them down against the dam," answered Beaver. "They come in handy for repairing breaks."

"What breaks the dam?" mumbled Blue Wolf, gruffly.

"I know," screamed Jay; "the Trappers. I saw François knock a hole in one last Winter. That's how he caught your cousins, Umisk, when they rushed to fix the break."

"How do you know when it's damaged, Beaver?" queried Mooswa. "Supposing it was done when you were asleep-you don't make your bed in the water, I suppose."

"No, we have a nice, dry shelf all around on the inside of the lodge, just above-we call it the second-story; but we keep our tails in the water always, so as soon as it commences to lower we feel it, you know."

"That is wise," gravely assented Mooswa. "Have I not said that Umisk is almost as clever as our King?"