The Land of Frozen Suns: A Novel by Bertrand W. Sinclair
CHAPTER XI--A TRICK OF THE "TRADE."
A certain consecutive number of days--weeks, to be more exact--ensued,of which there is little to relate, save that we travelled steadilynorthward, seeing no human except from afar. Once or twice we came insight of Hudson's Bay posts, but these Barreau was careful to avoid. Itwas not the season when Indians were abroad in the forests, he told mewhen I wondered that in all that vast land not a single lodge appeared.They were gathered in summer villages by the trading posts. Hence wecrossed few fresh trails, and bespoke no man, white or red, in the fourweeks of our journey.
Before the end of it I was hardened to the saddle; and to many otherthings. Twice we swam great rivers, the North Saskatchewan, and fartheron the Peace--to say nothing of lesser streams that were both deep andswift. Our food supply dwindled to flour and tea. But with game on everyhand we suffered no hardship in that respect. The getting of meatBarreau left to me. Strangely enough, after one or two virulent attacksof "buck fever," when the rifle barrel wabbled in a most unseemly mannerand the bullet therefrom flew disgracefully wide of the mark, I got intothe way of bringing down whatever I shot at. Between my eye and therifle sights and the shoulder of a deer some mysterious, rapid processof alignment seemed invariably to take place.
"Why not?" Barreau contended, when I remarked upon this sudden attainingto marksmanship. "There are the sights. Your eyes are clear and your armsteady as a rock. That's all there is to good shooting; that and alittle experience in judging distance. Some men handle guns all theirlives, and never make a decent shot other than by accident. Whenever yourun across such an individual you can be sure there is some defect inhis vision, or he lacks muscular control over his weapon."
That trip taught me many things besides holding a rifle true; how tobuild a campfire in wet weather and dry; little labor-saving tricks ofthe axe; the name and nature of this timber and that; the cooking ofplain food; a subtle sense of direction--fundamental trail-wisdom that Iwas wholly ignorant of, but which a man must know if he would cope withthe wilderness of wood and plain. I profited as much by noting how hedid these things, as by direct instruction. Nor does a man forget easilythe lessons he is taught in the school of necessity.
With Peace River behind us we edged nearer to the base of the mountains,passing through a stretch of country alive with caribou and deer.Bear--monsters, by the track they left--frightened our picketed horsesof a night. The moist earth bordering every pond and spring was markedwith hoof and claw. The shyer fur-bearing animals, Barreau told me,surrounded us unseen. Barring a thickly wooded plateau south of thePeace we passed through no forest oppressively dense. Our way led overridges and swales, timbered, to be sure, but opening out here and thereinto pleasant grassy parks. Once or twice forbidding areas of dead anddown trees turned us aside. Again, a vast swamp enforced a detour. But Icannot recall any feature of marked unpleasantness--except the one thingthat no man who crosses the North Saskatchewan can escape--the flies.
Mosquitoes of all sizes, equipped with the keenest tools for theirnefarious business, green-headed bulldog flies that plagued our horsesbeyond endurance, black gnats, flying ants, and other winged pestsassailed us day and night in hungry swarms. Some day that particularportion of the Northwest will be a rich field for entomologists andmanufacturers of mosquito netting.
We held our own with the buzzing hosts, however, and when our flour sackhad nearly reached a stage of ultimate limpness, and our tea was reducedto a tiny package in one corner of the shrunken pack, we rode out of along belt of quivering poplars and drew up on the brow of a sharp pitchthat fell away to the Sicannie River.
"What in the name of the devil has been to the fore here?" Barreauexclaimed. He slid over in his saddle, staring at the scene below.
Down on the flat, just back from the river bank, I made out a clutter ofsmall log buildings enclosed within a stockade. In the center of theenclosure a half-dozen men busied themselves about the gaunt walls of alarger building. Logs and poles strewed the ground about its four sides.The ring of axe-blades on timber came floating up to us. I saw nothingamiss.
"What's wrong?" I asked.
"Nothing that matters greatly," Barreau replied. "Only that ruin you seewas a fine upstanding storehouse when I left here in the early spring.It seems to be undergoing a process of regeneration, for which I cannotaccount. Likewise, I see no trace of a stable which stood at the westend of the stockade. There are no men missing, by my count, so I daresay no great thing has happened. Anyway, this is the end of our trailfor a while. We may as well get down there. I am a bit curious to knowthe meaning of this."
Presently we were dismounting within the stockade. And as we greeted themen who stopped their work to hail us, it was plain what form ofdisaster had overtaken the Montell establishment. The standing walls ofsixteen-inch logs were smoke-blackened and scorched by fire. The insidewas gutted to the floor-joists; the roof gone. A pile of charred polesand timbers laid to one side testified mutely to cause and effect.
"Well, Ben," Barreau addressed one man who came forward. "How did ithappen?"
"She burned, that's all. 'N' the stable, too," Ben made laconic answer.He drew a plug of tobacco from his hip pocket, looked it over with aspeculative eye, bit off a piece, and returned it to the pocket. As hemasticated the piece contemplatively, Barreau watched him with awhimsical smile. "Yes, sir," he went on, "she took fire in the night,with the boys sleepin' in the doghouse, an' me in the front part uh thestore. It started to rain pretty tol'able hard, or I reckon therewouldn't be nothin' left but a pile uh ashes."
"In the night, eh?" Barreau repeated thoughtfully. The three of uswalked around the building and peered in through a charred doorway.
"Quite so," Barreau continued. "Save anything? There wasn't much tosave, I know."
"Most all the stuff," Ben replied. "Injun name uh Tall Trees drifted inday after yuh all left. He traded out most everythin' we could spare.An' the pelts was easy to get out. Some grub was burned. Not much,though. We got plenty left."
"A very nasty thing, fire," Barreau commented. "How do you think itstarted, Ben?"
"I ain't thinkin'," said Ben. "I _know_."
"The deuce you do!" Neither Barreau's tone nor face bespoke more thanthe mildest surprise. "Had a big fire going, I suppose, and a live coalflew out. Eh?"
"Nary coal," Ben declared. "Some feller climbed the stockade, cut openone uh them deer-skin winders, touched a match to a bucket uh oil an'gunpowder, boosted it through the window--an' there yuh are. Thatthere's no dream, let me tell yuh."
"And then went on his way rejoicing," Barreau suggested.
"I reckon he did, all right," Ben owned, looking rather downcast at thethought. "I never got to see nothin' but his tracks. If I'd seen _him_he wouldn't 'a' done much rejoicin'."
"I dare say," Barreau laughed. "Meantime the joke is on the party of thefirst part, it seems to me. Logs are plenty. You have ample time to puton a roof and lay some sort of floor. It would be a different matter ifwe should be burned out after our goods arrive; but this is a cheaplesson. I see you have put up a good stock of hay. That's fortunate, forthey are bringing more stock than we figured on. Altogether, Ben, youhaven't done so badly. Now, hustle us some decent grub--it's near noon,and this boy and I have been living on straight meat for some time."
Thus, we were once more fairly at our ease; the bugaboo of arrest andsubsequent lying in jail seemed a remote contingency. The confidenceborn of successful escape stilled any misgivings I might have had as tothe future.
We lay at the post doing naught but eat and sleep and watch the longstorehouse creep higher log by log, till the skeleton of a roof tookform above the blackened walls. At night the eight of us would sprawlaround a fire in the open, talking of everything under the sun,sometimes playing with a soiled and tattered pack of cards that theseexiles cherished as their dearest possession. If we were in hostileterritory no hint of apprehension cropped out in our intercourse; exceptas one or another referred casually to incidents past--now a fr
Two weeks of this slipped by. Then one morning Barreau sat up on his bedand looked over to where I humped on my blankets, rubbing the sleep frommy eyes.
"Bob," he announced, "it is high time we bestirred ourselves once more."After which he got quickly into his clothes, and went rummaging in a boxby his bed--we had a little cabin to ourselves. His search bore fruit inthe shape of moccasins, a bundle of them.
"Here," he tossed a pair to me. "You'll find these better than ridingboots. This time we go afoot."
Later, when breakfast was eaten, he made up a shoulder-pack for himself,and showed me how to prepare its fellow. Only actual necessaries foundplace therein. Extra moccasins, a few pounds of flour, a little packetof tea, pepper and salt, a tin plate and cup; these were laid upon apair of heavy blankets, and tightly rolled in a square of thin canvas. Abroad band of soft buckskin ran from the upper corners of the pack overone's forehead. A loop slipped over each shoulder, leaving the handsfree. I was astonished at the ease with which I could walk under thisforty-pound burden. From among the post stores Barreau had long sincearmed me with a rifle that was twin to his own. Between us we carried ahundred cartridges. A butcher knife and a small hatchet apiece fitted usfor all emergencies. Thus equipped we set out, bearing away up theSicannie toward the grim range of peaks that cut the skyline into raggednotches.
Ten miles upstream Barreau located the cluster of lodges he sought asour first objective point--the summer camp of Two Wolves and his band.There for two nights and a day we lingered, sitting in comical gravityfor hours at a time in the lodge of the chief. The upshot of thislengthy council was that Two Wolves' son girded a pack on his broadshoulders and joined us when we left the camp.
Thereafter I lost count of the days. Possibly, if the need arose, Icould detail the camps we made, the streams we crossed, the huge circlewe swung upon, the crossing and doubling back upon our own trail; butthere is no need. Suffice it to say that we did these things. It was nopleasure jaunt that we three went upon. Crow Feathers was a man of ironin the matter of covering ground.
He knew the haunt of every tribe and offshoot of a tribe, every pettychief's following, and every family group in the North, it seemed to me.If he did not lead us to them all, he at least tried. The smoky smell ofan Indian lodge became as familiar to my nostrils as the odor of food.And in every camp, over the peace pipe, Barreau talked "trade," withCrow Feathers to vouch for him. Barreau spoke the tongue like a native,but there were lodges wherein neither Cree nor French _patois_ wasspoken or understood, and, when we encountered such, the wisdom of CrowFeathers smoothed the way. He used the sign language in all itsbewildering variety. I, myself, picked up words and phrases here andthere, comprehended a few of the simpler signs, but Crow Featherslingers with me as a past master in wordless communication with hisrace. Barreau, even, used to wonder at the astonishing amount ofinformation Crow Feathers could impart with a few languid motions of hishands. He made a right able interpreter.
Insensibly the days shortened. I recollect with what surprise I wakenedone morning to find hoar frost thick on my blanket, and a scum of icefringing the little creek beside which we slept. Hard on that I observedthe turning of the leaves, the red and yellow tints of autumn. And aboutthis time Crow Feathers left us; took up his pack one day at noon, shookhands solemnly with each of us, and a moment later was lost in thestill, far-spreading woods. Three days after that Barreau and I, in themidst of a thinly timbered belt of land, came suddenly upon a clear-cuttrail. Even my limited experience told me that it was made by man-guidedanimals.
"The chumps," Barreau drawled. "They are ten miles out of their way. Ididn't expect to hit their trail till to-morrow. Well, they should be atthe post now. We may as well follow them in."
"How is it," I voiced a thing that puzzled me, "that there are no wagontracks? Are you sure this is Montell's outfit?"
"No other," he answered. "For many reasons. By the mule tracks, for one.You, of course, could not see them in the dark, but there was a muleherd with the bull-train. Loaded wagons are too hard to handle in thiswoods country. We have always used pack-mules this side of the Peace."
"Oh," said I, and, my mystery solved, I forbore further inquiry. Wetramped along the trail in silence. Then, all at once, he flung out anabrupt question. Curiously enough, the thing he spoke of had justdrifted into my mind.
"Remember those two Hudson's Bay men, Bob?"
I remembered them very well; two taciturn, buckskin-garbed men, who cameto an Indian camp while we were there talking trade. They greeted uscivilly enough, slept in the next lodge overnight, and left us a clearfield in the morning. But before they took to the trail they drewBarreau aside and the three of them sat upon a fallen tree and conversedthus for an hour.
"Why, yes," I replied. "What of them?"
"I didn't tell you, did I, that they were Company agents with a proposalto buy out _my_ interest in the house of Montell," he said. "Now, thatamused me at the time. But the confounded thing has stuck in my mind,and lately I've been thinking--in fact, I've wondered if----"
He broke off as abruptly as he had begun. I was walking abreast of him,and I could see that he was engrossed with some problem; the mentalgroping in his tone was duplicated in the expression on his face.
"What?" I blurted.
"Oh, just an idea that popped into my mind," he parried carelessly."I'll tell you by and by."
"To be perfectly honest," I challenged, on the impulse of the moment, "Idon't think you trust me very much, after all."
"You're mistaken there," he said slowly. "You are the one man in allthis country whom I would trust. But I am not going to burden you withmere theories of possible trouble. Wait till I am sure."
With this I was forced to content myself. In a mild way I resented hissecretiveness, even while I recognized his right to tell me as much oras little as he chose. Thus a certain diffidence crept into my attitude,perhaps. If it was obvious, it made no difference to Barreau. In the twodays it took us to reach the post, I do not think he spoke a dozensentences. He followed the trail of the packtrain, wholly absorbed inthought. Only when the stockade-enclosed group of buildings huddledbelow us, casting long shadows across the flat, did his self-absorptioncease. We had halted for a moment on the bank above the river, not farfrom where I had first seen the Sicannie. The sun rested on the jaggedmountain range to the west, and the river caught its slanting beams tillit lay below us like cloth of gold, a glittering yellow gash in thesomber woods. Barreau's hand fell lightly on my shoulder.
"Lord! I've been a cheerful companion of late," he said, as if it hadbut occurred to him. And some intangible quality of comradeship in thewords, or perhaps his way of saying them, put me at ease once more.
We stood a little longer, and the sun dipped behind the mountains,robbing the Sicannie of its yellow gleam, casting a sudden grayness overthe North. Then we hitched our lean packs anew, and went down the hill.