CHAPTER VII.
THE WATCHER IN THE PASS.
Thenceforward, as the forest folded them deeper, John found awonderful solace in Bateese's company, although the two seldomexchanged a word unless alone together, and after a day or twoBarboux took a whim to carry off the little boatman on hisexpeditions and leave Muskingon in charge of the camp. He pretendedthat John, as he mended of his wound, needed a stalwart fellow forsentry; but the real reason was malice. For some reason he hatedMuskingon; and knowing Muskingon's delight in every form of thechase, carefully thwarted it. On the other hand, it was fun to dragoff Bateese, who loved to sit by his boat and hated the killing ofanimals.
"If I give him my parole," suggested John, "he will have no excuse,and Muskingon can go in your place."
But to this Bateese would not listen. So the wounded were left, onhunting days, in Muskingon's charge; and with him, too, Johncontrived to make friends. The young Indian had a marvellous gift ofsilence, and would sit brooding for hours. Perhaps he nursed hishatred of Barboux; perhaps he distrusted the journey--for he andMenehwehna, Ojibways both, were hundreds of miles from their owncountry, which lay at the back of Lake Huron. Now and again,however, he would unbend and teach John a few words of the Ojibwaylanguage; or would allow him, as a fellow-sportsman, to sit by thewater's edge and study the Indian tricks of fishing.
There was one in particular which fairly amazed John. He had crawledafter Muskingon on his belly--though not understanding the need ofthis caution--to the edge of a rock overhanging a deep pool.The Indian peered over, unloosed his waist-belt, and drew off hisscarlet breeches as if for a bathe. But no, he did not intend this--at least, not just yet. He wound the breeches about his right armand dipped it cautiously, bending over the ledge until his whole bodyfrom the waist overhung the water, and it was a wonder how his thighskept their grip. Then, in a moment, up flew his heels and over hesoused. John, peering down as the swirl cleared, saw only ared-brown back heaving below; and as the seconds dragged by, and theback appeared to heave more and more faintly, was plucking off hisown clothes to dive and rescue Muskingon from the rocks, when a pairof hands shot up, holding aloft an enormous, bleeding cat-fish, andhitched him deftly on the gaff which John hurried to lower. But thefish had scarcely a kick left in him, Muskingon having smashed hishead against the crevices of the rock.
Indeed Barboux had this excuse for leaving Muskingon in camp by theriver--that there was always a string of fish ready before nightfallwhen he and Menehwehna returned. John, stupefied through thedaylight hours, always seemed to awake with the lighting of thecamp-fire. This at any rate was the one scene he afterwards saw mostclearly, in health and in the delirium of fever--the fire; the ringof faces; beyond the faces a sapling strung with fish like shortbroad-swords reflecting the flames' glint; a stouter sapling laidacross two forked boughs, and from it a dead deer suspended, withwhite filmed eyes, and the firelight warm on its dun flank; behind,the black deep of the forest, sounded, if at all, by the cry of alonely wolf. These sights he recalled, with the scent of green firburning and the smart of it on his lashes.
But by day he went with senses lulled, having forgotten all desire ofescape or return. These five companions were all his world. Was hea prisoner? Was Barboux his enemy? The words had no meaning.They were all in the same boat, and "France" and "England" had becomeidle names. If he considered Barboux's gun, it was as a provider ofgame, or a protector against any possible foe from the woods.But the woods kept their sinister silence.
Once, indeed, at the head of a portage, they came upon a still reachof water with a strip of clearing on its farther bank--_bois brule_Bateese called it; but the fire, due to lightning no doubt, must havehappened many years before, for spruces of fair growth rose behindthe alders on the swampy shore, and tall wickup plants and tussocksof the blueberry choked the interspaces. A cool breeze blew down thewaterway, as through a funnel, from the uplands ahead, and the fallsbelow sang deafeningly in the _voyageurs'_ ears as they launchedtheir boat.
Suddenly Menehwehna touched Barboux by the elbow. His ear had caughtthe crackling of a twig amid the uproar. John, glancing up as thesergeant lifted his piece, spied the antlers of a bull-moosespreading above an alder-clump across the stream. The tall brute hadcome down through the _bois brule_ to drink, or to browse on theyoung spruce-buds, which there grew tenderer than in the thickforest; and for a moment moose and men gazed full at each other inequal astonishment.
Barboux would have fired at once had not Menehwehna checked him witha few rapid words. With a snort of disgust the moose turned slowly,presenting his flank, and crashed away through the undergrowth as theshot rang after him. Bateese and Muskingon had the canoe launched ina second, and the whole party clambered in and paddled across.But before they reached the bank the beast's hoofs could be hearddrumming away on the ridge beyond the swamp and the branches snappingas he parted them.
Barboux cursed his luck. The two Indians maintained that the moosehad been hit. At length Muskingon, who had crossed the swamp, founda splash of blood among the mosses, and again another on the leavesof a wickup plant a rod or two farther on the trail. The sergeant,hurrying to inspect these traces, plunged into liquid mud up to hisknees, and was dragged out in the worst of tempers by John, who hadchosen to follow without leave. Bateese and McQuarters remained withthe canoe.
Each in his own fashion, then, the trackers crossed the swamp,and soon were hunting among a network of moose-trails, whichcriss-crossed one another through the burnt wood. John, aware of hisincompetence, contented himself with watching the Indians as theypicked up a new trail, followed it for a while, then patiently harkedback to the last spot of blood and worked off on a new line. Barbouxhad theories of his own, which they received with a galling silence.It galled him at length to fury, and he was lashing them with curseswhich made John wonder at their forbearance, when a call from theriver silenced him.
It came from Bateese. Bateese, who cared nothing for sport, hadpaddled up-stream to inspect the next reach of the river, and there,at the first ford, had found the moose lying dead and warm, with theripple running over his flank and his gigantic horns high out of thewater like a snag.
From oaths Barboux now turned incontinently to boasting. This washis first moose, but he--he, Joachim Barboux, was a sportsman fromhis birth. He still contended, but complacently and without rancour,that had the Indians taken up the trail he had advised from the firstit would have led them straight to the ford. They heard him and wenton skinning the moose, standing knee deep in the bloody water, forthe body was too heavy to be dragged ashore without infinite labour.Menehwehna found and handed him the bullet, which had glanced acrossand under the shoulder-blade, and flattened itself against one of theribs on the other side. Barboux pocketed it in high good humour; andwhen their work was done--an ugly work, from which Bateese kept hiseyes averted--a steak or two cut out, with the tongue, and thecarcass left behind to rot in the stream--he praised them for bravefellows. They listened as indifferently as they had listened to hisrevilings.
This shot which slew the moose was the last fired on the upwardjourney. They had followed the stream up to the hill ridges, whererapid succeeded rapid; and two days of all but incessant portagebrought them out above the forest, close beneath the naked ridgeswhere but a few pines straggled.
Bateese pointed out a path by following which, as he promised,they would find a river to carry them down into the St. Lawrence.He unfolded a scheme. There were trees beside that farther stream--elm-trees, for example--blown down and needing only to be stripped;his own eyes had seen them. Portage up and over the ridge would beback-breaking work. Let the canoe, therefore, be abandoned--hiddensomewhere by the headwaters--and let the Indians hurry ahead and rigup a light craft to carry the party downstream. They had axes tostrip the bark and thongs to close it at bow and stern. What morewas needed? As for the loss of his canoe, he understood thesergeant's to be State business, requiring dispatch; and if so,M. the Intendan
t at Montreal would recompense him. Nay, he himselfmight be travelling back this way before long, and then how handy topick up a canoe on this side of the hills!
The sergeant _bravo_-ed and clapped the little man on his back,drawing tears of pain. The canoe was hauled up and stowed in a dampcorner of the undergrowth under a mat of pine-branches, well screenedfrom the sun's rays, and the travellers began to trudge on foot, intwo divisions. The Indians led, with John and Barboux, the latterbeing minded to survey the country with them from the top of theridge and afterwards allow them to push on alone. He took John tokeep him company after their departure, and because the two prisonerscould not well be left in charge of Bateese, who besides had hishands full with the baggage. So Bateese and McQuarters toiledbehind, the little man grunting and shifting his load from time totime with a glance to assure himself that McQuarters was holding out;now and then slackening the pace, but still, as he plodded, measuringthe slopes ahead with his eye, comparing progress with the sun'smarch, and timing himself to reach the ridge at nightfall.Barboux had proposed to camp there, on the summit. The Indians wereto push forward through the darkness.
Meanwhile John stepped ahead with Barboux and the Indians.His spirits rose as he climbed above the forest; the shadow which hadlain on them slipped away and melted in the clear air. Here andthere he stumbled, his knees reminding him suddenly of his weakness;but health was coming back to him, and he drank in long pure draughtsof it. It was good, after all, to be alive and young. A suddenthrobbing in the air brought him to a halt; it came from a tinyhumming-bird poising itself over a bush-tufted rock on his right.As it sang on, careless of his presence, John watched themusic bubbling and trembling within its flame-coloured throat.He, too, felt ready to sing for no other reason than pure delight.He understood the ancient gods and their laughter; he smiled downwith them upon the fret of the world and mortal fate. Father Jove,_optimus maximus_, was a grand fellow, a good Catholic in spite ofmisconception, and certainly immortal; god and gentleman both, large,lusty, superlative, tolerant, debonair. As for misconception, fromthis height Father Jove could overlook centuries of it at ease--theMiddle Ages, for instance. Everyone had been more or less cracked inthe Middle Ages--cracked as fiddles. Likely enough Jove had made theMiddle Ages, to amuse himself. . . .
As the climb lulled his brain, John played with these idle fancies.Barboux, being out of condition and scant of breath, conversed verylittle. The Indians kept silence as usual.
The sun was dropping behind the cleft of the pass as they reached it,and the rocky walls opened in the haze of its yellow beams. So oncemore John came to the gate of a new world.
Menehwehna led, Barboux followed, with John close behind, andMuskingon bringing up the rear. They were treading the actual pass,and Menehwehna, rounding an angle of the cliff, had been lost tosight for a moment, when John heard a low guttural cry--whether ofsurprise or warning he could not tell.
He ran forward at Barboux's heels. A dozen paces ahead of theIndian, reclining against the rock-face on a heap of _scree_, in thevery issue of the pass, with leagues of sunlight beyond him and thebasin of the plain at his feet, sat a man.
He did not move; and at first this puzzled them, for he lay darkagainst the sun, and its rays shone in their eyes.
But Menehwehna stepped close up to him and pointed. Then they saw,and understood.
The man was dead; dead and scalped--a horrible sight.