CHAPTER II
THE YOUNG VOYAGEURS
There is a canoe upon the waters of Red River--Red River of the north.It is near the source of the stream, but passing downward. It is a smallcanoe, a frail structure of birch-bark, and contains only four persons.They are all young--the eldest of them evidently not over nineteen yearsof age, and the youngest about fifteen.
The eldest is nearly full-grown, though his body and limbs have not yetassumed the muscular development of manhood. His complexion is dark,nearly olive. His hair is jet black, straight as an Indian's, and long.His eyes are large and brilliant, and his features prominent. Hiscountenance expresses courage, and his well-set jaws betoken firmnessand resolution. He does not belie his looks, for he possesses thesequalifications in a high degree. There is a gravity in his manner,somewhat rare in one so young; yet it is not the result of a morosedisposition, but a subdued temperament produced by modesty, good sense,and much experience. Neither has it the air of stupidity. No: you couldeasily tell that the mind of this youth, if once roused, would exhibitboth energy and alertness. His quiet manner has a far differentexpression. It is an air of coolness and confidence, which tells you hehas met with dangers in the past, and would not fear to encounter themagain.
It is an expression peculiar, I think, to the hunters of the "FarWest,"--those men who dwell amidst dangers in the wild regions of thegreat prairies. Their solitary mode of life begets this expression. Theyare often for months without the company of a creature with whom theymay converse--months without beholding a human face. They live alonewith Nature, surrounded by her majestic forms. These awe them intohabits of silence. Such was in point of fact the case with the youthwhom we have been describing. He had hunted much, though not as aprofessional hunter. With him the chase had been followed merely as apastime; but its pursuit had brought him into situations of peril, andin contact with Nature in her wild solitudes. Young as he was, he hadjourneyed over the grand prairies, and through the pathless forests ofthe West. He had slain the bear and the buffalo, the wild cat and thecougar. These experiences had made their impression upon his mind, andstamped his countenance with that air of gravity we have noticed.
The second of the youths whom we shall describe is very different inappearance. He is of blonde complexion, rather pale, with fair silkenhair that waves gently down his cheeks, and falls upon his shoulders. Heis far from robust. On the contrary, his form is thin and delicate. Itis not the delicacy of feebleness or ill-health, but only a body ofslighter build. The manner in which he handles his oar shows that hepossesses both health and strength, though neither in such a high degreeas the dark youth. His face expresses, perhaps, a larger amount ofintellect, and it is a countenance that would strike you as more openand communicative. The eye is blue and mild, and the brow is marked bythe paleness of study and habits of continued thought. These indicationsare no more than just, for the fair-haired youth _is_ a student, and oneof no ordinary attainments. Although only seventeen years of age, he isalready well versed in the natural sciences; and many a graduate ofOxford or Cambridge would but ill compare with him. The former mightexcel in the knowledge--if we can dignify it by that name--of the lawsof scansion, or in the composition of Greek idylls; but in all thatconstitutes _real_ knowledge he would prove but an idle theorist, adreamy imbecile, alongside our practical young scholar of the West.
The third and youngest of the party--taking them as they sit from stemto bow--differs in many respects from both those described. He hasneither the gravity of the first, nor yet the intellectuality of thesecond. His face is round, and full, and ruddy. It is bright and smilingin its expression. His eye dances merrily in his head, and its glancefalls upon everything. His lips are hardly ever at rest. They are eitherengaged in making words--for he talks almost incessantly--or elsecontracting and expanding with smiles and joyous laughter. His cap isjauntily set, and his fine brown curls, hanging against the rich roseateskin of his cheeks, give to his countenance an expression of extremehealth and boyish beauty. His merry laugh and free air tell you he isnot the boy for books. He is not much of a hunter either. In fact, he isnot particularly given to anything--one of those easy natures who takethe world as it comes, look upon the bright side of everything, withoutgetting sufficiently interested to excel in anything.
These three youths were dressed nearly alike. The eldest wore thecostume, as near as may be, of a backwoods hunter--a tunic-likehunting-shirt, of dressed buckskin, leggings and mocassins of the samematerial, and all--shirt, leggings, and mocassins--handsomely braidedand embroidered with stained quills of the porcupine. The cape of theshirt was tastefully fringed, and so was the skirt as well as the seamsof the mocassins. On his head was a hairy cap of raccoon skin, and thetail of the animal, with its dark transverse bars, hung down behind likethe drooping plume of a helmet. Around his shoulders were two leathernbelts that crossed each other upon his breast. One of these slung abullet-pouch covered with a violet-green skin that glittered splendidlyin the sun. It was from the head of the "wood-duck" the most beautifulbird of its tribe. By the other strap was suspended a largecrescent-shaped horn taken from the head of an Opelousas bull, andcarved with various ornamental devices. Other smaller implements hungfrom the belts, attached by leathern thongs: there was a picker, awiper, and a steel for striking fire with. A third belt--a broad stoutone of alligator leather--encircled the youth's waist. To this wasfastened a holster, and the shining butt of a pistol could be seenprotruding out; a hunting-knife of the kind denominated "bowie" hangingover the left hip, completed his "arms and accoutrements."
The second of the youths was dressed, as already stated, in a somewhatsimilar manner, though his accoutrements were not of so warlike acharacter. Like the other, he had a powder-horn and pouch, but insteadof knife and pistol, a canvass bag or haversack hung from his shoulder;and had you looked into it, you would have seen that it was half filledwith shells, pieces of rock, and rare plants, gathered during theday--the diurnal storehouse of the geologist, the palaeontologist, andbotanist--to be emptied for study and examination by the nightcamp-fire. Instead of the 'coon-skin cap he wore a white felt hat withbroad leaf; and for leggings and mocassins he had trousers of bluecottonade and laced buskins of tanned leather.
The youngest of the three was dressed and accoutred much like theeldest, except that his cap was of blue cloth--somewhat after thefashion of the military forage cap. All three wore shirts of colouredcotton, the best for journeying in these uninhabited regions, where soapis scarce, and a laundress not to be had at any price.
Though very unlike one another, these three youths were brothers. I knewthem well. I had seen them before--about two years before--and thougheach had grown several inches taller since that time, I had nodifficulty in recognising them. Even though they were now two thousandmiles from where I had formerly encountered them, I could not bemistaken as to their identity. Beyond a doubt they were the same braveyoung adventurers whom I had met in the swamps of Louisiana, and whoseexploits I had witnessed upon the prairies of Texas. They were the "BoyHunters,"--Basil, Lucien, Francois! I was right glad to renewacquaintance with them. Boy reader, do you share my joy?
But whither go they now? They are full two thousand miles from theirhome in Louisiana. The Red River upon which their canoe floats is notthat Red River, whose blood-like waters sweep through the swamps of thehot South--the home of the alligator and the gar. No, it is a stream ofa far different character, though also one of great magnitude. Upon thebanks of the former ripens the rice-plant, and the sugar-cane waves itsgolden tassels high in the air. There, too, flourishes the giant reed,the fan-palm, and the broad-leafed magnolia, with its huge snow-whiteflowers. There the aspect is Southern, and the heat tropical for mostpart of the year.
All this is reversed on the Red River of the North. It is true that onits banks sugar is also produced; but it is no longer from a plant but alordly tree--the great sugar-maple. There is rice too,--vast fields ofrice upon its marshy borders; but it is not the pearly grain of the
South. It is the wild rice, "the water oats," the food of millions ofwinged creatures, and thousands of human beings as well. Here, forthree-fourths of the year, the sun is feeble, and the aspect that ofwinter. For months the cold waters are bound up in an icy embrace. Theearth is covered with thick snow, over which rise the needle-leafed_coniferae_--the pines, the cedars, the spruce, and the hemlock. Veryunlike each other are the countries watered by the two streams, the RedRiver of the South and its namesake of the North.
But whither go our Boy Hunters in their birch-bark canoe? The river uponwhich they are _voyaging_ runs due northward into the great lakeWinnipeg. They are floating with its current, and consequentlyincreasing the distance from their home. Whither go they?
The answer leads us to some sad reflections. Our joy on again beholdingthem is to be mingled with grief. When we last saw them they had afather, but no mother. Now they have neither one nor the other. The oldColonel, their father--the French _emigre_, the _hunter naturalist_--isdead. He who had taught them all he knew; who had taught them to ride,to swim, to dive deep rivers, to fling the lasso, to climb tall trees,and scale steep cliffs, to bring down birds upon the wing or beasts uponthe run, with the arrow and the unerring rifle; who had trained them tosleep in the open air, in the dark forest, on the unsheltered prairie,along the white snow-wreath--anywhere--with but a blanket or a buffalorobe for their bed; who had taught them to live on the simplest food,and had imparted to one of them a knowledge of science, of botany inparticular, that enabled them, in case of need, to draw sustenance, fromplants and trees, from roots and fruits, to find resources whereignorant men would starve.
He also had taught them to kindle a fire without flint, steel, ordetonating powder; to discover their direction without a compass, fromthe rocks and the trees and the signs of the heavens; and in addition toall, had taught them, as far as was then known, the geography of thatvast wilderness that stretches from the Mississippi to the shores of thePacific Ocean, and northward to the icy borders of the Arctic Sea--hewho had taught them all this, their father, was no more; and his threesons, the "boy men," of whom he was so proud, and of whoseaccomplishments he was wont to boast, were now orphans upon the wideworld.
But little more than a year after their return from their grandexpedition to the Texan prairies, the "old Colonel" had died. It was oneof the worst years of that scourge of the South--the yellow fever--andto this dread pestilence he had fallen a victim.
Hugot, the _ex-chasseur_ and attached domestic, who was accustomed tofollow his master like a shadow, had also followed him into the nextworld. It was not grief that killed Hugot, though he bore the loss ofhis kind master sadly enough. But it was not grief that killed Hugot. Hewas laid low by the same disease of which his master had died--theyellow fever. A week had scarcely passed after the death of the latter,before Hugot caught the disease, and in a few days he was carried to thetomb and laid by the side of his "old Colonel."
The Boy Hunters--Basil, Lucien, Francois--became orphans. They knew ofbut one relation in the whole world, with whom their father had kept upany correspondence. This relation was an uncle, and, strange as it mayseem, a Scotchman--a Highlander, who had strayed to Corsica in earlylife, and had there married the Colonel's sister. That uncle hadafterwards emigrated to Canada, and had become extensively engaged inthe fur trade. He was now a superintendent or "factor" of the Hudson'sBay Company, stationed at one of their most remote posts near the shoresof the Arctic Sea! There is a romance in the history of some men wilderthan any fiction that could be imagined.
I have not yet answered the question as to where our Boy Hunters werejourneying in their birch-bark canoe. By this time you will have divinedthe answer. Certainly, you will say, they were on their way to jointheir uncle in his remote home. For no other object could they betravelling through the wild regions of the Red River. That suppositionis correct. To visit this Scotch uncle (they had not seen him for years)was the object of their long, toilsome, and perilous journey. Aftertheir father's death he had sent for them. He had heard of theirexploits upon the prairies; and, being himself of an adventurousdisposition, he was filled with admiration for his young kinsmen, anddesired very much to have them come and live with him.
Being now their guardian, he might command as much, but it needed notany exercise of authority on his part to induce all three of them toobey his summons. They had travelled through the mighty forests of theMississippi, and upon the summer prairies of the South. These greatfeatures of the earth's surface were to them familiar things, and theywere no longer curious about them. But there remained a vast countrywhich they longed eagerly to explore. They longed to look upon itsshining lakes and crystal rivers; upon its snow-clad hills and ice-boundstreams; upon its huge mammalia--its moose and its musk-oxen, its wapitiand its monster bears. This was the very country to which they were nowinvited by their kinsman, and cheerfully did they accept his invitation.
Already had they made one-half the journey, though by far the easierhalf. They had travelled up the Mississippi by steamboat as far as themouth of the St. Peter's. There they had commenced their canoevoyage--in other words became "voyageurs"--for such is the name given tothose who travel by canoes through these wild territories. Theirfavourite horses and the mule "Jeannette" had been left behind. This wasa necessity, as these creatures, however useful upon the dry prairies ofthe South, where there are few or no lakes, and where rivers only occurat long intervals, would be of little service to the traveller in theNorthern regions. Here the route is crossed and intercepted by numerousrivers; and lakes of all sizes, with tracts of inundated marsh, succeedone another continually. Such, in fact, are the highways of the country,and the canoe the travelling carriage; so that a journey from one pointof the Hudson's Bay territory to another is often a canoe voyage ofthousands of miles--equal to a "trip" across the Atlantic.
Following the usual custom, therefore, our Boy Hunters had becomevoyageurs--"_Young Voyageurs_." They had navigated the St. Peter's insafety, almost to its head-waters. These interlock with the sources ofthe Red River. By a "portage" of a few miles they had crossed to thelatter stream; and, having launched their canoe upon its waters, werenow floating downward and northward with its current. But they had yet along journey before them--nearly two thousand miles! Many a river to be"run," many a rapid to be "shot," many a lake to be crossed, and many a"portage" to be passed, ere they could reach the end of that great_voyage_.
Come, boy reader, shall we accompany them? Yes. The strange scenes andwild adventures through which we must pass, may lighten the toils, andperhaps repay us for the perils of the journey. Think not of the toils.Roses grow only upon thorns. From toil we learn to enjoy leisure. Regardnot the perils. "From the nettle danger we pluck the flower safety."Security often springs from peril. From such hard experiences great menhave arisen. Come, then, my young friend! mind neither toil nor peril,but with me to the great wilderness of the North!
Stay! We are to have another "_compagnon du voyage_." There is a fourthin the boat, a fourth "young voyageur." Who is he? In appearance he isas old as Basil, full as tall, and not unlike him in "build." But he isaltogether of a different _colour_. He is fair-haired; but his hair(unlike that of Lucien, which is also light-coloured) is strong, crisp,and curly. It does not droop, but stands out over his cheeks in aprofusion of handsome ringlets. His complexion is of that kind known as"fresh," and the weather, to which it has evidently been much exposed,has bronzed and rather enriched the colour. The eyes are dark blue, and,strange to say, with _black_ brows and lashes! This is not common,though sometimes observed; and, in the case of the youth we aredescribing, arose from a difference of complexion on the part of hisparents. He looked through the eyes of his mother, while in otherrespects he was more like his father, who was fair-haired and of a"fresh" colour.
The youth, himself, might be termed handsome. Perhaps he did not possessthe youthful beauty of Francois, nor the bolder kind that characterizedthe face of Basil. Perhaps he was of a coarser "make" than any of histh
ree companions. His intellect had been less cultivated by education,and _education adds to the beauty of the face_. His life had been aharder one--he had toiled more with his hands, and had seen less ofcivilized society. Still many would have pronounced him a handsomeyouth. His features were regular, and of clean outline. His lipsexpressed good-nature as well as firmness. His eye beamed with nativeintelligence, and his whole face bespoke a heart of true and determinedhonesty--_that made it beautiful_.
Perhaps a close scrutinizer of countenances might have detected someresemblance--a family one--between him and his three companions. If suchthere was, it was very slight; but there might have been, from therelationship that existed between them and him. He was theircousin--their full cousin--the only son of that uncle they were now ontheir way to visit, and the messenger who had been sent to bring them.Such was the fourth of "the young voyageurs."
His dress was not unlike that worn by Basil; but as he was seated on thebow, and acting as pilot, and therefore more likely to feel the cold,he wore over his hunting-shirt, a Canadian _capote_ of white woollencloth, with its hood hanging down upon his shoulders.
But there was still another "voyageur," an old acquaintance, whom you,boy reader, will no doubt remember. This was an animal, a quadruped, wholay along the bottom of the canoe upon a buffalo's hide. "From his sizeand colour--which was a tawny red--you might have mistaken him for apanther--a cougar. His long black muzzle and broad hanging ears gave himquite a different aspect, however, and declared him to be a hound. He_was_ one--a bloodhound, with the cross of a mastiff--a powerful animal.It was the dog 'Marengo.'" You remember Marengo?
In the canoe there were other objects of interest. There were blanketsand buffalo robes; there was a small canvas tent folded up; there werebags of provisions, and some cooking utensils; there was a spade and anaxe; there were rifles--three of them--and a double-barrelled shot-gun;besides a fish-net, and many other articles, the necessary equipmentsfor such a journey.
Loaded almost to the gunwale was that little canoe, yet lightly did itfloat down the waters of the Red River of the North.