IV THE START FROM FORT YORK
Finding transport for so large a party of settlers taxed the resources ofthe Hudson Bay Company. Several new boats had to be built, and every oneof the immigrants who could handle wood-working tools was called upon tohelp.
The boats were to be despatched in two divisions or brigades. Walter hadtaken for granted that he would travel with the Periers, but he foundhimself assigned to the first division, the Periers to the second. Heasked to be transferred to their boat, but Captain Mai declared thechange could not be made. Only young people were to go in the firstbrigade which was expected to make the best possible speed. Walter wasyoung and strong and without family. The boy protested that he was one ofthe Perier family, he had come with them, and was to live with them inthe settlement, but his protest was of no avail. Elise and Max were asmuch distressed as he was at the arrangement, and he had to comfort themwith the assurance that they would all be together soon at the Red River.
It was well after noon on the day appointed for departure, when the startwas made. The boat carrying the guide, who was really the commandingofficer of the brigade, was propelled by oars out into the stream, andthe square sail raised. With shouts, cheers, and farewells, the long,open craft, well laden with settlers, supplies, and goods, was away upthe river.
When Walter took his place he was pleased to find himself in the sameboat with Louis Brabant. In spite of his disappointment at not travelingwith the Periers, the Swiss boy was in high spirits to be away at last,headed for the wonderful Red River country where his fortune, he feltsure, awaited him. He waved his hat and shouted himself hoarse infarewells to those on shore.
It was a picturesque crowd massed on the dock and fringing the riverbank. Mingled with the Swiss were brown-skinned, long-haired postemployees and voyageurs with bright colored sashes, beaded garters tiedbelow the knees of their deerskin or homespun trousers, caps of fur orcloth, or gaudy handkerchiefs bound about their heads. A little to oneside stood a group of Indians from the wigwams, in buckskin, brightcalicos, blankets, feathers, and beadwork. One old Cree was proudly cladin a discarded army coat of scarlet with gold lace and a tall black hatadorned with feathers. The dress of the Swiss, though in general moresober, was brightened by the gay colors of shawls, aprons, and kerchiefs,of short jackets or long-tailed coats with metal buttons, and ofhome-knit stockings. As various as the costumes were the shouts andfarewells and words of advice exchanged between boats and shore in ababel of tongues, English, Scots English, Swiss French, Canadian French,German, Gaelic, and Cree.
The sail was raised and caught the breeze. Sitting at his ease, Walterturned his attention to what lay ahead. The surrounding country was notvery pleasing in appearance. Scantily wooded with a scrub of willow,poplar, tamarack, and swamp spruce, it was low and flat, especially onthe west, where the York Factory stood between the Hayes and the Nelsonrivers. The Nelson, Louis said, was the larger stream, but the Hayes wassupposed to afford a better route into the interior. Certainly the latterriver was not attractive, with its raw, ragged looking, clay banks,embedded with stones, its muddy islands, and frequent bars and shallowsthat interfered with navigation.
The immigrants were not suffered to sit in idleness all that afternoon.There were two or more experienced rivermen in each boat, but the newcolonists were required to help. When the wind went down before sunset,Walter expected to be called upon to wield an oar. But the current of theHayes was too strong and rapid to be stemmed with oars. The boat wasbrought close to the bank, and the sail lowered. Standing in the stern,the steersman surveyed his crew. Walter, in the other end of the boat,had not noticed the steersman before. Now, he recognized the tall manwith the braided hair, who had come up behind him so noiselessly in theIndian trading room at the fort.
In his deep, metallic voice the steersman began to speak, pointing firstat one man, then at another. When his bright, hard little eyes alightedon Walter, and his long, brown forefinger pointed him out, the boy wasmoved by the same strong, instinctive dislike, almost akin to fear, hehad felt when he first looked into the half-breed's face. The fellow'sFrench was so strange that Walter could not grasp the meaning. With aquestioning glance, he turned to Louis Brabant.
"You are to go ashore," Louis explained. "Murray has chosen you in hiscrew. The tracking begins now."
Walter had no idea what tracking might be, but he rose to obey. Withseveral others, including Louis, he jumped from the boat to the muddy bitof beach. The steersman handed each a leather strap, and Louis showedWalter how to attach his to the tow-line and pass the strap over his"inshore" shoulder. Like horses on a tow-path, the men were to haul theboat, with the rest of the party in it, up stream.
The steep, clay banks were slippery from recent rains. Fallen trees, thathad been undermined and had slid part way down the incline, projected atall angles. The willing, but inexperienced tracking crew slipped,stumbled, scrambled, and struggled along, tugging at the tow-line. Withmaddening ease the tall steersman, in the lead, strode through and overthe obstacles, turning his head every minute or two to shout back ordersand abuse. He seemed to have the utmost contempt for his greenhorn crew,but he tried to urge and threaten them to a pace of which they were quiteincapable. Every time a man slipped or stumbled, jerking the tow-line,Murray poured out a torrent of violent and profane abuse, in such badFrench and English, so intermixed with Gaelic and Indian words, that,luckily, the Swiss could not understand a quarter of it.
Walter understood the tone, if not the words. He grew angrier andangrier, as he strained and tugged at the rope and struggled to keep hisfooting on the slippery bank. But he had the sense to realize that hemust not start a mutiny on the first day of the journey. He held histongue and labored on. The boy was thin, not having filled out to hisheight, but he was strong. He was mountain bred, with muscular legs, goodheart and lungs. Nevertheless when at last Murray gave the order to halt,only pride kept Walter from dropping to the ground to rest.
The second shift was led by a fair-haired, blue-eyed man from the OrkneyIslands, off the coast of Scotland, where the Hudson Bay Companyrecruited many of its employees. Before his crew were through with theirturn at the tow-line, they came in sight, on rounding a bend, of thefirst two boats with bows drawn up on a stretch of muddy beach. Fartherback on higher ground tents were going up and fires being kindled. Murrayordered out the oars, and boat number three was run in beside the others.
After the tent, bedding, and provisions for the night were unloaded, thetall steersman, without troubling to help with the camp making, tookhimself off. It was young Louis Brabant who took charge. He selected thespot for the one tent and helped to pitch it. Then he sent a man and aboy to collect fuel, and Walter and another into the woods to stripbalsam fir branches for beds. Louis himself started the cooking fire,between two green logs spaced so that the big iron kettle rested uponthem. From a chunk of dried caribou meat,--so hard and dry it looked agood deal like sole leather,--he shaved off some shreds. After he hadground the bits of meat between two stones, he put the partly pulverizedstuff to boil in a kettle of water. This soup, thickened with flour, wasthe principal dish of the meal. Several handfuls of dark blue saskatoonor service berries, gathered near by, served as dessert. By the timesupper was ready, the young Canadian's swift, deft way of working, hisskill and certainty, his good nature and helpfulness, had won the goodwill of everyone.
Walter asked Louis how long it would be before the second brigade leftFort York.
"That I cannot tell. As soon as all is ready. You regret to be separatedfrom your family?"
"They aren't really my family. I am apprenticed to Monsieur Perier."
"The young Englishmen who come over to be clerks for the Company," Louisremarked, "sign a paper to serve for five years. Is it so with you?"
"Something like that, and in return Monsieur Perier agrees to give me ahome and teach me the business. When he decided to come to America, hereally released me from the agreement
though. He offered to treat me likehis own son if I came with him."
"If you are twenty-one you can get land of your own in the Colony."
"I'm not sixteen yet."
"Is it so?" cried Louis. "Then we are the same age, you and me. Fifteenyears last Christmas day I was born. So my mother told Pere Provencherwhen I was baptized."
"My birthday is in February," Walter replied. "I thought you must beolder than that. How long have you been a voyageur for the Company?"
"For the Hudson Bay Company only this summer. This is the first time Ihave come to Fort York. Last year, after my father died, I went to theKaministikwia with the Northwest men. But always since I was big enough Ihave known how to carry a pack and paddle a canoe. The birch canoe,--ah,that is the right kind of boat! These heavy affairs of wood," Louisshrugged contemptuously. "They are so slow, so heavy to track and toportage. You have the birch canoe in your country? No? Then you cannotunderstand. When you have voyaged in a birch canoe, you will want no moreof these heavy things."
"Why does the Company use them?"
Louis shrugged again as if the ways of the Hudson Bay Company were pastunderstanding. "The wooden boats will carry greater loads," he admitted,"and they are stronger, yes. Sometimes you get a hole in a canoe and youmust stop to mend it. Yet I think you do not lose so much time that wayas in dragging these heavy boats over portages."
The wavering white bands of the aurora borealis were mounting thenorthern sky before the camp was ready for the night. The one tentcarried by boat number three was given up to the women and children.Walter rolled himself in a blanket and lay down with the other men on abed of fir branches close to the fire. The air was sharp and cold, and hewould have been glad of another blanket. But he had been well used tocold weather in his native country, and had become still more hardened toit during the long voyage in northern waters.