III DRIVEN BEFORE THE GALE
On a clear, sunny morning of the first week in May, the NorthwestCompany's sloop _Otter_, with a favoring wind, made her way up-streamtowards the gateway of Lake Superior. At the Indian village on the curveof the shore opposite Point aux Pins, men, women, children andsharp-nosed dogs turned out to see the white-sailed ship go by. Throughthe wide entrance to the St. Mary's River, where the waters of LakeSuperior find their outlet, the sloop sailed under the most favorableconditions. Between Point Iroquois on the south and high Gros Cap, theGreat Cape, on the north, its summit indigo against the bright blue ofthe sky, she passed into the broad expanse of the great lake. The littlefur-trading vessels of the first years of the nineteenth century did notfollow the course taken by the big passenger steamers and long freightersof today, northwest through the middle of the lake. Instead, the Captainof the _Otter_ took her almost directly north.
The southerly breeze, light at first, freshened within a few hours, andthe sloop sailed before it like a gull on the wing. Past Goulais Pointand Coppermine Point and Cape Gargantua, clear to Michipicoton Bay, thefirst stop, the wind continued favorable, the weather fine. It wasremarkably fine for early May, and Hugh Beaupre had hopes of a swift andpleasant voyage. So far his work as a member of the crew of six was notheavy. Quick-witted and eager to do his best, he learned his dutiesrapidly, striving to obey on the instant the sharply spoken commands ofmaster and mate.
At the mouth of the Michipicoton River was a Northwest Company tradingpost, and there the _Otter_ ran in to discharge part of her cargo ofsupplies and goods. She remained at Michipicoton over night, and, afterthe unloading, Hugh was permitted to go ashore. The station, a far moreimportant one, in actual trade in furs, than the post at the Sault, hefound an interesting place. Already some of the Indians were arrivingfrom the interior, coming overland with their bales of pelts on dogsleds. When the Michipicoton River and the smaller streams should be freeof ice, more trappers would follow in their birch canoes.
As if on purpose to speed the ship, the wind had shifted to the southeastby the following morning. The weather was not so pleasant, however, forthe sky was overcast. In the air was a bitter chill that penetrated thethickest clothes. Captain Bennett, instead of appearing pleased with thedirection of the breeze, shook his head doubtfully as he gazed at thegloomy sky and the choppy, gray water. A sailing vessel must takeadvantage of the wind, so, in spite of the Captain's apprehensiveglances, the _Otter_ went on her way.
All day the wind held favorable, shifting to a more easterly quarter andgradually rising to a brisk blow. The sky remained cloudy, the distancethick, the water green-gray.
As darkness settled down, rain began to fall, fine, cold and driven fromthe east before a wind strong enough to be called a gale. In the wet andchill, the darkness and rough sea, Hugh's work was far harder and moreunpleasant. But he made no complaint, even to himself, striving to makeup by eager willingness for his ignorance of a sailor's foul weatherduties. There was no good harbor near at hand, and, the gale being stillfrom the right quarter, Captain Bennett drove on before it. Aftermidnight the rain turned to sleet and snow. The wind began to veer andshift from east to northeast, to north and back again.
Before morning all sense of location had been lost. Under close-reefedsails, the sturdily built little _Otter_ battled wind, waves, sleet andsnow. She pitched and tossed and wallowed. All hands remained on deck.Hugh, sick and dizzy with the motion, chilled and shivering in the bittercold, wished from the bottom of his heart he had never set foot upon thesloop. Struggling to keep his footing on the heaving, ice-coated deck,and to hold fast to slippery, frozen ropes, he was of little enough use,though he did his best.
The dawn brought no relief. In the driving snow, neither shore nor skywas to be seen, only a short stretch of heaving, lead-gray water.Foam-capped waves broke over the deck. Floating ice cakes careenedagainst the sides of the ship. On the way to Michipicoton no ice had beenencountered, but now the tossing masses added to the peril.
Midday might as well have been midnight. The falling snow, fine, icy,stinging, shut off all view more completely than blackest darkness. Theweary crew were fighting ceaselessly to keep the _Otter_ afloat. TheCaptain himself clung with the steersman to the wheel. Then, quitewithout warning, out of the northeast came a sudden violent squall. Ashriek of rending canvas, and the close-reefed sail, crackling with ice,was torn away. Down crashed the shattered mast. As if bound for thebottom of the lake, the sloop wallowed deep in the waves.
Hugh sprang forward with the others. On the slanting, ice-sheathed deck,he slipped and went down. He was following the mast overboard, whenBaptiste seized him by the leg. The dangerous task of cutting loose thewreckage was accomplished. The plucky _Otter_ righted herself and droveon through the storm.
With the setting of the sun, invisible through the snow and mist, thewind lessened. But that night, if less violent than the preceding one,was no less miserable. Armored in ice and frozen snow, the sloop rodeheavy and low, battered by floating cakes, great waves washing her decks.She had left the Sault on a spring day. Now she seemed to be back inmidwinter. Yet, skillfully handled by her master, she managed to livethrough the night.
Before morning, the wind had fallen to a mere breeze. The waves no longerswept the deck freely, but the lake was still so rough that theice-weighted ship made heavy going. Her battle with the storm had sprungher seams. Two men were kept constantly at the pumps. No canvas was leftbut the jib, now attached to the stump of the mast. With this makeshiftsail, and carried along by the waves, she somehow kept afloat.
From the lookout there came a hoarse bellow of warning. Through themuffling veil of falling snow, his ears had caught the sound of surf. Thesteersman swung the wheel over. The ship sheered off just as the foamingcrests of breaking waves and the dark mass of bare rocks appeared closeat hand.
Along the abrupt shore the _Otter_ beat her way, her captain striving tokeep in sight of land, yet far enough out to avoid sunken or detachedrocks. Anxiously his tired, bloodshot eyes sought for signs of a harbor.It had been so long since he had seen sun or stars that he had littlenotion of his position or of what that near-by land might be. Shadowy asthe shore appeared in the falling snow, its forbidding character wasplain enough, cliffs, forest crowned, rising abruptly from the water, andbroken now and then by shallow bays lined with tumbled boulders. Thoseshallow depressions promised no shelter from wind and waves, even for sosmall a ship as the _Otter_.
No less anxiously than Captain Bennett did Hugh Beaupre watch thatinhospitable shore. So worn was he from lack of sleep, exhausting andlong continued labor and seasickness, so chilled and numbed and weak andmiserable, that he could hardly stand. But the sight of solid land,forbidding though it was, had revived his hope.
A shout from the starboard side of the sloop told him that land hadappeared in that direction also. In a few minutes the _Otter_, runningbefore the wind, was passing between forest-covered shores. As the shoresdrew closer together, the water became calmer. On either hand and aheadwas land. The snow had almost ceased to fall now. The thick woods ofsnow-laden evergreens and bare-limbed trees were plainly visible.
Staunch little craft though the _Otter_ was, her strained seams wereleaking freely, and her Captain had decided to beach her in the firstfavorable spot. A bit of low point, a shallow curve in the shore with astretch of beach, served his purpose. There he ran his ship aground, andmade a landing with the small boat.
His ship safe for the time being, Captain Bennett's next care was for hiscrew. That they had come through the storm without the loss of a man wasa matter for thankfulness. Everyone, however, from the Captain himself toHugh, was worn out, soaked, chilled to the bone and more or less batteredand bruised. One man had suffered a broken arm when the mast went overside, and the setting of the bone had been hasty and rough. The mate hadstrained his back painfully.
All but the mate and the man with the broken arm, the Ca
ptain set togathering wood and to clearing a space for a camp on the sandy point. Thepoint was almost level and sparsely wooded with birch, mountain ash andbushes. Every tree and shrub, its summer foliage still in the bud, waswet, snow covered or ice coated. Birch bark and the dry, crumbly centerof a dead tree trunk made good tinder, however. Baptiste, skilled in theart of starting a blaze under the most adverse conditions, soon had aroaring fire. By that time the snow had entirely ceased, and the cloudswere breaking.
Around the big fire the men gathered to dry their clothes and warm theirbodies, while a thick porridge of hulled corn and salt pork boiled in aniron kettle over a smaller blaze. The hot meal put new life into thetired men. The broken arm was reset, the minor injuries cared for, and apole and bark shelter, with one side open to the fire, was set up. Beforethe lean-to was completed the sun was shining. In spite of the sharpnorth wind, the snow and ice were beginning to melt. A flock ofblack-capped chickadees were flitting about the bare-branched birches,sounding their brave, deep-throated calls, and a black and whitewoodpecker was hammering busily at a dead limb.
No attempt was made to repair the ship that day. Only the most necessarywork was done, and the worn-out crew permitted to rest. A lonely placeseemed this unknown bay or river mouth, without white man's cabin,Indian's bark lodge or even a wisp of smoke from any other fire. But thesheltered harbor was a welcome haven to the sorely battered ship and theexhausted sailors. Wolves howled not far from the camp that night, andnext morning their tracks were found in the snow on the beach close towhere the sloop lay. It would have required far fiercer enemies than theslinking, cowardly, brush wolves to disturb the rest of the tired crew ofthe _Otter_. Hugh did not even hear the beasts.