Lords of the North

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"You've said that several times already, Mr. MacKenzie," I put in,
having a touch of his own peppery temper from my mother's side. "What
about Adderly's rage?"

"Adderly's been in Montreal since the night of the row. For the Lord's
sake, boy, do you expect to find the woman by believing in that bloated
bugaboo?"

"But the Citadel paper?" I persisted.

"Of course you've never been told, Rufus Gillespie," he began, choking
down his impatience with the magnitude of my stupidity, "that the
commissariat buys supplies from hunters?"

"That doesn't explain the big squaw's suspicions and Louis' own
conduct."

"That Louis!" says my uncle. "Pah! That son of an inflated old seigneur!
A fig for the buck! Not enough brains in his pate to fill a peanut!"

"But there might be enough evil in his heart to wreck a life," and that
was the first argument to pierce my uncle's scepticism. The keen eyes
glanced out at me as if there might be some hope for my intelligence,
and he took several turns about the room.

"Hm! If you're of that mind, you'd better go out and excavate the
smallpox," was his sententious conclusion. "And if it's a hoax, you'd
better----" and he puckered his brows in thought.

"What?" I asked eagerly.

"Join the traders' crews and track the villains west," he answered with
the promptitude of one who decides quickly and without vacillation. "O
Lord! If I were only young! But to think of a man too stout and old to
buckle on his own snow-shoes hankering for that life again!" And my
uncle heaved a deep sigh.

Now, no one, who has not lived the wild, free life of the northern
trader, can understand the strange fascinations which for the moment
eclipsed in this courteous and chivalrous old gentleman's mind all
thought of the poor woman, with whom my own fate was interwoven. But I,
who have lived in the lonely fastnesses of the splendid freedom, know
full well what surging recollections of danger and daring, of success
and defeat, of action in which one faces and laughs at death, and calm
in which one sounds the unutterable depths of very infinity--thronged
the old trader's soul. Indeed, when he spoke, it was as if the sentence
of my own life had been pronounced; and my whole being rose up to salute
destiny. I take it, there is in every one some secret and cherished
desire for a chosen vocation to which each looks forward with hope up to
the meridian of life, and to which many look back with regret after the
meridian. Of prophetic instincts and intuitions and impressions and
feelings and much more of the same kind going under a different name, I
say nothing, I only set down as a fact, to be explained how it may,
that all the way out to the gorge, with Paul, The Mute leading for a
third time, I could have sworn there would be no corpse in that
snow-covered grave. For was it not written in my inner consciousness
that destiny had appointed me to the wild, free life of the north? So I
was not surprised when Paul Larocque's spade struck sharply on a box.
Indians sleep their last sleep in the skins of the chase. Nor was I in
the least amazed when that same spade pried up the lid of cached
provisions instead of a coffin. Then I had ocular proof of what I knew
before, that Louis in word and conduct--but chiefly in conduct, which is
the way of the expert had--lied outrageously to me.

When the ice broke up at the end of April, hunters were off for their
summer retreats and _voyageurs_ set out on the annual trip to the _Pays
d'En Haut_. This year the Hudson's Bay Company had organized a strong
fleet of canoemen under Mr. Colin Robertson, a former Nor'-Wester, to
proceed to Red River settlement by way of the Ottawa and the Sault
instead of entering the fur preserve by the usual route of Hudson Bay
and York Factory. From Le Grand Diable's former association with the
North-West Company it was probable he would be in Robertson's brigade.
Among the _voyageurs_ of both companies there was not a more expert
canoeman than this treacherous, thievish Iroquois. As steersman, he
could take a crew safely through knife-edge rocks with the swift
certainty of arrow flight. In spite of a reputation for embodying the
vices of white man and red--which gave him his unsavory title--it seemed
unlikely that the Hudson's Bay Company, now in the thick of an
aggressive campaign against its great rival, and about to despatch an
important flotilla from Montreal to Athabasca by way of the
Nor'-Westers' route, would dispense with the services of this dexterous
_voyageur_. On the other hand, the Nor'-Westers might bribe the Iroquois
to stay with them.

Acting on these alternative possibilities, Hamilton and I determined to
track the fugitives north. We could leave hirelings to shadow the
movements of Indian bands about Quebec. Eric could re-engage with the
Hudson's Bay and get passage north with Colin Robertson's brigade, which
was to leave Lachine in a few weeks. My uncle had been a famous
_Bourgeois_ of the great North-West Company in his younger days, and
could secure me an immediate commission in the North-West Company. Thus
we could accompany the _voyageurs_ and runners of both companies.

Hamilton's arrangements were easily made; and my uncle not only obtained
the commission for me, but, with a hearty clap on my back and a "Bravo,
boy! I knew the fur trader's fever would break out in you yet!" pinned
to the breast of my inner waistcoat the showy gold medallion which the
_Bourgeois_ wore on festive occasions. In very truth I oft had need of
its inspiriting motto: _Fortitude in Distress_.

Feudal lords of the middle ages never waged more ruthless war on each
other than the two great fur trading companies of the north at the
beginning of the nineteenth century. Pierre de Raddison and Grosselier,
gentlemen adventurers of New France, first followed the waters of the
Outawa (Ottawa) northward, and passed from Lake Superior (the _kelche
gamme_ of Indian lore) to the great unknown fur preserve between Hudson
Bay and the Pacific Ocean; but the fur monopolists of the French court
in Quebec jealously obstructed the explorers' efforts to open up the
vast territory. De Raddison was compelled to carry his project to the
English court, and the English court, with a liberality not unusual in
those days, promptly deeded over the whole domain, the extent, locality
and wealth of which there was utter ignorance, to a fur trading
organization,--the newly formed "Company of Adventurers of England,
trading into Hudson's Bay," incorporated in 1670 with Prince Rupert
named as first governor. If monopolists of New France, through envy,
sacrificed Quebec's first claim to the unknown land, Frontenac made
haste to repair the loss. Father Albanel, a Jesuit, and other
missionaries led the way westward to the _Pays d'En Haut_. De Raddison
twice changed his allegiance, and when Quebec fell into the hands of the
British nearly a century later, the French traders were as active in the
northern fur preserve as their great rivals, the Ancient and Honorable
Hudson's Bay Company; but the Englishmen kept near the bay and the
Frenchmen with their _coureurs-des-bois_ pushed westward along the
chain of water-ays leading from Lake Superior and Lake Winnipeg to the
Saskatchewan and Athabasca. Then came the Conquest, with the downfall of
French trade in the north country. But there remained the
_coureurs-des-bois_, or wood-rangers, the _Metis_, or French
half-breeds, the _Bois-Brules_, or plain runners--so called, it is
supposed, from the trapper's custom of blazing his path through the
forest. And on the ruins of French barter grew up a thriving English
trade, organized for the most part by enterprising citizens of Quebec
and Montreal, and absorbing within itself all the cast-off servants of
the old French companies. Such was the origin of the X. Y. and
North-West Companies towards the beginning of the nineteenth century. Of
these the most energetic and powerful--and therefore the most to be
feared by the Ancient and Honorable Hudson's Bay Company--was the
North-West Company, "_Les Bourgeois de la Compagnie du Nord-Ouest_," as
the partners designated themselves.

From the time that the North-Westers gratuitously poured their secrets
into the ears of Lord Selkirk, and Lord Selkirk shrewdly got control of
the Hudson's Bay Company and began to infuse Nor'-Westers' zeal into the
stagnant workings of the older company, there arose such a feud among
these lords of the north as may be likened only to the pillaging of
robber barons in the middle ages. And this feud was at its height when I
cast in my lot with the North-West Fur Company, Nor'-Westers had reaped
a harvest of profits by leaving the beaten track of trade and pushing
boldly northward into the remote MacKenzie River region. This year the
Hudson's Bay had determined to enter the same area and employed a former
Nor'-Wester, Mr. Colin Robertson, to conduct a flotilla of canoes from
Lachine, Montreal, by way of the Nor'-Westers' route up the Ottawa to
the Saskatchewan and Athabasca. But while the Hudson's Bay Company could
ship their peltries directly to England from the bay, the Nor'-Westers
labored under the disadvantage of many delays and trans-shipments before
their goods reached seaboard at Montreal. Indeed, I have heard my uncle
tell of orders which he sent from the north to England in October. The
things ordered in October would be sent from London in March to reach
Montreal in mid-summer. There they would be re-packed in small
quantities for portaging and despatched from Montreal with the
Nor'-Western _voyageurs_ the following May, and if destined for the far
north would not reach the end of their long trip until October--two
years from the time of the order. Yet, under such conditions had the
Nor'-Westers increased in prosperity, while the Hudson's Bay, with its
annual ships at York Factory and Churchill, declined.

When Lord Selkirk took hold of the Hudson's Bay there was a change. Once
a feud has begun, I know very well it is impossible to apportion the
blame each side deserves. Whether Selkirk timed his acts of aggression
during the American war of 1812-1814, when the route of the
Nor'-Westers was rendered unsafe--who can say? Whether he brought
colonists into the very heart of the disputed territory for the sake of
the colonists, or to be drilled into an army of defense for The Hudson's
Bay Company--who can say? Whether he induced his company to grant him a
vast area of land at the junction of the Red and Assiniboine
rivers--against which a minority of stockholders protested--for the sake
of these same colonists, or to hold a strategical point past which
North-Westers' cargoes must go--who can say? On these subjects, which
have been so hotly discussed both inside and outside law courts, without
any definite decision that I have ever heard, I refuse to pass judgment.
I can but relate events as I saw them and leave to each the right of a
personal decision.

In 1815, Nor'-Westers' canoes were to leave Ste. Anne de Beaupre, twenty
miles east of Quebec, instead of Ste. Anne on the Ottawa, the usual
point of departure. We had not our full complement of men. Some of the
Indians and half-breeds had gone northwest overland through the bush to
a point on the Ottawa River north of Chaudiere Falls, where they were
awaiting us, and Hamilton, through the courtesy of my uncle, was able to
come with us in our boats as far as Lachine.

I was never a grasping trader, but I provided myself before setting out
with every worthless gew-gaw and flashy trifle that could tempt the
native to betray Indian secrets. Lest these should fail, I added to my
stock a dozen as fine new flint-locks as could corrupt the soul of an
Indian, and without consideration for the enemy's scalp also equipped
myself with a box of wicked-looking hunting-knives. These things I
placed in square cases and sat upon them when we were in barges, or
pillowed my head upon them at night, never losing sight of them except
on long portages where Indians conveyed our cargo on their backs.

A man on a less venturesome quest than mine could hardly have set out
with the brigades of canoemen for the north country and not have been
thrilled like a lad on first escape from school's leading strings. There
we were, twenty craft strong, with clerks, traders, one steersman and
eight willowy, copper-skin paddlers in each long birch canoe. No
oriental prince could be more gorgeously appareled than these gay
_voyageurs_. Flaunting red handkerchiefs banded their foreheads and held
back the lank, black hair. Buckskin smocks, fringed with leather down
the sleeves and beaded lavishly in bright colors, were drawn tight at
the waist by sashes of flaming crimson, green and blue. In addition to
the fringe of leather down the trouser seams, some in our company had
little bells fastened from knee to ankle. It was a strange sight to see
each of these reckless denizens of forest and plain pause reverently
before the chapel of _La Bonne Sainte Anne_, cross himself, invoke her
protection on the voyage and drop some offering in the treasury box
before hurrying to his place in the canoe. One Indian left the miniature
of a carved boat in the hands of the priest at the porch. It was his
votive gift to the saint and may be seen there to this day.

As we were embarking I noticed Eric had not come down and the canoes
were already gliding about the wharf awaiting the head steersman's
signal. I had last seen him on the church steps and ran back from the
river to learn the cause of his delay. Now Hamilton is not a Catholic;
neither is he a Protestant; but I would not have good people ascribe his
misfortunes to this lack of creed, for a trader in the far north loses
denominational distinctions and a better man I have never known. What,
then, was my surprise to meet him face to face coming out of the chapel
with tears coursing down his cheeks and floor-dust thick upon his knees?
Women know what to do and say in such a case. A man must be dumb, or
blunder; so I could but link my arm through his and lead him silently
down to my own canoe.

A single wave of the chief steersman's hand, and out swept the paddles
in a perfect harmony of motion. Then someone struck up a _voyageurs'_
ballad and the canoemen unconsciously kept time with the beat of the
song. The valley seemed filled with the voices of those deep-chested,
strong singers, and the chimes of Ste. Anne clashed out a last sweet
farewell.

"Cheer up, old man!" said I to Eric, who was sitting with face buried in
his hands. "Cheer up! Do you hear the bells? It's a God-speed for you!"

CHAPTER V

CIVILIZATION'S VENEER RUBS OFF

My uncle accompanied our flotilla as far as Lachine and occupied a place
in my division of canoes. Many were the admonitions he launched out like
thunderbolts whenever his craft and mine chanced to glide abreast.

"If you lay hands on that skunk," he had said, the malodorous epithet
being his designation for Louis Laplante, "If you lay hands on that
skunk, don't be a simpleton. Skin him, Sir, by the Lord, skin him! Let
him play the ostrich act! Keep your own counsel and work him for all
you're worth! Let him play his deceitful game! By Jove! Give the villain
rope enough to hang himself! Gain your end! Afterwards forget and
forgive if you like; but, by the Lord, remember and don't ignore the
fact, that repentance can't turn a skunk into an innocent, pussy cat!"

And so Mr. Jack MacKenzie continued to warn me all the way from Quebec
to Montreal, mixing his metaphors as topers mix drinks. But I had long
since learned not to remonstrate against these outbursts of explosive
eloquence--not though all the canons of Laval literati should be
outraged. "What, Sir?" he had roared out when I, in full conceit of new
knowledge, had audaciously ventured to pull him up, once in my student
days. "What, Sir? Don't talk to me of your book-fangled balderdash! Is
language for the use of man, or man for the use of language?" and he
quoted from Hamlet's soliloquy in a way that set me packing my pedant
lore in the unused lumber-room of brain lobes. And so, I say, Mr. Jack
MacKenzie continued to pour instructions into my ear for the venturesome
life on which I had entered. "The lad's a fool, only a fool," he said,
still harping on Louis, "and mind you answer the fool according to his
folly!"

"Most men are fools first, and then knaves, knaves because they have
been fools," I returned to my uncle, "and I fancy Laplante has graduated
from the fool stage by this time, and is a full diploma knave!"

"That's all true," he retorted, "but don't you forget there's always
fool enough left in the knave to give you your opportunity, if you're
not a fool. Joint in the armor, lad! Use your cutlass there."

Apart from the peppery discourses of my kinsman, I remember very little
of the trip up the St. Lawrence from Ste. Anne to Lachine with Eric
sitting dazed and silent opposite me. We, of course, followed the river
channel between the Island of Orleans and the north shore; and whenever
our boats drew near the mainland, came whiffs of crisp, frosty air from
the dank ravines, where snow patches yet lay in the shadow. Then the
fleet would sidle towards the island and there would be the fresh,
spring odor of damp, uncovered mold, with a vague suggestiveness of
violets and May-flowers and ferns bursting with a rush through the black
clods. The purple folds of the mountains, with their wavy outlines
fading in the haze of distance, lay on the north as they lie to-day; and
everywhere on the hills were the white cots of _habitant_ hamlets with
chapel spires pointing above tree-tops. At the western end of the
island, where boats sheer out into mid-current, came the dull, heavy
roar of the cataract and above the north shore rose great, billowy
clouds of foam. With a sweep of our paddles, we were opposite a cleft in
the vertical rock and saw the shimmering, fleecy waters of Montmorency
leap over the dizzy precipice churning up from their own whirling depths
and bound out to the river like a panther after prey.

Now the Isle of Orleans was vanishing on our rear and the bold heights
of Point Levis had loomed up to the fore; and now we had poked our prows
to the right and the sluggish, muddy tide of the St. Charles lapped our
canoes, while a forest of masts and yard-arms and flapping sails arose
from the harbor of Quebec City. The great walls of modern Quebec did not
then exist; but the rude fortifications, that sloped down from the lofty
Citadel on Cape Diamond and engirt the whole city on the hillside,
seemed imposing enough to us in those days.

It was late in the afternoon when we passed. The sunlight struck across
the St. Charles, brightening the dull, gray stone of walls and
cathedrals and convents, turning every window on the west to fire and
transforming a multitude of towers and turrets and minarets to
glittering gold. Small wonder, indeed, that all our rough tripmen
stopped paddling and with eyes on the spire of Notre Dame des Victoires
muttered prayers for a prosperous voyage. For some reason or other, I
found my own hat off. So was Mr. Jack MacKenzie's, so was Eric
Hamilton's. Then the _voyageurs_ fell to work again. The canoes spread
out. We rounded Cape Diamond and the lengthening shadow of the high peak
darkened the river before us. Always the broad St. Lawrence seemed to be
winding from headland to headland among the purple hills, in sunlight a
mirror between shadowy, forest banks, at night, molten silver in the
moon-track. Afternoon slipped into night and night to morning, and each
hour of daylight presented some new panorama of forests and hills and
torrents. Here the river widened into a lake. There the lake narrowed to
rapids; and so we came to Lachine--La Chine, named in ridicule of the
gallant explorer, La Salle, who thought these vast waterways would
surely lead him to China.

At Lachine, Mr. Jack MacKenzie, with much brusque bluster to conceal his
longings for the life he was too old to follow and many cynical
injunctions about "skinning the skunk" and "knocking the head off
anything that stood in my way" and "always profiting from the follies
of other men"--"mind, have none yourself,"--parted from us. Here, too,
Eric gripped my hand a tense, wordless farewell and left our party for
the Hudson's Bay brigade under Colin Robertson.

It has always been a mystery to me why our rivals sent that brigade to
Athabasca by way of Lachine instead of Hudson Bay, which would have been
two thousand miles nearer. We Nor'-Westers went all the way to and from
Montreal, solely because that was our only point of access to the sea;
but the Hudson's Bay people had their own Hudson Bay for a starting
place. Why, in their slavish imitation of the methods, which brought us
success, they also adopted our disadvantages, I could never understand.
Birch canoes and good tripmen could, of course, as the Hudson's Bay men
say, be most easily obtained in Quebec; but with a good organizer, the
same could have been gathered up two thousand miles nearer York Factory,
on Hudson Bay. Indeed, I have often thought the sole purpose of that
expedition was to get Nor'-Westers' methods by employing discarded
Nor'-Westers as trappers and _voyageurs_. Colin Robertson, the leader,
had himself been a Nor'-Wester; and all the men with him except Eric
Hamilton were renegades, "turn-coat traders," as we called them. But I
must not be unjust; for neither company could possibly exceed the other
in its zeal to entice away old trappers, who would reveal opponents'
secrets. Acting on my uncle's advice, I made shift to pick up a few
crumbs of valuable information. Had the Hudson's Bay known, I suppose
they would have called me a spy. That was the name I gave any of them
who might try such tricks with me. The General Assembly of the
North-West partners was to meet at Fort William, at the head of Lake
Superior. I learned that Robertson's brigade were anxious to slip past
our headquarters at Fort William before the meeting and would set out
that very day. I also heard they had sent forward a messenger to notify
the Hudson's Bay governor at Fort Douglas of their brigade's coming.

Almost before I realized it, we were speeding up the Ottawa, past a
second and third and fourth Ste. Anne's; for she is the _voyageurs'_
patron saint and her name dots Canada's map like ink-blots on a boy's
copybook. Wherever a Ste. Anne's is now found, there has the _voyageur_
of long ago passed and repassed. In places the surface of the river,
gliding to meet us, became oily, almost glassy, as if the wave-current
ran too fast to ripple out to the banks. Then little eddies began
whirling in the corrugated water and our paddlers with labored breath
bent hard to their task. By such signs I learned to know when we were
stemming the tide of some raging waterfall, or swift rapid. There would
follow quick disembarking, hurried portages over land through a tangle
of forest, or up slippery, damp rocks, a noisy launching far above the
torrent and swifter progress when the birch canoes touched water again.
Such was the tireless pace, which made North-West _voyageurs_ famous.
Such was the work the great _Bourgeois_ exacted of their men. A liberal
supply of rum, when stoppages were made, and of bread and meat for each
meal--better fare than was usually given by the trading companies--did
much to encourage the tripmen. Each man was doing his utmost to
out-distance the bold rivals following by our route. The _Bourgeois_
were to meet at Fort William early in June. At all hazards we were
determined to notify our company of the enemy's invading flotilla; and
without margin for accidents we had but a month to cross half a
continent.

At nightfall the fourth day from the shrine, after a tiresome nine-mile
traverse past the Chaudiere Falls of the Ottawa, glittering camp-fires
on the river bank ahead showed where a fresh relay of canoemen awaited
us. They were immediately taken into the different crews and
night-shifts of paddlers put to work. It was quite dark, when the new
hands joined us; but in the moonlight, as the chief steersman told off
the men by name, I watched each tawny figure step quickly to his place
in the canoes, with that gliding Indian motion, which scarcely rocked
the light craft. There came to my crew Little Fellow, a short, thick-set
man, with a grinning, good-natured face, who--despite his size--would
solemnly assure people he was equal in force to the sun. With him was La
Robe Noire, of grave aspect and few words, mighty in stature and
shoulder power. There were five or six others, whose names in the
clangor of voices I did not hear. Of these, one was a tall, lithe,
swift-moving man, whose cunning eyes seemed to gleam with the malice of
a serpent. This canoeman silently twisted into sleeping posture directly
behind me.

The signal was given, and we were in mid-stream again. Wrapping my
blanket about me, half propped by a bale of stuff and breathing deep of
the clear air with frequent resinous whiffs from the forest I drowsed
off. The swish of waters rushing past and the roar of torrents, which I
had seen and heard during the day, still sounded in my ears. The sigh of
the night-wind through the forest came like the lonely moan of a
far-distant sea, and I was sleepily half conscious that cedars, pines
and cliffs were engaged in a mad race past the sides of the canoe. A bed
in which one may not stretch at random is not comfortable. Certainly my
cramped limbs must have caused bad dreams. A dozen times I could have
sworn the Indian behind me had turned into a snake and was winding round
my chest in tight, smothering coils. Starting up, I would shake the
weight off. Once I suddenly opened my eyes to find blanket thrown aside
and pistol belt unstrapped. Lying back eased, I was dozing again when I
distinctly felt a hand crawl stealthily round the pack on which I was
pillowed and steal towards the dagger handle in the loosened belt. I
struck at it viciously only to bruise my fist on my dagger. Now wide
awake, I turned angrily towards the Indian. Not a muscle of the still
figure had changed from the attitude taken when he came into the canoe.
The man was not asleep, but reclined in stolid oblivion of my existence.
His head was thrown back and the steely, unflinching eyes were fixed on
the stars.

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