Chapter X The Dog-sled
A cloud of smoke from its many wigwam fires overhung the Indian camp as Louison and Wilfred drew near. The hunter’s son, with his quick ear, stole cautiously through the belt of pine trees which sheltered it from the north wind, listening for any sounds of awakening life. Yesterday’s adventure had no doubt been followed by a prolonged feast, and men and dogs were still sleeping. A few squaws, upon whom the hard work of the Indian world all devolves, were already astir. Louison thought they were gathering firewood outside the camp. This was well. Louison hung round about the outskirts, watching their proceedings, until he saw one woman behind a wigwam gathering snow to fill her kettle. Her pappoose in its wooden cradle was strapped to her back; but she had seen or heard them, for she paused in her occupation and looked up wondering.
Louison stepped forward.
“Now for your questions, my boy,” he said to Wilfred, “and I will play interpreter.”
“Is there an old squaw in your camp named the Far-off-Dawn?”
Wilfred needed no interpreter to explain the “caween” given in reply.
“Tell her, Louison,” he hurried on, “she was with me the night before last. I thought she left me to follow this trail. If she has not reached this camp, she must be lost in the snow.”
“Will not some of your people go and look for her,” added Louison, on his own account, “before you move on?”
“What is the use?” she asked. “Death will have got her by this time. She came to the camp; she was too old to travel. If she is alive, she may overtake us again. We shall not move on until another sunrising, to rest the horses.”
“Then I shall go and look for her,” said Wilfred resolutely.
“Not you,” retorted Louison; “wait a bit.” He put his hand in his pockets. They had been well filled with tea and tobacco, in readiness for any emergency. “Is not there anybody in the camp who will go and look for her?”
Louison was asking his questions for the sake of the information he elicited, but Wilfred caught at the idea in earnest. “Go and see,” urged Louison, offering her a handful of his tea.
“Thé!” she repeated. The magic word did wonders. Louison knew if one of the men were willing to leave the camp to look for Pe-na-Koam, no further mischief was intended. But if they were anticipating a repetition of “the high old time” they had enjoyed yesterday, not one of them could be induced to forego their portion in so congenial a lark, for in their eyes it was nothing more.
The squaw took the tea in both her hands, gladly leaving her kettle in the snow, as she led the way into the camp.
Wilfred, who had only seen the poor little canvas tents of the Crees, looked round him in astonishment. In the centre stood the lodge or moya of the chief—a wigwam built in true old Indian style, fourteen feet high at the least. Twelve strong poles were stuck in the ground, round a circle fifteen feet across. They were tied together at the top, and the outside was covered with buffalo-skins, painted black and red in all sorts of figures. Eagles seemed perching on the heads of deers, and serpents twisted and coiled beneath the feet of buffaloes. The other wigwams built around it were in the same style, on a smaller scale, all brown with smoke.
A goodly array of spears, bows, and shields adorned the outside of the moya; above them the much-coveted rifles were ranged with exceeding pride. The ground between the moya and the tents was littered with chips and bones, among which the dogs were busy. A few children were pelting each other with the snow, or trying to shoot at the busy jays with a baby of a bow and arrows to match.
Louison pushed aside the fur which hung over the entrance to the moya—the man-hole—and stepped inside. A beautiful fire was burning in the middle of the tent. The floor was strewed with pine brush, and skins were hung round the inside wall, like a dado. They fitted very closely to the ground, so as to keep out all draught. The rabbits and swans, the buzzards and squirrels painted on this dado were so lifelike, Wilfred thought it must be as good as a picture-book to the dear little pappoose, strapped to its flat board cradle, and set upright against the wall whilst mother was busy. The sleeping-places were divided by wicker-screens, and seemed furnished with plenty of blankets and skins. One or two of them were still occupied; but Oma-ka-pee-mulkee-yeu lay on a bear-skin by the fire, with his numerous pipes arranged beside him. The squaw explained the errand of their early visitors: a woman was lost in the snow, would the chief send one of his people to find her?
The Great Swan looked over his shoulder and said something. A young man rose up from one of the sleeping-places.
Both were asking, “What was the good?”
“She is one of your own people,” urged Louison. “We came to tell you.”
This was not what Wilfred had said, and it was not all he wanted, but he was forced to trust it to Louison, although he was uneasy.
He could see plainly enough an Indian would be far more likely to find her than himself, but would they? Would any of them go?
Louison offered a taste of his tobacco to the old chief and the young, by way of good-fellowship.
“They will never do it for that,” thought Wilfred growing desperate again. He had but one thing about him he could offer as an inducement, and that was his knife. He hesitated a moment. He thought of Pe-na-Koam dying in the snow, and held it out to the young chieftain.
The dusky fingers gripped the handle.
“Will you take care of her and bring her here, or give her food and build up her hut?” asked Wilfred, making his meaning as plain as he could, by the help of nods and looks and signs.
The young chief was outside the man-hole in another moment. He slung his quiver to his belt and took down his bow, flung a stout blanket over his shoulder, and shouted to his squaw to catch a bronco, the usual name for the Canadian horse. The kettle was in his hand.
“Can we trust him?” asked Wilfred, as he left the camp by Louison’s side.
“Trust him! yes,” answered his companion. “Young Sapoo is one of those Indians who never break faith. His word once given, he will keep it to the death.”
“Then I have only to pray that he may be in time,” said Wilfred gravely, as he stood still to watch the wild red man galloping back to the beavers’ lakelet.
“Oh, he will be in time,” returned Louison cheerily. “All their wigwam poles would be left standing, and plenty of pine brush and firewood strewing about. She is sure to have found some shelter before the heaviest fall of snow; that did not come until it was nearly morning.”
Gaspé had climbed the lookout to watch for their return.
“Wilfred, mon cher,” he exclaimed, “you must have a perfect penchant for running away. How could you give us the slip in such a shabby fashion? I could not believe Chirag. If the bears were not all dropping off into their winter sleep, I should have thought some hungry bruin had breakfasted upon you.”
Gaspé’s grandfather had turned carpenter, and was already at work mending his broken doors. Not being a very experienced workman, his planking and his panelling did not square. Wood was plentiful, and more than one piece was thrown aside as a misfit. Both the boys were eager to assist in the work of restoration. A broken shelf was mended between them—in first-rate workmanly style, as Wilfred really thought. “We have done that well,” they agreed; and when Mr. De Brunier—who was still chipping at his refractory panel—added a note of commendation to their labours, Gaspé’s spirits ran up to the very top of the mental thermometer.
To recover his balance—for Wilfred unceremoniously declared he was off his head—Gaspé fell into a musing fit. He wakened up, exclaiming,—
“I’m flying high!”
“Then mind you don’t fall,” retorted Mr. De Brunier, who himself was cogitating somewhat darkly over Louison’s intelligence. “There will be no peace for me,” he said, “no security, whilst these Blackfeet are in the neighbourhood. ‘Wait for another sun-rising’—that means another forty-eight hours of incessant vigilance for me. It was want of confidence did it all. I should teach them to trust me in time, but it cannot be done in a day.”
As he moved on, lamenting over the scene of destruction, Gaspé laid a hand on Wilfred’s arm. “How are you going to keep pace with the hunters with that lame foot?” he demanded.
“As the tortoise did with the hare,” laughed Wilfred. “Get myself left behind often enough, I don’t doubt that.”
“But I doubt if you will ever get to your home à la tortoise,” rejoined Gaspé. “No, walking will never do for you. I am thinking of making you a sled.”
“A sledge!” repeated Wilfred in surprise.
“Oh, we drop the ‘ge’ you add to it in your English dictionaries,” retorted Gaspé. “We only say sled out here. There will be plenty of board when grandfather has done his mending. We may have what we want, I’m sure. Your dog is a trained hauler, and why shouldn’t we teach my biggest pup to draw with him? They would drag you after the hunters in fine style. We can do it all, even to their jingling bells.”
Wilfred, who had been accustomed to the light and graceful carioles and sledges used in the Canadian towns, thought it was flying a bit too high. But Gaspé, up in all the rough-and-ready contrivances of the backwoods, knew what he was about. Louison and Chirag had to be consulted.
When all the defences were put in order—bolts, bars, and padlocks doubled and trebled, and a rough but very ponderous double door added to the storeroom—Mr. De Brunier began to speak of rest.
“The night cometh in which no man can work,” he quoted, as if in justification of the necessary stoppage.
The hammer was laid down, and he sank back in his hard chair, as if he were almost ashamed to indulge in his one solace, the well-filled pipe Gaspé was placing so coaxingly in his fingers. A few sedative whiffs were enjoyed in silence; but before the boys were sent off to bed, Gaspé had secured the reversion of all the wooden remains of the carpentering bout, and as many nails as might be reasonably required.
“Now,” said Gaspé, as he tucked himself up by Wilfred’s side, and pulled the coverings well over head and ears, “I’ll show you what I can do.”
Three days passed quickly by. On the morning of the fourth Louison walked in with a long face. The new horse, the gift of the Blackfoot chief, had vanished in the night. The camp had moved on, nothing but the long poles of the wigwams were left standing.
The loss of a horse is such an everyday occurrence in Canada, where horses are so often left to take care of themselves, it was by no means clear that Oma-ka-pee-mulkee-yeu had resumed his gift, but it was highly probable.
Notwithstanding, the Company had not been losers by the riotous marketing, for the furs the Blackfeet had brought in were splendid.
“Yes, we were all on our guard—thanks to you, my little man—or it might have ended in the demolition of the fort,” remarked Mr. De Brunier. “Now, if there is anything you want for your journey, tell me, and you shall have it.”
“Yes, grandfather,” interposed Gaspé. “He must have a blanket to sleep in, and there is the harness for the dogs, and a lot of things.”
Wilfred grew hot. “Please, sir, thanks; but I don’t think I want much. Most of all, perhaps, something to eat.”
Mr. De Brunier recommended a good hunch of pemmican, to cut and come again. The hunters would let him mess with them if he brought his own pemmican and a handful of tea to throw into their boiling kettle. The hunters’ camp was about sixty miles from Hungry Hall. They would be two or three days on the road.
More than one party of hunters had called at the fort already, wanting powder and ball, matches, and a knife; and when the lynx and marten and wolf skins which they brought were told up, and the few necessaries they required were provided, the gay, careless, improvident fellows would invest in a tasselled cap bright with glittering beads.
The longer Wilfred stayed at the fort, the more Mr. De Brunier hesitated about letting the boy start for so long a journey with no better protection. Gaspard never failed to paint the danger and magnify the difficulties of the undertaking, wishing to keep his new friend a little longer. But Wilfred was steady to his purpose. He saw no other chance of getting back to his home. He did not say much when Mr. De Brunier and Gaspé were weighing chances and probabilities, hoping some travelling party from the north might stop by the way at Hungry Hall and take him on with them. Such things did happen occasionally.
But Wilfred had a vivid recollection of his cross-country journey with Forgill. He could not see that he should be sure of getting home if he accepted Mr. De Brunier’s offer and stayed until the river was frozen and then went down with him to their mid-winter station, trusting to a seat in some of the Company’s carts or the Company’s sledges to their next destination.
Then there would be waiting and trusting again to be sent on another stage, and another, and another, until he would at last find himself at Fort Garry. “Then,” he asked, “what was he to do? If his uncle and aunt knew that he was there, they might send Forgill again to fetch him. But if letters reached Acland’s Hut so uncertainly, how was he to let them know?”
As Wilfred worked the matter out thus in his own mind, he received every proposition of Mr. De Brunier’s with, “Please, sir, I’d rather go to Bowkett. He lost me. He will be sure to take me straight home.”
“The boy knew his own mind so thoroughly,” Mr. De Brunier told Gaspard at last, “they must let him have his own way.”
The sled was finished. It was a simple affair—two thin boards about four feet long nailed together edgeways, with a tri-cornered piece of wood fitted in at the end. Two old skates were screwed on the bottom, and the thing was done. The boys worked together at the harness as they sat round the stove in the evening. The snow was thicker, the frost was harder every night. Ice had settled on the quiet pools, and was spreading over the quick-running streams, but the dash of the falls still resisted its ever-encroaching influence. By-and-by they too must yield, and the whole face of nature would be locked in its iron clasp. November was wearing away. A sunny morning came now and then to cheer the little party so soon to separate.
Gaspé proposed a run with the dogs, just to try how they would go in their new harness, and if, after all, the sled would run as a sled should.
Other things were set aside, and boys and men gathered in the court. Even Mr. De Brunier stepped out to give his opinion about the puppies. Gaspé had named them from the many tongues of his native Canada.
In his heart Wilfred entertained a secret belief that not one of them would ever be equal to his Yula. They were Athabascans. They would never be as big for one thing, and no dog ever could be half as intelligent; that was not possible. But he did not give utterance to these sentiments. It would have looked so ungrateful, when Gaspé was designing the best and biggest for his parting gift. And they were beauties, all four of them.
There was Le Chevalier, so named because he never appeared, as Gaspé declared, without his white shirtfront and white gloves. Then there was his bluff old English Boxer, the sturdiest of the four. He looked like a hauler. Kusky-tay-ka-atim-moos, or “the little black dog,” according to the Cree dialect, had struck up a friendship with Yula, only a little less warm than that which existed between their respective masters. Then the little schemer with the party-coloured face was Yankee-doodle.
“Try them all in harness, and see which runs the best,” suggested grandfather, quite glad that his Gaspard should have one bright holiday to checker the leaden dulness of the everyday life at Hungry Hall.
Louison was harnessing the team. He nailed two long strips of leather to the lowest end of the sled for traces. The dogs’ collars were made of soft leather, and slipped over the head. Each one was ornamented with a little tinkling bell under the chin and a tuft of bright ribbon at the back of the ear, and a buckle on either side through which the traces were passed. A band of leather round the dogs completed the harness, and to this the traces were also securely buckled. The dogs stood one before the other, about a foot apart.
Yula was an experienced hand, and took the collar as a matter of course. Yankee was the first of the puppies to stand in the traces, and his severe doggie tastes were completely outraged by the amount of finery Gaspé and Louison seemed to think necessary for their proper appearance.
Wilfred was seated on a folded blanket, with a buffalo-robe tucked over his feet. Louison flourished a whip in the air to make the dogs start. Away went Yula with something of the velocity of an arrow from a bow, knocking down Gaspé, who thought of holding the back of the sled to guide it.
He scrambled to his feet and ran after it. Yula was careering over the snow at racehorse speed, ten miles an hour, and poor little Yankee, almost frightened out of his senses, was bent upon making a dash at the ribbon waving so enticingly before his eyes. He darted forward. He hung back. He lurched from side to side. He twisted, he turned. He upset the equilibrium of the sledge. It banged against a tree on one side, and all but tilted over on the other. One end went down into a badger hole, leaving Wilfred and his blanket in a heap on the snow, when Yankee, lightened of half his load, fairly leaped upon Yula’s back and hopelessly entangled the traces. The boys concealed an uneasy sense of ignominious failure under an assertion calculated to put as good a face as they could on the matter: “We have not got it quite right yet, but we shall.”