CHAPTER XVI.

AN ALARM IN THE CAMP.

The note extended a cordial invitation to the boys to dine at "The Rocks" on the following day, and Mr. Clarke offered to send his yacht to convey them to his island. The dinner was to be in the middle of the day, in accordance with the custom of the region, and as that fact left the afternoon practically free, all the party were eager to accept. Perhaps it was not merely the expected pleasure of meeting Mr. and Mrs. Clarke, or of enjoying a trip in his yacht, which was acknowledged to be one of the most beautiful and fleet on the entire river, which moved them; but if other inducements, not referred to in the note of invitation, did appear, no one mentioned them.

After supper, when Ethan prepared to depart from the camp, Tom said, "I think I'll wait a little while, pa. I'll come home in a couple of hours."

"All right, son," responded Ethan. "I think ye'd better take one o' the canoes when ye start, and leave the skiff with the boys. It'll be safer like, ye see, if they take it into their heads to go out on the river."

Ben made a wry face at the implied slight on their ability to use the canoes, but no one spoke, and the boatman soon departed.

"I wanted you to hear me speak my piece again, if you would," said Tom, when his father had gone. "I know I don't do it very well, and as you have had so much better advantages than I have, I'd like to have you help me, if you will."

Before any one could reply, Bert made a sudden dart from the camp-fire and was speedily followed by Jock. "What's the matter with those boys?" inquired Tom, innocently, as he glanced up at the departing lads.

"I don't think they feel very well," replied Bob, soberly.

"They don't? Do you want me to go over to the bay and get a doctor? It won't take an hour."

"No physician can reach the seat of their trouble," said Ben, solemnly. "It's deeper than any human skill can go."

"You don't mean it! Perhaps I'd better wait and not ask you to hear me speak my piece to-night."

"Oh, that won't make any difference. Ben, here, is perfectly willing to hear you. In fact, he enjoys it; and while you are speaking, I'll go and look up the other fellows, and see what I can do to help them."

Bob's evident desire to escape was all unnoticed by the unsuspecting Tom, and as soon as he was left alone with Ben, he began to speak. For a half-hour or more the camp resounded with, "Tew be or not tew be-e-e," but no one returned to disturb the orator until the practice had been ended.

Then, as the three lads came back, Tom said, "I'm sorry, boys, that you don't feel well. I told Bob I'd go over to the bay for a doctor, but he said you didn't want any."

"No physician in Alexandria Bay could prescribe for those boys when they get an attack of self-abasement. It's a serious matter."

"There's one thing about it," said Jock, "and that is, that Bob, here, isn't likely to catch it."

Tom, evidently, did not appreciate the point, but he nevertheless accepted Jock's invitation to remain, and stretched himself on the grass before the roaring camp-fire with the others.

"I was about to remark the other evening, when my irreverent friend interrupted me," began Bob, "that Cartier came back here."

"Bob, are you going on with that yarn?" demanded Ben.

"No yarn about it. I'm going to help you fellows to see the point for once in your lives."

"You mean you're going to try to make a point some one can see," retorted Ben. "Well, wake me up when you come to the point. Life's too short to spend it in trying to understand Bob's stuff. If he ever comes to a point, let me know;" and Ben rolled over upon the grass, and covering his face with his hat, pretended to be sleeping.

"Go on with your Cartier," said Bert. "I don't know what we've done to deserve all this, but if we've got to have it, then the sooner it's done the better."

"Cartier," began Bob, giving the name a peculiar emphasis to expose Bert's ignorance, "made a great stir when he got back to St. Malo,--that was in September, 1534, as I said,--and the king was tickled most of all. He immediately promised to fit out a new expedition, and a lot of the young nobles and swells wanted to join. Cartier was the rage, you see, and even the children cried for him; and as for the ladies, why, even brass buttons didn't count along with Jakie's commission as 'captain and pilot of the king.'

"About the middle of the next May everything was ready, and Cartier and his men went up to the cathedral together, and special services were held for them, and the bishop gave them his blessing. Having looked after that part of it, Cartier then took his men aboard his squadron and set sail. He had three vessels this time, though I don't just recall the names of them."

"_La Grande Hermione_, _La Petite Hermione_, and _L'Emérillon_," suggested Tom, who had been listening attentively.

"Thank you," replied Bob, somewhat confused, to the evident delight of his companions. "Those were the names. Well, they hadn't been out on the ocean sailing very long before they were separated by the storms, but after a rough passage they finally came together in the straits of Belle Isle."

"At the inlet of Blanc Sablon," suggested Tom.

A laugh greeted his words; but though Tom's face flushed, he soon perceived that he was not the cause of the merriment, and though he could not understand Bob's momentary confusion, he, too, joined in the good-natured laughter.

"On the last day of July they sailed to the westward and started up the St. Lawrence. It was the first day of September when Cartier found the mouth of the Saguenay, and the fourteenth when he came to a little river about thirty miles from Quebec, which he named the Sainte Croix. The next day an Indian came to see him--"

"Hold on, Bob, isn't that enough?" inquired Bert, in apparent despair.

"The Indian was an Algonquin chief with a funny name--"

"Donnacona," suggested Tom, mildly.

Again a loud laugh greeted his word, and the abashed Tom subsided.

"That's right; that's what it was," said Bob, quickly. "Thank you, Tom. Well, Cartier had the two Indians with him whom he had taken to France, and so he could hold a powwow with this Algonquin, but I haven't time to tell you what they talked about."

"Oh, yes. Please tell us," pleaded Bert, in mock eagerness.

"No, I can't stop--"

"You're right. You can't tell, and you can't stop, either, till you're run down."

"As a result of the interview, Cartier left two of his vessels there, and, taking the _L'Emérillon_, he sailed up the river as far as Lake St. Peter, but he found a bar there--"

"What?" exclaimed Bert, sitting suddenly erect.

"A bar. That's what I said."

"Was he looking for a bar all this time? Didn't they have any farther down the river? I'm ashamed of Carter. I didn't believe he was that kind of a man."

"This was a sand bar," laughed Bob, "and blocked his way, so he left the ship's crew there--"

"The ship's screw?" interrupted Bert. "Now I know you're giving us a fairy tale. Ships didn't have any screws then. They hadn't been invented. Even side-wheelers weren't known then."

"I didn't say ship's screw. I said ship's crew. Can't you understand plain English?"

"That's what I said, too, the ship's screw. Didn't I, fellows?" appealed Bert, turning to his companions.

"There's a big difference between a ship's screw and a ship's crew."

"Perhaps you can see it, but I can't. A ship's screw is a ship's screw, and that's all there is to it," protested Bert, solemnly.

"All right; have it your own way," said Bob. "Cartier left his behind him, anyway, and with three of his men took a little boat and came on up the river, and on October 2d arrived at Montreal, which he called Mount Royal."

"What did he call it that for? Why didn't he call it what the people there called it? I believe in calling things by their right names, I do."

"It had an Indian name which I don't at this moment recall--"

"Ask Tom," suggested Bert.

"Hochelaga," said Tom, in response to the appeal.

"What did you say, Tom?" inquired Bert, soberly.

"Hochelaga," laughed Tom.

"Oh! Then that was the place where the bar you spoke of was, was it, Bob? Pardon me. Pray resume your fascinating disquisition, as improbable as it is flighty. You were about to describe your Carter when he and his followers stopped on the bar, a course of action of which I highly disapprove. That's one thing I like about this river, it's all wool and a yard wide. A safe place for children and no temptations to speak of--unless a canoe is one for Ben."

"A yard wide?" interrupted Tom. "The St. Lawrence a yard wide! Why, it's three-quarters of a mile wide up here at Cape Vincent, where it leaves the lake, and on the other side of Quebec it's ten and twenty and even thirty miles wide, and at Cape Gaspé it's all of a hundred miles wide."

Again the boys broke into a hearty laugh, in which Tom was compelled to join, although he did not understand just what it was he was laughing at; but the good nature of them all was so apparent that he did not suspect that he was the cause of their enjoyment.

"Cartier stayed only three days at Montreal--" resumed Bob.

"Didn't he like the Hochelaga?" interrupted the irrepressible Bert.

"Keep still, Bert," pleaded Jock, laughingly. "I want to hear about this."

"I would I were as this one is!" drawled Bert, pointing to Ben as he spoke, who was now soundly sleeping and apparently doing his utmost to emphasize the adverb as much as he did the verb.

"Cartier left after three days," began Bob once more, "and went back to the mouth of the Sainte Croix, and there he passed the winter. And a terrible winter it was, too. The men weren't used to such awful cold, and they suffered from the scurvy so much that when the spring came twenty-five of them were dead, and only a very few of the hundred and ten who were alive were free from disease. His men had been so reduced in numbers that Cartier decided to take only two of his vessels back to France with him and so left the _Petite Hermione_ there."

"That's a likely story," said Bert. "Left the ship behind him?"

"Yes, that's what he did."

"It may be so, my friend, but I don't believe it."

"It is true," said Tom. "They found the old boat in the mud there in 1848,--the very ship that Cartier left more than three hundred years before."

"Oh, of course, if _you_ say so I'll believe it," replied Bert.

"He first took possession of the land," said Bob, "by setting up a cross bearing the arms of France and a Latin inscription, _Franciscus primus, Dei gratia Francorum rex, regnat_."

"I've read about that inscription, but I don't know how to read Latin," said Tom, eagerly. "What does it mean?"

"Ask Bert," suggested Bob.

"Jock'll tell you," said Bert, quickly.

"Bob knows it, and he'll tell you," protested Jock, hastily.

"Cartier stole Donnacona and nine other Indian chiefs and sailed away for France, where he arrived about the middle of July, 1536. And that's the end of chapter two," Bob added, as he rose from his seat.

Tom now departed for home, and as the boys began to prepare for the night, Bob stopped for a moment before the prostrate figure of Ben, who was still sleeping soundly on the ground before the camp-fire.

"I was never treated thusly in all my experience as a lecturer," said Bob. "I'll fix that fellow. I'll show him he mustn't spoil my speeches with his hilarious snorings."

Running into the tent Bob speedily returned with several short pieces of rope, in each of which he made a slip noose. Then he carefully adjusted one to the sleeping lad's right hand, and without disturbing him, made the rope fast to the nearest tree. In a similar manner he treated the other hand and then the two feet, and last of all the head of the still unconscious Ben.

"Now, I'd like to wake him up," said Bob, regarding his work with much satisfaction. "He won't go to sleep again when I'm lecturing, I fancy. If he moves his right hand he'll make himself all the more secure, and if he tries to stir his other hand or his feet he'll be still worse off. Next time he'll see the point, I'm thinking."

The boys were soon ready for bed and still Ben slept on. The camp-fire flickered and burned low, the long shadows ceased, and even the waiting boys at last closed their eyes and slept.

How long they had been sleeping they did not know, but they were suddenly awakened by a yell that startled them all. Quickly sitting up, the boys at first could not determine what it was that had so alarmed them.

In a moment, however, the yell was repeated, louder and longer than before.

"It's Ben," said Bob, quickly. "I'll go out and ascertain whether he can see the point."

As he turned to rush into the open air, he was startled by the sounds which came from the roof of the tent in which they had been sleeping. Something was moving about on it, and to the alarm of the boys it sounded very much like the snarl of a wild beast. Evidently it was something large, too, and in a moment all three darted forth from the tent into the darkness, just as there came another yell from the prostrate Ben, even more piercing than those which had preceded it.