Part 8

The two were explaining Walter’s needs, when an Indian burst suddenly into the room. His buckskin clothing was covered with mud. Blood matted his black hair and stained one dark cheek which was disfigured by a great scar. His eyes glittered, and his manner was wild and excited. The boys thought for a moment that he was going to attack the trader. The Indian, however, had no weapons,—no gun, hatchet, or knife. He began to talk rapidly, angrily. Walter could not understand a word of Ojibwa, but he could see that the Indian’s speech startled both Louis and the trader. The latter replied briefly in the same tongue, then darted out of the door, the Ojibwa after him. Before Walter could voice a question, Louis was gone too. The Swiss boy turned to follow, hesitated, and decided to stay where he was.

In a few moments Louis was back again. “What is it? Are the Sioux coming?” Walter asked anxiously.

“No, unless this affair is the work of spies.”

“What affair? Could you understand what he said?”

“Most of it. He was so wild it was hard to follow him. He has been attacked. He was down at the river loading his canoe. Two men came along. While one was talking to him, the other stole up behind him, knocked him over the head, and ‘put him to sleep.’ When he came to his senses, the goods he had just bought and his gun and knife were gone. There was a hole cut in his canoe. Of course he may be lying. He may have hidden the things and made up the story.”

“Why would he do that?”

“To get a double supply of goods and ammunition. The trader believes him though. He is sending men in search of those two fellows.”

When the trader returned he added further details to the story. The Ojibwa, he said, was an honest, trustworthy hunter, who had been bringing his furs to the Company for several years. He had come alone from Red Lake to get his winter’s supplies and ammunition. Having finished his bargaining, he was loading his boat at the riverside when another canoe, with two men, appeared, coming up stream. One of the men shouted a greeting in Ojibwa, they turned their boat in to shore, jumped out, and engaged him in talk. Entirely unsuspicious of treachery, Scar Face was answering one man’s questions, when the other struck him from behind and knocked him senseless.

“Does he know the fellows?” questioned Louis.

“He never saw them before.”

“Could they be Sioux passing themselves off as Ojibwa?”

“No, one was a white man, he says, and the other,—the man who attacked him,—was in white man’s clothes, but looked like an Indian. He wore his hair in braids, had no beard, and spoke like a Cree. He was a very tall man, strong and broad shouldered.”

“Do you think he is telling the truth?”

“I’m sure he is. Scar Face is a reliable fellow, always pays his debts, and has never tried to deceive us in any way. You saw the blood on his face. He has a bad cut on the side of his head. One of our men is dressing it for him. No, he isn’t lying. His description of the men is good, and he was not in the fort when they were here.”

“They have been here? You know who they are?”

“I think so; beyond doubt. Two fellows answering to the description were here this morning and bought some tobacco. They said they had just come from St. Boniface with a letter for Father Dumoulin. The white man is a DeMeuron, a red-faced fellow with a sandy beard. I don’t know his name. The other one is a _bois brulé_ voyageur called Murray.”

“Not Black Murray?” cried Walter.

“That’s the name he goes by. You know him?”

“_Vraiment_, we know him,” put in Louis emphatically. “So he did not go up the Assiniboine with the western brigade, but came this way. He must have started before we did, to get here by water so soon. We found his tracks and those of his companion, where they had landed to boil their kettle. They were ahead of us then. He wasted little time at Fort Douglas, _le Murrai Noir_.”

“Whatever possessed him to attack that Ojibwa?” queried the puzzled trader.

“I think I can guess,” replied Louis slowly, “though I know not for sure. He wanted the Ojibwa’s supplies. He plans, I think, to become a trader. To trade he must have some goods to commence with. This is not the first time he has obtained them dishonestly.” Louis told the story of the missing sack of pemmican and Murray’s bundle of trade articles.

The Hudson Bay man listened intently and nodded thoughtfully. “That must be what the rascal is up to. Well, I have sent men out on horseback, up and down the Red River. The thieves haven’t come by here on the Pembina. They’re not likely to show themselves in the neighborhood of the forts. Perhaps they will be caught, though I doubt it. They have a good start and there is plenty of cover to hide in until the going is safe. It is useless to try to overtake them by canoe.”

XVI LETTERS FROM FORT DOUGLAS

The white man and the half-breed were not caught. Had the thieves trusted merely to speed in paddling, the men sent out from the post must have overtaken them. Even down stream, canoemen, obliged to follow every bend and twist of the river, could not make as good time as mounted men riding along the bank. Probably the two had crossed to the other shore and had concealed themselves and their canoe until the search was over. There was little chance that Pembina settlement would see or hear anything more of them for a long time.

The Ojibwa being a skilful hunter whose goodwill was worth retaining, he was supplied with another outfit. He went away contented with his treatment at the post, but seething with desire for vengeance on the men who had robbed him.

When questioned, Father Dumoulin said that the white man, Kolbach, had brought him a letter from his superior, Father Provencher, at St. Boniface. “The Father said in his letter,” Dumoulin explained, “that Kolbach had just come to tell him that he was going to Pembina. He asked if the Father had any message to send me. So Père Provencher wrote hastily, while Kolbach waited. Kolbach is a DeMeuron, a German Swiss. He is a wild, unruly fellow who comes but seldom to confession. I felt surprised that he had taken the trouble to do Père Provencher and myself a kindness.”

Louis and Walter had failed to find an unoccupied cabin that could be made ready for the Periers. When Louis suggested that they set to work at once to build one, his mother interposed. It would be better to wait, she insisted, until the Periers arrived. They could stay in her house for a few days. The cabin would be a little crowded to be sure, but there would be room enough to make three extra ones comfortable. “Then M’sieu Perier can decide where he wishes his house and can help to build it,” she concluded.

Walter rather doubted if the apothecary would prove of much help in cabin building, but he yielded to Mrs. Brabant’s decision. He knew she would do everything in her power for the comfort of the homeless immigrants.

While he waited for the coming of his friends, Walter helped Louis prepare the Brabant home for winter. They put fresh mud chinking in the holes between the logs, mended the bark roof, cut firewood and hauled it in Louis’ cart. The cart itself had to have one new wheel rim. The rim, which was about three inches thick, was made in sections, and put together without nails. Louis wanted a new dog sled, and Walter would need snowshoes. For the sled, thin oak boards were bent at one end by steaming them over the big kettle, and lashed together. Louis called the affair a _tabagane_, the French version of an Indian word. Nowadays we spell it _toboggan_.

The snowshoe frames were of birch wood bent to the required racket form, the toes turned up a little to prevent tripping. The netting of sinew, Louis explained, must be put in with the greatest care. Where the weight of the foot would rest he used a fine mesh of _babiche_ or twisted sinew. The ankle and toe loops he was careful to make just the right size to slip on and off easily, yet not too loose to hold the foot in the proper position. Walter had been trained to use his hands, and he was deft and sure with them. He made one of the shoes himself, and did a workmanlike job. Learning to walk with the awkward things might be more difficult than making them, he thought.

Louis examined his dog harness and shook his head. “The beasts need a new harness truly,” he said, “but that will have to wait until we can kill a buffalo, and get fresh _shaganappy_.”

Though the buffalo hunt had been postponed, Walter found plenty of opportunity to use his new gun. Migrating flocks of water fowl passed every night, and many of them stopped to rest and feed by day along the rivers and in the marshes. It was the boys’ duty to keep up the food supply by shooting as many ducks and geese as possible. The weather was now cold enough so the birds could be kept several days. Those that the Brabant and MacKay families could not use were disposed of at Fort Daer. Neil MacKay and Raoul Brabant, who was almost as good a shot as his elder brother, were included in the hunting party.

Every day Walter watched for the Periers. Whenever he heard the creaking of a cart, he hoped that another brigade was arriving from Fort Douglas. He never went a mile from the settlement without wondering if his friends would be there when he came back. As the days passed, he grew more and more anxious. Had disaster overtaken the boats of the second division?

One day, just at dusk, as the four hunters were returning along the bank of the Pembina, there came to their ears, faintly at first, from the prairie to the north, the screeching of ungreased axles. As the noise grew louder, the boys realized that such a squawking and screaming could never come from two or three carts only. A whole brigade must be approaching. Leaving the woods along the river, the lads started across the prairie to meet the cart train. They could hear it much farther than they could see it in the gathering darkness.

Louis was the first to make out a line of black objects against the sky. He and Walter were some distance ahead of their companions when they met the guide of the brigade riding in advance. Louis shouted a question and the reply in Canadian French came promptly:

“We come from Fort Douglas. We bring some of the new colonists.”

At the guide’s words, Walter dropped his gun and his birds and ran towards the carts. He was too impatient to wait for them to come to him. The first vehicle belonged to the guide and his family, but walking beside the second was someone Walter knew, Johan Scheidecker. He and the Scheidecker boys had shared the same tent at York Factory. As he greeted Johan, Walter looked eagerly around for some sign of his friends.

“Where is Monsieur Perier?” he demanded.

“He is not with us.”

“Not with you? Why, what has happened?”

“Nothing,—to the Periers,” was Johan’s reassuring reply. “They remain at Fort Douglas. A man named Kolbach has taken them into his house. I have a letter for you that will explain it all.” He handed Walter a folded packet of coarse paper.

The boy was dumbfounded. The possibility that the Periers might not come on to Pembina had never occurred to him. It was too dark to read his letter, so he fell into step beside Johan and questioned him.

“Are they all right? How did they stand the trip? Are they well?”

“About as well as any of us.”

Even in the darkness Walter could see that Johan was very thin. His voice was husky, and he plodded along with drooping shoulders and bent head. “We were all nearly starved, and some of us were sick, when we reached Fort Douglas,” he explained. “Elise and Max were as well as any, but Perier himself had a bad cough. One of the soldiers who live above the fort, a Swiss, took them into his house. My sister Marianne stays behind too. She was married to one of those soldiers the morning we left. Tell me, can we get food at Fort Daer?” he asked abruptly.

“Oh, yes. Wait a moment.” Walter had remembered his gun and birds. He ran to where they lay, and, returning, thrust the two fat geese into Johan’s hands. “Take them,” he cried. “They are good eating and we have more.”

Walter did not accompany the cart train to Fort Daer. He and the Brabant boys made speed to the cabin, where, by the light of a candle of buffalo tallow, he read his letters. There were two, one from Mr. Perier, the other from Elise. Mr. Perier’s was brief. The trip had been a very hard one, but he and the children had come through safely. Matthieu had given him Walter’s note, and he appreciated the boy’s thought for their comfort. It seemed best, however, for them to remain at Fort Douglas. He was suffering with a bad cold and was scarcely able to travel farther. One of the DeMeurons had shown them great kindness. He had offered to share his cabin with them and had assured them that by hunting and fishing he could provide food for all.

“I am disappointed,” Mr. Perier wrote, “that I cannot open a shop. All my chemical and medical supplies were lost when our boat was wrecked. I saved only a few packages of herb seeds that I was carrying in my pockets. I intend in the spring to plant an herb garden. Through Matthieu I hope to obtain a place in the buffalo wool factory for the winter. Do not think that you must come back here to be with us. It would not be wise. If you have found food and shelter, remain where you are till spring. Then you can return and we will begin cultivating our land. You need not be concerned for us, for we have fallen among friends. Our nearest neighbor will be Marianne Scheidecker who is to be married to-morrow to one of the ex-soldiers. Several of them have found wives among our Swiss girls. I would not want a daughter of mine to marry in such haste. I am glad Elise is still a little girl.”

Elise’s letter, dated November 4th, the day of arrival at Fort Douglas, told more of the journey. The second division had traveled slowly, and with many delays. On September the twentieth another boat from Fort York, carrying the Rev. John West, the English clergyman of the Selkirk Colony, had overtaken the Swiss. The first of October the weather had turned very cold, and some nights the travelers had nearly frozen, especially when everything was so wet or frost covered that the fires would not burn. In a storm on Lake Winnipeg, the boat the Periers were in was wrecked.

“No one was drowned,” wrote Elise, “but we were all soaked, and we lost most of our food and blankets and other things. The men had to cut down trees and split them into boards to mend our boat, and that took a long time. It rained and snowed, and the nights were terribly cold. M. West gave Max and me one of his blankets. We had plenty of wood for fires, but very little food left, only some barley that we boiled. The weather was so stormy the men could not catch fish, but they shot a few birds. We ate a big owl and a raven that M. West shot. It was a week before we could go on. Then Samuel Scheidecker was taken sick and died, and we stopped at an island to bury him. I feel so sorry for the Scheideckers. By the time we came to the mouth of the Red River we were starving, but there were Indians there, and the chief, Peguis, gave us dried fish.”

Elise went on to say that her father had a bad cough and needed a warm place to stay. So Sergeant Kolbach had kindly taken them in. “This house is only one room with a loft above that has a floor of loose boards and a ladder instead of a stairway. But there is a fireplace, and it is warm and dry. M. Kolbach sleeps in the loft and lets us have the room. It is rather dirty, but I have cleaned it up a little and will do more to-morrow. We shall be comfortable here and kind Mr. West wants Max and me to go to his school and learn English. We miss you very much, Walter, but Father says you must not come back here till spring. We are going to be all right now. It is so good to be warm and dry and have enough to eat, and in the spring we can be together again.”

Walter read this letter aloud to Louis and his mother. “The poor child!” Mrs. Brabant exclaimed again and again. At the close Louis said earnestly, “That is a brave little girl, your little sister.”

Walter was disappointed that his friends were not coming to Pembina, but relieved to know that they were safe and comfortable. He was quite ready to go back to Fort Douglas and share any hardships they might have to undergo, but Mr. Perier had forbidden him to do so. Apprentices in those days seldom thought of disobeying their masters. Moreover Walter felt that his return to Fort Douglas would probably do more harm than good. There was no employment for him, no way to earn a living, and very likely the Governor would not let him stay. Louis was strongly against his going back.

Walter was not wholly at ease about his friends. “I wonder,” he pondered, “if that DeMeuron really will provide for them. What will happen if he doesn’t keep his promise?”

“If there is not food for them they will be sent on here to Pembina later.”

“Could they make the trip when the snow is deep and the weather very cold?”

“Oh, yes. By dog sled the journey is easier and, if the trail is good, quicker than by cart. Dogs can travel where ponies can not. Write to your friends and tell them if all is not well to send word to you here, and you and I will go get them. Ask someone at Fort Daer to send your letter the first time anyone goes to Fort Douglas. Every week or so someone comes and goes between the two forts. What is the name of that DeMeuron they live with?”

Walter glanced at Mr. Perier’s letter. “Kolbach, Sergeant Kolbach. Louis,” he exclaimed, “that was the name of the man with Murray!”

“Kolbach, yes, that was surely his name.”

“I wonder if he can be the same man who spoke to me when we landed at Fort Douglas. He had a red face and a sandy beard. I don’t like it, Louis, their living with that fellow!”

“No,” the Canadian boy agreed thoughtfully. “We must go to Père Dumoulin and ask him about that Kolbach. He may be a wild fellow, and yet be good to your friends. Oh, yes, that is quite possible.”

The two boys went to see the priest the next morning. They found him at the mission in the little room that served him as bedroom, living-room and study.

“Père Dumoulin,” Louis asked, “was the man who brought you that letter from Fort Douglas Sergeant Kolbach?”

“Sergeant Kolbach? Oh no,” came the prompt reply. “It was Fritz Kolbach, the sergeant’s brother.”

Walter felt relieved. “What kind of a man is Sergeant Kolbach?” he inquired.

“Why do you ask?” The priest looked at the boy keenly.

Walter explained, and Father Dumoulin listened with interest.

“Sergeant Kolbach,” he said thoughtfully, “is a very different person from his younger brother. The sergeant is a man of influence among the DeMeurons. I do not know him well, but I should think him a somewhat domineering man, used to authority and fond of exercising it, but he is quieter, more self-controlled, more steady going than most of the DeMeurons. He has usually exercised his influence over his fellows in the interest of law and order. I know no reason why you should fear that he will not treat your friends well, since he has chosen to take them into his house.”

“His brother lives with him?” asked Louis.

“I do not think so. Every DeMeuron has his own land, and the Kolbachs are too unlike to live together peaceably.”

Reassured by Father Dumoulin’s information, Walter did not think of disobeying Mr. Perier’s instructions. At Fort Daer the lad obtained a few sheets of paper, and, borrowing quill pen and ink from a good-natured apprentice clerk, he wrote a letter to Mr. Perier and another to Elise, addressing them in Sergeant Kolbach’s care. The clerk promised to send them at the first opportunity.

XVII CHRISTMAS AT PEMBINA

There was no reason now why Walter should hesitate to be away from the settlement, yet the proposed buffalo hunt was postponed again. The animals were far from Pembina that autumn. For miles to the south and west, the prairie had been swept by fires started by careless Indians or half-breeds who had allowed their camp fires to spread. In that blackened desolation there was no feed for buffalo. The boys had expected to go beyond the burned country in search of the herds, but, before they were ready to start, a heavy fall of snow made horseback travel impossible. Storm winds swept the prairie, and Louis shook his head at the prospect.

“This will drive the beasts yet farther away,” he said. “They will go where the snow is not so deep and where there are trees for shelter. We could travel with dog sleds of course, but we might search for long to find buffalo, and to hunt them on foot is much more difficult than on horseback. But perhaps this snow will not last.”

With the coming of deep snow Walter was given his first lessons in snowshoeing and dog driving. Learning to walk with the clumsy rackets was not easy, he found. He got more than one tumble before he mastered the art. Driving a dog sled looked simple enough, when Louis hitched up his dogs and took his little sisters for a ride. The three animals differed considerably in size, appearance and breed, but worked well together. Hitched tandem, they were off with a dash, the little bells on their harness jingling merrily. They followed a trail already broken by other sleds, and Louis ran alongside shouting and flourishing his whip. After a turn on the prairie, they were back again.

“Come, you shall have a ride now,” Louis said to Walter, as the little girls,—cheeks red and black eyes sparkling,—unrolled themselves from the fur robes.

Curious to try this new mode of travel, Walter seated himself on the robes. “_Marche donc_,” cried Louis, and the team was away, the toboggan slipping smoothly over the well-packed trail. Running alongside or standing behind Walter on the sled, Louis urged his dogs to their best speed. When, after a first spurt, they slowed to a steadier pace, he suggested that Walter try driving.

“Stay where you are. You don’t need to get up. There must be weight to hold the _tabagane_ down.” Handing Walter the whip, Louis stepped off the sled.

Louis seemed to manage the team easily, and Walter had no doubt of his own ability to drive. He shouted to the dogs in imitation of his friend, and, waving the long whip high in air, flicked the leader’s back with the lash.

The dogs must have noticed the difference in the voice. They must have sensed the awkwardness and inexperience of the new driver. Without warning, the leader,—a woolly haired, bushy tailed beast with fox-like head and sharp pointed ears,—swerved from the trail into untracked snow. In vain Walter tried to get him back on the track. The dogs were out for a frolic and they had it. They bounded and floundered through the soft spots and raced across hard packed stretches. The prairie, Walter discovered, was by no means so smooth as it looked. The wind had swept the snow into waves and billows. The toboggan mounted the windward side of a snow wave, balanced on the crest, and bumped down abruptly. Shouts and commands were of no avail. Walter could but cling to the swaying, jouncing, skidding sled, and let the dogs go where they would.

Suddenly the beasts concluded they had had about enough of the sport. It was time for the grand climax. With a quick turn, they swung about towards home. The toboggan turned too, clear over, and Walter went sprawling. When he picked himself up, the provoking animals were sitting quietly in the snow, more or less tangled up in their traces, tongues hanging out, laughing at him. Louis, shouting hilariously, came running up on his snowshoes to right the toboggan.

For a moment Walter was angry. “You knew what would happen,” he cried accusingly. “What did you do to make them act that way?”