The Young Fur Traders

“O my darling Charley, you are disposed to jest about it; but I cannot tell you how my heart trembled this morning when I heard from Tom Whyte of what had happened. As we drove up to the fort, I thought how terrible it would have been if you had been killed; and then the happy days we have spent together rushed into my mind, and I thought of the willow creek where we used to fish for gold-eyes, and the spot in the woods where we have so often chased the little birds, and the lake in the prairies where we used to go in spring to watch the water-fowl sporting in the sunshine. When I recalled these things, Charley, and thought of you as dead, I felt as if I should die too. And when I came here and found that my fears were needless, that you were alive and safe, and almost well, I felt thankful—yes, very, very thankful—to God for sparing your life, my dear, dear Charley.” And Kate laid her head on his bosom and sobbed, when she thought of what might have been, as if her very heart would break.

Charley’s disposition to levity entirely vanished while his sister spoke; and twining his tough little arm round her neck, he pressed her fervently to his heart.

“Bless you, Kate,” he said at length. “I am indeed thankful to God, not only for sparing my life, but for giving me such a darling sister to live for. But now, Kate, tell me, what do you think of father’s determination to have me placed in the office here?”

“Indeed, I think it’s very hard. Oh, I do wish so much that I could do it for you,” said Kate, with a sigh.

“Do what for me?” asked Charley.

“Why, the office work,” said Kate.

“Tuts! fiddlesticks! But isn’t it, now, really a very hard case?”

“Indeed it is; but then, what can you do?”

“Do?” said Charley impatiently; “run away, to be sure.”

“Oh, don’t speak of that!” said Kate anxiously. “You know it will kill our beloved mother; and then it would grieve father very much.”

“Well, father don’t care much about grieving me, when he hunted me down like a wolf till I nearly broke my neck.”

“Now, Charley, you must not speak so. Father loves you tenderly, although he is a little rough at times. If you only heard how kindly he speaks of you to our mother when you are away, you could not think of giving him so much pain. And then the Bible says, ‘Honour thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee;’ and as God speaks in the Bible, surely we should pay attention to it!”

Charley was silent for a few seconds; then heaving a deep sigh, he said,—“Well, I believe you’re right, Kate; but then, what am I to do? If I don’t run away, I must live, like poor Harry Somerville, on a long—legged stool; and if I do that, I’ll—I’ll—”

As Charley spoke, the door opened, and his father entered.

“Well, my boy,” said he, seating himself on the bedside and taking his son’s hand, “how goes it now? Head getting all right again? I fear that Kate has been talking too much to you.—Is it so, you little chatterbox?”

Mr Kennedy parted Kate’s clustering ringlets and kissed her forehead.

Charley assured his father that he was almost well, and much the better of having Kate to tend him. In fact, he felt so much revived that he said he would get up and go out for a walk.

“Had I not better tell Tom Whyte to saddle the young horse for you?” said his father, half ironically. “No, no, boy; lie still where you are to-day, and get up if you feel better to-morrow. In the meantime, I’ve come to say goodbye, as I intend to go home to relieve your mother’s anxiety about you. I’ll see you again, probably, the day after to-morrow. Hark you, boy; I’ve been talking your affairs over again with Mr Grant, and we’ve come to the conclusion to give you a run in the woods for a time. You’ll have to be ready to start early in spring with the first brigades for the north. So adieu!”

Mr Kennedy patted him on the head, and hastily left the room.

A burning blush of shame arose on Charley’s cheek as he recollected his late remarks about his father; and then, recalling the purport of his last words, he sent forth an exulting shout as he thought of the coming spring.

“Well now, Charley,” said Kate, with an arch smile, “let us talk seriously over your arrangements for running away.”

Charley replied by seizing the pillow and throwing it at his sister’s head; but being accustomed to such eccentricities, she anticipated the movement, and evaded the blow.

“Ah, Charley,” cried Kate, laughing, “you mustn’t let your hand get out of practice! That was a shockingly bad shot for a man thirsting to become a bear and buffalo hunter!”

“I’ll make my fortune at once,” cried Charley, as Kate replaced the pillow, “build a wooden castle on the shores of Great Bear Lake, take you to keep house for me, and when I’m out hunting you’ll fish for whales in the lake, and we’ll live there to a good old age; so good-night, Kate dear, and go to bed.”

Kate laughed, gave her brother a parting kiss, and left him.

Chapter Six.

Spring and the voyageurs

Winter, with its snow and its ice; winter, with its sharp winds and white drifts; winter, with its various characteristic occupations and employments, is past, and it is spring now.

The sun no longer glitters on fields of white; the wood-man’s axe is no longer heard hacking the oaken billets, to keep alive the roaring fires. That inexpressibly cheerful sound the merry chime of sleigh-bells, that tells more of winter than all other sounds together, is no longer heard on the bosom of Red River; for the sleighs are thrown aside as useless—lumber-carts and gigs have supplanted them. The old Canadian, who used to drive the ox with its water-barrel to the ice-hole for his daily supply, has substituted a small cart with wheels for the old sleigh that used to glide so smoothly over the snow, and grit so sharply on it in the more than usually frosty mornings in the days gone by. The trees have lost their white patches, and the clump of willows, that used to look like islands in the prairie, have disappeared, as the carpeting that gave them prominence has dissolved. The aspect of everything in the isolated settlement has changed. The winter is gone, and spring—bright, beautiful, hilarious spring—has come again.

By those who have never known an arctic winter, the delights of an arctic spring can never, we fear, be fully appreciated or understood. Contrast is one of its strongest elements; indeed, we might say, the element which gives to all the others peculiar zest. Life in the arctic regions is like one of Turner’s pictures, in which the lights are strong, the shadows deep, and the tout ensemble hazy and romantic. So cold and prolonged is the winter, that the first mild breath of spring breaks on the senses like a zephyr from the plains of paradise. Everything bursts suddenly into vigorous life, after the long death-like sleep of Nature, as little children burst into the romping gaieties of a new day after the deep repose of a long and tranquil night. The snow melts, the ice breaks up, and rushes in broken masses, heaving and tossing in the rising flood, that grind and whirl them into the ocean, or into those great fresh-water lakes that vie with ocean itself in magnitude and grandeur. The buds come out and the leaves appear, clothing all nature with a bright, refreshing green, which derives additional brilliancy from sundry patches of snow that fill the deep creeks and hollows everywhere, and form ephemeral fountains whose waters continue to supply a thousand rills for many a long day, until the fierce glare of the summer sun prevails at last and melts them all away.

Red River flows on now to mix its long-pent-up waters with Lake Winnipeg. Boats are seen rowing about upon its waters, as the settlers travel from place to place; and wooden canoes, made of the hollowed-out trunks of large trees, shoot across from shore to shore—these canoes being a substitute for bridges, of which there are none, although the settlement lies on both sides of the river. Birds have now entered upon the scene, their wild cries and ceaseless flight adding to it a cheerful activity. Ground squirrels pop up out of their holes to bask their round, fat, beautifully-striped little bodies in the sun, or to gaze in admiration at the farmer, as he urges a pair of very slow-going oxen, that drag the plough at a pace which induces one to believe that the wide field may possibly be ploughed up by the end of next year. Frogs whistle in the marshy ground so loudly that men new to the country believe they are being regaled by the songs of millions of birds. There is no mistake about their whistle. It is not merely like a whistle, but it is a whistle, shrill and continuous; and as the swamps swarm with these creatures, the song never ceases for a moment, although each individual frog creates only one little gush of music, composed of half a dozen trills, and then stops a moment for breath before commencing the second bar. Bull-frogs, too, though not so numerous, help to vary the sound by croaking vociferously, as if they understood the value of bass, and were glad of having an opportunity to join in the universal hum of life and joy which rises everywhere, from the river and the swamp, the forest and the prairie, to welcome back the spring.

Such was the state of things in Red River one beautiful morning in April, when a band of voyageurs lounged in scattered groups about the front gate of Fort Garry. They were as fine a set of picturesque, manly fellows as one could desire to see. Their mode of life rendered them healthy, hardy, and good-humoured, with a strong dash of recklessness—perhaps too much of it—in some of the younger men. Being descended, generally, from French-Canadian sires and Indian mothers, they united some of the good and not a few of the bad qualities of both, mentally as well as physically—combining the light, gay-hearted spirit and full, muscular frame of the Canadian with the fierce passions and active habits of the Indian. And this wildness of disposition was not a little fostered by the nature of their usual occupations. They were employed during a great part of the year in navigating the Hudson’s Bay Company’s boats, laden with furs and goods, through the labyrinth of rivers and lakes that stud and intersect the whole continent, or they were engaged in pursuit of the bisons, (these animals are always called buffaloes by American hunters and fur-traders) which roam the prairies in vast herds.

They were dressed in the costume of the country: most of them wore light-blue cloth capotes, girded tightly round them by scarlet or crimson worsted belts. Some of them had blue, and others scarlet, cloth leggings, ornamented more or less with stained porcupine quills, coloured silk, or variegated beads; while some might be seen clad in the leathern coats of winter-deer-skin dressed like chamois leather, fringed all round with little tails, and ornamented much in the same way as those already described. The heavy winter moccasins and duffel socks, which gave to their feet the appearance of being afflicted with gout, were now replaced by moccasins of a lighter and more elegant character, having no socks below, and fitting tightly to the feet like gloves. Some wore hats similar to those made of silk or beaver which are worn by ourselves in Britain, but so bedizened with scarlet cock-tail feathers, and silver cords and tassels, as to leave the original form of the head-dress a matter of great uncertainty. These hats, however, are only used on high occasions, and chiefly by the fops. Most of the men wore coarse blue cloth caps with peaks, and not a few discarded head-pieces altogether, under the impression, apparently, that nature had supplied a covering which was in itself sufficient. These costumes varied not only in character but in quality, according to the circumstances of the wearer; some being highly ornamental and mended—evincing the felicity of the owner in the possession of a good wife—while others were soiled and torn, or but slightly ornamented. The voyageurs were collected, as we have said, in groups. Here stood a dozen of the youngest—consequently the most noisy and showily dressed—laughing loudly, gesticulating violently, and bragging tremendously. Near to them were collected a number of sterner spirits—men of middle age, with all the energy, and muscle, and bone of youth, but without its swaggering hilarity; men whose powers and nerves had been tried over and over again amid the stirring scenes of a voyageur’s life; men whose heads were cool, and eyes sharp, and hands ready and powerful, in the mad whirl of boiling rapids, in the sudden attack of wild beast and hostile man, or in the unexpected approach of any danger; men who, having been well tried, needed not to boast, and who, having carried off triumphantly their respective brides many years ago, needed not to decorate their persons with the absurd finery that characterised their younger brethren. They were comparatively few in number, but they composed a sterling band, of which every man was a hero. Among them were those who occupied the high positions of bowman and steersman, and when we tell the reader that on these two men frequently hangs the safety of a boat, with all its crew and lading, it will be easily understood how needful it is that they should be men of iron nerve and strength of mind.

Boat-travelling in those regions is conducted in a way that would astonish most people who dwell in the civilised quarters of the globe. The country being intersected in all directions by great lakes and rivers, these have been adopted as the most convenient highways along which to convey the supplies and bring back the furs from outposts. Rivers in America, however, as in other parts of the world, are distinguished by sudden ebullitions and turbulent points of character, in the shape of rapids, falls, and cataracts, up and down which neither men nor boats can by any possibility go with impunity; consequently, on arriving at such obstructions, the cargoes are carried overland to navigable water above or below the falls (as the case may be), then the boats are dragged over and launched, again reloaded, and the travellers proceed. This operation is called “making a portage;” and as these portages vary from twelve yards to twelve miles in length, it may be readily conceived that a voyageur’s life is not an easy one by any means.

This, however, is only one of his difficulties. Rapids occur which are not so dangerous as to make a “portage” necessary, but are sufficiently turbulent to render the descent of them perilous. In such cases, the boats, being lightened of part of their cargo, are ran down, and frequently they descend with full cargoes and crews. It is then that the whole management of each boat devolves upon its bowman and steersman. The rest of the crew, or middlemen as they are called, merely sit still and look on, or give a stroke with their oars if required; while the steersman, with powerful sweeps of his heavy oar, directs the flying boat as it bounds from surge to surge like a thing of life; and the bowman stands erect in front to assist in directing his comrade at the stern, having a strong and long pole in his hands, with which, ever and anon, he violently forces the boat’s head away from sunken rocks, against which it might otherwise strike and be stove in, capsized, or seriously damaged.

Besides the groups already enumerated, there were one or two others, composed of grave, elderly men, whose wrinkled brows, grey hairs, and slow, quiet step showed that the strength of their days was past; although their upright figures and warm, brown complexions gave promise of their living to see many summers still. These were the principal steersmen and old guides—men of renown, to whom the others bowed as oracles or looked up to as fathers; men whose youth and manhood had been spent in roaming the trackless wilderness, and who were, therefore, eminently qualified to guide brigades through the length and breadth of the land; men whose power of threading their way among the perplexing intricacies of the forest had become a second nature, a kind of instinct, that was as sure of attaining its end as the instinct of the feathered tribes, which brings the swallow, after a long absence, with unerring certainty back to its former haunts again in spring.

Chapter Seven.

The store

At whatever establishment in the fur-trader’s dominions you may chance to alight, you will find a particular building which is surrounded by a halo of interest; towards which there seems to be a general leaning on the part of everybody, especially of the Indians; and with which are connected, in the minds of all, the most stirring reminiscences and pleasing associations.

This is the trading-store. It is always recognisable, if natives are in the neighbourhood, by the bevy of red men that cluster round it, awaiting the coming of the storekeeper or the trader with that stoic patience which is peculiar to Indians. It may be further recognised, by a close observer, by the soiled condition of its walls, occasioned by loungers rubbing their backs perpetually against it, and the peculiar dinginess round the keyhole, caused by frequent applications of the key, which renders it conspicuous beyond all its comrades. Here is contained that which makes the red man’s life enjoyable; that which causes his heart to leap, and induces him to toil for months and months together in the heat of summer and amid the frost and snow of winter; that which actually accomplishes, what music is said to achieve, the “soothing of the savage breast:” in short, here are stored up blankets, guns, powder, shot, kettles, axes, and knives; twine for nets, vermilion for war-paint, fish-hooks and scalping-knives, capotes, cloth, beads, needles, and a host of miscellaneous articles, much too numerous to mention. Here, also, occur periodical scenes of bustle and excitement, when bands of natives arrive from distant hunting-grounds, laden with rich furs, which are speedily transferred to the Hudson’s Bay Company’s stores in exchange for the goods aforementioned. And many a tough wrangle has the trader on such occasions with sharp natives, who might have graduated in Billingsgate, so close are they at a bargain. Here, too, voyageurs are supplied with an equivalent for their wages, part in advance, if they desire it (and they generally do desire it), and part at the conclusion of their long and arduous voyages.

It is to one of these stores, reader, that we wish to introduce you now, that you may witness the men of the North brigade receive their advances.

The store at Fort Garry stands on the right of the fort, as you enter by the front gate. Its interior resembles that of the other stores in the country, being only a little larger. A counter encloses a space sufficiently wide to admit a dozen men, and serves to keep back those who are more eager than the rest. Inside this counter, at the time we write of, stood our friend Peter Mactavish, who was the presiding genius of the scene.

“Shut the door now, and lock it” said Peter, in an authoritative tone, after eight or ten young voyageurs had crushed into the space in front of the counter. “I’ll not supply you with so much as an ounce of tobacco if you let in another man.”

Peter needed not to repeat the command. Three or four stalwart shoulders were applied to the door, which shut with a bang like a cannon-shot, and the key was turned.

“Come now, Antoine,” began the trader, “we’ve lots to do, and not much time to do it in, so pray look sharp.”

Antoine, however, was not to be urged on so easily. He had been meditating deeply all morning on what he should purchase. Moreover, he had a sweetheart, and of course he had to buy something for her before setting out on his travels. Besides, Antoine was six feet high, and broad shouldered, and well made, with a dark face and glossy black hair; and he entertained a notion that there were one or two points in his costume which required to be carefully rectified, ere he could consider that he had attained to perfection: so he brushed the long hair off his forehead, crossed his arms, and gazed around him.

“Come now, Antoine,” said Peter, throwing a green blanket at him, “I know you want that to begin with. What’s the use of thinking so long about it, eh? And that, too,” he added, throwing him a blue cloth capote. “Anything else?”

“Oui, oui, monsieur,” cried Antoine, as he disengaged himself from the folds of the coat which Peter had thrown over his head. “Tabac, monsieur, tabac!”

“Oh, to be sure,” cried Peter. “I might have guessed that that was uppermost in your mind. Well, how much will you have?” Peter began to unwind the fragrant weed off a coil of most appalling size and thickness which looked like a snake of endless length. “Will that do?” and he flourished about four feet of the snake before the eyes of the voyageur.

Antoine accepted the quantity, and young Harry Somerville entered the articles against him in a book.