Northern Lights Part 27

From Fort O'Call, an abandoned post of the Hudson's Bay Company on the Peace River, nearly the whole tribe of the Athabasca Indians in possession of the post now had come up the river, with their chief, Knife-in-the-Wind, to meet the mikonaree. Factors of the Hudson's Bay Company, _coureurs de bois_, and _voyageurs_ had come among them at times, and once the renowned Father Lacombe, the Jesuit priest, had stayed with them three months; but never to this day had they seen a Protestant mikonaree, though once a factor, noted for his furious temper, his powers of running, and his generosity, had preached to them. These men, however, were both over fifty years old. The Athabascas did not hunger for the Christian religion, but a courier from Edmonton had brought them word that a mikonaree was coming to their country to stay, and they put off their stoical manner and allowed themselves the luxury of curiosity. That was why even the squaws and papooses came up the river with the braves, all wondering if the stranger had brought gifts with him, all eager for their shares; for it had been said by the courier of the tribe that "Oshondonto," their name for the newcomer, was bringing mysterious loads of well-wrapped bales and skins. Upon a point below the first rapids of the Little Manitou they waited with their camp-fires burning and their pipe of peace.

When the canoes bearing Oshondonto and his _voyageurs_ shot the rapids to the song of the river,

"En roulant, ma boule roulant,[[y:italic]]

En roulant, ma boule!"[[y:italic]]

with the shrill voices of the boatmen rising to meet the cry of the startled water-fowl, the Athabascas crowded to the high banks. They grunted "How!" in greeting, as the foremost canoe made for the sh.o.r.e.

But if surprise could have changed the countenances of Indians, these Athabascas would not have known one another when the missionary stepped out upon the sh.o.r.e. They had looked to see a gray-bearded man like the chief factor who quarrelled and prayed; but they found instead a round-faced, clean-shaven youth, with big, good-natured eyes, yellow hair, and a roundness of body like that of a month-old bear's cub. They expected to find a man who, like the factor, could speak their language, and they found a cherub sort of youth who talked only English, French, and Chinook--that common language of the North--and a few words of their own language which he had learned on the way.

Besides, Oshondonto was so absent-minded at the moment, so absorbed in admiration of the garish scene before him, that he addressed the chief in French, of which Knife-in-the-Wind knew but one word, _cache_, which all the North knows.

But presently William Rufus Holly recovered himself, and in stumbling Chinook made himself understood. Opening a bale, he brought out beads and tobacco and some bright red flannel, and two hundred Indians sat round him and grunted "How!" and received his gifts with little comment. Then the pipe of peace went round, and Oshondonto smoked it becomingly.

But he saw that the Indians despised him for his youth, his fatness, his yellow hair as soft as a girl's, his cherub face, browned though it was by the sun and weather.

As he handed the pipe to Knife-in-the-Wind, an Indian called Silver Ta.s.sel, with a cruel face, said, grimly:

"Why does Oshondonto travel to us?"

William Rufus Holly's eyes steadied on those of the Indian as he replied in Chinook: "To teach the way to Manitou the Mighty, to tell the Athabascas of the Great Chief who died to save the world."

"The story is told in many ways; which is right? There was the factor, Word of Thunder. There is the song they sing at Edmonton--I have heard."

"The Great Chief is the same Chief," answered the missionary. "If you tell of Fort O'Call, and Knife-in-the-Wind tells of Fort O'Call, he and you will speak different words, and one will put in one thing and one will leave out another; men's tongues are different. But Fort O'Call is the same, and the Great Chief is the same."

"It was a long time ago," said Knife-in-the-Wind, sourly, "many thousand moon, as the pebbles in the river, the years."

"It is the same world, and it is the same Chief, and it was to save us,"

answered William Rufus Holly, smiling, yet with a fluttering heart, for the first test of his life had come.

In anger Knife-in-the-Wind thrust an arrow into the ground and said:

"How can the white man who died thousands of moons ago in a far country save the red man of to-day?"

"A strong man should bear so weak a tale," broke in Silver Ta.s.sel, ruthlessly. "Are we children, that the Great Chief sends a child as messenger?"

For a moment Billy Rufus did not know how to reply, and in the pause Knife-in-the-Wind broke in two pieces the arrow he had thrust in the ground in token of displeasure.

Suddenly, as Oshondonto was about to speak, Silver Ta.s.sel sprang to his feet, seized in his arms a lad of twelve who was standing near, and, running to the bank, dropped him into the swift current.

"If Oshondonto be not a child, let him save the lad," said Silver Ta.s.sel, standing on the brink.

Instantly William Rufus Holly was on his feet. His coat was off before Silver Ta.s.sel's words were out of his mouth, and, crying, "In the name of the Great White Chief!" he jumped into the rus.h.i.+ng current. "In the name of your Manitou, come on, Silver Ta.s.sel!" he called up from the water, and struck out for the lad.

Not pausing an instant, Silver Ta.s.sel sprang into the flood, into the whirling eddies and dangerous current below the first rapids and above the second.

II

Then came the struggle for Wingo of the Cree tribe, a waif among the Athabascas, whose father had been slain as they travelled, by a wandering tribe of Blackfeet. Never was there a braver rivalry, although the odds were with the Indian--in lightness, in brutal strength. With the mikonaree, however, were skill, and that sort of strength which the world calls "moral," the strength of a good and desperate purpose. Oshondonto knew that on the issue of this shameless business--this cruel sport of Silver Ta.s.sel--would depend his future on the Peace River. As he shot forward with strong strokes in the whirling torrent after the helpless lad, who, only able to keep himself afloat, was being swept down toward the rapids below, he glanced up to the bank along which the Athabascas were running. He saw the garish colors of their dresses; he saw the ignorant medicine-man, with his mysterious bag, making incantations, he saw the _tepee_ of the chief, with its barbarous pennant above; he saw the idle, naked children tearing at the entrails of a calf; and he realized that this was a deadly tournament between civilization and barbarism.

Silver Ta.s.sel was gaining on him; they were both overhauling the boy; it was now to see which should reach Wingo first, which should take him to sh.o.r.e. That is, if both were not carried under before they reached him; that is, if, having reached him, they and he would ever get to sh.o.r.e; for, lower down, before it reached the rapids, the current ran horribly smooth and strong, and here and there were jagged rocks just beneath the surface.

Still Silver Ta.s.sel gained on him, as they both gained on the boy.

Oshondonto swam strong and hard, but he swam with his eyes on the struggle for the sh.o.r.e also; he was not putting forth his utmost strength, for he knew it would be bitterly needed, perhaps to save his own life by a last effort.

Silver Ta.s.sel pa.s.sed him when they were about fifty feet from the boy.

Shooting by on his side, with a long stroke and a plunge of his body like a projectile, the dark face with the long, black hair plastering it turned toward his own, in fierce triumph Silver Ta.s.sel cried "How!" in derision.

Billy Rufus set his teeth and lay down to his work like a sportsman. His face had lost its roses, and it was set and determined, but there was no look of fear upon it, nor did his heart sink when a cry of triumph went up from the crowd on the banks. The white man knew by old experience in the cricket-field and in many a boat-race that it is well not to halloo till you are out of the woods. His mettle was up, he was not the Reverend William Rufus Holly, missionary, but Billy Rufus, the champion cricketer, the sportsman playing a long game.

Silver Ta.s.sel reached the boy, who was bruised and bleeding and at his last gasp, and, throwing an arm round him, struck out for the sh.o.r.e. The current was very strong, and he battled fiercely as Billy Rufus, not far above, moved down toward them at an angle. For a few yards Silver Ta.s.sel was going strong, then his pace slackened, he seemed to sink lower in the water, and his stroke became splas.h.i.+ng and irregular. Suddenly he struck a rock, which bruised him badly, and, swerving from his course, he lost his stroke and let go the boy.

By this time the mikonaree had swept beyond them, and he caught the boy by his long hair as he was being swept below. Striking out for the sh.o.r.e, he swam with bold, strong strokes, his judgment guiding him well past rocks beneath the surface. Ten feet from sh.o.r.e he heard a cry of alarm from above. It concerned Silver Ta.s.sel, he knew, but he could not look round yet.

In another moment the boy was dragged up the bank by strong hands, and Billy Rufus swung round in the water toward Silver Ta.s.sel, who, in his confused energy, had struck another rock, and, exhausted now, was being swept toward the rapids. Silver Ta.s.sel's shoulder scarcely showed--his strength was gone. In a flash Billy Rufus saw there was but one thing to do. He must run the rapids with Silver Ta.s.sel--there was no other way. It would be a fight through the jaws of death; but no Indian's eyes had a better sense for river-life than William Rufus Holly's.

How he reached Silver Ta.s.sel, and drew the Indian's arm over his own shoulder; how they drove down into the boiling flood; how Billy Rufus' fat body was battered and torn and ran red with blood from twenty flesh wounds; but how by luck beyond the telling he brought Silver Ta.s.sel through safely into the quiet water a quarter of a mile below the rapids, and was hauled out, both more dead than alive, is a tale still told by the Athabascas around their camp-fire. The rapids are known to-day as the Mikonaree Rapids.

The end of this beginning of the young man's career was that Silver Ta.s.sel gave him the word of eternal friends.h.i.+p, Knife-in-the-Wind took him into the tribe, and the boy Wingo became his very own, to share his home and his travels, no longer a waif among the Athabascas.

After three days' feasting, at the end of which the missionary held his first service and preached his first sermon, to the accompaniment of grunts of satisfaction from the whole tribe of Athabascas, William Rufus Holly began his work in the Far North.

The journey to Fort O'Call was a procession of triumph, for, as it was summer, there was plenty of food, the missionary had been a success, and he had distributed many gifts of beads and flannel.

All went well for many moons, although converts were uncertain and baptisms few, and the work was hard and the loneliness at times terrible.

But at last came dark days.

One summer and autumn there had been poor fis.h.i.+ng and shooting, the _caches_ of meat were fewer on the plains, and almost nothing had come up to Fort O'Call from Edmonton, far below. The yearly supplies for the missionary, paid for out of his private income--the bacon, beans, tea, coffee, and flour--had been raided by a band of hostile Indians, and he viewed with deep concern the progress of the severe winter. Although three years of hard, frugal life had made his muscles like iron, they had only mellowed his temper, increased his flesh, and rounded his face; nor did he look an hour older than on the day when he had won Wingo for his willing slave and devoted friend.

He never resented the frequent ingrat.i.tude of the Indians; he said little when they quarrelled over the small comforts his little income brought them yearly from the South. He had been doctor, lawyer, judge among them, although he interfered little in the larger disputes, and was forced to shut his eyes to intertribal enmities. He had no deep faith that he could quite civilize them; he knew that their conversion was only on the surface, and he fell back on his personal influence with them. By this he could check even the excesses of the worst man in the tribe, his old enemy, Silver Ta.s.sel of the bad heart, who yet was ready always to give a tooth for a tooth, and accepted the fact that he owed Oshondonto his life.

When famine crawled across the plains to the doors of the settlement and housed itself at Fort O'Call, Silver Ta.s.sel acted badly, however, and sowed fault-finding among the thoughtless of the tribe.

"What manner of Great Spirit is it who lets the food of his chief Oshondonto fall into the hands of the Blackfeet?" he said. "Oshondonto says the Great Spirit hears. What has the Great Spirit to say? Let Oshondonto ask."

Again, when they were all hungrier, he went among them with complaining words. "If the white man's Great Spirit can do all things, let him give Oshondonto and the Athabascas food."

The missionary did not know of Silver Ta.s.sel's foolish words, but he saw the downcast face of Knife-in-the-Wind, the sullen looks of the people; and he unpacked the box he had reserved jealously for the darkest days that might come. For meal after meal he divided these delicacies among them--morsels of biscuit, and tinned meats, and dried fruits. But his eyes meanwhile were turned again and again to the storm raging without, as it had raged for this the longest week he had ever spent. If it would but slacken, a boat could go out to the nets set in the lake near by some days before, when the sun of spring had melted the ice. From the hour the nets had been set the storm had raged. On the day when the last morsel of meat and biscuit had been given away the storm had not abated, and he saw with misgiving the gloomy, stolid faces of the Indians round him. One man, two children, and three women had died in a fortnight. He dreaded to think what might happen, his heart ached at the looks of gaunt suffering in the faces of all; he saw, for the first time, how black and bitter Knife-in-the-Wind looked as Silver Ta.s.sel whispered to him.

With the color all gone from his cheeks, he left the post and made his way to the edge of the lake where his canoe was kept. Making it ready for the launch, he came back to the fort. a.s.sembling the Indians, who had watched his movements closely, he told them that he was going through the storm to the nets on the lake, and asked for a volunteer to go with him.

No one replied. He pleaded--for the sake of the women and children.

Then Knife-in-the-Wind spoke. "Oshondonto will die if he goes. It is a fool's journey--does the wolverine walk into an empty trap?"

Billy Rufus spoke pa.s.sionately now. His genial spirit fled; he reproached them.

Silver Ta.s.sel spoke up loudly: "Let Oshondonto's Great Spirit carry him to the nets alone, and back again with fish for the heathen the Great Chief died to save."