The gold rock of the Chippewa

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THE GOLD ROCK OF THE CHIPPEWA

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“INDIAN” STORIES WITH HISTORICAL BASES

By D. LANGE

12mo Cloth Illustrated

ON THE TRAIL OF THE SIOUX

THE SILVER ISLAND OF THE CHIPPEWA

LOST IN THE FUR COUNTRY

IN THE GREAT WILD NORTH

THE LURE OF THE BLACK HILLS

THE LURE OF THE MISSISSIPPI

THE SILVER CACHE OF THE PAWNEE

THE SHAWNEE’S WARNING

THE THREAT OF SITTING BULL

THE RAID OF THE OTTAWA

THE MOHAWK RANGER

THE IROQUOIS SCOUT

THE SIOUX RUNNER

THE GOLD ROCK OF THE CHIPPEWA

LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD CO., BOSTON

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One of the women handed to each a birch-bark dish.

Page 35.

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THE GOLD ROCK
OF THE CHIPPEWA

BY
D. LANGE
ILLUSTRATED BY FRANK T. MERRILL

BOSTON
LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD CO.

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Copyright, 1925,
By D. Lange

The Gold Rock of the Chippewa

Printed in U. S. A.

Norwood Press

BERWICK & SMITH CO.

Norwood, Mass. [[5]]

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FOREWORD

Robert Louis Stevenson, in one of his essays on the art of writing, says in substance that one of the methods of telling a story is to choose a background and then build in harmony with the landscape selected.

In The Gold Rock of the Chippewa the writer has followed this method. The story opens in 1775, a dozen years after the Great Lakes region had been ceded by France to England. But it does not attempt to tell of the great war in which Wolfe and Montcalm gave their lives for their countries. It might be called “The Robinson Crusoe of Lake Superior,” as the events of the whole story take place among the rocky wooded hills, on the cold streams, the clear lakes, the wild islands, and on the deep blue waters of “Gitche Gumee,” the largest and most beautiful of the great inland seas of North America.

D. Lange.

St. Paul, Minnesota,
August, 1925. [[7]]

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CONTENTS

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ILLUSTRATIONS

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THE GOLD ROCK OF THE CHIPPEWA

CHAPTER I

THE COUNCIL

There was great excitement in the Chippewa camp on a small lake near the Sault Sainte Marie early in June, 1775. A council was going to be held to decide the fate of two Americans who had ventured into that part of the country as unwelcome visitors.

The prevailing opinion in the camp was that they should not be allowed to stay or to continue their journey, but should go back to their own country. However, there were a few warriors who demanded a much more radical proceeding against the strangers; and the most clamorous amongst these was Hamogeesik, who strutted about with his face painted black and bragged that [[12]]he was going to take the scalp of the two Englishmen, as he called them, because twelve years before at the siege of Detroit the English had killed his brother.

In the meantime, the two Americans, Bruce Henley, a young man who might be twenty-five years old, and his brother, Ray Henley, a lad of thirteen, kept rather close to the tepee of Ganawa, an old warrior who ridiculed the claims of Hamogeesik, whom he called a coward and “a much bad Indian.”

About an hour after sunset the beat of the tom-tom called the warriors to council. There were about twenty-five of them presided over by a chief who had seen many winters and had twice gone on the warpath against the Sioux, even then the enemies of the Chippewas.

The council-house was a very simple structure. It consisted of poles set in the ground, over which had been built a roof of boughs; but no white man’s court or jury ever assembled with greater dignity and [[13]]listened with more gravity to the arguments of eloquent lawyers or the charges of dignified judges than the unlettered warriors in Chief Winnego’s camp near the Sault Sainte Marie listened to the speakers.

Hamogeesik was the first to speak. He pleaded that the Englishmen should be turned over to him. That he should be allowed to keep them as slaves or to take their scalps, because the English had killed his brother, a brave Chippewa warrior, in the fights at Detroit, when the great war chief Pontiac led all the Indians against the English.

When Hamogeesik had finished and sat down on his deerskin robe, Ganawa arose. He was a man over six feet tall. His hair was beginning to turn gray, but his shoulders did not stoop, and from his eyes flashed the anger and fire of a young warrior.

“My brother,” he began in a low, deep voice, “has told you that his brother was killed by the English at Detroit. In that Hamogeesik has told you the truth. But [[14]]I ask you now why Hamogeesik’s brother went to Detroit. That place, as you all know, is many days’ journey from our country, and we had no grievance against the English. You know that many of our wise men and our own chief Winnego advised our young men not to join in the great war of the Ottawas and their chief Pontiac, but to stay at home and hunt deer and keep the bears and the coons out of the cornfields, which our women were beginning to plant.

“If Hamogeesik’s brother desired so much to fight our enemies, why did he not make up a war party against the Sioux?

“You know, brothers, that the young Englishmen are our guests, and live in my tepee, and you know what the little Englishman did only a day after he and his big brother came to our camp. You know that the little son of my daughter was fishing from a canoe and that the canoe drifted away with him. There was no other canoe on the beach and only our women and some [[15]]old men were in camp. When my daughter cried aloud and believed that her small son must drown, the little Englishman took off his shoes and plunged into the cold water. He showed that he was a better swimmer than most of us are. He reached the canoe and pushed it ashore, because there was no paddle with which to steer. You know that, when he reached the shore, his eyes closed and his legs would not move any more, so the women had to carry him to my tent. You know that the water which runs out of the great sea Gitche Gumee is so cold that it never gives up its dead.

“Here under this deerskin is a present for all of you, including Hamogeesik, and I ask you that the Englishmen be given to me that I may adopt them as my sons. They have shown themselves good and brave men and true friends of our people.

“We do not wish it told at the camp-fires of the Chippewas and the Ottawas that the warriors of Winnego have turned traitors to their friends and have forgotten the sacred [[16]]laws of hospitality that our fathers have taught us. I have finished.”

Contrary to Indian habit and custom the case was not held open for another council, but it was decided that the two Americans should belong to Ganawa, a decision which Hamogeesik heard with scowling silence.

Bruce Henley and Ray had surmised what the general drift of the two talks had been, but did not know what had been said until Ganawa translated the speeches to them after the council had broken up. [[17]]

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CHAPTER II

GANAWA SPEAKS

Bruce Henley knew enough of Indian etiquette to realize that his friend and Indian father would not ask him why he and the boy had come to the Indian country, and what their plans were for the future. He also realized that he must tell Ganawa the whole story.

A few days later, when he and Ray were alone in the tepee with Ganawa, Bruce unburdened his mind to the Chippewa hunter, who was now looked upon by the Indians as the father and protector of the two Americans who had for some mysterious reasons come to the region of the Upper Great Lake.

“My father,” he began, “I must now tell you why your white sons have come to the Chippewa country. We know that the [[18]]Chippewas and the Ottawas still love the French better than the English. We know that many Americans, or Englishmen, as the Indians call them, lost their lives at Mackinac twelve years ago, but we had a very good reason for coming to your country, although we knew that we might meet many dangers.”

“The English are brave men,” replied Ganawa. “I know that at that time an Englishman, whom the whites called Alexander Henry, came to Mackinac and to the Sault, and that our brother Wawatam adopted him as his son and saved his life. He is a very brave man; he has now left my people and has gone to trade with the Indians who live far to the west of us in the buffalo country. But I will now listen to my son, so I may learn why he and his little brother have come to our country. You have not come to trade because you have not brought many goods like the brave Englishman.”

“I shall truthfully tell my father why we have come,” Bruce then resumed. “It [[19]]is now about four years ago that my boyhood friend, Jack Dutton, went to the country of the Big Lake to trade and to trap beaver and marten. I wanted to go with him, but I had a mother and a sister for whom I had to make a home. My sister is now married to a good man, and my mother lives with her, and I was free to leave the colony of Vermont, where my white friends are living.”

“My son, I hear your words,” Ganawa replied, when Bruce was silent. “If you will tell me where your white brother is trading and hunting, it may be that I can lead you to him, unless he is living in the country of our enemies, the Sioux.”

“My father,” Bruce took up the story, “I cannot tell you where my friend is living. After he had been gone a year, he sent me a letter through some traders, saying that next summer he would look for me at Mackinac or at the Big Rapids that run out of the Big Lake. He said in his letter that I should not start till he wrote again, [[20]]but he has never written again. Now, my father, I have told you all I know of my friend.

“I fear,” Bruce continued when Ganawa did not speak, “that some evil thing has come to my friend. Perhaps he is sick and cannot travel. Perhaps he is held as a captive among the Indians, or he may have lost his life in the woods or in a storm on the Big Lake. Perhaps some bad white man or Indian has robbed and killed him.”

“My son,” Ganawa took up the talk, “you have not told me much. Was your brother tall, did he have brown hair, and did he walk with a long step?”

“Yes, my father,” Bruce warmly assented, “such was my friend. A tall man, thick brown hair, and he walks with a long stride.”

“I have seen your brother,” Ganawa declared. “But you, my sons, should have looked for him on the island of Mackinac, where many Indians and traders assemble every spring. But Mackinac is in the Lake [[21]]of the Hurons, more than a hundred miles by water from our camp.”

“My father,” replied Bruce eagerly, “we did visit Mackinac before we came to your camp, and he was not there. We talked to Indians and white traders, but none of them knew him or had seen him either this spring or last spring. A trader told us to travel to your camp on the lake through which runs the cold river between the Big Lake and the Lake of the Hurons. We travelled to your camp, you have become our father, and now we pray you that you tell us when and where you saw our brother.”

“I saw your brother at the Great Sault at the time of the strawberry moon. It was twelve or more moons ago. He had with him a Canadian, and Hamogeesik and his friends tried to rob him of his goods. But your brother showed a bold heart. He talked to the Indians while he was leaning on his gun and in his belt he showed two pistols and a hunting-knife. He told them if harm came to him and his men and if his [[22]]goods were taken from him, the English soldiers at Mackinac would hear of it and would punish the guilty. He did not say with words that he would fight for his goods, but he told them with his eyes that he and his man would fight. Hamogeesik is a coward and he and his friends slunk away like dogs.

“During the night the moon stood south of the Big Lake and when a gentle wind sprang up from the east, your brother put all his goods in his boat and he and his man sailed away.

“When the sun rose and the Indians learned that your brother had sailed away, they laughed at Hamogeesik and said: ‘Hamogeesik, you are a fool, but the white trader is wise and brave,’ and they gave him a new Indian name, which means the Brave White Man. Now I have told you all I know of your brother, but to what part or to which bay or island of the Big Lake your brother and his man sailed away I cannot tell you.” [[23]]

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CHAPTER III

GITCHE GUMEE

Bruce Henley realized that the information Ganawa had just given him was not encouraging; but if he had fully comprehended the size of this inland sea, its sheer endless shore-line, which it would take years to explore and search in detail, he would have been utterly discouraged at the well-meant information of Ganawa.

On the usual small map of a school-book, Lake Superior looks quite commonplace and harmless, but no man can stand on its shore without feeling the overwhelming power and mystery of this sea in the heart of a continent. It is different from every other lake on earth.

The distance a boat must sail from its west end at Duluth to the canals which now pass the Sault Sainte Marie is greater than the distance from St. Paul and Minneapolis [[24]]to Chicago or from Buffalo to New York. Its shore-line would stretch more than half-way across the continent between New York and San Francisco.

On this shore-line there are great bays, more than fifty miles in length, such as Nipigon Bay and Black Bay, where a canoe or small boat might wind about for a whole summer in a maze of channels and among a world of large and small islands, and bold, rocky headlands.

On the other hand, there are great stretches of more than a hundred miles where the rocks, a hundred feet high, drop sheer into the lake, and where it is difficult for even a canoe or a rowboat to find shelter in a storm.

In area, Lake Superior is about equal to the combined areas of Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. Its greatest depth runs close to a thousand feet, and depths of three hundred to seven hundred feet a few miles from shore are very common. The water is so clear that in quiet [[25]]bays one can see a fish at a depth of twenty feet, and the waves and the white spray have the color and appearance of waves and spray of the ocean.

The water is always ice-cold, except in midsummer within a few feet of the surface and in quiet, sheltered bays. But even in midsummer, the surface temperature does not pass fifty degrees.

The low temperature of the water is the reason that bodies of persons drowned in Lake Superior very rarely rise to the surface or drift ashore. The tradition that Lake Superior never gives up its dead is as old as the navigation of the lake by white men, and it existed among the Indians before the arrival of white men.

The writer has found no records of Indians ever travelling over the middle of the lake. Several of the red tribes were bold and skillful canoeists, but they were not sailors. They did, however, occasionally visit the large islands such as Michipicoten and Isle Royale, and in fair weather they [[26]]paddled boldly along the shore from the Sault to Grand Portage and Duluth, and in one recorded case the Chippewa woman, Netnoqua, and her adopted white son, John Tanner, beat a trader’s sailboat on the voyage from the Sault to Grand Portage at the mouth of the Pigeon River. On this trip Netnoqua’s canoe must have travelled nearly five hundred miles.

Unfortunately a school-book map cannot tell the story of the Big Lake, but a look at the fine large map of Lake Superior published by the United States Lake Survey suggests at a glance the spell of the Big Lake, of the clear cold water, of calm sunny summer days, of thick gray fogs, and of terrible autumn and winter storms.

Had Bruce and Ray Henley known all these things, their hearts might have failed them and they might never have ventured on the waves of Lake Superior and into the wild forests which, at that time, surrounded the whole of the vast inland sea.

A few days after Bruce and Ganawa had [[27]]had their talk, the Chippewa suggested that they might travel up the Big Lake a little way.

“My sons,” he told his white friends, “we shall learn nothing more of your brother and we shall never find him, if we stay in this camp and fish in the lake and hunt deer in the forest. I have friends who generally make their summer camp on Batchawana Bay. It may be that they can tell us more of your white brother. They may have seen French traders from the Grand Portage or even from a very distant place, which the French call Fond du Lac, which lies many leagues toward the setting sun and means ‘the End of the Lake.’

“You must have noticed, my sons,” he continued after a pause, “that Hamogeesik and his friends have left our camp. I do not know where they have gone. You should not be afraid of them, although I believe that they are planning some evil, because their tongues are forked and their hearts are black.” [[28]]

A few days later, Ganawa and his two white sons paddled a large birch-bark canoe up-stream. When the water became too swift, Ganawa steered the light craft to a safe landing-place and stepped out into the shallow water.

“My sons,” he said, “take our axes, our blankets, and other things and follow me.” Then he lifted the canoe on his shoulders and walked away with it on a plain portage trail. After he had walked about a mile he put the canoe in the water again.

“My little son,” he said to Ray Henley, “you must now learn to travel in an Indian canoe. Here is a small paddle which I have made for you of cedar wood. It is very light and will not tire your arms.”

Then Bruce knelt on a piece of canvas in the bow of the boat. Ray took his place in the middle, while Ganawa knelt in the stern, which is always the place of the steersman.

“My sons,” spoke Ganawa, “I shall now steer you over the water of the Big [[29]]Lake to the beautiful and quiet Bay of Batchawana. You, my little son, must not be frightened if a big wave lifts up our canoe, and you must not put your hands on the sides of the canoe. When your arms are tired you may rest, but you must sit very still, for you know that the water of Gitche Gumee is very cold.”

The day was already well advanced when the three travellers started north on the open lake. The sky was clear and there was no wind, but a haze hung on the horizon and made the western shore invisible as Ganawa skirted along the east shore. A broad swell from the north added to the impression that the canoe was headed for the open sea.

“Bruce, I am afraid,” Ray whispered. “This lake is so much bigger than Lake George and Lake Champlain in Vermont. It looks like the ocean. I—I am afraid we shall all drown.”

“My son, you need have no fear,” Ganawa assured the young lad. “The lake is not very big here. If there were no haze [[30]]in the air you could see the blue forest to the west. I can tell from the sky that no wind is coming, and we are running so close to shore that we could land before the waves grow too big, if a wind did spring up.”

They might have been going about three hours, when Ray became more cheerful. “I can see land now,” he remarked, “ahead of us to the left.”

“You see an island, my son,” Ganawa told him. “The French call it Isle Parisienne.”

When the sun stood low beyond this island, Ganawa headed the canoe toward a point which is now called Goulais Point. “We sleep here to-night,” he said. “It is not good to travel on the Big Lake after dark.”

“My father,” asked Ray, “I thought you said it was only a little way to that bay where we are going?”

“It is only a little way,” Ganawa replied calmly. “After we have slept, we shall soon go to Batchawana Bay.”

Ray asked no more questions, but he [[31]]wondered what distance Ganawa would call a long journey, if he referred to a two-days’ trip as “only a little way.”

When Ganawa had gone off to gather boughs for the night’s camp, Ray could not resist expressing his anxiety to his older brother. “Bruce,” he said, “this lake and the country are so big we shall never find anybody. I am not afraid any more to go with you and Ganawa on the lake if you don’t go in a storm. But you will see we shall never find Jack Dutton. How can you find anybody here? There are no towns and no farms, just water and woods, and rocks and big hills and islands and a few Indians. Do you think there are wolves and bears in these woods? If there are, I am going to ask Ganawa to let me sleep in the canoe.”

Just then Ganawa returned with an armful of boughs, but Ray could not quite muster enough courage to ask him about the danger from wolves and bears.

After a supper of venison, roasted on a [[32]]fire of driftwood, Ray soon slipped under the blankets on the bed of balsam boughs, and long before Ganawa and Bruce stopped talking he was fast asleep after the many new impressions and the fears and anxieties of the day.

The sun had just risen when Bruce called his young bedfellow. “Come, Ray,” he said, gently shaking the lad, “Ganawa is waiting for us. He is afraid the lake will get rough toward noon. There are clouds in the west.”

The drowsy lad arose, quickly put on his clothes and walked to the canoe with Bruce, and by the time Ganawa had pushed off, the sharp, cool air of Lake Superior had fully waked up the sleepy boy, who was not accustomed to start on a journey without breakfast.

However, they had started none too early. Before they reached the entrance to the bay, the waves began to roll uncomfortably high. The travellers, including Ray, plied a paddle with short quick strokes, and although the [[33]]young lad for a while suffered greater fear than the day before, he did not say a word, but paddled hard, with his eyes fixed on the quiet glistening bay ahead.

The sun indicated the approach of noon when they reached the north end of the bay, where they stopped at a small Indian camp near the mouth of the Batchawana River.

The thing that interested Ray most about this camp was a kettle of meat hanging over the fire in front of one of the tepees, for by this time the lad was ravenously hungry. [[34]]

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CHAPTER IV

VAGUE NEWS

Ray had learned at Ganawa’s camp that the Indians had no set time for meals, but ate when they were hungry, provided there was something to eat in camp. There was no set time for anything. The women, indeed, did go in the afternoon to cut and bring in the firewood, but as it was now midsummer and no fire was needed in the tepees at night, they were not very regular in attending to this duty; although they were busy at some kind of work all day long.

The men had no such regular hours for anything as a white man must observe for his work. Their duty in times of peace was to provide the camp with meat, and to secure enough fur or dried meat so they could buy of the white traders whatever the family needed: blankets, knives, needles, steel axes, traps, and especially guns and ammunition. [[35]]There were in an Indian camp, just as there are in a white man’s town, men and families who were thrifty, and those who were shiftless and always in trouble.

All trade was carried on by barter, no money circulated in the Indian country, but a beaver skin was the standard of value.

Ray was much pleased when one of the women handed to each of the three visitors a birch-bark dish and a wooden spoon and told them to help themselves to meat in a large kettle in front of her tepee.

The ideas of Indians concerning things that are clean often differed from those of white men. The kettle contained venison and two wild ducks all boiling together; and the Indian woman had not been very careful about picking the birds.

“I can’t eat that mess,” Ray said to Bruce when he saw Ganawa help himself to a liberal portion. Ganawa smiled at this remark of the white boy. “My little son, our friends offer us good meat,” he encouraged the white lad. “Ducks keep their [[36]]feathers very clean. Fill your dish and eat, for I know you must be very hungry.”

Ray was indeed very hungry, and as he began to eat he found that the meat was good, although it had been boiled without salt or other seasoning.

Ganawa learned from the men in this camp that the brave young trader of last spring had sailed his wooden boat along the eastern shore of the Big Lake, that he had reached Michipicoten Bay, which is sheltered from all winds except those that come from the southwest. They had also heard that he had paddled up the Michipicoten River as far as the rapids below the big falls. Whether he had made a camp at that place and remained there during the winter they did not know.

A young man, however, who was known by the name of Roving Hunter, told that about twelve moons ago he and a companion had met a family of Wood-Indians, called by the Chippewas Oppimittish Ininiwac. These Wood-Indians had told him that two [[37]]white men had made a camp on the Michipicoten River, nine or ten leagues above the big falls. They had also a camp on one of the big lakes of that country. He thought from the account of the Ininiwacs that they meant Lake Anjigami. But he could not understand the language of the Ininiwacs very well, and they might have referred to some other lake, because the Michipicoten carries the water of many lakes down to Gitche Gumee.

He and his companion had paddled up the river to visit the white hunters, but when they came to a stretch of rapids two miles long, his companion became discouraged and said it was too much work to visit the camp of these white men. Perhaps they would not find the camp, even if they carried their canoe past the long rapids and the big falls. So they turned back and did not see the white men. The Ininiwacs also told him that there were many beavers on the small lakes and streams in the Michipicoten country. The three white men were trapping [[38]]beaver and marten and otter, and they had also traded some beaver skins and marten of the Ininiwacs for knives and beads and needles, but they had no blankets and guns to sell and no fire-water. But Roving Hunter, like the other Chippewas, did not know if the white men were still in the Michipicoten country.

When Ganawa told his white sons what he had learned, Ray was much discouraged. “I told you,” he said to Bruce when the two had gone to catch trout, “I told you, Bruce, we could never find anybody in this country. Every time we go anywhere, the country and the lake look bigger and wilder to me. We might find a big island, if it is not too far from shore, but how can you find a camp when nobody knows where it is? None of the Indians know where Jack Dutton is now. And perhaps the stories they have told Ganawa are not true; you know not all stories you hear among white people are true.”

To one who has never lived in a wild and [[39]]thinly populated country it would seem that Ray’s conclusion was right, but the facts are that it is much more difficult to disappear in a wild country than it is in a big city. There are so few people in a wild country that a stranger, coming in or passing through, is remembered for a long time by everybody who has seen him. In the same way, both whites and Indians who live in these regions know of each other, although their camps or homes may be more than a hundred miles apart and they may seldom or never see each other.

When Bruce told Ganawa of the fears of the young white boy, the old hunter looked at the lad with a serious but friendly smile.

“My little son,” he told him, “you must not forget that in the country of the Big Lake there are not as many people as there are in the white man’s country. My friends in this camp have told me much, and they have not told me lies. To-morrow or next day, when the wind has gone down, we shall start for the river Michipicoten. If we find [[40]]some of the Ininiwac people there, they may be able to tell us where your white brother is camping, and it may be that we shall find him very soon.”

The wind went down next day, but Ganawa did not say anything of starting north. A hunter had come to camp with some moose meat and the women had caught plenty of fish in their nets; lake trout, pickerel, and some big brook trout, bigger than Ray had ever seen. These brook trout had come into Lake Superior out of the stream. Such brook trout are found along the shores of Lake Superior to this day. They thrive in the cold, clear water along the shore, and in places where there is little or no fishing they are at times very numerous. White fishermen at the present time call them “coasters.”

As far as Bruce and Ray could tell, Ganawa and his friends did nothing all day but eat moose meat and visit. “Indians certainly have a good time,” remarked Ray to Bruce. [[41]]

“Yes,” admitted Bruce, “playing Indian is not so bad in summer, but it must be a tough life in winter.”

At the close of the third day, Ganawa and his friends had eaten up most of the moose meat and Ganawa told his white sons that in the morning they would leave, provided the lake was quiet.

“Bruce, you had better ask our father,” Ray whispered to his friend, “to take plenty of meat along. You know we were all starved when we came to this camp, and I heard our father say that it is twenty-five leagues to the place we are going. Twenty-five leagues, that is seventy-five miles, so you see it will take us two or three days.”

The next morning Ganawa started at break of day without apparently thinking of eating any breakfast. This was the usual way for Indians to travel, and the voyageurs of the Hudson Bay Company and the Northwest Company adopted the same method of travel.

A very light fog lay over the water of [[42]]Batchawana Bay when the travellers started, but it had been dispelled by the time they rounded the point which marks the end of the bay. Here the open lake lay before them in all that splendor of a summer day, which one can experience in such perfection nowhere else but along the wild rocky shores of Lake Superior, when waves and wind seem to have gone to sleep for a long time, and when no fog hides the sight of green hills far and near.

White gulls sailed in the air on almost motionless wings, and from the spruces on shore came the clear whistle of the white-throat, one of the hardiest little songsters of the North, whose cheering voice may often be heard through a thick fog, in which one cannot see ten yards ahead.

Ray was glad to see the lake so quiet, but the feeling that he was travelling along the shore of the ocean came over him again. “My father,” he asked timidly, “are we travelling now where the lake is very big?”

“Yes, my son,” replied Ganawa, “on our [[43]]left toward the west the lake is very big, sixty leagues or more; but it is still much bigger, twice as big toward the northwest, toward the large island of Menong and Thunder Bay, where the Sleeping Giant lies on the rocks.”

The boy asked no more. He dipped in his light paddle in unison with Ganawa and Bruce, and his fear left him as he came under the spell of the scene which was at the same time beautiful and sublime. Mile after mile they glided along in silence. Some small islands to the northwest had been left behind. Westward the lake stretched out endlessly to the horizon, where the water seemed to rise to blend and unite with the sky. However, the nearness of the shore on their right made the lad feel that they were safe, although the steep brown rocks looked forbidding enough and the forests on the high hills appeared almost black, because the travellers had to look at them against the light of the sun. After a while, the lad grew dull toward the beauty [[44]]and sublimity of the scene, and his healthy physical nature asserted itself. He had hoped that Ganawa would stop for breakfast at the end of the bay, but the old hunter had not even thought of stopping, to judge from the way he steered out of the bay. The lad was therefore more than glad when Ganawa steered toward a point and remarked, “My sons, we land there to eat.”

It seemed to Ray as if it must be almost noon, but Ganawa told him that it was still early in the morning, that they had made about eight leagues and that the place, where by this time they had landed, was called by English traders Coppermine Point. The Indians, he said, had no name for it, because there were too many points like it all along the shore of the Big Lake. [[45]]

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CHAPTER V

THE WHITE BOY LEARNS

Ganawa seemed now to have plenty of time. He and Bruce lifted the canoe out of the water so that the lapping of the waves would not cause it to chafe on the rocks, for a canoe is very easily injured, and an Indian birch-bark is even more sensitive to rough handling than a white man’s canoe.

Much to the surprise of Ray, Ganawa even built a fire, which he did by striking the edge of a piece of flint with a small piece of steel and catching the sparks on a piece of dry soft punk. This method of making fire was an improvement on the bow and fire-stick, which the Indians used before they came into contact with white traders. Steel, flint, and tinder are much more portable than the bow, stick, and block of dry wood used during the Stone Age of the human race, and now revived for an interesting and [[46]]valuable exercise in woodcraft by the Boy Scouts. It was also easier for a hunter to keep dry a small piece of tinder than to carry or make the older fire-making tools, especially in rainy weather.

Ganawa had another surprise in store for Ray. He produced a small package of tea and a little brown sugar. To have a drink of sweet tea was more of a treat to Ray than a box of the best candy is to a modern boy or girl, and Ray danced and shouted with joy when he saw what Ganawa was doing. Since Bruce and Ray had been with the Indians they had eaten nothing but meat and fish.

Indians were seldom more provident than white boys are in camp. The Indians around Lake Superior knew of only two kinds of vegetable food which they could gather and keep in quantities: wild rice and blueberries. The supplies of both had been exhausted in Winnego’s camp and the new crop was not yet ripe.

There was, however, no scarcity of food in [[47]]camp. Moose meat, venison, grouse, and ducks were all plentiful. With the Indians, there could not be a closed season, because they lived largely on game; but as a general rule, they did not waste any wild meat. If for instance it was too difficult to carry the meat of a moose to camp, the camp was moved to the moose and remained there until the moose was eaten up.

No decent white man or boy, however, should ever kill game in the closed season. The Indian days and the frontier days have passed, and to obey the game laws is as much a duty of a good citizen as to obey other laws. Unless that is done there will soon be no game left to hunt at any time.

One may, however, always hunt with a camera. Animals and birds shot with a camera will keep and be a treasure for a lifetime, and hunting with a camera is a finer and harder sport than hunting with a gun.

As told before, Bruce and Ray did not go hungry, for moose meat or venison, either [[48]]fresh or dried, is very good food, and there are no better fresh-water fish in the world than the whitefish, lake trout, and brook trout caught in Lake Superior, but Ray often wished for some flour and hominy.

Ganawa gave his white sons about an hour to eat and rest at Coppermine Point. Then he steered the canoe almost straight north and he told them that for the night he intended to make camp at the mouth of the Agawa River.

“That is a long river,” he told his sons, “and it runs through a deep and beautiful canyon, where the trout live, those that are colored like the rainbow. My little son should be able to catch some big ones at the mouth of the Agawa,” he added with a friendly smile.

“How big are they?” asked Ray.

“That big,” answered Ganawa, holding his hands about two feet apart, “and they should weigh five or six pounds, and maybe more than that.”

“What big ones!” exclaimed Ray. “I [[49]]never saw such big ones. I am going after them;” and involuntarily he made a jump and swung his arms so as to rock the canoe.

“My little son,” Ganawa reminded him, “we are not in a white man’s rowboat. You know the water of Gitche Gumee is very cold for swimming.”

“I forgot, Father, I forgot,” Ray apologized. “I’ll sit still. I know a birch-bark canoe is very cranky, and I don’t wish to swim again in this cold water,” and Ray started in to paddle as if he alone had to take the canoe to the mouth of the Agawa; until Bruce brought him up short, saying:

“Ray, what are you trying to do? Please keep time with us. You will be tired enough by the time we get to camp. It is nearly thirty miles to the mouth of the Agawa.”

There was very little conversation after this. Once or twice Ray asked how deep the lake was along this coast, to which Ganawa could only reply that it was very deep, because in those days no survey of the [[50]]lake had been made. Modern surveys have shown that the lake is indeed very deep along that shore, in some places dropping to a depth of four hundred and even six hundred feet close to shore, but there are a few shoals, where in still weather one can see the bottom, for they are covered with only seven to fifteen feet of water.

The three kept steadily on their course, and about noon an island became visible just above the horizon straight ahead. On their right, the wooded hills of the shore, rising about a thousand feet above the lake, were constantly in sight a few miles off; but on their left toward the west and the northwest there was nothing but the open lake which to the eyes of the travellers looked as endless as the ocean.

The day had turned very warm and as the sun passed the noon line, the air above the gentle glassy swells of the lake became filled with a hazy vapor.

The island began to look larger as the travellers approached, and Bruce judged [[51]]that it might be a mile, perhaps two miles in diameter.

“My father,” he asked when he noticed that Ganawa was not steering for the channel between the island and the lake, “are we going to camp on the island?”

“My son,” replied Ganawa, “do you see that the air is no longer clear on the water, but only high up in the sky? I am afraid we may run into a fog and then we might not be able to find the mouth of the Agawa. The fogs on this lake are very thick.”

Ganawa’s fear was realized all too soon. In about half an hour the shore disappeared, and then even the island, which a little while ago had seemed to be very close, straight ahead of them, disappeared completely from sight.

For some little time all kept paddling in silence, and Ganawa steered against the cold breeze that had come with the fog. But soon after the breeze had failed Ganawa stopped paddling.

“Wait, my sons,” he spoke, “we must [[52]]make sure that we are going right. It is very dangerous to be lost in a fog on the Big Lake.” And then he suddenly uttered a deep rolling yell: “Hoah—hoah!”

“Hoah—hoah,” a faint echo came from their right.

“We were headed for the open lake, my sons,” remarked Ganawa. “Now paddle carefully straight ahead to our right. We must not miss the island.”

Within a few minutes Ray gave a yell, but no echo returned from his weaker and more highly-pitched voice.

Then Bruce tried it and back came the voice: “Oh—hoh!” but not very strong.

“I hear the scream of some gulls,” remarked Ganawa. “I think they are sitting on the rocks near shore. We must go slow.”

Then Ray tried it again and back came the echo quickly and clearly: “Hi-yi, hi-yi!” and a few minutes later a rather low wooded island suddenly rose out of the fog as if it had just come up from the bottom of the lake. [[53]]

“Thank God,” Bruce said in a low voice. “I knew we were close to the island, but it seemed as if we should never reach it. Thank God we found it. It is the best-looking island I ever saw.”

In reality the island looked quite forbidding. Bold, jagged rocks seemed to form the whole shore, and it took some time before Ganawa found a safe pebbly landing-place. Rather small spruces, balsam firs, and birches formed a dense forest and were all dripping wet, and there was not a sign of any human habitation either white or Indian. As far as Bruce and Ray could tell, there had never been a human being on the island.

“We camp here, my sons,” Ganawa informed the white lads, “and we must set up our tepee, because the woods and the ground are too wet and cold without a tepee and a fire. White men call this place Montreal Island, and it measures about a league if you go north and south, and a league if you go east and west.” [[54]]

[[Contents]]

CHAPTER VI

A SPOOKY CAMP

Ray had a feeling that they had narrowly escaped from the horrible fate of being lost in a fog on Lake Superior. He had seen fogs in his native province of Vermont, but this was his first experience with a fog such as he had just seen. That a fog could come up so suddenly and could almost change day into night was a revelation to the lad. But he understood now why Ganawa had been so anxiously watching the sky for signs of a change in the weather and why he had steered for the island instead of for the mouth of the Agawa, which was about twelve miles farther to the northeast, and where Ganawa would have had to hold a true course over open water about ten miles wide.

“My sons,” remarked Ganawa, “I was afraid we should get lost if we tried to reach [[55]]the mainland even if we had used our little compass. When a fog comes up, every wise man paddles as quickly as possible to the nearest land.”

There was something spooky about the place where they had landed. They had carried their tepee-skin and other things a few rods through the dripping forest over very rough rocky ground and had laid them down in an open grassy spot, where to the surprise of both Ray and Bruce, they found two sets of tepee-poles already set up. But the fog had now become so thick that, if Ray walked over to one side of the clearing, he could not see the tepee-poles at the other side. He walked a few rods along a game trail in search of dry punk wood, but in the dense timber he had a feeling that the sun had set and that at any moment it might grow pitch dark. With a feeling of fear he turned back toward camp. He was puzzled when he came to a fork in the trail, which he had not noticed in coming from the camp. He took the fork [[56]]to his right and followed it for a time, which seemed to him to be twice as long as he had taken going away from the camp. But no open place and no tepee-poles came in sight; on the contrary the timber grew more dense and the trail began to lead up-hill. He stopped and called, “Hoh, Bruce!” He listened for an answer but none came.

The blood rushed hot to his face. “I believe I am lost,” he thought. He listened a moment and heard the sound of some one chopping wood, but the sound came from the wrong direction, and Ray called lustily for Bruce.

“Come back here, you youngster!” came the reply. “Can’t you get wet enough without slashing around in the brush?”

When the badly scared boy returned to the camp site, Ganawa was just putting the last touches on setting up the tepee. Bruce was hard at work cutting wood. He had some dry spruce and balsam, but most of it was green birch, and under a large piece of old dead birch-bark he had gathered a pile [[57]]of fairly dry sticks and fine twigs, which Ganawa would use in starting the fire.

“My son,” Ganawa warned the flushed boy, “if you wander away from camp in a fog, some night you will sleep in the wet bush.”

Then Ganawa started to make a fire. He took a piece of tinder and a piece of flint between his left thumb and forefinger and with a sort of steel ring held in his right hand, he struck a few sharp quick blows at the edge of the flint. Ray was not sure that he had seen any sparks fly off the flint, but the tinder had caught fire and began to give off a little smoke. Ganawa placed it in a handful of dry moss, spruce needles and very fine dry twigs and swung the whole over his head. The smoke increased at once, and in a very short time a red, smoky flame burst forth, and Ganawa put his little fire under the dry sticks and twigs prepared for it. The fire started a little slowly, because none of the material used was as dry as it would have been on a bright, sunny day. [[58]]However, in about ten minutes the campers had a bright cheerful blaze, which only a heavy rain could have put out.

If one should camp on Montreal Island in a fog at the present time, he would hear through the fog the deep roar of the whistle of steamers headed for the canals at Sault Sainte Marie with iron ore or grain, and of other steamers that have come up through the “Soo” Canals with coal or merchandise from the east or from Europe. At the time of our story a few very small sailboats belonging to French or English traders were the only ships on Lake Superior larger than Indian canoes. Ganawa also built a small fire in the center of the tepee, “to take the cold out of it,” as he said. The fire on the outside he and Bruce built up until it was quite big; and on several stumps around it they piled up the spruce and balsam boughs, which were to serve for their beds.

“Wet boughs make a poor bed,” observed Ganawa. “We shall dry them before we take them in.” [[59]]

Ganawa was not in a talkative mood. Most of the time he sat and gazed into the fire, or seemed to be listening to the songs of white-throats and hermit-thrushes, which are not silenced in the North Country either by fog or cold weather.

When Bruce finally ventured to ask, “What is my father thinking of so long?” Ganawa replied: “I am thinking of your brother that sailed away on the Big Lake, and I am also thinking of Hamogeesik. He is a bad man, and I do not know where he has gone. He may have gone the same way that we are going. Two winters ago, he went with a white man from Quebec to Lake Manitowik and Lake Missinaibi to trap beaver and otter and marten. When the streams ran free of ice Hamogeesik came back with many furs, but the white man did not come back. Hamogeesik told that he had broken through the ice on Lake Missinaibi. Some of the Indians believed the story, but many of them did not believe it.” [[60]]

It grew dark early, so pitchy, inky dark that Ray was afraid to go out of sight of the camp-fire. He soon grew sleepy, rolled up in his blankets inside the tepee, and slept soundly till morning. But for Ganawa and Bruce the night was not so restful. For some time the white lad was kept awake by the thumping of the rabbits, which were numerous on the island. But several times during the night some larger animal prowled about the tepee. It never uttered a sound, but Ganawa said it moved through the brush like a wolf. “But I do not know why a wolf should stay on this island during summer,” he added. “They cross over on the ice in winter, but they leave this island and other islands before the ice breaks up.” [[61]]

[[Contents]]

CHAPTER VII

A WOLF

When the campers awoke, the fog was beginning to lift and a gentle wind was blowing from the northwest. The lake seemed to be quiet, but Ganawa suggested that they walk along a game trail to the southwest corner of the island, where they could have a look over the open water, which was not sheltered by being in the lee of the island. Here an unexpected sight met the eyes of the white boys. Past the rocky point of the island was sweeping a wild sea; at least that was the impression produced in the minds of the white boys by the ceaselessly rolling, swishing, breaking, splashing and pounding waves that kept rolling on and on from the great open sea to the northwest and were ever crowding, crowding in upon the shore and the islands of the southeastern part of [[62]]the lake over a stretch of open water of some two hundred miles.

“Ugh, look at them smash against the shore!” Ray exclaimed to Bruce. “You will see, Bruce, some day they will eat up the whole island.”

Ganawa, however, was not at all excited by the dashing and breaking waves. With a far-away gaze he stood and looked out upon the restless sea, and Bruce wondered where the thoughts of the old hunter were roaming. Perhaps he was thinking of Hamogeesik. Or was he trying to work out in his mind the best route, where they might search with some probability of finding a trace of Bruce’s lost white friend? Bruce himself felt utterly helpless and hopeless in this sublime great wilderness of lake, islands, rocky shores, and grand sweeping wooded hills, over which the silent forest stretched clear to Hudson Bay and the Arctic regions.

“If I had known,” he said to himself as he was standing alone under a weather-beaten spruce and looking out over the waves, [[63]]“I never should have had the nerve to come out to this region and try to find anything or anybody; but I should have expected to lose everything, including my life. On Lake George and Lake Champlain out east, one can see shores and water and woods, and everything has an end; but here everything stretches away into an endless vast; the lake, the shore, the hills and forest, and I suppose the rivers will do the same if we ever begin to explore them.”

While Ganawa and Bruce had each been busy with his own thoughts, Ray, after the manner of a young boy, had seen all that Ganawa and Bruce had seen; but upon him the grand sublime scene had a different effect. He drank it all in, and his young mind was eager for more new impressions. The past and the future did not worry him; he was living in the present.

The sun was out by this time, the white gulls were sailing and screaming near shore, and from the thickets came the whistle of white-throats and the wild melody of the [[64]]hermit-thrushes, but in the sunshine now the songs were much more vigorous and vibrant than they had been in the fog yesterday.

“My father,” asked Ray, “are we going to travel to-day?” On being told that the lake was too rough for a canoe, Ray asked if he might run about for a while on the game trails and along the shore. The sun was out now, he assured Bruce, so he would not get lost again.

Neither Ganawa nor Bruce objected, and Ray started out along an old moose or caribou trail. He did not expect to see any of this big game, because Ganawa had told the white lads that all the large animals leave the islands near the coast before the ice breaks up in spring. One thing, however, Ray did not know, the visit of the strange animal to the tepee during the preceding night. If he had known of that strange beast, he would have been afraid to go exploring by himself.

He followed briskly a somewhat dim trail that led northward near the west coast of [[65]]the island, where waves and wind exerted their greatest force and where the island has for several thousand years received the most severe battering of the waves.

Ray followed this trail for the same reason that animals and men of all ages have followed trails; because it is so much easier to travel along a trail than to cut across the brush. The footing on a trail is much more secure than it is across brush, roots, and rocks, and one does not have to watch his direction so carefully.

Ray had walked, whistling and singing, about a mile, when the trail turned a little away from the coast to an almost bare area of several acres. At the end of this open space Ray saw something that for a moment almost made his blood freeze.

On a big bare rock stood a wolf looking at him. Ray’s first impulse was to turn and run; but he was too scared to run. He knew that if the wolf followed him he would soon overtake him. So in sheer desperation and make-believe courage Ray stepped up [[66]]on a rock, swung his arms over his head and yelled. But this wolf did not do what wolves are supposed to do when they see a man in summer. He did not run, but he stood right there, and he even wagged his tail, and Ray could see that he had a big bushy tail.

On a big bare rock stood a wolf looking at him.

Page 65.

And then before Ray’s very eyes, the wolf on the rock became transformed. He suddenly lost the appearance of a wild wolf of the Great Lakes country, and took on the shape and almost the color of a creature with which Ray had often roamed the hills of Vermont, and Ray had cried bitterly when Bruce had insisted that Ray could not take him along.

Ray dropped the club he had picked up and for a moment he stood spellbound. Then he called: “Shep! Come here, Shep! Come here!” And he ran toward the animal. The animal also came bounding toward the boy. The boy threw his arms around him, and the animal, as if mad with joy, danced around the lad, and jumped up [[67]]on him and almost knocked him over in his unrestrained expression of joy.

“Come on, Shep, you go home with me.” The boy spoke as if he were talking to a human being. “Don’t you get lost again. You stay right with me. You are going with us. If they won’t let you go with us, I shall stay right here on the island with you, and Ganawa and Bruce can go alone and hunt up their man.”

And then the boy started back on the trail, the dog following close on his heels, as if the two had been friends for years. [[68]]

[[Contents]]

CHAPTER VIII

TAWNY

Ray approached the camp with his face flushed and his heart beating fast. He had been lonely on this trip thus far, but now he had found a companion.

“Oh, Bruce! Oh, Bruce!” he called when he had approached within calling distance. “I found somebody on the island, and I want to keep him.”

“What in the world did you pick up!” Bruce exclaimed, when he saw the animal that looked so much like the collie which Ray had been forced to leave behind in Vermont. Only this dog was bigger and appeared more wolf-like. Bruce felt almost a little afraid of the beast, but Ray stood with his right arm around the neck of the big tawny animal, who seemed to be as content and happy as the young boy.

“I am going to keep him!” Ray spoke [[69]]with his face set, without explaining just how he found the animal.

“There must be some Indians camping on this island,” Bruce suggested, when Ganawa stepped out of the tepee.

“No, my sons,” Ganawa replied, “no Indians camp on this island more than a few days, and this dog is no Indian dog. I have seen this dog with some miners that worked for the brave trader Alexander Henry, and they must have lost him on this island. It may be that he was hunting on a trail or was digging out a woodchuck, when the miners had to leave.”

Ganawa was, however, not at all pleased with Ray’s desire of keeping the dog. “We shall have to find food for him,” he said, “and we may have to be on our journey a long time. The country and the lake are very big, there are many islands and many rivers run into the Big Lake. Yes, my sons, very many rivers race and tumble into the Big Lake with much cold and noisy water. These rivers,” he continued after a pause, [[70]]“look very small on the maps which white men make of them and of the lake, but when you go to the place where they run into the lake, or when you try to cross them in the woods, you find that they are big rivers with swift currents. Some of them are big only at the time the snow melts in the forest on the hills, but some of them bring the water from many lakes and are big at all seasons even if no rain falls from the clouds for many moons.”

Ray had listened with only one ear, so to speak, to Ganawa’s talk on the many rivers that fall into Lake Superior.

“My father,” he replied timidly, “I could hunt for my dog. Maybe he will also eat fish and maybe he can catch rabbits for himself.”

“My son, he may do that,” Ganawa admitted, “but I am afraid he may upset our canoe and that he may bark at a time when he should keep still. It is hard to teach a dog anything after he has grown up.”

Both Ray and Bruce had to admit the [[71]]truth of these points, but now Bruce came to the assistance of his small brother by saying: “My father, let us try this dog. Some dogs lie still in a canoe and do not bark much. If this is not a good dog, we can leave him on the mainland, where there is more game and where he may find some Indian camp or make his way back to the traders at the Soo.”

“Bruce, I tell you something,” Ray spoke up when the two brothers were alone, “if you are going to leave my dog behind in the woods, I am going to stay behind, too.”

“Don’t talk foolish,” Bruce replied sharply. “Do you suppose I would leave you stranded in this wilderness with a half-wild dog? Remember you promised that you would do what I told you when I took you along. Can’t you understand that nobody would ever see your face again or even your bones, if you were set out on this wild shore? Remember that there are no white men on the whole shore from the Soo to the Michipicoten River, and Ganawa told us he [[72]]did not know of any Indians except at Batchawana Bay and at the mouth of the Michipicoten, and he was not sure that we should find any at the Michipicoten.

“Then you want to remember that travelling overland is not as easy as gliding along in a canoe. You would have to go up-hill and down-hill, over rocks and fallen timber, through swamps and across many streams. Don’t you remember what Ganawa said when I asked him how we could reach the Michipicoten? He smiled when I told him you and I should like to travel through the forest on an Indian trail and said: ‘My son, travelling on land to the Michipicoten would be very hard work. You could carry only your gun, one blanket and very little food, and your moccasins would wear out on the rocks. The black flies and the mosquitoes would eat you up and would not let you sleep. There is no trail from the Soo to the Michipicoten, because no Indians ever go that way on land. They always go in canoes on the lake. At night they camp [[73]]near the lake on shore or on an island where the cool air keeps away the black flies and the mosquitoes, and when the lake is stormy they camp till it is calm again.’ ”

“I did forget about the black flies and mosquitoes,” Ray admitted somewhat humbly, “but I don’t want to leave my dog. I am going to call him Tawny. Don’t you think that is a good name?”

“It is a good name for him,” Bruce agreed, “and I hope he will be a well-behaved dog in the canoe and in camp. Perhaps he will leave us of his own accord as soon as we camp on the mainland.”

“He will not leave us,” Ray replied indignantly. “He has no master and no place to go. I would like to know how he happened to be left on this island. Perhaps the boat of some white man, who owned him, was swamped near here, and Tawny swam to the island. The mainland is over three miles away and he never could have reached that through the ice-cold water of this lake, but he is not going to leave us!” [[74]]

[[Contents]]

CHAPTER IX

THE PROVING OF TAWNY

Ganawa decided that they might as well camp another night on Montreal Island, because the lake was still somewhat rough with big long swells beating against the island from the northwest. But on the following morning the great clear sea lay spread out calm in all its summer glory under a clear sky. White-throats and song-sparrows were singing in the spruces on which the sunlight sparkled and was reflected from a myriad of dewdrops, while the forest on the high mainland toward the east bounded the clear glittering lake like a dark wall of mystery, and aroused in both white lads a strong desire to climb these dark, forested slopes and learn what there might be in the great inland behind.

Ganawa started early and steered a [[75]]course which left a group of small rocky islands now known as Lizard Islands on their right. At a distance of some twelve miles from Montreal Island they came to another island about a mile and a half by two miles in size. This is now called Leach Island.

Ray expressed a wish to land and explore this island. “Are you going to look for another dog?” asked Bruce. “This one will give us trouble enough.”

The younger lad replied that he did not want any more dogs. “Do you think I am so stupid that I think there is a dog on every island?” he protested vigorously.

Ganawa laughed at the tilt of words between his sons and told them that this island was much like Montreal Island.

“We shall camp early this evening,” he said, “in a fine little harbor, and maybe my small son will catch some big fish for our meal.”

After they had passed Leach Island, Ganawa steered the canoe within a mile or [[76]]less of the shore, and never had the lads seen a more magnificent view. They were headed north. To their left lay the endless blue sea with no land in sight; but to their right stood the big forested wall of rocks, rising to a height of several hundred or even a thousand feet within a mile or two of the lake. The sun was now shining on this great forest so one could see clearly the mixture of spruce, balsam, fir, and birch, with isolated white pines that were taller and seemed to belong to an older generation of trees.

It was still early in the afternoon when Ganawa rounded some cliffs to the right and landed the canoe, as he had promised, in a sheltered bay of shallow water, now known as Indian Harbor.

“We have come ten leagues,” he said, as he lifted the canoe to a safe place on land; “it is ten leagues more to the Michipicoten. My big son and I will make camp. My little son should catch us some trout for our meal.” [[77]]

“I do want to catch them,” Ray replied, “but I have no bait.”

Then Ganawa took a piece of red flannel out of his hunting bag. “Here, my son,” he told the lad, “that will catch them, if they are here.”

Ray was in high spirits. His dog had behaved well. When gulls and eagles soared rather close to the boat, Tawny did not even lift his head, and now after the canoe had landed, he showed no inclination to leave but literally dogged Ray’s footsteps. The fish were biting, too, and the lad was soon wild with excitement. Never had Ray seen such big rainbow trout. “Oh, Bruce, come and look,” he called; “they are too beautiful to eat,” after, with much splashing and yelling, he had pulled out three of the flashing, jumping fish, weighing from two to three pounds each.

And then came the climax of the day for the lad. A big five-pounder took a vicious bite at the red flannel, and pulled with much more strength than Ray had anticipated. [[78]]The lad held to his pole but in his effort to reach the line, he slipped on the rock and tumbled in amongst the boulders. Tawny uttered just two loud barks before he jumped after the lad, and when Bruce came rushing to the spot, boy and dog were struggling in the water and Bruce could not tell which one was trying to save the other. But in all the excitement Ray held to the line, and when the giant trout at last flashed his great mass of pink and his red spots on the rock, Ray fell on the wildly jumping fish, seized him behind the gills and then ran to the tepee yelling: “Look, Father, look, I’ve got him! I’ve got him!”

By this time a good fire was blazing near the tepee, and Ray was soon in dry clothes and as comfortable and warm as if he had never had a plunge-bath in Lake Superior. When Bruce taunted him with being pulled in by the big fish, Ray only laughed and said, “The fish was worth a cold bath, and I should be glad to fall in again if I could catch another five-pound rainbow trout.” [[79]]

“My father, this evening I shall make a feast,” Bruce told Ganawa. The big trout was soon cleaned and now Bruce made use of a piece of bacon he had bought of a trader at the Soo and taken along as a surprise for Ray and as a kind of emergency ration, for he knew that even the best of Indians are likely to trust to luck for their next meal.

Bruce placed a strip of bacon inside the big fish. He slit the meat along the back and placed a strip of bacon in the cut, and to the outside of the fish he tied several strips of bacon with fine strips of willow bark, and he also used a little salt on the inside and outside of the fish. Then he fastened a smooth clean stick lengthwise through the fish, and for about fifteen minutes he kept the fish slowly turning over a hot fire of live coals, while each end of the rod used as a spit was supported in the fork of a stick set into the ground near the fire.

When the bacon began to sizzle and drip and the fish began to turn brown, Ray could [[80]]hardly wait until Bruce declared that the fish was cooked through and well done.

“It is a good feast,” Ganawa declared as soon as he tasted the dark pink meat, and how Ray and Bruce liked it was shown by the fact that nothing was left for Tawny but the head and the bones.

But Tawny did not go hungry at the feast. In addition to several trout, Ray had also caught a pickerel, which the lad cooked over the coals before he gave it to Tawny for his feast.

“I don’t like to see him eat a raw pickerel,” Ray declared when Ganawa told him that dogs in the Indian country would eat anything that is given them.

When the three campers rolled up in their blankets in the tepee, Tawny curled up between the entrance and the fire and did not move all night, although some rabbits thumped outside the tepee and some wild mice scurried about.

“He is a good dog,” Ganawa said in the morning, “and my little son may keep him.” [[81]]

[[Contents]]

CHAPTER X

THE RIDDLE

Before the travellers started next morning they had more broiled trout for breakfast, and Ray caught and cooked another pickerel for Tawny.

Ray and Bruce had not expected to catch brook trout and pickerel in Lake Superior, but Ganawa informed them that these fish may be caught in many places near shore in shallow water, but that they are never caught in nets set in deep water far from shore.

Rainbow trout found along the shore in Lake Superior are called “coasters” by fishermen and explorers at the present time, as has been told. These trout as well as pickerel come into the lake from the many streams that enter Lake Superior. They continue to feed along the shore, but never go into the deep water away from shore. [[82]]

It was a surprise to Bruce and Ray to catch pickerel and brook trout in the same pool, but Ganawa told them that the big brook or rainbow trout are not afraid of either pickerel or pike and are often found in the same pools in some of the streams that flow into the lake.

Brook or rainbow trout must not be confused with the lake trout that live in both deep and shallow water of Lake Superior, as well as in a number of other northern lakes. Lake trout, whitefish, and lake herring are to this day important commercial fish of Lake Superior.

“It is ten leagues to the mouth of the Michipicoten,” said Ganawa when they were ready to start. Ganawa generally gave distances in leagues, because he had become accustomed to do so during his contact with the French traders and voyageurs. France had lost her vast North American possessions only two years before, and the Indians had not yet become used to English ways and English measures, but Bruce and Ray [[83]]had learned by this time that a league was equal to about three English miles.

The weather continued fine, so that Ganawa steered the canoe straight across from point to point, and while approaching Brule Point, they were three miles from shore. Beyond Brule Point the wooded hills rose to a height of seven hundred feet above the lake and made both lads feel that they would like to go inland and explore the mountains as Ray called them.

“Maybe we shall explore plenty of mountains,” Ganawa promised the lads, “after we have reached the Michipicoten.”

“There is a house!” exclaimed Ray, as they entered the mouth of the river, which at that time was not obstructed by sand-bars as it is at the present time. The log house to which Ray had pointed stood on a clearing south of the river. It was not occupied, but above the door were painted the letters H. B. C., which Bruce knew meant Hudson Bay Company.

Those were the days when this great English [[84]]company tried to extend the monopoly in the fur trade, which it enjoyed farther north, also along the Great Lakes. But it was never very successful in this attempt. Independent individual traders, and later the Northwest Company and American traders were active competitors of the Hudson Bay Company.

A little farther up-stream, on the north side of the river on a level sandy plateau, where now stands a small village of whites and Indians known as “the Mission,” the travellers found a small camp of Indians, consisting of Ininiwac people and a few families of Chippewas.

The arrival of the visitors caused a great stir in the lonely camp. A dozen cur dogs barked savagely at the men and at Tawny, who, however, treated the whole pack with an air of contempt. He walked erect close to Ray, with his hair bristling and his teeth flashing and uttering now and then a fierce low growl, when one of the half-starved curs made a move as if to snap at him. A few [[85]]small children scampered into the tepees at the sight of the strangers while several men arose from their seats outside the tepees, drove away the yelping dogs and shook hands with the strangers.

Ganawa was delighted to find some of his own people at the camp, for he did not understand the talk of Ininiwac people very well, and the Indians of the Great Lakes region were not good sign-talkers like the Indians of the plains.

By this time Ray and Bruce had picked up quite a number of Chippewa words, and when they joined the circle of Ganawa and his friends, they could understand enough of the conversation to learn that Ganawa was asking if they knew anything about Jack Dutton, or if they had seen him.

Later in the evening, when the three were inside of their own tepee, with a small bright fire of dry sticks burning in the center, Ganawa told the lads in English what he had learned.

Jack Dutton with another white man had [[86]]been in the Michipicoten country about twelve moons ago, last winter. There had been a rumor that the two men had made a valuable cache of fur within one or two days’ journey of this place, the mouth of the Michipicoten. A hunter, who had been following the track of a moose, had accidentally discovered the camp and the fur cache of the two white men, because they had made their camp on a little stream near a moose trail which led from a big lake to a small lake farther back in the wilderness of rocky wooded hills that stretch northward from the Sault Sainte Marie and Lake Superior for a distance of fifty to two hundred miles, where they run out into a flat country of the greatest black spruce forest in North America, a sombre dark forest which extends northward almost to Hudson Bay and eastward a thousand miles from Lake of the Woods to Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.

The two white men, the hunter had told, had collected and bought of some Indians [[87]]only the most valuable furs, such as silver foxes, dark prime beaver, and marten. All lower-grade furs they had traded to the Indians for a few high-grade furs or had used them for clothing and robes. “They had a big canoe-load of furs worth ten hundred beavers,” the old hunter had told, holding up the fingers of both hands to emphasize his story. “The white man gave me lead and powder so I could kill the fat moose, and my squaw and I had plenty of meat till the ducks came north and the ice left the streams so we could catch fish.”

The Indians had understood that the lead and powder had been given the old hunter on the condition that he would not betray the location of the white men’s fur cache. He had not even told them the distance of the cache from Lake Superior, but he had returned within four days and had then taken his squaw with him. “Where is the hunter now?” asked Bruce. “Perhaps he would tell us more, so we might learn if one [[88]]of the white men was my friend, Jack Dutton.”

“He and his squaw have gone to visit a married daughter, who lives on Lake Winnipeg,” Ganawa replied.

“My father,” asked Ray after a brief silence, “do you know the way to Lake Winnipeg? Perhaps we might find the hunter and ask him to tell us more.”

“My son,” Ganawa answered kindly, “I know the way to Lake Winnipeg, but it is so far away that I fear the lakes and streams would be frozen again by the time we returned to this camp.