The Young Fur Traders by R. M. Ballantyne (best pdf ebook reader for android TXT) 📕

Two days after the events of the last chapter, the brigade was making one of the traverses which have already been noticed as of frequent occurrence in the great lakes. The morning was calm and sultry. A deep stillness pervaded nature, which tended to produce a corresponding quiescence in the mind, and to fill it with those indescribably solemn feelings that frequently arise before a thunderstorm. Dark, lurid clouds hung overhead in gigantic masses, piled above each other like the battlements of a dark fortress, from whose ragged embrasures the artillery of heaven was about to play.

“Shall we get over in time, Louis?” asked Mr Park, as he turned to the guide, who sat holding the tiller with a firm grasp; while the men, aware of the necessity of reaching shelter ere the storm burst upon them, were bending to the oars with steady and sustained energy.

“Perhaps,” replied Louis, laconically.—“Pull, lads, pull! else you’ll have to sleep in wet skins to-night.”

A low growl of distant thunder followed the guide’s words, and the men pulled with additional energy; while the slow, measured hiss of the water, and the clank of oars, as they cut swiftly through the lake’s clear surface, alone interrupted the dead silence that ensued.

Charley and his friend conversed in low whispers; for there is a strange power in a thunderstorm, whether raging or about to break, that overawes the heart of man,—as if Nature’s God were nearer then than at other times; as if He—whose voice indeed, if listened to, speaks even in the slightest evolution of natural phenomena—were about to tread the visible earth with more than usual majesty, in the vivid glare of the lightning flash, and in the awful crash of thunder.

“I don’t know how it is, but I feel more like a coward,” said Charley, “just before a thunderstorm than I think I should do in the arms of a polar bear. Do you feel queer, Harry?”

“A little,” replied Harry, in a low whisper; “and yet I’m not frightened. I can scarcely tell what I feel, but I’m certain it’s not fear.”

“Well, I don’t know,” said Charley. “When father’s black bull chased Kate and me in the prairies, and almost overtook us as we ran for the fence of the big field, I felt my heart leap to my mouth, and the blood rush to my cheeks, as I turned about and faced him, while Kate climbed the fence; but after she was over, I felt a wild sort of wickedness in me, as if I should like to tantalise and torment him,—and I felt altogether different from what I feel now while I look up at these black clouds. Isn’t there something quite awful in them, Harry?”

Ere Harry replied, a bright flash of lightning shot athwart the sky, followed by a loud roar of thunder, and in a moment the wind rushed, like a fiend set suddenly free, down upon the boats, tearing up the smooth surface of the water as it flew, and cutting it into gleaming white streaks. Fortunately the storm came down behind the boats, so that, after the first wild burst was over, they hoisted a small portion of their lug sails, and scudded rapidly before it.

There was still a considerable portion of the traverse to cross, and the guide cast an anxious glance over his shoulder occasionally, as the dark waves began to rise, and their crests were cut into white foam by the increasing gale. Thunder roared in continued, successive peals, as if the heavens were breaking up, while rain descended in sheets. For a time the crews continued to ply their oars; but as the wind increased, these were rendered superfluous. They were taken in, therefore, and the men sought partial shelter under the tarpaulin; while Mr Park and the two boys were covered, excepting their heads, by an oilcloth, which was always kept at hand in rainy weather.

“What think you now, Louis?” said Mr Park, resuming the pipe which the sudden outburst of the storm had caused him to forget. “Have we seen the worst of it?”

Louis replied abruptly in the negative, and in a few seconds shouted loudly, “Look out, lads! here comes a squall. Stand by to let go the sheet there!”

Mike Brady, happening to be near the sheet, seized hold of the rope, and prepared to let go; while the men rose, as if by instinct, and gazed anxiously at the approaching squall, which could be seen in the distance extending along the horizon, like a bar of blackest ink, spotted with flakes of white. The guide sat with compressed lips, and motionless as a statue, guiding the boat as it bounded madly towards the land, which was now not more than half a mile distant.

“Let go!” shouted the guide, in a voice that was heard loud and clear above the roar of the elements.

“Ay, ay,” replied the Irishman, untwisting the rope instantly, as with a sharp hiss the squall descended on the boat.

At that moment the rope became entangled round one of the oars, and the gale burst with all its fury on the distended sail, burying the prow in the waves, which rushed inboard in a black volume, and in an instant half filled the boat.

“Let go!” roared the guide again, in a voice of thunder; while Mike struggled with awkward energy to disentangle the rope.

As he spoke, an Indian, who during the storm had been sitting beside the mast, gazing at the boiling water with a grave, contemplative aspect, sprang quickly forward, drew his knife, and with two blows (so rapidly delivered that they seemed but one) cut asunder first the sheet and then the halyards, which let the sail blow out and fall flat upon the boat. He was just in time. Another moment and the gushing water, which curled over the bow, would have filled them to the gunwale. As it was, the little vessel was so full of water that she lay like a log, while every toss of the waves sent an additional torrent into her.

“Bail for your lives, lads!” cried Mr Park, as he sprang forward, and, seizing a tin dish, began energetically to bail out the water. Following his example, the whole crew seized whatever came first to hand in the shape of dish or kettle, and began to bail. Charley and Harry Somerville acted a vigorous part on this occasion—the one with a bark dish (which had been originally made by the natives for the purpose of holding maple-sugar), the other with his cap.

For a time it seemed doubtful whether the curling waves should send most water into the boat, or the crew should bail most out of it. But the latter soon prevailed, and in a few minutes it was so far got under that three of the men were enabled to leave off bailing and reset the sail, while Louis Peltier returned to his post at the helm. At first the boat moved but slowly, owing to the weight of water in her; but as this grew gradually less, she increased her speed and neared the land.

“Well done, Redfeather,” said Mr Park, addressing the Indian as he resumed his seat; “your knife did us good service that time, my fine fellow.”

Redfeather, who was the only pure native in the brigade, acknowledged the compliment with a smile.

“Ah, oui,” said the guide, whose features had now lost their stern expression. “Them Injins are always ready enough with their knives. It’s not the first time my life has been saved by the knife of a redskin.”

“Humph! bad luck to them,” muttered Mike Brady; “it’s not the first time that my windpipe has been pretty near spiflicated by the knives o’ the redskins, the murtherin’ varmints!”

As Mike gave vent to this malediction, the boat ran swiftly past a low, rocky point, over which the surf was breaking wildly.

“Down with the sail, Mike,” cried the guide, at the same time putting the helm hard up. The beat flew round, obedient to the ruling power, made one last plunge as it left the rolling surf behind, and slid gently and smoothly into still water under the lee of the point.

Here, in the snug shelter of a little bay, two of the other boats were found, with their prows already on the beach, and their crews actively employed in landing their goods, opening bales that had received damage from the water, and preparing the encampment; while ever and anon they paused a moment, to watch the various boats as they flew before the gale, and one by one doubled the friendly promontory.

If there is one thing that provokes a voyageur more than another, it is being wind-bound on the shores of a large lake. Rain or sleet, heat or cold, icicles forming on the oars, or