Fur Pirates/Chapter 15

feelings as I set out to prospect for my friends the next morning were very different from those of the day before. Then I had been hungry, and suspicious of every bush and coulee. Now I went along gayly, well fed and light of foot, the joy of strong youth in my heart and its resilience in my limbs.

I suppose most of us who are getting along in life remember rare, far-off days when the sunlight seemed pure gold, and the light breezes extraordinarily fresh and sweet, and the little, crisping waves lisping to the beaches called and called, and their dancing play spoke to us as a babe's eyes to its mother. Or, if our early surroundings were different, it may be that we remember certain days of warm winds, and rippling, brown grasses, and the steady drum of a pony's hoofs; or perhaps it may be the sousing dip and lift of a slicing, creaming forefoot through blue water, and a slash of spray over the weather bow, and the thrumming, deep-sea voice of a tautened stay. But whatever it is we will never forget the sweetness of those rare, bygone days. At such times it seems to me we must have unconsciously brushed the hem of something better and higher than our everyday lives, and that is why we remember.

At any rate, that for me—at least the early hours of it—was such a day. I could smell the water and the wet rocks and the leaves and earth and moss, and distinguish between their scents. The joy of life saturated my whole being. I felt the impulse which drives a healthy young animal to play, and I traveled fast because of it.

But when I had been going for some hours my superfluous energy worked out. I had fired a shot or two, as suggested by Ballou, but I had built no smokes. Toward noon I found a little, trickling creek, and by the mouth of it I built a fire with a big smoke. Beside this I sat down to rest and eat and to wonder what logically had become of my outfit.

It was clear that they had pulled out in their canoe, no doubt warned by the shooting. And they must have gone down the lake, as they could not have paddled against that wind. They would reason that whatever had happened to me could not be cured. But they would keep a close watch on the lake from some vantage point, and, not seeing any canoes on it, they might deduce a connection between that fact and my disappearance; for if Ballou had both furs and canoes naturally he would have pulled out without delay.

And then I became aware that something or somebody was near me. I had heard no sound, seen nothing, and yet I could feel some strange presence. I looked behind me.

There, scarcely fifteen feet distant, stood an Indian. He was a man of thirty or so, well built, and he had been at one time rather pleasant-featured. But one side of his face was horribly scarred and twisted. His head was bare, and his hair done in two braids which hung in front of his shoulders. A rifle was tucked under his arm, and a buffalo knife was at his belt.

Having known Indians all my life and found them no worse than other people, according to their lights, I felt surprise merely, mingled with a certain annoyance that he should have been able to approach without my knowledge, for I had a very good opinion of my ears.

"Hello!" I said. "Bo' jou', nitche!"

"Klahó-wya, tenas man," said he, using the Chinook, whereas I had given him the more Eastern form of greeting. And this told me he was from farther west.

Now "tenas man" means small man or boy, as the case may be, and it ruffled my dignity.

"Why do you sneak up behind me—mamook halo noise?" I demanded. "That's a cultus trick!"

"You mamook tumtum," he replied, signifying that I was so lost in meditation that I had not heard him.

"Well, come and sit down, anyway," I said.

As he came forward I saw that his right leg was shorter than the other, so that he walked with a limp. He sat down, and, taking a pipe from his fire bag, filled it with a mixture of tobacco and kinnikinnick, as I could tell by the peculiar, pungent odor of the smoke. He smoked in silence, and I sat in silence, looking at his scarred face.

"Where you come from?" he asked at length.

I told him, and asked him the same question, and he replied that he came from the Smoky River country. He spoke very good English for an Indian, using only an occasional word of Chinook after the first.

"What are you doing here?" I asked.

"Look for fur country. Mebbe trap."

"You have come a long way for it."

"Yas," he admitted, "long way. What name, you?"

"Bob Cory. What's yours?"

"Me Ignace Mountain."

"Are you alone?"

"Yas, all alone," he replied somberly, and frowned at the ground. "Where you camp?"

I told him where Ballou's camp was, and he flicked a quick glance at me.

"How many man stop?"

"Nine men. One woman."

Again his glance flickered at me, a sudden fire in it.

"Mebbe white woman?"

"No, she's an Indian."

He drew a long breath, exhaled a cloud of pungent smoke, and shook his head.

"No good!" he commented. "Nine white men, one klootchman. Mebbe she mesachie klootchman, hey?"

I told him that she was the wife of one of the men.

"What you call him?"

"His name is Simmons—Nootka Charlie, they call him."

"Um!" he grunted. "You think leplet malieh?"

By which he meant a marriage by a priest; in other words, a proper ceremony. Of course I knew nothing about that, though I did not suppose there had been anything of the kind.

"Um!" he said again. "What they mamook here?"

It was not necessary to tell him about the furs, and I said they were prospecting.

"Hiyu white man stop," he said. "Mebbe other white man him prospect, too?"

"Other white men?" I cried. "Do you know where they are?"

"Ah-ha," he assented.

"I'm looking for them. Will you show me their camp?"

"Him your tillikum?"

"Yes."

"Him tillikum of other white men—tillikum of Nootka Challie?"

I told him they did not know Nootka, and were not especially friendly with the others, but they were my friends.

"No go now," he said. "Bimeby polaklie chako. Mebbe then."

"Why must we wait till dark?"

But he would not answer that, and merely repeated the words. When an Indian gets to repeating himself you might as well argue with a stump. So I gave it up.

"Why you make smoke?" he asked presently, and I told him. "No good," he said. "You come!"

He got to his feet, and limped off without another word, and I followed him because I knew that if I didn't he would just let it go at that and be off on his own business, whatever it was. In spite of his short leg he traveled fast; but he did not go far, though, by accident or design, he seemed to choose the roughest, stoniest walking. He led the way up the sharp shoulder of a rocky butte which commanded a good view of the lake. I could see in the distance the little island on which I had landed with my stolen canoes, and nearer another and larger one. He pointed to the latter.

"Your tillikum stop!" he said.

Well, I wondered why I had not thought of that before. If, somehow, my friends knew that Ballou had lost his canoes, an island would be the most natural place for them to stop. And, anyway, they could see more from an island than from the mainland. I could have found them at any time by paddling down the lake.

"You got canoe?" I asked, and he nodded.

And so I let it go at that, knowing it would be useless to urge him until he got ready. We settled down in the bushes that fringed the summit of the butte. But five minutes afterward Ignace touched my arm and pointed. Sighting over his hand, I saw the figure of a man moving near the shore, and as he came closer I recognized the half-breed, Peter. The smoke I had made was now faint, but he disappeared, heading straight for it.

Ignace Mountain grinned twistedly at me.

"Smoke hiyu no good," said he. "Him nanitch for you. You no nanitch for him, hey?"

I certainly was not looking for the breed. I wondered why he was prowling there, for Ballou had said they would all stay in camp. I didn't like the look of it. Of course the breed might have some message for me, but I decided to lie low. Presently he came out of the bushes, on the farther side of the little creek, and the last we saw of him he was heading down the lake.

The afternoon dragged on. I slept, but the Indian did not. Whenever I woke he was lying as he had lain at first, flat on his stomach behind the screen of bushes, his somber eyes watchful. He must have been a rather handsome fellow before he had met with the accident which had so horribly disfigured him. I wondered, as I looked at the scars, what had caused them. He caught my glance, and, interpreting it, tapped his twisted face with his finger.

"You look," he said simply. "Bear mamook. Siam."

"A bear did it! A grizzly! Was he a big one? Tell me about it!'

"Not so big; but hyas bad. Me shoot um, think him mimoluse. Bushes thick—so!" He held up his fingers, interlaced, to illustrate. "Me go in. Him no mimoluse. Me shoot again. No good—too close. Then we fight." He tapped the handle of his big knife. "Steep hill, all rock. Roll down um." He twisted over on his back, his left arm held protectively over his face, his right arm jerking in short, vicious stabs. "Me go all same mimoluse—all same dead. Bimeby wake up. Bear him mimoluse. Leg bust." He glanced down at his crippled limb. "Hyas bad, you bet!"

"Were you all alone?"

"Yas, all alone. Me hyas sick."

As he told the story in his clipped phrases I could visualize the steep, rocky hillside, the dead bear, and the Indian, his face in tatters, his leg broken, miles from human aid.

"What did you do?"

"Not moch. Too sick. Bimeby—next day—make fire, eat bear meat. Bimeby split sticks to fix leg. Tie him up tight. Then me klatawa."

"How?" I asked.

For answer he put the butt of his rifle beneath his armpit, crutch fashion, and took a stick in his other hand.

"So!" he said simply.

"Great Scott!" I exclaimed. "How far did you have to go that way?"

"Mebbe moxt tahtlum—twenty mile."

I whistled in sympathy. Twenty miles of rough mountain going on an improvised crutch, with a broken leg, albeit roughly splinted, swinging and dangling, a pendulum of agony!

"Could you get a doctor when you got home?"

"No, no doctin stop in my country."

I asked no more questions. He had come through a hard mill, and the memory of it seemed to fall upon him like a deep shadow. He stared somberly into vacancy, with frowning brows and set mouth.

The sun was down when we descended from the butte. Ignace led the way through the growing dusk, traveling with swiftness and certainty. A mile down the lake, in dense brush, he had cached his canoe. And when darkness had fallen completely we put out upon the lake, striking out into the middle of it so as to be invisible from the shore. After half an hour's paddling the island loomed ahead of us. We drew into a little bay, and as the bow touched the shore a voice from the darkness said:

"Don't get outa that canoe, friends! And don't get funny with no guns!"

"Don't get funny with yours, Dinny," I laughed.

His reply was not flattering.

"Well, by thunder!" he exclaimed. "Ike, I'm an Injun if here ain't that durn fool kid that we thought we was rid of!"

"Can't lose bad money nohow," said Toft's quiet voice, with a chuckle.