The Red Pirogue/Chapter 6

Ben turned and looked upward. He saw dew-wet branches shaking, as if some one or something of considerable bulk was moving in the thick underbrush at the top of the bank. A red deer most likely, perhaps a moose, possibly a bear, he reflected. He felt thrilled. Moose and deer were not uncommon things in his experience but they always gave his heart a fine tingle. The thought of a bear was yet more thrilling.

The shaking of the brush continued. The movement was progressive. Whatever the animal was, it was descending the heavily screened bank directly toward the young man. Ben realized that if it was anything as tall as a full-grown moose it would be showing a head, or ears at least, by this time. The disturbance of stems, branches and foliage descended to within five yards of him. Then the round black head of a big bear emerged from the green covert.

Ben knew that bears were not dangerous except under unusual conditions and that they were never more willing to attend to their own peaceful affairs and avoid unpleasant encounters than in the late summer of a good year for berries; and yet he felt embarrassingly defenseless as he regarded the round mask and pointed muzzle. One may derive a slight feeling of preparedness in emergency from even so little as the knowledge of being strongly shod for flight or kicking or the knowledge of being toughly garbed in flannel and homespun against minor scratches. But Ben wore neither flannel, leather nor homespun to support his morale. He decided that deep water would be the only place for him if the bear should take a fancy to the flat rock upon which he stood.

The bear was evidently puzzled and somewhat discouraged by Ben's appearance. It stared at him for half a minute or more and Ben returned the stare. Then it withdrew its head from view and again the alders and birches and wide-boughed young spruces shook and tossed to its passage through them. But now the disturbance receded. It moved up the steep pitch of the bank and was lost to Ben's sight in the dusk of the forest.

“There's the power of the human eye for you!” exclaimed Ben.

But he was wrong. The human eye had nothing to do with it. The impulse necessary for the bear's retreat was derived from bruin's own optic nerves rather than from the masterful glare of Ben's orbs. In short, that particular bear had never before encountered an undressed human being, had been puzzled for a minute to know just what species of the animal world he belonged to and had then quite naturally jumped to the shocking conclusion that some one had skinned the poor man without killing him. So the bear had turned and retired.

Instead of plunging immediately into the brown water and swimming back to Noel's front and breakfast, Ben stepped ashore. He was interested in the bear. He was curious to know just how far he had chased it with his masterful glance. Had the big berry eater only retreated to the top of the bank or had he kept right on? If he hadn't kept right on another glance would set him going again, that was a sure thing.

Ben moved cautiously, not on account of the bear but in consideration of his own skin. Wild raspberries flourished among the tough and rasping bushes and saplings and perhaps poison ivy lurked among the ground lings. So Ben moved cautiously and slowly up the bank, parting the brush before him with his hands and looking twice before every step. But despite his care he received a few scratches. When halfway up the steep slope he paused, stood straight and glanced around him over and through the tops of the tangle. He saw the bow of his uncle's canoe outthrust from its slanting bed in the bushes on Noel's front. He saw the spot, the edge of moist dark soil, where the big pirogue and its grim freight had been discovered by Noel Sabattis.

Ben continued his cautious ascent of the bank, still with curiosity concerning the bear in the front of his mind but with the mystery of Louis Balenger's death looming largely behind it. He gained the level ground at the top of the bank, still with his gaze on his feet. He was about to stand upright again and survey his surroundings when a glitter in the moss a few inches from his forward foot caught his eye.

Ben stooped lower and picked up a sliver of white metal. It was a part of a clip for keeping a fountain pen in a pocket and he instantly recognized it as such. He stooped again and examined the moss; and, a second later, he found the pen itself. He was on his. knees by this time, searching the moss with eager eyes and all his fingers. And here was something more—a little pocket comb in a sheath of soft leather.

Ben forgot all about the bear and was seized by an inspiration. He turned around and lay down flat on the moss, braving prickles and scratches. He placed his chest on the very spot where he had found the broken clasp, the pen and the comb, then raised himself on his elbows and looked to his front, his right and his left. He was now in the prone position of firing, the steadiest position for straight shooting.

Ben turned his face in the direction of the tree-screened clearings downstream on the other shore. He looked through a rift between stems and trunks and foliage, clear through and away on a slant across the narrow river to the spot of moist shore against which the big pirogue had lain with the dead body of Balenger aboard. His view was unobstructed.

“Not much under three hundred yards,” he said. “Pretty shooting!”

Then he discarded his imaginary rifle, marked his position by uprooting a wad of moss, gripped the broken clasp, the pen and the comb securely in his left hand and got to his feet. His blood was racing and his brain was flashing. The bear was forgotten as if it had never been.

He descended the bank with considerably less caution than he had exerted in the ascent, but with more speed, and he paid for his haste with his skin. But the price didn't bother him. He didn't notice it. He regained the flat rock, glanced down and across over the sunlit surface of the brown water, then dived. He swam swiftly, though he kept his left hand clasped tight. When he landed and opened his hand he found the water had scarcely touched the leather case of the little comb. He donned his clothes in about six months and leaped up the path.

Ben found McAllister and the old Maliseet busy at the little rusty stove, frying bacon and pancakes as if for a prize.

“Hullo, you were up early,” said Uncle Jim. “Did you catch the first worm?”

“I guess I did something like that,” answered Ben breathlessly. “Look at these.”

He stepped over to the table and laid the sliver of silver, the pen and the comb in a row beside one of the tin plates. He turned to old Noel Sabattis.

“Did you ever see these before?” he asked.

“Yep, sure I see 'em afore,” replied Noel. “Where you git 'em dis mornin', hey? Where you been at, Ben? What else you got?”

“A fountain pen,” said McAllister. “And a slick little comb in a leather case. Where've you been shopping so early, Ben?”

Ben paid no attention to his uncle. His eyes were on Noel's wrinkled face.

“Do they belong to you?” he asked.

“Nope. What you t'ink I want wid a comb, hey?”

“Were they Sherwood's?”

“Nope. Never see t'ings like dat on Sherwood. See 'em on dat stranger I tell you about.”

“I thought so!” cried Ben. “I thought so! We've got him on toast! And Sherwood's clear!”

He took up the comb.

“Look at this,” he said, pointing at gilt lettering stamped into the soft leather of the case. “Read it, Uncle Jim. Bonnard Frères, Quebec, P.Q. How's that for a morning's work on an empty stomach?”

Uncle Jim was bewildered.

“The stranger came from Quebec,” he said. “Sure, I get that. Noel saw these things on him, and now you've found them somewheres. It proves he was here; but Noel told us that yesterday. I can't see how it proves he shot any one—Balenger nor any one else. If you'd found his rifle, now that would be something. But a fountain pen?”

“You meet him dis mornin', hey, an' rob 'im, hey?” queried Noel.

“Nothing like it!” exclaimed Ben. “I found these things in the moss at the top of the bank on the other side of the river. That's the very spot where he lay when he fired at Balenger. He broke the snap—the clasp there—when he was wriggling about for a clear shot through the brush, I guess, and the pen and the comb fell out of his pocket. He was in such a hurry to get away after he'd fired, when he saw he'd hit, that he didn't notice the pen and comb. They were pressed into the moss. I know that's what happened; and we know he came from Quebec; and Noel knows what he looks like. That's enough, I guess—enough to save Sherwood, anyhow.”

“Yer figuring quite a ways ahead, Ben,” said Uncle Jim.

“He shoot Balenger a'right, sure 'nough,” said Noel. “But how you show dem police he do it wid one little pen an' one little comb?”

“It's simple. You'll understand about the shooting when you see the place. It's simple as a picture in a book. And for the rest of it, he must have been a friend of Balenger's before he became his enemy. Perhaps he and Balenger were partners of some sort. Then he was a bad character, like Balenger—and dangerous. He was dangerous, right enough—and a dead shot. So the police would know something about him, wouldn't they—the Quebec police? That stands to reason. Didn't he look like a bad character, Noel?”

“Yep, mighty bad. Nasty grin on him an' bad eye, too. Dat feller scare me worse nor Balenger scare me. When he look at me, den I can't look at his eye an' I look lower down an' see dat comb an' dat pen a-stickin' outer de pocket on his breast.”

“There you are,” said Ben to McAllister. “Very likely the Quebec police have his photograph and thumb prints; and I guess they have more brains than Mel Lunt. I'll write down Noel's description of him and all the other particulars I know, and go to Quebec and fix it.”

Ben was in high spirits, gobbled his dinner and then had to wait impatiently for the others to finish and light their pipes. The tin dishes were left unwashed, the frying pan and griddle unscoured and the three embarked in old Noel's leaky bark and went up and across the river to the flat rock. On the way Ben told of his experience with the bear, saying that but for the peculiar behavior of bruin he would not have gone ashore and climbed the bank and found the clew that was to clear Sherwood's name in the eyes of the law.

“Just chance,” he said. “But for that bear, I might have hunted a week and never happened on those things.”

Uncle Jim and Noel were deeply impressed by the story of the bear.

“That was more than chance,” said McAllister, voicing a whisper of his old Highland blood. “I've heard of happenings like that from old Gran'pa McAllister when I was a boy. Nature won't hide murder, he used to say. I guess yer right, Ben, after all. I reckon it'll work out the way you figure it—but it sure did look kinder mixed up to me when you first told it.”

They climbed the bank above the flat rock, found the spot and there each lay down in his turn, set his elbows in the correct position and looked through and over the sights of an imaginary rifle at the spot three hundred yards away where the bad heart of Louis Balenger had suddenly ceased to function.

“Dat's right,” said Noel Sabattis.

“Guess we've got him, Ben,” said Uncle Jim.

The visitors set out on their homeward journey within an hour of Ben's demonstration of how the shot had been fired by the owner of the fountain pen and pocket comb. But before packing their dunnage they marked the murderer's position with a peg in the ground and blazes on several young spruces and they measured the distance in paddle lengths from that point to the point where the bullet had done its work. Then they went, in spite of old Noel's protests and Uncle Jim's willingness to remain until next morning. But Ben was in a fever of impatience. Now was not the time to humor Noel's love of talk or his uncle's instinctive objections to unseemly haste. Now was the time to follow the clew, to jump onto the trail and keep going, to hammer out the iron while it was hot. This was no time for talk. They had talked enough, reckoned enough, told enough and heard enough. Now was the time for action, for speed. Ben was right, and he had his way as far as McAllister and Noel Sabattis were concerned.

Ben took the stern of the fine canvas canoe and humped all his weight onto the paddle. Not only that, but he requested a little more weight from Uncle Jim in the bow; and the canoe boiled down French River like a destroyer.

It was about five o'clock in the afternoon when they approached the thrashing, flashing head of the big rapids on the main river. Uncle Jim waved his paddle toward the landing place above the first untidy rank of jumping, jostling white and black water. The imposing shout and hum of the rapids came threateningly to their ears.

“We'll run her,” cried Ben.

“D'ye know the channel?” shouted McAllister, glancing back over his shoulder.

“I asked Noel. It's close along this shore. He's often run it.”

“But it ain't easy at low water. We'd best land and carry around.”

“You can't miss it, Noel says. And we're in a hurry. Sit tight and keep your eye skinned, Uncle Jim. Here we go!”

They went. McAllister was an old riverman and had been down these rapids many times in past years, but never before when the river was low. In high water it was a simple matter for any good canoeman to shoot Big Rapids, but in dry seasons it was only attempted by the most skilled or most daring and not always successfully. Uncle Jim was seasoned, but he got a lot of thrills in a short time at five o'clock by the sun of this particular afternoon.

As usual, it seemed to him that the jouncing, curling, black “ripples” with their fronts shot with green and amber and their tops crested with white lather, rushed up to the canoe. That is the way with strong black and white water. The canoe seemed to be stationary, trembling slightly from bow to stern as if gathering herself to spring at the last moment to meet the shock, but otherwise as motionless as if held by ropes. Up came the raging waters, up and past the jumping, squirming canoe. Big black rocks bared themselves suddenly from white veils of froth and green vails of smooth water, shouldered at the canoe, roared at her, then vanished to the rear.

Uncle Jim felt a strong impulse, an impulse of curiosity, to look back at young Ben O'Dell. But he did not obey it. He kept his half-shut eyes to the front and now made a dig with his paddle to the right and now a slash to the left. Spray flew. The canoe jounced, shivered and jumped and yet seemed to hang unprogressing amid the furious upward and backward stream of water and rock and rocky shore. Thin films of water slipped in over the gleaming gunnels and heavy lumps of water jumped aboard and flopped aboard, now from the right and now from the left. Uncle Jim received a tubful of it smash in the chest.

Uncle Jim enjoyed it, but he did not approve of it. It was too darned reckless; and he still believed that the very least that would happen to them before they reached smooth water would be the destruction of the canoe. But he wondered at Ben. He had taught Ben to handle a canoe in rough water and smooth, but never in such rough and tricky water as this. And here was the young fellow twisting and shooting and steadying her down in a manner which McAllister had never seen surpassed in his whole life on the river. His anxiety for Ben was almost topped by his pride in Ben.

And it looked as if they'd make it, by thunder! Here was the last ripple roaring up at them, baring its black teeth between white lips. And here was the slobbering black channel, shaking with bubbles and fringed with froth, and here was the canoe fair in it. The shouldering rocks sloshed past. Through!

Uncle Jim heard a sharp crack clear above the tumult of the rapids. He knew what had happened without looking. Ben's paddle had snapped. He shot his own paddle backward over his shoulder. But he was too late, though he could not possibly have been quicker. The canoe swerved like a maddened horse and struck the last ledge of Big Rapids with a bump and a rip. Then she spun around and rolled over and off.

Uncle Jim and Ben swam ashore from the pool below the rapids, Ben with his uncle's paddle gripped firmly in one hand.

“We were through,” said Ben. “If my paddle had lasted another ten seconds we'd have made it.”

McAllister grasped his hand.

“Sure thing we were through!” he cried. “Ben, I'm proud of you! I couldn't of done it, not for my life! Never saw a prettier bit of work in a nastier bit of water in all my born days!”

Ben beamed and blushed.

“It was great, wasn't it?” he returned, “But I'm sorry about the canoe, Uncle Jim. She badly ripped, I'm afraid. There she is, still afloat. I'll go out and fetch her in.”

“But what about those things—the pen and comb?” asked Uncle Jim with sudden anxiety. “Were they with the dunnage?”

“They're safe in my pocket here, sewn in and pinned in,” replied Ben. “I thought something like this might possibly happen and I wasn't taking any chances.”

McAllister smiled gravely and tenderly.

“I guess you were taking more chances than you knew about, lad,” he said. “But it was a fine shoot, so why worry?”

Ben took off his wet coat, jumped into the pool, swam out to the wounded canoe and brought it ashore. Together they emptied her and lifted her out of the water. Her strong, smooth canvas was torn through and ripped back for a distance of two feet and five of her tough, flat ribs were cracked and telescoped.

“We had a barrel of fun, Ben, but I reckon we didn't save much time,” said Uncle Jim.

They hid the canoe where she would be safe until they could return for her, and continued their journey on foot. They walked along the edge of the river, on pebbles and smooth ledges of rock, until long after sunset. Then they climbed the high bank and hunted about for a road of some sort that might lead them to a house and food. They were on the wrong side of the river to find the highroad; and after half an hour of searching they decided that they were on the wrong side of the river for finding anything. McAllister had matches in a water-tight box, so they built a big fire, made beds of ferns and dry moss and fell asleep hungry but hopeful.