The Secret Cache: An Adventure and Mystery Story for Boys

  XIII THE PAINTED THWART

  Blaise found Hugh stooping over a heap of shattered, water-stainedboards, crude planks, axe hewn from the tree.

  "Can this be the boat, do you think?" Hugh asked.

  Blaise shook his head doubtfully. "It was not here on the beach when wecame this way before."

  "Yet it may be part of the wreck washed from some outer rock and casthere by that last hard blow," reasoned the older boy.

  "That is possible. If we could find more of it, the part that bears thesign----"

  "What sign? You told me of no sign. I have often wondered how, if wefound a wrecked boat, we should know whether it was the right one."

  "Surely I told you of the sign. The board that bears the hole for themast is painted with vermilion, and on it in black is our father's sign,the figure that means his Ojibwa name, 'man with the bright eyes, theeyes that make sparks.' Twice the sign is there, once on each side of themast."

  Hugh was staring at his younger brother. Black figures on a vermilionground! Where had he seen such a thing, seen it recently, since he leftthe Sault? Then he remembered. "Show me, Blaise," he cried, "what thatfigure looks like, that means father's Indian name."

  Blaise picked up a smooth gray flake and with a bit of softer, dark redstone scratched the figure.

  "That is it," Hugh exclaimed. "I have seen that wrecked boat, a bateauwith the thwart painted red and that very same figure drawn in black."

  "You have seen it?" The younger brother looked at the elder wonderingly."In your dreams?"

  "No, I was wide awake, but it was a long way from here and before ever Isaw you, Blaise." Rapidly Hugh related how he and Baptiste had examinedthe old bateau in the cleft of the rocks of the Isle Royale.

  Blaise listened in silence, only his eyes betraying his interest. "Trulywe know not where to search," he said when Hugh had finished. "The bateaudrifted far. How can we find where it went upon the rocks?"

  "I don't believe it drifted far. If it was so badly damaged father had toabandon it, could it have floated far? Surely it would have gone to thebottom. When that boat was carried across to Isle Royale, I believefather and Black Thunder were still in it with all their furs. The stormdrove them out into the lake, they lost their bearings, just as we in the_Otter_ did. They were borne away and dashed by the waves into that crackin the rocks. Near there somewhere we shall find the cache, if we find itat all."

  Hugh spoke confidently, very sure of his own reasoning, but the youngerlad was not so easily convinced.

  "How," Blaise questioned, "did he come away from that island Minong if hewas wrecked there? He could not come by land and the bateau is stillthere."

  "He made himself a dugout or birch canoe to cross in when the weathercleared."

  "But then why came he not to Wauswaugoning by canoe?"

  "Because," persisted Hugh, "when he reached the mainland he fell in withsome enemy here at the Devil Track River. We know his wound was notreceived in the wreck. You yourself say it was a knife wound. BlackThunder wasn't killed in the wreck either. They escaped unharmed but thebateau was beyond repair. So they built a canoe and crossed to thisshore. Here they were set upon and Black Thunder was killed and fathersorely wounded."

  Again the sceptical Blaise shook his head. "Why were they away down hereso far below the Grand Portage? And why, if they had a canoe, broughtthey not the furs and the packet with them?"

  Hugh was aware of the weak links in his theory, yet he clung to it."Maybe they did bring them," he said, "but couldn't carry them overland,so they hid them."

  "No, no. Our father told me that the furs were not far from the wreck. Hesaid that three or four times. I cannot be mistaken."

  "Perhaps their canoe wasn't big enough to hold all of the pelts," Hughspeculated. "What they did bring may have fallen into Ohrante's hands. Sofather spoke only of the rest, hidden in a secret place near the wreck.To me that seems reasonable enough. But," he admitted honestly, "I don'tquite understand how they came to be so far down the shore here, and, ifthe packet is valuable, why didn't father bring that with him if hebrought anything? And why didn't he tell you that the storm drove him onIsle Royale?"

  "You forget," Blaise said slowly, "that our father's body was very weakand his spirit just about to leave it. I asked him where to find thebateau. He told me of the way it was marked, but he could say no more. Ithink he could not hear my questions."

  Both lads were silent for several minutes, then Hugh said decisively,"Well, Blaise, there are just two things we can do, unless we give up thequest entirely. We can go back down the shore, searching the land forsome sign of the cache, or we can cross to Isle Royale, find the cleft inthe rocks where the bateau lies, and seek there for the furs and thepacket. I am for the latter plan. To search the whole shore from here tothe Fond du Lac for a hidden cache to which we have no clue seems to me ahopeless task."

  "But to cross that long stretch of open water in a small canoe," Blaisereturned doubtfully.

  "We must choose good weather of course, and paddle our swiftest to reachthe island before a change comes. Perhaps we can rig some kind of sailand make better time than with our paddles."

  It was plain that Hugh had made up his mind to return to Isle Royale.Hitherto he had been content to let Blaise take the lead, but now he wasasserting his elder brother's right to leadership. Better than his whitebrother, Blaise understood the hazards of such an undertaking, but thehalf-breed lad was proud. He was not going to admit himself lesscourageous than his elder brother. If Hugh dared take the risk, he,Little Caribou, as his mother's people called him, dared take it also.

  The brothers must provision themselves for the trip. Even if they reachedthe island safely and in good time, they could not guess how long theirsearch might take, or how many days or weeks they might be delayed beforethey could return. Fresh supplies might have reached the Grand Portage bynow and corn at least could be bought. From the Indians always to befound near the posts, other food supplies and new moccasins might beobtained.

  Considering food supplies reminded the lads of their hunger. They decidedto devote the remaining hours of daylight to fishing for their supper.They would start for the Grand Portage in the morning. Blaise paddledslowly along a submerged reef some distance out from shore, while Hughfished.

  In a very few minutes he felt a pull at his line. Hand over hand hehauled it in, Blaise helping by managing the canoe so that the line didnot slacken even for an instant. Nearer and nearer Hugh drew his prize,until he could see the gleaming silver of the big fish flashing throughthe clear water. Then came the critical moment. He had no landing net,and reaching over the side with net or gaff would have been a risk atbest. Without shifting his weight enough to destroy the balance, whileBlaise endeavored to hold the canoe steady with his paddle, Hugh mustland his fish squarely in the bottom. With a sudden swing, the long,silvery, dark-flecked body, tail wildly flapping, was raised from thewater and flung into the canoe. Almost before it touched the bottom, Hughhad seized his knife and dealt a swift blow. A few ineffectual flaps andthe big fish lay still.

  "Fifteen pounds at least," Hugh exulted. "I have seen larger trout, butmost of them were taken in nets."

  "They grow very big sometimes, two, three times as big, but it is notgood to catch such a big one with a line. Unless you have great luck, itoverturns your canoe."

  The sight of the big trout sharpened the boys' hunger pangs and took awayall zest from further fishing. They paddled full speed for shore andsupper.

  Favored by good weather they made a quick trip to the Grand Portage. Inthe bay a small ship lay at anchor, and they knew supplies must havearrived.

  "That is not the _Otter_," Hugh remarked as they paddled by.

  "No, it is not one of the Old Company's ships. I think it belongs to theNew Company."

  "I'm glad it isn't the _Otter_," Hugh replied. "I shouldn't know how toanswer Baptiste's questions."

  The ship proved, as Blais
e had guessed, to belong to the New Company. Shesailed the day after the boys arrived, but had left ample supplies. Theyhad no difficulty in buying the needed stores, though Hugh's money wasexhausted by the purchases. He left explanations to Blaise, confidentthat his younger brother could not be persuaded to divulge thedestination or purpose of their trip.

  Again bad weather held the lads at the Grand Portage and Wauswaugoning.The last day of their stay, when they were returning from the NewCompany's post, they came upon the camp of the trappers whose bateau hadloomed like a ship through the morning mist when the boys were leavingthe Bay of the Beaver. Hugh recognized at once the tall fellow in thescarlet cap who had replied to his shout of greeting. The trappers haddisposed of their furs at the Old Company's post and were about to leave.They were going to portage their supplies to Fort Charlotte above thefalls of the Pigeon River and go up the river in a canoe. Hugh inquiredwhat they intended to do with their small bateau which was drawn up onthe shore.

  "You want it?" the leader questioned in his big voice.

  "Will you sell it?" the boy asked eagerly.

  The man nodded. "What you give?"

  Hugh flushed with chagrin, remembering that all his money was gone.Blaise came to the rescue by offering to trade some ammunition for theboat. The man shook his head. Blaise added to his offer a small quantityof food supplies, but still the fellow refused. "Too little," hegrumbled, then added something in his curious mixture of Scotch-Englishand Ojibwa. He was a Scotch half-breed and Hugh found his dialectdifficult to understand.

  Blaise shrugged, walked over to the boat and examined it. He turnedtowards the man and spoke in rapid Ojibwa. The fellow answered in thesame tongue, pointing to the lad's gun.

  "What does he say?" asked Hugh.

  "I told him his bateau needs mending," Blaise answered in French, "but hewill not trade for anything but my gun, which is better than his. I willnot give him the gun. Our father gave it to me."

  Hugh understood his half-brother's feeling, but he was eager to securethe boat. "He may have my gun," he whispered. He knew that the tallfellow understood some French. "Tell him if he will include the sail--hehad one, you know--I'll give him my gun and some ammunition. Mine doesn'tshoot as accurately as yours, but it looks newer."

  Blaise made the offer in Ojibwa, Hugh repeated it in English, and afteran unsuccessful attempt to get more, the man agreed. He put into the boatthe mast and canvas, which he had been using as a shelter, and Hughhanded over the gun and ammunition.

  The rest of the day was spent in making a few necessary repairs to thebateau, and the following morning, before a light southwest breeze, thelads set sail. Blaise knew nothing of this sort of water travel, but Hughhad handled a sailboat before, though never one quite so clumsy as thiscrude, heavy bateau. The boat was pointed at both ends, flat bottomed andbuilt of thick, hand-hewn boards. It carried a small, square sail on astubby mast. With axe and knife Hugh had made a crude rudder and hadlashed it to the stern in the place of the paddle the trappers had beencontent to steer with. Blaise quickly learned to handle the rudder,leaving Hugh free to manage the sail. It was a satisfaction to the olderboy to find something in which he excelled his younger brother and couldtake the lead. It restored his self-respect as the elder. Blaise, on theother hand, obeyed orders instantly and proved himself as reliable asubordinate as he had been leader. The breeze holding steady, the bateaumade fairly good speed. They might possibly have made better time in acanoe, but the new mode of travel was a pleasant change from the constantlabor of plying the blades.

  Had the lads but known it, their wisest course would have been to crossdirectly from the Grand Portage to the southwestern end of Isle Royaleand then skirt the island to its northeast tip. But they had no map totell them this. Indeed in those days the position of Isle Royale was butimperfectly understood. It had been visited by scarcely any white men andwas avoided by the Indians. During the boys' detention at the GrandPortage, rain and fog had rendered the island, some eighteen or twentymiles away, invisible. The day they set sail the sky was blue overhead,but there was still haze enough on the water to obscure the distance. Itwas not strange that they believed Isle Royale farther off than it reallywas. From its northeastern end the _Otter_ had sailed to theKaministikwia, and Hugh took for granted that the shortest way to reachthe island must be from some point on Thunder Bay. He was aware of thedeep curve made by the shore to form the great bay, and realized that tofollow clear around that curve would be a loss of time. Instead ofturning north to follow the shore, he held on to the northeast, along theinner side of a long line of narrow, rocky islands and reefs, rising fromthe water like the summits of a mountain chain and forming a breakwaterfor the protection of the bay.

  It was from one of those islands, now called McKellar Island, south abouttwo miles from the towering heights of the Isle du Pate and at leastfifteen miles by water from the southern mouth of the Kaministikwia, thatthe adventurers finally set out for Isle Royale. Before they daredattempt the perilous sail across the long stretch of the open lake, theyremained in camp a day to let the southwest wind, which had risen to halfa gale, blow itself out. Wind they needed for their venture, but not toomuch wind.