XIV.--AN ANCIENT ARISTOCRAT VISITS THE WORKS
On a sunshiny day twelve miles down the river at the Indian settlement,old Chief Shingwauk, known in English as the Pine Tree, put on his bestbeaded caribou-skin moccasins and, motioning to his wife, moved slowlytoward the shore where a small bark canoe nestled in the long reeds. Afew moments later they slid silently up stream, the aged crone kneelingin the bow, a red shawl enveloping head and shoulders, her thin andbony arms wielding a narrow paddle with smooth agility. In the sternsquatted Shingwauk, his dark eyes deep in thought.
Slowly they pushed up current, pausing now and again to peer unspeakinginto the woods, every ancient instinct still alive, though ninety yearshad passed since the old man and his wife were unstrapped from thestiff board cradles in which they once swung mummy-like in longforgotten camps. Shingwauk, his broad blade winnowing the clear water,reflected that this journey had been contemplated for many months,since first he heard that strange things were being done at the bigwhite water, and now it was well to see for himself, for the time wasapproaching when he would not see anything any more.
It was years since he had been at St. Marys and he was very old, so heworked up stream carefully, skirting close to the shore in the backwater, hugging every point and sheering not at all into the strongcurrent of midstream. Thus for hours the canoe floated like a dry leafin the unruffled corner of a hidden pool, and in it the ancient pair,dry themselves with the searching seasons of nearly a hundred years.
For five hours they paddled, then the last bend in the river and St.Marys lay three miles ahead. Naqua, in the bow, reached up a witheredhand, caught at an overhanging branch and their old eyes took in ascene familiar but yet strange. The sky line had changed, and up wherethe big white water crossed the river like a flat bar there was causefor wonderment.
Presently Shingwauk tapped the thwart with the haft of his paddle andthey glided on, past the lower end of the town with its new houses andgardens, past a street car that moved like a noisy miracle with nothingto pull it, being evidently animated by some devil enchained, pastFilmer's dock where years before Shingwauk and Naqua used to bring minkand otter and marten for trade; past other docks newer and larger and atown bigger than anything they had ever conceived, and opposite whichsharp-nosed devil boats darted about or swung at anchor, across thedeep bay that lay between the town and the big white water, tillfinally they floated near the block-house and Shingwauk's eyes, gazingprofoundly at the massive proportions of Clark's buildings, caught thenarrow stone lined entrance to the little Hudson Bay canal.
"How," he grunted.
The canoe slid delicately forward till presently it floated in the tinylock. Naqua said nothing, being seized by an enormous fear thatclutched at her stringly throat and held her silent, but Shingwauk feltsomething stirring in his breast. Here, surrounded by the confusedvibrations of the works, he resigned himself to ancient memories.Putting out a brown hand he touched the rough walls, and at the touchthe year rolled back. He saw himself a young man, the bow paddle of agreat thirty-foot canoe that came down through the broken waters of thebig lake to the rapids above, with the Hudson Bay factor enthroned inthe middle, surrounded by the precious takings of the winter. He sawOjibway faces, now long forgotten, and smelt the smoke of vanished campfires. He saw the thirty-foot canoe lowered delicately into just sucha lock as this, and automatically thrust out his own paddle to protecther tender tawny sides from the rough masonry. The hewn gates hadopened when he floated out, and here were the gates lookingnon-understandably new, and with the adze marks still on the yellowtimber.
Involuntarily he cast about for the blockhouse and found it hard by.He looked at his own hands--they were knotted and wrinkled; he scannedthe twelve-foot canoe--it seemed small and hastily built of poor bark;he stared at the back of Naqua and reflected how bent and rounded itwas instead of being straight and strong and supple; he glanced up andwhere once there stretched green bush and small running streams nowstood things bigger than he had ever seen; he sniffed at the wind and,without knowing what it was, caught the sharp odor of metal andmachinery. Last of all, he lifted his gaze straight into the eyes of aman who stood staring down from the coping of the little lock.
From the blockhouse window Clark had seen him since first the canoeapproached the shore. With a curious thrill he had watched the oldchief enter the tiny chamber and float motionless--a visitant from thepast. So complete was the picture and so almost poignant the pleasureit afforded, that, loath to mar it, he had hesitated to approach.Never had he conceived anything so intimately appropriate as thislinking of bygone days with the insistent present.
They stared at each other, Clark's keen features suffused withinterest, Shingwauk's black eyes gazing lustrous from a dark bronzeface seamed with innumerable wrinkles. His visage was noble with theproud wisdom of the wilderness and the unnamable shadow of traditionsthat went back through uncounted centuries of forest life. Clark,recognizing it, felt strangely juvenile. Presently Shingwauk, withsome subtle intuition of who and what was the man who stood so quietly,waved his hand. The motion took in the works, the blockhouse, thecanal, in short the entire setting.
"You?" he asked in deep, hollow tones.
Clark nodded, smiling. "Yes, me."
Shingwauk's eyes rounded a little. "Big magic," he said impressivelyand relapsed into silence.
"Hungry?" asked Clark presently.
The old chief did not reply, being too moved by strange thoughts andthe rush of memory to feel anything else, but Naqua lifted a witheredhead in the bow.
"Much hungry," she croaked shrilly.
Clark laughed and signaled to the blockhouse, where the Japanese cookwaited, peering from a window. Presently the latter came out carryinga tray. His narrow eyes were expressionless as he laid it on themasonry beside the canoe. Shingwauk glanced at him, puzzled over theflat, oriental features for a moment, and looked away. He seemed but aminor spirit in this great mystery. The old woman ate greedily, buther husband had no desire for food. He was experiencing a transitionso breathless that it could but mark the day of his own passing. Hewaited till Naqua finished such a meal as she had never seen before,his face gaunt but his eyes large and profound with the shadow ofunspeakable thoughts. Presently he dipped his blade in the untroubledwater, and the canoe backed out of the lock.
"Boozhoo!" he said slowly, with one long look at Clark.
"Good-by! Come again."
The penetrating gaze followed the pigmy vessel as it dipped to thelarger stretch of the bay, dwindling with the glint of two blades thatflashed with clock-like regularity in the afternoon sun. Soon itreduced to a speck and was out of sight. Clark turned to his office,still contemplating the dignity of his visitor, the stark simplicity ofthis archaean aristocrat. How soon, after all, he pondered, might nothe himself and his works look aboriginal beside the achievements whichscience had yet to unfold to the world? Then, glancing across theriver, he stepped down to the dock and struck over in a fast launch.