CHAPTER VII
ON THE RIVER
Next morning they saw the dug-out pulled up on the shore below theircamp.
"The difference between a red man and a white man," said Stonor grimly,"is that a red man doesn't mind being caught in a lie after the occasionfor it has passed, but a white man will spend half the rest of his lifetrying to justify himself."
He regarded the craft dubiously. It was an antique affair, grey as anold badger, warped and seamed by the sun and rotten in the bottom. Butit had a thin skin of sound wood on the outside, and on the whole itseemed better suited to their purpose than the bark-canoes used by theKakisas.
As they carried their goods down and made ready to start the Indiansgathered around and watched with glum faces. None offered to help. Itmust have been a trying situation for Mary Moosa. When Stonor was out ofhearing they did not spare her. She bore it with her customary stoicism.Ahchoogah, less honest than the rank and file, sought to commend himselfto the policeman by a pretence of friendliness. Stonor, beyond tellinghim that he would hold him responsible for the safety of the horsesduring his absence, ignored him.
Having stowed their outfit, they gingerly got in. Their boat, thoughover twenty feet long, was only about fifteen inches beam, and of thelog out of which she had been fashioned she still retained the tendencyto roll over. Mary took the bow paddle, and Stonor the stern; Clare satamidships facing the policeman.
"If we can only keep on top until we get around the first bend we'llsave our dignity, anyhow," said Stonor.
They pushed off without farewells. When they rounded the first point ofwillows and passed out of sight of the crowd of lowering, dark faces,they felt relieved. Stonor was able to drop the port of augustpoliceman.
Said he: "I'm going to call this craft the Serpent. She's got a fairtwist on her. Her head is pointed to port and her tail to starboard. Ittakes a mathematical deduction to figure out which way she's going."
Clare was less ready than usual to answer his jokes. She was pale, andthere was a hint of strain in her eyes.
"You're not bothered about Ahchoogah's imaginary terrors, are you?" heasked.
She shook her head. "Not that."
He wondered what it was then, but did not like to ask directly. Itsuddenly struck him that she had been steadily losing tone since thefirst day on the trail.
Her next words showed the direction her thoughts were taking. "You saidit was two hundred miles down the river. How long do you think it willtake us to make it?"
"Three days and a bit, if my guess as to the distance is right. We havethe current to help us, and now we don't have to stop for the horses tograze."
"They will be hard days to put in," she said simply.
Stonor pondered for a long time on what she meant by this. Was she soconsumed by impatience to arrive that the dragging hours were a tortureto her? or was it simply the uncertainty of what awaited her, and alonging to have it over with? That she had been eager for the journeywas clear, but it had not seemed like a joyful eagerness. He was awarethat there was something here he did not understand. Women hadunfathomable souls anyway.
As far as he was concerned he frankly dreaded the outcome of thejourney. How was he to bear himself at the meeting of this dividedcouple? He could not avoid being a witness of it. He must hand her overwith a smile, he supposed, and make a graceful get-away. But suppose hewere prevented from leaving immediately. Or suppose, as was quitelikely, that they wished to return with him! He ground his teeth at thethought of such an ordeal. Would he be able to carry it off? He must!
"What's the matter?" Clare asked suddenly. She had been studying hisface.
"Why did you ask?"
"You looked as if you had a sudden pain."
"I had," he said, with a rueful smile. "My knees. It's so long since Ipaddled that they're not limbered up yet."
She appeared not altogether satisfied with this explanation.
This part of the river showed a succession of long smooth reaches withlow banks of a uniform height bordered with picturesque raggedjack-pines, tall, thin, and sharply pointed. Here and there, where thecomposition seemed to require it, a perfect island was planted in thebrown flood. At the foot of the pines along the edge of each bank grewrows of berry bushes as regularly as if set out by a gardener. Alreadythe water was receding as a result of the summer drouth, but, as fast asit fell, the muddy beach left at the foot of each bank was mantled withthe tender green of goose-grass, a diminutive cousin of the tropicalbamboo. Mile after mile the character of the stream showed no variance.It was like a noble corridor through the pines.
At intervals during the day they met a few Kakisas, singly or in pairs,in their beautifully-made little birch-bark canoes. These individuals,when they came upon them suddenly, almost capsized in their astonishmentat beholding pale-faces on their river. No doubt, in the tepees behindthe willows, the coming of the whites had long been foretold as aportent of dreadful things.
They displayed their feelings according to their various natures. Thefirst they met, a solitary youth, was frankly terrified. He hastenedashore, the water fairly cascading from his paddle, and, squattingbehind the bushes, peered through at them like an animal. The next pairstood their ground, clinging to an overhanging willow--too startled toescape perhaps--where they stared with goggling eyes, and visiblytrembled. It gave Stonor and Clare a queer sense of power thus to havetheir mere appearance create so great an excitement. Nothing could begot out of these two; they would not even answer questions from Mary intheir own tongue.
The fourth Kakisa, however, an incredibly ragged and dirty old man witha dingy cotton fillet around his snaky locks, hailed them with wildshouts of laughter, paddled to meet them, and clung to the dug-out,fondly stroking Stonor's sleeve. The sight of Clare caused him to go offinto fresh shrieks of good-natured merriment. His name, he informedthem, was Lookoovar, or so they understood it. He had a stomach-ache, hesaid, and wished for some of the white man's wonderful stomach-warmingmedicine of which he had heard.
"It seems that our principal claim to fame up here is whisky," saidStonor.
He gave the old man a pill. Lookoovar swallowed it eagerly, but lookeddisappointed at the absence of immediate results.
All these men were hunting their dinners. Close to the shore theypaddled softly against the current, or drifted silently down, searchingthe bushes with their keen flat eyes for the least stir. Sinceeverything had to come down to the river sooner or later to drink, theycould have had no better point of vantage. Every man had a gun in hiscanoe, but ammunition is expensive on the Swan River, and for small fry,musk-rat, duck, fool-hen, or rabbit, they still used the prehistoric bowand arrow.
"The Swan River is like the Kakisas' Main Street," said Stonor. "All daythey mosey up and down looking in the shop-windows for bargains infeathers and furs."
They camped for the night on a cleared point occupied by the bare polesof several tepees. The Indians left these poles standing at all the bestsites along the river, ready to use the next time they should spell thatway. They frequently left their caches too, that is to say, spare gear,food and what-not, trustfully hanging from near-by branches inbirch-bark containers. The Kakisas even tote water in bark pails.
Next day the character of the river changed. It now eddied aroundinnumerable short bends right and left with an invariable regularity,each bend so like the last they lost all track of the distance they hadcome. Its course was as regularly crooked as a crimping-iron. On eachbend it ate under the bank on the outside, and deposited a bar on theinside. On one side the pines toppled into the water as their footingwas undermined, while poplars sprang up on the other side in thenewly-made ground.
On the afternoon of this day they suddenly came upon the village ofwhich they had been told. It fronted on a little lagoon behind one ofthe sand-bars. This was the village where Imbrie was said to have curedthe Kakisas of measles. At present most of the inhabitants were pitchingoff up and down the river, and there were only half a dozen coveredtepees
in sight, but the bare poles of many others showed the normalextent of the village.
The usual furore of excitement was caused by their unheralded appearancearound the bend. For a moment the Indians completely lost their heads,and there was a mad scurry for the tepees. Some mothers dragged theirscreaming offspring into the bush for better shelter. Only one or two ofthe bravest among the men dared show themselves. But with true savagevolatility they recovered from their panic as suddenly as they had beenseized. One by one they stole to the edge of the bank, where they stoodstaring down at the travellers, with their shoe-button eyes empty of allhuman expression.
Stonor had no intention of landing here. He waited with the nose of theSerpent resting in the mud until the excitement died down. Then, throughMary, he requested speech with the head man.
A bent old man tottered down the bank with the aid of a staff. He wore adirty blanket capote--and a bicycle cap! He faced them, his head waggingwith incipient palsy, and his dim eyes looking out bleared, indifferent,and jaded. Sparse grey hairs decorated his chin. It was a picture of agewithout reverence.
"How dreadful to grow old in a tepee!" murmured Clare.
The old man was accompanied by a comely youth with bold eyes, hisgrandson, according to Mary. The elder's name was Ahcunazie, the boy'sAhteeah.
Stonor, in the name of the Great White Father, harangued the chief in astyle similar to that he had used with Ahchoogah. Ahcunazie appeareddazed and incapable of replying, so Stonor said:
"Talk with your people and find out what all desire. I will return in aweek for your answer."
When this was translated the young man spoke up sharply. Mary said:"Ahteeah say, What for you want go down the river?"
Stonor said: "To see the white man," and watched close to see how theywould take it.
The scene in the other village was almost exactly repeated. Ahteeahbrought up all the reasons he could think of that would be likely todissuade Stonor. Other men, hearing what was going forward, came down tosupport the boy. Stonor's boat was rotten, they pointed out, and thewaves in the rapids ran as high as a man. With vivid gestures theyillustrated what would happen to the dug-out in the rapids. If heescaped the rapids he would surely be carried over the Falls; and if hewasn't, how did he expect to get back up the rapids? And so on.
Old Ahcunazie stood through it all uncomprehending and indifferent. Hewas too old even to betray any interest in the phenomenon of the whitewoman.
One thing new the whites marked: "White Medicine Man don' like whitemen. He say if white men come he goin' away." This suggested a possiblereason for the Indian's opposition.
Stonor still remaining unmoved, Ahteeah brought out as a clincher:"White Medicine Man not home now."
Stonor and Clare looked at each other startled. This would be a calamityafter having travelled all that way. "Where is he?" Stonor demanded.
The young Indian, delighted at his apparent success, answered glibly:"He say he goin' down to Great Buffalo Lake this summer."
An instant's reflection satisfied Stonor that if this were true it wouldhave been brought out first instead of last. "Oh, well, since we've comeas far as this we'll go the rest of the way to make sure," he saidcalmly.
Ahteeah looked disappointed. They pushed off. The Indians watched themgo in sullen silence.
"Certainly we are not popular in this neighbourhood," said Stonorlightly. "One can't get rid of the feeling that their minds have beenpoisoned against us. Mary, can't you tell me why they give me such blacklooks?"
She shook her head. "I think there is something," she said. "But theynot tell me because I with you."
"Maybe it has something to do with me?" said Clare.
"How could that be? They never heard of you."
"I think it is Stonor," said Mary.
Clare was harder to rouse out of herself to-day. Stonor did his best notto show that he perceived anything amiss, and strove to cheer her withchaff and foolishness--likewise to keep his own heart up, but notaltogether with success.
On one occasion Clare sought to reassure him by saying, _a propos_ ofnothing that had gone before: "The worst of having an imagination is,that when you have anything to go through with, it keeps presenting themost horrible alternatives in advance until you are almost incapable offacing the thing. And after all it is never so bad as your imaginationpictures."
"I understand that," said Stonor, "though I don't suppose anybody wouldaccuse me of being imaginative."
"'Something to go through with!'" he thought. "'Horrible alternatives!''Never so bad as your imagination pictures!' What strange phrases for awoman to use who is going to rejoin her husband!"
When they embarked after the second spell Clare asked if she might sitfacing forward in the dug-out, so she could see better where they weregoing. But Stonor guessed this was merely an excuse to escape fromhaving his solicitous eyes on her face.
* * * * *
Next morning they overtook the last Kakisa that they were to see on theway down. He was drifting along close to the shore, and behind him inhis canoe sat his little boy as still as a mouse, receiving hiseducation in hunter's lore. This man was a more intelligent specimenthan they had met hitherto. He was a comely little fellow with anextraordinary head of hair cut _a la_ Buster Brown, and his name, hesaid, was Etzooah. Stonor remembered having heard of him and his hair asfar away as Fort Enterprise. His manners were good. While naturallyastonished at their appearance, he did not on that account lose hisself-possession. They conversed politely while drifting down side byside.
Etzooah, in sharp contrast to all the other Kakisas, appeared to seenothing out of the way in their wish to visit the White Medicine Man,nor did he try to dissuade them.
"How far is it to the Great Falls?" asked Stonor.
"One sleep."
"Are the rapids too bad for a boat?"
"Rapids bad, but not too bad. I go down in my bark-canoe, I guess you goall right in dug-out. Long tam ago my fat'er tell me all the Kakisapeople go to the Big Falls ev'ry year at the time when the berries ripe.By the Big Falls they meet the people from Great Buffalo Lake and makebig talk there and make dance to do honour to the Old Man under thefalls. And this people trade leather for fur with the people from GreatBuffalo Lake. But now this people is scare to go there. But I am notscare. I go there. Three times I go there. Each time I leave a littlepresent of tobacco for the Old Man so he know my heart is good towardshim. I guess Old Man like a brave man better than a woman. No harm cometo me since I go. My wife, my children got plenty to eat; I catch goodfur. Bam-bye I take my boy there too. Some men say I crazy for that, butI say no. It is a fine sight. It make a man's heart big to see thatsight."
This was a man after Stonor's own heart. "Tell him those are goodwords," he said heartily.
When they asked him about the White Man who lived beside the falls,Etzooah's eyes sparkled. "He say he my friend, and I proud. Since he saythat I think more of myself. I walk straight. I am not afraid. He isgood. He make the sick well. He give the people good talk. He tell howto live clean and all, so there is no more sickness. He moch likechildren. He good to my boy. Give him little face that say 'Ticky-ticky'and follow the sun."
Etzooah issued a command to his small son, and the boy shyly exhibited alarge cheap nickel watch.
"No other Kakisa man or boy got that," said the parent proudly.
"Is it true that this white man hates other white men?" asked Stonor.
Etzooah made an emphatic negative. "He got no hate. He say red man whiteman all the same man."
"Then he'll be glad to see us?"
"I think he glad. Got good heart to all."
"Is he at home now?"
"He is at home. I see him go down the river three sleeps ago."
Those in the dug-out exchanged looks of astonishment. "Ask him if he issure?" said Stonor.
Etzooah persisted in his statement. "I not speak him for cause I hidingin bush watchin' bear. And he is across the river. But I see good. See
white face. I know him because he not paddle like Kakisa one side otherside; him paddle all time same side and turn the paddle so to make gostraight."
"Where had he been?"
"Up to Horse Track, I guess."
Horse Track, of course, was the trail from the river to Fort Enterprise.The village at the end of the trail received the same designation. Ifthe tale of this visit was true it might have something to do with thehostility they had met with above.
"But we have just come from the Horse Track," said Stonor, to feel theman out. "Nobody told us he had been there."
Etzooah shrugged. "Maybe they scare. Not know what to say to white man."
But Stonor thought, if anything, they had known too well what to say."How long had he been up there?" he asked.
"I not know. I not know him gone up river till see him come back."
"Maybe he only went a little way up."
Etzooah shook his head vigorously. "His canoe was loaded heavy."
Etzooah accompanied them to the point where the current began toincrease its pace preparatory to the first rapid.
"This the end my hunting-ground," he said. "Too much work to come backup the rapids." He saluted them courteously, and caused the little boyto do likewise. His parting remark was: "Tell the White Medicine ManEtzooah never forget he call him friend."
"Well, we've found one gentleman among the Kakisas," Stonor said toClare, as they paddled on.
The first rapid was no great affair. There was plenty of water, and theywere carried racing smoothly down between low rocky banks. Stonor namedthe place the Grumbler from the deep throaty sound it gave forth.
In quiet water below they discussed what they had heard.
"It gets thicker and thicker," said Stonor. "It seems to me thatImbrie's having been at the Horse Track lately must have had somethingto do with the chilly reception we received."
"Why should it?" said Clare. "He has nothing to fear from the coming ofanybody."
"Then why did they say nothing about his visit?"
She shook her head. "You know I cannot fathom these people."
"Neither can I, for that matter. But it does seem as if he must havetold them not to tell anybody they had seen him."
"It is not like him."
"Ahteeah said Imbrie hated white men; Etzooah said his heart was kind toall men: which is the truer description?"
"Etzooah's," she said instantly. "He has a simple, kind heart. He livesup to the rule 'Love thy neighbour' better than any man I ever knew."
"Well, we'll know to-morrow," said Stonor, making haste to drop thedisconcerting subject. Privately he asked himself: "Why, if Imbrie issuch a good man, does she seem to dread meeting him?" There was noanswer forthcoming.
The rapids became progressively wilder and rougher as they went on down,and Stonor was not without anxiety as to the coming back. Sometimes theycame on white water unexpectedly around a bend, but the river was not socrooked now, and more often far ahead they saw the white rabbits dancingin the sunshine, causing their breasts to constrict with a foretaste offear. As the current bore them inexorably closer, and they picked outthe rocks and the great white combers awaiting them, there was always amoment when they longed to turn aside from their fate. But once havingplunged into the welter, fear vanished, and a great exhilaration tookits place. They shouted madly to each other--even stolid Mary, and weresorry when they came to the bottom. Between rapids the smooth stretchesseemed insufferably tedious to pass.
Stonor's endeavour was to steer a middle course between the greatbillows in the middle of the channel, which he feared might swamp theSerpent or break her in half, and the rocks at each side which wouldhave smashed her to pieces. Luckily he had had a couple of days in whichto learn the vagaries of his craft. In descending a swift current onehas to bear in mind that any boat begins to answer her helm some yardsahead of the spot where the impulse is applied.
As the day wore on he bethought himself that "one sleep" was an elasticterm of distance, and in order to avoid the possibility of being carriedover the falls he adopted the rule of landing at the head of each rapid,and walking down the shore to pick his channel, and to make sure thatthere was smooth water below. They had been told that there was no rapidimmediately above the falls, that the water slipped over without givingwarning, but Stonor dismissed this into the limbo of red-skin romancing.He did not believe it possible for a river to go over a fall withoutsome preliminary disturbance.
As it happened, dusk descended on them in the middle of a smooth reach,and they made camp for the last time on the descent, pitching the threetents under the pines in the form of a little square open on the riverside. Clare was very silent during the meal, and Stonor's gaiety soundedhollow in his own ears. They turned in immediately after eating.
Stonor awoke in the middle of the night without being able to tell whathad awakened him. He had a sense that something was wrong. It was abreathless cool night. Under the pines it was very dark, but outside oftheir shadow the river gleamed wanly. Such sounds as he heard, themurmur of a far-off rapid, and a whisper in the topmost boughs of thepines, conveyed a suggestion of empty immeasurable distances. The firehad burned down to its last embers.
Suddenly he became aware of what was the matter; Clare was weeping. Itwas the merest hint of a sound, softer than falling leaves, just a catchof the breath that escaped her now and then. Stonor lay listening withbated breath, as if terrified of losing that which tore his heartstringsto hear. He was afflicted with a ghastly sense of impotence. He had noright to intrude on her grief. Yet how could he lie supine when she wasin trouble, and make believe not to hear? He could not lie still. He gotup, taking no care to be quiet, and built up the fire. She could notknow, of course, that he had heard that broken breath. Perhaps she wouldspeak to him. Or, if she could not speak, perhaps she would take comfortfrom the mere fact of his waking presence outside.
He heard no further sound from her tent.
After a while, because it was impossible for him not to say it, hesoftly asked: "Are you asleep?"
There was no answer.
He sat down by the fire listening and brooding--humming a little tunemeanwhile to assure her of the blitheness of his spirits.
By and by a small voice issued from under her tent: "Please go back tobed,"--and he knew at once that she saw through his poor shift todeceive her.
"Honest, I don't feel like sleeping," he said cheerfully.
"Did I wake you?"
"No," he lied. "Were you up?"
"You were worrying about me," she said.
"Nothing to speak of. I thought perhaps the silence and the solitude hadgot on your nerves a little. It's that kind of a night."
"I don't mind it," she said; "with you near--and Mary," she quicklyadded. "Please go back to bed."
He crept to her tent. It was purely an involuntary act. He was on hisknees, but he did not think of that. "Ah, Clare, if I could only takeyour trouble from you!" he murmured.
"Hush!" she whispered. "Put me and my troubles out of your head. It isnothing. It is like the rapids; one loses one's nerve when they loom upahead. I shall be all right when I am in them."
"Clare, let me sit here on the ground beside you--not touching you."
"No--please! Go back to your tent. It will be easier for me."
* * * * *
In the morning they arose heavily, and set about the business ofbreakfasting and breaking camp with little speech. Indeed, there wasnothing to say. Neither Stonor nor Clare could make believe now to beotherwise than full of dread of what the day had in store. Embarking,Clare took a paddle too, and all three laboured doggedly, careless alikeof rough water and smooth.
In the middle of the day they heard, for some minutes before the placeitself hove in view, the roar of a rapid greater than any they hadpassed.
"This will be something!" said Stonor.
But as they swept around the bend above they never saw the rapid, foramong the trees on the bank at the begi
nning of the swift water therestood a little new log shack. That sight struck them like a blow. Therewas no one visible outside the shack, but the door stood open.