Heralds of Empire Part 16

Bidding Jean go on to the Habitation with the Indians, he took the rest of us ash.o.r.e with one redskin as guide, to spy out the cause of the firing.

"'Twill be a pretty to-do if the English Fur Company's s.h.i.+ps arrive before we have a French fort ready to welcome them," said he.

CHAPTER X

THE CAUSE OF THE FIRING

The landing was but a part of the labyrinthine trickery in which our leader delighted to play; for while Jean delayed the natives we ran overland through the woods, launched our canoe far ahead of the Indian flotilla, and went racing forward to the throbs of the leaping river.

"If a man would win, he must run fast as the hour-gla.s.s," observed M.

Radisson, poising his steering-pole. "And now, my brave lads," he began, counting in quick, sharp words that rang with command, "keep time--one--two--three! One--two--three!" And to each word the paddles dipped with the speed of a fly-wheel's spokes.

"One--two--three! In and up and on! An you keep yourselves in hand, men, you can win against the devil's own artillery! Speed to your strokes, G.o.defroy," he urged.

And the canoe answered as a fine-strung racer to the spur. Sh.o.r.e-lines blurred to a green streak. The frosty air met our faces in wind.

Gurgling waters curled from the prow in corrugated runnels. And we were running a swift race with a tumult of waves, mounting the swell, dipping, rising buoyant, forward in bounds, with a roar of the nearing rapids, and spray das.h.i.+ng athwart in drifts. M. Radisson braced back. The prow lifted, shot into mid-air, touched water again, and went whirling through the mill-race that boiled below a waterfall. Once the canoe aimed straight as an arrow for rocks in mid-current. M. Radisson's steel-shod pole flashed in the sun. There was a quick thrust, answered by G.o.defroy's counter-stroke at the stern; and the canoe grazed past the rocks not a hair's-breadth off.

"Sainte Anne ha' mercy!" mumbled G.o.defroy, baling water from the canoe as we breasted a turn in the river to calmer currents, "Sainte Anne ha'

mercy! But the master'd run us over Niagara, if he had a mind."

"Or the River Styx, if 'twould gain his end," sharply added Radisson.

But he ordered our paddles athwart for s.n.a.t.c.hed rest, while he himself kept alert at the bow. With the rash presumption of youth, I offered to take the bow that he might rest; but he threw his head back with a loud laugh, more of scorn than mirth, and bade me nurse a wounded hand. On the evening of the third day we came to the Habitation. Without disembarking, M. de Radisson sent the soldiers on sentinel duty at the river front up to the fort with warning to prepare for instant siege.

"'Twill put speed in the lazy rascals to finish the fort," he remarked; and the canoe glided out to mid-current again for the far expanse of the bay.

By this we were all so used to M. Radisson's doings, 'twould not have surprised us when the craft shot out from river-mouth to open sea if he had ordered us to circ.u.mnavigate the ocean on a chip.

He did what was nigh as venturesome.

A quick, unwarned swerve of his pole, which bare gave G.o.defroy time to take the cue, and our prow went scouring across the scud of whipping currents where two rivers and an ocean-tide met. The seething waves lashed to foam with the long, low moan of the world-devouring serpent which, legend says, is ever an-hungering to devour voyageurs on life's sea. And for all the world that reef of combing breakers was not unlike a serpent type of malignant elements bent on man's destruction!

Then, to the amaze of us all, we had left the lower river. The canoe was cutting up-stream against a new current; and the moan of the pounding surf receded to the rear. Clouds blew inland, m.u.f.fling the moon; and M.

Radisson ordered us ash.o.r.e for the night. Feet at a smouldering fire too dull for an enemy to see and heads pillowed on logs, we bivouacked with the frosty ground for bed.

"Bad beds make good risers," was all M. Radisson's comfort, when G.o.defroy grumbled out some complaint.

A _hard_ master, you say? A wise one, say I, for the forces he fought in that desolate land were as adamant. Only the man dauntless as adamant could conquer. And you must remember, while the diamond and the charcoal are of the same family, 'tis the diamond has l.u.s.tre, because it is _hard_. Faults, M. Radisson had, which were almost crimes; but look you who judge him--his faults were not the faults of nearly all other men, the faults which _are_ a crime--_the crime of being weak_!

The first thing our eyes lighted on when the sun rose in flaming darts through the gray haze of dawn was a half-built fort on an island in mid-river. At the water side lay a queer-rigged brigantine, rocking to the swell of the tide. Here, then, was cause of that firing heard across the marsh on the lower river.

"'Tis the pirate s.h.i.+p we saw on the high sea," muttered G.o.defroy, rubbing his eyes.

"She flies no flag! She has no license to trade! She's a poacher! She will make a prize worth the taking," added M. Radisson sharply. Then, as if to justify that intent--"As _we_ have no license, we must either take or be taken!"

The river mist gradually lifted, and there emerged from the fog a stockaded fort with two bastions facing the river and guns protruding from loopholes.

"Not so easy to take that fort," growled G.o.defroy, who was ever a hanger-back.

"All the better," retorted M. de Radisson. "Easy taking makes soft men!

'Twill test your mettle!"

"Test our mettle!" sulked the trader, a key higher in his obstinacy.

"All very well to talk, sir, but how can we take a fort mounted with twenty cannon----"

"I'll tell you _the how_ when it's done," interrupted M. de Radisson.

But G.o.defroy was one of those obstinates who would be silent only when stunned.

"I'd like to know, sir, what we're to do," he began.

"G.o.defroy, 'twould be waste time to knock sense in your pate! There is only one thing to do always--only one, _the right thing_! Do it, fool!

An I hear more clack from you till it's done, I'll have your tongue out with the nippers!"

G.o.defroy cowered sulkily back, and M. de Radisson laughed.

"That will quell him," said he. "When G.o.defroy's tongue is out he can't grumble, and grumbling is his bread of life!"

Stripping off his bright doublet, M. Radisson hung it from a tree to attract the fort's notice. Then he posted us in ambuscade with orders to capture whatever came.

But nothing came.

And when the fort guns boomed out the noon hour M. Radisson sprang up all impatience.

"I'll wait no man's time," he vowed. "Losing time is losing the game!

Launch out!"

Chittering something about our throats being cut, G.o.defroy shrank back.

With a quick stride M. Radisson was towering above him. Catching G.o.defroy by the scruff of the neck, he threw him face down into the canoe, muttering out it would be small loss if all the cowards in the world had their throats cut.

"The pirates come to trade," he explained. "They will not fire at Indians. Bind your hair back like that Indian there!"

No sooner were we in the range of the fort than M. Radisson uttered the shrill call of a native, bade our Indian stand up, and himself enacted the pantomime of a savage, waving his arms, whistling, and hallooing.

With cries of welcome, the fort people ran to the sh.o.r.e and left their guns unmanned. Reading from a syllable book, they shouted out Indian words. It was safe to approach. Before they could arm we could escape.

But we were two men, one lad, and a neutral Indian against an armed garrison in a land where killing was no murder.

M. de Radisson stood up and called in the Indian tongue. They did not understand.

"New to it," commented Radisson, "not the Hudson's Bay Company!"

All the while he was imperceptibly approaching nearer. He shouted in French. They shook their heads.

"English highwaymen, blundered in here by chance," said he.

Tearing off the Indian head-band of disguise, he demanded in mighty peremptory tones who they were.