_ BOOK II. AMERICA
CHAPTER I. THE DOOR OF THE WEST
"Nearly a league farther, Du Mesne, and the sun but an hour high. Come, let us hasten!"
"You are right, Monsieur L'as," replied the one addressed, as the first speaker seated himself on the thwart of the boat in whose bow he had been standing. "Bend to it,
mes amis!"
John Law turned about on the seat, gazing back over the length of the little ship which had brought him and his comrades thus far on the wildest journey he had ever undertaken. Six paddlers there were for this great
canot du Nord, and steadily enough they sent the thin-shelled craft along over the curling blue waves of the great inland sea. And now their voices in one accord fell into the cadences of an ancient boat-song of New France:
"
En roulant ma loule, roulant,
Roulant, rouler, ma boule roulant."
The ictus of the measure marked time for the sweeping paddles, and under the added impetus the paper shell, reinforced as it was by close-laid splints of cedar, and braced by the fiber-fastened thwarts, fairly yielded to the rush of the waves as the stalwart paddlers sent it flying forward. A tiny blur of white showed about the bows, and now and again a splash of spray came inboard, as some little curling white cap was divided by the rush of the swiftly moving prow.
"We shall not arrive too soon, my friend," rejoined the captain of the
voyageurs, casting an eye back across the great lake, which lay black and ominous under a threatening sky, the sweep and swirl of its white caps ever racing hard after the frail craft, as though eager to break through its paper sides and tear away the human beings who thus fled on so lightly.
This boat, mysteriously appearing as though it were some spirit craft railed from the ancient deeps, was far from the beginning of its wild journey. Wide as the eye might reach, there arose no fleck of snowy canvas, nor showed the dark line of any similar craft propelled by oar or paddle. They were alone, these travelers. Before them, at the entrance of the wide arm of the great lake Michiganon, lay the point even at that early day known as the Door of the West, the beginning of the winding water-way which led on into the interior of that West, then so alluring and unknown. The eyes of all were fixed on the low, white-fronted bluffs, crowned by dark forest growth, which guarded the bay at either hand. This spot, so wild, so remote, so significant--it was home for these
voyageurs as much as any; as much, too, for Law and the woman who lay back, pale-faced and wide-eyed, among the bales in the great canoe.
In time the graceful craft approached the beach, on which the long waves rolled and curled, now gently, now with imposing force. With the water yet half-leg deep, Du Mesne and two of the paddlers sprang bodily overboard and held the boat back from the pebbles, so that its tender shell might not be damaged. Law himself was as soon as they in the water, and he waded back along the gunwale until he reached the stern, the water nearly up to his hips. Reaching out his arms, he picked up Mary Connynge from her seat and carried her dry-shod ashore, bending down to catch some whispered word. Not so gallant was Du Mesne, the leader of the
voyageurs. He uttered a few short words of semi-command to the Indian woman, who had been seated on the floor of the canoe, and she, without protest, crawled forward over the thwarts and the heaped bundles until she reached the bow, and then went ankle deep into the creaming flood. The great canoe, left empty and anchored safe from the pebbles of the beach, tossed light as a cork on the incoming waves.
A little open space was quickly found at the edge of the cove in which the disembarkation was made, and here Du Mesne and his followers soon kicked away the twigs and leveled out a smooth place upon the grass. Each man produced from his belt a broad-bladed knife, and for the moment disappeared in the deep fringe of evergreens which lined the shore. Fairly in the twinkling of an eye a rude frame of bent poles was made, above which were spread strips of unrolled birch bark from the cargo of the canoe. Over the spaces left uncovered by the supply of bark sheets there were laid down long mats made by Indian hands from dried reeds and bulrushes, affording no inconsiderable protection against the weather. Inside the lodge, bales of goods and packages of provisions were quickly arranged in comfortable fashion. Gaudy blankets were spread upon layers of soft skins of the buffalo. The Indian woman had meantime struck a fire, whose faint blue smoke curled lakeward in the soft evening air. Quickly, and with the system of experienced campaigners, the evening bivouac had been prepared; and wildly picturesque it must have seemed to a bystander, had there been indeed any possible spectator within many leagues.
Far enough was this from the turmoil of London, which Law and his companion had left nearly a year before; far enough still from the wild capital of New France, where they had spent the winter, after landing, as much by chance as through any plan, at the port of the St. Lawrence. Ever a demon of unrest drove Law forward; ever there beckoned to him that irresistible West, of which he was one of the earliest to feel the charm. Farther and farther westward, swift and swifter than ever the boats of the fur traders had made the journey before, he and his party, led by Du Mesne, the ex-galley-slave and wanderer whom Law had by chance met again, and gladly, at Montreal, had made the long and dangerous run up the lakes, past Michilimackinac, down the lake of Michiganon, headed toward the interior of a new continent which was then, as for generations after then, the land of wondrous distances, of grand enterprises, of magnificent promises and immense fulfilments. The bales and bundles of this bivouac belonged to John Law, bought by gold from the gaming tables of Montreal and Quebec, and ventured in the one great hazard which appealed to him most irresistibly, the hazard of life and fortune in a far land, where he might live unneighbored, and where he might forget. Gambler in England, gambler again in New France, now trading fur-merchant and
voyageur, he was, as always, an adventurer. Du Mesne and his hardy crew hailed him already as a new captain of the trails, a new
coureur, won from the Old World by the savage witchery of the New. He was their brother; and had he indeed owned longer years of training, his keenness of eye, his strength of arm, his tirelessness of limb could hardly have been greater than they seemed in his first voyage to the West.
"
Tous les printemps,
Tant des nouvelles"
hummed Du Mesne, as he busied himself about the camp, casting the while a cautious eye to note the progress of the threatening storm.
"
Tous les amants
Changent des maitresses.
Jamais le bon vin n'endort--
L'amour me reveille!"
"The best is before us now, Monsieur L'as," said Du Mesne, joining Law, at length. "Assuredly the best is always that which is ahead and which is unknown; but in point of fact the hardest of our journey is over, for henceforth we may stretch our legs ashore, and hunt and fish, and make good camps for madame, who, as we both perceive, is much in need of ease and care. We shall make all safe and comfortable for this night, doubt not.
"Meantime," continued he, "let us see that all is well with our men and arms, for henceforth we must put out guards. Attention, comrades! Present your pieces and answer the roll-call! Pierre Berthier!"
"
Ici! Monsieur," replied the one better known as Pierre Noir, a tall and dark-visaged Canadian, clad in the common costume, half-Indian and half-civilized, which marked his class. A shirt of soft dressed buckskin fell about his thighs; his legs were encased in moose-skin leggings, deeply fringed at the seams. About his middle was a broad sash, once red, and upon his head a scanty cap of similar color was pushed back. At his belt hung the great hunting knife of the
voyageur, balanced by a keen steel tomahawk such as was in common use among the Indians. In his hand he supported a long-barreled musket, which he now examined carefully in the presence of the captain of the
voyageurs.
"Robert Challon!" next commanded Du Mesne, and in turn the one addressed looked over his piece, the captain also scrutinizing the flint and priming with careful eye.
"Naturally,
mes enfants," said he, "your weapons are perfect, as ever. Kataikini, and you, Kabayan, my brothers, let me see," said he to the two Indians, the former a Huron and the latter an Ojibway, both from the shores of Superior. The Indians arose silently, and without protest submitted to the scrutiny which ever seemed to them unnecessary.
"Jean Breboeuf!" called Du Mesne; and in response there arose from the shadows a wiry little Frenchman, who might have been of any age from twenty to forty-five, so sun-burnt and wrinkled, yet so active and vigorous did he seem.
"
Mon ami," said Du Mesne to him, chidingly, "see now, here is your flint all but out of its engagement. Pray you, have better care of your piece. For this you shall stand the long watch of the night. And now let us all to bed."
One by one the little party was lost to view within the dark interior of the hut which they had arranged for themselves. Du Mesne retired a distance from the fire and seated himself upon a fallen log, his pipe glowing like a coal in the enveloping darkness.
Law himself did not so soon leave the outer air. He remained gazing out at the wild scene about him, at the rolling waves dashing on the shore, their crests whitening in the glare of the lightning, now approaching more closely. He harkened to the roll of the far-off thunder reenforced by the thunder of the waves upon the shore, and noted the sweep of the black forest about, of the black sky overhead, unlit save for one far-off, faint and feeble star.
It was a new world, this that lay around him, a new and savage world. If there were a world behind him, a world which once held sunlight and flowers, and love and hope--why then, it was a world lost and gone forever, and it was very well that this new world should be so different and so stern.
In the darkness John Law heard a voice, the voice of a woman in terror. Swiftly he stepped to the door of the rude lodge.
"Don't let them sing it again--never any more--that song."
"And what, Madam?"
"That one--'
us les amants changent des maitresses!'"
A moment later she whispered, "I am afraid." _