American Indian life. Various
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Finally with the return of good weather and the subsidence of the wind, Good-ground was able to make his round of traps, baiting and resetting those which had been torn down by the force of the wind, the snow and the beating branches of the undergrowth. Arriving at the location of trap number ten, he scraped away the snow to find there the chewed and devoured remains of a splendid black fox! The loss, Good-ground realized as he stood there regarding the remaining patch of silky ink-black fur no larger than the span of his hands, would amount to $2500 at least. Had he visited trap number ten that terrible day, weeks ago, he might have secured the pelt.
On his return home Good-ground was to have another surprise. He found his neighbor old Shekapeo visiting his family, having ventured a day’s struggle through the soft and deep snowdrifts, from a sympathetic desire to see whether all had gone well with the family whose lives depended upon the support of one young man.
Shekapeo heard the story of Good-ground’s lost prize with impassive expression. But on his way home the next day, tramping ahead of his dogs he had time to think over the bad luck attaching to Good-ground. Shekapeo’s thoughts then turned to the coming trading season at the Post, and in particular to the financial ascendancy of Antoine.
During that spring season at the Post, among the tales which circulated was that about Good-ground and trap number ten. The story of the adventure did not turn out to his credit, especially after Antoine took occasion to say to Shekapeo, in the presence of the family, including Mirage, that Good-ground was a fool to have turned back at a time when a catch worth several thousand dollars was waiting his enterprise.
To account for Good-ground’s lack of success, Antoine even remarked that Good-ground’s dream spirit would not have lied to him that day when he turned back, unless he had been a liar himself.
With the advent of the moon when the birds begin to fly, which the white people at the Post called August, the People of the Interior having finished their trading, repaired their canoes, and satisfied their craving for society, bade adieu to their friends of the lake and started on their return to the northern wilderness. In the coming voyage of ascent, Good-ground’s three canoe loads of provisions and supplies, in large part advanced to him in credit by the factor, which were to last him through the winter on his hunting grounds, would have to be carried over thirty-two portages. If the weather continued good he expected to make the return trip in forty days. The largest lake that he had to cross would be nine miles wide, but if the wind blew hard he would have to make double that distance by working around the shore line. His load consisted of about two thousand pounds in all, fifteen bags of flour, two hundred pounds of pork, ten of tobacco, one hundred of flour, one hundred of grease, twenty-five of tea, forty of salt, twenty boxes of baking powder, twenty-five bars of soap, two boxes of candles, twelve boxes of shells, four boxes of rifle cartridges, three hundred traps, from beaver size down, and ten bear traps—all this in three canoes. With the help of mother, sisters, and younger brothers, these canoes had to be paddled in smooth water, while on the portages and in water that was too shallow for paddling, they had to be relayed in loads on the back.
Finally, their toilsome journey ended, Good-ground and the others reached their distant hunt-grounds and reopened their home camps, where, all summer during their absence, the porcupines and other rodents had made havoc among the greasy furnishings; where even an occasional passing bear had left his marks. More than once the caribou and moose had poked their noses well within the clearing and among the deserted tents, as though they knew that the men, who in the winter time were so eager for their lives, were now far away killing fish to live on, and eating the white men’s food put up in tin cans.
So another winter was passed by the People of the Interior, busy in killing the wild animals of the forest and busy, too, in reviving the spirits of the slain animals, as they believed, by constant resource to drumming, singing, praying, and other shamanistic performances.
This winter at the Post, for Antoine, at least, was also a season of great activity. Antoine’s astute employer, an independent French trader, had conceived a scheme to secure the trade of the People of the Interior when they should come out from the forests in the spring. The scheme was nothing less than to have a score of cases of the strongest fire water sent to the lake, at great expense, hidden from the eyes of the revenue officers en route. The whole was to cost about all that the independent French company could afford to put into the venture, and incidentally, as his employer finally made clear to him, to absorb the whole of Antoine’s available estate in the shape of over a thousand dollars ready cash. Antoine and his employer gloated together over the scoop that would be made when the People of the Interior were told that the old company factor had died and the Post was closed, and learned that the new company had gone to the trouble of providing for them their beloved liquor so that there should be at least something for which to trade their furs. It was planned that Antoine should ascend the river Where-Moose-Abound, down which the People of the Interior generally came, a several days’ journey, and there intercept them and put through the hoax.
With considerable care, seven sturdy canoe men were engaged, with Antoine as their foreman, to transfer the disguised cases from the lake to a convenient point up the river where the People of the Interior, with their precious cargoes of fur, would be sure to pass by in their descent. On the great day, the flotilla with its spirituous cargo made an early morning start. The men, with occasional levies upon the contents of their load to refresh themselves, finally reached the destined point and unloaded the boxes, setting up their camp to wait for the arrival of the descending hunters. Antoine’s expectations ran high. He pictured to himself the consternation with which the People of the Interior would receive the surprising news that he had to impart, and then the eagerness with which they would fall upon his stores of liquor. With their potations well begun, he expected that they would not stop until they had traded the best of their peltries for the last flask of his fire water. His visions were hourly more stimulated by draughts upon his stock.
That evening, when the voyagers had settled down about their leaping fire, nothing would have aroused the suspicion of the observer as to what was about to take place. The seven canoe men, who were from among the People of the Lake, had decided upon an action which, to their minds, seemed advantageous to themselves, as well as in accordance with the excise laws of the Dominion, but which was prompted above all by fidelity to their friends among the People of the Interior. These men of the People of the Lake had known from former years’ experience what it would mean for their friends of the forest to be turned back to their distant hunting grounds with nothing but the remains of a drunken orgy to meet their requirements for the coming winter. Therefore had they decided, with great moral satisfaction, in the interests of self, of government, and of mankind exactly what their correct course should be.
Before the evening had worn away, Antoine felt himself enjoying the best of spirits. He did not notice, when one of the men asked him to pass the matches, that two of the others behind him were fumbling among some tangled thongs and ropes. He did not notice, until too late, a quick movement by which he was thrown on his back and quickly bound hand and foot, his hands behind his back. Attempts to reach his sheath-knife, frantic yells, squirmings, and attempts to bite the binding thongs were lost in a roar of laughter which greeted him when he was tumbled to one side of the camp like a strangled bear, to curse in French, and threaten them with every dreadful thing that the northern Indian has learned to fear. They only laughed at him as his store clothes became grimy and his urbane veneer disappeared. They laughed all the more, these merry Men of the Lake, when the boxes had been broken open with their keen axes and the corks pulled from a score of flat bottles, whose limpid contents disappeared down their throats between gurgles of liquid and gurgles of laughter and jokes.
Now for two days this merry camp of Bacchus made the forests echo with songs and cries, some from the throats of the Men of the Lake, growing louder each hour, others growing feebler each hour from the throat of Antoine. Had the People of the Interior been within hearing distance, they might have thought that a band of marauding enemies had engaged one another in warfare on their peaceful river. And no doubt they would have gone into concealment until some of their scouts could have learned the cause of it. But it so happened that they were delayed many miles up the river at one of the portages; several invalids had required attention. When all were able to resume their journey they descended by easy stages