Читать книгу: «Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, September, 1880», страница 3

We began our second week upon the Mississippi with a breakfast of baked lake-trout, slapjacks, maple syrup and coffee, which embodied the culinary skill of the entire fleet: then started for Winnibegoshish in the height of good spirits and physical vigor. In one of our easy, five-miles-an-hour swings around the graceful curves we were met by a duck flying close over our heads with noisy quacks. A little farther we came upon the cause of the bird's lively flight in an Indian boy, not above nine years old, paddling a large birch canoe, over the gunwale of which peeped the muzzle of a sanguinary-looking old shot-gun. The diminutive sportsman was for a moment dashed by our sudden and novel appearance, but, from the way he urged his canoe and from the determined set of his dirty face, we had small room to doubt the ultimate fate of the flying mallard. Another curve brought us in sight of the home of the little savage, where a dozen Indians, in all stages of nudity, were encamped upon a high bluff. A concerted whoop from our fleet brought all of them from their smoky lodges, and we swept by under their wondering eyes and exclamations. Then the high land was left behind, and half an hour between low meadows brought us out upon the yellow sands and heaving swells of Lake Winnibegoshish, the largest in the Mississippi chain, the dimensions of which, including its lovely north-eastern bay, are about eleven by thirteen miles. The name signifies "miserable dirty water lake," but save a faint tinge of brown its waters are as pure and sparkling as those of any of the upper lakes. Our entrance upon Winnibegoshish was under a driving storm of wind and mist, against which we paddled three miles to Duck Point, a slender finger of wooded sand and boulder reaching half a mile out, at whose junction with the main land is a miserable village of most villainous-looking Indians. One man alone could speak a little English, and through him we negotiated for replenishing our provisions. Meantime, the storm freshened and embargoed an eight-mile journey across an open and boiling sea; so we paddled to the outermost joint upon the jutting finger for a bivouac under the trees, waiting the hoped-for lull of wind and wave at sunset. The smoke of our fire invited to our camp the hungry natives, who dogged us at every turn all the long afternoon, in squads of all numbers under twenty, and of all ages between two and seventy. One club-footed and club-handed fellow of forbidding visage protested with hand and head that he neither spoke nor understood our vernacular. Later, he sidled up to the Hattie's skipper and said in an earnest sotto voce, "Gib me dime." Denied the dime, he intimated to the Betsy that he doted on bacon, of which we were each broiling a slice. The Betsy's captain was bent upon securing an Indian fish-spear, and he pantomimed to the twinkling eyes of the copper-skin that he would invest a generous chunk of bacon in barbed iron. The Indian strode back to his village, and soon returned with the spear, which he transferred to the Betsy's stores.

The conventional Indian maiden besieged the bachelor two-thirds of our expedition with all the wiles that could be embodied in a comely and clean-calicoed charmer up in the twenties, who finally bore away from the Betsy's private stores a fan of stunning colors and other odds and ends of a St. Paul notion-store; while the guileless commander of the Hattie, whose cumulative years should have taught him better, and whose thinly-clad brain-shelter and disreputable attempt at sailor costume should have blunted all feminine javelins, surrendered to the ugliest old septuagenarian in the village, and sent her heart away rejoicing in the ownership of a policeman's whistle courted by her leering eyes and already smirched by her dirty lips, together with a stock of tea, crackers and bacon for which her expanded corporosity evinced no imminent need. At last rid of our importunate acquaintances, we turned in for a sleep, which we resolved should be broken at the first moment, dark or light, when we might cross the lake. Before daylight the Betsy's resonant call awoke us, and in the earliest gray we paddled out upon a heavy but not foaming sea, and after two and a half hours of monotonous splashing in the trough of the waves landed for breakfast on the eastern shore, whence we crossed a lovely bay and passed out once more upon the river.

A mile on our way we came to the prettiest of the many Indian burying-grounds which we saw now and then. Formerly, the Indians deposited their dead upon rude scaffolds well up in the air. Now they seek high ground and place the bodies of the departed in shallow graves, over which they build little wooden houses a foot or two high with gabled roofs, and mark each with a white flag raised upon a pole a few feet above the sleeper's head. In this neighborhood we inquired of a stalwart brave concerning our proximity to a portage by means of which a short walk over to a small lake near the head of Ball Club Lake and a pull of six miles down the latter would bring us out again into the river, and save a tedious voyage of twenty-five to thirty miles through a broad savanna. The Indian in his old birch canoe joined our fleet, and led us to the beginning of the portage near the foot of Little Winnipeg Lake. We had carried two canoes and all the baggage over to the water on the other side of a sandy ridge, leaving only the Kleiner Fritz to be brought, when our guide and packer, with a preliminary grunt, said "Money?" inquiring how much we intended to pay him. He had worked hard for four hours, for which we tried to tell him that we should pay him one dollar when he should bring over the remaining canoe; but we could not make him understand what a dollar was. We then laid down, one after another, four silver quarter-dollars and two bars of tobacco; whereupon he gave a satisfied grunt and an affirmative nod, disappeared in the forest, and in less than an hour returned with the Fritz upon his steaming shoulders, having covered more than three miles in the round trip.

As we pulled out upon Ball Club Lake a gentle stern wind bade us hoist our canvas for an easy and pleasant sail of six or seven miles down to the open river. We glided out gayly before a gentle breeze, and sailed restfully over the little rippling waves, our speed increasing, though we hardly noted the signs of a gale driving after us over the hills behind. The Hattie was leading well over to the port shore, the Fritz bearing straight down the middle, with the Betsy on the starboard quarter, when the storm struck us with a vigor that increased with each gust. The black clouds swished over our heads, seemingly almost within reach of our paddles. The sails tugged at the sheets with tiresome strength. The canoes now plunged into a wave at the bows and were now swept by others astern, as they rushed forward like mettlesome colts or hung poised upon or within a rolling swell, until, with the increasing gale, the roaring waves dashed entirely over decks and men. The Hattie bore away to leeward and rode the gale finely, but at last prudence bade the furling of her sail. Expecting no such blow the Fritz had not taken the precaution to arrange her rubber apron for keeping out the waves from her manhole, and now, between holding the sheet, steering and watching the gusty wind, neither hand nor eye could be spared for defensive preparations; so her skipper struck sail and paddled for the westward shore, with the Betsy lunging and plunging close behind. We on the windward side sought the smoother water within the reeds, and drove along rapidly under bare poles, out of sight of the Hattie, separated at nightfall by miles of raging sea. We rode before the wind to the foot of the lake, where we were confronted by the alternative of a toilsome and unsafe paddle around the coast against the storm's full force, or camping in mutual anxiety as to the fate of the unseen party—a by no means pleasant sedative for a night's rest upon wild and uninhabited shores. We decided upon the pull, and labored on, now upon the easy swells within the reeds, and then tossing upon the crests in open places, until at last a whirling column of smoke a mile ahead gave us assurance of the Hattie's safety. The reunited fleet paddled down into the Mississippi, enlivening the darkness until we could find camping-ground beyond the marshes by a comparison of storm-experiences and congratulations that we had escaped the bottom of the lake.

Late in the afternoon of the next day, after a monotonous pull through the interminable windings of Eagle Nest Savanna, we swept around a curve of high tillable land upon the uppermost farm cultivated by whites, eighteen miles above Pekagema Falls, and one hundred and seventy miles by river beyond the Northern Pacific Railroad. Thomas Smith and his partner, farming, herding and lumbering at the mouth of Vermilion River, were the first white men we had seen since July 6, seventeen days, and with them we enjoyed a chat in straight English. Nine miles below we camped at River Camp, the second farm downward, where we were kindly supplied with vegetables and with fresh milk, which seemed to us then like the nectar of the gods. Thursday, 24th, we reached Pekagema Falls, a wild pitch of some twenty feet, with rapids above and below, down which the strong volume of the river plunges with terrible force in picturesque beauty. A carry around the falls and three miles of paddling brought us to Grand Rapids, and we rushed like the wind into the whirl and boil of its upper ledge, down the steep and crooked incline for two hundred yards, out of which we shot up to the bank under a little group of houses where Warren Potter and Knox & Wakefield conduct the uppermost post-office and stores upon the river. We speedily closed our partly-completed letters and posted them for a pack-mail upon an Indian's back sixty-five miles to Aitkin, while we should follow the tortuous river thither for one hundred and fifty miles. We had hoped for a rest and lift hence to Aitkin upon the good steamboat City of Aitkin, which makes a few lonely trips each spring and fall, but the low water had prevented her return from her last voyage, made ten days before our arrival. Our stores replenished, after two hours of rest we started again in a driving rain, and under the hearty bon voyage of a dozen frontiersmen and Indians shot the two lively lower ledges of Grand Rapids, and came out on smooth water, whose sluggish flow, broken by a very few rifts, bore us thence one hundred and fifty miles to the next white settlement at Aitkin. The entire distance lies through low bottom-lands heavily timbered, and our course was drearily monotonous. We left Grand Rapids at mid-afternoon of Thursday, July 24, and camped on Friday night four miles below Swan River. Late on Saturday we passed Sandy Lake River—where formerly were a large Indian population and an important trading-post, founded and for many years conducted by Mr. Aitkin, who was prominently identified with the early history of that region, and is now commemorated in the town and county bearing his name, but where now remain only one or two deserted cabins and a few Indian graves, over which white flags were flapping in the sultry breeze—and camped two miles below. Monday's afternoon brought us to Aitkin, so that we had covered one hundred and fifty miles of sluggish channel, at low summer tide, in three working days. We had been four weeks beyond possibility of home-tidings, and we swooped down upon the disciple of Morse in that far-away village with work that kept him clicking for an hour. We were handsomely taken in by Warren Potter, a pioneer and an active and intelligent factor in the business of that region, in whose tasteful home we for the first time in a month sat down and ate in Christian fashion under a civilized roof. Having lost a week in the farther wilderness, we decided to take the rail to Minneapolis, that we might enjoy the beautiful river thence to Lake Pepin, yet reach our homes within the appointed time. Half a day was enjoyed at Brainerd, the junction of the Northern Pacific main line with the St. Paul branch, and the most important town between Lake Superior and the Missouri. It is beautifully built and picturesquely scattered among the pines upon the Mississippi's eastern bank, not far above Crow Wing River. Thence we were carried over the splendid railway, passing the now abandoned Fort Ripley, winding along or near to the river and across the wheat-fields, through the busy and beautiful city of mills, below St. Anthony's roar and down the dancing rapids to a pleasant island-camp between the green-and-gray bluffs that bind Minneapolis to Minnehaha—the first really fine scenery this side of Itasca's solitude. A delightful paddle under a bright morning sun and over swift, clear water carried us to the little brook whose laughter, three-quarters of a mile up a deep ravine, has been sent by Longfellow rippling outward to all the world. We rounded the great white-faced sand-rock that marks the outlet, paddled as far as we might up the quiet stream, beached the canoes under the shade of the willows, walked a little way up the brook, past a deserted mill, under cool shadows of rock and wood, and enjoyed for half an hour the simple, seductive charms of the "Laughing Water." Then we tramped back to our boats, floated down under the old walls of Fort Snelling and between the chalk-white cliffs which line the broadening river, until we came in sight of St. Paul's roofs and spires, and soon were enjoying the thoughtful care and generous hospitality of the Minnesota Boat Club. Another day's close brought us to Red Wing, backgrounded by the green bluffs and reddened cliffs of its bold hills. One more pull down the now broad and islanded stream carried us to Lake Pepin, one of the loveliest mirrors that reflects the sun, and to Frontenac's white beach. The keels of the Fritz, the Betsy and the Hattie crunched the sands at the end of their long journey, the boats were shunted back upon the railway, and their weary owners were soon dozing in restful forgetfulness upon the couches of the unsurpassed Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul line.

Beyond reasonable doubt, our party is the only one that ever pushed its way by boat up the entire course of the farther-most Mississippi. Beyond any question, our canoes were the first wooden boats that ever traversed those waters. Schoolcraft, in 1832, came all the way down the upper river without portages, but he had very high water and many helpers, in spite of which one of his birch canoes was wrecked. The correspondent of a New York newspaper claimed the complete trip in his canoe some five years ago, but his own guide and others told us that his Dolly Varden never was above Brainerd, and that his portages above were frequent. So we may well feel an honest pride in our Rushton-built Rob Roys and our hard knocks, and may remember with pardonable gratification that upon our own feet and keels we have penetrated the solitudes lying around the source of the world's most remarkable river, where no men live and where, probably, not more than two-score white men have ever been.—A.H. SIEGFRIED.

ADAM AND EVE

CHAPTER XXVI

By the time Reuben May entered the little town of Looe he had come to a decision about his movements and how he should carry out his plan of getting back to London. Not by going with Captain Triggs, for the monotonous inaction of a sailing voyage would now be insupportable to him, but by walking as far as he could, and now and then, whenever it was possible, endeavoring to get a cheap lift on the road. His first step must therefore be to inform Triggs of his decision, and to do this he must get back to Plymouth, a distance from Looe of some fifteen or sixteen miles.

In going through Looe that morning he had stopped for a few minutes at a small inn which stood not far from the beach; and having now crossed the river which divides West from East Looe, he began looking about for this house, intending to get some refreshments, to rest for an hour or so, and then proceed on his journey.

Already the town-clock was striking six, and Reuben calculated that if he started between nine and ten he should have time to take another good rest on the road—which he had already once that day traversed—and reach Plymouth Barbican, where the Mary Jane lay, by daybreak.

The inn found, he ordered his meal and informed the landlady of his intention.

"Why, do 'ee stop here till mornin', then," exclaimed the large-hearted Cornish woman. "If 'tis the matter o' the money," she added, eying him critically, "that's hinderin' 'ee from it, it needn't to, for I'll see us don't have no quarrel 'bout the price o' the bed."

Reuben assured her that choice, not necessity, impelled his onward footsteps; and, thus satisfied, she bade him "Take and lie down on the settle there inside the bar-parlor; for," she added, "'less 'tis the sergeant over fra Liskeard 'tain't likely you'll be disturbed no ways; and I shall be in and out to see you'm all right."

Reuben stretched himself out, and, overcome by the excitement and fatigue of the day, was soon asleep and dreaming of those happier times when he and Eve had walked as friends together. Suddenly some one seemed to speak her name, and though the name at once wove itself into the movement of the dream, the external sound had aroused the sleeper, and he opened his eyes to see three men sitting near talking over their grog.

With just enough consciousness to allow of his noticing that one was a soldier and the other two were sailors, Reuben looked for a minute, then closed his eyes, and was again sinking back into sleep when the name of Eve was repeated, and this time with such effect that all Reuben's senses seemed to quicken into life, and, cautiously opening his eyes, so as to look without being observed, he saw that it was the soldier who was speaking.

"Young chap, thinks I," he was saying, "you little fancy there's one so near who's got your sweetheart's seal dangling to his fob;" and with an air of self-satisfied vanity he held out for inspection a curious little seal which Reuben at once recognized as the same which he himself had given to Eve.

The unexpected sight came upon him with such surprise that, had not the height of the little table served as a screen to shelter him from view, his sudden movement must have betrayed his wakefulness.

"He's a nice one for any woman to be tied to, he is!" replied the younger of the two sailors. "Why, the only time as I ever had what you may call a fair look at un was one night in to the King o' Proosia's, and there he was dealing out his soft sawder to little Nancy Lagassick as if he couldn't live a minute out o' her sight."

"That's about it," laughed the soldier. "He's one of your own sort there: you Jacks are all alike, with a wife in every port. However," he added—and as he spoke he gave a complacent stroke to his good-looking face—"he may thank his stars that a matter of seven miles or so lays between his pretty Eve and Captain Van Courtland's troop, or there'd have been a cutting-out expedition that, saving the presence of those I speak before"—and he gave a most exasperating wink—"might have proved a trifle more successful than such things have of late."

"Here, I say," said the sailor, flaming up at this ill-timed jocularity, "p'ra'ps you'll tell me what 'tis you're drivin' at; for I've got to hear of it if you, or any o' your cloth either, ever made a find yet. You're mighty 'cute 'bout other folks, though when the spirits was under yer very noses, and you searched the houses through 'twas knowed to be stowed in, you couldn't lay hold on a single cask. 'Tis true we mayn't have nabbed the men, but by jingo if 't has come to us bein' made fools of by the women!"

"There, now, stash it there!" said his older comrade, who had no wish to see a quarrel ensue. "So far as I can see, there's no cause for bounce 'twixt either o' us; though only you give us a chance of getting near to them, sergeant," he said, turning to the soldier, "and I'll promise you shall make it all square with this pretty lass you fancy while her lover's cutting capers under Tyburn tree."

"'A chance?'" repeated his companion, despondingly: "where's it to come from, and the only one we'd got cut away from under us by those Hart chaps?"

"How so? where's the Hart off to, then?" asked the sergeant.

"Off to Port Mellint," said the man addressed. "Nothing but a hoax, I fancy, but still she was bound to go;" and so saying he tossed off the remainder of his grog and began making a movement, saying, as he did so, to his somewhat quarrelsomely-disposed shipmate, "Here, I say, Bill, come 'long down to the rendezvoos with me, and if there's nothin' up for to-night what d'ye say to stepping round to Paddy Burke's? He's asked us to come ever so many times, you know."

"Paddy Burke?" said the sergeant. "What! do you know him? Why, if you're going there, I'll step so far with you."

"Well, we're bound for the rendezvoos first," said the sailor.

"All right! I can find plenty to do while you're in there."

"Then come along;" and, only stopping to exchange a few words in passing with the landlady, out they all went, and Reuben was left alone, a prey to the thoughts which now came crowding into his mind.

For a few minutes he sat with his arms resting on the table as if communing with himself: then, starting up as if filled with a sudden resolve, he went out and asked the landlady a few commonplace questions, and finally inquired whereabouts and in what direction did the rendezvous lie.

"Close down by the bridge, the first house after you pass the second turning. Why?" she said: "be 'ee wanting to see anybody there?"

"No," said Reuben: "I only heard the fellows that came in there talking about the rendezvous, and I wondered whether I'd passed it."

"Why, iss, o' course you did, comin' in. 'Tis the house with the flag stream-in' over the doorways."

Reuben waited for no further information. He said something about not knowing it was so late, bade the landlady a rather abrupt farewell, and went his way.

Down the narrow street he hurried, turned a corner, and found himself in front of the house indicated, outside which all was dark. Nobody near, and, with the exception of himself, not a soul to be seen. Inside, he could hear voices, and the more plainly from the top sash of the window being a little way open. By the help of the iron stanchion driven in to support the flagstaff he managed to get up, steady himself on the window-sill and take a survey of the room. Several men were in it, and among them the two he had already seen, one of whom was speaking to a person whom, from his uniform, Reuben took to be an officer.

The sight apparently decided what he had before hesitated about, and getting; down he took from his pocket a slip of paper—one he had provided in case he should want to leave a message for Eve—and rapidly wrote on it these words: "The Lottery is expected at Polperro tonight. They will land at Down End as soon as the tide will let them get near."

Folding this, he once more mounted the window-sill, tossed the paper into the room, lingered for but an instant to see that it was picked up, then jumped down, ran with all speed, and was soon lost amid the darkness which surrounded him.

As he hurried from the house an echo seemed to carry to his ears the shout which greeted this surprise—a surprise which set every one talking at once, each one speaking and no one listening. Some were for going, some for staying away, some for treating it as a serious matter, others for taking it as a joke.

At length the officer called "Silence!" and after a pause, addressing the men present in a few words, he said that however it might turn out he considered that he should only be doing his duty by ordering the boats to proceed to the place named and see what amount of truth there was in this somewhat mysterious manoeuvre. If it was nothing but a hoax they must bear to have the laugh once more turned against them; but should it turn out the truth! The buzz which greeted this bare supposition showed how favorably his decision was regarded, and the absent men were ordered to be summoned without delay. Everything was got ready as quickly as possible, and in a little over an hour two boats started, fully equipped and manned, to lie in ambush near the coast midway between Looe and Polperro.

While Fate, in the shape of Reuben May, had been hastening events toward a disastrous climax, the course of circumstances in Polperro had not gone altogether smoothly. To Eve's vexation, because of the impossibility of speaking of her late encounter with Reuben May, she found on her return home that during her absence Mrs. Tucker had arrived, with the rare and unappreciated announcement that she had come to stop and have her tea with them. The example set by Mrs. Tucker was followed by an invitation to two or three other elderly friends, so that between her hospitality and her excitement Joan had no opportunity of noticing any undue change in Eve's manner or appearance. Two or three remarks were made on her pale face and abstracted air, but this more by the way of teasing than anything else; while Joan, remembering the suppressed anxiety she was most probably trying to subdue, endeavored to come to her aid and assist in turning away this over-scrutiny of her tell-tale appearance.

The opportunity thus afforded by silence gave time for reflection, and Eve, who had never been quite straightforward or very explicit about herself and Reuben May, now began to hesitate. Perhaps, after all, it would be better to say nothing, for Joan was certain to ask questions which, without betraying the annoyance she had undergone, Eve hardly saw her way to answering. Again, it was not impossible but that Reuben's anger might relent, and if so he would most probably seek another interview, in which to beg her pardon.

In her heart Eve hoped and believed this would be the case; for, indignantly as she had defied Reuben's scorn and flung back his reproaches, they had been each a separate sting to her, and she longed for the chance to be afforded Reuben of seeing how immeasurably above the general run of men was the one she had chosen.

"Here, I say, Eve!" exclaimed Joan, as she came in-doors from bidding good-bye to the last departure: "come bear a hand and let's set the place all straight: I can't abide the men's coming home to find us all in a muddle."

Eve turned to with a good will, and the girls soon had the satisfaction of seeing the room look as bright and cheery as they desired.

"Let's see—ten minutes past 'leben," said Joan, looking at the clock. "I don't see how 'tis possible for 'em to venture in 'fore wan, 'less 'tis to Yallow Rock, and they'd hardly try that. What do 'ee say, Eve? Shall we run up out to cliff, top o' Talland lane, and see if us can see any signs of 'em?"

"Oh do, Joan!"

And, throwing their cloaks over them, off they set.

"Here, give me your hand," said Joan as they reached the gate and entered upon the path which Eve had last trod with Adam by her side. "I knaw the path better than you, and 'tis a bit narrow for a pitch-dark night like this. Take care: we'm come to the watter. That's right. Now up we goes till we get atop, and then we'll have a good look round us."

Thus instructed, Eve managed to get on, and, stumbling up by Joan's side, they quickly reached the narrow line of level which seemed to overhang the depths below.

"We couldn't see them if they were there," said Eve, turning to Joan, who was still peering into the darkness.

"No, 'tis blacker than I thought," said Joan cheerily: "that's ever so much help to 'em, and—Hooray! the fires is out! Do 'ee see, Eve? There ain't a spark o' nothin' nowheres. Ole Jonathan's hoaxed 'em fine this time: the gawpuses have sooked it all in, and, I'll be bound, raced off so fast as wind and tide 'ud carry 'em."

"Then they're sure to come now?" said Eve excitedly.

"Certain," said Joan. "They've seed the fires put out, and knaw it means the bait's swallowed and the cruiser is off. I shouldn't wonder a bit if they'm close in shore, only waitin' for the tide to give 'em a proper draw o' water, so that they may send the kegs over."

"Should we go on a bit farther," said Eve, "and get down the hill by the Warren stile? We might meet some of 'em, perhaps."

"Better not," said Joan. "To tell 'ee the truth, 'tis best to make our way home so quick as can, for I wudn't say us 'ull have 'em back quicker than I thought."

"Then let's make haste," exclaimed Eve, giving her hand to Joan, while she turned her head to take a farewell glance in the direction where it was probable the vessel was now waiting. "Oh, Joan! what's that?" For a fiery arrow had seemed to shoot along the darkness, and in quick succession came another and another.

Joan did not answer, but she seemed to catch her breath, and, clutching hold of Eve, she made a spring up on to the wall over which they had before been looking. And now a succession of sharp cracks were heard, then the tongues of fire darted through the air, and again all was gloom.

"O Lord!" groaned Joan, "I hope 'tain't nothin's gone wrong with 'em."

In an instant Eve had scrambled up by her side: "What can it be? what could go wrong, Joan?"

But Joan's whole attention seemed now centred on the opposite cliff, from where, a little below Hard Head, after a few minutes' watching, Eve saw a blue light burning: this was answered by another lower down, then a rocket was sent up, at sight of which Joan clasped her hands and cried, "Awn, 'tis they! 'tis they! Lord save 'em! Lord help 'em! They cursed hounds have surely played 'em false."

"What! not taken them, Joan?"

"They won't be taken," she said fiercely. "Do you think, unless 'twas over their dead bodies, they'd ever let king's men stand masters on the Lottery's deck?"