The Road to Frontenac. Merwin Samuel

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СКАЧАТЬ “You should do your share of the morning’s work, Mademoiselle.”

      She laughed again, and took the paddle. They pushed off; the maid kneeling at the bow, Menard in the stern. He guided the canoe against the current. The water lay flat under the still air, reflecting the gloomy trees on the banks, and the deepening colours of the sky. He fell into a lazy, swinging stroke, watching the maid. Her arms and shoulders moved easily, with the grace of one who had tumbled about a canoe from early childhood.

      “Ready, Mademoiselle?” He was heading for a deep pool near a line of rushes. The maid, laying down her paddle, reached back for the line, and put on the bait with her own fingers.

      Menard held the canoe steady against the current, which was there but a slow movement, while she lowered the hook over the bow. They sat without a word for some minutes. Once he spoke, in a bantering voice, and she motioned to him to be quiet. Her brows were drawn down close together.

      It was but a short time before she felt a jerk at the line. Her arms straightened out, and she pressed her lips tightly together. “Quick!” she said. “Go ahead!”

      “Can you hold it?” he asked, as he dipped his paddle.

      She nodded. “I wish the line were longer. It will be hard to give him any room.” She wound the cord around her wrist. “Will the line hold, M’sieu?”

      “I think so. See if you can pull in.”

      She leaned back, and pulled steadily, then shook her head. “Not very much. Perhaps, if you can get into the shallow water–”

      Menard slowly worked the canoe through an opening in the rushes. There was a thrashing about and plunging not two rods away. Once the fish leaped clear of the water in a curve of clashing silver.

      “It’s a salmon,” he said. “A small one.”

      The maid held hard, but the colour had gone from her face. The canoe drew nearer to the shore.

      “Hold fast,” said Menard. He gave a last sweep of the paddle, and crept forward to the bow. Kneeling behind the maid, he reached over her shoulder, and took the line below her hand.

      “Careful, M’sieu; it may break.”

      “We must risk it.” He pulled slowly in until the fish was close under the gunwale. “Now can you hold?”

      “Yes.” She shook a straying lock of hair from her eyes, and took another turn of the cord around her wrist.

      “Steady,” he said. He drew his knife, leaned over the gunwale, and stabbed at the fighting fish until his blade sank in just below the gills, and he could lift it aboard.

      The maid laughed nervously, and rested her hands upon the two gunwales. Her breath was gone, and there was a red mark around her wrist where the cord had been. The canoe had drifted into the rushes, and Menard went back to his paddle, and worked out again into the channel.

      “And now, Mademoiselle,” he said, “we shall have a breakfast of our own. You need not paddle. I will take her down.”

      Her breath was coming back. She laughed, and sat comfortably in the bow, facing Menard, and letting her eyes follow the steady swing and catch of his paddle. When they reached the camp, the voyageurs were astir, but Danton and the priest still slept. The first red glare of the sun was levelled at them over the eastern trees.

      Menard made a fire under an arch of flat stones, and trimming a strip of oak wood with his hatchet, he laid the cleaned fish upon it and kept it on the fire until it was brown and crisp. The maid sat by, her eyes alert and her cheeks flushed.

      Danton was awake before the fish was cooked, and he stood about with a pretence of not observing them. The maid was fairly aroused. She drew him into the talk, and laughed and bantered with the two men as prettily as they could have wished from a Quebec belle.

      All during the morning Danton was silent. At noon, when the halt was made for the midday lunch, he was still puzzling over the apparent understanding between Mademoiselle and the Captain. Before the journey was taken up, he stood for a moment near Menard, on the river bank.

      “Captain,” he said, “you asked me last night to–”

      “Well?”

      “It may be that I have misunderstood you. Of course, if Mademoiselle–if you–” He caught himself.

      Menard smiled; then he read the earnestness beneath the boy’s confusion, and sobered.

      “Mademoiselle and I went fishing, Danton. Result,–Mademoiselle eats her first meal. If you can do as much you shall have my thanks. And now remember that you are a lieutenant in the King’s service.”

      CHAPTER IV.

      THE LONG ARROW

      Menard allowed a halt of but a few hours at Three Rivers. The settlement held little of interest, for all the resident troops and most of the farmers and engagés had gone up the river to join the army which was assembling at Montreal. The close of the first week out of Quebec saw the party well on the second half of the journey to Montreal. As they went on, Menard’s thoughts were drawn more deeply into the work that lay ahead, and in spite of his efforts at lightness, the work of keeping up the maid’s spirits fell mostly to Danton (though Father Claude did what he could). As matters gradually became adjusted, Danton’s cheery, hearty manner began to tell; and now that there was little choice of company, the maid turned to him for her diversion.

      On the morning of the second day after leaving Three Rivers, the two voyageurs were carrying the canoe to the water when Guerin slipped on a wet log, throwing the canoe to the ground, and tearing a wide rent in the bark. Menard was impatient at this carelessness. The knowledge that the Three Rivers detachment had already gone on to Montreal had decided him to move more rapidly, and he had given orders that they should start each day in the first light of the dawn. This was a chill morning. A low, heavy fog lay on the river, thinning, at a yard above the water, into a light mist which veiled what colour may have been in the east.

      While Guerin and Perrot were patching the canoe under Menard’s eye, Danton found some dry logs under the brush, and built up the dying fire, which was in a rocky hollow, not visible from the river. Then he and the maid sat on the rocks above it, where they could get the warmth, and yet could see the river. Menard and his men, though only a few rods away, were but blurred forms as they moved about the canoe, gumming the new seams.

      The maid, save for an occasional heavy hour in the late evenings, had settled into a cheerful frame of mind. The novelty, and the many exciting moments of the journey, as well as the kindness of the three men, kept her thoughts occupied. Danton, once he had shaken off his sulky fits, was good company. They sat side by side on the rock, looking down at the struggling fire, or at the figures moving about the canoe, or out into the white mystery of the river, talking easily in low tones of themselves and their lives and hopes.

      The mist, instead of rising, seemed to settle closer to the water, as the broad daylight came across the upper air. The maid and Danton fell into silence as the picture brightened. Danton was less sensitive than she to the whims of nature, and tiring of the scene, he was gazing down into the fire when the maid, without a word, touched his arm. He looked up at her; then, seeing that her eyes were fixed on the river, followed her gaze. Not more than a score of yards from the shore, moving silently through the mist, were the heads of three Indians. Their profiles stood out clearly against the white background; their shoulders seemed to dissolve into the fog. They passed СКАЧАТЬ