The Road to Frontenac Page 3

  CHAPTER III.

  MADEMOISELLE EATS HER BREAKFAST.

  The sun hung low over the western woods when Menard, at the close ofthe second day, headed the canoe shoreward. The great river swept bywith hardly a surface motion, dimpling and rippling under the lasttouch of the day breeze. Menard's eyes rested on Father Claude, as thecanoe drew into the shadow of the trees. The priest, stiff from thehours of sitting and kneeling, had taken up a paddle and was handlingit deftly. He had rolled his sleeves up to the elbow, showing a thinforearm with wire-like muscles. The two _voyageurs_, at bow and stern,were proving to be quiet enough fellows. Guerin, the younger, wore aboyish, half-confiding look. His fellow, Perrot, was an older man.

  Menard felt, when he thought of Danton, a sense of pride in his ownright judgment. The boy was taking hold with a strong, if unguided,hand. Already the feather was gone from his hat, the lace from histhroat. Two days in the canoe and a night on the ground had stainedand wrinkled his uniform,--a condition of which, with his quickadaptability, he was already beginning to feel proud. He had flushedoften, during the first day, under the shrewd glances of the_voyageurs_, who read the inexperience in his bright clothes and whitehands. Menard knew, from the way his shoulders followed the swing ofhis arms, that the steady paddling was laming him sadly. He wouldallow Danton five days more; at the week's end he must be a man, elsethe experiment had failed.

  The canoe scraped bottom under a wild growth of brush and outreachingtrees. The forest was stirring with the rustle and call of birds, withthe breath of the leaves and the far-away crackle and plunge of largeranimals through the undergrowth. A chipmunk, with inquisitive eyes,sat on the root of a knotted oak, but he whisked away when Menard andthe canoemen stepped into the shallow water. Overhead, showing littlefear of the canoe and of the strangely clad animals within it,scampered a family of red squirrels, now nibbling a nut from thewinter's store, now running and jumping from tree to tree, until onlyby the shaking of the twigs and the leaf-clusters could one followtheir movements.

  The maid leaned an elbow on the bale which Danton had placed at herback, and rested her cheek on her hand. They were under the droopingbranches of an elm that stood holding to the edge of the bank. Wellout over the water sat one of the squirrels, his tail sweeping abovehis head, nibbling an acorn, and looking with hasty little glances atthe canoe. She watched him, and memories came into her eyes. There hadbeen squirrels on her father's seignory who would take nuts from herhand, burying them slyly under the bushes, and hurrying back formore.

  Danton came wading to the side of the canoe to help her to the bank,but she took his hand only to steady herself while rising. Steppingover the bracing-strips between the gunwales, she caught a swayingbranch, and swung herself lightly ashore. Back from the water theground rose into a low hill, covered with oak and elm and raggedhickory trees. Here, for a space, there was little undergrowth, andsave under the heaviest of the trees the ground was green with short,coarse grass. Danton took a hatchet from the canoe, and trimmed a firtree, heaping armfuls of green boughs at the foot of an oak near thetop of the slope. Over these he threw a blanket. The maid came slowlyup the hill, in response to his call, and with a weary little smile ofthanks she sank upon the fragrant couch. She rested against the treetrunk, gazing through the nearer foliage at the rushing river.

  For the two days she had been like this,--silent, shy, with sad eyes.And Danton,--who could no more have avoided the company of such a maidthan he could have left off eating or breathing or laughing,--Danton,for all his short Paris life (which should, Heaven knows, have givenhim a front with the maids), could do nothing but hang about, eagerfor a smile or a word, yet too young to know that he could betterserve his case by leaving her with her thoughts, and with theboundless woods and the great lonely spaces of the river. Menard sawthe comedy--as indeed, who of the party did not--and was amused. A fewmoments later he glanced again toward the oak. He was sharpening aknife, and could seem not to be observing. Danton was sitting a fewyards from the maid, with the awkward air of a youth who doubts hiswelcome. She still looked out over the water. Menard saw that her facewas white and drooping. He knew that she had not slept; for twiceduring the preceding night, as he lay in his blanket, he had heardfrom under the overturned canoe, where she lay, the low sound of hersobbing.

  Menard walked slowly down the slope, testing the knife-edge with histhumb, his short pipe between his teeth. He sheathed his knife,lowered his pipe, and called:--

  "Guerin." The two men, who were bringing wood to the fire, looked up."Where has the Father gone?"

  Guerin pointed around the base of the hill. "He went to the woods,M'sieu."

  "With a bundle," added Perrot.

  Menard walked around the hill, and after a little searching found thepriest, kneeling, in a clearing, before the portrait of CatharineOutasoren, which he had set against a tree. His brushes and paintswere spread on the ground before him. He did not hear Menardapproach.

  "Oh," said the captain, "you brought the picture!"

  The priest looked up over his shoulder, with a startled manner.

  "I myself have stripped down to the lightest necessaries," saidMenard, with a significant glance at the portrait.

  The priest lowered his brush, and sat looking at the picturewith troubled eyes. "I had no place for it," he said at last,hesitatingly.

  "They didn't take it at the College, eh?"

  Father Claude flushed.

  "They were very kind. They felt that perhaps it was not entirelycompleted, and that--"

  "You will leave it at Montreal, then, at the Mission?"

  "Yes,--I suppose so. Yes, I shall plan to leave it there."

  Menard leaned against a tree, and pressed the tobacco down in hispipe.

  "I have been doing some thinking in the last few minutes, Father. I'vedecided to make my first call on you for assistance."

  "Very well, Captain."

  "It is about the maid. Have you noticed?"

  "She seems of a sober mind."

  "Don't you see why? It is her father's losses, and this journey. Sheis taking it very hard. She is afraid, Father, all the time; and sheneither sleeps nor eats."

  "It is naturally hard for such a child as she is to take this journey.She has had no experience,--she does not comprehend the easy customsand the hard travelling of the frontier. I think that in time--"

  Menard was puffing impatiently.

  "Father," he said, "do you remember when Major Gordeau was killed, andI was detailed to bring his wife and daughter down to Three Rivers? Itwas much like this. They fretted and could not sleep, and the coarsefare of the road was beneath their appetites. Do you remember? Andwhen it came to taking the rapids, with the same days of hard workthat lie before us now, they were too weak, and they sickened, themother first, then the daughter. When I think of that, Father, of thelast week of that journey, and of how I swore never again to take awoman in my care on the river, I--well, there is no use in going overit. If this goes on, we shall not get to Frontenac in time, that isall. And I cannot afford to take such a chance."

  The priest looked grave. The long struggle against the rapids fromMontreal to La Gallette had tried the hardihood of more than onestrong man.

  "It is probable, my son, that the sense of your responsibility makesyou a little over-cautious. She is a strong enough child, I shouldsay. Still, perhaps the food is not what she has been accustomed to. Ihave noticed that she eats little."

  "Perrot is too fond of grease," Menard said. "I must tell him to useless grease."

  "If she should be taken sick, we could leave her with someone atMontreal."

  "Leave her at Montreal!" exclaimed Menard. "When she breaks down, itwill be in the rapids. And then I must either go on alone, or waitwith you until she is strong enough to be carried. In any case itmeans confusion and delay. And I must not be delayed."

  "What have you in mind to do?"

  "We must find a way to brighten her spirits. It is homesickness thatworries her, and sorrow f
or her father, and dread of what is beforeand around her. I'll warrant she has never been away from her homebefore. We must get her confidence,--devise ways to cheer her,brighten her."

  "I can reason with her, and--"

  "This is not the time for reasoning, Father. What we must do is tomake her stop thinking, stop looking backward and forward. And thereis Danton; he can help. He is of an age with her, and should succeedwhere you and I might fail."

  "He has not awaited the suggestion, Captain."

  "Yes, I know. But he must,--well, Father, it has all been said. Themaid is on our hands, and must be got to Frontenac. That is all. Andthere is nothing for it but to rely on Danton to help."

  The priest looked at his brushes, and hesitated. "I am not certain,"he said, "she is very young. And Lieutenant Danton,--I have heard,while at Quebec,--"

  Menard laughed.

  "He is a boy, Father. These tales may be true enough. Why not? Theywould fit as well any idle lieutenant in Quebec, who is luckyenough to have an eye, and a pair of shoulders, and a bit of theKing's gold in his purse. This maid is the daughter of a gentleman,Father; she is none of your Lower Town jades. And Danton may be youngand foolish,--as may we all have been,--but he is a gentleman born."

  "Very well," replied the priest, looking with regret at the failinglight, and beginning to gather his brushes. "I will counsel her, but Ifear it will do little good. If the maid is sick at heart, and weattempt to guide her thoughts, we may but drive the trouble deeper in.It is the same with some of the Indian maidens, when they have leftthe tribe for the Mission. Now and again there comes a time, even withpiety to strengthen them,--and this maid has little,--when theyearning seems to grow too strong to be cured. Sometimes they go back.One died. It was at Sault St. Francis in the year of the--"

  "Yes, yes," Menard broke in. "We have only one fact to remember; theremust be no delay in carrying out the Governor's orders. We cannotchange our plans because of this maid."

  "We must not let her understand, M'sieu."

  Menard had been standing, with a shoulder against the tree,alternately puffing at his pipe and lowering it, scowling meanwhile atthe ground. Now he suddenly raised his head and chuckled.

  "It will be many a year since I have played the beau, Father. It maybe that I have forgotten the role." He spread out his hands and lookedat the twisted fingers. "But I can try, like a soldier. And there arethree of us, Father Claude, there are three of us."

  He turned to go back to the camp, but the priest touched him.

  "My son,--perhaps, before you return, you would look again at myunworthy portrait. I--about the matter of the canoe--"

  "Oh," said Menard, "you've taken it out."

  "Yes; it seemed best, considering the danger that others might feelthe same doubts which troubled you."

  "I wouldn't do that. The canoe was all right, once the direction weredecided on."

  "Above all else, the true portrait should convey to the mind of theobserver the impression that a single, an unmistakable purposeunderlies the work. When one considers--"

  "Very true, Father, very true," said Menard abruptly, looking about atthe beginning of the twilight. "And now we had better get back. Thesupper will be ready."

  Menard strode away toward the camp. Father Claude watched him for atime through the trees, then turned again to the picture. Finally hegot together his materials, and carrying them in a fold of his gown,with the picture in his left hand, he followed Menard.

  The maid was leaning back against the tree, looking up at the sky,where the first red of the afterglow was spreading. She did not hearMenard; and he paused, a few yards away, to look at the clearwhiteness of her skin and the full curve of her throat. Her figure andair, her habits of gesture and step, and carriage of the head, werethose of the free-hearted maid of the seignory. They told of anoutdoor life, of a good horse, and a light canoe, and the inbred loveof trees and sky and running water. Here was none of the stiffness,the more than Parisian manner, of the maidens of Quebec. To standthere and look at her, unconscious as she was, pleased Menard.

  "Mademoiselle," he said, coming nearer, "will you join us at supper?"

  The maid looked at him with a slow blush (she was not yet accustomedto the right of these men to enter into the routine of her life).Menard reached to help her, but she rose easily.

  "Lieutenant Danton is not here?"

  "No, M'sieu, he walked away."

  They sat about a log. Danton had not strayed far, for he joined themshortly, wearing a sulky expression. Menard looked about the group.The maid was silent. Father Claude was beginning at once on the foodbefore him. The twilight was growing deeper, and Guerin dragged a logto the fire, throwing it on the pile with a shower of sparks, and halfa hundred shooting tongues of flame. The Captain looked again atDanton, and saw that the boy's glance shifted uneasily about thegroup. Altogether it was an unfortunate start for his plan. But it wasclear that no other would break the ice, so he drew a long breath, andplunged doggedly into the story of his first fight on the St.Lawrence.

  It was a brave story of ambuscade and battle; and it was full of thedark of night and the red flash of muskets and the stealth andtreachery of the Iroquois soul. When he reached the tale of thecaptured Mohawk, who sat against a tree with a ball in his lungs, tothe last refusing the sacrament, and dying like a chief with the deathsong on his lips, Danton was leaning forward, breathless and eager,hanging on his words. The maid's eyes, too, were moist. Then theytalked on, Danton asking boyish questions, and Father Claude startingover and again on a narrative of the wonderful conversion of the Hurondrunkard, Heroukiki, who, in his zeal,--and here Menard always sweptin with a new story, which left the priest adrift in the eddies of theconversation. At last, when they rose, and the dusk was settling overthe trees, the maid was laughing with gentle good fellowship.

  While they were eating, the _voyageurs_ had brought the canoe a shortway up the bank, resting it, bottom up, on large stones brought fromthe shore. Underneath was a soft cot of balsam; over the canoe wereblankets, hanging on both sides to the ground. Then Mademoiselle saidgood-night, with a moment's lingering on the word, and a wistful notein her voice that brought perhaps more sympathy than had the sad eyesof the morning. For after all she was only a girl, and hers was abrave little heart.

  The three men lay on the slope with hardly a word, looking at theriver, now shining like silver through the trees. This new turn in thelife of the party was not as yet to be taken familiarly. Father Claudewithdrew early to his meditations. Menard stretched out on his back,his hands behind his head, gazing lazily at the leaves overhead, nowhanging motionless from the twigs.

  Danton was sitting up, looking about, and running the young reedsthrough his fingers.

  "Danton," Menard said, after a long silence, "I suppose you know thatwe have something of a problem on our hands."

  Danton looked over the river.

  "What have you thought about Mademoiselle?"

  "I don't understand."

  "Father Claude and I have been talking this evening about her. I havethought that she does not look any too strong for a hard journey of ahundred and more leagues."

  "She has little colour," said Danton, cautiously.

  "It seems to me, Danton, that you can help us."

  "How?"

  "What seems to you the cause of the trouble?"

  "With Mademoiselle? She takes little impression from the kindness ofthose about her."

  "Oh, come, Danton. You know better. Even a boy of your age should seedeeper than that. You think she slights you; very likely she does.What of that? You are not here to be drawn into a boy-and-girl quarrelwith a maid who chances to share our canoe. You are here as my aid, tomake the shortest time possible between Quebec and Frontenac. If shewere to fall sick, we should be delayed. Therefore she must not fallsick."

  Danton had plucked a weed, and now was pulling it to pieces, bit bybit.

  "What do you want me to do?"

  "Stop this moping, this hanging abo
ut. Take hold of the matter. Devisetalks, diversions; fill her idle moments; I care not what youdo,--within limits, my boy, within limits."

  "Oh," said Danton, "then you really want me to?"

  "Certainly. I am too old myself."

  Danton rose, and walked a few steps away and back.

  "But she will have none of me, Menard. It is, 'No, with thanks,' or,worse, a shake of the head. If I offer to help, if I try to talk, ifI--oh, it is always the same. I am tired of it."

  Menard smiled in the dark.

  "Is that your reply to an order from your superior officer, Danton?"

  The boy stood silent for a moment, then he said, "I beg your pardon,Captain." And with a curious effort at stiffness he wandered off amongthe trees, and was soon out of Menard's sight.

  Menard walked slowly down to the fire, opened his pack, and spreadingout his blanket, rolled himself in it with his feet close to the redembers. For a long time he lay awake. This episode took him backnearly a decade, to a time when he, like Danton, would have lost hispoise at a glance from the nearest pair of eyes. That the maid shouldso interest him was in itself amusing. Had she been older or younger,had she been any but the timid, honest little woman that she was, hewould have left her, without a second thought, in the care of theCommandant at Montreal, to be escorted through the rapids by somelater party. But he had fixed his mind on getting her to Frontenac,and the question was settled. His last thought that night was of herquiet laughter and her friendly, hesitating "good-night."

  He was awakened in the half light before the sunrise by a step on thetwigs. At a little distance through the trees was the maid, walkingdown toward the water. She slipped easily between the briers, holdingher skirt close. From a spring, not a hundred yards up the hillside, abrook came tumbling to the river, picking its way under and over thestones and the fallen trees, and trickling over the bank with a lowmurmur. The maid stopped by a pool, and kneeling on a flat rock,dipped her hands.

  The others were asleep. A rod away lay Danton, a sprawling heap in hisblanket. Menard rose, tossed his blanket upon his bundle, and walkedslowly down toward the maid.

  "Mademoiselle, you rise with the birds."

  She looked around, and laughed gently. He saw that she had franklyaccepted the first little change in their relations.

  "I like to be with the birds, M'sieu."

  Menard had no small talk. He was thinking of her evident lack ofsleep.

  "It is the best hour for the river, Mademoiselle." The colours of thedawn were beginning to creep up beyond the eastern bank, sending alance of red and gold into a low cloud bank, and a spread of softcrimson close after. "Perhaps you are fond of the fish?"

  The maid was kneeling to pick a cluster of yellow flower cups. Shelooked up and nodded, with a smile.

  "We fished at home, M'sieu."

  "We will go," said Menard, abruptly. "I will bring down the canoe."

  He threw the blankets to one side, and stooping under the long canoe,carried it on his shoulders to the water. A line and hook were in hisbundle; the bait was ready at a turn of the grass and weeds.

  "We are two adventurers," he said lightly, as he tossed the line intothe canoe, and held out one of the paddles. "You should do your shareof the morning's work, Mademoiselle."

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

  "Ready, Mademoiselle?" He was heading for a deep pool near a line ofrushes. 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 buta slow movement, while she lowered the hook over the bow. They satwithout 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 closetogether.

  It was but a short time before she felt a jerk at the line. Her armsstraightened 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 himany 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 verymuch. Perhaps, if you can get into the shallow water--"

  Menard slowly worked the canoe through an opening in the rushes. Therewas a thrashing about and plunging not two rods away. Once the fishleaped 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 canoedrew nearer to the shore.

  "Hold fast," said Menard. He gave a last sweep of the paddle, andcrept forward to the bow. Kneeling behind the maid, he reached overher 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 underthe gunwale. "Now can you hold?"

  "Yes." She shook a straying lock of hair from her eyes, and tookanother turn of the cord around her wrist.

  "Steady," he said. He drew his knife, leaned over the gunwale, andstabbed at the fighting fish until his blade sank in just below thegills, and he could lift it aboard.

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

  "And now, Mademoiselle," he said, "we shall have a breakfast of ourown. You need not paddle. I will take her down."

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

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

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

  All during the morning Danton was silent. At noon, when the halt wasmade for the midday lunch, he was still puzzling over the apparentunderstanding between Mademoiselle and the Captain. Before the journeywas 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--ifyou--" He caught himself.

  Menard smiled; then he read the earnestness beneath the boy'sconfusion, and sobered.

  "Mademoiselle and I went fishing, Danton. Result,--Mademoiselle eatsher first meal. If you can do as much you shall have my thanks. Andnow remember that you are a lieutenant in the King's service."