BROTHERS OF PERIL

A Story of Old Newfoundland

"A VIVID CIRCLE OF RED ON THE SNOW OF THAT
NAMELESS WILDERNESS"

Brothers of Peril

A Story of Old Newfoundland

By

Theodore Roberts

Author of "Hemming, the Adventurer"

Illustrated by H. C. Edwards

Boston L. C. Page &
Company Mdccccv

Copyright, 1905
By L. C. Page & Company
(INCORPORATED)

All rights reserved

Published June, 1905
Second Impression, March, 1908

COLONIAL PRESS
Electrotyped and Printed by C. H. Simonds & Co.
Boston, Mass., U.S.A.

Preface

During the three centuries directly following John Cabot's discovery of Newfoundland, that unfortunate island was the sport of careless kings, selfish adventurers, and diligent pirates. While England, France, Spain, and Portugal were busy with courts and kings, and with spectacular battles, their fishermen and adventurers toiled together and fought together about the misty headlands of that far island. Fish, not glory, was their quest! Full cargoes, sweetly cured, was their desire—and let fame go hang!

The merchants of England undertook the guardianship of the "Newfounde Land." In greed, in valour, and in achievement they won their mastery. Their greed was a two-edged sword which cut all 'round. It hounded the aborigines; it bullied the men of France and Spain; it discouraged the settlement of the land by stout hearts of whatever nationality. It was the dream of those merchant adventurers of Devon to have the place remain for ever nothing but a fishing-station. They faced the pirates, the foreign fishers, the would-be settlers, and the natural hardships with equal fortitude and insolence. When some philosopher dreamed of founding plantations in the king's name and to the glory of God, England, and himself, then would the greedy merchants slay or cripple the philosopher's dream in the very palace of the king. Ay, they were powerful enough at court, though so little remarked in the histories of the times! But, ever and anon, some gentleman adventurer, or humble fisherman from the ships, would escape their vigilance and strike a blow at the inscrutable wilderness.

The fishing admirals loom large in the history of the island. They were the hands and eyes of the wealthy merchants. The master of the first vessel to enter any harbour at the opening of the season was, for a greater or lesser period of time, admiral and judge of that harbour. It was his duty to parcel out anchorage, and land on which to dry fish, to each ship in the harbour; to see that no sailors from the fleet escaped into the woods; to discourage any visions of settlement which sight of the rugged forests might raise in the romantic heads of the gentlemen of the fleet; to see that all foreigners were hustled on every occasion, and to take the best of everything for himself. Needless to say, it was a popular position with the hard-fisted skippers.

In the narratives of the early explorers frequent mention is made of the peaceful nature of the aborigines. At first they displayed unmistakable signs of friendly feeling. They were all willingness to trade with the loud-mouthed strangers from over the eastern horizon. They helped at the fishing, and at the hunting of seals and caribou. They bartered priceless pelts for iron hatchets and glass trinkets. Later, however, we read of treachery and murder on the parts of both the visitors and the natives. The itch of slave-dealing led some of the more daring shipmasters and adventurers to capture, and carry back to England, Beothic braves and maidens. Many of the kidnapped savages were kindly treated and made companions of by English noblemen and gentlefolk. It is recorded that more than one Beothic brave sported a sword at his hip in fashionable places of London Town before Death cut the silken bonds of his motley captivity.

Master John Guy, an alderman of Bristol, who obtained a Royal Charter in 1610, to settle and develop Newfoundland, wrote of the Beothics as a kindly and mild-mannered race. Of their physical characteristics he says: "They are of middle size, broad-chested, and very erect.... Their hair is diverse, some black, some brown, and some yellow."

As to the ultimate fate of the Beothics there are several suppositions. An aged Micmac squaw, who lives on Hall's Bay, Notre Dame Bay, says that her father, in his youth, knew the last of the Beothics. At that time—something over a hundred years ago—the race numbered between one and two hundred souls. They made periodical excursions to the salt water to fish, and to trade with a few friendly whites and Nova Scotian Micmacs. But, for the most part, they avoided the settlements. They had reason enough for so doing, for many of the settlers considered a lurking Beothic as fair a target for his buckshot as a bear or caribou. One November day a party of Micmac hunters tried to follow the remnant of the broken race on their return trip to the great wilderness of the interior. The trail was lost in a fall of snow on the night of the first day of the journey. And there, with the obliterated trail, ends the world's knowledge of the original inhabitants of Newfoundland; save of one woman of the race named Mary March, who died, a self-ordained fugitive about the outskirts of civilization, some ninety years ago.

To-day there are a few bones in the museum at St. John's. One hears stories of grassy circles beside the lakes and rivers, where wigwams once stood. Flint knives and arrow-heads are brought to light with the turning of the farmer's furrow. But the language of the lost tribe is forgotten, and the history of it is unrecorded.

In the following tale I have drawn the wilderness of that far time in the likeness of the wilderness as I knew it, and loved it, a few short years ago. The seasons bring their oft-repeated changes to brown barren, shaggy wood, and empurpled hill; but the centuries pass and leave no mark. I have dared to resurrect an extinct tribe for the purposes of fiction. I have drawn inspiration from the spirit of history rather than the letter! But the heart of the wilderness, and the hearts of men and women, I have pictured, in this romance of olden time, as I know them to-day.

T. R.

November, 1904.

CONTENTS

BROTHERS OF PERIL

A Story of Old Newfoundland

CHAPTER I. A BOY WINS HIS MAN-NAME

The boy struck again with his flint knife, and again the great wolf tore at his shoulder. The eyes of the boy were fierce as those of the beast. Neither wavered. Neither showed any sign of pain. The dark spruces stood above them, with the first shadows of night in their branches; and the western sky was stained red where the sun had been. Twice the wolf dropped his antagonist's shoulder, in a vain attempt to grip the throat. The boy, pressed to the ground, flung himself about like a dog, and repeatedly drove his clumsy weapon into the wolf's shaggy side.

At last the fight ended. The great timber-wolf lay stretched dead in awful passiveness. His fangs gleamed like ivory between the scarlet jaws and black lips. A shimmer of white menaced the quiet wilderness from the recesses of the half-shut eyelids.

For a few minutes the boy lay still, with the fingers of his left hand buried in the wolf's mane, and his right hand a blot of red against the beast's side. Presently, staggering on bent legs, he went down to the river and washed his mangled arm and shoulder in the cool water. The shock of it cleared his brain and steadied his eyes. He waded into the current to his middle, stooped to the racing surface, and drank unstintingly. Strength flooded back to blood and muscle, and the slender limbs regained their lightness.

By this time a few pale stars gleamed on the paler background of the eastern sky. A long finger-streak of red, low down on the hilltops, still lightened the west. A purple band hung above it like a belt of magic wampum—the war-belt of some mighty god. Above that, Night, the silent hunter, set up the walls of his lodge of darkness.

The boy saw nothing of the changing beauty of the sky. He might read it, knowingly enough, for the morrow's rain or frost; but beyond that he gave it no heed. He returned to the dead wolf, and set about the skinning of it with his rude blade. He worked with skill and speed. Soon head and pelt were clear of the red carcass. After collecting his arrows and bow, he flung the prize across his shoulder and started along a faint trail through the spruces.

The trail which the boy followed seemed to lead away from the river by hummock and hollow; and yet it cunningly held to the course of the stream. Now the night was fallen. A soft wind brushed over in the tree-tops. The voices of the rapids smote across the air with a deeper note. As the boy moved quietly along, sharp eyes flamed at him, and sharp ears were pricked to listen. Forms silent as shadows faded away from his path, and questioning heads were turned back over sinewy shoulders, sniffing silently. They smelt the wolf and they smelt the man. They knew that there had been another violent death in the valley of the River of Three Fires.

After walking swiftly for nearly an hour, following a path which less primitive eyes could not have found, the boy came out on a small meadow bright with fires. Nineteen or twenty conical wigwams, made of birch poles, bark, and caribou hides, stood about the meadow. In front of each wigwam burned a cooking-fire, for this was a land of much wood. The meadow was almost an island, having the river on two sides and a shallow lagoon cutting in behind, leaving only a narrow strip of alder-grown "bottom" by which one might cross dry-shod. The whole meadow, including the alders and a clump of spruces, was not more than five acres in extent.

The boy halted in front of the largest lodge, and threw the wolfskin down before the fire. There he stood, straight and motionless, with an air of vast achievement about him. Two women, who were broiling meat at the fire, looked from the shaggy, blood-stained pelt to the stalwart stripling. They cried out to him, softly, in tones of love and admiration. Jaws and fangs and half-shut eyes appeared frightful enough in the red firelight, even in death.

"Ah! ah!" they cried, "what warrior has done this deed?"

"Now give me my man-name," demanded the boy.

The older of the two women, his mother, tried to tend his wounded arm; but he shook her roughly away. She seemed accustomed to the treatment. Still clinging to him, she called him by a score of great names. A stalwart man, the chief of the village, strode from the dark interior of the nearest wigwam, and glanced from his son to the untidy mass of hair and skin. His eyes gleamed at sight of his boy's torn arm and the white teeth of the wolf.

"Wolf Slayer," he cried. He turned to the women. "Wolf Slayer," he repeated; "let this be his man-name—Wolf Slayer."

So this boy, son of Panounia the chief, became, at the age of fourteen years, a warrior among his father's people.

The inhabitants of that great island were all of one race. In history they are known as Beothics. At the time of this tale they were divided into two nations or tribes. Hate had set them apart from one another, breaking the old bond of blood. Each tribe was divided into numerous villages. The island was shared pretty evenly between the nations. Soft Hand was king of the Northerners. It was of one of his camps that the father of Wolf Slayer was chief.

Soft Hand was a great chief, and wise beyond his generation. For more than fifty years he had held the richest hunting-grounds in the island against the enemy. His strength had been of both head and hand. Now he was stiff with great age. Now his hair was gray and scanty, and unadorned by flaming feathers of hawk and sea-bird. The snows of eighty winters had drifted against the walls of his perishable but ever defiant lodges, and the suns of eighty summers had faded the pigments of his totem of the great Black Bear. Though he was slow of anger, and fair in judgment, his people feared him as they feared no other. Though he was gentle with the weak and young, and had honoured his parents in their old age and loved the wife of his youth, still the strongest warrior dared not sneer.

The village of this mighty chief was situated at the head of Wind Lake. On the night of Wolf Slayer's adventure, Soft Hand and his grandson arrived at the lesser village on the River of Three Fires. They travelled in bark canoes and were accompanied by a dozen braves. The grandson of the old chief was a lad of about Wolf Slayer's age. He was slight of figure and dark of skin. His name was Ouenwa. He was a dreamer of strange things, and a maker of songs. He and Wolf Slayer sat together by the fire. Wolf Slayer held his wounded arm ever under the visitor's eyes, and talked endlessly of his deed. For a long time Ouenwa listened attentively, smiling and polite, as was his usual way with strangers. But at last he grew weary of his companion's talk. He wanted to listen, in peace, to the song of the river. How could he understand what the rapids were saying with all this babbling of "knife" and "wolf" in his ears?

"All this wind," he said, "would kill a pack of wolves, or even the black cave-devil himself."

"There is no wind to-night," replied Wolf Slayer, glancing up at the trees.

"There is a mighty wind blowing about this fire," said Ouenwa, "and it whistles altogether of a great warrior who slew a wolf."

"At least that is not work for a dreamer," retorted the other, sullenly. Ouenwa's answer was a smile as soft and fleeting as the light-shadows of the fire.

At an early hour of the next morning the great chief's party started up-stream in their canoes, on the return journey to Wind Lake. For hours Soft Hand brooded in silence, deaf to his grandson's hundred questions. He had grown somewhat moody in the last year. He gazed away to the forest-clad, mist-wreathed capes ahead, and heeded not the high piping of his dead son's child. His mind was busy with thoughts of the events of the past night. He recalled the tones of Panounia's voice with a shake of the head. He recalled the sullen smouldering of that stalwart chief's eyes. He sighed, and glanced at the lad in the forging craft beside him.

"I grow old," he murmured. "The voice of my power is breaking to its last echo. My command over my people slips like a frozen thong of raw leather. And Panounia! What lurks in the dull brain of him?"

The sun rose above the forest spires, clear and warm. The mists drew skyward and melted in the gold-tinted azure. Twillegs flew, piping, across the brown current of the river. Sandpipers, on down-bent wings, skimmed the pebbly shore. A kingfisher flashed his burnished feathers and screamed his strident challenge, ever an arrow-flight ahead of the voyagers. He warned the furtive folk of the great chief's approach.

"Kingfisher would be a fitting name for the boy who killed the wolf," said Ouenwa.

The old man glanced at him sharply. His thin face was sombre with more than the shadow of years.

"Nay," he replied. "His is no empty cry. Beware of him, my son!"

CHAPTER II. THE OLD CRAFTSMAN BY THE SALT WATER

Montaw, the arrow-maker, dwelt alone at the head of a small bay. His home was half-wigwam, half-hut. The roof was of poles, partly covered with the hides of caribou and partly with a square of sail-cloth, which had been given him by a Basque fisherman in exchange for six beaver skins. The walls of the unusual lodge were of turf and stone. Here and there were signs of intercourse with the strangers out of the Eastern sea,—an iron fishhook, a scrap of gold lace, and a highly polished copper pot. Of these treasures the recluse was justly proud, for had he not acquired them at risk of sudden extinction by the breath of the clapping fire-stick?

The arrow-maker was an old man. In his youth he had been a hunter of renown and a great traveller, and had sojourned long in the lodges of the Southern nation. He had loved a woman of that people,—and she had given him laughter in return for his devotion. Journeying back to his own hunting-grounds, he had planned a huge revenge. At once all his skill and bravery had been turned to less open ways than those of the lover and warrior. In little more than a year's time he had driven the tribes to a lasting and bitter war. Even now as he sat before the door of his lodge, he was shaping spear-heads and arrow-heads for the fighting men of Soft Hand's nation. Some arrows he made of jasper, and some of flint, and some of purple slate. Those of slate would break off in the wound. They were the grim old craftsman's pets.

One day a young man from the valley of the River of Three Fires brought Montaw a string of fine trout, in payment for a spear-head. For awhile they talked together in the sunlight at the door of the lodge.

"For the chase," said the old man, "I make the long shape of flint, three fingers wide, and to this I bind a long and heavy shaft. Such an arrow will hold in the side of the running deer, and may be plucked out after death."

"I have even seen it, father," replied the young man, in supercilious tones; for he considered himself a mighty hunter.

"For the battle," continued the arrow-maker, "I chip the flint and shape the narrow splinters of slate. All three are good in their way if the bow be strong—and the arm."

The old craftsman made a song. It was rough as his arrow-heads.

One evening, as he sat before his lodge looking seaward, his trained ears caught the sound of a faint call from the wooded hills behind. He did not turn his head or change his position. But he held his breath, the better to listen. Again came the cry, very weak and far away.

"It is the voice of a woman," he said, and smiled grimly.

Cheerless and desolately gray, the light of the east faded into the desolate gray of the sea. Black, like stalking shadows, stood the little islands of the headlands. The last of the light died out like the heart of fire in the shroud of cooling ashes. Again came the cry, whispering across the stillness.

"It may be the voice of a child, lost in the woods," said the arrow-maker. He rose from his seat and entered the lodge. He blew the coals of his fire back to a tiny flame. He drew up to it the burnt ends of faggots. Then he took in his hand another of his Eastern prizes—a broad-bladed knife—and started across the tumbled rocks toward the edge of the wood. Though old, he was still strong and tough of limb and courageous of heart. Sure and swift he made his way through the heavy growth of spruce. Once he paused for the space of a heart-beat, to make sure of his direction. Again and again was the piteous cry repeated.

The old man kept up his tireless trot through underbrush and swamp, and displayed neither fatigue nor caution until he reached the bank of a narrow and turbulent stream. Here he drew into the shadow of a clump of firs. He lay close, and breathed heavily. By this time the moon had cleared the knolls. Its thin radiance flooded the wilderness. In the air was a whisper of gathering frost. The water of the little river twisted black and silver, and worried at the fanged rocks that tore it, with a voice of agony.

The crying had ceased; but the eyes of the old craftsman questioned the farther shore with a gaze steady and keen. There seemed to be something wrong with the shadows. A bent figure slipped down to the edge of the stream where the water spun in an eddy. It dropped on hands and knees and crawled to the black and unstable lip of the tide. Again the cry rang abroad, thin and high above the complaining tumult of the current. The watcher left his hiding-place and waded the stream. At the edge of the spinning eddy he found a woman. She lay exhausted. A long shaft hung to her left shoulder. Blood trickled down her bare and rounded arm. The arrow-maker lifted her against his shoulder and bathed her face in the cool water until her eyelids lifted.

"Chief," she whispered, "pluck out the arrow."

He shook his head. His trade was with battle and death, but it was half a lifetime since he had felt the gushing of human blood on his hands.

"Father," she cried, faintly, "I pray you, pluck it out. The pain of it eats into my spirit. It sprang to me from a little wood, bitter and noiseless—and I heard not so much as the twang of the string."

The old man held her with his left arm. With strong and gentle fingers he worked the arrow in the wound. She quivered with the pain of it. Blood came more freely. He trembled at the hot touch of it across his fingers. He had dwelt so long in the quiet of his craft. Then the barbed blade came away from the wound, and he clutched it in his reeking palm. The woman sobbed with mingled pain and relief. The old man stepped into the moonlight and lifted the arrow to his eyes.

"It is none of my making," he said.

He heard the woman sobbing in the dark. Returning to her he bound her shoulder with his belt of dressed leather. Then, lifting her tenderly, he again forded the flashing current of the complaining river.

CHAPTER III. THE FIGHT IN THE MEADOW

Even while the arrow-maker carried the wounded woman, arrows of the same shape as that which had stabbed her tender flesh were threatening the little village on the River of Three Fires. For days several war-parties from the South had been stealing through the country, raiding the lesser villages, and bent on destroying the nation of Soft Hand, and possessing his hunting-grounds. It was a laggard of one of the smaller bands that had wounded the woman. She had been far from her lodge at the time, seeking some healing herbs in the forest, and he had fired on her out of fear that she had discovered him and would warn her people. In her pain and fright, she had wandered coastward for several miles.

Silent as shadows, the invading warriors drew down toward the little meadow. Clouds were over the face of the white October moon. A cold mist floated in the valley. The leaders of the invaders, lying low among the alders at the edge of the clearing, could see the unguarded people moving about their red fires. There was a scent of cooking deer-meat in the chill air. The chief of the attacking party lay on the damp grass and peered between the stems of the alders. He smiled exultantly. A quick slaughter, and then to a feast already prepared. He and his braves had enjoyed but poor fare during their long march.

So shall I leave him, sniffing the breath of the cooking fires, and turn to Wolf Slayer. Late of that afternoon Wolf Slayer had sallied forth in quest of something to kill. The woods had seemed deserted, and in less than an hour after his valorous exit from the camp, he had fallen asleep on a warm and sheltered strip of shingle. The river flashed in front, and on three sides brooded the crowding trees. When he awoke, the sun had set, and the river, a curved mirror for the western sky, was red as fire—or blood. Down-stream, about two hundred yards distant, a sombre bluff thrust its rocky breast into the water. The boy gazed at this, and his eyes widened with dismay. Then they narrowed with hate. Out of the shelter of the rocks and the shadows, and into the flaming waters, came figure after figure. They waded knee-deep, hip-deep, shoulder-deep, into that molten glory. Then they swam; and the ripples washed back from gleaming neck and shoulder like lighter flames. One by one they stole from the shadow, swam the radiance, and again sought the shadow.

The boy trembled. The devils of fear and rage had their fingers on him. Spellbound, he watched close upon a hundred warriors make the passage of the river. Then he, too, sank noiselessly into the shelter of the trees. He was old enough to know what this meant, and his heart hurt him with its pent-up fury as he crawled through the underbrush. He was dismayed at the sound of his own breathing. He heard the distant rapping of a woodpecker, the fall of a spent leaf from an alder, and the soft breath of a dying wind; and the familiar sounds filled him with awe. And yet, but for these sounds, the whole world might be dead and the forest empty. Thought of the hundred fighting men moving steadily upon the unguarded homes of his people, with no more warning than the sound of a swamp-bird's flight, was like a nightmare. But presently the courage that had helped him slay the wolf came to him, and he thought of the glory to be won by saving the threatened village. He did not strengthen his heart to the task for sake of his mother's life and the lives of his playmates; but because the warriors would call him a hero. Keeping just within the edge of the woods, he moved up-stream as speedily as he might without making any sound. He came upon a brown hare crouched beside a clump of ferns. He might have touched it with his hand, so unaware was it of his presence. He passed beneath an alder branch whereon perched a big slate-gray jay. It was not a foot from his back as he crawled under, and it did not take flight. But it eyed him intently, to make sure that he was not a fox. Sometimes he lay still for a little, listening. He heard nothing, though he started at a hundred fancied sounds. Twilight deepened into dusk, and dusk into gloom. The moon sailed up over the hills, and long banners of cloud passed across the face of it.

Presently Wolf Slayer came within sight of the fires of the village. The red light flashed on the angry river beyond, but left the lagoon in darkness. He crawled into the water inch by inch, scarcely breaking the calm, black surface. Then he swam, without noise of splashing, and landed at the foot of the meadow like a great beaver. He crawled into the red circle of one of the fires, and told his news to the braves gathered around. Men slipped from fire to fire. Without any unwonted disturbance, the whole village armed itself. Suddenly, with a fierce shout and a flight of arrows, the alders were attacked. The invaders were checked at the very moment of their fancied victory.

The fighting scattered. Here three men struggled together in the shallows at the head of the lagoon. Farther out, one tossed his arms and sank into the black depths. In the open a half-score warriors bent their bows. Among the twisted stems of the alders they pulled and strangled, like beasts of prey. Back in the spruces they slew with clubs and knives, feeling for one another in the dark. Their war-cries and shouts of hate rang fearfully on the night air, and awoke unholy echoes along the valley.

In the front of the battle Wolf Slayer fought like a man. His lack of stature saved him from death more than once in that fearful encounter. Many a vicious blow glanced harmless, or missed him altogether, as he stumbled and bent among the alders. At first he fought with a long, flint knife,—the work of the old arrow-maker. But this was splintered in his hand by the murderous stroke of a war-club. He wrenched a spear from the clutch of a dying brave. A leaping figure went down before his unexpected lunge. It rolled over; then, queerly sprawling, it lay still. An arrow from the open ripped along an alder stem, rattled its shaft among the dry twigs, and struck a glancing blow on the young brave's neck. He stumbled, grabbing at the shadows. He fell—and forgot the fight.

In light and darkness the battle raged on. Wigwams were overthrown, and about the little fires warriors gave up their violent lives. At last the encampment was cleared, and saved from destruction; and those of the invaders who remained beside the trampled fires had ceased to menace. Along the black edges of the forest ran the cries and tumult of the struggle. Spent arrows floated on the lagoon. Red knives lifted and turned in the underbrush.

Wolf Slayer, dizzy and faint, crawled back to the lodges of his people. Other warriors were returning. They came exultant, with the lust of fighting still aflame in their eyes. Some strode arrogantly. Some crawled, as Wolf Slayer had. Some staggered to the home fires and reeled against the lodges, and some got no farther than the outer circle of light. And many came not at all.

The chief, with a great gash high on his breast (he had bared arms and breast for the battle), sought about the clearing and trampled fringe of alders, and at last, returning to the disordered camp, found Wolf Slayer. With a glad, high shout of triumph, he lifted the boy in his arms and carried him home. The mother met them at the door of the lodge. In fearful silence the man and woman washed and bound the young brave's wound, and watched above his faint breathing with anxious hearts.

"Little one, strengthen your feet against the turn of the dark trail," whispered the mother. "See, our fires are bright to guide you back to your own people."

"Little chief, though this battle is ended, there are many good fights yet to come," whispered the father. "The fighters of the camp will have great need of you when we turn from our sleep. The old bear grumbles at the mouth of his den!—will you not be with us when we singe his fur?"

"Hush, hush!" cried the woman.

The boy, opening his eyes, turned the feet of his spirit from the dark trail.

"I saw the lights of the lost fires," he murmured, "and the hunting-song of dead braves was in my ears."

Wolf Slayer was nursed back to health and strength. Not once—not even at the edge of Death's domain—had his arrogance left him. It seemed that the days of suffering had but hardened his already hard heart. Lad though he was, the villagers began to feel the weight of his hand upon them. He bullied and beat the other boys of the camp.

CHAPTER IV. OUENWA SETS OUT ON A VAGUE QUEST

In the dead of winter—in that season of sweeping winds and aching skies, when the wide barrens lie uncheered of life from horizon to horizon—Soft Hand sent many of his warriors to the South. They followed in the "leads" of the great herds of caribou, going partly for the meat of the deer and partly to strike terror into the hearts of the Southern enemy. At the head of this party went Panounia, chief of the village on the River of Three Fires, and with him he took his hardy son, Wolf Slayer. Grim plans were bred on that journey. Grim tales were told around the big fire at night. The evil thing which Panounia hatched, with his bragging tongue, grew day by day and night by night. The hearts of the warriors were fired with the shameful flame. They dreamed things that had never happened, and wrought black visions out of the foolishnesses of their brains.

"The bear nods," they repeated, one to another, after the chief had talked to them. "The bear nods, like an old woman over a pot of stew. But for Panounia, surely the men of the South would have scattered our lodges and led us, captive, to the playgrounds of their children and their squaws. Such a fate would warm the heart of Soft Hand, for is not our Great Chief an old woman himself?"

So, far from the eye and paw of the great bear, the foxes barked at his power. The moon heard it, and the silent trees, and the wind which carries no messages.

About this time Ouenwa, the grandson of Soft Hand, decided to make a journey of many days from the lodges at the head of Wind Lake to the Salt Water. He felt no interest in the Southern invasion. His eyes longed for a sight of the edges of the land and the breast of the great waters beyond. He had heard, in his inland home, rumour of mighty wooden canoes walled higher than the peak of a wigwam, and manned by loud-mouthed warriors from beyond the fogs and the rising sun. Some wiseacre, squatted beside the old chief's fire, hinted that the strangers were gods. He told many wonderful stories to back his argument. Soft Hand nodded. But Ouenwa smiled and shook his head.

"Would gods make such flights for the sake of a few dried fishes and a few dressed pelts of beaver and fox?" he asked.

"The gods of trade would do so," replied the wiseacre. "Also," he added, "they slay at great distances by means of brown stakes which are flame-tongued and smoke-crowned and thunder-voiced."

"But do these gods not fight with knives—long knives and short?" inquired the lad. "I have heard it said that they sometimes fall out over the ordering of their affairs, even as we mortals do."

"And what wonderful knives they are," cried the old gossip. "They are coloured like ice. They gleam in the sunlight, like a flash of lightning against a cloud. They cut quicker than thought, and the red blood follows the edge as surely as the rains follow April."

"I have yet to see these gods," replied Ouenwa, "and in my heart I pray that they be but men, for the gods have proved themselves but cheerless companions to our people."

At that Soft Hand looked up. "Are the seasons not arranged to your liking, boy?" he asked, quietly.

"Nay, I did not mean that," cried Ouenwa; "but strange men promise better and safer company than strange gods."

Now he was journeying toward the ocean of his dreaming and the ports of his desire. His eyes would search the headlands of fog. Out of the east, and the sun's bed, would lift the magic canoes of the strangers. But the journey was a hard one. The boy's only companion was a man of small stature and unheroic spirit, whom the old chief could well spare. They took their way down the frozen, snow-drifted lake, dragging their food and sleeping-bags of skin on a rough sledge. The wind came out of a steel-blue sky, unshifting and relentless. The dry snow ran before it over the level surface, and settled in thin, white ridges across their path. At the approach of night they sought the wooded shore, and in the shelter of the firs built their fire.

During the journey Ouenwa's guide proved but a cheerless companion. He had no heart for any adventure that might take him beyond the scent of his people's cooking-fires. He considered the conversation of his young master but a poor substitute for the gossip of the lodges. The scant fare of his own cooking left his stomach uncomforted. He hated the weariness of the march and dreaded the silence of the night. The cry of the wind across the tree-tops was, to his craven ear, the voice of some evil spirit. The barking of a fox on the hill set his limbs a-tremble. The howl of a wolf struck him cold. The sudden leaping of a hare in the underbrush was enough to shake his poor wits with fright. But he feared the anger of Soft Hand more than all these terrors, and so held to Ouenwa and his mission.

On the third day of the journey the blue sky thickened to gray, the wind veered, and a great storm of snow overtook them. The snowflakes were large and damp. The travellers turned aside and climbed the bank of the river to the thickets of evergreens. With their rude axes of stone they broke away the fir boughs and reared themselves a shelter in the heart of the wood. Into this they drew their sledge of provisions and their sleeping-bags. Then they collected whatever dry fuel they could find—dead twigs and branches, tree-moss and birch bark—and, with his ingenious contrivance of bow and notched stick, Ouenwa started a blaze. They roasted dried venison by holding it to the flame on the ends of pointed sticks. Each cooked what he wanted, and ate it without talk. All creation seemed shrouded in silence. There was not a sound save the occasional soft hiss of a melting snowflake in the fire. The storm became denser. It was as if a sudden, colourless night had descended upon the wilderness, blotting out even the nearer trees with its reeling gray. The old retainer crouched low, and gazed out at the storm from between his bony knees. His eyes fairly protruded with superstitious terror.

"What do you see?" inquired Ouenwa. The awe of the storm was creeping over his courage like the first film of ice over a bright stream. The old man did not move. He did not reply. Ouenwa drew closer to him, and heaped dry moss on the fire. It glowed high, and splashed a ruddy circle of light on the eddying snowflakes as on a wall.

"Hark!" whispered the old man. Yes, it was the sound of muffled footsteps, approaching behind the impenetrable curtain of the storm. The boy's blood chilled and thinned like water in his veins. He clutched his companion with frenzied hands. The fear of all the devils and shapeless beings of the wilderness was upon him. In the whirling snow loomed a great figure. It emerged into the glow of the fire.

"Ah! ah!" cried the old man, cackling with relief. For their visitor was nothing more terrible than a fellow human. The stranger greeted them cordially, and told them that, but for the glow of their fire, he would have been lost.

"But what are you doing here—an old man and a child?" he asked.

Ouenwa told him. He explained his identity, and his intention of dwelling with the great arrow-maker of his grandfather's tribe to learn wisdom.

"Then are we well met," replied the other, "for my lodge is not half a spear-throw from the lodge of the arrow-maker. The old man has been as a father to me since the day he saved my wife from death. Now I hunt for him, and work at his craft, and have left the river to be near him. My children play about his lodge. My wife broils his fish and meat. Truly the old man has changed since the return of laughter and friendship to his lodge."

The stranger's name was Black Feather. He was taller than the average Beothic, and broad of shoulder in proportion. His hair was brown, and one lock of it, which was worn longer than the rest, was plaited with jet-black feathers. His garments consisted of a shirt of beaver skins that reached half-way between hip and knee, trousers of dressed leather, and leggins and moccasins of the same material. Around his waist was a broad belt, beautifully worked in designs of dyed porcupine quills. His head was uncovered.

Black Feather seated himself beside Ouenwa, and replied, good-naturedly, and at great length, to the youth's many questions. He told of the high-walled ships, and of how he had once seen four of these monsters swinging together in the tide, with little boats plying between them, and banners red as the sunset flapping above them. He told of trading with the strangers, and described their manner of spreading out lengths of bright cloth, knives and hatchets of gray metal, and flasks of strong drink.

"Their knives are edged with magic," he said. "Many of them carry weapons called muskets, which kill at a hundred paces, and terrify at even a greater distance. But a nimble bowman might loose four arrows in the time that they are conjuring forth the spirit of the musket."

The storm continued throughout the day and night, but the morning broke clear. The travellers crawled from their weighted shelter and looked with gratitude upon the silver shield of the sun. After a hearty breakfast, they set out on the last stage of their journey. Their racquets of spruce wood woven across with strips of caribou hide sank deep in the feathery snow, and lifted a burden of it at every step. But they held cheerfully on their way. Black Feather walked ahead, and Pot Friend, the old gossip, brought up the rear. The thong by which they dragged the sledge passed over the right shoulder of each, and was grasped in the right hand. After several hours of tramping along the level of the river's valley, Black Feather turned toward the western bank and led them into the woods. Presently, after experiencing several difficulties with the sledge, they emerged on the barren beyond the fringe of timber. They ascended a treeless knoll that rounded in front of them, blindingly white against the pale sky. Old Pot Friend grumbled and sighed, and might just as well have been on the sledge, for all the pulling he did. On reaching the top of the knoll Black Feather swept his arm before him with a gesture of finality. "Behold!" he said.

An exclamation of wonder sprang to Ouenwa's lips, and died—half-uttered. Before him lay a wedge of foam-crested winter sea beating out against a far, glass-clear horizon. To right and left were sheer rocks and timbered valleys, wave-washed coves, ice-rimmed islands, and crouching headlands. Even Pot Friend forgot his weariness and shortness of breath for the moment, and surveyed the outlook in silence. It was many years since he had been so far afield. His little soul was fairly stunned with awe. But presently his real nature reasserted itself. He pointed with his hand.

"Smoke!" he exclaimed. "And the roofs of two lodges. Good!"

Black Feather smiled. Ouenwa did not hear the old man's cry of joy.

"I see the edge of the world," he said.

"But the ships come over it, and go down behind it," replied Black Feather.

"That is foolishness," said Pot Friend, who was filled with his old impudence at sight of the fire and the lodges. "No canoe would venture on the great salt water. I say it, who have built many canoes. And, if they voyaged so far, they would slip off into the caves of the Fog Devils. I believe nothing of all these stories of the strangers and their winged canoes."

"Silence!" cried the boy, turning on him with flashing eyes. "What do you know of how far men will venture?—you, who have but heart enough to stir a pot of broth and lick the spoon."

"I have brought you safely through great dangers," whined the old fellow.

Montaw, the aged arrow-maker, welcomed his visitors cordially, and was grateful for the kind messages from his chief, Soft Hand, and for the gift of dressed leather. He accepted the charge and education of Ouenwa. He set the unheroic Pot Friend to the tasks of carrying water and wood, and snaring hares and grouse. He taught Ouenwa the craft of chipping flints into shapes for spear-heads and arrow-heads, and the art of painting, in ochre, on leather and birch bark.

CHAPTER V. THE ADMIRAL OF THE HARBOUR

Spring brought ice-floes and bergs from the north, and millions of Greenland seals. For weeks the little bay on which Montaw and Black Feather had their lodges was choked with battering ice-pans and crippled bergs. Many of the tribesmen came to the salt water to kill the seals. Soft Hand sent a canoe-load of beaver pelts to Ouenwa, so that the boy might trade with the strangers when they arrived out of the waste of waters.

At last summer came to the great Bay of Exploits, and with it many ships—ships of England, of France, of Spain, and of Portugal. All were in quest of the world-renowned codfish. By this time the ice had rotted, and drifted southward. The first craft to enter Wigwam Harbour (as the English sailors called the arrow-maker's bay) was the Devon ship, Heart of the West. Her master, John Trowley, was an ignorant, hard-headed, and hard-fisted old mariner of the roughest type; but, by the laws of those waters, he was Admiral of Wigwam Harbour for that season. It was not long before every harbour had its admiral,—in every case the master of the first vessel to drop anchor there. The shores were portioned off in strips, so that each ship might have a place for drying-stages, whereon to cure its fish. Then the great business of garnering that rich harvest of the north began, amid the rattling of boat-gear, the shouting of orders in many tongues, and the volleying of oaths. Ouenwa, watching the animated scene, was fired with a desire to voyage in one of the strange vessels, and to taste the world that lay beyond the rim of the sea.

One day, soon after their arrival, three men from the Heart of the West ascended the twisting path to the arrow-maker's lodge. The old craftsman and Black Feather and Ouenwa advanced to meet them without fear, for up to that time the adventurers and the natives had been on the best of terms. The strangers smiled and bowed to the Beothics. They displayed a handful of coloured glass beads, a roll of red cloth, and a few sticks of tobacco. Old Montaw's eyes glistened at sight of the Virginian leaf. He had already learned the trick of drawing on the stem of a pipe and blowing fragrant clouds of smoke into the air. He said that to do so added to the profundity of his thoughts. And all winter he had gone without a puff. He produced a mink skin from his lodge and exchanged it for one of the coveted sticks of tobacco. Black Feather also traded, giving skins of mink, fox, and beaver for a piece of cloth, a dozen beads, and a knife. But Ouenwa stood aside and watched the strangers. One of them he recognized as the great captain who shouted and swore at the captains of the other ships, and pointed out to them places where they might anchor their ships—for it was none other than Master John Trowley. The young man with the gold lace in his hat, and the long sword at his side—surely, he, too, was a chief, despite his quiet voice and smooth face. Ouenwa's surmise was correct. The youth was Master Bernard Kingswell, only son of a wealthy widow of Bristol. His father, who had been knighted a few years before his premature death, had been a merchant of sound views and adventurous spirit. The son inherited the adventurous spirit, and was free from the bondage of the counting-house. The third of the party was a common seaman. That much Ouenwa could detect at a glance.

Master Kingswell stepped over to the young Beothic.

"Trade?" he inquired, kindly, displaying a string of glass beads in the palm of his hand. Ouenwa shook his head. He knew only such words of English as Montaw had taught him, and he feared that they would prove entirely inadequate for the purpose that was in his mind. However, he would try. He pointed to Trowley's ship, and then to the far and glinting horizon.

"Take Ouenwa?" he whispered, scarce above his breath.

"To see the ship?" inquired Master Kingswell.

"Off," replied Ouenwa, with a wave of his arms. "Out, off!"

Kingswell looked puzzled, and made no reply. The young Beothic bent a keen glance upon him; then he tapped himself on the chest.

"Take Ouenwa," he whispered. He plucked the Englishman by the coat. "Come, chief, come," he cried, eagerly.

Kingswell followed to the nearest lodge. Ouenwa pulled aside the flap of caribou hide that covered the doorway, and motioned for the visitor to enter. For a second the Englishman hesitated. He had heard many tales of the treachery of these people. What menace might not lurk in the gloom of the round, fur-scented lodge? But he did not lack courage; and, before the other had time to notice the hesitation, he stepped within. The flap of rawhide fell into place behind him. Save for the red glow that pulsated from the hearthstone in the centre of the floor, and the fingers of sunlight that thrust through the cracks in the apex of the roof, the big lodge was unilluminated.

"What do you want?" asked Master Kingswell, with his shoulders against the slope of the roof and a tentative hand on his sword-hilt. For answer, Ouenwa held a torch of rolled bark to the fire until it flared smoky red, and then lifted it high. The light of it flooded the sombre place, showing up the couches of skins, Montaw's copper pot, and a great bale of pelts. The boy pointed to the pelts. Then he pressed the palm of his hand against the Englishman's breast.

"Ouenwa give beaver," he said. "Take Ouenwa Englan'. Much good trade."

Kingswell understood. But he saw obstacles in the way of carrying out the young Beothic's wish. The other savages might object. They might look on it as a case of kidnapping. Lads had been kidnapped before from the eastern bays, and, though they had been well treated, and made pets of in England, their people had ceased to trade with the visitors, and all their friendship had turned to treachery and hostility. On the other hand, he should like to take the youth home with him. He tried to explain his position to Ouenwa, but failed signally. They parted, however, with the most friendly feelings toward one another.

After the interview with Kingswell, Ouenwa spent most of his time gazing longingly at the ships in the bay, and picturing the life aboard them, and the countries from which they had come. One morning Kingswell called to him from the land-wash. He ran down, delighted at the attention. Kingswell pointed to a small, open boat which the carpenter of the Heart of the West had just completed. Then, by signs and a few words, he told Ouenwa that he was going northward in the little craft, to explore the coast, and that he would be back with the fleet before the birch leaves were yellow. Ouenwa begged to be taken on the expedition and afterward across the seas. He offered his canoe-load of beaver skins. He tried to tell of his great desire to see the lodges of the strangers, and to learn their speech. He did not want to live the life of his own people. Kingswell caught the general trend of the Beothic's remarks. He had no objection to driving a good bargain. So he made clear to him that he was to come alongside the ship, with the beaver skins, on the following night.

The sky was black with clouds, and a fog wrapped the harbour, when Ouenwa stepped into his loaded canoe and pushed out toward the spot where Trowley's ship lay at anchor. He had dragged his skins from Montaw's lodge earlier in the night, without disturbing the slumbers of either his guardian or Pot Friend. Age had dulled their ears and thickened their sleep. He paddled noiselessly. Sounds of roistering came to his ears, muffled by the fog. Presently the admiral's ship loomed close ahead. Lights blinked fore and aft. She seemed a tremendous thing to the lad, though in truth she was but of one hundred tons. Singing and laughter were ripe aboard.

For the first time a fear of the strangers took possession of Ouenwa. Even his trust in Kingswell faltered. He ceased paddling, and listened, with bated breath, to the hoarse shouts of merriment and the clapping oaths. Then curiosity overcame his fear. He slid his long canoe under the stem of the Heart of the West. A cheering glow of candle-light yellowed the fog above him. He stood up and found that his head was on a level with the sill of a square port. It stood open. He heard Kingswell's voice, and Trowley's. The master-mariner's was gusty and argumentative. It broke out at intervals, like the flapping of a sail.

Ouenwa steadied himself with his hands on the casing of the open port, and lifted to tiptoe. Now he could see into the little cabin, and hear the conversation of its inmates. Happily for his feelings, he could understand only a word or two of that conversation. He saw Kingswell and the master of the ship seated opposite one another at a small table. Upon the table stood candles in metal sticks, a bottle, and glasses. The old sea-dog's bearded face was working with excitement. He slapped his great flipper-like hand on the polished surface of the board.

"Now who be master o' this ship?" he bawled. "Tell me that, will 'e. Who be master?"

"I am the owner, you'll kindly remember, John Trowley," replied Kingswell, with a ring of anger in his voice, but a smile on his lips.

"Ay, ye be owner, but John Trowley be skipper," roared the other, glaring so hard that his round, pale eyes fairly bulged from his face. "An' no dirty redskin sails in ship o' mine unless as a servant, or afore the mast,—no, not if he pays his passage with all th' pelts in Newfoundland."

"You are mistaken, my friend," replied Kingswell. "I'll carry fifty of these people back to Bristol, if it so pleases me."

"I'll put ye in irons, my fine gentleman," retorted the seaman.

"You are drunk," cried the young adventurer, drawing back his right hand as if to strike the great, scowling face that bent toward him across the table.

"Drunk, d'ye say! An' ye'd lift yer hand against the ship's master, would ye?" shouted Trowley. He lurched forward, and a knife flashed above the overturned bottle and glasses.

Ouenwa emitted a horrified scream, and hurled his paddle spear-wise into the cabin. The rounded point of the blade caught Trowley on the side of the head, and sent him crashing to the deck.