Snowflakes and Sunbeams; Or, The Young Fur-traders: A Tale of the Far North, - [best summer reads .txt] 📗

It was unnecessary to have said even that much by way of invitation. Voyageurs do not require to have their food pressed upon them after a hard day’s work. Indeed it was as much as they could do to refrain from laying violent hands on the kettle long before their worthy cook considered its contents sufficiently done.

Charley sat in company with Mr. Park—a chief factor, on his way to Norway House. Gibault, one of the men who acted as their servant, had placed a kettle of hot tea before them, which, with several slices of buffalo tongue, a lump of pemmican, and some hard biscuit and butter, formed their evening meal. Indeed, we may add that these viands, during a great part of the voyage, constituted their every meal. In fact, they had no variety in their fare, except a wild duck or two now and then, and a goose when they chanced to shoot one.

Charley sipped a pannikin of tea as he reclined on his blanket, and being somewhat fatigued in consequence of his exertions and excitement during the day, said nothing. Mr. Park, for the same reasons, besides being naturally taciturn, was equally mute, so they both enjoyed in silence the spectacle of the men eating their supper. And it was a sight worth seeing.

Their food consisted of robbiboo, a compound of flour, pemmican, and water, boiled to the consistency of very thick soup. Though not a species of food that would satisfy the fastidious taste of an epicure, robbiboo is, nevertheless, very wholesome, exceedingly nutritious, and withal palatable. Pemmican, its principal component, is made of buffalo flesh, which fully equals (some think greatly excels) beef. The recipe for making it is as follows:-First, kill your buffalo—a matter of considerable difficulty, by the way, as doing so requires you to travel to the buffalo-grounds, to arm yourself with a gun, and mount a horse, on which you have to gallop, perhaps, several miles over rough ground and among badger-holes at the imminent risk of breaking your neck. Then you have to run up alongside of a buffalo and put a ball through his heart, which, apart from the murderous nature of the action, is a difficult thing to do. But we will suppose that you have killed your buffalo. Then you must skin him; then cut him up, and slice the flesh into layers, which must be dried in the sun. At this stage of the process you have produced a substance which in the fur countries goes by the name of dried meat, and is largely used as an article of food. As its name implies, it is very dry, and it is also very tough, and very undesirable if one can manage to procure anything better. But to proceed. Having thus prepared dried meat, lay a quantity of it on a flat stone, and take another stone, with which pound it into shreds. You must then take the animal’s hide, while it is yet new, and make bags of it about two feet and a half long by a foot and a half broad. Into this put the pounded meat loosely. Melt the fat of your buffalo over a fire, and when quite liquid pour it into the bag until full; mix the contents well together; sew the whole up before it cools, and you have a bag of pemmican of about ninety pounds weight. This forms the chief food of the voyageur, in consequence of its being the largest possible quantity of sustenance compressed into the smallest possible space, and in an extremely convenient, portable shape. It will keep fresh for years, and has been much used, in consequence, by the heroes of arctic discovery, in their perilous journeys along the shores of the frozen sea.

The voyageurs used no plate. Men who travel in these countries become independent of many things that are supposed to be necessary here. They sat in a circle round the kettle, each man armed with a large wooden or pewter spoon, with which he ladled the robbiboo down his capacious throat, in a style that not only caused Charley to laugh, but afterwards threw him into a deep reverie on the powers of appetite in general, and the strength of voyageur stomachs in particular.

At first the keen edge of appetite induced the men to eat in silence; but as the contents of the kettle began to get low, their tongues loosened, and at last, when the kettles were emptied and the pipes filled, fresh logs thrown on the fires, and their limbs stretched out around them, the babel of English, French, and Indian that arose was quite overwhelming. The middle-aged men told long stories of what they had done; the young men boasted of what they meant to do; while the more aged smiled, nodded, smoked their pipes, put in a word or two as occasion offered, and listened. While they conversed the quick ears of one of the men of Charley’s camp detected some unusual sound.

“Hist!” said he, turning his head aside slightly, in a listening attitude, while his comrades suddenly ceased their noisy laugh.

“Do ducks travel in canoes hereabouts?” said the man, after a moment’s silence; “for, if not, there’s someone about to pay us a visit. I would wager my best gun that I hear the stroke of paddles.”

“If your ears had been sharper, François, you might have heard them some time ago,” said the guide, shaking the ashes out of his pipe and refilling it for the third time.

“Ah, Louis, I do not pretend to such sharp ears as you possess, nor to such sharp wit either. But who do you think can be en route so late?”

“That my wit does not enable me to divine,” said Louis; “but if you have any faith in the sharpness of your eyes, I would recommend you to go to the beach and see, as the best and shortest way of finding out.”

By this time the men had risen, and were peering out into the gloom in the direction whence the sound came, while one or two sauntered down to the margin of the lake to meet the new-comers.

“Who can it be, I wonder?” said Charley, who had left the tent, and was now standing beside the guide.

“Difficult to say, monsieur. Perhaps Injins, though I thought there were none here just now. But I’m not surprised that we’ve attracted something to us. Livin’ creeturs always come nat’rally to the light, and there’s plenty of fire on the point to-night.”

“Rather more than enough,” replied Charley, abruptly, as a slight motion of wind sent the flames curling round his head and singed off his eye-lashes. “Why, Louis, it’s my firm belief that if I ever get to the end of this journey, I’ll not have a hair left on my head.”

Louis smiled.

“O monsieur, you will learn to observe things before you have been long in the wilderness. If you will edge round to leeward of the fire, you can’t expect it to respect you.”

Just at this moment a loud hurrah rang through the copse, and Harry Somerville sprang over the fire into the arms of Charley, who received him with a hug and a look of unutterable amazement.

“Charley, my boy!”

“Harry Somerville, I declare!”

For at least five minutes Charley could not recover his composure sufficiently to declare anything else, but stood with open mouth and eyes, and elevated eyebrows, looking at his young friend, who capered and danced round the fire in a manner that threw the cook’s performances in that line quite into the shade, while he continued all the time to shout fragments of sentences that were quite unintelligible to anyone. It was evident that Harry was in a state of immense delight at something unknown save to himself, but which, in the course of a few minutes, was revealed to his wondering friends.

“Charley, I’m going! hurrah!” and he leaped about in a manner that induced Charley to say he would not only be going but very soon gone, if he did not keep further away from the fire.

“Yes, Charley, I’m going with you! I upset the stool, tilted the ink-bottle over the invoice-book, sent the poker almost through the back of the fireplace, and smashed Tom Whyte’s best whip on the back of the ‘noo ’oss’ as I galloped him over the plains for the last time: all for joy, because I’m going with you, Charley, my darling!”

Here Harry suddenly threw his arms round his friend’s neck, meditating an embrace. As both boys were rather fond of using their muscles violently, the embrace degenerated into a wrestle, which caused them to threaten complete destruction to the fire as they staggered in front of it, and ended in their tumbling against the tent and nearly breaking its poles and fastenings, to the horror and indignation of Mr. Park, who was smoking his pipe within, quietly waiting till Harry’s superabundant glee was over, that he might get an explanation of his unexpected arrival among them.

“Ah, they will be good voyageurs!” cried one of the men, as he looked on at this scene.

“Oui, oui! good boys, active lads,” replied the others, laughing. The two boys rose hastily.

“Yes,” cried Harry, breathless, but still excited, “I’m going all the way, and a great deal farther. I’m going to hunt buffaloes in the Saskatchewan, and grizzly bears in the—the—in fact everywhere! I’m going down the Mackenzie River—I’m going mad, I believe;” and Harry gave another caper and another shout, and tossed his cap high into the air. Having been recklessly tossed, it came down into the fire. When it went in, it was dark blue; but when Harry dashed into the flames in consternation to save it, it came out of a rich brown colour.

“Now, youngster,” said Mr. Park, “when you’ve done capering, I should like to ask you one or two questions. What brought you here?”

“A canoe,” said Harry, inclined to be impudent.

“Oh, and pray for what purpose have you come here?”

“These are my credentials,” handing him a letter.

Mr. Park opened the note and read.

“Ah! oh! Saskatchewan—hum—yes—outpost—wild boy—just so—keep him at it—ay, fit for nothing else. So,” said Mr. Park, folding the paper, “I find that Mr. Grant has sent you to take the place of a young gentleman we expected to pick up at Norway House, but who is required elsewhere; and that he wishes you to see a good deal of rough life—to be made a trader of, in fact. Is that your desire?”

“That’s the very ticket!” replied Harry, scarcely able to restrain his delight at the prospect.

“Well, then, you had better get supper and turn in, for you’ll have to begin your new life by rising at three o’clock to-morrow morning. Have you got a tent?”

“Yes,” said Harry, pointing to his canoe, which had been brought to the fire and turned bottom up by the two Indians to whom it belonged, and who were reclining under its shelter enjoying their pipes, and watching with looks of great gravity the doings of Harry and his friend.

“That will return whence it came to-morrow. Have you no other?”

“Oh yes,” said Harry, pointing to the overhanging branches of a willow close at hand, “lots more.”

Mr. Park smiled grimly, and, turning on his heel, re-entered the tent and continued his pipe, while Harry flung himself down beside Charley under the bark canoe.

This species of “tent” is, however, by no means a perfect one. An Indian canoe is seldom three feet broad—frequently much narrower—so that it only affords shelter for the body as far down as the waist, leaving the extremities exposed. True, one may double up as nearly as possible into half one’s length, but this is not a desirable position to maintain throughout an entire night. Sometimes, when the weather is very bad, an additional protection is procured by leaning several poles against the bottom of the canoe, on the weather side, in such a way as to slope considerably over the front; and over these are spread pieces of birch bark or branches and moss, so as to form a screen, which is an admirable shelter. But this involves too much time and labour to be adopted during a voyage, and is only done when the travellers are under the necessity of remaining for some time in one place.

The canoe in which Harry arrived was a pretty large one, and looked so comfortable when arranged for the night that Charley resolved to abandon his own tent and Mr. Park’s society, and sleep with his friend.

“I’ll sleep with you, Harry, my boy,” said he, after Harry had explained to him in detail the cause of his being sent away from Red River; which was no other than that a young gentleman, as Mr. Park said, who was to have gone, had been ordered elsewhere.

“That’s right, Charley; spread out our blankets,