Ungava, R. M. Ballantyne [best authors to read .txt] 📗

“‘Ah! that’s right.—Now, Old Moggy, I’ll be back in a few minutes, so don’t go to sleep till I return.’

“As I was about to issue from the tent, the young girl passed me hastily, and, drawing the hood over her head and face, darted through the opening. I found Maximus gazing after her in surprise.

“‘Hallo, Maximus! what’s wrong? Do you think the girl’s a witch?’

“‘No; but I t’ink she be funny. She look close into my face, and fly ’way when you come hout o’ tent.’

“‘That’s odd. Did you ever see her before?’

“‘I not see her yet. She keep face covered up.’

“‘Well, come along, it doesn’t signify. I want you to go with me to the chief’s wigwam, to ask where we are to put the dogs for the night, and to see about our own quarters.’

“Old Moggy’s wigwam stood at the distance of several hundred yards from the other tents of the village, from which it was separated by a belt of stunted trees and willows. Through this copsewood Maximus and I took our way, following one of the many beaten tracks made by the Indians. The night was clear, and we found no difficulty in picking our steps among the low shrubs. When we were about half-way through this wood, I observed a female form gliding among the bushes. She ran towards Maximus, who walked in advance and concealed me with his bulky form. But a slight bend in the road revealed my figure, and the woman paused, as if uncertain what to do.

“‘Surely that is your unknown friend again,’ said I, as we both halted. Then I beckoned her to approach. At first she appeared unwilling to do so; but suddenly she seemed to change her mind, and walking boldly up to Maximus, she threw back her hood and stood before him. I observed that she was Moggy’s young friend, but a wondrous change had come over her. The pale cheeks were now covered with a bright blush, and the sad eyes were sparkling with animation, as she gazed intently into the face of the Esquimau. For a few seconds Maximus looked like one thunder-struck. ‘Aneetka!’ he exclaimed vehemently, and, striding forward with a suppressed cry, clasped the girl in his arms.

“You may easily conceive my surprise at this scene. Immediately the recollection of the attack by the Indians on the Esquimau camp, and of Maximus’s young bride having been carried off, flashed upon me, and I had no doubt that the Esquimau girl now stood before me. Indeed, the fact of the broken exclamations uttered by the pair being in the Esquimau tongue put this beyond a doubt. A feeling of great delight filled my heart as I looked upon the couple thus unexpectedly reunited; while they, quite oblivious of my presence, poured out a flood of question and reply, in the midst of which they ever and anon embraced, to make sure, no doubt, of their physical identity. Then it suddenly occurred to me that I was behaving very ill, so I wheeled about and sauntered away to a little distance in the direction of the shore, in order to take some astronomical observations of the sky, and gaze inquiringly up at the moon, which at that moment broke through a bank of clouds, tipping the icebergs on the sea and the branches of the overhanging trees with silver light.

“In quarter of an hour Maximus came to me and presented his long-lost bride, Aneetka, whose pretty face beamed with joy, while her lover’s frame appeared to expand with felicity until he looked like an exaggerated Hercules. But we had no time to waste in talking of the past. The present required our instant and earnest attention; so we sat down on the stem of a fallen tree to consult as to how we were to get Aneetka out of the hands of her Indian captors. Her brief history, after she was captured at Ungava, was as follows:—

“The Indian who had intended to make her his bride found her resolved rather to die than to marry him; but hoping that time would overcome her objection, he placed her under the care of his widowed mother, Old Moggy, on returning to his village in the interior. Soon afterwards this Indian was killed by a brown bear, and the poor mother became a sort of outcast from the tribe, having no relations to look after her. She was occasionally assisted, however, by two youths, who came to sue for the hand of the Esquimau girl. But Aneetka, true to her first love, would not listen to their proposals. One of these lovers was absent on a hunting expedition at the time we discovered Aneetka; the other, a surly fellow, and disliked by the most of his comrades, was in the camp. From the day of her son’s death, a feeling of sympathy had sprung up between Old Moggy and the Esquimau girl, and this had gradually strengthened into affection.

“Thus matters stood when we fell in with her. After much deliberation, it was resolved that I should go to the old chief and tell him that Old Moggy and her adopted child wished to quit the tribe and go to Moose with us, to live there; while Aneetka should go and acquaint her old protectress with our plans and her own altered circumstances.

“‘Adieu, then, Aneetka,’ said I, as the girl pushed her lover away and bounded into the woods.—‘Now, Maximus, nothing will do for it but stout hearts and strong arms. Come along, lad.’

“I found, to my surprise, that the old chief had no objection to the arrangement I proposed. A few of the others did not seem inclined to part with their captive; but I explained to them the advantage it would be to them to have friends at court, as it were, and said that the fur-traders would be glad to support Moggy in her old age—which was true enough, for you all know as well as I do that there is not a post in the country where there are not one or more old or otherwise helpless Indians supported gratuitously by the Hudson’s Bay Company. The only man who resolutely opposed the proposal was Meestagoosh, the rejected lover; but I silenced him in a novel manner. He was a tall, powerful fellow, of about my own size.

“‘Come,’ said I to his assembled comrades, in the Indian language, for I found they understood my bad mixture of Cree and Sauteaux very well—‘come, friends, let us deal fairly in this matter. My man there has taken a fancy to the girl—let Meestagoosh and Maximus wrestle for her.’

“A loud laugh greeted this proposal, as the Indians surveyed the huge proportions of my Esquimau.

“‘Well, then,’ I continued, ‘if Meestagoosh is afraid of the Esquimau, I have no objections to try him myself.’ The Indian looked at me with an angry glance, and seemed, I thought, half inclined to accept the challenge; so, to cut the matter short, I took him by the throat and hurled him to the ground—a feat which was evidently enjoyed by his countrymen.

“Meestagoosh rose and retired with a savage scowl on his face, and I saw no more of him. Indeed, I believe he left the camp immediately.

“After this no opposition was offered, and I made the matter sure by distributing a large quantity of powder, shot, and tobacco to the chiefs. Old Moggy made no objection to our plan, so we set out the next day with an additional dog purchased from the Indians in order to make our team strong enough to haul the old woman when she got knocked up with walking. Six days brought us to Moose Fort, just as the ice on the river was breaking up. Here, as I have already told you, Maximus and Aneetka were married in due form by the Wesleyan missionary, after they had received some instruction and expressed their desire to become Christians. Then they were supplied with a canoe and all necessary provisions, and sent off to go round the coast to Ungava, accompanied by our good dog Chimo, for whom we had now no further use, and by Old Moggy, who would not consent to be separated from her friend Aneetka. They started along the coast on a fine spring day, and the back of his sealskin coat, shining in the sun’s rays like velvet, as the canoe swept out to sea, and disappeared behind a low point, was the last that I saw of Maximus.

“I will not weary you just now,” continued Frank, “with the details of my subsequent journeying, as, although full of incidents, nothing of a very thrilling character occurred except once. At Moose I remained till the rivers were clear of ice, and then set off into the interior of the country with a small canoe and five men, Oolibuck being bowsman. For many days we voyaged by rivers and lakes, until we arrived at the Michipicoten River, which is a very rough one, and full of tremendous falls and rapids. One day, while we were descending a rapid that rushed through a dark gorge of frowning rocks, and terminated in a fall, our canoe was broken in two, and the most of us thrown into the water. We all swam ashore in safety, with the exception of one man, who clung to the canoe, poor fellow, and was carried along with it over the fall. We never saw him more, although we searched long and carefully for his body.

“We now found ourselves in a very forlorn condition. We were dripping wet, without the means of making a fire, and without provisions or blankets, in the midst of a wild, uninhabited country. However, we did not lose heart, but set off on foot to follow the river to its mouth, where we knew we should find relief at Michipicoten Fort. The few days that followed were the most miserable I ever passed. We allayed the cravings of hunger by scraping off the inner bark of the trees, and by a few of last year’s berries which had been frozen and so preserved. Once or twice we crossed the river on rafts of drift-wood, and at night lay down close to each other under the shelter of a tree or cliff. At length we arrived at the fort on Lake Superior, quite worn out with fatigue and starvation. Here we waited until the canoes from Canada passed; and after a somewhat similar voyage, through woods, rivers, and lakes, arrived at length, about the beginning of autumn, at York Fort, on Hudson’s Bay.

“Here I spent some weeks in recalling to memory and recording on paper the contents of my dispatches, which had been lost, along with our canoe and baggage, in Michipicoten River; and when these were finished and delivered, I embarked, along with our outfit of goods, in the Beaver, and sailed for Ungava. I need scarcely add that the voyage was a prosperous one, and that the brightest day in it all was that on which we found the boat, with our dear little Edith, beset among the ice near the entrance to Ungava Bay.”

While Frank was thus occupied in narrating the events of his long journey in the hall of Fort Chimo, Oolibuck was similarly employed in entertaining the men. After the day’s toil of unloading the ship was over, he was placed in the middle of the circle, directly in front of the blazing fire, by Dick Prince and Massan; while Moses, Oostesimow, Gaspard, and Ma-istequan sat on his right; and Bryan, La Roche, François, and Augustus supported him on the left—all having pipes in their mouths, which were more or less blackened by constant use. A pipe was then handed to Oolibuck, and the order given, generally by Bryan, “to blaze away.”

This the oily-visaged Esquimau did with right good-will; and the shouts of laughter which issued from the house