The Road to Frontenac
- -
- 100%
- +
“Is the rendezvous at Niagara?”
“No, at La Famine, on the southern shore of Lake Ontario.”
Menard nodded. He knew the place; for by nearly starving there, years before, with the others of Governor la Barre’s ill-starred expedition, he had contributed to giving the spot a name.
“La Durantaye and Du Luth, with Tonty, are to meet us there. You will instruct them to move on to Niagara, and there await further orders. We shall sail around the east end of the lake and along the south shore.”
“The Iroquois will follow your movements.”
“We intend that they shall. They will not know where our final landing place will be, and will have to keep their forces well in hand. And it will prevent them from uniting to attack Niagara.”
“What then?”
“We will leave a strong guard at La Famine with the stores, and strike inland for the Seneca villages.”
“And now what part am I to play in this?”
Major Provost leaned back in his chair.
“You, Menard, are to represent the Governor. You will move in advance of the troops. At Frontenac it will be your duty to see first that the way is clear to getting the two divisions to the meeting place at La Famine, and to see that d’Orvilliers has the fort ready for the troops, with extra cabins and stockades. Then the Governor wishes you and d’Orvilliers to go over all the information the scouts bring in. If you can decide upon any course which will hold back the other tribes from aiding the Senecas, act upon it at once, without orders. In other words, you have full liberty to follow your judgment. That ought to be responsibility enough.”
Menard stretched his arms. “All right, Major. But when my day comes to taste the delights of Quebec, I hope I may not be too old to enjoy it.”
“The Governor honours you, Menard, with this undertaking.”
“He honoured De Sévigné with a majority and turned him loose in Quebec.”
“Too bad, Menard, too bad,” the Major laughed. “Now I, who ask nothing better than a brisk campaign, must rot here in Quebec until I die.”
“Are you not to go?”
“No. I am to stay behind and brighten my lonely moments drilling the rabble of a home guard. Do you think you will need an escort?”
“No; the river from here to Frontenac is in use every day. I shall want canoemen. Two will be enough.”
“Very well. Let me know what supplies you need. You mistake, man, in grumbling at the work. You are building up a reputation that never could live at short range. Stay away long enough and you will be a more popular man than the Governor. I envy you, on my honour, I do.”
“One thing more, Major. This galley affair; what do you think of it?”
“You mean the capture at Frontenac? You should know better than I, Menard. You brought the prisoners down.”
“There is no doubt in my mind, Major, nor in d’Orvilliers’s! We obeyed orders.” Menard looked up expressively. “You know the Iroquois. You know how they will take it. The worst fault was La Grange’s. He captured the party–and it was not a war party–by deliberate treachery. D’Orvilliers had intrusted to him the Governor’s orders that Indians must be got for the King’s galleys. As you know, d’Orvilliers and I both protested. I did not bring them here until the Governor commanded it.”
“Well, we can’t help that now, Menard.”
“That is not the question. You ask me to keep the Onondagas out of this fight, after we have taken a hundred of their warriors in this way.”
“I know it, Menard; I know it. But the Governor’s orders–Well, I have nothing to say. You can only do your best.”
They went to the reception room, where Madame de Provost awaited them. Menard was made to stay and dine, in order that Madame could draw from him a long account of his latest adventures on the frontier. Madame de Provost, though she had lived a dozen years in the province, had never been farther from Quebec than the Seignory of the Marquis de St. Denis, half a dozen leagues below the city. The stories that came to her ears of massacres and battles, of settlers butchered in the fields, and of the dashing adventures of La Salle and Du Luth, were to her no more than wild tales from a far-away land. So she chattered through the long dinner; and for the first time since he had reached the city, Menard wished himself back on Lake Ontario, where there were no women.
Menard returned to the citadel early in the evening. Lieutenant Danton was drawing plans for a redoubt, but he leaned back as Menard entered.
“I began to think you were not coming back, Captain,” he said. “I’m told the Major says that you are the only man in New France who could have got that trading agreement from the Onondagas last year. How did you do it?”
“How does a man usually do what he is told to do?” Menard sat on a corner of the long table and looked lazily at the boy.
“That wasn’t the kind of treaty our Governors make; you know it wasn’t.”
“You were not here under Frontenac.”
“No. I wish I had been. He must have been a great orator. My father has told me about the long council at Montreal. He said that Frontenac out-talked the greatest of the Mohawk orators. Did you learn it from him?”
“My boy, when you are through with your pretty pictures,” Menard motioned toward the plans, “and have got out into the real work; when you’ve spent months in Iroquois lodges; when you’ve been burned and shot and starved,–then it will be a pity if you haven’t learned to be a soldier. What is this little thing you are drawing?”
Danton flushed. “You may laugh at the engineers,” he said, “but where would King Louis be now if–”
“Tut, my boy, tut!”
“That is very well–”
Menard laughed. “How old are you, Danton?” he asked.
“Twenty-two.”
“Very good. You have got on well. I dare say you’ve learned a deal out of your books. Now we have you out here in the provinces, where the hard work is done. Well send you back in a few years a real man. And then you’ll step smartly among the pretty officers of the King, and when one speaks of New France you’ll lift your brows and say: ‘New France? Ah, yes. That is in America. I was there once. Rather a primitive life–no court, no army.’ Ah, ha, my boy–no, never mind. Come up to my quarters and have a sip of real old Burgundy.”
“Are you ever serious, Menard?” asked Danton, sitting on the Captain’s cot and smacking his lips over the liquor.
Menard smiled. “I’m afraid I shall have to play at composure for an hour,” he said. “I must see Father Claude. Settle yourself here, if you like.”
Menard hurried away, for it was growing late. He found the Jesuit meditating in his cell.
“Ah, Captain Menard, I am glad to see you so soon again.”
Menard sat on the narrow bed and stretched out his legs as far as he could in the cramped space.
“How soon will your duties be over here, Father?”
“There seems to be no reason for me to stay. I have delivered the relations, and no further work has come to hand.”
“Then it may be that you can help me, Father.”
“You know, my son, that I will.”
“Very well. I have been ordered to Fort Frontenac in advance of the troops. I am to bear orders to d’Orvilliers and to Du Luth and La Durantaye. It is possible that there may be some delicate work to be done among the Indians. You know the Iroquois, Father, and our two heads together should be stronger than mine alone. I want you to go with me.”
The priest’s eyes lighted.
“It may be that I can get permission at Montreal.”
“You will go, then?”
“Gladly. It is to be no one else–we two–”
“We shall have canoemen. To my mind, the fewer the better.”
“Still, Captain, you cannot depend on the canoemen. Would it not be well to have one other man? You might need a messenger.”
Menard thought for a moment.
“True, Father. And if I am to have a man, he had best be an officer; yes, a man who could execute orders. I’ll take Danton. You will be ready for a start, Father, probably to-morrow?”
“At any time, my son.”
“Good night.”
There was little work to be done in preparing for the journey (Major Provost would attend to the supplies and to engaging the canoemen), and Menard still was in the lazy mood. He stood for a while at the edge of the cliff and looked down at the wharf. It was dark, and he could not see whether the body of the Indian had been removed. The incident of the afternoon had been gathering importance to his mind the longer he thought of it. Five years earlier Menard had been captured by the Onondagas during a fight near Fort Frontenac. They had taken him to one of their villages, south of Lake Ontario, and for days had tortured him and starved him. They had drawn out cords from his arms and legs and thrust sticks between them and the flesh. His back was still covered with scars from the burning slivers which they had stuck through the skin. They had torn the nails from his left hand with their teeth. Then Otreouati, the Big Throat, the chief who had led his followers to believe in Frontenac, came back from a parley with another tribe, and taking a liking to the tall young soldier who bore the torture without flinching, he adopted him into his own family. Menard had lived with the Indians, a captive only in name, and had earned the name of the Big Buffalo by his skill in the hunt. At last, when they had released him, it was under a compact of friendship, that had never since been broken. It had stood many tests. Even during open campaigns they had singled him out from the other Frenchmen as their brother. He wondered whether they knew of his part in stocking the King’s galleys. Probably they did.
It was late when Menard took a last sweeping look at the river and walked up to the citadel. His day of idleness was over. After all, it had not been altogether a wasted day. But it was the longest holiday he was likely to have for months to come. Having made up his mind to accept the facts, he stretched out on his bed and went to sleep.
Danton took the news that he was to be a member of the party with enthusiasm. Menard had hardly finished telling him when he swept the tiresome plans and specifications into a heap at the end of the table, and rushed out to get a musket (for a sword would have no place in the work before them). The start was to be made at noon, but Danton was on the ground so early as almost to lower his dignity in the eyes of the bronzed canoemen. He wore his bravest uniform, with polished belt and buttons and new lace at the neck. His broad hat had a long curling feather. He wore the new musket slung rakishly over his shoulder.
About the middle of the forenoon, as Menard was looking over his orders, memorizing them in case of accident to the papers, he was found by Major Provost’s orderly, who said that the Commandant wished to see him at once.
The Major was busy with the engineers in another room, but he left them.
“Menard,” he said abruptly, “I’ve got to ask you to do me a favour. If I could see any way out of it–”
“I will do anything I can.”
“Thank you. I suppose you know the Marquis de St. Denis?”
“Slightly.”
“Well, I shan’t take time to give you the whole story. St. Denis has the seignory six leagues to the east. You may know that he went into debt to invest in La Salle’s colonizing scheme in Louisiana. St. Denis was in France at the time, and had great faith in La Salle. Of course, now that La Salle has not been heard from, and the debts are all past due without even a rumour of success to make them good–you can imagine the rest. The seignory has been seized. St. Denis has nothing.”
“Has he a family?” asked Menard.
“A daughter. His wife is dead. He came here after you left last night, and again this morning. We are old friends, and I have been trying to help him. He is going to sail to-day on Le Fourgon for Paris to see what he can save from the wreck. My house is crowded with the officers who are here planning the campaign; but St. Denis has a cousin living at Frontenac, Captain la Grange, and we’ve got to get Valerie there somehow. Do you think it will be safe?”
“It’s a hard trip, you know; but it’s safe enough.”
“I shan’t forget your kindness, Menard. The girl is a spirited little thing, and she takes it hard. Madame has set her heart on getting her to La Grange. I don’t know all the details myself.”
“I think we can arrange it, Major. We start in an hour.”
“She will be there. You are a splendid fellow, Menard. Good-bye.”
Menard’s face was less amiable once he was away from the house. He knew from experience the disagreeable task that lay before him. But there was nothing to be said, so he went to his quarters and took a last look at the orders. Then taking off his coat and his rough shirt, he placed the papers carefully in a buckskin bag, which he hung about his neck.
Everything was ready at the wharf. The long canoe lay waiting, a voyageur at each end. The bales were stowed carefully in the centre. Father de Casson met Menard at the upper end of the dock. He had come down by way of the winding road, for his bundle was heavy, and he knew no way but to carry it himself. Menard good-naturedly gave him a hand as they crossed the dock. When they had set it down, and Menard straightened up, his eyes twinkled, for young Danton, in his finery, was nervously walking back and forth at the edge of the dock, looking fixedly into the canoe, apparently inspecting the bales. His shoulders were unused to the musket, and by a quick turn he had brought the muzzle under the rim of his hat, setting it on the side of his head. His face was red.
Sitting on a bundle, a rod away, was a girl, perhaps eighteen or nineteen years old, wearing a simple travelling dress. Her hands were clasped tightly in her lap, and she gazed steadily out over the water with an air that would have been haughty save for the slight upward tip of her nose.
Menard’s eyes sobered, and he handed his musket to one of the canoemen. Then he crossed over to where the maiden was sitting.
“Mademoiselle St. Denis?”
The girl looked up at him. Her eyes seemed to take in the dinginess of his uniform. She inclined her head.
“I am Captain Menard. Major Provost tells me that I am to have the honour of escorting you to Fort Frontenac. With your permission we will start. Father Claude de Casson is to go with us, and Lieutenant Danton.”
The bundle was placed in the canoe. Menard helped the girl to a seat near the middle: from the way she stepped in and took her seat he saw that she had been on the river before. Danton, with his Parisian airs, had to be helped in carefully. Then they were off, each of the four men swinging a paddle, though Danton managed his awkwardly at first.
CHAPTER III.
MADEMOISELLE EATS HER BREAKFAST
The sun hung low over the western woods when Menard, at the close of the second day, headed the canoe shoreward. The great river swept by with hardly a surface motion, dimpling and rippling under the last touch of the day breeze. Menard’s eyes rested on Father Claude, as the canoe drew into the shadow of the trees. The priest, stiff from the hours of sitting and kneeling, had taken up a paddle and was handling it deftly. He had rolled his sleeves up to the elbow, showing a thin forearm with wire-like muscles. The two voyageurs, at bow and stern, were proving to be quiet enough fellows. Guerin, the younger, wore a boyish, half-confiding look. His fellow, Perrot, was an older man.
Menard felt, when he thought of Danton, a sense of pride in his own right judgment. The boy was taking hold with a strong, if unguided, hand. Already the feather was gone from his hat, the lace from his throat. Two days in the canoe and a night on the ground had stained and wrinkled his uniform,–a condition of which, with his quick adaptability, he was already beginning to feel proud. He had flushed often, during the first day, under the shrewd glances of the voyageurs, who read the inexperience in his bright clothes and white hands. Menard knew, from the way his shoulders followed the swing of his arms, that the steady paddling was laming him sadly. He would allow Danton five days more; at the week’s end he must be a man, else the experiment had failed.
The canoe scraped bottom under a wild growth of brush and outreaching trees. The forest was stirring with the rustle and call of birds, with the breath of the leaves and the far-away crackle and plunge of larger animals through the undergrowth. A chipmunk, with inquisitive eyes, sat on the root of a knotted oak, but he whisked away when Menard and the canoemen stepped into the shallow water. Overhead, showing little fear of the canoe and of the strangely clad animals within it, scampered a family of red squirrels, now nibbling a nut from the winter’s store, now running and jumping from tree to tree, until only by the shaking of the twigs and the leaf-clusters could one follow their movements.
The maid leaned an elbow on the bale which Danton had placed at her back, and rested her cheek on her hand. They were under the drooping branches of an elm that stood holding to the edge of the bank. Well out over the water sat one of the squirrels, his tail sweeping above his head, nibbling an acorn, and looking with hasty little glances at the canoe. She watched him, and memories came into her eyes. There had been squirrels on her father’s seignory who would take nuts from her hand, burying them slyly under the bushes, and hurrying back for more.
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. Stepping over the bracing-strips between the gunwales, she caught a swaying branch, and swung herself lightly ashore. Back from the water the ground rose into a low hill, covered with oak and elm and ragged hickory trees. Here, for a space, there was little undergrowth, and save under the heaviest of the trees the ground was green with short, coarse grass. Danton took a hatchet from the canoe, and trimmed a fir tree, heaping armfuls of green boughs at the foot of an oak near the top of the slope. Over these he threw a blanket. The maid came slowly up the hill, in response to his call, and with a weary little smile of thanks she sank upon the fragrant couch. She rested against the tree trunk, 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 maid than he could have left off eating or breathing or laughing,–Danton, for all his short Paris life (which should, Heaven knows, have given him a front with the maids), could do nothing but hang about, eager for a smile or a word, yet too young to know that he could better serve his case by leaving her with her thoughts, and with the boundless woods and the great lonely spaces of the river. Menard saw the comedy–as indeed, who of the party did not–and was amused. A few moments later he glanced again toward the oak. He was sharpening a knife, and could seem not to be observing. Danton was sitting a few yards from the maid, with the awkward air of a youth who doubts his welcome. She still looked out over the water. Menard saw that her face was white and drooping. He knew that she had not slept; for twice during the preceding night, as he lay in his blanket, he had heard from under the overturned canoe, where she lay, the low sound of her sobbing.
Menard walked slowly down the slope, testing the knife-edge with his thumb, 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 the priest, kneeling, in a clearing, before the portrait of Catharine Outasoren, which he had set against a tree. His brushes and paints were spread on the ground before him. He did not hear Menard approach.
“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,” said Menard, with a significant glance at the portrait.
The priest lowered his brush, and sat looking at the picture with 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 entirely completed, 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 his pipe.
“I have been doing some thinking in the last few minutes, Father. I’ve decided 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. She is taking it very hard. She is afraid, Father, all the time; and she neither 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 customs and 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, and I was detailed to bring his wife and daughter down to Three Rivers? It was much like this. They fretted and could not sleep, and the coarse fare of the road was beneath their appetites. Do you remember? And when it came to taking the rapids, with the same days of hard work that lie before us now, they were too weak, and they sickened, the mother first, then the daughter. When I think of that, Father, of the last week of that journey, and of how I swore never again to take a woman in my care on the river, I–well, there is no use in going over it. If this goes on, we shall not get to Frontenac in time, that is all. And I cannot afford to take such a chance.”
The priest looked grave. The long struggle against the rapids from Montreal to La Gallette had tried the hardihood of more than one strong man.
“It is probable, my son, that the sense of your responsibility makes you a little over-cautious. She is a strong enough child, I should say. Still, perhaps the food is not what she has been accustomed to. I have noticed that she eats little.”
“Perrot is too fond of grease,” Menard said. “I must tell him to use less grease.”
“If she should be taken sick, we could leave her with someone at Montreal.”
“Leave her at Montreal!” exclaimed Menard. “When she breaks down, it will be in the rapids. And then I must either go on alone, or wait with you until she is strong enough to be carried. In any case it means 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 that worries her, and sorrow for her father, and dread of what is before and around her. I’ll warrant she has never been away from her home before. 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 to make her stop thinking, stop looking backward and forward. And there is Danton; he can help. He is of an age with her, and should succeed where 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. The maid is on our hands, and must be got to Frontenac. That is all. And there 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? They would fit as well any idle lieutenant in Quebec, who is lucky enough to have an eye, and a pair of shoulders, and a bit of the King’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 young and foolish,–as may we all have been,–but he is a gentleman born.”
“Very well,” replied the priest, looking with regret at the failing light, and beginning to gather his brushes. “I will counsel her, but I fear it will do little good. If the maid is sick at heart, and we attempt 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 left the tribe for the Mission. Now and again there comes a time, even with piety to strengthen them,–and this maid has little,–when the yearning 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–”