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TKE

HDOO^yC

MAMELONS,

A LEGEND OF THE SAGUENAY,

wnii

A DESCRIPTION AND MAP OP

THE LAKE ST, JOHN AND SABUENAY

iHisG-ioisr.

^V. H. H. MURRAY.

TOURIST EDITION'.

QUEBEC :

I-KINTKI) AT TIIK " MORNINd CIJUUNRLK" OFKUIK.

IS88.

S3 f^.d

Because he is my countryman, a perfect angler,
a great artist, a genial comrade and a true friend, I in-
scribe this little volume to Walter M. Brackett,
of Boston.

Quebec, April 20th, 1888.

The Author.

3:;=3e=

--TvTTrr!r™!sc^^"!SSP*^

THE DOOM OF MAMELONS.

ARGUMENT.

Tlie (levelopcmetit of the story turns upon tho workintfof'nn uh\
• Indian prophecy or tradition, which had been in tlie l^-niii-litMiiipp
tribe, to the eHVct, tliat wlien an intermarriage l)et\veen a princess of
their tribe uml a wliite man should occur, it shoiibi brinif ruin to the
tribe, and cause it to become extinct at Mainch)n.s. For it was at the
mouth of tlie Saguenay an they lield, that the whites lirst landed on
this western continent This intermarriage, or '* cross of red with
white ■' had o urred, and the time had nearly come when the hist of
the race should die at .Mamelons.

The persons introduced into tiiis tale are John Norton, the trapper,
who is comrade and bosom friend of the chief of the Lenni-Lenapc.
The chief himself, who is dying from an old wound received in a light
at Mamelons, and nas sent a runner to summon the trapper to his bed-
side, to leceive his dying message. A very beautiful woman of that
most peculiar and ancient of all known peoples, the i>as(pie3 of
Suutiiern Spain, the last of their (piieuly line, who has been married
in France by the chief's brother, and to whom a daughter has been
born ; — Atla, the beautiful heroine of the story. And in addition to
these, is an old chief of the famous Mistassinni tribe, who had had his
tongue cutout at the torture stake by the Ks<]uimaux, from whose fury
•he had been rescued by a party of warriors, lieaded l)y the trapper.

At Mamelons in a great fight, fought in the darkness and terror
of an earthquake commotion, the chief of the Lenni-Lenape, had, un-
knowingly, slain his brother, who, reluming from France with his
young Bascjue wife, had been wrecked on the coast of Labrador, and
out of gratitude to the Escpiimau.K, wiio iiail treated him kindly, he
joined their ranks as they marched up to the great batiie ai Mamelons.
Thus, fighting as fois, unknown to each other, in the darkness that
■enveloped the field, he was killed by iiis brother, having seriously
wounded him in return.

The Basipie princess, thus widowed by the untimely death of her
young husband, gave birth to Atla, who was thus born an orphan,
and under doom herself Her mother, soon after the birth of Atla,
was rescued from death by the trapper, and loved bim with all the
ardor of her fervent nature. His affection she strove and hoped to
win, and would, perhaps, have succeeded, had not death claimed her.

Dying, ahe left hor love and hopes as an heritage to her daughter,
and charged her, with solemn tundcrness, to win the trapper's atfec-
tioiis, and married to him become the mother of a mighty race, in
whoso blood the beauty and strength of the two oldest and handsomest
races of the earth should be happily mingled.

The chief, knowing of her wish, and the instructions left to Atla
by her departed mother, summons the trapper to his deathbed, to tell
him the origin of the doom, and the possibility or surety of its being
avoided by his loving and marrying Atla. For by the condition of
(he old curse it was proclaimed when spoken, that the " doom shall
not hold in case of son born in the female line from sire without a
cross," viz: — from a pure blooded white man. The trapper in hia
humility feels himself to be unworthy of so splendid an alliance, and
resists the natural promptings of his heart.

But at last the beautiful Atla wins him to a full confession ; and
at her urgent request, against the trapper's wish, they start for Mame-
lons to be married, and where, before the rite is concluded, she dies,
so fulfilling the old prediction of her father's tribe.

In the Basque princess, the mother of Atla, the author has striven

to portray an utterly unconventional woman, natural,, barbaric,

original. Splendid in her beauty, and glorious in her passions, such

as actually lived in the world in the far past, when women were—

it must be confessed — totally unlike the prevalent type of to-day. In

her child Atla, the same type of natural womanhood is preserved, but

slightly sobered in tone and shade of expression. But as studies of the

beautiful and the unconventional in womanhood, both are unique and

delightful.

PUBLISHER.

daughter,
per' 8 affec-
ity race, in
landsomest

left to Atla
bed, to tell
)f its being
ondition of
loom shall
without a
per in hia
lance, and

si on ; and
for Mame-
1 she dies,

as striven
barbaric,
ons, such
n were —
day. In
•ved, but
lies of the
lique and

[ER.

PREFACE TO TOURIST EDITION.

1 thank the Press and public, both of Canada
and my o\vn < ountry, for the cordial reception
given to iny little romance, and trust that the
description of the Lake St. John and Sagucnay
Kogion. now added to it, with the accompanying
map for anglers and tourists, will make it even
more acceptable to them.

W. II. H. xMuKRAY.

rrrr:

MAMELONS;

A LEGEND OF THE SAGUENAY.

CHAPTER f.

THE TRAIL.

IT wns II long- and lonely trail, tht^ southern
end of which John Norton struck in answer
to the summons which a tired runner brougbt
him i'rom the north. The man had ma<le brave
running", for when he reached the trapper's cabiu
and had placed the birchbark packet in his hands^
he staggered to a pile of skins and dropped heavily
on them, like a hound which, from a three days*

chase, trails weakly to the hunter's door, spent
nigh to death. So came the runner, running from
the north, and so, spent with his mighty race,
dropped as one dead upon the pile of skins.

He bore the death call of a friend, whose friend-

1 Mameloag. The Indian's nnme for the mouth ot the Saguenay^
and signifies the Place of the Great Mounds. See note 12.

MameloNS.

shii) had been tested on many an ambushed trail
and the sliarp edge of dubious battle. The call
was writ on bark of birch, thin as the thinnest silk
the ancients wove from gossamer when weaving
was an art and mystery, and not a sordid
trade to earn a pittance with, traced in de-
licate letters by a hand the trapper would have
died for. A good live hundred miles thnt trail ran
northward before it ended at the couch of skins,
in the great room of the great house, in which the
chief lay dying. And when the trapper struck it
he struck it as an eagle strikes homeward toward
the cradle crag of his younglings, when talons are
heavy and daylight scant, lie drew his line by
the star that never sets, and little turning did he
make for river, rapids, or tangled swamp, for
mountain slope or briery windfall. He drew a
trail no man had ever trod — a blazeless- trail, un-

- Fii order to mark tlie diioctiot! of his course in trailing through
the woods the trailer slashes with his axe or knife the bark of the trees
he passep, h.v which signs he is able to rotrace his course safely, or
follow the same trail easily some future time. A blazed trail is one
thus plainly marked. A blazeless trail is one on which the trailer
has no marks or " blazess" to run by, but draws his line by other and
occult signs, which tell him In what direction he is going and which
are known only by those initiated in the mysteries of woodcraft.

The Trail.

led trail
rhe call
nest silk
sveaving
sordid
ill de-
ild have
trail rail
ji" skiiLs,
hicli the
!«trmk it
. toward
lions are
lino by-
did he
np, for
drew a
ail, un-

Ig through
)t the trees

satVly, or

Irail is one

the Imiler

lulhor aiul

iml which

i-aft.

marked by stroke o( axe or cut of knife, by broken
twig or sharpened rod, struck into mold or moss,
and })y its anglet-' elling whence came the trailer,
whither wont he, and how fast. From oarliesi
dawn till night thickened the w^oods and massed
the trees into a solid blackness, he hurried on,
straight as a pigeon Hies wlien homing, studying
no sign for guidance, leaving none to toll that he
luid coiiii' ami goiii'. lie wms nt middle prime of
lil'i', touiili and pliant as an ashen bough grown on
hill, seasoned in hall, sweated and strung f)y <"on-
slaiit t'xoreise lor highest action, and now (^ach
muscle and e;ich sinew of his I'onditioned fraimr
was taut with tension of a strong desire — to reach
^ the bedsidt) ol the dying chief belore he di"d. For
the me.oag*^ read: "Come to me (piiek, for I am
alone with the terror of death. The chief is dying.
At the pillar of white rock, on the lake, a canoo
with oars and paddle, will be waiting."

•^ Ceituiii tiibos o! Imliiuia norili ot'ilie St. Lawronco Id't accurate
ii'conl of ihtMT r.Tte ot pfogres:?, asvi liow far ihoy had come hy tlie

J It'iigth anil angle uJ tlie slanted sticks they drove here and there into-
the grou.'itl as thoy sped o'l. Th.e Xascimpees were best koown as

1 praotii'I'.ip th'^j habit.

Mamehns.

The trapper was clad in buckskin from cap to
moccasins. His tunic, belted tight and fringeless,
was opened widely at the throat for freest breathing.
A pack, small, but rounded with strained fullness,
was at his back. His horn and pouch were knotted
to his sidiv In tightened belt was knife, and,
trailing muzzle down und held reversed, a double
rille. Stripped was the man for speed, as when
))alanced on the issue of the race hang life and
death. As some great ship, caught by some sudden
gale olf Anticosti or Dead Man's reef, and bare of
sail, stripi)ed to her spars, past battures, hollow and
hoarse-voiced as death and ghastly white, and
through the damned eddies that would suck her
down and crush her with stones which grind for-
ever and never see the light, sharpening their
cuttings with their horrid grists, runs scudding ;
so ran the strong man northward, urged by a fear
stronger than that of wreck on the ghost-peopled
shore of deadly St. Lawrence. A hound, huge of
size, bred to a hair, ambled steadly on at heel.
And though he crossed many a scent, and more
than once his hurrying master started a buck warm

The Trait.

from his nost, and nose was busy \vith knowledge

of game afoot, ho gave no whimper nor swerved
aside, but, silent, followed on the way his master
was so hurriedly making, as if he felt with him
the solemn need which urged the trail northward.
Never before had runner faced a longer or a harder
trail, or under high command or deadly peril
pushed it so fiercely forward.

Seven days the trail ran thus, and still the man,
tireless of foot, hurried on, and the hound followed
silently at heel. AYhat a body was his I How its
powers responded to the soul's summons ! For on
this seventh day of highest effort, taxing with
heavy strain each muscle, bone, and joint to the
utmost, days lengthened from earliest dawn to
deepest gloaming, the strong man's face was fresh,
his eye was bright, and he swung steadly onward,
with long, swinging, easy-motioned gait, as if the
prolonged and terrible effoit he was making was
but a morning's burst of speed for healthy exercise.

The climate favored him. October, with all its
glorious colors, was on the woods, and the warm
body of the air was charged through and through

1 u

Mamelons.

with cool atmospheric movements from tho
north. It was an air to race for one's life in. Soft
to the lungs, but filled to its blue edge with oxygen
and that mystic element men call ozone ; the over-
flow of Grod's vitality spilled over the azure brim
of heaven, whose volatile flavor fills the nose of
him w^ho breathes the air of mountains. Favored
thus by rare conditions, the best that nature gives
the trailer, the strong man raced onward
through the rip 3 woods like an old-time run-
ner running for the laurel crown and the applause
of Greece.

It w^as nigh sunset of the seventh day, and the
trapper halted beside a spring, which bubbled
coldly up from a cleft rock at the base of a cliff.
He cast aside his hunting shirt, baring his body to
the waist, and bathed himself in the cool water.
He knelt to its mossy rim and sank his head slow-
ly down into the refreshing depths, and held it
there, that he might feel the delicious coolness run
thrilling through his heated body. He cast his
moccasins aside and bathed his feet, sore and hot
from monstrous effort, sinking them knee deep in

The Trail.

the cold flowage of the blessed spring. Then, re-
freshed, he stood upon the velvet bank, his mighty
chest and baok pink as a lady's palm, his strong
feet glowing, his face aflush through its deep tan,
whilo the wind dried him, and the golden leaves
of the overlianging maples fell round him in show-
ers.

Refreshed and strengthened, he reclothed him-
self, relaced his moccasins and tightened belt, but
before he broke away he drew the sheet of birch-
bark from his breast and read the lines traced deli-
cately thereon.

"Yes, Tread aright," he muttered to himself ;
** the writing on the birch is plain as ivy on the
oak : ' Come to me quick, for I am alone with
the terror of death. The chief lies dying. At
the pillar of white rock, on the lake, a canoe, with
oars and paddle, will be waiting.' " And the trap-
per thrust back the writing to its place above his
heart and burst away down the decline that lead
to the lake at a run.

" I've bent the trail like a fool," he muttered, as
he reached the bottom of the dip, " or the lake lies

3Ia melons.

hereaway," and oven as he spoke the waters oi' a
lake, red with the rod flame of the sotting sun,
gk^amed like a Held of firo through the maple trees.
With a gesture of delight the trapper dashed a hand
into the air, and burst away again at a lope through
the russet bushes and golden loaves that lay like
pluoked plumage, ankle deep, upon the ground,
toward the lake, burning redly through the trees
not lifty rods beyond. A moment brought him to
the shore, bordered thick with cedar growths, and,
breaking tlirough the fragrant branches with a lOap,
he landed on a beach of silver sand, and lo ! to the
left, not a dozen rods away, washed by the red
waves, stood the signal rock, iifty feet in height,
and from water line to summit white as drifted
snow.

*' God be praised !'' exclaimed the trapper, and
he lifted his cap reverently. " God be jnaised that
I reckoned the course aright and ran the trail
straight from end to end. For the woods be wide
and long, and to have missed this lake would have
been a sorry hap when one like her is alone with
the dying. But where is the canoe that she said

The Trail.

should be here, for sixty inilets of hike cannot be
jumped like a brook or forded like a rapid, and the
island lies nigh the western shore, and who may
reach it aiuot ?" And he ran his eyes along the
.sand for sii^ns to tell if boat or human foot had
pressed it.

He searched the beach a mile around the bay^
but not a sign of human presence could be found.
Then nigh the signal rock he sat upon the sand,
unloosed his pack, and from it took crust and meat,
of which he ate, then fed the hound, sharing
8cant supper with him equally. '• It is the last
morsel. Rover," said the trapper to the dog as he
fed him. " It is the last morsel in the pack, and
you and 1 will breakfast lightly unless luck comes."
The dog surely understood his master's saying, for
he rolled his hungry eyes toward the pack as if he
bitterly sensed the bitter prophecy ; then — true
canine philosopher as he was — he curled himself
in a bunch of dried leaves contentedly, as if by ex-
tra sleep he would make good the lack of food.

" Thou art wiser than men I" exclaimed the trap-
per, looking reflectively at his canine companion^

Mam elans.

now snoring in his warm russet bed. " Thou art
wiser, my dog, than men, for they waste breath
and time in bewailing their hard fortunes, but you
make good the loss that pinches thee by holding
fast and quickly to thenearosl gain." And he gaz-
ed upon the sleeping hound with rellecting and
admiring eyes.

Then slowly behind the western hills sank the
red sun. The fervor faded from the water and the
lake darkened. The winds died with the day.
(haduaDy the farther shore retired from sight, and
the distinguishing hills became blankly black.
The upper air held on to the retreating light awhile,
but finally surrendered the last trace, and night
filled all the world.

Amid the gathering gloom upon the beach the
trapper sat in counsel with his thoughts. At length
he rose, and with dry driftage within reach kindled
a lire. By the light of it he cut some branches of
nigh cedars, and with them made a bed upon the
sand, then cast himself upon his fragrant couch.
Twice he renewed the fire with larger sticks. At
last, tired nature failed the will. The toil of the Ions:

The Trail.

trail fell heavily on him. Slumber captured hi3
siMises and he slept the sleep of sheer exhaustion.
But b^ifore he slept he muttered to himself:

'• She said a canoe, with oars and paddle, should
))e here, and the canoe will come."

The hours passed on. The Dippjr turned its
circle in the northern sky, and slars rose and set.
The warm shores felt the eoolness of the night, and
from the water's odgv a soft mist llowed and floated
in thin layers along- the cooling snids. The logs
of seasoned woods glowed with a steady warmth
in the calm air. The fog turned yellow as it
drifted over the burning brands, so that a halo
crowned the ruddy heat. The night was at its
middle watch, when the hound arose and ques-
tioned the lake with lifted nose, but his mouth
gave no signal. If one was coming, it was the
coming of a friend Ten minutes passed, then he
whined softly, and, walking to the water's edge»
waited expectant ; not long, for in a moment a
canoe, moving silently, as if wind-blown, came
iloating toward the beach, and lodged upon it noise-
lessly, as bird on bough. And a girl, paddle ia

Mamelons.

hand, stepped to his side, and, stooping, caressed
his head, then moved toward the lire and stood
above the sleeping man.

She gently stirred the brands until they flamed,
and in the light thus made studied the strong face
bronzed with the tan of the woods, the lace of one
who never failed friend nor fought foe in vain, and
who had come so far and sw^iftly in answer to her
call. She was of that old race who lived in the
morning of the world, when giants walked the
earth ^ and the sons of God married the daughters
of men.^ And the old blood's love of strength was
in her. She noted the power and symmetry of his
mighty frame, which lay relaxed from tension in
the graceful attitude of sleep ; the massive chest,
broad as two common men's, w^hich rose and fell
to his deep breathing ; the great, strongly corded
neck, rooted to the vast trunk as some huge oak
grown on a rounded hill. She noted, too, the large
and shapely head, the thick, black hair, closely
cropped, and the sleeper's face — where might

4 There were giantg In the earth in those days. Gen. vi, 4

5 The sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair ;
and they took them wives of all which they choose. Gen. vi, 2,

The Trail.

! fair;

woman find another like it ? — lean of flesh, large
featured, plain, but stamped with the seal of
honesty, chisolod clean of surplus by no))le ab-
stiiKMice, and bearing on its fiont thf look of pride,
of power and courage to fa-.o foe or fate. Thus
the girl sat and watched bi.n as he slept, stirring
the brands softly that she might not lose sight of a
face which was to her the face of a god — su<h god
as the proudest woman of her race, in the old time
might, with art or goodness, have won and wedded.

Dawn came at last. The blue above turned
gray. The stars shortened their pointed lires and
faded. The east kindled and flamed. Heat llowed
westward like an essential oil hidden in the pores
and channels of the air ; w^hile light, brightly clean
and clear, ran round the horizon, revealing its own
and the loveliness of the world.

Then woke the birds. Morning found a voice
sweet as her face. A hermit thrush sent her soft,
pure call from the damp depths of the dripping
woods. A woodpecker signaled breakfast with his
hammer so sturdly that all the elfin echoes of the
hills merrily mimiced him. An eagle, hunting

11 <t

Mameiotis.

M ;

through the sky, at tho heiglit of a mile, dropped
like a plumniol into tho lake, and struggling up-
ward IVom his perilous plunge, heavily weighted,
lined his slow lliglit straight toward his distant
crag, Tiie girl rcsi' io her feel, and, leaning on
her i>addle, lor a moment gazed long and tenderly
at Iho skMp(M's face, then soil ly breathed. "John
Norton !"

The call, low as: it was, broke through the leaden
gates of slumber with the suddenness and effect of
a great surprise. Quick as a ilash he came to his;
feet, and, for a moment stood dazed, bewildered, his
bodily powers breaking out of sleep quicker than
his senses, and he saw the girl as visitant in vision.
He stepped to the water's edge and bathed his face,
and turning, freshened and fully awake, saw with
glad and apprehensive eyes, who stood before him,
and tenderly said :

" Is the daughter of the old race well !"

" "Well, well I am, John Norton," answered

ihe girl, and her voice was low and sjoftly musical,

as water falling into water. " I am well, friend of

my mother and my friend. And the chief slill

The Trait,

lives, and will live till you com**, lor so ho bade
me lell you." And she reached her small haiul
out to him. Ho took it iu his own, and held it as
one holds the hand ol" child, and answered :

" I am jrlad. Thou comt'st like a bird iu tlie
]iight, siK'utly. Why did you not wake me when
you came ?"

"Why .sliould I wake thee, John Norton f
returned the girl. " I am a day ahead of that the
chiei' set for your coming. For our runner— th 3
swiftest in the woods from Mistassinni to Labrador,
said: 'Twelve suns must rise and set before ray
words could reach thee,' and the chief declared :
• No living man, not ev^en you, could fetch the trail
short of ten days.' He timed me to this rock him-
self, and told me when I would come nor stay
another hour, that I would wait by the white rock
two days before I saw your lace. But I would
come, for a voi.^e within me said — a voice which
runs vocal in our blood, and has so run throuijh all
my race since the beginnii?.g of the world— this
voice within kept saying : ' Go, for thou shall Jind
him there .'' And so I, hurrying, came. But tell

Mamelons.

h ■■

me how many days were you upon the trail?"
" I fetched the trail in seven days from sun to
sun," answered the trapper, modestly.

" Seven days !" exclaimed the girl, while the
light of a great surprise and admiration shone in her
eyes. " Seven days ! Thou hast the deer's foot
and the cougar's strength, John Norton. No
wonder that the war chiefs love you."
And then after pause :

" But why didst thou push the trail so iiercely ?'*
" I read you summons and I came," replied the
trapper, sententiously.

The girl started at the hearing of the words,
which told her so simply of her power over the
man in front of her. Her nostrils dilated, and
through the glorious swarth of her cheek there
came a Hash of deeper red. The gloom of her eyes
moistened like glass to the breath. Her ripe lips
parted as at the passing of a gasp, and the full form
lifted as if the spirit of passion within would fling
the beautiful frame it filled upon the strong man's
bosom. Thus a moment the sweet whirlwind
seized and shook her, then passed. Her eye»

The Trail.

drooped modestly, and with a sweet humbleness,
as one who has received from heaven beyond he
hope or merit, she simply said :

" I have brought you food, John Norton. Come
and eat."

The food was of the woods. Bread coarse and
brown, but sw eet with the full cereal sw^eetness ;
corn, parched in the live, which eaten lino-ercd lons"
as a rich flavor in the mouth ; venison, roasted for
a hunter's hunger, wi<hin whose crisp surface the
life of the deer still showed redly ; water from the
lake, drank from a cup shaped from the inner bark
of the golden birch, whose hollow curvature still
burned with warm chrome colors. So, on the cool
lake shore, in the red light of early morn, they
broke their fast.

The trapper ate as a strong man eats after long
toil and scant feeding, not grossly, but with a
hearti)iess good to see. The girl ate little, and that
absently, as if the atoms in her mouth w^ere foreign
to her senses and no taste followed eaHnsr.

" You do not eat," said the trapper. " The sun
will darken on the lower hills before we come to
food again. Are you not hungry ?"

Mamclons.

" Last night I was ahungered," answered the
girl, musingly. " But now I hunger no more,"
and her face was as the face of a Madonna holding
her child, full of a plentiful and sweet content.

" I do not understand you," returned the trapper,
after a moment's silence. " Your words be plain,
but their sense is hidden. A\ hy are you not
hungry ;?"

" You read me once out of your sacred books,
John Norton, that man does not live by bread
alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of
the mouth," responded the girl. " I knew not
then the meaning of the w^ords, for I was a girl,
and had no understanding, and the words were
old, older than your books, and therefore deeply
wise, and I, being young, did not know. But I
know now." And here the girl paused a moment,
hesitated as a vounQ- bird to leave the sure bouffh
for the first time, then, rallying courage for the
deed, gazed with her large eyes lovingly into his,
and timidly explained :

" I am not hungry, John Norton, for God has
fed me I"

The Irail.

To the tanned cheek of the trapper (here rushed
a glow like the Hush to the flice of a girl. The
light of a happy astonishment leaped from his
eyes, and his breath came strongly. Then light
and color faded, and as one vexed and heartily
ashamed of his vanity, w^hile the lines of his face
tightened, he made harsh answ^er :

•' Talk no more in riddles, lest 1 be a fool and
read the riddle awry. Nor jest again on matters
grave as life, lest I, who am but man and slow
wdthal, forget wisdom and take thy girlish play-
fulness for earnest talk. Nay, nay," he added
earnestly, as she rose to her feet with an exclama-
tion of passionate pain, " Say not another word.
You have done no ill. You be young and fanciful,
and I— I be a fool ! Come, let us go. The pull is
long, and we will need the full day's light to reach
the island ere night falls."' And, placing his rifle
in the canoe, he signaled to the hound and seated
himself at the oars. The girl obeyed his word,
stepped to her place and pushed the light boat
from the sands on which so much had been re-
ceived and so much missed. Perhaps her woman's

Mamelons.

heart foretold her that love like hers would get,
even ns it gave, all at last.

The house was large and lofty, ]>uilded of log.s
squared srnoothl/ and mortared neatly between the
edges. In the thick Avails were deep embrasures,
that light through the great windows might be
more abundant. The builders loved the sun and
made wide pathways for its entrance everywhere.
The casements, fashioned to receive storm shutters,
were proof against winter's wind and load alike.
In the steep roof were dormer windows, glassed
with panes, tightly soldered to the sash. At either
end of the great house a huge chimney rose, whose
solid masonry of stone stood boldly out from the
hewn logs framed closely agninst its mortared
sides. A wide veranda ran the entire len^'th of
the southern side. A balustrade of cedar logs, each
liewn until it showed its red and fragrant heart,
ran completely round it. Above posts of the same
.sweetly odored wood — whose fragrance, with its
su1)stance, lasts forever — was lattice work of pole»
stripped of their birchen bark and snowy white,

The Trail.

on which a huge vine ran its tracery, enriched with
bunches, heavily pendent, of blue black grapes —
that pungent growth of northern woods, whose
odors make the winding rivers sweet as heaven.
In front, a natural lawn sloped to the yellow sands,
on which the waves fell with soft sound.

Eastward, a widely acred field, showed careful
husbandry. Gariiot and yellow colored pods
hung gracefully from the poles. The ripened
corn shone golden .iirough the parted husks,
and beds of red and yellow beets patched the dark
soil with their high colors. The solar flower turn-
ed its broad disk toward the wheeling sun, while
dahlias, marigolds, and hardy annuals, with their
bright colors, warmed like a floral campfire the
stretch of gray stubb'<3 and pale barren beyond.
It was a lovely and a lonely spot, graced by a lordly-
home, such as the wealthy worthies builded here
jind there in the great wilderness for comfort and
for safety in the old savage days when feudal lords*

<■> The reader will recall that old Canada, viz., the Province of
i^ucbec was wholly French in origin, and that its organization rested
on the feudal basis, the whole territory occupied hsing divided not
into town and counties, but into seigniories.

J26

Mamelons.

'11

-if

anade good their claim to forest seigniories with
sword and musket, and every house was home and
i'astle.

The canoe ran lightly shoreward. The beach
received its pressure as a mother's bosom receives
fhe child running iiom alar to its reception —
yieldingly ; and on the welcoming sand the light
^hark rested. The trapper stepped ashore and
reached his hand back to the girl. Her velvet
palm touched his, rough and strong, as thistle-down,
•-';xind )>lown, the oak tree's bark, then nestled and
stayed. Thus the two stood hand in hand, gazing
i-jip the slooping lawn at the great house, the broad,
l>right held and the circling forest, glowing with
autumnal color.^, which made the glorious back-
:;^TOund. The lawn of green, the house and
^he vast woods belting it around, brightly beau-
>'iful, made such a landscape picture as Titian
■would have reveled in. It stood, this mansion of
ithe woods, this w^ilderness castle, in glorious lone-
liness, a part and centre of a splendid solitude,
\7<~iid the coming and going of men, beyond
: v >! wars and peace ; embodiment of a mystery

Tke Trail.

<. A

deep as the forest round it ; a strange, astound-
ing spectacle to one who did not know the
history of the woods.

"It is a noble place," exclaimed the trapper, as
he gazed across the lawn at the great house, and
swept the glorious circle of the woods which
curved their belt of splendor round it with admir-
ing eyes ; " it is a noble place, and if mortal man
might find content on earth, he might find it here."

" Could you, John Norton, live here, and be con-
tent ?" inquired the girl, and she lifted the splen-
dor of her eyes to his strong, honest face.

" Content ;" returned the trapper, innocently,
" Why, what more could mortal crave than is here
to his hand ? A field to give him bread, a noble
house to live in, the waters full of fish, the woods
of game, the sugar of the maple for his sweetening,
honey for his feasts, and not a trap within two
hundred miles. "What more could mortal man, of
good judgment, crave?"

" Is there nothing else, John Norton V asked the
girl.

" Aye, aye," returned the trapper, " one thing.

Mame/ons.

I did forget the dog. A hunter should have his
hound."

A shade of pain, perhaps vexation, came to her
face as she heard the trapper's answer. She with-
drew her hand from his and said: *' Food, fur, and
a house are not enough, John Norton. A dog is
good for camp and trail. Solitude is sweet and
the absence of wicked men a boon. But these do
not make home nor heaven, both of which we crave
and both of which are possible on earth, for the
conditions are possible. The chief has found this
spot a dreary place since mother died."

" Your mother was an angel," answered tho
trapper, " and your words are those of wisdom. I
have thought at times of the things you hint at, and,
as a boy, I had vain dreams, for nature is nature.
But I have my ideas of woman and I love perfect
things. And I — I am but a hunter, an unlearned
man, without education, or house, or land, or gold,
and I am not fit for any woman that is fit for me !"

The change that came to the girl's face at the
trapper's words — for he had spoken gravely, and
through the honesty of his speech she looked and

The Trail.

2»

• V

saw the greatness and humility of his nature — was
o!ie to be to him who saw it a memory forever-
Its dusky splendor lighted with the glow of a-
blessed assurance. This man would love her f
This man with the eagle's eye, the deer's foot, the>
cougar's strength, the honest heart, would lovt*
her ! This man her mother reverenced, her unck^
loved, who twice had saved her life at risk of hi&,.
whose skill and courage were the talk ofa thousand
camps, whose simple word in pledge held faster
than other's oaths — this man into whose very^
bosom her soul had looked as into a clean place —
this man would love her I If heaven be as 2:ood men
say, and all its bliss been pledged to her when she-
lay dying, her body would not have thrilled with
warmer "low than rushed its sweet heat throusrh
her veins at that blessed conviction. Wait !
She could wait for years, but she would win
him— win him. to herself: win him from his blind-
ness, which did him honor, to that dazzling-
light in whose glory man stands but once ; but,,
standing so, sees, with a glad bewilderment, that
the woman he dares not love, because she is so in-

Mamelons.

Pit

finitely better than he, loves him ! Yes, she would
win him — win him with such sweet art, such
patient approaches, such seductiveness of innocent
passion, slowly and deliciously disclosed, that he
should never know ol'his temerity until, thus drawn
to her, she held him in her arms irrevocably, in
bonds that only cold and hateful death could part.
Through all her leaping blood this blessed hope,
this sure, sweet knowledge Ilovved like spicjd wine
This man, this man she worshiped, he would love
her ! It was enough. Her cup ran lull to the
brim and overllowed. Slie simply took the trap-
per's hand again and said :

*' We will go to the chamber of the chief. His
eyes will brighten when he sees thy face.''

■rfflrf*"

(iiAriKR II.

THE FKIHT AT MAMELONS.^

T was a droadml light, John Xortoii. We
wont into it a tliousand warriors on a side,
and in either army were twenty cliiel's oi
fame. AVe loug-ht the light at Mamelons, where,
at sunset, we met the Esquimaux,'^ coming up a»
we were going down. The Montagnais headed
the war. The Mountaineers, « whose lathers' wigr-
wams stood at Mamelons, had fought the Esqui-
maux a thousand years, and both had wrongs to-
right. My Hither died that summer, and I, fresh
from the fields of France, headed my tribe. You

7 This old butlle-grouml is located on the high terraces which de-
Cue the several sasid Mioumls now standing hack of Tadousac.

» The Es'[niniaux were numerons and very warlike, and at oue
tiui3 had pushed their conquests clean up to the Saguenay.

» The Montagnais Indians held the country, from Quebec down. (u
the Esquimaux, near Seven Island^, and calle.l thoraselves " .Moun-
taineers.'

Mamefons.

kno^v how small it was ;—tho last remnant of the
old Lenap*' rool, but every man a warrior. I knew
not the rig-ht or wrong of it, nor did I care. I only
knew our tribe was pledged to the Xas(|uapoes'" of
I'rozen Ungava, and they were allies of the Moun-
taineers, jind hencv-' the light held us to its edge.
That night we slept under truce, but when the sun
came uj) went at it. 1 see that morning now. The
sun from out tln^ eastern sea rose red as blood. The
Nasquap«'es, who lived as atheists without a Medi-
cine man, cared not for this, but the prophet of the
Mountaineers painted his tace and body black as
night, tore his blanket into shreds, and lay in the
sand as one dead. The Nasquapees laughed, but

1" Till-' \iiS(Hiapt'('s are oii<' of tli.' most romarkubla families of [u-
diuiH on the coiitiiii'iit, and of whom but little is known. Their coun-
try extentlj from liake Mistassinni eastward to Labrador, and from
Ungava Bay to the coast inoiiQlaius of the St. Lawrence. They are
small in size, tine featured, with mild, davk eyes, and extremely small
hftnds and feet. The name Nasquapees — Xaotiupies — means " a peo-
ple who stand straight. ■ Tliey iiavc -.i-.) 'viedicine manor prophet,,
and hence are called by other tribes atiieists. Their sense of smell is
80 acute that it rivals the dog's. " Spirit rapping^!,'" and otherstrange
manifestation^, peculiar to us moderns, have been practiced immemor-
iallj among them and carried to such a shade of success that one of
our Boston seances would be a laugimble and bungling affair to them.
Their language is like the Western Crees. and their traditions point
to a remote eastern origin.

nemor-

cne of

the in.

point

4
i

The Fighl nt Mame/on.f. 83

wo ol the mountains kni'w by that dread .sign that
our faces lookod toward our last })attle. We made
it a hravt' doom. We Ibught till noon upon the
fsliit'tinjj sands, nor j^ained an inch, nor did our foes,
when suddenly the sun wm\s elouded and a f^reat
wind arose that drove the sand so thickly that it
hid the battle. The firiny and the shouting ceased
alona' the terrace where w'e fought, and a great,
drend silence fell on tb<' mighty mounds, save when
the fierce gusts smote them. Thus, living and
dead, friend and foe, we lay together, our faces
plunged into the coarse gravel, our hands clutch-
ing the rounded stones, that we might breathe and
stay until the wind might pass. And such a wind
was never blown on man before, for it was hot and
came straight down from heaven, so that our backs
winced as we lay flattened. Thus, mixed and min-
gled, we clung to the hot stones, while some crept
in beneath the dead for shelter. So both wars clung
to the ground for an hour's space. Then, sudden-
ly, the sun rushed out, and shaking sand from eyes
and hair, and spitting it from our mouths, at it we
went asrain. It w^as an awful fight. John Norton,

-a-
'4

fir

Mamelons.

and more than oui-e, in the mad midst of it, smoko-
blinded and sand-choked, I thought of you and
Ihat I hoard your rifle crack."

" I would to God I had been there !" exclaimed
the trapper, and he dashed his huge hand into the
air, as if cheering a line of battle on, while his eye»
blazed and his face whitened.

" I would to God you had bt'cn!" returned the
chief. " For whether one lived through it, or died
in it, we made it great by great lighting. For we
fought it to the end in spite of interruptions."

" Interruptions !" exclaimed the trapper. '' I do
not understand ye, chief "What but death could
interrupt a fight like that ?"

" Listen, trapper listen," rejoined the chief,
excitedly. " Listen, that you may understand what
stopped the fight, for never since man was born
was fought such light as we fought, high up above
the sea, that day at Mamelons. I said it was
old I'eud between the Mountaineers and Es-
quimaux, a feud that held its heat hot a
thousand years, and we, a thousand on each side,
one for each year, fought on the sand, while above,

' V'

The Fii^hl at 3f a melons.

' V

below, and around the dead of a thousand years,
f^luin in the feud, fought too."

" Nay, nay," exclaimed the trapper. " Chief it
cannot be. The dead light not, but live in peace
Ibrever, praise be to God," and he bowed his head
reverently.

" That is your faith, not mine, John Norton, for
] hold to an oldt^r faith — that men by a knife's
thrust are not changed, but go, wiih all their
passions with them, to the Spirit I^and, and there
build upward on the old foundation. And so, I
say again, that Ih^ dead of a thousand years fought
in the air al)ove and around us on that day at
Mamolons. For in the pauses of the wind, we who
fought on either side heard shrieks, and shouts,
and tramplings as of ten thousand feet, and over
us were roarings, and bellowings, and hollow
noises, dreadful to hear, and through all the battle
went the word that ' the old dead were /i^hling; too V
and that made us wild. I]oth sides went mad.
The dving cheered the livinc". and the livino-
cheered the dead. So went the battle— the fathers
and the sons, the dead and living, hard at ii. The

-36

Mamelons.

>'■ \

^'aters of the Saguonay, a thousand feet below,

were beaten into foam by the rush of fighting- feet,

and the roaring of a great batth? iilled its mouth.

Its dark tide whitened with strange death froth

from shore to shore, while ever and anon its surface

shivered and shook. And under us on the high

-crest, cloud-wrapped, the earth trembled as we

fought, so that more than once as we stood clinched,

^ve two, the foe and I, still gripped for dealh,

-would pause until the ground grew steady, for its

tremblings made us dizzy, then clinch tlie fiercer,

mad with a great madness at being stopped in such

death-grapple. Under us all the long afternoon

the great mounds rose and sank like waves that

have no base to stand upon. The clouds snowed

ashes. Mud fell in showers. The air \ve breathed

.«tank with brimestone and l)urnt bones. And still

it thickened, and still both sides, now but a

scattered few, fought on, until at last, with a crash,

53I.S if the world had split apart, darkness, deep a.>>

fleath, fell suddenly, so that eves were vain, and

we who were not dead, unable to find loe, stood

.!fitilL And thus the battle ended, even drawn,

' V

■%

': .'■'•

The Fight at Mtvnetons.

because God stopped the light at Mamelons."

A^ A^ ^ ^ ^ ^ A^ 4^

TT Tv 'TV' ^ T\* 'TT ^ nv

" At hisi the morning dawned at Mamelons, and
never sinee those ancient beaches^'-^ saw the world's*
iirst morninii", had the round sun looked down on
such a scene. The great terraces on which we
fought were ankle deep with ashes mixed with
mud, and cinders black and hard, like ])urnt iron,
and all the sand was soaked with blood. The
dead w^ere heaped. They lay like drifted wreckage

11 The S;iguc'iiay i^ undoiihtedly (jt'0!irth(|uakeori^iti. Tlie north
gliore of tlu' i^t. Luwrciicc fVdrii Ciipc Toiirnionte to Point flu Moiitg, 'm
one tifthc Ciirliiqiiiiko CL'iitres of the world. In Hifi.'i a frightful series
of convulsions (Kcuri'il, lasting for more than tVuir months; and, it.
is laid, thai not a year passes that motions are not felt in the earth.
The old maelstrom at Hai St. I'anl was caused by subterranean force,
and by subsequent shoeks deprievtd of its terrible jiower. The mouth
of the Sagiienay was one of the great rendezvous of the Indian races
long before Jae(|ues Cartier came, and the great mounds abavv
Tadousac have been the scene of many Indian battles; hut I
would not make alliJavit that an earthquake ever did actuallly take
place wliile one was t)eing fought, although there may have been, and
• ertainly, from an artistic point of view, there should have been, suck
41 poetic conjunction.

J'-' These mamelons, or great sand mounds, are believed to be the
old geologic beaches of earliest times. They rise in tiers, or
terraces, one al)ove the other, to a great height, the uppermost one
being a thousand feet or more above the S.iguenay, and represent, as
they run down from terrace to terrace, the shrinking of the " fice of
the deep '" in the creative period, by the shrinking of which the solid
earth ro^e in sight,

v38

Mamelons.

on a beach, where the eddying surges of the battle
tossed them, in piles and tangled heaps like jammed
timber. For in the darkness, we had fought by
sound, and not by sight, and where the battle
roan'd loudest, thither had we rushed, using axe
iind knife and the short seal spears of the damned
Esquimaux. And all the Litter battle was fovight
breast to breast, for ere half were dead, powder and
lead gave out, and the fray was hand to hand,
until, by the sickening darkness, God stopped it.
^' I searched the dreadful field from end to end
to find my own, and found them. With blackened
hands, clouted with blood, I drew them together.
Forty in all, I stretched them, side by side, and the
fsavage pride of the old blood in me burst from my
mouth in a shrill yell, when I saw that tw^enty
'.swarthy bosoms showed the knife's thrust deep
and wide. They died like warriors, trapper, ^.rae
to the old Lenape blood, whose Tortoise^^ stead-

l:i Till' Leniii-r>enape luirl, at the comiiifi; of the whites, their
territory on the Uehvware, but their traditions point to long journcy-
ingf! from tlie east over wide waters and cold couutries. Their lan-
■giiage, strange to say, has in it words identical witli the old Basque
'ongne. and establislies some community of origin or history in the
ffomote ages. The Lenni-Lenape had as their Totem, or sacred aign

< V

The Fight at Mamehns. 39

fastness'upheld the world. 1 made a mound aboT«
their bodies, and heaped it high with rounded
stones which crowned the uppermost beach, and
made wail above friends and kindred fallen in
strange feud. And there they sleep, on that high
verge, where the unwritten knowledge of xnj
fathei's, told from age to age, declare the waters of
the earliest morning first found shore." (See not*
12.]

*' Never did I hear a tale like this," exclaimed
the trapper. " Strange stories of this fight I heard
in the far north, chanted in darkness at midnight,
with wild wailing of the tribes ; but I held it as
the trick of sorcerers to frighten with. Go on and
tell me all. Chief, what next befell thee ?"

"John Norton, thou hast come half a thousand
miles to hear a tale of death told by a dying man.
Listen, and remember all I say, for at the close it
touches close on thee. A fate whose meshes woven
when our blood was crossed has tanirled all that

.» J

of origin and blood, a Tortoise with a p:lobe on its back, and boasted
that they were tlie oldest of all races of men, tracing their descent
through the ages to that day when the world was upheld bj a Tor-
toise, or turtle, resting io the midst of the waters. As a tribe tb«j
were very brave, proud and honorable.

Mamelons.

bore our name in ruin from the start, and with my
going only one remains to suffer further."

Here the chief paused while one might count a
score, then, looking steadily at the trapper, said :

" Last month, when the raven was on the moon J*
my warninj^ came. The old wound opened with-
out cause, and, lying on this bed, I saw the hour
of my death, and beyond, th* >, I saw, and by thy
side the Uisl ■ ; "vveotest of our line, and the same
doom was over her as has been to us all since the
fatal cross — fha^ rloom which sends us surely unto
woe and death."

" I do not understand," replied the trapper.
*' Tell me what befell thee further, step by step,
and how I, a man without a cross,^^ can be con-
nected with the old traditions of thy tribe and
house ?"

" Listen. In coming from the field I saw, half
covered by the ashes, a body clothed in a foreign
garb. It lay face downward where the dead were

1* When the raven was on the moon. An Indian deecrintion of
an eclipse.

15 A man without a cross, viz., a pure-blooded man. A wh'te
man without any Indian or foreign blood in his veins.

The Fight at Mamelom.

thickest, one arm outstretched, the hand of which,
gloved to the wrist, still gripped a sword, red to
its jeweled hilt. The head was Ibul with ash and
sand, but I noted that the hair was black and long,
and worn like a warrior's of our ancient race.
Then I remembered a habit of boyish days and
pride. Trembling, I stooped, lifted the body up-
ward and turned the dead l^ice toward me. And
there, there on that field of Mamelons, where it was
said of old, before one of my blood had ever seen
the salted shore, the last of our race should die, all
foul with ash and sand and blood, brows knit with
battle rage, teeth bared and tightly set, I saw mij
brother's face .'"

" God in heaven I" exclaimed the trapper. " How^
came he there, and who killed him ?"

" John Norton, you know^ our cross, and that the
best blood of thi^ old world and the new, older than
the old, is in our veins. My grand-sire was the
son of one w^ho stood next to the throne of France,
and all our line have studied in her polished
schools since red and white blood mingled in our
veins. There did we two, ray brother and I, re-

ill

Mame/ons.

main until my lather culled us homo. I left him
high in the court's favor. Thence, suddenly, with-
out sending word, with a young wife and oTice of
trust, he voyaged, hoping to give me glad surprise.
A tempest drove his ship on T^abrador ; but he
saved witc and gold. The Esquimaux proved
friendly, and gave him help, and, reckless of con-
■equence, as have been all our line since the
French taint came to us, not knowing cause, he
joined the wild horde, and came with them to fatal
Mamelons and its dread fight.

" So chanced it, trapper. I drop})iMl l he body
from my arms, for a great sickness seized me and
my head swam, and in the bloody tangl*? of dead
bodies I sat limp and lifeless. Then in a frenzy,
clutching madly at a straw of hope, I tore the
waistcoat, corded with gold, from the stiff breast,
to find proof that would not lie. And there, there
above his heart, with eyes bloodshot and bulging^
I saw the emblem of otir tribe — the Tortoise, with
the round world on his back ; and through the
sacred Totem of our ancient lineage, which our
father's hand had tattocd on his chest and mine;

■a

The Fight at Mamelons. 4:^

yea, through it and the white skin above hi?^ heart,
there gaped a gash, swollen and red, which my
own knife had made. For in the darkness of the.
light, bearing up against an Esquimaux rush, ash
blinded, I found a foe who swore in French and
had a sword. Him I fought grappling in the
dark, when the earth hove beneath our feei and
ashes rained upon us ; and his sword ran m(>
through even as I thrust my long knife into him.

" And thus at Mamelons, where sits the doom of
our race aw^aiting us, in its dread light, both fight-
ing without cause, I slew my brother, and from
his hand I got the wound from whose old poison
I now die.

" Thus I stood amid the dead at Mamelons, a
chief without a tribe and my brother's murderer.
I moved some bodies and scraped dow^nw^\rd, that
I might have clean sand to tall upon ; then drew
my knife to let life out, and thus meet bravely the
old doom foretold for me and mine as aw^aiting us
since man w^as born on the shore of that first world.
But even as I bent to the knife's point, a voice
called me and I turned.

■!«

Mamelons.

I. •; L

J s'

'^ :

l"'t

•' It was an Esquimaux ; the only chief left from
the light ; my ])rother's host seeking my brother.
]I(» knew me, for he and I had (.linched in the great
iight, bat the earth opening parted us, and so both
lived. Eaili felt for each as warriors feel for a
brave foe when the red fight is ended and the
iield of death is heavy. Thus, battle tired, amid
the dead, we lifted hands, palm outward, and met
in peace. He knew the language of old France, and
I told him all my woe : — of our old race, of tribes-
men dead, of brother slain by my own hand, and
of the doom that waited for us over ^lanielons.
And then he spake and told me what stayed iny
hand and held me unto further life.

'• Seven days I journeyed with him, and on tin:*'
eighth came to where she sat, amid his children,
in his rude house at Labrador. Never since God
created woman, was one made so beautiful as she.
She w'as of that old Iberian race, whose birth is
older than annals, whose men conquered the world
and whose women wedded gods. She was a
Basque,^'' and her ancestor's ships had anchored

16 As far back in time as annals or tradition exteml, a race of
men called Iberians dwelt on the Spanish peninsulii. Winchell says

The Fight at Mameions.

under Mamoloiis a thousand years belbro the Breton
came. Fresh from the dreadful lield, with heart
of lead, my broth.^r's face starinti* whitely at mo as
I talked, T told her all — the light, the death of
brother and of tribe, and the doom that waited for
our blood above the sliining sands at Mamelons.

that '• these Ihurians spread over Spain, Gaul, and the Untish Idhinds
U3 early 13 oOOO B. C. When Et?ypt was only at iicr I'oiirth dynaslj
this race had conquered tlurAvorld west of the Mtditerranean."

They originally settled Sardinia, Italy and Sicily, and spread
northward as far as Norway and Sweden. Strabo says, speaking
of a branch of this race : "They employ the art of writing, and hare
written books containing memorials of ancient times, and also poems
,and laws set in verse, for which they claim an antiquity of 6000 years."
These old Iberians to-day are represented by the Basfiues. Th«
Basques are fast dying out, and but a small remnant is left. Thej
undoubtedly represent the first race of men. They are proud, merry,
iind passionate. The woman are very beautiful and noted for their
wit, vivacity, and subtile grace of person. They love mnsic, and
dance much. Some of their dances are symbolic and connected with
their ancient mysteries. Their language is unconnected with any
European tongue or dialect, but, strange to say, it is connected by
■close resemblance, in man}- words, with the Maiya language of Central
America and that of the Algolqnin-Lcnape and a few other of our
Indian tribes. Duponceau says of the Basciue tongue :

" This language, preserved in a corner of Europe by a '"e.w
thousand Mountaineers, is the sole remaining fragment of perhrns.*
hundred dialects, constructed on the same plan, which probably
existed and were universally spoken at a remote period in that quarter
of the world. Like the bones of the mammoth, it remains a monu-
incnt of the destruction produced by a succession of ages. It standa
single and alone of its kind, surrounded by idiomo that hart n»
.affinity with it."

Mamehns.

*' vShe listened to the end, Then rose and took
my hand and kissed it, saying : ' Brother 1 kist
thy hand as head of our house. What's done ii
done. The dead cannot comeback.' Then, covering
up her face with her rich laces, she went within
the hanging skins, and for seven days was hidden
Avith her woe.

•' But when the seven days were passed she came,
and we held council. Next morn, with ten canoes
deep laden with gold and precious stull's, that
portion of her dower saved from the wreck, w©
started hitherward. This island, after many days
of voyaging, we reached, and here we landed, by
chance or fate I know not, for she spake the word
that stopped us here, not I. For on this island did
my fathers live, and here the fateful cross came to
our blood, that cross with France which was not
lit ; for the traditions of our tribe — a mystery for a
thousand years — had said that any cross of red
with white should ripen doom at Mamelons ; for
there the white first landed on the shore of this
western world.^^

•. i

17 The antiquity of European visitation to the St. Lawreace ia
unascertained, and perhaj>8, unascertainable. But there is good reason

The Fifi'lU at Mameluns.

" Sho ue«'(lo(l ri'lugL*, for within her life aiioth«'r
life was growing. Brooding, she prayed that the
new soul within her might not be a boy. ' A boy/
she said, ' must meet the doom I'oretold. A girl,
perchance, might not be held.' Her faith and mine
were one, save hers was older, she being of the old
trunk stock, of which the world-supporting Tortoise
w ere a branch ; and so my blood was later, flowing
from noonday fountains, while hers ran warm and
red, a pure, sole stream, which burst fiom out the
ponderous front of dead eternity, whtn, with His
living rod, God smote it, in the red sunrise of the
world. On this her soul was set, nor could I
change her thought with reason, which I vainly

to think tlial loii;^ bet'ure Jactiuos Cartior, Caliot, orevr'H llie Norsi'mcn,
ever saw tlio Aracrifau continent, the old Hascino people carried oti a
regular comtneice in fish and I'ur with tin' St. Lawrence. U is not
impossible but that Columbus obtained .=;iire knowledj^e of a western
hemisphere from the old race, who dwell, and had dwelt, initne-
niorially among the mountains of Spain, as well as from the Norse
charts. Their language, legends, traditions and many signs compel
one to the conclusion tnat the old Iberian race, who once held all
modern Europe and the British isle in subjection, was of ocean origin,
and pushed on the van of an old-time and world-wide navigation
beyond the record of modern annals. Both Jaeijues Cart'er and J<)hTi
Cabot found, with astonishment, old Basque names everywhere, mi
they sailed up the coast, the date of whose connection with th*
geography of the shores the natives eould not tell

Mamelons.

tried, lost if the birth should prove a boy, the
.shock would kill her. But she held stoutly to it,
sayinn: ;

*• ' The women oi'our race «^et what they crave,
^[y child shall be a woman, and being so, win
what she plays I'or."

"And, lo ! she had her wish; for when the
babe was born it was a girl.

"All since is known to vou. For vou, bv a strange
fale, blown, like a cone of the high pine from the
midst of whirlwinds, when forest lires are kindled
and the gales made by their heat blow hot a
thousand miles across the land, dropped on this
island like help from Heaven. Twi(,'e was I saved
from death bv thee. Twice was she rescued at
the peril of thy life ; mother anu child, by thy
quick hand, snatched out of death. And when
the cursed fever canity and she and I lay, like two
l>urnt brands, you nursed us both, and from your
arms at last, her eyes upon you lovingly, her soul
unwillingly went from us. And her sweet form,
instinct with the old grace and passion of that
vanished race which once outrivaled Heaven's

the

-i

The Fight at Mamehns. 49

beauty and won wedlock with the gods, lay on
your bosom as some rare rose, touched by untimely
frost, while yet its royal bloom is opening to the
sun, lies, leaf loosened, a lovely ruin rudely made
on the harsh gravel walk."

Here the chief stopped, struck through and
through with sharp pains. His face whitened and
he groaned. The spasm passed, but left him weak.
Rallying, with effoit, he went on :

" I must be briof That spasm was the second.
The third will end me. God I How the old stab
jumps to-night !

" Trapper, you know how wide our titles reach.

A hundred miles from east to west, from north to

south, the manor runs. It is a princely stretch.

A time will come when cities will be on it, and its

deed of warranty be worth a kingdom. Would

that a boy outside the deadly limits of the cross,

but dashed with the old blood in vein and skin,

might be born to heir the place and live as master

on these lakes and hills, where the great chiefs who

bore the Tortoise sign upon their breasts when it

upheld the world, beyond the years of mortal

Mamelons,

^> 4

memory, lived and hunted ! For when the doom
in the far past, before one of our blood had ever
seen the salted shore, w^as spoken, it was said :

" ' This doom, for sin against the blood, shall not
touch one born in the female line from sire with-
out a cross.'

^' I tell you, trapper, a thousand chiefs of the old
race would leave their graves and fight again at
Mamelons to see the old doom broken, and a boy,
with one trace of red blood in v^ein and skin, ruling
as master here ! And 1, who die to-night, I, and
he who gave me death and whom I slew, would
rise to lead tlieni !

" John Norton, you I have called; you who have
saved my life and whose life I have saved ; you,
who have stood in battle with me when the line
wavered and we iwo saved the fight ; you who
have the wild deer's foot, the cougar's strength,
whose word once given stands, like a chiefs, the
-test of lire ; you, all white in face, all red at heart,
;i Tortoise, and yet a man without a cross, have I
veiled half a thousand miles to ask with dying
J)reath this question : —

.» .

The Ffffht at Mamelons.

>» .

"May not that boy be born, the old ■ tace kept
alive, the long curse stayed, and ended with my life
forever be the doom of Mamelons ? Speak, trap-
per, friend, comrade in war, in hunt and hall, speak
to my failing ear, that I may die exultant and tell
the thousand chiefs that throng to greet me in the
spirit land that the old doom is lifted and a race
with blood of theirs in vein and skin shall live and
rule forever mid their native hills ?"

From the first word the strange tale, half chant-
ed, had rolled on, like the great river flooding up-
ward from the gulf, between narrowing banks, with
swift and swifter motion, growing pent and tremu-
lous as it flows, until it challenges the base of Cape
Tourment with thunder. And not until the dying
chief, with headlong haste, had launched the query
forth— the solemn query, whose answer would fix
the bounds of fate forever— did the trapper dream
whither the wild tale tended. His face whitened
like a dead man's, and he stood dumb— dumb with
doubt and fear and shame. At last, with effort, as
when one lifts a mighty weight, .he said, and the
words w^ere heaved from out his chest, as great

Mamelons.

;;'*

1^.'

'!l

v«

weights from deepest depths : " Chief, ye know
not what ye ask. My Grod ! I am not fit !"

Across the swarth face of the dying man there
swept a flash of flame, and his glazed eyes lighted
with a mighty joy.

" Enough ! enough ! It is enough !" he said
** The woman of her race will have their wav, and
she will win thee. God ! If I might live to see
that brave boy born, the spent fountain of the old
race filled again by that rich tide in her which
flows red and warm from the sunrise of the world !
Nay, nay. Answer me not. I leave it in the hands of
fate. Before I pass the seeing eye will come, and
I shall see if sunlight shines on Mamelons."

He touched a silver bell above his head, and,
after pause, the girl, in whom the beauty of her
mother and her race lived on, whose form was
lithe, but rounded full, whose face was dark as
woods, but warmly toned with the old Basque
splendor, like wine when light shines through it,
type of the two oldest and handsomest races of the
world, stood by his side.

Long gazed the chief upon her, a vision too

The Fisrht at Mamelons.

be?-utiful for oarth, to warm for heaven. The lio-ht
of a great pride was in his eyes, but shaded with
mournful pity,

" Last of my race," he murmured. " Last of my
blood, farewell ! Thou hast thy mother's beauty,
and not a trace of the damned cross is on thee-.
Follow thou thy heart. The women of thy race
won so. My feet are on the endless trail blazed
by my fathers for ten thousand years. I cannot
tarry if I would. T leave thee under care of this
just man. Be thou his comfort, as he will ])e thy
shield. There is a che.st, thy mother's dying gift^
thou knowest where. Open and read, then shalt
thou know. Trapper, read thou the ritual of the-
church above my bier. So shall it please thee.
Thou art the only Christian I ever knew who kept
his word and did not cheat the red man. gome
trace of the old faiths, therefore, there must be in
these modern creeds, albeit the holders of them
cheat and light each other. Ihit, daughter of my
house, last of my blood, born under shadow, and
it may be unto doom, make thou my burial in the
old fashion of thy race, older than mine. These

! I

'> li^f'

Mamelons.

modern creeds and mushroom rituals are not for us
whose faiths were born when Grod was on the
earth, and His sons married the daughters of men.
So bury me, that I may join the old-time people
who lived near neighbors to this modern God, and
married their daughters to His sons."

Here paused he for a space, for the old wound
jumped, and life flowed with his blood.

Then suddenly a change came to his face. His
eyes grew fixed. He placed one hand above them,
as if to help them see afar. A moment thus. Then,
whispering hoarsely, said :

" Take thou his hand. Cling to it. The old
Tortoise sight at death is coming. I see the past
and future. Daughter, I see thee now, and by thy
side, thy arms around his neck, his arms round
thee, the man without a cross ! Aye. She was
right. ' The women of my race get what they
crave.' Girl, thou hast won ! liejoice, rejoice and
sing. But, oh ! my God ! My God ! John Norton !
Look ! Daughter, last of my blood, in spite of all,
in spite of all, above thy head hangs, breaking
black, the doom of Mamelons !"

•

The Fight at Mamehns. SC*

And with these words of horror on his lips, the
chief, whose bosom bore the Tortoise sign, who
killed his brother under doom at Mamelons, fell
back stone dead.

So died he. On the third day they built his
bier in the great hall, and placed him on it, stripped
like a warrior, to his waist, for so he chargod tho
trapper it should be. Thus sitting in the great
chair of cedar, hewn to the fragrant heart, in the
wide hall, hound at i'eet, the Tortoise showino-
plainly on his breast, a lire of great knots, gummed
with odorous pitch, blazing on the hearth, the two,
each by the faith that guided, made, for the dead
chief of a dead tribe, strange funeral.

And first, the trapper, standing by the bier, gaz-
ed long and steadfastly at the dead man's face.
Then the girl, going to the mantel, reached for a
book and placed it in his hand and stood beside
him.

Then, after pause, he read :

" / am the resurredio/i and the Life''
And the liturgy, voiced deeply and slowly read, as
by one who readeth little and labors with the

Mamelons.

words, sounded through the great hall solemnly.

Then the girl, standing by his side, in the splen-
dor of her beauty, the lights shining warmly on the
glory of her face, lifted up her voice — a voice fugi-
tive from heaven's choir — and sang the words the
trapper had intoned :

" / am the resurrection and the Life."
And her rich tones, pure as note of hermit thrush
cleaving the still air of forest swamps, clear as the
song of morning lark singing in the dewy sky, rose
to the hewn rafters and swelled against the com-
pressing roof as if they would break out of such
imprisonment, and roll their waves of sound afar
and upward until they mingled with kindred tones
in heaven.

Again the trapper :

" He IV ho believelh in me, though he were dead, yet
shall he live /"

And again the marvelous voice pealed forth the
words of everlasting hope, as if from the old race
that lived in the dawn of the world, whose blood
was in her rich and red, had come to her the mem-
ory of the music they had heard run thrilling

•(•

The Fight at Mamehns.

\- • I,

through the happy air when the Stars of the Morn-
ing sang together for joy.

Alas, that snch a voice from the old days of soul
and song should lie smothered forever beneath the
sandof Mamelons!

Thus the first part. For the trapper, like a
Christian man without cross, v^rould give his dead
friend holy burial. Then came a pause. And for
a space the two sat silont in the Jiall, while the
pitch knots flamed and ilared their splashes of red
light through the gloom.

Then rose the girl and took the trapper's place
:at the dead man's feet. Her hair, black with a
glossy blackness, swept the floor. A jewel, large
and lustrous, an heirloom of her mother's race, old
as the world, burning with Alantean flame, a
miracle of stone-imprisoned lire, blazed on her brow.
The large gloom of her eyes was turned upon the
dead man's face, and the sadness of ten thousand
years of life and loss was darkly orbed within their
long and heavy lashes. Her small, swarth hands
hung lifeless at her side, and the bowed contour of
her face drooped heavy with grief. Thus she,

Mamelons.

clothed ill black cloth from head to foot, as if that
old past, whose child she was, stood shrouded in
her form, ready to make wail for the glory of men
and the beauty of women it had seen buried for-
ever in the silent tomb.

Thus stood she for a time, as if she held com-
munion with the grave and death. Then opened
she her mouth, and in the mode when song was
language, she poured her feelings forth in that old
tongue, which, like some fragrant fragment of
sweet wood, borne northward by great ocean
currents out of southern seas, for many days storm
tossed, but lodged at last on some far shore and
found by those who only sense the sweetness, but
know not whence it came, lies lodged to- day upon
the mountain slopes of Spain. Thus, in the old
Basque tongue, sweet fibre of lost root, unknown
to moderns, but soft, and sad, and wild with the
joy, the love, the passion of ten thousand years,
this child of the old past and the old faiths, lifted
up her voice and sang :

" O death I hate thee ! Cold thou art and
dreadful to the touch of the warm hand and the

. » t^

The Fiffht at Mamelons.

■' • 1^

sweet lips which, drawn by love's dear habit, stoop
to kiss the mouth for the long parting. Cold, cold
art thou, and at thy touch the blood of men is
chilled and the wweet glow in woman's bosom
frozen forever. Thou art great nature's curse.
The grape hates thee. Its blood of fire can neither
make thee laugh, nor sing, nor dance. The sweet
flower, and the fruit which ripens on the bough,
nursing its juices from the maternal air, and the
bird singing his love-song to his mate amid the
blossoms — hate thee ! At touch of thine, O slayer !
the flower fades, the fruit withers and falls, and the
bird drops dumb into the grasses. Thou art the
shadow on the sunshine of the world ; the skeleton
at all feasts ; the marplot of great plans ; the stench
which fouls all odors ; the slayer of men and the
murderer of VA'omeu. O death ! I, child of an old
race, last leaf from a tree that shadowed the world,
warm in my youth, loving life, loving health,
loving love. O death ! how I hate thee !"'

Thus she sang, her full tones swelling fuller as
she sang, until her voice sent its clear challenge
bravely out to the black shadow on the sun-

Mamelons.

«hine of the world and the dread fate she hated.

Then did she a strange thing; a rite known to
the morning of the world when all the living lived
in the east and the dead went westward.

iShe took a gourd, lilled to the brown brim, and
placed it in the dead man's stiffened hand, then
laid a rounded loaf beside his knee, and on a plate
of copper at his feet — serpent edged, and in the
center a pictured island lying low and long in the
blue soas, bold with bluff mountains towards the
east, but sinking westward until it ran from sight
under the ocean's rim, a marvel of old art in metal
working, lost for ayo — she placed a living coal,
and on it, from a golden acorn at her throat, which
opened at touch, she shook a dust, which, falling
on the coal, burned rosy red and filled the hall
with languous odors sweet as Heaven. Then, at
Jriumphant pose, she stood and sang :

Water for thy thirst I have given,

Hurry on ! hurry on !
liread for thy hunger beside thee.

Speed away ! speed away !
Fire for thy need at thy feet,
Mighty chief, fly fast and fly far
To the land where thy father and clansmen are waiting.

The Fight at Mamelom.

Odor and oil for the woman tliou lovost,
Swcot and sinootli may sho bo on thy breast,
When her soft arms enfold theo.

1) death I thou art cheated !
He shall thirst never more ;
He sliall eat and be filled ;
The fire at his feet will revive him ;
Oil and odor are his for the woman ho loves ;
He shall live, he shall live on forever
With his sires and his people.
He shall love and be loved and be happy.

O ! death grim and great,

O ! death stark and old,

By a child of the old race that first lived

And first met thee ;
The race that lived first, still lives

And will live forever.
I3y a child of the old blood, by a girl !

Thou art cheated !

■i

CHAPTER in.

Tii|: mother's message.

li It

1 i

r7 ^'^^"^^^^C^ was on the woods. The girl sat
l^ reading her mother's message, taken from
the golden chest that owned the golden the
key. And this is what she road :

'' My daughter : They tell me I must die. I
know if, for a chill, strange to my blood, is creeping
through and thickening in my veins. It is the old
tale told from the beginning of the worh.-of warm
blood frozen wheii 'tis warmest, and beauty blasted
at its fullest bloom. For I am at that age when
woman's nature gives most a id gets most from sun
^ua ilower, from touch of baby hands and man's
strong love, and all the blood within her moves, tre-
anulous with forces whose working makes her pure

''^i

''' i>

The Mother's Message. 63

and sweet, as moves the strong wine in tho cask
when ripening its red strength and flavor. O
daughter of a race that never lied saved for a loved
one ! blood of my blood, remember that your
mother died hating to die ; died when life was-
fullest, sweetest, fiercest, in her; for life is pas-
sionate force, and when fall is fierce to crave,
to seek, to have and hold, and has been so since
man loved woman and by woman was beloved.
And so it is with me. A woman, I crave to live,
and, craving life must die.

" Death ! how I hate thee I "What right hast thou
to claim me now when I am at my sweetest ? The
withered and the wrinkled are for thee. For thee
the colorless cheek, the shriveled breast, the skinny
hand that shakes as shakes the leaf, frost smitten
to its fall, the lustreless eye, and the lone soul that
looketh longingly ahead where wait its loved ones ;
such are for thee, not I. For I am fair and fresh
and full through every vein of those quick forces^
which belong to life, and hate the grave. This,
that you may know your mother died unwillingly,
and in death hated death, as all of the old race and

Mamelons.

faith have hated him since he first came, a power, a
mystery and a curse into the world. For in the
ancient annals of our fathers it was written ' that
in the beginning- of the world there was no death,
but life was all in all.' God talked with them as
father talks with children : their daughters were
married to His sons, and earth and heaven were
one.

" Your father was of France, but also of that
blood next oldest ours. He was Lenape, a branch
blown from that primal tree which was the
world's first grovYth, whose roots ran under ocean
before the first world sank ; a branch blown far
by fate, which, falling, struck deep into the soil of
this western world, and, vital with deathless sap,
grew and became a tree. This was in ancient
days, when thoughts of men were writ in pictures
and the round world rested on a Tortoise's back —
emblem of water. For the first world was insular,
and blue seas washed it from end to end, a mighty
stretch, which reached from sunrise into sunset,
through many zones. Long after men lost know-
ledge and the earth was flat, and for a thousand

The Mother's Messasce.

years the Tortoise symbol was an unread riddle
save to us of the old blood, who knew the pictured
tongue, and laughed to seethe hiter races, mongrel
in blood and rude, Hat ten out the globe of God
until it lay flat as their ignorance. Your father
was Lenape, who bore upon his breast the Tortoise
symbol of old knowledge made safe by sacredness ;
for the wise men of his race, that the old fact might
not bo lost, but borne safely on like a dry seed
blown over deserts until it comes to water, and,
lodging, flnds chance to grow into a full flowered,
fruitful tree, made it, when they died and know-
ledge passed, the Totem of his tribe. Thus the
dead symbol kept the living fact alive. Nor was
there lacking other proofs that his blood was one
with mine, though reaching us through world-wide
channels. For in his tongue, like flecks of gold in
heaps of common sand, wore word.s of the old
language, clear and bright with the original lustre,
when gold was sacred ornament and had no
vulgar use. The mongrel moderns have made it
base and fouled it with dirty trade but in the
beginning, and by those of primal blood, who

« H

Mamehns.

knew they were of heaven, it was a sacred metal,
held for God.18

" We met in France, and by French custom were
allied. I was a girl, and knew not my own self,
and he a boy scarce twenty. Reasons of state there
w^ere to prompt our marriage, and hence we were
joined. He was of our old blood. That drew me,
and no other thing, for love moved not within me^
but nested calmly in my breast as a young bird, ere
yet its wings are grown or it has thrilled wnth
ilight, rests in its downy cincture. He died at
Mamelons ; died under doom. You know the tale.
He died and you came, fatherless, into the world .

" You are your mother's child. In face and form,
in eye and every look, you are of me and not of him.
The French cross in his blood made weakness, and
the stronger blood prevailed. This is the law. A

If" Atnonj? many of tlio ancient nicos gold and silver were sncrcd
nu'tiils, not used in commerce, biitdelicuted a^? votive oflering.s, or sent
to the temples as dues to the gods. Nothing more astonished unJ
puzzled the natives of Peru and Mexico than the eagerness with which
the Spaniards sought for gold, and the high value they put upon it»
A West Indian savage traded a handful of gohi dust with one of the
euilois with Columbus for some small tool, and then ran as for his life
to the woods, lest the sailor should repent his bargain and demand
llie tool to be given back !

The Mother's Message.

turbid stream sinks with quick ebb ; the pure flows
level on. The Jews proves this. The ancient
wisdom stands in them. The creed, which steals
from their old faith, whatever makes it strong', has
armed the world against them, but their blood
triumphs. The old tide, red and true, unmixed,
pure, laughs at these mongrel streams. Strong
with pure strength it bides its time. The world
will yet be theirs, and so the prophecy of their
sacred books be met. Pure blood shall win, albeit
muddy veins to-day are ])oasted of by fools.

" But we are older far than they. The Jews are
children, while on our heads the rime of hoary
time rests white as snow. Our race was old when
Egypt, sailing from our ancestral ports, reached, as
a colony, the Nile.^'' From tideless Sea,-^ to the
G-reen Island in the west,2i from southern Spain to
Arctic zones, the old Basque banner waived ; while
under Mamelons, where waits the doom for insult

!'•' It is certain that tlie Tboriau race settled on tlie Spanish penin-
sula a lung time before the E^y[)tians, a sister colony from the same
unknown parental source, doubtless, began their marvelous atructurea
on the Nile.

30 The Mediterranean.

•n Ireland.

Mamelons.

If*

8 n

to pure blood, your fathers anchored ships from the
beginning. What loss came to the earth when the
gods of the old world, of whom we are, sank under
sea and with them took the perfect knowledge ?
Alas ' alas ! the chill creeps in and on and I must
hurry ! I would make you wise before I die with
a wisdom which none save the w^omen of our race
might speak or learn.

" You will read this when I am iixed among the
women of our race in the great realms where they
are queens. For since the first the women of our
blood have ruled and had their way, whether for
good or ill, and both have come to them and
through them unto others. And so forever will it
be. For beauty is a fate, and unto what 'tis set
none know. The issue proves it and nought else.
So be it. She who has the glory of the fate should
have the courage to bide issue.

*' Your body is my body ; your face my face ;
your blood my blood. The warmth of the old fires
are in it, and the sweet heat which glows in you
will make you understand. You are my child, and
being so, I give you of myself. I love. Love as

Tke Mother's Mesmsce.

tho women of our race and only they may love.
I.ove with a love that maketh all ray life so that
without it all is death to me. That love I, dvinjr.
bestow on you. It came to me like flash of lire on
altar when holy oils are kindled and the censor
swung. Here I first met him. Death had me. He
fought and took me from his hand. In the beginning,
men were large and strong, and women beautiful.
Giants were on the earth, and onr mothers wedded
them. Each was a rose, thorn-guarded, and the
strongest plucked her when in bloom and wore her,
full of sweets, upon his bosom. Since then the
women of our blood have loved large men. Weak
ones we hated. None save the mighty, brawny,
and brave have ever felt our soft arms round them,
or our mouths on theirs. Thus has it been.

" I loved him, for his strength was as the an-
cients, and with it gentleness like the gods. But he
was humble, and knew not his own greatness, and,
blinded by humility, he would not see that I was
his. So I waited, waited as all women wait, that
they m.xy win. It is not art, but nature, the nature
of a rose, which, daily opening more and more to

Mamelons.

perfect bloom in his warm light, makes the sun
know his power at lust. For love reveals all great-
ness in us, as it does all faults. "Well did I know
that he should see at last his fitness for me, and,
without violence to himself, yield to my loveliness
and be drawn within the circle of my arms. So
should I win at last, as have the women of our
race won always. But death mars all. So has it
been since women lived. His is the only knife
whose edge may cut the silken bands we wind
round men. Vain is all else. Faiths may not stand
against us, nor pride, nor honor. Our power
draws stronger. The grave alone makes gap 'twixt
lovely woman's loving and bridal bed. So dying
thus before my time I am bereft of all.

" But you shall win, for in you I shall live again
and to full time. I know that you will love him,
for you drew my passion to you with my milk, and
all my thoughts were of him, when, with large,
receptive eyes, you lay a baby in my arms, day
after day, scanning my face, love-lighted for him.
Aye, you will love him. For in you sleep, cradled
on the heart that worshiped him, its warmth for

•I

The Mother's Message.

him warmed you, its beating thrilled, and from my
mouth, murmured caressingly in dreams, your ears
and tonirue learned his dear name before mine own.
So art thou fated unto love as I to death. Both
could not win, and hence, perhaps, 'tis well I die.
For had both lived, then both had loved, mother
and child been rivals, and one suffered worse than
dying. Nor am I without joy. For once, when I
was wooing him with art he did not know, coaxing
him up to me with sweet praises sweetly said, and
purposely I swayed so my warm body fell into his
arms and there lay for a moment, vibrant, all agloWj
while all my woman's soul went through ray
lifted and dimmed eyes to him, I saw a flash of
fire ilame in his face, and felt a throb jumx> through
his body, as the God woke in him, which told mo
he was mortal. And, faint with joy, I slid down-
ward from his arms and in the fragrant grasses sat,
throbbing, covering up my face with happy hands
lest he should see the glory of it and be frightened
at what his touch had done. 1 swear by the old
blood that moment's triumph honored, that the
memory of that blissful time takes the sting from.

Mamchns.

'M I

death and robs the grave ol victory, as I lie dying !
" Yea, ihou shalt win. The power will be in
thee, as it has been in me, to win him or any whom
women made as we set heart on. But woo him
wtth that old art ofinnocen( e, snow while, though
hot as fire, lost to the weak or brazen w^omen of
these mongrel races that fill the world to-day, who
dare not dare, or daring, overdo. Be slow as sunrise.
Let thy love dawn on him as morning dawns upon
the earth, and w^armth and light grow evenly, lest
the quick flash blind him, or the sudden heat
appall, and he see nothing right, but shrink from
thee and his new self as from a wicked thing. I
may not help thee. What fools these moderns are
to think so! The dead have their own lives and
loves, and note not the living. Else none might be
at peace or know comfort above the sky, and all
souls would make wail for wrongs and woos done
and borne under sun. So it is well that parting
should be parting, and what wall divides the dead
from living be beyond penetration. For each wo-
man's life is sole. Her plans are hidden with her
love. Her skill is of it a sweet secrecy, and all her

The Mother's Message,

winning is self-won. I do not fear. Thou wilt
have the wooing wisdom of thy race. Thy eyes
are such as men give life to look into. The passion
in thy blood would purchase thrones. Thou hast
the grace of form which maddens men. Thy voice
is music. Thy touch warm velvet to the skin.
The first and perfect woman lives complete, in thee !
" No more. In the old land no one is left. The
modern cancer eats all there. New fashions and
new faiths crowd in. Only low blood is left, and
that soon yields to pelf and pain. Jyast am I of the
queenly line and thou art last of me. I came of
gods. I go to gods. The tree that bore the fruit
of knowledge for our sex in the sunrise of the
world is stripped to the last sweet leaf. If thou
shalt die leaving no root, the race God made is
ended. AVith thee the gods quit earth, and the old
red l)lood beats back and upward to the skies,
(xold hast thou and broad acres. Youth and health
are thine. Win his great strength to thee, for
he is pure as strong, and from a primal man get
perfect children, that in this new world in the west
a new race may arise rich in old blood, bom

Mamelons

among- the hills, strong with the strength of trees,
whose sons shall be as mountains, and whose
■daughters as the lakes, w^hose loveliness is lovelier
because oi' the reflected mountains dimly seen in
them.

'' Farewell. Love greatly. It is the only way
that leadeth woman to her heaven. The moderns
!hare a saying in their creed that God is love. In
the beginning he was Father. The race that sprang
from liim said that, and said no more. It was
enough. Love then was human, and we gloried
in it. Not the pale love ol' barren nun, but love
red as the rose, warm as the sun, the love of moth-
erly women, sweet mouthed, deep breasted, voiced
^vith cradle song's and soft melodies which made
men love their homes. Love thou and live on the
>ald level. Be not ashamed to be full woman. Love
strength. Bear children to it. Be mother of a
mighty race born for this "western w^orld. Multi-
ply. Inherit; and send the old blood flowing from
thy veins, a widening current, thrilling through
the ages ; that it may be as red, as pure, as strong
-at sunset as it was in the sunrise of the world.

The Mother's MeaaaL^e.

" Once more, farewell, sweet daughter. Thesii
are last words, a voice from out the sunset, sweet
and low as altar hymn wandering down the colum-
ned aisles of some old temple. So may it sound to
thee. So live, so woo, so win, that when thou
comest through the portals of the west to that fair
throne amid those olher ones which stretch their
statoliness across the endless plain of ended things,
which waits for thoo as one has waited for every
woman of our queenly lino, thou sh ilt leave be-
hind at going a new and noble race, from thee and
him, in which the east and west, the sunrise and
the sunset of the world shall, like two equal glor-
ies, meet condensed and shine. So fare the well.
Fear not Mamclons. For if thou failest there, thou
shalt be free of fault, and all the myriad millions of
our blood shall out of sunset marcli, and from the
shining sands of late lift thee high and place thee
on the last, the highest, and the whitest throne of
our old line. So ends it. One more sweet kiss,
sweet one. One more long look into his face —
grave, grave and sad he gazethat me. God ! What
a face he has ! Shall I Find match for it to-morrow

7r,

Mamehm.

when I stand, amid the royal, beyond sunset ? Per-
haps. Death, yon have good breeding. You have
waited well. Come, now, I will go on with thee.
Yes, yes, I see the way. 'Tis very plain. It has
been hollowed by so many feet. Grood-bye to earth-
ily light and life. It may be I shall find a better,
ril know to-morrow."

Here the scroll ended. Long the living sat pon-
dering what the dead had writ. She kissed the
writting as it were holy text. Then placed it in
the chest, and turned the golden key and said :
•" Sweet mother, Ihou shalt live in me. Our race
shall not die out. My love shall win him."
Then went she to the gi'eat room where the trap-
per sat by the red five and said :

"John Norton, thou art my guest. What may
I do to pleasure thee .'' Here thou must stay until
my mind can order out my life Miid make the
du])ious road ahead look plain. While underneath
my root, I pray, "ommand me."

All this with such grave dignity and sweet grace
as she were queen and he some kinsman, great
.and wise.

The Mother s Measasce.

The trapper stooped and lifted a huge log- apoii
the lire, which broke the lower brands. The
chimney roared, and the large room brightened to
the llame. Then, facing her, he said :

"Guest I am ai\d servant, both in one, and must
be so awhilt . Winter is on us. The lire feeisi
snow. It putters as if the flakes were falling in it.
V is a sign that never lies. Hark ! you can hear
the honk of g.^ese as they wedge southward. The
winter will b^^ long, hut I must stay."

" And are you sorry you must stay ?'" replied thr-'
girl. "I will do what I may to make tlie days and
nii;hts pass swiftly.*'

" Nay, nay, you .lo mistak.*," returned the trap-
per. "1 am not sorry for myself, but thee. If I
may only help thee: how can I help thoi^ ^"

"John Norton,'' replied the girl, and she spoke
with sweot earnestness as when the heart is vocal,
"Thou art a man, and wise ; I am a girl, and know
nought save books. But you, you have seen many
men and trib\s of men; eounciled with chiefsv
been comrade with the great, sharing their inner
thoughts in peace and ^var. and thou hast done

' *

Mamelons.

great deeds thyself, of which fame speaks widely.
Why do you cheapen your own value so, calling
thyself a common man ? My uncle said you were
the best, the bravest, and the wisest man he ever
met, and he had sat with kings and chiefs, and
heard the best m^n of both worlds tell all they
knew. Dear friend, wilt thou not be my teacher,
and teach me many things, which lietli now, like
treasures hidden, locked in thy silence ?"

"I teach thee I' exclaimed the trapper. "I, an
unlettered man, a hunter of the woods, teach one
who readeth every tongue, who knoweth all the
past, to the beginning of the world, whose head
has ill it all these shelves of knowledge," and the
trapper swept a gesture toward the long rows of
books that thickened one side of the great hall
from floor to ceiliii"'. '• I teach thee I'"

" Yes, you,'' answered the girl. " You can teach
me, or any woman that ever lived, or any man.
For you were given at your birth the seeing eye,
the listening ear, and the still patience of the
mountain cat, which on the bare bauijh sits watch-
ing, from sunset until sunrise, motionless. In the

The Mother s Message

old (lays such gifts meant wisdom, wider, deeper,
more exact than that of books, for so my mother
often told me. She said the wisest men who ever
lived were those who, in deep woods and caA^es
and on the shore of seas, saw, heard, and pondered
on the life and mysteries of nature, noting all
thing's, small and great, cause and effect, tracing:
on^ connections whif;h interlico the parts into one
whole, so makinu' one solid woof of knowledge,
riovering all the world of fact and substance in the
end. And once, when you were in the mood, and
had bei^n talking in the hall, drawn on and out by
her, you told of climes and ^)lace3 you had seen,
and strange things met in wandering, of great
mounds builded by some ancient race, long dead :
of cities, under sunset, still standing solid, without
men ; of tall and shapely pillars, writ with mystic
characters on the far shore of the mild sea, whence
sailed the old dead of my race, at dying, far away
to western heavens, where to-day they live; of
caverns in deep earth, made glorious with crystals,
stalactites, prisms, and .shining ornaments, where,
in old tim(\ th(» o-q^Is of the under world were

Mamelons.

chamborecl ; of trees that mingled bloom and fruit-
age the long year through, and flowers that never
faded till the root died out ; oi creeping reptiles,
snakes, and savage poisonous things that struck to
kill, and of their antidotes, growing for man and
beast amid the very grasses w^here they secreted
venom ; of rivers wide and deep, boiling up through
solid oarth, full-tided, which, flowing widely on,
dropped suddenly like a plummet to the centre of
the world ; of plains, fenced by the sky, far reach-
ins: fis the level sea, so that the red sun rose and
set in grasses ; of lires, which lit by lightning,
blackened the stars with smoke and burned all the
world ; of oceans in the west, which, flowing w4th
joint floods, fell over mountains, plunging their
weights of water sheer downward, so that the rocky
framework of the round earth shook ; of winds that
blew as out of chaos, revolving on a hollow^ axis
like a wheel buzzing, invisible, charged to the cen-
tre with electric force, and flres which burst ex-
plosive, kindling the air like tinder; and of ten
thousand marvels and curious things, w^hich you
had met, noted, and pondered on, seeking to know

The Mother a Message.

the primal fact or force which underlaid them. So
that my mother said that night, when we were in
our chamber, that you were the wisest man she
ever mot ; wise with the wisdom of her ancient
folk, whose knowledge lived, oral and terse, before
the habit of bookmakinij' came to rive the solid
substance, heavy and rich, into thin veneer, to make
vain show for fools to wonder at. Teach me ! Who
might thou not teach, thou seeing, silent man, type
ot my lir.'it lathers, who, gifted wiih rare senses
aid with wit to question nature and to learn,
mastered all wisdom before books were."

"Aye, aye," rr-turned the trapp;'r, not displeased
to hear hvU' praise as rare what seemed to him so
common, ''these things I know iu truth, for I have
wandered far, seen much, and noted closely, and
he who sleeps in woods has tim^' ro think. Bat,
girl, I am an unlearned man, and know naught oi
books."

" Books !" exclaimed the girl. " What are ])Ooks
but oral knowledge spread out in words whii-h
lack the fire of forceful utterance *. But you shall
know them. The winter days are short, the

m f

Mamelons.

iiight.s are long ; our toil is simjilo ; wood for the
fire, I'ood for the table, and a swift push (nich day
along the snow for exercise ; or, if the winds will
keep some acres clean, our skates shall ring to the
smitten ice, piercing it with tremblings till all the
shores cry out. All other hours for sleep and
books. I read in seven tongues, one so old that
none save I in all the world can read it ; for it was
writ when letters w^ere a mystery, known only
unto those who fed the sacred lire and kept (rod's
altars warm. And I will read you all the wisdom
of the world, and it.> rare laughter, which, mother
said, was the fine elfervesce of wisdom, the pungent
foam and spai'kle of it. So you shall know. And
one old scroll there is, rolled in foil of gold, sealed
with the serpent seal, symbol of etcrniiy, scribed
wath pictured knowledge, an heirloom of my race,
whose key alone I have, writ in rainbow colors,
when the world was vounof, the.lano-uao-e of the
gods, who iirst made signs for speech and put the
speaking mouth upon a page. It was the first 1
learned. My mother taught it to me standing at
her knee — for so the law says it shall be done, a

The Mothers Message. 83

law old with twice ten thousand years oT age —
that he who knows this scroll shall teach it, under
silence, to his or her iirst born, standing at kneo
that the old knowledge of prime things and days
may not perish from the earth it tells of, but live on
forever while the world endures. For on it is the
record of the beginning, told by those who saw it ;
of the first man and how he came to be ; of
woman, fust, when born and of what style. A list
of healing simples, antidotes 'gainst death, and of
rare oils which search the bones and members of
the mortal frame and banish pain ; and others yet,
sweet to the nose, and volatile, that make the face
to shine, for feasts and happy days, and being
poured on women, make their skin softer than
down, whiter than drifted snow, and so clean and
clear that the rich blood pinks through it like a
red rose centered in crystal. And on it, too, is
written other and stranrjfe rules, wild and weird.
How one may have the seeing eye come to him.
How to call up the wicked dead from under ground,
and summon from their heaven in the west, where
they live and love, the blessed. How marriage

31 am e Ions.

came to man with woman. What part is his to
act and what part hers, that each may be a joy to
other, and she, thus honored, be as sweci slip
grafted on a vital trunk, lull flowered in I'ullesl
growth, and fruitful of what the old gods loved,
children, healthy, fair, and strong ; all will I read
Ihee, talking as w^e read, that we, with sharpened
thought, may bite through to the vital gist, deep
centred within the hard rind of words, and taste
ihe living sweetness of true sense. So will we
ieach each other and grow wise equally ; you, me,
the knowledge of things and places you have seen ;
1, you the knowledge writ in books that I have
read.'"

CHAPTER IV.

love's victory.

NEXT day, the trapper's sign proved true.
Winter fell whitely on the world. Its soft
fleece fioattd downward to the earth whiter
than washed wools. The waters of the lake
blackened in contrast to the shores. The flying-
leaves— tardy vagrants from the branch— were
smothered mid the flakes, and dropped like shot
birds. Toward night the wind arose. The forest
moaned heavily. At sunset, in the gray gloom, a
Hock of ducks roared southward through the whirl-
ing storm. A field of geese, leaderless, bewildered,
blinded by the driving flakes, scented water, and,
like a noisy mob, fell, with a mighty splash, into
the lake. Summer went with the day, and with
the night came winter, white, cold and stormy^
roaring violently through the air.
85

86 Mamelons.

Ill the groat hall .sat the two. The logs, piled
on th*' wide hearth, glowed red— a solid coal from
end to end, cracked with contentric rings. They
reddened the hall, books, skins, and antlered
trophies of the chase. The strong man and the
girl's dark ['acq stood forth in the warm luminance,
pre-Kaphaelite. The trapper sat in a great chair,
built solidly of rounded wood, untouched l)y tool,
but softly cushioned. The girl, recumbent, rested
on a pile of skins, black with the glossy blackness
of the bear, full furred. Her dress, a garnet velvet,
from the looms of France. Her moccasins, snow
white. On either writt a serpent coil of gold. A
diamond at her throat. A red fez on her head,
while over her rich dress the glossy masses of her
hair fell tangled to her feet. She read from an old
book, bound with rich plush, whose leaves were
vellum, edged with artful garniture and lettered
richly with crimson ink — a precious relic of old
literature, saved from those vandal flames which
burned the stored knowledge of the world to ashes
at Alexandria. The characters were Phoenician,
and told the story of that race to which we owe

Loves Virlorij. 87

our inodorii ulphahi't ; whose ships, u thousand
years before the Christ, went frei'^h ted with letters,
seeking baser commerce, to every shore of the wide
world. She read by the red lirelight, and the ruddy
glow fell vividly (u the pictured page, the rich
dress outlining her full form and the swarth beauty
of her face. It was the story of an old race —no
library hns it now — the story of thrir rise, their
glory, and their fall. She read for hours, pausing
here and there to tell her listener of connertiiig
things— of Rome that was not then; of Greece yet
to be born; ol Egypt, swarminu' on the Nile and
building monuments for eternity, and other ancient
race, wi'st of the tidelesssea, whose annals, even
then, reached backward through ten thousand years,
thus making clear what otherwise were dark, and
ti>aching him all histoi-y. So passed the hours till
midnight struck. Then she arose, and lifting
goblet half-lilled with water, poured it on the
hearth, saying : " 1 spill this water to a race whose
g-oing emptied half the world." This solemnly,
for she was of the past, and held to its old fashions,
knowing all its symbolism, its rites, its daily

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customs, and what they meant, for so she had been
taught, and nothing else, by her whoio blood atid
beauty she repeated. Then she took the trapper's
hand and laid it on her head, bent low, and said :
** Dear friend, I am so glad to serve you. I have
enjoyed this night beyond all nights I ever knew.
I hope for many others like to :t, and even sweeter."
And saying this she looked with glad and peaceful
eyes into his face, and glided noiselessly from the
room.

The trapper piled high the logs again, and, lying
down upon the skins where she had lain, gazed
with wide eyes into the coals. The gray was in
the sky before he slept, and in his sleep he
murmured : " It cannot be. I am an unlearned
man and poor. I am not lit."' Above him in her
chamber, nestling in sleep, the girl sighed in her
dreams and murmured : " How blind he is ! ' And
then : " My love shall win him !"'

Dear girl, sweet soul of womanhood, gift to these
gilded days from the old solid past, 1 would the
thought had never come to me to toll this tale of
Mamelons !

Love's Victory. 89

So went the winter ; and so the two grew up-
ward side by side in knowledge. He learning of
the past, as taught in books; of men long dead
whose names had been unknown to him ; of deeds
done by the mighty of the world; of cities, monu-
ments, tombs long buried; of races who mastered the
world and died mastered by their own weakness-
es ; of faiths, philosophies, and creeds once bright
and strong as fire, now cold and weak as sodden
ashes ; of vanished rites and mysteries and lost arts
which once were the world's wonder — all were
unfolded to him, so that his strong mind grasped
the main point of each and understood the whole.
And she learned much from him ; of bird and
beast and fish ; of climates and their growths ; of
rocks and trees ; of nature's signs and movements
by day and night ; of wandering tribes and mongrel
races ; the lore of woods and waters and the
differences in governments which shape the lives
of men. So taught they each the other ; she, swift
of thought and full of eastern fire ; he, slower
minded, but calm, sagacious, comprehensive, re-
memberini? all and settlinir all in wise conclusion.

f'l

■m

Mamtlons.

Two better halves, in mind and soul and body, to
make a perfect whole, were jiever brought by fate
together since God made male and female. The
past and present, fire and wood, fancy and judg-
ment, beauty to \vin and strength to hold, sound
minds in sound bodies, the perfect womanhood and
manhood, ideal, typical, met, conjoined in them.

Slowly she won him. Slowly she drew him,

with the innocence of loving, to oneness in wish

and thought and feeling, with her sweet self.

Slowly as the moon lifts the great tide, she lifted

him toward her, until his nature stood highest, iwW

flooded, nigh, bathed in all the wide, deep flowing

of its greatness, in her white radiance. It was au

angel's mission, and all the wild passion of her

blood, barbaric, original, was sobered ^vith reverent

thought of the great destiny that she, wedded to

him, stood heir to. She had no other hope, nov

wish, nor dream, than to be his. She was all

"woman. This life was all to her. She had no

i'uture. If she had, she wisely put it by until sho

came to it. She took no thought of far to-morrow*

Sufficient for the day was the joy or sorrow of it.

< -

Love's Virlor//. 91

She lived. She loved. That was enough. What
more might be to woman than to live, to love,
worship her husband and bear children ? Such
life were heaven. If other heaven there was she
could not crave it, being satisfied. So felt she. So
had she felt. So acted that it might bo ; and now,
at last, she stood on that white line each perfect
woman climbs to, passing which, radiant, content,
grateful, she enters heaven.

^ 4^ ^ ^ "^ 4^ -^ 4t

^T TT 'w TT "TV" TT 'Tv' TT

Spring came. Heat touched the snow, and it
grew liquid. The hills murmured as with many
tongues, and low music flowed rippling down their
sides. The warm earth sweetened with odors.
Sap stirred in root and bough, and the fibred sod
thrilled with delicious passages of new life.

From the far South came flaming plumage,
breast-^ of gold and winged music to the groves.
The pent roots of herbs, spiced and pungent, burst
iipward through the moistened mould and breathed
wild, gamy odors through the woods. The skeleton
trees thickened with leaf formations, and hid their
naked grayness under green and gold. Each day

Mamehns.

birds of passagt*, pressed by parental instinct,
slanted wings toward the lake, and, sailing inward,
to secluded bays, made haste to search for nests.
Mother otters swam heavy through the tide, and
the great turtles, lumbering from the water, digged
deep pits under starlight, in the sand, and cun-
ningly piled their pyramid of eggs. All nature
loved and mated, each class of life in its own order,.
and God began the recreation of the world.

The two were standing under leafy screen on
the lake's shore, the warm sun overhead and the
wide water lying level at their feet. Nature's
mood was on them, and their hearts, like equal
atmospheres, flowed to sweet union. Kevcrently
they spake, as soul to soul, concealing nothing,,
having nothing to conceal, of their deep feeling
and of duty unto each. The girl hold up her clean,
svreet nature unto him, that he might se .^ it, wholly
his forever ; and he kept nothing back. She knew
he loved her, and to her the task to make him feel
(he honor she received in being loved by him.
Thus they, alone in the deep woods, apart from
men, in grave, sweet counsel stood. Thus spake
the man :

Lovt'$ Victory. 98

" I love you, Atla ; you know it. I would lay
down ray life for you. But our marriage may not
be. I am too old."

" Too old !" replied the girl. '' Thou hast seen

forty years, I twenty. Thou art the riper, sweeter,

better ; thxt is all. I would not wed a boy. The

women of our raco have wedded men, big bodied,

strong to fight, to save, to make home safe, their

country free, and fame, that richest heritage to

children. My mother broke the rule, and rued it.

She might have rued it worse had death not cut

the tightening error which knotted her to coming

torture. My heart holds hard to the old_law made

ior the women of our raco by ancient wisdom ;

' Wed not boys, but wed grave and gentle men.

lor women would be ruled, and who, of pride and

iire, would be ruled by striplings.' And again :

* Let ivy seek the full-grown oak, nor cling to

saplings.' I love the laws that were, love the old

faiths and customs. They filled the world with

beauty and brave men. They gave great nature

opportunity to keep great, kept noble blood from

base, strength from wedding weakness, and barred

'(til

■i

•i)

Mamelons.

out mongrelism from the world, which in the
ancient days was deadliest sin, corrupting all. O
love ! you do mistake, saying ' I am too old.' For
women have ever the child's habit in them. They
love to be held in arms, love to look up to loving
eyes, love to be commanded, and obey strong
sovereignty. The husband is head — head of the
house. He sits in wide authority, and from his
wisdom flow counsel, command, which all the
house, wife, children, and servants, bend to,
obedient. How can a stripling fill such seat ? How
sit such dignity on a beardless face ? How, save
from seasoned streno-th, such safetv come to all ?
O full grown man ! be oak to me, and let me twine
my weakness round thy strength, that I may find
safe lodgment, nor be shaken in my roots when
storms blow strong. Too old I I would thy head
were sown with the white rime of added years.
So should I love thee more !"

Ah me, such i^leading from love's mouth, such
sweet entreaty from love's heart man never heard
before, in these raw days, when callow youth is
fondled by weak women, and boys with starting

i- " 1

Love's Victory. 95

beards push wisdom, gray and grave, from council
chairs.

*' Atla, it cannot be. I will admit that you say,
sooth, my years do not forbid. Boys are rash, hot-
headed, quick of tongue, ill-mannered, lacking
patience, just sense, and slow-mannered gentleness
which comes with add^^d years, and that deep
knowledge which slows blood and gentles speech,
and I do see that you fit well to these, and would
be happier with a man thus charactered. But,
y letting that go by— and all my heart is grateful that
it may — still marriage may not be between us, for
thou art rich and I am poor, and so it should not
be. For husband should own house ; the wife
make home. AYhat say you, ami right or wrong?"'
To which the girl made answer; "Thou art an
old-time man, John Norton, and this judgment fit.s
the ancient wisdom. For in the bo<»-innino- so it
was. The male built nest, the female feathered it
with song. So each had part in common ministry.
The man was greater, richer, than the w^oman, and
with earthly substance did endow. And she in
turn gave sweet companionship, and sang loneli-

\):l'\

Mamehns.

i>''

Ki'f -if

It'' ■ '■

»■-■

\ ''!(

ness from liis life with mother songs and children's
prattle. Thus in the beginning. Yea, thou art
right, as thou art always right. For, being sound
in heart and head, thou canst not err. Thy judg-
ment goes straight to the centre of the truth as
goes thy bullet. But as men lived and died
change came to the lirst order. For men without
mule issue died and left great dower to girls.
Women, by no fault of theirs, nor lack of modesty,
grew rich by gifts of death, which are the gifts of
fate. And chanuini^' circumstance changed all,
making the old law void. The gods pondered,
and a new order rose. By chance, at lirst, then by
ordainment, royalty left male and followed female
blood, because that blood was truer to itself, less
vagrant, purer, better kept. And women of red
blood and pure, clothed in royalty from shame,
made alliances v\'ith men whom their souls loved,
and gave rank, wealth, and their sweet selves in
lavishncss of loving, which gives all and keeps
nothing back. Suth was the habit of my race and
line from age to age, even as I read you from the
pictured scroll, rolled in foil of gold, which only I,

Love's Victor?/. 97

of all the world, can read ; and if I die, leaving no
child, the golden secret goes with me to the gods,
and all the ancient lore is lost to men forever.
This to assist your judgment and make the scales
hang level from your nand for just decision. Am
I to blame because I stand as heir to ancient blood
and wealth ? Shall these wide acres, gold in
yonder house, gems in casket, and diamonds worn
for ten thousand years by women of my race,
queens of the olden time, when in their hands
they lifted world-wide sceptres, divide thee and
me? Has love no weight in the just scales you,
by the working of some old fate, I know not what,
hold over me and my soul's wish to-day? Be just
to your own soul, be just to mine, and fling these
doubts aside as settled forever by the mighty
Power that w^orks in darkness, and through dark-
ness, to the light, shaping our fates and ordering
life and death, joy and grief, beyond our power to
fix or change. Blown by two winds, whose com-
ing and going we list not, we, two, meet here.
Strong art thou and weak am I, but shall thy

strength repel my weakness ? Rich, without

,;i

■Vi

Mamelons.

fault, I am. My blood is older than these h^lls,
purer than yonder water, and wilt thou make an
accident, light as a feather in just, balances, out-
weigh a fact sweet as heaven, heavy as fate ? The
<|ueens of old, whose blood is one with mine, who
spake the self-same tongue and loved the self-same
way, chose men to be their kings ; so I, by the
same law, choose thee. Be thou my king. Rule
me in love. By the old right and rule of all my
race, I place thy hand upon my head, and so pass
under yoke. I am thy subject, and all my days
*hall be a sweet subjection. Do with me as thou
wilt. I make no terms. My feet shall walk with
ihine to the dark edge of death. Farther I know
not. This life we may make sure. The next is or
is not ours to order. No man may say. Lord of
my earthly life, take me, take me to thy arms, that
I, last of an old race, last of its blood, left sole in
all the world, without father, mother, friend, may
feel I am beloved by him I worship, and drink one
glad, sweet cup before I go to touch the bitter edge
of dubious chance at Mamelons."

Then love prevailed. Doubt went from out his

Love's Victory. Of^

soul. His nature, uiircstraiiietl, leaped up in a red
rush of joy to eyes aiia face. lie lifted hands and
opened arms to her. To them she swept, as bir.^
into safe thicket, chased by hawk, with a glad cry.
Panting she lay upon his bosom, trembling through
all her frame, placed mouth to his and lost all
sense but feeling. Then, with a gasp, drew baf'k
and lifted dewy eyes to his, as fed child lifts hers
to nursing mother's face, or saint her worsh'* ing
gaze to God.

But the gods of her c'd race, standing beyond suri'
set, lifted high, saw, farther on, the sandy slope of
Mamelons, and, while she lay in heaven on her lover's
breast, they bent low their heads and wept.

if ^ ^ ■¥? ^ ^ *

Spring multiplied its days and growths. Night
followed night as star follows star in their far cir-
cuits, wheeling forever on. Each morn brought
sweet surprise to each. For like the growths of
nature so grew their love fuller with bloom each
morn ; with fragrance fuller each dewy night.
Her nature, under love's warmth, grew richer,
seeding at its score for sweeter, larger life. Hi»

■\

9mm

100

Mamelons.

borrowed tone and color from her own, and
fragrance. So, in the happy days of the lon,^
spring, as earth grew warmer, sweeter with the
days, the two grew^, with common growth and
closer until they stood in primal unity, no longer
tw^ain, but one.

One day she came to him, and put her hand in
his and said :

*' Dear love, there is an old rite by which my
people married. It bindeth to the grave ; no farther.
For there the old faith stopped, not knowing what
life might be beyond, or by whom ordered. Thine
goeth on through death as light through darkness,
and holds the hope that earthly union lasts forever.
It may be so. Perhaps theGralilean knew better
than the gods what is within the veil, for so the
symbol is. It is a winning faith. My heart accepts
it as a happy chance ; and, did it not, it w^ould not
matter. Thy faith is mine, and thine shall be my
God. Perchance the ancient deities and your
modern One are but the same, with ditferent names.
We W'Orshipped ours with fruits and flowers and
incense ; with dancing feet, glad songs, and altars

i%y

-<'

■fir':

and

■

Love's Victory. 101

garlanded with flowers ; moistened with wine ;
you, yours with doleful music, bare rites, the^
beggary of petition and cold reasoning. Our fashion
was the better, for it kept the happy habits up of
children, gladly grateful for father gifts, and so
prolonged the joyciis childhood of the world. But
in this thy faith is better — it hangs a star above the
tide of death for love to steer by. My heart accepts;
the sign. Thy faith is mine. We ^s'\\\ go down to
Mamelons, and there be married by the holy man
who wears uj;on his breast the sign you trust to.'"

" Nay, nay ; it shalt not be," exclaimed the
trapper. " Atla, thou shalt not go to Mamelons.
There waits the doom for the mixed blood. There
died thy father, and all its sands are full of molder-
ing men. AYe wnll be married here by the old
custom of thy peoi)le, and Grod, who looketh at the
heart and knoweth all, will bless us."

" Dear love," returned the girl, " thy word is law
to me. I have no other. It shall be as thou wilt-
But listen to my folly or my wisdom, I know not
which it is : I fear not Mamelons. There is no
cow^ard blood in me. The women of our race face

!lfl

i <

102

Mamelons.

h I

hM I

M f

iv'.'

fate with open eyes. So it has been from the be-
ginning. Death sees no pallor in our cheeks. To
love we say farewell, then graveward go with
steady steps. The women of my house — a lengthy
line, stretching downward from the past beyond
annals — whose blood flows red in me, lived queens,
and, dying, died as they lived. I would die so ;
lest, if thy faith is true, they would not own me
kin nor give me place among them when I came,
if I foared fate or death. Besides, the doom may
not hold good toward me. I know my uncle saw
the sight ; but he was only Tortoise, a branch
blown far from the old tree and lost a thousand
years amid strange peoples, and his sight, therefore,
could not be sure. Moreover, love, if the curse
holds, and I am under doom, how may I escape ?
For fate is fate, and he who runs, runs quickest
into it. So let us go, I pray, to Mamelons, and
there be married by the holy man, the symbol-^ on

2- The cross as a symbol is traceable thrjiigh all the old races,
even the remotest in point of time. It was originally a symbol of
plenty and joy, and so stood emblematic of happiness for tens of
thousands of years. The Roman connected it with their criminal law,
as we have the gallows, and so it became a symbol of shame and
sorrow.

Love's Victory. 103:

whose breast was known to our old race and
carved on altars ten thousand years before the
simple Jew was born at Bethlehem. So shall the
symbol of the old faith and the new be for the first
time kissed by two who represent the sunrise and
the sunset of the world : and the God of morning-
and of evening be proved to be the same, though
worshiped under different names."

He yielded, and the two made ready to set face?
toward Mamelons.

There was, serving in her house, an old red
servitor, who had been chief, in other days, of
Mistassinni.2^ His dwindled tribe lives still upon

'-•i This Tiiike lies to the northwest of Lake St. John some .'300
miles, and witliin some 200 miles of James' Bay. It was first dis-
covered by Avhite men in the person of Pere Abanel, in 1072, a Jesuit
niissi(jnary, en route to Hudson's Bay. This is the lake about whicl*
so much has been said in Canada and the States, and so much printed-
In fact, very little is accurat>;ly known of it, unless we assume that
the late survey by Mr. Low is to be regarded as a settlement of the
matter — which few, if any, acquainted with the ^lislassinni question,
would do. Havini^ examined all the data bearing on ihe subject, Icat»
but conclude that the bit of water which Mr. Low said he surveyed
was only a small arm or branch of the lake reaching south from it,
and that the Great Mistassinni itself was never seen by Mr. Low, much
less surveyed. Unless we concluded wUh an ancient cynic thai
" All men are liars," then there surely is a vast body of water known
to the natives as Big Mistassinni, lying in the wilderness several
hundreds of miles from Hudson's Bay, yet to be viaitcd and surveyed.

■J

104

Mamelons.

■ h

In ' <

the lake which reaches northward beyond know-
ledge. But he, longer than her life, had lived in
the great house, a life-long guest, but serving it in
his wild fashion. Warring with Nasquapees and
Mountaineers against the Esquimaux, he had been
overcome in ambush and in the centre of their
camp put to the torture. Grimly he stood the test
of fire, not making moan as their knives seamed
him and the heated spear points seared. Maddened,
one pried his jaws apart with edge of hatchet, and
tore his tongue out, saying, in devilish jest, " If
you will not talk, you have no need of this," and
ate it before his eyes. Then the chief, with twice
a hundred braves, burst in upon them, and whirled
the hellish brood, in roaring l)attle, out of the
world. The trapper, plunging through whirring
hatchets and red spear points, sent the cursed fagots
flying that blazed upward to his bloody mouth
and so saved him to the world. Crippled beyond
hope of chieftainship, he left his tribe, and, toiling

by white men. Mista, in Indian dialect, means great, and sinni means
a stone or rock. And hence Mistassinni means '.he " Lake of Great
stones or Rocks " The Assinniboine, or Roclcy River, Indians of the
West were evidently of the same blood and language originally with
these red maa of the northern wilds.

• Love's Victory. 105

slowly through the woods, came to the chief in the
great house and said, in the quick language of
silent signs: "I am no longer chief— 1 cannot
fight. Let me stay here until I die." Thus came
he, and so stayed, keeping, throuj^h many years,
the larder full of game and ii.sh. This wrinkled,
withered man went with them, paddling his birch
slowly on, deep laden with needed stufls and
precious things for dress and ornament at the
marriage. For she said : " I will put on th(^
raiment of my race when my forcmothers reigned
o'er half the world, and tlieir banners, woven of
cloth of gold, dark, with an emerald island at the
centre, waived over ships which ])ore the trident
at their bows, their sailors anchored under Mame-
lons a thousand and a thousand years before Spain
sprang a mushroom from the old Iberian mold. I
will stand or fiill forever, Queen at Mamelons."
So said she, and so meant. For all her blood
thrilled with the haughty courage of that past,
when fate was faced with open, steady eyes, and
the god Death, that moderns tremble at, was met
by men who gazed into his gloomy orbs with

I'M

■\\

■'

If:

ir-

106

Mamehns.

haughty stare as he came blackening on. So
silently the silent man went on in his light bark,
loaded with robes, heavy with flowered gold,
i?V0A'en of old in looms whose soft movements,
going deftly to and fro, sound no more, leaving no
ripple as it went, steered by his withered hands,
down the black rivers of the north, toward feast or
funeral under Mamelons.

CHAPTER V.

AT MAMELONS.

SUMMER was at its hottest. The woods, swel-
tering under heavy heat, sweat odors from
every gummy pore. Flowers, unless water-
rooted, withered on their stalks. The lumbering
moose came to the streams and stayed. The hot
hills drove him down. The feathered mothers of
the streams led down their downy progeny to
wider waters. The days were hot as ovens and
the nights dewless. The soft sky hardened and
shone brazen from pole to pole. The poplar leaves
shrank ftom their trembling twigs and the birches
shriveled in the heat. But on the rivers the air
was moist and cool, lily-sweetened, and above their
heads, at night, the yellow stars swung in their
courses like golden globes, large, soft, and round.
So the two boats went on through lovely lakes,

107

108

Mamelons.

lis

floating slowly down the flowing rivers without
iiap or hazard, till they came to the last portage,
beyond which flowed the Stygian^* river, whose
gloomy tide rolls out of death into bright life at
Mamelons.

They took the shortest trail. Straight up it ran
over the mighty ridge which slopes downward, on
the far side, eastward to that strange bay men call
Eternity. It was an old trail only ran by runners
who ran for life and death when war blazed sud-
denly and tribes were summoned in hot haste to
rally. But she was happy hearted, and, half jest-
ing, half in earnest, said : "Take the short trail.
My heart is like a bird flying long kept from home.
Let me go straight." So on the trail the two men
toiled all day, while she played with the sands
upon the shore and crow^ied herself with lilies,
saying : "The queens of my old line loved lilies.
I will have lily at my throat when I am wed."

Ill ■ ';=!

24 The waters of the Saguenay are unlike those of any other river
known. They are a purple-brown, and, looked at en masse, are, to
the eye, almost black. This peculiar color gives it a most gloomy
And grewsome look, and serves to vastly deepen the profound imprei-
«ion its other peculiar characteristics make upon the mind.

s!^!

At Mamehm.

109

Thus, when night came, the boats and all their
laden, were on the other side, and they were on
the ridge, which sloped either way, the sunset at
their backs, the gloomy gorge ahead. Then,
pausing on the crest, swept to its rocks by rasping
winds, the sunset at her back, the gloom before,
she said : "Here we will bivouac. The sky is
dewless, and the air is cool. The trail from this
runs easy down. I w^ould start with sunrise on
my face toward Mamelons "

So was it done, and they made camp beneath
the trees, a short walk from the ridge, where the
great spruce stood thickly, and a spiing boiled
upward through the gravel, cold as ice.

The evening passed like a sweet song through
dewy air. She was so full of health, so richly
gifted, so happy in her heart, so nigh to w^edded
life with him she w^orshiped, that her soul was
full of joyousness, as the lark's throat, soaring sky-
ward, is of song. She chattered like a magpie in
many tongues, translating rare old bits of foreign
wit and ancient mirth with apt and laughable
grimaces. Her face was mobile, rounding with.

I' , *',

110

Mamehns.

jollity or lengthening with woe at will. She had
the light foot and the i>liant limb, the superb pose,
abandon, and the languishing repose of her old
race, whose princesses, with velvet feet, tinkling
ankles, and forms voluptuous, lithe as snakes,
danced before kings and won kingdoms with
applause from those whom, by their wheeling,
swaying, flashing beauty, they made wild. She
danced the dances of the East, when dancing was
a language and a worship, with pantomime so
rare and eloquent that the pleased eye translated
every motion, as the ear catches the quick speech.
Then sang she the old songs of buried days, sad,
wild, and sweet as love singing at death's door to
memory and to hope ; the song of joys departed
and of Joys to come. So passed the evening till
the eastern stars, wheeling upward, stood in the
zenith. Then with lingering lips she kissed her
lover on the mouth, and on her couch of fragrant
boughs fell fast asleep, forgetful of all things but
life and love; murmuring softly in her happy
dreams, " To-morrow night !" and after a little
space, again, "Sweet, sweet to-morrow !"

At Mamelons.

Ill

But all the long evening through, the old tongue-
loss chief of measureless Mistassinni sat as an In-
dian sits when death is coming — back straightened,
face motionless, and eyes fixed on vacancy. Not
till the girl lay sleeping on the bough / did he stir,
muscle. Then he rose up, and with dilating nos-
trils tested the air, and his throat rattled. Then
put his ear to earth, as man to wall, listening to the
voices running through the framework of the
world,-^ cast cones upon the dying brands, and
standing in the light made by the gummy rolls,
said to the trapper in dumb show : " The dead are
movinir ! The earth cracks beneath the leaves. The
old trail is filled with warriors hurrying eastward
out of death. Their spears are slanted as when
men fly. They wave us downward toward the
river. Call her you love from dreamland and let
us go."

25 I have often been surprised fft the many and strange sounds
which may at times be tcard by putting my ear flat to the sod or to
the bark of the trees. Even the sides of rocks are not dumb, but often
resonant with noises— of running waters, probably— deep within. It
would seem that every formation of matter had, in some degree, the
characteristics of a whispering gallery, and that, were our ears onlf
acute enough, we might hear all sounds moving in the world.

; »

ir.

112

Mamehns.

■■■(ji

•V

To which the trapper, aiiswerinii*, sii^nod :
** Chief, old age is on you, and the memory of old
fights. 'Tis always so with you red men.26 The
old fields stir you, and here upon this ridge we
foiTght your fight of rescue. God ! what a rush
we made ! The air was full of hatchets as of acorns
under shaken oaks when I burst through. I
kicked an old skull under moss as we halted here,
that she might not see it. It lies under that yellow
tuft. I have ears, and I tell you nothing stirs. It
is your superstition, chief. Neither living nor
dead have passed to-night. A man without cross
knows better. I will wait here till dawn She
said ' I would see sunrise in my face when I start
for ^lamelons,' and she shall. I have said."
To this the chief, after pause, signed back :
*' I have stood the test, and from the burning
stake went beyond flesh. I have seen the dead,
and know them. I say the dead have passed to-
night. Even as she danced her happy dances,

26 It is said that Indiana cannot sleep upon a battlefield, howerer
old, because of superstitious fear. They admit themselves that it is
not well to do it, and always, under one excuse or another, avoid
doing so.

At Mamehns.

113

and you laughed, I saw them crowd the ridge and
come, filing downward. They lied with slanted
spears. You know the sign. It was a warning,
and for us and her. For, with the rest, heading
the line, there walked two chiefs whose bosoms
bore the Tortoise sign. 1 knew them ! They
slanted spears at her, and waved us down ; then
glided on at speed. And others yet I saw, not of
my race — a woman floating in the air, her mother !
clothed as she shall bj to-morrow, and with her a
long line of faces, like to hers asleep, save eager
looking, anxious ; and they, too, waved us down-
ward toward the river. This is no riddle, trap-
per. It is plain. When do the dead move with-
out cause V Awake your bride from dreams and
come down. Some fate is flying with flat wings
this way, I know not what. I only know the
dead have waved me toward water, and I go."

So saying, he took the dark trail downward, and
in the darkness disappeared.

" The spell is on him," muttered the trapper, as
he sodded the brands, " and naught may stop him.
The old fool will do some stumbUno- on the trail

11 —

SJBBn

1/ r '

114

Mamelons.

before his moccasins touch sand." And saying-
this, he gently kissed the sleeping girl, and taking
her small hand in his strong palm, he fell asleep ;
sleeping upon the crumbling edge of fate nnd
death, not knowing. Had he but known I Then
might wedding bells, not wail, have sounded over
Mamelons.

'W *^ "ff ^tF '^ ^tF ^rf ^ff

'"Aivake ! aivake ! my God, the fire is on us, At/a /"
«o roared he, standing straight.

Up sprang she, quick as a flash, and stood in
the red light by his side, cool, collected, while
with swift, steady hands, she clothed herself for
iiight. Then swept with haughty glance the
flaming ridge and said : " The light that lights my
way to Mamelons, my love, is hotter than sunrise ;
but we may head it." Then, with him, turned,
and fled with rapid, but sure feet down the smok-
ing trail.

The Are was that old one vvhicli burnt itself
into the memories of men so it becamo a birth-
mark, and thus was handed down to generations.-'''

-7 It, 1ms 1)eea toM me that many children l)orn after the terrible
conflagration that had swept the forest from west of Lake St. .John to
Chicoutimi, and which ran a course of 150 miles in less than seven
Lours, were marked, at birth, as with fire.

At Mamelons.

115

<' »<

None knew how kindled. It first flared westward
of the shallow lake, where Mistassinni empties its
brown waters from the north, and at the first flash
llamed to the sky. It is a mystery to this day, for
never did fire kindled in woods or grass run as it
ran. It raced a race of death with every living^
thing ahead of it, and won against the swiftest foot
of man or moose. The whirring partridge, buzzing
on for life, tumbled, featherless, a lump of singed,
palpitating flesh, into the ashec. The eagle, cir-
cling a mile from earth, caught in the rising vortex
of hot air, shrank like a feather touched by heat,
and, lessening as he dropped, reached earth a
cinder. The living were cremated as they crouch-
ed in terror or fled screaming. The woods were
hot as hell. Trees, wet mosses, sodden mold,
brooks, springs, and even rivers, disappeared.
Rocks cracked like cannon overcharged. The face
of cliffs slid dov\'nward or fell off with crashes like
split thunder. It was a fire as hot, as fierce, as
those persistent flami^s which melt the solid cjro
of the world.

Downward they raced in equal flight. Rer foot

■I

! •:

'\\

III

,1' V i!

^i^fmmam

116

Mamelons.

was as the fawn's ; his stride Hke that of moose.
She bounded on. He swept along, o'er all. They
spake no word save once. She slipped. He pluck-
ed her from the ground, and said : '' Brave one,
we'll win this race — speed on." She flashed a
bright look back to him and flew faster. Thus,
over boulders and round rocks, they sprang and
ran. Above, the flying sheets of flame ; behind,
the red consuming line ; around them, the horrid
crackling of shriveling leaves ; ahead, the water,
nigh to which they were; when, suddenly, they
ran into blinding smoke and lost the trail, and,
tearing onward, without sight, she fell and, strik-
ing a sharp rock, lay still, numbed to weakness.
The trapx>er, stumbling after, fell downward to
her side, but his strong frame stood the hard shock,
and staggered upward. He felt for her, and found
her limp. She knew his touch and murmured
faintly, with clear tones : "Dear love, stay not for
me : go on and live. Atla knows how to die."

He snatched her to his breast, and through his
teeth, " O God ! have you no mercy ?" then plunged
onward, running slanting upward, for the smoke

W',

for

At Mamelons. \\*j

was thick below, and he knew the trees jrrew
stunted on the cliffs. He ran like madman. A
saint running out of hell might not run swifter.
He was in hell, the hell of fire ; with heaven, the
heaven of cool, reviving water, just ahead. The
strength of iew was in him, and it sent his body,
with her body on his breast, onward like a ball.
His hair crimped to the black roots of it. He felt
it not. His skin blistered on cheek and hands.
He only strained her closer to his bosom and tore
on. With garments blazing, he whirled onward
up the slope, streamed like a burning? arrow alon«-
the ridge which edges the monstrous rock men
call Cape Trinity ; slid, tumbled, fell, down its
smoking slope, until he came to where the awful
front drops sheer; then, heaving up his huge
frame, still clasping her sweet weight within strong
arms, plunged, like a burnt log rolling out of fire,
into the dark, deep, blessed tide.

Morn came, but brought no sunrise. Smoke,
black and dense, filled the great gorge, and hung
pulseless over the charred mountains. Soot scum-
med the water levels, and new brooks, flowing in

■ ' i;

i! (

1^^^ ti

118

Maw e tons

new channel.*!, tasted like lye. Smells of a burnt
world filled the air. The nose shrank from breath,
and breathed expectant of offense. The fire
brought death to ten thousand living things, and
filled all the waste with stench of shallow graves,
burnt skins, and smoldering bones.

"^he dead had saved the living, for the old chief
lived. From the red beach he saw the trapper's
race for life along the smoking ridge, and paddled
quick to where he made his awful, headlong plunge
into Eternity, 28 From the deep depths he rose,
like a dead fish to surface, his breath beaten out of
him, but clasping still in tight arms the muffled
form. His tongueless savior — so paying life with
life, the old debt wiped out at last — towed him to
shore and on the beach revived him with rude
skill persistent. He came to sense with violence,
torn convulsively. His soul woke facing back-
ward, living past life again. To feet he sprang at
his first breath, and yelled : " Awake ! atvake ! my
God, the fire is on us, Atla .'" then plucked her from
the sand where she lay, weak, as a wilted flower,

28 The recess of water curving inward toward the mountains be-
tween Cape Trinity and Eternity, is called Eternity Bay.

< Wr

At Mamelons.

119

yw4

and started with a bound to fly. The touch of her
bent form, drooping in his arms, recalled his soul
to sense, and he knew all, and reeled with the woe
of it. Down at the water's edge he sank, cast
covering cloth from head and hands, bathed her
dark face, and murmured loving words to her still
soul.

Through realms and spaces of deep trance her
spirit, lingering in dim void 'twixt life and death,
heard love's call, and struggled back toward the
shore of life and sense. From pulseless breast her
soul clomb up, pushed the fringed lids apart, and
and gazed, through wide eyes of sweet surprise
upon his worshiped face ; then sank, leaving a
smile upon her lips, within the safe inclosure of
deep sleep. All day she slept within his arms.
All night she slumbered on. Wisely he waited,
saying : " Sleep to the overtaxed means life. It is
the only medicine, and sure. In sleep the weared
find new selves."

But when the second morning after starless
night came to the world, she felt the waking gray
of it upon her lids, and, stirring in his arms, like

Ife. i'

120

Mamehns.

K I.

wounded bird in nest, moved mouth and opened
eyes, and gazed slowly round, as seeking know-
ledge of place and time and circumstance. Then
memory came, and she remembered ail, and softly
said, " Art thou alive, dear love ? I have been
with the dead. The dead were very kind, but oh,
I missed you so," and with soft hand she stroked
his face carressingly. The old chief mutely stood,
watching, with gloomy eyes, the sad sight. He
read the motion of her lips, and in his tongueless
throat there grew a moan, and his dry lids wet
themselves with tears. She noticed him and said :
*' You, too, alive, old servitor ! The gods are
strict, but merciful. Two of the three remain.
The one alone must go. So is it well." Then
to her worshiped one : " Dear love, this is a gloomy
place. Let us go on. The smoke hides the bright
world, I long for light. The fate is not yet sure.
The blood of our old race holds tightly to last
chance. We face it out with death to the last

*>,-

;/»'

1" i.

Then yield, not sooner. "Who knows ?

sunrise yet at Mamelons."
v d done.

At Mamelons.

121

They placed her on soft skins within the boat
facing him who steered, for she said : " Dear love,
the dead see not the living. If I go I may not see
^ you evermore. So let me look on your dear face

while yet I may. To-day is mine. To-morrow —
I know not who may own to-morrow."

Thus, he at stern and she at stem, softly placed on
the piled skins^ her dark eyes on his face, they glid-
ed out of the deep bay, round the gray base of the
dread cape that stands eternal, and floated down-
ward with the ])lack ebb toward the sea. Past
islands and through channels intricate, they went
in silence, until they came to where the Marguer-
ite, wath tuneful mouth, runs singing over shining
sands, pouring out into dark Saguenay, as life pours
into death ; then breathed they freer airs, and the
freshness of untainted winds fell sweetly down up-
on them from overhanging hills, and thus she
spake :

" Dear love, I know not what may be. We mor-
tals are not sure of anything. The end of sense is
that of know^ledge. "We know we live forever.
For so our pride compels, and some have seen the

I--

122

Mamelons.

»=

In '

%' jl I

vdead moving'. But under what conditions we do
!ive beyond, we know not. Hence hate I death.
It is an interruption and a stoppage of i>l.ins and
joys which work and flow in sequence ; severs us
from loved connections ; for the certain gives us
the uncertain, and in place of solid substantial
facts forces us to build our future lives on the un-
fixed and changeful foundations of hopes and
^dreams. It is not moral state that puzzles. We of
the old race never worried over that. For we
linew if we were good enough to live here, and
once, then were we good enough to live elsewhere
.and forever ; but it was the nature of existence, its
environment, and the connections growing out of
these, that filled the race whose child I am with
"dread and dole. For all the women of mv race lov-
ed with great loves — the loves of lovers who sub-
limated life in loving, and knew no higher and no
holier, nor cared to know. We cast all on that one
chance ; winning all in winning, and losing all if
we lost. With me it is the same. I love you with
a love that maketh life. I am a slave to it. It is
my strength or weakness, as has been with the

<mt

<|4

At Mamelom.

123

< *

women of my blood from the beginning. I have
no other creed, nor faith nor hope. To-day I see
thee, and I have. To-morrow whom shall I see ?
The dead ? I care not for the dead. There is not
one among them I may love, for loving thee has
cut me off from loving other one forever ; unless
the alchemy of death works back the creative pro-
cess, undoing all of blood and nature, and sends us
into nothingness, then brings us forth by new pro-
cesses foreign to what we were, and wholly differ-
ent from our old selves, which is a consummation
horrible to think of"

" Nay, nay," exclaimed the trapper. " Such can-
not be. Our loves, if they be large and whole,
grow with us, and with our lives live on forever."

*'It may be so, dear love," replied the girl.
" Love's prophecy should be true as sweet, or else
your sacred books are vain. For in them it is writ-
ten, ' Love is of God.' But oh, how shall I find
thee in that other world ? For wide and dim must
stretch its spaces, and vast must be its intervals.
This earth is small. AVe who live in it few. With-
in the circle of three generations all living stand.

!^ ili

124

Mamelons.

ft'

*^!i:
'.")'

But the dead are many. The sands ol' Maineloiis
are not so numberless. They totalize the ages ;
the land they dwell in beyond mortal compass.
Who may be sure of meeting any one in such a
realm ? At what point on its boundaries shall I
wait and walch ? How signal thee*, by hand or
voice, when out of earth, like feather, blown, by
that strange movement men call death, into the
tjndless distances, thou comest suddenly ?

" Alas ! alas ! I know not if beyond this day, I,
going out of this dear sunlight, may ever and for-
ever look uipon thy face again ! "

" Atla," returned the trapper, " I know not what
may be. But this I know and swear, that if a trail
pushed, seeking, through a thousand or ten thou-
sand years, may bring me to thy side, we two
shall meet in heaven."

" Oh, love, say those sweet words again," she
cried. '' Say more than them. Crowd into this
one day, that I am sure of, the vows and loves of
half a life, that I may go, if go I must, out of thy
sight from Mamelons, heartful, upheld by an im-
mortal hope. And here I pledge thee, by the Sa-

( A

At Ma melons.

125.

she
this
?s of
thy
im-
Sa-

rwA

crcd Fire that burns forever, that if power bestow-
cd by nature, or artfully acquired by patience-
working through tv»n thousand years, may find thee
alter death, then sometime will I find my heaven
in thy arms, not found till then. So, now, in holy
covenant we will rest until we come to Mamelons^
and ever after. I feel the breeze of wider water on
my cheek, and breathe tht^ salted air. I shall
know soon if ever sunrise .shine for me at Mame-
Ions."

^o went they down in silence with the tide that
whirled itself in eddies toward the sea ; past
L'Anse a I'Eeau, where now the salmon swim and
spawn ag-ainst their will,-"-' past the sharp point of
rounded rocks, where sportively the white whales
^*' roll, and, steering straight across the harbor'^
mouth, where her Basc[ue fathers anchored ships

-i' AtL'Anso a rEiui, uhc-re the Saguenay steamers land pas-
BcMgors for Tadoiisac, the tourist will fiinl a fine collection of large
salmon at tiie upper end of the little hay or recess, for here is one or
the salmon hatching' stations under government patronage.

:iO The white whales, commonly called pori)oises, are very plen-
tiful at the mouth of the Saguenay, and to a strasger present a very
novel and entertaining spectacle, tumbling in the black water. They
are hunted by the natives for both their skins and oil.

;;W

ry .;

11 i

•II

■n

12U

Mamtlons.

before the years of men,''^ ran boat ashore where
the great ledge runs, sloping down from upper
sand to water, and shining beach and gray roek
meet.

But as they crossed the harbor's mouth, sailing
straight on abreast of Mamelons, its bright sands
blackened and a shadow darkened on its front, and,
as they bore her tenderly to the terrace, where
stood tent and priest, a tremor shook the quivering-
earth, and through the darkenini*- air a wave of
thunder rolled.

" Dear love," ^^he said, '• it may not be. The falo
still holds. The doom works out its dole. I may
not bo thy wife this side grave. What rights I
have beyond I shall know soon. For soon the sight
•^- will come to me, and what is hidden now will

•ii Personally, I bold to the opinion that the en*t(.n hemisphere
never lost its knowleilgc of the western, but that, fiom ininiemoriiil
timed, the Ba.s(jnP3 and their Iberian ancestors vi;'iic<.! at regular in-
tervals the St. Lawrence, l)oth gulf and river. Ofcour^e, the ground*
on whicdi I base such an opinion cannot be presented in this note.

'•i'i It is held by some that certain families have the power of
" second sight," or to look into the future, come to thorn just before
death. 1 have known cases where .^such power, apparently, did come
to the dying. The Hascuie people held strongly to the belief that all
their kingly line were seers or prophets, and that, especially before
dying, each had a full, clear view of the future.

ff^i

At Mamelons.

12T

I 4

stand out plain." Then, lying on the skins, she
gazed at Mamelons, looming vast and black in
shadow, and, closing eyes, she prayed unto the
gods, the earthborn, oldtime fathers of her race.

But he could not have it so, and when prayer
was ended, said : " Atla, we have come far for mar*
riage rite, and marritnl we will be. Thou art mis-
taken. I have seen shadow settle and heard thun-
der roll before. In eyt.^ nor cheek are death's pale
sii^nals sel. Tin* hoi v man is here. Hero rini»' and
soal. Forget the doom, and let the words be read
that hindt^th to the grave."

To this she answering said : " Dear love, thou
art in error, but thy word is la^\•. My stay isbri(?f.
Whon yonder shadow passes I shall pass. There
sleeps my father, and with him I must sleep. The
earth is conscious. I am of tho.sc who were, earth-
born, and 80 she feels our coming and our going
as mother tools life and death of child. The sun is,
on the western hills. Jii sunset I shall die. But
if it may stay up thy soul through the sad years^
bid the good man go on."

Then took the priest his book, and, in the Ian-

128

Mamelons.

guage of the Latins, so old to us, so new beside her
tongue, whose hterature was dead a thousand years
before Rome was, began to bind, by the manufac-
tured custom of modern men, whose binding is of
law and not of love, and hence a mockery. But
ere he came to that sweet fragment of love's law
and faith, stolen from the past, the giving and re-
ceiving of a ring, symbol of eternity, she suddenly
lifted hand, and said :

''Have done! Have done ! No need of marriage
now. No need of rite, nor prayer, nor endless ring,
nor seal of sacred sign. I see what is to be. The
A'eil i.s lifted and I see beyond. I see the millions
of my race lift over Mamelons. They come as come
the seas toward shore, rolling in countless billows
IVom central ocean. The old Iborian race, millions
on millions, landscapes of moving forms, aligned
^Aith the horj'^on, come, marching on. Among
them, lifted high, the gods. On thrones a thou-
sand queens sit regnant, raimented like me. Their
voice is as the sound of many waters.

" Laaty best, and highest over all lae place thee.

" The gods say so ? So be it, then. Mother, I

At MameloHs. 129

have kept charge. My love has won him. The
old race stops, but by no fault of mine. My people,
this man is lord and king to me. See that ye
bring him to my throne when he comes seeking
to the West. Dear love, you will excuse me now\
I must pass on ; but passing on I leave my soul
with thee. Make grave for me on Mamelons. Put
lily at my throat, green boughs on breast, bright
sand on boughs. Watch with me there one nin-ht.
I wnll be there with thee. ?o keep wath Atla holy
tryst one night and only one— then go thy way.
We two will have sweet meeting after many days."
And saying this she put soft hand in his and died.

Her lover, kneeling by her couch, put face to
her cold cheek, nor stirred. The holy man said
softly holy prayer ; while the old tongueless chief
of Mistassinni wrapped head in blanket, and
through the long night sat as one dead.

Next day the silent man made silent grave on
Mamelons. At sunset they brought her to it,
raimented like a queen, and laid her body in brijrht
sand ; put lily at her throat, green boughs on peace-
ful breast, and slowly sifted clean sand over all.

'*f

1 i' 'I .

130

Mamelons.

That night a lonely man sat by a lonely grave,
through the long watches keeping holy tryst. Bat
when the sun came up, rising out of mists which
whitened over Anticosti, he rose, and, standing,
with bared head, he said :

•'Atla,33 we two will have sweet meeting after
many days." Then went his way.

And there, on that high crest, whose sands first
saw the sunrise of the world, when sang the Stars
of Morning, beyond doom and fate, at last, the
child of the old race, which lived in the beginning,
sweetly sleeps at Mamelons.

33 I naiued my heroine Atla, because I hold that the Hixsques not
only are descendantg of the old Iberians, but that the Iberians were
a colony from Atlantis. I accept fully Ignatius Donelly's conclusion*
as to the actual old-time existence of a great island continent in the
Atlantic Ocean, and believe that in it the human race began and de-
veloped a civilization inconceivably perfect and splendid, of which
the Egyptian, Peruvian, Iljerian, and iMexican were only colonial re-
li3tition3. Atla is, therefore, the proper name for the last of the old
HasquL'-Iborian blood to h.ive, as it is the root of Atlantis (Atla-ntis),
the original motherland of all. I have never met Mr. Doneliy, and
may never meet him, and hence I make this opportunity to expreis th*
obligation I am under to him for entertainment and profit. The pa-
tience of the scholarship that could accumulate the material for a
book like his " Atlantis " is worthy of a wider and more grateful ac-
knowledgement than this superficial age of ours is able to give, dtr
it cannot appreciate it. No man with any pretensions of soholarlj
.attainments can afford to let " Atlantis '" go unread.

rT J^<3--A--V".A.,

A Sequel or Companion Story of Mamelonh, will be published

caily in September next.

LIST OP W. H. H. MURRAY'S BOOKS,

Now Ready for Sale :

.50

1.25

The Doom of Mamelous— A Legend of the Saguenay. Cloth, |; 1.25

Paper, .50
How John Norton, The Trapper, Kept Christmas— Pocket edition,
Adirondack Tales— Ten short stories, including John Norton's

Christma.", Cloth,

How Deacon Tubman and Parson Whitney kept New Years,

and three other stories, . . . Cloth,
Gain of Dying— lUligious Address, Paper,

Readings and Lectures.

How John Norton, The Trapper, Kept his Christmas.

Favorite Selections — from published and unpublished works.

Woods and Waters of the North.

The Commercial and Political Unity of the Continent.

Gain of Dying— Sabbath Evening Address.

i The Kingdom of Mind, ) Sabl)ath
The Three Kingdoms : \ " " " Heart, i pA-ening

Soul. \ Address,

Murray's Leclure Bureau, and Liierary Syndicate,

Representing W. H. H. MURRAY.
Miss F. M. Murray, Manager, P. O. Box 12, Burlington, Vt.

I beg to inform you that I have sole charge of my Fathei's in-
terests and engageraent.s, whether connecteil with the Platform or the
Press, and should be consulted by all i)nrtie3 desiriiig his Published
Works, or his services as a Lecturer or Reader.

All Correspondence Promptli/ Answered.

131

IP"

* ■

3Sr OTiiJ-

ix ■ ■■

.'* t

I wish ill the interest of their entertainment and
growth in knowledge, to call the attention of the
reading public to a work soon to be published, from
the pen of Mr. C. H. Farnham, the well known mag-
azine Avriter and canoeist. This book will be a
careful and minute description of French-Canadian
life and character, manners and customs. Mr. Farn-
ham has given the unintermittent labor of eight
years to the preparation of this great work— for so
it may in truth be called, it will treat of the de-
velopment of Canadian History, Character, aiid Insti-
tutions, both from an entertaining, descriptive and
i:)hilosophical point of view, taking the French-
Oanadian civiUzation as the product of Roman
Catholicism after nearly three centuries of heroic
effort of the church in directing a race of excellent
blood. It will portray impartially both the dark
side and also the kindly, picturesque and poetic
elements so strongly marked in this quaint French-
Canadian people. I commend this work of my
friend, both as a scholar and a traveller, to all my
acquaintances and readers as a most rare and enter-

taining volume.

132

W. H. H. Murray.

THE LAKE ST. JOHN

AND

SAGUENAY REGION

QUEBEC is the natural, wc may say the only
advautagous rendezvous lor those tourists
and sportsmen who would visit this pic-
turesque and most remarkable section of the con-
tinent : for the Canada Pacific, the Grand Trunk,
the Qnebi^i^ Central, the Intercolonial Railways
converge at its gates. From its front go the
Saguenay Steamboats — a well managed and well
appointed line — sweeping down the St. Lawrence
to Tadousac, where still stands a remnant of the
earliest Christian Church builded on the con-
tinent, and thence, up for sixty miles, betweea

the awful banks of that strangest, gloomiest.,

183

■ > ) K

•I t *

X -\

134

Lake St. John.

m -i

most mysterious river on the earth — the Saguenay,
to Chicoutimi, to whosje wharf, will soon come,
whirling downward from the savage w^ilderness of
the north, that harmless, happy meteor of civiliza-
tion — the Pullman Car. And last, but not least, be
it remembered by my readers, that from Quebec
roll the trains of the Quebec and Lake St. John
Railway, which tor t^^ hundred miles will take
you through the leas' . -audited stretch of country
crossed by steel rails v)n the cojitinent ; a country
without houses or mills, or huts or cabins or wig-
wams, a stretch of real woodland, where on either
side of the track stands a forest unmarked by axe,
rivers on which are no boats, lakes numberless
where no camp fire was ever lighted and scarce an
Indian's canoe has been, and whore the beaver
dams on which the beavers were working but yes-
terday, are within forty feet of your window as
you whirl past. Through this tangle of rivers, lakes,
forest, swamp, hills, mountains, you are whirled on-
ward until suddenly the train breaks, like a chased
buck, out of the thicket, into an opening, and lo,
the wide, bright waters of Lake St. John, lie spread

Lake St. John.

135

out in broad expanse before you. Verily it is worth,
a dav's ride to see the loneliest lake in the loneliest
woods in the wide world, is it not ? And that,
too, seen from the window of a Palace Car ! It's
enough to take an old trailsman's breath away to
think of such a conjunction !

Yes, Quebec is the starting point, for whatever
purpose you may go to this wild North Land.
North Land indeed ! For he who shall, bravely
adventurous, push up to the north shore of it shall
over Hudson's Straits look at the Northern Pole,
Bless me, if I wouldn't like to fetch that trail with
some of you plucky youngsters of Havard or Yale
just to watch your gait and show you what trail-
ing is ! God bless the boys and may they keep
with bat and oar, rille and portage pack the fame
of brawn and brain, fairly and evenly knit, well
up forever !

Quebec a good starting point ! Yea A'erily, so
good that if on your first year's visit you only got
to it as the true starting point and "Camped" there
for a month you would not have missed entertain-
ment, and of so rare a sort that the memory of it

ft'.

1'.

I ■i ■

136

Lake Si. John.

iii'.

ia ■

S '■■

might well prove a treasure to you forever. For
there is Durham Terrace ! Where in all the cities
and capitals of the world is such another pro-
menade or vision of beauty to the eye by sunlit
day or moonlit night ? Who, that has not, under
the full moon, of a summer night, strolled there
with her he loveth best, would not be ready to die if
he only knew what he had missed ! And there
are the Plains of Abraham where France, through
folly, lost, and England, by wisdom, gained a con-
tinent and where, better yet, their two brave
captains, highest types of two hig^ races, sheathed
swords and through death's gate, entering side by
side, passed in as friends forever. And there,
towerinc: over all, stands the o-reat Fortification —
time worn monument over old time wars — to
whose forms shall come no resurrection while
Christ lives, thank God ! And lo, may you not
sec where sleeps, in silent dust the mortal case-
ment that once held that pure, heroic, persistent
soul men called Cham plain ? And will not mindful
piety show you relic of martyred Breboeuf who
died at torture for his Lord ?

Lali'e SL John.

137

Moreover, may you not visit Montmorenci, that
most perfect of all waterfalls as N"iagara is of
cataracts— which seen once by the eye is seen for-
ever by the memory, because of its perfoctness?
And at Lorette, may you not find the last of the
Hurons, that great tribe that contested the
supremacy of the continent with the Mohawks,
until smitten by plague and famine they lied from
fate and vengeanc*' to the shelter of Stadacona's
walls, nor even found safety there ? And down
the north shore but a little way, shall you not find
at St. Anne where one of the old Galilean springs
empties its healing waters into the St. Lawrence
tide? Yea, if you, my reader, journeying north-
ward got no farther than Quebec, verily you might
return to your southern home, lilled with memo-
ries and impressions that might fill with pleasure
the recollection of a life time. But you need not
tarry there for thence you can push on into a
region wide and wild and in which you shall as
you camp or journey find health, rest, pleasure
and pleasureable experience and impressions
manifold.

! ..

■{

V' :.

The Labrador Peninsular.

IF you will but glance at the map you will o]>-
serve that the country north and enst of a line
drawn Irom the southern point of Hudson's
Bay to Quebec is of enormous size, and those of us
who have traversed it to any extent and studied
its geography and its strange historic and prehis-
toric races and traditions, regard it as on«? of the
most unique and interesting sections of the globe.
Its physical characteristics are remarkable. It is
a land of lakes, of rivers, of forests, of tan<>"le(l
swamps, of wild wastes, of rocky desolation, of
strange phenomena.

The country lying between Hudson's Hay and
the eastern line of Labrador, on a line drawn east
and west, and from the St. Lawrence and Hudson's.
Straits drawn north and south, is a vast sweep of

territory. The distance from Moose Factory, on the

138

I" 1

Lake St. John.

130

west side of James' Bay to Labrador, is as great

as from Moose Factory to Washington, D. C. ! This

will serve to give the A lerican tourist some idea

of its ext«'nt. Pere Albanel, who partially trailled

across this monstrous wilderness ia 1(371-2, notes

that he met and overcome the opposition of two

hundred Rapids and four hundred Portages ; and he

began his journey no farther east than Tadousac ?

No white man as far as is known, living or dead, has

ever crossed this country from east to west, or from

north to south, and save for a few patch- like

settlements, as at Chicoutimi and Lake St. John,

and a few straggling lumber camps, or iishing

stations, it is an uninhabited wilderness, of a most

savage character, only threaded here and there for

short distances by trapping lines. The Jesuit

Missionary — Pere Albanel, two hundred and fifty

years ago, drew a trail across it from Tadousac to

Hudson's Bay, a single trail through a space as wide

as the country between Maine and Lake Erie. The

Price Bros, have pushed their lumber camps a little

beyond Lake St. John in spots. The government,

some years ago, started two expeditions into it,

140

Lake St. John.

Eh'
\\ I..

that wont a considerable distance, but completed
nothing; while the Lake St. John Railway, and
the Provincial Department of Crown Lands, have
surveyed a score or more of townships or parishes ;
but beyond the scanty, and unsatisfactory glympses
thus obtained, nothing is known of this monstrous,
forest, and wild waste of land. It is a terra in-
cognita, as truly so, as when it was, in popular
belief, the home of pigmies, of dwarfs, of giants, of
headless men and semi-human monsters.

In this connection it is lit to state, that (here is
no map of this region, that is worthy to be dignified
by such a name. The reason of this is because the
first one was drawn from the depths of the mnp
makers' imagination, and all subsequent ones have
only repeated the hrst I The charts of the St. Law-
rence coast are, of couri^e, correct, but the land mai)s
are useless. The survey made by John Bignell,
Esq., began at Bersimitesand ending at Little INIis-
tassinni, was scientifically conducted, and so far as
he went he did his work well. But no map has
been published of his survey, nor is there one
likely to be. I have the honor and profit of a

Lake St. John.

\\\

personal acquaintance with Mr. Rigiioll, and ht?
has most courteously put his knowledge of the
country ho traversed at my disposal. He probably
knows more of the Labradorian Peninsular in its
physical goograi)hy, than any other man living-,
and without his valuable assistance, I could never
have prepawd for the public, the splendid map
accompanying this volume. In honor of Mr.
Bignell, and in acknowledgment of the valuable
services rendered his country by a life time of pro-
fessional labor in her interest, especially by his great
exploration from Bersimites, to Little Mistassinni,
and as a protest, to the treatment to which he has
been subjected by the country he beneiilted, I
have accredited it to the pul)lic with his name.
This Bignell map, is the only map in existence, that
is accurate over any large extent of territory. "VVe
could have filled the blank space up easily enough,
had we not decided to draw the map, by what is
actually known of the country, and not what is
guessed at. There is not a lake located, a river
traced, a portage marked, good camp sites desig-
nated, or locality of sport mentioned, that has not

JIm.

) f

142

Lake St. John.

been actually visited by Mr. Bignell or myself, or
some reliable Surveyor, angler, sportsman or guide.
As bearing upon this point and confirming my
position, I will introduce the following letter, from
E. E. Tache, Assistant Commissioner of Crown
Lands, P. Q. : —

PROVINCE OF QUEBEC,

Depaktment of Crown Lands,

Quebec, 27th March, 1888-
W. H. H. MuRRiY, Esq,

Saint Louis Hotel,

Quebec.
Sir,—

I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your favor

of the 2oth inst., and to state that, in giving you a
list of all the maps showing Lake Mistassinni and
surrounding country, that have been published at
various dates, it would necessitate quite an amount
of work, and w^ould after all throw very little light
on the subject. I would, therefore, state that before
the exploration of the Mistassinni Region made
some years ago, by the Geological Survey of Can-
ada, and the more recent one performed by Mr.
Bignell, had taken place, all the maps that were
published of that region seem to have reproduced
Lake Mistassinni as it is shown on Pere Laure'g
map.

Lake St. John.

143

Placing myself at your disposal for all supple-
mentary information that I may be able to give
you on the subject,

I remain,
Sir,
Your most obdt. Servant,

E. E. Tach6,
Asst.-Commissioner.

In Canada, here, the inaccuracy of maps cover-
ing this country and the absence of reliable infor-
mation touching it, are matters of confession and
r«-gret. It has been left to a certain frivolous writer,
in the columns of the Forest and Slreamto discover
nnd proclaim to the world that Mr. Murray and
everybody who desires to fetch a trail through this
vast region, can Jind all needed detail geographi-
cal guidance in Mitchel's Atlas, published in 1855 !
So much easier is it to survey a wild region in an
easy chair, with the help of an ignorant pen, than
with pack on back and chain in hand. As a mat-
ter of profound geological and historic interest I
have caused at my own expense, transcriptions of
Pere Laure's map (1733) of the Mistassinni country
to be made. From this map, as Mr. Tache says.

p-h-

v.—

•*h !

■■: M

144

Lake Si. John.

all subsequent maps, with guess-work modifications
and enlargements, have been made. If Lake Mis-
tassinni is where Father Laure located it, and of
the shape and size he gave it, then it is evident
that Mr. Low, who claimed in his last report to the
Government at Ottawa, to have surveyed it, never
saw it, but surveyed some bay of the big lake, or
some lake near il, and that the real Mistassinni, of
which fame throuuh all the northern tribes speaks,
has yet to be seen and surveyed by a white man.
My own feeling is that Father Laurt' is in gross
error in his chart of the lake, and that there is no
such lake as is on his map there. But how he could
have fallen into so gross an error, I cannot conceive.
But the lake whether big or little is not the most
interesting natural curiosity of the region by any
means, but in it is a curiosity, and a marvel, ftir
more interesting yet, if one may but find it.

This country has always been as it were beyond
the line of accurate knowledge. Mist and dark-
ness have ever enveloped it. Fables have been
told of it. In Charlevoix's history (history of New
France, by Father Charlevoix), the translation of

"•

Lake St. John.

145

which by Dr. Shea, whose vast scholarship and
high qualifications to do rarest work are now, alas,
lost to liberal letters by reason of his engagement
with Frank Leslie's Popular Monlhlij, is a model of
accuracy, and a monument to his learning, mj
readers will find several pages devoted to the
myths and fables current in his clay, regarding this
wild North Land, then as now bsyond the know-
ledge of civilized men.

Jacques Cartier narrates that the Indian Kin"-
Donnacona told him "that in a country far remote
from his own he saw^ men who did not eat but
who lived on liquids. That in another region
were men who had but one leg and thigh with a
very large foot, two hands on the same arm, the
waist extremely square, the breast and head flat
and a very small mouth, and that in another place
he had seen pigmies and a sea, the water of which

was fresh." (Mistassinni or ?)

In 171*7 a young Esquimaux girl was captured
and brought to a Mr, de Courtemanche, on the
Coast of Labrador, and Father Charlevoix saw her
at Quebec in 1720. This girl said that she had

llil

146

Lake St. John.

1^ :| ^

seen in her country men of monstrous size and she
described their physical characteristics as unlike
other men's, being, according to her description,
peculiar and monstrous. And she told the same
;story that nearly a hundred years before Donnacona
iiad told Jacques Cartier, viz. : that she had seen
men who had but one leg, one thigh, and a very
large foot, two hands on the same arm, a broad
foody. Hat head, small eyes, scarcely any nose and
a very small mouth. That they were always in
bad humor, that they were amphibious, and could
Temain under water three-quarters of an hour at a
iime and that the Esquimaux used them to fish up
the fragments of ships wrecked o)i the coast. She
also aA'erred that in the northern extremity of La-
brador, around Ungava Bay, was a people entirely
1)lack, witJi large lips, a broad nose and straight
hair ; that thes(^ men were very wicked and
although badly armed, having only stone knives
and axes, without any iron, they had rendered them-
.-selves a terror to the Esquimaux. Nor was this
:girl the only one who made kindred assertions.
Had I space I could quote several authorities

Lake St. John.

i4r

which state that black men (negroes) once lived
north of the St. Lawrenc3. This same girl declar-
ed that in the North was a nation of pigmies, that
the men were only three feet high and the women
much shorter. And in 1605 the captains and
sailors of some Danish vessels affirmed that near
Hudson's Bay they had found a race of "Little men
with square heads, with pouting lips who could
not eat cooked meat, nor any kind of bread, nor
drink wine at all."

In addition to such tales of strange, wicked and
unnatural beings who inhabited this north land,
were, and still are, other things which stir the im-
agination. Among the Indians are many strange
traditions about which one knows not what to be-
lieve. The Nasquapees, once a great people now
flist dying out, claim that they are descendants of
an old and mighty race that lived in the/rtr north
when it was all summer there ! It is among these
strange people that remarkable spiritual manifesta«
tions occur. They were called Atheists by other
Indians— if they be Indians— because they had no
medicine man or conjuror. But in fact they arc

'S.

148

Lake St. John.

■st

k:\

■

!$ I

|M J

■^

SbH

m I

■

JSji

■-^.

far from being Atheists, for they believe, as Chris-
tians do, in two Great Powers, one good, one evil,
like our God and Satan. And they have a Prop-
het or High Priest who, they believe, has power
to raise the dead, and foretell all that is to happen.
The Saguenay, by common assent, is the most ex-
traordinary river in the world. The tidal and
other physical phenomena of Ungava Bay are most
astonishing. Lake St. John is the most curious of
all lakes to him who would explain its peculiarites.
Great Mistassinni Lake is believed by some to be
a fact, by others a myth, and in it or near it — if
concurrent traditions of many tribes can be credit-
ed — is a cavern of such mysterious nature and pre-
historic connection, that it were well worth vears
of search to find it. For it is believed by some
that in it the kingly dead of a lost race and world
were buried in prehistoric time, when the climate
of the country was the rcA^erse of what it is now,
€ind that they stilt are there in slate of perfect
embalment. Of other things I might speak in the
same vein in proof that this unexplored country
has always been regarded a wierd land,

Lake Si. John.

U9r

" In mist and glnmour wrapped,"

had I space and would it profit any. But of its
fables and mysticism I have said enough, and be-
fore I come down to modern and human charac-
teristics only allude briefly to its ancient population.
The population of the Labrador Peninsular was
of old time much more numerous than it is at pre-
sent. The estimates, by the few who have given
it any attention whatever, vary greatly, but this.
is true, that the estimates grow as we go backward
in time, and doubtless from good reason. The
earliest estimates are of the old mariners, and they
are by far the largest and concurrent in substance.
The Esquimaux, even a century ago, were much
more numerous than now, while two centuries ago
they seem to have been a very powerful people,
able to put large forces into the field. They seem
also to have been much larger in size than at pre-
sent, and we know that the western Esquimaux
are much larger men, physically averaging nearly
if not quite six feet in height.

This shrinkage in population among the abori-
ginals in this region is due to several causes^

( w

150

Lake St. John.

i: i

[■ ■' 1

but of these the chiefost arc two— war and fam-
ine. A glance at the map will show the reader
where to locate the Montagnais Indian or Mount-
aineors, the Esquimaux and the Nasquapees oT
Ungava, and in the geographical position which
the Esquimaux held as related to the other two
peoples, was cause of endless war. The Esqui-
maux were geographically panned in between their
enemies and the sea. The Nasquapoes pressed down
upon them from the north, the Montagnais from
the west, and they must needs light both for they
were literally fighting for life. Thus wars were
constant, and the population was cut down.

But within a hundred years, another cause has
existed to reduce the population of the Labrador
country. The food supply, once abundant in it, has
failed, formerly the white hare was very prolilic
here, and the country was filled with them. They
are now nearly extinct. The hedgehog supplied the
natives with another and sure provision for their
wants. This animal has died out. The reindeer more-
over, were regular in their migrations. Now they
are irregular. One year the number is adequate.

Lake St. John.

15F

Then for several si^asons, none or few are obtainable.
The salmon, which once were in all the rivers, andT
free to all, are now denied the natives. A starving
native may not take a fish, save by stealth. Front
thes'3 several causes, the native populations have-
been r.^duced in numbers, and dwarfed in stature,,
and fatally effected in morale, until they are fast
b.30ominir extinct. Scores are now, where hundreds-
once were ; and the old tribes and remnants of old
raises, which might have connected modern with
even prehistoric times, are j)assing away. No on^^
who has not by patient gleaning- of scattered'
facts, pregnant traditions and suggestive myths^.
become familiar with the po.ssible and inestimable-
value to the student of ethnology, of what might
have been found among these dying and dead
tribes, can appreciate the loss that modern scholar-
ship has met in the chang.^d conditions, and the
extinotion of that aboriginal life which once, in
m. Ititudes, peopled the vast stretch from Iludson^s-
Bay to Labrador.

Nor must we overlook the relation which this
country once held, and to a less degree still holds .

152

Lake Si. John.

to the wild life of woods and waters. From it,
from the fifteenth century, the civilized world has
drawn vast treasures in furs. Millions upon rail-
lions of dollars have been invested and made in
this traffic. The beaver, the otter, the black and
white bear, the ermine and fox, red, grey and
black, the fisher, sable, mink — what a list of pre-
cious furs might be enumerated that have been
taken hence for the comfort and adornment of
mankind. Kings have been more kingly because
of these woods. Queens more queenly, and the
loveliness of women and children more lovely.
And to-day from the waters of its coast and from
its shady recesses the epicurean markets and esthe-
tic taste and pride of the w^orld draw never failing
supplies. Nor can one acquainted with the facts
of the country predict a failure of the supply. For
still as ever its waters are full of fish ; in its deep
depths of woods the wild fowl nest, and every-
where the skilful trapper still finds the fur w^ait-
ing for his trap. Especially is it to-day the great-
est fish preserve of the continent and even of the

globe.

Lake St. John.

153

So much in general description of the country.
One or two sections we will now describe and
characterize in detail.

The Lake St. John Region.

LAKE St. John is a geological curiosity and &
geographical surprise. From the lay of the
land and the general aspect of the country
there should be no such lake or no lake at all where
its wide waters roll. The great rivers that flow
into it, topographically considered, did not need
its great basin to receive them. Like the Maurice,
the Batiscan, the Montmorency and the Jacques
Cartier, they should have emptied directly into the
St. Lawrence. But here the great lake is, where
one would not exp?ct to find it, and being here
must, of course, be accounted for.

:» I.'

15 4

Lake Sf. John.

In shape, it is rounded like a saucer. Its cir-
cumference is almost a true circle. I never saw a
lake whose formation is so perfectly circular to tho
leye. Like a saucer, it slopes gradually and evenly
towards the centre, whore it is Ihit. It is nearly
40 miles across it, and the bottom runs at an easy
^decline, from the shore line to the deepest depth,
^which is 100 feet. It.s shores are sand beaches,
yellow as gold. It is embosomed in woods, which
^row to tho water edge, save at the southern arc,
Tvhere a groat conflagration swept tho forest away,
-and a few straggling villages are. Into this vast
reservoir flow the Ashuapmouehvian, the Mistas-
rsimii, the Miotassibi, the Peribonka, the jMalabac-
huan, the Ouiatchouan. These are large rivers,
which drain a vast water-shed, whose northern
Tidge is far up toward Hudson Bay and the north-
Ten seas. Beside these, a dozen other streams, some
«of them large and deep, which bring down the sur-
plus waters of the innumerable lakes, flow into it.
These streams and lakes are full of fish and cov-
/»ered with wild fowl.

Tke vast region drained by these rivers and

Lake St. John. 165

streams is natai\'.'s great lish preserve, the breeding
ground of innumerable wild fowl and the home of
all fur bearing animals. The bear, the beaver, the
otter, the mink, fisher and marten, the wolf, the red,
gray and black fox are to be found in numbers on
all the streams and lakes. Lake St. John is the
centre of a wilderness filled with these many kinds
of game, and from it the sportsman can penetrate
for hundreds of miles in all directions along the
noiseless pathways of the woods and its forest
shaded watercourses. How did this great lake
originate ? There can be but one cause assiu'n-
ed. It empties into the Saguenay, that marvel
of rivers, and when the Saguenay was made
this lake was formed. The Saguenay is plainly
of volcanic origin. It is a monstrous cleft opened
by earthquake violence for sixty miles through a
landscape of mountains formed of primeval rock.
In old time a shock vrhich shook the world burst
t) ' Laurentian range asunder at its St. Lawrence
line, where Tadousac now is, and opened a
chasm, two miles across, two thousand feet in
depth and sixty miles in length straight north-

« ,J

1156

Lake St. John.

T»rard. Thus was the Sagueiiay born. When this
:awful throe of nature rent the mountains asunder,
the wiMerness far inland felt the mighty shock,
trembled and sank boldly downward. Into thi.s
sinking, this vast declension or subsidence ot the.
land in the midst of this great northren forest, the
rivers and streams from a vast water-shed poured
and formed the lake. This is the only way to ac-
. count for Lake St. John — a reservoir of water so
wide and shallow that its creation changed the
v.climatic conditions of its localitv and "rave warmth
vAnd agricultural possibilities to a region two hun-
<drcd miles north of the northren limit of cereal
-growth. It is a curiosity and a marvel, and as such
well worth the seeing on the part of those who
Llove knowledge and are intelligent enough to ap-
preciate the extraordinary in nature.

Nor is this lake without its history — a history
■whic'i reaches fnr back and connects it with nations
.ijid tribes before the white men cane. For here it
is^as, on the high circular shores of this great like,
.-«o strangely placed at the centre of a wilderness
..reaching from the coast of Labrador lo the head

Lake St. John.

157

V <

waters of the Ottawa, and from the St. Lawrence
to Hudson Bay, that the three mighty nations of
red men, the Hurons, the Algonquins and the Mon-
tagnais, wore wont to make annual rendezvous to
debate plans of war and peace, and engage in trade
and barter. And with them, came the Nasquapees,
from far Ungava Bay, unique among red men, be-
cause they had no medocine man (prophet) among
them, and whose country reached from Lake Mis-
tasfeinni on the west to the eastern limit of the
Labrador peninsular. They were a mighty tribe,
small of stature, but gifted to a degree in many
things am9ng their fellow redmen, with a sense
of smell so delicate, that they scented fire, beyond
the sight of smoke, and trailed their game like
blooded hounds. Among them the wonders
of spiiit rappings were known, and practised
with a perfection that would make our modern
spiritualists ashamed of their bungling seances,
and the occult arts of legerdermain were a«
well known, as they are to our Hermanns. And,
besides these, to these great annual gatherings
at Lake St. John, came many other tribes pouring

t-ti

158

Lake St. John.

out of the great wilderness depths impenetrated
then, iuid impenetrated now by white men, of the
names and number of wh'ch no record tells a word.
A Jesuit Missionary stated, that ho had seen more
than twenty Indian nations assembled at one of
these great annual congresses on the shores of this
wilderness hidden lake. Nor were these worthy mis-
sionaries devoid of the commercial instinct, as the
Hudson Bay Company found to its cost. For it is
written " that the reverend fathers, with rosaries,
small crosses, relics and abundance of prayers,
procured more furs, and of a quality superior to
that of those which the Company could purchase
with the merchandise which they imported at great
expense from Europe.'"

There were many and good reasons, w^hy these
great Indian nations and tribes, with countless
nomadic bands, made their annual rendezvous
around the high, pine grown shores of Lake St.
John. In the first place, it was centrally located,
Ibeing midway between the western and eastern
limits of the great Huron, Algonquin and Mouta-
gnais families, and midway also on the line, north

Lake St. John.

159

and south, which connects the St. Lawrence with
the ridge of its great northern watershed. Hoche-
laga and Ungava Bay, Lake Huron and eastern
Labrador could here, along easy water courses,
converge at a common and convenient centre. At
this distant point, moreover, they were safe from
the inroads of the terrible Iroquois who represent-
ed a confederated ferocity, which ever and anon,
leavinii' its lair on the Mohawk and the lakes in
central New York, scoured the forest from Lake
Huron to the tSaguenay, fierce wnth the thirst
for blocd. And even when assembled on this
far northern water, with two hundred miles of
trackless forest, the Laurentian mountains, and
four hundred miles of added distance between
them and the dreaded IMohawks, these vast
assemblages of ten thousand warriors did not
feel wholly secure, but kept a cordon of
outposts on the watch less those tigers of the
American continent, whose Jaws were always red,
should suddenly pounce upon them. It seems
strange that so small a confederation, comparative-
ly speaking, as was composed by the Fiv^e Nations

« J

160

Lake Si. John.

sliould be able, by their courag-e in war, to make
their name a terror from Florida to the Arctic Ocean,
and levy tribute from every tribe from Lake Supe-
rior to Chaleur Bay, and from Florida to Hoche-
laga.

But another cause justified them in locating their
great yearly congresses on Lake St. John, and the
mention of it will cause surprise to readers not ac-
quainted with the region, viz. — it is the warmest
•section north and east of the Ottawa. Although
' the lake is three hundred miles north of Montreal,
the climate is, nevertheless, much milder there
than it is at the base of Mount Royal. The cause
of this is twofold. In the first place, the Lauren-
tian mountains, which extend down the St. Law-
I'encc on the north shore below the Saguenay,
anake a lofty rampart too high for the cold winds
and fogs which the gulf sends up to scale. These
gales from frozen Labrador lower the temperature
south of this mountain wall 20 '^ beyond what it
is north of it. Autumn has come to Quebec while
summer lingers at Lake St. John.

Moreover, the lake itself is not without climatic

Hi-.

Lake St. John.

161

infliTeiice. So large a body of shallow water resting
on a sandy bottom, barely one hundred feet in depth
at its deepest point, is quickly warmed when the
sun comes north, and stores up a vast amount of
latent heat which repjls the early frosts from its im-
mediate neighborhood. Early in October last year
flowers and delicate garden growths were growing
at Point Bleu in all their summer freshness, al-
though three weeks before that date frost had
blackened the gardens and holds around Quebec.
For the same reason spring comes earlier here,,
than to more southern shores, and the w^aters are
more quickly freed from icy fetters and flow with
rippling freedom. Because of these agreeable cli-
matic conditions, as noticeable in old time as now,
this lake was greatly liked by all the Indian
nations, and made the favorite rendezvous, when
from far and near thoy met each year upon its shores
for council and barter.

It is most interesting to one who has gained
knowledge of this great lake, thus favorably located
and conditioned for such a purpose, and of its con-
nections, to trace the pathways of this annual

> t-

'l*

1 'f

162

Lake St. John.

movement of nations and tribes from oast to west,
north and south, as they journeyed each yoar from
remotest points toward the charming and F^ecluded
meeting spot. Down the Mistassinni they came
from Hudson Eay in easy descent. From far Un-
gava, the Peribonka brought them swiftly. From
the east and south, the Bersimis and the Saguonay
gave to their canoes a smoother highway than
Home ever builded for her chariots ; while from the
west, the Maurice and the Bati?can brought them
within short portage of the shallow lake, on whose
Bandy banks their campgrounds waited for their
coming. What a spectacle this lake and its encir-
cling shores must have presented to th > eye, whiu
twenty nations in their barbaric vig-or, — at a time
when many food animals, now extin t, filled all this
great territory with plenty, and starvation was
unknown — spotted its waters with their numberless
canoes, and lighted, at evening, their (;oiintless
campfiros, under the mighty pines that belted with a
hundred miles of magnificnit growth, the circling
shore. Vanished forever are the mighty hordes that
once found plenty and pleasure upon its banks ; but

IM.

Lake St. John.

163

the lako still remains as bright by day, as lovely by
night, as when the red men, by nations and tribes,
met in council, to tr;i'le, to gamble, and play their
games upon its fragrant and delightfully shaded
shores.

But, in one respect, the landscape around the
lake is not as it was, for a change has come to the
southern shore. Some thirty years ago a conflagra-
tion was kindled here, such as the world has seldom
seen. The record of forest fires east and west,
might be searched in vain to find a parallel. It
was no ordinary fire, but a cyclone of flames, that
swept the earth, as with the besom of destruction.
Before its awful rush the solid forest was swept
away as if its mighty trees were driest stubble. It
flamed up suddenly at the southwest corner of the
lake, swept around the southern arc of its circling
shore as far as the Grande Descharge, then onward
to the SaiTfuenav- In seven hours that awful line
of fire had gone 120 miles; then it suddenly stop-
ped, like a tiger glutted with prey. It scarred the
face of the wilderness so deeply, that its ugly cica-
trice remains raw and red to this day. In the line

164

Lake St. John.

M\ I

■ >.

of its progress were a few scattered settlements.
Men, women and children fled to the lake and
plunged in. Not all escaped. Some were caught
in the woods; their bones even were never found.
Some foolishly hid in their cellars ; they were
roasted alive. A great wooden cros.s by the road-
side on the lake shore tells the pnsser-by to-day
"where a group thus met their dreadful death. It
stands a solemn token of an awful event.

Some thought the end of the world had come, so
dense the smoke, and high the fire which ilaraed
to the very sky and said their prayers a.s at the
threshold of judgment day. The heat was inde-
scribable. It ate the woods like dry straw. It split
the mighty rocks. Cliffs burst open and fell down
with the noise of thunder. The soil in an instant
was turned to ashes and whirled upvvlird, leavings
the foundation rocks of the world bare. The fish
in the rivers came to surface as in boiling water.
All living things in the path of the llame perished
on the instant. It came and went like a, judgment,
leaving not a root to smoke where it passed. An
awful sight it was, and a vivid memory of its ter-

Lake St. John.

1(35

rors lingers still along the trail where it swept.
Well may men say that the like of it was never
seen on earth before nor since.

For the reasons I have already pointed out, thii
lake was always a favorite resort of the red men,
but there was another, and perhaps the strongest,
reason why they loved to camp upon its shores.
It was the home of the famous Wa-na-nish. Where
ever this fish may be pla ^ed by scientists, or with
whatever group classed, one thing is evident to all
who haA'e ever taken or eaten one.

It is the noblest game fish, after ^the salmon, in
the world, and yields precedence to none upon the
table. In appearance it resembles a landlocked
salmon, but it takes a Ily with the same eagerness
and energy as the salmon displays, and, when
struck, fights for liberty with such fierce vigor
and persistence as to tax an angler's skill and
tackle alike. This celebrated and justly admired
lish, which, in the estimation of many judicious
persons, ranks level with the king of game
fish, whether on table or in water, makes
its hone, its only home, in and around Lake

166

Lake SL John.

St. John. Indeed, this body of water might in
truth be called nature's great fish preserve, espe-
cially prepared for the propagation and preserva-
tion of this most noble tish and its beautiful con-
gener — the spotted trout. For this vast reservoir
of the woods receives the llowage of many and
large rivers and of innumerable and rapid streams,
so that into it naturally come not only vast sup
plies of food, but constant reinforcement of its re-
sident stock also from all parts of the wilderness.
For in these tributary waters there seems to be an
apparent tendency for the largest iish grown in
them, when at their fullest size, to seek this lake.
May there not be among fish as among men a
aristocracy of condition wliich causes the favored
ones — those of the brightest spots and thickest
sides — to group at favorite localities"? And may
not this golden colored basin of Lake St. John be
a Back Bay or Fifth Avenue of aristocratic fish-
dom?

Be this suggestion in harmony with mere fancy
or actual fact, the statement remains true that
Lake St. John is the central home and avenue to

Lake St. Ju/in.

107

such sj^ort iiud ang'ling as American sportsmen
never enjoyed before. Maine and the Adirondacks,

•k

great

when in their best estate, and New Bruns>
well known as localities where in times p
sport with the flies was had, and where, even now,
fair average work with the rod may be done. But
so far as size, condition and numbers go, I have
no reason to think that these noted localities were
in their best days ever comparable with Lake St.
John and its tributary and adjacent waters. There
can be no question that the spotted trout of this
north country attain a size seldom, if ever, equalled
in any other water. Although I can offer no evi-
dence that is actually final and beyond question,
such as personal sight and visible proof of the
scales, still, I have no cause to doubt that spotted
trout weighing nearly, if not quite fourteen pounds,
have been captured in these waters, and that trout
weighing eight and ten pounds are likely to be
hooked among any catch one might make in certain
localities.

If one should ask me : " What is the largest trout
you ever caught in these waters? ! ! ", I would in

'i'

168 Lake St. John.

answer say that what I do with rod and rifle whon
trailing is no measure of the game in water or
wood. I do not seek the forest as a sportsman, but
as a lover of nature and a studont of woodcraft*
with all that the word, to one like m(^ implies. I
love the trail for the trail's sake, and the canoe as
the most convenient and delightful mode of loco-
motion known to man. To hear a noise I cannot
put a name to in the woods ; to see a new shade
of color on leaf or water ; to see a beaver at work
or a family of otters at play ; to outwit the cun-
ning fox or feed a family of wild partridges from
my hand, is a finer pleasure to me than angling or
shooting. I carry roj and rifle for food's sake
rather than for pleasure, and use neither save to
feed my hunger. ^

Hence a two pound trout is better for my pur-
poses than a larger one, unless I wish to bake one,
when a four-pounder is as large as my wants de-
mand, for no rightly constructed man ever requires
more than one such trout for one meal, after a
hard day's trail, nor one much smaller. ! Occasionally
I cast a fly to test the waters, or start the sluggish

Lake St. John.

169

3 wheMl
ater or
in, but
)dcraft»
lies. I
tnoe as
of loco-
cannot
shade
it work
10 din-
es from
•lino: or
's sake
save to

ly pur-
vo one,
nts de-
equires
after a
ionally
uggish

.. ..

blood with healthy exhilaration, but beyond these
narrow limits, self-imposed, I seldom go. But if I
made no " great catches " myself, I saw caiches
made by others in the lakes along the line of the
Lake f^t. John Railroad last fall such as I never
saw equalkd, and such us I am sure could not be
equalled in any other accessible waters. The
trout were invariably of large size and in prime
condition, and distinguished by such splendor in
marking as I never saw excelled, even in rare in-
dividual cases. Catches were from fifty to one
hundred pounds in weight, while an average of
nearly three pound per iish was not unusual, and
these astonishing results were often obtained by
men of no skill in angling, and with the rudest
and most original outfits in way of rods and tackle.
I ran across a camp of engineers on one of the lakes
whose sole equipment consisted of a stout cord
some twelve feet in length, and one big codiish
hook noosed stoutly and clumsily on it. The bait
used was salt pork. And yet, with this rude outfit,
the pork bait being skittered on the surface of the
water, they were taking trout freely, as they had

Mill

I s;

i i

170

Lake St. Johu.

noed, of from three to six pounds iu weight. It
was both laughable and astounding to see a Canuck
^^hopper, who knew no more of angling than he
did of Beethoven's symphonies, struggling w^ivh
the monstrous iish that rashed at his salt junk as
if )i was the one delectable morsel they had ])eeu
long w^aiting for.

Th(^ climate of the Lake St. John region, as I found
it to be last summer, was a surprise to me. As it is
iwo hundred miles directly north of Quebec, I na-
turally expected that it would be much colder.
Instead of this being the ca^e, I found the reverse
to be true. Frost was much slower in coming
than it was sixty leagues farther south. The water
retained its summer warmth for nearly a full
jjionth beyond the date I had set for it to freeze.
It was comfortable bathing at Lake St. John up to
October 10, at wiiich time the air was warm and
■genial. The prevalent wdnds were from the
south-west, and they seem to have blowni from
southern atmospheres, for even on stormy days
they did not chill one. The cold east winds
which blow straight up the St. Lawrence channel

Lake Si. John.

171

from Labrador, and which make one feel so un-
comfortable at Quebec, and even at Montreal, seem
not to get north of the Laurentian mountain line,
for during all the autumn there was but one
northeast storm, and that was not a cold one. I
never lived in a more equable and genial au-
tumnal climate than I found to be the normal one
in this inland region, and for purposes of pleasure
and health I can cordially commend camp life on
these northern lakes until snow^ drives one out.

Of wild fowl there is an abundance. Along the
tributaries of the lake ducks and geese of many
varieties nest and raise their young. The sports-
man can find good sport both on the lake and on
all the lakes around and in the rivers and streams
flowing into it. In point of accessibility this
region is now" most convenient to all sportsmen
and tourists from the States.

The Lake St. John Railroad now runs to
the very shore of the lake, and before reaching
it passes scores of lesser lakes full of fish and
beautiful to the eye. No angler need go to Lake
St. John to command as good angling as a

172

Lake St. John.

disciple of the rod ever found. But if he is ambi-
tious to try his skill and test his tackle on a wa-
na-nish, that peer of the salmon, he must visit the
great lake, for in no other , body of water in the
woods can he find this noble fish. The angler
leaving Boston Monday morning will reach Lake
St. John Tuesday afternoon, and cover the en-
tire distance in a Pullman car. This makes an
excursion even of a week's duration practicable to
any angler from New England. I know of no
other opportui :ty for prime sport to be found on
the continent equal to this. The opening up of
this wonderful country to the public by the con-
struction of this railroad is a positive boon to sports-
man and tourist alike. It makes a high order of
ideasure and healthy recreiUion pos.sible and con-
venient to thousands that could not otherwise en-
Joy it-
It should be remembered in this connection that
all this country is yet in a wilderness condition,
and, therefore, most charming to those who love
seclusion, and from education in camp life and
woodcraft know how to guide and t ike care of

I /.

Lake St. John, 173r

themselves and those dependent on them for need-
ed protection and comfort. But there are few hotels
and but few settloments or clearings, and "guid-
ing" is not a practice or a habit of life with th<?
Indians and halfbreeds resident there. These
nec'li-d facilities of safety and happiness, will, un-
doubtedly, be speedily evolved from the rude con-
<litions now existing, in answ r to public demand,
but at presrnt they do not exist to any such extent
as to be adequate for any great multitude of visitors.
I doi ; doubt that the natives, both red and
white, will speedily dovelope into excellent guides
for many of them are experts in canoe -ervice, and
at trailing and their trapping life has made them
familiar with the country, within certain fixed
limits.

Imn Flowing into Lake St. Jolin,

THE rivers which How into Lake St. John are
worthy of a volume by themselves, for they
are of large size — deep, wide and long. The
Peribonka is navicable to steamers of "'ood size for
thirty miles from the mouth. It enters from the north
north-east, and a canoeman must, it is said, make
four hundred miles before he may behold its head-
waters. And in all this journey he will not find a
house, nor cabin nor camp of white men, save near
the mouth where the lumbermen have been. The
Mistassinni is navigable to a steamer for twenty
miles ; the Ashuapmouchouan for fii'teen miles, and
the Ticonapee for thirty miles. These excursions,
remember, would bo in loUderness rivers and into the
depths of a wilderness, and of themselves would
make a most unique and meinorablo experience.

The Lake St. John Railroad management have

174

Lake St. John.

175

<t.

just completed a steamer on the lake capable of
carrying three hundred passengers, and these
" wilderness excursions " are destined beyond'
doubt to form not the least of the many novel at-
tractions that will draw tourists to this extraordi-
nary country. From the si;;e of the lake and that
of the rivers running into it, it will be easily seeiir
that there is no danger of this region ever being
" overcrowded " by visitors as in the case of the^
Adirondacks and the Maine woods. There might
be twenty huge summer hotels around the shores
of Lake Tit. John and the banks of these great
inland rivers and all crowded with guests, and
each might still remain

" Tlio center of a si)1eiulitl solitude."

The woodland region of Maine and New York,,
of Vermont and New Hampshire, can be " over-
crowded," but there are not enough anglers, spoils-
men, trappers, canoeist, campers and sighis€«TS a»
the entire United States to overcrowd this vast
wilderness. The pianos, Saratoga Trunks and
shot guns drove me out of the Adirondacks and
made an exile of me, but I have no tear of ever

?wtMi^^"»"»wpp«w^Wi^wi^

176

Lake St. John.

being driven out, by such detestable follies, from
this bit of woods. There will always be a spot
somewhere between the St. Lawrence and Hud-
son's Straits, where by, " moving on," as the pest.s
follow mo, I can live a few months each year in
peace until the Silence calls me and I go to other
silence that waits for those who love it somewhere
on head.

At Koberval, on the shore of the lake, the tourists
will iind a tribe of Montagnais Indians. They
are the "Mountaineers" of ancient times and wars,
and dwelt among the Laurentian Hills. They
were a brave stock, and they and the Esquimaux
of Labrador were- never at peace. The Mounds of
Mamelons at the mouth of the Saguenay could
tell of wars fought on them for a thousand years,
could their sands but speak. The Montagnais at
Roberval are very dark of skin. They are great
hunters, skilled trappors, great canoemen and run-
no^* They arc a racial <uriosity and worthy of
study on the part of the intelligent tourist, and
sight of them and their pe< uliarities will be enter-
tainimr to all.

Lake Si. John.

177

i, from
a spot
I Hud-
e pests
^ear in
> other
ewhere

[ourists
They
d wars,
They
limaux
iiids of
could
years,
nais at
; great
id run-
thy of
st, and
enter-

The vilhiaes around a section of the hike arc well
adapted to interest the sightseer, and the more in-
telligent he is the more he will be entertained.
Here he Avill ))ohold a people primitive in habits
and style of life. J [ere the spinning wheel and
hand loom are still in daily use, and dames of
high and low degree are courted, wooed and won,
as

" Their wliite hands turn the sounding wheel
And spin tlie mystic tliread."

Agriculture is successfully followed. Women
work with men in the fields. Grirls vie with boys
in dexterity of hand ^vhen in the harvest time the
scattered sheaves are piled in yellow stacks. Here
too that finest expression of social courtesy I have
ever met, since Fitz-Greene Ilalleck died grace-
fully, is to be found : the v;hite-headed, pure blood-
ed Frenchman of the old regime, \vho serves you
native bread ond wine — or its substitute ! — with
the grace and dignity of a courtier at the Court of
the Grand Monarque ; and by his side you meet
the Indian without cross, with the Montagnais'
swarlh upon his cheek and with these high types

178

Lake. St John.

of two great races every shade of Mongrelismdown
to an iuiiiiity of admixtures! Verily these vil-
lages, and the men and women in them, and the
life they live are well worth studying.

On the Ouiatchouan River, which empties into
the lake, but a short distance from it are the

<■

OUIATCHOUAN FALLS.

They are very bjantiful, but to be seen to best ad-
vantage, as is the case of all Falls, should be seen
at short distance and looking upward. Not that
these Falls are less than the greatest on the conti-
nent in height, for they stand in the very first rank
a 3 to altitude. Niagara is 180 feet in height if I
remember rightly, Montmorenci 220, while these
Falls near Lake St. John are 230 feet in height !
And in early summer, when the river runs down-
ward with full banks, one must search far to find
a, finer sight than the white torrent tumbling
a,s from the clouds.

But if the touriai, for any reason, would stop
.sooner, he need not, by any means, go clean on to
Lake St. John to find health, pleasure and game.

Lake St. John,

179

For only one hundred miles from Quebec he will
find himself, as the train stops, on the very banks
of Pearl Lake, Lake Kiskisink or Lake of the Great
Islands — than which I know of nothing lovelier nor
likelier to please the angler or the health and
pleasure seeker.

LAKE OF THE GREAT ISLANDS.

There may be a thousand lakes l)etween Quebec
and Lake St. John, but certainly there cannot be
many so completely beautiful as this Lac des Grandes
Isles, misnamed on the railroad maps and schedules
Lake Edward. Its size is sufficient to rank it
among the chiefest of the region, for it is over twenty
miles in length, and at its widest section six or eight
in breadth. But it is, in fact, far larger than these
figures suggest, for it is characterized by islands of
great size, some of them miles in length and width,
and also by wide and deep bays, which penetrate
far in between the adjacent hills, some with broad
unobstructed entrances, and others with such nar-
row openings lakeward that one must search
closely to find them, and which, when you are a

180

Lake St. John.

lost to the

that

-little way within, l>ecoine
you seem to be in some other lake, without outlet,
-for the circle of the green enclosure seems porlect,
.and the surrounding hills shut you as completely
ifrom the world beyond them, as were those who
Jived in the happy valley of Rasselas,

These deep bays, whose waters search out the
land inwardly to so great a distance, often have
many islands, both small and great, so that the
^careless canoeman can almost 1)e lost in them, and
,be compelled to rediscover the entrance which ad-
juitted him to this lovely solitude. For the reader
must remember that those northern lakes are, at
this writing, almost altogether unvisited, and that
<x)n and around them he finds nature absolutely un-
^•disturbed by man and his rude doings, which so
anar her loveliness and introduce harsh, discordant
noises into the realm of her sweet harmonies.

To these lakes the lumberman has not come, and
•the devastating fire of the settler has not as yet
•been kindled. There is not a blazed trail leading
to them, and many have not been visited even by
ihe diminutive canoe of the trapper.

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WEBSTER, NY. 14580

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I 'ii

Lake St. John.

181

They lie secluded and apart from the world of
men, reposing peacefully among the hills, whose
shades of green and gold they perfectly mirror ;
their waters undisturbed save by the loon and
otter, the splash of their great trout, or the tiny cir-
cles stirred by falling cone or autumnal leaf How
few of God's children in the world have ever seen
a single spot on its broad surface as he made it. If
they could but get one glimpse at his perfect
handiwork, how much more truthfully and im-
pressively, it would teach them of his perfectness
than all the catechisms they might ever commit to
memory ! *

This lake, beyond any other I have ever seen^
is characterized by its sand beaches. These are
found in all parts of it, whether insular or of the
mainland. These beaches are of bright straw color,
and give a look of warmth to the landscape which
is often lacking in a country where the forests are
largely evergreen. For many of the lakes of the
Adirondacks, I can remember, were from this cause
very gloomy and forbidding looking placeS; especi-
ally on dark and stormy days, when, if ever, th*

«»

182

ZaA:c S/. John.

camp is cheered by any bright spectacle. They
are lakes in this north country which, in their as-
pect, are truly funereal, gloomy, and forbidding to
a degree. Such bits of water in the woods oppress
lae. To paddle into Ihem when the sky is over-
cast, and the day at the hour of its decline, is like
entering into the cold cheerless shadow called
death. Such lakes nature, as I have noted, in all
her tunefulness and brightness, abhors. In such
places you find no song birds, and few, if any,
flowers, for these love light, not darkness, and sun-
shine and warm, cosey nooks and corners where
they can love and sing and nest, or bud and bloom,
and both get and give fragrance from and to the
air. One becomes tired of the loon and the wolf,
and of a place where even the trout seem to jump
timidly and the fur-bearing animals slink along
the shore. Solitude is delicious to tired nerves and
aching hearts, but there can be a solitude which de-
presses the spirit that needs cheering and adds to
the heart's heaviness.

Hence no lake is fit to camp upon, unless it has
dry, breezy points, reaching far out into it, and

»■

^ ■

Lake St. John.

183

wind-blown islands, where winged pests cannot
stay to torment, and clean, bright, sand beaches,
which beyond all else light up a lake in the woods,
and brighten it as a happy smile does the
human face. Such a beach has a language and is
vocal. It says : " Look at me, and see how bright
and clean I am, and how happy you will be if you
come and live near me. I am warm, for the sun
loves mo, and it will cheer your spirits to sit and
look at me, and see the little waves come and dance
merrily over my pebbles to my music." And this
Lake of the Great Islands is greatly favored in re-
spect to its many bright sand beaches, which are to
be found everywhere, both on the shore of the
islands and mainland, and which brighten and
beautify it to a degree I have rarely, if ever, seen
on any other bit of forest water.

Moreover, its water is very clear and sweet to the
taste, like some of the spring ponds in the Adiron-
dacks, and I found great pleasure in drinking it.
For as one star differeth from another star in glory,
so one water diflfereth from another water in excel-
lence. This difference as to excellence in waters caiL

184

Lake St. John.

I! I

be sensed, and the sense which discerns it cultiva-
ted ; and he must be poorly gifted by nature who,
after paddling twenty lakes in the woods, cannot
say which is sweeter in the mouth, and softer to the
skin. The w^ater of this lake is delicious to drink.
The tongue enjoys it and the stomach receives it
with a feeling of full satisfaction ; nor is it less ac-
ceptable to the skin. Some waters chill one in bath-
ing ; others seem to pinch and pucker the skin, so
that you feel corrugated after a bath; others yet have
a lime quality to them, which vexes you with the
sense of being encrusted, or encased w4th the first
filament of a shell environment. But the water of
this lake is a true bathing water, cool, but not cold,
and soft, as if in it there w^as an essential element
of some fine oil, such as the ancients — with whom
died all artistic i>hysical sense — used when they
anointed their kings or prepared their most beau-
tiful woman for their king's couch.

I bathed in this water as late as October 3, a
week after the first snowfall, and though I am
sensitive to chills and am cautious as to my
bathing even in summer, still I experienced only

Lake St. John.

185

the keenest satisfaction from this bath, and came
to the shore from my last plunge into the clear,
soft water, regretfully, as if I were a piayful boy
again. And, in truth, I had been made such for a
little while, splashing in this delicious water, with
tl e bright October sun shining keenly above me.

As to game, in the ordinary sense of the \vord»
it is not abundant around this lake. Of red deer
there are none, as they do not frequent this sec-
tion of the Canadian woods. In Ontario they are
abundant, but not in Quebec Province. The River
Rouge, which empties into the Ottawa below the
City of that name, is said to be the eastern limit of
their range. Why they come not farther eastward
none can say, but such I believe to be the fact, for
I have never seen one, or a trace of one, east of
this river's line. But moose and caribou are on
this lake, for I found signs of them in many places,
both in the woods and on the sand beaches. It
does not matter how many or how few there are,
since the Game Law of Quebec forbids one to kill
them unless the hunter is of Indian blood. Indeed,
by the terms of this singular law, all noble game

186

Lake St. John.

t 'I'

hjii

seems forbidden to gentlemen who would kill
with discrimination, and given over to the tender
mercies of a class of wilderness vagabonds who
slaughter indiscriminately and without mercy.
Nor do ducks and geese frequent the lake in any
large number, perhaps because its shores are free
from low marshes and stagnant, sedgy places.

But of the furred animals, such as mink, otter,
marten and fisher, there is a good supply, and,
after my way of thinking, trapping of such valu-
able furs is the most enjoyable form of wood sport.
To trap successfully requires more skill than to
kill with the rifle ; and, as a pursuit, it gives the
larger education in those occult practices which
belong to the higher grades of woodcraft. It moves
one to become a close observer of nature, animate
and inanimate, and stimulates him to put forth
his best efforts along the range of his higher facul-
ties, such as reason and judgment, invention and
caution. Moreover, when a gentlemen has trap-
ped a valuable animal, he has secured a trophy
beautiful in itself, and useful either as a gift or a
fiouvenir. A half-dozen prime beaver and otter

Lake St. John.

187

skius, with as many mink and fisher, are prizes
vrell worth the having, and make one to feel that
his time in the woods has been well spent ; and
if one should have the good fortune to trap a gray
or a black fox, he has a prize indeed. I would
sooner take home a black fox skin than the largest
set of moose antlers ever grown. In respect to
beauty, it is unsurpassed by any kind of fur, and
is so rare that it takes from $100 to |150 to pur-
chase a good specimen. Mink may be in or out
of fashion, but there is nothing finer than a robe
made from prime mink skins, and these animals
abound on this lake, and are not difficult to cap-
ture.

Of trout there is no lack. I saw more large trout
captured on this lake than I ever saw in all my
angling career before. From fiv^e to eight pounds
in weight is not very rare, and I saw catches made
of from one to four dozen, of which the average
weight was over 2\ pounds, The trout here are
very tine in color and flavor, fat and gamy
as trout may b9, and they take a fly as a
spirited hunter under an old hand takes a

^.•.

188

Lake St. John.

■

•I

|1 ■■

fence. It seemed to me that I never saw trout so
swift of fin. They rushed at the feathered deceit
as if they feared some rival would get at it first,
and when struck fought the rod and tackle
savagely. The lake is so large that I do not see
how they can be thinned out for years ; but if
they could be, the angler camped on its shore can
find twenty other lakes within a dav's journey
equally as full of fish.

Indeed, this vast region is full of lakes, and the
lakes are full of fish. That in brief, describes the
country. It is in very fact nature's great fish pre-
serve, protected from the intrusion of man by its
savageness from the beginning of the w^orld. For,
from the earliest knowledge we have of this great
waste of wilderness stretching toward the north, the
aboriginal population was comparatively scanty, the
tribes which inhabited it being few in number and
widely scattered, and the normal condition of na-
tural propagation of the fish native to its waters has
never been disturbed, the only limit to natural in-
crease being the food supply, which in nearly all
these lakes is most abundant ; hence, they are not

Lake St. John.

189

trout so
3d deceit

it first,
d tackle

not see
i ; but if
here cau

journey

and the
libes the
fish pre-
n by its
For,
lis great
)rth, the
inty,the
ber and
n of na-
ters has
iiral in-
arly all
are not

merely well stocked with trout, but trout of the
largest size and best condition.

In this large and beautii'ul lake which we are
describing, the bays and shallow portions literally
swarm with perch, some of which are to be found
weighing from two to throe pounds, and, being
thus heavy and strong in structure, make no mean
sport for the anglor. I met large schools of them
everywhere on the lake, and in some of the larger
trout I captured I found perch six or seven inches
in length, and undigested, showing plainly that
they had only just been seized. Nothing ever
proved to me so forcibly the voracious nature of the
trout as this fact : One huge fellow rushed at my liy
one evening, off a rocky point where the water was
at least 40 feet in depth, as if he were starving,
but when 1 landed him after a fierce struggle his
stomach was so monstrously distended that I
opened him to see what gave him such abnormal
fulness, and, behold, in him was a perch nearly a
pound in weight, so long that its tail was actually
at the root of his throat. In addition to the perch,
this lake is filled with chubs a id dace, and other

190

Lake St. John.

Ill
III

sorts of swimming and crawling food such as trout
love, and so it happens that they grow to a huge
size and are to be found in such large numbers.
In many other lakes the dore and muskalonge ara
found along with the trout, which, strange to say,
do not seem to suffer from their presence ; but in
this noble body of water I found only the trout,
with such other small fry for their food as I have
mentioned ; hence it might in very truth be well
called the angler's j^aradise.

As a place for that large class of people, happily-
increasing in our country, who seek outdoor life as
the source of health and pleasure, rather than from
the motive which prompts the inveterate angler, I
commend this lake as likely to afford them what
they seek and enjoy, at the cost of the least pos-
sible trouble and expense. Its shores are dry and
sandy, its waters warm and delicious for bathing,
its scenery fresh and beautiful to the eye, its forest
inclosure primeval, and its trout beautiful, large
and of the most excellent flavor. Its waters are so
extensive that yachting and boating under safe
conditions are perfectly feasible. In its most opeu

Lake St. John.

191

as trout
) a huge
umbers.
)nge are
B to say,
; but iu
le trout,
I I have
be well

happily
r life 83
m from
ngler, I
a what
ist pos-

ry and
athing,
J forest
, large

are so
»r safe
t open

tipave a sail yacht of ten tons could lay a straight
course for at least ten miles with forty feet of
water under her, no reefs or shoals, and either shore
from one to two miles distant.

I do not doubt that many small yachts and
steam launches will, in a few years, be racing
jauntily through its pure waters, which have
hitherto flowed in lonely loveliness from the .lay
their clear springs were opened, un vexed by any-
thing heavier or harsher than an occasional birch
canoe, whivh might well be called the spectre
bark of the woods.

This lake is, moreover, peculiarly accessible to
visitors, as the railroad runs for several miles along
its very edge, and has a station at the head of one
of its many bays, so that tourists and sportsmen
can journey from our cities in a Pullman car
almost to their very camp ground, without the ex-
pense, discomfort and fatigue incident to stage
coaching, buckboarding and arduous portaging,
while supplies of all kinds can be sent at a day's
notice from Quebec to the camping grounds. I
woud advise no party composed in part of ladies

ili:

192

LaA:e 5/. John.

and children to visit this lake or any lake in the
woods, whether in our country or in Canada,
earlier than the first or the middle of July ; for
until then the black flies and mosquitoes make
camp life, as a rule, a most undesirable experience ;
but from the middle of July to November camp
life on this lovely lake, whether lived for health or
pleasure, would prove as enjoyable as any locality
1 have ever visited. There are no hotels there as
yet, but the management of the Lake St. John
Railroad have, with a thoughtful regard for visitors,
prepared several convenient and spacious camp
grounds, at points of great beauty and where the
facilities for bathing and sport are greatest, which
they will permit responsible parties to occupy free
of charge. Parties wishing to secure these pri-
vileges can do so by correspondence addressed
^'Tourist Department," Lake St. John Railway,
Quebec, P. Q., Canada. Such correspondence will
be promptly answered and every assistance afforded
tourists, which in the nature of things is possible.
This country which this road traverses is a most
remarkable one from many points of view. It is

Lake St. John.

193

ike iu the
Canada,
July ; for
oes make
perience ;
ber camp

health or
y locality
s there as

St. John
•r visitors,
us camp
v^here the
st, which
cupy free
hese pri-
iddressed
Railway,
ence will
e alforded

possible.

is a most
w. It is

in the truest sense of the world a wilderness. Com-
pared with it, the Adirondack wilderness was
populous when I first went into it. The railroad
runs from south to north straight into it. When
you enter its cars, it is as if you were starting for
the north pole. For one hundred and fifty
miles of the distance you do not pass a house,
cabin or clearing, save such temporary structures
as the contractors have erected, here and there,
for the accommodation of their workmen, I doubt
if, in this distance, there can be found twenty rods
from the track a trail or a line of blazed trees. No
tourists have been here ahead of the engineer. No
sportsman has ever paddled the rivers it crosses
or built his camp fire on the shores of the lakes
around whose bright, sandy edges its rails are laid,
and, strangest and most grateful fact to old Adiron-
dackers, who have seen their lovely woods destroy-
ed by guilty carelessness, and to all lovers of nature
is that the trees remain unscarred and undisturbed ;
no fire has blas<^ed and blackened the loveliness of
the Creator's work of love. The^forest stands a»
God has made it, fresh and gr^en and odorous,

'Hi

5 i

194

Lake St. John.

untouched and untarnished as yet by man ; a vis-
ion of beauty, such as I know not where else in all
the continent the tourist and lover of nature may
see. How svsreet it is to visit such lakes ; to behold
them embowered within the circle of the surrouna-
ing woods, to which they are nature's perfect mir-
ror ; to camp upon their shores, beyond the noise
of men who call themselves sportsmen because they
know how to fire off guns ; to paddle over the still
surface before the wind of the day has begun to
blow and see great trout leap and hear their heavy
splash as they fall back into the waiting water.
How dear old Izaak Walton would have loved to
have seen what I have seen among these Canadian
lakes.

In some respects these Canadian lakes, which
lie clustered along the line of the Lake St. John
railroad, are more beautiful than the Adirondack
lakes, as seen by any of us ; for, even when I first
went into the Adirondacks, many of the most beauti-
ful islands in the larger lakes and points of land
stretching out into them were already burned oyer
or marred as to their original loveliness by fire,

Lake St. John.

195

; a vis-
se in all
ire may
> behold
rrouna-
ect mir-
le noise
ise they
the still
egun to
r heavy
water,
oved to
anadian

which
It. John
ondack
1 I first
beauti-
[)f land
Bd oyer
>y fire,

•

and, if I am not mistaken, the mountains to the
east of Long Lake were blackened in great patches.
But in all my journeyings here I have not seen a
single lake that is not as free from trace of fire and
as fair to look upon, as if the Lord, who loveth
beauty, had made it but yesterday. Moreover,
these Canadian lakes are distinguished to a degree
I never saw before in any inland waters, in this,
that nearly all of them have finely sanded shores
wherever the hills do not come down to the water's
edge in rocky abruptness. And where these bright
beaches are not, clean rocks are, or else trees whose
line of living green no axe or fire has broken into
abrupt ugliness. As to number these lakes are
beyond counting. The surveyor-in-chief of the
line estimated that, in the parallelogram, only
twenty miles wide, reaching from Quebec to Lake
8t. John, there were five hunired lakes. I believe
this to be an under, rather than an over, estimate.
A club of gentlemen rented a section of the G-overn-
ment for fishing purposes, which they supposed
had three lakes within its limits. They have since,
upon examination, discovered that there are fifty

106

Lake St. John.

lakes within their leasehold. In short, the region
traversed by this road is, in very truth, a Canadian
Adirondacks, and as such is destined to be the
resort of thousands and tens of thousands annually,
once this road is fully completed, and provision
is made at suitable points for the accommodation of
the sporting and touring public of the States.

Of game there is but little throughout this sec-
tion of the country. Indeed, the Province of Que-
bec has no great inducements to offer the sports-
man save in its wild fowl. She has no red deer
within her borders, and moose and caribou are not
plenty. And if these were to be found in abund-
ance it would be of no benefit to the sportsman, as
the law forbids one to be shot for some years yet,
unless you are an Indian or half-breed. Those
wanderers of the woods are specially favored, as
contrasted with the average citizen of the country,
in this respect ; why, I do not know. Certain it is
that, as I understand their legislation, no gentle-
man in Quebec begins to have, as to sport, one-tenth
the privileges that the tramps of the wilderness
have. This strikes an American as bad law or

i M

Lake St. John.

197

a vile custom, but, being an American, I have no
right to quarrel with it. And, besides, when I am
in the woods and short of meat, I feel so like an
Indian, or as an Indian should feel, that it is not
safe for a moose or caribou, or any other animal
that can furnish me with a good juicy steak, to
come within range, law or no law. Indeed, I am
a good deal more than half-Indian, anyhow, when,
with an empty stomach, I sink my eye into the
sights with something which looks like good meat
at the end of the range ! And if Canadian sports-
men don't feel very much as I do in such a situa-
tion, it is because — well, because they are made
differently than I am.

But if it is poor sporting ground among these
Canadian lakes, the trapping and fishing are of the
best. And, as for myself, I would sooner trap one
otter or beaver than shoot a dozen homely, lumber-
ing moose. I saw a beaver pelt one day that
was as handsome a plush in gold color as eye ever
beheld. The beaver from which this royal vest-
ment was taken was of unusal size and the beauti-
ful fur was in perfect condition. I never saw so

::'i

lii

i:l

I *:

193

Lake Si. John.

lovely a skin taken from any animal, and then and
there, right on the spot, I deliberately and joyfully
broke one of the commandments, for I coveted that
magnilicent skin. I could have bought it at a bar-
gain, but I had taken an inventory that same
morning of my earthly possessions, and made the
by no means unexpected discovery that I was ac-
tually on the verge of bankruptcy. I didn't care
anything about that, until 1 saw the pelt of the
golden beaver, but then I experienced an actual
shock. To say that I was frightened at my iinpe-
cuniosity doesn't express my feelings. I was mad,
mad through and through, that a gentleman could
be so reduced in his circumstances, and the more
I thought of it, the madder I got. I wished I had
never seen that splendid freak of nature. What
right had a beaver to grow any such glorious fur
anyway ? And if he must do it, wliy was I not
the one to trap him, and not that miserable half
breed wretch? And if he, and not 1, must cap-
ture the prize, why, in heaven's name, didn't I
have money enough to buy it of him, and carry it
home with me as my golden trophy ol' the woods ?

Lake St. John.

19»

Heavens, I must stop thinking of this wretchetl
experience, lest 1 join the Henry George party or
go mad, which would probably amount to the-
bame thing !

But let trapping pass. There is a more pleasant
subject — Fishing.

The lakes throughout all this region, as we havo
said, abound with fish. In some trout only ; iim
others trout, and dory, and perch ; while in Lake-
St. John, Ihat wonder of game-fish, the noted wa-
na-nish, is freely taken. In one of the rivers flow-
ing into the lake, up a short distance from th&
mouth of it, over six hundred of these magnificent
fish could be counted in one pool, as I passed
through the neighborhood last fall. In look they^
are much like our land-locked salmon, but heavensy
how they rise to your flies ! And how stout and
stubborn they are ! How they fight it out with the;-
rodsman ! Many an American rod will be smashed,,
I fancy, next summer, and many a stout and trusty
tackle broken by these stubborn fighters, that yield
not even to the salmon in the fierce energy of their
play. For I know my countrymen too well not to

200

Lake Si, John.

h <'-i

know that when they can ride in a Pullman car
from Boston and New York to the very shore of this
great northern lake, this home of the famous Wa-na-
nish, the most noted game-fish except the salmon
in the world, in twenty hours, as they can now
do, a thousand pliant rods, held in practised
hands, will be bending to the strain that this
king of fish in the clear waters of Lake St. John
will put upon them. May I be there to see the
sport and the magnificent display of captured fish
that will be made when the canoes come trailing
campward with the morning's catch ; especially
may I be there when the gridiron is hot and the
savory sauce ready for the plate. I may be beaten
with the rod, but at a gridiron, never !

But let no reader who loves rod and reel fancy
that there is no royal sport to be found save with
the wa-na-nish of Lake St. John on these northern
lakes of Canada, for by so doing he would make as
big a blunder as a lover of angling could possibly
make. Friend, did you ever catch a four-pound
speckled trout ? Did you ever catch 14 speckled
trout at one fishing that w^eighed on the scales

V <'

Lake St. John.

201

aan car
e of this

Wa-na-

salmon
an now
ractised
at this
t. John

see the
red fish
traihng
pecially
md the

beaten

I fancy
e with
)rthern
lake as
ossibly
pound
eckled
scales

when you came to camp forty-eight pounds ?

I have no doubt but that many an American
angler will catch spotted trout weighing from four
to fourteen pounds in the lakes and ponds within
rifle shot of the Lake St. John Railroad. If you
don't do it, friend, it won't be the fault of the trout.

While there is no adequate Hotel accommodation
either at Lake St. John, or on the smaller lakes
along the line of the Railroad for any large influx
of tourists, nevertheless this need not prevent those
who desire to "camp out" from visiting the
region, because such parties can easily take care of
themselves without help from Hotel Proprietors.
And in this connection, there are certain things
worth noting by all my readers, who love the
outdoor life, among which suggestively I enumer-
ate :

1. — That this wilderness with all it oSers the
visitor of sport, rest and health is easy of access.

2. — That telegraphic and mail connection is
always at hand.

3. — That all parties can camp within reach of
their food supplies, which can, by letter or wire,

1 1

I -I :

■J*

«i

202

Lake St. John.

be ordered directly, and on any day of the week
from Quebec, and can be delivered from the cars
to water connection with their camps.

4. — That there is no " Staging " or " Backboard"
experience in order to reach these camp grounds.

6, — That all supplies for the camp, including
Tents, can be purchased at Quebec, thereby saving
cost of transportation, duties, and risk of loss and
breakage, &c.

6. — That boats can be shipped from any point in
the States directed to the

TOURIST DEPARTMENT,

Quebec and Lake St. John R. R.,
Quebec, P. Q., Canada,
and they will be properly cared for, and shipped
over its line to any point on the Road — when in-
tended to be left there— /rgg of charge.

7, — That at Lake St. John a new Hotel has been
built, able to accommodate one hundred guests^ and
that the Proprietor will allow his guests free access
to some of the best "Wa-na-nish water on thft lake,
and supply them with boats, canoes, guides, &c.,
•&€., at reasonable charge.

Lake Si. John.

208

e week
he cars

[board"
tnnds.
dading
saving
OSS and

»oint in

I R. R.,
lada,
lipped
len in-

s been
ts^ and
access
lake,
8, &c.,

8. — That while, here and there, a lake or cluster
of lakes has been rented or leased by the Govern-
ment to clubs, or private proprietorship, still this
does not interfere greatly with the sport of the
general public, since the lakes are numberless, and
most of them, well stocked with game fish. Indeed
I never met one in which the trout were not abun-
dant.

9. — The presence of the steamboat, on Lake St.
John — a substantial boat just built, capable of ac-
commodating three hundred passengers, gives all
tourists to the Lake rare opportunities of such
novel sight seeing as they never enjoyed before.

10. — On the line of the Road the Company,
with rare thoughtfulness, caused one of the Beaver
Dams, their engineers ran against when placing
the line, to be preserved in its natural state. In
harmony with a suggestion the Company have
directed their igineers to give the passengers op-
portunity to see this natural curiosity as they pass.
I can well fancy that some of you who are not
boys or, if boys still, are masquerading with white
heads, will be pleased to see a "real wild beaverV

204

Lake St. John.

: i

.«»;

Ml;!

:; li

'A'

4lam." I know a man who trailed two hundred
miles to see the first one he ever saw, and who
never dreamed he should live to see one just as
i^ood from a window of a Pulman Car.

And now, dear friends, known and unknown —
lor if you but love the outdoor life as I do love it,
you are friends to me, even kith and kin, by a
irelationship, finer and closer than that of blood —
likeness of nature ; I commend you to these woods
:and waters, as to the Grace of God found in them
hy those who may receive it. May rest, health
iand peace come to you as you enter them and re-
snain. May you grow in grace of nature, as you do
ill knowledge of her as you likely will — for there is
4hat in nature, which makes all who truly love her
like herself; and something of her calm stillnessi
iier starry expanses, her graceful suavities, and that
sweet expectancy which waits on fair sunsets fore-
«casting fair to-morrow's, come to us who love her
as we age.

In writing the closing words of this little book,
X do recall that other little book sent out long years

(

ruiidred
id who
J just as

now 11 —

» love it,

n, by a

blood —

e woods

in them

, health

and ro-

youdo

there is

ove her

illnesst

nd that

ts fore-

ove her

•

Lake Si John. 205

ago, which told my countrymen of the woods and
waters of the Adirondacks. I do not recall how
long ago it was. I do not wish to. I count the
years ahead and forget the years behind. I know
no higher wisdom. My past is as a line. My
future has boundless horizons and endless perspec-
tives in it. Of these the woods tell, for

"He who sleeps in wooils has time to thiDk."

And out of leisurely thought springs firmest faith.
Here, then, is to our meeting under trees ; on
golden stretch of river ; at foot of rapids, safely
run ; on portage, laughing under heavy burdens ;
at the pool's edge, when the rod bends ; by camp
fires' light, and at the courteous table in that hall,
whose walls no one may touch and whose roof is
hung with stars. I lift this cup of clean, cool
water, dipped from the lake and drink it to our
happy meeting where

Good digestion waits on appetite, and health on Iwth.

e book,
g yearg

W. H. H. MURRIT.

Parties wishing to purchase a copy of this
edition and who cannot obtain it at their local
book store, will have it promptly forwarded to
them by addressing the

MuRR.vY Literary Dureau,

Burlington, Vt.,

P. O. Box 12.

Price — Paper covers, 75 cts.

Flexible linen, $1.00.

2Viis includes map.

Map alone, 50 cts.

N. B. — The safest method of transmitting the price
is a Postal Order.

f f 1 Si »

pi'

IK';- fi

The map — to be called the Bignell Map —
alluded to on page 140, is not yet ready for deli-
very. The one accompanying this volume is based
on the Crown Lands Department's map of 1881
and is accurate as far as it goes. The Bignell Map
will be of the greatest value to tourists and anglers
when issued.

206

J of this
eir local
arded to

GAMS LAWS OF QUEBEC.

lie price

Map—
or deli-
is based
of 1881
ell Map
anglers

OLOSE SElSOXS-HuNTixa.

(47 Victoria, ch. 25—50 Victoria, ch. 16.)

1. Caribou and aeer-froin Ist Januaiy to l8t October
^^^^2. Moose (male aad female)-at any time, until the first October,

N.fi -The hunting of moose, caribou or deer with flA»= «r k-
means ot anarea, traps, &c., is prohibited ^*'°'' °' ^^

u»Jl2 P^/9o«. (^vhiteman or Indian) has a right, during one seagon'a
hunt ng, to k.i or take alive-unless he haf prevSy 2^1^ ^

KVa\?'jc^ii.ibSu^rd'Ts::r^"'-'^^^" "^^''^ ^- thittur^.!

boatjx;^^^^

Norcrabef '"' '"'"''' ''""'' "^"'"' P'^^^^^-^'-om 1st April to Ist
4. Hare— from Ist February to Ist ?^ovember

lieu ^^s^:^^:z:^^^^?st^^^^ ^^'^'-

1st S^llXr'"' '"''''' P'""^°' °^^"^ kind-from 1st February to

guuJ-S' S^^^^^'lid^^^^ ''-' (^-^P^ ^^^^^-•^^ -^^
nn. ii'n'^ t^ T' ^''"^. °^ ^^^ •^^''^' bctwecn one hour after sunset and
Kit'eZo'utL?esrae?o"yV'rc ^^ ^^P -P-^' durin^^i p^"o'.

Nort^ff ^^^^I^ltroVSet^^^^^^^^^^^^ fn^rXTnc^? ^"iL^rnrbrt^
•nts may, at all seasons of the year, but only for the nuVooi of nn "
•mag food, fcc, shoot any of tiae birds m«uCod in ^^7 ^

207

■>oa

1 1

if '

i':

t;.

Game Laws of Quebec.

\ri

8. Birds known as pcrchcrs, such as swallows, king-birds, warb-
lers, flycatchers, woodpeckers, whippoorwills, finches, (song-spar-
rows, red-birds, indigo birds, &c.) cow-buntings, titmice, goldfinches,
grives, (robins, wood-thrushes, &c.) kinglets, bobolinks, grakles,
grosbeaks, humming birds, cuckoos, owls, &c., except eagles, falcons,
hawks and other birds of the falconida;, wild pigeons, king-fishers,
crows, raveui?, waxwings (recolMs), shrikes, jays, magpies, sparrows
and starlings— trom Ist March to 1st September.

9. To take nests of eggs of wild birds— at any time of the year.

N.B. — Fine of $2 to $100, or imprisonment in default of payment.

No person who is not domiciled in the Province of Quebec, nor in
that ot Ontario can, at any time, hunt in this Provuice without having
previously obtained a license to that effect from the Commissioner ot
Crown Lands. Such permit is not transferable.

FisniNCi.

1. Salmon (angling) — from 1st September to l.<?t May.

do do (flistigouche River) — from 15th August to

1st May.

2. Speckled trout (salmo foutinalis) — from 1st October to Ist
January.

3. Large grey trout, lunge and winninish— from 15th October to
1st December.

4. Pickerel — from 15th April to 15th May.

5. Bass and Maskinongo — from 15th April to 15th June.
0. W'hitefish — from 10th November to Ist December.
Fine of $5 to $20, or imprisonment in default of payment.

N. B. — Angling by hand, (wiih hook and line), is the only means
permitted to be used for taking fish in the waters of the lakes and
rivers under the control ot the Government of the Province of Quebec.

No person, who is not domiciled in the Province of Quebec, can,
ftt any time, fish in the lakes or rivers of this Province, not actually
under lease, without having previously obtained a permit to that effect
from the Commissioner of Crown Lands. Such permit is valuable for
a fishing season, and is not transferable.

E. E. TAOHfi,
As»i»'itt}t-Cammt*nion&r of Oroxcn Land*.

h i

DiPARTMHNT OF OROWN LaNDS,

Queli«c, 20th May, 1887.

-ilV

TIlSdIE T-A-BLE.

QOINI} NORTH.

Kxi'HEss. I Local.

TiK'iday,
Thiirsdrtv.
Siitiirdiiv.

Dnilv.

Mi.\gi).

Moiiiliiy,

Wi'iln'day

Kriiliiv.'

(t Qiiebee..

24 Lake St. Joseph

itt! St. Uiiyniond

•W Riv.-iVrieire

im Lake Edward

135 Lake Kiskisink

170 DeQiioii (Lake St. .lolin).

mm SOUTH.

I)e quen

:r) Kiskisink

.'i7 Lake Edward

Ill Riv-iVPiiMie

134 St. Ravmond

14fl Lake St. Josepli

170 yiK'hec

A.M.

P.M.

A.JI.

ii.:<!)

4.00

D.Mj

7.'>:>

r,.4a

il.OH

S.27

G.:io

9.60

il..iO

1 1 :ir>

I'M.

fit 1.4,-.
\/, 2.4.i

4.10

5.o.i

Monday,

Tiieedav,

Wedii'day

Daily.

Tliiir.sdBV.

Friday.

Saturday.

A.M.

AM.

P.M.

8.40

10. .SO

P.M.

(» 12.00

i / 1 .00

6.00

1 10

(!.S0

fl.Ifi

2.51

7 09

7.04

:i.4.^

S.20

H.l.'i

li.lO

About loth.Tuii.', 1888, the
Through Express will run
daily between Quebec and
Lake St. John instead of tri-
weekly, connecting with a
new (steamer juNt completed,
with a capacity for 300 pas-
sengers, to run between the
terminus and Roberval, and
all other points on Lake St.
.lohn.

The large new Hotel now
being built at Roberval will
be ready for guests about Ist
July.

statistics of Lake St John District from Census
Returns.

1861.

Wlioat, bushels ... 10,012

Outs, " St.311)

Barley, " 30,922

Other Grains

Potatoes) bushels 101,382

Hay, tons 3,fi W

Butter, pounds (51,777

Head of live stock 18i74(i

Tobaoooi pounds

Population 10,478

1871.

1881.

l.«,099

1.54,.i89

117,249

211,2Ii>

71,210

47,025

108,183

l.WiOOO

287,238

.5,l.'0(i

16,347

148,100

,393,127

44,772

59,795

«7,437

17,493

.32,409

The mi1cii«o of the railway and branch lines when

completed will bo is follows :

Main line— Miles.

Quebec to Pt.-aux-Trembles Jn.. completed... 177
Pt.-au.x-Trembles to Roberval under oons'tion. 13

190
Eastern E.ttcn8ion to Cbiooutimi i!fcSt. Alp^onae. 65

Western " to8t.Priine 5

La Tuque branch 30

St. Gabriel " 10

Total ,300