[I'lWO •.'•.'•.' TUAT WAS TUK MOMKNT OF LIKE ' 'i '\ i }lj j\ 1\.. J' i I '' i i I. \ ]N 1.) E S :> t Kv MARY nAi;TWi.i.j. UATiJEiaVCiOD Wriil jt,^. L^-u j.i^j.iujSii Ui> PER dT BRCTTfERS PUBLISHER.^ >RK AND LONDON V^r " Ttt MACKINAC AND LAKE STORIES By MARY HARTWELL CATHERWOOD WITH ILLUSTRATIONS HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS NEW YORK AND LONDON 3 Copyright, 1899, by Harphu & Bbotukbb. AH right* rtttrvtd. TO /1U»» IDcac Bauflbter HAZEL THE COMPANION OF ALL MY JOURNEYS CONTENTS PAOI Marianson 1 The Black Feather 20 The Cobbler in the Devil's Kitchen 84 The Skeleton on Round Island , . 54 The Penitent of Cross Village 69 The King op Beaver 89 Beaver Lights 118 A British Islander 187 The Cursed Patois 151 The Mothers of Honore 170 The Blue Man 187 The Indian on the Trail 203 ILLUSTRATIONS "that was the moment op life" Frontispiece "SHE LAY BREATHING LIKE AN INFANT" . , . Facing p. 4 THE TRAIN-AU-GALI8B " 56 "'I THINK THE CAMP GO AROUND AND AROUND ME'" " 60 " ' I HAVE ALWAYS PRAYED THIS PRAYER ALONE ' " " 102 " it's BROTHER STRANG SRUENADING " .... " 104 "'you WILL GIVE YOURSliLF TO ME NOW?'". . " 110 " 'LET ME LOOSE !' STRUGGLED EMELINE" . . . " 114 I WAS STARTLED TO SEE HER BUSH AT THE CAPTAIN " 140 THE QUARTERS *' 144 " HE APPEARED AT THE DOOK, AND IT WAS HON- ORil" " 186 MARIANSON WHEN the British landed on the west side of Mackinac Island at three o'clock in the morning of July 17, 1812, Canadians were ordered to transport the cannon. They had only a pair of six-pounders, but these had to be dragged across the long alluvial stretch to heights which would command the fortress, and sand, rock, bushes, trees, and fallen logs made it a dreadful portage. Voyageurs, however, were men to accom- plish what regulars and Indians shirked. All but one of the hundred and sixty Canadians hauled with a good will on the cannon ropes. The dawn was glimmering. Paradise hid in the un- tamed island, breathing dew and spice. The spell worked instantly upon that one young voyageur whose mind was set against the secret attack. All night his rage had been swelling. He despised the British regulars — forty-two lords of them only be- ing in this expedition — as they in turn despised his class. They were his conquerors. He had no de- sire to be used as means of pushing their conquest further. These islanders he knew to be of his own race, perhaps crossed with Chippewa blood. ▲ t MARIANSON Seven hundred Indians, painted and horned for war, skulked along as allies in the dim morning twi- light. He thought of sleeping children roused by tomahawk and scalping-knife in case the surprised fort did not immediately surrender. Even then, how were a few hundred white men to restrain nearly a thousand savages ? The young Canadian, as a rush was made with the ropes, stumbled over a log and dropped behind a bush. Ilis nearest companions scarcely noticed the desertion in +heir strain, but the officer in- stantlv detailed an Indian. " One of you Sioux bring that fellow back or bring his scalp." A Sioux stretched forward and leaped eagerly into the woods. All the boy's years of wilderness training were concentrated on an escape. The English officer meant to make him a lesson to the other voyageurs. And he smiled as he thought of the race he could give the Sioux. All his arms ex- cept his knife were left behind the bush ; for fleet- ness was to count in this venture. The game of life or death was a pretty one, to be enjoyed as he shot from tree to tree, or like a noiseless-hoofed deer made a long stretch of covert. lie was alive through every blood drop. The dewy glory of dawn had never seemed so great. Cool as the Sioux whom he dodged, his woodsman's eye gath- ered all aspects of the strange forest. A detached rock, tall as a tree, raised its colossal altar, surpris- ing the eye like a single remaining temple pillar. % MARIANSON Old logs, scaled as in a coat of mail, testified to the humidity of this lush place. The boy irod on sweet white violets smelling of incense. The M^ooded deeps unfolded in thinning dusk and revealed a line of high verdant cliffs walling his course. He dashed through hollows where millions of ferns bathed him to the knees. As daylight grew — thougli it never was quite day- light there — so did his danger. He expected to hear the humming of an arrow, and perhaps to feel a shock and sting and cleaving of the bolt, and turned in recklessly to climb for the uplands, where after miles of jutting spurs the ridge stooped and pushed out in front of itself a round-topped rock. As the Canadian passed this rock a yellow flare like candle- li^ht came through a crack at its base. He dropped on all-fours. The Indian w\as not in sight. He squirmed within a low battlement of seriated stone guarding the crack, and let himself down into what appeared to be the mouth of a cave. The opening was so low as to be invisible just out- side the serrated breastwork. He found himself in a room of rock, irregularly hollow above, with a candle burning on the stone floor. As he sat up- right and streivcbed forth a hand to pinch off the flame, the image of a sleeping woman was printed on his e3^eballs so that he saw every careless ring of fair hair around her head and every curve of her body for hours afterwards in the dusk. His first thought was to place himself where his 8 MARIANSON pertion would intercept any attack at the mouth of the cave. Knife m hand, he waited for a horned, glittering-eyed face to stoop or an arrow or hatchet to glance under that low rim, the horizon of his darkness. His chagrin at having taken to a tra]) and drawn danger on a woman was poignant ; the candle had caught him hke a moth, and a Sioux would keenly follow. Still, no lightest step be- trayed the Sioux's knowledge of his whereabouts. A long time passed before he relaxed to an easy posture and turned to the interior of the cave. The drip of a veiled water- vein at the rear made him conscious of thirst, but the sleeping woman was in the way of his creeping to take a drink. Wrapped in a fur robe, she lay breathing like an infant, white-skinned, full-throated, and vigorous, a woman older than himself. The consequences of her waking did not threaten him as perilous. With- out reasoning, he was convinced that a woman who lay down to sleep beside a burning candle in this wild place would make no outcry when she awoke and found the light had drawn instead of kept away possible cave -inhabitants. Day grew beyond the low sill and thinned obscurity around him, showing iho > MARIANSON The ■woman stirred, and the young voyageur thouglit of dropping his knife back ^nto its sheath. At the slight click she sat up, drawing in her breath. He w^iispered : " Do not be afraid. I have not come in here to hurt you." She was staring at him, probably taking him for some monster of the dark. " Have you anything here to eat ?" The woman resumed her suspended breath, and answered in the same guarded way, and in French like his: "Yes. I come to this part of the island so often that I have put bread and meat and candles in the cave. How did you find it? No one but mvself knew about it." " I saw the candle-light." *' The candle was to keep off evil spirits. It has been blown out. Where did you come from ?" " From St. Joseph Island last night with the English. They have taken the island by surprise." She unexpectedly laughed in a repressed gurgle, as a faun or other woods creature might have laughed at the predicaments of men. "I am thinking of the stupid American soldiers — to lie asleep and let the British creep in upon them. But have you seen my cow? I searched everywhere, until the moon went down and I was tired to death, for ray cow." " No, I saw no cow. I had the Sioux to watch." "What Sioux?" "The Indian our commandant sent after me. Speak low. He may be listening outside." 6 MARIANSON They themselves listened. " If Indians have come on the island they will kill all the cattle." " There are the women and children and men — even poor voyageurs — for them to kill first." She gasped, "Is it war?" " Yes, it is war." " I never have seen war. Why did you couio here ?" " I did not want to, mademoiselle, and I de- serted. That is why the Indian was sent after me." " Do not call me mademoiselle. I am Marianson Bruelle, the widow of Andre Chenier. Our houses will be burned, and our gardens trampled, and our boats stolen." " Not if the fort surrenders." Ao^ain thev barkened to the outside world in suspense. The deserter had expected to hear can- non before sunlight so slowly crept under the cave's lip. It was as if the)'^ sat witliin a colossal skull, broad between the ears but narrowing towards the top, with light coming through the parted m >uth. Accustomed to the soft twilight, the two could see each other, and the woman covertly put her dress in order while she talked. More than fearlessness, even a kind of maternal passion, moved her. She searched in the back of the cave and handed her strange guest food, and gathered him a birch cup of water from the drip- ping rock. The touch of his fingers sent a new vital thrill through her. Two may talk together 6 MARIANSON under the same roof for many years, yet never really meet; and two others at first speech are old friends. She did not know this young voyageur, yet she began to claim him. lie was so tired that the tan of his cheek turned leaden in the cave gloom. She rose from her bear- skin and spread it for him, when he finished eating. " You cannot go out now," he whispered, when he saw her intention. " The Sioux is somewhere in the woods watching for me. The Indians came on this island for scalps. You will not be safe, even in the fort, until the fight is over, or until night comes again." Marianson, standing convinced by what he said, was unable to take her eyes off him. Mass seemed always irksome to her in spite of the frequent changes of posture and her conviction that it was good for her soul. She was at her happiest plung- ing through woods or panting up cliffs which squaws dared not scale. Yet enforced hiding with a stranger all day in the cave was assented to by this active sylvan creature. She had not a word to say against it, and the danger of going out was her last thought. The cavern's mouth was a very awkward opening to crawl through, especially if an Indian should catch one in the act. There was nothing to do but to sit down and wait. A sigh of pleasure, as at inhaling the spirit of a flower, escaped her lips. This lad, whose presence she knew she would feel without seeing if he came into church behind her, innocent of the spell he 7 MARIANSON was casting, still sat guarding the entrance, though the droop of utter weariness relaxed every posture. Marianson bade him lie down on the fur robe, and imperiously arranged her lap to hold his head. " I am maman to you. I say to you sleep, and you shall sleep." The appealing and thankful eyes of the boy were closed almost as soon as he crept upon the robe and his head sunk in its comfortable pillow. Marianson braced her back against the wall and dropped her hands at her sides. Occasionally she glanced at the low rim of light. No Indian could enter without lying flat. She had little dread of the Sioux. Every globule which fell in darkness from the rock recorded, like the sand grain of an hour-glass, some change in Marianson. " I not care for anybody, me," had been her boast when she tantalized soldiers on the village street. Her gurgle of laughter, and the hair blow- ing on her temples from under the blanket she drew around her face, worked havoc in Mackinac. To her men were merely useful objects, like cows, or houses, or gardens, or boats. She hugged the social liberty of a woman who had safely passed through matrimony and widowhood. Married to old Andre Chenier by her parents, that he might guard her after their death, she loathed the thought of another wearisome tie, and called it veneration of his departed spint. He left her a house, a cow, and a boat. Accustomed to work for him, she 8 MARIANSON found it much easier to work for herself when he was gone, and resented having young naen hang around desiring to settle in her house. She laughed at every proposal a father or mother made her. No family on the island could get her, and all united in pointing her out as a bad pattern for young women. A bloom like the rose flushing of early maiden- hood came over Marianson with her freedom. Iso- lated and daring and passionless, she had no con- ception of the scandal she caused in the minds of those who carried the burdens of the community, but lived like a bird of the air. Wives who bore children and kept the pot boiling found it hard to see her tiptoeing over cares which swallowed them. She did not realize that maids desired to marry and she took their lovers from them. But knowledge grew in her as she sat holding the stranger's head in her lap, though it was not a day on which to trouble one's self with knowledge. There was only the forest's voice outside, that ceaseless majestic hymn of the trees, accompanied by the shore ripple, which was such a little way off. Languors like the sweet languors of spring came over her. She was happier than she had ever been before in her life. " It is delicious," she thought. " I have been in the cave many times, but it will never be like this again." And it was a strange joy to find the touch of a human being something to delight in. There was 9 MARIANSON sweet wickedness in it ; penance might have to fol- low. What would the cure sa3Mf he saw her? To amuse one's self with soldiers and islanders was one tiling ; to sit tranced all day in a cave with a stranger must be another. There was a rough innocence in his relaxed body — beautiful as the virgin softness of a girl. Under the spell of his unconscious domination, she did not care about his past. Iler own past was noth- ing. She had arrived in the present. Time stood still. His face was turned towards her, and she studied all its curves, yet knew if he had other features he would still be the one person in the world who could so draw her. What was the power? Had women elsewhere felt it? At that thought she had a pang of anguish and rage alto- gether new to her. Marianson was tender even in her amusements ; her benevolence extended to dumb cattle ; but in the hidden darkness of her consciousness she found herself choosing the Sioux for him, rather than a woman. Once he half raised his head, but again let it sink to its rest. Marianson grew faint ; and as the light waned at the cave mouth she remem- bered she had not eaten anything that day. The fast made her seem fit to say prayers, and she said all she knew over his head, like a mother brooding. He startled her by sitting up, without warning, fully roused and alert. " What time is it ?" inquired the boy. 10 MARIANSON " Look at the door. The sun has long been be- hind the trees." " Have I slept all day ?" " Perhaps." " And have you heard no sound of battle ?" "It has been still as the village street during mass." " What, then, have they done, those English ? They must have taken the fort Avithout firing a gun. And the Sioux — you have not seen him ?" " Nothing has passed the cave door, not even a chipmunk." He stretched his arms upward into the hollow, standing tall and well made, his buckskin shirt turned back from his neck. " I am again hungry." " I also," said Marianson. " I have not eaten anything to-day." Her companion dropped on his knees before her and took out of her hands the food she had ready. His face expressed shame and compunction as he fed her himself, offering bites to her mouth with gentle persistence. She laughed the laugh peculiar to herself, and pushed his hand back to his own lips. So they ate together, and afterwards drank from the same cup. Marianson showed him where the drops came down, and he gathered them, smiling at her from the depths of the cave. They heard the evening cawing of crows, and the waters rushing with a wilder wash on the beach. " I will bring more bread and meat when I come 11 MARIAl^SON back," promised Marianson — " unless the English have burned the house." " No. When it is dark I will leave the cave my- self," said the voyageur. "' Is there any boat near by that I can take to escape in from tlie island ?" " There is my boat. But it is at the post." " How far are we from the post ?" "It is not so far if one might cross the island ; but to go by the v/est shore, which would be safest, perhaps, in time of war, that is the greater part of the island's girth." They drew near together as they murmured, and at intervals he held the cup to her lips, making up for his forgetfulness when benumbed with sleep. " One has but to follow the shore, however," said the boy. " And where can I find the boat ?" " You cannot find it at all." " But," he added, with sudden recollection, " I could never return it again." Marianson saw on the cave's rough wall a vision of her boat carrying him away. Her own little craft, the sail of which she knew how to trim — her bird, her flier, her food-winner — was to become her robber. " When the war is over," she ventured, " then you might come back." He began to explain difficulties like an honest lad, and she stopped him. " I do not want to know anything. I want you to take my boat." He put the cup down and seized her hands and kissed them. She crouched against the cave's side, 12 MARIANSON her eyes closed. If he was only grateful to her for bread and shelter and means of escape, it was little enough she received, but his warm touch and his lips on her palms — for he kissed her palms — made her none the less dizzy. " Listen to me," said Marianson. " If I give you my boat, you must do exactly as I bid you." " I promise." " You must stay here until I bring it to you. I am going at once." " But you cannot go alone in the dark. You are a woman — you will be afraid." " Never in my life have I been afraid." " But there are Indians on the war-path now." " They will be in camp or drunk at the post. Your Sioux has left this part of the island. He may come back by morning, but he would not camp away from so much plunder. Sioux cannot be unlike our Chippewas. Do you think," demanded Marianson, " that you will be quite, quite safe in the cave ^" Her companion laughed. " If I find the cave unsafe I can leave it ; but you in the dark alone — you must let me go with you." " No ; the risk is too great. It is better for me to go alone. I know every rock, every bend of the shore. The pull back around the island will be hardest, if there is not enough wind." " I go with you," decided the boy. " But you gave me your promise to do exactly as I bade you. I am older than you," said Marianson. 13 MARIANSON " I know what is best, and tlat is that you remain here until I come. Swear to me that vou will." He was silent, beseeching]: her with his eves to relent. Then, owning her right to dominate, he pledged her by the name of his saint to do as she required. Their forced companionship, begun at daylight, was ending as darkness crept through the cavern's mouth. They waited, and those last moments of silence, while they leaned to look closely at each other with the night growing between them, were a benediction on the day. Marianson stooped to creep through the cavern's mouth, but once more she turned and looked at him, and it was she herself w^ho stretched appealing arras. The boy's shyness and the woman's aversion to men vanished as in fire. They stood together in the hollow of the cave in one long embrace. He sought her mouth and kissed her, and, sutfocating with joy, she escaped thi'ough the low door. Indifferent to the Indian who niifflit be doire-iner her, she drew her strip of home-si)un around her face and ran, moccasined and deft-footed, over the stones, warm, palpitating, and laughing, full of phys- ical hardihood. In the woods, on her left, she knew there were rocks splashed with stain black as ink and crusted with old lichens. On her ricfht white-caps were running before the west wind and diving like ducks on the strait. She crossed the threads of a brook ravelling themselves from den- sity. For the forest was a mask. But Marianson U MARIANSON knew well the tricks of that brook — its pellucid shining on pebbles, its cascades, its hidings under- ground of all but a voice and a crystal pool. Wet to her knees, she had more than once followed it to its source amid such greenery of moss and logs as seemed a conflagration of verdure. The many points and bays of the island sped be- hind her, and cliffs crowded her to the water's edge or left her a dim moving object on a lonesome beach. Sometimes she heard sounds in the woods and listened ; on the other hand, she had the com- panionship of stars and moving water. On that glorified journey Marianson's natural fearlessness carried her past the Devil's Kitchen and quite near the post before she began to consider how it was best to approach a place which might be in the hands of an enemy. Her boat was tied at the dock. She had the half-ruined distillery yet to pass. It had stood under the cliff her lifetime. As she drew nearer, cracks of lifflit and a hum like the droning; of a beehive magically turned the old distillery into a caravansary of spirits. Nothing in her long tram]) had startled her like this. It was a relief to hear the click of metal and a strange-spoken word, and to find herself face to face with an English soldier. He made no parley, but marched her before him ; and the grateful noise of squalling babies and maternal protests and Maman Pelott's night lullaby also met her as they proceeded towards the distillery. The long dark shed had a chimney-stack and its W MARIANSON many-coiled still in one end. Beside that great bot- tle-shaped thing, at the base of the chimney, was an open fireplace piled with flaming sticks, and this had made the luminous crevices. All Mackinac village was gathered within the walls, and Marian- son beheld a camp supping, putting children to bed on blankets in corners, sitting and shaking fingers at one another in wrathful council, or running about in search of lost articles. The cure was there, keep- ing a restraint on his people. Clothes hung on spikes like rows of suicides in the weird light. Even fiddlers and jollity were not lacking. A heavier race would have come to blows in that strait enclosure, but these French and half-breeds, in danger of scalping if the Indians proved turbu- lent, dried their eyes after losses, and shook their legs ready for a dance at the scraping of a violin. Little Ignace Pelott was directly pulling at Mari- anson's petticoat to get attention. " De Ingins kill our 'effer," he lamented, in +he mongrel speech of the quarter-breed. " Dey didn't need him ; dey have plenty to eat. But dey kill our 'efl^er and laugh." " My cow, is it also killed, Ignace f ' Marianson's neighbors closed around her, unsur- prised at her late arrival, filled only with the gen- eral calamity. Old men's pipe smoke mingled with odors of food ; and when the English soldier had satisfied himself that she belonged to this caldron of humanity, he lifted the cornei s of his nose and returned to open air and guard duty. 16 MARIANSON The fort had been surrendered without a shot, to save the lives of the villagers, and they were all hurried to the distillery and put under guard. They would be obliged to take the oath of alle- giance to England, or leave the island. Michael Dousman, yet held in the enemy's camp, was fierce- ly accused of bringing the English upon them. No, Marianson could not go to the village^ or even to the dock. Everybody offered her food. A boat she did not ask for. The high cobwebby openings of the distillery looked on a blank night sky. Marianson felt her happiness jarred as the wonderful day came to such limits. The English had the island. It might be searched for that young deserter waiting for her help, and if she failed to get a boat, what must be his fate ? She had entered the west door of the distiller3^ She found opportunity to slip out on the east side, for it was necessary to reach the dock and get a boat. She might risk being scalped, but a boat at any cost she would have, and one was sent her — as to the fearless and determined all their desires are sent. She heard the thump of oars in rowlocks, bringing the relief guard, and with a swish, out of the void of the lake a keel ran upon pebbles. So easy had been the conquest of the island, the British regular found his amusement in his duty, and a boat was taken from the dock to save half a mile of easy marching. It stood empty and wait- ing during a lux minute, while the responsibility of B 17 MARIANSON guarding was shifted ; but perhaps being carelessly beached, though there was no tide on the strait, it drifted away. Marianson, who had helped it drift, lay flat on the bottom and heard the rueful oaths of her enemies, forced to march back to the post. There was no sail. She steered by a trailing oar until lighted distiller}'- and black cliff receded and it was safe for her to fix her sculls and row with all her might. She was so tired her heart physically ached when she slipped through dawn to a landing opposite the cave. There would be no more yesterdays, and there would be no time for farewells. The wash which drove her roughly to mooring drove with her the fact that she did not know even the name of the man she was about to give up. Marianson turned and looked at the water he must venture upon, without a sail to help him. It was not all uncovered from the night, but a long purple current ran out, as if God had made a sud- den amethyst bridge across the blue strait. E.(;luctant as she was to call him from the cave, she dared not delay. The breath of the virgin woods was overpoweringly sweet. Her hair clung to her forehead in moist rings, and hev cheeks were pallid and wet with mist which rose and rose on all sides like clouds in a holy picture. He was asleep. She crouched down on cold hands and saw that. He had waited in the cave as he promised, and had 18 MARIANSON fallen asleep. His back was towards her. Instead of lying at ease, his body was flexed. Her enlarg- ing pupils caught a stain of red on the bear-skin, then the scarlet tonsure on his crown. He was asleep, but the Sioux had been there. The low song of wind along that wooded ridge, and the roar of dashing lake water, repeated their monotone hour after hour. It proved as fair a Cay as the island had ever seen, and when it was near- ly spent, Marianson Bruelle still sat on the cave floor holding the dead boy in her arms. Heart- uprooting was a numbness, like rapture. At least he could not Jeave her. She had his kiss, his love. She had his body, to hide in a grave as secret as a flower's. The cure could some time bless it, but the English who had slain him should never know it. As she held him to her breast, so the sweet processes of the woods should hold him, and make him part of the island. THE BLACK FEATHER OVER a hundred voyageurs were sorting furs in the American Fur Company's yard, un- der the supervision of the clerks. And though it was hard labor, lasting from five in the morning until sunset, they thought lightly of it as fatigue duty after their eleven months of toil and privation in the wilderness. Fort Mackinac was glittering white on the heights above them, and half-way up a paved ascent leading to the sally-port sauntered 'Tite Laboise. All the voyageurs saw her ; and strict as was the discipline of the yard, they directly expected trouble. The packing, however, went on with vigor. Every beaver, marten, mink, musk-rat, raccoon, lynx, wild -cat, fox, wolverine, otter, badger, or other skin had to be beaten, graded, counted, tal- lied in the compan3^'s book, put into press, and marked for shipment to John Jacob Astor in New York. As there were twelve grades of sable, and eight even of deer, the grading, which feil to the clerks, was no light task. Heads of brigades that had brought these furs from the wilderness stood by to challenge any mistake in the count. It was the 20 THE BLACK FEATHER height of the fur season, and Mackinac Island was the front of the world to the two or three thousand men gathered in for its brief summer. Axe strokes reverberated from Bois Blanc, on the opposite side of the strait, and passed echoes from island to island to the shutting down of the horizon. Choppers detailed to cut wood were getting boat- loads ready for the leachers, who had hulled corn to prepare for winter rations. One pint of lyed corn with from two to four ounces of tallow was the daily allowance of a voyageur, and the endur- ance which this food gave him passes belief. ^Itienne St. Martin grumbled at it when he came fresh from Canada and pork eating. " Mange' -du- lard," his companions called him, especially Charle' Charette, who was the giant and the wearer of the black feather in his brigade of a dozen boats. Huge and innocent primitive man was Charle' Charette. He could sleep under snow-drifts like a baby, carry double packs of furs, pull oars all day without tir- ing, and dance all night after hardships which caused some men to desire to lie down and die. The summer before, at nineteen years of age, this light-haired, light-hearted voyageur had been mar- ried to 'Tite Laboise. Their wedding festivities lasted the whole month of the Mackinac season. His was the Wabash and Hlinois River outfit, al Most the last to leave the island ; for the Lake Superior, Upper and Lower Mississippi, Lake of the Woods, and other outfits were obliged to seek Indian hunt- ing-grounds at the earliest breath of autumn. 21 THE BLACK FEATHER "When the Illinois brigade returned, his wife, who had stood weeping in the cheering crowd while his companions made islands ring with the boat-song at departure, refused to see him. lie went to the house of her aunt Laboise, where she lived. Made- moiselle Laboise, her half-breed cousin, met him. This educated young lady, daughter of a French father and Chippewa mother, was dignified as a nun in her dress of blue broadcloth embroidered with porcupine quills. She was always called Mademoiselle Laboise, while the French girl was called merely 'Tite. Because 'Tite was married, no one considered her name changed to Madame Charette. To her husband himself she was 'Tite Laboise, the most aggravatmg, delicious, unaccount- able creature in the Northwest. " She says she will not see you, Charle'," said Mademoiselle Laboise, color like sunset vermilion showing in the delicate aboriginal face. " What have I done?" gasped the voyageur. Mademoiselle lifted French shoulders with her father's gesture. She did not know. "Did I expect cO be treated this way?" shouted the injured husband. " Who can ever tell what 'Tite will do next?" That was the truth. No one could tell. Yet her flightiest moods were her most alluring moods. If she had not been so pretty and so adroit at dodg- ing whippings when a child, 'Tite Laboise might not have set Mackinac by the ears as often as she did. But her husband could not comfort himself fi2 THE BLACK FEATHER with this thought as he turned to the shop of madame her aunt, who was also a trader. It had surprised the Indian widow, who betrothed her own daughter to the commandant of the fort, that her husband's niece would have nobody but that big voyageur (jharle' Charette. Though in those days of the young century a man might become anything; for the West was before him, an empire, and woodcraft was better than learning. Madame Laboise accepted her niece's husband with kindness. Her house was among the most hospitable in Macki- nac, and she was chagrined at the reception the young man had met. He sat down on her counter, whirling his cap and caressing the black feather in it. The gentle Chippewa woman could see that his childish pride in this trophy was almost as great as his trouble. "What had 'Tite lacked? he wanted to know. Had he not good credit at the stores? Tonnerre! — 'f madame would pardon him — was not his entire year's wage at the girl's service ? Had he spent money on himself, except for tobacco and necessary buckskins? Madame knew a voyageur was allowed to carry scarce twenty pounds of baggage in the boats. Did 'Tite want a better man? Let madame look at the black feather in his cap. The crow di i not fly that could furnish a quill he could not take from any man in his brigade. Charle' threw out the arch of his beautiful torso. And he loved her. Madame knew what tears he had shed, what serenades he had 33 THE BLACK FEATHER played on his fiddle under 'Tite's window, and how he had outdanced her other partners. He dropped his head on his breast and picked at the crow's feather. The widow Laboise pitied hira. But who could account for 'Tite's whims? "When she heard the boats were in sight she was frantic with joy. I myself," asserted madame, " saw her clapping her hands when we could catch the song of the return- ing voyageurs. It was then ' Oh, my Charle'! my Charle'!' But scarce have the men leaped on the dock when off she goes and locks the door of her bedroom. It is 'Tite. I can say no more." "What offended her?" " I know of nothing. You have been as good a husband as a voyageur could be. And Mackinac is so dull in winter she can amuse herself but little. It was hard for her to wait j'^our return. Now she will not look at you. It is very silly." What would Madame Laboise advise him to do? Madame would advise him to wait as if nothing had occurred. The cure would admonish 'Tite if she continued her sulking. In the mean time hv. must content himself with tenting or lodging among his fellow-voyageurs. Of the two or three thousand voyageurs and clerks, one hundred lived in the agency house, five hundred were accommodated in barracks, but the majority found shelter in tents and in the houses of the villagers. Every night of the fur-trading month there was a ball in Mackinac, given either by the 24 THE BLACK FEATHER householders or their guests; and it often happened that a man spent in one month all he had earned by his year of tremendous and far-reaching toil. But he had society, and what was to him the cream of existence, while it lasted. He fitted himself out with new shirts and buckskins, sashes, caps, neips, and moccasins, and when he was not on duty showed himself like a hero, knife in sheath, a weath- er-browned and sinewy figure. To dance, sing, drink, and play the violin, and have the scant dozen white women, the half-breeds, and squaws of Macki- nac admire him, was a voyageur's heaven — its brief duration being its charm. For he was a born woodsman and loved his life. Charle' Charette did not care where he lodged. Neither had he any heart to dance, until he looked through the door of the house where festivities be- gan that season and saw 'Tite Laboise footing it with Etienne St. Martin. Parbleu ! "With Etienne St. Martin, the squab little lard-eater whose brother, Alexis St. Martin, had been put into doctors' books on account of having his stomach partly shot away, and a valve forming over the rent so that his diges- tion could be watched. It was disgusting. 'Tite would not speak to her own husband, but she would come out before all Mackinac and dance with any other voyageurs who c wded about her. Charle' sprang into the house hii .self, and without looking at his wife, hilariousl}^ led other women to the best places, and danced with every sinuous and graceful curve of his body. 'Tite did not look at him. From 26 THE BLACK FEATHER the corner of his eye he noted how perfect she was, the fiend ! and how well she had dressed herself on his money. All the brigades knew his trouble by that time, and an easy breath was drawn by his en- tertainers when he left the house with knife still sheathed. In the wilderness the will of a brigade commander was law ; but when the voyageur was out of the Fur Com| any's yard in Mackinac his own will was law. One of the cautious clerks suggested that Charle' and Etienne be separated in their work, since it was likely the husband might quarrel with 'Tite Laboise's dancing partner. " Turn 'em in together, man," chuckled the Scotch agent, liobert Stuart, who had charge of the out- side work. " Let 'em fight. Man Gurdon, I havena had any sport with these wild lads since the boats came in." But the combatants he hoped to see worked steadily until afternoon without coming to the grip. They had no brute Anglo-Saxon antagonism, and being occupied with dilferent bales, did not face each other. The triple row of Indian lodges baskod on the incurved beach, where a thousand Indians had gathered to celebrate that vivid month. Night and day the thump of their drums and the monot- onous chant of their dances could be heard above the rush and whisper of blue water breaking on pebbles. Lake Alichigan was a deep sapphire color, and 26 THE BLACK FEATHER from where she stood below the sally-port 'Tite Laboise could see the mainland's rim of beach and slopes of forest near and distinct in transparent light. And she could hear the farthest shaking of echoes from island to island like a throb of some sublime wind instrument. The whitewashed block- house at the west angle of the fort shone a marble turret. There was a low meadow between the Fur Company's yard and pine heights. Though no salt tang came in the wind, it blew sweet, refreshing the men at their dog-chiy labor. And all the spell of that island, which since it rose from the water it has held, lay around them. Etienne St. Martin picked up a beaver-skin, and in the sight of 'Tite Laboise her husband laid hold of it. , " Kelease that, Mange'-du-lard," he said. " Eh bien !" respoiuled Etienne, knowing that he was challenged and tlie e^'es of the whole yard wore on him. " This fine crow he claims all Mackinac because he carries a black feather in his cap. Tliere are black feathers in other brigades." " But you never wore one in any brigade." They dropped the skin and faced each other, feel- ing the fastenings of their belts. Old Robert Stuart slipped up a window in the office and grinned slyly out at the men surging towards that side of the yard. lie would not usually permit a breach of discipline. l>ut the winter had been so long ! '' Myself I have no need of black feathers." 27 THE BLACK FEATHER Etienne gave an insolent cast of the eye to the height where 'Tite Laboise stood. Charle', magnificent of inches, scorned his less- developed antagonist. " Eh, man Gurdon," softly called old Eobert Stuart from his window, " set them to it, will ye ? The lads will be jawing till the morn's morn." This equivocal order had little effect on the or- dained course of a voyageur's quarrel. " These St. Martins without stomachs, how is a man to hit them? — pouf !" said Charle', and Etienne felt on his tender spot the cruel allus.on to his brother Alexis, whose stomach had been made public property. He began to shed tears of wrath. "I will take your scalp for that! As for the black feather, I trample it under my foot !" " Let me see you trample it. And my head is not so easily scalped as your brother's stomach." All the time they were dancing around each other in graceful and menacing feints. But now they chnohed, and Charle' Charette, when the struggle had lasted two or three minutes, took his antagonist like a puppy and flung him revolving to the ground. He hitched his belt and glanced up towards the sally-port as he stood back laughing. Etienne was on foot with a tiger's bound. He had no chance with the wearer of the black feather, as everybody in the yard knew, and usually a beat- en antagonist was ready to shake hands after a few trials of strength. But he seized one of the knives used in opening packs and struck at the victor's 28 THE BLACK FEATHEfe side. As soon as he had struck and the bloody knife came back in his hand he crouched and rolled his eyes around in apology. No man was afraid of sheddino^ blood in those ^ 'S, but he felt he had gone too far — that his quarrel was not sufficiently grounded. He heard a woman's scream, and the sliarp checking exclamation of his master, and felt himself seized on each side. There was much con- fusion in his mind and in the yard, but he knew 'Tite Laboise flew through the gate and past him, and he tried to propitiate her by a look. "Pig!" she projected at him like a missile, and he sat down on tlie ground between the guards who were trying to hold him up and wept copiously. "I didn't want to have trouble with that Charle' Charette and that 'Tite Laboise," explained Etienne. "And I don't want any black feather. It was mv brother's stomach. On account of my bro*^,her's stomach I have to light. If they do not let my brother's stomach aione, I will have to kill the whole brigade." But Charle' Charette walked into the Fur Com- pany's building feeling nothing but disdain for the puny stock of St. Martin, as he held out his arm and let the blood drip from a little wound that stained his calico shirt-sleeve. The very neips around his ankles seemed to tingle with desire to kick poor Etienne. It was not necessary to send for the surgeon of the fort. Ilobort Stuart dressed the wound, salv- ing it with the rebukes which he knew discipline . 29 THE BLACK FEATHER demanded, and making them as strong as his own enjoyment had been. He promised to break the head of every voyageur in the yard with a board if {mother quarrel occurred. And he pretended not to see the culprit's trembling wife, that little besom whose caprices had set the men by the ears ever since she was old enough to know the figures of a dance, yet for whom he and Mrs. 8tuart had a warm corner in their iiearts, Siie had caused the first fracas of the season, moreover. He went out and slammed the office door, ordering the men away from it. " Bring me yon Etienne St. Martin," command- ed Mr. Stuart, preparing his arsenal of strong lan- guage. " I'll have a word with yon carl for this." The noise of the one-sided conflict could be heard in the office, but 'Tite remained as if she heard nothing, with her head and arms on the desk. Her husband took up the cap with the black feather, which he had thrown off in the presence of his su- perior. He rested it against his side, his elbow pointing a triangle, and waited aggressively for her to speak. The back of her pretty neck and fine tendrils of curly hair ruffied above it were very moving; but his heart swelled indignantly. " 'Tite Laboise, why did you shut the door in my face when I came back to you after a year's absence?" She answered faintly, "Me, I don't know." "And dance with Etienne St. Martin until I am obliged to whip him?" 80 THE B1.ACK FExVTHER " Me, I don't know." " Yes, you do know. You have concealments," he accused, and she made no defence. " This is the case : you run to the dock to see the boats come in ; you are joyful until you watch me step ashore; I look for 'Tite ; her back is disappearing at the corner of the street. Eh bien ! I say, she would rather meet me in the house. I fly to the house. My wife refuses to see me." 'Tite made no answer. " What have I done ?" Charle' spread his hands. " My commandant has no complaint to make of me. It is Charle' Charette who leads on the trail or breaks a road where there is none, and carries the heaviest pack of furs, and pulls men out of the water when they are drowning; it is Charle' Cha- rette who can best endure fasting when the rations run low, and can hunt and bring in meat when other voyageurs lie exhausted about tlie camp-fire. I am no little lard-eater from Caiuida, brother to a man with a stomach having no lid. Look at that." Charle' shook the decorated cap at her. "I wear tlie black feather of my brigade. That means that I am the best man in it." His wife reared her head. She was like the wihl sweet-brier roses which crowded alluvial strips of the island, fragrant and pink and bristhng. " Yes, monsieur, that black feather — regard it. Me, I am sick of that black featlier. You say I have con- cealments. I have. All winter I go lonely. The ice is massed on the lake ; the snow is so deep, the 81 THE BLACK FEATHER wind is keener than a knife ; I weep for my hus- band away in tho wilderness, believing he thinks of me. Eh bien ! he comes back to Mackinac. It is as you say : I fly to meet him, my breath chokes me. But my husband, what does he do ?" She looked him up and down with wrathful eyes. " He does not see 'Tite. He sees nothing but that black feather in his cap that he must take off and show to Monsieur Ramsay Crooks and Monsieur Stuart — while his wife suffocates." Charle' shrunk from his height, and his mouth opened like a fish's. " But I thought you would be proud of it." " Me, what do I care how many men you have thrown down ? You do not like me an}'^ better be- cause you have thrown down all the men in your brigade." " She is jealous — jealous of a feather !" Humbled as he was by her tongue, the young voyageur felt delighted at giving his wife so trivial a rival. He settled his belt and approached her and bowed. "Madame, permit me to offer you this black quill, which I have won for your sake, and which I boasted of to my masters that they might know you have not thrown yourself away on the poorest creature in Mackinac. Destroy it, ma- dame. It was only the poor token of my love for you." Graceful and polite as all the voyageurs were, Charle' Charette was the prince of them with his 33 THE BLACK FEATHER big sweet presence as he bent. 'Tite flew at him and flung her arms around his neck. After the manner of Latin peoples, they instantly shed tears upon each other, and the black feather was crushed between their breasts. THE COBBLER IN THE DEVIL'S KITCHEN EARLY in the Mackinac summer Owen Cun- ning took his shoemaker's bench and all his belongings to that open cavern on the beach called the Devil's Kitchen, which was said to de- rive its name from former practices of the Indians. They roasted prisoners there. The inner rock re- tained old smoke-stains. Though appearing a mere hole in the cliff to passing canoe-men, the Devil's Kitchen was really as large as a small cabin, rising at least seven feet from a floor which sloped down towards the water. Overhead, through an opening which admitted his body, Owen could reach a natural attic, just large enough for his bed if he contented himself wnth blankets. And an Irishman prided himself on being tough as any French voyageur who slept blanketed on snow in the winter wilderness. The rock w^as full of pockets, enclosing pebbles and fragments. B}^ knocking out the contents of these, Owen made cupboards for his food. As for clothes, what Mackinac- Islander of the working- 34 COBBLER IN THE DEVIL'S KITCHEN class, in those days of the Fur Company's prosper- ity, needed more than he had on? When his clothes wore out, Owen could go to the traders' and buy more. He washed his other shirt in the lake at his feet, and hung it on the cedars to dry by his door. "Warm evenings, when the sun had soaked itself in limpid ripples until its crimson spread through them afar, Owen stripped himself and went bathing, with strong snorts of enjoyment as he rose from his plunge. The narrow lake rim was littered with fragments which had once filled the cavern. Two large pieces afforded him a table and a seat for his visitors. Owen had a choice of water for his drinking. Not thirty feet away on his right a spring burst from the cliff and gushed through its little pool down the beach. It was cold and delicious. In the east side of the Kitchen was a natural tiny fireplace a couple of feet high, screened by cedar fohage from the lake wind. Here Owen cooked his meals, and the smoke was generally car- ried out from his flueless hearth. The straits were then full of fish, and he had not far to throw his lines to reach deep water. Dependent on the patronage of Mackinac village, the Irishman had chosen the very shop which would draw notice upon himself. His customers tramped out to him along a rough beach under the heights, which helped to wear away the foot-gear Owen mended. They stood grinning amiably at his snug quarters. It was told as far as Drummond Island _ 35 COBBLER IN THE DEVIL'S KITCHEN and the Sault that a cobbler lived in the Devil's Kitchen on Mackinac. He was a happy fellow, his clean Irish skin growing rosier in air pure as the air of mid-ocean. The lake spread in variegated copper lights almost at his feet. lie did not like Mackinac village in summer, when the engages were all back, and Ind- ians camped tribes strong on the beach, to receive their money from the government. French and savages shouldered one another, the multitude of them making a great hubbub and a gay show of clothes like a fair. Every voyageur was sparring with every other voyageur. A challenge by the poke of a fist, and lo ! a ring is formed and two are fighting. The whipped one gets up, shakes hands with his conqueror, and off they go to drink to- gether. Owen despised such fighting. His way was to take a club and break heads, and see some blood run on the ground. It was better for him to dwell alone than to be stirred up and left un- satisfied. It was late in the afternoon, and the fresh smell of the water cheered him as he sat stitching on a pair of deer-hide shoes for one Leon Baudette, an engage, who was homesick for Montreal. The lowering sun smote an hour-glass of light across the strait which separated him from St. Ignace on the north shore, the old Jesuit station. Mother- of-pearl clouds hung over the southern mainland, and the wash of the lake, which was as pleasant as silence itself, diverted his mind from a distant COBBLEPw IN THE DEVIL'S KITCHEN thump of Indiuu drums. lie knew how laz}'^, naked warriors lay in their lodges, bumping a mallet on stretched deer-hide and droning barbarous raono- tones while they kicked their heels in a^r. If he despised anything more than the way the French diverted themselves, it was the way the Indians diverted themselves. Without a sound there came into Owen's view on the right an Indian girl. He was at first taken by surprise at her coming over the moss of the spring. The shaggy cliff, clothed, like the top of his cave, with cedars, white birch, and pine, afforded no path to the beach in that direction. All his clients approached by the lake margin at the left. Then he noticed it was Blackbird, a Sac girl, who had been pointed out to his critical eye the previous summer as a beauty. Owen admitted she was not bad-looking for a squaw. Her burnished hair, which had got her the name, was drawn down to cheeks where copper and vermilion infused the skin with a wonderful sunset tint. She was neatly and precisely dressed in the woman's skirt and jacket of her tribe, even her moccasins showing no trace of the scramble she must have had down some secret cliff descent in order to approach the cob- bler unseen. He greeted her with the contemptuous affability which an Irishman bestows upon a heathen. Black- bird was probably a good communicant of some wilderness mission, but this brought her no nearer to a son of Ireland. 37 COBBLER IN THE DEVIL'S KITCHEN "Good-day to the quane! And what may she be wanting the day?" Blackbird's eyes, without the snake-restlessness of her race, dwelt unmoving upon him. Owen sur- mised she could not understand his or any other kind of English, being accustomed to no tongue but her own, except the French which the engages talked in their winter camps. She stood upright as a pine without answering. It flashed through him that there might be trouble in the village ; and Blackbird, having regard for him, as we think it possible any human being may have for us, was there to bid him escape. With coldness around the roots of his hair, he remembered the massacre at Fort Michilimackinac — a spot almost in sight across the strait, where south shore ap- proaches north shore at the mouth of Lake Michigan. He laid down his boot. His lips dropped apart, and with a hush of the sound — if such a sound can be hushed — he imitated the Indian war-whoop. Blackbird did not smile at the uncanny screech, but she relaxed her face in stoic amusement, reliev- ing Owen's tense breathing. There was no plot. The tribes merely intended to draw their money, get as drunk as possible, and depart in peace at the end of the month with various outfits to winter posts. " Uegorra, but that was a narrow escape!" sighed Owen, wiping his forehead on his sleeve. He was able to detect the deference that Blackbird paid him by this visit. He sat on his bench in the 38 COBBLER IN THE DEVIL'S KITCHEN Kitchen, a sunny idol in a shrine, indifferent to the effect his background gave him. His mouth puckered. He put up his leather stained hand coyly, and motioned her unmoving figure back. " Ah, go 'way ! Wasn't it to escape you and the likes of you that I made me retrate to the shore? Nayther white, full haythen, half, nor quarther nade apply. To come makin' the big eyes at me, and the post swarmin' wid thim that do be ready to marry on any woman at the droppin' of the hat!" Mobile blue water with rip|)le and wash made a background for the Indian girl's dense repose. She could by lifting her e3^es see the pock-marked front of Owen's Kitchen, and gnarled roots like exposed ribs in the shaggy heights above. But she kept her eyes lowered; and Owen stuck his feet under his bench, sensitive to defects in his foot-wear, which an artist skilled in making and mending moccasins could detect. Blackbird moved forward and laid a shining dot on the stone he used as his table; then, without a word, she turned and disappeared the way she came, over the moss of the spring rivulet. Owen left his bench and craned after her. He did not hear a pebble roll on the stony beach or a twig snap among foliage. "Begorra, it's the wings of a say -gull!" said Owen, and he took up her offering. It was a tiny gold coin. Mackinac was full of gold the month the Indians were paid. It came in kegs from 39 COBBLER IN THE DEVIL'S KITCHEN Washington, under the escort of soldiers, to the United States Agency, a-nd was weighed out to each red heir despoiled of land by white conquest, in his due proportion, and immediately grasped from the improvident by mei'chants, for a little pork, a little whiskey, a little calico. But this was an old coin with a hole in it; a jewel worn suspended from neck or ear; the precious trinket of a girl. On one side was rudely scratched the outline of a bird. " Begorra!" said Owen. He hid it in one of the rock pockets, a trust in a savings-bank, and sat down again to work, trying to discover Blackbird's object in offering tribute to him. About sunset he lighted a fire in his low grate to cook his supper, and put the finished boots in a re- mote corner of the cave until he should get his pay. As he expected, Leon Baudette appeared, picking a barefooted way along the beach, with many com- plimentary greetings. The war}^ cobbler stood be- tween the boots and his client, ind responded with open cordiality. A voyageur who gave flesh and bone and sometimes life itself for a hundred dollars a year, and drank that hundred dollars up during his month of semi-civilization on Mackinac, seldom liatl much about him with which to pay for his necessary mending. Leon Baudette swore at the price, being a dis- contented engage. But the foot-wear he was obliged to have, being secretly determined to desert to Canada before the boats went out. You may see bis name marked as a deserter in the Fur Company's 40 COBBLER IN THE DEVIL'S KITCHEN books at Mackinac Island. So, reluctantly counting out the money, he put on his shoes and crossed his legs to smoke anil chat, occupying the visitor's seat. Owen put his kettle to boil, and sat down also to enjoy society; for why should man be hurried? He learned how many figiits had been fought that day; how many bales of furs were packed in the Company's yard; that fitienne St. Martin was tr3'ing to ship with the Northern instead of the Illinois Brigade, on account of a grudge against Charle' Charette. lie learned that the Indians were having snake and medicine dances to cure a con- sumptive chief. And, to his surprise, he learned that he was considered a medicine-man among the tribes, on account of his living unmolested in the Devil's Kitchen. " O oui," declared Leon. " You de wizard. You only play you mend de shoe; but, by gar, you make de poor voyageur pay de same like it was work! I hear dey call you Big AEedicine of de Cuisine Diable." Owen was compelled to smile with pleasure at his importance, his long upper lip lifting its unshaven bristles in a white curd. '' Do ye moind, Leen me boy, a haythen Injun lady by the name of Bhickbird ?" "Me, I know Blackbird," responded Leon Bau- dette. "Is the consoompted chafe that they're makin' the snake shindy for married on her ?'' " No, no. Blackbird she wife of Jean Magliss in de winter camps." a COBBLER IN THE DEVIL'S KITCHEN " John McGillis? Is it for marry in' on a hay then wife he is?" " O OLii. Two wives. One good Cat'olique. Jean Magliss, he dance every night now with Amable Morin's girh The more weddings, the more dancing. Me," Leon shrugged, " I no want a woman eating my wa^es in. Maclcinac. A squaw in the winter camps — *t assez." "Two wives, the bog-trotter!" gulped Owen. "John McGillis is a blayguardi" " Oui, what you call Irish," assented Leon ; and he dodged, but the cobbler threw notliing at him. Owen marked with the awl on his own leather apron. " First a haythen and then a quarther-brade," he tallied against his countryman. " He will be takin' his quarther-brade to the praste before the boats go out?" Leon raised fat eyebrows. " Amable Morin, he no fool. It is six daughters he has. O oui; the marriage is soon made." " And the poor haythen, what does she do now?" "BlackbiM? She watch Jean ]\Iagliss dance. Then she leave her lodge and take to de ])ine wood. Blackbird ver fond of what you call de Irish." Owen was little richer in the gift of expression than the Indian woman, but he could feel the traged}'^ of her unconfirmed marriage. A squaw was taken to her lord's wigwam, and remained as long as shQ pleased him. He could divorce her with a gift, proportioned to his means and her worth. 43 COBBLER IN THE DEVIL'S KITCHEN "When Leon Baudette departed, Owen prepared and ate his supper, brewing himself some herb tea and seasoning it with a drop of whiskey. The evening beauty of the lake, of coasts melting in general dimness, and that iridescent stony hook stretched out from Round Island to grapple passing craft, was lost on Owen. Humid air did not soften the glower which grew and hardened on his visage as he made his preparations for night. These were very simple. The coals of drift-wood soon died to Avhite ashes in his grate. To close the shop was to stand upon the shoemaker's bench and reach for the ladder in his attic — a short ladder that just per- formed its office and could be hidden aloft. Drawing his stairway after him when he had as- cended, Owen spread and arranged his blankets. The ghosts that rose from tortured bodies in the Kitchen below never worked any terror in his imagination when he went to bed. Kather, he lay stretched in his hard cradle gloating over the stars, his wild security, the thousand night aspects of nature which he could make part of himself with- out expressing. For him the moon cast gorgeous bridges on the water; the breathing of the woods was the breathing of a colossal brother; and when that awful chill which precedes the resurrection of day rose from the earth and started from the rock, he turned comfortably in his thick bedding and taxed sleepy eyes to catch the wanness coming over the lake. But instead of lying down in his usual peace 43 COBBLER IN THE DEVIL'S KITCHEN when the nest was made to suit him, Owen wheeled and hung undecided legs over the edge of his loft. Then lie again put down tlie ladder and descended. He had trod the three-quarters of a mile of beach to the village but once since the boats came in. Now that his mind was fixed he took to it again with a loping step, bending his body forward and grasping his cap to butt through trailing foliage. As he passed the point and neared the post, its Ware and hubbub burst on him, and its torch-light and many twinkling candles. lie proceeded beside the triple row of Indian lodges which occupied the entire water-front. At intervals, on the very verge, evening fires were built, throwing streamers of crimson flicker on the lake. Naked pappooses gathered around these at pla}''. But on an open flat betwixt encampment and village rose a lighted tabernacle of blankets stretched on poles and up- ricrhts; and within this the adult Indians were crowded, celebrating the orgy of the medicine-dance. Their noise kept a continuous roll of echoes moving across the islands. Owen made haste to pass this carnival of invocation and plunge into the swarming main street of Mack- inac, where a thousand voyageurs roved, ready to embrace any man and call him brother and press him to drink with them. Broad low houses with huge chimney-stacks and dormer-windows stood open and hospitable; for Mackinac was en fete while the fur season lasted. One huge storage-room, a wing of the Fur Company's building, was lighted 44 COBBLER IN THE DEVIL'S KITCHEN with candles around the sides for the nightly ball. Squared dark joists of timber showed overhead. The fiddlers sat on a raised platform, playing in ecstasy. The dark, shining floor was thronged with dancers, who, before primrose-color entirely with- drew from evening twilight, had rushed to their usual amusement. Half-breeds, quarter-breeds, six- teenth-breeds, Canadian French, Americans, in finery that the Northwest was able to command from marts of the world, crossed, joined hands, and whirled, the rhythmic tread of feet sounding like the beating of a great pulse. The doors of double timber stood open. From where he paused outside, Owen could see mighty hinges stretching across the whole width of these doors. And he could see John McGillis moving among the most agile dancers. When at last the music stopped, and John led Amable Morin's girl to one of the benches along the wall, Owen was conscious that an Indian woman crossed the lighted space behind him, and he turned and looked full at Black- bird, and she looked full at him. But she did not stay to be included in the greeting of John McGil- lis, though English might be better known to her than Owen had supposed. John came heartily to the door and endeavored to pull his countryman in. He was a much younger man than Owen, a handsome, light-haired voyageur, with thick eyelids and cajoling blue eyes. John was the only Irish engage in the brigades. The sweet gift of blarney dwelt on his broad red lips. 40 COBBLER IN THE DEVIL'S KITCHEN He looked too amiable and easily entreated, too much in love with life, indeed, to quarrel with any one. Yet as Owen answered his invitation by a quick pass that struck his cheek, his color mounted with zest, and he stepped out, turning up his sleeves. " Is it a foight ye want, ye old wizard from the Divil's Kitchen?" laughed John, still good-natured. "It's a foight I want," responded Owen. "It's a foight I'm shpilin' for. Come out forninst the place, where the shlobberin' Frinch can lave a man be, and I'll shpake me moind." John walked bareheaded with him, and they pass- ed around the building to a fence enclosing the Fur Company's silent yard. Stockades of sharp-pointed cedar posts outlined gardens near them. A smell of fur mingled with odors of sweetbrier and loam. Again the violins excited that throb of dancing feet, and John McGillis moved his arms in time to the music. " Out wid it, Owen. I'm losin' me shport." "John McGillis, are ye not own cousin to me by raisin of marryin' on as fine a colleen as iver shtepped in Ireland?" " I am, Owen, I am." " Did ye lave that same in sorrow, consatin' to fetch her out to Ameriky whin yer fortune was made?" " I did, Owen, I did." " Whin ye got word of her death last year, was ye a broken-hearted widdy or was ye not?" " I was, Owen, I was." 46 COBBLER IN THE DEVIL'S KITCHEN " John McGillis, do ye call yerself a widdy now, or do ye not call yerself a widdy ?" "I do, Owen, I do." " Thin ye' re the loire," and Owen slapped his face. For a minute there was danger of manslaughter as they dealt each other blows with sledge fists. In- stead of clinching, they stood apart and cudgelled fiercely with tlie knuckled hand. The first round ended in blood, which John wiped from his face with a new bandanna, and Owen flung contemptu- ously from his nose with finger and thumb. The lax-muscled cobbler wtis no match for the fresh and vigorous voyageur, and he knew it, but went stubbornly to work again, saying, grimly: " I've shpiled yer face for the gu'urls the night, bedad." They pounded each other Avithout mercy, and again rested, Owen this time leaning against the fence to breathe. "John McGillis, are ye a widdy or are ye not a widdy?" he challenged, as soon as he could speak. " I am, Owen Cunnin', I am," maintained John. "Thin I repate ye're the loire!" And once mci-e they came to the ])rocf, until Owen lay upon the ground kicking to keep his opponent off. "Will I bring ye the dhrop of whiskey, Owen?" suggested John, tenderly. His cousin by marriage crawled to the fence and sat up, without replying. " I've the flask in me pouch, Owen." " Kape it there." 47 COBBLER IN THE DEVIL'S KITCHEN " But sure if ye foight wid me ye'U dhrink Tvid me?" " I'll not dhrink a dhrop wid ye." The cobbler panted heavily. " The loikes of 3^ou that do be goin' to marry on a Frinch quarther-brade, desavin' her, and the father and the mother and the praste, that you do be a widdy." " I am a widdy, Owen." The cobbler made a feint to rise, but sank back, repeating, at the top of his breath, " Ye're the loire !" "What do ye mane?" sternly demanded John. " Ye know I've had me throuble. Ye know I've lost me wife in the old counthry. It's a year gone. Was the praste that wrote the letther a loire ?" " I have a towken that ye're not the widdy ye think ye are." John came to Owen and stooped over him, grasp- ing him by the collar. Candle-light across the street and stars in a steel-blue sky did not reveal faces distinctly, but his shaking of the cobbler was an outcome of his own inward convulsion. He be- longed to a class in whom memory and imagination were not strong, being continually taxed by a pres- ent of large action crowded wMth changing images. But when his past rose up it took entire possession of him. " Why didn't ye tell me this before?" " I've not knowed it the long time meself." " What towken have ye got?" " Towken enough for you and me." "Show it to me." - • 48 C0B6LER IN THE DEVIL'S KITCHEN " I will not." " Ye're desavin' me. Ye have no towken." "Thin marry on yer quarther-brade if ye dare!" To be unsettled and uninterested in his surround- ings was John McGillis's portion during the remain- ing weeks of his stay on the island. Half savage and half tender he sat in his barracks and smoked large pipes of tobacco. He tramped out nearly every evening to the Devil's Kitchen, and had wordy battles, which a Frenchman would have called fights, with th rr. K O THE KING OF BEAVER distinct. Emelinp/s sensations were suspended while she listened. From the direction of St. James she saw a figure on horsebacli coming between the dusky ])arallel fence rows. Tiie sound of walking ceased in front of the house, and presently another sound crept barely as high as the attic window. It was the cry of a violin, sweet and piercing, like some celestial voice. It took her unawares. She fled from it to her place beside Roxy and covered her ears with the bedclothes. Roxy turned with a yawn and aroused from sleep. She rose to her elbow and drew in her breath, giggling. The violin courted like an angel, llnding secret approaches to the girl who lay rigid with her ears stopped. "Cousin Emeline!" whispered Roxy, "do you hear that?" "What is it?" inquired Emeline, revealing no emotion. " It's Brother S.trang serenading." " IIow do you know?" " Because he is the only man on Beaver who can play the fiddle like that." Roxj'^ gave herself over to unrestrained giggling. "A man fifty years old !" " I don't believe it," responded Emeline, sharply. "Don't believe he is nearly fifty? He told his age to the elders." " I haven't a word of praise for him, but he isn't an old man. He doesn't look more than thirtv-five." 4/ "To hear that fiddle you'd think he wasn't 103 THE KING OF BEAVER twenty," chuckled Roxv. " It's the first time Broth- er Strang ever came serenading down tliis road." He did not stay long, but went, trailing music deliciously into the distance. Emeline knew how he rode, with the bridle looped over his bow arm. She was quieted and lay in peace, sinking to sleep almost before the faint, far notes could no longer be heard. From that night her uncle Cheeseman's family changed their attitude towards her. She felt it as a Avithdrawal of intimacy, though it expressed reverential awe. Especially did her Mormon aunt Mahala take little tasks out of her hands and wait upon her, while her legal aunt looked at her curious- ly. It was natural for Rox}'^ to talk to Billy Went- worth across the fence, bu; it was not natural for them to share so much furtive laughter, which ceased when Emeline approached. Uncle Cheese- man himself paid more attention to his niece and spent much time at the table explaining to her the Mormon situation on Beaver Island, tracing the colony back to its secession from Brigham Young's party in Illinois. " Brother Strang was too large for them," said her uncle. " He can do anything he undertakes to do." The next Saturday Emeline refused to go to the Tabernacle. She gave no reason and the family asked for none. Her capi'ices were as the gambols of the paschal lamb, to be indulged and overlooked. Roxy offered to stay with her, but she rejected 104 H t: c p: >■ c hi C THE KING OF BEAVER companionship, promising her uncle and aunts to lo?k herself within the cabin and hide if she saw men approaching from any direction. The dry was sultry for that climate, and of a vivid clearness, and the sky dazzled. Emeline had never met any terri- fying Gentiles during her stay on the island, and she felt quite secure in crossing the pasture and taking to the farm woods beyond. Her uncle's cows had worn a path which descended to a run with partially grass-lined channel. Beaver Island was full of brooks and springs. The children had placed stepping-stones across this one. She was vaguely happy, seeing the water swirl below her feet, hear- ing the cattle breathe at their grazing; though in the path or on the log which she found at the edge of the woods her face kept turning towards the town of St. James, as the faces of the faithful turn toward?. Mecca. It Avas childish to think of escaping the King of Beaver by merely staying away from his exhortations. Emeline knew she was only parleying. The green silence should have helped her to think, but she found herself waiting — and doing nothing but waiting — for what might happen next. She likened herself to a hunted rabbit palpitating in cover, unable to reach any place of safety yet grateful for a moment's breathing. Wheels rolled southward along the Galilee road. Meeting was out. She had the caprice to remain where she was when the family wagon arrived, for it had been too warm to walk to the Tabernacle. Roxy's voice 105 TIIR KING OF BEAVER called lier, and as she answered, Roxy skipped across the brook and ran to her. " Cousin Emcline," the breathless girl announced, " here comes Mary French to see you !" Emehne stiffened upon the log. "Where?" Roxy glanced behind at a figure following her across the meadow. "What does she want of me?" inquired Emeline. " If she came home with the family, it was not necessary to call me." " She drove by herself. She says Brother Strang sent her to you." Emeline stood up as the Prophet's youngest wife entered that leafy silence. Roxy, forgetting that these two had never met before, slipped away and left them. They looked at each other. "How do you do, Mrs. Strang?" spoke Emeline. " How do you do, Miss Cheeseman?" spoke Mary French. "Will you sit down on this log?" " Thank you." Mar}?^ French had more flesh and blood than Eme- line. She was larger and of a warmer and browner tint — that type of brunette with startling black hair which breaks into a floss of little curls, and with unexpected blue eyes. Her full lips made a bud, and it only half bloomed when she smiled. From crown to slipper she was a ripe and supple woman. Though clad, like Emeline, in black, her garment was a transparent texture over white, and toe THE KING OF BEAVER she held a parasol with crimson lining behind her head. She had left her bonnet in her conveyance. " My husband," said Mary French, quiet and smiling, '"sent nie to tell you that you will be wel- comed into our family." Emeline looked her in the eyes. The Prophet's wife had the most unblenching smiling gaze she had ever encountered. " I do not wish to enter your family. I am not a Mormon." " He will make you wish it. I was not a Mor- mon." They sat silent, the trees stirring around them. " I do not understand it," said Emeline. " How can you come to me with such a message?" " I can do it as you can do it when your turn comes." Emeline looked at Mary French as if she had been stabbed. " It hurts, doesn't it?" said Mary French. " But wait till he seems to you a great strong archangel — an archangel w^tlj only the weakness of dabbling his wings in the dirt — and you will withhold from him nothing, no one, that may be of use to him. If he wants to put me by for a while, it is his will. You cannot take my place. I cannot fill yours." "Oh, don't!" gasped Emeline. "I am not that sort of woman — I should kill!" " That is because you have not lived with him. I would rather have him make me suffer than not have him at all." 107 THE KING OF BEAVER " Oh, don't! I can't bear it! Help me!" prayed Emeline, stretching- her hands to the wife. Mary French met her with one hand and the unflinching smile, ller flesh was firm and warm, while Emeline's was cold and quivering. " You have never loved anybody, have you?" " No." "But you have thought you did?" " I was engaged before I came here." " And the engagement is broken 2" " We quarrelled." Mary French breathed deeply. " You will forget it here. He can draw the very soul out of your body." "He cannot!" flashed Emeline. " Some one will kill him yet. He is not under- stood at his best, and he cannot endure defeat of any kind. When you come into the family you must guard him from his enemies as I have constant- ly guarded him. If you ever let a hair of his head be harmed — then I shall hate you!" " Mrs. Strang, do you come here to push me too? My uncle's family, everything, all are closing around me! Why dor t you help me? I loatha — I loathe your husband !" Mary French rose, her smile changing only to express deep tenderness. " You are a good girl, dear. I can myself feel your charm. I w^as not so self-denying. In my fierce young girlhood I would have removed a rival. But since you ask me, I will do all I can 108 THE KING OF BEAVER for you in the way you desire. My errand is done. Good-by." " Good-by," said Emeline, restraining herself. She sat watching tlie ehistic shape under the parasol move with its shadow across the field. She had not a doubt until Mary French was gone; then the deep skill of the Piophet's wife with rivals sprung out like a distortion of nature. Emeline had nearly three weeks in which to in- trench herself with doubts and defences. She felt at first surprised and relieved. When her second absence from the Tabernacle was passed over in silence she found in her nature an unaccountable pique, which steadly grew to unrest. She ventured and turned back on the woods path leading to St. James many times, each time daring farther. The impulse to go to St. James came on her at waking, and she resisted through busy hours of the day. But the family often had tasks from w^hich Emeline was free, and when the desire grew unendurable she knelt at her secluded bedside in the loft, trying to bring order out of her confused thoughts. She re- viewed her quarrel with her lover, and took blame for his desertion. The grievance which had seemed so great to her before she came to Beaver Island dwindled, and his personality with it. In self-de- fence she coaxed her fancy, pretending that James Arnold was too good for her. It ^vas well he had found it out. But because he was too good for her she ought to go on being fond of him at a safe distance, undetected by him, and discreetly cherish- 109 ^ TIIK KING OF BEAVEll iufi; liis laroe blond image as her ideal of manhood. If slic had not been bred in horror of (Catholics, tiio cloister at this time would iiave occurred to her as her only safe refuge. These secret rites in her bedroom being ended, and Koxy diverted from lier movements, slie sli{)j)ed off into the woods i)alli, sometimes running breath- lessly towards St. James. The im})etus which carried Emeline increased with each journey. At first she was able to check it in the woods depths, but it finally drove her until the village houses were in sight. When this at last happened, and she stood gazing, fascinated, down the tunnel of forest path, the King of Beaver spoke behind her. Emeline screamed in terror and took hold of a bush, to make it a support and a veil. '^ Have I been a patient man?" he inquired, stand- ing between her and her uncle's house. "I waited for you to come to me." ' " I am obliged to go somewhere," said Emeline, pluckino^the leaves and unsteadilv shifting" her eves about his feet. " I cannot stay on the farm all the time." Through numbness she felt the pricking of a sharp rapture. The King of Beaver smiled, seeing betraj'ed in her face the very vertigo of joy. "You will give yourself to me now?" he winning- ly begged, venturing out-stretched hands. "You have felt the need as I have? Do you think the days have been easy to me? When you were on 110 YOU WILL GIVE YOURSELF TO ME N0\ ' V THE KIXG OF BEAVER your knees I was on my knees too. Every day you came in this direction I came as far as I dared, to meet you. Are the obstacles all passed?" " No," said Emeline. He was making her ask herself that most insidious question, " Why could not the other have been like this?" " Tell me — can you say, ' I hate you,' now?" " No," said Emeline. " I have grown to be a better man since you said you hated me. The miracle cannot be forced. Next time?" lie spoke wistfully. "No," Emeline answered, holding to the bush. She kept her eyes on the ground while he talked, and glanced up when she replied. He stood with liis hat off. The flakes of sun touched his head and the fair skin of his forehead. He moved towards Emeline, and she retreated around the bush. Without hesitating he passed, making a salutation, and went on by himself to St. James. She watched his rapid military walk furtively, her eyebrows crouching, her lips rippling with passionate tremors. Then she took to flight homeward, her skirts swishing through the woods with a rush like the wind. The rebound was as violent as the tension had been. There were few festivities on Beaver Island, the Mormon families living a pastoral life, many of them yet taxed by the struggle for existence. Crops shot up rank and strong m the short Northern summer. Soft cloud masses sailed over the island, lU THE KING OF BEAVER and rain-storms marched across it with drums of thunder which sent reverberations along the water world. Or fogs rolled in, mutlling and obliterating homesteads. Emeline stayed in the house, busying herself with the monotonous duties of the family three days. She was determined never to go into the woods path again without Ilox3^ The fourth day a gray fog gave her no choice but imprisonment. It had the acrid tan^^ of smoke from lires burninor on the main- land. About nightfall the west wind rose and blew it back, revealing a land mantled with condensed drops. Emeline put on her hat and shawl to walk around in the twilight. The other young creatures of the house were glad to be out also, and Roxy and Roxy-s lover talked across the fence. Emeline felt fortified against the path through the woods at night; yet her feet turned in that direction, and as certainly as water seeks its level she found herself on the moist elastic track. Cow-bells on the farm sounded fainter and farther. A gloom of trees massed around her, and the forest gave up all its perfume to the dampness. At every step she meant to turn back, though a recklessness of night and of meeting the King of Beaver grew upon her. Thus, without any reason- able excuse for her presence there, she met Mary French. "Is that you, Miss Cheeseraan f panted the Proph- et's youngest wife. lid THE KING OF BEAVER Emeline confessed her identity. " I was coming for you, but it is fortunate you are so far on the way. There is a steamboat at the dock, and it will go out in half an hour. I could not get away sooner to tell you." Mary French breathed heavily from rum. t. " When the steam- boat came in the captain sent for my husband, as the captains always do. I went with him: he knows how I dread to have him go alone upon a boat since an attempt was made last j^ear to kidnap him. But this time there was another reason, for I have been watching. And sure enough, a 3'oung man was on the steamboat inquiring where he could find you. His name is James Arnold. The captain asked my husband to direct him to you. You will readily understand why he did not find you. Come at once !" *' I will not," said Emeline. "But vou wanted me to help vou, and I have been trving; to do it. AVe easilv learned bv letter from our friends in Detroit who your lover was. Mv husband had me do that* he wanted to know. Then without his knowledge I stooped to write an anonymous letter." " To James Arnold ?" "Yes." "About mer " About you." "What did you tell him?" " I said you were exposed to great danger on Beaver Island, among the Mormons, and if you had H 113 THE KING OF BEAVER any interested friend it ^ytls time for him to inter- fere." "And that brought him here?" "I am sure it did. He was keenly disappointed at not finding you." "But why didn't he come to the farm?" " My husband prevented that, lie said you were on Beaver Island three or four weeks ago, but you were now in the Fairy Isle. It was no lie. He s])oke in parables, but the other heard him literally. We let him inquire of people in St. James. But no one had seen you since the Saturday 3'ou came to the Tabernacle. So he is fj^oino' back to Mackinac to seek you. Your life will be decided in a quarter of an hour. Will you go on that steamboat?" " Tlirow myself on tiie mercy of a man who dared — dared to break his engagement, and who ought to be punished and put on probation, and then re- fused! No, I cannot!" "The ininutes are slipping away." " Besides, I have nothing with me but the clothes I have on. And my uncle's family — think of my uncle's family !" " You can write to your uncle and have him send your baogno'e. I dare not carrv anv messages. But I thought of what 3'ou would need to-night, and put some tilings and some money in this satchel. They were mine. Keep them all." Emeline took hold of the bag which Mary French shoved in her hand. Their faces were indistinct to each other. lU LET ME loose!' STUUGGLED EMELINE " THE KING OF BEAVER " For the first time in my life I have deceived my husband !" "Oh, what shall I do — what shall I do?" cried the girl. A steamer whistle at St. James dock sent its bel- low rebounding from tree to tree in the woods. Emeline seized Mary French and kissed her violently on both cheeks. She snatched the bag and flew towards St. James. " Stop !" commanded the Prophet's wife. She ran in pursuit, catching Emeline by the shoulders. "You sha'n't go! What am I doing? Maybe robbing him of what is necessary to his highest success! I am a fool — to think he might turn back to me for consolation when you are gone — God for- give me such silly fondness! I can't have a secret between him and myself — I will tell him! You shall not go — and cause him a mortal hurt! Wait! — stop! — the boat is gone! It's too late!" " Let me loose !" struggled Emeline, wrenching herself away. She ran on through the woods, and Mary French, snatching at garments which eluded her, stumbled and fell on the damp path, gathering dead leaves under her palms. The steamer's prolonged bellow covered her voice. Candles were lighted in St. James. The Taber- nacle spread itself like a great circular web dark with moisture. Emeline was conscious of running across the gang-plank as a sailor stooped to draw it 115 THE KING OF BEAVER in. The bell was ringing and the boat was already in motion. It sidled and backed away from its moorings. Eraeline knelt panting at the rail on the forward deck. A flambeau fastened to the wharf bowed its light to the wind as the boat swung about, showing the King of Beaver smiling and waving his hand in farewell. He did not see Emeline. His farewell was for the man whom he had sent away without her. His golden hair and beard and blue eyes floated into Emeline's past as the steamer receded, the powerful face and lithe figure first losing their identity, and then merging into night. What if it was true that she was robbing both him and herself of the best life, as Mary French was smitten to be- lieve at the last moment? Her Gentile gorge rose against him, and the traditions of a thousand years warred in her with nature ; yet she stretched her hands towards him in the darkness. Then she heard a familiar voice, and knew that the old order of things was returning, while Beaver Island, like a dream, went silently down upon the waters. Some years later, in the '50's, Emeline, sitting opposite her husband at the breakfast-table, heard him announce from the morning paper : " Murder of King Strang, the Mormon Prophet of Beaver Island." All the details of the affair, even the track of the bullets which crashed into that golden head, were mercilessly printed. The reader, surprised by a sob, dropped his paper. 116 THE KING OF BEAVER " What ! Are you crying, Mrs. Arnold ?" " It was so cruel I" sobbed Emeline. " And Billy "Went worth, like a savage, helped to do it!" " He had provocation, no doubt, though it is a horrid deed. Perhaps I owe the King of Beaver the tribute of a tear. He befogged me considerably the only time I ever met him." " You see only his evil. But I see what he was to Mary French and the others." "His bereaved widows?" " The ones who believed in his best." BEATER LIGHTS A MAGNIFICENT fountain of flame, visible far out on the starlit lake, spurted from the north end of Beaver Island. It was the tem})le, in which the Mormon people had wor- shipped for the last time, sending sparks and illu- mined vapor to the zenith. The village of St. James was partly in ashes, and a blue pallor of smoke hung dimly over nearly every hill and hollow, for Gentile fishermen crazed with drink and power and long arrears of grievances had carried torch and axe from farm to farm. Until noon of that day all householding families had been driven to huddle with their cattle around the harbor dock and forced to make pens for the cattle of lumber which had been piled there for transportation. Unresisting as sheep they let themselves be shipped on four small armed steamers sent by their enemies to carry them into exile. Not one of the twelve elders who had received the last instructions of their murdered king rose up to organize ai-y defence. Scarcely a month had passed since his wounding unto death, and his withdrawal, like Arthur, in the arms of weeping women to that spot in Wisconsin where 118 BEAVER LIGUTS he had found his sacred Vorec plates or tables of the hiw. Scarcely two weeks had passed since news came back of his burial there. And already the Mormon settlement was swept off Jie[iver Island. Used to border warfai'e and to following their dominating prophet to victory, they yet seemed unable to strike a blow without him. Such non- resistance procured them nothing but contempt. They even submitted to being compelled to destroy a cairn raised over the grave of one considered a malefactor, carrying the heap stone by stone to throw into the lake, Gentiles standing over them like Egyptian masters. Little waves ran in rows of light, washing against the point on the north side of the landlocked har- bor. A primrose star was there struggling aloft at the top of a rough rock tower. It was the fish-oil flame of Beaver lamp, and the keeper sat on his doorsill at the bottom of the light-house with his wife .beside him. The lowing of cattle missing their usual evening tendance came across from the dock, a mournful accompaniment to the distant roaring of fire and falling of timbers. " Do you realize, Ludlow," the young woman in- quired, slipping hei* hand into her husband's, "that I am now the only Mormon on Beaver Island ?" "You never were a verj^^ good Mormon, Cecilia. You didn't like the breed any better than I did, though there were good people among them." "Will they lose all their cattle, Ludlow f' 119 BEAVER LIGHTS " The cattle are safe enough," he laughed. " The men that are doing this transporting will take the cattle. None of our Mormon friends will ever see a hoof from Beaver Island again." " But it seems robbery to drive them off and seize their property." " That's the way King Strang took Beaver from the Gentiles in the first place. Mormons and Gen- tiles can't live together." '' We can." " I told you that you were a poor Mormon, Cecilia. And from first to last I opposed my family's enter- ing the community. Tithes and meddling sent my father out of it a poor man. But I'm glad he went before this ; and your people, too." She drew a deep breath. " Oh yes! They're safe in Green Bay. I couldn't endure to have them on those steamers going down the lake to-night. What will become of the community, Ludlow?" " God knows. They'll be landed at Chicago and turned adrift on the world. I'm glad they're away from here. I've no cause to love them, but I was afraid they would be butchered like sheep. Your father and my father, if they had still been elders on the island, wouldn't have submitted, as these folks did, to abuse and exile and the loss of every- thing they had in the world. I can't understand it of some of them. There was Jim Baker, for in- stance ; I'd have sworn he would fight." "1 can understand why he didn't. He hasn't taken any interest since his second marriage." 130 BEAVER LIGHTS " Now, that was a nice piece of work! I always liked Jim the best of any of the young men until he did that. And what inducement was there in the woman?" The light-house keeper's wife fired up. ""What inducement there was for him ever to marry Ro- sanne I couldn't see. And I know Elizabeth Aiken lo/ed him when we were girls together." " And didn't Rosanne?" " Oh — Rosanne! A roly-poly spoiled young one, that never will be a woman! Elizabeth is noble." " You're fond of Elizabeth because she was wit- ness to our secret marriage when King Strang wouldn't let me have you. I liked Jim for the same reason. Do you mind how we four slipped one at a time up the back stairs in my father's house that night, while the young folks were dancing be- low?" " I mind we picked Elizabeth because Rosanne would be sure to blab, even if she had to suffer her- self for it. How scared the poor elder was !" " We did him a good turn when we got him to marry us. He'd be on one of the steamers bound for nowhere, to-night, instead of snug at Green Bay, if we hadn't started him on the road to what King Strang called disaffection." The light-house keeper jumped up and ran out on the point, his wife following him in nervous dread. "What is the matter, Ludlow?" Their feet crunched gravel and paused where rip- ples still ran in, endlessly bringing lines of dimmer 121 BEAVER LIGHTS and dimmer light. A rocking boat was tied to a stake. Anchored and bare-masted, farther out in the mouth of the bay, a fishing smack tilted sliglit- \y in rhythmic motion. Wliile they stood a touch of crimson replaced the sky light in the water, and great blots like blood soaking into the bay were reflected from the fire. The burning temple now seemed to rise a lofty tower of flame against the horizon. Figures could be seen passing back and forth in front o-f it, and shouts of fishermen came down the peninsula. The King's printing-office where the Northern Islander was once issued as a daily had smouldered down out of the way. It was the first place to which tliey had set torch. " I thought 1 heard some one running up the sail on our sail-boat," said the light-house keeper. " No telling what these fellows may do. If they go to meddling wath me in my little Government office, they'll lind me as stubborn as the Mormons did." " Oh, Ludlow, look at the tabernacle, like a big red-hot cheese-box on the high ground I Tliink of the coronation there on the first King's Day!" Tl>e light-house keeper's wife was again in im- agination a long-limbed girl of fifteen, crowding into the temple to witness such a ceremony as was celebrated on no other spot of the New World. The King of Beaver, in a crimson robe, walked the temple aisle, followed by his council, his twelve elders, and seventy ministers of the minor order. In the presence of a hushed multitude he was anointed, and a crown with a cluster of projecting 122 BEAVER LIGHTS stars was set on his golden head. Hails and shouts, music of marching singers and the strewing of flowers went before him into the leafy July woods. Thus King's Day was established and annually ob- served on the 8th of July. It began with burnt- offerings. The head of each family was required to bring 9, chicken. A heifer was killed and care- fully cut up without breaking a bone; and, while the smoke of sacrifice arose, feasting and dancing began, and lasted until sunset. Firstlings of flocks and the first-fruits of orchard and field were or- dained the King's; and he also claimed one-tenth of each man's possessions. The Mosaic law was set up in Beaver Island, even to the stoning of rebellious children. The smoke of a sacrificed people was now reeking on Beaver. This singular man's French ancestry — for he was descended from Henri de L'Estrange, who came to the New World with the Duke of York — doubtless gave him the passion for pictu- resqueness and the spiritual grasp on his isolated kingdom which keeps him still a notable and unfor- gotten figure. " It makes me feel bad to see so much destruction," the young man said to his wife; " though I offered to go with Billy Went worth to shoot Strang if no- body else was willing. I knew I was marked, and sooner or later I would disappear if he continued to govern this island. But with all his faults he was a man. He could fight; and whip. He'd have sunk every steamer in the harbor to-day." 133 BEAYER LIGHTS "It's heavy on my heart, Ludlow — it's dreadful! Neighbors and friends that we shall never see again !" The young man caught his wife by the arm. They both heard the swift beat of footsteps flying down the peninsula. Cecilia drew in her breath and crowded against her husband. A figure came into view and identified itself, leaping in bisected draperies across an open space to the light-house door. "Why, Kosanne!" exclaimed the keeper's wife. She continued to say "Why, Rosanne! Why, Ro- sanne Baker!" after she had herself run into the house and lighted a candle. She set the candle on the chimney. It showed her rock-!)uilt domicile, plain but dignified, like the hollow of a cavern, with blue china on the cupboard shelves ard a spinning-wheel standing by the north wall. A corner staircase led to the second story of the towev, and on its lowest step the fugitive dropped down, weeping and panting. She was pe- culiarlv dressed in the calico bloomers which the King of Beaver had latterly decreed for the women of his kingdom. Her trim legs and little feet, cased in strong shoes, aj^peared below the baggy trousers. The upper part of her person, her almond eyes, round curves and features were full of Oriental suggestions. Some sweet inmate of a harem might so have materialized, bruising her soitness against the hard stair. "Why, Rosanne Baker!'' her hostess reiterated. BEAVER LIGHTS Cecilia did not wear bloomers. She stood erect in petticoats. " I thought you went on one of the boats!" " I didn't," sobbed Rosanne. " When they were crowding us on I slipped among the lumber piles and hid. I've been hid all day, lying flat be- tween boards — on top where they couldn't see me." " Suppose the lumber had been set on fire, too! And you haven't had anything to eat?" "I don't want to eat. I'm only frightened to death at the wicked Gentiles burning the island. I couldn't stay there all night, so I got down and ran to your house." "Of course, you poor child! But, Rosanne, Where's your husband?" The trembling creature stiffened herself and looked at Cecilia out of the corners of her long eyes. "lie's with Elizabeth Aiken." The only wife of one husband did not know how to take hold of this subject. "But your father was there," she suggeste , and I consider myself bound by my pledge to pro- vide for her. She's a good girl. She has no one to look to but me. And I'm not going to turn her off to shift for herself if the whole United States mus- ters against me." I 139 BEAVER LIGHTS " Now you talk like a man, I think better of you than I have for a couple of weeks past." " It ought to make me mad to be run off of Beaver. But I couldn't take any interest. May I see Rosanne ?" " Go right up-stairs. Cecilia took her up to put her to bed. The walls and floors are thick here or she would have heard your voice." " Poor little Rosanne ! It's been a hard day for her." The young Mormon paused before ascending. " Ludlow, as soon as you can give me a few things to make the women comfortable for the run to Green Bay, I'll take them and put out." " Tell Cecilia to come down. She'll know what they need." Until Cecilia came down and hugged Elizabeth silently but most tenderly the lighthouse -keeper stood with his feet and gaze planted on a braided rug, not knowing what to say. He then shifted his feet and remarked : "It's a fine night for a sail, Elizabeth. I think we're goino; to have fair weather." " I tliink we are," she answered. Hurried preparations were made for the voyage. Elizabeth helped Cecilia gather food and clothes and two Mackinac blankets from the stores of a young couple not rich but open-handed. The light- house-keeper trimmed the lantern to hang at the mast-head. He was about to call the two up-stairs when the crunching of many feet on gravel was 130 BEAVER LIGHTS heard around his tower and a torch was thrust at one of the windows. At the same instant he put Elizabeth and CeciHa in the stairway and let James Baker, bounding down three steps at once, into the room. Each man took a gun, Ludlow blowing out the candle as lie reached for his weapons. " Now you stand back out of sight and let me talk to them," he said to the young Mormon, as an explosive clamor began. " They'll kill you, and they daren't touch me. Even if they had anything against me, tlie drunkest of them know better than to shoot down a government ofRcer. I'm going to open this window." A rabble of dusky shapes headed by a torch- bearer who had doubtless lighted his fat-stick at the burning temple, pressed forward to force a way through the window. "Get off of the flower-bed," said Ludlow, drop- ping the muzzle of his gun on the sill. " You're tramping down my wife's flowers." " It's your nosegays of Mormons we're after hav- ing, Ludlow. We seen them shlipping in here !" " It's shame to you, Ludlow, and your own da- cent wife that hard to come at, by raison of King Strang !" "Augh! thim bloomers! — they do be makin' me sthummick sick !" " What hurts you worst," said Ludlow, " is the price you had to pay the Mormons for lish bar- rels." 181 BEAVER LIOIITS The mob groaned and hooted. " Wull ye give us out the divil forninst there, or wull ye take a broadside tlirough the windy ?" " I haven't anv devil in the house." " It's Jim Baker, be the powers. He w^or seen, and his women." " Jim J>aker is here. But he's leaving the island at once with the women." " He'll not lave it alive." "You, Pat Corrigan," said Ludlow, pointing his linger at the torch-bearer, " do you remember the morning you and your mate rowed in to the light- house half-frozen and starved and I fed and warmed you ?" "Dolmoindit? I do !" " Did I let the Mormons take you then ?" " No, bedad." " When King Strang's constables came galloping down here to arrest you, didn't I run in water to my waist to push you off in your boat V " You did, bedad !" *' I didn't give you up to them, and I won't give this family up to you. They're not doing you any harm. Let them peaceably leave Beaver.'' " But the two wives of him," argued Pat Cor- rigan. "How many wives and children have you f "Is it 'how many wives,' saj^s the haythen ! "Wan wife, by the powers; and tin childer." " Haven't you about as large a family as you can take care of ?" 133 BP]AVEK LIGHTS " Be<^obs, T havG." "Do you want to take in Jim Baker's Mormon wife and provide for her? Somebody has to. If you won't let him do it, perliaps you'll do it your- self." " No, bedad !" "Well, then, you'd better go about your business and let him alone. I don't see that we have to meddle with these things. Do you'i" The crowd moved uneasily and laughed, good- naturedly owning to being plucked of its cause and arrested in the very act of returning evil for good. "I tould you Ludlow was the foine man," said the torch -bearer to his confederates. " There's no harm in you boys," pursued the fine man. " You're not making a war on women." " We're not. Thrue for you." " If 3^ou feel like having a wake over the Mor- mons, why don't vou get more torches and make a ])rocession down the Galilee road ? You've done about all you can on Mount Pisgah." As they began to trail away at this suggestion and to hail him with pai'ting shouts, Ludlow shut the window and laughed in the dark room. " I'd like to start them chasing the fox around all the five lakes on Beaver. But they may change their minds before they reach the sand-hills. We'd better load the boat right ofif, Jim." In the hurrying Rosanne came down-stairs and found Elizabeth waiting at the foot. They could 133 BEAVER LIGHTS see each other only by starliglit. They were alone, for tlie others had gone out to the boat. " Are you williug for me to go, Rosanne?" spoke Elizabeth. Her sweet voice was of a low pitch, unhurried and steady. " James says he'll build me a little house in ^''our yard." " Oh, Elizabeth !" Rosanne did not cry, "I cannot hate you !" but she threw herself into the arms of the larirer, more patient woman whom she saw no longer as a rival, and who would cherish her children. Elizabeth kissed her husband's wife as a little sister. The lights on Beaver, sinking to duller redness, shone behind Elizabeth like the lires of the stake as she and Cecilia Avalked after the others to the boat. Cecilia wondered if her spirit rose against the in- dignities of her position as an undesired wife, whose legal rights were not even recognized by the society into which she would be forced. The world was not open to her as to a man. In that day it would have stoned her if she ventured too far from some protected fireside. Fierce envy of squaws who could tramp winter snows and were not despised for their brief marriages may have flashed through Elizabeth like the little self-protecting blaze a man lighted around his own cabin when the prairie was on lire. Why in all the swarming centuries of human experience had the lot of a creature with such genius for loving been cast where she was utterly thrown away ? Solitary and carrying her passion a hidden coal 134 BEAVER LIGHTS she walked in the footsteps of 11111^3^8 behind the piiir of reunited lovers. "Take care, Kosaniie. Don't stumble, darling!" said the man to whom Elizabeth had been married by a law she respected until a higlier law unhus- banded her. Cecilia noted the passionate clutch of her hand and its withdrawal without touching him as he lurched over a rock. lie put his wife tenderly in the boat and then turned with kind formalit}' to Elizabeth ; but Lud- low had helped her. "Well, bon voyage," said the lighthouse-keeper. " Mind you run up the lantern on the mast as soon as you get aboard. I don't think there'll be any chase. The Irish have freed their minds." " I'll send your fishing boat back as soon as I can, Ludlow." "Turn it over to father; he'll see to it. Give him news of us and our love to all the folks. He will be anxious to know the truth about Beaver." " Good-bye, Elizabeth and Rosanne !" "Good-bye, Cecilia!" A grinding on pebbles, then the thump of ad- justed oars and the rush of water on each side of a boat's course, marked the fugitives' progress tow- ards the anchored smack. Suspended on starlit waters as if in eternity, and watching the smoke of her past go up from a looted island, Elizabeth had the sense of a great company around her. The uninstructed girl from the little 135 BEAVER LIGHTS kingdom of Beaver divined a worldful of souls wait- ing and loving in hopeless silence and marching re- sistlessly as the stars to their reward. For there is a development like the unfolding of a god for those who suffer in strength and overcome. A BRITISH ISLANDER* WELL, I v:ish you could have been here in Mrs. Gunning's day. She was the oddest woman on Mackinac. Not that she exerted herself to attract attention. But she was such a character, and her manners were so astonish- ing, that she furnished perennial entertainment to the few families of us constituting island society. She was an English woman, born in South Af- rica, and married to an American army surgeon, and had lived over a large part of the world before coming to this fort. She had no children. But her sister had married Dr. Gunning's brother. And the good-for-nothing pair set out to follow the English drum-beat around the world, and left a child for the two more responsible ones to rear. Juliana Gunning was so deaf she could not hear thunder. But she was quits with nature, for all that; a won- derfully alluring kind of girl, with big brown eyes that were better than ears, and that could catch the meaning of moving lips. It seemed to strangers * This story is set down exactly as it was told by the Island Chronicler. 187 A BRITISH ISLANDER that she merely evaded conversation ; for she had a sweet voice, a little drawling, and was witty when she wanted to speak. Juliana couldn't step out of the surgeon's quarters to walk across the parade- ground without making every soldier in the fort conscious of her. She was well- shaped and tall, and a slight pitting of the skin oidy enhanced the charm of her large features. She used to dress an- like anybody else, in foreign things that her aunt gave her, and was alwaj*^ carrying different kinds of thin scarfs to throw over her face and tantalize the men. Everybody knew that Captain Markley would marry her if he could. But along comes Dr. Mc- Curdy, a wealthy widower from the East, and nothing will do but he must hang about Mack- inac week after week, pretending to need the climate — and he weighing nearly two hundred — to court Juliana Gunning. The lieutenant's wife said of Juliana that she would flirt with a half-breed if nothing better offered. But the lieutenant's wife was a homely, jealous little thing, and could never have had all the men hanging after her. And if she had had the chance she mio:ht have been as aff- gravati ng about making up her mind between two as Juliana was. "We used to think the girl very good-natured. But those three people made a queer family. Dr. Gunning was the remnant of a magnificent man, and he always had a courtly air. lie paid little attention to the small affairs of life, and rated 138 A BRITISH ISLANDER moiie}'' as nothing-. Dr. Gnnniiig had liis peculiar- ities; but I am not teUing you about liim. lie was a kind man, and would cross the strait in any weather to attend a sick half-breed or any otlier ailing creature, who probably never paid him a cent. lie was fond of the island, and quite satis- fied to spend his life here. The day I am telling you about, Mrs. Gunning had driven with me into the village to make some calls. She was very punctilious about calling upon strangers. If she intended to recognize a new- comer she called at once. We drove around to the rear of the fort and entered at the back sally- port, where carriages always enter; but instead of letting me put her down at the surgeon's quarters, she ordered the driver to stop in the middle of the parade-ground. Then she got out and, with never a word, marched down the steps to Captain Markley, where he was leaning against the front sally-port, looking below into the town. I didn't know what to do, so I sat and waited. It was the loveliest autumn morning you ever saw. I remember the beeches and oaks and maples were spread out like banners to the verv height of the island, all crim- son and yellow sj)lashes in the midst of evergreens. There had been an awful stoi'm the night before, and you could see down the sallyport how drenched the fort garden was at the foot of the hill. Captain Markley had a fearfully depressed look. lie was so down in the mouth that the sentinels noticed it. I saw the one in front of the western A BRITISH ISLANDER block-house stick his tongue in his clieek and wink at one pacing below. We heard afterwards that Captain Markley had been out alone to inspect target -ranges in the pine woods, and almost ran against Juliana Gunning and Dr. AlcCurdy sitting on a log. Before he could get out of the wa}^ he overheard the loudest proposal ever made on Mack- inac. It used to be told about in mess, though how it got out Captain Markley said he did not know, unless they heard it at the fort. " I have brought you out here," the doctor shouted to Juliana, as loud as a cow lowing, "to tell you that I love you! I want you to be my wife!" She behaved as if she didn't hear — I think that minx often had fun with her deafness — and inclined her head to one side. So he said it all over again. " I have brought you to this secluded spot to tell you that I love you! I want you to be my wife!" It was like a steamer bellowing on the strait. Then Juliana threw her scarf over her face, and Captain Markley broke away through the bushes. Mrs. Gunning never said a word to me about either of the suitors. It wasn't because she didn't talk, for she was a great talker. We had to post- pone a card-party one evening, on account of the continuous flow of Mrs. Gunning's conversation, which never ceased until it was time for refresh- ments, there being not a moment's pause for the tables to be set out. 140 -^t^'- .-■ - I WAS STAHTLED TO SF-.K HKU lUSir AT TIIK CAPTAIN A BRITISH ISLANDER I was startled to see her rush down at Captain Markle}^ brandishing her parasol as if she were going to knock him down. I thought if she had any preference it would be for an army man; for you know an army woman's contempt of civilian money and position. Array women continually want to be moving on; and they hate bothering with household stuff, such as we prize. Captain Markley did look poor-spirited, drooping against the sally-port, for a man who in his uniform was the most conspicuous figure to Mackinac girls in a ball-room. Maybe if he had been courting anything but a statue he might have made a better figure at it. Juliana was worse than a statue, though; for she could float through a thousand graceful poses, and drive a man crazy with her eyes. He wasn't the lover to go out in the woods and shoot a proposal as loud as a cannon at a girl; and it seems he couldn't get any satisfaction from hei' by writing notes. Mrs. Gunning was drawing off her gloves as she marched at him with her parasol, and I remember how her emeralds and diamonds flashed in the sun — okl heirlooms. I never saw another woman who had so many precious stones. She was tall, with that robust English quality that sometimes goes with slenderness. She and Juliana were not a bit alike. When she walked, her feet came down pat. I pitied Captain Markley. By leaning over the carriage I could see him give a start as Mrs. Gun- ning pounced at him. - -, 141 A BRITISH ISLANDER " It's a fine day after the. storm, Captain Mark- ley," says she; and he lifted his cap and said it was. Then slie made a rush that I thought would drive liim down the cliff, and whirled her parasol around his head like sword -pla}', talking about the havoc of the storm. She ripi)led him from head to foot and poked at his eyes, and jabbed him, to show how lightning struck the rocks. Captain Markley all the time moving back and dodging; and to save my life I couldn't help laughing, though the sentinels above him saw it. They were i)retty well used to her, and rolled their quids in their cheeks, and winked at one another. When she had all but thrown him down-hill, she stuck the ferrule right under his nose and shook it, and says she: " Yet it is now as fine a day as if no such convulsion had ever threatened the island. It is often so in this world." He couldn't deny that, miserable as he looked. And I thought she would let him alone and come and say good-da}'^ to me. But no, indeed! She took h'm b}"" the arm. Soldiers off duty were lounging on the benches, and Captain Markley wouldn't let them see him haled like a [)ris(mer. He marched square -shouldered and erect; and Mrs. Gunning sa3's to me ns they reached the carriage : "The cnptain will help you down if you will come with us. I am going to show him my Shang- hai rooster," I thanked her, and gladly let him help me down. I wasn't going to desert the poor fellow when Mrs. 143 A BRITISH ISLANDER Gunning was dealing with him; and, besides, 1 wanted to see tliat rooster myself. AVe heard such stories of the way she kept her chickens and labored over all the domestic animals she gathered around herself at the fort. By ascending a steep bank on which the western block- house stands, you know you can look down into the drill -ground — that wide meadow behind the fort, with quarters at the back. Mrs. Gunning had an enclosure built outside the wall for her chickens; and there they were, walking about, scratching the ground, and diverting themselves as well as they could in their clothes. She had a shed at one end of the enclosure, and all the hens, walk- ing about or sitting on nests, wore hoods! Holes were made for their eyes but none for their beaks, and the eyelets seemed tc magnify so that they looked wrathy as they stretched their necks and quavered in those bags. Captain Markley and I both burst out laughing, but Mrs. Gunning explained it all seriouslv. " They eat their eggs," says she ; " so I tie hoods on them until I have collected the eggs for the day." I remember some w^ere clawing their head-gear, trying alternate feet, and two determined hens were trying to peck each other free. But they were generally resigned, and we might have grown so after the first minute, if it hadn't been for the rooster. Captain Markley roared, and I leaned against the lower part of the block-house and held my 143 A BRITISH ISLANDER sides. That long-logged, awkward, high-stepping Sluingliai cock was dressed like a man in a suit of clothes — all but a hat. His coat-sleeves extended over his wings, and when lie fhipped thein to crow, and stuck his claws out of his trousers-legs, I wept tears on my handkerchief. Mrs. Gunning talked straight ahead without ]mying any attention to our laughter. If it ever had been funny to her it had ceased to be so. 8he had not brought Ca})tain JVIarkley there to amuse him. " Look at that Shanghai rooster now," says she. "I brought him up from the South. I put him among the hens and they picked all his feathers off. He was as bare, captain, as j^our hand. He was literally hen-pecked. First one would step up to him and pull out a feather ; then another ; and he, poor fool, did nothing but cower against the fence. It never seemed to enter his brain-pan he could put a stop to the torture. There he was, without a feather to cover himself with, and the cool autumn nights coming on. So I took some gray cloth and made him these clothes. He would have been picked to the bone if I hadn't. But they put spunk into him. That Shanghai rooster has found out he has to assert himself, captain, and he does assert himself." I saw Captain Markley turn red, and I knew he wished the sentinel wasn't standing guard a few feet away in front of that block-house. She might have let him alone after she had given him that thrust, and gone on to her house, and said .144 t-'- ; A liKlTlSlJ ISLANDER good-bye in the usual way. But just as he w is help- inf^ me down itha])pened that Juliana and Dr. Mc- Curdy appeared through the rear sally-port, which they must liave reached by skirting the wall instead of crossing the drill-field. As soon as Mrs. Gunning saw them she stiffened, and clubbed her umbrella at Captain Markley again. He couldn't get away, so he stood his ground. " See that creature begin to curvet and roll her eyes!" says Mrs. Gunning. " If the parade-ground were full of men I think she would prance over the parapet. At my age she may have some sense and feeing. But I would be glad to see her in the hands of a man who knew how to assert himself." " May I ask," says Captain Markley, " what you mean by a man's asserting himself, Mrs. Giuining?" She made such a pounce at him with the parasol that her waist began to rip in the back. " My dear boy, I am a full-blooded Briton, and Juliana is what you may call an English half-breed. In the bottom of our hearts we have a hankering for monarchy. The lion, who permits nobody else to poach on his preserves, is our symbol. While the vexatious child and I are not at all alike in other things, I know she admires as much as I do a man who asserts himself." Though it was said Juliana Gunning could not hear thunder, she generallj'' understood her aunt's voice, and could tell when she was being talked about. She came straight to her own rescue, as you might say, and Dr. McCurdy, poor man, was very polite, but K 145 A BRITISH ISLANDER not cheerful. If we bad known tlien what he had been ^^elling in the woods, we should have under- stood better why Captain Markley seemed to pluck up and strut at the sight of him. I think Mrs. Gunning determined to finish the business that very hour. She met Dr. McCurdy with all the sweetness she could put into her man- ner just before she intended to pounce the hardest. " I have been showing the captain my chickens," she says, " and now I want to shov/ you my cows." Dr. McCurdv thanked her, and said he would be delighted to see the cows, but he stuck to Juliana like a shadow. Maybe he expected the cows would give him a further excuse for being with her. But Mrs. Gunning cut him off there, .he gave her keys to her niece, and says she : " Go in the house, my dear, and set out the de- canter and glasses, and give Captain Markley a glass of wine to keep him until we come back. I want to tell him something more about that Shanghai rooster." Juliana understood, and took the keys, and rolled her eyes tantalizingly at Dr. McCurdy The poor fellow made a stand, and said the cows would do some other time, and mightn't he beg for a glass of wine too, after his walk? " Certainl}^, doctor, certainly," says Mrs. Gun- ning, leading the way to the front sally-port. " We expect you to take a glass with us. But while Ju- liana sets out the decanter, let us look at the cows." She hadn't mentioned me, but I didn't ?are for 146 A BRITISH ISLANDER that, knowing Mrs. Gunning as I did. T should have followed if she hadn't beckoned to me, for I was as determined to see the affair through as she vas to finish it. We had to go down that long ])ath from the front sally-port to the street, and then turn into the field at the foot of tlie hill, where the fort stables are. Mrs. Gunning talked all the time about cattle, flourishing her parasol and flashing her diamonds and emeralds in the sun, and telling Dr. McCurdy she had intended to ask his opinion about them ever since his arrival on the island. He answered yes, and no, and seemed to be think- ing of anythinfi^ but cattle. Mackinac cows tinkled their bells in every thick- et. I^ut j\[rs. Gunning's pets were brought in morning and afternoon to clean, well-lighted stalls. There the; stood in a row, sleek as if they had been curried — and I have heard that she did curry them herself — all switching natural tails except one. And, as sure as you live, tlit^t cow had a false tail that Mrs. Gunning had made for her ! She took hold of it and showed it to us. It did not seem very funny to Dr. McCurdy, but he had to listen to what she said. "Spotty was a fine cow, but by some accident she had lost her tail, and I got her cheaper on that account," says Mrs. Gunning. " You don't know how distressing it was to see her switching a stump. So I made her a tail of whalebone and In- dia-rubber and yarn. I knit it myself." 147 A BRITISJI ISLANDER The poor fellow looked up at the fort and said : " Yes. It is very interesting, Mrs. Gunning." " I am aware," says she, " that the expedient was never hit upon before. But Spott3''s brush is a great success. It used to make me unhappy to think of leaving this post. All the other cows might iind good liomes with new owners; but who would care for Spotty^ Since I have sup- plied her deficiency, however, and know that the supply can constantly be renewed, my mind is easy about her. If you ever have to knit a cow's tail, doctor, remember the foundations are whale- bone and India-rubber'! and I would advise vou to use the coarsest yarn you can find for the brush.'" " I will, Mrs. Gunning," he says, like a man who wanted to lie down in the straw and die. And I couldn't laugh and relieve myself, because it was like lauffhin": at him. " Now that shows," says Mrs. Gunning, and she pounced at him and shook her parasol in his face so vigorously that she ripped in the back the same as a chrysalis, " how easy it is to remedy a seem- ingly incurable injur/." If he didn't understand her then, he did after- wards. But he looked as if he couldn't endure it any longer, and made for the door. " Stop, Dr. McCurdy," says she. " You haven't heard these cows' pedigrees." lie stopped, and said : " How long are the pedi- grees ?" 148 A BRITISH ISLANDER " Here are four generations," says Mrs. Gunning — "•'grandmother, mother, daughter, and grandehikl." And on she went, tracing their lineage through blooded stock for more than half an hour. She was enthusiastic, too, and got between the doctor and the door, and emphasized all her points with tlie parasol. Her back kept ripping until I ought to have told her, but I knew the man was too mad to look at her, and she was so ha})py herself, I said, " I will let her alone." I had forgotten all about my half-breed driver, sitting on the parade-ground in the waiting car- riage. But he was enjoying himself too, vrhen we climbed to the fort again, with a soldier lounging on the front wheel. AVell, as soon as I entered the little parlor that Mrs. Gunnino: called her drawing-room — ornament- ed with the movable knickknacks that an army woman carries around with her, you know — I saw that Captain IVfarkley had asserted himself. If he hadn't asserted himself on that occasion, I do be- lieve Mrs,, Gunning would have been done with him forever. I never saw a man so anxious to show that he was accepted. Of course he couldn't an- nounce the engagement until it had been sanc- tioned by the girl's foster-parents. But he put Juli- ana through the engaged drill like a veteran, and she was wonderfull}'- meek. I suppose one British woman knows another bet- ter than an American can. But I felt sorry for Dr. McCurdy when he saw the state of things and 149 A BRITISH ISLANDER took his leave, and Mrs. Gunning rubbed his defeat on the raw. " Ah, my dear friend," saj^s she, shaking his liand, " we see that buds will match with buds. I could never find it in my heart to wed a bud to a full-blown rose." I don't doubt that the full-blown rose, as he went down the fort hill, cursed Mrs. Gunning's cow's tail and all her cows' pedigrees. But she looked as serene as if he had pledged the young couple's health (instead of going off and leaving his wine half tasted), and took me to see her chickens' cup- board. There were shelves with rows of cans and bot- tles, each can or bottle labelled "Molly," or "Lucy," or " Speckle," and so on. " 1 have discovered," Mrs. Gunning says to me, " that one hen's food may be another hen's poison, so I mix and prepare for each fowl what that fowl seems to need. For instance, Lucy can bear more meal than Speckie, and the Shanghai cock had to be strongly encouraged. Though it sometimes happens," says she, casting her eye back towards the drawing-room, '• that such a fellow gets pam- pered, and has to have his diet reduced and his spirit cooled down again." THE CURSED PATOIS AS his boat shot to the camp dock of beach /\ stones, the camper thought he heard a ^ *- child's voice behind the screen of brush. He leaped out and drew the boat to its landing upon a cross-piece held by two uprights in the water, and ascended the steep path worn in leaf mould. There was not only a child, there was a woman also in the camp. And Frank Puttany, his Ger- man feet planted outward in a line, his smiling dark face unctuous with hospitality towards creat- ures whom he had evidently introduced, in foolish helplessness gave his partner the usual greeting : "Veil, Prowny." " Hello, Puttany. Visitors ?" Brown pulled off his cap to the woman. She was pretty, with eyes like a deer's, with white teeth showing between her parted scarlet lips, and much curling hair pinned up and blowing over her ears. She had the rich tint of a quarter- breed, lightened in her case by a constant suffusion which gave her steady color. She was dressed in a mixt- ure of patches, but all were fitted to her perfect 151 THE CURSED PATOIS shape with a Parisian elegance sensed even by backwoodsmen. Pressed against iier knee stood the dirtiest and chubbiest four-j^ear-old child on the borders of Erevoort Lake — perhaps the dirtiest on the north shore of Michigan. The Indian mixed ^vith his French had been improved on by the sun until he was of a brick redness and hardness of flesh ; a rosy-meated thing, like a good muskalonge. Prown suddenly remembered the pair. They were Joe La France's wife and child. Joe La France was dead. Puttany had recently told him that Joe La France left a widow^ and a baby without shelter, and without relations nearer than Canada. After greeting Brown the guest resumed her seat on one of the camp-chairs, a box worn smooth by * much use, having a slit cut in the top through which the hand could be thrust to lift it. The camp, in a small clearing, consisted of two tents, both of the wedge-shaped kind. The sleep- ing-tent was nearly filled by the bed it contained; and this, lifted a few inches above the ground on pole supports, was of browse or brush and straw, covered with blankets. A square canopy of mos- quito-netting protected it. The cooking-tent had a foundation of logs and a canvas top. The floor was of pure white sand. Boxes liive lockers were stored under the eaves to hold food, and in one corner a cylindrical camp-stove with an oven thrust its pipe , through a tinned hole in the roof. Plenty of iron skillets, kettles, and pans hung above the lockers on pegs in the logs; and the camp dinner service of 153 THE CUKSKD PATOIS white ware, black-handled knives and forks, and metal spoons, neatly washed, stood on a table. Jess, the Scotch collie, who was always left to guard the tents in their owners' absence, sat at her usual post within the door; and she and Brown ex- changed repressed growls at the strangers. Jess, being freed from her chain, trotted at his heels when he went back to the beach to clean iish for supper. She sat and watched his deft and work- hardened hands as he dipped and washed and drew and scaled his spoil. He was a clean-skinned, blue- eyed Canadian Irishman, well made and sinewy, bright and open of countenance. His blond hair clung in almost flaxen tendrils to his warm fore- head. No ill-nature was visible about him, yet he turned like a man in fierce self-defence on his part- ner, who followed Jess and stood also watching him. *' Puttany, you fool! what have you brought these cursed patois into camp for?" " Joe La France vas my old pardner," softly pleaded the German. " Damn you, man, we can't start an orphan-asy- lum and \vidovvs' home ! We'll get a bad name at the hotels. The real good people won't have us for guides," " She told me in Allanville she had no place to stay. She did not know what to do. At the old voman's, where Joe put her, they have need of her bed. The old voman is too poor to keep her any more." 153 TUE CURSED PATOIS " I'd ha,ve done just what you did ; that's what makes me so mad. How long is she going to stay V " I don't know," slieepishly responded his part- ner. " A Dutchman ought to have more sense than to load up with a lot of cursed patois. Nothing but French and Indian ! AVe'll Jaave to put the precious dears in the sleei)ing-tent, and bunk down ourselves with blankets in the other. Did 3'ou air the blank- ets good this morning, Frank ?" " They vos veil aired." "You're a soft mark, Frank! One of us will have to marry Joe La France's widow — that's what it will come to!" Brown slapped the water in vio- lent disgust, but Puttany blushed a dark and modest red. Men of their class rarely have vision or any kind of foresight. They live in the present and plan no farther than their horizon, being, like children, over- powered by visible things. But the Irish Canadian had lived many lives as lake sailor and lumberman, and he had a shrewd eye and quick humor. It was he who had devised the conveniences of the camp, and who delicately and skilfully prepared the meals so that the two fared like epicures ; while Puttany did the scullery-work, and was superior only at deer- stalking. The perfume of coffee presently sifted abroad, and the table was brought out and set under the evening sky. Lockers gave up th^ir store of bread 154 THE CURSED I'ATOIS and pastry made by the capable hands of the camp liousokeepor. The woman, their <^uest, sat watch- ing him move from cook-tent to table, and Puttany lounged on the dog-kennel, whittling a stick. " Frank," said his partner, with sudden authority, " you take the kid down to the water and scrub him." "All over?" whispered Puttany, in confusion. " No — just his hands and top, Supper is ready to put on." The docile mother heard her child veiling and blubbering under generous douches while nurse's duty was performed by one of her entertainers, and she smiled in proof that her faith was grounded on their rii- dame?" I felt compelled to answer him as I would have answered no other person. " Yes ; but for one who never comes." If he had spoken in the pure French of the Touraine country, which is said to be the best in France, free from Parisianisms, it would not have surprised me. But he spoke English, with the halting though clear enunciation of a Nova Scotian. " You — you must have patience. I have — have iseen you only seven summers on the island." " You have seen me these seven years past? But I never met you before !" 190 THE BLUE MAN ITis mouth lal)orc(l voicelossly before he declareil, " I have been here thirty-live years." How could that be possible! — and never a hint drifting through the hotels of any blue man! Yet the intimate hfe of old inhabitants is not paraded before the overrunning army of a season. I felt vaguely flattered that this exclusive resident had hitherto noticed me and condescended at last to re- veal himself. The blue man had been here thirty-five years! lie knew the childish joy of bruising the flesh of orange -colored toadstools and wading amid long pine-cones which strew the ground like fairy corn- cobs. The white birches were dear to him, and he trembled with eagerness at the first pipe sign, or at the discovery of blue gentians where the eastern forest stoops to the strand. And he knew the echo, shaking like gigantic organ music from one side of the world to the other. In solitary trysts with wilderness depths and caves which transient sight-seers know nothing about I had often pleased myself thinking the Mishi-ne-macki-naw-go were somewhere around me. If twigs crackled or a sudden awe fell cause- lessly, I laughed — " That family of Indian ghosts is near. I wish they would show themselves!" For if they ever show themselves, they bring you the gift of prophecy. The Chippewas left tobacco and gunpowder about for them. My off e' tig was to cover with moss the picnic papers, tins, and broken bottles, with which man who is vile defiles every 191 THE BLUE MAN prospect. l)iscov(M'in<^ such a i]u