Ethel Brill - The Secret Cache - An Adventure and Mystery Story for Boys

“A blow from behind it must have been. Could it have been his companion who struck him?”

“Black Thunder? No, for then Black Thunder would have carried away the furs. Our father would not have told us to go get them.”

“True,” Hugh replied, but after a moment of thought he added, “Yet the fellow may have attacked him, and father, though mortally wounded, may have slain him.”

A quick, fierce gleam shone in the younger boy’s bright eyes. “If he who struck was not killed by our father’s hand,” he said in a low, tense voice, “you and I are left to avenge our father.” It was plain that Christian schooling in Quebec had not rooted out from Little Caribou’s nature the savage’s craving for revenge. To tell the truth, at the thought of that cowardly blow, Hugh’s own feelings were nearly as fierce as those of his half-Indian brother.

Hugh slept on board the Otter that night and helped with the unloading next day. His duties over, he was free to go where he would. To Baptiste’s queries, he replied that he had seen his half-brother and had arranged to accompany him to the Grand Portage. Later he would come again to the Kaministikwia or return to the Sault by the southerly route. Having satisfied the simple fellow’s curiosity, Hugh went with him to visit the New Fort.

Baptiste had a great admiration for the Fort. Proudly he called Hugh’s attention to the strong wooden walls, flanked with bastions. He obtained permission to take his friend through the principal building and display to him the big dining hall. There, later in the year, at the time of the annual meeting, partners, agents and clerks would banquet together and discuss matters of the highest import to the fur trade. He also showed Hugh the living quarters of the permanent employees of the post, the powder house, the jail, the kilns and forges. When the Fort should be completed, with all its storehouses and workshops, it would be almost a village within walls. Outside the stockade was a shipyard and a tract of land cleared for a garden. Hugh, who had lived in the city of Montreal, was less impressed with the log structures, many of them still unfinished, than was the voyageur who had spent most of his days in the wilds. Nevertheless the lad wondered at the size and ambitiousness of this undertaking and accomplishment in the wilderness. Far removed from the civilization of eastern Canada, the trading post was forced to be a little city in itself, dependent upon the real cities for nothing it could possibly make or obtain from the surrounding country.

To tell the truth, however, Hugh found more of real interest and novelty without the walls than within. There, Baptiste took him through the camps of Indians, voyageurs and woodsmen or coureurs de bois, where bark lodges and tents and upturned canoes served as dwellings. In one of the wigwams Blaise was living, awaiting the time when he and his elder brother should start on their adventurous journey.

Already Blaise had provided himself with a good birch canoe, ribbed with cedar, and a few supplies, hulled corn, strips of smoked venison as hard and dry as wood, a lump of bear fat and a birch basket of maple sugar. He also had a blanket, a gun and ammunition, an iron kettle and a small axe. Hugh had been able to bring nothing with him but a blanket, his hunting knife and an extra shirt, but, as he had worked his passage, he still possessed a small sum of money. Now that he was no longer a member of the crew of the Otter , he had no place to sleep and wondered what he should do. Blaise solved the problem by taking him about a mile up-river to the post of the New Northwest or X Y Company, a much smaller and less pretentious place than the New Fort, and introducing him to the clerk in charge. Blaise had already explained that he and Hugh were going to get the elder Beaupré’s furs and would bring them back to the New Company’s post. So the clerk treated Hugh in a most friendly manner, invited him to share his own house, and even offered to give him credit for the gun, canoe paddle and other things he needed. Hugh, not knowing whether the search for the furs would be successful, preferred to pay cash.

From the X Y clerk the lad learned that his father, always proud and fiery of temper, had, the summer before, taken offence at one of the Old Company’s clerks. The outcome of the quarrel had been that Beaupré had entered into a secret agreement with the New Company, promising to bring his pelts to them. The clerk warned both boys not to let any of the Old Company’s men get wind of their undertaking. The rivalry between the two organizations was fierce and ruthless. Both went on the principle that “all is fair in love or war,” and the relations between them were very nearly those of war. If the Old Company learned of the hidden furs, they would either send men to seek the cache or would try to force the boys to bring the pelts to the New Fort. The X Y clerk even hinted that Jean Beaupré had probably been the victim of some of the Old Company’s men who had discovered that he was carrying his furs to the rival post. Hugh, during his winter at the Sault, had heard many tales of the wild deeds of the fur traders and had listened to the most bitter talk against the X Y or New Northwest company. Accordingly he was inclined to believe there might be some foundation for the agent’s suspicions. Blaise, however, took no heed of the man’s hints. When Hugh mentioned his belief that his father had been murdered because of his change of allegiance, the younger boy shrugged his shoulders, a habit caught from his French parent.

“That may be,” he replied, “but it is not in that direction I shall look for the murderer.” And that was the only comment he would make.

To avoid curiosity and to keep their departure secret if possible, the boys decided not to go down the north branch of the Kaministikwia past the New Fort, but upstream to the dividing point, then descend the lower or southern channel. Early the third morning after Hugh’s arrival, they set out from the New Northwest post. Up the river against the current they paddled between wooded shores veiled by the white, frosty mist. Without meeting another craft or seeing a lodge or tent or even the smoke of a fire, they passed the spot where the middle channel branched off, went on to the southern one, down that, aided by the current now, and out upon the fog-shrouded waters of the great bay. Hugh could not have found his way among islands and around points and reefs, but his half-brother had come this route less than two weeks before. With the retentive memory and excellent sense of direction of the Indian, he steered unhesitatingly around and among the dim shapes. When the sun, breaking through the fog, showed him the shore line clearly, he gave a little grunt of satisfaction. He had kept his course and was just where he had believed himself to be.

This feat of finding his way in the fog gave the elder brother some respect for the younger. Before the day was over, that respect had considerably increased. As the older boy was also the heavier, he had taken his place in the stern, kneeling on his folded blanket. Wielding a paddle was not a new exercise to Hugh. He thought that Blaise set too easy a pace, and, anxious to prove that he was no green hand, he quickened his own stroke. Blaise took the hint and timed his paddling to his brother’s. Hugh was sturdy, well knit and proud of his muscular strength. For a couple of hours he kept up the pace he had set. Then his stroke grew slower and he put less force into it. After a time Blaise suggested a few minutes’ rest. With the stern blade idle and the bow one dipped only now and then to keep the course, they floated for ten or fifteen minutes.

Refreshed by this brief respite and ashamed of tiring so soon, Hugh resumed work with a more vigorous stroke, but it was Blaise who set the pace now. In a clear, boyish voice, which gave evidence in only an occasional note of beginning to break and roughen, he started an old French song, learned from his father, and kept time with his paddle.