I ran out my troll as we paddled down the lake - but not a
nibble did I get. The men said they were white fish.
Every day we expected to see or hear something of the wolves which
are said to attend the movements of the caribou; but no sign of
them appeared, save the one track found at the point on Lake
Michikamats.
Signs of the Indians became more numerous, and on a point near the
head of Cabot Lake we found a camp but lately deserted, and left,
evidently, with the idea of return in the near future. The Indians
had been there all through the spring, and we found a strongly
built cache which the men thought probably contained furs, but
which we did not, of course, disturb. It was about ten feet long
and six feet wide at the base, and built in the form of an A, with
the trunks of trees from five to six inches in diameter set up
close together and chinked with moss and boughs.
There were many of the uncovered wigwams standing about, one a
large oblong with three fireplaces in it. Lying near the wigwams
were old clothes of a quite civilised fashion, pots, kettles, a
wooden tub, paint-cans and brushes, paddles, a wooden shovel,
broken bones, piles of hair from the deer skins they had dressed,
and a skin stretcher. Some steel traps hung in a tree near, and
several iron pounders for breaking bones. On a stage, under two
deer-skins, were a little rifle, a shot gun, and a piece of dried
deer's meat. A long string of the bills of birds taken during the
spring, hung on a tree near the water, and besides each of the
various wigwams, in the line of them which stretched along the
south shore of the point, a whitened bone was set up on a long pole
for luck.
The river gradually increased in volume, and all previous
excitement of work in the swift water seemed to grow insignificant
when my long course in running rapids began. Perhaps it was
because the experience was new, and I did not know what to expect;
but as the little canoe careered wildly down the slope from one
lake to the next with, in the beginning, many a scrape on the rocks
of the river bed, my nervous system contracted steadily till, at
the foot where we slipped out into smooth water again, it felt as
if dipped into an astringent.
A few miles below Cabot Lake the river is joined by what we judged
to be its southeast branch, almost equal to the middle river in
size. This branch, together with a chain of smaller lakes east of
Lake Michikamau, once formed the Indian inland route from the
Nascaupee River to the George used at times of the year when Lake
Michikamau was likely to be impassable on account of the storms.
It had been regularly travelled in the old days when the Indians of
the interior traded at Northwest River post; but since the
diversion of their trade to the St. Lawrence it had fallen into
disuse.
There was much talk of our prospective meeting with the Nascaupees
which I did not understand; and it was not until the evening of
August 14th, as I sat after supper at the camp fire, that I became
conscious of the real concern with which the men were looking
forward to the event.
For two precious days we had been unable to move on account of the
storms. The rain had fallen steadily all day, changing to snow
towards evening, and now, though the downpour had ceased, the black
clouds still fled rolling and tossing over head before the gale,
which roared through the spruce forest, and sent the smoke of the
big camp fire whirling now this way, now that, as it found its way
into our sheltered nook.
George and Joe were telling amusing stories of their boyhood
experiences at Rupert's House, the pranks they played on their
teacher, their fights, football, and other games, and while they
talked I bestowed some special care upon my revolver. Job sat
smoking his pipe, listening with a merry light in his gleaming,
black eyes, and Gilbert lounged on the opposite side of the fire
with open-mouthed boyish attention.
The talk drifted to stories of the Indians, tributary to Rupert's
House, and the practical jokes perpetrated on them while camped
about the post to which they brought each spring from the far
interior their winter's catch of furs. There were stories of
Hannah Bay massacre, and the retribution which followed swift and
certain; and of their own trips inland, and the hospitality of the
Indians. The talk ended with an anxious "If it were only the
Hudson Bay Indians we were coming to, there would be no doubt about
the welcome we should get."
Turning to me, George remarked, "You are giving that revolver a
fine rubbing up to-night."
"Yes," I replied, laughing a little: "I am getting ready for the
Nascaupees."
"They would not shoot you," he said gravely. "It would be us they
would kill if they took the notion. Whatever their conjurer tells
them to do, they will do."
"No," asserted Gilbert, who boasted some traditional knowledge of
the Nascaupees, "they would not kill you, Mrs. Hubbard. It would
be to keep you at their camp that they would kill us."
I had been laughing at George a little, but Gilbert's startling
announcement induced a sudden sobriety. As I glanced from one to
the other, the faces of the men were all unwontedly serious. There
was a whirl of thoughts for a moment, and then I asked, "What do
you think I shall be doing while they are killing you?
