XXII
THE INDIAN MINES
Because of the necessity of obtaining food, it was not likely that thetrip to the southwest end of Minong could be made continuously, butNangotook and the boys agreed to start in that direction on thefollowing morning and go as far as they could. They paddled up the baythey had named Pickerel Cove, but the fish were not biting. The head ofthe cove was separated from the open lake by a narrow bit of land, sothey went ashore and carried the canoe across. Jean remarked that therewas one advantage in having no food or equipment. Portaging was madeeasy.
When they reached the lake they found the water rough, but they managedto go on along the shore, and across the mouth of a small bay. Roundinga point beyond, they came to the entrance of another larger bay. Afterone swift glance about him, Nangotook gave a grunt of satisfaction.
"Know this place," he said over his shoulder. "Place where copper is. Weget some for arrowheads."
The boys were ready to agree to the proposal, especially when the Indianexplained that beyond the bay lay a stretch of steep, continuous cliffs,affording no shelter and perilous to skirt in the increasing north wind.Entering the bay was difficult enough, for treacherous reefs and rockssurrounded and extended into its mouth. Nangotook picked the channelwisely, however, and piloted the canoe safely through the dangerousentrance. He had said that copper stones could be picked up from thebeaches, so a landing was made on a stretch of gravel protected by thepoint they had just rounded.
The beach was disappointing. Bits and grains of pure copper were strewnabout, both above and below the water line, but they were all so smallthat a great many would have to be melted together to make onearrowhead. After searching for larger pieces and failing to find them,the Ojibwa shook his head, muttered the one word "Ka-win-ni-shi-shin,""no good," and turned back to the canoe.
Jean and Ronald followed him, and they paddled along the beach, roundedanother point and landed on the other side of it, on the north shore ofa little inlet that opened from the large bay and ran at right angles toit. This place was evidently an old camping ground, for bleached anddecaying lodge-poles were standing a little back from the shore.Nangotook was sure they were the remains of the wigwam he and hiscompanions had built on his former visit to the island. After examiningthe ground carefully, he said he did not think any one had camped theresince. The summit of the hill, that rose to the north of the campingground, had been a good place for hares, he added. He would go and setsome snares, while the boys fished.
The lads were disappointed at not being shown at once the rich stores ofcopper that Nangotook had led them to believe were to be found in thisplace, but food was always a necessity. When the canoe had beenoverturned in the surf, they had saved the gun and one bow, but they hadno ammunition and no arrows. So they went to fishing cheerfully enough.By the time the Indian returned from setting his snares, they had caughttwo small lake trout. They cleaned and cooked their catch, but to theirsurprise Nangotook refused to touch the food. He did not want anythingto eat, he said.
After the meal, the three took to the canoe and went on up the bay. Itproved to be a long and narrow cove, which cut at an angle throughalternating wooded ridges and valleys. The long bays they had visitedbefore had lain _between_ ridges, that stretched parallel with thewaters, but this one occupied a break in the hills, as if it had beencut through them. Landing on the west side, the Indian led the boys up athickly forested ridge. As they neared the top, Jean caught sight ofsomething that aroused his interest. He turned from Nangotook's trail,and began pushing through a thicket. Suddenly he gave a sharp cry anddisappeared. Ronald, who was only a few paces ahead of his friend,turned back at once. Making his way through the underbrush morecautiously than Jean had done, Ronald found himself balancing on thevery edge of a deep hole. At the bottom Jean was just picking himselfup, more surprised than hurt.
"Tonnerre," he exclaimed indignantly, "who would have looked for such apit on the side of a hill? I was going along all right, and then, allof a sudden, I was down here."
"You are in too much haste to dig for the red metal, little brother,"Nangotook called to him. The Indian had reached the edge of the holealmost as quickly as Ronald, and stood grinning down on Jean.
"What do you mean by that, Etienne?" the lad answered, as he began toclimb up the steep and ragged slope. "What has digging for copper to dowith my falling into this pit?"
The Ojibwa made no answer until Jean had reached the top. Then with agesture that embraced the hole and its sides, he asked abruptly: "Whatthink my brothers of this place?"
Puzzled by his question, the boys glanced around. The pit was roughlyoval in shape, and perhaps thirty feet deep. Its steep sides were ofrock, bare in some places, in others clothed with bushes and moss. Inthe bottom grew a clump of good sized birch trees, that partly concealedthe opposite side of the depression.
"'Tis a queer looking hole to be found on the side of a hill as Jeansays," Ronald remarked, as his eyes took in the details. "It looksalmost as if it had been dug by the hand of man."
"And so it was," Nangotook replied, "by the hand of man or manito, Iknow not which. This is one of the pits where, many winters ago, mypeople took out the red metal that the white man calls copper."
"Do you mean this is a savage mine?" cried Jean excitedly. "Surely noone has worked it for years. See how the trees and bushes have coveredit."
"That is true, little brother. I can show you many such holes on thehills around this inlet of the waters, and I know of but one wherecopper has been taken out either in my time or in my father's. They arevery old, these holes, and no one knows surely who first made them.There is a tale that they were dug by the manitos of the island. One ofmy people, many winters ago, did a service to the manitos, and in returnthey showed him how to break up the rock and take out the red metal.Then they gave to him and to those who should come after him the rightto carry it away. The good fathers say that such tales are not true, butI know not. This I know, only a certain brotherhood of my people has theprivilege of breaking off the copper, though any one may gather thepieces that lie about the shores. Of that brotherhood I am a member."
It occurred to Jean to wonder what the manitos, if there were suchbeings, would think of Nangotook's bringing to the copper mines twowhite men, who according to the Indian opinion had no right whatever totouch the metal. But he did not put his thought into words. If the ideahad not occurred to Nangotook, the lad certainly did not wish to put itinto his head. Instead he asked: "But how do your people work thesemines without tools?"
The Ojibwa picked up from the edge of the pit a smooth, rounded boulderand handed it to Jean. It was hard and heavy, weighing about ten pounds."This is one of the tools," he remarked briefly.
"You make game of us," Jean retorted. "How can you mine copper by meansof a stone like this?"
"That I will show you to-morrow."
"To-morrow?" cried Ronald. "Why wait so long, when we need copper forour arrowheads? Isn't there some place about here where we can dig outor pick up enough at once, so we can be on our way to-morrow?"
The Indian shook his head. "Pieces on the shore all little and no good,"he said. "I will show you more holes like this. Then we go back to camp.I will make ready, and to-morrow we come again for copper."
The boys knew from his tone that he had made up his mind, and thatargument would be of no use whatever, so they followed him silentlyaround the edge of the pit. He led them up the ridge and across thesummit, calling their attention to other holes, varying in size anddepth. Many were mere shallow depressions almost filled with soil, andall were more or less overgrown with trees and bushes. The boys wouldnot have recognized most of these places as ancient mines, if Nangotookhad not pointed them out. In some of them grew spruces of a height andgirth to prove that the pits had not been mined for at least a hundred,perhaps several hundred, years. Round boulders, more or less embedded inearth and leaf mold, showed here and there among the underbrush, and theboys dug up several to examine them. They fo
und them all of the samehard, dark stone. Many were broken and chipped, and the lads concludedthat they must have been used as hammers to break up the rock.
The pits seemed to run in rows across the ridge top, following veins ofmetal, and the boys marveled at the patient labor that had been spent onthem. With the primitive tools the savages had used, many, many yearsmust have been consumed in excavating the holes, especially if, asNangotook had said, mining operations had been confined to some onebrotherhood or society of medicine men. It seemed unlikely that even thechosen clan had ever spent all of its time in mining. Probably itsmembers only visited the island occasionally and stayed for a few daysor weeks, taking out a little of the metal and carrying it away in theircanoes. Utensils and ornaments of copper were not uncommon among theIndians, and the metal must have been much more in demand before thewhite man introduced iron kettles and steel knives.
The explorers did not go down the other side of the ridge, which wassteep and abrupt, but turned back and descended the more gradual slopethey had come up, finding old pits most of the way to the base. Theplace was of great interest to the boys and they were reluctant to leaveit, but Nangotook seemed to have some urgent reason for getting back tocamp. When they arrived there, he borrowed the knife he had given toRonald, saying he wanted to make something, and then told the lads thathe wished to be left alone and that they had better go fish.
Understanding that his preparations for mining, whatever they might be,were of some secret nature, connected undoubtedly with the superstitionsand ritual of the mining clan, Ronald and Jean launched the canoe againand paddled up the cove. Their fishing was successful, and, after theyhad caught enough for supper and breakfast, they decided to explore thecove to its head. A little beyond the place where they had landed withNangotook, Jean called Ronald's attention to a big, white-headed eagleperched on a dead limb of a tall, isolated pine near the shore. Whilethey were watching the bird, it suddenly spread its great wings, leftits perch and sailed away. As the boys drew near the spot, they couldsee, far up in the tall tree, a solid mass of something. "An eagle'snest," cried Ronald. "I never had a good look at one." And he turned thecanoe towards shore.
"There will be no young. They have flown long ere this," Jean answered,"and the nest is only a collection of sticks."
"I'm going to have a look at it though," was Ronald's reply. And he did,climbing at least fifty feet up the tall pine to examine the nest ofsticks and moss. He found it to be five feet or more across the top andat least as many deep, and he guessed from its construction that it hadbeen used for several years, additions having been built on every year.Before he descended, he took a long look from his high perch over water,shore and woods. As he glanced about, his eye was arrested by somethingthat surprised him greatly. From a clump of birches at the foot of aslope across the cove, a slender thread of smoke was ascending. It wasa very faint wisp of white, as if from a small, clear flamed cookingfire, but the lad's eyes were keen and he was sure he could not bedeceived. As soon as he had made certain that it was really smoke hesaw, he descended quickly and told Jean of the discovery.
"It may be merely an Indian or two come here for copper," he said.
"And it may be Le Forgeron Tordu still on our track," Jean added.
"If it is, he'll gain nothing by following us now," Ronald replied. "Weshall not lead him to the Island of Yellow Sands this year, that iscertain."
"No," answered Jean with a laugh, "if he is following us for that, wehave cheated him sorely. We may take that much comfort for not havingfound the island ourselves. He will be in a fine rage when he discovershe has had his journey all for nothing."
"He will surely," Ronald chuckled, "but," he added more seriously,"he'll seek some way to make us smart for the trick we've played him, wemay be sure of that. He'll hate us more deeply, and Le Forgeron's hateis not to be despised."
"It were best for us to keep out of his way then," the French youthreplied soberly. "It may be that he does not know yet that we areanywhere near. Instead of going on to the end of this bay, we willreturn and tell Etienne what we have seen. If he chooses, he can spyupon that camp. We had best leave such spying to him, who is moreskilled at it than we are."
For once Ronald agreed to the more cautious course. As they returneddown the cove, they caught a glimpse of three caribou on an open slope,and the sight almost drove the thought of the Twisted Blacksmith out oftheir heads. The hillside was probably a regular feeding ground, for,even from the water, the light colored patches of reindeer moss could beseen plainly among the dark green trailing juniper. A caribou wouldfurnish a good supply of meat for the three, as soon as they had themeans to shoot it. To secure such large game with bow and arrow wouldnot be easy, for they would have to creep up very close for a good shot,but they had confidence in Etienne's skill with the bow, if not in theirown.
The lads reached their camping ground just as the sun was setting, eagerto tell the Ojibwa of the wisp of smoke and the caribou, but they didnot have a chance that night. He was nowhere to be seen when theylanded. On searching for him, they came upon a small lodge of bark andpoles concealed behind a clump of birches, several hundred yards fromtheir camp. The lodge was tightly closed, and steam was issuing in wispsfrom little interstices between the bark sheets. The Indian had built asweating lodge, and had sealed himself up in it. On red hot stones hehad thrown water to make a steam bath. His tunic, leggings and moccasinshanging on a tree were further proof of what he was about.
"This is why he would not eat," said Jean. "He was fasting, and now heis purifying himself after the savage custom. That is what he meant bypreparing for the mining. It is doubtless part of the ceremonyperformed by the savage miners whenever they come to Minong."
Ronald shook his head. "If all the savages, who pretend to beChristians, go back to their old heathen customs whenever occasionoffers, as Etienne does, I fear they're not very well converted," hesaid.
Jean nodded. "The good fathers thought him one of the best," he replied,"and indeed he is. My father says Etienne comes nearer to living aChristian life than any other savage convert he has ever known. But I amafraid it takes many years and much care and teaching to purge out theold heathen notions from the heart of a savage. Their people have beenheathens for so long, you see, and they have so many customs andceremonies and traditions that have come down from generation togeneration. Perhaps we need not wonder that they are not made into newmen in a few years."
The Island of Yellow Sands: An Adventure and Mystery Story for Boys Page 22