XXX
THE END OF THE TWISTED BLACKSMITH
Somewhat to the boys' surprise, Nangotook showed no signs, during allthose days of suffering, of the sullen moroseness that had characterizedhis behavior in former periods of misfortune. The Ojibwa was no physicalcoward, and now that his companions had ceased to defy the spirits ofthe lake and had turned towards home, he displayed no more fear orhesitation. He was unusually talkative and cheerful, and helped to passthe long hours by relating the interesting experiences of his varied andadventurous life and all the Ojibwa tales and myths he knew, many ofthem devoted to the adventures and mishaps of the great Nanabozho.
The three made use of every device they could think of to keep up theirspirits, but when, at last, the sleet and snow ceased, and morningdawned clear and bright, the two lads were weak with hunger, and Ronald,though more heavily dressed than Jean, had a racking cough that shookhim from head to foot. Nangotook showed the effects of privation lessthan the other two, though he had scarcely eaten his share of the scantyfood they had been able to collect.
The wind still blew a gale, a bitterly cold gale from the north, andeven the little bay was too rough for travel. Icy snow lay severalinches deep in the woods and loaded the evergreens. All that day thethree searched the woods and ridges for game, but obtained nothing but asquirrel and two blue jays. There was little indeed to the jays, oncetheir feathers were off. Nangotook put them into the bark pot with thesquirrel, and added a handful of hazelnuts and some tubers he had dug,which he called "bear potatoes." The resulting broth was hot andcomforting, if not a very nourishing meal for three starved men.
All the next day the wind continued to blow so hard that the canoe couldnot be launched or the net set, but Nangotook and Jean went through thewoods and over the ridges to the trout stream, and caught good stringsof fish. The soup of the night before had made Ronald, in his halfstarved condition, ill, and he was so weak and coughed so hard that theIndian bade him remain in camp and keep warm and dry.
In spite of the cold wind, the snow had melted rapidly where the sunreached it, and had softened in the woods. By that night the rocks andopen places were bare again. The hunters scanned the softened snoweagerly for tracks, but found no signs of hare or caribou, nothing but afew squirrel prints.
All three slept soundly that night, after their meal of broiled trout.By morning the wind had gone down and the waves had subsided so that thecanoe could be launched. The voyageurs put out from shore at once. Aftersetting their net in a favorable place, they tried line fishing. Whilepaddling around a group of three small islands that lay in a direct linewith the point, they caught two good lake trout. They promptly decidedto go ashore, and have breakfast at once. So many rocks sprinkled thewater about the islands that they were difficult to approach. A safelanding was made, however, on a shelving rock beach, near an uprightheap of boulders with bushes projecting from cracks and crannies.
While Jean was cleaning the fish, Etienne and Ronald, seeking forfire-wood, rounded the heap of rocks, and came suddenly on the remainsof a camp. Branches slanted against the rock formed a rude shelter, andnear it were the ashes of a fire. Glancing down at the blackened embers,Ronald touched with the toe of his moccasin a charred bone.
"Those fellows had more meat than we've seen lately," he said. "Theymust have killed a caribou."
The Indian was staring down at the bone. He stooped and picked it up,examined it a moment, and then held it out to Ronald.
"No addick ever had bone like that," he said.
"What was it then, a moose?" asked the boy, holding out his hand for it.As he looked at it, his expression of curiosity changed to horror. Heglanced up at Nangotook, and saw his own feelings reflected on theOjibwa's face. "The leg bone of a man," the lad said chokingly.
Nangotook nodded, then glanced behind him swiftly, as if expecting tosee some evil thing creeping up on him. "Windigo," he saidsignificantly. It was the name for the mythical, man-eating giants thatfigure in Ojibwa and other Algonquian legends, a name the Indians haveextended to apply to all cannibals or men driven by starvation to feedon other human beings.
There was no mistaking the fact. Among the ashes and strewn about on theground were other bones that told the story only too plainly. Moreoverthe deed was a recent one, for the fire had been burning in that spotsince the storm cleared, and the charred bones had not lain there long.It was easy enough to see how the tragedy had occurred. A canoe had beencast upon the barren island by the storm, or had run against it in thefog that preceded. There was nothing on the island to eat. Even fuel hadbeen scarce, for only the stumps of the few trees remained and most ofthe bushes had been cut. One of the men had died, or perhaps anotherone, crazed with hunger and misery, had murdered him, and theunfortunate had been cooked and eaten.
The horror of the place destroyed the lads' appetite, and they were inhaste to get away, but Nangotook was not ready to leave until he hadexamined the little rock island from end to end. He may have expected tofind the cannibal in hiding somewhere. He did not find the guilty man,but he found further traces of him and of his victim. When the Ojibwarejoined the boys, who, feeling no desire to see more of the island, hadremained near the spot where they had landed, his face wore a look ofdisgust and loathing such as they had never seen there before. He hadidentified the victim of the cannibal feast.
"Cree killed Awishtoya and ate him," he announced positively.
"Awishtoya, Le Forgeron," cried Jean. "How do you know it was LeForgeron?"
"Found his head."
"His head?" gasped both boys.
Nangotook nodded. "Not dead long, only two or three days," he added."Found some of his clothes too, all soaked with blood. Cree killed himwith knife. Windigo. Have to watch out for him now." The Ojibwa sharedthe belief common among his people that a man who had once tasted humanflesh acquired a desire for it, and would never be satisfied withanything else. Such men were considered to be only partly human, inleague with evil spirits. They were outlaws, to be feared and abhorredand killed on sight, like the deadliest snake or the most dangerous ofwild beasts.
Sickened at what they had discovered, the two boys were glad to get awayfrom the ill-omened place. Le Forgeron Tordu was an evil man and theirenemy. They knew that he would not have hesitated to destroy them in themost brutal manner, and they could not honestly feel sorrow that he wasdead. But the manner of his death had shocked and nauseated them. Not tothe worst man on earth could they have wished such a fate. Even strongerwas their feeling of horror at the Indian who had done the thing.Nangotook had said that Le Forgeron abused the Cree. Evidently thelatter had turned at last and had avenged himself. He had not struck inmere self-defense, however, for the blood-soaked shirt Nangotook hadfound proved that the Frenchman had been stabbed in the back.
The Ojibwa was deeply concerned over the escape of the murderer. He musthave gone away by water, so it was evident that he still had a canoe,probably the one Le Forgeron had stolen from Jean and Ronald, when heset fire to the woods. Apparently then it had not been the loss of theirboat, but merely the fury of the storm that had held him and his masterprisoners on the little island. If, however, they had been so near tostarvation as the Cree's deed seemed to prove, they must in some wayhave lost both the caribou meat the Blacksmith had taken from the boys'cache, and the remainder of their own stock of provisions. Probably theyhad run on the rocky island in the fog, or had been dashed ashore by thewind, and had lost their provisions and equipment in the wreck, thoughmanaging to save their canoe. There was no evidence that they had builta new one. Indeed the stumps of the trees they had cut indicated that nomaterials fit for canoe making grew on the island.
At any rate the Cree had escaped in some way, and might be at thatmoment lying in wait for the others on the shores of the bay or on oneof the islands. They must keep a close lookout for him. The boys, aswell as Nangotook, fully believed that, having once eaten human flesh,the Cree would, as all such Windigos were supposed to do, hunger formore. They devoutly
hoped that he had no gun. Had it not been for thefear that he might be well armed, they would have searched the shoresand islands for him, but he would surely have the advantage, as theymust approach his hiding place by water, while he could lie concealed.If he had a gun, he could easily shoot them from cover. So they decidedto waste no time on what would probably be a fruitless, if not a fatal,search, but to take advantage of the good weather to go on as rapidly aspossible. Very likely he had left the neighborhood. They might overtakehim, and if they did, a Windigo could expect no mercy from them.
They delayed only long enough to cook and eat their fish and to take uptheir net. Before their gruesome discovery, they had intended to remainat the bay to hunt and fish until the next morning, but so far they hadfound the place lacking in game. They would go on along shore as far asthey could that day, and perhaps they might reach a better huntingground. At least they would get away from the spot where they hadsuffered so much. It had acquired an added horror from the hideoustragedy on the little island.
The Island of Yellow Sands: An Adventure and Mystery Story for Boys Page 30