South from Hudson Bay: An Adventure and Mystery Story for Boys

by Ethel C. Brill

  XXII THE PAINTED BUFFALO SKULL

  The life of the three boys in their lonely cabin in the hills settleddown to a regular routine. Louis and Neil were out every day hunting andvisiting their traps, but it was nearly a week before Walter's lamenesswore off so that he could tramp and climb with his comrades. The skinpeeled from his frosted cheek, leaving it so tender that he had to keepit covered with his capote hood when out in the cold.

  The cabin was in need of furniture. Besides the bed frames, Louis and hiscompanion of the winter before had made two rough stools, but one hadbeen burned. Before he was able to hunt, the Swiss boy, who was handy atwood working, fashioned two more stools. His only tools were an ax, asmall saw, and a knife, but the stools were strong and solid, if notornamental. A table the lads did not miss. At meal times they sat beforethe fire, their plates on their knees, their cups on the earth floorbeside them, the cooking utensils on the hearth.

  The first day that Walter went any distance from camp, he and Louis,entering a partly wooded hollow among the hills, came suddenly upon aherd of six or eight large, handsome deer. It was the first time Walterhad ever seen wapiti or elk. He was surprised and excited, the trigger ofhis flintlock trade gun pulled hard, and his shot went wide. Louis,cooler and more experienced, fired just as the herd took fright at thereport of Walter's gun. A yearling buck fell, and he was jubilant at hishappy shot. The pemmican was almost gone, and the boys had been living onhares and squirrels. Frozen and hung in a tree out of reach of the dogs,the elk meat would keep until every eatable scrap had been consumed.

  It proved lucky for the lads that they had such a good supply of freshmeat. That night a storm commenced that lasted more than three days. Itwas worse than the blizzard they had encountered on their way to thehills. Even in the sheltered spot where the cabin stood the wind howledand shrieked through the trees, bending them low and beating and crashingthe leafless limbs against one another. It threatened to blow the roofoff, and whirled the snow in among the trees, to drift it high againstthe windward side of the house.

  Any attempt to reach the trap lines would have been the wildest folly.Neil tried once to go to the near-by creek for water, but the storm drovehim back. He decided that snow water was quite good enough for him. Whenthe supply of fuel ran low, a tree close to the lee side of the house wasfelled. Cutting it up was a troublesome and strenuous task even in theshelter of the cabin.

  While the wood pile was being replenished, the elk carcass was blown fromthe tree where it hung. It was brought inside. The corner farthest fromthe fire proved quite cold enough to keep the meat fresh. The dogs whinedand scratched at the door, but Louis let in Askime only. He knew it wouldbe almost impossible to prevent the beasts from getting at the venison,if all three were admitted. On the sheltered side of the house, burieddeep in the snow, the thick-haired dogs would not freeze.

  Preparing the pelts occupied part of the boys' time. At this task Louiswas expert and Neil not unskilled. The work did not appeal to Walter,though he was ready to lend a hand when necessary. He had not beenbrought up to the fur trade, and he had already concluded that he had nowish to be a trapper. He was willing enough to hunt, especially when foodwas needed, but traps seemed to him mere instruments of torture. He saidnothing to his comrades of this feeling. Their training and way oflooking at life were in many ways different from his. But he was resolvedto find some other way of making a living in this new land. He waswilling to do farming, tinkering, repair work, even to act as a voyageurfor the Company.

  When time began to hang heavy on the boys' hands, Walter suggested thatNeil give him some lessons in English. They had no paper, pens, orpencils. With a charred stick Neil wrote on the flat hearth stone suchcommon English words as he knew, explaining the meaning. His father hadtaught him to read and write a little English,--as much as he knewhimself,--but Neil's education was very limited, his spelling erratic,and his pronunciation that of the Highland Scot. Louis watched andlistened with keen interest. He had even less education than the Scotchboy. Louis could read only enough to make out the markings on bales ofgoods and pelts. His writing consisted in copying those marks and signinghis name.

  When Walter had written his letters to the Periers and had read theirsaloud, Louis had admired and envied his knowledge. Noticing the Canadianboy's interest in the lessons, Walter offered to teach him to read hisnative tongue, French. Among the Swiss lad's few possessions was a smallBible that had belonged to his mother, the only thing he owned that hadbeen hers. He had always carried it about with him, and now he used it asa text-book. Louis entered into the new task with enthusiasm andsurprised Walter by learning rapidly. In fact Louis proved quicker thanNeil, whose restless nature disinclined him to study of any kind. Inphysical activity the Highland boy delighted, but working his mind boredand wearied him. Louis, however, grew so interested that even after thestorm was over, he spent a part of every evening in a reading lesson byfirelight.

  A period of clear, cold weather followed the blizzard. There was littlewind, but more than once the stillness of the night was shattered by asharp crack, almost like the report of a musket, when, in the intensecold, some near-by tree split from freezing. In hunting and visiting thetraps the boys felt the cold far less than at a higher temperature withwind. Fingers and faces became frost-bitten quickly though, and Walterhad to be careful of his frosted cheek.

  Following the trap lines necessitated long tramps, sometimes of twelve orfifteen miles, through the hills. Accompanying his comrades, Walterlearned something of the lay of the land. He found that the cabin waslocated on what Louis called "the first mountain," a rough and partlywooded plateau that rises rather abruptly from the prairie of the RedRiver valley; which is really not a valley but a plain. This hillyplateau is about eight miles across its widest part, and reaches itsgreatest height a mile south of where the Pembina River cuts a deepvalley through it. On the west of the plateau is the "second mountain,"an irregular ridge. Though the second mountain rises nowhere more thanfive hundred feet above the first, it is wild and rugged. Walter wasforced to admit that in some places, especially where the streams thatcrossed it had eroded steep-walled ravines, three or four hundred feetdeep, it was almost mountain-like on a small scale. To a mountain-bredboy this was mere hill country, but he felt more at home in it than hehad felt anywhere since coming to the strange new world. Climbing was areal joy to him, and he loved to choose the steepest rather than theeasiest routes.

  As game grew scarce in the vicinity of the cabin, the boys pushed theirtrap lines farther and farther into the hills, until whoever made therounds was forced to be away at least two, and sometimes three, nights.They built two overnight shelters, one a lean-to against an abrupt cliff,the other a roof of poles over a snug hollow in the rocks. In one ofthese lodges Louis or Neil, sometimes alone, sometimes accompanied byWalter, would spend the night; with a blazing fire at the entrance tokeep away wolves and wildcats.

  For several weeks a thievish wolverine annoyed the trappers. The clever,bloodthirsty beast followed the trails, broke into deadfalls, andskilfully extracted the catch from traps and snares. What it could notdevour it carried away and hid, after mangling the creature until thepelt was ruined. Louis swore vengeance on the thief, and tried in everyway to trap it. At last, by going out at night to follow the wolverine'sfresh track against the wind, he came upon the greedy beast in the act ofbreaking into a deadfall from the rear. A quick and lucky shot, and Louistriumphantly carried home the robber. Walter had never seen a wolverine,and Neil knew it from its tracks and skin only. With its long body,short, strong legs, and big feet armed with sharp, curved claws, itlooked a most formidable creature for its size.

  February was a stormy month, until near the close, when there cameanother period of clear, calm cold. In this fine weather Louis laid a newtrap line extending seven miles or more north to _Tete de Boeuf_, BuffaloHead, one of the highest points in the range. After accompanying hisfriend over the new trail, Walt
er climbed Buffalo Head for the first timeone bright, windless noonday. He found the view from the top impressive,but the name puzzled him.

  "Why do you call this hill Tete de Boeuf?" he asked his companion. "Ican't see that it is shaped like a bull's head, looked at from below orfrom up here."

  "No," Louis replied. "I think the name does not come from the shape ofthe hill, but from a curious custom of the Indians. Do you see those redthings over there?"

  He pointed to an irregular line of objects in an exposed, wind-blown spotat the very rim of an escarpment.

  "Those queer looking stones? They look as if someone had laid them therein a row, and then daubed them with red paint. Did the Indians put themthere? What for?"

  "You think they are stones? Go and look at them," returned Louis with asmile.

  Walter walked to the edge of the bluff, looked down at the objects, andexclaimed in astonishment, "They're skulls; skulls of some big animal."

  "Buffalo," said Louis. "To the Assiniboins and the Sioux this mountain issacred. They bring buffalo skulls, daub them with red earth, and placethem as you see, noses pointing to the east. The skulls are offerings tosome heathen god. There is another spot up here where the Indians burntobacco as a sacrifice." He stooped to examine one of the skulls. "Thisone has not been here long. See how fresh the paint is. It is trader'svermilion mixed with grease."

  "That skull was put there since the last storm," Walter agreed. "Thereare little drifts of snow against the others, but hardly any around thatone."

  Louis had turned his attention to a shallow, snow-filled hollow in therock. "Here are tracks. Truly someone has been here since the lastsnowfall."

  Although the weather had been unusually calm for several days, everybreath of breeze swept the exposed spot. The prints in the snow werepartly obliterated. If the boys had not found the freshly painted skull,they would scarcely have guessed that the tracks were those of men. Withsome difficulty they traced the footprints to the edge of a steep, bare,rock slope. There they lost the trail. They were out after game and didnot care to waste time tracing a couple of wandering Indians, so theygave up the search.

  Nevertheless the recent offering of a buffalo skull on _Tete de Boeuf_aroused the lads' curiosity, and set them wondering if there might beIndians camped somewhere in the neighborhood. In all their wanderingsheretofore the three had seen no recent sign of human beings.

  "We must keep a better watch of our things," Louis decided, as he sat bythe fire that evening preparing the pelt of a red fox. "The Assiniboinsare great thieves. Stealing horses is a feat they are proud of. We haveno horses, but we do not want to lose our dogs."

  "Or our sled and blankets and all our furs," Neil added. "One of us muststay home after this to look after things."

  "Yes." Louis was silent for a moment considering. "I think," he said atlast, "that you and I, Walter, will try to follow that trail to-morrow.It may lead to some camp. Neil will stay here to guard the cabin."

  "Why not let Walter stay?" demanded the Scotch boy, who preferred a moreactive part.

  "Because he cannot talk to the savages or understand them, if any comethis way. He knows no Assiniboin."

  "I don't know much myself," Neil protested.

  "But you know a little, and you have dealt with Indians. He has not. Hedoes not even understand their sign language."

  Neil could find no answer to that argument. He was forced to consent tothe arrangement, though he was far from pleased.