Part 30 (2/2)
”Then we'll go there,” replied His Excellency.
For one whole hour the great man and the great fisherman had sport that a king might envy. Side by side they sat, or stood, baiting or reeling in the heavy, gleaming ba.s.s, chatting, boasting, and eager for game.
It was a great morning's catch. A dozen n.o.ble fish testified to their skill, when the pair, overcome with hunger, were compelled to put up their rods and make for the camp and breakfast.
”We have had a glorious morning, haven't we, Bob?” said the Governor. ”I feel like a boy again, a boy playing truant, a boy who has ran away from his big school of politicians at Ottawa, just to get a few days' fis.h.i.+ng and--and--oh, well, get away from it all.”
There was a brief silence, then Lord Dunbridge continued, ”Bob, you're a boy; so was I once, but I think you'll understand. You Canadian boys do seem to grasp things, some way or other. My boyhood was not quite as jolly as yours is--not so independent. You see, we always had tutors and things to look after us and keep us shut in, as it were, and I never knew, as I dare say you do, the pleasure of getting about by myself, and--” His voice trailed off as if he were thinking of something else.
Suddenly he seemed to awaken, and, removing his cap, let the keen morning air blow across his long, fine hair--dark hair touched about the temples with gray. Then he smiled down at the sunburnt boy at his side, and said, as if he feared to be overheard, ”Bob, I'd give five dollars to be a boy like you to-day, and be able to run those rapids in a canoe.
Would it be safe?”
”I've done it twenty times, Your Excellency,” said Bob, eagerly, ”and in this same old canoe here. I know every shoal, every rock, every bar in the river. Oh, sir, that _is_ sport, the very best sport I know of!”
The spirit of the thing seemed to take hold of Lord Dunbridge, ”Perhaps, Bob,” he exclaimed, with a das.h.i.+ng enthusiasm, ”perhaps, Bob, some day you and I will--”
”Yes, sir, I think I know,” interrupted Bob, as the other hesitated; then, in a half whisper, ”I'll bring you through safely, sir, any time you want to go.”
”And you quite understand, Bob, you are to say nothing about that canoe trip we're to have, don't you?” said His Excellency, as they parted at the Governor's landing.
Bob lifted his cap, saying very quietly, ”Very well, sir, no one shall know.” Then he paddled slowly, very slowly, away. His thoughts were busy. Here was he, Bob Stuart, an obscure boy from an obscure Ontario town, holding in common a secret with the Governor-General of all Canada, a secret that not even the Prime Minister at Ottawa knew. Then came the horror, the fear of an accident. Suppose something happened to the canoe. Suppose she split her bow on a rock. Suppose His Excellency ”lost his head” and got nervous. Suppose a thousand things. But Bob put it all resolutely behind him. He felt his strong young muscles, his vital fingers, his pliant wrists. Yes, it was a great thing to be a boy--a boy whose great pride had always been to excel in typical Canadian sports, to be the ”crack” canoeist, and to handle a paddle with the ease of a professional. It was worth everything in the world to recall the time when someone had tauntingly said, ”Oh, Bob Stuart's no good at cricket and baseball. Why, he can't even play tennis. All he can do is to potter at his old Canuck sports of paddling a canoe and swinging a lacrosse stick.” And Bob had laughed with satisfaction, and said, good-naturedly, ”You bet! You're right. I'm for our national games every time.” And now had come the reward; he was to run the rapids with the representative of the throne of Great Britain in the bow of his canoe.
Two days later came the summons, and early the next morning Bob was supposed to set forth again to take His Excellency fis.h.i.+ng. The viceregal staff, aides and guides saw them depart, never dreaming for a moment that they were really runaways bound for a royal holiday.
Bob hardly realized it himself until, at the head of the rapids, they uns.h.i.+pped all unnecessary tackle and prepared to make the run. They hauled a big rock aboard, placing it astern to trim Bob's light weight to balance Lord Dunbridge's. ”Now,” said the boy, ”when I yell for you to paddle port or starboard, you had better work for all you're worth, Your Excellency, or we may grind on the rocks.”
”Good,” replied the Governor. ”You can depend on me, Bob.” His Excellency knelt low on his heels forward of the bow thwart. Bob knelt high, with the stern thwart just catching his seat. He felt his strong ashen paddle carefully, stowed an extra blade ”handy,” said, ”Now, then,” and the little canoe shot out into the middle of the placid river. Far in the distance the rapids frothed and curled, their song rippling backwards like a beckoning hand. On either side fir forests crowded to the rocky edges, that broke like cruel granite jaws against the waters. Immediately ahead the stream twisted into circles, those smooth, deadly circles that herald the coming tumult. Bob's strong young arms grew taut, their sinews like thin cords of steel. There was not a tremor in his entire body. He knelt, steady and calm, his keen, narrow eyes fixed plumb ahead, alert and shrewd as an animal. He felt his fingers grip the paddle with a strength that was vise-like, grip, and cling, and command. The canoe obeyed even his thought, obeyed the turn of his smallest finger, obeyed, steadied itself, stood motionless for a second, then lifted its nose and plunged forward. The spray split in two, showering the gunwales, then roared abaft, and--they were in the thick of the fight.
”Do you want me to paddle?” shouted back Lord Dunbridge.
”No, I can pilot her all right,” came the response through the wind that almost shrieked Bob's voice away. The rocky ledges of sh.o.r.es were crowding closer now. The firs, dark and melancholy, were frowning down; sharp crags arose like ragged teeth; to right, to left, ahead, and between them the river boiled and lashed itself into fury, pitching headlong on and on down the throat of the yawning channel. The tiny canoe flung between the rocks like a shuttle. Twice its keel s.h.i.+vered, rabbit-wise, in the force of crossing currents; once, far above the tumult, came a wild, anxious voice from the sh.o.r.e, but neither Bob nor his pa.s.senger gave heed. The dash of that wildcat rapid left no second of time for replying or turning one's eyelid; it was one long, breathless, hurling plunge, that got into their blood like a fever. Then presently the riot seemed all behind them. The savage music of the river grew fainter and fainter, the canoe slipped through the exhausted waters silently as a snake. A moment more, and the bow beached on a strip of yellow sand, secure, steadfast, triumphant. The glorious cruise was over.
A little group of scared, white-faced men huddled together on sh.o.r.e, the handsome young aide-de-camp reaching down his eager hands, which shook with anxiety. ”Oh, Your Excellency,” he exclaimed, ”how _could_ you run such a risk, and with only this boy to pilot you?”
”Bob and I ran away,” said Lord Dunbridge, as, breathless but happy, he sprang from the canoe. ”We ran away for a little holiday just by ourselves. I would not have missed it for the world.” Then, more seriously, he added, ”Gentlemen, if I could think that my Prime Minister and the Government at Ottawa could steer the s.h.i.+p of State as splendidly as Bobbie steered that canoe, I would never have another wrinkle on my forehead or another grey hair on my head.”
Little Wolf-Willow
Old Beaver-tail hated many things, but most of all he hated the North-West Mounted Police. Not that they had ever molested or worried him in his far corner of the Crooked Lakes Indian Reserve, but they stood for the enforcing of the white man's laws, and old Beaver-Tail hated the white man. He would sit for hours together in his big tepee counting his piles of furs, smoking, grumbling and storming at the inroads of the palefaces on to his lands and hunting grounds.
Consequently it was an amazing surprise to everybody when he consented to let his eldest son, Little Wolf-Willow, go away to attend the Indian School in far-off Manitoba. But old Beaver-Tail explained with rare appreciation his reasons for this consent. He said he wished the boy to learn English, so that he would grow up to be a keen, sharp trader, like the men of the Hudson's Bay Company, the white men who were so apt to outwit the redskins in a fur-trading bargain. Thus we see that poor old Beaver-Tail had suffered and been cheated at the hands of the cunning paleface. Little Wolf-Willow was not little, by any means; he was tall, thin, wiry, and quick, a boy of marked intelligence and much ability. He was called Little Wolf-Willow to distinguish him from his grandsire, Big Wolf-Willow by name, whose career as a warrior made him famed throughout half of the great Canadian North-West. Little Wolf-Willow's one idea of life was to grow up and be like his grandfather, the hero of fifty battles against both hostile Indian tribes and invading white settlers; to have nine scalps at his belt, and scars on his face; to wear a crimson-tipped eagle feather in his hair, and to give a war-whoop that would echo from lake to lake and plant fear in the hearts of his enemies. But instead of all this splendid life the boy was sent away to the school taught by paleface men and women; to a terrible, far-away, strange school, where he would have to learn a new language and perhaps wear clothes like the white men wore. The superintendent of the school, who had persuaded old Beaver-Tail to let the boy come, brought him out from the Crooked Lakes with several other boys. Most of them could speak a few words of English, but not so Little Wolf-Willow, who arrived from his prairie tepee dressed in buckskin and moccasins, a pretty string of white elks' teeth about his throat, and his long, straight, black hair braided in two plaits, interwoven with bits of rabbit skin. A dull green blanket served as an overcoat, and he wore no hat at all. His face was small, and beautifully tinted a rich, reddish copper color, and his eyes were black, alert, and very s.h.i.+ning.
The teachers greeted him very kindly, and he shook hands with them gravely, like a very old man. And from that day onward Little Wolf-Willow shut his heart within himself, and suffered.
In the first place, the white people all looked sick to him--unhealthy, bleached. Then, try as he would, he could not accustom his feet to the stiff leather shoes he was induced to wear. One morning his buckskin coat was missing, and in its place was a nice blue cloth one with gleaming golden b.u.t.tons. He hated it, but he had to wear it. Then his green blanket disappeared; a warm, heavy overcoat in its place. Then his fringed buckskin ”chaps” went; in their place a pair of dreadful grey cloth trousers. Little Wolf-Willow made no comment, but he kept his eyes and ears open, and mastered a few important words of English, which, however, he kept to himself--as yet. And then, one day, when he had worn these hated clothes for a whole month, the superintendent who had brought him away from his father's tepee sent for him to come to his little office. The boy went. The superintendent was so kind and so gentle, and his smile was so true, that the boy had grown somewhat attached to him, so, without fear of anything in the world, the little Cree scholar slipped noiselessly into the room.
”Ah, Little Wolf-Willow,” said the superintendent, kindly, ”I notice that you are beginning to understand a little English already.” The boy smiled, and nodded slightly. ”You are very quick and smart, my boy, quick as a lynx, smart as a fox. Now tell me, are you happy here? Do you like the school?” continued Mr. Enderby.
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