Adventure Magazine Cover, April 3, 1918 — page 41: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Ambush them to the Pas for food stuffs. I don’t like the post to be too long on a straight meat diet. It breeds disease.” gs WHEN Eugene found Smoking ew] Pine, Carlisle followed them down wie tO the shore} where the Chippewa was edging in his canoe. “You needn’t trouble to land, Cotameg,”’ the Factor told him. “Your being away has made your start late. Step in, Smoking Pine. No—keep the fish. They’ll make your first meal, for you’ll have to feed your- selves on the way. Go to the Pas. Tell Lewis to send on the York boats from his post. If the boats aren’t there, wait for them, and see that there is no delay on the river.’ Though the rum was in his veins, Cota- meg had wisdom enough to show no con- cern. He grunted comprehendingly and dipped his paddle in time with Smoking Pine’s as the canoe glided off, but a mile or two upon his way he stopped for the noon meal just near one of the secret rendezvous that he and Richelieu had picked upon to obviate the risk of his visiting the North- west post too often. There they roasted some of the fish on sticks, and there Cotameg lagged behind Smoking Pine a moment before he stalked down to the canoe to reembark. With his knife he blazed a white space upon a tree trunk in the secret rendezvous and with a piece of charcoal from the fire smudged on it the sign for Richelieu—a crude drawing of a full flour sack labeled H. B.C. Nor was the departure of Cotameg and Smoking Pine the only departure from Cumberland House that day. After the mid-day meal, seemingly without fore- thought, without any definite plan, the In- dian hunters took down the medicine bags from the rear of their teepees and the squaws struck the tents. The tribes ’round Richelieu’s post and Fort Wayne perceived the exodus and fol- lowed suit. The littered camp-grounds be- came a chaos anda bedlam of bucks, squaws, children and dogs, but finally the ruck was straightened out, the baggage bundled and apportioned, the papooses and curs sorted, and the pilgrimage began. Their destinations were many, the up- Saskatchewan country, the down-Saskatch- ewan, the Sturgeon River, the Carrot River, 39 the eastern and western arms of Sturgeon Lake, Lakes Namew, Amisk, Goose, Atha- puscow! : | Some went afoot on the forest trails, their worldly goods piled upon their shoulders and their dogs back-packed with forty pounds apiece. Others traveled by canoe, the glis- tening yellow craft loaded to the gunwales with heterogeneous dunnage and the dogs thrust under the thwarts. The serried hosts of the forest trees swal- lowed the files of marchers more quickly than the sweeping phalanxes of the crested waves could hide the fleets. From the door- way of his house Carlisle watched the fa- miliar sight. They were going back, these children of the wilderness, to their wilder- ness crafts, to their fish channels, caribou runs and trap lines. They would travel from fifty to one hun- dred miles from Cumberland House, plant- ing their marten deadfalls, their double- spring fox traps, their twitch-up snares for rabbits through a waste of frost and snow and he would see none of them again till Christmas. With a strange sense of loneliness he held them to the last with his keen eyes, till the straight backs of the hunters, the bright shawls of the squaws, the warm yellow of the birch canoes faded beyond the heaving silver rollers. | A fortnight passed after their departure, and there was no sign of the York boats at Cumberland House. The month of Sep- tember came in, and still Carlisle felt no un- easiness. For Cotameg and Smoking Pine had to go down ’round the Great Bend of the Saskatchewan, beyond the mouth of the Carrot to the Pasquia River where the post of the Pas lay in the crotch the Pasquia formed with the Saskatchewan. Perhaps the supplies had not reached Lewis when they got there! Perhaps on account of pack ice or shifting shoals in James Bay the company’s ship had not been able to get in on schedule, and there might have been delay in sending the York boats up from York Factory. So the Factor waited philosophically, liv- ing like the rest of the men of the post, and the rival posts as well, upon a straight meat diet varied a little by berries from the hills. Daily they plied the rifle and the net, bringing in the first fall ducks, ptarmigan whose brown Summer feathering was whit- ening for Winter, finny prizes from the cool COnmnicloo (C@ S