Samuel Alexander White

“ MORE from habit than for benefit he could expect he went on bailing swiftly, his eyes holding the smaller canoe behind. While he had cleared the water by his expedient of the fur robe his own craft had gained, but now, terribly waterlogged, he began to lose. The vicious force of the gale smote the heavier on Burnham, Henderson and the Iroquois crew in the smaller craft, but still it lived in the inferno of waters. ”

“ At Norway House there is the great canoe of the governor with which to escape.”
They were climbing the ridge as Drumming Grouse explained, and from its top they caught the dark loom of canoe brigades driving over from Norway House.
“Be quick,” the Cree urged. “When they round the point we can get off without being seen.”
“You're right, Drumming Grouse,” nodded Steene, gaging the distance of the brigades. “We must break camp like lightning.” ”

“ Like the other men he found himself staring at the wonder of the smooth flushed girlish face among the faces of wrinkled bronze, at the miracle of her soft, youthful eyes among the steely eyes of the wilderness-hardened post keepers. ”

“ Their paddles dipping like clockwork, Henderson drove up with his own craft into which he had bundled Burnham's crew from the beach at Norway House.
“What's the matter here?” he demanded. “Is he gone?”
“Gone,” cried the governor, “and not a man will follow. They're afraid of Lake Winnipeg. Draw up beside till I board you. We'll take him ourselves.”
Henderson cried a sharp command to the governor's Iroquois. With a swirl of their blades they shot Henderson's canoe up beside Sherman's craft in which the governor stood, and Burnham leaped over the gunwales. ”

“ He'll have to turn back with Henderson. Their smaller canoe can't face the waters below Montreal Point. It's rougher there than above.”
“They'll face death itself,” observed Steene. “They're facing it now, and so are we. But it's a thing I've faced many times before, and I hope shall face many times again before it claims me. Hold for your life, Clara. The water's still going down.”
On over the wild inland sea that was blessed with the name of lake the great birch-bark sped, the Ojibways paddling with a skill that seemed to surpass the magical skill of the pursuing Iroquois behind. ”

“ It is the governor takes the Long Traverse.”
“Aye,” nodded Steene, “Governor Burnham instead of me. And at dawn there will be another traverse for the factor's daughter and me—the long traverse to the south. Light a fire for her and another to melt pitch to mend the canoe. It must be ready at dawn, for the gale will die out with the sun.”
Swiftly the Ojibways carried their battered canoe up the rocks and gathered wood for a fire. Close to the leaping flames in a nook sheltered from the lusty draft leaned Steene and Clara Travis, drying their soaked clothes in the heat. ”

“ Was there a weak spot in your canoe?”
“It will be where we scraped the Turtle Rock coming in last night,” guessed the Iroquois bowsman, head of the governor's crew. “We sealed it with gum only because there was no birch-bark at hand.”
“I remember now,” observed Burnham. “It was in the seam too. The chances are it will open wide in this swell.”
“Yes, and they will all be at the bottom of Lake Winnipeg before many minutes,” prophesied Henderson.
“I hope they do,” growled Burnham, “all but the girl. Drive hard, men. We're gaining, and we've got to catch them to take her off. ”

“ At the wilderness metropolis the affairs of the outlying districts were supervised, the fur harvests gathered, the trade expansions planned, and from all the scattered posts by lake and stream men thoroughly versed in the business of the wild delivered reports and gave sage council to the presiding head.
Opposite the governor sat Henderson, chief brigade leader of all the Hudson's Bay Company brigades, fresh out of the York Factory district that bordered on the shores of James Bay; and on round the council table were ranged the factors of the far-flung Norway House district posts ”

“ What is your plan?”
“He must come here to Norway House,” she whispered, amazed at her own daring. “His canoes are too small to face Lake Winnipeg. We must have a large canoe, and there is only one—the governor's.”
“Ae,” breathed the Cree again, his dark eyes glowing with a vivid flame, “and he will take it. I go.”
“Come down on Mossy Point opposite here,” Clara gave him the final directions. “I shall send you a signal to. cross when all is clear. Remember, Drumming Grouse, when you hear the whistle of the snipe. And don't forget Henri Dalmas' post runner in the beaver dam.” ”

“ Over the company she faced lay the constraint of the feminine presence imposed on men accustomed only to contact with men, and where Governor Burnham himself would not have felt the constraint in an English drawing-room he felt it here, thousands of miles from civilization, in the council room of Norway House. ”

“ The drumming grouse does not always drum.”
“He was off as he spoke, Stealing behind the post on the opposite side from which Henderson was hurriedly launching the brigades of canoes, creeping down to the shore-line where his own craft lay bottom up beside a clump of evergreens.
Silently he slipped it into the water and, still screened by the post, drove the craft rapidly across toward the long point of land that made of Great Playgreen a piece of landlocked water. Mossy Point thrust almost to the mainland with only a narrow entrance round its tip to the vast expanse of Lake Winnipeg. ”

“ You must seize the big canoe on the shore, and the disguise will help. I have spoken to Drumming Grouse and he has gone to spirit provisions and equipment enough out of Norway House to fill the craft. You can get them as we go by.”
Steene dropped his own leather cap on the rocks and clapped Burnham's large drooping hat of felt, decked with an osprey feather, upon his head. ”