The first boats to arrive made a stay of several hours at the post, and Walter, conducted by Louis, had a good chance to see the place. Like York Factory, Norway House consisted of a group of log buildings within a stockade, but it stood on dry ground, not in a swamp, and its surroundings were far more attractive than those of the Hudson Bay fort.
As the two boys were coming out of the big gate, after their tour of inspection, Walter, who was ahead, caught sight of a tall figure disappearing around one corner of the stockade. He glanced towards the shore. The boats were deserted. The voyageurs had sought friends within the stockade or in the tents and cabins outside the walls. The Swiss were visiting the fort or wandering about the point.
“Do we take on more supplies here?” Walter asked his companion.
“If we can get them,” Louis returned. “They can spare little here, they say. Are you so starved that you think of food all the time?” he questioned smilingly.
“No, I’m not quite so hungry as that. I just saw Murray carrying a sack, and I wondered what he had.” Louis looked towards the boats. “Where is he? I don’t see him.”
“He didn’t go to the boat. He was coming the other way. He went around the corner of the wall.”
“With an empty sack?”
“No, a full one.”
Louis stared at the corner bastion. “He was going around there, carrying a full sack? You are sure it was Murray?”
“I saw his back, but I’m sure. He has that red handkerchief around his head, you know.”
“Well, it was not anything for us he was taking in that direction,” Louis commented, “and we brought nothing to be left at Norway House. It is some affair of his own. He – ”
“Ho, Louis Brabant! What is the news from the north?”
Louis had swung about at the first word. Two buckskin-clad men, one old, the other young, were coming through the gate. Louis turned back to reply, and Walter followed him to listen to the exchange of news between the newly arrived voyageur and these two employees of the post. The Swiss boy was growing used to the Canadian French tongue, and during the conversation he learned several things that surprised him.
Walter had taken for granted that the journey would be nearly over when Lake Winnipeg was reached. Now he was amazed to learn that he had still more than three hundred miles to go to Fort Douglas, the stronghold of the Red River colony.
“But how far have we come?” he cried.
“About four hundred and thirty miles the way you traveled,” the leather-faced old man answered promptly.
“The rest of the voyage will not be so hard though,” Louis said reassuringly. “There are few portages. If the wind is fair, we can sail most of the way. Of course if there are storms on the lake – ”
“There are always storms this time of year,” put in the old voyageur discouragingly.
The prospect of bad weather on Lake Winnipeg did not disturb Walter so much, however, as a piece of news which the old man led up to with the question, “How is it that settlers are still coming to the Colony on the Red River now that Lord Selkirk is dead?”
“Lord Selkirk dead?” cried Walter and Louis together.
“But yes, that is what people say. I was at Fort Douglas in June, and everyone there was talking about it, and wondering what would happen to the settlement.”
“They did not tell us that at Fort York,” cried Walter. “When did he die? Since we left Europe in May?”
“No, no, the news could not come to the Red River so quickly. It was last year some time he died.”
“You haven’t heard of this before, Louis?” Walter turned to his companion.
“No, I heard nothing of it when I came down the Red River in the spring. I left Pembina as soon as the ice was out, and at Fort Douglas I took service with the Company, but I did not stay there long. They sent me on here to Norway House. I heard no such story. Perhaps it is not true, but only a false rumor started by someone who wishes to make trouble in the colony.”
“That must be it,” agreed Walter. “If Lord Selkirk died last year they would surely have heard it at Fort York. Captain Mai would have known it anyway before we left Switzerland. No, it can’t be true.”
But the old voyageur shook his head. “Everyone at Fort Douglas believed it,” he said.
VIII
THE MISSING PEMMICAN
About the middle of the afternoon, Laroque the guide began to round up crews and passengers. His shout of “Embark, embark” was taken up by one man after another, and the idle sled dogs, that wandered at will about the post and the Indian village, added their voices to the chorus.
Walter and Louis ran down to the shore at the first call. Most of the Swiss obeyed the summons promptly. Their fear of being left behind was too great to permit taking risks. Several of the voyageurs, however, were slow in appearing. When they did come, they gave evidence of having been too generously treated to liquor by their friends at the post. After everyone else was ready to start, Laroque had to go in search of Murray. Carrying a bundle wrapped in a piece of old canvas, Black Murray came back with the guide, his sullen face set and heavy, his small eyes shining with a peculiar glitter. He showed no other sign of drunkenness, but walked steadily to the boat, placed his bundle in the stern, and stepped in.
Laroque sprang to his own place, oars were dipped, sails raised, and the boats were off, amid shouts of farewell and the howling of dogs. Leaving the handling of the sail to the Orkneyman, Murray remained stolidly silent in the stern. His steering was careless, even erratic, but no one ventured to try to take the tiller. Luckily the wind was light, the lake smooth, and the boats had not far to go. Camp was pitched on a beach of the long point, where the travelers had an unobstructed view down the lake to the meeting place of sky and water.
“It seems as if we had come to another ocean,” Walter confided to Louis. “Why do they call this Norway Point, and the trading post Norway House? What has Norway to do with Lake Winnipeg?”
“I have heard,” Louis replied, “that some men from a country called Norway were brought over by the Company and stationed here. Then too I have heard that the point was named from the pine trees that grow here, because they look like the pines in that country of Norway. Which story is true I know not. The post has been here a long time, and always, I think, it has been called Norway House. When the Selkirk colonists were driven from the Red River by the Northwesters, they came this way and camped on the Little Jack River.”
That night’s camp was one of the most comfortable of the whole journey. The evening was fine, there was plenty of wood, and an abundance of fish for supper. The Swiss sat about their fires later than usual, talking of the journey, speculating on what was to come, and planning for the future. Nearly three weeks they had been on the way from Fort York. Now they looked out over the star-lit waters stretching far away to the south, and cheered their hearts with the hope and belief that the worst was over. At least they would not have to track up stream and portage around rapids for some days to come.
“How long will it take us to reach the Red River?” The question was asked over and over again, with varying replies from the voyageurs. Walter asked it of Louis, and the young Canadian shook his head doubtfully. If the weather was good, the winds favorable, they might