Mamelons, and Ungava, a legend of the Saguenay

Front matter

Stttji '-.Caiim#%

MAMELONS and Ungava

BY

Contents

CHAPTER

PAGE

I

Author's Preface

T HAVE for some years felt that the connection of the old races with the North American Continent, the signs and proofs of whose presence are to be found almost everywhere, and nowhere so frequently as on the St. Lawrence, afforded material for entertaining authorship. Prompted by this feeling, I have, during these several years past, been working at certain pieces of composition, of which this bit of romance is a fair sample.

If it shall so far please the reading public that its publisher shall not lose money by his venture — for letters in our time have no

IV PREFACE.

patronage save from the hope of selfish gain — I shall, later on, print others like to it. But if it fail, as it quite likely will, to bring him commercial profit, then they will be forgotten as this one will, until I better them, or they come to a better time.

Burlington, Vt., Jan. 7, 1887.

NTRODUCTION.

7\ yi Y publishers have requested me to pre- ^ ^ pare a brief statement concerning my literary work, especially that portion of it relating to the character known as John Norton the Trapper — and the stories called the ''Adirondack Tales." They represent that there is an unusual curiosity and interest on the part of many touching this matter, and that a brief statement from me, as the author of them, will please many and interest all who read my works.

I know that many thousands of people do feel in this way, for my mails for several

VI INTRODUCTION.

years have brought me ahnost daily a most agreeable correspondence concerning not only the character of John Norton the Trapper, but the general scope and characteristics of my literary work ; and because of this personal knowledge I do the more cheerfully comply with my publishers' request, and will, now and here, set down as briefly as I may what seems likely to be of interest to those who read this volume.

The first volume ever published, of my writing, was by the house of Ticknor & Fields, in 1868, I think, and had for its title ''Murray's Adventures in the Wilderness." This was the book which first brought the Adirondacks to popular notice, and did so much to advertise that now famous region to the sporting and touring classes of the country. The notice-

INTRODUCTION-. vii

able thing as to this volume is that it was not prepared by me for publication, and while writing the several chapters I had no idea that they, or anything I should ever write, would be published. I was then in the clerical profession, and was stationed at Meriden, Conn. I had at this time a habit of composing each day, when my duties permitted me the leisure, some bits of writing wholly apart from my profession and work. They were of the nature of exercises in English composition, and had no other interest to me than the mental refreshment it gave me to write them, and the hope that the doing of them would assist me to improve my style in expression. They were constructed slowly and rewritten many times, until they were as simple and accurate as to the use of words as I viii INTRODUCTION.

could make them. I enjoyed the work very much, and the composition of those Httle bits of description and humor dehghted me probably more than they ever have the readers of them. By an accident of circumstances they were printed in the Me7'iden Recorder, and, beyond pleasing a few hundreds of local readers, made no reputation for themselves whatever. At least, I never heard of them or gave them any thought. It was owing to James T. Fields that their merit, such as they had, was discovered, and that they were given in volume form to the world. Of the reception the little book met with at the hands of the public, I need not speak. As to it I know no one was more surprised than I was. It made the Adirondacks famous, and gave me a nom de flume which has almost over-

INTRODUCTION, ix

shadowed the name I was christened with. What pleases me most as to it is the thought that it helped to introduce healthier fashions of recreation, and brought thousands into close and happy connection with Nature.

Of several volumes of sermons that were published while I was in the clerical profession I make no mention, for I do not regard them as literary productions. They represent only a temporary popular demand, and as compositions only the low average possible to an overworked man, compelled by his duties to do too much to do anything well.

The volume known as the " Perfect Horse" was, I believe, with the exception of Hiram Woodruff's little volume, the first attempt made by an American author to teach the breeders of the trotting horse in this country the true

X INTRODUCTION.

principles and correct methods of equine propagation. It had a large sale, and, I have reason to think, helped the country to needed knowledge. To me it only stood for years of wide and close studentship of the question, and a benevolent endeavor.

The prompting motive in the preparation of '' Daylight Land " was this : The little book "Adventures in the Wilderness" was published in 1868, I think, and under circumstances such as I have explained. I had no thought at that time of becoming an author. The several chapters of that little volume were written as exercises in composition. I was, at the writing of them, only some twenty-six years old. I knew little of life or nature, and absolutely nothing of what literary balance and fitness mean. My knowledge of woodcraft was then

INTRODUCTION. ^i

slight, of the American Continent slighter yet. Naturally the book, because of the fame it won, became, as years passed, my knowledae grew apace, and my power of expression ripened, a regret to me. It did not in any sense represent me as an author. This feeling was shared by others who have regard for my writings, especially along the lines of description and entertainment ; and I was urged to compose a volume of the same general character as my first little book, that should be a fairer and happier expression of myself as an author, in the lighter moods of composition. It may interest some to learn — especially young authors and literary folk — that " Daylight Land " had for its prompting cause the feeling that it was not fit for me to be permanently represented in descriptive

Xll INTRODUCTION.

writing and in composition of the lighter sort, by that little book that has gone so far and done so much of good in many ways, but which, because of the reasons stated, has always been extremely unsatisfactory to me.

I will now come directly to the character of John Norton the Trapper and the ''Adirondack Tales."

I was once at a luncheon at which Mr. James T. Fields presided. Several clever literary men of more or less prominence were present. Mr. Emerson was there, and in answer to the query, "What makes a story a great ^ story," said : "A story which will make the average reader laugh and cry both is a great story, and he who writes it is a true author." The definition struck me, when I heard it, as a very proper one ; and it has

INTRODUCTION. xiii

influenced me In my choice of subjects and methods of treatment ever since.

Another question discussed at that table was this: ''Why must the feminine element be Introduced so constandy?" or, as one of the witty lunchers phrased It, ''Why must every author forever introduce a woman into his story ? "

This was discussed at length, all assuming that such necessity did exist.

I had not engaged In the spirited talk, being; well content to listen. This Mr. Fields noted, and insisted on "Parson Murray "— as he facetiously called me — giving his views. I replied that I would sooner keep quiet, especially as I did not agree with the verdict of the table. This attracted a surprised attention, and I was compelled to say " that I did xiv IxWTRODUCTION,

not see the need of introducing a woman into every story, and that I believed a story meeting Mr. Emerson's definition of a great story, viz., one which would make the readers of it laugh and cry both, could be written without a woman appearing in it, and that in some masculine natures was a tenderness as deep, a sympathy as sweet, and a love as strong as existed in woman." And I added, " Mr. Emerson has forgotten that in a book with which, as he was a clergyman for years, he is perfectly familiar, there is a picture given of two men who ' loved each other beyond the love of women.' "

Not to dilate further, from that day Mr. Fields never ceased to urge me to " attempt that story," and, being most friendly to me, — and to what young person with any talent

INTRODUCTION. XV

was he not ever a friend ? — he would say, "• I tell you, Murray, try and see if you can write that story, not a woman or the hint of one, good or bad, in it ; for it may be you might succeed, and if you should, you know what Emerson said ; and I would like to be the publisher." Prompted by this kindly thought for me, and moved by assisting circumstances, I wrote the " Story of the Man Who Didn't Know Much." It was composed amid the pressure of journalistic as well as clerical labors, by being dictated to a typewriter, and appeared in the weekly issues of the Golden Rule, a journal of which I was editor and owner. It gave great satisfaction to the readers of the paper, and increased its circulation appreciably. Of its literary merit, if it had any, the readers of the vol-

XVI INTRODUCTION.

ume can judge. The pleasantest thought to me, perhaps, concerning it, was the fact that Mr. Fields came one day to my study, and in his genial, earnest way exclaimed, " Murray, you have done what you said could be done ; you have written a story up to the level of Emerson's definition, for I have read it from beginning to end, and laughed and cried over it both." It is doubtless owing to this story and the success of it, more than to any other cause, that my mind was turned toward literature as the field in which I could work with the greatest pleasure to myself, and perhaps with the largest resultant benefit to mankind. The character of the Lad was sketched with the desire to illustrate the beauty and moral force of innocence and simplicity, as contrasted with great mental endowments. It

INTRODUCTION. xvii

was from listening to the playing of the greatest master of the violin in modern times, Ole Bull, that I conceived the description of the Lad's violin and his manner of playing it at the ball. The great violinist expressed to me the delight the reading of the passage gave him, and jokingly declared that he enjoyed it all the more because it was composed by a man who couldn't play a note himself!

Of John Norton — and this must stand as answer to all the Interrogations that have been put to me concerning him — I have this to say. I never saw any such man as John Norton ; never saw one so good as he is, In my vision of him ; never saw one who even suggested him. He is a creation, pure and simple, of my imagination. But, though I never saw such a man, he nevertheless xviii IN TROD UCTION.

Stands for an actual type. Big-bodied, bigheaded, big-hearted, wise, humorous, humane, brave, he types to me the old-fashioned New England man, who, having lived his life in the woods, has had developed in him those virtues and qualities of head and heart, of mind and soul, in harmony with his life-long surroundings. Through him, as my mouthpiece, I tell whatever of knowledge I have of woodcraft, whatever appreciation I have of Nature, and whatever wisdom I may have been taught by my communings with her silence. This is all I know of John Norton the Trapper. The " Story that the Keg told me " was composed simply to introduce the character of John Norton to the reader, to present him, as it were, to the reader's eye, and ]v-epare him to appreciate his characteristics.

INTRODUCTION. XIX

The '' Adirondack Tales," as outlined in my mind, consist of six volumes, three of which are already written and await publication, the other three I hope to complete within the next five or six years. The Canadian Idyls will consist also of six volumes, the " Doom of Mamelons," " Ungava," and '' Mistassinni " being the first three. In them I treat of the myths and traditions of the aboriginal races of America as located especially in the northern section of the continent, and they represent my best effort. It is not likely that much, if indeed any part, of what I may write will be granted a permanent place in the literature of my country, nor am I stirred to effort by any ambition or dream that it may. I shall be well satisfied if, by what I write, some present entertainment be afforded

XX INTRODUCTION,

the reader : a love of nature inculcated ; and encouragement given to a more manly or womanly life. As my expectation is modest, I am the more likely, perhaps, to live long enough to see some small part of it, at least,

realized.

Burlington, Vt.

ARGUMENT.

'T^HE development of the story turns upon the working of an old Indian prophecy or tradition, which had been in the Lenni- Lenape tribe, to the effect, that when an intermarriage between a princess of their tribe and a white man should occur, it would bring ruin to the tribe, and cause it to become extinct at Mamelons. For it was at the mouth of the Saguenay, as they held, that the whites first landed on this western continent. This intermarriage, or '* cross of red with white," had occurred, and the time had nearly come when the last of the race should, in accordance with the old prophecy, die at Mamelons.

The persons introduced into this tale are John Norton, the Trapper, who is comrade and bosom friend of the chief of the Lenni- Lenape ; the chief himself, who is dying from an old wound received in a fight at Mamelons, and has sent a runner to summon the Trapper to his bedside, to receive his dying message ; a very beautiful woman of that most peculiar and ancient of all known peoples, the Basques of Southern Spain, the last of their queenly line, who has been married in France by the chief's brother, and to whom a daughter has been born, Atla, the beautiful heroine of the story. And, in addition to these, is an old chief of the famous Mistassinni tribe, who had had his tongue cut out at the torture stake by the Esquimaux, from whose fury he had been rescued by a party of warriors, headed by the Trapper.

At Mamelons in a great fight, fought in the darkness and terror of an earthquake commotion, the chief of the Lenni-Lenape had, unknowingly, slain his brother, who, returning from France with his young Basque wife, had been wrecked on the coast of Labrador, and, out of gratitude to the Esquimaux, who had treated him kindly, he joined their ranks as they marched up to Mamelons to the great battle. Thus, fighting as foes, unknown to each other, in the darkness that enveloped the field, he was killed by his brother, having seriously wounded him in return.

The Basque princess, thus widowed by the untimely death of her young husband, gave birth to Atla, who was thus born an orphan, and under doom herself. Her mother, soon after the birth of Atla, was rescued from death by the Trapper, and loved him with all the ardor of her fervent nature. His affections she strove and hoped to win, and would, perhaps, have succeeded, had not death claimed her. Dying, she left her love and hopes as an heritage to her daughter, and charged her, with solemn tenderness, to win the Trapper's affection, and, married to him, become the mother of a mighty race, in whose blood the beauty and strength of the two oldest and handsomest races of the earth should be happily mingled.

The chief, knowing of her wish, and the instructions left to Atla by her departed mother, summons the Trapper to his deathbed, to tell him the origin of the doom, and the possibility or surety of its being avoided by his loving and marrying Atla. For, by the conditions of the old curse it was proclaimed when spoken, that the '' doom shall not hold in case of son born in the female line from sire without a cross," viz. : — from a pure-blooded white man. The Trapper in his humility feels himself to be unworthy of so splendid an alliance, and resists the natural promptings of his heart.

But at last the beautiful Atla wins him to a full confession ; and at her urgent request, against the Trapper's wish, they start for Mamelons to be married, where, before the rite is concluded, she dies, so fulfilling the old prediction of her father's tribe.

In the Basque princess, the mother of Atla, the author has striven to portray an utterly unconventional woman, natural, barbaric, original; splendid in her beauty, and glorious in her passions, such as actually lived in the world in the far past, when women were — it must be confessed — totally unlike the prevalent type of to-day. In her child, Atla, the same type of natural womanhood is preserved, but slightly sobered in tone and shade of expression. But as studies of the beautiful and the unconventional in womanhood, both are unique and delightful.

Note. — The notes which have been connected in explanation of certain passages of the story, are so pecuHarly interesting and suggestive that they make the reader wish that the author had extended them in fuller exposition of that " lore of woods and waters and of antique days " with which he is so familiar.

Publishers.

A LEGEND CTF THE SAGUENAY.

Chapter I. The Trail

TT was a long and lonely trail, the southern end of which John Norton struck in answer to the summons which a tired runner brought him from the north. The man had made brave running, for when he reached the Trapper's cabin and had placed the birch-bark packet in his hands, he staggered to a pile of skins

^ Mamelons. The Indians' name for the mouth of the Saguenay, and signifies the Place of the Great Mounds. See note 12.

and dropped heavily on them, Hke a hound which, from a three-days' chase, trails weakly to the hunter's door, spent nigh to death. So came the runner, running from the north, and so, spent with his mighty race, dropped as one dead upon the pile of skins.

He bore the death-call of a friend, whose friendship had been tested on many an ambushed trail and the sharp edge of dubious battle. The call was writ on bark of birch, thin as the thinnest silk the ancients wove from gossamer in the old days when weaving was an art and mystery, and not a sordid trade to earn a pittance with, traced in delicate letters by a hand the Trapper would have died for. A good five hundred miles that trail ran northward before it ended at the couch of skins, in the great room of the

MAMELOXS. Q

great house, in which the chief lay dyino-. And when the Trapper struck it he struck it as an eagle strikes homeward toward the cradle crag of his )-ounglings, when talons are heavy and daylight scant. He drew his line by the star that never sets, and little turning did he make for rivers, rapids, or tangled swamp ; for mountain slope or briery windfall. He drew a trail no man had ever trod — a blazeless' trail, unmarked by stroke

^ In order to mark the direction of his course iri trailing through the woods the trailer slashes with his axe or knife the bark of the trees he passes, by which signs he is able to retrace his course safely, or follow the same trail easily some future time. A blazed trail is one thus plainly marked. A blazeless trail is one on which the trailer has no marks or "blazes" to run by, but draws his line by other and occult signs, which tell him in what direction he is going and which are known only by those initiated in the mysteries of woodcraft.

lO MAMELONS.

of axe or cut of knife, by broken twig or sharpened rod, struck into mold or moss, and by its angle ' telling whence came the trailer, whither went he, and how fast. From earliest dawn till night thickened the woods and massed the trees into a solid blackness, he hurried on, straight as a pigeon flies when homing, studying no sign for guidance, leaving none to tell that he had come and gone. He was at middle prime of life, tough and pliant as an ashen bough grown on hill, seasoned in hall, sweated and strung by constant exercise for highest action, and now each mus-

^ Certain tribes of Indians north of the St. Lawrence left accurate record of their rate of progress, and how far they had come, by the length and angle of the slanted sticks they drove here and there into the ground as they sped on. The Nasquapees were best known as practicing this habit.

cle and sinew of his superb and superbly conditioned frame was taut with tension of a strone desire — to reach the bedside of the dying chief before he died. For the message read : " Come to me quick, for I am alone with the terror of death. The chief is dying. At the pillar of white rock, on the lake, a canoe, with oars and paddle, will be waiting." The Trapper was clad in buckskin from cap to moccasins. His tunic, belted tight and fringeless, was opened widely at the throat for freest breathing. A pack, small, but rounded with strained fullness, was at his back. His horn and pouch were knotted to his side. In tightened belt was knife, and, trailing muzzle down and held reversed, a double rifle. Stripped was the man for speed, as when balanced on the issue of the race hang life and death. As some great ship, caught by some sudden gale off Anticosti or Dead Man's Reef, and bare of sail, stripped to her spars, past battures hollow and hoarse-voiced as death and ghastly white, and through the damned eddies that would suck her down and crush her with stones which grind forever and never see the light, sharpening their cuttings with their horrid grists, runs scudding ; so ran the strong man northward, urged by a fear stronger than that of wreck on the ghost-peopled shore of deadly St. Lawrence. A hound, huge of size, bred to a hair, ambled steadily on at heel. And though he crossed many a hot scent, and more than once his hurrying master started a buck warm from his nest, and nose was busy with knowledge of game afoot, he gave no whimper nor swerved aside, but, silent, followed on in the swift way his master was so hurriedly making, as if he, too, felt the solemn need which urged the trail northward. Never before had runner faced a longer or a harder trail, or under high command or deadly peril pushed it so fiercely forward.

Seven days the trail ran thus, and still the man, tireless of foot, hurried on, and the hound followed silently at heel. What a body was his ! How its powers responded to the soul's summons ! For on this seventh day of highest effort, taxing with heavy strain each muscle, bone, and joint to the utmost, days lengthened from earliest dawn to deepest gloaming, the strong man's face was fresh, his eye was bright, and he swung steadily onward, with long, swinging, easy-motioned gait, as if the prolonged and terrible effort he was making was but a morning's burst of speed for healthy exercise.

The climate favored him. October, with all its crlorious colors, was on the woods, and the warm body of the air was charged through and through with cool atmospheric movements from the north. It was an air to race for one's life in. Soft to the lungs, but filled to its blue edge with oxygen and that mystic element men call ozone ; the overflow of God's vitality spilled over the azure brim of heaven, whose volatile flavor fills the nose of him who breathes the air of mountains. Favored thus by rare conditions, the best that nature gives the trailer, the strong man raced onward through the ripe woods like an old-time run-

MAMELOiXS. 15

ner running for the laurel crown and the applause of Greece.

It was nigh sunset of the seventh day, and the Trapper halted beside a spring, which bubbled coldly up from a cleft rock at the base of a cliff. He cast aside his hunting shirt, baring his body to the waist, and bathed himself in the cool water. He knelt to its mossy rim and sank his head slowly down into the refreshing depths, and held it there, that he might feel the delicious coolness run thrilling through his heated body. He cast his moccasins aside and bathed his feet, sore and hot from monstrous effort, sinkinor them knee deep in the cold flowage of the blessed spring. Then, refreshed, he stood upon the velvet bank, his mighty chest and back pink as a lady's palm, his strong feet glowing, his face aflush through its deep tan, while the wind dried him, and the golden leaves of the overhanging maples fell round him in showers.

Refreshed and strengthened, he reclothed himself, relaced his moccasins and tiorhtened belt, but before he broke away he drew the sheet of birch-bark from his breast and read again the lines traced delicately thereon.

" Yes, I read aright," he muttered to himself; "the writing on the birch is plain as ivy on the oak, and it says : ' Come to me quick, for I am alone with the terror of death. The chief lies dying. At the pillar of white rock, on the lake, a canoe, with oars and paddle, will be waiting.' " And the Trapper thrust the writing back to its place above his heart and burst away down the decline that led to the lake at a run.

'' I've bent the trail like a fool," he muttered, as he reached the bottom of the dip, *' or the lake lies hereaway," and even as he spoke the waters of a lake, red with the red flame of the setting sun, gleamed like a field of fire through the maple-trees. The Trapper dashed a hand into the air with a gesture of delight, and burst away again at a lope through the russet bushes and golden leaves that lay like plucked plumage, ankle deep, upon the ground toward the lake, burning redly through the trees not fifty rods beyond. A moment brought him to the shore, bordered thick with cedar growths, and, breaking throus^h the fragrant branches with a leap, he landed on a beach of silver sand, and lo ! to the left, not a dozen rods away, washed by the red waves, stood the signal rock, fifty feet in height, and from water Hne to summit white as drifted snow.

" God be praised ! " exclaimed the Trapper, and he lifted his cap reverently. " God be praised that I reckoned the course aright and ran the trail straight from end to end. For the woods be wide and long, and to have missed this lake would have been a sorry hap when one like her is alone with the dying. But where is the canoe that she said should be here, for sixty miles of water cannot be jumped like a brook or forded like a rapid, and the island lies nigh the western shore, and who may reach it afoot ? " And he ran his eyes along the sand for signs to tell if boat or human foot had pressed it.

He searched the beach a mile around the bay, but not a sign of human presence could be found. Then niorh the slornal rock he sat

o o

upon the sand, unloosed his pack, and from it took crust and meat, of which he ate, then fed the hound, sharing the scant supper with him equally. "It is the last morsel. Rover," said the Trapper to the dog as he fed him. ''It is the last morsel in the pack, and you and I will breakfast lightly unless luck comes." The dog surely understood the master's saying, for he rolled his hungry eyes toward the pack as if he bitterly sensed the bitter prophecy ; then — canine philosopher as he was — he curled himself amid some dried leaves contentedly, as if by extra sleep he would make good the lack of food.