The Cryptogram

I feel the inspiration of those who wrote straight from the heart. It is unlikely that this narrative will ever appear in print, but if

back to me with the vividness and clearness of yesterday. I hear the echo of voices that have been silent these

oria. I close my eyes, and I am back in another world. I see the Great Lone Land-its rivers and lakes, its plains and peaks, its boundless leagues of wilderness stretching from sea to sea. I sniff the fragrant odors of snow-clad birch and pine, of marsh

red remotely and by royal warrant when Charles II was king; the home of the Red Indian and the voyageur, the half-breed trapper and hunter, the gentlemen adventurers of England, Scotland and France; a land of death by

ods, taught to shoot and swim, to bear fatigue and to navigate dangerous waters. Nor did I grow up in ignorance of finer arts, for my father, Bertrand Carew, was an Englishman and

o the post, and ten years later he was killed by a treacherous Indian. Fort Beaver was then abandoned, a new post having been recently built, seventy miles farther north. This

d eyes, and a mustache in which I took some pride. I knew as much of the wilderness and th

g of that uneventful period brings me to the opening proper of my story-to the mission that sent me five hundred miles down country in the dead of winter to Fort Garry, where the town of

rests and towering hills, the low leaden sky overhead. Along the edge of the scrubby-timbered shore, five husky dogs come at a trot, harnessed in single file to a sledge. The dogs are short-legged and very hairy, with long snouts, sharp-pointed ears, and the tails

eches of smoked buckskin, moccasins of moose-hide, and blue cloth leggings. A fur cap was on my head, and a strip of Scotch plaid about my neck. Baptiste was dressed like all the company's voyageurs and hun

in the wilderness before we should reach Quebec. But we liked the wild life better than the turmoil of towns, Baptiste and I, and we were in no haste to have done with it. The s

iver that leads from the Lake of the Woods to Lake Superior, we heard the report of a musket, followed by the cry of a human voice and the growl of a beast. Baptiste and I stopped

two running!" cried Ba

to the rescue, Baptiste. Do you wait here with t

pot that bore the imprint of big claws and moccasined feet. Here were a few drops of blood on the snow, and the parts of a broken

o tall bowlders, and he was in sore peril of his life from a monstrous grizzly that was striving to tear him out. The bear-I had never seen a larger one-was dealing blow aft

rom where I stood, so I circled quickly around to one side. But the grizzly both heard and smelled me, and

d legs. His eyes were like balls of fire, his open jaws dripped foam, and he roared horribly with pain and anger. Blo

I drew my long-bladed knife, darted out of the way, and as swiftly turned and struck under the sheltered fore feet. It was a foolish trick, and my agility barely saved me from a crushing blow. As it was, I had to leave the knife

wled out. Too weak to rise, he propped himself against a rock. He was bleeding profusely from a dozen wounds. His shirt of buffalo skin, his breech-clout, his frin

on underhand dealings with the Northwest Company, which was the great and dangerous rival of the Hudson Bay Company. We were known to each other, having met before on sever

n such straits?

me upon him unawares, and in his haste to fire he had inflicted only a slig

e by a name which my skill at tracking game had won for me among the

f his people was within a few miles, and I decided to take him there. By this time Baptiste had arrived with the team, and after dressing th

grizzly had shattered it by a terrific blow-such a look of misery came into his eyes as softened my heart at once. I

the act the next moment; but the savage's gratitude was so

refusing an invitation to spend the night. I attached no significance to the affair at the time, nor did I give it much thought afterward,

ion in the Canadas at the period of which I write. Long before-during many years, in fact-the Hudson Bay Company had vainly tried to obtain from the English Parliament a confirmation of the charter granted them by Charles II. But Parliament refused to decide the matter i

Scotchmen who had been evicted from their homes in Sutherlandshire. He hoped thus to build up a stronghold and seat of government that would brook no rivalry. The colonists came and settled at Fort Garry, at the forks of the Red River; but matters grew worse instead of better. Each company claimed to be in the right, and was res

there, we were satisfied that serious trouble was brewing, and that it would break out when navigation opened in the spring. We knew that the Northwest Company were plotting to secur

ady to fight for the supremacy of the company I served, and which my father had served before me. But I foresaw with distaste that I should probably be detai