



Produced by Larry B. Harrison, Christian Boissonnas and
the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
http://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from scanned
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project.)









[Illustration: “THAT WAS THE MOMENT OF LIFE”]




  MACKINAC AND
  LAKE STORIES

  By
  MARY HARTWELL CATHERWOOD

  _WITH ILLUSTRATIONS_

  [Illustration]

  HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
     NEW  YORK  AND  LONDON




  Copyright, 1899, by HARPER & BROTHERS.

  _All rights reserved._




  TO
  My Dear Daughter
  HAZEL
  THE COMPANION OF ALL MY JOURNEYS




CONTENTS


                                                                   PAGE

  MARIANSON                                                           1

  THE BLACK FEATHER                                                  20

  THE COBBLER IN THE DEVIL'S KITCHEN                                 34

  THE SKELETON ON ROUND ISLAND                                       54

  THE PENITENT OF CROSS VILLAGE                                      69

  THE KING OF BEAVER                                                 89

  BEAVER LIGHTS                                                     118

  A BRITISH ISLANDER                                                137

  THE CURSED PATOIS                                                 151

  THE MOTHERS OF HONORÉ                                             170

  THE BLUE MAN                                                      187

  THE INDIAN ON THE TRAIL                                           202




ILLUSTRATIONS


  “THAT WAS THE MOMENT OF LIFE”                          _Frontispiece_

  “SHE LAY BREATHING LIKE AN INFANT”                                  4

  THE TRAIN-AU-GALISE                                                56

  “‘I THINK THE CAMP GO AROUND AND AROUND ME’”                       60

  “‘I HAVE ALWAYS PRAYED THIS PRAYER ALONE’”                        102

  “IT'S BROTHER STRANG SERENADING”                                  104

  “‘YOU WILL GIVE YOURSELF TO ME NOW?’”                             111

  “‘LET ME LOOSE!’ STRUGGLED EMELINE”                               115

  I WAS STARTLED TO SEE HER RUSH AT THE
      CAPTAIN                                                       140

  THE QUARTERS                                                      144

  “HE APPEARED AT THE DOOR, AND IT WAS HONORÉ”                      186




MARIANSON


When the British landed on the west side of Mackinac Island at three
o'clock in the morning of July 17, 1812, Canadians were ordered to
transport the cannon. They had only a pair of six-pounders, but these
had to be dragged across the long alluvial stretch to heights which
would command the fortress, and sand, rock, bushes, trees, and fallen
logs made it a dreadful portage. Voyageurs, however, were men to
accomplish what regulars and Indians shirked.

All but one of the hundred and sixty Canadians hauled with a good will
on the cannon ropes. The dawn was glimmering. Paradise hid in the
untamed island, breathing dew and spice. The spell worked instantly
upon that one young voyageur whose mind was set against the secret
attack. All night his rage had been swelling. He despised the British
regulars—forty-two lords of them only being in this expedition—as they
in turn despised his class. They were his conquerors. He had no desire
to be used as means of pushing their conquest further. These islanders
he knew to be of his own race, perhaps crossed with Chippewa blood.

Seven hundred Indians, painted and horned for war, skulked along as
allies in the dim morning twilight. He thought of sleeping children
roused by tomahawk and scalping-knife in case the surprised fort did
not immediately surrender. Even then, how were a few hundred white men
to restrain nearly a thousand savages?

The young Canadian, as a rush was made with the ropes, stumbled over a
log and dropped behind a bush. His nearest companions scarcely noticed
the desertion in their strain, but the officer instantly detailed an
Indian.

“One of you Sioux bring that fellow back or bring his scalp.”

A Sioux stretched forward and leaped eagerly into the woods. All the
boy's years of wilderness training were concentrated on an escape. The
English officer meant to make him a lesson to the other voyageurs. And
he smiled as he thought of the race he could give the Sioux. All his
arms except his knife were left behind the bush; for fleetness was to
count in this venture. The game of life or death was a pretty one, to
be enjoyed as he shot from tree to tree, or like a noiseless-hoofed
deer made a long stretch of covert. He was alive through every blood
drop. The dewy glory of dawn had never seemed so great. Cool as the
Sioux whom he dodged, his woodsman's eye gathered all aspects of the
strange forest. A detached rock, tall as a tree, raised its colossal
altar, surprising the eye like a single remaining temple pillar. Old
logs, scaled as in a coat of mail, testified to the humidity of this
lush place. The boy trod on sweet white violets smelling of incense.

The wooded deeps unfolded in thinning dusk and revealed a line of high
verdant cliffs walling his course. He dashed through hollows where
millions of ferns bathed him to the knees. As daylight grew—though
it never was quite daylight there—so did his danger. He expected to
hear the humming of an arrow, and perhaps to feel a shock and sting
and cleaving of the bolt, and turned in recklessly to climb for the
uplands, where after miles of jutting spurs the ridge stooped and
pushed out in front of itself a round-topped rock. As the Canadian
passed this rock a yellow flare like candle-light came through a crack
at its base.

He dropped on all-f