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Copper Princess, The

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<h2>CHAPTER XIII</h2> <h3>LOG-WRECKERS AND SMUGGLERS</h3> There were no laggards in the camp on the following morning, for, with the stars still shining, Peveril routed out his men from their fragrant couches. Leaving Joe Pintaud to prepare breakfast, he and the two Bohemians began to form their raft by rolling to the water's edge, setting afloat, and securing such logs as lay nearest at hand. While the wreckers were thus engaged, the fishermen appeared from their huts and made ready for another day on the lake. They were an ill-favored set, and Peveril was not pleased to note that they seemed to make sneering remarks concerning the task on which he was engaged. Beneath their jeers his own men grew so surly and restless that he was relieved when Joe called them to breakfast. After that all hands set forth in the skiff to work at the logs stranded along the coast to the southward. As they pulled out of the cove Peveril noticed that a small schooner, which he had believed belonged to the fishermen, was still at anchor, and that the crew lounging about her deck were of a different class from those who had already gone out. He was about to call Joe's attention to this, when that individual hailed the schooner, and began to carry on a lively conversation with her men. When they had passed beyond hearing, Peveril questioned the Canadian concerning the strange craft, and was told that she was not a fishing-boat, but a trader. "What does she trade in?" "Plenty t'ing. Cognac, seelk, dope, everyt'ing. Plenty trade, plenty mun. Much better as mining. Mais, parbleu! I am a fool, me." "Why?" "Zat I, too, vill not trade and make ze mun." "Why don't you, if you prefer that business?" "Ah! It is because I am what you call too mooch a cow—a hard cow. I like not ze jail, me." "You mean a coward?" "Oui, oui. Cowhard. I am one cowhard for ze jail." "Oh!" cried Peveril, suddenly enlightened. "Your friends of the schooner are smugglers." "Oui, zat it. Smoogler, an' bimeby, some time, maybe, soldat catch it. Take all ze mun, put it in jail. Bim! No good!" "That is the first time I ever heard of any smugglers on this coast," remarked Peveril, reflectively. "I wonder if they can have taken our logs?" "Log, no," replied Joe, contemptuously. "Canada, he gat plenty log—too plenty. Tradair tak' ze drapeau, ze viskey, ze tick-tick, but not ze log." Here the conversation was ended by the arrival at the scene of labor, and the work of dislodging stranded logs was begun. All day long they toiled at the difficult task, straining, lifting, stumbling, rolling, and slipping on the wet rocks, receiving many a bump and bruise, pausing only for a bite of lunch and a whiff of pipe-smoke at noon, and finally returning to Laughing Fish at dusk, slowly towing into the cove a small raft of the recovered wreckage. For several days longer, sometimes in clear weather, but often in cheerless rain and fog, was the task of collecting such logs as had stranded on the south side of the cove continued. At length the last one was gathered from that direction, and our wreckers were ready to explore the coast lying to the northward. Not since the day of his coming had Peveril found leisure to revisit the place where he had seen the mysterious figure of the cliffs. He had thought often of her, and had so longed to return to that part of the coast that only a strict sense of duty had prevented him. Now that he was free to unravel the mystery if he could, he was as excited as a boy off for a holiday. He purposed gathering the few logs already seen on that side of the cove, and then to continue his exploration indefinitely in search of others; but, to his amazement, as they skirted the rugged coast, not a log was to be found. In vain did the young leader stand up in his boat, the better to scan every inch of the shore. In vain did he land on the rocks and scramble over their broken surface. There were no logs, and yet he knew they had been there five days earlier. Nor had there been any storm during that time to dislodge them. "Joe, your smuggling friends must have taken them." "Non. He gat plenty log in Canada, him." "What, then, has become of them?" "Dunno. Maybe dev catch him." "It is a human devil of some kind, then, and he must have carried them still farther up the coast, for we should have seen them if they had been carried the other way." "Oui, m'sieu." "Give way, men! I'm going to find those logs if they are anywhere on Keweenaw Point." So the light skiff shot ahead, with the two Bohemians rowing, and the others in bow and stern, watching the coast sharply as they slipped past its rocky front. They were already beyond any point at which Peveril had previously discovered logs, and were rapidly approaching the place of his mystery. He could see the jutting ledge, and was eagerly scanning the cliffs above it, when suddenly Joe held up his hand with a warning "Hist!" Without a word Peveril gave the signal to stop rowing, which was instantly obeyed. In the silence that followed they heard a sound of singing. It was a plaintive melody, sung in a girlish voice, untrained, but full and sweet. To his amazement Peveril recognized it as one of the very latest songs of a popular composer, whose music he had supposed almost unknown in America. The voice also seemed to be close at hand. At first the men gazed about them with an idle curiosity, but, not seeing anyone, they began to grow uneasy, and to cast frightened glances on every side. "By gar!" exclaimed Joe Pintaud, and on the instant the singing ceased. The sudden silence was almost as disquieting as the voice of an invisible singer, and again Joe uttered his favorite exclamation. "Where did that voice come from?" "Dunno, Mist Pearl. One tam I t'ink from rock, one tam from water. Fust he come from ze hair, zen he gat under ze bateau. Bimeby he come every somewhere. One tam I t'ink angele, me; one tam dev. Mostly I t'ink dev." "It seemed to me to come from the cliff," said Peveril. "Oui; so I t'ink." "Though I could also have sworn that it rose from the water." "Oui, m'sieu. You say dev, I say dev." By this time Peveril had again got his craft under way, and they were skirting a wooded islet that lay off the coast just beyond the black ledge. This island appeared to be nearly cut in two by a narrow bay; but as those in the boat seemed to see every part of this, and were convinced that it contained no logs, they did not enter it. The young leader was not giving much thought to either logs or his immediate surroundings just then, for his ears were still filled with the music that had come to him as mysteriously as had the vision of a few days earlier. So lost was he in reflection that he started abruptly when the rowing again ceased, and one of the men whispered, hoarsely: "Mist Pearl, look!" He was pointing back from where they had come; and, turning, Peveril saw, apparently gliding from the very shore of the island they had just passed, a small schooner. She must have sailed from the bay into which they had gazed, and yet they believed they had scrutinized every inch of its surface. "By gar!" cried Joe Pintaud. "Some more dev, hein?" "It looks to me like the boat of your friends the smugglers," suggested Peveril, studying the vessel closely. "Oui, certainment! It ees ze sheep of ze tradair." "Then we will go and see where she came from, for so snug a hiding-place is worth discovering." So the skiff was put about and rowed back to the little bay bisecting the island. Then it was found that there were two small islands, and that the supposed bay was really an inlet from the lake, which made a sharp angle at a point invisible from outside. This channel led to a narrow sound, from which another inlet cut directly into the rock-bound coast. It was quite short, and quickly widened into an exquisite basin, completely land-locked and very nearly circular. Peveril had followed this devious course with all the eagerness of an explorer; but his men had cast many nervous glances over their shoulders, and even Joe Pintaud had expressed a muttered hope that they were not being led into some trap. As the skiff emerged from the high-walled inlet and shot into the smiling basin, an exclamation burst from all four men at once. "Ze log!" cried Joe. "Our logs!" echoed Peveril. The others probably used words meaning the same thing. At any rate, they talked excitedly, and pointed to the opposite side of the basin, where was moored a raft of logs. Two men with a yoke of oxen were in the act of hauling one of these from the water, and a deeply marked trail, leading up the bank to a point of disappearance, showed where a number of its predecessors had gone. "Give way!" cried Peveril, and the skiff sped across the basin. As it ranged alongside the moored raft, the young leader recognized the deep-cut mark of the White Pine Mine on one floating stick after another. "Hold on!" he shouted. "Where are you going with that log?" "None of your business!" answered one of the two men, who was old and white-headed. "What are you doing here, anyway?" "I've come after these logs." "Well, you can't have them, and you want to get out of here quicker than you came in!" With this the man spoke a few words to his assistant, who immediately ran up the trail and disappeared, while Peveril, with a hot flush mounting to his forehead, ordered his crew to pull for the shore. <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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