The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Black Feather, by Mary Hartwell Catherwood

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Title: The Black Feather
From "Mackinac And Lake Stories", 1899

Author: Mary Hartwell Catherwood

Release Date: October 30, 2007 [EBook #23248]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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Produced by David Widger

THE BLACK FEATHER

From "Mackinac And Lake Stories", 1899

By Mary Hartwell Catherwood

Over a hundred voyageurs were sorting furs in the American Fur Company's
yard, under the supervision of the clerks. And though it was hard labor,
lasting from five in the morning until sunset, they thought lightly of
it as fatigue duty after their eleven months of toil and privation in
the wilderness. Fort Mackinac was glittering white on the heights above
them, and half-way up a paved ascent leading to the sally-port sauntered
'Tite Laboise. All the voyageurs saw her; and strict as was the
discipline of the yard, they directly expected trouble.

The packing, however, went on with vigor. Every beaver, marten, mink,
musk-rat, raccoon, lynx, wild-cat, fox, wolverine, otter, badger, or
other skin had to be beaten, graded, counted, tallied in the company's
book, put into press, and marked for shipment to John Jacob Astor in New
York. As there were twelve grades of sable, and eight even of deer, the
grading, which fell to the clerks, was no light task. Heads of brigades
that had brought these furs from the wilderness stood by to challenge
any mistake in the count. It was the height of the fur season, and
Mackinac Island was the front of the world to the two or three thousand
men gathered in for its brief summer.

Axe strokes reverberated from Bois Blanc, on the opposite side of the
strait, and passed echoes from island to island to the shutting down of
the horizon. Choppers detailed to cut wood were getting boatloads ready
for the leachers, who had hulled corn to prepare for winter rations. One
pint of lyed corn with from two to four ounces of tallow was the daily
allowance of a voyageur, and the endurance which this food gave him
passes belief.

Etienne St. Martin grumbled at it when he cam