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Updated: June 1, 2025
It was the fourteenth day when the bateau entered Great Slave Lake, and the second night after that, as dusk gathered thickly between the forest walls of the Yellowknife, David knew that at last they had reached the mouth of the dark and mysterious stream which led to the still more mysterious domain of Black Roger Audemard.
George Waldeaux took his mother and boy back to the old homestead in Delaware. They arrived at night, and early the next morning he rowed away in his bateau to some of his old haunts in the woods on the bay, and was seen no more that day. "He is inconsolable!" his mother told some of her old neighbors who crowded to welcome her. "His heart is in that grave in Vannes."
All the party were now standing up in the sternsheets of the bateau to look at the people on the raft, who amounted to about fifty or sixty men now running over the top to one side, and dragging at the sweeps, which required the joint power of seven or eight men to each of them now passing again over to the opposite sweeps, as directed by the steersmen.
The voice of the negro, who was the property of one of the wealthiest royalists on the lake, became more and more vociferous as the bateau approached the shore. "Wot de goodness youse shakaroons doin' yere? We ain't goin' land yere no, sir! Dis ain't no place fur us. Who yo' t'ink capen ob dis craft, anyway?" "Oh, come along, old man! we wanter see ye!" shouted Bolderwood from the shore.
Opposite to each bateau was kindled a fire, around which were grouped the voyageurs composing the crew, some dividing their salt pork or salt fish upon their bread, with a greasy clasped knife, and quenching the thirst excited by this with occasional libations from tin cans, containing a mixture of water and the poisonous distillation of the country, miscalled whiskey.
They were business-like looking individuals, with muscles built for work or fight; one sitting cross-legged on the bateau deck with a rifle over his knees, and the other standing with a rifle in his hand. The man who brought his dinner wasted no time or words. He merely nodded, murmured a curt bonjour, and went out.
"And what will you be, mamma?" "A duchess, my son." The weary mother sank back upon her oriental divan, which was piled with cushions, and closed her eyes in fragrant slumber, a luxury she had foregone for many days and nights. December was well-nigh spent when Blennerhassett's bateau reached the mouth of the Cumberland and joined Burr's flotilla of a dozen similar boats.
Over the side of the bateau tumbled Fallon and Stromberg, sprawling on the bottom at the feet of the boss, while the man in the bow cast off the light line. The next instant the heavy boat leaped clear of the water, overriding, climbing to the very summit of the pounding, plunging logs which threatened each moment to crush and batter through her sides and bottom.
Fallon and Stromberg, past masters both of the drive made ready while the other stood by to cast off the light line and allow the bateau to swing free on the main cable. Moncrossen clambered to the top to shout warning to those who swarmed over the body of the jam and along the edges of the river.
While she was so engrossed with her coloured glass, a puff of wind, catching the high sides of the bateau, had caused it to tug at its tether. The rope, carelessly fastened by some impatient boy, had slipped its hold; and the bateau had been swept smoothly out into the hurrying current.
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