The Cobbler In The Devils Kitchen | Page 3

neck or ear; the precious trinket of a girl. On one side was rudely scratched the outline of a bird.
"Begorra!" said Owen. He hid it in one of the rock pockets, a trust in a savings-bank, and sat down again to work, trying to discover Blackbird's object in offering tribute to him.
About sunset he lighted a fire in his low grate to cook his supper, and put the finished boots in a remote corner of the cave until he should get his pay. As he expected, L��on Baudette appeared, picking a barefooted way along the beach, with many complimentary greetings. The wary cobbler stood between the boots and his client, and responded with open cordiality. A voyageur who gave flesh and bone and sometimes life itself for a hundred dollars a year, and drank that hundred dollars up during his month of semi-civilization on Mackinac, seldom had much about him with which to pay for his necessary mending.
L��on Baudette swore at the price, being a discontented engag��. But the foot-wear he was obliged to have, being secretly determined to desert to Canada before the boats went out. You may see his name marked as a deserter in the Fur Company's books at Mackinac Island. So, reluctantly counting out the money, he put on his shoes and crossed his legs to smoke and chat, occupying the visitor's seat. Owen put his kettle to boil, and sat down also to enjoy society; for why should man be hurried?
He learned how many fights had been fought that day; how many bales of furs were packed in the Company's yard; that ��tienne St. Martin was trying to ship with the Northern instead of the Illinois Brigade, on account of a grudge against Charle' Charette. He learned that the Indians were having snake and medicine dances to cure a consumptive chief. And, to his surprise, he learned that he was considered a medicine-man among the tribes, on account of his living unmolested in the Devil's Kitchen.
"O oui," declared L��on. "You de wizard. You only play you mend de shoe; but, by gar, you make de poor voyageur pay de same like it was work! I hear dey call you Big Medicine of de Cuisine Diable."
Owen was compelled to smile with pleasure at his importance, his long upper lip lifting its unshaven bristles in a white curd.
"Do ye moind, Leen me boy, a haythen Injun lady by the name of Blackbird?"
"Me, I know Blackbird," responded L��on Bau-dette.
"Is the consoompted chafe that they're makin' the snake shindy for married on her?"
"No, no. Blackbird she wife of Jean Magliss in de winter camps."
"John McGillis? Is it for marry in' on a haythen wife he is?"
"O oui. Two wives. One good Cat'olique. Jean Magliss, he dance every night now with Amable Morin's girl. The more weddings, the more dancing. Me," L��on shrugged, "I no want a woman eating my wages in Mackinac. A squaw in the winter camps--'t assez."
"Two wives, the bog-trotter!" gulped Owen. "John McGillis is a blayguard!"
"Oui, what you call Irish," assented L��on; and he dodged, but the cobbler threw nothing at him. Owen marked with the awl on his own leather apron.
"First a haythen and then a quarther-brade," he tallied against his countryman. "He will be takin' his quarther-brade to the praste before the boats go gut?"
L��on raised fat eyebrows. "Amable Morin, he no fool. It is six daughters he has. O oui; the marriage is soon made."
"And the poor haythen, what does she do now?"
"Blackbird? She watch Jean Magliss dance. Then she leave her lodge and take to de pine wood. Blackbird ver fond of what you call de Irish."
Owen was little richer in the gift of expression than the Indian woman, but he could feel the tragedy of her unconfirmed marriage. A squaw was taken to her lord's wigwam, and remained as long as she pleased him. He could divorce her with a gift, proportioned to his means and her worth.
When L��on Baudette departed, Owen prepared and ate his supper, brewing himself some herb tea and seasoning it with a drop of whiskey.
The evening beauty of the lake, of coasts melting in general dimness, and that iridescent stony hook stretched out from Round Island to grapple passing craft, was lost on Owen. Humid air did not soften the glower which grew and hardened on his visage as he made his preparations for night. These were very simple. The coals of drift-wood soon died to white ashes in his grate. To close the shop was to stand upon the shoemaker's bench and reach for the ladder in his attic--a short ladder that just performed its office and could be hidden aloft.
Drawing his stairway after him when he had ascended, Owen spread and arranged his blankets. The ghosts that rose from tortured bodies in the Kitchen