Perhaps a close scrutinizer of countenances might have detected some resemblance--a family one--between him and his three companions. If such there was, it was very slight; but there might have been, from the relationship that existed between them and him. He was their cousin--their full cousin--the only son of that uncle they were now on their way to visit, and the messenger who had been sent to bring them. Such was the fourth of "the young voyageurs."
His dress was not unlike that worn by Basil; but as he was seated on the bow, and acting as pilot, and therefore more likely to feel the cold, he wore over his hunting-shirt, a Canadian _capote_ of white woollen cloth, with its hood hanging down upon his shoulders.
But there was still another "voyageur," an old acquaintance, whom you, boy reader, will no doubt remember. This was an animal, a quadruped, who lay along the bottom of the canoe upon a buffalo's hide. "From his size and colour--which was a tawny red--you might have mistaken him for a panther--a cougar. His long black muzzle and broad hanging ears gave him quite a different aspect, however, and declared him to be a hound. He _was_ one--a bloodhound, with the cross of a mastiff--a powerful animal. It was the dog 'Marengo.'" You remember Marengo?
In the canoe there were other objects of interest. There were blankets and buffalo robes; there was a small canvas tent folded up; there were bags of provisions, and some cooking utensils; there was a spade and an axe; there were rifles--three of them--and a double-barrelled shot-gun; besides a fish-net, and many other articles, the necessary equipments for such a journey.
Loaded almost to the gunwale was that little canoe, yet lightly did it float down the waters of the Red River of the North.
It was the spring season, though late. The snow had entirely disappeared from the hills, and the ice from the water, and the melting of both had swollen the river, and rendered its current more rapid than usual. Our young voyageurs needed not therefore to ply their oars, except now and then to guide the canoe; for these little vessels have no rudder, but are steered by the paddles. The skilful voyageurs can shoot them to any point they please, simply by their dexterous handling of the oars; and Basil, Lucien, and François, had had sufficient practice both with "skiffs" and "dug-outs" to make good oarsmen of all three. They had made many a canoe trip upon the lower Mississippi and the bayous of Louisiana; besides their journey up the St. Peter's had rendered them familiar with the management of their birchen craft. An occasional stroke of the paddle kept them in their course, and they floated on without effort.