Trappers Three

Well known to many a fly-fishing U. S. banker and moose-shooting U. S. broker, is shockheaded, barrel-chested David Courtois, Canadian guide. For years Guide Courtois was guardian of the Triton Club, exclusive Quebec fish and game preserve, one share of stock in which (necessary for membership) is worth $300. When not guiding U. S. and Canadian sportsmen, shock-headed Dave Courtois raises children, traps beaver. In August 1928, he loaded two canoes with flour, bacon and steel traps and traveled 450 miles up the Peribonka River from his frontier home in the village of Roberval with two of his sons, 19-year-old Réné and 13-year-old Michel, for a winter in the woods.

Used to the ways of trappers. Mme. Courtois did not expect her husband and sons back from their business until the Spring. But June came, the fishing season started, and still they did not return. Neighboring trappers and lumbermen talked of organizing search parties. But, remembering shock-headed Dave Courtois’ experience, his brawn, his ability to quaff tin dippers of “trade whiskey” from a barrel, they waited.

In mid-July Trapper Courtois was brought back to Roberval by some fire rangers, so weak he could scarcely guide his canoe. In midwinter, he said, he had sent his boys ahead to their base camp with 50 pounds of flour, a moose flank and half a beaver while he made a side trip to lay a line of traps 100 miles away. The winter was bitter. Trapper Courtois was stormbound, nearly frozen to death. When he reached the base camp weeks later his two boys were gone. Frantically he searched for them. At last, nearly starved, he had been forced to set out for Roberval, hoping they had managed to make their way back to civilization without him.

From Roberval parties of Indians and French Canadians set out to search northern Quebec — a half-explored tract of forest land larger than all New England — for Réné and Michel Courtois. Three weeks ago they found them 95 miles north of Roberval. Thirteen-year-old Michel, his hair matted, his face aged and seamed from privation, crouched over an iron bucket in which he had kept a fire burning for two months. Nineteen-year-old Réné, dead since July, lay beside him, a moldering skeleton.

Kindly Indian rescuers offered plates of steaming beans, mugs of hot coffee. Michel Courtois blanched.

“Take away that food,” he screamed. “I’ll faint — maybe I’ll die.”

Last week, sufficiently recovered to pose for his picture, Michel Courtois was brought back to Roberval. A coroner’s jury glanced perfunctorily at the skeleton of Réné Courtois, gave a verdict:

“Death by starvation and misery.”