[Illustration: The woodsmen, with a simultaneous movement, raised their rifles [Page 208]]

THE SILENT PLACES

BY

STEWART EDWARD WHITE

_Illustrated by Philip R. Goodwin_

NEW YORKMcCLURE, PHILLIPS & CO. 

MCMIV

Published, April, 1904

_To My Mother_

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

The woodsmen, with a simultaneous movement, raised their rifles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . _Frontispiece_

 Facing pageThe child uttered a sharp cry of fright. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26"Pretty enough to kiss!" cried Dick. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66"Listen, Little Sister, " said he. "Now I go on a long journey" . . . 148Dick jumped forward and snatched aside the opening into the wigwam . 228The hound sniffed deep, filling his nostrils with the feather snow . 258"Stop!" he commanded, his voice croaking harsh across the stillness. 294

THE SILENT PLACES

CHAPTER ONE

At about eight o'clock one evening of the early summer a group of menwere seated on a grass-plot overlooking a broad river. The sun was justsetting through the forest fringe directly behind them. 

Of this group some reclined in the short grass, others lay flat on thebank's slope, while still others leaned against the carriages of twohighly ornamented field-guns, whose embossed muzzles gaped silently atan eastern shore nearly two miles distant. 

The men were busy with soft-voiced talk, punctuating their remarks withlow laughter of a singularly infectious character. It was strangespeech, richly embroidered with the musical names of places, withunfamiliar names of beasts, and with unintelligible names of things. Kenógami, Mamátawan, Wenebógan, Kapúskasíng, the silver-fox, thesea-otter, the sable, the wolverine, the musk-ox, parka, babiche, tump-line, giddés, --these and others sang like arrows cleaving theatmosphere of commoner words. In the distant woods the white-throats andolive thrushes called in a language hardly less intelligible. 

There scarcely needed the row of glistening birch-barks below the men, the warehouse with its picketed lane, the tall flag-staff, theblock-house stockade, the half-bred women chatting over the low fencesof the log-houses, the squaws wandering to and fro in picturesquesilence, the Indian children playing noisily or standing in awe beforethe veranda of the white house, to inform the initiated that this littleforest- and river-girt settlement was a post of the Honourable theHudson's Bay Company. The time of sunset and the direction of theriver's flow would have indicated a high latitude. The mile-long meadow, with its Indian camp, the oval of forest, the immense breadth of theriver identified the place as Conjuror's House. Thus the blue water inthe distance was James Bay, the river was the Moose; enjoying his Manilacheroot on the Factory veranda with the other officers of the Companywas Galen Albret, and these men lounging on the river bank were theCompany's post-keepers and runners, the travellers of the Silent Places. 

They were of every age and dressed in a variety of styles. All woreornamented moccasins, bead garters, and red sashes of worsted. As to therest, each followed his taste. So in the group could be seen bare heads, fillet-bound heads, covered heads; shirt sleeves, woollen jerseys, andlong, beautiful blanket coats. Two things, however, proved them akin. They all possessed a lean, wiry hardness of muscle and frame, ahawk-like glance of the eye, an almost emaciated spareness of flesh onthe cheeks. They all smoked pipes of strong plug tobacco. 

Whether the bronze of their faces, thrown into relief by the eveningglow, the frowning steadiness of their eyes, or more fancifully thebackground of the guns, the flag-staff and the stockade was mostresponsible, the militant impression persisted strongly. These were theveterans of an hundred battles. They were of the stuff forlorn hopes arefashioned from. A great enemy, a powerful enemy, an enemy to berespected and feared had hardened them to the unyielding. The adversarycould almost be measured, the bitterness of the struggle almost begauged from the scars of their spirits; the harshness of it, the crueltyof it, the wonderful immensity of it that should so fashion the soulsand flesh of men. For to the bearing of these loungers clung that hintof greater things which is never lacking to those who have called thedeeps of man's nature to the conquering. 

The sun dipped to the horizon, and over the landscape slipped thebeautiful north-country haze of crimson. From the distant forest soundeda single mournful wolf-howl. At once the sledge-dogs answered in chorus. The twilight descended. The men gradually fell silent, smoking theirpipes, savouring the sharp snow-tang, grateful to their toughenedsenses, that still lingered in the air. 

Suddenly out of the dimness loomed the tall form of an Indian, advancingwith long, straight strides. In a moment he was among them respondingcomposedly to their greetings. 

"Bo' jou', bo' jou', Me-en-gen, " said they. 

"Bo' jou', bo' jou', " said he. 

He touched two of the men lightly on the shoulder. They arose, for theyknew him as the bowsman of the Factor's canoe, and so understood thatGalen Albret desired their presence. 

Me-en-gen led the way in silence, across the grass-plot, past theflag-staff, to the foot of the steps leading to the Factory veranda. There the Indian left them. They mounted the steps. A voice halted themin the square of light cast through an intervening room from a lightedinner apartment. 

The veranda was wide and low; railed in; and, except for the square oflight, cast in dimness. A dozen men sat in chairs, smoking. Across theshaft of light the smoke eddied strangely. A woman's voice accompaniedsoftly the tinkle of a piano inside. The sounds, like the lamplight, were softened by the distance of the intervening room. 

Of the men on the veranda Galen Albret's identity alone was evident. Grim, four-square, inert, his very way of sitting his chair, as thoughit were a seat of judgment and he the interpreter of some fierceblood-law, betrayed him. From under the bushy white tufts of hiseyebrows the woodsmen felt the search of his inspection. Unconsciouslythey squared their shoulders. 

The older had some fifty-five or sixty years, though his frame wasstill straight and athletic. A narrow-brimmed slouch hat shadowed quiet, gray eyes, a hawk nose, a long sweeping white mustache. His hands weretanned to a hard mahogany-brown carved into veins, cords, and gnarledjoints. He had kindly humour in the wrinkles of his eyes, the slowlydeveloped imagination of the forest-dweller in the deliberation of theirgaze, and an evident hard and wiry endurance. His dress, from the roughpea-jacket to the unornamented moccasins, was severely plain. 

His companion was hardly more than a boy in years, though more than aman in physical development. In every respect he seemed to be especiallyadapted to the rigours of northern life. The broad arch of his chest, the plump smoothness of his muscles, above all, the full roundness ofhis throat indicated that warmth-giving blood, and plenty of it, wouldbe pumped generously to every part of his body. His face from any pointof view but one revealed a handsome, jaunty boy, whose beard was still ashade. But when he looked at one directly, the immaturity fell away. This might have been because of a certain confidence of experiencebeyond what most boys of twenty can know, or it might have been theresult merely of a physical peculiarity. For his eyes were soextraordinarily close together that they seemed by their very proximityto pinch the bridge of his nose, and in addition, they possessed a queerslant or cast which twinkled perpetually now in one, now in the other. It invested him at once with an air singularly remote and singularlydetermined. But at once when he looked away the old boyishness returned, enhanced further by a certain youthful barbarity in the details of hisdress--a slanted heron's feather in his hat, a beaded knife-sheath, anexcess of ornamentation on his garters and moccasins, and the like. 

In a moment one of the men on the veranda began to talk. It was notGalen Albret, though Galen Albret had summoned them, but MacDonald, hisChief Trader and his right-hand man. Galen Albret himself made no sign, but sat, his head sunk forward, watching the men's faces from hiscavernous eyes. 

"You have been called for especial duty, " began MacDonald, shortly. "Itis volunteer duty, and you need not go unless you want to. We havecalled you because you have the reputation of never having failed. Thatis not much for you, Herron, because you are young. Still we believe inyou. But you, Bolton, are an old hand on the Trail, and it means a gooddeal. "

Galen Albret stirred. MacDonald shot a glance in his direction andhastened on. 

"I am going to tell you what we want. If you don't care to tackle thejob, you must know nothing about it. That is distinctly understood?"

He hitched forward nearer the light, scanning the men carefully. Theynodded. 

"Sure!" added Herron. 

"That's all right. Do you men remember Jingoss, the Ojibway, whooutfitted here a year ago last summer?"

"Him they calls th' Weasel?" inquired Sam Bolton. 

"That's the one. Do you remember him well? how he looks?"

"Yes, " nodded Sam and Dick Herron together. 

"We've got to have that Indian. "

"Where is he?" asked Herron. Sam Bolton remained silent. 

"That is for you to find out. " MacDonald then went on to explainhimself, hitching his chair still nearer, and lowering his voice. "Ayear ago last summer, " said he, "he got his 'debt' at the store of twohundred castors[1] which he was to pay off in pelts the followingspring. He never came back. I don't think he intends to. The example isbad. It has never happened to us before. Too many Indians get credit atthis Post. If this man is allowed to go unpunished, we'll be due for allsorts of trouble with our other creditors. Not only he, but all the restof them, must be made to feel that an embezzler is going to be caught, every time. They all know he's stolen that debt, and they're waiting tosee what we're going to do about it. I tell you this so you'll know thatit's important. "

[Footnote 1: One hundred dollars. ]

"You want us to catch him?" said Bolton, more as a comment than aninquiry. 

"Catch him, and catch him alive!" corrected MacDonald. "There must be noshooting. We've got to punish him in a way that will make him anexample. We've got to allow our Indians 'debt' in order to keep them. Ifwe run too great a risk of loss, we cannot do it. That is a graveproblem. In case of success you shall have double pay for the time youare gone, and be raised two ranks in the service. Will you do it?"

Sam Bolton passed his emaciated, gnarled hand gropingly across hismouth, his usual precursor of speech. But Galen Albret abruptlyinterposed, speaking directly, with authority, as was his habit. 

"Hold on, " said he, "I want no doubt. If you accept this, you must notfail. Either you must come back with that Indian, or you need not comeback at all. I won't accept any excuses for failure. I won't accept anyfailure. It does not matter if it takes ten years. _I want that man_. "

Abruptly he fell silent. After a moment MacDonald resumed his speech. 

"Think well. Let me know in the morning. "

Bolton again passed his hand gropingly before his mouth. 

"No need to wait for me, " said he; "I'll do it. "

Dick Herron suddenly laughed aloud, startling to flight the gravities ofthe moment. 

"If Sam here's got her figured out, I've no need to worry, " he asserted. "I'm with you. "

"Very well, " agreed MacDonald. "Remember, this must be kept quiet. Cometo me for what you need. "

"I will say good-by to you now, " said Galen Albret. "I do not wish to beseen talking to you to-morrow. "

The woodsmen stepped forward, and solemnly shook Galen Albret's hand. Hedid not arise to greet these men he was sending out into the SilentPlaces, for he was the Factor, and not to many is it given to rule acountry so rich and extended. They nodded in turn to the taciturnsmokers, then glided away into the darkness on silent, moccasined feet. 

The night had fallen. Here and there through the gloom shone a lamp. Across the north was a dim glow of phosphorescence, precursor of theaurora, from which occasionally trembled for an instant a single shaftof light. The group by the bronze field-cannon were humming softly thesweet and tender cadences of _La Violette dandine_. 

Instinctively the two woodsmen paused on the hither side of rejoiningtheir companions. Bolton's eyes were already clouded with the trouble ofhis speculation. Dick Herron glanced at his comrade quizzically, thestrange cast flickering in the wind of his thought. 

"Oh, Sam!" said he. 

"What?" asked the older man, rousing. 

"Strikes me that by the time we get through drawin' that double pay onthis job, we'll be rich men--and old!"

CHAPTER TWO

The men stood looking vaguely upward at the stars. 

Dick Herron whipped the grasses with a switch he had broken in passing awillow-bush. His mind was little active. Chiefly he regretted the goodtime he had promised himself here at the Post after the labour of anearly spring march from distant Winnipeg. He appreciated thedifficulties of the undertaking, but idly, as something that hardlyconcerned him. The details, the planning, he dismissed from his mind, confident that his comrade would rise to that. In time Sam Bolton wouldshow him the point at which he was to bend his strength. Then he wouldstoop his shoulders, shut his eyes, and apply the magnificent bruteforce and pluck that was in him. So now he puckered his lips to thesibilance of a canoe-song, and waited. 

But the other, Sam Bolton, the veteran woodsman, stood in raptcontemplation, his wide-seeing, gentle eyes of the old man staring withthe magnitude of his revery. 

Beyond the black velvet band lay the wilderness. There was the tracklesscountry, large as the United States itself, with its great forests, itsunmapped bodies of water, its plains, its barren grounds, its mountains, its water courses wider even than the Hudson River. Moose and bear, truelords of the forest, he might see any summer day. Herds of caribou, sometimes thousands strong, roamed its woodlands and barrens. Wolves, lurking or bold as their prey was strong or weak, clung to the cariboubands in hope of a victim. Wolverines, --unchanged in form from anothergeological period--marten, mink, fisher, otter, ermine, muskrat, lynx, foxes, beaver carried on their varied affairs of murder or of peacefulindustry. Woods Indians, scarcely less keen of sense or natural of lifethan the animals, dwelt in their wigwams of bark or skins, trapped andfished, made their long migrations as the geese turn following theirinstinct. Sun, shadow, rain, cold, snow, hunger, plenty, labour, or thepeaceful gliding of rivers, these had watched by the Long Trail in theyears Sam Bolton had followed it. He sensed them now dimly, instinctively, waiting by the Trail he was called upon to follow. 

Sam Bolton had lived many years in the forest, and many years alone. Therefore he had imagination. It might be of a limited quality, butthrough it he saw things in their essences. 

Now from the safe vantage ground of the camp, from the breathing spacebefore the struggle, he looked out upon the wilderness, and in thewilderness he felt the old, inimical Presence as he had felt it forforty years. The scars of that long combat throbbed through hisconsciousness. The twisting of his strong hands, the loosening of theelasticity, the humbling of the spirit, the caution that had displacedthe carelessness of youth, the keenness of eye, the patience, --all thesewere at once the marks of blows and the spoils of victory received fromthe Enemy. The wilderness, calm, ruthless, just, terrible, waited in theshadow of the forest, seeking no combat, avoiding none, conquering witha lofty air of predestination, yielding superbly as though the moment'svictory for which a man had strained the fibres of his soul were, afterall, a little, unimportant thing; never weary, never exultant, dispassionate, inevitable, mighty, whose emotions were silence, whosespeech was silence, whose most terrible weapon was the great whitesilence that smothered men's spirits. Sam Bolton clearly saw the North. He felt against him the steady pressure of her resistance. She mightyield, but relentlessly regained her elasticity. Men's efforts againsther would tire; the mechanics of her power remained constant. What shelost in the moments of her opponent's might, she recovered in the hoursof his weakness, so that at the last she won, poised in her originalequilibrium above the bodies of her antagonists. Dimly he felt thesethings, personifying the wilderness in his imagination of the old man, arranging half-consciously his weapons of craft in their due order. 

Somewhere out beyond in those woods, at any one of the thirty-two pointsof the compass, a man was lurking. He might be five or five hundredmiles away. He was an expert at taking care of himself in the woods. Abruptly Sam Bolton began to formulate his thoughts aloud. 

"We got to keep him or anybody else from knowin' we's after him, Dick, "said he. "Jest as soon as he knows that, it's just too easy for him tokeep out of our way. Lucky Jingoss is an Ojibway, and his people are wayoff south. We can fool this crowd here easy enough; we'll tell 'em we'relooking for new locations for winter posts. But she's an awful bigcountry. "

"Which way'll we go first?" asked Dick, without, however, much interestin the reply. Whatever Sam decided was sure to be all right. 

"It's this way, " replied the latter. "He's got to trade somewheres. Hecan't come into any of the Posts here at the Bay. What's the nearest?Why, Missináibie, down in Lake Superior country. Probably he's down inthat country somewheres. We'll start south. "

"That's Ojibway country, " hazarded Dick at random. 

"It's Ojibway country, but Jingoss is a Georgian Bay Ojibway. Down nearMissináibie every Injun has his own hunting district, and they'redifferent from our Crees, --they stick pretty close to their district. Any strangers trying to hunt and trap there are going to get shot, surepop. That makes me think that if Jingoss has gone south, and if he'strading now at Missináibie, and if he ain't chummed up with some of themOjibways to get permission to trap in their allotments, and if he ain'tpushed right on home to his own people or out west to Winnipeg country, then most likely we'll find him somewheres about the region of th'Kabinakágam. "

"So we'll go up th' Missináibie River first, " surmised Dick. 

"That's how we'll make a start, " assented Bolton. 

As though this decision had terminated an interview, they turned withone accord toward the dim group of their companions. As they approached, they were acclaimed. 

"Here he is, " "Dick, come here, " "Dick, sing us the song. Chante donc'Oncle Naid, ' Deeck. "

And Dick, leaning carelessly against the breech of the field-guns, in arich, husky baritone crooned to the far north the soft syllables of thefar south. 

 "_Oh, there was an old darkey, and his name was Uncle Ned, And he lived long ago, long ago!_"

CHAPTER THREE

In the selection of paddles early next morning Sam insisted that theIndian rule be observed, measuring carefully that the length of eachimplement should just equal the height of its wielder. He chose thenarrow maple blade, that it might not split when thrust against thebottom to check speed in a rapid. Further the blades were stained abrilliant orange. 

Dick Herron had already picked one of a dozen birch-bark canoes laidaway under the bridge over the dry coulee. He knew a good canoe as youwould know a good horse. Fourteen feet it measured, of the heavywinter-cut of bark, and with a bottom all of one piece, without cracksor large knots. 

The canoe and the paddles they laid at the water's edge. Then they wenttogether to the great warehouse, behind the grill of whose upper roomMacDonald was writing. Ordinarily the trappers were not allowed insidethe grill, but Dick and Sam were told to help themselves freely. Thestocking Dick left to his older companion, assuring himself merely of anhundred rounds of ammunition for his new model Winchester rifle, the44-40 repeater, then just entering the outskirts of its popularity. 

In the obscurity of the wide, low room the old woodsman moved to andfro, ducking his head to avoid things hanging, peering into corners, asking an occasional question of MacDonald, who followed him silentlyabout. Two small steel traps, a narrow, small-meshed fish-net, afish-line and hooks, powder, ball, and caps for the old man'smuzzle-loader, a sack of salt were first laid aside. This representedsubsistence. Then matches, a flint-and-steel machine, two four-pointblankets. These meant warmth. Then ten pounds of plug tobacco and asmany of tea. These were necessary luxuries. And finally a small sack offlour and a side of bacon. These were merely a temporary provision; whenthey should be exhausted, the men would rely wholly on the forest. 

Sam Bolton hovered over the pile, after it was completed, his eyes halfshut, naming over its items again and again, assuring himself thatnothing lacked. At his side MacDonald made suggestions. 

"Got a copper pail, Sam? a frying-pan? cups? How about the axe? Betterhave an extra knife between you. Need any clothes? Compass all right?"

To each of these questions Sam nodded an assent. So MacDonald, havingnamed everything--with the exception of the canvas square to be used asa tarpaulin or a tent, and soap and towel--fell silent, convinced thathe could do nothing more. 

But Dick, who had been drumming his fingers idly against the window, turned with a suggestion of his own. 

"How're we fixed for shoe pacs? I haven't got any. "

At once MacDonald looked blank. 

"By George, boys, I ain't got but four or five pairs of moccasins in theplace! There's plenty of oil tan; I can fix you all right there. Butsmoke tans! That Abítibi gang mighty near cleaned me out. You'll have totry the Indians. "

Accordingly Bolton and Herron took their way in the dusty littlefoot-trodden path--there were no horses in that frontier--between theFactor's residence and the Clerk's house, down the meandering trailthrough the high grasses of the meadow to where the Indian lodges liftedtheir pointed tops against the sky. 

The wigwams were scattered apparently at random. Before each a fireburned. Women and girls busied themselves with a variety of camp-work. Atame crow hopped and fluttered here and there just out of reach of thepointed-nosed, shaggy wolf-dogs. 

The latter rushed madly forward at the approaching strangers, yelping ina curious, long-drawn bay, more suggestive of their wolf ancestors thanof the domestic animal. Dick and Sam laid about them vigorously withshort staffs they had brought for the purpose. Immediately the dogs, recognising their dominance, slunk back. Three men sauntered forward, grinning broadly in amiable greeting. Two or three women, more bashfulthan the rest, scuttled into the depths of wigwams out of sight. Amultitude of children concealed themselves craftily, like a covey ofquail, and focussed their bright, bead-like eyes on the new-comers. Therest of the camp went its way unmoved. 

"Bo' jou', bo' jou', " greeted Sam Bolton. 

"Bo' jou', bo' jou', " replied the three. 

These Indians were of the far upper country. They spoke no English norFrench, and adhered still to their own tribal customs and religiousobservances. They had lingered several days beyond their time for thepurpose of conjuring. In fact at this very moment the big medicine lodgeraised itself in the centre of the encampment like a miniature circustent. Sam Bolton addressed the two in their own language. 

"We wish to buy many moccasins of your old women, " said Sam. 

Immediately one of the Indians glided away. From time to time during thenext few minutes he was intermittently visible as he passed from thedark interior of one wigwam, across the sunlight, and into the darkinterior of another. 

The older of the two still in company of the white men began to askquestions. 

"The Little Father is about to make a long journey?"

"Does one buy so many moccasins for a short?"

"He goes to hunt the fur?"

"Perhaps. "

"In what direction does he set the bow of his canoe?"

Suddenly Dick Herron, who had, as usual, been paying attention to almostanything rather than the matter in hand, darted suddenly toward a clumpof grass. In a moment he straightened his back to hold at arm's length astruggling little boy. At the instant of his seizure the child uttered asharp cry of fright, then closed his lips in the stoicism of his race. 

That one cry was enough, however. Rescue darted from the nearest wigwam. A flying figure covered the little distance in a dozen graceful leaps, snatched the child from the young man's hands and stood, one footadvanced, breast heaving, a palpitating, wild thing, like a symbol ofdefiance. 

The girl belonged distinctly to the more attractive type; it requiredbut little imagination to endow her with real beauty. Her figure wasstraight and slim and well-proportioned, her eyes large, her face ovaland quite devoid of the broad, high-cheeked stupidity so common inthe northern races. At the moment she flashed like a brand withquick-breathed anger and fear. 

[Illustration: The child uttered a sharp cry of fright]

Dick looked at her at first with amazement, then with mingled admirationand mischief. He uttered a ferocious growl and lowered his shoulders asthough about to charge. Immediately the defiance broke. The girl turnedand fled, plunging like a rabbit into the first shelter that offered, pursued by shrieks of delight from the old squaws, a pleased roar fromDick, and the laughter of the Indian men themselves. 

"May-may-gwán[2], " said the oldest Indian, naming her, "foster sister tothe boy you had caught. "

[Footnote 2: The Butterfly. ]

"She is Ojibway, then, " exclaimed Dick, catching at the Ojibway word. 

"Ae, " admitted the Cree, indifferently. Such inclusions of anothertribe, either by adoption or marriage, are not uncommon. 

At this moment the third Indian approached. 

"No moccasins, " he reported. "Plenty buckskin. "

Sam Bolton looked troubled. This meant a delay. However, it could not beavoided. 

"Let the old women make some, " he decided. 

The Cree old-man shook his head. 

"That cannot be. There is not time. We turn our canoes to theMissináibie by next sun. "

Sam pondered again, turning over in his mind this fresh complication. But Dick, kicking the earth clods in impatience, broke in. 

"Well, we're going by the Missináibie, too. Let the women make themoccasins. We will accompany you. "

"That might be, " replied the Indian. 

"It is well, " said Bolton. 

An old woman was summoned. She measured her customers' feet with abuckskin thong. Then they departed without further ceremony. An Indianrarely says farewell. When his business is finished he goes. 

"Dick, " said Sam, "you ought not to have broke in there. "

"What do you mean?" asked the other, puzzled. 

"Suggesting our travelling with them. "

"Why?" cried Dick in astonishment. "Ain't you never travelled withInjuns before?"

"That ain't th' question. Did you notice that third Injun? the one whodidn't do any talking?"

"Sure! What of him?"

"Well, he's an Ojibway. Th' rest are Wood Crees. And I miss my guess ifhe ain't a bad customer. He watched us mighty close, and his eyes arebad. He's sharp. He's one of that wondering kind. He's wondering now whowe are, and where we're going, and why we're hitting so long a trail. And what's more, he belongs to this Jingoss's people in a roundaboutsort of way. He's worse than fifty Crees. Maybe he knows all aboutJingoss, and if he does, he'll get suspicious the minute we angle downinto that country. "

"Let's let 'em slide, then, " suggested Dick, impatiently. "Let's buysome buckskin and make our own moccasins. "

"Too late now, " negatived Sam. "To back out would be bad. "

"Oh, well, you're just borrowing trouble anyway, " laughed Dick. 

"Maybe, maybe, " acknowledged the other; "but borrowing trouble, andthen figuring out how you're going to meet it if it comes to you in goodearnest, is mighty good woodcraft. "

"Sam, " burst out Dick, whose attention had been caught by a word in hiscompanion's first speech, and whose mind had been running on itthroughout the ensuing discussion, "did you notice that girl? She's atearing little beauty!"

CHAPTER FOUR

By now it was nearly noon. The travellers carried the packs they hadmade up down to the water-side where the canoe lay. Although the Indianswould not get under way until the following morning, it had been decidedto push on at once, thus avoiding the confusion of a crowded start. 

In the course of the morning's business the news of their expedition hadnoised abroad. Especially were they commiserated by the other runnersand post-keepers. During all the winter these men had lived under thefrown of the North, conducting their affairs confidently yet withcaution, sure of themselves, yet never sure of the great power in whosetolerance they existed, in spite of whom they accomplished. Now was theappointed time of rest. In the relaxation of the thought they found pityfor those ordered out of season into the Silent Places. 

So at the river's bank Sam Bolton and Dick Herron, ready for departure, found a group gathered. It was supposed that these men were to act asscouts, to reconnoitre shrewdly in the Enemy's country, to spy out theland, so that in the autumn the Company might throw into the wildernessnew posts, to be inhabited during the colder months. 

"Look heem Bla'k Bevair Lak, " advised Louis Placide; "I t'ink doseOjibway mak' heem lots marten, mink la bas. "

"Lads, " said Kern, the trader at Old Brunswick House, "if you're goingup th' Missináibie just cast an eye on my _cache_ at Gull Lake, and seethat the carcajaus have let her be. "

Young Herbert was curious. "Where are you headed, boys?" he inquired. 

But Ki-wa-nee, the trusty, the trader at Flying Post, the only Indian inthe Company's service holding rank as a commissioned officer, grunted incontempt at the question, while Achard, of New Brunswick House, motionedwarningly toward the groups of Indian trappers in the background. "Hush, boy, " said he to Herbert, "news travels, and in the south are the FreeTraders to snatch at a new country. "

By now the voyageurs had turned their canoe over, slid it into thewater, and piled the duffle amidships. 

But before they had time to step aboard, came Virginia Albret, thenseventeen years old and as slender and graceful as a fawn. The daughterof the Factor, she had acquired a habit of command that became her well. While she enunciated her few and simple words of well-wishing, shelooked straight out at them from deep black eyes. The two woodsmen, awedinto a vast respect, fumbled their caps in their hands and noted, in theunconscious manner of the forest frequenter, the fresh dusk rose of herskin, the sharply defined red of her lips, the soft wheat colour of herhair. It was a gracious memory to carry into the Silent Places, and wasin itself well worth the bestowal. However, Virginia, as was her habit, gave presents. On each she bestowed a long silk handkerchief. SamBolton, with a muttered word of thanks, stuffed his awkwardly into hisshirt bosom. Dick, on the other hand, with a gesture half of gallantry, half of bravado, stripped his own handkerchief from his neck and cast itfar into the current, knotting the girl's gift in its place. Virginiasmiled. A strong push sent the canoe into the current. They began topaddle up-stream. 

For perhaps a mile their course threaded in and out the channel of anumber of islands, then shot them into the broad reach of the Mooseitself. There they set themselves to straight-forward paddling, huggingclosely the shore that they might escape as much as possible the fullstrength of the current. In this manner they made rapid progress, for, of course, they paddled in the Indian fashion--without bending eitherelbow, and with a strong thrust forward of the shoulders at the end ofthe stroke--and they understood well how to take advantage of eachlittle back eddy. 

After an hour and a half they came to the first unimportant rapids, where they were forced to drop their paddles and to use the longspruce-poles they had cut and peeled that morning. Dick had the bow. Itwas beautiful to see him standing boldly upright, his feet apart, leaning back against the pressure, making head against the hurryingwater. In a moment the canoe reached the point of hardest suction, wherethe river broke over the descent. Then the young man, taking a deepbreath, put forth the strength that was in him. Sam Bolton, poised inthe stern, holding the canoe while his companion took a fresh hold, noted with approval the boy's physical power, the certainty of his skillat the difficult river work, the accuracy of his calculations. Whateverhis heedlessness, Dick Herron knew his trade. It was, indeed, a powerfulInstrument that Galen Albret in his wisdom had placed in Sam Bolton'shands. 

The canoe, torn from the rapid's grasp, shot into the smooth waterabove. Calmly Sam and Dick shook the water from their poles and laidthem across the thwarts. The _swish click! swish click!_ of the paddlesresumed. 

Now the river began to hurry in the ten-mile descent below the Abítibi. Although the smooth rush of water was unbroken by the swirls of rapids, nevertheless the current proved too strong for paddling. The voyagerswere forced again to the canoe poles, and so toiled in graceful butstrenuous labour the remaining hours of their day's journey. Whenfinally they drew ashore for the night, they had but just passed themouth of French River. 

To men as skilled as they, the making of camp was a brief affair. Dick, with his axe, cleared the space of underbrush, and sought dry wood forfuel. The older man in the meantime hunted about until he found a deadwhite-birch sapling. This he easily thrust to the ground with a strongpush of his hand. The jar burst here and there the hard envelope of thebirch bark to expose a quantity of half-powdery, decayed wood, dry astinder and almost as inflammable as gunpowder. Into a handful of thisSam threw the sparks from his flint and steel. The bark itself fedadmirably the first flame. By the time Dick returned, the fire was readyfor his fuel. 

They cooked tea in the copper pail, and roasted bacon on the ends ofswitches. This, with bread from the Post, constituted their meal. Aftersupper they smoked, banked the fire with green wood, and rolledthemselves in their blankets to sleep. It was summer, so they did nottrouble to pitch their shelter. 

The night died into silence. Slowly the fire worked from within throughthe chinks of the green logs. Forest creatures paused to stare at itwith steady eyes, from which flashed back a blaze as intense as thefire's own. An owl took his station near and began to call. Overhead thebrilliant aurora of the Far North palpitated in a silence that seemeduncanny when coupled with such intensity of movement. Shadows stole hereand there like acolytes. Breezes rose and died like the passing of athrong. The woods were peopled with uncanny influences, intangible, unreal, yet potent with the symbolism of the unknown Presence watchingthese men. The North, calm, patient, biding her time, serene in theassurance of might, drew close to the camp in the wilderness. 

By and by a little pack of wolves came and squatted on their haunchesjust in the shadow. They were well fed and harmless, but they sat thereblinking lazily at the flames, their tongues lolling, exactly like somany shaggy and good-humoured dogs. About two o'clock Dick rolled out ofhis blanket and replenished the fire. He did it somnolently, his eyes vacant, his expression that of a child. Then he took ahalf-comprehending glance at the heaven's promise of fair weather, andsank again into the warmth of his blanket. The wolves had not stirred. 

CHAPTER FIVE

Now the small sack of flour and the side of bacon and the looseprovisions brought from the Post could last but a little time, and thejourney was like to be long. The travellers were to be forced from nowon, just as are the wolves, the eagles, the hawks, the carcajous, andother predatory creatures of the woods, to give their first thoughts tothe day's sustenance. All other considerations gave way to this. Thiswas the first, the daily tribute to be wrested from the stubborn graspof the North. Winning that, anything was possible; failing that, nothingcould follow but defeat. Therefore, valuable exceedingly were the twolittle steel traps and the twelve-foot length of gill-net, the sharp, thin knives in the beaded sheaths, and especially precious, preciousabove all things else, the three hundred rounds of ammunition for therifles. They must be guarded and cared for and saved. 

Therefore an incident of the early afternoon was more than welcome. 

All the morning they had toiled against the current, sometimes poling, sometimes "tracking" by means of a sixty-foot cod-line. Dick looped thisacross his chest and pulled like a horse on the tow-path, while SamBolton sat in the stern with the steering-paddle. The banks weresometimes precipitous, sometimes stony, sometimes grown to the water'sedge with thick vegetation. Dick had often to wade, often to climb andscramble, sometimes even to leap from one foothold to another. Onlyrarely did he enjoy level footing and the opportunity for a straightpull. Suddenly in a shallow pool, near the river's edge, and borderedwith waist-high grass, he came upon a flock of black ducks. They werefull grown, but as yet unable to fly. Dick dropped his tow-line and ranforward with a shout. At once the ducks became confused, scattering inall directions, squawking madly, spattering the water. The mother flew. The brood, instead of making for the open river, where it would havebeen safe, scuttled into the tall grasses. 

Here was the chance for fresh meat without the expenditure of a shot. Sam Bolton promptly disembarked. To us it would have seemed a simplematter. But the black duck is an expert at concealment, even in theopen. He can do wonders at it when assisted by the shadows of longgrass. And when too closely approached he can glide away to right andleft like a snake, leaving no rustle to betray his passage. Five minutespassed before the first was discovered. Then it was only because Dick'skeen eye had detected a faintly stirring grass-blade ten feet away, andbecause Dick's quick muscles had brought him like a tiger to the spot. He held up his victim by the neck. 

"Good enough, " growled Sam. 

And although they had seen nine ducks go into the grass plot, which wasnot more than fifty feet across, they succeeded in finding but three. However, they were satisfied. 

In spite of the deliberation of their journeying, the Indians did notovertake them until nearly dark. It was just above the junction of theAbítibi. The river was without current, the atmosphere without thesuspicion of a breeze. Down to the very water's edge grew the forest, so velvet-dark that one could not have guessed where the shadow left offand the reflection began. Not a ripple disturbed the peace of the water, nor a harsh sound the twilight peace of the air. Sam and Dick hadpaddled for some time close to one bank, and now had paused to enjoytheir pipes and the cool of the evening. Suddenly against the reflectedsky at the lower bend a canoe loomed into sight, and crept smoothly andnoiselessly under the forest shadow of the opposite bank. Anotherfollowed, then another, and another and still another in regularinterval. Not a sound could be heard. In the distance their occupantsgave the illusion of cowled figures, --the Indian women close wrapped intheir shawls, dropping their heads modestly or turning them aside astheir customs commanded them to do on encountering strangers. Againstthe evening glow of the reflected sky for a single instant they stoodout in the bright yellow of the new birch-bark, the glow of warm colouron the women's dress. Then instantaneously, in the darkness of theopposite bank, they faded wraith-like and tenuous. Like phantoms of thepast they glided by, a river's width away; then vanished around theupper bend. A moment later the river was empty. 

"Th' squaws goin' ahead to start camp, " commented Sam Bolton, indifferently; "we'll have th' bucks along pretty quick. "

They drove their paddles strongly, and drifted to the middle of theriver. 

Soon became audible shouts, cries, and laughter, the click of canoepoles. The business of the day was over. Until nearly sundown the men'scanoes had led, silent, circumspect, seeking game at every bend of theriver. Now the squaws had gone on to make camp. No more game was to beexpected. The band relaxed, joking, skylarking, glad to be relieved fora little while of the strain of attention. 

In a moment the canoes appeared, a long, unbroken string, led byHaukemah. In the bow sat the chief's son, a lad of nine, wielding hislittle paddle skilfully, already intelligent to twist the prow sharplyaway from submerged rocks, learning to be a canoe-man so that in thetime to come he might go on the Long Trail. 

Each canoe contained, besides its two occupants, a variety of householdgoods, and a dog or two coiled and motionless, his sharp nose restingbetween his outstretched forepaws. The tame crow occupied an ingeniouscage of twisted osiers. 

Haukemah greeted the two white men cordially, and stopped paddling tolight his pipe. One by one the other canoes joined them. A faint haze oftobacco rose from the drifting group. 

"My brothers have made a long sun, " observed old Haukemah. "We, too, have hastened. Now we have met, and it is well. Down past the white rockit became the fortune of Two-fingers to slay a caribou that stood by thelittle water[3]. Also had we whitefish the evening before. Past theIsland of the Three Trees were signs of moose. " He was telling them thenews, as one who passed the time of day. 

[Footnote 3: A spring. ]

"We have killed but neenee-sheeb, the duck, " replied Dick, holding upone of the victims by the neck, "nor have we seen the trail of game. "

"Ah hah, " replied Haukemah, politely. 

He picked up his paddle. It was the signal to start. 

"Drop in astern, " said Dick to his companion in English, "it's thelight of the evening, and I'm going to troll for a pickerel. "

One by one the canoes fell into line. Now, late in the day, the travelwas most leisurely. A single strong stroke of the paddle was alwayssucceeded by a pause of contemplation. Nevertheless the light craftskimmed on with almost extraordinary buoyancy, and in silent regularitythe wooded points of the river succeeded one another. 

Sam busied himself with the trolling-spoon, but as soon as the lastcanoe was well beyond hearing he burst out:

"Dick, did you notice the Chippewa?"

"No. What?"

"He understands English. "

"How do you know?"

"He was right behind us when you told me you were goin' to try thefishing, and he moved out th' way before we'd raised our paddles. "

"Might have been an accident. "

"Perhaps, but I don't believe it. He looked too almighty innocent. Another thing, did you notice he was alone in his canoe?"

"What of it?"

"Shows he ain't noways popular with th' rest. Generally they pair off. There's mostly something shady about these renegades. "

"Well?"

"Oh, nothing. Only we got to be careful. "

CHAPTER SIX

Camp was made among the trees of an elevated bank above a small brook. 

Already the Indian women had pitched the shelters, spreading squares ofcanvas, strips of birch-bark or tanned skins over roughly improvisedlean-to poles. A half dozen tiny fires, too, they had built, over whichsome were at the moment engaged in hanging as many kettles. Several ofthe younger women were cleaning fish and threading them on switches. Others brought in the small twigs for fuel. Among them could be seenMay-may-gwán, the young Ojibway girl, gliding here and there, eyesdowncast, inexpressibly graceful in contrast with the Crees. 

At once on landing the men took up their share of the work. Like thebirds of the air and the beasts of the wood their first thoughts turnedto the assurance of food. Two young fellows stretched a gill-net acrossthe mouth of the creek. Others scattered in search of favourable spotsin which to set the musk-rat traps, to hang snares for rabbits andgrouse. 

Soon the camp took on the air of age, of long establishment, that is sosuddenly to be won in the forest. The kettles began to bubble; theimpaled fish to turn brown. A delicious odour of open-air cookingpermeated the air. Men filled pipes and smoked in contemplation;children warmed themselves as near the tiny fires as they dared. Out ofthe dense blackness of the forest from time to time staggered what atfirst looked to be an uncouth and misshapen monster, but which presentlyresolved itself into an Indian leaning under a burden of spruce-boughs, so smoothly laid along the haft of a long forked stick that the bearerof the burden could sling it across his shoulder like a bale of hay. Ashe threw it to the ground, a delicate spice-like aroma disengaged itselfto mingle with the smell of cooking. Just at the edge of camp sat thewolf-dogs, their yellow eyes gleaming, waiting in patience for theirtardy share. 

After the meal the women drew apart. Dick's eyes roved in vain, seekinga glimpse of the Ojibway girl. He was too familiar with Indianetiquette to make an advance, and in fact his interest was butlanguidly aroused. 

The men sat about the larger fire smoking. It was the hour ofrelaxation. In the blaze their handsome or strong-lined brown faceslighted good-humouredly. They talked and laughed in low tones, the longsyllables of their language lisping and hissing in strange analogy tothe noises of the fire or the forest or the rapids or some other naturalthing. Their speech was of the chances of the woods and the approachingvisit to their Ojibway brothers in the south. For this they had broughttheir grand ceremonial robes of deerskin, now stowed securely in bags. The white men were silent. In a little while the pipes were finished. The camp was asleep. Through the ashes and the embers prowled thewolf-dogs, but half-fed, seeking scraps. Soon they took to the beach insearch of cast-up fish. There they wandered all night long under themoon voicing their immemorial wrongs to the silenced forest. 

Almost at first streak of dawn the women were abroad. Shortly after, themen visited their traps and lifted the nets. In this land and season ofplenty the catch had been good. The snares had strangled three hares;the steel traps had caught five muskrats, which are very good eating inspite of their appearance; the net had intercepted a number of pickerel, suckers, and river whitefish. This, with the meat of the caribou, shotby Three Fingers the day before, and the supplies brought from the Post, made ample provision. 

Nevertheless, when the camp had been struck and the canoes loaded, theorder of march was reversed. Now the men took the lead by a good margin, and the women and children followed. For in the wooded country gamedrinks early. 

Before setting out, however, old Haukemah blazed a fair clean place on afir-tree, and with hard charcoal from the fire marked on it thesecharacters:

[Illustration: random characters]

"Can you read Injun writin'?" asked Dick. "I can't. "

"Yes, " replied Sam, "learned her when I was snowed up one winter withScar-Face down by the Burwash Lake country. " He squinted his eyes, reading the syllables slowly. 

"'Abichi-kā-menót Moosamík-kā-jā yank. Missowā edookan owāsi seknegi--' Why, it's Ojibway, not Cree, " he exclaimed. "They're just leavinga record. 'Good journey from Moose Factory. Big game has been seen. 'Funny how plumb curious an Injun is. They ain't one could come along hereand see th' signs of this camp and rest easy 'till he'd figgered out howmany they were, and where they were going, and what they were doing, andall about it. These records are a kind-hearted try to save other Injunsthat come along a whole lot of trouble. That's why old Haukemah wrote itin Ojibway 'stead of Cree: this is by rights Ojibway country. "

"We'd better pike out, if we don't want to get back with th' squaws, "suggested Dick. 

About two hours before noon, while the men's squadron was paddlingslowly along a flat bank overgrown with grass and bushes, Dick and Samperceived a sudden excitement in the leading canoes. Haukemah stopped, then cautiously backed until well behind the screen of the point. Theother canoes followed his example. In a moment they were all headed downstream, creeping along noiselessly without lifting their paddles fromthe water. 

"They've seen some game beyant the point, " whispered Dick. "Wonder whatit is?"

But instead of pausing when out of earshot for the purpose of uncasingthe guns or landing a stalking party, the Indians crept, gradually fromthe shore, caught the current, and shot away down stream in thedirection from which they had come. 

"It's a bear, " said Sam, quietly. "They've gone to get their war-painton. "

The men rested the bow of their canoe lightly against the shore, andwaited. In a short time the Indian canoes reappeared. 

"Say, they've surely got th' dry goods!" commented Dick, amused. 

In the short interval that had elapsed, the Indians had interceptedtheir women, unpacked their baggage, and arrayed themselves in theirfinest dress of ceremony. Buckskin elaborately embroidered with beadsand silks in the flower pattern, ornaments of brass and silver, sacredskins of the beaver, broad dashes of ochre and vermilion on the nakedskin, twisted streamers of coloured wool--all added to the barbaricgorgeousness of the old-time savage in his native state. Each bowsmancarried a long brass-bound forty-five "trade-gun, " warranted to kill upto ten yards. 

"It's surely a nifty outfit!" commented Sam, half admiringly. 

A half dozen of the younger men were landed. At once they disappeared inthe underbrush. Although the two white men strained their keen sensesthey were unable to distinguish by sight or sound the progress of theparty through the bushes. 

"I guess they're hunters, all right, " conceded Dick. 

The other men waited like bronze statues. After a long interval apine-warbler uttered its lisping note. Immediately the paddles dipped inthe silent deer-stalker's stroke, and the cavalcade crept forward aroundthe point. 

Dick swept the shore with his eye, but saw nothing. Then all heardplainly a half-smothered grunt of satisfaction, followed by a deep drawnbreath. Phantom-like, without apparently the slightest directing motion, the bows of the canoes swung like wind-vanes to point toward a littleheap of driftlogs under the shadow of an elder bush. The bear waswallowing in the cool, wet sand, and evidently enjoying it. A momentlater he stuck his head over the pile of driftwood, and indulged in aleisurely survey of the river. 

His eye was introspective, vacant, his mouth was half open, and histongue lolled out so comically that Dick almost laughed aloud. No onemoved by so much as a hand's breadth. The bear dropped back to hiscooling sand with a sigh of voluptuous pleasure. The canoes drew alittle nearer. 

Now old Haukemah rose to his height in the bow of his canoe, and beganto speak rapidly in a low voice. Immediately the animal bobbed intosight again, his wicked little eyes snapping with intelligence. It tookhim some moments to determine what these motionless, bright-colouredobjects might be. Then he turned toward the land, but stopped short ashis awakened senses brought him the reek of the young men who hadhemmed in his shoreward escape. He was not yet thoroughly alarmed, sostood there swaying uneasily back and forth, after the manner of bears, while Haukemah spoke swiftly in the soft Cree tongue. 

"Oh, makwá, our little brother, " he said, "we come to you not in anger, nor in disrespect. We come to do you a kindness. Here is hunger and coldand enemies. In the Afterland is only happiness. So if we shoot you, ohmakwá, our little brother, be not angry with us. "

He raised his trade-gun and pulled the trigger. A scattering volleybroke from the other canoes and from the young men concealed in thebushes. 

Now a trade-gun is a gun meant to trade. It is a section of what looksto be gas-pipe, bound by brass bands to a long, clumsy, wooden stickthat extends within an inch of the end of the barrel. It is supposed toshoot ball or shot. As a matter of fact the marksman's success dependsmore on his luck than his skill. Were it not for the Woods-Indian'sextraordinary powers of still-hunting so that he can generally approachvery near to his game, his success would be small indeed. 

With the shock of a dozen little bullets the bear went down, snarlingand biting and scattering the sand, but was immediately afoot again. Ablack bear is not a particularly dangerous beast in ordinarycircumstances--but occasionally he contributes quite a surprise to theexperience of those who encounter him. This bear was badly wounded andcruelly frightened. His keen sense of smell informed him that the bushescontained enemies--how many he did not know, but they were concealed, unknown, and therefore dreadful. In front of him was something definite. Before the astonished Indians could back water, he had dashed into theshallows, and planted his paws on the bow of old Haukemah's canoe. 

A simultaneous cry of alarm burst from the other Indians. Some beganfrantically to recharge their muzzle-loading trade-guns; others dashedtoward the spot as rapidly as paddle or moccasin could bring them. Haukemah himself roused valiantly to the defence, but was promptly upsetand pounced upon by the enraged animal. A smother of spray enveloped thescene. Dick Herron rose suddenly to his feet and shot. The bearcollapsed into the muddied water, his head doubled under, a thin streamof arterial blood stringing away down the current. Haukemah and hissteersman rose dripping. A short pause of silence ensued. 

"Well, you are a wonder!" ejaculated Sam Bolton at last. "How in thunderdid you do that? I couldn't make nothing out of _that_ tangle--at leastnothing clear enough to shoot at!"

"Luck, " replied Dick, briefly. "I took a snap shot, and happened to makeit. "

"You ran mighty big chances of winning old Haukemah, " objected Sam. 

"Sure! But I didn't, " answered Dick, conclusively. 

The Indians gathered to examine in respectful admiration. Dick's bullethad passed from ear to ear. To them it was wonderful shooting, as indeedit would have been had it indicated anything but the most reckless luck. Haukemah was somewhat disgusted at the wetting of his finery, but thebear is a sacred animal, and even ceremonial dress and an explanation ofthe motives that demanded his death might not be sufficient to appeasehis divinity. The women's squadron appeared about the bend, and addedtheir cries of rejoicing to those of their husbands and brothers. 

The beautiful buckskin garments were hastily exchanged for ordinaryapparel. By dint of much wading, tugging, and rolling the carcass wasteased to the dry beach. There the body was securely anchored by thepaws to small trees, and the work of skinning and butchering began. 

Not a shred was wasted. Whatever flesh would not be consumed within afew days they cut into very thin strips and hung across poles to dry. Scraps went to the dogs, who were for once well fed. Three of the oldersquaws went to work with bone scrapers to tan the hide. In this season, while the fur was not as long as it would be later, it was fine and new. The other squaws pitched camp. No right-minded Indian would dream oftravelling further with such a feast in prospect. 

While these things were preparing, the older men cleaned and washed thebear's skull very carefully. Then they cut a tall pole, on the end ofwhich they fastened the skull, and finished by planting the whole affairsecurely near the running water. When the skull should have remainedthere for the space of twelve moons, the sacred spirit of the departedbeast would be appeased. For that reason Haukemah would not here leavehis customary hieroglyphic record when he should break camp. If an enemyshould happen along, he could do harm to Haukemah simply by overturningthe trophy, whereas an unidentified skull might belong to a friend, andso would be let alone on the chance. For that reason, too, when theybroke camp the following day, the expert trailers took pains toobliterate the more characteristic indications of their stay. 

Now abruptly the weather changed. The sky became overcast with low, grayclouds hurrying from the northwest. It grew cold. After a few hours ofindecision it began to rain, dashing the chill water in savage gusts. Amidships in each canoe the household goods were protected carefully bymeans of the wigwam covers, but the people themselves sat patiently, exposed to the force of the storm. Water streamed from their hair, overtheir high cheeks, to drip upon their already sodden clothing. Thebuckskin of their moccasins sucked water like so many sponges. Theystepped indifferently in and out of the river, --for as to their legs, necessarily much exposed, they could get no wetter--and it was verycold. Whenever they landed the grass and bushes completed the soaking. By night each and every member of the band, including the two white men, were as wet as though they had plunged over-head in the stream. Onlythere was this difference: river-water could have been warmed graduallyby the contact of woolen clothes with the body, but the chill ofrain-water was constantly renewed. 

Nor was there much comfort in the prospect when, weary and cold, theyfinally drew their canoes ashore for the evening's camp. The forest wasdripping, the ground soggy, each separate twig and branch cold andslippery to the hand. The accumulated water of a day showered down atthe slightest movement. A damp wind seemed to rise from the earthitself. 

Half measures or timid shrinkings would not do. Every one had to plungeboldly into the woods, had to seize and drag forth, at whatever cost ofshower-bath the wilderness might levy, all the dead wood he could find. Then the value of the birch-bark envelope about the powdery touch-woodbecame evident. The fire, at first small and steamy, grew each instant. Soon a dozen little blazes sprang up, only to be extinguished as soon asthey had partially dried the site of wigwams. Hot tea was swallowedgratefully, duffel hung before the flames. Nobody dried completely, buteverybody steamed, and even in the pouring rain this little warmth wascomfort by force of contrast. The sleeping blankets were damp, theclothes were damp, the ground was damp, the air was damp; but, afterall, discomfort is a little thing and a temporary, and can be borne. Inthe retrospect it is nothing at all. Such is the indian's philosophy, and that is why in a rain he generally travels instead of lying in camp. 

The storm lasted four days. Then the wind shifted to the north, bringingclearing skies. 

Up to now the river had been swift in places, but always by dint oftracking or poling the canoes had been forced against the quick water. Early one forenoon, however, Haukemah lifted carefully the bow of hiscanoe and slid it up the bank. 

CHAPTER SEVEN

The portage struck promptly to the right through a tall, leafy woods, swam neck-high in the foliage of small growth, mounted a steep hill, andmeandered over a bowlder-strewn, moss-grown plateau, to dip again, aquarter of a mile away, to the banks of the river. But you must notimagine one of your easy portages of Maine or lower Canada. This trailwas faint and dim, --here an excoriation on the surface of a fallen andhalf-rotted tree, there a withered limb hanging, again a mere _sense_ inthe forest's growth that others had passed that way. Only an expertcould have followed it. 

The canoe loads were dumped out on the beach. One after another, even tothe little children, the people shouldered their packs. The long sashwas knotted into a loop, which was passed around the pack and thebearer's forehead. Some of the stronger men carried thus upward of twohundred pounds. 

Unlike a party of white men, the Indians put no system into their work. They rested when they pleased, chatted, shouted, squatted on their heelsconversing. Yet somehow the task was accomplished, and quickly. To oneon an elevation dominating the scene it would have been mostpicturesque. Especially noticeable were those who for the moment stoodidle, generally on heights, where their muscle-loose attitudes andfluttering draperies added a strangely decorative note to the landscape;while below plodded, bending forward under their enormous loads, anunending procession of patient toilers. In five minutes the portage wasalive from one end to the other. 

To Dick and Sam Bolton the traverse was a simple matter. Sam, by the aidof his voyager's sash, easily carried the supplies and blankets; Dickfastened the two paddles across the thwarts to form a neck-yoke, andswung off with the canoe. Then they returned to the plateau until theirsavage friends should have finished the crossing. 

Ordinarily white men of this class are welcome enough to travel with theIndian tribes. Their presence is hardly considered extraordinary enoughfor comment. Sam Bolton, however, knew that in the present instance heand Dick aroused an unusual interest of some sort. 

He was not able to place it to his own satisfaction. It might be becauseof Bolton's reputation as a woodsman; it might be because of DickHerron's spectacular service to Haukemah in the instance of the bear; itmight be that careful talk had not had its due effect in convincing theIndians that the journey looked merely to the establishment of newwinter posts; Sam was not disinclined to attribute it to perniciousactivity on the part of the Ojibway. It might spring from any one ofthese. Nor could he quite decide its quality;--whether friendly orinimical. Merely persisted the fact that he and his companion werewatched curiously by the men and fearfully by the women; that theybrought a certain constraint to the camp fire. 

Finally an incident, though it did not decide these points, broughttheir ambiguity nearer to the surface. 

One evening old Haukemah received from the women the bear's robe fullytanned. Its inner surface had been whitened and then painted rudelywith a symbolical representation of the hunt. Haukemah spoke as follows, holding the robe in his hand:

"This is the robe of makwá, our little brother. His flesh we all ate of. But you who killed him should have his coat. Therefore my women havepainted it because you saved their head man. "

He laid the robe at Dick's feet. Dick glanced toward his companion withthe strange cast flickering quizzically in his narrow eyes. "Fine thingto carry along on a trip like ours, " he said in English. "_I_ don't knowwhat to do with it. They've worked on it mighty near a week. I wish tohell they'd keep their old robe. " However, he stooped and touched it insign of acceptance. "I thank my brother, " he said in Cree. 

"You'll have to bring it along, " Sam answered in English. "We'll have tocarry it while we're with them, anyway. "

The Indian men were squatted on their heels about the fire, waitinggravely and courteously for this conference, in an unknown tongue, tocome to an end. The women, naturally interested in the disposal oftheir handiwork, had drawn just within the circle of light. 

Suddenly Dick, inspired, darted to this group of women, whence hereturned presently half dragging, half-coaxing a young girl. She camereluctantly, hanging back a little, dropping her head, or with anembarrassed giggle glancing shyly over her shoulder at her companions. When near the centre of the men's group, Dick dropped her hand. 

Promptly she made as though to escape, but stopped at a word fromHaukemah. It was May-may-gwán, the Ojibway girl. 

Obediently she paused. Her eyes were dancing with the excitement of theadventure, an almost roguish smile curved her mouth and dimpled hercheek, her lower lip was tightly clasped between her teeth as she stoodcontemplating her heavily beaded little moccasin, awaiting theexplanation of this, to her, extraordinary performance. 

"What is your name, little sister?" asked Dick in Cree. 

She dropped her head lower, but glanced from the corner of her eye atthe questioner. 

"Answer!" commanded Haukemah. 

"May-may-gwán, " she replied in a low voice. 

"Oh, yes, " said Dick, in English. "You're an Ojibway, " he went on inCree. 

"Yes. "

"That explains why you're such a tearing little beauty, " muttered theyoung man, again in English. 

"The old-men, " he resumed, in Cree, "have given me this robe. Because Ihold it very dear I wish to give it to that people whom I hold dearest. That people is the Crees of Rupert's House. And because you are thefairest, I give you this robe so that there may be peace between yourpeople and me. "

Ill-expressed as this little speech was, from the flowery standpoint ofIndian etiquette, nevertheless its subtlety gained applause. The Indiansgrunted deep ejaculations of pleasure. "Good boy!" muttered Sam Bolton, pleased. 

Dick lifted the robe and touched it to the girl's hand. She gasped insurprise, then slowly raised her eyes to his. 

"Damn if you ain't pretty enough to kiss!" cried Dick. 

[Illustration: "Pretty enough to kiss!" cried Dick]

He stepped across the robe, which had fallen between them, circled thegirl's upturned face with the flat of his hands, and kissed her full onthe lips. 

The kiss of ceremony is not unknown to the northern Indians, and eventhe kiss of affection sometimes to be observed among the moredemonstrative, but such a caress as Dick bestowed on May-may-gwán filledthem with astonishment. The girl herself, though she cried out, and ranto hide among those of her own sex, was not displeased; she rather likedit, and could not mis-read the admiration that had prompted it. Nor didthe other Indians really object. It was a strange thing to do, butperhaps it was a white man's custom. The affair might have blown awaylike a puff of gunpowder. 

But at the moment of Dick's salute, Sam Bolton cried out sharply behindhim. The young woodsman instantly whirled to confront the Chippewa. 

"He reached for his knife, " explained Sam. 

The ejaculation had also called the attention of every member of theband to the tableau. There could be absolutely no doubt as to itsmeaning, --the evident anger of the red, his attitude, his hand on thehaft of his knife. The Chippewa was fairly caught. 

He realised the fact, but his quick mind instantly turned the situationto his profit. Without attempting to alter the malice of his expression, he nevertheless dropped his hand from his knife-hilt, and straightenedhis figure to the grandiose attitude of the Indian orator. 

"This man speaks crooked words. I know the language of the saganash. Hetells my brothers that he gives this robe to May-may-gwán because heholds it the dearest of his possessions, and because his heart is goodtowards my brother's people. But to the other saganash he said thesewords: 'It is a little thing, and I do not wish to carry it. What shallI do with it?'"

He folded his arms theatrically. Dick Herron, his narrow eyes blazing, struck him full on the mouth a shoulder blow that sent him sprawlinginto the ashes by the fire. 

The Chippewa was immediately on his feet, his knife in his hand. Instinctively the younger Crees drew near to him. The old raceantagonism flashed forth, naturally, without the intervention ofreason. A murmur went up from the other bystanders. 

Sam Bolton arose quietly to take his place at Dick's elbow. As yet therewas no danger of violence, except from the outraged Chippewa. The Creeswere startled, but they had not yet taken sides. All depended on anintrepid front. For a moment they stared at one another, the Indiansuncertain, the Anglo-Saxons, as always, fiercely dominant in spirit, nomatter what the odds against them, as long as they are opposed to whatthey consider the inferior race. 

Then a flying figure glided to the two. May-may-gwán, palpitating withfear, thrust their rifles into the white men's hands, then took herstand behind them. 

But Haukemah interfered with all the weight of his authority. 

"Stop!" he commanded, sharply. "There is no need that friends shouldbear weapons. What are you doing, my young men? Do you judge thesesaganash without hearing what they have to say? Ask of them if what theChippewa says is true. "

"The robe is fine. I gave it for the reason I said, " replied Dick. 

The Cree young men, shaken from their instinctive opposition, sank back. It was none of their affair, after all, but a question of veracitybetween Dick and his enemy. And the Chippewa enjoyed none too good areputation. The swift crisis had passed. 

Dick laughed his boyish, reckless laugh. 

"Damn if I didn't pick out the old idiot's best girl!" he cried to hiscompanion; but the latter doubtfully shook his head. 

CHAPTER EIGHT

When next day the band resumed the journey, it became evident thatMay-may-gwán was to be punished for her demonstration of the nightbefore. Her place in the bow of old Moose Cow's canoe was taken by alittle girl, and she was left to follow as best she might on foot. 

The travel ashore was exceedingly difficult. A dense forest growth ofcedar and tamarack pushed to the very edge of the water, and the rareopen beaches were composed of smooth rocks too small to afford securefooting, and too large to be trodden under. The girl either slipped andstumbled on insecure and ankle-twisting shale, or forced a way throughthe awful tangle of a swamp. As the canoeing at this point was not atall difficult, her utmost efforts could not keep her abreast of thetravellers. 

Truth to tell May-may-gwán herself did not appear to consider that shewas hardly used. Indeed she let her hair down about her face, took offthe brilliant bits of color that had adorned her garments, and assumedthe regulation downcast attitude of a penitent. But Dick Herron wasindignant. 

"Look here, Sam, " said he, "this thing ain't right at all. She got intoall this trouble on our account, and we're riding canoe here slick ascarcajou in a pork cache while she pegs along afoot. Let's take heraboard. "

"Won't do, " replied Sam, briefly, "can't interfere. Let those Injuns runthemselves. They're more or less down on us as it is. "

"Oh, you're too slow!" objected Dick. "What the hell do we care for alot of copper-skins from Rupert's House! We ain't got anything to askfrom them but a few pairs of moccasins, and if they don't want to makethem for us, they can use their buckskin to tie up their sore heads!"

He thrust his paddle in close to the bow and twisted the canoe towardsshore. 

"Come on, Sam, " said he, "show your spunk!"

The older man said nothing. His steady blue eyes rested on hiscompanion's back not unkindly, although a frown knit the brows abovethem. 

"Come here, little sister, " cried Dick to the girl. 

She picked her way painfully through the scrub to the edge of the bank. 

"Get into the canoe, " commanded Dick. 

She drew back in deprecation. 

"Ka'-ka'win!" she objected, in very real terror. "The old-men havecommanded that I take the Long Way, and who am I that I should not obey?It cannot be. "

"Get in here, " ordered Dick, obstinately. 

"My brother is good to me, but I cannot, for the head men have ordered. It would go very hard with me, if I should disobey. "

"Oh, hell!" exploded petulant Dick in English, slamming his paddle downagainst the thwarts. 

He leaped ashore, picked the girl up bodily, threw her almost withviolence into the canoe, thrust the light craft into the stream, andresumed his efforts, scowling savagely. 

The girl dropped her face in her hands. When the white men's craftovertook the main band, she crouched still lower, shuddering under thegrim scrutiny of her people. Dick's lofty scorn looked neither to rightnor left, but paddled fiercely ahead until the Indians were well asternand hidden by the twists of the river. Sam Bolton proceeded serenely onin his accustomed way. 

Only, when the tribesmen had been left behind, he leaned forward andbegan to talk to the girl in low-voiced Ojibway, comforting her withmany assurances, as one would comfort a child. After a time she ceasedtrembling and looked up. But her glance made no account of the steady, old man who had so gently led her from her slough of despond, but restedon the straight, indignant back of the glorious youth who had cast herinto it. And Sam Bolton, knowing the ways of a maid, merely sighed, andresumed his methodical paddling. 

At the noon stop and on portage it was impossible to gauge the feelingof the savages in regard to the matter, but at night the sentiment wasstrongly enough marked. May-may-gwán herself, much to her surprise, wasno further censured, and was permitted to escape with merely the slightsand sneers the women were able to inflict on her. Perhaps her masters, possessed of an accurate sense of justice, realised that the latteraffair had not been her fault. Or, what is more likely, their raceantagonism, always ready in these fierce men of the Silent Places, seized instinctively on this excuse to burst into a definiteunfriendliness. The younger men drew frankly apart. The older made it apoint to sit by the white men's fire, but they conversed formally andwith many pauses. Day by day the feeling intensified. A strong wind hadfollowed from the north for nearly a week, and so, of course, they hadseen no big game, for the wary animals scented them long before theycame in sight. Meat began to run low. So large a community could notsubsist on the nightly spoils of the net and traps. The continuedill-luck was attributed to the visitors. Finally camp was made for a daywhile Crooked Nose, the best trailer and hunter of them all, went out toget a caribou. Dick, hoping thus to win a little good will, lent hisWinchester for the occasion. 

The Indian walked very carefully through the mossy woods until he cameupon a caribou trail still comparatively fresh. Nobody but Crooked Nosecould have followed the faint indications, but he did so, at firstrapidly, then more warily, finally at a very snail's pace. His progresswas noiseless. Such a difficult result was accomplished primarily by hisquickness of eye in selecting the spots on which to place his feet, andalso to a great extent by the fact that he held his muscles so pliantlytense that the weight of his body came down not all at once, but inincreasing pressure until the whole was supported ready for the nextstep. He _flowed_ through the woods. 

When the trail became fresh he often paused to scrutinise closely, tosmell, even to taste the herbage broken by the animal's hoofs. Once hestartled a jay, but froze into immobility before that watchman of thewoods had sprung his alarm. For full ten minutes the savage poisedmotionless. Then the bird flitted away, and he resumed his carefulstalk. 

It was already nearly noon. The caribou had been feeding slowly forward. Now he would lie down. And Crooked Nose knew very well that the animalwould make a little detour to right or left so as to be able to watchhis back track. 

Crooked Nose redoubled his scrutiny of the broken herbage. Soon he leftthe trail, moving like a spirit, noiselessly, steadily, but so slowlythat it would have required a somewhat extended observation to convinceyou that he moved at all. His bead-like black eyes roved here and there. He did not look for a caribou--no such fool he--but for a splotch ofbrown, a deepening of shadow, a contour of surface which long experiencehad taught him could not be due to the forest's ordinary play of lightand shade. After a moment his gaze centred. In the lucent, cool, greenshadow of a thick clump of moose maples he felt rather than discerned acertain warmth of tone. You and I would probably have missed the entireshadow. But Crooked Nose knew that the warmth of tone meant the brown ofhis quarry's summer coat. He cocked his rifle. 

But a caribou is a large animal, and only a few spots are fatal. CrookedNose knew better than to shoot at random. He whistled. 

The dark colour dissolved. There were no abrupt movements, no noises, but suddenly the caribou seemed to develop from the green shadow mist, to stand, his ears pricked forward, his lustrous eyes wide, his nostrilsquivering toward the unknown something that had uttered the sound. Itwas like magic. An animal was now where, a moment before, none hadbeen. 

Crooked Nose raised the rifle, sighted steadily at the shoulder, lowdown, and pulled the trigger. A sharp _click_ alone answered hisintention. Accustomed only to the old trade-gun, he had neglected tothrow down and back the lever which should lift the cartridge from themagazine. 

Instantly the caribou snorted aloud and crashed noisily away. A dozenlurking Canada jays jumped to the tops of spruces and began to scream. Red squirrels, in all directions, alternately whirred their rattles andchattered in an ecstasy of rage. The forest was alarmed. 

Crooked Nose glanced at the westering sun, and set out swiftly in adirect line for the camp of his companions. Arrived there he marchedtheatrically to the white men, cast the borrowed rifle at their feet, and returned to the side of the fire, where he squatted impassively onhis heels. The hunt had failed. 

All the rest of the afternoon the men talked sullenly together. Therecould be no doubt that trouble was afoot. Toward night some of theyounger members grew so bold as to cast fierce looks in the directionof the white visitors. 

Finally late in the evening old Haukemah came to them. For some time hesat silent and grave, smoking his pipe, and staring solemnly into thecoals. 

"Little Father, " said he at last, "you and I are old men. Our blood iscool. We do not act quickly. But other men are young. Their blood is hotand swift, and it is quick to bring them spirit-thoughts[4]. They sayyou have made the wind, kee-way-din, the north wind, to blow so that wecan have no game. They say you conjured Crooked Nose so that he broughtback no caribou, although he came very near it. They say, too, that youseek a red man to do him a harm, and their hearts are evil toward you onthat account. They say you have made the power of the old-men asnothing, for what they commanded you denied when you brought our littlesister in your canoe. I know nothing of these things, except the last, which was foolishness in the doing, " the old man glanced sharply atDick, puffed on his nearly extinguished pipe until it was well alight, and went on. "My brothers say they are looking places for winter posts;I believe them. They say their hearts are kind toward my people; Ibelieve them. Kee-way-din, the north wind, has many times before blownup the river, and Crooked Nose is a fool. My heart is good toward you, but it is not the heart of my young men. They murmur and threaten. Hereour trails fork. My brothers must go now their own way. "

[Footnote 4: Fancies. ]

"Good, " replied Sam, after a moment. "I am glad my brother's heart isgood toward me, and I know what young men are. We will go. Tell youryoung men. "

An expression of relief overspread Haukemah's face. Evidently the crisishad been more grave than he had acknowledged. He thrust his hand insidehis loose capote and brought forth a small bundle. 

"Moccasins, " said he. 

Sam looked them over. They were serviceable, strong deerskin, with hightops of white linen cloth procured at the Factory, without decorationsave for a slender line of silk about the tongue. Something approachinga smile flickered over old Haukemah's countenance as he fished out ofhis side pocket another pair. 

"For Eagle-eye, " he said, handing them to Dick. The young man had gainedthe sobriquet, not because of any remarkable clarity of vision, but fromthe peculiar aquiline effect of his narrow gaze. 

The body of the moccasins were made of buckskin as soft as silk, smokedto a rich umber. The tops were of fawnskin, tanned to milky white. Wherethe two parts joined, the edges had been allowed to fall half over thefoot in an exaggerated welt, lined brilliantly with scarlet silk. Theornamentation was heavy and elaborate. Such moccasins often consume, inthe fashioning, the idle hours of months. The Indian girl carries themwith her everywhere, as her more civilised sister carries an embroideryframe. On dress occasions in the Far North a man's standing with hiswomenkind can be accurately gauged by the magnificence of his foot-gear. 

"The gift of May-may-gwán, " explained Haukemah. 

"Well, I'll be damned!" said Dick, in English. 

"Will my brother be paid in tea or in tobacco?" inquired Sam Bolton. 

Haukemah arose. 

"Let these remind you always that my heart is good, " said he. "I maytell my young men that you go?"

"Yes. We are grateful for these. "

"Old fellow's a pretty decent sort, " remarked Dick, after Haukemah hadstalked away. 

"There couldn't anything have happened better for us!" cried Sam. "HereI was wondering how we could get away. It wouldn't do to travel withthem much longer, and it wouldn't do to quit them without a good reason. I'm mighty relieved to get shut of them. The best way over into theKabinakágam is by way of a little creek the Injuns call theMattawishguia, and that ought to be a few hours ahead of us now. " Hemight have added that all these annoyances, which he was so carefullydiscounting, had sprung from Dick's thoughtlessness; but he was silent, sure of the young man's value when the field of his usefulness should bereached. 

CHAPTER NINE

Dick Herron and Sam Bolton sat on the trunk of a fallen tree. It was dimmorning. Through the haze that shrouded the river figures moved. Occasionally a sharp sound eddied the motionless silence--a paddledropped, the prow of a canoe splashed as it was lifted to the water, thetame crow uttered a squawk. Little by little the groups dwindled. Invisible canoes were setting out, beyond the limits of vision. Soonthere remained but a few scattered, cowled figures, the last womenhastily loading their craft that they might not be left behind. Nowthese, too, thrust through the gray curtain of fog. The white men werealone. 

With the passing of the multitude once again the North came close. Spying on the deserted camp an hundred smaller woods creatures fearfullyapproached, bright-eyed, alert, ready to retreat, but eager toinvestigate for scraps of food that might have been left. Squirrelspoised in spruce-trees, leaped boldly through space, or hurried acrosslittle open stretches of ground. Meat-hawks, their fluffy plumagesmoothed to alertness, swooped here and there. Momentary and hastyscurryings in the dead leaves attested the presence of other animals, faint chirpings and rustlings the presence of other birds, followingthese their most courageous foragers. In a day the Indian camp wouldhave taken on the character of the forest; in a month, an ancient ruin, it would have fitted as accurately with its surroundings as an acorn inthe cup. 

Now the twisted vapours drained from among the tree-trunks into theriver bed, where it lay, not more than five feet deep, accuratelymarking the course of the stream. The sun struck across the tops of thetrees. A chickadee, upside down in bright-eyed contemplation, utteredtwo flute-notes. Instantly a winter-wren, as though at a signal, wentinto ecstatic ravings. The North was up and about her daily business. 

Sam Bolton and Dick finally got under way. After an hour they arrivedopposite the mouth of a tributary stream. This Sam announced as theMattawishguia. Immediately they turned to it. 

The Mattawishguia would be variously described; in California as ariver, in New England as a brook, in Superior country as a trout stream. It is an hundred feet wide, full of rapids, almost all fast water, and, except in a few still pools, from a foot to two feet deep. The bottom isof round stones. 

Travel by canoe in such a stream is a farce. The water is too fast topole against successfully more than half the time; the banks are tooovergrown for tracking with the tow-line. About the only system is toget there in the best way possible. Usually this meant that Dick wadedat the bow and Sam at the stern, leaning strongly against the current. Bowlders of all sorts harassed the free passage, stones rolled under thefeet, holes of striking unexpectedness lay in wait, and the water wasicy cold. Once in a while they were able to paddle a few hundred feet. Then both usually sat astride the ends of the canoe, their legs hangingin the water in order that the drippings might not fall inside. As thiswas the early summer, they occasionally kicked against trees to driveenough of the numbness from their legs so that they could feel thebottom. 

It was hard work and cold work and wearing, for it demanded its exacttoll for each mile, and was as insistent for the effort at weary nightas at fresh morning. 

Dick, in the vigour of his young strength, seemed to like it. Theleisure of travel with the Indians had barely stretched his muscles. Here was something against which he could exert his utmost force. Herejoiced in it, taking great lungfuls of air, bending his shoulders, breaking through these outer defences of the North with wantonexuberance, blind to everything, deaf to everything, oblivious of allother mental and physical sensations except the delight of applying hisskill and strength to the subduing of the stream. 

But Sam, patient, uncomplaining, enduring, retained still the broaderoutlook. He, too, fought the water and the cold, adequately andstrongly, but it was with the unconsciousness of long habit. His mindrecognised the Forest as well as the Stream. The great physical thrillover the poise between perfect health and the opposing of difficultieshe had left behind him with his youth; as indeed he had, in a lessersense, gained with his age an indifference to discomfort. He wascognisant of the stillness of the woods, the presence of the birds andbeasts, the thousand subtleties that make up the personality of thegreat forest. 

And with the strange sixth sense of the accustomed woodsman Sam felt, asthey travelled, that something was wrong. The impression did not come tohim through any of the accustomed channels. In fact, it hardly reachedhis intellect as yet. Through long years his intuitions had adaptedthemselves to their environment. The subtle influences the forest alwaysdisengaged found in the delicately attuned fibres of his being thatwhich vibrated in unison with them. Now this adjustment was in some waydisturbed. To Sam Bolton the forest was _different_, and this made himuneasy without his knowing why. From time to time he stopped suddenly, every nerve quivering, his nostrils wide, like some wild thing alert fordanger. And always the other five senses, on which his mind depended, denied the sixth. Nothing stirred but the creatures of the wilderness. 

Yet always the impression persisted. It was easily put to flight, andyet it always returned. Twice, while Dick rested in the comfort oftobacco, Sam made long detours back through the woods, looking forsomething, he knew not what; uneasy, he knew not why. Always he foundthe forest empty. Everything, well ordered, was in its accustomed place. He returned to the canoe, shaking his head, unable to rid himself of thesensation of something foreign to the established order of things. 

At noon the men drew ashore on a little point of rock. There they boiledtea over a small fire, and ate the last of their pilot's bread, togetherwith bacon and the cold meat of partridges. By now the sun was high andthe air warm. Tepid odours breathed from the forest, and the songs offamiliar homely birds. Little heated breezes puffed against thetravellers' cheeks. In the sun's rays their garments steamed and theirmuscles limbered. 

Yet even here Sam Bolton was unable to share the relaxation of mind andbody his companion so absolutely enjoyed. Twice he paused, foodsuspended, his mouth open, to listen intently for a moment, then tofinish carrying his hand to his mouth with the groping of vagueperplexity. Once he arose to another of his purposeless circles throughthe woods. Dick paid no attention to these things. In the face ofdanger his faculties would be as keenly on the stretch as his comrade's;but now, the question one merely of difficult travel, the responsibilitydelegated to another, he bothered his head not at all, but like a goodlieutenant left everything to his captain, half closed his eyes, andwatched the smoke curl from his brier pipe. 

When evening fell the little fish-net was stretched below a chute ofwater, the traps set, snares laid. As long as these means sufficed for afood supply, the ammunition would be saved. Wet clothes were hung at arespectful distance from the blaze. 

Sam was up and down all night, uncomfortable, indefinitely groping forthe influence that unsettled his peace of mind. The ghost shadows in thepines; the pattering of mysterious feet; the cries, loud and distant, orfaint and near; the whisperings, whistlings, sighings, or crashes; allthe thousand ethereal essences of day-time noises that go to make up theNight and her silences--these he knew. What he did not know, could notunderstand, was within himself. What he sought was that thing in Naturewhich should correspond. 

The next day at noon he returned to Dick after a more than usually longexcursion, carrying some object. He laid it before his companion. Theobject proved to be a flat stone; and on the flat stone was the wetprint of a moccasin. 

"We're followed, " he said, briefly. 

Dick seized the stone and examined it closely. 

"It's too blurred, " he said, at last; "I can't make it out. But th' manwho made that track wasn't far off. Couldn't you make trail of him? Hemust have been between you an' me when you found this rock. "

"No, " Sam demurred, "he wasn't. This moccasin was pointed down stream. He heard me, and went right on down with th' current. He's sticking tothe water all the way so as to leave no trail. "

"No use trying to follow an Injun who knows you're after him, " agreedDick. 

"It's that Chippewa, of course, " proffered Sam. "I always was doubtfulof him. Now he's followin' us to see what we're up to. Then, he ain'tany too friendly to you, Dick, 'count of that scrap and th' girl. But Idon't think that's what he's up to--not yet, at least. I believe he'ssome sort of friend or kin of that Jingoss, an' he wants to make surethat we're after him. "

"Why don't he just ambush us, then, an' be done with it?" asked Dick. 

"Two to one, " surmised Bolton, laconically. "He's only got atrade-gun--one shot. But more likely he thinks it ain't going to do himmuch good to lay us out. More men would be sent. If th' Company's reallyafter Jingoss, the only safe thing for him is a warning. But his frienddon't want to get him out of th' country on a false alarm. "

"That's so, " said Dick. 

They talked over the situation, and what was best to be done. 

"He don't know yet that we've discovered him, " submitted Sam. "Myscouting around looked like huntin', and he couldn't a seen me pick upthat stone. We better not try to catch him till we can make _sure_. He'sgot to camp somewheres. We'll wait till night. Of course he'll get awayfrom th' stream, and he'll cover his trail. Still, they's a moon. Idon't believe anybody could do it but you, Dick. If you don't make her, why there ain't nothing lost. We'll just have to camp down here an' goto trapping until he gets sick of hanging around. "

So it was agreed. Dick, under stress of danger, was now a changed man. What he lacked in experience and the power to synthesise, he more thanmade up in the perfection of his senses and a certain natural instinctof the woods. He was a better trailer than Sam, his eyesight was keener, his hearing more acute, his sense of smell finer, his every nerve aliveand tingling in vibrant unison with the life about him. Where Samlaboriously arrived by the aid of his forty years' knowledge, theyounger man leaped by the swift indirection of an Indian--or a woman. Had he only possessed, as did Bolton, a keen brain as well as keenhigher instincts, he would have been marvellous. 

The old man sat near the camp-fire after dark that night sure thatHerron was even then conducting the affair better than he could havedone himself. He had confidence. No faintest indication, --even in theuncertainty of moonlight through the trees, --that a man had left theriver would escape the young man's minute inspection. And in the searchno twig would snap under those soft-moccasined feet; no betrayingmotion of brush or brake warn the man he sought. Dick's woodcraft ofthat sort was absolute; just as Sam Bolton's woodcraft also wasabsolute--of its sort. It might be long, but the result wascertain, --unless the Indian himself suspected. 

Dick had taken his rifle. 

"You know, " Sam reminded him, significantly, "we don't really need thatInjun. "

"I know, " Dick had replied, grimly. 

Now Sam Bolton sat near the fire waiting for the sound of a shot. Fromtime to time he spread his gnarled, carved-mahogany hands to the blaze. Under his narrow hat his kindly gray-blue eyes, wrinkled at the cornerswith speculation and good humour, gazed unblinking into the light. Asalways he smoked. 

Time went on. The moon climbed, then descended again. Finally it shonealmost horizontally through the tree-trunks, growing larger and largeruntil its field was crackled across with a frostwork of twigs andleaves. By and by it reached the edge of a hill-bank, visible through anopening, and paused. It had become huge, gigantic, big with mystery. Awolf sat directly before it, silhouetted sharply. Presently he raisedhis pointed nose, howling mournfully across the waste. 

The fire died down to coals. Sam piled on fresh wood. It hissedspitefully, smoked voluminously, then leaped into flame. The oldwoodsman sat as though carved from patience, waiting calmly the issue. 

Then through the shadows, dancing ever more gigantic as they became moredistant, Sam Bolton caught the solidity of something moving. The objectwas as yet indefinite, mysterious, flashing momentarily into view andinto eclipse as the tree-trunks intervened or the shadows flickered. Thewoodsman did not stir; only his eyes narrowed with attention. Then abranch snapped, noisy, carelessly broken. Sam's expectancy flagged. Whoever it was did not care to hide his approach. 

But in a moment the watcher could make out that the figures were two;one erect and dominant, the other stooping in surrender. Sam could notunderstand. A prisoner would be awkward. But he waited without a motion, without apparent interest, in the indifferent attitude of thewoods-runner. 

Now the two neared the outer circle of light; they stepped within it;they stopped at the fire's edge. Sam Bolton looked up straight into theface of Dick's prisoner. 

It was May-may-gwán, the Ojibway girl. 

CHAPTER TEN

Dick pulled the girl roughly to the fireside, where he dropped her arm, leaving her downcast and submissive. He was angry all through with thepowerless rage of the man whose attentions a woman has taken moreseriously than he had intended. Suddenly he was involved more deeplythan he had meant. 

"Well, what do you think of that?" he cried. 

"What you doing here?" asked Sam in Ojibway, although he knew what theanswer would be. 

She did not reply, however. 

"Hell!" burst out Dick. 

"Well, keep your hair on, " advised Sam Bolton, with a grin. "Youshouldn't be so attractive, Dicky. "

The latter growled. 

"Now you've got her, what you going to do with her?" pursued the olderman. 

"Do with her?" exploded Dick; "what in hell do you mean? I don't wanther; she's none of my funeral. She's got to go back, of course. "

"Oh, sure!" agreed Sam. "She's got to go back. Sure thing! It's only twodays down stream, and then the Crees would have only four days' startand getting farther every minute. A mere ten days in the woods withoutan outfit. Too easy; especially for a woman. But of course you'll giveher your outfit, Dick. "

He mused, gazing into the flames, his eyes droll over this newcomplication introduced by his thoughtless comrade. 

"Well, we can't have her with us, " objected Dick, obstinately. "She'dhinder us, and bother us, and get in our way, and we'd have to feedher--we may have to starve ourselves;--and she's no damn _use_ to us. She can't go. I won't have it; I didn't bargain to lug a lot of squawsaround on this trip. She came; I didn't ask her to. Let her get out ofit the best way she can. She's an Injun. She can make it all rightthrough the woods. And if she has a hard time, she _ought_ to. "

"Nice mess, isn't it, Dick?" grinned the other. 

"No mess about it. I haven't anything to do with such a fool trick. Whatdid she expect to gain tagging us through the woods that way half a mileto the rear? She was just waiting 'till we got so far away from th'Crees that we couldn't send her back. I'll fool her on that, damn her!"He kicked a log back into place, sending the sparks eddying. 

"I wonder if she's had anything to eat lately?" said Bolton. 

"I don't care a damn whether she has or not, " said Dick. 

"Keep your hair on, my son, " advised Sam again. "You're hot because youthought you'd got shut of th' whole affair, and now you find youhaven't. "

"You make me sick, " commented Dick. 

"Mebbe, " admitted the woodsman. He fell silent, staring straight beforehim, emitting short puffs from his pipe. The girl stood where she hadbeen thrust. 

"I'll start her back in the morning, " proffered Dick after a fewmoments. Then, as this elicited no remark, "We can stock her up withjerky, and there's no reason she shouldn't make it. " Sam remained grimlysilent. "Is there?" insisted Dick. He waited a minute for a reply. Then, as none came, "Hell!" he exclaimed, disgustedly, and turned awayto sit on a log the other side of the fire with all the petulance of achild. 

"Now look here, Sam, " he broke out, after an interval. "We might as wellget at this thing straight. We can't keep her with us, now, can we?"

Sam removed his pipe, blew a cloud straight before him, and replaced it. 

Dick reddened slowly, got up with an incidental remark about damn fools, and began to spread his blankets beneath the lean-to shelter. Hemuttered to himself, angered at the dead opposition of circumstancewhich he could not push aside. Suddenly he seized the girl again by thearm. 

"Why you come?" he demanded in Ojibway. "Where you get your blankets?Where you get your grub? How you make the Long Trail? What you do whenwe go far and fast? What we do with you now?" Then meeting nothing butthe stolidity with which the Indian always conceals pain, he flung heraside. "Stupid owl!" he growled. 

He sat on the ground and began to take off his moccasins withostentatious deliberation, abruptly indifferent to it all. Slowly heprepared for the night, yawning often, looking at the sky, arranging thefire, emphasising and delaying each of his movements as though to proveto himself that he acknowledged only the habitual. At last he turned in, his shoulder thrust aggressively toward the two motionless figures bythe fire. 

It was by now close to midnight. The big moon had long since slippedfrom behind the solitary wolf on the hill. Yet Sam Bolton made no movetoward his blankets, and the girl did not stir from the downcastattitude into which she had first fallen. The old woodsman looked at thesituation with steady eyes. He realised to the full what Dick Herron'sthoughtlessness had brought on them. A woman, even a savage woman inuredto the wilderness, was a hindrance. She could not travel as fast nor asfar; she could not bear the same burdens, endure the same hardship; shewould consume her share of the provisions. And before this expeditioninto the Silent Places should be finished the journeying might requirethe speed of a course after quarry, the packing would come finally tothe men's back, the winter would have to be met in the open, and theNorth, lavish during these summer months, sold her sustenance dear whenthe snows fell. The time might come when these men would have to arm forthe struggle. Cruelty, harshness, relentlessness, selfishness, singleness of purpose, hardness of heart they would have perforce toassume. And when they stripped for such a struggle, Sam Bolton knew thatamong other things this woman would have to go. If the need arose, shewould have to die; for this quest was greater than the life of any womanor any man. Would it not be better to send her back through certainhardship now, rather than carry her on to a possible death in the WhiteSilence. For the North as yet but skirmished. Her true power lay behindthe snows and the ice. 

The girl stood in the same attitude. Sam Bolton spoke to her. 

"May-may-gwán. "

"Little Father. "

"Why have you followed us?"

The girl did not reply. 

"Sister, " said the woodsman, kindly, "I am an old man. You have calledme Father. Why have you followed us?"

"I found Jibiwánisi good in my sight, " she said, with a simple dignity, "and he looked on me. "

"It was a foolish thing to do. "

"Ae, " replied the girl. 

"He does not wish to take you in his wigwam. "

"Eagle-eye is angry now. Anger melts under the sun. "

"I do not think his will. "

"Then I will make his fire and his buckskin and cook his food. "

"We go on a long journey. "

"I will follow. "

"No, " replied the woodsman, abruptly, "we will send you back. "

The girl remained silent. 

"Well?" insisted Bolton. 

"I shall not go. "

A little puzzled at this insistence, delivered in so calm a manner, Samhesitated as to what to say. Suddenly the girl stepped forward to facehim. 

"Little Father, " she said, solemnly, "I cannot go. Those are not mypeople. I do not know my people. My heart is not with them. My heart ishere. Little Father, " she went on, dropping her voice, "it is here, here, here!" she clasped her breast with both hands. "I do not know howit is. There is a pain in my breast, and my heart is sad with the wordsof Eagle-eye. And yet here the birds sing and the sun is bright. Awayfrom here it is dark. That is all I know. I do not understand it, LittleFather. My heart is here. I cannot go away. If you drive me out, I shallfollow. Kill me, if you wish, Little Father; I do not care for that. Ishall not hinder you on the Long Trail. I shall do many things. When Icannot travel fast enough, then leave me. My heart is here; I cannot goaway. " She stopped abruptly, her eyes glowing, her breath short with thequivering of passion. Then all at once her passivity fell on her. Shestood, her head downcast, patient, enduring, bending to circumstancemeekly as an Indian woman should. 

Sam Bolton made no reply to this appeal. He drew his sheath-knife, cutin two the doubled three-point blanket, gave one of the halves to thegirl, and indicated to her a place under the shelter. In the firelighthis face hardened as he cast his mind again over the future. He had notsolved the problem, only postponed it. In the great struggle women wouldhave no place. 

At two o'clock, waking in the manner of woodsmen and sailors the worldover, he arose to replenish the fire. He found it already bright withnew fuel, and the Indian girl awake. She lay on her side, the blanketabout her shoulders, her great wistful eyes wide open. A flame shot intothe air. It threw a momentary illumination into the angles of theshelter, discovering Dick, asleep in heavy exhaustion, his right forearmacross his eyes. The girl stole a glance at Sam Bolton. Apparently hewas busy with the fire. She reached out to touch the young man'sblanket. 

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Dick was afoot after a few hours' sleep. He aroused Sam and went aboutthe preparation of breakfast. May-may-gwán attempted to help, but bothshe and her efforts were disregarded. She brought wood, but Dick rustleda supply just the same, paying no attention to the girl's little pile;she put on fresh fuel, but Dick, without impatience, --indeed, as thoughhe were merely rearranging the fire, --contrived to undo her work; shebrought to hand the utensils, but Dick, in searching for them, alwayslooked where they had originally been placed. His object seemed not somuch to thwart the girl as to ignore her. When breakfast was ready hedivided it into two portions, one of which he ate. After the meal hewashed the few dishes. Once he took a cup from the girl's hand as shewas drying it, much as he would have taken it from the top of a stump. He then proceeded to clean it as though it had just been used. 

May-may-gwán made no sign that she noticed these things. After a littleshe helped Sam roll the blankets, strike the shelter, construct thepacks. Here her assistance was accepted, though Sam did not address her. After a few moments the start was made. 

The first few hours were spent as before, wading the stream. As shecould do nothing in the water, May-may-gwán kept to the woods, walkingstolidly onward, her face to the front, expressionless, hiding whateverpain she may have felt. This side of noon, however, the travellers cameto a cataract falling over a fifty-foot ledge into a long, cliff-bordered pool. 

It became necessary to portage. The hill pinched down steep and close. There existed no trails. Dick took the little camp axe to find a way. Heclambered up one after the other three ravines--grown with brush andheavy ferns, damp with a trickle of water, --always to be stopped nearthe summit by a blank wall impossible to scale. At length he found apassage he thought might be practicable. Thereupon he cut a canoe trailback to the water-side. 

In clearing this trail his attention turned to making room for a canoeon a man's back. Therefore the footing he bothered with not at all. Saplings he clipped down by bending them with the left hand, andstriking at the strained fibres where they bowed. A single blow wouldthus fell treelets of some size. When he had finished his work thereresulted a winding, cylindrical hole in the forest growth some threefeet from the ground. Through this cylinder the canoe would be passedwhile its bearer picked a practised way among slippery rocks, old stubs, new sapling stumps, and undergrowth below. Men who might, in lateryears, wish to follow this Indian trail, would look not for footprintsbut for waist-high indications of the axe. 

When the canoe had been carried to the top of the bluff that marked thewater-fall, it was relaunched in a pool. In the meantime May-may-gwán, who had at last found a use for her willingness, carried the packs. Dickre-embarked. His companion perceived that he intended to shove off assoon as the other should have taken his place. Sam frustrated that, however, by holding fast to the gunwale. May-may-gwán stepped inamidships, with a half-deprecating glance at the young man's inscrutableback. At the end of the brief paddling the upper pool allowed them, shewas first ashore. 

Late that afternoon the travel for a half mile became exceedinglydifficult. The stream took on the character of a mountain brook. Ithardly paid to float the canoe in the tiny holes among the rocks, miniature cascades, and tortuous passages. The forest grew to the verybanks, and arched over to exclude the sun. Every few feet was to beavoided a tree, half clinging to the bank, leaning at a perilous slantout over the creek. Fortunately the spring freshets in this country ofthe great snows were powerful enough to sweep out the timber actuallyfallen, so the course of the stream itself was clear of jams. At lengththe travellers reached a beaver-dam, and so to a little round lake amongthe hills. They had come to the head waters of the Mattawishguia. 

In the lake stood two moose, old and young. Dick succeeded in killingthe yearling, though it took two shots from his Winchester. It wasdecided to camp here over one day in order that the meat might besaved. 

A circle of hills surrounded the little body of water. On them grewmaples and birches, among which scattered a few hemlocks and anoccasional pine. At the edge of the water were cedars leaning out tolook at their reflections. A deep and solemn peace seemed to brood overthe miniature lake. Such affairs as bird songs, the slap of a paddle, the shots from Dick's rifle could not break this strange stillness. Theyspoke hastily, and relapsed to silence, like the rare necessary voicesin a room where one lies dead. The hush, calm and primal, with theinfinity of the wilderness as its only measure of time, took no accountof the shock of a second's interruption. Two loons swam like ghosts. Everywhere and nowhere among the trees, in the hills, over the water, the finer senses were almost uneasily conscious of a vast and awfulpresence. It was as yet aloof, unheeding, buddhistic, brooding innirvanic calm, still unawakened to put forth the might of itsdispleasure. Under its dreaming eyes men might, fearfully and withreverence, carry on their affairs, --fearfully and with reverence, catching the breath, speaking low, growing silent and stern in thepresence of the North. 

At the little camp under the cedars, Dick Herron and Sam Bolton, assisted by the Ojibway girl, May-may-gwán, cut the moose-meat into thinstrips, salted, and dried it in the bright sun. And since the presenceof loons argued fish, they set their nets and lines. Several days thuspassed. 

In their relations the three promptly settled back into a species ofroutine. Men who travel in the Silent Places speedily take on the colourof their surroundings. They become silent also. A band of voyageurs ofsufficient strength may chatter and sing; they have by the very force ofnumbers created an atmosphere of their own. But two are not enough forthis. They have little to say, for their souls are laved by the greatnatural forces. 

Dick Herron, even in ordinary circumstances, withdrew rather grimly intohimself. He looked out at things from beneath knit brows; he held hiselbows close to his sides, his fists clenched, his whole spiritual beingself-contained and apart, watchful for enmity in what he felt but couldnot understand. But to this, his normal habit, now was added asullenness almost equally instinctive. In some way he felt himselfaggrieved by the girl's presence. At first it was merely the naturalrevolt of a very young man against assuming responsibility he had notinvited. The resulting discomfort of mind, however, he speedily assignedto the girl's account. He continued, as at first, to ignore her. But inthe slow rumination of the forest he became more and more irritablysensible of her presence. Sam's taciturnity was contrastedly sunny andopen. He looked on things about him with the placid receptivity of anold man, and said nothing because there was nothing to say. The Ojibwaygirl remained inscrutable, helping where she could, apparently desirousof neither praise nor blame. 

At the end of three days the provisions were ready. There had resultedperhaps sixty pounds of "jerky. " It now became necessary to leave thewater-way, and to strike directly through the forest, over the hills, and into the country of the Kabinikágam. 

Dick shouldered a thirty-pound pack and the canoe. Sam Bolton and thegirl managed the remainder. Every twenty minutes or so they would rest, sinking back against the trunks of trees, mossy stones, or a bank of newferns. The forest was open and inexpressibly lofty. Moose maples, youngbirches, and beeches threw their coolness across the face, then abovethem the columns of the trunks, then far up in green distance the leavesagain, like the gold-set roof of a church. The hill mounted alwaysbefore them. Ancient rocks hoary with moss, redolent of dampness, stoodlike abandoned altars given over to decay. A strange, sweet windfreighted with stray bird-notes wandered aimlessly. 

Nothing was said. Dick led the way and set the intervals of thecarrying. When he swung the canoe from his shoulders the others slippedtheir tump-lines. Then all rubbed their faces with the broadcaribou-leaf to keep off the early flies, and lay back, arms extended, breathing deep, resting like boxers between the rounds. Once at the topof the ridge Dick climbed a tree. He did this, not so much inexpectation of seeing the water-courses themselves, as to judge by thegeneral lay of the country where they might be found. 

In a bare open space under hemlocks Sam indicated a narrow, high, littlepen, perhaps three feet long by six inches wide, made of cut saplings. Dick examined it. 

"Marten deadfall, " he pronounced. "Made last winter. Somebody's beentrapping through here. "

After a time a blaze on a tree was similarly remarked. Then thetravellers came to a tiny creek, which, being followed, soon debouchedinto a larger. This in turn became navigable, after the north-countryfashion. That is to say, the canoe with its load could much of the timebe floated down by the men wading in the bed of the creek. Finally Sam, who was in the lead, jerked his head toward the left bank. 

"Their winter camp, " said he, briefly. 

A dim trail led from the water to a sheltered knoll. There stood theframework of a pointed tepee, the long poles spread like fingers abovetheir crossing point. A little pile of gnawed white skulls of varioussizes represented at least a portion of the season's catch. Dick turnedthem over with his foot, identifying them idly. From the shelteredbranches of a near-by spruce hung four pairs of snow-shoes cached thereuntil the next winter. Sam gave his first attention to these. 

"A man, a woman, and two well-grown children, " he pronounced. He ran hishand over the bulging raquette with the long tail and the slightlyup-curved end. "Ojibway pattern, " he concluded. "Dick, we're in thefirst hunting district. Here's where we get down to business. "

He went over the ground twice carefully, examining the state of theoffal, the indications of the last fire. 

"They've been gone about six weeks, " he surmised. "If they ain't gonevisiting, they must be down-stream somewheres. These fellows don't getin to trade their fur 'till along about August. "

Two days subsequent, late in the afternoon, Dick pointed out what lookedto be a dark streak beneath a bowlder that lay some distance from thebanks on a shale bar. 

"What's that animal?" he asked. 

"Can't make her out, " said Bolton, after inspection. 

"Ninny-moosh, " said the Indian girl, indifferently. It was the firstword she had spoken since her talk with the older man. 

"It's a dog, all right, " conceded Sam. "She has sharp eyes. "

The animal rose and began to bark. Two more crashed toward him throughthe bushes. A thin stream of smoke disengaged itself from the tops ofthe forest trees. As they swept around the bend, the travellers saw aman contemplating them stolidly through a screen of leaves. 

The canoe floated on. About an hundred yards below the Indians Samordered a landing. Camp was made as usual. Supper was cooked. The firereplenished. Then, just before the late sunset of the Far North, thebushes crackled. 

"Now let me do the talking, " warned Sam. 

"All right. I'll just keep my eye on this, " Dick nodded toward the girl. "She's Ojibway, too, you know. She may give us away. "

"She can't only guess, " Sam reminded. "But there ain't any danger, anyway. "

The leaves parted. The Indian appeared, sauntering with elaboratecarelessness, his beady eyes shifting here and there in an attempt togather what these people might be about. 

"Bo' jou', bo' jou', " he greeted them. 

CHAPTER TWELVE

The Indian advanced silently to the fireside, where he squatted on hisheels. He filled a pipe, scraping the tobacco from the square plug Samextended to him. While he did this, and while he stuffed it into thebowl, his keen eyes shifted here and there, gathering the material forconclusions. 

Sam, watchful but also silent, could almost follow his mental processes. The canoe meant travel, the meagreness of the outfits either rapid orshort travel, the two steel traps travel beyond the sources of supply. Then inspection passed lightly over the girl and from her to the youngerman. With a flash of illumination Sam Bolton saw how valuable inallaying suspicion this evidence of a peaceful errand might prove to be. Men did not bring their women on important missions involving speed anddanger. 

Abruptly the Indian spoke, going directly to the heart of the matter, after the Indian fashion. 

"Where you from?"

"Winnipeg, " replied Sam, naming the headquarters of the Company. 

The direction of travel was toward Winnipeg. Sam was perfectly aware ofthe discrepancy, but he knew better than to offer gratuitousexplanation. The Indian smoked. 

"Where you come from now?" he inquired, finally. 

"Tschi-gammi[5]. "

[Footnote 5: Lake Superior. ]

This was understandable. Remained only the object of an expedition ofthis peculiar character. Sam Bolton knew that the Indian would satisfyhimself by surmises, --he would never apply the direct question to aman's affairs, --and surmise might come dangerously near the truth. So heproceeded to impart a little information in his own way. 

"You are the hunter of this district?" Sam asked. 

"Yes. "

"How far do you trap?"

The Indian mentioned creeks and rivers as his boundaries. 

"Where do you get your debt?"

"Missináibi. "

"That is a long trail. "

"Yes. "

"Do many take it each year?"

The Indian mentioned rapidly a dozen names of families. 

Sam at once took another tack. 

"I do not know this country. Are there large lakes?"

"There is Animiki. "

"Has it fish? Good wood?"

"Much wood. Ogâ[6], kinoj[7]. "

[Footnote 6: Pickerel. ]

[Footnote 7: Pike. ]

Sam paused. 

"Could a _brigade_ of canoes reach it easily?" he inquired. 

Now a _brigade_ is distinctly an institution of the Honourable theHudson's Bay Company. It is used for two purposes; to maintaincommunication with the outside world, and to establish winter camps inthe autumn or to break them up in the spring. At once the situationbecame clear. A gleam of comprehension flashed over the Indian's eyes. With the peculiar attention to detail distinctively the forest runner'she indicated a route. Sam was satisfied to let the matter rest there forthe present. 

The next evening he visited the Indian's camp. It was made under aspreading tree, the tepee poles partly resting against some of the lowerbranches. The squaw and her woman child kept to the shadows of thewigwam, but the boy, a youth of perhaps fifteen years, joined the men bythe fire. 

Sam accepted the hospitality of a pipe of tobacco, and attacked thequestion in hand from a ground tacitly assumed since the evening before. 

"If Hutsonbaycompany make winterpost on Animiki will you get your debtthere instead of Missináibie?" he asked first of all. 

Of course the Indian assented. 

"How much fur do you get, good year?"

The Indian rapidly ran over a list. 

"Lots of fur. Is it going to last? Do you keep district strict here?"inquired Sam. 

Under cover of this question Sam was feeling for important information. As has perhaps been mentioned, in a normal Indian community each head ofa family is assigned certain hunting districts over which he hasexclusive hunting and trapping privileges. This naturally tends towardpreservation of the fur. An Indian knows not only where each beaver damis situated, but he knows also the number of beaver it contains and howmany can be taken without diminution of the supply. If, however, theprivileges are not strictly guarded, such moderation does not obtain. When an Indian finds a dam, he cleans it out; because if he does not, the next comer will. Sam's question then apparently had reference onlyto the probability that the fur in a close district would be strictlyenough preserved to make the establishment of a winter post worth while. In reality he wanted to measure the possibility of an outsider's gaininga foothold. Logically in a section where the tribal rights were rigidlyheld to, this would be impossible except through friendship or purchase;while in a more loosely organized community a stranger might readilyinsinuate himself. 

"Good keeping of district, " replied the Indian. "I keep head-waters ofKabinikágam down to Sand River. When I find man trapping on my ground, Ishoot him. Fur last all right. "

This sufficed for the moment. The next morning Sam went over early tothe other camp. 

"To-day I think we go, " he announced. "Now you tell me all the hunters, where I find them, what are their districts, how much fur they kill. "

"Ah hah!" assented the Indian. Sam's leisurely and indirect method hadconvinced him. Easily given information on the other hand would have sethim to thinking; and to think, with an Indian, is usually to becomesuspicious. 

The two descended to the shore. There they squatted on their heelsbefore a little patch of wet sand while the Indian explained. He markedroughly, but with almost the accuracy of a survey, the courses ofstreams and hills, and told of the routes among them. Sam listened, hisgnarled mahogany hand across his mouth, his shrewd gray eyes bentattentively on the cabalistic signs and scratches. An Indian willremember, from once traversing it, not only the greater landmarks, butthe little incidents of bowlder, current, eddy, strip of woods, bend oftrail. It remains clear-cut in his mind forever after. The old woodsmanhad in his long experience acquired something of this faculty. Hecomprehended the details, and, what is more, stored them away in hismemory where he could turn to them readily. This was no small feat. 

With an abrupt movement of the back of his hand the Indian smoothed thesand. Squatting back more on his haunches, he refilled his pipe andbegan to tell of the trappers. In their description he referred alwaysto the map he had drawn on Bolton's imagination as though it hadactually lain spread out before them. Sam referred each name to itsdistrict, as you or I would write it across the section of a chart, andkept accurately in mind which squares of the invisible map had been thusassigned and which not. It was an extraordinary effort, but one notunusual among practised woods runners. This peculiarly minute andconcrete power of recollection is early developed in the wild life. 

The Indian finished. Sam remained a moment in contemplation. Thedistricts were all occupied, and the name of Jingoes did not appear. That was, however, a small matter. The Ojibway might well have changedhis name, or he might be paying for the privilege of hunting in anotherman's territory. A less experienced man would have been stronglytempted to the more direct question. But Sam knew that the faintest hintof ulterior motive would not be lost on the Indian's sharp perceptions. An inquiry, carelessly and indirectly made, might do no harm. But thenagain it might. And it was better to lose two years of time in thesearch than a single grain of confidence in those with whom the littleparty might come in contact. 

After all, Sam Bolton was well satisfied. He had, by his simplediplomacy, gained several valuable results. He had firmly convinced oneman of a common body, wherein news travels quickly, of his apparentintentions; he had, furthermore, an exact knowledge of where to findeach and every district head-man of the whole Kabinikágam country. Whether or not the man he sought would prove to be one of thesehead-men, or the guest or lessee of one of them, was a question only tobe answered by direct search. At least he knew where to search, whichwas a distinct and valuable advantage. 

"Mi-gwetch--thank you, " he said to the Indian when he had finished. "Iunderstand. I go now to see the Lake. I go to talk to each of yourhead-men. I go to see the trapping country with my own eyes. When Ihave seen all, I go to Winnipeg to tell my head-man what I have seen. "

The Indian nodded. It would have been quite inconceivable to him had Samsuggested accepting anything less than the evidence of his eyes. 

The three resumed their journey that afternoon. Sam knew exactly wherehe was going. Dick had fallen into a sullen yet rebellious mood, unaccountable even to himself. In his spirit was the ferment of aresentfulness absolutely without logical object. With such a man fermentdemands action. Here, in the accustomed labours of this woods travel, was nothing to bite on save monotony. Dick Herron resented the monotony, resented the deliberation necessary to so delicate a mission, resentedthe unvarying tug of his tump-line or the unchanging yield of the waterto his paddle, resented the placidity of the older man, above allresented the meek and pathetic submissiveness of the girl. His narroweyes concentrated their gaze ominously. He muttered to himself. Theuntrained, instinctive strength of the man's spirit fretted againstdelay. His enthusiasm, the fire of his hope, urged him to earn hisself-approval by great exertion. Great exertion was impossible. Always, day by day, night by night, he chafed at the snail-like pace with whichthings moved, chafed at the delay imposed by the nature of the quest, the policy of the old man, the presence of the girl. Only, in therudimentary processes of his intelligence, he confused the three in one, and the presence of the girl alone received the brunt of his sullendispleasure. In the splendour of his strength, head down, heart evil, restrained to a bitter obedience only by the knowledge that he could donothing alone, he broke through the opposing wilderness. 

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Sam Bolton gauged perfectly the spirit in his comrade, but paid itlittle attention. He knew it as a chemical reaction of a certain phaseof forest travel. It argued energy, determination, dogged pluck when theneed should arise, and so far it was good. The woods life affectsvarious men in various ways, but all in a manner peculiar to itself. Itis a reagent unlike any to be found in other modes of life. The momentits influence reaches the spirit, in that moment does the man changeutterly from the person he has been in other and ordinary surroundings;and the instant he emerges from its control he reverts to his accustomedbearing. But in the dwelling of the woods he becomes silent. It may bethe silence of a self-contained sufficiency; the silence of an equablemind; the silence variously of awe, even of fear; it may be the silenceof sullenness. This, as much as the vast stillness of the wilderness, has earned for the region its designation of the Silent Places. 

Nor did the older woodsman fear any direct results from the younger'svery real, though baseless, anger. These men were bound together bysomething stronger than any part of themselves. Over them stood theCompany, and to its commands all other things gave way. No matter howrebellious might be Dick Herron's heart, how ruffled the surface of hisdaily manner, Bolton knew perfectly well he would never for a singleinstant swerve in his loyalty to the main object of the expedition. Serene in this consciousness, the old woodsman dwelt in a certain sweetand gentle rumination of his own. Among the finer instincts of his beingmany subtle mysteries of the forest found their correspondences. Thefeeling of these satisfied him entirely, though of course he wasincapable of their intellectualisation. 

The days succeeded one another. The camps by the rivers or in the woodswere in essential all alike. The shelter, the shape, and size of thetiny clearing, the fire, the cooking utensils scattered about, the little articles of personal belonging were the same. Onlycertain details of surrounding differed, and they were not ofimportance, --birch-trees for poplars, cedar for both, a river bend tothe northwest instead of the southwest, still water for swift, a lowbank for a high; but always trees, water, bank, and the sky brilliantwith stars. After a little the day's progress became a myth, to beaccepted only by the exercise of faith. The forest was a great treadmillin which men toiled all day, only to be surrounded at night by the samegrandeurs and littlenesses they had that morning left. In the face ofthis apparent futility time blew vast. Years were as nothing measured bythe task of breaking through the enchanted web that enmeshed them. 

And yet all knew by experience, though no one of them could rise to arealisation of the fact, that some day their canoe would round the bendand they would find themselves somewhere. Then they could say tothemselves that they had arrived, and could tell themselves that betweenhere and their starting-point lay so many hundred miles. Yet in theirsecret hearts they would not believe it. They would know that in realityit lay but just around the corner. Only between were dream-days of theshifting forest heavy with toil. 

This is the enchantment the North lays on her children, so that whenthe toil oppresses them and death seems to win, they may not caregreatly to struggle, knowing that the struggle is vain. 

In the country of the Kabinikágam they visited thus many huntingdistricts. The travel neither hastened nor lagged. From time to time itwas necessary to kill, and then the meat must be cared for. Berries andwild rice were to be gathered. July drew near its end. 

Sam Bolton, knowing now the men with whom he had to deal, found nodifficulty in the exercise of his simple diplomacy. The Ojibwaydefaulter was not to be heard of, but every nook searched without resultnarrowed the remaining possibilities. Everything went well enough untillate one afternoon. 

The portage happened to lead above a narrow gorge over a rapids. Toaccomplish it the travellers had first to scale a steep little hill, then to skirt a huge rounded rock that overhung the gorge. The roughnessof the surface and the adhesive power of their moccasins alone held themto the slant. These were well sufficient. Unfortunately, however, Dick, without noticing it, had stepped into a little pool of water ondisembarking. Buckskin while dry is very adhesive; when wet veryslippery. As he followed Sam out on the curving cheek of the rock hisfoot slid, he lost his equilibrium, was on the edge of falling, overbalanced by the top-heavy pack he was carrying. Luckily Sam himselfwas portaging the canoe. Dick, with marvellous quickness, ducked loosefrom the tump-line. The pack bounded down the slant, fell with a splash, and was whirled away. With the impetus of the same motion the young mantwisted himself as violently as possible to regain his footing. He wouldprobably have succeeded had it not been for the Indian girl. She hadbeen following the two, a few steps in the rear. As Dick's foot turned, she slipped her own pack and sprang forward, reaching out her arm in thehope of steadying him. Unfortunately she did this only in time to get inthe way of the strong twist Dick made for recovery. The young mantottered for an instant on the very brink of saving himself, then gaveit up, and fell as loosely as possible into the current. 

May-may-gwán, aghast at what she had done, stood paralyzed, staring intothe gorge. Sam swung the canoe from his shoulders and ran on over thehill and down the other side. 

The Indian girl saw the inert body of the woodsman dashed down throughthe moil and water, now showing an arm, now a leg, only once, for asingle instant, the head. Twice it hit obstacles, limp as a sack offlour. Then it disappeared. 

Immediately she regained the use of her legs, and scrambled over thehill after Sam, her breath strangling her. She found below the rapids apool, and half in the water at its edge Dick seated, bruised and cut, spitting water, and talking excitedly to his companion. Instantly sheunderstood. The young woods runner, with the rare quickness of expedientpeculiar to these people, had allowed himself to be carried through therapids muscle-loose, as an inanimate object would be carried, without anattempt to help himself in any way. It was a desperate chance, but itwas the only chance. The slightest stiffening of the muscles, the leaststruggle would have thrown him out of the water's natural channelagainst the bowlders; and then a rigidly held body would have offeredonly too good a resistance to the shock. By a miracle of fortune he hadbeen carried through, bruised and injured, to be sure, but conscious. Sam had dragged him to the bush-grown bank. There he sat up in the waterand cleared his lungs. He was wildly excited. 

"She did it!" he burst Out, as soon as he could speak. "She did it apurpose! She reached out and pushed me! By God, there she is now!"

With the instinct of the hunter he had managed to cling to his rifle. Hewrenched at the magazine lever, throwing the muzzle forward for a shot, but it had been jammed, and he was unable to move it. "She reached outand pushed me! I felt her do it!" he cried. He attempted to rise, butfell back, groaning with a pain that kept him quiet for several moments. 

"Sam!" he muttered, "she's there yet. Kill her. Damn it, didn't you see!I had my balance again, and she pushed me! She had it in for me!" Hisface whitened for an instant as he moved, then flooded with a red anger. "My God!" he cried, in the anguish of a strong man laid low, "she'sbusted me all over!" He wrenched loose his shoulders from Sam's support, struggled to his knees, and fell back, a groan of pain seeming fairly toburst from his heart. His head hit sharply against a stone. He laystill. 

"May-may-gwán!" called Sam Bolton, sharply. 

She came at once, running eagerly, the paralysis of her distress brokenby his voice. Sam directed her by nods of the head. With some difficultythey carried the unconscious man to the flat and laid him down, his headon Sam's rolled coat. Then, while May-may-gwán, under his curtlydelivered directions, built a fire, heated water, carried down the tworemaining packs and opened them, Sam tenderly removed Dick's clothes, and examined him from head to foot. The cuts on the head were nothing toa strong man; the bruises less. Manipulation discovered nothing wrongwith the collar-bone and ribs. But at last Sam uttered a quickexclamation of discovery. 

Dick's right ankle was twisted strongly outward and back. 

An inexperienced man would have pronounced it a dislocation, but Samknew better. He knew better because just once, nearly fifteen yearsbefore, he had assisted Dr. Cockburn at Conjuror's House in the caringfor exactly such an accident. Now he stood for some moments in silencerecalling painfully each little detail of what he had observed and ofwhat the physician had told him. 

Rapidly by means of twigs and a tracing on the wet sand he explained toMay-may-gwán what was the matter and what was to be done. The fibula, orouter bone of the leg, had been snapped at its lower end just above theankle, the foot had been dislocated to one side, and either the innerligament of the ankle had given way, or--what would be more serious--oneof the ankle-bones itself had been torn. Sam Bolton realised fully thatit was advisable to work with the utmost rapidity, before the young manshould regain consciousness, in order that the reduction of the fracturemight be made while the muscles were relaxed. Nevertheless, he took timeboth to settle his own ideas, and to explain them to the girl. It wasthe luckiest chance of Dick Herron's life that he happened to betravelling with the one man who had assisted in the skilled treatment ofsuch a case. Otherwise he would most certainly have been crippled. 

Sam first of all pried from the inner construction of the canoe two orthree of the flat cedar strips used to reinforce the bottom. These helaid in several thicknesses to make a board of some strength. On theboard he folded a blanket in wedge form, the thick end terminatingabruptly three or four inches from the bottom. He laid aside severalbuckskin thongs, and set May-may-gwán to ripping bandages of sucharticles of clothing as might suit. 

Then he bent the injured leg at the knee. May-may-gwán held it in thatposition, while Sam manipulated the foot into what he judged to be theproper position. Especially did he turn the foot strongly inward thatthe inner ankle-bone might fall to its place. As to the final result heconfessed himself almost painfully in doubt, but did the best he knew. He remembered the post-surgeon's cunning comments, and tried to assurehimself that the fractured ends of the bones met each other fairly, without the intervention of tendons or muscle-covering, and that therewas no obstruction to the movements of the ankle. When he had finished, his brow was wrinkled with anxiety, but he was satisfied that he haddone to the limit of his knowledge. 

May-may-gwán now held the cedar board, with its pad, against the insideof the leg. Sam bound the thin end of the wedge-shaped blanket to theknee. Thus the thick end of the pad pressed against the calf just abovethe ankle, leaving the foot and the injured bone free of the board. Sampassed a broad buckskin thong about the ankle and foot in such a manneras to hold the foot from again turning out. Thus the fracture was fixedin place. The bandages were wound smoothly to hold everything secure. 

The two then, with the utmost precaution, carried their patient up thebank to a level space suitable for a camp, where he was laid as flat aspossible. The main business was done, although still there remainedcertain cuts and contusions, especially that on the forehead, which hadstunned him. 

After the reduction of the fracture, --which was actually consummatedbefore Dick regained his consciousness, --and the carrying of the youngman to the upper flat, Sam curtly instructed May-may-gwán to gatherbalsam for the dressing of the various severer bruises. She obtained thegum, a little at a time, from a number of trees. Here and there, wherethe bark had cracked or been abraded, hard-skinned blisters had exuded. These, when pricked, yielded a liquid gum, potent in healing. While shewas collecting this in a quickly fashioned birch-bark receptacle, Sammade camp. 

He realised fully that the affair was one of many weeks, if not ofmonths. On the flat tongue overlooking the river he cleared a widespace, and with the back of his axe he knocked the hummocks flat. Ascore or so of sapling poles he trimmed. Three he tied togethertripod-wise, using for the purpose a strip of the inner bark of cedar. The rest he leaned against these three. He postponed, until later, thestripping of birch-bark to cover this frame, and gave his attention tolaying a soft couch for Dick's convalescence. The foundation he made ofcaribou-moss, gathered dry from the heights; the top of balsam boughscleverly thatched so that the ends curved down and in, away from therecumbent body. Over all he laid what remained of his own half blanket. Above the bed he made a framework from which a sling would be hung tosuspend the injured leg. 

All this consumed not over twenty minutes. At the end of that time heglanced up to meet Dick's eyes. 

"Leg broke, " he answered the inquiry in them. "That's all. "

"That girl--, " began Dick. 

"Shut up!" said Sam. 

He moved here and there, constructing, by means of flat stones, a troughto be used as a cooking-range. At the edge of the clearing he met theIndian girl returning with her little birch-bark saucer. 

"Little Sister, " said he. 

She raised her eyes to him. 

"I want the truth. "

"What truth, Little Father?"

He looked searchingly into her eyes. 

"It does not matter; I have it, " he replied. 

She did not ask him further. If she had any curiosity, she did notbetray it; if she had any suspicion of what he meant, she did not showit. 

Sam returned to where Dick lay. 

"Look here, Sam, " said he, "this comes of--"

"Shut up!" said Sam again. "Look here, you, you've made trouble enough. Now you're laid up, and you're laid up for a good long while. This ain'tany ordinary leg break. It means three months, and it may mean thatyou'll never walk straight again. It's got to be treated mightycareful, and you've got to do just what I tell you. You just behaveyourself. It wasn't anybody's fault. That girl had nothing to do withit. If you weren't a great big fool you'd know it. We both got to takecare of you. Now you treat her decent, and you treat me decent. It'stime you came off. "

He said it as though he meant it. Nevertheless it was with the mostelaborate tenderness that he, assisted by May-may-gwán, carried Dick tohis new quarters. But in spite of the utmost care, the transportationwas painful. The young man was left with no strength. The rest of theafternoon he dozed in a species of torpor. 

Sam's energy toward permanent establishment did not relax. He took along tramp in search of canoe birches, from which at last he broughtback huge rolls of thick bark. These he and the girl sewed together inoverlapping seams, using white spruce-roots for the purpose. The resultwas a water-tight covering for the wigwam. A pile of firewood was thefruit of two hours' toil. In the meantime May-may-gwán had caught somefish with the hook and line and had gathered some berries. She madeDick a strong broth of dried meat. At evening the old man and the girlate their meal together at the edge of the bluff overlooking the broilof the river. They said little, but somehow the meal was peaceful, witha content unknown in the presence of the impatient and terrible youngman. 

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

During the days that ensued a certain intimacy sprang up between SamBolton and the Indian girl. At first their talk was brief and confinedto the necessities. Then matters of opinion, disjointed, fragmentary, began to creep in. Finally the two came to know each other, less by whatwas actually said, than by the attitude of mind such confidencespresupposed. One topic they avoided. Sam, for all his shrewdness, couldnot determine to what degree had persisted the young man's initialattraction for the girl. Of her devotion there could be no question, butin how much it depended on the necessity of the moment lay the puzzle. Her demeanor was inscrutable. Yet Sam came gradually to trust to herloyalty. 

In the soft, sweet open-air life the days passed stately in the mannerof figures on an ancient tapestry. Certain things were each morning tobe done, --the dressing of Dick's cuts and contusions with the healingbalsam, the rebandaging and adjusting of the splints and steadyingbuckskin strap; the necessary cooking and cleaning; the cutting of wood;the fishing below the rapids; the tending of traps; the occasionalhunting of larger game; the setting of snares for rabbits. From certaingood skins of the latter May-may-gwán was engaged in weaving a blanket, braiding the long strips after a fashion of her own. She smoked tannedbuckskin, and with it repaired thoroughly both the men's garments andher own. These things were to be done, though leisurely, and with slow, ruminative pauses for the dreaming of forest dreams. 

But inside the wigwam Dick Herron lay helpless, his hands clenched, hiseyes glaring red with an impatience he seemed to hold his breath torepress. Time was to be passed. That was all he knew, all he thoughtabout, all he cared. He seized the minutes grimly and flung them behindhim. So absorbed was he in this, that he seemed to give grudgingly andhastily his attention to anything else. He never spoke except whenabsolutely necessary; it almost seemed that he never moved. Of Sam heappeared utterly unconscious. The older man performed the littleservices about him quite unnoticed. The Indian girl Dick would notsuffer near him at all. Twice he broke silence for what might be calledcommentatorial speech. 

"It'll be October before we can get started, " he growled one evening. 

"Yes, " said Sam. 

"You wait till I _can_ get out!" he said on another occasion, in vaguethreat of determination. 

At the beginning of the third week Sam took his seat by the moss andbalsam pallet and began to fill his pipe in preparation for a serioustalk. 

"Dick, " said he, "I've made up my mind we've wasted enough time here. "

Herron made no reply. 

"I'm going to leave you here and go to look over the other huntingdistricts by myself. "

Still no reply. 

"Well?" demanded Sam. 

"What about me?" asked Dick. 

"The girl will take care of you. "

A long silence ensued. "She'll take everything we've got and get out, "said Dick at last. 

"She will not! She'd have done it before now. "

"She'll quit me the first Injuns that come along. "

Sam abandoned the point. 

"You needn't take the risk unless you want to. If you say so, I'llwait. "

"Oh, damn the risk, " cried Dick, promptly. "Go ahead. "

The woodsman smoked. 

"Sam, " said the younger man. 

"What?"

"I know I'm hard to get along with just now. Don't mind me. It's hell tolie on your back and be able to do nothing. I've seemed to hinder thegame from the first. Just wait till I'm up again!"

"That's all right, my boy, " replied Sam. "I understand. Don't worry. Just take it easy. I'll look over the district, so we won't be losingany time. And, Dick, be decent to the girl. "

"To hell with the girl, " growled Dick, lapsing abruptly from hisexpansive mood. "She got me into this. "

Not another word would he speak, but lay, staring upward, chewing thecud of resentment. 

Promptly on the heels of his decision Sam Bolton had a long talk withMay-may-gwán, then departed carrying a little pack. It was useless tothink now of the canoe, and in any case the time of year favouredcross-country travel. The distances, thus measured, were not excessive, and from the Indian's descriptions, Sam's slow-brooding memory hadetched into his mind an accurate map of the country. 

At noon the girl brought Dick his meal. After he had eaten she removedthe few utensils. Then she returned. 

"The Little Father commanded that I care for your hurt, " she said, simply. 

"My leg's all right now, " growled Dick. "I can bandage it myself. "

May-may-gwán did not reply, but left the tent. In a moment shereappeared carrying forked switches, a square of white birch-bark, and apiece of charcoal. 

"Thus it is, " said she rapidly. "These be the leg bones and this thebone of the ankle. This bone is broken, so. Thus it is held in place bythe skill of the Little Father. Thus it is healing, with stiffness ofthe muscles and the gristle, so that always Eagle eye will walk likewood, and never will he run. The Little Father has told May-may-gwánwhat there is to do. It is now the time. Fifteen suns have gone sincethe hurt. "

She spoke simply. Dick, interested in spite of himself, stared at theswitches and the hasty charcoal sketch. The dead silence hung for a fullminute. Then the young man fell back from his elbow with an enigmaticalsnort. May-may-gwán assumed consent and set to work on the simple yetdelicate manipulations, massages, and flexings, which, persisted in withdue care lest the fracture slip, would ultimately restore the limb toits full usefulness. 

Once a day she did this, thrice a day she brought food. The rest of thetime she was busy about her own affairs; but never too occupied to loopup a section of the tepee covering for the purpose of admitting freshair, to bring a cup of cold water, to readjust the sling which suspendedthe injured leg, or to perform an hundred other little services. She didthese things with inscrutable demeanour. As Dick always accepted them insilence, she offered them equally in silence. No one could have guessedthe thoughts that passed in her heart. 

At the end of a week Dick raised himself suddenly on his elbow. 

"Some one is coming!" he exclaimed, in English. 

At the sound of his voice the girl started forward. Her mouth parted, her eyes sparkled, her nostrils quivered. Nothing could have been morepathetic than this sudden ecstatic delight, as suddenly extinguishedwhen she perceived that the exclamation was involuntary and notaddressed to her. In a moment Sam Bolton appeared, striding out of theforest. 

He unslung his little pack, leaned his rifle against a tree, consignedto May-may-gwán a dog he was leading, and approached the wigwam. Heseemed in high good humour. 

"Well, how goes it?" he greeted. 

But at the sight of the man striding in his strength Dick's dull angerhad fallen on him again like a blanket. Unreasonably, as he himself wellknew, he was irritated. Something held him back from the utterance ofthe hearty words of greeting that had been on his tongue. A dull, apathetic indifference to everything except the chains of hisimprisonment enveloped his spirit. 

"All right, " he answered, grudgingly. 

Sam deftly unwound the bandages, examining closely the condition of thefoot. 

"Bone's in place all right, " he commented. "Has the girl rubbed it andmoved it every day?"

"Yes. "

"Any pain to amount to anything now?"

"Pretty dull work lying on your back all day with nothing to do. "

"Yes. "

"Took in the country to southeast. Didn't find anything. Picked up apretty good dog. Part 'husky. '"

Dick had no comment to make on this. Sam found May-may-gwán makingfriends with the dog, feeding him little scraps, patting his head, aboveall wrinkling the end of his pointed nose in one hand and batting itsoftly with the palm of the other. This caused the dog to sneezeviolently, but he exhibited every symptom of enjoyment. The animal hadlong, coarse hair, sharp ears set alertly forward, a bushy tail, andan expression of great but fierce intelligence. 

[Illustration: "Listen, Little Sister, " said he. "Now I go on a longjourney"]

"Eagle-eye does well, " said the woodsman. 

"I have done as the Little Father commanded, " she replied, and arose tocook the meal. 

The next day Sam constructed a pair of crutches well padded with moss. 

"Listen, Little Sister, " said he. "Now I go on a long journey, perhapsfifteen suns, perhaps one moon. At the end of six suns more Jibibánisimay rise. His leg must be slung, thus. Never must he touch the foot tothe ground, even for an instant. You must see to it. I will tell him, also. Each day he must sit in the sun. He must do something. When snowfalls we will again take the long trail. Prepare all things for it. GiveEagle-eye materials to work with. "

To Dick he spoke with like directness. 

"I'm off again, Dick, " said he. "There's no help for it; you've got tolay up there for a week yet. Then the girl will show you how to tie yourleg out of the way, and you can move on crutches. If you rest any weighton that foot before I get back, you'll be stiff for life. I shouldn'tadvise you to take any chances. Suit yourself; but I should try to dono more than get out in the sun. You won't be good for much before snow. You can get things organised. She'll bring you the stuff to work on, andwill help. So long. "

"Good-by, " muttered Dick. He breathed hard, fully occupied with thethought of his helplessness, with blind, unappeasable rage against thechance that had crippled him, with bitter and useless questionings as towhy such a moment should have been selected for the one accident of hisyoung life. Outside he could hear the crackle of the little fire, theunusual sound of the Indian girl's voice as she talked low to the dog, the animal's whine of appreciation and content. Suddenly he felt theneed of companionship, the weariness of his own unending, revolvingthoughts. 

"Hi!" he called aloud. 

May-may-gwán almost instantly appeared in the entrance, a scarcelyconcealed hope shining in her eyes. This was the first time she had beensummoned. 

"Ninny-moosh--the dog, " commanded Dick, coldly. 

She turned to whistle the beast. He came at once, already friends withthis human being, who understood him. 

"Come here, old fellow, " coaxed Dick, holding out his hand. 

But the half-wild animal was in doubt. He required assurance of thisman's intentions. Dick gave himself to the task of supplying it. For thefirst time in a month his face cleared of its discontent. The old, winning boyishness returned. May-may-gwán, standing forgotten, in theentrance, watched in silence. Dick coaxed knowingly, leading, by thevery force of persuasion, until the dog finally permitted a single patof his sharp nose. The young man smoothly and cautiously persisted, hisface alight with interest. Finally he conquered. The animal allowed hisears to be rubbed, his nose to be batted. At length, well content, helay down by his new master within reach of the hand that restedcaressingly on his head. The Indian girl stole softly away. At thefireside she seated herself and gazed in the coals. Presently the marvelof two tears welled in her eyes. She blinked them away and set aboutsupper. 

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Whether it was that the prospect of getting about, or the diversion ofthe dog was responsible for the change, Dick's cheerfulness markedlyincreased in the next few days. For hours he would fool with the animal, whom he had named Billy, after a hunting companion, teaching him toshake hands, to speak, to wrinkle his nose in a doggy grin, to lie downat command, and all the other tricks useful and ornamental that go tomake up the fanciest kind of a dog education. The mistakes and successesof his new friend seemed to amuse him hugely. Often from the tent burstthe sounds of inextinguishable mirth. May-may-gwán, peeping, saw theyoung man as she had first seen him, clear-eyed, laughing, the wrinklesof humour deepening about his eyes, his white teeth flashing, his browuntroubled. Three days she hovered thus on the outer edge of the renewedgood feeling, then timidly essayed an advance. 

Unobtrusive, she slipped inside the teepee's flap. The dog sat on hishaunches, his head to one side in expectation. 

"The dog is a good dog, " she said, her breath choking her. 

Apparently the young man had not heard. 

"It will be well to name the dog that he may answer to his name, " sheventured again. 

Dick, abruptly gripped by the incomprehensible obsession, uneasy as atsomething of which he only waited the passing, resentful because of thediscomfort this caused him, unable to break through the artificialrestraint that enveloped his spirit, lifted his eyes suddenly, dead andlifeless, to hers. 

"It is time to lift the net, " he said. 

The girl made no more advances. She moved almost automatically about heraccustomed tasks, preparing the materials for what remained to be done. 

Promptly on the seventh day, with much preparation and precaution, Dickmoved. He had now to suffer the girl's assistance. When he first stoodupright, he was at once attacked by a severe dizziness, which would havecaused a fall had not May-may-gwán steadied him. With difficulty hehobbled to a seat outside. Even his arms seemed to him pithless. He sankto his place hard-breathed, exhausted. It was some minutes before hecould look about him calmly. 

The first object to catch his eye was the cardinal red of a moose-maple, like a spot of blood on velvet-green. And thus he knew that September, or the Many-caribou-in-the-woods Moon, was close at hand. 

"Hi!" he called. 

May-may-gwán came as before, but without the look of expectation in hereyes. 

"Bring me wood of mashkigiwáteg, wood of tamarack, " he commanded; "bringme mókamon, the knife, and tschì-mókamon, the large knife; bring thehide of ah-ték, the caribou. "

"These things are ready, at hand, " she replied. 

With the _couteau croche_, the crooked knife of the North, Dick labouredslowly, fashioning with care the long tamarack strips. He wasexceedingly particular as to the selection of the wood, as to the taperof the pieces. At last one was finished to his satisfaction. Slowly thenhe fashioned it, moulding the green wood, steaming it to make it moreplastic, until at last the ends lay side by side, and the loop of woodbowed above in the shape of a snow-shoe raquette. The exact shape Dickstill further assured by means of two cross-pieces. These were bound inplace by the strips of the caribou-skin rawhide wet in warm water, whichwas also used to bind together the two ends. The whole was then laidaside to dry. 

Thus in the next few days Dick fashioned the frame of six snow-shoes. Headhered closely to the Ojibway pattern. In these woods it was notnecessary to have recourse to the round, broad shape of the roughbowlder-hills, nor was it possible to use the long, swift shoe of theopen plains. After a while he heated red the steel end of his riflecleaning-rod and bored holes for the webbing. This also he made ofcaribou rawhide, for caribou shrinks when wet, thus tightening thelacing where other materials would stretch. Above and below thecross-pieces he put in a very fine weaving; between them a coarser, thatthe loose snow might readily sift through. Each strand he tested againand again; each knot he made doubly sure. 

Nor must it be imagined that he did these things alone. May-may-gwánhelped him, not only by fetching for him the tools and materials, ofwhich he stood in need, but also in the bending, binding, and webbingitself. Under the soft light of the trees, bathed in the aroma of freshshavings and the hundred natural odours of the forest, it wasexceedingly pleasant accurately to accomplish the light skilled labour. But between these human beings, alone in a vast wilderness, was nocommunication outside the necessities of the moment. Thus in a littlethe three pairs of snow-shoes, complete even to the buckskin foot-loops, hung from the sheltered branch of a spruce. 

"Bring now to me, " said the young man, "poles of the hickory, logs ofgijik, the cedar; bring me wigwass, the birch-bark, and the rawhide ofmooswa, the moose. "

"These things are at hand, " repeated May-may-gwán. 

Then ensued days of severe toil. Dick was, of course, unable to handlethe axe, so the girl had to do it under his direction. The affair was ofwedges with which to split along the grain; of repeated attempts untilthe resulting strips were true and without warp; of steaming and tyingto the proper curve, and, finally, of binding together strongly with thetough _babiche_ into the shape of the dog-sledge. This, too, wassuspended at last beneath the sheltering spruce. 

"Bring me now, " said Dick, "rawhide of mooswa, the moose, rawhide ofah-ték, the caribou, wátab, the root for sewing. "

Seated opposite each other, heads bent over the task, they made thedog-harness, strong, serviceable, not to be worn out, with the collar, the broad buckskin strap over the back, the heavy traces. Four of themthey made, for Sam would undoubtedly complete the team, and these, too, they hung out of reach in the spruce-tree. 

Now Sam returned from his longest trip, empty of information, but lightof spirit, for he had succeeded by his simple shrewdness in avoiding allsuspicion. He brought with him another "husky" dog, and a strong animallike a Newfoundland; also some tea and tobacco, and an axe-blade. Thislatter would be especially valuable. In the extreme cold steel becomeslike glass. The work done earned his approval, but he paused only aday, and was off again. 

From the inside of the teepee hung many skins of the northern hare whichMay-may-gwán had captured and tanned while Dick was still on his back. The woven blanket was finished. Now she lined the woollen blankets withthese hare-skins, over an hundred to each. Nothing warmer could beimagined. Of caribou skin, tanned with the hair on, she and Dickfashioned jackets with peaked hoods, which, when not in use, would hangdown behind. The opening about the face was sewn with bushy fox's tails, and a puckering-string threaded through so that the wearer couldcompletely protect his features. Mittens they made from pelts of themuskrat. Moccasins were cut extra large and high, and lined with fur ofthe hare. Heavy rawhide dog-whips and buckskin gun-cases completed thesimple winter outfit. 

But still there remained the question of sustenance. Game would bescarce and uncertain in the cold months. 

It was now seven weeks since Dick's accident. Cautiously, with manypauses, he began to rest weight on the injured foot. Thanks to thetreatment of massage and manipulation, the joint was but littlestiffened. Each day it gained in strength. Shortly Dick was able tohobble some little distance, always with the aid of a staff, alwaysheedfully. As yet he was far from the enjoyment of full freedom ofmovement, but by expenditure of time and perseverance he was able tohunt in a slow, patient manner. The runways where the caribou came todrink late in the evening, a cautious float down-stream as far as thefirst rapids, or even a plain sitting on a log in the hope that gamewould chance to feed within range--these methods persisted in day afterday brought in a fair quantity of meat. 

Of the meat they made some jerky for present consumption by the dogs, and, of course, they ate fresh as much as they needed. But most wentinto pemmican. The fat was all cut away, the lean sliced thin and driedin the sun. The result they pounded fine, and mixed with melted fat andthe marrow, which, in turn, was compressed while warm into air-tightlittle bags. A quantity of meat went into surprisingly little pemmican. The bags were piled on a long-legged scaffolding out of the reach ofthe dogs and wild animals. 

The new husky and Billy had promptly come to teeth, but Billy had heldhis own, much to Dick Herron's satisfaction. The larger animal was abitch, so now all dwelt together in amity. During the still hunt theywere kept tied in camp, but the rest of the time they prowled about. Never, however, were they permitted to leave the clearing, for thatwould frighten the game. At evening they sat in an expectant row, awaiting the orderly distribution of their evening meal. Somehow theyadded much to the man-feel of the camp. With their coming the atmosphereof men as opposed to the atmosphere of the wilderness had strengthened. On this side was the human habitation, busy at its own affairs, creatingabout itself a definite something in the forest, unknown before, preparing quietly and efficiently its weapons of offence and defence, all complete in its fires and shelters and industries and domesticanimals. On the other, formidable, mysterious, vast, were slowlycrystallising, without disturbance, without display, the mighty opposingforces. In the clarified air of the first autumn frosts this antagonismseemed fairly to saturate the stately moving days. It was as yet onlypotential, but the potentialities were swelling, ever swelling towardthe break of an actual conflict. 

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Now the leaves ripened and fell, and the frost crisped them. Suddenlythe forest was still. The great, brooding silence, composed of athousand lesser woods voices, flowed away like a vapour to be succeededby a fragile, deathly suspension of sound. Dead leaves dependedmotionless from the trees. The air hung inert. A soft sunlight layenervated across the world. 

In the silence had been a vast, holy mystery of greater purpose andlife; in the stillness was a menace. It became the instant of poisebefore the break of something gigantic. 

And always across it were rising strange rustlings that might mean greatthings or little, but whose significance was always in doubt. Suddenlythe man watching by the runway would hear a mighty scurrying of deadleaves, a scampering, a tumult of hurrying noises, the abruptness ofwhose inception tightened his nerves and set galloping his heart. Then, with equal abruptness, they ceased. The delicate and fragile stillnesssettled down. 

In all the forest thus diverse affairs seemed to be carriedon--fearfully, in sudden, noisy dashes, as a man under fire would dodgefrom one cover to another. Every creature advertised in the leaves hispresence. Danger lurked to this, its advantage. Even the man, taking hisnecessary footsteps, was abashed at the disproportionate and unusualeffects of his movements. It was as though a retiring nature were to beaccompanied at every step through a crowded drawing-room by the jinglingof bells. Always the instinct was to pause in order that the row mightdie away, that the man might shrink to his accustomed unobtrusiveness. And instantaneously, without the grace of even a little transitionalecho, the stillness fell, crowding so closely on the heels of the man'spresence that almost he could feel the breath of whatever itrepresented. 

Occasionally two red squirrels would descend from the spruce-trees tochase each other madly. Then, indeed, did the spirit of autumn seem tobe outraged. The racket came to be an insult. Always the ear expectedits discontinuance, until finally the persistence ground on the nerveslike the barking of a dog at night. At last it was an indecency, an orgyof unholy revel, a profanation, a provocative to anger of theinscrutable woods god. Then stillness again with the abruptness of asword-cut. 

Always the forest seemed to be the same; and yet somehow in a manner notto be defined a subtle change was taking place in the wilderness. Nothing definite could be instanced. Each morning of that Indian summerthe skies were as soft, the sun as grateful, the leaves as gorgeous intheir blazonment, yet each morning an infinitesimal something that hadbeen there the day before was lacking, and for it an infinitesimalsomething had been substituted. The change from hour to hour was notperceptible; from week to week it was. The stillness grew in portent;the forest creatures moved more furtively. Like growth, rather thanchemical change; the wilderness was turning to iron. With this hardeningit became more formidable and menacing. No longer aloof in nirvaniccalm, awakened it drew near its enemies, alert, cunning, circumspect, ready to strike. 

Each morning a thin film of ice was to be seen along the edges of theslack water. Heavy, black frosts whitened the shadows and nipped theunaccustomed fingers early in the day. The sun was swinging to thesouth, lengthening the night hours. Whitefish were running in the river. 

These last the man and the girl caught in great numbers, and smoked andpiled on long-legged scaffolds. They were intended as winter food forthe dogs, and would constitute a great part of what would be taken alongwhen the journey should commence. 

Dick began to walk without his crutches, a very little at a time, grimly, all his old objectless anger returned when the extent of hisdisability was thus brought home to him. But always with persistencecame improvement. Each attempt brought its reward in strengthenedmuscles, freer joints, greater confidence. At last it could be no longerdoubted that by the Indian's Whitefish Moon he would be as good as ever. The discovery, by some queer contrariness of the man's disposition, wasavoided as long as possible, and finally but grudgingly admitted. Yetwhen at last Dick confessed to himself that his complete recovery wascome, his mood suddenly changed. The old necessity for blind, unreasoning patience seemed at an end. He could perceive light ahead, and so in the absence of any further need for taut spiritual nerves, herelaxed the strain and strode on more easily. He played more with thedogs--of which still his favourite was Billy; occasionally he burst intolittle snatches of song, and the sound of his whistling was merry in theair. At length he paused abruptly in his work to fix his quizzical, narrow gaze on the Indian girl. 

"Come, Little Sister, " said he, "let us lift the nets. "

She looked up at him, a warm glow leaping to her face. This was thefirst time he had addressed her by the customary diminutive offriendship since they had both been members of the Indian camp on theMissináibie. 

They lifted the net together, and half-filled the canoe with the shiningfish. Dick bore himself with the careless good humour of his earliermanner. The greater part of the time he seemed unconscious of hiscompanion's presence, but genuinely unconscious, not with thedeliberate affront of a pretended indifference. Under even this negativegood treatment the girl expanded with an almost luxuriant gratitude. Herface lost its stoical mask of imperturbability, and much of her formerarch beauty returned. The young man was blind to these things, for hewas in reality profoundly indifferent to the girl, and his abrupt changeof manner could in no way be ascribed to any change in his feeling forher. It was merely the reflex of his inner mood, and that sprang solelyfrom joy over the permission he had given himself again to contemplatetaking the Long Trail. 

But Sam Bolton, returning that very day from his own long journey, sawat once the alteration in May-may-gwán, and was troubled over it. Hecame into camp by the river way where the moss and spruce-needlessilenced his footsteps, so he approached unnoticed. The girl bent overthe fire. A strong glow from the flames showed the stronger glowilluminating her face from within. She hummed softly a song of theOjibway language:

 "Mong-o doog-win Nin dinaindoon--" "Loon's wing I thought it was In the distance shining. But it was my lover's paddle In the distance shining. "

Then she looked up and saw him. 

"Little Father!" she cried, pleased. 

At the same moment Dick caught sight of the new-comer and hobbled out ofthe wigwam. 

"Hello, you old snoozer!" he shouted. "We began to think you weren'tgoing to show up at all. Look at what we've done. I believe you've beenlying out in the woods just to dodge work. Where'd you steal _that_dog?"

"Hello, Dick, " replied Sam, unslinging his pack. "I'm tired. Tell her torustle grub. "

He leaned back against a cedar, half-closing his eyes, but neverthelesskeenly alert. The changed atmosphere of the camp disturbed him. Althoughhe had not realised it before, he preferred Dick's old uncompromisingsulkiness. 

In accordance with the woods custom, little was said until after themeal was finished and the pipes lit. Then Dick inquired:

"Well, where you been this time, and what did you find?"

Sam replied briefly as to his journey, making it clear that he had nowcovered all the hunting districts of this region with the singleexception of one beyond the Kenógami. He had discovered nothing; he wasabsolutely sure that nothing was to be discovered. 

"I didn't go entirely by what the Injuns told me, " he said, "but Ilooked at the signs along the trapping routes and the trapping camps tosee how many had been at it, and I'm sure the number tallies with thereg'lar Injun hunters. I picked up that dog over to Leftfoot Lake. Comehere, pup!"

The animal slouched forward, his head hanging, the rims of his eyesblood red as he turned them up to his master. He was a powerful beast, black and tan, with a quaintly wrinkled, anxious countenance and long, pendent ears. 

"Strong, " commented Dick, "but queer-looking. He'll have trouble keepingwarm with that short coat. "

"He's wintered here already, " replied Sam, indifferently. "Go liedown!"

The dog slouched slowly back, his heavy head and ears swinging to eachstep, to where May-may-gwán was keeping his peace with the otheranimals. 

"Now for that Kenógami country, " went on Sam; "it's two weeks from hereby dogs, and it's our last chance in this country. I ain't dared ask toomany questions, of course, so I don't know anything about the men who'rehunting there. There's four families, and one other. He's alone; I gotthat much out of the last place I stopped. We got to wait here for snow. If we don't raise anything there, we'd better get over toward theNipissing country. "

"All right, " said Dick. 

The older man began to ask minutely concerning the equipment, provisions, and dog food. 

"It's all right as long as we can take it easy and hunt, " advised Sam, gradually approaching the subject that was really troubling him, "andit's all right if we can surprise this Jingoss or ambush him when wefind him. But suppose he catches wind of us and skips, what then? It'llbe a mighty pretty race, my son, and a hard one. We'll have to flylight and hard, and we'll need every pound of grub we can scrape. "

The young man's eyes darkened and his nostrils expanded with theexcitement of this thought. 

"Just let's strike his trail!" he exclaimed. 

"That's all right, " agreed the woodsman, his eyes narrowing; "but howabout the girl, then?"

But Dick exhibited no uneasiness. He merely grinned broadly. 

"Well, _what_ about the girl? That's what I've been telling you. Strikesme that's one of your troubles. "

Half-satisfied, the veteran fell silent. Shortly after he made anopportunity to speak to May-may-gwán. 

"All is well, Little Sister?" he inquired. 

"All is well, " she replied; "we have finished the parkas, the sledges, the snow-shoes, the blankets, and we have made much food. "

"And Jibiwánisi?"

"His foot is nearly healed. Yesterday he walked to the Big Pool andback. To-day, even this afternoon, Little Father, the Black Spirit lefthim so that he has been gay. "

Convinced that the restored good feeling was the result rather of Dick'svolatile nature than of too good an understanding, the old man left thesubject. 

"Little Sister, " he went on, "soon we are going to take the wintertrail. It may be that we will have to travel rapidly. It may be thatfood will be scarce. I think it best that you do not go with us. "

She looked up at him. 

"These words I have expected, " she replied. "I have heard the speech youhave made with the Ojibway men you have met. I have seen thepreparations you have made. I am not deceived. You and Jibiwánisi arenot looking for winter posts. I do not know what it is you are after, but it is something you wish to conceal. Since you have not told me, Iknow you wish to conceal it from me. I did not know all this when I leftHaukemah and his people. That was a foolish thing. It was done, and I donot know why. But it was done, and it cannot be undone. I could not goback to the people of Haukemah now; they would kill me. Where else can Igo? I do not know where the Ojibways, my own people, live. "

"What do you expect to do, if you stay with me?" inquired Sam, curiously. 

"You come from Conjuror's House. You tell the Indians you come fromWinnipeg, but that is not so. When you have finished your affairs, youwill return to Conjuror's House. There I can enter the household of someofficer. "

"But you cannot take the winter trail, " objected Sam. 

"I am strong; I can take the winter trail. "

"And perhaps we may have to journey hard and fast. "

"As when one pursues an enemy, " said the girl, calmly. "Good. I amfleet. I too can travel. And if it comes to that, I will leave youwithout complaint when I can no longer tread your trail. "

"But the food, " objected Sam, still further. 

"Consider, Little Father, " said May-may-gwán; "of the food I haveprepared much; of the work, I have done much. I have tended the traps, raised the nets, fashioned many things, attended Eagle-eye. If I hadnot been here, then you, Little Father, could not have made yourjourneys. So you have gained some time. "

"That is true, " conceded Sam. 

"Listen, Little Father, take me with you. I will drive the dogs, makethe camp, cook the food. Never will I complain. If the food gets scarce, I will not ask for my share. That I promise. "

"Much of what you say is true, " assented the woodsman, "but you forgetyou came to us of your free will and unwelcomed. It would be better thatyou go to Missináibie. "

"No, " replied the girl. 

"If you hope to become the squaw of Jibiwánisi, " said Sam, bluntly, "youmay as well give it up. "

The girl said nothing, but compressed her lips to a straight line. Aftera moment she merely reiterated her original solution:

"At Conjuror's House I know the people. "

"I will think of it, " then concluded Sam. 

Dick, however, could see no good in such an arrangement. He did not careto discuss the matter at length, but preserved rather the attitude of aman who has shaken himself free of all the responsibility of an affair, and is mildly amused at the tribulations of another still involved init. 

"You'll have a lot of trouble dragging a squaw all over the north, " headvised Sam, critically. "Of course, we can't turn her adrift here. Wouldn't do that to a dog. But it strikes me it would even pay us to goout of our way to Missináibie to get rid of her. We could do that. "

"Well, I don't know--" doubted Sam. "Of course--"

"Oh, bring her along if you want to, " laughed Dick, "only it's yourfuneral. You'll get into trouble, sure. And don't say I didn't tellyou. "

It might have been imagined by the respective attitudes of the two menthat actually Sam had been responsible for the affair from thebeginning. Finally, laboriously, he decided that the girl should go. Shecould be of assistance; there was small likelihood of the necessity forprotracted hasty travel. 

The weather was getting steadily colder. Greasy-looking clouds drovedown from the north-west. Heavy winds swept by. The days turned gray. Under the shelter of trees the ground froze into hummocks, which did notthaw out. The crisp leaves which had made the forest so noisydisintegrated into sodden silence. A wildness was in the air, swoopingdown with the breeze, buffeting in the little whirlwinds and eddies, rocking back and forth in the tops of the storm-beaten trees. Coldlittle waves lapped against the thin fringe of shore ice that crept dayby day from the banks. The water itself turned black. Strange birdsswirling down wind like leaves uttered weird notes of migration. Thewilderness hardened to steel. 

The inmates of the little camp waited. Each morning Dick was early afootsearching the signs of the weather; examining the ice that creptstealthily from shore, waiting to pounce upon and imprison the stream;speculating on the chances of an early season. The frost pinched hisbare fingers severely, but he did not mind that. His leg was by nowalmost as strong as ever, and he was impatient to be away, to leavebehind him this rapid that had gained over him even a temporary victory. Always as the time approached, his spirits rose. It would have beendifficult to identify this laughing boy with the sullen and terrible manwho had sulked through the summer. He had made friends with all thedogs. Even the fierce "huskies" had become tame, and liked to be upsetand tousled about and dragged on their backs growling fierce but mockprotest. The bitch he had named Claire; the hound with the long ears hehad called Mack, because of a fancied and mournful likeness toMacDonald, the Chief Trader; the other "husky" he had christened Wolf, for obvious reasons; and there remained, of course, the original Billy. Dick took charge of the feeding. At first he needed his short, heavywhip to preserve order, but shortly his really admirable gift withanimals gained way, and he had them sitting peacefully in a row awaitingeach his turn. 

At last the skim ice made it impossible longer to use the canoe infishing on the river. The craft was, therefore, suspended bottom upbetween two trees. A little snow fell and remained, but was speedilyswept into hollows. The temperature lowered. It became necessary toassume thicker garments. Once having bridged the river the icestrengthened rapidly. And then late one afternoon, on the wings of thenorthwest wind, came the snow. All night it howled past the tremblingwigwam. All the next day it swirled and drifted and took the shapes offantastic monsters leaping in the riot of the storm. Then the stars, cold and brilliant, once more crackled in the heavens. The wilderness ina single twenty-four hours had changed utterly. Winter had come. 

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

In the starlit, bitter cold of a north country morning the three packedtheir sledge and harnessed their dogs. The rawhide was stubborn with thefrost, the dogs uneasy. Knots would not tie. Pain nipped the fingers, cruel pain that ate in and in until it had exposed to the shock oflittle contacts every tightened nerve. Each stiff, clumsy movement wasagony. From time to time one of the three thrust hand in mitten to beatthe freezing back. Then a new red torture surged to the veryfinger-tips. They bore it in silence, working hastily, knowing thatevery morning of the long, winter trip this fearful hour must come. Thuseach day the North would greet them, squeezing their fingers in thecruel hand-clasp of an antagonist testing their strength. 

Over the supplies and blankets was drawn the skin envelope laced to thesledge. The last reluctant knot was tied. Billy, the leader of the fourdogs, casting an intelligent eye at his masters, knew that all wasready, and so arose from his haunches. Dick twisted his feet skilfullyinto the loops of his snow-shoes. Sam, already equipped, seized theheavy dog-whip. The girl took charge of the gee-pole with which thesledge would be guided. 

"Mush!--Mush on!" shouted Sam. 

The four dogs leaned into their collars. The sledge creaked free of itsfrost anchorage and moved. 

First it became necessary to drop from the elevation to the river-bed. Dick and May-may-gwán clung desperately. Sam exercised his utmost skilland agility to keep the dogs straight. The toboggan hovered an instantover the edge of the bank, then plunged, coasting down. Men hung back, dogs ran to keep ahead. A smother of light snow settled to show, in thedim starlight, the furrow of descent. And on the broad, white surface ofthe river were eight spot of black which represented the followers ofthe Long Trail. 

Dick shook himself and stepped ahead of the dogs. 

"Mush! Mush on!" commanded Sam again. 

Dick ran on steadily in the soft snow, swinging his entire weight now onone foot, now on the other, passing the snow-shoes with the peculiarstiff swing of the ankle, throwing his heel strongly downward at eachstep in order to take advantage of the long snow-shoe tails' elasticity. At each step he sank deep into the feathery snow. The runner was forcedto lift the toe of the shoe sharply, and the snow swirled past hisankles like foam. Behind him, in the trail thus broken and packed forthem, trotted the dogs, their noses low, their jaws hanging. Sam drovewith two long-lashed whips; and May-may-gwán, clinging to the gee-pole, guided the sledge. 

In the absolute and dead stillness of a winter morning before the dawnthe little train went like ghosts in a mist of starlight. The strangeglimmering that seems at such an hour to disengage from the snow itselfserved merely to establish the separate bulks of that which moved acrossit. The bending figure of the man breaking trail, his head low, his bodymoving in its swing with the regularity of a pendulum; the fourwolf-like dogs, also bending easily to what was not a great labour, theline of their open jaws and lolling tongues cut out against the snow;another human figure; the low, dark mass of the sledge; and again thebending figure at the rear, --all these contrasted in their half-blurreduncertainty of outline and the suggested motion of their attitude withthe straight, clear silhouette of the spruce-trees against the sky. 

Also the sounds of their travelling offered an analogous contrast. Thedull _crunch, crunch, crunch_ of the snow-shoes, the breathing of theliving beings, the glither and creak of the sledge came to the earblurred and confused; utterly unlike the cameo stillness of the winterdawn. 

Ten minutes of the really violent exertion of breaking trail warmed Dickthrough. His fingers ceased their protest. Each breath, blowing tosteam, turned almost immediately to frost. He threw back the hood of hiscapote, for he knew that should it become wet from the moisture of hisbreath, it would freeze his skin, and with his violent exertionsexposure to the air was nothing. In a short time his eyebrows andeyelashes became heavy with ice. Then slowly the moisture of his body, working outward through the wool of his clothing, frosted on thesurface, so that gradually as time went on he grew to look more and morelike a great white-furred animal. 

The driving here on the open river was comparatively easy. Exceptoccasionally, the straight line could be adhered to. When it becamenecessary to avoid an obstruction, Sam gave the command loudly, addressing Billy as the lead dog. 

"Hu, Billy!" he would cry. 

And promptly Billy would turn to the right. Or:

"Chac, Billy!" he would cry. 

And Billy would turn to the left, with always in mind the thought of thelong whip to recall his duty to man. 

Then the other dogs turned after him. Claire, for her steadiness andsense, had been made sledge-dog. Always she watched sagaciously to pullthe end of the sledge strongly away should the deviation not provesufficient. Later, in the woods, when the trail should become difficult, much would depend on Claire's good sense. 

Now shortly, far to the south, the sun rose. The gray world at oncebecame brilliant. The low frost haze, --invisible until now, to beinvisible all the rest of the day, --for these few moments of the levelbeams worked strange necromancies. The prisms of a million ice-drops onshrubs and trees took fire. A bewildering flash and gleam of jewelscaught the eye in every direction. And, suspended in the air, like theshimmer of a soft and delicate veiling, wavered and floated a mist ofvapour, tinted with rose and lilac, with amethyst and saffron. 

As always on the Long Trail, our travellers' spirits rose with the sun. Dick lengthened his stride, the dogs leaned to their collars, Sam threwback his shoulders, the girl swung the sledge tail with added vim. Noweverything was warm and bright and beautiful. It was yet too early inthe day for fatigue, and the first discomforts had passed. 

But in a few moments Dick stopped. The sledge at once came to a halt. They rested. 

At the end of ten minutes Sam stepped to the front, and Dick took thedog-whip. The young man's muscles, still weak from their long inaction, ached cruelly. Especially was this true of the ligaments at thegroin--used in lifting high the knee, --and the long muscles along thefront of the shinbone, --by which the toe of the snow-shoe was elevated. He found himself very glad to drop behind into the beaten trail. 

The sun by now had climbed well above the horizon, but did little tomitigate the cold. As long as the violent movement was maintained a warmand grateful glow followed the circulation, but a pause, even of a fewmoments, brought the shivers. And always the feathery, cloggingsnow, --offering slight resistance, it is true, but opposing that slightresistance continuously, so that at last it amounted to a great deal. Astep taken meant no advance toward easier steps. The treadmill of foresttravel, changed only in outward form, again claimed their doggedpatience. 

At noon they paused in the shelter of the woods. The dogs were anchoredby the simple expedient of turning the sledge on its side. A little fireof dried spruce and pine branches speedily melted snow in the kettle, and that as speedily boiled tea. Caribou steak, thawed, then cooked overthe blaze, completed the meal. As soon as it was swallowed they were offagain before the cold could mount them. 

The inspiration and uplift of the morning were gone; the sun wassinking to a colder and colder setting. All the vital forces of theworld were running down. A lethargy seized our travellers. An effort wasrequired merely to contemplate treading the mill during the threeremaining hours of daylight, a greater effort to accomplish the firststep of it, and an infinite series of ever-increasing efforts to makethe successive steps of that long afternoon. The mind became weary. Andnow the North increased by ever so little the pressure against them, sharpening the cold by a trifle; adding a few flakes' weight to the snowthey must lift on their shoes; throwing into the vista before them adeeper, chillier tone of gray discouragement; intensifying theloneliness; giving to the winds of desolation a voice. Well the greatantagonist knew she could not thus stop these men, but so, little bylittle, she ground them down, wore away the excess of their vitality, reduced them to grim plodding, so that at the moment she would hold themweakened to her purposes. They made no sign, for they were of the greatmen of the earth, but they bent to the familiar touch of many littlefingers pushing them back. 

Now the sun did indeed swing to the horizon, so that there remainedscant daylight. 

"Chac, Billy!" cried Sam, who again wielded the whip. 

Slowly, wearily, the little party turned aside. In the grove of sprucethe snow clung thick and heavy. A cold blackness enveloped them like adamp blanket. Wind, dying with the sun, shook the snow from the treesand cried mournfully in their tops. Gray settled on the landscape, palpable, real, extinguishing the world. It was the second dreadful hourof the day, the hour when the man, weary, discouraged, the sweat oftravel freezing on him, must still address himself to the task of makinga home in the wilderness. 

Again the sledge was turned on its side. Dick and May-may-gwán removedtheir snow-shoes, and, using them as shovels, began vigorously to scrapeand dig away the snow. Sam unstrapped the axe and went for firewood. Hecut it with little tentative strokes, for in the intense cold the steelwas almost as brittle as glass. 

Now a square of ground flanked by high snow walls was laid bare. The twothen stripped boughs of balsam with which to carpet all one end of it. They unharnessed the dogs, and laid the sledge across one end of theclear space, covering it with branches in order to keep the dogs fromgnawing the moose-skin wrapper. It was already quite dark. 

But at this point Sam returned with fuel. At once the three set aboutlaying a fire nearly across the end of the cleared space opposite thesledge. In a moment a tiny flame cast the first wavering shadows againstthe darkness. Silently the inimical forces of the long day withdrew. 

Shortly the camp was completed. Before the fire, impaled on sticks, hungthe frozen whitefish thawing out for the dogs. Each animal was toreceive two. The kettle boiled. Meat sizzled over the coals. A piece ofice, whittled to a point, dripped drinking-water like a faucet. Thesnow-bank ramparts were pink in the glow. They reflected appreciably theheat of the fire, though they were not in the least affected by it, andremained flaky to the touch. A comfortable sizzling and frying andbubbling and snapping filled the little dome of firelight, beyond whichwas the wilderness. Weary with an immense fatigue the three lay backwaiting for their supper to be done. The dogs, too, waited patientlyjust at the edge of the heat, their bushy tails covering the bottoms oftheir feet and their noses, as nature intended. Only Mack, the hound, lacking this protection, but hardened to greater exposure, lay flat onhis side, his paws extended to the blaze. They all rested quietly, wornout, apparently without the energy to move a single hair. But now Dick, rising, took down from its switch the first of the whitefish. Instantlyevery dog was on his feet. Their eyes glared yellow, their jawsslavered, they leaped toward the man who held the fish high above hishead and kicked energetically at the struggling animals. Sam took thedog whip to help. Between them the food was distributed, two fish to adog. The beasts took each his share to a place remote from the othersand bolted it hastily, returning at once on the chance of a furtherdistribution, or the opportunity to steal from his companions. After alittle more roaming about, growling and suspicious sniffing, they againsettled down one by one to slumber. 

Almost immediately after supper the three turned in, first removing andhanging before the fire the duffel and moccasins worn during the day. These were replaced by larger and warmer sleep moccasins lined with fur. The warm-lined coverings they pulled up over and around them completely, to envelop even their heads. This arrangement is comfortable only afterlong use has accustomed one to the half-suffocation; but it isnecessary, not only to preserve the warmth of the body, but also toprotect the countenance from freezing. At once they fell into exhaustedsleep. 

As though they had awaited a signal, the dogs arose and proceeded toinvestigate the camp. Nothing was too trivial to escape their attention. Billy found a tiny bit of cooked meat. Promptly he was called on toprotect his discovery against a vigorous onslaught from the hound andthe other husky. Over and over the fighting dogs rolled, snorting andbiting, awakening the echoes of the forest, even trampling the sleepers, who, nevertheless, did not stir. In the mean time, Claire, uninvolved, devoured the morsel. The trouble gradually died down. One after anotherthe animals dug themselves holes in the snow, where they curled up, their bushy tails over their noses and their fore paws. Only Mack, thehound with the wrinkled face and long, pendent ears, unendowed with suchprotection, crept craftily between his sleeping masters. 

Gradually the fire died to coals, then filmed to ashes. Hand in hand thecold and the darkness invaded the camp. As the firelight faded, objectsshowed dimly, growing ever more distinct through the dying glow--thesnow-laden bushes, the pointed trees against a steel sky of stars. Thelittle, artificial tumult of homely sound by which these men had createdfor the moment an illusion of life sank down under the unceasingpressure of the verities, so that the wilderness again flowedunobstructed through the forest aisles. With a last _pop_ of coals thefaint noise of the fire ceased. Then an even fainter noise slowly becameaudible, a crackling undertone as of silken banners rustling. And atonce, splendid, barbaric, the mighty orgy of the winter-time aurorabegan. 

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

In a day or two Dick was attacked by the fearful _mal de raquette_, which tortures into knots the muscles of the leg below the knee; and bycramps that doubled him up in his blankets. This was the direct resultof his previous inaction. He moved only with pain; and yet, by the sternnorth-country code, he made no complaint and moved as rapidly aspossible. Each time he raised his knee a sharp pain stabbed his groin, as though he had been stuck by a penknife; each time he bent his anklein the recover the _mal de raquette_ twisted his calves, and stretchedhis ankle tendons until he felt that his very feet were insecurelyattached and would drop off. During the evening he sat quiet, but afterhe had fallen asleep from the mere exhaustion of the day's toil, hedoubled up, straightened out, groaned aloud, and spoke rapidly in thestrained voice of one who suffers. Often he would strip his legs by thefire, in order that Sam could twist a cleft stick vigorously about theaffected muscles; which is the Indian treatment. As for the cramps, theytook care of themselves. The day's journey was necessarily shorteneduntil he had partly recovered, but even after the worst was over, a longtramp always brought a slight recurrence. 

For the space of nearly ten weeks these people travelled thus in theregion of the Kabinikágam. Sometimes they made long marches; sometimesthey camped for the hunting; sometimes the great, fierce storms of thenorth drove them to shelter, snowed them under, and passed on shrieking. The wind opposed them. At first of little account, its very insistencegave it value. Always the stinging snow whirling into the face; alwaysthe eyes watering and smarting; always the unyielding opposition againstwhich to bend the head; always the rush of sound in the ears, --adistraction against which the senses had to struggle before they couldtake their needed cognisance of trail and of game. An uneasiness wasabroad with the wind, an uneasiness that infected the men, the dogs, theforest creatures, the very insentient trees themselves. It racked thenerves. In it the inimical Spirit of the North seemed to find itsplainest symbol; though many difficulties she cast in the way weregreater to be overcome. 

Ever the days grew shorter. The sun swung above the horizon, low to thesouth, and dipped back as though pulled by some invisible string. Slanting through the trees it gave little cheer and no warmth. Early inthe afternoon it sank, silhouetting the pointed firs, casting across thesnow long, crimson shadows, which faded into gray. It was replaced by amoon, chill and remote, dead as the white world on which it looked. 

In the great frost continually the trees were splitting with loud, sudden reports. The cold had long since squeezed the last drops ofmoisture from the atmosphere. It was metallic, clear, hard as ice, brilliant as the stars, compressed with the freezing. The moon, thestars, the earth, the very heavens glistened like polished steel. Frostlay on the land thick as a coverlid. It hid the east like clouds ofsmoke. Snow remained unmelted two feet from the camp-fire. 

And the fire alone saved these people from the enemy. If Sam stooped fora moment to adjust his snow-shoe strap, he straightened his back with acertain reluctance, --already the benumbing preliminary to freezing hadbegun. If Dick, flipping his mitten from his hand to light his pipe, didnot catch the fire at the second tug, he had to resume the mitten andbeat the circulation into his hand before renewing the attempt, lest theends of his fingers become frosted. Movement, always and incessantly, movement alone could keep going the vital forces on these few coldestdays until the fire had been built to fight back the white death. 

It was the land of ghosts. Except for the few hours at midday thesepeople moved in the gloom and shadow of a nether world. The longtwilight was succeeded by longer night, with its burnished stars, itsdead moon, its unearthly aurora. On the fresh snow were the tracks ofcreatures, but in the flesh they glided almost invisible. Theptarmigan's bead eye alone betrayed him, he had no outline. The ermine'sblack tip was the only indication of his presence. Even the largeranimals, --the caribou, the moose--had either turned a dull gray, or wereso rimed by the frost as to have lost all appearance of solidity. It wasever a surprise to find these phantoms bleeding red, to discover thattheir flesh would resist the knife. During the strife of the heavynorthwest storms one side of each tree had become more or less plasteredwith snow, so that even their dark trunks flashed mysteriously into andout of view. In the entire world of the great white silence the onlysolid, enduring, palpable reality was the tiny sledge train crawlingwith infinite patience across its vastness. 

White space, a feeling of littleness and impotence, twilight gloom, burnished night, bitter cold, unreality, phantasmagoria, ghosts likethose which surged about Aeneas, and finally clogging, whitesilence, --these were the simple but dreadful elements of that journeywhich lasted, without event, from the middle of November until thelatter part of January. 

Never in all that time was an hour of real comfort to be anticipated. The labours of the day were succeeded by the shiverings of the night. Exhaustion alone induced sleep; and the racking chill of early morningalone broke it. The invariable diet was meat, tea, and pemmican. Besidesthe resolution required for the day's journey and the night'sdiscomfort, was the mental anxiety as to whether or not game would befound. Discouragements were many. Sometimes with full anticipation of agood day's run, they would consume hours in painfully dragging thesledge over unexpected obstructions. At such times Wolf, always of anevil disposition, made trouble. Thus besides the resolution of spiritnecessary to the work, there had to be pumped up a surplusage to meetthe demands of difficult dog-driving. And when, as often happened, aband of the gray wolves would flank them within smelling distance, theexasperation of it became almost unbearable. Time and again Sam hadalmost forcibly to restrain Dick from using the butt of his whip onWolf's head. 

Nor could they treat themselves in the weary succession of days to anoccasional visit with human beings. During the course of their journeythey investigated in turn three of the four trapping districts of theKabinikágam. But Sam's judgment advised that they should not showthemselves to the trappers. He argued that no sane man would look forwinter posts at this time of year, and it might be difficult otherwiseto explain the presence of white men. It was quite easy to read by thesigns how many people were to be accounted for in each district, andthen it was equally easy to ambush in a tree, during the rounds forexamination of the traps, until their identities had all beenestablished. It was necessary to climb a tree in order to escapediscovery by the trapper's dog. Of course the trail of our travellerswould be found by the trapper, but unless he actually saw them he wouldmost probably conclude them to be Indians moving to the west. Accordingly Dick made long detours to intercept the trappers, and spentmany cold hours waiting for them to pass, while Sam and the girl huntedin another direction to replenish the supplies. In this manner thefrequenters of these districts had been struck from the list. No one ofthem was Jingoss. There remained but one section, and that the mostnortherly. If that failed, then there was nothing to do but to retracethe long, weary journey up the Kabinikágam, past the rapids where Dickhad hurt himself, over the portage, down the Mattawishgina, across theMissinaíbie, on which they had started their travels, to the country ofthe Nipissing. Discussing this possibility one rest-time, Dick said:

"We'd be right back where we started. I think it would pay us to go downto Brunswick House and get a new outfit. It's only about a week up theMissináibie. " Then, led by inevitable association of ideas, "Wonder ifthose Crees had a good time? And I wonder if they've knocked our friendAh-tek, the Chippewa, on the head yet? He was a bad customer. "

"You better hope they have, " replied Sam. "He's got it in for you. "

Dick shrugged his shoulders and laughed easily. 

"That's all right, " insisted the older man; "just the same, an Injunnever forgets and never fails to get even. You may think he's forgotten, but he's layin' for you just the same, " and then, because they happenedto be resting in the lea of a bank and the sun was at its highest forthe day, Sam went on to detail one example after another from his wideobservation of the tenacity with which an Indian pursues an obligation, whether of gratitude or enmity. "They'll travel a thousand miles to geteven, " he concluded. "They'll drop the most important business theygot, if they think they have a good chance to make a killing. He'll runup against you some day, my son, and then you'll have it out. "

"All right, " agreed Dick, "I'll take care of him. Perhaps I'd better getorganised; he may be laying for me around the next bend. "

"I don't know what made us talk about it, " said Sam, "but funnier thingshave happened to me. " Dick, with mock solicitude, loosened his knife. 

But Sam had suddenly become grave. "I believe in those things, " he said, a little fearfully. "They save a man sometimes, and sometimes they helphim to get what he wants. It's a Chippewa we're after; it's a Chippewawe've been talkin' about. They's something in it. "

"I don't know what you're driving at, " said Dick. 

"I don't know, " confessed Sam, "but I have a kind of a hunch we won'thave to go back to the Nipissing. " He looked gropingly about, withoutseeing, in the manner of an old man. 

"I hope your hunch is a good one, " replied Dick. "Well, mush on!"

The little cavalcade had made barely a dozen steps in advance when Sam, who was leading, came to a dead halt. 

"Well, what do you make of that?" he asked. 

Across the way lay the trunk of a fallen tree. It had been entirelycovered with snow, whose line ran clear and unbroken its entire lengthexcept at one point, where it dipped to a shallow notch. 

"Well, what do you make of that?" Sam inquired again. 

"What?" asked Dick. 

Sam pointed to the shallow depression in the snow covering the prostratetree-trunk. 

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Dick looked at his companion a little bewildered. 

"Why, you must know as well as I do, " he said, "somebody stepped on topof that log with snow-shoes, and it's snowed since. "

"Yes, but who?" insisted Sam. 

"The trapper in this district, of course. "

"Sure; and let me tell you this, --that trapper is the man we're after. That's his trail. "

"How do you know?"

"I'm sure. I've got a hunch. "

Dick looked sceptical, then impressed. After all, you never could tellwhat a man might not learn out in the Silent Places, and the oldwoodsman had grown gray among woods secrets. 

"We'll follow the trail and find his camp, " pursued Sam. 

"You ain't going to ambush him?" inquired Dick. 

"What's the use? He's the last man we have to tend to in this district, anyway. Even if it shouldn't be Jingoss, we don't care if he sees us. We'll tell him we're travelling from York to Winnipeg. It must be prettynear on the direct line from here. "

"All right, " said Dick. 

They set themselves to following the trail. As the only persistences ofit through the last storm were to be found where the snow-shoes had leftdeep notches on the fallen timber, this was not an easy matter. After atime the affair was simplified by the dogs. Dick had been breakingtrail, but paused a moment to tie his shoe. The team floundered ahead. After a moment it discovered the half-packed snow of the old trail afoot below the newer surface, and, finding it easier travel, held to it. Between the partial success at this, and an occasional indication on thetops of fallen trees, the woodsmen managed to keep the direction of thefore-runner's travel. 

Suddenly Dick stopped short in his tracks. 

"Look there!" he exclaimed. 

Before them was a place where a man had camped for the night. 

"He's travelling!" cried Sam. 

This exploded the theory that the trail had been made by the Indian towhom the trapping rights of the district belonged. At once the two menbegan to spy here and there eagerly, trying to reconstruct from themeagre vestiges of occupation who the camper had been and what he hadbeen doing. 

The condition of the fire corroborated what the condition of the trailhad indicated. Probably the man had passed about three days ago. Thenature of the fire proclaimed him an Indian, for it was small and round, where a white man's is long and hot. He had no dogs; therefore hisjourney was short, for, necessarily, he was carrying what he needed onhis back. Neither on the route nor here in camp were any indicationsthat he had carried or was examining traps; so the conclusion was thatthis trip was not merely one of the long circles a trapper sometimesmakes about the limits of his domain. What, then, was the errand of asingle man, travelling light and fast in the dead of winter?

"It's the man we're after, " said Sam, with conviction. "He's eithertaken the alarm, or he's visiting. "

"Look, " called the girl from beneath the wide branches of a spruce. 

They went. Beneath a lower limb, whose fan had protected it from thefalling snow, was the single clear print of a snow-shoe. 

"Hah!" cried Sam, in delight, and fell on his knees to examine it. Atthe first glance he uttered another exclamation of pleasure, for, thoughthe shoe had been of the Ojibway pattern, in certain modifications itsuggested a more northerly origin. The toes had been craftily upturned, the tails shortened, the webbing more closely woven. 

"It's Ojibway, " induced Sam, over his shoulder, "but the man who made ithas lived among the Crees. That fits Jingoss. Dick, it's the man we'reafter!"

It was by now almost noon. They boiled tea at the old camp site, andtightened their belts for a stern chase. 

That afternoon the head wind opposed them, exasperating, tireless in itsresistance, never lulling for a single instant. At the moment it seemedmore than could be borne. Near one o'clock it did them a great despite, for at that hour the trail came to a broad and wide lake. There the snowhad fallen, and the wind had drifted it so that the surface of the icewas white and smooth as paper. The faint trail led accurately to thebank--and was obliterated. 

Nothing remained but to circle the shores to right and to left until theplace of egress was discovered. This meant long work and careful work, for the lake was of considerable size. It meant that the afternoon wouldgo, and perhaps the day following, while the man whose footsteps theywere following would be drawing steadily away. 

It was agreed that May-may-gwán should remain with the sledge, that Dickshould circle to the right, and Sam to the left, and that all threeshould watch each other carefully for a signal of discovery. 

But now Sam happened to glance at Mack, the wrinkle-nosed hound. Thesledge had been pulled a short distance out on the ice. Mack, alternately whining and sniffing, was trying to induce his comrades toturn slanting to the left. 

"What's the matter with that dog?" he inquired on a sudden. 

"Smells something; what's the difference? Let's get a move on us, "replied Dick, carelessly. 

"Hold on, " ordered Sam. 

He rapidly changed the dog-harness in order to put Mack in the lead. 

"Mush! Mush on!" he commanded. 

Immediately the hound, his nose low, uttered a deep, bell-like note andstruck on the diagonal across the lake. 

"Come on, " said Sam; "he's got it. "

Across the white waste of the lake, against the bite of the unobstructedwind, under the shelter of the bank opposite they ran at slightlyaccelerated speed, then without pause into the forest on the other side. 

"Look, " said the older woodsman, pointing ahead to a fallen trunk. Itwas the trail. 

"That was handy, " commented Dick, and promptly forgot about it. But Samtreasured the incident for the future. 

And then, just before two o'clock, the wind did them a great service. Down the long, straight lines of its flight came distinctly the creakof snow-shoes. Evidently the traveller, whoever he might be, wasretracing his steps. 

At once Sam overturned the sledge, thus anchoring the dogs, and Dick ranahead to conceal himself. May-may-gwán offered a suggestion. 

"The dogs may bark too soon, " said she. 

Instantly Sam was at work binding fast their jaws with buckskin thongs. The girl assisted him. When the task was finished he ran forward to joinDick, hidden in the bushes. 

Eight months of toil focussed in the moment. The faint creaking of theshoes came ever louder down the wind. Once it paused. Dick caught hisbreath. Had the traveller discovered anything suspicious? He glancedbehind him. 

"Where's the girl?" he hissed between his teeth. "Damn her, she's warnedhim!"

But almost with Sam's reply the creaking began again, and after aninstant of indetermination continued its course. 

Then suddenly the woodsmen, with a simultaneous movement, raised theirrifles, and with equal unanimity lowered them, gasping withastonishment. Dick's enemy, Ah-tek, the renegade Chippewa of Haukemah'sband on the Missináibie, stepped from the concealment of the bushes. 

CHAPTER TWENTY

Of the three the Indian was the first to recover. 

"Bo' jou', bo' jou', " said he, calmly. 

Sam collected himself to a reply. Dick said nothing, but fell behind, with his rifle across his arm. All marched on in silence to where laythe dog-sledge, guarded by May-may-gwán. The Chippewa's keen eyes tookin every detail of the scene, the overturning of the sledge, themuzzling of the dogs, the general nature of the equipment. If he madeany deductions, he gave no sign, nor did he evince any furtherastonishment at finding these men so far north at such a time of year. Only, when he thought himself unobserved, he cast a glance of peculiarintelligence at the girl, who, after a moment's hesitation, returned it. 

The occasion was one of elaborate courtesy. Sam ordered tea boiled, andoffered his tobacco. Over the fire he ventured a more direct inquirythan his customary policy would have advised. 

"My brother is a long journey from the Missináibie. "

The Chippewa assented. 

"Haukemah, then, hunts these districts. "

The Chippewa replied no. 

"My brother has left Haukemah. "

Again the Chippewa denied, but after enjoying for a moment the bafflingof the old man's intentions, he volunteered information. 

"The trapper of this district is my brother. I have visited him. "

"It was a short visit for so long a journey. The trail is but three daysold. "

Ah-tek assented gravely. Evidently he cared very little whether or nothis explanation was accepted. 

"How many days to Winnipeg?" asked Sam. 

"I have never been there, " replied the Indian. 

"We have summered in the region of the Missináibie, " proffered Sam. "Nowwe go to Winnipeg. "

The Indian's inscrutable countenance gave no indication as to whether ornot he believed this. After a moment he knocked the ashes from his pipeand arose, casting another sharp glance at May-may-gwán. She had beenbusy at the sledge. Now she approached, carrying simply her own blanketsand clothing. 

"This man, " said she to the two, "is of my people. He returns to them. Igo with him. "

The Chippewa twisted his feet into his snow-shoes, nodded to the whitemen, and swung away on the back trail in the direction whence ourtravellers had come. The girl, without more leave-taking, followed closeat his back. For an instant the crunch of shoes splintered the frostyair. Then they rounded a bend. Silence fell swift as a hawk. 

"Well, I'll be damned!" ejaculated Dick at last. "Do you think he wasreally up here visiting?"

"No, of course not, " replied Sam. "Don't you see--"

"Then he came after the girl?"

"Good God, _no!_" answered Sam. "He--"

"Then he was after me, " interrupted Dick again with growing excitement. "Why didn't you let me shoot him, Sam--"

"Will you shut up and listen to me?" demanded the old man, impatiently. "If he'd wanted you, he'd have got you when you were hurt last summer;and if he'd wanted the girl, he'd have got her then, too. It's all clearto me. He _has_ been visiting a friend, --perhaps his brother, as hesaid, --and he did spend less than three days in the visit. What did hecome for? Let me tell you! That friend, or brother, is Jingoss, and hecame up here to warn him that we're after him. The Chippewa suspected usa little on the Missináibie, but he wasn't sure. Probably he's had hiseye on us ever since. "

"But why didn't he warn this Jingoss long ago, then?" objected Dick. 

"Because we fooled him, just as we fooled all the Injuns. We _might_ belooking for winter posts, just as we said. And then if he came up hereand told Jingoss we were after him, when really we didn't know beansabout Jingoss and his steals, and then this Jingoss should skip thecountry and leave an almighty good fur district all for nothing, thatwould be a nice healthy favour to do for a man, wouldn't it! No, he hadto be _sure_ before he made any moves. And he didn't get to be sureuntil he heard somehow from some one who saw our trails that threepeople were travelling in the winter up through this country. Then hepiked out to warn Jingoss. "

"I believe you're right!" cried Dick. 

"Of course I'm right. And another thing; if that's the case we're prettyclose there. How many more trappers are there in this district? Justone! And since this Chippewa is going back on his back trail withinthree days after he made it, he couldn't have gone farther than that oneman. And that one man must be--"

"Jingoss himself!" finished Dick. 

"Within a day and a half of us, anyway; probably much closer, "supplemented Sam. "It's as plain as a sledge-trail. "

"He's been warned, " Dick reminded him. 

But Sam, afire with the inspiration of inductive reasoning, could see noobjection there. 

"This Chippewa knew we were in the country, " he argued, "but he hadn'tany idea we were so close. If he had, he wouldn't have been so foolishas to follow his own back track when he was going out. I don't know whathis ideas were, of course, but he was almighty surprised to see us here. He's warned this Jingoss, not more than a day or so ago. But he didn'ttell him to skedaddle at once. He said, 'Those fellows are after you, and they're moseying around down south of here, and probably they'll getup here in the course of the winter. You'd probably better slide out'till they get done. ' Then he stayed a day and smoked a lot, and startedback. Now, if Jingoss just thinks we're coming _some time_, and notto-morrow, he ain't going to pull up stakes in such a hell of a hurry. He'll pack what furs he's got, and he'll pick up what traps he's gotout. That would take him several days, anyway. My son, we're in the nickof time!"

"Sam, you're a wonder, " said Dick, admiringly. "I never could havethought all that out. "

"If that idea's correct, " went on Sam, "and the Chippewa's just comefrom Jingoss, why we've got the Chippewa's trail to follow back, haven'twe?"

"Sure!" agreed Dick, "all packed and broken. "

They righted the sledge and unbound the dogs' jaws. 

"Well, we got rid of the girl, " said Dick, casually. "Damn little fool. I didn't think she'd leave us that easy. She'd been with us quite awhile. "

"Neither did I, " admitted Sam; "but it's natural, Dick. We ain't herpeople, and we haven't treated her very well, and I don't wonder she wassick of it and took the first chance back. We've got our work cut outfor us now, and we're just as well off without her. "

"The Chippewa's a sort of public benefactor all round, " said Dick. 

The dogs yawned prodigiously, stretching their jaws after the severemuzzling. Sam began reflectively to undo the flaps of the sledge. 

"Guess we'd better camp here, " said he. "It's getting pretty late andwe're due for one hell of a tramp to-morrow. "

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Some time during the night May-may-gwán rejoined them. Sam was awakenedby the demonstration of the dogs, at first hostile, then friendly withrecognition. He leaped to his feet, startled at the apparition of ahuman figure. Dick sat up alert at once. The fire had almost died, butbetween the glow of its embers and the light of the aurora siftedthrough the trees they made her out. 

"Oh, for God's _sake!_" snarled Dick, and lay back again in hisblankets, but in a moment resumed his sitting position. "She made herchoice, " he proffered vehemently, "make her stick to it! Make her stickto it. She can't change her mind every other second like this, and wedon't _need_ her!"

But Sam, piling dry wood on the fire, looked in her face. 

"Shut up, Dick, " he commanded sharply. "Something in this. "

The young man stared at his companion an enigmatical instant, hesitatingas to his reply. 

"Oh, all right, " he replied at last with ostentatious indifference. "Idon't give a damn. Don't sit up too late with the young lady. Goodnight!" He disappeared beneath his coverings, plainly disgruntled, as, for a greater or less period of time, he always was when even the leastof his plans or points of view required readjustment. 

Sam boiled tea, roasted a caribou steak, knelt and removed the girl'sdamp foot-gear and replaced it with fresh. Then he held the cup to herlips, cut the tough meat for her with his hunting-knife, even fed her asthough she were a child. He piled more wood on the fire, he wrappedabout her shoulders one of the blankets with the hare-skin lining. Finally, when nothing more remained to be done, he lit his pipe andsquatted on his heels close to her, lending her mood the sympathy ofhuman silence. 

She drank the tea, swallowed the food, permitted the change of herfoot-gear, bent her shoulders to the blanket, all without the appearanceof consciousness. The corners of her lips were bent firmly downward. Her eyes, fixed and exalted, gazed beyond the fire, beyond the dancingshadows, beyond the world. After a long interval she began to speak, low-voiced, in short disconnected sentences. 

"My brothers seek the Ojibway, Jingoss. They will take him to Conjuror'sHouse. But Jingoss knows that my brothers come. He has been told byAh-tek. He leaves the next sun. He is to travel to the west, to PeaceRiver. Now his camp is five hours to the north. I know where it is. Jingoss has three dogs. He has much meat. He has no gun but thetrade-gun. I have learned this. I come to tell it to my brothers. "

"Why, May-may-gwán?" inquired Sam, gently. 

She turned on him a look of pride. 

"Have you thought I had left you for him?" she asked. "I have learnedthese things. "

Sam uttered an exclamation of dismay. 

"What?" she queried with a slow surprise. 

"But he, the Chippewa, " Sam pointed out, "now he knows of our presence. He will aid Jingoss; he will warn him afresh to-night!"

May-may-gwán was again rapt in sad but ex alted contemplation ofsomething beyond. She answered merely by a contemptuous gesture. 

"But--" insisted Sam. 

"I know, " she replied, with conviction. 

Sam, troubled he knew not why, leaned forward to arrange the fire. 

"How do you know, Little Sister?" he inquired, after some hesitation. 

She answered by another weary gesture. Again Sam hesitated. 

"Little Sister, " said he, at last, "I am an old man. I have seen manyyears pass. They have left me some wisdom. They have made my heart goodto those who are in trouble. If it was not to return to your own people, then why did you go with Ah-tek this morning?"

"That I might know what my brothers wished to know. "

"And you think he told you all these things truly?" doubted Sam. 

She looked directly at him. 

"Little Father, " said she slowly, "long has this man wanted me to livein his wigwam. For that he joined Haukemah's band;--because I wasthere. I have been good in his eyes. Never have I given him favour. Myfavour always would unlock his heart. "

"But are you sure he spoke truth, " objected Sam. "You have never lookedkindly on him. You left Haukemah's band to go with us. How could hetrust you?"

She looked at him bravely. 

"Little Father, " she replied, "there is a moment when man and womantrust utterly, and when they say truly what lies in their hearts. "

"Good God!" cried Sam, in English. 

"It was the only way, " she answered the spirit of his interjection. "Ihad known before only his forked tongue. "

"Why did you do this, girl? You had no right, no reason. You should haveconsulted us. "

"Little Father, " said she, "the people of your race are a strangepeople. I do not understand them. An evil is done them, and they pass itby; a good is done them, and they do not remember. With us it isdifferent. Always in our hearts dwell the good and the evil. "

"What good have we done to you?" asked Sam. 

"Jibiwánisi has looked into my heart, " she replied, lapsing into theIndian rhetoric of deep emotion. "He has looked into my heart, and inthe doorway he blots out the world. At the first I wanted to die when hewould not look on me with favour. Then I wanted to die when I thought Ishould never possess him. Now it is enough that I am near him, that Ilay his fire, and cook his tea and caribou, that I follow his trail, that I am ready when he needs me, that I can raise my eyes and see himbreaking the trail. For when I look up at him the sun breaks out, andthe snow shines, and there is a light under the trees. And when I thinkof raising my eyes, and he not there, nor anywhere near, then my heartfreezes, Little Father, freezes with loneliness. "

Abruptly she arose, casting aside the blanket and stretching her armsrigid above her head. Then with equal abruptness she stooped, caught upher bedding, spread it out, and lay down stolidly to rest, turning herback to both the white men. 

But Sam remained crouched by the fire until the morning hour of waking, staring with troubled eyes. 

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Later in the morning Dick attempted some remark on the subject of thegirl's presence. At once Sam whirled on him with a gust of passionutterly unlike his ordinary deliberate and even habit. 

"Shut your damned mouth!" he fairly shouted. 

Dick whistled in what he thought was a new enlightenment, and followedliterally the other's vigorous advice. Not a syllable did he utter foran hour, by which time the sun had risen. Then he stopped and pointed toa fresh trail converging into that they were following. 

The prints of two pairs of snow-shoes joined; those of one returned. 

Sam gasped. Dick looked ironical. The interpretation was plain withoutthe need of words. The Chippewa and the girl, although they had startedto the southeast, had made a long detour in order again to reachJingoss. These two pairs of snow-shoe tracks marked where they hadconsidered it safe again to strike into the old trail made by theChippewa in going and coming. The one track showed where Ah-tek hadpushed on to rejoin his friend; the other was that of the girl returningfor some reason the night before, perhaps to throw them off the scent. 

"Looks as if they'd fooled you, and fooled you good, " said Dick, cheerfully. 

For a single instant doubt drowned Sam's faith in his own insight and inhuman nature. 

"Dick, " said he, quietly, "raise your eyes. "

Not five rods farther on the trail the two had camped for the night. Evidently Ah-tek had discovered his detour to have lasted out the day, and, having satisfied himself that his and his friend's enemies were notahead of him, he had called a halt. The snow had been scraped away, thelittle fire built, the ground strewn with boughs. So far the indicationswere plain and to be read at a glance. But upright in the snow were twosnow-shoes, and tumbled on the ground was bedding. 

Instantly the two men leaped forward. May-may-gwán, her face stolid andexpressionless, but her eyes glowing, stood straight and motionless bythe dogs. Together they laid hold of the smoothly spread top blanketand swept it aside. Beneath was a jumble of warmer bedding. In it, hisfists clenched, his eyes half open in the horrific surprise of a suddencalling, lay the Chippewa stabbed to the heart. 

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

The silence of the grave lay over the white world. Deep in the forest atree detonated with the frost. There by the cold last night's camp thefour human figures posed, motionless as a wind that has died. Only thedogs, lolling, stretching, sending the warm steam of their breathinginto the dead air, seemed to stand for the world of life, and the worldof sentient creatures. And yet their very presence, unobtrusive in theforest shadows, by contrast thrust farther these others into the land ofphantoms and of ghosts. 

Then quietly, as with one consent, the three living ones turned away. The older woodsman stepped into the trail, leading the way for the dogs;the younger woodsman swung in behind at the gee-pole; the girl followed. Once more; slowly, as though reluctant, the forest trees resumed theirsilent progress past those three toiling in the treadmill of the days. The camp dropped back; it confused itself in the frost mists; it wasgone, gone into the mystery and the vastness of the North, gone with itstragedy and its symbol of the greatness of human passion, gone with itsone silent watcher staring at the sky, awaiting the coming of day. Thefrost had mercifully closed again about its revelation. No human eyewould ever read that page again. 

Each of the three seemed wrapped in the splendid isolation of his owndream. They strode on sightless, like somnambulists. Only mechanicallythey kept the trail, and why they did so they could not have told. Nocoherent thoughts passed through their brains. But always the trees, frost-rimed, drifted past like phantoms; always the occult influences ofthe North loomed large on their horizon like mirages, dwindled in theactuality, but threatened again in the bigness of mystery when they hadpassed. The North was near, threatening, driving the terror of hertragedy home to the hearts of these staring mechanical plodders, who nowtravelled they knew not why, farther and farther into the depths ofdread. 

But the dogs stopped, and Billy, the leader, sniffed audibly in inquiryof what lay ahead. Instantly, in the necessity for action, the spellbroke. The mystery which had lain so long at their horizon, which butnow had crept in, threatening to smother them, rolled back to itsaccustomed place. The north withheld her hand. 

Before them was another camp, one that had been long used. A conicaltepee or wigwam, a wide space cleared of snow, much débris, racks andscaffolds for the accommodation of supplies, all these attested longoccupancy. 

Sam jerked the cover from his rifle, and cast a hasty glance at thenipple to see if it was capped. Dick jumped forward and snatched asidethe opening into the wigwam. 

"Not at home!" said he. 

"Gone, " corrected Sam, pointing to a fresh trail beyond. 

At once the two men turned their attention to this. After somedifficulty they established the fact of a three-dog team. Testing theconsistency of the snow they proved a heavy load on the toboggan. 

"I'm afraid that means he's gone for good, " said Sam. 

[Illustration: Dick jumped forward and snatched aside the opening intothe wigwam]

A further examination of camp corroborated this. The teepee had beenmade double, with the space between the two walls stuffed with moss, soevidently it had been built as permanent winter quarters. The fact ofits desertion at this time of year confirmed the reasoning as to theidentity of its occupant and the fact of his having been warned by thedead Chippewa. Skulls of animals indicated a fairly prosperous furseason. But the skulls of animals, a broken knife, a pile ofbalsam-boughs, and the deserted wigwam were all that remained. Jingosshad taken with him his traps, his pelts, his supplies. 

"That's a good thing, " concluded Sam, "a mighty good thing. It shows heain't much scared. He don't suspect we're anywhere's near him; only thatit ain't very healthy to spend the winter in this part of the country. If he'd thought we was close, he wouldn't have lugged along a lot ofplunder; he'd be flying mighty light. "

"That's right, " agreed Dick. 

"And in that case he isn't travelling very fast. We'll soon catch up. "

"He only left this morning, " supplemented Dick, examining thefrost-crystals in the new-cut trail. 

Without wasting further attention, they set out in pursuit. The girlfollowed. Dick turned to her. 

"I think we shall catch him very soon, " said he, in Ojibway. 

The girl's face brightened and her eyes filled. The simple wordsadmitted her to confidence, implied that she, too, had her share in theundertaking, her interest in its outcome. She stepped forward withwinged feet of gladness. 

Luckily a light wind had sprung up against them. They proceeded asquietly and as swiftly as they could. In a short time they came to aspot where Jingoss had boiled tea. This indicated that he must havestarted late in the morning to have accomplished only so short adistance before noon. The trail, too, became fresher. 

Billy, the regular lead dog, on this occasion occupied his officialposition ahead, although, as has been pointed out, he was sometimesalternated with the hound, who now ran just behind him. Third trottedWolf, a strong beast, but a stupid; then Claire, at the sledge, sagacious, alert, ready to turn the sledge from obstruction. For along, time all these beasts, with the strange intelligence of animalsmuch associated with man, had entertained a strong interest in thedoings of their masters. Something besides the day's journey was in thewind. They felt it through their keen instinctive responsiveness to themoods of those over them; they knew it by the testimony of their brighteyes which told them that these investigations and pryings were not allin an ordinary day's travel. Investigations and pryings appeal to adog's nature. Especially did Mack, the hound, long to be free of hisharness that he, too, might sniff here and there in odd nooks andcrannies, testing with that marvelously keen nose of his what hismasters regarded so curiously. Now at last he understood from thefrequent stops and examinations that the trail was the important thing. From time to time he sniffed of it deeply, saturating his memory withthe quality of its effluvia. Always it grew fresher. And then at lastthe warm animal scent rose alive to his nostrils, and he lifted his headand bayed. 

The long, weird sound struck against the silence with the impact of ablow. Nothing more undesirable could have happened. Again Mack bayed, and the echoing bell tones of his voice took on a strange similarity toa tocsin of warning. Rustling and crackling across the men's fancies theinfluences of the North moved invisible, alert, suddenly roused. 

Dick whirled with an exclamation, throwing down and back the lever ofhis Winchester, his face suffused, his eye angry. 

"Damnation!" exclaimed Bolton, anticipating his intention, and springingforward in time to strike up the muzzle of the rifle, though not soonenough to prevent the shot. 

Against the snow, plastered on a distant tree, the bullet hit, scattering the fine powder; then ricochetted, shrieking with increasingjoy as it mounted the upper air. After it, as though released by itspassage from the spell of the great frost, trooped the voices and echoesof the wilderness. In the still air such a racket would carry miles. 

Sam looked from the man to the dog. 

"Well, between the two of you!" said he. 

Dick sprang forward, lashing the team with his whip. 

"After him!" he shouted. 

They ran in a swirl of light snow. In a very few moments they came to abundle of pelts, a little pile of traps, the unnecessary impedimentsdiscarded by the man they pursued. So near had they been to a capture. 

Sam, out of breath, peremptorily called a halt. 

"Hold on!" he commanded. "Take it easy. We can't catch him like this. He's travelling light, and he's one man, and he has a fresh team. He'llpull away from us too easy, and leave us with worn-out dogs. " The oldman sat and deliberately filled his pipe. 

Dick fumed up and down, chafing at the delay, convinced that somethingshould be done immediately, but at a loss to tell what it should be. 

"What'll we do, then?" he asked, after a little. 

"He leaves a trail, don't he?" inquired Sam. "We must follow it. "

"But what good--how can we ever catch up?"

"We've got to throw away our traps and extra duffle. We've got to travelas fast as we can without wearing ourselves out. He may try to go toofast, and so we may wear him down. It's our only show, anyway. If welose him now, we'll never find him again. That trail is all we have togo by. "

"How if it snows hard? It's getting toward spring storms. "

"If it snows hard--well--" The old man fell silent, puffing away at hispipe. "One thing I want you to understand, " he continued, looking upwith a sudden sternness, "don't you ever take it on yourself to shootthat gun again. We're to take that man alive. The noise of the shotto-day was a serious thing; it gave Jingoss warning, and perhaps spoiledour chance to surprise him. But he might have heard us anyway. Let thatgo. But if you'd have killed that hound as you started out to do, you'dhave done more harm than your fool head could straighten out in alifetime. That hound--why--he's the best thing we've got. I'd--I'dalmost rather lose our rifles than him--" he trailed off again intorumination. 

Dick, sobered as he always was when his companion took this tone, inquired why, but received no answer. After a moment Sam began to sortthe contents of the sledge, casting aside all but the necessities. 

"What's the plan?" Dick ventured. 

"To follow. "

"How long do you think it will be before we catch him?"

"God knows. "

The dogs leaned into their harness, almost falling forward at theunexpected lightness of the load. Again the little company moved atmeasured gait. For ten minutes nothing was said. Then Dick:

"Sam, " he said, "I think we have just about as much chance as a snowballin hell. "

"So do I, " agreed the old woodsman, soberly. 

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

They took up the trail methodically, as though no hurry existed. At theusual time of the evening they camped. Dick was for pushing on an extrahour or so, announcing himself not in the least tired, and the dogsfresh, but Sam would have none of it. 

"It's going to be a long, hard pull, " he said. "We're not going to catchup with him to-day, or to-morrow, or next day. It ain't a question ofwhether you're tired or the dogs are fresh to-night; it's a question ofhow you're going to be a month from now. "

"We won't be able to follow him a month, " objected Dick. 

"Why?"

"It'll snow, and then we'll lose th' trail. The spring snows can't befar off now. They'll cover it a foot deep. "

"Mebbe, " agreed Sam, inconclusively. 

"Besides, " pursued Dick, "he'll be with his own people in less than amonth, and then there won't be any trail to follow. "

Whereupon Sam looked a little troubled, for this, in his mind, was thechief menace to their success. If Jingoss turned south to the LakeSuperior country, he could lose himself among the Ojibways of thatregion; and, if all remained true to him, the white men would neveragain be able to get trace of him. _If all remained true to him:_--onthe chance of that Sam was staking his faith. The Honourable theHudson's Bay Company has been established a great many years; it hasalways treated its Indians justly; it enjoys a tremendous prestige forinfallibility. The bonds of race are strong, but the probabilities weregood that in the tribes with whom Jingoss would be forced to seeksanctuary would be some members, whose loyalty to the Company wouldout-balance the rather shadowy obligation to a man they had never seenbefore. Jingoss might be betrayed. The chances of it were fairly good. Sam Bolton knew that the Indian must be perfectly aware of this, anddoubted if he would take the risk. A single man with three dogs ought torun away from three pursuers with only four. Therefore, the oldwoodsman thought himself justified in relying at least on the meagreopportunity a stern chase would afford. 

He did not know where the Indian would be likely to lead him. Thechecker-board of the wilderness lay open. As he had before reflected, itwould be only too easy for Jingoss to keep between himself and hispursuers the width of the game. The Northwest was wide; the plainsgreat; the Rocky Mountains lofty and full of hiding-places, --it seemedlikely he would turn west. Or the deep forests of the other coastoffered unlimited opportunities of concealment, --the east might well behis choice. It did not matter particularly. Into either it would not bedifficult to follow; and Sam hoped in either to gain a sight of hisprize before the snow melted. 

The Indian, however, after the preliminary twists and turns ofindecision, turned due north. For nearly a week Sam thought this must bea ruse, or a cast by which to gain some route known to Jingoss. But theforests began to dwindle; the muskegs to open. The Land of Little Stickscould not be far distant, and beyond them was the Barren Grounds. Theold woodsman knew the defaulter for a reckless and determined man. Gradually the belief, and at last the conviction, forced itself on himthat here he gamed with no cautious player. The Indian was laying on thetable the stakes of life or death. He, too, had realised that the testmust be one of endurance, and in the superbness of his confidence he haddetermined not to play with preliminary half measures, but to apply atonce the supreme test to himself and his antagonists. He was headingdirectly out into the winter desert, where existed no game but thesingle big caribou herd whose pastures were so wide that to meet themwould be like encountering a single school of dolphins in all the sevenseas. 

As soon as Sam discovered this, he called Dick's attention to it. 

"We're in for it, " said he, "he's going to take us out on the BarrenGrounds and lose us. "

"If he can, " supplemented Dick. 

"Yes, if he can, " agreed Sam. After a moment he went on, pursuing histrain of thought aloud, as was his habit. 

"He's thinking he has more grub than we have; that's about what itamounts to. He thinks he can tire us out. The chances are we'll find nomore game. We've got to go on what we have. He's probably got asledge-load;--and so have we;--but he has only one to feed, and threedogs, and we have three and four dogs. "

"That's all right; he's our Injun, " replied Dick, voicing the instinctof race superiority which, after all, does often seem to accomplish theimpossible. "It's too bad we have the girl with us, " he added, after amoment. 

"Yes, it is, " agreed Sam. Yet it was most significant that now itoccurred to neither of them that she might be abandoned. 

The daily supply of provisions was immediately cut to a minimum, andalmost at once they felt the effects. The north demands hard work andthe greatest resisting power of the vitality; the vitality calls on thebody for fuel; and the body in turn insists on food. It is astonishingto see what quantities of nourishment can be absorbed without apparenteffect. And when the food is denied, but the vitality is still calledupon, it is equally astonishing to see how quickly it takes its revenge. Our travellers became lean in two days, dizzy in a week, tired to thelast fibre, on the edge of exhaustion. They took care, however, not tostep over that edge. 

Sam Bolton saw to it. His was not only the bodily labour, but the mentalanxiety. His attitude was the tenseness of a helmsman in a heavy wind, quivering to the faintest indication, ready to give her all she willbear, but equally ready to luff this side of disaster. Only his equablemind could have resisted an almost overpowering impulse toward sporadicbursts of speed or lengthening of hours. He had much of this to repressin Dick. But on the other hand he watched zealously against the needlesswaste of even a single second. Every expedient his long woods life orhis native ingenuity suggested he applied at once to the problem of thegreatest speed, the least expenditure of energy to a given end, thesmallest consumption of food compatible with the preservation ofstrength. The legitimate travel of a day might amount to twenty orthirty miles. Sam added an extra five or ten to them. And that five orten he drew from the living tissues of his very life. They were acreation, made from nothing, given a body by the individual genius ofthe man. The drain cut down his nervous energy, made him lean, drew theanxious lines of an incipient exhaustion across his brow. 

At first, as may be gathered, the advantages of the game seemed to bestrongly in the Indian's favour. The food supply, the transportationfacilities, and advantage of position in case game should be encounteredwere all his. Against him he need count seriously only the offset ofdogged Anglo-Saxon grit. But as the travel defined itself, certaincompensations made themselves evident. 

Direct warfare was impossible to him. He possessed only asingle-barrelled muzzle-loading gun of no great efficiency. In case ofambush he might, with luck, be able to kill one of his pursuers, but hewould indubitably be captured by the other. He would be unable toapproach them at night because of their dogs. His dog-team was stronger, but with it he had to break trail, which the others could utilisewithout further effort. Even should his position in advance bring him ongame, without great luck, he would be unable to kill it, for he wasalone and could not leave his team for long. And his very swiftness initself would react against him, for he was continually under thetemptation daily to exceed by a little his powers. 

These considerations the white men at first could not see; and so, logically, they were more encouraged by them when at last they didappear. And then in turn, by natural reaction when the glow had died, the great discouragement of the barren places fell on their spirits. They plodded, seeing no further than their daily necessity of travel. They plodded, their eyes fixed to the trail, which led always on towardthe pole star, undeviating, as a deer flies in a straight line hoping toshake off the wolves. 

The dense forest growth was succeeded in time by the low spruce andpoplar thickets; these in turn by the open reaches planted like a parkwith the pointed firs. Then came the Land of Little Sticks, and so onout into the vast whiteness of the true North, where the trees areliliputian and the spaces gigantic beyond the measures of the earth;where living things dwindle to the significance of black specks on alimitless field of white, and the aurora crackles and shoots and spreadsand threatens like a great inimical and magnificent spirit. 

The tendency seemed toward a mighty simplification, as though thecomplexities of the world were reverting toward their originalphilosophic unity. The complex summer had become simple autumn; theautumn, winter; now the very winter itself was apparently losing itsdifferentiations of bushes and trees, hills and valleys, streams andliving things. The growths were disappearing; the hills were flatteningtoward the great northern wastes; the rare creatures inhabiting thesebarrens took on the colour of their environment. The ptarmigan matchedthe snow, --the fox, --the ermine. They moved either invisible or asghosts. 

Little by little such dwindling of the materials for diverseobservation, in alliance with the too-severe labour and the starving, brought about a strange concentration of ideas. The inner world seemedto undergo the same process of simplification as the outer. Extraneousconsiderations disappeared. The entire cosmos of experience came to bean expanse of white, themselves, and the Trail. These three reacted oneon the other, and outside of them there was no reaction. 

In the expanse of white was no food: their food was dwindling; theTrail led on into barren lands where no food was to be had. That was thecircle that whirled insistent in their brains. 

At night they sank down, felled by the sheer burden of weariness, and nomatter how exhausted they might be the Trail continued, springing onwith the same apparently tireless energy toward its unknown goal in theNorth. Gradually they lost sight of the ultimate object of their quest. It became obscured by the immediate object, and that was the followingof the Trail. They forgot that a man had made it, or if for a moment itdid occur to them that it was the product of some agency outside of andabove itself, that agent loomed vaguely as a mysterious, extra-humanpower, like the winds or the cold or the great Wilderness itself. It didnot seem possible that he could feel the need for food, for rest, thatever his vital forces could wane. In the north was starvation for them, a starvation to which they drew ever nearer day by day, but irresistiblythe notion obsessed them that this forerunner, the forerunner of theTrail, proved no such material necessities, that he drew his sustenancefrom his environment in some mysterious manner not to be understood. Always on and on and on the Trail was destined to lead them until theydied, and then the maker of it, --not Jingoss, not the Weasel, thedefaulter, the man of flesh and blood and nerves and thoughts and thecapacities for suffering, --but a being elusive as the aurora, anembodiment of that dread country, a servant of the unfriendly North, would return as he had done. 

Over the land lay silence. The sea has its undertone on the stillestnights; the woods are quiet with an hundred lesser noises; but here wasabsolute, terrifying, smothering silence, --the suspension of all sound, even the least, --looming like a threatening cloud larger and moredreadful above the cowering imagination. The human soul demanded toshriek aloud in order to preserve its sanity, and yet a whisper utteredover against the heavy portent of this universal stillness seemed aprofanation that left the spirit crouched beneath a fear of retribution. And then suddenly the aurora, the only privileged voice, would cracklelike a silken banner. 

At first the world in the vastness of its spaces seemed to become biggerand bigger. Again abruptly it resumed its normal proportions, but they, the observers of it, had been struck small. To their own minds theyseemed like little black insects crawling painfully. In the distancethese insects crawled was a disproportion to the energy expended, adisproportion disheartening, filling the soul with the despair of anaccomplishment that could mean anything in the following of that whichmade the Trail. 

Always they ate pemmican. Of this there remained a fairly plentifulsupply, but the dog meat was running low. It was essential that the teambe well fed. Dick or Sam often travelled the entire day a quarter of amile one side or the other, hoping thus to encounter game, but withoutmuch success. A fox or so, a few plarmigan, that was all. These theysaved for the dogs. Three times a day they boiled tea and devoured thelittle square of pemmican. It did not supply the bulk their digestiveorgans needed, and became in time almost nauseatingly unpalatable, butit nourished. That, after all, was the main thing. The privation carvedthe flesh from their muscles, carved the muscles themselves to leanness. 

But in spite of the best they could do, the dog feed ran out. Thereremained but one thing to do. Already the sledge was growing lighter, and three dogs would be quite adequate for the work. They killed Wolf, the surly and stupid "husky. " Every scrap they saved, even to theentrails, which froze at once to solidity. The remaining dogs were puton half rations, just sufficient to keep up their strength. Thestarvation told on their tempers. Especially did Claire, the sledge-dog, heavy with young, and ravenous to feed their growth, wander about like aspirit, whining mournfully and sniffing the barren breeze. 

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

The journey extended over a month. The last three weeks of it werestarvation. At first this meant merely discomfort and the bearing of acertain amount of pain. Later it became acute suffering. Later still itdeveloped into a necessity for proving what virtue resided in the bottomof these men's souls. 

Perforce now they must make a choice of what ideas they would keep. Somethings must be given up, just as some things had to be discarded whenthey had lightened the sledge. All the lesser lumber had long sincegone. Certain bigger things still remained. 

They held grimly to the idea of catching the Indian. Their natural loveof life held tenaciously to a hope of return. An equally natural hopeclung to the ridiculous idea that the impossible might happen, that theneedle should drop from the haystack, that the caribou might spring intotheir view from the emptiness of space. Now it seemed that they mustmake a choice between the first two. 

"Dick, " said Bolton, solemnly, "we've mighty little pemmican left. If weturn around now, it'll just about get us back to the woods. If we go onfarther, we'll have to run into more food, or we'll never get out. "

"I knew it, " replied Dick. 

"Well?"

Dick looked at him astonished. "Well, what?" he inquired. 

"Shall we give it up?"

"Give it _up_!" cried the young man. "Of course not; what you thinkingof?"

"There's the caribou, " suggested Sam, doubtfully; "or maybe Jingoss hasmore grub than he's going to need. It's a slim chance. "

They still further reduced the ration of pemmican. The malnutritionbegan to play them tricks. It dizzied their brains, swarmed the vastnesswith hordes of little, dancing black specks like mosquitoes. In themorning every muscle of their bodies was stiffened to the consistency ofrawhide, and the movements necessary to loosen the fibres became anagony hardly to be endured. Nothing of voluntary consciousnessremained, could remain, but the effort of lifting the feet, driving thedogs, following the Trail; but involuntary consciousness lent themstrange hallucinations. They saw figures moving across the snow, butwhen they steadied their vision, nothing was there. 

They began to stumble over nothing; occasionally to fall. In this wasadded effort, but more particularly added annoyance. They hadcontinually to watch their footsteps. The walking was no longerinvoluntary, but they had definitely to think of each movement necessaryto the step, and this gave them a further reason for preoccupation, forconcentration. Dick's sullenness returned, more terrible than in thesummer. He went forward with his head down, refusing to take notice ofanything. He walked: that was to him the whole of existence. 

Once reverting analogously to his grievance of that time, he mentionedthe girl, saying briefly that soon they must all die, and it was betterthat she die now. Perhaps her share of the pemmican would bring them totheir quarry. The idea of return--not abandoned, but persistentlyignored--thrust into prominence this other, --to come to close quarterswith the man they pursued, to die grappled with him, dragging him downto the same death by which these three perished. But Sam would have noneof it, and Dick easily dropped the subject, relapsing into his grimmonomania of pursuit. 

In Dick's case even the hope of coming to grapples was fading. Hesomehow had little faith in his enemy. The man was too intangible, toodifficult to gauge. Dick had not caught a glimpse of the Indian sincethe pursuit began. The young man realised perfectly his own exhaustion;but he had no means of knowing whether or not the Indian was tiring. Hisfaith waned, though his determination did not. Unconsciously hesubstituted this monomania of pursuit. It took the place of the faith hefelt slipping from him--the faith that ever he would see the _fatamorgana_ luring him out into the Silent Places. 

Soon it became necessary to kill another dog. Dick, with a remnant ofhis old feeling, pleaded for the life of Billy, his pet. Sam would notentertain for a moment the destruction of the hound. There remainedonly Claire, the sledge-dog, with her pathetic brown eyes, and heraffectionate ways of the female dog. They went to kill her, anddiscovered her in the act of defending the young to which she had justgiven birth. Near at hand crouched Mack and Billy, their eyes red withfamine, their jaws a-slaver, eager to devour the newborn puppies. And inthe grim and dreadful sight Sam Bolton seemed at last to glimpse theface of his terrible antagonist. 

They beat back the dogs, and took the puppies. These they killed anddressed. Thus Claire's life was bought for her by the sacrifice of herprogeny. 

But even that was a temporary respite. She fell in her turn, and wasdevoured, to the last scrap of her hide. Dick again intervened to saveBilly, but failed. Sam issued his orders the more peremptorily as hefelt his strength waning, and realised the necessity of economisingevery ounce of it, even to that required in the arguing of expedients. Dick yielded with slight resistance, as he had yielded in the case ofthe girl. All matters but the one were rapidly becoming unimportant tohim. That concentration of his forces which represented the weapon ofhis greatest utility, was gradually taking place. He was becoming anengine of dogged determination, an engine whose burden the older man hadlong carried on his shoulders, but which now he was preparing to launchwhen his own strength should be gone. 

At last there was left but the one dog, Mack, the hound, with thewrinkled face and the long, hanging ears. He developed unexpectedendurance and an entire willingness, pulling strongly on the sledge, waiting in patience for his scanty meal, searching the faces of hismasters with his wise brown eyes, dumbly sympathetic in a trouble whoseentirety he could not understand. 

The two men took turns in harnessing themselves to the sledge with Mack. The girl followed at the gee-pole. 

May-may-gwán showed the endurance of a man. She made no complaint. Always she followed, and followed with her mind alert. Where Dick shutobstinately his faculties within the bare necessity of travel, she andher other companion were continually alive to the possibilities ofexpedient. This constituted an additional slight but constant drain ontheir vital forces. 

Starvation gained on them. Perceptibly their strength was waning. Dickwanted to kill the other dog. His argument was plausible. The tobogganwas now very light. The men could draw it. They would have the dog-meatto recruit their strength. 

Sam shook his head. Dick insisted. He even threatened force. But thenthe woodsman roused his old-time spirit and fairly beat the young maninto submission by the vehemence of his anger. The effort left himexhausted. He sank back into himself, and refused, in the apathy ofweariness, to give any explanation. 

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

By now it was the first week in March. The weather began to assume a newaspect. During the winter months it had not snowed, for the moisture hadall been squeezed from the air, leaving it crisp, brilliant, sparkling. Now the sun, long hesitant, at last began to swing up the sky. Far souththe warmer airs of spring were awakening the Kansas fields. Here in thebarren country the steel sky melted to a haze. During the day, when thesun was up, the surface of the snow even softened a little, and a veryperceptible warmth allowed them to rest, their parkas thrown back, without discomfort. 

The men noticed this, and knew it as the precursor of the springsnow-fall. Dick grew desperately uneasy, desperately anxious to push on, to catch up before the complete obliteration of the trail, when hisresources would perforce run out for lack of an object to which to applythem. He knew perfectly well that this must be what the Indian hadanticipated, the reason why he had dared to go out into the barrengrounds, and to his present helpless lack of a further expedient thedefaulter's confidence in the natural sequence seemed only too welljustified. Sam remained inscrutable. 

The expected happened late one afternoon. All day the haze hadthickened, until at last, without definite transition, it had become acloud covering the entire sky. Then it had snowed. The great, cloggingflakes sifted down gently, ziz-zagging through the air like so manypieces of paper. They impacted softly against the world, standing awayfrom each other and from the surface on which they alighted by the fullstretch of their crystal arms. In an hour three inches had fallen. Thehollows and depressions were filling to the level; the Trail was growingindistinct. 

Dick watched from the shelter of a growing despair. Never had he felt sohelpless. This thing was so simple, yet so effective; and nothing hecould do would nullify its results. As sometimes in a crisis a man willgive his whole attention to a trivial thing, so Dick fastened his gazeon a single snow-shoe track on the edge of a covered bowlder. By it hegauged the progress of the storm. When at last even his imaginationcould not differentiate it from the surface on either side, he lookedup. The visible world was white and smooth and level. No faintest traceof the Trail remained. East, west, north, south, lay uniformity. TheIndian had disappeared utterly from the face of the earth. 

The storm lightened and faint streaks of light shot through the clouds. 

"Well, let's be moving, " said Sam. 

"Moving where?" demanded Dick, bitterly. But the old man led forward thehound. 

"Remember the lake where we lost the track of that Chippewa?" heinquired. "Well, a foot of light snow is nothing. Mush on, Mack!"

The hound sniffed deep, filling his nostrils with the feather snow, which promptly he sneezed out. Then he swung off easily on his littledog-trot, never at fault, never hesitant, picking up the turns andtwistings of the Indian's newer purpose as surely as a mind-reader theconcealed pin. 

[Illustration: The hound sniffed deep, filling his nostrils with thefeather snow]

For Jingoss had been awaiting eagerly this fall of snow, as thisimmediate change of direction showed. He was sure that now they could nolonger follow him. It was for this he had lured them farther andfarther into the wilderness, waiting for the great enemy of them all tocover his track, to throw across his vanishing figure her ultimatedenial of their purposes. At once, convinced of his safety, he turned tothe west and southwest. 

At just what moment he discovered that he was still followed it wasimpossible to determine. But very shortly a certain indecision could beread in the signs of his journeying. He turned to the south, changed hismind, doubled on his tracks like a rabbit, finally, his purpose decided, he shot away on the direct line again for the frozen reaches ofdesolation in the north. 

The moment's flicker of encouragement lighted by the success of the dog, fell again to blackness as the three faced further incursion into theland of starvation. They had allowed themselves for a moment to believethat the Indian might now have reached the limit of his intention; thatnow he might turn toward a chance at least of life. But this showed thathis purpose, or obstinacy or madness remained unchanged, and this newerproof indicated that it possessed a depth of determination that mightlead to any extreme. They had to readjust themselves to the idea. Perforce they had to extend their faith, had to believe in the caribouherds. From every little rise they looked abroad, insisting on achildish confidence in the existence of game. They could not afford totake the reasonable view, could not afford to estimate the chancesagainst their encountering in all that vastness of space the singlepin-point where grazed abundance. 

From time to time, thereafter, the snow fell. On the mere fact of theirpersistence it had litle effect; but it clogged their snow-shoes, itwore them down. A twig tripped them; and the efforts of all three wereneeded to aid one to rise. A dozen steps were all they could accomplishwithout rest; a dozen short, stumbling steps that were, nevertheless, somany mile-posts in the progress to their final exhaustion. When onefell, he lay huddled, unable at once to rally his vital forces toattempt the exertion of regaining his feet. The day's journey waspitifully short, pitifully inadequate to the imperious demands of thatonward-leading Trail, and yet each day's journey lessened the alwaysdesperate chance of a return to the game country. In spite of that, itnever again crossed their minds that it might be well to abandon thetask. They might die, but it would be on the Trail, and the death clutchof their fingers would still be extended toward the north, where dwelttheir enemy, and into whose protective arms their quarry had fled. 

As his strength ebbed Dick Herron's energies concentrated more and moreto his monomania of pursuit. The round, full curves of his body hadshrunken to angles, the fresh tints of his skin had turned to leather, the flesh of his cheeks had sunken, his teeth showed in the drawing backof his lips. All these signs spoke of exhaustion and of ultimatecollapse. But as the case grew more desperate, he seemed to discover insome unsuspected quality of his spirit, or perhaps merely of his youth, a fitful and wonderful power. He collapsed from weakness, to be sure;but in a moment his iron will, apparently angered to incandescence, gothim to his feet and on his way with an excess of energy. He helped theothers. He urged the dog. And then slowly the fictitious vigour ran out. The light, the red, terrible glare of madness, faded from his eye; itbecame glazed and lifeless; his shoulders dropped; his head hung; hefell. 

Gradually in the transition period between the darkness of winter andthe coming of spring the world took on an unearthly aspect. It became aninferno of light without corresponding warmth, of blinding, flaring, intolerable light reflected from the snow. It became luminous, as thoughthe ghosts of the ancient days of incandescence had revisited thecalendar. It was raw, new, huge, uncouth, embryonic, adapted to theproduction of tremendous monsters, unfit for the habitation of tiny menwith delicate physical and mental adjustments. Only to the mind of aCaliban could it be other than terrifying. Things grew to a size out ofall reason. The horizon was infinitely remote, lost in snow-mists, fearful with the large-blown mirages of little things. Strange andindeterminate somethings menaced on all sides, menaced in greater andgreater threat, until with actual proximity they mysteriouslydisappeared, leaving behind them as a blind to conceal their realidentity such small matters as a stunted shrub, an exposed rock, theshadow of a wind-rift on the snow. And low in the sky danced in unholyrevel the suns, sometimes as many as eight of them, gazing with theabandoned red eyes of debauchees on the insignificant travellers gropingfeebly amid phantasmagoria. 

The great light, the dazzle, the glitter, the incessant movement of themirages, the shining of the mock suns, all these created an impressionof heat, of light, of the pleasantness of a warmed land. Yet stillpersisted, only modified by the sun, the cold of the northern winter. And this denial of appearance sufficed to render unreal all the roundglobe, so that at any moment the eye anticipated its crumbling like adust apple, with its cold, its vastness, its emptiness, its hunger, itsindecently many suns, leaving the human soul in the abyss of space. TheNorth threw over them the power of her spell, so that to them the stepfrom life to death seemed a short, an easy, a natural one to take. 

Nevertheless their souls made struggle, as did their bodies. They foughtdown the feeling of illusion just as they had fought down the feelingsof hunger, of weariness, and of cold. Sam fashioned rough woodenspectacles with tiny transverse slits through which to look, and thesethey assumed against the snow-blindness. They kept a sharp watch forfreezing. Already their faces were blackened and parched by the frost, and cracked through the thick skin down to the raw. Sam had frozen hisgreat toe, and had with his knife cut to the bone in order to preventmortification. They tried to talk a little in order to combat by unisonof spirit the dreadful influence the North was bringing to bear. Theygained ten feet as a saint of the early church gained his soul forparadise. 

Now it came to the point where they could no longer afford to eat theirpemmican. They boiled it, along with strips of the rawhide dog-harness, and drank the soup. It sufficed not at all to appease the pain of theirhunger, nor appreciably did it give them strength, but somehow it fedthe vital spark. They endured fearful cramps. So far had their facultieslost vigour that only by a distinct effort of the will could they focustheir eyes to the examination of any object. 

Their obsessions of mind were now two. They followed the Trail; theylooked for the caribou herds. After a time the improbability becametenuous. They actually expected the impossible, felt defrauded at notobtaining it, cried out weakly against their ill fortune in notencountering the herd that was probably two thousand miles away. In itswithholding the North seemed to play unfairly. She denied them thechances of the game. 

And the Trail! Not the freezing nor the starvation nor the illusion wereso potent in the deeper discouragement of the spirit as that. Always itled on. They could see it; they could see its direction; that was all. Tireless it ran on and on and on. For all they knew the Indian, heartyand confident in his wilderness strength, might be watching them atevery moment, laughing at the feeble thirty feet their pain bought them, gliding on swiftly in an hour farther than they could travel in a day. This possibility persisted until, in their minds, it became the fact. They endowed their enemy with all they themselves lacked; with strength, with swiftness, with the sustenance of life. Yet never for a moment didit occur to them to abandon the pursuit. 

Sam was growing uncertain in his movements; Dick was plainly going mad. The girl followed; that was all one could say, for whatever sufferingshe proved was hidden beneath race stolidity, and more nobly beneath agreat devotion. 

And then late one afternoon they came to a bloody spot on the snow. HereJingoss had killed. Here he had found what had been denied them, whatthey needed so sorely. The North was on his side. He now had meat inplenty, and meat meant strength, and strength meant swiftness, andswiftness meant the safety of this world for him and the certainty ofthe next for them. The tenuous hope that had persisted through all thepsychological pressure the North had brought to bear, the hope that theyhad not even acknowledged to themselves, the hope based merely on thecircumstance that they did not _know_, was routed by this one fact. Nowthey could no longer shelter behind the flimsy screen of an ignorance oftheir enemy's condition. They knew. The most profound discouragementdescended on them. 

But even yet they did not yield to the great antagonist. The strength ofmeat lacked them: the strength of despair remained. A rapid dash mightbring them to grapples. And somewhere in the depths of their indomitablespirits, somewhere in the line of their hardy, Anglo-Saxon descent, they knew they would find the necessary vitality. 

Stars glittered like sparks on polished steel. On the northwest windswooped the chill of the winter's end, and in that chill was the breathof the North. Sam Bolton, crushed by the weight of a great exhaustion, recognised the familiar menace, and raised his head, gazing long fromglazed eyes out into the Silent Places. 

"Not yet!" he said aloud. 

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

But the next morning he was unable to rise. The last drop of hisvitality had run out. At length the connection between his will and hisbody had been severed, so that the latter was no longer under hiscommand. After the first moment he knew well enough what this meant, knew that here he must die, here he must lie crushed finally under thesheer weight of his antagonist. It was as though she, the great North, had heard his defiant words the night before, and thus proved to himtheir emptiness. 

And yet the last reserves of the old man's purpose were not yetdestroyed. Here he must remain, it is true, but still he possessed nexthis hand the human weapon he had carried so far and so painfully by theexercise of his ingenuity and the genius of his long experience. He hadstaggered under its burden as far as he could; now was the moment forlaunching it. He called the young man to him. 

"I cannot go on, " said he, in gasps. "Leave the sledge. Take the dog. Donot lose him. Travel fast. You must get him by to-morrow night. Sleepsome to-night. Travel fast. "

Dick nodded. He understood. Already the scarlet hate, the dogged madglare of a set purpose was glazing his vision. It was the sprint at theend of the race. He need no longer save himself. 

He took a single blanket and the little shreds of dog meat thatremained. Some of the pemmican, a mere scrap, he left with Sam. Mack heheld in leash. 

"I will live five days, " went on Sam, "perhaps six. I will try to live. If you should come back in that time, --with meat--the caribou--youunderstand. " His voice trailed away, unwilling to mock the face ofprobability with such a chance. 

Dick nodded again. He had nothing to say. He wrung the old man's handand turned away. 

Mack thrust his nose forward. They started. Sam, left alone, rolledhimself again in his thick coverings under the snow, which would protecthim from the night cold. There he would lie absolutely motionless, hoarding the drops of his life. From time to time, at long intervals, he would taste the pemmican. And characteristically enough, his regret, his sorrow, was, not that he must be left to perish, not even that hemust acknowledge himself beaten, but that he was deprived of the chancefor this last desperate dash before death stooped. 

When Dick stepped out on the trail, May-may-gwán followed. After amoment he took cognisance of the crunch of her snow-shoes behind him. Heturned and curtly ordered her back. She persisted. Again he turned, hisface nervous with all the strength he had summoned for the final effort, shouting at her hoarsely, laying on her the anger of his command. Sheseemed not to hear him. He raised his fist and beat her, hitting heragain and again, finally reaching her face. She went down silently, without even a moan. But when he stared back again, after the next dozensteps, she had risen and was still tottering on along the Trail. 

He threw his hands up with a gesture of abandonment. Then without aword, grim and terrible, he put his head down and started. 

He never looked back. Madness held him. Finesse, saving, the craftyutilising of small advantages had had their day. It was the moment forbrute strength. All day he swung on in a swirl of snow, tireless. Thelandscape swam about him, the white glare searched out the inmostpainful recesses of his brain. He knew enough to keep his eyes shut mostof the time, trusting to Mack. At noon he divided accurately the entirefood supply with the animal. At night he fasted. The two, man and dog, slept huddled close together for the sake of the warmth. At midnight thegirl crept in broken and exhausted. 

The next day Dick was as wonderful. A man strong in meat could not havetravelled so. The light snow whirled behind him in a cloud. The wind ofhis going strained the capote from his emaciated face. So, in the natureof the man, he would go until the end. Then he would give out all atonce, would fall from full life to complete dissolution of forces. Behind him, pitifully remote, pitifully bent, struggling futilely, obsessed by a mania as strong as that of these madmen who persisted evenbeyond the end of all things, was the figure of the girl. She could notstand upright, she could not breathe, yet she, too, followed the Trail, that dread symbol of so many hopes and ideals and despairs. Dick didnot notice her, did not remember her existence, any more than heremembered the existence of Sam Bolton, of trees, of streams, of summerand warm winds, of the world, of the devil, of God, of himself. 

All about him the landscape swayed like mist; the suns danced indecentrevel; specks and blotches, the beginning of snow-blindness, swamgrotesquely projected into a world less real than they. Living thingsmoved everywhere. Ordinarily the man paid no attention to them, knowingthem for what they were, but once, warned by some deep and subtleinstinct, he made the effort to clear his vision and saw a fox. Byanother miracle he killed it. The carcass he divided with his dog. Hegave none of it to the girl. 

By evening of the second day he had not yet overtaken his quarry. Butthe trail was evidently fresher, and the fox's meat gave him anotherchance. He slept, as before, with Mack the hound; and, as before, May-may-gwán crept in hours later to fall exhausted. 

And over the three figures, lying as dead, the North whirred in thewind, waiting to stoop, triumphing, glorying that she had brought theboasts of men to nothing. 

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

The next morning was the third day. There was no delay in gettingstarted. All Dick had to do was to roll his blanket. He whirled on, still with his impetuous, fictitious vigour unimpaired. The girlstaggered after him ten feet, then pitched forward. He turneduncertainly. She reached out to touch him. Her eyes said a farewell. Itwas the end. 

Dick stood a moment, his eyes vague. Then mechanically he put his headdown, mechanically he looked for the Trail, mechanically he shot awayalone, alone except for the faithful, gaunt hound, the only thing thatremained to him out of a whole world of living beings. 

To his fevered vision the Trail was becoming fresher. Every step he tookgave him the impression of so much gained, as though the man he was inpursuit of was standing still waiting to be taken. For the first time inmonths the conviction of absolute success took possession of him. Hissight cleared, his heart beat strong, his whole being quivered withvigour. The illusion of the North faded away like a mist. The world wasa flat plain of snow, with here and there a stunted spruce, knee-high, protruding above it, and with here and there an inequality of hiddenbowlders and rounded knolls. Far off was the horizon, partially hiddenin the normal snow-fog of this time of year. All objects werestationary, solid, permanent. Even the mock suns were only what was tobe expected in so high a latitude. Dick was conscious of arguing thesethings to himself with extraordinary accuracy of logic. He proved a glowof happiness in the clarity of his brain, in the ease of his body, inthe certainty of his success. The candle flared clear before itsexpiration. 

For some moments he enjoyed this feeling of well-being, then adisturbing element insinuated itself. At first it was merely anuneasiness, which he could not place, a vague and nebulous irritation, asingle crumpled rose-leaf. Then it grew to the proportions of a menacewhich banked his horizon with thunder, though the sun still shoneoverhead. Finally it became a terror, clutching him at the throat. Heseemed to feel the need of identifying it. By an effort he recognised itas a lack. Something was missing without which there was for him nosuccess, no happiness, no well-being, no strength, no existence. Thatsomething he must find. In the search his soul descended again to theregion of dread, the regions of phantasmagoria. The earth heaved androcked and swam in a sea of cold and glaring light. Strange creatures, momentarily changing shape and size, glided monstrous across the middledistance. The mock suns danced in the heavens. 

Twice he stopped short and listened. In his brain the lack was definingitself as the lack of a sound. It was something he had always been usedto. Now it had been taken away. The world was silent in its deprivation, and the silence stifled him. It had been something so usual that he hadnever noticed it; its absence called it to his attention for the firsttime. So far in the circle his mind ran; then swung back. He beat hisforehead. Great as were the sufferings of his body, they were as nothingcompared with these unreal torturings of his maddened brain. 

For the third time he stopped, his head sidewise in the attitude oflistening. At once easily, without effort, he knew. All these monthsbehind him had sounded the _crunch_ of snow-shoes. All these monthsabout him, wrapping him so softly that he had never been conscious ofit, had been the worship of a great devotion. Now they were taken away, he missed them. His spirit, great to withstand the hardships of thebody, strong to deny itself, so that even at the last he had resistedthe temptation of hunger and divided with his dog, in its weakenedcondition could not stand the exposure to the loneliness, to the barrenwinds of a peopleless world. 

A long minute he stood, listening, demanding against all reason to hearthe _crunch, crunch, crunch_ that should tell him he was not alone. Then, without a glance at the Trail he had followed so long, he turnedback. 

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

The girl was lying face down as he had left her. Already the windrow ofthe snow was beginning to form, like the curve of a wave about to breakover her prostrate body. He sat down beside her, and gathered her intohis arms, throwing the thick three-point blanket with its warm liningover the bent forms of both. At once it was as though he had always beenthere, his back to the unceasing winds, a permanence in the wilderness. The struggles of the long, long trail withdrew swiftly into thepast--they had never been. And through the unreality of this feelingshot a single illuminating shaft of truth: never would he find inhimself the power to take the trail again. The bubbling fever-height ofhis energies suddenly drained away. 

Mack, the hound, lay patiently at his feet. He, too, suffered, and hedid not understand, but that did not matter; his faithfulness could notdoubt. For a single instant it occurred to the young man that he mightkill the dog, and so procure nourishment with which to extricate himselfand the girl; but the thought drifted idly through his mind, and so onand away. It did not matter. He could never again follow that Trail, anda few days more or less--

The girl sighed and opened her eyes. They widened. 

"Jibiwánisi!" she whispered. 

Her eyes remained fixed on his face, puzzling out the mere facts. Thenall at once they softened. 

"You came back, " she murmured. 

Dick did not reply. He drew her a little closer into his arms. 

For a long time they said nothing. Then the girl:

"It has come, Jibiwánisi, we must die, " and after a moment, "You cameback. "

She closed her eyes again, happily. 

"Why did you come back?" she asked after a while. 

"I do not know, " said Dick. 

The snow sifted here and there like beach sand. Occasionally the dogshook himself free of it, but over the two human beings it flung, little by little, the whiteness of its uniformity, a warm mantle againstthe freezing. They became an integral part of the landscape, permanentas it, coeval with its rocks and hills, ancient as the world, a symbolof obscure passions and instincts and spiritual beauties old as thehuman race. 

Abruptly Dick spoke, his voice harsh. 

"We die here, Little Sister. I do not regret. I have done the best inme. It is well for me to die. But this is not your affair. It was notfor you to give your life. Had you not followed you would now be warm inthe wigwams of your people. This is heavy on my heart. "

"Was it for this you came back to me?" she inquired. 

Dick considered. "No, " he replied. 

"The south wind blows warm on me, " she said, after a moment. 

The man thought her mind wandered with the starvation, but this was notthe case. Her speech had made one of those strange lapses into rhetoricso common to the savage peoples. 

"Jibiwánisi, " she went on solemnly, "to me now this is a land where thetrees are green and the waters flow and the sun shines and the fat deerare in the grasses. My heart sings like the birds. What should I carefor dying? It is well to die when one is happy. "

"Are you happy, May-may-gwán?" asked Dick. 

For answer she raised her eyes to his. Freed of the distraction ofanother purpose, clarified by the near approach of death, his spiritlooked, and for the first time understood. 

"May-may-gwán, I did not know, " said he, awed. 

He meant that he had not before perceived her love for him. She thoughthe had not before realised his love for her. Her own affection seemed toher as self-evident as the fact that her eyes were black. 

"Yes, yes, " she hastened to comfort what she supposed must be hisdistress, "I know. But you turned back. "

She closed her eyes again and appeared to doze in a happy dream. TheNorth swooped above them like some greedy bird of prey. 

Gradually in his isolation and stillness Dick began to feel this. Itgrew on him little by little. Within a few hours, by grace of sufferingand of imminent death, he came into his woodsman's heritage ofimagination. Men like Sam Bolton gained it by patient service, byliving, by the slow accumulations of years, but in essence it remainedthe same. Where before the young man had seen only the naked, materialfacts, now he felt the spiritual presence, the calm, ruthless, just, terrible Enemy, seeking no combat, avoiding none, conquering with alofty air of predestination, inevitable, mighty. His eyes were opened, like the prophet's of old. The North hovered over him almost palpable. In the strange borderland of mingled illusion and reality where now heand starvation dwelt he thought sometimes to hear voices, the voices ofhis enemy's triumph. 

"Is it done?" they asked him, insistently. "Is it over? Are you beaten?Is your stubborn spirit at last bowed down, humiliated, crushed? Do yourelinquish the prize, --and the struggle? Is it done?"

The girl stirred slightly in his arms. He focussed his eyes. Alreadythe day had passed, and the first streamers of the aurora were cracklingin the sky. They reduced this day, this year, this generation of men toa pin-point in time. The tragedy enacting itself on the snow amounted tonothing. It would soon be over: it occupied but one of many, manynights--wherein the aurora would crackle and shoot forth and ebb back inprecisely the same deathful, living way, as though the death of it werethe death in this world, but the life of it were a thing celestial andalien. The moment, to these three who perished the most important of allthe infinite millions of millions that constitute time, was absolutelywithout special meaning to the wonderful, flaming, unearthly lights ofthe North. 

Mack, the hound, lay in the position he had first assumed, his nosebetween his outstretched forepaws. So he had lain all that day and thatnight. So it seemed he must intend to lie until death took him. For onthis dreadful journey Mack had risen above the restrictions imposed byhis status as a zoological species, had ceased to be merely a dog, andby virtue of steadfastness, of loyalty, of uncomplaining suffering, hadentered into the higher estate of a living being that has fearlesslydone his best in the world before his call to leave it. 

The girl opened her eyes. 

"Jibiwánisi, " she said, faintly, "the end is come. "

Agonized, Dick forced himself to consciousness of the landscape. Itcontained moving figures in plenty. One after the other he brought themwithin the focus of scrutiny and dissolved them into thin air. If onlythe caribou herds--

He looked down again to meet her eyes. 

"Do not grieve. I am happy, Jibiwánisi, " she whispered. 

After a little, "I will die first, " and then, "This land and that--theremust be a border. I will be waiting there. I will wait always. I willnot go into the land until you come. I will wait to see it--with you. Oh, Jibiwánisi, " she cried suddenly, with a strength and passion instartling contrast to her weakness. "I am yours, yours, yours! You aremine. " She half raised herself and seized his two arms, searching hiseyes with terror, trying to reassure herself, to drive off the doubtsthat suddenly had thronged upon her. "Tell me, " she shook him by thearm. 

"I am yours, " Dick lied, steadily; "my heart is yours, I love you. "

He bent and kissed her on the lips. She quivered and closed her eyeswith a deep sigh. 

Ten minutes later she died. 

CHAPTER THIRTY

This was near the dawn of the fourth day. Dick remained always in thesame attitude, holding the dead girl in his arms. Mack, the hound, layas always, loyal, patient to the last. After the girl's departure thewind fell and a great stillness seemed to have descended on the world. 

The young man had lost the significance of his position, had forgottenthe snow and cold and lack of food, had forgotten even the fact of deathwhich he was hugging to his breast. His powers, burning clear in thespirit, were concentrated on the changes taking place within himself. Bythese things the world of manhood was opened to him; he was no longer aboy. To most it comes as a slow growth. With him it was revelation. Thecompleteness of it shook him to the foundations of life. He took noaccount of the certainty of his own destruction. It seemed to him, inthe thronging of new impressions, that he might sit there forever, abuddha of contemplation, looking on the world as his maturity hadreadjusted it. 

Never now could he travel the Silent Places as he had heretofore, stupidly, blindly, obstinately, unthinkingly, worse than an animal inperception. The wilderness he could front intelligently, for he had seenher face. Never now could he conduct himself so selfishly, so brutally, so without consideration, as though he were the central point of thesystem, as though there existed no other preferences, convictions, conditions of being that might require the readjustment of his own. Hesaw these others for the first time. Never now could he live with hisfellow beings in such blindness of their motives and the passions oftheir hearts. His own heart, like a lute, was strung to the pitch ofhumanity. Never now could he be guilty of such harm as he hadunthinkingly accomplished on the girl. His eyes were opened to humansuffering. The life of the world beat through his. The compassion of thegreater humanity came to him softly, as a gift from the portals ofdeath. The full savour of it he knew at last, knew that finally he hadrounded out the circle of his domain. 

This was what life required of his last consciousness. Having attainedto it, the greater forces had no more concern with him. They left him, apoor, weak, naked human soul exposed to the terrors of the North. Forthe first time he saw them in all their dreadfulness. They clutched himwith the fingers of cruel suffering so that his body was wracked withthe tortures of dissolution. They flung before his eyes the obscene, unholy shapes of illusion. They filled his ears with voices. He wasafraid. He cowered down, covering his eyes with his forearms, andtrembled, and sobbed, and uttered little moans. He was alone in theworld, alone with enemies who had him in their power and would destroyhim. He feared to look up. The man's spirit was broken. All theaccumulated terrors which his resolute spirit had thrust from him in thelong months of struggle, rushed in on him now that his guard was down. They rioted in the empty chambers of his soul. 

"Is it done?" they shrieked in triumph. "Is it over? Are you beaten? Isyour spirit crushed? Is the victory ours? Is it done?"

Dick shivered and shrank as from a blow. 

"Is it done?" the voices insisted. "Is it over? Are you beaten? Is itdone?"

The man shrieked aloud in agony. 

"Oh, my God!" he cried. "Oh, yes, yes, yes! I am beaten. I can donothing. Kill me. It is done. "

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

As though these words were a signal, Mack, the hound, who had up to nowrested as motionless as though frozen to his place, raised himself onhis haunches and gazed earnestly to the north. 

In the distance Dick seemed to make out an object moving. As he had sooften done before, by an effort he brought his eyes to focus, expecting, as also had happened so often before, that the object would disappear. But it persisted, black against the snow. Its outlines could not beguessed; its distance could not be estimated, its direction of travelcould not be determined. Only the bare fact of its existence was sure. Somewhere out in the waste it, moving, antithesised these other threeblack masses on the whiteness, the living man, the living animal, thedead girl. 

Dick variously identified it. At one moment he thought it a marten nearat hand; then it became a caribou far away; then a fox between the two. Finally, instantaneously, as though at a bound it had leaped fromindeterminate mists to the commonplace glare of every day, he saw it wasa man. 

The man was moving painfully, lifting each foot with an appearance ofgreat effort, stumbling, staggering sideways from time to time as thoughin extreme weakness. Once he fell. Then he recovered the upright asthough necklaced with great weights. His hands were empty of weapons. Inthe uncertainty of his movements he gradually approached. 

Now Dick could see the great emaciation of his features. The bones ofhis cheeks seemed to press through his skin, which was leathery andscabbed and cracked to the raw from much frosting. His lips drew tightacross his teeth, which grinned in the face of exhaustion like thetravesty of laughter on a skull. His eyes were lost in the caverns oftheir sockets. His thin nostrils were wide, and through them and throughthe parted lips the breath came and went in strong, rasping gasps, audible even at this distance of two hundred paces. One live thing thiswreck of a man expressed. His forces were near their end, but such ofthem as remained were concentrated in a determination to go on. Hemoved painfully, but he moved; he staggered, but he always recovered; hefell, and it was a terrible labour to rise, but always he rose and wenton. 

Dick Herron, sitting there with the dead girl across his knees, watchedthe man with a strange, detached curiosity. His mind had slipped backinto its hazes. The world of phantasms had resumed its sway. He wasseeing in this struggling figure a vision of himself as he had been, theself he had transcended now, and would never again resume. Just so hehad battled, bringing to the occasion every last resource of the humanspirit, tearing from the deeps of his nature the roots where lifegerminated and throwing them recklessly before the footsteps of hisendeavour, emptying himself, wringing himself to a dry, fibrous husk ofa man that his Way might be completed. His lips parted with a sigh ofrelief that this was all over. He was as an old man whose life, for goodor ill, success or failure, is done, and who looks from the serenity ofage on those who have still their youth to spend, their years to doleout day by day, painfully, in the intense anxiety of the moral purpose, as the price of life. In a spell of mysticism he sat there waiting. 

The man plodded on, led by some compelling fate, to the one spot in thewhite immensity where were living creatures. When he had approached towithin fifty paces, Dick could see his eyes. They were tight closed. Asthe young man watched, the other opened them, but instantly blinked themshut again as though he had encountered the searing of a white-hot iron. Dick Herron understood. The man had gone snow-blind. 

And then, singularly enough for the first time, it was borne in on himwho this man was, what was the significance of his return. Jingoss, therenegade Ojibway, the defaulter, the maker of the dread, mysteriousTrail that had led them so far into this grim land, Jingoss was blind, and, imagining himself still going north, still treading mechanicallythe hopeless way of his escape, had become bewildered and turned south. 

Dick waited, mysteriously held to inaction, watching the useless effortsof this other from the vantage ground of a wonderful fatalism, --as theNorth had watched him. The Indian plodded doggedly on, on, on. Heentered the circle of the little camp. Dick raised his rifle and pressedits muzzle against the man's chest. 

"Stop!" he commanded, his voice croaking harsh across the stillness. 

The Indian, with a sob of mingled emotion, in which, strangely enough, relief seemed the predominant note, collapsed to the ground. The North, insistent on the victory but indifferent to the stake, tossed carelesslythe prize at issue into the hands of her beaten antagonist. 

And then, dim and ghostly, rank after rank, across the middle distancedrifted the caribou herds. 

[Illustration: "Stop!" he commanded, his voice croaking harsh acrossthe stillness]

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

It was beyond the middle of summer. The day had been hot, but now thevelvet night was descending. The canoe had turned into the channel atthe head of the island on which was situated Conjuror's House. The endof the journey was at hand. 

Dick paddled in the bow. His face had regained its freshness, but notentirely its former boyish roundness. The old air of bravado again sathis spirit--a man's nature persists to the end, and immortal andunquenchable youth is a gift of the gods--but in the depths of hisstrange, narrow eyes was a new steadiness, a new responsibility, thewell-known, quiet, competent look invariably a characteristic of truewoodsmen. At his feet lay the dog, one red-rimmed eye cocked up at theman who had gone down to the depths in his company. 

The Indian Jingoss sat amidships, his hands bound strongly with buckskinthongs, a man of medium size, broad face, beady eyes with surfacelights. He had cost much: he was to be given no chance to escape. Always his hands remained bound with the buckskin thongs, except attimes when Dick or Sam stood over him with a rifle. At night his wristswere further attached to one of Sam's. Mack, too, understood thesituation, and guarded as jealously as did his masters. 

Sam wielded the steersman's paddle. His appearance was absolutelyunaffected by this one episode in a long life. 

They rounded the point into the main sweep of the east river, stole downalong the bank in the gathering twilight, and softly beached their canoebelow the white buildings of the Factory. With a muttered word ofcommand to their captive, they disembarked and climbed the steepness ofthe low bluff to the grass-plot above. The dog followed at their heels. 

Suddenly the impression of this year, until now so vividly a part of thepresent, was stricken into the past, the past of memory. Up to the veryinstant of topping the bluff it had been life; now it was experience. 

For the Post was absolutely unchanged from that other summer evening ofover a year ago when they had started out into the Silent Places. Thefamiliarity of this fact, hitherto, for some strange reason, absolutelyunexpected, reassured them their places in the normal world of livingbeings. The dead vision of the North had left in their spirits aresiduum of its mysticism. Their experience of her power had induced inthem a condition of mind when it would not have surprised them todiscover the world shaken to its foundations, as their souls had beenshaken. But here were familiar, peaceful things, unchanged, indifferenteven to the passing of time. Involuntarily they drew a deep breath ofrelief, and, without knowing it, re-entered a sanity which had not beenentirely theirs since the snows of the autumn before. 

Over by the guns, indistinct in the falling twilight, the accustomedgroup of _voyageurs_ and post-keepers were chatting, smoking, hummingsongs in the accustomed way. The low velvet band of forest against thesky; the dim squares of the log-houses punctuated with their dots oflamplight; the masses of the Storehouse, the stockade, the Factory; thelong flag-staff like a mast against the stars; the constant impressionof human life and activity, --these anodynes of accustomedness steadiedthese men's faith to the supremacy of human institutions. 

On the Factory veranda could be dimly made out the figures of a dozenmen. They sat silent. Occasionally a cigar glowed brighter for a moment, then dulled. Across a single square of subdued light the smoke eddied. 

The three travellers approached, Sam Bolton in the lead, peering throughthe dusk in search of his chief. In a moment he made him out, sitting, as always, square to the world, his head sunk forward, his eyes gleamingfrom beneath the white tufts of his eyebrows. At once the woodsmenmounted the steps. 

No one stirred or spoke. Only the smokers suspended their cigars inmid-air a few inches from their faces in the most perfect attitude ofattention. 

"Galen Albret, " announced the old woodsman, "here is the Ojibway, Jingoss. "

The Factor stirred slightly; his bulk, the significance of his featureslost in obscurity. 

"Me-en-gen!" he called, sharply. 

The tall, straight figure of his Indian familiar glided from the dusk ofthe veranda's end. 

"To-morrow at smoke time, " commanded the Factor, using the Ojibwaytongue, "let this man be whipped before the people, fifty lashes. Thenlet him be chained to the Tree for the space of one week, and let it bewritten above him in Ojibway and in Cree that thus Galen Albret punishesthose who steal. "

Without a word Me-en-gan took the defaulter by the arm and conducted himaway. 

Galen Albret had fallen into a profound silence, which no one venturedto break. Dick and Sam, uncertain as to whether or not they, too, weredismissed, shifted uneasily. 

"How did you find him?" demanded the Factor, abruptly. 

"We went with old Haukemah's band down as far as the Mattawishguia. There we left them and went up stream and over the divide. Dick herebroke his leg and was laid up for near three months. I looked all thatdistrict over while he was getting well. Then we made winter travel downthrough the Kabinikágam country and looked her over. We got track ofthis Jingoss over near the hills, but he got wind of us and skipped whenwe was almost on top of him. We took his trail. He went straight north, trying to shake us off, and we got up into the barren country. We'd havelost him in the snow if it hadn't been for that dog there. He couldtrail him through new snow. We run out of grub up there, and finally Igave out. Dick here pushed on alone and found the Injun wandering aroundsnow-blind. He run onto some caribou about that time, too, and killedsome. Then he came back and got me:--I had a little pemmican and boiledmy moccasins. We had lots of meat, so we rested up a couple of weeks, and then came back. "

That was all. These men had done a great thing, and thus simply theytold it. And they only told that much of it because it was their duty;they must report to their chief. 

Galen Albret seemed for a moment to consider, as was his habit. 

"You have done well, " he pronounced at last. "My confidence in you wasjustified. The pay stands as agreed. In addition I place you in chargeof the post at Lost River, and you, Herron, in charge of the MattágamiBrigade. "

The men flushed, deeply pleased, more than rewarded, not by the moneynor the advancement, but by the unqualified satisfaction of theircommander. 

They turned away. At this moment Virginia Albret, on some errand to herfather, appeared outlined in slender youth against the doorway. On theinstant she recognized them. 

"Why, Sam and Dick, " she said, "I am glad to see you. When did you getback?"

"Just back, Miss Virginia, " replied Sam. 

"That's good. I hope you've had a successful trip. "

"Yes, " answered Sam. The woodsman stood there a little awkwardly, wishing to be polite, not sure as to whether they should now go withoutfurther dismissal. 

"See, Miss Virginia, " hesitated Sam, to fill in the pause, "I have yourhandkerchief yet. "

"I'm glad you kept it, Sam, " replied the young girl; "and have youyours, Dick?"

And suddenly to Dick the contrast between this reality and that othercame home with the vividness of a picture. He saw again the snow-sweptplain, the wavering shapes of illusion, the mock suns dancing in unholyrevel. The colour of the North burned before his eyes; a madness of theNorth unsealed his lips. 

"I used it to cover a dead girl's face, " he replied, bluntly. 

The story had been as gray as a report of statistics, --so many placesvisited, so much time consumed. The men smoking cigars, lounging oncushioned seats in the tepid summer air, had listened to it unimpressed, as one listens to the reading of minutes of a gathering long past. Thissimple sentenced breathed into it life. The magnitude of the undertakingsprang up across the horizon of their comprehension. They saw betweenthe mile-post markings of Sam Bolton's dry statements of fact, glimpsesof vague, mysterious, and terrible deeds, indistinct, wonderful. The twobefore them loomed big in the symbolism of the wide world of men'sendurance and determination and courage. 

The darkness swallowed them before the group on the veranda had caughtits breath. In a moment the voices about the cannon raised in greeting. A swift play of question and answer shot back and forth. "Out all theyear?" "Where? Kabinikágam? Oh, yes, east of Brunswick Lake. " "Goodtrip?" "That's right. " "Glad of it. " Then the clamour rose, manybeseeching, one refusing. The year was done. These men had done a mightydeed, and yet a few careless answers were all they had to tell of it. The group, satisfied, were begging another song. And so, in a moment, just as a year before, Dick's rich, husky baritone raised in the wordsof the old melody. The circle was closed. 

 "_There was an old darky, and his name was Uncle Ned, And he lived long ago, long ago--_"

The night hushed to silence. Even the wolves were still, and the_giddés_ down at the Indian camp ceased their endless quarrelling. Dick's voice had all the world to itself. The men on the Factory verandasmoked, the disks of their cigars dulling and glowing. Galen Albret, inscrutable, grim, brooded his unguessable thoughts. Virginia, in thedoorway, rested her head pensively against one arm outstretched againstthe lintel. 

 "_For there's no more work for poor old Ned, He's gone where the good darkies go_. "

The song finished. There succeeded the great compliment of quiet. 

To Virginia it was given to speak the concluding word of this episode. She sighed, stretching out her arms. 

"'The greatness of my people, '" she quoted softly. 

THE END