A weary journey beyond the last scrub timber and straggling copses,
into the heart of the Barrens where the niggard North is supposed to
deny the Earth, are to be found great sweeps of forests and stretches
of smiling land. But this the world is just beginning to know. The
world's explorers have known it, from time to time, but hitherto they
have never returned to tell the world.
The Barrens--well, they are the Barrens, the bad lands of the Arctic,
the deserts of the Circle, the bleak and bitter home of the musk-ox
and the lean plains wolf. So Avery Van Brunt found them, treeless and
cheerless, sparsely clothed with moss and lichens, and altogether
uninviting. At least so he found them till he penetrated to the white
blank spaces on the map, and came upon undreamed-of rich spruce
forests and unrecorded Eskimo tribes. It had been his intention, (and
his bid for fame), to break up these white blank spaces and diversify
them with the black markings of mountain-chains, sinks and basins, and
sinuous river courses; and it was with added delight that he came to
speculate upon the possibilities of timber belts and native villages.
Avery Van Brunt, or, in full distinction, Professor A. Van Brunt of
the Geological Survey, was second in command of the expedition, and
first in command of the sub-expedition which he had led on a side tour
of some half a thousand miles up one of the branches of the Thelon and
which he was now leading into one of his unrecorded villages. At his
back plodded eight men, two of them French-Canadian _voyageurs_,
and the remainder strapping Crees from Manitoba-way. He, alone, was
full-blooded Saxon, and his blood was pounding fiercely through his
veins to the traditions of his race. Clive and Hastings, Drake and
Raleigh, Hengest and Horsa, walked with him. First of all men of his
breed was he to enter this lone Northland village, and at the thought
an exultancy came upon him, an exaltation, and his followers noted
that his leg-weariness fell from him and that he insensibly quickened
the pace.
The village emptied itself, and a motley crowd trooped out to meet
him, men in the forefront, with bows and spears clutched menacingly,
and women and children faltering timidly in the rear. Van Brunt lifted
his right arm and made the universal peace sign, a sign which all
peoples know, and the villagers answered in peace. But to his chagrin,
a skin-clad man ran forward and thrust out his hand with a familiar
"Hello." He was a bearded man, with cheeks and brow bronzed to
copper-brown, and in him Van Brunt knew his kind.
"Who are you?" he asked, gripping the extended hand. "Andrée?"
"Who's Andrée?" the man asked back.
Van Brunt looked at him more sharply. "By George, you've been here
some time."
"Five years," the man answered, a dim flicker of pride in his eyes.
"But come on, let's talk."
"Let them camp alongside of me," he answered Van Brunt's glance at his
party. "Old Tantlatch will take care of them. Come on."
He swung off in a long stride, Van Brunt following at his heels
through the village. In irregular fashion, wherever the ground
favored, the lodges of moose hide were pitched. Van Brunt ran his
practised eye over them and calculated.
"Two hundred, not counting the young ones," he summed up.
The man nodded. "Pretty close to it. But here's where I live, out of
the thick of it, you know--more privacy and all that. Sit down. I'll
eat with you when your men get something cooked up. I've forgotten
what tea tastes like.... Five years and never a taste or smell.... Any
tobacco?... Ah, thanks, and a pipe? Good. Now for a fire-stick and
we'll see if the weed has lost its cunning."
He scratched the match with the painstaking care of the woodsman,
cherished its young flame as though there were never another in all
the world, and drew in the first mouthful of smoke. This he retained
meditatively for a time, and blew out through his pursed lips slowly
and caressingly. Then his face seemed to soften as he leaned back,
and a soft blur to film his eyes. He sighed heavily, happily, with
immeasurable content, and then said suddenly:
"God! But that tastes good!"