In the morning Francois and Roderick started with their dog-train to
pick up Traps from the Marten Road.
"S'pose it's better w'at I go to de Lan'ing firs'," Francois remarked
reflectively, as they plodded along behind the dogs and carry-all; "we
don' got plenty Trap now, an' I can' find dat poison bottle. Yesterday
I look, but he's gone soor; I put him on de s'elf, but he's not dere
now. P'r'aps dat Whisky-Jack steal him, for he take de spoon some time;
but anyway can' trap proper wit'out de poison."
After they had left the Shack Whisky-Jack cleaned up the scraps that had
been thrown out from breakfast, and having his crop full, started
through the woods looking for a chance of gossip. He observed Carcajou
scuttling awkwardly along through the deep snow; this was the first time
Jack had seen him since he had been liberated from the Trap.
"Hello!" cried the Jay; "able to be about again?"
"Who's at the Man-shack?" queried the other in answer, entirely ignoring
Jack's personal gibe.
"Nobody," piped the Bird; "left me in charge and went out on their
Marten Road."
"And the Dogs, O One-in-charge?" asked Carcajou.
"Gone too; are you out for a scrap with the Huskies, my bad-tempered
Friend?"
"Were you sweet-tempered, gentle Bird, when you burnt your toes, and
scorched your gizzard with the Man-Cub's fat pork?"
"Well, sore toes are enough to ruffle one, aren't they,
Hunchback,--Crop-eared Stealer of Things?"
"And your Men Friends took the leg off our King," continued Wolverine,
ignoring the other's taunt. "The Red Widow is close to an attack of
rabies with all this worry."
"You're full of stale news," retorted Jay.
"If they are all away," declared Carcajou, "I'm going to have another
peep at that chimney. Also there are three debts to be paid."
The Bird chuckled. "Generous Little Lieutenant! leave my account out.
But if you must go to the Shack, I'll keep watch and give you a call if
I see them coming back."
"Fat-eating! but I hate climbing," grunted Wolverine, as he struggled up
the over-reaching log-ends at one corner of the Shack. "If they had
only left the door open--I never close the door of my Burrow."
He went down the chimney as though it were a ladder, his back braced
against one side, and his strong curved claws holding in the dry mud of
the other. Inside of the Shack he worked with exceeding diligence,
deporting himself much after the manner of soldiers looting a King's
palace.
Three bags of flour stood in a corner. "That's queer stuff," muttered
Carcajou, ripping open the canvas. "Dry Eating!" and he scattered it
with malignant fury. He pattered up and down in it, rolled in it, and
generally had a pleasing, dusty time. The white stuff got in his throat
and made him cough; the tickling developed a proper inebriate's thirst.
Two zinc pails, full of water, sat on a wooden bench; the choking Animal
perched on the edge of one, and tried to drink; but as he stooped over
the spreading top his centre of gravity was disarranged somewhat, and
his venture ended disastrously. The floor was clay, smooth-ironed by
Francis's feet, so it held the fluid like a pot, and, incidentally, much
batter of Wolverine's mixing was originated. He was still thirsty, and
tried the other pail. That even did not last so long, for, as he was
pulling himself up, somewhat out of temper, it tumbled heedlessly from
the bench, and converted the Shack-floor into a white, alkaline-looking
lake.
Then he puddled around in batter which clung to his short legs, and
stuck to his toe-hairs, trying to get a drink from little pools, but
only succeeding in getting something like liquid pancakes.
The stuff worked into his coat, and completely put to flight any
feelings of restraint he might have had. A cyclone and an earthquake
working arm in arm could not have more effectually disarranged the
internal economy of Francois's residence.
Like most Half-breeds Francois played a concertina; and like most of his
fellow tribesmen he hung up his things on the bed or floor. It was
under the bed that Carcajou discovered the instrument, and when he had
finished with it, it might have been put in paper boxes and sold as
matches. Two feather pillows provided him with enthusiastic occupation
for a time; mixed with batter the feathers entirely lost their
elasticity, and refused to float about in the air. This puzzled the
marauder--he couldn't understand it; for you see he knew nothing of
specific gravity.
A jug of molasses was more rational--but it added to his thirst, also
turned the white coat he had evolved from the flour-mixture into a
dismal coffee colour.
Great Animals! but he was having a time. Whisky-Jack, from his post
outside, kept encouraging him from time to time, as the din of things
moving rapidly in the interior came to his delighted ears. "Bravo!
What's broken?" he screamed, when the pail met with its downfall. The
blankets dried the floor a bit after industrious little Wolverine had
hauled them up and down a few times. This evidently gave him
satisfaction, for he worked most energetically.
Two sides of fat bacon reclined sleepily under the bed--a mouthful
filled Carcajou with joy. Great Eating! but if he had that much food in
his Burrow he needn't do a stroke of work all Winter. He tried to carry
a side up the chimney; and got started with it all right, for an iron
bar had been built across the mud fire-place to hang pots on, which gave
him a foothold; a little higher up he slipped, and clattered down, bacon
and all, burning his feet in coals that lingered from the morning's
fire. The sight of disturbed cinders floating from the chimney-top
intimated to Jack what had happened, and he whistled with joy.
This was an excuse for another round of demolition. "If I could only
open the Shack," thought Wolverine. Though a dweller in caves, yet he
knew which was the door, for over its ill-fitting threshold came a
strong glint of light; also up and down its length ran two cracks
through which came more light. Most certainly it was the door, he
decided, sniffing at the fresh air that whistled through the openings.
Close by stood a box on end, holding a wash-bowl. Carcajou climbed up
on this, and examined a little iron thing that seemed to bear on the
subject. It was somewhat like a Trap; if he could spring this thing,
perhaps it had something to do with opening the door. As he fumbled at
it, suddenly the wind blew a big square hole in the Shack's side; he had
lifted the latch, only he didn't know it was a latch, of course--it was
like a Trap, something to be sprung, that was all.
"By all the Loons!" screamed Jay; "now you're all right--what's inside?
You have had your revenge, Carey, old Boy," he added, as he caught sight
of his coffee-coloured friend.
Carcajou paid no attention to his volatile Comrade, for he was busily
engaged in gutting the place. "My fingers are still sore from the Man's
Trap," he muttered, "but I think I can cache this Fat-eating."
"Francois will trail you," declared the Bird.
"He may do that," admitted Wolverine, "but he'll not find the Eating.
Has he a scent-nose of the Woods to see it through many covers of snow?"
"This is just lovely!" piped Jack, hopping about in the dough; "it's
like the mud at White Clay River. Butter!" he screamed in delight,
perching on the edge of a wooden firkin, off which his friend had
knocked the top. "I just love this stuff--it puts a gloss on one's
feathers. We are having our revenge, aren't we, old Plaster-coat?"
"I am--Whe-e-e-cugh!" cried the fat little desperado, coughing much
flour from his clogged lungs.
"I say, Hunchback, wouldn't you like to be a Man, and have all these
things to eat, without the eternal worry of stealing them? I
should--I'd be eating butter all the time;" and Jack drove his beak with
great rapidity into the firkin's yellow contents.
"I'll return in a minute after I've cached this," said Wolverine, as he
backed out of the Shack dragging a big piece of bacon.
"Oh, my strong Friend of much Brain, please cache this wooden-thing of
Yellow-eating for me," pleaded Jay, when Carcajou reappeared. "By the
Year of Famine! but it's delicious--it must be great for a Singer's
throat. Did I ever tell you how I was sold once at Wapiscaw over a bit
of butter?"
"No, my guzzling Friend--nor would you now, if you didn't want me to do
a favour," grunted the industrious toiler, rolling Whisky-Jack's tub of
butter off into the Forest.
"Well, it was this way--I saw a cake of this Yellow-eating in the
Factor's Shack; you know the square holes they leave for light--it was
in one of those. I swooped down and tried to drive my beak into it--"
"Like the hot pork," interrupted the tub-roller.
"Never mind, Carey, old Boy,--let by-gones be by-gones--I dove my beak
fair at the Yellow Thing, and, would you believe it, nearly broke my
neck against something hard which was between me and the Eating--I
couldn't see it, though."
"Ha, ha, he-e-e-e-!" laughed Carcajou. "You bone-headed Bird--that was
glass--Man's glass--they put it in those holes to keep the frost,
Whisky-Jacks, and other evil things out--I know what it is. There! now
your Yellow-eating is safe--Francois won't find it," he added, pushing
snow against the log under which lay the hidden firkin. "I wish you
would fly and bring Rof and some of the other Fellows--tell them I'm
giving a Feast-dance; make them hurry up, for the Men will be back
before long."
"Oh, Carey, they'll guzzle my butter," replied the Bird.
"They won't find it. Tell the Red Widow to come and get a piece of this
Fat-eating for the King. Fly like the wind. I'll have everything out
of the Shack, and you must tell Blue Wolf and the others to come and
help me carry it to the Meeting Place."
"Look here, Giver-of-the-Feast," said Jack, struck by a new thought,
"what about The Boy? If you take all the food, he'll starve before they
get to the Landing for more. We must remember our promise to Mooswa."
"That's so," replied Carcajou; "I'll leave enough Fish and Dry-eating to
carry them out of the Boundaries; strange, though, that _you_ should
have thought of The Boy--hast forgotten the hot pork?"
"Neither have I forgotten my word to Mooswa," said the Bird, as he flew
swiftly to summon the others to the feast.
Wolverine rounded up his day's work by caching the granite-ware dishes
and rolling an iron pot down the bank, and into the water hole. At
Carcajou's pot-latch there was rare hilarity.
"I'm proud of you, old Cunning," Blue Wolf said, patronizingly, as he
sat with distended stomach licking the fat from his wire-haired
mustache. "If anything should happen Black King, which Wiesahkechack
forbid! we could not do better than make you our next Ruler. I have
made a few good steals in my time, but never anything like this. To be
able to give a Tea Dance of this sort! Ghur-r-r!" he gurgled in
satisfaction, and rubbed his head and neck along Wolverine's plump side
affectionately, as a dog caresses a man's leg.
"Not only wise, but so generous!" Lynx said, oilily, for he too had
eaten of the salted fat. "To remember one's Friends in the Day of Plenty
is truly noble; I shall never forget this kind invitation."
"Cheek!" muttered Jack, for he had not invited Pisew at all--had
purposely left him out of the general call; but Lynx, always craftily
suspicious, seeing a movement on among some of the Animals, had followed
up and discovered the barbecue.
"I haven't eaten a meal like this since the year before the Big Fire,"
murmured the Red Widow, reminiscently. "Easy Catching! but the Birds
were thick that year--and fat and lazy. 'Crouk, Crouk!' they'd say, when
one walked politely with gentle tread amongst them, stretch their heads
up, and patter a little out of the way with their short, feathered
legs--actually not attempt to fly. But I never expect to see a year
like that again," she sighed, regretfully. "Excuse me for mentioning
it; but this fulness in my stomach has suggested the general condition
of that time. The King will be delighted to have this nice, fat
back-piece that I'm taking home to him. He did well to make you
Lieutenant, Carcajou--you are a brainy Boundary Dweller. By my family
crest, the White Spot at the end of my Tail, I'll never forget this
kindness."
"Hear, hear!" cried Whisky-Jack; "you make the snub-nosed Robber blush.
I had no idea how popular you were, Crop-ear. I've a notion to bring
out the--Goodness!" he muttered to himself; "I nearly gave it away.
Friendship is friendship, but butter is butter, and harder to get."
"Bring out what?" asked Pisew.
"The Castoreum, Prying-Cat," glibly answered Jay, cocking his head down
and sticking out his tongue at Lynx.
"I remember the year you speak of, Good Widow; I also was fat that
Fall," said Marten.
"So was I," declared Wuchak, the Fisher--"never had to climb a tree to
get my dinner for months."
"It was the Fifth Year of the Wapoos," enjoined Pisew, "and we Animal
Eaters were all fat. Why, my paw was the size of Panther's--I took
great pride in the trail I left."
"Extraordinary taste!" remarked Jack, "to feel proud of your big feet.
Now, if in the Year of Plenty you had run a little to brain--"
"Never mind, Jack," interrupted Blue Wolf, good-humouredly, for the
feast-fulness made him well disposed toward all creatures, "we can't all
be as smart as you are, you know. Tired jaws! I believe I don't care
for any dessert," he continued, sniffing superciliously at a rib-bone
Wolverine pushed toward him. But he picked it up, broke it in two with
one clamp of his vise-like teeth, and swallowed the knuckle end. "Even
if one is full," he remarked, giving a little gulp as it hitched in his
throat, "a morsel of bone or something at the finish of the meal seems
to top it off, and aids digestion."
"I take mine just as it comes, bone and meat together," declared Otter.
"So do I," affirmed Mink, for they had been given a great ration of Fish
as their share of the banquet. Carcajou had purloined it from the Shack
with his other loot.
"I must say that I like fresh Fish better than dried," declared Nekik to
his companion, Mink; "but with the streams almost frozen to the bottom,
and the stupid Tail-swimmers buried in the mud, one cannot be too
thankful for anything in the way of Eating. The wealthiest one in all
the Boundaries is old Umisk, the Beaver; he's got miles on miles of food
that can't run away from him."
"Oh, I never could stand a vegetarian diet," grunted Carcajou. "I do
eat Berries and Roots when Meat is scarce, but, taking it all round,
you'll find that the brainiest, cleverest, most active Fellows in the
Boundaries are the Flesh-eaters. Look at old Mooswa--good enough Chap;
big and strong, too, in a way, but Safe-trails! what can he do? Nothing
but trot, trot, trot, and try to rustle that big head-gear of his
through the bush. Did you ever see a Flesh-eater have to run around
with a small horn-forest on his head in the way of protection? Never!
they don't run to horns--they run to brains."
"And teeth," added Blue Wolf, curling his upper lip and baring ivory
fangs the length of a man's finger to the admiring gaze of his friends.
"I eat Meat," chirped Whisky-Jack, "and I don't run to horns or teeth
either, so it must all go to brains, I suppose. Lucky for you fellows,
too."
"No, Wise Bird," began Lynx, "you don't need horns or teeth to defend
yourself; your tongue, like Sikak's tail, keeps everybody away."
"Let's go home," grunted Wolverine; "I'm so full I can hardly walk."
"I'll give you a ride on my back, generous Benefactor," smirked Pisew.
"He thinks you have cached some of the bacon," sneered Jack; "he'll be
full of gratitude while the pork lasts."
Soon the Boundaries were silent, for full-stomached animals sleep well.
While there was feasting in the Boundaries there was much desolation in
the Shack. Francois and The Boy had returned late to their wrecked
home, and the Trapper's speech when he saw the debris, was something of
wondrous entanglement, for an excited French Half-breed has a vocabulary
all his own, and our friend was excited in the superlative degree. He
knew it was Carcajou who had robbed him, for there were plaster casts of
his brazen foot all over the mortar-like floor.
"We can't go to de new trap-place dis way," the Half-breed said; "we
don' got no grub, de dis' he's gone, an' de poison, an' it jes' look
like de Debil he's put bad Medicine on us himself. You stay here one
week alone if I go me de Lan'ing?" he asked Rod. "I mus' get de flour,
more bacon, some trap, an' de strykeen. I take me de dog-train for bring
de grub stake. You jes' stop on de S'ack, an' when I come back we go
down to Hay Riber."
It was late enough when Francois fell into a fitful troubled slumber,
for the occasion demanded much recrimination against animals in general,
and Carcajou in particular.
Whatever chance Francois might have had of discovering Carcajou's cache
next morning, was that night utterly destroyed by a fall of snow.