Whatever Rod's intentions might have been about following on after
Francois, their carrying out was utterly destroyed by the terrific
blizzard which started that night. All the next day, and the night
after, no living thing stirred from its nest or burrow.
Whisky-Jack cowered in the lee-side shelter of the roof; and inside,
Roderick listened to the howling and sobbing of the storm-demons that
rocked the rude Shack like a cradle. Even through the moss-chinked,
mud-plastered log-cracks the fine steel-dust of the ice-hard snow drove.
It was like emery in its minute fierceness.
Spirit voices called to Rod from the moaning Forest; his imagination
pictured the weird storm-sounds as the voice of his friend pleading for
help. Many times he threw the big wooden door-bar from its place, and
peered out into the dark as the angry wind pushed against him with
fretful swing. Each time he was sure he heard his Comrade's voice, or
the howl of train-dogs; but there was nothing; only the blinding,
driving, frozen hail--fine and sharp-cutting as the grit of a sandstone.
Once he thought the call of a rifle struck on his ear--it was the crash
of an uprooted tree, almost deadened by the torturing wind-noises.
The cold crept into his marrow. All night he kept the fire going, and
by dawn his supply of wood had dwindled to nothing; he must have more,
or perish. Just outside in the yard Francois had left a pile of dry
Poplar. Almost choked by the snow-powdered air, Rod laboured with his
axe to cut enough for the day. At intervals he worked, from time to
time thawing out his numbed muscles by the fire-place. "One trip more,"
he muttered, throwing down an armful in the Shack, "and I'll have enough
to last until to-morrow--by that time the storm will have ceased, I
hope."
But on that last short journey a terrible thing happened. Blinded by
the white-veil of blizzard Rod swayed as he brought the axe down, and
the sharp steel buried in his moccasined foot. "O God!" The Boy cried,
in despairing agony. He hobbled into the Shack, threw the wooden bar
into place, tore up a cotton shirt, and from the crude medicine
knowledge he had acquired from Francois, soaked a plug of tobacco,
separated the leaves, and putting them next the cut, bound the torn
cloth tightly about his foot.
That night the storm still raged, and his wound brought a delirium pain
which made his fancies even more realistic. Whisky-Jack heard him
moaning and talking to strange people.
Next morning a cold sun came up on a still, tired atmosphere. The
fierce blizzard had sucked all life out of the air: the Spruces' long
arms, worn out with swaying and battling, hung asleep in the dead calm:
a whisper might have been heard a mile away.
At the first glint of light Jack spread his wings, and, travelling fast
to the home of Black Fox, told of Rod's helpless condition. "Before it
was the hunger-death that threatened; now the frost-sleep will come
surely, for he cannot walk, only crawl on his hands and knees like a
Bear-Cub," said Jay Bird, with a world of pity in his voice.
"Call Mooswa and Carcajou," cried the Red Widow, "The Boy is in their
keeping."
When Wolverine had come he said: "There is still a piece of Fat-eating
cached, if I can find it under this mountain of white-fur that covers
the breast of The Boundaries."
"That is well, good Comrade," declared Black King; "but how shall we get
it to the hands of our Man-Cub?"
"Place it in the bowl of my horns," said Mooswa, "and I will lay it at
his door."
"Yet the Fat-eating may be on one side of the wooden gate, and The Boy
starve on the other," remarked Whisky-Jack, thoughtfully.
"I will knock with my horns, and The Boy will open the gate thinking it
is Francois."
"Even with a full stomach he may perish from the frost-death," continued
Jack; "for now he cannot cut wood for his chimney--though the fire still
lives, for I saw its blue breath above the roof as I came away."
"Call Umisk," ordered Black King; "he is a wood-cutter."
"Excellent, excellent!" sneezed Carcajou, in a wheezy voice, for the
blizzard had set a cold on his lungs. "If Chisel-tooth will cut
fire-wood I'll drop it down the chimney, and The Boy may yet be kept
alive until Francois returns. Come with me, Daddy Long-legs," he
continued, addressing Mooswa, "and we'll have a look for that cached
Fat-eating in this wilderness of white-frosted water."
After a tiresome search they found the bacon that had been hidden by the
little hunchback. Mooswa carried it to the Shack, dropping it at the
door, against which there was a great drifted snow-bank; then he rubbed
his horns gently up and down the boards.
"Is that you, Francois?" cried a voice that trembled with gladness, from
inside the Shack. There was a fumbling at the door, and the next instant
it was pulled open.
Mooswa almost cried at sight of the pain-pinched, ghost-like face that
confronted him, and The Boy recoiled with a look of dismay--the huge
head frightened him. Then catching sight of the bacon, he looked from
it to the Bull-Moose questioningly; all at once an idea came to him.
"You are hungry too, Mr. Moose, are you?" for he remembered stories of
severe storms having driven deer and other wild animals to the haunts of
Man for food. Evidently the smell of bacon had attracted the Moose; but
where in the world had it come from? Had it been left by some chance on
the roof, and knocked off by the strong blizzard wind? That seemed a
likely solution. The Moose was so unafraid, too--it was curious! He
reached out and pulled in the bacon--it was like the manna shower.
"Poor old Chap!" he said, stretching out a hand and patting the big fat
nose timidly; "you've come to a bad place for food. There's nothing
here you can eat."
[Illustration: "POOR OLD CHAP!"]
Mooswa stuck out his rough tongue, and caressed the wrist. Rod
scratched the Bull's forehead in return, and they were friends.
The big eyes of Mooswa wandered about the bare pathetic interior. It
was a poor enough place for a crippled Boy--but what could be done. "I
wish I could speak to him," he thought, rubbing his massive face against
the flannel shirt reassuringly. Then he turned and walked solemnly
through the little clearing, and disappeared in the thick wood.
The bacon put new heart in Roderick.
A rational explanation of this advent of the pork appeared to be that it
had fallen from the roof; but all through that night of distress The Boy
had muttered broken little prayers, just as he had done for years at his
mother's knee, and whether it had actually fallen from the roof or from
the skies was not the real issue, for he was convinced that it had come
in answer to his prayers.
The pain crept up his leg, up his back, and, as the hours dragged on,
the dreary, lonesome hours, it mounted to his brain, and the queer
fancies of approaching delirium carried him to a fairy land peopled by
unreal things. He had just sanity enough to keep the chimney fire
going, but his little pile of wood dwindled until the last stick was
placed on the coals. When in the afternoon Carcajou dropped three
billets that Umisk had cut down the chimney, Roderick laughed. He was a
King in delirium-land, and when he wanted anything all he had to do was
pray, and the angels would send it.
Sometimes the sticks of wood rolled out on the floor as they clattered
down--these The Boy put to one side.
"I suppose the angels won't come in the night," he whispered; then
laughed. It was a grotesque idea, but the fire was kept blazing.
He had no rational thought of eating; when he felt hunger-pains he fried
a little of the bacon and ate it. Sometimes he made a batter of flour
and water, cooking the mixture in a frying-pan over the fire--turning
out an almost impossible kind of pancake.
"He acts like Wapoos in the early Spring," Whisky-Jack told Mooswa:
"laughs, and whistles, and cries, and sobs; but he eats, which is a good
thing, and is also warm. I never thought that crop-eared Hunchback,
Carcajou, had goodness enough in him to do anything for anybody."
"He's like yourself, Whisky-Jack, a bit of a th--sharp-tongued fellow, I
mean" (thief, he was going to say, but checked himself just in time),
"and full of queer tricks, but good-hearted enough when a Comrade is in
trouble. How long will the Fat-eating, which is the food of you
Meat-eaters, last The Boy?" Mooswa asked.
"Perhaps three days."
"Also, is it good food for the sick--is it not too strong? When I am
not well there are certain plants that agree with me, and others I
cannot touch."
"Fish would be better," declared Jack, with the air of a consulting
physician.
"I thought so," said Mooswa. "The smell of that bacon at the door
almost turned my stomach. If the Man-Cub could only eat sweet
Birch-tips, or dried Moose-flower--it's delicious when well preserved
under deep snow. Even unrotted moss would be better for him than that
evil-scented Meat."
The Bird laughed, "He, he, he! fancy the Man-Cub chewing a great cud of
mushy grass. Now Fish, as I have said, would be just the thing; there's
nothing lies so sweet on one's stomach, unless it's Butter. Warm
Roostings! but I wish that cat-faced Pisew had been hanged before he
found my cache."
"Jack," continued Moose, "you might ask Nekik or Sakwasew to catch a
Fish for The Boy; they are all bound by the promise to help take care of
him."
"All right," said Jay. "Otter might do it, for he's a generous Chap,
but Sakwasew is a greedy little snip, I think. I never knew a Mink yet
that wasn't selfish."
"I don't know how long we shall have to look after this Man-Cub," Mooswa
said, when he, and Rof, and Black King talked the matter over that
evening. "Francois is a good Trapper, we all know that to our sorrow,
and he likes The Boy, for he was years with his Father, the Factor, as
servant to the Company, but still he's a Breed, and if there's any
fire-water at The Landing it is hard to say when he may get back;
besides, the breath of the mountain that shrivelled us all for two days
may have got into his heart."
"My Pack hunts for three days in the far Boundaries," muttered Blue
Wolf.
"Why?" asked the King, sharply.
"In three days I will tell Your Majesty," answered Rof, shutting his
jaws with a snap.
"Well, well," exclaimed Black Fox, "in the Year of Starvation there is
no preserve. We hunt where we find, and eat where we catch; and only
the Kit-law and the Cub-law, and the Seventh Year Law of the Wapoos is
binding."
Blue Wolf disappeared for three days; and for three days Umisk cut wood
for The Boy, and Carcajou dropped it down the chimney. Mooswa went
every day and rubbed his horns against the door. The coming of his
Moose friend was also a part of the angel care the wounded boy had
dreamed into his life. His eager joy at even this companionship was
pitiable; but it was something to look forward to--something to pull him
back out of the deeper levels of delirium-world.
Nekik, the Otter, caught a fish, at Mooswa's request, and Carcajou
dropped it down the chimney.
"It will burn," objected Umisk, who was cutting wood.
"Then The Boy will find it with his nose," answered Carcajou.
After that Roderick asked the angels to bring him fish--it was better
than bacon. They were queer angels, Nekik and Carcajou, but the sick
lad got a fish every day.
On the third day Blue Wolf returned. "I found one of the Men-kind down
the river," he announced to Mooswa and Black Fox; "he is trapping alone,
I think."
"Well," queried Black King, "what of that?" for he did not quite
understand.
"If we could get him to The Boy I thought it might be well," answered
Blue Wolf.
"Ah! I see," cried the King. "That's why the Pack hunted for three
days in the far Boundaries."
Wolf growled a deprecating objection.
"How far away is he?" asked Mooswa.
"Six hours of the Chase-lope," answered Blue Wolf.
"I could bring him, even as I led Francois away when you were not
desirous of his company, Your Majesty," said the Moose.
"It's a dangerous game," muttered Black Fox. "I don't like it--one
can't judge the strike of their Firesticks; and you're such a big
mark--like the side of a Man's Shack."
"I saw The Boy's leg to-day," continued Mooswa, "and it's bigger, with
this wound-poison, than my nose. Unless he gets help soon, he will
die."
"Francois should be back in a day or two," declared the King.
"Francois is a Breed," asserted Mooswa; "and days are like the little
sticks the Breed-men use when they play cards--something to gamble
with."
"The Pack could be ready if the Man pressed too close as you led him to
our Man-Cub," suggested Rof.
"I do not fear him the first day," continued Mooswa; "Man's speed is
always the same and I can judge of it; it is the second day, when I am
tired from the deep snow, that a little rest, too long drawn out, or a
misjudged circle with one of the followers travelling wide of my trail,
that may cause me to come within reach of their Firestick."
"Well, you might not reach Red Stone Brook in one day," asserted Blue
Wolf; "so perchance you may need help the second. You'll find the Man
just below Big Rapids."
"I'll start to-night," said Mooswa, "for The Boy must get help from his
own kind soon. He is sick of the wounded leg--also of a half-filled
stomach; but then there is another illness that neither I nor any of us
can understand. Perhaps it is of that thing the Factor said Men had and
would sell for the evil fire-water--the soul. One time the eyes of The
Boy are all right, even as yours, Rof, or mine, seeing the things that
are; and then a look comes in them that is like the darkening of a
purple Moose-flower when the sunlight is suddenly chased away by a
cloud. Then this Boy, that is a Man-Cub, talks to his Mother, and his
Sister, and calls to the things he names Angels, up on the roof; though
I know not what they may be, because it is only little humpbacked
Carcajou dropping wood down the chimney. Yes, that's what it must be,"
Mooswa continued, reflectively, "the sickness of this Soul-thing the
Men-kind have, for The Boy laughs, and cries, and his eyes blaze, and
look soft like one's young, and flood with tears, and glare hot and dry.
Yes, he must have help from his own kind, for we know not of this thing.
"With good fortune I may lead this Man to him by the coming of darkness
the first day; if not, then Blue Wolf will stand guard on my trail the
second."
"Yes, even the first day, also, will I be near," asserted Rof.