to what had possibly befallen Bob. They were much concerned but tried
to reassure themselves with the thought that he might have been
delayed one tilt back for the night, and that Micmac John had done
nothing worse than steal the fur. Nevertheless their evening was
spoiled--the evening they had looked forward to with so much pleasure
and their minds were filled with anxious thoughts when finally they
rolled into their blankets for the night.
Christmas morning came with a dead, searching cold that made the three
men shiver as they stepped out of the warm tilt long before dawn and
strode off in single file into the silent, dark forest. After a while
daylight came, and then the sun, beautiful but cheerless, appeared
above the eastern hills to reveal the white splendour of the world and
make the frost-hung fir trees and bushes scintillate and sparkle like
a gem-hung fairy-land. But the three men saw none of this. Before them
lay a black, unknown horror that they dreaded, yet hurried on to meet.
The air breathed a mystery that they could not fathom. Their hearts
were weighted with a nameless dread.
Their pace never once slackened and not a word was spoken until after
several hours the first tilt came suddenly into view, when Dick said
laconically:
"No smoke. He's not here."
"An' no signs o' his bein' on th' trail since th' storm," added Ed.
"No footin' t' mark un at all," assented Dick. "What's happened has
happened before th' last snow."
"Aye, before th' last snow. 'Twas before th' storm it happened."
Here they took a brief half hour to rest and boil the kettle, and the
remainder of that day and all the next day kept up their tireless,
silent march. Not a track in the unbroken white was there to give them
a ray of hope, and every step they took made more certain the tragedy
they dreaded.
At noon on the third day they reached the last tilt. Bill was ahead,
and when he pushed the door open he exclaimed: "Th' stove's gone!"
Then they found the bag that Micmac John had left there with the fur
in it.
"Now that's Micmac John's bag," said Ed. "What devilment has th' Injun
been doin'? Now why did he _leave_ th' fur? 'Tis strange--wonderful
strange."
Dick noted the evidences of an open fire having been kindled upon the
earthen floor. "That fire were made since th' stove were taken," he
said. "Micmac John left th' fur an' made th' fire. He's been stoppin'
here a night after Bob left wi' th' stove. But why were Bob leavin'
wi' th' stove? An' where has he gone? An' why has th' Injun been
leavin' th' fur here an' not comin' for un again? We'll have t' be
findin' out."
They started immediately to search for some clue of the missing lad,
each taking a different direction and agreeing to meet at night in
the tilt. Everywhere they looked, but nothing was discovered, and,
weary and disheartened, they turned back with dusk. Dick returned
across the first lake above the tilt. As he strode along one of his
snow-shoes pressed upon something hard, and he stopped to kick the
snow away from it. It was a deer's antler. He uncovered it farther and
found a chain, which he pulled up, disclosing a trap and in it a
silver fox, dead and frozen stiff. He straightened up and looked at
it.
"A Christmas present for Bob an' he never got un," he said aloud. "Th'
lad's sure perished not t' be findin' his silver."
Here was a discovery that meant something. Bob had been setting traps
in that direction, and might have a string of traps farther on.
Possibly he had gone to put them in order when the storm came, and had
been caught in it farther up, and perished. Anyway it was worth
investigation. When Dick returned with the fox and the trap to the
tilt he told the others of his theory and it was decided to
concentrate their efforts in that direction in the morning.
Accordingly the next day they pushed farther to the westward across
the second lake, and at a point where a dead tree hung out over the
ice found fresh axe cuttings. A little farther on they saw one or two
sapling tops chopped off. These were in a line to the northward, and
they took that direction. Finally they came upon a marsh, and heading
in the same northerly course across it, came upon the tracks of a pack
of wolves. Looking in the direction from which these led, Dick stopped
and pointed towards a high boulder half a mile to the eastward.
"Now what be that black on th' snow handy t' th' rock?" he asked.
"'Tis lookin' t' me like a flat sled," said Ed.
"We'll have a look at un," suggested Dick, who hurried forward with
the others at his heels. Suddenly he stopped, and pointed at the
beaten snow and scattered bones and torn clothing, where Micmac John
had fought so desperately for his life. The three men stood horror
stricken, their faces drawn and tense. This, then, was the solution of
the mystery! This was what had happened to Bob! Pretty soon Dick
spoke:
"Th' poor lad! Th' poor lad! An' th' wolves got un!"
"An' his poor mother," said Ed, choking. "'Twill break her heart, she
were countin' so on Bob. An' th' little maid as is sick--'twill kill
she."
"Yes," said Bill, "Emily'll be mournin' herself t' death wi'out Bob."
These big, soft-hearted trappers were all crying now like women. No
other thought occurred to them than that these ghastly remains were
Bob's, for the toboggan and things on it were his.
After a while they tenderly gathered up the human remains and placed
them upon the toboggan. Then they picked up the gun and blood
spattered axe.
"Now here be another axe on th' flat sled," said Dick. "What were Bob
havin' two axes for?"
"'Tis strange," said Ed.
"He must ha' had one cached in here, an' were bringin' un back,"
suggested Bill, and this seemed a satisfactory explanation.
"I'll take some pieces o' th' clothes. His mother'll be wantin'
somethin' that he wore when it happened," said Dick, as he gathered
some of the larger fragments of cloth from the snow.
Then with bowed heads and heavy hearts they silently retraced their
steps to the tilt, hauling the toboggan after them.
At the tilt they halted to arrange their future course of action.
"Now," said Dick, "what's t' be done? 'Twill only give pain th' sooner
t' th' family t' go out an' tell un, an' 'twill do no good. I'm
thinkin' 'tis best t' take th' remains t' th' river tilt an' not go
out with un till we goes home wi' open water."
"No, I'm not thinkin' that way," dissented Ed. "Bob's mother 'll be
wantin' t' know right off. 'Tis not right t' keep it from she, an'
she'll never be forgivin' us if we're doin' it."
"They's trouble enough down there that they _knows_ of," argued Dick.
"They'll be thinkin' Bob safe 'an not expectin' he till th' open water
an' we don't tell un, an' between now an' then have so much less t'
worry un, and be so much happier 'an if they were knowin'. Folks lives
only so long anyways an' troubles they has an' don't know about is
troubles they don't have, or th' same as not havin' un, an' their
lives is that much happier."
"I'm still thinkin' they'll be wantin' t' know," insisted Ed. "They'll
be plannin' th' whole winter for Bob's comin' an' when they's
expectin' him an' hears he's dead, 'twill be worse'n hearin' before
they expects un. Leastways, they'll be gettin' over un th' sooner
they hears, for trouble always wears off some wi' passin' time. 'Tis
our duty t' go an' tell un _now_, I'm thinkin'."
"What's un think, Bill?" asked Dick.
"I'm thinkin with Ed, 'tis best t' go," said Bill, positively.
"Well, maybe 'tis--maybe 'tis," Dick finally assented. "Now, who'll be
goin'? 'Twill be a wonderful hard task t' break th' news. I'm thinkin'
my heart'd be failin' me when I gets there. Ed, would un _mind_
goin'?"
Ed hesitated a moment, then he said:
"I'm fearin' t' tell th' mother, but 'tis for some one t' do. 'Tis my
duty t' do un--an' I'll be goin'."
It was finally arranged that Ed should begin his journey the following
morning, drawing the remains on a toboggan, and taking otherwise only
the tent, a tent stove, and enough food to see him through, leaving
the remainder of Bob's things to be carried out in the boat in the
spring. Dick undertook the charge of them as well as Bob's fur. Ed was
to take the short cut to the river tilt and thence follow the river
ice while Dick and Bill sprang Bob's traps on the upper end of his
path.
"But," said Bill, after this arrangement was made, "Bob's folks be in
sore need o' th' fur he'd be gettin' an' when Ed comes back, I'm
thinkin' 'twould be fine for us not t' be takin' rest o' Saturdays but
turnin' right back in th' trails. Ed can be doin' one tilt o' your
trail, Dick, an' so shortenin' your trail one tilt so you can do two
o' mine an' I'll shorten Ed two tilts an' do _three_ o' Bob's. I'd be
willin' t' work _Sundays_ an' I'm thinkin' th' Lard wouldn't be
findin' fault o' me for doin' un seem' Emily's needin' th' fur t' go
t' th' doctor. 'Tis sure th' Lard wouldn't be gettin' angry wi' me for
_that_, for He knows how bad off Emily is."
This generous proposal met with the approval of all, and details were
arranged accordingly that evening as to just what each was to do until
the furring season closed in the spring.
This was Saturday, December the twenty-eighth. On Sunday morning Ed
bade good-bye to his companions and began the long and lonely journey
to Wolf Bight with his ghastly charge in tow.
XII
IN THE HANDS OF THE NASCAUPEES
Late on the afternoon of the day that Bob fell asleep in the snow, he
awoke to new and strange surroundings. His first conscious moments
brought with them a sense of comfortable security. His mind had thrown
off every feeling of responsibility and he knew only that he was warm
and snugly tucked into bed and that the odour of spruce forest and
wood smoke that he breathed was very pleasant. He lay quiet for a
time, with his eyes closed, in a state of blissful, half
consciousness, vaguely realizing these things, but not possessing
sufficient energy to open his eyes and investigate them or question
where he was.
Slowly his mind awoke from its lethargy and then he began to remember
as a dim, uncertain dream, his experience of the night before.
Gradually it became more real but he recalled his failure to find the
tent, the fearful groping in the snow, and his struggle for life
against the storm as something that had happened in the long distant
past.
"But how could all this ha' been happenin' t' me now?" he asked
himself, for here he was snug in the tent--or perhaps he had reached
the tilt and did not remember.
He opened his eyes now for the first time to see and satisfy himself
as to whether it was the tent or the tilt he was in, and what he saw
astonished and brought him to his senses very quickly.
He recognized at once the interior of an Indian wigwam. In the centre
a fire was burning and an Indian woman was leaning over it stirring
the contents of a kettle. On the opposite side of the fire from her
sat a young Indian maiden of about Bob's own age netting the babiche
in a snow-shoe, her fingers plying deftly in and out. The woman and
girl wore deerskin garments of peculiar design. The former was fat and
ugly, the latter slender, and very comely, he thought, from her sleek
black hair to her feet encased in daintily worked little moccasins. At
that moment she glanced towards him and said something to her
companion, who turned in his direction also.
"Where am I?" he asked wonderingly and with some alarm.
They both laughed and jabbered then in their Indian tongue but he
could not understand a word they said. The girl lay aside the
snow-shoe and babiche and, taking up a tin cup, dipped some hot broth
from the kettle and offered it to him. He accepted it gladly for he
was thirsty and felt unaccountably weak. The broth contained no salt
or flavouring of any kind, but was very refreshing. When he had
finished it he put the cup down and attempted to rise but this
movement brought forth a flood of Indian expostulations and he was
forced to lie quiet again.
It was very evident that he was either considered an invalid too ill
to move or was held in bondage. He had never heard that Indian
captives were tucked into soft deerskin robes and fed broth by comely
Indian maidens, however, and if he were a prisoner it did not promise
to be so very disagreeable a captivity.
On the whole it was very pleasant and restful lying there on the soft
skins of which his bed was composed, for he still felt tired and weak.
He took in every detail of his surroundings. The wigwam was circular
in form and of good size. It was made of reindeer skins stretched over
poles very dingy and black, with an opening at the top to permit the
smoke from the fire in the centre to escape. Flat stones raised
slightly above the ground served as a fireplace, and around it were
thickly laid spruce boughs. Some strips of jerked venison hung from
the poles above, and near his feet he glimpsed his own gun and powder
horn.
Bob could see at once that these Indians were much more primitive than
those he knew at the Bay and, unfamiliar as he was with the Indian
language, he noticed a marked difference in the intonation and
inflection when the woman spoke.
"Now," said Bob to himself, "th' Nascaupees must ha' found me an'
these be Nascaupees. But Mountaineers an' every one says Nascaupees be
savage an' cruel, an' I'm not knowin' what un be. 'Tis queer--most
wonderful queer."
He had no recollection of lying down in the snow. The last he could
definitely recall was his fearful battling with the storm. There was a
sort of hazy remembrance of something that he could not quite
grasp--of having gone to sleep somewhere in a snug, warm bed spread
with white sheets. Try as he would he could not explain his presence
in this Indian wigwam, nor could he tell how long he had been here. It
seemed to him years since the morning he left the tilt to go on the
caribou hunt.
So he lay for a good while trying to account for his strange
surroundings until at last he became drowsy and was on the point of
going to sleep when suddenly the entrance flap of the wigwam opened
and two Indians entered--the most savage looking men Bob had ever
seen--and he felt a thrill of fear as he beheld them. They were very
tall, slender, sinewy fellows, dressed in snug fitting deerskin coats
reaching half way to the knees and decorated with elaborately painted
designs in many colours. Their heads were covered with hairy hoods,
and the ears of the animal from which they were made gave a grotesque
and savage appearance to the wearers. Light fitting buckskin leggings,
fringed on the outer side, encased their legs, and a pair of deerskin
mittens dangled from the ends of a string which was slung around the
neck. One of the men was past middle age, the other a young fellow of
perhaps twenty.
The older woman said something to them and they began to jabber in so
high a tone of voice that Bob would have thought they were quarrelling
but for the fact that they laughed good-naturedly all the time and
came right over to where he lay to shake his hand. They had a good
deal to say to him, but he could not understand one word of their
language. After greeting him both men removed their outer coats and
hoods, and Bob could not but admire the graceful, muscular forms that
the buckskin undergarments displayed. Their hair was long, black and
straight and around their foreheads was tied a thong of buckskin to
keep it from falling over their faces.
They laughed at Bob's inability to understand them, and were much
amused when he tried to talk with them. Every effort was made to put
him at ease.
When the men were finally seated, the girl dipped out a cup of broth
and a dish of venison stew from the kettle which she handed to Bob;
then the others helped themselves from what remained. There was no
bread nor tea, and nothing to eat but the unflavoured meat.
It was quite dark now and the fire cast weird, uncanny shadows on the
dimly-lighted interior walls of the wigwam. The Indians sitting around
it in their peculiar dress seemed like unreal inhabitants of some
spirit world. Bob's coming to himself in this place and amongst these
people appealed to him as miraculous--supernatural. He could not
understand it at all. He began to plan an escape. When they were all
asleep he could steal quietly out and make his way back to the tilt.
But, then, he reasoned, if they wished to detain him they could easily
track him in the snow in the morning; and, besides, he did not know
where his snow-shoes were and without them he could not go far.
Neither did he know how far he was from the tilt. After the Indians
had found him they may have carried him several days' journey to their
camp and whether they had gone west or north he had no way of finding
out.
It was, therefore, he realized, an unquestionably hopeless undertaking
for him to attempt to reach his tilt alone, and he finally dismissed
the idea as impracticable. Perhaps in the morning he could induce them
to take him there. That, he concluded, was the only plan for him to
follow. So far they had been very kind and he could see no reason why
they should wish to detain him against his will.
The Indians were indeed Nascaupee Indians, but instead of being the
ruthless cut-throats that the Mountaineers and the legends of the
coast had painted them, they were human and hospitable, as all our
eastern Indians were before white men taught them to be thieves and
drove and goaded them--by the white man's own treachery--to acts of
reprisal and revenge.
These Nascaupees, living as they did in a country inaccessible to the
white ravishers, had none but kindly motives in their treatment of Bob
and had no desire to do him harm. On the morning that Bob fell in the
snow Shish-e-tá-ku-shin--Loud-voice--and his son Moó-koo-mahn--Big
Knife--had left their wigwam early to hunt. Not far away they crossed
Bob's trail. Their practiced eye told them that the traveller was not
an Indian, for the snow-shoes he wore were not of Indian make, and
also, from the uncertain, wobbly trail, they decided that he was far
spent. So they followed the tracks and within a few minutes after Bob
had fallen found him. They carried him to the wigwam and rubbed his
frosted limbs and face until it was quite safe to wrap him in the
deerskins in the warm wigwam.
They did not know who he was nor where he came from, but they did know
that he needed care and several days of quiet. He was a stranger and
they took him in. These poor heathens had never heard of Christ or His
teachings, but their hearts were human. And so it was that Bob found
himself amongst friends and was rescued from what seemed certain
death.
When morning came Bob tried in every conceivable way to make them
understand that he wished to be taken back, but he found it a quite
hopeless task. No signs or pantomime could make them comprehend his
meaning, and it appeared that he was doomed to remain with them. The
shock of exposure had been so great that he was still very weak and
not able to walk, as he quickly realized when he tried to move about,
and he was compelled to remain within in the company of the women, in
spite of his desire to go out and reconnoitre.
Ma-ni-ka-wan, the maiden, took it upon herself to be his nurse. She
brought him water to bathe his face, which was very sore from
frostbite, and gave him the choicest morsels from the kettle, and made
him as comfortable as possible.
At first he held a faint hope that when Bill missed him at the tilt, a
search would be made for him and his friends would find the wigwam.
But as the days slipped by he realized that he would probably never be
discovered. There came a fear that the news of his disappearance would
be carried to Wolf Bight and he dreaded the effect upon his mother and
Emily.
But there was one consolation. Emily could go to the hospital now and
be cured. Bill would find the silver fox skin and his share of that
and the other furs would pay not only his own but his father's debts,
he felt sure, as well as all the expense of Emily's treatment by the
doctor--and a good surplus of cash--how much he could not imagine and
did not try to calculate--for the doctor had said that silver foxes
were worth five hundred dollars in cash. This thought gave him a
degree of satisfaction that towered so far above his troubles that he
almost forgot them.
In a little while he was quite strong and active again. Finally a day
came when the Indians made preparations to move. The wigwam was taken
down and with all their belongings packed upon toboggans, and under
the cold stars of a January morning, they turned to the northward, and
Bob had no other course than to go with them even farther from the
loved ones and the home that his heart so longed to see.
XIII
A FOREBODING OF EVIL
Never before had Bob been away from home for more than a week at a
time, and his mother and Emily were very lonely after his departure in
September. They missed his rough good-natured presence with the noise
and confusion that always followed him no less than his little
thoughtful attentions. They forgot the pranks that the overflow of his
young blood sometimes led him into, remembering only his gentler side.
He had helped Emily to pass the time less wearily, often sitting for
hours at a time by her couch, telling her stories or joking with her,
or making plans for the future, and she felt his absence now perhaps
more than even his mother. Many times during the first week or so
after his going she found herself turning wistfully towards the door
half expecting to see him enter, at the hours when he used to come
back from the fishing, and then she would realize that he was really
gone away, and would turn her face to the wall, that her mother might
not see her, and cry quietly in her loneliness.
Without Bob's help, Richard Gray was very busy now. The fishing season
was ended, but there was wood to be cut and much to be done in
preparation for the long winter close at hand. He went early each
morning to his work, and only returned to the cabin with the dusk of
evening. This home-coming of the father was the one bright period of
the day for Emily, and during the dreary hours that preceded it, she
looked forward with pleasure and longing to the moment when he should
open the door, and call out to her,
"An' how's my little maid been th'day? Has she been lonesome without
her daddy?"
And she would always answer, "I's been fine, but dreadful lonesome
without daddy."
Then he would kiss her, and sit down for a little while by her couch,
before he ate his supper, to tell her of the trivial happenings out of
doors, while he caressed her by stroking her hair gently back from her
forehead. After the meal the three would chat for an hour or so while
he smoked his pipe and Mrs. Gray washed the dishes. Then before they
went to their rest he would laboriously read a selection from the
Bible, and afterwards, on his knees by Emily's couch, thank God for
His goodness to them and ask for His protection, always ending with
the petition,
"An', Lard, look after th' lad an' keep he safe from th' Nascaupees
an' all harm; an' heal th' maid an' make she well, for, Lard, you must
be knowin' what a good little maid she is."
Emily never heard this prayer without feeling an absolute confidence
that it would be answered literally, for God was very real to her, and
she had the complete, unshattered faith of childhood.
Late in October the father went to his trapping trail, and after that
was only home for a couple of days each fortnight. There was no
pleasant evening hour now for Emily and her mother to look forward to.
The men of the bay were all away at their hunting trails, and no
callers ever came to break the monotony of their life, save once in a
while Douglas Campbell would tramp over the ice the eight miles from
Kenemish to spend an afternoon and cheer them up.
Emily missed Bob more than ever, since her father had gone, but she
was usually very patient and cheerful. For hours at a time she would
think of his home-coming, and thrill with the joy of it. In her fancy
she would see him as he would look when he came in after his long
absence, and in her imagination picture the days and days of happiness
that would follow while he sat by her couch and told her of his
adventures in the far off wilderness. Once, late in November, she
called her mother to her and asked:
"Mother, how long will it be now an' Bob comes home?"
"'Tis many months till th' open water, but I were hopin', dear, that
mayhap he'd be comin' at th' New Year."
"An' how long may it be to th' New Year, mother?"
"A bit more than a month, but 'tis not certain he'll be comin' then."