turned without so much as a snarl of warning and clawed the happy little
household to the bone. In some inexplicable, underhanded way, she
managed to set fire to the cabin in the night, when Brannigan and
Jackson were snoring heavily. They slept, of course, well clad. They
awoke choking, from a nightmare. With unprintable remarks, they leapt
from their bunks into a scorching smother of smoke, snatched up
instinctively their thick coats and well-greased larrigans, fumbled
frantically for the latch, and burst out into the icy, blessed air. Mary
was bawling with terror, and bouncing about in her pen as if all the
furies were after her.
Brannigan snatched her door open, and she lumbered out with a rush,
knocking him into the snow, and went floundering off toward the woods.
But in a couple of minutes she was back again and stood trembling
behind Long Jackson.
At first both woodsmen had toiled like demons, dashing the snow in
armfuls upon the blazing camp; but the fire, now well established,
seemed actually to regard the fluffy snow as so much more congenial
fuel. Knowing themselves beaten, they drew back with scorched faces and
smarting eyes and stood watching disconsolately the ruin of their home.
Mary thrust her long-muzzled head around from behind her partners, and
wagged her ears, and stared.
In the face of real catastrophe the New Brunswick backwoodsman does not
rave and tear his hair. He sets his teeth and he does a good deal of
thinking. Presently Brannigan spoke.
"I noticed ye come away in a hurry, Long!" he remarked drily. "Did ye
think to bring anything to eat with ye?"
"Nary bite!" responded Jackson. "I've brung along me belt--it was kind
of tangled up wi' the coat--an' me knife's in it, all right." He felt in
the pockets of his coat. "Here's baccy, an' me pipe, an' a bit o'
string, an' a crooked nail! Wish't I'd know'd enough to eat a bigger
supper last night! I hadn't no sort of an appetite."
"I've got me old _dudheen_," said Brannigan, holding up his stubby black
clay. "An' I've got two matches, _jest two_, mind yer! An' that's all I
_hev_ got."
They filled their pipes thoughtfully and lit them frugally with a
blazing splinter from the wood pile.
"Which is nearest," queried Jackson, "Conroy's Upper Camp, or
Gillespie's, over to Red Brook?"
"Conroy's, sure," said Brannigan.
"How fur, would ye say?" insisted Jackson, who really knew quite as much
about it as his partner.
"In four foot o' soft snow, an' no snowshoes, about ten thousan' mile!"
replied Brannigan consolingly.
"Then we'd better git a move on," said Jackson.
"I'm _thinkin'_ we ain't got no time to waste starin' at bonfires,"
agreed Brannigan.
They turned their backs resolutely and headed off through the night and
the snow toward Conroy's Camp, many frozen leagues to the
south-eastward. Mary, bewildered and daunted, followed close at
Brannigan's heels. And they left their blazing home to roar and fume and
vomit sparks and flare itself out in the unheeding solitude.
Accustomed as they were to moving everywhere on snowshoes in the winter,
the two woodsmen found it infinitely laborious and exhausting to
flounder their way through a four-foot depth of light snow. They took
half-mile turns, as near as they could guess, at going ahead to break
the way.
Once they thought of putting this job upon Mary. But it was not a
success. Mary didn't want to go ahead. Only with assiduous propulsion
could they induce her to lead; and then her idea of the direction of
Conroy's Camp seemed quite unformed. Sometimes she would insist upon
being propelled sideways. So they soon gave up the plan, and let her
take her place in the rear, which her humility seemed to demand.
Both men were in good condition, powerful and enduring. But in that
savage cold their toil ate up their vitality with amazing speed. With
plenty of food to supply the drain, they might have fought on almost
indefinitely, defying frost and fatigue in the soundness of their
physique. But the very efficiency of their bodily machinery made the
demand for fuel come all the sooner. They smoked incessantly to fool
their craving stomachs, till their pipes chanced to go out at the same
time. Much too provident to use one of their two matches, which might,
later on, mean life or death to them, they chewed tobacco till their
emptiness revolted at it.
Then, envious of Mary, who browsed with satisfaction on such twigs and
saplings as came in her way, they cut young fir branches, peeled them,
scraped the white inner bark, and chewed mouthfuls of the shavings. But
it was too early for the sap to be working up, and the stuff was no more
eatable than sawdust. They speedily dropped this unprofitable foraging,
pulled their belts tighter, and pushed on with the calm stoicism of
their breed.
Long Jackson was first to call for a halt. The pallid midwinter dawn was
spreading up a sky of icy opal when he stopped and muttered abruptly--
"If we can't eat, we must rest a spell."
Brannigan was for pushing on, but a glance at Jackson's face persuaded
him.
"Give us one o' them two matches o' yourn, Long," said he. "If we don't
hev' a fire, we'll freeze, with nothin' in our stommicks."
"Nary match, yet," said Jackson doggedly. "We'll need 'em worse later
on."
"Then we'll have to warm ourselves huggin' Mary," laughed Brannigan. It
was a sound proposition. They scooped and burrowed a deep pit, made Mary
lie down, and snuggled close against her warm flanks, embracing her
firmly. Mary had been for some time hankering after a chance to rest her
long legs and chew her cud, so she was in no way loath. With head
uplifted above her reclining partners, she lay there very contentedly,
ears alert and eyes half closed. The only sound on the intense stillness
was the slow grind of her ruminating jaws and the deep breathing of the
two exhausted men.
Both men slept. But, though Mary's vital warmth was abounding and
inexhaustible, the still ferocity of the cold made it perilous for them
to sleep long. In a half-hour Brannigan's vigilant subconsciousness woke
him up with a start. He roused Jackson with some difficulty. They shook
themselves and started on again, considerably refreshed, but ravenously
hungry.
"Whatever would we have done without Mary?" commented Brannigan.
"Ay, ay!" agreed Jackson.
All the interminable day they pushed on stoically through the soft,
implacable snow-depths, but stopping ever more and more frequently to
rest, as the cold and the toil together devoured their forces.
At night they decided that one of the precious matches must be used.
They _must_ have a real fire and a real sleep, if they were to have any
chance of winning through to Conroy's Camp. They made their preparations
with meticulous care, taking no risk. After the deep trench was dug,
they made a sound foundation for their fire at one end of it. They
gathered birch bark and withered pine shavings and kindlings of dead
wood, and gathered a store of branches, cursing grimly over their lack
of an axe. Then Jackson scratched one match cautiously. It lit: the dry
bark curled, cracked, caught; the clear young flame climbed lithely
through the shavings and twigs. Just then an owl, astonished, flew
hurriedly through the branches far overhead. He stirred a branch heavily
snow-laden. With a soft swish a tiny avalanche slid down, fell upon the
fire, and blotted it out. Indignantly the two men pounced upon it and
cleared it off, hoping to find a few sparks still surviving. But it was
as dead as a last year's mullein stalk.
Comment was superfluous, discussion unnecessary. Fire, that night, they
must have. They scooped a new trench, clear in the open. They used the
last match, and they built a fire so generous that for a while they
could hardly endure its company in the trench. Mary, indeed, could not
endure it, so she stayed outside. They smoked and they talked a little,
not of their chances of making Conroy's Camp, but of baked pork and
beans, fried steak and onions, and enormous boiled puddings smothered in
butter and brown sugar. Then they slept for some hours. When the fire
died down Mary came floundering in and lay down, beside them, so they
did not feel the growing cold as soon as they should.
When they woke, they were half frozen and savage with hunger. There were
still red coals under the ashes, so they revived the fire, smoked, and
got themselves thoroughly warm. Then, with belts deeply drawn in, they
resumed their journey in dogged silence. According to the silent
calculation of each, the camp was still so far ahead that the odds were
all against their gaining it. But they did not trouble to compare their
calculations or their hopes. Toward evening Long Jackson began to go to
pieces badly. He had a great frame, and immense muscular power, but,
being gaunt and stringy, he had no reserves of fat in his hard tissues
to draw upon in such an emergency as this. In warm weather his endurance
would have been, no doubt, equal to Brannigan's. Now the need of fuel
for the inner fire was destroying him. The enforced rests became more
and more frequent. At last he grunted--
"I'm the lame duck o' this here outfit, Tom. Ye'd better push on, bein'
so much fresher'n me, an' git the boys from the camp to come back for
me."
Brannigan laughed derisively.
"An' find ye in cold storage, Long! Ye'd be no manner o' use to yer
friends _that_ way. Ye wouldn't be worth comin' back fer." Jackson
chuckled feebly and dropped the subject, knowing he was a fool to have
raised it. He felt it was good of Brannigan not to have resented the
suggestion as an insult.
"Reach me a bunch o' them birch twigs o' Mary's," he said. Having chewed
a few mouthfuls and spat them out, he got up out of the snow and plunged
on with a burst of new determination.
"That's where Mary's got the bulge on us," remarked Brannigan. "Ef we
could live on birch-browse, now, I'd be so proud I wouldn't call the
King my uncle."
"If Mary wasn't our pard, now," said Jackson, "we'd be all right. I'm
that hungry I'd eat her as she stands, hair an' all."
Responding to a certain yearning note in Jackson's voice, Mary rubbed
her long muzzle against him affectionately and nibbled softly at his
sleeve.
Brannigan flushed. He was angry because his partner had voiced a
thought which he had been at pains to banish from his own consciousness.
"Ef it hadn't a' been fer Mary, we wouldn't be alive now," said he
sternly. "She's kep' us from freezin'."
"Oh, ye needn't git crusty over what I've said, Tom," replied Jackson,
rubbing the long brown ears tenderly. "Mary's jest as much my pardner as
she is yourn, an' I ain't no cannibal. We'll see this thing through with
Mary, on the square, you bet. _But_--ef 'twasn't _Mary_--that's all _I_
say!"
"Right ye are, Long," said Brannigan, quite mollified. But later in the
day, as he glanced at his partner's drawn, sallow-white face,
Brannigan's heart misgave him. He loved the confiding Mary quite
absurdly; but, after all, as he reminded himself, she was only a little
cow moose, while Long Jackson was a Christian and his partner. His
perspective straightened itself out.
At last, with a heavy heart, he returned to the subject.
"Ye was right, Long," said he. "Ef we don't make Conroy's Camp purty
soon, we'll hev to--well, it'll be up to Mary! Poor Mary! But, after
all, she's only a little moose cow. An' I'm sure she'd be proud, ef she
could understand!"
But Jackson was indignant, as he went laboring on, leaning upon Mary's
powerful shoulder.
"Not much," he snorted feebly. "Ther' ain't goin' to be no killin' of
Mary on my account, an' don't ye forgit it! 'Twouldn't do good, fer I
wouldn't tech a sliver of her, not ef I was dyin'. An' it would jest be
on-pleasant fer Mary."
Brannigan drew a breath of relief, for this meant at least a
postponement of the unhappy hour. "Jest as ye like, Long!" he grunted.
But he clenched his teeth on the resolution that, the moment his partner
should become too weak for effective protest, Mary should come promptly
to the rescue. After all, whatever Mary's own opinion on the subject, it
would be an end altogether worthy of her. He drove a whole rabble of
whimsical fancies through his mind, as he labored resolutely onward
through the snow. But his mittened hand went out continuously to caress
Mary's ears, pleading pardon for the treason which it planned.
The midwinter dark fell early, and fell with peculiar blackness on
Jackson's half-fainting eyes. He was leaning now on Mary's shoulders
with a heaviness which that young person began to find irksome. She
grunted complainingly at times, and made good-natured attempts to shake
him off. But she had been well trained, and Brannigan's voice from time
to time kept her from revolt. Brannigan was now watching his partner
narrowly in the gloom, noting his movements and the droop of his head,
since he could no longer make much of his face. He was beginning to
feel, with a heavy heart, that the end of poor Mary's simple and
blameless career was very close at hand.
He was busily hardening his heart with forced frivolities. He felt his
long knife. He slipped his mittens into his pocket that his stroke might
be sure, swift, and painless, but his fingers shook a little with strong
distaste. Then his eyes, glancing ahead, caught a gleam of yellow light
through the tree-trunks. He looked again, to assure himself, and calmly
pulled on his mittens.
"Mary," said he, "you've lost the chance o' yer life. Ye ain't goin' to
be no hero, after all!"
"What're ye gruntin' about, Tom?" demanded Jackson dully, aroused by the
ring in his partner's voice.
"There's Conroy's Camp right ahead!" cried Brannigan. Then he fell to
shouting and yelling for help. Jackson straightened himself, opened his
eyes wide, saw the light, and the sudden increase of it as the camp door
was flung open, heard answering shouts, and collapsed sprawling on
Mary's back. He had kept going for the last few hours on his naked
nerve.
It was food Long Jackson wanted--food and sleep. And on the following
day he was himself again. At dinner, beside the long plank table built
down the middle of the Camp, he and Brannigan devoured boiled beans and
salt pork and stewed dried apples, gulped down tins of black tea, and
jointly narrated their experience to the interested choppers and
teamsters, while Mary, shut up in the stables, munched hay comfortably
and wondered what had become of her partners. They were big-boned,
big-hearted children, these men of the New Brunswick lumber camps, quick
in quarrel, quick in sentiment, but cool and close-lipped in the face of
emergency. The "boss" of the camp, however, was of a different type--a
driving, hard-eyed Westerner, accustomed to the control of lumber gangs
of mixed races, and his heart was as rough as his tongue. In a lull in
the talk he said suddenly to the visitors--
"We're about sick o' salt pork in this camp, mates, an' the fresh beef
ain't been sent out from the Settlement yit. Coin's been too heavy. That
fat young moose critter o' yourn'll come in mighty handy jest now. What
d'ye want fer her as she stands?"
Long Jackson set down his tin of tea with a bump and looked at the
speaker curiously. But Brannigan thought it was a joke, and laughed.
"Cow-moose comes high in New Brunswick, Mr. Clancy," said he pleasantly,
"as ye must a' been here long enough to know."
"Oh, that's all right," answered the boss; "but there ain't a
game-warden within a hundred miles o' this camp, an' I'd risk it if
there was. What'll ye take?"
Brannigan saw that the proposal was a serious one, and his face
stiffened.
"Where Mary's concerned," said he, speaking with slow precision, "I
guess me an' my pardner here's all the game-wardens that's required.
It's close season all year round fer Mary, an' she ain't fer sale at any
price."
There was a moment's silence, broken only by a shuffle of tin plates on
the table. Then Long Jackson said--
"An' that's a fact, Mr. Clancy."
The boss made a noise of impatience between his teeth. He was not used
to being opposed, but he could not instantly forget that these visitors
were his guests.
"Well," said he, "there ain't no property right in a moose, anyhow!"
"_We_ think ther' be," replied Brannigan, "an' we know that there little
moose-cow's our'n an' _not_ fer sale at no price, what-_so-ever_!"
The boss was beginning to get angry at this incomprehensible attitude of
his guests.
"Ther' ain't _no_ property rights, I tell ye, in any wild critter o'
these here woods. This critter's in my stables, an' I could jest _take_
her, seein' as my hands needs her, without no talk o' payin' fer the
privilege. But you two boys has been burnt out an' in hard luck, so I'll
give ye the price o' good beef for the critter. Ye kin take it or leave
it. But I'm going to kinder requisition the critter."
As he spoke he rose from his seat, as if to go and carry out his purpose
on the instant. There had been already growls of protest from the men of
the camp, who understood, as he could not, the sentiment of their
guests; but he gave no heed to it. His seat was furthest from the door.
But before he had taken two strides, Long Jackson was at the door, and
had snatched up a heavy steel-shod "peevy." Having not yet quite
recovered, he was still a bit excitable for a woodsman.
"Damn you, Jim Clancy, none o' yer butcherin'!" he shouted. Clancy
sprang forward with an oath, but right in his path rose Brannigan, quiet
and cold.
"Ye better hold on, Mr. Clancy," said he, "an' think it over. It's that
little moose-critter what's jest seen us through, an' I guess we'll see
her through, too, Jackson an' me!"
His tone and manner were civility itself, but his big lean fist was
clenched till the knuckles went white.
Clancy paused. He was entirely fearless, whether it were in a fight or a
log-jam. But he was no fool, and his vocation forced him to think
quickly. He realized suddenly that in the temper of his visitors was a
resolution which would balk at nothing. It would do him no good to have
killing in the camp, even if he were not himself the victim. All this he
saw at one thought, in the fraction of a flash. He saw also that his men
would be against him. He choked back his wrath and cast about for words
to save his face. And here one of his choppers came tactfully to his
aid.
"We ain't wantin' fresh meat so bad as all that, Mr. Clancy," he
suggested, with a grin. "Guess we'd rather wait for the beef."
"Aye, aye!" chimed in several voices pacifically.
Clancy pulled himself together and spoke lightly. "I s'pose ye're right,
lads, an' it was yer own feed I was thinking of. If ye're satisfied, I
must be. An' I was wrong, o' course, to treat our visitors so rough, an'
try force _any_ kind o' a bargain on them. I ax their pardon."
Taking the pardon for granted, he went back to his seat.
Brannigan, who had never lost grip of himself for a moment, sat down
again with a good-natured grin. A murmur of satisfaction went round the
table, and knives once more clattered on tin plates.
Long Jackson, by the door, hesitated and glared piercingly at the boss,
who refrained from noticing.
At length he set down his weapon and came back to the table. In a minute
or two his appetite returned, and he could resume his meal.
Out in the barn, in the smell of hay and horses, Mary lay tranquilly
waving her ears, staring at her unfamiliar company, and chewing her
comfortable cud, untroubled with any intuitions of the fate which had
twice within the last few hours so narrowly passed her by.
Printed in the United States of America.
* * * * *
The following pages contain advertisements of Macmillan books by the
same author
BY CHARLES G. D. ROBERTS
The Backwoodsmen
Illustrated. Cloth. 12mo, $1.50 net
"'The Backwoodsmen' shows that the writer knows the backwoods as the
sailor knows the sea. Indeed, his various studies of wild life in
general, whether cast in the world of short sketch or story or
full-length narrative, have always secured an interested public.... Mr.
Roberts possesses a keen artistic sense which is especially marked when
he is rounding some story to its end. There is never a word too much,
and he invariably stops when the stop should be made.... Few writers
exhibit such entire sympathy with the nature of beasts and birds as
he."--_Boston Herald._
"When placed by the side of the popular novel, the strength of these
stories causes them to stand out like a huge primitive giant by the side
of a simpering society miss, and while the grace and beauty of the girl
may please the eye for a moment, it is to the rugged strength of the
primitive man your eyes will turn to glory in his power and simplicity.
In simple, forceful style Mr. Roberts takes the reader with him out into
the cold, dark woods, through blizzards, stalking game, encountering all
the dangers of the backwoodsmen's life, and enjoying the close contact
with Nature in all her moods. His descriptions are so vivid that you can
almost feel the tang of the frosty air, the biting sting of the snowy
sleet beating on your face, you can hear the crunch of the snow beneath
your feet, and when, after heartlessly exposing you to the elements, he
lets you wander into camp with the characters of the story, you stretch
out and bask in the warmth and cheer of the fire."--_Western Review._
Kings in Exile (The Macmillan Fiction Library)
Illustrated. Cloth. 12mo, 50c. net
"More wonderful animal tales such as only Mr. Roberts can relate. With
accurate knowledge of the exiled beasts and a vivid imagination, the
author writes stories that are even more than usually interesting. The
antagonistic feelings that exist beneath the shaggy coats, and the
methods of stealthy warfare of wild beasts, are all minutely described
and the enemies illustrated."--_Book News Monthly._
"It is surprising how much of the wilderness his wistful eye discovers
in a Central Park buffalo yard. For this gift of vision the book will be
read, a vision with its reminder of the scent of dark forests of fir,
the awful and majestic loneliness of sky-towering peaks, the roar of the
breakers and salty smell of the sea, the whispering silences of the
forests. We rise from its pages with the breath of the open spaces in
our lungs."--_Boston Transcript._
PUBLISHED BY
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
64-66 Fifth Avenue New York
BY CHARLES G. D. ROBERTS
Neighbors Unknown
Decorated cloth, Illustrated, 12mo, $1.50 net
"Mr. Roberts has a wonderful knowledge of wild animals, and we are
thrilled by his vivid scenes."--_Boston Times._
"The stories are thrilling and hold one interested
throughout."--_Indianapolis News._
"Mr. Roberts knows his animals intimately and writes about them with
understanding and reality."--_The Continent._
"Whether viewed as stories, as natural history, or as literature, young
and old should lose no time in making the acquaintance of 'Neighbors
Unknown.'"--_N. Y. Times._
"Few stories about animals have as strong a power to interest and
entertain or carry as deep a conviction of their truth and
reasonableness as those by Charles G. D. Roberts, which comprise the
volume 'Neighbors Unknown.'"--_Chicago Tribune._
"What observation, what power of description is displayed in Charles G.
D. Roberts's latest volume of stories!"--_Bellman._
"The drawings of Paul Bransom add much to the interest of the volume and
are full of action and meaning."--_Boston Globe._
PUBLISHED BY
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
64-66 Fifth Avenue New York
BY CHARLES G. D. ROBERTS
AUTHOR OF "KINGS IN EXILE," "THE BACKWOODSMEN," ETC.
Children of The Wild
_With illustrations, cloth, 12mo, $1.35_