David followed where he fancied he had last seen the woman's face and
caught himself just in time to keep from pitching over the edge of the
platform. Beyond that there was a pit of blackness. Surely she had not
gone there.
Two or three of the bells were still clanging, but with abated
enthusiasm; from the dimly lighted platform, grayish-white in the
ghostly flicker of the oil lamps, the crowd of hungry passengers was
ebbing swiftly in its quest of food and drink; a last half-hearted
bawling of the virtue to be found in the "hot steak _an_' liver'n onions
at the Royal Alexandry" gave way to a comforting silence--a silence
broken only by a growing clatter of dishes, the subdued wheezing of the
engines, and the raucous voice of a train-man telling the baggage-man
that the hump between his shoulders was not a head but a knot kindly
tied there by his Creator to keep him from unravelling. Even the promise
of a fight--at least of a blow or two delivered in the gray gloom of the
baggage-man's door--did not turn David from his quest. When he returned,
a few minutes later, two or three sympathetic friends were nursing the
baggage-man back into consciousness. He was about to pass the group when
some one gripped his arm, and a familiar and joyous chuckle sounded in
his ear. Father Roland stood beside him.
"Dear Father in Heaven, but it was a _terrible_ blow, David!" cried the
Little Missioner, his face dancing in the flare of the baggage-room
lamps. "It was a tre_men_dous blow--straight out from his shoulders like
a battering ram, and hard as rock! It put him to sleep like a baby. Did
you see it?"
"I didn't," said David, staring at the other in amazement.
"He deserved it," explained Father Roland. "I love to see a good, clean
blow when it's delivered in the right, David. I've seen the time when a
hard fist was worth more than a preacher and his prayers." He was
chuckling delightedly as they turned back to the train. "The baggage is
arranged for," he added. "They'll put us off together at the
Frenchman's."
David had slipped the thin packet into his pocket. He no longer felt so
keenly the desire to tell Father Roland about the woman--at least not at
the present time. His quest had been futile. The woman had disappeared
as completely as though she had actually floated away into that pit of
darkness beyond the far end of the platform. He had drawn but one
conclusion. This place--Graham--was her home; undoubtedly friends had
been at the station to meet her; even now she might be telling them, or
a husband, or a grown-up son, of the strange fellow who had stared at
her in such a curious fashion. Disappointment in not finding her had
brought a reaction. He had an inward and uncomfortable feeling of having
been very silly, and of having allowed his imagination to get the better
of his common sense. He had persuaded himself to believe that she had
been in very great distress. He had acted honestly and with chivalric
intentions. And yet, after what had passed between him and Father Roland
in the smoking compartment--and in view of his failure to establish a
proof of his own convictions--he was determined to keep this particular
event of the night to himself.
A loud voice began to announce that the moment of departure had arrived,
and as the passengers began scrambling back into their coaches, Father
Roland led the way to the baggage car.
"They're going to let us ride with the dunnage so there won't be any
mistake or time lost when we get to Thoreau's," he said.
They climbed up into the warm and lighted car, and after the baggage-man
in charge had given them a sour nod of recognition the first thing that
David noticed was his own and Father Roland's property stacked up near
the door. His own belongings were a steamer trunk and two black morocco
bags, while Father Roland's share of the pile consisted mostly of boxes
and bulging gunny sacks that must have weighed close to half a ton. Near
the pile was a pair of scales, shoved back against the wall of the car.
David laughed queerly as he nodded toward them. They gave him a rather
satisfying inspiration. With them he could prove the incongruity of the
partnership that had already begun to exist between him and the
Missioner. He weighed himself, with Father Roland looking on. The scales
balanced at 132.
"And I'm five feet nine in height," he said, disgustedly; "it should be
160. You see where I'm at!"
"I knew a 200-pound pig once that worried himself down to ninety
because the man who kept him also kept skunks," replied Father Roland,
with his odd chuckle. "Next to small-pox and a bullet through your
heart, worry is about the blackest, man-killingest thing on earth,
David. See that bag?"
He pointed to one of the bulging gunny sacks.
"That's the antidote," he said. "It's the best medicine I know of in the
grub line for a man who's lost his grip. There's the making of three men
in that sack."
"What is it?" asked David, curiously.
The Missioner bent over to examine a card attached to the neck of the
bag.
"To be perfectly accurate it contains 110 pounds of beans," he answered.
"Beans! Great Heavens! I loathe them!"
"So do most down-and-outs," affirmed Father Roland, cheerfully. "That's
one reason for the peculiar psychological value of beans. They begin to
tell you when you're getting weaned away from a lobster palate and a
stuffed-crab stomach, and when you get to the point where you want 'em
on your regular bill of fare you'll find more fun in chopping down a
tree than in going to a grand opera. But the beans must be _cooked_
right, David--browned like a nut, juicy to the heart of 'em, and
seasoned alongside a broiling duck or partridge, or a tender rabbit.
Ah!"
The Little Missioner rubbed his hands ecstatically.
David's rejoinder, if one was on his lips, was interrupted by a violent
cursing. The train was well under way, and the baggage-man had sat down
to a small table with his back toward them. He had leaped to his feet
now, his face furious, and with another demoniac curse he gave the coal
skuttle a kick that sent it with a bang to the far end of the car. The
table was littered with playing cards.
"Damn 'em--they beat me this time in ten plays!" he yelled. "They've got
the devil in 'em! If they was alive I'd jump on 'em! I've played this
game of solitaire for nineteen years--I've played a million games--an'
damned if I ever got beat in my life as it's beat me since we left
Halifax!"
"Dear Heaven!" gasped Father Roland. "Have you been playing all the way
from Halifax?"
The solitaire fiend seemed not to hear, and resuming his seat with a low
and ominous muttering, he dealt himself another hand. In less than a
minute he was on his feet again, shaking the cards angrily under the
Little Missioner's nose as though that individual were entirely
accountable for his bad luck.
"Look at that accursed trey of hearts!" he demanded. "First card, ain't
it? First card!--an' if it had been the third, 'r the sixth, 'r the
ninth, 'r anything except that confounded Number One, I'd have slipped
the game up my sleeve. Ain't it enough to wreck any honest man's soul? I
ask you--ain't it?"
"Why don't you change the trey of hearts to the place that suits you?"
asked David, innocently. "It seems to me it would be very easy to move
it to third place in the deck if you want it there."
The baggage-man's bulging eyes seemed ready to pop as he stared at
David, and when he saw that David really meant what he had said a look
of unutterable disgust spread over his countenance. Then he grinned--a
sickly and malicious sort of grin.
"Say, mister, you've never played solitaire, have you?" he asked.
"Never," confessed David.
Without another word the baggage-man hunched himself over his table,
dealt himself another hand, and not until the train began slowing up for
Thoreau's place did he rise from his seat or cease his low mutterings
and grumblings. In response to the engineer's whistle he jumped to his
feet and rolled back the car door.
"Now step lively!" he demanded. "We've got no orders to stop here and
we'll have to dump this stuff out on the move!"
As he spoke he gave the hundred and ten pounds of beans a heave out into
the night. Father Roland jumped to his assistance, and David saw his
steamer trunk and his hand-bags follow the beans.
"The snow is soft and deep, an' there won't be any harm done," Father
Roland assured him as he tossed out a 50-pound box of prunes.
David heard sounds now: a man's shout, a fiendish tonguing of dogs, and
above that a steady chorus of yapping which he guessed came from the
foxes. Suddenly a lantern gleamed, then a second and a third, and a
dark, bearded face--a fierce and piratical-looking face--began running
along outside the door. The last box and the last bag went off, and with
a sudden movement the train-man hauled David to the door.
"Jump!" he cried.
The face and the lantern had fallen behind, and it was as black as an
abyss outside. With a mute prayer David launched himself much as he had
seen the bags and boxes sent out. He fell with a thud in a soft blanket
of snow. He looked up in time to see the Little Missioner flying out
like a curious gargoyle through the door; the baggage-man's lantern
waved, the engineer's whistle gave a responding screech, and the train
whirred past. Not until the tail-light of the last coach was receding
like a great red firefly in the gloom did David get up. Father Roland
was on his feet, and down the track came two of the three lanterns on
the run.
It was all unusually weird and strangely interesting to David. He was
breathing deeply. There was a warmth in his body which was new to him.
It struck him all at once, as he heard Father Roland crunching through
the snow, that he was experiencing an entirely new phase of life--a life
he had read about at times and dreamed of at other times, but which he
had never come physically in contact with. The yapping of the foxes, the
crying of the dogs, those lanterns hurrying down the track, the
blackness of the night, and the strong perfume of balsam in the cold
air--an odour that he breathed deep into his lungs like the fumes of an
exhilarating drink--quickened sharply a pulse that a few hours before he
thought was almost lifeless. He had no time to ask himself whether he
was enjoying these new sensations; he felt only the thrill of them as
Thoreau and the Indian came up out of the night with their lanterns. In
Thoreau himself, as he stood a moment later in the glow of the lanterns,
was embodied the living, breathing spirit of this new world into which
David's leap out of the baggage car had plunged him. He was picturesquely
of the wild; his face was darkly bearded; his ivory-white teeth shining
as he smiled a welcome; his tricoloured, Hudson's Bay coat of wool,
with its frivolous red fringes, thrown open at the throat; the bushy
tail of his fisher-skin cap hanging over a shoulder--and with these
things his voice rattling forth, in French and half Indian, his joy
that Father Roland was not dead but had arrived at last. Behind him
stood the Indian--his face without expression, dark, shrouded--a bronze
sphinx of mystery. But his eyes shone as the Little Missioner greeted
him--shone so darkly and so full of fire that for a moment David was
fascinated by them. Then David was introduced.
"I am happy to meet you, m'sieu," said the Frenchman. His race was
softly polite, even in the forests, and Thoreau's voice, now mildly
subdued, came strangely from the bearded wildness of his face. The grip
of his hand was like Father Roland's--something David had never felt
among his friends back in the city. He winced in the darkness, and for a
long time afterward his fingers tingled.
It was then that David made his first break in the etiquette of the
forests; a fortunate one, as time proved. He did not know that shaking
hands with an Indian was a matter of some formality, and so when Father
Roland said, "This is Mukoki, who has been with me for many years,"
David thrust out his hand. Mukoki looked him straight in the eye for a
moment, and then his blanket-coat parted and his slim, dark hand reached
out. Having received his lesson from both the Missioner and the
Frenchman, David put into his grip all the strength that was in him--the
warmest hand-shake Mukoki had ever received in his life from a white
man, with the exception of his master, the Missioner.
The next thing David heard was Father Roland's voice inquiring eagerly
about supper. Thoreau's reply was in French.
"He says the cabin is like the inside of a great, roast duck," chuckled
the Missioner. "Come, David. We'll leave Mukoki to gather up our
freight."
A short walk up the track and David saw the cabin. It was back in the
shelter of the black spruce and balsam, its two windows that faced the
railroad warmly illumined by the light inside. The foxes had ceased
their yapping, but the snarling and howling of dogs became more
bloodthirsty as they drew nearer, and David could hear an ominous
clinking of chains and snapping of teeth. A few steps more and they were
at the door. Thoreau himself opened it, and stood back.
"_Après vous, m'sieu_," he said, his white teeth shining at David. "It
would give me bad luck and possibly all my foxes would die, if I went
into my house ahead of a stranger."
David went in. An Indian woman stood with her back to him, bending over
a table. She was as slim as a reed, and had the longest and sleekest
black hair he had ever seen, done in two heavy braids that hung down her
back. In another moment she had turned her round, brown face, and her
teeth and eyes were shining, but she spoke no word. Thoreau did not
introduce his wild-flower wife. He had opened his cabin door, and had
let David enter before him, which was accepting him as a friend in his
home, and therefore, in his understanding of things, an introduction was
unnecessary and out of place. Father Roland chuckled, rubbed his hands
briskly, and said something to the woman in her own language that made
her giggle shyly. It was contagious. David smiled. Father Roland's face
was crinkled with little lines of joy. The Frenchman's teeth gleamed. In
the big cook-stove the fire snapped and crackled and popped. Marie
opened the stove door to put in more wood and her face shone rosy and
her teeth were like milk in the fire-flash. Thoreau went to her and laid
his big, heavy hand fondly on her sleek head, and said something in soft
Cree that brought another giggle into Marie's throat, like the curious
note of a bird.
In David there was a slow and wonderful awakening. Every fibre of him
was stirred by the cheer of this cabin builded from logs rough-hewn out
of the forest; his body, weakened by the months of mental and physical
anguish which had been his burden, seemed filled with a new strength.
Unconsciously he was smiling and his soul was rising out of its dark
prison as he saw Thoreau's big hand stroking Marie's shining hair. He
was watching Thoreau when, at a word from Marie, the Frenchman suddenly
swung open the oven door and pulled forth a huge roasting pan.
At sight of the pan Father Roland gave a joyous cry, and he rubbed his
hands raspingly together. The rich aroma of that pan! A delicious whiff
of it had struck their nostrils even before the cabin door had
opened--that and a perfume of coffee; but not until now did the
fragrance of the oven and the pan smite them with all its potency.
"Mallards fattened on wild rice, and a rabbit--my favourite--a rabbit
roasted with an onion where his heart was, and well peppered," gloated
the Little Missioner. "Dear Heaven! was there ever such a mess to put
strength into a man's gizzard, David? And coffee--this coffee of
Marie's! It is more than ambrosia. It is an elixir which transforms a
cup into a fountain of youth. Take off your coat, David; take off your
coat and make yourself at home!"
As David stripped off his coat, and followed that with his collar and
tie, he thought of his steamer trunk with its Tuxedo and dress-coat, its
piqué shirts and poke collars, its suede gloves and kid-topped patent
leathers, and he felt the tips of his ears beginning to burn. He was
sorry now that he had given the Missioner the check to that trunk.
A minute later he was sousing his face in a big tin wash-basin, and then
drying it on a towel that had once been a burlap bag. But he had noticed
that it was clean--as clean as the pink-flushed face of Marie. And the
Frenchman himself, with all his hair, and his beard, and his rough-worn
clothing, was as clean as the burlap towelling. Being a stranger,
suddenly plunged into a life entirely new to him, these things impressed
David.
When they sat down to the table--Thoreau sitting for company, and Marie
standing behind them--he was at a loss at first to know how to begin.
His plate was of tin and a foot in diameter, and on it was a three-pound
mallard duck, dripping with juice and as brown as a ripe hazel-nut. He
made a business of arranging his sleeves and drinking a glass of water
while he watched the famished Little Missioner. With a chuckle of
delight Father Roland plunged the tines of his fork hilt deep into the
breast of the duck, seized a leg in his fingers, and dismembered the
luscious anatomy of his plate with a deft twist and a sudden pull. With
his teeth buried in the leg he looked across at David. David had eaten
duck before; that is, he had eaten of the family _anas boschas_
disguised in thick gravies and highbrow sauces, but this duck that he
ate at Thoreau's table was like no other duck that he had ever tasted in
all his life. He began with misgivings at the three-pound carcass, and
he ended with an entirely new feeling of stuffed satisfaction. He
explored at will into its structure, and he found succulent morsels
which he had never dreamed of as existing in this particular bird, for
his experience had never before gone beyond a leg of duck and thinly
carved slices of breast of duck, at from eighty cents to a dollar and a
quarter an order. He would have been ashamed of himself when he had
finished had it not been that Father Roland seemed only at the
beginning, and was turning the vigour of his attack from duck to rabbit
and onion. From then on David kept him company by drinking a third cup
of coffee.
When he had finished Father Roland settled back with a sigh of content,
and drew a worn buckskin pouch from one of the voluminous pockets of his
trousers. Out of this he produced a black pipe and tobacco. At the same
time Thoreau was filling and lighting his own. In his studies and
late-hour work at home David himself had been a pipe smoker, but of late
his pipe had been distasteful to him, and it had been many weeks since
he had indulged in anything but cigars and an occasional cigarette. He
looked at the placid satisfaction in the Little Missioner's face, and
saw Thoreau's head wreathed in smoke, and he felt for the first time in
those weeks the return of his old desire. While they were eating, Mukoki
and another Indian had brought in his trunk and bags, and he went now to
one of the bags, opened it, and got his own pipe and tobacco. As he
stuffed the bowl of his English briar, and lighted the tobacco, Father
Roland's glowing face beamed at him through the fragrant fumes of his
Hudson's Bay Mixture.
Against the wall, a little in shadow, so that she would not be a part of
their company or whatever conversation they might have, Marie had seated
herself, her round chin in the cup of her brown hand, her dark eyes
shining at this comfort and satisfaction of men. Such scenes as this
amply repaid her for all her toil in life. She was happy. There was
content in this cabin. David felt it. It impinged itself upon him, and
through him, in a strange and mysterious way. Within these log walls he
felt the presence of that spirit--the joy of companionship and of
life--which had so terribly eluded and escaped him in his own home of
wealth and luxury. He heard Marie speak only once that night--once, in a
low, soft voice to Thoreau. She was silent with the silence of the Cree
wife in the presence of a stranger, but he knew that her heart was
throbbing with the soft pulse of happiness, and for some reason he was
glad when Thoreau nodded proudly toward a closed door and let him know
that she was a mother. Marie heard him, and in that moment David caught
in her face a look that made his heart ache--a look that should have
been a part of his own life, and which he had missed.
A little later Thoreau led the way into the room which David was to
occupy for the night. It was a small room, with a sapling partition
between it and the one in which the Missioner was to sleep. The fox
breeder placed a lamp on the table near the bed, and bade David
good-night.
It was past two o'clock, and yet David felt at the present moment no
desire for sleep. After he had taken off his shoes and partially
undressed, he sat on the edge of his bed and allowed his mind to sweep
back over the events of the last few hours. Again he thought of the
woman in the coach--the woman with those wonderful, dark eyes and
haunting face--and he drew forth from his coat pocket the package which
she had forgotten. He handled it curiously. He looked at the red string,
noted how tightly the knot was tied, and turned it over and over in his
hands before he snapped the string. He was a little ashamed at his
eagerness to know what was within its worn newspaper wrapping. He felt
the disgrace of his curiosity, even though he assured himself there was
no reason why he should not investigate the package now when all
ownership was lost. He knew that he would never see the woman again, and
that she would always remain a mystery to him unless what he held in his
hands revealed the secret of her identity.
A half minute more and he was leaning over in the full light of the
lamp, his two hands clutching the thing which the paper had disclosed
when it dropped to the floor, his eyes staring, his lips parted, and his
heart seeming to stand still in the utter amazement of the moment!