Now there is a season for all things; in the fall the black moose grows
blacker and sleeker; in the fall the red buck rubs the tattered velvet
from every prong; in the spring the mewing catbird whistles dreamily
as a spotted thrush; in the spring the snowbird changes its feathers,
chameleon like, as the snow drifts or melts; and the dry chirring of the
red squirrel grows sweeter.
“Each after its kind,” says the quaint Book, and so the spruce-grouse
drums in the long summer days, and the crested wood-duck ruffles its
rainbow plumes, and the painted trout hang over the gravel beds in
September, and the antlered moose barks at the September moon.
As for Skeene, he sewed porcupine quills in a semicircle over the instep
of his moccasins, laced a string of scarlet trout-flies across his
slouch hat, and listened to the bull-moose, bellowing out on the moonlit
ridge.
At times he sang his Quebec song, at times he sighed. Twice he spared a
yearling buck,—he could not tell why. He caught a big red sable, bigger
than the coon-cat at the Carry House. It scratched and bit him, but
he was very good to it. A lazy beaver, driven from the colony by his
industrious relatives, bored a hole in the bank under Skeene’s shanty.
Beaver-tail and hindquarters are good, cold boiled, but Skeene let him
live in peace and even piled enough poplar saplings at his door to
last any lazy beaver a year. And all this time he was sorry he killed
Sebato at the wing-dam; he wished he had shot him a year before in the
bog-country,—it was a good chance and nobody would have been the wiser.
When the September moon waxed full and the water lapped softly along
the lake ledge, Skeene’s heart grew full, and the blood in his neck and
cheeks ebbed and surged like moon-tides. So, on the second night, he took
his rifle and dragged the canoe to the beach. But his heart failed him
and he feared the Carry House, and he went back to his camp and rolled
and grunted through a sleepless night. On the third evening he started on
foot, but he hesitated when the lamp in the Carry House broke out, a red
beam in the night. He stood, wretched, wistful, undecided, fingering his
rifle butt, and his heart beat to suffocation. Something near him stirred
and moaned among the rocks,—a miserable gluttonous fisher-cat, its head
bristling with porcupine quills. And Skeene, sick with self-compassion,
trailed the wounded creature to the water’s edge and killed it,—pitying
it as he pitied himself. Then, worn out with the fever in his veins, he
slept openly where he lay, wondering if he should wake on Red Lake shore
or on the shores of a redder lake.
On the fourth night of the full of the moon, he went swiftly across the
ridge, unarmed, and the miles of woodland and shore sped away like mist,
so eagerly he ran. On that night he heard the moose-cows calling the
barking bull, and the whoof! of the dun doe in the sedge. Far on the
shore the red beam of the Carry lamp signalled him and his blood flamed
the answer in his face. And, as he strode up to the house, he saw a woman
on the shore looking out into the night across the spectral lake. It was
Lois, servant at South Carry. He had danced with her two years ago at
Foxcroft Landing, he had sent her six otter pelts a month before he shot
Sebato.
She was the girl he had come for.
Is it possible she expected him? The restlessness of September had drawn
her to the lake and something had led him to her.
The moon, a silver lamp, traced a shining trail across the shadowy
waters; his canoe grated softly on the shoal, a string of bubbles
followed the paddle sweep, the foam whispered secrets to the clustered
sedge-grass.
* * * * *
And so, together, they glided away on a trail of silver water to the
strange country, drained by strange streams, stirred by strange winds.
The red spark of the Carry lamp died out in the night, the little grey
stars twinkled over the dead waters, pale sparks from phantom nuptial
torches flaring in the north.
At dawn the sky crimsoned the Little Misery. They slept. At sunrise a
moose roared a salute to the coming day.
They awoke and kissed each other.