IT was the day before Christmas. Jules was sitting in his home camp,
sixty miles from the post; he was lonely and sad. “Las’ Noël Ah have ma
femme, la petite, touts; an’ maintenant—” he looked about the bare
little room, “bon Dieu, ’Ow lonelee eet ees!”
It was a cheerless scene. Walls of bare logs, with moss plugged between
them to keep out the cold; a rude table; two misshapen stools; a bed of
boughs in one corner, with some blankets heaped on it; a little chimney
of small timber sticking out diagonally in another corner; and a few old
clothes hanging on wooden pegs near the door.
“Ah, b’en,” Jules said to himself, “eet ees de will of le bon Dieu. Ah
mus’ mak’ t’ink dat de wife an’ de leetle vone aire veet’ me for to-mor’
jus’ same.” He became full of life with the thought, and bustled about
the little hut, sweeping the hard ground with a spruce bough broom; he
carried out the old bed, and filled its place with fresh aromatic
boughs; then he brought streamers of moss from the woods, and festooned
them around the walls. In the corners he built little canopies of dark
green branches, and hung bunches of scarlet berries over the gray logs.
The old clothes were neatly wrapped up and stowed away under the boughs;
on their pegs he hung a big caribou-skin, its gray-brown colour mingling
with the green of the interior. He cleaned out the little fireplace, and
filled it with bright pine chips and dry wood.
“Dere!” he said, surveying his work, “dat mor’ good; de leet’ vone she
lak’ dees comme ça!” and tears came to the gray eyes. He brushed them
away hurriedly, and went out to a tiny shed behind the hut. There he dug
a quarter of caribou-meat from the snow, and carrying it back, he cut
thick, juicy steaks; these he placed in a rough frying-pan, and set it
on the table. From a hewn box he brought out a little bag of tea, some
salt, and some hard bread. Then he drew the two stools up to the board.
“Dere ees onlee two place’; la petite she vant place too!” Taking the
axe, he went out, and in a few minutes had made a high stool; this he
also put beside the table.
“Maintenant, Jules, go fin’ somme present for dose two for Noël.”
Outside it was snowing a little; the crisp flakes dropped gently through
the trees, and the tops of the spruce bowed gracefully, swayed by the
light north wind; they sighed, and murmured softly to one another. Jules
put on his snow-shoes, drew the fur cap well down over his ears, and
went off into the dull forest.
The skies turned a darker lead-colour; they seemed to threaten
something, and Jules said to himself as he travelled along, “De snow she
comme ver’ queeck!” and hastened on. Over hill and through valley he
went till he came to his traps; luck was against him: trap after trap
was empty and unsprung. He went all the way down this line, and not a
skin! He looked up at the heavens: it was snowing as ever; the
crystalline bits floated from their home in the clouds softly and
noiselessly. There was no wind at all now, and Jules listened for
something, he knew not what. Everything was silent; the spruce and pine
stood like martyrs, bravely holding up the heavy masses of snow that the
skies had poured on them. Sometimes a branch would rebel and drop its
load with a _swish_; as it flew back, relieved, it seemed to jar on the
stillness of everything, until it ceased its swaying and became quiet as
the rest.
“Ah go to ligne five,” he decided, and changed his course to northeast.
His way lay across wild barrens, and he stopped again to listen: the
solitude was wonderful; only the unceasing, silent fall of snow. It came
faster now, and the frost morsels covered Jules’s caribou jacket with a
dainty white coat that rested lightly on the hairs, their prismatic
forms plainly visible. He went on and on. “At las’!” he said as he came
to the first trap on ligne five. A fine marten lay under the deadfall,
its sleek hair smoothed close to the little frozen body; the eyes were
open and stared glassily on Jules as he lifted the heavy stick and put
the stiff form in his bag. “Merci, bon Dieu!” whispered Jules, as he
found almost every trap with its little victim dead and frozen. The line
led through a deep ravine, and Jules’s eyes gleamed when he came on a
heavy trap. A big black fox lay dead in it; the massive log had crushed
out the life God had given. On the crust were pitiful scratches where
the poor beast had tried frantically to pull away from the awful weight
that tortured it. “Ah-ha! Dat magnifique!” said Jules aloud, as he
lifted the fall and drew out the long, sinuous body. The heavy black
coat was glossy and thick; the under hair seemed to reflect darkly the
faint light that came from the leaden skies. “La petite up dere”—Jules
looked at the heavens as he spoke—“she ver’ content wid dees.” He
turned, and started for home.
It was snowing harder, and his down tracks were only dimly discernible
through the opaque cover over them. The wind was coming slowly; a murmur
rose and fell weirdly in the forest; the trees moved, bowed to one
another, and shook off their white dress. Out on the barrens the drift
was whirling along, mingled with the fresh fall, and Jules’s snow-shoes
clicked with a deadened sound as he hastened on. A herd of caribou
crossed before him, their hoofs rattling faintly as they raced on with
the wind. They came, and were gone in a few moments, wrapped in the
clouds of snow-dust which their fast-moving feet stirred from its
resting-place on the crust. Jules stopped at the edge of a timber patch,
and examined marks at his feet, not long made. “Vone, deux, t’ree, five
snow-shoe!” he said grimly, and swung off to the left. He went on
carefully, listening every now and then; nothing but the whispering of
the wind in the tree-tops answered his quest for sound. The hut was
close by now; the tracks he had seen five miles back had disappeared, so
Jules approached with a pathetic gladness in his heart. “Jules goin’
have Noël jus’ sam’!” he said, and then he sang a French Christmas song
as he saw the clearing in the distance.
“Oh, Dieu! Oh, Dieu!” His little song died suddenly. He had reached the
clearing where his hut had stood; in place of it a heap of smouldering
ashes met his eyes—gray, dull-red, black, and smoking. Gone! All gone!
The home camp, with its little Christmas trimmings, its strings of moss,
its table, its pitiful high stool—all gone, and a mass of ashes remained
in their place. Their smoke twined slowly upward into the trees and
disappeared in the wide, wide air above. Silence—infinite silence! A
faint spluttering now and then as the cold snow quenched the hot embers;
beyond this stillness, solitude.
Jules stared with heavy eyes, a tearing pain at his heart, which beat
thickly and fast. A split of pine caught his sight; on its white surface
was roughly traced, “Bon Noël, Verbaux.—T.” That was all. Many
intertracting snow-shoe tracks showed how the poor little home had been
destroyed. An apathetic mood controlled Jules. He looked at the remnants
of his Christmas shelter with drooping eyes. “Oh, Dieu! Bon Dieu!” he
repeated over and over again. Then he changed swiftly; a blaze of anger
came to the gray eyes, and his muscles heaved and surged under the
caribou jacket. “Sacré-é-é-é!” he growled; then fury interrupted the
words, and only inarticulate sounds came. “Jules Verbaux he goin’ show
to you h’all vat he do for dees!”
He turned, and struck off rapidly to the westward. It was nearly night;
the snow was coming fast, and the wind had increased in force, but Jules
hurried on, seemingly imbued with a supernatural power; his strides were
tremendous, and the clogging white on his snow-shoes did not affect him
in the least. On in the darkness and falling curtains of snow he went;
on over hill and across barren, the wind tearing at his clothes, and
hurling the stinging drift in his face; on through the woods, where the
trees roared their discomfort; on across lakes, where the ice was swept
bare, and where his snow-shoes slid three feet to every stride; on in
ravines, where the gale curled the flying snow over the sharp edges; on
over ice-clumps, where the drift beat itself to tiny pieces on the
jagged sides. The miles came, were passed, and fell behind. Jules
travelled on tirelessly, like a steel machine, his snow-shoes rising,
falling, rising, falling, ever and always in that long, regular step.
Twenty, thirty, thirty-five miles had come and gone, but Jules sped on.
Then daylight with its dim gray appeared, and broadened over the white
wastes; the flakes came from farther up in the lowering skies, always
whirling, racing down.
At last the post buildings stood before him, dimly visible through the
screens of white; the flag was frozen to its mast, and crackled when the
vicious blasts of wind sought to tear it from its hold. The post was
awake, alive; blue smoke issued from the chimneys, and faded away in the
grasp of the storm. The roofs were covered deep with a white coat, and
the tepees outside the stockade were mounds of snow with only the tops
of the poles visible. Jules went round the clearing, keeping under cover
of the timber, and came up behind the store. Within all was gaiety and
laughter; through the window-panes he saw the children and the women
dancing about a little spruce tree, whose branches scintillated with
Christmas candles, and beneath which were cakes and presents tied with
coloured caribou-thongs. Tritou, Le Grand, Le Bossu, Dumois, old
Maquette, and all the other trappers were there, standing in a circle
round the tree. The factor, his red face shining with perspiration, was
making speeches and giving presents to all.
“Jules goin’ feex you touts!” he snarled, and quickly gathered dry wood
and limbs and piled them against the logs of the store wall; he went
off, and brought other heaps, and placed them against all the post
buildings, where the wind should catch the flames the best and hurry
them on to their work of destruction. All was ready. Verbaux lighted a
match and held it under the wood-heap at the store; the bit of pine
flared and went out. He struck another; it too flashed, then the wind
put out its feeble blaze.
Jules stopped, thought, and looked in the window again. The children
were opening their parcels, and screaming with delight at the little
toys and knickknacks that appeared. Gradually his eyes softened. “Ah had
leetle papoose—vonce; she vould lak’ dat!” he said, and the tears came
again to the deep eyes, and coursed unhindered down the bronzed cheeks.
The snow fell against the panes, and dimmed his view of the interior,
but the cheery Christmas candles shone blurredly through the mist.
“Ah no goin’ do dees!” he said huskily. “No hurrrt vomans an’ leetle
vones; she vould not lak’ for me to do eet. Have good Noél, enfants! Mes
petits, geeve merci to le bon Dieu. Somme taime, Tritou, Ah feex you!
Ah, enfants, have plaisir; t’ink somme taime of Verbaux, h’alon’, seul,
hongree, wid’out home, wid’out anyzing in de fores’ an’ la tempête.” He
looked wistfully at the warm, happy scene within, then turned abruptly
away and disappeared across the clearing silently, hidden by the
ever-falling quantities of snow.
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