THERE were but few squaws to be seen. “Dey no arriver encore,” Jules
muttered. The voyageurs nodded to him in a friendly way; the Indians
seemed not to notice his presence, and Le Pendu scowled openly. Verbaux
approached one of the fires where French-Canadians breakfasted, and they
made room for him to sit. One of them offered Jules his pannikin and
plate and motioned toward the food—a caribou-stew that simmered in an
iron pot and gave off appetising vapours. Verbaux ate silently; no one
spoke to him, and he did not feel the necessity of speech. His meal
finished, he went to the factor’s house and asked for orders; and as he
stood listening to what the factor said, his eyes wandered longingly
through the forest tops, and focused themselves on a white strip of
barren that was the horizon, many miles beyond the trees.
“I’ll gie ye dogs, sledge, food, an’ blankit to start wi’; ye’ll sattle
wi’ yere fierst lot o’ skin!”
The old prison tepee was given him as his home; five mangy brutes were
turned over to his care as his team; a medium-light sledge, two thin
blankets, some tea and pemmican completed his indebtedness to the Hudson
Bay Company. He smiled a trifle bitterly when the factor concluded his
orders by “Do yere worrk weel, mon, an’ ye’ll be recht; eef ye don’t
I’ll make ye that feine ye canna be sweeped!” and the throb for freedom
and Her came over him hard, but he answered quietly enough, “Oui,
M’sieu’ le Facteur,” then turned away, leading the scrawny dogs and
dragging the sledge and outfit.
All day he worked steadily, patching up the rotten skins of his tepee,
and bringing boughs for his bed. He made his own fire, ate alone, and
lived apart from the other inhabitants of the post. When night came
again his home was comfortable and warm, and he slept with the prayer
for Marie on his lips.
Long before any one was awake the next morning he started off, taking
all his food and his blankets. He travelled as fast as his dogs could go
until evening, then built a temporary camp at the edge of the open
country. He fastened the team after supper, put on his snow-shoes, and
crossed out from under the black timber to the barrens. A light breeze
was blowing and Jules inhaled great lungsful of its strength. The cold
stars glittered above him, and the crust crackled sharply under his
weight. In the centre of the space he stopped. Behind and beyond showed
the skirts of the woods, like black cords drawn about a white sheet.
Shooting comets trailed and flashed athwart the studded heavens, and he
wondered whence they came and whither they went. There was no sound but
that of the icy myriads as they moved along over the crust, impelled by
the breeze.
“Eef Ah onlee could go an’ loook! Eef Ah could go—have liberté vonce
h’aga’n!” and Jules sighed. “Dat no possible; somme taime Ah get ’way,
tell le facteur dat Ah go, an’ den go queeck—somme taime, mabbe!” He
retraced his way slowly, lingering over each step that took him toward
the things that belonged to the Company. The dark line heightened as he
went, and when he reached the woods again he could see the shifting
reflection of his fire. He came to the bough camp, wrapped himself in
his blankets, and passed into the unconsciousness of sleep while the
darkness hung on, then little by little gave way to the irresistible
power of another sun.
This day Jules set forty traps, and in four days had twenty marten,
nineteen sable, three fox (one gray), six wolverine, five lynx, and a
beaver (that he killed on a neighbouring pond).
The fifth day he set out for the post again. A strong northerly storm
was on, and the sleet dashed against him with dizzying strength as he
slowly forced his way against it. He broke the trail, and the dogs
followed on his heels, whining and shivering, their long hair clustered
with white and their tails dragging heavily. The wind sang riotously in
Jules’s ears, and their inner rims were covered with the blowing drift;
the hair in his nose froze solid, and prickled as he breathed; and the
gusts found their way inside the thick muffler and chilled his body. But
he loved it, and fought his way steadily to Reliance.
A few trappers were in the open when Verbaux entered the yard, and they
grunted surprisedly as they saw the tall, gaunt figure leading the team
and sledge.
“’ave success?” asked one.
Jules nodded and went to his tepee, fed the dogs, gathered up his skins,
and sought the factor.
“Voilà! Dat h’anough for you?” he asked.
“Aye, that’s guid!” the Scotchman answered, and counted the pelts.
“That’s guid, mon,” he repeated, but Verbaux had gone out of the store.
Jules passed close to Le Pendu’s camp on the way to his own, and he
stopped suddenly. Lying at one side were Le Pendu’s snow-shoes, and it
was their remarkable and unpleasantly familiar shape that caught Jules’s
attention; they were long and narrow, turning up at the toe and heel,
with thin lacings.
“Ah rememb’ maintenant! Dat le track Ah see long ’go’ par dat femme mort
près de Lac la Pluie!” he muttered, and went on.
The winter days, weeks, and months rolled sluggishly by. Verbaux kept to
his promise and worked faithfully and hard. To be sure, he got good pay
for his skins from the factor, and this he saved carefully. He had
brought his dogs to perfect form and they held the reputation of being
the fastest team on the post. The Indians had grown to like Jules, while
the voyageurs were outspoken in their admiration for his great skill in
the forests, and for his wonderful sagacity and cunning in setting
traps. His luck had been phenomenal up to the close of the season, and
represented a good share of the entire take of the post. Le Pendu was
always ugly, but Jules laughed in his face and snapped his fingers at
him.
Five long months had passed since he had given his word to stay with
Factor Donalds. The snows had all gone; in their place the spring
gray-green of the barren tundra showed, suggestive of hot suns and warm
skies. In the forests the undergrowth was thick, and bright, tender
leaves appeared from day to day. The birches spread their budding limbs
hungrily to the southern winds that came caressingly from warmer climes,
and the winter masses shrivelled on their trunks and died. The ice had
melted from the lakes and rivers, and their cold waters shone dancingly
in the lengthening days. Snow-shoes were laid away, and in their stead
graceful bark canoes lay daintily on the beach before the post at the
lake edge. The dogs strolled lazily about, their work finished for some
months. And still Jules remained. One night he pushed a canoe from the
shore, and leaping in sent it flying over the calm waters with long,
sweeping strokes of his paddle. Some distance out he ceased paddling and
drifted. The darkness was warm, the night air laden with the odours of
the fresh things of early summer; the still waters mirrored the tiny
bright lamps of the heavens, and as he watched and lived in the silence
of the waters a gleaming crescent lifted its horns above the trees and
cast long, glancing rays across the lake. Jules was kneeling in the
canoe, resting his hands on the paddle, that lay athwart the craft.
“La lune, by gar she mak’ bon signe!” he said aloud as he noted that
both tips of the new moon pointed strongly upward. Higher and higher it
rose; the shining dew on his tanned shirt shone gray and the little
drops of moisture on his cap gleamed in the blue-white sheen. The light
swirls of trout as they rose to the surface here and there broke the
silence; from far beyond in the marshes came the solitary _qu-a-a-ck_ of
a duck; the hoarse croaking of a heron sounded faintly; then the dull,
booming calls of the marsh bittern floated up out of a distant valley
stream.
“Ah mus’ go to-mor’,” Verbaux decided as he listened to these sounds of
the summer wilderness; the heartache to find Marie overpowered him. He
paddled slowly back, dipping the blade lightly into the dark waters; the
soft lap of the little wave at the bow of the canoe sounded like liquid
music to his ears, and he sighed as it ceased and changed to the harsh,
sandy grating of land. He lifted the light craft, carried it on shore
and turned it over, then he went to the tepee and lay down to sleep.
“For de las’ taime,” he promised himself as he felt nature’s
unconsciousness approaching.
The hard patter of rain on the skins woke him, and he got up and looked
out. The heavens were dark and lowering, and the rain poured in thin
sheets from the low-hanging clouds; it coursed in streamlets from the
roofs of the buildings and twisted its way out under the stockade,
furrowing deeper as he watched it. The roar of the falling drops in the
forest came to him murmuringly. A heavy fog spread across the big lake,
motionless and thick; the air was tinged with warmth. Jules made his
preparations to go: he tied up his blankets, putting his food, tea, and
the clothes he had made between them. Then he ate a cold breakfast and
went out in the wet to the factor’s house.
The Scotchman listened to Verbaux’s frank admission of his intended
departure, then he laughed.
“Na, na, ye’ll no be gangin’ awhile yit. I want ye to bide and wait for
the big brigade that’ll coom now damn soon,” he answered.
“Ah tak’ back ma promesse!” Jules said, shrugging his shoulders as he
left; but the factor only laughed again incredulously.
Verbaux waited all day in his tepee; he called his dogs and caressed
them for the last time. In the afternoon the rain ceased and only the
drip, drip from the soaking roofs remained of the earlier splashing
fall. The trappers and Indians were in their tepees, some asleep, others
talking, their voices sounding muffled and dead in the damp air.
Jules listened; no one moved. He took up his meagre load, left the
tepee, crossed the yard, and went out of the gate unnoticed. His team
leader trotted up to him, and Verbaux patted the big shaggy head kindly.
The dark mist rolled upon the bank and enshrouded the trees; Jules
disappeared into it, and soon a light scratching sound was audible, then
an instant’s gurgle of disturbed water. That slight sound was heard by a
figure that appeared dimly on the bank. It listened, then ran back to
the post and hurried to Jules’s tepee, glanced in, saw that it was
stripped of everything, and rushed, calling loudly, to the Store.
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