I arranged it all most successfully. I really believe I am diplomatic.
Mr. Bang asked me to go snow-shoeing with him this morning. We went. The
sky was bright, the wind was up and it was very cold, almost numbing. We
crossed Norway Lake, and down into the forest, and then we felt no wind,
and as we walked and walked, I felt a gentle glow come over me.
I soon found I lost myself in the interest I gained in Mr. Bang’s
conversation, just as I did one day long ago. He told me of the forest
wilds of British Columbia, and trappers’ tales of the deer, and the
martin, and the fisher, and the beaver, and that strange creature, the
Canada-Jay, or Whiskey Jack.
“You talk like an animal story book,” I remarked.
“Do I?” he asked. “I’m sorry. The animal story men are fakers, and I
would not like you to think me a faker. There is not a trapper in the
West who is not more or less conversant with the writings of this class
of authors. All I have heard speak of them, damn them up and down. Even
I dislike them, and wonder at the public taste. But then the public is
an ass.”
Wapoose is the rabbit of the North. His tracks were everywhere about. In
the North everybody, everything lives on the rabbit. The Indians,
trappers, the owls, the fox, the wolf, all feast upon poor wapoose. And
like many another faithful friend he is despised.
But the silence of the forest is oppressive. Stepping into it one feels
as if one entered the realm of nature. One feels the temporary guest of
the world where a ceaseless war is being waged, in which the fittest
only survive, where animal life is maintained by the death of animal
life. Nature is as cruel as a steel-trap that the fur-hunter sets for
the fox.
And the trees stand about spectral in the silence; the firs and spruces
with their branches laden with snow-droop as if in shame. They picture
modesty. The clatter of a squirrel, or the squeak of a tom-tit, or the
hammer, hammer of the woodpecker come at long intervals. They merely
announce the great oppressive silence, each striking his own note.
All the region round about Norway Lake is a Government game and timber
reserve. The streams are filled with beaver and the woods with other
fur-bearing animals.
We came to a beaver-dam, Mr. Bang recognizing the rounded ridge in the
snow marking the dam and domes of snow marking the houses. He told me of
the strange family huddled in these humble homes and the superstitions
they have engendered.
And after two hours tramp we came to Napoleon’s cabin. Napoleon is one
of the game wardens, and by a strange chance was known to Mr. Bang. Mr.
Bang had planned our tramp that we might call on his friend. Napoleon
was at home. I really believe Mr. Bang had sent him word we were coming,
as everything about the cabin was so neat, and the warm air that greeted
us at the open door was in itself hospitable. It told me I might take
off my wraps and rest and be comfortable.
Napoleon was a grim customer whose broken English was that of the
Canadian French. His grin was expansive. He asked question after
question of mutual friends in the Kootenays, but his eye was continually
on me; that is, in a sly way, he was continually glancing at me.
As I sat perfectly happy and lazy it struck me I was in an odd position,
deep in the forest, in the cabin of a good-natured savage. But somehow I
felt safe, and I felt I was absorbing local colour by the bucket-full,
and could now feel superior to the mere reader of books. I fancied my
two companions fighting wolves, and bears, and wild Indians, all most
exciting. This shows only that in some ways I have not yet ceased being
a child.
Just as Napoleon was putting the finishing touches on the laying of the
lunch table, his accumulating admiration burst its bounds.
“By gosh! shees look for nice leetle girl, some day maybe shees Messus
Bang, uh?”
Of course, I blushed crimson. Fortunately Mr. Bang’s face was turned
away from me, and, of course, he could not turn to look at me, and so
could not measure, my confusion. But I saw his—his confusion. He
flushed a moment and admonished Napoleon not to take things too
seriously. But I had heard it, the spoken words, “Mrs. Bang.” Really,
they did not sound so very awful. I think the pleasurable anticipation I
felt for the savory lunch must have made them less objectionable.