THE RESCUE
On the first snow came young Dixon from Fort Churchill. Jean de Gravois
met him on the trail near Ledoq's. When the Englishman recognized the
little Frenchman he leaped from his sledge and advanced with
outstretched hand, his face lighting up with pleasure.
"Bless me, if it isn't my old friend, Jean!" he cried. "I was just
thinking of you, Gravois, and how you trimmed me to a finish two
winters ago. I've learned a lot about you people up here in the snows
since then, and I'll never do anything like that again." He laughed
into Jean's face as they shook hands, and his voice was filled with
unbounded sincerity. "How is Mrs. Gravois, and the little Gravois--and
Mélisse?" he added, before Jean had spoken.
"All well, M'seur Dixon," replied Jean. "Only the little Gravois have
almost grown into a man and woman."
An hour or so later he said to Iowaka:
"I can't help liking this man Dixon, and yet I don't want to. Why is
it, do you suppose?"
"Is it because you are afraid that Mélisse will like him?" asked his
wife, smiling over her shoulder.
"Blessed saints, I believe that it is!" said Jean frankly. "I hate
foreigners--and Mélisse belongs to Jan."
"She did, once, but that was a long time ago, Jean."
"It may be, and yet I doubt it, ma bien aimée. If Jan would tell her--"
"A woman will not wait always," interrupted Iowaka softly. "Jan Thoreau
has waited too long!"
A week later, as they stood together in front of their door, they saw
Dixon and Mélisse walking slowly in the edge of the forest. The woman
laughed into Jean's face.
"Did I not say that Jan had waited too long?"
Jean's face was black with disapprobation.
"Then you would have taken up with some foreigner if I had remained in
the Athabasca country another year or two?" he demanded questioningly.
"Very likely," retorted Iowaka mischievously, running into the cabin.
"The devil!" said Jean sourly, stalking in the direction of the store.
He was angered at the coolness with which Jan accepted the situation.
"This Dixon is with Mélisse afternoon and evening, and they walk
together every day in the bush," he said to him. "Soon there will be a
wedding at Lac Bain!"
"Mélisse deserves a good man," replied Jan, unmoved. "I like Dixon."
Deep down in his soul he knew that each day was bringing the end of it
all much nearer for him. He did not tell Mélisse that he had returned
to Lac Bain to be near her once more, nor did he confide in Jean. He
had anticipated that this winter at the post would be filled with a
certain painful pleasure for him--but he had not anticipated Dixon. Day
after day he saw Mélisse and the Englishman together, and while they
awakened in him none of the fiery jealousy which might have rankled in
the bosom of Jean de Gravois, the knowledge that the girl was at last
passing from him for ever added a deeper grief to that which was
already eating at his heart.
Dixon made no effort to conceal his feelings. He loved Mélisse. Frankly
he told this to Jean one day, when they were on the Churchill trail. In
his honest way he said things which broke down the last of Jean's
hereditary prejudices, and compelled him to admit that this was a
different sort of foreigner than he had ever known before.
"Diable, I like him," he said to himself; "and yet I would rather see
him in the blessed hereafter than have him take Mélisse from Jan!"
The big snow decided.
It came early in December. Dixon had set out alone for Ledoq's early in
the morning. By noon the sky was a leaden black, and a little later one
could not see a dozen paces ahead of him for the snow. The Englishman
did not return that day. The next day he was still gone, and Gravois
drove along the top of the mountain ridge until he came to the
Frenchman's, where he found that Dixon had started for Lac Bain the
preceding afternoon. He brought word back to the post. Then he went to
Mélisse.
"It is as good as death to go out in search of him," he said. "We can
no longer use the dogs. Snowshoes will sink like leaden bullets by
morning, and to go ten miles from the post means that there will be
bones to be picked by the foxes when the crust comes!"
It was dark when Jan came into the cabin. Mélisse started to her feet
with a little cry when he entered, covered white with the snow. A light
pack was strapped to his back, and he carried his rifle in his hand.
"I am going to hunt for him," he said softly. "If he is alive, I will
bring him back to you."
She came to him slowly, and the beating of Jan's heart sounded to him
like the distant thrumming of partridge-wings. Ah, would he ever forget
that look? The old glory was in her eyes, her arms were reaching out,
her lips parted. Jan knew how the Great Spirit had once appeared to
Mukee, and how a white mist, like a snow-veil, had come between the
half-breed's eyes and the wondrous Thing he beheld. That same veil
drifted between Jan and the girl. As in a vision, he saw her face so
near to him that he felt the touch of her sweet breath, and he knew
that one of his rough hands was clasped in both of her own, and that
after a moment it was crushed tightly against her bosom.
"Jan, my hero--"
He struggled back, almost sobbing, as he plunged out into the night
again. He heard her voice crying after him, but the wild wailing of the
spruce, and the storm in his brain, drowned its words. He had seen the
glorious light of love in her eyes--her love for Dixon! And he would
find him! At last he, Jan Thoreau, would prove that the old love was
not dead within him; he would do for Mélisse this night--to-morrow--the
next day, and until he fell down to die--what he had promised to do on
their sledge-ride to Ledoq's. And then--
He went to Ledoq's now, following the top of the mountain, and reached
his cabin in the late dawn. The Frenchman stared at him in amazement
when he learned that he was about to set out on a search for Dixon.
"You will not find him," he said slowly in French; "but if you are
determined to go, I will hunt with you. It is a big chance that we will
not come back."
"I don't want you to go," objected Jan. "One will do as much as two,
unless we search alone. I came your way to find if it had begun to snow
before Dixon left."
"An hour after he had gone, you could not see your hand before your
face," replied Ledoq, preparing his pack. "There is no doubt but that
he circled out over Lac Bain. We will go that far together, and then
search alone."
They went back over the mountain, and stopped when instinct told them
that they were opposite the spruce forests of the lake. There they
separated, Jan going as nearly as he could guess into the northwest,
Ledoq trailing slowly and hopelessly into the south.
It was no great sacrifice for Jan, this struggle with the big snows for
the happiness of Mélisse. What it was to Ledoq no man ever guessed or
knew, for it was not until the late spring snows had gone that the
people at Lac Bain found what the foxes and the wolves had left of him,
far to the south.
Fearlessly Jan plunged into the white world of the lake. There was
neither rock nor tree to guide him, for everywhere was the heavy
ghost-raiment of the Indian god. The balsams were bending under it, the
spruces were breaking into hunchback forms, the whole world was twisted
in noiseless torture under its increasing weight. Out through the still
terror of it all Jan's voice went in wild, echoing shouts. Now and then
he fired his rifle, and always he listened long and intently. The
echoes came back to him, laughing, taunting, and then each time fell
the mirthless silence of the storm.
Day came, only a little lighter than the night. He crossed the lake,
his snow-shoes sinking ankle-deep at every step, and once each
half-hour he fired a single shot from his rifle. He heard shots to the
south, and knew that it was Ledoq; each report coming to him more
faintly than the last, until they had died away entirely.
Across the lake he struck the forest again, and his shouts echoed in
futile inquiry in its weird depths. About him there was no sign of
life, no sound except the faint fluttering of falling snow. Under five
feet of this snow the four-footed creatures of the wilderness were
snugly buried; close against the trunks of the spruces, sheltered
within their tent-like coverings, the birds waited like lifeless things
for the breaking of the storm.
At noon Jan stopped and ate his lunch. Then he went on, carrying his
rifle always upon his right shoulder, so that the steps of his right
leg would be shortened, and he would travel in a circle, as he believed
Dixon had done.
The storm thickened with the falling of night, and he burrowed himself
a great hole in the soft snow and filled it with balsam boughs for a
bed. When he awakened, hours later, he stood up, and thrust out his
head, and found himself buried to the arm-pits. With the aid of his
broad snow-shoes he drew himself out, until he stood knee-deep in the
surface.
He lifted his pack. As he swung it before him, one arm thrust through a
strap, he gave a startled cry. Half of one side of the pack was eaten
away! He thrust his hands through the breach, and a moan of despair
sobbed on his lips when he found that his food was gone. A thin trickle
of flour ran through his fingers upon the snow. He pulled out a gnawed
pound of bacon, a little tea--and that was all.
Frantically he ripped the rent wider in his search, and when he stood
up, his wild face staring into the chaos about him, he held only the
bit of bacon in his hand. In it were the imprints of tiny teeth--sharp
little razor-edged teeth that told him what had happened. While he had
slept a mink had robbed him of his food!
With one of his shoes he began digging furiously in the snow. He tore
his balsam bed to pieces. Somewhere--somewhere not very far away--the
little animal must have cached its theft. He dug down until he came to
the frozen earth. For an hour he worked and found nothing.
Then he stopped. Over a small fire he melted snow for tea and broiled a
slice of the bacon, which he ate with the few biscuit crumbs he found
in the pack. Every particle of flour that he could find he scraped up
with his knife and put into one of the deep pockets of his caribou
coat. After that he set cut in the direction in which he thought he
would find Lac Bain.
Still he shouted for Dixon, and fired an occasional shot from his
rifle. By noon he should have struck the lake. Noon came and passed;
the gloom of a second night fell upon him. He built himself a fire, and
ate two-thirds of what remained of the bacon. The handful of flour in
his pocket he did not disturb.
It was still night when he broke his rest and struggled on. His first
fears were gone. In place of them, there filled him now a grim sort of
pleasure. A second time he was battling with death for Mélisse. And
this, after all, was not a very hard fight for him. He had feared death
in the red plague, but he did not fear the thought of this death that
threatened him in the big snows. It thrilled him, instead, with a
strange sort of exhilaration. If he died, it would be for Mélisse, and
for all time she would remember him for what he had done.
When he ate the last bit of his bacon, he made up his mind what he
would do when the end came. In the stock of his rifle he would scratch
a few last words to Mélisse. He even arranged the words in his
brain--four of them--"Mélisse, I love you." He repeated them to himself
as he staggered on, and that night, beside the fire he built, he began
by carving her name.
"To-morrow," he said softly, "I will do the rest."
He was growing very hungry, but he did not touch the flour. For six
hours he slept, and then drank his fill of hot tea.
"We will travel until day, Jan Thoreau," he informed himself, "and
then, if nothing turns up, we will build our last camp, and eat the
flour. It will be the last of us, for there will be no meat above this
snow for days."
His snow-shoes were an impediment now, and he left them behind, along
with one of his two blankets, which had grown to be like lead upon his
shoulders. He counted his cartridges--ten of them. One of these he
fired into the air.
Was that an echo he heard?
A sudden thrill shot through him. He strained his ears to catch a
repetition of the sound. In a moment it came again--clearly no echo
this time.
"Ledoq!" he cried aloud.
He fired again.
Back to him came the distant, splitting crack of a rifle. He forced his
way toward it. After a little he heard the signal again, much nearer
than before, and he fired in response. A few hundred yards farther on
he came to a low mountain ridge, and lifted his voice in a loud shout.
A shot came from just over the mountain.
Waist deep in the light snow he began the ascent, dragging himself up
by the tops of the slender saplings, stopping every few yards to
half-stretch himself out in the soft mass through which he was
struggling, panting with exhaustion. He shouted when he gained the top
of the ridge. Up through the white blur of snow on the other side there
came to him faintly a shout; yet, in spite of its faintness, Jan knew
that it was very near.
"Something has happened to Ledoq," he told himself, "but he surely has
food, and we can live it out until the storm is over."
It was easier going down the ridge, and he went quickly in the
direction from which the voice had come, until a mass of huge boulders
loomed up before him. There was a faint odor of smoke in the air, and
he followed it in among the rocks, where it grew stronger.
"Ho, Ledoq!" he shouted.
A voice replied a dozen yards away. Slowly, as he advanced, he made out
the dim shadow of life in the white gloom--a bit of smoke climbing
weakly in the storm, the black opening of a brush shelter--and then,
between the opening and the spiral of smoke, a living thing that came
creeping toward him on all fours, like an animal.
He plunged toward it, and the shadow staggered upward, and would have
fallen had it not been for the support of the deep snow. Another step,
and a sharp cry fell from Jan's lips. It was not Ledoq, but Dixon, who
stood there with white, starved face and staring eyes in the snow gloom!
"My God, I am starving--and dying for a drink of water!" gasped the
Englishman chokingly, thrusting out his arms. "Thoreau, God be
praised--"
He staggered, and fell in the snow. Jan dragged him back to the shelter.
"I will have water for you--and something to eat--very soon," he said.
His voice sounded unreal. There was a mistiness before his eyes which
was not caused by the storm, a twisting of strange shadows that
bothered his vision, and made him sway dizzily when he threw off his
pack to stir the fire. He suspended his two small pails over the
embers, which he coaxed into a blaze. Both he filled with snow; into
one he emptied the handful of flour that he had carried in his
pocket--into the other he put tea. Fifteen minutes later he carried
them to the Englishman.
Dixon sat up, a glazed passion filling his eyes. He drank the hot tea
greedily, and as greedily ate the boiled flour-pudding. Jan watched him
hungrily until the last crumb of it was gone. He refilled the pails
with snow, added more tea, and then rejoined the Englishman. New life
was already shining in Dixon's eyes.
"Not a moment too soon, Thoreau," he said thankfully, reaching over to
grip the other's hand.
"Another night and--" Suddenly he stopped. "Great Heaven, what is the
matter?"
He noticed for the first time the pinched torture in his companion's
face. Jan's head dropped weakly upon his breast. His hands were icy
cold.
"Nothing," he murmured drowsily, "only--I'm starving, too, Dixon!" He
recovered himself with an effort, and smiled into Dixon's startled
face. "There is nothing to eat," he continued, as he saw the other
direct his gaze toward the pack. "I gave you the last of the flour.
There is nothing--but salt and tea." He rolled over upon the balsam
boughs with a restful sigh. "Let me sleep!"
Dixon went to the pack. One by one, in his search for food, he took out
the few articles that it contained. After that he drank more tea,
crawled back into the balsam shelter, and lay down beside Jan. It was
broad day when he awoke, and he called hoarsely to his companion when
he saw that the snow had ceased falling.
Jan did not stir. For a moment Dixon leaned over to listen to his
breathing, and then dragged himself slowly and painfully out into the
day. The fire was out. A leaden blackness still filled the sky; deep,
silent gloom hung in the wake of the storm.
Suddenly there came to Dixon's ears a sound. It was a sound that would
have been unheard in the gentle whispering of a wind, in the swaying of
the spruce-tops; but in this silence it fell upon the starving man's
hearing with a distinctness that drew his muscles rigid and set his
eyes staring about him in wild search. Just beyond the hanging pails a
moose-bird hopped out upon the snow. It chirped hungrily, its big,
owl-like eyes scrutinizing Dixon. The man stared back, fearing to move.
Slowly he forced his right foot through the snow to the rear of his
left, and as cautiously brought his left behind his right, working
himself backward step by step until he reached the shelter. Just inside
was his rifle. He drew it out and sank upon his knees in the snow to
aim. At the report of the rifle, Jan stirred but did not open his eyes;
he made no movement when Dixon called out in shrill joy that he had
killed meat. He heard, he strove to arouse himself, but something more
powerful than his own will seemed pulling him down into oblivion. It
seemed an eternity before he was conscious of a voice again. He felt
himself lifted, and opened his eyes with his head resting against the
Englishman's shoulder.
"Drink this, Thoreau," he heard.
He drank, and knew that it was not tea that ran down his throat.
"Whisky-jack soup," he heard again. "How is it?"
He became wide-awake. Dixon was offering him a dozen small bits of meat
on a tin plate, and he ate without questioning. Suddenly, when there
were only two or three of the smallest scraps left, he stopped.
"Mon Dieu, it was whisky-jack!" he cried. "I have eaten it all!"
The young Englishman's white face grinned at him.
"I've got the flour inside of me, Thoreau--you've got the moose-bird.
Isn't that fair?"
The plate dropped between them. Over it their hands met in a great,
clutching grip, and up from Jan's heart there welled words which almost
burst from his lips in voice, words which rang in his brain, and which
were an unspoken prayer--"Mélisse, I thank the great God that it is
this man whom you love!" But it was in silence that he staggered to his
feet and went out into the gloom.
"This may be only a lull in the storm," he said. "We must lose no time.
How long did you travel before you made this camp?"
"About ten hours," said Dixon. "I made due west by compass until I knew
that I had passed Lac Bain, and then struck north."
"Ah, you have the compass," cried Jan, his eyes lighting up. "M'seur
Dixon, we are very near to the post if you camped so soon! Tell me
which is north."
"That is north."
"Then we go south--south and east. If you traveled ten hours, first
west and then north, we are northwest of Lac Bain."
Jan spoke no more, but got his rifle from the shelter and put only the
tea and two pails in his pack; leaving the remaining blanket upon the
snow. The Englishman followed close behind him, bending weakly under
the weight of his gun. Tediously they struggled to the top of the
ridge, and as Jan stopped to look through the gray day about him, Dixon
sank down into the snow. When the other turned toward him he grinned up
feebly into his face.
"Bushed," he gasped. "Don't believe I can make it through this snow,
Thoreau."
There was no fear in his eyes; there was even a cheerful ring in his
voice.
A sudden glow leaped into Jan's face.
"I know this ridge," he exclaimed. "It runs within a mile of Lac Bain.
You'd better leave your rifle behind."
Dixon made an effort to rise and Jan helped him. They went on slowly,
resting every few hundred yards, and each time that he rose from these
periods of rest, Dixon's face was twisted with pain.
"It's the flour and water anchored amidships," he smiled grimly.
"Cramps--Ugh!"
"We'll make it by supper-time," assured Jan cheerfully.
Dixon leaned heavily on his arm.
"I wish you'd go on alone," he urged. "You could send help--"
"I promised Mélisse that I would bring you back if I found you,"
replied Jan, his face turned away. "If the storm broke again, you would
be lost."
"Tell me--tell me--" he heard Dixon pant eagerly, "did she send you to
hunt for me, Thoreau?"
Something in the Englishman's voice drew his eyes to him. There was an
excited flush in his starved cheeks; his eyes shone.
"Did she send you?"
Jan struggled hard to speak calmly.
"Not in words, M'seur Dixon. But I know that if I get you safely back
to Lac Bain she will be very happy."
Something came in Dixon's sobbing breath which Jan did not hear. A
little later he stopped and built a fire over which he melted more snow
and boiled tea. The drink stimulated them, and they went on. A little
later still and Jan hung his rifle in the crotch of a sapling.
"We will return for the guns in a day or so," he said.
Dixon leaned upon him more heavily now, and the distances they traveled
between resting periods became shorter and shorter. Three times they
stopped to build fires and cook tea. It was night when they descended
from the ridge to the snow-covered ice of Lac Bain. It was past
midnight when Jan dragged Dixon from the spruce forest into the opening
at the post. There were no lights burning, and he went with his
half-conscious burden to the company's store. He awakened Croisset, who
let them in.
"Take care of Dixon," said Jan, "and don't arouse any of the people
to-night. It will be time enough to tell what has happened in the
morning."
Over the stove in his own room he cooked meat and coffee, and for a
long time sat silent before the fire. He had brought back Dixon. In the
morning Mélisse would know. First she would go to the Englishman,
then--then--she would come to him!
He rose and went to the rude board table in the corner of his room.
"No, Mélisse must not come to me in the morning," he whispered to
himself. "She must never again look upon Jan Thoreau."
He took pencil and paper and wrote. Page after page he crumpled in his
hand and flung into the fire. At last, swiftly and despairingly, he
ended with half a dozen lines. What he said came from his heart, in
French:
"I have brought him back to you, my Mélisse, and pray that the good God
may give you happiness. I leave you the old violin, and always when you
play, it will tell you of the love of Jan Thoreau."
He folded the page and sealed it in one of the company's envelopes.
Very quietly he went from his room down into the deserted store.
Without striking a light he found a new pack, a few articles of food,
and ammunition. The envelope, addressed to Mélisse, he left where
Croisset or the factor would find it in the morning. His dogs were
housed in a shack behind the store, and he called out their names
softly and warningly as he went among them. As stealthily as their
master they trailed behind him to the edge of the forest, and close
under the old spruce that guarded the grave Jan stopped, and silently
he stretched out his arms to the little cabin.
The dogs watched him. Kazan, the one-eyed leader, glared from him into
the dimness of the night, whining softly. A low, mourning wind swept
through the spruce tops, and from Jan's throat there burst sobbingly
words which he had heard beside this same grave more than seventeen
years before, when Williams' choking voice had risen in a last prayer
for the woman.
"May the great God care for Mélisse!"
He turned into the trail upon which Jean de Gravois had fought the
Englishman, led his dogs and sledge in a twisting path through the
caribou swamp, and stood at last beside the lob-stick tree that leaned
out over the edge of the white barrens. With his knife he dug out the
papers which he had concealed in that whisky-jack hole.
It was near dawn when he recovered the rifle which he had abandoned on
the mountain top. A little later it began to snow. He was glad, for it
would conceal his trail.
For thirteen days he forced his dogs through the deep snows into the
south. On the fourteenth they came to Le Pas, which is the edge of
civilization. It was night when he came out of the forest, so that he
could see the faint glow of lights beyond the Saskatchewan.
For a few moments, before crossing, he stopped his tired dogs and
turned his face back into the grim desolation of the North, where the
aurora was playing feebly in the skies, and beckoning to him, and
telling him that the old life of centuries and centuries ago would wait
for him always at the dome of the earth.
"The good God bless you, and keep you, and care for you ever more, my
Mélisse," he whispered; and he walked slowly ahead of his dogs, across
the river, and into the Other World.