You are to pay--
Two white bears.
Twelve white foxes.
Three live dogs."
That was the value set on a really great man's life. It makes one
wonder at what rate ours would be appraised in Eskimo land.
TWO CHRISTMASES
It was Christmas Eve, and Malcolm McCrea, just back from the woods,
was throwing down some frozen seal meat from the scaffold for his
hungry dogs after their long day's hauling. Malcolm was only eighteen,
and in winter still lived with his father in their home below the
falls of Pike's River. However, now that he had been away for two
summers in his uncle's schooner fishing "down North," his eyes were
already turned to some long-untenanted fjords in the mouths of which
the craft had anchored.
Pike's Falls was a lonely place, and the sound of a human voice
calling to a dog team kept Malcolm standing with a fine forkful of
meat in his hands long enough so greatly to tantalize the team below
as to start a serious fight. This woke him from his reverie. "Ah, Ah!"
he shouted, and, jumping down right into the middle of the fracas,
soon had his dogs busy again with the frozen blocks which constituted
their food for the day.
"Is that you, Mr. Norman?" he exclaimed heartily. "Why, who would ever
have thought of seeing you here, and alone, this evening of all days
in t' year?"--as a middle-aged man jumped from an empty sledge and
began unharnessing a half-starved-looking team. "Shall I give you a
hand? They seem spun out."
"Better not touch 'em, I reckon," was the gruff answer. "They're a bit
surly with strangers." And indeed already the animals were snarling
and showing their teeth at the other dogs finishing their meal near
by.
Malcolm, who at once proceeded to throw down a liberal allowance of
seal meat for the newcomers' suppers, attributed the savage way in
which their master whipped off his host's team from trying to get a
second helping, to the weariness of a long journey. For to beat
another man's dogs, especially with the long and heavy lash of our
Northern whips, is a breach of the unwritten law of the Labrador.
It was not until he had shared the steaming supper prepared for
Malcolm that the strings of the visitor's tongue began to be unloosed.
For it is not etiquette to ask a stranger's reasons for visiting a
well-stocked house, in a country where the komatik trail is the only
resource for the destitute.
"It's to t' post I'm bound. We be short of grub south. T' fishery have
been bad this three years, and there's six of us now," he began.
"There wasn't more than a couple of bakings of flour in t' barrel when
I left. I couldn't get no credit south at Deep-Water Creek; and so I
just had to try north or starve."
"'T is a long bit yet to t' post," replied Malcolm. "There is t'
Monkey to cross if you goes inside; and us allows it a good hundred
miles to go round t' cape. It'll take you a week to haul a barrel of
flour from there here."
Roderick, sitting back in his chair, was dejectedly surveying the
comfortable-looking room. Malcolm caught his gaze, and realized what
was passing in the poor fellow's mind.
"Draw up, draw up, and light your pipe, Mr. Norman," he interposed.
"'Tis only Home Rule tobacco, but it serves us down here."
Eagerly enough Norman accepted the proffered plug, and then relapsed
into a silence which Malcolm found it hard to break. So, excusing
himself for a minute, he beckoned the old folk to come into their
bedroom that they might talk over the situation in private.
"He has four youngsters, and I knows they be hard up," he began. "They
hasn't a chance where they are. T' neighbours blames Roderick for
several little troubles which happened to t' southard, and t' traders
won't advance more'n he can pay for. If it was any one else, and
to-morrow wasn't Christmas, it would be just good fun to go down North
with him and help haul back a barrel or so--that is, if they lets him
have it."
"That's not like you, Malcolm. You can't make a man good that way, any
more'n you can a dog by beatin' him," chimed in his old mother. "I
guess you'll go along with him, even to-morrow, if so be he wishes
it."
"S'pose I will, Mother, but--"
"Course you would," said his father proudly. "They've never known a
McCrea yet on this coast that would let even a dog starve. But
there's a barrel of flour in our cellar which we can live without.
Maybe it's t' kind of Christmas greeting t' poor fellow needs."
"If you says so, it's all right, Father," said Malcolm, "and, seeing
it's a good hundred miles to Mr. Norman's house, I guess I'll go
along, anyhow, in t' morning and let my beauties help them half-fed
pups of his, or it'll be Old Christmas Day before his kids get a bite
out of it."
Only the joy of the first tobacco for weeks was keeping the worn-out
man from being fast asleep when Malcolm again took a chair beside him.
"I've got to make a round south to-morrow, Mr. Norman," he began, "and
it would be a pity if you had to be going t' other way. Father says he
has a barrel of flour in t' cellar you can have and pay for it when
youse can. So if that'll suit, I'd like to give you a hand some part
of t' way, especially as there'll be a few gallons of molasses to
carry also if you'll take 'em."
Gratitude is a rare grace. The lack of it was one of the costly
defects in Roderick's character. No longer hungry, sitting before a
good fire with a well-filled pipe, even the cunning which usually
supplies the vacancy failed him; and Malcolm had to force himself to
put down to exhaustion the ungracious way in which his real sacrifice
was accepted.
In spite of hard work, they had only made thirty miles by sunset the
next day, and, there being no shelter, they were obliged to camp early
as light snow was falling. Yet it was a good Christmas night around
the blazing fire with the special cheer the old mother had packed into
the bread-boxes on their komatik. The following morning they did
better, reaching the landwash of a big inlet forty miles farther south
by noon. Here Malcolm had decided to turn back, for the remainder of
the trail to Long Point lay practically over level ice. Just as they
were saying good-bye, however, his quick eye detected something black
moving out on the bay.
"A fox, Mr. Norman. Look! A fox! And a black one too. You may be able
to pay for that barrel of flour before t' day's out."
They were both good furriers, and their plans were soon laid. The dogs
were quickly hitched up to stumps, and, glad of a rest, were easily
made to lie down. Alas, the men had only Malcolm's gun; but it was
arranged that he should go out and turn the fox, and Norman, hiding at
the third corner of the triangle, should try and shoot it passing or
lure it in range down wind.
Things went admirably. Malcolm by a long detour was able to turn the
fox from far out without frightening it. Roderick, well hidden, and
squeaking like a mouse, tolled it into easy range; and within an hour
the two men held in their hands a skin worth at least four hundred
dollars. It was agreed, at Roderick's suggestion, that he should carry
it home, as he was nearer the fur-buyers, take the first offer over
that sum, and then send the half due by the law of the woods to
Malcolm north by the earliest mail-carrier.
Malcolm added as he said good-bye, "I reckon maybe Father will want
to let t' barrel go as good luck on t' bargain."
Summer came, and open water with it, but the half value of that skin
never arrived. Later, in reply to Malcolm's enquiry by letter, a note
came to say that it was being held for a better price in the fall; and
with that he had to be content.
Winter followed summer, and when once again the "going was good,"
Malcolm, "running light" with his dogs, made the journey to Long Point
easily in two days. Yes, the skin was sold, but the agent had not yet
sent the cash. It had brought $430 and the half would come along as
soon as ever Monsieur Baillot forwarded the notes. But the winter
again went by and no notes, no letters, or other news ever reached
Malcolm McCrea. Six years passed, and still they never came, and the
McCreas supposed the debt was time-barred. Indeed, they had almost
forgotten the whole incident.
Malcolm was still nominally at his father's house, but for three
winters he had trapped on the Grand River, which flowed out into one
of the bays he had discovered "down North." Here with the help of a
hired man he had built up quite a fine little house, and made every
preparation for that momentous life experience which usually comes
early in life to every Labrador man. With characteristic caution he
had waited for a good winter hunt to buy furnishings and traps. This
had also given Nancy Grahame, who lived close to his home, time to get
ready the needed linen and other requisites. "Clewing up" his salmon
fishery in good time, Malcolm had cruised North in his own small
sailboat, and till the first ice made had been very busy cutting wood,
hauling food into the country for the winter tilts along his fur-path
on the Grand River, completing his cellar, and safely storing his
winter house supplies.
His first hunt being mostly for foxes along the landwash of the bay,
he had waited until the snow came to tail his traps, judging that
although it would take a week with his dogs to fetch his wife to their
new home, he might safely chance that length of time away without
losing anything which might be snared in the meanwhile. This was the
third winter he had furred this path without interruption, and by all
the custom of the coast no one would now interfere with his claim. So
Malcolm started south at a stretch gallop with a light heart.
The two hundred and odd miles to the rendezvous at his father-in-law's
winter home in the woods were covered with only two nights out, and
that when the trails were as yet hardly broken and the young ice on
the rivers would surely have delayed any man with less determination.
The wedding was in real Labrador style. Every one from far and near
was present, quite without the formality of an invitation. It would,
indeed, be an ill omen for the future if any one were omitted through
the miscarriage of an invitation. So the danger is averted by the
grapevine telegraph, which simply signals the event in sufficient time
to make it a man's own fault if he is not present. Malcolm had many
friends and there had been great preparations in Capelin Bay. Every
scrap of room was needed to accommodate the guests, and at night
hardly an inch of floor space but lodged some sleeping form wrapped in
a four-point blanket, while the hardier ones with sleeping-bags
contentedly crawled into them out in the snow, as their fashion is
when nothing better offers.
The cooking had to be done in two large net-barking cauldrons over
open fires under the trees; and as the fall deer hunt had been
successful, and pork had not in those days assumed the present
impossible prices, there were all kinds of joints, and no limit to
proteids and carbohydrates. The great plum puddings which served for
wedding cakes were pulled out of the same boiling froth, tightly
wrapped in their cloth jackets, with long fish "pews" or forks.
Unlimited spruce beer, brewed with molasses and fortified with "Old
Jamaica," flowed from a large barrel during the two days that the
celebration lasted.
At twenty below zero a slight increase in the calories consumed or
even in the excess of alcohol over the normal two per cent of spruce
beer leaves little trace on hardy folk; and when on the third morning,
McCrea and his bride fared forth behind their splendid dog-team, every
guest was gathered at the starting-point to "whoop up" the departing
couple.
"'T is early I'll be starting in t' morning, Nancy, for it's nigh a
fortnight since I tailed my traps, and there were good signs, too, by
t' boiling brooks," said Malcolm the first evening they arrived home.
"A fox following t' landwash from t' rattle must surely take t' path
there, for t' cliff fair shoulders him off t' land, and t' ice isn't
fast more'n a foot or so from t' bluff. 'T would be a pity to lose a
good skin, and us just starting in housekeeping."
"What's right's right, Malcolm," answered his wife, pouting just
perceptibly. "Us must end our honeymoon with the journey down. I'll
not be lonely, I reckon, getting t' house to rights." And she laughed
gayly as she noticed the results of Malcolm's sincere but unique
attempts at furnishing.
"It'll be a ration of pork I'll be needing boiled, and a bun or two
for my nonny-bag. I can cover t' path in two days so be t' going's
good; but there's nothing like being prepared."
"Get a few more splits, then, boy," she replied, "and I'll be cutting
t' pork t' while." For she knew that Malcolm's estimate of the supply
necessary for a possible delay was not the preparedness which would
satisfy her ideas.
Days are short in November in the North, and the moon was still up to
see Malcolm picking his way along the unmade trail which led to the
spot where the sea ice joined the "ballicaters" or heaped-up shore
ice. In the late fall this is the happy hunting-ground of foxes, for a
much-needed dinner is often to be picked up in the shape of some
enfeebled auk or other sea-bird, while even a dead shark or smaller
fish may be discovered.
This was only a brief fall hunt. Malcolm had some fifty traps over ten
miles of country, all of which he would take up the following month
when the sea ice froze on permanently to the shore, re-tailing them
along his real fur-path up the Grand River along the bank of which he
had no less than three small shacks some thirty miles apart. Here he
made his long winter hunt for sables, otters, and lynxes, using nearly
three hundred traps.
It was with keen expectation and brisk step that he now strode along
over the open; only the unwritten law of silence for a trapper on his
path prevented his whistling as he went. When passing through the long
belt of woods which marks the edge of the river delta, he found
numerous windfalls blocking his narrow trail; but, keyed up as he was,
he managed to get by them without so much as rustling a twig. "I'm
fending for two now," he said to himself, and the very thought was
sweet, lending zest to the matching of his capacities against those of
the wild.
There was nothing in his first two traps. He hadn't expected anything.
They were only a sort of outliers in case something went wrong with
those in the sure places. But now he was nearing the Narrows, and
already his fence running from the steep bluff to the river edge was
visible. But there was no fox in number three. The trap had not been
sprung. The bait was as he had left it. "Maybe there'll be more to t'
eastward," he thought, "though there were signs on this side of t'
river." And, resetting the trap, he plodded along farther on his
round.
Midday came. He had passed no less than fifteen of his best traps, and
not only had no fox been found, but not one trap was sprung or one
bait taken.
Malcolm stood meditatively scratching his head by trap twenty.
"Something's wrong," he said to himself,--"but what? Better boil t'
kettle and think it over. Perhaps better luck after lunch."
Unstringing his tomahawk, he started to find some dry wood with which
to kindle a fire. None being close to the beach, he walked a few yards
into the forest, and had just commenced on a tree when he noticed by
the white scar that a branch had been broken quite recently from the
very same trunk. "Wind and t' weight of t' silver thaw," he supposed,
for there was no one living within fifty miles, and no other fur-path
at that time, anyhow, in the bay. The northern komatik trail crossed
twenty miles seaward, where the calm, wide expanse made the ice much
safer in the early winter than near the swift current at the river
mouth. But as he stooped to clear the trunk for his own axe, he
noticed that, though disguised as a break, a cut had been first made
to weaken the bough. "Some one's been here, that's sure," he said to
himself. "Who can it be?" So much snow had fallen since Malcolm had
gone after his wife that it was no easy matter to guess an
answer--much less to read it from the trails around.
His frugal meal finished, he sat meditatively smoking his pipe by the
glowing embers of his generous fire. But no light came to him.
Practically no one lived near. The few who did were as honest as
daylight. He had not an enemy on earth so far as he knew; and yet he
realized now that the good condition of his traps, and especially his
baits, after a fortnight of the blusterous Labrador fall weather
needed accounting for. Well, anyhow, there was only one thing to
do--go and finish his round, and when he got back he could talk the
trouble over with his wife.
Slipping on his snow racquets and once more shouldering his nonny-bag,
he strode off toward his next trap. It was new to him to suspect men.
It was his business as a trapper to suspect Nature. It was, however,
from this new viewpoint that he must approach his next task. For
therein lies the intense interest of the trapper's life--every moment
affords a keen problem. The gambler has the excitement of a possible
big return, a sudden acquisition of gain. The trapper has all that,
and the added satisfaction of knowing that it is his ability and not
merely his luck which has won out.
At first sight there seemed nothing amiss with trap twenty-one. It had
been tailed on the top of a specially felled tree. There it was
still--a little mound of snow above the great expanse of whiteness,
only recognizable because a trapper knows every inch of his path as a
priest does his breviary. True, as the surface snow was only two days
old, many marks could not be expected upon it. All the same, it struck
Malcolm as odd that not a single fox-footing had he sighted since
leaving home. "Something must have been cleaning 'em up," he reasoned.
"There were two broods on Whale Island and one at least on t' Isle of
Hope. That's some twenty all told--and ne'er a wolf or lynx track out
to t' landward t' year." Musing to himself, he knelt down by the trap
to examine it more closely. Lifting it up, he blew off the loose snow
and inspected the stump carefully. No, nothing to indicate that it had
been moved. If it had been, it must have been replaced with consummate
care; for the rain had fallen once since Malcolm had tailed it, and
the trap lay exactly in the icy trough, its handle and chain lying in
the same groove. But the very fact suggested an idea. Possibly, if he
cleared the snow there might be a frozen footmark in the hard surface
beneath. Carefully, handful by handful, he removed over a foot of snow
from around the bottom of the old tree, till he felt with his fingers
the frozen crust. It took him over an hour's cold, tedious work, for
he feared to use a mitten to protect his hand lest he should destroy
the very traces of which he was in search. Though it froze his fingers
and meant a long delay, it was well worth while, for he had undeniable
evidence of a man's footmark, without any racquet, made since the rain
previous to the last snowfall. It was probably at least a week old.
Again he examined the trap carefully. Not a hair, not a blood mark,
not a sign to show that any fox had been in it. If it had been robbed,
an expert had done it. There was another chance, however. Using his
racquet as a spade, Malcolm was soon at work clearing the snow away
right around the roots. The chain was a long one, and driven into one
of the leaders was a steel fastener. It was as he expected. Not only
had the chain been obviously gnawed, but there was considerable
chafing of the bark as well. "He's been in it, sure enough, but the
question is, Who's got t' skin?" Dark was coming on. There was no use
going back; so, cutting down a few boughs and making a small lean-to
under a big spruce, Malcolm kindled a blazing fire, "cooked the
kettle," and turned in for the night.
Nancy had seen her husband as soon as he crossed the shoulder of the
hill on his home-coming the third morning. To tell the truth, it was
her first experience of being quite alone in the forest, and she had
been doing but little "furnishing" after the first night. Now she was
sure he had made a fine haul, and hurried out to meet him and hear the
news. Malcolm, with the canniness of his kind, at once told her he had
had no luck.
Now the actual amount of money lost may not have been great, but it
had the irritating feature of being an unknown quantity and the
additional vague risk of making all his winter work fruitless. It is
useless to set traps if some one else is to follow around and rob
them. So that night he told his wife the whole story. Discuss it as
they would, there was no clue of any kind to follow; so like wise folk
they decided to go on their way as if nothing had happened, keeping
their mouths shut and their eyes and ears open.
No one visited their bay before Malcolm went on his first long fur
round, which he did earlier than was his wont in order to be back in
time for the first of the two winter mails. This trip he made a much
better hunt, setting his traps as he went into the country. He took
good care to make long marches, and even one day to double back on his
tracks, making a long detour to see if he might not possibly pick up
some unexpected signs of another man on _his_ path. His, because,
although there is no law on the subject, custom is law on Labrador,
and the man who first finds a new trail for trapping has a conceded
right of at least a mile in width for just as far as he cares to go.
The whole round was made in ten days, and, coming back with six
sables, two otter, and a few mink and ermine, he was fortunate enough
to reach home some hours before the southern mail team.
"What's t' news, Pat?" he asked, when at last supper was over, and
the final pipe was being discussed by the fire.
"Nothing to boast of," was the answer. "T' same old story, with some a
feast and with some a famine. They do say Roderick Norman's luck seems
to have turned at last. T' Company gave he over four hundred dollars
for a dark silver he got, and as much more, some say, for a batch o'
reds and patches. 'T is more than good luck that half-breed must have
had, for he hasn't had a dozen traps to his name this five years."
Before he had finished speaking, Malcolm was watching him narrowly,
wondering if some sprite had whispered abroad the robbing of his
traps. But Pat was evidently unconscious of any possible connection
between his news and his audience. As absolute silence was the only
possible road ever to learning the truth, Pat left the next day on his
journey north, not a whit the wiser for his night at the new
homestead.
"It do sound strange, Nancy, don't it?" said her husband, after their
guest had gone. "Roderick Norman can't have any grudge against me.
Why, sure, it should be all t' other way." And he got up, stretched
his splendid muscular limbs, and, picking up his axe, took out any
excess of feeling there might be in his heart by a good two hours'
work at the woodpile.
Meanwhile his mind had not been idle. Whoever it was that robbed his
traps could not have come along the usual trail. The ice outside had
not been safe for travelling. He certainly must have come out from the
country. It had never occurred to Malcolm to spend time exploring the
land which lay south of his fur-path. But now it seemed to him that he
must at all costs set out the following morning and verify his
suspicions if he were to retain his hope of a livelihood in that
locality.
"I'm minded to try it right away, Nancy," said Malcolm. "If I could
only get a good view from one of t' hilltops, I'd have no trouble, for
there is still plenty of food in my tilts."
"But, Malcolm, 't is only two days till Christmas and this is our
first together. Surely no one ever goes on the fur-path
Christmastime."
"That's just it, lass. No one is on t' path as ought to be, and I
reckon for that very reason there be more chance of seeing those as
ought not."
There was no escaping the logic of the Scotchman, and his wife
acquiesced without further argument. He was well into the country
before daylight next day.
It was a glorious morning, as away there in utter solitude the
evergreen trees, the red-faced cliffs, the startling whiteness of the
snow, and exquisite blue overhead fading into the purple distance of
the winding valley met his keen view from a mountain-top. It was
Labrador at its best--clear, dry, cold, and not a sound to break the
absolute silence, even the trickling of the rapids and the splashing
of distant falls being muffled by then-heavy cloaks of ice.