An examination of the surroundings made it plain that a band of
eastern Mountaineer or Mingen Indians, in a starving condition, had
visited the place; that one of them, already too far exhausted to be
revived, had died; that the others, taking the food, had left his body
uncared for and fled.
The disappointment was quite beyond expression. Had they been in good
physical condition, a short three days' travel would now have carried
them to the river tilt and safety. In their present weakened and
starved condition at least twice that time would be consumed in the
journey, and no food remained to help them on their way.
In deep depression Shad assisted Manikawan to stretch the deerskin
covering upon the lodge, while Mookoomahn gathered wood for the fire.
Clumsy with weakness, dizzy with disappointment, Shad reached to
spread the skin, his snowshoes became entangled, he stumbled and fell.
When he attempted to rise he discovered to his dismay that he had
wrenched a knee, and when he attempted to walk he was scarcely able to
hobble into the lodge.
The last bare chance of life fled, the last thread of flickering hope
broken, Shad sank down, little caring for the pain, numb with a
certainty of quickly impending death. He could not keep the pace of
the Indians. He could not travel at all, and he could neither ask nor
expect that they do otherwise than proceed as usual after a period of
rest, and leave him to his fate.
Very early in the morning Shad heard a movement in the lodge, and
realised that Mookoomahn and Manikawan were engaged in low and earnest
conversation. This meant, he was sure, that they were going.
He vaguely wondered whether they would take the lodge with them and
leave him to die the more quickly in the intense cold of the open, or
whether they would leave it behind them as a weight now too great to
be hauled farther upon their toboggan.
He did not care much. He was resigned to his fate. He suffered now no
pain of body, save an occasional twitch of the knee when he moved. The
hunger pain had gone. It would be sweet and restful, after all, to lie
there and die peacefully. It would end the struggle for existence.
There would be no more weary plodding over boundless snow wastes. The
end of hope was the end of trouble and pain.
With his acceptance of the inevitable, and resignation to his fate, a
great lassitude fell upon him. He was overcome with a drowsiness, and
as the swish, swish of retreating snowshoes fell upon his ears he
dropped into a heavy sleep.
It must have been hours later when Shad opened his eyes to behold
sitting opposite him, across the fire, Manikawan. She smiled when she
saw that he was awake, and he thought how thin and worn she looked, a
mere shadow of the Manikawan he had first known.
Then there dawned upon his slowly-waking brain a realisation of the
situation. She had resigned her chance of life to remain with him. He
could not permit this. It was a useless waste of life. There was still
hope that she might reach the tilts and safety. By remaining with him
she was deliberately rejecting a possible opportunity to preserve
herself. Much perturbed by this discovery, Shad sat up.
"Mookoomahn?" he asked, pointing toward the south.
"Mookoomahn," she answered, pointing in the same direction.
"Manikawan," pointing at the fire, to indicate that Mookoomahn had
gone but she had remained.
He protested by signs that she should follow Mookoomahn. He passed
around the fire to where she sat, and grasped her arm in his bony
fingers, in an attempt to compel her to do so; but she stubbornly
shook her head, and, forced to submit, he resumed his seat. Both sorry
and glad that he should not be left alone, he reached over and pressed
her hand as an indication of his appreciation of her self-sacrifice.
Then she dipped from a kettle by the fire a cup of liquid, which she
handed him. He sipped it, and, discovering that it was a weak broth,
drank it. He looked at her inquiringly.
Turning again to the pail, she drew forth half a boiled ptarmigan,
which she passed him.
"Let the friend of White Brother of the Snow eat. It is little, and it
will not drive away the Spirit of Hunger, but it will help to keep
away the evil Spirit of Starvation until White Brother of the Snow
brings food to his friend."
He accepted it and ate, not ravenously, for his hunger now was not
consuming, but with delicious relish. Manikawan did not eat, but he
presumed that she had already had a like portion.
Shad was able to hobble, though with considerable pain, in and out of
the lodge, and to assist in getting wood for the fire, and so far as
she would permit him to do so he relieved her of the task.
The following morning and for four successive mornings the cup of
broth and the portion of ptarmigan awaited him when he awoke. It was
evident Manikawan had killed them with bow and arrow.
He never saw her eat. It was quite natural that she should have done
so before he awoke of mornings, for he made no attempt at early
rising.
But he noted with alarm that Manikawan was daily growing weaker. She
staggered woefully at times when she walked, like one intoxicated. She
was weaker than he, but this he ascribed to his stronger mentality.
By sheer force of will he put aside the insistent weakness, which he
knew would get the better of him were he to resign himself to it. By
the same force of will he injected into his being a degree of physical
energy. But he was a white man, she only an Indian, and this could not
be expected of her.
Then there came a day when he awoke to find her gone, and no broth or
ptarmigan awaiting him. Later she tottered into the lodge, and
empty-handed laid her bow and arrow aside.
The next morning she was lying prone, and the fire was nearly out, for
the wood was gone.
"Poor girl," he said, "she is tired and has overslept;" and
stealthily, that he might not disturb her, he stole out for the needed
wood.
She was awake when he returned, and she tried to rise, but fell
helplessly back upon her bed of boughs.
"Manikawan is weak like a little child," she said, in a low, uncertain
voice. "But White Brother of the Snow will soon come. The suns are
rising and setting. He will soon come. Let the friend of White Brother
of the Snow have courage."
Shad brewed her some strong tea--a little still remaining. She drank
it, and the hot stimulant presently gave her renewed strength.
But Shad was not deceived. Manikawan's words had sounded to him a
prophecy of the impending end. Her voice and her rapidly failing
strength told him that the Spirit of Hunger--the Gaunt Gray Wolf--was
conquering; that the spirit most dreaded of all the spirits, Death,
stood at last at the portal of the lodge, waiting to enter.