With the strengthening cold that came with January and continued into
February, the animals ceased to venture far from their lairs in search
of food, and the harvest of the trails was therefore light. With the
disappearance of rabbits, the fox and lynx had also disappeared. The
rabbit is the chief prey of these animals during the tight midwinter
months, and as the wolf follows the caribou, so the fox follows the
rabbit.
With the going of the fox the field of operations was not only
narrowed, but the work was robbed of much of its zest. When foxes are
fairly numerous the trapper is always buoyed with the hope that a
black or silver fox, the most valuable of the fur-bearing animals, may
wander into his traps; and this hope renders less irksome the weary
tramping of the trails at seasons when the returns might otherwise
seem too small a recompense for the hardships and isolation suffered.
The two preceding years had yielded rich harvests to Dick Blake, and
had more than fulfilled his modest expectations. He was, therefore,
though certainly disappointed, far from discouraged with the present
outlook, and very cheerfully accepted the few marten and mink pelts
that fell to his lot as a half loaf by no means to be despised.
While Ungava Bob had looked forward to a successful winter's trapping,
his chief object in coming so far into the wilderness had been the
establishment of his new trails as a basis for future trading
operations; and more particularly, therefore, with a view to the
future than to the immediate present. Neither was he, for this reason,
in any wise discouraged. His youthful mind, engaged in planning the
castles he was to build tomorrow, had no room for the disappointments
of to-day.
Sishetakushin had given Bob the assurance that the Nascaupees would
bring him their furs to barter. He was satisfied, also, that he could
secure a large share of the trade of the Eastern, or Bay, Mountaineer
Indians, for he would pay a fair and reasonable price for their furs,
and they would quickly recognise the advantage of trading with him.
And he would have another advantage over the coast traders: he would
establish a trading station in the very heart of the wilderness, in
the midst of the Indian hunting country.
Previous to his coming into his little fortune his father had, as far
back as Bob could remember, been struggling under a load of debt. At
times the family had been plunged into the very uttermost depths of
poverty; and even now a sickening dread stole upon Bob as he recalled
some of the winters through which they had passed when the factor at
the post had refused them further credit, and the flour barrel at home
was empty, and they could scarcely have survived had it not been for
the bounty of Douglas Campbell.
This was the condition still with many of the families of the Bay.
They were always in debt to the Company for advances of provisions,
and there was no hope that they could ever emerge from the deplorable
condition. It was the policy of the Company that they should not.
In accepting credit from the Company, the trapper placed himself under
obligation to deliver to the Company every product of his labours
until the debt was discharged. The Company allowed the trapper in
return for his pelts such an amount as it saw fit. He had no word in
the matter, and of necessity was compelled to accept the Company's
valuation of his furs, which valuation the Company took good care to
place so low as to obviate any probability of his release from debt.
At a reasonable valuation of their furs, there was seldom a year that
most, if not all, the Bay trappers might not have been freed from
their serfdom.
Thus when a trapper died his only inheritance to his children was a
burden of debt, which sometimes passed down from generation to
generation; for the son who refused to assume his father's debt was
denied credit or consideration at the Company's stores.
The Grays, as we have stated, had felt the heavy hand of this
inquisitional system. Now that they were free, Bob's sympathy was
poured out to his neighbours, and he was secretly planning how, when
he became a trader, he might also compass their release.
As rapidly as his profits would permit, Bob was determined to advance,
first to one family, then to another, sufficient cash to discharge
their debts and relieve them from their obligation to the Company.
Then he would advance them the necessary provisions and supplies to
sustain them until they returned from their trails with their hunt. He
would buy their pelts at as high a price as he could afford with a
reasonable profit. This price would always be certainly double, and
often four or five times, that which the Company was accustomed to
allow.
Bob, thus forming his Utopian plans, forgot the tedium of the trail.
No person is so happy as when doing something to make some other
person happy. And Bob was happy because he believed he was to be the
means of bringing happiness to many. Making a comfortable living
himself, he would make it possible for his neighbours to make a
comfortable living, also.
It never occurred to him that failure was possible, or that, with the
amount of capital which he believed was still at his disposal, the
plan was unpractical. Young, highly optimistic, and somewhat
visionary, his dreams assumed the status of reality.
Bob's mind was thus pleasantly occupied when at the end of the first
week in February he returned to the river tilt to find Ed Matheson and
Bill Campbell back from Eskimo Bay, and Dick Blake, just in from his
trail, drawing off his frost-encrusted adicky.
"An' there's Bob, now!" exclaimed Ed, as Bob appeared in the doorway.
"'Tis grand, now, t' see you back," said Bob, his face beaming welcome
as he shook the hands of the returned travellers. "Dick an' me's been
missin' you wonderful."
"'Twere grand, now, t' see th' tilt when Bill an' me comes in last
evenin'. 'Twere th' hardest pull up from th' Bay with our loads we
ever has, an' we was tired enough t' drop when we gets here. Where's
Shad?"
"Wi' th' Injuns yet, an' I'm worryin' about he not comin' back. They
must ha' gone a long ways down north lookin' for deer, or they'd been
back before this. How'd you find th' folks at th' Bay, Ed?"
"Fine--all of un fine. Your mother's wantin' wonderful bad t' see you.
But when I tells she you'm all right, she stops worryin'. I were
forgettin' t' say anything about th' trouble wi' th' Mingens, though;"
and Ed grinned.
"Forgettin' a purpose?" asked Bob, smiling.
"Maybe so," admitted Ed. "What's past don't do nobody no good t' know
when they's nothin' for un t' make right. 'Twouldn't ha' helped none
for she t' know about th' Mingens, so I just naturally forgets un."
"I'm glad o' that. Mother'd 'a' worried an' been thinkin' all sorts o'
things happenin' what never would happen;" and, greatly relieved, Bob
asked, "An' when'd you make th' Bay?"
"'Twere just New Year. Bill an' me cruises along fast, bein' light,
an' takin' short sleeps. 'Twere night when we gets t' Wolf Bight, an'
I says t' Bill, says I: ''Tis near midnight, an' likewise t' th' New
Year. They'll be sleepin', an' le's's wake un up shootin' th' New Year
in like all creation.'
"Gettin' alongside th' winder, we lets go till our rifles is empty,
and then rushin' in th' door yells, 'Happy New Year!' They was awake,
all right, wonderin' what in time an' creation were turned loose on
un, we yellin' like a passel o' Injuns. They was glad t' see us.
"Bill goes home t' Kenemish with daylight, an' your father takes me t'
th' post wi' dogs an' komatik, your mother goin' along, an' I gets
home th' evenin'."
"Were they goin' right back home?"
"No, they 'bides t' th' post with Tom Black's folks till th' end o'
th' week, an' Bessie goes back with un t' be company with your mother.
Oh, I were forgettin'! Here's somethin' your mother were sendin';" and
Ed reached under the bunk and drew forth a package.
Upon opening the package Bob discovered a quantity of sweet cakes, a
loaf of plum bread, and a letter. He passed the cakes around, then
drawing up to the candle proceeded at once to read hungrily his
mother's letter.
It was a message of love and encouragement, closing with the news of
the bank failure and consequent loss of the little fortune with which
he had planned to do so many things. Presently looking up he said, in
a shaking voice:
"Why--Ed--Mother's sayin' th' bank's broke--an' all our money's gone."
"Aye," admitted Ed, his voice sympathetic and sorrowful. "'Tis broke,
lad--I were hopin' she wouldn't write you that, an' you wouldn't know
till you gets home. But don't worry about un, now, lad. 'Twon't do no
good. If you hadn't known about un now, you wouldn't be worryin' about
un. An' now you knows, 'twon't help none."
"I suppose you're right, Ed. But 'twill be hard not t' worry. I were
plannin' so."
"'Tain't so bad as t' have some o' your folks die, now. An' I been
noticin' all my life that sometimes things happens t' me I thinks is
'most more'n I can stand, an' I feels like givin' up. Then somethin'
comes along that's better'n anything I ever thought o' gettin'. An'
then when I thinks un out, I finds th' good couldn't ha' come without
me havin' th' trouble first. So don't get feelin' too bad about un,
Bob. This may be just openin' th' way for some wonderful good luck
better 'n all th' money you loses," soothed Ed.
There was a postscript which Bob had overlooked. Now in folding the
letter his eye caught it and he read it--a brief line added by Bessie,
telling him not to think too much about his loss, for she was sure it
would all be well in the end, and not to forget it was the Lord's will
or it could not have happened, adding, "Remember, Bob, the Lord is
always near you."
Nevertheless, Bob was very quiet at supper. He could not forget his
tumbled air castles. He could not forget the fact that the returns
from the present year's trapping would be insufficient to buy the next
year's outfit.
"They was a band o' Injuns comes t' th' post just before I leaves,
pretty nigh on their last legs," remarked Ed, when they had finished
eating and he had lighted his pipe. "They was about as nigh starved as
any passel o' men I ever seen, an' if they'd been starved much more
they'd been dead. I hears some o' th' band did die before these gets
out."
"Who were they?" asked Bob.
"Mountaineers," answered Ed. "They was back in th' country huntin',
but don't find th' deer. They's camped down t' th' post now."
"Did you hear where 'bouts they was huntin'?" inquired Dick. "In th'
nu'th'ard or s'uth'ard?"
"They all comes from th' nu'th'ard and west'ard o' th' post," said Ed.
"They tells me they finds it th' worst year for fur an' game up that
way they ever seen, an' I tells un 'tis th' same here."
"I wonders, now, how Shad an' th' Injuns he's with is makin' out.
They'll be wonderful bad off, an' they don't run on th' deer,"
suggested Dick.
"They'll be likely t' find un up where they finds un when I was with
un," reassured Bob, "but 'tis a long cruise there an' back."
Bob's loss was a keen disappointment to him. For several days it
robbed him of ambition, and he tramped along the trails and attended
to his traps dully and methodically, with a heavy heart. Then he began
to say to himself:
"'Tis th' Lard's way. 'Tweren't right for me to go tradin' or t' have
th' money, an' th' Lord knowin' it takes th' money away."
This thought, with his natural buoyancy of temperament, restored again
to a large extent his interest and ambition in his work; and when he
remembered that he was, after all, the owner of two unencumbered
trails, with all their traps, he almost forgot his disappointment--but
not altogether; that was impossible.
With the end of February ptarmigans began to reappear among the
willows along the river bank. They were welcomed by the trappers, for
they supplied a much needed variety to the diet. They offered hope,
too, that the period of famine was nearing its end.
Ed Matheson's report of the condition of the Indians appearing at the
Eskimo Bay post gave the men food for thought. When they gathered
again at the river tilt two weeks later, the chief subject of
conversation was Shad's continued absence, and many speculations were
put forth as to the probable movements of Shad and their Indian
friends. Whether or not they were likely to find caribou, where they
would go and what they would be likely to do should they fail, were
questions which they discussed at length. And they did not conceal
from one another the fact that they were deeply concerned for Shad's
safety.
When the trappers gathered again at the rendezvous on Friday, the
sixth of March, they fully expected that Shad would be there to greet
them, but they were disappointed. His failure to appear at this late
date excited alarm, but no course of action that would be in the least
likely to lead to results presented itself.
They agreed that the Indians had beyond doubt left a cache at the
Great Lake, for Sishetakushin had stated to Bob that he would do so;
and upon returning to that point it was believed Shad would have
sufficient food to proceed to the river tilt. Any search beyond the
Great Lake would be fruitless, for none could know in what direction
to search.
Still there was no Shad on Friday, the twentieth of March. They ate
their supper and resumed their speculations.
"I'm thinkin', now, t' make a cruise t' th' place where th' Injuns was
camped when I left un," declared Bob. "If they ain't there, I'll come
back, unless I sees signs of un. And, anyway, 'twill make me feel
better."
"An' I'll go along," said Ed. "We'll be startin' in th' mornin' early,
an' we may's well get our stuff out t'-night, ready t' pack."
They had blown out the candle and were lying in their bunks,
discussing still Shad's long absence, when the door of the tilt was
pushed quietly open and the figure of a man appeared in the moonlight
at the entrance.
They sprang from their bunks, and Ed Matheson, striking a match,
applied it to a candle. As the light flared up the man entered, and
Mookoomahn stood before them.