They looked at the Indian in awed and speechless horror. His tale of
suffering was told before he spoke. He had come from a land of
Tragedy. He had been stalking side by side with Death.
This was a mere shadowy caricature of the Mookoomahn Bob had known.
The face was fleshless as that of a skeleton head, with the skin of
the former inhabitant stretched and dried upon the bones; the lips so
shrunken that they scarcely served to cover the two white lines of
teeth; the eyes deep fallen into gaping cavities below the frontal
bone.
Drawing his skeleton hands from their mittens, and raising them in an
imploring gesture, Mookoomahn looked, as he stood there in the dim
candlelight under the low log ceiling, more a spectre--a ghostly
phantom visitor--than a living human being.
Then he spoke in a voice low and broken:
"White Brother of the Snow, Mookoomahn has long been tormented by the
Spirit of Hunger. When he slept the Spirit of Starvation sat by his
side, never sleeping. When he travelled the Spirit of Starvation
stalked at his heels, never tiring. For many suns the Spirit of Death
has had his cold fingers on Mookoomahn's shoulder."
Gently Bob removed the caribou-skin coat from the starving and
exhausted traveller, and made him comfortable while the others brewed
tea and heated some cold boiled ptarmigan in the pan.
"'Twon't do t' give he much at first," cautioned Dick Blake, setting
before Mookoomahn a small portion of the meat and a small piece of
bread with a cup of the hot tea. "He's like t' be wonderful sick,
anyway, th' carefullest we is. We'll let he have a small bit at a
time, an' let he have un often."
No questions were asked until after the Indian had eaten. It seemed
almost that no questions were necessary. The man had come alone. He
was in the last stages of starvation. These facts spoke loudly enough.
They told the tale of wasting strength, of hopeless struggle, of
tragic death that had taken place in the bleak wild wastes above.
The food revived and the tea stimulated Mookoomahn, and when he spoke
again, in answer to Bob's urgent request that he tell them of the fate
of Shad and the others, his voice was stronger.
He described the journey to the Lake of Willows, and thence to the
camp of starving Indians. He told how the shaman had made medicine to
the spirits; how the spirits had revealed to the shaman the things
that it was required the Indians do; how the Indians in their starved
condition were not able to fulfil the requirements laid upon them by
the spirits; and how in consequence the wrath of the spirits was not
placated.
He described the journey to the cache on the northern lake;
Sishetakushin's instructions, and gift of Manikawan to White Brother
of the Snow; of the parting from Sishetakushin.
Vividly he detailed the long and tedious return to the Great Lake; and
how the angry spirits reaching up had seized Shad, cast him into the
snow, and lamed him.
"The friend of White Brother of the Snow could not walk. The Matchi
Manitu had wounded his knee. Manikawan, the sister of Mookoomahn, had
promised White Brother of the Snow that she would not leave his friend
until he came.
"Mookoomahn told Manikawan White Brother of the Snow would not hold
her to her promise. That White Brother of the Snow did not mean that
she should die for his friend.
"Manikawan would not listen to Mookoomahn, and she said: 'When White
Brother of the Snow comes he will find Manikawan waiting with his
friend. She has promised. If the Spirit of Death comes into the lodge,
White Brother of the Snow will find Manikawan's body with the body of
his friend, and he will know that Manikawan kept her word.'
"Seven suns ago Mookoomahn left the lodge. He travelled slowly, for
the spirits clung to his feet and made them heavy. The spirits tripped
him and made him fall often. He killed three ptarmigans as he
travelled, and the flesh of the ptarmigans made him strong to reach
the lodge of White Brother of the Snow.
"For seven suns the friend of White Brother of the Snow and Manikawan
have had no food. The Spirit of Death stood very near the lodge when
Mookoomahn left it. The Spirit of Death has entered the lodge and
destroyed Manikawan and the friend of White Brother of the Snow."
With this sombre prophecy Mookoomahn ceased speaking, and leaned back
exhausted. As they looked at him they could appreciate the sufferings
of Shad and Manikawan, and no great stretch of the imagination was
necessary to picture the gruesome spectacle that they had no doubt
awaited them in the lodge on the Great Lake.