At length the break-up came, much as it always comes in that country.
The sun, grown strong and bold, vanquished the Spirit of Frost. The
snow became a sea of slush, and water covered the ice of lakes and
river. Finally the clouds opened, and for a week rain fell in a
deluge.
A thousand new streams sprang into being, rushing in white torrents to
join the swollen river. Cascades fell from every ledge and parapet.
Now and again a great boulder was loosened and went crashing down a
hillside with terrifying roar. The river, freed from its ice shackles,
overflowed its banks, and in the wild, unrestrained ardour of its new
power uprooted trees and washed them away upon its turbulent bosom as
it dashed madly seaward.
One day, when the rain had ceased and the waters had somewhat
subsided, Ungava Bob and Shad Trowbridge, accompanied by Mookoomahn,
turned northward in Shad's canoe to the Great Lake, following the
route which Manikawan had taken several months before in her journey
to the river tilt.
Manikawan's body was found as they had left it, and undisturbed. It
was lowered from its rude platform, and they laid it in its final
resting-place in a grave among the spruce trees not far from her
father's lodge. Over the grave a cairn of boulders was raised, and
surmounted by a tablet of wood upon which was carved simply the word
"MANIKAWAN."
Then they parted, Mookoomahn to turn northward in his long and lonely
journey to join his people, Bob and Shad to return to the river tilt,
and homeward.
It was on an afternoon late in June when the browned and
weather-beaten voyageurs turned their boat into Wolf Bight. What a
long, long time had elapsed, it seemed to Shad, since that foggy
morning in August when they had left the little cabin and said
farewell to the tearful group upon the shore; and how homelike and
restful the cabin looked now! What an age of experience had passed
since that night when Bob pulled him out of the Bay, and introduced
him, shivering and wet, to its hospitable shelter and warmth.
As they approached the shore a glad shout was heard, and a moment
later Emily--who had that very day reached home from St. Johns--and
Bessie, who was there to meet her, came running to the landing, with
Mrs. Gray and Richard and Douglas Campbell at their heels.
Emily laughed and cried with delight, quite smothering Bob with
kisses, and when she relinquished him to her mother she kissed each of
the other brown faces. Bob was quite impartial, and when his mother
released him Bessie was not forgotten in his greeting.
The most important, and therefore the first piece of news to be
imparted, was the partnership agreement between Shad and Bob. Douglas
at once prophesied success, and when, a fortnight later, Bob and
Richard took passage with Shad to St. Johns, Douglas accompanied them
as expert adviser in the selection of a trading vessel and the
necessary supplies for their posts.
* * * * *
The firm of Trowbridge and Gray began operations with the
establishment of stations in the interior, as originally designed.
Dick Blake was engaged to take charge of the post at the northerly end
of the Great Lake, where he quickly built up a large and lucrative
trade with both Nascaupee and Mountaineer Indians.
The river tilt was enlarged, and became a trading station and supply
base for the interior, over which Ed Matheson presided.
Bill Campbell, during the open season of navigation, had command of
the brigades of Indians employed to transport goods from Wolf Bight to
the interior posts, and during the midwinter months conducted a
sub-post and storehouse situated at the southerly end of the Great
Lake, not far from Manikawan's grave.
With the interior trade in such able hands, Ungava Bob devoted his
attention to the Bay trade, and it is needless to say that the
trappers of the region prospered.
Richard, in command of the trim schooner "Manikawan," also opened a
profitable trade with livyeres and Eskimos of the coast.
Shad Trowbridge, after graduation from college, quickly developed into
an able business man, and personally attended to the purchase of
supplies and the sale of products.
Trowbridge and Gray made mistakes, as was to be expected, and had
their ups and downs, but in the end they succeeded, and the firm is
known to-day from Boston to Hudson's Straits as one of the most
honourable and substantial concerns in the North.
At the very beginning of their career Shad and Bob adopted as their
trademark the picture of an Indian maiden with bow raised and arrow
poised ready for its flight, and beneath it the word "Manikawan." With
this constantly before them Shad declared they could never stray from
the original object of their enterprise, and could never forget the
lesson taught by Manikawan's heroic sacrifice. And never since the
firm began business have Manikawan's people failed to receive relief
in times of need, and never has there been a repetition of the awful
year of starvation.
"'Tis wonderfully strange, Bessie, how things come about," Bob
sometimes says to his wife, in their cosy home at St. Johns. "I used
to think the Lord had forgotten me sometimes, but I always found later
that those were the times He was nearest to me."
"The Lord has always been very close to you, Bob," Bessie invariably
replies.
Emily, at the earnest solicitation of Shad, was permitted to finish
her education in Boston under the chaperonage of Shad's sister, and
developed into a charming and accomplished woman, though she never
lost her love for the little cabin at Wolf Bight.
But the failures and successes of Trowbridge and Gray, and the
experiences of Emily in the new and greater world which she entered,
are stories by themselves, and each would require a volume to relate.