Without further preliminary or adieu, she lifted her canoe upon her head and disappeared as unexpectedly as she had appeared.



XV

THE PASSING OF THE WILD THINGS

It was already too late in the season to attempt further distribution of supplies with the canoe. Therefore, the boat and canoe were carried to a safe distance above the river, and a shelter of logs erected over them, that they might not be crushed under the weight of snow presently to come.

Two days later the lakes were clogged with ice, and a week later the first fall of snow that was to remain throughout the winter fell to a depth of several inches.

Then came an interval of waiting, but not of idleness, for Ungava Bob or Ed Matheson. Their new tilts were unsupplied with stretching boards for furs and many other necessities, in the preparation of which they occupied themselves at the river tilt, while the others lent a hand; though nearly every day Dick Blake or Bill Campbell accompanied Shad on hunting expeditions which resulted in keeping the larder well supplied with geese, ducks—now in their southward flight—ptarmigans, and an occasional porcupine.

The birds were all fat and in splendid condition. The ptarmigans, now changing their mottled brown-and-white coat for the pure white plumage of winter, were gathered into large flocks, and easily had. A considerable number were killed with the first blast of frosty weather, and, together with a few ducks and geese, stored where they would freeze and keep sweet for future use.

With the last week of October active trapping began, when fur, though not yet at its best, was in excellent condition.

With November winter fell upon the land in all its sub-Arctic rigour. For a day and a night a blizzard raged, so blinding, so terrific, and with the temperature so low that none dared venture out; and when the weather cleared, the snow, grown so deep that snowshoes were essential in travel, no longer melted under the mid-day sun.

Socks of heavy woollen duffel were now necessary to protect the feet, and buckskin moccasins, with knee-high leggings, took the place of sealskin boots.

In the final distribution of supplies among the tilts, long, narrow Indian toboggans were brought into service, and the loads hauled upon the toboggans.

Martens and foxes were the animals chiefly sought at this season. There were two methods followed in setting the marten traps. Where a tree of sufficient diameter was available, it was cut off as high as the trapper could wield his axe above the snow, and a notch about four inches deep and fourteen inches high cut some distance below the top of the stump and several feet above the snow. The bottom of this notch was given a level surface with the axe, the trap set upon it, and the bait hung in the side of the notch a foot above the trap. At other times an enclosure was made with spruce boughs, and in a narrow opening the trap was set, with the bait within the enclosure.

Fox traps were set upon the marshes, and baited with rabbits which had been hung in the tilt until they began to smell badly, or with other scraps of flesh. The trap securely fastened by its chain to a block of wood or the base of willow brush, was carefully concealed under a thin crust of snow.

The usual routine followed by Ungava Bob, after his trail was once in order and his traps set, was to leave the river tilt on Monday morning, and by a wide circuit around lake shores and marshes, embracing a distance of some fifteen miles, reach his tilt at the far end of the first lake at night. On Tuesday another wide circle of traps around contiguous lakes brought him back again at night to the same tilt. On Wednesday his trail led him to the tilt on the last lake of the old portage trail.

His original intention had been to continue from this tilt to the tilt which the Indians had robbed, and thence to the last tilt on Ed Matheson's trail, some fifteen miles to the northeast. But after the appearance of the Indians it had been deemed unsafe and inadvisable to do this, and the tilt on the river above the portage trail was, therefore, temporarily abandoned.

With this modification, his Thursday circuit of traps was so arranged that it brought him back at night to the tilt on the last lake, and on Friday he proceeded to Ed Matheson's last tilt. This arrangement carried him during the five days over seventy-five miles of trail along which his traps were distributed.

Ed Matheson's trail was so arranged that he also arrived at his last tilt on Friday evening, and he and Bob thus shared the tilt each fortnight from Friday until Monday.

Saturdays were occupied in making repairs and in doing the thousand and one odd jobs always at hand, Sunday in rest, and on Monday the return journey began which brought them to the river tilt on the following Friday, unless by chance they were delayed by storms.

This was the point of fortnightly rendezvous for the four trappers—the junction point of all their trails. Dick Blake's and Bill Campbell's trails took them in opposite directions, and during their period of absence from the river tilt neither saw any of his companions.

The fortnightly reunion at the river tilt was naturally an occasion they all looked forward to. It gave an opportunity to compare notes upon their success, to recount experiences, and to satisfy for a time the human craving for companionship.

Shad made the first outward journey with Bob, and returned with Ed Matheson. Then he made a round with Dick Blake, and finally a round with Bill Campbell.

Every feature of the work was new and interesting to Shad Trowbridge, and for a time he enjoyed it hugely. But presently it dropped into a dreary, monotonous routine. The vast, unbroken solitude, the endless tramping over endless snow, day after day, and the lack of adventure to which he had looked forward, served presently to make him moody and irritable.

Shad had hoped for sport with his rifle, but no big game had been seen—not so much as the track of a caribou. Long before this the last goose and duck had passed southward. Not a bird save the ever-present jay had been encountered in upward of three weeks. Even the rabbits, whose tracks had criss-crossed the early snow in every direction and packed it down along the willow brush, had unaccountably disappeared. The stock of fresh meat, save a pair of geese and three pairs of ptarmigans reserved for a Christmas feast, was exhausted.

These were extraordinary conditions. The men declared that never before in their experience had they observed so complete a disappearance of game. Caribou were usually rather numerous in November. In previous years ptarmigans and spruce grouse had been so plentiful that they were easily killed when needed. One year in every nine rabbits were said to vanish, but otherwise the total absence of game was inexplicable.

It was a condition, too, that caused uneasiness. The flour and pork brought into the country by the trappers was far from adequate to supply their needs. Sufficient wild game to at least double their provision supply was an absolute essential if they were to continue on the trails. Thus far the early game had supplied their requirements, but the prospects for the future were disquieting.

At the end of the first week in December, Bill Campbell and Shad returned from their fortnight on the trail to find their friends already at the river tilt and discussing the situation.

"What you havin', this cruise, Bill?" asked Dick, when the greetings were over.

"Th' worst cruise I ever has," Bill replied, as he drew off his adicky. "One white fox—nothin' else, an' no footin' now t' speak of. Shad an' me never see a hair or feather barrin' th' fox I catches, an' he were a poor un."

"I gets one marten an' a red, up an' back," said Dick. "Ed gets nothin', an' Bob gets one marten. 'Tis a wonderful bad showin'."

"Aye, a wonderful bad showin', gettin' never a hair, an' that's what I gets," declared Ed, in disgust. "If th' next cruise don't show a wonderful lot better, I starts for th' Bay th' mornin' after Christmas, an' I'll not be comin' back till th' middle o' February, whatever."

The dough bread, fried pork, and tea, which Ed and Bob had been preparing, were ready, and, the meal disposed of, pipes were lighted and the discussion of the all-important question was resumed.

"'Tisn't th' havin' a poor cruise now an' again's what's botherin' me," began Ed, "but they ain't no footin'; and where they ain't no footin', they ain't nothin'; an' where they ain't nothin', they ain't no use huntin' it."

"They ain't even a pa'tridge t' be killed for th' pot," complained Bill.

"No, an' we'll be seein' th' end of our grub, with nothin' t' help out, by th' end o' February, whatever," Ed dolefully prophesied.

"Isn't there danger of scurvy if we have nothing but salt pork to eat?" asked Shad.

"That they is, sure as shootin'," agreed Ed.

"If you'd like to go along with me, Shad," suggested Bob, who up to this time had said little, "we'll take a flat-sled with your tent an' a tent stove, an' a couple weeks' grub, an' go down t' th' nu'th'ard an' see if we can't run onto some deer. Th' deer's somewheres, an' if they ain't here they must be t' th' nu'th'ard."

"Of course I'll go with you, Bob," said Shad, delighted with the prospect of individual action and new experiences.

"An' you may be runnin' into some o' th' Mountaineers an' Nascaupees down north, an' let un know about th' tradin' next year," suggested Dick. "If you tells one Injun, th' hull passel o' both tribes'll know about un. Things travels wonderful fast among th' Injuns."

The following day two toboggans were packed with the provisions and equipment sufficient for a two weeks' absence, together with a considerable quantity of tea in addition to their probable requirements, and some plug tobacco, designed as gifts for the Indians.

Long before daylight on Monday morning adieus were said and the two young adventurers turned into the frozen, silent wastes to the northward, Bob in the lead making a rapid pace, Shad following, and each hauling his toboggan.



XVI

ALONE WITH THE INDIANS

At the edge of every frozen marsh and lake Ungava Bob paused to reconnoitre for caribou, but always to be disappointed, and when he and Shad halted at sundown to pitch their night camp, no living thing had they seen.

Shad's small wedge tent was stretched between two trees, snow was banked around it on the outside, and a thick bed of boughs spread upon the snow within. Two short butts of logs were placed at proper distance apart near the entrance and inside the tent, the tent stove set upon them, and with an ample supply of wood cut and split, their night shelter, with a roaring fire in the stove, was warm and cosy.

The days that followed were equally as disappointing. The smooth white surface of the snow was unmarred by track of beast or bird. No living creature stirred. No sound broke the silence. The frozen world was dead, and the silence was the silence of the sepulchre.

"It's so quiet you can hear it," Shad remarked once when they halted to make tea.

"Aye," said Bob, "'tis that, and they's no footin' of even rabbits. I can't make un out."

On the afternoon of the third day after leaving the river tilt, they came upon the southern shore of the Great Lake of the Indians, and turning westward presently discovered Sishetakushin's wigwam.

The travellers received a warm welcome from the Indians. Sishetakushin and Mookoomahn were indeed noisy and effusive in their greeting. Manikawan radiated pleasure, but she and her mother, a large, fat woman, as became their status as women, remained in the background.

The Indians had killed some caribou early in the season, and jerked the meat. They had just killed a bear whose winter den they had discovered, and over the fire was a kettle of stewing beaver meat, upon which they feasted their visitors.

At the proper time Bob presented them with tea, Shad gave them each some tobacco, and then Bob told them of his proposed trading project.

"My people will be glad," said Sishetakushin, "and you will have much trade."

It developed in the course of conversation that the Indians were preparing to move at once to the Lake of Willows (Petitsikapau), to the northwest, in the hope of meeting caribou, for none had been seen by them since those they had killed in early fall.

They were to cache some of their provisions near the Great Lake; and when they had made a sufficient kill in the North to supply them with food, were to return to their cache near the Great Lake to trap martens, for in the more northerly country, where wide barrens take the place of forests, martens are rarely to be found.

"Bob, here's a chance I've been hoping for," said Shad, when Bob interpreted to him the Indians' plan. "Do you think they would be willing to let me go with them until their return here, if I gave them some tobacco?"

"They's no tellin', Shad, how long they'll be away," suggested Bob.

"But I want to go if they'll let me go. Please ask them," insisted Shad.

"But they may not be findin' deer, an' if they don't find un they won't be comin' back here till th' end o' winter. You don't want t' be with un th' rest o' th' winter, Shad; 'twill be rougher cruisin' than with us," Bob warned.

"Ask them. I'm going if they'll have me along;" and Shad displayed in his tone a suggestion of resentment that Bob should question the advisability of anything upon which he had determined.

The Indians discussed the matter at some length before finally giving Bob an affirmative decision.

"They says you can go, Shad, but they'll not promise t' be back here for two months, whatever, an' when they does they'll come t' th' river tilt with you," said Bob.

"Good! It'll give me some change of experience, and the chance to study their life and customs that I've wanted;" and Shad was elated with the prospect.

Partly because of the earnest solicitation of his Indian friends, but chiefly in the hope of dissuading Shad from his determination, Bob remained in the Indian camp the remainder of the week. While they still maintained a degree of reserve toward Shad, Bob was treated in every respect as one of them.

Manikawan made him the object of her particular attention. She waited upon him as the Indian women wait upon their lords, anticipating his needs.

In expectation of his coming she had, after her return from the river tilt, made for him a beautiful coat of caribou skins. The hair, left on the skins, made a warm lining, while the outside of the coat, tanned as soft and white as chamois, was decorated with designs painted in colours. Attached to it was a hood of wolfskin.

Accompanying the coat was a pair of long, close-fitting buckskin leggings, and a pair of buckskin moccasins, both decorated, and the whole comprising the typical winter suit of a Nascaupee hunter.

Manikawan's attentions were extremely irritating to Bob, but he could not well avoid them, and to have declined to accept the gift which she had made especially for him in anticipation of his coming, would have caused her keen disappointment. So he accepted them and donned them, to her evident delight.

"Shad," said Bob, on the Sunday evening after their arrival "I has t' start back in th' mornin', an' you better be goin' with me."

"No," insisted Shad, "I'll stick to the Indians for a while."

The following morning Bob bade them adieu.

"Take care of yourself, old man," said Shad. "I'll see you in a month or so."

"I hopes so, Shad, an' you take care o' yourself, now. I'm fearin' t' leave you, Shad."

"Oh, I know how to look out for myself," declared Shad. "Don't worry about me."

Turning to Manikawan, who stood mutely waiting for the word of farewell that she hoped Bob would bestow upon her, he said, in the Indian tongue:

"White Brother of the Snow must go to his hunting grounds. He is leaving behind him his friend. Will Manikawan minister to his friend as she would to him? Will she see that no harm comes to him?"

"Manikawan will do as White Brother of the Snow directs," she answered. "She will minister to his friend's needs. She will make for his friend the nabwe. His friend will not be hungry. Manikawan will care for him until White Brother of the Snow is weary of hunting and comes again to Sishetakushin's lodge. She will do this because he is the friend of White Brother of the Snow."

Then Bob turned into the white, frigid waste to the southward, and Shad was alone with the Indians.



XVII

CHRISTMAS AT THE RIVER TILT

Christmas fell on Thursday that year, and it had been arranged that the trappers, by turning back on their trails the preceding Saturday instead of waiting as was their custom until Monday, and by slighting some of the less important sections of the trails on their return trip, should gather at the river tilt on Wednesday evening, in order to celebrate the holiday with a feast.

It was late on Christmas eve when Ungava Bob, returning from the Indian camp, drew his toboggan into the clearing in the centre of which stood the river tilt. Its roof was scarcely visible in the moonlight above the high drifted snow. He had hoped that some of the others might have arrived before him, but no smoke issued from the pipe, and fresh drifted, untrodden snow around the door told him that he was the first.

It was fearfully cold. Rime filled the air. The deerskin coat which Manikawan had given him, and which he wore, was thick coated with frost.

He paused before the door and stood for a moment to painfully pick away the ice that had accumulated upon his eyelashes, partially closing his eyelids, and discovered that his nose and cheeks were frost-bitten. He drew his right hand from its mitten, and holding his nose in the bare palm, covered the exposed hand with the mittened palm of the other, quickly rubbing the frosted parts with the warm palm to restore circulation.

Presently, satisfied that the frost had been removed from nose and cheeks, he kicked off his snowshoes, shovelled the accumulated snow from the doorway with one of them, set the snowshoes on end in the snow at one side, and entering the tilt lighted a candle and kindled a fire in the stove.

Taking the kettle from the stove and an axe from a corner, he passed out of the tilt and down to the river, chopped open the water hole, filled the kettle, and returning set it over to heat.

Unpacking his toboggan and stowing the things away, he leaned it end up against the tilt, brought a bucket of water from the river for culinary use, removed his deerskin coat, and settled down in the now comfortable tilt to prepare supper and await his friends.

Presently he heard a movement outside, and a moment later Dick Blake poked his head in at the door.

"Evenin', Bob," he greeted. "Glad t' see you. Th' tilt smells fine an' warm! Where's Shad?" he asked, entering and rubbing his hands over the stove.

"Stoppin' wi' th' Injuns. I were tryin' t' get he t' come back, but he thinks he wants t' go huntin' deer with un, an' stays," explained Bob. "Any fur?"

"Only one marten an' one otter, but they's good uns. No sign o' foxes. But foxes won't stay when th' rabbits goes;" and Dick went out to unpack.

Presently Bill Campbell arrived, and a little later Ed Matheson drew his long form through the low doorway, his red beard laden with ice.

"Where's Shad?" he asked, after greetings were exchanged.

Bob explained Shad's absence.

"Well, now!" he exclaimed. "Shad must ha' been gettin' light-headed t' do that. Well, he's welcome t' 'bide 'long with Injuns if he wants to, but I'm thinkin' by about now he's wishin' he was where he ain't. An' by t'morrer he'll have boiled goose an' fried pa'tridges on his mind, an' wishin' harder 'n ever he were back here in th' river tilt."

"He were wantin' th' hunt, an' now he may not find un so bad," said Bob.

"He won't be havin' no feather-bed time cruisin' about with Injuns," insisted Ed. "Shad's gettin' wonderful peevish an' sot in his way lately. He's thinkin' o' th' fine grub an' good times he's been havin' t' that college place he talks about, instead o' thinkin' o' how he likes rabbit meat three times a day an' betwixt meals when you an' him was 'bidin' a time on th' island over here because you wasn't havin' wings t' fly off, an' they wa'n't no other way t' get off till th' Injun lass takes you off."

"Shad weren't gettin' peeved," objected Bob, ready to defend his absent friend. "He were just disappointed at findin' no huntin', an' he 'bides with th' Injuns t' get some deer."

"Maybe so, but Shad'll be glad enough t' get back t' th' river tilt, an' when he is gettin' back he'll be findin' it fine. He'll be thinkin' o' th' tough cruisin' with th' Injuns instead o' th' grub at his college place, an' that'll make he think 'tis fine in th' tilts. That's the way it mostly is with folks. They always wants somethin' they ain't got, an' when they gets un they wants somethin' else. An' like's not then they wants what they was havin' first, because they can't have un now."

Ed paused to pour a cup of tea and help himself to pork.

"Shad's a good mate, though," he continued magnanimously. "He ain't gettin' used t' th' bush yet. That's all's th' matter with he. He'll get used t' un after a bit, an' then he won't be gettin' peeved like he is now."

"I'm wishin' he weren't stayin' back with th' Injuns now. I'm fearin' he'll be havin' a hard time of un—an' I'm fearin' he may be gettin' in trouble not knowin' how t' take un," Bob remarked solicitously.

"I'm wonderful sorry, now, he stays wi' th' Injuns. 'Twould be fine t' have he here for Christmas," agreed Ed, as he drew a plug of black tobacco from his pocket and began to shave some of it into the hollow of his hand, preparatory to filling his pipe.

"Any fur this trip?" asked Bob.

"Two martens—both fine uns. Not so bad. How'd you make un, Dick?"

"I gets one marten an' shoots an otter," answered Dick.

"You gettin' any, Bill?" asked Ed, turning to Bill, who was reclining in one of the bunks and smoking in luxurious contentment.

"Aye, one marten, an' I shoots a wolf last evenin'—a wonderful poor wolf, an' his skin ain't much account. Three of un were after me on th' trail all day, but I only gets one."

"Three wolves, now—an' poor uns," commented Dick. "Wolves ain't follerin' a man all day unless they's hungry, an' they ain't like t' be hungry where they's deer."

"No," agreed Ed, who had lighted his pipe, one moccasined heel drawn up on the edge of the bunk upon which he lounged, the other long leg stretched out. "Wolves follers th' deer, but when they ain't no deer t' faller they don't faller un. Which means they ain't no deer in this part o' th' country, an' so they just naturally fallers Bill as th' next best meat."

"An' bein' poor means they's hungry, an' bein' hungry means they's lickin' their chops for Bill," continued Dick.

"Were it night, now?" asked Ed.

"No, 'twere broad day," answered Bill, undisturbed.

"Now if 'twere night, I'd say they was follerin' you because your red hair lights th' trail up for un."

"'Tain't no redder 'n your'n," retorted Bill.

"Never mind un, Bill," said Bob sympathetically. "Ed's jealous because your hair's curly an' his 'n ain't."

"Now, how about gettin' grub?" suggested Ed, when the laugh had subsided. "They ain't nothin' t' kill, an' we got t' haul grub in from th' Bay. I'm thinkin' t' start down Friday, an' if one o' you wants t' go along, we'll both haul up a load on our flatsleds. How'd you like t' go, Bill? They's a moon, an' by travellin' some at night we'll make th' Bay for th' New Year, goin' light, an' be back by th' first o' February, whatever, with our loads."



"I'd like wonderful well t' go!" answered Bill, elated at the prospect of a visit to the Bay, brief as it would be.

"What you think of un?" asked Ed, addressing Dick and Bob jointly.

"We got t' have grub if we stays on th' trails," agreed Dick, "an' they's no sign o' killin' any meat."

"Aye, we'll all have t' leave th' trails by th' first o' March, whatever, unless some of us goes for grub," said Bob.

"Bill an' me bein' away'll stretch th' grub we has, for Bill be a wonderful eater—" Bill interjected a protest, but Ed, ignoring it, continued: "An' what we hauls back on th' flatsleds'll carry us over th' spring trappin'. We'll be startin' early on Friday. We'll go down your trail an' spring your traps up on th' way out, Bill."

A late breakfast of fried ptarmigans, and a late afternoon dinner of boiled goose, with an evening "snack" of ptarmigan before retiring—the last of the game reserved from the fall shooting—together with camp bread and tea, comprised the Christmas menu.

Directly after breakfast Ed and Bill made ready for packing on their toboggans the light outfit which they were to use on their outward trip; and this done, the four held a service of song in which all joined heartily, and spent the remainder of the day luxuriously lounging in the tilt and telling stories.

Shad was sincerely missed. He had looked forward keenly to the Christmas feast, and many hearty good wishes were expressed for him—that even among the Indians he might pass a pleasant day—that he would not find the hardships so great as his friends had feared—and that he would soon return to them in safety and none the worse for his experiences.

Then the thoughts turned to home, and speculations as to what the far-off loved ones were doing at the moment.

"I'm thinkin' a wonderful lot of home now," said Bob. "Tell Mother an' Father, Ed, I'm safe an' thinkin' of un every day, an' of Emily, away off somewheres in St. Johns t' school. It's makin' me rare lonesome t' think o' home without Emily there. An'—an'—tell Mother, Ed—I never forgets my prayers."

"That I will, lad!" promised Ed heartily. "An' what you wantin' me t' say t' Bessie, now? Tell she about th' Injun lass an' th' fine deerskin coat she's givin' you?"

"Tell Bessie I always carries th' ca'tridge bag she gives me—an' I'm thinkin' how 'tis she that makes un—an' I'll be glad t'—get home t' th' Bay," directed Bob hesitatingly.

"Oh, aye. Glad t' get back t' see th' Bay, I'm thinkin'," laughed Ed.

As Bob and Dick returned to the tilt an hour before daybreak, after watching Ed and Bill disappear down the trail in the still, bitter cold of the starlit morning, Bob remarked:

"I'm feelin' wonderful strange—I'm not knowin' how. 'Tis a lonesomeness—but different—like as if somethin' were goin' t' happen."

"An' I has th' same sort o' feelin'," confessed Dick. "'Tis like th' stillness before a big storm breaks at sea—'tis like as if some one was dyin' clost by."



XVIII

THE SPIRIT OF DEATH GROWS BOLD

When Ungava Bob was gone, Shad Trowbridge returned to the deerskin lodge to think. Now that he was alone with the Indians, he was not at all sure that he did not regret his decision to remain with them and share their uncertain fortunes.

For a moment the thought occurred to him that he might even yet follow Bob's trail and overtake him in his night camp. But he thrust the impulse aside at once as unworthy consideration. He had come to his decision, and he was determined to remain and play the game to a finish.

He craved action and excitement, and the glamour of romance that surrounded the Indians and their nomadic life had attracted him. It was this, together with the human instinct to play at games of chance, and the primordial instinct slumbering in every strong man's breast to throw off restraint and, untrammelled, match his brains and strength against the forces of untamed nature, that had led Shad to adopt the red man's life for a period which he believed would not exceed three or four weeks at most.

In preparation for departure the following day, the Indians erected upon an elevated flat rock, which winds had swept bare of snow, a log shelter some five feet square and five feet high. After lining the bottom and sides of this shelter with spruce boughs, a quantity of jerked venison and dried fish was deposited in it, the top covered with boughs, and the roof, consisting of logs laid closely side by side and weighted with stones, was placed in position. This precaution was taken to protect the cache from marauding animals.

In the dim light of the cold December morning the deerskin covering of the wigwam was stripped from the poles, folded and packed upon the toboggans, together with the simple housekeeping equipment of the Indians, and a sufficient quantity of fresh bear's meat and jerked venison to sustain them for a fortnight.

Immediately the march was begun toward the Lake of Willows, Sishetakushin and Mookoomahn in turn taking the lead and breaking the trail, the others following, single file.

Day after day they pushed on and still on through scattered forests, across wide barrens and over frozen lakes, always on the alert for caribou but always disappointed.

Once a small flock of ptarmigans was seen along the willow brush that lined a stream. Shad drew his shotgun from his toboggan, but the Indians would not permit him to use it, and in disgust he returned it to its place while he watched Sishetakushin and Mookoomahn kill the birds with bows and arrows. He marvelled at their skill. Indeed, he did not observe a single arrow go astray of its mark.

Eleven birds were secured in this way—the first game they had seen, and the last they were to see for several days.

A dead, awful cold settled upon the earth. The very atmosphere was frozen. Rime in shimmering, glittering particles hung suspended in space, and covered bushes, trees, and rocks—scintillating in the sunlight and seeming to intensify the cold.

The few brief hours of sunshine were disregarded. The sun rose only to tantalise. For three or four hours each day it hung close to the horizon, then dropped again below the southwestern hills; and its rays gave out no warmth.

No sign of game was seen near the Lake of Willows, and no halt was made. The life of the Indians depended upon the killing of caribou. The little cache of jerked venison and fish left near the Great Lake would scarcely have sustained them a month. The few ptarmigans killed now and again were of small assistance. The food they hauled was nearly exhausted.

Then came a period of storm. For a week snow fell and gales blew with such terrific fury that no living thing could have existed in the open, and during this period a halt was unavoidable.

Once a day a small ration was doled out—pitifully small—enough to tantalise appetite, but not to still hunger. Shad was consumed with a craving for food. He could think of nothing but food. His days on the trails and in the tilts with the trappers were remembered as days of luxury and feasting. He wondered if Bob and the others had thought of him when they ate their Christmas dinner of geese and ptarmigans. "Oh, for one delicious meal of pork and camp bread. Oh, for one night of the luxurious warmth of the river tilt!"

When the storm abated sufficiently to permit them to continue their journey, he moved his legs mechanically, even forgetting at last that the effort was painful. An insidious weakness was taking possession of him. It was an effort to draw his lightly-laden toboggan. It made him dizzy to swing an axe when he assisted Manikawan to cut wood for the fire. His knees gave way under him when he sat down.

Manikawan's plump cheeks were sunken. Her eyes were growing big and staring. Her mother had lost half her bulk, and Sishetakushin and Mookoomahn were also noticeably affected. They no longer laughed and seldom spoke.

As one performing a duty that must not under any circumstance or condition be neglected, Manikawan conscientiously looked after Shad's welfare; but still she treated him with the same degree of dignity and reserve, if not aloofness, that she had always maintained toward him. He realised that what she did for him she did because he was the friend of her beloved White Brother of the Snow, and not for his own sake—as a dog will guard the thing which its master directs it to guard, faithfully and untiringly, for the master's sake, but with no other attachment for the thing itself.

He wondered why they did not return to their cache on the Great Lake after the long storm, and then it occurred to him that probably their destination was the trading post at Ungava, of which Bob had told him.

On the afternoon of the second day after the storm, they came upon a single wigwam. Sishetakushin and Mookoomahn looked into it and passed on. Shad raised the flap, and peering in saw the emaciated figure of an old Indian. He was quite stark and dead, his wide-open eyes staring vacantly into space. He had been abandoned to die.

That evening Shad stumbled over an object in the snow. He stooped to examine it in the starlight, and was horrified to discover the dead body of a woman.

The following morning, as they plodded wearily forward under the faint light of the stars, they came suddenly upon a group of wigwams. Men, women, and children came out to meet them—an emaciated, starved, unkempt horde that had more the appearance of ghouls and skeletons than human beings. Some of them tottered as they walked, some fell in the snow and with difficulty regained their feet.

"Atuk! Atuk! Have you found the atuk?" was the cry from all—a hopeless cry of desperation, as they crowded around the travellers.

"We have not found the atuk," answered Sishetakushin.

Some heard him stoically, others staggered hopelessly away to their wigwams, others wailed:

"The Great Spirit of the Sky is angry. He has sent all the spirits to destroy us. The Spirit of Hunger—the Gaunt Gray Wolf—is at our back. The raven, the Black Spirit of Death, is ready to attack us. The Spirit of the Tempest torments us. The Spirits of the Forest and of the Barrens mock us. The Great Spirit of the Sky has driven away the atuk, and our people are starving. Many of our people are dead. Four of our hunters now lie dead in their lodges."

Shad Trowbridge could not understand what was said, but he could not fail to understand the situation.

For some inexplicable reason the caribou, upon which the Indians depended for food, had disappeared from the land. All living things save these starving wretches had vanished.

For twenty-four hours not a mouthful of food had passed Shad's own lips, and a sickening dread engulfed his soul.

[Footnote: This was the winter of 1890-1891, known as "the year of starvation," when for some unknown reason the caribou failed to appear in their accustomed haunts, and as a result one out of every three of the Indians of northern Labrador perished of starvation.]



XIX

THE CACHE ON THE LAKE

Shad Trowbridge stood dazed, as one in a dream—a horrid, awful dream. He looked through a haze, and what he saw was distorted, unreal, terrible. The suffering creatures about him were spectral phantoms of the nether world, the shimmering rime, a symbol of death, the endless snow the white robe of the grave quickly to cover them all.

A sudden stillness fell upon the camp, to be presently broken by the agonised scream of a woman, shrill and startling, followed by wailings and melancholy moans. The Spirit of Death had snatched away her favourite son.

A sickening nausea overtook Shad, and he sank upon his toboggan, faint and dizzy with an overpowering weakness. His imagination was getting the better of him.

It is always dangerous and sometimes fatal for one to permit the imagination to assert itself in seasons of peril. Will power to put away thoughts of to-morrow, to think only of to-day, to do to-day the thing which necessity requires, coupled with a determination never to abandon hope, is a paramount essential for the successful explorer to possess.

In this moment of hopeless surrender Shad felt Manikawan's hand rest lightly upon his shoulder for an instant, and looking up he saw her standing before him, tall, straight, commanding, and as she looked that day on the river bank when she bade him and Bob wait for her return to free them from their island prison.

"The friend of White Brother of the Snow is not a coward. He is not afraid of the Spirit of Hunger. He is not afraid of the Spirit of Death. He is brave. He once outwitted the Matchi Manitu of the River. He will outwit the Spirit of Hunger. He will outwit the Spirit of Death. The friend of White Brother of the Snow is brave. He is not afraid to die."

The words were unintelligible to him, but their import was unmistakable. She, a young Indian maiden, was offering him encouragement, and recalling him to his manhood.

He arose to his feet, ashamed that she had read his mind, ashamed that she had found it necessary to recall him from a lapse into his foolish weakness which must have seemed to her like cowardice.

But he remembered now that he was a man—a white man—and because he was a white man, the physical equal and mental superior of any savage there. Looking into Manikawan's eyes, he made an unspoken vow that she should never again have cause to chide him.

Dawn was breaking, and in the growing light a half-dozen lodges were to be seen. At one side and alone stood a deerskin tent of peculiar form. It was a high tent of exceedingly small circumference, and where the smoke opening was provided and the poles protruded at the top of the ordinary wigwam, this was tightly closed. It was the medicine lodge of the shaman.

Sishetakushin and Mookoomahn had entered one of the lodges immediately after the tumult caused by their arrival had subsided, and Manikawan now followed her mother into another lodge. There were no Indians visible. The moans of the grief-stricken mother, rising above the voices of men in the lodge which Sishetakushin and Mookoomahn had entered, were the only sounds.

The air was bitterly cold, but the tragedy enacting around him had for a time rendered Shad quite insensible to it. When he did finally realise that, standing inactive, he was numbed and chilled, he still lingered a little before joining Sishetakushin and Mookoomahn, dreading to enter the famine-stricken lodges.

At last, however, necessity drove him to do so, and within the lodge he discovered that a council was in progress. In the centre a fire burned, and around it the men, solemn and dignified, sat in a circle. One after another of the Indians spoke in earnest debate. They were considering what action they should take to preserve their lives, and Shad, as deeply interested as any, felt aggrieved that he could not immediately learn the final result of the conference, which came to an end as the sun cast its first feeble rays over the barren ranges that marked the southeastern horizon.

When the council closed the Indians filed out of the lodge, and one, a tall old man, fantastically attired in skins, entered the medicine lodge alone, carefully closing the entrance after him to exclude any ray of light.

Immediately drum beats were heard within the tent, accompanied by a low groaning and moaning, which gradually increased in volume and pitch until presently it became a high, penetrating, blood-curdling screech. This continued for perhaps half an hour, the drum beats never ceasing their monotonous rat-tat-tat.

The shaman, or medicine man, thus working himself into a frenzy, at length believed he saw within the lodge the ghostly form of the particular Matchi Manitu, or evil spirit, responsible for the disappearance of the caribou and the resulting famine.

This spirit's wrath it was believed had for some reason unknown to the Indians been aroused against them. Only the shaman could get into communication with the spirit, and learn from it what course the Indians would be required to pursue to placate its wrath, and remove its curse.

When the appearance of the spirit was announced, the shaman began to supplicate and implore the Matchi Manitu to withdraw from the people the pursuit of Famine; to return the caribou to the land; and to preserve the lives of the dying.

Presently in tones of joy the shaman announced that he had succeeded in enlisting the services of the Matchi Manitu, and with the announcement the din within the lodge ceased, and for several minutes mysterious whisperings were heard.

Suddenly the shaman threw over the lodge, and in a state of exhaustion tottered forward. Still under the influence of the paroxysms into which he had worked himself, he delivered in a wandering, disconnected jumble of meaningless sentences the demands of the Matchi Manitu. These consisted of many unreasonable and impossible feats that the people were required to accomplish before the Spirit of Starvation—the Gaunt Gray Wolf—would cease to follow upon their trail.

The Indians began at once to break camp. Sishetakushin had reported no caribou to the southward. Their only remaining hope was to reach the haven of Ungava post to the northward; and they were to begin the life-and-death struggle northward at once—a struggle in which many were to fall.

A sense of vast relief was experienced by Shad when Sishetakushin resumed the march. Famished and weak as he was, this was inexpressibly preferable to a continuance with the starving crowd, and he turned his back upon the camp, little caring whence their trail led.

For a while they continued northward upon the frozen bed of a stream, which they had been following for several days, then a sharp turn was made to the eastward, and as the sun was setting they came upon the ice of a wide lake.

At the end of a half-hour of slow plodding across an arm of the lake, they entered the edge of sparsely wooded forest and halted. Sishetakushin and Mookoomahn began at once to remove the snow from the top of what appeared to be a high drift, and a little below the surface uncovered the roof of a cache similar to the one they had made on the shores of the Great Lake of the Indians, where Shad and Ungava Bob had found them.

Shad's heart gave a bound when the object of the journey was revealed to him. Here was food and promise of life! And Bob's words, so often repeated when they were stranded on the island, flashed into his mind:

"It's th' Lard's way. He's watchin' you when you thinks He's losin' track o' you. He's takin' care o' you an' you does your best t' take care o' yourself."

Manikawan and her mother stretched the deerskin cover upon wigwam poles used the previous summer and still standing near the lake, and Shad cleared the snow from the interior of the wigwam, while the women broke boughs and laid the bed.

In the meantime, Sishetakushin and Mookoomahn opened the cache and transferred its precious contents to the wigwam. A fire was kindled, and in the cosy warmth of their shelter they broke their fast, which had now extended over a period of thirty-six hours.

The small portion of dried caribou meat doled out to each was far from satisfying. Some of the tea which Ungava Bob had given the Indians still remained. A kettle of this was brewed, and it served to stimulate and warm them. Then they lighted their pipes and for a time smoked in silence.

At length Sishetakushin, turning to Mookoomahn, began:

"On the Lake of the Beaver to the northward we have a small store of atuk weas (deer's meat). We also have there the cover of a lodge. Three suns will pass before we can reach this store of food. On the Great Lake we have another store.

"Sishetakushin and the woman will travel to the Lake of the Beaver. With the store of provisions and the lodge which we find on the Lake of the Beaver we will travel northward to the lodge of the white man, where the water of the river joins the big sea water, and where we shall find food.

"Mookoomahn and the maiden, with the friend of White Brother of the Snow, will travel southward to the Great Lake. Mookoomahn will show the white man the way to the lodge of White Brother of the Snow. Then he will return to the Great Lake and trap the marten and the mink.

"When the sun grows strong, and drives away the Spirit of the Frost, Mookoomahn will travel northward to the Lake of the Beaver. There he will find Sishetakushin and the woman to welcome him. He will take his food from the waters as he travels.

"The maiden will remain in the lodge of White Brother of the Snow. Sishetakushin gives her to White Brother of the Snow. She is his. White Brother of the Snow is of our people. He will be glad, and the maiden will be glad. White Brother of the Snow has white man's food in great store. Mookoomahn will not be hungry."

"Mookoomahn will do as Sishetakushin directs," answered Mookoomahn.

For a time all smoked in silence, then Sishetakushin resumed:

"Of the dried meat on the toboggan Mookoomahn and those who are with him will eat but once during each sun. They will eat little. If they eat much, the meat will soon be gone, and the Spirit of Starvation will overtake them and destroy them."

"Mookoomahn and those that are with him will do as Sishetakushin directs," said Mookoomahn.

A series of signs and pantomime conveyed to Shad the substance of Sishetakushin's remarks. He understood that on the morrow the party was to separate. That he with Mookoomahn and Manikawan were to return to the Great Lake, and that they had been cautioned to husband their provisions.

He surveyed the small bundle of jerked venison with misgivings. Even with one light meal a day he calculated that it could not last them above three weeks. Their journey from the cache on the Great Lake to their present position had consumed a month, including a period of one week when they were stormbound.

Should they be fortunate and encounter no storms, the food, sparingly doled out, might serve to sustain them. If storms delayed them, it certainly would not.

In any case their lives must hang in the balance until the cache was reached, unless game were encountered in the meantime, which seemed highly improbable.

A meagre meal was served at an early hour the following morning. As usual, camp was broken long before day, and then came the farewells.

The parting between Sishetakushin and Mookoomahn was affecting, that between the women more stoical. Shad regretfully shook the hands of the old Indian and his wife. They had been friends to him, and he had no expectation that he should ever see them again.

Then Shad and his companions turned southward into the wide wastes of frozen desolation that lay between him and his friends. It was to be a journey of tragic experiences—a journey that was to try his metal as it had never yet been tried.



XX

THE FOLK AT WOLF BIGHT

The Grays were very lonely and the little cabin at Wolf Bight seemed desolate and deserted indeed during the first days following the departure of the trappers for the interior. Mrs. Gray and Emily cried a little, and often Emily would say:

"I wonders where Bob is now, Mother, an' what he's doin'?"

"He's workin' up th' river, lass, an' th' dirty weather's makin' th' trackin' an' portagin' wonderful hard for un," she would answer, when it stormed; or, when the sun shone, "They's havin' a fine day for travellin' now."

But presently the preparations for Emily's departure for school occupied their attention to the exclusion of all else, and they forgot for a time their loneliness.

Her going was to be an event of vast importance. It was an innovation, not only in their household but in the community, for never before had any of the young people of the Bay attended school; and never before, save on the occasion when Emily had been taken to the St. Johns hospital the previous year, to undergo an operation, had any of the girls—or women, either, for that matter—been farther from home than Fort Pelican.

When Bob came into his little fortune through the salvage of the trading schooner, "Maid of the North," Mrs. Gray had urged that Richard rest from the trail for one season, and at the same time give the animals an opportunity to increase. This he had done, and during the previous winter, when Bob also was at home, he and Bob had occupied their time in the woods with the axe and pit saw, cutting a quantity of timber and planking.

There was no immediate need of this timber, and when Bob was gone Richard determined to utilise it in the construction of a small schooner, in anticipation of the trading operations to begin the following year. Such a vessel would be a necessity in transporting supplies from Fort Pelican to the store at Wolf Bight.

Therefore, he began at once the work of laying the keel. There were nearly three months at his disposal before he would go out upon his trapping trail, and in this time, hoping to accomplish much, he remained at his task from early morning until dusk drove him from it. Thus occupied, Mrs. Gray and Emily seldom saw him, save at meal hours and after candle-light in the evening, and this made them doubly lonesome.

One day late in August, Douglas Campbell sailed his boat over to Wolf Bight to spend the day with his friends and to announce that a week later he would come for Emily to take her to Fort Pelican, where they were to connect with the mail boat for St. Johns.

This recalled the near approach of Emily's departure, and the days that followed passed with amazing rapidity. Emily's new woollen frock—the first woollen frock she had ever possessed—needed still some finishing touches. It was to be her Sunday dress—to be worn at church, where there would be many fine people to see her—and as pretty as the mother's skill and care could make it.

Then there were the print frocks for everyday wear, to be freshly laundered and packed with other clothing into a new wooden chest which her father had made for her; and the innumerable last things to be done, which kept Emily and her mother in a continuous state of flurry and excitement.

Quite too soon Emily's last day at home dawned, and, true to his appointment, Douglas Campbell arrived during the afternoon. He looked very grand and dignified and altogether unlike himself in his suit of grey tweed. He wore this suit only on those rare occasions—usually at intervals of three or four years—when business called him to St. Johns, and Emily had but once before seen him so strangely attired.

He looked so strange and unnatural—so unlike the good old Douglas that she loved, in moleskin trousers and pea-jacket or adicky—that she felt he was somehow different, and that the world was going all topsy-turvy.

And then for the first time there came to her a full realisation of the great change that was to take place in her life—that she was going far from home and into a strange land—that for many, many months she was to see neither her father nor her mother—that she was to live among strangers who cared nothing for her—that she would be separated from those who loved her and all that she held dear in the world. A great ache came into her heart—the first heart-hunger of the homesick—and she slipped away behind the curtain to throw herself upon her little white bed and seek relief in stifled sobs.

Presently as she lay there, weeping quietly to herself, loud exclamations of hearty welcome from her father and mother as some one entered the door caused her to sit up and listen. Then she recognised Tom Black's voice, and heard Bessie asking:

"Where's Emily?"

This was splendid! Bessie had come to spend the night! And, quickly drying her tears and forgetting her heartache, Emily rushed out to greet her friend and to find that the whole Black family were there—Tom, the motherly Mrs. Black, and Bessie.

"Oh, Emily, I just had t' come t' see you off!" exclaimed Bessie, as the two girls rushed together and hugged each other in delight. "I coaxes, an' coaxes, an' coaxes Father t' bring me over, an' he just teases me an' says he's busy, an' Mr. McDonald can't spare he, till this mornin' he says we're comin'. An' all th' time he an' Mother's plannin' t' come!"

"'Twon't do t' tell a maid everything you plans t' do," Tom chuckled.

Bessie pursed up her red lips, and tossing her head at him laughed gaily, showing her dimples.

"Oh, but you just had t' come anyway, for I'd never give you a bit o' peace if you hadn't."

Her cheeks flushed with excitement and her eyes sparkling with pleasure, Tom looked at her proudly, and could not refrain from the remark:

"She ain't a very humbly lass, now be she, Richard?"

"Now, Father, stop teasin' Bessie," cautioned Mrs. Black. "He's always teasin' th' lass."

"I'm just dyin' t' see your things, Emily!" exclaimed Bessie, as Emily took her friend's bonnet and wraps. "An, I couldn't let you go without seein' you. An' I'm goin' t' stay awhile, too, with your mother. She'll be so lonesome without somebody t' talk to when you goes."

"Oh, Bessie! How wonderful glad I am o' that! I were just thinkin' how lonesome Mother were goin' t' be with me an' Bob both gone—an'—an' 'twere makin' me feel bad;" and Emily brushed away a tear.

"We'll not be lettin' your mother, nor father, either, get lonesome," said Douglas, patting her shoulder gently and looking down in his kindly way into her face. "Bessie'll be 'bidin' here till I comes back in October, an' then she'll be comin' again after th' New Year for a long stop. An' I'll be comin' once every week, whatever."

"Oh, I'm hopin' so!" Mrs. Gray exclaimed. "I'm not darin' t' think about how 'twill be when Emily's gone."

"Now I knows, an' Tom knows; an' we was talkin' t' Douglas about un when he were over t' th' post, an' we were sayin', 'Now Bessie'll have t' go over an' 'bide awhile with Mary when Emily's gone,'" said Mrs. Black.

"An' you never tells me, an' just lets me tease t' come!" pouted Bessie.

"We were wantin' t' surprise you, lass. An'," Mrs. Black continued, addressing Mrs. Gray, "I knows what 'tis t' be alone, now, an' th' men folks is all in th' bush. I used t' be alone before Tom takes th' place t' th' post; but now we has plenty o' company."

"'Tis wonderful good an' thoughtful of you!" Mrs. Gray exclaimed heartily. "Now set in an' have a cup o' tea an' a bite. You must need un after th' cruise over."

The evening was spent in chatting and visiting and looking over Emily's new clothes. Neither Emily nor Bessie—both overcome with excitement—slept much, however, that night, for they had a world to talk about as they lay in bed—but most of all the great and wonderful experiences Emily was to have.

Emily and her mother clung to each other, and Bessie to both of them, and cried and cried, when the time for parting came the following morning, until finally Douglas and Richard were compelled to draw Emily gently into the boat. Then motherly Mrs. Black, surreptitiously brushing tears from her own eyes, put her arm around Mrs. Gray and soothingly urged:

"Don't be cryin', Mary. Th' maid's goin' t' be all right, an' they's nothin' to cry for. 'Twon't be so long till you has she back."

Richard had the hull of the little schooner well under way when the mid-October cold forced him to abandon the work until the following summer, and he was preparing to set out upon his trail when Douglas appeared one evening, fresh from St. Johns, to report Emily comfortably settled in the home of a hospitable family near the school she was attending, and that she was immensely interested in her studies and fairly well contented, though a little lonesome at times for home.

Douglas evidently had something on his mind that troubled him. Once Mrs. Gray asked if he were ailing, but he denied anything but the best of health. Finally, however, as a disagreeable duty that he must perform, the kind-hearted old trapper said:

"I'm not knowin' just how t' tell you—'twill be a wonderful hard blow t' th' lad—th' bank where Bob were puttin' his money has broke, an' I'm fearin' th' money's all lost."

"Lost! Lost!" exclaimed Richard and Mrs. Gray together.

"Aye," said Douglas, "lost."

Then he explained fully the failure of the bank, in which he also had a small amount on deposit, and the improbability of any of the depositors recovering more than a nominal percentage of their deposits, and even that doubtful.

"Well," said Mrs. Gray, "'twill be wonderful hard on th' lad, an' he countin' so on th' tradin' business."

"Aye," repeated Richard, "wonderful hard on he. Wonderful hard an' disappointin', After all his plannin' an' hopin' an' thinkin' about un."

"An' Emily's schoolin' charge! How now be we goin' t' pay un?" asked Mrs. Gray.

"Don't worry about that, now," said Douglas. "I were wantin' she t' go, an' I were th' first t' say for she t' go, an' I'll see, now, about un this year, whatever. Don't worry about th' schoolin', now."

"But we can't be havin' you pay un," remonstrated Richard.

"Well, now, don't worry about un," insisted Douglas. "We'll see. We'll see."

They lapsed into silence for a little, when Bessie remarked:

"'Tisn't so bad, now. 'Tis bad t' lose th' money, an' 'twill be hard an' disappointin' t' Bob, but he's a wonderful able lad—they's no other lad in th' Bay so able as Bob. He's a fine lot o' traps on his new trails, an' he'll not be doin' so bad, now."

"Yes," agreed Douglas, "he be, now, a wonderful able lad."

"And," Richard spoke up, beginning to see the brighter side of the situation, "Bob owns un, an' he's havin' no debt, an' he's payin' up all our debts. They's no other folk o' th' Bay as well off as we be."

"I weren't thinkin' of un that way. I were just thinkin' of how hard 'twill be for Bob-givin' up th' tradin'," Mrs. Gray explained. "But we has a lot t' be thankful for, an', as Bessie says, Bob's young an' wonderful able."

But nevertheless it was a hard blow—a disheartening blow—to all of them. Bob had planned so much for the future, he was still planning and dreaming of his career as a trader, and building air castles—away up there in the desolate white wilderness.

This meant, instead of the realisation of those dreams, a tedious, interminable tramping, year after year, of the fur trails, an always uncertain, a never-ending, struggle for the bare necessities of life. A single bad year would throw them again into debt; two bad years in succession would plunge them so hopelessly into debt that the most earnest effort for the remainder of his life would not relieve Bob of its burden.



XXI

THE RIFLED CACHE

The cold of February, intense, searching, deadly, tightened its grip upon the wilderness, sapping the life of the three struggling human derelicts—for derelicts Shad Trowbridge felt himself and his two companions to be—as they fought their way, now hopefully, now despondently, but ever with slower pace, as strength ebbed, toward the precious cache on the shores of the Great Lake; and with the slower progress that growing weakness demanded, it was quickly found necessary to reduce by half the already minute portion of dried caribou meat allotted to each.

Everything in the world save only themselves seemed to have been frozen into oblivion. There was no sound, save the monotonous swish, swish of their own snowshoes, to disturb the silence—a silence otherwise as absolute and vast as the uttermost depths of the grave.

Storms overtook them, but they mercifully were storms of short duration, and seldom interfered with hours of travel. Staggering, but ever struggling forward, they forced their way painfully on and on, over pitiless windswept ridges, across life-sapping, desolate barrens, through scarcely less inhospitable forests. Exerting their waning strength to its utmost, they never stopped, save when exhausted nature compelled them to halt for brief intervals of sleep and rest, to recuperate their wasted energies.

Shad Trowbridge came finally to wonder vaguely if he were not dead, this another existence, and be doomed to keep going and going through endless ages over endless reaches of snow. To his numbed intellect it seemed that he had been thus going for months and years.

Like a vague, pleasant dream of something experienced in a previous life, he remembered Bob and the tilts, Wolf Bight farther back, and the dear old college. What would the fellows say now, if they were to see him—the fellows who had known him in that former, happier life?

At other times he fancied he heard Ungava Bob and the others hallooing in the distance, and he would answer in glad, expectant shouts. But there never came a reply.

The first time this occurred Manikawan turned and looked inquiringly at him, through eyes sunk deep in their sockets. When it was repeated later—and he came to hear the voices and to shout to the empty snow wastes at least once every day—she would step to his side, solicitously touch his shoulder and say:

"The friend of White Brother of the Snow hears the voices of the Matchi Manitu of Hunger. Let him close his ears and be deaf, for the Matchi Manitu is mocking him."

Mookoomahn's face was not pleasant to see now; it was horrible—the dark skin was drawn tight over the high cheek bones, the lips shrunken to the gums, and the eyes fallen far back into the skull. His face resembled more than anything else the smoked and dried skull of a mummy.

Shad laughed sometimes when he looked at Mookoomahn's ghastly face, framed in a mass of long, straggling black hair; at other times he was overcome with a heart-rending pity for Mookoomahn that brought tears to his eyes. But tears froze, and were annoying and painful.

Manikawan, too, had changed woefully. The lean, gaunt figure stalking along uncomplainingly with Shad and Mookoomahn had small resemblance to the beautiful, commanding Manikawan that bade Bob and Shad be patient in their imprisonment on the island until she returned to relieve them; or the glowing, happy Manikawan that accompanied Shad and the others to the river tilt after she had accomplished the rescue. Though there still burned within her an unquenchable fire of energy, and she never lagged on the trail, she was no longer the Manikawan of old.

In spite of all the hardships and all the pain, and slowly starving as she was, she never ceased her attention to Shad, and she never once lost her patience with him.

When Shad laughed hysterically and derisively at his fate, as he did sometimes, Manikawan would step to his side, touch him lightly with her hand, and say in the same old voice, lower than of old, but even more musical and sweet:

"The friend of White Brother of the Snow is brave. He is not a coward. He is not afraid to die."

This always had a magical, soothing effect upon Shad. Though he never learned to interpret her language, the touch of the hand, the human note of encouragement in her voice, the light in the eyes that looked into his, never failed to recall him to his manhood and to himself, and to the remembrance of his vow that as a white man he must by mere force of will prove his superiority.

All record of time was lost. But the days were visibly lengthening with each sunrise and sunset, and when the wind did not blow to freeze them, and the snow did not drift to blind them, the sunshine gave forth a hint—just a hint—of warmth.

One day the dead silence was suddenly startled by the long-drawn-out howl of a wolf. It was a blood-curdling and almost human cry, and Shad likened it to the agonised cry of a lost soul in the depths of eternal torment. Again and again it sounded, then suddenly ceasing, Shad discovered the animal itself trotting leisurely after them far in the rear, and a feeling of fellowship—of pity—welled up in his bosom.

But when he discovered the creature still following them the next day, now so near that he could see its lolling red tongue, its lean sides, and ugly fangs, he became possessed with a feeling of revulsion toward it. Then he fancied it the embodied Spirit of Starvation stalking them and awaiting an opportunity to destroy them. This fancy gave birth to a consuming, intense hatred of the thing. Finally it attained the proportions of a mocking, tantalising demon.

Cunningly he watched for a moment when it was well within rifle shot, and drawing his rifle from the toboggan he dropped upon a knee, aimed carefully, and pulled the trigger. The frost-clogged firing pin did not respond, and the wolf, seeming to understand its peril, slunk away unharmed.

Shad had seen it plainly—its repulsive gray sides so lank that they seemed almost to meet, its red, hungry tongue lolling from its ugly mouth, its cruel white fangs, and its malevolent, gleaming eyes. His hatred for the creature became an obsession, for it appeared again presently, persistently following, but now keeping at a respectful distance.

On the third day, however, the wolf had forgotten its temporary timidity, and with increased boldness stole steadily upon their heels. With a patience quite foreign to him Shad waited, glancing behind constantly, but making no demonstration until the wolf, apparently satisfied that it had little to fear from the hunger-stricken plodders, trotted boldly up and took a place behind them, so near that if the rifle failed at the first snap there would be opportunity for a second attempt before the beast could pass out of range.

Shad again stopped, and seizing the rifle discovered that the beast had also stopped and stood glaring at him, mocking and unafraid. As though, knowing their weakness, it had lost respect for their power to injure it.

A mighty rage took possession of Shad. He fell to his knee again, aimed carefully, and again pulled the trigger. This time there was a report, and in an insane frenzy of delight he beheld the carcass of the tantalising creature stretched upon the snow.



Mookoomahn and Manikawan had halted, and stood in breathless silence watching the result of Shad's shot. Now with an exclamation of pleasure from Mookoomahn the two rushed forward, knives in hand, and in an incredibly short time the carcass of the wolf was quartered, a fire lighted, and some of the meat cooking.

It was a lean, scrawny wolf, and the meat tough and stringy, but to the famished travellers it meant life, and Shad thought the half-cooked piece which Mookoomahn doled to him as his share the sweetest morsel he had ever eaten.

The wolf meat, carefully husbanded, supplied food until one morning Mookoomahn by a series of signs conveyed the information to Shad that they were within one day's march of the cache. Then they ate the last of it, that it might give them strength for the final effort.

It was evening, but not yet dark, when familiar landmarks told Shad that they were nearing the goal, and a little later they halted where the poles of Sishetakushin's lodge stood in the edge of the woods above the lake shore.

With furious haste Shad and Mookoomahn rushed to the cache, but suddenly stopped, aghast and stupefied. The cache had been rifled of its contents, and lying near it, half covered with snow, lay the frozen, emaciated body of an Indian.



XXII

MANIKAWAN'S SACRIFICE

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.



XXIII

TUMBLED AIR CASTLES

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.



XXIV

THE MESSENGER

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.



XXV

A MISSION OF LIFE AND DEATH

Bob's face had grown pale and tense as he listened. With Mookoomahn's last words he rose from the edge of the bunk where he had seated himself, and turning to Ed Matheson, asked:

"Be you goin' with me, Ed? Th' moon's good for travellin', an' I knows th' way."

"That I be," Ed responded, beginning his preparation at once. "I couldn't be restin' here a minute knowin' them poor souls was dyin' out there."

"I'm goin', too," declared Dick Blake, reaching for his adicky. "Three can travel faster'n two, by changin' off in th' lead."

"What you doin', Bill, with your a dicky, now?" Ed suddenly asked, observing that Bill Campbell was also drawing on his adicky. "Goin'," answered Bill laconically.

"No, Bill, you better stay here with th' Injun," directed Ed. "Somebody'll have t' stay with he. If they don't, by to-morrer he'll get eatin' so much he'll kill hisself if he ain't watched.

"You stay an' keep an eye on he. Give he just a small bit t' a time, till he gets over th' first sickness. He'll be wonderful sick t'-night, an' for a week, but sick's he is, by day after t'-morrer he'll be wonderful hungry, an' want t' eat everything in sight, an' more too, an' if he eats too much 'twill kill he sure. His belly'll be givin' he trouble for a month yet, whatever, two ways—wantin' t' stuff un, an' makin' he sick because he does."

Bill Campbell was plainly disappointed, but there was no doubt Ed was right, and laying aside his adicky he uncomplainingly assumed the role of nurse to which Ed had assigned him.

The men set forth in haste upon their mission of life and death. The moon, a white, cold patch, lay against the steel-blue sky. The snow, thick coated with frost, glittered and scintillated in the moonlight. A silence impressive, complete, tense, lay upon the frozen white world. It spoke of death, as the bated breath of the storm, before it breaks, speaks of calamity.

The three trappers, who had entered the tilt that evening wearied from the day's labour upon the trail, forgot their weariness as they swung forward at a rapid pace toward the camp on the Great Lake.

First one, then another, took the lead, breaking the trail and making it easier for those who followed. To men less inured to hardship and less accustomed to wilderness travel, it would have been a killing pace, continued unabated, unvarying, hour after hour.

At length the moon, falling near the western horizon, threatened quickly to withdraw her light; and then a halt was called, the tent quickly stretched between two convenient trees, the sheet-iron stove set up, a fire lighted, a few boughs spread for a bed, and the men stretched themselves for a two hours' rest.

They were up again before light, a hurried breakfast was eaten, and with daybreak they were away. Seldom was a word spoken. Each was occupied with his own thoughts, and each was stingy of his breath. To have talked would have been to expend energy.

Only once during the day did they halt, early in the evening, to make tea and partake of much-needed refreshment, and then were quickly on their way again, continuing by moonlight.

It was past midnight when, Ungava Bob in the lead, crossing a barren rise, beheld the smooth white surface of the Great Lake stretching far away to the northward. Descending the ridge and plunging into the thin forest below, he turned with a nameless dread at his heart toward the lodge where, three months before, he had said farewell to Shad and Manikawan. Then they were in the full exuberance of health and strength. How should he find them now? He dared not answer the question.

A little farther, and the lodge, a black blot on the snow, loomed up through the trees. Quickening his pace, he peered anxiously ahead for smoke, half hoping, wholly dreading, the result. Yes, there it was! The merest whiff rising above the protruding lodge poles at the top! At least one lived!

Bob broke into a run, the others at his heels, and, scarcely halting to drop the hauling rope of his toboggan from his shoulders, he lifted the flap and entered, calling as he did so:

"Shad! Shad! Manikawan! Does you hear me?"

The place was dark. The smouldering embers of a fire gave out no light, and receiving no answer Bob shouted to the others to bring a candle. Ed Matheson had anticipated the need, and, close at Bob's side, struck a light.



XXVI

"GREATER LOVE HATH NO MAN THAN THIS"

As the candle sputtered for a moment and then flared up, it revealed, lying prone on opposite sides of the lodge, feet to the embers of the dying fire, two human wrecks, whose emaciated features and shrunken forms could never have been recognised as those of Shad and Manikawan.

Bob stooped, and taking Shad gently by the shoulder shook him, saying as he did so:

"Shad! Shad! Shad!"

Slowly Shad, awakening from deep and exhausting slumber, opened his cavernous eyes and stared vacantly at Bob.

"Shad!" Bob repeated. "'Tis Bob an' Ed an' Dick come for you! Shad! We has grub, Shad!"

Still Shad gave no sign of recognition.

"Shad! Shad!" pleaded Bob. "Don 't you know me now, Shad?"

Then light came into Shad's face, and he forced himself to a sitting position.

"Bob! Oh, Bob!" he exclaimed, in a weak voice. "Am I awake or is it just a dream? Oh, Bob! Good old Bob! And Ed! and Dick! I was dreaming of you and the tilts. The dear old tilts! And you've come! You've really come? I heard you calling, Bob—days and days and days I heard you, and I answered. But my voice was too weak, and you couldn't hear.