Kitabı oku: «The Gaunt Gray Wolf», sayfa 9

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.